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TRUNEWS 11/01/16 Sen Dick Black | FBI Uprising Threatens Clinton Syndicate November 01, 2016 Will the patriot uprising inside the FBI successfully topple the Clinton Crime Syndicate? Today on TRUNEWS, Rick Wiles addresses the very real possibility that Huma Abedin's sexually sick husband, Anthony Weiner, has become State’s evidence against Hillary and her legacy of treason. Along that line of illegal collusion, Rick also speaks with Virginia House Senator Dick Black regarding the $675,000 cash donation by Governor Terry McAuliffe, to the campaign of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s wife. Correspondent Fior Hernandez ends with a detailed report dispelling the Left’s refugee propaganda, by exposing the anti-Christian immigration policies of the Obama administration.
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I have said throughout this presidential campaign that it doesn’t matter much which candidate wins. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are authoritarians and neither can be expected to roll back the leviathan state that destroys our civil liberties at home while destroying our economy and security with endless wars overseas. Candidates do not matter all that much, despite what the media would have us believe. Ideas do matter, however. And regardless of which of these candidates is elected, the battle of ideas now becomes critical.
The day after the election is our time to really focus our efforts on making the case for a peaceful foreign policy and the prosperity it will bring. While we may not have much to cheer in Tuesday’s successful candidate, we have learned a good deal about the state of the nation from the campaigns. From the surprising success of the insurgent Bernie Sanders to a Donald Trump campaign that broke all the mainstream Republican Party rules – and may have broken the Republican Party itself – what we now understand more clearly than ever is that the American people are fed up with politics as usual. And more importantly they are fed up with the same tired old policies.
Last month a fascinating poll was conducted by the Center for the National Interest and the Charles Koch Institute. A broad ranging 1,000 Americans were asked a series of questions about US foreign policy and the 15 year “war on terror.” You might think that after a decade and a half, trillions of dollars, and thousands of lives lost, Americans might take a more positive view of this massive effort to “rid the world of evil-doers,” as then-president George W. Bush promised. But the poll found that only 14 percent of Americans believe US foreign policy has made them more safe! More than 50 percent of those polled said the next US president should use less force overseas, and 80 percent said the president must get authorization from Congress before taking the country to war.
These results should make us very optimistic about our movement, as it shows that we are rapidly approaching the “critical mass” where new ideas will triumph over the armies of the status quo.
We know those in Washington with a vested interest in maintaining a US empire overseas will fight to the end to keep the financial gravy train flowing. The neocons and the liberal interventionists will continue to preach that we must run the world or everything will fall to ruin. But this election and many recent polls demonstrate that their time has passed. They may not know it yet, but their failures are too obvious and Americans are sick of paying for them.
What is to be done? We must continue to educate ourselves and others. We must resist those who are preaching “interventionism-lite” and calling it a real alternative. Claiming we must protect our “interests” overseas really means using the US military to benefit special interests. That is not what the military is for. We must stick to our non-interventionist guns. No more regime change. No more covert destabilization programs overseas. A solid defense budget, not an imperial military budget. US troops home now. End US military action in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and so on. Just come home.
Americans want change, no matter who wins. We need to be ready to provide that alternative. | 0 |
The Hungarian Foreign Minister said that Europe ignores its Christian roots to its own peril, and its lack of identity makes it difficult to understand or respect other traditions. [In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, pulled no punches in describing Europe’s dearth of values because of its refusal to embrace its own history. “While everyone speaks very hypocritically about tolerance and accepting others,” Szijjártó said, “we must ask how it is possible to respect others with their religions, traditions, and history if we don’t respect our own. ” “So if you don’t respect your own culture, heritage and religion, you will not be able to respect those of others. That’s our understanding at least,” he said. The Foreign Minister was in Italy to oversee the rebuilding of a parish church in the town of Tolentino that suffered structural damage during recent earthquakes. After receiving an appeal for aid, the Hungarian government donated 480, 000 euros to the church of the Sacred Heart and Saint Benedict in Tolentino to pay for its reconstruction. The church was hit by a 6. 6 magnitude earthquake that struck central Italy on October 30. Knowing that the Hungarian government is committed to rediscovering and safeguarding the Christian roots of Europe, the prior of the church, Andrea Carradori, wrote to Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán appealing for aid, and received a favorable response. In his interview with Breitbart News, Minister Szijjártó said that during his visit he spoke with engineers and planners of the reconstruction, which will begin at the end of this month and will conclude in November with a of the church. Last fall, Hungary became the first country in the world to establish a government department dedicated to addressing the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Europe. “Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world,” Szijjártó told Breitbart. “Four out of every five people killed for their faith are Christians, yet for some reason this fact has not been duly recognized or addressed,” he said. To date, Szijjártó said, the Hungarian government has donated 5 million euros to aid persecuted Christians in the Middle East. “We don’t really understand why people don’t speak out about the fate of the Christian communities in the Middle East where they suffer intense persecution, discrimination, and threats to their lives,” he said. “We don’t like the policy of bringing them away from their homeland, because by doing so you eliminate the Christian communities there,” he said. So Hungary has opted to offer financial help to the persecuted Christians in the local communities. “We gave 1 million euros to the Syrian catholic church,” he said, “another million euros to the Syrian orthodox church. In Iraq, we rebuilt houses for 200 Christian families who will now be able to return. We spent almost another half million covering the expenses of repairing a hospital in Erbil. ” “We also made the decision to reconstruct Christian churches in Lebanon because we want to help these communities to be able to stay,” he said. By contrast, Szijjártó said, much of Europe has bought into an unhealthy form of secularism, embarrassed about their Christian faith. “Many European nations aspire to being cosmopolitan, and view Christianity as retrograde, unmodern and outdated,” he said. “We hold the opposing view. ” “Christianity is critical for the future of Hungary and of Europe, because neither the nation nor the continent can be successful without getting back to the Christian roots. These are the values upon which the whole European integration was founded,” he said. “Historically, European integration was most successful when it was based on true democratic values and Christian democratic policies,” he said. “I think that as we move further from our Christian roots — from the anchors of our civilization — we lose ground, and when you lose ground you simply have no hope for a better future,” he said. Szijjártó said that his country is concerned that the western world has fallen into a hypocritical approach toward religious persecution. “If you look at declarations or conclusions or decisions of European or global formats you will hardly ever find the expression ‘protection of Christian communities.’ You might find reference to the protection of religious minorities, but why is there never a mention of Christians as the most persecuted religion in the world?” he asked. “We see a very worrying signal that Christianophobia is becoming the last acceptable form of discrimination. ” “This is something we find entirely unacceptable, entirely unacceptable,” he said. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 1 |
Trump to deport everyone who is not Native American 14-11-16 PRESIDENT-ELECT Donald Trump has confirmed plans to deport 318 million non-Native American immigrants. As part of a wider plan to restore America’s old values of shamanism, living in cone-shaped tents and going on vision quests, Trump will remove anyone who is less than 50 per cent Native American, including his family and himself. He said: “We have forgotten the tribal values that made this nation great. We have lost our connection with nature and no longer even fear the Wendigo, the mighty shape-shifter who comes with the winds. “By 2017 there will be buffalo back on all the plains, Kevin Costner is going to help me and I will scalp anyone who stands in my way.” Trump voter, Martin Bishop said: “This is exactly what we wanted from Trump. “ Kick all the foreigners out, including me, my wife, kids and everyone I know. It’s Brexit plus plus plus.” He added: “The antelope is my spirit animal.”
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EL FURRIAL, Venezuela — One oil rig was idle for weeks because a single piece of equipment was missing. Another was attacked by armed gangs who made off with all they could carry. Many oil workers say they are paid so little that they barely eat and have to keep watch over one another in case they faint while high up on the rigs. Venezuela’s petroleum industry, whose vast revenues once fueled the country’s revolution, underwriting everything from housing to education, is spiraling into disarray. To add insult to injury, the Venezuelan government has been forced to turn to its nemesis, the United States, for help. “You call them the empire,” said Luis Centeno, a union leader for the oil workers, referring to what government officials call the United States, “and yet you’re buying their oil. ” The declining oil industry is perhaps the most urgent chapter of Venezuela’s economic crisis. Oil accounts for half of the Venezuelan government’s revenues, what former President Hugo Chávez once called an “instrument of national development. ” The state oil company poured its profits, more than $250 billion in all from 2001 to 2015, into the country’s social programs, including food imports. But those profits have evaporated with mismanagement and the drop in global oil prices over the past two years. Now, even Venezuela’s subsidized oil shipments to its vital ally Cuba are slowly being phased out, oil executives with operations in Venezuela contend, forcing Havana to look to Russia for cheap oil. For President Nicolás Maduro — like Mr. Chávez, who died in 2013, before him — Venezuela’s oil wealth has been essential to the nation’s identity and sovereignty, the financial might behind its regional ambitions and its angry defiance of the United States. The United States has always been a huge market for Venezuela’s oil. But with Venezuela’s state oil company hobbling along, it was actually forced to start importing oil from the United States. Early this year, the United States began shipping more than 50, 000 barrels a day of the light crude that Venezuela needs to prepare its own oil for export, joining a handful of suppliers that have become vital to keeping the country’s oil industry afloat. Even that lifeline is tenuous. Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, is struggling to pay for the foreign oil. Some tankers wait in port for as long as two weeks to be paid, and sometimes they leave because of a lack of payment, said an oil executive who requested anonymity to avoid reprisals from the government. The problems are just some of the reasons Venezuela’s oil production has plummeted to 2. 4 million barrels a day, down 350, 000 barrels from a year ago. That is nearly a million barrels below what it was in 1998 when Mr. Chávez took power. Venezuela is racked by shortages of foods like corn and rice, which it once easily imported using the company’s vast foreign currency revenues. Essential medicines like antibiotics have disappeared. The economy is set to contract by 10 percent by the end of the year and has already seen inflation. The price of bread alone has doubled from month to month, now about 50 cents a loaf in many places, at a time when the oil workers here say they are making less than a dollar a day because of the inflation. “We are practically working for free,” said Pedro Velásquez, a supervisor at an oil field in the town of Punta de Mata. Whatever money the government can muster to improvise patchwork repairs in its oil fields and processing plants is now drying up. With the state oil company hobbled by debts, of its exports go to paying off Chinese and other lenders. The company is running out of resources to pay international technicians, or even its own people. “The decline is speeding up, and that will continue to happen,” said Lisa Viscidi, a Latin America energy expert at the Dialogue, a Washington research institute. “Conditions are getting worse and worse there’s less and less money to invest. ” The condition of Venezuela’s state oil company has international oil traders concerned that its collapse could jolt an otherwise oversupplied global market. They note that when labor strife brought nearly all production in Venezuela to a halt for several weeks at the end of 2002 and in early 2003, global prices jumped more than 30 percent, marking the first in a series of international crises that ushered in a decade of climbing oil prices. Venezuela accounts for less of the international oil market today, but its exports still make up roughly 2 percent of the world’s output. That means that a serious decline in Venezuelan exports, especially if accompanied by a crisis in Nigeria or Iraq, could tighten the market enough to send oil prices climbing again. “A collapse in Venezuela would be an accelerator for oil prices it would be a total shock,” said Helima Croft, the chief commodity strategist for Royal Bank of Canada. “This country is literally imploding. ” Right now, she added, “There is no oil producer that is falling apart as fast as or as dramatically as Venezuela. ” Neither PDVSA nor its American subsidiary Citgo agreed to requests for interviews. The challenges ahead are here in the vast oil fields of El Furrial, in northeastern Venezuela. Beneath the flat, grassy expanses lies the very grade of oil that Venezuela must now import to blend with its large reserves of heavy oil to ship them abroad. At its peak, El Furrial alone produced 453, 000 barrels a day, equivalent to about 80 percent of the national production of Ecuador. But in 2009, Mr. Chávez nationalized Wilpro, an American consortium that handled the complex natural gas injection at the site designed to coax more oil out of the ground. Production has declined by more than half. Workers at El Furrial today tell a story of decline and mismanagement. There is not even enough drilling mud — the most basic fluid required to keep drill bits cool and well bores clear — to keep all of the rigs running. At one PDVSA well pad here, China National Petroleum Corporation now fills the gap left by Wilpro. But the site had not been operating for several weeks because PDVSA had not delivered a vital piece of equipment that suspends tubing over the well. Once completed, the well might produce 3, 500 barrels of oil per day, but it was not clear when that would be. “It’s the first time we’ve ever gone three weeks waiting this way,” said Nelson Ruiz, a manager. “Normally we would get the project going after one signature, and the drill would be in the ground. ” But it is the issue of food that is demoralizing the workers the most. Workers at one production site described how they eat so little food now, they watch out for their in case they faint. Claudio Lezama, who has spent the past eight years at the site, said he weighed about 200 pounds several years ago. Between his manual labor and being able to afford only one meal a day, he is now 145 pounds. Sitting in a trailer where workers take their breaks, he said that he worked as a stone mason to afford to feed himself during his time off. A colleague said she had taken to reselling food like yucca, cheese and eggs. “You’re a seller,” Mr. Lezama said, chiding her for raising prices when food was in short supply in Venezuela. In a complaint filed in July by a group of workers at the state oil company, the workers detailed a history of extensive petroleum leaks since 2012 in El Furrial stemming from lack of maintenance and costly infrastructure that was left abandoned. The complaint said the problems also posed a health risk for surrounding communities. “All this has been hidden from view, generating losses,” the complaint said. “We workers are extremely angry because no one has done anything to put a stop to this disaster. ” These days, some oil workers fear that simply going to work puts them at risk. Carlos Robles, a union leader, spent a recent afternoon talking to supervisors of a well about a number of attacks by armed gangs who robbed that facility and others of laptops, units and metal equipment. It was getting to be 6 p. m. the time that workers warned that the gangs begin to prowl the streets of El Furrial were empty, looking as if a curfew were in place. “The only thing between us and being robbed is God and the Virgin,” said Juan Díaz, a supervisor at the site, as his shift continued into the night. International service companies like Halliburton and Schlumberger are scaling back their operations as Venezuela’s state oil company struggles to pay its debts to them — as much as $25 billion — with a flurry of bonds and promissory notes. And as the production from El Furrial and other fields plummets, the state oil company has to lean ever more heavily on Citgo, which is being forced to leverage to the hilt. Last year, Citgo borrowed $2. 5 billion to keep PDVSA afloat. And now it plans to borrow an additional $800 million to update a refinery on the island of Aruba to produce synthetic light oil, according to executives who have been briefed on the plans. Mr. Centeno, the union leader, said Venezuela’s state oil company had become so strapped that it had stopped providing its workers with new boots, helmets and gloves. “PDVSA is on the floor now,” he said. | 1 |
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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — More than 100 of Hillary Clinton’s biggest donors crowded into the home of Casey and Laura Wasserman here on Thursday night, each having written a check for at least $33,400 to snag a ticket. The Hollywood glitterati in attendance — Elton John performed on the piano; Barbra Streisand mingled in the crowd — were sending her off for the home stretch of the campaign with north of $5 million in fresh funding.
It was a fitting capstone to a remarkable 18 months for Clinton on the lucrative California fundraising circuit, this final event anchored by a host committee of billionaires, Hollywood executives, media moguls and tech investors — Sean Parker, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Haim Saban, Chris Sacca — that each directed $416,000 to Clinton’s efforts.
Clinton calls them her “Hillblazers,” campaign bundlers who have given or raised at least $100,000 for her campaign. And she has erected an unparalleled and unprecedented infrastructure of 1,133 such people — nearly double the number of any past presidential candidate, including President Obama four years ago.
While Clinton and her advisers like to tout her small online donors, it is these bundlers in more than 40 states and four foreign countries who form the true backbone of her financial operation. Combined, this elite $100,000-and-up club has amassed a minimum of $113 million for Clinton and the Democratic Party — and the actual figure is likely far, far higher than that. (The biggest bundlers typically collect millions for campaigns.)
“We had the best base of donors and bundlers and raisers ever in 2008. It was even better in 2012. And it’s much better in 2016 than 2012,” said Wade Randlett, a San Francisco-based Democrat who has raised money for Clinton, Obama and Democratic causes for decades. “The Obama people basically 100 percent in are favor of Hillary. There’s really no loss because of ideology or bad blood. And she has added an enormous number of people, especially women.”
Among her bundlers are celebrities (Will Smith) and sports stars (Earvin “Magic” Johnson), Hollywood directors (Steven Spielberg and George Lucas) and corporate executives (Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg), Wall Street-types (Marc Lasry), media executives (Haim Saban and Anna Wintour) and members of Congress, including her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, who helped raise more than $100,000 for Clinton before he joined the ticket in July.
The Clinton campaign said 45 percent of its bundlers are women.
There are also federal lobbyists, from whom the Democratic Party under Obama refused to accept money, a prohibition that has since been rolled back.
This club has expanded to the point where Clinton would now struggle to fit all of these bundlers into a single ballroom. As of the end of June, she counted 496 such individuals and couples. By the end of July, it was 871. On August 31, it was 1,133.
It includes billionaires George Soros, Warren Buffett and Tom Steyer, super lobbyists like Steve Elmendorf and bold-faced names like Calvin Klein and J.J. Abrams. There is also a sprinkling of longtime Clinton family advisers, such as Vernon Jordan. | 0 |
Trump-Hating Reporter Nearly Catatonic on Air After O’Reilly Proves She’s a Fraud
“Did you see where Biden wants to take me to the back of the barn? Me. He wants to. I’d love that. I’d love that. Mr. Tough Guy,” Trump told the crowd.
“You know, he’s Mr. Tough Guy. You know when he’s Mr. Tough Guy? When he’s standing behind the microphone by himself — that’s when,” Trump added. “Some things in life you could really love doing.”
Trump’s remarks came after Biden made the threat last Friday. Advertisement - story continues below
“The press always asks me: Don’t I wish I were debating him?” Biden said, referencing the possibility that he might have run for president in 2016. “No, I wish I were in high school, I could take him behind the gym. That’s what I wish.”
Trump had already anticipated the criticism the media was going to have in advance, and parried back: “If I said that, they’d say: ‘He’s violent. How could he have done that,’” Trump told the crowd in reference to Biden’s comments.
The he cleverly pivoted to his actual opponent in the 2016 election.
“Let’s knock out Hillary Clinton,” he said. “She’s as crooked as a three-dollar bill.” Advertisement - story continues below | 0 |
JERUSALEM — Speaking to Breitbart News during a trip to Israel, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee hailed President Donald Trump’s historic trip to Israel and urged the president to fulfil his campaign promise to move the U. S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem despite pressure against such a move. [“I think this is a historic trip,” said Huckabee. “He made the first ever flight from Riyadh to Tel Aviv. We had the first sitting U. S. president go to the Western Wall and offer a prayer. I think that is incredibly significant. ” Huckabee said that Trump has been “very vocal in his support for Israel and I think that the people here sense it. ” Continued Huckabee: I also hope with all my heart that he will keep his campaign promise to move the U. S. embassy. I know there is enormous pressure for him not to do that. The rationale is that it will make certain people unhappy. Whoever those people are, they are unhappy already. They are not going to be made happy by the location of the U. S. embassy. Huckabee said Trump’s visits to Israel and Saudi Arabia have demonstrated that a “very strong America is much better than a weak America. This is so incredibly different from the eight years of Barack Obama’s administration. ” “The reception that Trump received in Saudi Arabia was a stunning contrast to the one received by Barack Obama,” he continued. “In Obama, they [the Saudis] saw a weak American leader, whereas with Trump they see someone who exhibits strength. Whose strength in leadership is out front. They might not have agreed with everything that Trump said [in his address in Saudi Arabia] but they have to respect that he spoke the truth. ” Huckabee, who ran against Trump in the 2016 presidential election before endorsing him, is in Israel on a brief tour with American activist Dr. Joseph Frager. On Sunday night, Huckabee and Frager went for a nighttime visit to Joseph’s Tomb, Judaism’s third holiest site, located in a complex controlled by the Palestinian Authority. “It’s an amazing experience to have to come to this type of difficulty just to be able to come to a holy site for Jews and frankly even for Christians, who pay tribute to Joseph,” Huckabee said at the site, according to Ynetnews. “To have to do it in the dead of night, under armed guard, with the smell of tear gas in the air, burning tires along the route, it’s a stark reminder [of how different] it is in the heart of Israel, where the Israeli government protects every Muslim that accesses their holy site,” he added. “In Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] Jewish people do not have unhindered access to holy sites without having to go to extraordinary lengths in order to be able to access these places. ” Huckabee will also attend the annual Moskowitz Prize for Zionism reception. The prize was “established in recognition of the people who put Zionism into action in today’s Israeli society — at times risking their own personal security, placing the collective before personal needs and doing what it takes to ensure a strong, secure Jewish homeland. ” It was established by the late Irving Moskowitz, whose wife Cherna continues the family’s philanthropy. U. S. law requires the relocation of the embassy to Jerusalem. However, President Obama signed successive waivers delaying the move. The current waiver expires on June 1. Numerous reports in recent days cited White House officials saying that Trump is not expected to use the visit to announce an embassy move. Still, that prediction is subject to change. Even if Trump does not announce an embassy move, there are that could be put into place, including the possibility of David Friedman, the U. S. ambassador to Israel, setting up shop at the U. S. consulate in Jerusalem instead of the beachfront embassy building in Tel Aviv. 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. | 1 |
During MSNBC’s coverage of Friday’s Inauguration, anchor Rachel Maddow stated that President Trump’s Inaugural Address “was militant, and it was dark,” and “America First” “means a specific thing in this country,” the “infiltrated by Nazis” and “ ” America First Committee, and “to it now, not that far down the historical path, it’s hard. ” Maddow said, “This was a speech. He — it was short and he went through it quickly, and it was militant, and it was dark, the crime, the gangs, the drugs, this American carnage, disrepair, decay. You can’t imagine the outgoing president giving a speech like that. This president also repeating — the new president, also repeating that our guiding principle will be America first, America first. We know how he has used that as a campaign slogan, that does also have dark echoes in American history. There was an America First Committee that formed in this country, hundreds of thousands of people in this country, some of the richest businessmen in the country were a part of of it. They were formed to keep us out of World War II. They were infiltrated by the Nazis. Many of them were part of why they weren’t alarmed by Hitler’s rise in Germany. The America First Committee is something that means a specific thing in this country, to it now, not that far down the historical path, it’s hard. It’s hard to hear. ” ( Daily Caller) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
Region: Europe A recently published article titled with the words of a popular French song “ Marlbrough s’en va-t-en Guerre ” has attracted much attention around the background of Francois Hollande’s “achievements” Now that Donald Trump has been elected as the next President of the United States, a string of European politicians have started voicing their discontent, including the current French President. He has failed to hide such discontent with the decision Americans have made. However, he described Trump’s victory as a “lesson learnt,” the importance of which “goes far beyond the borders of the United States.” Little did he know, French politicians have interpreted this passage in their own reserved way. On November 10, the lower house of the Assemblée nationale has passed the vote to impeach Hollande, passing the bill with 152 votes out of the total of 199, resulting in the president of the Assemblée Nationale, Claude Bartolone, officially submitting a draft resolution for Hollande’s impeachment. The impeachment procedure has only been introduced in 2014 in accordance with Article 68 of the French Constitution. According to the laws of the Fifth Republic, a president can only be impeached if he blatantly ignored his duties. To start this procedure, one would have to obtain 58 votes in the Assemblée Nationale, where the Republicans are now holding a total of 193 seats. The demand for Hollande to leave was signed by a total 152 deputies, including the Republican Spokesperson in the Assembly, Christian Jacob and the former Prime-Minister Fran ç ois Fillon. The Right are convinced that Hollande should be held liable for disclosing state secrets in his book with the telling title “ A President Shouldn’t Say This “ (U n pr é sident ne devrait pas dire ç a …). They are convinced that a president should know better than putting down all the details of French secret service operations aimed at assassinating terrorist leaders abroad. If the draft is to be found valid, it will be handed over to a special judicial committee of the the lower house of the the Assemblée Nationale. Finally, when everything is said and done, the two houses will form the Republican High Court that will decide the fate of the sitting president. But regardless of how the impeachment procedure turns out in the end, this whole affairs has literally ended Hollande’s political career, since he has no chance to get reelected. Therefore, one could use the words of the above mentioned song : « Monsieur Malbrough est mort » ( Malbrough is now dead ). However, this wasn’t much of a surprise for anyone who has been following French politics, since, according to Le Figaro , Hollande’s approval rating has hit an all time low of 11%. No President in French history enjoyed less support from the population, with even the Socialist party reluctant to back up Hollande’s policies, with only 34% supporting him. However, it seems unlikely that Hollande will be the only European leader that will have to face the consequences of his mindless support of US President Obama’s warmongering policies that have, at the end of the day, inflicted serious damage to EU interests. Jean P é rier is an independent researcher and analyst and a renowned expert on the Near and Middle East , exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” Popular Articles | 0 |
Taxpayers in Seattle will soon be paying for illegal aliens to receive legal services against deportation charges in federal court. [The Seattle City Council has allocated $1 million to be distributed to organizations aligned with the open borders lobby to cover legal expenses, the Seattle Times reports. The neighboring Metropolitan King County Council passed a similar allocation, vowing to distribute $750, 000 for legal services. The decision comes as a new report found that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has made swift changes to immigration courts, seeking deportations for almost every illegal alien, Breitbart Texas reported Tuesday. Taxpayers in Washington, D. C. Los Angeles County and Chicago, Illinois, are now paying for legal services as well, Breitbart Texas reported. John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. | 1 |
Next Prev Swipe left/right This Honest Trailer for Sherlock is hilarious and, well, honest YouTubers Screen Junkies are past masters at producing brilliantly honest trailers for films and TV shows. Previous masterpieces include Ghostbusters (2016), Frozen and Deadpool. Now they’ve tackled the hit BBC show, Sherlock, which stars the omnipresent Benedict Cumberbatch .
It tackles such issues as: Sherlock ‘s ability to produce floating words Martin Freeman ‘s reaction faces Inordinate amounts of tea drinking And mercilessly ripping the famous deerstalker hat Though, YouTube user Tom Brown added his own assessment of Sherlock as a comment on the video, “ Bilbo Baggins and Smaug join forces to solve mysterious crime in Middle-Earth!”
Hmmm …not quite! | 0 |
21st Century Wire says…
Yesterday, WikiLeaks editor and founder Julian Assange confirmed what 21WIRE already knew – that Hillary Clinton and the Obama White House’s claim of the US election process being “hacked by the Russian government” was a desperate work of fiction. Not content with that fish tale, Hillary Clinton took the narrative to an embarrassing new low (if that was even possible) with another, wilder made-up conspiracy story about the Russians.
The following statement made by Hillary Clinton yesterday epitomizes the term “ jumping the shark “: It's time for Trump to answer serious questions about his ties to Russia. https://t.co/D8oSmyVAR4 pic.twitter.com/07dRyEmPjX
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 31, 2016
Apparently, Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff fed her a planted online news story (by the Clinton campaign?) which ran on a questionable pro-Democratic Party online news outlet. On Monday, the Slate ran the story by one of its alleged “journalists” named Franklin Foer , complete with a clickbait blog-like headline, “Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia?”
Whatever legitimacy the Slate had before last night, just evaporated.
John Roberts from Forbes explains, “The bottom line is that Slate screwed up by publishing this in the first place, and by adding more kooky misinformation to an already addled election season. As for Foer, he says on Twitter a “follow up” piece is in the works.”
Roberts rightly points out that the only follow-up story for this lemon should start with the word “RETRACTION.”
CYBER FEUD: Assange believes Clinton has gone beyond the pale with her Russian conspiracy obsession.
During his exclusive interview with award-winning filmmaker John Pilger, when asked what he thought of Hillary Clinton’s shrill antics, Julian Assange said, “ “I actually feel quite sorry for Hillary Clinton as a person, because I see someone who is eaten alive by their ambitions, tormented literally to the point where they become sick.”
The saddest thing about this and the other dishonest and destructive actions of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party – is that no one in the party seems to see anything wrong with this level of deceit and dishonesty. Like Hillary Clinton in her sociopathic path to power, the party rank and file are acting like a cult coven following their high priestess.
Still, Clinton surrogates in the media are trying to equate Clinton simultaneously scapegoating and baiting another nuclear superpower – with a decade-old misogynist hot mic audio excerpt of Donald Trump in a TMZ-style tabloid sting. That pretty much sums up Democratic Party strategy for this election season.
Assange was right. Clinton, the Democratic Party and their surrogate, are eating themselves. Such are the spoils of power in Washington that men and women will do and say anything to have it.
READ MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files
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NACO, Ariz. — John Ladd has two old pickups he uses to bang around his ranch, which rambles for 10 miles beside the Mexico line. One’s a red Chevy that not long ago carried the body of yet another border crosser who had died on his property. The other is a blue Dodge with better shocks, and that’s what he is driving now, along an unpaved road in an unincorporated place called Naco. To his immediate right, cattle roam the mesquite and grass of his family’s ranch. To his left, a set of interlocking fences slices into the distance, this one 12 feet high, this one 18 feet high, this one a metal mesh, this one a vertical grille, section after section after section. Mr. Ladd, 61, looks and acts the way a rancher is expected to, with brush mustache, hard squint and affect, all kept tight under a cowboy hat. Bouncing westward, he points to spots where fencing had been peeled in the past like an upturned can of Spam. In the last four years, he says, more than 50 vehicles have rumbled through fence cuts and across his property. What is the protocol when you encounter armed drug smugglers driving on your land? “You pull over and say, ‘Adiós,’” Mr. Ladd says. “You don’t get in their way, because they’ll kill you. ” Here is one aspect of everyday life along the southern border, where national demarcations are blurred by the supply and demand for what the United States continues to crave: drugs and cheap labor. The attendant casualties include human rights, property rights, civil discourse and the security of sovereignty. But is the Great Wall of Trump, as proposed by the Republican candidate for president, the solution to the problems of ranchers like Mr. Ladd? If pixie dust sprinkled into the dry earth could make all the obstacles disappear, beginning with the cost, would a concrete divide constructed to Donald J. Trump’s aesthetics (“beautiful,” with “a big beautiful door”) and specifications (25 feet high! 35 feet high!! 55 feet high! !!) serve its intended purpose? The answer heard time and again from Mr. Ladd and others along the border is a weary no. “The wall?” says Larry Dietrich, a local rancher. “I mean, it’s silly. ” But what if this beautiful wall — and “wall” is the term used in the Republican Party platform — had a foundation deep enough to discourage tunneling? What if the beautiful concrete panels were designed to thwart climbing over or plowing through? And what if it stretched for hundreds of miles, its beauty interrupted only by rugged, virtually impassable terrain? “It isn’t going to work,” Mr. Ladd says. Ed Ashurst, 65, an outspoken rancher who manages land about 20 miles from the border, is more assertive, but he needs to address something else first. “I’ll be straight up with you,” he says with a scowl. “If Hillary Clinton gets elected, I’m moving to Australia. ” Time will tell whether the Arizona rancher is forced to blend into the Outback, but his assessment of Mr. Trump’s plan is just as succinct. “To say you’re going to build a wall from Brownsville to San Diego?” he says. “That is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard. And it’s not going to change anything. ” The solution favored among ranchers is infused with a fatalism that nothing will change — government being government, and the cartels always one step ahead — so why bother. But here it goes: Intensive, patrols along the border are required for a fence or wall to work otherwise, those determined to cross will always find a way. But, they argue, if you have boots on the ground, you will have no need for anything so beautiful as the Great Wall of Trump. It is easy, from a distance, to dismiss the ranchers along the border as Chicken Littles whose complaints hint of racism. Too easy, in fact. Ranchers will say they saw people with backpacks trekking across their property last week, last night, early this morning. Some will say they have grudging agreements of access with drug cartels, as long as trespassers stay far from their homes. Dogs bark, motion lights flicker, things go missing. The unnerving has become everyday life, Mr. Ashurst says, and then he asks my colleague and me where we live. Metropolitan New York, we answer. Nice, Mr. Ashurst says, still scowling. “But how would you like it?” he asks, referring to the parade of strangers, some armed, past his door. “Do you think you’re more important than the poor moron who has the misfortune to live along the border?” True, the overall number of migrants has plummeted in the last 15 years or so. Here, in what the Border Patrol categorizes as the Tucson sector — about 90, 000 square miles, with 262 miles of border — there were 63, 397 arrests in the 2015 fiscal year, compared with 10 times that in the 2001 fiscal year. Paul Beeson, the patrol’s chief agent for the Tucson sector, attributes the drop to an increase in officers and tactical equipment, an improvement in the Mexican economy, and the fencing erected along the border about a decade ago. But Mr. Ladd and other ranchers say there has been an unsettling swap: fewer migrants, but many more drug traffickers. Mr. Beeson acknowledges the change in demographics, and the challenge in facing an adversary with comparable intelligence and surveillance abilities. “They don’t have to move their product today,” he says of the cartels. “They can move it tomorrow. They can sit and watch, and they do that. Watching us. Watching us watching them. ” But he says the Border Patrol continues to bolster its “tactical infrastructure” — higher resolution cameras, for example, and an increased use of drones. “It’s unacceptable to us that folks along the border should be experiencing this type of activity,” Mr. Beeson says. “We’re doing all we can. ” It is telling, though, that Mr. Ladd never used to carry a gun or a cellphone. That changed six years ago, when his friend Robert Krentz Jr. known to help people no matter their nationality, was shot to death on his family’s ranch after radioing his brother that he had come upon another migrant in distress. His unsolved murder caused a national outcry, and it led to state legislation intended to crack down on illegal immigration. It also prompted Mr. Ladd’s wife to demand that he carry a cellphone and a Glock. But, really, what is a Glock going to do? About 100 miles northeast of Naco, in a New Mexico dot called Animas, a few people gathered recently to sip iced tea and discuss where things stand. The Elbrocks — Tricia and Ed — set the tone by recalling how drug smugglers kidnapped one of their ranch hands a few months ago. According to the Elbrocks, the smugglers threatened to kill his family, loaded his pickup with packs of marijuana and drove him and the drugs 75 miles to the Arizona town of Willcox. Then they tied him up and abandoned him and the truck the next morning. A spokesman for the F. B. I. in Albuquerque said the kidnapping remained under investigation. As for the ranch hand, Ms. Elbrock said, “He’s in counseling. ” The fear, the frustration, the sense of being forsaken — it can be exhausting. “Nothing seems to work, because we keep buying what they bring to sell,” said Crystal Foreman Brown, 62, an artist and the host of this chat. “But Trump’s fence issue at least brings up the issue that there is an issue. For officials in Washington to act like we’re being silly and hysterical — it’s kind of inconceivable. ” Back in Naco, Mr. Ladd continues his ride between Mexico and his ranch, along a road called the Roosevelt Easement. His family has been in Naco for more than a century — before there was a Naco, in fact. Some say the name comes from combining the last two letters of Arizona and Mexico, but Mr. Ladd isn’t so sure. Naco is a drowsy dog of a place that seems not to have benefited much from being a sanctioned port of entry to Mexico. Adding to the stillness is a collection of abandoned barracks, built a century ago for American troops who chased after the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa after he attacked the New Mexico town of Columbus. They never caught him. Mr. Ladd says his family has sponsored three Mexicans for citizenship — but has seen more border sorrow than joy. Over the years, he says, the bodies of 14 people trying to get someplace else have been found on Ladd property. The last was in September. A party of six got caught in flooding five were rescued, and the body of the sixth was found several days later. Mr. Ladd waited for the authorities, but it was getting dark. So he moved the man’s body in his red pickup to Route 92, where a funeral home took custody. He recalls the event in that same measured way that underscores how common the uncommon is along the border. Rumbling west along the rutted road, Mr. Ladd points to his left and, referring to the cartels, says, “This is where they cut the wall down to drive trucks through. ” He is like an art museum denizen who has memorized the history of the permanent exhibits, commenting on the changing fence designs as he drives, noting the insignia of the military units who installed some of them on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security. The truck stops suddenly. “Well lookee there,” Mr. Ladd says, pointing to his right. “I got a cut fence. ” Snipped again, and Lord knows how many times his cows have wandered off as a result. The rancher slips white work gloves over his rough hands and reaches for a ball of blue string. Soon he is stitching together what has been broken, as gunmetal rain clouds move east from the Huachuca Mountains and the wind whistles through the mesh divide. | 1 |
Seldom does a new credit card go viral. There are the unboxing videos posted on YouTube: People exulting in receiving the precious new metallic rectangle, lovingly unwrapping it, boasting to the world of their ownership of it. (One video features a cat ripping the package open.) There are message boards and blogs dedicated to obsessing over it, with more than 6, 000 comments so far on a Reddit discussion. It is so popular that JPMorgan Chase, the bank that issues the card, ran out of the engraved card’s fancy metal stock in only 10 days, and had to send a temporary plastic placeholder to disappointed customers. But the Chase Sapphire Reserve card has done more than generate product hysteria at its finest. It has also intensified the arms race among large credit card issuers, which are introducing increasingly lavish rewards programs to capture affluent consumers who spend large sums on travel and recreation, but no longer want to be bound to one particular hotel or airline’s affinity program. The price for these premium cards can seem outlandish: $450 a year. But for a growing number of customers, the math makes sense. Cards that were once more about elite service and social status are now emphasizing their value proposition — even when it comes with a hefty annual fee. “American Express used to have a stranglehold on the market, but folks like Chase and Citi are coming hard after their crown,” said Matt Schulz, an analyst for CreditCards. com, a comparison site. “It’s the best time in years to shop for a rewards card. ” American Express’s Platinum charge card pioneered the premium category, and was for a long time its undisputed champion. But in 2014, Citi overhauled its Prestige credit card to take on the Platinum card with similar perks — free hotel stays, access to airport lounges and private golf courses, transferable points redeemable for airfares and upgrades — as well as spending incentives to let customers cash in faster. It quickly became a favorite among road warriors. Chase started making plans early last year for its own entry into the market. Those who call themselves travel hackers, a community of who go to elaborate lengths to maximize their reward points, obsessively analyze the nuances of the latest deals the way sports fans scrutinize their team’s draft picks. In late July, rumors began spreading on FlyerTalk, a popular message board, that Chase had a new card in the works, with a bonus — twice the standard offer from its rivals. When an online link accidentally went live in a week earlier than Chase planned, people pounced: Hundreds of applications poured in for a card Chase had not yet announced. “It significantly exceeded our expectations,” Amy Bonitatibus, a spokeswoman for Chase, said of the “tens of thousands” of cards the bank has issued so far. It has been a particular hit with millennials, who make up the majority of the cardholders — a noteworthy detail, given that many millennials have been turning on credit cards. The card’s rich bonus caught the eye of Amber Cooney, 29, who works for a nonprofit lender in Austin and is saving for a honeymoon next year in Italy and Croatia. She considers herself a casual credit card user, but she started paying attention to points and rewards a few years ago when she realized that her spending patterns could net her free vacations if she planned carefully. “Rewards cards made travel a reality for me,” she said. “I went from seeing Niagara Falls and calling that my international travel to visiting four different countries. ” Her points have paid for airfare to Argentina and hotels in Paris she plans to use her Chase card on a trip to Japan this year. Ben Schlappig, 26, a travel blogger who lives the life of an nomad — he has no fixed address, preferring to live in hotel rooms — plans to shift most of his spending to his Chase Sapphire Reserve. The card offers triple points on dining and travel spending, the two categories that consume nearly all of Mr. Schlappig’s budget. Chase defines “travel” fairly flexibly, and includes services like Airbnb and Uber. Sapphire Reserve customers have spent $1. 5 million already with those two companies, earning 4. 5 million points, Ms. Bonitatibus said. “It’s an incredible deal,” said Mr. Schlappig, who writes the blog One Mile at a Time. “The card is almost too good to be true. I think a lot of people are scared that some of the perks will be cut. ” Ms. Bonitatibus insists that Chase has no current plans to make changes, but the general trend with loyalty and points program is that card issuers are quick to ditch benefits that dig too deeply into their profits. Citi Prestige customers grumbled this year when the card dropped its free access to American Airlines’ Admirals Club lounges, a perk that had disappeared two years earlier from American Express’s Platinum card. With credit card companies adjusting the perk programs so often, the value of each issuers’ reward miles and points changes frequently, prompting some people to . One travel blogger, The Points Guy, posts monthly calculations, down to the micropenny, of what he considers each card’s benefits to be worth. Perhaps as a sign of the strengthened economy, the major issuers say that demand for their premium cards is rising. The number of Citi Prestige cardholders increased sixfold in the last 18 months, according to a company spokeswoman, and American Express says that its Platinum card membership is “large, growing and loyal. ” Customers seem increasingly willing to consider shifting from free cards to ones with fees and better perks. Americans received 1. 2 billion credit card solicitations in the second quarter of this year, according to research by Mintel Comperemedia. A record proportion of them, 19 percent, were for rewards cards, up from 14 percent a year ago. “Around the recession, we saw promotional innovation in the space,” said Andrew Davidson, a senior vice president of Mintel. “Now, I think we might start seeing more innovation around points and miles in the premium space. What this launch has done is shake things up a bit: American Express and Citi will be forced to their cards’ value proposition. ” The premium cards’ gains may come at the expense of the more traditional airline, retail and hotel cards issued by banks. Around 43 percent of adult Americans had at least one affinity credit card last year, a sharp decrease from the 55 percent who carried one in 2009, according to research from Packaged Facts, which regularly surveys the market. “If you look at the behavior of millennials, it’s clear they’re not going to commit to a relationship with one credit card, or brand, the way their parents did,” said David Robertson, the publisher of The Nilson Report, which follows the credit card industry. He is even casting a critical eye on his own card, an American Airlines card from Citi that carries a $450 annual fee. “I look at it now, and it’s just a question of, do I want to spend the time to think about the value proposition on an alternative?” Mr. Robertson said. “There’s much to be said about inertia. ” | 1 |
Citizen journalism with a punch Russia's New MiG-29K Carrier-Based Fighter to Be Battle Tested in Syria
The Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov is on its way to Syria. It’ll be its first-ever combat deployment and the first battle test of its MiG-29K fighters Originally appeared at Strategic Culture Foundation
The MiG-29K is all-weather ship-based multirole 4++ generation fighter aircraft developed by the Mikoyan design bureau . Along with the Su-33, the aircraft is now part of the mixed wing on the Admiral Kuznetsov, the Russian aircraft carrier sailing to deploy in the Mediterranean. The MiG-29 K/KUB version is a two-seated variant which also can be used as a training aircraft.
The MiG-29K was originally built for the Indian Navy, according to a contract signed in 2004. India has purchased 45 of MiG-29s over the last decade to be based on aircraft carriers: Vikramaditya and the future INS Vikrant set to become India’s first indigenous carrier in 2018. India might yet increase its MiG-29K fleet. The Mediterranean deployment is the best chance to showcase the ship-based jet’s capabilities to potential clients.
The aircraft is in service with the Russian Navy since 2010. At the end of 2015, the MiG aviation company fulfilled a government contract for the delivery of 24 fighters for the naval aviation to be delivered to the Navy before the end of the year. The Mig-29K will eventually replace the Su-33.
The fighter looks like the land-based version of the MiG-29. In reality, this is a completely different aircraft with foreign electronics replaced by domestic versions, and the «friend or foe» identification system completely rebuilt. The modification is devised for rigors of deck operation. The MiG-29K has folding wings, reinforced landing gear and an arrestor hook for carrier operations. It can perform short take-offs and land at low speeds.
The plane is able to attain very high angles of attack. It has upgraded pilot displays and radar-absorbent coatings to reduce its radar signature. The open architecture allows the installation of new equipment and weapons. The MiG-29K boasts composite materials and an integrated digital «fly-by-wire» system with multiple backups. It is designed to operate from unprepared airstrips with its air intakes specially protected against debris.
The aircraft has a length of 17.3m, height of 4.4m and a wingspan of 11.9m. The maximum take-off weight is 24,500 kg.
The weapons suite includes a 30 mm cannon with 100 rounds in the port wing root, RVV-AE and R-73E air-to-air missiles, Kh-25ML/25MP, Kh-29T, Kh-31G/31A, Kh-35U air-to-surface missiles . The Kh-31A is a supersonic anti-ship missile resistant to air-defence. The Mig-29K is the only platform to carry it. The short-range R-73 infrared-guided missile can be targeted and fired through a helmet-mounted sight without the plane being pointed at an enemy fighter. Other armaments include rockets and guided aerial bombs. Kh-31P passive radar seeker missiles are used as anti-radiation weapons. The plane can carry 6.5 tons of precision-guided munitions.
According to the plans, the aircraft may test the new Kh-38M (X-38) missiles in Syria. The missile has folding wings and tail fins for internal carriage, and would have a variety of seeker heads for different variants. Depending on the variant, it can have laser, active radar, IR or satellite guidance. The weapon’s range is up to 40 km (21.6 nmi). The speed is Mach 2.2. It can be armed with HE fragmentation, cluster warhead, armor-piercing warhead weighing up to 250 kg (551 lb). The Kh-38 has a 5-meter (16-ft) circular error probability.
The MiG-29K has two RD-33MKs turbofan engines to give it excellent acceleration and a top speed of Mach 2.25. Equipped with smokeless combustion chamber and new full authority digital engine control (FADEC) system they are engineered to reduce infrared signature and improve aircraft camouflage . With 4,560 kg of internal fuel, a combat radius is 850 km (531 mi). It can be increased to 1,300 kilometers with 3 underwing fuel drop tanks.
The fighter can both conduct aerial refueling and «buddy» refuel other aircraft.
The MiG-29K is equipped with three multifunctional color liquid-crystal displays a four-channel digital fly-by-wire flight control system, passive anti-radar missile homing system, Sigma-95 GPS receiver, TopGun helmet-mounted targeting system and electronic countermeasures (ECM). An onboard oxygen generating system eliminates the need for heavy oxygen canisters. The types of combat missions can be increased by adding optronic/infrared imaging reconnaissance pods.
The avionic suite is based around the Zhuk-ME pulse Doppler radar. With a detection range of up to 120 km, the Zhuk-M radar is capable of terrain mapping and following. In the air targeting mode, the Zhuk-ME can track up to ten air targets while engaging four targets simultaneously. In air to surface mode the radar can detect a tank from up to 25 kilometres (16 mi) away and a bridge at the distance from 120 kilometres (75 mi) away, a naval destroyer could be detected up to 300 kilometres (190 mi) away, while up to two surface targets can be tracked at once. The radar has a scanning area of +/- 85 degrees in azimuth and +56/-40 in elevation. The fighter has multichannel infra-red search and track (IRST) system with target designation system. IR and laser sighting devices for ground targets illumination can also be installed.
The MiG-29K boasts low radar cross section, advanced aerodynamics, electronic-warfare capabilities, standoff weapons and a melee of air-to-ground weapons to strike terrorist targets.
A deployment of ship-based strike aircraft in the areas far away from the mainland is something only a first-rate world power can do. Russia showcases it’s a member of the club. The deployment will significantly beef up the strike capability of Russian forces deployed in Syria. The overall strengthening of the Navy in the Mediterranean supports the policy aimed at strengthening Russia’s foothold in the Middle East and North Africa. | 0 |
An imam was arrested earlier this week in Saudi Arabia on charges of performing illicit sexual acts and operating a prostitution network from within a mosque, the Saudi media reported. [The imam, a Bangladeshi immigrant from the city of Afif, allegedly solicited Bangladeshi housekeepers to have sex with him inside his mosque and passed them on to another man for a fee — though it remains unclear whether these acts were performed inside the mosque’s four walls. A video of his arrest, in which several women were seen inside the mosque, sent shockwaves across the kingdom’s mainstream and social media. It was also reported that the local branch of the Ministry of Religions appointed a special investigator. Many social media users cursed the imam and evidenced an sentiment. “This is what happens when you give immigrants too much credit,” Amer Alshamry tweeted. @araaaTV @ngd64ukl0 هذي. نتيجة الثقه الزائده بالعماله الاجنبيه, — عامر الشمري (@Am1234ir) March 17, 2017, Abdullah Alshami was reminded of another incident: “There was an Egyptian imam somewhere, who worked as a teacher, and after he stopped being a teacher because he sold his students advance copies of their exams, he started working as an imam and it emrged that he rented the women’s section in his mosque to single laborers. ” @eKtwary كان في امام مصري في السرة، بعد ما سرحوه من التدريس كان يبيع امتحانات، اشتغل امام، وتالي ياجر مصلى النساء سكن عزاب. — abdullah alshami (@bobjad) March 18, 2017, “And he is a volunteer muezzin, what will we say about all the other Bangladeshi workers,” Yazan Alyazani wrote. “The truth is that a Bangladeshi will always remain a Bangladeshi, but as soon as he arrives in the Gulf he turns into garbage. ” هذا البنغالي مؤذن فقيه مطوعكيف بقية البنغاليينحقيقةيظل البنغالي بنغاليحتى يصل الخليج فيصبح زنغالي https: . — يزن اليزني (@yazanyazani) March 18, 2017, Nawwara failed to grasp “How is a muezzin and imam from Bangladesh? What about those who were appointed by the government nad receive housing and a salary?” @3fif_g @eagmgc وشلون مؤذن وإمام بنغاليوين اللي معينتهم الوزارة وماخذين عليه رواتب وبيوت, — nawwara🌟🌟2009🌟🌟 (@nawwara2009) March 17, 2017, | 1 |
Latest Posts 21wire We are a North American and European-based, grass-roots, independent blog offering geopolitical news and media analysis, working with an array of volunteer contributors who write and help to analyse news and opinion from around the world. We're covering news you won't necessarily find in the mainstream, and things which regularly confuse career politicians, FOX and CNN watchers... #SundayWire RT @JeanetteJing : Shocked that the finger-jabbing rich lady didn't appeal to voters. https://t.co/FbZxOQ6G8Q - 5 hours ago | 0 |
Here's something interesting from The Unz Review... Recipient Name Recipient Email =>
Even before Donald Trump’s election victory it was becoming clear that we are living in an age of disintegration. Nation states are returning to relationships based on rivalry and friction when the trend was meant to be in the opposite direction. The internal unity of country after country is under stress or has already broken down. Governments and universities used to set up institutions to study greater integration and cooperation, while in fact they might have been better looking at how things fall apart.
The phenomenon is most obvious in the wider Middle East where there are at least seven wars and three insurgencies raging in the swathe of countries between Pakistan and Nigeria. But in Europe and the US, foreign and domestic antagonisms are also becoming deeper and more venomous. In this more rancorous political landscape, the election of Donald Trump as US President feels like part of a trend, toxic and dangerous but wide-ranging and unstoppable. Distinct though the political and economic situation in the US, Europe and the Middle East may be in many respects, there is the same dissatisfaction or rejection of the status quo without much idea of what should be put in its place.
Political shocks like the election of Trump can produce apocalyptic forebodings that in retrospect turn out to be misplaced or exaggerated. But, in this case, grim expectations about the future may be all too justified and unlikely to evaporate. Trump’s promises of radical change may be phoney or opportunistic, but they have a momentum of their own which will be uncontrollable.
For all his demagoguery, there was a sense that Trump was often nearer to the issues that concerned voters than Hillary Clinton. In the final election rallies of Trump in Michigan and Clinton in North Carolina, he was promising voters the return of factories and well-paid jobs while she was repeating kindergarten waffle such as “love trumps hate” and “build bridges not walls”. He will find it difficult to retreat from these pledges and this is bound to bring confrontation with other trading nations. Overall, the high days of liberal capitalism since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, which continued despite a battering from the financial crisis of 2008, are finally finished.
It is an age not just of disintegration but of extremes, with proponents of the status quo either weakened or discredited, as shown by the Brexit vote in Britain. The beneficiaries are mostly on the right: from the 1980s on, the mainstream left in Britain, France and Germany abandoned socialism for liberal free market capitalism as the proven recipe for human happiness, which meant that after 2008 they had no alternative system to advocate and could no longer provide a credible vehicle for protest. The political beneficiaries of disillusionment with things as they are have almost invariably been on the right as with Trump who, along with other rightist insurgencies, can plug into resurgent loyalty to the nation state in the wake of discredited globalisation.
There are similarities – so long as the analogies are not overstrained – between the forces behind the Arab Spring protests of 2011, the Brexit vote and Trump’s electoral victory today. In all cases, the ruling establishment was weaker and more unpopular than even the most critical observers had imagined: the triumphant protesters were astonished by the extent of their own success. More ominously, it swiftly emerged in the Middle East that the proponents of change had little idea what it should be and had relied wholly on demonisation of their opponents as the source of all evils.
There is another parallel between what happened in the Arab world five years ago and events in the UK and the US this year. The old regimes were battered or discarded but there was nothing to replace them with. There is no consensus on what to do. Travelling to Britain from the Middle East, it is striking how the political, social and geographical divisions expressed by the Brexit vote have only deepened with time, whatever pretences there are to the contrary. Political commentators in the UK and US who endlessly proclaimed that, whatever the rhetoric, elections were won by those who seized the centre ground turned out to be wrong because there was not much centre ground to seize.
These are not the only political shibboleths which should be discarded. Shocks like these usually provoke jeremiads from the “commentariat” about how all is chaos and the centre cannot hold. Such dire warnings are swiftly followed by more hopeful commentary about how things have not changed as radically or dangerously as first feared. But, unfortunately, in the case of the US election, the first gloom-filled predictions may be the most accurate.
It is true that Trump’s authority will be thwarted by the division of powers laid down by the US constitution – though this is somewhat contradicted by Republican control of both Houses of Congress as well as the presidency. Presidential powers are also diluted by those of other state institutions such as the Pentagon and the Treasury. But these comforting thoughts are probably wishful thinking. The extent of the rejection of the American establishment – Democrats, Republicans, celebrities, media – by US voters underlines its weakness. The US media in particular is so much part of the political class that it had become an echo chamber in which it heard only its own views.
Leaving aside these dangerous historical trends, there is another more immediate menace stemming from election of Trump in the US and the Brexit vote in Britain: it empowers and legitimises the crackpots and the cranks, those who want to roll back the verdict of past elections since the New Deal if not the Civil War. Those around Trump are not just the Team “B” of American politics but the Team “C” or even lower down the alphabet. They may not want to blow up the world but, out of sheer idiocy, they could do just that.
I am writing this in the Iraqi Kurdish capital Irbil which is 60 miles from Mosul, where rival armies are fighting their way into Isis’s last great stronghold. Nobody expects this to be the end of the wars in Iraq and Syria or the multiple crises tearing the region apart. The experience is evidence of the fragility of states and how easily they can be capsized, not just by domestic divisions and foreign enemies but by avoidable political errors. With Donald Trump soon to be in the White House, it is difficult to avoid the feeling that the world has just become a lot more dangerous place. (Reprinted from The Independent by permission of author or representative) | 0 |
THE END GAME closes in on the Clintons as the deep state turns... massive collection of criminally damning evidence about to be revealed that will bring down the Clinton crime family forever
Wednesday, November 02, 2016 Tags: deep state , Clinton cartel , damning evidence (NaturalNews) 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.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).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 weiners, 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. Health Ranger Approved AquaTru Water Filter Back in Stock
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(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. The focus in Orlando was on comforting the bereaved. President Obama met with families of the scores of people killed and injured in the attack on a gay club early Sunday. “Their grief is beyond description,” Mr. Obama said after he and Vice President Joe Biden met privately with mourners for two hours. _____ 2. A new analysis of federal data shows that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are the most frequent targets of hate crimes in the U. S. That was true even before the attack in Orlando. One analyst suggested that, as society becomes more tolerant of L. G. B. T. people, some opponents become more radical. _____ 3. A Democratic filibuster led by Senator Christopher Murphy of Connecticut, above, forced the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, to allow a vote on two amendments in coming days. But our congressional correspondent writes that, given politics, neither is likely to pass. _____ 4. British campaigning over the Brexit vote next week was halted after a rising member of Parliament was killed in her district of northern England. Jo Cox, 41, was wrapping up a meeting with constituents at a library near Leeds when she was stabbed and shot, a rarity in a country where guns are tightly controlled. A man was arrested, but the authorities did not immediately comment on a motive. _____ 5. Donald J. Trump’s campaign is so focused on for the general election that his appearances are being mostly kept to southern, heavily Republican states where he is already popular. That puts him at a disadvantage in battleground states, where Hillary Clinton has been campaigning vigorously. In a sign that a small, but growing, crowd in the financial world is warming up to the idea of backing Mr. Trump, a who’s who of financiers will host a for the candidate on Tuesday at an undisclosed location in New York City. _____ 6. Senator Bernie Sanders spoke to his supporters via videoconference. He didn’t drop out of the race or endorse Mrs. Clinton, choosing instead to deliver a shortened version of his stump speech. Mr. Sanders pledged to make certain that Mr. Trump is defeated but added that defeating him cannot be the only goal. _____ 7. It was a busy day in sports. The the United States men’s national soccer team, above, beat Ecuador, advancing to the semifinals of Copa América. LeBron James scored 41 points, leading the Cleveland Cavaliers in a rout of the Golden State Warriors, and sending the N. B. A. finals to a decisive Game 7. And rain halted play at the U. S. Open as Jordan Spieth began defending his title. This year, the golf tournament is at Oakmont, in Pennsylvania, one of the toughest courses in North America. _____ 8. Microsoft became the first major U. S. corporation to plan a role in the burgeoning marijuana industry, announcing a project to create software. The announcement of the new offering came just days after Microsoft signaled its intent to diversify with a $26. 2 billion deal to buy LinkedIn. _____ 9. Miranda, the creator and star of “Hamilton,” confirmed that he would leave the Broadway blockbuster on July 9 (and get a haircut). Among his more immediate projects: working on a Disney film and preparing for a sequel to “Mary Poppins,” with Emily Blunt. He said he would rejoin “Hamilton” or its touring arms from time to time. “This is a role I am going to be going back to again and again,” he said. _____ 10. Gone from Lake Wobegon: Garrison Keillor hosts his final official “Prairie Home Companion” on July 1. One of our stories today looks at how he flourished on the radio show for four decades, known for a garrulous persona that is, in fact, a far cry from his introverted own. “His gaze is often floating and takes you in from a strange distance,” the writer Roger Angell said. “He is certainly the strangest person I know. ” Above, Mr. Keillor in the 1970s. _____ 11. Investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder from EgyptAir Flight 804 after locating wreckage on the Mediterranean floor. The recorder was in “a damaged state,” an official said, but may still be able to provide valuable clues as to why the Airbus 320 veered off course a month ago and plunged into the sea, killing all 66 aboard. Above, a diving robot at work. _____ 12. Finally, Orlando got an infusion of unconditional love from specially trained experts. Lutheran Church Charities sent 12 golden retrievers from its Comfort Dogs team to make the rounds of hospitals, churches and vigils. “We’ve had a lot of people here that start petting the dog, and they break out crying,” a charity official said. _____ 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 |
The Bundy Verdict is Another Defeat for Obama October 28, 2016 Daniel Greenfield
Obama Inc. has a lot more luck with the media than it does with trials. Its lynchings of police officers have not gotten very far. Baltimore was the biggest and most resounding defeat. But it wasn't the only one. And the vastly differing treatment of the Bundy protesters and the Dakota pipeline protesters, from killing to government backing, have not had their intended effect.
Instead Obama lost at trial. Again.
This time it's the Bundy case. That was when the left realized it hated civil disobedience, just before rediscovering it again when it came to environmental protests. But big gov lost this one . Again.
A jury Thursday delivered a stunning across-the-board acquittal to the leaders and participants in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation and a remarkable blow to the federal government as it tries to tamp down a national movement led by a Nevada family to open public lands to ranchers, miners and loggers.
The verdicts finding Ammon Bundy, older brother Ryan Bundy and five others not guilty of a federal conspiracy drew elation from defense attorneys who spent five weeks arguing that the armed takeover amounted to a time-honored tradition of First Amendment protest and civil disobedience.
The high-profile case riveted the state and drew national and international attention to the isolated bird sanctuary in rural eastern Oregon. The jury's decision proved no less dramatic and sets up a showdown in the next stage of the land-rights movement.
It means that Big Green Gov will have to think twice next time around. Or do a much better job of picking a jury.
The Oregon prosecutors sat silently in front of their boss, U.S Attorney Billy Williams, and the head of the FBI in Oregon, Greg Bretzing, as the judge announced the "not guilty'' pleas one by one.
But it was quickly back to more of the same.
ut the trial fireworks weren't quite over. A brawl broke out at the very end, when six to seven U.S. marshals surrounded Ammon Bundy's lawyer as he stood before the judge, arguing and shouting for his client to walk out the door a free man. They tackled him and stunned him with a Taser gun. As Mumford yelled, "What are you doing?,'' U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown ordered, "Everybody out of the courtroom!''
"All I was asking for was papers,'' Mumford said after emerging from federal custody nearly two hours later. "Just show me you have the authority to take Mr. Bundy into custody.'' | 0 |
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is suggesting that pregnant women and their partners postpone trips to County after five people, three of them tourists, were diagnosed with Zika that was transmitted from mosquitos in Miami Beach, the second reported area in the United States where transmissions have occurred. At least fourteen people have contracted the virus from mosquitoes in Miami’s Wynwood area, prompting the C. D. C to issue its first call for pregnant women to steer clear of a section in Miami. Here is what travelers need to know if they are in Miami or plan to travel there. Is it safe to travel to Miami? In general, yes, said Dr. Stephen Morse, an epidemiology professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, although pregnant women or women who wish to become pregnant in the near future may want to avoid visiting. “Miami is definitely a city in a subtropical climate, and it has plenty of mosquitoes so there is always a chance of getting bitten,” he said. Will airlines let you change or cancel your flight? Some carriers will. Delta Air Lines has been dealing with customers who want to make changes or cancel their reservations on flights to areas affected by Zika since February, said Morgan Durrant, a spokesman. “Refunds are and have been available,” he said in an email. “Customers are asked to call and speak to a Delta reservation sales specialist to discuss. ” JetBlue is also working with travelers scheduled to fly to Miami. The airline’s policy states: “Customers traveling destinations reported by the C. D. C. to be affected by the Zika virus may qualify for a refund or the option to make changes to their current travel plans to alternate destinations or travel dates. ” And American Airlines, which had held out, is softening its language surrounding ticket changes. “If a customer is concerned about traveling to Miami due to Zika, they are encouraged to contact our reservations team to discuss what options may be available, Ross Feinstein, the carrier’s spokesman, said on Friday. Yet he added that the carrier had not changed the policy in effect after the Wynwood cases, which was to not offer refunds. When those cases were diagnosed, Mr. Feinstein said, “The C. D. C. is not telling people not to travel to Miami. They are saying that pregnant women should avoid the Wynwood area of Miami so we don’t see the need to offer refunds. ” On Friday he noted: “Miami Beach is not all of Miami. ” Will hotels let you cancel your stay if you paid a rate? Right now, it’s too soon to say. Hotels don’t seem to have implemented formal cancellation policies yet. Are hotels in Miami taking any precautions to protect their guests from contracting Zika? Some hotels have ramped up their pest control in the last few weeks and are placing bottles of mosquito repellent in key areas throughout their properties, such as at their pools, for guests to use. Acqualina Resort Spa on the Beach, a luxury Miami Beach property in Sunny Isles, increased its mosquito protection when Zika hit the Caribbean earlier this year, said Deborah Yager Fleming, its chief executive. “Currently, we have an active, weekly mosquito elimination program in place and have added mosquito repellents for guests’ use,” she said. Mandarin Oriental, Miami has implemented additional health and safety standards since Zika hit Miami, according to Alexandra Wensley, a spokeswoman. Also, the hotel is providing guests with mosquito spray at its Peruvian restaurant, La Mar, which has outdoor terraces, as well as at its poolside cafe. Will there be deals out there for travelers who want to visit Miami? The first C. D. C. advisory, about Wynwood, seems to have had little impact on price. Data from STR, a Hendersonville, Tenn. analytics company specializing in hotels, shows that a year ago, the average room rate per night at a hotel in the city was a $150 today it’s also $150. But data from Expedia. com suggests that hotels are offering savings on packages, a strong indicator that hotels are giving great discounts, according to its spokeswoman, Sarah Gavin. On Expedia. com, travelers can save 17 percent more on a package since August than they could on package savings June through July also, travelers can save 27 percent more on packages this August versus last summer. So while there are not necessarily deals, perhaps rates are holding steady when they would otherwise increase. Has hotel occupancy decreased in Miami since Zika was first reported in the city in July? Only marginally, but it’s not because of Zika, said Jan Freitag, a senior vice president at STR. According to STR’s data, for the week ending Aug. 13, hotel occupancy in Miami — a city with around 53, 000 hotel rooms — was down 3. 6 percent to 76 percent, compared to the same week last year. But there are more hotel rooms in the city than there were a year ago so the decline was likely caused by increased inventory rather than a drop in travelers. “Zika has, thus far, not impacted travel to Miami,” he said. In other words, don’t expect a quieter stay. What can we do to minimize the chance of contracting Zika? The single best way to protect yourself is to use mosquito repellent. Each brand has different directions for frequency of application, but Dr. Ian Lipkin, an epidemiology professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, recommended doubling that use. If your bottle suggests reapplying every four hours, for example, you should reapply every two hours. “If you’re outside in a warm climate, the repellent will evaporate faster because you’re likely perspiring,” he said. Also, if you’re in a room that doesn’t have he says that using a window, standing or table fan keeps mosquitoes at bay because the insects don’t have wings strong enough to fly against the current of the fan. What should you do if you’re in Miami and have been bitten by a mosquito? Don’t panic, Dr. Morse said. “There is such a low probability that the mosquito is carrying the virus,” he said. “It’s highly unlikely, at this time, that you’re going get Zika. ” How would you know if you’ve contracted Zika? You may have a rash, mild flulike symptoms, a fever, a headache or severe joint pain. These usually appear within a week or 10 days of having been bitten by a mosquito carrying the virus. Only about 20 percent of people infected with the Zika virus become ill, according to the C. D. C. | 1 |
Posted: Nov 9th, 2016 by Guest Click for more article by Guest .. More Stories about: Ticker | 0 |
College Reform October 27, 2016
Grinnell College is promoting a guide to help students avoid “cultural appropriation” this Halloween, warning that some costumes could be considered “deplorable and problematic.”
The guide provides several examples of costumes that might fit the definition of “cultural appropriation,” defining the term as “the act of displaying people’s cultures in a disrespectful or condescending manner.”
The guide, called “My Identity, Not Your Costume,” goes on to list several examples of “offensive” Halloween costumes, featuring pictures of Grinnell students holding photos of costumes that would be considered disrespectful towards their culture.
In one instance, the guide shows a picture of a burly white man dressed in lingerie with a sash proclaiming “Call me Caitlyn,” referring to Caitlyn Jenner. The photo is held by a Grinnell student wearing a “National Coming Out Day” pin, and includes a caption stating, “the misrepresentation of my identity bothers me because people categorize me by my looks and may not understand my culture.”
Another example of culturally appropriated Halloween costumes, according to the guide, is “using other cultures as accessories to appear more hip/interesting without adequate understanding or permission,” one example of which is a picture of someone dressed as a Hindu deity being held by an Indian student and the message that such costumes are “deplorable and problematic.”
It then warns students that if their costumes take “defining characteristics of another culture” without “permission, or understanding of the historical background behind the said culture,” then these costumes might be too offensive to wear.
The guide then concludes with two questions the school thinks students should consider before selecting a Halloween costume, asking, “Does your costume perpetuate stereotypes or inaccurately portray my culture as a joke?” as well as “Why would I find your ‘Halloween costume’ to be offensive?”
Campus Reform reached out to Grinnell for a comment on the matter but did not receive a response in time for publication. This article was posted: Thursday, October 27, 2016 at 5:53 am Share this article | 0 |
I dare you to restrain yourself from laughing at Trump and Hillary in a stronger hot show # akajsaid 1
off court okay a woman of the people that's what you're a man of the people who don't like carbon i was living in the white boy tell you what professional wrestling skin like a Russian drive safe russian and get there you going back with any probably couldn't find me you don't the job drunk think that decade not quite y'all just American side ... Tags | 0 |
Denver sued by homeless over 'sweeps' as vagrant camps return Published time: 27 Oct, 2016 01:02 Get short URL © Tami Chappell / Reuters Denver seems to be losing its battle with homelessness, as sporadic camps reportedly resurfaced after a major clean-up in March. On top of that, the city is battling through a lawsuit from homeless people claiming they were subjected to unlawful “sweeps.”
“Since the beginning of the summer it seems like there are more people on the streets and sidewalks,” a local woman, Stephanie Mills, told KCNC. “It just seems to be getting worse and worse as the weeks go by.” Read more Church faces daily $100 fine for housing homeless on its lot, battles with neighbors
It has been half-a-year since Denver started its crackdown on numerous homeless campsites. Citing health concerns, city officials started clearing out camps that blocked public sidewalks. However, the order did not last long.
According to KCNC, the city receives complaints about homeless camps daily, but it cannot do anything to fix the problem.
“We’ll get calls from people who have one homeless person and they want us to ‘Beam them up, Scotty,’” Bennie Milliner, executive director of Denver’s Road Home, told the news channel.
According to Milliner, Denver has enough shelters to accommodate its homeless population, but not everyone wants to go there. Instead, many are willing to remain on the street, especially downtown.
Those sleeping rough are not willing to give up easily. They have high hopes of winning a class-action lawsuit filed in August, challenging the city’s so-called “homeless sweeps.” This month, the case made it to a federal court.
“These ongoing sweeps are conducted without notice or with inadequate notice and in a manner that prevents Plaintiffs and Plaintiff Class from retrieving their property,” the lawsuit reads, stating that the way the sweeps are conducted “shock[s] the consciences.”
“It is difficult to imagine what it must feel like to be already homeless and suffering, then be forced to watch as everything you own in the world is thrown into a dump truck while you are afforded no means to contest the seizure and destruction of your property,” a defense team representing the homeless wrote. Lawsuit Challenges Denver’s Sweeps Of The Homeless https://t.co/HrMa6dVlSY pic.twitter.com/A2SdfwddeE — CBSDenver (@CBSDenver) October 26, 2016
They argue that Denver has no legal basis for treating “this vulnerable class as though their civil rights were non-existent.”
The lawsuit, which speaks on behalf of thousands of homeless people, also names a number of individual officials, including Mayor Michael Hancock and Police Chief Robert White as main violators. Attorney representing homeless class action suit, addresses media b4 1st hearing at 9am & Denver homeless gather 2 voice concern @CBSDenver pic.twitter.com/UZivcRLPLv — Jamie Leary (@JamieALeary) October 12, 2016
It will be up to the court to decide whether Hancock, White, and other city officials have violated any rights during more than two years of clearings.
Approximately 5,500 of Denver’s residents are homeless, according to the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, the lawsuit states. | 0 |
For “Hairspray Live!” on Wednesday night, NBC lassoed some talented performers with fine singing voices but sacrificed cohesion by cramming the evening with too much interstitial fluff. Based on the 1988 John Waters film, the musical’s story of social outcasts and racial barriers is set in 1962, and it should amaze and distress us with its continued relevance in 2016. The broadcast, though, didn’t generate as much power as it could have because of all the shots of the cast members from one set to another, of viewing parties in various cities and so on. Only Jennifer Hudson, who played Motormouth Maybelle, found the real strength of this Tony musical, delivering a knockout rendition of “I Know Where I’ve Been,” a power number, late in the show. [Related: After 7 TV Musicals in 3 Years, Here’s What Works] The production, directed by Kenny Leon, was the fourth installment of what has become a December tradition for NBC. (“The Sound of Music,” “Peter Pan” and “The Wiz” preceded it.) Maddie Baillio, a newcomer selected from an open casting call, played Tracy Turnblad, the plump teenager who becomes a sensation and helps bring down racial divides. She did pretty well, though no novice is going to compete with voices like those of Ms. Hudson and Kristin Chenoweth, who portrayed Velma Von Tussle, the Turnblad family’s nemesis. Harvey Fierstein growled his way through the role of Tracy’s mother, Edna, which he played on Broadway. He’s probably more entertaining in a theater than he proved to be over the air John Travolta, in the 2007 film version of the musical, made better use of the the TV cameras make possible. The secondary players included Martin Short as Edna’s husband, Ariana Grande as Tracy’s friend Penny and Andrea Martin as Penny’s overly protective mother. The standout in the supporting cast, though, was Ephraim Sykes, a veteran of Broadway’s “Hamilton,” who put an athletic charge into the role of Seaweed, Penny’s love interest. It’s too bad he wasn’t around more. Mr. Leon moved his cast all over the place, both on studio sets and outdoors, a technique that is becoming the norm for these show hybrids. He made especially good use of the medium on a number early in the show, “Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now,” mixing moments with traditional stagecraft. The ancillary nonsense, though, sapped the momentum of the show, which ran three hours and somehow still didn’t have room for “The New Girl in Town,” a smart, punchy number from the film version. Happily, though, it did fit in another song from the movie, “Ladies’ Choice,” albeit giving it to Corny Collins (Derek Hough) rather than Link Larkin (Garrett Clayton). All in all, it wasn’t an unpleasant revisiting of a great musical it just wasn’t a particularly coherent or revelatory one. Now someone just needs to mount a Broadway revival and cast Ms. Hudson in it. | 1 |
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By Reuters 6:34 pm Democrat Hillary Clinton's top aides on Saturday lashed out at FBI Director James Comey for igniting a new controversy over a long-running private email investigation less than two weeks before the presidential election, saying there was no evidence of wrongdoing and accusing him of spreading "innuendo."
By Roberta Rampton and Steve Holland
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla./GOLDEN, Colo. (Reuters) – Democrat Hillary Clinton’s top aides on Saturday lashed out at FBI Director James Comey for igniting a new controversy over a long-running private email investigation less than two weeks before the presidential election, saying there was no evidence of wrongdoing and accusing him of spreading “innuendo.”
Comey, who has headed the Federal Bureau of Investigation since 2013, notified the U.S. Congress on Friday that the agency is again reviewing emails, even though in July it decided not to seek prosecution of Clinton for her handling of classified materials on a private email server while she was secretary of state.
John Podesta, who heads Clinton’s presidential campaign, told reporters that Comey’s letter to Congress was “light on facts, heavy on innuendo,” and he urged Comey to “come forward and give those answers to the American public” about the exact nature of the FBI’s latest review of emails.
Sources close to the investigation on Friday said the latest emails were discovered as part of a separate probe into Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
Weiner, a former U.S. congressman from New York, is the target of an FBI investigation into illicit text messages he is alleged to have sent to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina.
With the Nov. 8 elections quickly approaching, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pounded away at the new FBI development, devoting a large part of a campaign speech in Golden, Colorado, to attacking Clinton and arguing that she is not to be trusted with the presidency.
“Her criminal action was willful, deliberate, intentional and purposeful,” Trump said, standing in front of hay bales stacked in a horse barn. “Hillary set up an illegal server for the obvious purpose of shielding her illegal actions from public disclosure and exposure.”
Comey, however, has not provided any details on whether the emails now under review are being seen for the first time by the FBI or the nature of their contents.
Clinton’s campaign tried to play down the new review. “There’s no evidence of wrongdoing, no charge of wrongdoing,” Podesta said, in the FBI’s latest announcement that it was taking “appropriate investigative steps” after learning of emails “that appear to be pertinent” to the earlier probe.
Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, trying to tamp down speculation of a voter backlash this late in the campaign, said Americans had already “factored” what they knew about the email investigation into how they would cast their ballots.
“We don’t see it changing the landscape” for undecided voters, Mook said.
Clinton aides also said this latest controversy has further energized her supporters.
Clinton was campaigning in Florida on Saturday, a battleground state that many analysts say Trump must win in order to have any chance of being elected.
In recent weeks, Trump has been running behind Clinton in most public opinion polls.
Justice Department officials, according to a source who asked not to be identified, were opposed to the FBI director’s letter being sent to Congress and believe his actions conflict with a Justice Department memo outlining instructions that agencies should not to act in ways that could influence elections.
While Attorney General Loretta Lynch did not discuss the matter directly with Comey, the source said aides were in touch with each other.
Comey let it be known he felt he had to send the letter as a follow-up to his congressional testimony earlier this year regarding the FBI’s probe of Clinton’s emails, the source said.
Meanwhile, Clinton supporters rallied to her defense following Friday’s FBI disclosure.
The Congressional Black Caucus, comprised of about 45 members of the House of Representatives, nearly all Democrats, held a news conference in Columbus, Ohio, and urged Comey to release more details.
(Reporting by Steve Holland in Golden, Colorado, ans Roberta Rampton in Daytona Beach, Florida; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Richard Cowan; Editing by James Dalgleish and Leslie Adlerand Leslie Adler)
Clinton campaign urges FBI to detail new developments in email case added by Reuters on Sat, Oct 29th, 2016 | 0 |
House Republicans may have to vote again on the American Health Care Act (AHCA) after narrowly passing the bill earlier this May. [House Speaker Paul Ryan has not sent the AHCA to the Senate yet because the bill may have to be reworked, depending on how the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scores the bill. House leadership wants to ensure that the bill conforms with the Senate’s rules for budgetary reconciliation, a mechanism that allows the Senate to pass bills with a simple majority. The House quickly pushed through the AHCA after they added the MacArthur amendment, which allows states to obtain waivers to repeal Obamacare regulations that raise the cost of premiums. The House rushed the AHCA through without a CBO score that would allow lawmakers and the American people to evaluate the bill’s effects on costs and health insurance coverage. Previous CBO scores of the AHCA estimated that 24 million Americans could lose insurance by 2026, while the previous version would save $150 billion between 2017 and 2026 compared to the original bill, which would have saved $337 billion. The AHCA waivers that allow states to disregard certain Obamacare regulations could allow citizens to sign up for cheaper insurance. The bill’s $138 billion in funding for pools could drastically change the cost of premiums and health insurance coverage for millions of Americans. According to several Congressional aides and procedural experts, if Republicans send the bill to the Senate and the CBO confirms that the bill does not save at least $2 billion, the Republicans would have to restart the repeal process with a new budget resolution. Congressional rules would prevent Republicans from fixing the AHCA after the bill moves to the Senate. The Senate’s rules require that the AHCA must hit a separate $1 billion in spending cuts in the Finance Committee as well as the health committee. Republican aides added that falling short of those targets would force the House to rewrite portions of the bill, even if the AHCA meets the overall deficit reduction targets. If the House leadership holds onto the bill until after the CBO unveils their score, then the House can still address the problems explained by the CBO through another vote on the House floor. Ryan told radio host Hugh Hewitt last week that he does not think that the House will need to vote again on the AHCA. Speaker Ryan said, “We just want to, out of an abundance of caution, wait to send the bill over to the Senate when we get the final score. ” House Republicans could cloak the vote through arcane procedural votes, although the vote will still be weighed down by the CBO’s latest revelations about the bill’s impact on health insurance coverage and cost. Greg Walden, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, urged caution regarding the CBO’s score. “We’ve got to wait for the CBO score. To prove that you meet the reconciliation test. ” Congressman Dennis Ross ( ) was not aware that House leadership was holding onto the bill. Ross, a member of the House leadership whip team, said, “I had no idea. ” Ross added that the prospect of another vote “does concern me. ” Democrats were critical of House Republicans’ unwillingness to delay the vote on the AHCA until the CBO released their scoring of the health care bill. Louise Slaughter, the ranking Democrat on the House Rules Committee, chided her Republican colleagues. She said, “Every school child knows that when you pass a bill in the House, you send it to the Senate. You don’t hide it in a drawer somewhere for two weeks, while you wait for information that you should have had before you passed it. ” | 1 |
Taliban jihadists generated $15 million for terrorist activities in 2016 from harvesting Afghanistan’s “green gold,” pistachios, over 32, 000 hectares in the Kushki Kuhna district of the country’s western Herat province. [“They are being collected by the Taliban and armed locals,” lamented the head of the Badghis governor’s office, Sharafuddin Madjeedi, referring to the pistachios, reported Agence (AFP) last year. Syed Mohammad Chishti Modudi, the Kushki Kuhna district’s administrative chief, told Pajhwok Afghan News that “an investigation by agriculture experts showed $15 million in annual income from [the] pistachio crop in the district lined [the] Taliban’s pockets. ” “He said two pistachio forests spread over 32, 000 hectares of land existed in the district,” notes Pajhwok, adding that “the forests had been partially destroyed by local powerful individuals and Taliban. ” However, the Taliban managed to illegally harvest up to 40 percent of the country’s crop after it raided the pistachio forests in Herat last year. Afghanistan’s “pistachio belt” runs through the provinces of Badakhshan in the northeast Kunduz in the north and Herat in the west. The U. S. Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) which include soldiers and police officers, are unable to protect some pistachio forests in the country because the Taliban closely monitors them and towns nearby. “Government forces have no authority over the pistachio forests in Badghis province because they lie in areas,” explained Hafizullah Benish, agriculture director in the western province. As of 2016, the government had lost control influence of about 43 percent of Afghanistan. Known as Afghanistan’s green gold, Afghans proudly harvest pistachios, noted Agence (AFP) in July 2016, adding that the Taliban had laid its eyes on the lucrative crop. Over the past few years, Afghan authorities have imposed a ban that makes it a crime to access pistachio forests in 11 provinces. Nevertheless, the restrictions have failed to serve as a deterrent for Taliban and other “strongmen” in the country. “Fears are growing that the Taliban and local strongmen are depriving” poor farmers in the country “of export income,” noted AFP. The Taliban also generates millions from the sale of the illicit drug opium, which is primarily cultivated in Afghanistan. U. S. Gen. John Nicholson, the top commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, revealed last year that opium and its heroin derivative “provides about 60 percent of the Taliban funding. ” Taliban jihadists “tax the farmers, they tax the narcotics traffickers and this is how they derive their revenue,” the top American general explained to Pentagon reporters. It appears that the Taliban generates a substantial portion of the remaining 40 percent from the harvest of pistachios. Pistachio profits are “not enough to compete with opium production that generates, according to the UN, about $160 million a year in Afghanistan. But enough, for some, to make ends meet,” pointed out AFP. The Taliban may have more than tripled the profits from pistachios over the last two years, from an AFP estimate of $4. 2 million in 2014 to about $15 million last year. Mohammad Aman Amanyar, the forest supervisor for Afghanistan’s Agriculture Ministry, pointed out in 2016 that “nearly four decades ago, before the near continuous wars that have since ravaged Afghanistan, the country was carpeted with up to 450, 000 hectares of pistachio forest. ” “Now, after violence and misery, ’40 to 50 percent of the trees are gone for firewood, or are victims of climate change and drought,’” he added. Late last year, Gen. Nicholson determined that the ongoing war in Afghanistan is at a stalemate. | 1 |
President Donald Trump continued his war against the media, criticizing NBC’s Chuck Todd for his coverage of the ongoing investigation of the president’s campaign ties to Russia. [“When will Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd and NBC News start talking about the Obama SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL and stop with the Fake story?” Trump asked on Twitter, accusing former Obama aides of fueling the narrative. Trump compared the ongoing narrative to the same predictions during the election that turned out to be false. “It is the same Fake News Media that said there is “no path to victory for Trump” that is now pushing the phony Russia story,” he wrote. “A total scam!” The ongoing story was fueled by Trump former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn after reports that he would be willing to testify in the congressional investigation of the campaign if granted immunity. “Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt,” Trump said on Twitter this week. On Friday, Chuck Todd criticized Trump for fueling the Russia story on Twitter. “Obviously, the Russia cloud darkens all of the time, and all of these problems right now that they’re dealing with front and center are by one person, the President of the United States, who could not help himself with a tweet on this wiretapping nonsense,” Todd said during an interview with his colleague Andrea Mitchell. | 1 |
Goldman Sachs Endorses Hillary Clinton For President Shadowproof
He’s with her. On Sunday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earned the endorsement of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein —an endorsement she had been working toward for years.
As was revealed by Wikileaks, Hillary Clinton spent the run up to her presidential campaign giving speeches to Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks, where she praised their talents and explained her positions on financial regulation.
On October 24, 2013, Clinton told Goldman Sachs that Dodd-Frank had to be done mostly for “political reasons” because Congress needed to look like it was doing something about the crisis. She said, “There’s nothing magic about regulations, too much is bad, too little is bad. How do you get to the golden key, how do we figure out what works? And the people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry.”
Yes, she essentially endorsed Wall Street writing the rules because Wall Street knows its business best and complained to Goldman Sachs that regulations had frightened bankers.
“I mean, right now, there are so many places in our country where the banks are not doing what they need to do because they’re scared of regulations, they’re scared of the other shoe dropping, they’re just plain scared, so credit is not flowing the way it needs to to restart economic growth,” Clinton said. “So people are, you know, a little — they’re still uncertain, and they’re uncertain both because they don’t know what might come next in terms of regulations, but they’re also uncertain because of changes in a global economy that we’re only beginning to take hold of.”
Music to Wall Street’s ears. For Goldman Sachs, was there really any other choice this cycle? After all, they did pay Hillary Clinton $675,000 for those three speeches, and have generously supported her political career.
Despite her private comments to Goldman Sachs, Hillary Clinton has taken a tough public position on Wall Street during the campaign, likely due to Senator Bernie Sanders’ success in the primaries. Of course, Wikileaks also revealed that Clinton told the National Multi-housing Council in a private speech that “you need both a public and a private position.”
So the real question is, what do Blankfein and Goldman want in return and what is Clinton’s private position on giving it to them? Share This Article... | 0 |
Good morning. We’re trying something new for our readers in Europe: a morning briefing to your day. What do you like? What do you want to see here? Email us with your feedback at europebriefing@nytimes. com. Here’s what you need to know: • The Iraqi government has begun its battle to reclaim Mosul from the Islamic State. The militants’ hold on the sprawling city lent the most credence to their claim to rule a fledgling nation. European Union foreign ministers are meeting today to discuss recent developments in Syria. Rebels claim to have captured the village of Dabiq, forcing the Islamic State from a stronghold. • Russia’s furious response to American, British and French accusations of war crimes in Syria sent diplomatic relations into the kind of tailspin not seen for decades. Some analysts believe that President Vladimir V. Putin is raising the stakes for coming negotiations over Syria. Talks are expected to resume in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Saturday. • France is confronting entrenched bias, brought to a head after a Chinese migrant living in a Paris suburb was beaten to death. The death exposed the complexities of the country’s volatile racial tensions, which have often been portrayed too simplistically as defined by frictions involving the large Muslim minority. Economic weakness and a rise in inequality appear to be causing a disturbing growth in ethnic nationalism in countries around the world. • A court in London is considering whether a set of archaic rules known as the royal prerogative would allow Prime Minister Theresa May to start the clock on leaving the E. U. without the kind of involvement Parliament is demanding. And The Sunday Times of London published an “Brexit” column that Boris Johnson, now the foreign secretary, wrote before deciding to embrace the movement. “Hold your breath,” he wrote. “Think of Britain. Think of the rest of the EU. ” • Silicon Valley is taking sides in the U. S. presidential race as the election on Nov. 8 approaches. Much of the sentiment being openly expressed is in opposition to Donald J. Trump, but Peter Thiel, a tech billionaire, is giving $1. 25 million to support his candidacy. Meanwhile, Republican leaders and election officials from both parties are countering claims by Mr. Trump that a conspiracy is underway between the news media and the Democratic Party to commit vast election fraud. The candidates’ third and final debate is on Wednesday, with most polls heavily favoring Mrs. Clinton. • Montenegro’s governing party won parliamentary elections on Sunday, according to unofficial results, but failed to secure an absolute majority. The outcome of coalition negotiations will determine whether the country continues on its Western course under the longtime prime minister, Milo Djukanovic, or turns back to Russia, its traditional ally. • A sweeping accord on banning hydrofluorocarbons reached in Kigali, Rwanda, could be even more than the Paris climate accord. And it might not have happened without the active backing of the world’s chemical companies, which are disrupting their own businesses to fight climate change. • Russia and India are moving forward with a revitalized relationship after signing billions of dollars’ worth of military and energy deals at a summit meeting over the weekend. • China is in the midst of a dizzying housing bubble, but the growing use of mortgages could make this property boom particularly unstable. • E. U. trade ministers will meet on Tuesday to decide on a free trade deal with Canada, known as CETA. • Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • The Economist: “Europe Is Trying to Teach Its Gender Norms to Refugees. ” Teaching sexual conventions is tricky, especially when there is no agreement on what those norms should be. • NPR: “In Fight Against Food Waste, Brits Find A Worthy Battlefield. ” A campaign encouraged food manufacturers to reduce the portion sizes of prepackaged meals. • Deep Dives: “The (Mobile) Games Women Play. ” A reminder that many of the people downloading games to their smartphones are women. • In Aleppo, Syria, a drone video reveals destruction so complete that our architecture critic says it obliterates even a sense of time. “At a glance,” he writes, “the video could show Berlin in 1945 or Grozny, 2000. Mass death erases all distinctions. ” • The death of Thailand’s revered king has brought both the country and the crown prince, above, to the brink of an ascension neither appears to be ready for. His lavish lifestyle in Germany has caused great anxiety in the kingdom. • China sent two astronauts to an orbiting space lab for a stay earlier today. Beijing’s space program calls for a permanent space station by 2018, an unmanned rover to Mars in 2020 and an astronaut to the moon in 2025. • The United States has been so successful protecting wild horses in the West that herds are overgrazing public lands. About 46, 000 horses are now held on ranches at a cost of $49 million a year. Weather and wars are responsible for many disasters these days. But two centuries ago, one was caused by an unusual culprit: beer. On Oct. 17, 1814, the London Beer Flood took the lives of eight people in a densely populated slum known as St. Giles Rookery. A series of vats exploded at a brewery, breaking through a wall. Witnesses described a wave of porter ale and debris up to 15 feet high. An “immense mass of ruins” is how one newspaper described the scene. Among the victims were said to be a mother and daughter having tea. Others killed included mourners attending a wake. Decades earlier, the poverty of St. Giles inspired “Gin Lane” by the artist William Hogarth. Perhaps because of the neighborhood’s reputation, accounts of onlookers trying to scoop up the free booze became part of the tragedy’s lore. A local pub pays tribute to the anniversary with special beers on tap. One that was once served was called the Beer Flood Porter. Sean Alfano contributed reporting. Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at europebriefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
In a significant victory for gay rights, a federal appeals court in Chicago ruled Tuesday that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay workers from job discrimination, expanding workplace protections in the landmark law to include sexual orientation. The decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the highest federal court yet to grant such employment protections, raises the chances that the politically charged issue may ultimately be resolved by the Supreme Court. While an appeal is not expected in this case, another appellate court, in Georgia, last month reached the opposite conclusion, saying that the law does not prohibit discrimination at work for gay employees. The ruling on Tuesday comes as gay rights advocates have voiced concern about the potential rollback of protections under President Trump. While the Supreme Court legalized marriage, many other legal protections, including in employment and housing, have not been extended at all levels to gay people. The White House considered and then scuttled a plan to overturn protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. But the Trump administration also rescinded protections for transgender students that had allowed them to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity. In the decision on Tuesday, the judges ruled by an vote that the civil rights law, which already prohibits discrimination on a variety of factors, also includes protections based on sexual orientation. They concluded that such discrimination was no different from a form of sex discrimination, which the law prohibits. Five of the eight judges in the majority were appointed by Republican presidents. The case stems from a lawsuit by Kimberly Hively, an Indiana teacher who has alleged that she was fired from Ivy Tech Community College because she is a lesbian. She applied to six jobs at the school in South Bend, Ind. that she did not get, and she was let go from her position there in 2014. The community college denies that she was discriminated against because of her sexual orientation. “Hively’s claim is no different from the claims brought by women who were rejected for jobs in traditionally male workplaces, such as fire departments, construction and policing,” the court’s chief judge, Diane P. Wood, wrote in the opinion. “Ivy Tech is disadvantaging her because she is a woman. ” The court did not rule on Ms. Hively’s specific lawsuit. But the ruling allows for Ms. Hively’s employment case to proceed. A lower court had dismissed her case, ruling that the Civil Rights Act did not include sexual orientation protections. Ms. Hively, who represented herself in the lower court because she said no lawyer thought she would win, said late on Tuesday that she was still processing the significance of the ruling. “I wasn’t doing it just for me, but for anyone who was going to be bullied in a job for who they decided to love,” she said in an interview. Greg Nevins, the employment fairness program director for Lambda Legal, which represented Ms. Hively, called the ruling a “tremendous victory. ” He said the Seventh Circuit’s approach to the Civil Rights Act was a momentous shift from past cases. “The problem with the old decisions was a focus on the words that were not in the statute — ‘We don’t see sexual orientation in the statute, so you lose’ — instead of what is in it: sex discrimination,” Mr. Nevins said in an interview. An official at Ivy Tech said on Tuesday night that it “respects and appreciates” the ruling and does not plan to appeal it to the Supreme Court. “The college denies that it discriminated against the plaintiff on the basis of her sex or sexual orientation and will defend the plaintiff’s claims on the merits in the trial court,” said the official, Jeff Fanter, the senior vice president for communication and marketing at Ivy Tech. Lawyers with the firm Barnes Thornburg, which is representing Ivy Tech, did not immediately return phone calls or respond to emails. In another case involving sexual orientation and the federal civil rights law, an employee at Georgia Regional Hospital in Savannah claimed that she was essentially forced out of her security guard job because she is a lesbian. A panel in the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled last month that the law did not apply to her. In a case in New York, an employee at Omnicom Group, a marketing company, said a manager repeatedly taunted him because he is gay. A federal judge dismissed the case, which was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. A panel ruled last week against the employee, but the chief judge, Robert A. Katzmann, noted that legal and societal views had shifted on legal protections and rights for gay people. “Other federal courts are also grappling with this question, and it well may be that the Supreme Court will ultimately address it,” he wrote. Susan Chana Lask, who is representing the employee in the New York case, said she planned to ask for a rehearing before the entire Second Circuit appeals court. | 1 |
Hillary Clinton is responsible for the death of Vince Foster – at least according to an astonishing WikiLeaks email.
Via Yournewswire
The email chain is part of the WikiLeaks’ Global Intelligence Files, over five millions emails from Stratfor, the Texas headquartered “global intelligence” company. In the email Matthew Powers tells Sean Noonan, “I thought Vince Foster was the only person the Clinton’s killed. How naive I was .”
The full email can be viewed here.
WikiLeaks.org was targeted by a massive DDoS attack late Sunday night. The website was taken offline minutes after the massive DNCLeak2 dump and WikiLeaks topics including Vince Foster began trending on Twitter.
Twitter was also taken offline in DDoS attack.
Twitter & #wikileaks both went down right when #VinceFoster and #DNCLeak2 started trending.
Because of this email- https://t.co/TkvUxPtAHQ pic.twitter.com/BbqdmSzwU4
— Deplorable Manon (@aristocratssoul) November 7, 2016
Was the DDoS attack an attempt at suppressing new information?
In 1993, during the Clinton administration, Vince Foster, a personal friend of Hillary Clinton and Deputy White House Council, was found dead in his car. Though two investigators – Robert Fiske and Kenneth Starr – separately concluded that Foster shot himself and died, his suicide has long been considered suspicious.
New evidence
Recently discovered evidence suggests Vince Foster did not commit suicide, but died of two gunshot wounds to the neck – not the one wound initially reported.
Discovered in the files of the National Archives and Records Administration, Starr’s lead prosecutor Miguel Rodriguez submitted a 2-page resignation letter and a 31 page memo about the injuries Foster sustained. Rodriguez notes in the letter details about injuries around Foster’s neck which were not reported in official government documents.
At the time, the FBI claimed that Foster’s neck injury photos were underexposed, and therefore useless to them. Rodriguez claims that after he produced additinal damning evidence of a possible Foster murder cover-up, he became a target and was investigated internally!
In the letter, he explained twelve ways in which the case has mishandled and compromised. Then, he noted: “I steadfastly maintained, and continue to maintain, that I, at all times, conducted myself as an experienced and trained prosecutor, with years of federal prosecutorial experience and federal grand jury experience.”
These records indicate Foster didn’t really die from one .38 caliber gunshot… but two gunshots! The other shot was on the right side of his neck, made by a “small caliber” bullet hole. This raises serious questions about Foster’s motives for suicide. He was tied to Hillary Clinton’s roles in White House scandals at Whitewater and the White House Travel Office.
Here is the new evidence in the Vince Foster case:
The Political Insider reports :
The theory is, as Vince Foster was one of Hillary’s closest friends, he knew too much about these scandals. In fact, he may have had a romantic relationship with the then first-Lady.
Foster had been a long-time friend and companion to Hillary. The two shared a brokerage account called Midlife Partners. When Barbara Walters asked Hillary if she had been having an affair with Vince Foster, Hillary lowered her eyes and told the 20/20 cameras, “He was a very special man.” When he died, Hillary said publicly that Vince Foster was the last person who would have committed suicide. Friends reported she was genuinely shocked and aggrieved.
Why, then, did Hillary lie under oath about the last time she saw Vince Foster?
Testifying before the Office of the Independent Counsel (OIC) in 1994, she claimed that the last time she had spoken to Vince Foster was on the phone “the Friday or Saturday before Father’s Day.” Yet documents from the National Archives, acquired by the New York Megaphone, show that Foster’s assistant, Tom Castleton, reported he “saw Hillary Clinton in Foster’s office approximately four times during the five weeks he was employed.” Castleton didn’t start working for Foster until after Father’s Day, 1993.
According to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in a 1996 Telegraph (UK) article, Hillary Clinton asked Vince Foster to help her spy on her libertine husband in 1990. Foster hired Jerry Parks, an Arkansas investigator who later worked as the head of security for the Clinton/Gore campaign. According to Parks’s widow, “Jerry asked Vince why he needed this stuff on Clinton. He said he needed it for Hillary.” When Vince Foster showed up dead in a Washington-area public park in the summer of 1993, Parks was terrified. Two months later Parks was shot nine times at close range, at a stoplight, in his SUV, in Little Rock. Parks’s home was then raided by eight Federal agents, including officers from the FBI, IRS, Secret Service, and (unusual for a domestic case) the CIA.
If true, this means Vince Foster was murdered to make sure he didn’t tell the world what he knew about President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary. He was too honest, and therefore couldn’t be trusted anymore.
This is actually worse than transmitting classified documents on a home email server… This is murder!
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After weeks of debate over Russia’s participation in the Rio Games, Olympic officials announced Thursday — less than 24 hours before the opening ceremony — that 271 Russian athletes would compete in Rio. They excluded more than 100 others, branding them tainted by a government doping program. But on the first day of the Games, the list of who would represent Russia in Rio was not necessarily final, as a new court ruling made it possible for seven more Russian athletes to be added to competition schedules at the last moment. What is the number of Russian athletes competing in Rio? It was 271 on Thursday. It looked likely to grow on Friday, possibly reaching 278. The seven additions could include swimmers, cyclists and a wrestler with previous doping violations who have served their punishments. Several, if not all, of those seven have traveled to Rio and are hoping for a favorable outcome, Russia’s sports ministry said. The governing bodies for those three sports must decide whether to approve the athletes in question, after which the Olympic committee must give final approval. A decision was expected Friday night, a spokesman for the Russian Olympic Committee said. Why the uncertainty? And hadn’t all Russians who were caught doping already been barred from Rio? World sports’ highest court decided Thursday that Olympic officials’ decision to automatically exclude all Russian athletes who had been caught doping in the past but had served sanctions was “unenforceable. ” How did the Olympic committee react to the possibility that Russians with drug violations might compete in Rio? The committee said in a statement Friday that it was disappointed with the court’s decision but that it respected the ruling. How had officials justified barring Russians with doping histories, given that Olympians from other countries with past drug violations can compete? Russia has been accused of an extensive doping program that corrupted the results of recent Olympics. After global antidoping officials said that they had strong evidence of cheating by Russia, Olympics officials said that Russian athletes would be considered guilty until proven innocent. The Olympic committee instructed sports authorities that no Russian who had ever been caught cheating should be allowed to compete in Rio and that even those with clean histories were not necessarily to be considered clean. Why has it taken so long to make a decision? The debate over Russia’s participation has been hotly disputed, testing loyalties in the political world of international sports. Antidoping officials and some top athletes called for a blanket ban on the entire country, while some Russian officials decried that punishment as a conspiracy to undercut their country. This week in Rio, the president of Russia’s Olympic committee said it was discriminatory to reverse the presumption of innocence to which athletes are usually entitled. The president of the International Olympic Committee said on Thursday that he and his colleagues had wrestled with a “difficult” question: “Can you hold an individual responsible for the wrongdoing of his or her country?” How many Olympians does Russia usually send to the Games? Around 400. The country sent 436 athletes to the last Summer Olympics, at which it won 82 medals. Russia tried to enter 387 athletes in this year’s Rio Games. Regardless of small final changes to the roster that may come, it will have at least 100 fewer athletes than it had hoped for. Only one athlete will represent Russia in track and field, one of its strongest sports and one in which it won 18 medals at the last Summer Games. | 1 |
Wednesday at the White House press briefing CNN’s Jim Acosta asked if President Donald Trump was “detached from reality” because of comments the president made at a White House gathering for Senators on Tuesday night. Acosta questioned Trump saying U. S. soldiers in Iraq were fighting “like never before,” and that passing health care reform would be “easy. ” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the comments were a “ moment. ” ( RCP Video) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. We’ll be off on Monday. Your Evening Briefing will resume publishing on Tuesday. Here’s the latest. 1. Anis Amri, the chief suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack, was killed by the police outside Milan, ending a manhunt across Europe. Mr. Amri was stopped by the police outside a train station around 3 a. m. local time. He quickly pulled out a pistol and shot one officer. He was shot and killed by another officer. Hours later, the Islamic State released a video featuring Mr. Amri in which he declares he was avenging coalition airstrikes that have killed civilians in Syria. Investigators were trying to determine if Mr. Amri had been working with anyone else, and how he managed to flee Germany. _____ 2. “Let it be an arms race. ” That’s what Donald Trump said in a phone call with an MSNBC host who asked about his recent comments on Twitter on nuclear weapons. “We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all,” Mr. Trump said. We attempted to translate and explain his tweet on this subject. Mr. Trump also released a letter from Vladimir Putin in which the Russian president said he hoped to “bring our level of collaboration on the international scene to a qualitatively new level. ” Mr. Trump called it “a very nice letter. ” In his annual marathon news conference in Moscow, Mr. Putin said Russia was not seeking a new arms race, but is looking to improve its armaments so that they could pierce other nations’ missile defenses. _____ 3. The United States abstained in a U. N. vote against Israel’s settlement policy, defying calls to veto from Israel and Mr. Trump. That broke a longstanding American tradition of serving as Israel’s sturdiest diplomatic shield. The Security Council voted in favor of the measure, which states that construction and expansion of Israeli settlements imperil the viability of a solution. _____ 4. All 109 passengers and crew members on board a hijacked Libyan airliner were released, hours after two men claiming to be carrying explosives forced the plane to divert to Malta. The hijackers were apparently members of a group that supported Col. Muammar and were seeking asylum in Europe. The flight was operated by the Afriqiyah Airways. _____ 5. We visited the historically Christian villages and towns around Mosul, Iraq. They were among the first places to be liberated from the Islamic State earlier this year. Many residents remain fearful about their future there, but some say the experience strengthened their faith. “They can destroy our houses, our things, but not our souls,” one nun said. _____ 6. An experimental vaccine has been shown to provide 100 percent protection against one of the most common forms of Ebola. The findings were published in a medical journal this week. The vaccine has not yet been approved for use. “It’s certainly good news with regard to any new outbreak — and one will occur somewhere,” a top scientist said. “But we still need to continue working on Ebola vaccines. ” _____ 7. Here in the U. S. immunotherapy has become the hottest area in cancer research and treatment. But the clinical trials are overwhelmingly white, and researchers are seeking a more diverse patient pool. _____ 8. Pope Francis is elevating a new crop of leaders to realign the Roman Catholic Church with his priorities. Among them is Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, the incoming archbishop of Newark, N. J. He’s an amiable guy from a neighborhood in Detroit who has ministered to the poor, AIDS patients and inmates. Here’s the story of his journey to the pinnacle of the global church. _____ 9. Among our articles today is this confirmation that human connection lies at the heart of our . Research has found loneliness is as important a risk factor for early death as obesity and smoking. Older people are particularly vulnerable. But new programs are coming up with creative ways to encourage community. _____ 10. Finally, one of our nation’s diplomats has gone viral. Caroline Kennedy is closely followed in Japan, where she has been posted since 2013. For Christmas, she dressed as Santa for a video that features embassy staff mimicking dance moves from a popular Japanese TV series. Nearly 4 million people have watched it on YouTube. “We thought people would enjoy it,” an embassy spokesman said. “But we had no idea how popular it would become. ” Happy holidays! _____ 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 |
All dogs on dog Tinder 14-11-16 DOGS are using social media for no-strings hookups with other dogs, it has emerged. Experts believe that all dogs are using dog phone apps to meet fellows dogs for secret liaisons, often under their owners’ noses. Stephen Malley, a golden retriever, said: “I use Doggr to meet other dogs who I might like to casually hump while I’m out and about. “I’m in a committed relationship with a chew toy, but there’s such a thrill about meeting some anonymous dog in the park and just going at it in the bushes. “I like to have my owner with me in my profile picture, because it shows I have a sensitive, affectionate side, and bitches love that.” Nikki Hollis, a highland terrier, said: “I like Sniffr, because it matches me with other dogs whose anal glands I want to sniff. Which is all other dogs.” Professor Henry Brubaker, of the Institute for Studies, said: “We believe users of Doggr only ever swipe right, whether they’re looking at a picture of a dog, an armchair, a human leg, or a cat. “We have also identified dog Uber, which involves lying down and whining until you’re picked up and carried home.”
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BREAKING: Wall Street Journal Reveals Shock Business Details About Podesta and Russia Oct 28, 2016 Previous post
Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta has been linked to an investment firm owned by the Russian government. Moreover, it has been shown that he tried to hide this connection from the U.S. government.
Five years ago, the U.S.-based solar energy startup Joule Unlimited elected Podesta to its board of directors in the hopes that he would help it foster the sorts of international relationships needed for long-term success, according to The Wall Street Journal .
Lo and behold, Podesta did exactly that. Within months of his election to the board, the Russian firm Rusnano announced plans to invest about $35 million in the solar company. Several months later, Joule invited Rusnano’s chairman Anatoly Chubais to join its board of directors.
Note that around this time, Podesta joined then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board, seemingly unconcerned about the potential conflicts of interest at play. This attitude changed in 2014, when he signed up to serve as a counselor to President Barack Obama.
Hacked emails published by WikiLeaks last week showed that in 2014, Podesta asked that his shares in Joule be transferred to a newly created entity called Leonidio Holdings, LLC.
Speaking with reporters on Wednesday, a Clinton campaign representative confirmed this finding, but claimed that the entity was owned by Podesta’s children — and that his purpose in transferring his holdings to them was to recuse “himself from all matters pertaining to Joule for the duration of his time at the White House.”
Here’s the problem: The emails published by WikiLeaks also revealed that Podesta paid the bill for Leonidio’s incorporation in Delaware — and that he also took care of expenses for some legal work performed for Joule in 2005 by a law firm
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For nearly 14 years, Nick Denton and Gawker. com have defined Gawker Media. But over the last several months, a split of some kind between the company, its founder and its flagship site became inevitable: Gawker Media, under financial pressure from a $140 million legal judgment in an lawsuit brought by Hulk Hogan, the former professional wrestler, also encountered a seemingly unbeatable adversary in the form of Peter Thiel, the billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur who was financing legal efforts against the company. Left with few options, Gawker Media filed for bankruptcy and put itself up for sale in June. On Thursday, less than 48 hours after Univision’s $135 million bid won an auction for Gawker Media, the bond finally broke. Gawker. com will shut down next week, and Mr. Denton, whose sites pioneered a wry, conversational and brash form of web journalism that would influence publications across the internet, will leave the company. “Sadly, neither I nor Gawker. com, the buccaneering flagship of the group I built with my colleagues, are coming along for this next stage,” Mr. Denton wrote in a note to the staff on Thursday afternoon shortly after a bankruptcy judge approved the company’s sale to Univision. The fate of Gawker. com had been the subject of much speculation ever since the Hogan verdict. Still, it was an abrupt outcome after what had been a long period of uncertainty. “It was a culmination of a year of dread,” said John Cook, the executive editor of Gawker Media. “Through a year of just utter constant trauma and assault, it was the thing that I was trying to prevent — it was the thing that we were all trying to keep from happening. ” Gawker. com’s archives will remain online, but after Monday it will not publish new material, Mr. Denton wrote in his note. As for Mr. Denton, he said he would “move on to other projects,” but provided few clues as to what those were except to say they would be “out of the news and gossip business. ” Before the bankruptcy hearing, Mr. Denton gathered the staff of Gawker. com in a windowless conference room at Gawker’s offices to tell them the site would stop publishing. “I’m not going to say we lost, but Peter Thiel achieved his objective,” Mr. Denton said, according to a person at the meeting. Founded in 2003 as one of Gawker Media’s first two blogs, Gawker. com initially covered news and gossip about New York media and society. The site was considered by many as an incubator of talent, and its journalists have gone on to work at places like The New Yorker and New York magazine. Mr. Denton, a former financial journalist, was known for saying that journalists shared the most interesting stories they knew not in their articles but with each other at the bar after work. Gawker. com, perhaps more than any other site, reflected an attempt to change that. Its articles could be at turns witty and caustic, humorous and weighty. Mr. Denton often said that if something was interesting, it was news. But the site also attracted criticism for publishing articles that detractors said were in bad taste. Last summer, an article about a married male media executive who sought to hire a gay escort was published and then removed. The article drew widespread condemnation, and its removal led to the resignation of two top editors. In the aftermath, Mr. Denton vowed to make Gawker nicer, and the site shifted its focus to politics. Gawker Media’s portfolio of sites also includes the technology site Gizmodo the sports site Deadspin and Jezebel, a site aimed at women. The news that Gawker. com was shutting down was met with an outpouring of both relief and grief on social media. A number of journalists and news organizations tweeted and published articles that read like eulogies. “The loss of @Gawker is huge terrible,” Glenn Greenwald, the journalist, wrote on Twitter. “Most people disagreeing don’t read it. ” The site’s demise could also reignite the debate about press freedom and whether anyone with an agenda and deep enough pockets should be able to sink a news organization. No layoffs were planned in connection with the shutdown, and journalists had been assured they would be offered jobs elsewhere at the company. But the shuttering of Gawker. com nevertheless represents a victory for Mr. Thiel, whose fight with the company began in 2007, when Valleywag, one of Gawker Media’s blogs, published an article saying he was gay. “Since cruelty and recklessness were intrinsic parts of Gawker’s business model, it seemed only a matter of time before they would try to pretend that journalism justified the very worst,” Mr. Thiel wrote in an for The New York Times published this week. At Gawker Media’s offices, the mood on Thursday afternoon was sad but also angry and defeated. A goodbye party planned for two journalists was turning into a goodbye party for Gawker. “I think that people are going to find that they miss Gawker, even the people who hated Gawker,” said Hamilton Nolan, a writer for Gawker who has worked there for eight years. In his note, Mr. Denton said the company had been unable to find a buyer for the site. But while his words were somewhat wistful, he also provided a hint of optimism. “Gawker. com,” he wrote, “may, like Spy Magazine in its day, have a second act. ” | 1 |
“They’re taking our jobs! They’re taking our jobs! ”[Once used by South Park to mock conservative critics of mass immigration, these lines may soon be applied to the left, as a new progressive panic over the robot economy now appears to be well underway. Fears over the rise of the robots have existed for decades, of course. But the left has recently kicked things up a notch. Bill Gates, the billionaire progressive and founder of Microsoft, caused a stir in tech circles last month by suggesting that robots ought to be taxed in order to compensate for human job losses. This followed a similar robot taxation proposal made by policymakers in the European Parliament. Calls for a robot tax comes as the pace of change begins to accelerate. Last week, we reported on “flippy,” a robot that has replaced human fast food workers at a restaurant in California. The next day, news emerged of a new startup using robots to deliver takeout food in Washington D. C. You may have thought the automation of fast food would end at ordering kiosks, but now robots will cook your food and deliver it too. They won’t ask for minimum wage increases either! The oncoming political panic should be concerning to Republicans, especially Republicans who consider themselves allies of the Trump insurgency. Donald Trump took the Rust Belt by promising to protect jobs from overzealous free trade policies and mass immigration. There was no need to mention robots, because robots were not yet a serious threat to human jobs. That may not be the case in 2020. Even if robots are not a significant threat to human jobs, Democrats have every interest in owning this issue. They lost the working class because their neoliberal “New Democrat” element prevented them from seriously addressing that constituency’s concerns. They couldn’t attack free trade and the outflow of jobs from America without attacking themselves as Hillary Clinton’s private speeches extolling the virtues of a “borderless world with open trade and open borders” attest to, the party establishment was thoroughly globalist. If Democrats wish to claw back their lost support, stoking fears over the robot economy is an attractive option. It is easy, perhaps easier, to present robots in the public imagination as a greater threat to jobs than free trade or immigration. Moreover, there would be virtually no electoral blowback from such a strategy. Robots, unlike Mexicans, do not vote. If the left wish to exploit the panic over robots for political purposes, they won’t have to look very far. Already, alarmism is everywhere: in the same month Bill Gates called for a robot tax, Elon Musk suggested that humans would have to become cyborgs to avoid going obsolete. A few weeks later, The Guardian went full doomsday, publishing claims that an obsolete working class would be subject to a “genocidal war of the rich against the poor. ” Even if they don’t go as far as genocide, predictions that robots will make humans obsolete are increasingly common. Historian Yuval Noah Harari, in his latest book, predicts the rise of a “useless class” of humans in the near future. Bestselling author and futurist Martin Ford predicts a revolt against the robot economy. Moshe Vardi, professor of Computer Science at Rice University, predicts unemployment rates of 50 per cent or more. These predictions could all be wildly inaccurate, of course. Predicting the future, whether it’s climate patterns, election results, or the future of technology, is a notoriously tricky task and frequently leaves “experts” embarrassed. But the public’s fear of robots shouldn’t be underestimated a recent poll in Australia found that 16 per cent of respondents believed their job would be automated out of existence within five years. That number is likely to grow, especially if the left decide that protecting workers from robots should be the next great political crusade. And why wouldn’t they? The proposed solutions for unemployment are things that the left already favoured. Gates and European leftwingers want a robot tax. Economics professor Noah Smith suggests redistribution of wealth from the robot economy. Martin Ford — the same author who predicts a worker’s uprising against robots — thinks a guaranteed basic income is the answer. These are all very ideas. For conservatives who want to understand what’s going on, there is an obvious parallel: global warming. Regardless of one’s opinions on the science of that topic, a very familiar pattern is emerging. First, there is the prediction of a coming apocalypse, endorsed by a consensus of experts, which feeds a smouldering public fear of what lies ahead. Then come the proposed solutions: taxation, redistribution, government intervention, and a radical overhaul of the economy. The picture could not be more tempting for the left. Protecting workers from the robopocalypse offers them an opportunity to roll back Trump’s gains among their former supporters. Sufficient public panic would also create pressure to implement many of the redistributive, policies they’ve always wanted. Last but not least, demonizing robots allows the left to assuage their guilt over abandoning the working class without conceding any ground to the Trumpist right on free trade or immigration. How are conservatives to respond to this? They won’t have much difficulty casting doubt on some of the more alarmist predictions of the left, i. e genocidal wars, but it’ll be hard to persuade people that robots aren’t replacing their jobs when virtually every McDonalds in the country now has an array of touchscreen waiters. One point that conservatives should repeatedly emphasize is that progressive policies are making jobs less viable. A robot may be expensive, but is it more expensive than a mandatory $15 minimum wage? As noted above, at least one California burger joint doesn’t think so. It must also be acknowledged that, left unchecked, globalist billionaires will certainly try to reap the profits of the robot economy while screwing over the little guy. As always, big government is likely to be their ally in this, not their enemy. As regulations on the robot economy increase, the cost of entry into the market for smaller players is likely to increase in tandem. Savvy conservatives will articulate this, and keep the focus on the fat cats who would benefit from such an arrangement. Or, to put it another way: the Republican of 2012 rails against the minimum wage, and loses. The Republican of 2016 rails against the minimum wage and globalist billionaires, and wins. The only way to really counter the growing panic over robots, of course, is to put an end to the idea that human labour is going to become obsolete. To do this, we have to look to history: every technological advance in history has resulted in the emergence of new industries, because although the advances eliminate jobs, the “eliminated” workers are then free to do other things. You can explain this in more concrete terms. The money saved by the California burger chain employing “flippy” can be invested elsewhere — in say, cancer research, or colonizing Mars. That investment creates new jobs in those sectors. And if a robot replaces those jobs too? That frees up investment to open a new theatre or museum or art studio. The idea of becoming artists and cancer researchers sounds . After all, art and science are prestige professions. But to a peasant toiling in a cold field, the job of a cook must have seemed like a prestige profession, reserved for just a few favoured servants of the local nobleman. The fact that is now seen as a lowly profession is because the real lowly professions have been eliminated by technology. Similarly, occupations we currently see as prestigious, like science and space exploration, may in the future become common. That sounds great, of course, but it’s still a difficult message to sell to the people whose jobs are at risk. In 2016, Democrats tried to convince workers that the destruction of their industries would be followed by a promised land of green jobs. Those promises fell on deaf ears — partly because they were false, but also because the message implicitly admitted that Democrats would do nothing to prevent the disappearance of existing jobs. Again and again throughout history, there have been panics that new technology will make entire classes of people obsolete. The English Luddites who smashed mechanical looms in the 18th century did so because they believed the looms were putting them out of jobs. They weren’t wrong, but they failed to understand that that new jobs would inevitably open up elsewhere. However, for the who is about to lose his job to a robot right now, that’s a difficult case to make. That’s probably why panics and backlash have accompanied virtually every major technological advance in the past two centuries. Humans just aren’t very good at learning from history. Perhaps we should get a robot to do it for us? You can follow Allum Bokhari on Twitter and add him on Facebook. Email tips and suggestions to abokhari@breitbart. com. | 1 |
You must lose weight, a doctor told Sarah Bramblette, advising a diet. But Ms. Bramblette had a basic question: How much do I weigh? The doctor’s scale went up to 350 pounds, and she was heavier than that. If she did not know the number, how would she know if the diet was working? The doctor had no answer. So Ms. Bramblette, 39, who lived in Ohio at the time, resorted to a solution that made her burn with shame. She drove to a nearby junkyard that had a scale that could weigh her. She was 502 pounds. One in three Americans is obese, a rate that has been steadily growing for more than two decades, but the health care system — in its attitudes, equipment and common practices — is ill prepared, and its practitioners are often unwilling, to treat the rising population of fat patients. The difficulties range from scales and scanners, like M. R. I. machines that are not built big enough for very heavy people, to surgeons who categorically refuse to give knee or hip replacements to the obese, to drug doses that have not been calibrated for obese patients. The situation is particularly thorny for the more than 15 million Americans who have extreme obesity — a body mass index of 40 or higher — and face a wide range of health concerns. Part of the problem, both patients and doctors say, is a reluctance to look beyond a fat person’s weight. Patty Nece, 58, of Alexandria, Va. went to an orthopedist because her hip was aching. She had lost nearly 70 pounds and, although she still had a way to go, was feeling good about herself. Until she saw the doctor. “He came to the door of the exam room, and I started to tell him my symptoms,” Ms. Nece said. “He said: ‘Let me cut to the chase. You need to lose weight. ’” The doctor, she said, never examined her. But he made a diagnosis, “obesity pain,” and relayed it to her internist. In fact, she later learned, she had progressive scoliosis, a condition not caused by obesity. Dr. Louis J. Aronne, an obesity specialist at Weill Cornell Medicine, helped found the American Board of Obesity Medicine to address this sort of issue. The goal is to help doctors learn how to treat obesity and serve as a resource for patients seeking doctors who can look past their weight when they have a medical problem. Dr. Aronne says patients recount stories like Ms. Nece’s to him all the time. “Our patients say: ‘Nobody has ever treated me like I have a serious problem. They blow it off and tell me to go to Weight Watchers,’” Dr. Aronne said. “Physicians need better education, and they need a different attitude toward people who have obesity,” he said. “They need to recognize that this is a disease like diabetes or any other disease they are treating people for. ” The issues facing obese people follow them through the medical system, starting with the physical exam. Research has shown that doctors may spend less time with obese patients and fail to refer them for diagnostic tests. One study asked 122 primary care doctors affiliated with one of three hospitals within the Texas Medical Center in Houston about their attitudes toward obese patients. The doctors “reported that seeing patients was a greater waste of their time the heavier that they were, that physicians would like their jobs less as their patients increased in size, that heavier patients were viewed to be more annoying, and that physicians felt less patience the heavier the patient was,” the researchers wrote. Other times, doctors may be unwittingly influenced by unfounded assumptions, attributing symptoms like shortness of breath to the person’s weight without investigating other likely causes. That happened to a patient who eventually went to see Dr. Scott Kahan, an obesity specialist at Georgetown University. The patient, a woman, suddenly found it almost impossible to walk from her bedroom to her kitchen. Those few steps left her gasping for breath. Frightened, she went to a local urgent care center, where the doctor said she had a lot of weight pressing on her lungs. The only thing wrong with her, the doctor said, was that she was fat. “I started to cry,” said the woman, who asked not to be named to protect her privacy. “I said: ‘I don’t have a sudden weight pressing on my lungs. I’m really scared. I’m not able to breathe. ’” “That’s the problem with obesity,” she said the doctor told her. “Have you ever considered going on a diet?” It turned out that the woman had several small blood clots in her lungs, a condition, Dr. Kahan said. For many, the next step in a diagnosis involves a scan, like a CT or M. R. I. But many extremely heavy people cannot fit in the scanners, which, depending on the model, typically have weight limits of 350 to 450 pounds. Scanners that can handle very heavy people are manufactured, but one national survey found that at least 90 percent of emergency rooms did not have them. Even four in five community hospitals that were deemed bariatric surgery centers of excellence lacked scanners that could handle very heavy people. Yet CT or M. R. I. imaging is needed to evaluate patients with a variety of ailments, including trauma, acute abdominal pain, lung blood clots and strokes. When an obese patient cannot fit in a scanner, doctors may just give up. Some use to scan, hoping for the best. Others resort to more extreme measures. Dr. Kahan said another doctor had sent one of his patients to a zoo for a scan. She was so humiliated that she declined requests for an interview. Problems do not end with a diagnosis. With treatments, uncertainties continue to abound. In cancer, for example, obese patients tend to have worse outcomes and a higher risk of death — a difference that holds for every type of cancer. The disease of obesity might exacerbate cancer, said Dr. Clifford Hudis, the chief executive officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. But, he added, another reason for poor outcomes in obese cancer patients is almost certainly that medical care is compromised. Drug doses are usually based on standard body sizes or surface areas. The definition of a standard size, Dr. Hudis said, is often based on data involving people from decades ago, when the average person was thinner. For fat people, that might lead to underdosing for some drugs, but it is hard to know without studying specific drug effects in heavier people, and such studies are generally not done. Without that data, if someone does not respond to a cancer drug, it is impossible to know whether the dose was wrong or the patient’s tumor was just resisting the drug. One of the most frequent medical problems in obese patients is arthritis of the hip or knee. It is so common, in fact, that most patients arriving at orthopedists’ offices in agonizing pain from hip or knee arthritis are obese. But many orthopedists will not offer surgery unless the patients first lose weight, said Dr. Adolph J. Yates Jr. an orthopedics professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “There are offices that will screen by phone,” Dr. Yates said. “They will ask for weight and height and tell patients before they see them that they can’t help them. ” But how well grounded are those weight limits? “There is a perception among some surgeons that it is more difficult, and certainly some felt it was an added risk,” to operate on very obese people, Dr. Yates said. He was a member of a committee that reviewed the risks and benefits of joint replacement in obese patients for the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons. The group concluded that heavy patients should first be counseled to lose weight because a lower weight reduces stress on the joints and can alleviate pain without surgery. But there should not be blanket refusals to operate on fat people, the committee wrote. Those with a body mass index over 40 — like a woman weighing 250 pounds or a man weighing 300 — and who cannot lose weight should be informed that their risks are greater, but they should not be categorically dismissed, the group concluded. Dr. Yates said he had successfully operated on people with body mass indexes as high as 45. What is behind the refusals to operate, he said, is that doctors and hospitals have become because they fear their ratings will fall if too many patients have complications. A lower score can mean reductions in reimbursements by Medicare. Poor results can also lead to penalties for hospitals and, eventually, doctors. A recent survey of more than 700 hip and knee surgeons confirmed Dr. Yates’s impressions. percent said they used body mass index scores as cutoffs for requiring weight loss before offering surgery. But there was no consistency in the figures they picked. “The numbers were all over the map,” Dr. Yates said. And 42 percent who picked a body mass index cutoff said they had done so because they were worried about their performance score or that of their hospital. “It’s very common to pick an arbitrary B. M. I. number and say, ‘That is the number we won’t go above,’” Dr. Yates said. Yet a person with an index of, say, 41 might be healthy and active, he said, but in terrible pain from arthritis. A knee replacement could be life transforming. “It’s a game, with everyone trying to have the patient,” Dr. Yates said. “Patients who may be at a marginally higher risk may be treated as a class instead of individuals. That is the definition of discrimination. ” Surgery involves anesthesia, of course, giving rise to another issue. There are no requirements for drug makers to figure out appropriate doses for obese patients. Only a few medical experts, like Dr. Hendrikus Lemmens, a professor of anesthesiology at Stanford University, have tried to provide answers. His group looked at several drugs: propofol, which puts people to sleep before they get general anesthesia succinylcholine, used to relax muscles in the windpipe when a breathing tube must be inserted and anesthetic gases. Propofol doses, Dr. Lemmens found, should be based on lean body weight — the weight of the body minus its fat. Using total body weight, as is routine for people, would result in an overdose for obese patients, he said. But succinylcholine doses should be based on total body weight, he determined, and the dosing of anesthetic gases is not significantly affected by obesity. As for regional anesthetics, he said, “There are very few data, but they probably should be dosed according to lean body weight. ” “Bad outcomes because of inappropriate dosing do occur,” said Dr. Lemmens, who added that 20 to 30 percent of all obese patients in intensive care after surgery were there because of anesthetic complications. Given the uncertainties about anesthetic doses for the obese, Dr. Lemmens said, he suspects that a significant number of them had inappropriate dosing. Yet for many fat people, the questions about appropriate medical care are beside the point because they stay away from doctors. “I have avoided going to a doctor at all,” said Sarai Walker, the author of “Dietland,” a novel. “That is very common with fat people. No matter what the problem is, the doctor will blame it on fat and will tell you to lose weight. ” “Do you think I don’t know I am fat?” she added. | 1 |
At the Golden Globes afterparties, hoi polloi who aren’t invited to the ceremony descend by the thousands on the Beverly Hilton to whoop it up and stalk celebrities. Hosts of this year’s Hilton parties — held in ballrooms and massive tents around its compound — included HBO, the Weinstein Company, Fox, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Amazon, Warner Bros. and InStyle. The biggest stars often skipped those parties altogether, and instead beelined to the exclusive talent agency fests, held at the Sunset Tower Hotel and the Chateau Marmont. Confined to the Hilton, the Bagger joined the star stalkers herself, seeking answers to the burning question: What did celebrities think of Meryl Streep’s speech? (For a general idea, click here). The Bagger first cornered the preternaturally glamorous Joan Collins, as the British actress was carefully ascending a small flight of stairs at the Fox party. “I think she is one of the greatest actresses of a generation,” Ms. Collins said of Ms. Streep. “She has the right to say whatever she wants. And I think if you look at people’s faces in the audience, people went along with her. ” At the HBO party, Eddie Redmayne said he found Ms. Streep’s speech “incredibly emotional,” but was so distracted by her presence in the audience while presenting the award for best musical or comedy that he almost forgot to read the nominees. He wouldn’t say whether he thought Hollywood should take a page from Ms. Streep and speak out politically. The Bagger nabbed Bryan Cranston at the HBO party, too. Mr. Cranston, who has spoofed a Donald J. Trump presidency on “Saturday Night Live,” got a little misty just speaking about Ms. Streep’s words. “She was able to deliver an important message that resonated with all of us, with grace and dignity and no vitriol or hyperbole,” he said, “It was just beautifully delivered, to convey the anxiety that we are feeling, and the concern. ” Vince Vaughn, who has supported Republican presidential candidates in the past, was chatting a few feet away, so the Bagger asked him, too. Did he think Ms. Streep’s speech was an example of how Hollywood should respond to the politics of our time? “I think people should say what they want to say, and what she said was beautiful,” Mr. Vaughn said. The Bagger’s eyes then fell on John Corbett, a. k. a. Aidan from “Sex and the City. ” Was Hollywood the platform to address politics? “A whole lot of ‘Apprentice’ watchers just elected the president of the United States,” Mr. Corbett said, breaking into a dazzler of a grin, “so I guess it is!” The night ended on a high note, with Kerry Washington, who was at the party with her husband, Nnamdi Asomugha, agreeing to weigh in. (“One question!” her manager told the Bagger.) Ms. Washington said she found Ms. Streep’s speech beautiful too, adding that in a democracy, there’s never a time when citizens, whatever their stripe, shouldn’t speak out. “I don’t think that people of Hollywood should be silenced because of what we do for a living,” Ms. Washington said. “I don’t think it’s important that she said what she said because she’s an actress. I think it’s important she said what she said because she’s a citizen. We all have a First Amendment right of free speech. ” | 1 |
Tips For Interacting With Celebrities Close INFOGRAPHIC November 10, 2016 As you introduce yourself, avoid making direct eye contact, as they may think you are challenging their alpha status and attack. Make casual small talk by providing a detailed description of the one other time you met a famous person. Instead of shoving your screenplay in their face, discreetly slip it into their purse. Don’t come across as too fawning. Temper any lavish praise of their work with an equal amount of constructive criticism. If they simply don’t seem willing to engage, respect their privacy and snap a few dozen pictures instead.
Go behind the scenes of late night TV with Nightcap, an all-new comedy on Pop TV about a producer faced with the never-ending onslaught of celebrities and their A-list personalities. Share This Story: Sign up For The Onion's Newsletter
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In 2001, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a paper that included over 15 years of research. It cited an overwhelming amount of historical evidence which reveals that humans used to in fact sleep in two different chunks. ( 1 ) In 2005, he published a book titled “At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past,” which included more than 500 references to a disjointed sleeping pattern. It included diaries, medical books, literature and more taken from various sources ranging from Homer’s Odyssey all the way to modern tribes in Nigeria. “It’s not just the number of references – it is the way they refer to it, as if it was common knowledge.”– Ekirch ( source ) What Was Found In The Research Ekirch’s research found that we didn’t always sleep for an average of 8 hours straight. Instead, we would sleep in two shorter periods throughout the night. All sleep would occur within a 12 hour time frame that started with 3 or 4 hours of sleep, followed by being awake for 3 hours or so, and then sleeping again until the morning. There was also some research done in the early 1990’s by psychiatrist Thomas Wehr. He conducted an experiment where 14 people were put into complete darkness for 14 hours a day for an entire month. By the fourth week the participants had settled into a very distinct sleeping pattern: the same bimodal sleeping pattern that Ekirch described. The subjects slept for approximately 4 hours, woke for another few, and then went back to sleep until morning. ( 2 ) “Ekirch found that references to the first and second sleep started to disappear during the late 17th Century. This started among the urban upper classes in northern Europe and over the course of the next 200 years filtered down to the rest of Western society. By the 1920’s the idea of a first and second sleep had receded entirely from our social consciousness.” ( source ) Possible Reasons As To Why It Was Like This One reason could be that this type of segmented sleep is what really comes naturally to the human body. At least, that’s what Wehr’s experiment would suggest, but there are other theories.
Historian Craig Koslofsky writes: “Associations with night before the 17th Century were not good. The night was a place populated by people of disrepute – criminals, prostitutes and drunks. Even the wealthy, who could afford candlelight, had better things to spend their money on. There was no prestige or social value associated with staying up all night.” (source) Things changed, however, in 1667 when Paris became the first city in the world to light its streets, and eventually throughout Europe staying up at night became the social norm. And then the industrial revolution happened: “People were becoming increasingly time-conscious and sensitive to efficiency, certainly before the 19th Century, but the industrial revolution intensified that attitude by leaps and bounds.” ( source ) Eventually, we got to the point where parents were forcing their children to sleep at a certain time, pushing them away from the segmented sleeping pattern that was more dominant. Many Sleeping Problems May Have Roots In The Human Body’s Natural Preference For Segmented Sleep Ekirch believes that many modern day sleeping problems have roots in the human body’s natural preference for segmented sleep. He believes that our historical sleeping patterns could be the reason why many people suffer from a condition called “sleep maintenance insomnia,” where individuals wake in the middle of the night and have trouble getting back to sleep. This type of condition first appeared at the end of the 19th century, at approximately the same time segmented sleep began to die off. “ For most of evolution we slept a certain way. Waking up during the night is part of normal human physiology . The idea that we must sleep in a consolidated block could be damaging, he says, if it makes people who wake up at night anxious, as this anxiety can itself prohibit sleep and is likely to seep into waking life too. ” – Psychologist Greg Jacobs ( source )
According to Russell Foster, a professor of circadian [body clock] neuroscience at Oxford: “ Many people wake up at night and panic. I tell them that what they are experiencing is a throwback to the bi-modal sleep pattern. But the majority of doctors still fail to acknowledge that a consolidated eight-hour sleep may be unnatural. Over 30% of the medical problems that doctors are faced with stem directly or indirectly from sleep. But sleep has been ignored in medical training and there are very few centers where sleep is studied .” ( source )
As far as what people did during this in-between time of wakefulness, Ekirch’s research suggests that they primarily used the time to meditate on their dreams, read, pray, or partake in spiritual practices.
Related CE Articles : | 0 |
Trump and Brexit: Directed History Proceeds Apace? By Daily Bell Staff - November 09, 2016
The American voters have Brexited, leaving behind their global dominance America has Brexited. It’s an imperfect comparison. The United States can’t leave itself. But on Wednesday, with the election of Donald Trump, it withdrew from a number of agreements it long ago entered, some more enduring than others. The American people have voted to leave behind the late 20th century consensus on free trade and open immigration. -SMH
The populism versus globalism meme is in full effect today and given the thousands of references to it currently, it’s an honor to have been the first publication to have identified this particular element of propaganda as you can see here.
We also predicted several times throughout the recent months that Donald Trump might win the election and then, as a populist, face a good deal of elite retribution.
Infowars has an article today dealing with this, and we wrote about it again yesterday as you can see here.
The difference between our interpretations and others is that we have a very difficult time believing that all of this is spontaneous.
Of course, Trump’s victory has unfolded in a logical way, providing justifications for those who believe that any inference that we are watching a scripted even is just so much “conspiracy theory.”
On the other hand, his victory immediately provides critics with opportunities to assert the benefits and superior moral value of globalism.
More:
The 1992 candidacy of Pat Buchanan was a bellwether for Trump, a call for “America First” paired with a move toward economic protectionism and closed borders.
Buchanan lost his bid for the Republican nomination, and his ideas were muted, ignored. Not by everyone – not by the populists who carried his banner, who marched sometimes with the Republicans and sometimes with the Democrats and sometimes with third-party candidates like Ross Perot.
But the GOP ignored them, and to a lesser extent, the Democrats as well. The parties agreed, more or less, and until tonight, they were comfortable in their agreement.
The American people have likewise voted to leave behind the nation’s global dominance and its global partnerships.
We can see in this excerpt the predictable references to populism and the characterization of the US’s current situation as one in which it is in the midst of repudiating its “global dominance and global partnerships.”
This doesn’t seem right to us. It just seems like rhetoric but we are fairly convinced that the next four years will feature this rhetoric both in the US and in Britain – throughout the West, in fact.
Again, we have a hard time believing it’s a coincidence. The idea from our point of view, as we have been stating over and over in the past few months, is that this rhetorical stance is the gateway to further elite, globalist consolidation.
It may seem strange to make a statement that the elite forces of this world intend to “win” by losing. But everything we understand about their employment of the Hegelian dialectic gives us a sense that this is just what’s going on.
Top banking elites functioning out of the City of London have never reigned overtly. They have always set up two opposing sides and then gradually steered the world in the direction they want it to go.
That direction is toward a globalist empire. It is simply incontrovertible. The two world wars of the 20 th century were evidently manufactured – the internet shows us that – and after both wars gigantic leaps towards globalism occurred.
After World War II, the UN was created along with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The control of the Bank for International Settlements that runs central banking was updated.
Now in Britain, Brexit is in force. And in the US Donald Trump has won. The “populists” are in power and we are given to understand this is a “peasant revolt” of the first magnitude.
But history shows us in the past few hundred years that important societal processes are strictly controlled. At a lower level, perhaps, you can be “free.” But events at the highest level are not free.
We simply cannot imagine that Trump made up`his mind to run for president and did so successfully as an independent candidate and without the silent acquiescence of those who remain in power behind the scenes.
Maybe we’re wrong, but let us state for the record, as we often do, that the world’s power base is located among trillionaires in London who invented and control the world’s central banks.
This group has been leading the way, worldwide, not for hundreds but probably for thousands of years, first in Sumer, then Babylon, then Egypt, then Rome, then Venice and finally in England where members intermarried with Royals.
Since the Civil War, anyway, this group has been tightening its grip on a every sector of the US from education to the military to politics and industry.
It has control in Europe too – and we would make the argument that at the very top, elites in Russia and China work together as well. This is one reason we continue to make arguments against the standard history of nuclear weapons.
We think it is a kind of shared lie around the world that will eventually prove clearly that the global narrative is a manufactured one on many levels.
To believe that this history – if you do believe it – has been turned upside down by a single election in the 21 st century is, for us, a bridge too far.
As we predicted more than a decade ago, the Internet, like the Gutenberg Press before it, has made the elite’s secretive control impossible to sustain. They need another way of influencing events.
The easiest way is to provoke a public argument over the merits of populism (versus globalism) and then to use directed history to ensure people get the message loud and clear that “populism” (read freedom and self-determination) doesn’t work.
For this reason we continue to expect a variety of catastrophes to continue and deepen – mostly from an economic and military standpoint.
We will also be surprised if Trump’s larger vision for the revitalization of the US is going to be especially successful. It will have to be discredited along with Brexit.
It could be that Trump – and Hillary – are unaware of these trends. Not everything has to be a gigantic conspiracy at all levels. But one way or another, first Brexit and now Trump seem to be creating a kind of “directed history,”
Conclusion: Add the sudden appearance of the populism vs. globalism meme and you have rhetoric married, sooner or later, to action. One or two of these elements would be coincidental. All three or not. These events seem arranged. | 0 |
Next Swipe left/right 10 money-saving tips Most of us could do with saving a bit of money, especially as Christmas draws near – luckily Michael Spicer has ten great tips to help make our bank accounts a little bit healthier.
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Home / Badge Abuse / Cop Arrested for Using Police Status to Rape Little Boys at Home for Abused Children Cop Arrested for Using Police Status to Rape Little Boys at Home for Abused Children Matt Agorist November 3, 2016 2 Comments
Santa Rosa County, FL — Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Agent Charles Calvin McMullen was arrested this week after two 8-year-old boys came forward with allegations that the cop repeatedly sodomized and sexually abused them.
According to police, the boys disclosed their information separately and did not know the other was coming forward. #BREAKING : #FDLE agent, Charles C. McMullen arrested, charged with sexual assault/battery on a victim younger than 12 y/o. #C3N #NWFL
— WEAR ABC 3 (@weartv) November 2, 2016
McMullen, who has been with the FDLE for five years, worked on cases with the Gulf Coast Kids House and the Santa Rosa Kids House, centers that advocate for abused children.
McMullen’s position in law enforcement allowed him easy and trusted access to the children and he was able to repeatedly rape the young boys from the time they were only 7-years-old.
The first boy came forward on October 28 to deputies with the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office (SRCSO). After the 8-year-old reported McMullen had been touching him “downstairs on his private part” on a frequent basis, an investigation was launched which led to the other boy coming forward.
According to a report from WEAR,
The child said the abuse began when both children were 7-years-old. He said McMuMullen made them perform sex acts like sticking their fingers in his buttocks, putting their mouth on his penis.
The victim also said McMullen put his penis in the other child’s buttocks at least four times, the last time being October 27. He also disclosed that McMullen made him touch the other victim’s penis.
The first child’s interview detailing McMullen’s abuse mirrored the second child’s. He said some of it happened at McMullen’s home.
The first victim said when he told McMullen he didn’t like to be touched that way, McMullen would stop. However, he’d make the second victim rub his penis.
When McMullen was confronted by investigators, he reportedly began to cry and then denied touching the children sexually.
One of the boys told police that the abuse went on for so long because he was afraid to come forward because McMullen told him not to tell anyone.
He said McMullen told him this was “between you and me” and not to tell anybody because it would break up his relationship, according to the report.
In July of this year, ABC 3 actually interviewed McMullen who was investigating a man for driving around town and exposing himself to little boys.
“There was a residence in Milton that was sharing images and videos of child pornography through their social media platform,” said McMullen in July, likely admiring his fellow sicko. “Mr. Braswell indicated that he did have a sexual attraction towards children. And that he, in the past, had driven around neighborhoods in the Milton community and would expose himself to children as they would walk down the street,” McMullen said.
Since his arrest, McMullen’s bond was set at $1.5 million. However, on Wednesday that amount was reduced to only $300,000. McMullen is currently still receiving his paycheck while on administrative leave. Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter and now on Steemit Share | 0 |
As a long list of companies announce new initiatives to add jobs and enlarge investment in the U. S. economy in the coming age of Trump, Kellogg Co. is announcing that it intends to cut another 250 jobs in America. [The famed breakfast cereal company has confirmed recent reports that it intends to scale back its workforce, according to USA Today. The move is intended to make the company more efficient and is to be “focused on eliminating work that doesn’t drive the highest returns. ” Kellogg was still trading on Wednesday near its low, closing at $71. 98, which was five cents below its Tuesday closing. “The majority of the impacted employees work at our headquarters in Battle Creek, and changes are taking place across most functions in the organization,” the company told the media. “As you would expect from Kellogg, we’ll help our impacted people through these transitions, including offering severance benefits and outplacement services. ” Kellogg has manufacturing plants across the country as well as in 17 other countries. But the company’s profits have been slipping for several years, now, resulting in a cutting of several thousand jobs since 2014. Last November the company announced it was cutting up to seven percent in its international workforce, and that was even after the company cut jobs at its Tennessee Eggo plant in June. And in 2014 Kellogg closed down a plant in London, Ontario, Canada with a loss of about 500 jobs. The announcement of yet another round of job cuts comes after the company decided to cut its advertising with Breitbart News at the end of 2016, thereby snubbing Breitbart’s 45, 000, 000 readers. In November, Kellogg noted that Breitbart News’s conservative readers are not “aligned with our values as a company. ” While the decision by Kellogg to cease advertising made virtually no revenue impact on Breitbart. com. it did represent an escalation in the war by leftist companies like Target and Allstate against conservative customers whose values propelled Donald Trump into the White House. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
Un empleado de Pringles tropieza y acaba laminado y metido dentro de un tubo de cartón EL MUNDO TODAY 24 HORAS El Mundo Today en tu buzón Tu Email 83 muertos y 20 heridos graves en la pesadilla de una señora ENTRE LOS FALLECIDOS SE ENCUENTRA UN SEÑOR QUE LLEVABA EL PENE FUERA Este sitio web utiliza cookies para analizar cómo es utilizado el sitio. Las cookies no te pueden identificar. Si continuas navegando supone la aceptación de la Política de Cookies. Estoy de acuerdo. Más info. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Stephen K. Bannon has great admiration for a provocative but disputed theory of history that argues that the United States is nearing a crisis that could be just as disruptive and catastrophic as the most seminal global turning points of the last 250 years. This prophecy, which is laid out in a 1997 book, “The Fourth Turning,” by two amateur historians, makes the case that world events unfold in predictable cycles of roughly 80 years each that can be divided into four chapters, or turnings: growth, maturation, entropy and destruction. Western societies have experienced the same patterns for centuries, the book argues, and they are as natural and necessary as spring, summer, fall and winter. Few books have been as central to the worldview of Mr. Bannon, a voracious reader who tends to see politics and policy in terms of their place in the broader arc of history. But what does the book tell us about how Mr. Bannon is approaching his job as President Trump’s chief strategist and what he sees in the country’s future? Here are some excerpts from the book, with explanations from The New York Times. The “Fourth Turning” authors, William Strauss and Neil Howe, started using that phrase before it became a pop culture buzzword courtesy of HBO’s “Game of Thrones. ” But, as the authors point out, some winters are mild. And sometimes they arrive late. The best thing to do, they say, is to prepare for what they wrote will be “America’s next rendezvous with destiny. ” In an interview with The Times, Mr. Bannon said, “Everything President Trump is doing — all of it — is to get ahead of or stop any potential crisis. ” But the magnitude of this crisis — and who is ultimately responsible for it — is an unknown that Mr. Trump can use to his political advantage. This helps explain Mr. Trump’s tendency to emphasize crime rates, terrorist attacks and weak border control. The rhythmic, seasonal nature of history that the authors identify foresees an inevitable period of decay and destruction that will tear down existing social and political institutions. Mr. Bannon has famously argued that the overreaching and ineffective federal government — “the administrative state,” as he calls it — needs to be dismantled. And Mr. Trump, he said, has just begun the process. As Mr. Howe said in an interview with The Times: “There has to be a period in which we tear down everything that is no longer functional. And if we don’t do that, it’s hard to ever renew anything. Forests need fires, and rivers need floods. These happen for a reason. ” One of the authors’ major arguments is that Western society — particularly American culture — has denied the significance of cyclical patterns in history in favor of the more palatable and belief that humans are on an inexorable march toward improvement. They say this allows us to gloss over the flaws in human nature that allow for bad judgment — and bad leaders that drive societies into decline. Though he probably did not intentionally invoke Mr. Strauss and Mr. Howe, Mr. Trump was channeling their thesis when he often said during his campaign, “The American dream is dead. ” One of the scenarios the book puts forward is one in which leaders who emerge during a crisis can revive and rebuild dead institutions. Mr. Trump clearly saw himself as one of these when he said his goal would be to bring back the American dream. The authors envision a return to a more traditional, conservative social order as one outcome of a crisis. They also see the possibility of retribution and punishment for those who resist or refuse to comply with the new expectations for conformity. Mr. Trump’s “with us or against us” attitude raises questions about what kind of leader he would be in such a crisis — and what kind of loyalty his administration might demand. | 1 |
November 9, 2016
Calls for unity behind a Donald Trump administration are irresponsible, dangerous, and must be rejected.
In her concession speech this morning, Hillary Clinton told a stunned nation the following: “Last night, I congratulated Donald Trump and offered to work with him on behalf of our country… I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans.”
“We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead,” she added.
Many of Clinton’s most fervent supporters were rightly taken aback. After all, these words came from someone who only days earlier was denouncing Trump as a violent misogynist , a racist and Islamophobe, and a would-be dictator unfit to lead, too emotionally unstable to trusted with the country’s nuclear codes. Liberals who had seen in Clinton a last line of defense against the aggressive right were now witnessing her rebrand him as somehow worthy of the presidency.
That Clinton would overlook Trump’s history of sexual assault may be no surprise, given her role in covering-up her own husband’s behavior. That she would overlook his blatant appeals to white nationalism and Islamophobia is similarly unsurprising given her own rhetoric about Black “superpredators” and hawkish interventionism in the Middle East.
But still, this was a campaign consciously designed around stoking the fear that Trump was unlike any other candidate, an abnormally pernicious threat to women, people of color, and even democracy itself. The strategy failed spectacularly, and Clinton’s about-face was predictable if no less spectacular.
Meanwhile, Trump was suddenly sounding presidential, insisting in his victory speech that “Now it’s time to bind the wounds of division… to come together as one united people.” Even his exuberant supporters, who had only an hour before been chanting “Lock her up!” must have been shocked to hear him insist that Clinton is owed “a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country.”
For those who have long dismissed the two-party system as a farce, this shared rhetoric by the two candidates wouldn’t be surprising. In a phrase that has become the fodder for memes, superimposed over images of the smiling Clintons and Trumps or Michelle Obama hugging George W. Bush , the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci once argued that “The historical unity of the ruling classes is realized in the state.”
But despite this unity among elites, Trump has mobilized and encouraged a ferociously white supremacist movement , and this base won’t go away quietly.
When Clinton wishes him a “successful” presidency, what does this mean? Successfully building a wall along the southern border? Successfully rolling back what little protections exist for people of color, queer and trans people, and women? No, we wish no success for Trump.
As Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation , put it this morning: “No, we don’t owe this monster an open mind… Trump deserves revulsion and relentless protest. After a year of calling this man a fascist and a unique evil, they tell us to unite and give him a chance… No one is interested in unifying with this garbage; we have to confront this racism and sexism in the streets and organize like we never have before.”
Clinton is no ally of the left: her record of support for mass incarceration, neoliberalism, and brutal wars and coups abroad makes this perfectly clear. We don’t owe Trump “an open mind and a chance to lead.” We owe him nothing but our ferocious opposition in the streets, and that starts today.
George Ciccariello-Maher is an organizer, radical political theorist, and professor at Drexel University. Follow him on Twitter @ciccmaher . | 0 |
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s proposal on Thursday for deep cuts to the budgets of a broad part of the federal bureaucracy was billed as a and necessary corrective to the growth of the government’s power. But even members of his own party questioned some of the cuts — and what was not being cut. The harshest criticism of Mr. Trump’s budget came from Democrats and liberal organizations. But in a city where many federal programs enjoy longstanding bipartisan support, some Republicans also assailed the president’s judgment. “While we have a responsibility to reduce our federal deficit, I am disappointed that many of the reductions and eliminations proposed in the president’s skinny budget are draconian, careless and counterproductive,” said Representative Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky and a former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “We will certainly review this budget proposal, but Congress ultimately has the power of the purse. ” The spending plan’s bottom line is roughly the same as in President Barack Obama’s last budget request, but it marks Mr. Trump’s first major attempt to dismantle what his aides dismissively call the “administrative state. ” The $1. 1 trillion spending plan envisions deep cuts to many government programs while leaving entitlement programs like Social Security untouched. It increases spending on the military and border security. Mr. Trump was elected on a promise to wage war against what he has frequently mocked as a bloated and ineffective federal work force, and he is betting that his first budget will help consolidate support by calling for a significant shift of resources away from established programs that aid the poor, the environment, foreigners and the arts. To those who object to deep cuts in those programs, Mick Mulvaney, the president’s budget director, had a blunt message on Thursday: What did you expect? He said that programs had failed to help children in schools, that housing programs were “not well run,” that government health research had suffered “mission creep” and that grants to local communities “don’t do any good. ” Mr. Mulvaney waved aside questions about cuts to the United Nations, saying that they “should come as a surprise to no one who watched the campaign. ” And he said that the president made no apologies for eliminating the government’s efforts to curb climate change. “We’re not spending money on that anymore,” Mr. Mulvaney told reporters at the White House. “We consider that a waste of your money to go out and do that. ” The approach is a risky gamble for Mr. Trump, whose victory in November came in part by assembling a coalition that included workers who rely on many of the programs that he now proposes to slash. For now, the president and his advisers appear willing to take that risk by casting the administration as better caretakers of taxpayers’ money. “We are trying to focus on both recipients of the money and the folks who give us the money in the first place,” Mr. Mulvaney said. If the president gets his way, funding for the environment, diplomacy, housing, health services and the arts will be cut 20 to 30 percent. In 19 cases, funding will be eliminated, including for the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Military spending would increase by $54 billion, a 10 percent rise, in 2018, in addition to a $30 billion increase in the current year. White House officials said steep cuts at the State Department and increases in the military budget would refocus the United States away from helping other nations, sending a message that Mr. Trump intends to make greater use of “hard power” around the globe. They also said the president’s budget would increase resources for military veterans. Military supporters praised Mr. Trump for beginning what they believe is a needed rebuilding of the armed forces, though several key lawmakers said that even his proposed increase would not be enough for a military that they say is too small and unprepared to meet modern threats. Conservatives hailed his vision as an antidote to decades of bureaucratic growth even as they predicted fierce resistance from the interest groups and lawmakers with deep links to the affected agencies and the beneficiaries of the programs that will see their budgets slashed. “That sound you hear from Washington, D. C. this morning is the weeping and gnashing of teeth from bureaucrats and politicians who have built the federal government into an industry on the backs of taxpayers,” said David McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group. Reaction to Mr. Trump’s budget proposal came in a flurry of angry statements on Thursday morning as various other groups began preparing their lobbying campaigns to block the president’s plan in Congress. Christine Owens, the executive director of the National Employment Law Project, called the proposed cuts to the Labor Department a “draconian” budget that “is virtually a complete breach of faith with America’s workers. ” Amnesty International called the cuts to foreign aid “shameful” and predicted “global consequences. ” The Union of Concerned Scientists said cuts to scientific programs were “antiquated ideas and misguided science, which will hurt our economy, kill jobs, make us less safe. ” The American Library Association said that eliminating federal funds for libraries was “counterproductive and shortsighted. ” Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said, “This budget takes a meat cleaver to public education. ” Environmental activists criticized Mr. Trump’s priorities. Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club, said that “the only thing that matters in his America is corporate polluters’ profits and Wall Street billionaires. ” “If Trump refuses to be serious about protecting our health and climate, or our publicly owned lands, then Congress must act, do its job and reject this rigged budget,” Mr. Brune said. For Mr. Trump, the complaints from nearly all quarters may serve to amplify his image as an outsider who is not beholden to the special interests in Washington. That could help the White House pressure Republican lawmakers to embrace his vision for a spending plan. But the early reaction from members of his party on Capitol Hill was muted at best, reflecting in part the discomfort among many of the party’s leaders with a budget that makes no progress on tackling the growth of entitlements. Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, criticized Mr. Trump’s decision to cut $300 million from a program that aims to protect Lake Erie. “I have long championed this program,” Mr. Portman said, “and I’m committed to continuing to do everything I can to protect and preserve Lake Erie, including preserving this critical program and its funding. ” Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who has long asserted a need to overhaul entitlement programs as a means to fiscal discipline for the federal government, told reporters that he was “encouraged” by the proposed increases in military spending but said little else about the contents of the budget blueprint. Earlier in the day, Mr. Ryan issued a statement saying he was “determined to work with the administration to shrink the size of government, grow our economy, secure our borders and ensure our troops have the tools necessary to complete their missions. ” He did not address any of the proposed cuts. Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, called Mr. Trump’s budget proposal “a solid step toward addressing the gross overspending that is driving our national debt. ” He said the president should be “commended” for making some tough calls. He did not pledge to support Mr. Trump’s spending plan, however, adding that he looked forward to working with his congressional colleagues “to craft and pass a balanced, fiscally sound budget in the coming months. ” | 1 |
Wednesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer was asked to comment on Hillary Clinton saying she would have won the election had it been held on October 27 instead of November 8. Spicer likened her comments to the New England Patriots’ comeback victory after being down late in Super Bowl LI. “Well look, I’m a Patriots fan and I think if games ended in the third quarter, there would have been a different team here last week,” Spicer answered. “But you play a game four quarters and you play an election until election day, so with all due respect to her, that’s not how it works. You don’t get to pick the day the election is on. ” He added, “I think it’s somewhat sad that we’re still debating why the president won in the fashion that he did. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
By wmw_admin on October 27, 2016 Tara Copp, John Vandiver — Stars and Stripes Oct 26, 2016
NATO on Wednesday solidified plans for deploying combat-ready units to the alliance’s eastern edge, with several member states pledging troop contributions to round out a force of 4,000 soldiers to be spread across three Baltic nations and Poland.
The deployments, set to begin in early 2017, are central to NATO’s effort to reinforce territory in a tense region where as allies were meeting Wednesday, Russian war ships were steaming into the Baltic Sea.
“Close to our borders, Russia continues its assertive military posturing,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at the start of talks among allies. “It is important and it is necessary that NATO responds when we see the substantial and significant military buildup of Russia over a long period of time.”
Stoltenberg said NATO was monitoring the recent movement of Russian vessels into the Baltic Sea as it simultaneously eyes a Russian battle group patrolling toward the Mediterranean Sea.
The meeting of NATO’s top defense officials is to put into action plans agreed to during the alliance’s July summit in Warsaw for the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany to deploy a battalion each. Additional support will be needed from other countries.
The U.S. will serve as the lead nation in Poland, where some troops from the Vilseck, Germany-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment will be positioned.
“The United States will lead a battalion in Poland and deploy an entire battle-ready task force of approximately 900 soldiers from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters in Brussels.
The task force will include a headquarters element, three Strkyer-equipped maneuver companies and a mobile gun system, an artillery battery as well as anti-tank explosive ordnance disposal and engineer capabilities.
Romania and the United Kingdom will provide companies to bolster the U.S.-led battalion in Poland, Carter said.
The 2nd Cavalry Regiment will arrive in northeastern Poland by April.
The battalion will be under the tactical control of a Polish brigade, which falls under the operational command of NATO’s top officer, Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti.
“This is significant, and we are encouraging others to make the same kind of command and control arrangements with NATO,” Carter said.
In addition, the Pentagon plans to rotate a U.S.-based armored brigade to Europe, along with the unit’s tanks and other fighting vehicles, in early 2017. The troops, from the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, will rotate throughout the Baltics and Poland.
Germany, Canada and the United Kingdom will serve as lead nations for multinational battalions heading for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Some forces will begin moving into bases in the Baltics and Poland in January and are expected to become fully operational by June. U.K. Defense Minister Michael Fallon told The Wall Street Journal that British troops would be accompanied by tanks and drones. Countries agreeing Wednesday to augment the forces in the Baltics include Albania, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, Belgium, Croatia, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark.
“Our forces will be truly multinational, sending an unmistakable message that NATO stands as one,” Stoltenberg said. “An attack on one ally is an attack on all.”
NATO also is trying to configure a new force in the southeast, where Romania will host a multinational brigade with contributions from neighboring Bulgaria. The unit is intended to facilitate the flow of forces throughout the region, including U.S units that are conducting periodic training exercises on Romanian and Bulgarian firing ranges.
That amounts to a “new land presence in NATO’s southeast,” said Doug Lute, U.S. ambassador to NATO, during a Tuesday news briefing.
“Not yet fully completed are plans to also bolster air and sea presence in the southeast. Of course the sea presence here, we’re talking about presence in the Black Sea,” Lute said.
However, the expansion south will involve troop commitments around the Black Sea region at land, air and sea from several nations, including the U.S., Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Turkey, Stoltenberg said.
The expansion of a continuous force presence into the Soviet Union’s old sphere of influence was prompted by Moscow’s 2014 intervention in Ukraine, which allies say altered the security landscape in Europe. NATO’s moves are designed to achieve two aims: reassure allies rattled by a more aggressive Russia and send a signal of military resolve to Moscow that alliance territory is off limits.
While NATO has emphasized its moves are defensive in nature, Russia sees NATO’s push east to the edge of Russia’s borders as a threat and a provocation.
Moscow has warned of countermeasures and earlier this month started moving nuclear-capable Iskander missiles into Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea that is wedged between Lithuania and Poland.
While Russia has deployed Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad before for exercises, U.S. officials say they are watching to see if the latest move is permanent or if there is any attempt to position nuclear weapons on site. That, Lute said, “would be a change in the security posture in a way that would not promote stability, but would rather continue to raise questions about instability.”
Stars and Stripes reporter John Vandiver reported from Stuttgart, Germany. | 0 |
According to new Wikileaks emails recently released, Huma Abedin, who is Hillary’s main right hand and John Podesta her campaign manager, both confirmed that Hillary Clinton still has brain damage!!
It seems there’s still cause for concerns about Hillary’s health. Her concussion was cause for talk about her head and whether she was functioning normally.
In an email from April 2015 with the Wikileaks ID 29549 , her aide Huma Abedin said:
“She’s going to stick to notes a little closer this am. Still not perfect in her head. ”
See below:
Then there’s also another Wikileaks ID 27111 from John Podesta in September 2015 where he says:
“ How bad is her head? ”
Even if we ignore all the pay to play and other corruption scandals, though why would anyone ignore that? Are you people sure that this person is even psychically and physically fit to be the president?
Just yesterday while in Lake Worth Florida, Hillary Clinton needed HELP from her aide guy to climb a SINGLE STEP! She stopped in front of the step, raised her hand, turned her head over to see if the guy is there and waited to grab his hand. He immediately rushed towards her and helped her out. See for yourself:
Also, remember this scene from last month at 9/11 in New York where she completely collapsed? She was all frozen up, like a peace of wood, a plank or something. They just dragged her like a corpse:
Hundreds of top doctors came out and confirmed that she has brain damage and is not fit for office. Some were working for the leftist media and when they acknowledged her problems, they had their shows canceled.
| 0 |
on November 16, 2016 4:56 pm ·
It was just a few days ago that Bernie Sanders responded to Trump’s election win with the perfect message from Democrats. He said :
“If Donald Trump takes people’s anger and turns it against Muslims, Hispanics, African Americans and women, we will be his worst nightmare.”
And from what was just announced, it seems that Sanders has every intention of making good on that warning. Earlier today, the Vermont Senator was named chair of outreach during a closed-door Senate Democrat caucus meeting, according to The Hill . In his new role, Sanders will lead outreach to blue-collar voters — the very voters who became Trump supporters this year. Sanders will also be the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee. Acknowledging that he has a “heavy responsibility to help shape the priorities of the United States government,” Sanders said: “I’m going to do everything that I can to make sure that the budget that leaves the United States Congress is a budget that represents the needs of working families and a shrinking middle class and not billionaires.” With the announcement of Sanders’ new position, Trump is definitely going to be a nervous wreck. He’s spent his entire presidential campaign claiming that he would help the working class, and now Sanders is in the position to challenge him and hold him to it for the next four years. By elevating Sanders to this new role, Democrats are moving to a more grassroots message, fully aware that Sanders’ presidential campaign and vision for America resonated with many voters. As we saw with Sanders’ popularity in the primaries, the Vermont Senator struck a nerve with workers and families, making him the perfect candidate to go up against Trump as he takes office. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) commented on Sanders’ new responsibility: “We want to expand on that, and he will be reaching out to all our allies. We have a tremendous amount of talent in our caucus and we want to make sure everyone is contributing.” Sanders hardly needed this promotion to upset Trump, as he’s been one of the most outspoken politicians on Twitter since Trump’s win: Twitter Twitter Twitter
However, Sanders’ new role is great news for our country, and we know he’s going to give Trump hell.
Featured image via Zach Gibson and Alex Wong / Getty Images Share this Article! Author: Vera My passion is bringing attention to human rights and equality issues. In addition to writing for Addicting Info, I also run a website and digital magazine dedicated to social issues and promoting equality in all forms. Search | 0 |
Chart Of The Day: Automobile Demographics---Steadily Older Fleet, Fewer New Cars Needed By David Stockman. Posted On Thursday, November 24th, 2016
David Stockman's Contra Corner is the only place where mainstream delusions and cant about the Warfare State, the Bailout State, Bubble Finance and Beltway Banditry are ripped, refuted and rebuked. Subscribe now to receive David Stockman’s latest posts by email each day as well as his model portfolio, Lee Adler’s Daily Data Dive and David’s personally curated insights and analysis from leading contrarian thinkers. | 0 |
MONROVIA, Liberia — Emmanuel Dongo, who spends his days begging on Monrovia’s streets, plunged with his crutches onto the concrete stage and into the glare of neon. He thrust his muscular shoulders forward, limp legs hanging behind him, and transformed himself into Lyrical D, rising rap artist. “Handicap man trying to survive, then you sitting there just to criticize, when that you, what thing you will really do?” he asked, snapping out the lyrics to a rapt crowd at Code 146, where Liberia’s aspiring rap stars come to make their names. “Will you close your mouth and turn your back on you? I feel too bad when I sitting in this wheelchair, just want to be walking like you, man. See me passing and you mocking at me telling me I not even look like human being. ” Putting down his crutches, Mr. Dongo leaned back into his wheelchair and propelled himself across the stage, dancing frenetically and spitting out angry rhymes about his experiences of discrimination in a society that largely views disability through the lens of superstition. Even though disabled victims of war are a common sight on Liberia’s city streets, handicapped people are often seen as cursed, their amputations or paralyzed limbs viewed as the result of witchcraft by the cruel and envious, or else as punishment for some wrongdoing. Music seems an unlikely career choice for a Liberian with Mr. Dongo’s many difficulties. But the proliferation of makeshift studios, engineers and a distinct Liberian sound has given rise to a thriving music scene here, opening up space for emerging artists like Mr. Dongo. Aspiring artists can record songs for as little as $20 if the engineer likes them, or even free if they are a big enough name. That night at Code 146, the D. J. played the beat to Lyrical D’s latest club track. Onstage, Mr. Dongo swung back into his wheelchair and began to twist, turn and thump the chair’s front tire up and down. “Make some noise, party people, make some noise!” he shouted. The listeners in the audience responded, shaking their bodies and raising their arms in the air. Code 146 is owned and run by Jonathan Koffa, Monrovia’s most famous rapper. Known as Takun J, Mr. Koffa is widely considered a pioneer of HipCo, Liberia’s articulation of rap that uses the nation’s unique patois as its base. His downtown club is hidden at the end of a dark alley. Its walls are lime green and covered with paintings of the city’s musical icons. Performances rarely start before 11 p. m. with music pumping through crackling speakers till the early hours. On the evening Mr. Dongo performed, his producer, Alhaji Yaits, 22, who goes by the name Young Master, sat nodding to the beat he had helped produce a week earlier. Mr. Yaits discovered Mr. Dongo, 27, on the streets of Monrovia three years ago and, in between other paying projects, has been helping him produce an album free of charge. Mr. Dongo’s wheelchair is regularly parked at the bottom of the steps leading to Mr. Yaits’s studio. Inside, the walls are decorated in colors with the names of artists Mr. Yaits has worked with and a large picture of him presiding over a mixing board. Mr. Yaits, like Mr. Dongo, was inspired by Takun J and HipCo music, a sound born in Monrovia in the aftermath of Liberia’s civil war, which ended in 2003. HipCo is raw, gritty and deeply in spirit. It throws punches at politicians and the Liberian elite, whom HipCo rappers accuse of plundering the country’s wealth and ignoring the poor. Dozens of artists like Mr. Dongo jockey for a chance to perform at Code 146’s weekly sessions. In the early days of his career, Mr. Dongo was ridiculed when he performed at the street jams that regularly spring up across the city, but at Code 146 he was welcomed with open arms. Born in a rural area outside the capital, Mr. Dongo came into the world on the eve of a conflict that killed more than 250, 000 and displaced millions. His mother was never able to reach a clinic to have him vaccinated for polio, leaving Mr. Dongo with two withered legs. His uncle, a health worker, eventually brought Mr. Dongo to Monrovia but lost his job and was not able to support him. Instead, he sent Mr. Dongo to a grim home for disabled people. Mr. Dongo lived there for over a decade before moving out on his own to pursue his dream of becoming a rap star. By day, Mr. Dongo sits on busy traffic islands and begs outside the shiny supermarkets that serve Liberia’s expatriates and elite, who drive around in ample S. U. V.s and live in plush compounds protected by barbed wire. He uses most of the money to support his son, who lives with Mr. Dongo’s mother. The rest of the money goes toward the fledgling music career he hopes will lift him out of poverty in a nation where opportunities for handicapped people simply do not exist. Just getting around Monrovia is tough for the disabled. Footpaths are rare, and when they exist, they are often a series of disjointed concrete panels that jut out like jagged teeth. Metal manholes are often stolen for scrap metal, leaving open holes in the middle of roads. Many of Monrovia’s main thoroughfares have been paved in recent years, though, and Mr. Dongo and other disabled people can often be seen gliding in their wheelchairs through city traffic, dodging cars in a country where road rules are rarely respected. Like many Monrovians, Mr. Dongo lives in a slum, called Clara Town, where he has to muscle his way through the narrow dusty pathways that run between the community’s zinc shacks. While largely independent, he often pays neighbors to fetch him water from the pump to bathe, to his clothes and sometimes to cook. Mr. Dongo fantasizes about a future in which he no longer begs in order to survive or navigates potholed roads and back streets instead, he’s ferried around in a black S. U. V. accompanied by a bodyguard who pushes him past screaming fans to the stage. On the streets he feels embarrassed when those who know him as an artist see him begging. “I know that sitting on the street begging I belittle myself,” Mr. Dongo said. “But when I perform onstage, I feel good because I know that my dream is working and people go wild for me. ” As Lyrical D finished his short set at Code 146, Mr. Koffa stood behind the bar, a quietly commanding presence. His bare, muscular arms were tattooed with maps of Liberia and tributes to HipCo. At the end of the performance, Mr. Koffa told Lyrical D that he liked his new track and shook his hand. Several days later, Mr. Dongo was out on the street filming a video for his song “Show Love. ” A director told Mr. Dongo where to position himself as workers shooed people away from the shot. A friend played the song through a mobile phone plugged into a boom box, and Mr. Dongo began to sing. He was accompanied by two friends dressed in matching striped and jeans: his backup dancers, twirling in wheelchairs. Mr. Dongo furrowed his brow and performed small stunts with his chair. “I can remember when I used to go on show, people used to laugh,” he sang. “But I keep pushing, no fun, keep pushing, no fun, keep pushing, I not give up. ” | 1 |
Saturday, 12 November 2016 Pundits are surprised Packer and Carey Split - after all they had such a good body image match
Packers luck is going from bad to worse, just after his dodgy Whale Hunting got all his Chinese staff arrested now Carey has dumped him and is demanding $50M for a Back-out relocation fee.
Huge controversy surrounds who is the dumper and who is the dumpee and Emperor OctoTrumpus has vowed to put the full weight of his administration into big issues like this.
"I have the greatest respect for women of any man in the world", he was quoted as saying and "would put several of his personal security agencies like the NSA, CIA and FBI onto the case with the highest urgency".
Womens movements are stunned claiming his presidential election campaign was the most denigrating display against women recorded in the annals of US public governance, though they did award Bill Clinton a special mention.
Apparently the pre-nup agreement ran into 346 pages with some weird clauses like not showing her breasts unless he authorised the outing.
Her claim of $50M as a relocation fee will be hotly contested through the courts his lawyer said Make Jung in the Jungle's day - give this story five thumbs-up (there's no need to register , the thumbs are just down there!) | 0 |
Politics US Senator Bernie Sanders
Former US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has threatened President-elect Donald Trump, warning that his camp will be Trump’s “worst nightmare” if he goes after minorities in America.
"If Donald Trump takes people's anger and turns it against Muslims, Hispanics, African Americans and women, we will be his worst nightmare," the Vermont senator wrote on his Twitter page on Thursday.
The 74-year-old senator had earlier issued a statement after the New York businessman’s victory in the US election on November 8, promising to work with him on certain issues but also to oppose him should he pursue divisive and discriminatory policies.
“To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him,” Sanders said.
“To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him,” he added.
During the primaries, Sanders ran a close race with Clinton and promised to continue the fight all the way until the Democratic National Convention in June, where the party’s nominee was going to be named.
Towards the end of the race, however, Sanders changed his tone and bowed out in favor of Clinton. He also appeared next to her during the DNC and supported his party opponent in the Democratic campaigns.
On July 12, 2016, Sanders formally endorsed Clinton after facing mounting pressure from major Democratic figures, including outgoing US President Barack Obama himself. US Republican president-elect Donald Trump delivers his acceptance speech during his election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown in the early morning hours of November 9, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by AFP)
On Tuesday, Trump stunned the world by defeating heavily favored Clinton in the presidential election, sending the United States on a new, uncertain path.
Trump rode a wave of anger toward the elite US establishment to win the White House race against Clinton, a longtime Washington insider.
The New York businessman garnered 290 electoral votes in the 2016 US election, while his rival and the former secretary of state received 232 votes despite winning the popular vote.
Thousands of people since then have rallied in cities across the US to protest against Trump's presidential election victory, condemning his controversial campaign rhetoric against Muslims, immigrants, women and other groups.
This is while Trump said in his victory speech he would be president for all Americans. "It is time for us to come together as one united people,” he said.
The real estate mogul's election campaign had been marred by his disparaging remarks against minorities in the US. His comments include a call to ban all Muslims from coming to America as well as stopping Mexican migrants by building a long wall along the US-Mexico border.
He has also sought for a database to track Muslims across the United States and said that the US would have "absolutely no choice" but to close down mosques.
Trump’s proposal was widely condemned by Muslim and human rights groups as well as his Democratic rivals and many of his Republican proponents who describe the proposal as divisive, counterproductive and contrary to American values. Loading ... | 0 |
Next Prev Swipe left/right Unbrexit! Parliament must vote on triggering article 50: the 9 funniest, most ironic reactions
Britain has exploded today the news that the Government must offer Parliament a vote on invoking Article 50.
Here’s the BEST 9 tweets, the ones most gleefully relishing the change in fortune.
1 So, next steps for #Brexit and #Article50 could be a UK Government appeal to the European Court of Justice. How hilarious would that be.
— James Doman-Pipe (@james_mdp) November 3, 2016
2 With this Article 50 ruling, I can see a real path back to our previous position as the graceless arrogant begrudging arseholes of the EU
— Jon Blyth (@disappointment) November 3, 2016
3 Glad to hear the Brexit saga has been resolved comprehensively to the satisfaction of all parties, and we won't be hearing any more about it
— Dai Lama (@WelshDalaiLama) November 3, 2016
4 The High Court has upheld Parliamentary sovereignty over Brexit vote, in a move so ironic it threatens to destroy the fabric of spacetime.
— Unnamed Insider (@Unnamedinsider) November 3, 2016
5 Brexit means Brexit but also not Brexit but kind of Brexit but that Brexit maybe this Brexit but with a hint of Brexit
— TechnicallyRon (@TechnicallyRon) November 3, 2016
6 Someone please publish an article explaining today's Article 50 decision that just says "Article 50 decision is Article 50 decision".
— reluctant ex baby (@mutablejoe) November 3, 2016
7 If there is a civil war do the remainers get to have the rest of europe on our side?
— Richard K Herring (@Herring1967) November 3, 2016
8
— James Herring (@itsjamesherring) November 3, 2016
9 Sneak peek at tomorrow's Daily Mail front page. They don't seem to be taking #unbrexit very well. pic.twitter.com/nQbDf1iNbZ
— The Poke (@ThePoke) November 3, 2016
And our favourite was UKIP party spokesperson Suzanne Evans frothing with, “How dare these activist judges attempt to overturn our will? It’s a power grab & undermines democracy. Time we had the right to sack them.”
Activist judges? Amazing. Those activist judges occupying democracy with their hippy laws. | 0 |
Comments
As it happens Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has written a book other than “The Art Of The Deal” and in true Trumponian fashion, it is a fiction novel titled “ Trump Tower “that should more likely be classified as smut.
Trump described the book as “ The sexist novel of the decade” and was originally billed as, “ The debut novel from ‘New York Times’-bestselling author, international business mogul, television superstar, and New York City icon, Donald J. Trump.”
“Trump Tower” was a magnificent flop and Trump, staying true to his penchant for not admitting obvious failure, removed his name from the book in its second iteration and gave all credit to ghostwriter Jeffrey Robinson. However, as Trump is now to learn, once something is on the Internet it is on their forever — even if you are a not-yet-convicted sexually predatory offender with money. Below is the original listing with the U.S. ISBN agency: Jeffrey Robinson’s #TrumpTower has it all. The ultra rich, powerful, and beautiful. It’s your summer must-read http://t.co/lQKvIzzV
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 13, 2012
In delving into the story, which appears to have been written for those with the reading comprehension of a first grader in mind, it routinely degrades women. The opening chapter speaks of a tenant who is bound and gagged to a bed naked only to be found by one of the tower’s staff:
There she was, completely naked and gagged, her arms above her head, handcuffed to the top of the bedstead, with her legs tied to the bed and stretched wide apart.
That sounds icily similar to the rape accusations being levied against Trump, no? The official court documents filed against Trump state :
Defendant Trump tied Plaintiff to a bed, exposed himself to Plaintiff, and then proceeded to forcibly rape Plaintiff. During the course of this savage sexual attack, Plaintiff loudly pleaded with Defendant Trump to stop but with no effect. Defendant Trump responded to Plaintiff’s pleas by violently striking Plaintiff in the face with his open hand and screaming that he would do whatever he wanted.
The other gems of literary genius included:
“Take off your sweatshirt,” he said again. Her hands were trembling. “No.” “Yes,” he said. “Take off your sweatshirt. She reached for the bottom of her sweatshirt, but all she could do was hold onto it. “No.” “Yes.” “I can’t.” “Yes you can. Do as I tell you. Take off your sweatshirt.” She tried to swallow, but her mouth was totally dry. “I can’t…” “Do it. Take off your sweatshirt. Do as I tell you.” She closed her eyes, hesitated, then pulled off her sweatshirt.
And:
“I’d probably like his mama’s titties, too,” and, instead of using his key, he rang the bell.
On top of the sordid sexual scenarios in Trump’s book, there are disrespectful racial references:
Come on, you’re a shoo-in.” He reminded her, “Two white guys and a great-looking minority girl with perfect boobs? No contest.”
Apparently Trump was too cheap to hire an editor as the book is riddled with grammatical errors such as, “In fact, none of the apartments in the tower was numbered.”
In his quest for attention Trump attempted on numerous occasions to have his clap trap babble transitioned to television. The book had been in the works since the late 90s and according to Bob Frederick, who represents MVP Entertainment, “We hired a writer out of Los Angeles and developed a pilot with Showtime. And Donald was happy with it.”
More than a decade later in 2008 Trump pitched the story to Lifetime which presented its own disgusting irony. The likely soon-to-be-convicted sexual predator wanted his story on a network known for producing shows about sexual predators.
Trump’s co-author, Mr. Robinson, has refused to comment on the book. However, if one were so inclined they are able to read the first few chapters for free on Amazon’s kindle version , using the preview option. That is all one should read for two reasons. The first is purchasing the book would put money in Trump’s pocket, and the second is ingesting the entire story will likely lead to psychosis, the loss of brain cells, and IQ points. | 0 |
Support Us Clinton’s Campaign Chairman John Podesta Invited to an Occult ‘Spirit Cooking’ Dinner by Marina Abramović 0
The Podesta e-mails released by Wikileaks contain various bizarre entries, including an invitation to a ‘Spirit Cooking’ dinner from notorious occultist Marina Abramović. These parties include blood, semen, breast milk … and God knows what else.
A leaked e-mail reveals that John Podesta was invited to a ‘Spirit Cooking’ dinner by Marina Abramović in 2015. John David Podesta is the Chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. He previously served as Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton and Counselor to President Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton and John Podesta, 2011.
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Here’s the leaked e-mail. Marina Abramovic sent an e-mail to Tony Podesta (John Podesta’s brother) who then forwarded it to his brother.
Before going any further, here’s a video of Marina preparing a ‘Spirit Cooking’ ritual.
Yes, the process involves buckets of congealed pig’s blood. Marina paints on walls instructions coded in classic occultist matter.
Spirit cooking refers to “a sacrament in the religion of Thelema which was founded by Aleister Crowley” and involves an occult performance during which menstrual blood, breast milk, urine and sperm are used to create a “painting”.
Strange fact: In another leaked e-mail, Podesta contacts his doctor about an infected finger. Strange coincidence.
Further in the video, Marina drenches in blood a statue shaped like a small child. Why do I have the sick feeling that actual children might be used during these ceremonies?
Why would an occultist such as Marina Abramović be in direct and friendly contact with people at the highest levels of power? Because they are all part of the OCCULT ELITE. Marina Abramović
Marina Abramović is considered to be the “grandmother of performance art”. Most of her work however takes place in private settings where she conducts magick rituals. She is an important and powerful figure in pop culture and is greatly influential in Hollywood, the fashion world and the music business. Marina ‘training’ Lady Gaga in the ‘Abramovic Method’. Marina performing with Jay-Z.
Marina is an “occult pop culture” icon. Here are symbolic pictures celebrating this fact. On this cover of Vogue Ukraine, Marina represents the stronghold of occultism on the fashion world. In the same photoshoot, Marina is holds a goat’s head by the horns – a classic way of representing the drawing of magickal power from Baphomet. Same photoshoot: Marina standing in front of a model with inner body parts exposed while doing an occult handsign. This picture was featured in The New Yorker along with a lengthy article praising her career. A serpent hiding one eye: The perfect way of representing a member of the occult elite. Marina on the cover of ELLE with one eye hidden. Mimicking Baphomet horns. “Cleaning the Mirror”, 1995.
Another interesting fact: Marina’s Twitter name is @AbramovicM666
This is why the term ‘occult elite’ is used to describe the highest level of power. Do you see the dots connecting? | 0 |
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Social Security is the lifeline of many people who are either too elderly or disabled to support themselves or their loved ones financially. However, to Republicans and conservatives alike, it is an expenditure deemed too costly, even if it means certain death for those who depend on it.
Forget for a moment that elderly people who worked their entire lives have paid into social security, and should therefore be completely off limits. How could anyone with a soul leave the elderly to die in poverty? And what about those people who are physically and/or mentally disabled? Should we, as a nation, not take care of those citizens? Should we leave them to survive on the streets?
Donald Trump is not known to do much critical thinking, especially before releasing a statement to the media, but his insane remarks on cutting Social Security have really got liberals fuming. Check out that time Trump told Paul Ryan that he would love to cut Social Security if he didn’t think it would be political suicide:
“From a moral standpoint, I believe in it. But you also have to get elected. And there’s no way a Republican is going to beat a Democrat when the Republican is saying, ‘We’re going to cut your Social Security’ and the Democrat is saying, ‘We’re going to keep it and give you more.’ ”
Trump is really trying to say that the lazy people in this country will always vote Democrat because it is Democrats who ensure that the less fortunate are, at least, able to keep their heads above water. To politicians like Donald Trump, these “extras” are killing the country.
That’s right folks, it’s Ma and Pa Kettle who are ruining the country with their $1200 monthly allotment from the Treasury Department. It certainly wouldn’t be wasteful, greedy real estate moguls who use other people’s money to pay for their extravagant business deals.
Alex Lawson is the Executive Director of Social Security Works, and he has a much different theory on Trump’s motives with Social Security. Lawson had this to say about it:
“It is really clear: Donald Trump would 100 percent go along with the Republican donor class position of cutting Social Security. He openly says he will lie to the people about it because he knows that the people are against it.”
“In his eyes the ‘moral’ thing to do is to steal people’s hard-earned benefits and not talk about it.”
As we have learned throughout this election season, Donald Trump almost never tells the truth. Yet, he still convinces his mindless followers that he would somehow be good for America, regardless of the fact that there is nothing but evidence to prove the opposite. Trump won’t be happy until our grandparents are living in squalor and eating ramen for every meal.
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In a brief statement this week about the still mysterious murders of a Bangladeshi imam and his assistant, the Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, captured, perhaps unwittingly, the dueling imperatives a prosecutor faces in a case that strikes at an entire community. Mr. Brown’s primary task in issuing the statement was to announce that his office was charging Oscar Morel, the man accused in the killings, with murder, based on the fact that the daylight shooting had caused the deaths of at least two people. But in a more emotive tone, the district attorney also extended his “deepest sympathy” to the families of the victims and then made a promise: He would “work tirelessly to ensure that justice is done. ” New York City’s five district attorneys are never just dispassionate executors of the law. As elected officials who draw their powers — and their paychecks — from the public, they at times assume a more symbolic role: that of the community defender, one who is responsive to, and responsible for, the constituents they serve. The community in this case, a Muslim enclave in Ozone Park, clearly called for a response from Mr. Brown as many in the neighborhood fearfully described the killings of the men, Alauddin Akonjee and Thara Miah, as a hate crime. That put Mr. Brown in a complicated position, several lawyers said. The police, so far, have not determined a motive for the murders — let alone found evidence of a hate crime. So Mr. Brown, a Democrat, had to file charges that were factually and tactically defensible while still being seen as answering the neighborhood’s anxious call as firmly as he could. “He was responding to the technical requirements of the law, but also to public pressure — there’s no doubt about it,” said Murray Richman, a veteran member of the city’s defense bar. “While he came forward with the right charge, a lot of it was political. Whenever there’s something that agitates a particular group, you don’t have a choice. You have to respond. ” While prosecutors do not have to establish motive to charge people with a crime, it is an essential part of their subsequent efforts to prove their case at trial. Should Mr. Morel go to trial, an assistant district attorney will want to furnish to the jury a credible explanation for why he undertook two murders that he has denied committing. Some lawyers said that in the absence of a motive, it was a bit unusual to have accused Mr. Morel of murder. “It would seem to me that murder in the first degree is all about motive,” Gerald L. Shargel, another veteran defense lawyer, said. “You don’t need it, but it is definitely relevant to the defendant’s state of mind. Was this the guy who did it because, say, he had pictures of other Muslim leaders on his basement wall?” Other lawyers, though, said that by pursuing a charge, Mr. Brown relieved himself of the strategic burden of establishing a motive at a trial. The police and prosecutors say they have evidence indicating that Mr. Morel intentionally killed Mr. Akonjee and Mr. Miah. Under the law, murder can narrowly be defined as the intentional killing of more than one person. “If what we’re hearing is true,” said Mark Bederow, a lawyer who has handled several murder cases, “then the guy walked up, boom, boom, and the cops found the gun. It’s easily provable — a nice, clean case. ” A bias case would be much more difficult to prove, Mr. Bederow said. A killing is, by definition, a murder charge, so Mr. Brown would have not been able to deliver the same impact that comes with murder. But more important, by filing charges, prosecutors would assume the obligation of offering a motive — which is to say, that Mr. Morell had acted out of intolerance or hate — and proving it. “They would literally be promising the jury, ‘We are going to tell you why this happened,’” Mr. Bederow said. “And there’s just no need to do that. It’s messy. That’s the last thing you want — a messy case. Though I’ll admit, that’s just the cold analysis of a lawyer. ” | 1 |
It happens every spring. It’s time to play ball, so publishers fill out a new lineup card of biographies, team histories and other baseball scholarship. This season must begin by acknowledging the surreality that after 108 years, the Chicago Cubs are again World Series champions. “The Plan” (Triumph, $24. 95) by David Kaplan, is a chronicle of the project to turn “one of the worst organizations in baseball” into “a dynasty in the making. ” Kaplan starts with the 2009 purchase of the franchise by Tom Ricketts, and the subsequent wooing of Theo Epstein, the general manager behind two titles for the formerly cursed Boston Red Sox. Chicago’s farm system is stocked and Joe Maddon, the Tampa Bay Rays manager, is signed ahead of the 2015 season. Add youngsters like Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber, and free agents like Jon Lester, and a club is finally No. 1. There’s too much esoterica — one appendix lists clauses from contracts for buildings around Wrigley Field — but Cubs fans won’t mind. As for New York teams, “Casey Stengel” (Doubleday, $27. 95) by Marty Appel, is the ultimate biography: Stengel not only played for the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants, he managed the Dodgers before steering the New York Yankees to their greatest run of dominance and became the first manager of the New York Mets. Paul Dickson’s “Leo Durocher” (Bloomsbury, $28) chronicles the adventures of Leo the Lip, the colorful player (briefly for the Yankees, later the Dodgers) and manager (for the Dodgers, Giants and other clubs) who stayed in the sports pages for more than 40 years. Steve Steinberg’s “Urban Shocker” (University of Nebraska, $32. 95) recalls a Yankees pitcher who should be better known for his name alone. A spitballer who was traded to the St. Louis Browns, Shocker had four seasons before returning to New York in time to be part of the 1927 championship team. “Piazza” (Sports Publishing, $24. 99) by Greg W. Prince, revels in a more recent and beloved player. The catcher of all time, Mike Piazza was already a Los Angeles Dodgers star when he was traded twice in 1998, first to the Florida Marlins, then to the Mets. After all Piazza did for the team (and the team for him) Prince’s book explains why it meant so much to New York fans that Piazza went into the Hall of Fame last year as a Met. Around the league, former players telling stories include Rick Ankiel, the St. Louis Cardinal who lost his ability to pitch. In “The Phenomenon” (PublicAffairs, $27) written with Tim Brown, Ankiel speaks of succumbing to the anxiety disorder commonly called the yips, then reclaiming his career as an outfielder. Ankiel has company. Dennis Snelling’s compelling biography, “Lefty O’Doul” (University of Nebraska, $27. 95) tells of the pitcher who, after a sore arm, became one of baseball’s greatest hitters and hitting coaches before helping to establish the game in Japan. “Ballplayer” (Dutton, $27) is a confessional memoir from Chipper Jones (with Carroll Rogers Walton) the likely Hall of Famer who spent his entire career with the Atlanta Braves. Mets fans know he enjoyed beating their team so much that he named one son Shea, after Shea Stadium they may not recall that Jones hit his first homer there. He details that moment and many others, including behavior that led to two divorces. “One Nation Under Baseball,” by John Florio and Ouisie Shapiro (University of Nebraska, $29. 95) looks at how the turmoil of the 1960s sowed the seeds for today’s game. A recurrent theme is ballplayers’ fight for higher wages, and when the labor lawyer Marvin Miller was hired in 1966 to lead the players’ union, it was all over but the court filing: The Curt Flood case taking on baseball’s reserve clause would eventually lead to free agency. This excellent read also covers race relations and other social issues, as well as the decade’s most memorable teams, players and events. Free agency would eventually disrupt all clubs, but its earliest victims may have been the Oakland A’s. “Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $26) by Jason Turbow, recounts the team’s dominance, when it won three straight World Series with a lineup that included Reggie Jackson, Joe Rudi and Sal Bando and a pitching staff anchored by Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue and Rollie Fingers. By 1976, free agency broke up the squad, and the club’s owner, a sympathetically drawn Charlie Finley, would sell it a few years later. “Off Speed” (Pantheon, $23. 95) by Terry McDermott, tracks the evolution of pitching from its earliest days, when the ball was thrown underhanded, to the modern science of hurling one at virtually superhuman speeds. McDermott describes nine pitches, weaving player and coach interviews into an absorbing examination of this arcane art. (Along the way he discloses secrets of the game: How have I never heard of Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud?) As Jane Leavy did in “Sandy Koufax,” McDermott frames his book around the nine innings of a perfect game here it’s the one Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners threw in 2012. An ideal counterpart is “Almost Perfect” (Lyons, $26. 95) by Joe Cox. As that baseball fanatic Tolstoy almost wrote, “All perfect games resemble one another each imperfect game is imperfect in its own way. ” Cox analyzes the 16 games between 1908 and 2015 in which pitchers retired at least the first 26 batters they faced, only to see perfection elude them. The books will bring us safely home. Two fresh collections hail from north of the border. In “Baseball Life Advice” (McClelland Stewart, paperback, $18) the Canadian novelist Stacey May Fowles, an avid Toronto Blue Jays fan, raises topics not often discussed, starting with an affecting account of how, during periods of intense depression, the game kept her going when nothing else would. And her analysis of everything from Jose Bautista’s epic bat flip (she favors it) to Jose Reyes’s public rehabilitation after his suspension for domestic abuse (she’s opposed, mostly) brings a perspective that’s all too rare. “Fail Better” (Biblioasis, paperback, $16. 95) by Mark Kingwell, a University of Toronto philosophy professor, is a ballpark ramble of memoir, lore and nostalgia. Its north star is baseball’s its leisurely Zen gaps between actions. In one brief detour, he draws a line from Chicago’s championship to the election, days later, of Donald J. Trump. Kingwell doesn’t quite say it, but the implication is clear: This is what happens when the Cubs win the Series. | 1 |
Christian Dior has finally found its designer. In a move that will break up one of the most feted design teams in fashion, Maria Grazia Chiuri of Valentino is expected to be named artistic director of Dior, becoming the first woman to lead the brand in its history. The move, which is expected to be announced next month, has the potential to disrupt the luxury fashion landscape as Ms. Chiuri, now director at Valentino, parts ways with her longtime collaborator, Pierpaolo Piccioli. The news, reported earlier by Reuters, broke just a day after the Valentino men’s wear show in Paris and hours after Ms. Chiuri hosted a dinner in the city at Caviar Kaspia, on Place de la Madeleine, with Mr. Piccioli in celebration of the collection. Both Dior and Valentino declined to comment, but a person briefed on the negotiations confirmed the appointment. “I think it’s nothing short of a brilliant appointment,” said Robert Burke, founder of his own luxury consultancy. “It makes perfect sense from both an aesthetic standpoint and a consumer standpoint. There are few brands that compete with Dior, but Valentino is one. ” Ms. Chiuri and Mr. Piccioli were appointed directors at Valentino in 2008, staying at the Italian fashion house when it was sold by the private equity group Permira to the Mayhoola for Investments in 2012. Together they brought Valentino to status, making it a darling of both the fashion and celebrity worlds in the process. Annual sales have more than quadrupled, to 987 million euros, since 2009 as Ms. Chiuri, Mr. Piccioli and Stefano Sassi, Valentino’s chief executive, led an expansion of the brand’s product range and distribution. And after it nearly doubled its profit on revenue of more than $1 billion in 2015, there has been growing speculation in the luxury industry about an initial public offering of stock. The fashion house said this year that it expected revenue to grow at a pace in 2016, and it has plans to open about 25 stores globally. The company now operates 130 shops directly and is aiming for about 200 in the next two to three years. The Dior appointment will be Ms. Chiuri’s first solo design post and will leave Mr. Piccioli alone at the creative helm of Valentino. Ms. Chiuri originally hired Mr. Piccioli to work with her in the accessories department of Fendi in 1992, and the two have moved in tandem since then. They have been professionally so intertwined that they often finish each other’s sentences, handwritten letters, send emails from the same account and dress alike in matching black trouser suits. “I always thought of them as a team, not as individuals. The big question is whether they can do separately what they did together,” said Mr. Burke. “That’s the risk. ” Scott Schuman, a photographer known as “The Sartorialist” who worked in a wholesale showroom that sold Valentino early in his career, said, “I am interested to see how they play on their own. ” He continued: “A lot of the couture labels seem like golden cages. The sensibility I understand for her, she’ll create clothes you can buy and wear — not just accessories. ” Ms. Chiuri will be joining Dior at a delicate time. The luxury market is expected to grow only 2 percent this year, according to a study from Bain Company and Altagamma, the Italian trade association. Dior has been since October, when its artistic director, Raf Simons, left the company after three years. Mr. Simons had been appointed after the firing of John Galliano, who had been accused of a drunken rant. Mr. Simons was credited with not only modernizing the Dior aesthetic, but also restoring an internal calm to the fashion house. His departure threw it into limbo once again. Rumors that Ms. Chiuri was being considered for the artistic director position had been circulating in the fashion world since the beginning of the year. However, the job has traditionally involved only women’s wear and not men’s wear, designed by Kris Van Assche jewelry, designed by Victoire de Castellane or retail, designed by Peter Marino, and it was viewed as difficult to fill. This had to do with both its demands — six collections a year, including Cruise collections in exotic locations — and its limitations, including the involvement of celebrity ambassadors. Mr. Simons, for example, was said to be particularly upset to discover he had not been consulted on the signing of Rihanna as a Dior face, given the gulf between the aesthetic he had established for the brand and that of the pop star. The parent company of Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Dior is the cornerstone of the luxury empire built by Bernard Arnault, its chairman and chief executive. Though it reported more than €5 billion in sales last year and has 195 stores worldwide, of its revenue came from perfumes and cosmetics. Christian Dior Couture, which includes all the clothing lines, contributed €1. 8 billion to sales in 2015. Recent shows created by the internal design team led by Serge Ruffieux and Lucie Meier have been met with tepid applause, and Dior’s fashion sales growth has fallen in the last 18 months, going from growth to flat in the first quarter of 2016. A dip in tourist numbers to Europe after terror attacks in Paris and Brussels and sales declines in several crucial Asian markets contributed to the losses. Ms. Chiuri will be charged with reversing that trend. In Paris, Pamela Golbin, chief curator of fashion and textiles at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, noted Ms. Chiuri’s long successful track record and willingness to grow. “She does have an incredible knowledge of haute couture, and that’s going to be a very important aspect of her job,” Ms. Golbin said. “There aren’t that many people who have shown over a long period of time that they could take it to the next level and have it evolve. She’s done that over the years at Valentino. What will happen at Dior is a big question. ” The next couture season, scheduled for the week of July 4, will herald Ms. Chiuri’s final show with Mr. Piccioli. A new era for Dior, Valentino and their designers will begin in September with the women’s shows. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering deep cuts in the budgets of the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency as it looks for money to ratchet up security along the southern border, according to a person familiar with the administration’s draft budget request. The goal is to shift about $5 billion toward hiring scores of additional agents for Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as toward infrastructure to support a crackdown on illegal immigration at the border. A significant portion of the money would go toward erecting a wall along the border with Mexico, one of President Trump’s signature campaign promises. To fund those efforts, though, the plan would seek significant reductions in other areas, including a 14 percent cut to the Coast Guard’s $9. 1 billion budget and 11 percent cuts to both the T. S. A. and FEMA. The three agencies have played roles in the Department of Homeland Security’s . 11 security architecture. All told, the plan would increase the department’s budget by 6. 4 percent, to $43. 8 billion, for the 2018 fiscal year, also using savings from other executive branch departments to fund it. News of the proposal, which was first reported by Politico on Tuesday, has befuddled longtime veterans of the Department of Homeland Security. Lawmakers in both parties indicated they would scrutinize, and perhaps even oppose, a slew of potential cuts they argued would not only expose new weaknesses but also undermine Mr. Trump’s own strongly stated goals of curtailing terrorism, narcotics and illegal immigration. “It’s a little bit like putting an extra lock on the front door and none on the back door,” said Michael Chertoff, who led the Homeland Security Department for four years. “You are not really protecting the house. ” Reports of the proposal were confirmed to The New York Times by an official who had seen the documents and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the closely guarded budgeting process. Mr. Trump is expected to present the budget this month, although it already is viewed as a largely aspirational proposal created by the Office of Management and Budget of the White House and individual departments to set priorities for Congress. A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department said he could not comment on the deliberations, and John Czwartacki, a spokesman for the budget office, said it was “premature” to discuss any proposals before an official budget blueprint was released. “The president and his cabinet are working collaboratively as we speak to create a budget that keeps the president’s promises to secure the country and prioritize taxpayer funds,” Mr. Czwartacki said. Still, reports of the cuts prompted considerable pushback on Capitol Hill, where several of the lawmakers who will eventually vote on appropriating money to the department expressed doubts that the proposal would serve Mr. Trump’s stated goals. Of chief concern were the potential cuts to the Coast Guard, the nation’s primary domestic maritime security force, which lawmakers and experts said had already been stretched thin by the wars on drugs, illegal immigration and terrorism. “Given the vital installations they guard and how many drugs and contraband they intercept along our maritime borders, cutting the Coast Guard to pay for a vacuous and expensive vanity project like a border wall would be dangerous and irrational,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, said in a statement on Wednesday. Representative Duncan Hunter, a California Republican who is chairman of the subcommittee on the Coast Guard and maritime transportation, was even more acerbic, calling the proposal “an insult” that would put the nation’s security at risk. The proposal also appears to have drawn the ire of Senator Thad Cochran, Republican of Mississippi, who leads the appropriations committee through which any budget must eventually pass. It was Mr. Cochran who in 2015 successfully pushed to build an additional $600 million cutter for the Coast Guard at Ingalls Shipbuilding in his home state — an order the budget plan now recommends be canceled. The proposal would seek other savings to the Coast Guard by cutting the use of Maritime Security Response Teams, patrol and first responder teams with advanced counterterrorism training, and delaying other new purchases. “Chairman Cochran appreciates the Coast Guard’s important role in protecting U. S. national security interests,” Mr. Cochran’s spokesman, Chris Gallegos, said on Wednesday. “Any proposals to reduce support for the Coast Guard will receive careful scrutiny in Congress. ” In addition to monitoring the United States’ waterways for foreign and domestic threats, the Coast Guard plays a significant role in combating problems Mr. Trump wants to address. In the 2016 fiscal year alone, it intercepted more than 6, 000 undocumented immigrants, and 200 metric tons of cocaine and 52, 000 pounds of marijuana worth almost $6 billion, according to its spokeswoman, Lt. Amy Midgett. Should law enforcement officials clamp down on the land crossings into the United States, experts said, the maritime interdiction role would most likely only increase, putting additional pressure on the Coast Guard. “Where do you think drug smugglers and illegal immigrants will go next if you make the land border more impervious?” said David Heyman, who was assistant Homeland Security secretary for policy from 2009 to 2014. “It’s obvious they would next try to sneak in by sea or by air, which is precisely what the administration is trying to cut. ” The proposed cuts at the T. S. A. the agency tasked with protecting air travel in the United States, and FEMA, which is best known for providing disaster relief, are relatively smaller, but they have likewise raised concerns about opening up new vulnerabilities to the nation’s transit hubs and cities. Within the T. S. A. the proposal calls for the elimination of a handful of programs that have played a critical role in airport security and counterterrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They include a program that trains pilots to respond to an attempted armed takeover of the cockpit a grant program that supports local law enforcement patrols at airports and another, the Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response program, that sends both undercover and highly visible officers to conduct security sweeps in airports and train stations. At FEMA, potential cuts would target for reduction an array of grants to state and local governments that have helped fund the development of emergency preparedness and response plans for natural disasters and events. The proposed savings would allow the Homeland Security Department to take significant steps toward addressing Mr. Trump’s priorities along the border between the United States and Mexico. The plan would free up funds to begin paying for the border wall, to construct detention facilities, and to hire an additional 500 Border Patrol agents and 1, 000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who will be responsible for border security and the deportation of immigrants already in the country illegally. Mr. Chertoff said that considering the department’s overall imperatives, it made little sense to so strengthen one portion of the budget at the expense of another, critical area. “If you are going to look at the mission of D. H. S. in which priority No. 1 is security, you have to take an approach to the budget that balances all the elements of security,” he said. | 1 |
2016 presidential campaign by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
The GOP won at the polls, but Black, brown and working class Democrats have been taking a beating from their own party for decades. “The Democratic Party has failed to deliver even small net increments of social justice to its base constituencies, always giving away more than it gained, and at times taking the lead in savaging the people.” Hillary Clinton hoped to lead a Government of Ruling Class Consensus – a victory only for the One Percent. The Democratic Debacle – The Day After by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“The net economic loss to the people -- especially the masses of Black folks, who have been stripped of much of the gains of the Sixties and Seventies, and nearly all of their household wealth – has been staggering and unrelenting.”
The White Nationalists won and Hillary Clinton’s Big Tent, the bastion of the ruling class that Blacks and browns were led to believe was their sanctuary, has ignominiously folded. The media echo chamber smothered the deep, rumbling sounds of the impending quake, allowing only the corporate consensus to be heard outside the precincts of the Deplorables. But Deplorables want good jobs, too, and a future secure from the predations of Mad Capital, if only for their own “kind.” Whites in the “Rust Belt” joined with Confederates to choose their own brand of “lesser evil” – evils being the only items on the duopoly menu.
Social democrats – a broad group that includes the vast bulk of Black America, according to political scientist Michael Dawson -- huddled around the latrine of Hillary’s Big Tent, trying desperately to perfume the stench. Except for a few percentage points worth of Green voters, they opted, once again, for a fraudulent “incrementalism” – a foolishness dressed up as “pragmatism” and even masquerading as high “strategy” -- which has led “progressives” straight down a road to disaster in the neoliberal era. (My excessive use of quotation marks is intended to convey that even the language of much leftish discourse is crafted for the purpose of surrender to Power.)
“Whites in the ‘Rust Belt’ joined with Confederates to choose their own brand of ‘lesser evil’ – evils being the only items on the duopoly menu.”
Rather than gradually strengthening the political hand of the working and oppressed classes, bit by bit, year by year -- which is the purported justification for incrementalism -- progressive slavishness to the Democratic Party has facilitated the deepening dictatorship of capital. The net economic loss to the people -- especially the masses of Black folks, who have been stripped of much of the gains of the Sixties and Seventies, and nearly all of their household wealth – has been staggering and unrelenting.
For the past 40 years and more, Democrats have been perfect partners in the Dance of the Duopolists. It’s a simple two-step. The basic move is: the Democrats hug as closely as possible to the left flank of the Republican Party, thus staying within dog-whistle range of the White Man’s Party’s core base, rooted in white supremacy, while claiming everything to the left of Robert E. Lee as Democratic turf, including the huge, heavily Black social democratic electorate whose progressive agenda the Democrats have no intention of substantively addressing.
The Clintons turned this two-step into a disciplined tango with their GOP partners. In 1994, the Republicans threatened to launch a social justice Armageddon through their Contract with America -- legislation they were incapable of fully enacting, however, without some level of Democratic consent. The Clintons vowed to defend Black, brown and poor people from the GOP barbarians at the gate – and wound up ramming through Congress corporate-crafted measures that the Republicans could not have passed on their own. Bill and Hillary cut a rug to that tune for eight years in the White House, stomping out welfare as we knew it, eviscerating Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal banking regulations, presiding over the largest surge in mass Black incarceration in modern history, and delivering the broadcast spectrum to monopoly media, all the while pretending to defend a “progressive agenda.”
“Islamic jihadists were enlisted en mass as U.S. imperialism’s hellish foreign legion in the Muslim world.”
On the foreign policy side, the Clintons pioneered Washington’s “humanitarian” military intervention doctrine, later refined by Barack Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bill Clinton set in motion the worst genocide since World War Two, a holocaust that has killed at least six million people under three US. administrations, and still counting. Humanitarian intervention, or Responsibility to Protect (R2P), became Obama’s favored instrument of aggression, a more domestically palatable alternative to George Bush’s massive boots-on-the-ground fiasco in Iraq. Islamic jihadists were enlisted en mass as U.S. imperialism’s hellish foreign legion in the Muslim world. Together, “New” Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton turned Syria and Libya into maelstroms of slaughter and moved towards nuclear war with Russia.
Obama’s domestic aggressions on behalf of Big Capital were equally bold. With both houses of Congress in Democratic hands and the GOP on the ropes in 2009, he rushed to put Social Security, Medicare and “all entitlements” “on the table” for cutting. Now dancing by himself, not even bothering to triangulate in the Clinton style, Obama tried to forge a “Grand Bargain” with the GOP by pulverizing the remnants of the social safety net. Only the Republicans' institutional imperative to defeat, rather than collaborate with, -- its white supremacist DNA -- prevented consummation of the Grand Bargain, Obama’s Holy Grail.
From Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama, the Democratic Party has failed to deliver even small net increments of social justice to its base constituencies, always giving away more than it gained, and at times taking the lead in savaging the people. There is no historical basis in the neoliberal era for the claim that the Democratic Party provides net incremental benefits to Black and working people, or that the party can be seized from its corporate masters and transformed into a machine that fights for the people. It fights for Capital – tooth and nail, as Bernie Sanders’ followers discovered.
“The First Black President rushed to put Social Security, Medicare and ‘all entitlements’ ‘on the table’ for cutting.”
Hillary Clinton seized the opportunity presented by the Trump-generated split in the GOP to create a ruling class consensus and headquarters in her own campaign tent. It was the ultimate betrayal, the incubator of a thoroughly corporatized Democratic Party – an undertaker of social democracy. Instead, the White Deplorables derailed her, as they had earlier derailed the Republican corporate establishment.
Thus, the crisis of legitimacy in U.S. ruling institutions deepens.
It now appears, in the early hours of President Elect Donald Trump, that the new administration will be a conventional rightwing Republican regime, with a cast of villains including Newt “Contract with America” Gingrich, and a Vice President Mike Pence in the role of Dick “The Real President” Cheney. Maybe Trump will insist on giving peace with Russia and China a chance, maybe not. The Trans Pacific Partnership is probably dead, unless it can somehow be resurrected in the lame duck session of Congress that begins next week, but there is no way Republicans or Democrats will slap 35 percent tariffs on U.S. corporations’ foreign-produced goods. That’s rhetorical theater a la Trump.
The Trump regime has no fix for the ills of late stage capitalism that have immiserated both the triumphant Deplorables and the darker folks they scapegoat, and whom they can be counted on to harass, repress and deport. Neither does the Democratic Party, whose next administration, had it not been still-born, would have served the interests of the One Percent even more dependably than did Obama.
Leave Hillary’s nasty tent in the dirt, where it lies. The people need vibrant social movements that will produce new leadership in struggle and shape the parties of the future. BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted | 0 |
It was revealed Monday that President Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice allegedly ordered the unmasking of the identities of Trump campaign aides who were reportedly being surveilled during the 2016 election. [The recent reports further prove, at least in part, President Donald Trump’s claims that senior Obama officials had collected intelligence on Trump aids and disseminated it throughout the government. Rice’s involvement — as it relates to her reported role in the unmasking of Trump aids and circulating sensitive information — places the longtime Obama operative at the center of another major political scandal. Below are five facts from Susan Rice scandals every American should know. 1. Susan Rice allegedly ordered surveillance of Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign aides as part of a political intelligence operation. Rice allegedly maintained spreadsheets of Trump aides’ telephone calls “one year before the 2016 presidential election,” according to the Daily Caller. The Daily Caller reports: “What was produced by the intelligence community at the request of Ms. Rice were detailed spreadsheets of intercepted phone calls with unmasked Trump associates in perfectly legal conversations with individuals,” diGenova told The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group Monday. “The overheard conversations involved no illegal activity by anybody of the Trump associates, or anyone they were speaking with,” diGenova said. “In short, the only apparent illegal activity was the unmasking of the people in the calls. ” 2. Rice claimed that climate change was responsible for the deadly civil war in Syria. “In the years prior to civil war breaking out in Syria, that country also experienced its worst drought on record,” Rice said in October 2015, during a speech at Stanford University. “Farming families moved en masse into urban centers, increasing political unrest and further priming the country for conflict. ” Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed in the conflict since President Barack Obama drew his infamous “red line” in 2012, promising to retaliate against Syrian President Bashar ’s regime if it used chemical weapons on its own people. 3. Rice once declared that there is “no military solution” to the raging conflict in Yemen. “As in Syria, there is no military solution to the crisis in Yemen,” Rice said in April 2015, during a speech at the Arab American Institute’s Kahlil Gibran Gala. Seven months before Rice’s speech, President Obama had called his administration’s drone military operation in Yemen a success story. President Trump, however, ordered more airstrikes against in Yemen in February than any year in Obama’s presidency. 4. Susan Rice said accused deserter Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl served “with honor and distinction. ” In March 2015, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was charged with treason for allegedly deserting his fellow soldiers and abandoning his Afghanistan outpost in 2009. In a June 2014 broadcast of ABC’s This Week, Susan Rice defended Bergdahl, saying he “served the United States with honor and distinction. And we’ll have the opportunity eventually to learn what has transpired in the past years. ” As Breitbart News reported, six soldiers lost their lives searching for First Class Bowe Bergdahl after he abandoned his outpost. 5. Susan Rice was the driving force behind a misinformation campaign about the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi terror attacks. Ambassador Rice, acting as the Obama White House’s spokeswoman, appeared on five Sunday morning talk shows and repeatedly claimed that the Benghazi attacks had been caused by an video. Rice appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, and CNN and regurgitated talking points purporting that the protests that had erupted “spontaneously” near two U. S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya and were a result of a “hateful video” that was offensive to Islam. But government documents, released following a Judicial Watch lawsuit, reveal that government officials monitoring the attack in did not cite an video as an explanation for the paramilitary attack on the U. S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi. In May 2015 interview, former Obama CIA Director Mike Morell said Rice’s Benghazi talking points blaming an YouTube video crossed “the line between national security and politics. ” “I think the line in there that says one of our objectives here right on the Sunday show is to blame the video rather than a failure of policy,” Morell said on Fox News’ Special Report. “And as you know, I say in the book that I think that that is crossing the line between national security and politics. ” Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson | 1 |
Oh, Loretta.
I’ll bet that AG Loretta Lynch is shaking in her boots right now, because when Hillary Clinton goes down, Lynch’s career will go down with her. Heck, maybe they’ll even be cellmates.
Loretta Lynch’s ties to the Clintons go back to 1999 when then-President Bill Clinton appointed her to run the Brooklyn US Attorney’s office. She left in 2002 and went into private practice, but returned to the Brooklyn office in 2010 at the behest of President Barack Obama. ( Here’s her official bio. )
In 2015, she was sworn in to become the 83rd Attorney General of the United States, taking the place of the blatantly corrupt Attorney General, Eric Holder , who will probably be most famous for his roles in the Fast and Furious operation, inciting racial tensions, and his mishandling of the Lois Lerner/IRS debacle.
First, there was the secret airplane meeting with Bill Clinton
It all started to publicly go downhill for Lynch during the first investigation into Hillary Clinton’s carelessness with national secrets via her home email server . Right before FBI Director James Comey was to meet with Hillary Clinton to interrogate her about the subject, Lynch was busted having a secret meeting with Bill Clinton. The Washington Post reported:
Clinton’s private, unplanned meeting with Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch at the Phoenix airport last week, coming at a time when the Justice Department should be nearing completion of its examination of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server for her emails as secretary of state, will inevitably — and negatively — affect public attitudes about that investigation…
…Lynch has tried to make amends, though not without leaving some confusion in her wake. In a conversation Friday with Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart at the Aspen Ideas Festival, she insisted again that the conversation was innocent — about grandchildren and golf and such — and did not touch on the investigation of the emails.
But she said she recognized that others would not see it that way. “The fact that the meeting that I had is now casting a shadow over how people are going to view that work is something that I take seriously, and deeply and painfully,” she said.
Lynch said that she would “be accepting” whatever recommendation the career prosecutors and FBI Director James B. Comey bring her — though she did not say she would remove herself completely from the case. She also said she had made that decision some months ago but was only now making it public.
Of course, it was all much easier for Lynch to abide by the decision when Comey miraculously found that Hillary Clinton was not criminal in her negligence with national secrets.
Now, though, people are asking questions about that ill-founded meeting. Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit for “all records” related to the illicit meeting between Attorney General Lynch and former President Bill Clinton.
“On June 29, 2016, Attorney General Loretta Lynch is reported to have met privately with former President Bill Clinton on board a parked private plane at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona. The meeting occurred during the then-ongoing investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s email server, and mere hours before the Benghazi report was released publicly involving both Mrs. Clinton and the Obama administration. Judicial Watch filed a request on June 30 that the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General investigate that meeting.”
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump suggested that during that meeting, Bill Clinton may have offered to extend Lynch’s position in the AG’s office during a Hillary Clinton administration.
Then she blocked a congressional investigation into the notorious Iranian ransom payment.
Last week, AG Lynch blocked a congressional investigation into the cash payments that the Obama administration made to Iran by pleading the Fifth. The Washington Free Beacon reported:
Attorney General Loretta Lynch is declining to comply with an investigation by leading members of Congress about the Obama administration’s secret efforts to send Iran $1.7 billion in cash earlier this year, prompting accusations that Lynch has “pleaded the Fifth” Amendment to avoid incriminating herself over these payments, according to lawmakers and communications exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon …
…“It is frankly unacceptable that your department refuses to answer straightforward questions from the people’s elected representatives in Congress about an important national security issue,” the lawmakers wrote. “Your staff failed to address any of our questions, and instead provided a copy of public testimony and a lecture about the sensitivity of information associated with this issue.”
“As the United States’ chief law enforcement officer, it is outrageous that you would essentially plead the fifth and refuse to respond to inquiries,” they stated. “The actions of your department come at time when Iran continues to hold Americans hostage and unjustly sentence them to prison.”
How very judicial of her.
Lynch tried to shut Comey up about the new investigation into the Clinton emails.
Now, even the mainstream media can’t turn its head.
Earlier I wrote about the fact that FBI Director James Comey made the decision on his own to go public about the new investigation into the Hillary Clinton emails. But let’s talk a little further about Lynch’s desperate attempts to shut him up.
The New York Times reported that the Justice Department “strongly discouraged Comey” against releasing the information:
The day before the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, sent a letter to Congress announcing that new evidence had been discovered that might be related to the completed Hillary Clinton email investigation, the Justice Department strongly discouraged the step and told him that he would be breaking with longstanding policy, three law enforcement officials said on Saturday.
Senior Justice Department officials did not move to stop him from sending the letter, officials said, but they did everything short of it, pointing to policies against talking about current criminal investigations or being seen as meddling in elections.
How interesting that it’s seen as “influencing the election” to investigate someone now but it wasn’t back when she was investigated and not charged. I’m not sure exactly how that works, but according to USA Today (emphasis mine), a “…federal official familiar with Comey’s decision said Saturday that the FBI director considered the attorney general’s advice during a spirited discussion of the matter Thursday and early Friday but felt compelled to act.”
Do you remember Janet Reno?
Poor Janet was another Attorney General who went down for the Clintons. She was also sworn in as AG under Bill Clinton, and many questioned her appointment at the time. According to a report in the Chicago Tribune :
She arrived in Washington from Miami as Caesar’s wife, and so she has remained. She was ignorant and independent of insider D.C. and has stayed that way. Bill Clinton never much liked her and never confided in her, and she reciprocated.
She became AG just in time to take the fall for the debacle in Waco , actually. According to History.com
The Waco standoff had already begun by the time Janet Reno became the first female attorney general on March 12, 1993. She approved the FBI’s tear gas plan the following month, explaining that negotiations with the Branch Davidians had stalemated and that the children inside the compound were at risk. “We will never know whether there was a better solution,” Reno said in 1995. “Everyone involved … made their best judgments based on all the information we had.” Nonetheless, a Republican-led congressional report called her decision “premature, wrong and highly irresponsible.” She was also criticized when facts emerged contradicting some of her earlier statements.
The Tribune post continued to discuss Reno’s position as a scapegoat:
Every day since she took office , she has been supervising at least one probe embarrassing to Clinton–Whitewater, fundraising, Lewinsky, China espionage, etc. Clinton can’t afford the political beating he would take if he cashiered her.
…But no such attorney general could have survived the Clinton scandals, much less survived them with her own reputation–and her department’s–intact.
Attorney Generals who have anything to do with the Clintons don’t seem to fare too well. They end up so embroiled in Clinton scandals that they, too, are pulled down into the mire, regardless of what their intentions were when they started out.
Lynch can see her future…and it has something to do with “Help Wanted” ads
The last time Lynch was involved in the Clinton email kerfuffle, she promised to abide by FBI Director James Comey’s recommendation.
I wonder if she’ll make that same promise this time?
She really can’t, because if she does, it will show she was complicit with the Clintons the last time around, and also this time when she decried Comey’s release of information about the investigation.
I wonder if she and Hillary Clinton will be able to get adjoining cells when/if the truth comes out. Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
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Contributed by Daisy Luther of DaisyLuther.com . | 0 |
Wolf Blitzer Walks Into Middle Of Olive Garden Commercial To Announce Breaking Election Results Close Vol 52 Issue 44 · News Media · Election 2016
NEW YORK—Briskly striding into frame and interrupting a jubilant family meal, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer reportedly entered the middle of an Olive Garden commercial airing during the network’s election coverage Tuesday night to announce a late-breaking election result. “Breaking news: CNN is calling Nevada for Hillary Clinton,” said Blitzer, stepping directly in front of a smiling mother passing a heaping plate of fettucine alfredo to her daughter and shushing the laughter of surrounding tables so that he could add that the victory dealt a severe blow to Donald Trump’s chances of reaching the Oval Office. “We are projecting that Secretary Clinton will take the crucial swing state’s six electoral votes, putting her on the inside track to securing the 270 electoral votes needed—hey, excuse me, will you please keep it down?—needed to win the presidency.” At press time, Blitzer was ducking in panic as the Olive Garden logo came swooping into frame. Share This Story: WATCH VIDEO FROM THE ONION Sign up For The Onion's Newsletter
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Russia prevented Spain from diplomatical conflict denying its proposal 27.10.2016 | Source: AP Photo
Russian ships led by the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier will not enter into the Spanish harbor of Ceuta because of the naval group's route change, the Russian embassy in Spain said Wednesday.
"We confirm that the ships will not enter the Ceuta port because the route has changed," stated the embassy official.
Earlier the Spanish Foreign Ministry said that Madrid was considering granting the Russian naval task group access to Ceuta on October 28-November 2, drawing criticism from NATO.
On October 15, the Russian Northern Fleet's press service said that a group of warships headed by the Admiral Kuznetsov, accompanied by the Pyotr Veliky battle cruiser, the Severomorsk and Vice-Admiral Kulakov anti-submarine destroyers, and support vessels, had been sent to the Mediterranean to hold drills and strengthen capabilities.
Such decision may sound ridiculous due to the fact that a week ago Spain has signed the EU's announce on Russian's military offence in Aleppo. Moreover, two weeks ago Spain had developed a resolution that blamed Russian's military activities in Syria.
Pravda.Ru's political expert Alexander Chichin revealed the nature of the contrariety of Spain's policy on Russia.
Expert said that this decision is connected with NATO's attitude. Initially it all was referred to one tanker which was not an issue for Spain. Then they discovered that there was a whole fleet. Afterwards spanish realised that this fleet included aircraft carrier 'Admiral Kusnetsov', cruiser 'Pyotr Veliky' and antisubmarine aircraft carrier 'Severomorsk'.
That's why Spain had to refuse. At the moment spanish people say that they are very ashamed for not refusing straight away. They are disappointed that they have recieved NATO's warn.
It is worth mentiong that Spain could have got benefits from this proposal because the country needs money. These ships during only six days could make a great sum of money from Russia to Spain.
Spain had to choose between its international authoriy and its inner financial profits. Abandonnig the proposal, Russia saved Spain from resolving this kind of dilemma.
Pravda.Ru
Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru Will Spain rise to glory with Felipe VI? | 0 |
Forty years later, a moment in the annals of presidential debates remains a classic, worth recalling as Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump prepare to go head to head on Monday. “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe,” President Gerald R. Ford declared when he went up against Jimmy Carter in 1976, “and there never will be under a Ford administration. ” Reality could not have been more starkly different, and it was reflected in the startled reaction of a debate panelist who had brought up the issue: Max Frankel, a senior editor at The New York Times, who then became the newspaper’s editorial page editor and later executive editor. “I’m sorry,” Mr. Frankel said. He continued: “Did I understand you to say, sir, that the Russians are not using Eastern Europe as their own sphere of influence and occupying most of the countries there and making sure with their troops that it’s a Communist zone?” Undeterred, Ford went on to say that several Eastern European nations he named did not think of themselves as and that “the United States does not concede” any domination exists. His misstep and the panelist’s instant response are recalled in an examination of presidential debates by Retro Report, a series of documentaries that explore important news stories of the past and their lasting impact. How deeply the debaters should be scrutinized is a question with special resonance this year, given that Mr. Trump, in particular, has earned enough “Pinocchios” from fact checkers to fill many Geppetto workshops. Then, too, the scheduled moderator for a third debate, Chris Wallace of Fox News, has shrugged off suggestions that it is his duty to hold the candidates accountable if they leave critical facts in the dust. “I don’t view my role as ” he said, a comment that has drawn considerable fire. “” even if it was not called that, became the most enduring memory from that 1976 debate. Actually, Mr. Frankel thought he was tossing the president a lifeline, not a gotcha line. “My giving Ford a chance to clarify was instinctive,” born of journalistic tradition, he said in a recent email exchange. “We do not trap a president with trick questions or acquiesce in confusion. We aim to explain policy, and should follow up if he has left his meaning unclear. ” Across the years, presidential debates have tended to be remembered less for their intellectual heft than for their gaffes and be it Ford’s stumble, or Ronald Reagan’s “there you go again” riposte in 1980, or Michael Dukakis’s bloodless answer in 1988 on how he would react if his wife were raped and murdered, or George Bush’s impatient glance at his wristwatch in 1992, or Al Gore’s exasperated exhaling in 2000 — proof that Herman Hupfeld didn’t get it quite right in his song, “As Time Goes By,” of “Casablanca” fame. Sometimes, a sigh is not just a sigh. But whether bloopers and snappy retorts are game changers is a question that has dogged presidential election debates since the first one, held on another Sept. 26, in 1960, between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Their encounter is Retro Report’s main focus, notably the story line that swiftly took root. It held that Kennedy won on good looks alone, that against a light backdrop he appeared crisp and commanding in his dark suit while Nixon, recovering from an injury, looked pale and sweaty, his bearing hardly improved by an gray suit. Those who saw none of that and only listened on radio — a far more common situation in 1960 America than today — believed Nixon had triumphed. So the story went. Many scholars have debunked that narrative, among them David Greenberg, a professor of history, journalism and media studies at Rutgers University. In the Retro Report video, Professor Greenberg contends that Kennedy’s overall performance, not just his looks, won the day. He showed, as a senator, that he could hold his own again a sitting vice president. As for Nixon’s supposedly prevailing on radio, the evidence for that is skimpy because, Professor Greenberg noted, no scientifically rigorous surveys were done at the time. (Whatever the reality, Nixon felt burned by the experience and came to view television warily — until he ran again for president in 1968, this time successfully, tutored in the art of the camera by a young producer named Roger Ailes. Mr. Ailes, ousted in July as chairman of Fox News, is once again a media mentor, for Mr. Trump.) When it comes to substance, and not just a stumble here or a clever line there, can a debate make or break a candidacy? Experts have long been divided. Some consider the debates decisive. That view was offered last month by Gary May, a University of Delaware historian, who wrote on the Daily Beast website, “For good or ill, television’s laserlike eye reveals the candidates’ fitness for the presidency. ” Well, maybe not, suggests another academician, John Sides, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University. Writing in Washington Monthly in 2012, Professor Sides said, “Scholars who have looked most carefully at the data have found that, when it comes to shifting enough votes to decide the outcome of the election, presidential debates have rarely, if ever, mattered. ” Even blunders may not be right away. Mr. Frankel acknowledged that he himself had not immediately recognized the damaging potential of Ford’s “no Soviet domination” remarks. Many other Americans also failed to see it until newspaper and television analyses shaped their consensus that a serious presidential slip had occurred. These days, voters no longer need to wait for received wisdom to form. They can get it, or at least what passes for wisdom, in real time by watching squiggly lines on their television screens that represent focus group impressions of the candidates, or by following an avalanche of opinions put forth by the commentariat on Twitter and other social media. As a share of the United States population, the television audience for debates has declined. The number of viewers in 2012, about 67 million, was pretty much what it was in 1960. But there were an estimated 314 million Americans in 2012 and only 180 million in 1960. Of course, millions of people these days, both in this country and overseas, may be tuning in via online streaming services. In decline or not, “debates are important,” Mr. Frankel said, “because we normally get so few opportunities to meet the candidates and confront them with difficult questions. ” For Professor Greenberg, the merits of what the candidates say onstage may not be as important as the mere fact that they stand there, subjecting themselves to a grilling before millions of eyes and ears. “Debates draw strength from their status as important rituals,” he wrote in the journal Daedalus in 2009. The experience, he said, “serves, in some quiet way, to thicken our commitments to political life. ” | 1 |
Parent activists battling to replace the Common Core standards in West Virginia are outraged that the very Republican lawmakers who sponsored a bill to replace the Core with highly acclaimed standards have voted to amend the legislation. [“I am just sick and tired of seeing the unethical actions, stretching the truth, manipulating the circumstances and using rules and regulations written by an administrative agency, i. e. the State Board of Education, to control the of our children,” West Virginia education activist David Flinn tells Breitbart News. “The truth is never heard or seen by the people and even some of the legislators because the whole story is never aired. ” Some Republican lawmakers and education bureaucrats in West Virginia are jointly explaining their actions by declaring that the Common Core standards have already been “repealed” in the state when, in fact, the current standards — called the West Virginia and Standards — consist of language that is identical to Common Core. The legislators succeeded in altering a bill that would have replaced the rudimentary Common Core standards in the state with the highly acclaimed 1997 California math standards and the equally celebrated 2001 Massachusetts English and Language Arts (ELA) standards. SB 524 now no longer requires the state to adopt any new standards, but still says the state Board of Education is “prohibited from implementing Common Core academic standards. ” State Sen. Robert Karnes, a Republican and a sponsor of the original measure, actually suggested the amendment to the bill that removed the adoption of the California and Massachusetts standards. Another of Karnes’s amendments changed the date West Virginia would be “prohibited from implementing Common Core academic standards” from July 1, 2017, to July 1, 2018. Karnes spoke at length with Breitbart News, describing the intense political pressure from Core forces and their political allies to keep the current state standards, which, he agrees, amount to a “Common Core rebrand. ” “I would say our current standards are well over 99 percent the same as Common Core,” he states. “I don’t disagree with that. ” Karnes says he appreciates the California and Massachusetts standards, and even spent time over a year ago speaking with Dr. Sandra Stotsky, who helped develop the Massachusetts ELA standards. Dr. Jim Milgram of Stanford University led the development of the 1997 California math standards. He explains: I’m fine with those standards, but there was a real concerted effort by some to … I don’t know if you could exactly say slander, but let’s just say they hit those standards very hard for being old and out of touch … and it was carrying a lot of weight. So, the amendment, essentially, served one purpose, and that was to keep the bill alive and move it over to the House. And there’s an effort over there to define more clearly what we did in the amendment, essentially saying that state teachers, state educators, will be involved in any standards formulation, adoption, etc. We put that in there, and I’m told that on the House side they’ve got some even better language. But, having those specific standards in there, I believe would have essentially killed the bill. It’s better to keep it moving than to watch it die. Some Republicans in the state senate, however, are proclaiming Common Core to be already dead in West Virginia. State Senate Education Committee chairman Kenny Mann, a Republican who the original bill to replace Common Core with the higher level standards, held up a state death certificate on the West Virginia Senate floor and said, “I want to just use this to say that Common Core is dead in West Virginia. I strongly believe that. ” Parent education activist Erin Tuttle, who dealt with a similar struggle against establishment Republican lawmakers in Indiana, testified early on before a West Virginia House education committee about a bill to repeal Common Core in that state. She tells Breitbart News: Despite boastful claims from state legislators that Common Core was repealed, the people of West Virginia aren’t buying it. The fact that every school is still using Common Core textbooks and administering a Common Core test (Smarter Balance) is an everyday reminder to students, parents, and teachers that the state legislature’s claim is false. Education bureaucrats and their political allies, however, are continuing the narrative that all standards are basically the same and that the California and Massachusetts standards are outdated. According to the Charleston bureaucrat Sarah Stewart, director of policy and government relations for the West Virginia Department of Education, said her department recommended removing the renowned California and Massachusetts standards from the bill. She added that, with the removal of the amendment to adopt the standards, the state board of education would now not be required to change the current standards. “I think all standards have a layer of commonality,” Stewart said. “We’re not arbitrarily gonna teach something different at third grade just for the sake of being different. So I think that our standards that we have in place were adopted with the input of teachers, so we will have met the statutory requirements if this bill passes. ” “State Schools Superintendent Michael Martirano publicly argues that the state school board already repealed Common Core when it made its last revisions to the standards,” reports the . Democrat state Sen. Bob Plymale, reports The Legislature, a West Virginia School Board Association publication, questioned state Senate Majority Leader Ryan Ferns (R) also a sponsor of the Common Core replacement bill. “In the bill, it also says that you’ll repeal Common Core,” Plymale said. “That’s already been repealed. Why in the world would we put that in the bill?” Ferns replied, “It’s my understanding that the Smarter Assessment [sic] part of Common Core was adjusted, but no new standards were adopted. ” Plymale said Ferns was incorrect, attacking the bill for calling for the Core’s replacement with the California and Massachusetts standards. “The standards that are put forth in this bill aren’t even used in the states that are referred to,” Plymale said. “For example, the 1997 standards aren’t even being used in California. ” “I think we’re directing the state board to use these standards that were established in 1997 in California and 2001 in Massachusetts,” Plymale continued. “The standards that we have now were adopted by teachers — the teachers’ input. They went around the state. ” Much to the outrage of parents and many educators in the states of California and Massachusetts, their state legislatures and governors replaced their standards with the Common Core, in exchange for federal grant money and relief from the burdensome No Child Left Behind federal legislation. Jamie Gass, education director at the Pioneer Institute, wrote at Breitbart News in 2014 about the effects of removing their higher quality standards and replacing them with Common Core: Today Massachusetts’ SAT scores are down 20 points from their 2006 highs. reading scores are the best predictor of future academic success. Last year, after several years of stagnation, the percentage of Massachusetts who scored proficient or advanced on MCAS reading tests fell to its lowest level since 2009. At 57 percent, the portion of reading at or above the proficient level is 10 points lower than it was in 2002. “Martirano and Plymale have been behind all of the opposition arguments in every year that we have been fighting Common Core,” Flinn says. “They, with the help of others who we, at various times were convinced were on our side, in the end cooperated with the opposition to kill our bills to stop or repeal. ” The state senate approved the “symbolic Common Core repeal” by a vote of in favor of the amended SB 524, according to West Virginia Public Broadcasting. The report notes: The bill, which originally repealed Common Core and replaced the state’s current education standards with those from Massachusetts and California from 20 years ago, now only ensures West Virginia is no longer a part of the memorandum of understanding between states in the Common Core consortium. It no longer requires the replacement of standards, but a “cyclical review” which must include West Virginia educators. The bill now heads to the West Virginia House of Delegates. Angela Summers of West Virginia Against Common Core posted the following to the group’s Facebook account: Karnes says the bill as it passed the state senate still has some value: There’s a couple of things in there that are still worthy, in the sense that we officially terminate the Common Core standards — which is of marginal value — but the other thing that it does — which is of more value — is that it withdraws us from the memorandum of understanding, so that our state is no longer in any way bound to the Common Core standards. So, better that we’re than tied to that system. When you’re still part of the consortium related to Common Core, you’re bound — you’ve signed off on this agreement — so that we won’t deviate more than 15 percent from Common Core. So, this bill does completely cut us free from our involvement with the consortium, and, therefore, any changes that we do in our standards from this point forward are no longer bound by that 15 percent limitation. The Republican state senator, however, appears doubtful about whether the higher level California and Massachusetts standards will get back into the bill in the state House: One of our issues is that we have a lot of educators in the House side, and I think they’re not convinced on those [California and Massachusetts] standards. And, so, I think if they’re not convinced on those standards as being the best standards, so between what I knew was going on over there, and what I knew was going on over here, I was pretty comfortable with the idea that, if we didn’t put that amendment in there, the bill was going to die. “As long as the House can still work on it, it’s not dead and we still have something to work with,” Karnes says. “Not dead is better than dead. ” The Common Core standards are owned by two private groups: the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA). Two test consortia funded by the U. S. Department of Education — Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) — have developed assessments based on the Common Core standards. Both consortia have dwindled significantly in their membership, however, as grassroots parent groups around the country have pressed lawmakers to break free from the Common Core reform. Tuttle says state lawmakers must educate themselves about the true nature of the Common Core reform and work for what is educationally sound for the children of their states. “Until state legislators stop lying to themselves and admit what everyone else knows to be true, very little progress will be made by West Virginia’s schools,” she says. “The state legislature needs to face reality and pass a bill that not only repeals Common Core, but ensures it is replaced by standards that work. ” Mann and Ferns did not return Breitbart News’s request for comment. | 1 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Waves of grief, shock and anger spread through the country after the deadliest mass shooting in U. S. history. Most of the 49 people killed at a gay club in Orlando early Sunday were in their 20s and 30s. Anguish over the carnage exposed some of the nation’s deepest fault lines: gay vulnerabilities, fear of immigrants and Muslims, gun control, and the limits of domestic security. _____ 2. The gunman, Omar Mateen, 29, claimed allegiance to the Islamic State over the phone with negotiators before being killed in a gunfight. A survivor told of cowering for hours in a bathroom stall — and hearing two people hiding in the next one being shot dead. Investigators pored over the gunman’s history: born in New York to Afghan immigrants, abusive to his former wife, once claiming a connection to Al Qaeda, two pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia. _____ 3. After a briefing, President Obama said the gunman appeared to be a homegrown extremist. He also urged Americans to reconsider gun laws that “make it very easy for individuals who are troubled, or disturbed, or want to engage in violent acts to obtain very powerful weapons very easily, and it’s a problem. ” 4. The attack loomed over the presidential race. Donald Trump seized on the attack to criticize the president, calling him a “fool. ” Mr. Trump continued to question the loyalties of Muslims in the U. S. saying that they should turn in terrorists in their midst and warning that “thousands of people already in our country are sick with hate. ” Hillary Clinton called for resolve and political unity, saying that “lone wolves” could be hunted down and that “weapons of war” should removed from the streets. _____ 5. In Orlando, people lined up by the hundreds to donate blood for the victims. “I’ve been here 13 years and never seen a response like this,” a blood center official said. _____ 6. Flags flew at at U. S. embassies and in the capital, and messages of condolence flooded in from around the world. Tim Cook, the C. E. O. of Apple, led a moment of silence at the company’s annual developers conference. (That overshadowed the news there: App developers will be able to incorporate messaging and the Siri voice command system.) _____ 7. The biggest business deal of the day: Microsoft is acquiring LinkedIn for $26. 2 billion. The move is the latest, and biggest, sign that Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s C. E. O. is betting the future on cloud computing, moving away from the traditional software business that Bill Gates started with. _____ 8. The Supreme Court delivered a setback to Puerto Rico’s efforts to handle its deepening fiscal crisis. The justices rejected the territory’s bid to revive a law that would have let it cut billions of dollars in debt at public utilities. Above, New York’s Puerto Rican Day parade, which took place on Sunday. _____ 9. In the N. B. A. finals, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors forcing a Game 6 and staving off elimination in the finals. Big performances from LeBron James and Kyrie Irving helped the Cavaliers send the series back to Cleveland. _____ 10. A judge in Oregon has allowed this retired U. S. Army sergeant to legally choose neither sex and be classified as “nonbinary. ” Transgender rights advocates called it a landmark ruling. Born male, the petitioner, Jamie, took hormone treatments to transition to female, but discovered that neither sex fit. “I’m at peace with my biology,” Jamie said. _____ 11. Lastly, the most ambitious aircraft yet has passed another milestone. The Solar Impulse 2 soared over New York Harbor this weekend, landing at J. F. K. at the end of its 14th leg, its last in the U. S. Next up: crossing the Atlantic, to a destination to be determined by weather and wind forecasts. _____ 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 the Weekend Briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
3 Priceless Zen Teachings on Fear Nov 4, 2016 21 2
If the ego had an engine, its fuel would be fear. Trepidation isn’t all bad, but it certainly has its time and place. Fear can render us quivering and useless, or motivate us toward change. In the study of Zen, we learn how to not only overcome our fears, but to become fearless. This is called the Lion’s Roar of Zazen .
The lion is the living embodiment of self-possessed power. This animal has dominion over all he sees as well as the courage, speed, and might to attain all he desires. His deportment is regal and calm, though, never bullying and neither shrinking. The metaphor of the lion is used to describe how one overcomes fear in the Majjhima Nikaya , a Collection of Middle Length Discourses on Buddha’s teachings, and they are immaculate at describing the fears most of us face. Many Zen teachers describe how to become regal and fearless in their discourses as well. Fear of the Loss of Life
Zen master, D.T. Suzuki says that fear of the loss of body is usually what we must overcome first. Following this, an internal consciousness becomes aware that we are threatening the slated, well-accepted notion of being merely corporeal, and we ‘think’ we are frightened. Suzuki says we needn’t look any further than the bodily sensations that arise when we simply ponder fearfulness. An empty feeling in the lower abdomen ensues, there is an immobility at the base of the tongue, and our breathing becomes restricted. If we were to remove these sensations, though, fear becomes a meaningless thing.
Szkuki attests that according to Zazen, we aim to keep a lower abdomen full of power , the breathing always uniform, the heart beat tranquil, and the muscles of the whole body resilient so that if emotions like fear arise, they can easily be encountered and dismissed. Fear of the Loss of ‘Self’
Some fear is understandable, even – such as when we realize we must face a spiritual death in order to progress on our path. Although we may long to richer higher levels of consciousness, we aren’t always so keen to let go of the habits and crutches that have propped up our current level of awareness. As the Sufi poet Rumi once said , “No one will find his way to the Court of Magnificence until he is annihilated.”
Other types of fear make us meek and fallible. Our consciousness easily wavers, and we cannot attain Mu , or a state of Zen , let alone get on with our daily activities. It is only by cultivating the 4 Zen States of Mind that we can ‘fill our abdomens’ with power and roar like a lion with fearlessness. 4 Zen States of Mind Shoshin or “Beginner’s Mind” ( 初心 ) is the first stage in cultivating fearlessness. Think of a time when you were excited, and eager to start a new endeavor. There might have been unknowns, but you were brimming with glee over trying something new. This is the type of mind we want to cultivate with all aspects of life. Instead of begin nervous or fearful, we can aim to be eager and open, accepting all that comes our way. In order to approach life from the beginner’s mind we need to let of preconceived notions, and be optimistic. If you’ve been able to have this feeling with one thing you’ve done in life, you can translate that feeling to other areas also. Fudoushin ( 不動心 ) means you have an “Immovable Mind .” It doesn’t mean you are stubborn, but fudoushin does translate to being determined in the face of obstacles. Does a lion run away from present danger? Hardly. The animal doesn’t get angry or judgmental about obstacles either. He is peaceful like the eye of the storm until he is upon his prey. If you can develop fudoushin when you are under stress, you will be unstoppable in life. Mushin (無心) or “Without Mind.” This is a similar philosophy to the Chinese Taoist idea of wei wuwei. When we are ‘in the zone’ working on a great masterpiece or doing something we love, we’ve likely already experienced the state of mushin. When we are empty of thoughts, yet moving and acting purely in the present moment, without fear, anger, ego, or other emotion, we are a force to be reckoned with. By developing equanimity and learning how to focus to the point of no-thought, we can cultivate mushin. The last of the four states of Zen Mind is called Zanshin ( 残心 ) which literally translates to “Remaining Mind.” This state of mind contains two precise elements. It means you are both relaxed and keenly aware of your surroundings. This is the state that marital artists aim to be in so that they can react at any moment to anything that comes their way. By maintaining relaxed alertness fear cannot sway you, even in the face of a frightening opponent. Fear of Suffering
The Buddha taught that self-grasping and ignorance are the root of all remaining fears. Healthy fears aside , our tendency to try to avoid suffering – the fear of failure, heartbreak, being trapped, being lost, etc. are all caused by a single root – and arise from the mind. In Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life , is is said that the Buddha articulated, “The source of all our fear comes from our own uncontrolled minds or “delusions.””
In order to overcome this root cause of fear, the Buddha, and Zen masters alike, teach to strive for no-self or emptiness. This doesn’t mean a nihilistic view for life is adopted. Friedrich Nietzsche accused Buddhism of being existentialist , but the Buddha taught us to seek the Middle Way between the mundane and the spiritual, seeing objects as real but dependently originated, not-self and unsatisfactory. Instead of seeing all things as pointless and empty, we see mundane life as meaningless but recognize spiritual goals as meaningful.
As the Zen master, Sojo has said , “Heaven and earth and I are of the same root, the ten-thousand things and I are of one substance.”
After all, even once the Buddha gave up all his worldly possessions he realized he was no closer to achieving Nirvana. He discovered that exaggerated asceticism was not required to attain enlightenment.
By learning how to work through these fears, we can achieve the ‘lion’s roar’ of full realization. | 0 |
Lights, Camera, Propaganda! Washington's Anti-Russia Campaign Invades Hollywood
Keep those Russian baddies coming! Originally appeared at RT
For years the influence of the CIA in Hollywood was hidden and unacknowledged. Now it’s more of an open secret; not publicized, but pretty easy to read up on if you care. Just ask the spy agency’s Entertainment Industry Liaison.
Yes, such a thing really exists .
You see, the CIA’s man in Hollywood wants to help actors, authors, directors, producers and screenwriters “gain a better understanding” of the intelligence agency in order to ensure “accurate portrayals” of its activities. It even wants to help fire up the neurons and actually give you some good ideas if you’re coming up short in that department. Indeed, the CIA provides “inspiration for future storylines” and lists them on its website. Of course, it’s all in the interest of creating authentic and balanced portrayals of US intelligence agencies and the US military. And they’re quite busy, too. Between 2006 and 2011, the CIA public relations office had input into at least 22 film and movie projects.
In a column for the Washington Post in 2011, David Sirota noted that the Pentagon too enlists the help of Hollywood for PR purposes when things are going awry and Americans are becoming weary of war. Movies like Top Gun in the 1980s and Zero Dark Thirty more recently were made in consultation with the Pentagon and White House. The result of this“creative input for Pentagon assistance” bargain created an entertainment culture “rigged to produce relatively few anti-war movies and dozens of blockbusters that glorify the military” and which amounts to “government subsidized propaganda,”
The CIA has had a hand in creating TV shows like 24, Homeland andAlias. The Americans — an FX show about two Russian spies living undercover in the US — was created by a former CIA agent, and the agency reportedly approves the scripts for each episode.
A piece in the Guardian in 2008 called the CIA’s involvement in Hollywood a “tale of deception and subversion that would seem improbable if it were put on screen”. Of course, it’s unlikely to be put on screen, given that the agency which provides guidance on CIA-related movies (...) is the CIA.
Enlisting Hollywood help with “anti-Russia messaging”
Remember the “inspiration for future storylines” list mentioned earlier? Well, guess what? The liaison’s “current pick” for a possible future movie project is about one Ryszard Kukliński — a Polish colonel and spy for NATO who spent years passing secret Soviet documents to the CIA. I wonder why they’d be interested in that sort of thing right now. It couldn’t be anything to do with deteriorating relations between Russia and the West, could it?
It may sound like conspiracy theory, but the 2014 hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment revealed that the the US State Department has actively sought out the biggest players in Hollywood and tried to enlist their help with what they called“anti-Russia messaging” for the public’s consumption through innocent entertainment. In other words, the government asked Hollywood for help producing propaganda — although I’m sure the State Department would call it something nicer.
Richard Stengel, the US under secretary for public diplomacy, wrote to Sony CEO Mark Lynton explaining that the government needed help countering both ISIS and “Russian narratives” and said this wasn’t something the State Department could do “on its own”. He suggested convening a meeting of media executives to discuss ideas, content, production and “commercial possibilities”. Lynton responded with a list of media executives at other entertainment companies including Disney and Fox. It’s unclear from the emails whether that meeting Stengel requested ever happened, but judging by much of the recent entertainment industry output, one might be forgiven for assuming it did.
Negative depictions of Russia in American and British news and entertainment media are hardly new — but at least as far as I can tell, there’s certainly been an uptick over the past 12-18 months, and it coincides nicely with a major US government-led anti-Russia messaging campaign which has also spilled over into much of Western print and broadcast media. Gratuitous mentions of Russia and Vladimir Putin where they are not necessary are becoming tiresome. For me, the last straw was sitting down to watch Bridget Jones’s Baby last month and being subjected to an entirely unnecessary and irrelevant subplot about the anti-Putin punk band Pussy Riot and their struggle for free speech. It was the last straw because it was just one more in a long line of useless allusions to big bad Russia that seemed to come from nowhere.
For me, the last straw was sitting down to watch Bridget Jones’s Baby last month and being subjected to an entirely unnecessary and irrelevant subplot about the anti-Putin punk band Pussy Riot and their struggle for free speech.
In the Netflix political drama House of Cards, Pussy Riot — the real ones this time — got their own cameo alongside evil Putin (not the real one). But even when there isn’t a major storyline attached to Russia, somehow the country frequently gets thrown in anyway. Russia is still the go-to country when there needs to be a joke about scary or immoral foreigners. There are endless examples.
In NBC’s Scandal, one character suggests Putin might randomly invade Belarus. In CBS’s Madam Secretary, one character spews the line: “I can’t go back to Russia, it’s a pigsty.” In the recently released movie Bad Moms, one of the bad moms, protesting something or other which I can’t recall, shouts “What is this, Russia?” The short-running show Allegiancewas entirely about a Russian sleeper cell in the US which was suddenly reactivated and whose members — now fully adapted to blissful life in America — no longer wanted anything to do with Russia. How original.
NBC’s Blacklist has given us multiple Russian baddies and the sitcom 2 Broke Girls has made its fair share of Putin jokes. The third installment of The Purge introduced us to a gang of menacing Russian “murder tourists” who take advantage of the annual 12-hour period during which any crime, including murder, becomes legal. I could go on, but you get the idea: Russians are bad.
Is it all CIA influence? Is it all the result of the State Department’s“anti-Russia messaging” campaign? Not necessarily. While the CIA does have huge influence in Hollywood on specific projects, many of the random negative references to Russia are probably the result of a media information war which naturally spills over into the creative output of writers and directors. Many of them probably shouldn’t be blamed too harshly. They’re fed a diet of anti-Russia messaging through the news media, so it’s no wonder these kinds of lines end up in their movies and TV shows.
Interestingly, in June, the Senate Intelligence Committee included an amendment to Congress’ annual intelligence spending bill which would require the Director of National Intelligence to submit reports detailing the relationship between the CIA and Hollywood. But the Senate committee is no doubt less worried about the propaganda effects and more worried about the CIA divulging sensitive and classified information to movie directors, as was the case, controversially, with Zero Dark Thirty.
Anyway, tip for aspiring filmmakers and TV producers: Leave the Russia jokes out. It’s getting boring. Did you enjoy this article? - Consider helping us! Russia Insider depends on your donations: the more you give, the more we can do. $1 $10 Other amount
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BERLIN (AFP) — Germany’s government on Wednesday approved the use of ankle bracelets to monitor extremists considered potentially dangerous as it moves to get tough on suspected jihadists after the Berlin truck attack. [The proposed measure would allow the federal criminal police to electronically track the movements of a person deemed a security threat, even before they have been convicted of a crime. “Ankle bracelets are not a panacea but they are an important instrument to facilitate the surveillance of dangerous people,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said after the cabinet agreed to a change in the law to allow the measure. The proposal still has to be approved by parliament. It comes as part of a series of security reforms announced in response to the December 19 attack in which Tunisian national Anis Amri plough a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people. The attack was claimed by the extremist Islamic State group, with Amri shot dead by Italian police in Milan several days later. Public anger quickly erupted after it emerged that Amri was already on the radar of intelligence services and was known to have links to Islamist radicals. As a failed asylum seeker, he should have been deported months before the attack but Tunisia failed to send the necessary paperwork in time. The German government has since vowed to speed up deportations and mooted plans to place rejected asylum seekers who are considered a threat in detention ahead of their expulsion. German security services have a list of more than 550 Islamists considered “threats to public security” who have lived or currently reside in Germany. Interior ministry spokesman Johannes Dimroth declined to speculate how many suspects might now face electronic monitoring. “How many of them could in the future be affected by such a measure is a purely hypothetical question,” he told reporters in Berlin. | 1 |
Circa News reported Monday that White House staffers found logs that document and date stamp President Barack Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice accessing intelligence reports that included associates of the Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign:[Intelligence sources said the logs discovered by National Security Council staff suggested Rice’s interest in the NSA materials, some of which included unmasked Americans’ identities, appeared to begin last July around the time Trump secured the GOP nomination and accelerated after Trump’s election in November launched a transition that continued through January. The intelligence reports included some intercepts of Americans talking to foreigners and many more involving foreign leaders talking about the future president, his campaign associates or his transition, the sources said. Most if not all had nothing to do with the Russian election interference scandal, the sources said, speaking only on condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the materials. When intelligence or law enforcement agencies accidentally gather information related to American citizens, outside their legally sanctioned collection mission, the data appears in reports with simple labels, such as American 1 or American 2. However, when the reports were circulated inside the Obama administration, the actual names were used, or unmasked, or labelled in a way that made the speaker’s identity obvious. The report written by Sara Carter and John Solomon also quotes an intelligence source, who said it is the common practice to step up surveillance of foreign governments after an election and that after Trump’s surprise victory Nov. 8 this ramped up intelligence gathering provided more opportunities for incidental collection of Trump associates, as the transition team reached out to foreign governments to prepare for the new administration. | 1 |
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Comments FBI Director James Comey just followed up his first memo to Congress with a “cover your ass” memo to his staff in The Washington Post. The impact within the FBI has been swift after the first memo. Newsweek is reporting that the Republican FBI Director’s inappropriate letter to Congress put him in a very danger of a “mutiny at the FBI,” whose proper role is protecting America from domestic terror threats and investigating serious crimes – not influencing elections. In the FBI Director’s second letter, he admitted that his agency doesn’t “ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations,” and that he doesn’t know anything about, “the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails.” He also claimed that, “I don’t want to create a misleading impression,” and Comey then made a final admission that, “in the middle of an election season, there is a signficant risk of being misunderstood.” Well, it’s too late now. FBI Dir. Comey sent a second letter today – to FBI employees. He seems to have some doubts about what he did (via WashPost) pic.twitter.com/IagFJRZYyU
— West Wing Reports (@WestWingReport) October 29, 2016 Newsweek’s report about this latest non-scandal points out firmly that the FBI Director’s letter literally points out emails that have nothing to do with the Democratic nominee.
The disclosure by the Federal Bureau of Investigation late on Friday, October 28 that it had discovered potential new evidence in its inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s handling of her personal email when she was Secretary of State has virtually nothing to do with any actions taken by the Democratic nominee, according to government records and an official with knowledge of the investigation, who spoke to Newsweek on condition of anonymity. The revelation that the FBI has discovered additional emails convulsed the political world, and led to widespread (and erroneous) claims and speculation.
Moreover, despite the widespread claims in the media that this development had prompted the FBI to “reopen” of the case, it did not; What we know: FBI found some emails on a new device. They dont know whats in them or if they're copies or if they're classified. That's it.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016 Sources inside the FBI told Newsweek they were furious with Director Comey’s rare public revelations from the Clinton investigation from the start. Comey’s decision to leak news about a politically driven investigation is threatening his professional standing and ability to function inside the Bureau. Newsweek’s top investigative reporter Kurt Eichenwald told the story in a tweetstorm: Word from inside @FBI . FURIOUS at Comey, think he's mishandled public revelations from get go. "Outrageous incompetence" one agent told me.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016 If Comey doesn't get ahead of this, going to have a mutiny at @FBI . "This is why u say 'We dont talk about investigations'" one told me….
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016 …his original decision to lay out info on clinton case, then opine on what it meant outside of criminal findings, infuriated these folks..
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016 …to begin with, because it was inappropriate precedent set. Then it set him up for what he did today, and because he knew how angry…
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016 …people inside were with him, he was trying to play to two audiences — updating his testimony while not revealing too much. But that….
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016 ….just made everything worse.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016
The FBI has a difficult job to perform in the best of times, and when it comes to political investigations agents must walk a tightrope between performing their duties properly, and unduly influencing public opinion with the results of their investigations. For an entire year, they managed to quietly, but diligently investigate the sensitive matters surrounding Hillary Clinton’s emails which they ultimately concluded, “were not a cliff-hanger” because there was literally no there, there.
These events show precisely why the FBI does not ordinarily publicly release the results or targets of their investigations until charges are filed.
These memos have set off a chain off events sure to end with the termination of his tenure as head of the agency. A serious criminal complaint has already been levied against him by the Democratic Coalition Against Trump for engaging in partisan activity. Related Items: | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Reduced to their weakest state in a generation, Democratic Party leaders will gather in two cities this weekend to plot strategy and select a new national chairman with the daunting task of rebuilding the party’s depleted organization. But senior Democratic officials concede that the blueprint has already been chosen for them — by an incensed army of liberals demanding no less than total war against President Trump. Immediately after the November election, Democrats were divided over how to handle Mr. Trump, with one camp favoring confrontation and another backing a seemingly less risky approach of coaxing him to the center with offers of compromise. Now, spurred by explosive protests and a torrent of angry phone calls and emails from constituents — and outraged themselves by Mr. Trump’s swift moves to enact a agenda — Democrats have all but cast aside any notion of conciliation with the White House. Instead, they are mimicking the Republican approach of the last eight years — the “party of no” — and wagering that brash obstruction will pay similar dividends. Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, vice chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said there had been a “tornado of support” for resistance to Mr. Trump. Mr. Inslee, who backed a lawsuit against the president’s executive order banning refugee admissions and travel from seven countries, said Democrats intended to send a stern message to Mr. Trump during a conference of governors in the nation’s capital. “My belief is, we have to resist every way and everywhere, every time we can,” when Mr. Trump offends core American values, Mr. Inslee said. By undermining Mr. Trump across the board, he said, Democrats hope to split Republicans away from a president of their own party. “Ultimately, we’d like to have a few Republicans stand up to rein him in,” Mr. Inslee said. “The more air goes out of his balloon, the earlier and likelier that is to happen. ” Yet Democrats acknowledge there is a wide gulf between the party’s desire to fight Mr. Trump and its power to thwart him, quietly worrying that the expectations of the party’s activist base may outpace what Democratic lawmakers can achieve. “They want us to impeach him immediately,” said Representative John Yarmuth, Democrat of Kentucky. “And of course we can’t do that by ourselves. ” Some in the party also fret that a posture of unremitting hostility to the president could imperil lawmakers in red states that Mr. Trump won last year, or compromise efforts for Democrats to present themselves to moderate voters as an inoffensive alternative to the polarizing president. Rarely have Democrats been so weakened. Republicans control the White House, both chambers of Congress and 33 governorships, and they are preparing to install a fifth conservative, Neil M. Gorsuch, on the Supreme Court. Further, because of changes to Senate rules that were enacted under Democratic control, the party has been unable to block Mr. Trump’s cabinet nominees from being confirmed by a simple majority vote. Democrats, in other words, have few instruments at the moment to wound Mr. Trump’s administration in the manner their core voters are demanding. Still, a mood of stiff opposition has taken hold on Capitol Hill, with Democrats besieged by constituents enraged by Mr. Trump’s actions — and lawmakers sharing their alarm. “We have to fight like hell to stop him and hopefully save our country,” said Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, echoing the stakes liberal voters are giving voice to at crowded town hall meetings. Senator Thomas R. Carper of Delaware, a Democrat up for in 2018, cautioned that loathing Mr. Trump, on its own, was not a governing strategy. He said he still hoped for compromise with Republicans on infrastructure funding and perhaps on a plan to improve or “repair” the Affordable Care Act. “There is this vitriol and dislike for our new president,” Mr. Carper said. “The challenge for us is to harness it in a productive way and a constructive way, and I think we will. ” But Mr. Carper said the deliberations over Mr. Trump’s cabinet appointments had woken up Democrats, recalling that he had heard from thousands of voters about Scott Pruitt, Mr. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator, and Betsy DeVos, his education secretary. Virtually every message expressed seething opposition, he said. At times, Democratic frustration with Mr. Trump has already flared well beyond the normal range of opposition discourse: In Virginia, Tom Perriello, a former congressman seeking his party’s nomination for governor, apologized after calling Mr. Trump’s election a “political and constitutional Sept. 11. ” And in New Jersey, Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs banker and ambassador to Germany, drew criticism in his campaign for governor after likening the current political moment in America to the rise of Adolf Hitler. Among Democrats, however, it is far from clear that the rhetoric of heated opposition is unwelcome. A survey published on Wednesday by the Pew Research Center found that nearly of Democrats said they were concerned the party would not do enough to oppose Mr. Trump only 20 percent were concerned Democrats would go too far in opposition. A handful of liberal groups have already sprung up threatening to wage primary challenges against incumbent Democrats whom they see as insufficiently militant against Mr. Trump, raising the prospect of the same internecine wars that plagued Republicans during President Barack Obama’s administration. In the race for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, which concludes with a vote in Atlanta on Saturday, the restive mood of liberal activists has buoyed a pair of insurgents, Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind. against the perceived Thomas E. Perez. Mr. Perez, who was Mr. Obama’s labor secretary, is still viewed as a favorite in the race, and he has been backed by former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. But he has struggled to dispel the impression that he is an anointed favorite of Washington power brokers. And Mr. Ellison and Mr. Buttigieg have continued to collect endorsements: Mr. Ellison won the support of Representative John Lewis of Georgia, the civil rights leader, on Tuesday, and Mr. Buttigieg was endorsed Wednesday by Howard Dean, the former party chairman who remains admired on the left. In a sign of how little heed Democrats are paying to traditional forces, Mr. Ellison remains viable despite being bluntly attacked as “an ” by Haim Saban, one of the most prolific donors to the party and its candidates. Christine C. Quinn, a vice chairwoman of the New York State Democratic Committee, who was a prominent surrogate for Hillary Clinton last year, said she backed Mr. Ellison, who was the first Muslim elected to Congress, in part because of the forcefulness of his criticism of the White House. “This is not a normal Republican president, and these are not normal times,” said Ms. Quinn, a former speaker of the New York City Council. “This isn’t a time for polite parties anymore. This is a time to take a different posture of true aggressiveness. ” Martin O’Malley, a former Maryland governor who has endorsed Mr. Buttigieg, said impatient Democrats might challenge even members of their own party in their enthusiasm to take on Mr. Trump. Mr. O’Malley said the party base plainly wanted leaders who would be “willing to fight the fight and where necessary filibuster and otherwise obstruct. ” He said he expected younger, liberals to run against some Democratic incumbents as well as Republicans. “That’s a good thing, and it’s overdue,” he said. So far, the most prominent leaders of the Democratic Party’s activist wing, including Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, have not encouraged challenges to sitting Democratic lawmakers who have accommodated Mr. Trump. Mr. Merkley, an ally of Mr. Sanders, suggested liberals seeking scalps would get no help from progressive senators if they try to unseat Democratic senators from conservative Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia, calling those lawmakers “perfectly suited to those states. ” Two mayors in Democratic cities, however, have gotten a taste of what awaits those who do not bow completely to the demands of the forces: When Carolyn Goodman of Las Vegas, a Democrat turned independent, and Levar Stoney of Richmond, Va. a Democrat, resisted deeming their municipalities “sanctuary cities,” each was met with anger from supporters of expanding protection against deportation for undocumented immigrants. “They want change to happen overnight,” Mr. Stoney said of the newly energized activists. Nowhere is it more clear, however, that the protesters are leading the politicians than on Capitol Hill. Senate Democratic leaders had hoped to capitalize on Mr. Trump’s nomination of Tom Price as health secretary by assailing Republicans for wanting to trim Medicare, an issue Democrats aim to run on in 2018. But Mr. Price was vastly overshadowed by the nomination of Ms. DeVos, who galvanized the new activists like no other cabinet pick. “Part of what I think the Bernie campaign taught us, even the Trump campaign taught us, and now the resistance is teaching us, is just ditch the consultants and consult with your conscience and constituents first,” said Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, warning his fellow Democrats that “it’s a fool’s errand to try to plan this out like it’s a traditional political operation. ” Mr. Merkley boasted that “we’re doing things in the Senate that are less conventional,” efforts he said were aimed at conveying to voters that “hey, we’re here and we’re fighting. ” Those efforts have included tactics like walking out on nomination hearings and opposing even less controversial cabinet appointments, such as that of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, the wife of the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell. The fear factor is real, said Adam Jentleson, a former Senate Democratic aide. Images of angry constituents jeering Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a reliable liberal from Rhode Island, at a town meeting in late January for supporting the selection of Mike Pompeo as C. I. A. director quickly circulated among other Democratic senators, he said. “It was ” Mr. Jentleson said, “because it made clear that the base is not going to let them off the hook. ” | 1 |
Home / Badge Abuse / An ex-police Sergent tells how and why you should fight ALL speeding fines An ex-police Sergent tells how and why you should fight ALL speeding fines
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My name is Stan. I am a retired Sergeant of the Police force for 14 years. I was also a police prosecutor at times, so I know what I am talking about. I spent half my life in Magistrates Court during my time in the Force. I was only ever a very fair copper, and I am proud of my time in the job, looking after the interests of citizens, often to the detriment of my family and my health.
I never booked any driver for a trifling offence “ever”. People committing trifling offences commonly used to get a warning and a licence / vehicle check. It had to be serious before I booked anyone.
I am so annoyed at what is happening these days, in what I call “Indiscriminate revenue gathering” It is absolutely disgusting. The government and the Police Force need to hang their heads in shame. If you did a survey of current serving members of the police forces in this country, you would be hard pushed to find many who disagree with me.
I know how the legal system works, and I know how to beat the system. This is how to do it, and if about 10% of all drivers booked follow my specific instructions, then the entire system will crash and become unworkable to the extent, that the government will have no choice but to stop issuing fines for every type of traffic offence. The whole lot of them. Seriously.
I do not feel guilty about coming out with this information, as I think it’s about time someone stood up for hard working, civil minded, law abiding taxpayers in this country, who are being screwed.
This is very simple and very basic. The idea is to clog up the system in the traffic camera office and the courts by drivers exercising their rights to remain innocent until proven guilty.
SIMPLE BASIC LEGAL STEPS TO FOLLOW .
1. Do not accept the alleged offence. There are numerous valid reasons to dispute every single alleged offence. Often the charges are incorrect or the evidence is illegally or incorrectly gathered.
2. Challenge it, tell them that you are going to defend the matter. Make them earn their miserable $150 or $200 or whatever. They have to prepare evidence and witnesses. Just the wages for the camera operator or the Policeman on the day of the court, will be more than the actual fine. You are also taking a camera operator or a member of the Police Force off the street for the day. But it won’t get to that point…..read on….
3. If a court date is ever set, and it does not suit you, do not accept it, ask for a delay to a time and place that suits you.
4. When they re set the date, delay it as often as possible. keep pleading not guilty all through the process. You have every right to be sick, or go for an adjournment if the day does not suit for any legitimate reason. For example you may have pressing family or work commitments which prevent you from attending a particular court on a particular day.
5. If it ever actually gets to court, (which is unlikely if everyone does this) and if you are unwell that day, ring the court in the morning and tell them that you cannot make it as you are sick. The camera operator, and a police prosecutor will already be at court, and will be greatly inconvenienced, by having to come back another day. The whole time this is going on, the amount of paperwork involved at the traffic camera office is huge. Several staff are involved, and it rapidly becomes very costly, probably running into thousands. …..with me so far…..keep reading…….
6. The court system is then placed under such a massive load by people who wanted “their day in court” that it simply will not be able to cope unless they open up about another 50 magistrates courts, and this is obviously going to cost the government a lot more than any revenue raised. If all the above fails, which is highly unlikely….and you actually go to court and get convicted……you have a right of appeal. Make sure you appeal the conviction. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see what happens. They are not going to spend millions chasing hundreds.
7 Tell everyone you know to challenge their alleged offences, and the entire system will crash within a few weeks.
8. Please pass this on. AND ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY AND THAT THERE IS A VERY HIGH PROBABILITY THAT THE EVIDENCE USED AGAINST YOU IS WRONG. YOU HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO CHALLENGE ANY ALLEGED OFFENCE. THIS IS WHY COURTS EXIST….SO USE THEM……A LOT.
Regards, like, share, and comment. make a change! this isn’t hard to do, but it will help everyone.
The article originally published at Driftspec.org and although it is from our friends from across the pond, the information is invaluable as well as universally applicable. Share | 0 |
Get short URL 0 23 0 0 The integration of Crimea into the Russian legal and administrative systems is a complex process, but the majority of the key issues have already been addressed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.
YALTA (Russia), (Sputnik) — During the All-Russia People's Front forum in Crimea, Putin said: "There are a lot of questions and small problems, which are invisible at first glance. The federal authorities try to do something themselves, but they do not know the local conditions… That's why the question of entering, as I said, the Russian legal and administrative framework has turned out to be a difficult process, but we have practically overcome the main issues."
The president also noted that one of the main impediments to progress has been the fact that local authorities, who have volunteered to oversee the integration, "do not know how the laws and the system of Russia are organized." Putin: Drinking Water Issue in Crimea No Longer Acute The two-day regional All-Russia People's Front forum, called the 'Forum of action. Crimea,' covered issues of energy, gas supplies, development of agricultural industry and other promising sectors of the economy.
Crimea , Russia's historical southern region, seceded from Ukraine to rejoin Russia in March 2014. Almost 97 percent of the region's population voted for reunification in a referendum. Sevastopol, which has a federal city status, supported the move by 95.6 percent of votes. The referendum was held after a coup in Ukraine in February 2014. ... | 0 |
Familie Erdoğan und Daesh (Fortsetzung) Voltaire Netzwerk | 5. November 2016 français Español italiano Türkçe Eine Gruppe von türkischen Hackern, RedHack, hat E-Mails von dem Minister für Energie gehackt. Ein türkisches Gericht hat sofort die Veröffentlichung und die Wiedergabe dieser E-Mails verboten.
Diese 20 Gigabytes schweren Data wurden jedoch analysiert von Professor Ahmed Yayla, stellvertretender Direktor des ICSVE (internationales Zentrum für die Erforschung des gewalttätigen Extremismus) und ehemaliger Leiter des türkischen Anti-Terrorismus analysiert [ 1 ]. Sie bestätigen hartnäckige Gerüchte und liefern neue Details.
Das von Daesch in Syrien gestohlene Öl wurde durch 8500 Tankwagen von einem Unternehmen namens Powertans transportiert, das das Transport-Monopol des Öls auf türkischem Gebiet ohne Ausschreibung erhalten hatte. Es gehört einer sehr geheimnisvollen Grand Fortune-Ventures Firma, mit Sitz in Singapur und der dann auf die Kaiman-Inseln übertragen wurde. Hinter dieser Fassade verbirgt sich Calık Holding, die Firma von Berat Albayrak (Foto), Schwiegersohn und Energie-Minister von Präsident Erdoğan.
“ Hacked Emails Link Turkish Minister to Illicit Oil ”, Ahmed Yayla, World Policy , October 17, 2016.
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To view photojournalist Orin Langelle’s new online photography exhibit If Voting Changed Things is to accept a challenge. Don’t expect a passive viewing of simple, aesthetically pleasing photography or a mindless stroll through apolitical eye candy. The challenge should be apparent from the title of the exhibit: It is a riddle, a fragment, an incomplete sentence awaiting your contribution. To view his display is to realize that there is no single way to finish the statement. Langelle invites you to see the complexity of the world through his lens, but to draw your own conclusions about the meaning of the images.
If Voting Changed Things… people would vote. They don’t. Only 58% of eligible voters did in the last presidential election. Recent polls indicate that the majority of Americans feel disenfranchised by the 2016 presidential election process and candidates. They aren’t proud or hopeful about the outcome, and half of Americans feel helpless. There is no emphasis on issues that matter to them. Election discussion centers around voting for the least worst candidate, which makes civic duty seem like an exercise in self-denial and a concession that our aspirations are not achievable.
Of course, the counter is that if you don’t vote, you’re giving someone else the power to make decisions for you. But that perspective ignores the range of opportunities for civic engagement and citizen action: Protesting, demonstrating, picketing, civil disobedience, rallies, striking, tax resistance, boycotting, sit-ins, sabotage, hacking and DDoS, tree-sitting, resistance, law-breaking, insurrection, rebellion, revolution. Langelle’s images of protest activity outside of national conventions in 1972 and 2004 raise the question of whether voting, and the electoral circus that accompanies it, is about citizen empowerment or an explicit and ceremonial abdication of power by citizens to a status quo elite. Which leads to the observation that…
If Voting Changed Things… they wouldn’t let us do it. Chomsky wrote that “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum—even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of debate.” Photographs from 1972 and 2004 capture moments outside of the system, beyond the framing of the acceptable discourse. Protesters explicitly reject governmental authority through symbols, slogans, caricatures, and artwork. The elephant pulling a coffin through Miami’s city streets conveys a belief that political parties are leading us to death and destruction. The black hoods and orange jump suits communicate that protesters in Boston, relegated to a “Free Speech Zone,” have become the equivalent of Guantanamo Bay detained terrorist suspects. It is not accidental that the media ignores or minimalizes these displays of collective action. In 2016 delegates—the people who were there (never mind viewers at home)—at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions remarked that they were unaware that protests were occurring outside throughout. Langelle deftly illustrates that this is because authorities have increasingly managed and marginalized protest behavior. Which demonstrates that…
If Voting Changed Things … this exhibit wouldn’t be necessary. For many, Langelle’s work will be shocking because it lays bare the evolution of policing and the criminalization of dissent. Photos of the 1972 demonstrations include arson, sabotage, gratuitous nudity, and graffiti that challenges, “Amerika—Love it or Destroy it,” and yet not a single police officer is identifiable among the activists. The activists are in the streets, climbing in trees, occupying fields and grassy lawns, neighborhoods and parks. Contrast this with images of Boston Police in 2004, appearing ready for war in riot gear; armed with Tasers, guns, clubs; a menacing and ubiquitous presence atop scaffolding towers. Because of new draconian laws, protesters have been herded into holding pens of chain link fences and razor wire, surrounded by surveillance cameras, concrete, and girders. The photos depict a world that has changed drastically in thirty years, and which has militarized against, marginalized, and narrowly framed the acceptable boundaries of citizen dissent. Moreover…
If Voting Changed Things … it wouldn’t contrast so distinctly with other forms of citizen action. There is a humor and a vibrancy to “the people” that Langelle juxtaposes brilliantly against the sterile and colorless state apparatus. There is a diversity of skin color, age, gender among the protesters. Their slogans are racy, their clothing is colorful and fun. They wield musical instruments, engage in “guerilla theatre” and share poetry. They engage in property destruction with irony—wearing clogs as they break windows and asking through their graffitti with (gallows) humor if the protest restraint area represents the “Land of the Free?” Their defiance comes in the form of patches, to be worn on the derriere, sold by a young girl in a flowered dress. They paint their faces and wear straw hats.
The stark reality of the state is helmeted, with dark gray protective gear and weapons to enforce compliance. The only colors are the red, white, and blue banners and flags that appear more as a hypocritical challenge to the popular movements than a patriotic display. It is evident that Langelle sees a dour system that is oppressive and lifeless. Voting is a part of that system, a reinforcement of its values and an affirmation of the status quo.
If Voting Changed Things… marginalized groups wouldn’t be in the streets. The electoral process in America has produced and validated a government that has produced institutional racism, militarization within and from our society, mass incarceration, crippling debt, perpetual war, homelessness, a failed health care system, eroding and ineffective education, and environmental exploitation. If Voting Changed Things… we wouldn’t have a 1%. We wouldn’t allow the .01%, 16,000 Americans , to hold as much wealth ($9 trillion) as 80 percent of the nation’s population – some 256,000,000 people – and as much as 75 percent of the entire world’s population. We wouldn’t allow the five largest white landowners in America to own more agricultural land than all of black America. If Voting Changed Things… demographics wouldn’t be used as a basis for electoral strategies. We would vote away the cleavages that exist across generations, racial and cultural groups, religious affiliations. But we don’t, because we can’t.
If Voting Changed Things… would we be where we are? The work of Orin Langelle may offer you a lens from which to answer that question. Or to find your own conclusion to the sentence.
If Voting Changed Things can be viewed online at: If Voting Changed Things: Exhibit Online . It is also on display at the ¡Buen Vivir! Gallery for Contemporary Art in Buffalo, NY until December 2 nd .
Dave Reilly is professor and chair of political science and director of international studies at Niagara University in Lewiston, New York, where he serves as president of the faculty union and moderator for the Black Student Union. | 0 |
Outrage as May’s real idea of Brexit at Goldman Sachs speech leaks Outrage as May’s real idea of Brexit at Goldman Sachs speech leaks By 0 57
British Prime Minister Theresa May is facing growing criticism over her comments about Brexit at a leaked private speech to Goldman Sachs.
The premier, who has publicly made the case for a hard Brexit following a June referendum, speaks of the “benefits” of being an EU member in the hour-long session, whose audio file was leaked to the Guardian on Tuesday night, drawing harsh criticism on Wednesday.
“I think the economic arguments are clear. I think being part of a 500 million [population] trading bloc is significant for us. I think, as I was saying to you a little earlier, that one of the issues is that a lot of people will invest here in the UK because it is the UK in Europe,” she is heard saying. “If we were not in Europe, I think there would be firms and companies who would be looking to say, do they need to develop a mainland Europe presence rather than a UK presence? So I think there are definite benefits for us in economic… | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Rudolph W. Giuliani, a top adviser to Donald J. Trump, said on Sunday that it would be “unrealistic” to remove Mr. Trump’s children from their roles in running his business empire and place the assets into a strict blind trust like the ones used by previous presidents. “I think he’s in a very unusual situation,” Mr. Giuliani said on CNN’s “State of the Union. ” “He would basically put his children out of work,” he added, “and they’d have to go start a whole new business, and that would set up new problems. ” As president, Mr. Trump will not be required to sell his assets, which he has valued in billions of dollars. But the vast scope of Mr. Trump’s assets and business dealings is likely to lead to questions about how his actions as president would affect the financial fortunes of him and his family. Most modern presidents have elected to use a blind trust, which puts their assets under the control of an independent trustee. Ethics experts said Mr. Giuliani’s remarks were misguided on ethical and political grounds. Kenneth A. Gross, a lawyer who advises corporations and members of Congress on ethics issues, said it was important for Mr. Trump “to separate his vast business interests from his official decision making. ” “If not, it is going to be a constant thorn in his side,” Mr. Gross added. “It might even be unfair criticism he will get, as he might be acting in the public interest and still be accused of promoting his business interests because he has not separated them as much as possible. ” Turning his business operations over to his children would not insulate him from ethical questions, Mr. Gross said, and may even exacerbate them. Richard W. Painter, a White House ethics officer during the George W. Bush administration, said it would be problematic if Mr. Trump used such an arrangement, given that he would ultimately retain ownership of the assets. “It is extremely inappropriate,” said Mr. Painter, who has been a critic of Mr. Trump’s candidacy. “In the past 200 years, we have never had a president with such egregious conflicts of interest with family business holdings. ” Mr. Giuliani, a vice chairman of Mr. Trump’s transition team who is believed to be under consideration for various posts in the Trump administration, including attorney general, said fears of a conflict of interest were groundless. Mr. Trump’s three eldest children, who hold leadership positions in his businesses, said in an interview on “60 Minutes” that was broadcast Sunday that they would not work in the administration in any formal capacity. “We’ll be in New York, and we’ll take care of the business,” Mr. Trump’s son Eric said. “I think we’re going to have lots of fun doing it. And we’re going to make him very proud. ” The three children, including Ivanka and Donald Jr. as well as Ms. Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner, are members of the executive council of Mr. Trump’s transition committee. Once Mr. Trump takes office, Mr. Giuliani said, the president will erect “a wall between them with regard to government matters. ” “You have to have some confidence in the integrity of the president,” Mr. Giuliani said. “The man is an enormously wealthy man. I don’t think there’s any real fear or suspicion that he’s seeking to enrich himself by being president. If he wanted to enrich himself, he wouldn’t have run for president. ” The financial arrangement was one of a number of questions surrounding Mr. Trump’s transition efforts, as his team moved toward announcing staff positions, tried to clarify the ’s agenda and sought to reassure those still questioning his fitness for office. Kellyanne Conway, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, batted down questions on several television news programs about who would fill critical positions in the coming administration, and she argued that Mr. Trump’s victory had already demonstrated that he could bring together Democrats and Republicans. Ms. Conway went further on “Fox News Sunday,” saying that it was incumbent upon Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, President Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, to calm the passions of their supporters who are objecting to Mr. Trump. She said that many of them were “masquerading as protesters,” and that Democratic leaders should ask those critical of Mr. Trump “to give this man a chance so that this country can flourish. ” She said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that she disagreed with Mrs. Clinton’s remarks to donors on Saturday in which the candidate blamed the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, for her election defeat. The Clinton campaign “misread America,” Ms. Conway said, and should take ownership of its loss. “I just can’t believe it’s always somebody else’s fault,” she said. “Sometimes you just have to take a look in the mirror and reflect on what went wrong. ” The House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, seeking to outline a prospective Republican legislative agenda for Mr. Trump’s first days in office, said on Sunday that Mr. Trump’s border security efforts included no plans to create a deportation force — a specter raised during the campaign. “That’s not what we’re focused on,” Mr. Ryan said on “State of the Union. ” “We’re focused on securing the border. We think that’s first and foremost before we get into any other immigration issue. ” | 1 |
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A new poll from an unlikely source suggests that the U.S. public and the U.S. media have very little in common when it comes to matters of war and peace.
This poll was commissioned by that notorious leftwing hotbed of peaceniks, the Charles Koch Institute, along with the Center for the National Interest (previously the Nixon Center, and before that the humorously named Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom). The poll was conducted by Survey Sampling International.
They polled 1,000 registered voters from across the U.S. and across the political spectrum but slanted slightly toward older age groups. They asked:
“Over the last 15 years, do you think U.S. foreign policy has made Americans more or less safe?”
What, dear reader, do you say?
If you say less safe, you not only agree with dozens of top U.S. officials the week after they retire, but you agree with 52.5% of the people polled. Those who said “more safe” add up to 14%, while 25.2% said “about the same” and 8.3% just didn’t know.
Well, at least all these humanitarian wars to spread democracy and eliminate weapons and destroy terror have benefited the rest of the world, right?
Not according to the statistics that show terrorism on the rise during the war on terrorism, and not according to 50.5% of poll respondents who said U.S. foreign policy has made the world less safe. Meanwhile 12.6% said “more safe” while 24.1% said it was about the same and 12.8% didn’t know.
Asked about four wars in particular, registered U.S. voters said each of them had made the U.S. less secure, by a margin of 49.6% to 20.9% on Iraq, 42.2% to 18.9% on Libya, 42.2% to 24.3% on Afghanistan, and 40.8% to 32.1% on bombing ISIS in Syria.
These answers should not immediately be taken to prove that the U.S. public is universally wise and well informed, and (not coincidentally) at odds with U.S. media. Not only is that margin pretty slim on ISIS, but 43.3% of those polled said ISIS was the greatest threat the United States faces. Meanwhile 14.1% named Russia, 8.5% North Korea, 8.1% the national debt, 7.9% domestic terrorists, and bringing up the rear with the correct answer of global warming as the greatest threat were a grand total of 4.6% of those polled.
A survey of U.S. news reports would certainly suggest a point of agreement here between the public and the media. But here is where it gets interesting. Although the public believes the hype about danger emanating from these foreign forces, it does not favor the solution it is endlessly offered by the media and the U.S. government. When asked if, compared to last 15 years, the next president should use the U.S. military abroad less, 51.1% agreed, while 24.2% said it should be used more. And 80.0% said that any president should be required to get congressional authorization before committing the U.S. to military action, while 10.2% rejected that radical idea that’s been in the U.S. Constitution since day 1.
The U.S. public may look quite depressingly ignorant in a quick survey of Youtube videos, but check this out: Asked if the U.S. government should deploy U.S. troops on the ground in Syria 51.1% said no, compared to 23.5% who said yes. Only 10% said yes on Yemen, while 22.8% said no — however, 40.7% said the U.S. government should keep “supporting” Saudi Arabia in that war.
Good majorities also oppose Japan acquiring nuclear weapons, Germany acquiring nuclear weapons, or the U.S. defending Taiwan against a Chinese attack. (Who invents these scenarios?)
This moderately encouraging survey of public sentiment stands in stark contrast to U.S. media coverage of wars in general and Syria in particular. The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof is ready for a bigger war as are columnists in the Washington Post and USA Today, as well as, of course Chuck Todd and other televised talking head. Meanwhile Hillary Clinton’s comment to Goldman Sachs that a “no fly zone” would require “killing a lot of Syrians” has received dramatically less press than her brave calls for creating a humanitarian no fly zone, and the steady depiction of that proposal as “doing something”— in contrast to the only other option: “doing nothing.”
The public, however, rejects the only “something” that’s on offer and just might leap at the opportunity to try something else, if anyone ever proposed anything else. | 0 |
Since the Office of the Mayor of New York was established in 1665, many of the 109 men who have served in that post have attracted their share of scrutiny from commissions, constables and prosecutors. But historians have been to find a mayor who, along with his administration and inner circle, was ever the subject of as many simultaneous investigations — conducted by as many different agencies — as Mayor Bill de Blasio now faces. “I can’t recall any other sort of perfect storm like this, coming from all those different angles,” said Daniel Czitrom, a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College and the author of “New York Exposed: The Gilded Age Police Scandal That Launched the Progressive Era. ” In recent weeks, no fewer than five separate inquiries — involving at least six different federal, state and local law enforcement and regulatory agencies — have come to light. Four of these investigations are focused on possible violations of criminal law. At the heart of each of the five inquiries is money — in most cases, linked to the mayor, his election campaign or a nonprofit group connected with him. Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat elected in 2013, has made no secret of his attempts to raise significant sums to bolster his agenda through that group, the Campaign for One New York, and through an effort in 2014 to wrest control of the State Senate from the Republicans by supporting several Democratic candidates. Donors to the mayor’s political endeavors include major unions and real estate developers, and many of them have business before the city. It is not clear how direct a role, if any, the mayor played in some of these matters. The inquiries that seem closest to him focus on two issues: the effort to help Senate Democrats, and the relationship he had with Nyclass, an group that spent heavily in the 2013 mayoral race against Mr. de Blasio’s chief rival, Christine C. Quinn. Two of the main backers of that effort, Steven Nislick and Wendy Neu, have contributed to Mr. de Blasio’s nonprofit. Ms. Neu has given at least $75, 000 and Mr. Nislick $50, 000. Nyclass has been the main backer of a proposal to remove horses from city streets, an idea that Mr. de Blasio has so far failed to achieve despite promises that he would tackle the issue on the first day of his administration. Cyrus R. Vance Jr. the Manhattan district attorney, in conjunction with federal authorities, is investigating whether Mr. de Blasio, or those acting with him, violated state election law in an effort to raise money to buttress three Democrats running for the State Senate in 2014. In that case, investigators are examining whether donations to the candidates were funneled through county party committees to evade contribution limits, a violation of state law and a possible felony. But the biggest scandal thus far has centered on gifts and trips that senior police officials may have received from two men who raised money for the mayor: Jona S. Rechnitz, a real estate developer, and Jeremiah Reichberg, a businessman and police enthusiast in Borough Park, Brooklyn, who hosted a at his home for Mr. de Blasio in 2014. The possible crime that is being investigated by Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, is whether political contributions by those two men were given in exchange for some unknown municipal benefit. So far, the authorities have not signaled what favorable city action, if any, was secured by the donations. Two peripheral figures in the sprawling investigations have been arrested: Hamlet Peralta, a Harlem restaurateur accused of operating a Ponzi scheme and misappropriating more than $12 million from investors, who included Mr. Rechnitz and Mr. Reichberg and Alex Lichtenstein, a Borough Park man accused of offering bribes to police officials in exchange for handgun permits. Both arrests were linked to the federal inquiry. Some senior police officials have been transferred or put on modified duty as a result of the investigation of Mr. Rechnitz and Mr. Reichberg. But so far, no members of the de Blasio administration or his apparatus have been charged with or accused of a crime in connection with the inquiries. In March, the mayor announced that the Campaign for One New York had stopped raising and spending money and would be shutting down. He said that the action was not connected to any inquiry, and that the group’s “work is done. ” Mr. de Blasio’s efforts to get Democrats elected to the State Senate also backfired. Republicans resented his effort to oust them, and it hurt his ability to promote his programs in the Legislature — notably last summer when he was given only a extension to mayoral control of city schools. With Nyclass, investigators are looking for any favorable municipal treatment granted in exchange for the spending. The principals of Nyclass, beyond being activists, also have ties to real estate: Ms. Neu is the chairwoman and chief executive of a real estate and electronics recycling company, Hugo Neu Mr. Nislick, a magnate, became the chief financial officer of Ms. Neu’s company in 2014. Separately, several city and state agencies are examining a deal by the city to lift protections on a nursing home in Manhattan that paved the way for its sale to luxury condominium developers. The city sold its protection — a restrictive covenant — for $16 million to a company that then resold the property, for a profit of roughly $72 million. Investigators are looking at whether the nursing home company may have misled city and state agencies they are also examining the role of the city’s top lobbyist, James F. Capalino, in advocating the deed removal in 2014 on behalf of the original nonprofit owner. He later represented the ultimate purchaser of the property, on other matters. The State Joint Commission on Public Ethics is also examining whether the Campaign for One New York violated lobbying rules by not registering as a lobbyist last year, according to multiple people familiar with the inquiry. Mr. de Blasio has vigorously defended himself, his administration and his apparatus, saying “unequivocally” that he had not violated any campaign finance laws during the 2014 Senate races. He has also denied any criminal conduct related to Mr. Rechnitz and Mr. Reichberg or to more broadly. “I hold myself and my administration to the highest standard of integrity,” Mr. de Blasio said. He has denied any involvement, or even prior knowledge, of the lifting of deed restrictions of the former nursing home indeed, the mayor has not been tied to that deal. The mayor has also rejected suggestions that his unwavering pledge to remove carriage horses from city streets was being driven by Nyclass. Time will tell. Before the investigations came to light, Mr. de Blasio enjoyed rising popularity in polls, with no prominent Democrat emerging as a serious rival to his 2017 effort. But the inquiries have cast a shadow on his administration, and he has to repeatedly address questions about political favors and subpoenas. Subpoenas have been issued in the inquiries on Nyclass, the nursing home and, more broadly, his activities. The ones looking into the get particularly close to Mr. de Blasio, focusing on one of his top aides, Emma Wolfe, and to Ross A. Offinger, his campaign finance director, several people familiar with the cases said. Even if no criminal charges emerge against the mayor or any of his top aides, he has been forced back on his heels at a time when he would rather press forward with his agenda and his bid for a second term. | 1 |
We Are Change
Dow Jones Futures are plummeting -650 as I write this. It’s a repeat of Brexit as investors are panicking probably because Hillary would continue to allow them to prop their business model up on Fraud.
While Trump would drain the swamp of wall st. Trump would also change tax laws further causing their business model that rolling-stone writer Matt Taibi called fraudulent in 2012.When Matt said that “Everything Is Rigged.”
“ Maybe the conspiracy theorist were right the markets are rigged the illuminati were amateurs ,” he wrote.
Donald Trump pulled ahead of Hillary Clinton in both electoral votes and in battleground states – Florida, Ohio and North Carolina. The U.S. dollar USDJPY, -3.44% slumped 2.4% to ¥102.48 according to marketwatch.
10:30 P.M. EST – DOW JONES -650 points.
The post BREAKING: STOCKS PLUMMET -650 DOW AS TRUMP PROJECTED TO BEAT CLINTON (LIVE BLOG) appeared first on We Are Change .
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HONG KONG — power plants have propelled much of China’s economic rise for decades, helping make the nation the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. Even with economic growth slackening, and other energy sources taking hold, new coal plants have been added. Now Beijing is trying to slow things down. In guidelines released on Monday, China halted plans for new power stations in many parts of the country, and construction of some approved plants will be postponed until at least 2018. The announcement, by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration, means that about 200 planned power generators — those seeking approval and those approved but not yet under construction — may not be completed, said Lauri Myllyvirta, who analyzes China’s energy production for Greenpeace. The total of 105 gigawatts of power those plants would have been able to produce is considerably more than the capacity of Britain from all sources. “That’s a big chunk of power,” said Bob Hodge, a coal specialist with IHS Energy, a consulting firm. “It’s a lot of power. It’s a heck of a lot of power. ” Electricity generated from fossil fuels like coal is the biggest single contributor globally to the rise in carbon emissions, which scientists say is causing the earth’s temperature to rise. Leaders from 175 countries, including China, gathered in New York on Friday to sign the Paris climate accord, which aims to halt and eventually reverse the rise in carbon emissions, keeping the increase in global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius, or 3. 6 degrees Fahrenheit. China, by far the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses, is aiming to reach a peak in carbon emissions by 2030. A recent economic slowdown, policies to discourage power plants near big cities, and a huge investment in wind and solar energy capacity helped reduce coal use in China last year. But even as coal becomes unpopular in China, the country’s biggest electricity generators are adding new power plants at a pace not seen in a decade, said Mr. Myllyvirta of Greenpeace, which is acknowledged as an authoritative analyst of China’s energy production. Such plants add to existing overcapacity, he said. The announcement does not stop projects already under construction, which amount to about 190 gigawatts of new power generation, he said. “It’s definitely a positive step, but it’s not even enough to prevent the overcapacity from getting worse,” Mr. Myllyvirta said. While the curbs on new coal projects, if rigorously enforced, may help China meet its goals on climate change and air pollution, the primary motivation for the move appears to be economic considerations. In the face of the slowest economic growth in a electricity demand has fallen so sharply in China that some power plants are operating only 40 or 50 percent of the time. Construction of wind turbines and solar panels has also eaten slightly into the market share of the coal plants. Yet in China’s highly regulated power industry, market signals are weak, and planning and construction of new power plants had continued apace, pushed forward by local governments eager for the construction jobs and expanded tax base. With its new decrees, the central government seems to be trying to halt the development of power plants that might well be underused if they were built. Mr. Hodge, the consultant at IHS Energy, said that as of two weeks ago, there were 1, 200 new plants on the drawing boards in 59 countries, mostly in Asia, and China was the single largest contributor. “In my opinion, if they needed the power, they would build them,” he said of China. “I think if you are Beijing, and you don’t need the power, you can delay them until you might need them. They are not scrapping them. ” The guidelines, dated March 17, state that 13 provinces and regions, including top coal producers like Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, as well as the southern economic powerhouse of Guangdong, should “strictly control” new capacity, delaying the approval of new projects until after 2017. A slightly longer list of provinces — 15, with considerable overlap — were told to put off construction of approved projects that had not yet broken ground. In both instances, an exception has been made for projects aimed at the “people’s livelihood,” a phrase that was not explained but may include measures like providing steam heat to homes in wintertime. The government announcement also calls for an acceleration of the closing of outdated plants that use older, dirtier technology. But China is adding about 1 gigawatt in capacity a week, Mr. Myllyvirta said, as companies that have easy access to loans from state banks build new plants. That is in stark contrast to the United States, the world’s carbon emitter, where it has become increasingly difficult to build new plants under the Obama administration. Last year, almost 14 gigawatts of capacity was retired in the United States, according to the Energy Information Administration in Washington. At the same time, there are only six new plants on the drawing boards in the United States through at least the next five years, with a total capacity of less than 2 gigawatts, according to the agency. In China, however, as coal prices drop, the big electricity generators are benefiting because highly regulated electricity prices have not fallen in tandem. Because of the political power of the coal industry and the falling price of coal, larger percentages of and electricity are not being put on the grid, a phenomenon called curtailment. To combat this, the Chinese government has recently issued a directive for operators of plants to pay operators of wind and solar plants whose electricity is not used, the Paulson Institute, a policy group focused on China and based in Chicago that was founded by the former Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson, wrote last week. | 1 |
Doctors Restore Ken Burns’ Full-Color Vision After Removing Massive Tumor From Filmmaker’s Visual Cortex Close Vol 52 Issue 43 · News · Celebrities · Entertainment · Healthcare
CLEVELAND—Speaking to reporters following the successful eight-hour procedure Tuesday, neurosurgeons at the Cleveland Clinic confirmed they had removed a golf ball–sized tumor from the visual cortex of filmmaker Ken Burns, restoring the documentarian’s ability to see in full color. “We’re happy to report that the surgery went smoothly, and beginning today, Mr. Burns will no longer be limited to perceiving the world in shades of black, white, and sepia, and will instead be able to experience the entire spectrum of hues that most of us take for granted,” said Dr. Amrita Singh, noting that the 63-year-old director and producer of The Civil War , Prohibition , and Jazz had awakened from anesthesia and was reported to be marveling at the vividness of his surroundings, human faces, and photographs. “It appears that the removal of this tumor also reduced intense pressure that had built up inside Mr. Burns’ visual processing center; as a result, his eyesight has sharpened considerably, and he’ll notice that he won’t need to lean in close anymore to make out the details of images. It’s going to seem like a whole new world to him.” Dr. Singh added that an additional inner-ear surgery would be required to correct the balance issue that causes Burns to slowly drift from left to right. Share This Story: WATCH VIDEO FROM THE ONION Sign up For The Onion's Newsletter
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The president and Michelle Obama, the first lady, issued a statement Saturday on the death of Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali was The Greatest. Period. If you just asked him, he’d tell you. He’d tell you he was the double greatest that he’d “handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder into jail. ” But what made The Champ the greatest — what truly separated him from everyone else — is that everyone else would tell you pretty much the same thing. Like everyone else on the planet, Michelle and I mourn his passing. But we’re also grateful to God for how fortunate we are to have known him, if just for a while for how fortunate we all are that The Greatest chose to grace our time. In my private study, just off the Oval Office, I keep a pair of his gloves on display, just under that iconic photograph of him — the young champ, just 22 years old, roaring like a lion over a fallen Sonny Liston. I was too young when it was taken to understand who he was — still Cassius Clay, already an Olympic Gold Medal winner, yet to set out on a spiritual journey that would lead him to his Muslim faith, exile him at the peak of his power, and set the stage for his return to greatness with a name as familiar to the downtrodden in the slums of Southeast Asia and the villages of Africa as it was to cheering crowds in Madison Square Garden. “I am America,” he once declared. “I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me — black, confident, cocky my name, not yours my religion, not yours my goals, my own. Get used to me. ” That’s the Ali I came to know as I came of age — not just as skilled a poet on the mic as he was a fighter in the ring, but a man who fought for what was right. A man who fought for us. He stood with King and Mandela stood up when it was hard spoke out when others wouldn’t. His fight outside the ring would cost him his title and his public standing. It would earn him enemies on the left and the right, make him reviled, and nearly send him to jail. But Ali stood his ground. And his victory helped us get used to the America we recognize today. He wasn’t perfect, of course. For all his magic in the ring, he could be careless with his words, and full of contradictions as his faith evolved. But his wonderful, infectious, even innocent spirit ultimately won him more fans than foes — maybe because in him, we hoped to see something of ourselves. Later, as his physical powers ebbed, he became an even more powerful force for peace and reconciliation around the world. We saw a man who said he was so mean he’d make medicine sick reveal a soft spot, visiting children with illness and disability around the world, telling them they, too, could become the greatest. We watched a hero light a torch, and fight his greatest fight of all on the world stage once again a battle against the disease that ravaged his body, but couldn’t take the spark from his eyes. Muhammad Ali shook up the world. And the world is better for it. We are all better for it. Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to his family, and we pray that the greatest fighter of them all finally rests in peace. | 1 |
Email
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arranged a $12 million donation from Moroccan King Mohammed VI to her family’s charity in 2014 in return for the Clinton Global Initiative hosting its international meeting in the North African Muslim nation, according to an email made public Thursday by Wikileaks.
The Moroccan monarch’s funds went to the Clinton Foundation’s endowment and to CGI. The Jan. 18, 2015, email was included in Wikileaks’ latest batch of communications to and from Clinton’s presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta.
The email from Huma Abedin, Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff at the State Department, was addressed to Podesta and campaign manager Robby Mook. Hillary Clinton was a director of the foundation at the time.
Singapore and Hong Kong officials reportedly were also vying to convene the CGI meeting in their countries, but the North African nation ultimately hosted it in a five-star hotel in Marrakesh, Morocco, in 2015. Abedin told Podesta and Mook that Morocco was not CGI’s “first choice.”
The actual meeting was paid for by OCP, the Moroccan-government-owned mining company that has been accused of serious human rights violations. Clinton vigorously supported the Moroccan King when she was Secretary of State and the U.S.-financed Export-Import Bank gave OCP a $92 million loan guarantee during her tenure as Secretary of State.
The mining company also contributed between $5 million to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to the charity’s web site.Abedin described the arrangement in the email as having been organized by her boss. Hillary Clinton “created this mess and she knows it,” she told Podesta and Mook.She said the Moroccan deal was entirely dreamed up by her boss. “This was HRC’s idea, our office approached the Moroccans and they 100 percent believe they are doing this at her request. The King has personally committed approx. $12 million both for the endowment and to support the meeting.” HRC stands for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Abedin said Clinton’s attendance at the CGI event was a condition of the $12 million contribution. “Just to give you some context, the condition upon which the Moroccans agreed to host the meeting was her participation. If hrc was not part if it, meeting was a non-starter,” Abedin said.
Politico in 2015 reported that Clinton “was seen by Rabat as among its most ardent supporters in the Obama administration.” Rabat is the capital of Morocco.
The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice charged OCP with “serious human rights violations,” including exploitation of workers by not “adequately compensating the impoverished people who live there.”
Mohamed Yeslem Beisat, the Washington envoy for the Polisaro Front, as reported by AL-Monitor, a Middle East news site in 2015 that “OCP is the first beneficiary of the war and the first beneficiary of the occupation — it is the one that is cashing in on the misery of thousands of refugees and hundreds of political detainees for the past 40 years.”
Polisaro claims to lead a Moroccan government-in-exile based in Tindouf, Algeria.
“They’re doing this because they know Hillary has some chances of being president of the United States. And they want her to support their brutal occupation of Western Sahara,” Beisat charged.
The Moroccan firm mines phosphates. Human rights critics have called OCP’s mining product “blood phosphates,” appropriating the term “blood diamonds” for gems mined in operations that kill and injure local workers
OCP is not the only mining company linked to human rights violations that has donated to the Clinton Foundation. The foundation accepted a $100 million pledge from Lukas Lundin, who owns mining and oil drilling operations in North Africa and in the Congo. (RELATED: Clinton Foundation Got $100M From ‘Blood Minerals’ Firm)
OCP retained the law firm of Covington & Burling, one of Washington’s lobbying giants, paying the firm $1.4 million in fees from 2012 to 2015.
Stuart Eizenstat, a former White House domestic policy chief under President Carter and an influential Democratic Party insider, was the main lobbyist for the mining firm. He was also President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the European Union, a Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and Under Secretary at the Department of Commerce.
Eizenstat specialized in foreign trade issues at Commerce where he worked in the International Trade Administration.
Hillary Clinton officially visited Morocco twice, in November 2009 and in February 2012, meeting with the King on both occasions. The two also met in New York in December 2013 where it was believed the two discussed Morocco’s bid to host the CGI meeting and the King’s $12 million donation.
The Moroccan World News described the meeting as showing “renewed friendship between the royal family and the Clinton family, as well as Hillary Clinton’s esteem for Morocco and its people.”
Abedin warned both campaign executives that if CGI decided to renege on the agreement, it would hurt Clinton’s relationship with the King. “It will break a lot of china to back out now,” she wrote.
Ultimately, Clinton did not attend the meeting because it was close to the launch of her presidential campaign, but the former president and daughter Chelsea were present and during the conference were guests at one of the Moroccan King’s palaces. | 0 |
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