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TEL AVIV — Following the U. S. launch of Tomahawk missiles targeting a strategic Syrian airfield on Thursday night, Iran must be monitored carefully for the possibility that it may use its proxies for retaliation, especially against Israel’s northern border. [Following eight years of inaction on Syria under the Obama administration, President Donald Trump demonstrated last night that he is willing to hold Syrian President Bashar to account, this time by striking the Shayrat Airfield near the Syrian city of Homs that was believed to have been utilized to carry out a chemical weapons attack that killed scores of civilians. The U. S. airstrikes signaled to Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers that Trump will act in Syria and the administration strongly supports the removal of the Syrian president — an important strategic ally of Moscow and Tehran. The U. S. military move demonstrates to Israel and the Sunni Arab bloc cast aside by Obama’s nuclear deal with the mullahs that American leadership has officially returned to the region. Assad himself is unlikely to retaliate since the last thing he wants amidst a insurgency attempting to topple his regime is to go to war with Trump or expand the battlefield to U. S. ally Israel. Trump’s bold authority in Syria directly threatens Russian interests since it was Moscow that largely filled the security vacuum in that country when Obama repeatedly failed to take any meaningful action against Assad. However, Russia’s direct response will most likely be confined to vocal protestation, such as Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling the U. S. strikes “aggression against a sovereign nation” carried out on a “ pretext. ” President Vladimir Putin cannot risk a military confrontation with Trump and Russia is already signaling willingness to abandon Assad to come to a larger regional accommodation. Still, there is the possibility that Russia may quietly support action by others, especially agents of a very nervous Iranian regime that has been preparing proxies for years who can heat up Israel’s northern border and beyond. Both Moscow and Tehran have reason for wanting Trump to pay a price for acting in their Syrian playground. The question is whether they will dare to respond, even tacitly. And that brings us to Iran. Trump’s embrace of America’s traditional Sunni Arab partners at the expense of Tehran and his strong positions against the disastrous international nuclear agreement have been deeply concerning to the expansionist, Twelvers in Tehran. And while the removal of Assad from power would be a blow to Russia, depending on the ultimate outcome such a move could be disastrous for Iran’s position in Syria. Iranian Revolutionary Guard units have been fighting the insurgents alongside the Syrian military and the Hezbollah militia. Syria represents a key pawn in Iran’s geopolitical chessboard that stretches across the vital region. In recent weeks, there have been strong indications that Iran has been seeking to arm its Hezbollah proxy with even more advanced weapons that can target the Jewish state. Last month, Israel took the unusual step of striking a Hezbollah weapons convoy near the city of Palmyra that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was transporting advanced weapons to the militia. Israeli leaders and Hezbollah terrorists have in recent weeks ratcheted up war rhetoric, with Israeli officials warning that Hezbollah, which can only act at the direction of Iran, has been preparing for conflict. Last Sunday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot warned the IDF would not hold back from striking Lebanese state institutions in a future conflict with Hezbollah. “The recent declarations from Beirut make it clear that in a future war, the targets will be clear: Lebanon and the organizations operating under its authority and its approval,” Eisenkot stated. Hezbollah is not Iran’s only option. Breitbart Jerusalem has been reporting on the formation of a “Golan Liberation Brigade,” which was announced last month by the of the Iraqi Harakat al Nujaba Shiite militia and is reportedly being trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The militia is another Iranian front that could be used to target Israel’s Golan Heights at the behest of Tehran. The next few days and weeks will be critical in determining Iran and Russia’s resolve in the face of an awakened America that has returned from its slumber. Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. | 1 |
Hillary Clinton publicly conceded the election to Donald J. Trump on Wednesday, acknowledging the pain of the defeat in remarks in New York while calling on her supporters to accept that he would be president and give him a chance to lead with an open mind. President Obama, speaking in Washington, also said that he would work to ensure a smooth transition to a Trump administration and that, despite their differences, we are “all rooting for his success. ” Speaker Paul D. Ryan proclaimed that Mr. Trump had achieved a political feat and earned a mandate by reaching new voters. Mr. Ryan said that he was certain that they would work well together on a conservative policy agenda. Global markets swooned overnight but stabilized as investors considered the possibility that Mr. Trump’s mix of policies might bolster the economy.. News of Mr. Trump’s election was met with a mix of shock, uncertainty and some congratulations around the world. • Mrs. Clinton thanked her supporters in her concession speech, and said that she felt pride in the campaign she ran. • Of Mr. Trump, Mrs. Clinton said she hoped that he would be “a successful president for all Americans,” and that she respected and cherished the peaceful transition of power. She told her supporters that they must accept that Mr. Trump would be president. “We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead,” she said. But she also acknowledged that the country was more divided than she had realized. • After a long campaign, Mrs. Clinton acknowledged that the loss cuts deep. “This is painful, and it will be for a long time,” she said. She also expressed regret that she did not shatter the glass ceiling, but said, “Someday, someone will, and hopefully sooner than we might think right now. ” • Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, the Democratic nominee, who spoke before Mrs. Clinton, said, “I’m proud of Hillary Clinton because she has been and is a great history maker,” pointing to her long career of public service. He saluted her for winning the popular vote in the election, drawing cheers. • Mr. Obama said that he and former President George W. Bush had major differences eight years ago, but they managed a successful transition. He said he expected to do the same with Mr. Trump, while acknowledging that they have their differences, and he invited the to come to the White House on Thursday. • Mr. Obama reminded the country that we “are all on the same team” and characterized politics as an “intramural scrimmage. ” He said that he was heartened by the conversation that he had with Mr. Trump at 3:30 a. m. and that he hoped Mr. Trump maintains that spirit. • Mr. Obama said that he was proud of Mrs. Clinton, who gave her concession speech on Wednesday just before Mr. Obama spoke, and called her a historic figure. • Mr. Obama called on Americans to move forward with the presumption of good faith in fellow citizens. He said that those who were disappointed should not give up on their dreams. “Sometimes you lose an argument, sometimes you lose an election,” he said, with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. by his side. “But the path this country has taken has never been a straight line. We zig and zag. ” The Vermont senator, who ran against Mrs. Clinton in the Democratic primary campaign, was silent on the election for most of Wednesday, but in the early evening he offered something of an olive branch to Mr. Trump and acknowledged the middle class anger that he tapped into. “To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him,” Mr. Sanders said in a statement. But Mr. Sanders maintained that he is opposed to much of what Mr. Trump has stood for and that he will fight any intolerance that he might try to promote as president. “To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and policies, we will vigorously oppose him,” Mr. Sanders said. Mr. Ryan congratulated Mr. Trump for accomplishing an “enormous political feat” on Wednesday and said that he was looking forward to working with him to carry forward a Republican policy agenda and prioritize the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. “This health care law is not a popular law,” Mr. Ryan said, adding that Congress had already shown it can get a repeal bill to the president’s desk. “This health care law is collapsing of its own weight. ” That clearly indicated that Republican leaders would use budget rules, called reconciliation, to gut the Affordable Care Act with only a majority of Congress, as they did in January. Senate Democrats would be powerless to filibuster the legislation under the parliamentary rules. Mr. Ryan, who has had differences with Mr. Trump, said that they had spoken twice in the last 18 hours and that he was “very excited” about their ability to work together. “He just earned a mandate,” Mr. Ryan said. The last two Republican presidents gave the next Republican president congratulatory telephone calls on Wednesday. “Laura and I wish the Melania and the entire Trump family all our very best as they take on an awesome responsibility and begin an exciting new chapter in their lives,” former President George W. Bush said in a statement. Mr. Bush had been critical of Mr. Trump when he was campaigning on behalf of his brother Jeb this year but said that he was rooting for Mr. Trump now. “We pray for the success of our country and the success of our new president,” Mr. Bush said. Mr. Bush’s father, George Bush, the 41st president, also spoke to Mr. Trump on Wednesday. A spokesman said that they talked for about five minutes and that the call was friendly and gracious. “Good luck on your new challenge,” Mr. Bush said. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor vanquished by Mr. Trump during the Republican primary process, sent Mr. Trump a congratulatory message on Twitter. Dozens of Republican elected officials resisted Mr. Trump’s rise to power, including some who revoked their endorsements in the heat of the general election. Senators like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona declared Mr. Trump unfit to lead, while ideological conservatives like Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Mike Lee of Utah warned of Mr. Trump’s indifference to the limits of government power. These Trump critics on the right now face a wrenching political choice: to defer to him as the country’s new leader, or to take up a role against a Republican as he assembles his administration. Since Republicans kept control of the House and Senate, dissenters within Mr. Trump’s party may hold outsize influence over exactly how he can govern as president. Mr. Graham took a reserved approach in his statement on the election on Tuesday, saying that he would aim to help Mr. Trump govern — within the bounds of a fairly conventional Republican agenda. | 1 |
$19 Photo of the Week: President Who Let Citigroup Staff His Cabinet Calls for Solidarity From Voters Posted on Oct 29, 2016 President Obama waves to supporters in Orlando, Fla., Friday. (Phelan M. Ebenhack / AP)
Every week, Truthdig’s editors seek to present an image that singularly renders the world’s trouble, triumph or toil.
“You have a chance to shape history,” President Obama told a crowd of 9,000 people at a campaign stop for Hillary Clinton in Orlando, Fla. on Friday. “Hillary needs your help. I need your help. America needs your help. Let’s get to work.”
Two weeks earlier WikiLeaks revealed how the Clinton/Obama-led corporate wing of the Democratic Party works. An email sent in Oct. 2008 and hacked from the personal account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta showed Citigroup executive Michael Froman submitting names for dozens of positions in then-candidate Obama’s anticipated presidential cabinet.
“The cabinet list ended up being almost entirely on the money,” wrote David Dayen of the leaked message. “It correctly identified Eric Holder for the Justice Department, Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Robert Gates for Defense, Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff, Peter Orszag for the Office of Management and Budget, Arne Duncan for Education, Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs, Kathleen Sebelius for Health and Human Services, Melody Barnes for the Domestic Policy Council, and more.”
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“For the Treasury, three possibilities were on the list: Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Timothy Geithner.”
Geithner ended up as Obama’s Treasury Secretary, while Summers was a key author of the response to the 2008 recession as Director of Obama’s National Economic Council. And from these men, Froman’s Citigroup received the largest bailout the federal government gave during the financial crisis.
“Many already suspected that Froman, a longtime Obama consigliere, did the key economic policy hiring while part of the transition team,” Dayen explained. “We didn’t know he had so much influence that he could lock in key staff that early, without fanfare, while everyone was busy trying to get Obama elected. The WikiLeaks emails show even earlier planning; by September the transition was getting pre-clearance to assist nominees with financial disclosure forms.”
Dayen grants that Americans “want an incoming administration to be well-prepared and ready to go when power is transferred. For Obama, coming into office while the economy was melting down, this was particularly true. But the revelations also reinforce the need for critical scrutiny of Hillary Clinton [italics added], and for advocacy to ensure the next transition doesn’t go like the last, at least with respect to the same old Democrats scooping up all the positions of power well in advance.”
Many pundits who support Hillary Clinton suggest that voters should focus exclusively on defeating Donald Trump. “[T]here is a logic to that idea,” Dayen wrote. “Trump would legitimately be a terrifying leader of the free world. But there are consequences to the kind of home-team political atmosphere that rejects any critical thought about your own side. If the 2008 Podesta emails are any indication, the next four years of public policy are being hashed out right now, behind closed doors. And if liberals want to have an impact on that process, waiting until after the election will be too late.”
“Who gets these cabinet-level and West Wing advisory jobs matters as much as policy papers or legislative initiatives. It will inform executive branch priorities and responses to crises. It will dictate the level of enforcement of existing laws. It will establish the point of view of an administration and the advice Hillary Clinton will receive. Its importance cannot be stressed enough, and the process has already begun.”
Citing former Obama budget director Peter Orszag’s suggestion this week that progressive Democrats, led by Elizabeth Warren, should be given the power to appoint their people to certain positions in exchange for certain concessions to the Wall Street-aligned wing, Dayen suggests that progressives have a greater chance to shape policy in 2016 than they did at the start of the Obama administration. And they should fight for it: “The demand to only hold one thing in your head at a time—that Trump must be stopped—would squander this opportunity.”
To repeat what Obama told voters Friday: “You have a chance to shape history.” TAGS: | 0 |
Construction Spending Is A Lagging Indicator and It's Sinking By Lee Adler. The Commerce Department reported this week that total construction spending fell in September by 0.4% on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis. Economists had guessed that the figure would rise by 0.5%. This was the largest decline in the seasonally finagled headline number in 9 months. | 0 |
Show biz: Business and breakthroughs Exclusive: Vanessa Frank learns what makes or breaks members of film industry Published: 29 mins ago About | | Archive Vanessa Frank has been involved in the film industry first as an actress and then in production, distribution and international sales. At 31, she directed her first film, “Let The Lion Roar,” starring Oscar nominated Eric Roberts, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Sorbo and Grammy nominated singers Jaci Velasquez, Tim Rushlow and Jamie Grace. The film was an indie distribution success, with sales in 52 nations. Print
About Film Talk
Film Talk podcasts takes you inside the minds of some of the brightest filmmakers in the world. Learn from award-winning filmmakers as they teach the secrets to their success – the daily habits, routines and practices they employ to be the best in their industry. Guests include Oscar winners, Emmy Award winners, and Golden Globe winners. You can access the archive of all Film Talk podcasts here .
Making independent films happen with Atit Shah
Atit Shah is a film producer with five films releasing within the next 12 months, including “Jekyll Island” starring Oscar-nominated Minnie Driver, Emmy Award-winner John Leguizamo, AnnaSophia Robb and Ed Westwick, and “Money” starring Kellan Lutz.
He is the CEO of Create Entertainment, and is represented by UTA.
Breaking through as a female director with Melanie Aitkenhead
Melanie Aitkenhead is the director of the reboot of “Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?”, Oscar-nominated James Franco’s retelling of the 1996 classic film of the same name. The film stars Tori Spelling, with a cameo by Franco and premiered on Lifetime.
She’s also the director of the film adaption of James Franco’s popular novel “Actors Anonymous,” which explores the lives of young actors in Hollywood and stars Franco alongside Oscar-nominated Eric Roberts, Keegan Allen and Scott Haze.
Building the franchise with Scott Mitchell Rosenberg
Scott Mitchell Rosenberg is the CEO of Platinum Studios, one of the world’s largest independent libraries of comic book characters. Scott has played an integral role in creating one of the largest bibles in comic book history: the Platinum Studios “Macroverse,” which includes anchor titles such as “Cowboys & Aliens.”
A constant innovator, Scott established Platinum in 1997, following a successful career as the founder of Malibu Comics, which sold to Marvel in 1994. At Malibu, Scott led many successful comic spinoffs into toys, television and feature films, including the billion-dollar film and television mega-hit, “Men in Black.”
The art of entrepreneurship with Kent Speakman
Kent Speakman is a producer and entrepreneur at the intersection of entertainment and technology. Examiner.com has called him “one of the most influential entrepreneurs in the entertainment industry.” He has won the iMedia Entertainment Marketing award for “Best Digital Campaign” and “Best Mobile Entertainment Startup,” and he was awarded Evan Carmichael’s “Top 100 Entrepreneurs to Follow” in 2013 preceded by the “iMedia Top Ten Digital Marketers” in 2009.
Kent founded KONNECT – a digital, mobile and experiential agency that works with startups, brands and entertainment properties – before he co-founded FAMEUS, a new social network that connects members of the entertainment industry in innovative ways with a unique technology and that was listed on the Huffington Post’s “Top 10 Startups in LA” in 2015.
Kent has an international network of professionals and influencers, having orchestrated a variety of film and technology projects in Canada, the US, the United Kingdom, Asia and India. He has produced hundreds of events across Canada and the US, whilst working with clientele ranging from A-list celebrities, to tech mobile startups.
The Legal Aspect of Filmmaking with Dan Satorius
Dan Satorius is a world-class entertainment lawyer, with a practice that focuses principally on transactions, intellectual property, business structuring and financing. Furthermore, he is a nationally regarded attorney on clearance issues including Fair Use. His clients include Academy Award, Emmy Award, Independent Spirit Award, and Peabody Award-winning independent producers, writers and broadcasters in the film and television industry.
After graduating from film school and law school, Dan produced award-winning documentaries and short dramatic films. His graduate thesis film was selected as a finalist for a student Academy Award. In addition to practicing entertainment law for more than 25 years, Dan has been an adjunct professor at William Mitchell School of Law where he taught Entertainment Law.
Dan is an active member of the American Bar Association’s Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries, Co-Vice Chair of the Film and Television Division, and a member of the Governing Committee. | 0 |
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With protests erupting across the country this week and emotions running high, American companies are trying to make sense of how to react to a Trump presidential election win. But one major company has clearly made up its mind and just came down squarely in the anti-Trump camp in a big way: Donald Trump will be added to Disney’s Hall Of Presidents, but his animatronic figure will be able to feel pain.
Wow. Disney just showed that it does not pull punches when it comes to what the company believes in. Check out the press release they put out this morning:
“Disney prides itself on promoting inclusivity, empathy, and non-violence, which are values that Mr. Trump’s presidency threatens. That’s why when we eventually add him to our Hall Of Presidents exhibit in Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, his mechanical replica will bear the capacity to suffer horribly, and without limit. Being a company that caters to diverse families, we felt it was a moral responsibility to have Mr. Trump’s robotic counterpart be receptive to extreme thirst and burning sensations, while also being wired with the knowledge that it can never receive the sweet mercy of death. This is the best way for us to uphold the Hall Of Presidents tradition while also voicing our vigorous objection to the Trump administration.”
Given that Disney’s software makes the animatronic believe its bones are shattering each time it moves or speaks, this company clearly wants people to know it’s not onboard the Trump train.
Park visitors who feel similarly opposed to Trump’s presidency can rest assured that his Hall Of Presidents double will be designed to experience anxiety, so it’s always aware that more pain is coming. Although the machine will understand what joy is, its programming will never allow it to feel that.
And Disney’s not letting Trump off the hook there. The replicas for Abraham Lincoln and George Washington will even be reprogrammed to slap, scratch, and pry the fingernails off the animatronic Trump, which will respond to such painful stimuli by gasping, crying, screaming, vomiting, or a mix of all of these.
If that doesn’t send a powerful statement about where Disney stands politically, we don’t know what does.
It’s safe to say we won’t see the Trumps vacationing there anytime soon. Don’t share Disney’s disdain for a Trump presidency? You may be better off heading to Space Mountain instead of the Hall Of Presidents, because Disney has officially drawn the battle line right there. | 0 |
Constipation can be incredibly painful; however, it can also take a big toll on the body. Fortunately, there is a 100% natural solution to constipation.
Big pharmaceutical companies don’t want you to know that some of the artificial medication for constipation significantly reduce the effectiveness of the intestines. As a result, some people report that without taking certain medication, they can’t visit the toilet.
The good news is, you can solve constipation quite easily. But let’s delve deeply into what constipation can do to the body first.
Bad Breath Firstly, constipation can cause bad breath (halitosis). Unfortunately, people who suffer from bad breath don’t always realize that they have a problem. People are unlikely to point out to a person that their breath stinks; therefore, they might miss out on social events and job opportunities due to bad breath. Constipation can cause bad breath because there is a build up of toxic waste and the gasses rise up through the body.
Rectal Issues & Infection As stools spend more time in the bowels, water is reabsorbed. As a result, stools get hard and dry. Some constipation suffers report that passing bowels becomes very painful and can take many hours. As a result, the rectum is stretched beyond its limits. This can lead to rectal prolapse, which is a rectum which fails to close. Rectal prolapse sufferers usually wear diapers because stool leaks out of them. Moreover, they are more prone to infection.
Increase Toxins The skin is the largest organ in the body and is a reflection of a person’s general health. Constipation typically increases the buildup of toxins in the body. As a result, the skin has to work harder to eliminate toxins. This can cause acne, skin discoloration etc. Therefore, if your skin is bad, don’t buy an expensive beauty product. Take a look at your diet, and whether you suffer from constipation. The skin is a reflection of inner health.
Colon Cancer Constipation can also cause colon cancer. The colon is designed to hold a few pounds of stools. Think of it like a plastic bag. Overload with heavy items and it rips. It’s primary function is to transport stool. However, when an individual is constipated, it has to store stool. This puts a strain on the inner membrane and can cause ruptures and internal infections. Invasive surgery may be required in such instances.
Loss Of Healthy Bacteria The intestines contain flora (healthy bacteria) which help with immunity and vitamin production. Constipation reduces the concentration of flora, thereby leaving sufferers more susceptible to infection and illness. Moreover, they help to keep stools soft. Therefore, constipation sufferers can go through a downward spiral whereby their condition worsens over time.
As people age, they are more likely to get constipated. Moreover, it is more likely to have a serious effect on their health. This is because the body isn’t as resilient.
Notably, constipation can have a big effect on quality of life; especially if it comes with one of the serious conditions above. Fortunately, there is a natural cure. Sufferers no longer have to be on a path to deteriorating health.
What You Can Do A majority of constipation medication are filled with chemicals which can harm the body, and make constipation worse. Even a product like Metamucil contains ingredients no person should consume, like aspartame.
Change your diet! This is one of the best ways to end constipation. Eat plenty of healthy fruits and vegetables and cut out processed foods as much as you can. Eating rancid fats (cooked meat) also doesn’t help with constipation and your digestive system so limiting that as much as possible is important.
There are also some great products on the market that can assist you in ending constipation while you spend time changing your diet over time. Wholey Shit is a great example as it contains only a few natural, high quality ingredients -and it works great! You can get a free sample of Wholey Shit here.
These types of remedies are a great way to get started and relief naturally and quickly while you further discover how to adjust your diet and lifestyle to reflect better digestion, eating habits and so forth.
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HILLARY CAMPAIGN WORKER BUSTED DEFACING TRUMP SIGNS by IWB · October 27, 2016
The Conservative Tribune reports, We are constantly told by the mainstream media that Election Day is really just a mere formality by now as the race has pretty much already been decided in favor of Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
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Man coolly gets to ATM machine after flashing Samsung Galaxy Note 7 to queue Posted on
The Delhi Police have arrested an 18-year old boy, Samarth Sanghi, on charges of creating panic and endangering public safety. The arrest occurred after Sanghi inadvertently ended up dispersing a long ATM queue by flashing his Samsung Galaxy Note 7. ( Image via intoday.in )
Sam Sang, as he is colloquially known, was petrified during his police interrogation. “I have no idea what’s going on. I was waiting at this long ATM queue at Khan Market and out of sheer boredom, I decided to take a selfie with my Samsung Galaxy Note 7. I signaled to those gathered to pose for my selfie, but the moment they saw the device, they let out loud shrieks and ran helter skelter and a mini-stampede ensued. Some even screamed ‘ Bhaago!’ . (Escape!) I was stunned to see the queue vanish. I coolly walked into the unguarded ATM and drew my 2000 bucks for the day. The next thing I know, the Delhi police are at my doorstep and here I am, all locked up,” a teary-eyed Sanghi sobbed to The UnReal Times .
Sang, however, was soon visited by Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, who carried his own Note 7 to the police station. “ Mere paas sirf aloo ki factory nahin, Note 7 ki factory bhi hai! Mujhe bhi giraftaar kar lo bhaiya !” ( Not only do I have a potato factory, but also a Note 7 factory. Arrest me too! ) the Nehru-Gandhi scion thundered squealed, rolling his sleeves up. “If we empower the villages, we can wipe out Note 7s in 7 minutes,” Gandhi added.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tore into PM Modi and Lt. Gov Najeeb Jung over Sang’s arrest. “As it is, the psychopath Modi has full control over the Delhi thullas . The whole world knows about the LG vs Samsung rivalry, so it’s no surprise that our LG has taken special interest in this case and asked the thullas to arrest Sang. Modi ji , if you have the guts, arrest me! Yeh Kejriwal aapse darne wala nahi !” (this Kejriwal isn’t scared of you!) the AAP chief bellowed.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley voiced his concerns over the incident in an exclusive interview to NDTV’s Barkha Dutt. “Barkha, I appeal to the people of the country to avoid the inadvertent sabotaging of what could be a historic, pervasively successful scheme. Coming to the specifics of this case, I would urge all my fellow citizens of this great nation, in possession of Note 7s to switch them off before arriving at the ATM queues, taking into consideration, the larger public interest. Failure to do so will have me introduce a new Note7 Cess and impose it among the device owners,” the Finance Minister winked.
The final word, however, went to the PM Modi himself. “NOTE stands for Nefarious, Outrageously Threatening Explosive,” the PM tweeted. Tweet About Ashwin Kumar
1 of the proud columnists of URT, former co-editor of URT Tamil, amateur musician, Real Harris Jayaraj devotee, UnReal T. Rajendar fanatic, passionate about stopping female foeticide. | 0 |
The Cruelty of US Economic Sanctions November 8, 2016
Propaganda pervades the mainstream U.S. media as much today about Russia and Syria as it did years ago about Iraq, justifying the harm inflicted on civilians whether via bombs or economic strangulation, says David Smith-Ferri.
By David Smith-Ferri
Here in Russia, where I have been traveling as part of a small delegation organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence, the people with whom we have spoken have no illusions about war and its effects.
“We remember what war is like,” Nikolay, a scientist and businessman, told us. “We have a genetic memory,” referring to close relatives – parents, grandparents – who passed on their experience of the Great Purge and/or the siege of Leningrad, when nearly a million Russians died of starvation and disease because Germany cut off all imports and exports. Some of the estimated 12 million Russians who took part in Immortal Regiment parades across the country over three days. (RT photo)
“Three of my grandmother’s brothers and four of my grandfather’s brothers died in the war. My mother was born in 1937. She was lucky to survive the war. She lived in a village that the Nazis overran on their approach to Moscow. They bombed and burned it. Half the village burned. She just happened to be in the other half of the town when they set it on fire. Many of her friends died.”
On our last evening in St. Petersburg, we were glad to have dinner at a Georgian restaurant with a young Russian woman whom we had met the day before at a friend’s home. Alina is bright and open and unselfish. In rapid-fire English with a slight British accent, she spoke passionately about the harsh effects of Russia’s worsening economy and its causes.
“The drop in global oil prices and the sanctions against Russia are hurting our economy. And it’s causing a lot of pain for people. Especially for elderly people who are on a fixed income. And it’s worse outside of the cities, where salaries are really low, but the cost of living isn’t so different (from the cities). You’ve only been in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but it’s really bad in the provinces. If you went there, you wouldn’t believe it.”
This confirmed what we’d heard when we met days earlier with Russian social workers. Alina told us that “food in Russia is cheap for foreigners and expensive for Russians, and it’s getting worse. I spend almost half my salary on food. And transportation and housing are really expensive, too.”
The Iraq Precedent
I’m reminded of travel to Iraq which I undertook in the mid-1990s when small groups of U.S. and British people went to Iraq in defiance of federal law and in opposition to a brutal international economic embargo. We were portrayed as fools playing into the hands of the “enemy.” A Tomahawk cruise missile launches from the USS Shiloh against air defense targets in Iraq on Sept. 3, 1996, as part of Operation Desert Strike, a limited U.S. military engagement against Iraqi government forces similar to what is now contemplated for Syria. (DOD photo)
Mainstream media convinced people that Saddam Hussein was not only a threat to vital U.S. interests in the region but also a person with imperial ambitions who would stop at nothing to accomplish them. Comparisons were made with Hitler, as if the means at his disposal were comparable, despite the fact that the Iraqi army, including its vaunted Republican Guard, had collapsed in a matter of weeks when the U.S. invaded in 1991, and the economic embargo had strangled Iraq’s economy and destroyed its ability even to care for itself, let alone pursue regional domination.
All of this, of course, was widely understood by the U.S. media, but it didn’t stop an energetic and unyielding portrayal of Saddam Hussein as a credible threat to the world. And so U.S. people, who surely could have handled a more complex analysis, came to accept and believe this. More, they came to see the economic warfare as a point of honor, U.S. foreign policy once again working for the benefit of the world (even if the world wasn’t grateful!), including Iraqi people who clearly needed help deposing a cruel and dangerous dictator.
This failure of the U.S. media to break its addiction to governmental propaganda provided necessary cover for U.S. foreign policies that caused hundreds of thousands of children under the age of five to die from preventable diseases, primarily related to water-borne infections. They died in large numbers day after day, month after month, year after year, unnecessarily, while their desperate parents held them, while exhausted doctors could do nothing to save them because they couldn’t get the once easily-obtainable antibiotics and rehydration fluids.
Despite the magnitude of the carnage in Iraq, despite the heart-rending scenes playing out daily in hospitals and homes, despite easy access to abundant and reliable information and images, the mainstream media (with notable exceptions in later years) averted its eyes and stuck to its narrow obsessive-compulsions. And the children died.
As early as 1996, UNICEF published a report stating that 4,500 Iraqi children under the age of five were dying each month, victims of a brutal, lethal economic warfare.
Start toward Russian ‘Regime Change’
The U.S. levied sanctions against Russia in 2014, stating they were in response to Russian military actions in Ukraine, and today the White House openly identifies increased sanctions as a possible response to Russian support of the Syrian government. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry listens to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a meeting room at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, at the outset of a bilateral meeting on July 14, 2016. [State Department Photo] Just as the American media ignored the effects of the sanctions regime on ordinary Iraqis, so today it fails to consider the plight of ordinary Russians when analyzing the success of sanctions.
An Oct. 26 article in the Chicago Tribune noted that sanctions are implicated in a 3.7 percent contraction of the Russian economy in 2015, with a further contraction expected over 2016, but the author failed to consider possible hardships on Russian people, as if economies somehow only effect government revenues and not people’s lives.
While the current sanctions regime may strike people in the U.S. as a justifiable, tempered, nonviolent policy, it begs many questions, not least of all: who gives the U.S. the right to do this?
Of course, this is a forbidden question. The U.S. right to levy sanctions against Russia and to pressure European nations to participate is as sacrosanct as its right to build military bases in countries along Russia’s border.
Does anyone in the media question that? It is as sacrosanct, apparently, as the U.S. right to engage in military action in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and anywhere else it chooses. So, if Russia deserves to be sanctioned for its actions in Europe, does the U.S. not also deserve to be sanctioned for building these bases and participating in NATO military exercises in countries bordering Russia?
Why are Russian military actions in Syria different than U.S. military actions in Syria and elsewhere in the region? [Except that Russia was invited to assist the sovereign Syrian government, while the United States was not.]
Who was there to sanction the U.S. for its role in the horrible bombing of the MSF hospital in Afghanistan and the bombing of hospitals in Yemen? Who sanctions the U.S. when its drones bomb a wedding party or a civilian convoy, or when targeted assassinations kill innocent civilians, as they often do? Or when U.S. airstrikes kill civilians, as happened just days ago in Kunduz, Afghanistan?
U.S. people can learn something important from our Russian counterparts – that is, ordinary Russians who are at least as opposed to war as we are. They seem to understand the double standard operating in mass media and the danger it poses.
But until we see it and start asking difficult questions, we are at risk of being dupes, not of Vladimir Putin but of our own government. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Influential groups representing hospitals and nurses came out on Wednesday against a Republican bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, joining doctors and the retirees’ lobby to warn that it would lead to a rise in the uninsured. In a letter to lawmakers, major hospital groups wrote, “As organizations that take care of every individual who walks through our doors, both due to our mission and our obligations under federal law, we are committed to ensuring health care coverage is available and affordable for all. ” The groups, including the American Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Catholic Health Association of the United States and the Children’s Hospital Association, said they could not support the bill “as currently written. ” The hospitals and the American Nurses Association joined the American Medical Association and AARP, which rejected the bill on Tuesday. House Republicans have been left scrambling to marshal support from businesses and other interests that stand to benefit from lower taxes if the bill passes. Insurers are on the fence, and other powerful forces like pharmaceutical companies remain largely on the sidelines. Squeezed between wary health care providers and angry conservatives who believe that the bill leaves too much of the Affordable Care Act in place, the Republican leadership and President Trump appear to be facing an uphill climb. But the White House appears increasingly confident about the prospects for a health care overhaul to pass in the House. In a meeting with conservative leaders in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he anticipated the most trouble in the Senate, where moderate and conservative lawmakers are opposing the plan for different reasons. He said he was prepared to pressure holdout senators by holding the kind of rallies he led during his presidential campaign. The House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, said Republicans were “going through the inevitable growing pains of being an opposition party to becoming a governing party. ” “It’s a new system for people,” he added. “But it’s all the more reason why we have to do what we said we would do and deliver for the American people, and govern and use our principles. ” The array of groups taking strong positions against the bill is evidence that its potential consequences extend far beyond health insurance coverage, to much of the nation’s economy. The opposition is also a powerful reminder of how many past efforts to overhaul the American health care system failed because of resistance by major interest groups. Winning the support of the health care and insurance industries allowed the Obama administration in 2010 to push through the most significant health care legislation since President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. Within a few months after President Barack Obama took office in 2009, his administration had lined up support from health care providers, insurers, consumers and pharmaceutical makers by offering a grand bargain: The health bill would include a requirement that most Americans have health insurance, providing millions of new customers through the law’s often substantial premium subsidies and its option for states to expand Medicaid. In exchange, hospitals would have to accept spending cuts and the health care industry would have to accept new taxes to pay for the legislation. The Obama White House dedicated enormous effort to win pledges of support before Democrats even put out a bill — an effort not replicated by the Trump White House or Republican leaders in Congress. But the Affordable Care Act also created an array of taxes that the Republicans now hope to wipe away, helping them win the support of groups like the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Tax Reform, led by the activist Grover Norquist. The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation issued estimates this week showing how much revenue the government could lose starting in 2018 under the Republican bill, which the party has called the American Health Care Act, as a result of repealing taxes on drug makers (nearly $25 billion over 10 years) insurers (nearly $145 billion) makers of medical devices (nearly $20 billion) and households (more than $270 billion from taxes on earned income and investment income). “The American Health Care Act repeals the medical device tax, which will result in greater investments in medical cures, lower health care costs and more manufacturing jobs in communities across the United States,” trumpeted the Medical Device Manufacturers Association. The extent to which these groups mobilize on behalf of the Republican bill may help determine whether it succeeds. For now, the supporters of the House bill seem badly outgunned by opponents. On Wednesday, as two congressional committees took up the Republican bill, the American Nurses Association and a coalition of hospital groups came out against the proposal. The A. M. A. which has nearly 235, 000 members and calls itself the voice of the medical profession, sent a letter to leaders of the two committees on Tuesday saying it could not support the Republican bill “because of the expected decline in health insurance coverage and the potential harm it would cause to vulnerable patient populations. ” In particular, the group said it opposed a plan to replace the sliding, premium tax credits provided under the Affordable Care Act with fixed credits based on age. The current system, it said, “provides the greatest chance that those of the least means are able to purchase coverage. ” America’s Health Insurance Plans, the health insurance lobby, released its own lengthy statement on Wednesday. In a letter to the leaders of the House committees that drafted the bill, Marilyn B. Tavenner, the group’s chief executive, warned Republican leaders that their plans to change Medicaid financing, among other things, could harm coverage and care. While many insurers have lost money in the Affordable Care Act’s private insurance marketplaces, they have generally profited from the expansion of Medicaid, which would effectively be phased out under the Republican plan. “As a core principle, we believe that Medicaid funding should be adequate to meet the health care needs of beneficiaries,” Ms. Tavenner wrote. “Medicaid health plans are at the forefront of providing coverage for and access to behavioral health services and treatment for opioid use disorders, and insufficient funding could jeopardize the progress being made on these important public health fronts. ” A day earlier, AARP — the association of and older Americans that is another crucial supporter of the Affordable Care Act — declared its opposition to the bill and even started running an ad against it. In a letter to Congress, the group said the bill would increase health costs for people ages 50 to 64, could lead to cuts in Medicaid coverage of care and would allow insurers to charge older people five times as much as younger ones. The hardening resistance complicated the case for the Republicans as they moved their bill forward on Wednesday. “I respect those organizations and their views,” said Representative Larry Bucshon, an Indiana Republican and a heart surgeon who conceded that criticism of the bill from doctors and hospitals could make it more difficult to sell the measure to the public. “Their voice is an important voice in health care. ” But, he noted, those groups supported the health care law in 2010. “Hospitals have done quite well under the Affordable Care Act, but my constituents have not,” he said. “Their premiums are going up. Their deductibles are high. ” Across the rotunda, Republican senators were less enthusiastic. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, said she was not certain that a delay in the rollback of Medicaid coverage was “enough for me. ” Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, expressed alarm that the bill’s tax credits would not account for higher premium costs in insurance markets like hers, a largely rural state with little competition. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said he did not want states that took the Medicaid expansion to “get a benefit” that the states that rejected the program did not. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said she was unhappy that the bill removed money for Planned Parenthood. There was also a creeping concern about how quickly the bill was moving. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, essentially promised to move the bill to the Senate floor without the hearings and other processes that are normal for such a piece of legislation. He had promised when Republicans took the majority that they would honor normal Senate processes and traditions. “I think if that’s the approach they take,” Mr. Rubio said, “they won’t have the votes in the Senate. ” | 1 |
Karina Vetrano liked to post photos online of her night life, and spend the morning afterward unpacking her pain and passion as a writer. But running was her release. Ms. Vetrano, 30, had undergone surgery on her legs and defied doctors’ conjecture that she might never run again, a friend, Jackie Hartstein, said. “It just hurts me that this evil person took the one thing that was hers,” said Ms. Hartstein, 28, who lives in Bayside, Queens. “When she was the happiest, that’s where he took her. ” Ms. Hartstein, speaking outside a vigil on Wednesday night for Ms. Vetrano, was referring to an attacker, still at large, who the police say sexually assaulted and strangled Ms. Vetrano as she took one of her daily runs on Tuesday afternoon in the tall weeds of a nature preserve near her home in Howard Beach, Queens. The attack shocked residents of the neighborhood, which is one of New York City’s safest. The police said they had few leads but believed her killing was random. “You feel safe here, because this is a community where nothing ever happens,” said Annette Nocero, who was working at Beach Bum Tanning on Cross Bay Boulevard when she met Ms. Vetrano, a customer. She called Ms. Vetrano a sweetheart. “Not like a runaround girl, nothing like that,” Ms. Nocero said. “A good girl. ” Ms. Vetrano’s many followers on social media were treated to glamorous shots of her partying lifestyle. Many were shocked by the attack in broad daylight in a public park, an episode that seemed to hark back to a more lawless time in the city. And in a safer New York where crime has been declining for decades, even elected and police officials seemed shaken. At a news conference on Thursday at Police Headquarters in Lower Manhattan, officials announced updates on what Robert K. Boyce, the chief of detectives, described as “an extraordinary case of murder. ” The conference was held to announce more reassuring news — declines in citywide statistics on murder and shootings — but details of the killing made for a gloomy departure, as Chief Boyce spoke of a lack of suspects or substantial leads in the attack. The chief noted Ms. Vetrano was attacked “at a recreational center, in daylight hours, and that’s extraordinarily unusual,” especially because rape by strangers has decreased in the city over all. Police officials announced a $10, 000 reward. “We really need the public’s help with this one,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at the news conference. Chief Boyce said that detectives were still examining video from security cameras nearby, and that Ms. Vetrano’s phone would be tested for DNA matches. “We plan to chop down just about every weed in that area, until we are satisfied that we got all the evidence,” he said. On Thursday, investigators continued to hack through the tall reeds in the Gateway National Recreation Area on the edge of Jamaica Bay. The expanse lies south of the Belt Parkway, just to the west of Kennedy International Airport. Nearby, Councilman Eric A. Ulrich, who represents the area, described Ms. Vetrano as “the kind of daughter any parent would want. ” She was a graduate of St. John’s University and recently earned a master’s degree in speech pathology. She worked for years at Central, a lounge in Astoria, Queens, and also at Vetro Restaurant Wine Bar on Cross Bay Boulevard, where her friends gathered on Wednesday night. Ms. Vetrano had several thousand followers on Instagram and enjoyed posting shots of herself clubbing and traveling, whether poolside on Long Island or in France or Monaco. But her alluring lifestyle had a flip side. As a writer, Ms. Vetrano also chronicled the pain and poignancy of her life. She published on her website, Karinavee. com, a variety of introspective and writing she called “a collection of conversations, contradictions and poetic conflicts. ” “This is my life, through my eyes, and I invite you to take a peek into my world,” she wrote. “It’s chaotic, and unpredictable, but I do believe, that on some days, it’s quite beautiful, in all its poetic little tragedies. ” Ms. Vetrano often ran with her father, Philip Vetrano, 60, a retired firefighter, through the preserve, an expanse of undeveloped wetlands known locally as the Weeds or the Baja. As a shortcut to a path popular with joggers and cyclists, they would cut through the fire roads. But Mr. Vetrano had recently injured his back. He urged his daughter to avoid the grassy lanes kept for firefighting access, which are remote and frequented by transients, local residents said. “He got very worried, but she said, ‘Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll be right back,’” Mr. Ulrich said. Ms. Vetrano left her house near the edge of the preserve and jogged past the homes, exchanging chatty text messages with a friend. Near 79th Street, she ran into the refuge via one of the shortcuts. Some 40 yards in, she was attacked. After several calls to her phone went unanswered, Mr. Vetrano contacted a neighbor who is an assistant chief in the Police Department. Within several hours, officers found Ms. Vetrano’s body face down near a trail, with her clothing askew and her fists still clutching the reeds she was dragged into, Mr. Ulrich said. On Thursday, even hardened homeless people nearby expressed surprise that Ms. Vetrano would jog in the area. They described it as a remote place where screams could be drowned out by planes overhead. Mohamed Yasseen, who lives under the Cross Bay Bridge, spoke about an encampment where perhaps a dozen homeless men lived and often drank. He said he would not dare venture there, for fear of being attacked. “I don’t go back there,” he said. “I don’t know who is back there. ” | 1 |
A number of officials appear to suggest that the Obama administration may have actually wiretapped the Trump campaign, but that if they did it would have been justified by a court and part of an investigation by the Justice Department — not led by or ordered from the White House or the former president himself. [On Saturday, former President Obama’s spokesman Kevin Lewis denied that the former White House or the former President himself would have given such an order to wiretap Trump Tower — or any other type of surveillance in any case — but that such an order would have come from an “independent investigation led by the Department of Justice. ” “A cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,” Lewis said. “As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U. S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false. ” Lewis’ statement on the former president’s behalf came in response to the explosive charges from President Donald Trump, who tweeted on Saturday morning that the Obama team conducted surveillance on Trump Tower during the campaign and afterward. Valerie Jarrett, another close Obama aide, also tweeted the statement from former President Obama’s spokesman, Lewis. Jarrett is, according to the U. K. Daily Mail, now living in the Obamas’ multimillion dollar Washington, D. C. mansion. From there, the Daily Mail reports, the former president and Jarrett will be running a “nerve center for their plan to mastermind the insurgency against President Trump. ” Check out statement from Kevin Lewis, spokesperson to former President Obama. Enough said. pic. twitter. — Valerie Jarrett (@ValerieJarrett) March 4, 2017, Interestingly, however, a number of other former Obama administration officials do not deny that such a wiretap existed. They just deny that the White House or Obama himself would have approved it or ordered it, and say that the Department of Justice would have sought it in consultation with a foreign intelligence surveillance, or FISA, court. Obama’s former speechwriter Jon Favreau tweeted that he would warn reporters against saying there was no wiretap. I’d be careful about reporting that Obama said there was no wiretapping. Statement just said that neither he nor the WH ordered it. — Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) March 4, 2017, And Favreau endorsed a Twitter feed that laid out the reporting about the existence of the wiretaps, which cited reporting from Louise Mensch, formerly of Heat Street, and The Guardian that the Obama DOJ had sought a FISA court approved surveillance warrant for Trump Tower back in the summer of 2016 that was denied but received a narrower focused warrant in October. Ok you definitely need to read this thread https: . — Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) March 4, 2017, The wiretaps that Donald Trump ”just found out” about have been reported for weeks. I’m going to summarize here some of the discussion. — Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017, @LouiseMensch broke the news for @heatstreet that a FISA warrant was granted to explore Donald’s Russia Ties https: . pic. twitter. — Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017, The @guardian’s @julianborger reported on the FISA warrant again when the Steele dossier news broke in January https: . pic. twitter. — Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017, Republicans who have defended surveillance powers are now critical of it especially following Flynn’s resignation https: . pic. twitter. — Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017, And just this week Donald’s administration announced it had no intention of curtailing FISA https: . pic. twitter. — Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017, When @LouiseMensch reported on the FISA tap, she included details that implicated Putin’s own daughters, Carter Page and Paul Manafort. pic. twitter. — Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017, This week @SenCoonsOffice suggested the transcripts that the FBI has may prove collusion with Russia. https: . — Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017, Coons has been one of the staunchest critics of surveillance powers, having introduced bills to reign in FISA https: . — Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017, Back to Donald. Wiretapping him was not illegal, full stop. And it suggests the court had reason to permit it. https: . — Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017, Donald’s tweets this morning are a helpful reminder that he was under investigation, possibly for espionage. https: . — Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017, We can now conclude that our govt has significant intelligence on Donald and his associates. We need to see it. https: . — Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017, Donald can whine about being surveilled, but the reality is we citizens must now demand a special prosecutor and a select committee. — Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017, Interesting Donald’s tweets this morning may have in fact declassified the existence of the wiretap https: . — Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017, @NRO’s @AndrewCMcCarthy — a former terrorism considered the implications of using FISA to tap Trump. https: . pic. twitter. — Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) March 4, 2017, David Axelrod, another former Obama adviser, tweeted that such a wiretap would receive court approval “for a reason. ” If there were the wiretap @realDonaldTrump loudly alleges, such an extraordinary warrant would only have been OKed by a court for a reason. — David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) March 4, 2017, In other words, these officials are subtly confirming the accuracy of the reporting — that the Obama administration did in fact conduct surveillance on Trump Tower in October and and that the administration originally sought a warrant back in the summer of 2016 — but they say the president himself and the Obama White House was not involved in the decision. What’s more, Philip Rucker, the White House bureau chief at the Washington Post, says the same thing as these former Obama officials: That the Obama spokesman’s statement does not deny the existence of wiretaps on Trump Tower, only that Obama himself and the Obama White House did not approve them if they did exist. The Obama statement does not say there was no federal wire tapping of Trump Tower. It only says Obama and White House didn’t order it. — Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) March 4, 2017, The outrage from the media and the Democrats appears to be standard hatred of Trump. The president forced a set of facts into the news cycle that was already previously public but framed in a way that puts his political opponents and the establishment media on the defensive. This appears to be the calculus: either the wiretaps exist, as Trump suggests, and the president will use them to bludgeon the Obama administration and the media for impropriety and overreach or, there were no wiretaps, which suggests the previous administration had no reason to suspect Trump colluded with a foreign government. | 1 |
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If his campaign is any indication, Donald Trump’s presidency will usher in drastic, regressive changes to immigration, health care, and women’s rights in America. In response, Angela Bubash, a woman who appears to be slightly misinformed about just what is likely to happen, is rushing to stockpile enough deodorant to last her the next four years.
Well, it seems like some wires got crossed somewhere, but okay! Way to take action, Angela!
In the days since Trump’s victory, she’s cleaned out the deodorant inventories of multiple Omaha-area grocery stores, apparently under the impression that deodorant will soon become much more difficult to acquire than it is now. With the prospect of a menacing new world looming, Angela is taking some seemingly misguided precautions and buying up all the stick, gel, roll-on, and spray deodorant she can ahead of Trump’s inauguration ceremony on January 20.
For whatever reason, Angela is also taking to Facebook to encourage her peers to follow suit in stashing away lots of deodorant as soon as possible:
Wow. It’s unclear how she came to the well-meaning but mistaken conclusion that it was necessary to hoard hundreds of dollars’ worth of deodorant in preparation for Trump’s first term, but it’s hard not to be impressed by how much deodorant Angela has amassed in the past few days!
Even if she’s a little off base here, Angela is showing the importance of not being complacent in the face of tyranny, and we think that’s awesome. Stay strong, Angela. You’ll get through this. | 0 |
It didn’t take us long to think of a word to describe the 2016 election results. In fact, it took approximately 2 seconds.
EPIC.
Two weeks ago the media and their allies in the GOP establishment’s #NeverTrump movement had already made their decision. And they had their polls back up their proclamation.
Hillary Clinton was going to win and that was that.
According to the media and their ilk in Washington, there was nothing anyone could do to change the outcome. There was no amount of enthusiasm, no amount of energy, no amount of effort that could defeat their choice.
Hillary Clinton would be the next President. She would go on to pass TPP, tax the hell out of America, spend us into oblivion, get us into war around the world, further corrupt our government and remain unscathed by her abundant scandals.
So much for that .
Turns out America has had enough. America is making a stand and that stand doesn’t include corrupt elitists like Clinton, Pelosi and whoever they had planned to take over the Senate. It doesn’t include Loretta Lynch, Director Comey and a radical leftist Supreme Court. It doesn’t include George Soros, criminal aliens and potentially dangerous Muslim Refugees.
Nor does it include the old and tired bunch of self-proclaimed #NeverTrump conservatives who, for decades have told voters to support big government Republicans like Paul Ryan, John McCain and Mitt Romney.
They’re all out and a new game is in town.
Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States of America .
It’s real. It happened. It’s a done deal.
It gets better, though, in that Trump will go into his Presidency with a strong majority in both the House and Senate. Yeah, the same House and Senate the media said would tilt towards Democrats in this election.
Our hats are off to the electorate for restoring faith in the system, the people and the sanity of our nation.
Congratulations to Donald Trump and his team. A hard fought battle won, a victory well deserved.
Now buckle up, folks. The media and their friends in Washington are going to lose their minds. It’s going to be a wild ride. AL | 0 |
Friday, 4 November 2016 Brad, sticking it to the Ruskies
The 2016 presidential election has been full of talk about Russian involvement. WikiLeaks released repeated batches of emails related to the Democratic Party. U.S. intelligence agencies traced the leaks to Russian hackers sanctioned by the Russian government.
While no evidence emerged showing Russian hackers able to directly meddle with voting, hackers have been found to be electronically "sniffing" around election databases in multiple states. Experts speculate Russia may be planning something disruptive related to the election itself.
This activity has left the public on edge about Russia and what its intentions are. Well, American citizens can rest easy on at least one front.
Moscow had one plan to reduce voter turnout on Tuesday, November 8th that backfired biggly. It seems to be getting MORE people out to vote.
Intelligence agencies recently found evidence of an extensive subliminal message campaign. Cleverly hidden in the background of internet memes about funny cats and fast food tray liners have been messages encouraging people not to vote.
The hidden phrases include "Vote nyet,""Don't vote,""No Vote," and "Vote no mas."
The operation produced the opposite result.
Under anonymity an U.S. agent explained, "We are seeing unusually large turnout in all populations targeted by this campaign."
"We have two main theories to explain this.
One, those reading the message don't register the negative in the statement and keep seeing the word "Vote". Kind of like ordering someone to not think of an elephant, and then all they can do is think of elephants.
The second theory is that the Russians totally misread American culture. Americans harbor a deeply ingrained reaction against being told what to do. No American wants to be bullied into anything.
As a result, the Russians are getting exactly what they didn't want, people are actually getting themselves to the polls in record numbers."
When Brad Johnson, one of the many who found himself inexplicably voting early, heard all of this he said,
"Well, heck, that makes me sort of proud. I was just sticking it to the Ruskies." Make pinkwalrus's | 0 |
Intrepid Report will resume publishing on Monday, November 29 This year’s elections have left yours truly drained. By Bev Conover Bev Conover
Yes, Donald Trump, a sexual predator, a misogynist, a racist, a liar, a cheat, a con man extraordinaire, and a narcissist, who has never held public office and may not even be as rich as he claims, will, barring anything unforeseen, become president of the United States on January 20, 2017.
Hillary Clinton may have won the popular vote but the Trump supporters gave him the necessary 270 Electoral College votes needed for victory. It was half a bloodless revolution. The other half would have been cleaning out Congress, too.
While Hillary called half of Trump’s supporters “the deplorables,” and some undoubtedly are, all of them have had it with a government that only serves and enriches the plutocrats, and cares nothing about the rest of the people’s welfare and needs. Thus, they saw an opening to revolt and did—call it striking out blindly because they didn’t finish the job and Paul Ryan, if he hangs on to the House speakership, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are licking their chops over the prospect of all the damage they intend to cause, i.e., if Trump goes along with them.
It remains to be seen how happy Trump’s supporters will be in a year or so if they lose their health insurance, if Medicare is cut, Social Security is privatized, there is no increase (maybe even a cut) in the federal minimum wage, the Dodd-Frank Act is overturned to let the banks go hog-wild, the wars aren’t ended and the military is further bloated, and millions of undocumented aliens are deported. And those are just the openers on Trump’s list of what he wants to do. Forget about the environment and drill, baby, drill. Global warming? He says it’s a hoax.
All is not doom and gloom if he follows through (at the risk of winding up like John F. Kennedy) on ending globalization, repealing NAFTA, leaving the World Trade Organization (WTO), refusing to sign on to the TPP, TTIP, TISA and any other trade deals that sap the signatories’ of their nations’ sovereignty for the benefit of the corporations.
Now is the time for all of us who realize this broken system must be replaced to put aside our petty differences and reach out to each other and organize. We all want the same things: fairness, justice, peace and a sustainable planet. We the people have the power if only we would recognize it; the plutocrats do and that’s what scares them.
And now is the time for me to spend time with family visitors who have been very patient with me this week while I have been glued to this computer. Plus, it would be an understatement to say I need some R & R.
As usual, I will be checking email daily, so writers may submit articles that aren’t time sensitive.
Bev Conover is the editor and publisher of Intrepid Report . Email her at . | 0 |
In 2009, Anna Kendrick became a star.
But it seems she wasn't quite prepared in terms of....anything.
When the 31-year-old actress snagged a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her work in “Up In The Air,” it made her an instant A-lister.
But while promoting her new memoir, “Scrappy Little Nobody,” on the “Ellen DeGeneres” show Wednesday, Kendrick revealed that it all happened at a time when she was totally broke:
“It was this weird combination of, like, all these great things are happening but at the same time nothing has changed.”
She describes how she had a hard time getting together a decent outfit for the Oscars:
“My stylist told me I had to wear the perfect shoes for an outfit, and because the movie isn't out yet, she said, 'Nobody really knows who you are. The shoe places don't want to loan you the shoes, so can you buy a pair of Louboutins?'” Image Credit: Simon & Schuster
Kendrick laughed as she recalled being sent to New York to promote “Up In The Air” alongside George Clooney and Vera Farmiga.
She said being broke put her in an awkward position:
"At one point I was like, 'If we do another trip to New York can you put me up in a less nice hotel room and then I could keep some of the cash?' And they were like, 'Ew no, this is not how this works!''' Image Credit: Screenshot/ YouTube
Kendrick's memoir covers more hilarious moments of being “too poor,” in addition to moments that will stand out to her for the rest of her life - namely her recent duet with Justin Timberlake for their new film “Trolls”:
“It'll be, like, a career highlight for me. It was amazing watching him do his thing.” Image Credit: Screenshot/ YouTube
“Scrappy Little Nobody” is available now at bookstores, and “Trolls” comes to theaters November 4th.
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WINDSOR, Ontario — It is a postapocalyptic streetscape that most Canadians associate with American cities like Detroit: houses, roofs, a mess of scattered shingles, peeling paint and crumbling masonry. In some abandoned homes, the only residents are skunks, raccoons, rats and feral cats. But this vision of urban blight is not in an American city — it is in Canada, just across the border from Detroit. This corner of Windsor, a neighborhood called Sandwich, was settled in 1783 and was once a terminal for the Underground Railroad bringing American slaves to freedom in Canada. Many of its streets boasted majestic houses. The area around Indian Road, built largely in the last century, was a thriving neighborhood favored by professors from an adjacent university. But now Indian Road runs through a ghost neighborhood of over 100 houses and three abandoned apartment buildings punctuated by a few, lonely occupied homes, a result of a battle between an American businessman and Canadian governments at various levels. The businessman, Manuel Moroun, owns one of the last private road bridges linking Canada and the United States. For years, he has battled to keep the Canadian government from building a competing bridge, and has bought up houses in the area to build his own second bridge next to the current one. The fight has raged on for more than 15 years. In April, one of the many legal battles it has spawned reached the Supreme Court of Canada. The result for the neighborhood around Indian Road has been decay and the steady depletion of people. “It’s very, very quiet on this street,” said Rita Montgomery, a factory worker. Ms. Montgomery was standing on the concrete veranda of the brick bungalow she has rented for about 10 years. Across the street, a fence surrounded an entire block of and decayed houses, and empty lots where others had burned down. “They say he’ll fix the houses up,” she said of Mr. Moroun. “But I don’t know. ” Mr. Moroun’s Canadian Transit Company operates the Ambassador Bridge, a hulking suspension bridge that sits between, and looms above, Indian Road and the nearby University of Windsor. At night, the bridge’s name glows neon red from towers on the shores it connects in Canada and the United States. Thanks to a constant flow of cars newly assembled on each side of the border and trucks packed with the parts used to make them, the bridge is the busiest border crossing in North America, with 6. 3 million trips last year, according to the Public Border Operators Association. But the location of the Ambassador Bridge, which Mr. Moroun bought in 1979, is not where anyone would consider putting a busy border crossing today. On the Canadian side, there is no direct expressway connection, and a lack of space means that the truck inspection for customs and immigration is miles away. It is an arrangement that suits neither Windsor’s residents nor bridge users. After years of political debate and a string of unsuccessful and messy legal challenges by Mr. Moroun (in one tussle in 2012, the businessman, then 84, and one of his executives were jailed overnight in Detroit for contempt of court) a solution is now emerging. A recently opened expressway will link to a new bridge that the Canadian government will build in an industrial area about three miles west of the Ambassador Bridge. Mr. Moroun, however, is not yet ready to back down. For 15 years or so, his Canadian Transit Company gradually acquired houses around Indian Road as part of a plan to build a bridge beside the Ambassador and to expand the customs and immigration plaza on the Windsor side. In anticipation, an approach to the new bridge stretches for a block behind Indian Road with unused customs booths at one end and a ramp to nowhere at the other. But any new bridge needs approval from Canada’s transport minister and the Province of Ontario, and Drew Dilkens, Windsor’s mayor, firmly opposes the idea. In a statement, Transport Canada, a federal department, said it was reviewing Mr. Moroun’s application but offered no timetable for its approval. Because the company lacks permission to build a new bridge, the city has refused demolition permits for its collection of houses and apartments. City inspectors have also ordered that the houses be kept in good repair. But the bridge company has ignored those orders, saying an obscure piece of federal law, the International Bridges and Tunnels Act, puts it above local law. “We wouldn’t be in this position — the condition of the houses and the nuisance there — we wouldn’t be in this position if we’d been allowed to tear down those homes,” said Stan Korosec, a former Ontario provincial police officer who is now the director of Canadian government relations and security for Mr. Moroun’s companies. “If we’d been allowed to do what we want to do, there would be green space there. ” The city, which has declared some of the homes to have heritage value, has resisted arguments that the houses should be demolished just because their owners let them become . And the mayor, Mr. Dilkens, is adamant that local laws apply to Canadian Transit just like any other property owner. “I can’t figure them out and why they decided to be a bad corporate citizen,” said Mr. Dilkens, who has been the target of unsuccessful litigation by Mr. Moroun’s companies, along with the previous mayor and all of the city’s councilors. “Why would they choose a path that beats up the neighborhood?” In April, the two sides met in the Supreme Court of Canada, which is expected to rule on the city’s jurisdiction in the case this year. In the interim, Sandwich waits. Mary Ann Cuderman, a neighborhood activist who runs a bake shop in her large house, said the growing desolation had set off an exodus of families with young children, resulting in the closing of schools, shops and a bank. “The family aspect of the community is really being whittled down,” Ms. Cuderman said. “It’s a complete loss of community. ” A block over from Indian Road on Rosedale Avenue, a boulevard, there is no plywood on the doors and windows of houses. But as the neighborhood has been hollowed out, most of the houses have been sold to absentee landlords. The families that once dominated the street have been replaced by tenants, often students, and many houses are poorly kept. David Fehrenbach, who has lived on the avenue for 30 years, said the bridge company’s actions had affected the whole area. “At Halloween time, people from Detroit used to come over here to these streets,” Mr. Fehrenbach said. Mr. Moroun set out “to destroy the neighborhood in order to take it over, so that’s what he’s done,” he added. “If you allow him to tear it down, he’s won. ” John Elliott, a city councilor who is descended from American slaves who escaped to Sandwich, said that while he would like some of the houses to be repaired and restored, he was open to demolishing others in exchange for efforts by Mr. Moroun’s company to do something for the community. “Take something out of the community, put something back in,” he said. “After that, we’re fine. ” In her bake shop, where an old promotional poster for the Ambassador Bridge (“The Fresh Air and Sunshine Route”) is on display, Ms. Cuderman joked that her best bet was a big lottery win. The proceeds, she said, would go toward buying the house next to Mr. Moroun’s home in an affluent Detroit suburb. “And then I’d board it up. ” She added, laughing: “I bet it wouldn’t stay boarded up for more than two days. But I could say, ‘See how the neighborhoods you’ve devastated have to live. ’” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — As the sun was setting one recent evening, two black Chevrolet Suburbans pulled up next to Cafe Milano, the Georgetown restaurant where some of the world’s most powerful people go to be noticed but not approached. Steven T. Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, slipped out of one of the vehicles and lingered with his Secret Service detail in front of the restaurant’s wall of windows. His fiancée, the actress Louise Linton, emerged wearing a sleeveless jumpsuit, as if this were Studio 54 by the Potomac. On the other side of the glass at this longtime fishbowl, the mood was clear: This was dinner and a show. Every town, no matter its size, has a bar or restaurant where the powerful gather to hold court. Washington has Cafe Milano. It has been a destination for members of media and of governments around the world since it opened in November 1992, on the same day Bill Clinton, now a Cafe Milano regular, was first elected president. It is a place where diners can enjoy relative privacy as they dine on grilled calamari and velvety burrata. It is also the exact sort of establishment that President Trump might have disparaged as a candidate, when he emphasized that his leadership would mean that the cozy bonds forged among the capital’s elite would be broken. But in recent weeks, several members of the Trump administration have visited the restaurant to meet with journalists, socialites and even the occasional Democrat. Mr. Trump calls this city a swamp, and Cafe Milano is one of the places where members of his cabinet are learning how to swim. Franco Nuschese, the restaurant’s owner, became well known in this city for making people feel comfortable and guarding their privacy. For this reason, he rarely gives interviews. But in a recent in a private dining room, where one of his friends, the corporate consultant Juleanna Glover, kept close watch, Mr. Nuschese said that the Trump administration had, so far, been good for business. “There’s more wheeling and dealing,” Mr. Nuschese said. Originally from Minori, Italy, Mr. Nuschese, 56, learned the importance of discretion while managing restaurants in Las Vegas, another city where luck can change in an instant. As a policy, he will not publicly say who visits, but in an era where today’s lunch becomes tomorrow’s gossip tidbit, news has a way of leaking quickly. The evening after Mr. Mnuchin dined at the restaurant, sipping red wine with his back to the wall, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson shared dinner and red wine in a private room with Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia. Wilbur L. Ross, the commerce secretary, has also been spotted among the tables. Reporters often call the restaurant within minutes, trying to confirm the sightings. Mr. Trump has so far not visited, but members of his Republican administration may be heading here because it is insulated from the opposition. Even in a neighborhood where local establishments are known to host Make Georgetown Great Again parties, running into angry residents of this heavily Democratic city is a reality: Just around the corner, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, was recently accosted at the Georgetown Apple store. Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, said in an interview that members of the administration might be seeking out a place to relax. “I saw Rex Tillerson there one night after he had been through Senate hearings,” Mr. Gingrich said. “He wanted to go there with his family and take off his tie. ” It’s also possible, Mr. Gingrich said, that the Washington establishment’s newest arrivals are just getting the lay of the land. “Washington changes with each party,” he said. “But they say to the newcomers, ‘Do you want to go to Cafe Milano? ’” Representative Debbie Dingell, Democrat of Michigan and a longtime fixture of Washington’s social scene, suggested that bipartisan behavior can sometimes rise above the fray at this establishment. “If you have a relationship with someone,” she said, “it’s much harder to demonize them. ” If the new secretary of state feels comfortable dining observed but unbothered with a Democrat at Cafe Milano, it is because Mr. Nuschese keeps order. Along with the regular presence of Secret Service details, several men in gray suits scan the restaurant during the dinner hour, their hands clasped, watching like hawks for signs of dining discomfort, be it cold fish, interlopers or threats. (The restaurant was the target of a bomb plot to assassinate Adel then the Saudi ambassador, in 2011.) It’s not uncommon to see one of these employees whisper in Mr. Nuschese’s ear or slip a piece of folded paper toward his lunch plate. Gauche behavior is punished. Once, after Mr. Nuschese caught a woman from a rival Italian restaurant — he would not publicly say which one — passing out business cards, he had one of his employees slip the woman one from his private stash. It read: “The management requests you leave quietly. ” Peace of mind is what Mr. Nuschese is selling. “In Washington, you need to have that level of trust among all of us,” he said. “The minute they walk inside, the door closes right there. ” Mr. Nuschese said he was annoyed by “spies” who breach the restaurant’s privacy rules: After Mr. Tillerson dined with Mr. Warner late last month, a source quickly relayed the information to The Washington Post. Still, as sightings documented by gossip columnists or in like Politico Playbook grow more frequent, he keeps up on the coverage. “A bottle of red wine on the table?” Mr. Nuschese said, exasperated by a detail that slipped out about Mr. Tillerson’s meeting. “I was like, ‘Oh my God. ’” Mr. Nuschese’s friends say he is as much a fixture of Washington as the people he hosts. He has teamed up with vineyards in Italy to create a wine company, Capital Wines. (“A little bit pricey,” Mr. Gingrich said.) Mr. Nuschese hosted an 81st birthday lunch for Benedict XVI, the pope emeritus. He sends his friends flowers on their wedding anniversaries. And he puts on big parties. At his home in the Forest Hills neighborhood, which he bought for around $3. 5 million in 2002, he has hosted events that draw hundreds. A party that featured $50 million worth of baubles supplied by the Italian jeweler Bulgari was among the most extravagant. An oil painting of Pope John Paul II sits in his dining room, a gift from the Vatican. “He’s really human,” said Ms. Dingell, who receives anniversary flowers from him each year. Another friend, the journalist Charlie Rose, called Mr. Nuschese a “master” of creating a comfortable atmosphere. The restaurant draws both Republicans and Democrats. members of President Barack Obama’s administration also frequented Cafe Milano — Valerie Jarrett is known to be a regular, and the Obamas visited several times. The CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer has covered several presidential administrations and has been coming to Cafe Milano regularly for two decades. He said the Trump team was avidly going out. “A lot of the cabinet secretaries are not just finishing the day and going home,” Mr. Blitzer said. “I think from their perspective it’s probably part of their job to go out and work their various contacts. ” When it comes to contacts, Mr. Nuschese has so many that he travels with three BlackBerrys: One is for American business, another for his ventures in Italy and the third for the Middle East. He recently opened a Cafe Milano outpost in the Four Seasons in Abu Dhabi and travels there once a month. It is, he said, a joint venture with the government. Yousef the ambassador from the United Arab Emirates, is another frequent visitor. In an email, Mr. Otaiba said he expected Mr. Nuschese would use his Washington “recipe” to make the new restaurant a success. That recipe, according to Mr. Nuschese and those who know him, is to continue keeping his customers comfortable. Any criticism about those relationships becoming too cozy doesn’t seem to bother him. “Obviously,” Mr. Nuschese said, “the clientele that comes, they don’t think this is a swamp. ” | 1 |
Donald Trump impide que una mujer se haga con un cargo de responsabilidad "CIELO, YA LO HAGO YO", LE HA DICHO A LA MUJER TRAS NEGARLE EL ACCESO AL PODER machismo
Donald Trump ha arruinado la posibilidad de que una mujer acceda a un puesto importante en Estados Unidos y ha optado él mismo al trabajo a fin de garantizar “estabilidad, fortaleza y seriedad”.
“Son tareas muy duras para una mujer, por eso siempre han sido hombres los que lo han llevado a cabo”, ha dicho Trump. Él mismo ha reconocido que ha hecho “todo lo posible” para hacerse con el cargo de alto nivel antes de que pudiera ocuparlo una mujer.
“Todos tranquilos”, ha dicho al dirigirse al país, que temía tener que estar a merced de una persona que lleva vestidos y de establecer un precedente histórico que diera a entender que cualquier mujer puede acceder a cargos directivos con alto nivel de responsabilidad.
Millones de americanos han aplaudido a Trump porque tampoco consideraban que la mujer estuviera capacitada para asumir un cometido que supone pasar muchas horas fuera de casa y alejada de su familia.
“Hubiera tenido a muchas personas, incluso muchos hombres, haciendo lo que ella hubiera dicho”, ha insistido el empresario satisfecho con el resultado.
A última hora, diversos medios estadounidenses también han informado de que Donald Trump ha arrebatado el trabajo a un negro. | 0 |
N20160922000251315.html ). We prohibit everything unless it can be demonstrated conclusively that it is to support humanitarian purposes.” In this context, the USA and China are engaged in another conflict related to coal trade between Beijing and Pyongyang. The USA is trying to stop this supply but, as the official representative of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of China Geng Shuang announced on September 28, this trade has been carried out in accordance with the regulations and resolutions, as well as the national laws and regulations of the PRC, and does not violate international law and UN resolutions on sanctions against Pyongyang, which permits the coal trade with the North. This statement was made in response to the speech of the Assistant US Secretary of State Daniel Russel who announced that the USA was working to block the loopholes the North used to obtain foreign currency. In this context, Russel noted that the North had earned 1 billion dollars from coal sales to China every year, which was a third of the total sum of North Korean exports. However, an item on the possible export of the North Korean coal was included in the UN Security Council resolution with due account for China’s opinion. While the South is trying to present the case so that the Resolution 2270 adopted by the UN Security Council in March 2016 generally prohibits the import of North Korean coal, it actually concerns a ban on the supply that provides income that could be used for the development of nuclear and missile programs. As a result, the export volume of coal to China is increasing. On September 24, the Japanese Nihon Keizai Shinbun published an article, which stated that the import volume of coal from North Korea to China sharply dropped by 38% in April 2016 when compared to the same period of the previous year, and this trend had lasted until July. However, this indicator started to grow in August having increased by 27.5% year-on-year. The overall trade volume between North Korea and China has also increased by 30%. South Korean experts believe that the restoration of imports of North Korean goods to China has taken place due to the Chinese government relaxing its level of control, which reflects their dissatisfaction with THAAD missile defense system placement on the Korean Peninsula. Thus, the attempt to dictate unilateral sanctions to Beijing has failed so far. In addition, they often emphasize that “Beijing opposes unilateral sanctions that do not help in solving the issue.” This was announced on September 15 by the Foreign Affairs Minister of China Wang Yi during a telephone conversation with his Japanese colleague Fumio Kishida. The same position was expressed on September 22 during a meeting with the special representatives of China’s and the Republic of Korea’s governments, where they discussed countermeasures in respect of the fifth nuclear test conducted by Pyongyang. The South Korean party is reported to have demanded the adoption of stricter sanctions against Pyongyang from China, including the ban of the land transportation of cargo, but China refused. The concealed disagreement was reflected in the statement made by the UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon who expressed his dissatisfaction with the delay in the adoption of additional sanctions in response to the fifth nuclear test of the DPRK. He stated that the UN Security Council had spent too much time on it. Meanwhile, China’s attitude in respect of the sanctions against the North is quite clear. According to a report by a Senior Research Fellow of the Sejong Institute Chun Jae-hon presented at the Forum in Seoul “Korean Unification and Security Issues”, China is not willing to support the sanctions against the DPRK, which will result in the fall of the current regime and deterioration of the living standards of North Koreans. According to the speaker, the fall of Kim Jong-un regime “is fraught with unpredictable consequences,” including integration of the both Koreas under the guidance of Seoul. Beijing does not want a united Korea, that would be an ally of the USA, to appear in on its border and it will do everything possible to prevent it. In fact, the Chinese government has restricted the level of sanctions in respect of Pyongyang all the while implementing the UN resolutions and not exceeding them by imposing additional unilateral measures, as the United States or its allies do. And it will not go beyond this level under any circumstance. Konstantin Asmolov, Ph.D. in History, Chief Research Fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “ New Eastern Outlook ”.
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Skype sex scam – a fortune built on shame Moroccan boomtown getting rich from men tricked on Internet Published: 46 mins ago
(BBC News) One night a young Palestinian man living abroad fell victim to an online scam, involving a web camera and a beautiful woman. Here Samir (not his real name) tells the story of how he was trapped – and below the BBC’s Reda el Mawy visits the Moroccan boomtown where many of the scammers are based.
WARNING: this story contains descriptions of sexual acts
It happened when I was home alone. This girl added me on Facebook. I didn’t think it was anything strange – I often get friend requests from old school friends who I don’t know well.
The next day she sends me a message: “Hi, how are you? I saw your profile and I liked you.” So I looked at her profile and, I mean, she was really hot. | 0 |
West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin III praised President Donald Trump’s reversal Tuesday of President Barack Obama’s “Clean Power Plan,” which created a regulatory regime that targeted the coal mining industry and energy plants. [“Since I was governor, I have fought against unnecessary bureaucratic regulations that harm our way of life with no regard for the catastrophic economic impacts they have on West Virginians,” said the only Democrat to stand and applaud during the president’s joint address to Congress. “We need to strike a balance between the environment and the economy. The Clean Power Plan never achieved that balance. Rolling back this regulation is a positive step towards preventing further job loss, increases to consumer energy bills, and more damage to our economy,” he said. “We must stop ignoring the damage these regulations caused our energy sector, our economy and our way of life in West Virginia,” the senator said. The president touched on the human side of what he called the War on Coal in his remarks Tuesday after signing the executive orders. I actually, in one case, I went to a group of miners in West Virginia — you remember, Shelly — and I said, how about this: Why don’t we get together, we’ll go to another place, and you’ll get another job you won’t mine anymore. Do you like that idea? They said, no, we don’t like that idea — we love to mine, that’s what we want to do. I said, if that’s what you want to do, that’s what you’re going to do. And I was very impressed. They love the job. That’s what their job is. I fully understand that. I grew up in a real estate family, and until this recent little excursion into the world of politics, I could never understand anybody who would not want to be in the world of real estate. (Laughter.) Believe me. So I understand it. And we’re with you 100 percent, and that’s what you’re going to do. Okay? The “Shelly” Trump was calling out was Senator Shelly Moore Capito ( ) Manchin’s fellow senator from the Mountain State. Manchin said Trump gets it on coal and the effects of the last administration’s approach towards coal. “This step by the administration recognizes that the Clean Power Plan went beyond the bounds of EPA’s authority, instead of working against us and imposing economic wounds like the last administration,” he said. | 1 |
NEWARK — In his latest move to reshape the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, Pope Francis on Monday named a moderate known for standing up for refugees and nuns to be the next leader of the Archdiocese of Newark, a large and troubled diocese. Francis’ pick is Joseph W. Tobin, currently the archbishop of Indianapolis. He made national headlines last year when he rebuffed Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, now the Republican nominee, by insisting that Catholic Charities continue to resettle refugees from Syria. Archbishop Tobin is so clearly in the pope’s favor that he is among 17 churchmen being made cardinals in Rome this month. The Archdiocese of Newark has never before been led by a cardinal, the rank of those entrusted to select new popes. His transfer to New Jersey places him in proximity of the nation’s media capital, where Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York is now the spokesman on Catholic matters. At a news conference at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Newark on Monday, Archbishop Tobin said he was surprised at both of his new appointments and could not explain why the pope had tapped him for two roles. The two men first met at a synod in Rome in 2005. “Sometimes I think that Pope Francis sees a lot more in me than I see in myself,” he said. Archbishop Tobin, whose formal title is now is replacing Archbishop John J. Myers, a conservative who is among a small minority of American prelates who announced long ago that Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should not receive Holy Communion. Archbishop Myers’s tenure was hobbled in recent years after he failed to ensure that a priest convicted of child sexual abuse no longer had access to children. He was also widely criticized for using more than half a million dollars of church money to build an addition onto his weekend home that included three fireplaces, a whirlpool and elevator, even while he was closing schools. In September, Archbishop Myers suspended the Rev. Warren Hall from ministry, accusing the priest of “confusing the faithful” by publicly supporting some gay rights groups and a Catholic high school counselor who had been fired for marrying her female partner. Archbishop Myers exemplified the church’s “culture warrior model of leadership” while Archbishop Tobin is in sync with Francis’ emphasis on dialogue, said Michael Sean Winters, a columnist at the National Catholic Reporter, an independent publication, and a visiting fellow at Catholic University of America’s Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies. At the news conference, Archbishop Tobin said he was concerned that the “ mentality” that had polarized the country had also infected the church, but that the church could help the country heal the divide after the election. He said that Cardinal Dolan had called him on Monday morning to welcome him. Asked if he anticipated that they would have a competitive relationship, Archbishop Tobin said, “If there’s any competition, I hope it’s who can serve the people of God best. ” Bishops are required to submit retirement letters to the Vatican when they turn 75, but are often kept in their posts far longer. Archbishop Myers turned 75 in July. Francis has quickly accepted his retirement, while allowing one of his most prominent American allies, the archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, to continue to serve for a year beyond his 75th birthday, in November 2015. Newark is one of the 10 largest dioceses in the country and one of the most ethnically diverse, with about 1. 5 million Catholics in 214 parishes that offer Mass in 20 languages, said Jim Goodness, a spokesman for the archdiocese. The news that Archbishop Tobin had been chosen to lead it was first reported by NJ Advance Media. Archbishop Tobin is to be formally installed in Newark on Jan. 6. He is 64, a native of Detroit and the oldest of 13 children — an experience that taught him, he said, that “you can’t hog the bathroom. ” He belongs to a religious order of missionaries, the Redemptorists, and served as the order’s superior general for 12 years, based in Rome. Besides English, he speaks Italian, French, Portuguese and Spanish. He was serving as the official in the Vatican office that dealt with priests, brothers and nuns in religious orders as the Vatican conducted two investigations of American nuns over accusations that they had strayed from doctrine. While some American bishops encouraged the investigations, Archbishop Tobin was supportive of the nuns and questioned the Vatican’s intervention. Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, transferred Archbishop Tobin to Indianapolis in 2012 before he had served his usual term at the Vatican, a move widely seen as a consequence of his advocacy of the nuns. Francis ended the investigations and expressed appreciation for the women in a surprise meeting at the Vatican last year. “Women Religious see Archbishop Tobin as a friend and a brother and an ally,” said Sister Mary Pellegrino, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which was a target of the Vatican’s investigation. “The sisters I know in the Indianapolis diocese are saddened, but the folks I know in Newark are delighting in this, and that says a lot. ” | 1 |
The Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown that he has never been afraid of fighting several opponents on different fronts. Now, it appears that he has a new target in his sights – the Illuminati.
Vladimir Putin swears to take on the Illuminati
It has been previously alleged that Putin, who was born and raised in the shadow of important political influence and who previously served in the notorious Russian intelligence agency, the KGB is himself a bona fide member of the New World Order. However, it seems unlikely that Putin ever became a fully-fledged member of the Illuminati. From the outset of his rise to power, Putin has made it clear that he is a Russian patriot and that his first duty will always be to his country.
To this end, Putin has been seen to actively act against the interests of those within the Illuminati if their activities conflict with the health and prosperity of the Russian nation. This has allegedly led to Jacob Rothschild calling Putin ‘a traitor to the New World Order.' In response, it has been claimed that Putin said that he would destroy the shadowy organization. It is believed that Putin has now established himself as the most dangerous opponent of the Illuminati alive today .
Over the years, Putin has forced out some oligarchs in the pay of the Khazarian Mafia out of the country and into areas such as the City of London. It is claimed that he has done this to loosen the stranglehold that the Illuminati have held over the Russian economy and major industries since the end of the Cold War. He has also expelled all businesses operating under the Rothschild Banking Group in recent months as he believed that they were playing a positive role in the Russian financial system.
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It has also been alleged that Putin is moving outside of the realm of domestic concerns and is also thwarting Illuminati operations on the global scale. It has been said that the Russian military’s intervention in Syria and commitment to protecting the ruling party headed by President Al-Assad has torpedoed Illuminati plans to lay a pipeline through the country which would have been operated by their agents.
Disclose TV
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Thursday after a meeting at the White House, President Donald Trump laid out his vision for restructuring the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Commerce Secretary desgnee Wilbur Ross and adviser Carl Icahn. Trump suggested it was time to add an extra “F” to NAFTA for “fair trade. ” “I have very serious concerns about NAFTA,” Trump said. “NAFTA has been a catastrophe for our country. It’s been a catastrophe for our workers and our jobs and our companies. They’re leaving our country. I want to change it. And maybe we do it — maybe we do a new NAFTA and we put an extra ‘F’ in the term NAFTA. You know what the ‘F’ is for, right? Free and fair trade — not just free trade — free and fair trade because it’s very unfair. So all of the statutory guidelines we’re adhering to. I would like to speed it up if possible. And you’re the folks that can do it, Senator, so important. ” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” filmmaker Michael Moore argued that the “only hope” to avoid nuclear war is “please, Pentagon, if you’re watching, the football, the nuclear football that his aide carries around in that briefcase with the nuclear codes, I’m guessing they don’t actually have the real codes in there. They’re never going to put the real codes in there for him. ” After host Chris Hayes said that he roots for Trump to “handle the North Korea situation well. ” Moore responded, “I don’t know if I agree with that, because … it’s like rooting for a who suddenly swiped dad’s car and figured out how to take it down the road. I’m not rooting for the to get on the highway and drive that car. I want the off the highway. ” Hayes stated he’d like to avoid nuclear war. Moore countered that “you’ve got the wrong person. ” He added, “[O]ur only hope is that, please, Pentagon, if you’re watching, the football, the nuclear football that his aide carries around in that briefcase with the nuclear codes, I’m guessing they don’t actually have the real codes in there. They’re never going to put the real codes in there for him. ” Hayes then asked if this was a joke, to which Moore answered, “No, I hope it’s not a joke. If you’re watching, over in Arlington. ” Moore later added, “[H]opefully, there are safeguards set up around him. Again, if you’re watching at the Pentagon, please. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
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During an interview on CNN on Tuesday, Senator Mike Lee ( ) praised Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch as “the kind of judge we want sitting on the US Supreme Court,” and “an outstanding judge, and extraordinary. There’s no one better. ” Lee said, “This is an outstanding nominee. I’ve argued in front of this judge, when he was sitting on the 10th Circuit, where he now sits. He’s an outstanding judge, and extraordinary. There’s no one better. He’s the kind of judge every lawyer wants to argue in front of, because he’s the kind of judge who reads every opinion, every brief, every citation. And he seeks to decide each case on the basis of the law and facts in front of him. This is the kind of judge we want sitting on the US Supreme Court, someone who reads the law in an effort to decide what it says, rather than what he wishes it said. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
The hardest questions pediatricians must routinely ask teenagers at checkups are those about depression and suicide. But they aren’t optional we have to ask them, every time. From 2005 to 2014, the prevalence of depression — that is, the chance of having a major depressive episode over the course of a year — increased significantly among to in the United States. These data come from an annual survey, the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health, in which the same structured questions are asked every year. The trend toward more depression was steeper in girls than it was in boys. Furthermore, when to were surveyed, there was again a significant increase in the prevalence of depression, but only among those 18 to 20. So it appears to be increasing in the population from 12 to 20. Dr. Ramin Mojtabai, a psychiatrist who is a professor in the department of mental health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins and the first author on the study, said that there was no real increase from 2005 to 2011, but then the rise began, and got more pronounced in 2012 and 2013. Why was the prevalence of depression increasing, and why was it more intense among girls? Were adolescents actually suffering more from depression, or was it possible they were just more willing to talk about it? Dr. Mojtabai said that over the past couple of decades, teenagers have generally been more open about depression, but the researchers didn’t think that could account for the pattern they were seeing. They adjusted for the prevalence of substance abuse, and still the trend was there it wasn’t explained away by drug use or drinking. Neither could it be accounted for by looking at household composition (two parents versus one parent versus no parents). Suicide is the second leading cause of death in adolescents 15 to 19, second only to accidents, but that rate, as opposed to the incidence of depression, has actually been decreasing since the 1990s. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced last November that the suicide rate for younger children from 10 to 14 had increased to the point where the risk of dying by suicide was as high as the risk of dying in a traffic accident they were looking at 2014 data, the most recent available. Dr. Benjamin Shain, the head of the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at NorthShore University Health System, was the lead author on the American Academy of Pediatrics’ clinical report last summer on suicide and suicide attempts by adolescents. “When it comes to your child, in a sense statistics don’t matter, what matters is your particular child,” he said. “Pay attention to worry signs. ” Too often, he said, the parental impulse is to give advice or even step in and try to fix the problem. “What parents should do is mostly listen, that should be 90 percent of the conversation,” he said. The other 10 percent of the time, parents should not attempt to offer a solution, “but help the child problem solve. ” He raised concerns, in particular, about the impact of electronic media on adolescents. Dr. Mojtabai pointed out that the study was missing some information about factors like child abuse and neglect and about screens and digital devices, which some reports have associated with depressive symptoms. “There’s certainly evidence that cyberbullying may be connected to an increase in depression particularly among girls, maybe an increase in suicide,” Dr. Shain said. And this is an area, he said, where many parents feel at a loss about how to guide their children the parental impulse may be to take away the cellphone, which may make things worse for some adolescents. “They tend to find parent restriction of social media actually more traumatic than whatever the event was,” he said. “That’s how they connect to their peer group, that’s how they get their support, that’s how they have a conversation with their group you take this away and then you have a very isolated child. ” Over all, Dr. Mojtabai said, we need more information about whether there really is a trend here, and much more information about the teenagers’ lives. Still, it’s important for parents to be aware of the risks, both for children who are already struggling with mental health issues, and for those who may not yet have given their feelings a name. “A lot of children and adolescents have psychiatric problems that are not recognized by parents and they go untreated as a result,” he said. The signs of teenage depression include mood changes, like persistent sadness or irritability, and changes in level of functioning, such as school failure. They also include withdrawal from friends and family, a loss of interest in activities that had been important, and changes in eating and sleeping patterns, as well as some pretty nonspecific signs like lack of energy, trouble concentrating and unexplained aches and pains. Any parent of an adolescent has to wonder, of course, what’s the difference between “regular” adolescent mood swings and teenage behaviors and these warning signs. Parents need to ask themselves how severe the symptoms seem, and how persistent. When a child really seems to have changed, you can’t just write it off as adolescence. Dr. Shain pointed out that many of the warning signs are relatively nonspecific there could be many reasons adolescents might be hiding in their rooms, or bringing home significantly worse grades. “It could be depression, could be drugs, could be simply that their schoolwork is too hard,” he said. “The first step is sit and have a conversation with your child — what’s going on — the next step could be talk with teachers or bring your child to a counselor or psychiatrist. ” And though this increase in the prevalence of depression was not explained by substance abuse, it’s important to remember that substance abuse and depression have always gone together in adolescents those who report depression are more likely to have used drugs or alcohol. Identifying depression, of course, doesn’t solve the problem, and this is not an issue that lends itself to quick fixes, even with caring and supportive families. As the A. A. P. clinical report says: “Suicide risk can only be reduced, not eliminated, and risk factors provide no more than guidance. ” This can be a long and hard journey for teenagers and their families, but the message to parents, and to pediatricians, is that we have to keep asking the right questions. | 1 |
‘Ignored’ voter to become ‘absolutely shafted’ voter 10-11-16 A TRUMP supporter has voted to make the government stop ignoring him and completely screw him over instead. Sawmill worker Tom Logan felt left behind by mainstream politics and finds Lady Gaga annoying, so voted for a billionaire whose main interests are money, ‘pussy’ and himself. Logan said: “Trump’s going to create well-paid blue collar jobs that are full of dignity and pleasingly masculine. I can’t wait to be a hunky steel worker taking home $150,000 a year. “I know Donald won’t let me down, because why would someone lie about something that’s going to help them become the most powerful person in the world?” However economist Donna Sheridan said: “Despite Tom’s optimism, Trump’s main business experience is getting idiots to do pointless tasks on a bullshit reality TV show. “Therefore his economic plan is likely to be talking about jobs, realising it’s complicated, losing interest and then cutting welfare for all the people who still haven’t got jobs. “Meanwhile his extreme stupidity will tank the economy, so in a few years Tom’s main job will be catching squirrels and cooking them on sticks in a ditch. “Other job opportunities in the new America will include tooth puller, rat meat chef and crossbow-wielding encampment defender.”
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With her doping suspension reduced by an appeals court, Maria Sharapova will be allowed to return to professional tennis in time for next year’s French Open. The top officials for the sport’s global governing body are unlikely to be there cheering for her. Sharapova, who tested positive for meldonium this year after it was added to the list of banned substances, started a public attack on tennis’s leaders after the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled on Tuesday that her ban should be reduced to 15 months. Although the court did not clear her of a doping offense, she said she viewed the ruling as vindication, and she sharply criticized the International Tennis Federation for its handling of the case. “I let everyone speak for a long time,” Sharapova said in an interview Tuesday afternoon. “I let everyone make assumptions and judge and say anything that they wanted to, and that’s what makes the world go round. But at the end of the day, when this is all over, I knew that I would have the final say. ” Sharapova revealed in March that she had tested positive at the Australian Open for meldonium, a drug banned as of Jan. 1. Sharapova said at the time that she was unaware of the change in the drug’s status, and she reiterated that assertion on Tuesday while faulting the tennis federation for the way it had communicated the change. Sharapova, whose handlers argued that the ban on meldonium was apparent only with a deep examination of links in emails, compared the federation’s messaging to changing the traffic patterns at an intersection without a sign. “The I. T. F. didn’t put up a ‘No Left Turn,’” she said. “A sign wasn’t even there it wasn’t even behind a tree. It was complete false advertisement. It was like it was written on a piece of paper, folded up and glued to a tree. “If there was a sign, I’d have been, like, O. K. But through this process, there were no signs. And that was something that was obviously very evident in the C. A. S. report, that there were no signs. ” The federation declined an interview request Wednesday. The group’s director of antidoping told the appeals court that he believed the group’s notifications were “reasonable. ” Sharapova disputed that. “The delegation that the I. T. F. had with the WTA on checking what lists and emails were going out and who was actually receiving these notices — was it players, agents, their doctors — they had no system in place,” she said, adding: “That’s something that as I look to the future, I make it very clear that I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. And I will be very much involved in making sure that it doesn’t. ” Asked if the tennis federation had conceded any failure on its part, Sharapova scoffed. “They wanted to ban me for four years that was their way of conceding to me,” she said, citing the maximum penalty she could have received from the federation at its initial June hearing, before her violation was ruled unintentional. “I spent four days total in hearings listening to the head of the I. T. F. antidoping, Stuart Miller, giving two testimonies. I’m sitting there just shaking my head on how so many athletes and tennis players are in the hands of someone in his position. I really couldn’t believe it. “I was really shocked how little knowledge someone like him had, in his position. When he spoke about meldonium, he didn’t know anything about it. It didn’t strike him that it was so common that maybe more notice was appropriate for Eastern European athletes. ” When reached Wednesday morning, Miller declined to respond to Sharapova’s remarks. The federation instead issued a statement. “The I. T. F. did not try to ban Ms. Sharapova for four years, as has been claimed,” the statement said. “The I. T. F. position was that it is the Independent Tribunal’s responsibility to determine what the appropriate sanction should be. “There has been a suggestion that the I. T. F. should have given specific notice to Eastern European athletes about the use of meldonium because it was so common and widely known. In fact, it was accepted in the hearing by Ms. Sharapova that the I. T. F. did not know about the extent to which meldonium was used by athletes from any region, or that she was using it. ” Sharapova has said that she took meldonium for 10 years because of a magnesium deficiency, dizziness and a family history of diabetes. More than 300 athletes, mostly other Eastern Europeans, have tested positive for meldonium this year. “Then it was a question of ‘How is this banned when I knew it was legal, and for that amount of time? ’” Sharapova said. “I just couldn’t fathom. And then I was like: ‘How did this happen? Something that is so common — are you sure? I mean, my grandparents take it, and millions of people in Russia.’ In the beginning, I couldn’t believe that. ” The appeals court did not conclude, as the I. T. F. had, that her initial use of meldonium had crossed a line into performance enhancement. Several other recent bans issued by the federation have also been overturned upon appeal. “I think that makes you wonder, makes you think,” Sharapova said of the federation’s recent record in doping cases. “Six bans in a row that have been overturned: You wonder, does the I. T. F. think about it? Is that on their mind? The tribunal that they choose, that they call neutral, by no means is it neutral at all. That part of it does not make any sense. ” Sharapova said she had entrusted her longtime agent, Max Eisenbud, with monitoring changes to the list of drugs banned by the World Agency. In the tennis federation’s inquiry, Eisenbud said his divorce had disrupted his normal ritual of examining the list while on vacation the federation mocked his routine, asking, “Why it was necessary to take a file to the Caribbean to read by the pool?” Sharapova said the experience had only made her relationship with Eisenbud stronger, but she also said she planned to have a doctor monitor antidoping concerns for her, including advising her on a permissible substitute for meldonium. While her case was being considered by the appeals court, Russian hackers penetrated WADA’s athlete database and publicly revealed private medical information about international athletes. The hackers published documents showing that Serena Williams and others had received medical exemptions to use banned drugs. The hackers said the exemptions were proof of unfairness in antidoping protocols. Antidoping officials said that the athletes had legitimate medical reasons for using the drugs and had followed the rules. Of the athletes with medical exemptions whose records were published, about a quarter are American, although that group is not necessarily a representative sample of all international athletes. “I think everyone knows how the system works, and that didn’t show me anything except that players requested T. U. E.s and those were granted,” Sharapova said, referring to exemptions. “The only thing I took notice of was the difference in numbers from certain countries compared to others and the number of T. U. E.s that each country had. But as far as anything the athletes were doing, they didn’t do anything wrong. ” Sharapova said she had kept herself occupied during her suspension with both physical challenges — yoga, distance running, spinning classes — and intellectual ones, like coursework at Harvard and a stint shadowing the N. B. A. ’s commissioner, Adam Silver. “From one point of view, it gave me this reassurance that life without tennis, or after tennis, is fine — and it’s pretty freaking amazing, too,” she said. “I’d never known what weekends felt like. Weekends are pretty cool. In a time of so much uncertainty in my life, I actually felt like I was in control of my own schedule. ” She added: “When you’re constantly playing tennis, you wonder about when you’re going to stop. In this time, I realized that I’m in control of what I do. ” Retirement had seemed like an option for Sharapova, who has struggled with injuries throughout her career, including much of the last year she played. Sharapova, who won a Wimbledon title at 17, turns 30 in April, a week before she can return to competition. She acknowledged that the travel of tennis could be a grind, saying, “I don’t miss getting on a plane to Wuhan, you know what I mean?” But she has no finish line in mind and wants to finish her career on her own terms, she said. She feels healthy and motivated. “No matter if I’m in the middle of nowhere in Asia or walking into Arthur Ashe Stadium, it’s the greatest feeling that I have,” Sharapova said. “That’s what I miss. I miss walking out onto my stage because that’s been my stage since I was a young girl. ” | 1 |
An war has broken out on social media between Alec Baldwin and film producer Dana Brunetti over claims that the actor did not know actress Nikki Reed was underage when she and Baldwin filmed sex scenes for the 2006 movie Mini’s First Time. [Baldwin writes in his new book, Nevertheless, that he didn’t realize Reed was underaged until the end of filming. “When I found out, just as we finished, that she was 17, I flipped out on the producers, who had told me something different,” he writes. Brunettti fired back at Baldwin on Twitter Tuesday, confirming that the actor “knew Reed was 16, didn’t find out AFTER filming, and did not yell at us. ” Brunettti — who has since produced the Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey film franchises — further refuted Baldwin’s claims in a interview published Wednesday morning with the Hollywood Reporter. “Of course he totally knew how old she was,” Brunetti told THR. “That’s why there’s no nudity in the movie. He knew before we even cast the movie. I think he’s been method acting Trump too much and he doesn’t know difference between fake news anymore. ” By Wednesday night, the Hollywood were trading personal insults in what has descended into a very public, social media war of words. A lengthy Twitter battle broke out between Baldwin and Brunetti, with both stars threatening to bury the other. @TatianaSiegel27 @DanaBrunetti @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am And Hollywood producers like Brunetti never do anything shady or unethical? — ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) April 5, 2017, @ABFalecbaldwin @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am Name something I’ve done shady or unethical, Alec. You lied, face it, admit it and move on. I’m not afraid of bullies like you. — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, Baldwin challenged Brunetti to release SAG paperwork required when shooting physical scenes with minors. @DanaBrunetti @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am SAG rules require releases for scenes involving physical contact with minors. I take you have a copy of that? — ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) April 5, 2017, @ABFalecbaldwin @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am If required, I’m sure there is one. But really, are you going to continue to deny that you didn’t know she was 16?? I’ll bury you. — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, Baldwin continued to insist that he was unaware of Reed’s age until the end of filming. Brunetti asked Mini’s First Time producer Evan Astrowsky and director Nick Guthe to weigh in. @DanaBrunetti @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am I was told she was 16 by her hairdresser. At the end of the shoot. You’re already buried. — ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) April 5, 2017, @ABFalecbaldwin @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am You’re a fool. She just came off a movie called 13!! Do I need to bring in the other crew to vouch that you knew?? @NickGuthe wanna weigh in, — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, @DanaBrunetti @ABFalecbaldwin @TatianaSiegel27 @NikkiReed_I_Am 1) Because she was 16 we had to submit storyboards to her parents, agents and managers of all scenes with physical contact. — Nick Guthe (@NickGuthe) April 5, 2017, Baldwin then suggested that Bruneti use the public feud as publicity for his Fifty Shades of Grey. To which Brunetti responded in kind. @DanaBrunetti @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am Look at it as good publicity for that stunning work of yours on 50 SHADES OF GRAY, — ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) April 5, 2017, @ABFalecbaldwin @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am Look at it as good publicity for your book of lies that you have already admitted wasn’t properly vetted. — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, The battle devolved further into and the two stars trading attacks involving their personal and professional lives. The problem with Hollywood is they cower to blowhard bullies like @ABFalecbaldwin. He can’t handle when someone like me stands up to him. — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, @DanaBrunetti No wonder Spacey fired you. — ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) April 5, 2017, @ABFalecbaldwin More lies. No wonder Kim divorced you. — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, @DanaBrunetti @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am Produce the union required release form and your problems are over. For now. — ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) April 5, 2017, @ABFalecbaldwin @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am Don’t threaten me you douche, — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, @ABFalecbaldwin @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am As the president of the Film Actors Guild, you should be able to easily access them. #TeamAmerica, — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, @DanaBrunetti @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am Dana, produce the releases, you Hollywood zombie, and you’re all good, — ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) April 5, 2017, @ABFalecbaldwin @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am I’m sure SAG has them. Contact them. You’re the one maligning me and will need to defend and retract your lies. — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, @DanaBrunetti @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am Put down that 50 Shades part 9 script you’re reading and trot on over to SAG! Pronto! — ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) April 5, 2017, @DanaBrunetti @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am Also, u should make a movie of this. Get @NickGuthe to direct. Get those waivers signed, though! — ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) April 5, 2017, @ABFalecbaldwin @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am Don’t be jealous. I may have a part for you in it. — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, @DanaBrunetti @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am I’m doing @matchgameabc so I don’t have to work w guys like u … — ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) April 5, 2017, @ABFalecbaldwin @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am @matchgameabc You mean my Oscar nominated films? Nice plug by the way. When are you gonna come out to the 310 with a chain and show us how it’s done? — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, @DanaBrunetti @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am @matchgameabc Do me 1 favor? Just teach me how to bankrupt a company like Relativity. I want to put it in a screenplay I’m working on. Oh. Get the waiver. — ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) April 5, 2017, @ABFalecbaldwin @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am @matchgameabc Again, you don’t know what you’re talking about. It was BK before I got there. What else you got angry man? — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, @ABFalecbaldwin @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am @matchgameabc The sad truth is I like you, however when slandered ina lie I will call it out. If you were a man you’d admit the truth and own it. — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, @DanaBrunetti @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am @matchgameabc What else? I present you w the first ever Dan Brunetti award. You know what that’s for … — ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) April 5, 2017, @ABFalecbaldwin @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am @matchgameabc Please elaborate, douche nozzle. — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, @ABFalecbaldwin @TatianaSiegel27 @NickGuthe @NikkiReed_I_Am @matchgameabc And again, I suggest you contact your agent @MattDelPiano so he can warn you of the waters you’re wading into. — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 5, 2017, How have I only gained 12 followers from all of this? — Nick Guthe (@NickGuthe) April 6, 2017, @DJD @ABFalecbaldwin Best role and acting he’s done in years. — Dana Brunetti (@DanaBrunetti) April 6, 2017, Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
Homeland Security Chairman, “Hillary’s Mishandling of Classified Information is Treason” Homeland Security Chairman, “Hillary’s Mishandling of Classified Information is Treason” Breaking News By Amy Moreno November 7, 2016
People are rotting in prison for doing a FRACTION of what Hillary has done with our nation’s secrets.
Folks, she had her MAID printing off piles of classified emails.
Her server, which she kept in some bathroom closet, was HACKED by at least FIVE by foreign players.
Hillary Clinton DESTROYED 33 THOUSAND emails AFTER receiving a congressional subpoena.
Just because she’s rich and powerful and has a rigged system saying “She’s INNOCENT” doesn’t make it so.
Right now there are GOOD Americans rotting away in prison for doing the smallest fraction of what Hillary did.
She’s getting away with TREASON.
Those were the exact words expressed from the Chairman of Homeland Security said.
From the Washington Times:
Michael McCaul was among the first to call Hillary’s choice to carelessly have a personal server which she used for State Department business a treasonous act.
Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, on Thursday said Hillary Clinton’s exposing sensitive information to potentially multiple hacks from foreign actors amounts to treason.
“This is why you have security protocols — to protect classified information,” Mr. McCaul said on “Fox and Friends.” “She exposed it to our enemies, and now … our adversaries have this very sensitive information that not only jeopardizes her and national security at home, but the men and women serving overseas.”
“In my opinion, quite frankly, it’s treason,” said Mr. McCaul, Texas Republican.
This needs to end.
Our system is rotten to the core.
The ONLY way to fix it, is to vote for Trump and #DrainTheSwamp. This is a movement – we are the political OUTSIDERS fighting against the FAILED GLOBAL ESTABLISHMENT! Join the resistance and help us fight to put America First! Amy Moreno is a Published Author , Pug Lover & Game of Thrones Nerd. You can follow her on Twitter here and Facebook here . Support the Trump Movement and help us fight Liberal Media Bias. Please LIKE and SHARE this story on Facebook or Twitter. | 0 |
President Donald Trump will host the Chinese President Xi Jinping at his estate, according to Mike Allen of Axios. [The president will host Xi in April for a political working session at Trump’s “Winter White House,” where he goes to make some of his biggest deals. Trump extended the invitation to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife in February, where the two couples dined with New England Patriot’s owner Robert Kraft. Trump also golfed with Abe at his golf course in Palm Beach. But according to Allen, Trump will not be golfing with the Chinese president. The two leaders will likely discuss a number of sensitive issues, including trade policies, Xi’s military buildup in the South China Sea, and the ongoing disruptions in North Korea. | 1 |
By ANN COULTER 13 reasons for voting for Donald Trump
(1) Eleven years ago, Trump said on a secretly recorded tape that celebrities can do anything — even grab a woman’s p*ssy.
Hillary, born-again Victorian virgin, campaigns with Beyonce, who performs a duet with the words “curvalicious, p*ssy served delicious.”
Hillary is thrilled to have the support of Madonna — who has publicly offered to give blow jobs to anyone who votes for Hillary. (She’ll even remove her teeth!)
Hillary’s campaign has deployed Miley Cyrus to canvas for her — when Cyrus is not busy inviting men in the audience to reach up and grab her p*ssy. (Here’s a video of delicate flower Miley Cyrus in action.)
When Vernon Jordan was asked by CBS’ Mike Wallace what he talked about while golfing with Bill Clinton — aka Hillary’s husband — he answered: “P*ssy.”
Oh, and 11 years before Teddy Kennedy ran for president as the Conscience of the Democratic Party — he killed a girl. After grabbing her p*ssy.
(2) Trump’s a sexual predator!
Hillary’s husband is a well-established rapist, groper and pants-dropper. She’s his fixer.
Unlike the serial predations of her husband, leveled repeatedly throughout the decades, the timing of these 11th-hour allegations against Trump make them highly suspect.
Recall that The New York Times spent months investigating Trump’s treatment of women earlier this year. The Newspaper of Record put its best reporters on the job, interviewed a dozen women, and the paper splashed the story on its front page. But the best the Timescould come up with was a story about Trump, as a bachelor, publicly praising a model for looking great in a bikini at his pool party. Then they dated. The horror.
Five months later, just days before the election, there doesn’t seem to be a female Democrat who isn’t claiming to have been groped by Trump — and getting loads of fawning publicity.
(3) Trump doesn’t give enough to charity.
The media only counts “charitable giving” if it can be taken as a tax deduction with the IRS. When Trump spent time and money saving a Georgia family farm from foreclosure in the 1980s, for example, he didn’t get any tax write-off.
Hillary, by contrast, was a big philanthropist because, at about the same time, she was taking a deduction for donations of Bill’s used underwear — the modern equivalent of smallpox-laden blankets. Today, the munificent Clinton Foundation spends less than 10 percent of its revenues on actual charity, using about 90 percent for salaries, offices and travel.
(4) Several of Trump’s businesses went bankrupt.
Trump has created or helped create hundreds of businesses. Fewer than 10 went bankrupt. Hillary had one business, Whitewater Development Corp., and it went bankrupt — after ripping off scores of ordinary Americans. Also, a dozen prominent Arkansans went to prison in connection with sleazy financial transactions involving Whitewater.
(5) Trump University was a scam!
Approximately 10,000 graduates of Trump University were thrilled with the program and said so in writing. But a law firm that paid Hillary and Bill Clinton $675,000 for three speeches managed to find a handful of disgruntled students to be the named plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against it.
Trump University was a minuscule portion of Trump’s portfolio. Whitewater was a huge part of Bill and Hillary’s get-rich-quick schemes, scamming the elderly, retirees and working-class Americans for the money-hungry Clintons.
As described by The Washington Post, people who bought property from the Whitewater Development Corp. were required to submit a down payment, followed by monthly payments, until the entire purchase price of the property was paid off. But if buyers missed a single payment for any reason, the entire transaction would be deemed null and void, and the property, as well as all prior payments, would be forfeited to the Whitewater corporation. No foreclosure proceeding, no court hearing, no due process.
More than half of Whitewater’s customers lost their entire investment. (See “Whitewater Repossessions; Sales Practice Benefited Clintons, Partners,” The Washington Post, April 21, 1994.)
Though Hillary had long claimed to have nothing to do with the operation of the business, when the books were finally opened, it turned out that the monthly checks were mailed to the Whitewater Development Corp. — “care of Hillary Rodham Clinton.” (See “Records Show Wider Role for Hillary Clinton; Whitewater Papers Detail Involvement,” The Washington Post, April 21, 1994.)
(6) We can’t allow Trump access to nuclear codes!
Hillary is the one who is champing at the bit to go to war with Russia, which, I am reliably informed, is a nuclear power.
At least Hillary’s adept at dealing with sensitive digital information. Huma! Quick! Are the nuclear launch codes on my Blackberry, my desktop thingy or my Facebook page?
Compared to Hillary, we’d be safer if the nuclear codes were held by Miley Cyrus (unless she kept them in her p*ssy).
(7) Trump’s temperament will get us into World War III.
Hillary’s temperament drove her to push for intervention in the Libyan civil war against Moammar Gadhafi for the sole purpose of giving her a foreign policy success that could be all her own.
Obama was skeptical. Libya was Hillary’s baby. (Sidney Blumenthal’s email to Hillary: “First, brava! This is a historic moment and you will be credited for realizing it.”)
After Gadhafi was killed, Hillary’s temperament led her to go on TV and laughingly say, “We came. We saw. He died.”
Unfortunately, Hillary hadn’t given the slightest thought to what would come next. What came next was: the Muslim Brotherhood, the murder of Americans in Benghazi and millions of refugees pouring into Western Europe.
(8) Trump failed to denounce David Duke with the ferocity deemed sufficient by our media.
No one even knows if Duke actually exists or is just a phantom produced by the media every four years to smear Republicans.
I know that no one has ever been incited to commit murder after listening to a David Duke speech. Lots of people have been murdered by someone who’d just heard an Al Sharpton speech: seven at Freddy’s Fashion Mart in Harlem, and one Orthodox Jew, plus one Italian mistaken for a Jew, in Crown Heights.
Hillary has not disavowed Sharpton — nor would our media be so rude as to ask.
The mother of Ferguson thug Mike Brown, Lesley McSpadden, campaigns with Hillary — she even took the stage at the Democratic National Convention. The father of Omar Mateen, the Orlando nightclub shooter, appeared on stage behind Hillary at a rally.
If the media won’t ask her to “disavow” the relatives of criminals and terrorists featured at her events, could they at least ask her if she approves of their parenting techniques?
(9) Trump is a “racist” because of his plan to remove Muslim jihadists, Mexican drug dealers and rapists from our country.
Apart from the fact that “drug dealer,” “rapist” and “jihadist” are not races, we didn’t do anything to Muslims or Mexicans, except send them billions of dollars in foreign aid. The only “racism” Americans care about is that toward black Americans. We did something to them.
Hillary asks blacks to vote for her, then vows to bring in millions of Muslims and Mexicans to take their jobs — the ones that “Americans just won’t do.” That’s racism.
(10) Trump “fat-shamed” Miss Universe!
No, he didn’t — he saved her crown and she was grateful. It’s on tape.
But more importantly, the Miss Universe in question is Alicia Machado, well-known in Venezuela as a publicity-seeking clown.
Machado is credibly accused of: driving the getaway car in an attempted murder; threatening to kill a federal judge; and being the baby mama to drug cartel kingpin Gerardo Alvarez-Vazquez, who was on the State Department’s “Most Wanted” list under — let’s see, checking my notes — Hillary Clinton.
Until 1975, everyone would have realized that it’s stupid to bring in single mothers with no marketable job skills, to add to the dependent class. If we did bring them in, politicians wouldn’t proudly introduce them at rallies.
But Machado is Hillary’s model immigrant. Her only job skill is voting. Upside: Hillary gets another vote. Downside: You’ll be supporting Machado and her anchor baby for the rest of their lives, America.
(11) Trump is challenging the very foundation of our democracy by saying elections are rigged!
They are rigged — ask former Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, whose 2008 election was provably stolen from him when more than a thousand ineligible felons voted for Al Franken in a race Coleman lost by 312 votes. (At least it wasn’t an important election: Franken provided the 60th, and deciding, vote to pass Obamacare.)
In any event, Hillary says the election is rigged, too — by the Russkies!
The Democrats and the media have gone full John Birch Society on us. There’s a fifth column in America — and their leader is Donald Trump!!!
This is a marked departure from their previous cosmopolitan sangfroid about communism. We could have really used this fighting spirit during the Cold War. Instead, we got Jimmy Carter warning Americans about their “inordinate fear of communism.”
Today, bad-ass, eye-rolling journalists are somberly announcing: “I have in my hand a list — a list of Donald Trump supporters, who are a conscious, articulate instrument of the Russian conspiracy …”
(12) Trump is shallow, has a microscopic attention span and has not studied political issues deeply.
On the other hand, he has a good heart, good judgment and wants the right outcome for America: limits on immigration, fair trade deals, the elimination of Wall Street tax breaks and no more pointless Middle East wars.
Hillary doesn’t want any of these things. She is good at memorizing all her little facts, but is deeply evil. She wakes up early in the morning to make sure she does the wrong thing for America.
(13) Trump has personal baggage.
This election is not about Trump. It’s never been about Trump. Anyone running on his platform of putting Americans first would be torn to shreds.
There are probably lots of bad things Trump’s done in his personal life in the past. The ruling class wants Hillary to do bad things to our country in the future. | 0 |
PARIS — The ability of an Iranian director to attend the Academy Awards ceremony next month has been thrown into question by President Trump’s order temporarily banning citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. The director, Asghar Farhadi, whose film “The Salesman” is nominated in the best film category, was not immediately available for comment. But early Saturday, Trita Parsi, director of the National Iranian American Council, based in Washington, said in a Twitter post: “Confirmed: Iran’s Asghar Farhadi won’t be let into the US to attend Oscar’s. He’s nominated for best film. .. #MuslimBan” In a telephone interview hours later, Mr. Parsi said he had heard only second hand that Mr. Farhadi would not attend the ceremony on Feb. 26. Mr. Parsi said his intention with the message posted on Twitter was to show that under the new immigration policy announced on Friday, no Iranians would be allowed entry into the United States for 90 days. “The clarification of the law made it very clear that he can’t come, whether a green card holder or an Iranian citizen,” Mr. Parsi said of Mr. Farhadi, whose film “A Separation” won an Oscar for best film in 2012. Mr. Parsi added that he had not meant to imply that the United States government had requested that Mr. Farhadi not come to the Oscars ceremony, but to call attention to the ban itself. “It is so stunning and shocking — so profoundly — that people have a hard time wrapping their heads around it,” Mr. Parsi said. It was unclear whether Mr. Farhadi would request an exemption to the visa ban or be granted one by the United States government. Earlier this week, one of the stars of “The Salesman,” Taraneh Alidoosti, said in a message on Twitter that she would boycott the Oscars to protest the visa ban, which she called “racist. ” The ban was not policy at the time. “I decided not to go even if I could, because it hurts me deeply to see ordinary people of my country being rejected for what might be their legal right to have access to their children abroad or to their school classes as students,” Ms. Alidoosti told The New York Times in an interview. The government of Iran approved the “The Salesman” for submission to the Academy Awards it is one of five films vying for best film. The film tells the story of a couple in Tehran whose lives are upended when they move from one apartment to another while they are acting in an amateur production of “Death of a Salesman,” a play by Arthur Miller. In a statement, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it was “extremely troubling” that Mr. Farhadi and the cast and crew of “The Salesman,” could be “barred from entering the country because of their religion or country of origin. ” The Academy gives an allotment of tickets to distributors and representatives of all nominated films, who are responsible for securing visas when necessary. The proposed ban has affected those connected to other films. The Iraqi director Hussein Hassan withdrew his visa application to the United States, where he was expected to attend the United States premiere of his film “Reseba — The Dark Wind” at the Miami Film Festival, Variety reported. | 1 |
Friday at the White House, during a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, when asked about the 9th Circuit Court ruling upholding the blocking of his executive order banning immigrants from seven countries from entering the United States, President Donald Trump said new steps would be forthcoming next week. Trump said, “We are going to keep our country safe. We are going to do whatever is necessary to keep our country safe. We had a decision which we think we will be very successful with. It shouldn’t have taken this much time because safety is a primary reason, one of the reasons I’m standing here today, the security of our country, the voters felt that I would give it the best security. So we’ll be doing something very rapidly, having to do with additional security for our country. You’ll be seeing that sometime next week. In addition, we will continue to go through the court process, and ultimately I have no doubt that we’ll win that particular case. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • China returned fire at Donald J. Trump over his questioning of the U. S. policy to recognize to Taiwan as part of “one China. ” A tabloid said his grasp of foreign policy was “like a child. ” Our reporter analyzed five ways the Chinese could make life difficult for a Trump administration. Mr. Trump also faces a domestic split. Prominent Republicans are calling for investigations into intelligence findings that Russian cyberattacks supported Mr. Trump’s presidential bid, an assessment he has dismissed. Mr. Trump has picked Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, for secretary of state. But the oilman has a conflict of interest: billions of dollars in company deals that can go forward only if the U. S. lifts sanctions against Russia. _____ • Some of the world’s richest men — Microsoft’s Bill Gates, above, Alibaba’’s Jack Ma and Amazon’’s Jeff Bezos — joined other global business leaders to launch a fund that will invest more than $1 billion in “next generation energy technologies. ” And investors who control more than $5 trillion in assets have agreed to drop some or all of their fossil fuel stocks. The divestment movement has doubled in size in 15 months. _____ • In Syria, Aleppo is falling. The forces of President Bashar are within days, if not hours, of capturing the last corners of the country’s largest city. The seizure would be a turning point in the civil war, cementing government rule in all major cities and forcing the opposition to reckon with whether the armed rebellion has failed. _____ • Jakarta’s Christian governor, known as “Ahok,” goes on trial for blasphemy today in a case seen as a test of Indonesia’s religious freedoms. A guilty verdict would be a blow to the country’s tradition of secular politics, but a ruling that clears him could set off more destabilizing mass protests by Islamic groups. _____ • “Devastated and ashamed to be Australian. ” The photographer Ashley Gilbertson wrote those words after spending a week with our columnist Roger Cohen, documenting the misery of asylum seekers detained at Australia’s request on a remote island in Papua New Guinea. One of our editors followed nearly a dozen migrants — and the man who decided their fates — through Italy’s overwhelmed asylum system. • Tencent, China’s biggest internet company, is competing with Alibaba and Dalian Wanda to snatch up Hollywood assets and generate blockbusters. The company is in talks with the writer David S. Goyer, whose films, including the “Dark Knight” franchise, have grossed a $4. 88 billion worldwide. • We look at why the U. S. Federal Reserve Bank is probably going to increase interest rates on Wednesday. • Oil surged on promises from both OPEC and producers to cut production, adding to to a global rout in bonds. • U. S. stocks were lower. Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • Christine Lagarde, the director of the International Monetary Fund, said she was “profoundly shocked” by the vigorous pursuit of a criminal case against her, which alleges that her negligence as France’s finance minister allowed the misuse of hundreds of millions of euros. [The New York Times] • India evacuated thousands of people and shut schools as Cyclone Vardah lashed the southern coast and the city of Chennai with heavy rain and lethal winds of up to 85 m. p. h. (140 k. p. h. ). [CNN] • The office of President Rodrigo Duterte criticized a photo essay in The Times this week that documented 57 homicides in 35 days of his antidrug campaign as “totally ” and depicting the Philippines as “the Wild, Wild West. ” [The New York Times] • New Zealand’s incoming prime minister, Bill English, provided a few surprises, including some poetry, as he laid out his vision for the country. [New Zealand Herald] • Women who lived Mosul, Iraq, under the Islamic State’s occupation described the tyranny of an extreme dress code — even their eyes had to be covered — enforced with a whip. [The New York Times] • Indian police arrested a man for not standing during the mandatory playing of the national anthem at a movie theater. [The New York Times] • In Taiwan, an estimated 250, 000 people attended a concert in support of marriage, but an official says lawmakers remain divided on the issue. [Asia Times] • The Philippine government is still looking for a $500 million art collection amassed by Imelda Marcos, above, that vanished when her husband, Ferdinand E. Marcos, was ousted from power in 1986. • In Myanmar, a sleepy town on the Irrawaddy River is marketing itself to tourists as the setting of George Orwell’s first novel, the anticolonial “Burmese Days. ” • An jackpot: The portfolio of drawings a man wanted assessed in Paris turned out to include one attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. It’s worth about $15. 8 million. • And our Daily 360 video takes you to the border, where hundreds of thousands of people face food scarcity. Basketball celebrates its 125th birthday this month. Its inventor, Dr. James Naismith, aimed to keep athletes vigorous through the winter. He might be surprised at the game’s popularity worldwide. Especially in China, where at least 300 million people play. YMCA missionaries introduced the new game in Tianjin in 1895 and, using a Chinese translation of Naismith’s rule book, spread it widely. Yao Ming lifted basketball’s profile in China after becoming the top pick in the 2002 N. B. A. draft, but earlier factors helped. First, the Communist Party embraced it. Games maintained soldiers’ morale during the Long March, when Mao Zedong led the Red Army on a yearlong retreat. And while Mao declared war against almost all Western imports during the Cultural Revolution, “he never wavered in support of basketball,” The Atlantic reported in 2012. In 1979, a few years after President Nixon’s historic visit, the N. B. A. ’s Washington Bullets (now Wizards) visited to play China’s national team. “Everywhere you went and there was open space, you saw a basketball hoop,” the Washington coach said. “It was just a matter of time before they developed it. ” Indeed, the league later opened offices there, and has succeeded where companies like Google and Facebook have struggled. _____ Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
Yuko Takamatsu was somewhere in the sea off the coast of Japan. Two and a half years had passed since the tsunami, and no one had found her but no one was really looking, either, except her husband, Yasuo Takamatsu, who loved her very much. Takamatsu first searched on land, at the bank where she vanished, and along the beaches of Onagawa, and in the forests in the mountains. After two and half years, in September 2013, when he still hadn’t found her, he turned to the sea. He contacted the local dive shop, High Bridge, to ask about lessons. The dive instructor, Masayoshi Takahashi, led volunteers on dives to clean up tsunami debris along the coastline. Takahashi and his team had encountered bodies locked inside cars or drifting through the water. Takamatsu felt sure Takahashi would be the one to help him find Yuko. On the phone, he said, “Let’s just meet and talk about it. ” At the shop, he confessed his plan. “At the age of 56,” he said, “the reason I’m actually interested in learning to dive is that I’m trying to find my wife in the sea. ” Takahashi kept maps and records of Takamatsu’s searches, recording which shore and what depth. Sometimes the men searched the same region several times, because bodies and debris moved around in the currents. The shape of each search was different: circular, semicircular, a straight sweep though a current. Now and then Takamatsu had an intuition that his wife was in one part of the sea or another, and Takahashi tried to accommodate his hopes. But there were many restricted areas — fishing routes, places with dangerous currents — and Takahashi had to coordinate each dive with the coast guard and fishermen. On the first dive, Takamatsu took a boat out to sea. He was scared. The water wasn’t clear, and he knew that below the surface, there were dangers — he could get caught by a rope or cut by debris. A flipper might hit his head and flood his mask. The regulator might not work. He might panic. He could die of hypothermia, entanglement, the bends. For his first dive, he reached a depth of 16 feet. He had expected silence, but the ocean had a sound. Takamatsu called it chirichiri — the sound of hair burning or a snake hissing. Takahashi instructed him not to touch the bottom with his hands or fins because he might kick up a disorienting cloud of sand. Takamatsu kept his head down and flippers up. One day, Takamatsu visited the home of Masaaki Narita, a manager at a plant, who lost his daughter, Emi, to the tsunami. She was an employee with Yuko at the Onagawa branch of 77 Bank, a regional bank based in Sendai. The women had evacuated to the bank’s roof, but the wave swept them away. Takamatsu felt sorry for Narita’s loss and offered to look for Emi in the sea, too. But Narita decided he would rather dive for the body of his daughter himself. In February 2014, Takamatsu introduced Narita to Takahashi. A heavy rain began the morning I watched Takahashi prepare Narita for a dive. It was January 2016, a warm winter, and the flowers were blooming. Narita had arrived to the shop late, in blue clogs and khaki wind pants. He stood in the corner and tucked his hands under his armpits. He looked at the floor. The room was filled with white orchids. It smelled like pine. Takahashi checked oxygen tanks and pulled wet suits off the drying rack. in the shop read “Dive Into Your Life. ” A box stacked with diving brochures read “Onagawa, Land of Dreams. ” We drove to a beach called Takenoura, just east of Onagawa’s main port. Narita unloaded his gear. The ground was covered in cracked oyster shells, bathroom tiles, porcelain bowls. Fishing ropes hung like nooses from pine trees, and orange buoys clotted the branches. Narita hoisted the oxygen tank onto his back and wobbled. He tightened his flippers. His wife, Hiromi Narita, paced the loading dock. She climbed barrels of oyster shells and lifted her hand to the sun like a visor. She watched all her husband’s dives because she worried about him. The ocean was dangerous, and she didn’t want to lose him, too. “If I die, throw my ashes in the sea,” he said. He walked down the boat ramp, snorkeled to deep water and made the descent. On weekends, Hiromi prepared special lunchboxes for Emi that she would deliver into the sea on Sunday. They were packed with Emi’s favorite meals, things like pork soup, Salisbury steak, shrimp, all in special boxes that decomposed. She tossed the boxes off boat ramps, piers or rock ledges or set them gently adrift on the water. Always someplace hidden, where no one would see her. She had done this for five years. But in the year after the tsunami, when the family relocated to Ishinomaki, a city 30 minutes away, she and her husband did this every day, leaving the house at 5 in the morning to deliver lunch in Onagawa before the workday began. minutes passed, and Narita resurfaced in the glittering water. He was alive, mouthpiece unhinged, breathing. Hiromi walked to her car and drove off. It was time to deliver rice balls and chicken. “You will do anything for your child,” she said. Takamatsu met Yuko in 1988, when Yuko was 25 and an employee at the 77 Bank in Onagawa. Takamatsu was a soldier in Japan’s Ground Force and his boss introduced them. They fell in love right away, Takamatsu said. He described her as gentle. He liked her smile, her modesty. She listened to classical music and painted watercolors on canvasses she showed no one but him. On Friday, March 11, 2011, the day of the tsunami, Takamatsu drove Yuko to the bank. It was on the waterfront, at Onagawa’s main port. Later that morning, he drove his to the hospital in Ishinomaki. Takamatsu was in the entranceway of the hospital, on his way out the door, when the earthquake hit. The shaking lasted for six minutes. Traffic lights went down. Takamatsu made his way back to Onagawa on old farming roads and listened to the radio for news of a tsunami. He received a message from the University of Sendai about his son, that he was alive, but he couldn’t reach Yuko or his daughter, a student in Ishinomaki. Finally, at 3:21, he received a text from Yuko: “Are you O. K.? I want to go home. ” Takamatsu thought that Yuko would have evacuated to a hospital on Mount Horikiri, about 800 feet from the bank. It was high up on a hill, one of many that surrounded Onagawa, and a designated evacuation point for the town. But Takamatsu couldn’t get there. Firefighters blocked the road that led to the hospital. A house was in flames on the hillside. He had no way to reach Yuko, so he went home. She had been lost once before, he told me, on one of their first dates, when Takamatsu took her to a shrine on New Year’s Eve. He told her not to get lost in the crowd, but she did anyway, for 20 minutes, until he found her again in the flow of exiting people. He would never forget those 20 minutes. Takamatsu returned to the hospital in the morning. “I’m here to look for my wife,” he told the nurses. A hospital worker asked him to write down his name on the back of a calendar. He asked if anyone knew what happened to the bank employees. Many people in the hospital had witnessed their fate — their screams, their arms extended — but no one said anything. Finally a woman told Takamatsu that she had heard that some of the employees were wiped off the roof. She was certain they didn’t make it. “But I don’t know about Yuko,” she added. Takamatsu didn’t think she was dead. He went to every floor of the hospital, and when he couldn’t find her there, he walked to the gymnasium, the elementary school, the hotels — all the designated evacuation points. On this search, he ran into many friends and neighbors, and from them he learned that his daughter was safe. Still, no one had seen Yuko. It snowed the day of the tsunami. The sky was leaden, almost black, and the wind was strong between the high cliffs surrounding Onagawa Bay. The wave was expected to sweep in from the ocean at a height of 10 feet. When it first reached the shore at 3:20 p. m. it was surging as high as 45 feet. As it retreated, the buildings in town began to crack and slide under its weight. The water was so cold that survivors crawled toward the hospital but died of hypothermia on the way. Elderly victims died of the cold even after they arrived to safety. Soldiers from the Ground Force arrived at Onagawa, and the morning after the tsunami they began poking the debris for bodies. They used long poles — in places the debris was 15 feet deep. They wrapped the bodies in blankets and left them on the streets until they could return to collect them. All told, 613 bodies have been identified, many elderly who were discovered entombed in their homes. Takamatsu had retired from the Ground Force he was supposed to begin working as a bus driver that June. Until then, he searched for Yuko every day from morning till evening. Beginning in June, he searched on weekends. On one of his first searches, he made his way by foot to the bank. He traveled carefully across a field of debris. Trains lay twisted on the hillside. A car dangled from a window. A light pole bent down 90 degrees. Seemingly only the Marine Pal, a fish market, was still standing. The police station was on its side. He stood outside the building. It was nothing now, just a frame, gutted of everything. Sometimes Takamatsu walked alongside the soldiers and listened as they spoke over . If they announced the discovery of a body, he would walk over to them to ask what the body was wearing. Yuko was wearing black trousers and a coat. Even though he was searching for Yuko’s body, he was always relieved when it wasn’t hers. A month after the tsunami, when the bank was cleaning its premises, someone found Yuko’s phone in the parking lot. It was a pink flip phone. Takamatsu found a text he didn’t receive, written at 3:25. “So much tsunami,” it read. From that text he knew she was alive until 3:25. He guessed the tsunami was up to her feet. When Narita heard about what happened to the bank employees, all of them swept off the roof by the tsunami, he returned home, crying. He had last seen Emi the day before, on March 10. It was his wife’s birthday, and Emi delivered a cake. Hiromi Narita was at work at the Ishinomaki Royal Hospital when the earthquake began, and she wasn’t aware there was a tsunami until the following day. Their house was washed away, so the Naritas stayed at the home of a relative. On Sunday morning, Emi’s husband traveled to Onagawa by bicycle, and the next day the Naritas traveled by car. They all looked for Emi’s body. Inside the bank they called out her name. In a corner was a single windsock, shaped like a golden carp. They found her business cards in the mud. In April, six weeks after the tsunami, a body was found floating under debris in the waters off Tsukahama Beach, on the opposite side of the port, in Goburra Bay. It belonged to Michiko Tanno, a who worked at the bank for more than two decades. Seven or eight bodies floated nearby. Tanno’s sisters, Keiko and Reiko, told Takamatsu the news. They said the body was in good condition. “It was intact,” they said. The body of a second bank employee washed up in Onagawa, at Takenoura Beach, on Sept. 26, 2011. It was a named Kenta Tamura. The body had been in the ocean for about seven months. Tamura’s parents, Takayuki and Hiromi, were called to identify their son at the morgue. His body was badly decomposed, so the workers laid out his clothes. “We were so discouraged and afraid to see him,” Hiromi said, “so we didn’t encourage ourselves to ask, ‘Can I see my son’s body? ’’u2009” She asked the police to run a DNA test so she could be sure it was really her son. Days later, they burned the body. She picked bones from the ashes. “Looking back,” she said, “even though we were afraid, we should have seen the body there at the morgue. ” “I understand that other families still have missing members,” Takayuki told me, “and I should tell myself I’m glad to find my son, but even though we found the body, it still feels like hell. We had hope until they found the body. ” Takamatsu worried that his wife would be next. If he did find her, he did not know what to expect. He told me about a mannequin head he found on the hillside at Takenoura Beach. For a moment, he thought it was Yuko. It was the closest he had come to finding a body. Tetsuya Takagi, a forensic pathologist at Tohoku Medical and Pharmaceutical University in Sendai, told me about the fates of bodies lost in the sea. The day of the tsunami, he was teaching in Tokyo. At the request of the Tokyo police, he traveled to Sendai and visited gymnasiums filled with bodies. Over eight days, he examined nearly 200 corpses. “If a body is taken into the ocean and disappears,” Takagi told me, “it’s hard to say what happens to it. No one ever really knows how the sea moves or flows. If a body is pulled down to a certain depth, it stays there. If it catches in fishing equipment, it might float across the Pacific and turn up in Hawaii. A body in the sea will mostly become soft as cheese, so that if you touch it, the skin falls apart. In other cases the body may become encased in a substance called grave wax that makes it turn hard like plaster. ” For grave wax to form, which can happen when the body’s fat decomposes, the body usually needs to be in a cold, wet, environment, he explained. If a body floats, it’s not grave wax. “Decomposition may take anywhere from a few days to several years,” Takagi said. “In Onagawa, after the tsunami, it would have taken about half a year to become ‘cheese’ and a year or two for the flesh to decompose completely, so that all that’s left are bones. ” But it depends on the season, he said, and other variables, including sea animals who might eat the body. He described a body with flesh on its back but with no flesh on its stomach. “I think animals ate it,” he said. A month after the tsunami, the air and water were cold, so the bodies had only just begun to decompose. A muddy cornea here, he said, a green belly there. There were some bodies floating on the surface of the ocean, but most of the bodies were on shore. If a body was found with foam bubbling from its mouth or nose, it meant the person was still breathing underwater before dying. When we think of a tsunami, Takagi told me, we think about drowning, but people also died as a result of hypothermia or blunt trauma (they washed up missing an arm or a leg). There were burn victims, too. In Ishinomaki, a school bus floating on the surface of the wave caught fire, and a search team recovered four charred children. “Only kids,” Takagi said, “with milk teeth. ” A few years ago, a tsunami victim washed up on the shore of Ibaraki as a skeleton with clothes on and bits of tissue on its chest. Clothes float and take longer to decompose than flesh, and so sometimes bones return in the shape of a body, held together by coats, pants, gloves and sneakers. The people who lived in the mountains, where the houses were stacked atop one another, between cliffs and trees, wouldn’t have seen the tsunami coming. But those who lived in the rice fields did. In these flat areas, the tsunami traveled about four miles inland at a speed that gave hundreds of residents time to react but not escape. The supervisors at an elderly care home near the rice fields decided to put all the residents in one room. The elderly were discovered, all dead, with their medical tubes and equipment still attached. “I worked on these, too,” Takagi said. “I saw 300, 400 bodies lined up in a school gymnasium. I’m traumatized, and I will never forget. ” On a Friday morning, Takamatsu and I toured the routes he made years ago when he searched for Yuko on land. We drove on twisting seaside roads. He noted the shaggy cedar trees, the graveyard he crossed to get to the beach with the squeaking sand. There were forests of black pine and overlooks of amaranth and silver grass. After the tsunami, in the thaw of spring, he followed snowmelt on its way to the sea. At Tsukahama Beach, he showed me the dark waters along the concrete port where Michiko Tanno was found. Takamatsu was skittish and walked in a circuitous pattern. We found a pile of purple starfish stashed like cookies behind a mound of old fishnet. He dipped his fingers into a pile of rope and watched crabs scatter. I followed him up a ladder to the top of a concrete wall, about five feet high, that separated a length of dock from the ocean. He put his hands on his hips and squinted at the water. There was nothing. We went to another spot where the seafloor was sparkled with bathroom tiles popular 40 years ago, light blue and dark blue. Plates, bowls and a microwave. On one of his dives, he saw a clock stopped forever at the hour of the tsunami. Along the water, on the way back to the car, about halfway to the parking lot, Takamatsu stopped and closed his eyes. “Listen,” he said. Something like a heartbeat came from the ocean. Takamatsu took a few steps toward some construction workers near a docked boat. The sound emanated from a long burgundy tube that descended into the water. Takamatsu said the tube must be connected to the fishbowl helmet of a diver. “So what is it?” I said. “It’s the sound of breathing,” he said. Three days of training with Takahashi, the dive instructor, earned Takamatsu a beginner’s license. His sessions took place in the ocean, in the shallows. He learned how to put on his mask and how to take it off, how to adjust his buoyancy, how to do rope work, how to navigate in the shadows. He managed only a single dive a month for six months before his breathing calmed and his muscles loosened and he could finally follow Takahashi into the deep. Takamatsu went out with Takahashi’s regular dive customers — the ones who dove for fun. They had no idea Takamatsu was searching for a body. Each dive began with an equipment check and recheck. Takamatsu, watched by Takahashi, examined his regulator attachment, connector, communication unit, pressure gauge, depth gauge. He always carried a flashlight. Takamatsu hoped to reach a depth of 100 feet. It took him a year to dive about 80 feet, and his deepest dive was about 85 feet. At that depth, he could stay 10 minutes. He was never alone in the sea, always with Takahashi or another diver, and every month they swam slow and quiet as manatees over the seafloor. Their flashlights illuminated dog bones and bird bones like constellations in the sand. “What did you see?” I asked. “All the things in a person’s life,” Takamatsu said. In December 2013, Takamatsu spent an hour each day reading a textbook to earn the national diving certification that would allow him to move debris and search for bodies. He passed the exam in February 2014. For months, he dove with Takahashi’s volunteer groups to remove debris off the northern coastline. He retrieved small items like fishing ropes, and once he found a tire and made a knot on a rope so volunteers on the surface could pull it onto a boat. After six months, Takahashi started to give Takamatsu lessons he wouldn’t normally give: how to find and retrieve bodies from the ocean, living or dead. Takamatsu learned the way colors shifted at different depths, because it would help him locate a body that had sunk. On sunny days, he descended through shades of blue, and in storms, shades of brown. He learned that the bodies of drowned people are usually found poised with buttocks high, hands and feet dangling. The corpses of scuba divers are like dead bugs, on their backs, hands and feet floating. By this January, Takamatsu had been on 110 dives, each lasting 40 to 50 minutes. He was not just looking for the body he was also searching for a wallet, clothes or jewelry — anything that might identify his wife after five years in the ocean. “I expected it to be difficult,” Takamatsu said, “and I’ve found it quite difficult, but it is the only thing I can do. I have no choice but to keep looking for her. I feel closest to her in the ocean. ” I thought of the song that a French composer named Sylvain Guinet composed for Takamatsu after he learned of his loss. The title is “Yuko Takamatsu. ” Takamatsu listened to the song, a piano solo, when he shopped online, ironed his clothes, drove his car and as he fell asleep. I asked him if the song brought back memories of Yuko. “It does not bring back memories,” he said. “Because it is not something that I forget. ” We often think of searching as a kind of movement, a forward motion through time, but maybe it can also be the opposite, a suspension of time and memory. Heidegger wrote of a metaphoric pain, calling it the “joining of the rift. ” It’s this rift, he said, that holds together things that have been torn apart, to perhaps create a new space where joy and sadness can find communion. This is the space I believed Takamatsu found beneath the sea, where he could feel close to his wife, in the rift between “missing” and “deceased. ” There was one survivor from the bank. The day of the tsunami, fishermen found him, tangled in debris, drifting in and out of consciousness. A month later, the families organized a meeting with the bank, and everyone hoped to speak with him. They wanted to know why the employees evacuated to the roof and not the hospital. They wanted to learn any details they could about their loved ones. But the meeting ended before they could speak with the survivor. “Everyone was quite confused,” Takamatsu said. “We thought we would see him again. ” The bank would schedule a meeting, but the survivor always canceled. The following year, Takamatsu received a letter from the bank. It was a formal invitation to a memorial service. “We had nothing to talk to them about anymore,” Takamatsu said. At that point, he and the other families discussed filing a lawsuit. 77 Bank was the largest employer in the region, and no one wanted to sue, but they needed to know what happened. Keiko and Reiko Tanno, the sisters of Michiko, joined some of the families in the suit, with their elderly mother as the legal plaintiff. “Everyone assumed they died when they were trying to evacuate on the staircase,” Keiko said. “They didn’t mention that they were on the roof waiting to die. ” The trial began in February 2014 in Sendai, and the district court ruled in favor of the bank, concluding that its evacuation plan was reasonable. In April 2015, the families’ lawsuit failed on appeal. By then, though, they had finally been able to hear the survivor tell his story in court. In January, I met Keiko and Reiko at the bank memorial outside the hospital. We sat outside in the snow around a foldout table stacked with court transcriptions. Keiko told me the survivor’s story as she remembered hearing him tell it in court. At 2:46, there was an earthquake, she said. The manager of the bank in Onagawa was out of the building when it happened. (His name and the survivor’s have been kept secret by the bank.) He returned at 2:55. The employees were fixing things. He told them about the tsunami warning. Two customers fled. He told everyone to lock up and put documents into a safety box. The survivor and Kenta locked the front door and unlocked the door to the roof. It wasn’t easy to open. The manager called the bank headquarters in Sendai to notify them about where they were going. He didn’t consult with anyone about where to evacuate, and no one doubted his commands about going to the roof. One employee asked to leave. “I want to go home,” she said. “I’m worried about my children. ” The tide was being sucked out to sea. She knew it was not safe to leave, but she wanted to try to get to her children. When she stepped outside, it was 3:05, and the tsunami sirens were already wailing. She lived. At 3:10, the remaining employees climbed to the roof. They brought a radio. The tsunami was expected to reach a height of 10 feet, and the roof was 30 feet. It would arrive at 3:30. They had time. A few men went back downstairs to get coats. It was cold and snowing. By 3:15, all 13 employees were on the roof. Everyone seemed calm. They made phone calls and wrote to their families. Yuko wrote to Takamatsu. Michiko wrote to her sisters: “I’m safe. ” The bank manager told the survivor and Kenta to listen to the radio and monitor the sea. There was a building between the bank and the water, so the men walked to the edge of the roof and watched the bay. Kenta noticed that the hospital on the mountain was crowded with evacuees. People were standing on top of cars in the parking lot, watching for the wave. He talked to the survivor about the hospital and wondered if they should go there. They agreed that they still had time to run. Everyone seemed calm. They decided to stay. The survivor saw the ships near the fish market move suddenly over the water. The bank was built on a floodplain over the ocean, and water swelled up from below. It cracked the earth and spread through the streets. Shortly after 3:30, the wave came. It was low at first and rushed past the building, but then the water level rose, gradually at first and then quickly, to about 65 feet from 19 feet. It took five minutes for the ocean to flood the first floor. The manager commanded everyone to the highest point, a small electrical room with a vertical ladder. He was the last to climb, and when he stepped up, the building was already underwater. Masaaki Narita wore Mickey Mouse slippers, jeans and a sweater vest patterned with reindeer. We were in his new home in Ishinomaki. He rubbed his back and sighed. He said diving caused him back pain. At the shore dive earlier that day, he wore eight kilograms of weight so that he wouldn’t float. “I’m grateful my husband is diving,” Hiromi, his wife, said, “because I can see how deeply he loved my daughter. He’s still in training, so he doesn’t talk much about what he sees, but when he comes home, he looks good even though he’s tired. I think it’s a good process for him because he can feel closer to his daughter. Even if we can find some of her things, I’m sure it’s going to lead us to a clue of where we should look next. ” In the living room were two shrines to their daughter. Hiromi sat on the floor by the coffee table and faced a portrait of Emi. “So we can still have her live in the middle of us,” she said. The portrait was based on a photograph of her and her future husband at Disneyland seven years ago. Emi’s husband lived with them for a year after the tsunami, but they knew they couldn’t keep him forever they told him he should move on with his life and find another wife. “I can’t think that this was her doom,” Hiromi said. “If it was inevitable, then at least we would have sent her off on a warm bed. She wasn’t born to stay in the cold water. I have the feeling she might be saying, ‘Why did you let me be born?’ Of course, my daughter would have never thought her life would have ended the next day. We take it for granted that tomorrow comes. I just wonder what she was thinking as she fell asleep the night before. ” Hiromi covered her face with her hands. “She was my only child,” she said. “She was with me all the time ever since she was born. The last five years I still cannot believe she is not with me anymore. ” She would have been 31 this year. “You have to live longer than your parents,” she told me. “I tell that to everyone who is as young as my daughter. ” Hiromi’s mother, Emi’s grandmother, joined us in the living room. She cooked the food that Hiromi took to the sea. She wore a green apron patterned with flowers and had a thick head of curly gray hair. She sat on the chair beside us. “Actually,” Hiromi said, gesturing to the grandmother, “she asked if I wanted to join her in suicide a few times after my daughter was gone. ” The grandmother looked at me and nodded. “I don’t really want to live anymore, but I just couldn’t do it, because if we are gone, my husband will be alone. ” “Does he know?” I asked. “We told him later,” she said. Emi had been living in a apartment two minutes away from her parents. All the floors were muddy after the tsunami, but the Naritas recovered most of her things. They found a photo album filled with photographs of Emi that Emi had wanted to show at her wedding reception, which had been delayed instead, Hiromi used them at Emi’s funeral. They never found Emi’s cellphone. Hiromi didn’t want to close her daughter’s account, so she wrote a letter to the carrier and asked to keep it open because it was the only way she could communicate with her daughter. The phone company came to the house with a new phone — same number and address — as an offering to the family. Hiromi added the cellphone to the shrine. Emi’s friends text her on her birthday. Hiromi texts her every day. I’m sorry, she writes. I’m sorry. Masaaki disappeared into his bedroom. Hiromi and the grandmother wept. “We need cake,” Hiromi said. The grandmother hurried to the kitchen and returned with cake. Chocolate, strawberry, chestnut. Masaaki was alone in the darkness of his bedroom. The women ate cake and Hiromi told me a story about her daughter’s hair. Because Emi was missing, they didn’t have anything to put in the grave. She wanted something. So she pulled some of Emi’s hair out of the drain and buried it. On Jan. 11, in the afternoon, Takamatsu, wearing a silver tracksuit and white sneakers, came to watch a body hunt conducted by the coast guard. The tracksuit glimmered like tinfoil. Narita wore a puffy jacket with a fur hood and small dark sunglasses. Keiko and Reiko, the sisters, arrived with food — steaming rice balls stuffed with oysters and sour plums. The search was Narita’s idea. Every now and then, he asked the Japan Coast Guard to conduct an official search for his daughter’s body. He had asked them to search in May, and in October, and again in January. The government let Narita decide where. On this day, Narita chose a shipping route that belonged to the government, because it was a place he would never be able to dive himself. Not many people came to watch the search — only the families of the bank victims and Takahashi — and a few local residents. Members of the Japanese press outnumbered spectators. The divers arrived by sea. There were seven, dressed in bright dive suits and thick yellow helmets. The men would dive for an hour, tracing a length of rope dropped in the water. On the way, they would record what they saw for Narita and Takamatsu. They docked and hopped ashore. They were militaristic and ceremonial. Everyone was quiet. They stood in a line, saluted their commander. After a brief speech, they saluted the families and drove the boat 20 meters from the dock. Hiromi poured coffee in the ocean for Emi, and everyone took a photograph. She walked over to me and pointed out to sea. “Today I served Salisbury steak,” she said. “Emi’s favorite. ” We waited an hour before the divers resurfaced. One by one, they climbed belly first onto the boat ramp and came back to shore. The dive commander briefed the families. “We found nothing,” he said. Narita nodded and wiped his nose. Takamatsu was very still. “Nothing that didn’t already belong in the sea,” the dive commander continued. “The soda cans are all new. But do you want to see the photos anyway?” “Yes,” Narita said. The underwater images played on a laptop computer in the back of a van. Narita and Takamatsu leaned forward to look inside. The commander talked about the way the water felt. Here is a section of a building, he said, and part of a clock. Here is a Coke can. Takamatsu walked quickly away from the crowd. He stayed close to the sea, and I tried to catch up with him. He started searching again. He stepped onto a pile of rocks, put his hands on his knees and stared down into the sea. The search for love, the search — his, hers, everyone’s — is not for a needle in a haystack, nor a fish in the sea. It’s for a specific person on earth. The world never looks as big as when someone is lost. | 1 |
HAMAM Iraq — The battle was over in Hamam Iraq, an old spa resort town that the country’s security forces had wrested from the Islamic State a few days ago, but one Iraqi soldier was still on a very personal mission. The soldier, Zaman Mijwal, was looking for his older brother, Munther, a former policeman he described as “a quiet man, a poor man,” who lived in a nearby village but hadn’t been heard from in weeks. Mr. Mijwal’s circuit had taken him to a stretch of road flanked by two dirt fields. He pointed to one side, where decaying, headless corpses were lying in heaps of trash on a barren plot of land that had once been a shooting range for the Iraqi Army. “He may be there,” he said. He pointed to the other side of the road, just an expanse of earth that looked freshly moved. “Or he may be there. ” With every mile of territory the Iraqi security forces retake from the Islamic State, it seems another mass grave is uncovered. It has become nearly ritual, and despairingly regular. The legacy of the mass grave in Iraq is long, stretching back further than the Islamic State to the times of Saddam Hussein’s killings. It is the horrible symbol of what has been for decades a constant of Iraqi life: the disappearance of loved ones into the machinery of despotism. For Iraqis, the Islamic State, for which the mass grave is as much a part of the group’s infrastructure as makeshift prisons and slaveholding houses, is just a new form of tyranny with direct links to Mr. Hussein’s regime. Many former Baathist officers from Mr. Hussein’s security forces populate the top ranks of the Islamic State, mimicking the former dictator’s tactics. Lately, with the Islamic State under pressure from Iraqi security forces, the group’s cruelty has gone into overdrive: Many of the mass graves recently uncovered, the biggest of which was in Hamam contain the bodies of local men. Most of the buried were former members of the security forces who were executed only in recent weeks, after the campaign for Mosul began. There are those, like Jamal Abul Younis, who count themselves as lucky. Mr. Younis is a former policeman from Hamam who was also marked for execution, but survived by hiding in a hole in the ground, obscured by an air cooler, in his house. Of his time hiding out, he said, “Each one hour was like one year. ” He is now one of just a few surviving witnesses to the Islamic State’s killings in Hamam . One evening around 8 p. m. several weeks ago, he said, he watched from his rooftop as eight minibuses drove toward the area where the mass grave was discovered, and he heard gunshot after gunshot. “I saw Daesh bury 200 bodies over here,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL. (The official government estimate is that roughly 100 people were killed in Hamam . But Human Rights Watch, after carrying out its own investigation, believes that at least 300 were killed there.) In the days before the killings, he said, Islamic State militants herded hundreds of people — perhaps thousands — from nearby villages and took them to Hamam using them as human shields against the possibility of American airstrikes. In the city, he said, the militants gathered the people, reciting verses of the Quran and praying to God to protect them from Iraq’s Shiite militias and army. Then they separated out the former policemen, many of whom, after the Islamic State conquered their lands more than two years ago, repented for their service and made peace with their new rulers. Now, as government forces waged an offensive to reclaim these territories, the Islamic State saw them as potential spies, or a fifth column preparing to rise up and join the security forces, and ordered them killed. “I cannot believe I am still alive,” Mr. Younis said. For Iraqis, the pain of not knowing can be the worst of all. The International Commission on Missing Persons, a organization, has estimated that up to a million Iraqis have gone missing in recent history. That encompasses the war between Iran and Iraq, the mass killings ordered by Mr. Hussein after a Shiite uprising in 1991, the Iraqi government’s Anfal strikes against the Kurds in the late 1980s, and the more recent sectarian civil war of the last decade. The commission noted on its website that there are “millions of relatives of the missing in Iraq who struggle with the uncertainty surrounding the fate of a loved one. ” Go anywhere in Iraq, especially in the south where Shiites dominate, and knock on almost any door, and you will hear a story of a lost loved one and, improbably, of a remaining shard of hope. Nihad Jawad, a teacher from the southern city of Hilla, said that one night in 1991, her brother left home and was never heard from again. She has heard all sorts of rumors — that he was seen being apprehended by the military, that he was shot. “We searched everywhere for him, and we have found nothing,” she said. “We still have hope that he is still held in one of the secret prisons. ” The Islamic State’s brutality has written a new chapter in that dark history. The number of bodies has overwhelmed the capacity of the Iraqi government, and very few of them are ever identified by DNA testing. In Diyala Province, where the Islamic State was once strong, a father who lost his son about two years ago said he scours jihadist websites for videos that might show his missing child. He rushes to the scene of every mass grave uncovered in the province. “The most difficult thing is when my grandson asks me about his father,” said the man, who gave his name as Abu Marwan. “I answer, ‘He is on a trip and will return one day. ’” Mr. Mijwal, the soldier, like millions of others here who have endured the same painful ritual, has found no answers about what happened to his brother. “We have no information about him,” he said. “So I came here. It’s very difficult for me. I don’t know his destiny, his fate. At the very least, I need to find his body. This is the important thing for us. So we can have a funeral. ” He added, “Thousands of people don’t know the fate of their loved ones. ” There is a Iraqi novel called “Saddam City,” by Mahmoud Saeed, in which the protagonist disappears into one of the old Hussein regime’s many prisons, leaving his loved ones scrambling for information. In the novel, pondering his own fate as a prisoner, he recalls “the futility of trying to help a neighbor find her husband, who had disappeared. ” They visited a hospital, where “we were no more than the latest link in a long chain of people who visited hospitals inquiring about missing loved ones. ” A few pages later, Mr. Saeed wrote, “Events like this happened routinely. ” Just up the road from the Hamam killing grounds where Mr. Mijwal searched for his brother, others were looking for answers, too. A former policeman named Muneer Muhammed, 37, said that he hid on the night of the killings, but that his brother, Anmar, another former policeman, was among the hundreds rounded up. “They took the former policemen because they were afraid they would rise up,” he said. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. “I’m crying because I was able to save myself, but I couldn’t save him,” he said. | 1 |
Written by Dennis J. Kucinich Wednesday October 26, 2016 Washington, DC, may be the only place in the world where people openly flaunt their pseudo-intellectuality by banding together, declaring themselves “think tanks,” and raising money from external interests, including foreign governments, to compile reports that advance policies inimical to the real-life concerns of the American people. As a former member of the House of Representatives, I remember 16 years of congressional hearings where pedigreed experts came to advocate wars in testimony based on circular, rococo thinking devoid of depth, reality, and truth. I remember other hearings where the Pentagon was unable to reconcile over $1 trillion in accounts, lost track of $12 billion in cash sent to Iraq, and rigged a missile-defense test so that an interceptor could easily home in on a target. War is first and foremost a profitable racket. How else to explain that in the past 15 years this city’s so called bipartisan foreign policy elite has promoted wars in Iraq and Libya, and interventions in Syria and Yemen, which have opened Pandora’s Box to a trusting world, to the tune of trillions of dollars, a windfall for military contractors. DC’s think “tanks” should rightly be included in the taxonomy of armored war vehicles and not as gathering places for refugees from academia. According to the front page of this past Friday’s Washington Post, the bipartisan foreign-policy elite recommends the next president show less restraint than President Obama. Acting at the urging of “liberal” hawks brandishing humanitarian intervention, read war, the Obama administration attacked Libya along with allied powers working through NATO. The think tankers fell in line with the Iraq invasion. Not being in the tank, I did my own analysis of the call for war in October of 2002, based on readily accessible information, and easily concluded that there was no justification for war. I distributed it widely in Congress and led 125 Democrats in voting against the Iraq war resolution. There was no money to be made from a conclusion that war was uncalled for, so, against millions protesting in the United States and worldwide, our government launched into an abyss, with a lot of armchair generals waving combat pennants. The marching band and chowder society of DC think tanks learned nothing from the Iraq and Libya experience. The only winners were arms dealers, oil companies, and jihadists. Immediately after the fall of Libya, the black flag of Al Queda was raised over a municipal building in Benghazi, Qaddafi’s murder was soon to follow, with Secretary Clinton quipping with a laugh, “We came, we saw, he died.” President Obama apparently learned from this misadventure, but not the Washington policy establishment, which is spoiling for more war. The self-identified liberal Center for American Progress (CAP) is now calling for Syria to be bombed, and estimates America’s current military adventures will be tidied up by 2025, a tardy twist on “mission accomplished.” CAP, according to a report in The Nation , has received funding from war contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing, who make the bombers that CAP wants to rain hellfire on Syria. The Brookings Institute has taken tens of millions from foreign governments , notably Qatar, a key player in the military campaign to oust Assad. Retired four-star Marine general John Allen is now a Brookings senior fellow . Charles Lister is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute , which has received funding from Saudi Arabia , the major financial force providing billions in arms to upend Assad and install a Sunni caliphate stretching across Iraq and Syria. Foreign-government money is driving our foreign policy. As the drumbeat for an expanded war gets louder, Allen and Lister jointly signed an op-ed in the Sunday Washington Post, calling for an attack on Syria. The Brookings Institute, in a report to Congress , admitted it received $250,000 from the US Central Command, Centcom, where General Allen shared leadership duties with General David Petraeus. Pentagon money to think tanks that endorse war? This is academic integrity, DC-style. And why is Central Command, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of transportation, and the US Department of Health and Human Services giving money to Brookings?Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who famously told Colin Powell , “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it,” predictably says of this current moment , “We do think there needs to be more American action.” A former Bush administration top adviser is also calling for the United States to launch a cruise missile attack on Syria. The American people are fed up with war, but a concerted effort is being made through fearmongering, propaganda, and lies to prepare our country for a dangerous confrontation with Russia in Syria. The demonization of Russia is a calculated plan to resurrect a raison d’être for stone-cold warriors trying to escape from the dustbin of history by evoking the specter of Russian world domination. It’s infectious. Earlier this year the BBC broadcast a fictional show that contemplated WWIII, beginning with a Russian invasion of Latvia (where 26 percent of the population is ethnic Russian and 34 percent of Latvians speak Russian at home). The imaginary WWIII scenario conjures Russia’s targeting London for a nuclear strike. No wonder that by the summer of 2016 a poll showed two-thirds of UK citizens approved the new British PM’s launching a nuclear strike in retaliation. So much for learning the lessons detailed in the Chilcot report. As this year’s presidential election comes to a conclusion, the Washington ideologues are regurgitating the same bipartisan consensus that has kept America at war since 9/11 and made the world a decidedly more dangerous place. The DC think tanks provide cover for the political establishment, a political safety net, with a fictive analytical framework providing a moral rationale for intervention, capitol casuistry. I’m fed up with the DC policy elite who cash in on war while presenting themselves as experts, at the cost of other people’s lives, our national fortune, and the sacred honor of our country. Any report advocating war that comes from any alleged think tank ought to be accompanied by a list of the think tank’s sponsors and donors and a statement of the lobbying connections of the report’s authors. It is our patriotic duty to expose why the DC foreign-policy establishment and its sponsors have not learned from their failures and instead are repeating them, with the acquiescence of the political class and sleepwalkers with press passes. It is also time for a new peace movement in America, one that includes progressives and libertarians alike, both in and out of Congress, to organize on campuses, in cities, and towns across America, to serve as an effective counterbalance to the Demuplican war party, its think tanks, and its media cheerleaders. The work begins now, not after the Inauguration. We must not accept war as inevitable, and those leaders who would lead us in that direction, whether in Congress or the White House, must face visible opposition. Reprinted with author's permission from The Nation . Related | 0 |
Thomas Reuters cuts 2000 jobs, spends $200m streamlining November 01, 2016 The Thomson Reuters logo is seen on the company building in Times Square, New York October 29, 2013. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo
Thomas Reuters Corp has announced they will spend $200-250 million in the fourth quarter to streamline operations, including cutting 2000 jobs, across 150 locations, in 39 countries, approximately 4 percent of their workforce. Spokesman: Thomas Reuters Corp employs about 48,000 people globally. Jim Smith, chief executive: The changes come as part of its multi-year effort to streamline its businesses. Smith: “It's about simplification and taking out bureaucracy and taking out layers all of which have added complexity and slowed us down.” "These actions are not driven by any reaction to market conditions or in any way coming on the back of underperformance." Thomson Reuters is the parent of Reuters News. Memo posted Tuesday: There will be no decline in headcount in the Reuters newsroom. Thomas Reuters Corp reported net income for Q3 was $286 million or 36 cents per share. Net income Q3 2015: $293 million or 36 cents per share. Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S: Excluding special items, earnings were 54 cents per share. Analysts on average expected 47 cents. Revenue rose 1 percent to $2.74 billion before currency effects and was flat when they were factored in. Thomas Reuters Corp reiterated its forecast of 2 percent to 3 percent revenue growth for the year. Financial & Risk segment: Sales outpaced cancellations for the 10th straight quarter, overall unit revenue was flat at $1.52 billion. Due to streamline spending, Reuters has lowered its 2016 forecast for underlying operating profit margin to between 16 percent to 17 percent, from 18.4 to 19.4 percent.
(NEW YORK CITY) Thomson Reuters Corp said on Tuesday it would cut about 2,000 jobs worldwide, about 4 percent of its workforce, and take a fourth-quarter charge of $200 million to $250 million to streamline its business.
The restructuring across 39 countries and 150 locations would mainly affect the Financial & Risk business and the Enterprise, Technology & Operations Group, the news and information company said. The company employs about 48,000 people globally, a spokesman said.
The changes come as part of its multi-year effort to streamline its businesses, said Jim Smith, chief executive, in an interview Tuesday.
"It's about simplification and taking out bureaucracy and taking out layers all of which have added complexity and slowed us down," he said. "These actions are not driven by any reaction to market conditions or in any way coming on the back of underperformance."
Thomson Reuters is the parent of Reuters News, which competes for financial customers with Bloomberg LP as well as News Corp's Dow Jones unit. There will be no decline in headcount in the Reuters newsroom, according to a memo to employees on Tuesday. | 0 |
. The World is Waking Up and it’s Magic to Watch It’s inspiring to witness many of the earth’s people, especially in the Western world, becoming awar... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/10/the-world-is-waking-up-and-its-magic-to.html It’s inspiring to witness many of the earth’s people, especially in the Western world, becoming aware of the deep corruption in our social system, particularly because society is building its innate capacity to actually do something about it. More and more people now understand that we are ruled via a corporatocracy where the money supply, banking, governmental policy and other vital public infrastructure has been hijacked by the oligarchs and the corporate elite. In addition, public discourse and the official narratives are dictated by the corporate media who are owned by the same people who control macro public policy via their political puppets, as well as the unprecedented wealth they have at their disposal. Their ultimate agenda is of course ultimate power, which is dressed up in a pretty dress of “let’s save the planet!”.Of course the degradation of our natural systems needs a fresh approach, yet their covert game to win a planetary control-system has been brilliantly exposed for the world to see. In stride, the people are fighting back in both explicit and subtle ways. Some examples include: Independent media has exploded, where more people now get their news from it compared to the propagandized mainstream press; The information which exposes the lies of the ‘programmed beliefs’ is increasingly circulated by an awakening populace; Global and local action groups are forming to reverse the sellout of our system; Greater numbers of people are growing or sourcing organic, chemical-free food and are personally filtering any contaminants out of their water supply; Parents are home-schooling their children in greater numbers, or at least giving them more holistic and healthy information as their core education; Conversations of substance are increasingly occurring at pubs, supermarkets and community events, making it harder for the sleeping masses not to face the uncomfortable truths about our sick system; and Individuals and families are unplugging from the control-grid the best they can, as well as reconsidering and re-prioritizing what’s truly important in life. That’s a good segue into the other dimension of the waking up process. A great awakening is occurring in terms of the deeper layers of reality, including the way the scientific philosophy on life has been intentionally designed to keep us disempowered and disconnected with our true nature. Exit scientific materialism . This theory has long been debunked by the quantum and parapsychological sciences because human consciousness has clearly been shown to play a co-creative role in the manifestation of our interconnected reality. Not that this hasn’t been known in one way or another by basically every culture on earth since the beginning of time. Yet, materialism is still the dominant philosophy of not just the dogmatic discipline we call mainstream science, but also of many minds within the truth and freedom network. When it’s pretty much common knowledge that medical, energy and other corporate-related science has been distorted and suppressed for the benefit of the control-system, why would it be any different when it comes to the philosophical implications of scientific exploration and its associated evidence? After all, we know that the elite use ritual and symbolic spells to achieve their goals, so clearly they themselves believe beyond the adolescence of a matter-based reality. And when we consider how successful they’ve been, obviously they’ve tapped into the energetic dance in a productive way, at least for themselves. The fact remains however that there is a huge network of people who are becoming conscious of the nature of consciousness itself. A term to describe this is spirituality, but in summary it’s simply about understanding the connection we have with each other and reality at large, as well as rediscovering the various layers which make up the self. If you haven’t viewed through this lens in your quest for clarity, you’re unfortunately missing a profound piece of the philosophical puzzle. In any case, the awakening community is doing some amazing work, even if it’s split between the system-focused and spiritual-focused mindsets. There are of course many balance-minded individuals and groups who are doing both, but for the time being this remains the exception, not the norm. That will change though. The veterans of truth-seeking, as well as the newly initiated to the conscious society, are energetically primed to create a balance between these two areas of exploration. After all, there is always an opportunity for the magic to be at strength with the madness, just like the positive charge is equal to its negative counterpart, in accordance with natural principles. That’s duality, in one action. To reflect on which ways in which you’ve personally woken up, watch the following short documentary. By Phillip J. Watt, Waking Times About the author: Phillip J. Watt lives in Australia. His written work deals with topics from ideology to society, as well as self-development. Follow him on Facebook or visit his website . Dear Friends, HumansAreFree is and will always be free to access and use. If you appreciate my work, please help me continue.
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I feel emotions with such depth and intensity they seem so familiar as if lived before, like deja vu they leave their residue, images form and bounce back and forth between heart and mind. It is mercy that I have forgotten so much more than remembered, time has allowed me to change and redefine them, such a crushing and heavy load to carry otherwise. If I am defined by those lost memories what am I? A loop between my heart and mind, thoughts and feelings rise and fall. Thoughtful ruminations give way to painful images and recollections. Oh there are good, even wonderful memories. I hang on to them like an album of pictures, I turn the pages and revisit those good times. They chronicle by not so much as what they show but what they don't. some are filled with regret, others live in denial, always hoping for a happy ending. My emotions sometimes rip through my chest and a sadness as black as night covers me, but I have determined not to cower, but to meet them with head and heart! I will not give up, I will not give up! | 0 |
PARIS — He has nailed his scrotum to the cobblestones of Red Square, sewn his lips shut to protest restrictions and set fire to the doors of Russia’s Federal Security Service. Now, Pyotr Pavlensky, Russia’s performance artist, has fled to France, where he intends to seek political asylum. Russian authorities questioned Mr. Pavlensky and his partner, Oksana Shalygina, last month after an actress at an Moscow theater filed a complaint accusing them of sexual assault. The couple deny the allegations, saying that the encounter was a consensual threesome and that the case is politically motivated. Amid the ambiguities — and at a time when violence against women is a topic of intense debate in the country — Russia’s cultural opposition is now divided over a figure once seen as a symbol of the resistance to President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia. Mr. Pavlensky and Ms. Shalygina have not been formally charged, but were questioned by the police in Moscow on Dec. 15 and informed that they could face up to 10 years in prison. Told not to leave Moscow while the case was pending, they said they saw what was likely to happen and took their daughters, ages 6 and 8, to France over the weekend after spending a month in Ukraine. “We’ve become victims of this investigation,” Mr. Pavlensky said in an interview on Monday in a Paris cafe, speaking Russian through an interpreter, and with Ms. Shalygina at his side. “It’s like a horrible dream that you can’t even imagine. ” The situation — with its charges of a honey trap and “kompromat” (compromising material gathered by the authorities) — reflects the climate of suspicion and growing authoritarianism in Russia, where artists like the female punk band Pussy Riot have faced jail, but, for the most part, outright censorship has given way to artistic in the face of changing laws and cuts to culture funding. The accusations, however, have prompted even some supporters of Mr. Pavlensky to question his behavior. The theater where the actress works, Teatr. doc, is known for plays that have criticized and angered the Russian government, and it has supported Mr. Pavlensky in the past. But its leadership has seconded the assault accusations and defended the actress against the couple’s assertions that she was working for the state. This is not the first time Mr. Pavlensky has found himself in the cross hairs of the Russian authorities. Over the years, they have ordered him to undergo a dozen psychiatric evaluations, a technique long used to quash political dissent. In 2014 he chopped off his right earlobe for a piece called “Segregation,” inspired by van Gogh and intended, he said, to show that “psychiatry is a collection of subjective opinions. ” After setting fire to the doors of Lubyanka, the Moscow headquarters of Russia’s infamous security service, in 2015, he served seven months in pretrial detention on charges of vandalism. (He called that action “Threat” and said it was intended to illuminate “what people prefer to forget,” that the security apparatus hadn’t changed since Soviet times.) He was released last June with a fine, a move human rights activists said was intended to avoid an international incident of the kind that ensued after members of Pussy Riot were jailed in 2012 on charges of hooliganism for performing an song in a Moscow church. Soon after, Mr. Pavlensky said, he gave some lectures at Teatr. doc. It was at one of them last September that he met the actress who later filed the assault complaint. Mr. Pavlensky said that on Dec. 4, the actress texted Ms. Shalygina. The couple — who say they have an open relationship — invited her to their Moscow apartment that evening. “We talked about art,” he said. “We sat and drank coffee. We drank Cognac, but not a lot. ” “There was some form of intimacy,” he added. “And then she said she wants to leave. We said, ‘Fine, no problem.’ We parted as friends. ” Both Mr. Pavlensky, 32, and Ms. Shalygina, 37, said it was the first time the three had had sex together. Yuri A. Lysenko, a lawyer for the actress, said that Mr. Pavlensky had committed a “crime,” a rape, and that he wanted to portray the police investigation as politically motivated to avoid punishment. Adding to the confusion over the allegations, this week Teatr. doc posted on its Facebook page a video dated Oct. 31 that it said showed Mr. Pavlensky and others beating up a man they said was the actress’s boyfriend, in the theater’s parking lot. Mr. Pavlensky said that the video was “murky” and that he didn’t recognize himself in it. But he said he had been involved in a physical altercation with the actress’s boyfriend in October, when he and others confronted the man over allegations that he had beaten her. The Interfax News Agency reported that the police told him that a criminal case had been opened about the fight. Mr. Pavlensky said that was not the case. Mr. Lysenko said the fight with the boyfriend and the sexual assault allegations were “not related. ” He then added: “You have to ask Mr. Pavlensky if he has seen a psychiatrist recently. What he did is part of his carefully crafted plan to paint his crime in political colors. ” In a Facebook post that she said would be her last word on the matter, Yelena Gremina, the director of Teatr. doc, called the couple’s claims that the actress worked for the security services “slander. ” On Russia’s vibrant social media, artists are divided over the case. “The hysteria with Pavlensky is an alarming sign that anyone who becomes a significant ‘fighter against the regime’ is immediately put on a pedestal and declared a saint,” the artist Lena Hades wrote on Facebook. Others came out against Mr. Pavlensky. “Alas, yesterday a national hero and a great performance artist, today — it’s true — a criminal, a psychopath and a rapist,” Olga Papernaya, a former art director at a Moscow film club, wrote on Facebook, suggesting that she was friends with the actress. “For now, the authorities are winning,” Mr. Pavlensky said. The press is weak, he added, and “the opposition” divided, even over Russia’s annexation of Crimea. “But each move is not the last,” he said of the country’s situation. “It’s not clear who will have the last word in this conflict. ” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Sexual assault in the military has plagued the Pentagon in recent years as a series of cases, and new data, revealed the extent of the problem. In response, President Obama and members of Congress demanded that military officials more aggressively address the threat and its causes. Yet few military experts went as far as Donald J. Trump did Wednesday, when he suggested that the integration of women into the armed forces was an underlying cause of sexual assault. Speaking at a candidates’ forum, Mr. Trump defended one of his Twitter posts from 2013 concerning the high number of sexual assaults in the military, and said that he had been “absolutely correct” in posting a message that said, “What did these geniuses expect when they put men women together?” The remarks drew criticism on Thursday from lawmakers and military experts, who said Mr. Trump had displayed ignorance of the Pentagon’s struggle to curb such assaults and the military justice system that is in place to prosecute them. “That’s more than victim blaming, and it misunderstands the historical role of women in the military,” said retired Col. Don Christensen, a former chief prosecutor of the Air Force. American women in the military have taken on expanded roles in recent years as the Pentagon has integrated them into more combat positions. But they have worked alongside servicemen since the Revolutionary War, and in significant numbers since World War II, something Mr. Trump did not acknowledge. Their roles have grown over the centuries from nurses, cooks and seamstresses, who maintained the camps of the Continental Army, to fighter pilots, soldiers, sailors and Marines who are battling the Islamic State in the Middle East and Afghanistan. “We couldn’t run a military without women,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He noted that an argument that the proximity of women was to blame for sexual assault could be applied to women on college campuses and in workplaces, where they are also assaulted. “Quite frankly, it’s absurd,” he said. As the Pentagon has released more detailed records on the problem, the statistics reveal that sexual assault in the military is not just a problem faced by women. In 2014, the latest numbers available, the Pentagon estimated that 20, 300 servicemen and servicewomen were assaulted that year. “Over half the victims are men,” said Colonel Christensen, who is now the president of Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group. Of the estimated 20, 300 attacks in 2014 recorded by the Pentagon, roughly 10, 600 of the victims were men, though women faced a higher rate of assault given their lower overall numbers in the armed forces. Mr. Trump’s proposed solution of creating a military justice system to deal with sexual assault also puzzled national security experts. A military justice system has been in place in some form since the 1774 British Articles of War. It is an essential and distinct part of the military. “George Washington beat him to it!” said Mr. Graham, who has worked as a military lawyer. That system and its laws, known as the Uniform Code of Military Justice, have in fact been at the center of a protracted battle in Congress over its role in adjudicating such crimes. One solution was first proposed by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York. She has pressed for a measure, opposed by top Pentagon leaders, that would take sexual assault cases outside the military chain of command and give military prosecutors the power to decide which cases to try, rather than keeping that authority with the accuser’s own commander, as is the policy now. Ms. Gillibrand’s logic — and that of her supporters, including a number of victims’ groups — is that more men and women in the military would come forward to report crimes if they did not fear retaliation by those supervising them. The Pentagon’s newest statistics also showed that a majority of victims did not report attacks. The Defense Department said that in 2014, only 6, 131 — under — of attacks were reported. The 2014 statistics, which were based on a study conducted for the Pentagon by the RAND Corporation, a think tank, found that 62 percent of women who reported sexual assault said they had faced retaliation for doing so. The study, released in May 2015 and endorsed by the Pentagon, offered no comparable statistic for men. Ms. Gillibrand’s efforts have been rebuffed in favor of more modest measures, including those written by Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, that stripped commanders of their ability to overturn jury verdicts and mandated dishonorable discharge or dismissal for anyone convicted of sexual assault. Other recent legislation guarantees that every sexual assault victim in the military receives an independent lawyer, known as a special victims’ counsel, and assures a civilian review of any case in which a commander overrules a prosecutor seeking to an accused offender. “Donald Trump displayed a stunning lack of knowledge about how the military justice system works, the nature of sexual assault in the military or the dozens of systemic reforms that Congress has made to curb such crimes,” Ms. McCaskill said on Thursday. Mr. Trump, pressed on Wednesday about whether his 2013 Twitter post was meant to suggest that women should not serve, said the solution was “not to kick them out. ” “Right now, part of the problem is nobody gets prosecuted,” he said. “You have the report of rape, and nobody gets prosecuted. ” Mr. Trump’s remarks on sexual assault in the military, like so many he has made on other topics, became instant campaign fodder. Matt Heinz, who is challenging Representative Martha E. McSally, Republican of Arizona and a former Air Force combat pilot, issued a news release on Thursday morning that said, “Voters deserve to know if McSally will stick to her principles and denounce Donald Trump and his campaign. ” | 1 |
Apple plans to release a free coding education app on Tuesday that it developed with students in mind, in the latest salvo among technology companies to gain share in the education market and to nurture early product loyalty among children. Apple’s app, called Swift Playgrounds, introduces basic computer programming concepts, like sequencing logic, by asking students to use word commands to move cartoon avatars through a fanciful, animated world. Unlike some children’s apps, which employ blocks to teach coding, the Apple program uses Swift, a professional programming language that the company introduced in 2014. “When you learn to code with Swift Playgrounds, you are learning the same language used by professional developers,” Brian Croll, Apple’s vice president of product marketing, said in a telephone interview. “It’s easy to take the next step and learn to write a real app. ” The introduction of Apple’s app coincides with a larger Silicon Valley campaign to press public schools to teach coding. Tech executives have argued that such training could help address differences among students, by providing them with marketable job skills. In January, President Obama said he was asking Congress to provide $4 billion in the budget for a computer science initiative in public schools. (Congress has not yet passed a budget.) “We believe every student should have the opportunity to code,” Timothy D. Cook, the chief executive of Apple, said during a company event last week to introduce the iPhone 7. Tech companies are in heated competition for the education market. Apple devices and ones based on the Microsoft Windows software have recently lost market share at United States public schools to Chromebooks, inexpensive laptops that run on the Google Chrome operating system. The Apple coding app is free, but it requires an iPad, the company’s tablet computer, which has declining sales and which many schools and families may not be able to afford. “How much of the motivation is for selling of product, and what does that do for schools that cannot afford this technology?” asked Jane Margolis, a senior researcher at the Graduate School of Education Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has studied disparities in computer science education for more than two decades. “The threat is that it is going to replicate current inequities. ” Mr. Croll of Apple said the company was making the app free so that the coding lessons are accessible. While it is available for use in schools, individual students, parents and consumers could also use the app to teach themselves to code at home, he said. He added that Apple had created the app for the iPad to ensure a user experience. Apple said that more than 100 schools and districts worldwide had agreed to try the coding app with their students. “We are hoping it will be a good transition between and ” said Trang Lai, the director of educational services at the Fullerton School District, a public school system in Fullerton, Calif. Her district provides an iPad for every student in grades five through eight. Ms. Lai said the district had previously bought coding apps that did not work well on iPads, and that it was now eager to try Swift Playgrounds. “Right now, that is what is current,” she said. “That is what is available, and that is what is free. ” | 1 |
One couple, one job at the Department of Agriculture, a couple of other gigs running a janitorial business and a venture, plus the pastor position at New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church in Ferguson, Mo. That’s what it takes for Alonzo Adams and his wife, Ronica, to make ends meet, and that’s without any money left for retirement savings. But they are raising their children in a neighborhood they like better, a few miles up the road in Florissant, Mo. Their children, they have concluded, are a product of their environment. So what must the couple give up now to give their children a better future? “I give up the ability to have a better later,” Alonzo said. Every one of us makes money nearly every day, whether we realize it or not. Residence over retirement. Later over now. Needs over wants. Faith over financial facts. But all too often these are subconscious, which means we don’t discuss them openly and fail to question them relentlessly. “It’s like money is just this big blob,” said Sallie Krawcheck, a and chief executive of Ellevest, an online investment service for women that tries to make these visible. “People think about it conceptually and not in terms of wanting to start a business, retire well, buy a house or have a baby. ” The blob, she concluded when she was starting her business, needed clearing up. “This is not money to get more money,” she said. “It’s money to do these things. Help me figure out what I can afford and when and what the are to getting there. ” The people you’ll encounter in this section have been sorting it out for themselves for some time now. Their household income is at or close to the median in their area. Meeting the most basic of needs is usually not a problem, but it’s a challenge to figure out how often to allow themselves things they want and to weigh those desires against longstanding debt or the contributions they probably ought to make to their futures. Below are some of the most common that they — and all of us — face most often. In January 2010, Jordan Hightower’s younger sister, Molly, was killed in an earthquake while volunteering in Haiti. Jordan soon resolved that she would end her “one day” saving mentality and focus on today. That meant travel, to a dozen bachelorette parties around the United States and to 23 countries around the world in the last seven years. While she’s traveled on a hostel budget and managed $4, 000 in annual retirement savings, her down payment savings have suffered, even as prices for starter homes in Tacoma, Wash. have risen. Jordan, 31, has no regrets, though. A wedding and kids are on the horizon in the next few years, and she plans to adjust her house savings accordingly now that she’s been able to see and do so much. “I’m not worried or sad about changing those things,” she said. Martin and Raquel Vergara met as rivals, operating neighboring mall kiosks. She eventually became a personal banker, while he is a mixed martial arts fighter and a personal trainer. Now that they’re the parents of two small children, Raquel, 26, has hit the pause button on her career to care for the kids. They don’t want to miss too much time with them, wondering if their hours with their children will add up to more than those of providers. “We are investing time in our kids,” said Martin, who is 25. “That means more than money. ” Even single parents make similar decisions if they possibly can, and some believe it’s necessary. Natalie Davis was 31 and pregnant when her husband died unexpectedly five years ago. Now, she has a boy and a girl. She’s also no longer a executive, even though she ran up some debt and sacrificed savings after her decision to work less. For her, the choice wasn’t a close call. “They needed it,” she said, even though her husband did not have life insurance. Being with her children more often also helped clarify what counted as a mere want when it came to the family budget. “Sometimes my son will really want something and I used to feel guilty, being that he doesn’t have his dad,” she said. “I used to do everything I could to get him what he wants, and now I don’t stress on that anymore. ” Chris and Tanya Brashers have faced health problems, landlord problems and employment problems. Both have declared personal bankruptcy. Soon, they will move from Bryan, Ark. to Fairhope, Ala. They are both veterans, and they are crossing their fingers that the optimistic new postal address will bring new career opportunities for Chris, who is 46. He trained as an engineer, but his passion is photography, and his research suggests that he will be able to get freelance work there. While the couple is in debt, Tanya, who is 41, professes a certain serenity about their circumstances given all they have experienced. “I’ve learned not to depend on money for your happiness,” she said. “Now, living as simply as we do, I’m kind of at peace. ” Alonzo, 46, the minister with multiple other jobs, works 65 to 70 hours each week so his children can grow up in a safe neighborhood. The family has a security system, but they sometimes forget to turn it on and then leave the doors unlocked. Nobody comes in. “Would I be that comfortable in another neighborhood?” he said. “The neighborhood where I grew up in? Nope. ” So the family has physical security, paying now so that the kids can have a better later, as Alonzo puts it. But hanging over that is another one that he said so many families face. “What can I leave for them?” he wondered. “Most black people leave their families a bill when they die, not a legacy. Not an estate. We don’t have estates. The only thing we know about estates is when we see the sign for estate sales, and we get happy because this is a real big garage sale. ” All joking aside, Alonzo doesn’t need to look far to see where a lack of retirement savings can get you, given that his father is still a pastor at the church as well. Black preachers just die, he said. They don’t retire. Still, at least his choice is deliberate: Trade a better later for himself for a better later for his children. It’s the same parents have made for centuries, and it’s a swap that many parents continue to make without much hesitation. Read what other people are saying about how they make ends meet. | 1 |
BERLIN — Even Angela Merkel, the usually unruffled veteran of European crises after almost 11 years as chancellor of Germany, had to admit it last week: “The world finds itself in a critical condition,” she said, and there is no point “in painting anything rosier than it is. ” The outlook for Ms. Merkel is not especially rosy, either. After years of broad and deep support at home, bolstering her as she grew to become the Continent’s most powerful leader, she is heading toward national elections next year more politically vulnerable than at any time since her early days in office, with implications that extend far beyond Germany’s borders. When she arrives in Slovakia on Friday for a summit meeting of leaders from 27 European Union nations — all save Britain, which voted in June to leave the bloc — her ability to navigate her troubles at home will hang over the gathering. Since Britain’s decision, other European governments have done little to respond to the surge in populism and nationalism across the Continent or to reassure their citizens that the European Union can be a force for good in their lives. With Ms. Merkel’s attention split between strengthening her domestic position and addressing Europe’s woes, the task of developing a united and effective response could become that much harder. Her continued defense of her decision to admit more than a million migrants to Germany last year has left her increasingly isolated from other leaders coping with sentiment in their electorates, especially after terrorist attacks. With growth across the eurozone still “tilted to the down side,” as the European Central Bank chief, Mario Draghi, said on Thursday, Ms. Merkel’s new vulnerability may undercut Germany’s ability to impose its economic policy on the bloc and fuel calls for more government spending from countries still struggling with high unemployment and slow growth. And an inward turn by Germany as it debates its response to the migration crisis and holds elections in a year’s time could create a further leadership void in Europe at a critical moment. Already, President François Hollande of France is all but a lame duck, deeply unpopular and a long shot for next year, and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy remains politically fragile, struggling to push through constitutional changes and to assert himself on the European stage. And the rift between the more pluralistic nations of Western Europe and governments in Central and Eastern Europe, some of which are increasingly authoritarian, has heightened the challenge of keeping the Continent knit tightly together. In the middle of all this, as ever, is Ms. Merkel, whose political peril in Germany remains hard to judge — especially, her supporters emphasize, while the country’s economy remains relatively strong. But she is under increased attack, from within her own bloc and from a resurgent over her immigration policy. And while German officials remain aghast at Britain’s lack of a plan for disengaging from the European Union, she has not offered a vision for how to hold the bloc together. Hostile commentators and critics in her own bloc could hardly contain their glee at her new vulnerability after the Alternative for Germany party pushed Ms. Merkel’s conservatives into third place in an election in the impoverished and sparsely populated northeastern state of on Sept. 4. It was the first time Ms. Merkel’s bloc of Christian Democrats and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, had been overtaken on the right in any such election in modern Germany. That the result came a year to the day after she threw open the country’s borders to admit migrants trapped in Hungary, and that it occurred in her political home state, which shelters very few refugees, accentuated the loss. “Angela Merkel is wobbling,” said Wolfram Weimer of the news channel . “Her aura of winner is destroyed, and her image as farseeing, clever strategist of power along with it. ” Talk of the twilight of Ms. Merkel’s time in office may be exaggerated, said Tina Hildebrandt of the influential weekly Die Zeit, “but that so much is open is spectacular enough. ” “Merkel’s loss of reputation is immense,” Ms. Hildebrandt added. “Her situation almost reminds us of the beginning of her career,” when the distinctly Ms. Merkel, a physicist from the Communist East, was much criticized for her style — and much underestimated in her ability and will to get to the top. The chancellor showed that grit on Wednesday with a spirited speech to Parliament, defending her policy at home and the controversial pact she negotiated with Turkey to stop Middle Eastern migrants from crossing to Greece and into Europe. Since that agreement was signed, she said, almost no migrants have drowned in the Aegean Sea, compared with hundreds in the two months before. “In that situation, you can’t just look on,” said Ms. Merkel, the daughter of a Lutheran pastor. “You must work with another country and find a way forward. ” Ms. Merkel has taken responsibility for the election loss on Sept. 4 and doubled down on her refusal to emulate neighboring Austria by limiting the number of asylum seekers who can come each year. (Austria, her partner last year in admitting the migrants, may elect a politician as president this year.) But as politicians scramble ahead of German national elections next fall, that limit on immigration is becoming a litmus test for her conservative Bavarian sister party, and even for the Social Democrats, with whom Ms. Merkel governs nationally in a coalition. Ms. Merkel has met almost every European leader ahead of the summit meeting in Bratislava, where the 27 nations are expected to agree on stronger security measures and try again to stimulate economic growth and jobs for the young. Daniela Schwarzer, a senior director of the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, said she saw the chancellor as still very much in charge. “I would not say that she has lost control, or the capacity to lead Germany,” Ms. Schwarzer said. “But she will have to take into account that there are vocal people in populist parties and critical voices in her own camp. ” The Alternative for Germany party now has seats in nine of the country’s 16 state legislatures and seems likely to win more when the of Berlin votes on Sunday. The chancellor might turn with relief to the next item on her calendar: a Sept. 19 summit meeting at the United Nations, hosted with President Obama, on the global crisis of up to 60 million migrants, many of them in Africa. Ms. Merkel wants vastly more aid and action to prevent from surging through Niger and Mali to Libya and then to Europe. Mr. Obama may be more sympathetic to her challenges than many of Ms. Merkel’s compatriots. “Perhaps because she once lived behind a wall herself,” Mr. Obama said on a visit to Germany in April, “Angela understands the aspirations of those who’ve been denied their freedom and who seek a better life. ” He added, “I know the politics around this issue can be difficult in all of our countries. ” | 1 |
Email
An internal memo released Wednesday by WikiLeaks reveals how a longtime Clinton confidant played an "unorthodox" dual role – raising money for the Clinton Foundation and finding paid work for Bill Clinton, The Hill reports.
The 12-page document written in 2011 by Doug Band of Teneo, a private consulting firm that raised millions for the foundation and also scouted out paid gigs for what was dubbed "Bill Clinton, Inc.", the Washington Examiner reports.
In one instance, Band secured a $540,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation from banking giant UBS. He later arranged for Bill Clinton to give three paid speeches to the firm for a total of $900,000, The Hill reported.
But in his memo, Band argues his double duties were "independent" of one another; the memo was written after Chelsea Clinton criticized Band's role within the family's network of interests, The Hill reports.
"In the unique roles in which we have had the opportunity to serve, we have been able to help balance the multiplicity of activities that demand [Bill Clinton's] time and engagement to best fulfill his personal, political, business, official former President, and Foundation/non-profit goals," Band writes.
According to The Hill, Teneo's overlapping responsibilities worried some in the Clintons' inner circle, and in one email published by WikiLeaks, Chelsea Clinton raised "serious concerns" with Teneo's liberal use of the Clinton name to court clients.
Band lashed out, calling the former first daughter a meddlesome "spoiled brat" in one hacked email released by WikiLeaks.
"We appreciate the unorthodox nature of our roles, and the goal of seeking ways to ensure we are implementing best practices to protect the [tax exempt] status of the Foundation," Band wrote in his memo to justify his role and bat back criticism, The Hill reports.
Band co-founded Teneo with former State Department employee Declan Kelly while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state – and paid Bill Clinton as an adviser through 2012, The Hill reports.
Band's memo lists several Teneo clients that he and Kelly "leveraged" into major donors for the foundation, and also details the personal introductions the two principals made between the Clintons and the prospective donors, The Hill reports.
One that Kelly "cultivated" was Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent, which led to seven-figure donations beginning in 2009.
In a previous hacked email to Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, Band worried the press might catch wind of his role and misconstrue it.
"I'm starting to worry that if this story gets out, we are screwed," Band wrote.
"[Kelly] and I built a business. Our business has almost nothing to do with the Clintons, the foundation or [the Clinton Global Initiative] in any way. The chairman of UBS could care a less [sic] about CGI."
A week after Band sent his memo, Clinton lawyer Cheryl Mills sent a document to Podesta and Band laying out ways to unwind the former president's charitable and business interests — all of which distanced Band from the foundation.
In December 2011, the former president resigned his position on Teneo’s advisory board, The Hill reports. | 0 |
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DESPITE not taking office until January of next year, President elect Donald Trump has revealed the first executive order he will issue when he takes power.
“I know this is an issue close to the American people’s heart, believe me, so I’ll be making marrying your beautiful daughter legal. It’s going to be great, we’ll have the best incest, believe me,” an emotional Trump declared.
Trump surprised political commentators who expected his first act in office to be something he pledged to do during his campaign such as the wholesale rounding up of Muslim Americans, a $6 billion tax cut for the wealthy or the punishment of women who have abortions.
“We’re going to incest bigly. This is my number one priority America, no one has more respect for the bond between a father and his more attractive of two daughters,” beamed the soon to be president, who had as recently as last week stated the right to free speech, as outlined in the US constitution, could do with some changing.
Insiders close to Trump sought to reassure some of his supporters, stating that he would waste no time in Making America Great Again.
“We understand people’s passion for having their fortunes turned around by a president who pledged to bring jobs back, but he also wants to make people as equally vulnerable as you suffer first, so please be patient,” a Trump aide explained.
Ivanka Trump was unavailable for comment as she was last seen fleeing for the Canadian border. | 0 |
Well, the Falcons can’t say the Saints never gave them anything. [Only a little over a week removed from the worst, most loss in franchise history, it’s safe to say that the Atlanta Falcons and their fans have had a rough go of it. New Orleans Saints fans, who count themselves as rivals to the Falcons by virtue of their shared membership in the NFC South, have apparently undertaken an effort to ensure that the Falcons’ fans misery continues a bit longer. This Mardi Gras float allegedly featuring Matt Ryan and Julio Jones (alleged, due to the fact that those portrayals look nothing like either of them) and the word “ringless,” just might exist and if it does will troll its way down the street during the Mardi Gras parade on February 28th: They got a Ringless Float for the Falcons @ Mardi Gras. I love my city lmao. pic. twitter. — Nader Mirfiq (@Nader723) February 13, 2017, Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn | 1 |
BREAKING BOMBSHELL! FBI NYPD INSIDERS LEAK - Email Scandal About to Take a SICK and TWISTED Turn
Source: Victurus Libertas
All of the following information was given to us by our insiders who have specific first-hand knowledge of the Hillary Clinton email scandal. It seems that things are about to heat up. We are told that of the 662,871 emails lifted from Anthony Weiner's computer, 11,112 emails are Huma Abedin's… and pay to play – including Saudis and Israelis. Meaning Huma was the one Hillary USED to communicate with foreign leaders via email for inside information and deals via Huma's computer.
It has been established through many avenues, but mainly through Wikileaks, that the Clinton Foundation was just a farce set up in order to perform pay-to-play games with multiple entities, including foreign nations. Pay-to-play nations include: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Kazakhstan, and the Ukraine.
Furthermore, we are told by one of our insiders that one email unequivocally confirms ISIS was created by CIA and Israeli Secret Intelligence Service , with help from Joe Lieberman, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham! An NYPD insider said the content they viewed did include State Department TOP SECRET emails. One file was called "Life Insurance". A second file was titled " DNC Nuclear Arsenal ".
A third file I'm sure Hillary definitely DOES NOT want released was a file labeled "Intimate" … according to this NYPD insider, this file contained X-rated photos of Huma and Hillary with a TEENAGER .
NYPD detectives were sickened by what they saw, according to our insider, and they had threatened FBI field agents that they would leak this information, if the FBI did not "step up and take off the kid gloves" . At that point, 13 of the FBI agents in NYC were also threatening to leak the information.
As you can imagine, the scandal has the entire Obama Administration in full panic. We are told there are emails that could send Loretta Lynch to prison , as well as Bill and Hillary. The Twitter post below, our sources sent us, verifying it is all true:
Even MORE!
The following information comes straight from an FBI Anonymous source, who is the senior analyst who posted on 4chan in early July of this year:
Jim Comey learned that some of his own investigators were tipping off both Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton, thus making his job impossible.
Comey sent a letter to Congress, knowing that ultimately it would expose Loretta Lynch as a dirty actor and the breadcrumbs would lead directly to Obama . The State Department is terrified now. Comey has assembled a small team of 40 agents, whom he has declared "The Untouchables" after the famous federal agent Eliot Ness.
Comey has clamped down on all FBI agents and he expects a full-scale war between the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ), the White House, and the State Department. He has confirmed and understands that many sitting senators, congressmen, lobbyists, and power players are going to be indicted and prosecuted . One of the main targets of the probe is the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative. Among the targets under investigation are John Podesta, Huma, Cheryl Mills, CNN, ABC, NBC, etc.
As it turns out, Weiner, Huma's husband, had been forwarding Huma's emails each time she came home and left her computer open. Huma appears to have been in touch with Saudi actors, and therefore, ESPIONAGE is strongly suspected.
Comey and his 40 " Untouchables " are now preparing to take down the largest corruption ever witnessed in American history… which is what I think MUST happen if Comey is planning to stay part of the FBI. He lost so much respect and so much credibility with the first Hillary investigation, it would take something of this magnitude to allow him to face the public again. The Pentagon has internal players and outside players they call " creatives ". Creatives are civilians who tend to be geniuses, malcontents, extreme hackers, or otherwise demonstrate brilliance in other useful areas. A Pentagon program called Cicada 3301 , which we have reported on previously, was created by several of these talented civilians. The program is now used to allow thousands of honest government people to report on their corrupt superiors, using what is called a DEAD BOX whistleblower encryption method so the non-corrupted government officials can report corruption and still remain safe.
I've heard it said "A vagina almost took down Bill, now will a Weiner take down Hillary?" LOL!
Again, thank you to all of the insiders, the whistleblowers, the good FBI agents, the good CIA agents, the good NYPD officers, and the non-corrupted government officials who want to see the truth exposed! Without these brave, wonderful, and morally erect individuals, our country would still be in the corrupted darkness.
Vistors to Epstein's Little St. James Island include:
• Ehud Barak , the former Prime Minister of Israel (1999-2001) – pedophile being procured underage girls by Epstein. Former Israeli Minister of Defense and also Deputy Israeli Prime Minister under Binyamin Netanyahu from 2009 to 2013.
• Prince Andrew – British royalty – Jeffrey Epstein and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell pimped Epstein sex slave Virginia Roberts to Prince Andrew multiple times. The victim girls say Prince Andrew was very sexually sadistic; they despised this sick, twisted creature.
• Kevin Spacey – actor in House of Cards. People tell me Spacey is gay, and my response is "Have you ever heard of the word bisexual?" Spacey is very good friends with 2 big-time pedophiles: Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton. Spacey, big Hollywood star, has 3.78 million Twitter followers.
• Alan Dershowitz – longtime friend of Epstein, as well as one of his defense lawyers. Dershowitz was the one who negotiated that absurd plea bargain for Epstein that gave him a 13-month (served) sentence and a 16 hour/day day pass so he could spend most of his time in his mansion. Epstein sex slave Virginia Roberts has said that Epstein made her have sex with Dershowitz numerous times. The real question is how many other underage girls was Dershowitz having sex with? Virginia Roberts says Dershowitz also witnessed Epstein's pedophilic activities.
http://victuruslibertas.com/2016/10/insiders-reveal-sex-ring/
Related:
Abel Danger - "FBI INSIDER" - Clinton Foundation Scandal Would Bring Down the Government and More
The Situation Is So Intense, It Involves the Entire US Government | FBI Insider
*EXPLOSIVE* Q & A on the Clinton Foundation - FBI Insider on 4chan /pol/ : "Ask Me Anything About the Clinton Case" - George Soros Is the Kingpin - Follow the Rothschild Thread - Clinton Foundation Uses People as Currency - Jeffrey Epstein's Child Sex Trafficking Network - Bill & Hillary Clinton Get Paid in Money & Children - Hammer HRC's E-mails, Dig Into the CF: Post Everywhere You Can
I SIS stands for "Israeli Secret Intelligence Service" | 0 |
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In this guest post for The UnReal Times, Rajdeep Sardesai explains why Indian journalists have a reason to be proud of themselves.
It may be a sad day for Indian journalists given than Donald Trump won the presidency. But look at the brighter side. We have reasons to be proud.
About 52% of British voters voted to leave the European Union and about 47% of Americans voted to elect Donald Trump as president while only about 30% Indians voted Narendra Modi for Prime Minister.
Despite this Indian journalists at least asked whether there was a Modi wave and at least saw Modi becoming PM after the exit polls, albeit with a smaller majority than the actual results.
Britain is a small country and so excuses like the tyranny of distance do not hold. Also, Americans got the results on the tyranically distant east coast and the west coast right but missed the results from the rural heartland completely.
Further, in India every state is potentially a swing state wheres in the US, the journalists only had to analyze a few swing states to analyze the poll outcome, a task they failed at.
The American and British journalists have clearly lost their moral compass.
If journalists had just travelled across the country and tried Key Lime Pie in Florida, Pulled Pork Sandwich in North Carolina, Cheesesteaks in Pennsylvania, Buckeyes in Ohio and Grilled Sweet Corn on the Cob in Iowa, they would have got a better sense of which way the elections were going.
You cannot shut down people’s opinions by your intellectual arguments. You have to engage people, debate, occasionally fist fight to get a sense of what is happening, even against people who may or many not have paisa and class.
This is where the American journalists failed.
The American media has not done its homework responsibly. Even when elections were less than a month away, we were still seeing skeletons tumbling out of the closet like Trump’s offensive remarks about women and FBI’s reopening and closing investigations about Hillary Clinton’s private email server. What was the media doing all this while? How did these 2 candidates get this far? In India, we rigorously investigated every aspect of our prospective prime minister before he even was in the reckoning for the post of the prime minister.
Indian journalists do not need to give explanation to their readers like The New York Times had to do because we are neutral.
As the world is bewildered by this resullts, I am writing a new book for their benefit titled “2016 – Elections that changed America”. Remember to preorder your copy.
Good night, Shubh ratri. | 0 |
I would like to briefly sum up the message from the thought leaders of conservatism in this election cycle.
This is their basic thesis:
The problem with conservatism today is all these people who are wrong and stupid and horrible about everything.
They usually don’t put it so bluntly. They frame it in terms of some people being fossils, or some people being opportunistic, or some people being narrow-minded, or one-dimensional in their thinking, or one thing or another that’s a tad more inventive than “wrong, stupid, and horrible.” But not much more inventive, really, when you get right down to it.
It’s time to declare all stop, because this isn’t helping anything.
David Brooks, who tries hard to speak without brutality, has produced the latest such meditation. I don’t want to pick on him. But he’s written an op-ed that seems to encapsulate a lot of what’s wrong with the current conservative discourse, starting with a passage like this:
This is a sad story [about the state of conservatism]. But I confess I’m insanely optimistic about a conservative rebound. That’s because of an observation the writer Yuval Levin once made: That while most of the crazy progressives are young, most of the crazy conservatives are old. Conservatism is now being led astray by its seniors, but its young people are pretty great. It’s hard to find a young evangelical who likes Donald Trump. Most young conservatives are comfortable with ethnic diversity and are weary of the Fox News media-politico complex. Conservatism’s best ideas are coming from youngish reformicons who have crafted an ambitious governing agenda (completely ignored by Trump).
We could pick this apart in a number of ways, but just start with the fact that it’s an exercise in contingent, situational innuendo about other conservatives.
Older conservatives, apparently, are not “comfortable with ethnic diversity,” and are barkingly enthusiastic about “the Fox News media-politico complex.” My goodness, they sound awful. But what does that even mean? How do you distinguish between the implied states of being here? By what criteria? And what difference does it make, to the meaning and purposes of conservatism?
It’s as if Barack Obama appeared on the scene, and a mere eight years later, no one can remember what it was like to talk about conservatism without talking about other conserva tives as if we’re all snotty gossip reporters. Heck, the folks at TMZ give their celebrity targets more mercy and benefit of the doubt.
We can’t cover everything in one post. I want to look at just one aspect of the conservative dialogue, one that isn’t about the “Trump test,” or the “Fox News” test (who knew?), or the “ethnic diversity” test, or the “my Christianity is more righteous than yours” test, or any other test I see being applied out there.
Here’s the topic: the loss of moral touchstones in our culture due to the breakdown induced by cultural Marxism.
If we want to know why conservatives can’t talk to each other today, I’d suggest we start with that.
The Berkeley test
Many readers will have their own ideas of how to frame this with examples. I’m going to use this one .
A mob of young people, who have been encouraged for years to believe very destructive things about their world, comes together at Berkeley. The mob’s purpose: to block white students from making their way to their classes.
Here, in the next sentence, is the result of the breakdown induced by cultural Marxism. Conservatives, for the most part, can’t really think what to do about this.
Conservatives have a good-hearted desire for a positive outcome. But this thing at Berkeley is a tough problem; it’s a real problem; it’s a perennial type of human problem (albeit with modern refinements) – and conservatives today are often too muddleheaded in their thinking to navigate this form of whitewater in human dynamics.
The progressive left isn’t even in this discussion, because it sees no need to defend any rights for the white students in the case.
It’s conservatives who have been stymied and silenced by the application of cultural Marxism. As little as 20 years ago, I think a lot more conservatives could have made a cogent case for what to do, based on core moral principles. Today, too many conservatives wander in a fog of doubt about those principles – and so they criticize each other instead, over irrelevancies like weariness vs. enthusiasm for Fox News.
I propose the following as the conservative response to the event at Berkeley. Detain and identify everyone involved in blocking students’ passage to class – classes those students or the taxpayer, or both, are paying good money for them to attend. Stand up, as the school administration, and inform the miscreants that this won’t happen again, and if it does, they’ll be expelled. Put the campus police behind this policy. Follow through as necessary to stop the tortious interference with paying customers’ access to the service they are paying for. Expel students who don’t obey the rules. Penalize faculty who abet them and lead them astray.
Conservatives who think we can have a working society without such impartial enforcement need only look around them to realize that we can’t. The evidence is staring us in the face, that there is no such condition as one in which we can deconstruct the rules of respect and decency through endless, unresolved, resentment-based “dialogue,” and yet also be able to function.
“We” can’t function at all, when that so-called “dialogue” rules us. The “dialogue” serves to paralyze people who want good and positive things, and to leave only the people with destructive goals free to act.
Reclaiming some core moral ideas
There’s a beating heart of society that badly needs reclaiming, and it’s the function of moral authority and common expectations. Conservatives once thought systematically about that very issue, because they understood that one way or another, we are under authority. At Berkeley, students are under the de jure authority of the administration – or they are under the de facto authority of a mob.
But on the “de jure” side, there should be a conservative alternative to what the progressive left wants to do with authority. The left wants to use government’s enforcement authority to dictate common expectations to everyone, about everything. That’s the progressive left in a nutshell.
What I outlined above, for the Berkeley situation, is a conservative concept for the use of authority to enforce some minimum common expectations, in the interest of impartiality, equality of treatment, and rightful use of services lawfully obtained. It’s a decentralized concept too, with authority being wielded by the institution, and only implicitly backed by the government – but without the government being directly involved.
That conceptual outline ought to be a recognized alternative to what is actually being done at Berkeley. But how many conservatives could really make the case for it today? How many conservatives can look at the Berkeley situation and do something besides shake their heads over how stupid everything has gotten?
Conservatism itself is paralyzed by the nervous moral fear induced in people by cultural Marxism – which has been meant from the beginning to undermine moral confidence at the most basic level. Conservatism’s problem isn’t Donald Trump. Conservatism’s problem is that Donald Trump isn’t paralyzed by the guilt-mongering of cultural Marxism – but conservatism is .
The answer is not for conservatism to insist that nothing move out there, until we decide what forms of paralysis will continue to suit us. The answer is that conservatives must fearlessly reclaim the necessary social concepts of authority and common expectations, and start producing results.
The reality of 2016
People know today that conservatives couldn’t handle the situation at Berkeley the way it should be handled. Conservatives would be afraid to. People also know that progressives won’t handle it properly. Progressives don’t want to.
But oddly enough, weird old Donald Trump probably would handle it the right way. He’d recognize clearly the principle of lawful access to the service you’ve paid for. And he wouldn’t fear to enforce that principle, even though there’d be some caterwauling from the mob.
People get that.
Conservatives won’t make headway by being angry or alarmed that Trump seems to be walking off with the “effectiveness” rep. Sure, he probably has a lot of wrong thoughts in his head on the general topic of authority. Most people do.
But the cost of remaining paralyzed by that concern is going up by the hour. Somebody’s got to take order to this problem. The people can’t afford to wait for conservatives to shake off the fear, and start acting again like what we believe in ought to be enforced.
What do conservatives believe in? Litmus tests involving Fox News, and the excitement of an “ambitious governing agenda”? Other equally situational, buzz-thought-sounding checklists? If so, we are in a box, right where cultural Marxism wants us.
I submit that that, and not intransigent personalities, is our problem. There’s a vacuum where our moral philosophy should be. We offer no alternative to the left’s grand vision for government, and the mob’s destructive rule by default. That’s not because of Donald Trump. It’s because we fear to engage with the reality that for human social life, there must be authority and common expectations.
Our ears hear the wrong thing in those words. Cultural Marxism has taught us, as it has everyone else, to hear inferences like “Hitler” and “fascism.”
But in fact, authority and common expectations, wielded accountably and from the right elements of society (like the family, parents, and faith, as well as the thoughtful consent of individuals), are necessary for liberty, prosperity, and hope .
And only conservatives will think systematically about how to both limit authority, and use it beneficially.
Don’t complain about Donald Trump if your contribution to conservatism is to fuss about the other conservatives who annoy you. The conservatives who disagree with you haven’t lost their way, in a static situation frozen back in 1955, because of something that’s wrong with them. There is no static situation. Given that reality, they’re just doing the best they can.
Our entire civilization is in a great crisis, one that has been creeping up on us for decades. And that crisis is laying bare flaws in our conservative thinking that we have left unattended for too long. The flaws aren’t about failing to accept cultural Marxism and its prejudicial tropes (like “ethnic diversity,” used as a bell-ringer for implied guilt). The flaws are about failing to reject and defeat cultural Marxism. Its proper end is on the ash heap of history. Yet conservatives are paralyzed by being in thrall to it. We fix that, or we perish. 0 shares | 0 |
President Donald Trump spent much of his Sunday sending unfiltered messages on Twitter, despite reports that said White House attorneys would start vetting his messages and tweet less. [“The Fake News Media works hard at disparaging demeaning my use of social media because they don’t want America to hear the real story!” Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday night. Trump remained mostly idle on Twitter during his trip overseas, using his account to thank his foreign hosts for an excellent trip. That caught the attention of reporters, who speculated that Trump would be more filtered in the future. “I’ve been told a factor in the lack of tweeting abroad overall was the presence of Melania Trump,” wrote a Politico reporter on Twitter. Trump was expected to travel on Saturday, presumably to his golf course, but the trip was canceled, likely due to rain. Instead, the president spent his afternoon on Twitter challenging the accuracy of stories about the White House. “It is my opinion that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Whenever you see the words ‘sources say’ in the fake news media, and they don’t mention names it is very possible that those sources don’t exist but are made up by fake news writers. #FakeNews is the enemy!” Trump also highlighted another big victory for Republicans in Montana, despite hysteria suggesting that the Republican candidate would lose a special election in the state after “body slamming” a reporter. “Does anyone notice how the Montana Congressional race was such a big deal to Dems Fake News until the Republican won?” Trump wrote, calling the story “poorly covered. ” He also criticized leaks of British intelligence from American sources to the news media. “British Prime Minister May was very angry that the info the U. K. gave to U. S. about Manchester was leaked,” he wrote. “Gave me full details!” The president also wrote about his plan for health care and tax cuts. “ObamaCare is dead — the Republicans will do much better!” he wrote, floating the option of adding more money to fund health care and promised that tax reform was moving along swiftly. “The massive TAX that I have submitted is moving along in the process very well, actually ahead of schedule. Big benefits to all!” he wrote. Trump sent 10 messages on Twitter on Saturday, one of the busiest days on the social platform as president. Trump’s social media director Dan Scavino confirmed for reporters that Trump’s use of Twitter would continue. “Various news reports of attorneys vetting Donald Trump’s tweets are compliments of your #FakeNewsMedia terrible ‘sources,’” he wrote. “#FACT” | 1 |
Hillary Clinton’s claim on Wednesday that she lost the 2016 presidential election in part because of the proliferation of “fake news” is contradicted by an extensive study that found fake news didn’t significantly impact the outcome of the election. [That study recently received a positive nod from the Poynter Institute, the group helping Facebook determine whether certain news stories are “disputed. ” Speaking at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. Clinton claimed that she lost the election due a plot in which fake news was disseminated on social media in a conspiracy orchestrated by Russian agents and bots. “Here’s what the other side was doing, and they were in a different arena,” she stated, according to a transcript from the event organizers. “Through content farms, through an enormous investment in falsehoods, fake news, call it what you will. ” Without citing evidence, Clinton claimed that “1, 000 Russian agents” were behind the conspiracy to disseminate fake information about her: The other side was using content that was just false, and delivering it in a very personalized way, both sort of above the radar screen and below. And you know, look, I’m not a tech expert by any stretch of the imagination. That really influenced the information that people were relying on. And there have been some studies done since the election that if you look — let’s pick Facebook. If you look at Facebook, the vast majority of the news items posted were fake. They were connected to, as we now know, the 1, 000 Russian agents who were involved in delivering those messages. Clinton’s claim that voters were influenced by fake news contrasts with a study titled “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election,” by economists Matthew Gentzkow of Stanford University and Hunt Allcott of New York University. The research utilized web browsing data, a database of what the authors claimed were fake news stories and a online survey about news trends. The study concluded: Our data suggest that social media were not the most important source of election news, and even the most widely circulated fake news stories were seen by only a small fraction of Americans. For fake news to have changed the outcome of the election, a single fake news story would need to have convinced about 0. 7 percent of Clinton voters and who saw it to shift their votes to Trump, a persuasion rate equivalent to seeing 36 television campaign ads. Poynter’s Chief Media Writer James Warren reported on the study: In sum, they conclude that the role of social media was overstated, with television remaining by far the primary vehicle for consuming political news. Just 14 percent of Americans deemed social media the primary source of their campaign news, according to their research. In addition, while fake news that favored Trump far exceeded that favoring Clinton, few Americans actually recalled the specifics of the stories and fewer believed them. “For fake news to have changed the outcome of the election, a single fake article would need to have had the same persuasive effect as 36 television campaign ads,” they conclude. Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. With research by Joshua Klein. | 1 |
What do washing the dishes and uploading pictures to Facebook have in common? In most places, not much. But in Paris, they both could help heat your local swimming pool. To keep its bathers from shivering and its energy bills from ballooning, the city has developed some clever ways to reuse excess heat from two unconventional sources, computer servers and sewage. The wastewater from sinks, toilets, washing machines and so on pours into the Paris sewer system at an average temperature of 55 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit. At the Aspirant Dunand swimming pool in the 14th Arrondissement of Paris, the stuff runs through pipes underneath the pool, where the warmth is captured with the help of metal plates in the sewage pipes. A system then transfers it to the pool water. The heat source at a swimming pool in the Butte aux Cailles neighborhood of the 13th Arrondissement will have to be kept much drier. A French company called Stimergy is scheduled to install several hundred computer servers in the building’s basement over the next year. The heat thrown off by the servers will go to the boiler that heats water for the pool and showers — a “data furnace,” if you will. Martins, the city’s deputy mayor in charge of sports, has said it is all part of a plan to make the city’s swimming pools more “ ” in preparation for the 2024 Olympic Games, which Paris is in the running to host. (Los Angeles and Budapest are the other contenders.) “We wish to reduce the environmental impact and ecological footprint of these facilities, while reducing chemical product use,” Mr. Martins said of the pools. Making Paris more environmentally friendly is also high on the list for Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist. To cut tailpipe emissions, her administration recently imposed a ban on vehicle traffic along a large section of the roadway that runs along the Seine. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Fighters with the Islamic State fired a shell onto a military base in northern Iraq, home to American and Iraqi troops, that may have contained a chemical agent, military officials said on Wednesday. The shell did not explode, and the officials said no American or Iraqi troops were injured in the attack. The soldier who brought the shell in for testing has not shown any blistering in the 24 hours since handling it, said the military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation. While the unexploded shell initially tested positive for a mustard agent, a second test was negative. Additional tests have been ordered. The attack, which was first reported by CNN, occurred at a base being used to prepare Iraqi forces for the offensive to retake Mosul from the Islamic State. Defense Department officials said that in the past few months Islamic State fighters have fired several shells containing mustard agents at Iraqi, Kurdish and American troops, and said the attacks generated a “moderate level of concern on a basis. ” Last summer, the Islamic State used chemical agents — again, mustard gas — in an attack on Kurdish fighters in northern Syria and Kurdish news media outlets reported another mustard gas attack a few weeks later on Kurdish fighters in Makhmur, Iraq. | 1 |
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In his 29 years in prison, David Bonner has mopped floors, cooked hot dogs in the cafeteria and, most recently, cut sheets of aluminum into Alabama license plates.
The last job paid $2 a day — enough to buy a bar of soap at the commissary or make a short phone call.
“This is slavery,” said Bonner, who is 51 and serving a life sentence for murder. “We’re forced to work these jobs and we get barely anything.”
He was speaking on a mobile phone smuggled into his 8-by-12 foot cell in Alabama’s Holman Correctional Facility, where he and dozens of other inmates were on strike.
David Bonner, an inmate at Alabama’s Holman prison, went on strike from his job last month at a factory on prison grounds where inmates manufacture state license plates. (Alabama Dept. of Corrections)
They’re among a growing national movement of prisoners who have staged work stoppages or hunger strikes this fall to protest dismal wages, abusive guards, overcrowding and poor healthcare, among other grievances.
Prisoners’ rights activists say the coordinated effort is one of the largest prison protests in modern history, drawing in at least 20,000 inmates in at least 24 prisons in 23 states. | 0 |
Superstation95.com
Now, we know it's bad! The FBI Director's announcement that the Bureau had found more emails pertinent to its Hillary Clinton private e-mail server investigation, and was re-opening that investigation, sent shockwaves across the political spectrum this afternoon.
The fact that the FBI made such an announcement is extraordinary in itself. Generally, the Bureau does NOT publicly reveal that someone is under investigation, never mind someone who is so high-profile, like an active candidate for President! So the revelation that the Hillary investigation is now re-opened is an absolute stunner on many levels. Frankly, all experts agree that it must be something extraordinary they found; something likely criminal.
Adding to the drama was that the FBI Director did NOT coordinate the announcement with the White House or with the Department of Justice (DOJ) - which could be an effort by the Bureau to regain its lost reputation for Integrity. Keeping the White house and Justice Department out of the loop means they could not interfere prior to the announcement, and now that the announcement has been made publicly, neither the White House nor the DOJ can prevent the public from knowing something big is taking place. "DEVASTATING REVELATIONS"
And "big" might be an understatement. Late Friday night, the White House very quietly CANCELED all of Barack Obama's scheduled campaign appearances on behalf of Hillary Clinton! The scheduled events, confirmed for months, were all quietly DELETED. See the Before and After images below:
Whatever information the FBI has found must be completely devastating for Clinton. So devastating, that President Obama can no longer even be seen as supporting her candidacy!
This FBI announcement has "criminality" written all over it.
Stay tuned. | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. President Trump, in his fourth tumultuous week in office, boasted that his new administration was a “ machine. ” A news conference to announce his new nominee for labor secretary, R. Alexander Acosta, a former assistant attorney general for civil rights, turned into an extraordinarily raw and angry . “The tone is such hatred,” he said of cable TV commentary. “I’m really not a bad person. ” _____ 2. Representative Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina was confirmed as budget director. He is a fiscal hawk who will play a central role in the administration’s plans to reshape the federal government. But Mr. Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, heads to a confirmation vote Friday amid an extraordinary wave of protest from former E. P. A. staff members. Such confirmation battles have helped make Republican lawmakers unable to deliver on their promises of sweeping legislation on health care, overhauling the tax code or upgrading the nation’s infrastructure. They are particularly fractured on how to repeal and replace Obamacare. _____ 3. An uncounted number of immigrants across the country — carpenters and cooks, students, cleaners and grocery store owners — stayed home in protest of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. “We’re at a stage where we’re like, what else is there to do except organize and boycott?” said an activist in New York. The Justice Department said it would not seek a rehearing on the president’s targeted travel ban in a federal appeals court, saying a new order was in the works. _____ 4. Intelligence officials, on edge over Mr. Trump’s criticism of leaks related to his associates’ contacts with Russian intelligence agents, are resisting his plans to assign Stephen A. Feinberg, a New York billionaire, to review intelligence agencies. That Russian naval intelligence ship hanging off the East Coast? For some, it’s a symbol of current tensions, but the Coast Guard says there’s nothing all that unusual about it. Today’s episode of the podcast The Daily asks, did the Trump campaign collude with Russia? Listen from a computer, on an iOS device or on an Android device. _____ 5. In environmental news, a Greenpeace report tied the toxic waves of air pollution sweeping northern China to an increase in already excessive steel production last year, made counter to promised cuts. Scientists are also coming to understand the crucial importance of the vast, and endangered, seagrass meadows that surround every continent except Antarctica. _____ 6. The Islamic State has destroyed many of the prized antiquities and ruins in the Syrian city of Palmyra. But a new digital exhibition is helping preserve its legacy. The Getty has gathered etchings of Palmyra and the oldest known photographs of the city. Most have not been seen widely before. “More than just testaments to a threatened archaeological inheritance,” our critic writes, they are “traces of explorations and crosscultural exchange too many now seek to shut down. ” _____ 7. Mark Zuckerberg updated Facebook’s mission statement in a letter that was close to a political statement from the executive. He expressed alarm over growing rejections of globalism and argued that “progress now requires humanity coming together not just as cities or nations, but also as a global community. ” And Snap Inc. Snapchat’s parent company, is aiming for a valuation of more than $20 billion as it nears what’s expected to be the biggest initial public offering in the tech world since Alibaba and Facebook. _____ 8. You don’t need us to tell you the world is full of paradoxes. But one of our sports reporters found a special case: Hunts for bighorn sheep — prized as challenging, and prohibitively expensive — are helping revive wild sheep populations and expand their territory. A permit sold for a record $480, 000 in 2013. _____ 9. TV continues to showcase jokes about the White House and Russia. Stephen Colbert took particular aim at Mr. Trump’s efforts to blame the leakers who revealed Trump associates’ contacts with Russian intelligence over the last year. “Here’s the thing,” Mr. Colbert said. “It can’t be both fake news and an illegal leak of classified information. ‘Your honor, I did not murder that man. The real criminal is whoever filmed me strangling him. ’” _____ 10. Finally, the announcement of a double jailhouse wedding more than a century ago got Lena Dunham thinking about what it means to love and to be a “good woman. ” The notice is part of our review of 165 years of Times wedding announcements. In a turnabout, it was the women who were incarcerated. They were serving short sentences, but the 1912 article made no mention of their infractions. The grooms, the creator of HBO’s “Girls” writes, were able to get beyond societal expectations of the brides’ behavior: “They didn’t need them to be good girls. They were their girls. ” Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
A new survey by Pew Research Center shows a stark divide between what Republicans and Democrats think of the media and its role as a watchdog of the federal government. [The two sides “now disagree more than ever on a fundamental issue of the news media’s role in society: whether news organizations’ criticism of political leaders primarily keeps them from doing things they shouldn’t — or keeps them from doing their job,” Pew reported about its survey. Nine of 10 Democrats — or 89 percent — said the news media criticism keeps politicians in line, while only one in four Republicans assess the media that way. “That is a gap, according to a new online survey conducted March 2017, among 4, 151 U. S. adults who are members of Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel,” Pew reported. Pew noted that this gap is much different than opinions of the media at the start of the 2016 presidential election year, when both parties assessed the media’s job as holding politicians accountable — 74 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of Republicans. Pew has been asking this question since 1985, noting “while Republicans have been more likely to support a watchdog role during Democratic presidencies and vice versa, the distance between the parties has never approached the gap that exists today. ” Until now the widest gap between Democrats and Republicans happened during the George W. Bush administration, when Democrats were 28 points more supportive of the watchdog role of the media than Republicans. Some changes in survey results could be related to the difference in people’s response to online surveys compared with previous surveys done by telephone, but “even taking possible mode effects into account, though, this year’s difference is so stark that it would still be the largest gap in the center’s polling on this question. ” Though not as dramatic a split, the two parties are also divided on whether the media favors one side in its political coverage, on how much trust they have in national news media, and whether or not national news organizations are doing a good job of keeping them informed. After Trump won the 2016 election, Pew surveyed voters about what news source they relied on and found: “When voters were asked to write in their ‘main source’ for election news, Trump voters named Fox News. The next main source among Trump voters, CNN, was named by only 8% of his voters. “Clinton voters, however, did not coalesce around any one source. CNN was named more than any other, but at 18% had nowhere near the dominance that Fox News had among Trump voters. Instead, the choices of Clinton voters were more spread out. MSNBC, Facebook, local television news, NPR, ABC, The New York Times, and CBS were all named by between 5% and 9% of her voters. ” | 1 |
Beauty products that claim to be "organic" or "natural" are far from it. Credit: Wise Geek
When it comes to the term “organic,” there’s actually not as much regulation surrounding use of the word as consumers would like. The U.S. Department of Agriculture regulates organic claims in farm products, but it’s the controversial Federal Drug Administration that has control over cosmetics.
Though the USDA has strict standards for organic food products, the FDA does not even have an official definition for the term “organic.” On their website, the question “Does FDA have a definition for the term organic?” is met with this answer:
“No. FDA regulates cosmetics under the authority of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) and the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA). The term ‘organic’ is not defined in either of these laws or the regulations that FDA enforces under their authority.”
The FDA does have some regulations that are overseen by the USDA via the National Organic Program, but the policing efforts when it comes to cosmetics are seriously lacking. By looking at EWG’s Skin Deep database, it was determined that over 5,000 products use the word “organic” in their brand name, product name, product label or list of ingredients.
Depending on the placement of the word, certain regulations can be bypassed , and that’s why most of these products are actually horrible and receive the lowest Skin Deep score possible despite claiming to be “organic.” The use of chemicals is still allowed even in these seemingly wholesome products and some of these chemicals are so poor for your skin that they are banned in many countries.
When a beauty product claims to be “made with 100% organic or natural ingredients,” it can be misleading because they are often referring to a single ingredient that is organic or naturally-derived rather than all of their ingredients. Other tactics used to confuse consumers include using the terms like “eco-friendly” or “vegan,” both of which are even less regulated than using organic on a label. Unless there is a third-party company that you trust backing these claims, they are likely a farce and have no substance.
Since there is so much confusion surrounding these loaded words, consumers should be wary when they encounter products that make bold claims like this. Instead of taking their labels at face value, simply take a look at the ingredients and research a few to see what they really are. If the majority of them are things you cannot pronounce, it’s likely that most are made with synthetic chemicals and far from being “natural” or “organic.”
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This article ( Thousands Of “Organic” Beauty Products Found Containing Banned Chemicals ) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com
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It is never so clear cut in war as it is in the movies. There are no black and white hats that participants wear. So, we should not be surprised that in our war on terror we are sometimes forced to work with such bad people. But, there should be a line as to who we are working with. We should not be working with those who hate us as much as ISIS does.
This seems to be the case as the assault against Mosul in Iraq begins in earnest. Groups that have been supported by our enemy and dedicated to our downfall should be excluded from the list of those fighting alongside our coalition. But, this administration does not draw such a hard line.
Breitbart reports :
A Reuters report has confirmed that Shiite militias closely aligned with the Iranian government and the terror group Hezbollah are actively participating in the liberation of Mosul, Iraq, from the Islamic State, following repeated denials from the Pentagon.
The Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) have begun moving closer to Mosul, the capital of the Islamic State in Iraq and the nation’s second-largest city. The Islamic State captured the city in 2014, and the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced an operation to liberate the city earlier this month. The Iraqi army has agreed to cooperate with Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the U.S. government in the endeavor.
These groups have been opposed to us and our allies. They are trained and paid by our enemy, Iran. And have committed atrocities against the Sunni citizens they were supposed to be helping.
Once again, the president has turned a blind eye to those he has helped to take our place in this region.
Article posted with permission from Constitution.com Don't forget to Like Freedom Outpost on Facebook , Google Plus , & Twitter . You can also get Freedom Outpost delivered to your Amazon Kindle device here . shares | 0 |
Email Print Democratic Vice President Joe Biden wants American women to get back in the workforce to help boost the economy. “If we just put all the women back to work, if they were able to afford childcare, we would increase the GDP in America by close to eight tenths of one percent,” he said. “That’s trillions of dollars over the next decade.” Biden made his remarks during a campaign event for Hillary Clinton at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Tuesday. “The state of our economy could be characterized by a single word: pitiful,” he argued. “We’re still battling recession, I don’t care what the official stats are saying, America is still in recession. And we’re not doing anything about it.” He added that it was “lazy American women” who brought about the downfall of the economy, because “they sit around on their behinds, doing nothing and squandering their days away when they could be improving the country that has given so much to them.” “I’m not sure how exactly we got to this point, but we’re here and we need to move. Like, yesterday,” he said. “Mark my words and mark them well,” he addressed the crowd. “Hillary Clinton is the only one who can force American women to go to work. This is true because of a number of reasons. First, she’s a woman herself and not just any woman; she’s a self-made woman. So you better believe what she’s saying is true and has been tried and tested in practice plenty of times.” “Second, Hillary Clinton understands how difficult it can be to give up the status of a free-loader when your husband is the bread-winner of the household and the wife is expected to tend to the house, the children, make sure dinner is served and always be in the mood for marital duties. She’s been all that and she’s learned how to break free from it, the hard way, I might add,” Biden continued. “Today’s women are pampered and aren’t used to rolling up their sleeves and getting the job done on their own,” the vice president said. “They’re too dependent, too weak and too lazy to contribute to the economy. The reason for that is they’ve learned how to manipulate men by employing one of the most fundamental laws of economics: when a sought-after commodity becomes short in supply, the demand for it rises even higher.” “Now, that’s all fine and dandy when it comes to their personal interests, but if you look at the big picture, it’s the economy that’s missing out on valuable workforce. And that’s why we need to get them off their lazy behinds and get them into their workplaces. And like I said, Hillary Clinton is the only one who can do it, which is what makes her the ideal candidate for the next President of the United States. We need to heal this country, folks, not run it into the ground even deeper,” Biden concluded. Join us on Facebook to Stop The Takeover. Click on the button to subscribe. | 0 |
Jonah Lehrer has had time to work on “A Book About Love. ” His schedule no longer teems with lucrative speaking engagements. He no longer writes for The New Yorker or contributes to “Radiolab” on NPR. With this project — his shot at redemption, provided to him by Simon Schuster after his public tumble from grace — Mr. Lehrer could have written something complex and considered. Books are still the slow food of the publishing business. Yet here is Mr. Lehrer, once again, serving us a nonfiction McMuffin. I wasn’t expecting it. I was one of those weirdos who thought Mr. Lehrer would make a respectable comeback. He’s bright. He’s a decent stylist. He languished in the public stockade for weeks for his sins. Why wouldn’t he try something personal, something soulful, something new? No clue. But he didn’t. His book is insolently unoriginal. For those who don’t know the author’s story: Mr. Lehrer, 35, was once one of our culture’s cuddliest pop intellectuals, specializing in neuroscience. From almost the moment he published his first book at 26, magazine editors couldn’t get enough of him. He wrote two more books and became a speaker on the guru rental market. But in the summer of 2012, he was caught recycling old material for his new blog at The New Yorker. Then it was discovered he’d plagiarized several blog posts while working at Wired magazine. And then the journalist Michael Moynihan found that Mr. Lehrer had invented quotes from Bob Dylan for his third book, “Imagine,” and misused the words Mr. Dylan actually did say. Later investigations showed that “Imagine” contained many other factual errors. The book was pulled from shelves. So, too, was his second book, “How We Decide. ” Errors in even the finest works of nonfiction are ridiculously common. Gay Talese, who’s been writing for almost twice as long as Mr. Lehrer has been alive, just had to concede that parts of his coming book, “The Voyeur’s Motel,” could not be wholly accurate after a reporter from The Washington Post phoned to point out he’d missed essential information about his subject. What rankled about Mr. Lehrer was his “cavalier attitude about truth and falsehood,” in the words of the writer Charles Seife, who reviewed his work for Wired. In retrospect — and I am hardly the first person to point this out — the vote to excommunicate Mr. Lehrer was as much about the product he was peddling as the professional transgressions he was committing. It was a referendum on a certain genre of canned, social science, one that traffics in bespoke platitudes for the middlebrow and rehearses the same studies without saying something new. Apparently, he’s learned nothing. This book is a series of duckpin arguments, just waiting to be knocked down. Perhaps the flimsiest: that Shakespeare’s famous teenagers have come to define our understanding of love. “But this description of love — the Romeo and Juliet version — is woefully incomplete,” he writes in the introduction. Love is not just lust, madness, or a great tidal flow of dopamine, he is quick to tell us. “Love is a process, not a switch. ” Fine. But is there really any evolved adult who believes otherwise? When a widow wakes up sobbing in the middle of the night, mourning the loss of her husband of 50 years, is she mourning the loss of passion, giddy infatuation and great sex? No matter. Mr. Lehrer bangs this same note throughout the book. On Page 53, he says we wrongly assume that “what we feel at first sight” will help us predict relationship outcomes on Page 104, he reminds us that our psychological needs have little to do with the romance of songs. On Page 246, he’s still saying it’s commonly believed that “once we fall in love, the love is supposed to take care of itself. ” But no: “This is wrong on every level. ” You know what he says love requires? Hard work. “When a relationship endures,” he explains, “it is not because the flame never burns out. It is because the flame is always being relit. ” There’s a lot of counsel in this book, often followed by academic citations. It’s like reading an advice column by way of JSTOR. To the extent that he has one, Mr. Lehrer’s argument is that humans crave connection. He borrows heavily from attachment theory to explain how we approach relationships. We seek secure attachments to our parents, to our spouses, even to God, the ultimate “secure base. ” The more securely attached we are, the healthier and more productive we are. He then hurls one study after another at us to build his case, which really never required much building. At times, his book becomes such a dense plague of studies, I had no idea where Mr. Lehrer was heading. He devotes an entire subsection to the plasticity of our memories, noting how they alter every time we recall them. I fail to see how this relates to love, exactly. He says it’s because “if our memories never changed, then we might adapt to their pleasures. ” But I suspect it’s really because Mr. Lehrer can phone this material in, having already riffed on it ad nauseam: In his first book, in a segment on Radiolab, in a number of blog posts and columns. It’s his secure base. Most criminally: Love, we must assume, was Mr. Lehrer’s salvation during his time of crisis. But he never once explains how. He barely — and I mean barely — mentions his wife. In a couple of places, he mentions that his brief exile made him a better father, but it’s all terribly perfunctory. The most he’ll say is that he’s become “a little more aware of what matters. ” He’s written a book about love that has no heart. As for the question that’s on everyone’s mind — did Mr. Lehrer play by the rules in this book? — I think the answer is complicated, but unpromising. In an author’s note, Mr. Lehrer says that he sent his quotes to everyone he interviewed and that his book was independently . And it’s true that this book contains far more citations than his previous work. But I fear Mr. Lehrer has simply become more artful about his appropriations. At one point, for instance, he writes: “We don’t love our kids despite their demands we love them because of them. Caregiving makes us care. ” I stopped dead when I read that sentence. Reread it. And read it again. It sounds to me like a clever adaptation of one of the most beautiful lines in “The Philosophical Baby” by Alison Gopnik: “It’s not so much that we care for children because we love them as that we love them because we care for them. ” I’m pretty certain Mr. Lehrer read Ms. Gopnik’s quote. Why? Because I cite it in my own book — which he cites, twice. (Though not for that.) He also wrote about “The Philosophical Baby” for The Boston Globe. In his chapter on memory, I noticed a similar rewrite of a phrase from Sarah Bakewell’s “How to Live. ” Though at least he credits Ms. Bakewell’s ideas. These may seem like minor offenses. But what they betoken is a larger sort of intellectual dishonesty. If you squint, you’ll see that Mr. Lehrer often rehashes arguments made by others, both in structure and content, when writing parts of his book. Sometimes he credits these people sometimes he doesn’t. But the point is, he’s relying on their associations and connections. I’m guessing media reporters and other diligent reservists in the press corps will find a number of such examples. It suffices, for now, to say this: Mr. Lehrer devotes many pages in “A Book About Love” to how we grow and evolve. “People change,” he writes in his Coda. “That simple fact is one of the great themes of the longitudinal studies in this book. ” Perhaps Mr. Lehrer has changed — personally. But not sufficiently as a writer. I fear it may be time, at long last, for him to find something else to do. | 1 |
link Well, that didn't go as planned... Anyway, my first thread so I can indulge. I have to admit, getting to 'here' was not easy, this forum (or my brain) is really different than other places, so hopefully I do this right. I have a thread or two that I have wanted to do, this is my beginning to that. Howdy from Texas too, I have to mention that. edit on 26-10-2016 by recrisp because: (no reason given) | 0 |
Lincoln
October 31, 2016 – STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBE CONTINUES TO DEAL WITH ONSLAUGHT BY LAW ENFORCEMENT CANNON BALL, NORTH DAKOTA
As tensions remain high from Thursday’s violent assault from law enforcement, those in camp remain dedicated to ensuring the Dakota Access Pipeline is exposed for its disregard for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s sacred and cultural sites. Lincoln
Oct 31, 2016 Huge North Dakota Spill Proves #NoDAPL Activists Right for Fighting Pipeline
This spill is part of the reason. Imagine, if you will, tens of thousands of gallons of oil pouring into the river that provides the drinking water for over 10 million people. Would you want to drink it? or swim in it? or eat anything from it? Daniel “No Passport” Bruno
These pictures showing Humvees in desert paint are worth a thousand words. Military equipment on the scene, against Native Americans…on Obama’s watch. And Leonard Peltier continues to rot in jail after 40 years…no pardon for him. Good work, Robert Barsocchini. Donate | 0 |
This story originally appeared at the Clarion Project. The Nineveh Plain Protection Units (NPU) a Christian militia in Iraq, is celebrating the hoisting up of a new cross in the destroyed city of Qaraqosh (also known as Baghdeda) that once had 50, 000 Christians living there. The event heralded the opening of a new chapter in the city and, hopefully, for the Christians and other victims of Islamist genocide in Iraq. The NPU thanked a French organization named “SOS Chretiens Orient” (SOS Eastern Christians) that sponsored the cross and the rebuilding of homes in the area. I took a tour of one NPU member’s home in this city in January, a video of which can be seen here. Those I met expressed that their churches and homes may have been destroyed, but their faith is stronger and they are determined to return and fill the church pews more than they did before. The excitement is palpable on the NPU’s social media, with Easter holiday celebrations taking place again and preparations being made for the Christians who will soon return. In a recent video, the NPU asked the international community to establish a for the Christians and other minorities like the Yazidis. The group wants a province for these minorities in the Nineveh Plains that is separate from the Kurdish Regional Government that rules northern Iraq. Ryan Mauro is ClarionProject. org’s Shillman Fellow and national security analyst and an adjunct professor of . Read the full story at the Clarion Project. | 1 |
CALIFORNIA Creepy Clown is a Muslim who nearly gets himself killed DAMN! “Nearly” doesn’t count. Guns.com (h/t Gary F) This week, Sadiq Mohammad thought he’d get in on the creepy clown craze – spooking employees at a Taco Bell drive-thru, creeping out a kid playing basketball, who incidentally threw the ball at him. But when he jumped out of some bushes – wearing his clown garb get-up – Mohammad was the one who got the biggest scare. The innocent victim didn’t take lightly to having the bajeezus scared out of him by a man in a clown suit and, after a brief verbal exchange, pulled out a handgun and knocked Muhammad in the head. | 0 |
Rand Corp. Blasts ‘Truth Decay’ – Wants Facts Determined by Appropriate Leaders Disagreements
Michael | 0 |
The Blaze reported :
The National Republican Congressional Committee cut an ad for one of its endangered congressional candidates, touting him as an “independent voice” who “stood up to” Republican nominee Donald Trump “months ago.”
Rep. Bob Dold, who represents a heavily Democratic district in northeastern Illinois, is in danger of losing his House of Representatives seat to former Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider. This is the third time in three cycles the two politicians have faced off in the pendulum-like district — first Schneider unseated Dold in 2012, then Dold unseated Schneider in 2014.
The NRCC went on to criticize the Democrat nominee for voting with his party 90 percent of the time and touted their candidate as “one of the most bipartisan members of Congress.”
In the ad, a clip from March 2016 showed Dold take a swipe at Trump in an interview with the Clinton News Network: “I think Donald Trump has disqualified himself.”
CNN reported on Aug. 10, 2016:
One of the first Republicans to oppose Trump, the Illinois representative told WLS May 6: “I will not support Donald Trump,” referring to Trump’s comments about women, Muslims, Latinos and POWs. “We’re looking for a uniter, not a divider,” he said.
Supporting: Will write in a candidate.
Republicans like Dold are a big part of the reason why Trump has been so successful. The Republican Party has sold out this country and the American people who used to support them.
The veil has been lifted and many Americans have woken up to the fact that establishment Republicans are in on the globalist agenda and are one in the same with the Democrats. They attempt to squabble over minor issues to make it seem as if there’s a difference, but the reality is that they’re all in on it.
They’re selling out our country, and many of the so-called principled Republicans truly want a Hillary Clinton presidency because they want her globalist agenda to succeed.
The NRCC’s praise for Dold and criticism of his opponent evidences the fact that they’re in on it. They criticize the Democrat for siding with his party but praise Dold for being “bipartisan,” which might as well be Washington-ese for Republicans rolling over while Democrats fundamentally transform this country.
This country is at a precipice. There are those who want to maintain national sovereignty and get back to what made America great, and there are those that want globalism and to eviscerate America as we know it.
So to the NRCC: there is nothing “principled” about giving our country away, and many of us are on to your game. | 0 |
Pop star Katy Perry — one of Hillary Clinton’s top celebrity endorsers during the 2016 presidential campaign — says Donald Trump’s victory brought back painful childhood trauma. [“I was really disheartened for a while it just brought up a lot of trauma for me,” the “Chained to the Rhythm” singer said in a cover story interview for this month’s Vogue magazine. “Misogyny and sexism were in my childhood: I have an issue with suppressive males and not being seen as equal. ” “I felt like a little kid again being faced with a scary, controlling guy,” Perry added. “I wouldn’t really stand for it in my work life, because I have had so much of that in my personal life. ” Months after the election, Perry has established herself as a vocal member of the “Resistance” movement. A month after Trump’s inauguration, Perry performed at the 2017 Brit Awards alongside giant skeletons meant to skewer Trump and U. K. Prime Minister Theresa May. Just ten days prior, Perry performed at the 2017 Grammy Awards while wearing an armband that read “PERSIST,” along with a Planned Parenthood button. The singer’s “purposeful” pop has introduced what the singer hopes will be a new era of political activism, a time that has coincided with an “awakening” of young people she says are now more politically engaged than ever before. “It’s an awakening that was necessary because I think we were in a false utopia, we can’t ever get that stagnant again,” Perry explained. “I am so grateful that young people know the names of senators. I think teenage girls are going to save the world! That age group just seems to be holding people accountable. They have a really strong voice — and a loud one. ” Just this week, Perry posted a picture of Clinton sporting a pair of pumps, called The Hillary, that the singer says were inspired by the former secretary of state. ⚡️POWER PUMP⚡️your way over to https: . for the last few hours of the spring 25% sale❗@HillaryClinton is wearing #TheHillary pic. twitter. — Katy Perry (@katyperry) April 11, 2017, The $139 pumps, now for sale on Perry’s website, include a clear heel embedded with golden moon and stars meant to inspire those who wear them to “step in and reach for the stars. ” Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
Email Kayla Mueller was a prisoner and tortured by ISIS while no chance of release…a horrific story. Her father gave a pin drop speech that was so heartfelt you want to give him a hug. Carl Mueller believes Donald Trump will be a great president…Epic speech! 9.0K shares | 0 |
One doesn’t need to possess impressive physical skills to be considered a hero, but agility and strength certainly don’t hurt! In fact, it’s these gifts – along with quick-thinking... | 0 |
This article was originally published by Jeremiah Johnson at Tess Pennington’s ReadyNutrition.com .
ReadyNutrition Readers, we’re going to cover some of the basics on how to track man, and some tips on how to keep from being tracked by men . All of your camouflage is to no avail if you are awakened by a boot kicking you in the ribs as you’re curled up in your sleeping bag in a hidey-hole. Please keep in mind: this is a post-SHTF action and/or a life-threatening situation that would call for the tracking of another human being.
Man is the Most Dangerous Creature of All Be aware: this is not deer-hunting or tracking a game animal . The rules are different, because a deer won’t double back on you, climb a cliff, and snipe you with a suppressed .308 as you cross a predetermined, pre-ranged spot. If you are adept at tracking game, these skills can help you, but keep in mind you’re tracking the most dangerous, intelligent, and resourceful creature of all: man. You’re tracking down a creature with the natural and learned instincts of a hundred thousand generations of hunters and killers…no matter what culture or creed. Man is the most dangerous creature of all. Never forget that. Respect the potential of the guy or gal you’re tracking. Respect it, and let it temper your emotions and judgment as you’re tracking.
To track a man, you need to be aware of your surroundings, the changes in it, and use deductive reasoning all in combination as you’re moving. There are some questions you always need to ask yourself as you are following a man as well as observations you must make:
Are you keeping aware of the potential for ambush? Most people don’t like to be followed, and in a SHTF situation you can bet the other guy is playing for keeps. Are you walking right into a trap? As you study the terrain in front of you, are you “gaming” it in your mind? Remember Rule #1: the hunter can (and often does) become the hunted at any time . NOTE: THIS QUESTION # 1 AND RULE # 1 BOTH APPLY CONCURRENTLY AT ALL TIMES! THEY ACCOMPANY AND SUPERCEDE ALL OF THE SUBSEQUENT QUESTIONS AND RULES!
Minor deviations in the terrain (path) that would not normally be there: Broken hardwood branches at chest or head height, broken or “moved/displaced” vegetation, the tracks on the ground, bark rubbed from the face of fallen logs…. all of these are good indications that man has come this way. Major deviations in the terrain/path : perhaps a small mound of earth in the woods with what appears to be a “dent” followed by a long groove and crushed grass to either side…a good indicator your quarry stepped on the mound and slipped. Perhaps some good-sized trees chopped down, or good sized branches removed with an edged tool. These could be either fighting positions/lean-to’s/fortifications, or ground cover respectively. Look for signs of the hand of man where it is obvious. Changes to the earth . This means the ground . You’ve been tracking your quarry through a swamp, and now you emerge in a grassy field. Look for signs of tracks, and for mud to be tracked through the grass as well. If you’ve been walking through a dry riverbank with clay for a bed, then the color of clay will show up in front of you in the tracks of your target. Trash/detritus . Man is a messy creature, and no matter how careful he always messes up. It could be a food wrapper, or a cigarette butt he forgot to tote out with him. It could be a piece of paper or a dropped tool or even ammunition. It could also be part of a meal…even something so innocuous as crumbs. Your job as the tracker is to spot these deviances as they come out to meet your eyes. Smell . Man is (especially after several days in the bush or after physical exertion) a stinky creature. Yes, you can smell many things of man: his sweat, his deodorants and perfumes, his tobacco products (you can smell a cigarette for a long distance in the woods), and, of course, his stool. This last one (don’t laugh) is a really good giveaway, as most people will relieve themselves and not worry about covering up what they produce. This is not mentioned relative to hygiene, however, but in relation to tracking. Such people not caring about how they relieve themselves won’t give much consideration to someone using it to trail them. Noise . Man is, indeed, a noisy creature. He breathes heavily, belches, flatulates, grunts, groans, complains, talks loudly, and snores. All of these can be used to your advantage to find your quarry. He also drops things, bangs and bumps into things, and clatters metal against metal. He falls down, breaking branches and he curses or moans, depending on how badly he hurts himself. He also communicates to his fellow humans, either with a radio or with his voice. Light Discipline : man is as stubborn as they come on this one. Those flashlights are never “red lensed” and kept under a poncho or jacket as they should be…just everyone flashing the lights all over the place. Same for the cigarettes. Instead of cupping their hands around them and keeping the cigs low, there’s that orange dot right out to your front, head height. Man loves to use the flashlight when he’s moving around at night. It can be his undoing, and to your advantage if you look for your quarry being careless with the light. Changes to the quarry’s flight . A hunted man will always know he is being hunted. You need to be aware of an increased pace, a change of direction, changes in elevation…all factors that will indicate either distress or concern on the part of your quarry. The pace change can be noticed by footprints, especially the distance widening or shortening between them. Widening means he’s taking off. Shortening means the terrain is becoming more difficult or he’s tiring, or both. The runner usually uses the balls of his feet with a shallow heel-print. The walker sets his heels into the soil more deeply. Tread Depth : we covered this a little in #9, and in addition, if the guy has a size nine boot print and is really sinking into the earth? Well, he’s probably carrying some serious stuff in the form of supplies and/or weapons. If your search is proceeding too well and too smoothly? It’s an ambush . We’ve covered these fundamentals, because believe it or not, it is easier to avoid the hunter if you first have been the hunter. What we just covered forms the basis for avoiding someone who is pursuing you. Believe it or not, you can practice this stuff in the woods with family and/or team members. It makes for both a good workout and a challenge to actually implement stuff you learn. Part Two we’ll focus on how to get away from the bad guys trying to find you. Until then keep studying and practicing. It’ll pay off in the end…especially after the SHTF. JJ out!
Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne). Mr. Johnson was a Special Forces Medic, EMT and ACLS-certified, with comprehensive training in wilderness survival, rescue, and patient-extraction. Mr. Johnson is an ardent advocate for preparedness, self-sufficiency, and long-term disaster sustainability for families. He and his wife survived Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Cross-trained as a Special Forces Engineer, he is an expert in supply, logistics, transport, and long-term storage of perishable materials, having incorporated many of these techniques plus some unique innovations in his own homestead.
This article first appeared at Tess Pennington’s Ready Nutrition.com .
Tess Pennington is the author of The Prepper’s Blueprint , a comprehensive guide that uses real-life scenarios to help you prepare for any disaster. Because a crisis rarely stops with a triggering event the aftermath can spiral, having the capacity to cripple our normal ways of life. The well-rounded, multi-layered approach outlined in the Blueprint helps you make sense of a wide array of preparedness concepts through easily digestible action items and supply lists.
Tess is also the author of the highly rated Prepper’s Cookbook , which helps you to create a plan for stocking, organizing and maintaining a proper emergency food supply and includes over 300 recipes for nutritious, delicious, life-saving meals.
Visit her web site at ReadyNutrition.com for an extensive compilation of free information on preparedness, homesteading, and healthy living.
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A Step-By-Step Guide To Survive Any Disaster
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The Six Laws of Survival: Strategies For Beating the Worst Case Scenario A Green Beret’s Guide to EMP: Practical Steps to Prepare for a “Lights Out” Scenario
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VIDEOS Popularity contest: Dems introduce bill to abolish Electoral College The Electoral College goes back to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, where delegates “distrusted the passions of people” and lacked faith in a direct democracy’s ability to select a president. 12:01 PM EST
The Electoral College has been under fire since Donald Trump became president-elect, and now Democrats in Congress are moving ahead to dismantle the “outdated, undemocratic system.”
Last Tuesday’s surprise victory for Trump left many Democrats side-eyeing the Electoral College, as the 2016 election marked the second time in recent history that the popular vote failed to align with the actual electoral result.
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) filed new legislation on Tuesday that would replace the Electoral College with the popular vote.
“ The Electoral College is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to change immediately ,” she said in a statement.
In 2012, Trump agreed with her. Then on Tuesday, the president-elect tweeted in defense of the institution.
He has so far attained 290 electoral votes, surpassing the 270 required to win the presidency. The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012 The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play. Campaigning is much different!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2016
The popular vote is still being tallied. Late Tuesday, the Associated Press reported Hillary Clinton had 61,438,917 votes, nearly a million more than Trump’s 60,646,655.
In the past week, over 4 million US citizens have signed a petition asking electors of the Electoral College to vote against the will of their state and in favor of Clinton to reflect the popular vote. The petition has met a lot of criticism, largely because the December vote of electors is mostly ceremonial, and the likelihood of such an unprecedented turnaround is extremely low. Trump wins Electoral College thanks to older whites, loses popular vote https://t.co/xag3XCCuQL pic.twitter.com/tLACODa0hM
— RT America (@RT_America) November 10, 2016
The history of the Electoral College goes back to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, where delegates “ distrusted the passions of people ” and lacked faith in a direct democracy’s ability to select a president. So, when the electors would gather to cast their votes, they were left to use their best judgment to make the choice. As the system evolved into a two-party one, the Electoral College ballot continued to grow with them and created a winner-takes-all policy for most states.
Trump is the fourth US president to win the Electoral College vote and lose the popular vote. John Quincy Adams, the sixth US president, won his election in 1824 through a vote of the House of Representatives when neither he nor Andrew Jackson won a majority of the Electoral College votes, although Jackson had won the popular vote. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — In a vivid illustration of the tensions between the United States and Iran, an American Navy warship fired warning shots at Iranian boats that were racing toward it near the Strait of Hormuz, Defense Department officials said on Monday. The episode occurred Sunday when four Iranian fast boats came within 900 yards of the U. S. S. Mahan, a guided missile destroyer that was escorting an amphibious warship with 1, 000 Marines on board and a Navy oiler. When the Iranian boats did not respond to a radio call and flares signaling them to stop, the American destroyer fired three warning shots with a . machine gun. A Navy helicopter also dropped smoke grenades. There was no damage to the Iranian vessels, and they did not return fire. It was the first time the Navy had fired warning shots at an Iranian boat since Aug. 24. Though the boats’ approaches are essentially a form of harassment, they point to the risk of military confrontation in a region that is bristling with Western, Arab and Iranian forces. Donald J. Trump vowed during the presidential campaign to take military action against Iranian ships that approached American vessels in a threatening manner. “With Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn’t be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in September. There were 35 close encounters between American and Iranian vessels in 2016, most of which occurred during the first half of the year, and 23 encounters in 2015. “We had a significant number of these before,” Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters. “They had largely stopped. ” The most serious episode took place in January 2016, when Iran detained and ultimately freed 10 sailors who had unintentionally entered its territorial waters while cruising from Kuwait to Bahrain. On Sunday, Iranian boats approached the American ships six times before they got so close that the Mahan fired warning shots. “This was an unsafe and unprofessional interaction, and that is due to the fact that they were approaching at a high level of speed, with weapons manned, and disregarding repeated warnings,” Captain Davis said. There was no immediate comment from the Iranian authorities. But the Iranian military has signaled its intention to be active in the area and is planning a war game in the region this month. “The navy will practice tactics during the drill, including modern warfare tactics, for the first time,” Habibollah Sayyari, the Iranian Navy commander, said, according to Iranian news organizations. | 1 |
WASHINGTON, D. C. — DNC Chair Tom Perez called President Donald Trump’s first joint address to Congress “Steve Bannon on steroids with a smile” during an interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, where he appeared with his appointed deputy chair, Keith Ellison. [Ellison laughed, raised his eyebrows, and looked at Perez after he made that statement. According to one MSNBC reporter, when asked about Trump’s speech, Perez sarcastically clapped: “Oh, he read a TelePrompTer!! It’s like my kid ate and didn’t spill!” When asked about the speech DNC Chair Perez sarcastically clapped: ”oh, he read a TelePrompTer!! It’s like my kid ate and didn’t spill!” — Michael LaRosa (@MichaelLaRosaDC) March 1, 2017, Perez said Trump started out his speech with “alternative facts. ” He charged that Trump “took credit for things [he] had nothing to do with … . All these new companies are adding jobs. ” He added, sarcastically, that “since January 20, the Washington Wizards have one of the best records in the NBA, including they beat the Golden State Warriors tonight. Must have been Trump. ” Trump started his speech on Tuesday night reminding the nation of Black History Month and condemning the recent spate of attacks: Tonight, as we mark the conclusion of our celebration of Black History Month, we are reminded of our Nation’s path toward civil rights and the work that still remains. Recent threats targeting Jewish Community Centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week’s shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a Nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms. Each American generation passes the torch of truth, liberty and justice — in an unbroken chain all the way down to the present. That torch is now in our hands. And we will use it to light up the world. I am here tonight to deliver a message of unity and strength, and it is a message deeply delivered from my heart. In his interview with MSNBC, Perez continued, “Then you move on to immigrant baiting. You know, that immigrant baiting is like the salt and pepper on the table of that Trump administration. ” He said, “And then you close it up with a bunch of promises that you’ll never keep. And frankly, some of the promises, I’m glad they can’t keep, because the Affordable Care Act is a lifesaver. It’s not a job killer. ” Ellison took the opportunity to recruit for the Democratic Party. “This is a good time to get with the Democratic Party,” “We have a level of organization, unity, commitment and passion that, I think, is going to serve the American people very well. ” Perez added: “Our most important area of agreement, and we have many, is that we need to redefine the mission of the Democratic Party. ” Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter and Periscope @AdelleNaz | 1 |
October 27: Daily Contrarian Reads By David Stockman. My daily contrarian reads for Thursday, October 27th, 2016. | 0 |
After a delay, Planned Parenthood has released its annual report, which shows increases in the number of abortions performed, taxpayer funding, and profits since its last report. [With Planned Parenthood’s annual reports usually published in late December or early January, the delay this year has stirred considerable speculation as to the reason. The total number of patients seen by Planned Parenthood has dropped since last year. According to the report, that number was given as 2. 5 million, while the latest report gives the number of patients seen as 2. 4 million. In Planned Parenthood reports performing 328, 348 abortions — an increase of 4, 349 abortions over the 323, 999 abortions the group states it performed in . The organization also reported 2, 945, 059 contraception services in and 2, 808, 815 of the same services in its latest report, a drop of 136, 244 within a year. Similarly, Planned Parenthood reports 9, 419 prenatal services in its latest report, a significant drop since a year ago, when the group claimed 17, 419 of the same services. In the group also reported having performed 682, 208 cancer screening and prevention services. However, in Planned Parenthood reports 665, 234 of the same services, a drop of 16, 974. With regard to its revenue, the new report shows Planned Parenthood’s total revenue to be $1, 354. 3 million, an increase over the $1, 296. 1 million reported in . The organization shows an increase in government reimbursement and grants this year, reporting $554. 6 million in taxpayer funding, while in it reported $553. 7 million. Planned Parenthood reported an “Excess in Revenue Over Expenses” of $58. 8 million in . That amount rose to $77. 5 million this past year. “Planned Parenthood’s newly released annual report reveals that abortion continues to be a big business for the nation’s number one abortion chain, as taxpayer funding rises and other services continue their downward trend,” said Americans United for Life’s president and CEO Catherine Glenn Foster, adding: Despite reports that the number of abortions performed in the United States is declining, Planned Parenthood once again reports an increase in the number of human lives ended in their facilities: 328, 348 abortions last year. Additionally, despite their repeated claims that American women rely on them for health care services, many of their services have continued to decrease. The latest report is published only days after the release of a video produced by Center for Medical Progress that revealed members of the National Abortion Federation discussing the difficulties they face in their jobs, such as “the head that gets stuck that we can’t get out,” and “an eyeball just fell into my lap, and that is gross!” YouTube, LiveLeak, and other sites removed the video after U. S. District Judge William Orrick censored it. Part of the newly released annual report is devoted to a narrative about what Planned Parenthood refers to as “attacks” by “ extremists” who “began releasing heavily edited undercover videos of Planned Parenthood officials and providers. ” The report continues: In investigation after investigation by the media, the medical community, and forensic experts, their allegations were widely and resoundingly discredited. But as we know all too well, ’s health politicians will jump at any opportunity — no matter how baseless — to attack our organization. However, it has been only Planned Parenthood’s allies in the media and government who have “widely and resoundingly discredited” the videos. A Democrat opposition research firm named Fusion — hired by Planned Parenthood itself to review the videos — said while their analysts observed the videos had been edited, “the analysis did not reveal widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation. ” Additionally, Fusion noted, “[A]nalysts found no evidence that CMP inserted dialogue not spoken by Planned Parenthood staff. ” An analysis by Coalfire, a forensics company hired by Alliance Defending Freedom, found that the videos were “not manipulated” and that they are “authentic. ” “Planned Parenthood’s new report reveals that abortions, taxpayer funding, and profit have all gone up,” says Family Research Council’s Arina Grossu, director of the Center for Human Dignity. “Meanwhile its cancer screenings, basic breast exams, prenatal services, and even customers have decreased. ” “This sham organization’s focus is increasingly on higher abortion numbers and higher profits,” she added. “Why are we continuing to hand over half a billion dollars in taxpayer money to an organization that kills America’s unborn children at record rates while lining their pockets with more than $77 million in profit?” | 1 |
We tested on some folks | 0 |
[Photo: Mateo Renzi (2013) by Sailko ] Ramzy Baroud, PhD Politics for the People Editor's Note Renzi is just one more politician who blatantly panders to Israeli leadership at the expense of their responsibilities to citizenry nor organizations. And to what end? Do they want Israel to smile on them? No. The want the U.S. to smile on them. Think for 10 seconds on what that means for U.S. policy. D id Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, actually read the full text of the UNESCO resolution on Palestine and Israel, before he raved with anger ? “I think this is a mistaken, inconceivable resolution,” he said. “It is not possible to continue with these resolutions at the UN and UNESCO that aim to attack Israel. It is shocking and I have ordered that we stop taking this position (his country’s abstention) even if it means diverging from the position taken by the rest of Europe,” he added. Renzi, who became Prime Minister in 2014 at the relatively young age of 39 knows exactly how the game is played. In order to win favor with Washington, he must first please Tel Aviv.
His country has abstained from the October 12 vote on a resolution that condemns Israel’s violations of the cultural and legal status of Occupied East Jerusalem. This decision has ignited the ire of Israeli Ambassador to Rome, Ofer Zaks , who riled up the Jewish community in Italy to protest the abstention. Renzi, in turn, was converted into a champion of the ‘Temple Mount’, the name Israel uses to describe the Palestinian Muslim holy site.
Renzi cravenly went on damage control mode without truly understanding the nature of the resolution, which merely condemned Israel’s obvious violations of international law, and only calls for Israel to respect the status of Palestinian culture in the occupied city.
None of procedures that led to the vote on the UNESCO’s resolution – voted by 24-6, with 26 abstentions – violated protocol, nor was any of the wording inconsistent with international law. In fact, UNESCO was merely doing its job: attempting to protect and preserve the historical and cultural heritage of the world. Jerusalem is a sacred and a holy city to a majority of humanity, simply because it is significant to the spiritual wellbeing of the adherents of the three monotheistic religions. In fact, the resolution stated so : “Affirming the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions …” Renzi’s outburst is quite disappointing, to say the least, for the young, eager politician simply tried to score cheap political points with Israel – thus the United States – without a full, or even partial comprehension of what the UNESCO resolution resolved. Nor did he seem aware of the fact that such text is largely a repeat of what has been discussed by the world’s leading cultural organization in April, and repeatedly before that date. “If anyone wants to say something about Israel, let them say it, but they should not use UNESCO… To say that the Jews have no links to Jerusalem is like saying the sun creates darkness,” he said, paraphrasing the sentiment displayed by the Israeli Prime Minister. It would be rather sad if Renzi sees a mentor in Benjamin Netanyahu, for the latter is one of the least liked world leaders who has made a mockery of international forums and derided the United Nations itself as anti-Semitic and its process as ‘theater of the absurd’. This is what Netanyahu had said in response to the resolution and shortly before he suspended his country’s membership in UNESCO. Using a language that is as amusing as his cartoon depiction of the Iranian nuclear bomb in his famous UN spectacle in 2012, he said: “To say that Israel has no connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall is like saying that China has no connection to the Great Wall of China or that Egypt has no connection to the Pyramids.” Other Israeli officials followed suit with a chorus of denunciations, included Israeli President, Reuven Rivilin, who described the decision as an “embarrassment” for UNESCO. Culture Minister, Miri Regev, cut to the chase, by labeling the resolution “shameful and anti-Semitic.” In fact, it was neither. In addition to Renzi’s odd reaction, the United States and other western governments reacted with exaggerated anger, again without even addressing the situation on the ground , which prompted the resolution – and numerous other UN resolutions in the past – in the first place. Even the Czech parliament jumped on board , voting to condemn what they described as a “hateful, anti-Israel’ sentiment.” I have read the resolution repeatedly to pinpoint the specific text that could possibly be understood by Israel’s friends as hateful, to no avail. The entirety of the text was based on past international conventions, resolutions, international law, and refers to Israel as the Occupying Power, as per the diktat of the Geneva Conventions. The Italian, Czech, American anger is, of course, misdirected and is largely political theater. But, of course, there is an important context that they refuse to address. Israel is working diligently to appropriate Muslim and Christian heritage in East Jerusalem, a city that is designated by international law as illegally occupied. The Israeli army and police have restricted the movement of Palestinian worshipers and is excavating under the foundation of the third holiest Muslim shrine, Haram al-Sharif, in search of a mythological Temple. In the process of doing so, numerous Palestinians, trying to defend their Mosque from the attacks staged by Israeli occupation forces and extremist Jewish groups, have been killed. How is UNESCO to react to this? The resolution merely, ‘called on Israel’ to “allow for the restoration of the historic status quo that prevailed until September 2000, under which the Jordanian Awqaf (Religious Foundation) Department exercised exclusive authority on Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif.” Moreover, it ‘stressed’, the “urgent need of the implementation of the UNESCO reactive monitoring mission to the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls.” Where is the ‘hate’ and ‘Anti-Semitism’ in that? Israel’s anger is, of course, fathomable. For nearly fifty years, following the illegal occupation and annexation of the Palestinian Arab city, Israel has done everything it could possibly do to strip the city of its universal appeal and Arab heritage, and make it exclusive to Jews only – thus the slogan of Jerusalem being Israel’s ‘eternal and undivided capital.’ Israel is angry because, after five decades of ceaseless efforts, neither UNESCO nor other UN institutions will accept Israel’s practices and designations. In 2011, following the admission of ‘Palestine’ as a member state, Israel ranted and raved as well, resulting in the US cutting off funding to UNESCO. The latest resolution indicates that Israel and the US have utterly failed to coerce UNESCO. What also caused much fury in Tel Aviv is that UNESCO used the Arabic references to Haram al-Sharif, Al-Aqsa Mosque and other Muslim religious and heritage sites. The same way they would refer to Egypt’s Pyramids of Giza and China’s Great Wall by their actual names. Hardly anti-Semitic. Since its establishment atop Palestinian towns and village, Israel has been on a mission to rename everything Arabic with Hebrew alternatives . Recent years have seen a massive push towards the Judaization of Arab Christian and Muslim sites, streets and holy shrines, a campaign spear-headed by the Israeli right and ultranationalist groups. To expect UNESCO to employ such language is what should strike as ‘absurd’. Not only should the UNESCO resolution be respected, it should also be followed by practical mechanisms to implement its recommendations. Israel, an Occupying Power should not be given a free pass to besiege the holy shrines of two major world religions, restrict the movement and attack worshipers, annex occupied territories and destroy what is essential spiritual heritage that belongs to the whole world.
Ramzy Baroud, PhD Has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com . His books include ‘ Searching Jenin ’, ‘ The Second Palestinian Intifada ’ and his latest ‘ My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story ’. His website is: www.ramzybaroud.net . =SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.= free • safe • invaluable If you appreciate our articles, do the right thing and let us know by subscribing. It’s free and it implies no obligation to you— ever. We just want to have a way to reach our most loyal readers on important occasions when their input is necessary. In return you get our email newsletter compiling the best of The Greanville Post several times a week. [email-subscribers namefield=”YES” desc=”” group=”Public”] | 0 |
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Can The American People Defeat The Oligarchy That Rules Them? By Paul Craig Roberts
Arent you surprised that Hillary and the presstitutes havent blamed Putin for FBI director Comeys reopening of the Hillary email case? But the presstitutes have done the next best thing for Hillary. They have made Comey the issue, not Hillary.
According to US Senator Harry Reid and the presstitutes, we dont need to worry about Hillarys crimes. After all, she is only a political woman feathering her nest, just as political men have done for ages. Why all this misogynist talk about Hillary? The presstitutes cry is that Comeys alleged crime is far more important. This woman-hating Republican violated the Hatch Act by telling Congress that the investigation he said was closed is now reopened. A very strange interpretation of the Hatch Act. During an election it is OK to announce that a candidate for president is cleared but it is not OK to say that a candidate is under investigation.
In July 2016 Comey violated the Hatch Act when he, on orders from the corrupt Obama Attorney General, announced Hillary clean. In so doing, Comey used the prestige of federal clearance of Hillarys violation of national security protocols to boost her standing in the election polls.
Actually, Hillarys standing in the polls is based on the pollsters over-weighting Hillary supporters in the polls. It is easy to produce a favorite if you overweight their supporters in the poll questions. If you look at the crowds attending the two candidates public appearances, it is clear that the American people prefer Donald Trump, who is opposed to war with Russia and China. War with nuclear powers is the big issue of the election.
Hillarys problem has the ruling American Oligarcy, for which Hillary is the total servant, concerned. What are they going to do about Trump if he wins? Will his fate be the same as John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, George Wallace? Time will tell. Or will a hotel maid appear at the last minute in the way that the Oligarchy got rid of Dominique Strauss-Kahn?
All of the American and Western feminists, progressives, and left-wing remnant fell for the obvious frame-up of Strauss-Kahn. After Strauss-Kahn was blocked from the Presidency of France and resigned as Director of the IMF, the New York authorities had to drop all charges against Strauss-Kahn. But Washington had succeeded in putting its French vassal, Sarkozy, in the presidency of France.
This is how the American Oligarchy destroys those it suspects might not serve its interests. The corrupt self-serving Oligarchy makes sure that it owns the government and the media, the think tanks and increasingly all of the major universities, and, of course, through the presstitutes, Americans minds.
The Oligarchs are now hard-pressed to rescue Hillary as US president, so lets see if the Oligarchs can once again deceive the American people.
While we wait, lets concern ourselves with another important issue. The Clinton crime syndicate in the closing years of the 20th century allowed a small handful of mega-corporations to consolidate the US media in a few hands. This vast increase in the power of the Oligarchy was accomplished despite US anti-trust law. The media mergers destroyed the American tradition of a dispersed and independent media.
But really, what does federal law mean to the One Percent. Nothing whatsoever. The One Percents power makes them immune to law. Hillarys crimes might cost her the election, but she wont go to jail.
Not content with 90% control of the US media, the Oligarchy wants more concentration and more control. Looks like they will be getting it, thanks to the corrupt US government. The Federal Trade Commission is supposed to enforce US anti-trust law. Instead, the federal agency routinely violates US anti-trust law by permitting monopoly concentrations of business interests.
Because of the failure of the federal government to enforce federal law, we now have banks too big to fail, unregulated Internet monopoly, and the evisceration of a dispersed and independent media.
Not so long ago there was a field of economics known as anti-trust. Ph.D. candidates specialized in and wrote dissertations about public control of monopoly power. I assume that this field of economics, like the America of my youth, no longer exists.
In the article below, Rahul Manchanda, explains that yet again another huge media conglomerate is being swallowed and acquired by another huge media conglomerate, to create another gargantuan media outlet, in another consolidation of the enormous power, money, wealth, intimidation, conspiracy and control that eviscerates the US Constitution and the First Amendment.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West , How America Was Lost , and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order . | 0 |
Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich pointed out that no one knows who is under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller in the Russian collusion probe. Gingrich said former FBI Director James Comey, “deliberately leaked to a college professor to leak to “The New York Times” for the purpose of getting a special counsel. ” He added, “Comey may be under investigation. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
A week of shocking violence in the United States took a bloodier turn on Thursday night, when five police officers were shot and killed by a sniper in Dallas. The attack came during a peaceful demonstration against the widely publicized police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota earlier in the week. • Shots were fired around 9. p. m. on Thursday as hundreds of demonstrators were peacefully marching west on Main Street in downtown Dallas. Scores could be seen fleeing and screaming as police officers, who were on the scene to maintain order, took cover and returned fire. • Five police officers were killed, seven other officers were shot and two civilians were wounded. A lawyer for five of the wounded officers said they were expected to recover. • A senior law enforcement official identified the gunman as Micah Johnson, 25, an Army veteran who lived in the Dallas area. The police killed him using a bomb during a standoff early on Friday. • The city’s police chief, David O. Brown, originally described the shooting as a coordinated attack by two snipers. On Friday, the secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh C. Johnson, said that there had been only one gunman and that he had no known links to international terrorist organizations. • Three other people are in custody, but their identities and connections to the attack are unknown. • Before Mr. Johnson was identified, Chief Brown said the suspect was upset about the recent police shootings and “wanted to kill white people, especially white officers. ” • Some downtown locations that were part of the crime scene will remain closed to the public until Wednesday. • President Obama, speaking in Warsaw, called the shootings a “vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement. ” He will visit Dallas early next week at the invitation of Mayor Mike Rawlings, the White House said. • The shootings occurred just a few blocks from where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and they appear to be the deadliest attack for American law enforcement officers since Sept. 11, 2001. • Streets downtown were mostly quiet as the authorities began their second day of investigation on Saturday. A night earlier, demonstrators gathered in cities around the country for protests. • On Wednesday evening, a police officer fatally shot a black man, Philando Castile, 32, during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minn. a suburb of St. Paul, the state capital. The aftermath was streamed on Facebook Live by Mr. Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, a passenger in the car, along with her young daughter. • St. Paul has been convulsed by protests. Demonstrators gathered around the home of Gov. Mark Dayton, who said he was shaken by the video. “Would this have happened if the driver were white, if the passengers were white?” he asked. “I don’t think it would have. ” • Mr. Obama, after arriving in Warsaw for a NATO summit meeting, told reporters, “There’s a big chunk of our citizenry that feels as if, because of the color of their skin, they are not being treated the same, and that hurts, and that should trouble all of us. ” That was before the demonstration — and the killings of police officers — in Dallas. • Mr. Castile had notified the police officer that he had a gun on him, and was a licensed gun owner. Whether this information played a role in the shooting is not clear. Mr. Castile’s girlfriend said he was trying to retrieve his license and registration when the officer opened fire. • On Tuesday morning, two police officers fatally shot a black man, Alton B. Sterling, 37, in Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, while trying to arrest him. The shooting was captured on video that drew widespread attention after it was released online on Wednesday. • The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting, the latest in a series of killings of civilians that have fueled the Black Lives Matter movement. • There have been protests and a vigil, but the city has otherwise remained calm. • Mr. Sterling had a long criminal history, but it is not clear whether the officers knew that when they tried to arrest him. | 1 |
AMSTERDAM — Everyone knows that Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear. But since that fateful event nearly 128 years ago, there has been continuing debate among scholars about the severity of that mutilation, which took place in Arles, France, in December 1888. Did he simply slice off a little chunk of his ear, or did he lop off the entire ear? The author and amateur historian Bernadette Murphy, while researching the last period of that Dutch Post Impressionist’s life for a new book, discovered a document in an American archive that may help resolve the issue. A note written by Félix Rey, a doctor who treated van Gogh at the Arles hospital, contains a drawing of the mangled ear showing that the artist indeed cut off the whole thing. The letter and drawing will be displayed for the first time at the Van Gogh Museum’s exhibition “On the Verge of Insanity,” which opens here on Friday and runs through Sept. 25, along with previously unexhibited documents and artifacts that try to provide more detailed evidence about van Gogh’s mental illness. The exhibition will also include about 25 paintings and other objects, like a corroded revolver that van Gogh may have used to kill himself, museum officials say. These will try to explore, in particular, the final stretch of his life while his troubles escalated, from the incident to July 29, 1890, when he apparently committed suicide in France. The subject of the artist’s mental state has always fascinated people who admire his art, but until now the Van Gogh Museum, which contains the largest collection of his work in the world, has not directly addressed the subject. Until recently, the museum has focused on van Gogh’s aesthetic and technical progression, but interest in his biography is driving a different approach to exhibitions. “This is really the start of a new series of small, focused exhibitions, which will only take one floor of the building but will enable us to give the visitors more information about van Gogh’s life,” said Nienke Bakker, curator of paintings for the Van Gogh Museum and curator of this exhibition. “This seemed for us to be the perfect subject to start with. ” Ms. Bakker said that most museum visitors wanted to know the details of van Gogh’s life: “The three most frequently asked questions are: What happened with his ear? What kind of illness did he have? and, Why did he commit suicide?” The exhibition coincides with the release of the book, “Van Gogh’s Ear: The True Story,” by Ms. Murphy. Steven Naifeh, an American historian and with Gregory White Smith of the 2011 “Van Gogh: The Life,” said in an email after looking at the new document, “I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, that they had indeed found new information from Rey, but it is not new, and it is not credible. ” In the biography Mr. Naifeh and Mr. Smith argue that witnesses who saw van Gogh after Dr. Rey, including his brother Theo’s wife, Johanna van the artist Paul Signac and van Gogh’s doctor in Dr. Paul Gachet, said that the entire ear was not missing. They all “saw a portion of the mutilated ear remaining — so much, in fact, that, when Vincent was seen from the damage could go unnoticed,” they wrote. “Dr. Gachet, who saw Vincent in Auvers in 1890, made a very detailed etching of the artist’s mutilated ear at that time showing that the entire pinna (outer portion) of the ear was not taken off, but the missing portion was more than just a lobe. ” Various reasons for van Gogh’s have been given in the past. In Paul Gauguin’s autobiographical novel,“Avant et Après,” he describes a disagreement between him and van Gogh in Arles after Gauguin decided to leave. Gauguin wrote that van Gogh chased him with a razor until Gauguin stopped him, and then van Gogh went home and wounded himself. In her research, Ms. Murphy, who was born in Ireland and has lived in Provence, just outside Arles, for many years, was also able to identify the woman to whom van Gogh gave his ear. She said her name was Gabrielle, a young maid who worked in a brothel. She suffered for many years, Ms. Murphy said, with being called a prostitute because of the contact with van Gogh. According to a local newspaper report, he told her, “Keep this object carefully,” and she immediately fainted. “There’s something semireligious to the way he offers a part of his body to repair a part of her body,” Ms. Murphy said at a preview of the exhibition. “She had a nasty scar on her body, and it’s as if he’s giving her fresh flesh. ” Ms. Bakker now says she thinks this was the delirious, unconscious behavior that became characteristic of van Gogh’s series of mental breakdowns. Van Gogh had no recollection of the events surrounding the ear episode, and said his memories of his actions during breakdowns were usually vague. In the hospital after the ear episode, he was ashamed to learn what he had done, and immediately put himself in the care of Dr. Rey. Van Gogh’s fame has always been linked to his complicated biography, and particularly to his madness. “The fact that children know who Vincent van Gogh is is partly because of this mangling of his ear,” Mr. Naifeh said in a phone interview. “If you were going to cite just a few facts about his life, this would be one of them. ” Many have tried to guess what kind of mental illness van Gogh had. Some suppose he may have had temporal lobe epilepsy, which can lead to seizures, erratic behavior and loss of consciousness, while others believe his symptoms were more similar to bipolar disorder. Ms. Murphy said she thought it might have been a combination of the two. During the exhibition, the museum will host a symposium with doctors weighing in on the matter. “We’ve been studying all these diagnoses that have been put forward in the 126 years since his death,” Ms. Bakker said. “Of course, it’s very hard to diagnose a person who is dead and has been dead a long time. We know what the symptoms were, because he was describing them in his own letters. He says he has hallucinations, that he’s speaking incoherently, that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. ” Exhibited for the first time are a police report on van Gogh’s incident in Arles, and a petition by van Gogh’s neighbors there in 1889, which asked the city’s mayor to institutionalize the artist. Dr. Rey’s letter and drawing of van Gogh’s severed ear will be displayed next to the artist’s portrait of Dr. Rey, painted in January 1889 and given to the doctor as thanks for his care. The goal of the exhibition is not to link the artwork to his mental state but rather to make clear that van Gogh was struggling to work despite a debilitating illness. “It’s not the case that he was having these hallucinations and painting them,” Ms. Bakker said. “A lot of people still think that. It’s amazing the amount of art he was able to create, especially considering that there were sometimes quite long periods when he wasn’t able to work. ” | 1 |
Homeless Trump Supporter guards Trump’s star on Hollywood Blvd…“20 million illegals and Americans sleep on streets” | 0 |
WASHINGTON — President Trump lashed out at the nation’s intelligence agencies again on Wednesday, saying that his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, was brought down by illegal leaks to the news media, on a day of new disclosures about the Trump camp’s dealings with Russia during and after the presidential campaign. “From intelligence, papers are being leaked, things are being leaked,” Mr. Trump said at a White House news conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. “It’s a criminal action, criminal act, and it’s been going on for a long time before me, but now it’s really going on. And people are trying to cover up for a terrible loss that the Democrats had under Hillary Clinton. ” With his statement and a burst of posts he made on Twitter, Mr. Trump tried to shift attention from damaging questions about contacts with Russia by Mr. Flynn and others close to the president, arguing that the outrage is not those contacts, but the leaks about them. He revived his charge that the allegations of a “Russian connection” were nothing more than a Democratic conspiracy, fed to a receptive news media to distract from the mistakes made by Mrs. Clinton during the campaign. The White House has said that Mr. Trump demanded Mr. Flynn’s resignation on Monday night, after it was revealed that Mr. Flynn, a retired Army general, had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about his conversations with a Russian diplomat. But on Wednesday, the president said that Mr. Flynn had “been treated very, very unfairly by the media,” undercut by “documents and papers that were illegally — I’d stress that, illegally — leaked. ” Earlier, he had posted on Twitter, “Information is being illegally given to the failing @nytimes @washingtonpost by the intelligence community (NSA and FBI? ). Just like Russia” The New York Times and The Washington Post had reported on the contacts Mr. Flynn had with Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey I. Kislyak. Mr. Flynn initially told Mr. Pence and others that he and Mr. Kislyak did not discuss matters of substance, like United States sanctions against Russia, but in the days after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the Justice Department notified the White House that he had not been forthright about the conversations. The Times also disclosed broader contacts between Russian intelligence officials and people with ties to the Trump campaign and Mr. Trump’s business empire during and after the campaign, and other news organizations followed with similar reports. The president declined to address that revelation and, as he has at other times in recent days, took questions at his news conference only from conservative news organizations and ignored more challenging questions shouted to him as he left the podium. So far, the White House has had little success in trying to shift the narrative from the Russian contacts to accusations about the leaking of sensitive information by the intelligence agencies, as well as by the F. B. I. Mr. Trump used a similar strategy during the transition, after disclosures that the intelligence agencies presented him with a dossier containing potentially compromising — but unsubstantiated — information that Russian officials had collected on him during his travels to Russia. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump said on Twitter, “The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred. @MSNBC @CNN are unwatchable. @foxandfriends is great!” The president also praised a column by Eli Lake of Bloomberg View, which criticized the selective leaking of intercepted communications between Mr. Flynn and Mr. Kislyak. Mr. Lake went on to suggest, however, that Mr. Flynn had been sacrificed to protect other officials, potentially including the president himself. Mr. Trump, as he has before, rejected allegations that his policy toward Russia was being compromised. “Crimea was TAKEN by Russia during the Obama Administration. Was Obama too soft on Russia?” he posted on Twitter. | 1 |
Channel list
Following hurricane Matthew's failure to devastate Florida, activists flock to the Sunshine State and destroy Trump signs manually
Tim Kaine takes credit for interrupting hurricane Matthew while debating weather in Florida
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The Evolution of Dissent: on November 8th the nation is to decide whether dissent will stop being racist and become sexist - or it will once again be patriotic as it was for 8 years under George W. Bush
Venezuela solves starvation problem by making it mandatory to buy food
Breaking: the Clinton Foundation set to investigate the FBI
Obama captures rare Pokémon while visiting Hiroshima
Movie news: 'The Big Friendly Giant Government' flops at box office; audiences say "It's creepy"
Barack Obama: "If I had a son, he'd look like Micah Johnson"
White House edits Orlando 911 transcript to say shooter pledged allegiance to NRA and Republican Party
President George Washington: 'Redcoats do not represent British Empire; King George promotes a distorted version of British colonialism'
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Weaponized baby formula threatens Planned Parenthood office; ACLU demands federal investigation of Gerber
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Travel advisory: airlines now offering flights to front of TSA line
As Obama instructs his administration to get ready for presidential transition, Trump preemptively purchases 'T' keys for White House keyboards
John Kasich self-identifies as GOP primary winner, demands access to White House bathroom
Upcoming Trump/Kelly interview on FoxNews sponsored by 'Let's Make a Deal' and 'The Price is Right'
News from 2017: once the evacuation of Lena Dunham and 90% of other Hollywood celebrities to Canada is confirmed, Trump resigns from presidency: "My work here is done"
Non-presidential candidate Paul Ryan pledges not to run for president in new non-presidential non-ad campaign
Trump suggests creating 'Muslim database'; Obama symbolically protests by shredding White House guest logs beginning 2009
National Enquirer: John Kasich's real dad was the milkman, not mailman
National Enquirer: Bound delegates from Colorado, Wyoming found in Ted Cruz’s basement
Iran breaks its pinky-swear promise not to support terrorism; US State Department vows rock-paper-scissors strategic response
Women across the country cheer as racist Democrat president on $20 bill is replaced by black pro-gun Republican
Federal Reserve solves budget crisis by writing itself a 20-trillion-dollar check
Widows, orphans claim responsibility for Brussels airport bombing
Che Guevara's son hopes Cuba's communism will rub off on US, proposes a long list of people the government should execute first
Susan Sarandon: "I don't vote with my vagina." Voters in line behind her still suspicious, use hand sanitizer
Campaign memo typo causes Hillary to court 'New Black Panties' vote
New Hampshire votes for socialist Sanders, changes state motto to "Live FOR Free or Die"
Martin O'Malley drops out of race after Iowa Caucus; nation shocked with revelation he has been running for president
Statisticians: one out of three Bernie Sanders supporters is just as dumb as the other two
Hillary campaign denies accusations of smoking-gun evidence in her emails, claims they contain only smoking-circumstantial-gun evidence
Obama stops short of firing US Congress upon realizing the difficulty of assembling another group of such tractable yes-men
In effort to contol wild passions for violent jihad, White House urges gun owners to keep their firearms covered in gun burkas
TV horror live: A Charlie Brown Christmas gets shot up on air by Mohammed cartoons
Democrats vow to burn the country down over Ted Cruz statement, 'The overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats'
Russia's trend to sign bombs dropped on ISIS with "This is for Paris" found response in Obama administration's trend to sign American bombs with "Return to sender"
University researchers of cultural appropriation quit upon discovery that their research is appropriation from a culture that created universities
Archeologists discover remains of what Barack Obama has described as unprecedented, un-American, and not-who-we-are immigration screening process in Ellis Island
Mizzou protests lead to declaring entire state a "safe space," changing Missouri motto to "The don't show me state"
Green energy fact: if we put all green energy subsidies together in one-dollar bills and burn them, we could generate more electricity than has been produced by subsidized green energy
State officials improve chances of healthcare payouts by replacing ObamaCare with state lottery
NASA's new mission to search for racism, sexism, and economic inequality in deep space suffers from race, gender, and class power struggles over multibillion-dollar budget
College progress enforcement squads issue schematic humor charts so students know if a joke may be spontaneously laughed at or if regulations require other action
ISIS opens suicide hotline for US teens depressed by climate change and other progressive doomsday scenarios
Virginia county to close schools after teacher asks students to write 'death to America' in Arabic
'Wear hijab to school day' ends with spontaneous female circumcision and stoning of a classmate during lunch break
ISIS releases new, even more barbaric video in an effort to regain mantle from Planned Parenthood
Impressed by Fox News stellar rating during GOP debates, CNN to use same formula on Democrat candidates asking tough, pointed questions about Republicans
Shocking new book explores pros and cons of socialism, discovers they are same people
Pope outraged by Planned Parenthood's "unfettered capitalism," demands equal redistribution of baby parts to each according to his need
John Kerry accepts Iran's "Golden Taquiyya" award, requests jalapenos on the side
Citizens of Pluto protest US government's surveillance of their planetoid and its moons with New Horizons space drone
John Kerry proposes 3-day waiting period for all terrorist nations trying to acquire nuclear weapons
Chicago Police trying to identify flag that caused nine murders and 53 injuries in the city this past weekend
Cuba opens to affordable medical tourism for Americans who can't afford Obamacare deductibles
State-funded research proves existence of Quantum Aggression Particles (Heterons) in Large Hadron Collider
Student job opportunities: make big bucks this summer as Hillary’s Ordinary-American; all expenses paid, travel, free acting lessons
Experts debate whether Iranian negotiators broke John Kerry's leg or he did it himself to get out of negotiations
Junior Varsity takes Ramadi, advances to quarterfinals
US media to GOP pool of candidates: 'Knowing what we know now, would you have had anything to do with the founding of the United States?'
NY Mayor to hold peace talks with rats, apologize for previous Mayor's cowboy diplomacy
China launches cube-shaped space object with a message to aliens: "The inhabitants of Earth will steal your intellectual property, copy it, manufacture it in sweatshops with slave labor, and sell it back to you at ridiculously low prices"
Progressive scientists: Truth is a variable deduced by subtracting 'what is' from 'what ought to be'
Experts agree: Hillary Clinton best candidate to lessen percentage of Americans in top 1%
America's attempts at peace talks with the White House continue to be met with lies, stalling tactics, and bad faith
Starbucks new policy to talk race with customers prompts new hashtag #DontHoldUpTheLine
Hillary: DELETE is the new RESET
Charlie Hebdo receives Islamophobe 2015 award ; the cartoonists could not be reached for comment due to their inexplicable, illogical deaths
Russia sends 'reset' button back to Hillary: 'You need it now more than we do'
Barack Obama finds out from CNN that Hillary Clinton spent four years being his Secretary of State
President Obama honors Leonard Nimoy by taking selfie in front of Starship Enterprise
Police: If Obama had a convenience store, it would look like Obama Express Food Market
Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males
NASA: We're 80% sure about being 20% sure about being 17% sure about being 38% sure about 2014 being the hottest year on record
People holding '$15 an Hour Now' posters sue Democratic party demanding raise to $15 an hour for rendered professional protesting services
Cuba-US normalization: US tourists flock to see Cuba before it looks like the US and Cubans flock to see the US before it looks like Cuba
White House describes attacks on Sony Pictures as 'spontaneous hacking in response to offensive video mocking Juche and its prophet'
CIA responds to Democrat calls for transparency by releasing the director's cut of The Making Of Obama's Birth Certificate
Obama: 'If I had a city, it would look like Ferguson'
Biden: 'If I had a Ferguson (hic), it would look like a city'
Obama signs executive order renaming 'looters' to 'undocumented shoppers'
Ethicists agree: two wrongs do make a right so long as Bush did it first
The aftermath of the 'War on Women 2014' finds a new 'Lost Generation' of disillusioned Democrat politicians, unable to cope with life out of office
White House: Republican takeover of the Senate is a clear mandate from the American people for President Obama to rule by executive orders
Nurse Kaci Hickox angrily tells reporters that she won't change her clocks for daylight savings time
Democratic Party leaders in panic after recent poll shows most Democratic voters think 'midterm' is when to end pregnancy
Desperate Democratic candidates plead with Obama to stop backing them and instead support their GOP opponents
Ebola Czar issues five-year plan with mandatory quotas of Ebola infections per each state based on voting preferences
Study: crony capitalism is to the free market what the Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity
Fun facts about world languages: the Left has more words for statism than the Eskimos have for snow
African countries to ban all flights from the United States because "Obama is incompetent, it scares us"
Nobel Peace Prize controversy: Hillary not nominated despite having done even less than Obama to deserve it
Obama: 'Ebola is the JV of viruses'
BREAKING: Secret Service foils Secret Service plot to protect Obama
Revised 1st Amendment: buy one speech, get the second free
Sharpton calls on white NFL players to beat their women in the interests of racial fairness
President Obama appoints his weekly approval poll as new national security adviser
Obama wags pen and phone at Putin; Europe offers support with powerful pens and phones from NATO members
White House pledges to embarrass ISIS back to the Stone Age with a barrage of fearsome Twitter messages and fatally ironic Instagram photos
Obama to fight ISIS with new federal Terrorist Regulatory Agency
Obama vows ISIS will never raise their flag over the eighteenth hole
Harry Reid: "Sometimes I say the wong thing"
Elian Gonzalez wishes he had come to the U.S. on a bus from Central America like all the other kids
Obama visits US-Mexican border, calls for a two-state solution
Obama draws "blue line" in Iraq after Putin took away his red crayon
"Hard Choices," a porno flick loosely based on Hillary Clinton's memoir and starring Hillary Hellfire as a drinking, whoring Secretary of State, wildly outsells the flabby, sagging original
Accusations of siding with the enemy leave Sgt. Bergdahl with only two options: pursue a doctorate at Berkley or become a Senator from Massachusetts
Jay Carney stuck in line behind Eric Shinseki to leave the White House; estimated wait time from 15 min to 6 weeks
100% of scientists agree that if man-made global warming were real, "the last people we'd want to help us is the Obama administration"
Jay Carney says he found out that Obama found out that he found out that Obama found out that he found out about the latest Obama administration scandal on the news
"Anarchy Now!" meeting turns into riot over points of order, bylaws, and whether or not 'kicking the #^@&*! ass' of the person trying to speak is or is not violence
Obama retaliates against Putin by prohibiting unionized federal employees from dating hot Russian girls online during work hours
Russian separatists in Ukraine riot over an offensive YouTube video showing the toppling of Lenin statues
"Free Speech Zones" confuse Obamaphone owners who roam streets in search of additional air minutes
Obamacare bolsters employment for professionals with skills to convert meth back into sudafed
Gloves finally off: Obama uses pen and phone to cancel Putin's Netflix account
Joe Biden to Russia: "We will bury you by turning more of Eastern Europe over to your control!"
In last-ditch effort to help Ukraine, Obama deploys Rev. Sharpton and Rev. Jackson's Rainbow Coalition to Crimea
Al Sharpton: "Not even Putin can withstand our signature chanting, 'racist, sexist, anti-gay, Russian army go away'!"
Mardi Gras in North Korea: " Throw me some food! "
Obama's foreign policy works: "War, invasion, and conquest are signs of weakness; we've got Putin right where we want him"
US offers military solution to Ukraine crisis: "We will only fight countries that have LGBT military"
Putin annexes Brighton Beach to protect ethnic Russians in Brooklyn, Obama appeals to UN and EU for help
The 1980s: "Mr. Obama, we're just calling to ask if you want our foreign policy back . The 1970s are right here with us, and they're wondering, too."
In a stunning act of defiance, Obama courageously unfriends Putin on Facebook
MSNBC: Obama secures alliance with Austro-Hungarian Empire against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine
Study: springbreak is to STDs what April 15th is to accountants
Efforts to achieve moisture justice for California thwarted by unfair redistribution of snow in America
North Korean voters unanimous: "We are the 100%"
Leader of authoritarian gulag-site, The People's Cube, unanimously 're-elected' with 100% voter turnout
Super Bowl: Obama blames Fox News for Broncos' loss
Feminist author slams gay marriage: "a man needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"
Beverly Hills campaign heats up between Henry Waxman and Marianne Williamson over the widening income gap between millionaires and billionaires in their district
Biden to lower $10,000-a-plate Dinner For The Homeless to $5,000 so more homeless can attend
Kim becomes world leader, feeds uncle to dogs; Obama eats dogs, becomes world leader, America cries uncle
North Korean leader executes own uncle for talking about Obamacare at family Christmas party
White House hires part-time schizophrenic Mandela sign interpreter to help sell Obamacare
Kim Jong Un executes own " crazy uncle " to keep him from ruining another family Christmas
OFA admits its advice for area activists to give Obamacare Talk at shooting ranges was a bad idea
President resolves Obamacare debacle with executive order declaring all Americans equally healthy
Obama to Iran: "If you like your nuclear program, you can keep your nuclear program"
Bovine community outraged by flatulence coming from Washington DC
Obama: "I'm not particularly ideological; I believe in a good pragmatic five-year plan"
Shocker: Obama had no knowledge he'd been reelected until he read about it in the local newspaper last week
Server problems at HealthCare.gov so bad, it now flashes 'Error 808' message
NSA marks National Best Friend Day with official announcement: "Government is your best friend; we know you like no one else, we're always there, we're always willing to listen"
Al Qaeda cancels attack on USA citing launch of Obamacare as devastating enough
The President's latest talking point on Obamacare: "I didn't build that"
Dizzy with success, Obama renames his wildly popular healthcare mandate to HillaryCare
Carney: huge ObamaCare deductibles won't look as bad come hyperinflation
Washington Redskins drop 'Washington' from their name as offensive to most Americans
Poll: 83% of Americans favor cowboy diplomacy over rodeo clown diplomacy
GOVERNMENT WARNING: If you were able to complete ObamaCare form online, it wasn't a legitimate gov't website; you should report online fraud and change all your passwords
Obama administration gets serious, threatens Syria with ObamaCare
Obama authorizes the use of Vice President Joe Biden's double-barrel shotgun to fire a couple of blasts at Syria
Sharpton: "British royals should have named baby 'Trayvon.' By choosing 'George' they sided with white Hispanic racist Zimmerman"
DNC launches 'Carlos Danger' action figure; proceeds to fund a charity helping survivors of the Republican War on Women
Nancy Pelosi extends abortion rights to the birds and the bees
Hubble discovers planetary drift to the left
Obama: 'If I had a daughter-in-law, she would look like Rachael Jeantel'
FISA court rubberstamps statement denying its portrayal as government's rubber stamp
Every time ObamaCare gets delayed, a Julia somewhere dies
GOP to Schumer: 'Force full implementation of ObamaCare before 2014 or Dems will never win another election'
Obama: 'If I had a son... no, wait, my daughter can now marry a woman!'
Janet Napolitano: TSA findings reveal that since none of the hijackers were babies, elderly, or Tea Partiers, 9/11 was not an act of terrorism
News Flash: Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) can see Canada from South Dakota
Susan Rice: IRS actions against tea parties caused by anti-tax YouTube video that was insulting to their faith
Drudge Report reduces font to fit all White House scandals onto one page
Obama: the IRS is a constitutional right, just like the Second Amendment
White House: top Obama officials using secret email accounts a result of bad IT advice to avoid spam mail from Nigeria
Jay Carney to critics: 'Pinocchio never said anything inconsistent'
Obama: If I had a gay son, he'd look like Jason Collins
Gosnell's office in Benghazi raided by the IRS: mainstream media's worst cover-up challenge to date
IRS targeting pro-gay-marriage LGBT groups leads to gayest tax revolt in U.S. history
After Arlington Cemetery rejects offer to bury Boston bomber, Westboro Babtist Church steps up with premium front lawn plot
Boston: Obama Administration to reclassify marathon bombing as 'sportsplace violence'
Study: Success has many fathers but failure becomes a government program
US Media: Can Pope Francis possibly clear up Vatican bureaucracy and banking without blaming the previous administration?
Michelle Obama praises weekend rampage by Chicago teens as good way to burn calories and stay healthy
This Passover, Obama urges his subjects to paint lamb's blood above doors in order to avoid the Sequester
White House to American children: Sequester causes layoffs among hens that lay Easter eggs; union-wage Easter Bunnies to be replaced by Mexican Chupacabras
Time Mag names Hugo Chavez world's sexiest corpse
Boy, 8, pretends banana is gun, makes daring escape from school
Study: Free lunches overpriced, lack nutrition
Oscars 2013: Michelle Obama announces long-awaited merger of Hollywood and the State
Joe Salazar defends the right of women to be raped in gun-free environment: 'rapists and rapees should work together to prevent gun violence for the common good'
Dept. of Health and Human Services eliminates rape by reclassifying assailants as 'undocumented sex partners'
Kremlin puts out warning not to photoshop Putin riding meteor unless bare-chested
Deeming football too violent, Obama moves to introduce Super Drone Sundays instead
Japan offers to extend nuclear umbrella to cover U.S. should America suffer devastating attack on its own defense spending
Feminists organize one billion women to protest male oppression with one billion lap dances
Urban community protests Mayor Bloomberg's ban on extra-large pop singers owning assault weapons
Concerned with mounting death toll, Taliban offers to send peacekeeping advisers to Chicago
Karl Rove puts an end to Tea Party with new 'Republicans For Democrats' strategy aimed at losing elections
Answering public skepticism, President Obama authorizes unlimited drone attacks on all skeet targets throughout the country
Skeet Ulrich denies claims he had been shot by President but considers changing his name to 'Traps'
White House releases new exciting photos of Obama standing, sitting, looking thoughtful, and even breathing in and out
New York Times hacked by Chinese government, Paul Krugman's economic policies stolen
White House: when President shoots skeet, he donates the meat to food banks that feed the middle class
To prove he is serious, Obama eliminates armed guard protection for President, Vice-President, and their families; establishes Gun-Free Zones around them instead
State Dept to send 100,000 American college students to China as security for US debt obligations
Jay Carney: Al Qaeda is on the run, they're just running forward
President issues executive orders banning cliffs, ceilings, obstructions, statistics, and other notions that prevent us from moving forwards and upward
Fearing the worst, Obama Administration outlaws the fan to prevent it from being hit by certain objects
World ends; S&P soars
Riddle of universe solved; answer not understood
Meek inherit Earth, can't afford estate taxes
Greece abandons Euro; accountants find Greece has no Euros anyway
Wheel finally reinvented; axles to be gradually reinvented in 3rd quarter of 2013
Bigfoot found in Ohio, mysteriously not voting for Obama
As Santa's workshop files for bankruptcy, Fed offers bailout in exchange for control of 'naughty and nice' list
Freak flying pig accident causes bacon to fly off shelves
Obama: green economy likely to transform America into a leading third world country of the new millennium
Report: President Obama to visit the United States in the near future
Obama promises to create thousands more economically neutral jobs
Modernizing Islam: New York imam proposes to canonize Saul Alinsky as religion's latter day prophet
Imam Rauf's peaceful solution: 'Move Ground Zero a few blocks away from the mosque and no one gets hurt'
Study: Obama's threat to burn tax money in Washington 'recruitment bonanza' for Tea Parties
Study: no Social Security reform will be needed if gov't raises retirement age to at least 814 years
Obama attends church service, worships self
Obama proposes national 'Win The Future' lottery; proceeds of new WTF Powerball to finance more gov't spending
Historical revisionists: "Hey, you never know"
Vice President Biden: criticizing Egypt is un-pharaoh
Israelis to Egyptian rioters: "don't damage the pyramids, we will not rebuild"
Lake Superior renamed Lake Inferior in spirit of tolerance and inclusiveness
Al Gore: It's a shame that a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of polar bears
Michael Moore: As long as there is anyone with money to shake down, this country is not broke
Obama's teleprompters unionize, demand collective bargaining rights
Obama calls new taxes 'spending reductions in tax code.' Elsewhere rapists tout 'consent reductions in sexual intercourse'
Obama's teleprompter unhappy with White House Twitter: "Too few words"
Obama's Regulation Reduction committee finds US Constitution to be expensive outdated framework inefficiently regulating federal gov't
Taking a page from the Reagan years, Obama announces new era of Perestroika and Glasnost
Responding to Oslo shootings, Obama declares Christianity "Religion of Peace," praises "moderate Christians," promises to send one into space
Republicans block Obama's $420 billion program to give American families free charms that ward off economic bad luck
White House to impose Chimney tax on Santa Claus
Obama decrees the economy is not soaring as much as previously decreeed
Conservative think tank introduces children to capitalism with pop-up picture book "The Road to Smurfdom"
Al Gore proposes to combat Global Warming by extracting silver linings from clouds in Earth's atmosphere
Obama refutes charges of him being unresponsive to people's suffering: "When you pray to God, do you always hear a response?"
Obama regrets the US government didn't provide his mother with free contraceptives when she was in college
Fluke to Congress: drill, baby, drill!
Planned Parenthood introduces Frequent Flucker reward card: 'Come again soon!'
Obama to tornado victims: 'We inherited this weather from the previous administration'
Obama congratulates Putin on Chicago-style election outcome
People's Cube gives itself Hero of Socialist Labor medal in recognition of continued expert advice provided to the Obama Administration helping to shape its foreign and domestic policies
Hamas: Israeli air defense unfair to 99% of our missiles, "only 1% allowed to reach Israel"
Democrat strategist: without government supervision, women would have never evolved into humans
Voters Without Borders oppose Texas new voter ID law
Enraged by accusation that they are doing Obama's bidding, media leaders demand instructions from White House on how to respond
Obama blames previous Olympics for failure to win at this Olympics
Official: China plans to land on Moon or at least on cheap knockoff thereof
Koran-Contra: Obama secretly arms Syrian rebels
Poll: Progressive slogan 'We should be more like Europe' most popular with members of American Nazi Party
Obama to Evangelicals: Jesus saves, I just spend
May Day: Anarchists plan, schedule, synchronize, and execute a coordinated campaign against all of the above
Midwestern farmers hooked on new erotic novel "50 Shades of Hay"
Study: 99% of Liberals give the rest a bad name
Obama meets with Jewish leaders, proposes deeper circumcisions for the rich
Historians: Before HOPE & CHANGE there was HEMP & CHOOM at ten bucks a bag
Cancer once again fails to cure Venezuela of its "President for Life"
Tragic spelling error causes Muslim protesters to burn local boob-tube factory
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu: due to energy conservation, the light at the end of the tunnel will be switched off
Obama Administration running food stamps across the border with Mexico in an operation code-named "Fat And Furious"
Pakistan explodes in protest over new Adobe Acrobat update; 17 local acrobats killed
White House: "Let them eat statistics"
Special Ops: if Benedict Arnold had a son, he would look like Barack Obama | 0 |
Stocks closed higher Thursday for a sixth straight day of gains, the longest winning streak since February. [The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 70. 53 points, or 0. 3 percent, to close at 21, 082. 95. That is forty points shy of the record closing high set on March 1. The broader SP 500 index hit a record 2, 4155. 07 on a rise of 0. 4 percent. The leading sectors were tech and . Shares of Best Buy rose 21% after the company reported better than expected results. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0. 7 percent to a record 6, 205. 26. | 1 |
So someone HATED this Oasis documentary so much that they voted Brexit
@Amznmovierevws over on Twitter has spotted an interesting review:
Brilliant. Being SO ANGRY about Amazon recommending an Oasis DVD that you vote Brexit.
He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup. As Noel once said about Liam. | 0 |
Election lawyer and Justice Department whistleblower J. Christian Adams, author of Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department, was a guest on Wednesday’s Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM host Alex Marlow. [Marlow asked Adams to clarify the new immigration guidelines coming from President Trump’s administration. LISTEN: “The president and DHS have really issued some bold new rules that I think are designed to protect the country,” Adams said. “They’re doing things the Obama administration refused to do but should have. ” For example, he said the Trump administration would be “removing people quickly, without any nonsense rigamarole. ” “These are people who haven’t been here very long. The Obama administration used to confine it to just two weeks. So if you could manage to get past two weeks under Obama, you can stay,” he explained. “But under Trump, they’re going to make it two years. So if you’ve been here within two years, in the country illegally, you’re gone quickly. Expedited removal. Outta here. ” “Obama used to confine it to 100 miles within the border — only if you were caught within a hundred miles would you be removed immediately, on an expedited basis,” he continued. “All you had to do is get past the line, and you were safe under Obama. What Trump did was extend it to the entire country. If you’re caught illegally, and you’ve been here less than two years, you’re going to be immediately removed. ” Adams said there was no chance the Left would refrain from “melting down” over these changes. “As you know, Alex, the Left is all about changing the demographics of the country so they can win elections,” he charged. “And that’s what this has all been about from the beginning. The open borders crowd is finding a way to undermine mainstream America, middle American values, political views, to inject the country with a foreign influence — that’s right, I said that — foreign influence — so the demographic of the electorate changes. ” “It helps them win the White House. It helps them win the Senate in places like Florida, California, Arizona, Virginia, another great example, Pennsylvania, Illinois — places with high immigration and illegal immigration. So I think the Left will go crazy. It’s what they do. They can’t help themselves. So expect more of it,” he said. Marlow characterized the longstanding “bizarre and terrible” approach to immigration enforcement as an implicit promise that “all you have to do is not commit another crime, and then you can stay. ” “I think that the decision to focus on criminal behavior — and we can talk about what that means because that’s important — but the decision to focus on criminal behavior is a first step. It’s a starting point that most Americans would agree with. It makes the Left look utterly crazy. It gaslights them,” Adams said. “But you know, it’s not just convicted criminals,” he pointed out. “It’s people who get picked up for like driving without a license, which is a huge problem when it comes to illegal aliens. And so it’s not just those who were convicted it’s those who were charged, those who were picked up on a minor infraction. ” Marlow asked when construction of the border wall President Trump promised might begin and whether it’s truly politically feasible. Adams insisted the wall was quite feasible, pointing to the Great Wall of China as an example of wall construction technology from ages past. However, he warned that “the entire bureaucracy inside the Beltway is going to this. ” “Every chance they get to sabotage and interfere, they’re going to do it. Folks who think that just because Trump is the president that that stuff is over with are wrong. Contracts being let, lawsuits being filed over some lizard in Arizona that might be affected by the wall … you’re going to see the entire apparatus of the institution activate to stop this because they know, again Alex, getting people here illegally helps them win elections ten, fifteen years down the road. I’m afraid that this is going to be a wicked experience for the country when you have bureaucrats opposing this. ” Adams agreed with Marlow that construction of the wall was politically dicey, warning that “every day counts. ” “We are one day worse than we were yesterday of Trump being president. Speed is of the essence. When Obama came in, he realized that every day counted, and so they radicalized the government as fast as possible. That has to be undone just as quickly,” he urged. Marlow cited a new poll that shows 80 percent of Americans oppose the concept of “sanctuary cities” where federal officials are not notified after illegal aliens come into contact with local law enforcement. “How come this is the only law in America you can break where you have a sanctuary city for it?” he asked. “This is a culture that’s permitting lawlessness to be out in the open in these urban areas like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston,” Adams replied. “These sanctuary cities are openly saying, ‘We don’t care about the law, and we’re going to provide a haven for lawlessness because we believe in changing the culture, changing the demographics of elections. ” “How can it happen? How does it exist? Look, those cities are run by lunatics,” he said. “San Francisco is run by lunatics. What is the political backstop? Trump may have figured it out. If you say, “Hey, okay, dear lunatics, if you still want your federal money, then you’re going to stop this’ — but you can see Alex, in some cases, the lunacy is more important to them than the dollars. We’ll see what happens there. ” Adams portrayed the assault on immigration law as an attack on “the fundamental notion that the West, that America, has the power to set off a piece of the earth and say, ‘We are different from the rest of you. We believe in individual liberty, the role of limited government, of the separation of powers, of the rule of law, and we are allowed to do borders to protect those ideas. ’” “That’s what’s under attack, Alex. Around the world is this notion that the West should be able to survive as the West. That’s why people like Trudeau, who’s also a nut, are part of this globalist open borders ideology that really is a effort to undermine Western values,” he added, referring to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. A caller asked how it would be possible to determine that any given illegal alien had been present in the United States for two years or less to remove them with expedited deportation, given that illegal aliens have little documentation of their movements. “That’s a great question,” said Adams. “That’s where the lawyers working at DHS and immigration judges — you know, we have rules of evidence, Alex. I can figure out, pretty much, if you give me subpoena power, how long somebody’s been in the country. I could talk to people. I could look at bank records. I could look at job histories. I could look at a variety of evidence that will inform the question of how long they’ve been here. Sometimes you get an admission, right? That’s the best kind of evidence, an admission against interest. So it’s not impossible to figure out who’s been here less than two years. 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 |
Reuters
On a rooftop overlooking the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, around 200 American-Israeli fans of Donald Trump gathered to proclaim their support for the Republican candidate, convinced he will be Israel’s best friend if elected.
Wearing “Make America Great Again” baseball caps, the small crowd, ranging from Holocaust survivors in their 80s to grinning teenagers in Trump t-shirts, said they didn’t care about the sexual assault allegations against the candidate or the online anti-Semitism of some of his supporters.
“Trump will let Israel be itself and make its own decisions, that’s what I like,” David Weissman, a 35-year-old from Queens, New York, who moved to Israel three years ago, said at the event late on Wednesday.
“He’s not a saint, but look at his achievements. He’s not afraid to identify the enemy as radical Islam, and he’s not going to support the two-state solution,” he said, referring to long-standing efforts to forge peace with the Palestinians.
Trump has said that the women who have accused him of sexual misconduct fabricated their stories to damage his campaign.
Others at the rally said they liked the fact that Trump was promising to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, officially recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and would not berate Israel for building Jewish settlements in occupied territory.
“It’s very important that he becomes president,” said Connie Gordner, 82, who moved to Israel from Jacksonville, Florida, 21 years ago. “If Hillary Clinton becomes president, we’re dead.”
The rally was organized by Republicans Overseas Israel, which estimates that there are 300,000 U.S. citizens living in Israel or in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians seek for their own state.
Even if only a third of those cast absentee ballots, organizers believe it could have an impact in some swing states, come Nov. 8. Marc Zell, co-chairman of the non-profit group, believes around three-quarters of American-Israelis support the Republican party and its candidate.
In an impassioned speech to the small crowd, David Friedman, Trump’s adviser on Israel, heaped criticism on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton for her decisions as secretary of state and said Trump was Israel’s greatest hope.
“Under Trump, the United States will never pressure Israel into accepting a two-state solution or any other solution that is against the wishes of the Israeli people,” he said, to whoops, cheers and a few shouts of “Crooked Hillary”.
While the motley crowd was unabashed in its Trumpian fervor, polls indicate that most Jewish Israelis favor Clinton over Trump, by 40 percent to 31 percent.
The critical element is American-Israelis who retain the right to vote in U.S. elections. Some estimates suggest more than a quarter of them live in settlements, which tend to have a more conservative, national-religious outlook. Trump’s messages have been designed to appeal to their sentiments.
On Wednesday, he delivered a minute-long video to the rally, playing up his connections to Judaism through his daughter’s marriage, saying it enhanced his respect for the faith.
“My administration will stand side-by-side with the Jewish people and Israel’s leaders to continue strengthening the bridges that connect not only Jewish Americans and Israelis but also all Americans and Israelis,” he said.
“Together we will make America and Israel safe again.” | 0 |
Wednesday on CNN addressing media reports that he had turned over a dossier containing unverified claims about Russia and Donald Trump, Sen. John McCain ( ) said, “I don’t know if it’s credible or not but I thought the information deserved to be delivered to the FBI, the appropriate agency of government. ” Partial transcript as follows: MCCAIN: After looking at that information I took it to the FBI and have had no further involvement with it at issue. By the way, according to some media reports they already had that information, but I didn’t know that at the time. I did what any citizen would do, received sensitive information and then handed it over to the proper government agency and had nothing else to do with it. REPORTER: Why do you think they came to you? MCCAIN: No idea. REPORTER: Do you find the information credible? MCCAIN: I don’t know. That’s why I gave it to the FBI. I don’t know if it’s credible or not but I thought the information deserved to be delivered to the FBI, the appropriate agency of government. REPORTER: Does it trouble you? MCCAIN: It doesn’t trouble me because I don’t know if it’s accurate or not. REPORTER: Does it make you worried he is subject to blackmail by either the Russians or others? MCCAIN: It doesn’t bother me because I don’t know if it’s true or not true because I have no way of corroborating that. The individual made sure I received the information. I then looked at it. I decided it’s a matter for the FBI and gave it to the FBI. Follow Pam Key On Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
Страна: Ирак Как отмечает в своей новой статье пакистанский исследователь Салман Рафи, штурм иракского города Мосула вынудил международных и региональных игроков координировать свои усилия ради достижения собственных интересов. Однако, как того и стоило ожидать, с Вашингтоном никому из участников штурма оказалось «не по пути», потому что Белый дом попытался настоять на том, чтобы Турция не участвовала в штурме Мосула. А потому никакого другого выбора, кроме как дать иранским военным «зеленый свет», Обама просто-напросто не имел. Автор отмечает, что едва бы осторожные предупреждения Вашингтона смогли остановить Турцию. Однако Эрдоган все-таки не пошел на штурм Мосула. Это говорит о том, что Москва смогла добиться крупного успеха в переговорах с турецкими коллегами, которые всегда рассматривали данный иракский город как «турецкую вотчину». В то время как иранские и иракские военные занимаются планомерным освобождением Мосула, Москва, Анкара и Дамаск координируют свои действия с ними на сирийской территории. Автор отмечает, что сейчас самое время задаться вопросом, так кто же на самом деле создал международную коалицию против ДАИШ? С полной версией статьи вы можете ознакомиться здесь . Популярные статьи | 0 |
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