text
stringlengths 1
134k
| label
int64 0
1
|
|---|---|
http://mediaarchives.gsradio.net/dduke/111816.mp3 Dr. Duke & Mark Collett: Anti-White scum who promised to leave: Get the Hell Out!
Today Dr. Duke had British activist Mark Collett as his guest for the hour. They talked about Donald Trump’s latest appointments to his incoming administration. Steve Bannon, General Michael Flynn, and even Senator Jeff Sessions are coming under attack from the Zio media, no doubt because they are not complete cuck sellouts like so many of the neocon rats who opposed Trump but suddenly want to offer their (((experience))) to the president elect. Underdog after taking a super-energy pill
They went into the new terminology of red pills, blue pills, white pills, and black pills. They agreed that the Trump victory has energized (white pilled) his supporters and black pilled (depressed) his opponents, many of whom promised to leave the country should The Donald win. Well, we’re waiting…
This is a fun show that will red pill (enlighten) your friends. Please share it widely.
Our show is aired live at 11 am replayed at ET 4pm Eastern and 4am Eastern. | 0 |
A fragrant mound of rose bushes, thyme beds, and magnolia and crab apple trees rises on a former roadway reclaimed for open space. Except that it is not actually open. Instead, it sits behind a locked, gate in the heart of the West Village. It has no benches and no visiting hours. Called the Sheridan Square Viewing Garden, it is, as its name suggests, just for looking. “It’s pretty, but there’s almost no point,” said Alec Haley, a New York University student who walks by every day. “Parks are supposed to be enjoyed and not just stared at. ” Long before New York City’s plazas and parks were filled with lunchtime crowds savoring their lattes and kale salads, the city embarked on a campaign to carve out small pockets of greenery from dormant or unused sections of roadway to break up the streetscape. These efforts came during a time when the city was a far more dangerous place. Some of the open spaces had to be locked up or scrapped over fears that they would become magnets for loiterers, criminals and homeless people. In Herald Square, a teeming pedestrian plaza now lies just steps from Macy’s, but store officials fought hard to keep it from being built in the 1980s, according to a former city transportation official. The former official, Samuel I. Schwartz, who served as the traffic commissioner from 1982 to 1986, said that back then even chairs were nailed down to keep them from being stolen. Of these like the viewing garden, he said, “They were closed to people, open to your eyes. ” The Sheridan Square Viewing Garden, which was planted in 1982, was among the most notable of these street experiments. Of course, it is hardly the only public garden to restrict public access. Many community gardens are kept under lock and key by their members. And city parks sometimes have areas to assure that fragile plants are not being stepped on, or worse. But the viewing garden today takes up prime street space in a more crowded city. With so many pedestrians trying to squeeze by on the increasingly congested streets and sidewalks, some have questioned whether a viewing garden has outlived its usefulness. “If they put in a few benches and a little gate, then it becomes a public space that people can use,” Kirsty Savides, a tourist from Cape Town, South Africa, said as she stood outside the garden recently, clutching a takeout lunch. Stewart Driller, president of the Sheridan Square Triangle Association, a neighborhood group that maintains the viewing garden, said there was simply not enough room for people in addition to all the plants in such a tight space. Even the caretakers do not linger once they have planted, pulled weeds and picked up trash, he said. “It is meant to beautify the neighborhood, and is best seen from the outside,” said Mr. Driller, a retired electrical engineer. Other supporters of the garden pointed out that there were public spaces with seating areas nearby, including Christopher Park. City officials said there were no plans to open the garden. “Sheridan Square was designed as a gated garden in response to community requests, and it remains a spot of color in the West Village,” said Sam Biederman, a spokesman for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. In the 1980s, the Sheridan Square Viewing Garden was part of a renewed push by city transportation and park officials to make more room for pedestrians and bicyclists on streets long ruled by cars. Bike and bus lanes were expanded. Slivers of greenery were eked out of traffic islands, medians and turning lanes, or whittled from irregularly shaped corners where streets crossed at a diagonal, or remnants left over after highway construction projects. “Asphalt and concrete are deadening,” said David Gurin, the deputy transportation commissioner from 1978 to 1989, who planned the Sheridan Square garden along with many other spaces. “It’s good, whenever possible, to replace them with living trees and flowers. ” Many of these spaces came to be known as Greenstreets, and were placed in the care of the parks department. Henry J. Stern, who served as the parks commissioner twice in the 1980s and 1990s, bestowed names and signs on some of them. He also sent letters to other government agencies asking for any unused bits of land to create more. No space was too small. “It was a way to improve the quality of life,” he said. The parks department currently oversees about 2, 000 Greenstreets, the majority of which are open to the public, Mr. Biederman said. The Sheridan Square Viewing Garden is the only one known to carry that designation, though there are other gardens and parkland that have been partly or entirely fenced in. In Brooklyn, the planting beds in Butterfly Garden beside the Prospect Expressway are set off by a fence, though the rest of the site — which includes benches and a paved walkway — is open. A neighborhood group that maintains the garden, HomeGrown Parks Volunteers, has created a separate planting area where children grow tomatoes, green beans, basil and dill. That area is normally left open except during May and June, when there is a full harvest of vegetables. Nancy Dennigan, one of the volunteers, said someone recently wandered into the children’s planting area, which was open, and clipped off all of the ornamental pumpkins being grown for the fall. “We’re not at a point where we feel we can open up the garden area and just walk away,” Ms. Dennigan said. Adrian Benepe, a senior vice president for the Trust for Public Land who was the city’s parks commissioner from 2002 to 2012, pointed out that open spaces did not necessarily have to be open to benefit the community. Mr. Benepe, who works near the Sheridan Square garden, said greenery brightened up roadsides, improved air quality and caught runoff. “Not all nature needs to be walked across,” he said. “In some cases, it just doesn’t work. It’s too small, and the traffic is too heavy. ” The garden grew out of an effort by local residents to reclaim a triangular traffic island created at the junction of Barrow and West Fourth Streets and Washington Place. It had long been overrun by illegally parked cars and trucks. The signs had little effect they were knocked over, leaving only “little stubs sticking up,” Mr. Driller said. Lou DeLuca, a chef who lives nearby, said: “It was one of the uglier spots in the Village. Now it’s a showplace. ” Even with the fence, it has not been easy to maintain the carefully landscaped garden. Thieves managed to reach through the bars or hop the fence in earlier years. “I’d get up in the morning and there would be a clump of dirt on the sidewalk and missing plants,” Mr. Driller recalled, adding that the association once had to chain plants to concrete blocks. One man climbed into the garden to sleep and the next day stored his backpack and guitar there, as if it were a hotel coat room. Eve Rothenberg, one of the volunteer gardeners, said they left him a note asking him to please remove his belongings. He did. On the back of the note, he scribbled his thanks. For many others, though, seeing the viewing garden from the outside is enough. Frank Stark, a retired antiques dealer whose apartment overlooks the garden, said he did not have to step inside the garden to enjoy it. “It’s not all about sitting down,” he said. “We have a lot of concrete in New York and we need space and greenery. Just to look at something pretty is nice. ” | 1 |
Support Us The Arrivals Bosanski Prijevod 13-ladyInRed | 0 |
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Donald J. Trump edged away on Thursday from his dismissive stance on American assessments of Russian hacking, saying he would meet with intelligence officials next week “to be updated on the facts” after the Obama administration announced sanctions against Moscow. In a brief written statement, Mr. Trump’s first response to President Obama’s sweeping action against Russia, the reiterated his call for “our country to move on to bigger and better things. ” But he said that, “in the interest of our country and its great people,” he would get the briefing “nevertheless. ” The statement to some extent echoed his remarks late Wednesday, when he was asked at his estate about Mr. Obama’s plan to take action against Russia. In otherwise opaque comments, Mr. Trump appeared to concede the need to make computers more secure. “I think we ought to get on with our lives,” he said. “I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I’m not sure we have the kind, the security we need. ” Mr. Trump took questions Wednesday from a handful of reporters as Don King, the sports promoter and a longtime friend, stood next to him. He has not held a formal news conference since July, though he promised on Wednesday to hold one in early January. The has bucked the consensus of his own party in Congress in repeatedly expressing skepticism that Russia was behind hacking during the election. His isolation was underscored by other Republicans’ responses to the Obama administration’s actions. Speaker Paul D. Ryan said Thursday that the sanctions were “overdue,” but still blamed Mr. Obama for “eight years of failed policy with Russia. ” “Russia does not share America’s interests,” Mr. Ryan said in a statement. “In fact, it has consistently sought to undermine them, sowing dangerous instability around the world. ” Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina went further, saying they would push Congress for even stronger sanctions than Mr. Obama was seeking. That is a direct challenge to Mr. Trump and his advisers, who mocked intelligence agencies this month for their conclusion that Russia was responsible for the hacking. “I think it’s ridiculous. I think it’s just another excuse,” Mr. Trump said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday” on Dec. 11. “I don’t believe it. ” He linked the intelligence assessments on Russia to Democrats’ embarrassment over their loss to him. Mr. Trump has also voiced his doubts several times on Twitter. In one post, he asked, “If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act?” In another, he asserted that “unless you catch ‘hackers’ in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. ” In the posts, Mr. Trump wrongly asserted that the United States government had waited until after the election to accuse Russia. In fact, the administration announced in October that it believed Russia had been involved in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the leaking of the organization’s emails. Mr. Trump was asked on Wednesday about statements by Mr. Graham that the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, should be personally penalized for the hacking. The said he was unaware of the comments by Mr. Graham, who was a Republican candidate for president before dropping out a year ago. “I don’t know what he’s doing,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “As you know, he ran against me. ” | 1 |
Clinton Cash author and Breitbart News Senior Peter Schweizer joined SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Tuesday’s Breitbart News Daily for what Marlow described as a “victory lap” over the demise of the Clinton Global Initiative, whose questionable activities featured so prominently in Schweizer’s book. [Marlow saluted the work done by Schweizer and his Government Accountability Institute as “some of the most essential reporting of the 2016 election,” and said they collected a “major scalp” this week with the end of the CGI. “Thank you, Alex. Certainly Breitbart was right there. I cannot imagine how many stories — it’s got to be north of a hundred stories on Clinton corruption — played an essential role,” Schweizer said. He said the shutdown of the Clinton Global Initiative was a “remarkable event,” because “the Clintons have essentially made it so obvious that there’s a connection between this charitable activity, CGI, and their political fortunes. ” Schweizer went on: They didn’t even wait until the election was a distant memory to say, you know what, we’re going to wrap this up. They ended it immediately. I think it’s just further confirmation to what we always believed, which is that their charitable activities really were directly linked to their political power, and now that that political power is gone, really honestly for the first time in 25 years — think about that — 25 years the Clintons have been on the national political stage. They’re gone, and they’re essentially saying, ‘Look, there’s no need or purpose behind doing this charitable work, so we’re just going to shut it down.’ It’s a pretty remarkable step on their part. Schweizer chuckled at Marlow’s suggestion that the Clintons should have kept their organization running for a little while, with a few boasts about how it was “stronger than ever,” just to maintain appearances. He said: No, they just rolled it up, and you’re exactly right, they didn’t pretend. In a matter of weeks from the election results — it’s pretty stunning. I think we’ve also now got the Clinton Foundation itself, which is involved with CGI obviously, but they’re essentially separate entities. Their donations are way off. They’ve got a lot of foreign donations, the government of Australia for example, and Germany, who are essentially saying, ‘We’re not going to donate any more.’ Donations are down by some accounts by 70%. So it may be that the Clinton Foundation goes the way of CGI. “Or it could be, which I think is probably more likely — I just can’t imagine them completely folding up their tent — I think it will be sort of a shadow of its former self, maybe the size of what it once was,” he ventured. “Because let’s face it, what we talked about has been confirmed by the Podesta emails, it’s been confirmed by these events: if they can’t sell access to political power, they just don’t have a product, in the form of their form of philanthropy, that people want to donate to. ” “That presents an essential problem. That means they have to seek some office somewhere so they can still sell access. Does Chelsea now have to bring the next generation forth, so they can continue with this political apparatus? There’s a lot of talk of that, that Chelsea’s going to run for Congress, potentially in two years,” Schweizer noted. He expressed some appreciation for the difficult road Chelsea Clinton has walked, pointing out that the leaked emails from Clinton campaign chief John Podesta portrayed her as one of the few people in the Clinton Foundation who realized something fishy was going on, and called for extensive audits. “Bill and Hillary were fine with what was going on, the aides around them were fine. It was really Chelsea who was pushing this reform agenda. So I give her credit for that,” Schweizer said, before going on to agree with Marlow that she lacks the “presence” for a successful political career, even from a Manhattan precinct controlled by the Democrat machine. “You’ve still got to show you’ve got the chops to actually get things done for your district in Congress … that you have a certain innate strength and an ability to perform. I don’t think the celebrity is going to be enough,” he judged. “She’s going to have to prove that. ” He said Chelsea Clinton’s only guaranteed campaign asset would be “a lot of money, because the Clinton financial network is there. ” “Hillary Clinton did not win in November, but remember, Alex, they raised a lot of money for that race,” Schweizer pointed out. “Their ability to raise a lot of money for Chelsea I don’t think should be underestimated. ” He said that beyond vague hopes of launching Chelsea’s political career, it remained a “great mystery” where the Clintons would go from here. Schweizer pointed out: Really since 1992, they have been part of the national conversation. Bill ran for President, he said you’re getting two for one, so he made it clear immediately that Hillary was going to be a political player as well. They leave the White House just as Hillary enters the U. S. Senate. She then runs for president in 2008 and loses. She then becomes Secretary of State. And other than this window between January of 2013, up until she announced her campaign in 2015, they have been in political office with political power. I think it’s very hard to give that up, once you’ve had it. Schweizer said he doubted Hillary Clinton would try another presidential run in 2020, and that even “people in the echo chamber around them” would point out her advancing age and weakness on the campaign trail in 2016. He also suggested there was resentment of Clinton within the Democratic Party itself. “We know they had the election wired against Bernie Sanders. We know they’ve got a lot of allies. But there is a lot of bubbling resentment among the Democratic grassroots that the Clintons need to go. They had their turn, they had their chance. A lot of Democrats are convinced that if they just had a different candidate, they could have beat Donald Trump. I don’t think that’s true, but I think there’s a lot of that thought out there,” he said. Schweizer predicted: So they may be thinking about some run for higher office again, but I just don’t think the Democratic Party is the same party of the 1990s. I think we’re going to see them — probably kicking and screaming — fade into history. I just don’t see this as a dynasty like the Bush dynasty, for example, where you’ve got a sort of generation that can potentially run for national office. The Clintons just simply don’t have that, and I think we’re going to see them fade into history, essentially. As for his own future plans, Schweizer said he was “cautiously optimistic” about government ethics under the new administration, although he noted he pushed hard for Trump to fully divest his assets, a path he chose not to pursue. “In that sense I’m disappointed, but really, honestly Alex, when you look what he has done, he has gone far beyond what I believe the legal requirements were for him to do. So I give him a lot of credit for that,” he said. Schweizer asked of Trump’s children and associates: I think really now it’s going to come down to that whole issue of performance. How do they handle these issues?’ If the kids are offered a sweetheart deal, if they have a chance to do something and think that it can go undetected, are they going to be tempted, or are they going to take that deal? That’s really what it comes down to. You can set up all kinds of structures, you can say all kinds of things, but as we’ve seen in the past with other presidents, people when they want to make a buck at the public’s expense, they’re going to find a quick way around it. “So I count myself right now cautiously optimistic. I love the Trump message of ‘drain the swamp.’ I think there’s some very serious things that he is looking at, that could get bipartisan support, to work to drain the swamp. If for no other reason, think about this: Donald Trump is the first candidate, I would have to say going back more than 30 years if not longer, who is not really beholden to the money class in Washington D. C. The lobbyists, the PACs — they didn’t give him money, so he doesn’t feel like he owes them anything,” Schweizer said. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 1 |
Robert Creamer and his Democracy Partners consulting group sued conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe and his Project Veritas on Thursday in the District of Columbia for $1 million. [The lawsuit concerns an O’Keefe sting that exposed Creamer’s efforts to incite violence at Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign rallies to create a sense of “anarchy” around the candidate. O’Keefe’s work revealed that Creamer and his associates, who worked with the Democratic National Committee, were involved in a tactic called “” which involved provoking Trump supporters to lash out at them, and to film those reactions, with footage to be distributed to media outlets. The Project Veritas team also showed a Creamer associate describing a complex communications system he referred to as the “Pony Express,” which Democrats used to circumvent rules against coordination between political campaigns and super PACs. O’Keefe’s work resulted in Creamer being forced to step aside from his campaign activities — and also exposed his close connections to the Obama White House. Arguably, his reporting shifted the momentum in the campaign. Creamer’s complaint alleges that O’Keefe and Project Veritas “selectively edit … videotapes so as to distort and misrepresent what was said,” and complains that their efforts unfairly interfered with Democrats’ efforts to wreak havoc on the Trump campaign. The complaint also alleges: “The [Project Veritas] video was heavily edited and contained commentary by O’Keefe that drew false conclusions from the selectively edited videos, to charge that Plaintiffs were involved in a conspiracy to incite violence at rallies for Donald Trump … ”. As a result of O’Keefe’s exposés, Creamer’s complaint alleges, Democracy Partners lost valuable business contracts from political clients. Creamer and his company are seeking damages for alleged unlawful interception of oral communications, for civil conspiracy, and for fraudulent misrepresentation, among other torts. O’Keefe responded with a statement: Robert Creamer believes that by suing us, he can intimidate us. I will not be silenced — only over my dead body! We are on the right side of the law and will not stop exposing the truth. … This lawsuit further justifies the need to drain the swamp. Our army of guerrilla journalists, which grows daily, will continue to expose the malfeasance and corruption committed by these organizations. In fact, we will be deploying a new batch of freshly trained journalists next week to shine additional light on the cockroaches of the corrupt DC establishment. We will not be intimidated. We will not be silenced. We will find out who is funding this lawsuit. We will never stop exposing the truth. We will not back down. Project Veritas attorney Benjamin Barr added: “The First Amendment protects the rights of undercover journalists to expose exactly the sort of corruption captured in these videos. Veritas will assert its full First Amendment rights to defend itself in these proceedings. ” Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
hat tip: What Really Happened
Alex Jones’ 6-minute analysis on released e-mails:
In context, please be clear this is not an endorsement of Trump for President. When Americans are told an election is defined by touching a computer screen without a countable receipt that can be verified, they are being told a criminal lie to allow election fraud . This is self-evident, but Princeton , Stanford , and the President of the American Statistical Association are among the leaders pointing to the obvious (and here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here , here ). Again, no professional would/can argue an election is legitimate when there is nothing for anyone to count. Private e-mails on private server + $2 billion Clinton Foundation – 10% for “charity” = massive criminal fraud
Since 2001 , the Clinton Foundation has raised ~$2 billion for “charity,” but with tax records revealing only 10% of money went for programs, with apparently ~50% going directly to Bill and Hillary Clinton (and here , here ).
A 35-second summary from Judge Jeanine Pirro; full 5-minute interview (disclaimer: this corporate media outlet will never tell the truth of US/Israel connections to create ISIS or lie-started US Wars of Aggression also requiring arrests ):
Economic Hitman John Perkins ’ 2-minutes of context on this type of neo-colonialism capitalism:
Clinton committed obvious federal felonies from operating a private government through her personal e-mail while Secretary of State. She lies continuously about these facts , including that she received and sent classified and confidential information . The “missing” and deleted e-mails are likely to show her trading State Department favors for Clinton Foundation donations; a primary motivation to have a private e-mail server in order to keep these communications secret. Top 5 criminal lies by Hillary Clinton in two minutes :
A similar playbook is documented in the 1-page article, Rigged , in 2004 with President W. Bush.
USA Watchdog’s 14-minute interview on Clinton Foundation massive fraud with Charles Ortel, which may total $100 billion:
In addition, the Clintons deducted over a million dollars from their 2015 federal taxes for “charitable donations”: 96% of which went to the Clinton Foundation . 10% for charity, 90% for us scam same as “retirement funds”
Public employee retirement accounts have “investment strategy” that pay Wall Street “advisors” twice as much as the cash paid to retirees. This scam has a net rate of return often costing taxpayers money rather than generating income to pay for retirees. Full explanation and documentation here and here .
My 22-minute interview on this topic: Big Picture: ongoing US rogue state empire
This article series defines rogue state , along with history demonstrating this has been a dominant US status for over 170 years. Please refresh your understanding to be confident of these obvious facts for your citizen voice.
In contrast, a president and officers including Secretary of State uphold the law rather than ignore and violate it, embracing limited government under a constitution. The illegal and unlimited government crimes centered in war, money, and constant lying refute the presence of an executive branch upholding fair law. Again this is documented here . Don’t vote for evil; arrest evil
Americans who vote for Hillary or Trump are voting with relative ignorance to continue the following, with 95%+ who would never agree if honestly briefed on the facts. Once informed, unless one wishes to bond with such evil and bullshit, one cannot vote for it. If one wishes to stand as an American under our ideals and Constitution, one must demand arrests for such outrageous crimes.
The categories of crime include: Wars of Aggression (the worst crime a nation can commit). Likely treason for lying to US military, ordering unlawful attack and invasions of foreign lands, and causing thousands of US military deaths. Crimes Against Humanity for ongoing intentional policy of poverty that’s killed over 400 million human beings just since 1995 (~75% children; more deaths than from all wars in Earth’s recorded history).
Ordinary Americans, US military, law enforcement, and all with Oaths to support and defend the US Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, face an endgame choice: Demand arrests , with those with lawful authority to enact it. An arrest is the lawful action to stop apparent crimes , with the most serious crimes documented here having the most important need for arrests. Watch the US escalate its rogue state crimes under President Clinton or President Trump.
In just 90 seconds , former US Marine Ken O’Keefe powerfully states how you may choose to voice “very obvious solutions”: arrest the criminal leaders (video starts at 20:51, then finishes this episode of Cross Talk ): Corporate media surrender to the facts, or limited hangout?
The American public have an opening: 18 minutes of corporate media disclosure on the e-mail crisis:
**
Note: I make all factual assertions as a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History, with all economics factual claims receiving zero refutation since I began writing in 2008 among Advanced Placement Macroeconomics teachers on our discussion board , public audiences of these articles , and international conferences . I invite readers to empower their civic voices with the strongest comprehensive facts most important to building a brighter future. I challenge professionals, academics, and citizens to add their voices for the benefit of all Earth’s inhabitants.
**
Carl Herman is a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History; also credentialed in Mathematics. He worked with both US political parties over 18 years and two UN Summits with the citizen’s lobby, RESULTS , for US domestic and foreign policy to end poverty. He can be reached at
Note: Examiner.com has blocked public access to my articles on their site (and from other whistleblowers), so some links in my previous work are blocked. If you’d like to search for t hose articles other sites may have republished, use words from the article title within the blocked link. Or, go to http://archive.org/web/ , p aste the expired link into the box, click “Browse history,” then click onto the screenshots of that page for each time it was screen-shot and uploaded to webarchive. I’ll update as “hobby time” allows; including my earliest work from 2009 to 2011 (blocked author pages: here , here ).
** | 0 |
more like a burning bag of shit on a doorstep....
// // | 0 |
Email
If you want to see the full depths of human greed, look no further than the city of Chicago. This week, the residents of this selfish city are marching through the streets rooting for their hometown baseball team, the Chicago Cubs, to win the World Series. Yep, you heard that right. The citizens of Chicago want their baseball team to win the World Series even though their city already has a bunch of movie theaters and a zoo.
Some people just want more and more and more.
The endless selfishness on display here is just sickening. Apparently having dozens of movie theaters and a whole zoo to enjoy isn’t enough for the pleasure gluttons of Chicago. They need a big honking World Series victory, too.
We’ll give you a minute to try to wrap your head around the sheer unbridled avarice of these people. All you have to do is Google “Movie Theaters Chicago,” and you’ll be flooded with the names and addresses of cinemas all over the city playing both mainstream blockbusters and art house gems, which the people of Chicago can go to whenever they want. And when they aren’t in the mood for a movie, these spoiled brats can go see exotic creatures from all over the world at the Lincoln Park Zoo. But apparently that’s not enough to satisfy these unhinged hedonists. No, they need a gigantic parade for the Chicago Cubs cutting right through the middle of their city. They need fountains of champagne and a picture of Anthony Rizzo celebrating on the front page of every major newspaper in the country.
Hey, Chicago! Maybe if the Cubs win the World Series someone will make a movie about it, and you can go watch it in whichever one of the goddamn dozens of fucking movie theaters in your charmed little city is closest to your house. And then when the movie about your world champion baseball team is over, you can go talk about it while you look at the majestic lowland gorillas that live at your fully functioning goddamn zoo. If you aren’t sickened by what you see in the mirror, Chicago, it’s because greed has warped your minds.
Some people are just never content, no matter how many blessings life serves to them on a silver platter. Apparently the people in Chicago will not be satisfied unless their brains are gushing dopamine in all directions at all times. They have so many movie theaters. They have a zoo. And yet they won’t be happy until the fucking president of the United States is personally congratulating them for having the best baseball team in the world. Where do they get the gall to desire a World Series victory amid their cornucopia of movie theaters and their zoo? It’s disgusting. Nothing is ever enough for Chicago.
Fucking ingrates. | 0 |
It did not matter that he could not speak English, that he was a month shy of graduating from high school, or that he would be leaving behind his mother and grandparents. Francisco Ramos’s father had summoned him to New York City. He had to go. His father had immigrated to the United States from Tenares, Dominican Republic, years earlier. In 2015, he secured a visa for his son, who joined him and three older brothers in an apartment in the Bronx. “The American dream was being sold to us,” Mr. Ramos, 19, said through a Spanish translator. “I thought I’d be better off here. ” Within a few months of the move, both of Mr. Ramos’s grandparents in the Dominican Republic died. His grief over their deaths made an already difficult period of adjustment — to a new city and a new pace of life — even harder. “My dad said, ‘I’ll take care of you,’” Mr. Ramos recalled, explaining that his father wanted him to focus on acquiring his high school equivalency diploma before worrying about a job. So Mr. Ramos made his way to the Next Generation Center in the South Bronx, where he enrolled in test preparation classes for his equivalency exam. The center, which is run by the Children’s Aid Society, helps young people make the transition to adulthood and independence. The society is one of the eight agencies supported by The New York Times’s Neediest Cases Fund. At the center, Mr. Ramos learned about an enticing opportunity: a partnership between the society and Juma Ventures, which employs young people in sports stadiums across the country. Interpreters were instrumental in helping Mr. Ramos through the interview process, and he was given a job at the food stands in Yankee Stadium. In March, the Next Generation Center drew $6, 706 from the Neediest funds, which allowed all of the young people in the partnership to buy weekly MetroCards, covering their travel to and from the stadium in the period before they received their first paychecks. Money from the Neediest funds also enabled Mr. Ramos to buy professional attire. He was no stranger to work and responsibility, having helped his father harvest crops in the Dominican Republic. But his food service job gave Mr. Ramos a sense of purpose and allowed him to send money home to his mother and younger brother. Because of the seasonal nature of the stadium job, Mr. Ramos decided to hunt for work. A cousin helped him get hired at Nobu Next Door, a Japanese restaurant in TriBeCa where he works as a dishwasher. Although Mr. Ramos never had ambitions to work in the industry, he now wants to become a prep cook. “Whatever it is I’m doing, if I can move up to the next step and have a better chance, this is what I want to do,” he said. To gain a leg up, Mr. Ramos sought out Brandon Henry, the catering manager at the Next Generation Center, where Mr. Henry offers basic cooking classes. He has been giving Mr. Ramos advanced lessons, including instructions in complex knife skills and deboning techniques. “When I heard that he got a job at Nobu, I wanted to help him out,” Mr. Henry said. “He’s in a great spot right now. Whatever he needs, however I can help, I will. ” A third person often occupies the kitchen alongside Mr. Ramos and Mr. Henry, someone who translates for the two men, either a friend of Mr. Ramos, or his youth coach, Vanessa De La Rosa. His diploma studies have taken a back seat to his new career. The hard work and late nights on the job, which include a lengthy commute, have affected Mr. Ramos’s sleep. He often does not wake up for his classes, a problem Ms. De La Rosa said she had been urging him to fix. Mr. Ramos still plans to get his diploma. After that, he wants to enroll in a class to learn English, which he says he believes will increase his chances of getting into college. “I’m used to having to work, used to responsibility,” Mr. Ramos said. “If you have a positive attitude, nothing is hard. ” | 1 |
Craig Shirley, author of the seminal Ronald Reagan biographies Last Act: The Final Years and Emerging Legacy of Ronald Reagan, Reagan’s Revolution, and Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America, was a guest on the Breitbart News Daily Memorial Day special edition. [Shirley is also the author of an important book on one of the most significant months in all of history, December 1941: 31 Days that Changed America and Saved the World. This was the work SiriusXM host Alex Marlow asked about in light of Memorial Day. LISTEN: Shirley noted that December 1941 marked America’s entry into World War II two years after the beginning of “a war that we swore we would never get involved in. ” “We didn’t want to get involved. There was an America First movement which rose up, which pressured the Roosevelt administration — civic leaders, business leaders, military leaders, everybody in America. There wasn’t anybody who really was for getting involved in another war,” he recalled. “We had a bad taste in our mouth after World War I. There was a saying going around America after World War I that all we got was debt, death, and George M. Cohan,” he said, the latter being the lyricist who wrote the enduring anthem of the First World War, “Over There. ” Shirley described America as “essentially isolationist” after the horrors of World War I, until the Pearl Harbor attack, followed by Germany and Italy’s declarations of war the following week, “changed our outlook instantaneously. ” “It’s like a cue ball hitting an and sending it off in a radically different direction than the path it had been previously on,” he said. “It gives rise to Dwight Eisenhower, who was a clerk on General Douglas MacArthur’s peacetime staff, who goes on to become the great commander of the invasion, the supreme commander of the Allied forces against Nazi Germany and the Axis powers, goes on to become an underestimated but still great president. ” “John Kennedy becomes president — in large part, he runs in 1960 as a war hero,” he continued. “He was a war hero in World War II. Without his injuries in the Pacific, without his Navy Cross and the other awards he won, he would have just been considered a rich lightweight playboy in 1960, and would probably have lost. ” “On the other hand, it gave rise to Richard Nixon,” he added, noting that Nixon was a supply officer in the Pacific during World War II. He wryly observed that Nixon became an accomplished poker player during his leisure time during the war and won enough money to finance his first political campaign. Both his poker winnings and his wartime experience were arguably crucial to establishing his political career in 1946. Shirley observed that World War II profoundly advanced technology, in fields ranging from rocketry and nuclear power to industrial science and medicine, with both military and civilian applications. “World War Ii literally changes our world in ways that we think about, and in more ways that we don’t think about,” he concluded. Those profound changes were not limited to America or the Western world, as evidenced by such profound events as the Rape of Nanking. “We are all guilty, I think, of being ” Shirley said. “Also, the more compelling figures of history — most especially Churchill and Hitler — are from Europe, so the European history of World War II has tended to dominate. ” However, he noted that “the atrocities committed by the Japanese were unspeakable. ” “They not only waged war against civilians, as they did in Manchuria, as they did in the Rape of Nanking, as in other aspects in the Philippines. They also, unlike the Germans, were brutally cruel to their POWs. The Germans were actually quite decent toward American and British POWs, especially pilots and officers. They treated them with a certain amount of respect. Those in POW camps were treated fairly well, relatively speaking. ” “But in the Japanese culture, in the shogunate culture that came up to dominate Japan in the Thirties, and then launched Japan into war with America, it was considered by that culture that the worst possible thing was for one man to be held captive or imprisoned by another man. That was the ultimate humiliation. It meant that they had no respect whatsoever for the American POWs, or the Australian POWs,” he explained. “This manifested itself in the Bataan Death March, in which thousands of American officers and military men, and Australians, were brutally savaged by the Japanese,” Shirley said, citing such torments as dousing prisoners in gasoline and setting them ablaze. “They performed unspeakable atrocities on American, Australian, and British enlisted men and officers — much, much worse than the Germans did,” he said. Conversely, Shirley agreed with Marlow’s observation that Japan learned the lessons of the war better than Germany, with respect to foreign policy and immigration in particular. “There’s an old saying about the German people: they’re either at your feet, or at your throat,” Shirley said. “What dominates Germany, dominates the culture and dominates politics, is an enormous sense of guilt, even years later — over World War II, over the Holocaust, over the atrocities and the conduct of Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich toward Europeans, toward Americans, toward the British, toward Russians. Now they go in the opposite direction. ” “Whereas they were unspeakably cruel, they were horribly, evilly cruel, their natural reaction is to go just in the opposite direction and open up their gates to let in all sorts of immigrants, illegal immigrants, people from the Middle East. This is what dominates the German politics and culture in every way,” he argued. Shirley found December 1941 so eventful that he was able to dedicate a separate chapter of his book to each day. “It was a fun book to write, because there are a lot of good books on the military response to December 7 1941, but there haven’t been many books written on the civilian response — on the transition from a peacetime economy to a wartime economy,” he noted. He said he wanted to go into depth on what was happening across the country and around the world, inspired by childhood memories of how family dinners inevitably turned to conversations about World War II. “My grandfather would say something like, ‘Well, I bought that DeSoto before the war, but I didn’t sell it until after the war,’” he recalled. “There would be discussions about gas rationing, meat rationing, victory gardens. I just became really infused with how much the war really affected the culture of America. Iraq and other modern wars, even Vietnam, didn’t impact the civilian population too much, because they weren’t really involved. ” “World War II was the first, and really the last, war in which the government called on the American people to make ultimate sacrifices, and they did so — gladly, willingly, happily. The refrain at the time, if somebody complained about coffee rationing at the local grocery store, the grocer would look at you and say, ‘Hey, there’s a war on.’ Everybody sacrificed,” he said. Shirley said his research found no evidence of extensive hoarding or black market activity to evade these wartime sacrifices despite ample incentives, since “everything was rationed. ” “The American serviceman came first in clothing, in medicine, in food, and if the American serviceman didn’t come first, it went to Britain and to Russia. The American civilian was pretty much last in line for food, goods, and services in the United States. And the irony is that nobody complained about it,” he said. “Everybody knew what was at stake. Everybody avidly followed the war news. Everybody listened to the radio broadcasts — Gabriel Heatter, Lowell Thomas, and other war broadcasts. They listened to Winston Churchill, listened to Franklin Roosevelt, read their newspapers avidly, and knew about places that they’d never heard of before: The Burma Road, or Thailand, or Patton’s desert campaign against Rommel in North Africa. Everybody was knowledgeable and everybody was sophisticated in their conversations about the war,” Shirley recalled. Shirley recalled his uncle paying “the ultimate price” when he was shot down over the Pacific on his 20th birthday. He remembered childhood visits to the gravesite to leave flags and offer prayers for his Uncle Barney — a nickname he earned when Shirley’s observed that his huge eyes resembled those of cartoon character Barney Google. His father and another uncle also served in the war. “For our family, it was deeply, deeply personal,” he said. “My grandmother would shed some tears. My grandfather would shed some tears. But there was also a certain amount of solemnity and dignity to our day,” he said of the family dinners and memorial visits. “I remember going as a child to the graveyard and seeing other families there, doing similar things for their family members, for the men in their family who had fought and died in World War II, or even World War I, as a child. I think there are many ways to celebrate Memorial Day: to think about it, to pray about it, to act on it, to do something charitable for your fellow Americans. Whatever you do, I think it’s important to do something to memorialize those who made the ultimate sacrifice,” Shirley urged. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. Listen to the full audio of Craig Shirley’s interview above. | 1 |
Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow said there was still a “possibility” President Donald Trump and his campaign were innocent of accusations of being in cahoots with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign and that this may not take down the Trump presidency. If that is indeed the case, Maddow urged her viewers not to let their guards down against public corruption, especially as there are any other numbers of storylines to pursue while the saga dominates the news coverage. Partial transcript as follows: The news today that we may get testimony in exchange for immunity from fired National Security Advisor Mike Flynn who is in a position potentially to know more about the scandal than anybody else, that news today revs this scandal up into higher gear that we didn’t even know we had in our national transmission, and you know, we will — we here at the show and I think on this network, we will cover this as aggressively as anybody. I think it’s been fair to say we have been as aggressive as anybody on this story already and that will remain the case. But I want to just plant this flag here — there remains the possibility that the president and his campaign are innocent. There remains the possibility that the president and his campaign are not incident — not innocent, but that this scandal does not prove to be an existential conflagration, even if they are found to have committed very bad acts. There remains the possibility that at the end of this, even if these investigations continue to go as badly as they have for the president thus far, there remains the possibility that the end of all of it, he’s still president and then for the sake of our democracy, we have to figure out how we are going to regain our in tolerance for corruption and scandal and throwing our American ethical and political norms out the window. One of the consequences already of the Russia attack and it’s aftermath is that what otherwise would be presidency ending scandals in any presidential administration are like, whoo page 15, if you get there, man. I mean, when all this is over and who knows how it ends, if we are ever to regain our previous standing as a liberal democracy, right, there’s going to have to be consequences for, you know, the Carl Icahn stuff for the lying to the Senate stuff, for the personal ethics stuff, for the nepotism. Even for the political radicalism that we now see is definitely no big deal because at least it’s not treason. Whether or not the Russia scandal brings down this presidency and it might, the point of the Russia attack was to knock America down a few pegs in the eyes of the world. They win and we lose if the outcome of all of this — regardless of this presidency — is that we become a country that lets all this other stuff slide, right, we’re even rank corruption becomes normal or too small potatoes for us to worry about it. We cannot let ourselves be the American generation where the standard slipped that badly, right, where that happened. At some point, we’re going to have to get back to zero in terms of being able to be shocked by corruption, nepotism and crime in government. We’re going to have to get back to zero when it’s all done. Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
Viswajith | November 15, 2016 | Viral Videos | 11.5k SHARES
Mamata Banarjee and Arvind Kejriwal are the two chief ministers who are opposing Modi madly! Yesterday we have exposed Kejriwal and his intentions, Today we are exposing Mamta Banarjee and the secret behind her opposition to black money! This video will give you an exact idea about Mamata Banarjee as a corrupt political Leader! Watch the video below and share this massively.. 11.5k | 0 |
NORTH POLE, N. Y. — On a snowy shoulder of Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks, beyond signs advertising “North Pole, N. Y. ” and “Rides, Shops, Shows,” several parking attendants pushed a sedan, its tires spinning, into a packed lot. The car’s occupants spilled out, joining other families who through snowdrifts — just about everyone smiling, some tossing snowballs — toward the entrance to Santa’s Workshop, a theme park from another era. Inside, a line to Santa’s house snaked toward a North Pole, where families posed for selfies and a boy in a puffy snowsuit touched his tongue. Some families roasted marshmallows around a fire pit or wandered into the reindeer stable, where the animals were bedded down and out of reach of little hands. A boy raced from stall to stall, stopping in front of an empty one and shouting, “Where’s Donder? Where’s Donder?” (Donder and Dasher, an attendant elf later explained, had been feeling ill so they were recovering in a nearby pasture.) While it appeared to be a scene, Doug Waterbury, the owner of Santa’s Workshop, said, “It’s a challenge to keep the door open, frankly. ” “We lose money or break even every year,” Mr. Waterbury added. “Attendance is down. It’s hard to get up in the morning to push snow, feed reindeer and then look at all that red ink at the end of the year — and it’s not red because of Christmas. ’’ Santa’s Workshop in North Pole, in Wilmington, N. Y. is among the last of the theme parks in the region, outlasting the Land of Makebelieve, Frontier Town, Time Town, Gaslight Village and other Adirondack roadside attractions. Since 1949, Santa’s Workshop, an alpine village scaled for children, has welcomed families along the Whiteface Mountain Veterans Memorial Highway, a scenic road that meanders toward the peak’s summit. Today, the park’s Technicolor buildings and rides are a kitschy throwback that draws dedicated fans fueled by nostalgia, who return with their children or grandchildren to share their childhood experience of seeing Santa and his reindeer. Near the Candy Cane Express train, Carrie McDonald, 41, who lives in Harveys Lake, Pa. and her sister, Erin Richburg, 37, who lives in Philadelphia, watched their children flap arms and legs into snow angels. “We came up in 1984 with our grandparents and have really vivid memories,” Ms. McDonald said. “We’ve made it a tradition to come back. Right now we’re choosing this over Disney. ” Ms. Richburg added, “It’s and simple. It’s all about Santa. ” Standing by the park’s outdoor amphitheater, where Mary and Joseph trudge to the manger, Corinne Curtis, her husband, Dave, and their children, Jack, Deacon, Kainen and Londyn, who range in age from 8 years old to 16 months, were back for a second year, visiting from their home in Binghamton, N. Y. “The feeling is what appeals to us,” Ms. Curtis said. And Santa, of course. “He’s a sweet Santa,’’ she said. “He takes the time with them. It’s not like other commercial places. ” But in the 21st century, a nice St. Nick might not be enough to sustain a theme park in a remote part of the state. Santa’s Workshop’s inaccessibility — far from metropolitan areas, including five hours from New York City along twisty mountain roads — is “part of the mystique of the place,” Mr. Waterbury said. But it has also contributed to its decline. In 1967, the final stretch of Interstate 87 — through the eastern Adirondacks — was completed, punching a direct route from New York City to Montreal. It bypassed communities with motels and cabin colonies as well as diners and attractions that had flourished in the years after World War II. In the 1940s, when three businessmen, Julian Reiss, Harold Fortune and Arto Monaco, came up with idea of a destination where it was always Christmas, they hadn’t anticipated roller coasters or parks built around Walt Disney’s characters. (In fact, before Disneyland opened in Anaheim, Calif. in 1955, Walt Disney visited Santa’s Workshop for inspiration and to consult with Mr. Monaco, according to Mr. Waterbury.) The recession of 2008 pummeled the Adirondack travel industry. The unpredictability of the weather has also presented challenges, including Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, which damaged the park. Attendance has dropped steadily since the 1970s, and now the park attracts no more than about 1, 000 people on most days — a far cry from the over 14, 000 customers who would show up in the 1950s. But the biggest hurdle for the theme park, Mr. Waterbury said, is the weakening hold that the story of Santa has on children today. In the 1950s “a might still believe in Santa Claus,” Mr. Waterbury said. “It’s unusual today that a kid over 7 or 8 still believes. There’s an urgency to get families to bring their kids here before they grow away. ” In the lobby of the Jack Jingle puppet theater, where juice glasses, coasters and other memorabilia are displayed, Danielle and Paul Raimondi, from Center Moriches, N. Y. showed their daughters, Isabel, 13, and Sophia, 10, sacks spilling over with 60 years’ worth of letters addressed to Santa Claus. After the girls wandered away, Ms. Raimondi whispered, “A lot of people in our ’s school were talking about not believing, and we wanted to show her that he still does exist. ” Mr. Waterbury, whose company, Empire Attractions, buys troubled assets, joined Bob Reiss, a son of Julian Reiss, as a in 2004. A decade later he bought out Mr. Reiss after earning his trust that he was committed to keeping the park’s spirit alive. Mr. Waterbury said he felt an obligation to loyal Santa fans, the community and the park’s history. Mr. Waterbury recently hired a new general manager, John Collins, who has many years of experience in the theme park industry. They’re trying to figure out ways to bolster summertime attendance, the workshop’s most dismal season. “I’m not going to let it go,” said Mr. Waterbury. “There are enough bad things. This place is about what’s good in life. ” | 1 |
Home / Badge Abuse / Police Admit Officers May Also Be Responsible For Gunning Down Orlando Nightclub Patrons Police Admit Officers May Also Be Responsible For Gunning Down Orlando Nightclub Patrons Jay Syrmopoulos June 14, 2016 233 Comments
Orlando, FL – New details have emerged that may shed more light on the extreme casualty count in the Orlando nightclub killings. On Monday, Orlando Police Chief John Mina intimated that some of the victims may have been killed by officers trying to perform a rescue operation.
“I will say this, that’s all part of the investigation,” Mina said. “But I will say when our SWAT officers, about eight or nine officers, opened fire, the backdrop was a concrete wall, and they were being fired upon.”
A confidential law enforcement source close to the investigation said a crowd of up to 300 people within the club — combined with the complex layout of the structure — may have resulted in numerous patrons being struck by gunfire from officers, according to WFAA-ABC 8 .
Mina stood by his decision to employ a tactical strike amidst the rising likelihood that a number of the dead were the result of “friendly fire” from officers.
“It was a hard decision to make, but it was the right decision,” he said. “Our No. 1 priority is on saving lives, and it was the right decision to make.”
Details of the investigation are a being pieced together by local, federal and state investigators, as they continue to process the gruesome scene from a number of law enforcement mobile command units.
Authorities have determined that Mateen, 29, walked to the club at 2:02 a.m. armed with a semi-automatic long rifle and a Glock handgun.
An off-duty police officer working security at the club was outside investigating an underage drinker when he heard gunshots inside the club. The off-duty officer then proceeded to run inside the club and exchange gunfire with Mateen, with three additional officers soon arriving to back up the off-duty cop, law enforcement sources told WFAA-ABC 8. As the officers fired at Mateen, he retreated into a bathroom toward the rear of the club with a number of hostages.
“Those additional officers made entry while the suspect was shooting,” Mina said. “They forced him to stop shooting and retreat to the bathroom where we believe he had several hostages.”
While in the bathroom Mateen called 911 three times, pledging his allegiance to the Islamic State during one of the calls, although currently he has no known affiliation with any specific terrorist group. Mateen has been linked with American suicide bomber Moner Abu-Salha — who drove 16 tons of explosives into a Syrian government facility on behalf of Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in late May of that year. The men had also attended the same Eastern Florida mosque.
It has since come to light that he was a regular at the gay club, which raises serious questions about the credibility of his Islamist “terrorist” connection, and raises the possibility that Mateen suffered from severe identity issues that manifested in violence. The FBI confirmed that Mateen had been on their radar and had been interviewed on 3 separate occasions.
“He was in one bathroom fortified with hostages,” Mina said. “There were people in the opposing bathroom, about 15 or 20 people. And the details are unknown, they’re part of the investigation.”
Orlando police crisis negotiators that spoke with Mateen said he remained calm during the talks, but that he intimated that he intended to kill more people, Mina said.
“Based off statements made by the suspect and based on information we received by the suspect and from the hostages and the people inside,” Mina said, “we believe further loss of life was imminent. I made the decision to commence the rescue operation and do the explosive breach.”
The SWAT team attempted to topple the exterior wall leading to the bathroom that held 15 to 20 people, but failed, so Mina decided to use a Bearcat to break a hole in the wall. The vehicle rammed the wall, creating a small opening — about 3 feet wide and 2 feet off the ground — that captives could use to escape.
“We were able to rescue dozens and dozens of people who came out of that wall,” Mina said. “The suspect came out of that hole himself with a handgun and a long gun and engaged in a gunbattle with officers where he was ultimately killed.”
Mateen engaged officers immediately , striking one of them in his helmet, as officers returned fire striking the assailant several times.
The exterior concrete wall where the siege occurred is dotted with dozens of bullet holes, evidence of a shootout that included dozens of rounds fired by officers that likely hit and killed many hostages.
The final exchange of gunfire Mateen had with law enforcement occurred at 5 a.m., ending the three-hour ordeal. Officers then walked into the nightclub and found the dead bodies of club patrons strewn about the club, with more bodies found in a nearby bathroom.
There is a strong likelihood that we will never find out how many of the victims were ultimately killed by “friendly fire”. Jay Syrmopoulos is a political analyst, free thinker, researcher, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs. Jay’s work has been published on Ben Swann’s Truth in Media, Truth-Out, Raw Story, MintPress News, as well as many other sites. You can follow him on Twitter @sirmetropolis, on Facebook at Sir Metropolis and now on tsu. Share
swat teams are responsible for cleaning up the scene the fbi created Prince
Where’d they put all dead bodies? john smith
wut? the swat teams have been proven to be the real killers in these false flags..so ummm they did not put them anywhere Prince
Just wondering, as I didn’t see any footage of mass bodies being loaded into hearses. Mighty-Morphin Larry
only time will tell… mrshouse
Why won’t we find out? Can’t they tell from the bullets used to kill the victims? Matthew Shapiro
The forensic examination and reconstruction will most definitely determine which rounds were fired by police vs. terrorist, even if it is not possible to identify the particular officer who fired each shot. Sangreaal
They would be able to tell which gun fired what bullet via the rifling signature, so sure, they can indeed find out which officer fired the shot. Anon22385
lol, all of the bullets fired by the officers will be found to be “significantly damaged as to prohibit accurate analysis”… 2broke4 her
exactly, and the rounds would go through most people if not all of them, unless damaged by ricocheting off something and stayed intact in the victim, then too distorted to pin point which cop..imagine a cop being told he/she killed several people.. that should make his/her day! Jo6346
I make in the range of $6.000-$8.000 /month doing an online job. So if you are willing to work simple online jobs for several hours /a day from your house and earn good payment in the same time… This is perfect for you… http://ur1.ca/p7vx2
hkhjhj
The sarcasm was wasted on you. spg210
Rounds do NOT go through most people. Even at close range, unless a high powered weapon is being used. Even then the range is a deciding factor. Where did you even get that from? 2broke4 her
funny the ones i knew in Nam went through their bodies! A 22 magnum will go through a person unless it hits bone.. the .44 special Bulldog, i have the round travels around 850 fps, it wont go through a person unless the area is unobstructed and soft tissue.. a .45 Colt 875fps wont go through either.. a cop i know was shot with a .223 at about 150 feet away and it went clean through.. in reality it comes down the factors of ballistics and if the round is affected by an obstacle, as in Bone or soft tissue..
They may go through, but they may also turn, and fragment. There is some very dense, and hard tissue in humans, and also tissue that is very light. benbernecky
you’re overlooking the trail that is always left by the spent casings on the ground. How many of which caliber and their location gives a lot of clues as to how a shooting went down. If for instance they find 30 spend casings in the bar with the shooters firing pin “finger print” and other firearm indicatives like extractor marks etc. That’s why you always see spent casings designated wi5th a marker. The only problem, besides grief obviously, I have is the knee-jerk reaction to enact more inane stupid senseless gun laws that only disarm citizens of their 2nd amendment rights. You are supposed to have access “shall not be infringed” access to the heaviest firepower it takes to prevent your government from putting you into a FEMA camp. The 2nd amend. is NOT a duck-hunting right. Its for self protection. One person armed with a concealed gun would have made a world of difference and you ALL know it. CA just passed a pile of anti-gun, anti-citizen gun laws. One requires ALL parts of guns to have serial numbers? That’ll really make the jihadists think twice huh? We are not fighting a gun, we are at war with Islam jihadist which their Quran -only one- calls for all adherent’s to kill infidels- like myself. Good luck with that any of you jihadists out there. Molon Labe! Tothe
FMJ v. JHP? Do we know which bullets were used by either side yet? 2broke4 her
true Jeremy Shives
My rounds go through 250lb deer at well over 100 hundred yards. Since they haven’t yet released which MCX setup the guy had we don’t know if it was 5.56, 7.62, or 300 BLK. I can assure you that 7.62 and 300 BLK will def go through a human at close range. You have to remember though the officers who may have hit patrons fired through a concrete wall first so I would suspect those rounds would be pretty messed up prior to hitting club goers… disqus_s4n9NxE7Bi
of course. Bill Garrett
The shooter was using .223. The SWAT team was most likely using 5.56 NATO which fires the exact same bullet. Most likely 90% of the bullets fired that night were 77 grain Sierra Match King hollow point .223. Good luck guessing which rifle they came out of. Friend of Tibet
Even for 9mm the cops were most likely equipped with Glock pistols as well. NortonSmitty
Orlando issues .40 S&W. Bill Garrett
Looks like the reporting was wrong (really? the media calling a random rifle AR-15 because it was black and magazine fed?). If the shooter was using a Sig MCX then it would have been 300BLK rather than .223. LE may have been using 300BLK as well, but it was most likely 5.56. benbernecky
I seriously doubt they won’t be able to identify any bullet. If you believe that you do not know ballistics or what rounds police prefer/required to use in close encounters. A FMJ will usually get cleanly through a human without causing blood loss trauma. That is what kills is massive blood loss. That’s why anyone trained to use a gun shoot at the core of a human target -head included. At a distance as the 223/5.56 slows down it has time to mushroom and deform causing massive soft tissue damage but can still be survivable. At close range most high powered bullets do not have time to distort even hollow points that hit nothing solid .Been doing ordinance, and ballistics all my life kids. katz ro
They probably can’t tell if the bullet went all the way through Friend of Tibet
Both sides used .223/5.56mm ammunition during the attack. So we are talking about exact same bullets here. disqus_s4n9NxE7Bi
or so we’ve been told. (both sides using same ammo) Friend of Tibet
Police uses ar15 and Suspect used SIG MCX, both chambered in .223/5.56 NATO round. So yep…… Robert Karp
No. The difference would be the the ones used by the terrorist was a hunting round and the bullet would perform differently from the rounds used by the police. The police rounds do less damage to the body, because the hunting round is designed to most assuredly kill it’s target. They both kill but you’re more likely to survive a police round because it doesn’t expand and splinter as much. Friend of Tibet
Gimme a break. Orlando shooter used a SIG MCX as primary weapon. It is a Tactical Semiautomatic rifle intended for LEO market. As someone who regular shoots ar15 with friends for .223/5.56 there are no so called “hunting round “and “Police round”. Both sides use off the shelf Ammunition and both sides used FMJ type ammunition. Police do not and will never choose ammunition of ” less damage to the body” on their duty rifle because they are looking at maximum stopping power. disqus_s4n9NxE7Bi
that’s what we’ve been told, kind of convenient, no? Lily Munster
They’re going to shut your theory down. Tom Losh
The active shooter and many of the police were using the same ammo – .223/5.56 – and at the distance they were firing from I suspect many/most of the bullets went right through the victim so all you have is a quarter inch entry wound and a larger exit wound with no hint of what weapon it came from…
The cartridges used may be the same as the M-16s used by the police. The rifling may be different, but high velocity rifle rounds often break up when hitting flesh, walls or floor at short range. kat
If you google the location you will see that the bar was not very big. I can’t see how 300+ people fit into the place. The parking lot holds no more than 20 cars and it is bigger than the bar. The videos that you see on tv of people carrying other people actually shows them walking towards the bar and not away from it. You can see for yourself. https: [email protected]
Oh fucking please! Get an education fool! Prince
Flagged for profanity, and not a false flag John J Publicus! WestDetroitNigga
Can you be flagged for stupidity? Bobby5939
Perhaps you better open yours eyes son. The raw footage is everywhere of the errors they made. Education means nothing without common sense, and common sense would dictate if you are helping injured people that were shot in the club, they would be walking AWAY from the club, not towards it.
You lose bucko. John J Publicus
Sure you would. Except for the hospital that’s two blocks away in that direction.
Do you need to work hard to get to your level of batshit crazy or is it more something you’re born with? kat
So they carried everyone in the wrong direction first then they decided that the hospital was in the other direction so they turned around and started carrying people 4 blocks in the other direction. Is that correct? Where would ambulances be at this point? Or even police cars would be better then people carrying people with no blood what so ever on them……. John J Publicus
Go it. You need to work REALLY hard to reach your level of utter stupidity.
Funny, I’d have thought it more of a calling…. kat
The video’s are very clear, I’m not the utterly stupid one here. You and your actors failed to fool the public once again. John J Publicus
You’re cute!. Do you actually think I’m ‘debating’ you? disqus_s4n9NxE7Bi
Can you send me links to where I can see this footage? I haven’t seen it- or noticed the observations you noticed. But i did notice a lack of bodies. Pist-Off
http://investmentwatchblog.com/100-proof-nobody-died-in-the-orlando-homocaust-doctors-victims-are-fake-lone-gunman-doesnt-seem-possible/ kat
Go to youtube Orlando false flag and you will see many videos of mistakes they made while producing this false flag. john smith
excellent point. Mark Choi
No it’s not. Anyone who has ever gone to clubs that size knows full well what capacity they have. The idea that there could not have been 300+ patrons would only come from an ignoramus with no experience with matters at which he pretends expertise. John Willis
yaa like 300 plus fit in there no way Rogue cops cost us money
Bullshit It is called ballistic…….. There is a strong likelihood that we will never find out how many of the victims were ultimately killed by “friendly fire”. We may never know it depends on how FDLE does their job. Past performances dictate it will be a shit job, and all ballistics related information will be ignored tainted or covered up. disqus_s4n9NxE7Bi
Unfortunately, we will never know. Has our gov’t or any other governmental entity every admitted to fault or wrongdoing? (serious question) I mean even on a different scale hell- cops kill black kids in plain sight and not one has been charged/convicted. Bob Btme
Good thing law enforcement was focused on “underage drinking” Andy Cripps
Multiple shooters theory kind of proved, just not quite as the conspiracy theorists had imagined. All so tragic. I suppose a fast acting consciousness blocking gas canister through the hole created in the walls to subdue the shooter was out of the question, do they exist even? spg210
I guess that’s kind of like asking why didn’t the cop use his taser instead of shooting the suspect. David Hall
Cowards waited almost three hours to breech the bar and ended up killing probably 15-20 hostages. They will never release how many were killed by cops. 50 fucking people get killed and that one cop running around showing everyone he got shot in his kevlar helmut. Like anyone is worried about the little knick in his helmut, compared to over 100 people being shot. Guy
Easy enough for you to accuse people of cowardice as you sit safe, fuzzy and warm in your easy chair while, weekend quarterbacking of police who were trying to make safe almost 300 people from a deranged homicidal killer armed with a AR-15 type of assault rifle and a clock, who is shooting and killing people, in a very enclosed space with no rear exits ! Be sure to let everyone know how you from your vast experience, would have done it differently to keep people from being hurt or killed, from sniper or friendly fire, in a situation that was changing from minute to minute. Guy’s like you, who take cheap shots, piss me off ! Easy enough for you to flap your opinion about it, as long as there is a captive audience ! But put your ass on the line were it counts, and you all become very quiet ! SexForUs
There is no such thing as an assault rifle.
An assault is an action.
My fist is a weapon. Me throat punching you with it for being a fucking idiot, would be an assault.
Guy’s like you talk a lot of shit defending people who did what was mentioned and yet, where is your fucking vast experience? spg210
“‘GUYS’ like you” I see what you did there. John J Publicus
The military themselves named this type of rifle an ‘assault’ rifle when it was developed around the time of Vietnam. It was developed to REPLACE a ‘wood’ rifle, the kind your type like to compare the AR-15 to (the rifle used was a ‘souped up’ version of an AR-15) and claim its ‘just like the other rifle, with different pajamas’ or some such shit.
No morons, the military developed this weapon to REPLACE rifles like the Garrand specifically BECAUSE is performed better. Faster rate of fire, more reliable, larger magazines that are faster to load, lighter and changes very quickly. They also required a smaller, lighter round that would have the same or similar stopping power to the 30.xx cal that was in current use (they did this with added velocity). I’m actually paraphrasing the requirements that the armed services had developed for this weapon. The ‘auto fire’ feature was almost dropped and later modified to 3 round bursts for accuracy and because troops could not keep the weapon on target under auto fire. Different suppressor/compensator fixtures were later added to correct that.
So you see, this rifle and all it’s variants were originally developed to do one thing, kill people, as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Nothing you ammosexuals say or do can change this history and frankly, the more you continue to padal this crappola, the more you will look like utter morons to anyone who actually KNOWS the development history of this weapon! John Willis
and the military designates that as a “select fire ” small arm ,,youre blowing smoke troll or youre chooomin benbernecky
yes there are assault weapons, a 50 cal is most certainly an assault weapon. But since they are illegal -assault weapons that is -then when the media starts doing the AR-15 monkey dance and screaming assault weapons we all know what they’re trying to spite out is the term “semi-automatic rifle”, but assault weapon sounds more dramatic, to hell with truthful accurate journalism. it all went out with the ol “untouchable” supreme court. Rights judge Roberts? SexForUs
FDR’s NFA of 1934 already requires machine guns to be heavily taxed, highly regulated and registered with the federal government but it isn’t an assault weapon.
An assault is an action and regarding the Jackals in Black Robes, I’ll refer to Thomas Jefferson’s take on that Bench of Control Freaks.
homas Jefferson strongly opposed the doctrine of judicial review, and feared it would lead to “judicial despotism,” an opinion he voiced often.
Jefferson wrote to Abigail Adams (wife of former President John Adams) in 1804:
“The Constitution… meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.”
to Spencer Roane in 1819:
“In denying the right [the Supreme Court usurps] of exclusively explaining the Constitution, I go further than [others] do, if I understand rightly [this] quotation from the Federalist of an opinion that ‘the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government, but not in relation to the rights of the parties to the compact under which the judiciary is derived.’ If this opinion be sound, then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de se[act of suicide]. For intending to establish three departments, coordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. For experience has already shown that the impeachment it has provided is not even a scare-crow… The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”
to William C. Jarvis in 1820:
“To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.”
and to Edward Livingstone in 1825:
“This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt.” ~ Thomas Jefferson. John J Publicus
“There is no such thing as an assault rifle”
Actually, there is. The weapon and the round itself was designed from the ground up to kill as many people as efficiently as possible on the battlefield-by DEFINTION, it’s an ‘assault rifle’.
By definition, this weapon is NOT “just like any other semi auto rifle”. If you actually knew what you were shooting off your mouth about this would be self evident… SexForUs
What you are saying is, it’s the only military grade assault rifle not used by any military anywhere in the world.
Got t.
Yeah them clocks sure are deadly Brandon Swords
You’re a credulous moron. Sangreaal
Ummm…there was NO AR15 John J Publicus
Oh really? So he was using a sling shot? Moron… Need_to_Know
No, Moron, it was a Sig MCX, which is NOT an AR-15. John J Publicus
Oh, so,it was an AR-15 VARIANT? Silly me
Yeah, get your money back from school, you were robbed…. John J Publicus
Yes it was Einstein. Here’s a little from the brochure for,the MCX;
“Even while in the field, you can configure the SIG MCX as needs or conditions change. The combination of the 13″ monolithic upper receiver and handguard create a 17 3/4″ continuous top rail. The upper is backwards compatible with any mil-spec AR lower, allowing you to upgrade your existing AR platform to the SIG MCX. The AR upgrade kit includes side-folding stock assembly and adapter.”
Yeah, sounds to me like it was nothing like an AR-15. More like an AR on steroids if you ask almost anyone….
Apparently you are a bigger moron than first thought!!
IT’S A CARBINE!!
A Carbine is NOT an AR. John J Publicus
‘Carbine’ describes a style of weapon whose most recognizable feature is a short barrel length. You might want to stop using words that you don’t actually know the meaning of.
Even while in the field, you can configure the SIG MCX as needs or conditions change. The combination of the 13″ monolithic upper receiver and handguard create a 17 3/4″ continuous top rail. The upper is backwards compatible with any mil-spec AR lower, allowing you to upgrade your existing AR platform to the SIG MCX. The AR upgrade kit includes side-folding stock assembly and adapter.
A carbine is a style of rifle, most usually defined by a shooter barrel.
Are you really this arrogantly misinformed? Need_to_Know
Carbines have a shorter and different gas system than AR-15’s, thus making the difference much more than barrel length. John J Publicus
“most usually defined by a (shorter) barrel.”
I was very specific in what I said. James Paul
John, you are a idiot. The media has said the shooter had a handgun, a Glock. He didn’t have a AR-15. Look up the fact before making a fool of yourself. John J Publicus
It was an AR-15 variant.
Fool NortonSmitty
You know what is easy to say? THE ASSHOLES WAITED THREE HOURS IN SWAT GEAR WHILE UNTOLD DOZENS BLED OUT ON THE FLOOR! That, sir, is the very definition of cowardly incompetence. Mark Choi
You have no information on which to make that claim. You do however, appear to have a broken shift key. NortonSmitty
It was in every story on every venue if you actually paid attention. Moron. Mark Choi
No it wasn’t. But thanks for your superficial analysts of events that were too complex for you to understand. First, the shooting began at a little after 2:00. Almost IMMEDIATELY he is engaged by gunfire by an OPD officer, at 2:02 AM. Within MINUTES more OPD backup arrives, engaging Mateen and forcing him to retreat into a bathroom, taking hostages. It is now about 2:30. Mateen calls 911 several times. Meanwhile, he has taken hostages in the restroom, preventing a direct, all out assault. OPD SWAT requests a bomb unit. It is now 4:10 AM. A controlled explosion demolishes a small section of exterior wall of Pulse, leading to the aforementioned restroom. The hole is not large enough to allow a breach, so another officer uses his vehicle to ram the wall, making an opening large enough to enter. Police immediately engage Mateen in gunfire, and rescue 30 hostages. It is now 5:05 AM. Mateen is pronounced dead. It is now 5:53. NONE of this timeline backs up your claim, either of cowardice, or that anyone bled out in the intervening time. Moreover, you most certainly can NOT state definitely that more people would not have been killed, particularly those 30 hostages, had they performed a full frontal assault on the building. In fact, even as it was, the OPD can not be sure their officers did not accidentally shoot some of the victims in the ensuing chaos. It is you, sir, who are the one who is mentally deficient. But at least you appear to have fixed your keyboard. Mark Choi
http://www.laweekly.com/news/did-swat-wait-too-long-to-storm-the-orlando-nightclub-7027891 Mark Choi
No it wasn’t you microcephalic idiot. As already mentioned, what WAS on the news coverage was the fact that during that three hours, the shooter repeatedly called 911 claiming that he had an explosive vest, and that he had set booby traps all throughout the building, that nevertheless the police were actively accessing the building and evacuating as many people as possible, and that no additional shots were fired during that standoff, changing the situation from an active shooter protocol to a hostage negotiation protocol. What is also known is that you’re a bloviating, misinformed idiot. Funny how after all this went mainstream, and the 911 tapes were released, all of a sudden you began radio silence. You would have done well to start there. John Willis
it was televised ding dong ,and there are records showing time elapsed from police arrival till mop up , where do you morons come from ? John J Publicus
From under the nearest rock.
The real question is; will they crawl back under those rocks once tRump loses in a landslide? Mark Choi
No it wasn’t you idiot. What WAS televised is that during that three hours, during which the shooter repeatedly called 911 claiming that he had an explosive vest, and that he had set booby traps all throughout the building, nevertheless the police were actively accessing the building and evacuating as many people as possible. What is also known is that no additional shots were fired during that standoff, changing the situation from an active shooter protocol to a hostage negotiation protocol. Did I happen to mention that you’re an idiot? You’re an idiot. Tothe
I’m not the one whose alleged job is charging into dangerous situations and putting my life on the line. Isn’t that what people say when I argue that the law enforcement monopoly is ever in the wrong? “You aren’t the one charging into dangerous situations,” or something, right?
Remember when cops sat on the sidelines during the Columbine massacre, too? David Hall
You stupid POS, I have put my ass on the fucking line for 27 months. I lost my right eye, half of my face, back of my right leg nearly blown off and a bayonet ripped throught 17 inches of my right arm. Dude I have earned to say what I damn well please. Have you?. I spent 23 months in hospitals in three Countries.Arm chair asshole like you is what pisses me off. If you bothered to read 3 of the best guys in the business that trains the SWAT officers said the same thing, that they should have went in hours sooner. Policy is now with a mass type shooter to immediately engage the shooter. Learn before speaking, go back to you Mom’s basement and take some meds. I went into a hundred fucking places tighter and smaller than that with many hostages. James Paul
Listen up Guy, The official story says the shooter had a hand gun, not a AR-15. Get your facts straight before making a fool of yourself. James Paul
The truth is, it never happened. It was a staged event, false flag, just like Sandy Hook. The powers that be want our guns and will do anything to get them. Staging a event like this to push gun legislation is not out of the realm of possibility. if the event actually happened there would not be so many discrepancies spotted so quickly. Interrupting Reply Bot 2014
I’d like to see things from your point of view. But no sane person can possibly shove their head that far up their assholes. Lily Munster
It’s a secret! Ed
There is a strong likelihood that we will never find out how many of the victims were ultimately killed by “friendly fire”. But we better thoroughly investigate, no matter the cost! Prince
Where’s all the dead bodies? John J Publicus
Idiot,,what makes you think you’ll see dead bodies? Prince
An off-duty police officer working security at the club was outside investigating an underage drinker when he heard gunshots inside the club. The off-duty officer then proceeded to run inside the club and exchange gunfire with Mateen, with three additional officers soon arriving to back up the off-duty cop, law enforcement sources told WFAA-ABC 8.
Well why were there 3 additional cops so close to the off duty cop? Dark_Space
I’m guessing they were close to where they get regular calls… stubbikins
It was Saturday night in an area with a lot going on, probably several places with private security. Three is not that many Sangreaal
No wonder there were witness reports of there being more than one shooter killing people. spg210
Police tend to hang out around night club areas, especially close to last call, for obvious reasons. Marlene Piazza
and what about all the reports that state the officer engaged in a shoot out with the gunman OUTSIDE the club first, before he went in. And stories about one victim and his girlfriend being shot when they were walking to their car, as they passed the gunman on his way to the club? Paul Val
there is absolutely NO REASON why they can’t figure out who was shot by friendly fire, it’s called BALLISTICS Dan Bray
You watch too much CSI. Prince
youre :john q pubiclikus jean boyd
People saw the cops shooting so they had to cover their butts somehow. Same thing happened in San Bernadino. People saw SWAT type soldiers at the scene but they just ignored it on the news. These are False Flags and look at the family members crying and reading scripts. Been going on for a while. The Government and news stations are allowed to produce propaganda for the continuation of their agenda and the American people just buy it up. Please investigate people. They just want a gun grab. Alberto
Who’s to take responsibility for the victims the swat team killed, it was a moronic decision that took place. The swat team probably killed or injured most of the victims. Lets take a close look at the weapon the shooter had with him a semi-automatic long rifle carries 10rounds per clip and a Glock handgun 10-15 rounds depending on the type of hand gun. I’m puzzled how did the shooter managed to shoot and kill 50 people and injured 53 more. This shooter must’ve been an expert at changing his clips. stubbikins
He was in there for 3 hours. Taylor Franklin
It’s a magazine and a standard mag holds 30 rounds but even so he would have had to have 31 of them to have that many rounds Dan Bray
Allegedly 202 rounds fired. Less than 10 mags. Patrick
I suspect the real culprits were actually the first four ‘police’ on the scene 🙁 Samantha Atkins
Uh, ballistics can tell you how many of the dead were not killed by Mateen. Lily Munster
You think we’ll ever know that? It will destroy Obama and Billary’s master plan a-la Wasserman. Wild_Bill_vintage_1948
Why would anyone be interested in doing such ballistics? I’m sure they won’t. Windell Clark
No excuse – You have adrenaline pumping – you dont want to hurt any innocents now add in the fact YOU dont want to die and its not a drill and you cant take back a bullet and start over. You can have the best gear with lights on the front, laser sights etc but add emotion and someone trying to kill you and things change. Ask any cop whats going through his of her mind when just room clearing in the most basic form – its tough. Now add an active shooter(s) with an Auto or Semi Automatic weapon(s) and the stakes jump. Add people begging for help but you cant stop and render aid because the threat is not neutralized -so you must leave them for time being-. Oh did i mention this is only the first 30 seconds of a dynamic entry? If other Officers have entered at another point you dont want to shoot them by accident – someone runs at you with something in hand you have maybe a fraction of a second to determine if its a cellphone in hand or a weapon guess wrong and you’re dead or that innocent with a cell phone is dead. Ok now that either you have killed an innocent or your team is stepping over your body because you guessed wrong the mission must go on. You still have 5 or 10 of the longest nerve racking minutes of your life to clear a building you’ve never been in..Good luck Kyle Pinson
That sounds compelling, but this took three hours. Care to revise your fantasy here? Windell Clark
Only painting a picture of what a person MIGHT possibly come up against in that situation. Bud Miser
Me. Lie_Buster
Relax, children. Normal logical questions are rendered “conspiracy theory” and “tinfoil hats” etc when the rulers do their false flag thing. Its starting to look obvious that MOST of the victims were murdered by sharp, accurate-shooting members of the police force. Oops – sorry for questioning the guvmint’s tall tale(s). Now, if the truth turns out to be that the cops are responsible for most of the deaths, I want y’all to hold your breath that some “forensics” lab is gonna tell y’all that truth. Sirios
“Our number one priority is on saving lives” WTF? The cops were saving the people from the shooter as they were shooting the people they were saving? Ghassan Awada
We had to destroy the village to save it That strategy is longstanding policy in the US 2broke4 her
a 3 hour wait because cops thought explosives might be there.. meanwhile a turkey shoot is going on and then the cops killing people.. sounds like an excellent plan! Contrarianthefirst
No film, no pics, it never happened. John J Publicus
“There is a strong likelihood that we will never find out how many of the victims were ultimately killed by “friendly fire”.”
Oh fucking please! Do they really think we are that stupid? Of COURSE they will be able to tell which bullets came from who’s weapon! Do,they think we’re in the 18th century? Every bullet in every single body will be catalogued and identified.
I was wondering why the LE suits were pushing how many lives they saved by rushing the club. I’m betting that the coming weeks will show how much of a police induced cluster duck it REALLY was….. Prince
John J Publicus – Flagged again for profanity. Can’t stop using the “F” word, can you? John J Publicus
Can’t stop being bat$hit crazy, can you? David Nininger
So just to recap, collateral damage is allowed on US citizens from police but is a war crime when out military does it…. ? spg210
Uh… NO. Collateral damage is NOT a war crime. Collateral damage is not purposely killing civilians. Purposely killing civilians is a war crime. So just to recap, if you drop a bomb on a verified enemy stronghold and kill some civilians in the process, that’s not against the Geneva Convention. bf110c4
“Our No. 1 priority is on saving lives, and it was the right decision to make.” The lives he is speaking of were the cops. They let dozens of victims bleed out during the 3 hour stand-off. Mateen basically had his way with the patrons and the cops. Thunder_Kiss_1965
This should be kept out of the public domain. Before anyone jumps me you should take into account what happens the next time . A SWAT team leary of hitting civilians doesn’t go in and the death toll is higher you can’t reason with a radical. Kevis
They can get a very good idea on how many were hit by whom. Even where exact matching isn’t possible marks on fragments can exclude or include certain guns fired. disqus_s4n9NxE7Bi
Orlando Alligator Detractor/Distraction? Anyone else think this 2 yr old Alligator Death was set up to distract the American Public away from critically analyzing and questioning this night-club shooting? I do. Very much so. The vast majority of our pubic are just “sheep” ;( blindly following without questioning Prince
Didn’t some singer in Orlando that was on the T.V. show The Voice supposedly also get killed too while signing autographs? Reuel Excalibur Francis
That happened before the shooting tho disqus_s4n9NxE7Bi
It’s true: WHERE ARE THE BODIES?! Zero footage?!? No way. Prince
Don’t worry they’ll splash around some fake blood for post event pictures to be taken. lancelotlink
“It was a hard decision to make, but it was the right decision,” Madeline Allbright
“We went, we saw and he died.” Hillary Clinton MrMiran
Just how big is that bathroom, and how many people were in it when the gunman was forced to retreat into it? I mean once he was pinned down in there by the officers on location, evacuate the club… then work on rescuing the hostages in the bathroom.
Hey, I wasn’t there… I don’t have all the facts… I’m just asking questions about how it was handled. With cops on-site when it went down… and the gunman’s quick retreat… I’m just trying to get my head around how over 100 people were shot. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families and friends. Andy Cripps
Apparently this guy was a regular visitor. Looks like he was in two minds. Instinctual same sex urges and ideological nonsense that bans it. How about a system where you could be honest about your personal situation to get the help required without fear of character annihilation to maybe stop some of this sort of stuff happening. The war on crime has been as successful as prohibition of alcohol was and the war on drugs is. Maybe time to address what it is to be human and assess the damage crass ideologies have on people and start banning shit that really damages society! Chris Shirah
Who gives a rats ass who did what. Peoples lives were saved and peoples lives were taken, that’s all that matters. When the dust cleared that fruit cake was dead. On to the next one, people will die then too just hope it isn’t your family grieving while a bunch of tardos make dumb ass remarks about the police that do the saving of the rest. Prince
What R U, a cop lover? Chris Shirah
I don’t know. Is a convicted felon a lover of cops? All I care about is that a lot of lives were saved. I wouldn’t have cared if it was Minnie and Mickey Mouse that saved them. What are you? A hater of human life? NortonSmitty
This makes no sense. If the officer(S) chased the shooter into a bathroom with 15 or 20 hostages within seconds how did over 100 people get shot with a semi-automatic weapon. As a veteran I can tell you it’s impossible. Prince
It most likely didn’t happen. Lily Munster
Hey, Boo! Mark Choi
As a person who can read, I can tell you that you’re a misinformed idiot. d griffin
Grossly irresponsible “reporting.” The death-toll inside the club would have been in the hundreds, had police not responded forcefully. Also, the terrorist made it very clear what his motivation and allegiance were, and his being probably gay is a sidenote. Get a clue, kiddies. The war is against Islamic terror, and you’ll be fighting it for the next hundred years or so. Prince
The club didn’t even hold that many people. d griffin
The Miami Herald reports that as many as 800 people have packed that club. On that night, at closing, there were upwards of 300 people inside at closing time. So go back to being dead from a stupid overdose, you. lol Bud Miser
Aren’t you just a ray of sunshine! Prince
Not what Eye heard. It could have been a murder as well… John J Publicus
Why can’t you stay dead? Bobby5939
Your attempt at disinformation is pathetic. Martin351
False flag is a false flag. While were talking about cops in this case… why on earth when you get of a report of an armed gunman with either an AR15 or AK47 (yes botth of these being reported showing they can’t even get that right)..
Why on earth would they send conventional cops to the scene with no armor, no kevlar, and no helmets?
Seriously people, how stupid can you be to believe this garbage? People being carried TOWARDS the club? People being caught off camera standing on their own and moving around after they were shot in the leg? Then their rescuers laughing and smiling? News reports can’t decide if an armored vehicle crashed into the club or explosives were used? It is clear either a sledgehammer was used and a special cutting saw. We have the same person conducting multiple interviews under different names yet never bothered to even change her shirt to attempt to deceive? We have “survivors” of the shooting with time and location stamps on social media pitting them completely out of the state 1-2hrs before hand?
No bodies, no blood, no ambulances, no Swat, no bullet holes, no ID when entering the club (think about that one for a second), people having oodles of time to post on facebook during the incident? Even the nightclubs webpage has time to update to get out of the club and keep running?? LMFAO
And to think some of you bought this hook, line, and sinker.. unbelievable. Bob413
You can easily tell by some of the comments on this article that the people are commenting to spread disinformation and divert attention away to the errors made in the cover up.
Sorry folks, there are more critical errors and holes in this incident and cover up than swiss cheese. You really dropped the ball on this one, and the whole world knows it now. The rest of the countries have washed their hands of this story and calling it like it is, a false flag. That’s bad when massive media outlets across the globe are now calling it a false flag not even 4 days after. Patricia Golding
Now they have released this crock of a florida gator eating a baby story because now they realize they’ve made so many mistakes with this shooting they are quickly trying to divert people’s attention John J Publicus
So many stunningly stupid people. You as much a moron as the last one… disqus_s4n9NxE7Bi
YES I said this yesterday. And guess what? It worked! I’m so glad others are wise enough to realize the staged gator incident.
The vast majority of American People are “sheep” following without questioning. disqus_s4n9NxE7Bi
But my genuine question is this: Do they get families to cooperate (family of the boy)? Or would the family be completely unsuspecting? How does this whole thing work? (even with the “survivors” of orlando and witnesses) kat
Did you not see the same people interview over and over again. They are called actors. Go to youtube and watch how the one Mother smiles and laughs through the entire video with CNN after she finally finds out her son is dead. You can’t make this crap up. Lily Munster
A Philadelphia native and Fox 29 intern who survived the Orlando mass shooting has disputed claims on social media that she was a “crisis actor” for the station, and was not actually at Pulse nightclub when the incident occurred. Lily Munster
Lord, don’t let my tears fail me now!
She could have at least got a wig that doesn’t sit 3 inches behind her forehead. John J Publicus
You just can’t fake stupid like you…. Fardale Labradors
I guess you didn’t see the kevlar helmets that save a few cops? Know what you;re talking about before you post bs. Autumn
It was one cop, and the kevlar helmet had a hole in it and damage that was not consistent with a bullet’s entry point. Rather, it looked as though it had been bashed against some concrete.
No ambulances. People declared dead inside the nightclub (that can’t be done until you reach the hospital.) Injured being carried from down the block toward the club. One loaded into a truck.
I understand that part of you may feel wrong to question a tragedy, but when something doesn’t feel right, you should follow your gut. That’s what I did for Sandy Hook and have been doing ever since.
Look into the points that have been made, Faradale, and see for yourself. Fardale Labradors
Were you there Autumn? My husband, a retired Port Authority 911 P.O had friends on the scene , a relative working in the hospital and others I can’t discuss on the scene. What we can ALL do is show some respect to those lost and stop arguing about what went on and what didn’t. Trysmiling
We certainly can and should show respect to those that lost loved one during this shooting. No one is trying to disrespect them or the pain they are experiencing. But they need to know that those they loved and lost were sacrificed by a sick government for their agenda of immigration and gun control. That is all those poor people were, pawn is a huge game of chess.We never saw what happened inside, but what we saw outside was nothing but crisis actors. Your husbands friend probably has no clue that this was a staged event. It’s not like everyone has to be in the know to pull something like this off. Nahla Salvia
The article was stating that it never happened. That’s why he mentioned no ambulances. A set up or not people died and out of respect for their families, maybe people should wait and let them mournemourne before busting out conspiracy theories George
I guess that people died in Star Wars too. I mean really died. Fardale Labradors
Shooting? I was talking about 911. When we reach FL next month we will both CONCEAL CARRY by Law. He has his badge, we have to with his retirement badge on him. No further discussion, we will carry. Lily Munster
Is’t that ALWAYS the case when the truth must be shrouded?
Sanders vs. Billary – same thing. Lily Munster
All mainstream media publications, gay and straight alike have been compromised by the same entity.
The want to shut Indie press down too. Nahla Salvia
Why isn’t anyone in Orlando saying it never happened? Did you watched the local news of that city, when they were showing the live broadcast? George
LMAO No helmets? It says right there in the article that when mateen emerged he engaged the officers immediately and even hit ONE IN THE HELMET. Cry wolf.
How long have you been insane, son? You know they have meds for that, now. John J Publicus
i see,you’ve posted all those facts her for all to see…oh, wait. disqus_s4n9NxE7Bi
@Martin351:disqus my gut instinct also feels it is false flag. Not being facetious, but where/what footage photos etc have you seen that confirms what you posted above?
I personally didn’t notice the reporter with the same shirt and many psuedonyms (do you have a name or channel she reports for?) Also, I didn’t see any footage of rescuers laughing or carrying people towards club.
I did notice there were no bodies. I did notice it took 4 days for “vine” clips to emerge (doubt their authenticity). In these circumstances, does the govt recruit and compensate people to make such statements in their interviews? Genuine Question. Pist-Off
E7Bi, this site may shed some lite on things for you. I believe that Martin is rite on. http://investmentwatchblog.com/100-proof-nobody-died-in-the-orlando-homocaust-doctors-victims-are-fake-lone-gunman-doesnt-seem-possible/ John J Publicus
That ‘gut instinct’ is the compacted shit in your colon. A diet that didn’t include Taco Bell and McDonald’s washed down with non stop soda. Just because you have a great big gut, doesn’t mean you have the first clue of what reality looks like.
It’s assholes like you that give syphilis a bad name! Nahla Salvia
They don’t really show bodies in US news, i don’t really see them on the news I watch. Also too, no one that lives there is saying anything about it never happening. If it didn’t, l know for sure that Orlandoneans would be talking not foreigners. This is an ongoing investigation, they have to withhold information devontae hook
‘no bodies’ what a piece of shit you are, i went to school with 2 people that died in that club that shit wasnt fake, you moron fgvyti
what school and what are their names
shill | 0 |
Home / US News / After Bashing Trump For Months, George Soros Just Got The Worst News Of His Life! After Bashing Trump For Months, George Soros Just Got The Worst News Of His Life! Related Articles WOW – NBC Host Posts MISLEADING Headline…This Is EMBARRASSING! 1 day ago 1 day ago
George Soros is a rich liberal! WHEW! Scratch that. George Soros is the richest of liberals.
He spent tens of millions of dollars trying to elect Hillary Clinton. Now that she lost…
He is focusing his attention on Donald Trump.
THERE ARE RUMORS THAT HE IS LOSING SUPPORT!
There is a 3day meeting at the Mandarin Oriental hotel beginning on Sunday, according to Politico. This event is sponsored by Democracy Alliance – which is headed up by George Soros.
Their plan is to stop Trump even after he has won the election. Yes. You heard that right. The election is not over. It’s going to be a long year.
*** If you didn’t know, Soros is behind the protests going on right now.
Soros founded the Democracy Alliance in 2004. Members of the organization have to donate at least $200,000 a year to its recommended groups.
*** Soros gave $13 million to unsuccessfully stop Trump from winning.
The Democratic party is wanting to get away from Soros’s Democracy Alliance. One Democratic strategist said the following:
“The DA itself should be called into question,” said one Democratic strategist. “You can make a very good case it’s nothing more than a social club for a handful wealthy white donors and labor union officials to drink wine and read memos, as the Democratic Party burns down around them.”
You heard it right here at Liberty Writers News. The Democrats are starting to doubt George Soros’s vision for the party. Let’s help them doubt it! #SHARE this article with every single patriot and Democrat that you know. We need to stop this man from trying to topple our country. Are you American?
Will you stand up, patriot? 2016-11-16 | 0 |
November 15, 2016
The CIA and FBI have confirmed they are working on it. ‘Ideally we would like a mad person or terrorist so it cannot be traced to us.’ said a spokesperson, who did not wish to be named. ‘Our preference is a ‘perpetrator’ from a foreign prosperous city so we can bomb the city to smithereens and also make loads of money from rebuilding it – as we usually do.’
‘At this moment in time we are busy compiling lists of easily-hypnotized gullible fools. As you can imagine, it’s not easy, as Mr Trump has found most of them already’. Farmer Giles | 0 |
Sales of emergency survival food are increasing as we approach election day, and rightfully so. With Hillary Clinton and other democrats hellbent on resuscitating a non-existent Cold War and the violent riots we’ve seen by so-called protesters at Donald trump rallies, many preppers are seeing the signs and preparing for post-election unrest by storing large amounts of non-perishable food.
Although it is quite normal to see long-term storable foods rise in sales around election time, but survival food companies are seeing a particularly large spike in business this year as we approach election day.
“This is more intense than what we saw in 2012,” Keith Bansemer, marketing VP for My Patriot Supply, a survival food company, told NBC news. He says that last election season doubled their sales, and this time around they have seen their sales triple.
“We have everyone we can on the phones. We are overwhelmed,” said Bensemer.
Those who expect Trump to win fear a revolt from violent anti-Trump protesters, such as the riot seen in San Jose , California outside of a Trump rally. Others who expect Hillary Clinton’s coronation to the presidency are preparing for a possible World War 3 scenario, which may be a very well-founded concern considering Clinton’s war-driven rhetoric about Russia’s involvement in Syria and the establishment of no-fly zones in air space around Aleppo.
However, not everyone is preparing for war with another country. Many are preparing for government-related threats to their life and liberty. One of the major threats we face is the ever-increasing desire of politicians to take away our guns and the resulting chaos that would ensue. Hillary Clinton completely disregards the second amendment, and the possibility that she would enact gun confiscation across the country should not be discounted. This would mean a declaration of war on the people, or at least those who cherish freedom.
Bansemer does not think his customer base is fearing for any specific election outcome. He thinks that many just want to be prepared for whatever may come as a result of either of these candidates’ policies.
“You hear them saying, no matter who wins, I know I could take a positive step myself and secure what’s important,” he explained. “They’re securing their food supply.”
A number of other long-term food suppliers are seeing an increase as well.
Legacy Foods is predicting that sales will jump in the weeks following the election, said owner Phil Cox. Legacy sells a $2,000 package of a year’s worth of storable food, containing nearly 1,100 meals and sealed in military-grade Mylar packs.
Retailers are noticing the increase of sales of long-term food and they are serving the market. Costco is also getting into the emergency food market with a 390-serving bucket, or one month’s supply of food, for $115. Store owner Larry Friedman is unsure what to make of the increased presence of preppers at his military surplus supply store, M&G. “Some are regulars in here,” said Friedman. “They come in, seem perfectly normal, and then suddenly, they’re talking about the apocalypse. You do a double-take.”
Friedman recalled seeing an increase of sales like this nearly two decades ago, after the original invasion of Iraq:
“It really started in ’91 with Desert Storm. People were worried about Scud missiles and chemical weapons from Iraq. We had so many people waiting we almost couldn’t close the doors. We sold every gas mask we could get our hands on. That was off the hook.”
Whatever reason one may have for preparing, there is no question that if disaster strikes and food becomes scarce, food will become a primary currency , and storable food will become highly valuable. There’s no good reason to pass up the opportunity to prepare.
This information has been made available by Ready Nutrition
Originally published November 6th, 2016 Sign of the Times: Riot Control Gear Sales Are Soaring… Could the Next World War be Initiated with an EMP Weapon… Four Current Events that Could Challenge the Prepper… 14 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy’s Bubble Of False… Silver Bullion or Junk Silver for Long-term Bartering? | 0 |
$23 Save America From Donald Trump to Fix America, or, Did Your Mother Drop You on Your Head? Posted on Nov 2, 2016
By Juan Cole / Informed Comment
When I trained as a lifeguard they warned us that you have to be very careful how you approach a drowning victim flailing around. They will be so happy to be rescued that they will grab you and pin your arms and freeze up, and then you’ll both sink to the bottom and drown. You have to keep your distance, keep your arm stiff, and pull them out straight on their back, head out of the water, to reassure them. Then you can rescue them. The rescued teenager may not be a saint. Or they may have a bad family situation. You’re not thinking about that when the issue is whether they will live or die. Maybe they can straighten out their lives if they end up having lives.
So America is drowning, and voting for Hillary Clinton is the equivalent of rescuing it. It is the stiff arm to deal with a hysteria that will otherwise sink us.
I see too many people agonizing over this election. Will they vote for the Greens? Libertarians? Is Hillary as bad as Trump?
Did your mother drop you on your head? This is a drowning country we’re talking about. You don’t have the luxury to sit on the beach and decide whether to go in. And maybe you’ll be delivering the country to someone who is a bad mother. But it will be a live country and maybe the mother could be reformed. Drowned people can’t be reformed. Remember when, in Princess Bride, Inigo Montoya brings Westley to Miracle Max (Billy Crystal) to be brought back from the dead? And Miracle Max discovers Westley isn’t dead, and so could be revived: “Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there’s usually only one thing you can do.” Inigo Montoya : “What’s that?” Miracle Max : “Go through his clothes and look for loose change.”
An America under Trump would be all dead. Donald J. Trump is the greatest danger to American democracy in modern history. He openly menaces journalists, he keeps inquiring about why we have nukes if we can’t use them, he wants to steal Iraq’s petroleum wealth, he promises to use torture, he courts the KKK, he proposes tax and other policies that will vastly increase inequality and bankrupt the government, and he wants a trade war with China. I could go on with a litany of fatal “policies” (actually more like wicked quips) all the way down the page (and blog pages don’t really have a fixed bottom). All this is not to mention his criminal notion that he has a right to French kiss and fondle any woman he can get hold of with his tiny hands.
Advertisement Square, Site wide
I think it is entirely possible that if Trump were president, I and other writers and journalists and critics could be targeted for dirty tricks. It happened even under Bush. This is one reason it is so dangerous to have a standing massive domestic surveillance program of our current sort; one election could put it into the hands of a dictator.
I get it. Hillary is Wall Street. She will do nothing to rein in the excesses of the financiers (and not all financiers need reining in, but many do). One of our country’s most pressing problems, wealth inequality, will almost certainly get worse in a Clinton presidency. She probably will continue Obama’s phony “all of the above” energy policy, which will mean an overheated climate (we need a Manhattan project to get off oil, coal and gas immediately). She is a foreign policy hawk and seems committed to intervening in Syria. She is in the back pocket of Haim Saban and the AIPAC Israel lobbies and has a virtual love fest with Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu.
But here’s a surprise. We live in a society dominated by corporations the way medieval Britain was dominated by feudal lords. The only difference is that we have a higher standard of living than did the serfs and we get to decide between two Establishment candidates for high office regularly.
Over two-thirds of America’s $18.5 trillion economy is generated by Fortune 500 big corporations (in 2014 it was 73%!)
When I was a graduate student 36 years ago it was about 50%. (Small business accounted for most of the other half then, and were the source of the vast majority of innovation).
Although the corporations and the economists who ultimately actually mostly work for them maintain that this system is efficient and based on competition, in fact there are lots of monopolies or near-monopolies, and it clearly has giant inefficiencies (compare your internet bill to that of people in Europe). They also complain about government regulation, but through lobbying most of them have actually captured the legislators who are supposed to be regulating them. Often they write the laws for the legislators and just have the latter sign them.
The corporations don’t always get their way. But they most often do. It would have cost them trillions of dollars in profits if the US had moved quickly to green energy in the 1990s when the climate crisis first became apparent, so they waged a PR campaign to smear climate scientists like Michael Mann and pull the wool over the eyes of most consumers to keep them burning coal, gas and oil as long as possible. In the US alone, they managed to put on the order of an extra hundred billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in the past 20 years through this dishonest ruse. It’s like blowing up billions of atomic bombs, making the earth hotter and hotter. No one has been president who would have stood in their way, and almost nobody has been allowed in Congress who would obstruct them either. They are starting to give up on coal, and Obama did stab them in the back on that fuel, but they still burn as much gas and oil as they like and flare up methane when they frack both, destroying the environment (not to mention water pollution). I say ‘they’ because there are essentially interlocking directorates. A lot of the Fortune 500 is heavily invested in hyrdocarbons. That is why it is so hard to do environmental investing, because if you buy a bank stock you are buying Exxon-Mobil.There isn’t any more pressing issue than addressing climate change, and I’m sorry but nothing Hillary has said about the issue is actually ambitious enough to fit the scale of the emergency.
So I know.
But you aren’t thinking about this right. The people screwed over by the 1% are hurting and have turned to Trump because he talks like a maverick, even though he will screw them over even harder. They are drowning.
You can’t rehabilitate the patient if the patient drowned. And America would drown, would be all dead, would be beyond redemption, under 4 years of Trump.
Sec. Clinton is from that generation of baby boomer Democrats who decided in the Reagan era that they had to become Eisenhower Republicans ever to hold office. So she surrendered to Wall Street & etc. We know that. But she can be pressured, just as Eisenhower was pressured (if only we could get back to his tax policies!) We can oppose her if she drags her feet on key issues. It will be easier to pressure her from below if we can also take back Congress and can get some liberals on the Supreme Court.
We can’t oppose Trump because he has made it clear that he will rule as dictator and will brook no opposition. He has lots of goons to sic on his critics already, and would pick up their entire Federal government if he wins.
I have made my peace with being a serf who gets to vote for the candidates the two parties (mainly representing the corporations) present me with. (It is a first past the post system, so creating a 3rd party is almost impossible). It is a very corrupt system, maybe the most corrupt on earth . I’ll probably never see a president who really represents the mainstream of America, because of voter suppression and big money in politics and the corruption of corporate media. I blow off my frustrations at this blog and maybe I change a few minds here and there. Civil disobedience seems increasingly called for with regard to hydrocarbons. But we can’t do that if America is dead. And Clinton won’t kill it, however wrongheaded some of her announced policies. We survived Bush, though with a $6 trillion bill, and we can survive Clinton. We can’t survive Trump. TAGS: | 0 |
Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/fukushima-extinction-level-event-that.html March 11, 2011: A massive earthquake of 9.0 magnitude struck off the coast of Japan, triggering a devastating tsunami, which left parts of the country in utter shambles. Official reports claim that 15,891 people lost their lives, 6,152 were injured and 2,584 were reported missing. This was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded to have struck Japan, and the fourth most powerful in the world, since modern record keeping began in 1900. [1] This earthquake was so intense in magnitude, that it shifted Honshu, the main island of Japan by an estimated eight feet and actually shifted the Earth’s axis by between four and ten inches! [2] Japan is a nation containing many nuclear reactors which produce roughly 30% of the nation’s electricity. [3] The majority of operable nuclear reactors are right along the coast, in one of the most seismically active areas on the entire planet! Map which shows the locations of Japan’s, reactor sights. Notice how they are along the coast, in perhaps the most seismically active location on the entire planet. The powerful tsunami caused complete devastation of three of the six nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi facility, the cores of which melted within the first three days. In November 2011, the Japanese Science Ministry reported that radioactive cesium had contaminated 11,580 square miles of the land surface of Japan, [4] with an additional 4,500 square miles contaminated. [5] The destroyed reactor sites have been dumping hundreds of tons of radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean, every single day for the past four years and the devastating results are now becoming plainly obvious. Radioactive cesium (an alkali metal) rapidly contaminates an ecosystem and poisons the entire food chain, and this waste offshoot has been detected in Japanese foodstuffs over a 200 mile radius of the Daiichi facility. [6] Cesium and other radioactive waste products are bioaccumulative, meaning that they accumulate in an organism at a rate faster than the organism can eliminate it. Of course the Japanese government and TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) have blatantly lied about the amount of radioactive waste that has been leaking into the Pacific, however, the devastating results have been impossible to ignore. I’ve wondered since the beginning of this disaster-which has already shown to be far worse that the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Ukraine, in 1986-why the world’s top, leading scientists have not come together to figure out how to stop the leaking radiation. The reason is because no one knows how to deal with this catastrophe. In March of 2015, it was reported in the Times of London, that Akira Ono, the chief of the Fukushima power station admitted that the technology needed to decommission the three melted-down reactors does not exist, and he has no idea how it will be developed. [7] More recently, Naohiro Masuda, the decommissioning chief of the Fukushima Daiichi Decommissioning Company, also stated that the technology does not exist to remove the highly radioactive debris from the damaged reactors: Ono also claimed that decommissioning the plant by 2051 may be impossible without huge leaps in technological advancement. [8] It’s also been estimated that plutonium fallout has been 70,000 times greater than atomic bomb fallout in Japan! [9] Japan has also seen a skyrocketing of childhood Cancer rates, particularly, thyroid Cancer. [10] As of August, 2013, TEPCO admitted that between “20 trillion to 40 trillion becquerels [11 - a Becquerel is a unit of measurement for radioactive material] of radioactive tritium may have leaked into the sea since the disaster.” [12] Since it’s been shown over and again, that TEPCO repeatedly lied and covered up the true extent of the disaster, that number is most likely far greater. While official sources keep claiming that there is no danger from the leaking radiation, sea life all along the west coast of the US has been dying in alarming numbers, and many fish and sea creatures tested off the west coast have shown extremely high amounts of radioactivity, that far exceeds safe limits. In actuality though, there really are no “safe” limits of radiation. The Japan Times reported on Feb 25th, 2015, that cesium and other radioactive waste was pouring from the reactor one site, directly into the ocean. [13] TEPCO did nothing to prevent the leak and simply ignored the problem for close to a year! [14] There has been a massive die-off of marine life along the west coast of the US, which has scientists “baffled.” Do you mean to tell me that scientists studying this death of the Pacific haven’t taken into account the possibility that it could be caused by the hundreds of tons of nuclear waste that has been pouring into the Pacific each day for the last four years? So few dare to admit the extent of damage caused by this disaster or the fact that it is forcing us to face the possibility of our own extinction. What happens when the planet’s largest body of water is rendered lifeless on a planet made up mostly of water? What happens when the radiation accumulates in the atmosphere and is spread throughout the world by the jet stream? Massive die-off of sea lions along the west coast has left scientists “baffled.” Might it have something to do with the hundreds of tons of radioactive waste that has been pouring into the Pacific each day for four years? In 2013, the Huffington Post reported that massive amounts of krill washed up along the west coast in a 250 mile stretch from Oregon to California. [15] Krill is an essential part of the ocean’s food chain. When marine life on the low end of the food chain dies off, the larger animals that feed on that marine life starve to death. Carcasses of dead sea lions and seals that were examined revealed high doses of radiation, [16] and yet, mainstream scientists remain “baffled.” This dead sea lion showed extremely high levels of radiation near its heart and liver. The Pacific Ocean is dying at an alarming rate, and no one seems to notice it, or, they simply put on the blinders and embrace abject denial. It has also been widely reported that massive amounts of starfish have appeared along the west coast that have literally turned to mush. USA Today reported on this, [17] and of course they claim that no one knows why; it’s a mystery. Might it have something to do with the fact that the Pacific has become a toxic, nuclear waste dump? Of course not, that’s just crazy, paranoid, tin-foil-hat talk. The level of cognitive dissonance that ensnares the minds of most people is truly staggering to me. USA Today headline from Dec, 2013. No one knows why? Might it have something to do with the fact that the Pacific Ocean has become the world’s largest, toxic waste dump? It’s also been reported that 98% of the sea floor of the Pacific is covered with dead sea life. [18] Not surprisingly, mainstream scientists blame this massive death of the Pacific on global warming.“In the 24 years of this study, the past two years have been the biggest amounts of this detritus by far,” said marine biologist Christine Huffard, who works at the research station off of California.“Multiple other stations throughout the Pacific have seen similarly alarming increases.” [19] The feeble efforts of TEPCO and the Japanese government to stop the radioactive leaks, with ice walls, dams, and other paltry, makeshift remedies have been in vain. Nobody knows how to contain the radioactive leaks, so the Japanese govt. and TEPCO do the next best thing; they lie about it and downplay the dangers. Business as usual! The head of the National Cancer Research Center in Japan, reported in Feb, 2015, that Cancer rates have skyrocketed by 6,000% and that it was being “swept under the rug.” [20] It must be global warming causing this unprecedented rise in Cancer rates eh? In Jan, 2015, Japan’s nuclear regulator approved TEPCO’s ingenious plan to simply drain waste-water into the ocean. [21] In Nov, 2014, Ken Buesseler, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution claimed:“My biggest concern is what’s going on in Japan today, and how that might make its way across to our coast. We know it’s still leaking because we’re measuring higher levels off Japan to this day. “Even just the basic question, ‘How much radioactivity was released at Fukushima?’ I can’t answer that today. We may never be able to because of the lack of sampling, particularly in the ocean.” [22] An experienced, veteran sailor by the name of Ivan Macfadyen, who has sailed the Pacific taking part in races, stated in an interview that:“It’s dead…for thousands of miles there was nothing [between US and Japan] like sailing in a dead sea…everything’s all gone. Just talking about it makes me feel like I want to cry. No birds, no fish, no sharks, no dolphins, no turtles, nothing.” [23] This is the legacy that humanity is leaving for their posterity; a dead world. Humanity has allowed itself to be ruled by a ruthless, psychopathic gang of parasites whose greed and insatiable lust for power knows no bounds. There really is no one to blame but ourselves. The information in this article is not even a scratch in the surface of the true magnitude of this nuclear disaster. The radiation will bioaccumulate in the ocean and atmosphere for centuries to come. Mankind is staring our very extinction in the face. This is an opportunity for humanity to face the force of our own destructiveness, and to come together as one family. Unfortunately, the average person’s thoughts seem to be firmly fixated on the sports scores, who’s blowing who in the latest, celebrity scandal or the latest pop culture fad. Unfortunately, the world’s masses suffer from a serious condition known as, Rectal-Cranial Inversion! Let us also not forget the Deepwater Horizon disaster that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, on April 20, 2010. Massive amounts of oil leaked into the gulf, and in the subsequent cleanup attempt, the well was capped which caused a crack in the seabed, causing extreme amounts of oil to pour into the gulf, killing marine life in droves and destroying the fishing industry in that region. A highly toxic and controversial dispersant called Corexit was dumped into the sea, and the results have been catastrophic. Fishermen have reported sea creatures being caught in the gulf that had lesions on their bodies and all sorts of other anomalies including mutated sea life, eyeless shrimp and ulcers. [24] By Doug Michael Truth Dear Friends, HumansAreFree is and will always be free to access and use. If you appreciate my work, please help me continue.
Stay updated via Email Newsletter: Related | 0 |
19 mins ago 3 Views 0 Comments 0 Likes It's fair to say, Europe's been shocked by Trump's Europe's Trump's RT LIVE http://rt.com/on-air | 0 |
Region: USA in the World Some of us hope that Trump will begin tracking down the ratline that led to a billion dollars of advanced American weapons that ended up in the hands of terrorists fighting in Syria and Iraq. The scale of this is no accident. There is no doubt whatsoever that along with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States picking up the bill, pumping hundreds of millions into Raytheon Corporation for TOW and Stinger missiles, the arms dealers in Ukraine, Israel and Turkey need a smackdown for their role in war crimes that have killed 400,000 Syrian civilians, according to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory. Then there is this group itself, the disinformation news services for ISIS and al Nusra, working with Reuters, to cover for war crimes and help stage murderous gas attacks on civilians. This organization and the pet pro-ISIS media, who were very much a part of the terrorist war on Syria, need to be sent to Guantanamo for a dose of that promised “much worse than waterboarding” torture. Yes, America is back in the torture business in a big way but Trump promises that this time it will be the real terrorists and not poor kidnapped cab drivers and patsys like those that filled the prisons of Poland and the torture rooms of Gadhafi’s Libya. One might question how someone as close to Israel as Trump is may be able to clean up the problems that Israel is and will continue to be at the heart of. This and other issues, the newfound love of Russia by a president elect who has surrounded himself with Russia-haters, perhaps time and a reality check will make this all clear at some time in the future. We can only hope. But we look to Syria now. The truth is a lie and up is down, or so it seems. Let’s look at Aleppo, or so we are told were one to read the Guardian or watch CNN. A humanitarian group called “White Helmets” saves civilians from massacre or is this true? What if I told you that the “White Helmets” are members of terror groups, enforcers, torturers and “beheaders” who perform impromptu “street theatre, killing babies one minute and pretending to save them the next. Again we ask, will President Trump hunt down these war criminals along with the Syrian Human Rights Observatory, will he force Turkey out of Syria or stop the slaughter of the people of Yemen by Saudi Arabia? Conversely, he has “green-lighted” Israel’s cleansing of her remaining Palestinian population, estimated at up to 55% of Israel’s citizenry. Where will they go, with American closed to immigration and expelling millions? It’s the last days of the Obama administration and the mainstream press has let out the stops. Staged photos of the “Aleppo holocaust” are everywhere, the Reuters photographs of bloodied infants and carefully quaffed “white helmet” first responders are everywhere. Of course there are no “white helmets,” not wanting to spoil that hair and makeup job. These photos have been around for years, always shifting the blame for US backed gas attacks and rocketing, with a claimed 400,000 Syrian civilians killed, on the government and their alleged “barrel bombs.” It is all too little, too late, there is nothing that can and will be done, no last minute American invasion of Syria, joining the Turks who are already there, a last ditch attempt to save the ISIS/al Nusra “head choppers” from the Russian juggernaut. With General Michael Flynn taking over as National Security Advisor for President-elect Trump, whatever else the Trump administration may or may not be able to do, Flynn knows the Syrian war. He knows who has been supplying the terrorists, that being Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and he has a well-established understanding of Russia’s role and has long made his support of Russia in Syria clear. The key to how this will turn out will be how much power Flynn will have, formerly direction of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Trump, while looking for “military types” to bolster up his own lack of background in that area, except as a student in a military prep school, had initially turned to retired Major General Paul Vallely, founder of Stand Up America, a militia group advocating the violent overthrow of the US government. Vallely has told associates that Trump shortlisted him for Vice President but was passed over. Vallely is featured in a YouTube video allegedly visiting Aleppo. There he is filmed meeting with rebel leaders, some of whom are currently members of ISIS. Some of those likely to oppose Trump’s policies in his own party, names like Graham and McCain, are alleged to have been involved in trafficking stolen oil from Iraq, dating back to as early as 2004 and continuing to this day, via ISIS. This theft of Iraqi and now Syrian crude as well, starting with the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, moved oil into Turkey by both truck and pipeline and eventually into waiting tankers, particularly Exxon and BP, loaded under the supervision of the Turkish Navy at Ceyhan in the Mediterranean. VT’s Alex Powers was there in Baghdad with Brenner and I was in Erbil. For years, up to 40% of Iraqi oil was never paid for, some passed on in bribes in Iraq, tens of millions to key members of congress while billions more laundered into the black accounts of the oil companies. There it joined the tens of billions that were spent to arm an Iraqi army that never existed and to build a nation left it ruins, but we are getting ahead of ourselves. Will the US be able to take a credible stand without bringing the Bush era criminals to the dock? Is ISIS simply a continuity of Bush era policy, Sunni and Baathist militarists loaded up with retired contract US and Israeli officers, Turkish, Saudi and Qatari spies, funded by oil companies and armed by Raytheon? Will Trump expose the “re-death” of Osama bin Laden, with a well recorded first death on December 13, 2001, even reported by Fox News in the US and a second public killing and burial at sea without a shred of evidence, obviously done as cheap political theatre. Will Trump expose 9/11 as promised even though the finger pointing at Saudi Arabia that now comes out of Washington will inexorably lead to their Israeli friends as well? Without this delve into truth, can the books ever be balanced once and for all? Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on veterans and POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues. He’s a senior editor and chairman of the board of Veterans Today , especially for the online magazine “ New Eastern Outlook .” Popular Articles | 0 |
By Clint Siegner It just doesn’t matter much whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump wins the election, at least in terms of gold and silver... | 0 |
ISTANBUL — Turkey said on Wednesday that it would empty its prisons of tens of thousands of criminals to make room for the wave of journalists, teachers, lawyers and judges rounded up in connection with last month’s failed coup. The startling decision to put so many criminals convicted of nonviolent offenses back on the streets is a measure of the strains on the state as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expands a purge of those suspected of being enemies of the government. The efforts have created gaping holes in government institutions, the judiciary, schools, the news media and countless other professions. Acting under powers granted by a state of emergency and allowing the state to bypass Parliament to enact new laws, Turkey said in a decree issued on Wednesday that it would begin releasing up to 38, 000 prisoners, or roughly one in five people behind bars. Most will be freed by the end of the week. The government has blamed the coup attempt, which unfolded the night of July 15 as a rebel faction of the military sought to topple the government, on Fethullah Gulen, an Islamic cleric who lives in in rural Pennsylvania and whose followers have long filled positions in state institutions, including the military. But the state has gone well beyond arresting only the military officers suspected of planning the coup attempt. Prisons filled to capacity in the weeks after the coup attempt, and many detainees slept in the communal spaces of jails, often without any bedding, said Ozturk Turkdogan, the president of the Human Rights Association in Turkey. The authorities have also used sports arenas to house the flood of prisoners. “This is a serious case of bad treatment, and the prisoners are suffering from serious health concerns as a result,” Mr. Turkdogan said. More than 40, 000 people have been detained or arrested on charges, officials say. Tens of thousands of others, including teachers, police officers, state bureaucrats and even airline employees, have lost their jobs. In some cases, the state has seized assets without due process, activists say. “There are a lot of arbitrary practices,” said Andrew Gardner, a researcher on Turkey for Amnesty International. Under the plan, convicted criminals who have served at least half of their sentences will be freed on supervised parole. The government said that those guilty of murder, rape or other violent crimes were not eligible for release. “The conditions of prisons were already bad before the coup attempt because they were over capacity,” said Sezgin Tanrikulu, a lawmaker with the main secular opposition group, the Republican People’s Party. Now, he said, “We have heard reports of two to three people sharing beds and having to sleep in corridors. ” Mr. Tanrikulu said his party supported the program as a necessary measure to reduce overcrowding, but he added that it should have been done in consultation with Parliament. “It is not right to use the state of emergency to subvert the rule of law in Turkey,” he said. Rights activists have raised concerns that the government is making no distinction between those who committed criminal acts to support the coup and people who might only have donated money to charities linked to Mr. Gulen, held accounts at banks affiliated with him or attended schools associated with the cleric. At the same time, Mr. Erdogan’s government has accelerated an already widespread crackdown on freedom of expression, shutting down more than 100 news outlets suspected of holding links to Mr. Gulen and arresting dozens of journalists. Since the failed coup, Turkey has once again become the world’s leading jailer of journalists, a position the country held a few years ago, according to Reporters Without Borders, an international advocacy group. “It’s very unfortunate,” said Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a columnist and human rights lawyer who was detained briefly after the coup attempt, referring to the prisoner releases. He said the government would release “thieves, all the criminals, to fill the prisons with intellectuals, writers, human rights activists and others, as well as the coup people. ” The scale of the purges has raised concern in the West that Turkey is backsliding on human rights, after having shown improvement on that front as it sought membership in the European Union. Amnesty International recently published a report accusing Turkish security forces of beating and torturing imprisoned coup suspects. Separately, photos of prisoners, many of them bruised or with black eyes, have circulated on social media. Turkish officials have denied all reports of torture or other abuses. At the same time, Turkey has curtailed the rights of prisoners, raising fears that the purges are being conducted beyond the rule of law, and that the accused will be unable to adequately defend themselves. A decree issued under the state of emergency restricts visits by lawyers and family members. The state now has the right to record conversations between prisoners and their lawyers, and in some cases government officials are present for those discussions. “This leads to censorship because people fear repercussions, especially in the cases of reporting torture and mistreatment,” said Mr. Turkdogan, of the Human Rights Association. “They can’t share confidential information about their case. Under these conditions, how can anyone defend themselves? Even those that are guilty have a right to defend themselves. ” | 1 |
‹ › Arnaldo Rodgers is a trained and educated Psychologist. He has worked as a community organizer and activist. VA Backlog Means Thousands Of Veterans Owed Money In NC By Arnaldo Rodgers on November 2, 2016 VA
By Faith Abubey
Roughly 7,400 veterans who use the Kernersville, Charlotte and Salisbury Veterans Affairs health care and medical centers are waiting on travel reimbursements, some of which were supposed to have been processed back in July.
UPDATE: As of November 1st, the Salisbury VA offices now say they have begun processing travel vouchers for October. The vouchers will be processed in sequential date order.
The backlog is affecting veterans like Lee, who is reluctant to use his full name because he fears there might be backlash against him for speaking out about the delays.
“I don’t know what kind of adverse action might be taken against me,” the Air Force veteran said. “[The VA employees] have a good job. They’re not rushing. They don’t really care.”
Read the Full Article at www.wfmynews2.com >>>> Related Posts: No Related Posts The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VNN, VNN authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, technicians or the Veterans Today Network and its assigns. Notices Posted by Arnaldo Rodgers on November 2, 2016, With 0 Reads, Filed under Veterans Affairs . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . You can leave a response or trackback to this entry FaceBook Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment Login WHAT'S HOT | 0 |
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
In the final stretch of the election, Hillary Rodham Clinton has gone to war with the FBI.
The word “unprecedented” has been thrown around so often this election that it ought to be retired. But it’s still unprecedented for the nominee of a major political party to go war with the FBI.
But that’s exactly what Hillary and her people have done. Coma patients just waking up now and watching an hour of CNN from their hospital beds would assume that FBI Director James Comey is Hillary’s opponent in this election.
The FBI is under attack by everyone from Obama to CNN. Hillary’s people have circulated a letter attacking Comey. There are currently more media hit pieces lambasting him than targeting Trump. It wouldn’t be too surprising if the Clintons or their allies were to start running attack ads against the FBI.
The FBI’s leadership is being warned that the entire left-wing establishment will form a lynch mob if they continue going after Hillary. And the FBI’s credibility is being attacked by the media and the Democrats to preemptively head off the results of the investigation of the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton.
The covert struggle between FBI agents and Obama’s DOJ people has gone explosively public.
The New York Times has compared Comey to J. Edgar Hoover. Its bizarre headline, “James Comey Role Recalls Hoover’s FBI, Fairly or Not” practically admits up front that it’s spouting nonsense. The Boston Globe has published a column calling for Comey’s resignation. Not to be outdone, Time has an editorial claiming that the scandal is really an attack on all women.
James Carville appeared on MSNBC to remind everyone that he was still alive and insane. He accused Comey of coordinating with House Republicans and the KGB. And you thought the “vast right wing conspiracy” was a stretch.
Countless media stories charge Comey with violating procedure. Do you know what’s a procedural violation? Emailing classified information stored on your bathroom server.
Senator Harry Reid has sent Comey a letter accusing him of violating the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act is a nice idea that has as much relevance in the age of Obama as the Tenth Amendment. But the cable news spectrum quickly filled with media hacks glancing at the Wikipedia article on the Hatch Act under the table while accusing the FBI director of one of the most awkward conspiracies against Hillary ever.
If James Comey is really out to hurt Hillary, he picked one hell of a strange way to do it.
Not too long ago Democrats were breathing a sigh of relief when he gave Hillary Clinton a pass in a prominent public statement. If he really were out to elect Trump by keeping the email scandal going, why did he trash the investigation? Was he on the payroll of House Republicans and the KGB back then and playing it coy or was it a sudden development where Vladimir Putin and Paul Ryan talked him into taking a look at Anthony Weiner’s computer?
Either Comey is the most cunning FBI director that ever lived or he’s just awkwardly trying to navigate a political mess that has trapped him between a DOJ leadership whose political futures are tied to Hillary’s victory and his own bureau whose apolitical agents just want to be allowed to do their jobs.
The only truly mysterious thing is why Hillary and her associates decided to go to war with a respected Federal agency. Most Americans like the FBI while Hillary Clinton enjoys a 60% unfavorable rating.
And it’s an interesting question.
Hillary’s old strategy was to lie and deny that the FBI even had a criminal investigation underway. Instead her associates insisted that it was a security review. The FBI corrected her and she shrugged it off. But the old breezy denial approach has given way to a savage assault on the FBI.
Pretending that nothing was wrong was a bad strategy, but it was a better one that picking a fight with the FBI while lunatic Clinton associates try to claim that the FBI is really the KGB.
There are two possible explanations.
Hillary Clinton might be arrogant enough to lash out at the FBI now that she believes that victory is near. The same kind of hubris that led her to plan her victory fireworks display could lead her to declare a war on the FBI for irritating her during the final miles of her campaign.
But the other explanation is that her people panicked.
Going to war with the FBI is not the behavior of a smart and focused presidential campaign. It’s an act of desperation. When a presidential candidate decides that her only option is to try and destroy the credibility of the FBI, that’s not hubris, it’s fear of what the FBI might be about to reveal about her.
During the original FBI investigation, Hillary Clinton was confident that she could ride it out. And she had good reason for believing that. But that Hillary Clinton is gone. In her place is a paranoid wreck. Within a short space of time the “positive” Clinton campaign promising to unite the country has been replaced by a desperate and flailing operation that has focused all its energy on fighting the FBI.
There’s only one reason for such bizarre behavior.
The Clinton campaign has decided that an FBI investigation of the latest batch of emails poses a threat to its survival. And so it’s gone all in on fighting the FBI. It’s an unprecedented step born of fear. It’s hard to know whether that fear is justified. But the existence of that fear already tells us a whole lot.
Clinton loyalists rigged the old investigation. They knew the outcome ahead of time as well as they knew the debate questions. Now suddenly they are no longer in control. And they are afraid.
You can smell the fear.
The FBI has wiretaps from the investigation of the Clinton Foundation. It’s finding new emails all the time. And Clintonworld panicked. The spinmeisters of Clintonworld have claimed that the email scandal is just so much smoke without fire. All that’s here is the appearance of impropriety without any of the substance. But this isn’t how you react to smoke. It’s how you respond to a fire.
The misguided assault on the FBI tells us that Hillary Clinton and her allies are afraid of a revelation bigger than the fundamental illegality of her email setup. The email setup was a preemptive cover up. The Clinton campaign has panicked badly out of the belief, right or wrong, that whatever crime the illegal setup was meant to cover up is at risk of being exposed.
The Clintons have weathered countless scandals over the years. Whatever they are protecting this time around is bigger than the usual corruption, bribery, sexual assaults and abuses of power that have followed them around throughout the years. This is bigger and more damaging than any of the allegations that have already come out. And they don’t want FBI investigators anywhere near it.
The campaign against Comey is pure intimidation. It’s also a warning. Any senior FBI people who value their careers are being warned to stay away. The Democrats are closing ranks around their nominee against the FBI. It’s an ugly and unprecedented scene. It may also be their last stand.
Hillary Clinton has awkwardly wound her way through numerous scandals in just this election cycle. But she’s never shown fear or desperation before. Now that has changed. Whatever she is afraid of, it lies buried in her emails with Huma Abedin. And it can bring her down like nothing else has. | 0 |
For decades, physicists have been trying to reconcile two fundamental theories of physics: quantum field theory and general relativity. Quantum field theory works perfectly well for predicting the dynamics of subatomic particles, but must ignore gravity in order to do so. Conversely, general relativity can be used to determine the dynamics of planetary bodies, but in turn must ignore the conclusions of quantum mechanics. We do not have a unified theory that can bridge the gap between the microcosmic and the macrocosmic. But a Swiss physicist named Nassim Haramein claims to have found one, and says that his unified field theory has lead him to an ancient wisdom: All is One Right, so what does that actually mean? We often hear that from sages and saints, but who can make sense of it? What is that One? According to Haramein, it’s literally a singularity—a black hole. In the early days of quantum mechanics, physicists encountered what is now known as the “vacuum catastrophe.” Using the Voyager probes, they measured the energetic density of empty space. In what became the largest disparity between theory and experiment ever recorded, these measurements produced some baffling results. While it was believed that the energy contained in a vacuum would be very slight, near zero, the reality was quite the opposite: the vacuum density was measured to be 5.16 x 1093 gm/cm3 —a really, really big number. In fact, this number is 107 orders of magnitude larger than what was predicted by quantum theory. Because this discovery posed serious problems for the physicists, it was quietly shelved and the vacuum was subjected to a “renormalization process” that reduced the background energy to more manageable levels. Nassim Haramein decided to take the energy measured in the vacuum seriously. Using the vacuum catastrophe density of 5.16 x 1093 gm/cm3, he calculated the density of the space contained within a single proton. This turned out to be 4.98 x 1055 gm/cm3, meaning that a proton met the conditions for a black hole. Haramein then demonstrated that measuring a proton in this way eliminated the need for a strong nuclear force. In the standard model of quantum mechanics, gravity alone cannot account for the attraction of subatomic particles. For this reason, a new force of nature, the strong nuclear force, was proposed to account for this otherwise unexplainable attraction. In Haramein’s model, however, gravity alone is sufficient for explaining the attraction between protons; a strong nuclear force is unnecessary. Thus, while it may seem strange to think of a proton as a black hole, doing so results in simpler, more elegant quantum theory. Haramein then formulated a scaling law, according to which objects of the universe could be graphed according to mass and radius. Photons, atoms, stars, and quasars all obeyed the condition for a black hole, falling on a single line of the graph. Further, the graph correctly predicted the presence of black holes at the center of most galaxies, though that was not known to be the case when Haramein published his findings. All of this would be remarkable on its own, but consider the following: the mass of a black hole proton comes close to some of the higher estimates for the mass of the entire universe. Thus, according to Haramein’s calculations, every single proton in the universe contains the entire mass of the universe. How can this be possible? This writer does not pretend to know. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the standard measurements of the size of the universe, even those that “renormalize” the energy of the vacuum, do suggest that the universe might be contained within a black hole (Than, 2010). If the entire world we know and experience might be contained within a black hole, is it too much a stretch of the imagination to suggest that it may actually be made of black holes on a subatomic level? The event horizon of a black hole is believed to contain all of the light and information of the universe. If Haramein’s theory is correct, all of that information could be found within the confines of a single subatomic particle—there would be, in Haramein’s words, “infinite complexity in any boundary condition.” Every galaxy, every star, every atom, and every proton would be an infinitely complex fractal representation of the one true singularity. All really would be One. Building on his theory, Haramein has gone on to explore the effects of torsion on space-time. He believes that his discoveries could lead to devices that harness the enormous energy of the vacuum to create gravity fields, leading to both free energy and antigravity machines. Using these machines, one could theoretically travel from one point in the universe to any other, regardless of distance, by forging an Einstein-Rosen bridge (a wormhole) between the two locations. Haramein has many detractors, some of whom claim to have “debunked” his theories. Generally, they say that his arguments are circular, that the peer-reviewers that accepted his paper aren’t reputable enough, or that he lacks the proper credentials. Personally, I have yet to encounter an effort at debunking him that was very convincing, as no one seemed to actually address Haramein’s arguments head on—they merely attack his person and make vague statements about his theory being bogus. That being said, the idea that the sun is a black hole does strain credulity, so I don’t think that their skepticism is entirely unwarranted. One day, maybe definitive proof for Haramein’s unified field theory will surface. Until then, both Haramein and the band Soundgarden will have to wait for their vindication.
The Sacred Science follows eight people from around the world, with varying physical and psychological illnesses, as they embark on a one-month healing journey into the heart of the Amazon jungle.
You can watch this documentary film FREE for 10 days by clicking here.
"If “Survivor” was actually real and had stakes worth caring about, it would be what happens here, and “The Sacred Science” hopefully is merely one in a long line of exciting endeavors from this group." - Billy Okeefe, McClatchy Tribune | 0 |
Although the Democrats have lost so badly in recent elections that Republicans control both Congress and the White House and the majority of governorships across the country, the Democrats aren’t plotting ways to attract voters with ideas and principles. [Instead, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is announcing it will hold summer camps for community organizers, dubbed the Summer Resistance program. “There has been an explosion of activism and energy after the election of Donald Trump, and we need to turn this moment into a movement, DNC chairman Tom Perez is quoted in the press release announcing the plan. “As the Democratic Party, it is our role to support this activism and energy, and convert it into electoral wins the ballot by making sure state parties have the tools and resources they need to succeed. ” To that end, the DNC will pump money in the form of grants into state party programs. “The program is a competitive matching grant program, where the DNC will approve and fund programs that will be executed by state parties,” the press release states. “Recognizing that a approach is ineffective, each grant proposal will be unique to the state’s strategic priorities and organizational capacity. “Part of these plans must incorporate, where legally possible, partners and allies,” the press release states. DNC Deputy Chairman Keith Ellison, who lost the chairmanship to Perez but still got a leadership position on the committee nonetheless, used #Resistance in his remarks about the summer camps. “The best way for Democrats to turn the #Resistance into electoral wins is by doing one thing: organizing,” Ellison said. “Resistance Summer is the starting point and will take the Democratic Party’s message of fairness and equality to activists on the front lines and all Americans looking to get engaged. ” Then Ellison, ironically, names some of the reasons President Donald Trump was elected: “The American people want affordable health care for all, good jobs that pay well, and a tax code that rewards hard work,” Ellison said, adding that Democrats “have never had a better opportunity to win the ballot. ” | 1 |
Members of Venezuela’s opposition took the streets of the nation this weekend to protest a move by the Supreme Court to usurp federal legislative power, nullifying the National Assembly. [While the court ultimately backtracked on Wednesday’s ruling calling for legislators to be stripped of immunity and fully granting itself lawmaking authority, the judiciary has not restored the National Assembly’s powers, nor has it rescinded its demand that three opposition legislators be stripped of their powers due to socialist accusations of “fraud. ” Venezuelans protested Wednesday’s ruling every day for the past week, with the most violent protests occurring in Caracas, many before the judiciary themselves. reports that, on Friday, the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) “fired buckshot and swung batons” at unarmed protesters in front of the Supreme Court. The GNB fighters remained in riot gear during the protests and shoved protesters. Tensión violenta en las calles de #Venezuela pic. twitter. — Yusnaby Pérez (@Yusnaby) April 2, 2017, La lucha es todos los días y en todos los espacios, nuestros jóvenes diputados recorren centros comerciales activando a venezolanos #2Abril pic. twitter. — VenezuelaSomosTodos (@ComandoSB) April 2, 2017, Nuestros dip @JuanRequesens, @joseolivaresm, @Miguel_Pizarro y @MarialbertBs, junto a @jovenespj protestan en Centros Comerciales de Caracas pic. twitter. — Juan Miguel Matheus (@JuanMMatheus) April 2, 2017, In one incident, they attacked a credentialed journalist. GNB officers corralled Elyangelica González, a reporter for Univisión and Caracol News, dragging her by the feet and hair away from the Supreme Court. Video circulated on social media of the attack, and González shared it on her own Instagram account. Hoy quiero darle gracias infinitas a ese angel que capturó el momento preciso en que ésto estaba pasando. Tuviste la valentía de grabar después de ver cómo me dieron patadas y me tumbaron, por eso tu video comienza conmigo en el piso, ya golpeada y sin teléfonos. Gracias en nombre de todos los periodistas, a ti y a todos quienes me han escrito, me han llamado, y me dan su solidaridad. Sí, ésta soy yo. Confieso que al ver ese video lloré mucho, aún me siento triste después de varias horas. Me duele todo el cuerpo y más el alma, jamás pensé que esto me podría pasar. Ésta soy yo, pero eso no es mi país, eso no somos nosotros, ese odio, esa violencia, esa saña no dice quienes somos. Ésta soy yo, pero soy también todos los periodistas de mi país que salimos a diario a buscar las historias impostergables, las urgentes, las que todos deben conocer. Ésta soy yo, una mujer, madre, esposa, hija, hermana y afortunadamente periodista enamorada de lo que hace porque creo firmemente en nuestro poder de construir y ayudar. Ésta soy yo, luchando por mi derecho a informar, con las únicas armas que tengo, mi teléfono, mi micrófono, mi libreta, mi grabador y mi voz. La única manera de que evitar que hable es que me arranquen las cuerdas vocales. #SOYPERIODISTANODELINCUENTE, A post shared by Elyangelica Gonzalez (@elyangelicanews) on Apr 1, 2017 at 2:32pm PDT, González wrote to the unidentified person who recorded the incident: “thank you to the angel who captured this moment … on behalf of all journalists. ” She later accused the GNB before reporters of attacking her for being present as they used rubber bullets to shoot at unarmed protesters and keep them away from the building. members of the opposition also accused the socialist government of dictator Nicolás Maduro of intimidating them into silence. Henry Ramos Allup, the former head of the opposition in the National Assembly, accused unidentified Secret Police (Sebin) officers of following him on a highway on Saturday, apparently waiting to arrest him. Ramos Allup wrote on Twitter, “[The officers] attempted to apprehend me in an abusive manner and told me I did not have parliamentary immunity. ” As in González’s case, Ramos Allup thanked citizens who recorded the incident on their phones, using the publicity to prevent his arrest. @verdadesofenden @hramosallup Venezuela’s President of Congress @hramosallup followed by a Police Car without a registration plate. Intimidation? pic. twitter. — Sir Arnold Robinson (@uk_expat) April 2, 2017, Ya estamos circulando. Cobardes GNB y SEBIN no pudieron consumar atropello. Gracias a ciudadanos que con su actitud lo evitaron. pic. twitter. — Henry Ramos Allup (@hramosallup) April 1, 2017, AHORA:Así transcurre la movilización a la Defensoría del Pueblo, exigiendo respeto a la Constitución #1abril pic. twitter. — VenezuelaSomosTodos (@ComandoSB) April 1, 2017, Contrary to what officials reportedly told Ramos Allup, the Supreme Court has not stripped the nation’s legislators of immunity. On Saturday, the Supreme Court clarified this in a statement that some are reporting as the undoing of the usurpation of legislative power. The court, the statement read, “has not stripped the Parliament of its functions, just as it has not dissolved or annulled it, and recognizes legislative immunity as a guarantee of the legislative functions with the limits prescribed by the Constitution. ” This statement differed from its original ruling: “While the contempt scenario persists and the National Assembly remains invalid, this institution will guarantee that the parliamentary duties be executed directly by this institution or whatever institution it wishes. ” It, nonetheless, insisted that these guarantees would not be in place until the National Assembly “reassumed the legal, valid, and legitimate exercise of its constitutional powers by abiding by the judiciary’s decisions. ” The Supreme Court had already rendered the National Assembly void in January 2016, following the opposition’s electoral victory a month earlier, claiming that three opposition legislators had acquired their positions through fraud, according to Maduro. Until those three legislators were removed, the National Assembly’s laws would all die at the feet of the Supreme Court. The National Assembly, which argues there is no evidence for the claims of fraud, has considered the reworked Supreme Court ruling an insufficient correction of its original claims, noting that their refusal to accept the fraud claims still denies them their authority. On Sunday, the legislature’s Vice President Freddy Guevara issued a statement calling for more protests against the socialist government. “The destruction of separation of powers concluded when the Supreme Court attempted to strip the Assembly of its powers,” he said. “The government’s intention now is to demobilize the people in their just demands and stop the pressure from the international community. ” “This is just beginning,” he promised. “The struggle for freedom will not cease until the constitutional order is restored. ” Julio Borges, the president of the National Assembly, gave a statement Sunday insisting that the modified ruling changed little. “Nothing has changed, the coup continues,” he said. “In Venezuela, there is no separation of powers, no democracy, no justice. ” On the Thursday following the passage of the ruling, Borges stood on the steps of the Supreme Court and tore up a copy of the ruling. “This is garbage,” he told reporters. Another opposition legislator, Richard Blanco, demanded on Monday the arrest of the Supreme Court’s justices. “These gentlemen should be behind bars to fulfill their duty to the people, who are currently wounded by this constitutional violation. ” The official position of the legislative opposition is that the justices should step down, not be arrested. On Monday, 51 Venezuelan NGOs issued a joint letter supporting that demand and calling for the “immediate resignation” of the justices. | 1 |
This post was originally published on this site
sott.net/news
© Shannon Stapleton / Reuters
Moscow-based Institute of Oriental Studies under the Russian Academy of Sciences (IVRAN) presented a devastating report about the lies of the Western mainstream media about Syria.
But this damning report is not getting the attention it deserves by the mainstream media in the West. However, that shouldn’t come as a surprise. There are many facts in the Institute’s report that would make sensations in the EU and the US, had they unmasked the Russian, and not the Western, media falsifications.
In a similar situation, there was a whole media frenzy in the US and EU media in 2014, when a Russian television channel released an interview with a woman refugee from the rebellious Eastern Ukraine, who provided the unconfirmed report about a local boy being crucified by Ukrainian government troops. Meanwhile, in its report, IVRAN proved much cruder, intentional falsifications on the side of the Western media reports about Syria.
For example, IVRAN’s report proves the falsity of a news item published in Britain’s The Daily Express on October 1, 2015, at the very start of Russian air forces’ operation against terrorists in Syria on an invitation from the Syrian government.
The report said that “a Russian air strike on Thursday destroyed a mosque in the town of Jisr Al Shughour, which was taken from government forces by Islamist insurgents earlier this year.” Having studied the photos of the area, made from the planes on October 29, 2015, the researchers from Institute of Oriental Studies proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the mosque in Jisr Al Shughour remained intact in the end of the month, i.e. it had been intact during all of October, 2015. The Russian specialists on Arab studies from IVRAN say they proved that The Daily Express simply provided unverified information from the local opposition activists.
Unfortunately, the information on Jisr Al Shughour’s bombing was also cited by London-based The Daily Telegraph, as well as other British and global media.
The Institute for oriental Studies made an important observation. Accusing Russia of not bombing the so called Islamic State (ISIL) and thus not damaging the Islamist terrorists’ infrastructure, the Western mainstream media has not been providing its readers adequate information on OTHER, non-ISIL Islamist groups in the area, some of them no less dangerous than the ISIL. For example, The Daily Telegraph reported on that same day that “Russians continued their aerial bombardment on Thursday, targets included Jisr al-Shughour and Jabal al-Zawiya, areas under the control of Jaish al-Fatah, the Army of Conquest, an alliance of Islamist groups which have won significant victories against the regime this year.”
So, reporting from the same area, The Telegraph actually names the groups which Express called rather vaguely “Islamist insurgents.” These were actually very dangerous terrorist groups of pseudo-Islamic character: Jaish al-Fatakh and the Army of Conquest. They are often cited as terrorist groups by international human rights organizations, some of their members are accused of mistreating the people who work in human rights’ groups.
Will you report our findings?
When the director of the Institute for Oriental Studies, Vitaly Naumkin, was presenting the findings of his colleagues at the press center of Rossiya Segodnya information agency, he was asked a question by a journalist from the Syrian official agency, Sana. “Will the Western media publish what you found or will they keep reporting the same stuff about Syria…?” Naumkin, who had just been asked a question on his Institute’s report by a female correspondent of The Financial Times, readdressed Sana’s question to her.
“There is so much news today, and I am not yet in my office,” FT’s Kathrin Hille answered. “So, I am not sure we shall report on your findings.”
“I know you won’t,” professor Naumkin noted, smiling bitterly.
According to Naumkin, Russia’s policy in Syria has become a target of a deliberate disinformation attack from the Western media, especially after the presence of Russia’s air force near Damascus was unveiled in September 2015.
“Why is the Western media attacking us so bitterly?” Naumkin asked rhetorically during his press conference. “Because the process of national reconciliation is under way in Syria. And this process is Russia’s main purpose in that area, on the par only with the imperative of damaging or, better, destroying the so called Islamic State. So, the Western media indeed don’t want Russia to achieve its aim, misrepresenting our countries priorities as ‘support for the regime’ or ‘a proxy war against the Western interests.'”
Mainstream media’s self-exposure
In their report, the experts of Naumkin’s Institute for Oriental Studies noted that some of the Western myths about the civil war in Syria are debunked by the Western media itself – in its rare moments of truth.
For example, at the beginning of the civil war in 2011, the Western media kept saying there were no terrorists among the anti-Assad opposition fighters and that the opposition force was home-grown, not including foreign mercenaries. But already, on August 8, 2013, The New York Times , Anne Barnard and Eric Schmitt, reported from the ISIL’s zone of operations that “the jihadist groups in Syria now include more than 6,000 foreigners.”
The NYT also reported then that the areas controlled by the Syrian opposition and previously described as “liberated” by the Western mainstream media, “may be developing into one of the biggest terrorist threats in the world today” (in fact, they were in the final stages of becoming ISIL-controlled territories).
Jeffrey Sachs, a prominent US economist and world-known mentor of the Russian liberal reformer Yegor Gaidar, wrote already in September 2013 on the Western governments’ pursuit of a violent overthrow of Syria’s President Assad: “Without their involvement, Assad’s regime would most likely have remained repressive; with their involvement, Syria has become a site of mass death and destruction.”
The ever-changing David Ignatius, of The Washington Post , back in 2012 penned an article headlined ‘Syria’s Eerie Parallel to 1980s Afghanistan.’ In it, Ignatius wrote certain truths which The Washington Post is now trying to make its readers forget: “In Syria, as in Afghanistan, CIA officers are operating… helping Sunni insurgents improve their command and control and engaging in other activities (!). Weapons are coming from third parties (in Afghanistan, they came mostly from China and Egypt; in Syria, they are mainly brought from the black market). And finally, the major financier for both insurgencies has been Saudi Arabia.”
Does one need to remind the reader how the US-backed insurgents in Afghanistan ultimately turned their weapons against the very people who procured them?
Mr. Ignatius writes about this development in his own article in The Washington Post : “This CIA-backed victory [in Afghanistan] opened the way for decades of chaos and and jihadist extremism that are still menacing Afghanistan, its neighbors and even the United States.”
Having read Ignatius, one listens with special attention to the warning of Professor Vitaly Naumkin, who concludes his presentation with the following statement: “We are in fact in the same trench with the West, facing the same global threat of terrorism. The problem is that the Western leaders are simply too slow to understand this.”
One could not put it better.
Dmitry Babich was born in Moscow, in 1970. He has worked for various media outlets for 25 years, including The Moscow News and RIA Novosti news agency. He is currently working as a political analyst at Sputnik International, and is a frequent guest on BBC, Al Jazeera, CNN commenting on international affairs and history. Related | 0 |
« on: Today at 08:36:35 PM » AIG Quadruples Limits for Terrorism Insurance to $1 Billion 26 October 2016 , by Sonali Basak (Bloomberg) - AIG seeks to respond to terrorist attacks worldwide- Insurer has hired more than 600 engineers to manage risk Logged | 0 |
Breitbart Senior editor MILO appeared alongside his tour security coordinator Tej Gill on Breitbart News Daily hosted by Breitbart Editor in Chief Alex Marlow today to discuss the riots at UC Berkeley and the inaction of Berkeley Police Department. [“Let’s heat up Tej’s mic,” said Alex Marlow introducing Gill, “We’ve got Tej Gill here in the studio who’s been running security for MILO’s tour, which is easier said than done. He’s a Navy SEAL, you’ve heard him on the show a few times talking about various issues with Steve Bannon back in the day. Tej I wanna get your thoughts on all this and what kind of environment does this create for someone like you who makes his living in security, when you’ve got your client being called all of these horrific names, saying he’s literally orchestrating a hoax so his own followers get harassed and attacked, get bloodied, get beaten at his own events. ” Tej replied, “it creates a dangerous environment. The only thing that this guy [Berkeley Professor Robert Reich] said that’s correct is that these guys were not students, the guys in the black, they’re anarchists from out of town. They’re the same people that shut down UC Davis, they’re the same people that created chaos at University of Washington in Seattle. ” “And the inauguration, they have the same garb,” interjected Marlow, “Exactly, they look like ISIS when they march in. They’re organised, well funded, I wouldn’t go as far to say well equipped but I was standing up top with the police when these guys marched in and we’re getting reports that anarchist are 4 blocks away, 3 blocks away, 2 blocks away, they’ve got bats, they’ve got weapons. They actually had shields with them, every other one had a shield that was about 3 foot by 6 foot covered in back trash bags, I don’t know what it was made out of. But they walked into the campus, single file like a military unit, cut straight through the crowd about one row of people back behind the barriers and the surrounded the building. ” “At that time I thought they were gonna lock arms,” Tej continued, “that’s a tactic they used at University of Washington, Seattle, they did the exact same thing they just cut straight through the crowd and they locked arms. But they didn’t do that, that’s when they started firing fireworks, throwing eggs and that’s when they started pulling apart the barriers and they tipped over that light stand that had a diesel generator in it, that’s what caused the fire and lit the tree on fire. And the police effectively did nothing, nothing while we were there. ” “I think the fact that there were no arrests,” said Marlow, “at the violent protests at UC Berkeley that shut down speech, that prevented your event from going forward and really broke the heart of a lot of fans as well, lets not underestimate that as well, people are entitled to have performers that they enjoy and go see them, it was a very unfortunate upsetting event and no on got arrested which to me sends a signal that this can go on over and over and it just is gonna embolden the left and Tej as a security expert what are your thoughts on that?” “It just fuels the fire,” replied Tej, “the no arrest thing, hands off policy, every time they do this and they do it successfully with no arrest, no trouble, there’s no consequences and if there’s no consequences why stop? Each time they’re gonna get stronger and stronger. ” “So how do we deal with this? What is the recourse that we have in order to try to start stemming this really rising movement of totalitarianism from the left?” asked Marlow. “It’s simple, enforce the law. That’s it. Just enforce the law. When we go to the conservative campuses the police departments there are amazing, the shows go off without a hitch, they’re orderly, they give the protesters room to protest and they give the MILO supporters room to support MILO then they keep everybody separated. Liberal campuses have effectively emasculated the police forces there. They’ve totally been politicised, they don’t let them do their job, they actually have a hands off and no arrests policy, one of the guys at Berkeley told me this. ” said Tej, “A no arrest policy? It is a policy that they can’t arrest anyone? And is this only for the left, if this was a right wing event of course there would be arrests” replied Marlow, “yes, of course” confirmed Tej, “Imagine if the politics had been reversed last night, if it had been Trump supporters causing a fuss outside a Lena Dunham speech,” said MILO, “would there be a single front page that wasn’t holding it today, would CNN be covering anything else? And it’s interesting that you mention about the difference between the conservative and liberal campuses, well you’ve hit upon something there and it’s that it doesn’t need to be this way and it’s this way because of politics. And if I hadn’t been on the frontline of this stuff I’d consider myself a conspiracy theorist but I can tell you from the way that we have observed, my tour manager and my security teams, have observed local police departments, elected officials and university administrators effectively colluding to sabotage these events. Deciding on policing strategies that almost guarantee the events will not proceed or something awful will happen outside, these people are responsible for the violence that happened outside UW Seattle, these people are responsible for the cancellation of UC Davis, these people are responsible for what happened most spectacularly, in a technical sense, in Berkeley. ” MILO continued, “Because what they’re doing is insisting that the police follow procedures that almost guarantee there will be violence and guarantee the event will not proceed, that is direct violation of their first amendment commitment. ” Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6AM to 9AM Eastern. Listen to the full episode below, | 1 |
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday afternoon approved a sweeping executive order that suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely, and blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. It also barred green card holders from those countries from the United States, the Department of Homeland Security said, though the administration said exemptions could be granted. Here are some major excerpts from the executive order, with comments by The New York Times. The full text of the order is available here. Most of the 19 hijackers on the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pa. were from Saudi Arabia. The rest were from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Lebanon. None of those countries are on Mr. Trump’s visa ban list. The nation’s founding principles, as reflected in the Declaration of Independence, included dissatisfaction with what were said to be overly restrictive immigration practices. “There is no statutory requirement that noncitizens entering the United States support the Constitution,” said Peter J. Spiro, a law professor at Temple University. “The executive order seems to suggest that even temporary visitors like tourists and students should support the U. S. Constitution, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. ” This provision is the key to the power Mr. Trump claims. It says: “Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. ” The provision “gives the president capacious authority to deny entry to any alien or class of aliens,” Professor Spiro said. “No court has ever reversed a presidential order under it. ” But he added, “In terms of the number of prospective immigrants involved, this is by far the most significant use of the power by any president. ” Some critics say the order runs afoul of a later law that bars discrimination “in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth or place of residence. ” The tension between the two laws has not been definitively resolved by the courts. Jennifer Chacon, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, said that a challenge to the executive order based on the later law’s principles was the most promising line of attack. In an opinion article in The New York Times, David J. Bier, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian group, said Mr. Trump had at least violated the spirit of the later law. “Even if courts do find wiggle room here, discretion can be taken too far,” Mr. Bier wrote. “If Mr. Trump can legally ban an entire region of the world, he would render Congress’s vision of unbiased legal immigration a dead letter. ” The countries are Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. These exceptions are mostly for diplomats, people traveling to the United Nations in New York, and others involved in international organizations. The initial list may soon change and expand. This provision suspends all admissions of refugees, not limited to the seven countries. As a general matter, this will give priority to Christian refugees over Muslim ones. Though framed in a neutral way, this part of the order may raise questions of discrimination. Mr. Trump has said that he means to favor Christian refugees. That violates the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion, according to David Cole, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “One of the critical questions with respect to the validity of executive action challenged under the Establishment Clause is its intent and effect,” he wrote in a blog post. “If intended to disfavor a particular religion, it violates the Establishment Clause. ” This effectively expands the ban on immigrants from Syria. This cuts the cap on refugees in half. | 1 |
Next Prev Swipe left/right This outake of Brian Blessed swearing his head off on GamesMaster is why he’s a national treasure
60 seconds of muscular searing joy. We love you Brian. | 0 |
One day after an unprecedented ruling that barred Russia’s track and field team from the Summer Olympics, Olympic officials said Saturday that they agreed with it, ending any hope the team had of gaining entry into the Rio Games. On Friday, global track and field officials voted unanimously to keep Russian track athletes from competing at the Summer Olympics because of a doping conspiracy. Russian sports officials called the decision unjust and appealed to the International Olympic Committee, the ultimate authority over the Games, to “not only consider the impact that our athletes’ exclusion will have on their dreams and the people of Russia but also that the Olympics themselves will be diminished by their absence. ” But on Saturday, after Olympic officials convened by phone to assess the decision, the I. O. C. said it “welcomes and supports” the ruling by the International Association of Athletics Federations, the governing body for track and field, and commended the I. A. A. F.’s “strong stance against doping. ” “The eligibility of athletes in any international competition, including the Olympic Games, is a matter for the respective international federation,” the I. O. C. said, respecting the I. A. A. F.’s sovereignty over its sport. Olympic officials plan to convene on Tuesday in Lausanne, Switzerland, the home of the I. O. C. to discuss more broadly who will be eligible to compete at the Rio Games, which begin on Aug. 5. Yuliya Rusanova, a former runner for Russia and a who fled the country and now lives in the United States, has petitioned to compete in Rio for a neutral team. On Friday, the I. A. A. F. — noting that Russian athletes who had lived outside Russia and been subject to rigorous drug testing could be allowed to compete — recommended that the I. O. C. look upon her case favorably. Allegations of a doping program in Russia have extended well beyond track and field. Athletes outside Russia have agitated for investigations into the extent of the country’s doping, emphasizing that time is of the essence as the Games approach. The I. O. C. said Tuesday’s summit would scrutinize countries whose national antidoping programs had been disciplined by the World Agency, the global regulator for doping in Olympic sports, which itself has come under scrutiny over its handling of allegations of corruption. After WADA published a report in the fall accusing Russia of doping, the agency decertified Russia’s antidoping program and issued a flurry of other disciplinary decisions, affecting countries including Kenya, Mexico and Spain. For a country to be declared noncompliant by WADA in itself means little, but depriving a nation’s antidoping operation of WADA’s endorsement is a powerful signal to the I. O. C. and sports federations that can control a country’s participation in global competition. “The I. O. C. will initiate further measures,” the organization said Saturday, “in order to ensure a level playing field for all the athletes taking part in the Olympic Games. ” | 1 |
Posted on October 26, 2016 by Dr. Eowyn | 7 Comments
Hillary Clinton is like a chameleon.
Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams , who’s a trained hypnotist and observer of facial nuances, calls it an “unusual level of variability” in her physical appearance. In his words, Hillary “looks like an entirely different person every few days. See “ Chameleon Hillary Clinton is back to looking like sh*t — and the return of her medical handler ” and “ Hillary Clinton’s teeth, tongue-hole & now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t wrinkles ”
On Monday, October 24, 2016, Hillary Clinton was in St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire for a rally , accompanied by “Fauxcahontas” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
Close-up images of her face show that she’s morphed again, back to yellow teeth and a face crisscrossed with wrinkles. What happened to the porcelain-doll Hillary with dazzling-white teeth of the July 2016 Democratic National Convention?
But this time, at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, there’s something even stranger.
Yesterday, Matt Drudge tweeted two close-up images of Hillary at the NH rally, which show something embedded under the skin of her right cheek . Here’s the tweet:
Here are the two images again, enlarged. I painted yellow arrows pointing to the lumps:
According to plastic surgeons , Botox injections don’t cause lumps under the skin. Dr. Richard Baxter explains that “Botox relaxes muscles that are hyperactive and so wrinkles caused by those muscles are smoothed,” but don’t lead to lumps. Dr. Janet Turkle says that although “Botox injections can result in temporary bumps due to the injection,” the bumps last “only a few minutes”.
According to the American Academy of Facial Esthetics , however, “some of the risks of facial injections are lumps (granulomas/nodules) which are a potential risks [sic] associated with Radiesse, Sculptra, Juvederm, and ArteColl.”
Facial injections are injections of facial fillers such as collagen, hyaluronic acid and calcium hydroxyl apatite that rejuvenate facial skin by reducing or eliminating wrinkles, raising scar depressions, enhancing lips and replacing soft-tissue volume loss.
H/t FOTM ‘s TPR | 0 |
Aide Said He Was Running 'Bill Clinton Inc.' in New WikiLeaks Dump
By MaryAlice Parks
" ABC " - A 12-page memo written by a former aide to President Bill Clinton illustrates how he and other advisers raised millions of dollars for the Clinton Foundation and the Clintons after they left the White House, according to a new batch of emails released by WikiLeaks.
The purported memo from Doug Band details how he and his team locked in lucrative speaking deals for Bill Clinton and how he leveraged his work at his global consulting firm, Teneo Strategies, to persuade clients to contribute to the Clinton Foundation. Band described his work as running "Bill Clinton Inc."
"We also have solicited and obtained, as appropriate, in-kind services for the president and his family for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like, Band allegedly said in the document.
A Teneo representative told ABC News in a statement: "As the memo demonstrates, Teneo worked to encourage clients, where appropriate, to support the Clinton Foundation because of the good work that it does around the world. It also clearly shows that Teneo never received any financial benefit or benefit of any kind from doing so."
Band, the Clinton Foundation and staff for Bill Clinton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The memo appeared to be targeted at informing lawyers and top Clinton advisers about fundraising efforts. In previously released emails, dated just days before this memo, Band expressed concern over the conflated, tangled and confused web of personnel roles and money in the Clinton world, citing, for example, his opinion that Chelsea Clinton was running a business out of the family foundation office. In this memo, he pushed for more clearly defined roles and documents outlining conflicts of interest.
Around this same time, in late 2011 and early 2012, Chelsea Clinton, according to the emails, was complaining and threatening to launch internal investigations after hearing that Teneo employees were making solicitations and evoking her fathers name without his approval. This offended Band, and in one email exchange, he purportedly called her a spoiled brat kid.
"I don't deserve this from her and deserve a tad more respect or at least a direct dialogue for me to explain these things, Band allegedly wrote in an email to John Podesta , now chairman for Hillary Clinton 's campaign.
Band added that Chelsea Clinton has nothing else to do but create issues to justify what shes doing because she, as she has said, hasn't found her way and has a lack of focus in her life.
In the memo, Band said he had convinced Dow Jones and Coca-Cola, two Teneo clients, to give to the Clinton Foundation and pay for in-kind services to Bill Clinton, such as his trips to conferences. It also discussed how Band urged UBS to hire Hillary Clinton to give paid speeches. Moreover, the memo revealed that Laureate International Universities, a for-profit school, was paying Bill Clinton $3.5 million annually to serve as its Honorary Chairman.
The Clinton campaign has not confirmed nor denied the authenticity of the emails or commented on any content in them. ABC News has not determined the authenticity of the emails published by WikiLeaks.
ABC News' Matthew Claiborne contributed to this report. | 0 |
We called it the Yonsei Beach Club. It convened the last time South Koreans exploded in protest and forced a government to capitulate, in 1987, when a small band of reporters and photographers would assemble to chronicle the daily demonstrations by students at Yonsei University in Seoul. Then as now, mass protest was a powerful weapon deployed by enraged citizens who felt they had nowhere else to turn but the streets. Thirty years later, it’s clear how far Korean democracy has advanced. Then, South Korea was a dictatorship, protests were outlawed and the threat of torture, imprisonment and martial law . The emblem of the Beach Club was a gas mask, because the throngs of riot police in Darth Vader masks lobbed tear gas canisters at students whose weapons were moral force, rocks and homemade firebombs. Students have long been at the vanguard of South Korea’s robust history of protest, drawing on Confucian traditions that elevated scholars as guardians of morality. They helped topple a government in 1960 and rebelled in the southern city of Kwangju in 1980, only to be massacred by a military junta led by Chun who later made himself president. The death under torture of a student, Park in January 1987 helped set off the wave of demonstrations against Mr. Chun’s rule. South Korea’s dictators had offered economic growth and political repression its people were clamoring for more. By the spring, the demonstrations at Yonsei had become a daily ritual. The students would assemble, tying kerchiefs around their mouths the police would pounce and the tear gas would eventually drive the protesters back. Yonsei produced its own martyr, Lee who died after a canister hit him in the head. Gradually, the protests spilled into downtown Seoul and across the country in a rhythm both violent and predictable. The morning would dawn, with spent tear gas canisters and shards of rocks littering the streets, the acrid fumes still stinging skin and burning lungs. The riot police would muster near the police stations, young and vulnerable without their threatening masks, drinking tea and wiping the sweat from their foreheads. Young goons known as “skeleton troops,” trained in martial arts and feared for the brutal beatings they inflicted on protesters, would mass. But in the end they were no match for the tens of thousands of Koreans who set fear aside and confronted the police. I saw an older woman, hair neatly coifed, beat a policeman with her handbag. A young father hoisted his little girl on his shoulder, carefully affixing a surgical mask to her face, an imperfect shield from the gas. A student in Kwangju bit his finger and wrote protest slogans in his own blood. Ordinary citizens broke up sidewalk tiles and handed them to students to hurl at the riot police. Office workers, in the past too frightened to risk their jobs, came out at night and honked horns in solidarity. People threw water from rooftops to try to douse the gas. It is hard to overstate the repression and fear. The game between police and protesters would continue into the night. With nightly propaganda airing on television, before cellphones or the web, truth was elusive and rumors flew. One night the lights at the hotel went out, and a few of us ran out into the street, convinced that martial law had been imposed — only to find that a nearby Christmas display had caused a blackout. In a scene still indelible after so many years, I sat in a courtroom as the torturers of the young student went on trial. It was just a week or so since the protests had forced the government to yield. Months before, the police had crushed the student’s neck against the side of a bathtub as they repeatedly pushed him under water. At the trial, his father lunged at the three policemen, small and scared now, protected by more than 50 guards. Screams broke out and a purse flew through the air at the judges as the light sentence was read. Women whose sons were still in jail stormed the bus carrying the policemen, throwing bottles against the windows. Plainclothes police shoved the four of them onto the concrete, where they lay unconscious. By contrast, the protests this year have been peaceful, allowed to proceed unimpeded by the strong arm of the government. South Korea has come far, but as these last months showed, it is still an imperfect democracy. Laws are still on the books that can be used as tools to stifle dissent. South Korea remains shadowed by legitimate fears of North Korean aggression and espionage, but those were and are exploited by the government. A national security law was used 30 years ago as a pretext for repression by contrast, President Park whose impeachment was backed by legislators on Friday, disbanded a party and arrested its leaders under the auspices of the law. In the 1980s, the Korean Central Intelligence Agency had plants in every government office. Those appear to be gone, but its successor agency, the National Intelligence Service, still keeps tabs on government agencies and was accused of launching smear campaigns against Ms. Park’s opponents during her campaign in 2012. Ms. Park used South Korea’s laws criminalizing defamation to charge and imprison government critics and the press. Any South Korean president retains control of police, prosecutors and tax collectors. Endemic corruption is a scourge and erodes public faith in the integrity of government. Watching the protests from afar, at a distance of so many years, I was reminded of what I’d felt as a young foreign correspondent: awe and respect for the courage, tenacity and passion of the South Korean public. This is not a tame society, for all the comforts its public has won in the years since. This may be the land of Psy and Gangnam style, a country so wired that some of its children are sent to boot camps to wean them from internet addiction. But in a capital I’m told I would find unrecognizably sleek and affluent, in a system still encumbered by remnants of the security state, I recognize something I came to know well years ago: Politicians buck the popular will at their peril. | 1 |
Glad you're here David. We only want the truth. | 0 |
HOW AMERICA LOST ITS SECRETSEdward Snowden, the Man and the TheftBy Edward Jay EpsteinIllustrated. 350 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $27. 95. People who reveal secrets are either heroes or betrayers, depending on what the secrets are and on the inclinations of the audience for them. In the case of Edward Snowden, who took and then released a great deal of internal data from the National Security Agency in 2013, his admirers have campaigned for a pardon by President Obama, but Donald Trump has mused that execution might be more appropriate. Journalism based on Snowden’s revelations won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2014, and the Oscar for best documentary in 2015 on the other hand, many American government officials think Snowden, who lives in Russia, should be brought home and prosecuted for revealing classified information. In 2014, Edward Jay Epstein, the veteran writer on espionage, published a provocative article in The Wall Street Journal proposing another way of looking at Snowden: as a spy. Epstein wrote that an unnamed “former member of President Obama’s cabinet” had told him “that there are only three possible explanations for the Snowden heist: 1) It was a Russian espionage operation 2) It was a Chinese espionage operation 3) It was a joint operation. ” Now Epstein has produced a long, detailed book elaborating on his theory. Snowden is known for having revealed that the N. S. A. was illegally spying on American citizens, but Epstein says that he actually took almost a million documents that had nothing to do with that, which he didn’t give to journalists. What happened to them? How did a relatively lowly nonemployee at the agency, without much official access, manage to get all that material in the first place? Why did he choose to announce himself to the world from Hong Kong, and why has he remained in Moscow since he left Hong Kong? You can see the outlines of a coherent hypothesis in “How America Lost Its Secrets. ” Perhaps Snowden was planted at the N. S. A. by either Russia or China, or by both. Perhaps while he was there he worked with other, as yet undetected, insiders who were also serving foreign powers. Perhaps in Hong Kong he put himself into the care of Chinese handlers who debriefed him extensively during the nearly two weeks between his arrival and his . Perhaps the same thing happened in Moscow during the first 37 days after he landed there, when he seems to have been hiding somewhere inside the airport security perimeter. Perhaps his reward for, in effect, defecting has been the odd protected life in Russia that celebrated spies like Kim Philby and Guy Burgess previously enjoyed. Perhaps his role as a was merely a counterintuitive (because it was so public) new form of cover. Epstein proves none of this. “How America Lost Its Secrets” is an impressively fluffy and wobbly soufflé of speculation, full of anonymous sourcing and suppositional language like “it seems plausible to believe” or “it doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to conclude. ” Epstein’s first book, “Inquest,” published more than 50 years ago, featured another mysterious young man who spent time in Moscow, Lee Harvey Oswald. This book has a feeling, because it touches on several of Epstein’s preoccupations: Russia the movie and media businesses the gullibility of liberals and, especially, the world of penetration, exfiltration, false flags and other aspects of counterintelligence. The spirit of James Jesus Angleton, the C. I. A. ’s counterintelligence chief during the peak years of the Cold War and evidently a mentor to Epstein (he’s mentioned several times) hovers over these pages. Sometimes it seems as if Epstein so much enjoys exploring the twists and turns in Snowden’s story — his encounter with Snowden’s mysterious lawyer in Moscow, Anatoly Kucherena, is especially memorable — that he doesn’t have an overwhelming need to settle the questions he raises. The sentence from The Wall Street Journal quoted above appears almost verbatim in the book, but it’s immediately followed by this: “These severe accusations generated much heat but little light. They were not accompanied by any evidence showing that Snowden had acted in concert with any foreign power in stealing the files or, for that matter, that he was not acting out of his own personal convictions, no matter how misguided they might have been. ” But then Epstein spends many more pages considering, and not dismissing, the very same severe accusations, and ends by saying that “Snowden’s theft of state secrets . ’u2008. ’u2008. had evolved, deliberately or not, but necessarily, into a mission of disclosing key national secrets to a foreign power. ” This is Epstein’s primary conclusion: Even if the American public was a partial beneficiary of Snowden’s revelations, the main beneficiary was Russia, which to his mind couldn’t possibly have failed to take possession of all the material Snowden took from the N. S. A. Whatever caveats he uses and whatever hard evidence he hasn’t found, Epstein clearly wants to leave readers with the impression that Snowden remains in Russia as a result of a deal exchanging his information for its protection. He repeatedly hints that he has reason to be more certain about his conclusion than he’s able to say in print. Snowden, Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, and their immediate circle of allies come from a radically libertarian hacker culture that, most of the time, doesn’t believe there should be an N. S. A. at all, whether or not it remains within the confines of its legal charter. Epstein, conversely, is a strong supporter of the agency’s official mission of “communication intercepts,” which he sees as an essential element in the United States’ ability to participate in “the game of nations. ” To him one of the lessons of the Snowden case is that the agency’s reliance on private contractors like Snowden instead of career employees has made it dangerously vulnerable to security breaches. It’s an irony of the years since the Reagan revolution that one political strain in the United States, suspicion of big government, has led to spending and staffing limits that have pushed the N. S. A. into the private marketplace to perform its mission. (The contractor that employed Snowden had been acquired by a private equity firm that was pressuring it to cut costs, and elaborate background checks are expensive.) That conflicts with another strain of modern conservatism, support for a vast apparatus. Whatever his motive, Snowden found a way to arbitrage that contradiction. The age of the internet, Vladimir Putin, Snowden and WikiLeaks has generated its own particular form of disruption around how we think about the revelation of government secrets. Traditional spies seem far less important these days, because unclubbable, technically adept people can do that kind of work far more effectively. The press, at least for now, has assumed a larger role in the ecosystem of revelation, because hackers prefer finding partners in the mainstream media to simply releasing information on their own. But this new set of arrangements makes journalists look more like conduits and contextualizers, and less like originators of information. Reporters aren’t supposed to be hackers themselves (see the News of the World scandals in London five years ago) but they’re not capable of resisting juicy information that others have hacked, no matter how unsavory the purpose (see the ubiquitous coverage of John Podesta’s private emails during the fall campaign). Journalists are quite comfortable with the idea of the news media uncovering government secrets that should not have been secret in the first place. This may be a role whose run is coming to an end. Information is too copious and flows too freely, and there are too many players in the revelation game — political activists, foreign governments, tricksters, — for journalists to function as the arbiters of revelation. If there isn’t any longer going to be one trustworthy group in society, the established press, that acts as a benign check on excessive government secrecy, the discussion of what should and shouldn’t be secret becomes a lot messier. Epstein has long been annoyed with the idea of the press as the key actor in secrecy dramas, digging up what the public should know but not exposing everything . Way back in 1974, he published an article in Commentary called “Did the Press Uncover Watergate?” (His answer: no.) This time around, his concern seems to be half with the celebratory closed loop between Snowden and the journalists who covered him, and half with the causes and consequences of a major security breach at the N. S. A. The heart of the matter is the second of these concerns, not the first. In the Snowden affair, the press didn’t decide what stayed secret, and neither did Congress, the White House or the N. S. A. Snowden did. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump’s selection of Gen. James N. Mattis as defense secretary signals a more assertive American posture in the Middle East — one that people close to him say would most likely include more American troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, more Navy patrols in the Persian Gulf and more fighter jets in the Middle East. “The closest thing we have to Gen. George Patton,” Mr. Trump said in announcing his selection on Thursday night. At first glance, the similarity is there: Like General Mattis, General Patton, who led American troops into Nazi Germany during World War II, was a colorful, advocate of aggressive offensive action. But officials who know General Mattis caution that he views a tough American posture overseas as something to deter war with potential foes like Iran, not to start one. And although he was so hawkish on Iran as head of United States Central Command from 2010 to 2013 that the Obama administration cut short his tour, General Mattis has since said that tearing up the Iran nuclear agreement, as Mr. Trump has vowed to do, would hurt the United States. General Mattis now favors working closely with allies to strictly enforce the deal. “I don’t think that we can take advantage of some new president, Republican or Democrat, and say we’re not going to live up to our word on this agreement,” General Mattis, a retired Marine, said in April. “I believe we would be alone if we did, and unilateral economic sanctions from us would not have anywhere near the impact of an allied approach to this. ” Military officers and foreign policy specialists say General Mattis will most likely advocate some buildup in the 6, 000 American troops currently in Iraq but will argue for the increase only if it is tied to an overall strategy for the country after Iraqi security forces defeat Islamic State militants in Mosul, as expected. “He does not fundamentally simplify the world in military terms,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. And unlike other candidates whom Mr. Trump has considered for top national security posts in his administration, like Mitt Romney or Rudolph W. Giuliani, General Mattis “will have the credibility to tell Trump when a military solution will not work,” Mr. O’Hanlon said. To that end, General Mattis has advocated working more closely with allies in the region to strengthen ties with their spy agencies and to expand naval exercises, including international efforts to stop Iran from using mines to cripple the flow of oil and other global traffic. As the head of Central Command, the general pushed for “maintaining and diversifying the U. S. military presence in the Middle East amidst the Iraq drawdown, budget pressures and the rebalance to Asia,” said Derek Chollet, a former assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration. Three years later, General Mattis’s views on Iran have not softened as he points out the country’s “malign influence,” whether it is shipping weapons to rebels in Yemen or training Shiite militias bound for Syria or Iraq. “The Iranian regime, in my mind, is the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East,” General Mattis said in April at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “Iran is not a it’s a revolutionary cause devoted to mayhem. ” Sunni allies in the Persian Gulf, who have criticized the Obama administration for improving relations with Iran, cheered General Mattis’s selection. “He brings a fingertip feel and familiarity to the region that will serve our interests much better, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll pour in a whole bunch more troops,” said Vice Adm. Mark I. Fox, who served under General Mattis as head of the Navy’s Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf. Normally, an examination of a ’s top pick for the Pentagon would look at the policy differences between the incoming president and the nominee. But it is difficult in this case because Mr. Trump has publicly expressed so many conflicting views on national security. (He supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq but says he did not. He said during the campaign that he would reinstate waterboarding “in a heartbeat” but appeared to backtrack on that assertion last week during an interview with The New York Times, after listening, he said, to General Mattis’s views.) Still, it is difficult to see how the two men would find agreement on Mr. Trump’s professed admiration for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, given that General Mattis, like most military officers at the Pentagon, has a healthy skepticism for the Russian leader. General Mattis’s selection also raises potentially consequential questions about the issue of civilian control of the military, a standard set by the framers of the Constitution. The founding fathers were adamant that the country be led by a civilian president who exercises control over the military as commander in chief so that the nation will not become a military state. Similarly, the leader of the Defense Department is always a civilian who is superior to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s top military official. General Mattis’s retirement from the Marines in 2013 means that he would need a congressional waiver to be defense secretary because American law requires a waiting period between active duty and serving in that role. There is little doubt that General Mattis, who is well liked by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and the head of the Armed Services Committee, will be able to get that waiver. Mr. McCain said he was pleased with the general’s nomination, saying in a statement that he “looked forward to moving forward with the confirmation process as soon as possible in the new Congress. ” But Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, said she plans to vote against the waiver. “While I deeply respect General Mattis’s service,” she said in a statement Thursday night, “civilian control of our military is a fundamental principle of American democracy, and I will not vote for an exception to this rule. ” The congressional waiver has not been used in 66 years, since Gen. George C. Marshall, then five years out of active service as the Army chief of staff, received a waiver to be President Harry S. Truman’s defense secretary. General Mattis’s selection has also resurfaced an accusation from “The Only Thing Worth Dying For,” a 2010 book by Eric Blehm, who wrote about a group of Green Berets after they were hit by an American smart bomb in Afghanistan in 2001. In the book, Mr. Blehm quotes a former Army Special Forces officer accusing General Mattis, then a brigadier general, of refusing to send helicopters to rescue the Green Berets. The general declined to be interviewed for the book. Mr. Trump has so far shown an affinity for retired military officers as he assembles his government. Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has been named national security adviser, while Mr. Trump’s aides sounded out Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, a former commander in Afghanistan, for defense secretary. David H. Petraeus, a former C. I. A. director and a retired Army officer who served as the military’s top commander in Afghanistan and Iraq, has been under consideration for secretary of state. But the nomination of General Mattis could make Mr. Petraeus’s selection less likely, because Democrats will object to the prevalence of retired generals in jobs that normally go to civilians. While General Mattis is revered by Marines and enlisted soldiers, several military officials interviewed on Friday raised questions about whether his proven combat skills as a military leader will be the right tools to overcome the calcified bureaucracy that is the Defense Department. A defense secretary must navigate the politics of the White House and Congress while balancing and, in some cases, steering the views of his top military officers. When Robert M. Gates served as defense secretary during the most bloody periods of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he overruled senior generals and forced through a speedy development of more heavily armored MRAPs — vehicles — to save American lives from roadside bombs. Generals outside the war zone were reluctant to spend so much money on a new vehicle that had not been part of their planning and budgeting. | 1 |
KABUL, Afghanistan — Officials in Afghanistan said on Sunday they were investigating claims that at least nine civilians, including six children, had been killed when Afghan and coalition forces blew up a Taliban weapons depot in southern Helmand Province. Omar Zwak, a spokesman for the governor of Helmand, said troops on a joint military operation in the Malgir area of Gereshk district, just outside the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, had found the cache of munitions late on Saturday. “They set up explosives to detonate the cache, and it damaged the house where the civilians were staying,” Mr. Zwak said. Capt. Bill Salvin, a spokesman for the coalition in Afghanistan, said on Sunday: “We have seen the reports of civilian casualties in southern Helmand last night. We take all allegations of civilian casualties seriously, and we will convene an inquiry into this allegation. ” Gen. Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, said investigators had been sent to Helmand to investigate the claims. The owner of the house that collapsed, Haji Mohammed Sadiq, said it was being used by a family that had been taking care of his farm for him since he moved to Lashkar Gah, to escape the fighting. The concrete building next door housed a clinic before the Taliban moved in, Mr. Sadiq said. “Last night, Afghan forces, along with foreign forces, raided the clinic around 11:30 p. m. and arrested some 40 to 50 villagers, and took them to the desert, and only left women and children in the houses,” he said. “They put explosives over the clinic and detonated it, and the mud house next to the clinic collapsed. ” Mr. Sadiq said that he rushed to the scene in the morning, but that the police had not initially let any civilians near the collapsed house. When they were finally allowed to do so, he said, they pulled nine bodies from the debris, including two older adults, their and six grandchildren. One child was unaccounted for, Mr. Sadiq said. Of the family, he said, “the only person who survived is the son who had gone to Herat Province for work. ” Civilians have continued to bear the brunt of much of the violence from both sides amid the intensifying conflict in Helmand, with many repeatedly displaced by the fighting. According to local residents, in February, American bombings in the Sangin district killed at least 22 civilians. The NATO mission to Afghanistan said it was investigating the deaths. The war is expected to escalate further this spring as the portion of Helmand controlled by the Afghan government continues to shrink. According to provincial leaders, the Taliban now hold seven of the 14 districts that make up the province, the country’s largest in land area. The Afghan government fully controls only two districts and the provincial capital the remaining five are contested, with the government generally controlling only the district centers. | 1 |
Facebook just put me on the naughty step for a piece I wrote defending the future Rector of Glasgow University. (aka Milo). [I’d love to repost it here so that you can see how harmless it was, how totally not in breach of a single one of Facebook’s “Community Standards”. But because Facebook deleted it before I could save it you’re just going to have to take my word that it did not contain “direct threats” encourage “ ” promote “dangerous organizations” enable “bullying and harassment” or involve any “attacks on public figures”. Nor did it engage in “criminal activity” “sexual violence and exploitation” or have anything to do with “regulated goods”. But I got landed with a ban, all the same — together with a threat that if I carried on doing whatever I hadn’t done wrong then next time the ban might be permanent. For some of you this won’t matter because Facebook. You think Mark Zuckerberg is a weird sociopath, that it’s a cesspit of festering that social media is a waste of time. Yes I get that — but you don’t work in the media, whereas I do and for all of us in the communications industry whether we’re writers, entertainers, journalists, bloggers, vloggers or podcasters Facebook is a big deal because so much of our audience is on it. And it’s as important to those of us on the right as it is on the left. Breitbart, for example, gets a lot of its traffic via Facebook. Milo — never knowingly has a huge Facebook presence. The idea that we on the conservative side of the argument can afford to ignore a market of one billion potential readers because Facebook is run by liberals is just dumb. If you accept — as logic and facts dictate you should — that Facebook matters, then you should be very, very worried about the direction in which it is headed. That’s because the people it’s going to hurt most are people like us: Brexiteers, Trump voters, climate sceptics, conservatarians, lovers of offensive memes involving cartoon frogs or gorillas, anyone in fact who dares to set themselves against the politically correct values of liberal elite types like the guys who run Facebook. What’s significant about my temporary Facebook ban is not so much that it happened but that it happened for no good reason. Sure, my piece contained some strong language: “cucks” got used a few times, as did the phrase “ ”. But neither of those terms is proscribed under Facebook’s Community Standards. And though there was definitely a goodly amount of righteous rage in the piece, at no point did I name names. It was just directed generally at the NeverTrumpers, whom I held largely responsible for Milo’s recent defenestration. I felt — to sum up the argument of the piece — that Milo was yet another example of the way conservatives love to throw their own to the wolves in order to appease the liberal left. Nor, I added, was I convinced by the pathetic argument that this was OK because “Milo is not a conservative. ” That English faggot, I argued, has done more for the free speech of conservative students on campus than four decades’ worth of elegant editorials in journals like the National Review … This, I think, was an argument that needed to be made. Facebook clearly disagreed because — acting, presumably, on a vexatious complaint — they took it down without explanation. One of the very worst things about the market domination by Facebook and Twitter is that it enables the kind of people who normally loathe free markets, property rights and enterprise to pose like they’re libertarian conservatives. “Oh, so you don’t like the rules on Facebook and Twitter? Well, they’re private businesses and they can make up what rules they like. If you don’t like them, go somewhere else … ” But you can bet that these passionate wouldn’t be half so sanguine if they were subject to the prejudice and arbitrary injustice Facebook and Twitter impose on their conservative (and other ) users. Facebook’s shameless liberal bias has been on Breitbart for example here and here. In response, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, promised to make amends. After first denying any knowledge of bias, Zuckerberg was forced to admit some former Facebook employees that curated content “might” have been biased against conservatives. He promised to retrain employees and impose new “controls and oversight” to cut bias. He also agreed to stop allowing the liberal New York Times, CNN, NBC News, Washington Post and BuzzFeed to dominate Facebook New Feed postings. But the revelations kicked off a Senate inquiry of Zuckerberg from Republican John Thune, Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. To avoid an official investigation into News Feed continuing bias, Facebook launched an internal investigation. After determining there had been “unintentional biases” by its overwhelmingly progressive workforce, Zuckerberg took the extraordinary step of firing all News Feed curators in July. The good intentions don’t seem to have lasted long, though. Part of his problem may be that Facebook is only going to be as good as the people working for it. And due to the inevitable liberal selection bias, these are inevitably going to be liberal college graduates with liberal values who wouldn’t even know what a viable alternative viewpoint was if it bit them on the arse — and who therefore decide that any opinion which doesn’t accord with their own stultifying political correctness must ergo be “hate speech. ” That’s my number one theory, at any rate, as to how my Milo piece got me my ban. It broke none of the official Facebook community rules. Just the unofficial one: thou shall not express conservative opinion forcefully. Obviously I can’t prove it because of the exceedingly untransparent way in which Facebook operates: you get banned without recourse to any higher form of justice. But the much bigger problem is this: across the world from the US to the UK but perhaps most especially in Germany right now, the liberal elite is being uprooted by a populist revolution. The ugly, undisciplined, inappropriate, deplorable masses — that’s you and me, by the way, among others — are rising up in revolt, reclaiming our democratic rights, and the people who’ve got used to bossing us around these last few decades just don’t like it one bit. That’s why the liberal elite are using every tool at their disposal to frustrate this popular revolt. One of the main ones is their hegemony over the media. They’ve dominated the mainstream media for years and they’d very much like to do the same to the alternative media, which is disruptive, unkempt and a serious threat to their power base. Hence the “fake news” narrative the ’s media propagandists invented last year: to discredit the alternative viewpoints expressed everywhere from the conservative blogosphere to news sites like Breitbart. It’s no coincidence that the politicians agitating for Facebook to come down harder on “fake news” are the ones who have most to fear from the Brexit and Trump revolutions — people like Labour’s Yvette Cooper in the UK, Angela Merkel’s government in Germany which is planning to punish Facebook with swingeing fines it fails to toe the line. This has nothing to do with decency or fairness or balance. It’s another manifestation of the liberal elite’s determination to close down its opposition by whatever means necessary. | 1 |
Home › POLITICS | US NEWS › BLOOMBERG-BACKED PENNSYLVANIA ATTORNEY GENERAL SENTENCED TO 10-23 MONTHS IN PRISON BLOOMBERG-BACKED PENNSYLVANIA ATTORNEY GENERAL SENTENCED TO 10-23 MONTHS IN PRISON 0 SHARES
[11/1/16] NRAILA – Back in August , we reported that Michael Bloomberg-backed then-sitting Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane had been found guilty of criminal conspiracy and perjury in a case stemming from the abuse of her office. Kane’s sentencing hearing was held Monday, where Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy sentenced the former attorney general to 10 to 23 months in prison. In 2012, Kane was elected Attorney General of Pennsylvania with the help of a $250,000 Bloomberg-funded ad campaign against her opponent. Even before assuming office, Attorney General-elect Kane attacked the Right-to-Carry by signing a letter opposing federal reciprocity legislation. Kane would go on to attack Right-to-Carry reciprocity again, unilaterally and illegitimately eliminating Pennsylvania’s recognition of non-resident Florida Concealed Weapon Licenses. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer , at the sentencing hearing, Demchick-Alloy admonished Kane for her conduct in leaking confidential grand jury materials as part of an attack on a political rival. Demchick-Alloy stated, “The case is about ego, ego of a politician consumed by her image from Day One… And instead of focusing solely on the business of fighting crime, the focus was battling these perceived enemies … and utilizing and exploiting her position to do it.” A colleague that testified at the hearing described Kane’s office by stating, “through a pattern of systematic firings and Nixonian espionage, she created a terror zone in this office.” In seeking a lenient sentence for his client, Kane’s attorney cited the consequences the convicted criminal had already suffered, telling the court, “She stands a convicted felon subject to public shame and public humiliation.” Further, the attorney argued that prison was a risk to Kane’s safety. According to the Inquirer, Demchick-Alloy appeared unimpressed, noting, “When you unfortunately dirty yourself with criminal behavior, you assume that risk.” Kane had faced a potential 12 to 24 years in prison for her crimes. Though Demchick-Alloy imposed only a fraction of the maximum sentence, Kane’s punishment should be enough to prevent her from obtaining a position where she could torment her political adversaries, or Keystone State gun owners. Post navigation | 0 |
Google Pinterest Digg Linkedin Reddit Stumbleupon Print Delicious Pocket Tumblr
Republican Mark Kirk’s political career imploded tonight live on a debate stage in Illinois. RIP Mark Kirk’s political career. Thoughts and prayers.
In what may be the biggest foot in mouth moment of any political campaign since Todd ‘Legitimate Rape’ Akin’s self-immolation, Kirk, who is running for U.S. Senate against the very popular Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D) to represent Illinois, decided to use the senate debate stage to go completely and profoundly racist.
It started when Duckworth told voters about her families long military tradition, one that dates back all the way to the Revolutionary War. Her point was a good one. Her family has sacrificed for the country for generations and far too many politicians flippantly go to war without thinking about who they will put in harms way.
“My family has served this nation in uniform going back to the revolution. I am a daughter of the American Revolution. I’ve bled for this nation. But I still want to be there in the Senate when the drums of war sound because people are quick to sound the drums of war and I want to be there to say this is what it costs and this is what you’re asking us to do. And if that’s the case, I’ll go. It’s families like mine that bleed first. But let’s make sure that the American people understand what we are engaging in and let’s hold our allies accountable because we can’t do it all.”
Kirk interjected by saying a line that will haunt him for the rest of his very short career.
“I had forgotten your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”
A problem: Duckworth’s family did fight in the Revolutionary War. Kirk assumed because she was of mixed heritage that they couldn’t have. Mark Kirk is not a smart man. She's an active DAR member. And Sen. @MarkKirk –who lied about his own military record–is questioning her family's military service.
— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) October 28, 2016
The stunned silence both from the moderator and from Sen. Duckworth kind of say it all.
So long, Mark Kirk. Have a good retirement!
Featured image via YouTube | 0 |
MADRID (AP) — Basque separatist group ETA says it has not abandoned its goal of an independent Basque state along the border despite giving up its arms. [In a communique Sunday in the Basque newspaper Gara, ETA said disarmament “wasn’t going to be a bargaining chip, but rather a way to show the intransigence of the (Spanish and French) states and to further the independence movement. ” Two weeks ago ETA gave French authorities a list of eight caches where police found weapons, ammunition and explosives in a historic step toward disarmament. Inactive for over five years, the ETA killed 829 people, mostly in Spain, in a campaign for independence. Spain and France have both demanded it disband. ETA made no mention of dissolving in Sunday’s communique, its first since handing over its weapons. | 1 |
What does the future hold for Russian politics? The September parliamentary elections in Russia proved once again that the power of the Russian president and his party remains largely uncontested. But how will this impact Russia’s future political and economic development? The September parliamentary elections in Russia proved once again that the power of the Russian president and his party remains largely uncontested. But how will this impact Russia’s future political and economic development?
Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the one of the major liberal parties in Russia - Yabloko. Even though the party's ;claim for the role of a uniting force for all democrats appeared more convincing than five years ago, Yabloko failed to attract supporters in Duma elections. Photo: TASS
On Sept. 18, the Russian public went to the election polls to vote for candidates for the State Duma, the lower chamber of the country’s parliament. But, as many experts predicted, the election did not bring any change to the current political system. Similarly to the previous parliament, the new one contains the same four parties – United Russia, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), the Communist Party and A Just Russia.
The success of Putin and United Russia as the “party of power” is unquestionable, but does it mean that this status quo will remain for long? And how will the recent shakeups in the country’s political elite influence the direction the country is taking?
Russia Direct examines these question in its new analytical report, " Hawks vs. Doves: Russia's political drama heading into 2018 ," featuring expert insights from several prominent Russian experts: Yuri Korgunyuk of INDEM Foundation, Andrei Kolesnikov of Carnegie Moscow Center, and Mikhail Zygar, former editor-in-chief of the independent Russian TV channel Dozhd.
In his thorough analysis of the outcomes of the State Duma elections, Korgunyuk explains what tools helped the Kremlin ensure its leading position in power and discusses what factors accounted for the defeat of the liberal opposition, represented most importantly by the Yabloko and PARNAS parties.
Although the victory of United Russia is clear, it still will face many challenges in keeping its power in the long run . According to him, one cannot exclude that at some point, when the regime feels vulnerable, it will turn to using tough measures to strengthen its position, as it was exactly these measures that helped to stop the nation’s incipient protest wave in 2011-2012.
“Such measures will only cement the problems accumulated in the economy and society while erasing the traditional ways of solving them within the existing system,” he writes. This in turn might make political regime change more possible.
James Sherr, associate fellow at Chatham House, also thinks that the success of the ruling party in the election does not necessarily reflect a positive trend. As he sees it, the real issues in Russia involve the relationship between the people and power at various levels. While in some parts of the country it is good, in other places it leaves much to be desired. “There is still a real possibility of discord rising locally at different levels in ways that people had difficulties predicting before,” he says.
According to Kolesnikov, the results of the Duma elections provide a preview of what to expect in 2018 presidential elections and beyond that. Building on his analysis on the results, he argues that even though it is highly likely that Putin is going to be re-elected in 2018, it poses problems for the authorities to create at least some kind of competition in 2018 elections. The expert discusses the liberal and conservative camps in Putin’s closest circle and explains why the transition of power (which is bound to happen at some point) will be very difficult in Russia.
“If technocrats and liberals are able to persuade him that his security depends on democracy, he might chose this path, yet, again, not because he likes democracy,” he argues.
The question of whether Russian society is ready for democracy has been on the table for quite some time now. However, according Zygar, who has recently authored a book on Putin and the people surrounding him, that’s not the best way to think about the current Russian political scene.
Zygar warns against oversimplifying the picture and supports those who see Russia as a country where people differ in their political views and aspirations. While liberals and conservatives oppose each other in many respects, they do not represent the general public, which tends to remain politically apathetic. They are occupied with their daily routines and don’t want to be bothered. Hence, “a lot depends on the current political situation,” he argues.
Who will dominate in the Kremlin before the 2018 elections? ; Download the report and find out . | 0 |
By the constant administration of lies, the media puppeteers manufacture wars, protect the super-wealthy, and destroy democracy. Joe Giambrone “ We like nonfiction, and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious President. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it’s the fiction of duct tape or the fictitious orange alerts, we are against this war, Mr. Bush.”–Michael Moore Oscar acceptance speech, moments before his mic was cut off. T his year may mark a turning point, where the moral bankruptcy was laid bare for all. I’m speaking of the Bernie Sanders flip-flop for Hillary Clinton, the predictable bait-and-switch, which Democrats never seem to imagine in real time. The rest of us have seen it so often that the ruse has become routine Standard Operating Procedure. A particularly notable case is Sarah Silverman (left) , the filthy-mouthed comedienne, who originally championed Bernie. But she quickly fell into lockstep for Hillary. Silverman had a soul empty enough to go and scold the United States to support a candidate whom she had just been fighting against , and who actually stole the nomination from her own candidate through back-room deals at the DNC and through apparent voting-machine hacking . The thief was rewarded instead of jailed for some reason, which Hollywood has had absolutely zero interest in, as if it didn’t happen. They moved on instantly to lambast us all about Donald Trump 24/7. Orwell couldn’t have written it better. Hollywood has a highly complex understanding of political philosophy and particularly of this presidential race: 1. Trump Bad 2. Hillary Woman 3. So-called “Lesser Evil” W e should acknowledge, those who are literate, that Hillary Clinton’s repeated threats to escalate World War 3 over Syria leave her as potentially the greater evil, not the lesser at all. The jury is very much out. “Goldwater Girl” Hillary Rodham Clinton has a lengthy record of supporting every US aggressive war and opposing none. She may have played a part in the killings of over 2 million human beings so far, merely tallying those casualties from the three countries of Iraq, Syria and Libya. One may opt to also add another half-million Iraqi children who died as a result of her husband’s eight years of sanctions. I noticed Hollywood’s widespread mindless support for Democrats back in 2000, when I kicked that shockingly corrupt party to the curb and joyfully cast a vote for Ralph Nader, an actual American hero whose efforts have saved lives. Die-hard whiners of the Democratic rank-and-file still falsely claim that big bad Ralph gave the election to Dubya Bush, when anyone with the ability to read can see that it was the Supreme Court which stopped the legitimate counting of Florida ballots. Add Bush’s brother Jeb purging nearly two-hundred thousand minority voters from rolls. But the mindless strategy of attacking third parties and attempting to delegitimize democracy itself persists among the ignorant (a majority of Democrats perhaps). This is by design; this is who they are. They do not believe in democracy, because the billionaires who fund them do not believe in any democracy they cannot control. But the mindless strategy of attacking third parties and attempting to delegitimize democracy itself persists among the ignorant (a majority of Democrats perhaps). This is by design; this is who they are. They do not believe in democracy, because the billionaires who fund them do not believe in any democracy they cannot control . George W. Bush’s theft of the presidency did help expose the moral bankruptcy of Democrats as well as Republicans. When Bush lied about Iraq, Hillary Clinton was right there with him embellishing and freestyling! She claimed Iraq’s non-existent “weapons of mass destruction” to be “undisputed.” Her lies helped sell the war to Congress, a war of aggression: what the Nazis did and were hung for at Nuremberg. Her role in aggressive war and in destroying International Law as a restraint against belligerence are profound crimes, grievous war crimes: “the supreme international crime” in the words of U.S. Judge Robert Jackson. When a handful of Democrats attempted to impeach the Bush junta for crimes relating to those wars, as well as to torture and cover-up, it was Democrat Nancy Pelosi who announced “Impeachment is off the table.” Criminal collusion, allowing the crimes to stand without recourse, that is what they did. The US federal government has served as a protection racket for international war crimes. The damage that Democrats inflicted upon the rule of law is equal to that of the Republicans. The former had a moral and legal responsibility to defend the Constitution, their oaths of office, but voluntarily opted not to. The Internet helped flood the world with information to pass around, both good and bad, but the crimes of both parties became difficult for them to wash away now that Google made all web searchers equal. Today, things have accelerated into realms of the absurd. CNN recently cut off a congressman in mid-sentence for uttering the word “Wikileaks.” This Soviet-style clampdown on dissent remains a shocker even in a society that’s pretty much seen it all. The media, distrusted by most , is only one aspect of the problem though. Americans get their views from joking heads as much as from stodgy teleprompter readers. Talk shows and comedy skits propagandize viewers every bit as much as do the Washington Post or New York Times . Celebrity endorsements matter. Documents recently emerged that confirm Oliver’s willingness to shill for Hillary. And he’s not alone among the so-called cutting-edge “perceptive” comedians. Bill Maher has long been a Democratic party loyalist, and recently Amy Schumer—for all her smarts and anti-status quo posturing—came out strongly for Hillary. Schumer may be a dupe and clueless about the true nature of the Hillary option, but Oliver cannot be so easily forgiven. A casual glance at those programs would reveal that democracy is non-existent in Hollywood today. All voices are not represented. Minority candidates cannot get air time, will not be interviewed, and will only be mocked in absentia as per John Oliver’s recent disgraceful hit piece on Green Party candidate Jill Stein , a cowardly move John. Shameful. But Oliver is far from alone. I single him out because he knows better and could have done justice to the Green Party and to its clear alternative to perpetual war, empire, and industrialized ecocide. But where would that have left him personally vis a vis the Hollywood political consensus? Nowhere is presidential candidate Jill Stein welcome, not on the debate stage where she belongs, not on the daily puff shows, not on the edgy comedy interview shows, and not on SNL. This blanket censorship is quite glaring, and clearly part and parcel of a system rigged in favor of Democrats―no matter who they are, nor how long their rap sheets happen to be. Hollywood’s strategy is as simple-minded as those who are easily programmed by it. They point the finger endlessly at the boogie-man, who happens to be Donald Trump this year―it’s the same every cycle. It was the evil Romney, the evil McCain and the evil Bush Jr. prior. In regimented fashion, the entire industry demonizes the enemy du jour , and so ensures that the crimes of their own candidate never receive any light of day. That’s the trick. In their manufactured hysteria over the latest Republican they omit the entire criminal history of the Democratic nominee, how she stole the nomination in the first place for instance, and they avoid mentioning all the non-criminal alternatives, who are not corrupted by Wall Street, the military-industrial-complex, and foreign tyrants. This manufactured hysteria is strategic, and it is a false dichotomy. The fake two-candidate only choice is never questioned by Hollywood. To do so would mark one as an aberration, a non-conformist, a free thinker. You would be outcast to hobnob with the likes of Charlie Sheen, Gary Busey, Roseanne Barr, and Randy Quaid. This conformism is a mechanism of social control, and it’s not a laughing matter. I use the word kakistocracy more often lately, rule by the worst. Only the worst, the most corrupt, the biggest liars can rise in this rigged system. A more formal study pegged it as “ oligarchy ,” but I find the term bland. It is very much rigged on numerous levels to keep out the honest and the moral. If that’s not a problem to you, Hollywood , then you are indeed living in a fantasy story: Michael Moore’s fictional times roll on. “ dems ? Do U have any thoughts on Obama’s transition from a progressive academic humanist 2 a regressive corporate warlord?” Joe Giambrone is an author and independent filmmaker . He publishes Political Film Blog mainly to store evidence of these ongoing crime sprees. Bonus Feature: Originally Posted on FEBRUARY 20, 2013 by JOE GIAMBRONE H ollywood likes to pretend that things aren’t political when they are. It’s that bi-partisan nationalist myth that if both corporate parties agree to cheer for the empire, then everyone cheers for the empire. It’s gotten so bad now that races like the Oscars and the Writer’s Guild screenwriting award are tight contests between one CIA propaganda film and another CIA propaganda film. The first one helps to demonize Iranians and set up the next World War scenario, while the second film fraudulently promotes the effectiveness of state-sanctioned torture crimes. If there ever was a time for loud disgust and rejection of the Hollywood / Military-Industrial-Complex, this would seem to be it ( [email protected] ). Naomi Wolf made a comparison of Zero Dark Thirty ’ s creators Bigelow and Boal to Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl ( Triumph of the Will ). That, to me, seems inappropriately offensive to Leni Riefenstahl. The good German filmmaker never promoted torture through deception. Nor was Triumph a call to war. The film was simply an expression of German patriotism and strength, rebirth from the ashes of World War I. The current insidious crop of propaganda, as in the CIA’s leaking of fictional scenes about locating Osama Bin Laden through torture extraction, are arguably more damaging and less defensible than Riefenstahl’s upfront and blatant homage to Hitler’s leadership. The Zero Dark Thirty scandal should be common knowledge by now, but here is what the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence wrote to Sony Pictures about it: “We believe the film is grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location of Usama bin Laden… Instead, the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program.” The filmmakers had every opportunity to explore the issue more fully, instead of relying on the “firsthand accounts” of the torturers themselves , and/or their allies within the Central Intelligence Agency. Notably, torturers are felons and war criminals. Those who know about their crimes and help cover them up are guilty of conspiracy to torture. Thus, these self-serving fairy tales that illegal torture led to the desired results (bin Laden) are tangled up with the motivation to protect war criminals from prosecution. Not only does this claim of successful torture help insulate the guilty from legal prosecution, it also helps to promote further criminal acts of torture in the future. Once this red flag issue was raised by the Senate, the filmmakers could have taken a second look at what they had put up on screens and reassessed the veracity of their material and the way it was being sold to the world. Instead they doubled down. Bigelow and Boal want it both ways, extraordinary access to CIA storytellers for a documentary-like “factual” telling of the bin Laden execution, but they also want license to claim that it’s just a movie and can therefore take all the liberties they please. Jessica Chastain, who plays a state-employed torturer/murderer, who also allegedly located Osama bin Laden, said : “I’m afraid to get called in front of a Senate committee… In my opinion, this is a very accurate film… I think it’s important to note the film is not a documentary.” In a nutshell, that’s the Zero Dark Thirty defense. It’s a highly sourced “ very accurate film ,” but we can take all the liberties we like because it’s not a documentary, and so if we made up a case for torture based on the lies of professional liars in the CIA, then oops. Mark Boal went so far as to mock the Senate Intelligence Committee, at the NY Film Critic’s Circle : “In case anyone is asking, we stand by the film… Apparently, the French government will be investigating Les Mis.” Any controversy over the picture seems to help its box office, as more uninformed people hear about it. The filmmakers themselves suffer no penalty as a result of misleading a large number of people on torture, to accept torture, to accept a secretive criminal state that tortures with impunity. Kathryn Bigelow’s wrapped-in-the-flag defense of the film: “Bin Laden… was defeated by ordinary Americans who fought bravely even as they sometimes crossed moral lines, who labored greatly and intently, who gave all of themselves in both victory and defeat, in life and in death, for the defense of this nation.” (emphasis in original) Nice propaganda trick at the end equating those who “gave all of themselves” and “death” with the individuals who “ sometimes crossed moral lines.” Everyone’s dirty; you see. All heroes are torturers; so it’s okay. Bigelow’s half-assed response to getting called out by the Senate for putting false torture results into her film, is to say : “Torture was, however, as we all know, employed in the early years of the hunt. That doesn’t mean it was the key to finding Bin Laden. It means it is a part of the story we couldn’t ignore . War, obviously, isn’t pretty, and we were not interested in portraying this military action as free of moral consequences.” (emphasis added) Ignore? By her reasoning, because the Central Intelligence Agency tortured people, she was required to fit it into the plot somehow, whether it was relevant to the investigation or not. That’s her excuse. No matter that the scenes are fabrications, and the actual clues about bin Laden’s courier came from elsewhere (electronic surveillance, human intelligence, foreign services). Bigelow told Charlie Rose , when asked the same question about the torture: “ Well I think it’s important to tell a true story .” Unfortunately, when confronted with the Senate investigation, truth quickly takes a back seat. The truth Bigelow now clings to is that, “Experts disagree sharply on the facts and particulars of the intelligence hunt, and doubtlessly that debate will continue.” To Kathryn Bigelow, the fact that the so-called “experts” she has sided with are torturer criminals with a vested interest in her portrayal of their crimes never occurs to her. She can dismiss the entire matter as a “debate.” Perhaps she no longer finds it “ important to tell a true story?” Kathryn Bigelow basking in the spotlight secured by shilling for the imperialist state. Kathryn Bigelow, America’s Leni Riefenstahl, claims that Zero Dark Thirty tells “a true story,” even when confronted by evidence that it is a lie. She is unapologetic and completely divorced from the real world damage her propaganda encourages. If this film takes home the Best Picture Oscar, it should serve as the cherry on top of a brutal, deceptive, decrepit and immoral empire, and signal this reality to the rest of the world. If this is allegedly the “best” of America, then we are truly finished. As for Ben Affleck’s Argo, its sins aren’t so readily apparent. Both films show wonderful Central Intelligence “heroes” acting to further US interests and take care of imperial problems. The Argo scenario is a rescue, however, instead of a hit. The problem is that Iran, a country thrown into a bloodthirsty dictatorship after its nascent democracy was murdered by the very same CIA in 1953, is now the bad guy. There are clearly two sides, and the film takes sides with the people who destroyed democracy in Iran and propped up an illegitimate monarch in order to control its oil and its refineries. When this despotic monarch whose secret police disappeared, tortured and murdered the political opposition – with the help and training of the CIA – is overthrown, we are supposed to overlook all that, because America is always good. We rescue our people. We risk our lives, and we come up with elaborate creative plans to help our people. We are heroic and triumphant vs. the inferior wild-eyed Persians and Arabs of the world. Now I do believe there’s a real story there, and the situation is ripe for telling, but an extreme sensitivity to the political context would be required. As Jennifer Epps put it : “…[T]he Iran we see in the [ Argo ] news clips and the Iran we see dramatized are all on the same superficial level: incomprehensible, out-of-control hordes with nary an individual or rational thought expressed. … But we never go behind-the-scenes at this revolution. (Instead, Affleck and screenwriter Chris Terrio’s tempering historical introduction is soon outweighed by the visceral power of mobs storming walls, chador-clad women toting rifles, and banshees screaming into news cameras.) …The problem is that viewers who don’t already know their Chomsky or William Blum aren’t going to walk out of [ Argo ] muttering “gee, it’s more complicated than I thought.” Instead, they’ll leave with their fears and prejudices reaffirmed: that Middle Easterners create terror, that Americans must be the world’s policemen, and that Iranians cannot be trusted because they hate America. … Argo almost completely ignores individual Iranians; its portrait of an entire culture is neither refined nor sophisticated; and it does reinforce a simplistic, Manichean perspective.” Enough said? So why are Argo and Zero Dark Thirty receiving all these awards? Are the awarding bodies so full of hyper-patriots who believe pro-American films can deceive and demonize with impunity, that they want to send an unequivocal message of support for these practices? Is hyper-nationalist propaganda in vogue now? With the ascendancy of Barack Obama, there is no longer a moral anti-war voice of any significant size in America. Obama, the smooth talker, has soothed away morality, ethics, law and rights. The empire is beyond reproach because Obama runs it. So the liberal center/left says nothing. Nothing but empty blather and ignorant praise of the Democrats. Murder is being codified in secret as we speak. Bush’s wars are being publicly scaled down, only to ramp up new covert wars of conquest across Africa. Nothing substantial has changed since George W., only the style. There was a time when no one trusted the CIA. Far from heroes, they were the prime suspects in the assassination of president John F. Kennedy, and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. CIA support of terrorists was well known, if not loudly opposed. This agency has sponsored Cuban exiles to commit acts of terrorism inside Cuba. Its Phoenix Program kidnapped and murdered Vietnamese villagers by the thousands, torturing and killing them for alleged communist sympathies. The CIA overthrew democracies from Iran to Gutemala to Chile, and was instrumental in waging a terror war against Nicaragua by employing drug-running mercenary terrorists called “Contras.” When the Church Committee investigated the agency in the mid-70s, lots of dirty laundry was aired. The agency was reined in for a time. Assassination was made technically illegal. In the 1980s, the CIA fought a proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by funneling money and arms to radical Islamic Jihadists – like Osama bin Laden – and creating an intelligence/military monster in Pakistan, known as the ISI. With untold billions of dollars of US tax money, plus Saudi oil money, the Pakistanis were propped up as a central hub for militant groups to operate throughout the region. Pakistan is where Osama bin Laden allegedly ended up living for the last decade of his life, half a mile from the Pakistani military academy. The CIA today is instrumental in the blitzkrieg of terror across Syria. It funnels arms and money to radical Islamic Jihadists, exactly as it did in Afghanistan in the 1980s. In 2011 it participated in the Libyan Crime Against the Peace doing much the same type of activity on behalf of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a group that helped take over that nation despite being included on the US State Department’s Terrorist List! The LIFG has sent its fighters over to Syria, after the fall of Qadaffi, to assist in the genocidal guerrilla war against the Syrian state, as well as civilians. The CIA assists in these activities. But of course those victims aren’t Americans. So none of that counts. “…Is it healthy for us to hold up images of Cold War CIA agents as selfless do-gooders?” –Jennifer Epps NOTE: ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS, PULL QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS PLEASE COMMENT AND DEBATE DIRECTLY ON OUR FACEBOOK GROUP INSTALLATION ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joe Giambrone is a filmmaker and author of Hell of a Deal: A Supernatural Satire . He edits The Political Film Blog , which welcomes submissions. polfilmblog at gmail. Note to Commenters Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: [email protected]
We apologize for this inconvenience. =SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.= free • safe • invaluable If you appreciate our articles, do the right thing and let us know by subscribing. It’s free and it implies no obligation to you— ever. We just want to have a way to reach our most loyal readers on important occasions when their input is necessary. In return you get our email newsletter compiling the best of The Greanville Post several times a week. Print this post if you want. Share This: | 0 |
Our Grandmothers Know Best – Traditional Remedy for Asthma, Bronchitis, Cough and Lung Diseases
Many people are diagnosed with different lung diseases or disorders, and asthma, bronchitis, and various types of coughs are some of the most common conditions.
Infections, allergies and smoking can cause a certain type of lung disease or disorder. In this article we provide the recipe for a popular traditional remedy that will help you treat any problem with your lungs, especially asthma, both bronchial and cardiac.
In the past, our grandmothers have prepared this natural remedy to treat health conditions of this type, and those who have already tried it confirm that our grannies were right about its great healing power.
Ingredients: 1.1 lbs / ½ kg red onions 2 cups of Pure Maple Syrup or 1.1 lbs / ½ kg brown sugar 2 medium sized lemons 6 cups / 1.5 l water 7 tbsp raw honey
Preparation:
Place the pure maple syrup in a large skillet and preheat the pure maple syrup on a medium heat (If you are using brown sugar — take a large skillet and preheat the brown sugar on a medium heat. Stir it constantly until it gets a nice golden color) . Then, add the previously sliced onions , cook for a couple of minutes, then add the water.
Boil the mixture on a medium heat until the water is reduced by a third. Let it cool. While it’s cooling, squeeze the lemons, and set the juice aside. Add honey and lemon juice to the mixture, and stir well. Let it sit overnight and in the morning squeeze out the liquid and keep it in a glass bottle.
How to consume it:
Take a tablespoon before each meal. After you finish it, make another dosing. Repeat the treatment until your lungs get better. Children should take a teaspoon of the remedy before each meal. | 0 |
Illegals waving Mexican flags, blacks, communists, white social justice warriors burning American flags, gays, transgenders and basically all degenerated freaks of nature united in violent riots across the US, shouting and tweeting assassinate Trump chants. The photos and videos you are about to see should make your stomach turn upside-down. After you finish reading, scroll down and watch.
As an advice, avoid provoking these wild beasts unless you want to get beaten down badly, hospitalized or even killed, if they ask you who you voted for, lie to them, tell them Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson or Jill Stein. We have seen countless aggravated assaults and even down-right murders in the last days against patriotic Americans who voted for Donald Trump. Do NOT engage these wild beasts no matter how much sorrow you may feel in your heart when you see different kind of scenes, such as burning of the US flag, torching stores, cars, chanting hate, etc. Let them go wild and do what they do until January 20th. After that, the law will crack down on them like you never seen before.
The American people have swallowed enough, soon retribution will come and millions upon millions will finally get deported and arrested. These people need to be punished. California in particular is worst. The millions of Mexicans who invaded California are now calling for “Calexit”. Sure after illegally invading that state, they now call for it to secede so they can later unite it with Mexico. These people must think the Americans are stupid. Getting their hands on Silicon Valley and Hollywood for free? IT’S NOT GONNA HAPPEN MEXICANS! According to Wikipedia, there are only 38% whites living in California as of 2015 after decades of ongoing invasion. Due to the that the state is permanently locked as a blue Democrat state. Republicans can sit on their tongues and eat their own eyeballs and that state will never go red in the current condition it is. This makes the road for Republicans extremely difficult since California holds the larges number of electors, 55. Non-Hispanic whites decreased from about 76.3 – 78% of the state’s population in 1970 to 38.0% in 2015 making them a minority in their own country. Its not like they committed suicide, they are still there but the number of migrants surpassed them, making them a minority now.
According to a census from 2010 when California had 37.2 million population in total (in 2015 it had 39.1 million) only 15.7 are white and 2.6 mil black. The rest is South American, mostly illegals. Those who are legal, are illegally legal if you understand what we mean. They’ve got their citizenship through Obama’s amnesties. These people will always vote Democrat, riot and demand free stuff. They need to be deported immediately or America will lose California forever which would be a shame! America must not allow Calexist. Imagine losing Hollywood and Silicon Valley! You can’t just immigrate to a foreign nation, then demand secession, then later demand unification with your country of origin.
You think this is a joke? Have a look! The media is telling you however that “Americans are calling to secession”. No! These are South American invaders, mostly Mexicans! They need to get deported, all of them! Both LEGAL and ILLEGAL because most “legals” obtained their citizenship illegally.
So who is fomenting this? Go to minute 1:33
We know for a fact that most of these riots are planned and paid for by globalist billionaire George Soros. He too needs to be arrested along with his entire family and have his entire fortune seized and nationalized into the US federal budget. America could use his money, after all its dead broke! The bastard is already old, 83 years old to be exact and he may not live for much longer but still he should face justice for all the riots, calls to assassinations and violence he is provoking.
See these buses? They brought thousands of protesters to Austin, Texas! Yes, the riots are ORGANIZED, PAID, SPONSORED, etc. George Soros and his entire family needs to be locked up.
They are even running ads on Craigslist searching for more rioters:
Whites who are doing this are suffering from what is known as the Stockholm Syndrome . They do not even realize what they are doing.
These people look like they are straight from Noah’s times, when God flooded the Earth because he had enough:
Man attacked for voting for Trump…
Cher! Didn’t this harlot said that she will leave America if Trump is elected? Now she’s pushing for riots and violence?
Look at this sorry retard! She got more votes? So what? He got more electors! Besides she got millions of ILLEGAL votes from illegal border crossers which shouldn’t even be allowed to vote.
Confront whiteness? What if someone would say confronting blackness? Hmm? What about confronting Jewishness? Ahh yeah: dats rayyysist!
And we thought Jews were our friends… perhaps we were wrong!
Look at how this moronic liberal mother is installing fear into this poor child! I bet she told her something similar to this: “There’s a big fat blonde boogieman living in the tower of Sauron, and we here are the warriors of God, we have been sent by Jesus himself to purify America, we need to kill him because he wants to kill us all.” Where’s CPS when you need them?
Look at the guts these Mexicans have! Instead of laying low and pretending like they are not even there, look at what they are doing. It’s like basically: look at how disgusting, disturbing and violent I am, don’t you wanna deport me?
To the woman in the left, yes Trump is NOT your president. Pena Nieto is, go back to Mexico.
If you’re Chinese and refuse to acknowledge Trump as your president then go back to your Communist president Xi Kingpin.
Perhaps these Socialists should move to Venezuela or North Korea.
Sure they do! In Mexico! :)
No granny, he’s not YOUR president, but who cares? Hillary wouldn’t have been other people’s president. Trump won despite having your evil which stealing millions of votes. Don’t like it? Pack your bags and get out! It’s time to clean America! Venezuela and Cuba would suit your better, they have multicultural socialist hellholes. Just the way you like it!
The electoral college is part of the Constitution but who cares? Viva la Che Guevara Chaos and communism, hammer and sickle!
Muh feelings! What a disturbing feminazi character… who would date this creature?
Indeed, he’s not your president, Pena Nieto is, go embrace him!
Watch what this woman did to her own child:
Here’s the full video:
Peaceful leftists teaching 11 year old boy how to be tolerant:
More peace and tolerance:
| 0 |
Earlier in the week, we covered a study from Wharton School professor J. Scott Armstrong and Dr. Kesten Green which claims that only a fraction of 1 percent of the papers published in scientific journals follow the scientific method. Professor Armstrong appeared on Breitbart News Daily today to discuss his research with Alex Marlow. [“The problem in journals, with government research, and with universities is that nobody asks them to follow [it]. I’ve been publishing for 55 years and can’t ever recall anyone saying ‘you should follow the scientific method. ’” Armstrong, along with Dr Kesten Green developed a checklist of eight criteria to assess whether a paper or a study follows the scientific method. According to the checklist, scientific studies must (1) test multiple reasonable hypotheses, (2) provide useful findings, (3) fully disclose methods, data, and other relevant information, (4) conduct a comprehensive review of prior knowledge, (5) use valid and comparable data, (6) use valid and simple methods, (7) provide any experimental evidence, (8) reach conclusions consistent with the evidence. “So, [Dr.] Kesten Green and I got involved with this to develop a simple checklist that would help people to say ‘are you following the scientific method?’ If you’re going to fly a plane, if you’re going to be a doctor and operate, you have to use a checklist, and if you use a checklist you are much more effective. Nothing like that exists right now. ” “There is one exception, and that is PLOS One, Public Library of Science One actually provides a checklist. I think it took them about five years before they became the largest scientific journal in the world, so they’ve really revolutionized things. ” “What’s happening now is, government research, universities — they’re asking for what I call advocacy research. They have something, they want you to prove it, make sure you prove it, you do, you keep getting paid. ” “Advocacy research is the bulk of these 99 percent of studies, and they’re not done for scientific development, they’re done to support a political idea. If you want to make money in universities these days, you publish papers that support global warming and you live handsomely. ” Armstrong said that the problem of research had been a problem since at least the 1920s, but that it has intensified in recent years with the “vast growth of government funding for research. ” “I agree with many of the greats of the past when I say that the government should not be involved in research. ” Armstrong reiterated his argument that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) violates all eight of his checklist for following the scientific method. “If you don’t believe me, you can go and look at their work and you can use that checklist. ” Listen to Professor Armstrong’s full discussion with Alex Marlow below. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has blacklisted five Russians, including the government’s chief public investigator, who is a close aide to President Vladimir V. Putin, for human rights abuses, laying down a marker for Donald J. Trump less than two weeks before he takes office with a vow to thaw relations with Russia. The sanctions, announced Monday by the Treasury Department, are not related to allegations of Russian hacking during the presidential election, according to a senior administration official. But they carry symbolic weight at a charged moment, as likely the last visible act the United States will take against Russia before power is transferred in Washington. The biggest name added to the list is that of Aleksandr I. Bastrykin, who reports directly to Mr. Putin and has carried out political investigations on his behalf. Mr. Bastrykin, officials said, was complicit in the case of Sergei L. Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in detention in murky circumstances in November 2009 and for whom the Magnitsky Act was named. Under that 2012 law, passed by Congress with Democratic and Republican support, the Treasury and Justice Departments must investigate and penalize Russian individuals involved in that case and subsequent or in other human rights abuses. The Obama administration has now put 44 people on the list. The sanctions announced Monday include a ban on travel to the United States and a freezing of any assets held by or transactions with American financial institutions. The White House has enforced the law with varying degrees of enthusiasm, depending on relations between the United States and Russia. In late 2013, human rights activists said, it delayed releasing the list because it worried that the move — coming just before the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia — would further curdle relations. But the administration’s final list, particularly with the inclusion of Mr. Bastrykin, is considered robust. “The mood and atmosphere are very different this year,” said David J. Kramer, the senior director for human rights and democracy at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, a policy research center. “Adding a few more names to the sanctions list sends a couple of signals,” Mr. Kramer said. “That this administration, as it goes out the door, is still going to implement the Magnitsky Act. It’s also sending a signal to the next administration that it hopes it will continue this policy. ” Shortly after the law was passed, Russia’s Parliament banned the adoption of Russian children by Americans. In 2013, Russia released a list of Americans barred from traveling to Russia because of what it claimed were human rights violations. Late last year, Congress passed legislation that would impose sanctions on people anywhere in the world for the kinds of human rights abuses that surfaced in the Magnitsky case. Much to the frustration of the Russian government, the bill again bore his name. In December, the Treasury Department put sanctions on 15 Russian individuals and companies for their dealings in Crimea and Ukraine. Mr. Trump is widely expected to ease that campaign. On Monday, Kellyanne Conway, one of his top advisers, said Mr. Trump might also relax the sanctions imposed by Mr. Obama in response to the hacking, which include travel bans and financial restrictions on senior Russian intelligence officials. “I predict that President Trump will want to make sure that our actions are proportionate to what occurred, based on what we know,” she said in an interview with USA Today. It will be harder for him to ignore the requirements of the Magnitsky Act, but the administration has considerable flexibility in how aggressively it pursues people. “The bureaucracy will grind away and produce more names, but senior people have the final say,” said Michael A. McFaul, a former American ambassador to Russia. In addition to Mr. Bastrykin, the administration is targeting Andrei K. Lugovoi and Dmitri V. Kovtun, two Russian intelligence officers who the British authorities said poisoned a fellow Russian spy, Alexander V. Litvinenko, in London in 2006. Also added to the list are Stanislav Gordievsky and Gennady Plaksin, two officials, who the United States said were involved in the of Mr. Magnitsky’s death. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — At the end of the long day, the alliance of conservative ideologues who once shut down the government over President Barack Obama’s health care law could not find the will to repeal it. Since the Tea Party wave of 2010 that swept House Republicans into power, a raucous, intransigent and loosely aligned group of lawmakers known as the Freedom Caucus — most from heavily Republican districts — has often landed a punch to its own party’s face. Friday’s defeat of the Republican leadership’s bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act was a return to form, handing an immense defeat to President Trump and embarrassing Speaker Paul D. Ryan in his own House. It also challenged the veracity of their claims that a Republican president was all they needed to get big things accomplished. The most important question for Republicans now is whether the members of the Freedom Caucus will find themselves newly emboldened in ways that may bring the new president more defeats — or whether Mr. Ryan will do what former Speaker John A. Boehner could not, and find a way to shred their influence for good. “If you are defined by your opposition to leadership, it’s hard to be part of a governing coalition,” said Alex Conant, a onetime aide to Senator Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who was once a Tea Party star. “Their opposition to Trump’s health care bill should surprise nobody who’s paid attention for the last six years. Even the world’s best negotiator can’t make a deal with someone who never compromises. ” But the Freedom Caucus has never been about compromise. In 2011, it picked a huge, costly fight over Planned Parenthood. In 2013, it orchestrated a government shutdown over funding for the health care law. Then, in its most striking move, it deposed Mr. Boehner in 2015. The common thread: It has continuously been an adversary of legislation itself. But after years of opposing power — both in the White House, which was occupied by a Democrat, and in the leadership of their own party — the conservatives were offered a chance to negotiate directly with the president and his budget director, a former Freedom Caucus member, over the bill to replace the Affordable Care Act. The members pushed and pushed Mr. Trump to the far right edges of policy, just as they have done for years on other bills. But they still could not get to “yes,” and therefore became part owners of the expansive health law they were trying to undo. “They made the perfect the enemy of the good,” said Representative Roger Marshall, Republican of Kansas. “I don’t know how they can go back home and tell people they voted to keep Obamacare, voted to keep funding Planned Parenthood. ” Indeed, members of the Freedom Caucus — which is supported by outside conservative groups — have often claimed the mantle of pure conservatism, but their tactics have been seen by many in their party as uniformly counterproductive. Time after time, they undermined Republican leaders’ efforts to secure wins for the conservative cause by overreaching and demanding the impossible. They have anointed Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina as their leader and principal spokesman. But they occasionally get help from three senators sympathetic to their cause: Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah. At critical times, House conservatives have forced their party to make deals with Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader — an idea anathema to most Republicans, who would seethe. This time, by negotiating with Mr. Trump on the complex issue of health care, a measure whose complexity he did not seem to fully grasp, they moved an already contentious bill further and further to the right, eliminating too many benefits to keep moderate and other conservative members on board. Even Mr. Trump was said to be taken aback by their attempts to remove things Republicans have long promised to keep, like health insurance benefits for children up to 26 years old. Given that the House and Senate majorities were built on a promise to repeal and replace Mr. Obama’s signature health care law, many lawmakers fear electoral repercussions. “It is painfully ironic that members from safe, conservative congressional districts who can’t ever quite seem to get to ‘yes’ make it harder to enact good, conservative public policy like repealing Obamacare,” said Michael Steel, a Republican strategist and former aide to Mr. Boehner. This seemed lost on many Freedom Caucus members on Friday. “Part of the legislative process is working with people who have different ideas,” said Representative Justin Amash, Republican of Michigan. “This process from the beginning wasn’t designed to do that. ” Now, health care has become such a partisan issue that voters seem to have little expectation that their elected officials will do much to solve the problem. “I believe we should have more attention paid to the centrists in both parties,” said Representative Ileana Republican of Florida, one of the early moderate defectors of the bill. “Instead of showing all this attention to three or four people who never vote for anything, let’s do an American health plan, not a Republican or Democrat one. ” Mr. Ryan and Mr. Trump offered up a cheerful patina on what many in Washington viewed as an unmitigated failure, one brought on by a group that had brought down the speaker, shuttered the government and needlessly delayed previous legislation with no significant accomplishments to call its own. And a new test will come soon as Republicans contemplate an overhaul of the tax code, as the fate of the health care bill throws into doubt whether any major legislation can pass in this climate. To mitigate this issue, Mr. Ryan will be charged with building the sort of outside coalitions that did not exist for the failed health care bill, which was opposed by doctors, nurses, hospitals, disease groups and conservative political action committees. “There are lessons from this debate that will be applied to upcoming issues like tax reform, infrastructure and financial reform,” said Ken Spain, who served as the National Republican Congressional Committee’s spokesman in 2010. “Debates are won and lost in the districts and states, not in the cloakrooms of Congress. ” “Winning legislative battles today,” he said, “requires more of an approach. ” | 1 |
0 |
|
The president of the American Pastors Network said that many U. S. citizens are in denial over the true nature of Islam by refusing to acknowledge its inherent ties to violent jihad. [Responding to a recent CBS poll that found that the majority of Democrats believe that Islam is no more violent than Christianity, Sam Rohrer said that many Americans are confused about the Muslim faith and the teachings of the Qur’an. “The view for a long time has been that jihadists, wherever they are, are not at all reflective of Islam, and these are only a small number, who don’t speak for Islam,” Rohrer said in an interview with the Christian Post. “The unfortunate thing about that is that those involved in jihad are the only ones who are really practicing what the Qur’an says,” he said. Last week’s CBS poll found that only 33 percent of respondents believe that the Muslim religion encourages violence more so than other religions, a view that Rohrer described as a “purposeful denial of facts. ” Those who do not recognize that Islam is more prone to terrorism and violence either haven’t “done their homework,” or are ignoring the truth, he said. Rohrer argued that public opinion on Islam is tied to a religious relativism that assumes that “all people worship the same God, or there is no God, or all gods are equal. ” It is a “great mistake” to believe that Islam is first and foremost a religion, like Christianity or Judaism, he suggested. “That is totally wrong, because Islam is primarily a political, legal system. It has religious tenets, but it is a political system accompanied by Sharia law,” he said. “By its very commandments,” he said, Sharia prohibits Islam from peacefully coexisting with others. Rohrer’s remarks echoed statements from the Islamic State terror group itself, which has publicly rejected claims that its war on the West is not religiously motivated. In an issue of its online propaganda magazine, Dabiq, ISIS criticized Pope Francis last summer for his naïveté in clinging to the conviction that Muslims want peace and that acts of Islamic terror are economically rather than religiously motivated. “This is a war between the Muslim nation and the nations of disbelief,” the authors stated in an article titled “By the Sword. ” The Islamic State attacked Francis for claiming that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Quran are opposed to every form of violence. ” Pope Francis “has struggled against reality” in his efforts to portray Islam as a religion of peace, the article insists, before going on to urge all Muslims to take up the sword of jihad, the “greatest obligation” of a true Muslim. Last spring, noted Georgetown University scholar Father James V. Schall SJ published an essay arguing that Islam has consistently advocated violence “from its seventh century beginning,” and that the purpose of violent jihad is “ultimately, religious and pious. ” In his article, Schall contended that Islam has been “violent throughout its entire history,” and that the motivation for its violence “is obedience to the Law of Allah. ” “What we see now is little different from what has been seen throughout the centuries wherever Islam is found,” he wrote. Many Westerners mistakenly assume that Islam is not violent, because all religions should be peaceful by their nature, Schall stated. Yet just because Islam is a “religion,” he argued, does not mean that it is therefore not “violent. ” Schall said that “while it may be politically incorrect to state these things, they need to be stated and are in fact the truth. ” “The designated and determined goal of the conquest of the world for Allah has been reinvigorated again and again in world history from the time of Mohammed in the seventh century,” he wrote. “These revivals and expansions, which have only been temporarily halted by superior counterforce, have roots in the Qur’an itself and in its commentaries,” he said. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 1 |
Last year, my mother, a few weeks before a milestone birthday, learned she needed major surgery. The circumstances were not . She would not be in the hospital long. But the recovery would still be protracted and restrict her ability to care for my father, who has Parkinson’s. No worries. Her three grown children, all of whom live in distant cities, snapped into action. We would fly in for the surgery, call in extra help, telephone a few of her friends and ask them to check in, drop off some food, otherwise be on call. We congratulated ourselves for a plan. There was only one problem. My mother insisted we not tell a soul. “I don’t want to inconvenience my friends,” she said. “Also, I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, and I absolutely don’t want to listen to all their medical stories. It’s just so wearying. ” How people decide whether to go public with their medical conditions has long been highly sensitive and deeply personal. Certain situations, like broken limbs and cancers that require chemotherapy, are virtually impossible to keep secret. Others, like H. I. V. and mental illness, are easier to keep under wraps, at least for a time. Older people, in my experience, lean more toward secrecy younger toward disclosure. These days, all of the old rules have been thrown out. With more and more people used to sharing even the most minute details of their daily lives on social media, centuries of customs have been upended. If you post photos of yourself emptying your cat litter, filing your taxes or getting your cavity filled, you can’t as easily come out later and say, “Oh, I’ve had muscular dystrophy all these years and didn’t want to tell you. ” Or can you? My father kept his Parkinson’s quiet from even close friends for nearly a decade. “I was in business,” he said. “I was building things and borrowing money. I didn’t want to be considered a risk. ” (Both of them approved my writing this here.) So in our time of radical disclosure, how should patients evaluate the risks and benefits of sharing medical information? You might save your life. Paul Wicks is a neuropsychologist and A. L. S. specialist who now serves as a vice president of the online support network Patients Like Me. His research shows that patients are most open with their family and current friends, least open with neighbors and childhood friends. Work colleagues rank in the middle. Multiple sclerosis, A. L. S. and epilepsy rank highest on conditions people disclose fibromyalgia, mood disorders and H. I. V. rank lowest. “With something like H. I. V. there are very clear issues about cultural reactions and risk of infection,” he said. “But something like organ transplants are the opposite. If you need a kidney transplant, trust me, everyone will have to know. Finding a match is nearly impossible. ” With these qualifications, Dr. Wicks comes down strongly in favor of disclosure. His reason: You never know where you can learn something that might save your life. As a researcher, he said, “I used to give patients nuggets of wisdom. ” But he added, “I can’t meet every patient. ” When patients seek out others with similar illnesses, their knowledge grows exponentially. “It’s more scalable, less serendipitous,” he said. Even my mother, when she broke down and divulged her operation to a friend, who happened to have the same condition, radically changed her course of treatment. Dr. Wicks’s research shows that patients who participate in peer groups have learned tips about drug sequencing or specialists that proved critical to their care. “The value of a piece of information can be the difference between life and death,” he said. Keep calm and lurk. Stefania Vicaria is a sociologist at the University of Leicester in Britain who has studied the effect of social media on medicine. A primary thing people gain from going public is a sense of comfort in connecting with others, she told me. “The first thing people get on social media is emotional support,” she said. “But it quickly shifts to medical information as the patients go onto specialized websites and become more expert in treatments, scientific trials and so on. ” Most people are comfortable sharing their names in forums, she said, even if those forums are on Facebook, where membership in such a group can be visible to their friends. The information in these discussions is so valuable that if you still prefer anonymity, you should join under a pseudonym. Dr. Wicks called this lurking. “The ratio of people who contribute to Wikipedia versus people who use Wikipedia is quite tiny,” he said. “You can just lurk in these forums and still get much of the benefit. ” Tweet defensively. For those who choose to share their conditions with their wider social networks, there is reason to be cautious. Heidi Adams is a pediatric cancer survivor who has devoted her career to helping young adults with cancer. Now the chief patient advocate at Rx4good, Ms. Adams said that while it was harder for older people to share information about their medical conditions, it was harder for young people to keep quiet. “If anything, young people are likely to overshare,” she said. “You’ve been living your life in public all these years, and suddenly you have this thing you may not want to talk about. Yet posting about that scoop of ice cream you just had feels dumb. There’s a lot of pressure. ” Ms. Adams recommends beginning conservatively, restricting the most intimate information to the most limited outlets, like a blog or a CaringBridge site, whose privacy settings can be changed later. “Once you put things on Facebook or Twitter, it’s out there forever,” she said. “You may want to share things now, but sometime down the road, are you going to want those pictures of you with your scars in public?” In her case, she wanted those things out there at the time of her treatment, she said, but as she moves further away from it, she has changed her mind. Control your surrogates. When I got a cancer diagnosis nine years ago, I made a critical misstep in disclosure in my early days. I told everyone the date of my biopsy. That meant when that day came, I got way more calls than I could handle. From that day forward, I appointed a chief information officer — in my case, my brother — whose job it was to keep everyone informed. While designating such a figure can be helpful, Ms. Adams said, today it’s not sufficient. Patients have to set clear parameters about what that person is allowed to say, share or post in public. “I don’t think you should have any hesitation in telling that person: ‘Hey, can you please take that photo down? I’m not ready to go public about that aspect of my condition. ’” Her one firm rule: “Don’t let people post pictures of you in the operating room. ” Victim no more. The most surprising thing I learned about this issue is that going public has one unexpected side effect: It gives patients a sense of control over their lives at a time of often intense helplessness. “When you open up about your condition, you don’t just receive information,” Dr. Wicks said, “you also start sharing your own information with others. You get to be the helper sometimes, and helping people makes you feel really good. ”` Ultimately, what I had thought of as a decision — tell or don’t tell — is now much more nuanced: tell or don’t tell tell, but not too much or don’t tell but stalk the web for tips among people who do tell. In other words, the best professional advice on this issue is almost exactly the same as the best professional advice on other medical matters: Whatever you do, do it in moderation. | 1 |
Videos US Backed Saudi Airstrikes Kill 100 Yemenis In Two Days Saudi Arabia has been coming under growing international criticism for its air war against Yemen, with massive numbers of civilians killed and little sign that the promised improvements to targeting will ever amount to anything. | October 31, 2016 Be Sociable, Share! People gather at the al-Zaydiya security headquarters that was destroyed by Saudi-led airstrikes Saturday, in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, Yemen, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016. Security and medical officials say dozens of prisoners and security personnel are feared dead after airstrikes battered two prisons inside the security headquarters. (AP Photo/Abdoo Alkarim Alayashy)
While the biggest single Saudi airstrike over the weekend in Yemen targeted a prison in Hodeidah, dozens of other strikes were reported over the weekend by villagers around Taiz and in the Maarib Province, with attacks killing at least 27 civilians , and wounding a number of others.
Most of the casualties were in Taiz, where attacks destroyed several homes and caused a large number of injuries. With hospitals in the area having very limited access to medicine because of the naval blockade, many of those injuries proved fatal.
The attacks in Maarib and Saada, however, may prove more devastating to the country in the long run, targeting some of the very limited farmland Yemen has, destroying a number of villagers’ homes and burning a lot of that farmland. Yemen has to import some 90 percent of its food under normal circumstances, with such imports severely limited by the blockade, and the loss of farmland just adds to food insecurity in the nation.
Saudi Arabia has been coming under growing international criticism for its air war against Yemen, with massive numbers of civilians killed and little sign that the promised improvements to targeting will ever amount to anything.
Previous article from Anti-war.com From October 30th:
Mostly destroyed and no longer usable, the prison in the Yemeni city of Hodeidah held 84 inmates until Saturday, when Saudi Arabian warplanes repeatedly bombed it, killing at least 60 of the people within and wounding dozens of others.
The exact number of prisoners killed compared to guards is unknown, though prisoners are said to be the vast majority. The prison was leveled in the attack, according to witnesses, and rescue workers are still looking through the rubble, with others believed trapped within.
Three airstrikes were targeted against the prison, with the first hitting it directly, bringing down the roof, and the follow-up attacks targeting the gates and the administration buildings. The Saudi coalition insisted the attacks were in keeping with targeting procedures, noting the prison was known to have Houthi security forces within.
It is unclear who the prisoners generally were at the prison, but deliberately attacking a prison will doubtless add to concerns about Saudi Arabia’s standards for airstrikes against Yemen, which have killed massive numbers of civilians over the past 19 months.
This article originally appeared in Anti-War.com Be Sociable, Share! | 0 |
Bill’s past
Bill Clinton’s controversial past was evidently of concern to his wife’s campaign team, which discussed how to handle questions on allegations of sexual assault against him.
Preparation for what the media might throw at her included the questions: “Will you apologize to the women who were wrongly smeared by your husband and his allies?” and “How is what Bill Clinton did different from what Bill Cosby did?”
The mail was sent by Ron Klain, a member of Clinton’s debate preparation team, on January 12, 2016. Several days previous Paula Jones, one of Bill Clinton’s accusers, gave an interview calling Hillary Clinton a “liar” and “two-faced” for trying to discredit her husband’s accusers. Let’s hope the Democratic party is not suicidal
A July 2015 email from Clinton adviser Neera Tanden to Podesta discusses a CNN poll which she guesses will show, “Bernie doing pretty well w Hillary and doing as well against Jeb or close to it.”
“Can you imagine what Republicans would do with him if he were the nominee? ” Podesta replies, referring to Sanders.
“Well, let’s see what the poll actually says. Let’s hope the Democratic party is not suicidal,” Tanden says.
“Do we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email?” she asks. “And has that person been drawn and quartered?”
“ Like whole thing is f*cking insane, ” she adds.
Downplaying Benghazi
An October 2015 email chain between staffers discusses upcoming paid media ads about Benghazi and Clinton’s email scandal.
The group debates whether the ads should target Iowa and New Hampshire or be a national buy. “I know the boss wants a national cable buy to reach the inside the beltway types, press and donors,” Jennifer Palmieri says. “But press will hate this.”
Oren Shur replies, “If the objective is purely to undermine the Benghazi hearings, I think these spots will certainly help do that. But if the objective is to connect emails-Benghazi and conflate the two in voters’ minds (which consultants feel is an imperative here), I’m not sure we know whether we can credibly do that.”
The campaign appears to have decided to do a national ad on the subject. Small tweaks
A March 2016 email chain discussing Clinton’s inaccurate statement about the late Nancy Reagan starting a national conversation about AIDS, when she did the opposite, reveals Clinton’s unwillingness to admit mistakes, even when she is proven to be wrong.
The subject of the meeting is described as “the difference between our contiguous universe nonviolent ETI and the celestials in our own universe.”
The team go back on forth on Clinton’s statement about the issue. “YESTERDAY I MADE A MISTAKE IN SPEAKING ABOUT NANCY REAGAN’S record on HIV AND AIDS,” it begins.
“I think the chances of her OK-ing this statement with that top are slim,” Megan Rooney says.
“Here is a revised draft of a statement. It does include the words ‘I made a mistake’ in the first line,” Rooney says. “We need a strategy for getting her to approve this. I don’t know if that means someone who is traveling with her (Maya?) making the case… or something else.”
A later draft was then sent, changing it to, “I said something inaccurate when speaking about the Reagan’s’ record on HIV and AIDS.”
“The Secretary approved the statement, with small tweaks,” Rooney says. Extraterrestrial disclosure
Former astronaut Edgar Mitchell, known for his correspondence with Podesta regarding extraterrestrials, emails Podesta regarding the “Phoenix Lights” incident in 1997, in which thousands of people reported sightings of hovering lights in the sky.
Mitchell “was on the phone just as they were happening over Phoenix with an eyewitness describing on March 13, 1997. This incentives about disclosure, while other reports like Roswell disincentives,” according to the mail from April 2015.
The subject of extraterrestrial disclosure is “now more important than ever” according to another mail sent on Mitchell’s behalf a month later.
“It is also imperative that after your talk with Edgar, he then speak directly with President Obama via Skype for historical purposes, about the same issue, while the President is still in office,” Podesta is told. On Sale At SD Bullion… This Week Only… | 0 |
Mike Rowe, the ex- Dirty Jobs star and current host of Somebody’s Gotta Do It, took to his Facebook page once again to address a current topic of controversy. And, as usual, nailed it.
One of Rowe’s fan sent him a message saying, | 0 |
Hillary Clinton worked to campaign past the revived controversy around her email server on Sunday, casting herself as a resilient fighter as Donald J. Trump intensified his sweeping claims of corruption in the American justice system. The announcement by James B. Comey, the F. B. I. director, of a new review of emails that may be linked to Mrs. Clinton overshadowed the candidates’ usual messages over the weekend. The news threw Mrs. Clinton and the Trump campaign into an unexpected debate over both her emails and Mr. Comey’s conduct, though only scant information has been made public about the substance of the F. B. I. ’s activities. Campaigning in Florida, Mrs. Clinton appeared to group Mr. Comey’s surprise role in the presidential race with the flurry of partisan attacks that often mark the last days of political campaigns. Without mentioning Mr. Comey by name, Mrs. Clinton struck a defiant note at a nightclub in Wilton Manors, she invoked her mother’s admonition to “never, ever quit. ” “We won’t be distracted, no matter what our opponents throw at us,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We’re not going to be knocked off course. We know how much this election matters, and we know how many people are counting on us. ” At a black church in Fort Lauderdale, Mrs. Clinton urged voters to turn out in force to vote in order to reject “a negative, hateful, bigoted vision” on the other side of the race. If Mrs. Clinton has aimed to stifle interest in her emails, Mr. Trump has seized on Mr. Comey’s announcement with exuberant glee. At a rally on Sunday in Colorado, Mr. Trump called the disclosure a “big bombshell” and predicted it would lift him in the polls. Having spent months criticizing both Mr. Comey and the Department of Justice for deciding not to press charges against Mrs. Clinton for her use of a private email server, Mr. Trump redirected his attack on Sunday, going after Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Mr. Trump accused Ms. Lynch of corruption for failing to indict Mrs. Clinton, claiming without evidence that Ms. Lynch had likely interfered with an investigation in the hope of retaining her job in a Clinton administration. “Effectively, you’d call that a bribe, wouldn’t you?” Mr. Trump asked at a speech in Las Vegas. Mr. Trump’s closest advisers stopped well short of his provocative claim. But on the Sunday news programs, allies of Mr. Trump, including his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, attempted to sow deeper doubts about Mrs. Clinton’s trustworthiness without explicitly attacking the justice system. Still, both sides — having scant information about what, exactly, Mr. Comey’s new review might entail — offered more insinuations than arguments with Election Day just nine days away. The code word for Mr. Pence was “troubled” — a term he used freely on television to raise the notion, if not quite an accusation, that prosecutors had gone easy on Mrs. Clinton. “I’m one of millions of Americans that were troubled by that — why there’s this double standard when it comes to the Clintons,” Mr. Pence said on “Meet the Press” on NBC. “I mean, no one is above the law. ” And for Mrs. Clinton’s allies, the word of the day was “puzzled” — the descriptor top Clinton surrogates wielded repeatedly as they implied, without quite saying, that Mr. Comey had staged an unforgivable political intervention late in the presidential race. “It’s just extremely puzzling,” said Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, Mrs. Clinton’s running mate, on “This Week” on ABC. “I just have no way of understanding these actions. They’re completely unprecedented and that’s why I think he owes the American public more information. ” The stakes of the clash, muddled as it is, are plainly higher for Democrats: Mrs. Clinton had led consistently in polls ahead of Mr. Comey’s announcement, and appeared close to having a firm lock on the 270 Electoral College votes required for victory. Only a late plot twist, it seemed, might be capable of undoing her advantage. It is unclear whether Mr. Comey’s actions could amount to such an unforeseen turn. Mr. Comey, who notified Congress on Friday that information from a separate case prompted the fresh review of Mrs. Clinton’s emails, has not offered any additional comment on the matter. Government officials have described the F. B. I. ’s new information as emerging from an investigation into allegations that Anthony D. Weiner, a former congressman married to Huma Abedin, one of Mrs. Clinton’s closest aides, exchanged sexually themed messages with a teenager. Clinton allies repeatedly accused Mr. Comey of breaching Justice Department protocols by commenting on a confidential inquiry so close to an election, and expressed bewilderment at his conduct. Robby Mook, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, adopted the same phrasing, describing the campaign as “so puzzled” by Mr. Comey’s actions. He lamented that Mr. Comey had opened the floodgates to wild speculation by offering such a nonspecific announcement. “The issue here is, if he doesn’t come out and get all the information on the table, he’s going to let anyone — any conspiracy theory — take the day,” Mr. Mook said on “Meet the Press. ” But Mr. Mook said he did not expect the F. B. I. director’s unusual action to cost Mrs. Clinton the election. On the contrary, Mr. Mook said Mrs. Clinton was faring well in early voting and could lock down one or more swing states, starting with Nevada, before Election Day. A smattering of new polling information released on Sunday painted a mixed picture of the race in its final days, with Mrs. Clinton consistently holding an advantage but of uncertain size. It is likely too soon to see any direct effect from Friday’s events, casting additional uncertainty over the importance of the latest revelations. Still, an ABC Post tracking poll showed Mrs. Clinton’s advantage nationally slipping to just one percentage point, in a dramatic narrowing over the past week. And a New York College poll showed Mr. Trump retaking the lead in Florida. But polling from NBC News and The Wall Street Journal, conducted by Marist College, found Mrs. Clinton faring better in Florida, ahead of Mr. Trump there by one point, and leading him by six points in North Carolina. Mr. Trump is spending several of the few days left in the race campaigning well outside the traditional band of states that decide presidential elections. He was campaigning on Sunday in New Mexico and plans on Monday to be in Michigan — two solidly blue states where polling has shown Mrs. Clinton with a clear lead. | 1 |
Attorneys for David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) have filed a motion requesting the disqualification of the federal judge who ordered videos showing abortionists discussing dismemberment of unborn babies to be removed from the Internet. [According to a motion filed in U. S. District Court in Northern California on June 7, the request for the disqualification of Judge William H. Orrick III is made “on the grounds that there is evidence of bias in favor of the plaintiff and prejudice against the defendants. ” The plaintiff in the case is the National Abortion Federation (NAF) which claims the videos would endanger the lives of their abortionists. In the latest CMP video, which is a compilation of excerpts from video filmed at NAF trade shows, abortionists are heard discussing, amid laughter, the difficulties they face in their jobs, such as “the head that gets stuck that we can’t get out,” and “an eyeball just fell down into my lap, and that is gross!” At the end of May, Orrick censored any video links and references to the identities of NAF members. Following Orrick’s order, YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and LiveLeak deleted the video from their sites. In an interview with Breitbart News, Peter Breen, special counsel with the Thomas More Society — which represents Daleiden — said the motion is extremely significant. He explained: Bringing a motion to disqualify a federal judge is a very serious matter. It’s not something that you do lightly, but in view of the evidence that has now come to light, we, as attorneys are duty bound, at this point, to bring the motion to disqualify. In fact, it would be malpractice for us not to. We believe the law requires disqualification. Breen continues: Some of the evidence we’ve brought forward is that as recently as September of 2015 — several weeks after entering the temporary restraining order in the NAF case — we’ve learned that the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, which is interlinked with a Planned Parenthood affiliate that is a member of the National Abortion Federation — that they are holding out Judge Orrick as an emeritus member of their board. The National Abortion Federation — their allegations were there would be harm to their members — and, so, you’ve got an entity that is in partnership with a member that actually hosts one of the NAF members. Now you’ve got the judge being held out by that entity as part of the organization, as connected to it. The motion states the request for Orrick’s disqualification is based upon evidence contained in an affidavit by Daleiden: This includes Judge Orrick’s longstanding relationship as a past board member, and more recently as an emeritus board member, of an organization that has a “key partnership” with a Planned Parenthood affiliate that is a member of the plaintiff National Abortion Federation (NAF). Judge Orrick’s wife has also posted public comments, pictured with her husband, that are supportive of Planned Parenthood and critical of these moving defendants. For this reason, and the others set forth below, Daleiden and CMP respectfully request that Judge Orrick be recused from this case and that a stay be granted on all proceedings in this case until this motion is heard. The affidavit contains Orrick’s United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary Questionnaire for Judicial Nominees. In his responses to the questions, Orrick states, “I advised Good Samaritan Family Resource Center when it was unionized,” (p. 42) and “After returning to San Francisco in 1984 … I assisted the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center on many legal issues from 1986 to 2009. ” (p. 44). The motion also cites Daleiden’s statement about Orrick’s wife, Caroline Orrick: I learned that, no later than the fall of 2015 Mrs. Orrick, “pinkified” her Facebook page and added the “I stand with Planned Parenthood” overlay across her profile picture. Planned Parenthood urged its supporters to add these elements to their Facebook pages as part of a social media campaign orchestrated specifically in response to the release of videos by myself and CMP. “Pinkifying” showed one’s support for Planned Parenthood and one’s belief that the videos were fraudulent. Just days ago, I further discovered that Mrs. Orrick “liked” a Facebook post by the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) that described my and CMP’s work as “heavily edited videos by a sham organization run by extremists who will stop at nothing to deny women legal abortion services. ” The Facebook post also appeared to describe our videos as “domestic terrorism” against abortion providers. Mrs. Orrick also liked a Facebook Post by “Keep America ” that applauded my indictment in Harris County, Texas, which was ultimately dismissed as invalid by two different judges. Both “likes” were accompanied by a profile picture featuring Judge and Mrs. Orrick. According to the document containing Orrick’s responses to the Questionnaire for Judicial Nominees, in June of 2009, Orrick introduced . Kamala Harris ( ) at a fundraiser for her campaign at the time for her bid for the post of California’s attorney general [p. 23]. In addition, he states, “I raised money and sponsored an event for the campaign of Kamala Harris for Attorney General in 2009, before I joined the Department of Justice. ” (p. 31). Democrat Harris was elected California attorney general in 2010, barely defeating Angeles district attorney Steven Cooley, a Republican, whose firm, Steven Cooley Associates (SCA) now defends Daleiden and his colleague, Sandra Merritt, who have been charged with 15 felony counts under California’s law protecting “confidential” conversations. “ General, now U. S. Sen. Kamala Harris, wielded unprecedented police power against a true American journalist while civil suits were already pending in Federal District Court concerning the same ” says Cooley. “Public Records Act requests filed by SCA reveal the Attorney General’s real interest in this case is entirely political, meant to manipulate the law to do the bidding of their benefactors at Planned Parenthood. ” In September 2016, emails obtained by the Washington Times showed that AG and U. S. Senate candidate Harris’s office collaborated with Planned Parenthood to produce legislation that specifically targeted Daleiden. The emails, according to the Times, were accessed through a public records request, and revealed conversations between officials of Harris’s office and Planned Parenthood regarding legislation that criminalizes undercover journalists for publishing and distributing recordings of private communications with abortion providers. On March 28, 2017, the new California Attorney General, Xavier Becerra, announced the criminal complaint charging Daleiden and Merritt with 15 felony counts against the state’s “confidentiality” legislation. Previously, Becerra was a longstanding Democratic congressman who received a total of $5, 535 from Planned Parenthood during his congressional election bids between 1998 and 2014, according to OpenSecrets. org. Harris is on record as having received $2, 600 in 2016 from Planned Parenthood for her Senate race campaign. Additionally, Harris was the recipient of $39, 855 from the Abortion Rights lobby group, according to OpenSecrets. org. ElectionTrack. com reported Harris received $15, 000 from Planned Parenthood for her attorney general campaign bids. | 1 |
Hillary Clinton, who has kept a relatively low public profile since losing the presidential election two months ago, on Sunday showed up at the final performance of the Broadway revival of “The Color Purple,” reveling in the story of a beleaguered woman who triumphs over the oppressive men in her life (and, along the way, discovers a love for colorful pants). Mrs. Clinton, accompanied by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea, received several ovations from the audience as she arrived, and then another round of applause when she was acknowledged by the cast after the show. “There’s a lot of really awesome famous and notable people here today,” the actress Patrice Covington, who gave the farewell speech on behalf of the cast after the show, said to the audience. “I’m not going to call all of them out — I know you already know them,” she said, before pausing, looking in Mrs. Clinton’s direction, and waving at her mischievously. At that, the audience erupted into a new, loud round of applause. The reaction was substantially warmer than the scattered booing and clapping that greeted the arrival of Vice Mike Pence when he attended “Hamilton,” just one block north, on Nov. 18. “We love you Hillary,” some audience members shouted. Several thanked Mrs. Clinton and told her, “God bless you. ” “God bless you,” Mrs. Clinton replied. Mrs. Clinton was besieged by before the show, at intermission and as she was ushered out a side door after the musical ended (“Whoa!” said her husband as they left.) Jordan Serpone, 33, an audience member from Boston, said that spotting Mrs. Clinton was a surprisingly moving experience for him. “I was having every emotion I’ve tried to get rid of over the past few weeks,” he said during intermission. He shook her hand, but said he is still filled with frustration over her loss. “She shouldn’t be here. She should be planning her cabinet,” he said. Because the Sunday matinee was the last performance for the acclaimed production, which won last year’s Tony award for best musical revival, the crowd was starry: Among those in the audience were Jonathan Groff, Mariska Hargitay, Gayle King, Debra Messing, Leslie Odom Jr. Billy Porter, Phylicia Rashad and Anna Wintour. Public sightings of Mrs. Clinton in the weeks since the election have been sufficiently rare that they create a stir on social media. Strangers have sought photographs with her at stores and in the woods near her home in Chappaqua, N. Y. But Mrs. Clinton has indicated that she and her husband plan to attend the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as president on Jan. 20. “The Color Purple” tells the searing story of a young black woman abused by her stepfather and her husband in rural Georgia in the early 20th century. The musical is an adaptation of a 1982 novel, by Alice Walker, which was awarded the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Steven Spielberg adapted the novel into a film in 1985, and Oprah Winfrey, who was featured in the film, went on to become an important champion, and of the musical. The musical has been one of the most successful at attracting black audiences to Broadway. It first opened on Broadway in 2005, and features a book by Marsha Norman and music and lyrics by Stephen Bray, Brenda Russell and Allee Willis. The revival, which opened in 2015 and was directed by John Doyle, featured a performance by the British actress Cynthia Erivo. She won a Tony award for best actress in a leading role in a musical. The last show took place on Ms. Erivo’s 30th birthday. | 1 |
Diabetes is one of the most rampant diseases of our time. According to the American Diabetes Association, in 2012, 29.1 million Americans, or 9.3% of the population, had diabetes. [1]
In fact, diabetes is growing at a fairly fast rate. A study completed by the CDC & Research Triangle Institute concluded that If recent trends in diabetes prevalence rates continue linearly over the next 50 years, future changes in the size and demographic characteristics of the U.S. population will lead to dramatic increases in the number of Americans with diagnosed diabetes. [2]
According to the current mainstream approach, the major goal in treating diabetes is to minimize any elevation of blood sugar (glucose) without causing abnormally low levels of blood sugar. Type 1 diabetes is treated with insulin, exercise, and a diabetic diet. Type 2 diabetes is treated first with weight reduction, a diabetic diet, and exercise. [3] Currently the belief is “Diabetes is a chronic disease that has no cure.”– The American Diabetes Association.
But what if we could not only prevent diabetes before it happened, but also reverse it once it shows up?
6 Test Subjects Reverse Diabetes In 30 Days
In the film Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days, six test subjects were used, all of whom had varying lifestyles and conditions but were all diabetic- five type 2, and one type 1. Each subject was taking insulin.
Before we get into the results of this film, let’s take note of what is established about type 1 and type 2 diabetes. This information is from The National Diabetes Education Program:
Type 1 diabetes – the body does not make insulin. Insulin helps the body use glucose from food for energy. People with type 1 need to take insulin every day.
Type 2 diabetes – the body does not make or use insulin well. People with type 2 often need to take pills or insulin. Type 2 is the most common form of diabetes.
The participants of the program were as follows:
-Austin (age 25) was not only a type 1 diabetic, but he also had a drinking problem. -Kirt (age 25) had a blood sugar reading of 1200. Normal is below 100. His doctor told him, “You should be dead.” -Bill (age 58) was seeing a cardiologist and had neuropathy. He could not feel his feet. -Michelle (age 36) was quite obese. -Henry (age 58) took insulin plus 9 pills daily. Blood sugar was at 464. -Pam (62) was quite obese. Her father, brother and sister are also diabetic.
The Method
The approach Gabriel Cousens takes to cure people of diabetes is all about changing their diet. He states that research shows that in terms of health, meat eaters have 4 times more breast cancer, 3.6 times more prostate cancer, 4 times more diabetes, and much more in general chronic disease. If you’re just having milk, that’s 3 times more leukemia. [4]
Given his position on diet, he believes in taking a mainly raw approach to eating and consuming a plant based diet. His team prepares raw, well-balanced and whole meals for the test subjects throughout the 30 day period. The food becomes their medicine.
With medical supervision, all of the subjects took their medication as needed and ate the food that is provided to them by Gabriel and his team at the Tree Of Life Rejuvenation Center.
Results
By Day 3 of the program Kirt, Bill and Henry were able to stop taking insulin and medication. Their blood sugar levels had already dropped to the normal range after just 3 days of changing their diet. Pam was able to cut her insulin intake by 1/3. Austin, the type 1 diabetic, was able to cut his insulin intake down to half. And Michelle saw her blood sugar at around 362. This discouraged her to the point where she didn’t want to stay in the program any longer, although she did.
By day 12 of the program, Henry’s blood sugar had dropped 256 points compared to day 1. He was not using medication to lower his blood sugar levels. Although he was seeing great results, Henry felt he was too old for the program and requested to go home. His family arrived on day 17 and he went home. By that time, he was no longer taking 17 medications, he had lost 30 pounds and his blood pressure had decreased. In Henry’s case, his addiction to the food he used to eat was too difficult to overcome.
By the very last day, day 30, incredible results were seen that intensely challenges the current belief that diabetes has no cure.
-Kirt no longer needed medications. His blood sugar had dropped 214 points to as low as 73 (normal) without medication. It was later found out he was type 1 diabetic since the beginning. Status : Within normal range. -Bill stopped taking 19 medications and lost 32 pounds. His blood sugar dropped 214 points to 74 (normal) without medication or insulin. Status : Within normal range. -Michelle stopped taking all of her medications and lost 23 pounds. Her blood sugar dropped from 291 to 109 without the use of medication. Status: Within normal range. -Pam lost 26 pounds while her blood sugar dropped 167 points down to 112 without medication. Status: Within normal range. -Austin, who is type 1 diabetic, lost 20 pounds and reduced his insulin from 70 units down to 5. Status: Drastic improvement in diabetic condition.
As you can see, all participants had drastic turn-arounds in their health and all had their diabetes either completely reversed or severely under control. A type 1 diabetic (Kirt) had his diabetes completely cured -something that is considered impossible. All type 2 diabetics no longer needed insulin.
What Does This Tell Us?
Like many things in modern medicine, we don’t have all of the answers and in a lot of cases we have a difficult time admitting that what is currently mainstream isn’t always the best course of action.
People everywhere are taking alternate routes to achieve results equal to and sometimes better than what is made available to them through mainstream voices like doctors and government appointed professionals. I feel it’s important that people know their options and have a fair chance of hearing them out. I know many people with diabetes who aren’t aware of the power of food in transforming their condition yet are taking insulin and following mainstream ideas as if it’s the only truth.
It isn’t to say that the mainstream is bad, it’s simply that we are missing out on other options in a big way. After all, the American Diabetes Association makes claims about there being no cures yet the above results would suggest there is more to that story.
Have you ever tried raw food to cure your diabetes? We are curious to hear some real live results from others. | 0 |
The Doctrine of Armed Exceptionalism LobeLog (resilc)
How Putin Derailed the West Counterpunch. Resilc: “‘Why is Hillary Clinton so eager to intensify US involvement in Syria when US interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have all gone so terribly wrong?’ The USG incentive system for DoD/CIA/State/USAID et al is more war and more interventions.”
The fatal expense of American imperialism Boston Globe (furzy)
Trade Traitors
TPP Is Exciting. Let’s Make the Case for It. Bloomberg (resilc). Four alarm fires and bombings are exciting too, but not in a good way.
2016
Clinton camp blasts FBI ‘double standards’ BBC. This line of attack is unlikely to succeed. The FBI is consistently depicted as upstanding and competent in crime and CSI shows. The fact that the Obamamometer has basically thrown Clinton under the bus v. Comey says that he reads the public pulse more or less the same way.
Spy told FBI that Russia wants to cultivate Trump: report The Hill (furzy). Mark Ames via e-mail:
What we learned even in the 90s—there are never, ever any standards for a journalist writing about Russia. Ever. The more bigoted and fantastical, the better. And when your hack crap is completely 100% debunked by other revelations, no editor will ever, ever discipline you. The only way you can have problems with Russia journalism is if you step away from the herd. No editor will ever forgive you for it.
And John Helmer debunked it more specifically by e-mail. Since his message was long, some key bits:
My wife is linked to Putin – she’s Russian. I’m linked to Putin – his friend Oleg Deripaska tried to kill me.
Fridman is busy exiting from Russia as fast as he can go – and may lose Vimpelcom Russia in consequence. The recent DoJ corruption penalty for Vimpelcom — $795M – indicates a reasonable lack of fondness on his part for the current US administration, but then Fridman has hired Richard Burt (Reagan-Bush) and Tom McLarty (Clinton) to “advise” – meaning lobby for him to get approvals from the Treasury, State and CIA for takeovers of fresh US assets, such as FreedomPop. And they are going through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, so the Trump “connection” can’t be as bad as the Clintonites make out.
Burt and McLarty are advisors to the LetterOne board, not directors on the Alfa Bank board. If Burt is considered a Trump man – e.g., , http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donald-trump-campaign-lobbyist-russian-pipeline-229264 — how to explain he was vintage Reagan and Bush? I remember Burt well – short, narcissistic (adolescent acne the cause), not very bright, would do anything to please, especially for money: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donald-trump-campaign-lobbyist-russian-pipeline-229264 If Burt is such a Trumpie, and McLarty a Clintonite, what happens when they want to use the office toilet at the same time? And then John Negroponte arrives, hustled by Stu Eizenstat (ex Carter) – does ideology get in their way, or do their money interests encourage them to form an orderly line? Look at this list of McLarty’s associates: http://maglobal.com/about-us/our-team/john-negroponte /
And another desperate story at Slate, which I cringe at dignifying by linking to it: Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia? I hate having to attack this garbage; recall Glenn Greenwald saying how he despised Trump yet excoriating the MSM going all in running any and every fact-challenged or badly stretched attack on Trump, when there is plenty of bona-fide dirt on him already. Outsourcing this again to Ames who has seen more of this than I have:
The super-secret server linkup is one of the most inane supermarket spy pulp fantasies I’ve seen. It’s cartoon-bad. Most conspiracy theorists work a lot harder on their inane inventions than this. It relies on total ignorance, on a cartoonish grasp of how linkups would work.
And Helmer again:
A computer channel to a bank that doesn’t do the one thing banks are meant to do – transfer money. In the forensics of sex crimes, is that one of those Jimmy Carter “adulteries in the mind”?
FT endorsement: For all her weaknesses, Clinton is the best hope Financial Times. Surprising amount of opposition in the comments section (as in lots) given reader demographics. And the US is now the FT’s biggest market.
Donald Trump Used Legally Dubious Method to Avoid Paying Taxes New York Times. Par for the course for the New York Times. Article hyperventilates about supposedly improper behavior by Trump, yet the basis for the case is that what he did was later made impermissible. I deducted interest I paid on my one little student loan in the early 1980s because prior to the 1986 Tax Reform Act, all consumer interest was tax deductible. By the standards of the Times’ fulminating, what I did then was similarly “legally dubious.” Help me.
On top of that, from what I infer from this piece, which is not at all clear on what Trump supposedly did (it tries to make his sin about failure to report, which sounds like a stretch; the IRS does have audit powers), it still appears that Lee Sheppard’s analysis of why what Trump did in 1995 was kosher then but not kosher later is the best account to date. And that was out a full month ago. Her article specifically discussed why the cancellation of debt income did not appear on his tax return at the time. I am putting the key part of her discussion (it was unpaywalled for weeks but now Tax Analysts has hidden it again) at the very end of this post so the geeky can see what a stretch the Times’ treatment is. | 0 |
Posted by Madeline | Oct 30, 2016 | 2016 , Daily Blog | 0 | Thanks Therisa!
The Mind Unleashed
On November 8th, 2016, hundreds and possibly thousands flash-mob meditations will commence at the polling stations everywhere across America. Elevate The Vote says that “this is a non-partisan participatory event that is open to everyone. It’s about the fundamental unity of human life that seems to have been so forgotten in this campaign.”
The intention is to “ elevate the consciousness of every U.S. voter on election day, impacting how we feel about ourselves, politics, this election, and each other.” “Meditation gives you an opportunity to come to know your invisible self. It allows you to empty yourself of the endless hyperactivity of your mind, and to attain calmness. It teaches you to be peaceful, to remove stress, to receive answers where confusion previously reigned.” – Dr. Wayne Dyer Image Source
While many will love this concept, some may be a bit skeptical of it having any effect. With that, we can look further at the studies that have been done on synchronized meditations and the measurable effects they did create.
What is known as the Maharishi Effect has actually been studied over 600 times, which was conducted in 33 countries and in over 250 independent research institutions. The evidence overwhelmingly correlates synchronized group prayer and meditation having extremely positive social, political and economic benefits to the world. Positive correlations for numerous health benefits to the individual were also observed and confirmed.
The most well-known study on this effect was done in 1974, which observed three different gatherings of over 7,000 people meditating each morning and evening for three consecutive weeks. The study took place in Fairfield, Iowa (December 17, 1983-January 6, 1984), The Hague, Holland (December 21, 1984-January 13, 1985) and Washington, DC (July 1-July 10, 1985). The results were astounding. According to the Rand Corporation, a think-tank based in California, “acts of global terrorism resulting in fatalities and injuries were reduced by 72%.” Time series analysis was used in this study to rule out possibilities that the reduction in global terrorism was caused by pre-existing trends, drifts in data or cycles. But how was this done then? How did it spread from a small group to a larger one?
Scientists believe this is due to a coherent resonance being created in the Unified Quantum Field by those meditating.
Going a bit further with it, we can think of a laser. Its coherent light is established by what is known in physics as the Field Effect. The Field Effect’s principle, according to the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy is “that it is not necessary to act individually on each individual constituent of a system, but that the system can be handled in one stroke at the collective level.”
The 7,000 people meditating created a Field Effect of harmonious coherence that spread throughout the collective–which in turn helped to reduce acts of terrorism (incoherent, disruptive energy). Synchronized meditation shifts events and timelines in our Quantum Universe. Souce
If you live outside of the U.S. you can also join in by meditating with a global synchronized meditation that begins at 3pm Pacific Time (U.S.). Also, you can add to this movement even if you live in the U.S. by meditating at this time or at a local polling station. If you plan not to vote or already voted, you can also stay at home and meditate that evening. Let us all envision a world at peace, ourselves at peace and all social systems in balance and at peace.
To find out more information about the flash-mob meditations and to see or start one in your local area, visit Elevate The Vote .
Lance Schuttler graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in Health Science and practices health coaching through his website Orgonlight Health . You can follow the Orgonlight Health facebook page or visit the website for more information on how to receive health coaching for yourself, a family member or a friend as well as view other inspiring articles. | 0 |
Trump’s grandfather was a pimp and tax evader; his father a member of the KKK As they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree; Donald Trump's racism can easily be traced through his lineage. American Herald Tribune Trump’s grandfather was a pimp and tax evader; his father a member of the KKK
Most families of enormous wealth have a dark and sometimes scandalous, even monstrous past. Donald Trump’s clan is no exception to that rule. His grandfather was a pimp and a tax evader, his father a racist who would in the course of his life, clash with New York City Police as a member of the Ku Klux Klan and then as a wealthy real estate magnate, refuse to rent to people of color.
Donald Trump’s legacy is anything but a rags to riches story. His dad kicked the bucket with $250-$300 million in the bank. The man who wants to ban all people of a particular religion from travel, wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth, his was white gold. The only thing more obnoxious than Donald Trump himself, is his family’s money grubbing, bigoted history. The Trumps: Three generations of criminals
Trump’s Grandfather: Pimp and Tax Evader
Donald Trump’s grandfather, Frederick or Frederich Trump, made his money from operating a decadent restaurant and hotel during the Gold Rush at Klondike in the Yukon.
That’s a nice way of saying it.
“Trump made his first fortune operating boom-town hotels, restaurants and brothels”, is more accurate, according to the CBC news report, “Donald says”. Author Gwenda Blair simply wrote, “”The sex.”
Trump’s grandfather was born in Germany, to parents who were employed by a vineyard. He moved to New York City in 1885 where he became a barber. After six years of this, Frederick Trump moved across the United States to Seattle, Washington, where he owned and operated what he referred to as a “decadent restaurant” that was actually called “Poodle Dog” in Seattle’s red light district. Interestingly, the name and concept that had already been established in San Francisco. (He named his restaurant after a dog but would later make money selling horse meat) Around this time Frederick Trump became a US citizen.
A Yukon Sun Newspaper writer described his business: “For single men the Arctic has excellent accommodations as well as the best restaurant in Bennett, but I – sex”.
Trump moved to Monte Cristo, Wash. in 1894, and then four years later, shortly after the Klondike gold rush began, he relocated again to Bennett, British Columbia. Here he ran the “Actic Restaurant and Hotel”. He would next build the “White Horse restaurant and Inn” in Whitehorse, Yukon.
An article published this year by Politico, explains that Frederick Trump sold off his investments and returned to Germany in 1901, as he sensed the end of the gold rush and a subsequent end to prostitution. The following year, he married his former neighbor, Elizabeth Christ in his native German town of Kallstadt. Then he came under heavy scrutiny by the German government,
The country had compulsory military service for men which had to be fulfilled by the age of 35. Donald Trump’s grandfather waited until he was 35 to go back to Germany. He had already amassed great wealth worth well more than half a million US dollars, or 80,000 marks. While his town council was eager to keep Trump and his money, who billed himself as a man who “avoided bars” and led “a quiet life”, other German authorities had a different plan, the Politico article explains. In their view, Trump had relocated to Germany in order to avoid both tax and military-service obligations.
“…the regional authorities refused to let Trump off the hook. Unlike his grandson, who would become too big to fail in business and, more recently, to ignore in politics, Friedrich Trump was not big enough to get away with being a draft-dodger. He and his wife, then pregnant with Fred, Donald’s father, would not be allowed to resume their German citizenship and it would not be extended to their daughter; instead, they were deported—the same fate that Donald would like to impose on undocumented immigrants in the U.S. today.”
The fact that Donald Trump has done so well in the Republican polls is quite amazing, as the party that we think of as conservative, would be expected to shun a man who created exploitative beauty pageants and was born rich strictly because of the nefarious activities of his ancestors.
Trump’s Father: a Lifetime of Racist Practices
Donald Trump has often said he made his money “the old-fashioned way,” and this is true, in that he prospered from racism.
A New York Times article published 01 June 1927, related Donald Trump’s father Fred Trump’s role in a Ku Klux Klan brawl that pitted 1,000 klansmen against 100 New York City Police in Queens. Though he wasn’t officially charged, Fred Trump was one of seven klansmen arrested during the incident. It probably wasn’t very shocking at the time as America’s racist practices were in full swing generations after Abe Lincoln freed the country’s African-American slaves. In fact the mid-20’s saw a peak in KKK activity. Donald Trump would later deny his father’s involvement in the KKK brawl in spite of the fact that it happened two decades before he was born. Fred Trump’s enthusiasm for racist practices never changed until he was forced to do so by the law.
Presidential Candidate Donald Trump joined his father’s real estate company in New York in 1971, and only two years later, the company was served with a civil rights lawsuit that was filed against the Trump organization because it refused to rent to Black people. The Urban League got wind of the racist rental policy and actually sent both Black and White people in to apply for apartments that belonged to complexes owned by the Trumps. What they proved, was that Black people were denied rentals across the board, and only Whites were approved. A Village Voice article by Wayne Barrett, published in 1979, blew the lid off the Trump organization’s brewing pot of racist practices.
“Three doormen were told to discourage blacks who came seeking apartments when the manager was out, either by claiming no vacancies or hiking up the rents. A super said he was instructed to send black applicants to the central office but to accept white applications on site. Another rental agent said that Fred Trump had instructed him not to rent to blacks. Further, the agent said Trump wanted ‘to decrease the number of black tenants’ already in the development ‘by encouraging them to locate housing elsewhere.'”
The article explains that Trump’s reaction was to claim that the suit was a, “nationwide drive to force owners of moderate and luxury apartments to rent to welfare recipients.”
“‘We are not going to be forced by anyone to put people…in our buildings to the detriment of tenants who have, for many years, lived in these buildings, raised families in them, and who plan to continue to live there. That would be reverse discrimination,’ he said. ‘The government is not going to experiment with our buildings to the detriment of ourselves and the thousands who live in them now.'”
Indeed, Trump’s wild, largely uninformed and unintelligent rants are the legacy of men who walked over the backs of other Americans to gain and secure their wealth. This may be symbolic to the American capitalist way, but it falls short of any form of greatness or real human success. As they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Related Posts: | 0 |
A mailman in Alabama has been arrested and charged with feeding a dog meatballs contaminated with nails. [Mail carrier Susanna Dawn Burhans, 47, was arrested on June 1 and charged with aggravated cruelty to animals, police said according to AL. com. An investigation led jointly by the Madison County Sheriff’s Office, and the Postal Service in Huntsville, Alabama, alleges that Burhans fed the animal the meat at least one time in New Hope, Alabama. Officials launched the investigation in after complaints were filed. “We gathered intelligence from the Postal Service and put everything together,” Madison County Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Salomonsky said. “Right now, we know for sure there’s one dog. But there’s another neighbor that had a complaint, so there might be two or more. ” The U. S. Post Office has not released a statement on the incident. Burhans was booked into the Madison County Jail and released after posting $2, 500 bail. In another recent incident, a mailman in New York City was arrested after entering into an argument with a security guard at a medical marijuana dispensary. The security guard alleged that the mailman kicked in the door of the business after the guard wouldn’t allow the mail carrier into the building to deliver the mail. The mailman was charged with criminal mischief, obstruction of governmental administration and assault. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
Polls taken in 2016 show the American public strongly backs Donald Trump’s dramatic immigration policy change, which says the United States will revive the traditional practice of excluding migrants hostile to Americans’ civic society and constitutional traditions. [That’s the dramatic policy change — not Trump’s other curbs on Muslim refugee inflow — which has caused a dramatic wave of protests by Islamic and Latino groups. Trump is doing what American voters prefer. In June 2015, for example, a poll showed that 56 percent of Americans want to exclude migrants who believe in Islam’s sharia law, which requires that democracy and civic norms by subordinated the Islamic scriptures. In contrast, only about 20 percent of Americans told the pollster that they did not oppose the immigration of people who believe in sharia law. Trump’s support for American culture is the centerpiece of his Friday order on immigration, but the policy’s importance has been overlooked by the protests. Trump’s declaration is a huge reform because it directly rejects the claim by globalist progressives — including former President Barack Obama — that foreign people have the same rights as Americans, including the right to live in the United States, regardless of who Americans prefer to invite into their home. Here’s the critical passage from Trump’s Friday order: In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation. Obama described the prior globalist policy in a Nov. 2014 speech to Democratic supporters in Chicago: Sometimes we get attached to our particular tribe, our particular race, our particular religion, and then we start treating other folks differently. And that, sometimes, has been a bottleneck to how we think about immigration. If you look at the history of immigration in this country, each successive wave, there have been periods where the folks who were already here suddenly say, ‘Well, I don’t want those folks’ — even though the only people who have the right to say that are some Native Americans. Obama made the same claim in September 2015: When I hear folks talking as if somehow these [foreign] kids are different than my kids or less worthy in the eyes of God, that somehow that they are less worthy of our respect and consideration and care, I think that’s . I don’t believe that, I think it is wrong and I think we should do better, because that’s how America was made. Obama’s outside policy is expressed more crudely by the alliance of Islamic and groups which is now protesting Trump’s immigration policy at airports. #SFO: ”No borders, no nations, fuck deportations” pic. twitter. — Dieter Bohn (@backlon) January 29, 2017, On Sunday evening, a senior administration official briefed reporters on Trump’s migration policy. “The reality, though, is that the situation [of large Islamic populations] that exists today in parts of France, in parts of Germany, in Belgium, etcetera, is not a situation we want replicated inside the United States,” the official said. The kind of large and permanent domestic terror threat that becomes and and becomes sort of a permanent feature, in case this, becomes a permanent feature of American life. We don’t want a situation where, 20 to 30 years from now, it’s just like a given thing that on a fairly regular basis there is domestic terror strikes, stores are shut up or that airports have explosive devices planted, or people are mowed down in the street by cars and automobiles and things of that nature … The United States is sovereign country. It is under no obligation to admit any particular person and we have a right to develop a system in which we’re selecting immigrants that we think will be able to make positive contributions to U. S. society. This policy is a huge threat to many advocacy groups, such as the orthodox Islamist groups now pushing to increase the inflow of Muslims into Americans society, the Latino advocacy groups who want more Latino voters, and the elitist Democratic Party, which expects to win national power by collecting votes from diverse immigrant voters. But Trump’s huge shift to immigration policy was welcomed by opponents of political Islam, including Brian Thomas, a writer for the JihadWatch website. The new policy, he wrote: indicates that they know exactly what they’re doing. This isn’t something they put together in a week this is evidence of their entire thinking on Islam and the defence of the west. They’re going to treat Islam as a hostile political ideology. That is what has been needed for decades. It is the reversal of the “Islam is a religion of peace” doctrine set in place by Bush on September 17, 2001. Many polls show that majorities of Americans are skeptical of immigrants’ impact on American society, worry about imported jihad terrorism, oppose any increase above the current level of million immigrants per year — that is roughly one new immigrant for every four American births — and also oppose the continued inflow of cheap labor and unskilled refugees. For example, a September 2015 poll by Ipsos showed that: only 22 percent of Ipsos’ respondents want the United States to accept 10, 000 or more migrants [per year]. That number includes 10 percent who want the country to accept 500, 000 or more migrants. Another 26 percent of Americans said they would accept up to 10, 000 refugees. The survey did not say that the country already accepts 70, 000 refugees per year. percent said they want no additional refugees above the 1, 500, and 29 percent declined to answer the poll, indicating quiet opposition to greater inflows. An August 2016 poll of 2, 061 adults showed that: three in ten Americans overall (36%) support taking in refugees from Syria. A majority of Democrats (56%) support admitting Syrian refugees in contrast only minorities of Republicans (18%) and Independents (32%) agree. These skeptical attitudes, however, are balanced with Americans’ decent emotional welcome for most individual immigrants, and with their gratitude for the nation’s generous history of immigration and support for constitutional rights. A December 2015 poll of 1, 140 registered voters by Quinnipiac showed that: most voters said Syrian refugees should not be allowed to come to the U. S. [but] most voters opposed banning all Muslims from coming to the U. S. with 66 percent of voters opposing the idea and 27 percent supporting a ban. A majority of Republicans, however, 51 — 41 percent, approved of a ban on Muslims entering the U. S. Democrats largely opposed a ban, percent, as did independent voters, percent. So the polling data suggests that Americans want their freedoms shared with Muslims now living in the United States — but they don’t want more Muslims to come live in the United States. A February 2016 poll of Republicans in South Carolina showed that: When the poll asked “Would you support or oppose banning Muslims from entering the United States?” 60 percent of the state’s GOP voters said they would support a ban. But only 29 percent of respondents said they would “support … shutting down mosques” in the United States, and only 25 percent said the disliked Islamic doctrines [of sharia] should be illegal. In June 2016, a poll of 803 registered voters was conducted by OpinionSavvy, via telephone, using automated questions, and with a margin of error of 3. 5 percent. First, the poll asked whether tourists and immigrants should be screened to check for their possible support of Islamic sharia. Seventy percent of respondents approved of the screening. The poll then asked the 70 percent “Do you believe that individuals who support the practice of [Islamic] Sharia law should be admitted into the United States?” No, responded of the 70 percent. That translates into 56 percent of total respondents preferring to exclude additional Muslims. The overall opposition to the exclusion of sharia supporters added up to just 20 percent, with the rest undecided. The push and pull of these rival emotions, however, is overwhelmingly subordinated to Americans’ lopsided desire that companies hire Americans first before importing more foreign immigrations or foreign contract workers. Polls show that roughly 80 percent of Americans say companies should hire of young Americans before hiring migrants. A July 2016 poll shows that roughly three out of four voters — including nearly three out of four Democrat voters — believe that “instead of giving jobs and healthcare to millions of refugees from around the world, we should rebuild our inner cities and put Americans back to work. ” The view was shared by almost 90 percent of and almost 70 percent of Hispanics. In 2016, Trump’s focus on jobs for Americans — instead of additional immigration championed by Hillary Clinton — helped him win a critical majority in the “Blue Wall” states of Wisconsin Pennsylvania and Michigan. So now he is implementing the voters’ preferences, amid a growing roar of protest from the coalition of immigrant and political activists. | 1 |
Obamacare “Near Collapse” in Minnesota as Prices Jump 60% Average
News on Obamacare cannot possibly come at a better time for the Trump campaign.
The Obamacare exchanges in Minnesota are near collapse.
The state’s insurance regulator says Minnesota health-care is in an “emergency situation” and calls the average 60% hike a “stopgap for 2017”.
Please consider Near ‘Collapse,’ Minnesota to Raise Obamacare Rates by Half .
Minnesota will let the health insurers in its Obamacare market raise rates by at least 50 percent next year, after the individual market there came to the brink of collapse, the state’s commerce commissioner said Friday.
The increases range from 50 percent to 67 percent, Commissioner Mike Rothman’s office said in a statement. Rothman, who regulates the state’s insurers, is an appointee under Governor Mark Dayton, a Democrat. The rate hike follows increases for this year of 14 percent to 49 percent.
“It’s in an emergency situation — we worked hard and avoided a collapse.” Rothman said in a telephone interview. “It’s a stopgap for 2017.”
On average, rates in the state will rise by about 60 percent, said Shane Delaney, a spokesman for MNSure, the state’s marketplace for Obamacare plans. About 250,000 people, or 5 percent of the state’s population, were covered under plans bought on the individual market, including plans bought on the Affordable Care Act markets as well as outside it.
Lie of the Day
The lie of the day comes from Jonathan Gold, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Minnesotans would still have affordable options for coverage next year said Gold. “Headline rate changes do not reflect what these consumers actually pay because tax credits reduce the cost of coverage below the sticker price.”
Of the about 70,000 people who had insurance on the Obamacare markets this year, 63 percent got subsidies last year, according to the commissioner’s office.
For at least 37% of Minnesotans Obamacare is hugely unaffordable. For those who got small subsidies, Obamacare is hugely unaffordable. We do not have breakdowns by subsidy amount, but I suspect at lest 65% do not feel Obamcare is affordable.
Those nearly broke with massive subsidies may view Obamacare as “affordable”. Businesses sure don’t and neither do those who get little or no subsidies.
Also in the not-affordable class are millions of healthy millennials who have to dramatically overpay so that a small subset of people benefit mightily.
Government in Action Government in action:Obamacare was supposed to increase competition and reduce costs. Instead it decreased competition and increased costs. — Mike Mish Shedlock (@MishGEA) November 1, 2016 | 0 |
By James Holbrooks
As the American corporate media continues to tow the official line that Russia is working to undermine U.S. elections, the head of the U.K.’s MI5 spoke with the Guardian on Tuesday. It was the first time an acting spy chief has given a newspaper interview in the agency’s 107-year history, and the subject matter important enough to prompt such an atypical occurrence was hardly a surprising one — Russia.
Or, more accurately, Russia as the big bad enemy.
“Russia increasingly seems to define itself by opposition to the west and seems to act accordingly,” MI5 chief Andrew Parker told the Guardian . “You can see that on the ground with Russia’s activities in Ukraine and Syria. But there is high-volume activity out of sight with the cyber-threat.”
“Russia has been a covert threat for decades,” he continued. Then, evoking the U.S. election hacking hype, he added, “What’s different these days is that there are more and more methods available.”
And according to Parker, Vladimir Putin’s Russia is utilizing these methods in “increasingly aggressive ways” to project its global influence:
“It is using its wide range of state organs and powers to push its foreign policy abroad in increasingly aggressive ways — involving propaganda, espionage, subversion and cyber-attacks. Russia is at work across Europe and in the U.K. today.”
The Kremlin was quick to issue a response to the Parker interview, one the Guardian detailed in a follow-up piece .
“Those words do not correspond to reality,” spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said flatly. With regard to alleged U.S. election tampering, he added, “Until someone produces proof, we will consider those statements unfounded and groundless.”
Russia’s embassy in London, meanwhile, stated on Twitter it was “saddened to see a professional trapped to [sic] his own propaganda-created world.” Accompanying that tweet was the movie poster for the 1966 film The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming .
In the buildup to the U.S. presidential election on November 8 — and as Russian submarines are spotted off the British coast — Western nations are again amping up the anti-Russian narrative .
On October 7, for instance, the United States officially accused Russia of attempting to intervene in the U.S. political system. Then, just days ago, Western member countries of the G7 alliance agreed that continued sanctions against Russia for its role in Ukraine and Syria were “vital.”
For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to such recriminations has been largely one of amusement, as demonstrated by comments he made last week.
While speaking to foreign policy experts in Sochi, Putin dismissed the “hysteria about Russia’s influence on the U.S. presidential election,” adding the “mythical and fictitious” issue has been used to distract the American voter from real problems facing the United States government.
“Does anyone seriously think Russia can somehow influence the American people’s choice?” Putin asked. “Is America some kind of banana republic? America is a great power!”
A great power, the Russian president made certain to note, with a top notch propaganda arm:
“I would like to have such propaganda machine in Russia, but, regrettably, there is no such thing,” Putin said, touching on the bought and paid for nature of Western corporate media. “We don’t have such global media as CNN, BBC and others.” Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
We encourage you to share and republish our reports, analyses, breaking news and videos ( Click for details ).
Contributed by The Anti-Media of theantimedia.org .
The “Anti” in our name does not mean we are against the media, we are simply against the current mainstream paradigm. The current media, influenced by the industrial complex, is a top-down authoritarian system of distribution—the opposite of what Anti-Media aims to be. At Anti-Media, we want to offer a new paradigm—a bottom-up approach for real and diverse reporting. We seek to establish a space where the people are the journalists and a venue where independent journalism moves forward on a larger and more truthful scale. | 0 |
Vin Scully will conclude his run as the voice of the Dodgers on Oct. 2 in a game against the Giants at ATT Park in San Francisco. But it should be more than a local event for Scully’s fans in the Los Angeles area. When baseball’s greatest announcer retires, it is a national occasion. It will be up to to TBS, Major League Baseball’s partner for Sunday afternoon broadcasts, to bring the last of Scully to the rest of the country. TBS is not saying what it will do, and the network will not decide which matchup to televise until seven to 10 days beforehand. Simulcasting the game should be the easy choice. Not only is Scully leaving, but the game may very well have playoff implications. But it is not the only viable possibility for TBS. David Ortiz, the Boston Red Sox’ designated hitter, is retiring after the season, and the race in the American League East could be decided that day. TBS may see still other possibilities: All games on the final day of the regular season start a little after 3 p. m. Eastern, so the and games might entice the network. TBS produces all its games and is not accustomed to picking up a local simulcast. But this is an unusual occasion, and the necessary permissions from Major League Baseball and SportsNet LA, the Dodgers’ network, would most likely be granted quickly. Assuming approval was given, TBS could carry the Scully game and cut to Boston whenever Ortiz was batting. If TBS takes the Ortiz broadcast, one of baseball’s other national partners ought to get the O. K. to pick up the Scully game. But ESPN will be showing W. N. B. A. playoff games, ESPN2 has a college football special and an edition of “E:60” scheduled, and FS1 has committed to an N. H. R. A. race. If neither can, or wants to, get out of its commitment, MLB Network should abandon its plan to cut among the 15 games being played and give viewers a final three hours or so with Scully. What would be more appropriate for an channel than to change its plans for Scully? When Ernie Harwell retired in 2002 after 42 years as the voice of the Detroit Tigers, his farewell game from Toronto was televised in the two teams’ local markets, even though his finale was, like Scully’s, worthy of a national platform. Harwell is in the baseball announcing pantheon with Scully, Red Barber, Mel Allen and a few others. Harwell was 84 at the time, four years younger than Scully is today, and knew he could continue. His vigor, joy and stamina were evident that day as he greeted players and fans, signed autographs and ran up the steps of the visitors’ dugout. But Harwell told me that the time was right. “I could go on for another four or five years,” he said. “I have the enthusiasm and the health. But you have to draw the line. No second guesses. I don’t want to be one of the guys who comes back four or five times. ” In his final signoff, Harwell told his listeners: “Thank you for sneaking your transistor under the pillow as you grew up loving the Tigers. God has a new adventure for me. ” He died almost eight years later, at 92. In a recent interview on TBS with Cal Ripken Jr. Scully said: “I’m not saying goodbye as much as I’m celebrating Thanksgiving. I’m so fortunate to be doing this since I’ve been a very young fellow. I have nothing to be sad about. ” Many of his fans have been aggrieved since 2014 by their inability to watch him on SportsNet LA, which has been blacked out in a majority of the team’s home market because of a pricing dispute. Many knew that Scully would not be broadcasting much longer and wanted to hear him narrate Dodgers games until his final out. And they could have reasonably believed that they would miss his parting words. But on Friday, Charter Communications, which assumed the onerous SportsNet LA contract when it acquired Time Warner Cable this year, announced that Scully’s final six games (Sept. 23 to 25 and Sept. 30 to Oct. 2) would be simulcast on KTLA, a local broadcast station. It is a gesture that recognizes Scully’s importance, but it comes after too much time without him has passed for his fans. It is possible that Scully’s Oct. 2 game will not be his last. If the Dodgers play in the postseason, Scully could be on the local radio call. “We’ll let him do what’s most comfortable,” said Erik Braverman, the Dodgers’ vice president for marketing and broadcasting. “If he says he wants to do postseason, he’ll do postseason. ” | 1 |
As Missouri lawmakers convene for the 2017 legislative session, they will consider legislation that holds businesses liable for injuries against concealed carry permit holders who are disarmed via the businesses’ policies. [The bill is sponsored by state Missouri Representative Mike Moon ( Grove) and “would cover employees as well as customers. ” In effect, it puts the onus on the business owner, so that when he decides customers and employees must be disarmed on premises, he also accepts full responsibility for their safety. The Joplin Globe reported the bill this way: Moon’s bill would hold private businesses that prohibit guns liable for the safety of anyone who is legally permitted to carry a concealed weapon but is prevented from doing so by the business and who suffers injury or other “compensable” damage in an attack in which the permit holder could theoretically have defended himself if he had been allowed to keep his weapon on him. The bill is directed toward “private, commercial businesses. ” Moon believes the legislation is necessary because an unarmed concealed carry permit holder has no “promise of success” should he or she be inside a business when an attack occurs. Moon explained: Kind of where this thing started was with business owners who were adamantly opposed to those who carry firearms. What would happen if a third party came on and committed a crime and there was bodily injuries sustained to the patrons? Who is liable? And as I’m talking to legal minds — attorneys particularly — apparently there’s still a lot of gray area there on who’s actually responsible. I believe that the third party is responsible but apparently there are some unanswered questions and so hopefully this bill will reveal some of those. AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com. | 1 |
Home › POLITICS | US NEWS › TRIGGERED: JOURNALIST SNOWFLAKES SCARED TRUMP SUPPORTERS ARE ‘TURNING ON THE MEDIA’ TRIGGERED: JOURNALIST SNOWFLAKES SCARED TRUMP SUPPORTERS ARE ‘TURNING ON THE MEDIA’ 0 SHARES
[10/28/16] Triggered journalists from across the nation are bemoaning the treatment members of the press are receiving at Trump campaign rallies from the Trump supporters the media routinely misrepresents as ignorant racists, fascist Nazis, or disenchanted working whites.
With increasing regularity, these journalist snowflakes are “reporting” their victimization at the hands Trump supporters who chant mean things like, “CNN sucks” and call them names like “presstitutes.”
For members of the media elite, the occasional taunts and jeers signal a dangerous threat to the free press. During an interview with Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer breathlessly asked Trump’s campaign manager to ask Trump to stop calling out the press at his rallies because he is scared “there could be an ugly incident” between Trump supporters and the “hardworking young journalists” who cover his rallies.
A quick review of media stories over the last two weeks reveals more than a dozen articles in major publications with the same “journalists victimized by Trump supporters at rallies” narrative. Trump supporters endure long waits, messy parking, and often obstructed view seating to rally for their candidate. The press, on the other hand, is given their own entrance, sectioned off seating, and protection from event security and the Secret Service.
After an exhaustive search, this Breitbart reporter could find exactly zero incidences of members of the media being physically attacked or assaulted at Trump rallies. None of this has stopped the misleading characterization of Trump supporters creating a “menacing” and “dangerous” environment for these special snowflakes.
The narrative sprung up briefly in August when NBC ‘s Katy Tur wrote a long piece in Marie Claire in which she gives her account of her confrontational relationship with Trump and the backlash his “insults” on her reporting created with his supporters. Here is a small piece from her “no-holds-barred” account:
I was six months into covering the Trump campaign for MSNBC and NBC News, and there I was, in the belly of a World War II battleship, in a press pen made out of bicycle racks, surrounded by thousands of whipped-up Trump supporters.
…
Trump decided to go further in Mount Pleasant, pointing his finger squarely at me and launching a personal attack as millions of Americans watched at home.
“What a lie it was,” Trump said, referring to the claim that he had left the stage abruptly. “What a lie. Katy Tur. What a lie it was. Third. Rate. Reporter. Remember that.” The crowd’s boos ricocheted off the iron hull of the USS Yorktown.
Just a few days after the Tur piece was published, two other NBC press employees — Frank Thorp and Ali Vitali — tweeted out pictures and videos of Trump supporters showing insufficient deference to the press. It was so very traumatic that it inspired several stories, including this one in Real Clear Politics . Post navigation | 0 |
( theoccidentalobsever.net ) Pictures and captions by Darkmoon
Yes, it’s just another Jewish plot. And the way they’re doing it is by scamming the public into believing that these illegal immigrants—all of them adult males—are helpless “child refugees”.
These “child refugees”, who have conveniently lost their passports, claim to be under 18. Some of the child migrants even have bushy beards. The British government and the elite media argue that migrants tend to “age quickly”—because of their traumatic war experiences. You can’t make this up.
The dismantling of the Calais “Jungle” refugee camp has been marked by huge scenes of disorder with rioting, at least one gang rape , and much of the camp going up in flames. But there has been uproar in Britain too since the realisation that most of the thousands of “child refugees” , which the Prime Minister had agreed to accept, were neither children nor refugees.
From the moment these healthy, strapping adult male migrants stepped off the bus in London it was obvious that the British people had been subjected to yet another massive immigration deception. Those who enabled and organised this “child refugee” scam are brazening it out, safe in the knowledge there will be no comebacks for them.
First they attempted to prevent any more embarrassing pictures by throwing blankets over the arrivals so they resembled state witnesses at a Mafia trial. Then a screened walkway from the bus alighting point to the door of the reception centre was erected overnight for the same purpose. Dental tests to determine the real age of these youths were ruled out as an “invasion of privacy.” And there is no question of having them deported, so nothing can be done now. They’re here. Get over it.
But of course, it all works better if there is no clamour from the public. So the powers-that-be have resorted to the tried and tested method of stifling dissent. Anyone who sticks his head above the parapet to raise doubts is subjected to stern lectures about their moral shortcomings. BBC TV presenter Gary Lineker chastised his fellow British for their “shameful” attitudes, while Labour shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbot t attacked those who wanted to carry out dental tests to assess their age as “racist.” Pop singer Lily Allen became a media darling when, on behalf of the people of Britain, she made a tearful apology to the refugees for causing their plight.
Let that sink in. Britain caused the plight of the refugees.
After voting for Brexit, for ordinary British people, who have seen their schools, hospitals and welfare services strained to breaking point, a fresh influx of immigrants was not exactly what they had been looking forward to. After all, Britain has no legal or moral obligation to take these people. They were supposed to be the responsibility of the first country they arrived at in the EU. And why are they coming to racist Europe anyway? It’s incredibly short-sighted of them. Why not go to some Asian or African country? Or Israel?
This fresh burden will be placed squarely on the local authorities that receive the immigrants, and they are going to have to dig deeply. While the government is providing £40,000 ($48,000) per annum for each young refugee, the total annual cost is around £133,000 ($162,000). So tax increases — or reduced services in other areas — are predicted.
Naturally little of this will fall on the prosperous London boroughs filled with BBC-watching, morally uplifted Whites. Instead many migrants are being located in far-flung areas such as Devon or poorer northern communities already thronging with refugees, such as Bradford.
The tipping point in the long battle to admit these bogus “child refugees” seems to have been a multi-faith initiative in which more than 200 religious leaders led by the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams and senior representatives from the Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh faiths — signed a letter urging the Prime Minister to admit 3,000.
In a speech at a London synagogue, Lord Williams described the Calais camp as “a stain” on the British conscience. But in fact, this alleged multi-faith support was not what it appeared to be. It was largely organised by dozens of Jewish activists working through an organisation called Citizens UK that organised the casework and poured substantial resources into ensuring that the necessary amendments to the law would make it through Parliament.
The Calais “Jungle” crisis has brought the Jewish community together in a unity of purpose rarely seen outside the occasion of Israel’s various wars. From the highest communal levels to the smallest youth groups, it seems everyone Jewish has been mobilised in the cause of getting uneducated, unassimilable Muslim economic migrants into Britain.
It is a campaign they have chosen to frame in entirely moral terms. The Jewish community’s loud insistence has been that not only is Britain under a strict moral obligation to take these migrants but that there should be no upper limit. To do otherwise would be to undermine our reputation as a humanitarian country that wishes to describe itself as civilised.
Their arguments have been formed around highly emotional anecdotes and images. Time and again we have been treated to stories of children struggling in the squalor at the Calais “Jungle” camp. The iconic photographs of the lifeless body of three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach are frequently invoked. The iconic picture (right) that reduced millions to tears and allowed the luvvies to cry “Let ’em all in!” You will notice that nowhere is there any consideration of the stress this is causing on existing British communities, especially those in the poorer areas where refugees are invariably housed. Nor is there any recognition of the profound unfairness this imposes on the native White community who will be required to support these strangers via the welfare system, health and housing services. Such a process is not only unaffordable, it makes a mockery of the basic idea that help from the welfare state is in return from previous tax contributions.
There is a largely unspoken reason for this: resentment over Britain’s perceived inadequacy in admitting Jewish refugees before World War II. In fact, Britain admitted many tens of thousands of Jews in the 1930s, but it is an article of faith amongst many Jews that Britain could and should have admitted many more.
Typical of this attitude was the speech of Rabbi Herschel Gluck, founder of the Muslim-Jewish Forum. He says he lost over 100 relatives in the Holocaust and implied that Britain’s wartime attitudes to refugees were to blame for this. “I feel obliged to ensure we don’t make the same mistakes,” he said.
Numerous references were made to the Kindertransport programme by which Jewish children from Europe were smuggled into Britain. (The TOO has already debunked much of this greatly mythologised episode.)
A veteran of that same Kindertransport is the figurehead for the Calais refugee crusade. eighty-four year old Lord Alf Dubs , a veteran Labour politician. He has tirelessly campaigned for mass immigration all his life. A former director of the Refugee Council, he somehow arrived in Britain aged six in 1939 despite Britain’s horrendous attitudes at the time, and was shown much Christian charity. Since then, he has chosen to repay this kindness by devoting his life to opening Britain’s borders to non-Whites from around the globe.
According to EU law, refugees should have been processed at the first country they arrived at, so some ruse had to dreamed up whereby Britain could allow their entry. This was done through a device known as the EU’s Dublin III regulation, whereby lone refugee children could be taken to any European country where they have a relative.
This was not enough for Lord Dubs. He wanted the “child refugees” in the Calais “Jungle” admitted to Britain without any “family reunion” qualification and pushed his own amendment which would oblige the British government to transfer to the UK any unaccompanied refugee children from Europe.
To this end Lord Dubs was able to count on wholesale establishment support. Not just the Archbishop of Canterbury but charities , NGOs and even economists all rallied round. JEWISH POLITICIAN LORD ALF DUBS “He has ceaselessly campaigned for mass immigration all his life, devoting his life to opening Britain’s borders to non-Whites from around the globe.”
The Occidental Observer has already shown the hugely disproportionate Jewish influence on a similar letter from senior lawyers. The same disproportionately Jewish influence can be seen in the plea from the 126 economists. One of the signatories was Jonathan Portes, who can be fairly regarded as the architect of Tony Blair’s mass immigration disaster .
So it seemed as if the passing of the Dubs amendment to an immigration bill was a foregone conclusion. But then at the vote in the House of Commons there was a problem. For Conservative politicians had not long finished fighting a general election campaign in which their voters had left them in no doubt how they felt about the never-ending waves of mass immigration. In the House of Commons the Dubs amendment was defeated . Jewish campaigners could barely contain their anger.
The nagging, scolding words of Dr. Edie Friedman , director of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality, were characteristic.
As a result, children across Europe will remain cold, alone and at risk over the coming months. This was an opportunity to stand on the right side of history, to bring relief to just 3,000 of the 95,000 unaccompanied children who applied for asylum in Europe last year.
We wake up this morning on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of compassion.The Immigration Bill has shown the UK at its worst, uncaring about the suffering of children a mere 30 miles away in places like Calais, but it has also shown us (sic!) at our best.
Rabbi Harry Jacobi too was beside himself with anger at MPs voting in accordance with their electorate’s wishes. For him loomed the shadow of 1938, when Britain decided to stop the flood of Jewish refugees.
Too many MPs with hardened hearts, just like the biblical story of Pharaoh. To close their eyes and hearts to unaccompanied children, to insist that it is alright to detain pregnant women, and that refugees can still be detained indefinitely simply on the say so of an immigration official. These are not the actions of a world-leading moral civilisation. REAL CHILD REFUGEES FROM SYRIA FAKE “CHILD REFUGEES” FROM THE THIRD WORLD— the type being let into Britain right now under Jewish pressure.
Then, in one of his last acts as Prime Minister, David Cameron did a U-turn and announced he would allow the amendment to go through unopposed.
Now Britain could admit the bogus 3,000 “refugee children” unilaterally. — § —
Citizens UK’s main task seems to be getting migrants or “refugees” into Britain and dispersed around the country. It describes itself as a “community organiser’s hub,” but is in fact an arm of the state with deep pockets and a nationwide network of affiliated organisations. It has fought many legal battles for refugees and succeeded in getting migrant “child asylum seekers” released from detention centres and housed in the wider community.
So how Jewish is it? At letterhead level it seems to be drawn from a cross-section of the community, but at organiser level, the Citizens UK appears to be disproportionately Jewish. (This tactic of recruiting sympathetic non-Jews and giving them highly visible position in Jewish-dominated causes has a very long history, going back at least to immigration battles in the early twentieth century, as recounted in Chapter 6 of SAID [p. 192ff] and Chapter 7 of Culture of Critique [e.g., pp. 249-250].) They include the Citizens UK spokeswoman , Rabbi Janet Darley, who, of course, has a tear-jerking story to tell. She said it was when a 15-year-old migrant fell under the wheels of a truck he was trying to board that she felt that she had to get involved.
For me, that was the deal breaker — I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do everything I could to make sure there were no more dead children. … The Torah warns us against the wronging of a stranger. For us, this is core teaching and not an optional extra.
Another Jewish Citizens UK activist is senior organiser Charlotte Fischer, who is lobbying for Britain to increase the total number of “Syrian” refugees it has agreed to take from 20,000 to 50,000. “We are doing shamefully compared to Canada” she chides.
But the UK is doing awesomely compared to Israel. Doesn’t that count for anything? — § —
Citizens UK campaigner Rabbi Danny Rich is co-chair of yet another arm of the refugee industry, the National Refugee Welcome Board. He clearly has the magic touch when it comes to getting access on the BBC. Since the beginning of September he has graced at least half a dozen BBC outlets including the main BBC TV news and the BBC World Service and gets softball kidglove treatment from all of them. He blithely brushed aside the concerns of ordinary British people: “Look at the Kindertransport and the contribution made to Britain over the last 70 years by those who escaped the Nazis. Look at the contributions made today by doctors, nurses and care workers, many of who were not English born.” Anyone doubting the distinctly Jewish flavour of Citizens UK would be advised to look at this promotional video .
Of course, no British refugee campaign would be complete without the presence of Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner who can be guaranteed to be at the forefront at any number of “multi faith” immigrant events including a Citizens UK vigil outside the House of Commons.
Citizens UK is an umbrella organisation overseeing local grass roots initiatives for refugees all over the country, many of which are Jewish-organised. One of the main ones is called Safe Passage UK . In an article for the Jewish Chronicle, the two Jewish organisers described their work as “fighting injustice.” Apparently a group of synagogues had raised £200,000 for them in just a few weeks.
Rabbi Rebecca Birk was recently named by the Evening Standard as one of London’s most influential people for her fund raising for Safe Passage UK. Again, her entire rationale is bound up with her Jewish identity, framed, of course, as a moral imperative stemming from the inherently moral essence of Judaism. She says :
The Jewish identity is predicated on being a foreigner, relying on the kindness of strangers, it runs through our own theology really: doing good, mending the world. We talk of three pillars the world stands on — the Torah, divine service, and kind acts. It’s an anathema to be a Jew and only be concerned with oneself.
LD : The idea that all Jews are full of sweetness and light, overflowing with the milk of human kindness toward their fellow human beings, can be dismissed at once as bordering on the absurd. Here are two prominent Jews who would like to see the White race genocided and White women and children cruelly raped and killed: 1. HARVARD PROFESSOR DR NOEL IGNATIEF 2. RABBI ISHMAEL LEVITTS — § —
A clear sense of Jewish identity also informed the efforts of the three fashionable north London women who decided to put their media careers on hold to set up the Help Refugees charity in the Calais “Jungle.” The women, two of whom are Jewish, have tapped into a lucrative market indeed, and their outfit was one of the biggest players in Calais. It has been a massive, trendy, profile-raising success. After setting up, they were inundated with corporate contributions, and now they run 26 projects from Israel and on the migrant trail all the way across Europe. Articles about them focus on “child refugees.” And because Hollywood is well-known for its high moralism, it is not surprising that actors such as Benedict Cumberbatch and Lena Dunham have lent their support.
Help Refugees even has a mobile kitchen on to the shores of Greece where their volunteers are helping refugees from Turkey from their dinghies and then seeing them off on their long journey across Europe. One of these women, Dani Lawrence, insists her parents fled anti-Semitism in Morocco in the sixties.
The Jewish community has an extremely high opinion of its charitable efforts. Their strong Jewish identities and loyalty to their tribe are obvious, and it is wonderful that all that philanthropy makes them feel so good about themselves. But it might be worthwhile for the White British to ask what exactly is in it for them, apart from Kosher certification?
It is time to ask some searching questions about the real motives that lie behind all this Jewish selflessness. After all, a charitable disposition towards Muslims is not exactly a characteristic of Jewish life anywhere else and certainly not in the Palestinian territories. And no question is guaranteed to infuriate Jewish activists more than asking why Israel doesn’t admit any refugees from Syria which is, after all, next door?
So what do they get out of this sudden influx of unassimilable immigrants who have neither the temperament nor inclination to fit into modern Britain? Sadly, as readers of TOO are all to familiar with (see, e.g., “ Is immigration a Jewish value? “), the motivation is not compassion but veiled ethnic vindictiveness aimed at undermining and dispossessing ordinary British people. The motivation is not compassion but veiled ethnic vindictiveness
One of the questions that British people might also ask themselves is this: If those British people in the 1930s who had admitted waves of Jewish refugees could see the fruits of what they had done, what would they think?
If those British people, who were to suffer so much in a war they were told was about “freedom”, if they were to see the streets of Peckham, Newham or any number of London boroughs or cities today overrun by Third-Worlders, what would they think?
And if they were then to be told, in detail, about the role of Jewish activism, power and “philanthropy” in bringing about this transformation, what would their thoughts be then?Perhaps they would agree with so many of us. That the Jewish invocation to “heal the world” seems to be code-words for eradicating White identity and eradicating the power of Whites to control their own destiny.
And perhaps, instead of admitting these “child refugees,” Britain would have been better off remembering the words of another Jewish sage, economist Milton Friedman, who said “You can have a welfare state or you can have open borders, but you cannot have both.” | 0 |
On Monday evening, Kansas Republican Mike Pompeo was confirmed as the next director of the C. I. A. by the U. S. Senate, despite days of stalling and obstruction by Senate Democrats. [Pompeo’s confirmation was scheduled for late last week, but Democrat sniping forced the vote to be rescheduled for Monday. Still, despite the deal to reschedule, up to 25 Senators ultimately voted against the Congressman’s confirmation. The Republican faced several contentious questions during his January 12 hearing but made no major missteps with his answers. During the hearing, Pompeo said he would observe the proper laws forbidding enhanced interrogation of terror suspects and affirmed that he believes Russia is a threat to the United States. He also noted, however, that attempts to undermine Donald Trump play right into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Even with the opposition by Democrats, Pompeo easily cleared the number needed to take his place in President Trump’s administration. The final vote saw some 24 Senators against the candidate, including Vermont independent Bernie Sanders and 22 Democrats. The lone Republican to oppose Pompeo was Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. A Congressman, Pompeo has a background in the military as well as military intelligence and graduated first in his class from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point. He served in the Army and afterward graduated from Harvard Law. Pompeo joined Secretary of State candidate Rex Tillerson, who was also confirmed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Monday. Tillerson’s final vote is scheduled for next week. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
CHENGDU, China — Strange food. Unintelligible natives. These are just some of the things that Bao Bao, the panda from the National Zoo in Washington, has grappled with since moving to China last month. But the culture shock is fading, her handlers say, as she settles into the land of her ancestors. On Friday, after 30 days of quarantine, Bao Bao made her first public appearance at the Dujiangyan base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Sichuan Province. Bao Bao’s new life in China has been not easy, according to Tang Cheng, one of her keepers during her quarantine. Over the past month, she has had to learn Mandarin with a Sichuan accent and get used to the local fare — including wowotou, or steamed cornbread buns, in place of the biscuits she was used to. By now, Bao Bao can understand some commands in Chinese, including “stand up” and “sit down,” Mr. Tang said. Mr. Tang was selected to work with Bao Bao in part because he speaks English as well as Chinese, an important skill to help haigui, or overseas returned, pandas to adapt to their new homes. At the ceremony on Friday, several United States diplomats and dozens of reporters and other guests were on hand to greet Bao Bao. Although they were clearly excited to see her for the first time, waving their hands and shouting her name to get her attention, Bao Bao seemed unimpressed. She spent most of the time sitting in her outdoor playground, munching on bamboo. From time to time, she would examine the rubber balls and tires hanging near her brick enclosure. According to Mr. Tang, Bao Bao spent her first few days in China overcoming jet lag and by now has settled into a routine: four to six meals a day, of bamboo, carrots, apples and wowotou. At first she did not like the wowotou and tended to throw it away. By now, though, Mr. Tang said, “she is adapting well to her new environment,” and has gained more than four pounds. Bao Bao is not the first panda to face the challenges of a new life. In November, when Mei Lun and Mei Huan, the first surviving panda twins to have been born in the United States, at Zoo Atlanta, came to China, the Chinese news media reported that they, too, had difficulties with the local language and food. According to the conservation and research center, 25 pandas have been born abroad since the 1990s, when China set up panda breeding programs in collaboration with 17 zoos in 12 countries. Of these, 18 have survived. By agreement, pandas provided by China are considered loans, and their offspring must be sent to China before their fourth birthday in preparation for breeding. Bao Bao was born on Aug. 23, 2013, to Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, two pandas on loan to the National Zoo. Her older brother, Tai Shan, who was born in 2005 and sent to China in 2010, is now her neighbor at the Dujiangyan base. A younger brother, Bei Bei, was born in 2015 and is still in Washington. A 2016 report by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature put the total number of giant pandas around 2, 060. While that is up from the 1, 596 counted in a census, the health of the population depends on continued conservation efforts. Each panda has a mission to spread the genes, and Bao Bao is no exception. Once she reaches sexual maturity, around 5 or 6 years old, she will acquire a boyfriend. “When Bao Bao gets to that age, we will arrange for her to meet many young males,’’ Mr. Tang said, “and their relationship will be based on love. ” | 1 |
Comments Actor Steven Seagal has just stood up for America, while the rest of Hollywood remains silent. This week has been rough for our country. First, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton collapsed at the 9/11 memorial. Then, she called millions of hardworking Americans “deplorable.” As if that weren’t enough, NFL players throughout the country have been blatantly disrespecting the American flag. Needless to say, Seagal had enough. “I think the most important job as Secretary of State is ensuring our people don’t get killed,” Seagal tweeted. “If you can’t do [email protected] “Pneumonia or not, she is going to be disastrous for the American people. #NoToHillary,” he continued. Of course, Seagal quickly became the target of liberal fire for his comments, but he refused to break down. He particularly lost it when one Twitter user tried to argued that Hillary was the most capable for the presidency. “Capable? Capable of leaving AMERICANS to die. Capable of disregarding law. Capable of disrespecting rape survivors,” he argued. He then went on to address race relations in the United States, and the true role President Barack Obama has played in the social evolution of this country. “Obama has been abysmal for race relations in USA. #TRUTH We need to start having honest dialog,” he wrote. Seagal concluded by pointing out the irony of the attacks he was receiving from liberals everywhere. “Best thing in the world…Making one statement about freedom and getting attacked by every Demo out there… #HYPOCRITICAL,” he tweeted. “An America without a democrat in the White House, is a SAFER America.” What do you think of Seagal’s comments? | 0 |
Comments
has filed a federal complaint against FBI Director James Comey for the inappropriate partisan use of his official position as the leader our nation’s top federal law enforcement agency. Yesterday, FBI Comey issued a vaguely worded memo to Congressional Republicans about an email loosely linked toHillary Clinton, which House Republican Jason Chaffetz quickly used to punk the media on Twitter, leading to a swirl of false stories about Clinton and emails — most of which required corrections.
The Department of Justice’s Office of Special Counsel is in charge of enforcing Hatch Act violations when federal employees like FBI Director Comey abuse their offices for political reasons. That’s where DCAT sent their harshly worded complaint: “This is an election year, and we are just 11 days away from the date that the American public votes to choose the next President of the United States, I am writing to ask that an investigation be opened into Director Comey for any potential violations of the Hatch Act. The timing of this announcement, accompanied by the vague facts of the investigation, seems as if Director Comey was making a political move, and not a professional one.” [text of complaint] filed a complaint with the Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility on Friday against FBI Director James Comey for interfering in the Presidential election, following the FBI’s decision to open up an investigation into Secretary Clinton’s emails this close to Election Day. Federal employees are forbidden from participating in political activities under the Hatch Act. “It is absolutely absurd that FBI Director Comey would support Donald Trump like this with only 11 days to go before the election,” said Scott Dworkin, Senior Advisor to the Democratic Coalition Against Trump. “ It is an obvious attack from a lifelong Republican who used to serve in the Bush White House, just to undermine her campaign. Comey needs to focus on stopping terrorists and protecting America, not investigating our soon to be President-Elect Hillary Clinton.” Most federal employees are prohibited from engaging in partisan electioneering under federal law by “ An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities,” otherwise known as the Hatch Act. It makes very narrow exceptions for partisan campaigning by the President, Vice President and a few designated high-ranking members of the Executive Branch of government. The FBI’s Director is not one of those exempt positions, and former Bush appointee James Comey’s vaguely worded memo to Congress reeks of partisan political interference to help fellow desperate Republicans at the end of a hotly contested general election. | 0 |
Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. PLEASE DONATE TO KEEP BARE NAKED ISLAM UP AND RUNNING. Choose DONATE for one-time donation or SUBSCRIBE for monthly donations Payment Options GET ALL NEW BNI POSTS/LINKS ON TWITTER Subscribe to Blog via Email
Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Email Address | 0 |
13 Herbal Teas With Highest Antioxidants http://blogs.naturalnews.com/13-herbal-teas-highest-antioxidants/
By Twain Yobra
Posted Thursday, October 27, 2016 at 11:14am EDT
Herbal teas are known to benefit our health, weight, longevity, and happiness. And most of these benefits are experienced due to their antioxidant properties. Antioxidants control free radicals that are produced during oxidation in the body.
Getting antioxidants from teas will prevent damage of cells, and lower risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Use the herbal teas below to get enough antioxidants.
1. Echinacea Tea
This tea will boost your immune system. A study conducted on people with early signs of cold and flu found that there was faster recovery in those who drank tea with Echinacea, compared to those who didn’t. Studies also show that this herbal tea reduces risk of colds by 58 percent.
2. Matcha Green Tea
Green tea is among the most consumed herbal teas in the world. But matcha green tea (from japan) is the healthiest. It has 17 times more antioxidants than blueberries.
3. Fennel tea
Fennel tea can reduce bloating and gas. Research also shows that it can even reduce menstrual pain.
4. Lavender tea
This herb can keep you calm and reduce anxiety. It can also treat insomnia, arthritis, body aches, and stomach problems.
5. Chamomile Tea
This herb is popularly known for increasing calmness and improving quality of sleep. But it can also regulate blood sugar levels , and consequently lower risk of diabetes. In this study researchers found that chamomile lowered mortality risk by 29 percent.
6. Lemongrass Tea
This tea can lower blood pressure, aid digestion, and reduce anxiety. It also has antibacterial and antifungal properties that will improve skin health and reduce risk of developing colds and flus.
7. Nettle tea
This tea will get rid of toxins in the urinary tract. Additionally, nettle is rich in iron which means it will reduce risk of anemia.
8. Hibiscus tea
Researchers say that hibiscus tea can lower blood pressure and reduce pain in the respiratory tract.
9. Oolong tea
This tea is made using the same plants used to make black or green teas. But it ages at a duration longer than green tea but shorter than black tea. Studies show it can enhance weight loss and lower cholesterol.
10. Thyme tea
Thyme tea is rich in antioxidants which reduce pain in the stomach and throat. In fact, it’s an excellent pain reliever for most body aches.
11. Rooibos tea
Rooibos can eliminate allergies, asthma and high blood pressure. You can greatly benefit from drinking 2-3 cups a day.
12. Peppermint tea
Researchers say that this tea can improve digestion. It has also been said to increase satiety and promote weight loss.
13. Rosemary tea
According to research , rosemary can boost brain performance. And it can also improve eye health.
For more information on eating healthy and staying fit, download your FREE 3 Weeks Flat Stomach Guide to help you improve your health and physique. And like our Facebook page . You might also like… | 0 |
This article was written by John Vibes and originally published at Activist Post.com .
Editor’s Comment: On the surface, there are good intentions here. The Bushes, like other patriotic establishment figures, always honor the troops, and count the sacrifices. Typically, they are stoic and praiseworthy of everything the military does. But underneath the surface, one has to wonder what is really going on inside the disturbed mind of George W. Bush – whose orders for an illegal war in Iraq, and a broader War on Terror in Afghanistan and elsewhere resulted in the deaths of thousands of U.S. troops, tens of thousands of wounded or injured and potentially more than a million civilians dead.
Does he feel remorse? Guilt? Has he admitted to his personal responsibility for what happened to their lives? Or do his paintings reveal a morbid sense of power over the lives of men and women whom he can only reflect upon and humanize after the fact? Considering that the Iraq war was based upon a provable lie – or false intelligence if you prefer to lie to yourself – something seems very off about honoring victims who wouldn’t have been harmed if Bush himself hadn’t authorized the actions that took place under his watch.
George W. Bush Paints Portraits Of The Veterans Who Were “Injured Carrying Out My Orders”
by John Vibes
This Veterans Day, former president George W. Bush revealed one of his favorite hobbies and talents, painting portraits. However, there was an extremely disturbing twist.
This week, Bush posted a photo to his official Instagram account, showing himself in an art room painting portraits of the veterans who were injured carrying out his orders. He was even brazen enough to describe the situation in those exact words.
In the caption below the photo, Bush said,
Over the past several months, I’ve painted the portraits of 98 wounded warriors I’ve gotten to know – remarkable men and women who were injured carrying out my orders. I think about them on #VeteransDay and every day. Their paintings and stories will be featured in PORTRAITS OF COURAGE – a book and special exhibit – next spring, and I am donating all my proceeds to @thebushcenter and our Military Service Initiative’s work to honor and support them. Click link in bio for more info.
Is this a slap in the face to the veterans who Bush sent to be injured and die in senseless wars, or does he actually have remorse for the part he played in the conflicts?
The portraits will also be featured in a book that will be released by the former president and will tell the stories of the veterans depicted in the paintings.
For some reason, despite the fact that Bush said he painted 98 veterans, the official “portraits of courage” series consists of a total of 66 images, according to the website.
66 is a bit of a strange number for them to select, don’t you think?
The paintings in the book will be the subject of a special exhibit at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas on the campus of SMU that will be open to the public from March 2, 2017 through October 1, 2017.
This article was written by John Vibes and originally published at Activist Post.com .
John Vibes is an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference . He also has a publishing company where he offers a censorship free platform for both fiction and non-fiction writers. You can contact him and stay connected to his work at his Facebook page. John is currently battling cancer naturally , without any chemo or radiation, and will be working to help others through his experience, if you wish to contribute to his treatments please donate. | 0 |
LACADONIE, Haiti — When the rain comes at night in these distant mountains, the people flee what homes they have left. They race down hills threaded with stones and ragged palm branches, the earth the color of rust. They arrive at a cave carved into the hillside, the only sanctuary left after the storm. It is a holy place now, having saved hundreds of villagers during the worst of Hurricane Matthew, when nature tore their homes to the ground. It is still the only thing to protect them. For four days and nights, they huddled in its womb before emerging, frightened the hurricane might return. They slept on a floor of stacked boulders near the cave’s mouth, lighting small fires for warmth and light. When they left, they salvaged enough to shield them from the sun, a few corroded sheets of zinc and scattered wooden beams. But when it rains they return to the cave, their shacks unable to keep the water out. And despite the odor and humidity, the unforgiving crags and profound darkness, they are thankful. “It is our house that God created when we most needed it,” said Destine Jean, one of the villagers who first alerted the government of the closest town, Beaumont, to the people living in caves. “Without this cave, a lot of people would have died. This is the only shelter we have. ” For much of the world, Haiti is known more as a crisis than a country. Disaster, whether or natural, has come to define the nation, where progress is often just a prelude to another step back. Dictators, corrupt officials and international meddling have competed with earthquakes and hurricanes to destabilize the country. There is a mean echo to the hurricane’s fallout this time around. After the 2010 earthquake flattened the capital and its surroundings, the struggle to get hundreds of thousands of Haitians out of tent cities and back into homes defined the nation’s recovery. Now, schools and hospitals are again overflowing with the displaced, people whose homes are so gutted that leaving them makes more sense than staying. Where there is no shelter, residents are stripped to bare survival and forced to find their own way, even in caves. Officials in Beaumont say there are at least six caves they know of like this one, sheltering a total of 550 people living amid the alps of the country’s southwest. It was not until leaders like Mr. Jean gradually made their way down to seek help that officials even realized the people were living in caves. The mayor of Beaumont, Alexis Faveur, shook his head in disbelief as he described the damage left by the hurricane this month, and the deplorable circumstances it reduced them to. He dispatches workers every few days to check on the villages, sending them on a climb of several hours, bearing bags of rice, beans, pasta and cooking oil. But there was no space for any more survivors in Beaumont the shelters are already overcrowded. “The only place they can seek shelter is the cave,” he said, seated at a desk in his office, with windows and no electricity. “There are no more houses there. ” The village of Lacadonie embodies the very worst of what this hurricane has left behind. Families scour for crops spared by the rain and scavenge the hillsides for plantains and beans not yet turned. A woman cooks rancid goat meat for her children, rinsing the blackened flesh with sour orange to cut the smell. Families mourn their dead in nighttime rituals, the spirits excised without being counted in a formal registry. Residents have started the hard work of rebuilding, fitting together the broken pieces of their homes and lives without a trace of . Most estimate it will be years before they can afford to restore their residences, even to the humble state they were in before. For now, they will make do with far more modest accommodations. The first home to be rebuilt after the storm belonged to L’Anise Nazaire, who owns the lands where the cave is. If God saved the people with the cave, villagers say, then Ms. Nazaire was his messenger. A slight whose shyness belies her courage, Ms. Nazaire risked her life to implore people to flee, delegating the task of saving her own mother to neighbors so that she could race up the mountain and warn others. She led them to the cave and the soaring cathedral of stalagmites at its base, where thick bands of light issue from an opening above. Many risked the steep descent to feel the sunlight during their stay. “After God, she gave us life,” Celor Montuna, a skeletal farmer, said of Ms. Nazaire. “She came and saved us. ” During the storm, they watched through the mouth of the cave as the wind and rain sowed destruction, carrying entire trees past the entrance like leaves tossed on a breeze. “I thought Jesus was coming,” said Ms. Nazaire, pausing for a moment before breaking into a fit of laughter. For all the gratitude, she claims no glory. The second phase of survival leaves no time for victory laps. In her newly constructed home, a jigsaw puzzle of retrofitted planks, thatched tinder and rescued roofing, everyone is busy. “My life would be worthless without the others,” she said. “Without them, I would be dead myself. ” In the cleared patch of land where her family lives, her mother, Elaide Fracile, shucked dried beans from a tangle of pods, gathered hastily from their spoiled fields. Her played in her lap as she sorted through the remaining food, plucking out beans more by sense than sight. Her eyes are a milky blue, clouded by cataracts, her skin luminous and smooth. She says she is 100 years old. She is old enough to remember the last time a hurricane like Matthew upended life, and cannot help but register history’s echo. “I had a child with me that was 15 days old when Hurricane Hazel struck” in 1954, she said, handing a small black bean to the infant. “Here I am again with this little one. ” The child, abandoned by her mother, now belongs to her, Ms. Fracile said. They were together, in the same place, when Hurricane Matthew struck. Her son carried her on his back to the cave. “I’ve survived four storms,” she said. “But none have killed people like this one. ” She beamed at her daughter, Ms. Nazaire. “It would have been worse without the cave,” she said. “God has not abandoned us. ” Neighbors have come to one another’s aid, sharing food and resources — the valor of a community where the missing are known by name. A week after the storm, a goat herder, Jean Robert, his animals long since dead and rotting in the piercing sun, distributed what meat he had. Lithome a father of six children, claimed a leg blackened by rot for his family. He carted the meat to his wife, who prepared it in the yard of their shattered home as the sun set over the ridgeline. The stench wafted over the village, a putrid essence of death detectable in just about every remote reach of the region. The busy work of staving off starvation occupied Mr. ’s family. Father and son plucked dried corn kernels from their brown sheathing, tossing unusable white kernels to a starving pig that survived the storm. Oranges found on the ground were squeezed over the meat. Young children pulled still younger ones away from the flames of a wood fire. A pot of beans was placed between two flat stones to cook for everyone. A rooster crowed as a dense fog rolled over the mountains. “Our country has collapsed,” muttered a boy, Wilkens Desrosiers, who had come looking for food. “We cannot go to school and it will be years before we can rebuild our homes to what they once were. ” More neighbors arrived, each helping in their own way, sifting the food into tidy piles or fetching water from a river at the base of the mountain. The cave remained on their minds. “Until we can rebuild our homes to stand the rain, we will return when it storms,” he said. The dead were mourned in their absence. Mr. Desrosiers counted six by name, their passing registered only in the minds of survivors. Throughout the mountains, death was recorded in intimate rituals, held in the valleys and far reaches, obscured from the eyes of outsiders. Near midnight, miles from the village, the pained ballads carried in the dark, fixed to the rhythm of drums fashioned from buckets and tin plates. The music filled the hills, rising in a haunting chorus, the source visible by a sole candle lit in the bedroom of the departed. The words conveyed a simple hurt, a mélange of strength and loss. “We are poor people, but we are strong,” they sang. “We will not live on our knees. ” The men sat in a small circle, the sons of a farmer who died in the storm. Led by their eldest brother, they would sing for eight days, having arrived only that morning from the capital to bury their father, Miradieu Alexis. They spent the day reconstructing what they could of the home, now a solitary cabin embedded in the shadowless countryside of night. As they danced and sang, the smell of crushed foliage and sour rum filled the air, a performance as anonymous as the death it venerated. | 1 |
MIAMI BEACH — Michal Keren David stood alone amid the confectionery swirl that draws millions to the adult playground of South Beach, clutching not a minty mojito or even a ubiquitous cellphone, but one of the very latest symbols of life here: mosquito repellent. As she spritzed herself next to a sidewalk cafe on Lincoln Road, Ms. David lamented her ill timing. Just Friday morning, as she headed to fly out of New York, bound for a weekend in Miami, she said she learned the latest news about Zika. The virus, which can cause birth defects in fetuses, had found a new, albeit small, home on South Beach. Ordinarily, she said, she might have simply shrugged off the news. “I’m thinking of trying to get pregnant in the next month,” said Ms. David, 32. “We thought maybe about canceling, but we also thought we have to live our lives. This will get to New York City, too. It will be all over the place. ” On Friday, this rollicking southern slice of Miami Beach, a place long accustomed to boom and bust, downtrodden and glamorous, became the second official target zone of the mosquito, Aedes aegypti, in the continental United States. The discovery forced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to advise pregnant women not to venture into a 1. area from Eighth to 28th Streets on one side and from the beach to the Intracoastal Waterway on the other. But federal health officials also warned them to consider postponing travel anywhere in County. As local government and tourism officials emphasized that the safety of residents, workers and guests came first, it was hard to sidestep the obvious: Would tourists stay away from the island’s alluring beaches, hip hotels and clubs? And if they did, what would it mean for the economy of Miami Beach — the superstar of the county’s $36 billion tourism industry? “As we said before, we will do everything in our power so that people feel safe,” said Miami Beach’s mayor, Philip Levine, stressing that “Miami Beach is having a record summer. ” From one moment to the next, a new protocol has taken root, one gleaned from the lessons learned in Wynwood, the small arts district across the bay that became the virus’s first hub of active transmission in the continental United States. Wynwood has suffered a sharp decline in business. Some hotels here began to slip Zika information sheets under the doors of the guest rooms. Bartenders offered patrons cans of repellent along with their shaken martinis. Electric fans, already in use to soften the suffocating heat and humidity, were cranked up high, all the easier to thwart Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. At Meat Market, a steakhouse on Lincoln Road, a teeming pedestrian mall, citronella candles quickly appeared under a row of outdoor tables on Friday moments after the news broke. Employees were asked to wear bug spray until repellent wristbands arrived. “We never really have a lot of mosquitoes,” said David Tornek, the restaurant’s chief executive, who said he hoped the problem was fleeting. He paused and added, “You hope that people look at this rationally. ” The reaction from tourists here, many of them from Europe and Latin America, seemed to swing from panicked to nonchalant. As she sat on a patch of artificial turf eating pizza and watching her son play paddle ball, Vania Acosta — who is Cuban by way of Naples, Italy, and is visiting South Beach with family — said she quickly became paranoid. “I bought 40 cans of bug spray,” Ms. Acosta said, a turban atop her head. “I am spraying repellent in my room, in my house, right here. What worries me is that they don’t know enough about it. When I heard yesterday, I wanted to leave. ” But she is staying it is too complicated to leave. And, she said, she is enamored of the South Beach vibe, a mix of ethnicities and lifestyles, where women stride past Doc Martens lovers, all to the murmur of palm trees and foreign languages. “Like the woman I saw wearing a long black and a white wedding veil,” she said. “I love it here I love the people here. ” Strolling past Art Deco hotels on Ocean Drive, South Beach’s most crowded stretch, Lorenzo Villa, 24, a graduate student at West Virginia University who arrived Friday morning for a week’s vacation, made one accommodation: He bought bug repellent. Beyond that, he expects his vacation will be worry free. “Honestly, I don’t think it’s an issue,” said Mr. Villa, who was born in Argentina and grew up in Annapolis, Md. “I don’t see any mosquitoes. Maybe it’s only a problem if there’s a big swarm. I’m pretty chill. ” There are mosquitoes on Miami Beach, but, with its strong breezes and saltwater barriers, the chain of islands is less hospitable to mosquitoes than other parts of the county. But it is also dense, with plenty of old buildings full of nooks and crannies. The city is also hampered in turning to a tactic that helped Wynwood reduce its population of aegypti: the aerial spraying of Naled. The area, with its beaches, ocean and buildings, is not suited for it, county officials said. Getting tourists to comply with rules, though, will not be easy. People come here to escape obligations and to strip down to the bare essentials. Long sleeves and admonishments are not really welcome. Sex, though, is often on a list, raising concerns that the virus will spread through sexual transmission. For the most part, those visitors who are not pregnant or pondering pregnancy seemed unfazed and . “There is always something going on,” said Yesenia Medina, 40, a respiratory therapist from Miami who sat at an outdoor bar, Campton Yard, which had installed automatic insecticide misters even before the Zika scare. “Now it’s Zika, and last month, it was something else. ” But, with a laugh, Ms. Medina said she heard a rescue plan was in the works. “Donald Trump is building a net over the beach, and he’s getting the mosquitoes to pay for it,” she said, riffing on the Republican presidential nominee’s plan to erect a wall on the Southern border and have Mexico pay for it. As the sun inched below the horizon and a moon glinted over the ocean, Claudia Iraheta, 21, a hostess, stood nearby at the Penguin Hotel cafe, cradling menus over her pronounced belly. The Zika virus is no casual concern for her. She is five months pregnant. “It’s a baby girl,” she said happily. Friday, she said, was an especially long and worrisome day. She thought twice about going to work, where she stands outside promoting the cafe to . “I was scared, paranoid,” said Ms. Iraheta, who moved to Miami from El Salvador a decade ago. But work is work, so she slathered on mosquito repellent and put on long pants, despite the sweltering heat. On Monday, she will head to the doctor to be tested for the virus. She says she does not think she has been exposed. “In the name of God, I hope not,” Ms. Iraheta said. | 1 |
US Hypocrisy Over Russian ‘War Crimes’ November 4, 2016
Amid the sludge of propaganda, it’s hard to know what’s really happening in Syria, but the West’s outrage over Russian-inflicted civilian casualties is clearly hypocritical given the U.S.-Israeli slaughters elsewhere in the region, notes Gareth Porter.
By Gareth Porter
The Russian-Syrian bombing campaign in eastern Aleppo, which has ended at least for the time being, has been described in press reports and op-eds as though it were unique in modern military history in its indiscriminateness. In an unusual move for a senior U.S. official, called for an investigation of war crimes in Aleppo.
The discussion has been lacking in historical context, however. Certainly the civilian death toll from the bombing and shelling in Aleppo has been high, but many of the strikes may not be all that dissimilar from the major U.S. bombing campaign in Iraq in 2003, nor as indiscriminate as Israel’s recent campaigns in densely populated cities. At the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, ordered the U.S. military to conduct a devastating aerial assault on Baghdad, known as “shock and awe.”
The impression that the bombing in Aleppo was uniquely indiscriminate was a result of news reporting and commentary suggesting, by implication, that there are no real military targets in east Aleppo.
But in fact, al-Nusra Front (Al Qaeda’s affiliate) turned Aleppo into the central hub of a massive system of conventional warfare in Aleppo province in late January 2016 when it sent an enormous convoy of at least 200 vehicles with troops and weaponry into eastern Aleppo. A dramatic three-minute al-Nusra video shows what appears to be hundreds of vehicles full of troops and trucks with weapons mounted on them.
The Russian command in Syria has drones observing the routes in and out of Aleppo, so it certainly knew where many of those military sites were located. Syrian opposition sources also revealed that Nusra began immediately to put the military assets at its disposal underground, digging deep bunkers to protect troops, military equipment and tunnels through which troops and weapons could be moved unseen.
The move underground explains the Russian use of bunker-buster bombs for the first time in the war. As the Guardian reported , Justin Bronk of the British defense think tank Royal United Service Institute concluded that the Russians “have high-grade intelligence of the whereabouts of Syrian opposition positions,” mainly because bunker buster bombs are too expensive to use simply to destroy buildings at random.
But like Hamas fighters in Gaza in 2014, the Nusra Front-led command in Aleppo has moved its troops, weapons and command centers around in the tunnels that they have built. So many of the Russian and Syrian air strikes are almost certainly hitting targets that have already been abandoned. And in other cases, the wrong target has undoubtedly been hit.
The Aleppo Health Directorate, a local monitoring group, estimated that 400 civilians had been killed in the first three weeks of bombing in east Aleppo. The United Nations put the death toll at 360 .
Drop the Superiority Act
As terrible as that toll of civilian lives is, the United States should drop the stance of moral superiority. When the U.S. military invaded Iraq in 2003, it made no effort to keep track of how many civilians were killed in its bombing and artillery fire, claiming it had no way to tell who was civilian and who was not. in a flight suit after landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln to give his “Mission Accomplished” speech about the Iraq War on May 1, 2003.
And the best estimates of civilians killed in U.S. and Israeli urban wars don’t provide any basis for moral superiority. A survey of Baghdad’s hospitals by the Los Angeles Times in May 2003 produced an estimate of at least 1,700 civilians killed in the first five weeks of American war. The estimate included those who had died in ground fighting and from unexploded ordnance, but even with those contributing factors subtracted from the total, it would still be far greater than those killed in the assault on east Aleppo on a weekly basis.
The three-week Israeli war on Gaza City in 2009 and the seven-week war on Gaza in 2014 were also far deadlier than Aleppo. The former killed 773 civilians, according to an investigation by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. The latter killed 1,473 Palestinian civilians, according to the UN Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs .
The one feature of the Russian-Syrian air offensive on east Aleppo that seems most clearly to violate the laws of war is the targeting of hospitals. Media accounts have referred to air strikes with barrel bombs that have hit two major hospitals in the rebel-held part of the city.
The Syrian government has been acting as though it regards the hospitals in eastern Aleppo as serving the Nusra Front command, and the hospitals, which are under intense pressure from the militants who run that part of Aleppo, have fed the government’s suspicions.
As a detailed report by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on the air strikes that hit the Al Quds hospital on April 27 explains, the local organization that created a new system of hospitals in 2011 decided not to declare the hospitals openly but to keep them “underground” – meaning secret from the government.
In fact, of course, the government knows perfectly well where all 10 hospitals in east Aleppo are located. The April 27 air strike that damaged the Al Quds hospital shows how the government has responded. It began with an air strike that destroyed a building across the street from the hospital. The building was a school, but former residents of east Aleppo who have gotten out have confirmed that organizations associated with the al-Qaeda-dominated command have located their offices in schools to try to hide their staff.
Within a few minutes of the initial strike, according to the MSF account, Al Quds hospital staff were pulling survivors out of the rubble and taking them across the street to the emergency room, whereupon the Syrian air force dropped a barrel bomb at the entrance to the emergency room, killing several of the hospital staff, including one doctor. Then it dropped one close enough to the side of the hospital to hit the emergency room and, minutes later, hit a building down the block where hospital staff were staying.
Such attacks on those who try to save the lives of survivors of bombing attacks – sometimes called “double tap” attacks” – are rightly condemned as violations of humanitarian law. And the belief that the staff at the hospital are operating in effect as medics for the adversary’s military does not justify attacking it and the wounded sheltered there.
But such violations of the laws of war are hardly unique to Aleppo or Syria.
Hardly Unique
U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan have hit rescuers or mourners after hitting their initial targets in numerous documented cases . In the 2009 Gaza attacks, the Israeli military argued that Hamas fighters were using hospitals to hide from Israeli bombing, but offered no valid evidence to support it, as the Goldstone Report showed . An Israeli strike caused a huge explosion in a residential area in Gaza during the Israeli assault on Gaza in 2008-2009. (Photo credit: Al Jazeera)
In 2014, the Israelis completely destroyed the Al-Wafa hospital in an air strike recorded for public release after claiming falsely that it had been fired on by Palestinian gunmen.
In its wars in Gaza and in Lebanon, the IDF has gone well beyond the Russian and Syrian Aleppo campaign in refusing to recognize any distinction between civilian targets. It not only targeted civilian offices in both Gaza wars, but treated entire areas of the city as a legitimate target, on the premise that all civilians had been ordered to leave.
And in both Gaza and in Beirut suburb of Dahiya , the IDF levelled several high-rise buildings where they believed Hezbollah had offices. The IDF called it the “Dahiya doctrine”, and threatened “great damage and destruction” on any adversary in any future war in the region.
Heavy bombing in a city is inherently fraught with moral risk, and attacks on genuine civilian targets can never be excused. But such practices have been carried out and legitimized in the past by the very government that is now claiming the role of moral and legal arbiter. That hypocrisy needs to be recognized and curbed as well.
Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and winner of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. He is the author of the newly published Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare. [This article originally appeared at Middle East Eye.] | 0 |
Arizona’s state board of education (SBE) has voted to “rebrand” Common Core, i. e. replace the existing Common Core standards with the same standards that contain only some minor changes. [“The Arizona Board of Education has voted to approve new education standards to replace the Common Core State Standards,” Education Week reports, “But the changes are minor rather than a repudiation of the effort to set standards for what students should know in arts and mathematics. ” The prominent change in the standards is the addition of cursive writing lessons through fifth grade, an element that Common Core does not provide. In addition, Arizona’s standards will now require younger students to study the concepts of time and money, and to spell frequently used words. “These new standards represent the final step in the repeal and replacement of the common core in Arizona, and they reflect the thoughts and recommendations of thousands of Arizona citizens,” said state schools superintendent Diane Douglas in a press release. “The federally mandated Common Core Standards were initially adopted by the SBE in 2010 without a thorough public review, which deeply frustrated many Arizonans,” Douglas continued. “That lack of public input became an even larger concern as problems with the standards were identified, many of which were related to the resulting curricula. ” “Common Core has at last been eliminated,” the superintendent said. “[W]e now have excellent ELA and math standards developed by Arizonans for Arizona students. ” The “Common Core” standards were previously rebranded as the Arizona College and Career Ready Standards by former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R). Douglas campaigned for her post in 2014, running on an Core platform. In September, KJZZ in Arizona reported that Douglas endorsed Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election with the statement that Trump “shares my belief that the federal government’s role in education needs to be reduced rather than expanded. ” Dr. Sandra Stotsky, an author of the celebrated Massachusetts ELA standards, was asked to review the draft of the Arizona ELA standards, and shared her recommendations to Douglas and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) with Breitbart News. Stotsky expressed her disappointment: If it is not possible to find a group of Arizona newspaper editors to rewrite the poorly written English language arts standards, then I suggest that Superintendent Douglas and Governor Ducey all the 2003 Arizona literature standards in place of those in this draft document. Overall, they were quite good. For example, in grade 11, students are to read “works of American literature that reflect our major literary periods and traditions. ” Stotsky also pointed out that a Core Thomas B. Fordham Institute reviewer observed in 2010 — in a comparison of Arizona’s prior standards with Common Core: “Arizona treats literary and texts distinctly and thoroughly and in more detail than the Common Core. ” Writing at education blog “Truth in American Education” about the Arizona standards, Shane Vander Hart observed, “There has been some technical changes, but as far as I can see most of the foundational problems still exist. The early elementary standards are still . There is still an over emphasis on informational text. The math standards still do not adequately prepare students for STEM programs in college. ” “It’s unfortunate that Superintendent Diane Douglas, who campaigned on ending Common Core, put her stamp of approval on this process and these standards,” he continued. “It is also disconcerting that these standards were voted on instead of allowing an additional month of review and public comment. Arizona can do better than this. ” At Ricochet, Arizona high school parent Shawnna Bolick writes, “In a shocking irony, the very person — Diane Douglas — who promised to ‘stop Common Core,’ recommended the ‘revised’ standards standards virtually identical to the Common Core state standards foolishly adopted by the SBE in 2010. ” Bolick explains that Ducey directed the state board of education in 2015 to have “teachers and parents to bring [standards] forward together,” and, citing the fast adoption of Common Core in 2010, to “make right the situation … with full transparency. ” She states, however, that, despite the formation of a standards development committee that included parent members, “for the past year and a half the standards were only being reviewed by ‘technical professionals’ and lobbyists in meetings. ” “These individuals were largely core individuals,” Bolick continues. “Multiple requests were submitted to the Arizona Department of Education to include parents or people with opposing viewpoints, but these were turned down each time. ” Bolick concludes that the state’s ‘bureaucratic tyrants” have “ ” Arizona’s standards. In a column at Breitbart News, Stotsky urged the elimination of state boards of education and departments of education, observing, “It is becoming increasingly clearer that the main groups oppressing parents, local school boards, and local teacher unions with Common standards and tests (regardless of what they are actually called) are state boards of education and state departments of education. ” | 1 |
Seasonally Adjusted...
Tis the season to be jolly... | 0 |
32 King World News
On the heels of yesterday’s Fed meeting, what we just witnessed has rarely occurred in the past 20 years!
Surprises In The Put Options Market From Jason Goepfert at SentimenTrader: “ Equity options traders focused on puts almost as much as calls on Wednesday. A stocks-only put/call ratio is rare during bull markets, occurring only 17 times in 20 years (see chart below).
King World News note: For a broader look at how extreme the put/call ratio is, below is a 5-year chart.
Although this is flashing a warning signal for the bears who are short the stock market, the exception would be if stocks are about to enter a bear market. In that case put buyers are often rewarded for their pessimism.
The charts and commentary above are from SentimenTrader. To try a free 14-day trial of the internationally acclaimed work that Jason Goepfert produces at SentimenTrader simply CLICK HERE.
Investors Intelligence Says Here Is The Key To A Turnaround In Gold & Silver | 0 |
Enjoy your turkey, family events and holiday cheer. Enjoy the changing political environment and the strange sense of normalcy that has returned since the end of the election.
None of it is likely to last. 2017 may prove to be pretty brutal.
Now that the Western world has turned in the direction of Trump and Brexit, it may be that the bankster class is prepared to start the next phase.
The pressure that has been building since the 2008 economic crisis is poised to topple the system again. As reputed author James Wesley Rawles of SurvivalBlog.com points out, negative interest rates and big debt governing under Obama have set us up for a fall. Easy money, cheap money and free flowing, unlimited credit to the top of the heap have brought things to a desperate point of no return.
Nassim Taleb made the point that Obama’s most grandiose betrayal against the American people won’t be felt until the coming tide of inflation enlarges the national debt, already at record levels of government spending, even further:
3) Don’t fughet Obama is leaving us a Ponzi scheme, added ~8 trillions in debt with rates at 0. If they rise, costs of deficit explode…
— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) November 20, 2016
Federal Reserve officials have already conceded that the zero percent interest/quantitative easing package is no longer capable of stimulating the economy, and so raising interest rates to normal is in order; however, raising these rates even slightly is enough to induce panic and economic turmoil.
Countless figures have come forward to warn that our financial system is set up for a pump and dump – and that the populist Trump presidency is likely to be background to economic pain, gloomy news and grim difficulties in every respect. Though the die was cast by the cronies who drafted the phony recovery, Trump will be associated with what could be one of the worst financial eras in history.
Worse, that time would leave millions and millions of people without jobs, money or a way to provide.
As usual, Rawles makes the case for how to survive in such a depressing and chaotic environment, and how to avert the worst of the collapse by preparing now, and building a lifestyle that is resistant to market pressures and political shoes dropping.
Here’s the interview from X22 Report :
Check out more of James Wesley Rawles work at SurvivalBlog.com or via his survival books .
Read more:
How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times
America’s Fatal Wound? “What Obama Did That Is Unforgivable”
Collapse Strategist: “We’re In The Terminal Phase… Economic Pain Like We’ve Never Seen Before”
7 Jobs That Are Going to Survive the Next Economic Crash
What Life Will Be Like After An Economic Collapse: “Things Just Get Gradually Worse…” | 0 |
Pinterest
Crazy Uncle Joe Biden is at it again, and this time he said he’d like to fight Donald Trump “behind the gym.” Trump responded, “Some things in life you could really love doing,” according to the U.K. Daily Mail .
Biden, who usually has his hands full groping any women and children that are in his vicinity, got upset when asked about comments Trump made 11 years ago on tape about women. Creepy Uncle Joe got so upset when asked if he would like to debate Trump that he said that he wished he could go back to high school because he “could take him behind the gym.”
Side note: don’t go anywhere alone with creepy Uncle Joe, no matter how much candy he offers you.
It seems like Biden’s comments were a skosh defensive, probably because unlike Trump, who just talked about being able to grope women who would be willing because of his star status, Biden is actually on camera groping women and children.
But what does the media do? “Oh that’s just Uncle Joe, he’s harmless. Wait, just don’t sit on his lap, okay? Or get in his van. Isn’t he charming?”
Trump wasn’t too concerned about creepy Joe and his empty threats. At a rally in Florida on Tuesday, Trump responded to gropey Biden’s blowhard comments, courtesy of the U.K. Daily Mail:
“Did you see where Biden wants to ‘take me to the back of the barn.’ Me! He wants to – I’d love that. I’d love that. Mr. Tough Guy! You know, he’s Mr. Tough Guy,’ Trump boasted.”
“You know when he’s Mr. Tough Guy? When he’s standing behind a microphone by himself. That’s when he’s Mr. –
“He wants to bring me to the back of the barn. Ohhhh. Some things in life you could really love doing!
“And by the way,’ Trump vented, “if I’d said that? They’d say, ‘He’s violent! How could he have done that? How could he have?'”
Yeah, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Trump isn’t too concerned about Biden, a man who gropes women — including elderly women — and little girls on camera and probably does so because even the elderly women and little girls could take him if they weren’t caught off guard by the lecherous vice president molesting them in public with cameras all around.
Maybe Biden should learn to keep his hands, feet and other objects to himself before he worries about Trump’s comments on tape 11 years ago about what consenting, adult women would hypothetically allow him to do. | 0 |
Gold prices grow by $60 as Trump wins, US dollar trashed Republican Donald Trump has won the US presidential election . Hillary Clinton congratulated her rival on the victory and refused to speak to her supporters. As Pravda.Ru has reported before, Trump's victory has greatly affected the state of affairs on world market s. During the last four hours, against the backdrop of the struggle between the presidential candidates, gold has risen in price by 4.5%, or $60. January futures for Brent oil fell by 2.2%. According to The Financial Times, the Mexican peso has fallen to a record low against the US dollar, having lost 13.1%, to 20.69. The Swiss franc has gained 1.9% vs. the US dollar to 0.9577. The Canadian dollar has declined to an eight-month low against the US currency. The Australian dollar has dropped by 1.9 percent to $0.7615. The pound sterling has gained 1.04 percent to $1.2513. The euro has climbed by 2.2 percent to $1.1261. Pravda.Ru Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru WikiLeaks: Trump leads in global US elections | 0 |
Microsoft founder Bill Gates called for a robot tax to offset the loss of jobs done by humans as a result of advancements in automation during an interview with Quartz. [“Certainly there will be taxes that relate to automation. Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50, 000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, social security tax, all those things,” declared Gates. “If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you’d think that we’d tax the robot at a similar level. ” “There are many ways to take that extra productivity and generate more taxes. Exactly how you’d do it, measure it, you know, it’s interesting for people to start talking about now,” he continued. “Some of it can come on the profits that are generated by the efficiency there. Some of it can come directly in some type of robot tax. I don’t think the robot companies are going to be outraged that there might be a tax. It’s OK. ” Gates added that “you ought to be willing to raise the tax level and even slow down the speed of that adoption somewhat to figure out, ‘OK, what about the communities where this has a particularly big impact? Which transition programs have worked and what type of funding do those require? ’” “You cross the threshold of of certain activities all sort of at once,” Gates concluded. “So, you know, warehouse work, driving, room cleanup, there’s quite a few things that are meaningful job categories that, certainly in the next 20 years, being thoughtful about that extra supply is a net benefit. It’s important to have the policies to go with that. ” Billionaire and entrepreneur Mark Cuban also claimed robots are going to “cause unemployment,” posting, “Automation is going to cause unemployment and we need to prepare for it,” to Twitter on Sunday. Last week, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk warned that deep A. I. could potentially be dangerous to the human race, who he described as already . “One of the most troubling questions is artificial intelligence. I don’t mean narrow A. I — deep artificial intelligence, where you can have AI which is much smarter than the smartest human on earth,” proclaimed Musk during the World Government Summit in Dubai. “This is a dangerous situation. ” “Pay close attention to the development of artificial intelligence,” he continued. “Make sure researchers don’t get carried away. Scientists get so engrossed in their work they don’t realize what they are doing. ” In November, Musk also predicted that automated robots would lead to mass unemployment, which he claimed could eventually create a universal wage from the government. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
Massive Spike In Obamacare Health Premiums Could Boost Trump To Victory
She meant policy like the grossly damaging proposals from Clinton, who wanted to keep Obamacare in place, import countless Muslim refugees, offer illegal immigrants amnesty and nominate liberal justices to the Supreme Court.
“When I look at all of those, I come back to say that the best person based on the policies and dealing with things like Obamacare, still is Donald Trump,” she continued.
The governor added that it was not an “easy vote.”
Listen to her statement below: SC Gov. Nikki Haley Announces She’s Voting For Donald Trump This video was designed to autoplay so we've delayed loading it until you click here.
That was a tepid endorsement at best, but it was still an endorsement of sorts — similar in many ways to the one offered by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who last month announced that he intended to vote for Trump despite disagreeing with him on several issues.
“A year ago, I pledged to endorse the Republican nominee, and I am honoring that commitment,” he wrote at the time. “And if you don’t want to see a Hillary Clinton presidency, I encourage you to vote for him.” | 0 |
As soon as the media learned Steve Bannon, one of President Donald Trump’s senior advisers, would no longer have a “permanent seat” on the National Security Council, the headlines shouted he’d been “removed,” “booted,” and “demoted. ”[In fact, Bannon remains a close adviser to Trump, with top security clearance and an open invitation to attend NSC meetings. Bannon also has said in a statement that his work on the council was complete. “Susan Rice operationalized the NSC during the last administration,” Bannon said in a statement. “I was put on to ensure that it was . ” “General [H. R.] McMaster has returned the NSC to its proper function,” Bannon said, referring to Trump’s National Security Adviser. But the headlines were greeted by the left as a success in their efforts to undermine the Trump administration. “A huge victory for the resistance: Bannon’s sick ideology will no longer infect the National Security Council,” Rep. Barbara Lee ( ) tweeted on Wednesday. A huge victory for the resistance: Bannon’s sick ideology will no longer infect the National Security Council. https: . — Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) April 5, 2017, “The removal of white supremacist and conspiracy theorist Steve Bannon from the National Security Council will make America safer,” a statement from MoveOn. org said. “MoveOn members and other Americans taking action via allied organizations generated 1. 1 million signatures calling for Bannon’s removal from the NSC, and our voices were heard. Now it is time to fully remove him from his role in the White House,” the moveon. org statement said. “We hope that Stephen Bannon’s removal from the National Security Council will soon be followed by his ouster from the White House entirely,” a statement from the Southern Poverty Law Center said. “By his own admission, Bannon provided a platform, through Breitbart News, for a new breed of white supremacists. “He’s also been responsible for the bizarre appointment of former Breitbart writer Sebastian Gorka, someone with ties to groups in Hungary, to a position in the White House,” the statement said. “The sooner that Bannon and people like Gorka leave Washington, the better. ” Rep. Robin Kelly ( ) tweeted she was happy she joined Rep. Stephanie Murphy ( ) in promoting legislation that would have forced Bannon to leave the NSC. “#SteveBannon removed from NSC! Proud to have joined @RepStephMurphy‘s effort to kick him off,” Kelly tweeted. #SteveBannon removed from NSC! Proud to have joined @RepStephMurphy’s effort to kick him off. https: . #DepoliticizetheNSC, — Robin Kelly (@RepRobinKelly) April 5, 2017, Rep. Adriano Espaillat ( ) said Bannon wants to overthrow the U. S. government. “#SteveBannon has made numerous inflammatory statements in support of overthrowing the United States Government,” Espaillat tweeted. Now remove BANNON from the WHITE HOUSE⚡️ “Steve Bannon removed from National Security Council”https: . — Adriano Espaillat (@RepEspaillat) April 5, 2017, | 1 |
Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • Russia has acknowledged that its officials carried out one of the biggest conspiracies in sports history: a doping operation that tainted the entire Olympic movement. “It was an institutional conspiracy,” said Anna Antseliovich, the acting director general of Russia’s national antidoping agency. But she and others continued to deny that the government’s top officials were involved. _____ • In a show of defiance toward Donald J. Trump, who has belittled the notion of global warming, California’s governor, Jerry Brown (above at his family ranch) and legislative leaders say they will work directly with nations and other U. S. states to fight climate change. Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 is shaping up to be a challenge, with security officials worried that protesters will flood the capital, along with what may be nearly a million supporters of Mr. Trump. Thomas P. Bossert, a top national security aide under President George W. Bush, will be Mr. Trump’s adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism. _____ • Carrie Fisher, the actress and author who brought a rare combination of nerve, grit and hopefulness to her most indelible role, as Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” movies, died at 60. Here’s a look at Ms. Fisher’s life beyond the intergalactic franchise. Our critic says her legacy “may rest at least as much on her literary voice” as on any character she played onscreen. _____ • Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan visited Pearl Harbor with President Obama, offering repentance but not apologizing for his country’s attack in 1941. “We must never repeat the horrors of war again,” Mr. Abe said. The alliance between the former enemies may soon be tested by Mr. Trump, who has grumbled about Japanese trade barriers and the cost of U. S. military support. _____ • The wealthiest members of the extended Saudi royal family own French chateaus, stash money in Swiss bank accounts, wear couture dresses under their abayas and frolic on some of the world’s biggest yachts. But decreased oil revenue is straining the economy and forcing questions about whether the family can maintain its lavish lifestyle and its unchallenged grip on Saudi Arabia. _____ • The Consumer Confidence Index in the United States shot to its highest level since driven by high expectations for the economy under Mr. Trump. • Luxembourg has tightened tax rules, bowing to E. U. pressure to crack down on corporate tax avoidance. • Gazprom, the Russian state energy giant, filed proposals with the European Commission aimed at resolving an antitrust inquiry into how it sells natural gas on the Continent. • Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • Russia is grappling with an H. I. V. epidemic, with diagnosed infections surpassing the one million mark this year. [The New York Times] • Britain says it will counter voter fraud by requiring voters to show identification. [The New York Times] • Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to outline the Obama administration’s vision of a final accord in a speech today. [The New York Times] • Romania’s president, Klaus Iohannis, has yet to explain why he rejected the nomination of Sevil Shhaideh, an economist, for prime minister. She would have been the first Muslim and the first woman to hold the office. [The New York Times] • China’s decision to deploy an aircraft carrier in the contested South China Sea is seen by some analysts as a challenge to Mr. Trump. [The New York Times] • Three American senators are in the Baltics to reassure allies that the U. S. remains committed to NATO. Their next stops are Ukraine and Georgia. [The New York Times] • A Dutch medical center said the eggs of up to 26 women may have been fertilized by the wrong sperm at its in vitro fertilization laboratory. [Agence ] • Finishing touches are being applied to the Europa, the new European Union headquarters in Brussels. [The New York Times] • And here’s the story of how a Norwegian diplomat mediated peace talks between Afghanistan and the Taliban. [The New York Times] • Olympic glory and defeat at the Rio Games, the death of Muhammad Ali and a baseball prospect turned hit man: Have a look at our top sports stories of the year. • Americans’ cultural divide is as pronounced as their political divide. Their TV preferences confirm that. • Bob Bradley, the first American to lead a soccer team in England’s Premier League, was fired by Swansea. • In memoriam: Richard Adams, the British author of “Watership Down” the French comedian Claude Gensac, best known for her film acting alongside Louis de Funès and Heinrich Schiff, the Austrian cellist and conductor. • Inuit in Greenland may have gene variants that help them tolerate the cold, a new study suggests. If your gene pool is less fortunate, here are seven tips for making it through this winter. • A bird and his goggles: Meet Obi, a Pacific parrot at Stanford University trained to fly through laser beams, to help researchers study bird flight. This year has produced some momentous events, so let’s take a moment and look back at some of the words they inspired. Britain’s decision to leave the European Union started many discussions about “ ” politics. Its rise in use prompted Oxford University Press to name it word of the year. “Postfaktisch” is Germany’s top word of 2016, according to the Society for the German Language. The organization, a agency, bases its yearly choices on significance, rather than frequency. Third place went to “Silvesternacht,” or New Year’s Eve, which has taken an unpleasant meaning since hundreds of women in a German city were attacked as they celebrated the end of 2015. Across the Atlantic, chose “surreal,” which it says was trending in moments of crisis this year. People who saw “The Lobster,” including our movie critic, used it in the original sense, to describe artistic expression, too. But a word Austria is celebrating stands out among them all. The yearlong campaign for the presidency, which nearly gave the country its first leader since World War II, was the basis for the “postponement of the repeat runoff of the election of the federal president. ” It’s otherwise known as “Bundespräsidentenstichwahlwiederholungsverschiebung. ” Palko Karasz contributed reporting. _____ Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at europebriefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
The nation’s major newspaper boards — the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post — blasted President Donald Trump’s idea to make Mexico pay for a border wall by imposing a tax on imports. [From a report by Louis Nelson in Politico: A triumvirate of editorial boards from some of the country’s largest newspapers made it unanimous Thursday evening, each one panning the suggestion from the administration of President Donald Trump that the U. S. might pay for his promised border wall by imposing a 20 percent tariff on imports from Mexico. The plan amounts to a “tariff tantrum,” The New York Times wrote in its editorial, while The Wall Street Journal labeled the administration’s efforts at international negotiations “amateur hour. ” Trump’s rhetoric, wrote the Washington Post, is “a stick of dynamite” inserted into relationship that politicians from both countries have worked years to build. Read the rest here. | 1 |
White House social media director Dan Scavino tells Breitbart News he is “not surprised” that President Donald J. Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday evening shattered records on social media in terms of engagement with the American public. [On Twitter, for instance, a whopping three million people Tweeted about President Trump’s address — a record that even former President Barack Obama’s team could not hit. The previous record, under Obama, was 2. 6 million Tweets, according to Twitter per an Associated Press report. Facebook had millions of people engaged as well, a spokesman told Breitbart News. “7. 5 million people on Facebook generated 20. 5 million likes, posts, comments and shares about President Trump’s address to Congress,” Facebook’s Andy Stone said in an email. None of this surprises Scavino. He said in an emailed statement: President Trump loves communicating with the American people. I was not surprised to see him not break, but shatter the record of most Tweeted Joint Session or State of the Union address ever. Pundits and ‘experts’ have underestimated President Trump’s social media platforms from day one — the President’s numbers have outperformed those of Fortune 100 companies since all the way back when we began in the primaries. History in the making for social media has just begun. What’s more, the highly inaccurate network CNN — which the president has called a “very fake news” outlet, is attacking President Trump by literally running a countdown clock since the president has criticized someone on his Twitter account. How long has it been since Donald Trump attacked someone on Twitter? https: . pic. twitter. — CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) March 1, 2017, CNN is one of the leading “fake news” outlets in the country, and a leader in what the president calls the “opposition party” which is an “enemy of the American people. ” FAKE NEWS media knowingly doesn’t tell the truth. A great danger to our country. The failing @nytimes has become a joke. Likewise @CNN. Sad! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017, The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017, CNN is so bad, in fact, that the administration will not provide Vice President Mike Pence for an interview on the network — even though the Trump White House is making the vice president available for an interview on other networks. ”Trivial fights” should be ”behind us,” but hours later WH offers @VP Pence interviews to every major US TV broadcaster except @CNN https: . — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 1, 2017, But none of this from CNN will get President Trump down, Scavino says. If anything, the president plans to expand on his success on social media and continue doing what works. “The President has no plans of changing a thing on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram,” Scavino told Breitbart News. “In fact we will expand with some other platforms in the near future — as we begin to build out a great team. We are only just getting started. ” President Trump has been a giant on social media platforms, and during the campaign — Scavino previously detailed for a Breitbart News exclusive back in November — he generated tens of billions of impressions on various social media networks. Scavino has, after overseeing the president’s social media team during the campaign, taken over as the White House’s director of social media. It’s worth noting too that these performances during Trump’s speech come with just a social media team in the White House, much smaller than former President Obama’s team. | 1 |
Islamist militants from the Boko Haram terror group killed at least 15 civilians Wednesday night in coordinated attacks including three female suicide bombers in the large city of Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria. [The militants launched their assault on the city’s suburbs with guns and suicide bombers, said Damian Chukwu, the police commissioner for Borno State. The attack was the most deadly assault by the Boko Haram group in the past year. At least 14 people were killed in three suicide bombings while another was slain by gunfire in the Jiddari Polo district as local residents tried to flee the assailants. One of the three suicide bombers detonated her explosive belt as Muslims were leaving the mosque in the neighborhood, killing herself along with six other people. A second bomber blew herself up near the offices of the Development Authorities of Lake Chad at 9:20pm, killing three people in addition to the suicide bomber herself. The third suicide bombing killed one more plus herself, and the three bombings injured an additional 24 people. According to testimonies from eyewitnesses, a group of Boko Haram militants began the attack on the camp of Aridawari, on the outskirts of Maiduguri, around 5:00pm. “The attackers arrived in the village carrying heavy weapons and began firing at the houses,” said Musa Umara, a resident of Aridawari. Local citizens “fled in all directions,” he added. The insurgents then traveled to a military base across the district, shooting at random, according to one resident, Salihu Abdallah. “The soldiers stopped them at the Giwa military barracks around 6:30pm,” he said. The attacks on the capital city of Borno State took place a day before the interim president Yemi Osinbajo was to inaugurate an important humanitarian project to help feed 1. 8 million displaced persons in the area. Aid agencies have estimated that some 1. 4 million people are affected by an emergency food shortage in the region, with 44, 000 people close to starvation. Last month, one of five Islamist militants released from prison in exchange for 82 high school girls from Chibok, had threatened to carry out a attack on Maiduguri in a video. The liberation of the Chibok girls, abducted more than three years ago by Boko Haram, as well as the restoration of peace in the Lake Chad district were priorities set by President Muhammadu Buhari on taking office in 2015. Buhari is currently on sick leave in London. Wednesday’s assault comes six months after President Muhammadu Buhari said that Boko Haram had “technically” been defeated, after armed forces forced many of the militants into the remote Sambisa forest, near the border with Cameroon. Boko Haram, which pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State in 2015, has been responsible for more than 20, 000 deaths and 2. 6 million displaced persons since the beginning of this insurrection in 2009, according to reports. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 1 |
SAN FRANCISCO — In its quest to build a global empire, Uber has turned to the Middle East for its biggest infusion of cash from a single investor. Uber said on Wednesday that it had raised $3. 5 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the kingdom’s main investment fund, in one of the investments into a privately held . The money was part of the giant’s most recent financing round and continued to value Uber at $62. 5 billion. The investment, which was months in the making, does not cash out any of Uber’s existing investors. Uber, which has viewed the Middle East as an important area in its expansion, said the investment further aligned the company with Saudi Arabia as the kingdom planned to transform its economy, reducing its dependence on oil and improving employment. Until now, Saudi Arabia has not been known for venture capital investing, though some members of its royal family have made some deals. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, for instance, has invested in Lyft, a competitor of Uber. “We appreciate the vote of confidence in our business as we continue to expand our global presence,” Travis Kalanick, one of Uber’s founders and its chief executive, said in a statement. “Our experience in Saudi Arabia is a great example of how Uber can benefit riders, drivers and cities and we look forward to partnering to support their economic and social reforms. ” The investment came together after David Plouffe, an Uber board member, traveled to the Middle East in March and was invited to the Saudi fund for a briefing. The discussions heated up thereafter, culminating in the deal. Uber, which is Silicon Valley’s most valuable private business, has collected more than $11 billion from investors since its inception. The company has redefined private drawing hundreds of millions in new cash at a rapid pace of once every six months or so, to fuel its operations globally. Uber has drawn capital from a wide variety of investors, including traditional venture capital firms, mutual fund giants like BlackRock and wealthy clients of firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Other sovereign wealth funds, like that of Qatar, have also invested. Other tech darlings have been busy raising money from private investors as well, pushing back any need to join the public stock markets. The messaging company Snapchat raised $1. 8 billion in its most recent round, according to a regulatory filing last month. Among Snapchat’s new investors in the round were the Alibaba Group of China and the investment firms General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital, T. Rowe Price and Lone Pine Capital. Other tech have not fared as well in raising money over the last several months. Some unicorns — businesses valued at more than $1 billion — have struggled, and several, like the wearables maker Jawbone, have had to raise money at lower valuations. Uber has been spending not only to expand but also to defend its territory — which covers 460 cities in more than 69 countries — against incumbents in regions like Southeast Asia and Europe. China, in particular, is a difficult battleground, as Uber is spending millions in a subsidy war with Didi Chuxing, the dominant in the country. The Middle East is among Uber’s increasingly important overseas markets the company has already said it plans to invest $250 million there. Uber has rolled out its service in 15 cities and nine countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia. The said that it now has over 395, 000 active riders in the Middle East, up fivefold from a year ago, and 19, 000 drivers. Uber said expanding its service may be a boon for Saudi Arabia, a country where women are not allowed to drive because of fatwas, or religious edicts, issued by conservative Muslim clerics that uphold a distinct segregation between the sexes. There is no formal law prohibiting women from driving in the region. “Of course we think women should be allowed to drive,” said Jill Hazelbaker, an Uber spokeswoman. “In the absence of that, we have been able to provide extraordinary mobility that didn’t exist before — and we’re incredibly proud of that. ” Still, Uber did not say that it planned to hire women drivers in the country, unlike in most other regions where the company operates. Roughly 80 percent of Uber’s riders in Saudi Arabia are women, according to the company. Uber has sought to aid the kingdom’s Vision 2030 plan, which includes more than doubling the number of women in the overall work force by 2030, to 30 percent. Princess Reema bint Bandar who sits on Uber’s public policy advisory board, has worked with Uber to usher the service into the country and has the support of female users of the service, said in an interview that the investment was a clear sign of change coming to the region. Saudi Arabia has looked for ways to expand its economy beyond oil, with the Public Investment Fund — which is expected to grow to $2 trillion under management after the country’s oil company goes public — serving as a crucial part of that strategy. The $3. 5 billion investment in Uber is out of the Saudi fund’s roughly $750 billion in total United States assets. Investing in an American company like Uber, however, could run counter to Saudi Arabia’s threat to sell off investments in the United States, issued during discussion about a bill in Congress that would allow the kingdom to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Part of Uber’s possible attraction in bringing in a sovereign wealth fund like Saudi Arabia’s is that such investors have far longer investment horizons than venture capitalists, who generally seek to cash out their investments after seven to 10 years. As part of the investment, the managing director at the Public Investment Fund, Yasir Al Rumayyan, will take a seat on Uber’s board, joining Mr. Kalanick and other directors, including Arianna Huffington. “We’ve seen firsthand how this company has improved urban mobility around the world, and we’re looking forward to being part of that progress,” Mr. Al Rumayyan said in a statement. | 1 |
A surprising confrontation erupted on Saturday between Donald J. Trump and the cast and creators of the Broadway hit “Hamilton,” setting off furious debate over American principles like free speech, respect and the ability to challenge authority in the Trump era. Trump demanded an apology from the cast for making a rare, politically charged appeal from the stage on Friday night to Vice Mike Pence, who was in the audience, urging him and Mr. Trump to “uphold our American values” and “work on behalf of all of us. ” Mr. Trump’s response significantly escalated an unusual protest inside a theater into a furor on social media and cable news. Mr. Trump, who has stirred bipartisan concern over his habit of attacking those who challenge him, said on Twitter that the actors had “harassed” Mr. Pence, and he issued a battle cry to his supporters by saying that the musical’s cast had criticized “our wonderful future VP Mike Pence. ” He continued to assail the show on Twitter on Saturday night, writing that the actors had been “very rude and insulting” to Mr. Pence and claiming that they “couldn’t even memorize lines” — though he offered no evidence and then deleted the message. The clash between the “Hamilton” actors and Mr. Trump captured the sharply divergent feelings of many Americans 11 days after the election: a showdown between the values of multiculturalism on the left, including the racially diverse “Hamilton” cast and the world of entertainment, and the conservative principles of the incoming Republican administration, which was backed strongly by white voters and traditional Republicans. Mr. Trump framed the cast’s appeal as a violation of “a safe and special place” — borrowing a favored phrase of the left and of campus protesters it was not clear whether he did so derisively or in earnest. His maneuver, in two posts to Twitter early Saturday, stunned the cast members and, judging by social media, jolted many Americans who are worried about the ’s tolerance for dissent after a campaign in which he was criticized for inflaming racial tensions. But it also touched off reaction among other Americans who treasure the traditions of, and respect for, the office of the presidency, and viewed the statement — and the booing of Mr. Pence by some theatergoers before the performance — as out of line. On Saturday, one supporter of Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter that the “Hamilton” statement was “a staged hit job. ” Another wrote that actors should never “humiliate a member of the audience. ” Even some artists said it was wrong to deliver a surprise political message to an audience member after curtain call. “You don’t single out an audience member and embarrass him from the stage,” the musician Steven Van Zandt, a bandmate of Bruce Springsteen’s, wrote on Twitter. “A terrible precedent to set. ” Mr. Pence’s “Hamilton” seats were bought, not provided by the production as complimentary seats, according to two people with knowledge of the transaction. Matt Borges, the chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, who was often critical of Mr. Trump this year, said that though he would always support free expression, he was dismayed that the left was demanding respect from Mr. Pence while lecturing him disrespectfully in the eyes of many on the right. “It never ceases to amaze me how liberals desire acceptance and diversity for everything except political philosophy,” he said. But many theater artists cheered the “Hamilton” cast on Saturday. “The theater will always be a place that encourages and free thinking — which is exactly what makes the art form so vital and, frankly, exciting,” said Heather Hitchens, president of the American Theater Wing, a nonprofit that supports the arts and helps oversee the Tony Awards. “Hamilton,” itself a deeply political show about the United States as a nation of immigrants — with black or Hispanic actors playing George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers — has been celebrated by President Obama, Hillary Clinton and many other Democrats, as well as Republicans including former Vice President Dick Cheney. The “Hamilton” company learned late Friday that Mr. Pence and his family members would be attending that night’s performance. The show’s creator, Miranda, and others discussed the appropriateness of making a statement from the stage and decided to do it only after the show was over. Remarks were written and refined, and after curtain call, Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Vice President Aaron Burr, took a microphone and pointed toward Mr. Pence. “You know, we have a guest in the audience this evening — Vice Pence, I see you walking out but I hope you hear just a few more moments,” Mr. Dixon said. As some in the audience booed, Mr. Dixon hushed them, then added, “Sir, we hope that you will hear us out. ” As Mr. Pence stood by the exit doors, Mr. Dixon said, “We, sir, are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us — our planet, our children, our parents — or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us. All of us. ” The “Hamilton” episode is the first major collision between the two Americas brought into sharp relief by the Nov. 8 election. The values and politics championed by the cast are in conflict with the remarks and actions of Mr. Trump, who has called for deporting undocumented immigrants, has declined to forcefully denounce expressions of bigotry among his allies and has so far appointed only white men to major cabinet positions. He has also pledged to change libel laws and sue news media organizations whose coverage he does not like, and he has demonized street protesters who have criticized him. Although Mr. Pence listened to the entreaty inside the Richard Rodgers Theater on Friday and then stepped onto the sidewalk smiling, Mr. Trump took time out of preparing his new cabinet on Saturday to rally his supporters. Around 9 a. m. he wrote two Twitter posts saying the “Hamilton” actors had harassed Mr. Pence and had been “very rude last night to a very good man. ” “Apologize!” Mr. Trump wrote. Mr. Dixon, who read the statement after playing the nation’s third vice president, quickly replied with a post of his own: “@realDonaldTrump conversation is not harassment sir. And I appreciate @mike_pence for stopping to listen. ” Mr. Trump lashed out at the show, the most acclaimed Broadway production in years, at a time of demonstrations against his coming presidency. Those include frequent street protests outside Trump Tower along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, which is less than a mile from the theater showing “Hamilton. ” The has both castigated the protesters and, after being chided for doing so, praised them for their passion. Advisers, however, say he has been frustrated by the suspicion and hostility that the demonstrators and other Americans continue to hold about his election. Mr. Trump’s escalation of the “Hamilton” matter also came a day after his $25 million settlement of a lawsuit against Trump University, leading some critics to claim online that he was trying to create a distraction amid negative attention to his surrender on a legal case he had vowed to fight. Some Republican strategists said they were not surprised that Mr. Trump chose to attack “Hamilton,” noting that the believed deeply in trying to project strength in the face of any kind of opposition. “ Trump is signaling that he will fight for his team and his policies,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and a strong Trump supporter. “Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher would have approved,” a reference to the former conservative leader in Britain who often tangled with artists and the left. But other Republicans said Mr. Trump’s posts on Twitter were inappropriate. “Fidelity to the First Amendment is an absolute requirement for an American president,” said Steve Schmidt, a veteran Republican strategist who advised John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “The address from the cast was respectful, but even if it wasn’t, they have a right to say it. ” The statement from the “Hamilton” cast on Friday was, on one level, a breach of theater protocol: Rarely if ever do actors on stage directly address a member of the audience and throw down a gauntlet like Mr. Dixon and his castmates did. The actors, with guidance from the show’s creators and producers, chose to wait until the show had ended and they had taken their bows before breaking the wall between performers and audience. They did so, they said, because it was such a tense and anxious time for the country, and because they thought they would be remiss in not taking an opportunity to address Mr. Pence directly. The tensions over the election seemed close at hand. Mrs. Clinton, who held a at a “Hamilton” performance this summer, embraced many of the values and views that the cast members described. Mr. Trump, who loves the theater music of Andrew Lloyd Webber and invested in a Broadway play early in his career, is otherwise not in sync with the liberal political outlook of many in the theater world — at least since he adopted sharply more conservative positions recently after many years as a socially liberal New Yorker. The first lady, Michelle Obama, described “Hamilton” as “the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life,” and President Obama held a at a “Hamilton” performance. Mr. Miranda was an outspoken supporter of Mrs. Clinton’s during the presidential race, saying in July, “Are you going to vote for the guy who wants to build a wall, or for someone who’s building bridges?” The plea to Mr. Pence was written by Mr. Miranda the show’s director, Thomas Kail and the lead producer, Jeffrey Seller, with contributions from cast members, according to Mr. Seller. In an interview after the show, Mr. Seller said he learned “very late that Mr. Pence was coming to the show, and the creative team and cast members quickly reckoned with how to respond. ” “We had to ask ourselves, ‘How do we cope with this? ’” Mr. Seller said. “Our cast could barely go on stage the day after the election. The election was painful and crushing to all of us here. We all struggled with what was the appropriate and respectful and proper response. We are honored that Mr. Pence attended the show and we had to use this opportunity to express our feelings. ” | 1 |
Think you have witnessed enough amazing inventions in the world? These unusual gadgets will probably change your mind. Here are the strangest and most unbelievable Japanese inventions you have not... | 0 |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.