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Donald J. Trump hurled himself into a new effort to reshape the presidential race on Monday, scrambling to allay voters’ concerns about his temperament and put Hillary Clinton on the defensive over her critical comments about many of Mr. Trump’s supporters. Though Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee, has largely withheld comment about Mrs. Clinton’s health, showing uncharacteristic restraint after her campaign announced she had pneumonia, he took Mrs. Clinton’s unexpected absence from public view as an opportunity to press his case with ferocity. Among Mr. Trump’s advisers, there is a sense of urgency. With eight weeks left in the race — and just two before his first debate with Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic nominee — Mr. Trump may never again have such a window to make his argument to voters more or less uninterrupted. Without a forceful message and iron discipline heading into the debates, Mr. Trump could struggle mightily to overcome the deeply rooted opposition to his candidacy. An ABC Post poll published over the weekend showed Mrs. Clinton with a edge over Mr. Trump nationally, with six in 10 voters describing Mr. Trump as unqualified and biased against women and minorities. Mr. Trump seized the chance on Monday to turn the charge of intolerance against Mrs. Clinton: Denouncing the allegation that his supporters were bigoted, Mr. Trump argued in a speech in Baltimore that Mrs. Clinton had shown “contempt” for voters by deriding many of his supporters as racist and sexist, calling them a “basket of deplorables” at a on Friday. At a rally on Monday night in North Carolina, Mr. Trump said Mrs. Clinton was running a “ and negative campaign. ” The Trump campaign also announced the support of R. James Woolsey, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, to reassure voters of Mr. Trump’s readiness for the presidency. Mr. Trump made no mention of Mrs. Clinton’s health in his campaign speeches. During two television interviews on Monday morning, he said he wished Mrs. Clinton well. He also did not revive his frequent accusation that Mrs. Clinton lacks the physical strength to be president, though he suggested vaguely that “something is going on. ” Instead, he used a speech to the National Guard Association of the United States to defend his supporters at length, arguing that they were right to be concerned about border security and crime, and that those concerns did not indicate a hateful view of racial and religious minorities. “If Hillary Clinton will not retract her comments in full, I don’t see how she can credibly campaign any further,” Mr. Trump said, demanding an apology. He claimed that his campaign was doing “amazingly well with and Hispanic workers. ” But Mr. Trump, who records little support in the polls among racial minorities and educated whites, did not address any of the past remarks that have contributed to his low standing with those groups. He has continued to call for a crackdown on immigrants who are in the country illegally, and has declined to retract his false assertions in the past that President Obama was not born in the United States. Mr. Trump has also not expressed regret for clashing with the family of a slain Muslim Army captain or renounced his proposal to bar Muslims from entering the country. Mrs. Clinton has rebuked Mr. Trump over the last month for what she has called his promotion of racially insensitive messages and policies and his alignment with leaders of the movement known as the “” which is widely seen as holding fringe and racist views. Robert Blizzard, a Republican pollster, said that Mr. Trump appeared to be recovering his footing in the race, but that it might be too late for him to change many voters’ longstanding assessment of his character and capabilities. “Hillary Clinton clearly won the summer, and there’s little doubt Donald Trump dug himself a very deep hole in the aftermath of the nominating conventions,” Mr. Blizzard said. “While Trump is starting to climb out of that hole now, his ability to take advantage of a few bad weeks for Clinton is going to be limited due to enduring views about his judgment, his temperament and his rhetoric toward other ethnicities and women. ” And Democrats are skeptical that Mr. Trump will be able to reinvent himself by using Mrs. Clinton’s biting comments as a shield. Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster who advises a “super PAC,” described an exercise he uses in focus groups, asking voters to write down three words to describe Mr. Trump before the discussion begins. “People use the word ‘racist’ consistently to describe him,” Mr. Garin said. “But they also talk about him as a dangerous egomaniac. ” Still, on a conference call with top supporters Monday, advisers to Mr. Trump spoke of Mrs. Clinton’s turbulent stretch as a source of relief: For the first time in a while, they said, they were starting the week on offense, according to people who participated in the call who spoke on condition of anonymity about a private discussion. Campaign surrogates were told to hammer Mrs. Clinton for her description of Trump voters, and to say as little as possible about her pneumonia diagnosis. Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, a retired Army officer who advises Mr. Trump, said there was optimism in the campaign that the momentum of the race had “totally shifted in Mr. Trump’s favor. ” He predicted that voters would see a distinction between “a guy who made all kinds of comments as he was fighting to win the primaries” and the Donald Trump of the general election. Mr. Trump has taken other steps in recent days to steady his candidacy, moving to shore up his campaign in crucial swing states. With Mrs. Clinton holding a daunting advantage on the Electoral College map, Mr. Trump aimed a new television campaign at the four most critical states for his candidacy: Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and North Carolina. He has given his aides greater leeway in directing his television advertising, allowing the campaign to focus on that smaller cluster of states, a change from as recently as two weeks ago, when Mr. Trump was personally choosing where to run television ads, according to two people briefed on the Trump operation. Mr. Trump also removed the head of his Florida operation last week, replacing her with Susie Wiles, a veteran Republican operative close to Gov. Rick Scott. And Corey Lewandowski, Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager, who is still a trusted adviser, has visited New Hampshire in recent weeks, meeting with senior Republicans there and making suggestions on spending and strategy decisions in the state, two people familiar with his activities said. It remains to be seen if Mr. Trump and his allies can maintain this level of determined focus. Numerous times, Mr. Trump has briefly adopted a more disciplined pose on the campaign trail, only to give in quickly to the temptation to taunt and brawl. Even on Monday morning, as he refrained from taunting Mrs. Clinton in a television interview, Mr. Trump made an offhand reference to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as “Pocahontas. ” Ms. Warren, a Democrat, has described herself as having Native American heritage. Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers have suggested in the past that Mrs. Clinton’s health should be fair game. Blaise Ingoglia, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party, said he considered Mrs. Clinton’s handling of her health a legitimate campaign issue because she did not immediately disclose that she had pneumonia. “The disturbing part of that whole thing is that the campaign is willing to conceal that instead of being up front and honest,” he said. “You really start to question: What else is being concealed?” | 1 |
A sea of blue, family and friends gathered in a funeral mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral Friday morning to bid a final farewell to an iconic hero NYPD Detective Steven McDonald. [“My dad was a real superman,” Sgt. Conor McDonald, the son of McDonald, who followed in his father’s footsteps, said during the funeral ceremony. “My dad wanted to make sure his time on earth was not wasted ant that is why he was so passionate in spreading God’s message of love and forgiveness. ” In July of 1986, McDonald was working as an undercover cop in Central Park, where he stopped to question three suspicious boys. During the stop, one of the boys, Shavod Jones pulled out a . and shot McDonald three times. One of the bullets hit McDonald in his neck, piercing through his spinal cord and ultimately paralyzing him. McDonald was left quadriplegic, unable to breathe on his own, and would depend on a ventilator to breathe for the rest of his life. According to doctors, McDonald was given less than five years to live, but overcame all odds and survived for 30 years. Eight months after the shooting, McDonald publicly forgave Jones during his son Conor’s christening. “I feel sorry for him,” McDonald said. “I forgive him, and hope that he can find peace and purpose in his life. ” Remaining an active member in the NYPD, McDonald would spend the next 30 years speaking and mentoring young NYPD officers during roll call, attending every brother and ’s graduation ceremony and funeral. He also would became one of the world’s foremost pilgrims, spreading his message of “Faith and Forgiveness” to Israel, Ireland and Bosnia. McDonald suffered a heart attack last Friday and was taken off life support Tuesday afternoon. NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill remembered McDonald for his impact he had in spreading his message across the world. “Steven is a life that underscores why people want to become police officers,” O’Neill said. “Despite using a ventilator, Steven’s voice was always strong, just like his message. ” O’Neill added, “Steven was one of the most remarkable men I ever met and one of the most fearless cops to ever die in a uniform. He helped redefine what a hero is in the NYPD. ” Also in attendance were former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and Bill Bratton, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and David Dickins. Notable celebrities such as former ‘Late Show’ host David Letterman and former New York Ranger Adam Graves were also among those who attended the hero cop funeral. Cardinal Timothy Dolan began the mass, remembering the life of McDonald. “We are here as an act of faith,” Dolan said. “We are here to pray that Steven is now enjoying eternal life as he believed and to thank God for Steven’s splendid life of service. ” Donald Trump took to Twitter to praise McDonald, calling him a “real NYC hero. ” A beautiful funeral today for a real NYC hero, Detective Steven McDonald. Our law enforcement community has my complete and total support. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2017, | 1 |
Regulators are expected to announce as early as Wednesday that at least 35 million additional airbags made by Takata will need to be fixed, according to a person briefed on the matter. This would more than double what is already the largest automotive recall in American history. The airbags can unexpectedly explode, sending metal parts hurtling into the cabin. At least 11 deaths worldwide have been linked to the defect. The expansion would bring the total of recalled Takata airbags to at least 63 million in the United States — possibly affecting nearly one in four of the 250 million vehicles on America’s roads. At issue is Takata’s use of a compound called ammonium nitrate, which can become unstable over time or when it is exposed to moisture. Takata has wrestled with the makeup of the compound over the years, eventually adding a drying agent to make it more stable. The new recalls focus on airbags that do not have the drying agent. Scott Upham, founder and chief executive of the automotive consulting firm Valient Market Research, said that the wider recall was an admission by Takata that its use of ammonium nitrate — a cheap, but potent, compound more often used at sites like coal mines — was a safety risk. “Finally, there’s enough scientific evidence to point to the humidity issue as affecting the propellant,” Mr. Upham said. “For a long period of time, they denied that ammonium nitrate was to blame. But this does validate there are fundamental issues with the chemical itself. ” Ever since the first Takata airbag recall of about 4, 000 vehicles in 2008, the company insisted for years that the problems did not lie in the design of the airbag inflaters with ammonium nitrate, but instead were the result of manufacturing flaws or quality control problems. Internally, though, it harbored doubts, quashing the results of tests that failed, manipulating data to conform with automakers’ safety requirements and continually revising patents. But only in May last year did Takata admit that its products were, in fact, defective. Then in a consent order issued last November, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave the Japanese parts maker until the end of 2018 to prove that the airbag inflaters without the drying agent were safe. The agency imposed a $70 million penalty that could increase by $130 million if Takata does not meet the consent order’s terms. In levying the penalty, regulators noted that Takata had produced testing reports that contained selective or inaccurate data. The new round of recalls to be announced this week was prompted by findings of three separate investigations into the rupture conducted by Honda Motor, the automaker most affected by the recalls Takata and a consortium of 10 automakers. The agency has said that ultimately, more than 100 million airbag inflaters that use ammonium nitrate may need to be recalled. Takata has until the end of 2019 to show that its inflaters that contain the drying agent are safe. The safety agency has also barred Takata from using ammonium nitrate for new orders. In a statement, the safety agency said it could not comment on plans for an expanded recall. But it said the agency had reviewed the findings of investigations into the Takata airbag ruptures and would “take all appropriate actions to make sure airbags in Americans’ vehicles are safe. ” Takata said in a statement that it was “working with regulators and our automaker customers to develop orderly solutions to these important safety issues. ” The expanded recall was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal. The growing recall, though, has been anything but orderly, and Takata now faces new financial pressure. It already appeared to be heading for a second consecutive year of losses, and the company said on Monday that it planned to to book special charges totaling 20. 1 billion yen, or $189 million, to cover recall costs and settlements with consumers injured by its inflaters. That would more than negate the 5 billion yen of net profit, or $47 million, it forecast in its most recent earnings guidance. The company is scheduled to report final results for its latest fiscal year on May 11. As for consumers, the mere announcement of the newly expanded recall is likely to sow more confusion in what has been a dizzyingly complex problem. Even as automakers look to other suppliers to provide them with replacement inflaters, there has been a persistent shortage of parts in many areas of the country, forcing many car owners to ask for loaners if they can get them or drive their cars knowing of the danger. All the while, doubts over ammonium nitrate have persisted as the human toll has mounted. In December, a Georgia man, Joel Knight, died on a South Carolina highway when the airbag in his Ford Ranger ruptured after his truck hit a cow, sending metal into his neck. He bled to death, not knowing that the airbag posed a risk because it had not been recalled. The Ranger has since been recalled. Mark Lillie, a former Takata engineer who raised concerns about the ammonium nitrate propellant in the late 1990s, said he felt vindicated by Takata’s expanded recall. But he said he remained concerned that the ammonium nitrate remained vulnerable, even with the drying agent, which is called a desiccant. “Undoubtedly, the desiccant will reduce the problem, and delay the onset of the problem,” he said. “But it can’t eliminate the problem. ” | 1 |
President Donald Trump announced his first federal appeals court nomination on Tuesday, naming Amul R. Thapar of Kentucky to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. [Thapar currently serves on the District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. The White House released news of the appointment which noted that President George W. Bush nominated Thapar in 2008 which led to his confirmation and appointment. The son of immigrants, he was the first Article III judge of South Asian descent in the U. S. Prior to becoming a judge, Thapar served as U. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky and Assistant U. S. Attorney in the Southern District of Ohio and the District of Columbia according to the White House. Thapar has worked for both Williams Connolly in Washington, D. C. and Squire, Sanders Dempsey in Cincinnati during his time in private practice according to the National Law Journal. He has ruled on multiple notable cases including one in 2016 in which he ruled against restrictions on judges’ political involvement. He stated that the Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission rules violated the First Amendment. The Journal called Thapar a “ in Kentucky, and known as a thoughtful, fair judge and a strong writer. ” The report referenced a 2010 ruling in which he left in place Labor Department injunction against an energy company for coal mine safety violations. It also noted a 2015 ruling against a store manager who lost his sight and filed suit against . His decision stated that vision was a key function of the job which involved driving to customers. Judge Thapar attended Boston College where he earned a B. S. in 1991 and went on to earn his J. D. at the University of California, Berkeley. Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana | 1 |
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suicide bomber turned a spiritual dance celebration at a revered religious shrine into a slaughterhouse on Thursday, killing at least 70 people and wounding more than 250 in the worst act of terrorism to hit Pakistan in months. At least 50 of the wounded were critically hurt in the explosion at the Sufi shrine in a remote part of southern Pakistan, officials said. Many of the victims were women. The Islamic State, the extreme Sunni militant organization based in Syria and Iraq, announced that its branch in the region had carried out the attack. The Islamic State, which regards members of other Muslim groups as nonbelievers deserving death, also claimed responsibility for an attack on a Sufi shrine in southwestern Pakistan in November. Sufism, popular in Pakistan, is regarded as a relatively tolerant branch of Islam. The shrine assault on Thursday was by far the worst in a wave of militant attacks that have shaken Pakistan this week, most claimed by the Taliban. The attacks were the catalyst for a decision on Thursday by the armed forces to close the border with Afghanistan, where Pakistani officials claim that many such attacks are coordinated and plotted. A spokesman for the armed forces, Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor, announced on Twitter that the border closing was effective immediately. While Pakistani officials have voiced skepticism about the presence of the Islamic State in the country, they have acknowledged that some local militant groups have expressed support for it. The attacks have underscored the challenges faced by the civil and military leadership to counter extremist violence. On Wednesday, seven people were killed in northwestern Pakistan in two suicide bombings, one targeting judges in Peshawar, the provincial capital of the northwestern Province. On Monday, at least 13 people were killed in Lahore, in the east, when militants targeted a protest. The bombing Thursday evening targeted the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, a popular Sufi saint, in Sehwan, a city in Jamshoro district of the southern Sindh Province. A large number of people had been performing a spiritual, devotional dance when the bomber struck in the courtyard, officials said, turning a place of spiritual reverie into a spectacle of blood and body parts. The remoteness of the region added to the difficulties faced by the survivors and emergency responders. The nearest big city was about 90 miles away. Khadim Hussain Rind, a senior provincial police officer, said that more than two dozen police officials had been deputized for security at the event and that cameras had been installed for surveillance of the shrine. “However, it is very difficult to stop a suicide bomber in a big crowd,” Mr. Rind told the local news media. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the bombing as an assault on a “progressive inclusive future of Pakistan. ” Sufi shrines and mosques have been targeted in the past by Taliban militants, who view Sufi Islam as contrary to their beliefs. “The past few days have been hard, and my heart is with the victims,” the prime minister said in the statement. “But we can’t let these events divide us, or scare us. We must stand united in this struggle for the Pakistani identity and universal humanity. ” The sudden spike in terrorist violence has shocked and surprised the country. “Pakistan is under attack. The terrorists are creating a climate of fear, intimidation and uncertainty. No institution and no aspect of society is seemingly secure,” Syeda Sughra Imam, a former senator, said in an interview. “Sehwan is synonymous with Pakistan’s Sufi culture and tradition, which has been dealt a devastating blow today. ” The Pakistani military had proudly claimed last year, under the leadership of the then army chief, that the military operations in the tribal regions, especially the one in North Waziristan, and intelligence operations in different cities had largely defeated the militant groups that had carried out many attacks. But the violence has cast doubt on the military’s claims. Imran Khan, the prominent opposition politician, blamed the federal government for what he called its failure to follow through after the military’s offensives against militants. “We need a coherent national security policy,” Mr. Khan said in an interview. “I do think complacency has set in,” Mr. Khan said. | 1 |
At Least 40 Killed Over Weekend, UN Reports
ISIS has been reported to be using a fleet of trucks and minibuses to transport the civilian population of the area around Mosul into the city itself, which officials are saying they believe is a sign that ISIS intends to use them as human shields.
While the human shields thing is purely speculative, what appears to be more certain is that those former Iraqi military personnel that ISIS is coming across in their forced busing are being executed, with reports that some 40 were killed over the weekend and thrown into the Tigris River .
This has been a recurring concern for ISIS since the Mosul battle began. ISIS executed some of their own fighters in the lead-up when they were claimed to be working with the Iraqi government, and have been desperate to purge any other potentially disloyal elements around the city.
While the UN was harshly critical of ISIS for forcibly relocating people around Mosul, they have so far been mum on government warnings that civilians in Mosul not attempt to escape the city, warnings which came amid announcements that the US intends to launch airstrikes against “fleeing ISIS fighters.” | 0 |
Politics Paul Craig Roberts: 'Putin's Nukes Could Wipe Out Entire East Coast' (PODCAST)
If the US thinks it can continually transgress against Russia until Moscow gives in, it is gravely mistaken Originally appeared at Zero Hedge
Suffice to say, though children are at play, this is not a game.
Those who have been toying with outright war against Russia, and an escalation of the conflict in Syria, are putting the lives of all Americans at risk.
Of course, the threat of nuclear annihilation has been with us since the earliest days of the Cold War, but Russia has now positioned itself with the largest and most destructive nuclear arsenal of any country in the world.
Economist and political critic Dr. Paul Craig Roberts explains how diplomatic relations have broken between Russia and the United States, after the U.S. knowingly attacked pro-Assad Syria forces… that, of course, was the cherry on top of a host of insults, deliberate antagonism and a strategy that could only result in further chaos and war.
The end of negotiations is unfortunately, given that fighting it out could mean thermonuclear war that would make Hiroshima and Nagasaki look trivial in comparison.
After a period of some patience, Russia is now warning that the United States is dangerously close to turning a proxy war into a direct world war – and they are deadly serious about defending the motherland and their sworn allies – namely Assad.
Any further attack could result in immediate destruction.
Putin is a formidable opponent and Russia a powerful enemy. At present time, they have the capability of wiping the entire East Coast of the United States off the map – where more than 100 million people live. Will the ranking misleaders in Washington continue to gamble with all of our lives?
VLADIMIR Putin’s nuclear stockpile could completely destroy the east coast of the US in one clean swipe should the Russian leader launch an attack on the West, an expert has warned.
A staggering 112.6million people could be at risk of extermination from the deadly missiles.
Russia has the largest haul of nuclear weapons of any country in the world and reportedly has the most powerful bomb named the SS-18 – menacingly nicknamed the Satan.
Experts estimate Russia has 55 of the deadly weapons, but only five would be needed to destroy the East Coast of the US.
[…]
“Five or six of these ‘Satans’ as they are known by the US military, and the East Coast of the United States disappears.”
Dr Roberts said: “The atomic bombs that Washington dropped on these helpless civilian centres while the Japanese government was trying to surrender, were mere popguns compared to today’s thermo-nuclear weapons.
What’s more, the Russian have hinted strongly at the possibility that they would be able to disable electronics, communications and defense shields in the U.S. via electromagnetic warfare – perhaps an EMP .
Worst of all, the American misleaders haven’t even got a good reason for putting the population at such a risk – strategy in the middle east is muddied at best, and prodding for war with Russia doesn’t carry a clear narrative either.
The world could change, and American power could end in a few decisive minutes.
Hopefully it would never come to that, but we shouldn’t live in a false world where we pretend these situations can’t harm us. Did you enjoy this article? - Consider helping us! Russia Insider depends on your donations: the more you give, the more we can do. $1 $10 Other amount
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Your forthcoming book, “Tears We Cannot Stop,” is subtitled “A Sermon to White America. ” Which part of white America do you envision reading it? I envision the audience to be that ocean of white folk I encounter who are deeply empathetic to the struggles of minorities — they are the ones who ask me, “What can I do, as a white person?” This is my attempt to address them in the most useful and, hopefully, edifying manner. What’s your strategy for getting through to the white people who may not be particularly sympathetic? What I’ve seen under the wonderful presidency of Barack Obama is the tendency to not tell white people the truth, for obvious reasons — they don’t vote for you. But I’m not a politician. I don’t have that power or influence, but what I do wield is a different kind of bully pulpit. We have to have enough belief in white people to tell them the truth. They are grown! There are a lot of areas within race relations that seem like less of a conversation and more of an attempt to prove to white people that these issues — police brutality, for instance — are a real and present danger. I open this book with horror stories about my engagement with the police. These are the stories that have shaped me, that join me to the mass of people who, regardless of our station in life, regardless of educational attainment and achievement, have felt this. The president of the United States has these stories, the former attorney general has these stories and a prominent black intellectual like me has these stories. The reality is that this is part and parcel of what it means to be black in America, and I wanted to spend time talking and thinking about it from a number of different perspectives to show white brothers and sisters that we aren’t making this up. This is not fabricated. I can’t help but think that if the same levels of police brutality were happening to white people, we would just disband the police. Police brutality would not be seen as the price of keeping our society safe. Recently, I was outside of Ben’s Chili Bowl in Washington at 3 a. m. and a young white kid is cursing the police, and I’m going, “Oh, my God, they’re going to shoot him. ” And then it occurred to me that they wouldn’t — he’s a white kid. And what did I hear the police say? “Now, son, you’re clearly inebriated. You need to go home and sleep this off. ” And I said to myself: “My God! This is what we want!” We can’t even afford a display of anger that many white people have. At the end of your sermon, you do a “benediction” section, in which you talk about making reparations on the local and individual level: donating to groups like the United Negro College Fund or a scholarship program, but also, to cite your example from the book, paying “the black person who cuts your grass double what you might ordinarily pay. ” That gave me pause! Good! I used to say in church, “If the sermon ain’t making you a little bit uncomfortable, it ain’t effective. ” Look, if it doesn’t cost you anything, you’re not really engaging in change you’re engaging in convenience. You’re engaged in the overflow. I’m asking you to do stuff you wouldn’t ordinarily do. I’m asking you to think more seriously and strategically about why you possess what you possess. I agree with reparations, but maybe this is my white privilege speaking: I can’t imagine actually doing that. That is what I meant by an I. R. A.: an individual reparations account. You ain’t got to ask the government, you don’t have to ask your local politician — this is what you, an individual, conscientious, “woke” citizen can do. But charity can’t be the end of it, right? The Koch brothers gave the United Negro College Fund $25 million, but I doubt you would consider them “woke. ” No. Martin Luther King Jr. believed that charity is a poor substitute for justice. But I ain’t turning $25 million down. | 1 |
PARIS (AFP) — French prosecutors have asked the European parliament to lift the immunity of right wing presidential candidate Marine Le Pen over an inquiry into alleged fake parliamentary jobs, legal sources said Friday. [The revelation comes just nine days before France heads to the polls for a presidential election with Le Pen, who heads the eurosceptic Front National (FN) one of the frontrunners in the April 23 first round. The demand was made at the end of last month after she invoked her parliamentary immunity in refusing to attend questioning by investigating magistrates on March 10. The case is linked to an expenses inquiry in which the European Parliament has accused Le Pen’s FN of defrauding it to the tune of some 340, 000 euros ($360, 000). The parliament believes the party used funds allotted for parliamentary assistants to pay Le Pen’s personal assistant Catherine Griset and her bodyguard Thierry Legier for party work in France. French investigators leading the case raided the party’s headquarters outside Paris last month in a bid to determine whether the FN used European funds to pay for 20 assistants — presented as parliamentary aides — who were working for the party elsewhere. But Le Pen shrugged off the request, saying it was “normal”. “It’s totally normal procedure, I’m not surprised,” she told Franceinfo radio. | 1 |
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Do you have the sinking feeling that Trump may start backing off his promises now that he’s in power. Is there the niggling doubt that the banksters, criminals and party insiders he’s surrounding himself with may not follow through on that draining of the swamp? Never fear! You can show you’re a person of integrity by taking the #TrumpPledge.
SHOW NOTES | 0 |
The second video (bottom one ) proves what Trump is sayng is true , corruption with the Clinton gang is rife , he could use this in his arguments . http://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/ammon-bundy-verdict-oregon-standoff-malheur-court/ And lets not forget there were 15 undercover FBI infrmants doing the provications = set up . | 0 |
Chart Of The Day: 25-Years of Bubble Finance Fantasy, Not Free Trade
David | 0 |
Turkey and the Next War By Philip Giraldi
The Republic of Turkey has become a loose cannon on deck, a short-term asset in enabling the United States (US) bombing of northern Syria but a major liability when it comes to any eventual settlement intended to quell the fighting in the region.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seeking to destroy both genuine enemies and far less blameworthy critics alike in his over-the-top reaction to Julys attempted military coup. His emergency powers were recently extended. He has used an enemies list, prepared pre-coup, to detain 37,000 without any prospect of trial, to arrest or fire more than 1,00,000 government officials, to shut down newspapers and television stations, to close schools and universities and to wage an increasingly bloody war against the countrys minority, Kurds.
In Kurdish southwestern Turkey, there have been wholesale dismissals and even arrests of teachers, bureaucrats and elected officials, including mayors . They are being replaced by appointees from Ankara loyal to the government but frequently lacking in the training required to do their jobs.
Erdogans paranoia and desire for revenge run deep. Alleged coup organiser Fetullah Gulen has been described as the head of a terrorist organization intent on subduing the entire world, far beyond Turkey. Turkish embassies and consulates overseas have been ordered to compile lists of disloyal citizens, and Ankara even sued a German comedian who satirised Erdogan.
In Turkey itself, police and intelligence agents have been arresting people who possess multiple American $1 bills whose serial numbers all start with the same letter. (It is believed that the banknotes were used to establish bona fides among coup plotters.) Reading the wrong newspaper or book has led to firing or imprisonment, while parliamentary critics are being silenced and threatened with arrest after being labelled as terrorists. There have been frequent reports of torture, beatings and even rape of those detained, and Erdogan has supported calls for the death penalty for military officers involved in the coup.
And then there is the ongoing corruption of Erdogan himself, his family and his close associates. Turkey illegally bought Iranian oil while Iran was under sanctions, and Erdogans son Bilal used his tankers to move it to markets in East Asia to sell it. Fearing a police raid at one point, Erdogan telephoned his son and advised him to go to his safe, remove all the money inside and hide it.
Now, the government has been arresting businessmen accused of being sympathetic to the coup without presenting any evidence, while also confiscating billions of dollars in assets belonging to their companies. The assets are being temporarily managed by the political associates of Erdogan.
Erdogan is unfortunately supported by a solid bloc of voters who see the world the same way he does and generally share his intense and often-cited religiosity. He is inspired by his own personal sense of righteousness, and he has exhibited what one might reasonably describe as megalomania, seeing grandiose building projects and a redefinition of Turkeys domestic and international interests as part and parcel of his own authority and that of his ruling Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) party (Justice and Development Party).
I have previously described how Erdogans increasingly aggressive foreign policy has long been driven by a somewhat legitimate fear of the development of an independent Kurdish state, which presumably would incorporate parts of Turkey with northern Syria and Iraq as well as western Iran. Indeed, Erdogans recent participation in the fighting against the Islamic State (ISIS) is actually a deliberate misdirection, being instead mostly aimed at striking the Kurdish militias that the US regards as its most effective fighting force against the terrorist groups.
More disturbing still, recent developments suggest that Ankara is now entertaining irredentist claims over former parts of the Ottoman Empire that are adjacent to Turkeys current borders, including Mosul in Iraq, areas just north of Aleppo in Syria and parts of Greece. Erdogan has argued that he has a responsibility to protect Turks in neighbouring states, a rationalisation that he has been employing to bomb Kurdish-controlled areas and to demand a role in the impending Iraqi assault on Mosul, which has a small Turkmen minority. Iraqs government, knowing that once Ankara has its foot in the door, it will be difficult to make Turkish soldiers go home, has flatly rejected the offer. Erdogan responded by observing that Turkey has a right to invade Iraq if it feels threatened.
The aim to assert some form of regional dominance is a reversal of Turkeys former foreign policy, which stressed friendly relations with all its neighbours. One might further suggest that the July coup let the genie out of the bottle, fully liberating Erdogan from whatever restraints he believed himself to be under and giving him an opportunity to rewrite the countrys constitution to enhance and perpetuate his own power, a process that is now well underway.
Many reasonably question whether the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) should exist at all after the demise of the Soviet Union, but including Turkey as a member raises some very serious concerns due to Article 5 of the Washington Treaty (which created the alliance). This provision requires all members to respond to a military threat against any member state as a collective defense. As the alliance purports to be defensive in nature, Turkeys irredentist claims are problematic particularly as it would not be difficult to contrive an incident that would make an offensive operation appear to be self-defence. Such an incident took place in December 2015 with the clearly premeditated downing of a Russian warplane that had strayed over the border into Turkey for 17 seconds. Turkey regarded the incursion as an act of war. Fortunately, Moscow was restrained in its response, and the situation did not escalate in military terms. So, the issue of NATO involvement, though it briefly surfaced in Brussels, was essentially moot.
In addition, as a basically European-American alliance, NATO has long taken as a given that member states will conform to reasonably democratic norms. That is something that Turkey is rapidly moving away from with its mass arrests, show trials and collective punishments while Erdogan seeks to aggrandise his position by enhancing his own presidential powers. As Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute puts it , Turkeys brief democratic moment is ending.
For the United States, the calculus is somewhat complicated. Hillary Clinton will likely up the ante in Syria, which will require the use of the airbase at Incirlik. But after that, presuming that a Third World War can somehow be averted while the escalation and intervention are taking place, the role of Turkey should be re-evaluated based on strategic considerations distinct from the current fighting in Iraq and Syria. Ankaras status as a long-term strategic asset should certainly be challenged, particularly in light of the Erdogan governments authoritarian predilections.
Most observers in Washington now believe that ISIS will soon be defeated as a territorial threat, though it likely will retain a base of operations in troubled Libya. That means any continued operations against the group will be conducted by special ops and intelligence personnel, and thus will not require extensive infrastructure and support. As the US will retain major regional military assets in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, Turkey will become a backwater and a Cold War relic, redundant, with Washington instead increasingly focused on security issues surrounding Iran and the Sunni-Shia conflict.
Ankara persists in believing that its current strategic importance means that it can do or say anything and Washington will avoid any criticism, but the White House is clearly beginning to recognise that Turkey is, in the long run, a liability as long as Erdogans brand of democratic centralism prevails. And it must be observed that the current bilateral relationship, in which the administration leans over backwards to placate an invariably irritable Erdogan, produces bad policy. In the recent contretemps with Baghdad over an enhanced Turkish role in Mosul, Secretary of State John Kerry unwisely urged the Iraqis to let the Turks become a partner in the enterprise. He was tone deaf to other considerations of which the government in Baghdad and Americas Kurdish partners were all too aware.
The White House should recognise that Turkey has become a destabilising force in the Near East. Its past collusion with and arming of terrorist groups like ISIS reveals that it is not unwilling to play a double game against its nominal allies. Its implacable hostility towards all things Kurdish affects the internal stability of nearly all of its neighbours and even diminishes Washingtons ability to deal with ISIS. Its increasingly assertive nationalism, which is beginning to define itself as irredentism backed by what is still, after the purge of thousands of personnel, the most powerful military in the region could easily morph into a series of local conflicts as Ankara seeks to realign its borders.
If Turkey continues to remain in NATO, and if the US persists in being closely tied to it logistically, the eventual consequences could be grave, with Washington again drawn into a Middle East quagmire by virtue of a war that it is neither prepared for nor seeking to fight.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
This piece was first published on The American Conservative . SIL chief threatens Turkey : Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who is reportedly hiding out in the besieged city of Mosul, released his first message since 2015, urging followers to wage all-out war and take the fighting into Saudi Arabia and Turkey. | 0 |
Why are we demonized for speaking the truth? H/t FOTM’s Trail Dust
More than a year ago, in May 2012, Lance Roberts wrote that “ Without government largesse many individuals would literally be living on the street.” As much as 1/5 or 22.5% of the average American’s income is dependent on “government transfers.”
One of those “government transfers” are Social Security Disability benefits.
There are two types of Social Security Disability benefits: Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI): Earned disability benefits for those who have held jobs for significant periods of time and paid at least partially into Social Security before becoming disabled. Social Security Disability (SSI): Unearned disability benefits for individuals who have petitioned to be classified as disabled, although many of them have never worked and have never paid into Social Security.
Under Obama, t he number of Americans claiming disability has surged to the highest levels on record since the beginning of the last recession. What is most notable, however, is when the surge of disability claims began – exactly two years from the beginning of the financial crisis. This was when the 2 years of extended unemployment insurance began to run out.
Unlike welfare, disability isn’t term-limited, and in some cases it’s become permanent unemployment insurance for the unemployable or those who simply refuse to work.
Today, more than 28 million Americans who are of working age have a disability – a level higher than at any other time in recorded history. There are approximately 11 million SSDI or earned recipients and approximately 7 million SSI or unearned recipients.
But how many of those on disability are actually disabled?
Luke Rosiak reports for the Washington Examiner , July 30, 2013, that a study by the Social Security Administration found some disturbing, but unsurprising, attributes of disability recipients: Recipients of federal disability checks often admit that they are capable of working but cannot or will not find a job. Returning to work is not a goal for 71% of the SSDI recipients, and 60% of the SSI recipients. Most have never received significant medical treatment and not seen a doctor about their condition in the last yea r, even though medical problems are the official reason they don’t work. Those who acknowledge they’re on disability because they can’t find a job say they make little effort to find one. Of those who say they’re actually looking for a job, most say they’re looking only for part-time jobs that will allow them to keep their disability benefits. The unearned disability recipients are in less pain than their counterparts who had paid into the system. In other words, they are using SSD as a substitute for welfare. These individuals are typically overweight, uneducated and from broken homes. There are practical barriers to weaning recipients off the disability rolls. The jobs they’d be candidates for often don’t provide health insurance, which is essential for those with medical problems, and they’d rather receive the SSD benefits. Many also say they don’t have transportation to work. 72% of the small number of SSDI recipients who started a job while on disability got cash under the table , as did 70% of the small number of SSI recipients who started a job while on disability. 24% of the SSDI recipients lack even GEDs, as do 43% of the SSI recipients. Only 18% of SSDI and 15% of SSI recipients said, during the past 4 weeks, they could not do social activities with family or friends because of their physical health or emotional problems. As many as 96% of SSDI and 91% of SSD recipients admit whatever physical health or mental problems they have do not hinder or limit them from the kind or amount of work or other daily activities they do. In other words, they are not really so disabled they can’t work. 47% of SSDI and 41% of SSD recipients are obese ; 30% of both groups are overweight; only 21% of SSDI and 25% of SSD recipients are of normal weight. 28% of SSD recipients had never worked for pay, i.e., they never had a job! Most SSD recipients don’t bother to educate themselves about or avail themselves of government programs to wean them off disability, such as the Plan for Achieving Self-Support, Earned Income Exclusion, and Continued Medicaid Eligibility after they get off disability benefits. Many disability recipients also receive other government welfare benefits: 28% of SSDI and 81% of SSD recipients are on Medicaid; 80% of SSDI and 42% of SSD recipients are on Medicare; 18% of SSDI and 52% of SSD recipients are on food stamps. The lack of a spouse is a significant factor: 54% of SSDI and 88% of SSD recipients are not married. 11% of SSDI and 21% of SSD recipients have been receiving disability benefits for 20 years or more.
Source: Public use file round 4
America’s national debt now exceeds our GDP and is closing in on $17 trillion. It doesn’t take an Albert Einstein to know that our super-extended welfare state cannot continue as it is. Indeed the danger signs are already visible.
In three years, by 2016, the first of the Social Security funds — Social Security Disability — will be in full collapse.
Brian Faler reports for The Washington Post , May 30, 2012:
“ The disability program pays benefits averaging $1,111 a month, with the money coming from the Social Security payroll tax. The program cost $132 billion last year, more than the combined annual budgets of the departments of Agriculture, Homeland Security, Commerce, Labor, Interior and Justice. That doesn’t include an additional $80 billion spent because disability beneficiaries become eligible for Medicare, regardless of their age, after a two-year waiting period. The disability program is projected to exhaust its trust fund in 2016, according to a Social Security trustees report released last month. Once it runs through its reserve, incoming payroll-tax revenue will cover only 79% of benefits, according to the trustees. Because the plan is barred from running a deficit, aid would have to be cut to match revenue.”
Lastly, since the American Medical Association recently declared obesity to be a “disease,” expect even more Americans to apply for and receive Social Security Disability benefits.
~Eowyn | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Over 14 years in American custody, Abu Zubaydah has come to symbolize, perhaps more than any other prisoner, how fear of terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks changed the United States. He was the first detainee to be waterboarded, and his brutal torture was documented in a Senate report. He is among those held without charges and with no likelihood of a trial. The government long ago admitted that he was never the top leader of Al Qaeda it claimed he was at the time of his capture in 2002, but it insists that he may still be dangerous. In all that time, Mr. Zubaydah, now 45, had never been seen by the outside world. That changed on Tuesday, as his calm face was beamed via video feed from the Guantánamo Bay military prison to a Pentagon conference room. In a hearing, he argued, through a statement read by a uniformed soldier, that he posed no threat and should be released. A profile prepared by the Defense Department, also read aloud, concluded with unsettling ambiguity that he “probably retains an extremist . ” The occasion was Mr. Zubaydah’s first appearance before a Periodic Review Board, convened under the military detention system to determine whether a prisoner would pose a danger if released. Under the convoluted rules that govern inmates at Guantánamo, Mr. Zubaydah did not speak during the open part of the hearing. But in the statement summarizing his views, Mr. Zubaydah declared that he “has no desire or intent to harm the United States or any other country. ” Musing about what appeared to be a prospect, he said he wanted to be reunited with his family and “has some seed money that could be used to start a business. ” A dozen reporters and human rights advocates watched the live video of the unclassified part of the proceeding. No member of the public other than his lawyers had seen Mr. Zubaydah since his March 2002 capture in Pakistan, after a shootout in which he was badly injured. Mr. Zubaydah may have spoken during the classified part of the hearing that followed the open session and was expected to last for several hours. A notice posted afterward said he had decided he did not want the redacted transcript made public. The review panel, comparable to a civilian parole board, is composed of representatives of six security agencies who participated in the hearing from an undisclosed location in the Washington area. It will announce, a month or longer from now, whether it recommends the continued detention of Mr. Zubaydah or his transfer to another country. Of 779 people held at Guantánamo since 2001, 61 remain. The government says about half are, like Mr. Zubaydah so far, impossible to put on trial but too dangerous to release. Dressed in a white tunic and wearing a neatly trimmed beard, Mr. Zubaydah, whose mental stability has been questioned by some American officials, listened attentively, resting his chin on his right hand. He did not react visibly as officials read various statements about him. The eye patch that in earlier photographs covered his left eye, injured at some point after his capture, hung from a strap around his neck. He wore one pair of glasses and switched to another pair to read a document. Mr. Zubaydah, born in Saudi Arabia to a family of Palestinian background, became a sort of travel agent, camp administrator and facilitator for militant fighters in Afghanistan in the early 1990s, after the ragtag force of Islamic soldiers known as the mujahedeen forced the Soviet Army out of the country. But when he was shot and taken into American custody six months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he was the first significant suspect captured in an increasingly desperate global C. I. A. manhunt. At the time, American intelligence officials wrongly concluded that he was a leader of Al Qaeda who might have knowledge of forthcoming plots. Flown to a secret jail set up in a hurry by the C. I. A. in Thailand, Mr. Zubaydah was first questioned by F. B. I. agents using traditional methods. One of the agents, Ali Soufan, who spoke Arabic and was steeped in the history of Al Qaeda, later wrote that Mr. Zubaydah willingly provided valuable information, identifying Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as the main planner of the Sept. 11 attacks and naming Jose Padilla, an American recruited by Al Qaeda. But because they believed Mr. Zubaydah was the No. 3 leader of Al Qaeda, C. I. A. leaders insisted that he must be holding back information. Over the protests of the F. B. I. agents, and advised by two military psychologists who had no experience conducting interrogations, C. I. A. officials decided that only extreme physical force would break him. As soon as approval was received from the Justice Department, Mr. Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding — 83 times water was poured over a cloth covering his mouth and nose to give him the feeling of drowning, records later showed. Distressed by his suffering, interrogators told C. I. A. supervisors that they thought he had no more information to offer — only to be ordered to continue the rough treatment. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the C. I. A. interrogation program later quoted an observer at the scene who described him at one point as “completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth. ” At various times, he was subjected to the other enhanced interrogation techniques: confined in a cramped box, kept awake for many days, exposed to cold, shackled in uncomfortable positions and slammed into a wall. In their profile, posted on the web this week, military authorities gave a but still rather vague description of his history. It said he ran a “mujahedeen facilitation network” in the 1990s, “played a key role in Al Qaeda’s communications” and had close contact with the No. 2 in Al Qaeda at the time. He “possibly” had advance knowledge of the attacks on American embassies in East Africa in 1998 and the bombing of the American destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000, the profile said. He was “generally aware” of planning for the attacks, it said, and “possibly” coordinated training at a camp called Khalden when two of the future hijackers were there. Mr. Zubaydah “most actively plotted attacks against Israel,” the profile also said, was convicted in absentia on charges in Jordan and took an active role in discussing possible further attacks against the United States after . Though he has been cooperative in prison, he might join former colleagues in planning attacks if released, the profile said. But Mr. Zubaydah told his “personal representatives” — the two members of the military assigned to speak with him — that he had no intention of committing terrorist acts. He “repeatedly said that the Islamic State is out of control and has gone too far,” the personal representatives said in their statement. (Officials said detainees have access to live television and radio in multiple languages, in addition to two Arabic newspapers, enabling them to keep up with world events.) One of his lawyers, Joseph Margulies, a professor of law and government at Cornell, who did not attend the hearing, said that in their conversations Mr. Zubaydah “has always been completely honest. He believes in defending Muslims who are under attack. ” But he “has always said innocent civilians are never a legitimate target,” Mr. Margulies said. Despite the government’s shifting accusations, Mr. Margulies said, his client was never a member of Al Qaeda and has never been charged with a crime by American authorities. “He’s the poster child for the torture program, and that’s why they never want him to be heard from again,” Mr. Margulies said. | 1 |
A Nevada Congressional candidate is finding himself at the center of a legal controversy following the release of attack ads blaming infamous cattle rancher Cliven Bundy for the deaths of Las Vegas police officers Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo.
In response to the attack ads which depict Bundy’s mugshot and allege that his 2014 standoff with the Bureau of Land Management led to “the deaths of two Las Vegas police officers,” Bundy has filed a lawsuit calling the allegation nothing more than hateful and libelous rhetoric.
The ads which were released by Democratic candidate Ruben Kihuen’s campaign take a huge leap attempting to blame Bundy for the deaths of the police officers by referencing an incident that followed two months after the standoff.
Kihuen is challenging U.S. Rep. Cresent Hardy (R) for his seat in Nevada Congressional District 4.
So why does Kihuen believe that Bundy is responsible for the murder of two police officers?
Via RJ … the Millers had visited the Bundy ranch at one point to join the protesters, but didn’t fit in and left the group. The lawsuit says the Millers went to the ranch but never met or spoke to Bundy before they were forced to leave.
Bundy’s lawsuit calls the mailer connecting Bundy’s conflict to the police shootings as “libelous” and complains that it exposes Bundy to “hatred, contempt, ridicule and obloquy because it insinuates that (Bundy) orchestrated and promoted the disgraceful and disgusting acts of the killing of two local law enforcement officers.”
The lawsuit says the ads came in the forms of television ads and mailers.
…It shows a mugshot of Bundy and states: “This man’s armed standoff led to the deaths of two Las Vegas police officers.” The mailer adds: “And he’s supported by Congressman Hardy.”
Thoughts on this? Let us know in the comment section below.
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Mosul residents storm Daesh-run jail, free dozens of inmates By Press TV on November 4, 2016
Iraqi families walk on a street in the village of Gogjali, on the eastern edge of Mosul, on November 4, 2016, as they flee Daesh terrorists in the northern city.
Residents of the Daesh-held Iraqi city of Mosul have managed to storm the city’s main prison and free dozens of inmates amid a major military operation by the Iraqi forces who are tightening the noose around the terror group holed up in the northern city.
Iraq’s Arabic-language al-Sumaria satellite television network quoted an unnamed security source as saying that the Mosul residents on Friday evening broke into the city’s main prison, located in the eastern part of Mosul, and freed at least 45 prisoners after killing all of the Daesh militants manning the jail.
The development comes as Iraqi army troops, backed by the country’s Hashd al-Shaabi forces, also known as the Popular Mobilization Units, and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, are closing in on Daesh’s last stronghold in Iraq from almost all directions in a full-scale operation launched on October 17 to liberate the city.
The Iraqi troops managed to enter Mosul’s limits earlier this week for the first time since June 2014, when Daesh began its terror campaign in northern and western Iraq. So far, a large number of the city’s villages and districts have been purged of terrorists. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed that the country’s second largest city will be fully recaptured by year-end. An Iraqi army M1 Abrams tank drives through Gogjali as it heads to Mosul on November 4, 2016, during a military operation to retake the main hub city from Daesh terrorists. (Photo by AFP)
‘Daesh killing hundreds, recruiting children’
Meanwhile, UN human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani has announced that the terrorists have executed hundreds of people, including 180 former Iraqi government employees who were killed on Wednesday as the Takfiri group was withdrawing from Gogjali town.
Citing “credible reports”, she added that the terrorists also executed 50 deserters at the Ghazlani military base in Mosul on Monday.
Shamdasani, who was speaking on Friday at a regular UN briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, went on to say that Daesh had moved 1,600 people, likely to use them as human shields against airstrikes, from the town of Hammam al-Alil to Tal Afar near Mosul on Tuesday, and told them they might be taken to Syria.
She also warned that Daesh was trying to recruit children, particularly boys above the age of nine, in Hammam al-Alil as the group was increasingly losing its adult terrorists in clashes with the Iraqi troops.
“They’ve been knocking on people’s doors and asking for their boys,” Shamdasani further said, adding that defiant families were threatened with harsh punishment.
The UN official also said that Daesh was currently holding about 400 Kurdish, Izadi and Shia women in Tal Afar, and had possibly killed up to 200 people in Mosul.
On Friday, the Iraqi special forces launched an assault to advance deeper into the city’s urban center, and engaged in fierce fighting with Daesh terrorists, estimated to number between 3,000 and 5,000 in the sprawling city.
Iraqis fleeing Daesh reunite with families
In another related development, Iraqi civilians fleeing Daesh in Mosul reunited with their families for the first time in more than two years at the al-Khazar camp, to the east of the city, on Friday. Related Posts: No Related Posts The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VT, VT authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, technicians, or the Veterans Today Network and its assigns. LEGAL NOTICE - COMMENT POLICY Posted by Press TV on November 4, 2016, With 30 Reads Filed under World . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. FaceBook Comments
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Time to move on. That is the explanation Tony Fadell, a former star executive at Apple known for his aggressive management style, offers for his departure from Nest, a maker of digital versions of household staples like thermostats and smoke detectors that he helped found and sold to Google. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced on Friday that Mr. Fadell was leaving Nest after leading it for six years, including the last two under the ownership of Google, which bought it for $3. 2 billion in 2014. His departure comes after months of controversy regarding his leadership. Mr. Fadell, the company said, will become an adviser to Alphabet and to its chief executive, Larry Page. In a recent interview in his Palo Alto office, Mr. Fadell, 47, talked about his career. At Apple, he led the engineering team that created the iPod digital music player and worked on the first three versions of the iPhone. In 2010 he founded Nest with Matt Rogers, a young Apple engineer. “I’m a guy who’s at the beginning of things,” Mr. Fadell said. “I don’t like to do maintenance mode. It’s not what gets me out of bed. ” But he is leaving after articles on the technology news sites The Information and Recode describing a harsh corporate culture at Nest and abrasiveness on his part that led to resignations, stymied product development and disappointing revenue growth. The sharpest attack came from Greg Duffy, the founder and former chief executive of Dropcam, the home video camera and service that Nest acquired for $555 million in 2014, about six months after Google bought Nest. Mr. Duffy clashed with Mr. Fadell, remained at Nest for eight months and briefly moved to another post at Google before departing last September. Writing on Medium in late March, Mr. Duffy said he regretted selling Dropcam to Nest and noted his “extreme differences on management style with the current leadership at Nest. ” In the interview, which Mr. Fadell agreed to on the condition that it not be published before Alphabet announced he was leaving, he had answers for most of the criticisms of his tenure. He described the staff departures as a small fraction of Nest employees and in line with the turnover in Silicon Valley, where switching jobs is common. Mr. Fadell said that Nest had “strong ” revenue growth from the outset. In a statement on Friday, Mr. Page, citing Nest’s achievements, noted that its revenue growth was “in excess of 50 percent” a year since it began shipping products in 2011. Mr. Fadell characterized Nest as healthy, with 1, 100 workers and strong teams in design, software and services around its three product families — its “learning” thermostat, smoke detector and video camera. Yet the larger issue is not Nest’s past performance but what impact Mr. Fadell’s departure will have on its future. Nest is the linchpin of Alphabet’s bet on the emerging smart home market — devices and software to automate homes for convenience, energy savings and security. Mr. Fadell will be succeeded by Marwan Fawaz, a former executive vice president of Motorola Mobility, the mobile phone maker Google bought for $12. 5 billion in 2011. Google unloaded Motorola three years later to Lenovo for the fire sale price of $2. 9 billion, though a sizable share of Motorola’s value was its thousands of patents. In the troubled Motorola acquisition, Mr. Fawaz led a financial bright spot, Motorola Home, a television box business. He pared its product line, cut costs and oversaw its sale in 2013 for $2. 35 billion to the Arris Group, a cable television equipment maker. In the Alphabet portfolio, Nest is a leading entry among the parent company’s “other bets,” its effort to build businesses beyond Google’s lucrative franchise in online search and advertising. Google’s record with acquired hardware businesses, notably the Motorola deal, has not inspired confidence. When the Nest thermostat was introduced in 2011, it was an innovative reimagining of a product category, much as the iPod was a reinvention of the MP3 music player and the iPhone was a new take on the cellphone. It was a stylish piece of hardware, a circle of brushed stainless steel, reflective polymer and a color display. Inside, the Nest thermostat houses sensors for detecting motion in the room and clever software to learn and adjust room temperatures, according to whether people are present or not, to curb electric bills. Priced at $249, the Nest thermostat was far more expensive than traditional models. Rivals scoffed but later offered their own models. Honeywell, for example, now has a $249 model that resembles the Nest oval. The pace of product introductions in the home necessarily will be more gradual, which critics often miss, Mr. Fadell said. A thermostat typically lasts 10 or 12 years. “Some people expect us to be a gadget factory,” he said. “But you don’t want your thermostat to be like your smartphone, replacing it every two or three years. ” More is done with software, especially updates, sent over the internet and wirelessly connected to Nest devices. Relying on software, of course, opens the door to software bugs. In 2014, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission ordered a recall of more than 400, 000 Nest Protect smoke and gas detectors because a defect could cause users to turn them off unintentionally. Nest halted sales for a while and fixed the problem by updating the software. The software is what allows its devices to communicate with each other. The Nest Protect, for example, can detect a carbon monoxide leak and tell the Nest thermostat to turn off the furnace. Mr. Fadell points to the 18, 000 software developers working with Nest software, 12, 000 retail stores that sell Nest devices and more than 100 utility companies, many of which offer consumer rebates to buy Nest thermostats, for their energy saving potential. “We’re not a products company,” Mr. Fadell said. “We’re a products, services and software company. ” And, he added, building up those networks “takes a long time. ” It will be up to others to do that building now. Yet Mr. Fadell expresses no regrets. Selling to Google, he insists, was the right choice to give Nest the financial ballast it needs for the long term. When Nest started, the technology giants were not in the smart home market. But now, Samsung has SmartThings software and devices, Apple has HomeKit software, and Amazon has the Echo voice command device. Nor does Mr. Fadell apologize for his management style. He described his strength as “holding people to a higher standard than they thought they could achieve and pushing them beyond what they thought they could achieve. ” Mr. Fadell said he had no immediate plans but he would spend more time looking at technology . In the last decade, he has quietly invested in and advised many fledgling companies. His current investments include Impossible Foods, which synthesizes beef without cattle Airwave, an operating system for drones Mousera, sensor technology to speed insights from preclinical drug trials on lab animals and Phononic, heating and cooling. “I’m not a scientist,” Mr. Fadell said. “I’m looking for technology that is about to come out of the lab and has the potential to transform a business. I like to see these technologies raw. ” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s second pick to lead the Labor Department told senators on Wednesday that he would not allow partisan political considerations or conservative ideologues to shape his department, pushing back against accusations by Democrats that he had looked away as subordinates at the Justice Department stacked his office with ideological allies during the George W. Bush administration. R. Alexander Acosta, the nominee for labor secretary, also defended his decision as the United States attorney in Southern Florida to offer a lenient plea deal to a wealthy New Yorker accused of paying underage girls for sexual acts. For nearly three hours in front of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Mr. Acosta, 48, defended his record, explained how he might deal with budget cuts to the department and dismissed the concerns of several senators who asked how he would avoid any pressure from the president to pass policies based on politics and not on the best interest of workers. Mr. Acosta, who would be the only Hispanic in Mr. Trump’s cabinet, promised not to evaluate workers based on their political leanings. “If confirmed, I will work to enforce the laws under the department’s jurisdiction fully and fairly,” Mr. Acosta said in his opening pitch to senators. “As a former prosecutor, I will always be on the side of the law and not any particular constituency. ” Mr. Acosta, the dean of Florida International University’s law school, was nominated after the president’s first choice for labor secretary, the executive Andrew F. Puzder, withdrew from consideration after coming under fire for past labor practices and domestic abuse allegations. Mr. Acosta, a former prosecutor from Miami who headed the Justice Department’s civil rights division, appeared to be a far less contentious choice. But Democratic senators did not go easy on him. Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the committee, wanted more details on his promise not to politicize the department. “I expect our next secretary of labor to be someone who can withstand inappropriate political pressure, and prioritize workers and the mission of the Labor Department over, hypothetically speaking, President Trump’s business associates or Steve Bannon’s frightening ideology,” she said, referring to the senior White House adviser. She and other Democrats pointed to a 2008 report by the Justice Department’s investigator, which found that under Mr. Acosta his office had violated federal law and department policies by weighing political affiliations in hiring and assessing employees. Mr. Acosta acknowledged that the violations had happened on his watch but said that the report laid most of the blame on a subordinate, Bradley Schlozman. “Political views in the hiring of career attorneys and staff should not be used,” Mr. Acosta said. “If I am asked to do that, I will not allow it. ” Mr. Acosta had a lengthy discussion with Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, on what critics said was the lenient plea deal given to Jeffrey E. Epstein, a wealthy financier accused of paying underage girls for sexual massages. Mr. Acosta defended the deal and said it was offered based on the evidence. Mr. Epstein, he noted, was required to register as a sex offender. Mr. Acosta also seemed to question Mr. Trump’s proposal to cut the Labor Department’s budget by 21 percent, saying he opposed cuts as well as targeting specific programs. “The principle that needs to be used to guide the spending is, ‘How successful is the program? ’” Mr. Acosta said. He pledged to consult with local officials before making cuts to the department. He added that he hoped to help Americans “find good jobs, safe jobs. ” Most of the confirmation hearing was given to senators’ interrogating Mr. Acosta about how much of Mr. Trump’s agenda he would back and how he would help fulfill the president’s promises to create jobs and stop companies from moving jobs overseas. Mr. Trump “ran for president saying he was going to make that huge difference — he was going to bring jobs back,” said Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado. “What’s the plan?” Mr. Acosta answered that he would work with other agencies, like the Department of Education, in carrying out the president’s executive order directing department heads to review regulations. Two Republican senators, Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, both like Mr. Acosta, introduced and praised him as an example of the American dream. Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee and the chairman of the committee, said Mr. Acosta would be a labor secretary who “understands how a job is critical to helping workers realize the American dream for themselves and for their families. ” The Senate labor committee is expected to vote next week on whether to advance Mr. Acosta’s nomination to the full Senate. The Senate Agriculture Committee is scheduled to begin a confirmation hearing on Thursday for Sonny Perdue, the former governor of Georgia, to be Mr. Trump’s agriculture secretary. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has written 275 briefing papers for the incoming Trump administration: nearly 1, 000 pages of classified material on North Korea’s nuclear program, the military campaign against the Islamic State, tensions in the South China Sea, and every other kind of threat the new team could face in its first weeks in office. Nobody in the current administration knows whether anyone in the next has read any of it. Less than three days before President Obama turns the keys to the White House, and the nuclear codes, over to Donald J. Trump, Mr. Trump’s transition staff has barely engaged with the National Security Council below the most senior levels. His designated national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, has met four times with his Obama counterpart, Susan E. Rice, most recently on Tuesday afternoon. But the chronic upheaval in Mr. Trump’s transition, a delay in appointing senior National Security Council staff members, and a dearth of people with security clearances have deprived the Trump team of weeks of prep work on some of the most complex national security issues facing the country. “We really wanted to make sure there was nothing a new team needed to know that we hadn’t told them,” Ms. Rice said in an interview. “It took them more time than we expected for them to be ready to engage with us. ” Now, she added, “we’re racing to make up lost time. ” Ms. Rice insisted that she was confident the Trump administration would have the information it needed by the time Mr. Trump was sworn in. The process has settled down in recent days with the arrival of Keith Kellogg, a retired Army general whom Mr. Trump named as chief of staff of the N. S. C. last month, and who is now running the transition. In a statement, Mr. Flynn said, “Members of our incoming team have held extensive meetings with their N. S. C. counterparts. ” He thanked Ms. Rice for her “cooperation and assistance. ” Last week, the two engaged in a public display of harmony, shaking hands at a “pass the baton” conference sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace. Still, officials from both the Obama and Trump teams acknowledged that the transition had been rocky, in no small part because Mr. Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton caught both the outgoing and incoming administrations so completely by surprise. Had Mrs. Clinton won, her staff planned to place a transition team in the N. S. C. within a couple of days. In Mr. Trump’s case, the first contact with the National Security Council did not come until Nov. 22, two weeks after Election Day. That delay was caused by the purge of the original transition team led by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. Among those swept out was Matthew Freedman, who had been chosen to run the N. S. C. transition but quickly came under scrutiny because of his foreign lobbying ties. Mr. Freedman’s replacement, Marshall Billingslea, a former Pentagon and State Department official, arrived in the West Wing with six people, only two of whom had security clearances. The Obama administration began meeting with that team after Thanksgiving, but its lack of clearances meant that Mr. Trump’s emissaries could not read the materials that the Obama people had prepared for them. The N. S. C. began creating unclassified versions of the papers. Then, in there was another when Mr. Billingslea was replaced by General Kellogg, who began meeting with his Obama counterparts this month. By some accounts, the situation is even more fluid in the State Department and the Pentagon, where the Trump team has devoted much of its attention to lining up cabinet secretaries and will now have to win Senate confirmation for dozens of other senior officials. Officials in the State Department’s transition office said that they had had only intermittent contact with Trump representatives, and that those people often changed. But the snags in the National Security Council transition may be more problematic, current and former officials said, because that is the organization that advises the president on the most urgent foreign policy issues, drawing together recommendations from the State Department, the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies. “This is the nerve center of the White House,” said David J. Rothkopf, the chief executive and editor of the FP Group, who has written a history of the N. S. C. “Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power. ” “If your brain isn’t functioning, your arms and legs aren’t going to function. ” Because none of the jobs on the National Security Council require Senate confirmation, it can in theory be staffed more quickly than other government agencies. Much of the organization’s policy staff is composed of career civil servants, who are lent by their agencies to the White House for a limited term of service. The Trump administration plans to keep on most of these people, as the Obama administration did. But that still leaves a cadre of senior directors, who run departments that develop policy on Asia, Western Europe, Russia, nonproliferation and other areas. While the Trump team has chosen several senior directors, an official said, it has not yet announced them. And the efforts have been complicated by outside distractions. On Monday, Monica Crowley, a Fox News commentator and writer whom Mr. Trump had named deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, announced that she would not take the post after CNN disclosed that she had plagiarized passages of her 2012 book, “What the (Bleep) Just Happened?” Later, Politico reported that she had done the same in her doctoral dissertation. Mr. Trump’s advisers initially defended Ms. Crowley, labeling the plagiarism charges “a politically motivated attack. ” But her position became untenable because part of her job would have involved writing speeches. HarperCollins, Ms. Crowley’s publisher, said it would withdraw the digital edition of her book until she revised the copied passages. “The Monica Crowley episode is a sign of failure on several levels,” Mr. Rothkopf said. “She wasn’t vetted enough, and they waited too long after the plagiarism scandal broke to act. ” Ms. Rice said that ensuring a smooth transition had been one of her major priorities for 2016, and that she had set a goal to “meet or exceed what the Bush administration did for us. ” N. S. C. officials began drafting briefing papers last summer. Some focused on nuts and bolts: How do you arrange meetings? How do you circulate information to the agencies? Others discussed the evolution of administration policies or contingency planning for crises. Most were three to five pages to make them easy to digest. A Trump official said that members of the team had read some of the memos and praised their quality. But there is an inherent tension in transitions, particularly between two administrations with starkly different political views. Officials in the Bush administration said they doubted that the incoming Obama people read all the briefing papers they prepared. “It’s difficult, because you campaigned on how these guys drove the car into the ditch,” said Peter D. Feaver, who served on the Bush N. S. C. “Now, here are memos from the guys who were driving the car, and they drove the car into a ditch. ” | 1 |
Donate How Cities Can Protect People Threatened by Trumpism Cities can offer shelter and protection to their vulnerable citizens and become a place progressives can exert real power. By Arun Gupta / yesmagazine.org
The disbelief, shock, and anguish that Donald Trump is now president-elect is giving way to waves of protests. Tens of thousands are hitting the streets in cities large and small, blocking roads, and rejecting Trump’s blatant racism, misogyny, and Islamophobia.
But Trump is swiftly assembling a cabinet. The names being floated include some of the most dangerous fanatics, demagogues, and authoritarians in America, such as Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin, Ben Carson, Newt Gingrich, and Chris Christie. Trump has drawn considerable support for his proposals to deport undocumented immigrants, force Muslims to register with the government , and ban immigration from specific countries. He has allied himself with hardliners opposed to abortion and LGBTQ rights, and his website still includes a call for a “complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
Not surprisingly, the targets of these policies are terrified.
But there is also a chance to create bulwarks of resistance that can minimize much of the harm, while creating space for movements to build power and eventually challenge Trump’s agenda.
Let’s start in the cities. Cities are places of great diversity, creativity, and tolerance. They are the economic engines of the United States, producing much of the wealth, and where 63 percent of the population lives . Cities are the one place where the left and progressives can exert real power.
We should start organizing to make cities powerful bastions of noncooperation, resistance, and protection. Activists and organizations can start demanding in every city that city councils and mayors issue resolutions and statements saying:
1. Our city will not assist or cooperate with any raids or detentions or deportations of any immigrants. This includes assistance of local law enforcement or providing data to the federal government. Already, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has pledged it will remain a sanctuary city even if Trump cuts off federal funds, as he has vowed to do.
2. Our city will not cooperate or assist with registration and surveillance programs of Muslims, or any attempts to make our friends, neighbors, and loved ones the enemy.
3. Our city is a safe zone for all immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ people, women, and anyone fearing persecution from the Trump regime.
4. Our cities reject any effort to criminalize or attack Black Lives Matter or other organizing for social justice, as Trump has suggested he might do.
It’s vital to go beyond nice-sounding but toothless resolutions. This would involve directing city and county attorneys to design legal strategies to resist odious federal policies. It means exerting strong civilian control of police departments, which a Trump administration will try to enlist as front-line troops to persecute entire communities.
It’s also vital to pass other resolutions and statements asserting unequivocal support for full reproductive health care for women; no attacks on the right to organize or unions; no attacks on workers’ wages, benefits, or health care; and an end to the fossil fuel economy and a rapid and just transition. Complementary strategies can also be developed to make cities more welcoming for LGBT youth and for women denied abortion by creating networks to fund travel and lodging. But it will take organizing to bring local governments on board with such an agenda.
Many city governments will try to do the minimum and hope protests die down. So there will be a need to organize to get community groups, unions, activist organizations, professional groups, and businesses on board for strong resolutions and action.
The strategy should be to build a broad-based movement with a focused agenda. In other words, we want as many people on board as possible, but there are also minimum, nonnegotiable demands to protect vulnerable communities.
Meetings should start happening citywide, in communities and in neighborhoods. Meet with your neighbors, meet with your coworkers. If you’re a student, meet with other students. Wherever possible.
A lot of horrendous things are going to happen, so we need to resist fiercely and build bastions of noncooperation and protection throughout the country. We have to defeat Trumpism without getting suckered into a failed Democratic Party.
The world is counting on us.
Arun Gupta wrote this article for YES! Magazine . Arun is an investigative reporter who contributes to YES! Magazine, The Nation, Telesur, The Progressive, Raw Story, and The Washington Post. He is a graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York City and author of the upcoming “Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction: A Junk-Food-Loving Chef’s Inquiry into Taste” (The New Press). Follow him on Twitter @arunindy . 4.0 · | 0 |
Part 4 Of O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Videos Has Americans Asking 1 Question Rebecca Diserio
The fourth part of James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas year-long sting operation was just posted today, and it’s shaken Hillary Clinton’s campaign in more ways than one. You’ll be shocked to learn more ways these Democrat thugs attempted to rig our election, taking illegal money and committing serious crimes that all point right back to Hillary. Pissed off Americans are now left asking just one question. Democratic thug Scott Foval
Robert Creamer, who has visited the White House over 300 times and met personally with Barack Obama 47 times, was caught in an undercover sting operation, illegally taking $20,000 for Hillary Clinton’s campaign from a “foreign donor” who was really an undercover journalist for Project Veritas, but it gets worse.
Project Veritas decided to give them the illegal contribution from a bank account that they set up in Belize to prove to Creamer they were not plants and to get Creamer to trust the Project Veritas journalist. Knowing Creamer was in deep, doing dirty deals for Hillary Clinton, it was worth risking the 20 grand, and at the very least, they busted the Democrat operatives taking an illegal donation.
Creamer took the bait in the form of 20 grand, and it gave the Project Veritas journalist access to all of the other lower level Democratic operatives who then confided all of their dirty dealings. Democratic operative dirty deal man Bob Creamer & his wife Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois)
Creamer spilled the beans, linking him directly to Hillary’s campaign, which is totally illegal under campaign finance laws. Plus, in earlier videos, Creamer was exposed for being guilty of inciting violence at Trump rallies and potential voter fraud schemes. Here’s Creamer talking, not knowing he is being recorded:
“Every morning I am on a call at 10:30 that goes over the message being driven by the campaign headquarters … I am in this campaign mainly to deal with what earned media with television, radio, with earned media and social media, not with paid media, not with advertising.” He also mentions a conference call discussing a woman potentially coming forward to accuse Trump of inappropriate behavior . [via Breitbart ]
Did you get that last sentence? He threw in there that he would be discussing another woman who they knew in advance was going to coming forward to accuse Donald Trump. That’s highly suspicious, to say the least. How would this guy, Creamer, know in advance about something like that?
Elsewhere in the video , Creamer adds, “I do a lot of work with the White House on their issues, helping to run issue campaigns that they have been involved in. I mean, for immigration reform for the… the health care bill, for trying to make America more like Britain when it comes to gun violence issues. ”
Look, so far, there are so many counts of illegal activity exposed here that the majority of comments from the American people are demanding an answer to one question: Where in the hell is the FBI?
Creamer is a major player who meets with the president 47 times and runs dirty operations for Hillary Clinton. He has taken 20 grand from an illegal foreign donor, which they give back after they find out Project Veritas busted them in a sting, but that doesn’t make it go away nor does it make any of the other crimes they have committed for Hillary go away either.
It’s time for the FBI to step up and do some law enforcing. Even if Obama continues to shield Hillary Clinton, a criminal who cannot be president, that doesn’t make these crimes go away. Just wait until Donald Trump wins this election — all of these criminals in Washington will pay. | 0 |
Share on Facebook Some men like their women submissive, sweet, feminine, and nurturing – and hey, there's nothing wrong with that. But that woman is certainly not an Alpha Female . Now, for my Alpha Females out there, you badass bitches know who you are , it takes a very particular man to be able to handle you . Yes, you might as well admit it now: you are a handful. Potential Alpha Female Lovers: don't say ya weren't warned. You best know your woman before you fall head over heels for Miss Independent : 1. She Will Challenge You. Not only will she challenge you, but she probably won't forfeit too easily; she will be persistent and insistent . She will debate with you over anything from de Blasio's new policy, to the actual color of a tennis ball (green? or yellow?), and she expects to win. Some advice: challenge her back . 2. She Don't Need A Man To Make It Happen. If you're the kind of guy who loves to feel needed all the time, this gal just isn't for you. She is fiercely independent and prides herself on being self-reliant and self-sufficient: Miss Outta My Way . The great thing about being with an Alpha is that you won't feel tied down because she doesn't need you, she wants you. 3. She Will Be Straight-Up With You. If your Alpha has a problem, you will most likely know about it. You can't expect her to be too gentle with her words, so hopefully you'll understand that she isn't trying to be mean – this is just the way she is. But, hey, you won't need to deal with the typical passive-aggressive bullshit that most girls pull! 4. She's A Do-er, Not A Talk-er. Alpha's take action, so if she says she's gonna do something – you bet your ass, she's gonna do it . She probably expects the same in return: if you say you're gonna do something, you sure as hell better follow through. And if ya don't, she will … so don't miss the boat, Mister. Hop on! 5. She Doesn't Wear Her Alpha On Her Sleeve. Chocolates? Flowers? One of those Hallmark cards that have a cute pun about how much you love her? Yeah, these things will probably make her vom a little in her mouth before it makes her heart melt. Not that she's a total cynic, but she's used to the doting – the lovey dovey crap that every girl wants – and in order to get her attention, you'll need to come up with something a little more original. 6. She's Not Easy. If you think loving an Alpha Female is easy, you're wrong. She's difficult, competitive, and probably complicated. She gets off from being free, being in power, and will step on any man who gets in her way. She is, in fact, ab. So. Lute. Ly. Impossible. 7. But She's Definitely Worth It. Her my-way-or-the-highway attitude and complete self-competence will, at times, make you feel small. Instead, let it empower you. Let it strengthen your weaknesses, and let it feed your drive to success. She will help you learn about yourself; she will push you; she will change you; she will impact you. Overall, she will make you a better man. Related: | 0 |
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Prominent Jesuit James Martin S. J. argues that “the morality of capitalism” is to blame for the horrible incident on United Airlines that involved a man being violently dragged off of a plane after the airline overbooked the flight, in a column for America magazine this week.[ grad argues that capitalism is to blame for United incident — but how would state correct problem better than the market? pic. twitter. — Tommy (@tciccotta) April 11, 2017, “A toxic cocktail of capitalism and corporate culture led to a man being dragged along the floor,” Father James Martin argues. Martin, a Jesuit priest, and the of the Jesuit Magazine, America, has appeared on such television shows as The Colbert Report to discuss the Jesuit brand of Catholicism. This week, Martin suggests in a new column that the anarchic nature of capitalism has led to such a chaotic society that a firm could instruct a large, imposing, man to drag a passenger down the aisle of their airliner, leaving him bloodied and disoriented without financial or professional repercussion. But is this an accurate reflection of reality? First, the men who removed the passenger from the aircraft were officers with the Chicago Department of Aviation, a state entity under the direction of the government of the city of Chicago. This distinction is important because it reveals that the violence on United Flight 3411 was committed at the hands of the state, rather than at the hands of a private firm. Perhaps more importantly, in response to the incident, United shareholders democratically decided with their dollars that the firm should have to answer for the incident. The company’s market capitalization (the total dollar market value of a firm) dropped by a whopping $1. 4 billion on the day following a video of the incident went viral. Thousands signed petitions calling for the resignation of United CEO Oscar Munoz. There are already policies ingrained in America’s capitalistic society that protect consumers from being mistreated by the firms with whom they choose to do business. As a result, the passenger will likely wage a successful lawsuit, resulting in further financial and public relation repercussions for United and the Chicago Department of Aviation. This raises the question that I posed to Father Martin in a tweet yesterday: how would the state correct this issue better than the market? What economic system would prevent such an incident from occurring? Martin tries to argue that the pursuit of profit led to the incident and that capitalism promotes a corporate culture in which money is more important than respecting human dignity. What is the solution, then, to a system that gave rise to such treatment? To recognize that profits are not the sole measure of a good decision in the corporate world. To realize that human beings are more important than money, no matter how much a economist might object. To act morally. And to respect human dignity. Except that the United incident shows that businesses cannot afford to disrespect human dignity. Firms that respect their passengers are rewarded by investors and customers those that do not get crushed. Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart. com | 1 |
Getty - Chip Somodevilla The Wildfire is an opinion platform and any opinions or information put forth by contributors are exclusive to them and do not represent the views of IJR.
Hillary Clinton advisers Cheryl Mills and Robbie Mook provide one of the most revealing looks inside the campaign yet, courtesy of a WikiLeaks hacked email.
In the email , Robbie Mooks argues that Hillary Clinton would be making a mistake to run on her gender as an argument for her suitability to be president:
"In fact, I think running on her gender would be the SAME mistake as 2008, ie having a message at odds with what voters ultimately want. She ran on experience when voters wanted change...and sure there was plenty of data in marks polls with voters saying her experience appealed to them. But that was missing the larger point—voters wanted change.
Same deal here—lots of people are going to say it would be neat for a woman to be president but that doesn't mean that's actually WHY they will vote for her. That's likely to be how she will handle the economy and relate to the middle class.
It's also risky because injecting gender makes her candidacy about HER and not the voters and making their lives better.
That said I would not be surprised if this is a powerful message for donor and activist engagement (vs persuadable voters)." Image Credit: Michael Buckner/Getty Images
Then, Mills responds:
Interesting how hard this narrative is being pushed.
A friend shared this article with you from The Washington Post:
Embrace being a woman running for president..
http://wapo.st/1dbwtNo
The link is to a Chris Cillizza article on “How Hillary Clinton can correct the biggest mistake she made in 2008.”
But one of the most fascinating tidbits is Mooks' suggestive off-hand reference to getting a “third party spoiler”:
"Just need a third party spoiler and we'll be all set!
I think the chatterers will dissect and criticize whatever she chooses to do but it's going to be so important that the research drive it. I often felt in 08 that the research was being used to back up a premise instead of genuinely find the right target."
To which Mills replied cryptically:
“WJC redux of 1992”
WJC is a common acronym for former President William Jefferson Clinton. The reference is to the three-man race in 1992 between George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot. Contrary to what is widely believed, there is fairly convincing evidence that Perot did not “cost” Bush the 1992 election.
Trump supporters have mused if presidential candidates Gary Johnson and independent Evan McMullin are in the 2016 race for the sole purpose of sabotaging the Republican presidential nominee. Image Credit: George Frey/Getty Images
Johnson, who is running at about six percent in the polls, is running on the Libertarian Party ticket. For historical context, the Libertarians have sent up a presidential candidate every year for the last 44 years . Libertarians have plenty to disagree about regarding Trump's plan for the United States, whether it be on national security, immigration or trade.
That leads us to Evan McMullin, a man whose name recently caught fire on Twitter due to the so-called “ Mormon mafia ” started by Mitt Romney. Lou Dobbs, an ardent Trump advocate, coined the phrase while labeling McMullin... — Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs) October 23, 2016
McMullin was indeed a Mormon missionary, but reports of him belonging to a “mafia” remain unconfirmed. The candidate was a CIA operative and an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, which has fueled speculation and conspiracy theories about his run.
Interestingly, the candidate is currently surging in Utah and his support may be underestimated . If McMullin could pull off a victory, it would launch an improbable scenario that could see the election thrown to the House of Representatives and an all-out scramble to nominate a president and vice president of the Congress's choosing.
This potential monkey wrench in Trump's plans has fueled outrage and concern among supporters: Team Hillary is all set: Ex-CIA Evan McMullin is the expert covert spoiler. Drink up, #Utah , the Kool-Aid tastes fine! | #RedNationRising pic.twitter.com/nMVR1fqehz — RNR Ohio (@RNROhio) October 27, 2016 Evan McMullin is a tool of the entrenched corrupt DC politicians, this is a spoiler campaign, nothing sincere about it. #ldschurch #mormon | 0 |
Email Print It has been revealed that there are about 650,000 emails on Huma Abedin’s husband’s laptop. Of the 650,000 emails, thousands are labeled “classified” National Security material forwarded from another email server. According to sources, the emails were discovered in a folder labeled, “Life Insurance”. Is it possible the folder was mislabeled by Abedin to deliberately conceal its contents? This also begs the question: How did Huma Abedin get National Security clearance?
The NY Post explains where FBI originally dropped the ball when they first investigated Abedin: Skeptical agents showed Abedin three separate email exchanges she had with an IT staffer regarding the operation of the private Clinton server during Clinton’s tenure at State. Abedin claimed she “did not recall” the email exchanges. So if you believe Abedin, she didn’t know the private clintonemail.com server that hosted her [email protected] account even existed until she heard about it in the news. Comey was a believer; he didn’t even bother to call her back for further questioning. Case closed. But Abedin’s role in this caper begs for fresh scrutiny. Making false statements to a federal agent is a felony. So is mishandling classified information. By forwarding classified emails to her personal email account and printing them out at home, Abedin appears to have violated a Classified Information NonDisclosure Agreement she signed at the State Department on Jan. 30, 2009, in which she agreed to keep all classified material under the control of the US government. An infographic puts it in a simpler form, stating how government emails were forwarded to her Yahoo account — for what? No one knows. There was allegedly a counter-espionage case going on around the time. With 500,000,000 email accounts hacked earlier last year, Abedin has put our National Security in danger. How did Huma Abedin get National Security clearance? How did #HillarysHuma get National Security Clearance⁉ #WheresHuma #GoHillary find Huma Abedin pic.twitter.com/wLS2JSYEQ1
— Νia🚨650,000Emails (@nia4_trump) October 30, 2016 Join us on Facebook to Stop The Takeover. Click on the button to subscribe. Leave a comment... | 0 |
In the dark for days, Fox News staffers finally got word on Thursday about the future of their network. The news was delivered in person by Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who started Fox News with Roger Ailes 20 years ago. It was an unexpected visit, and with stunned employees listening in Fox’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters, Mr. Murdoch announced that Mr. Ailes was out as chairman and chief executive. Mr. Murdoch himself would be taking over Fox News in the interim. Mr. Ailes was not there. Mr. Murdoch had barred him from the building starting on Wednesday, according to one person briefed on the matter. The person said Fox News’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, had learned Mr. Ailes was trying to get some of his stars to criticize those who cooperated with investigators looking into accusations of sexual harassment against him. The announcement was the culmination of an unsettling stretch for the network that began on July 6, when Gretchen Carlson, a former Fox anchor, filed a lawsuit accusing Mr. Ailes of sexual harassment. That led to an internal investigation by 21st Century Fox. It was a stunning fall for one of the most powerful people in the media industry, who built Fox News into a ratings juggernaut and a hugely influential platform for Republican politics. Mr. Ailes will walk away with about $40 million as part of a settlement agreement, according to two people briefed on the matter, which essentially amounts to the remainder of his existing employment contract through 2018. As part of the agreement, Mr. Ailes cannot start a competitor to Fox News. He will continue to make himself available as an adviser to Mr. Murdoch on an interim basis, the two people said, though he will not be directly involved with Fox News or 21st Century Fox. In a statement, Mr. Murdoch praised Mr. Ailes, 76, and his “remarkable contribution” to the company, without making mention of the sexual harassment scandal that felled him. “Roger shared my vision of a great and independent television organization and executed it brilliantly over 20 great years,” Mr. Murdoch said in a statement. “Fox News has given voice to those who were ignored by the traditional networks and has been one of the great commercial success stories of modern media. ” Among those who cooperated with investigators looking into the allegations against Mr. Ailes was one of his stars, Megyn Kelly. She had been among a small group of employees who resisted a campaign to rally support for Mr. Ailes, which came to be viewed as a “loyalty test,” according to several staff members, who declined to be identified. Ms. Kelly told investigators that she received repeated, unwanted advances from Mr. Ailes, which she rejected, according to two people briefed on her account. The entreaties, which happened in the early part of her career at Fox, bothered Ms. Kelly to the point that she retained a lawyer because she worried that her rejections would jeopardize her job, though they ultimately did not. In a statement earlier this week, Mr. Ailes’s lawyer said he never sexually harassed Ms. Kelly. During the investigation, led by the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton Garrison, around 10 women have come forward with stories of inappropriate conduct from Mr. Ailes while at Fox News, according to a person briefed on the investigation. In a letter to Mr. Murdoch on Thursday, Mr. Ailes wrote: “Having spent 20 years building this historic business, I will not allow my presence to become a distraction from the work that must be done every day to ensure that Fox News and Fox Business continue to lead our industry. ” A copy of the letter was provided by Mr. Ailes’s lawyer, Susan Estrich. She did not respond to further requests for comment. Though Mr. Ailes made no mention of the investigation into his workplace behavior or the sexual harassment lawsuit, he said, pointedly: “I take particular pride in the role that I have played advancing the careers of the many women I have promoted to executive and positions. Many of these talented journalists have deservedly become household names known for their intelligence and strength, whether reporting the news, fair and balanced, and offering exciting opinions on our opinion programs. ” The terms of Mr. Ailes’s departure were negotiated over several chaotic days that transfixed the media world and spurred intense coverage. Mr. Murdoch, on vacation in the French Riviera with his wife, Jerry Hall, had been working in tandem with his sons, James and Lachlan, with whom he leads 21st Century Fox, but it was not until he returned to New York that a deal was reached. Mr. Murdoch will assume the role of chairman and will be an interim chief executive of the Fox News channel and Fox Business Network until a permanent replacement for Mr. Ailes is found. His interim role is intended to ensure stability during the rest of the presidential race, and to be taken as a signal that the network is not on the verge of a overhaul, said a person briefed on the matter. Mr. Murdoch plans to be “extremely engaged” and had already been attending some news meetings because Mr. Ailes has had health issues recently, the person said. In the same statement as their father, James and Lachlan Murdoch praised Mr. Ailes but alluded to the trouble at Fox News, saying they were committed “to maintaining a work environment based on trust and respect. ” Lachlan joined his father in the newsroom on Thursday, but James was not present because of a previously scheduled business trip in Europe. Mr. Ailes’s position atop Fox News was thrown into doubt two weeks ago after Ms. Carlson filed a sexual harassment suit against him. Mr. Ailes denied the accusations, but 21st Century Fox began the internal review and, earlier this week, determined that he could no longer remain in the job. The campaign to rally support for Mr. Ailes ultimately became a problem for him. It included declarations casting doubt on Ms. Carlson’s charges from hosts including Greta Van Susteren, Jeanine Pirro and Neil Cavuto, who in an described the accusations as “sick. ” Several female staff members had said on Wednesday that they feared that campaign was making younger female staff members with their own stories to tell too frightened to speak with investigators — something the investigators feared as well, people briefed on their inquiry said this week. A friend of Ms. Kelly, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Ms. Kelly resisted pressure to support Mr. Ailes, and cooperated with the investigation so that those other staff members would “feel more comfortable coming forward to tell the truth. ” Ms. Kelly has not spoken publicly about the matter. On Thursday night, Kirsten Powers, a Fox contributor for 11 years, said: “While I understand loyalty, I was disappointed that so many senior members of Fox’s team rushed to defend Roger in a way that seemed to prejudge an investigation into sexual harassment. I would hope that in 2016 people would know that just because you weren’t harassed, or didn’t witness harassment by a certain man, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. ” For hundreds of Fox employees gathered in Cleveland for the Republican National Convention, the week had been surreal. Those who left New York just days ago will return this weekend to a workplace turned . “There are people in tears,” said Chris Wallace, the host of “Fox News Sunday. ” “I shed mine a couple of days ago. ” During an interview, Mr. Wallace’s anchor baritone occasionally grew faint Bret Baier, his colleague, was also emotional. Notably, Mr. Baier and his fellow Fox anchors Brit Hume and Ms. Van Susteren declined to say definitively whether they would remain at Fox, although Mr. Baier, after some hesitation, said: “I couldn’t be happier. ” Several of the network’s most recognizable faces — including Bill O’Reilly, Ms. Kelly and Mr. Baier — are known to have contract clauses that allow them to leave the network if Mr. Ailes is not in charge. The lawyer for Ms. Carlson, Nancy Erika Smith, released a statement that her client’s “extraordinary courage has caused a seismic shift in the media world. ” She added, “We hope that all businesses now understand that women will no longer tolerate sexual harassment, and reputable companies will no longer shield those who abuse women. ” | 1 |
A number of leading technology CEOs will visit the White House later this month for a technology summit led by Donald Trump’s and close adviser Jared Kushner. [Top technology executives including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will attend the American Technology Council meeting where they will discuss the modernization of government services. However, Facebook has yet to respond to the invitation. The meeting comes after seven leading technology companies paid for a ad in The New York Times urging Donald Trump to reverse his decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement earlier this month. Meanwhile, Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed he would quit the White House advisory council over Trump’s decision to pull out. Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2017, The meeting will be led by Trump’s Jared Kushner, alongside a number of government officials, where they will discuss future collaboration between technology firms and the government, as well as future deals between them and federal agencies. The American Technology Council was formed by Trump in May as part of an effort to upgrade the U. S. government’s use of digital services. The executive order signed by Trump read: It is the policy of the United States to promote the secure, efficient and economical use of information technology to achieve its missions. Americans deserve better digital services from their government. To effectuate this policy, the federal government must transform and modernize its information technology and how it uses and delivers digital services. In the to last year’s presidential election, the vast majority of prominent technology executives, such as Facebook Dustin Moskovitz, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and Apple CEO Tim Cook, actively endorsed Hillary Clinton’s candidacy against Donald Trump. However, in December last year, Trump held a meeting with a number of Silicon Valley leaders in which he promised to “make it a lot easier for [them] to trade across borders. ” You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 1 |
It is no secret that our military forces make great sacrifices to ensure our safety at home and abroad, however, our nation’s four-legged often go forgotten. With this in mind, the Anaheim Ducks found a very special way to honor one K9 hero during Sunday night’s game against the Calgary Flames.
As part of the Ducks “Military Appreciation Night,” one very special bomb-sniffing German Shepherd was honored with the duty of dropping the ceremonial opening puck.
Watch below:
H/T SmokeRoom
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In a guest column for the Washington Post, actor Robert Redford describes the difficulty he had in getting Hollywood producers interested in his 1976 film All the President’s Men, which revolves around the investigation into former President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal, and warns that 45 years after that politically momentous event, “the truth is again in danger. ”[Redford writes at the Washington Post: … This year marks the 45th anniversary of the Watergate scandal. Because of my role in the film, some have asked me about the similarities between our situations in 1972 and 2017. There are many. The biggest one is the importance of a free and independent media in defending our democracy. When President Trump speaks of being in a “running war” with the media, calls them “among the most dishonest human beings on Earth” and tweets that they’re the “enemy of the American people,” his language takes the Nixon administration’s false accusations of “shoddy” and “shabby” journalism to new and dangerous heights. Sound and accurate journalism defends our democracy. It’s one of the most effective weapons we have to restrain the . I always said that “All the President’s Men” was a violent movie. No shots were fired, but words were used as weapons. … Read Redford’s full column at the Washington Post. | 1 |
On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Senator Mike Lee ( ) argued that while “the president as can’t order a direct military operation, a finite operation in time,” “Anytime we send our young men and women into harm’s way, I think the president owes it to the American people to come to Congress and present a plan. ” Lee said, “Anytime we send our young men and women into harm’s way, I think the president owes it to the American people to come to Congress and present a plan. You know, the Constitution, with good reason, says that in order to declare war, you have to go to Congress. We want to hear what the president’s plan is, and have the ability to debate it in front of the American people. ” He added, “[T]hat’s not to say that the president as can’t order a direct military operation, a finite operation in time, but within a very short period of time, the president’s expected to come to Congress, present a plan, Congress really should declare war, or authorize the use of military force. ” Lee also stated that it was difficult to say whether the strike was a good idea at the time because “The president has access to information the rest of us don’t have. So, it may well be proven out in time that he did the right thing. I just don’t know. We just don’t have all that information. ” When asked if he would support a presidential authorization of a zone, Lee responded that “I’m not enthusiastic about the idea in the abstract, but if he came with the right plan, and I thought that plan could work, I’d consider it, especially if he can tie it up with American national security. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
MANILA — Virgilio Mabag figures there is a good chance that his meth addict brother will become a casualty of President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly campaign against drugs in the Philippines. “I told him to prepare himself to die,” Mr. Mabag said. But Mr. Mabag, 54, who runs a neighborhood volunteer association in a sprawling Manila slum, still enthusiastically supports Mr. Duterte, saying that his policies will make the country safer and more orderly. “I’m delighted,” said Mr. Mabag, who was wearing a Duterte . “This is the only time I’ve seen a president like this, who says exactly what he wants to say. ” The rest of the world may have trouble understanding this, but Mr. Duterte still commands ardent support in the Philippines. Since he took office in June promising to kill drug addicts and dealers, about 1, 400 people have been killed by the police in antidrug operations, and hundreds more by vigilantes. His embrace of violence has shocked other countries and brought condemnation from human rights groups. He has compared himself to Hitler (and later apologized) called President Obama a “son of a whore,” and joked after an Australian missionary was raped and killed that “she was so beautiful” he should have been first to rape her. He has lashed out at the pope, despite leading a nation that is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, and cursed the United Nations and the European Union. No matter. For many Filipinos, Mr. Duterte’s passionate outbursts, however crude and impolitic, are signs of his fearlessness and willingness to act. The weak leadership of previous presidents, they say, led to high rates of violent crime, drug use, woefully inadequate infrastructure and widespread poverty. The first national polls since Mr. Duterte became president came out this week, showing that his outbursts and the mounting body count have barely dented his extraordinary popularity. One poll, conducted in late September, found that 83 percent of Filipinos had “much trust” in him, compared with 84 percent in June, after he was elected but before he took office. The other showed his trust rating falling slightly, to 86 percent in September from 91 percent in July. “His initiatives, and this includes the antidrug campaign, are well received by the people,” said Ramon C. Casiple, executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform. “They don’t have an impact on the overall perception of his administration or presidency. ” While Mr. Duterte’s antidrug campaign and outrageous statements have received all the attention abroad, he has pushed ahead with an array of progressive social policies that have won him broad support in the Philippines. Lorraine Badoy, a dermatologist and a volunteer at a nongovernmental organization who lives in one of Manila’s gated communities, acknowledges that the president’s outbursts make her cringe. “I just wish he’d shut up sometimes,” she said. But she says she is more enamored of his social policies than she is concerned about the casualties of the antidrug campaign. In Mr. Duterte, she said: “I see something that I have not seen in a long time in the Philippines, which is that he cares. He cares for the small guy, which is very important to me. ” His government has paved the way for indigenous people displaced by mining and logging to return to their ancestral lands, has committed to providing free irrigation to subsistence farmers, has suspended the operations of mining companies that violated environmental protection laws, and has begun a program of free checkups for the 20 million poorest Filipinos. His support has blossomed on social media — followers on the most popular pages number in the millions — which his administration has cannily harnessed. Social media catapulted Mr. Duterte to the presidency, says his communications secretary, Martin Andanar, and it remains a bastion of support in the face of what Mr. Andanar considers negative coverage by international and local news media. “It is very important for our team to maintain, and even encourage — foster — the relationship of the different social media patriots of President Duterte,” he said. “We do it by reaching out to them, they reach out to us. ” Mr. Duterte’s social media team, which Mr. Andanar oversees, selects a weekly message, often tied to the news, and creates posts it hopes will be reposted and widely shared by supporters. He said he recently told followers on social media that “the crime news has been blown out of proportion, and nobody’s listening to our economic policies. ” So even as the value of the Philippine peso began to slip last week, Mr. Duterte’s supporters were arguing that a weakened currency increased the buying power of remittances sent back by Filipinos working overseas. When Mr. Duterte likened himself to Hitler, his supporters rushed to defend him on social media, arguing that the comment was precipitated by a remark by former President Benigno S. Aquino III, who compared Mr. Duterte to Hitler five months earlier. The argument aligned with ones made the same day by administration officials. “It is a matter of record that the reference to Hitler did not originate from the president,” his spokesman Ernesto Abella said in a statement. A site went further, posting photographs of two Reuters journalists it accused of causing the furor by misrepresenting Mr. Duterte’s words, and calling for their punishment. The post was shared thousands of times on social media and whipped up an untold number of commenters, who created a flurry of threats and insults. Mocha Uson, a blogger with 4. 2 million followers on Facebook, shared the images, adding the caption in Tagalog, “Enemies of change. ” Critics of Mr. Duterte have been threatened with rape and a variety of deaths, including by hanging, drowning and, as one doctor suggested to Emily Rauhala, who has written about the Philippines for The Washington Post, that she crawl back into her mother’s uterus and suffocate. Mr. Andanar said that the administration did not condone threats of violence on social media. So far, none has been carried out. However, he said, “I cannot blame the Duterte social media patriots when they protect the president and when they do everything that they can to pounce on the enemy. ” Many Duterte supporters say their cause is unfairly portrayed in the mainstream news media. But Melinda Quintos de Jesus, executive director of the Center for Media Freedom, said that threats by online mobs had intimidated the national news media. The local news media has published some criticism and several reports on specific cases of extrajudicial killings, she said, but the major television stations and newspapers have failed to produce critical analyses of Mr. Duterte’s policies. “They like him, they fear him,” she said. “They basically are afraid to be singled out. ” In The Hague on Thursday, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, issued a blunt warning to the government, saying that the violent crackdown could become a target of a criminal investigation because killing fell within the jurisdiction of the court. There are signs, in some quarters at least, that the killings have begun to tarnish Mr. Duterte’s popularity. In a slum in Pasay, a district of greater Manila, on a recent Saturday, Migo Paladio, 24, stood in a narrow alley and watched the crowds from two wakes spill out. They were for men killed by vigilantes on the presumption that they were drug dealers. Mr. Paladio, a technician, said they were not dealers. He said they were among 10 people he knew who had been killed in the last three months in Mr. Duterte’s antidrug campaign. He voted for Mr. Duterte, but he said his support was wavering. “I was wrong about what I thought was going to happen,” he said. “He’s prioritizing the killings too much. And we have six more years of this. ” | 1 |
Descubren un túnel para el tráfico de drogas en la frontera entre México y EE.UU. 21:08 GMT
En los últimos cinco años se han detectado más de 75 construcciones de este tipo en las fronteras entre ambos países. Imagen Ilustrativa Jorge Duenes Reuters
Un túnel subterráneo de unos 500 metros de longitud destinado al narcotráfico ha sido descubierto en la frontera entre EE.UU. y México por las autoridades de este último país. Dentro de la construcción, que al parecer comunicaba la ciudad de San Diego (Tijuana) con la localidad homónima situada en el estado de California, fueron encontradas más de dos toneladas de marihuana, informa 'The San Diego Union Tribune' . Asimismo, la construcción estaba equipada con luces, sistemas ferroviarios y ventilación.
Los informes señalan que el túnel, de 1,15 metros de altura y 90 centímetros de ancho, se encontraban a 7 metros de profundidad sobre un establecimiento de venta de hielo en las cercanías del aeropuerto internacional General Abelardo L. Rodríguez, que se halla a solo 300 metros de la frontera con EE.UU. Se presume que además de servir de fachada, el lugar era utilizado como punto de fabricación de estupefacientes.
El Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas de EE.UU. también ha confirmado la existencia del túnel, pero no ha dado a conocer su ubicación exacta.
En los últimos cinco años se han detectado más de 75 túneles de contrabando fronterizo. En el mes de abril, la Fiscalía mexicana localizó uno de los más extensos hallados hasta el momento, con más de 700 metros de largo y hasta un ascensor. | 0 |
The surprising departure of Jed Bernstein last month after just 27 months as president of Lincoln Center was prompted not by a change in career plans, as announced, but by the discovery that he had been in a relationship with a staff member, the organization acknowledged on Tuesday. The center, the world’s leading performing arts complex, had presented the resignation as a sudden but understandable decision by a cultural leader who wanted to return to producing shows for the stage, where he had spent much of his career. In reality, Mr. Bernstein, 61, was forced from the top post after an anonymous complaint revealed that he had been involved in a consensual relationship with a woman in her 30s who worked for him — and whom he had twice promoted, according to two people briefed on his resignation. They spoke on condition of anonymity because negotiations over his departure were confidential. After repeated requests during the past several weeks to elaborate on Mr. Bernstein’s departure, Lincoln Center on Tuesday provided a statement to The New York Times through the crisis management firm Rubenstein. The statement said that in response to the complaint, received in March, Lincoln Center “immediately retained independent outside counsel to conduct an investigation” and “determined that Mr. Bernstein had violated Lincoln Center human resources policy by not disclosing a personal relationship with an employee. ” Mr. Bernstein, as president, had been positioned to lead Lincoln Center into a new era of prominence, led by a effort to turn the New York Philharmonic’s acoustically challenged home into a symphonic hall. But even with $100 million from David Geffen, the job of raising an additional $400 million to cover the projected cost has become more difficult with the departure of such a key figure. Lincoln Center’s operations are now being directed by Katherine G. Farley, the chairwoman, who said in a statement at the time of Mr. Bernstein’s resignation that “Lincoln Center is in a very strong position artistically, operationally and financially. ” Mr. Bernstein did not respond to calls and messages over the past several weeks. On Tuesday, he said in an email sent by his publicist, Cristyne L. Nicholas: “I take full responsibility for my actions and have cooperated fully with Lincoln Center. I remain proud of the incredible group of colleagues with whom I have worked at Lincoln Center and the accomplishments that we were able to achieve together and as I move forward to my next chapter, I wish them continued success. ” Concerns about Mr. Bernstein first came to the board’s attention in November when he asked to renew his contract, which was to expire in December 2016. In preparation, Lincoln Center — which was planning to grant the renewal — sought feedback about him from members of the senior staff. While some praised Mr. Bernstein for his energy and enthusiasm, others complained about his management style, namely his telling jokes and addressing female employees as “Sweetie” and “Honey,” the people briefed on the matter said. Lincoln Center executives asked Mr. Bernstein to work with a coach to correct the behavior, which he began to do, the sources said. The entire staff was also given a refresher workshop in sensitivity training. Lincoln Center, however, did not believe that its president’s conduct constituted sexual harassment, the people knowledgeable about his departure said. Then in March, before the contract was finalized, an anonymous complaint alerted Lincoln Center executives about a sexual relationship between Mr. Bernstein and a female employee whom he had promoted, most recently to a senior position in September. Both Mr. Bernstein and the employee are single. To investigate, Lincoln Center enlisted outside counsel — Jeffrey S. Klein, chairman of the employment litigation practice group at Weil, Gotshal Manges. Although the inquiry determined that the relationship had ended by the time Mr. Bernstein was confronted and that it appeared to be consensual, the sources said, it violated Lincoln Center’s policies about senior management dating subordinates. The organization declined to provided a copy of the policy. Lincoln Center officials confronted Mr. Bernstein, who agreed to resign and was paid a sum of money according to the terms of his contract, which are confidential. As for why Lincoln Center did not originally disclose the true circumstances of Mr. Bernstein’s departure, the sources said the institution wanted to protect the woman involved. The Times is withholding her name to protect her privacy. Lincoln Center was also satisfied that the woman, having been twice promoted under its previous president, Reynold Levy, deserved the latest promotion that she had received from Mr. Bernstein, the sources said. Mr. Bernstein took over from Mr. Levy in January 2014. Mr. Levy, a prodigious who oversaw the institution’s ambitious $1. 2 billion renovation, served for 11 years. A search for Mr. Bernstein’s successor is underway. Before coming to Lincoln Center, Mr. Bernstein spent more than a decade as president of the Broadway League, the industry’s national trade association. He also produced Broadway shows and helped to the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania as a stage for live theater. He landed the Lincoln Center job partly because former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a friend of Ms. Farley, had supported him Mr. Bernstein and his brother, Doug, directed the mayor’s performance in the annual Inner Circle show. The organization never received information suggesting that Mr. Bernstein had any history of comparable misconduct, the sources said, and the issue did not surface in his vetting as a candidate. When he was hired, in May 2013, Mr. Bernstein struck many as a surprising choice because he had a marketing background and had never run a nonprofit institution, let alone one with multiple prominent constituents, which in this case include the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Ballet. | 1 |
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The day after Donald Trump’s historic upset of the “inevitable” Hillary Clinton, Rush Limbaugh took to the radio waves to help out all the left-wing “Drive-By” media struggling to understand what they had just witnessed — though they probably weren’t thrilled to hear his summa | 0 |
After former NFL star Aaron Hernandez was found dead in his jail cell last week, authorities found three suicide notes lying near his body, one addressed to his fiancée, one to his daughter, and the third to his prison boyfriend. Authorities are now questioning whether the player’s complicated sex life was a prime motivation for his years of troublesome behavior, and ultimately his suicide. [Authorities discovered much focus on the Bible inside Hernandez’s jail cell after his death. Not only did he write a portion of a Bible verse on his forehead — John 3:16 — he had also used a red marker to mimic Christ’s stigmata on his hands and feet. Along with the stigmata, which are markings emulating the wounds Jesus suffered on the cross, a Bible was opened to the same verse he excerpted on his forehead. That verse reads, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life. ” The suicide seemed to come at a strange time for Aaron Hernandez, since it occurred only a few days after he had been cleared in his second murder trial. The letter to the player’s prison boyfriend might go toward explaining much of the former New England Patriots’ life, Newsweek reported. Investigations against Hernandez have revealed that there may have been elements of sex, deception, and secrecy to the player’s unsettled life. In 2015 Hernandez was convicted of the murder of Odin Lloyd, the man who was dating the sister of the NFL player’s fiancée. In some ways Lloyd’s murder made little sense, but police were working on an angle that Hernandez killed Lloyd because Lloyd knew of the player’s bisexuality and Hernandez wanted that information kept secret. A relationship Hernandez reportedly had with a high school friend also played a role in the investigation. Ernest Wallace, a in the murder of Lloyd, told police in several different ways that he thought Hernandez was gay. Hernandez’s is bisexuality now seems practically assured after the discovery of the letter to his prison boyfriend. Investigators also speculated that Hernandez’s sexual proclivities may have been at the root of his bouts of violence. Hernandez had a long list of outbursts going back to his youth, and many of these incidents also formed a central part in the case against the NFL player in Lloyd’s murder. Perhaps there will be no way to prove the suspicions that Hernandez’ sexual proclivities led to his turbulent life, but it would certainly make sense. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
WASHINGTON, D. C. — There was an altercation Friday afternoon before the White House press briefing between Jon Decker from Fox News Radio and Lucian Wintrich from the website Gateway Pundit. [Multiple witnesses who saw the confrontation confirmed that Decker approached Wintrich in the back room of the press briefing and began accusing him of being a Nazi and a white supremacist who worked for a white supremacist website. Witnesses also saw Decker follow Wintrich back into the briefing room and continue to point at Wintrich and accuse him and the website he works for of being “white supremacists. ” Drama in WH press room between @lucianwintrich and Fox reporter I don’t know. Not helpful for anyone. Let’s stay calm everyone. — Andrew Feinberg (@agfhome) March 10, 2017, Reporter screaming at @lucianwintrich was Fox Radio’s John Decker. Not helpful or professional, — Andrew Feinberg (@agfhome) March 10, 2017, GatewayPundit. com, run by gay conservative Jim Hoft, is not a white supremacist website but instead is a site that’s been supportive of President Donald Trump. Wintrich told Breitbart News that Decker blocked him from the doorway and claims he was assaulted by Decker, an accusation that Breitbart News was not able to independently confirm or deny. However, all witnesses agreed that Decker initiated the conflict and made the accusations while pointing to Wintrich. Fox News Radio John Decker just loudly told everyone in briefing room that Gateway Pundit is here ”they hate blacks, Jews, Hispanics.” Wild, — Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) March 10, 2017, He was speaking to Lucian Wintrich. He said it twice, pointing to him, so everyone knew who he was. https: . — Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) March 10, 2017, Wintrich, whose grandfather was Jewish, calls the allegation of being a “white supremacist” absurd and says that the idea that he’s racially biased is totally inaccurate. Wintrich told Breitbart News that he also finds it strange that the accusations came from Jon Decker of Fox News Radio, since FoxNews frequently links to the Gateway Pundit site. Throughout the 2016 campaign, President Donald Trump and his supporters and associates were dogged by false accusations of racism and . Recently, Democrat Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi falsely accused Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon of being a white supremacist without citing any proof whatsoever. John Decker also asulted me, pushing me in the break room then grabbing my arm in the briefing room while shouting that I’m a nazi. https: . — Lucian B. Wintrich (@lucianwintrich) March 10, 2017, Jon Decker has denied accusations of assault, saying that he “did not get physical in any way” with Wintrich. Fox News spox says Decker did not get physical in any way with Gateway Pundit’s WH correspondent. https: . — Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 10, 2017, Wintrich told Breitbart News that he was considering pressing charges and that, while he was leaving the White House, another man called him an obscene name. | 1 |
By Rahul Manchanda, Esq. on October 30, 2016 The Neo-Con/Communist natives are restless, they desperately want their World War 3, and they are wanting to move their wealth and power to their next world empire, which will be the final one in their sick deluded minds, unopposed and permanent.
Never in America’s history has she been in more danger of a “false flag” attack from her enemies, both foreign and domestic, than she is now.
The contemporary term “false flag” describes covert operations that are designed to deceive in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by entities, groups, or nations other than those who actually planned and executed them.
Historically, the term “false flag” had its origins in naval warfare where the use of a flag other than the belligerent’s true battle flag before (but not while) engaging the enemy has long been accepted as a permissible ruse de guerre ; by contrast, flying a false flag while engaging the enemy constitutes “perfidy.”
Operations carried out during peace-time by civilian organizations, as well as covert government agencies, can (by extension) also be called false flag operations if they seek to hide the real organization behind an operation.
America has been thoroughly infiltrated by a mighty and wealthy foreign power and menace, while her people are suffering financially, and she is now poised to be sacrificed on the altar of history for a one world government headquartered overseas.
The Neo-Con/Communist natives are restless, they desperately want their World War 3, and they are wanting to move their wealth and power to their next world empire, which will be the final one in their sick deluded minds, unopposed and permanent.
Now that Hillary Clinton has been “theoretically re-indicted” by the FBI for the email scandals (although they are being obstructed by our very own US Department of “Justice” under Attorney General Loretta Lynch) this has effectively ruined her chances of becoming President through legal channels, so they only have one more option – and that is a false flag attack leading us directly into World War 3 in a nuclear war, using all of their carefully placed traitors in the Pentagon, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, and cooperative local police departments all throughout the United States, with a declaration of a state of emergency in both the United States, and abroad.
This is why it is vitally important that all Americans, both in the private and public sector, start watching their government and elected leaders like “hawks.”
Americans need to use the Neo-Con’s mantra of “See Something, Say Something” against them.
The Neo-Con/Stasi/Communist’s Zersetzung (organized gang-stalking under Bill Clinton’s Community Oriented Policing “COPS” program) needs to be turned by the People against them, and the American People need to watch each and every single one of them like they would watch a lunatic holding an AK-47 in a mall.
The Neo-Cons simply can not be trusted, as they work for the Plutocrats, who desperately want to hold on to their power, and will not willingly relinquish it to the People by way of Donald Trump and his Populist Revolt and Uprising.
Some examples of real false flags throughout history having routinely disastrous results, wherein the “winners” re-wrote history, include the:
(1) 1914 Battle of Trindade fought between the British auxiliary cruiser RMS Carmania and the German auxiliary cruiser SMS Cap Trafalgar which had been altered to look like Carmania;
(2) World War II German commerce raider Kormoran which surprised and sank the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney in 1941 while disguised as a Dutch merchant ship, causing the greatest recorded loss of life on an Australian warship;
(3) trial of Otto Skorzeny, who planned and commanded Operation Greif, by a U.S. military tribunal at the Dachau Trials included a finding that Skorzeny was not guilty of a crime by ordering his men into action in American uniforms;
(4) 1788 incident wherein the head tailor at the Royal Swedish Opera received an order to sew a number of Russian military uniforms to stage an attack on Puumala, a Swedish outpost on the Russo-Swedish border allowing King Gustav III of Sweden, who lacked the constitutional authority to initiate unprovoked hostilities without the Estates’ consent, to launch the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790);
(5) September 1931 incident wherein Japanese officers fabricated a pretext for invading Manchuria by blowing up a section of railway;
(6) Gleiwitz incident in 1939 involving Reinhard Heydrich fabricating evidence of a Polish attack against Germany to mobilize German public opinion for war with Poland;
(7) November 26, 1939 incident wherein the Soviet army shelled Mainila, a Russian village near the Finnish border blaming Finland for the attack using the incident as a pretext to invade Finland, starting the Winter War, four days later;
(8) 1962 Operation Northwoods plot by the U.S. Department of Defense for a war with Cuba involving scenarios such as fabricating the hijacking or shooting down of passenger and military planes, sinking a U.S. ship in the vicinity of Cuba, burning crops, sinking a boat filled with Cuban refugees, attacks by alleged Cuban infiltrators inside the United States, and harassment of U.S. aircraft and shipping and the destruction of aerial drones by aircraft disguised as Cuban MiGs to be blamed on Cuba and a pretext for an invasion of Cuba and the overthrow of Fidel Castro’s communist government;
(9) Reichstag fire which was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on February 27, 1933 using as “evidence” by the Nazis that the Communists were beginning a plot against the German government, whereby Adolf Hitler, who was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany four weeks before, on 30 January, urged President Paul von Hindenburg to pass an emergency decree to counter the “ruthless confrontation of the Communist Party of Germany” – with civil liberties suspended, the government instituted mass arrests of Communists, including all of the Communist parliamentary delegates;
(10) April 4 1953 incident wherein the CIA was ordered to undermine the government of Iran over a four-month period, as a precursor to overthrowing Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh by carrying out false flag attacks “on mosques and key public figures” to be blamed on Iranian communists loyal to the government, code-named “TP-Ajax,” the tactic of a “directed campaign of bombings by Iranians posing as members of the Communist party” involving the bombing of “at least” one well known Muslim’s house by CIA agents posing as Communists;
(11) 2008 shooting of two minibuses carrying Georgians who lived in Abkhazia who wanted to cross the border so they could go and vote in the parliamentary election that day, in a volatile area on the border of Abkhazia and the Republic of Georgia, wherein President Saakashvili indicated that the attack had been an attempt to disrupt the election, implying that it had been Abkhaz or Russian forces who had been behind it, providing a favorable opportunity for the president to focus the nation’s attention on an external enemy, leading attention away from his domestic critics, as well as making use of his position as leader to rally the Georgians around his candidates in the election;
(12) assassination of Charlemagne Péralte of Haiti in 1919, after checkpoints were passed by military disguised as guerrilla fighters;
(13) Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s, wherein captured Mau Mau members who switched sides and specially trained British troops initiated the pseudo-gang concept to successfully counter Mau Mau;
(14) Algerian civil war in the middle of 1994 wherein death squads composed of Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS) security forces disguised themselves as Islamist terrorists and committed false flag terror attacks;
(15) Mexican wars of 1819 and 1846-48;
(16) Spanish-American War of 1898 involving the surprise explosion of the battleship Maine at Havana, Cuba wherein the Hearst Press accused the Spanish and the USA declared war on Spain conquering the Philippines, Guam and Cuba;
(17) World War I in 1914-1918 wherein a U-boat torpedo hit ocean liner Lusitania near Britain and some 1200 people, including 128 Americans, on board lost their lives, and subsequent investigations revealed that the major explosions were inside the Lusitania, as it was secretly transporting 6 million pounds of artillery shells and rifle ammunition, as well as other explosives on behalf of Morgan Banking Corporation to help Britain and France;
(18) World War 2 in 1939-1945 where a U-boat torpedo hit the ocean liner Athenia near Britain with some 1100 passengers, of which 311 were Americans;
(19) US naval intelligence planning and suggesting “8 insults” to bring Japan into war with the US, and where President Roosevelt executed this plan immediately and also added some other insults, enraging Japan, such as a total blockade of Japanese oil imports, as agreed between the Americans, British and the Dutch – FDR also declared an all-out embargo against Japan and forbade them the use of the Panama Canal impeding Japan’s access to Venezuelan oil;
(20) one of many incidents provoking Japan to attack Pearl Harbor some 6 months later;
(21) Korean War in 1950-1953 wherein South Korean incursions (the Tiger regiment etc.) into North Korea (1949) led to contrary claims and into war – the cause of this war was covert action involving leaders of Taiwan, South Korea and the US Military Industrial Complex (John Foster Dulles has been mentioned as an organizer of the hostilities);
(22) Vietnam War in “The Gulf of Tonkin Incident” wherein the American destroyer Maddox was supposedly attacked twice by three North Vietnamese torpedo boats in 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin – but which never happened;
(23) Grenada invasion whereby the Grenadian leader, Maurice Bishop, who favored the left and invited Cubans to build infrastructure to accommodate long range Soviet aircraft was deposed and executed in October 19, 1983 – six days later the US invaded, with the supposed reason that American medical students studying in Grenada were in danger due to a “Cuban presence”– and of course the new leader supported by the US favored more traditional values and the right;
(24) Panama invasion wherein an incident between American and Panamanian troops led to invasion and the earlier Carter administration plan to hand control of the canal over to Panama was cancelled;
(25) US-Israeli sponsored wars between Iraq and Iran from 1980-1988;
(26) Desert Storm War (First Gulf War) in 1991 wherein Saddam Hussein asked for permission from the US (via their ambassador April Gillespie) to invade Kuwait, and got an answer that the US was not concerned with “Arab quarrels” – this was a trap, and after Saddam occupied Kuwait, George Bush Sr. mobilized a coalition of some 40 nations to “liberate Kuwait” and smash the recently-built Iraqi military power base – this incident also involved a media hoax wherein the daughter of a Kuwaiti US Ambassador played a nurse on TV and testified to “witnessing” Iraqi soldiers throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwait;
(27) War on Terror launched by the Bush administration in October 2001 – claimed to be the response to terrorism, especially the 9-11 incidents;
(28) Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan invasion);
(29) Enduring Justice (Second Gulf war); and
(30) countless others.
Paragraph 43 of the Field Manual published by the War Department, United States Army, on 1 October 1940, under the entry Rules of Land Warfare states:
“National flags, insignias and uniforms as a ruse – in practice it has been authorized to make use of these as a ruse. The foregoing rule (Article 23 of the Annex of the IVth Hague Convention), does not prohibit such use, but does prohibit their improper use. It is certainly forbidden to make use of them during a combat. Before opening fire upon the enemy, they must be discarded.”
The American Soldiers’ Handbook states:
“The use of the enemy flag, insignia, and uniform is permitted under some circumstances. They are not to be used during actual fighting, and if used in order to approach the enemy without drawing fire, should be thrown away or removed as soon as fighting begins.”
The 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949 (Protocol I) states:
Article 37. – Prohibition of perfidy – 1. It is prohibited to kill, injure, or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy: (a) The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender; (b) The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness; (c) The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and (d) The feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict. 2. Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts which are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and disinformation.
Article 38. – Recognized emblems – 1. It is prohibited to make improper use of the distinctive emblem of the Red Cross, Red Crescent or Red Lion and Sun or of other emblems, signs or signals provided for by the Conventions or by this Protocol. It is also prohibited to misuse deliberately in an armed conflict other internationally recognized protective emblems, signs or signals, including the flag of truce, and the protective emblem of cultural property. 2. It is prohibited to make use of the distinctive emblem of the United Nations, except as authorized by that Organization.
Article 39. – Emblems of nationality – 1. It is prohibited to make use in an armed conflict of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict. 2. It is prohibited to make use of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of adverse Parties while engaging in attacks or in order to shield, favour, protect or impede military operations. 3. Nothing in this Article or in Article 37, paragraph 1(d), shall affect the existing generally recognized rules of international law applicable to espionage or to the use of flags in the conduct of armed conflict at sea.”
It is vitally important to note that while the United States may have these codes and regulations, her enemies, both foreign and domestic, are not bound by these Rules.
The American People (and indeed the rest of the world) need to be exceptionally on guard and vigilant before the upcoming November 2016 election, and even many months afterwards, because the Neo-Cons/Communists may still try and get their World War 3, even if Donald Trump is elected.
After all, September 11, 2001 took place a full 9 months after George W Bush was sworn in at his Inauguration in January 2001, and this was blamed on Osama Bin Laden who was a known CIA Asset and who allegedly declared War on America in 1998 – he might have been the Neo-Cons’ insurance plan, cooked up during the 8 year Clinton Administration from 1992-2000.
And of course, 9-11 is what led to the wholesale bloodshed and regime changing wars for the past 15 years, leaving the Middle East in flames, with countless millions of innocent lives and refugees lost forever, the greatest genocide and bloodbath the world has ever known.
And don’t think that these crazed Neo-Con psychopaths won’t do it again, especially when there are only a few more countries left to “take out” now – Russia, Iran, and North Korea – as opposed to 20. Related Posts: No Related Posts The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VNN, VNN authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, technicians or the Veterans Today Network and its assigns. Notices Posted by Rahul Manchanda, Esq. on October 30, 2016, With | 0 |
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RIO DE JANEIRO — The Supreme Court justice overseeing parts of the investigation into corruption at Brazil’s national oil company died on Thursday in the crash of a small plane, stunning the country as investigators are intensifying their efforts to prosecute an array of political figures on graft charges. The justice, Teori Zavascki, 68, was killed along with at least two other people traveling on a Beechcraft King Air C90 when it crashed into the Atlantic near Paraty, a town of buildings on the coast between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, according to Brazilian news reports. The cause of the crash was unknown as of Thursday night. The federal police have begun an investigation that will be closely watched across Brazil, given Justice Zavascki’s influence in Brazil’s legal system. Justice Zavascki, who had kept a low public profile since being named to the court in 2012, was responsible for some of the boldest moves in Brazil’s judiciary in recent years, earning him a reputation as a judge prepared to curb abuses by influential lawmakers and business leaders. In 2015, Justice Zavascki ordered the arrest and imprisonment of Delcídio do Amaral, a sitting senator from the leftist Workers’ Party, which was in power at the time. And in 2016, he ousted the speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, who had orchestrated the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. Large portions of Brazil’s political establishment are on edge over revelations of bribery by Odebrecht, the construction giant that was one of the largest contractors for Petrobras, the oil company. Justice Zavascki was overseeing the ratification of Odebrecht’s plea deal, in which dozens of Brazilian politicians are accused of receiving funds from the company, and some prominent figures suggested that the plane crash could have been a result of foul play. “This ‘accident’ needs to be thoroughly investigated,” Márcio Adriano Anselmo, a federal investigator on the Petrobras case, said in a Facebook post. Mr. Anselmo called Justice Zavascki’s death “the prelude to the end of an era” before editing and removing parts of the post. Justice Zavascki’s death raises important concerns about the direction of the Petrobras investigation and the independence of the judiciary. President Michel Temer will be able to nominate a replacement, influencing the Supreme Court while his own Brazilian Democratic Movement Party is facing intense criticism over graft cases and efforts to stifle the Petrobras inquiry. Within the court, justices were maneuvering quickly on Thursday to nominate a successor to oversee the Petrobras case, expressing concern about delays that could allow legislators to avoid going to jail. Under Brazilian law, the Supreme Court handles cases involving lawmakers and other senior politicians who enjoy special legal standing. Justice Marco Aurélio Mello said it would be a mistake to await Mr. Temer’s nomination of a new court member, which would be followed by Senate hearings that could take almost a year. “We cannot wait,” Mr. Mello said, citing the demands of the Petrobras investigation, called Operation Carwash in reference to a service station in the capital, Brasília, that laundered money. The plane carrying Justice Zavascki was owned by Emiliano, a Brazilian luxury hotel operator. The owner of Emiliano, Carlos Alberto Filgueiras, 69, and the pilot of the plane, Osmar Rodrigues, 56, also died in the crash. The hotel company said in a statement that Justice Zavascki and Mr. Filgueiras were “close friends. ” Brazilian news outlets also reported that a woman, whose identity was not disclosed, had died. Justice Zavascki, a specialist in tax legislation before becoming a judge, was named to the court by Ms. Rousseff, who was replaced last year by Mr. Temer, her vice president. Sergio Moro, the judge overseeing much of the Petrobras inquiry, called Justice Zavascki “an example for all judges, prosecutors and lawyers in this country. ” “Without him, there would not have been the Carwash investigation,” Judge Moro said. Legal scholars agreed that Brazil’s Supreme Court, along with Justice Zavascki’s replacement, would come under scrutiny. “This thing isn’t for amateurs,” said Antonio Valverde, a professor of ethics and philosophy at Catholic University in São Paulo, citing reports that some of Brazil’s most powerful men received bribes in the Carwash inquiry. “The names in those reports are in the federal government. ” | 1 |
Donnerstag, 24. November 2016 Krankenwagen werden mit Pflug ausgestattet, um Rettungsgasse freiräumen zu können Berlin (Archiv) - Wer künftig auf der Autobahn einen Rettungswagen im Rückspiegel sieht, sollte besser schnell reagieren und Platz machen – andernfalls ist mit erheblichem Blechschaden zu rechnen. Denn ab sofort sollen deutsche Krankenwagen mit einem Pflug ausgestattet werden, mit dem träge Autofahrer einfach beiseitegeschoben werden können. Ihren Ursprung hat die Pflug-Erweiterung für deutsche Rettungswagen in einer gemeinsamen Initiative von Gesundheits- und Verkehrsministerium. "Immer wieder kommen Rettungskräfte nicht rechtzeitig an ihren Einsatzort, weil Autofahrer nicht wissen, wie man bei Stau eine ordnungsgemäße Rettungsgasse nach § 11 Abs. 2 StVO bildet", erklärt ein Sprecher des Verkehrsministeriums. "Wer zu langsam reagiert und dadurch fahrlässig Menschenleben gefährdet, ist selbst schuld, wenn sein Auto was abbekommt." In den Ministerien rechne man jedoch ohnehin damit, dass es nur in den ersten Monaten nach der Einführung des Rettungswagenpfluges vermehrt zu Blechschäden und umgekippten Fahrzeugen kommen wird. Spätestens dann dürfte sich bei den meisten Fahrern ein gewisser Lerneffekt eingestellt haben. Sollte es tatsächlich vorkommen, dass ein Fahrzeughalter verletzt wird, nachdem er von einem Krankenwagen mit Pflug von der Straße gefegt wurde, muss er nicht lange bangen. Dank der neuen mit Pflug ausgestatteten Krankenwagen kann auch er mit schnellstmöglicher medizinischer Versorgung rechnen. ssi, dan; Idee: fer; Foto oben [M]: Los Hawlos , CC BY-SA 3.0 / fabiodevilla - Shutterstock.com; Hinweis: Erstmals erschienen am 23.11.15 Artikel teilen: | 0 |
IS Mosul Stronghold : Hundreds Slaughtered November 04, 2016 An Iraqi soldier stands next to a detained man accused of being an Islamic State fighter at a check point in Qayyara, south of Mosul,
Islamic State militants have killed hundreds of people, Recruitment drive for child soldier. Among the hundreds dead, 50 deserters and 180 former Iraqi government employees, around their stronghold of Mosul. Transported 1,600 people from the town of Hammam al-Alil to Tal Afar, possibly for use as human shields against air strikes. They also took 150 families from Hammam al-Alil to Mosul on Wednesday, saying that they must hand over their children, especially boys above the age of nine, in an apparent recruitment drive for child soldiers. The U.N. also had reports of air strikes causing civilian deaths. | 0 |
14 Views November 17, 2016 GOLD , KWN King World News
Look at these markets seeing massive waterfall declines as other hit new highs as chaotic global trading continues.
Mortgage rates based on the 10-Year Treasury have been headed dramatically higher as bonds continue their waterfall decline (see crashing chart below). Waterfall Decline In 10-Year Treasuries As Interest Rates Rise
30-Year Treasuries are also in free fall… 30-Year Treasuries Continue To Plunge As Interest Rates Rise Meanwhile the U.S. Dollar is hitting new multi-year highs U.S. Dollar Hits New Multi-Year Highs And the Dow Jones is at new highs… Dow Jones Hits New All-Time Highs Along with the Nasdaq… Nasdaq Hits New All-Time Highs The bottom line is that the world is set for much more chaotic trading as the year comes to an end and we head into what will be a wild west atmosphere in global markets in 2017. Just remember, no matter what hell breaks loose, gold will stand the test of time.
Rick Rule – A Look At 2017 And What Sprott Asset Management Is Doing With Our Clients’ Money Right Now CLCK | 0 |
When it was created more than a half century ago, Medicaid almost escaped notice. stories hailed the bigger, more controversial part of the law that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed that July day in 1965 — health insurance for elderly people, or Medicare, which the American Medical Association had bitterly denounced as socialized medicine. The New York Times did not even mention Medicaid, conceived as a small program to cover poor people’s medical bills. But over the past five decades, Medicaid has surpassed Medicare in the number of Americans it covers. It has grown gradually into a behemoth that provides for the medical needs of one in five Americans — 74 million people — starting for many in the womb, and for others, ending only when they go to their graves. Medicaid, so central to the country’s health care system, also played a major, though far less appreciated, role in last week’s collapse of the Republican drive to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. While President Trump and others largely blamed the conservative Freedom Caucus for that failure, the objections of moderate Republicans to the deep cuts in Medicaid also helped doom the Republican bill. “I was not willing to gamble with the care of my constituents with this huge unknown,” said Representative Frank A. LoBiondo of New Jersey, a member of the centrist Tuesday Group caucus, noting that in three of the counties in his district in the state’s more conservative southern half, over 30 percent of all residents are covered by Medicaid. In the Senate, many Republicans, echoing their states’ governors, had worried about jeopardizing the treatment of people addicted to opioids, depriving the working poor, children and people with disabilities of health care and in the long run reducing funding for the care of elderly people in nursing homes. The Republican bill would have largely undone the expansion of Medicaid under the A. C. A. which added 11 million adults to the program and guaranteed the federal government would cover almost all of their costs. It would have also ended the federal government’s commitment to pay a significant share of states’ Medicaid costs, no matter how much enrollment or spending rose. Instead, the bill would have given the states a choice between a fixed annual sum per recipient or a block grant, both of which would have almost certainly led to major cuts in coverage over time. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that the Republican bill would have cumulatively cut projected spending on Medicaid by $839 billion and reduced the number of Medicaid beneficiaries by 14 million over the coming decade. Many Republicans could not stomach those consequences. Even some conservatives — Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey, for example, and Daniel Webster of Florida — expressed concerns about the number of Medicaid recipients who could suffer. The Trump administration will likely still seek to rewrite Medicaid rules and give states more leeway to limit benefits or eligibility, for example, allowing them to require certain adults in the program to have jobs or pay monthly premiums. And many Republican governors and members of Congress remain determined to curb Medicaid spending, including by methods proposed in the bill. In 2015, the nation spent more than $532 billion on Medicaid, of which about 63 percent was federal money and the rest from the states. Still, last week’s defeat reflected how hard it is to take away an entitlement. It also showed the broad and deep reach of Medicaid, which covers about six times as many people as the private marketplaces created under the A. C. A. but, perhaps because the markets are more strongly associated with President Barack Obama and his law, got less attention in this month’s contentious debate. Medicaid now provides medical care to four out of 10 American children. It covers the costs of nearly half of all births in the United States. It pays for the care for of people in nursing homes. And it provides for 10 million children and adults with physical or mental disabilities. For states, it accounts for 60 percent of federal funding — meaning that cuts hurt not only poor and families caring for their children with autism or dying parents, but also bond ratings. The program is so woven into the nation’s fabric that in 2015, almost two thirds of Americans in a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation said they were either covered by Medicaid or had a family member or friend who was. The program not only pays for 16 percent of all personal health care spending nationwide, but also accounts for 9 percent of federal domestic spending. Because it has always covered a patchwork of groups — and many of its beneficiaries are poor and relatively powerless — Medicaid lacks the unified, formidable political constituency that Social Security and Medicare have. States often have different names for the program, and many who rely on it don’t realize that MassHealth in Massachusetts or TennCare in Tennessee are just Medicaid by another name. But in Kaiser’s polling since 2005, the percentage of people who support cutting Medicaid spending has never exceeded 13 percent. “The conventional wisdom that there’s a great deal of stigma attached to this program does not bear out in the public opinion data,” said Mollyann Brodie, who oversees polling for the foundation. President Trump led the charge for the bill that would have slashed Medicaid, but he recognized the program’s political potency during his campaign, proclaiming when he announced his candidacy that Medicaid should be saved “without cuts” and repeatedly taking to Twitter to declare his support for it. “The Republicans who want to cut SS and Medicaid are wrong,” he wrote in July 2015. The C. B. O. report made it clear that within a few years, the cuts to Medicaid in the Republican bill would have been felt by millions of Americans. “It’s health care for a huge chunk of the country,” said James A. Morone, a professor at Brown University, “and as Donald Trump discovered, it’s really, really complicated to mess around with. ” As he waited to see what would happen to the Republican proposal last week, Myrone Pickett said, “I’ve got a question mark hanging over my head. ” Mr. Pickett, of Bloomfield, N. J. got health insurance under the A. C. A. ’s expansion of Medicaid, and has used it for monthly shots of Vivitrol, a drug that reduces cravings for opioids and alcohol. A heroin addict for 16 years, Mr. Pickett, 51, said the treatment had helped him stay clean for the past year, get medication for bipolar disorder and land a job at a grocery store. The A. C. A. offered a tempting deal to states that agreed to expand Medicaid eligibility to everyone with incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty level — $16, 400 for a single person — mostly workers like cooks, hairdressers and cashiers. The federal government would initially pay 100 percent of the costs of covering their medical care, and never less than 90 percent under the terms of the law. Over the past three years, 31 states and the District of Columbia took the deal. The move was especially helpful to states overwhelmed by the opioid epidemic. It required Medicaid to cover addiction and mental health treatment for those newly eligible. Announcing his vote against the G. O. P. proposal last week, Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican who represents a politically moderate district north of Philadelphia, said his top concern was “the impact on the single most important issue plaguing Bucks and Montgomery Counties, and the issue that I have made my priority in Congress: opioid abuse prevention, treatment and recovery. ” The Republican bill would have allowed Medicaid payments to grow per person at an inflation rate that would have eroded their value over time. The C. B. O. estimated that states would have gradually had to devote more of their own money to Medicaid, cut payments to doctors, tighten eligibility or cut services covered. In 2020, states would have started losing the 90 percent federal match for anyone who had gained Medicaid under the A. C. A. expansion but was dropped from the rolls, even briefly. And the bill required beneficiaries in the expansion population to every six months, instead of annually, increasing the likelihood that many would be dropped. As a result, the C. B. O. estimated that by 2026, less than 5 percent of Medicaid recipients enrolled under the A. C. A. would have been covered at the higher matching rate. But more broadly, the cuts would have almost inevitably affected every group covered by Medicaid, including the biggest block of recipients: 36 million children as of last year. Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Washington State Republican, announced her “no” vote on the bill Thursday, saying, “Protecting vulnerable children is a core purpose of the Medicaid program and when the program fails to do so, it fails entirely. ” The cuts would also likely have eventually hit poor, chronically ill mothers like Tracie Scott of Paulding, Ohio. She has multiple sclerosis and quit her job at a dollar store two years ago because of it. Medicaid covers her and her four children, including her daughter and an son with disease who has needed expensive medication and care for frequent fractures. “I’d be afraid to see some of the bills for my son,” Ms. Scott, 30, said as she cradled her newborn, Izabella, in their hospital room recently. “It’s been a lifesaver. ” For more than six million Americans older than 64, Medicaid pays for nursing homes and other care that they would never otherwise be able to afford, while Medicare covers their medical care. The threat to such care propelled Representative Webster, whose Central Florida district includes The Villages, a retirement community with more than 150, 000 residents, to lean “no” on the bill. “This uniquely impacted Florida and our growing senior population that’s only going to explode in years to come,” said Jaryn Emhof, his spokeswoman. Representative Smith of New Jersey said he was voting no because of concerns about the impact on people with disabilities, who make up just 15 percent of all Medicaid recipients but account for 42 percent of spending, making them particularly vulnerable to cuts. For millions of disabled people, Medicaid covers services provided at home or through local programs — aides who help them walk, eat and bathe, for example, and physical and speech therapy — that allow them to stay out of institutions, where care is often more expensive. But those services are optional for states, while the cost of institutional care is not. The law would have given states an incentive to place them in institutions. Medicaid pays for Barbara Theus, 67, to attend a day program in Southfield, Mich. so that her son and caregiver, Royale Theus, can work. Ms. Theus sustained a serious head injury in a car accident 11 years ago and has not been able to care for herself since then. Medicaid also pays for home health aides who help Ms. Theus, a former nurse who did not have much savings at the time of her accident, get showered and fed. Mr. Theus was relieved when the bill failed. Had his mother lost coverage, he said, he would have had to leave his job to care for her. “I was hopeful that the powers that be would make the best decisions for the people, and that’s what happened,” he said. This was the third major effort by Republicans to end Medicaid as an entitlement. The first was under President Ronald Reagan, the second was in 1995, after President Bill Clinton’s unsuccessful attempt to expand health care coverage. But this was the first time Republicans tried it while they controlled the White House and both houses of Congress. For all the battles over the years, Medicaid started as something of an afterthought. By 1960, both parties were worried that the country’s growing reliance on insurance was leaving out elderly people, who were unable to pay the rapidly rising cost of health care. The night of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, Lyndon Johnson returned to his home in Washington and, unable to sleep, summoned three aides. “That’s when he took out his pen and wrote down the priorities that he was going to pursue,” one of those aides, Bill Moyers, recalled in an interview. Among them was government health insurance. President Harry S. Truman had sought to establish national health insurance — and failed. Democrats decided to take on a more limited goal: insurance for elderly people. They called it Medicare. Democrats pushed for it to cover hospital bills for the elderly Republicans wanted it to pay for private doctor’s bills. The American Medical Association had long lobbied against Medicare, hiring Reagan, then a Hollywood actor, to be the face of its campaign, producing a 1961 LP titled “Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine. ” And the doctors’ group had an ally in Wilbur Mills, a conservative Democrat who was chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, who like the doctors’ group did not think that elderly people should have their bills covered. In 1960, Mr. Mills had a law that established a small program to help the states treat the needy, as a way to stave off proposals for Medicare. The doctors’ group suggested expanding this program, preferring it because it would be administered by states, not the federal government. Mr. Mills had a change of heart after Johnson’s landslide victory in 1964. Johnson’s Republican opponent, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, had denounced Medicare, and Mr. Mills, and many Republicans, were eager to distance themselves from him. In early 1965, Mr. Mills proposed what became known as the cake: Medicare for hospital insurance, Medicare for doctor’s bills and a broadened version of the law that helped states pay for the care of the poor, the program that would become Medicaid. “Hardly anybody talked about Medicaid,” said Paul Starr, a sociology professor at Princeton. “It just got added on. ” At first, Medicaid helped states provide medical care only for single parents and children on welfare. Over the next 25 years, Democrats — sometimes working with Republicans — gradually pushed to expand benefits — to families, to children with speech and development delays, to home treatment for people who would otherwise be institutionalized, to children up to age 5, then to age 8 and later to age 18, and to pregnant women. Ironically, some of the biggest expansions in Medicaid came in the 1980s under Reagan, the onetime A. M. A. mouthpiece. After Republicans failed to turn Medicaid into a block grant, Democrats, who still controlled Congress, worked on compromises with the president and other Republicans, sometimes allowing cuts in programs like Medicare in exchange for expanding Medicaid, said former Representative Henry Waxman, a Democrat who shepherded many of those expansions. Democrats carefully calibrated each expansion to fit within the annual budget, submitting plans to the Congressional Budget Office for “scoring,” to see how much each would cost. “We couldn’t do it all at once because we didn’t have enough money in the budgets,” Mr. Waxman said. But eventually, the goal to decouple Medicaid from the welfare system was achieved. “We broke the link to welfare,” he said. By the 1980s and ’90s, health insurance was becoming prohibitively costly, and wages were starting to stagnate. health insurance was eroding. States led by Republicans as well as Democrats began to expand their Medicaid programs. “What people began to accept, including Republicans, was that the assumption that you could afford health insurance if you were an adult was not true,” said Colleen M. Grogan, a professor at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, who has written extensively on health care. “You could be working and still not afford health insurance. ” In 1996, Mr. Clinton expanded Medicaid to cover more working families as part of his welfare overhaul. Campaigning for that year, he depicted Medicaid as a program, telling audiences it was helping their grandparents. “He is the first Democrat to start calling Medicaid one of ‘our programs,’” said Professor Morone of Brown. “There was a sense that Medicaid had sort of grown up as an entitlement. ” The expansion of Medicaid in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, passed with Republican sponsorship in 1997, set the stage for the sweeping expansions of the Affordable Care Act 13 years later. But politics during Mr. Obama’s presidency had become highly polarized. While earlier expansions of Medicaid had sometimes been bipartisan, the A. C. A. passed without a single Republican vote in Congress. The Tea Party had risen in opposition to the legislation, and later helped elect many of those who now form the conservative Freedom Caucus. Gradually, though, states have adopted the expansion. And now that the law known as Obamacare has survived the effort to repeal it, more states may choose to expand Medicaid. In Maine, voters will decide this fall whether to do so, and in Kansas, the Legislature has all but approved an expansion, although Gov. Sam Brownback could veto it. Last week, despite their desire to repeal Mr. Obama’s biggest domestic legacy, some Republicans recognized that any bill that would lead to such drastic cuts in Medicaid would simply hurt too many of their constituents. In Ashland, Va. Medicaid made it possible for Kim Goodloe and her husband, Tom, to start a small company making metal parts for semiconductors and medical devices after the birth of twin boys with tuberous sclerosis 27 years ago. The genetic disorder causes tumors in vital organs, leading to frequent seizures, and Mrs. Goodloe had quit her job to take care of the boys when they were 4 — Medicaid did not cover services for them back then. But now, Medicaid provides a home aide for Matthew, who is incontinent and nonverbal, suffers daily seizures and needs help walking. For the other twin, Christopher, who is less severely developmentally disabled, Medicaid provided a job coach, helping him to work at their company and earn enough money that he now pays taxes. The Goodloes have private insurance, but it is not required to pay for the twins’ services, she said. With Virginia facing such steep cuts to its federal Medicaid payments, Mrs. Goodloe worried about losing the home health aide. They would have had to downsize the business, which employs 30 people. “Even within my own family, when you say ‘Medicaid’ it comes with some, ‘Those people don’t want to work.’ They believe there’s a lot of fraud, there’s people that don’t deserve it. ” “But then,” she said, “They’ll say, ‘How could they take it away from Matthew? ’” | 1 |
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Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday that Ohio Gov. John Kasich should run for President again in 2020, challenging incumbent President Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary. [Schwarzenegger made the endorsement in an interview with the Los Angeles Times: “He should run in 2020, yes,” Schwarzenegger said in an interview with The Times when asked whether Kasich, whom he supported over Trump in the 2016 presidential race, should launch another presidential campaign. “Kasich is an extraordinary guy. He’s a man of substance. He’s worked in Washington, he’s worked in local government, he’s worked in statewide government. He has the experience. He can see things. He has vision,” Schwarzenegger enthused. “He’s also a moderate. He’s a tough Republican and very fiscally conservative, but he also at the same time loves helping people. ” Schwarzenegger backed Kasich in 2016, to little effect. In the Republican primary, the Ohio governor only carried his home state. Arguably, Kasich made Trump’s primary win easier by staying in the race so long that it became impossible for any Trump challenger — specifically, Sen. Ted Cruz ( ) — to round up the necessary delegates and campaign cash. During the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Kasich refused to show up, angering his own state’s delegation. Despite Kasich’s opposition, Trump carried the crucial Buckeye State by nearly 9 percentage points, taking all 18 Electoral College votes en route to victory. Trump and Schwarzenegger have carried on a war in social media, trading barbs over political issues and particularly over the ratings of The Apprentice, where Schwarzenegger filled in for Trump but later withdrew from the show. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
A retired member of the Rockettes dance troupe is encouraging its members to set aside their political differences and proudly perform at the inauguration of Donald Trump. [“The only thing the Rockettes should be focused on is performing for our nation and helping unite us all with the joy, love, beauty and strength for which they are famous,” says Patty DeCarlo Grantham, a veteran member of the renowned troupe. Grantham, who’s president of the Rockette Alumnae Association, says she was appalled by backlash and calls encouraging Rockettes to boycott the inaugural event. “To perform for someone that represents everything that we, as women, have ever had to overcome is contrary to everything we know to be right and true,” former Rockette Autumn Withers wrote last week, The Wrap reported. “On a national level, the optics of this alone normalize the atrocious remarks Mr. Trump has openly made towards women,” Withers continued. “The idea that if you simply ask their bosses or perhaps pay their bosses enough money, a line of beautiful women will oblige anyone in any way is exploitation. ” Grantham, responding to Withers, wrote to the Madison Square Garden Co. which owns Radio City Music Hall. “We are all aware how contentious this election has been for our country,” Grantham wrote, assuring MSG owner James Dolan “that in no way does Ms. Withers’ opinions reflect the opinion of the Rockette Alumnae Association. ” Madison Square Garden Company released a statement last week confirming that the dancers are not obligated to perform and that each Rockette “must voluntarily sign up. ” . @MSG says ”it is always their choice” in new statement on #Rockettes performing at Trump inauguration https: . pic. twitter. — Jackie Strause (@jackiedstrause) December 23, 2016, “Like the millions of people who are true Rockette fans, we cannot wait to see the Rockettes proudly ‘strut their stuff’ for the upcoming inauguration of the President of the United States of America,” wrote Grantham, who performed as a Rockette from 1959 through 1970. The Rockettes last performed at President George W. Bush’s presidential inauguration in 2005. The iconic dance troupe will join previously announced performers the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and teenage opera singer Jackie Evancho at the event on January 20. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
SYDNEY, Australia — The two men seeking to emerge as Australia’s prime minister after national elections on Saturday, Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, have begun a delicate courtship of a handful of lawmakers who are likely to hold the balance of power in the next Parliament. Officials will resume counting votes on Tuesday for about a dozen seats that are too close to call. The Liberal Party, now governing in a coalition with the National Party, said postal and ballots that were yet to be counted would be crucial to its securing a majority in the House of Representatives. As of Monday, neither the Liberal National coalition, led by Mr. Turnbull, nor the Labor Party, led by Mr. Shorten, had won enough seats to form a government outright. Vote counting stopped in the early hours of Sunday with the governing coalition at 67 seats and the Labor Party at 71, the Electoral Commission said. If neither side can form a clear majority government, the party that secures the support of enough lawmakers to control at least 76 seats can form a government. “Australian voters are changing,” said Bob Katter, an independent member whose electorate covers about 193, 000 square miles of central Queensland, an area double the size of Britain. “In the past, I could run around and kiss babies and mouth party platitudes and expect to get ” Mr. Katter said in a telephone interview on Monday. But that was when he was a member of the National Party, he said, adding that now, candidates must be much more responsive to the needs of their constituents. Mr. Katter, the leader of Katter’s Australian Party, easily won his rural seat. The lawmakers viewed as crucial to the next government — five independents, including Mr. Katter, and one from the Greens — have not met to discuss forming a voting bloc, and they are from diverse electorates. Mr. Katter, who once ran a cattle ranch, said he had had “ talks” with both leaders but had not reached an agreement with either. Wooing the swing lawmakers is likely to be troublesome. “They are very different candidates,” said Jill Sheppard, a political scientist at the Australian National University. “Their electorates are spread out and have very different needs. ” Australia has been here before. In 2010, the Labor Party, then led by Julia Gillard, signed agreements with independents and the Greens to secure the seats it needed to form a government. Three of those lawmakers agreed to vote in a bloc if there was a stalemate over legislation. But Andrew Wilkie, an independent and a former intelligence officer who entered Parliament in 2010, tore up his contract with Ms. Gillard two years later when she backed out of a deal with him to introduce restrictions on poker machines. Mr. Wilkie, who is from Tasmania, the most southern state in Australia, described that dispute and his time working with the Labor Party as so traumatic that he said he would not sign on with either side in this election. Mr. Turnbull telephoned Mr. Wilkie on Sunday. “It was as much ensuring that the channels of communications are open,” Mr. Wilkie told ABC television. “I went to this election with a position that I would not enter into any formal agreement with any party to allow them to form a government, and nothing has changed. ” Another independent, Cathy McGowan, a former teacher and farmer from rural northeastern Victoria, said much the same. “I am proudly independent, and I won’t be making any deals,” she said in a statement issued on Monday. Mr. Turnbull and Mr. Shorten had both called her to congratulate her on her victory, she said. Adam Bandt, the Greens candidate, who will occupy the House seat representing the inner city of Melbourne, said he would support a Labor government but would not sign onto a coalition to help it secure the right to govern. The Greens did agree to help Ms. Gillard form a government in 2010. In return, the party asked for almost $10 billion in clean energy investments, a tax on carbon consumption and free dental care for children of families with low incomes. Prime Minister Tony Abbott ended the carbon tax in 2014. The team of Senator Nick Xenophon from South Australia, which appeared to have won one lower house seat and has said a second may fall its way after a recount, said it would negotiate with either party to form a majority government. South Australia, sometimes described as Australia’s Rust Belt state, appears likely to lose its major steel manufacturer and automobile industry. The loss of the steel plant alone could cost 6, 000 jobs, in a state that has a population of about 1. 6 million. In the prelude to the election, Mr. Turnbull announced that South Australia would receive a share of a $37. 5 billion contract to help a French company build Australia’s new fleet of submarines. The terms of an alliance between the Xenophon team and either major party have not been broached. “It is about achieving the best outcomes for the electorates, and the state of South Australia, but also outcomes that are in the national interest,” said Stirling Griff of Adelaide, who will enter the Senate for the first time as a Xenophon team member. Further complicating matters, Mr. Shorten has called on Mr. Turnbull to quit. Some analysts say Australia could be without an effective government for more than a week. Having to negotiate with independent lawmakers over legislation “will be chaotic,” Mr. Katter said. “But it is also what we call democracy here. ” | 1 |
Snap has long been known as the maker of Snapchat, an app that sends disappearing messages, photographs and videos. But over the past few years, the company has repositioned itself as a camera company. One of the products that Snap has worked on to bolster that direction is a drone, according to three people briefed on the project who asked to remain anonymous because the details are confidential. A drone could help Snap’s users take overhead videos and photographs, and then feed that visual data to the company. It is unclear when or if Snap’s drone would become available to consumers. Like many technology companies, Snap often works on experiments, many of which are killed or repurposed into other projects. A Snap spokeswoman declined to comment. The work on a drone builds on Snap’s unveiling last year of Spectacles, sunglasses that record short video clips. The company also changed its name to Snap from Snapchat to reflect that it intended to branch out into myriad products. The drone gives a glimpse into what kind of future products Snap may be considering, which would affect the company’s growth. How the company plans to grow is on the minds of investors as Snap goes public this week. Snap priced its initial public offering on Wednesday and the stock is expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, in what is set to be the biggest technology I. P. O. since the Chinese company Alibaba in 2014. Snap set its I. P. O. pricing at $17 a share — higher than the expected range of $14 to $16 — valuing the company at $24 billion. Getting more visual data such as photographs and video is important to Snap because it helps bolster people’s interactions with Snapchat. Communicating on Snapchat is a highly visual process, intended to create an intense engagement among people with the app. Snap said in its public offering prospectus that the average Snapchat user opened the app more than 18 times a day, and that more than 2. 5 billion messages and images were sent each day with the app. Evan Spiegel, Snap’s chief executive, has been vocal about his company’s ambitions around cameras. In a video for investors about Snap’s public offering this month, Mr. Spiegel said cameras augmented the way a person communicates, rather than a person’s memory. “We’re at the beginning of what cameras can do,” Mr. Spiegel told viewers of the video. When Spectacles appeared, Snap faced questions from critics about why it would enter the realm of hardware products. The product is designed to make taking videos a fun and seamless part of everyday life, which dovetails with the company’s goal of getting users to feed Snapchat a steady stream of images and videos. “We believe that reinventing the camera represents our greatest opportunity to improve the way that people live and communicate,” Snap said in its public offering prospectus. “Our products empower people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together. ” | 1 |
During his speech at CPAC on Friday, President Trump dubbed CNN the “Clinton News Network,” and said, “we are fighting the fake news. ” And that he’s “against the people that make up stories, and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. ” Trump reacted to some of the applause during his speech by saying, that the “dishonest media” would say he didn’t get a standing ovation because “everybody stood and nobody sat. So, they will say, ‘He never got a standing ovation.’ They are the worst. ” He later added, “I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake, phony, fake. A few days ago, I called the fake news the enemy of the people and they are. They are the enemy of the people, because they have no sources. They just make them up when there are none. I saw one story recently where they said nine people have confirmed, there are no nine people, I don’t believe there was one or two people, nine people. … They make up sources. They’re very dishonest people. In fact, in covering my comments, the dishonest media did not explain that I called the fake news the enemy of the people, the fake news. They dropped off the word ‘fake,’ and all of a sudden, the story became the media is the enemy. ” Trump further stated that he wasn’t against the media and didn’t mind negative stories if he “deserved” them. He added, “I’m against the people that make up stories, and make up sources. They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. ” After saying that there were good reporters out there, Trump concluded by referencing the “Clinton News Network” and saying, “I mean, it’s a very sensitive topic, and they get upset when we expose their false stories, they say that we can’t criticize their dishonest coverage because of the First Amendment. … I love the First Amendment, nobody know — loves it better than me, nobody. I mean, who uses it more than I do? But the First Amendment gives all of us, it gives it to me, it gives it to you, it gives it to all Americans, the right to speak our minds freely. It gives you the right, and me the right to criticize fake news, and criticize it strongly. And many of these groups are part of the large media corporations that have their own agenda, and it’s not your agenda, and it’s not the country’s agenda. It’s their own agenda. they have a professional obligation, as members of the press, to report honestly, but, as you saw, throughout the entire campaign, and even now, the fake news doesn’t tell the truth. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
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Newt Gingrich has accused Fox News’ Megyn Kelly of being “fascinated” by sex, and not caring at all about public policy in a shocking and startling interview.
The former Speaker of the House said Kelly showed “bias” for mentioning the groping allegations against Donald Trump.
Kelly responded by saying her fascination is not of “sex,” but of who was going to end up in the White House. Kelly has a history with Trump – getting into a shouting match with the Republican candidate over comments he made about women during a primary debate.
What set Gingrich off was Kelly’s mention of the leaked “sex boasts” tapes, where Trump is heard to say he grabs women by the genitals.
Gingrich attacked, saying the media was obsessed with spending time on the unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct, which Trump has denied. “You are fascinated with sex and you don’t care about public policy,” he said.
“I’m not fascinated by sex, but I’m fascinated about sexual predators,” Kelly said.
The bias the media has against Trump – especially focusing on sex – is historic.
“This is a scale of bias worthy of Pravda and Izvestia, ” Gingrich said.
Take a look at the awesome video: | 0 |
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — For more than a decade, Silicon Valley’s technology investors and entrepreneurs obsessed over social media and mobile apps that helped people do things like find new friends, fetch a ride home or crowdsource a review of a product or a movie. Now Silicon Valley has found its next shiny new thing. And it does not have a “Like” button. The new era in Silicon Valley centers on artificial intelligence and robots, a transformation that many believe will have a payoff on the scale of the personal computing industry or the commercial internet, two previous generations that spread computing globally. Computers have begun to speak, listen and see, as well as sprout legs, wings and wheels to move unfettered in the world. The shift was evident in a Lowe’s home improvement store here this month, when a prototype inventory checker developed by Bossa Nova Robotics silently glided through the aisles using computer vision to automatically perform a task that humans have done manually for centuries. The robot, which was skilled enough to autonomously move out of the way of shoppers and avoid unexpected obstacles in the aisles, alerted people to its presence with soft birdsong chirps. Gliding down the middle of an aisle at a leisurely pace, it can recognize bar codes on shelves, and it uses a laser to detect which items are out of stock. Silicon Valley’s financiers and entrepreneurs are digging into artificial intelligence with remarkable exuberance. The region now has at least 19 companies designing cars and trucks, up from a handful five years ago. There are also more than a types of mobile robots, including robotic bellhops and aerial drones, being commercialized. “We saw a slow trickle in investments in robotics, and suddenly, boom — there seem to be a dozen companies securing large investment rounds focusing on specific robotic niches,” said Martin Hitch, chief executive of Bossa Nova, which has a base in San Francisco. Funding in A. I. has increased more than fourfold to $681 million in 2015, from $145 million in 2011, according to the market research firm CB Insights. The firm estimates that new investments will reach $1. 2 billion this year, up 76 percent from last year. “Whenever there is a new idea, the valley swarms it,” said Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, a chip maker that was founded to make graphic processors for the video game business but that has turned decisively toward artificial intelligence applications in the last year. “But you have to wait for a good idea, and good ideas don’t happen every day. ” By contrast, funding for social media peaked in 2011 before plunging. That year, venture capital firms made 66 social media deals and pumped in $2. 4 billion. So far this year, there have been just 10 social media investments, totaling $6. 9 million, according to CB Insights. Last month, the professional social networking site LinkedIn was sold to Microsoft for $26. 2 billion, underscoring that social media has become a mature market sector. Even Silicon Valley’s biggest social media companies are now getting into artificial intelligence, as are other tech behemoths. Facebook is using A. I. to improve its products. Google will soon compete with Amazon’s Echo and Apple’s Siri, which are based on A. I. with a device that listens in the home, answers questions and places orders. Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, recently appeared at the Aspen Ideas Conference and called for a partnership between humans and artificial intelligence systems in which machines are designed to augment humans. The auto industry has also set up camp in the valley to learn how to make cars that can do the driving for you. Both technology and car companies are making claims that increasingly powerful sensors and A. I. software will enable cars to drive themselves with the push of a button as soon as the end of this decade — despite recent Tesla crashes that have raised the question of how quickly human drivers will be completely replaced by the technology. Silicon Valley’s new A. I. era underscores the region’s ability to opportunistically reinvent itself and quickly follow the latest tech trend. “This is at the heart of the region’s culture that goes all the way back to the Gold Rush,” said Paul Saffo, a longtime technology forecaster and a faculty member at Singularity University. “The valley is built on the idea that there is always a way to start over and find a new beginning. ” The change spurred a rush for talent in A. I. that has become intense. “It’s ridiculous,” said Richard Socher, chief scientist at the software maker Salesforce, who teaches a course at Stanford on a machine intelligence technique known as deep learning. “The number of people trying to get the students to drop out of the class halfway through because now they know a little bit of this stuff is crazy. ” The valley’s tendency toward reinvention dates back to the region’s initial emergence from the ashes of a deep aerospace industry recession as a manufacturing center producing memory chips, video games and digital watches in the . A malaise in the personal computing market in the early 1990s was followed by the World Wide Web and the global expansion of the consumer internet. A decade later, in 2007, just as innovation in mobile phones seemed to be on the verge of moving away from Silicon Valley to Europe and Asia, Apple introduced the first iPhone, resetting the mobile communications marketplace and ensuring that the valley would — for at least another generation — remain the world’s innovation center. In the most recent shift, the A. I. idea emerged first in Canada in the work of cognitive scientists and computer scientists like Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun during the previous decade. The three helped pioneer a new approach to deep learning, a machine learning method that is highly effective for pattern recognition challenges like vision and speech. Modeled on a general understanding of how the human brain works, it has helped technologists make rapid progress in a wide range of A. I. fields. How far the A. I. boom will go is hotly debated. For some technologists, today’s technical advances are laying the groundwork for truly brilliant machines that will soon have intelligence. Yet Silicon Valley has faced false starts with A. I. before. During the 1980s, an earlier generation of entrepreneurs also believed that artificial intelligence was the wave of the future, leading to a flurry of . Their products offered little business value at the time, and so the commercial enthusiasm ended in disappointment, leading to a period now referred to as the “A. I. Winter. ” The current resurgence will not fall short this time, said several investors, who believe that the economic potential in terms of new efficiency and new applications is strong. “There is no chance of a new winter,” said Shivon Zilis, an investor at Bloomberg Beta who specializes in machine intelligence . John Shoch, a veteran venture capitalist at Alloy Ventures in Palo Alto, Calif. said deep learning has made a difference to the potential success of A. I. companies. “You get a new set of tools that let you attack a new set of problems, which let you push the boundary out,” he said. For others, like Jerry Kaplan, who helped found two A. I. companies in the 1980s — Symantec, which became a security company, and Teknowledge, which ultimately shut down — the Valley’s new enthusiasm is troubling because it suggests an unfounded optimism similar to earlier eras in which the field overpromised and underdelivered. “Sometimes when I hang around with A. I. enthusiasts here in the valley, I feel like an atheist at a convention of evangelicals,” he said. | 1 |
Moammar Qaddafi’s son Saif recently released from half a decade of captivity by a Libyan militia group, has hit a major stumbling block in his bid to become a unifying figure for Libya: the International Criminal Court wants him arrested and hauled before a war crimes trial in the Hague. [This is not an entirely surprising development because the ICC has made it clear all along that it considers Qaddafi’s case very much open. It was not clear until now just how aggressively the court would pursue him, but it was made very clear indeed in a statement on Wednesday from chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. Bensouda declared that the 2011 arrest warrant against Saif “remains valid, and Libya is obliged to immediately arrest and surrender Mr. Qaddafi. ” She called upon any other state that has an opportunity to arrest Qaddafi to do so if he leaves Libya. “Helping a fugitive to escape justice must not be tolerated, and Mr. Gaddafi must be surrendered to the custody of the Court,” Bensouda declared. She added this directive supersedes “any purported amnesty law in Libya. ” One of Libya’s several governments declared an amnesty throughout the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Another Libyan government sentenced Qaddafi to death in absentia in 2015 and has given no indication of rescinding its judgment. Human Rights Watch (HRW) applauded the ICC’s demand to bring Saif to justice, citing a U. N. Security Council resolution requiring Libyan authorities to cooperate with the ICC, while also accusing his former captors of abuses for their treatment of him. “The reported release of Gaddafi based on a flawed amnesty law does not change the fact that he is wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity. The Zintan brigade, which alleges that it released him, should urgently disclose his current whereabouts,” said HRW International Justice Director Richard Dicker. However, Human Rights Watch also noted that the Zintan brigade held Qaddafi incommunicado, subjected him to solitary confinement, denied him access to legal counsel, illegally interrogated him, and held him long after the Libyan government the brigade nominally answers to ordered his release. Also, HRW noted that the Libyan court which sentenced Qaddafi to death did not meet international fair trial standards and cited the wording of the Libyan amnesty law to point out that it does not cover the offenses Qaddafi stands accused of, concluding that only the International Criminal Court can handle the case. In fact, Human Rights Watch wants the ICC to take over more investigations and prosecutions of Libyans on all sides of its conflict for human rights violations, including the abuse of migrants. | 1 |
Project Veritas: Bartender who recorded Romney’s 47 percent speech was part of ‘coordinated operation’ Posted at 11:14 pm on October 26, 2016 by Brett T. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter
As Twitchy reported, James O’Keefe on Tuesday teased a new Project Veritas video that would ensure Americans United for Change director Brad Woodhouse a “busy busy day.”
That video premiered on Fox News’“The O’Reilly Factor” Wednesday night. Remarkably, Scott Foval, fired from Americans United for Change after previous Project Veritas video releases, had even more secrets to offer up — and this one was big. . @oreillyfactor breaks new video showing @woodhouseb / Scott Foval was responsible for @DavidCornDC video, not "bartender" pic.twitter.com/IxpfHdqpB6
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 27, 2016
In Wednesday’s video release, Foval explains that the bartender who caught Romney’s devastating “47 percent” remarks on video during a fundraiser was part of a coordinated operation to sneak a video recording device into the event. That video eventually was passed along to David Corn of Mother Jones, who won a George Polk Award for his efforts. Breaking on @oreillyfactor tonight: Scott Foval reveals who was really behind the @MittRomney 47% video. #Veritas @PVeritas_Action pic.twitter.com/Zr5ANuzSdq
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 27, 2016
The story at the time, of course, was that bartender Scott Prouty brought a camera along in hopes of perhaps getting a photo with Romney — which somehow involved setting down the camera and hitting the record button. Progressives hailed Prouty as a hero for coming forward with the video: It's up to us to keep the wolves from tearing up Scott Prouty, who did the right thing without any desire to be in the limelight. | 0 |
PAUL VAN AUKEN, WSWS.ORG 28 October 2016 T he United Nations Security Council was the scene Wednesday of a bitter exchange over the ongoing war in Syria, with the Western powers indicting Russia for war crimes over its operations in the northern city of Aleppo. The UN aid chief and former Tory member of the British parliament Stephen O’Brien set the tone by declaring himself “incandescent with rage” over the inability of the Security Council to take action. “Aleppo has essentially become a kill zone,” he said. The fact that both Russian and Syrian warplanes have halted their strikes against the Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamist militias that control eastern Aleppo for the past 10 days was brushed aside by Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, who represents the living embodiment of imperialist “human rights” hypocrisy. Clueless Americans’ tax dollars at work: Samantha Power doing her Neocon best to stir up further trouble for humanity. Taunting Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin, she declared. “You don’t get congratulations and credit for not committing war crimes for a day or a week.” Continuing her tirade, Power asked, “Does Russia believe that all of the children in eastern Aleppo are Al Qaeda members?” Such outrage over the fate of civilians and children is highly selective. None of the representatives of US imperialism and its allies evinced even a spark of rage over the killing of men, women and children in government-controlled western Aleppo, which is regularly bombarded by mortars and rockets provided to the Al Qaeda “rebels” by the Pentagon and the CIA. On Thursday, rocket fire claimed the lives of six children in the west of the city, where the vast majority of the population lives. Three Syrian children died at their school, where 14 other students were wounded. In a separate attack, three young brothers died when a rocket struck their home. Nor for that matter, as far as the human rights imperialists are concerned, can the slaughter of civilians in US air strikes elsewhere in Syria be compared in any way to the deaths caused by Russian bombs in Aleppo. Amnesty International issued a report Tuesday on 11 separate strikes by the US-led “coalition” in which it said some 300 civilians were killed. The Pentagon has acknowledged only one death in these bombing raids. Other monitoring groups have put the civilian death toll inflicted by the US air war in Syria at well over 1,000. All told, the Pentagon admits to killing only 55 civilians in two years. Power’s jibe that the Russians view every child in Aleppo as a member of Al Qaeda applies with equal force to the Pentagon, whose bombs apparently kill only members of ISIS. Power is herself a veteran practitioner of this kind of grotesque double standard. This crusader for human rights took the effective position that “every child in Gaza was a member of Hamas” during the 51-day Israeli siege of 2013 that killed over 2,100 Palestinians and wounded another 11,000. During this one-sided slaughter, the US ambassador used her post at the UN to relentlessly proclaim Israel’s right to “defend” itself. Waving the filthy imperialist human rights banner, she was also one of the leading proponents of the US-NATO war in Libya that killed tens of thousands and left the country in ruins, as well as the war for regime change in Syria, which has killed over 300,000 and driven millions from their homes. T he hypocrisy and double standard of the war crimes denunciations against Russia over Aleppo emerges most starkly in relation to the launching earlier this month of a US-led siege of the Iraqi city of Mosul, just over 300 miles to the east, which was overrun by ISIS in 2014. While the Russians are indicted for turning Aleppo into a “kill zone,” the Western media routinely refers to the American onslaught as the “liberation” of Mosul. To that end, US warplanes, rocket launchers and heavy artillery are relentlessly pounding the city of over a million, which analysts acknowledge will be reduced to rubble. The head of the US military’s Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel, boasted in an interview with AFP that his forces had killed “800 to 900 Islamic State fighters.” He said not a word as to how many civilians had died under the US bombardment; nor has the US corporate media shown any interest in that subject. When one horrific incident did come to light—the bombing of a Shia mosque near Kirkuk last Friday in which 17 women and children lost their lives and scores were wounded—the Pentagon brushed it aside and the media largely ignored it. Even as US officials, parroted by the press, indict ISIS for using Mosul’s population as “human shields”—a timeworn alibi for the slaughter of civilians—they ignore and tacitly support Al Qaeda’s use of terror and violence to prevent civilians from fleeing from the besieged neighborhoods of eastern Aleppo. While the actions carried out by the Russian military against the civilians trapped in eastern Aleppo are no doubt reprehensible, they are not the real concern of those screaming about war crimes. Their fear is that the Al Qaeda-linked militias that serve as the principal proxy force in the war for regime change are facing a final rout. Power trying to dragoon the UN Russian delegate, V. Churkin. Encouraged and rewarded by their hypocritical masters, the empire’s goons know no limits to their audacious indecency. More fundamentally, the crimes of Russia[—such as they are, and that, in itself needs careful contextual examination— Editors] in Aleppo pale in comparison to those carried out by Washington in the region, and for that matter, around the globe. Have those who feign shock and rage over the Russian bombs dropped on Syria forgotten “shock and awe?” The US invasion and occupation of Iraq took an estimated 1 million Iraqi lives. Are these champions of human rights unaware of the ongoing slaughter in Yemen, where over 10,000 people have died under Saudi airstrikes carried out with US supplied bombs and missiles and made possible by extensive intelligence and logistical aid from the Pentagon? Why is there no rage over a war by the ruling monarchy of the Middle East’s wealthiest nation against the region’s poorest, in which the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and a blockade imposed with the aid of US forces is threatening the population with starvation? When it comes to war crimes, the Kremlin oligarchy represented by Vladimir Putin is in the minor leagues. Since the end of World War II, and the US atomic bombs that killed some 200,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, virtually every US president has engaged in wars of military aggression that entailed war crimes, many of them on a scale surpassed only by the atrocities carried out by Hitler’s Third Reich. The Korean War resulted in 3 million civilian deaths; in Vietnam, the US killed some 3 to 4 million civilians. Afghanistan’s tragic and protracted encounter with US imperialism, dating back to the CIA-orchestrated war of regime change of the 1980s, claimed the lives of between 1.5 and 2 million more. Meanwhile, Washington remains at war in at least seven different countries, where civilian deaths continue to mount daily: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Somalia. The source of the feigned rage and tears over Aleppo is the fact that the US war for regime change in Syria has turned into a debacle. Moscow launched its intervention in defense of the interests of Russia’s ruling capitalist oligarchy, not those of the Syrian masses. Nonetheless, it has presented an obstacle to the US drive to assert its hegemony over the entire oil-rich region of the Middle East. The unrelenting “human rights” propaganda and demonization of Russia over Aleppo stands as a warning. US imperialism is preparing a major escalation, not only of the US intervention in Syria, but of its confrontation with Russia itself, carrying with it the real and present danger of a nuclear war. —Bill Van Auken | 0 |
2016 presidential campaign by Ann Garrison
The just-concluded election revealed as much about the corporate media, which has broken every rule of journalism to support Hillary Clinton, and the fraudulence of much of the American Left, which turns out to have no real problem with war or capitalism, than it did about the candidates, themselves. Edward Herman is an exception, a genuine man of the Left. He says “a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for war with Syria and Russia.” Clinton Is the Most Dangerous Person Alive – An Interview with Edward S. Herman by Ann Garrison
“ The election of Hillary Clinton might threaten a democratic order as much as a Trump victory.”
Ann Garrison: Earlier this year, you told me that you differ with Noam Chomsky, your co-author of Manufacturing Consent and other books, in that you plan to vote for the Green Party's presidential and vice presidential candidates Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka in the swing state of Pennsylvania. Are you still planning to do so?
Edward S. Herman: Yes.
AG: Can you explain why?
ESH: Because the two duopoly candidates are dangerous to societal and international welfare and even survival. Hillary Clinton is a neo-liberal and pre-eminent war-monger. I think she is the most dangerous person living in the world today, given her highly likely election victory and her likely performance as president. She represents the corporate elite and military-industrial complex more clearly than Trump and she is a follow-on to Bush and Obama. She will pursue similar policies except for her somewhat more aggressive bent.
Trump is a self-promoting windbag, racist and dangerous, unpredictable phony. We have a ghastly choice in these two. Jill Stein offers a protest opportunity, more so than not voting. On the line that either voting for Stein or not voting would constitute a vote for Trump, one might argue that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for war with Syria and Russia and a vote for Netanyahu (and hence for escalated violence in Palestine).
AG: Hillary Clinton and John Podesta's e-mail has revealed that Hillary Clinton is well aware that the Saudi and Qatari rulers - not rogue elements - fund ISIS, and the same Saudi and Qatari rulers fund the Clinton Foundation. Throughout the last George Bush's presidency, there were innumerable headlines that "Saudi oil sheikhs met with George Bush on his Crawford, Texas ranch." What are your thoughts on that?
ESH: Saudi Arabia is a US ally and an instrument of the warfare state. Hillary Clinton has treated its leaders warmly and she will continue to do so as president. The Clinton Foundation's receipt of money from Saudi and Qatari leaders is a first class conflict of interest and outrage, but the media have focused on the many less important abuses of Trump, helping cover over the outrages of their preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton, and her husband, Bill Clinton.
AG: What do you think of Clinton's statement that she would make removing Bashar Al-Assad her top priority? And Trump's statement that he would not, because that would recklessly risk confrontation with Russia?
ESH: Hillary Clinton has essentially promised to escalate war in Syria and is therefore promising to go to war with Russia as well. Diana Johnstone has made the case that Hillary Clinton plans to try to bring about "regime change" in Russia (cite). This is of course incredibly dangerous and would have aroused a really democratic media, but the existing media are part of the war system, hence Hillary Clinton's commitment to wars is essentially suppressed. Trump has made a number of statements along the lines of reducing US interventions and commitments abroad and trying to deal with Russia in a less confrontational manner, but he has sometimes contradicted himself by urging expanded arms, use of nuclear weapons, etc. But Hillary Clinton has said nothing that would offset her war-mongering. This difference from Trump may help explain the intensity of media hostility to Trump.
AG: Jill Stein has said that "wars for oil are blowing back at us wth a vengeance" and that she would cut the military budget by half, close most of the foreign bases, and redirect resources into a Green New Deal that would fully employ Americans building sustainable energy and agricultural infrastructure. I can't imagine you disagree, but do you think it's important for the Greens to articulate such a vision at the national and international level, instead of focusing solely on local races that they might win?
ESH: The Greens don't have the resources to compete in many local elections. So she is wise to focus on the big national and international issues. Furthermore, the real gap in the political system is the lack of opposition to national neoliberal and militaristic policies. It is said that she can't make a bigger mark given the hegemony of the duopoly, but even Ralph Nader couldn't get 5 percent of the vote. The system still works well, for the 1%.
AG : Michael Moore has made a movie called "Trumpland" and warned that Trump's election would be the end of the United States , assuming that would be a bad thing. David Swanson, author of "War Is a Lie," has imagined the same but argued, in " Secession, Trump, and the Avoidability of Civil War ," that the break-up of the United States is not the worst possibility on the horizon. Do you have any thoughts on this?
ESH: Michael Moore is completely oblivious to the fact that the enlarging war that is likely to follow Hillary Clinton's election threatens not only a nuclear exchange but also attacks on civil liberties and the march toward fascism. In its own way, the election of Hillary Clinton might threaten a democratic order as much as a Trump victory. The anti-Trump hysteria has tended to block out consideration of the Hillary Clinton menace.
AG: Is there anything else you'd like to say about why you're voting for Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka?
ESH: I've always believed in the moral rule laid down in the categorical imperative: "Do that which you would wish generalized." Ann Garrison an independent journalist based in Oakland, USA. | 0 |
I Dont Actualy Like Trump thoif yu like him then your an idiot | 0 |
Following news of FBI Director James Comey’s decision to reopen the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure at the State Department, federal law enforcement officials have come forward with new details on recently discovered evidence in the case.
More on this: DEVELOPING: FBI Reopens Investigation into Clinton Emails After New ‘Pertinent’ Evidence Discovered
While Director Comey declined to provide specific details on what the newly discovered Clinton emails contained, federal law enforcements officials speaking under anonymity have explained that the emails were found on the personal devices of Clinton aide Huma Abedin and disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner.
The discovery came as part of investigation into yet another Weiner ‘sexting’ scandal, this time after he was alleged to have been engaging in sexually explicit conversations with an underage female.
More on the latest Weiner scandal: ‘Carlos Danger’ Strikes Again: New Reports Allege Anthony Weiner Knowingly Engaged in Sexually Explicit Conversations with 15 Year Old Female Online
As reported by the New York Times, authorities discovered ‘pertinent’ emails related to the Clinton investigation on personal electronic devices belonging to Abedin and Weiner that had been seized by investigators as part of the investigation in Weiner’s alleged inappropriate conversations with a child.
Via NYT
Federal law enforcement officials said Friday that the new emails uncovered in the closed investigation into Hillary Clinton ’s use of a private email server were discovered after the F.B.I. seized electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin, an aide to Mrs. Clinton, and her husband, Anthony Weiner.
The F.B.I. told Congress that it had uncovered new emails related to the closed investigation into whether Mrs. Clinton or her aides had mishandled classified information, potentially reigniting an issue that has weighed on the presidential campaign and offering a lifeline to Donald J. Trump less than two weeks before the election.
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We will continue to update as new details surface.
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The vast majority of interactions between police officers and civilians end routinely, with no one injured, no one aggrieved and no one making the headlines. But when force is used, a new study has found, the race of the person being stopped by officers is significant. The study of thousands of episodes from police departments across the nation has concluded what many people have long thought, but which could not be proved because of a lack of data: are far more likely than whites and other groups to be the victims of use of force by the police, even when racial disparities in crime are taken into account. The report, to be released Friday by the Center for Policing Equity, a New think tank, took three years to assemble and largely refutes explanations from some police officials that blacks are more likely to be subjected to police force because they are more frequently involved in criminal activity. The researchers said they did not gather enough data specifically related to police shootings to draw conclusions on whether there were racial disparities when it came to the fatal confrontations between officers and civilians so in the news. The study’s release comes at a particularly volatile time in the relationship between the police and minority communities after fatal police shootings of men this week in Louisiana and Minnesota prompted widespread outrage. Portions of the episodes, both captured on video and released publicly, have intensified calls for police reform as many departments across the nation have been slow to deploy body cameras or to mandate changes in officer training standards after the deaths of a number of at the hands of police officers in the past two years. activists who have demanded greater police accountability since the 2014 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. set off days of rioting, said Thursday that the study was critical to the conversation, but far from surprising. “It’s kind of like, ‘Is water wet? ’” said Aislinn Sol, organizer of the Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter. “But what we gain with each study, each new piece of information is that we are able to win people over who are on the fence. The evidence is becoming overwhelming and incontrovertible that it is a systemic problem, rather than an isolated one. ” The organization compiled more than 19, 000 incidents by police officers representing 11 large and midsize cities and one large urban county from 2010 to 2015. It is the sort of data the Obama administration and the Justice Department have been seeking from police departments for nearly two years, in many cases, unsuccessfully. The report found that although officers employ force in less than 2 percent of all interactions, the use of police force is disproportionately high for — more than three times greater than for whites. The study, “The Science of Justice: Race, Arrests, and Police Use of Force,” did not seek to determine whether the employment of force in any particular instance was justified, but the center’s researchers found that the disparity in which were subjected to police force remained consistent across what law enforcement officers call the continuum — from relatively mild physical force, through baton strikes, canine bites, pepper spray, Tasers and gunshots. “The dominant narrative has been that this happens to because they are arrested in disproportionate numbers,” said Phillip Atiba Goff, a founder and president of the Center for Policing Equity, based at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “But the data really makes it difficult to say that crime is the primary driver of this. In every single category, the disparity persists. ” The study found that the overall mean rate for all black residents was 273 per 100, 000, which is 3. 6 times higher than the rate for white residents (76 per 100, 000) and 2. 5 times higher than the overall rate of 108 per 100, 000 for all residents. For those who were arrested, the mean rate of use of force against blacks was 46 for every 1, 000 arrests, compared with 36 per 1, 000 for whites. The Obama administration has been nudging police departments to adapt tactics and to fix broken relationships with poor and minority communities across the nation, which typically experience far more intensive policing because of what are frequently higher crime rates. But because police departments often refuse to release data that would illustrate such trends, the federal government has had a difficult time in determining whether police departments are employing force less often. The federal government cannot generally compel police departments to hand over such material, and many local agencies say they do not require officers to submit reports. Other departments say they lack the resources to collect such information, and others acknowledge privately that they fear that the release of their data would subject them to unwanted scrutiny from the public and the federal government. But when the Justice Department has had the ability to review records, it has found evidence of abuse. In Seattle, federal investigators found that one out of every five episodes had been excessive. In Albuquerque, the Justice Department determined that most police shootings from 2009 to 2012 had been unjustified. Researchers for the center said Thursday that the compilation of the material after years of failed efforts to determine whether racial bias was present represented a significant success. The data is so closely held by police departments that the agencies that cooperated with the project did so anonymously. Though the 12 municipalities that provided data were not named, they represented a large urban county in California and 11 cities spanning the nation with populations that range from less than 100, 000 to several million, with an average population of 600, 000. The center said that given the diversity of the municipalities — six are predominantly white, one is predominantly black or Latino, and five have populations in which no single racial or ethnic group represents 50 percent or more of the population — that the findings are likely to hold true for most other cities. Cameron McLay, the police chief of Pittsburgh, said his agency had been among those to share its data. He said use of force by his officers had decreased in recent years, but acknowledged that there remained concerns about disparities in use of force when it came to . “We are responsible for not just bringing down the crime rate, but for making people feel safe in their communities,” he said. | 1 |
November 12, 2016
Historians were undertaking a frantic reassessment of the contribution of Mark Twain yesterday, after the surprise discovery of a box of jottings by the famous American author, known for his sparkling epigrams. The box, containing notes from his early life in Missouri was uncovered during a spring clean of the Twain family home in Connecticut, now a working museum dedicated to the literary legend. On one note, Twain wrote that ‘golf is a good wank spoiled’, casting considerable doubt on the commonly held view that he was comparing the sport unfavourably to a walk in the park.
‘Twain was a prodigious masturbator as a teenager, that much we know from published memoirs, and the extensive porn collection found under his mattress,’ indicated Cecile De Mornay, Professor of American Literature at Oxford University. ‘These new notes reveal much about the state of his mind – and his trousers – during his formative years. As he entered adolescence, it seems he struggled to find much privacy in the family home, so he would often sneak off to the local golf club to snap one out.’
‘The local toilets at the club provided him with a nice quiet space for him to bash his bishop,’ continued De Mornay. ‘Frustratingly for him, sometimes, other members of the golf club would spot him before he reached the toilets, and, understandably, they would invite him to join them for 18 holes, thus spoiling his regular bouts of self-discovery. A round of fourballs, rather than his preference for a solitary game with two balls and a wood, if you like.’
Experts suggest that this discovery will not be a long term stain on Twain’s reputation, although the impact on his bedsheets is a different matter. ‘Twain’s place in the spotlight will come again’, concluded De Mornay confidently. ‘Although, with this new discovery, it is actually his come that is being placed under the spotlight.’ Share this story...
Posted: Nov 12th, 2016 by chrisf Click for more article by chrisf .. More Stories about: Arts/Entertainment | 0 |
In a Tony Awards night shadowed by the tragedy in Orlando, Fla. prizewinners and other performers worked hard to strike a balance between joy and reflection. Here are some moments to remember: Soon after delivering a tremulous speech addressed to the TV audience (“Hate will never win”) the Tonys host, James Corden, dove into a breathless of 20 Broadway hits, concluding with some elegant hoofing to “We’re in the Money” from “42nd Street. ” “Think of tonight as the Oscars, but with diversity,” Mr. Corden joked in his opening monologue. And the show delivered: In a first for Broadway, Tony voters gave the four musical performance awards to black actors: Cynthia Erivo of “The Color Purple” and Leslie Odom Jr. Renée Elise Goldsberry and Daveed Diggs of “Hamilton. ” In his acceptance speech for best score for “Hamilton,” Miranda provided the broadcast’s emotional high point, reading a sonnet he had written that cited “senseless acts of tragedy” and included the repeated “and love is love, is love, is love, is love” that brought down the house. Asked later why he decided to address the situation this way, he said: “We live in this world where beautiful and horrible things exist at the same time. You can’t let that go by, particularly when theater doesn’t exist without the L. G. B. T. community. ” Not only did a pregnant Audra McDonald tap her heart out in the “Shuffle Along” production number, she later presented the prize for best actress in a musical — a category in which she was overlooked. With six Tonys already, it’s easier to take things in stride. In winning best leading actor in a play for “The Father,” Frank Langella tied Boyd Gaines for the most Tonys won by a male actor. He used his acceptance speech to movingly remember the victims of the massacre in Orlando, Fla. “I’m now a man, and I react to things a lot more profoundly than I did when I was 60, when I was 50 or 40,” Mr. Langella said. “This constant violence and sense of madness that seems to be pervading this country is terrifying. ” He continued: “I urge you, Orlando, to be strong. I’m standing in a room full of the most generous human beings on earth, and we will be with you every step of the way. ” Mr. Langella’s other Tonys were for his roles in “Seascape” (1975) “Fortune’s Fool” (2002) and “ ” (2007). The costume designer William Ivey Long said he scrambled to make some 3, 000 commemorative ribbons in the basement of the Beacon Theater, where the ceremony was held. In an interview on the red carpet, Mr. Long said the ribbons were a small way for Broadway to show its support for the victims and their families in Orlando. ”You’re helpless because you’re here,” he said. “We wanted to open our arms and show love, that we understand. ” Mr. Diggs almost upstaged his own acceptance speech by wearing a jacket with gaudy patchwork sleeves that you almost couldn’t take your eyes off. Meanwhile, Barbra Streisand’s look seemed almost a spoiler, giving the nod to “Hamilton” as best musical before she’d even opened the envelope. She joked, “Thank God I picked the right outfit. ” As the camera panned to show nominees for best director of a musical, it focused on the actor Christopher Fitzgerald, not Michael Arden, the director of “Spring Awakening. ” Mr. Arden later tweeted: “If you know anything about me I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life — what some would consider the lifeblood of a woman’s career — just trying to have children. And I get to testify in front of all of you that the Lord gave me Benjamin and Brielle and then he still gave me this. Thank you. ” — Ms. Goldsberry accepting her Tony. From the show’s opening number, in which Mr. Corden glanced back fondly on his formative years as a bespectacled kid with big dreams, parents were paid tribute throughout the night for the encouragement they offered and sacrifices they made for their sons and daughters. In his acceptance speech, Mr. Diggs thanked his father for joining him in a preschool gymnastics performance in which they both wore “matching rainbow tights,” and his mother for “permission to do something that everyone else wasn’t doing. ” Later in the program, Mr. Corden found his father in the audience and asked him how he thought the show was going. “It’s great, mate,” he replied, “but it’s going on a bit, isn’t it?” Compiled by Mike Hale, Scott Heller, Charles Isherwood, Dave Itzkoff and Erik Piepenburg. | 1 |
Police were able to arrest a suspect early Wednesday morning after a woman was knocked unconscious having been pushed onto the tracks of the Hamburg underground railway by a Moroccan illegal. [The paperless migrant who Die Welt reports had no residence permit in Germany and is in the country illegally assaulted a woman in the early hours of Wednesday morning. CCTV footage reviewed by officers showed the illegal youth attempting to reach into the woman’s handbag at around one o’clock in the morning, but being spotted by his intended victim. As the woman called for help and resisted the attack, the Moroccan male pushed her backwards, causing the woman to stumble onto the tracks below, the fall knocking her unconscious. Examination in hospital showed the woman had suffered a concussion as a result of her head striking the railway track. Fortunately, no trains were due on the line at that time and German Rail staff came to her aid. The assailant fled the scene, but was identified from security camera footage and was later arrested. He is being held on suspicion of “predatory theft”. Germany’s underground railways are becoming an increasing target for migrant criminals, who in addition to engaging in theft have also been reported to act with extreme violence towards other subway users. Breitbart London reported in December of a Berlin police hunt for a group of migrants who were caught on security cameras setting a homeless man sleeping on a station platform alight on Christmas day. The Syrian and Libyan gang have been charged with attempted murder. In another incident caught on security camera, German police sought a group of Bulgarian men after they, in an apparently unprovoked attack, kicked a woman down a flight of stairs leading to the platform. The victim was admitted to hospital with a broken forearm. | 1 |
Страна: Южная Корея Мы продолжаем информировать аудиторию о скандале вокруг Чхве Сун Силь — конфидантки президента РК Пак Кын Хе, так как кризис, связанный с ее вмешательством в государственные дела и коррупцией, продолжает развиваться. Напомним, что, не имея формального допуска, Чхве читала ДСП-шные материалы, правила речи президента (правда, пока все же нет доказательств идеологического, а не стилистического характера правки) и подозревается также в сборе средств с крупных компаний, в числе которых Lotte и SK Group, в связанные с ней фонды MIR и K-Sports. 4 ноября 2016 г. президент РК выступила в прямом телеэфире и принесла извинения, признав, что «чрезмерная зависимость от Чхве ослепила мою объективность и возможность суждений». Говорила очень эмоционально, что нетипично для нее, взяла всю ответственность за скандал на себя и заявила, что очень сожалеет о том, что разочаровала народ, который доверил ей управление государством. Пак указала, что работала над улучшением экономики и жизни населения, но отдельные личности пошли на противозаконные действия в своих интересах, отчего она испытывает глубокие переживания. Такая эмоциональность имеет причины, если вспоминать биографию президента РК – после смерти родителей и на фоне очень сложных отношений с семьей, Чхве, дочь ее духовного наставника, была самым близким человеком и соратником в течение очень долгого времени. Президент подчеркнула, что готова принять все требования народа и Национального собрания в рамках выполнения возложенных не неё обязанностей. В том числе в случае необходимости оказать содействие следствию со стороны прокуратуры и принять участие в специальном расследовании, хотя формально она на вполне законных основаниях могла бы отказаться от этого. Однако при этом Пак Кын Хе отметила, что сегодня безопасность и экономика страны под большой угрозой. Поэтому нельзя, чтобы реализация государственной политики прекращалась. Извинения, однако, пришлись по вкусу не всем. В правящей партии Сэнури выступление главы государства оценили положительно, указав, что президент согласилась со всеми требованиями общественности, выразив твёрдую готовность к выяснению всех подробностей скандала и предотвращению возникновения подобных ситуаций в будущем. Глава оппозиционной Демократической партии Тобуро Чху Ми Э наоборот, заявила, что извинения Пак Кын Хе не дали ответов, которых ожидал возмущённый народ, и назвала выступление президента всего лишь неискренним оправданием. Председатель временного комитета Народной партии Пак Чи Вон указал на неприемлемость заявления Пак Кын Хе о том, что проблема вокруг Чхве Сун Силь началась с действий, направленных на улучшение экономики и качества жизни населения, но положительно оценил готовность Пак Кын Хе сотрудничать с прокуратурой в проведении расследования. В результате оппозиция только усилила давление и фактически предъявила президенту ультиматум. Или парламент инициирует импичмент, или Пак устраняется от внутренней политики и смещает новоназначенного ей премьера – представителя левых, но не того, кого бы хотело видеть на этом посту оппозиционное руководство. За спиной подобных требований – негативно настроенная общественность. 5 ноября в Сеуле прошла демонстрация протеста со свечами, в которой по официальным данным приняло участие 45 тысяч человек, а по оппозиционным, все 100 тысяч (некоторые даже говорили о двухстах, что явное преувеличение). До столкновений дело не дошло, полиция (около 20 тысяч полицейских на 220 машинах) была корректна, но 12 ноября протесты начались с новой силой. А как тем временем идет расследование? 3 ноября Чхве Сун Силь была заключена под стражу, но БЕЗ предъявления обвинения. Такая практика в РК есть (и ранее неоднократно критиковалась правозащитниками), позволяя держать человека под стражей до 20 суток, даже если пока против него нет улик того уровня, при котором ему можно предъявить обвинения. Решение по этому поводу принял суд Центрального округа Сеула по запросу прокуратуры. В тот же день другой фигурант коррупционного скандала — бывший советник президента РК по вопросам государственной политики Ан Чжон Бом — сообщил на допросе, что ставшие предметом расследования фонды MIR и K-Sports были учреждены по указанию президента РК Пак Кын Хе, чем могла быть объяснена их ускоренная регистрация. Ан подчеркнул, что в своей политике глава государства уделяет важное значение культуре и креативной экономике, и отверг подозрения о причастности к сбору средств с крупных компаний в пользу вышеуказанных фондов. По его словам, представители деловых кругов добровольно приняли решение участвовать в учреждении фондов без какого-либо давления на них. Бывший главный секретарь президента РК по гражданским делам У Бён У также был вызван на допрос в прокуратуру. Он подозревается в причастности к сбору средств компаний в фонды Mir и K-Sports и будет допрошен в качестве свидетеля, хотя в зависимости от результатов расследования может стать подозреваемым. Существуют пока не доказанные подозрения в том, что он использовал средства фондов в личных целях, оформил на подставное лицо объекты недвижимости, принадлежащие его жене, и использовал своё влияние для того, чтобы помочь сыну пройти обязательную военную службу не в вооружённых силах, а в полиции. В общем, убедительных доказательств самых убойных случаев коррупции или вмешательства в государственные дела пока нет – есть «обоснованные подозрения» или слухи, которые обильно тиражирует как левая, так и правая пресса. Нет пока ни доказательств идеологической правки президентских речей, ни заявлений представителей ФПГ о том, что от них требовали спонсировать фонды против их желания, ни финансовых документов, указывающих на перевод денег из фондов в личные средства Чхве Сун Силь. Тем не менее на подругу президента, кажется, пытаются повесить все скандалы или злоупотребления последнего времени. А документ из Викиликс, где говорится о том, что «ходят слухи о том, что Пак чрезмерно зависима от человека, которого можно сравнить с Распутиным», цитируют не как указание на слухи, а как доказательство. Пак же не поддается давлению (многие думали, что телевыступление будет включать не только извинения, но и добровольную отставку) и остается под огнем – левые будут стараться не упустить шанс сбросить «символ диктатуры», виноватый хотя бы тем, что нынешний президент – дочь Пак Чон Хи. Для правых – это не только утопить соперника в рамках фракционной борьбы, но и свалить на «шаманку» как на стрелочника все просчеты правительственного курса, после чего, сбросив балласт, попытаться выйти на новый виток президентской гонки в новом образе. Именно консерваторы могут припомнить ей и возобновление борьбы с коррупцией, и «Евразийскую инициативу», при помощи которой она пыталась хотя бы частично выйти из-под американского зонтика и улучшить отношения с Москвой и Пекином. Неслучайно бывший лидер правящей партии Сэнури Ким Му Сон (жесткий консерватор, находящийся куда правее Пак) потребовал от президента покинуть ряды партии. Он подчеркнул, что глава государства, являющаяся гарантом Конституции, управляла страной, нарушая конституционные принципы и ценности, и потребовал скорейшего формирования правительства национального единства. Члены Высшего совета партии выразили протест в отношении такого требования, однако ее лидер Ли Чжон Хён (экс-сторонник Пак) заявил, что в скором времени покинет свой пост. Он лишь попросил дать ему немного времени для того, чтобы помочь главе государства разобраться с ситуацией. В этом контексте автор напоминает аудитории, что «правый поворот» Пак Кын Хе был вызван не иррациональными причинами, а общей политической ситуацией, включавшей в себя ужесточение позиции КНДР (включая четвертое ядерное испытание, на которое надо было дать некий громкий ответ), категорическое непризнание левыми любых действий президента (что исключало возможность диалога для проведения в жизнь умеренной программы) и существенное давление с правого фланга. А потому посмотрим, как будут развиваться события покажет время, благо власти собираются вплотную заняться урегулированием скандала. Константин Асмолов, кандидат исторических наук, ведущий научный сотрудник Центра корейских исследований Института Дальнего Востока РАН, специально для интернет-журнала «Новое Восточное Обозрение». Популярные статьи | 0 |
November 20, 2016 - Fort Russ - Ruslan Ostashko, PolitRussia - translated by J. Arnoldski -
I’ve already taken note of the fact that one only has to mention some problems of the European Union and the reactions of our Westernists will boil down to one argument: “Yeah, sure, Europe is rotting, but it still hasn’t rotted since the times of the USSR.” Now, if I say that the EU is faced with the prospects of a real collapse, then our Westernists will probably write something similar to me and accuse me of belonging to Kremlin propaganda.
No matter what, I will say that the EU risks collapsing in the foreseeable future. In the end, there is nothing wrong with being considered a Kremlin propagandist, especially since I am joined by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who yesterday said the same thing. Yes, he even used the word “collapse.” What do you think - did Putin buy him or does he really think this?
The French prime minister made such a statement in Berlin, where he went to discuss with Angela Merkel how to live in the new epoch of Trump. to be honest, the tone of his interview in the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung suggests that his talks with Merkel are more reminiscent of a collective therapy session than a brainstorming session. Let me tell you what this really reminded me of.
Following Trump’s victory, many American universities held special psychological support events for students who couldn’t cope with the grief of Hillary Clinton’s defeat. Volunteers and university employees created a pleasant atmosphere for suffering American youth, comforting them and handing out coloring books for adults, brought special therapeutic dogs to pet, and gave students the opportunity to cry a river. Some tests and exams have even been cancelled.
The actions of European politicians following the US elections really remind me of this kind of collective therapy: they cry together, grieve together, convince each other that everything will be fine, but don’t come up with anything concrete. In the interview with the French prime minister, it is difficult to find any kind of concrete action plan. The statement that “France and Germany should be the leaders of Europe” is not an action program. France and Germany have already long since been the leaders of Europe, and the problem is once again that many European don’t like where they’ve brought them. The English and part of the English political elite disliked this situation to such an extent that they voted to leave the European Union. Even Manuel Valls already suspects that Britain won’t be the last country to ask to disembark from the European Titanic.
The prime minister of France suddenly realizes that the EU is faced with the problem of migrants. This is big progress, but with whom is he going to solve this problem? With Merkel? With the very same Merkel who has flooded Germany with migrants and whose approval rating is collapsing for this reason?
There is the theory that France’s prime minister went to Germany to give Frau Chancellor much needed moral support. Western analysts have declared Merkel the “savior of the free world,” but she is the last person who would fit this role, and she herself is not very comfortable in it. Western analysts are at least correctly writing that Merkel does not have the charisma, army, or economy to be the “leader and savior of the free world,” and the EU is falling apart.
Let me recall several events which could finish European stability. In December, there will be presidential elections in Austria which could be won by the candidate that is inclined to recognize Crimea and inaugurate Austria’s exit from the EU. Also in December, there will be a referendum in Italy, the results of which could send Renzi’s government into resignation, thus causing a political crisis and a practical paralysis of decision-making at the EU level as long as Italian politicians can’t agree with each other.
2017 will bring even more interesting events. There will be presidential elections in France that might be won by Sarkozy or Marine Le Pen, both of whom are bad enough for Merkel. Merkel herself could lose the chair of Chancellor, although she will try to run for a fourth term.
In fact, I want to ask the fans of Western democracy and peaceful transfer of power: how will a fourth term for Merkel pan out? Democratically? What about a fourth term for Putin? No? The double standards are revealed.
Judging by the experience of the US election campaign and the Brexit referendum, I already know who will be blamed. Do you think that Obama has just kindheartedly declared Russia a superpower capable of influencing the world? Of course not. This is an artillery barrage preceding a massive information campaign with the message “Putin is undermining the EU!” After all, Europeans wouldn’t understand how the EU could be undermined by a “regional power” with an economy “torn to shreds.”
Everything will be clear. I don’t even rule out that our Kiev opponents will send the next set of fakes to Berlin or Paris in the form of a stolen letter from Surkov, only for BBC and Euronews to then expose some kind of plan to scare voters. This will be, of course, hilarious, but it won’t help European politicians.
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We’re resurfacing this article after the narrow confirmation of Betsy DeVos as education secretary on Tuesday. As we noted in November, she will be highly constrained in trying to voucherize American education. Betsy DeVos, a wealthy Republican philanthropist, whom Donald J. Trump selected on Wednesday as the next secretary of education, has spent her career promoting a privatized vision of public education. If she pursues that agenda in her new role, she is quite likely to face disappointment and frustration. school reforms generally come in two flavors: vouchers and charter schools. They differ in both structure and political orientation. Charter schools are public schools, open to all, accountable in varying degrees to public authorities, and usually run by nonprofit organizations. Vouchers, by contrast, allow students to attend any school, public or private, including those run by religious organizations and companies. While charters enjoy support from most Republicans and some Democrats, vouchers have a narrower political base, those who tend to favor free markets to replace many government responsibilities. Working primarily in Michigan, Ms. DeVos has been a strong advocate of vouchers, and her charter work has often focused on making charter schools as private as possible. The large majority of Michigan charters are run by companies, in contrast with most states. The DeVos family donated more than $1 million to Republican lawmakers earlier this year during a successful effort to oppose new oversight of charters. That support made Ms. Devos a natural choice for Mr. Trump, who proposed a $20 billion federal voucher program on the campaign trail, and has likened the public school system to a monopoly business that needs to be broken up. But any effort to promote vouchers from Washington will run up against the basic structures of American education. The United States spends over $600 billion a year on public schools. Less than 9 percent of that money comes from the federal government, and it is almost exclusively dedicated to specific populations of children, most notably students with disabilities and students in communities. There are no existing federal funds that can easily be turned into vouchers large enough to pay for school tuition on the open market. Mr. Trump’s $20 billion proposal would be, by itself, very expensive. It may be hard to fit into a budget passed by a Republican Congress that has pledged to enact large tax cuts for corporations and citizens, expand the military and eliminate the budget deficit, all at the same time. Yet $20 billion isn’t nearly enough to finance vouchers nationwide, which is why Mr. Trump’s proposal assumes that states will kick in another $110 billion. States don’t have that kind of money lying around. The only plausible source is existing school funding. But even if Ms. DeVos were to find a willing governor and state legislature, it’s not that easy. Roughly half of all nonfederal education funding comes from local property taxes raised by over 13, 000 local school districts. They and their elected representatives will have a say, too. This is where the intersection of geography and politics makes any national voucher plan much more difficult to enact. The practicality of school choice is highly related to population density. Children need to be able to get from home to school and back again every day. In a large metropolis with public transportation, there could be dozens of schools within reasonable travel distance of most families. In a small city, town or rural area, there will be few or none. And population density, as Americans saw in the last election, is increasingly the dividing line of the nation’s politics. A significant number of Mr. Trump’s most ardent supporters live in sparsely populated areas where school choice is logistically unlikely. At the same time, many of the municipalities where market reforms are theoretically much easier to put in voted overwhelmingly against the . On Election Day, voters in liberal Massachusetts rejected a ballot measure by a margin that would have increased the number of charter schools in the state, despite strong evidence that the state’s charters produce superior results for and minority schoolchildren. In theory, information technology offers a way around the population density problem. Virtual schools can be attended from anywhere with an internet connection. colleges that have pocketed billions of dollars by offering online courses are poised to make a comeback under the Trump administration, which is likely to roll back President Obama’s efforts to regulate them. But the federal government is a much larger financial contributor to colleges and universities than to schools, and college students don’t need an adult looking after them all day. Ms. DeVos will probably be a boon to the relatively small, growing population of families that their children. But most parents will still want their children in a school building during the day, taught by a teacher, not by a computer. Ms. Devos will also be hamstrung by the fact that her deregulated school choice philosophy has not been considered a resounding success. In her home state, Detroit’s choice policies have led to a wild west of cutthroat competition and poor academic results. While there is substantial academic literature on school vouchers and while debates continue between opposing camps of researchers, it’s safe to say that vouchers have not produced the kind of large improvements in academic achievement that reformers originally promised. | 1 |
A poll released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) finds a solid majority of Californians support vouchers for private and religious schools. [According to the poll, 60 percent of adults favor “providing parents with vouchers to send their children to any public, private, or parochial school they choose. ” Among registered voters, 55 percent favor vouchers, and, among likely voters, 50 percent favor vouchers. Among adults, the survey finds 73 percent of African Americans, 69 percent of Latinos, 56 percent of Asian Americans, and 51 percent of White Americans favor school vouchers. Republicans are more likely to favor school vouchers than Democrats, 67 percent to 46 percent. At the same time, results of the poll show that most Californians give passing grades to their local public schools. Among adults, 54 percent give their public schools an A (22 percent) or a B (32 percent) with only 7 percent giving a grade of F. Most adults (64 percent) and likely voters (66 percent) also say current funding for public schools is inadequate. “Most Californians give passing grades to their local public schools,” said Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO. “But many believe that the state isn’t spending enough money on K — 12 education and should also spend what it has more wisely. In this context, many are willing to raise their local taxes and consider a voucher system. ” The PPIC poll’s results are based on a survey of 1, 705 California adult residents between April 2017, with a sampling error of ±3. 2 percent at the 95 percent confidence level. The poll contains a subgroup of 1, 036 California adult likely voters. Results for that group have a sampling error of ±4. 1 at the 95 percent confidence level. President Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have made school choice the focus of their national education agenda. A national poll by Education Next (EdNext) in August 2016 found that, while overall support for school choice has remained high, support for the use of vouchers to access choice programs has fallen. School choice can be designed with a variety of financial mechanisms, including school vouchers, education savings accounts (ESAs) and scholarship tax credits (STC) — all of which may differ in terms of the level of state regulation that may be required of the schools that participate in the choice program. According to EdNext, support for vouchers targeted for families was at 37% in 2016, and for universal vouchers for all families at 45%. However, 53% of the general public and 60% of parents in 2016 backed scholarship tax credits for individuals or companies that donate to foundations that provide scholarships to students to attend private schools. That percentage backing STCs is increased from 46% since 2009, though down from its highest level of 60% in 2014. “The EdNext findings on school choice suggest that program design matters,” Lindsey Burke, director of the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, told Breitbart News, adding: The poll results found a drop in support for school vouchers, which could reflect recent experiences in states that have heavily regulated their school voucher programs, leading, paradoxically — as the regulations were promulgated in the name of accountability — to lower participation among high quality private schools. The concept of “school choice” is very appealing, but the reality is that vouchers are a transfer of taxpayer funds from a public school to a private or religious participating school. If parents “choose” to send their children to a participating school, that school may have additional regulatory burdens placed upon it by the state in which it is located — in the name of “accountability” — in order to qualify for the school choice program. The overarching question then becomes why transfer a child to a school when it might have the same regulations, test requirements, etc. as the public school? In a 2010 study at the Cato Institute, Andrew Coulson found that voucher programs are more likely to “suffocate the very markets to which they aim to expand access,” because state funds — which invariably invite state regulation — are directly transferred, in the form of vouchers, to parents to spend in an alternate education setting. | 1 |
Yesterday we saw a black teenager take a Trump poster and gleefully tear it up. It was a shopping area in Duval County Jacksonville, FL. Not downtown. What does it mean? That for many, political activism means vandalizing private property and suppressing freedom of speech. (yours not theirs)
An acquaintance who is in Chicago says his wife is voting for Hillary because it is time for a woman POTUS. He says he cannot speak about Trump at home or a riot starts, but says he is voting Trump because all Hillary’s campaign does is attack Trump, no policy. AT LEAST Trump has a plan. When I mention Benghazi, he says he is sorry about military casualties but those who enlist know the risks. I guess that it was diplomats running guns for Obama, doesn’t matter,
So these are mature people who run a business (3 rd generation), and this what filters through to them. This is the level of comprehension. So he volunteered the info that he was voting for Trump, and I do not abuse him or speak excessively about politics with him, and I forget what we were chatting about when it came up. He says he goes to church regularly and considers himself ‘religious’, but when speaking to him, he is pretty fuzzy about what the Bible says about forgiveness. If Trump loses and then buys an island and starts a country, I’d be interested in the costs involved. If Trump loses this country will not offer much of a future for my kids or grandchildren. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — To an amateur eye, Ahmad Khan Rahami’s travel history might appear to be a red flag: He had traveled to Pakistan, the home of Al Qaeda, four times between 2005 and 2014. The last time he stayed for a year. So Mr. Rahami’s arrest in the bombings last weekend in New York and New Jersey — and the revelation that he cited jihadist leaders in his journal — has raised an obvious question: Did the government miss something? Possibly. But Mr. Khan’s extended family, originally from Afghanistan, lives in Pakistan, and he told customs officials on his return from his trips that he had been visiting family, officials said. He had married a Pakistani woman during a 2011 visit. In 2014, he had to arrange an American passport for their baby, born that year in Pakistan. Both are plausible explanations for an extended stay. An initial review of the government’s handling of Mr. Rahami’s travel, based on records described by law enforcement officials, suggests no obvious lapses. That could change if more details of his exchanges with border officials become public. In 2006 and 2011, Mr. Rahami was subjected to extra airport screening, but no further consequences, when he returned to the United States, officials said. Mr. Rahami’s arrival at Kennedy International Airport in March 2014 appears to have received the most scrutiny. Because he had arrived on a ticket from Pakistan — a trigger for extra attention — he was questioned again in a secondary interview. But for an American returning home from a lengthy stay abroad, the ticket he used made sense, and he was not held or further delayed. Officials now believe that Mr. Rahami may have taken a side trip to Ankara, Turkey, in January 2014. It is not clear whether he informed customs officials about that trip. Still, customs officers who spoke with him thought information from the interview should be shared more broadly, so they forwarded a report to the National Targeting Center, an analysis hub run by U. S. Customs and Border Protection. Officers at the center, in turn, thought the report on Mr. Rahami was significant enough to distribute to other law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in a summary that is sent out every few days. Officials familiar with the report said it contained no hard information that might have caused alarm or prompted immediate action. Certainly, there was nothing approaching the significance of a statement that Mr. Rahami’s father gave to the F. B. I. five months later, in which he said he thought that his son might be involved in terrorism. The National Targeting Center, near Washington, was set up after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and became part of the customs and border agency in 2002. In 2007, it was divided into two parts, one focusing on cargo, the other on passengers. Its operations were stepped up further after the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, tried to blow up an airliner as it prepared to land in Detroit. In recent weeks, the passenger and cargo operations were combined into one office again, officials said. Dozens of officers comb through passenger lists for all flights arriving in the United States, which include about 300, 000 people each day, as well as cargo manifests — looking, in essence, for the needle in the haystack. The center is in charge of identifying people who should be stopped or questioned at the borders. It also writes guidelines for when customs officers should send passengers from certain countries or with unusual travel itineraries for additional questioning, as happened with Mr. Rahami. The center has had its problems. A 2011 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found that it had a staff shortage and described a cumbersome data system that made complete checks on incoming passengers difficult and . Targeting specialists at the time used “as many as four computer monitors with different databases open concurrently,” the report said. For years after the 2001 attacks, one of the F. B. I. ’s primary concerns was trying to catch Americans traveling to Pakistan to join Al Qaeda, in an effort to disrupt recruiting networks. Today, by contrast, the bureau is most intently focused on homegrown violent extremists who may be plotting attacks in the United States. Travel to hot spots no longer stands out as an automatic sign of danger, especially when there is a reasonable explanation. “It is an indicator, but you don’t even need to travel anymore to conduct an attack,” said Brenda Heck, a former senior F. B. I. counterterrorism agent who retired in 2012. “It is less now of an indicator than when I was working there. ” Still, as an F. B. I. agent, Ms. Heck said she would want to know what Mr. Rahami was doing in Pakistan. “On one side of it, he’s likely got family, but we can’t know exactly what he did over there,” she said. “That’s troubling. ” The elaborate security measures in place for years at United States borders do not always work. In May 2013, a young man named Moner Mohammad Abusalha landed in Newark and was pulled aside for additional questioning. He told officers he had been in Jordan visiting family. In fact, he had secretly traveled to Syria. One of the officers was suspicious and called his mother in Florida. She verified his story, and Mr. Abusalha passed through customs. The F. B. I. was never told about the call to the mother or about the officer’s suspicions. Mr. Abusalha later returned to Syria, joined a Qaeda affiliate in Syria and blew himself up in an attack. | 1 |
Friday on MSNBC, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ( ) said “lots” of Democrats could beat President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Partial transcript as follows: HUNT: I would like one short answer to this question. Who in the Democratic Party can beat President Trump in 2020? SCHUMER: Lots of people. HUNT: Lots of people. One name? SCHUMER: I’m not going to pick a name. If he continues at the rate — HUNT: Who is the leader of the Democratic party, you? SCHUMER: We have a bunch of leaders. I’m the leader of the Senate and try to represent the Democratic Party, but we have a bunch of good voices. It’s much too premature to handicap . But I’ll tell you this if the president continues this way, there is even a chance we could take back the Senate. Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
November supermoon biggest in nearly 70 years 11/03/2016
USA TODAY
Supersized! November supermoon will be biggest in nearly 70 years. The supermoon occurs when the moon is slightly closer to Earth than it typically is, and the effect is most noticeable when it occurs around the same time as a full moon.
It can appear 14% bigger and 30% brighter than usual, according to NASA.
The word supermoon was coined in 1979 by astrologer Richard Nolle, AccuWeather’s Mark Paquette says. Nolle used the term to describe a new or full moon that occurs when the moon is at or near its closest approach to Earth.
Instead of a supermoon, astronomy site Slooh.com is calling it a “mega beaver moon,” which includes the moon’s folklore name for November.
According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac , the November moon was named the beaver moon partly because, “for both the colonists and the Algonquin tribes, this was the time to set beaver traps before the swamps froze, to ensure a supply of warm winter furs.”
Contributing: Mary Bowerman, USA TODAY
Follow @MaryBowerman on Twitter. Follow Doyle Rice at @USATODAYWeather . Share On: | 0 |
They first arrived in late January, caravans of black Escalades driving along a small street in Jamaica Estates, an upscale neighborhood in Queens, and stopping in front of a modest house that had just been sold at auction: the home where President Trump lived as a boy. Out stepped a stream of people in business suits, according to a neighbor, all speaking Chinese. The visits spiked between the auction and the closing of the sale last week, according to the neighbor, who did not want to be identified because of concerns about her privacy. It was revealed last week that the home had been bought by Trump Birth House, a limited liability company that obscured the identity of the person behind it. But while the buyer’s identity remained unknown, a person with knowledge of the deal said that the new owner, who spent over $2 million for the childhood home of the current president of the United States, is a woman from China. “Why is there an influx of Chinese people interested in this house, of all people?” the neighbor said she recalled wondering. “What do they want?” The house on Wareham Place has become another curiosity in the vast orbit of properties connected to Mr. Trump, even though he last lived in the home, built by his father, Fred C. Trump, when he was 4. The house’s intrigue lies not just in the price it fetched in an auction by Paramount Realty USA — $2. 14 million, more than double the price of comparable houses in the area — but also in the mystery surrounding the buyer. She remains unknown, shrouded behind the limited liability company. A thin trail of documents associated with the sale led first to a office on Main Street in Flushing, Queens, of Michael X. Tang, a lawyer who represents Trump Birth House. In the cramped and bustling office, which, according to its website, specializes in facilitating Chinese purchases of American real estate, a woman at a desk welcomed visitors. “Oh, about the Trump house,” she said. She continued: Mr. Tang declined to comment. Documents show that Mr. Tang was also the lawyer for a seemingly unrelated transaction on a palatial home in Old Westbury, N. Y. which sold for more than $3. 6 million in 2014 to a person named Jiying Wei. The redbrick mansion, tucked at the end of a and abutted by a private tennis court, is a far cry from the modest childhood home of Mr. Trump. But, according to a person with knowledge of the sale, the mansion’s owner is a relative of the woman from China who bought the Trump family home. Standing in the collonaded entryway of her home a few doors down in Old Westbury, a neighbor, who declined to give her name for privacy reasons, deepened the mystery: The only person who lives in the mansion, she said, is the family’s son, a local college student the rest of the family lives in China. The trail at the : The house was empty and the owner could not be reached. “I did have some expectation that the purchaser would be a huge Trump supporter from within America,” Misha Haghani, principal of Paramount Realty USA, said of the Jamaica Estates home. He declined to reveal the identity of the buyer. “But it is entirely possible that the purchaser is a huge Trump supporter from outside of America,” he said. Cathy Han, a real estate agent in New York who specializes in marketing properties to Chinese buyers — including apartments in buildings — said she was not surprised that the home had been purchased by a Chinese buyer. “When I saw it was Trump’s birth house property for sale, I knew immediately it would get a lot of attention from Chinese buyers,” Ms. Han said. “I know he is a controversial figure in the States, but among Chinese people, Trump is a very popular kind of character in China. ” She said the image that Mr. Trump liked to promote of himself as a successful businessman resonated in China. “The whole thing about Trump is he has no experience in politics, but now he is the president of the U. S. A. ,” she said. “The story is like a movie: It’s kind of inspiring, in a way, that a person can rise up to that position. And I think most Chinese people kind of respect that journey. ” The home had been owned by Isaac Kestenberg, purchased with his wife, Claudia, in 2008 for $782, 500. On Election Day last year, as Mr. Trump’s ascendancy seemed possible, Michael Davis, a real estate investor, made an offer on the house, he said, ultimately purchasing it for about $1. 4 million. Neither Mr. Kestenberg nor Mr. Davis knows who bought it this time, they said. The sale to Trump Birth House closed on March 23. “I hope that the broader economy has as much lift from the president’s policies as the president’s childhood home got,” Mr. Davis said. On Tuesday, rain pelted the crocuses popping up outside the home on Wareham Place. The house appeared to have been emptied. Around 1 p. m. a worker arrived in a National Grid van. The new owner couldn’t be found, he said, so he had come to turn off the power. | 1 |
For the next two years, NASA’s latest robotic spacecraft will be chasing down an asteroid near Earth in the hopes of scooping up some of the most primordial bits of the solar system. The premise of the mission for the spacecraft, is simple: Fly to an asteroid, grab some of the rock and bring it back to Earth, where scientists will study some of the pristine ingredients that went into the making of the solar system, including possibly the building blocks of life. “What was that beginning organic material like?” James L. Green, the director of NASA’s planetary science division, said in an interview. “That’s what’s really exciting about this. This is what we want. ” The details are a bit more complicated. The spacecraft is sitting on top of an Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral, Fla. ready for launching on Thursday on a mission. Once off the ground, — a shortening of Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer — will be aiming to get close to the asteroid Bennu. “It’s 500 meters or so in size, about the height of the Empire State Building,” Dr. Green said. Discovered in 1999, Bennu is a almost black asteroid. Data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and radar measurements by radio telescopes suggest it is a “rubble pile” with pebbles about half an inch wide on the surface. Scientists believe that it is a conglomeration of leftovers, largely unchanged over the last 4. 5 billion years. “It’s a time capsule from the earliest stages of solar system formation,” said Dante Lauretta, a professor of planetary science and cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona who is the mission’s principal investigator. will survey Bennu for more than a year to select the site where it will grab the sample of rock. In July 2020, the spacecraft, about the size of an sport utility vehicle, is to slowly descend and bounce off the surface like a pogo stick at a gentle pace of a per hour. A sampling head, which looks like an automobile air filter, will shoot a burst of nitrogen to kick up dirt and small rocks during the three to five seconds it is in contact with the surface. The goal is to collect at least a couple of ounces of material and possibly as much as 4. 4 pounds. The spacecraft carries enough nitrogen to attempt to extract material three times if necessary. After departing Bennu in 2021, will pass by Earth in September 2023, dropping off a capsule with the samples that will land via parachute in a Utah desert. A Japanese mission, Hayabusa 2, will similarly collect samples from another asteroid, but the scientists view the missions as complementary, not redundant. Dr. Lauretta said he was particularly interested in gleaning information about organic molecules like amino acids, the building blocks of proteins that are known to float in outer space. One question is whether Bennu contains higher concentrations of the 20 amino acids used by forms of life on Earth compared with dozens of others not found in living organisms. Life on Earth also exclusively uses “ ” amino acids and not the mirror, versions. Study of the Bennu material could help explain whether nonbiological chemical reactions in space pushed life toward molecules or whether that shift occurred later when life arose. Scientists also hope that waterlogged minerals in the sample could tell whether the water in Earth’s oceans came from asteroids like Bennu. Its shape, like a top, fatter around the Equator as it spins around in 4. 3 hours, also suggests that the stuff of Bennu is not solid rock but shifts and slides. Studying this asteroid could also come in handy if it is ever on a collision course with Earth. With about a orbit, Bennu passes fairly close once every six years. In 2035, it will make a particularly close approach, passing within the orbit of the moon, and Earth will give enough of a gravitational kick that astronomers cannot precisely predict where the asteroid will go after that. There is a small chance — one in 2, 700 — that Bennu will smack into Earth sometime from 2175 to 2196. Bennu is not large enough to wreak planetwide extinctions — the asteroid that is thought to have killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was about six miles wide — but a collision would be devastating. Impact would occur at more than 27, 000 miles per hour, unleashing energy equivalent to 1, 450 million tons of TNT and carving a crater almost three miles wide and 1, 500 feet deep, Dr. Lauretta calculated. One of the uncertainties in predicting Bennu’s path is that gravity is not the only force acting on it. As the asteroid rotates, the dark surface absorbs sunlight and then radiates heat. The radiated heat pushes the asteroid like a rocket thruster, a small effect that becomes significant over time. With detailed observations of the surface, scientists will be able to test their models of this effect with the actual orbits of Bennu. For Dr. Lauretta, ’s launching is a culmination of a dozen years of work. In 2004, officials at Lockheed Martin discussed the idea of an asteroid return mission with Michael J. Drake, the head of the Lunar and Planetary Institute at Arizona. Dr. Drake invited Dr. Lauretta to take part. Dr. Lauretta came up with the name. “That’s entirely my fault,” he said. As he jotted some themes of the scientific objectives — origins, spectroscopy, resources and security — he had most of the letters of Osiris, the Egyptian god who was the lord of the underworld but who also represented the seeds of regeneration to new life. “It was the dual nature of the Osiris myth,” Dr. Lauretta said. “I had to buy a couple of vowels. ” Meanwhile, engineers at Lockheed Martin had to figure out how to grab a bit of asteroid. The company held a contest. Many of the proposals suggested landing and scooping, but an engineer named James Harris came up with the pogo stick idea, testing out a prototype in his dirt driveway with a plastic cup and an air compressor. “Now instead of worrying about how to anchor a spacecraft to an asteroid,” said Richard Kuhns, the program manager for at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, “in almost no gravity, you get to gently touch it, take your sample and then back away. Much, much safer for a spacecraft in that environment. ” On Bennu’s surface, the pull of gravity may be somewhere from to as that of Earth’s, depending on the location. That means the spacecraft, about 3, 000 pounds while awaiting launch, will probably weigh less than an ounce as it nudges Bennu to collect the rock. When the team added instruments to make detailed measurements of Bennu before grabbing the sample, Dr. Lauretta tacked Rex (Regolith Explorer) on to the name, because of the connotation with Tyrannosaurus rex and dinosaurs. “We wanted that connection,” Dr. Lauretta said. NASA selected in May 2011, four months before Dr. Drake died after receiving a diagnosis of liver cancer and a liver transplant. Dr. Lauretta was promoted to Dr. Drake’s position on the mission. Now, Dr. Lauretta is looking forward to three moments of ’s journey. The first is when the spacecraft takes its first clear photograph of Bennu. “That is the moment of truth, what we are up against,” he said. The second is when the grabs the bits of Bennu, and the third is when the sample arrives back on Earth, seven years from now. | 1 |
A California judge harshly criticized for giving what many say is a sentence to a former Stanford student convicted of sexual assault has been bombarded by threats of violence against him and his family, an official said on Tuesday. The judge, Aaron Persky, 54, on Thursday sentenced the former student, Brock Allen Turner, 20, to six months in jail for three felony counts: intent to commit rape, sexual penetration with a foreign object of an intoxicated person and sexual penetration with a foreign object of an unconscious person. Threatening phone calls have flooded into the Santa Clara County Superior Court since then, said Gary Goodman, a supervising attorney for the county public defender’s office. “People have been calling the court and leaving messages, and if someone answers, they say, ‘Tell your judge he can go to hell, and I hope his kids get raped and he rots in hell,’ ” said Mr. Goodman, who has defended the judge. “He’s getting threats over this, him and his family, from all over the country. Is that right?” Here is what we know about the jurist. • A former corporate lawyer and former criminal prosecutor who was appointed to the Santa Clara County Superior Court by Gov. Gray Davis in 2003, according to the Santa Clara County Bar Association. The judge is up for election this year but is running unopposed. • A Stanford alumnus. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the university, he was the captain of the men’s lacrosse team, according to a 2002 article in The Stanford Daily. • While campaigning for a judgeship in 2002, he wrote a biography for the League of Women Voters of California that championed his work as a prosecutor in cases involving violent sex crimes and hate crimes. “I focus on the prosecution of sexually violent predators, working to keep the most dangerous sex offenders in custody in mental hospitals,” he wrote. If elected, he said, his top priorities would be “honesty and integrity” and “equal access to justice for all. ” (He lost the election and was later appointed to the bench.) • He said he served as a member of the executive committee of the Support Network for Battered Women and the Santa Clara County Network for a Community. • The judge handed down a sentence and three years probation to Mr. Turner, a champion swimmer convicted in March of attacking the woman behind a Dumpster on campus in 2015. The victim, who was not a Stanford student, had attended a fraternity party. Two graduate students riding past the Kappa Alpha fraternity house witnessed the assault and intervened to stop it one chased and tackled Mr. Turner when he fled. “We saw that she was not moving, while he was moving a lot,” one of the students, Carl Frederik Arndt, told the Swedish news outlet Expressen on Tuesday. “She was unconscious the entire time,” Mr. Arndt also told CBS News. “The guy ran away, and my friend Peter chased after him. ” • The case attracted national attention on Friday after BuzzFeed published a powerful courtroom statement by the victim, who detailed the horror of that night and asserted that male and class privilege had irrevocably marred the trial and the sentencing. “When the policeman arrived and interviewed the evil Swede who tackled you, he was crying so hard he couldn’t speak because of what he’d seen,” she wrote. She called the students who held her attacker until the police arrived her “heroes. ” But of Mr. Turner, she said: “You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today. The damage is done no one can undo it. ” Her letter was also released by Santa Clara County. • The furor grew after Michele Dauber, a Stanford law professor and sociologist, tweeted a statement by the defendant’s father complaining that his son’s life had been ruined for “20 minutes of action. ” • Judge Persky was also excoriated for his comments about the defendant. In citing factors he weighed in the sentencing, The Guardian reported, the judge said Mr. Turner had “less moral culpability” for his actions because he was intoxicated, and he had “no significant record of prior criminal offenses. ” The judge also appeared to suggest that the jail sentence might be an “antidote” to the anxiety the former student may have suffered from the intense media attention. He told the courtroom, according to reports: “A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him. I think he will not be a danger to others. ” And seeming to accept the defendant’s account (Mr. Turner said the victim consented) the judge said: “I take him at his word that subjectively that’s his version of his events. … I’m not convinced that his lack of complete acquiescence to the verdict should count against him. ” Because of his conviction, Mr. Turner must register as a sex offender. In his courtroom statement, obtained by The New York Times, he cited the university’s “party culture” and drinking as factors in the sexual assault. • Besides a flood of critical comments online against the judge, Professor Dauber, a friend of the victim’s family, said that she was part of an organization seeking to recall him. She said because the judge had no opponent and will be “automatically ” in November, the recall campaign was the only way to remove him. (Judge Persky won his race in the California primary Tuesday.) She said his ruling had made female college students unsafe and cited what she called the judge’s misapplication of the law in taking Mr. Turner’s age, academic achievement and alcohol consumption into consideration. “If you’re going to declare that a perpetrator is an unusual case, then you’re saying to women on college campuses that they don’t deserve the full protection of the law in the state of California,” the professor said. • A Change. org petition backing the judge’s removal had collected more than 400, 000 signatures by Tuesday. In order to successfully remove the judge, the recall campaign said it would need the signatures of at least 20 percent of the votes cast in November in Santa Clara County. • On Tuesday, lawmakers weighed in: Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, who prosecuted sexual assault cases as a lawyer, said the sentence didn’t appear to provide adequate punishment, according to The Hill. “Typically, that would be considered an inappropriate sentence,” she said. The office of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, said that a “short sentence sends the wrong message. ” (The senators have lobbied fellow legislators to change how the military handles sexual assault cases.) • The Stanford Daily said the judge’s decision had outraged campus groups. Students were being urged to join a demonstration during the traditional university graduation procession that kicks off commencement on Sunday. • The Santa Clara County district attorney, Jeff Rosen, whose office tried the Stanford rape case, said in a statement on Monday, “While I strongly disagree with the sentence that Judge Persky issued in the Brock Turner case, I do not believe he should be removed from his judgeship. ” • Molly O’Neal, the Santa Clara County public defender, said she was “alarmed by the hysteria” surrounding Mr. Turner’s sentence. “The judge is required under California law to consider certain mitigating and aggravating factors,” she said, including past criminal records and the presence of alcohol. “We need to be very careful we’re not hanging judges out to dry based on one decision, especially because he is considered to be a fair and judge,” she said. • Mr. Goodman, the deputy public defender, said he had worked with the judge for three decades and denounced the proposed recall. He said Judge Persky was “an exceptional jurist” who had accurately followed the relevant rules and statutes and formulated the sentence in consultation with the probation department. “You have to judge a case on its merits only,” Mr. Goodman said. “The narrative on social media is ‘We have to judge this case as part of the larger social issue of campus sexual abuse,’ but as a judge, he is not allowed to do that. ” He rejected the argument that race or social class had played any role in Mr. Turner’s sentence. “People say it’s because he’s a Stanford kid and he’s rich and the judge played lacrosse. No, it’s not done that way. It can’t be done that way,” Mr. Goodman added. “It would have been the exact same result for a person of color. ” | 1 |
.@HillaryClinton says grandchildren, long walks in the woods helped with election loss: ”I won’t lie. Chardonnay helped a little too.” pic. twitter. Friday during her commencement speech at Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton listed some of the things, which included wine, that helped her get over her loss to President Donald Trump. Clinton said, “You may have heard that things didn’t exactly go the way I planned. But you know what? I’m doing okay. I’ve gotten to spend time with my family, especially my amazing grandchildren. I was going to give the entire commencement speech about them but was talked out of it. Long walks in the woods, organizing my closets. I won’t lie, Chardonnay helped a little, too. ” ( Grabien) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
Lawmakers in Hawaii have asked state officials to update contingency plans and provide extra funding in anticipation of an attack from North Korea, amid escalating tensions between America and the communist state. [Last Thursday, the state’s House Public Safety Committee passed a resolution demanding extra resources for any potential attack, which includes the redevelopment of shelters last used during the Cold War. Amongst other things, the resolution asks for the “restocking of fallout shelter provisions,” as well as calling on authorities to “conduct public awareness campaigns to ready the public for a nuclear disaster. ” “At a time when we have this kind of and really blustering foreign policy, it does make people a little nervous,” said House Public Safety Committee Vice Chairman Matt LePresti. “They haven’t been updated since 1985. I was 11 years old when they were last updated. Many of the buildings that are on the fallout shelter list don’t exist anymore. ” Many experts have warned that Hawaii may be the first point of any potential North Korean attack, with its location in the ocean far more reachable than the American west coast. The remote island is located 4, 660 miles from North Korea, while Los Angeles remains approximately 5, 800 miles in distance. An analysis carried by the BBC suggests that North Korea possesses over 1, 000 missiles, all with ranging capabilities. Some of their weapons, including the ballistic missile, have an intercontinental range, meaning they can travel up to 5000 miles, just short of the American coastline. The request comes amidst rising tensions between the U. S. and North Korea, with Donald Trump warning last week that he was sending “an armada” into the region to fend off any potential threat. Meanwhile, on Sunday, North Korean forces held a military parade to celebrate the 105th birthday of former leader Kim who remains the country’s “eternal leader. ” However, reports from South Korea also indicated that the country’s planned missile launch, intended to be a show of strength, ended in failure. On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence visited the Korean demilitarized zone, also the border between South and North. In an interview with CNN, Pence said that “the people in North Korea should make no mistake that the United States of America and our allies will see to the security of this region and see to the security of the people of our country. ” You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 1 |
A lawyer for Melania Trump said Monday that he had informed several news organizations, including The Daily Mail, that they could face legal action for publishing articles that Ms. Trump contended were defamatory. In an email, the lawyer, Charles J. Harder, said Ms. Trump, the wife of Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, “has placed several news organizations on notice of her legal claims against them, including Daily Mail among others, for making false and defamatory statements about her supposedly having been an ‘escort’ in the 1990s. ” “All such statements are 100 percent false, highly damaging to her reputation, and personally hurtful,” Mr. Harder added. “She understands that news media have certain leeway in a presidential campaign, but outright lying about her in this way exceeds all bounds of appropriate news reporting and human decency. ” He said no suit had been filed, but added, “That may change. ” The Daily Mail, a British tabloid, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mr. Harder represented the former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan in the lawsuit against Gawker Media that ultimately resulted in Gawker’s filing for bankruptcy. Peter Thiel, the billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur who spoke in July at the Republican National Convention, acknowledged in May that he had secretly funded the Hogan case and others against Gawker. Among the news outlets that Mr. Harder said had been sent notices were Inquisitr (which apologized to Ms. Trump and retracted an article about her that was published within the last week) Politico and Liberal America. Politico declined to comment. Reached by telephone, Tiffany Willis, the founder and editor in chief of Liberal America, said her publication received an emailed letter from Mr. Harder. In the email, a copy of which is posted on the publication’s website, Mr. Harder listed several statements he claimed were defamatory and demanded that the publication “immediately and permanently remove each of these statements from the story, and print a full and complete retraction and apology, with as prominent placement as the original story. ” “Failure to do so,” Mr. Harder added, “will leave my client with no alternative but to institute immediate legal proceedings against you and, should that occur, she would pursue all available causes of action and seek all available legal remedies to the maximum extent permitted by law. ” | 1 |
Carmel Institute celebrates 5th anniversary with jazz concert October 27, 2016 RBTH u.s.-russia relations , jazz The Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History celebrated its 5th Anniversary. Source: Press photo
The Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History celebrated its 5th Anniversary by hosting a standing room only concert at the historic Lincoln Theatre celebrating Cultural Dialogue and the Giants of Jazz. Over 1200 guests and students from all over the Washington DC metropolitan area thoroughly enjoyed this memorable concert celebrating the common language and mutual love of jazz that the United States and Russia share.
Source: Press photo
Said Carmel Institute Founder and Advisory Chair Susan E. Carmel, “The Carmel Institute emphasizes shared values, common interests and cultural dialogue. These are important qualities necessary to achieve cooperation, mutual respect and to overcome pervasive stereotypes. I am honored and grateful to have two incredible cultural Ambassadors at our Fifth Anniversary celebration for the Carmel Institute. Igor Butman and Wynton Marsalis exemplify the best of cultural diplomacy and cultural dialogue, and help us represent the Institutes' focus on enhancing greater cultural understanding through shared common interests and face to face interactions. By continuing to emphasize the importance of these qualities to our younger generations and future leaders, we are making an investment into the future that will be paid back ten-fold over time.”
Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the U.S. and Honorary Co-Chair of the Institute acknowledged the Institute’s milestone by saying, “We would like to congratulate the Carmel Institute for Russian Culture and History and its leadership with the fifth anniversary and express our gratitude for their support and dedication. What started as a modest cultural initiative, five years later has grown both in scope and scale. Far surpassing the initial plans, it has now turned into an Institute that creates an opportunity to strengthen interest and knowledge of culture and history of Russia, thus contributing to the increase of mutual understanding between the two nations.”
Source: Press photo
According to jazz great Igor Butman, “I am honored to contribute to the rich tradition of jazz diplomacy by performing with Wynton Marsalis at the fifth anniversary concert of the Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History. It is an even greater honor to perform at the Lincoln Theater where so many giants of jazz have expressed themselves in the universal language of music. I wish the Carmel Institute many more years of success in its tireless campaign to promote culture as a medium of communication between two great cultures that have always achieved success through dialogue and cooperation.”
Source: Press photo
Dr. Anton Fedyashin, Director of the Carmel Institute of Russian Culture and History, added, “The Carmel Institute has become an integral part of American University’s commitment to an education that prepares students for global responsibilities in an increasingly complex and interconnected world. Without ignoring problems of which history provides so many examples, our program emphasizes shared values, common interests, and cooperative achievement, and always points towards the positive stages in the US-Russian relationship from which we hope that students can learn in order to guide their decisions as they emerge as global leaders. | 0 |
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Nearly a dozen Jewish community centers across the United States received bomb threats that led to evacuations, in the latest wave of such attacks. [The latest threats, at 11 separate sites, bring to 69 the total number of such incidents — at 54 Jewish community centers in 27 US states and one Canadian province — according to the JCC Association of North America. It cautioned, however, that all bomb threats made Monday, as well as on three others dates — January 9, 18 and 31 — turned out to be hoaxes and all targeted community centers have resumed normal operations. The FBI and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division are said to be investigating the incidents. Meanwhile, local media reported that more than 100 headstones were damaged at a Jewish cemetery in St Louis, Missouri. “Over the past weekend, unknown persons knocked over multiple monument headstones within the cemetery,” University City police said in a statement. Police staff declined to confirm the number of damaged headstones at Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery as they review video surveillance on the property and nearby businesses for the ongoing investigation. | 1 |
America Is The Loneliest Country In The World – Is It Because We’ve Abandoned The Traditional Family Structure? 13th, 2013
Of all the nations on the entire planet, the United States is the most lonely place to be. We have the highest percentage of one person households on the entire globe, and the average size of our households has been steadily decreasing. Studies have shown that the number of close friends that Americans have is falling, and we have the highest divorce rate in the world by a wide margin. So why is this happening? Does this have anything to do with the fact that America is abandoning the traditional family structure? Back in the 1960s, the “sexual revolution” fundamentally changed the way that millions of Americans viewed sex and love. By throwing out all of the old boundaries, many Americans believed that they would ultimately be able to have more sex and more love. Today, this manifests itself in a “hookup culture” that is constantly being promoted as “healthy” in our popular music, in our television shows and in our movies. But instead of this “hookup culture” resulting in more sex and more love, most Americans are discovering that it leads to just the opposite. We have become a nation of desperately lonely people that have very few real ties to others.
Never in the history of our nation have Americans been so isolated from one another. Most people get up in the morning, drive to work or school, perhaps do a little shopping afterwards, and then drive home again. The rest of the evening is typically spent in front of the television or on some sort of electronic device.
In addition, most Americans spend precious little time attending social gatherings of any sort these days. Church attendance is at historic lows , and most people don’t take the time or the effort to get involved in other types of social groups.
And even when Americans do go out and try to meet people, the relationships that are formed are very much “on the surface” at best. The truth is that most Americans have very few “close friends”. Just take a moment and consider how many people outside your immediate family actually “love you” and would be there for you no matter what. For most Americans that number is depressingly low.
In a desperate attempt for human love and interaction, an increasing number of Americans have turned to social networking websites such as Facebook to fill that void. For the desperately lonely, some human contact is better than none. In fact, a growing number of people are so desperate for people to talk with them that they will pretend to be someone else online. Many will even use an attractive picture of someone else in an attempt to try to lure others. This has become so common that this phenomenon has even been given a name. It is known as “ catfishing “, and it has grown to epidemic levels.
Other Americans deal with their loneliness by recklessly indulging in food, drugs, gambling, shopping or other addictions. We are a fundamentally unhappy nation, and this is reflected in the fact that we lead the world in antidepressant use. In fact, the total number of Americans taking antidepressants doubled between 1996 and 2005.
Could a lot of this have been avoided if we would have just fully embraced the traditional family structure as a nation?
Wouldn’t most of us be doing a lot better if we lived in homes that were filled with happy, healthy families?
Just consider what the consequences of “free love” and the “hookup culture” have been for America…
*At 26 percent, America has the highest percentage of one person households on the entire planet.
*100 years ago, 4.52 were living in the average U.S. household, but now the average U.S. household only consists of 2.59 people .
*Back in 1950, 78 percent of all households in the United States contained a married couple. Today, that number has declined to 48 percent .
*The marriage rate in the United States has fallen to an all-time low. Right now it is sitting at a yearly rate of 6.8 marriages per 1000 people .
*Today, an all-time low 44.2 percent of Americans in the 25 to 34 year old age bracket are married.
*According to the Pew Research Center, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married. Back in 1960, 72 percent of all U.S. adults were married.
*In the United States today, more than half of all couples “move in together” before they get married.
*The divorce rate for couples that live together first is significantly higher than for those that do not.
*America has the highest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.
*In 1970, the average woman had her first child when she was 21.4 years old . Now the average woman has her first child when she is 25.6 years old .
*The birth rate for American women in the 20 to 24 year old age bracket has fallen to 85.3 births per 1,000 women . That is a new all-time record low.
*Approximately one out of every three children in the United States lives in a home without a father.
*For women under the age of 30 living in the United States today, more than half of all babies are being born out of wedlock.
For most Americans, marriage has come to be viewed as a temporary agreement that can be abandoned the moment that it no longer makes them happy any longer. This “me-centered” approach to love and marriage has had a whole host of negative consequences for us as a nation.
As the National Marriage Project puts it, a marriage in America now “depends for its survival on the happiness of both spouses”…
Over the last four decades, many Americans have moved away from identifying with an “institutional” model of marriage, which seeks to integrate sex, parenthood, economic cooperation, and emotional intimacy in a permanent union. This model has been overwritten by the “soul mate” model, which sees marriage as primarily a couple-centered vehicle for personal growth, emotional intimacy, and shared consumption that depends for its survival on the happiness of both spouses. Thus where marriage used to serve as the gateway to responsible adulthood, it has come to be increasingly seen as a capstone of sorts that signals couples have arrived, both financially and emotionally—or are on the cusp of arriving.
And our young people are no longer taught to value marriage. Instead, they are told to put off marriage and to go out and “have some fun”. This message is constantly being reinforced by popular culture. For example, posted below is an actual pro-Obamacare ad . Yes, I know that this ad is almost too bizarre to be true, but it is actually a real ad. And as you can see, the messages that it is sending to our young people are not very subtle at all…
We have become a nation where “anything goes”, and most Americans seem to like it that way.
So what do you think?
Is America the loneliest country in the world because we’ve abandoned the traditional family structure?
Please feel free to share your opinion by posting a comment below… What Are The Off-White Boxes That Are Going Up On Utility Poles All Over Seattle? » K
The lack of family structure is part of it. But there is something far more basic, that has died in this Country. The dog eat dog business attitude, the money is the most important thing attitude,and the I come before everyone else attitude, All these things killed this precious concept. What is it? Trust. You can not have a good marriage, or friendship without it. Ask yourself, how many people you know, would you trust with your life? For most it is a rather small number. Sadly for some the number is 0. ISA
o here. I dont trust, nor really care for, most any of you. I learned this in childhood, by watching the true nature of adults. Adult Humans are the virus of the World, of rotting flesh, that is a parasite. This can be proven empirically. Aston Martin
Adult humans except “# Godschosenones?” because saying that all humans are viruses inclusing the shoes is # antisemitic? I see where you are going.. rbolo29 .
It’s because of the apathy of realizing there is no God; so the children play and do what they want. Kim
Probably why so many people attach themselves to their animals. I know people that treat their dog like their child. It’s because it’s all they have. ISA
Some dont treat their animals that way out of loneliness, but a dog just makes a better friend than Humans. Thats the truth. Take it or leave it. Humans are rather crappy things. Kim
Some humans, not all of them. Don’t get me wrong, I love my pet as much as anybody. But some people go overboard. A Dodgy Bloke
I think a number of components go into this. A big one is the sexual revolution I have seen personally how it’s a great thing for guys but a disaster for women. The tragic part is most women don’t see it, the want the same sexual freedom as men, but ignore the damage done. The damage is kids with no father, and a woman who has several children by different guys. The woman wakes up forty alone, has no control over her life dependent on welfare but has ultimate responsibility for what happens under her roof. Everybody wants to be loved in one form or another. I think the culture produces high expectations in what people want or expect in a spouse. Men want somebody young good looking with no issues. Woman are looking foe the same, but some have a attraction to bad boys who they find exciting. People don’t get to and know each other before they wind up in bed. They get caught up in the newness get married and wake up one morning look at their spouse and wonder ‘What did I see in you.” But I have hope that the coming hard times will reverse this because people will have to adapt, or not survive. rbolo29 .
It really doesn’t matter; because we all die in the end and if there is no God to save us; then it’s a total lost cause to even try to be moral and good. Some Dude
fix yourself and become the change you seek in others for those others are all the reflections of the changes you made from within, granting them the permission to let their own light shine.
only then will humanity rise above the din of the dark ages that still reigns with a rationale leading it only to extinction Dedalius Stanton
About to graduate from college within a short timeframe, this fearsome yet truthful article details some chilling events experienced in my academic career. Up unto this point, many of students within my campus follow a self-centered, selfish attitude, unaware that their destructive attitudes harm only but themselves. The idea of “STFU and leave me alone” concept continues to be pushed forth by faculty, peers, and the social environment. Having lived in the dorms, I’ve been through numerous roommates who refuse to talk to anyone, especially to me, stating that I’m too weird or someone who should just drop dead, yet later claim they have no friends and spend most of their time wasting it away, allowing their academic careers reach at a stag point. The same applies to my classes. I know about 70 students by name who will graduate this semester, but how many do I personally know and trust? Sadly, that number is zero. This is not because I don’t engage in conversations, but it’s rather the experiences that others around me only care only for themselves, while ignoring those that may be able to provide lasting friendships and improving the overall quality of life. rbolo29 .
It’s ok; because they will graduate and find there are no jobs waiting for them; except being a manager at McDonalds. Jim Davis
Asst. Manager at best. Aston Martin
The gullible femaleist women from colelge will probably go on dating websites to find elderly rich and wealthy men who are desperate enough to date goods which were expired a long time ago.
I agree I had similar experiences. Most people had their own little groups of friends and never really mingled with others. I think the problem is too, many people don’t know HOW to make friends. Everyone is so self-absorbed. MichaelfromTheEconomicCollapse
I am sorry to hear that you had such negative experiences with roommates. Finding a good roommate these days can be a real challenge. I am glad that I don’t have to worry about that anymore.
Michael John Doe
71 percent of young men between the ages of 18 to 34 in America are not interested in marriage:
71% of young men in America do not want to get married
I guess feminism killed marriage. Kim
They can’t afford it. They are barely scraping by on their own. Ditto
Bingo. I live just as the fine article says: I get up in the morning, drive 28 miles to work, drive 28 miles home again, do some shopping, then spend the other three or four hours of my day watching TV or surfing the web. No time or money for anything else. MichaelfromTheEconomicCollapse
You probably burn up a lot of gas money too. I certainly don’t miss the days when I had very long commutes to work.
Michael ISA
Cant afford it, and who would want to be married today? Even the boomer generation is throwing in the towel. If Americans can evolve, which they cant, then its over with soon. You all are still stuck in the model of 60 years ago, if not more, and are dying on the inside.
Good riddance. Lars Lonte
I totally agree with you – just compare Women from Eastern Europa or even Asia with the average Women from the East Coast or Europe (especially (West-) Germany and Great Britain as most US like states and cultures….there is a reason, why Eastern European men usually do not want to marry women from western Germany…. King Mercury
Because American women have literally priced themselves out of the dating market! American women show that they want only guys with big, wide luxury sports Ferraris with all of the latest technology, gigantic mc mansions at least 5 times the size of the Home Alone house, three quarter million dollar or higher incomes, a growing number of them are even going for gangsters and thugs that get that kind of luxury through violent crime and illegal drugs. Jonathan
Women are uncooperative, don’t care, too busy, incompetent at love and domestic life and think it’s cool to emotionally, psychologically, financially, and in every way abuse men and never receive any reciprocation for their bad behavior, nor offer any reciprocation for men’s gifts. The egomania in women has exploded, and the genie can no longer fit in the bottle. rwinkel
It’s a no brainer. Lookup “hisanic paradox” on wikipedia. The abuse of infants in this country is an important factor in the rise of sociopathy and broken families. Infants imprint just like every other mammal on the planet, and American obstetrics is unique in its disregard for children’s dignity and human rights. P.F.
America is in this state because it has turned to sin rather than YAHWEH’S HOLY LAW. Only in our LORD JESUS/YESHUA do we find fulfillment, peace, and joy. When people are filled with joy they share truth and love–when people are moaning miserably inside they become cold and detached. You can’t depend on people to bring you happiness first—you have to seek JESUS/YESHUA who teaches us how to love one another the right way, and then, and only then, will people know joy. america depends on itself to create its own happiness and you’re seeing the negative effects. Back in the 1950’s Biblical values were held strongly in the homes. That’s why you see your grandparents who were married during that time either still alive and married and buried next to each other. What you’ll see in the coming years are old ladies and men wondering around alone who are not married and who will be buried in single graves while the children carry on the negative tradition of their failed ways. Way to go america, you’re doing just fine. David McElroy
Sad, but true, P.F. If it weren’t for hope in Jesus, there’d be no hope at all! MichaelfromTheEconomicCollapse
Michael David McElroy
As the oldest of 12 children from an Irish father who stayed married to our mother, I can testify as to the merciless bombardments of anti-family messages delivered to us. My mother was urged to abort many of my siblings. Teachers and other “counselors” urged us not to spend so much time together, as we were “clannish”. I fell for the encouragement to go to college and make something of myself and “get ahead” before marriage and children. Even our church was discouraging, openly saying we took too much pew space and gave too little money. (Even though we physically labored to help build the building!) I went to college, became a journalist and, after a disasterous cohabitation I thought would lead to marriage, eventually a chaplain. But I also ended up an old bachelor who thought he would have a wife and grandkids by now. My computer is my companion! CollGen2
You are a wonderful person. Your parent’s stuck together. That is the way God’s original design was. Your writing touched my heart today, thank you! All things will work out for good to those who LOVE God and are called according to HIS purpose. HE created each one of us and He also beckons us. He put an end to sin by being the perfect sacrifice on that cross. He beckoned me and I did it my way…..til trouble hit! I have a husband, 3 children and 4 grandchildren. I am alone most of the time at home, answering the phone for my small business. But, most of the time, I am immersing myself in the King James Bible and fellowshipping with my Father. He is the only one who will never leave me nor forsake me. How do I know that? I was in a coma many years ago when He beckoned me. I have tried to do things the “me” way but every road was a disaster until I surrendered my life to Him! The suffering I go through here is nothing compared to the GLORY that awaits me.”! Tim
There are good, faithful men out there who want a family. David McElroy
I’m with Tim, I was one of those guys who wanted to be a faithful husband and father. But I made the mistake of being smitten with a conniving woman who had no maternal domestic interests, being the “modern” sort. Jenn
I’m sorry that happened to you. Not all of us women are that way, but many of them seem to be these days. :-( Aston Martin
Modern westernized women are victims of the you-know-who….research who founded and promoted the femaleist movement and the truth shall make you afraid while you struggle to set free of the international bankers. SafetyViking
Good. Why buy the book when there’s a library in town? godozo
Ugly analogy. Knowledge is meant to be shared, women…not. Even the Founding Fathers and many of the old-school Robber Barons would agree (Carnegie anyone? He funded a nation’s worth of libraries.).
Try “Why buy the cow when the milk is free?”. Lifelong Mates (both male and female) ARE a limited resource, and like milk is worth paying for to keep (or keep the flow coming, depending on the item). wombleranger
I don’t like to be the one to say this but….if you remove spirituality and morals from a society you end up with the western world. America isn’t the only western power suffering this condition come to Canada where anyone with a problem gets a Prozac prescription and it’s free!!! We would be wise to remember the former Soviet Union and it’s devastation of the churches and religions. Now we must ask ourselves are we staring to become a communist nation? To quote William Penn ” .Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants”-certainly is food for thought! A lonely mind is a dangerous mind. Eileen Kuch
Very well put, wombleranger. Indeed, if you remove spirituality and morals from a society, that society starts to fragment. Just look at America today. It’s barely recognizable as the God-fearing nation it used to be.
I don’t know about your Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, but Barack Obama is the worst Presidents we ever had. He’s hell-bent on destroying the old America and turning it into a USSA, a near image of the early 20th Century USSR, where Orthodox Christian Churches were devastated and the religion driven underground.
Those who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants – William Penn
Great quote, too. wombleranger
Thanks Eileen. It’s comforting to see there are still moral people in this world, now we just need to wake-up the good souls from the deep sleep. It’s an uphill battle to be sure, but as long as i breath i will never forsake my dignity, morals and most of all my God. nilro
Too many nut cases out there, Animals are a better bet. Truman Golden | 0 |
Embodying The Monad, A Session Transcript
ES Forum Reference Link (Jan. 2011):
This gives us the bigger picture and an understanding of why embodying the monad right now is so important. The suggested invocation will follow.
There are two agendas happening simultaneously for 2012 and beyond.
On one level there is a battle happening over the control of the souls here. The beings that are entrenched in the first three chakras are being subjected to more aggressive and more amounts of technology geared to break down the mental body.
The algorithms that create the binary process of the linear mind meaning, how our solar plexus projects impulses that our physical brain picks up, that process is being interrupted with static, harnesses and mind control. If a person is not in their own power, they will be influenced to either be possessed by consciousness entities or possessed by forces that they act out that they don’t understand. This is the agenda of the negative aliens who are continuing to be aggressive with these technologies.
As fragmented souls become more stressed out and engage in more negative behavior, at a certain point the body’s aura will include more percentage of that possessed dark energy. If a person is 49% light and 51% dark, that person will be sucked like a vacuum. A person that is primarily in fear or sick, they will get sucked down like a magnetic pull and it will cause that person to fragment. Their soul and seed atom will shatter. This is the metatronic black heart, which is essentially a reversal monad pulled down into a phantom system. The controllers want to destroy the actual crystal seed atom and have it be disconnected from the body. By doing this, they create an automaton, which is a body that is human but is not animated by any kind of soul , only a finite life force.
Simultaneously to that, there are those of us that are in the light warrior family or the galactic family starting to embody new levels of our spirit bodies that are starting to be returned to us (the monad) and with that god technology and consciousness technology we are learning new ways to work with the technology and some of that has required new levels of dark arts training.
We are attempting to embody as much of our monadic consciousness and activate the seed atom. As we activate the seed atom, we activate and change the pulse rhythm in the grid on the planet. So many areas of the planetary grid are damaged, so they are going in reversals patterns. If we can hold this base pulse rhythm, we create a circumference in an area where we can literally create a safe zone. We are being asked to create a safe zone by Guardian contacts. If we can embody this, we create a safe zone on the planet. The more of us that do this, the more safe zones we are going to have. More people are going to have the opportunity to be able to pick up the code they need and not get sucked down into the controllers system where their seed atom could get shattered.
We must embody this consciousness and architecture and hold it in our location. Our location is never an accident. This is our assignment meaning where we are, where we are holding it is where we need to anchor it down.
We seem to have a goal to get a lot of this done by 2011 and ongoing. We are trying to meet a goal of a certain threshold of healing by November 11, 2011, which is 11/11/11. At strange at it may sound, bodies are freed now and we need to get them to their rightful owner.
Here is an explanation of the changes and adjustments that are happening in our bodies as the monad comes in and the Christ seed gets activated:
“There are multidimensional centers in the body that are called flame access points and they control the neurological processes in the physical body and also adjust the brain nervous system. As the body undergoes adjustments in the heart chakra, I am understanding that particular part of the bio computer which is controlled by the monad. So this is the nervous system adjustment that is controlling the currents that work with the pulsation on the heart rhythm. And then there is the heart rhythm axiatonal line upgrade in the center of the chest and heart. The flame access points work with a part of the architecture on the heart chakra where these points come out of the heart and are a part of breathing the zero point.
We the starseeded ones are working with biological prototyping and we hold these certain levels of architecture. The holding of the Mother Arc is that 13th dimensional frequency which has to do with the universal monad and the dimensional 13 monad frequency of the Mother Arc. Generally I note that the monadic core is the 8th dimensional chakra in the thymus area where this starts to open up and the crystalline structure of the heart and its function starts changing. Layers 1-7 are planetary. 8th and above layers are off planet, galactic, multiple bodies that exist in other planets and star systems. The monadic 8th dimension and how it connects with the mother energy, changes biorhythms and certain chemicals that relate to the heart function.
The permanent seed atom or the Christ seed starts coming on line when the monad starts connecting to the body. Higher spirit body starts connecting to the body at the thymus level and starts adjusting the heart pattern. It causes change in hormones, endocrine, biorhythms like a domino effect when the monad starts coming on line.
The Egyptians knew that our endocrine system was responsible for secreting hormones and those hormones were responsible for our neurology being able to perceive other dimensions. The hormonal secretions change our neurochemistry and then align us to the broadcast to those particular windows of the soul.
The monad is the 7th, 8th and 9th layer but it starts connecting at the 8th chakra level which is the heart. When the monad starts coming in like this, the whole heart changes pattern meaning the heart chakra is no longer an astral heart, it is a blue heart. Your heart turns blue and the frequency coming through starts turning blue. They were showing me something new I have never seen before which is that blue connection to the turquoise of the mother. So the 8th dimension is a gold color but when the monad starts flowering in the heart and the heart starts to configure, it actually looks blue and they call this the living lotus. I call this galactivation.
When our heart is healed, there is a fire that is ignited inside the heart that is accessed and the fire in the heart is also in the kidneys. There is a triangle that connects the heart into the kidneys. The kidneys are in the base of the triangle from left to right and the point of the triangle is in the heart. When the heart is healed, there is a twin flame ignition in our heart and kidneys, which shifts the heart configuration. Twin flames = structure of light within the heart. So two flames ignite in the heart. The monad is the greater flame and the physical body is the lesser flame. When this flame is ignited, there is an ignition in the heart and a fire coming in to the kidneys.
How it impacts the 5th chakra, thyroid and parathyroid, glandular system, and secretions of the brain tell the brain how the heart and breathing rhythm work. It is a vast circulatory system including meridians, axiatonal lines, and the multiple levels of bodies of complexity working toward the physical embodiment of the Christ consciousness. This is about igniting the Christ consciousness eternal seed atom and bring that on line. The Monadic spark starts to connect to the seed atom, which is the Christ consciousness and our crystal body.
This is the seed that the controllers are attempting to crush or stop from flowering in the human population. They want to crush the permanent seed atom in the thymus, which is the 8th chakra, which is where the monad starts coming in and actually connecting in to the body.”
Transcript of LR Session by L. Alexander. Share: Rate: | 0 |
Monday’s editorial in USA Today likens White House Chief Strategist and former Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon to Abu Bakr the leader of the Islamic State (ISIS, or ISIL) terrorist “caliphate. ”[The editorial argues that Bannon is like because both perceive a “clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. ” (The term “clash of civilizations” arises from a 1992 lecture by Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington.) USA Today argues: Each man spins a narrative for his followers of sprawling conflict between believers of Prophet Mohammed and followers of Jesus Christ. “There is a major war brewing, a war that’s already global,” Bannon warned an audience at the Vatican in 2014. A year later, Baghdadi said: “Oh Muslims … this war is only against you and against your religion. ” Each man proselytizes for this vision of war. A decade ago, according to The Washington Post, Bannon outlined a movie proposal based on the fear that radical Muslims will overrun the U. S. turning it into the “Islamic States of America. ” Bannon and the ISIS leader, USA Today argues, are also similar because Bannon is a “populist” who “seeks to upend the establishment and thrives on chaos. ” The editorial argues that the only way to hold Bannon in check is through “President Donald Trump’s vanity,” which “could become a welcome force for peace” if he feels upstaged by Bannon and reduces his influence. USA Today printed a short opposing view, written by Paul Miller of the Haym Salomon Center. He points out that USA Today itself conducted an “exhaustive” investigation of Bannon’s past radio broadcasts “only to find nothing” — none of the racism and antisemitism that the mainstream media had falsely concocted over the past several months. Miller adds: Since two administrations told the public, “Islam is peace. ” President Obama refused to even acknowledge that Islam, which means “submission” or “surrender,” has anything to do with the wave of terrorism in Europe and creeping its way into the United States. The Trump administration and Bannon do not mince words. And the fact that terrorism is uppermost on so many Americans’ minds indicates a compelling vote of confidence for Bannon and President Trump, although one would be to read that in the news media. In 2016, USA Today made an exception to its policy of not endorsing presidential candidates, and told its readers not to vote for Trump, arguing that he was “unfit for the presidency. ” Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
Muslim Americans, already alarmed by the election of Donald J. Trump, said Friday that Mr. Trump’s choices for crucial posts heightened their fears of discrimination, violence, deportation and even detention. Many said they worried that a more hostile America could prompt more Muslims to join forces with terrorists. During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump said “Islam hates us,” endorsed the idea of a government registry of Muslims and proposed suspending immigration by Muslims or people from some countries. In interviews on Friday, many Muslims said that they were not sure before the election how seriously to take such talk, hoping that it was more political hyperbole than policy, but that the personnel moves of the last few days had confirmed their worst fears. At the Dream Cafe, a hookah bar in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, Sara Khan, 17, whose parents are from Pakistan, expressed particular concern about her family’s ability to remain in the United States. “What are we going to do if he tries to kick us out?” she asked of Mr. Trump. “People from all over the world come here to find freedom,” she said, but now she wonders what that freedom means if “one man can take it away. ” Mr. Trump has offered the post of national security adviser to Michael T. Flynn, a retired Army general who has written that “fear of Muslims is rational,” has said that “Islam is a political ideology” and is “like a malignant cancer. ” For director of central intelligence, Mr. Trump has tapped Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas, who has said that “most Islamic leaders across America” were complicit in terrorist attacks for not speaking out more forcefully. He has asked Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who has endorsed a Muslim immigration ban, to be attorney general, and has named Stephen K. Bannon, whom critics have denounced as a white nationalist, as senior White House strategist. And some Trump supporters have cited the internment of during World War II as a possible precedent. “I did not take Trump’s statements seriously enough, and I did not take these white nationalists as seriously as I should have,” said Zareena Grewal, an associate professor of American studies and religious studies at Yale. “That these people have moved from the fringe of American politics to the very center should frighten everybody. ” Hanan Hassan, a native of Iraq who works at a refugee center in Phoenix, mostly with people from Syria, said her mood and that of her clients had changed drastically. “Some of us are scared of being sent back,” she said. “Our children are having issues at school. ” Ms. Hassan, 37, who said her parents and her brother were killed by a car bomb in Baghdad, said, “We left home because it was not safe there,” but now the United States feels unsafe. Some voiced worries about a Muslim registry, and the prospect of being tracked and investigated by the government, noting that a registry for noncitizens from some Arab countries, in effect from 2002 to 2011, resulted in few leads on terrorism, but many deportations. Others shrugged off the prospect, saying that they assumed they were under surveillance already. And people were still unsure how seriously to take the even more troubling idea — not raised by anyone with a formal role on the Trump team — of internment. “I don’t put it past them,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council of American Islamic Relations. “Personnel is policy, and Flynn considers us as the enemy, so what kind of policies is he going to push forward? The Muslim community will be at his mercy. ” Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, said: “I believe in my heart that our fellow Americans would not let that happen. I’m not saying that it definitely won’t happen. The fact that we’re even having this conversation is really spreading a lot of fear in the community. ” Muslim leaders said their strategy would be to mount legal challenges and to strengthen alliances with other religious and ethnic groups. Muslim, Jewish and Christian clergy members and lay leaders gathered in front of mosque in Washington on Friday in a demonstration of mutual support. Mobilized by an interfaith group called “Shoulder to Shoulder,” they asked Trump to keep his promise that he will serve as the president of all Americans. “American Muslims follow the U. S. Constitution,” said Rizwan Jaka, chairman of the board of the ADAMS Center, one of the nation’s largest mosques, in Northern Virginia. “We call upon this incoming administration to also follow it. ” They refrained from criticizing Mr. Trump or his selections, and instead called on them to recognize that American Muslims serve the United States as doctors, teachers and law enforcement officers. They said that, contrary to claims by Mr. Pompeo and others, American Muslims routinely denounce terrorist attacks perpetrated by Islamic extremists, and have been credited by the Department of Homeland Security with preventing attacks by reporting suspects to the authorities. Usama Shami, president of the Islamic Community Center in Phoenix, said he had received an outpouring of support from including some who came in person to join in Friday Prayers, and others who offered to register as Muslims if a registry is created. “All of that gives us comfort,” Mr. Shami said. “The problem is, in this day and age — this is 2016, almost 2017 — we’re going backward. Make America great again? How? Having an internment camp for Muslims as they had for Japanese? Appointing Islamophobes for key positions?” Still, some Muslims held out hope that the Trump team may be more bluster than real threat. “He is a businessman, and businessmen have plenty of masks they wear everyday,” said Heshem Hassane, 42, an Egyptian immigrant who owns an ironworks in New York. He expressed doubt about whether the new administration would follow through on some plans, but added, “there’s no person who’s not concerned unless he’s isolated about what’s going on. ” For many Muslims, their fears are less about Trump administration policies than about a hostile atmosphere that they say could promote violence against them. The FBI reported this week that hate crimes rose 67 percent in 2015, and Muslim groups say 2016 is on track to be worse. “Every day people are calling from all over the country to tell me about incidents and attacks, and I have to tell people, I’m not a Trump emergency responder,” Dr. Grewal said. “People are worried about their actual, physical safety, about attacks. People are asking, ‘Do we buy a gun? Do we get a dog?’ ” For many Muslims, the worst prospect of all is that members of their community, alienated by the political atmosphere and government action, could heed calls by Islamic extremists to carry out terrorist attacks. “ISIS will have more disenfranchised people, people pushed to the margins, to appeal to,” Mr. Awad said. “This is music to their ears. ” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The Congress opened the turbulent Trump era in Washington on Tuesday, as the new Senate moved instantly to begin the repeal of President Obama’s signature health care law while the House descended into chaos in an attempt to gut an independent congressional ethics office. On a day usually reserved for pomp, constitutionally mandated procedure and small children parading around in fancy dresses, Congress instead pitched itself into partisan battles. Speaker Paul D. Ryan easily won but not before the embarrassment of having his members defy him by voting to eliminate the ethics office, only to then abandon that effort after a flood of criticism from constituents and Twitter messages from Donald J. Trump that criticized House Republican priorities. It was a rocky start to a period in which Republicans had promised an end to Washington gridlock if they controlled both Congress and the White House. There was intraparty conflict and a sense that Mr. Trump, who ran against the Republican establishment, would continue to be openly critical of his own party at times. As Democrats in both chambers seethed, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, unveiled the legislative language that could decimate the Affordable Care Act before the crocuses start to bloom in the spring, even if any replacement of the law could take years. Budget language released on Tuesday gives House and Senate committees only until Jan. 27 to produce legislation that would eliminate major parts of the health care law. Under arcane budget procedures, that legislation would be protected from a Democratic filibuster and could pass the Senate with a simple majority. And debate will begin on Wednesday, before senators have even moved into their new offices. The dueling over the health law’s fate will pull in both the departing and incoming White House administrations as well. On Wednesday, Mr. Obama will visit with congressional Democrats to plot how to resist the planned repeal, and Mike Pence, the vice will meet with Republicans to gird them for the fight ahead. While the Senate action showed Republicans on course to keep campaign promises, the House got off to a messy start, brought on by Republicans who had moved largely in secret on Monday to gut a congressional ethics office against Mr. Ryan’s wishes. That provoked an outcry from both Democrats and voters who flooded House offices with angry calls. “Every organization is calling my office,” said Representative Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas. “And we’ve told them: ‘Thank you very much. We appreciate your feedback. ’” After a hastily called meeting on Tuesday morning among Republicans, the matter was dropped before it could go to the full House floor for a vote. As the Senate moved to larger legislative matters, the House kerfuffle seemed to cast a shadow over Mr. Ryan, but he tried to brush it off. “There’s no sense of foreboding in the House today,” Mr. Ryan said after his “only the sense of potential. ” The fight over the House rules was already acrimonious thanks to a piece of the package that would impose $2, 500 in fines for filming events on the House floor, a response to Democrats who streamed their overnight over guns last June using cellphones and video cameras. In the Senate, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. swore in seven new members and all the incumbents who won their races last year, their colleagues looking on cheerfully, as a cold rain pelted the newly refurbished Capitol dome. Members of the House and Senate brought along their families — elderly parents with canes, small children tugging at uncomfortable lacy hems — as well as former senators and other special guests. Former Vice President Dick Cheney accompanied his daughter Liz to her as a member of the House elected from Wyoming. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York officially became the Democratic leader and quickly warned Republicans that the minority would be vocal, if not operatic, in resisting much of their agenda and many of Mr. Trump’s nominees. “It is our job to do what’s best for the American people, the middle class and those struggling to get there,” he said. “If the proposes legislation on issues like infrastructure, trade and closing the carried interest loophole, for instance, we will work in good faith to perfect and, potentially, enact it. When he doesn’t, we will resist. ” He added, “If Trump lets the members of Congress and his cabinet run the show, if he adopts their timeworn policies — which benefit the elites, the special interests and corporate America, not the working man and woman — his presidency will not succeed. ” On Tuesday, the House also adopted rules clearing the way for legislation to roll back the health care law. The budget blueprint introduced on Tuesday in the Senate is not sent to the president and does not become law, but still clears the way for subsequent legislation that Republicans say will repeal major provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Republicans bypassed the Budget Committee so they could immediately bring the measure to the floor. Such resolutions are normally developed after weeks of work in the Budget Committee. Under the plan, four congressional committees — two in the House and two in the Senate — have until Jan. 27 to develop legislation that will be the vehicle for repealing the health care law. The document does not specify which provisions of the law may be eliminated and which ones may be preserved. Nor does it specify or even suggest how Republicans would replace the Affordable Care Act, which the Obama administration says has provided coverage to some 20 million people who were previously uninsured. Republicans have said they may delay the effective date of a repeal bill, to avoid disrupting coverage for people who have it and to provide time for Republicans to develop alternatives to the 2010 health law. The budget blueprint allows Republicans to use savings from repealing major provisions of that law to help offset the cost of future, unspecified measures to help people obtain coverage. “Americans face skyrocketing premiums and soaring deductibles,” said Senator Mike Enzi, Republican of Wyoming and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. “Insurers are withdrawing from markets across the country, leaving many families with fewer choices and less access to care than they had before — the opposite of what the law promised. ” The American Medical Association urged Congress on Tuesday to explain how it would replace the Affordable Care Act. “Before any action is taken through reconciliation or other means that would potentially alter coverage, policy makers should lay out for the American people, in reasonable detail, what will replace current policies,” the chief executive of the association, Dr. James L. Madara, said in a letter to congressional leaders. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who engineered the House passage of the health law in 2010, promised this week that Democrats would be just as aggressive in fighting its repeal. Republicans have said they may delay legislation to replace the health law for several years. Ms. Pelosi said that such a delay would be “an act of cowardice on the part of Republicans,” and that “they don’t even have the votes to do it” because they have not agreed on a replacement plan. Democrats also vowed to give Mr. Trump’s cabinet nominees rigorous scrutiny. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, has written to Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the committee chairman, asking to postpone the first scheduled confirmation hearing, set for next week for Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, whom Mr. Trump has chosen as attorney general. | 1 |
BATON ROUGE, La. — Few can appreciate the scale of devastation and loss here quite like the tow truck driver. Since before dawn, Terrance Carter was up, first getting a flooded Cadillac out of Zachary, a town where more than two feet of rain had fallen in 72 hours. Soon after, he was hooking up a pickup truck abandoned by its driver during the floods in a neighborhood of North Baton Rouge, where nearly every house had the telltale brown stain up past the windowsills. Two hours later, he was taking a minivan through the charmingly named and thoroughly devastated subdivisions in the eastern part of the city. On this tour of destruction, he pointed to familiar neighborhoods that looked utterly wrecked and nearly deserted, and to ruined houses of friends he was just now seeing. But he was quiet passing the Triple S convenience store. It was there, on July 5, that his uncle Alton B. Sterling was killed. “It’s very hard to pass by that store,” said Mr. Carter, a father of four who like thousands here is now homeless. He drove on in silence for some blocks. Then he pointed: “All this flooded. ” It had already been a long, painful summer in Baton Rouge. What was once a sleepy college and government town was hit in July with successive crises that seemed, at the time, to be the crises of a decade: citywide protests over the police shooting of Mr. Sterling and the gunning down of three officers 12 days later. What followed were weeks of talk about coming together as a community after a crisis. Then came the worst flooding in memory. By Wednesday morning, about 7, 000 people were spread among 37 shelters across southern Louisiana, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said. Later in the day, the death toll reached 13, and state officials said they were still searching homes and businesses after a flood that the American Red Cross described as “the worst natural disaster to strike the United States since Superstorm Sandy. ” In Ascension Parish, southeast of Baton Rouge, the local emergency preparedness director compared rescue operations to those that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “The sheltering effort is actually greater than what we saw for Hurricane Katrina,” the director, Richard A. Webre, said. The White House said that President Obama, who was vacationing in Massachusetts, had received a briefing on Wednesday morning from the FEMA administrator, W. Craig Fugate, who visited Louisiana this week. More than 70, 000 people had registered for federal assistance, the White House said. Nearly everyone here has been affected by one of the crises this summer, some by two and some by all three. Police officers in Baton Rouge have been working extended shifts of 12 hours each, even though, according to a department spokesman, the flooding affected “a large number” of officers. “We’re out there and we’re doing what we can,” said Sgt. Don Coppola Jr. of the Baton Rouge Police Department. In Livingston Parish, the Sheriff’s Office said that at least 60 deputies had had to deal with flood damage. “Some have nowhere to go,” the agency said on its Facebook page. The homes of the families of the three law enforcement officers killed on July 17 — Cpl. Montrell L. Jackson and Officer Matthew Gerald of the Baton Rouge police, and Deputy Brad Garafola of the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office — had made it through the floods, officials said, some damaged but none ruined. Mr. Carter had been asleep early on July 5 when his mother called and told him that her brother, Mr. Sterling, had been shot by an officer at the Triple S. The days unfolded and exploded. Mr. Carter’s employer saw him on television talking about the shooting and fired him, Mr. Carter said. A baby daughter was born a week later. Three days after that, Mr. Carter stood before hundreds at his uncle’s funeral service and recited a poem he had written, “Kiss From Your Nephew. ” Two days afterward, the three officers were shot dead by a man from Missouri angered about Mr. Sterling’s death. Mr. Carter emphasized to the reporters who asked: He did not condone violence at all he has relatives on the police force. The summer quieted until the rains came this past weekend. He had to spend Saturday and Sunday nights in a shelter in Baton Rouge with his four young children, from 5 weeks to 7 years, and Bessia Moore, the mother of the two youngest. On Monday, he moved everyone to his sisters’ small house, joining nine other people and two dogs. On Tuesday, he went to the house where he, his children, his mother and stepfather had been living, and found it and everything in it ruined. On Wednesday, he was back at work. “Somebody gave me the clothes I have on now,” he said Wednesday, sitting in the truck cab equipped with a pack of cigarettes and the last of his insulin shots. “Nothing I have on is mine. Even the shoes. ” This part of his story is not so different from many others in south Louisiana. It has similarities with Michelle Monistere, who had the minivan in Lakeview Estates, which like so many subdivisions in the eastern part of the city was congested with piles of ruined mattresses, carpeting, wallboard and furniture. It is familiar to Tasha Butler, who was taking everything out of the house where she had lived for 35 out of the last 40 years. “It was bad,” she said through a dust mask. “It’s everything. ” Mr. Carter was in North Baton Rouge, a struggling and often overlooked part of the city where he has lived most of his life, to retrieve the pickup. Discarded cars littered the streets. Mr. Carter recognized Ms. Butler’s house, having helped paint it when he was 10. “In time, it will be better,” said Ms. Butler, throwing another garbage bag on the enormous pile on her lawn. After hours on the road, Mr. Carter finally stopped for something to eat: fried shrimp and fish at the V P Seafood and Deli. A local news channel was playing, and the police chief of a small flooded Louisiana city was talking of the coffins that had floated up from graveyards. “Even the dead can’t rest,” the chief was saying. Mr. Carter watched. He had feared this possibility when he was in the shelter over the weekend, he said. So he had walked from the shelter to his uncle’s grave. It had not been disturbed. | 1 |
There was a telltale line in the statement Huw Jenkins, the chairman of Swansea City, released Tuesday to confirm that Bob Bradley’s career as a Premier League manager was over after 85 days. Amid the heartfelt expressions of regret that are all but programmed into these things, the eulogies for the condemned man’s character and the best wishes for his future, Jenkins explained the logic that had forced his — and Swansea’s American owners’ — hand. “We felt we had to make the change with half of the Premier League season remaining,” Jenkins said. “With the club going through such a tough time, we have to try and find the answers to get ourselves out of trouble. ” Jenkins did not mean that Swansea is about to indulge in a period of intense . There will be no at the executive level about the drift that has been allowed to set in at the club over the last three years or about why Swansea’s meteoric rise has been allowed to stall so quickly. Jenkins and his colleagues will not be asking themselves why the club has sold a host of important players, the core of the team that took Swansea into the Premier League and then established the club there, nor why they tried to replace them with a collection of waifs and strays. There will be no deep dive into performance data to try to work out where, what and who the weak links are. No, what Jenkins means is quite different. Swansea is not going to start asking any questions. It is going to skip that part and go out and find an answer. Or rather, it is going to go out and find a man — almost certainly a white man, and most likely one who in most other walks of life would be about ready for his pension — who it believes already has the answers. In Italy, there is a word for the manager who is called in when the warning lights are flashing and the fans are in revolt: traghettatore — the ferryman, the person who guides you through choppy waters to the safety of the bank. England — where referring to a penalty kick as a “P. K.,” as Bradley did, is considered dangerously gauche — does not have the word, but it most certainly understands the concept. A couple of days before Christmas, Sam Allardyce was confirmed as Crystal Palace’s new manager. Alan Pardew, the man he replaced, was a former player at the club, beloved by its fans, and had even taken Palace to last year’s F. A. Cup final. His arrival just less than two years ago had been treated as a considerable coup Palace had paid Newcastle £3. 5 million ($4. 2 million) to release him from his contract, and it had been only a couple of months since Pardew himself had explained, at length, why he would not want to leave the club even if he was offered the chance to manage England’s national team. But Palace was enduring a worse 2016 than any other Premier League team. The most lavish spending in the club’s history — bringing in the likes of Christian Benteke and Andros Townsend — had not arrested the slide, and now the heat of the battle to avoid relegation was on Pardew’s neck. Despite his close bond with Steve Parish, Palace’s chairman, Pardew could not survive it. On Dec. 22, the day he was relieved of his duties — with a payout to cushion the blow — Allardyce was summoned for talks with Parish. Those went so well that Allardyce, 62, took charge of training on Christmas Eve. It did not matter that Allardyce had been fired, just a few months earlier, from his dream job as England’s manager for a series of damaging comments made to undercover newspaper journalists. It did not matter that the Football Association, English soccer’s governing body, had deemed his behavior beyond the pale, and that it had been forced to part with him “to protect the wider interests of the game. ” It did not matter, either, that at two of Allardyce’s four previous clubs — Newcastle United and West Ham United — his departure was hardly mourned, or that his preferred style of play was polarizing at best, or that he only won nine of 31 games in charge of Sunderland, his last club post. It did not matter because Allardyce is a traghettatore, and ultimately money trumps what ghosts of morality survive in elite soccer. He is the man who has the answers. He will always find work whenever he is without it, work tends to find him. “We were fortunate that someone of Allardyce’s caliber and experience was available,” Parish said in bringing him on. That word, experience, is crucial. It is the same one Allardyce chose to emphasize when he was presented as Palace’s new manager: He would “get out of trouble, with my experience. ” The Premier League, more than most other leagues, cherishes experience. Swansea’s experiment with Bradley, of course, seems to illustrate perfectly why that is. Bradley was, by Premier League standards, an appointment out of deep left field. He had never before worked in a top European league. He had neither coached nor played in England. His résumé was eclectic, and his body of work, weighted with its context, was impressive: spells with the United States and Egypt national teams, fine campaigns with Stabaek in Norway and Le Havre in France’s second division. He was convincing in interviews: Jenkins, like Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien, Swansea’s American owners, believed he was a leader. He was popular within the club, with employees and players. Jenkins meant it when he described him, in his statement Tuesday, as a “good man. ” And yet the results do not lie. Swansea has only 12 points from 18 games this season Bradley leaves the club in 19th place in the standings, his team having scored 15 goals and conceded 29 during his tenure. It was the latter that did it for him: not the fact of defeats to West Ham, Middlesbrough and West Bromwich Albion, but the nature of them — the visible collapses, the wilting spirit. Bradley had many admirable traits and a respected work ethic, but in hindsight that all seems irrelevant because he does not have experience, and only experience brings answers. Now Swansea, too, will turn to its own traghettatore. It is possible to, simultaneously, feel that Swansea has made an understandable decision and worry that English soccer is damaged by this tyranny of experience. Not just because the same old jobs going to the same old faces is one of the reasons that England’s native managerial stock remains so steadfastly white: Even a properly enforced Rooney Rule — the N. F. L. ’s requirement that teams interview a minority candidate for head coaching vacancies — would stand no chance of working when the only openings that come up would be inevitably awarded to the same candidates. Not just because it places an insurmountable roadblock on any young coaches — either or those working their way through the lower leagues — hoping for a chance to cut their teeth in the Premier League, starving a new generation of oxygen. But because, in encouraging that homogeneity, it locks English soccer — as opposed to the multinational Premier League — in stasis. Few clubs risk new ideas, new approaches, new voices those that do seem to lose their nerve with alarming speed. Maybe Bradley was the wrong appointment at Swansea, but that should not mean the league should write off all American coaches, or all coaches in France’s second division, or all coaches who have not previously managed in England. To believe that would be to condemn English soccer to the tried and tested, instead of the bold and the brave. It would mean a culture that is forever crossing from one bank to another, never actually getting anywhere. | 1 |
Come on down to Hole-Suckers on Southside and get your hole sucked By hatesec , on November 14th, 2016
Tonight only, come get your hole sucked at Southside Hole-Suckers on Williamson Rd right next door to the Civic Center Arena!
Hole-Suckers on Southside is now fun for the whole family. Get your hole sucked on Southside while the women watch. Hole Suckers on Southside is where Timmy becomes a man! Southside Hole Suckers – Get your whole hole sucked by the mouthside, on the Southside!
“I took my church group to Southside Hole Suckers and we had a lovely time. The staff were very friendly and treated us all (even the you-know-whos) like family.”
“I visited Hole Suckers on Southside for my buddy’s wake. It was depressing, because of the way he died, but that was through no fault of the good people at Southside Hole-Suckers.”
“I took my prom date to Southside Hole-Suckers – because we’re kind of the weird kids at school – and even though we are both virgins, my girlfriend is now pregnant. Thanks, Southside Hole-Suckers!” Share this article | 0 |
The top commander of the U. S. coalition against the Islamic State ( ) has lauded the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) a predominantly Shiite militia umbrella group that also includes individuals who have been deemed terrorists by the United States, for their contribution to the ongoing offensive to retake Sunni majority Mosul. [“Before I got here, I read all kinds of things about the PMF, and I got here and I haven’t observed that behavior,” American Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the commander, told the Daily Beast on Christmas Day. “We’re not having allegations of bad behavior or misconduct,” he noted, asserting that the PMF have not endangered U. S. troops yet. “Their internal and external comms are to keep disciplined and follow the orders of the government,” he said. “They’re saying that and that’s what we’re seeing. ” Townsend suggested the PMF, which includes members who have recently threatened U. S. service members, are no longer a risk to his fellow service members. According to the Daily Beast: The U. S. has ordinarily eyed these [ Shiite] units warily. But Townsend, in an unusual statement for an American commander, said these militias been been “remarkably disciplined” allies since he arrived. That assessment marks a stark contrast with his previous tours, when deadly bombs almost hit his vehicle, and took the lives of many of his troops. Shortly before the Daily Beast report, the Los Angeles Times has recently learned that, marking a “significant break” in U. S. policy, the U. S. coalition forces in Iraq have provided hundreds of weapons and training to hundreds of Shiite militias known for being affiliated with Iran, including some the U. S. has designated terrorists and may have American blood on their hands. Despite the repeated denials from the Pentagon, Reuters has confirmed that Shiite militias closely aligned with the Iranian government and the terror group Hezbollah are actively participating in the liberation of Mosul from ISIS. The U. S. military claims it only trains and assists Shiite militiamen it has vetted for links to Iran and terrorist groups, as mandated by law, conceding that certain fighters who fail the vetting process are still allowed to participate in the offensive. Townsend confirmed that the U. S. is indeed collaborating with the PMF in fighting for Mosul. The Pentagon has previously denied on multiple occasions that the PMF includes members of the terrorist group Hezbollah, which has collaborated with other Shiite groups on the ground in Iraq. “The PMF did advance more rapidly than we expected and they’ve done a good job,” he told the Daily Beast. PMF fighters have been accused of atrocities against Sunnis but deny the allegations. Asked whether the United States had been “allowing” Shiite militias with bloody histories of murdering U. S. troops to participate in the Mosul operation, a defense official told Breitbart News on condition of anonymity soon after the offensive began, “We are confident in our force protection measures. ” Initially, the U. S. military claimed that it had only been backing the Sunni component of the predominant Shiite PMF, suggesting that the Shiite Iraqi Prime Minister did not control the Shiite component. Iraq’s Parliament has since enacted a law making Shiite militias legal and placing them under the umbrella of the Iraqi armed forces, though answering directly to Iraq’s Prime Minister Haidar . It appears the new law will allow the Iraqi PM to break his pledge that only regular members of the Iraqi forces would enter Mosul, the city in Iraq and ISIS’s last remaining stronghold in the country. In addition to Shiite Muslims, some PMF members are also Sunni tribesman and Christians, but the large majority are Shiites, reports the Daily Beast. | 1 |
india , frigate , indian navy Project 11356 Admiral Grigorovich frigate. Source:mil.ru
India will independently acquire or build and install engines into the Russian-made Project 11356 frigates , India’s Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has said.
After the Russian-Indian annual Summit held in Goa on October 15, the two countries signed an intergovernmental agreement on the construction of the frigates.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin had noted that two of these vessels would be built in Russia, and two in India.
According to the Indian minister, negotiations on the purchase of the frigates by India had begun a long while earlier but, because of the crisis in relations with Russia, Ukraine had refused to supply gas-turbine power plants for the Russian ships.
Russia, India will expand military cooperation with focus on Navy projects
“Now we will buy these engines ourselves and install them in the ships. The frigate will be provided with Indian equipment. This version (of the frigate) has stealth technologies, and we will participate in the design work,” the minister was quoted as saying by the NDTV news channel.
India already has six frigates of the Talwar type – the predecessors of Project 11356, designed for export. The Indian ships entered into service in 2003-2004 and in 2012-2013.
The standard patrol ship of the Burevestnik type is armed with Kalibr cruise missiles. However, as Minister Rogozin stated in Goa, the new frigates will be equipped with BrahMos cruise missiles, of joint Russian-Indian production.
First published in Russian by RIA Novosti . Facebook | 0 |
May’s Brexit plans thrown into turmoil after court defeat Financial Times. Ahem, what they had cooked up so far did not rise to the level of being a plan.
Prime Minister’s Questions: 2 November 2016 YouTube. You gotta love Question Time. If we had anything like this, we’d have better informed voters. Wonderfully rowdy. Richard Smith: “Pretty obvious from the response that the PM doesn’t really know what an SLP is yet, but I expect she is brushing up on that now.
Arrest Warrants Issued for Arrest of All 59 HDP MPs Kurdish Question (Phil U)
Ukraine/Russia | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Speaker Paul D. Ryan, the nation’s Republican, on Tuesday called Donald J. Trump’s remarks about a Latino judge “racist,” an extraordinary indictment that generated a fresh wave of criticism and panic from other Republicans. By the end of the day, Mr. Trump was forced into a rare moment of damage control and said that his words had been “misconstrued. ” Mr. Trump, who said last week that a judge in a case involving Trump University was biased against him because of his heritage, issued a statement Tuesday saying, “I do not feel that one’s heritage makes them incapable of being impartial. ” He added that he was simply questioning whether he was receiving a fair trial, but he did not apologize for his remarks, something many Republicans had urged him to do. Mr. Ryan said Mr. Trump’s criticism of the judge, Gonzalo P. Curiel of United States District Court, was “the textbook definition of a racist comment. ” But Mr. Ryan also reiterated his support for Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. “I disavow these comments — I regret those comments that he made,” Mr. Ryan said. “I think that should be absolutely disavowed. It’s absolutely unacceptable. But do I believe that Hillary Clinton is the answer? No, I do not. ” He added: “I believe that we have more common ground on the policy issues of the day and we have more likelihood of getting our policies enacted with him than with her. ” Republicans on Capitol Hill faced an increasingly difficult task — giving Mr. Trump their support while still keeping their distance from his inflammatory language. While many Republicans, like Mr. Ryan, continued to affirm their support for Mr. Trump, others appeared ready to abandon him, throwing the once stolid party further into disarray. “I cannot and will not support my party’s nominee for president,” said Senator Mark S. Kirk, Republican of Illinois, becoming the first Republican senator running for to break with Mr. Trump. “After much consideration, I have concluded that Donald Trump has not demonstrated the temperament necessary to assume the greatest office in the world” or to control the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Mr. Kirk is perhaps the most vulnerable incumbent Republican, in a state where Mr. Trump is likely to be a drag on the ticket. Mr. Kirk, who still speaks with difficulty from a stroke in 2012, also noted that Mr. Trump has mocked a disabled reporter. Others were close to following Mr. Kirk. “If Donald remains Donald, I will not vote for him,” declared Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, who echoed Mr. Ryan’s denunciation of Mr. Trump’s comments. In a victory speech in Westchester County on Tuesday night, Mr. Trump struck a measured tone, saying he understood the responsibility of carrying the mantle of the Republican Party. “I will never, ever let you down,” he said. But Mr. Trump’s more incendiary remarks in other arenas have left many congressional Republicans facing a painful dilemma. Those who are on the ballot defending the party’s majorities this year need Mr. Trump’s voters to win, and risk angering them with any full disavowal of the nominee. But to continue to embrace him as he openly injects race into the campaign poses its own dangers. Even Republicans who have praised his candidacy warned on Tuesday that the party may have to separate itself from its . Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who has met privately with Mr. Trump and been mentioned as a choice, said “there could be” a line that the presumptive nominee crosses that would make him withdraw his support. “This is a crucial or period,” Mr. Corker said. “If at the end of June, moving into a convention and still not having pivoted toward being more of a general election candidate would prove to be very problematic. ” In private, the senators redirected their anger toward Senator Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican who is Mr. Trump’s most outspoken supporter in the Senate. Senator Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican who is also in a difficult fight, used a luncheon to complain that Mr. Trump’s comments were obscuring the party’s economic message and urged Mr. Sessions to tell Mr. Trump to drop his jeremiad against the judge, according to two senators present who requested anonymity to reveal private conversations. Many Republicans hewed to a carefully scripted text in which the prospect of Hillary Clinton in the White House is presented as a larger threat than the risk their party may be taking with Mr. Trump. “What we have here is a country in crisis,” said Senator David Perdue, Republican of Georgia, adding that Mrs. Clinton was not the person to govern in troubled times. But even that defense showed it cracks. Asked which of Mr. Trump’s policy statements he preferred over Mrs. Clinton’s, Senator Dan Coats, Republican of Indiana, paused for 11 seconds before saying, “I don’t know that I want to deal with that. ” Ms. Ayotte said Mr. Trump’s comments “were wrong and offensive,” adding, “He should retract those comments. ” Among others in a perilous trap are Senators Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, whose new book boasts of his commitment to civil rights Tim Scott, the Senate’s only Republican and Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, sons of Cuban immigrants. Their choice now appears one between their biographies and their principles. Beyond Washington, other Republicans were also not satisfied with Mr. Trump’s response. “Donald Trump should retract his comments, not defend them. There is no place for racism in the G. O. P. or this country,” former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida said on Twitter. For the moment, Republicans are more focused on limiting the damage they incur as a result of Mr. Trump’s candidacy than they are getting him elected. Mr. Scott, who has called Mr. Trump’s comments “racially toxic,” portrayed his own party’s nominee as a temporary affliction on conservatism. “For the next several months, he will have the loudest voice, but the fact of the matter is there will be other voices speaking as well,” he said, not even suggesting Mr. Trump could have the party’s loudest voice for four years. On Tuesday, Mr. McConnell deflected numerous questions about Mr. Trump before saying, “ It’s time to quit attacking various people that you competed with or various minority groups in the country and get on message. ” Even Republicans who shied from talk of abandoning the nominee shifted their tone. Moving from alarmed to angry, the party’s leaders sent Mr. Trump an unmistakable message: He is hurting the party and must stop. Senator Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican who has also embraced Mr. Trump, acknowledged that the party may have to disavow Mr. Trump, employing the maxim from former Justice Potter Stewart about how one can detect pornography. “This is one of those things you’ll know it when you see it,” said Mr. Burr, adding, hopefully, that he did not think the party “will get there. ” Dashing into a luncheon of senators, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, called over her shoulder, “His comments are not helping. ” But Ms. Capito also said in an interview that in her economically depressed state, “there is a huge degree of pessimism. ” “People are looking for a message of hope,” she added, underscoring the attractiveness of Mr. Trump’s economic messages for many Republican voters. Mr. Trump has told his supporters that they should respond by suggesting that reporters who raise questions about his statements are racists, and to carry the message in various forms. One early supporter, Representative Lee Zeldin, Republican of New York, gave the technique a whirl in an interview with CNN on Tuesday. “You can easily argue that the president of the United States is a racist with his policies and his rhetoric. ” The conflagration over Mr. Trump’s remarks has detracted from Mr. Ryan’s desperate efforts to change the conversation on the Hill to focus on policy. But most Republicans agreed they had no real recourse at this point. “There is no easy answer,” Mr. Flake said. “You can write someone in. ” Mr. Trump tried to provide an answer to mitigate the damage. In his statement, he said it was “unfortunate that my comments have been misconstrued as a categorical attack against people of Mexican heritage. ” “I am friends with and employ thousands of people of Mexican and Hispanic descent,” he added. “The American justice system relies on fair and impartial judges. All judges should be held to that standard. “I do not feel that one’s heritage makes them incapable of being impartial, but, based on the rulings that I have received in the Trump University civil case, I feel justified in questioning whether I am receiving a fair trial. ” | 1 |
“What is left when unhungry? ,” Justin Vernon sings midway through “22, a Million,” his third album as Bon Iver. It’s one of many questions this songwriter and asks of himself in the course of the album. And it’s answered, in some ways, by the songs themselves on Bon Iver’s most diverse, noisiest, shortest, knottiest and most experimental album so far. Due for release on Sept. 30, “22, a Million,” is one more sharp turn in a career that has carried Mr. Vernon from obscurity in Wisconsin clubs to festival stages and the Grammys, including an improbable detour via and Kanye West. The songwriter and pianist Bruce Hornsby — one of Mr. Vernon’s avowed influences and, lately, a collaborator — described Mr. Vernon in a phone interview as “a soul singer who creates these unique and beautiful sonic landscapes on which to perform. ” Those landscapes have grown ever more painstakingly inventive. Making the album, Mr. Vernon said earlier this month, was at times spontaneous, at times convoluted and often uncertain. “It was a long moment, these last few years, thinking: What am I doing? What do I want to do it for?” he said. Mr. Vernon needed five years, three of them concentrated on writing and recording the new album, to clarify for himself what Bon Iver means and sounds like, now that he can count on a worldwide audience to keep him “unhungry. ” “I feel both blessed and cursed by the fact that I can do whatever I want at this point,” Mr. Vernon said in a rare extended interview in the recording studio at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, a gallery and performance space in Red Hook where he is on the advisory board. “I have more recognition than I had ever wanted to deal with. ” The pressure he felt was not commercial. “22, a Million” is a bumpier ride than Bon Iver’s previous albums. It constantly mixes distorted and manipulated sounds with natural ones, and it deliberately veers away from pop familiarity. But it also progresses toward solace, grounding its closing songs in steadfast melodies and consoling harmonies. “It’s important to me to not pay any attention to questions of, ‘What’s your legacy going to be?’ or ‘What are you going to leave behind?’ or ‘How do you work into the current scene?’ or ‘How do you relate to the ? ’” Mr. Vernon said. “I find all of that stuff not only distracting but kind of the opposite of what it all means. ” Wearing loose pinstriped pants and a dark gray that revealed some of his many tattoos, with a neatly trimmed beard and casually tousled hair, Mr. Vernon was by no means the introvert his songs might suggest. Affable and articulate, he was eager to delve into and at least partly decrypt his work. The polite of his Midwestern upbringing came through, but Mr. Vernon battles excessive modesty. “I got in a friendly argument with Kanye West about the word humble once,” he recalled. “He said, ‘Have you ever looked up the word humble?’ I was like, ‘Actually I don’t know if I have.’ And he showed me the definition of it, and it’s far more kind of the problematic Midwestern ‘Sorry!’ mentality, than I realized. ” He continued, “I took a lot out of that conversation. Ultimately, I think it’s great to serve others and everything, but I think there’s a certain point where it’s diminishing returns for the people around you if you’re not showing up and being who you are. ” “22, a Million” — the title reflects Mr. Vernon’s numerological whims — is the successor to the 2011 album “Bon Iver, Bon Iver,” which sold more than half a million copies in the United States and won Grammy Awards for best alternative album and best new artist. Grammy recognition “didn’t change anything about me,” he said. “It did make me realize that there are people out there that really care about monetary success and recognition for the commodity that is music, like way more than I do. Not to say I don’t care about recognition. I like when people like a song, but I certainly don’t care as much as some folks out there. ” The first Bon Iver album, “For Emma, Forever Ago,” was a nearly solitary work. Mr. Vernon wrote and recorded it after the breakup of both his longtime band and a relationship, in his father’s chilly hunting cabin in Wisconsin during the winter of and it was full of pensive ballads with translucent layers of guitars and vocals. “For Emma” quietly won hearts, eventually selling half a million copies. It also brought Bon Iver to the attention of Mr. West, who sampled “Woods,” a song from a 2009 Bon Iver EP, and went on to feature Mr. Vernon at concerts and as a songwriting collaborator on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” “Watch the Throne” and “Yeezus. ” The second Bon Iver album, “Bon Iver, Bon Iver” was both more expansive and more ambiguous. Mr. Vernon built his own studio, April Base, in his hometown, Eau Claire, Wis. The music was still gracious, mostly as Mr. Vernon welcomed a broader range of collaborators and instruments, bringing a lapidary detail to the arrangements, while the lyrics posed new riddles. In the interview, Mr. Vernon noted that “Perth,” which opens that album, and “” which concludes it, rhyme with “birth” and “death. ” The continue: A song title on the new album, “10 Death Breast,” rhymes with “ . ” Mr. Vernon found plenty of distractions before settling in to work on “22, a Million. ” He toured the world with the large band he needed to recreate “Bon Iver, Bon Iver” onstage, an elaborate and demanding project. “I didn’t ever plan on having that much popularity, and being from Wisconsin, whatever amount that I could have dreamt about, I was not prepared for any of that,” he said. One thing that weighed on him was being photographed constantly, he said his face is noticeably absent from the artwork of the new album. “I felt very exposed, with scarred skin from the whole experience. Not that it was all bad, but it wore down these outer layers, and everything kind of hurt. ” When the tour ended, he turned to collaborations: producing albums for the Blind Boys of Alabama and the folky English group the Staves, and regrouping and touring with his band Volcano Choir. He started and closely curated a festival, Eaux Claires, with Bon Iver headlining alongside its influences and favorites. And, gradually, he pushed himself to write new songs. Instead of having his guitar at their center, they largely relied on a portable synthesizer and sampler along with a customized Vocoder and thoughts of the heady blend of Duke Ellington’s saxophone sections one new song, he said, weaves about 150 saxophones into its mix. A turning point came when Mr. Vernon traveled to Greece, alone and . He found himself singing the line “It might be over soon” into the sampler, hearing it as a kind of mantra that could suggest relief, loss, mortality or a reason to get to work. “The bad stuff might be over soon, but maybe the good stuff might be over soon,” he said. “So you’d better figure out how to enjoy this life and participate in it. ” Back in Wisconsin, Mr. Vernon worked like both a and a producer. He improvised with musicians in his studio, then culled snippets that might engender songs he toyed with loops and effects he let samples lead him to ideas. Where he had organized “Bon Iver, Bon Iver” around places, he decided to unify his new album with numbers. Each song title on “22, a Million” begins with a number that holds a private significance for Mr. Vernon. He has always been drawn to the number 22. While growing up and playing sports, he chose it as his jersey number he also, he said, sets alarms to 22 minutes after the hour. As he chopped up the phrase “It might be over soon” in the sampler, “soon” began to turn into “two, two”: 22. The album opens with “22 Over Soon” and concludes with the hymnlike “1000000, a Million. ” “Being 22 is me,” he said, “and then the last song being a million, which is this great elusive thing: like, what’s a million? The album deals a lot with duality in general and how that works into the math. I was big into Taoism in college, and the paradox of duality, and how it’s always one thing and the other — you can never have one thing without the other. So it’s 22 being me and a million being the Other. That was a way to look at it as a circle. ” He also delved into sonic manipulation. “A big thing for me on the album was, how do we get something to sound accidental or new or fresh,” he said. When he was dissatisfied with the overly digital sound of “22 Over Soon,” he and his engineer took a cassette (Neil Young’s “Unplugged”) pulled out the tape and crumpled it and wrote on it with a marker. Then they recorded the track onto it, creating distortion and dropouts. Other songs toy with recording speed, ending up between standard pitches. The that runs through all of Bon Iver’s songs emerged anew in lyrics and song titles that draw on thoughts of consecration, prayer and God. A spacious yet fragile ballad, “666 Upsidedowncross,” presents the singer as an uncertain pilgrim, musing, “I don’t know the path. ” The album booklet cites the anguished Psalm 22 — “Why are you so far from saving me?” — alongside the song “33 ‘God’,” which includes samples from a gospel choir. “When you use enough of that language, it perks some people’s ears up,” Mr. Vernon said. “I do love those words, I love the word consecration, these holy words so to speak. I like using them in a way people haven’t heard before, or right next to a bunch of swear words. It’s just fun — it puts a smile on my face. ” But there was also a more serious undercurrent. He added: “For me from a very early age, music has been my religion. It’s been my way of understanding, it’s been my way of celebration, it’s been my way of contemplation. ” As Bon Iver Mr. Vernon is thinking hard about . “When I made the last record, actually both records, I very much felt like I’d healed myself,” he said. “Oh, I got done, and oh! now I’m better. And this one, I’m smarter than that. Now that this album’s done, as much as I healed a lot of things by making it, I know that it’s an ongoing thing. The river does not end. ” | 1 |
On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Representative James Clyburn ( ) stated that in order to save Obamacare, Democrats are “going to have to come out of the box with blazing guns. ” Clyburn said, “We, as the New York Times wrote in an article, or someone wrote in the New York Times, we go into fights with knives, the other side’s got guns. We’re going to have to come out of the box with blazing guns. There was a movie or something called ‘Blazing Saddles.’ We’re going to have to do that if we want to see this law preserved. ” Back in 2010, during an appearance on MSNBC, Clyburn said that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s (R) map of some Democrats who voted for Obamacare that had rifle crosshairs was “beyond the pale. And they need to stop this, because, I can tell you, I’ve seen how these things escalate. People out there in the streets get their signals, or what they think are their signals, from the people in positions like we hold. And so, if we don’t disown that, and go get our people to move beyond that. If we participate in it, either from the balcony, or on the floor of the House, you are aiding and abetting this kind of terrorism, really. ” ( Real Clear Politics) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
The price of hubris has set in.
After years of assuming an easy victory in 2016, Team Hillary is taking the heavy toll as reality is setting in.
Human Abedin, under her own set of scandals after the brutal email-centric campaign, was seen breaking down in tears as she carried dry cleaning through Manhattan in New York.
Clearly, the campaign is not taking their failure to secure total power very well at all. Right now they are in the grieving phase.
This image captured by Daily Mail photographer Jae Donnelly tells it all – actually, there are many angles and snaps of this priceless moment at the Daily Mail :
According to the Daily Mail :
Hillary Clinton’s closest aide Huma Abedin wept openly in the street on Friday as she returned to the place where the Democratic candidate’s campaign was fought – and lost.
Abedin looked like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders as she visited the campaign headquarters of the failed presidential candidate – after her own stumbles and her husband’s sexting habits helped contribute to Clinton’s historic defeat.
[…] The pain and emotion of the situation were clearly visible on the face of the long-time loyalist, despite the dark large-frame sunglasses that covered her eyes.
Evidently, her breakdown was triggered by a text message, as the Daily Mail notes:
“Abedin appeared to start weeping after she read a message on her mobile phone as she made her way to the Brooklyn headquarters.”
It is thought that Huma feels guilty for the campaign’s defeat, as the last minute FBI investigation into Hillary just before election week was largely due to the 650,000 emails found on her husband’s laptop, himself under fresh investigation for allegedly misdeeds involving underage girls. Regardless of the merits of either of the investigations, it may have taken Hillary down a final peg, just enough for Donald Trump to win the presidency.
Though Huma is taking it quite hard, she is hardly the only one upset.
Hillary Clinton herself has been reportedly crying inconsolably, and cycling through systematic blame against her surrogates and opponents, while lamenting her own loss of what is, no doubt, ‘rightfully’ hers.
As SHTF reported, it was the primary reason why she did not make an appearance on election night:
According to Ed Klein who spoke with a close friend and confidante of Hillary, that she did, in fact, have a serious breakdown and was in no condition to speak to America on live television.
The shock of losing after having been a “98%” lock for the Presidency was simply too much to bear. And as you might expect from a Clinton, it was everybody else’s fault:
She was crying inconsolably. She couldn’t stop crying. And her friend, her female friend from way, way back said it was even hard to understand what she was saying she was crying so hard… her friend said she could make out that she was blaming James Comey, the Director of the FBI, for her loss, and, I don’t understand exactly, the president of the United States for not doing enough. ( Via Gateway Pundit)
The question is, did Hillary really cast the bulk of blame on the loyal aide who is typically more closely at her side than even her daughter or husband?
Hillary has a notoriously dark reputation for (allegedly) throwing objects at the former president , castigating her staff and surrogates and demeaning the general public and even her own supporters .
We can only imagine how bad she took her rage and despair about the big loss on Huma.
Read more: We Finally Know Why Hillary Disappeared On Election Night: “She Was Crying Inconsolably… It Was Hard To Understand What She Was Saying She Was Crying So Hard” “She Was In Full Meltdown”: Hillary Unleashed On Donna Brazile For Unapproved Debate Question
Evidence Surfaces That “DNC Chair Fed Questions to Hillary Campaign in Advance”
Make No Mistake: “Everyone Who Is Warning About Clinton Is A Target and They Are Marked”
Media Faces Blowback From Clinton Worship: “They Bet the Farm on Hillary… And Lost”
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“The true minimum wage rate is zero — the amount an unemployed person receives from his job,” Milton Friedman wrote in Newsweek 45 years ago. Two economists writing about the decision of St. Louis city fathers to boost its minimum wage come to a similar conclusion. [Dr. David Macpherson of Trinity University and Dr. William Even of Miami University posit in a study that St. Louis stands to lose more than 1, 000 jobs after its minimum wage skyrockets 43 percent to $11 an hour next year. Roughly 25, 000 workers in the city currently make minimum wage. The academics found women, teenagers, and those with a high school degree or less disproportionately constituting those at greatest risk for suffering (or benefitting) as a result of the law. “It turns primarily on the fact that those are the workers that are most likely to be earning the minimum wage to begin with,” Dr. William Even told Breitbart News. “To a college graduate, the minimum wage is irrelevant. ” A state law capped the Show Me State’s minimum wage at $7. 65 an hour. But St. Louis workers demanded that local government force businesses to “show me the money. ” A court challenge enabled the state’s most populous city to mandate a higher hourly rate for workers. “Some of those workers are going to get a pay raise,” Even explains. “They’re the ones who are better off. Other workers are going to lose their jobs. They’re the ones who are worse off. ” The employees affected, for good and ill, by the law disproportionately work in retail and food services. Automation, passing costs on to consumers, and simply doing more with fewer employees remain options for businesses. Most states impose a minimum wage on employers above what the feds demand. Dr. Even sees cities increasingly imposing higher minimum wages on their businesses, too. “If we look at the last twenty or so years, we’re seeing a lot more states, as well as local communities, raising the minimum wage above the federal level,” Even tells Breitbart News. “We’re seeing heterogeneity in the minimum wage levels in the states and cities across the country. San Francisco is going to $15. Seattle is going to $15. L. A. has gone up. St. Louis is going up. It’s a long list. ” The federal minimum wage remains at $7. 25, the amount mandated by a law passed during the first year of the Barack Obama administration. | 1 |
Email
Clinton wins “by a landslide” — in the corruption department. So says columnist, New York Times bestselling author, and admitted Clinton “bagman” Jeff Rovin. Initially presenting his story anonymously in the National Enquirer , Rovin subsequently revealed his identity in a Monday interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. Among his striking claims: The Clintons have an “open marriage,” Hillary has had affairs with both men and women, and he paid off reporters to keep the copious Clinton dirt hush-hush. And these allegations are backed up by 24-years' worth of documentation.
Rovin’s appearance on Hannity (video below) adds further weight to his claims, as people often associate the Enquirer with fanciful tales. Yet as Hannity himself pointed out, that paper has at times broken major stories, catching the rest of the media napping. Hannity cited scoops concerning O.J. Simpson, John Edwards’ mistress, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson’s out-of-wedlock child, Tiger Woods’ marriage woes, and others. In fact, Rovin said that such Enquirer stories are, ironically, “probably better vetted than most of the stories in other media” because they’re “so controversial.”
Of course, the Enquirer 's scoops almost invariably involve salacious matters, and the Clinton story is no exception. Yet most significant are Rovin’s disclosures about media suppression of truth — and efforts to destroy people such as Monica Lewinsky.
Rovin explains that as a Hollywood reporter in the '80s and '90s, his close relationship with the Tinseltown power set and press allowed him to become, as he put it, “‘a fixer’: someone who helps stars keep embarrassing stories out of the press.” Rovin did his job so well that in 1991 he was asked to work for a rising political couple who, together, were an embarrassing-story-disgorging machine: Arkansas governor William Jefferson Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham. As he wrote : I was informed that these stories would involve rumors of Bill Clinton' s many sexual dalliances and an alleged ongoing affair of Hillary Clinton with a male member of her law firm, Vince Foster, as well as a female mover-and-shaker in Hollywood. For a retainer of $4,000 a month — paid by a third party, not the campaign — I was told to keep these stories hush-hush in one of two ways: by trading access to the Clintons for “positive” interviews, or by paying the reporters. The payments were always cash, usually delivered in a movie theater or restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, and came in two denominations: $100 for a heads-up that a bad story was coming; or considerably more to kill the piece.
Rovin’s claims align perfectly with the recent WikiLeaks revelations about direct collusion between the corrupt mainstream media and Clinton campaign; among the examples are a New York Times reporter giving the campaign veto power over quotations, a CNBC reporter advising the campaign, and CNN commentator Donna Brazile forwarding Clinton a debate question prior to a March face-off against Bernie Sanders (yes, Sandernistas, the fix was really in).
Yet bribery wasn’t the only method for getting stories spiked; deception was another. As Rovin told Hannity, reporters “were paid to soften the stories.… What would happen is, if we got wind of a story from the tabloids, chances were pretty good it would end up in one of the mainstream newspapers or magazines. We would then contact one of those people and say, ‘This isn't true, don't run it.’”
And this apparently does ring true to Hannity, who spoke of the evidence he saw, saying to Rovin, “I went through with your editor everything that you had. You do have ledgers; you did have the faxes with the letterhead and the timestamps. The Clintons know you…. They know you fixed things for them.”
And Rovin says this fixing became a full-time job, as the Clintons committed continual sexual indiscretions in what he described as a “polyamorous” and “open” marriage — which matches the “open borders” Hillary said, in an e-mail, that she wanted.
Rovin appears to believe the Clintons’ sexual depravity was so all-consuming that it distracted Bill from the business of running the country. He cites as the worst example of judgment the bachelor party in March 1994 for Clinton’s half-brother, Roger Clinton, who, in quintessential Clinton style, was marrying a bride eight-months-pregnant. Prostitutes were present, and recordings were made — they included Bill Clinton.
None of this will surprise those who know of Bill’s having taken 26 flights on billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express,” but the recording was a problem: It was offered for sale to the Enquirer , says Rovin. This is when he says he swooped in and negotiated a deal to keep the recording suppressed. (Note: This would be a national-security concern, too. A foreign power that obtained such a recording conceivably could use it to blackmail the president.)
Also in 1994, Rovin “arranged a meeting for Hillary and a woman in an exclusive Beverly Hills hotel,” he said . “I helped her slip out of a back exit for a one-on-one session with the other woman.” The journalist described this encounter as “sordid.”
Rovin also reveals that he was part of a “team effort” to damage Monica Lewinsky; in fact, Rovin later felt so bad about this smear campaign that he apologized to Lewinsky personally. In addition, the journalist “told Hannity he was tasked with distracting the media while Hillary’s crew rummaged through [Vince] Foster’s office … to snatch documents related to the Whitewater scandal,” as WND.com put it .
As to Rovin’s motivations for finally coming forward, he mentioned two significant factors. He told Hannity that when he learned that Enquirer editor Dylan Howard was doing the Clinton story and was naming sources he wanted kept confidential, he agreed to participate under the condition he could protect those sources. Second, he wrote in the Enquirer piece, “I am coming forward now because of the endless attention the alleged indiscretions of Donald Trump have received. Nothing I have heard comes close to the sexual and moral corruption of the Clintons — many of which have [sic] yet to be revealed.”
Having said this, Rovin was dismayed at the campaign emphasis on dirt, saying to Hannity, “The election is too important to focus on this salacious material.” Identifying as a libertarian, the journalist expressed the common idea that politicians’ sexual indiscretions are none of anyone’s business and should be beyond scrutiny. And while many issues are more important — such as Clinton’s internationalist, open-borders dreams; amnesty plans; warmongering stance vis-à-vis Russia; and radical social agenda — that common idea is also a mistaken idea.
Question: Is there any sexual indiscretion a politician could commit that would bring his psychological fitness into question? What if a person habitually engages in bestiality? Would you want such an individual managing your finances or babysitting your child? If not, why not, if “private” sexual behavior has no bearing on whether the person can “do the job”?
If so, however, then would you want such a person’s finger on the nuclear button?
Now, what kind of sexual depravity is not a red flag?
During the Bill Clinton years, “Character doesn’t matter” became a meme used to justify Clinton corruption. But would you want to be pulled over by a cop with bad character or have your car repaired by a mechanic with same? Character is integral to everything we do .
The Bible speaks of “eyes blinded by sin,” “For the eye altering alters all,” wrote poet William Blake. Habitually engaging in wrongdoing and (as man will do) rationalizing it away — which is when we deny reality — causes us to lose touch with reality. Twisting the truth in our own minds twists our minds; conning ourselves corrupts our judgment. The eye altering…
Hillary Clinton is poised to continue the “fundamental change” Barack Obama infamously promised. But do we really want someone in an altered state altering these United States? Please review our Comment Policy before posting a comment
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Businesspeople generally think of networking as a mutually beneficial meeting for both parties. But that’s not usually what it is. Far more often, it is one person asking the other for a favor. I have been a management consultant, business owner and speaker for more than 12 years. Before that, I was a business executive and a trial lawyer. Along the way I have received invaluable advice from others — guidance that educated me and helped me make important professional connections. Because this advice has been such a great help to me, I believe in helping others in the same way, without expecting anything in return. During the course of a year I receive numerous requests from people I do not know, asking me to network. I respond by meeting at least once a week with someone who is seeking advice on their careers or businesses, either in person or on the phone. In the course of these meetings, I have come across people who fall under the category of what I call “networking parasites. ” These are people who fail to understand that I am giving them information that my regular clients pay for. I am not alone in this. Doctors, accountants, plumbers, computer experts, lawyers and financial advisers all must deal with people shamelessly asking for meetings, free advice or free services or treatment — without remotely acknowledging that these professionals make their living selling that time and expertise. Over the years, dozens of experts have told me about being accosted at parties and on airplanes by strangers who ask for a free consultation under the guise of “conversation. ” Surely you do not want to be the kind of person who antagonizes professionals in this way. So here are some tips to help you avoid becoming a networking parasite. Make the meeting convenient. Ask for time frames that would work well, and meet at a place that is convenient for them, even if you have to drive across town. If they leave it up to you, give them three options and let them pick the one that works best. Recently, someone asked me to meet him for coffee, and I told him I could make “just about anything work” on a particular Friday. He responded with, “I like to start my day early, so let’s meet for coffee near your office at 6 a. m. ” I wrote back that 6 a. m. was too early, to which he responded, “O. K. Let’s make it 7 a. m. ” If you want me to pull out all the stops for you, this is not the way to start. Buy their coffee or meal. Insist on doing this as a sign of how valuable you consider their time and advice. If you are on a tight budget, ask them to coffee, but insist on paying for it by saying, “This is a huge favor to me, so please let me do this small thing for you. ” If you can manage it financially, try to meet for drinks or dinner after work. You will get more of their attention if you are not sandwiched in during their day. Go with a prepared list of questions. People whose advice is worth seeking are busy. They don’t have time to sit through your thoughts. Figure out in advance what information you want from them, and send your list ahead of time so they can be thinking about the answers. Don’t argue about their advice or point out why it wouldn’t work for you. You can ask for clarification by finding out how they would handle a particular concern you have, but don’t go beyond that. You get to decide whether or not to use their advice. Don’t ask for intellectual property or materials. I am amazed at the number of people who ask for copies of my PowerPoint presentations and seminar materials to use in their organization, with no understanding that these materials are original and copyrighted — and how I make my living. Never ask for any written . It is your job to take good notes during your meeting, not their job to send you bullet points after the meeting. No one should get homework after agreeing to help someone. Spend time at the end of the meeting finding out what you can do for them. Do you know anyone who could use their services, or who would make a good professional connection? At the very least, consider writing a recommendation for them on LinkedIn. Always thank them more than once. Thank them at the end of the meeting, expressing your appreciation for the time they have spent with you. Follow up with a handwritten note — not an email or a text. Do not refer others to the same expert. I just helped someone (whom I didn’t know well) polish her résumé and craft her pitch. Then I worked my contacts and helped her land a great new job. The result? I received emails from two strangers, asking me to “network” with them, because the person I had just helped suggested they contact me to do the same for them. Ask an expert for free help only once. If the help someone offered you was so valuable that you would like them to provide it again, then pay for it the next time. As you ask people for help, always consider how you in turn can help others. At the end of each workweek make a list of the people you have helped, and the favors you have done for which you received nothing in return. If your list is empty week after week, then you really are a networking parasite. | 1 |
When one thinks of the First World War, which the United States entered 100 years ago this month, certain images are inevitably evoked: miles of muddy trenches, clouds of poison gas creeping over the battlefield, biplanes and triplanes jousting balletically above the clouds. If the first two sound like something you would have avoided at all costs, trust me, you wouldn’t have wanted any part of the last one, either. Aircraft back then were tiny and flimsy. Their engines stalled their guns jammed. If they had been flown even once, they were certainly grimy and probably covered with haphazardly applied patches. To merely go aloft in one was to risk your life, even if you didn’t encounter an enemy who might try to shoot you down. But you probably would, since there was no point in just flying safely behind your own lines. As for dogfights: chaos. There was no way to plan for one. Most pilots did whatever they could to get away from them as quickly as possible, which says nothing about their courage but a lot about their intelligence. Many, perhaps most, were not even issued parachutes. That we have largely forgotten all that today, and focus instead only on romantic images of fearless men in long scarves and sleek machines, redounds to a couple of culprits. There’s Snoopy, of course, but well before he ever climbed atop his doghouse and took on the Red Baron, there were the aviators themselves, tireless curators of their own legends. They were special, and they knew it they wanted you to know it, too. Almost all were highborn. Most had prepped together, gone to college together, joined up out of a sense of noblesse oblige but also a thirst for adventure. They chose to fly — went to great lengths just to get aloft — not despite the fact that it was exceedingly dangerous, but because of it. The romance of the venture was not lost on them. Nor was the fact that the eyes of the entire world were on them. It was, they firmly believed, their due. Proportionate to their small numbers, many more of them died, and much sooner, than those down below, who were subject to a daily barrage of explosive shells and mustard gas. And when they did die, their families spared little expense in commemorating them. They installed plaques in the French countryside where the airmen fell or, in at least one case, a cement bench that beckons you, explicitly, to pause, rest and consider the life that ended right there. One grieving father left a bequest to the town that buried his son that brought running water to the place for the first time. Theodore Roosevelt installed a handsome fountain in the village where his son Quentin crashed. But the grandest monument can be found deep in a verdant park called Domaine National de St. in the commune of just outside Paris. This is the one built by the fliers themselves — those who managed to survive — for their dead. I say “for,” rather than “to,” because they are actually in there. Well, most of them, anyway. A total of 68 Americans were killed flying for France in the war that’s 68 out of only 200 or so who were part of what is known as the Lafayette Flying Corps, an unofficial designation that encompassed all Americans who did so, even those who later transferred to squadrons in the American Expeditionary Forces. (The term Lafayette Escadrille applies to just one squadron under French command most in the “corps” flew as part of French squadrons.) While all 68 are commemorated on the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial — an open gallery with a central arch that is said to be a model of the Arc de Triomphe — the remains of 50 are entombed in a crypt directly beneath it. The whole thing is very French. The names of the dead — “mort pour la defense du droit et de la liberté” — are engraved on both the face of the arch and on its sides, where they are inscribed in order of enlistment. The plaza is filled with insignia, some carved into the arch, others depicted in mosaics underneath. People come to pay tribute the first time I visited there were wreaths left by, among others, French chapters of both the Sons and the Daughters of the American Revolution. The second time, the memorial had just completed a $1. 5 million restoration, the cost split by American and French benefactors. The memorial was rededicated last April 20. It fairly gleams now. The crypt, though, remains dark. If you know someone who has a key, you can stroll among its sarcophagi, which look like marble but are an impressive feat of trompe l’oeil. The 50 Americans are arrayed in chronological order, the first having fallen in June 1916, 10 months before the United States entered the war the last on Nov. 6, 1918, just five days before it ended. There are names that history and aviation buffs will recognize: Victor Chapman, the first to die, shot down, it is said, while flying oranges back to a friend wounded at Verdun Raoul Lufbery, America’s first great ace, with 17 confirmed kills and Norman Prince, a founder of the Lafayette Escadrille, whose father later had him interred in the National Cathedral in Washington. There is also a beautiful series of 13 small windows, made by the sadly defunct concern Mauméjean, depicting some of the greatest battles of the war, and featuring images of biplanes, barbed wire, howitzers, early tanks and burning cathedrals. It’s a reminder of why these sarcophagi are here, in this park outside Paris. So is the epigraph you pass on your way back up the stairs into daylight and life: And in their death they were not divided They were swifter than eagles They were stronger than lions II Samuel 1:23 Domaine National de St. is in the commune of outside Paris. For information on visiting the crypt, contact Suresnes American Cemetery: Suresnes@abmc. gov . | 1 |
Another suggestion would have an independent monitors actually use the machines before Nov. 8th, cast a number of votes and immediately look at how those votes were recorded. If they find a tampering....can have the machines recalibrated or thrown out. | 0 |
Los Angeles (AFP) — Retired unbeaten boxing champion Floyd Mayweather says that when it comes to a possible fight with Irish mixed martial arts star Conor McGregor, he is “out of retirement. ”[In a posting on the MMA website, the American said he wants to face McGregor, 28, in June. “For Conor McGregor, I’m coming out of retirement, just to fight Conor McGregor,” Mayweather told FightHype, according to the posting. “Today, I’m officially out of retirement for Conor McGregor. We don’t need to waste no time. We need to make this … happen quickly. Let’s get it on in June. ” Mayweather had matched Rocky Marciano’s iconic unbeaten career record when he walked away from boxing as the welterweight champion in 2015. Speculation of a fight has intensified in recent months, with the US star saying he is willing to meet McGregor in a boxing ring. McGregor, however, is under contract to the Ultimate Fighting Championship series, which would have to approve any deal for the bout to happen. “I don’t want to hear no more excuses about the money, about the UFC,” Mayweather said. “Sign the paper with the UFC so you can fight me in June. Simple and plain. Let’s fight in June. If you want to fight, sign the paperwork, let’s do it. ” McGregor is on a break for the impending birth of his first child, a son with his girlfriend Dee Devlin, who is due to give birth in May. | 1 |
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