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Who Will Weed Out the Warmongers? October 30, 2016
Exclusive: Progressive Democrats are gearing up to fight Wall Street appointees to a Hillary Clinton administration, but there is no similar campaign to weed out neocon/liberal-hawk warmongers, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
If Hillary Clinton hangs on to win the presidency, liberal Democrats have vowed to block her appointment of Wall Street-friendly officials to key Cabinet and sub-Cabinet jobs. But there has been little organized resistance to her choosing hawkish foreign policy advisers.
Indeed, Washington’s foreign policy establishment has purged almost anyone who isn’t part of the neoconservative/liberal-interventionist “group think.” That’s why pretty much everyone who “matters” agrees about the need to push around Russia, China, Syria, Iran, etc. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire on July 12, 2016. (Photo from cloud2013 Flickr)
Reflecting that attitude, Sunday’s lead editorial in the neocon Washington Post hailed the broad consensus within the Establishment for more warlike actions once President Obama is gone, taking with him what the Post calls Obama’s “self-defeating passivity.”
The Post praised a new report from the liberal Center for American Progress which calls for bombing the Syrian military and getting tough to “counter Iran’s negative influence” in line with what all the neocons — as well as Israel and Saudi Arabia — want the next President to do.
The absence of any significant counter to this neocon/liberal-hawk “group think” represents one of the greatest dangers to the future of the human species, since this new hubris comes with a cavalier assumption that nuclear-armed Russia and China will simply accept humiliation dished out by the “indispensable nation.”
If they don’t, we can expect Official Washington to ratchet up tensions in a game of nuclear chicken with the expectation that the leaders in Moscow and Beijing will bow down to U.S. “exceptionalism’ and slink away with their tails between their legs.
Surely, that is what the armchair warriors at The Washington Post will demand and they have, of course, a spotless record of infallibility, such as their certainty that Iraq was hiding stockpiles of WMD in 2003. Editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt was so sure of that he wrote it as flat fact .
Given the Iraq War catastrophe and the failure to find the WMD, you might have assumed that Hiatt was summarily fired and has never worked in journalism again. But, of course, you’d be wrong. He is still the editorial-page editor of The Washington Post continuing to ladle out his extraordinary wisdom and brilliant insights.
The New McCarthyism
And, if you dare question those new certainties or note the risks of stumbling into a nuclear conflagration, the Post’s editorial pages label you a Moscow stooge repeating Russian propaganda. The Washington Post building. (Photo credit: Daniel X. O’Neil)
That is what Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump when he warned about the risks of World War III if a President Hillary Clinton starts shooting down Russian planes over Syria.
Rather than acknowledge the genuine risk of getting into a shooting war with Russia, neocon Applebaum declares such concerns unacceptable and offers a whiff of McCarthyism toward anyone who thinks such a thing.
“Why is Russian state media using such extreme language?” she asks darkly. “And why is Trump repeating it?”
Then, with the typical perceptiveness of a neocon ideologue, Applebaum determines that the Kremlin is warning its citizens about the growing risks of nuclear war to scare them into line amid a recession that the U.S. helped create as part of its “regime change” strategy to destabilize Russia by making its economy scream.
A thoughtful person might stop here and wonder if the use of economic sanctions and other means to destabilize nuclear-armed Russia is such a good idea, but no mainstream person is allowed to raise such questions inside Official Washington. That would just make you a Russian puppet, in Applebaum’s view.
Applebaum then rants on with some wild conspiracy theories about Russian plans to exploit the U.S. presidential transition:
“Whatever the outcome on Nov. 8, political uncertainty will follow: the months of transition, a change of White House staff, perhaps even the violent backlash that Trump may incite. This could be an excellent moment for a major Russian offensive: a land grab in Ukraine, a foray into the Baltic states, a much bigger intervention in the Middle East — anything to ‘test’ the new president.
“If that’s coming, Putin needs to prepare his public to fight much bigger wars and to persuade the rest of the world not to stop him. He needs to get his generals into the right mind-set, and his soldiers ready to go. A little nuclear war rhetoric never fails to focus attention, and I’m sure it has.”
Reckless Drivel
Perhaps the more immediate question here is why a major American newspaper runs such crazy and reckless drivel from one of its regular columnists. But the fact that the Post does so indicates how dangerous the moment is for humanity. For those of us who read the Post regularly, such insane rhetoric barely registers since we see similar nuttiness on a daily basis. A sign at a Bernie Sanders rally in Washington D.C. on June 9, 2016. (Photo credit: Chelsea Gilmour)
But the “group think” that the Post and other mainstream publications create and then enforce explains why there is such unity among the Establishment as it presses ahead with these dangerous policies in much the same manner that almost the same cast of insiders “group thought” their way into the disastrous Iraq War.
So, the wannabe insiders at the Center for American Progress and the more established pooh-bahs at the Brookings Institution and other preeminent think tanks know they have to promote “regime change” strategies and other forms of warmongering to appease Hiatt and his fellow neocon editorialists and columnists.
In Washington, this “group think” has moved beyond the usual careerist and conformist “conventional wisdom” into something more akin to totalitarianism, at least on foreign policy issues.
That is why it is hard to even come up with a list of sensible people who could survive the onslaught of character assassinations if they were to be proposed as senior advisers to a President Hillary Clinton.
That is also why the attention of progressives, such as Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, only on vetting domestic officials in a prospective Hillary Clinton administration is so insufficient.
If a hawkish President Clinton surrounds herself with like-minded neocons and liberal hawks, the costs of their warmongering would surely swallow up the tax dollars necessary for domestic priorities – on infrastructure, education, health care, the environment and other pressing concerns.
And, if the McCarthyistic intolerance of The Washington Post influences or infects her administration, the genuine risks of World War III will dwarf any other worries.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com ). | 0 |
MEMPHIS — Roy Williams, the coach at North Carolina, has a rule. It goes something like this: If his team is taking the ball out of bounds with more than six seconds remaining and in need of a basket, he resists the urge to call a timeout. On Sunday afternoon, he looked up at the clock at FedEx Forum: 7. 2 seconds. He opted to trust his players. Like nearly everyone else inside the building, Williams turned into a mere spectator as Theo Pinson, a junior swingman, pushed the ball upcourt, into the teeth of Kentucky’s defense, before tossing the ball outside to the sophomore forward Luke Maye, who set his feet and released an jumper: swish. Maye’s effortless shot with 0. 3 of a second left broke a tie and lifted North Carolina to a victory over Kentucky in the South Regional final of the N. C. A. A. tournament. It was a wild ending to a thrilling game, a classic that the Tar Heels punctuated by snipping the nets in . “It’s a fantastic feeling right now,” said Williams, whose players doused him with water in the locker room. “Best dadgum bath I’ve ever had with my clothes on. ” By defeating the Wildcats, the Tar Heels set up a Final Four showdown between the Carolinas and the Pacific Northwest. On Saturday in Glendale, Ariz. North Carolina will face Oregon, and South Carolina will play Gonzaga in a matchup of newcomers to the Final Four. North Carolina, by comparison, will be making its 20th appearance in the Final Four, the most in tournament history. Justin Jackson scored 19 points to lead North Carolina ( ) and Maye finished with 17. On a court cluttered with Maye — an unsung reserve who averaged about 14 minutes of playing time during the regular season — stood apart in the closing seconds. After trailing by 5 points with less than five minutes to play, the Tar Heels scored 12 straight points — a surge initiated by Williams’s decision to shift to a zone defense. Kentucky ( ) which starts three freshmen, looked lost before eventually rediscovering its rhythm. In the final minute, Kentucky’s Malik Monk made a pair of the second with just seconds left to tie the game at . Williams glanced at the scoreboard, saw how much time was remaining and folded his arms. He had watched his players fend off every rally. He had watched Joel Berry II, his starting point guard, fight through two sprained ankles. And at practice all season, he had watched them operate with a shot clock in drills. He knew they were capable of pushing the ball. So he left them in charge. “I was just screaming, ‘Go, go, go! ’” Williams said. North Carolina stifled Kentucky’s star backcourt. Monk finished with 12 points. And two days after scoring 39 points against U. C. L. A. in a regional semifinal, De’Aaron Fox scored just 13. The Wildcats also labored with foul trouble throughout. Coach John Calipari was not pleased with the officiating. “You know,” he said, “it’s amazing that we were in that game where they practically fouled out my team. Amazing that we had a chance. ” For North Carolina, the win was the latest chapter in a redemption tour. A couple of weeks after North Carolina lost to Villanova in last season’s national championship game, an assistant coach informed Williams that one of Villanova’s players was on campus. And not just any player: Kris Jenkins, the forward who had hit the winning jumper for Villanova. Jenkins was visiting his brother, Nate Britt, a senior guard for the Tar Heels, and wanted to know if he could join the team in some pickup games. “Tell him I’m sending a hit man down to take care of him,” Williams recalled telling his assistant. Williams chose benevolence, allowing Jenkins to work out with his players, but that loss to Villanova — and the memory of it — was becoming nearly impossible for Williams, his staff and his players to escape. In truth, they wanted it that way. They wanted that lingering disappointment to fuel them this season. “That was our ultimate goal last year: to win the championship,” the senior forward Isaiah Hicks said over the weekend. “We was four seconds away from that. Just to see your dream taken away right in front of you, that’s all the motivation you need. Of course, nobody likes to lose. But that one, when you’re right there — all of us, we just need that second chance. ” In a twist, Jenkins has become one of the Tar Heels’ most visible supporters. He sat behind the bench for both of the team’s victories in Memphis. For Maye, who was named the regional’s most outstanding player, his place in North Carolina lore seems secure. His father, Mark, played quarterback for the North Carolina football team in the 1980s, and Luke always wanted to be a Tar Heel. He intended to walk on as a freshman before Williams came through with a scholarship late in the recruiting process. “I was dumb, O. K. because I had offered some scholarships to some other people,” Williams said. Against Butler on Friday in a regional semifinal, Maye scored 16 points off the bench. On Sunday, he somehow outdid himself, sinking 6 of 9 shots from the field. Behind a player named Maye, the Tar Heels are marching on. | 1 |
Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, has announced that they will fund ‘100 percent’ of financial aid packages for students that are in the country illegally. [Although international students are expected to pay full tuition, undocumented undergraduate students at Emory will have “100% of demonstrated financial need” covered by the university. “Emory meets 100% of demonstrated financial need for undergraduate Undocumented Students (with or without DACA) who are admitted as students, and who graduated from a U. S. High school through a combination of grants and scholarships, institutional work study (DACA students only) and institutional loans. Undocumented Students without DACA status may receive an institutional loan in place of the typical work study award,” the university’s website states. Speaking to The College Fix, Megan McRainey, a spokeswoman for Emory, claimed that providing full financial aid relief to undocumented students reflects the university’s commitment to welcoming students from diverse backgrounds. “Emory accepts undocumented students for admission and financial aid, including those under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program,” McRainey wrote, adding that providing financial aid coverage to undocumented students aligns with Emory’s goal of welcoming “students, faculty, and staff from diverse backgrounds. ” International students, who are not afforded the same aid privileges as undocumented students, will be forced to foot a $70, 000 per year tuition bill if they wish to attend the prestigious Georgian university. In 2016, Breitbart News reported that students at Emory claimed that they were scared and “in pain” after students wrote chalk messages on the university’s sidewalks. Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart. com | 1 |
Alexander Dugin El Pantano va a convertirse en el nuevo nombre de la secta globalista, de los adeptos de la sociedad abierta, de los maníacos del lgbt, del ejército de Soros, de los posthumanistas, etc. Drenar el pantano no es sólo el imperativo categórico norteamericano. Es un desafío global para todos nosotros. Cada pueblo está ahora bajo el poder de su propio pantano. Todos juntos debemos comenzar la lucha contra el pantano ruso, el pantano francés, el pantano alemán y así sucesivamente. Necesitamos purgar nuestras sociedades de la influencia del pantano. Así que en lugar de pelear entre nosotros, vamos a drenarlo juntos. ¡Los drenadores del mundo entero deben estar unidos!
El otro punto es que el antiamericanismo ha terminado. No porque estuviera equivocado, sino exactamente por lo contrario: porque el pueblo estadounidense inició la revolución precisamente contra ese aspecto de los EEUU que todos odiamos. Ahora, la élite gobernante europea, así como parte de la élite rusa (que todavía es liberal) no puede ser culpada (como antes) de ser demasiado pro-americana. Debe ser culpada de ahora en adelante por ser lo que es: una pandilla corrupta, pervertida y codiciosa de banksters y destructores de culturas, tradiciones e identidades. Así que vamos a drenar el pantano europeo. Basta de Hollande, Merkel, Bruselas. Europa para los europeos. Los Soros y su secta deben ser juzgados públicamente.
El pantano es a partir de ahora un fenómeno extraterritorial. Exactamente como una red terrorista internacional. El pantano está en todas partes y en ninguna parte. Ayer, el centro del pantano, su núcleo, estaba situado en los EEUU. Hoy, ya no. Es la oportunidad para todos nosotros para que comencemos a cazarlos. El pantano no tiene ya una forma manifiesta y regionalmente fija. Sin embargo, existe y sigue siendo muy, muy poderoso. Pero su carácter anti-nacional ahora es evidente, explícito. El pantano no se esconde ya detrás de Norteamérica. Se ha exiliado. ¿Dónde?, ¿a Canadá?, ¿a Europa?, ¿a ucrania?, A otros planetas donde algunos actores y actrices dopados prometieron emigrar en el caso de la victoria de Trump. Así que ahora es el momento de cumplir la promesa. Parece como el rapto globalista. Ahora son absorbidos en el no-espacio, la u-topia. En la tierra de la utopía liberal, en tierra de nadie. Somos testigos de la desterritorialización del pantano, de la élite globalista, del Gobierno Mundial. ¿Cuál es la estructura del pantano? En primer lugar, es la ideología, el liberalismo. Necesitamos el juicio de Nuremberg sobre el liberalismo: la última ideología política totalitaria de la Modernidad. Cerremos esta página de la historia. Segundo: El pantano es una cultura post-modernista especial. Está basada en la descomposición de cualquier entidad, por la digitalización, el esquizomorfismo obligatorio y así sucesivamente. Drenarlo significa restaurar la unidad apolínea del arte. El arte debe volver al holismo. Tercero: el capitalismo transnacional global. Es el motor material del pantano. Es el crédito y el Sistema de Reserva Federal haciendo cuentas verdes envenenadas. Tenemos que terminar con todo esto y regresar al sector real y al enfoque mercantilista.
Yo sugeriría redescubrir las ideas de Pitirim Sorokin. Vio la dinámica social de la historia como una cadena de paradigmas sociales: ideacional, idealista y sensata. Ideacional es la dominación absoluta del espíritu sobre la materia, el ascetismo y la subyugación violenta del mundo material a la aspiración espiritual y religiosa. El tipo idealista es equilibrado y basado en la coexistencia armoniosa del espíritu y la materia, donde la parte espiritual es ligeramente dominante pero no exclusiva (como en el tipo ideacional). El tipo sensato de la sociedad es la dominación de la materia sobre el espíritu, del cuerpo sobre el alma. El tipo sensato de la sociedad es el pantano. Y recientemente parecía que "sensato" y "Norteamérica" eran sinónimos. Después de Trump todo es diferente. Ahora lo sensato es global y ex-céntrico. Hay una especie de " translatio Imperii " - a ninguna parte o bien a todas partes.
Pero Sorokin hizo hincapié en que la naturaleza cíclica de la sociedad sólo exige esta sucesión: ideacional-idealista-sensata. Después de sensata no puede seguir idealista. No hay una posible evolución desde el pantano hasta el semi-pantano. Después del pantano viene el sol. El fuego, el Espíritu. El Espíritu en su forma radical, ideacional. Así que para drenar el pantano necesitamos el fuego solar. El gran incendio. Debe ser en abundancia.
El pantano y el fuego son dos elementos opuestos distribuidos a través de la tierra. La geopolítica se vuelve ahora vertical. Ambos están en cualquier punto. El significado del lugar ahora es el impulso del proceso de drenaje del pantano. ¿Dónde? Aquí y ahora. El pantano ya no es la hegemonía norteamericana, el presidente de Estados Unidos rechaza tal hegemonía. Así que es la hegemonía " tout court ", la hegemonía como tal, con un vacío puramente post-modernista en el centro. Estados Unidos es el extremo occidental del mundo. Es el espacio de la medianoche. Y allí se alcanza el punto final de la caída. Así que el momento es el del cambio de los polos. Occidente se convierte en Oriente. Putin y Trump en dos rincones opuestos del planeta. En el siglo XX estos dos extremos fueron las formas más radicales de la modernidad: capitalista y comunista. Dos monstruos apocalípticos, Leviatán y Behemoth. Ahora se convierten en dos promesas escatológicas: la Gran Rusia de Putin y Norteamérica en estado de liberación por Trump. El siglo XXI finalmente ha comenzado.
Así que todo lo que necesitamos ahora es el Fuego. | 0 |
Mainstream media networks devoted 57 times more coverage to President Donald Trump’s temporary “ban” on travel from seven countries than they did to President Barack Obama’s permanent ban on Cuban refugees to the U. S.[That’s according to a NewsBusters investigation, which also found that “[b]etween them, ABC, CBS and NBC only spent 68 seconds during their news coverage the following morning” after Obama ended the “wet foot, dry foot” policy for Cubans. NewsBusters adds: Both actions severely limited immigration from certain regions, but CBS This Morning and NBC’s Today hyped the Castro regime “praising” Obama’s policy decision. In contrast, the coverage of Trump’s executive order has been overwhelmingly negative, with NBC’s Today even going so far as to suggest a link between Trump’s immigration ban and a mass shooting at a mosque in Quebec, despite a complete lack of evidence. … But this wasn’t the only instance of the networks ignoring one of President Obama’s bans on refugees. It wasn’t until 2013 that ABC News reported that “State Department stopped processing Iraq refugees for six months in 2011,” after the discovery that two operatives had used the program to enter the U. S. and move to Bowling Green, Kentucky. … … CBS and NBC never followed up on the story, and ABC dropped its coverage after that single day of attention. Coverage of Obama’s rapprochement and normalization of relations with Cuba has been generally laudatory, ignoring the Cuban regime’s complete failure to make progress on democracy and human rights, while praising the diplomatic commitment of the Obama administration to back down, unilaterally. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told a Lebanese Muslim immigrant Trump’s executive order permanently banning Syrian refugee resettlement “has not made us more safe,” calling it “reckless. ”[“You opposed President Trump’s plan to stop refugees from coming to the U. S.,” said Nedal Tamer to Pelosi during Tuesday’s town hall hosted on CNN. “Countries like Syria. I am Lebanese American Muslim. There are countries that harbor radical Islamic groups, and [teach] teenagers to hate anyone who is not Muslim. ” That’s all it takes for some to “come as a refugee and create a problem here,” Tamer continued. “How can you guarantee the safety for all Americans … If we let these refugees to come [in]?” Every refugee or “newcomer” who arrives in the U. S. with “hopes, dreams, aspirations” makes “America more American,” Pelosi said. “The reason I oppose this specific thing that President Trump did was the following: Refugees have the most stringent vetting of all newcomers to our country. The most stringent vetting,” she said. “And so, when he cuts off Syria, largely those are refugees coming, the most stringent vetting. We take an oath to support the American people and the Constitution of the United States. It’s our responsibility. So we’re not casual about our reasons to, our need to protect the American people. ” “But we have to be strong, and we have to be smart. We don’t have to be reckless and rash,” she said. “And we don’t have to discriminate against people because of their religion. And so, that’s why I oppose what he’s done with the seven countries. He has no case, in my view, with the refugees. ” While thanking Tamer for his question, Pelosi also revealed she believed that billions of foreigners around the world have a “right” to emigrate to America, a common leftist talking point. She said she had visited Lebanon and hoped “the way things go, I hope people can enjoy staying home and enjoying their lives there, as well as exercising the right to come to America. ” Trump’s executive order “has not made us more safe,” Pelosi told Tamer. Tamer has been profiled by the media before: He’s a Lebanese Muslim immigrant living with his wife and children in heavily Muslim Dearborn, Michigan, where he works in real estate. Last April, The New York Post quoted his praise of Trump and his proposals to control immigration: “I like the fact that he’s a little nuts. He’s got the good heart, he cares about America. ” In another interview last May, Tamer strongly opposed further Islamic immigration into the U. S.: “We don’t want these groups to come in here, or anyone with these refugee groups to come in here, and create any problem here,” he said to Al Arabiya English. “We’re going to pay the price, and that’s why the Muslim community and the Arab community have got to understand, every time we step forwards, we take 10 steps back because of these problems. ” “If you love this country, then you support this man. I will say this to any Arabic Muslim: if you love this country then you support this man,” Tamer added. | 1 |
Nearly nine years after the insurance giant American International Group peered into the abyss of the global financial crisis, the latest in a long line of new chief executives will try to return it to its heights. Peter D. Hancock, the current chief executive, said on Thursday that he would resign after shareholders had lost faith in his effort to turn the company around. A. I. G. said Mr. Hancock, 58, would stay until a successor had been chosen in a “comprehensive” search by its board. His resignation announcement followed a quarterly loss of $3. 04 billion that surprised investors last month. He is the fifth chief executive since Maurice R. Greenberg was forced out in 2005. Like his more recent predecessors, Mr. Hancock, a former J. P. Morgan banker, has wrestled with trying to streamline the sprawling colossus, which spent years repaying a federal bailout. Yet he also has had to deal with pressure from another, more immediate, source: activist investors. In a rare tilt at a financial giant, the billionaire Carl C. Icahn publicly called in 2015 for A. I. G. to be split up and to get new leadership. Mr. Icahn and John Paulson, another hedge fund billionaire, later ended their threat of a proxy fight after the company gave up two seats on its board last year. They supported Mr. Hancock’s less radical alternative to a breakup that was unveiled in January 2016: sell assets, cut costs and jettison less profitable insurance policies. Now, the two investors will have a say in what comes next at A. I. G. In a message on Twitter on Thursday, Mr. Icahn said, “We fully support the actions taken today by the board of $AIG. ” Mr. Icahn is the shareholder, with a nearly 4. 7 percent stake, according to Bloomberg data. A representative for Mr. Paulson did not respond to a request for comment. Paulson Company has sold nearly half of its stake, and owns about 0. 49 percent of A. I. G. Shares of A. I. G. which is based in New York, rose in early trading Thursday, but ended the day down nearly 0. 4 percent, to $63. 21. For the year, the shares are down 3. 2 percent. A. I. G. was once the gold standard for insurance companies, as it expanded through acquisitions engineered by Mr. Greenberg, its longtime leader. But in September 2008, with Mr. Greenberg gone, A. I. G. nearly collapsed and it received a $185 billion government bailout. In recent years, A. I. G. ’s performance has lagged its peers, despite efforts by Mr. Hancock to simplify the company and trim costs. Investors have been frustrated by the slow pace of recovery at A. I. G. but they were rattled last month by the quarterly loss of $3. 04 billion, which was larger than expected. The loss was largely a result of a $5. 6 billion increase in reserves to cover potential claims. Shares of A. I. G. tumbled 9 percent the day after the results were announced. Despite Mr. Hancock’s impending departure, Douglas M. Steenland, the company’s chairman, said on Thursday that the board believed that the chief executive’s strategic plan announced last year was “the right plan” for the company and that it remained committed to financial targets and objectives announced earlier. “Peter’s accomplishments at A. I. G. including his role in the company’s turnaround and in driving shareholder value, are immeasurable,” Mr. Steenland said. Mr. Hancock said in a statement: “I believe this is the right decision to make for the company and all its stakeholders. Without wholehearted shareholder support for my continued leadership, a protracted period of uncertainty could undermine the progress we have made and damage the interests of our policyholders, employees, regulators, debtholders and shareholders. ” The cost of claims is showing signs of inching up throughout the insurance industry. But A. I. G. has done worse than its competitors, analysts said. “A lot of work still needs to be done to sustainably improve A. I. G. ’s returns, in our view,” Brian Meredith, a UBS analyst, said in a research note on Thursday. A. I. G. sold some of its most profitable businesses in the years after its bailout to repay the government, which it did in 2012. And, it faced a brain drain as underwriters and others left after its two crises, said Meyer Shields, an insurance analyst with Keefe, Bruyette Woods. First, investigations by Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general at the time, and the Securities and Exchange Commission led Mr. Greenberg to resign in 2005. And a little more than three years later, the company nearly collapsed. “You’ve had enormous talent outflow from A. I. G. to competitors,” Mr. Shields said. “A. I. G. in the past, may have been the only place where certain large complicated risk could go for insurance. That skill set has been enormously fragmented, and I don’t think you can get all of those feathers back in the pillowcase again. ” The announcement on Thursday was a reversal for an executive who had been one of the brightest lights in finance. A banker for nearly 20 years at what was then J. P. Morgan, Mr. Hancock made his name helping to establish the bank’s global derivatives group. He was an Oxford graduate and “the intellectual godfather” of a team of bankers who helped revolutionize finance in the 1990s, according to “Fool’s Gold,” a 2009 book by Gillian Tett. Among his team’s innovations was the credit default swap, contracts that put A. I. G. on the brink in September 2008. At the time, the company had credit default swaps covering some $440 billion in securities on its books. Mr. Hancock, who also was J. P. Morgan’s chief financial officer and chief risk officer, left the company in 2000 after its merger with Chase Manhattan Bank. He joined A. I. G. in 2010 as executive vice president for finance, risk and investments and later ran its arm. In 2014, he was appointed to succeed Robert H. Benmosche, a former MetLife chairman who came out of retirement in 2009 to lead the insurer. Mr. Benmosche died two years ago. It is not clear who may succeed Mr. Hancock as chief executive. Industry analysts said executives who might be considered include: ■ Gregory C. Case, the chief executive of Aon ■ Brian Duperreault, the chief executive of Hamilton Insurance Group and former top executive at the professional services firm Marsh McLennan Companies ■ Daniel S. Glaser, the chief executive of Marsh McLennan ■ Constantine Iordanou, the chief executive of the specialty insurer and reinsurer Arch Capital Group ■ Michael S. McGavick, the chief executive of the insurer and reinsurer XL Group ■ Steve McGill, the former president of Aon ■ Thomas F. Motamed, the former chief executive of CNA Financial Corporation ■ Peter Zaffino, the chief executive of the insurance broker and risk manager Marsh, which is part of Marsh McLennan. | 1 |
Conservative firebrand Ann Coulter had a tweet linking to a recent article flagged as “hate speech” by Twitter. [Ann Coulter posted a link to a recent article on her website titled “To Say, ‘Stop Raping Me!’ In English, Press ‘1’ Now” on Twitter earlier this week. She added the comment, “Liberals are all for rape, provided that the penis forcibly inserted in you is attached to an illegal immigrant. ” Liberals are all for rape, provided that the penis forcibly inserted in you is attached to an illegal immigrant. https: . — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) May 10, 2017, Coulter said she received an email from Twitter support informing her that the tweet had been flagged as violating Twitter’s hateful conduct policy. Twitter’s policy defines hateful conduct as: Coulter replied to the complaint by stating, “This warning is absolutely in error! It has obviously been generated by a computer because a human would read the linked column and find the proof that this tweet is completely, 100% truthful — fact by fact, in cases. It is not a joke, not ‘hate,’ it is just the truth. ” Twitter has a lengthy history of ignoring “hate speech” when it comes from those on the left, such as Ghostbusters (2016) actress Leslie Jones or rapper Talib Kweli, who called Breitbart News’ Jerome Hudson a “coon,” yet Coulter’s tweet was quickly flagged by the social media platform. Twitter’s warning email also noted, “if it is determined that the flagged content does not violate our hateful conduct policy, Twitter may still withhold content in Germany if the content appears to violate the laws of Germany. ” In April, Germany’s Cabinet approved a bill that would fine social media sites like Twitter up to 50 million euros “if they fail to swiftly remove illegal content such as hate speech. ” Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart. com | 1 |
Actor Jack Black took the stage at the BOVET 1822 and Paul Haggis’s Artists for Peace and Justice inaugural “Songs from the Cinema” benefit concert and said he hopes Meryl Streep trashes President Donald Trump from the podium at Sunday’s Academy Awards. [“Is Meryl Streep in the audience tonight?” Black said. “I just hope she wins the Oscar and talks some more shit about that asshole. ” Streep used her Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech at the Golden Globes last month to urge media and Hollywood to stand up to Trump, “to hold power to account, to call to the carpet for every outrage. ” Black told the audience Thursday that Streep’s speech “took balls. ” “They will say, ‘That’s just liberals patting themselves on the back.’ I don’t agree. I thought it took balls,” the Kung Fu Panda 3 star said. “I was inspired by it. To get up there and tell the truth about the President of the United States, in front of a billion people. That takes courage. And it was very inspiring. ” Now this: Jack Black applauds Meryl Streep’s courageous @goldenglobes speech, hopes she wins Oscar, goes after @POTUS again. pic. twitter. — Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) February 24, 2017, Streep is nominated for Best Actress for her role in Florence Foster Jenkins. And while she is not expected to win — Emma Stone, for La La Land, is the frontrunner — the Oscars will likely be as politically charged as the Golden Globes and the Grammys. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson. | 1 |
Good morning. We’re trying something new this week: California Today, a morning update for our California readers. Tell us what you’d like to see: CAtoday@nytimes. com We like to think of California as the center of the tech universe. But, apparently, all that has not helped us figure out how to run more efficient elections. Three weeks after the state’s Democratic presidential primary, half a million votes remain uncounted. The final tallies, whenever they come in, are not expected to change the result. Hillary Clinton declared victory the night of the June 7 primary, when she was up by more than 10 points. In videos, in blog posts and on social media, some supporters of Bernie Sanders are pointing to the uncounted ballots as evidence that Mr. Sanders was robbed. Long waits for final totals are not rare in California. Most of the 2. 5 million votes that were not counted by June 7 were ballots that were not returned until Election Day, or even a few days after. But the vote also exposed “mechanical problems” in the electoral system, said Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data, a consulting firm based in Norwalk, Calif. A flood of voters registered right before the election. Many did not receive ballots until after Election Day, when they were useless. Independents voting by mail also had a hard time getting the right ballots. Both groups were more likely to support Mr. Sanders. Many cast provisional ballots, which take a long time to count because each has to be verified. Since June 7, Mr. Sanders has slightly cut into Ms. Clinton’s lead. She was ahead by roughly 440, 000 votes on election night. Now, it’s 414, 500, or about eight percentage points. Still, it’s a sizable margin. “The Bernie folks have legitimate gripes,” Mr. Mitchell said. “But they’re all going to be resolved when these provisional ballots are counted. ” • Hillary Clinton released her technology policy initiative, which targets young entrepreneurs. It reflects a view that tech should be an engine of equality. • Facebook announced that it will be shifting your news feed away from, well, news, and toward posts by friends. Our tech columnist writes that the company will always prioritize baby pictures over keeping users informed. • American drivers are regaining their appetite for gas guzzlers, unloading hybrid and electric vehicles in favor of bigger cars, pickups and S. U. V. s. • Airbnb is now in disputes with both San Francisco and New York that could end up pushing thousands of illegal listings off the site. The company is in talks for a new round of investment that could value it at about $30 billion. • “An irresistible and indispensable guide to the new technology establishment. ” That’s our book reviewer’s take on “Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley. ” • Visitors to the United States may be asked to voluntarily disclose their social media accounts, a step that is intended to help in screening for ties to terrorism. • “Zoolander 2. ” “Independence Day Resurgence. ” Why are so many sequels arriving many years after the original? We look at the trend. • Paul Draper, the winemaker at Ridge Vineyards, is retiring. Over 47 years at the vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains and Sonoma County, he has been lionized as a leading light in American wine. • An initiative to legalize recreational marijuana use has qualified for the November ballot. Just about everyone expects it to pass. [Los Angeles Times] • More than 70 Bay Area news organizations have teamed up to force local attention onto the region’s homelessness crisis. Coverage includes profiles of homeless people, a look at causes and suggested solutions. [SF Homeless Project] • In Washington, the National Rifle Association is an force. Not so much in Sacramento. [Sacramento Bee] • Scientists have found a bonanza of water beneath the state’s Central Valley. But it still won’t end the drought. [Science] • Koreatown. Little Tokyo. The corridor. Los Angeles has more ethnic corridors than you can easily count, but one writer has done his best to map them by hand. [Boom] Mission Dolores in San Francisco is turning 240 years old today. The mission is older than our republic itself: the first Mass was held on June 29, 1776, a few days before the Declaration of Independence was signed, and nearly 75 years before California statehood. The adobe church, which the congregation moved into in 1791, is the oldest building still standing in San Francisco. It survived the 1906 earthquake, and the fires that followed. Of the nine missions founded under the Rev. Junipero Serra in California, it is the only one whose original chapel is intact. So what is Mission Dolores — as it has long been known, though the official name is Misión San Francisco de Asis — doing to celebrate its anniversary? Not much. Though the mission’s website proudly proclaims its founding in June, anniversary ceremonies will not be held until October, the date when official “paperwork was sent from Mexico,” said Gustavo Torres, the mission’s director of development. In the meantime, if you’re in the area, you can still visit the old mission, its cemetery and its gardens, as roughly 300, 000 people do each year. California Today is a weekday roundup that stays live from 6 a. m. Pacific time until late morning. What would you like to see here to start your day? Tell us at CAtoday@nytimes. com, or reach us via Twitter using #CAToday. Follow the California Today columnist, Ian Lovett, on Twitter. | 1 |
A joint law enforcement task force arrested a previously deported criminal alien and his brother for allegedly transporting nearly 200 pounds of methamphetamine. [U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents teamed up with deputies from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to arrest two brothers who were allegedly smuggling a large volume of methamphetamine, according to information obtained by Breitbart Texas from ICE officials. The task force attempted to arrested Jayor 34, a Mexican national with a prior criminal history that includes prison time and at least two deportations, and his brother Hernan 28, after observing them loading a suspicious box into one of their vehicles. Officials listed the younger brother as a Phoenix resident. The made no mention of his citizenship, nationality, or immigration status. Officers surveilling the two brothers followed them to a storage facility where they removed a large box and placed it into Jayro’s SUV. After following the two vehicles for several miles, officers attempted to stop both vehicles. Hernan stopped his vehicle, but Jayro fled from the law enforcement officers in his SUV. During the pursuit, Jayro allegedly caused two traffic collisions. After the second crash, Jayro abandoned his vehicle and fled on foot. Officers quickly caught up with the illegal alien and placed him in custody. An inspection of his vehicle revealed a large box containing nearly 200 pounds of methamphetamine. Officers arrested the two men and seized the drugs and vehicles. Court records obtained by Breitbart Texas reveal that immigration officials deported Jayro on at least two previous occasions. Border Patrol agents apprehended the Mexican national on at least three other occasions. A court sentenced him to prison after one of the incidents of illegally crossing the border and a second time for using a fraudulent document to cross the border illegally. The court sentenced him to two years in prison for that charge. “It takes cooperation and coordination across agencies to keep our communities safe,” said Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone. “MCSO is committed to working with our partners in law enforcement to make it tough for drug gangs to operate and endanger our communities. We’re pleased with a very successful outcome. ” “This case is a direct result of the ongoing collaborative efforts by HSI with its federal and local partners,” acting special agent in charge for HSI Phoenix Louie Garcia said in a written statement. “Drug smuggling poses both a security and a public safety concern in our communities. We’re continuing to use all of the resources and tools at our disposal to address these threats. ” The two men each face prison sentences of between five and ten years if convicted on the state drug charges. Jayro also faces charges of resisting arrest and fleeing law enforcement. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook. | 1 |
Just when Tiger Woods appeared to get it going with back to back birdies on holes 10 and 11 at the Farmers Insurance Open in his first PGA tour round in 17 months, the wheels quickly came off the cart as he finished the day with a par 76. [Now parked close to the bottom of the leaderboard, Woods will need to go low on Friday at the more forgiving North Course at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, CA to make the cut, (projected at ) and continue the competition over the weekend. Although the extremely soggy courses played long for all the golfers due to extraordinary amounts of rain the region received in January, Tiger couldn’t keep his drives out of the rough forcing bogeys on 12, 13, 14, and a disastrous double bogey on 15, where he tugged his drive into a ravine. Another bogey on 17 and a one putt birdie on 18 put an end to Tiger’s comeback debut. Woods can’t blame the course for his troubles, a layout he has dominated in his career, winning there 8 times, including four consecutive wins between 2005 and 2008. Woods caddy Joe LaCava blamed the poor showing for Woods on his lack of patience. “Joey kept telling me all day today, just be patient with it. I didn’t quite smile at him a few of those times he said that. But I was fighting out there trying to get my ball around the golf course and score,” Woods said. Slow playing conditions also contributed to Tiger’s frustration with rounds taking nearly five and a half hours on Friday. The Major winner has accustomed himself to playing much quicker practice rounds while gearing up in Florida for his PGA return. “It’s just weird to say this but it was just we were playing so much slower than I’m used to. It was just weird waiting that much,” Woods said. “Not used to doing that. At home I guess we’re flying a little quicker than this. It was just a different rhythm. We were out there talking most of the day trying just to kill time. ” Woods is hopeful for his Friday round at the North Course where the putting surfaces are better. “We’re going to go over on some better greens tomorrow, some better conditions and hopefully not only myself but the rest of the guys, we can put some good numbers up. ” Australian and world #1 ranked golfer Jason Day, who played with Tiger on Thursday, also struggled shooting 73. He acknowledged that it’s too early in the season to judge Tiger’s performance. “Having 17 months off is a very, very long time. We can’t just break down everything he did today because it’s been 17 months,” he said. “Let him go a year, let him play and go from there. That’s the same with us. We can’t panic too much at the start of the year. “Look at Rory’s year last year. He really didn’t do a lot until the FedExCup (Playoffs) and he ended up being the FedExCup champion. ” English golfer Justin Rose leads the tournament after shooting a remarkable 7 under 65 on the difficult South Course, while Canadian Adam Hadwin is one back after his 66 on the North. Hadwin is coming off of a 59 last Saturday in his finish at the CareerBuilder in La Quinta. Haddin became only the ninth player to fire a round in PGA tour history. | 1 |
This article is part of a series aimed at helping you navigate life’s opportunities and challenges. What else should we write about? Contact us: smarterliving@nytimes. com. When you woke up this morning, what did you do first? Did you hop in the shower, check your email or grab a doughnut? What did you say to your roommates on the way out the door? Salad or hamburger for lunch? When you got home, did you put on your sneakers and go for a run, or eat dinner in front of the television? Most of the choices we make each day may feel like the products of decision making, but they’re not. They’re habits. And though each habit means relatively little on its own, over time, the meals we eat, how we spend our evenings, and how often we exercise have enormous impacts. This is particularly true in our 20s, when so many of our habits are still up for grabs. The patterns you establish right now will impact your health, productivity, financial security and happiness for decades. How much money you make, how much time you spend with your friends and family, how well your body functions years from now — all of these, in many ways, are products of the habits you are building today. (Related: The 8 health habits experts say you need in your 20s) And in the last decade, our understanding of the neurology of habit formation has been transformed. We’ve learned how habits form — and why they are so hard to break. We now know how to create good habits and change bad ones like never before. At the core of every habit is a neurological loop with three parts: A cue, a routine and a reward. To understand how to create habits — such as exercise habits — you must learn to establish the right cues and rewards. In 2002, researchers at New Mexico State University studied 266 individuals, most of whom worked out at least three times a week. They found that many of them had started running or lifting weights almost on a whim, or because they suddenly had free time or wanted to deal with unexpected stresses in their lives. However, the reason they continued exercising — why it became a habit — was because of a specific cue and a specific reward. If you want to start running each morning, it’s essential that you choose a simple cue (like always lacing up your sneakers before breakfast or always going for a run at the same time of day) and a clear reward (like a sense of accomplishment from recording your miles, or the endorphin rush you get from a jog). But countless studies have shown that, at first, the rewards inherent in exercise aren’t enough. So to teach your brain to associate exercise with a reward, you need to give yourself something you really enjoy — like a small piece of chocolate — after your workout. This is counterintuitive, because most people start exercising to lose weight. But the goal here is to train your brain to associate a certain cue (“It’s 5 o’clock”) with a routine (“Three miles down! ”) and a reward (“Chocolate! ”). Eventually, your brain will start expecting the reward inherent in exercise (“It’s 5 o’clock. Three miles down! Endorphin rush! ”) and you won’t need the chocolate anymore. In fact, you won’t even want it. But until your neurology learns to enjoy those endorphins and the other rewards inherent in exercise, you need to the process. And then, over time, it will become automatic to lace up your jogging shoes each morning. You won’t want the chocolate anymore. You’ll just crave the endorphins. The cue, in addition to triggering a routine, will start triggering a craving for the inherent rewards to come. Want more? You might also like: • The scientific workout • No time to workout? Try exercising on the job • How to pick a health insurance plan | 1 |
As the presidential inauguration drew near in January, something bordering on panic was taking hold among some scientists who rely on the vast oceans of data housed on government servers, which encompass information on everything from social demographics to satellite photographs of polar ice. In a Trump administration that has made clear its disdain for the copious evidence that human activity is warming the planet, researchers feared a broad crusade against the scientific information provided to the public. Reports last week that the administration is proposing deep budget cuts for government agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have fueled new fears of databases being axed, if only as a measure. “We’ll probably be saying goodbye to much of the invaluable data housed at the NCEI,” Anne Jefferson, a water hydrology professor at Kent State University, wrote on Twitter Saturday, referring to the National Centers for Environmental Information. “Hope it gets rescued in time. ” It is illegal to destroy government data, but agencies can make it more difficult to find by revising websites and creating other barriers to the underlying information. Already there have been a handful of changes to the websites of federal science agencies, according to the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, a new organization with researchers monitoring the content. On the E. P. A. ’s website, for instance, the science and technology office had described as its mission the development of “scientific and technological foundations to achieve clean water. ” Now the office says the goal is to develop “economically and technologically achievable performance standards. ” Pie charts on a Department of Energy website illustrating the link between coal and greenhouse gas emissions also have disappeared. So has the description on an Interior Department page of the potential environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing on federal land. Changes like these appear only to reflect the publicly stated priorities of the new administration and there have been few signs as yet that federal databases are being systematically manipulated or restricted. But concern about the vulnerability of scientific information has also focused attention on a nonpartisan problem of government: Much of the scientific information so painstakingly collected over the decades, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, remains held only by the government, scattered on thousands of servers in hundreds of departments where it may not be backed up and could be impossible to find. As thousands of academics, librarians, coders and citizens have gathered at what are called “data rescue” events in recent weeks — there were at least six this past weekend alone — the enormousness of extracting government data that is easily found has become apparent, as has the difficulty in tracking down the rest. Some activists refer to it as “dark data” — and they are not talking about classified information or data the government might release only if compelled by a Freedom of Information Act request. “It’s like dark matter we know it must be there but we don’t know where to find it to verify,” said Maxwell Ogden, the director of Code for Science and Society, a nonprofit that began a archiving project in collaboration with the research libraries in the University of California system. “If they’re going to delete something, how will we even know it’s deleted if we didn’t know it was there?” he asked. The obstacles have spurred debate among activists over how to build an archiving system for the government’s science data that ensures that the public does not lose access to it, regardless of who is in power. “No one would advocate for a system where the government stores all scientific data and we just trust them to give it to us,” said Laurie Allen, a digital librarian at the University of Pennsylvania who helped found Data Refuge. “We didn’t used to have that system, yet that is the system we have landed with. ” At the moment, the closest thing to a central repository is Data. gov, which, under a 2013 Obama administration directive, is supposed to link to all of the public databases within the government. But it relies on agencies to and the total size of all the data linked to by the directory, Mr. Ogden recently found, comes to just 40 terabytes — about as much as would fit on $1, 000 worth of hard drives. NASA alone provides access to more than 17. 5 petabytes of archived data, according to its website (a petabyte is 1, 000 times bigger than a terabyte) over dozens of different data portal systems. And of the links on Data. gov, Mr. Ogden found, take users to a website rather than the actual data, which makes it hard to devise software that can automatically copy it. Even databases that are listed on Data. gov — and there are more than two million, according to Mr. Ogden’s published logs — often sit behind an interface designed for ease of use but built with proprietary code almost impossible to reproduce. The need to write custom code to extract data from, say, the E. P. A. ’s discharge monitoring reports is one reason that, despite having hosted more than two dozen “data rescue” events since January, the activist group Data Refuge lists only 158 data sets in its public directory. Andrew Bergman, a graduate student in applied physics at Harvard, along with two physics department colleagues, suspended his studies to help found the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, which has also helped to organize the events. “We have things that are considered really important from NASA, E. P. A. NOAA,” Mr. Bergman said. “But in terms of finalized, completed data sets that are actually useful, it’s a very small number compared to the total. ” The transition to digital distribution that made government documents more accessible, librarians say, has also left them more at risk. Without physical copies in libraries, the internet’s promise of making government information more widely available has made it far more centralized. Except when certain data is the subject of a lawsuit or multiple F. O. I. A. requests, it remains unclear what compels an agency to keep it online. “Destroying federal records is a crime,” said Patrice McDermott, who heads a public advocacy organization called Open the Government. “Taking them off of the internet does not have the same penalty. ” In a recent letter to the federal Office of Management and Budget, Ms. McDermott’s group cited a clause in the 1995 Paperwork Reduction Act that requires agencies to “provide adequate notice when initiating, substantially modifying, or terminating significant information dissemination products. ” But what that means for the age of big data has not been defined. To make secure copies of government research that researchers can trust is no easy task, librarians say. But many of those who have been trying for years to find funding and a system to do it reliably hope to harness the current wave of interest. “At the moment, more people than ever are aware of the risk of relying solely on the government to preserve its own information,’’ two government document librarians, James A. Jacobs, of the University of California, San Diego, and James R. Jacobs of Stanford University, wrote in an essay circulated online last week. “This was not true even six months ago. ’’ At the archiving events, participants are typically divided into groups. One uses a web browser extension to flag government web addresses for the Internet Archive, an existing service that operates an automated “web crawler” that can make copies of federal websites but typically not the databases that store information in more exotic formats. Another group is tasked with scrutinizing data sets that researchers have identified as particularly useful or vulnerable. Those are “tagged” with a description of where they came from and what they are. At one of last month’s events, at New York University, many marveled at the breadth and depth of the research they were sorting through, even as they worried about its future. “Look, you can get temperature and salinity readings from any one of these buoys,’’ said Barbara Thiers, the vice president for science at the New York Botanical Garden, another participant. “This is the raw data for tracking ocean warming. ’’ | 1 |
Nonsensical big business flails for answer to backlash MacroBusiness(David L)
Antidote du jour (guurst). This was the winner in the black and white competition of the Natural History Museum in London. From a write-up of bird photograph winners in Audobon Magazine :
In the first light of dawn, photographer Mats Andersson used black and white to capture the melancholy moment following the death of this Eurasian Pygmy Owl’s partner. The pair had accompanied Andersson on his daily walks through the forest during the early spring. “The owl’s resting posture reflected my sadness for its lost companion,” he says. See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here . 0 0 0 0 0 0 This entry was posted in Links on by Yves Smith . Post navigation | 0 |
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By Rmuse 10:03 am "The archdiocese holds the matter among its highest priorities. If passed, the law would have significantly detrimental impacts on our parishes, our ministries" *The following is an opinion column by R Muse*
For almost all secular humanists, organized religion is nothing more than an easy means of controlling people through fear and intimidation. Throughout recorded history, the Catholic Church has been responsible for all manner of devious machinations to control not just its adherents, but any humans it comes in contact with. That lust to control human beings has continued unabated into the 21st Century and in America like the rest of the Earth the Catholics number one focus has been on controlling women. Apparently, the Catholic Church in Massachusetts wants to expand its control over the population.
On Friday the Boston Globe reported that the Archdiocese of Boston dropped about a million dollars in a last-ditch effort to exert Church control over Massachusetts law and citizens to stop marijuana from being legalized for recreational use. Other reports reveal that the tax-exempt political spending is meant to help defeat a Massachusetts ballot measure, Question 4 . Question 4 simply legalizes cannabis for recreational use for people over 21 and creates a commission to regulate marijuana in the state of Massachusetts. Question 4 contains no references to the Catholic, or any other church, and makes no claim of trying to “ impact ministries .”
A spokesman for the Boston Archdiocese, Terrence Donilon, made a truly pathetic attempt at justifying the Catholic church’s political donation to the campaign against Massachusetts’ version of legalized recreational marijuana saying :
“ It reflects the fact that the archdiocese holds the matter among its highest priorities. It’s a recognition that, if passed, the law would have significantly detrimental impacts on our parishes, our ministries .”
Seriously, that has to be one of the most monumental piles of bovine excrement of a reason to use tax-free congregants’ donations to interfere in an election ever offered. Nowhere in Massachusetts’ or any state’s decriminalization statutes is any church mentioned, much less affected by the outcome of an election. Catholic priests will still be free to sexually abuse little boys if adults can legally purchase and consume cannabis. And despite residents having a toke in the privacy of their homes, the Church will still frighten its members into increasing their tithes, and the USCCB will still attempt to control and dominate all American women. No reefer decriminalization will impact the Catholic ministry, but it will drastically reduce the number of people being arrested and imprisoned for marijuana possession, free up law enforcement to pursue nasty pedophile priests, and relieve America’s over-burdened judicial system.
Now, the Catholics claim that people using cannabis legally, whether they inhale or eat it, will have “ significantly detrimental impacts on their ministries .” That is an odd assertion on yet another point; Surely part of “Catholic ministries” is teaching according to their god’s word in the Christian bible. It is nearly certain that every Catholic priest on the planet, including those in Massachusetts, are aware of god’s word in Genesis where in chapter 2, verse 9 the Catholics’ “ almighty god ” said:
“ Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food. ” And he continues in verses 15-17 , “ Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die .”
Although there is recorded evidence that cannabis was first discovered to be used for its medicinal qualities 10,000 years ago , there is no record of reefer ever being confused with “ The tree of the knowledge of good and evil; ” weed is not and will not affect the Catholic ministries if it is decriminalized today any more than it has over the past two-thousand years the Catholic Church has existed and cannabis was either unknown to the clergy or illegal.
In a reaction to the news the archdiocese was interfering with politics with tax-exempt money, an advocate and spokesman for the Yes on Question 4, Jim Borghesani, said :
“ The archdiocese has come up with a position that, frankly, we think is based on unfounded assumptions and junk science. What I think the archdiocese is missing is the terrible harm that (marijuana) prohibition has done to people of color, to people who have chosen a substance that is less dangerous than alcohol and have had their lives ruined because they’ve been arrested .”
One wonders if part of the Boston archdiocese’s ministry entails increasing the number of Americans, mainly Americans of color, sent to prison for possessing or using a plant that “ god caused to grow ” and was “ pleasing to the sight and good to eat .” Obviously, that is the case and according to a new set of data, keeping marijuana illegal means keeping Americans arrested for drug possession at a rate of every 25 seconds of every day of the year.
Why is the Catholic Church so interested in perpetuating the failed “War on Drugs in general, and the criminalization of marijuana in particular?” As noted by Michael Stone over at Patheos, what the Massachusetts Catholics, and Mormons, are actually helping to sustain is “ in reality a war on poor people and people of color .” Mr. Stone really nails it when he said that by spending tax-exempt donations on a political agenda to “ defend the unjust prohibition on marijuana; the Catholic church is guilty of perpetuating the failed War on Drugs and the New Jim Crow .”
The archdiocese is also guilty of hypocrisy, besides implicit racism. Because any religious organization that condones and even promotes the use of alcohol while using tax-exempt donations to maintain the ridiculous prohibition on cannabis is “ morally indefensible .” Mormons are also busy instructing LDS members to vote against all state initiatives that seek to decriminalize and regulate recreational marijuana use as if it has any affect whatsoever on either their private Mormon lives or their LDS ministry, but they allegedly don’t condone or enjoy alcohol so they just have control issues and are not blatant hypocrites; at least where cannabis decriminalization is concerned.
The Massachusetts Catholics may not be violating the law by “ acting as an anti-marijuana super PAC ,” but they are using tax-exempt member donations to politically influence an election and control other Americans’ lives; the church is all about wielding ultimate control over all facets of American society. However, if the Church is so flush with money; why not use that money to compensate the thousands of victims of the Church’s pedophile priests? Or, dog forbid, use that tax-exempt donors’ money to help the people of Massachusetts in need.
The Catholic Church is guilty of using fear and intimidation to control its own adherents, and that is down to frightened people needing a ‘ daddy’ figure in the Church to tell them what is right, what is wrong, and how to stay out of the proverbial Hell; that is all well and good for people that willingly cry out for a controlling organization speaking for a deity. But for people that are not “ in the church ” it is an affront to use donated tax-exempt money to impact (read control) their private lives. The only good news out of this abominable story is that it looks like Question 4 will pass with relative ease informing that the archdiocese wasted about a million dollars of its congregation’s hard-earned money.
This is yet another example of why all churches should be taxed like every other business and American citizen, except Donald Trump. It is “ morally obnoxious ” that the archdiocese is using the congregations’ donations for political purposes to influence an election and yet another sign that there is no area the church considers as out of bounds in attempting to control every aspect of society with tax-exempt funds wrung out of hardworking Americans, many of whom use recreational cannabis.
h/t Patheos | 0 |
CHAPEL HILL, N. C. — André Leon Talley is eating a biscuit. He shouldn’t be eating a biscuit because he is on a long, difficult sojourn here through the holidays at Duke Diet Fitness Center to try to lose 100 pounds and stop associating food with love. And biscuits are his Proustian madeleines, evoking all the love he got from his grandmother growing up in humble circumstances in nearby Durham. But André has been going through a rough patch with his friends, and he needs a bit of carb comfort, as we listen to the morning medley soundtrack of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra in the lobby of the genteel Siena Hotel before he heads off to Duke for a more spartan breakfast in a cafeteria. It’s my fault, too, because I’m pressing him on a sore subject he is reluctant to discuss: Melania Trump. The Monsieur Vogue, as he is known, cloaks his voluminous red puffer coat over his mountainous form, so that only his big brown eyes and navy Filson knit cap are showing. “First of all,” he says, well aware of my fashion ignorance, “this is a Norma Kamali sleeping bag coat. ” Then he offers his declaration: “You make the choice to be in Trumpland or you make the choice to eject yourself from the horror of Trumpland. I’ve made my choice not to be part of Trumpland. ” But, I point out, Donald Trump was bragging on the trail only the day before that he had just had a meeting with André’s Vogue compadre and fellow Hillary supporter Anna Wintour. At first, André has a hard time believing that Ms. Wintour would venture anywhere near the dreaded Trump Tower. I have to actually show him the story and get it confirmed with the Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks. But finally he shrugs under his puffery. “As for Anna Wintour going to Mr. Trump, she’s a powerful woman, she’s running an empire, she’s the editorial director of Condé Nast,” he says. “We can’t judge her for going to a meeting. She’s a professional, powerful woman. That’s all I have to say. ” I have flown here to see if André can shed some light on Melania, the sultry enigma of Trumpworld, the only reserved member of what is shaping up to be the most bellicose takeover in modern times. As everyone else rushes in to blow up the capital, as Ivanka shops for houses in Georgetown and office space at the White House, as headlines cascade about how Ivanka will be the real first lady, Melania has virtually disappeared. We see more of her doppelgänger on “Saturday Night Live” than we do the real Slovenian Sphinx, who is hanging back in New York so her son, Barron, can finish the school year. Melania’s absence from the stage has not stopped a raging battle in the fashion world about her — a sequel to the boycott during the campaign against Ivanka’s brand and a microcosm of the fight being replayed across the country about whether to “normalize” the Trumps or whether to keep shouting from the rooftops, “This is not normal! ,” as my colleague Charles Blow urged this week. André’s friend Tom Ford said he was not likely to dress the former fashion model and future first lady because “she’s not necessarily my image. ” (Ford once spent time after a Helmut Newton memorial trying to get Melania to do something about the Donald’s hair, but Melania merely murmured in her Gabor accent, “I like him the way he is. ”) Marc Jacobs told Women’s Wear Daily that he would rather put his energy “into helping out those who will be hurt by Trump and his supporters. ” The French designer Sophie Theallet, a favorite of Michelle Obama’s, published an open letter saying she would not dress Melania to protest Donald Trump’s “rhetoric of racism, sexism and xenophobia. ” Other designers, like Tommy Hilfiger and Carolina Herrera, have riposted that they would be proud to dress the Trump women. It is a particularly sensitive matter since Melania follows Michelle, beloved by the fashion world, as The New York Times’s Vanessa Friedman wrote recently, for elevating the industry “beyond the superficial to the substantive,” by framing clothing “as a collection of values: diversity, creativity, entrepreneurship. ” As David Yermack, a professor of finance at New York University, noted, Michelle was also a bonanza, generating $2. 7 billion in a single year for the companies she showcased. André has particular insight into Melania’s style since, while on Vogue assignment, he went to couture shows with her in Paris and helped her choose her Dior wedding gown, and later flew with her in splendor on the Trump plane as Donald scarfed down Oreos and talked about how Jude Law was no Cary Grant. As André told me in the fall when I interviewed him, he came away impressed with the Trump women. He called Melania charming and private, “soignée and polished” with “impeccable” manners and legs that are “a long drink of water,” and said she had a gift for standing on stiletto heels. “She’s very much like a high, super, superglamorous Stepford Wife,” he told me. He also said that she was the most fastidiously groomed and exquisitely moisturized person he’d ever met. (He now gives that honor to Kim Kardashian West.) At the wedding, which he attended with Ms. Wintour, he noticed that “even then you could tell that Ivanka was going to be a very bright star. She had on a dress. ” But André walked into a sartorial buzz saw when, amid buzz that he might be called on to give Melania advice about her Inaugural gown, he echoed some of those sentiments recently to a Daily Mail reporter, saying that Melania was “a wonderful person to be with” and that she “will be one of the great stars in the administration. ” He capped it off with optimism: “I hope there will be a great, great Trump presidency. ” It didn’t take long for the guillotine to fall. One friend emailed him, “Oh my God, you have gone to the Evil Empire! !!!!” He agonized about the “tragedy of ruptured friendships” to me in an email, saying about Melania: “She’s a nice person. I do not endorse Trumpism on any level. So why can’t one be positive and want her to shine? I mean, it’s good she cares about napkins, crystal, dinner plates with gilded edges to the point of over the top, and abundant flower arrangements. In the end, why pick on her when they should be picking on her husband’s billionaire cabinet and his seeming readiness to turn the country back towards oppression, etc. ” As we sit in the hotel lobby, he muses: “I’m not a big person in the world. I’m maybe a big figure in the fashion world. I mean, sort of iconic. But I don’t want to get phone calls in the middle of the night, telling me I’ve gone over to Trumpland and I’m going to Darth Vader because I said nice things about Melania. I voted for Hillary Clinton. I registered in North Carolina because it mattered. I went through hoops of fire to get my absentee ballot. And, quite frankly, I thought she would have brought back the pantsuit. I thought the gray trouser suit designed by Ralph Lauren she wore with the purple satin shell and the lapels matching the blouse was brilliant. The elegant anthracite gray dry wool actually was slimming. “Melania, who opted at 3 a. m. for a palazzo jumpsuit, with one arm exposed and a flounce over the other — it seemed to me too a huge, jumpsuit. Trying too hard. And I am so tired of the long hair falling on both sides of her face. She has to upgrade her coiffure. ” But isn’t he worried that many of those on the left who complain about Trump as a dictator are acting dictatorial? Not one good word can ever be said about anything that happens for the next four or eight years? Is it fair to hold Melania and Ivanka responsible? Or are they putting a lovely gloss on some of Trump’s unsavory rhetoric and actions? “Listen, Melania made her choice,” he replies. “She married the man, so she’s got to go with the territory. She’s Mrs. Trump. ” I remind André that he told me that, at the 2005 wedding, it seemed as if “Donald Trump was a cool guy. ” “He became the master of darkness, the master of the dark empire, as he became more powerful, as he started with birtherism and in the campaign,” André says now. “Birtherism is terrible. It was a terrible thing he did to Obama. And he never let go. ‘Make America great again.’ A lot of people think that means make America white again. ” I say that a friend of mine, the writer David Israel, is now calling it the House. “People are really afraid of these dark, dark institutions of bigotry and that have come out from under the rocks like creepy snakes and come up to rear their heads up like cobras,” André agrees. “People seem to have put all their egregious things on the back burner. Melania plagiarized Michelle Obama’s speech. Let’s just wait and see what happens on Jan. 20. I don’t want Trump to fail, and I don’t want Melania Trump to fail. But I’m not going to sit here and say any more positive things, because I’d get crucified from personal friends. ” So the Trumps should never get a full measure of respect? “Did the Congress ever treat Obama as a president?” André snaps back. “Did they plot in a restaurant the night he was inaugurated to filibuster everything for eight years? This country has elected a president who is on audiotape saying I’m a star and I can do whatever I want with women, grab them in the vagina. Dignity has gone out the door. He’s causing me much ire. He just said, ‘My cabinet has the highest I. Q.’ His cabinet of mostly white men. That’s a dog whistle. ” Trump had come down to the bouquet of microphones the day before with Kanye West, whose wedding André had attended and praised as even more astonishing than the Trump wedding because the rehearsal dinner was at Versailles, not just a Florida ballroom gussied up to look like Versailles. But even Kanye’s visit did not impress André. “Listen to me,” he instructs. “There is a lot of marzipan here. Marzipan is the glaze you put on a cake, a superficial glazed layer. It’s all marzipan, it’s all optics. ” Speaking of optics, I tell André that the mother of a Times colleague I met at the White House Christmas party said she didn’t mind that Melania had been a model, noting that Betty Ford worked as a model. And she didn’t care if she had been an “adventuress” seeking a wealthy husband. But she did not like Melania’s photo shoot of racy pictures with another woman, and felt she could not accept her as first lady because of that. “You can’t judge a person by pictures,” André responds. “She was a model. She took pictures. ” I mention that it’s passing strange that Melania’s project is fighting cyberbullying when her husband is a cyberbully. André rolls his eyes. André’s favorite first ladies are Michelle Obama and Jackie Kennedy. Of Jackie he says, “I would have loved to give her advice, even about what to wear to the beach. ” The night before, we had a tasty dinner of grilled salmon, broccoli and eggplant at the diet and fitness center’s cafeteria. This is André’s fifth time here. I asked him if it was true that Anna Wintour and Oscar de la Renta once had an intervention with him about his weight. “Absolutely,” he said. “Anna Wintour called an intervention in the conference room at Vogue one morning. And I was escorted downstairs by a fellow staff member to one of the executive dining rooms. And I said to this person, ‘Am I about to be fired for something?’ And I walked into the room, and there was an intervention going on. And Oscar and his wife and Anna Wintour and my minister, Reverend [Calvin O.] Butts, had been called into the room. They were ready to send me to the Duke Diet Fitness Center the very next day, and they’d already made the reservation. But, of course, I angrily rejected it because I was emotionally not ready to come, so I got up and I quietly left the room. ” About a year later, he finally made the decision himself to come to Duke and left straight from the Trump wedding at on a Sunday afternoon. When he was a child, his grandmother worked every day to support him, cooking, washing and ironing. But on Sunday mornings, she would make him a special pan of biscuits and “the best” chocolate cake. “So my weaknesses are anything I associate with childhood, which I associate with love,” he said. But he is weaning himself from bread and sugar and has already lost 28 pounds. I made one last attempt to press him for an idea of what Melania will be like compared to other first ladies. We know there will be opulence. We know that she loves Valentino and Chanel and Manolo and fur and diamonds and that she doesn’t like prints or going without makeup. When Melania did the Vogue cover, the writer Sally Singer said that the bride of Trump, compared in the piece to a Bond girl, had “a slightly idea of femininity” because she refused to pose for Mario Testino without makeup or perfectly styled hair. “She has those impossibly high towering stilettos,” André said. “Clearly, her clothes will cling in the right places, accentuate her figure and her long tresses. Get ready for waists, hourglass silhouettes and pencil skirts. She is already into which Jackie Kennedy wore by Oleg Cassini. Melania likes monotone matching coats and beige dresses, but that hair will always be flying once she goes down the stairs of Air Force One. “She’s very private. She just wants to be a mother. It’s very similar to Jackie O, who also wanted to keep her kids out of the fray. When Barron was first born, she used to say: ‘I’m going off to play with Barron. I just want to spend time with Barron.’ So, in a way, I think that she’s maintaining her privacy with him and maintaining a kind of dignity because she’s not making statements. I don’t think that she would try to change the White House in any way. I don’t think that’s what she’s interested in. ” She never tried to modify the gaudy ’80s gilt in the Trump Tower penthouse or the rushing fountain in the middle — a style of décor described by the Trump biographer Timothy O’Brien as Louis XIV on acid. As André has noted, Melania is not “a disrupter. ” But Trump is. “I wish them the best,” André said. “I want suddenly to see that she has incredible style, wake up and say, ‘Oh my God, look, isn’t that great?’ I really do think that there’s hope. We have to wait and see. As Sergei Diaghilev told Jean Cocteau, ‘Astonish me.’ ” | 1 |
Passengers at a Florida airport broke out into a brawl after Spirit Airlines canceled nine flights due to issues with the airline’s pilots’ union.[ Videos posted on social media showed passengers running amok, screaming, shouting, and throwing punches at sheriff’s deputies at Fort Lauderdale International Airport Monday night, the Miami Herald reported. The Palm Beach Post reports that three people were arrested by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office for disorderly conduct, starting a riot, resisting an officer, and trespassing. Police say Desmond Waul, 22, Janice Waul, 24, and Devante Garrett, 22 threatened employees of the airport and deputies with physical violence — even after authorities asked them to leave the airport several times. They are each being held on $10, 000 bond at the Broward County Jail. Hundreds of passengers had been stranded at the airport, scrambling to alter their travel plans after facing days of flight cancellations and delays, when an angry mob broke out at the ticket counter. “All of a sudden, one particular flight got canceled, and a mob ensued up here at the front counter, in front of everyone else who had been waiting in line,” a passenger told WSVN. Spirit Airlines said the nine flights were canceled due to a lack of airline staff available because of unresolved contract negotiations with the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA). CNN reports that a total of 300 Spirit flights have been canceled over the past week. Spirit Airlines filed a lawsuit in U. S. District Court in Miami Monday against ALPA for “an unlawful job action” by the airline’s pilots, Spirit Airlines spokesman Paul Berry told CBS Miami in a statement: We are shocked and saddened to see the videos of what took place at Ft. International Airport this evening. This is a result of unlawful labor activity by some Spirit pilots designed to disrupt Spirit operations for our customers, by canceling multiple flights across our network. These pilots have put their quest for a new contract ahead of getting customers to their destinations and the safety of their fellow Spirit Team Members. ALPA, however, denies that the union had any involvement with the shortage of employees, saying that the suit is “unwarranted. ” The union said in a statement: The Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l and the Spirit pilot group it represents are not engaged in a job action. Rather, ALPA and the Spirit pilots are continuing to do everything possible to help restore the company’s operations, which have experienced significant problems over the past several days. While we will continue these efforts, we will actively defend the association, its officers and its member pilots against the unwarranted and counterproductive legal action brought this evening by Spirit Airlines. A federal judge ordered Tuesday all members of ALPA to “stop boycotting flights” as a result of the contract dispute, the Associated Press reported. | 1 |
PHILADELPHIA — In a luxury suite high above the convention floor, some of the Democratic Party’s most generous patrons sipped cocktails and caught up with old friends, tuning out Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Monday as he bashed Wall Street in an arena named after one of the country’s largest banks. On Tuesday, when Hillary Clinton became the first female nominee of a major party, a handful of drug companies and health insurers made sure to echo the theme, paying to sponsor an “Inspiring Women” panel featuring Democratic congresswomen. And in the vaulted marble bar of the downtown, wealthy givers congregated in force for cocktails and as protesters thronged just outside to voice their unhappiness with Wall Street, big money in politics and Mrs. Clinton herself. “This is a good place to be — for a lot of reasons,” said former Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, a Democrat now running for Congress, as he glided through the room on Tuesday. “We must have set up five today. This is the bank. ” After a wrenching yearlong nominating battle with searing debates over the influence of Wall Street and the ability of ordinary citizens to be heard over the din of dollars changing hands, the party’s moneyed elite returned to the fore this week, undeterred and mostly unabashed. While protesters marched in the streets and blocked traffic, Democratic donors congregated in a few reserved hotels and shuttled between private receptions with elected officials. If the talk onstage at the Wells Fargo Center was about reducing inequality and breaking down barriers, Center City Philadelphia evoked the world as it still often is: a stratified society with privilege and access determined by wealth. “The Clinton people would always argue, ‘Well, there’s no connection between the money and the actions that we take,’ ” said Jonathan Tasini, a liberal organizer and Sanders delegate from New York. “That’s what these cocktail parties and receptions are all about. It’s about access and whose phone calls get answered. ” For many Clinton donors, particularly those from the financial sector, the convention is a time to shed what one called the “hypersensitivity” that had previously surrounded their appearance at Mrs. Clinton’s or at her political events, during a period when Mr. Sanders repeatedly attacked Mrs. Clinton’s connections to Wall Street and her speaking fees from financial institutions. “I think we’re past that,” said Alan Patricof, a longtime donor to Mrs. Clinton, when asked about the need to lie low during the primaries. In Philadelphia, donors were handed preferred suites at the and “Friends and Family” packages created for longtime Clinton hands — some of them also longtime benefactors. Some were granted time backstage or in the Clinton family box with former President Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton. Blackstone, the private equity giant, scheduled a reception at the Barnes Foundation on Thursday with its president, Hamilton E. James, one of the leading Wall Street contenders for an economic policy post in a future Clinton administration. The Philadelphia convention offered other symbolic contrasts to the party’s last two gatherings, when President Obama sought, with mixed success, to restrict his party from raising money to pay for the conventions from lobbyists or political action funds. Those shackles were thrown off this year, waving a green flag to Washington’s influence industry. Lobbyists and corporate representatives flooded the city, where much of the Democratic Party’s elite — and potential senior members of a future presidential administration — had gathered. The railway giant CSX brought in old railroad cars for a reception led by Rodney E. Slater, the former United States transportation secretary turned lobbyist, who also headlined a panel on transportation policy in a future Clinton administration. At the Loews Hotel bar on Tuesday night, old Clinton hands, some now working as lobbyists, caught up with Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, a longtime family friend and one of the party’s most prolific . At a private luncheon on Wednesday at El Vez, a Mexican restaurant, over a dozen Democratic governors mingled with representatives from a host of labor unions and companies, among them the Apollo Education Group, an operator of colleges that has faced a series of state and federal investigations into allegations of shady recruiting, deceptive advertising and questionable financial aid practices. “It’s business as usual,” said Libby Watson, who monitored lobbying events in Philadelphia on behalf of the Sunlight Foundation, a group devoted to government transparency. The biggest players gathered at the where a line of sport utility vehicles and limousines deposited waves of men in suits but no ties and elegantly dressed women bearing expensive handbags. At seats near the bar, assistants huddled around lengthy spreadsheets, figuring out which donors were entitled to which passes to which events. Outside, a protester walked with a sign denouncing big money. Inside, two stocky men could be heard debating the merits of the different ambassadorships they hoped to earn under Mrs. Clinton. Even a posting meant having “ambassador” on a child’s wedding invitation, the two agreed, and would be helpful in wrangling invitations to sit on corporate boards. A few feet away, Mary Pat Bonner, a gatekeeper to many prominent liberal donors, chatted with her most important client, David Brock, the founder of a cluster of outside groups that has raised millions of dollars to help elect Mrs. Clinton. The longtime Clinton friend and Maureen White strode through the lobby, just missing Rajiv K. Fernando, the Chicago securities trader and Clinton donor, who resigned his appointment to a sensitive intelligence advisory board after questions were raised about his qualifications. Nearby were Heather Podesta, the Democratic lobbyist and Clinton and Philip D. Murphy, the former Goldman Sachs executive and ambassador to Germany, now running for governor of New Jersey. Occasionally, as bellhops leapt to open the lobby doors for another guest, the chants of protesters outside could be dimly heard. John Graham, a New Jersey insurance executive and Clinton backer, said that after seeing the demonstrators outside the hotel, he had taken his daughter for a walk to meet some of them. “It’s a little awkward, because guys like me are in here,” Mr. Graham said. “And we need to do something for the young people who are out there. ” | 1 |
Humor Home Trump Van Full Of Illegals Shows Up To Vote Clinton At SIX Polling Places, Still Think Voter Fraud Is A Myth? Van Full Of Illegals Shows Up To Vote Clinton At SIX Polling Places, Still Think Voter Fraud Is A Myth? Freedom Trump 8
Democrats want you to think voter fraud is a myth, but that’s because the Democrat Party benefits so much from it. In July, Election Justice USA, for example, reported that without Clinton’s team committing egregious acts of voter fraud, Sanders would have been the man to lose to Donald Trump in the national election. Instead, we have Pantsuits McCriminal, and what happened Friday is absolute proof that she will do literally anything to win.
Fox 10 Phoenix reports that nine illegal immigrants complete with fake identification and voter registration cards, and stolen social security numbers, voted at around 9 am a Desert Wind Middle School in Pinal County. At 10:30, the very same white van carrying the very same illegals was spotted at Santa Rosa Elementary School and they voted there as well. Just two hours later, the same group showed up at the Global Water Center to cast their vote.
By this point, poll workers had been notified and one of those Poll Watchers liberals hate so much pretended to take a poll and asked them whom they had voted for. In broken English, one man who identified himself as Jose Gutierrez said “I am voting for Hillary Clinton many times.”
And vote many times he did. Mr. “Gutierrez” and friends voted in two more locations, their spree ending in Maricopa County where a Sheriff was waiting for them. The nine beloved “undocumented persons” as Democrats call them were arrested and charged with attempted in-person voter fraud and several other charges. Unfortunately, only one will be deported.
“They were just enthusiastic. Most of these people do not have criminal records before this,” an immigration official says, “with the exception of Enrique Calderon of Mexico.” The official explained that Calderon is wanted on two counts of rape and six counts of drug trafficking back in Mexico, where he will be returning soon.
Why aren’t the rest being sent back with him? Ask Obama. Join The Resistance And Share This Article Now! 338.1k | 0 |
On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” CNN Counterterrorism Analyst and former CIA counterterrorism official Phil Mudd stated that Representative Trey Gowdy ( ) “ought to have his ass kicked. ” After seeing a clip of an exchange between Gowdy and former CIA Director John Brennan over the existence of evidence showing a connection between the Trump campaign and Russia, Mudd said, “Trey Gowdy ought to have his ass kicked. He knows the difference between intelligence and evidence. Let me tell you something, Alisyn, if you’re an American citizen, and the National Security Agency collects intelligence, that is intercepts of Russians, who report what you’ve said, do you think it’s fair to go to a court and say that’s evidence that you did something wrong? That’s why the FBI is going to a year or more to investigate this, because the American citizens involved in this have a right to have evidence presented in a court beyond a conversation that a Russian official reports. In my world, this distinction is black and white. It is a hard line. I know it’s frustrating for the American people. But I hope they don’t want evidence to be perceived as something that a Russian official says, and that’s it, you can be convicted on that. It’s not. ” ( WFB) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
by Yves Smith
By John Light, a reporter and digital producer for the Moyers team. His work has appeared at The Atlantic, Grist, Mother Jones, Salon, Slate, Vox and Al Jazeera, and has been broadcast on Public Radio International. Follow him on Twitter at @LightTweeting. Moyers & Company
The Colorado oil and gas industry is poised to strike a devastating blow against anti-fracking activists Tuesday. Enactment of Amendment 71 , a statewide ballot initiative campaign that’s backed by the industry, will make it, in the words of the Denver Post’ s editorial board, “ nearly impossible ” for Colorado voters to amend their state constitution to allow for local fracking bans — or, for that matter, anything else.
It’s a story worth telling in some detail, because it vividly illustrates the many obstacles well-connected and well-funded special interests can put in the way of citizens trying to oppose them. The latest battle in a multi-year campaign by a network of pro-fossil fuel groups to defend the fracking industry against local opponents, Amendment 71 would require 2 percent of registered voters in each of Colorado’s 35 state Senate districts to sign petitions for any future initiative before it could be put on the ballot. Right now, anyone who wishes to amend the state constitution must collect signatures from 5 percent of the number of voters who voted for secretary of state in the last election.
That threshold is still not always easy for grass-roots groups to meet: Two green priorities — an amendment allowing for local bans on fracking and an amendment requiring fracking operations to be at least a half mile from homes or schools — failed to make the cut for this year’s ballot, according to the secretary of state. Disappointed environmentalists attribute that to a lack of time and resources, but also to a very well-financed campaign by the oil and gas industry. A report released by the watchdog group Public Citizen estimated that fossil fuel interests outspent anti-fracking activists by a factor of 24-to-1.
Nonetheless, greens feel ballot measures are among the best options in their political toolbox in a state where well-heeled oil and gas interests have managed to convince both Democratic and Republican politicians that what’s good for their industry is good for the state’s economy.
“The political system in Colorado is really aligned with the oil and gas industry,” said Suzanne Spiegel, an organizer with Frack Free Colorado. She described the state’s Democratic governor, John Hickenlooper, as “incredibly supportive” of fossil fuel interests. A former oil and gas geologist, Hickenlooper touts the industry as crucial to the state economy. He once claimed to have joined Halliburton executives in drinking one of the company’s fracking fluids to demonstrate its safety. The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment on this article.
For groups like Spiegel’s, ballot initiatives provide an alternative to a political system they see as in the pocket of the fracking industry. “One of the great things about Colorado is that we currently have access to this channel of direct democracy,” Spiegel said. But, she added, a victory for Amendment 71 “would all but eliminate it.”
Both liberal and conservative groups that rely on grass-roots organizing have united to oppose the measure. Oil and gas interests, meanwhile, have thrown in millions of dollars from their sophisticated political operations to make sure the amendment passes on Tuesday.
Fossil Fuels’ Grip on Colorado
The origins of the current political fight date back 2012, when the top two Colorado oil and gas companies, Anadarko and Noble Energy, geared up to challenge local opposition to fracking. Four Colorado towns were moving to ban fracking or place a moratorium on it. Longmont, Colorado had already succeeded in becoming the first town to do so earlier that year.
The fracking boom had hit the state several years before, and some Coloradans were alarmed by the speed at which wells seemed to be multiplying. According to the federal Energy Information Administration , natural gas production doubled in the state between 2001 and 2015, and oil production doubled between 2012 and 2014. With that came a flood of political donations from the oil and gas industry to state and local officials.
By 2014, when environmentalists began collecting signatures for two anti-fracking amendments (neither of which ultimately made it onto the ballot), the industry was fully mobilized. In addition to offering two pro-fracking ballot measures of their own, oil and gas interests set up a series of benignly named advocacy groups. Among these were Protecting Colorado’s Environment, Economy, and Energy Independence — often referred to as simply “Protect Colorado” — and Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development (CRED).
According to IRS filings (posted online here and here by Greenpeace), these two spent $27 million to promote the industry that year. A political strategist working with the groups, Mark Truax, attended a September 2015 meeting of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), where industry executives, lobbyists and regulators from around the US gather to discuss strategy. Truax outlined the political groups’ efforts on behalf of the pro-fracking measures, including a sophisticated voter outreach organization, according to a transcript of the meeting published in Boulder Weekly and made from a recording obtained by Greenpeace researcher Jesse Coleman.
On the recording, Truax touted the way the pro-oil and gas groups had targeted 3.9 million voters by demographic to win their sympathy toward fracking. He explained how the groups had built coalitions among businesses in the state and how the industry focused on electing pro-oil and gas city council members.
Industry representatives also worked closely with the state regulator, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission . The group’s director, Matt Lepore , was present at the IOGCC meeting where Truax discussed strategy, and emails obtained by Greenpeace’s Coleman through a Freedom of Information Act request show that Lepore and other regulatory officials met with CRED as the group was developing one of its outreach campaigns.
“As a public agency, we make ourselves available to any interested party that wants to learn more — or ask about specific issues — related to the COGCC’s work,” said Todd Hartman, a spokesperson for the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, in a statement to BillMoyers.com. “As you might expect, we’d push back very hard” on the idea that the agency coordinates on communications efforts with the industry, he said, adding that COGCC meets monthly with a coalition of environmental groups.
Academic Dispute
To succeed, the oil and gas industry had to maintain the status quo. And in 2014, they did: No new towns passed fracking bans, and, as part of a compromise with Hickenlooper, environmentalists agreed to end their campaign to put anti-fracking ballot measures on the statewide ballot. As part of the compromise, however, Hickenlooper convened a task force to study ways in which Coloradans could have more input on fracking in their communities. Initially, fracking opponents were hopeful. “The governor’s announcement of the Oil and Gas Task Force is the first step forward in solving the problem of fracking occurring anywhere and everywhere,” said Rep. Jared Polis , a Democrat whose congressional district includes Boulder.
But oil and gas interests already had been at work, commissioning researchers at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder to work on a series of studies that supported industry talking points. One study, underwritten by an industry-funded group called the Common Sense Policy Roundtable , along with two other groups not affiliated with the industry, declared that a moratorium on fracking would hurt the state’s economy. Another, commissioned and funded by the American Petroleum Institute , demonstrated that fracking had a positive economic impact on Colorado communities.
The reports got coverage in The Denver Post and The Colorado Springs Gazette , neither of which disclosed that the Common Sense Policy Roundtable was an industry group. When the relationship between the Leeds School researchers and the industry groups came to light, Bronson Hilliard, a spokesperson for the school at the time, told High Country News that the researchers didn’t know about the group’s funding. “CU-Boulder policy researchers are under no obligation to understand industry organizations’ financial ties or to report them,” he wrote in a statement .
But emails between researchers and industry employees, obtained by Greenpeace and Boulder Weekly , appear to show that the industry weighed in as the study was being written, requesting revisions. “I hope this new version is in line with what you envisioned… We look forward to further feedback and comments,” one CU-Boulder researcher said in an email sharing his findings with an API adviser. The emails also suggest a hope that the research would play a role in influencing the governor’s task force. The task force’s legislative recommendations ultimately did little for activists who were seeking greater control of fracking in their own communities.
The End of Local Control
Though the ballot measures that anti-fracking activists championed in 2014 and the governor’s subsequent task force ultimately failed, towns were having some success banning fracking. By 2015, five Colorado communities as well as Boulder County had voted to implement local bans or moratoria on drilling. These sorts of bans represent a rare area of agreement between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton: Both have spoken in favor of “local control” — the idea that communities should be able to decide whether or not to approve fracking.
“I’m in favor of fracking, but I think that voters should have a big say in it,” Trump told Denver television station KUSA . “I mean, there’s some areas, maybe, they don’t want to have fracking. And I think if the voters are voting for it, that’s up to them.” Clinton has made similar statements, and that panicked oil and gas lobbyists , because the idea of local control has been so potent. In addition to the Colorado communities, New York and Maryland have both banned fracking, as have five counties in California.
But the Colorado communities’ bans were overturned this May when the state’s Supreme Court ruled that Colorado law does not allow for “local control.”
So this year, anti-fracking activists wanted to put a new cause on the ballot: A “local control” amendment to the state constitution that would allow towns to ban fracking. National groups such as 350.org, Food and Water Watch and Greenpeace lined up behind local groups’ efforts to put the measure on the ballot, along with one that would have required fracking operations to be roughly half a mile from homes.
Ultimately, however, Secretary of State Wayne Williams , a Republican, ruled that activists did not gather enough signatures to put these measures on the ballot. Activists handed in about 107,000 signatures — more than the 98,492 required. But Williams did not believe there were enough legitimate signatures to clear the bar. Advocates for the amendments decided they didn’t have the resources to challenge that decision.
The industry had prepared for a long and hard fight, but by September, it was all over. So Noble Energy and Anadarko decided instead to pour their money into another initiative — one that would likely make it so they wouldn’t be fighting new activist ballot initiatives every year going forward.
“Raise the Bar”
Amendment 71 first surfaced as a campaign by business leaders and politicians called “Raise the Bar.” But the idea had its genesis at least a year ago. Greenpeace’s tapes of the September 2015 IOGCC meeting reveal a discussion about an initiative to change “the actual ballot process itself.” Mark Truax, the political strategist working with the oil- and gas-backed industry groups CRED and Protect Colorado, told the meeting participants, “We are in the process of evaluating that right now.”
Coloradans have long complained their ballot is cluttered with proposed amendments and referenda that the average citizen cannot be expected to know anything about. The number of measures on the Colorado ballot is often quite large, creating a genuine frustration among voters.
“This is too much,” Seth Masket, a University of Denver political science professor and commentator, wrote in Pacific Standard last month , describing his four-page ballot that included 15 state and local initiatives. “There are some legitimately interesting ones, including an increase in the minimum wage, the creation of a new public health care system, and switching from a closed caucus to an open primary in presidential nominations. But is the ballot really the right place to hammer these things out? Do I and other Colorado voters have the necessary expertise to decide whether a substantial restructure of our public-health system will be in the state’s best interests?”
To bolster its argument for Amendment 71, Protect Colorado, one of the industry groups, has noted that most signatures on the recent anti-fracking ballot initiatives did not come from the regions where fracking is most intense, and argued that more communities should be involved in deciding what goes on the ballot.
But the big money behind the initiative is raising alarms beyond the environmental community. The Denver Post editorial board — a body that often writes in support of the oil and gas industry — recently published an editorial opposing Amendment 71 for that very reason. “The campaign and the cause are the antithesis of grass roots,” The Post wrote. “The real muscle behind Raise the Bar is coming from the oil and gas industry.”
“They have a really good shot of winning this thing, honestly,” said Frack Free Colorado’s Spiegel. “Their marketing is great around it. ‘Don’t make it so easy to change the constitution’ — people will get behind that if they don’t know where it’s coming from or why.”
Activists are already planning to run another ballot measure campaign to try and legalize fracking bans in 2018. “But if 71 gets adopted,” said Spiegel, “our job is going to be really hard.” 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 0 |
ROME — By Monday morning, the grim, if now familiar, global ritual had begun. Leaders across Europe, Asia and elsewhere sent messages of sympathy and outrage. Editorialists opined against extremism and violence. Symbolic gestures — another special lighting of the Eiffel Tower — were announced. Solidarity hashtags circled the virtual globe. The Orlando attack now ranks as the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. And the horrific slaughter early Sunday at a gay nightclub has a uniquely American component, again demonstrating an easy access to assault weapons that stupefies much of the rest of the world. But judging from the initial reaction, the attack in Florida resonated globally on Monday not as an American anomaly, but because it felt so universal. Orlando now takes a place with Paris, Brussels, Beirut, Bamako, San Bernardino and other cities struck by different incarnations of terrorism in recent years. Candles were once lit in their honor, too. The Orlando attack is already stirring debate on some of the most visceral fault lines of American politics: terrorism and Islamophobia, security and civil liberties, gun control and gay rights. But absent guns, those issues also resonate across the world, especially in many developed countries wrestling with how to maintain their freedoms in the face of violent attacks on their values. In an interconnected world, what seemed most relevant was what bound together the satirists of Charlie Hebdo, the rock music fans at the Bataclan, the tourists at the Brussels airport and the young people dancing early Sunday at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando — not what divided them and their societies. But that connectedness also meant that Orlando quickly became politicized globally as well as in the United States. One organization campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union in the June 23 national referendum posted a campaign message on Twitter that showed Islamic State fighters warning of an “ atrocity” if Britain remained in the European bloc. The group deleted the message after the person who posted it was widely condemned. For many gays, lesbians and transgender people, the Orlando attack was a searing moment, highlighting the continued threats they face from an ideologically varied array of sources even as much of the world grows more inclusive about sexuality. In London, Owen Jones, a liberal columnist who is gay, walked off the set of a Sky News program after arguing with the host on how the Orlando attack should be defined. Mr. Jones argued it was both a terrorist attack and an hate crime, while the program’s host sought to make a distinction between the two. “This guy, however he dresses up his bigotry and hatred, is someone who hates gays,” Mr. Jones said of the killer. “If he went into a synagogue and killed innocent Jewish people, as people have done, disgusting terrorists, we’d call it out for what it is. “This was a homophobic hate crime as well as terrorism. ” The day before the Orlando attack, thousands of people took part in gay pride parades in Croatia and Poland amid concerns about rising political trends. In Brazil, a spate of killings of gay and transgender people has started an intense debate, with some Brazilians arguing that the rising clout of evangelical Christian legislators is increasing intolerance in the country. “These killings in Orlando were motivated by the most sordid homophobia,” said Jean Wyllys, an openly gay congressman from Rio de Janeiro. “This could have happened to any of us, to me, to a friend, a work colleague, a neighbor, a cousin. They could be dead if they had been in Orlando enjoying themselves at a club without harming anyone else. ” Europe’s mainstream political leaders were quick to offer condolences on Monday and affirm their friendship with the American people. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany condemned “such a murderous attack” and declared a determination to “continue our open, tolerant life. ” Tel Aviv’s City Hall was bathed in the colors of the rainbow and the American flag on Sunday night. The town hall in Sydney, Australia, was lit in pink. In Britain, the cities of Blackpool and Liverpool said they would light local landmarks with rainbow colors on Monday night in memory of the victims. Even so, the Orlando killings come as political parties in Europe are stoking sentiments in a similar vein to Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in the United States. As Mr. Trump quickly seized on the massacre to renew his call to view Muslim immigrants as a threat, some politicians in the European right did the same. Hungary’s government has been in the vanguard on resisting migrants, and championing a illiberal democracy. On Monday, Lajos Kosa, the parliamentary leader of the governing party, invoked the Orlando attacks as a cudgel to repeat the party’s campaign against migrants from Syria and other Muslim nations. “Uncontrolled migration, forced resettlement, the inflow of crowds into European society who not only cannot but do not want to integrate come with enormous dangers,” Mr. Kosa told a plenary session of the Hungarian Parliament on Monday. In recent years, as Europe has struggled to respond to Islamist terrorism, security in the United States was regarded as more efficient and better organized. Europe’s national security agencies were poorly coordinated and blamed for failing to root out cells of homegrown Islamist terrorists, especially in France and Belgium. Now, after the attacks in Orlando and San Bernardino, Calif. the United States also seems likely to confront difficult questions about the government’s ability to track and stop determined killers, especially those who operate largely on their own, drawing inspiration but not practical support from groups like the Islamic State. The questions are likely to be especially pointed for the F. B. I. given that it had twice investigated the Orlando killer, Omar Mateen, for possible terrorist ties. For years, America’s liberal gun laws, and the unwillingness of Congress to change them, have mystified people in many other countries. In Japan, the American gun issue is treated as a bizarre aberration, and much of the news media coverage of the Orlando killings focused on the terrorism angle. Only one person was killed by a gun last year in Japan, according to the National Police Agency, and there were only eight reported incidents of a gun being fired. In China, news of the Orlando shooting came only hours after a man set off primitive explosives in the area at an airport in Shanghai. Four people were slightly injured, showing the gulf between the two countries in the lethality of the weapons available to the public. In China, where ordinary citizens have no access to firearms, the weapon of choice is often a large kitchen knife. More than 300, 000 Chinese students are studying at American universities, and the Orlando shooting brought on new concerns from Chinese parents. Gao Junlan, a lawyer from southwestern China’s Sichuan Province, was concerned about her daughter, a chemistry student at the University of Minnesota. Her daughter was at the Shanghai airport when the explosives were detonated there, waiting to catch a flight to the United States. “I think the American government should tighten its gun control,” Ms. Gao said by telephone. “Yes, it is a free society for people with all religions and beliefs, but not everyone is capable of controlling their behavior, and the government’s lax regulation is making killing a lot easier. ” | 1 |
Email
The alleged connection between Donald Trump and Russia — asserted by Hillary Clinton in both the second and third presidential debates as a dodge for the leaked e-mails and other documents which have hounded her candidacy — has dominated much of the speculative attention of both the mainstream media and social media for weeks. Is there anything to it? Is Trump, in essence, Putin’s puppet, as Clinton claimed in the third debate?
In an interesting twist of logic (if one can use that word to describe the incoherent and dissonant arguments made by a woman who still denies — despite mountains of evidence to the contrary — that she sent and received classified data over her unsecured, private e-mail server), Hillary Clinton at once claims that Russia is responsible for the hack of the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in late spring and that there is no way her server was hacked by anyone. Leveraging the anti-Russian sentiment to its fullest, she and others in the DNC have sought to shift the focus away from what was on the servers and toward blaming Russia for the hack. After all, if Russia is trying to throw the election to Trump, wouldn’t the patriotic vote be for Clinton?
By the time WikiLeaks announced that a trove of damning documents and e-mails would be published on the Internet, Clinton and the DNC (along with their lapdog media) were already in full-blown "it was Russia" mode. On the same day that a video of Donald Trump emerged in which he can be heard bragging of his sexual abuse of women — which he has since claimed was just “locker room talk” — WikiLeaks began a rolling release of the promised leaked documents. Both of these stories deserved media attention . Only one got it.
By the time the media was ready to report anything on the WikiLeaks dump, it was to speculate as to what part Russia played in the initial hack. Clinton — in her role as the staunch anti-Russian — used the timing of the second debate to attack Trump for the video and his supposed ties to Russia, which she plainly blamed for the leaked documents, saying to moderator Martha Raddatz: But, you know, let’s talk about what’s really going on here, Martha, because our intelligence community just came out and said in the last few days that the Kremlin, meaning Putin and the Russian government, are directing the attacks, the hacking on American accounts to influence our election. And WikiLeaks is part of that, as are other sites where the Russians hack information, we don’t even know if it’s accurate information, and then they put it out. We have never in the history of our country been in a situation where an adversary, a foreign power, is working so hard to influence the outcome of the election. And believe me, they’re not doing it to get me elected. They’re doing it to try to influence the election for Donald Trump.
Clinton went even further in the third debate , bringing up Putin in an attempt to dodge a question about a leaked document showing that she gave a speech to a foreign bank in which she said, “My dream is a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders.” She — again — put the emphasis on the fact that WikiLeaks was providing the leaked documents rather than on what the leaked documents have to say. Then she claimed, on the authority of “17 of our intelligence agencies,” that Russia was behind the hacked and leaked documents: But you are very clearly quoting from WikiLeaks. And what’s really important about WikiLeaks is that the Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans. They have hacked American websites, American accounts of private people, of institutions. Then they have given that information to WikiLeaks for the purpose of putting it on the Internet. This has come from the highest levels of the Russian government, clearly, from Putin himself, in an effort, as 17 of our intelligence agencies have confirmed, to influence our election.
Trump rebutted by bringing the conversation back on topic (not his usual strongest point), saying: She wants open borders. People are going to pour into our country. People are going to come in from Syria. She wants 550 percent more people than Barack Obama, and he has thousands and thousands of people. They have no idea where they come from. And you see, we are going to stop radical Islamic terrorism in this country. She won’t even mention the words, and neither will President Obama. So I just want to tell you, she wants open borders. Now we can talk about Putin. I don’t know Putin. He said nice things about me. If we got along well, that would be good. If Russia and the United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good. He has no respect for her. He has no respect for our president. And I’ll tell you what: We’re in very serious trouble, because we have a country with tremendous numbers of nuclear warheads — 1,800, by the way — where they expanded and we didn’t, 1,800 nuclear warheads. And she’s playing chicken. Look, Putin...
At this point, Clinton interrupted to say, “Well, that’s because he’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States.”
So, getting past the he-said-she-said, what are the facts as we know them?
On Monday, the New York Times reported that after conducting a months-long “investigation into a Russian role in the American presidential campaign” in which “agents scrutinized advisers close to Donald J. Trump, looked for financial connections with Russian financial figures, searched for those involved in hacking the computers of Democrats, and even chased a lead — which they ultimately came to doubt — about a possible secret channel of email communication from the Trump Organization to a Russian bank,” the FBI “sees no clear link” between Trump and Russia. Of course, in typical leftist fashion, the Times not-so-gently insinuates that the FBI is guilty of pulling punches in the investigation. Interestingly, the Times seemed to miss that that is exactly what happened in the FBI's investigation into Clinton's e-mail server.
As for Clinton’s claims that the purpose of the hacked and leaked documents and e-mails was to influence the election for Trump, the Times article admits: Law enforcement officials say that none of the investigations so far have found any conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government. And even the hacking into Democratic emails, F.B.I. and intelligence officials now believe, was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Mr. Trump.
Also on Monday, Slate published an article claiming that a server belonging to Donald Trump was “communicating in a secretive fashion” with servers in Russia. By the next day, the Washington Post had debunked the Slate article, saying, “That secret Trump-Russia email server link is likely neither secret nor a Trump-Russia link.” Based in part on an interview with Naadir Jeewa, who “does consulting work on precisely the sorts of systems involved in” the scenario involving the server Slate claims was acting as a conduit between Trump and Russia, the article by the Post explains: To understand what's likely happening, we need to establish a few basics. First of all, the Trump server wasn't really a Trump server. It was much less of a Trump email server, for example, than Hillary Clinton's email server was hers. Clinton had a physical server that hosted her email. The trump-email.com domain that Alfa was connecting to was hosted by a company called Cendyn. Cendyn runs marketing systems for the hospitality industry, meaning that it offers an out-of-the-box solution for a company that owns a bunch of hotels to push out sales pitch emails to its customers. In other words, trump-email.com isn't the email server Trump used to send emails from his closet. It was a domain name that linked back to a Cendyn server. This is important for a few reasons. The first, Jeewa said, was that the trump-email.com was configured to reject a certain type of query from another server. Since its job was simply to push out thousands of enticements to come stay at Trump Soho (or whatever) it didn't need to receive many incoming requests (like incoming email). The second is that the conspiracy theory hinges on Trump's team using an offsite server hosted by someone else for its quiet communications with its Russian allies. Instead of, say, their own server, under their own control. Or an encrypted chat app. Or a phone call.
This writer has to admit to being amused to see the shoe on the other foot (or the tinfoil hat on the other head, in this instance) as the Left trots out wild conspiracy theories to create a Trump-Putin connection to make Clinton retroactively correct. In point of fact, Clinton might be better off trying to implicate Trump in the Kennedy assassination.
But, what about Clinton’s assertion that WikiLeaks is releasing documents pilfered by Russia for the sake of influencing the election for Trump? Aside from the FBI saying that there does not appear to be any attempt to influence the election for Trump, Julian Assange, the founder and public face of WikiLeaks, denies that Russian hackers are his source.
In an upcoming documentary made by Dartmouth Films, Assange speaks of the “Clinton camp” putting forth a “hysteria that Russia is responsible for everything.” He goes on to say, “Hillary Clinton has stated multiple times, falsely, that 17 US intelligence agencies had assessed that Russia was the source of our publications. That’s false — we can say that the Russian government is not the source.”
Furthermore, the Kremlin denies Clinton’s claims. Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov called the claims “nonsense.” While that — in and of itself — would not carry much weight, when it is added to the body of evidence that includes Assange denying the Russian connection, the laughably far-fetched lengths to which the Left will got to promote easily debunkable conspiracy theories, the FBI stating that there is “no clear link” between Trump and Russia, and Trump himself denying that he has any dealings with Russia, it’s fairly easy to see that the only thing there is to see here is an imploding campaign by the woman who — the last time she occupied 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — claimed that her husband’s impeachment was the result of a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”
Some things never change. Photos: AP Images | 0 |
E-mails - Hillary Clinton and the Muslim Brotherhood by Thierry Meyssan The FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private e-mails is not directed at a case of negligence in the face of security regulations, but at a conspiracy attempting to eliminate any trace of her correspondence which should have been archived on the servers of the Federal State. It could include exchanges about illegal financing or corruption, and others concerning the links between the Clintons, the Muslim Brotherhood and the jihadists.
Voltaire Network | Damascus (Syria) | 1 November 2016 ελληνικά Español français Türkçe русский Deutsch Hillary Clinton and her chief of staff Huma Abedin. The reprise of the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private e-mails no longer concerns questions of security, but rather acts of skulduggery and cheating which could be as serious as high treason.
Technically, instead of using one of the secured servers of the Federal State, the Secretary of State had ordered the installation of a private server in her home, in order to be able to use the Internet without leaving any trace on a machine belonging to the Federal State. Mrs. Clinton’s private technician had voided the server before the arrival of the FBI, so that it was impossible to know why she had set up such a network.
First of all, the FBI noted that the private server was not protected by the same security system as the State Department server. Thus Mrs. Clinton had only committed a security fault. Secondly, the FBI confiscated the computer of former Congressman Anthony Weiner, the ex-husband of Huma Abedin, Hillary’s chief of staff. The FBI found e-mails from the Secretary of State on his computer.
Anthony Weiner is a Jewish politician who is very close to the Clintons, and who harboured the ambition of becoming mayor of New York. He was obliged to resign following a very Puritan scandal – he had sent erotic SMS’s to a young woman who was not his wife. Huma Abedin officially separated from him during the scandal, but in reality, did not leave him.
Huma Abedin is a US citizen who was raised in Saudi Arabia. Her father is director of an academic revue – of which, for many years, she was the sub-editor – which regularly prints comments from the Muslim Brotherhood. Her mother is president of the Saudi association of female members of the Brotherhood, and worked with the wife of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Her brother Hassan works for Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the religious authority of the Brotherhood and spiritual counsellor of Al-Jazeera.
During an official journey to Saudi Arabia, the Secretary of State visits Dar al-Hekma college, accompanied by Saleha Abedin (mother of her chief of staff), president of the association of the Sister members of the Brotherhood. Huma Abedin is today a central figure of the Clinton campaign, alongside the campaign director, John Podesta, ex-General Secretary of the White House under the Presidency of Bill Clinton. Podesta is also the appointed Congressional lobbyist for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – for the modest amount of $200,000 per month. On 12 June 2016, Petra, the official Press agency of Jordan, published an interview with the crown prince of Arabia, Mohamed Ben Salmane, in which he affirmed the modernity of his family, which had illegally financed Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign to the tune of 20%, despite the fact that she is a woman. The day after this publication, the agency cancelled the dispatch and claimed that its Internet site had been hacked.
According to the official Jordanian Press agency, Petra, published on 12 June 2016, the Saudi royal family illegally financed 20% of Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign. Mrs. Abedin is not the only member of the Obama administration linked to the Brotherhood. The US President’s half-brother, Abon’go Malik Obama, is the Treasurer for the Brotherhood’s missionary work in Sudan, and also President of the Barack H. Obama Foundation. He is under the direct orders of the Sudanese President, Omar el-Béchir. A Muslim Brother is a member of the National Security Council - the highest executive position in the United States. From 2009 to 2012, this was the case of Mehdi K. Alhassani. We do not know who succeeded him, but the White House denied that a Muslim Brother was a member of the Council until the proof surfaced. A Muslim Brother, Rashad Hussain, is also US ambassador to the Islamic Conference. The other Brothers who have been identified occupy less important functions. However, we must name Louay M. Safi, a current member of the Syrian National Coalition and ex-advisor to the Pentagon.
President Obama and his half-brother Abon’go Malik Obama in the Oval Office. Abon’go Malik is the Treasurer of the Missionary work of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan. In April 2009, two months before his speech in Cairo, President Obama secretly received a delegation of the Brotherhood in the Oval Office. During his induction, he had already invited Ingrid Mattson, the President of the Association of Muslim Brothers and Sisters in the United States.
From their side, the Clinton Foundation had employed Gehad el-Haddad as director for his «Climate» project - he is one of the world leaders of the Brotherhood, and had until that time been director of a Koranic TV programme. His father was one of the co-founders of the Brotherhood, when it was created by the CIA and MI6 in 1951. Gehad left the Foundation in 2012, when he became the spokeman for candidate Mohammed Morsi in Cairo, and then the official spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood world-wide.
Given that all the jihadist leaders in the world have either come from the Muslim Brotherhood or the Sufi Order of the Naqshbandîs – the two components of the Muslim World League, the Saudi anti-Arab nationalist organisation – we would like to know more about Mrs. Clinton’s relations with Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood.
As it happens, in the team of her challenger, Donald Trump, we note the presence of General Michael T. Flynn, who attempted to oppose the creation of the Caliphate by the White House, and resigned from the direction of the Defense Intelligence Agency in order to signal his disapproval. He works alongside Frank Gaffney, a historical «Cold Warrior», now qualified as a «conspiracy theorist» for having denounced the presence of the Brotherhood in the Federal State.
It goes without saying that from the FBI’s point of view, any support for jihadist organisations is a crime, whatever the policy of the CIA may be. In 1991, the police – and Senator John Kerry – had provoked the ecollapse of BCCI, a Pakistani bank (although it is registered in the Cayman Islands), which the CIA used for all sorts of secret operations with the Muslim Brotherhood and also the Latino drug cartels.
Thierry Meyssan Translation
Pete Kimberley | 0 |
Albert Rivera aprovecha la investidura de Rajoy para reiterar que no hará presidente a Pablo Iglesias "VOTAREMOS NO, SEÑOR IGLESIAS, NO SEA HAGA ILUSIONES", HA INSISTIDO RIVERA PSOE
“No es no, señor Iglesias, lo siento mucho”, ha espetado Albert Rivera a Pablo Iglesias esta mañana durante el debate de investidura en el Congreso de los Diputados, que ha dedicado casi íntegramente a mostrar su oposición a un gobierno liderado por Podemos. Según ha explicado Rivera, su partido no está en el Hemiciclo “para dar alas a las prácticas del señor Iglesias”.
Rivera se comprometió durante la campaña electoral a no facilitar el gobierno de Podemos y ha reiterado su postura una vez más aprovechando el debate de investidura de Mariano Rajoy. “Si quiere usted ser presidente, busque otros aliados porque le aseguro que en mi formación no va a encontrar ninguno, ninguno en absoluto”, ha repetido insistentemente Rivera al líder de Podemos.
El político de Ciudadanos ha dicho confiar en que el resto de formaciones, incluidas la del grupo socialista y el Partido Popular, apoyen su postura y no invistan a Iglesias. “Les pido dese aquí que no se sumen al proyecto de Podemos”, ha dicho Rivera mirando a Rajoy.
“A usted le gustan mucho las pancartas, pues mire qué pancarta, señor Iglesias”, ha concluido Albert Rivera en la tribuna mostrando a un trabajador autónomo desnudo con la frase “No a Podemos, no a Iglesias” tatuada en el pecho. | 0 |
‹ › Arnaldo Rodgers is a trained and educated Psychologist. He has worked as a community organizer and activist. Appreciation dinner for WWII veterans in honor of 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor By Arnaldo Rodgers on October 31, 2016 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor Find Your Job Now at HireVeterans.com
By Shawna Newcomb
The attack on Pearl Harbor took place 75 years ago. The Veterans for Veterans program held a special appreciation dinner on Saturday to honor those who fought in World War II.
“One percent of World War II veterans are still with us in the population and we wanted to take an opportunity to express to them how meaningful their presence is to us while we have the opportunity,” said one of the organizers, Matthew Adams.
He said he was the “beauty” behind the operation, his fellow vet Thomas Demers, was the “brains.”
“It’s such an important fact to remember them before they’re gone,” said Demers. “Take the time to thank them because they truly are the best generation.”
Read the Full Article at www.wcsh6.com >>>> Related Posts: No Related Posts The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VNN, VNN authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, technicians or the Veterans Today Network and its assigns. Notices Posted by Arnaldo Rodgers on October 31, 2016, With 0 Reads, Filed under Veterans , World War II (1939-1945) . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . You can leave a response or trackback to this entry FaceBook Comments
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Videos Clinton Aide Says Future WikiLeaks Releases Are ‘Probably Fake’ "Friends, please remember that if you see a whopper of a Wikileaks in next two days - it's probably a fake." | November 7, 2016 Be Sociable, Share! Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton waves as she takes the stage to speak at a fundraiser at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, Friday, Oct. 14, 2016.
Months of embarrassing leaks released by WikiLeaks and other sources related to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic leadership have time and again proven to be true , while allegations of Russia being behind the effort have not been substantiated with any evidence. Still, that’s the talking point the campaign continues to go with.
And indeed Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri today warned against believing any new things released by WikiLeaks that are embarrassing to the Clinton campaign, even though the other releases were spot on, insisting that anything else they release is “ probably fake .” Friends, please remember that if you see a whopper of a Wikileaks in next two days – it's probably a fake.
— Jennifer Palmieri (@jmpalmieri) November 6, 2016
This isn’t a brand new claim, either, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D – CA) making claims as far back as August that any future mass leaks would probably include “ Russian lies ” designed to embarrass Clinton and the Democrats.
These preemptive warnings appear to recognize the reality that more embarrassing information is likely to come out, and aiming to get out in front of the next batch by preemptively declaring them “probably” not true, whatever it turns out to be. | 0 |
NEW DELHI — Thousands of security forces were deployed on Thursday to keep the peace at India’s banks, where crowds of people had formed jittery, snaking lines in the early morning, desperate to exchange currency notes. In a surprise move on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi withdrew and bills from circulation, aiming to shrink the country’s vast, informal “black” economy. The cash market, which by some estimates amounts to 30 percent of the gross domestic product, is used by many Indians to avoid paying taxes and to pay bribes. For the next two weeks, citizens will be able to exchange 4, 000 rupees a day, or about $60. But they will have difficulty converting large cash holdings because they will have to declare them to the tax authorities. Money that cannot be exchanged will be, as officials put it, “extinguished. ” The plan, top secret until Mr. Modi’s announcement, was hailed by financial analysts as bold and potentially transformational for India. It is also a experiment: Though other Indian leaders have withdrawn currency notes, none have reduced the country’s supply of cash so drastically or so abruptly. The two bills being withdrawn make up 80 percent of the cash in circulation. Many people on the street this week said they were stunned and angry. Brawls broke out in lines outside banks, where many had to stand for hours, uncertain whether the stockpile of bills would run out. “I am in a very foul mood, and for business, this government is not good at all,” said Ayush Singhal, 26, a trader in packing tape, whose shop was all but deserted after the currency was withdrawn. The Old Delhi wholesale market, one of the largest in Asia, operates almost entirely on a cash basis, Mr. Singhal said. “We have to figure out some other way of conducting business,” Mr. Singhal said, his face grave. “For now, I am at a loss for words. ” Poor migrants to the city said the sudden move had stranded them without enough money to eat. Umeshwar Prasad Rao, a farmer, had traveled hundreds of miles to New Delhi so that his daughter could have an operation, carrying his life savings of 10, 000 rupees in notes. Because he did not have a government identification card, Mr. Rao could not exchange the money for usable notes. By midday on Thursday his family had consumed nothing but tea. Scores of families sprawled on the sidewalk around the hospital, with similar complaints. “I am at my wits’ end,” Mr. Rao said. He was hoping to get food from a charity. “Otherwise, we will be fasting,” he said. The people who help others unload “black money” were doing a booming business. Gold merchants saw the price for 10 ounces of gold nearly double, so eager were customers to dispose of their large bills. Nishant Verma, who runs a family jewelry shop, kept his doors open until 1 a. m. two nights in a row to accommodate what he called a “mad rush. ” But the busiest of all were money launderers — who converted stacks of bills to notes for a fee and firms, which provide companies with cash for undeclared payments, or bribes, registering the sum as a loan or an advance. Other businesses might backdate the receipts, suggesting that the invalid bills were exchanged before Mr. Modi’s announcement, said Ajay Shah, a professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy. “There is infinite ingenuity out there,” he said. Hospitals and crematories, which are exempted from the ban, may also turn a profit by exchanging large numbers of bills for a fee. Laborers also made money on Thursday by standing in lines at banks, saving the places of more wealthy people who preferred to use their time in other ways. Mr. Modi had warned that the public might suffer “temporary hardships” during the period when the bills are exchanged for new ones. Businesses likely to lose the most are real estate agencies, doctors’ offices and other professionals who demand cash transactions. Experts said a period of disruption was a small price to pay to drain the informal economy. Global Financial Integrity, a Washington policy group, has estimated that India lost $344 billion in illicit outflows of money in the decade leading up to 2011. As the week progressed, though, some analysts began to express worry that the abrupt monetary shock would ripple through the economy, weakening consumer demand. Ila Patnaik, an economist, warned in an editorial in the Indian Express newspaper that payments are now likely to be held up and purchases likely to be postponed, potentially damaging the economy in 2016 and 2017. “As long as things are going fine, we tend to ignore money,” she wrote. “But when money is disrupted, this imposes a substantial disruption upon the working of the economy. ” | 1 |
On Friday’s broadcast of NBC’s “Today,” an interview given by Breitbart News Alex Marlow to NBC News correspondent Stephanie Gosk aired featuring a number of different topics about Breitbart News. Included among those topics were criticisms that Breitbart News is a “hate site,” the site’s relationship with White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, and the site’s mission. Transcript as follows: GOSK: You know, Breitbart is one of President Trump’s favorite news sources, once run by his top adviser, Steve Bannon. They see themselves as provocateurs, poking a finger in the eye of the mainstream media. But critics call them racists, and white supremacists. We sat down with Alex Marlow, the who pushes back against critics and the labels, defending the news site he’s worked at since it started in 2007. MARLOW: We’re not a hate site. GOSK: Do you think you’ve been unfairly demonized? MARLOW: Oh, absolutely. Without a doubt. GOSK: Breitbart has seen a meteoric rise, from a fringe once run by White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, the news site explode exploded during the course of the presidential campaign with 240 million views a month. There was a former employee of yours, who called Breitbart “Trumpbart. ” MARLOW: Yes. GOSK: Was that a fair criticism during the election? MARLOW: Absolutely unfair criticism. GOSK: He insists they will criticize the president if he breaks his promises. MARLOW: If he makes good on those promises, he is going to get a lot of favorable coverage. When we feel like the president is not honoring the pledges he made to the public, he’s going to get critical coverage. GOSK: Do you talk to the president? MARLOW: I’ve spoken to the president on air, I believe, four times — twice when he was a candidate, twice before he was a candidate. And I have not spoken to him other than … since he’s been elected. GOSK: How about Steve Bannon? Does he reach out? MARLOW: Every so often. Not as often as I would have expected. I think Steve is a very busy man these days. GOSK: Still, the White House and Breitbart seem to be in lockstep on most issues. President Trump’s unsubstantiated tweets that President Obama wiretapped him during the campaign, echoed an idea laid out in a Breitbart article published the day before. Was the wiretap tweet because of a Breitbart article? MARLOW: That I don’t know. I’ve heard things, probably similar things to you. And I heard that a Breitbart article played a big factor in it. GOSK: The article never goes as far as Trump does, directly accusing his predecessor. But it argues that steps taken to investigate the Trump campaign’s links with Russia are purely political. MARLOW: We’ve learned very little about any sort of nefarious connection between Trump and Russia. But what we have learned is there’s these incredible amount of leaks flooding out of Washington, specifically to undermine the president of the United States. And the media is gleefully reporting all of them. GOSK: Who should the American public believe? Mainstream media? The federal government? Breitbart? MARLOW: Oh, I would say believe Breitbart. I think Breitbart is — GOSK: But why? Why should we believe Breitbart over what the federal government tells us about possible connections with Russia trying to tamper with the election? MARLOW: Well, possible connections and actual connections are different. GOSK: Yes, but when you have the federal government come out and say, we are investigating Russia, potentially tampering with the election, why as an American citizen should you not step back and go, “I should be worried about that”? MARLOW: I’m not saying you shouldn’t be worried about it. But there’s been ample reporting, ample investigation. The entire world has been focused on this story. And I’m just asking for one piece of hard evidence. GOSK: Marlow describes his staff as a mix of both reporters and activists — the site often blurring lines between news and opinion. What is your mission? MARLOW: First of all, is to be a great news site, covering accurate, always accurate, information. Now, where we differ is that we’re admittedly right of center. We’re a populist, nationalist, grassroots conservative website. GOSK: What is Breitbart’s position on immigration? MARLOW: We don’t have a party line position on it. But I’ll tell you a few things that are pretty consistent. We believe that border security and national security is a serious issue. And we think that there is an American value system that’s worth being preserved. GOSK: Do you think that American value system is in jeopardy because of immigration? MARLOW: It depends. It’s in jeopardy because of immigration if people who are coming into the country do not understand the American values and don’t want to assimilate into American society. GOSK: Its brand of conservatism has come under intense fire, frequently called, among other things, racist, because of headlines like this one from two years ago. “Hoist It High and Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims a Glorious Heritage” Would Breitbart print that headline today? MARLOW: I don’t know the answer to that. It’s a good question. But, probably yes. And to be honest with you, I disagree with the article. I don’t disagree with us running it because it makes arguments that the — that flag doesn’t just symbolize racism to certain people. It symbolizes southern pride, southern heritage and states’ rights. Now, my personal view is I think we’ve moved on from that symbol. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t have a debate and discussion about it. GOSK: Regardless of who it may offend. Do you compromise civility in the defense of free speech? MARLOW: In some cases that’s acceptable because of the fact that it’s proving a point about freedom of speech in that we used to raise a society that was supposed to be resilient emotionally. And now, everyone is looking for their safe space. And I think that’s a dangerous thing. GOSK: One thing he doesn’t think is dangerous — President Trump calling the, quote, “fake news media,” the enemy of the American people. That kind of extreme language, is that not damaging to our democracy? MARLOW: I don’t think it is because I think in a lot of ways, as Steve Bannon put it, the press is the opposition party. That’s 100 percent the worldview that I have. GOSK: Breitbart made its first significant break with the White House recently over the new health care bill. One of its concerns that tax cut for the wealthy. But, it’s worth pointing out, they lay the blame squarely at the feet of House Speaker Paul Ryan, not President Trump. GUTHRIE: Alright, Stephanie, interesting interview. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Follow Breitbart. tv on Twitter @BreitbartVideo | 1 |
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THE WORLD has convened together as the polls for US Presidential Election open, to offer a message of support and encouragement to all voters casting their ballot.
“Do not fuck this up,” implored the portion of the world that enjoys living on the planet in its non-nuclear apocalypse form, careful to deliver its message in a calm tone, completely disguising the sheer terror that now infiltrated every fibre of its being.
While not all too familiar with the make up of an American presidential ballot, the world was confident enough to venture a guess as to the action that would prevent a ‘fuck up of epic proportions’.
“We’re not telling you what to do, but…you know, we’re guessing you have to put an ‘x’ or a tick or maybe even a ‘yes’ beside Hillary Clinton’s name. You got this America, just don’t fuck it up,” the world shared, remaining deeply in touch with its kind and calm tone at all times.
The world has urged America not to ‘do a Britain’ and vote for the very thing that will cause it obvious hardship and economic turmoil, with many keen to really drive home the point for those voters unsure by the world’s possibly ambiguous message.
“Do not vote for the tiny handed orange bag of shit, honestly we could not be any clearer,” remarked the world.
Despite their pleas and latest polls, much of the world suspected America could still fuck it up. | 0 |
Faiz Khalil was a colonel in the Iraqi Army whose work with the United States military may have provoked the killing of his daughter. Mohamed Sharif was a student in Mogadishu, Somalia, an urban war zone terrorized by rival militias. Both arrived in the United States as refugees, through a yearslong process that involved hours of interviews and over a dozen background checks. In late January, President Trump signed an executive order to suspend that program, after months of claiming that the vetting process needed . The State Department notes that refugees are the most rigorously examined travelers. As the program’s future hangs in limbo — last weekend refugees began coming in again, after a legal challenge to the order — we trace the existing steps. Mr. Khalil, 54, now resides in Twin Falls, Idaho, as an American citizen, while Mr. Sharif, 26, lives in Aurora, Colo. as a legal permanent resident. The United Nations gathers the names of people who have fled persecution. Faiz Khalil Mr. Khalil was in a daze when he arrived in Amman, Jordan, from Baghdad in July 2006 — he had been unable to think clearly ever since his daughter Maha had not returned from school one day. Mr. Khalil had tried to keep his work with the United States military a secret, knowing it could make his family a target. But the day after Maha disappeared in 2004, he received a call from someone claiming to be from Al Qaeda. The man said that Mr. Khalil had been found out and would have to pay with Maha’s life. After learning that Maha was, indeed, dead, the family tried to stay in Baghdad. But they felt that the other children could be in danger, so, in 2006, Mr. Khalil left Iraq with his wife, Nahida Mohammad, their son, Mamoon Jumah, and daughter, Maryam Jumah. As unauthorized immigrants, they could not work and had to send the children to private school. Knowing that their savings would not last, Mr. Khalil registered them as refugees. ____ Mohamed Sharif At age 16, Mr. Sharif arrived alone at Kakuma, a desert camp for refugees in northwest Kenya, in 2007. Somalia had gone through more than a dozen attempts to form a government in his lifetime, and it was dangerous for him to return. Mr. Sharif moved into a hut in the camp, where the temperature often topped 100 degrees, and registered as a refugee. There, he met Bisharo, a single mother from Somalia with two children, Adnan and Hodan. He picked up work as an electrician. They married, but there was no big wedding. “We didn’t have enough money,” he said. An officer hired by the United Nations asks questions about the applicant’s life. Then two officials review the case to determine if the person faces serious persecution back home. If concerns arise, the person is interviewed again or the case is closed. Faiz Khalil Mr. Khalil and his family arrived with their birth certificates, proof of Iraqi citizenship and marriage certificate, at a building in Amman. Armed guards were posted outside. Over seven hours, they were photographed, fingerprinted and interviewed. There were tears, yelling, frustration as other Iraqis were denied refugee status. When an official asked Mr. Khalil through an Arabic interpreter about Maha, he broke down in tears. “I could not control myself,” he said. As they waited for word, the family began to unravel. No one could sleep through the night. The parents walked their children to and from school each day, fearing something could happen. Then the call came. Mr. Khalil was to return with more documents, including Maha’s death certificate. ____ Mohamed Sharif It was a big day. By 2012, Mr. Sharif had waited years at Kakuma before an official arrived for an interview. Mr. Sharif wore a football — he had no dress clothes, and the camp was sweltering. Why did he leave, he was asked. Mr. Sharif described in Somali the way he had fled his home, fearing death. “I don’t have a home to go back to,” he later recalled having said. Months later, Bisharo gave birth to a girl, Nimo. But then Bisharo died. At 22, Mr. Sharif was the single father of three children. American contractors conduct interviews to prepare for a visit from Homeland Security. Background checks begin. Faiz Khalil Mr. Khalil was asked about his time in the Iraqi Army. Why did he enlist? Because of the promise of a stable life. Why did he become an officer? There were benefits: a new car and some land. He described teaching American soldiers about the Iraqi chain of command, and telling them to request receipts with serial numbers for deliveries of items like batteries or tires. Otherwise, he said, some could end up for sale on the Iraqi black market. Mr. Khalil answered his interrogators “like a robot,” he said. “I lost my daughter, I lost my house — everything,” he said. During this time, Mr. Khalil and his family watched nervously as their bank accounts dwindled. They had to pay $3 a day per person to the Jordanian government to live there without authorization. They could not afford enough diesel fuel to heat their apartment through the winter, so the parents took turns waking up in the middle of the night to turn on the heater an hour at a time. ____ Mohamed Sharif This round, in 2013, took three days. In the first interview, Mr. Sharif and his interviewer cried as he spoke. In the second and third, he had to repeat his story. They asked about his birthplace, his parents, their marriage, his schooling, his journey to the camp, his religion. Had extremists tried to recruit him? Would he do anything against the law? “The answer is no,” he said later. “The reason we are here is to get a better life. ” The interviewers requested documents. “I didn’t have any,” he said. “Most of our people,” he said, “they didn’t go to school, they weren’t born in the hospital. ” That year, Mr. Sharif met Ubah Isse Mohamed, a camp neighbor, and they married. “She was loving,” he said. “The right person for my kids. ” Officers visit the camp to verify stories and take fingerprints. Some nations skip this step and rely on United Nations interviews during the process. Faiz Khalil Winter receded and the family was called back for a appointment. Ms. Mohammad and the children were interviewed together he was questioned alone. American immigration officials asked hundreds of questions — many of them repeats from before — but they wanted even more detail. The family was fingerprinted again and their retinas were scanned. ____ Mohamed Sharif In the summer of 2014, American officials went to Kakuma. Mr. Sharif had to tell his story again. Then came several questions. Had he ever been recruited by terrorist agencies? By radical groups? No, he said. No. Then he waited. A medical exam is conducted to identify needs and ensure that people with a contagious disease do not enter the United States until they have been cleared. Faiz Khalil By the summer of 2007, the Khalil children had begun to speak Arabic with a Jordanian accent. The family was sent to a clinic for three days of health evaluations that included blood work and immunizations. Mr. Khalil and his children received stress disorder diagnoses. In early 2008, Mr. Khalil got a call. “Congratulations,” he recalled an official saying. “You’re moving to Twin Falls, Idaho. ” Mr. Khalil had never heard of it. “I said, ‘This is in the U. S.?’” He did a quick search online: “It really scared me more, because I said, ‘I am going to nowhere. ’” They were scheduled to leave in September. As the day drew nearer, Mr. Khalil felt conflicted. Maybe they would fail, he thought. He had heard that life in America was difficult. ____ Mohamed Sharif Later that year, he got a letter. The United States wanted to welcome him. His family, which was further behind in the process, would have to stay behind. Then came a medical checkup at Kakuma. In early December, he left for a local airport and flew to Nairobi. On Dec. 10, at midnight, he left Kenya for good. Nine nonprofit organizations help refugees resettle. They decide where these new immigrants will live, often opting for more affordable midsize cities. Faiz Khalil On the morning they were set to leave, Mr. Khalil woke up in tears, and he struggled to compose himself. At one point, overcome by fear, he asked their taxi driver to turn around. “Don’t listen to him!” Ms. Mohammad shouted. At the airport, something changed. “I had to be strong to support the family,” Mr. Khalil explained later. They traveled for 36 hours on four planes: first to Frankfurt, then Chicago, Salt Lake City and, finally, Twin Falls. It was close to midnight when they arrived. The children were exhausted. “It was just dark, nobody in the streets, so I was kind of like, ‘Where we are? ’” he said. ____ Mohamed Sharif He touched down at the Denver airport on Dec. 12, in the early evening. A man from Lutheran Family Services took him to a new apartment. The following night, Mr. Sharif walked outside to take in his first snowflakes. “I looked up at the skies, and got it in my eyes,” he recalled. “It was really just something amazing for me. ” “Some refugees who were in my neighborhood have been in the camp from 1991 until now,” he said. “For me, I can say this: I was the luckiest guy ever. Ever. ” Refugees can receive federal cash assistance for up to eight months. They can tap into federally funded language instruction courses, employment services and social adjustment programs for up to five years. They are required to apply for permanent residence after their first year. Faiz Khalil In the morning light, Twin Falls did not appear as foreboding. The children learned English quickly, while Mr. Khalil and Ms. Mohammad practiced by watching “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Titanic. ” Both work as interpreters for a refugee resettlement center, and Mr. Khalil still advises United States military troops on working in Iraq. Mr. Khalil and Ms. Mohammad are registered independents and voted for Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump’s executive order on refugees was unfair, Mr. Khalil said — other Iraqis would suffer after working to help the American military. Maryam is now 14, but acts as if she were much older, her father said. Mamoon, 19, is “very American,” Mr. Khalil said — sometimes speaking to his parents with a “sharpness” to which they are unaccustomed. When Mr. Khalil thinks of Maha, he likes to look at old family photos. His children rarely bring her up in front of him. But when they do not know he is listening, he occasionally overhears them talking about her. “They have a good life, better than I had,” Mr. Khalil said. ____ Mohamed Sharif He is on the road constantly, working long hours as a truck driver to save for his family’s arrival. They live in Nairobi, but cannot go to school because they do not have Kenyan documents. Without them, he said, “I am alone. ” Mr. Sharif hoped to see them by Feb. 16, Nimo’s fourth birthday. His in Indianapolis has already bought them toys. But a week into his presidency, Mr. Trump threw the future of Mr. Sharif’s family into uncertainty when he signed the refugee order. “My kids keep asking, ‘Daddy when are we coming? ’” Mr. Sharif has not told them yet. “They cannot know,” he said. “I don’t want to make them hopeless. ” | 1 |
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Donald Trump has been claiming for weeks that the election is going to be “rigged” to prevent him from winning. He has made repeated calls to his supporters to go to the polls and keep an eye on what is going on. Even though a number of GOP candidates and officeholders have rejected Trump’s claim that there will be massive voter fraud, in some places the Republican Party is holding training classes for poll watchers.
In-person voter fraud, which is what the GOP has claimed for several years is costing their candidates elections, has been repeatedly proven to be so rare as to almost not exist. But that doesn’t stop people like Trump from raising the alarm about it. And what he has been saying is having an effect.
According to The Washington Times, Arizona Republican officials say that in 2012 their poll watcher training sessions attracted maybe 50 or 60 people. This year, thanks to Trump’s Chicken Little-type warning, that number has increased to over 1,000.
In Virginia, which has moved from red to purple to relatively blue in recent years, poll watcher trainees at a class in Fairfax County, just outside Washington D.C., expressed their belief that Trump is correct , according to The Wall Street Journal.
Penny Hendrix, a 52-year-old stay at home mom, said this:
“Very clearly there is going to be massive voter fraud, and it will definitely be to ensure Hillary Clinton wins. I’ve been concerned about this for some time, and Trump bringing it up is raising awareness.”
Except that he is raising awareness of a problem that isn’t really a problem at all. Even the extremely right-wing Heritage Foundation, which produced a list of voter fraud convictions , could only put together about 300 examples. Now, 300 cases of voter fraud in one national election where millions of ballots are cast is a very small amount. But the Heritage list covers multiple years and multiple elections, making the impact even smaller than miniscule. The GOP has truly become an organization of Don Quixotes who are preparing to tilt at imaginary illegal voters.
The leader of the Virginia poll watcher training, Republican activist Reagan George, told the attendees that they can’t challenge someone just because it looks like that person is going to be voting for Democrats. But he followed that statement by regaling his audience with stories of Democrats taking pictures of their votes so they can be rewarded by union officials or other GOP bogeymen. He also told them of how Democrats in some areas of the country have been getting the severely disabled to vote, even those who don’t really understand what is going on. And has George seen things like that happen with his own eyes? Of course not! But he has heard stories. And to a conservative, any story you hear from another conservative about some alleged misdeed carries much weight than actual facts and evidence.
There’s not going to be massive voter fraud in this election, just as there has never been massive voter fraud before. Even in what was perhaps the most contentious election in recent U.S. history, the one in 2000, the issues with voting affected the outcome, in only one state — Florida. And as we all well know, those problems were caused not by voter fraud, but by poor election mechanics. What Trump and his GOP allies are attempting is to create bedlam on election day, and maybe in the process manage to win by intimidating hundreds or even thousands of legal voters in key states.
Featured image via Spencer Platt/Getty Images Share this Article! | 0 |
STRANGE THING moving up Alaska’s Chena River caught on video
An employee from the Alaska Bureau of Land Management was checking out the Chena River on Wednesday, but on this day when he was looking at the surface from an aerial view, he saw something never seen before. Labeled as a "strange thing", a creature was swimming along the surface of the river but looked like no ordinary creature. Unique Creature Captured On Tape In Alaska
As of now, it is being called an ice monster, though some have called it a variety of things. Some individuals think it is a huge eel, while others have indicated that it is simply a large fish.
There has not been a further investigation by the individual and the company who spotted the monster, but they provided a very vague response and indicated that they would leave it up to the public to make the guesses and dictate whatever the creature is. The creature is unique in that it appears to be an incredibly light white color with a wiggly body, much like a fish. It seems to have a fin of some sort. However, it is extremely long. The length is equivalent to an adult rattlesnake. The visual features are vague in that only parts of its body can be seen during the recording. The head can not be seen, but the mid-section and rear areas of the body are slightly shown .
It is very possible that it could be an eel as eels can reach extremely large lengths, though the average one is not of this length. The idea of it being a pike is a lot less likely because pike can grow to relatively long sizes, there is a very unlikely chance that a pike could possibility grow to the length and pike are not that bright white. Some are white with spots; however, they are not as noticeably white as the recording shows.
Ultimately, it is still left to the public to guess what this unique creature is. It brings up an interesting question of why the employee nor the company would further look into what the creature was or why no one else has attempted to look more into the creature. Icy cold conditions would make this endeavor a lot more difficult. However there have to be some individuals who are overly curious about what this monster is.
This article (STRANGE THING moving up Alaska’s Chena River caught on video) | 0 |
Going to be fun watching the Philippine's turn into China's NEWEST province...
Remember when Subic Bay closed & the last U.S. ships sailed away?
It is going to be even SWEETER when the U.S. Embassy closes & the visa section flies away...
Filipinos are arrogant in their ungratefulness, all the while demanding even more...
We here in America are sick & tired of Filipinos...
Time to set these ingrates adrift permanently! | 0 |
Videos Julian Assange: Trump Won’t Be Allowed To Win, Clinton & ISIS Funded By Same Money As previously reported, in an August 17, 2014 email made public WikiLeaks last month, Hillary Clinton, who had served as secretary of state until the year before, urges John Podesta, then an advisor to Barack Obama, to “bring pressure” on Qatar and Saudi Arabia, “which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIS and other radical Sunni groups.” WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks during a press conference inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he confirmed he “will be leaving the embassy soon”, Monday Aug. 18, 2014.
One day after Julian Assange officially revealed for the first time that the source of hacked Podesta and DNC emails in Wikileaks’ possession is not Russia, in the second excerpt from the John Pilger Special, to be broadcast by RT on Saturday Julian Assange accuses Hillary Clinton of misleading Americans about the true scope of Islamic State’s support from Washington’s Middle East allies.
As previously reported, in an August 17, 2014 email made public WikiLeaks last month, Hillary Clinton, who had served as secretary of state until the year before, urges John Podesta, then an advisor to Barack Obama, to “bring pressure” on Qatar and Saudi Arabia, “which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIS and other radical Sunni groups.”
“I think this is the most significant email in the whole collection,” Assange, whose whistleblowing site released three tranches of Clinton-related emails over the past year, told Pilger in the interview. “All serious analysts know, and even the US government has agreed, that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS and funding ISIS, but the dodge has always been that it is some “rogue” princes using their oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves. But that email says that it is the government of Saudi Arabia, and the government of Qatar that have been funding ISIS.”
As recounted by RT , Assange and Pilger, who sat down for their 25-minute interview at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where the whistleblower has been a refugee since 2012, also talked about the conflict of interest between Clinton’s official post, her husband’s nonprofit, and the Middle East officials, whose stated desire to fight terrorism may not have been sincere. John Pilger: The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis, particularly the first two, are giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton is secretary of state, and the State Department is approving massive arms sales, particularly Saudi Arabia.
Julian Assange: Under Hillary Clinton – and the Clinton emails reveal a significant discussion of it – the biggest-ever arms deal in the world was made with Saudi Arabia: more than $80 billion. During her tenure, the total arms exports from the US doubled in dollar value.
JP: Of course, the consequence of that is that this notorious jihadist group, called ISIL or ISIS, is created largely with money from people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation?
JA: Yes.
The conversation then turns to the imminent presidential election: Pilger questioned Assange over increasingly frequent accusations from the Clinton camp, and Western media, that WikiLeaks is looking to swing next week’s US presidential election in favor of Donald Trump – perhaps at Russia’s behest.
However, just as he did last week, Assange again dismissed the prospect of Trump, who is almost tied in the polls, winning as unlikely, and not necessarily due to his standing with the electorate.
“My analysis is that Trump would not be permitted to win. Why do I say that? Because he has had every establishment off his side. Trump does not have one establishment, maybe with the exception of the Evangelicals, if you can call them an establishment,” said Assange. “Banks, intelligence, arms companies, foreign money, etc. are all united behind Hillary Clinton. And the media as well. Media owners, and the journalists themselves.”
He is right, but the same was said about Brexit.
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By David Haggith, the Great Recession Blog .
As we near Halloween, the US stock market looks like it’s whistling past the graveyard near the end of a year that I predicted would be the dawn of “the Epocalypse.” (By that, I meant an economic apocalypse, the likes of which we’ve never seen.)
So far, however, that prediction has not manifested. In fact, the market’s fibrillating heartbeat in this graph exhibits a preternatural and eery calm. But it is too calm — too calm to be natural. The stock market plunged on my predicted schedule at the start of the year in what turned into the worst January in the US stock market’s history. Then, suddenly, it was resurrected, great death defied; but, after a rapid recovery it lost consciousness and now behaves more like the walking dead.
I have never seen a more rigged looking stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) has been flatlining in the narrowest range possible for almost four months. Coincidence, or has the Fed clandestinely set a threshold below which it will not let the market fall, just like it does openly for inflation — in order to make sure that nothing happens economically that would push voters toward Donald Trump? Is the Federal Reserve rigging the stock market in order to drag itself through this monstrous election cycle alive?
While the Fed is barred by law from buying stocks, it has been creating money for its banking proxies to buy stocks ever since the Great Recession hit. It’s common knowledge and also confessed this year by Fed officials , that the Fed has been pumping up the stock market; but I’m asking are they taking new extraordinary measures behind the scenes? The market now looks like it has been pushed as high as it will go and is being held against that ceiling by some mysterious levitating force.
Donald Trump recently made it clear that he’d love to put a stake in the heart of the Federal Reserve by firing Janet Yellen … if he could. The prospect of such an acrimonious relationship with a president, telegraphed so clearly by a candidate with a strong chance of winning, surely puts the Fed in a fearful state of self-preservation. All creatures in a state of self-preservation — especially the hideous ones — will do nearly anything to survive.
I can’t say that I know the Fed is doing anything new or different than what it has done for the past seven years; but I can say with certainty that this stock market doesn’t look like anything we’ve seen in the past seven years … or even that I’ve seen anytime in my career.
John Rubino of DollarCollapse.com calls it “The Boredom Before the Storm” and observes …
With all the surprising and disturbing things going on – Brexit, China’s soaring debt, US/Russia/China saber rattling, the unique US presidential race, the cyber attack that shut down big parts of the US Internet – you’d think that an unsettled world would be reflected in skittish financial markets. Instead we’re getting the opposite, with stock price movements becoming more and more placid as the year goes on.
Indeed. Like Rubino, I find it strange that, with so much disturbing news around the world, the stock market looks like a sea that is a smooth as glass (compared to how the market’s ups and downs have looked at any other time). You’d think there was never a season more calming to the nerves of investors than the last four months, even as Wall Street daily screams out its fears about a possible Trump victory.
In case you don’t think the above graph looks highly suspect, consider that the Dow has now closed below its fifty-day moving average every day without falling below its two-hundred-day moving average for thirty-two sessions. That may not sound like any technical big deal, but what that means is that the Dow has traded within the range of those two averages for the longest time in twenty-seven years ! In fact, the current stretch is three days longer ( and running ) than what the Dow managed back in 1989. (That’s just as far back as I had time to research to try to find a period that came close.) Is the White House also in on the fix … if a fix it is?
At a time when Barrack Obama has been boasting that his administration brought the national deficit down (and when I suspect the Obama Admin. would like to tamp it down as much as possible to make Democrats look good for the election), Federal government spending just leaped 67% in August over the month before and 23% over the year before. Another way of saying that is that this spending surge created a deficit for August that was 40% higher than last August’s deficit.
Why would the Obama administration risk losing its bragging rights over lowering the deficit so close to the election unless something more important than those bragging rights was at stake? (The president can, after all, do things by executive order to slow spending.) It could, of course, simply be that the King Pin and his henchmen recognized no one was buying their story, so they gave up maintaining the charade. Or … it could be that the economy began sinking so badly that massive efforts were needed to shore things up behind the scenes. Or … ?
While I don’t know the reasoning for the spending explosion at a time when the Obama wants to firmly establish his legacy as our savior from the Great Recession, I will note that there is nothing like a massive burst of last-minute government spending on top of whatever the Feral Reserve might be doing to superficially float the economy a little longer. If your boat starts leaking badly and you’re only a hundred yards from shore, the best solution is to power quickly toward shore, not spend time trying to make lasting repairs. No October surprise this October … so far … boo!
October has a reputation for being a nasty month for the stock market. It’s the month in which you had usually better buckle your seatbelt because October has seen more stock market crashes than any other month. Sixty-percent of the largest one-day drops in the US stock market have happened in October.
This Halloweenish month has broken more volatility records than any other month. That makes it especially odd that the VIX, which tracks market volatility, hasn’t been this steady in any month since the months that preceded the Great Recession. (Everyone thought everything was fine then, too.)
As short volatility market positions continue to build – largely as a consequence of central banks suppressing volatility to prevent recessions – maverick money manager Jesse Felder is warning the end result of the volatility trade could be a very painful lesson for investors with significant stock market repercussions. Having started out at Bear Stearns before co-founding his own multi-billion-dollar hedge fund, Jesse Felder is now more at home educating the masses on the truth in financial markets through his blog The Felder Report …. Felder expresses his concern that the lack of volatility will inevitably create more volatility, the likes of which have never been seen before. “I’m not calling for a stock market crash … but if you want to look at what’s the probability of that type of an event, it’s probably got to be as high as it’s ever been.” ( Business Insider )
Felder also says in a television interview that another sign of “way too much complacency” in the stock market is that…
…we’re seeing financial stress; everybody’s dismissing it…. It’s big-time denial.
Investor complacency or even irrational exuberance are the hallmarks of the final days before a stock-market bust because markets crash when people are most blind. (If they weren’t blind, they’d see the problem coming and avert catastrophe.) Everyone was complacent in 2007 about all warnings, just as no one now seems to care that the market has plowed its mushy head into a ceiling that is slowly squishing down upon it.
This October looks more sloppy than choppy, and that’s … in spite of just entering another reporting period of fairly weak earnings, in spite of the European Central Bank talking about backing away from quantitative easing, in spite of the US national debt hitting twenty-trillion dollars, in spite of the Federal Reserve edging toward a possible interest-rate hike now that inflation and employment have met the Fed’s stated targets, in spite of the Bank of Japan holding back on its QE, in spite of China looking like another round of collapse is imminent, in spite of the largest and oldest banks in Europe teetering on collapse, in spite of the great European unwind called “Brexit,” in spite of a proxy war between the US and Russia flaring up in the Middle East, and in spite of that scary, red-haired Chucky doll named Trump.
Hmm. Is history’s calmest stock market in the midst of all that a sign of peak complacency or irrationality? Or is it a sign that the market is being firmly fixed in place by the Fed and the government? Either way, looks like a crash is imminent. You decide. I’ll just note that the market looks as calm as the eye in the middle of the hurricane that is, itself, surrounded by hurricanes.
While the ride has been mysteriously quiet for the last four months, note that the trend over those months is ever so gradually downward. So, if the fix is in, it is a fix that is barely holding, despite all the Fed and the government can throw at it.
Are investors just treading water, as some commentators explain, waiting until the election decides who is president. If so, that’s something they have not done with this level of calm in any previous election cycles. Or are the Fed and the Gov lifting with all their combined might in hidden ways to try to hold up a lowering ceiling so that no one will suspect the Obama-praised Obama recovery is already dead?
I don’t actually know. I just want to make the stinking peculiarity of this zombie economy abundantly clear. | 0 |
Giuliani, however, would not reveal exactly what the surprise would be. Rudy Giuliani: Trump campaign has a couple of surprises left pic.twitter.com/vVT8sElzox
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) October 25, 2016
On Thursday, Trump revealed that his wife, Melania , had agreed to give several speeches on his behalf — something she hasn’t done since the Republican National Convention in July.
“She’s actually going to make two or three speeches,” Trump told “Good Morning America” host George Stephanopoulos. “She’s amazing when she speaks. She’s an amazing public speaker.” WATCH: "[Melania] is actually going to make two or three speeches."– Trump on Melania on the campaign trail https://t.co/2SykRNHMgh
— Good Morning America (@GMA) October 27, 2016
Melania has been quite popular, particularly among conservative women who have described her as “classy,” “beautiful” and “well-spoken.” She has also appealed to immigrants, as she herself came to the United States from Slovenia.
While we’re not completely sure this is the “surprise” Giuliani was talking about, it certainly seems like it fits his description of an unsuspected campaign move. | 0 |
Analyst: Most Americans like neither Candidate 11/04/2016
PRESS TV US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s unpopularity among American voters has reached a new high, according to recent polls, putting her on par with her Republican rival Donald Trump.
According to the final pre-election New York Times/CBS News Poll released on Thursday, an overwhelming majority of American voters are disgusted by the state of US politics, and most view Trump and Clinton as dishonest.
More than 80 percent of voters say the presidential campaign has left them repulsed rather than excited, the poll found.
“Having the two most hated politicians running for president of the US representing the two largest political parties has made a mockery of our democracy and electoral process,” Hoenig told Press TV on Friday.
“Hillary Clinton lied and stole her way to the nomination for the Democrats and Trump bullied his way by insulting every interest group in America, including his fellow Republican opponents,” he added.
“For the third parties we have Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, who has been made a laughing stock for his ignorance of foreign policy. His poll numbers are dropping. The other 3rd party candidate is Jill Stein of the Green Party who is seeing an actual rise in her numbers in spite of lies and smears coming from mostly the Democrats, with assistance from the main stream media,” he said.
“That the race is tightening is no surprise. It often happens at this time but the reasons now are not because people are becoming more assured of who they want but more and more disgusted in the choices they have,” he stated.
“Regardless of who wins, and it’s most probable that it’ll be either Clinton or Trump, this country’s nightmare will only begin on Jan 21st, the day after the inauguration. If it’s Clinton one wouldn’t be surprised if the ink on the articles of impeachment isn’t already dried. By then, it’s possible that criminal charges will have been presented to her or that she had received by then a presidential pardon from the outgoing President Obama,” the analyst noted.
“President Ford once said, when he was a leader in the House of Representatives, that impeachment is for whatever the Congress wants it to be. Simply the whiff of impropriety or criminal behavior would make any partisan congressman see that as reason enough for such an article of impeachment. Compound that with an actual indictment and it’s guaranteed,” he said.
The commentator said, “Trump has a different set of problems if he were to be inaugurated in January. His positions are so outlandish that even his own party, which by and large has rejected him, would pounce on anything he does that would jeopardize their chances as a party and individually in the next off-year elections of 2018.”
“We have to look inward as to what kind of nation we are that we have degenerated to the point where a majority of Americans want neither candidate to win,” he said in his concluding remarks. | 0 |
For crimes against humanity, when Soros was a Nazi collaborator, he needs to considered an alien, enemy combatant and under the NDAA sent to a rendition facility run by American Special Forces. In the furtherance of this endeavor, he is also guilty of terrorist economic tampering with the US economy. Soros is also guilty of election tampering, facilitating a bribe, election fraud for buying off voters in the electoral college.
Soros is a criminal’s, criminal and the NDAA was made for people like Soros, It is time to send him to a rendition facility. He gets no lawyer, no day in court, no phone call. Soros sits in a deep dark hole in repayment for the inhumane havoc he wreaked upon the world and specifically, the people of the United States.
Here is an impassioned appeal for US Special Operations forces to take action against Soros on behalf of the American people.
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Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. Cory Booker ( ) commented on Hillary Clinton saying in her commencement speech at Wellesley College that President Donald Trump’s presidency would end in impeachment for obstruction of justice. Booker praised Clinton’s speech, but said he is not pushing for Trump’s impeachment just yet. “I just wanted to tell you, I’m not going to rush to impeachment,” Booker stated. “I think we need to deal with this in a very sobered way. This can’t be a relitigation of an election that is now past. This has to be about an objective assessment about the facts that are going on right now. ” ( Mediaite) Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
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As a leftist and as a woman, I have always been aware how important language is to our social, political and interpersonal functioning. Moreover, as a female from any culture in the world, you learn from birth that not only does your body define who you are to others , the language through which you are defined and described does as well. Women especially understand the the nuances of language that underpin our experiences such that we are the object of “lady jokes” about female presidents and “that time of the month” (what if she starts a nuclear war?) and about those sexually uptight feminists who just need a good fuck to get over their “prudishness” about being cat-called. What language ends up evoking, however, is inevitably caught in a double bind as women are forever cast within the conterminous liberatory and carceral limits of meaning. The language used to describe females is inevitably a reflection of the social and political bigotry whereby language is never really precise and as employed is always too much or too little.
Fredric Jameson’s The Prison-House of Language provides a critical account of the structuralist movement in the social sciences focussing on the likes of Ferdinand de Saussure whose work Jameson regards as far too removed from historical and material reality. Warning the reader against the trap of “ideological closure” within language, Jameson seeks to avoid the confinement that language imposes through what he deems as the “prison-house of language.”
In a bizarre reversal of Jameson’s critique, we are in the throes of new culture wars that are far removed from Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography of black male bodies invigilated by conservative, Christian adherent, Jesse Helms. Instead, we are living through a moment when the liberal sector of society is, instead of image constabulary, undertaking some rather Draconian forms of language policing. Composed of a university student and twenty-something population, this movement harbours a profoundly conserve narrative, albeit couched as “progressive,” whereby the names we call ourselves are imposed upon others.
The major battleground for this debate is at the University of Toronto where psychology professor, Jordan Peterson, has come under fire for critiquing Federal Bill C-16 . Under this bill is the proposal to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code whereby added to the list of prosecutable offences could include the “misuse” of pronouns. On 27 September, Peterson made the first of a series of videos which takes aim at “political correctness” at the legislative level and to a lesser degree, within his university. The current scandal is focussed on Peterson’s videos and his refusal to use “preferred pronouns,” arguing that Bill C-16
While Peterson is certainly not a leftist and could be more accurately described as a Libertarian, his critique of the surveillance and control of language is one which resonates across the aisle because it arbitrates the current attacks on free speech by social justice warriors of the ostensible left. I include this word “ostensible” since many of these attacks over language and pronouns revolve around identity politics which the left is almost unilaterally solidly opposed to except when the identity is couched through emotions. Couching his argument purely in terms of the freedom of speech, Peterson points out the serious dangers inherent within this proposed legislation:
It is one thing to tell people what they can’t say, but it is a completely different thing—an absolutely differently thing—to legislate what they have to say. And that’s a line that I don’t think we should cross…There is the inference,…the stated demand, that if someone wants to be addressed a certain way because they have certain emotional requirements, I am now legally compelled to comply with that. And that’s what I won’t do… Except that there is reasonable debate to be had about biology, sexuality, and culture and the attempt to ram through a particular conception of that into legislation and policy far too rapidly and in a staggeringly ill-advised manner.
As he has been evolving his thoughts on this subject open acknowledging that he is still coming to terms with the repercussions by this bill, in another interview with the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), Peterson expounds upon why he doesn’t recognize another person’s right to determine what pronouns he uses to address people:
That’s right. I don’t recognize that. I don’t recognize another person’s right to decide what words I’m going to use, especially when the words they want me to use, first of all, are non-standard elements of the English language and they are constructs of a small coterie of ideologically motivated people. They might have a point but I’m not going to say their words for them…I’m not claiming that a person is free to use any words, in any context. But what I’m saying is that I’m not willing to mouth words that I think have been created for ideological purposes.
Peterson’s words have resonated throughout the University of Toronto community—faculty and students alike— and beyond. His videos and interviews have raised important questions for those of us on the left to address. Ultimately, Peterson asks if the ideas we hold so dear on the left (or the right) should be protected to such a degree that laws need be passed to proscribe how we grammatically refer to the intrinsic identity of the other forcing the subject to feed into what Peterson calls the “ideological game” of the other. If so, who decides which side of this debate becomes legally protected? And how does putting legal protections on ideology create a political environment of totalitarianism where only certain narratives are deemed relevant, others not at all?
The mere fact that you don’t cause conflict in the present, or don’t hurt someone’s feelings in the present is no indication that you are acting in their best interests in the medium to long run. It would be a lovely world if the way we could set things right would be to make sure that no one’s feathers ever get ruffled in the present. And that is absolutely absurd. And the idea that the fundamental doctrine governing discourse should be “Don’t hurt someone’s feelings,” that is completely absurd. The fundamental doctrine governing communication should be stringent attempts to speak the truth and to listen. So you speak the truth–what you think to be the truth–so you can help clarify the nature of the world and then you engage in dialogue with other people and you listen on the off-chance that you have made a mistake and that the tool kit that you are using to work in the world could be improved.
Taking the view that we need to have rational arguments about pronouns, Peterson confirms that he refuses to be the “mouthpiece” of any ideology: “The fastest way to make yourself sick is to not choose your words carefully. And that is the fastest to make your “sickness” make society “sick” too. And I think that is one of the great lessons of the twentieth century. It is the pathologisation of thought and speech, and then the pathologisation of action, because that is what follows the pathologisation of speech and thought. I’m not going down that road.”
Peterson also speaks of the impracticalities of this measure, the potential illegalities now posed against the freedom of speech, and the potentiality that this law could make the use of pronouns fall under hate speech laws. With a measured, reasonable approach to public debate, Peterson’s evaluation of Bill C-16 and his worry about the freedom of expression , he has been met with a fury of social justice worker’s ire and insults, to include the public and media being subject to violence as documented by Laura Southern .
Yet despite the violences he and the pro-free speech side of this debate endured, Peterson received a letter from the University of Toronto mentioning complaints from students, employees, and other individuals which call Peterson’s comments “unacceptable, emotionally disturbing and painful.” The letter also states that some members of the University of Toronto community have expressed fears for their safety in the wake of actions on campus following the release of Peterson’s YouTube videos: “We trust that these impacts on students and others were not your intention in making these remarks,” the letter states. “However, in view of these impacts, as well as the requirements of the Ontario Human Rights Code, we urge you to stop repeating these statements.”
For how can one person’s refusal to use a specific pronoun actually result in the lack of safety or the creation of fear? I might think that I am the best singer in the world, but opening my mouth to sing even one bar from “La Traviata” would most certainly result in anyone within earshot quickly plugging their ears with their fingers and cringing from the pain of my voice. Even though my feelings might be hurt because people do not say I am best thing since Callas, this fact alone should not dictate my power to impose upon people my identity as “the best opera singer ever.”
Peterson has to date received two letters of reprimand and warning, although just last week the University of Toronto has agreed to host a public debate on Bill C-16 and the freedom of speech. For Peterson this is welcome news north of the border. However in New York a similar debate has only recently begun as NYU Clinical Assistant Professor of Liberal Studies, Michael Rectenwald , has been critiquing the culture of trigger warnings, safe spaces and surveillance on universities campuses around the country. Using an undercover Twitter account Deplorable NYU Prof , Rectenwald claims to “[expose] the viral identity politics of academia and its destruction of academic integrity.” Unlike Peterson, Rectenwald does not view this situation of academic control within academia as linked to political correctness as he told the Washington Square News : “My contention is that the trigger warning, safe spaces and bias hotline reporting is not politically correct. It is insane. This stuff is producing a culture of hypervigilance, self-surveillance and panopticism…This kind of left that we’re talking about: the SJW—identity-politics left—it’s not political; it’s religious.” Rectenwald was forced to go on paid leave through the end of the semester.
It has been recently theorised that the way Internet algorithms are written, direct us toward articles, websites, and search results that reflect our own ideological mindset. This current explains why online discussions in recent years have become so silenced by agreement and worse, where humans’ collective inability to tolerate dissent, difference or disagreement is alarming. Hence, most of us tend to use the Internet today to confirm that which we already know, our own private echo chamber which is further reflected by social media . Peterson’s pushback against the policing of language and thought should be discussed openly and without stigma. And more importantly, we need to be reaching across to political actors with whom we might otherwise have nothing in common politically. The larger issues posed by the interception and control of free speech always turns back to the political tendency of who is controlling and who is controlled.
Some Black Guy has put this entire debate into context by laughing at the absurdity that one person can be vilified and positioned as another’s enemy simply for refusing the “preferred pronouns.” Laughing at the notion that this refusal to engage in preferred pronouns constitutes murder, Some Black Guy observes how those labelling people who disagree “the enemy” are demanding to be “attended to.” And this is a thorn in any leftist support of such narratives which atomise the individual as sacred and where the collective or historical is necessarily “anti-progressive.” These are teleological explanations of the universe which posit the need for the complete control of language within the rationale of the violent other. We have been here before and it didn’t go well in any of those historical “rinse cycles.”
Clearly if all the identitarians have up their sleeve is to enforce a Stasi-esque catechism of pronouns or else , then this debate has already been lost. To live in a free society means that all of us risk being offended, hurt, and emotionally tainted. To posture a 21st century “parental advisory” label to all speech means that we have not only entered into the echo chamber, but that we have firmly nailed it hermetically shut. Moreover, the pronouns we use to discuss ourselves as individuals can only occur in the first person singular, I. The minute we interact with the world, we enter into the second and third-person, the plural, as well as subject and object pronouns. I can only evoke myself through my own language—the language of I and me , of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so forth. I question if we can institute à la Academie française a control of language that actually responds to identity such that feelings are linguistically matched to words and not further ensnared within the lack that language presents.
I also wonder if it is at reasonable to require people, under order of the state, to remember any one of several dozen identities with their presumably hyper-individualised pronouns. From a practical perspective this would be a nightmare as the number of identitarian words and pronouns are increasing rapidly. And from a legal direction, it would create the opposite effect: most people would avoid those who are deemed as “difficult” and this sort of mandated speech would set off a domino effect of other vocabulary which we might be, in the not-so-distant future, required to utter. We also need to consider if identity politics is part of a larger cultural pathology of hyper-individualised people who are acting out and who, well, may simply be difficult if not entirely controlling. At heart, requiring that one be spoken of with a specific pronoun is a clear form of control. We need to discuss as a society if we should be legally mandating language in order to accommodate people’s feelings and quasi-religious beliefs.
When asked about his motives and the potential trouble he could get into for speaking out, Peterson replies:
Well, the biggest reason is because not doing so will get you into far bigger trouble. This is another example of the conflict between emotional regulation in the present versus emotional regulation in the future….If free speech is under assault…then the amount of trouble you’re going to get into for standing up right now for your right to think what you need to, and say what you need to, and act the way you see fit–the trouble you are going to get into for doing that now is so trivial compared to the trouble you’re going to get into if this continues for the next ten years that they are not even in the same universe of conceptualisation. To me, by doing what I am doing, I am avoiding trouble, not causing it or not magnifying it for myself. People think what I have landed in constitutes “hot water” have no idea what “hot water” is. Compared to any real trouble, the trouble that I am having, it’s the trouble of someone who is unbelievably well-protected, who has financial stability, and lives in what’s still a free society, and who is protected by tenure. And god, if someone like that can’t stand up and say what he has to say out of fear then there’s just no hope. If that’s how careful I have to be, how is the normal person supposed to be able to talk? You know, I can barely do it and I’m being hyper alert. And that’s not free speech–that’s barely tolerated speech. | 0 |
One Iraqi national and one Egyptian national were apprehended by U. S. Border Patrol agents after the individuals from had illegally entered the U. S. from Mexico. U. S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed the concerning apprehensions to Breitbart Texas in a statement. CBP declined to confirm that the foreign nationals were men, though a source operating under the umbrella of their agency claimed they were both males to Breitbart Texas. [“USBP agents [U. S. Border Patrol agents] from Lordsburg Station apprehended two individuals, one Iraqi national and the other from Egypt, while on patrol Saturday at 2:15 p. m. local time along Arizona State Route 80. Records checks and interviews produced no derogatory information and the two individuals were placed into removal proceedings,” wrote a spokesperson for the agency. Breitbart Texas asked CBP again to specify the gender, as males from penetrating the U. S. border would clearly be more of a concern than elderly females, but the agency would not enlighten the public to these important details. The exact location of the apprehensions is unclear, as the Border Patrol agents were from the Lordsburg, New Mexico, station, according to CBP. Arizona State Route 80 runs in both New Mexico and Arizona, due to the location of the highway in New Mexico, the CBP statement would indicate that the foreign nationals had made it more than 15 miles into U. S. territory before being apprehended. Had the apprehensions been in Arizona, Lordsburg agents would likely have not been present. The stretch of the U. S. border south of the apprehension area is open and without sufficient barriers of any sort. The area immediately south of the U. S. border from the apprehensions, therefore being the most likely crossing point for the foreign nationals, is controlled by criminal group factions operating under the banner of the Sinaloa Federation or cartel. The Sinaloa has long been known as much more professional than other Mexican cartels operating in the border regions and therefore less likely to allow potential terrorists to cross in their territory. The Sinaloa’s reluctance to cross illegal aliens from has changed. Over the past two years, Breitbart Texas has reported on multiple cases where the Sinaloa clearly allowed and aided individuals from to cross into the U. S. — as any unapproved activity in Sinaloa corridors on U. S. soil is met with brutal retribution. A previous Breitbart Texas report revealed that one person traversing an Arizona Sinaloa corridor without permission was brutally assaulted. In that instance, a cartel scout noticed the trespasser and called a cartel strike team in to teach the person a lesson. The man spent hours in a U. S. hospital having shards of wood surgically removed from his rectum after the cartel team sodomized him with sticks and possibly other items (or body parts). Brandon Darby is managing director and of Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. | 1 |
A complaint has been filed against FBI Director James Comey with Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility that accuses him of interfering in a presidential election.
The Democratic Coalition Against Trump released a statement announcing their complaint: The Democratic Coalition Against Trump filed a complaint with the Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility on Friday against FBI Director James Comey for interfering in the Presidential election, following the FBI’s decision to open up an investigation into Secretary Clinton’s emails this close to Election Day. Federal employees are forbidden from participating in political activities under the Hatch Act.
“It is absolutely absurd that FBI Director Comey would support Donald Trump like this with only 11 days to go before the election,” said Scott Dworkin, Senior Advisor to the Democratic Coalition Against Trump. “It is an obvious attack from a lifelong Republican who used to serve in the Bush White House, just to undermine her campaign. Comey needs to focus on stopping terrorists and protecting America, not investigating our soon to be President-Elect Hillary Clinton.”
Outrage is growing over Comey’s actions as details about the FBI investigation have revealed that it has nothing to do with Clinton, her emails, or her server.
Director Comey’s motives for sending the letter 11 days before a presidential election have been questioned by both Republicans and Democrats.
If Comey’s actions were politically motivated, he would be in violation of the Hatch Act.
What Republicans initially viewed as a new hope in the presidential election has quickly been exposed as a desperately political ploy.
The American people deserve a full explanation from Director Comey, because the letter that was released today raises more questions than answers. | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Major G. O. P. donors are warning the Republican National Committee to cut off Donald Trump or risk lasting damage to the party’s image. In the House, some Republicans are gauging how Mr. Trump’s problems could affect them. Our election podcast The goes behind the story of the two women who told us that Mr. Trump touched them inappropriately. Mr. Trump calls his accusers liars. President Obama campaigned for Hillary Clinton in Ohio. On Thursday night, Mr. Obama called the Republican situation a “swamp of crazy. ” ____ 2. Cholera is stalking Haiti’s southern peninsula in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew. The disease has killed 10, 000 people since 2010, when scientists say it was introduced by U. N. peacekeepers after the earthquake. Now it is ravaging remote areas where clean water was already hard to find before the storm. ____ 3. The Justice Department announced it would track the use of force by the police across the U. S. It’s an effort to fill what officials say is a huge void in official data. (The most comprehensive records on police shootings have come from databases built by news organizations.) ____ 4. President Obama issued a sweeping directive on Cuba and loosened many trade restrictions. The move formalizes the changes announced two years ago — and sidesteps Congress, where Mr. Obama’s call to lift the embargo faced opposition. Among the changes? You can now bring unlimited Cuban rum and cigars back to the U. S. for personal consumption. ____ 5. Rates for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act are going up. That’s because not enough young, healthy people have signed up for the insurance markets it created. The Obama administration is planning greater outreach to younger Americans during the next enrollment period, which starts on Nov. 1. ____ 6. 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. ” ____ 7. Bob Dylan, the latest Nobel Prize winner, spent his formative years as a performer in New York, a city he had a complicated, fertile romance with. We conjure what his life in Greenwich Village was like after he arrived in 1961 as a cherubic but determined . And if you want to learn more, a Harvard professor is teaching a whole class on Mr. Dylan. ____ 8. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” was a flop when it was first released in 1975, but went on to become a cult hit at midnight showings. And 41 years later, Laverne Cox is starring in a coming remake as Dr. the pansexual alien scientist. ____ 9. For your weekend planning: “Kevin Hart: What Now?” is in theaters, and our critic said most of it was funny, while also acknowledging that the comedian is basically “ . ” Our experts recommend the comedian Kyle Kinane, the British show “The Durrells in Corfu” and the movie “Carol,” above, which is streaming on Showtime. ____ 10. Finally, Part II of our discussion about eating fish. On Thursday we noted that eating fish is good for you. But a reader asked about the levels of mercury. Good point. Mercury can be harmful for pregnant women and small children, but experts say fish remains preferable to red meat. And you can avoid mercury by skipping varieties that accumulate high levels of it: shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish. Have a carefree weekend. 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 |
Welcome to Watching, The New York Times’s guide. We comb through releases big and small to email readers twice a week with our timely recommendations. You can browse previous guides here, and to receive recommendations straight to your inbox, sign up here. Stay tuned for our coming website. Dear Watchers, The Emmys are Sunday, and we’ll have plenty of coverage coming up this weekend, but for now, let’s take one last look at the summer that was. Today’s newsletter rounds up the worthy shows that came out in the last few months, some of which you might have missed, and some of which you might have added to ye olde DVR but have not gotten to. Happy watching. “O. J.: Made in America” is maybe Watching’s most mentioned TV specimen so far, and with good reason: It’s one of the best in living memory. ESPN’s documentary is gripping and educational and made what I thought was a familiar story into something completely new and riveting. If you don’t want to commit, at least watch the first episode, which alone is one of the best documentaries about race in Los Angeles you are likely ever to see. (Watch on ESPN.) Neflix’s “Stranger Things” has captured the internet’s imagination to a degree that surpasses understanding. It’s pretty good, and I enjoyed it tremendously, but I have no idea how it became such a thing. Aspirational nostalgia from people too young to actually remember 1983? Maybe! “Stranger” is radically straightforward for a horror story: It isn’t trying to trick you, and it isn’t trying to wink at you. (I didn’t find it all that scary, but I am in the minority.) (Watch on Netflix.) “The Great British Baking Show” makes its way to PBS on a seemingly arbitrary schedule, but if one has to endure frustrating broadcast delays in order to encounter the most charming food show currently airing, well, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. but brutally exacting, the series pulls off a feat almost unheard of on reality contest shows: There’s zero drama. The entire story of every episode revolves solely around baking triumphs and failures. Let this show inspire you to live every day as if you were a “star baker. ” (Watch on PBS and Netflix.) Sometimes great shows don’t capture “the conversation. ” Boo. These shows are fantastic give ‘em a go if you haven’t already. The megachurch ensemble drama “Greenleaf” premiered as OWN’s biggest show ever, and yet it didn’t seem to be particularly buzzy. While its network mate “Queen Sugar” is destined for more acclaim, “Greenleaf” deserves plenty of attention, too. It’s vibrant and smart, and not afraid of soapier moments. (Watch on the OWN app.) If you miss “Friday Night Lights” — don’t we all? — watch Netflix’s “Last Chance U,” a documentary series about a community college football team that sends most of its players on to Division I programs. After you watch it, please tweet me your thoughts, because I want to talk about this show so much. (Watch on Netflix.) For anyone who likes medical shows, “Boston EMS” is an absorbing spin. It’s a documentary series that never crosses the threshold of a hospital the show only takes place on the road and in the ambulances. Rare is the series that can make you care so much so quickly. (Watch on ABC.) “Take My Wife,” on NBC’s comedy streaming service Seeso, is a quick six episodes, but they charmed me so much I watched them twice. and wives Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher star as loosely themselves, and the show covers the ins and outs of the Los Angeles comedy scene without being tragic or sleazy. There are a ton of shows right now where comedians play themselves, but “Wife” is the only one pulling off exploring the idea that the more you’re yourself in your life, the better your comedy becomes. (Watch on Seeso for Amazon.) Some people loved them! Some people didn’t care at all! Which one are you? I don’t know! You are the captain of your own vessels. I can only offer guidance. CBS’s twisted political black comedy “BrainDead,” from the creators of “The Good Wife,” was a tough sell. Alien ants crawl into politicos’ ears, turn them extra partisan, and sometimes heads literally explode. I didn’t always grasp the rules that governed the alien invasion, but both Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s sparkling performance and Jonathan Coulton’s silly songs that served as the “previously on” segments delighted me. (Watch on Amazon.) If “Stranger Things” hadn’t come out this summer, would “The Get Down” have been Netflix’s big show? It’s someone’s job to know the answer to that, but not mine. Baz Luhrmann’s origin story, set in the Bronx in the 1970s, has a messy pilot but pulls itself together in subsequent episodes. I didn’t have the real estate for another sprawling show, but maybe you do. (Watch on Netflix.) If you want to watch two attractive actors in attractive locations learn about attractive beverages, then yeah, “The Wine Show” is for you. But maybe you are just a salty crab crabbing around, and you want educational shows to be more substantive, cohesive and convincing. A toast to however you are. (Watch on Hulu.) If you thought those hidden gems above were hidden, well … these were even more hidden. “Still the King” is a Billy Ray Cyrus vehicle on CMT where he plays a singer pretending to be a minister back in his rural hometown. I know, I know. But it’s reminiscent of “My Name Is Earl” in all the good ways, and it’s an undercover sweetheart of a show. (Watch on CMT.) On the drama front, TNT’s “Animal Kingdom” really aimed for a “Diet ‘Sons Of Anarchy’” vibe and mostly hit it — it’s physically and emotionally violent, bordering on grotesque. Ellen Barkin stars as the matriarch of a California crime family, where‚ if you can believe it, there is not honor among thieves. (Watch on TNT Drama.) I didn’t love “Queen of the South,” USA’s drug queenpin drama adapted from a popular book and Telemundo telenovela, but I might give it another try knowing that Season 2 will have a different showrunner. But if you have an insatiable appetite for stories of violent drug trafficking, theoretically you could do worse. (Watch on USA.) Indeed. Lots of good stuff, actually. If you like family dramas that still have potent dialogue, try the British series“The A Word,” about a family whose son is autistic. It’s the right amount of emotional without being wrenching — it’s not a show that wrecks you, but you might want to drink tea and wear sweaters for a while after watching it. (Watch on Sundance.) Satisfying though never surprising, Australia’s “Cleverman” uses Aboriginal mythology in its superhero storytelling. It’s reminiscent of “District 9” and “Black Mirror,” but a bit sloppier and less horrific. (Watch on Netflix.) For many viewers, the only thing better than a British murder show is a Scandinavian murder show. “The Tunnel” is somewhere in between as a British adaptation of a Scandinavian series. If you’ve watched the original “” or the American adaptation “The Bridge,” this serial killer mystery will seem redundant, but if not, there are thrills aplenty. (Watch on PBS.) There are plenty of shows, but “Thirteen” is the rare show: Ivy is a woman who was kidnapped 13 years ago and has now returned. It’s creepy and haunting, and luckily moves very quickly. Is England half murderers? Maybe! (Watch on BBC America.) Amazon’s two most promising pilots this are Jill Soloway’s “I Love Dick” and the reboot of “The Tick. ” Could Amazon market this in a package called “Dick and the Tick”? They could but shouldn’t. “Dick” stars Kathryn Hahn as a frustrated filmmaker who develops an obsession with a mysterious academic (Kevin Bacon). And “The Tick” is an effective entry in the very saturated superhero genre, satirical but thoughtful and textured. On Sept. 17, “Gimme the Loot” will expire from Netflix. In this wonderful “summer in the city” movie, Malcolm (Ty Hickson) and Sofia (Tashiana Washington) are burgeoning graffiti artists struggling to gain respect. So they hatch a plan to boost their reputation: tag a New York City icon so that no one will forget them. But it’s the realistic friendship between Malcolm and Sofia that makes “Gimme the Loot” memorable. (Watch on Netflix watch the trailer and add the film to your watchlist here.) — Monica Castillo “American Horror Story” returns for its sixth season on Wednesday. At this point, you probably know if you like “A. H. S. ” or not. Unlike previous years, FX hasn’t announced the premise or setting for the season, nor have they sent episodes to critics. Enter at your own risk. | 1 |
This special edition of The Glazov Gang was joined by Sandra Solomon, an who grew up in Saudi Arabia who is now valiantly fighting against the Islamization of the West — and of her new home country of Canada in particular. | 1 |
Posted by Madeline | Oct 26, 2016 | 2016 , Daily Blog | 0 | Published on Oct 26, 2016 As I embrace my deep emotion, And strive for conflict resolution, I live a life of full expression, Not shutdown by fear or suppression.
Feeling it comin’? New Moon in Scorpio this weekend sets the tone for the month ahead, themes, needs, issues, etc. And that means “shadow work,” looking at all the deep dark needs, feelings, fears, and impulses that, when still unconscious, take us where we really don’t want to go and cause effects we regret in the future. So onward and upward is feeling, talking about, expressing, and just flat out being aware of ourselves.
Whether you agree or disagree with the observations made in this video I hope they are food for thought and a springboard for further discussion within your circles of relationship. In this way, we can all become more aware of the socio-cultural-religious-educational conditioning going on so as to identify more clearly for ourselves and our children just what kind of life we want to propagate on this planet! Injoy!
For info and tickets to Astrology Rising: http://astrologyrisingcostarica.com/ For JP Sears vid on the election: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhnNC… For Philip Zimbardo’s TED talk on porn: https://www.ted.com/talks/zimchalleng… For the music at the end of the vid: http://scotthuckabay.com/ Share: | 0 |
by Pepe Escobar for RT
Virtually the whole planet holds its collective breath at the prospect of Hillary Clinton possibly becoming the next President of the United States (POTUS).
How’s that humanly possible, as the (daily) Bonfire of The Scandals – relentlessly fed by WikiLeaks revelations and now converging FBI investigations – can now be seen from interstellar space?
It’s possible because Hillary Clinton, slouching through a paroxysm of manufactured hysteria, is supported by virtually the whole US establishment, a consensual neocon/neoliberalcon War Party/Wall Street/corporate media axis.
But History has a tendency to show us there’s always a straw that breaks the camel’s back.
This could be it – as revealed by WikiLeaks; March 2, 2015, the day when https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/41841
John Podesta wrote, “we are going to have to dump all those emails.”
That happened to be the exact same day it was revealed Hillary Clinton had used a personal http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clintons-use-of-private-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html?_r=0 email server as Secretary of State.
Yet this reveals only part of the puzzle. There’s got to be a response to Podesta’s email – which WikiLeaks may, or may not, leak in the next few days before the election. If the back and forth clearly shows intent (to mislead), then we’ve got a 100% smoking gun: the whole Clinton (cash) machine narrative – according to which Hillary just deleted “personal” emails – crumbles like the ultimate House of Cards.
Moreover, that would unveil what was from the start the privileged Clinton machine strategy: to thwart the subsequent internal State Dept. and FBI investigations.
As far as the Clinton machine is concerned, an interlocking influence peddling pile up is the norm. John Podesta also happens to be the founder of the Center for American Progress – a George Soros operation and prime recruiting ground for Obama administration officials, including US Treasury operatives who decided which elite Too Big To Fail (TBTF) financial giants would be spared after the 2008 crisis. DCLeaks.com , for its part, has connected Soros Open Society foundations to global funding rackets directly leading to subversion of governments and outright regime change (obviously sparing Clinton Foundation donors.)
Exceptional bananas, anyone?
The perfectly timed slow drip of WikiLeaks revelations, for the Clinton machine, feels like a sophisticated form of Chinese torture. To alleviate the pain, the relentless standard spin has been to change the subject, blame the messenger, and attribute it all to “evil” Russian hacking when the real source for the leaks might have come straight from the https://www.rt.com/news/365164-assange-interview-wikileaks-russia/ belly of the (Washington) beast.
At the Valdai discussion club last week, it took President Putin
http://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/vladimir-putin-took-part-in-the-valdai-discussion-club-s-plenary-session/ only a few sentences to debunk the whole Clinton machine narrative with a bang:
“Another mythical and imaginary problem is what I can only call the hysteria the USA has whipped up over supposed Russian meddling in the American presidential election. The United States has plenty of genuinely urgent problems, it would seem, from the colossal public debt to the increase in firearms violence and cases of arbitrary action by the police. You would think that the election debates would concentrate on these and other unresolved problems, but the elite has nothing with which to reassure society, it seems, and therefore attempt to distract public attention by pointing instead to supposed Russian hackers, spies, agents of influence and so forth.
I have to ask myself and ask you too: Does anyone seriously imagine that Russia can somehow influence the American people’s choice? America is not some kind of ‘banana republic’, after all, but is a great power. Do correct me if I am wrong.”
Reality, though, continues to insist on offering multiple, overlapping banana republic instances, configuring a giant black hole of transparency.
Anthropologist Janine Wedel has been one of the few in Clinton-linked US mainstream media
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/clintons-latest-email-scandal-why-it-deserves-scrutiny_us_58177d54e4b08301d33e0cdb?24hp9z9vxqa6y9zfr acknowledging how Bill Clinton, while Hillary was Secretary of State, perfected his version of “philantro-capitalism” (actually a money laundering “pay to play” racket), a practice “by no means confined to the Clintons”.
And the racket prospered with inbuilt nuggets, such as Hillary being http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hillary-clinton-wikileaks-email-isis-saudi-arabia-qatar-us-allies-funding-barack-obama-knew-all-a7362071.html perfectly aware that prime Clinton Foundation donors Qatar and Saudi Arabia were also financing ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
Huma, the Fall Princess
Now, less than a week before the election, we have come to the crucial juncture where the WikiLeaks revelations are merging with the FBI investigations – all three of them.
Exhibit A is https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/43150#efmABWAB8ACiACqACvADUADXAIF
this WikiLeaks bombshell; Peter Kadzik, who’s now in charge of the Department of Justice (DOJ) probe into the 650,000 emails found on the laptop shared by Clinton’s right-hand woman Huma Abedin and her estranged, pervert husband Anthony Wiener, is a Clinton asset.
Not only Kadzik was an attorney for Marc Rich when he was pardoned by Bill Clinton; Podesta – as also revealed by WikiLeaks – thanked Kadzik for keeping him “out of jail”; and it was Kadzik who gave Podesta a secret heads up https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/43150#efmABWAB8ACiACqACvADUADXAIF on the Clinton email investigation.
The Clinton machine, starring a self-described virtuous Madonna, is actually a pretty nasty business. Huma and her family’s close connections to Saudi Arabia – and the Muslim Brotherhood – are legendary (that includes his brother Hassan, who works for Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi). Podesta, by the way, is a handsomely remunerated lobbyist for Saudi Arabia in Washington; that’s part of the Clinton Foundation connection.
Yet now, with Huma in the spotlight – still maintaining she didn’t know all those emails were in her and Wiener’s laptop – it’s no wonder Hillary has instantly downgraded her, publicly, to “one of my aides”. She used to be Hillary’s ersatz http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/01/huma-abedin-hillary-clinton-adviser “daughter”; now she’s being framed as The Fall Princess.
And that brings us to the intersection of those three FBI investigations; on Hillary’s Subterranean Email Server (in theory closed by FBI’s Comey last summer); on the Clinton Foundation; and on Wiener’s sexting of minors. The FBI has been investigating the Clinton Foundation for over a year now. Let’s try to cut a long story short.
Follow the evidence
Last July, the DOJ – under Clinton/Obama asset Loretta Lynch – decided not to prosecute anyone on Emailgate. And yet FBI director Comey – who nonetheless stressed Hillary’s “extreme carelessness” – turbo-charged his no-denial mode on another investigation, as in the FBI “sought to refocus the Clinton Foundation probe.”
Soon we had Clinton Foundation FBI investigators trying to get access to all the emails turned over in the Emailgate investigation. The East District of New York refused it. Very important point; up to 2015, guess who was the US attorney at the East District; Clinton/Obama asset Lynch.
Enter an extra layer of legalese. Less than two months ago, the Clinton Foundation FBI investigators discovered they could not have access to any Emailgate material that was connected to immunity agreements.
But then, roughly a month ago, another FBI team captured the by now famous laptop shared by Huma and Wiener – using a warrant allowing only a probe on Weiner’s sexting of a 15-year-old girl. Subsequently they found Huma Abedin emails at all her accounts – from to the crucial . This meant not only that Huma was forwarding State Dept. emails to her private accounts, but also that Hillary was sending emails from the “secret” clintonemail.com to Huma at yahoo.com.
No one knew for sure, but some of these emails might be duplicates of those the Clinton Foundation FBI investigators could not access because of the pesky immunity agreements.
What’s established by now is that the metadata in the Huma/Wiener laptop was duly examined. Now picture both teams of FBI investigators – Clinton Foundation and pervert Wiener – comparing notes. And then they decide Huma’s emails are “relevant”.
Key questions apply; and the most pressing is how the emails were deemed “relevant” if the investigators could only examine the metadata. What matters is that Comey certainly was made aware of the content of the emails – a potential game-changer. That’s why one of my sources https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201610311046920348-clinton-fbi-november-surprise/ insists his decision to go public came from above.
The other key question now is whether the DOJ – via Kadzik? – will once again thwart another investigation, this time on the Clinton Foundation. Senior, serious FBI agents won’t take that – massive euphemism – kindly. The FBI has been on the Clinton Foundation for over a year. Now, arguably, they are loaded with evidence – and they won’t quit. Winning the presidency now seems to be the least of Hillary Clinton’s Bonfire of Scandals’ problems. The Essential Saker: from the trenches of the emerging multipolar world $27.95 | 0 |
Hillary Clinton Waiting In Wings Of Stage Since 6 A.M. For DNC Speech PHILADELPHIA—Saying she arrived hours before any of the members of the production crew, sources confirmed Thursday that presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has been waiting in the wings of the Wells Fargo Center stage since six o’clock this morning to deliver her speech at the Democratic National Convention. Depressed, Butter-Covered Tom Vilsack Enters Sixth Day Of Corn Bender After Losing VP Spot WASHINGTON—Saying she has grown increasingly concerned about her husband’s mental and physical well-being since last Friday, Christie Vilsack, the wife of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, told reporters Thursday that the despondent, butter-covered cabinet member has entered the sixth day of a destructive corn bender after being passed over for the Democratic vice presidential spot. DNC Speech: ‘I Am Proud To Say I Walked In On Bill And Hillary Having Sex’ A friend of the Clinton family describes a Hillary who America never gets to see: the one he saw having sex. Trump Sick And Tired Of Mainstream Media Always Trying To Put His Words Into Some Sort Of Context NEW YORK—Emphasizing that the practice was just more evidence of journalists’ bias against him, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump stated Thursday that he was sick and tired of the mainstream media always attempting to place his words into some kind of context. Who’s Speaking At The DNC: Day 4 Here is a guide to the major speakers who will be addressing attendees on the final night of the 2016 Democratic National Convention Bound, Gagged Joaquin Castro Horrified By What His Identical Twin Brother Might Be Doing Out On DNC Floor PHILADELPHIA—Struggling to free himself from the tightly wound lengths of rope binding his wrists and ankles together, bruised and gagged Texas congressman Joaquin Castro was reportedly horrified by what his identical twin brother, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, might be out doing on the floor of the DNC Thursday. Obama: ‘Hillary Will Fight To Protect My Legacy, Even The Truly Detestable Parts’ PHILADELPHIA—Emphasizing the former secretary of state’s competence and tenacity during his Democratic National Convention address Wednesday night, President Barack Obama praised Hillary Clinton as someone who would work tirelessly to defend and advance the legacy he had built, even the “truly repugnant parts.” Tim Kaine Clearly Tuning Out In Middle Of Boring Vice Presidential Acceptance Speech PHILADELPHIA—Describing the look of total disinterest on his face and noting how he kept peering down at his watch as the speech progressed, sources at the Democratic National Convention said that Virginia senator Tim Kaine clearly began tuning out partway through the boring vice presidential acceptance address Wednesday night. Cannon Overshoots Tim Kaine Across Wells Fargo Center PHILADELPHIA—Noting that the vice presidential nominee had been launched nearly 100 feet into the air during his entrance into the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night, sources reported that the cannon at the back of the Wells Fargo Center had accidentally overshot Tim Kaine across the arena, sending him crashing to the stage several dozen feet beyond the erected safety net. Biden Regales DNC With Story Of ’80s Girl Band Vixen Breaking Hard Rock’s Glass Ceiling PHILADELPHIA—Devoting a large portion of his speech to the “pioneering, stiffy-inducing” all-female quartet, Vice President Joe Biden regaled the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night with the rousing story of the metal band Vixen breaking hard rock’s glass ceiling in the late 1980s. | 0 |
11 Views November 13, 2016 GOLD , KWN King World News
On the heels of a remarkable week where the world witnessed the greatest political upset in history and subsequent chaos in global markets, today King World News is pleased to present an extremely important update on the war in the gold market from Michael Oliver at MSA. Oliver allowed KWN exclusively to share this key report with our global audience after last week’s takedown in the gold market.
By Michael Oliver, MSA (Momentum Structural Analysis) November 13 ( King World New s) – Gold: If one seeks to capture large trends, then measure large… If one does not have a long-term map to watch as the trend unfolds, then it’s all too easy to run when some bullets fly. And they always fly… Continue reading the Michael Oliver piece below… Advertisement To hear which company investors & institutions around the globe are flocking to that has one of the best gold & silver purchase & storage platforms in the world click on the logo:
How We Got To Where We Are Today MSA projected a blow-off type move in gold, commencing in September 2009, based on price and momentum concurrence and especially its relative performance breakouts vs. global stocks, (report was entitled “Gold is Speaking!”) Momentum then broke out over a three point downtrend, noted by the first red line.
During that rise a very large price selloff occurred in early 2010 that no doubt shook teeth and generated widespread doubt. Big as the drop was, it did not negate any long-term structural factors on momentum. Nothing reversed that bull view on our part until momentum broke down in early 2012 (second red structure was violated – a line defined by many points along the line) at around price of $1700 (see middle of second chart above).
Then after the top in 2011/2012 and after momentum had already begun to cave, there came a hair curling rally in late summer 2012. But for annual momentum it was a laughable and uneventful rally. It did not alter the major downside that had already been signaled by momentum early that year. Therefore MSA was not impressed. Many no doubt went long thinking the gold bull was on again. Not!
The Gold Bull Market Breakout Then with momentum basing action that was optimally clear and massive, gold’s momentum broke out upside as price moved up into the mid-$1100s in February 2016. The massive flat red line on momentum was blasted through (see breakout on far right hand side of chart two above.
MSA remains resolutely bullish and asserts that a long-term annual momentum uptrend is underway . Exit if you must, based on your own level of risk tolerance (each investor and asset manager is different, after all), or if your time scale of participation is short-term.
MSA defines trends, often intermediate and short-term ones in many markets, but in the case of gold we argue that a long-term vista must dominate at this point in time, due to massive shifts underway in other asset categories. Implications of those shifts going forward are quite large, such that gold is likely to be at the forefront of world attention in the coming few years .
The Dream Of Investors But remember that the long-held dream of investors to capture and profit from large trends (like the three massive but simple trends shown on the prior page) can never be accomplished if one allows short-term or even intermediate-term trend indicators to have more gravitas than the ongoing long-term trend factors . In some markets that’s a reasonable approach, but at this point in time, with the annual trend dynamics underway, we caution about “trading” gold .
This annual bull signal is simply too young, has not reached any levels of upside excess, and the downturn on long-term momentum charts in the current selloff is not negating that which was screamed by gold’s annual momentum breakout in February. ***KWN has just released one of Art Cashin’s greatest audio interviews ever discussing the gold market at length, including the recent takedown in gold, what to surprises to expect in key markets as Trump becomes president, and what impact massive public works projects will have on the United States, inflation, gold, bonds, and much more. and you can listen to this extraordinary interview by CLICKING HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
***KWN has now released the extraordinary KWN audio interview with whistleblower Andrew Maguire, where he discusses the gold and silver smash, at what price the large sovereign wholesale bids are located, and much more, and you can listen to it by CLICKING HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
***ALSO JUST RELEASED: Whistleblower Andrew Maguire – This Is What The Commercials Banksters Are Up To In The Gold Market CLICK HERE.
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Apparently, Tom Brady’s missing Super Bowl jersey nearly caused an international incident. [The international manhunt that ensued after Brady’s jersey went missing eventually brought authorities to the home of Martin Mauricio Ortega, a Mexican journalist and tabloid newspaper boss who, as it turns out, not only had Brady’s jersey from this past Super Bowl but also had Brady’s jersey from Super Bowl XLIX and Von Miller’s helmet from Super Bowl L. Though, as reported by Robert Klemko and Jenny Vrentas in the Monday Morning Quarterback, this case was about a lot more than a missing jersey. It also had the potential to hurt U. S. relations. In fact, so concerned were U. S. authorities that they didn’t even want to ask the Mexican police for help. According to the MMQB, “American officials were also cognizant of the charged atmosphere. ‘We had [Ortega] identified — that wasn’t the point,’ says a U. S. investigator who worked on the case. ‘It was now the point of walking that political minefield as delicately as we could to appease everybody. We didn’t want to upset the Mexican authorities, we didn’t want to upset the Mexican people, we didn’t want to upset the U. S. embassy. ’” Though Ortega was in possession of more than $500, 000 dollars of property stolen from American citizens in the U. S. the on the part of U. S. law enforcement over making Mexican authorities “upset,” resulted in American officials only seeking the return of the stolen Super Bowl hardware, as opposed to pressing any charges against Ortega. From the MMQB: Dressed in his pajamas, his stunned wife looking on, Ortega was with armed federal agents. According to a source in the Mexican government, a deal was presented: Hand over the Super Bowl jerseys and whatever else you’ve stolen, and you will sleep in your own bed not only tonight, but for the foreseeable future. Ortega fished a black trash bag out of a dresser drawer and gave it to the police, who took photos of the transaction to prove Ortega’s cooperation. Agents didn’t tear up the floorboards, toss cabinets or pull kitchen appliances from their wall connections. They didn’t even search the lower floor. They simply asked, Do you have anything else? He did. He made a phone call to a friend who arrived shortly thereafter. (Mexican police on the scene dubbed the physically stout newcomer Gordito, “little fat one. ”) The friend brought with him an helmet with scuff marks on the crown: Von Miller’s Super Bowl 50 helmet. The rest is history: Brady got his jersey back, American citizen and Rob Gronkowski attempted to steal it again, we all had a laugh, and all’s well that ends well. However, if you were wondering why Donald Trump got elected president, it’s pretty well laid out for you here. Here you have a Mexican citizen, in this country as a guest, robbing two U. S. citizens of merchandise totaling more than $500, 000, and American law enforcement seem more concerned over “appeasing” Mexico than they are with securing justice for the Americans who got robbed. Of course, the FBI didn’t have to arrest Ortega for stealing jerseys and a helmet. If the only people we had to worry about crossing the border to commit crimes were Mexican sports memorabilia thieves, then the world would be a far better place. However, the attitude displayed by U. S. law enforcement here, the attitude which prioritizes niceties and appeasement of foreign countries and foreign people over and above justice for Americans citizens, seems to only rear its ugly head when law enforcement is investigating NFL memorabilia thieves and not when they’re investigating murders, drug trafficking, and kidnapping. The wall just got ten feet taller. Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn | 1 |
Up to 250, 000 public sector workers in the UK could be replaced by robots over the next 15 years as the development of artificial intelligence surges, according to a recent study. [The study, undertaken by the think tank Reform, found that in Britain up to 250, 000 government employees, including those with jobs in government, healthcare, and transportation, could be replaced by 2030, saving taxpayers a sizeable £4 billion a year. It found that robots artificial intelligence will eventually outperform humans in a range of public sector jobs, becoming more efficient with data collection and administrative tasks, but also healthcare roles such as providing simple diagnoses to patients and surgical procedures. The report is part of an effort to encourage the government to embrace a more flexible economic model, where workers take on more variable roles to match supply as and when it is needed. In a press release, Reform said that the study shows that “public services can become the next Uber, using the gig economy to employ locum doctors and supply teachers. ” It argues that around 20 percent of public workers will retain their roles due to their “cognitive” nature, where they will use “data to identify patterns — improving and allocating workers most efficiently. ” “The NHS, for example, can focus on the highest risk patients, reducing unnecessary hospital admissions. UK police and other emergency services are already using data to predict areas of greatest risk from burglary and fire,” it continues. The findings are likely to infuriate labor unions, who have long campaigned against the increase in automated technologies in fear that they will replace workers and leave millions unemployed. In December, winning economist Angus Deaton said that the rise in robotic technologies presented a far greater threat to jobs than globalization. The report’s Alexander Hitchcock, argued that “such a rapid advance in the use of technology may seem controversial, and any job losses must be handled sensitively. But the result would be public services that are better, safer, smarter and more affordable. ” | 1 |
— Nathan Wurtzel (@NathanWurtzel) October 28, 2016
Let’s get to it:
— Alex Leary (@learyreports) October 28, 2016
Of course. @learyreports @marcorubio There you go! Just got the first square in my "Predictable MSM Story Reaction" Bingo chart covered. Thanks, man!
— Shane Styles (@shaner5000) October 28, 2016
Inevitable? Of course. But that doesn’t make it any less obnoxious. There it is- Republicans always "pounce" on scandal involving a Democrat. https://t.co/rMqilpw6pc
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) October 28, 2016
When will the MSM get some new material? They should be concerned about being this predictable. | 0 |
2006 Audio Emerges of Hillary Clinton Proposing Rigging Palestine Election
Unearthed tape: 'We should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win'
By Ken Kurson
" Observer " - On September 5, 2006, Eli Chomsky was an editor and staff writer for the Jewish Press, and Hillary Clinton was running for a shoo-in re-election as a U.S. senator. Her trip making the rounds of editorial boards brought her to Brooklyn to meet the editorial board of the Jewish Press.
The tape was never released and has only been heard by the small handful of Jewish Press staffers in the room. According to Chomsky, his old-school audiocassette is the only existent copy and no one has heard it since 2006, until today when he played it for the Observer.
The tape is 45 minutes and contains much that is no longer relevant, such as analysis of the re-election battle that Sen. Joe Lieberman was then facing in Connecticut. But a seemingly throwaway remark about elections in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority has taken on new relevance amid persistent accusations in the presidential campaign by Clintons Republican opponent Donald Trump that the current election is rigged.
Speaking to the Jewish Press about the January 25, 2006, election for the second Palestinian Legislative Council (the legislature of the Palestinian National Authority), Clinton weighed in about the result, which was a resounding victory for Hamas (74 seats) over the U.S.-preferred Fatah (45 seats).
I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake, said Sen. Clinton. And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win.
Chomsky recalls being taken aback that anyone could support the ideaoffered by a national political leader, no lessthat the U.S. should be in the business of fixing foreign elections.
Some eyebrows were also raised when then-Senator Clinton appeared to make a questionable moral equivalency.
Regarding capturing combatants in warthe June capture of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas militants who came across the Gaza border via an underground tunnel was very much front of mindClinton can be heard on the tape saying, And then, when, you know, Hamas, you know, sent the terrorists, you know, through the tunnel into Israel that killed and captured, you know, kidnapped the young Israeli soldier, you know, theres a sense of like, one-upsmanship, and in these cultures of, you know, well, if they captured a soldier, weve got to capture a soldier.
Equating Hamas, which to this day remains on the State Departments official list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, with the armed forces of a close American ally was not what many expected to hear in the Jewish Press editorial offices, which were then at Third Avenue and Third Street in Brooklyn. (The papers office has since moved to the Boro Park section of Brooklyn.) The use of the phrase these cultures is also a bit of a head-scratcher.
According to Chomsky, Clinton was gracious, personable and pleasant throughout the interview, taking about an hour to speak to, in addition to himself, managing editor Jerry Greenwald, assistant to the publisher Naomi Klass Mauer, counsel Dennis Rapps and senior editor Jason Maoz.
Another part of the tape highlights something that was relatively uncontroversial at the time but has taken on new meaning in light of the current campaignspeaking to leaders with whom our country is not on the best terms. Clinton has presented a very tough front in discussing Russia, for example, accusing Trump of unseemly ardor for strongman Vladimir Putin and mocking his oft-stated prediction that as president hed get along with Putin.
Chomsky is heard on the tape asking Clinton what now seems like a prescient question about Syria, given the disaster unfolding there and its looming threat to drag the U.S., Iran and Russia into confrontation.
Do you think its worth talking to Syriaboth from the U.S. point [of view] and Israels point [of view]?
Clinton replied, You know, Im pretty much of the mind that I dont see what it hurts to talk to people. As long as youre not stupid and giving things away. I mean, we talked to the Soviet Union for 40 years. They invaded Hungary, they invaded Czechoslovakia, they persecuted the Jews, they invaded Afghanistan, they destabilized governments, they put missiles 90 miles from our shores, we never stopped talking to them, an answer that reflects her mastery of the facts but also reflects a willingness to talk to Russia that sounds more like Trump 2016 than Clinton 2016.
Shortly after, she said, But if you say, theyre evil, were good, [and] were never dealing with them, I think you give up a lot of the tools that you need to have in order to defeat them So I would like to talk to you [the enemy] because I want to know more about you. Because if I want to defeat you, Ive got to know something more about you. I need different tools to use in my campaign against you. Thats my take on it.
A final bit of interest to the current campaign involves an articulation of phrases that Trump has accused Clinton of being reluctant to use. Discussing the need for a response to terrorism, Clinton said, I think you can make the case that whether you call it Islamic terrorism or Islamo-fascism, whatever the label is were going to give to this phenomenon, its a threat. Its a global threat. To Europe, to Israel, to the United States Therefore we need a global response. Its a global threat and it needs a global response. That can be the, sort of, statement of principle So I think sometimes having the global vision is a help as long as you realize that underneath that global vision theres a lot of variety and differentiation that has to go on.
Its not clear what she means by a global vision with variety and differentiation, but whats quite clear is that the then-senator, just five years after her state was the epicenter of the September 11 attacks, was comfortable deploying the phrase Islamic terrorism and the even more strident Islamo-fascism, at least when meeting with the editorial board of a Jewish newspaper.
In an interview before the Observer heard the tape, Chomsky told the Observer that Clinton made some odd and controversial comments on the tape. The irony of a decade-old recording emerging to feature a candidate making comments that are suddenly relevant to voters today was not lost on Chomsky, who wrote the original story at the time. Oddly enough, that story, headlined Hillary Clinton on Israel, Iraq and Terror, is no longer available on jewishpress.com and even a short summary published on the Free Republic offers a broken link that can no longer surface the story.
I went to my bosses at the time, Chomsky told the Observer. The Jewish Press had this mindset that they would not want to say anything offensive about anybodyeven a direct Quote: from anyonein a position of influence because they might need them down the road. My bosses didnt think it was newsworthy at the time. I was convinced that it was and I held onto it all these years.
Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, publisher of Observer Media. | 0 |
Russian warships enter Mediterranean Sea AP photo Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu spoke about the location of the naval strike group led by the Pyotr Velikiy (Peter the Great) missile cruiser, Interfax reports. "Last week, the Russian naval strike group led by the Peter the Great missile cruiser crossed the Eastern Atlantic and entered the Mediterranean Sea ," Sergei Shoygu said. "From 27 to 29 October, the vessels in the group had had their stocks refreshed to the level of established norms," the Russian Defense Minister added. Earlier, Shoygu expressed his bewilderment about the decision of several countries to deny the Russian warships entry to ports because of the pressure from the USA and the EU. The mission of the Russian naval strike group , which includes the Pyotr Velikiy missile cruiser and the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, started on October 15. As the press service of the Northern Fleet said, the purpose of the mission is to ensure Russia's naval presence in operationally important areas of the oceans."NATO fears that Russia may use the naval strike group to attack Aleppo. Representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry said, in turn, that there was no reason for such concerns as Russian warships had always been present in the Mediterranean Sea. Meanwhile, Western media believe that Russia wants to seize the initiative on Syria and launch an offensive on Aleppo while the US is busy with the presidential election. It was in particular said that Russia would launch the decisive operation after the arrival of the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov to the Syrian shore. This information is unlikely to be true as Russia's only aircraft carrier will not be able to considerably increase the opportunities of the Russian Air Force in Syria. Pravda.Ru Admiral Kuznetsov Russian aircraft carrier | 0 |
After a plodding program on Tuesday, the hall at the Republican National Convention was finally electric with energy on Wednesday night. But it wasn’t always the kind of energy a presidential nominee wants at the outset of a general election. Republican divisions were on colorful display and threatened to overshadow Mike Pence, the nominee, who is well liked on the right. Our takeaways (and some of Wednesday’s best photos): He stuck to the script, reusing familiar lines and boiling down the Trump campaign’s message into a neat sales pitch. There was no swearing and no attacking other Republicans. In other words, Mr. Pence, the governor of Indiana, gave his speech like a career politician — and it worked. Mr. Pence, overshadowed by Donald J. Trump throughout the rollout, used his first prominent solo performance to describe the 2016 election as a choice between a candidate of change (Mr. Trump) and “a stale agenda and the most predictable of names” in Hillary Clinton. He vouched for Mr. Trump’s moral character, calling him “the right man for these times. ” After two days of meandering speeches from obscure politicians and minor celebrities, Mr. Pence brought roars of enthusiasm from the crowd and set a high bar for Mr. Trump to clear, with his more freewheeling approach, on Thursday. The in the Republican primaries, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, did not endorse Mr. Trump for president. He congratulated him on winning the Republican nomination but urged Americans only to vote their conscience in the fall. At one point, Mr. Cruz explicitly looked past the 2016 election. “We’re fighting not for one particular candidate or one campaign,” he said, but rather to tell the next generation, “We did our best for our future and our country. ” His speech earned rounds of angry booing in the room from the crowd and only scattered chants of support from friendly delegations. But with a soaring address that touched on traditional themes and praised the Republican Party’s historical role in ending slavery, Mr. Cruz staked out a position for himself as a premier torchbearer for conservative ideology — even in defiance of an unorthodox nominee. As Mr. Cruz gave a cold shoulder to Mr. Trump, other speakers tried a range of rhetorical strategies to persuade skeptics to back him. Rick Scott, the governor of Florida, noted Mr. Trump’s shortcomings — “He can be a little rough” — before defending him as a friend. Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, said that failing to support Mr. Trump was equivalent to endorsing Mrs. Clinton. Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, even repurposed Mr. Cruz’s words into a plea for unity. “Ted Cruz said you can vote your conscience for anyone who will uphold the Constitution,” he said. “In this election, there is only one candidate who will uphold the Constitution. ” In a united party, these exhortations would be unnecessary. And every minute of airtime devoted to cajoling reluctant conservatives was a minute not aimed at winning over swing voters for the general election. Trump advisers promised that the gathering in Cleveland would not be standard fare, but rather a “Trump convention. ” More precisely, it has been a Trump family convention. Traditional leaders like Mr. Walker and the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, have been confined to earlier time slots. Leading off the crucial 10 p. m. hour have been members of Mr. Trump’s family: Donald Jr. regaled the audience on Tuesday with tales of his father’s business feats. On Wednesday, another son, Eric Trump, spoke of the rehabilitation of Wollman Rink in Manhattan. The schedule reflects Mr. Trump’s narrow comfort zone and his conviction that the best surrogates are blood relatives. But it also has the effect of playing down the support he has earned from establishment Republicans just when his circle of allies needs to grow. | 1 |
RIGHT REVERAND POPE JEREMIAH GOLDSTIEN says:
DONT DRANK ON SUNDY….. THE JEEHOVEY WILL GIT UR ASS! PUT YER DAMN SEATBELT ON!”buzzed driving is drunk driving” DRUGS AND GUNS DONT MIX! GUNS R EVIL!! YOUR “PROPERTY”? SHIT BOY! YOU DONT OWN NO “PROPERTY”. ALL PROPERTY BELONGS DIVIDED BETWEEN THE “JEWS” AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH(same thing, haven’t you read?)! WHO THE HELL YOU THINK YOU ARE????/….@DAMNED UPPITY HOUSE NIGGERS# | 0 |
Posted on November 8, 2016 by Charles Hugh Smith
Though it has been billed as the main event for months, the presidential election has always been a side show –or from one point of view, a freak show.
As I write this on Monday, I have no idea who will win the side show unpopularity contest (i.e. the presidential race)–and it doesn’t really matter as much as apoplectic partisans would have us believe.
The reason why it doesn’t matter much which unpopular candidate wins is the issues facing the nation are far larger than partisan politics or the corrupt Ruling Elite that is freaking out about the possibility of a Trump presidency disrupting its self-serving skims and scams.
As I described yesterday in America’s Ruling Elite Has Failed and Deserves to Be Fired ,we are in the midst of a fast-moving Industrial-Digital Revolution that is upending the political, economic and social orders. The global economy’s current mode of production is in fits and starts being replaced with a new mode of production that bypasses the Ruling Elite’s centralized skims and scams.
Real reform is impossible in the current Status Quo , a dynamic I described in my book Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform and illustrated with this chart.
The Ruling Elite will never allow real reform because real reform threatens their dominance and wealth. Instead, the Ruling Elite proposes modest policy tweaks that increase their dominance by limiting innovation and competition and transferring the systemic risks and costs of their skims/scams to the non-elites.
If a crisis does threaten their dominance, any meaningful reforms that result from the crisis will be watered down once the storm has passed.
The core problem is the Status Quo and its Ruling Elite rely on centralized hierarchies, regulatory capture and mobile capital to protect their dominance from innovation and competition. This aligned perfectly with the centralized World War II-era state-cartel/ central-bank mode of production that has dominated the economy and society since 1945.
But the Industrial-Digital Revolution is destabilizing these inflexible, centralized hierarchies which cannot compete with decentralized, flexible networks in output, efficiency or cost.
This presents the self-serving Ruling Elites with an impossible choice: either embrace the Industrial-Digital Revolution’s efficiencies and watch the foundation of their own dominance and wealth crumble, or defend their bloated, inefficient and increasingly bankrupt centralized hierarchies from innovation and competition–a war they are losing and cannot possibly win.
The Status Quo is not just financially bankrupt–it is morally and intellectually bankrupt as well. The level of insider dealing, self-aggrandizement, collusion and corruption in the Ruling Elite is off the charts, and this is now visible for all to see.
The Status Quo’s intellectual grab-bag of narratives and ideologies is devoid of anything remotely aligned with the Industrial-Digital Revolution. The Status Quo’s intellectual grab-bag consists of 70-year old cults (the Keynesian Cargo Cult of Paul Krugman et al.) that have visibly failed and tired throwbacks to 1950: if only corporations weren’t global, and if only capital wasn’t mobile and if only the central state taxed us even more and borrowed and spent more…
These 1945 ideas cannot possibly succeed in the Industrial-Digital Revolution’s mode of production . But both political parties, the Ruling Elites and the Establishment they dominate have no idea of how to manage this radically transformative mode of production . They are a clueless herd trampling the non-elites as they rush headlong over the cliff.
(I cover this emerging economy in The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy and Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy , and sketch a new systemic approach in A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology & Creating Jobs for All .)
No leader can stop the emergence of a new mode of production . All they can do is engineer a crash by clinging to the expiring mode of production . The leadership of the U.S. sees only one path: further centralization that increases the power of the central state-bank-cartel mode of production . This is the road to ruin, akin to protecting the buggy-whip industry and the Whig Party at all costs.
Politicians aren’t actually leaders. All they can do is give voice to what the people are willing to support, resist needed transformation by supporting a corrupt, sclerotic status quo or introduce the people to a new narrative.
Sadly, our self-serving Ruling Elite is only capable of resisting needed transformation by supporting a corrupt, sclerotic status quo. A new leadership class that actually understands the new mode of production may eventually emerge, but only after the corrupt, sclerotic status quo has deservedly collapsed under its own weight. | 0 |
About 5, 000 years ago, 10 donkeys were laid to rest in painstakingly constructed brick grave chambers at a site connected with one of the earliest Egyptian kings. They were buried in a place of importance, “where the highest lords would be,” said Fiona Marshall, an archaeologist at Washington University in St. Louis who studies the domestication of donkeys. Because of their importance in trade across the Sahara, she said, donkeys had “superhigh status. ” Unfortunately, even the most passionate defenders of donkeys recognize that the animal they love gets little respect in the wider world today. Veterinarians, donkey rescuers and donkey defenders gathered recently for the fourth annual Donkey Welfare Symposium at the Cornell University veterinary school in Ithaca, N. Y. to talk about the problems faced by an animal often at the bottom of the ladder of human regard. “Donkeys are the least of the least,” said Eric Davis, the veterinarian from the University of California, Davis, who started the symposium. He travels with other vets to provide free care to donkeys in many places where none is available. Donkeys are sometimes abused and, in the worst cases, slaughtered for gelatin and for meat. Fortunately, as the symposium made clear, the animals are not friendless. Their benefactors may not be large in number (conference attendance was 77) but they are as fierce in their loyalty as donkeys are in defense of their territories (more about donkey fierceness later). They are also devoted to debunking donkey myths. You may have heard, for instance, that donkeys are stubborn. But Ben Hart, a trainer who works for the Donkey Sanctuary in Britain, put it this way: “Anybody who says a donkey is stubborn has been outsmarted by a donkey. ” They are cautious, he said, not contrary. They like to think before they act. The reason may be that their ancestor, the African wild ass, is not a herd animal. Wild asses have individual territories, and each must decide where to go and when to eat, run or fight. Donkeys have retained some of that thoughtful intelligence, said Dr. Marshall, who was not at the symposium. They like to decide for themselves. So if you try to lead a donkey over a shadow on the ground that looks a bit like the edge of a cliff, the donkey may balk. That’s what Balaam’s donkey did in the Bible. It refused three times to go forward even though its master had insisted. He beat it for its apparent balkiness, and the donkey, the only animal in the Bible other than the serpent to speak, said, “What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?” The donkey was quite sensibly avoiding a very threatening angel with a sword, who explained to Balaam after the fact that if it had not been for the animal’s sagacity, Balaam himself would have died by the angel’s sword. Although donkeys may avoid armed angels and can run when threatened, that isn’t their usual reaction to predators. That’s when they become fierce. “A donkey will stand and fight,” said Mark Meyers, who runs Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue in Miles, Tex. and had brought donkeys to the symposium for adoption. He and others at the meeting said donkeys would attack dogs, coyotes or foxes. There has been at least one report of a donkey attacking a mountain lion. That is why donkeys are kept to protect sheep, goats and other animals. That’s right. Guard donkeys. Google them. Their history with humans, of course, is as the ultimate beasts of burden. And among the earliest. The donkey, not the camel, opened up the Sahara, Dr. Marshall said, enabling trade between Egypt and Mesopotamia. That is why those 10 were buried with a king. Camel caravans did not appear until about 3, 000 years ago. The first donkeys were probably domesticated about 6, 000 years ago, and their importance was evident in those burials. Since then, donkeys have carried building stones, food, trade goods, ammunition and people, including Jesus when he rode into Jerusalem on the day Christians celebrate as Palm Sunday. And yet museums are full of celebrations of horses, not donkeys. “It’s so galling, when you become an eccentric donkey person,” Dr. Marshall said. True, they are not the most exciting animals. Unlike their equine cousins, “donkeys have two speeds: slow and slower,” the saying goes. But the gap in prestige between the elegant horse and the dumpy donkey is of human doing. African wild asses — of which there are perhaps 600 left in nature — are “magnificent wild animals,” Dr. Marshall said, “really elegant and fast and feisty as anything. ” And they are the animals from which the first donkeys were bred. The first horses, she said, “were short, stubby little things, sort of like a barrel on legs. ” People bred them to be racers and great jumpers, just as the lithe wild ass was bred to become a stubby little donkey. One nonscientific claim about donkeys is that they are lovable, and they are. I stood in a corral with Ben Hart while he spent half his time scratching the ears of one donkey that chased away 10 or so others who wanted to get in on the petting. Kimberly Brockett, who keeps mammoth donkeys at Tripledale Farm in Guilford, Conn. said, “It’s a dog you can ride. ” In the United States and Britain, a number of organizations work to rescue donkeys that are poorly cared for or abused. Groups like the Donkey Sanctuary in England and Brooke: Action for Working Horses and Donkeys support education and veterinary care. But many donkeys are not kept as pets or working animals, but slaughtered for their meat or hides. Philip Mshelia, a veterinarian from Nigeria, spoke at the symposium about the suffering of donkeys in Africa. They have been slaughtered without regulation in several countries for food and for shipment to China, where a gelatinlike substance, or ejiao, from their hides is used in medicines. Because tens of thousands of donkeys have been killed, Burkina Faso and Niger banned the export of donkeys this year. Dr. Davis warned those at the conference that the future may hold more such horrors. Even though the number of donkeys is increasing, he said, global economic development might well mean that tractors, cars and trucks will become available to the poor who now depend on donkeys. What happens to donkeys then may be what happened to horses in developed countries as cars and trucks replaced them — widespread slaughter. If that happens, he added, donkey lovers might have to work to make their inevitable deaths as humane as possible. Dr. Davis spoke by telephone at 7 a. m. one recent morning, fresh from feeding the five donkeys that he and his wife keep. Asked why people who do not have or know donkeys should care about them, he said, “Much of human civilization was created because there were donkeys to move pastoralists and traders around the world. ” “I think that we as a species owe something to donkeys. ” | 1 |
Pamela Geller, president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, joined SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Friday’s Breitbart News Daily. The conversation began with her thoughts on the previous night’s airstrike against Syria. [“I’m deeply concerned. I don’t understand it,” Geller said. “It seems like a reaction. It doesn’t speak to a coherent policy. It seems to me that Trump has switched sides. ” LISTEN: “It does seem that way,” Kassam agreed. “This is what I’ve been saying for now the last 48 hours: there seems to be a malign influence on him. He’s saying things like, hey, we can get you really good coverage. CNN will stop writing ‘Trump’ on its chyron, they’ll start writing ‘President Trump’ on its chyron. Time magazine will put you on the front, and this time it won’t be scary or a joke. We’ll make you look like a leading statesman around the world. All you have to do is compromise on every single thing you said during the campaign. ” “Yeah,” Geller said with a rueful laugh. “I mean, I’m laughing, but I’m laughing with blood. It’s not funny. ” “I don’t know when he began to care. I mean, that was the beauty of Trump. For those of us that have been in the trenches, you have to become inured to this kind of withering criticism. You have to develop a crocodile skin. He seemed to have it. He seemed to have come to the party with it. It was really sort of the most fantastic thing about him,” she said. “On the one hand, I always console myself with, ‘It’s not Hillary.’ That’s always my mantra. It’s my religion,” she said. “But this really, I think, is a terrible mistake. Back in 2012, my organization American Freedom Defense Initiative, issued a call to President Obama and to the United Nations warning of an impending genocide in Syria. I’ve been acutely aware of what’s going on in Syria. They did nothing, and millions of Christians and religious minorities were slaughtered. I don’t understand this visceral response. And what is the objective? Who are we partnering with? What ‘rebel gang’ — is it ? Which satellite are we partnering with?” She shared Kassam’s skepticism about the size of the truly “moderate” rebel force in Syria, and whether Western intelligence services could identify real moderates and work with them effectively. Kassam noted ISIS, and the other “real, real enemies” of the United States were celebrating the attack, and asked what conclusions should be drawn from it. “It tells us that we don’t know what we’re doing there,” Geller replied. “I don’t know what we’re doing there. I understand the ‘humanitarian,’ but I’m always first and foremost concerned about national interest. What is the national interest of this for us?” “Look, Obama gave Syria to Russia. He did. He gave it to Russia, and so this could very well escalate into something truly unforeseen,” she warned. “I just think the United States should have taken action in a comprehensive, and logical, and strategic way years ago. Right now, it’s just a huge catastrophe, and what’s he doing? Is he putting a finger in the dam? I don’t think so. I don’t even think it’s that. Is it just this action?” Geller stressed that it was President Barack Obama’s policies that led to this moment. “He turned Syria over to Russia, and so this could escalate to World War III, and for what? For Syria? Seriously?” she said. “My concern is that like President Bush, President Trump has two factions warring with each other. In the case of President Bush, it was Bolton, the hawks as it were, versus the trimmers, versus the RINOs like Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Hadley Burns,” she judged. “And the trimmers always win, because it seems like the safe bet. It seems like the ‘extremists’ are taking it a step too far. ” “But the fact of the matter is, it’s the trimmers that get you into trouble, because you can’t have a bold policy, you can’t go after a bold policy ” Geller warned. “I’m concerned about McMaster, who is just another one who denies the motivating ideology of the terrorists,” she said of President Trump’s National Security Adviser. “He says jihad terror is not Islamic. This hampers our ability to respond to terrorism effectively. You can’t defeat an enemy that you don’t understand. ” Geller and Kassam found this a contradiction of Trump’s campaign promise to speak forthrightly about the dangers of radical Islamic terrorism. “He promised to deal effectively with the terrorism problem and call it Islamic,” Geller recalled. “This is exactly what Obama and Hillary refused to do. McMaster represents a defeat for the Trump promise to drain the swamp. It’s a retreat from his stated goals. Believe me, it pains me to say this. It gives me no pleasure. ” “And Mattis, that ‘terrorism defames Islam’ — what book are they reading?” she added. “Are they not reading the Koran? I mean listen, just because you talk about it this way doesn’t mean that all Muslims are terrorists. But we don’t have to pat on the back every Muslim that doesn’t want to kill us. ” “Do you think Jared Kushner or Dina Powell has ever read the Koran ? Do they understand the enemy?” Kassam asked, referring to President Trump’s and deputy national security adviser for strategy, respectively. “No, I think Kushner’s a Manhattan liberal. That’s what I think,” Geller replied. “And I think that he may be a very smart kid, but that’s got nothing to do with the price of eggs in China. I think that he has undue influence. I think that’s why you’re seeing these moves with the settlements in Israel, the ‘ solution,’ inviting these Palestinian terrorists into this country … ” Kassam interjected to suggest adding Ivanka Trump’s reported meetings with Planned Parenthood to the list. “Yes, this is Kushner. I don’t know how much we’re going to have to lose before Trump gets back on track. He’ll have to get back on track, because we’ve suffered under these failed policies, for the past really 15 years,” Geller said, quoting Albert Einstein’s famed admonition that “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result” is the definition of insanity. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. Listen to the full audio of the interview above. | 1 |
Meet Hillary Clinton’s Secretary of State Send a $200 million check to Iran. October 31, 2016 Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
September 11, 2001 has come and gone. Countless bodies lie scattered in fragments around where two of the country’s tallest skyscrapers once stood. Some have burned to ash. Others had their throats slashed by Islamic terrorists. Still others fought and died on a plane to prevent another Islamic terror attack from taking place.
But Joe has an idea. Joe is a guy with lots of big ideas and this one is a real doozy.
The Senator from Delaware has come a long way since his days as a sixties shyster drumming up business in Wilmington. His formerly bald head is covered in hair so shiny is gleams under neon lights. His teeth are capped and shine almost as brightly. After a generation holding down a squeaky seat in the Senate, seniority makes him a man to be reckoned with. And therefore a man to be listened to.
Even if you wish he would shut up.
“I’m groping here,” Joe says. For once he isn’t referring to his notorious habits with women that will go on to make him the star of countless viral photographs, massaging, squeezing, caressing. Instead he’s talking about foreign policy. The Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has no clue.
Joe is worried that the Muslims will think badly of us after they murdered thousands of us. And he has a plan to make them feel better.
“Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran,” Senator Joe Biden says.
The remark isn’t quite as random as it seems. The Senator from Delaware, a state not known for its large Muslim or Iranian population, has a friendly relationship with the Iran Lobby. That relationship will only grow friendlier during the Bush era as he attacks America and appeases its enemies.
Iranian-Americans who hate the Jihadist government that has taken over their country and oppressed the Persian people are outraged when he attends a fundraiser at a pro-Iranian lobbyist’s home in California while treasonously attacking his own government for naming Iran one of the members of the ‘Axis of Evil’.
Joe’s usual Amtrak obsession wouldn’t get him in the door in California, but treason, hair plugs and capped teeth make him a big hit outside Delaware. And Joe remains very fond of Iran.
He informs Israeli officials that “Israel will have to reconcile itself with the nuclearization of Iran." And that’s all the way back in ’08 before the deal that puts Iran on the path to a Shiite bomb was a nuclear twinkle in Obama’s eye and a radioactive itch in Hillary’s socks.
That was a big year for Biden. It was his first and biggest shot at the big chair in the White House. Joe had tried it in ’88 and was stomped by Dukakis, of all people, after being caught plagiarizing a speech by British politician Neil Kinnock. ’08 got him a useless position in the White House as a consolation prize.
This time around Joe Biden is expected to get the same consolation prize from Hillary Clinton that she got from Barack Obama; the office of Secretary of State of the United States.
Of all the jobs that Joe Biden wants and is utterly unfit for, Amtrak train engineer, secret agent and the guy in charge of counting all the money at the bar, it’s hard to think of one that he’s less fit for.
Joe Biden blamed Darfur on the Gingrich Revolution. He fell in love with the Taliban.
"The Taliban per se is not our enemy," Joe insisted. "There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy."
He suggested that 95% of the Taliban were probably okay and only 5% were “incorrigible”. Most of the Taliban, he seemed to think, were, like Joe Biden, just in it for the money.
But Joe Biden has a soft spot for Islamic terrorists whether they’re the Shiite Jihadists of Iran or the Sunni Jihadists of the Taliban. Joe loves all the terrorists of the world and the terrorists love him back.
It wasn’t that long ago that we were being lectured to by the media on Bush’s ruination of relations with the rest of the world. If Biden were to become Secretary of State, he would become the third Democratic presidential campaign loser to get the job as a consolation prize for his failures as a politician. The last time a professional held down the job would have been the Bush administration.
And yet, perversely, each “loser” Secretary has been more incompetent than the last. Hillary’s disastrous time as Secretary of State could only be exceeded by John Kerry who gave away everything to the Russians and who was contradicted by the White House so many times it would have humiliated a lesser man. Or just any man. The only loser who could follow two class acts like that was Joe Biden.
Joe Biden’s amateur diplomacy has been one disaster after another. Even his visit to Israel, a friendly ally not known for fractious political visits by American politicians, became an international incident with Biden sulking in his room while Hillary yelled at Prime Minister Netanyahu for 45 minutes over the phone. But somehow Biden, with his gift for appeasing Iran and the Taliban, alienates allies.
Just this year, Joe Biden launched yet another attack on Israel. A cynic might almost think that Tehran Joe loves Islamic terrorists and hates those who resist them and fight against them.
Biden has claimed that terrorism is not an existential threat. He accused President Bush of being “short-sighted” for using the military to fight Islamic terrorists. He argued that the perception that we want to stay in Iraq helps Al Qaeda. Some years later, his administration’s decision to pull out led to the rise of ISIS. He called for closing Gitmo while insisting that it had “become the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world.”
Senator Joe Biden was a voice for appeasement. Vice President Joe Biden was part of an administration that empowered and unleashed the malignant power of Islamic terror. Secretary of State Joe Biden would be able to act out his worst fantasies. He could even write that check to Iran. Though the Obama-Biden era has seen cash transfers to Iran that make Joe’s $200 million check seem like chump change.
Hillary Clinton’s rise doesn’t just mean that she will be making big decisions. It will mean that Joe Biden will have gone from a Wilmington shyster to running the foreign policy of a country he has betrayed. | 0 |
Vladimir Putin: The United States continues to sleep with al-Nusra ‹ › South Front Analysis & Intelligence is a public analytical project maintained by an independent team of experts from the four corners of the Earth focusing on international relations issues and crises. They focus on analysis and intelligence of the ongoing crises and the biggest stories from around the world: Ukraine, the war in Middle East, Central Asia issues, protest movements in the Balkans, migration crises, and others. In addition, they provide military operations analysis, the military posture of major world powers, and other important data influencing the growth of tensions between countries and nations. We try to dig out the truth on issues which are barely covered by governments and mainstream media. The Geopolitics of Russia-Egypt Relations By South Front on October 27, 2016 …from SouthFront
The rapidly developing relations between Russia and Egypt have been overshadowed by the more prominent relationships between Russia and Syria, as well as Russia and Iran. Nevertheless, the Russia-Egypt relationship deserves closer scrutiny because, unlike the country’s relations with the other two Middle Eastern powers, it concerns a country that until recently appeared to be firmly in Western orbit. The abrupt shift of its geopolitical vector toward Eurasia therefore represents a far bigger change for the region than Russia’s successful support of the legitimate Syrian government, or the close relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran, both of which have been on the Western “enemies list” for decades. The reasons for this shift are twofold, and have to do with the way Western powers interact with Middle Eastern powers in the context of a systemic economic crisis, as well as with Russia’s demonstrated attractiveness as an ally.
The West’s systemic crisis clearly transformed how Western powers view non-Western ones. Whereas the “end of history” globalist rhetoric suggested a post-sovereignty utopia in which weak and strong powers interact on equal terms in a world without borders, in practice that rhetoric was a ruse to persuade non-Western powers to drop their guard and allow themselves to be penetrated by Western corporations and financial institutions and lose any possibility of charting their own, independent course. Alas, from Western perspective, assimilating “emerging markets” is still the cornerstone of economic policy, the only program of economic growth. Whereas during the 1990s this assimilation took relatively benign form, 9/11 had the effect of allowing initially the US to adopt a far more aggressive stance, to the point of overt military invasion. While EU initially did not follow suit, the severity of EU’s own problems prompted it to jump on the bandwagon of “regime change” in the case of Libya, Syria, and Ukraine.
Egypt, a long-time Western ally since the late 1970s, unexpectedly found itself on the receiving end of predatory Western policies which took the form of the Tahrir Square “color revolution” which ultimately led to the electoral victory of the Muslim Brotherhood, which in turn fell to a military overthrow once the danger of the country’s slide into a civil war became apparent. The fact that Muslim Brotherhood was financed by US-allied Persian Gulf states made Egypt aware it too was the target of state-sponsored jihadism, and that the US was incapable or unwilling to force its allies in region to refrain from targeting Egypt. While Syria is only a peripheral concern for Egypt, the civil war in Libya, where Islamist formations including ISIS enjoy Gulf Arab support, represents an immediate threat to Egypt for several reasons. The country can be used as a staging ground for launching attacks into Egypt and a sanctuary against retaliation and, in the longer term, should its government be a puppet controlled by hostile Gulf powers whose long term goal is the control of Egypt and of Suez Canal, which means that Cairo is keenly interested in influencing the outcome of that war.
Russia thus became an attractive partner because of its history of non-involvement in the internal politics of its allied states (almost to a fault, because unilateral restraint led to the Maidan revolution in Ukraine), because it can fill the security void left by the Western weakness, and, last but not least, because it can physically defend Egypt’s political and territorial integrity against every conceivable threat, an ability it is currently demonstrating in Syria. Egypt appears to be taking advantage of these capabilities. Cooperation now includes the possibility of establishing a Russian airbase in Egypt, visits by Russian paratroopers to Egypt, and special operations troops providing training to their Egyptian counterparts. Egypt is also shifting its military procurement plans toward Russia. The two Mistral-class ships that have been acquired by Egypt will receive the originally planned Russian electronics suite and will carry Russian helicopters; there are discussions of MiG fighter sales to Egypt, and the country received a Molniya-class missile boat.
From the Russian perspective, Egypt represents yet another bulwark of security against Western encroachment, a symmetric response to NATO expansion, “Eastern Partnership”, and color revolutions. Combined with the military presence in Syria, Cyprus’ general pro-Russian orientation, and the neutralization of Turkey which was also facilitated by an abortive West-promoted coup attempt, Egyptian bases would transform Eastern Mediterranean into a “Russian lake.” Last but not least, these bases and alliances could serve a launchpad for power projection into other unstable areas of the Middle East and, if Egypt’s control of the Suez Canal is guaranteed by Russian arms, this guarantee endows both countries with a very effective means of pressuring Western and Gulf Arab powers. Related Posts: | 0 |
On Monday, International Workers Day, protesters will fill the National Mall and the streets of cities elsewhere to protest what they call the federal government’s “deportation machinery” and to demand civil rights reserved for citizens be bestowed upon illegal immigrants. [The May Day protest by illegal aliens goes back to 2006 when “1. 5 million people took to the streets across the country to demand immigration reform,” magazine The Nation reported on Friday. Now, protesters aren’t asking for a pathway to citizenship. “Today, no one, not even immigrants rights advocates, is calling for immigration reform anymore,” Nation contributor Julianne Hing wrote . “Immigrants and their allies are now defending civil rights like due process and values like democracy and inclusiveness. “The policy agenda is no longer about winning citizenship or even legal status for the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants,” the article said. “It’s about defending families from separation. ” This year’s march will also include other protesters opposed to President Trump’s policies on immigration. “With the Trump administration intensifying attacks on Native Americans, immigrants, refugees, trans individuals, Muslims, women, people of color in general, and the poor, a coalition led by immigrants and workers is aiming to mark this year’s May Day with the biggest workers strike in over a decade,” The Nation article said. “One thing I’ve been struck by since the election is everyone is ready to see how these different movements intersect,” Jack Darin, director of the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club said in the article, and he cited the Women’s March shortly after Trump’s inauguration as the prototype for their protest. “Our members see how our struggles and our goals intersect with these other constituencies. ” “It showed a lot of people at a moment when we really needed to see it that we were all in this together and combined, we really do represent the majority,” Darin said. “As immigrants our livelihoods, our futures, our families — they’re all in danger,” Cabrera, the director of communications at Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) said in The Nation article. “May Day presents an opportunity for us to not silence ourselves and to remain vigilant. ” Organizers behind the “Day Without Immigrants” protest in February are calling again for people to not report to work on Monday. “Activists in Scranton, Pennsylvania Raleigh, North Carolina and Newark, New Jersey and dozens of other cities have been calling for a strike,” The Nation reported in an article entitled “How to Join the ‘Day Without Immigrants’ on May Day. ” “We believe that when the country recognizes it depends on immigrant labor to function we will win permanent protection from deportation for the 11 million undocumented immigrants the right to travel freely to visit our loved ones abroad, and the right to be treated with dignity and respect,” Movimiento Cosecha’s Maria Fernanda Cabello in a statement included in the article. “Immigrant, African American, LGBTQ, indigenous and women workers along with allies are striking on May 1,” the bsolid. org website states. “#may1strike is an invitation from the Food Chain Workers Alliance and SEIU USWW to build a General Strike on International Workers Day. Stand with us to pledge your participation … ” The website states that people said should not be silent when the government and corporations are escalating “immigration raids,” violating “Native sovereignty,” banning Muslims “because of their faith,” “criminalizing” black, brown and “trans people,” and “rapidly destroying the environment. ” “Opposing Trump is not enough,” the website states. “We must stop him. ” | 1 |
Robotic Advancements & Mars/ Ancient Aliens Robotic Advancements & Mars/ Ancient Aliens Date Tuesday - November 15,
In the first half, aerospace and defense systems developer Sir Charles Shults discussed the rapid advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and drones. The availability and affordability of drones is creating all new applications from agriculture to outer-space construction. On a consumer-level, there is a type of drone in which you put a chip in your pocket, and the drone follows you around from the air, recording live video of your movements, he reported. In many circumstances, you have to register your drone with the FAA, he cautioned. Drones are a real growth industry, with sales of $300 million this past year in the US alone.
Regarding robotics, we can expect a huge drop in the cost of human-like robots over the next five years because China is moving to get into the industry in a big way, he detailed. China is developing robots to take the place of waiters and hotel staff, and we will see a huge increase of companion robots to converse with people over the next five years, Shults envisions. We are on the verge of combining biological and mechanical elements, and eventually people will be able to buy hybrid cyborg devices, he marveled. Shults also updated his research of Martian anomalies (view related images ), and suggested that Mars had a decent biosphere as recent as a few thousand years ago that may have sustained primitive life forms. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump, in a speech Wednesday night at a dinner honoring his running mate, Mike Pence, jabbed at his new Republican allies and his critics alike, questioned the ethics of “super PACs” and talked about creating a “ ” immigration system. Mr. Trump credited Mr. Pence with helping to bring critics around to the ticket. “They all liked Mike. They were a little bit, you know, a little concerned with me,” the said, drawing laughter from the crowd of about 500 people, which included donors, cabinet appointees and other supporters. Mr. Trump said that his aides told him that he was not required to be at the dinner, but that he thought he had to be there to honor a man whose role on the ticket he described as one of his best decisions. Mr. Trump lauded Mr. Pence in a roughly speech, but poked at him for declining to endorse his candidacy in the primary in Indiana, where he was governor, instead backing Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. “The fact that every donor he had was in favor of” Mr. Cruz played no role in the decision, Mr. Trump said sarcastically, according to a recording provided by a guest. In the ’s telling, Mr. Pence essentially endorsed him, and mentioned Mr. Cruz only as an afterthought. Mr. Trump also took aim at Mr. Cruz (a “smart guy, he was a little late to the plate, but that’s O. K. ”) Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a rival in the primary (“he can be nasty, that Scott Walker”) members of the “Never Trump” movement (“they’re really right now on a respirator they’re pretty much gone”) and the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson (he mocked him for being late to donate promised money to outside groups supporting his candidacy). Such groups, like super PACs, need to be “straightened out,” Mr. Trump said. “People get very rich running PACs. ” On immigration, two days before he assumes the power to begin rolling back President Obama’s executive orders, Mr. Trump said: “We’re working on the border. We want people to come into our country, but we want them to come in legally. ” He added that he wanted the immigration system “at least a certain degree to be . ” It was not clear what that would entail. Mr. Trump, who has proposed “extreme vetting” of immigrants to weed out potential terrorists, said he wanted people who arrived here to work hard, but added, “We want people to come into our country who are going to love us and respect us. ” In a series of interludes and asides, Mr. Trump described asking the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, to focus on the effort to replace the Affordable Care Act, then shifted to talking about a change to the tax system. Mr. Trump said that people compared his success to the popular movement that put Andrew Jackson in the White House. “There hasn’t been anything like this since Andrew Jackson,” Mr. Trump quoted his admirers saying. “Andrew Jackson? What year was Andrew Jackson? That was a long time ago. ” Mr. Trump then gave the year — 1828 — and went on to suggest that his own nationalist movement had usurped Mr. Jackson’s. He said that even “the haters” who disliked him called his movement “unprecedented. ” Mr. Trump expressed gratitude to black voters who had stayed home on Election Day “because they liked me, or they liked me enough that they just said, ‘No reason. ’” Before returning to New York, Mr. Trump stopped by the Trump International Hotel, a few blocks from the White House, to have dinner. He did not dine at the Pence dinner or at a later dinner for his cabinet picks. | 1 |
OfTwoMinds.com November 1, 2016
The Deep State’s most prescient elements must derail Hillary’s campaign to clear a path to Trump’s executive team.
Back in August, I asked Could the Deep State Be Sabotaging Hillary? I think we now have a definitive answer: “These blast points on Hillary’s campaign… too accurate for the Mainstream Media. Only the forces of the Imperial Deep State are so precise.”
The Mainstream Media is presenting the FBI investigation as a “lose-lose” situation for embattled FBI Director Comey. If Comey remained quiet until after the election, he would be accused of colluding with the Clinton campaign and its allies in the Department of Justice (sic).
But in going public, he stands accused by Democrats of “intervening in an election,” i.e. raising doubts about Hillary’s judgment and veracity days before Americans go to the polls.
Another narrative has Comey’s hand forced by the threat of disgusted FBI agents leaking information that would show the FBI caved into political pressure from the Democratic Party and Clinton campaign to keep relevant material out of the public eye until after the election.
I submit another much more powerful dynamic is in play: the upper ranks of the Deep State now view Hillary as an unacceptable liability. The word came down to Comey to act whether he wanted to or not, i.e. take one for the good of the nation/Deep State/Imperial Project.
As a refresher: the Deep State is the unelected government (also called the invisible or shadow government) that is not as monolithic as generally assumed. | 0 |
Cascotes de desidia en una jornada marrullera y fértil RESUMEN DE LA JORNADA 10 DE LA LIGA SANTANDER 2016-2017 Resumen de la jornada Las Palmas 3-3 Celta de Vigo
Partido jugado épicamente de tú a tú con momentos de usted, toques de vos y algún que otro “oye, mi amol”. Primero los celtíberos, eufóricos por la victoria de Mariano Rajoy en Madrid, se pusieron por delante en el marcador y a los 21 minutos de encuentro ya ganaban por tres goles a cero, gallegamente. Reacción de los canarios en la segunda mitad, en parte reacción alérgica (el portero y dos centrales de Las Palmas son celíacos) y en parte reacción de goles que permitía a los palmípedos empatar el encuentro trepidantemente. Betis 0-1 Espanyol
Tarde complicada en Sevilla: el toro se encontró de salida con Pezzella, que lo esperó con el capote de rodillas y continuó con unas apasionadas verónicas en las que Diego Reyes embistió con nobleza y codicia. Diego López acudió con presteza a las banderillas mientras la delantera bética, cargada de ímpetu, embestía una y otra vez a las órdenes de su entrenador. Oreja merecida para los catalanes. Athletic 1-1 Osasuna
Osasunitas sorprendieron con una salida en tromba que dejó 40 litros por metro cuadrado. Partido de waterpolo intenso. Eibar 2-1 Villareal
Tremendo disgusto el que se llevaron los hombres del Eibar cuando Bruno lograba adelantar al equipo rival gracias a un penalti. Lágrimas, golpes de pecho, dos jugadores guipuzcoanos ingresados con un ataque de nervios, amenazas de suicidio por parte del guardameta eibarieta… Por suerte, el entrenador del equipo vascuence, Iñaki Trankimacin, supo devolver la calma a los suyos y llevarles hasta la victoria. Alavés 1-4 Real Madrid
Se adelantaron los cistercienses gracias a Deyverson en el minuto 7, pero por suerte para el equipo albino Cristiano Ronaldo reencontró la senda del gol y lo hizo en tres ocasiones. Para ello fue fundamental que al portugués le dibujaran una enorme “X” en la red de la portería contraria. Barcelona 1-0 Granada
Un gol de Rafinha (se pronuncia Rafiña) dio al Barça (se pronuncia Barsa) los tres puntos en el Camp Nou (se pronuncia Can Barsa) en la visita del Granada (se pronuncia Charnego). Atético 4-2 Málaga
El Atlético se mostró intratable en la primera parte. Los de Simeone tiraron de orgullo y ni siquiera miraban a la cara los jugadores malagitenses. La táctica de ignorar al equipo contrario, fingiendo que no existía, pasándose la pelota como si estuvieran en un entrenamiento, dio grandes resultados ante un Málaga desconcertado que no supo superar sus dudas de carácter ontológico: ¿Qué es la realidad? ¿Realmente existimos o sólo somos fantasmas en el sueño de un perro? Sporting 1-1 Sevilla
El Sporting se encontró con un poderoso Sevilla con piernas bien torneadas y biceps trabajados en el gimnasio, a lo que los asturianos respondieron mostrando sus pectorales abrillantados con aceite. Empatadamente justo. Lluvia de “likes” en Instagram. Leganés 0-2 Real Sociedad
El equipo euskáldiko se llevó del estadio de Butarque los tres puntos y las taquillas con la ropa de los leganitas. Veremos. Deportivo – Valencia
Por el cambio horario, el encuentro se jugará hoy lunes (domingo en A Coruña) a las 20:45. | 0 |
Iran raps 'rare' EU clauses in trade deals Fri Oct 28, 2016 1:37PM Economy Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan, Iran’s deputy minister of roads and urban development, has criticized “very exceptional terms and conditions” that Europeans are including in trade deals with Iran.
A top official in Tehran has accused European government of failing to take the required measures to facilitate trade agreements with Iran – what he says is already in violation of a nuclear agreement that was sealed with the country last summer and came into effect in January.
Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan, Iran’s deputy minister of roads and urban development, told the Financial Times that European government should prevent the inclusion of what he described as “very exceptional terms and conditions” in trade agreements with Iran.
Fakhrieh Kashan warned that such terms and conditions were effectively discouraging investments in the Iranian economy.
He said export credit agencies were specifically demanding premiums on insurance that made banks insist on putting what he described as “unacceptable terms” in contracts related to “political risk” in doing business with Iran.
Fakhrieh Kashan emphasized that Iran will not accept any clauses in trade agreements which he said foresee such possibilities like snapback sanctions and new sanctions against Iran.
European businesses, he said, are in fact trying to devise deals in which political risks are inserted alongside commercial risks – what he said is totally rejected by the Islamic Republic.
If anyone needed guarantees against political risks, it was Iran, Fakhrieh Kashan said in reference to the impact of western sanctions on the Iranian economy.
“Why should Iran accept very exceptional terms and conditions in its contracts with European companies? This is not called a normal relationship,” he said.
Fakhrieh Kashan emphasized that European countries should take the adequate measures to prevent their businesses from including political risk in contracts, warning that any failure to do so will be against the nuclear agreement with Iran.
“This is where European countries are failing to be committed to the nuclear agreement. One of the main reasons the signing of contracts in various sectors has been delayed is this issue.”
Last summer, Iran signed a historic deal with the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany – the so-called P5+1 group - based on which it agreed to restrict certain aspects of its nuclear energy activities. The P5+1 in return agreed to lift certain economic sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic. Loading ... | 0 |
Breitbart Alex Marlow will be the headline guest on Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday, June 16. [This comes on the heels of Newsweek magazine featuring Marlow in the artwork for a cover story by Alexander Nazaryan highlighting the influence Breitbart News has had in shaping the political discussion around the economic nationalist and populist issues that propelled the election of Donald Trump. According to traffic ranking website Alexa. com, which is owned by Amazon. com, Newsweek. com is ranked 667th in the United States. Breitbart News is ranked 61st. Breitbart News’s traffic for the first five months of 2017 is up 59% over the same period of time in 2016. Real Time with Bill Maher airs live on HBO at 10pm Eastern. Other special guests include Ian Bremmer, Malcolm Nance, and Eddie Izzard. | 1 |
(King World News) Paul Brodsky, Macro Allocation Inc. — Gold
To “take a flier” against consensus with long duration treasuries also suggests taking a flier with gold. Treasuries and gold are normally inversely correlated. In a typical economic cycle, declining treasury yields imply dollar strength, which in turn, suggests gold weakness. We argue that current conditions do not imply a normal economic cycle and that, in the current environment, long treasury positions may be best hedged – and potentially enhanced – with a long gold position. (For fixed income investors, this is reminiscent of hedging long MBS positions with long Treasury positions.)… IMPORTANT: To hear which legend just spoke with KWN about $8,000 gold and the coming mania in the gold, silver, and mining shares markets CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
In the current environment (imminent balance sheet recession), gold is the most convex asset we know. Gold hedges financial asset values by hedging the currency in which they are denominated. An increase in goods and service inflation reduces the purchasing power value of the currency while an increase in goods and service deflation reduces the supply of goods and services. The former is better understood than the latter because the frequency of inflation is so much greater. At the end of the day, gold is a hedge against balance sheet de-leveraging, whether it comes from a significant increase in the quantity of money or a significant decrease in the value of liabilities. A decrease in the value of treasury bonds, from either debt deflation or currency inflation would send the price of gold in the underlying currency higher.
King World News note: It is very important to understand what Brodsky is saying in the paragraph below about the problem of higher interest rates in relation to investor portfolios and overall consumption. The Real Problem With Higher Interest Rates It is true that higher treasury yields would provide investors with positive carry that gold would not (unless investors choose to lend out gold in return for interest). Lost on investors that succumb to this thinking, however, is that with almost $20 trillion of treasury and agency debt outstanding, rising treasury yields would produce more debt deflation on existing portfolios than higher income from newly issued treasuries would stimulate consumption.
You may find the discussion above dense, in large part because gold’s characteristics are unfamiliar to most financial asset investors. After all, it is a shiny rock with no utility or income, a monetary relic of pre- digital generations. The way to think about gold is as a necessary monetary anchor if/when leveraged fiat currencies can no longer be supported by global banking systems and the global productive economy. In extremis, there would be no fiat currency winners, even the dollar.
Simply, gold is the one item against which all currencies, and the assets and liabilities they value, can be re-valued by political and monetary authorities regardless of whether or not authorities coordinate a synchronized revaluation. It is the only politically-unsanctioned potential monetary asset banking systems cannot create and authorities cannot directly control. (Official gold holdings amount to about 22% of above-ground gold.) It is also the only asset on most central bank balance sheets that is not debt. The world’s largest central banks and the IMF continue to store and add to their gold reserves, we surmise, because it might come in handy one day.
The daily price of gold today, in dollars, euros, yen, etc., 1) handicaps the likelihood of the global monetary system failing; and 2) implicitly speculates an exchange rate against which fiat currencies would be converted if necessary.
A Global Monetary Reset With QE Used To Purchase Gold? Were gold to again become a sanctioned monetary asset, the transformation would likely be executed by the political dimension through their banking systems, as it always has been. We would speculate that such a transformation, if necessary, would be coordinated by the G10, agreed upon through a treaty, and overseen by the IMF and BIS. It would be a one-time monetary reset, rather than a reversion of the global monetary system to a fixed-exchange rate system.
Devaluing currencies to gold would be an expedient political solution to a global balance sheet recession. The reset would be similar in nature to debt jubilees periodically necessary since ancient times. The only difference here would be legal debt covenants would not have to be destroyed. Rather, the burden of servicing and repaying outstanding debt would be greatly reduced through inflation. The inflation would come from extreme central bank money creation used to purchase gold at higher prices – QE for gold. The new money would add a couple zeros to assets while keeping the principal value of liabilities constant.
A monetary reset that ties currencies to gold would not alter commerce. Consumers would not need gold in their pockets. Producers and merchants would be ostensibly satisfied that the debit cards consumers carry are backed by currency tied, even temporarily, to something finite.
Owning Gold Is Not Just About A Monetary Reset Investors should not necessarily own gold today in anticipation of a global monetary reset. Circling back to a contemporary discussion of whether to own gold in concert with long duration treasuries and other financial assets, the increasing potential for fiscal stimulation through deficit spending increases the odds that already indebted currencies will be rejected by goods and service suppliers. Gold priced in fiat currencies could rise if those currencies do not produce an equal amount of revenue and income. In short, gold should re-price higher if/when global GDP falls and global liabilities don’t.
*** KWN has just released one of legendary Art Cashin’s greatest audio interviews ever discussing the gold market at length, including the recent takedown in gold, what to surprises to expect in key markets as Trump becomes president, and what impact massive public works projects will have on the United States, inflation, gold, bonds, and much more. and you can listen to this extraordinary interview by CLICKING HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
***KWN has now released the extraordinary KWN audio interview with whistleblower Andrew Maguire, where he discusses the gold and silver smash, at what price the large sovereign wholesale bids are located, and much more, and you can listen to it by CLICKING HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
As The Monetary Madness Continues, What Is Happening Is Stunning… CLICK | 0 |
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Anyone suggesting or promoting violence in the comments section will be immediately banned, permanently. Daily Stormer Presents: Dr. David Duke Š Copyright Daily Stormer 2016, All Rights Reserved | 0 |
Next Prev Swipe left/right The Harrod’s website has some hilariously posh titles in their [Mr/Ms] drop down box
Our attention was drawn to the Harrod’s website where you can select your title from a huge drop down .
Lah de bleedin’ dah – not just your average Mr & Mrs but Baron, Count and His Royal Highness too! Here’s all 41 of them Baron | 0 |
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) removed several web pages about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions from its homepage as the agency announced Friday that it would be “undergoing changes” to better reflect the Trump administration’s priorities. [Officials took down one website that appeared to contradict EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s statements on climate change and removed another that provided information about the Clean Power Plan, an initiative of the Obama administration, the Washington Post reported. “As EPA renews its commitment to human health and clean air, land, and water, our website needs to reflect the views of the leadership of the agency,” J. P. Freire, the agency’s associate administrator for public affairs, said in a statement. “We want to eliminate confusion by removing outdated language first and making room to discuss how we’re protecting the environment and human health by partnering with states and working within the law. ” The agency also said it would archive pages from the previous administration. The climate change website now redirects to a page that says that “this page is being updated” and that “we are currently updating our website to reflect EPA’s priorities under the leadership of President Trump and Administrator Pruitt. ” The page also links to an archive of how the web page looked on January 19, the day before Trump’s inauguration. Pruitt reportedly approved the changes to the EPA’s website, according to a staffer who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity. The staffer also added that Pruitt’s aides “found a number of instances” where the information on the EPA’s website contradicted the policies of the administration. EPA sources told Reuters in January that administration officials asked the agency to take down the climate change page, but EPA staff fought to keep the page up. | 1 |
With Hillary Clinton making history this election season by becoming the first women nominated by a major party, the sexism has been on full display. The misogynists on the Right have questioned her health, her stamina, and everything in between. That is, of course, code for “the little woman doesn’t belong in the Oval Office.” However, one Texas Republican has taken the misogyny to a whole other level.
Meet Sid Miller, the Agriculture Commissioner for the state of Texas. He is also a former lawmaker. Miller, like most Republicans, doesn’t make his hatred for Hillary Clinton any secret. Instead, he somehow thought that it was perfectly appropriate to take to Twitter and express his feelings in a most disgusting way while tweeting about the polls. Miller’s tweet reads:
“TRUMP 44 Cunt 43,” punctuated with a cheering “Go Trump Go!”
In the predictable firestorm after, Miller tried to make the public believe that his account was hacked. Miller’s staff hastily relesed this defense of his post:
“The campaign was retweeting information today and inadvertently retweeted a tweet that they were not aware contained a derogatory term. The tweet was taken down as soon as possible. Commissioner Miller finds the term vulgar and offensive and apologizes to anyone who may have seen it.”
There’s a problem with that, though: The tweet was not a retweet. It was simply a tweet. Therefore, either Sid Miller himself or someone on his staff wrote this:
Naturally, Miller is Donald Trump’s number one man in Texas, according to the Texas Tribune . No surprise there. Further, Miller is no stranger to making tasteless and offensive jokes with regards to Hillary. Here is one that is just a few hours old as of this writing:
That tweet written in reference to the fact that the reason Hillary’s emails are in the news again is because of disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner’s sexting scandals.
So, in other words, this Sid Miller character is the perfect Donald Trump supporter – a misogynistic and deeply ignorant asshat who can’t stand the idea of losing to a woman.
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NYT credibility DESTROYED by 7 simple questions from Newt Gingrich share in: Editorials , Journalism , Trump
The New York Times publisher and executive editor have promised to rededicate the paper to its fundamental mission — to report America and the world honestly, without favors and fear. The paper claims they will strive to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in stories brought to the public. This announcement is almost considered an apology to its readers for providing a year and a half of unbalanced and unhinged coverage of the presidential race.
Sean Hannity suggests that Trump must ignore the media and trust his gut instincts. He was sad to see the 165-year-old paper destroy their credibility over the election season. It was obvious to dedicated readers that the Times had abandoned its old coverage standards. Stories were unrelentingly hostile towards Trump and his supporters. Reporters were including their personal opinions and political analysis in the news coverage. This allowed animosity toward Trump to be spread all over social media by political reporters. Front page stories on The New York Times were accusing Trump of lying, but the paper never published the same findings in reference to Hillary Clinton . The paper’s liberal readership has even gotten tired of reporting that resembles state controlled propaganda of totalitarian regimes. Newt Gingrich destroys the New York Times credibility with seven simple questions.
The New York Times has struggled mightily to answer some serious questions posed by the former United States House of Representatives speaker. Gingrich, a Republican, has asked the times whether they have any reporters, editors or columnists that will say they voted for Trump. He elaborated to ask if they have since hired any Trump supporters to work those positions for the Times. The paper struggled to say whether or not it has hired any Republican reporters at all.
Gingrich has also asked if the New York Times has changed its policies allowing journalists to express their opinions about events and people they are covering. The fourth question asked by Gingrich wondered if the Times reporters would surrender any Pulitzer Prizes awarded for news stories containing personal opinions. Here are the final questions that the Times struggled to address. “Have its editors retracted misleading news headlines that expressed opinions — such as the paper’s coverage of Trump’s tax returns?” “Has it fired reporters who admitted to writing politically motivated ‘news’ stories and encouraged interview subjects to talk to them so they could stop Trump?” “Has it retracted its shameful election-eve front-page story ‘reporting’ on Trump’s innermost thoughts and feelings, virtually every sentence of which is filled with reporters’ opinions and speculations–featuring claims like ‘he is struggling to suppress his bottomless need for attention”
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The Detroit Free Press reported Thursday that documents obtained by the paper show much more serious mutilation of Dr. Jumana Nagarwala’s alleged victims’ genitals than the doctor admitted. [The arrests of Dr. Nagarwala and two others last week represent the first federal female genital mutilation (FGM) investigation in United States history. FGM is common in the Islamic world, particularly in Africa. According to UNICEF, 98 percent of Somali girls and 87 percent of Egyptians have endured the procedure. FGM involves removing varying amounts of the victim’s — usually a girl — clitoris, labia majoria, and labia minora. In its most extreme form, the victim is “infibulated,” having virtually all her external genitalia removed and being sewn up, leaving her with only a tiny hole from which to urinate and menstruate. Nagarwala’s attorney, Shannon Smith, claimed in her initial court hearing that no cutting of the alleged victims took place and that excess skin was simply scraped off to be buried in a religious ceremony. The Free Press, however, reports that documents they reviewed show the injuries to the two Minnesota girls’ genitals were “much more severe” than Nagarwala is claiming. Previously unheard of in the United States, the criminal complaints against the three suspects in this conspiracy to commit FGM — Nagarwala, Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, and his wife, Farida Attar — describe them as members of a “particular religious and cultural community. ” That community has since been revealed as the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim sect, a branch of Shi’ite Islam popular in India, Pakistan, and East Africa. The worldwide leader of that sect, Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin, has repeatedly called for the tradition of FGM to continue, describing it, according to a State Department report, as an “act of religious purity” and “a religious obligation for all women and girls. ” According to the complaints, the alleged victims in this case were brought by their parents, in what was described to them as a “special girls trip,” all the way from Minnesota to Dr. Attar’s Burhani Medical Center in Livonia, Michigan. The girls, who are not related, were allegedly told the cutting was needed to “get the germs out” and that they were not to tell anyone about what happened to them. One of the victims told the FBI she screamed in pain as Dr. Nargawala operated between her legs and that she was barely able to walk as she left the clinic. According to the complaint, doctors working with the FBI found that both ’ genitals were “abnormal looking” with “scar tissue” and “small healing lacerations. ” Authorities believe many more than these two girls have been mutilated by this suburban Detroit FGM operation. Evidence suggests girls have been brought to Michigan from around the Midwest to undergo the gruesome operation since at least 2005. According to the complaint, several Michigan girls have complained to authorities that they were mutilated by Dr. Nargawala in Dr. Attar’s clinic. Authorities believe Nargawala came to the Burhani clinic on weekends to perform FGM separately from her weekday job as an emergency room doctor at Detriot’s Henry Ford Hospital. In her interview with the FBI, Farida Attar, the clinic owner’s wife, claimed Nargawala came to their clinic to see six to nine girls a year. The defendants will face up to five years in federal prison for each count of FGM in this first case, in a wider push to eradicate the barbaric Islamic practice from America. | 1 |
In a leaked email between the Democratic Candidate for President of the United States Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta, the former first lady indicates “Western intelligence, US intelligence and sources in the region” to accuse Qatar and Saudi Arabia of “providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL [or ISIS] and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”
Hillary told Podesta the current developments in the Middle East were “important to the U.S. for reasons that often differ from country to country.” She also cited the need to “use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets.” The same email also included that Clinton brought effort to sustain and protect the country’s national interests in the region.
Scroll Down For Video Below! Recently, new information has surfaced from 2012, the Director of Foreign Policy at the Clinton Foundation, Amitabh Desai, insisted the Ambassador from Qatar would “like to see [Bill Clinton] ‘for five minutes’ in NYC, to present $1 million check that Qatar promised for [his] birthday in 2011,” adding that the small but rich nation occupying the Qatar Peninsula would “welcome [the Clinton Foundation’s] suggestions for investments in Haiti — particularly on education and health.” Desai added that while Qatar had already “allocated most of their $20 million … [they were] happy to consider projects we suggest.”
Earlier this year, Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based, state-funded news organization ran a list of “revealing, juicy and quirky emails” that were leaked by WikiLeaks. The Clinton Foundation was involved in a “pay-for-play” scheme with the news organization. The King of Morocco offered $12m “for the endowment” — as long as Clinton was willing to participate with the scheme.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough proof provided by the state-funded broadcaster to bring up the Qatar connection with the Clinton Foundation. WikiLeaks made a post on Facebook stating, ““ Al Jazeera’s list of juiciest Wikileaks forgets to mention the revelation that Qatar funds both ISIS & Bill Clinton. ”
Right after WikiLeaks pointed out the omission, Twitter exploded with concerns by users pressuring Al Jazeera to explain why the publication failed to link Qatar to ISIS and Clinton.
Al Jazeera's list of juiciest WikiLeaks forgets to mention the revelation that Qatar funds both ISIS & Bill Clinton: https://t.co/aBIuF861kk
— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) October 25, 2016
@MaxAbrahms @wikileaks You mean @AlJazeera is not critical of Qatar? That is utterly shocking haha pic.twitter.com/4XSmuHXQ98
— Eddie Mejia (@MeBeEddie) October 25, 2016
The country is at its’ tipping point. No matter how much attention the story received from social media, news organizations failed to report them. Is the media afraid to tell the truth because they’re in fear that it will help Clinton lose her the presidential election? Maybe it’s just a difficult topic to talk about. We need answers!
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Sarah Varcas – In an air sign, Mars energizes our mind and mental processes which can be useful for some and less so for others, depending on how our mind usually works! If you tend to be full of racing thoughts, living in your head, Mars in Aquarius may enhance this tendency and it will be important to stay as aware as possible of just how much energy you invest in the mental realm. If, however, your mind struggles to keep up on a good day, its arrival in Aquarius may be just the tonic you need! No matter what sort of mind we have, this planetary shift encourages us to more innovative thought and a renewed relationship with our intellect.
Uranus, ruler of Aquarius, is still entwined with Eris in Aries , kicking up a storm. While Mars enters Uranian realms and Uranus travels through Mars-ruled Aries, these two powerhouse planets join forces to wake us up and keep us moving whether we like it or not! Mars in Aquarius demands that we act in the interests of the whole, not the individual self.
It requires ice-cold detachment when it comes to matters of personal interest and a willingness to forfeit immediate personal satisfaction for the greater good. When the god of war journeys through the sign of brother and sisterhood, the fight becomes one of integrity. It demands a firm standing in our own truth, a courageous heart not afraid to see through wide-open eyes and attention to the sacred core in all beings, deserving of bold and audacious love.
The Aquarian ideal, of an egalitarian world in which all are treated with the respect life itself deserves, is far from many peoples’ experience. Hatred and vilification based upon gender, race, religion, sexuality, ability and other factors is rife across the globe and despite concerted efforts to address the problem, there are many who strive to perpetuate such inequalities with an unremitting diet of hatred. It is easy to feel overwhelmed in the face of such malevolent intransigence. And yet Mars in Aquarius acts as a way-shower, banging on the door of the Aquarian Age, demanding it be opened forthwith!
What we may not realize is that we are the other side of the door already and can draw back the imposing bolts anytime, throwing it open to let the sunlight in. The new age is born through us, we do not enter it. W e must not only be the change we want to see in the world, but also see the change we want to happen.
Celebrate every effort made to address inequality, every person who strives to create a more peaceful, accepting and compassionate world. Look with equal attention upon those who act for the good of the whole as we do upon those who attract our attention for less edifying reasons. It’s important to look life in the face and see what’s going on, but it’s equally important to perceive its many faces and acknowledge its paradoxically intricate threads.
Mars in Aquarius, working together with Uranus and Eris, reminds us that the greatest battle is often with the self as much as with any external force. If we find ourselves overwhelmed by the changes life demands they fortify us in the coming weeks, strengthening our resolve and standing alongside us as we break through our own obstacles.
If we have trouble speaking our truth and standing up for what we know to be right, they remind us that the life of a spiritual rebel is a tough one with many challenges along the way. The rewards, however, are beyond compare when we can stand in our own truth and speak it no matter what others may say. For many this is an impossibility in a world where the consequences of authenticity are akin to death. But if that’s not us, we carry a responsibility to speak out for those who cannot. To contribute the energy of honest expression to the melting-pot of the collective soup from which we all feed.
As Mars shifts now it reminds us that knowing how our mind works, taking charge of ourselves and acting upon razor-sharp integrity is fundamental to progressing from here. Without it we simply do the same thing over and over, getting the same old results and wondering why nothing ever changes. Mars in Aquarius tells us everything changes if we let it and it’s time for us to do the same. SF Source Astro Awakenings | 0 |
President Donald Trump condemned in response to a series of vandalism events targeting Jewish sites. [“ is horrible and it’s going to stop,” Trump told NBC News after visiting the museum in Washington D. C. on Tuesday. “And, it’s gonna stop and it has to stop. ” Trump’s response came as the media criticized him for not condemning the vandalism forcefully enough. “This tour was a meaningful reminder of why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance and hatred in all of its very ugly forms,” Trump said. “The threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are a painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil. ” During the museum visit, Trump was asked by reporters if he would visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington D. C. as well. “I will. I will be doing it soon,” he said. “Very important. Very important for me. ” Trump has battled media accusations that he is implicitly indifferent to despite his repeated support for Israel and his Jewish Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump and their three grandchildren. “I am the least person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life,” Trump said emphatically during a press conference last week, when he was questioned by reporter about “an uptick in . ” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Trump from critics during a press conference at the White House. “I’ve known the president and I’ve known his family and his team for a long time. There is no greater supporter of the Jewish people and the Jewish state than president Donald Trump,” Netanyahu said. “I think we should put that to rest. ” | 1 |
Maeve Reston writes at CNN: Democrats are spending the opening weeks of the Trump administration trying to flex their muscle any way they can — boycotting confirmation hearings, refusing to work with Republicans on Obamacare and pondering a filibuster of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick. But as Democrats throw every procedural hurdle they can think of at Trump, they’re facing a bleak reality: they have virtually no power in Washington. The party has no clear successor to Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton who can speak with one voice for the party. And there is no consensus yet on a strategy to thwart Trump’s legislative agenda — or even how to prioritize the issues they plan to challenge him on. Read the rest of the story at CNN. | 1 |
Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi ( ) accidentally referred to President Donald Trump as former President George W. Bush and then said she prayed Bush was president again. Pelosi said, “And winning means winning for the American people. That either we win or whoever wins understands the priorities of the American people. And they are not what President Bush — excuse me. I’m so sorry, President Bush. I never thought I would pray for the day that you were president again. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio announced Monday he will vote to confirm former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, providing Tillerson with a critical vote to get him through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. [“I believe the president is entitled to significant deference when it comes to his choices for the cabinet,” Rubio wrote in a Facebook post. “I also believe given the uncertainty surrounding the future direction of our foreign policy that a higher degree of scrutiny is justified in evaluating whoever is nominated to serve as secretary of state. ” Rubio said he remained “concerned” about the U. S. defending democracy and human rights, adding he worried that under Trump, the U. S. “will pursue a foreign policy that too often sets aside our values and our historic alliances in pursuit of flawed geopolitical deals. ” “But in making my decision on his nomination, I must balance these concerns with his extensive experience and success in international commerce, and my belief that the president is entitled to significant deference when it comes to his choices for the cabinet,” he said. “Given the uncertainty that exists both at home and abroad about the direction of our foreign policy, it would be against our national interests to have this confirmation unnecessarily delayed or embroiled in controversy,” Rubio continued. He plans to give Tillerson the critical swing vote to confirm him in committee and will vote for him in the full Senate. “However, upcoming appointments to critical posts in the Department of State are not entitled to and will not receive from me the same level of deference I have given this nomination,” he warned. Rubio had grilled Tillerson about doing business with Russia as CEO of Exxon Mobile and whether or not Vladmir Putin is a “war criminal” during a long and contentious hearing in committee. With Rubio’s vote, Tillerson will likely reach at least 52 votes in the Senate to be confirmed as Donald Trump’s Secretary of State. | 1 |
The region of Washington State where a woman was allegedly shot 13 and killed by a gang of illegal immigrants is surrounded by sanctuary jurisdictions. [Jill Sundberg was allegedly murdered in the Grant County area by five illegal immigrants, as Breitbart Texas reported, a region which neighbors multiple sanctuary cities. A look at the Center for Immigration Studies sanctuary map reveals that there are over 25 sanctuary cities in Washington alone, almost more than any other state in the country. South of George, sanctuary jurisdictions like Yakima County, the town of Sunnyside, Benton County, and Franklin County harbor illegal aliens from federal immigration enforcement officers. To the east of George sits Spokane County, which has specific policies in place for the sheriff’s department to protect illegal immigrants. On the northwest side of George sits Chelan County, which has a local jail policy that refuses to hold illegal immigrants on the basis of their immigration status for federal authorities. Sundberg was allegedly arguing with Rodriguez on the evening of December 21. Shortly after the argument, Sundberg was kidnapped and taken to the location where her body was eventually discovered. Police have arrested the five illegal immigrants who they say are responsible for shooting Sundberg 13 times in the head and stabbing her body with a message written in Spanish on a piece of cardboard. John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. | 1 |
By Jameson Parker News November 6, 2016 His Fans Are Calling Trump Brave, But Here’s How Hillary Faced Down Man Who Stormed Stage (VIDEO) Google Pinterest Digg Linkedin Reddit Stumbleupon Print Delicious Pocket Tumblr
A Republican unhappy that his party was being hijacked by Donald Trump attended a Trump rally to protest and found himself being swarmed first by an angry mob, then by Secret Service agents. The room full of Second Amendment fanatics panicked when one of Trump’s fans yelled “gun!” and Trump was rushed from the stage. Immediately, Trump’s campaign began spinning the lie that this man had intended to assassinate Trump.
In fact, all he was armed with was a poster saying “Republicans Against Trump.” The whole incident was over nothing. But it didn’t stop Trump’s fans from pretending this proved Trump was a profile in courage. His campaign’s social media director retweeted a (false) message that Trump was back on stage after an “assassination attempt”– like he was Teddy goddamn Roosevelt, speaking with a bullet in his chest . Trump social media director retweeted a tweet claiming this was an assassination attempt pic.twitter.com/TTUCH4Zbb8
— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) November 6, 2016
But while the Secret Service did the right thing by not taking chances, the idea that this incident makes Trump brave is laughable. He returned to the stage precisely because there was no threat . Mere minutes after agents tackled the “assassin” they realized the guy was a harmless protester carrying a poster and had no weapons. He was released shortly afterwards.
Meanwhile, there is an example of a candidate staring down a scary situation and not blinking. It’s Hillary Clinton.
Unlike the poster-carrying Republican, a protester in Iowa once rushed Clinton’s stage and actually almost got within arm’s reach of her. She took a quick glance as her Secret Service detail tackled the protester… and kept talking. Protester tries to storm the stage as Clinton speaks in Iowa. PO-92WE pic.twitter.com/liidhzUSqR
— CNN Newsource (@CNNNewsource) August 10, 2016
She didn’t even flinch.
Oh and then it happened again. This time a man charged at her in Nevada. And she – again – just stared the person down.
So let’s hear Trump’s followers call Hillary Clinton brave for doing what Trump did not. We’ll wait.
Featured image via CNN | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Donald Trump followed up Tuesday’s huge primary victories with his first foreign policy address. He portrayed a U. S. in need of more economic and military might and himself as a leader eager to wield both. He forecast a strategy of using U. S. missteps in the Middle East to attack Hillary Clinton, whose delegate count is now nearly as definitive. _____ 2. Ted Cruz, beaten badly by Mr. Trump in all five states that voted Tuesday, tried to grab a bit of Wednesday’s news cycle by announcing a Fiorina ticket if he is the Republican nominee. And Bernie Sanders, who lost all but Rhode Island, said he would lay off hundreds of campaign workers and focus on winning California. _____ 3. “The thing I want to do today is say I’m sorry,” said J. Dennis Hastert, the former Republican House speaker. At a riveting court hearing, he admitted to having molested young wrestlers he coached decades ago. A Chicago judge sentenced him to 15 months for illegal bank dealings related to a fined him $250, 000 and said he would recommend a prison hospital for the ailing defendant. _____ 4. Good news for the : A new study shows short bursts of intense exercise do as much physiological good as much longer bouts of moderate exercise. “If you are someone, like me, who just wants to boost health and fitness and you don’t have 45 minutes or an hour to work out,” the lead researcher said, “our data show that you can get big benefits from even a single minute of intense exercise. ” _____ 5. Income inequality isn’t just about the 1 percent. One of our best read stories today examines the increasing likelihood that the top 20 percent of households by income both geographically and in education. In an Opinion piece, the author said this trend could lead to the stratification of many kinds of opportunities and experiences — along with political leverage. _____ 6. In one of the largest gang takedowns in the history of New York City, 120 people were charged in connection with two murderous drug gangs. One, 2Fly YGz, is a faction of the national group Young Gunnaz. Prosecutors said the second, the Big Money Bosses, used special names to signify ranks: Big Suits were leaders, and the ranks were filled with Burberry, Gucci, Ferragamo and Sean John Suits. _____ 7. The faltering Internet giant Yahoo caved to pressure from an activist hedge fund, Starboard Value, granting it four seats on the board to avert a proxy fight. The move is likely to speed the sale of Yahoo’s core business, possibly to Verizon Communications. Many U. S. stocks rose after the Federal Reserve left its interest rates unchanged, but tech stocks fell a day after Apple announced its first down quarter in years. Facebook, reporting after the bell, said its profits had tripled from a year earlier, rising to $1. 5 billion this quarter. _____ 8. The only known surviving participant in the attacks in Paris last November, Salah Abdeslam, was transferred to France from Belgium and charged with murder and terrorism. His lawyer in Belgium disparaged Mr. Abdeslam to a French newspaper, saying he “has the intelligence of an empty ashtray. ” _____ 9. The Rio countdown begins: South America’s first Olympic Games begin in 100 days. Brazil is facing far more than the usual challenges for host cities: a miserable economy, a president nearing impeachment, questions about construction failures, poor ticket sales and the Zika epidemic. But officials do not seem anxious. “The machine is in place,” the sports minister said. _____ 10. Highway officials say distracted driving is a major factor behind sharply rising road fatalities. So public health experts are proposing an array of efforts to halt texting or taking selfies at the wheel. The most provocative would give police officers the digital equivalent of the Breathalyzer — a device that can identify what your smartphone has been doing. _____ 11. Finally, we remember the man responsible for, love it or hate it, one of the most iconic sounds of summer. The Mister Softee jingle was created by Lew Waas, a prolific adman (and incorrigible prankster) who died last week. He was 94. The lyrics for the tinkling tune: The SOFT ice CREAM you GET from . FOR a LOOK for . _____ 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 commander of a Brooklyn police precinct has apologized for remarks he made to the media and at a local community meeting last week in which he played down a recent surge in rapes in his neighborhood, saying most were date rapes, not “true stranger rapes. ” In a post on Twitter on Monday afternoon, Capt. Peter R. Rose of the 94th Precinct in Greenpoint said, “I deeply regret the statements I made last week about rape,” adding that his comments “were not meant to minimize the seriousness of sexual assault. ” “Every rape whether it is perpetrated by a stranger or someone known to them is fully investigated,” Captain Rose wrote. “We make no distinction in our response. ” The apology came days after the officer was quoted in an article on the local news website DNAinfo. com about an increase of sexual violence in the neighborhood of Greenpoint, where there were eight reported attacks or attempted attacks in 2015 and 13 last year. Of last year’s cases, three led to arrests, but 10 — including two allegedly by taxi drivers on young female passengers — remain unsolved. In the article, which appeared on Friday, Captain Rose told DNAinfo. com that while every rape should be investigated, the spike in reported assaults was “not a trend that we’re too worried about” because many of them had been committed by acquaintances of the victims. “If there’s a true stranger rape,” Captain Rose went on, “a random guy who picks up a stranger off the street, those are the troubling ones. That person has, like, no moral standards. ” Not long after the interview, Captain Rose elaborated on the unsolved sex assault cases at a meeting of the 94th Precinct community council, where he said some of the attacks had involved of the victims and others hookup apps like Tinder and thus were “not rapes where strangers are being dragged off the streets. ” He added that the cases remained open because the victims refused to cooperate with investigators and in some cases left New York for their homes in other states. Both of his comments set off a firestorm of criticism from public officials and advocates for victims of sexual assault who condemned Captain Rose for perpetuating the idea that rapes committed by those who know their victims are somehow less troubling than those committed by strangers. “Rape is rape,” Eric Phillips, a spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, said in remarks published on Friday in a separate article on DNAinfo. “The crime merits no moral qualification and does not involve shades of criminality or degrees of danger. ” The same day, Stephen Davis, a spokesman for the New York Police Department, issued a statement saying, “Captain Rose’s comments did not properly explain the complexity of issues involved with investigating rape complaints. ” The statement added: “All complaints of rape and other types of sexual crimes are taken seriously whether they are committed by domestic partners, acquaintances or strangers. ” Then on Monday, the city’s new police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, wrote a rare opinion article in The Daily News in which he called Captain Rose’s comment “insensitive” and said that they had “left the misleading and inaccurate impression that the N. Y. P. D. treats these types of cases differently. ” Commissioner O’Neill continued: “We do not, either as a matter of policy or practice. ” In his article, the commissioner also said that only some rape victims report their attacks to the police, and he detailed a number of steps that the department has taken in recent years to change that. Those steps, he said, included collaborating with victims’ advocates, sponsoring poster contests on college campuses to encourage students to report rapes and assaults, and creating a hotline so that victims can directly call the detectives who investigate such crimes. Commissioner O’Neill did not say whether Captain Rose would face any disciplinary action. Reports of sexual assault have greatly decreased in the last 20 years. Quoting federal crime statistics from 2010 to 2014, the Rape Abuse Incest National Network said seven in 10 rapes were committed by someone known to the victim. That was the argument of two dozen demonstrators who gathered in the snow on Tuesday outside the 94th Precinct station house to protest Captain Rose’s statements, with signs reading “Take Rape Seriously” and “Rape Is Always a Crime. ” “It is an outrageous idea that acquaintance rape matters less — it isn’t just bad policy, it’s bad law enforcement,” Jane Manning, the director of advocacy for Women’s Justice NOW. “Most rapists target women they know because they’ll have a better chance to get away with it by claiming consent. “The idea that acquaintance matters less is pervasive in our culture,” Ms. Manning added. “Captain Rose was unfortunately saying something out loud that many, many people already believe. ” | 1 |
Karl Denninger – There are some “five figures” of emails on a laptop that was seized from Weiner as part of a sexting minors across state lines investigation (which, I remind you, if it happened is a felony.)
Huma is married to (but now estranged from) Weiner.
The laptop belonged to Weiner.
Huma claims “she doesn’t know” how the emails got there and that she wasn’t a “regular user” of said laptop.
All of this is very important for several reasons:
1. Everyone involved in the original email investigation said that no other devices on which such material would be found existed. That is, they all stated under penalty of perjury and under oath that they had turned over all such devices they had possession of and access to.
2. If any of those emails are classified then there is a separate and distinct offense involved from any original offense because said device was not in any way authorized to have such material on it, was not under control of the State Department (either directly or by proxy), was not managed under same and in fact it was claimed to not exist by everyone who testified they had turned over all devices on which such material did exist.
3. At no time had Weiner been given classified access by the State Department or any agency clearing people to work with Hillary’s information; while he was at one point a Congressman (until 2011) since that time he has been a private citizen and, it appears, had no legitimate clearance of any sort whatsoever. While he probably can’t be prosecuted for that anyone involved in placing it there sure as hell can be and ought to be!
4. Making the issue far more serious Weiner has been involved in multiple sexual escapades and the current investigation involves potential federal criminal sexual conduct. This makes the presence of such material even more troublesome because one of the primary reasons to restrict classified information and why persons who receive clearances are vetted before clearances are granted is that conduct such as this exposes the person who commits such acts to blackmail as a means of compelling them to release said information to our nation’s enemies!
There are people raising hell about the FBI “releasing” this information 10 days before an election. The better question is why the people who clearly lied about turning over everything in the original investigation are not at this instant under arrest for both perjury and obstruction of justice, including but not limited to Huma and Hillary herself!
That Lynch apparently tried to run interference and block release of this information and so far has refused to issue a warrant for the data, if reports are to be believed, is even more outrageous as that refusal implicates not only herself in attempting to cover up a criminal act but probably implicates Obama as well. Oh by the way, if the device was seized pursuant to a lawful warrant (and it almost certainly either was or was voluntarily turned over by Weiner) and the original search was for “evidence related to sexting” then anything in a place or device that could reasonably hold evidence of said sexting is fair game if found by accident, so Lynch is out of luck here.
Yes, it is outrageous that the FBI was basically backed into a corner and forced to put this out in the public, but consider their position. There are probably a whole bunch of people in both the FBI and the NYPD who know about this; they were investigating what they believed was nothing more than a pervert trading dick pics with a 15 year old girl in North Carolina and none of them were in any way expecting to find, nor were they cleared to investigate and have access to classified information generated from the Secretary of State .
Yet that’s what they found and it didn’t happen by random chance — it happened due to the intentional acts of concealment of those in the Hillary camp including her top personal aide .
What are the odds this stays quiet? Zero !
And before you get on the FBI for this realize that this is almost-exactly like them looking at William Jefferson a number of years ago and stumbling on nearly $100,000 of “cold hard cash” — literally — in his freezer.
That stayed “secret” for about an hour and so would have this.
HILLARY AND HUMA FOR HANDCUFFS — NOW! | 0 |
The man who spoke softly but carried a big stick Bill Federer remembers military philosophy of Theodore Roosevelt Published: 16 mins ago Print Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt was born Oct. 27, 1858. His wife and mother died on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 1884. He wrote in his diary “The light has gone out in my life.” Depressed, he left to ranch in the Dakotas.
Returning to New York, he entered politics and rose to assistant secretary of the Navy. He resigned during the Spanish-American War, organized the first Volunteer Cavalry, “the Rough Riders,” and captured Cuba’s San Juan Hill. Elected Vice-President under William McKinley, he became America’s youngest president in 1901.
Republican Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to invite an African-American, Booker T. Washington, to dine in the White House on Oct. 16, 1901. A Southern Democrat newspapers condemned him it, as printed in the Memphis Scimitar: “The most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States was committed yesterday by the President, when he invited a n- to dine with him at the White House. It would not be worth more than a passing notice if Theodore Roosevelt had sat down to dinner in his own home with a Pullman car porter, but Roosevelt the individual and Roosevelt the president are not to be viewed in the same light.”
In 1909, Theodore Roosevelt warned: “The thought of modern industry in the hands of Christian charity is a dream worth dreaming. The thought of industry in the hands of paganism is a nightmare beyond imagining. The choice between the two is upon us.”
In 1917, the New York Bible Society had Theodore Roosevelt write a message which was inscribed in a pocket New Testament & Book of Psalms given to World War I soldiers: “The teachings of the New Testament are foreshadowed in Micah’s verse (Micah vi. 8): ‘What more does the Lord require of thee than to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?’ Do justice; and therefore fight valiantly against the armies of Germany and Turkey, for these nations in this crisis stand for the reign of Moloch and Beelzebub on this earth. Love mercy; treat prisoners well, succor the wounded, treat every woman as if she was your sister, care for the little children, and be tender to the old and helpless. Walk humbly; You will do so if you study the life and teachings of the Saviour. May the God of justice and mercy have you in His keeping. – (signed) Theodore Roosevelt.”
Discover more of Bill Federer’s eye-opening books and videos in the WND Superstore!
Theodore Roosevelt, in his book “Fear God and Take Your Own Part” (NY: George H. Doran Co., 1916), wrote:
Armenians … for some centuries have sedulously avoided militarism and war … are so suffering precisely and exactly because they have been pacifists whereas their neighbors, the Turks, have not been pacifists but militarists. (T. Roosevelt, Fear God, p. 61, 64)
Armenians, have been subjected to wrongs far greater than any that have been committed since the close of the Napoleonic Wars…the wars of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane in Asia. Yet this government has not raised its hand to do anything to help the people who were wronged. … This course of national infamy … began when the last Administration surrendered to the peace at-any-price people, and started the negotiation of its foolish and wicked all inclusive arbitration treaties. Individuals and nations who preach the doctrine of milk-and-water invariably have in them a softness of fiber which means that they fear to antagonize those who preach and practice the doctrine of blood-and-iron. (T. Roosevelt, Fear God, p. 111)
American eye-witness of the fearful atrocities, Mr. Arthur H. Gleason (New York Tribune, Nov. 25, 1915)… Serbia is at this moment passing under the harrow of torture and mortal anguish. Now, the Armenians have been butchered under circumstances of murder and torture and rape that would have appealed to an old-time Apache Indian. …
Even to nerves dulled and jaded by the heaped-up horrors of the past year and a half, the news of the terrible fate that has befallen the Armenians must give a fresh shock of sympathy and indignation. Let me emphatically point out that the sympathy is useless unless it is accompanied with indignation, and that the indignation is useless if it exhausts itself in words instead of taking shape in deeds. … If this people through its government had not shirked its duty … we would now be able to take effective action on behalf of Armenia.
Mass meetings on behalf of the Armenians amount to nothing whatever if they are mere methods of giving a sentimental but ineffective and safe outlet to the emotion of those engaged in them. … The principles of the peace-at-any-price men, of the professional pacifists … will be as absolutely ineffective for international righteousness. … This crowning iniquity of the wholesale slaughter of the Armenians … must be shared by the neutral powers headed by the United States for their failure to protest when this initial wrong was committed. … The devastation of Poland and Serbia has been awful beyond description and has been associated with infamies surpassing those of the dreadful religious and racial wars of the seventeenth-century Europe. …
Weak and timid milk-and-water policy of the professional pacifists is just as responsible as the blood-and-iron policy of the ruthless and unscrupulous militarist for the terrible recrudescence of evil on a gigantic scale in the civilized world. The crowning outrage has been committed by the Turks on the Armenians. They have suffered atrocities so hideous that it is difficult to name them, atrocities such as those inflicted upon conquered nations by the followers of Attila and of Genghis Khan.
It is dreadful to think that these things can be done and that this nation nevertheless remarks ‘neutral not only in deed but in thought,’ between right and the most hideous wrong, neutral between despairing and hunted people, people whose little children are murdered and their women raped, and the victorious and evil wrong-doers. …
I trust that all Americans worthy of the name feel their deepest indignation and keenest sympathy aroused by the dreadful Armenian atrocities. I trust that they feel … that a peace obtained without … righting the wrongs of the Armenians would be worse than any war. …
Wrongdoing will only be stopped by men who are brave as well as just, who put honor above safety, who are true to a lofty ideal of duty, who prepare in advance to make their strength effective, and who shrink from no hazard, not even the final hazard of war, if necessary in order to serve the great cause of righteousness. When our people take this stand, we shall also be able effectively to take a stand in international matters which shall prevent such cataclysms of wrong as have been witnesses…on an even greater scale in Armenia. (T. Roosevelt, Fear God, pp. 377-383)
In his book “Fear God and Take Your Part,” 1916, Theodore Roosevelt wrote:
Christianity is not the creed of Asia and Africa at this moment solely because the seventh century Christians of Asia and Africa had trained themselves not to fight, whereas the Moslems were trained to fight. Christianity was saved in Europe solely because the peoples of Europe fought.
If the peoples of Europe in the 7th and 8th centuries, and on up to and including the 17th century, had not possessed a military equality with, and gradually a growing superiority over the Mohammedans who invaded Europe, Europe would at this moment be Mohammedan and the Christian religion would be exterminated.
A contemporary of Theodore Roosevelt was the English author G.K. Chesterton, who wrote of Western Christian civilization (“The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton: Volume XX,” Introduction and Notes by James V. Schall, Ignatius Press): “They seem entirely to forget that long before the Crusaders had dreamed of riding to Jerusalem, the Moslems had almost ridden into Paris.”
Theodore Roosevelt continued in “Fear God and Take Your Part,” 1916: “Wherever the Mohammedans have had complete sway, wherever the Christians have been unable to resist them by the sword, Christianity has ultimately disappeared. From the hammer of Charles Martel to the sword of Jan Sobieski, Christianity owed its safety in Europe to the fact that it was able to show that it could and would fight as well as the Mohammedan aggressor.”
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The Times of Israel reports: The Tel Aviv municipality building was lit in the colors of the Egyptian flag Saturday night, in a gesture of solidarity with Israel’s neighbor a day after a deadly shooting attack near Cairo. [Tonight we light up the @TelAviv Municipality with the flag of #Egypt. Those seeking peace will not rest until such horrific acts will end. pic. twitter. — Mayor of Tel Aviv (@MayorOfTelAviv) May 27, 2017, The building had been illuminated in various flags following other international terror attacks — on Tuesday it was lit in the colors of the Union Jack after a deadly suicide bombing in Manchester — but the latest tribute is the first time the gesture has been made toward an Arab country. people were killed Friday morning when a bus carrying Christian Copts pilgrims was shot at by masked gunmen in the Egyptian Minya province, south of Cairo. According to the Egyptian cabinet, 13 of the victims remained hospitalized in Cairo on Saturday evening. The Islamic State jihadist group claimed responsibility for the attack, which came on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Read more here. | 1 |
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In a report published by Turkish newspaper Dailysabah, RecepTayyipErdoğan said in a speech in “İnegöl” city in the “Bursa” Province of Turkey that he has evidence which shows John O. Brennan, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Bandar bin Sultan, the former director general of the Saudi Intelligence Agency had met in 2009 and they had agreed that US choose the leaders of terrorist groups in order to create an armed group for promoting terrorism to serve the interests of both countries in the region.
Turkey president also told that President Obama is planning a scenario in cooperation with ISIS leaders to make US the winner of Mosul war in order to gain participants’ votes in presidential election for Democrats, while we strive to defeat terrorists in a real battle to guarantee the secutity of turkey and the region. | 0 |
Assad: US waging proxy war in Syria against Russia & Iran 11/03/2016
BLACKLISTEDNEWS.COM Despite claiming humanitarian motives, US actions in Syria are meant to undermine the power of Russia and Iran, with Washington trying to achieve this goal by directly supporting terrorists, Syrian President Bashar Assad has said. The US’ secret collaboration with terrorists is the reason why all attempts at a ceasefire and political transition in Syria have so far failed, the Syrian leader told Serbian newspaper Politika. The interview was also published by the Syria’s SANA news agency.
“Supporting the terrorists is a war of attrition against Syria, against Iran, against Russia, that’s how they look at it. That’s why not only this ceasefire – every attempt regarding ceasefire or political moving or political initiative, every failure of these things, the United States was to blame,” the Syrian president said.
Assad was referring to the deal negotiated by the US and Russia in September, which it was hoped would pave the way for a lasting truce in Syria. In practice, the agreement was derailed by armed groups, which had rejected it from the very beginning. The US pledged to convince the so-called moderate opposition to stick to the bargain and separate from terrorists, who would then be legitimate targets for a joint Russian-American air campaign. Washington didn’t deliver on this promise, however.
According to the Syrian president, a lasting ceasefire was not what Washington sought from the deal in the first place.
“They always ask for ceasefire only when the terrorists are in a bad situation, not for the civilians. And they try to use those ceasefires in order to support the terrorists, bring them logistic support, armament, money, everything, in order to re-attack and to become stronger again,” he said.
Sometimes the US support for terrorist groups goes through its allies such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Assad believes, while occasionally they provide direct support even to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), a group that the Washington-led coalition was supposedly formed to defeat. An example of this came during an American attack on Syrian Army troops near Deir Ez-Zor, which happened while the US-Russian truce was in force, and which the US claimed was the result of a mistake.
“They attacked a very big area. They didn’t attack a building to say, ‘we made a mistake.’ They attacked three big hills, not other groups neighboring these hills,” he said. “In less than one hour, ISIS attacked those hills. It means that ISIS gathered their forces to attack those hills. How did ISIS know that the Americans would attack that Syrian position? It means they were ready, they were prepared.”
Humanitarian mask, like in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan or Iraq Western media are currently focusing on civilian suffering in Syria and alleged atrocities committed by the Syrian government and its allies to justify deeper involvement in the war by whatever means the White House chooses, Assad said in the interview.
“You have a black-and-white picture; very, very bad guy against very, very good guy. It’s like the narrative of George W. Bush during the war on Iraq and on Afghanistan,” he described.
“The war in your country has been portrayed in the same way; as a humanitarian war where the West wanted to intervene in order to protect a certain community against the aggressors from the other community,” Assad said, referring to the Balkan Wars and the partitioning of Yugoslavia. “So, many people in the world believe that story, the same in Syria; they use the same mask, the humanitarian mask.”
While stressing any wrongdoing on the part of the government forces, the West ignores whatever atrocities the opposition commits, the president said.
“The terrorists killed during the last three days more than 80 innocent civilians in Aleppo, and wounded more than 300. You don’t read anything about them in the Western mainstream media,” he said. “They only single out some pictures and some incidents in the area under the control of the terrorists just to use them for their political agenda in order to condemn and to blame the Syrian government, not because they are worried about the Syrians.”
“They don’t care about our children, or about innocents, and about civilization, about infrastructure,” he added. “But actually, they only care about using everything that would serve their vested interests.”
The Syrian president doesn’t expect the US approach to Syria to change, regardless of who wins the presidential election next week, he told the newspaper. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would be bad for his country, he said.
“We don’t see any good signs that the United States is going to change dramatically its policy toward what’s happening in the world… or to obey the international law, or to care about the United Nation’s Charter,” he said.
“It’s not about who’s going to be president; the difference will be very minimal, each one of them is going to be allowed to leave his own fingerprint, just personal fingerprint, but doesn’t mean change of policies. That’s why we don’t pin our hopes, we don’t waste our time with it.”
A year without interference to stop war Assad reiterated his assessment that if Syria were left to settle its problems without foreign interference, it would take it no more than a year to end the conflict, saying that “it is not very complicated internally.”
“Of course, that looks not realistic, because everybody knows that the United States wanted to undermine the position of Russia as a great power in the world, including in Syria. Saudi Arabia has been looking how to destroy Iran for years now, and Syria could be one of the places where they can achieve that, according to their way of thinking,” he said.
“But if we say that we could achieve that situation where all those foreign powers leave Syria alone, we don’t have a problem in solving our problem.”
The president said Syria has existed as a multiethnic multiconfessional entity for centuries and has significant experience in overcoming differences.
“Without all different colors of the society – Christians, Muslims, and the different sects and ethnicities – you won’t have Syria. So, every Syrian citizen should feel fully free in practicing his rituals, his traditions, his beliefs. He should be free in order to have a stable country. Otherwise you won’t have Syria as a stable country,” Assad said.
The war has been a huge ordeal for Syrian society, but it has made Syrians as a nation more united, not less, he added.
“Many Syrians before the war didn’t tell the difference between being fanatic and being extremist, between being extremist and being terrorist. Those borders weren’t clear for many,” the president said. “Because of the war, because of the destruction, because of the heavy price that affected every Syrian, many Syrians learned the lesson and now they know that the only way to protect the country and to preserve the country is to be homogenous, to live with each other, to integrate, to accept, to love each other.”
“That’s why I think the effect of the war, in spite of all the bad aspects of any war like this war, but this aspect was positive for the Syrian society. So, I’m not worried about the structure of Syrian society after the war. I think it’s going to be healthier,” Assad added. | 0 |
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emen’s Houthi militia launched a ballistic missile toward Mecca on Thursday, the Saudi-led coalition intervening in Yemen’s civil war said on Saudi state news agency SPA.
Unfortunately, the U.S. provided Saudi Arabia with patriot missiles and “the coalition forces destroyed the missile 65 km (40 miles) from the Mecca without damage and retaliated against the launch site inside Yemen,” the statement said. Mecca is home to the most sacred sites in Islam, including the Grand Mosque. Targeting #Mecca , Saudis intercept the 37th ballistic missile launched by Houthis backed by #Iran #HouthisStrikeMecca pic.twitter.com/nQZhL7HcYh
— إنفوجرافيك السعودية (@Infographic_ksa) October 27, 2016 Yemen's Houthis launch missile toward Saudi holy city https://t.co/C8mcOmUyKL
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) October 28, 2016
Here is a video of the interception:
The Houthis confirmed the launch of a Burkan-1 ballistic missile into Saudi Arabia in a statement to their official news agency on Friday but said it targeted King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, the kingdom’s busiest airport. However, the coalition forces reveal it was heading towards Mecca.
The Yemeni Shiite Houthis have always wanted to send a long suppository to Saudi Arabia and so they developed scuds, Burkan 1 ( Volcano 1), range 800 kilometers. Not only did they develop it, but they fired a couple of these babies just a few weeks ago towards Saudi Arabia’s Fahd Air Base, near Mecca.
Here the previous launch from Yemen:
But this time the target was Mecca, Allah’s House (Bait Allah). Iran says that Karbala is Allah’s favorite vacation house, not Mecca, which Iran promised that Allah will penetrate with a scud as a last one night-stand with the veiled Burqa dressed Kaaba.
But the developments of scuds by Yemeni Shiites is not that simple to ignore by Saudi Arabia, which plays a game of cat and mouse with these rebels playing with some serious fire. On August 28th, Saudi Arabia had to send a jet just before this other scud was about to take off destroying it on the ground and at times have the patriots intercept.
This time the coalition forces destroyed the base of the Mecc-scud:
Allah in the Quran promised he protects the Kaaba from destruction while the Hadith says in the end it will be destroyed. As it seems, this time the whore of Babylon escaped, but her destruction is well etched in scripture so for now enjoy the weddings.
Article posted with permission from Shoebat.com | 0 |
The Moore Show Published on Oct 16, 2016 Since the late 1940s, a growing number of individuals and groups have sought public disclosure of what the authorities know about interaction between humans and non-human intelligences. But for 70 years the authorities have employed a policy of secrecy, denial and ridicule to keep the subject convert. Thus the responsibility of reporting and analyzing these contact phenomena has fallen to those called in various ways to participate. We Are the Disclosure is an embodiment of the bottom-up Disclosure process that has been underway for seven decades. Through in-depth interviews, it provides a people’s history of the development of the field since the early days, and brings it up to date. Leading researchers in the field are joined by archeologists, radio hosts, a remote viewer, those engaging in direct ET contact, and several ET-human hybrids. This broad-ranging survey of the growth of this field, and our awareness of its meaning, is discussed in Part I of We Are the Disclosure by Alexis Brooks, Lyn Buchanan, Michael Cremo, Klaus Dona, Stanton Friedman, Robert Fullington, Marilyn Gewacke, Rey Hernandez, Gary Heseltine, C. B. Scott Jones, Jujuolui Kuita, Barbara Lamb, Vanessa Lamorte and Joanne Summerscales. This book provides strong evidence that Disclosure may prove to be the most important topic of our time, and that it is being driven in large part by the ETs themselves. Coast to coast AM 2016 | 0 |
“honour crimes” have risen by 40 per cent in five years in London, with the number of forced marriages doubling in the same period. [According to the figures, obtained by the Evening Standard, some of the children involved in the abuse were younger than . Since 2012, honour crimes reported to the Metropolitan Police rose to 1, 081 and those relating to forced marriages shot up to 367. Women and girls were the victims in the vast majority of reported incidents, with over half coming from “Asian” backgrounds, the paper reports. Knives and guns were involved in more than 70 incidents, and dozens of rapes and other sexual crimes were reported. Detective Chief Inspector Sam Faulkner, of the Met’s Community Safety Unit, said the crimes stem from communities using “cultural religious justifications for male violence against women and girls and other people”. They were often based on traditions whereby “an individual, family and community’s honour is weighted on women and girls” he said, including refusing to go along with a marriage. “We see an increase in these types of offences as a positive step, an indication that victims have more confidence to report offences to police and seek the support they need” he added. Politicians today called the findings “troubling” “shocking” and “abhorrent”. Labour MP Yvette Cooper, chair of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, told the Evening Standard: “Too many of these awful crimes are still hidden. There is no ‘honour’ in violence against women, rape, torture or abuse of a family member. “These are deadly crimes and there is still too little protection, too few prosecutions and too much stigma which prevents people coming forward. “It’s vital that when victims do speak out they get proper help from support groups and from the police to keep them safe. ” The figures, obtained using Freedom of Information requests, show that “violence against the person” was the most common “honour” attack, accounting for 85 per cent of incidents. Sexual violence was the second largest category, with 56 rapes and 11 “other sexual” crimes. 84 per cent were perpetrated against women, with “Asian” women accounting for more than half. | 1 |
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Gentleman, do you like it? Are you considering putting a ring on it? Well, I think I’ve found a jeweler you may want to consider for your darling’s bling-bling.
A jeweler in Lubbock, Texas is offering a free firearm with the purchase of a ring. That’s right, if you get married, you can get some protection as well! (Pun intended).
EverythingLubbock.com reported on this awesome offer:
Thacker Jewelry is hosting their annual Shotgun Wedding Sale next week where customers who buy a ring will get a gun for free.
“We started this tradition I believe it was, it’ll be three years now,” Thacker Jewelry Owner Joe Thacker Said. “The idea, of course, is the word play and the old shotgun wedding. Not going back to the negative connotation playing off of that and it’s been a lot of fun. We had a lot of people participate and this year we’ve even gotten into it more,”
Thacker said the entire store will be on sale, with engagement rings on special. Anyone who purchases a ring will also get a gift certificate for a shotgun or a rifle with LSG Tactical.
“Any time any of their customers go over there and purchase something that meets their qualifications, they get a gift certificate for either a Remington 870 shotgun or a savage bolt action rifle,” LSG Tactical Steve Burns said.
For Texas, this does not come as any big surprise. Texans love their guns.
“It’s something that’s very natural for most Texans,” Burns said. “Most guys grew up hunting or at least exposed to hunting if not by their family, but by their friends, or social groups. So it’s something that’s pretty natural for all of us.”
“Farming, hunting, ranching its all intertwined,” Thacker said. “So it’s just a natural fit for Texas.”
While the free gun may be the most enticing aspect of a ring purchase for a lot of men, make sure you teach your to-be finance how to shoot as well! The ladies especially need to know how to use that gun, arguably more than we do.
Since men are typically stronger physically than women (sorry feminists, I didn’t create the human anatomy), we might be able to fend off an attacker if we don’t have a gun on us (though you should!).
But our ladies may have a more difficult time of it, since they have smaller frames and typically less muscle mass. What better way to even the playing field with thugs than to teach her how to shoot?
A ring and a gun, that’s a deal that’s hard to beat, in my mind! So what are you waiting for, gentlemen? | 0 |
Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas says Hollywood celebrities’ constant complaining about President Donald Trump is getting stale, whatever one’s personal opinion of the president may be. [“I’m not a fan of Donald Trump, but I am so tired of hearing celebrities talk about not being a fan of Donald Trump, that it almost seems like white noise,” Thomas said in an interview with The Hill. “I think that he’s a man that’s not really equipped for the job, but I think no one really cares what I think about that. ” “I have opinions, but my opinions are as a husband, father, taxpayer. No matter what I say, they always kind of come across as a guy who sings music and it’s always, ‘Well you need to shut up! ’” the singer continued. Thomas also acknowledged that a large part of Trump’s base thinks the president is “killing it right now,” and said it would be difficult to criticize them despite his own political opinions. The “Lonely No More” singer was a featured speaker Tuesday at the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Foundation’s ninth annual “We Write the Songs” event at the Library of Congress. Thomas has been advocating on behalf of songwriters, whom he claims are being robbed of their royalties by big businesses that take advantage of antiquated federal regulations. “American songwriters, composers and music publishers are some of the most small business owners and entrepreneurs in the country because of the income that songwriters receive is subject to federal regulation,” Thomas wrote in an published Wednesday at Quartz. “And you better believe the big, Wall music streaming companies are happy to take advantage of these regulations to pay songwriters less than fair value for their work and are actively fighting updates to these regulations so they can continue to build their businesses on the backs of songwriters,” he added. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
Military An American soldier talks with Saudi troops. (File photo by the US Army)
A US congressman has warned that American troops could be prosecuted for providing military support to the Saudi war on Yemen.
Ted Lieu made the warning in a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, saying the US government’s denial of target selection for Saudi airstrikes in Yemen does not excuse Washington from legal responsibilities.
“I find it deeply troubling that the US apparently has no advanced knowledge of what targets will be struck by jets that are refueled by US personnel with US tankers,” Lieu said in his letter.
“The US would appear to be violating LOAC [laws of armed conflict] and international standards by engaging in such direct military operations if US personnel are not aware if targets are civilian or military, if the loss of life and property are disproportional, or if the operation is even militarily necessary,” he noted. A Yemeni boy walks past a mural depicting a US drone and reading: "Why did you kill my family." (Photo by AFP)
Pointing to the 18-month involvement of the US in Saudi war on the Yemeni people, the Democratic congressman stressed that Washington had knowledge of a bombardment campaign hitting civilian targets, including schools and hospitals, multiple times.
“US personnel are now at legal risk of being investigated and potentially prosecuted for committing war crimes. Under international law, a person can be found guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes. Under US law, a person can be found guilty for conspiring to commit war crimes,” Lieu wrote.
The Pentagon has been providing logistic and surveillance support to Saudi Arabia in its military aggression against Yemen, the kingdom’s impoverished southern neighbor, which has killed more than 10,000 Yemenis since its onset in March 2015.
The unprovoked war started by a coalition of Saudi-allies in an attempt to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstate former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of the Riyadh regime.
Washington has on several occasions criticized the Saudi regime for its crimes against humanity in Yemen, but has shown no sign of ending its support for Riyadh. US Representative Ted Lieu of California addresses delegates on the fourth and final day of the Democratic National Convention at Wells Fargo Center on July 28, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by AFP)
In August, the US State Department approved the sale of more than 130 Abrams tanks, 20 armored recovery vehicles and other equipment worth about $1.15 billion to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi-led bombardments have struck hospitals, markets and other places where civilians gather.
In September, Amnesty International reported that a US manufactured bomb had been used in a Saudi strike against a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Yemen’s northwestern province of Hajjah which claimed the lives of 19 people.
In October, more than 140 people lost their lives and over 525 others sustained injuries after Saudi military aircraft struck a hall in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a, where rows of people were attending a funeral. Yemeni rescue workers pull out a victim from amid the rubble following a Saudi airstrike against a packed funeral site in the capital, Sana’a, on October 8, 2016. (Photo by AFP)
UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen Jamie McGoldrick said last month that the death toll from the Saudi military aggression could rise even further as some areas had no medical facilities, and that people were often buried without any official record being made. Loading ... | 0 |
Yesterday I asked of lying liar climate ‘scientist’ Michael Mann: “Does anyone take this guy seriously any more? ”[But the question was a purely rhetorical one. I already knew the depressing true answer having just sat, fuming, in my car listening to Mann being given the red carpet treatment on a BBC Radio 4 science programme. “Oh Professor Doctor Mann, Sir, may it please your eminence to descend from your radiant cloud for a few precious moments and explain to us mere mortals why your amazing and unquestionably brilliant new paper on global warming demonstrates you to be even more right about climate change than you were even in the days when you won your Nobel prize?” fawned and grovelled the BBC’s interviewer from his prostrate position on the studio floor. Perhaps I exaggerate slightly. But it would be fair to say that the BBC’s interviewer, Adam Rutherford, sought to leave the listener in no doubt that when it came to climate science the “Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science” Michael Mann was a respected expert of great insight whose opinions one could totally trust. Mann isn’t though, is he? Maybe in 2001, when Mann’s Hockey Stick was promoted heavily in the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report, it would have been legitimate enough for the BBC to quote him as a climate scientist of note. But that was 16 years ago, since when the Hockey Stock has been discredited to the point where not even the IPCC quotes it in its reports. And where Mann’s reputation has become so tarnished that Mark Steyn was able to compile and edit a book called A Disgrace To The Profession, consisting largely of distinguished scientists from around the world explaining in lavish detail how utterly flawed, bankrupt and worthless Michael Mann’s climate science was. “Misleading” “Just bad science” “Very erroneous conclusions” “A crock of shit” “Excuse me while I puke. ” … . just a few of things scientists had to say about Mann and his work. But as we were reminded yet again on the BBC’s Inside Science programme this week, the BBC continues to treat this tainted and controversial figure with uncritical reverence. On the programme, his interviewer Adam Rutherford allowed Mann space to give a version of this week’s Congressional hearing on climate science so ludicrously biased towards the alarmist narrative it might have been scripted by Greenpeace. “We have currently as the chair of the House of Representatives Science Committee an individual — Lamar Smith — whose funding mostly comes from fossil fuel interests who rejects the overwhelming consensus of the world’s scientists that climate change is real and human caused and represents a threat. The hearing was intended to provide cover to Congressional Republicans and the current Trump administration who are trying to cut funding for climate science and who are trying to roll back the policy successes over the last several years in dealing with climate change and dealing with carbon emissions. ” “As the hearing went on every time the topic was about the substance, what the science has to say, my feeling was that the Congressional Republicans realised that they were on the defensive, that they were losing the argument because, after all, they are denying the overwhelming consensus of the world’s scientists. And eventually it got into the gutter where they were trying to discredit me personally and to talk about squabbles between scientists in a sense it was a confirmation that they knew they had lost the actual scientific argument at that hearing. ” “It’s a difficult period right now for anybody who cares about science. We’re about to see an unprecedented event next month here in DC where scientists are going to be marching in the streets … .I think it’s a recognition from the typically quite reticent and conservative scientific community that they have to speak out now, that there’s a threat to science and to scientists unlike anything that we have, in my view, faced in the past. ” None of this weapons grade bilge went even slightly challenged by Rutherford, who flagged his own concerns about the Trump administration’s approach to climate science at the beginning of the interview by describing it as “troubling” and “disturbing”. [Says who? Why? ?] Let’s not forget, also, that there were three other scientists with at least as much knowledge and experience as Mann who were speaking at the same Congressional hearings, only from a sceptical point of view. Might it not have been useful for the purposes of balance to get at least one of them — John Christy, Judith Curry or Roger Pielke Jr — for the BBC to hear from one of them too? In theory, this is one of the BBC’s statutory obligations. According to the terms of its revised Charter 2006: ‘The BBC must do all it can to ensure that controversial subjects are treated with due accuracy and impartiality in all relevant output.’ As Christopher Booker detailed in his thorough report for the Global Warming Policy Foundation The BBC And Climate Change: A Triple Betrayal — the BBC has consistently failed to do this in its woefully treatment of environmental issues. Indeed, the BBC hasn’t just failed to remain impartial on the issue it has actively proselytised on behalf of the climate change scare lobby across a range of programmes from the hysterical reportage of its Roger Harrabin on BBC Radio 4 news, to the doddery laments of its house Malthusian Sir David Attenborough, to the of Chris Packham, to the rampant global warming alarmism promoted by its entire celebrity science team from Adam Rutherford (see above) to pouty boy physicist Brian Cox and its lefty comics Robin Ince and Daragh O’Briaiaiaan. All this would be absolutely totally fine if the BBC were a private subscription channel whose sole purpose was to reinforce the prejudices of the liberal elite. But it’s not. It’s supposed to be for everyone. Even deplorables like you and me. In this regard it fails. And always will fail. Scrap the licence fee, I say. That’ll teach it. | 1 |
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