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Yet another one of the obnoxiously ostentatious monuments to Trump’s ego is going under. The Trump International Hotel in Toronto is filing for bankruptcy, a mere four years after it opened.
The champagne and caviar toned tower will be auctioned off after a Canadian bankruptcy judge placed the building into receivership on Tuesday.
In a story that is now very familiar to all of us , the $310 million project was beset with lawsuits from the start from angry investors who claim that Trump and his partners lied to them with “wildly overstated projections of Trump Toronto’s performance,” telling investors the “worst case” scenario for occupancy rates would be 55%, when in fact court documents show it varied between 15% and 45%. POLITICO details just how hard Trump screwed his investors:
It is clear from affidavits in the fraud cases and the bankruptcy case that the buyers have taken a financial beating. A warehouse supervisor named Sarbjit Singh, who was earning about $55,000 a year, testified that he borrowed money from his father, a retired welder, for the deposit on his hotel unit; he never closed on the deal, but he says he still lost $248,000. Se Na Lee, a homemaker who was married to a mortgage underwriter, borrowed money for her deposit from her parents; she did close, and ended up losing $990,000 through December 2014, she says.
Trump licensed his name for the project to Talon International, owned by a Russian-born oligarch, Alexander Shnaider. “The whole business model has been overpromise and underdeliver, and it’s Trump’s name on the thing” said an insider to POLITICO.
The hotel has been the site of numerous protests against the racist rabble-rouser, and a city Councillor of Toronto has publicly demanded the Trump name be removed from the building, saying in a statement to the project managers that:
There are some who may suggest that Canadians should just ignore Mr. Trump, or that he doesn’t matter because he is a political figure in another country.
However, recent attacks against Muslims in Toronto, and other Canadian cities, show that we are not immune to hateful actions against peaceful people. As well, the Canadian government’s similar internment of Japanese-Canadians is a part of our past that is still very painful for many.
To have the Trump name displayed so prominently on our skyline signals a tacit acceptance of hateful and divisive views.
Such is the legacy of Donald Trump, disgraced businessman and divisive race-baiting sexual predator: angry citizens, angry investors, bankruptcy, and a prominent stain where the letters of his name once stood. | 0 |
"Top Five Clinton Donors Are Jewish" - How Anti-Semitic Is This Fact? Top five Clinton donors Are Jewish, campaign tally shows.
Something is wrong with the above statement. Isn't it anti-semitic? Did Trump say that? Readers of that statement may assume, somewhat reasonably, that there is a club of rich Jewish people controlling the Clinton campaign and, maybe, Clinton herself. That sounds like it was taken from the fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It clearly must be anti-semitic.
It is also true .
Facts have no bias. They can't be anti-semitic (or can they?). But while facts as such can not have a racial-religious bias, openly stating them surely can. Thus the above statement is anti-semitic. The fact itself isn't bad, reporting it publicly is bad, bad, bad.
Who but an alt-right rag would report such at all? And for what purpose if not for spreading anti-semitism?
Well - quot licet jovi, ...
Jewish papers are of course allowed to report such a fact. That isn't anti-semitic. It is solely to brag about Jewish powers. Within the club that is not only allowed, but welcome. Thus Haaretz writes (sourced to the the Jewish Telegraph Agency) under the identity defining headline at the top of this post: Haim Saban, George Soros and others stand at the head of a list of wealthy donors who contributed mainly via super PACs.
The Washington Post analysis, posted October 24, named the top donors, who are contributing $1 of every $17 of the over $1 billion amassed for the Democratic nominee’s presidential run.
They are Donald Sussman, a hedge fund manager; J.B. Pritzker, a venture capitalist, and his wife, M.K.; Haim Saban, the Israeli-American entertainment mogul, and his wife, Cheryl; George Soros, another hedge funder and a major backer of liberal causes, and Daniel Abraham, a backer of liberal pro-Israel causes and the founder of SlimFast.
Many of the big Clinton campaign donors also give to the Clinton Foundation which at times is a washing machine to put money into the Clinton's private accounts. It is kind of difficult to understand where Clinton Inc begins and where it ends. Campaign funds, Clinton foundation, speech fees, private accounts - does it even matter? Surely those who pay, to whatever Clinton entity, expect a service in return. Given the Clinton's occupations as Senator, Secretary of State and President the ask in return is unlikely to be commercial. It will be political.
And here is why it matters that the five top donors to Clinton's campaign are Jewish, and all big supporters of Israel. (Haim Saban: "I'm a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel.") They surely will ask for political favors in the interest of the Zionist entity. This is also the reason why Haaretz, an Israeli paper, finds the strong racial-religious bias at the top Clinton campaign tally newsworthy. Big money paid to a Clinton entity can directly effect U.S. policies towards Israel. It buys its acquiescence to Israeli escapades even when those are not consistent U.S. interests.
Clinton's positions towards Syria, Iran and Russia (which limits Israel's freedom of action) are surely not independent of Israeli interests.
But that is of course, anti-semitic speculation ... Posted by b on October 28, 2016 at 11:16 AM | Permalink | 0 |
WASHINGTON — When former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. learned he would be sitting down for an interview with Gwen Ifill, he prematurely breathed a sigh of relief, thinking about the woman he had befriended through house parties and family barbecues. “She wasn’t Gwen the national figure, but Gwen the sistah, ” he said. “The sistah with fascinating stories, with funny jokes and juicy observations better known as gossip. ” The two had bonded over their shared connection to Barbados and took to calling each other “cuz,” imagining they might be distant cousins through ancestors on the Caribbean island. But moments into their interview, Mr. Holder, still early in his tenure as attorney general, realized that the woman from the weekends had “transformed. ” “My dear Gwen, unexpectedly to me, went from ‘cuz’ to newsperson,” Mr. Holder said. “She was fair but she was piercing, serious but unfailingly nice, smiling the whole time as she forced me out of my prescribed talking points. ” Mr. Holder told his story and read a letter from President Obama in front of thousands of mourners who gathered for nearly three hours Saturday for Ms. Ifill’s funeral, which was held at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, a former haven to runaway enslaved people where Ms. Ifill had worshiped since 1989. Ms. Ifill died on Monday from complications of uterine cancer. She was 61. On Saturday, some wept as they studied the long wooden pew in the seventh row in the center of the church where Ms. Ifill and her friends regularly sat, and where, after her death, the church placed a plaque with Ms. Ifill’s name. (The church has placed plaques on other pews for figures like Frederick Douglass.) The funeral became a reunion of Ms. Ifill’s large family and a gathering of luminaries. Michelle Obama, the first lady Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama and Donna Brazile, the interim Democratic National Committee chairwoman, sat alongside a number of prominent journalists, including Dorothy Gilliam, Chuck Todd, Roland Martin and Charlayne . While many stood to speak about Ms. Ifill’s life, recordings of her own interviews and speeches that she gave were sprinkled throughout the service. Ms. Ifill was born on Sept. 29, 1955, in Jamaica, Queens. Her father was an A. M. E. minister and her family was deeply religious, as well as committed to watching the news to keep up with current affairs. She graduated in 1977 with a bachelor of arts degree from Simmons College in Boston, where she majored in communications. Her first job as a professional journalist was with The Boston . In between that job and her final one with PBS, Ms. Ifill worked for The Baltimore Evening Sun, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, where she was a White House correspondent and covered Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. Her career in television began in 1994, when Tim Russert recruited her to cover Capitol Hill for NBC. She joined PBS in 1999. Her highest visibility came as the moderator and managing editor of the public affairs program “Washington Week” on PBS, where she was also and editor, with Judy Woodruff, of “NewsHour. ” They were the first team to anchor such a program. Under the church’s large stained glass windows, generations of people hugged, wept and shared their sadness about Ms. Ifill’s death. Many lamented that her voice would be especially missed as the nation prepared for Donald J. Trump to take office. The funeral began in silence as images of Ms. Ifill were projected onto the wall. A recording of Mr. Obama calling her an “extraordinary journalist” boomed throughout the church. Soon after, it was Ms. Ifill’s voice that filled the room, saying, “You can be the person who turns toward, not away from, the chance to rise above the fray. ” In another recording that was played later, Ms. Ifill said, “It’s important to be reminded how easily we can be denied simple, obvious opportunity, how low the ceilings can get and how much fortitude it takes to refuse to accept the limits that others place on you. ” Audio also played of PBS viewers, who thanked Ms. Ifill for explaining the world to them every night and expressed sorrow that she would no longer help the nation grapple with political changes. Transfixed in the moment, most of the mourners stayed silent as latecomers shuffled into squeaky pews and the choir members, dressed in purple and gold robes, began to sing “Now Thank We All Our God. ” Several of Ms. Ifill’s friends read from Scripture and spoke of her ability to connect with family and friends and to mentor young journalists. Athelia Knight, a former reporter for The Washington Post and a close friend who frequently sat next to Ms. Ifill at church, read from 1 Corinthians: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. ” Puncturing the sadness, Ms. Ifill’s voice was played again. This time, she joked about the satire that followed when she moderated debates. “And along the way, I have to say, there were some perks. I was played by Queen Latifah twice on ‘Saturday Night Live. ’” Yet the void left by Ms. Ifill’s death radiated through the morning. The sorrow seemed to reach its peak as her cousin Darlene sang “It Is Well With My Soul,” belting out the hymn as many raised their hands and cried. Ms. Ifill’s Ms. Woodruff, said in her reflections that the two had grown extremely close as they planned their program. “We didn’t look like other anchor pairs, and we loved that,” she said to loud applause, before adding that her heart was broken. Ms. Woodruff also said she could only imagine what Ms. Ifill might be doing in the afterlife. “A friend wrote, what a glorious scene is it to picture Gwen and Tim today, up in heaven, grilling James Madison and Alexander Hamilton about the Electoral College,” she said, referring to Mr. Russert, who died of a heart attack in 2008. Michele Norris, a friend and fellow journalist, said that she and Ms. Ifill were part of a circle of women who became as close as family and who supported one another through both struggles and successes. “Her ability to be a friend was epic,” Ms. Norris said, saying Ms. Ifill had nudged her at a party to talk to the man who later became her husband. Sherrilyn Ifill, Ms. Ifill’s cousin and the president and of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, shared memories of playing dominoes and Scrabble together and of spending Thanksgiving with families deeply interested in politics and justice. She pointed out that both her parents and Ms. Ifill’s had immigrated to the United States from Barbados. “At this particular moment in our country, I do want to note that Gwen represented the most American of success stories,” she said. | 1 |
Donate On Trump: an Open Letter to the Brokenhearted "To those of you that care about diversity, about the environment, about the beauty of queer sexual orientations, about indigenous lands and their right to thrive, and about policing practices that have led to the deaths of many black men and women...I write." How do we respond to this confusing moment? What do we do now? How do we recover? By Adebayo Akomolafe / bayoakomolafe.net
Let us acknowledge these difficult feelings of loss, these terrifying thoughts that are suddenly very alive in the air today. It is as if Pandora’s Box has not only been emptied out into the world, but that it has been mass-produced and spread out to the corners of all lands. Hope now seems in short supply. We are undone.
I write you because things have indeed fallen apart. While this unspeakable insurgency of despair might goad us into rushing into the next ‘organizational moment’– the itch to hit them back or do something – I want to invite us to slow down and pay attention to the stark grief that haunts us now. She stares us in the face, this repulsive visitor. If we must survive, we must return her gaze and let her do her important work with us.
I am a Nigerian living in India. But like most people on the planet that tuned in to the surrealism of the 2016 American presidential campaigns, I woke up to the shocking news that Donald Trump was not only beating Hillary Clinton on election day, but that there was a frightening possibility he could win. And then that distant possibility, once laughably out of the question, became a gut-wrenching reality-to-come. Hillary’s ‘blue wall’ fell to the man who promised to build more; the media people stuttered as their once pristine cast of glossy pundits groped for words; the Mexican peso fell. And in one fell swoop, it felt like America, the so-called home of the brave was exactly that : a place dyed in fear, where braveness would now be required to keep on living.
Ever since Donald Trump became the 45 th president of the United States, the internet has been flooded with articles attempting to make sense of this story-bursting, crystal-ball-shattering moment. Politico published a piece with a title that must have resonated with many people around the world: “How did everyone get it so wrong?” The London-based Independent insisted that “Donald Trump would have lost US election if Bernie Sanders had been the candidate”, while Thomas Frank opined on the pages of The Guardian that “Donald Trump is moving to the White House, and liberals put him there”. Across the fractured landscape of YouTubia, self-professed Trumpists – also surprised by their fortune – laughed at liberals, mocking the ‘feminazis’ that thought Hillary Clinton – an admittedly troubled candidate who didn’t seem to have a message beyond insisting on her entitlement – would simply waltz into the White House.
I will not attempt to pry open the cadaver of this moment – it is probably the case that no post-mortem analysis is good enough to assuage our feelings of shock. What happened is not reducible to a single causative factor or a decidable ‘active ingredient’. The world isn’t that simple. I will however state, in the spirit of full disclosure – the kind of radical honesty we probably need at this time – that I secretly wanted this to happen: I was so invested in the idea of a Sanders presidency (and so mortified by what was obvious to me as an establishmentarian attempt to stifle his voice) that I became possessed by a schadenfreude I couldn’t easily exorcise. I understood the dangers of a potential Trump presidency, but decided even that was better off to the inertia of the neoliberal status quo as embodied by a Hillary Clinton regime. That argument is not easily maintained in the face of the orange predicament we now find ourselves in.
In an all-too-real case of “be careful what you wish for”, I find not relief but a painful sympathy with many who had hoped that the morning of 9 th would somehow usher in a more tolerant America. A more beautiful country. A country that cares about its many colours and contours. Now because of Trump and the energies he has activated, minorities are probably less safe. At a time of unprecedented racial tensions and phallic exhibitions of gunmanship, some folks are already dreading their next brief visit to the shopping mall, knowing that the streets are now being painted red with hate, white with racial acrimony and blind nativism, and blue with the authoritarian aloofness of a candidate who promised ‘law and order’. The new America.
It is to these vulnerable ones I write. Those of you that care about diversity, about the environment, about the beauty of queer sexual orientations, about indigenous lands and their right to thrive, and about policing practices that have led to the deaths of many black men and women.
Without pre-empting Donald Trump or falling into the trap of disillusioned punditry – and yet with a keen awareness of the likely consequences of his presidency – I ask: how do we respond to this? What do we do? How do we recover? What opportunities are presenting themselves to us to work for (with) a caring world? At the time of writing this letter, there is news of revolt on the streets of Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and other American cities. People are protesting the rise of Trump. People are angry. Around this same time, famed documentarian Michael Moore has suggested concerned Americans should ‘fire the punditry’ and ‘take over the Democratic party’. It is impossible to answer the question of what a ‘right’ response is, or to speak as if one is situated outside the swirl and flow of things. I do however want to invite you to try doing something less spectacular…something small, for it is my opinion that with Trump, the seeds of a ‘new’ politics may yet be planted.
When I was growing up in Christian Nigeria, I was taught to think of my life only in terms of its ‘greatness quotient’. I was conditioned early to yearn for prominence. Fame. Fortune. Legacy. Success. ‘Awakening the Giant Within’. Getting to the top. Lasting forever. Those were resonant memes in my developmental years. The figures of Mandela, Bill Gates, Jack Welch, and Jesus were placed before me as aspirational objects. If I did not do all I can to increase my ‘greatness quotient’, my life did not really matter.
I suspect this story is not uniquely mine to tell. We live in a world that places priority in the ‘top’ and discountenances the ‘bottom’. The condition for living a life of meaning and purpose was moral probity: the stunning city of bigness only admitted those who walked the straight and narrow way, I was told.
Well, if all that held true once, November 8 was a spectacular repudiation. Donald Trump, ill-prepared, a self-decorated humble person, and one who had said awful things about women, attained the highest office in America – his face beamed on to the Empire State Building in New York amidst the pomp and pageantry that defined his life. The Joker won…and nothing adds up anymore. Punditry is broken. Polls are broken. The sure-banker firepower of celebrity is broken. Virtue is broken.
Trump strolled to the grand stage up in the front and wrecked it, but in so doing he inadvertently ‘gave’ us permission to inhabit the aisles – to rearrange the entire room. By becoming president, Trump disturbs the idea that the top is worth reaching – not because he is so vile that his new position as president denigrates the office, but because his unprecedented campaign and quest for power shakes us loose to recognize that where we stand is a thick place, sewn through and through with voices and potential and power.
The stunning revelation of these times of upheaval is that ‘winning’ is defunct, and new relational modes are desperately needed: the red tape, the raised chair, the grand stage, the green room, and the white house are not the interesting, glorified objects they once were. The emperor has lost his clothes. This whole idea that greatness is some end goal to be achieved by the morally pure, the experienced, and the hardworking, has itself been reworked. And we are left with an awkward coming to terms with the fact that life isn’t a highway but an ecology of small things and ordinary becomings.
The way forward is thus awkward – or rather, there is no clear algorithm on what to do now except perhaps, among other things, to pay close attention to these twists and turns, these rabbit holes and tricky terrains. To take a critical look at the material details of our lives outside of the lenses of identity politics. An immaculate straight line was never ‘there’ to begin with. We are left with these small lives the media pretends doesn’t really matter until you achieve celebrity status; we are left with the first stuttering words of a politics that invites us to the incommensurability of our small hours, and – in place of our fascination with distant power and oh-so-shiny things – urges an attention to our bodies, our relationships, our communities, our hidden miracles, our own stories, and our own knowings.
Let me spell it out…what I suggest we can do. Please understand that I do not offer these points with any confidence in their stability or with any sort of finality. I offer them sensing that this moment could very well be that bright spot in the middle of a shadow, affording us an opportunity to co-create a politics that does not terminate with concession speeches – a politics that is not tied so stubbornly to single candidates and anorexic voting lines. I sing the songs of other places of power: Embrace the fact that the world is larger than our plots:
The plot of a story is both its gentle guiding hand and its suffocating grip, helping it move along but also blinding it from realizing that life is bigger, sterner, and more promiscuous than its logic. I could have sworn that with Bernie Sanders’ candidacy, the world was finally stepping into an age of deeper justice and beauty – that evolutionary moment we all await. His ‘failure’ to clinch the nomination was a chastising moment for many keen followers of the American primaries. I slowly came to terms with the fact that the world is not beholden to my liberal fantasies. Simply put, the map is not the terrain. The world stretches far and wide beyond our blind spots, our analyses, and our convictions about what justice looks like. Let grief do her work:
Globalizing society hardly has any place left for grief. When we get uncomfortable, we are urged to pull ourselves together and get back on the wheel. I reckon that today’s grief has something to teach us; there is a genius to its workings that allow a shift in how we relate with the world. I do not mean that we should all sit down and hold hands. I do however feel we can acknowledge that we are in a mess, and adjourn the quest for a palliative solution for the time being. Perhaps instead of counting down to 2020, or calling on Michelle Obama to run for office, we can use these days to investigate the edges of our politics. I believe grief disciplines us for this slow kind of work. What is at stake here is more than a liberal agenda, it is how we see the world and therefore how we maintain power structures that no longer serve our fondest hopes. At least for the moment, nurture a suspicion for shiny objects :
We have become a photogenic people – attracted to the spectacular, repulsed by the unseemly. We live in cosmetic pixels. With selfies, Instagram posts, televised news that seems more committed to graphics and bloated soundtracks, and the ongoing digitization of relationships, our lives have been reduced to images – and we are forgetting the art of living in the spaces between those images. We are thus habituated to a regime of visuality that defines what is real to us – and silences/excludes other voices from mattering. Perhaps the reason why most people were shocked by the news of Trump’s win was because they were contained by narratives and material conditions that forced a certain view about America. But then the terrain met the map. We need a new set of eyes. Find the others:
When things break, we are afforded an opportunity to make reconfigurations. This perhaps is a good time to investigate the contours of our relationships with others, with those we love, with our neighbourhoods, with the strangers who breeze past us in a blur of inconsequentiality. American politics is premised on fixed identity categories – that Democrats and Republicans are essentially two aspects of an adversarial binary. To a large extent, each side sees the other as a noxious blight on the face of the country. The first moments of ‘healing this divide’ is the recognition that even evil has a story, that those persons who hate black people, or curse at ‘the gays’, didn’t just spring out from the earth, fully realized and fleshed out. In a sense that often escapes us, we are unfolding, hyphenated aspects of each other. None of us is on the side of ‘good’. Donald Trump and the people that support him are just as much a product of the same media-infused, economically imperilled, people-denying politics that have created us. In a game of sides, the greatest loss we suffer is the other side. Let us leave room for the outlier, for the strange, and for the unexpected. We are not as ‘sorted out’ as we think we are. Notice the ground upon which you stand:
I like to say that falling could very well be flying, without the tyranny of coordinates. Technically speaking, falling objects are actually the gravitational pull of attraction between objects. I won’t succumb to, or insist that, we are being ushered into a more glorious paradigm of politics…I cannot make that claim. There are however sympathies between place and feet, between our stories and our contexts, that call on us to participate in the sacredness of where we are. What attracts you now? What questions matter to you? What performances of place are pressing themselves upon you? What do you do every day? Where do you come from? Does that question make sense? A friend, Eric Chisler, put this sentiment this way: “Remember the earth. Remember your ancestors. Remember your four-legged, winged, crawling relatives. Remember life. Your life, your way of living, that is the only activism you’ve ever had. Use it. Make your existence a ritual that honors everything your body and words touch. The times are troubled and you are needed. Wake up—notice the consequence of every action and non-action. You are needed. You are needed. You are needed.” The confusion about what to do next is redemptive :
If you are still confused about what this all means, how anyone could vote for Trump, what the future holds and how to respond to this proto-crisis of sorts, count yourself among the lucky ones. Confusion and uncertainty are how multiple agencies negotiate directionality – and this ongoing process is important. Even inertia isn’t determinately still. We must slowdown in these times of urgency, and allow other agentic forces to reshape us.
It might be the case that within the specificity of your own context, you know what to do. That’s great. March on the streets. Print BLM tee-shirts. Learn how to plant your own food. Investigate your ancestry. Or open a gift shop and invite passers-by to get free hugs. Out of the logic of our emergence, new moments are distilled and new activisms become possible. We must be humble enough to recognize that the ‘right thing’ to do is almost always known in retrospect, and that justice is always justice-in-the-making. Small lives matter:
Finally, don’t beat yourself up for not saving the day. Even if some archaic policy were conjured by the White House, annulling president-elect Trump’s win, it still wouldn’t do much to address the politics that made him happen. The fight is not so much with Trump as it is for a new way of meeting our own selves – a way of speaking with those we consider ‘other than us’. In short, we must turn to each other, for it is in the smallness of our embrace that new worlds burst into life.
All considered, would it have been great to have a woman president? Yes. That would have assured many of their place in the world and told them that they are valued and needed and worthy of love. And yet, that message finds a more interesting home now that we have lost our way…now that hope seems faraway.
The politics that knocks on our doors right now doesn’t have to wait for the next four years. Let your campaigns of sacred enlivenment continue.
Bayo Akomolafe | 0 |
According to reports, scientists have come up with a never-before-seen system that has the ability to predict big events on our planet hours before they actually occur.
After over half a decade of research, several scientists claim they have uncovered the existence of a so-called ‘collective consciousness.’ They are calling it the ‘Noosphere,’ and it exists all around us.
As it states on their website :
The Global Consciousness Project is an international, multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists and engineers. We collect data continuously from a global network of physical random number generators located in up to 70 host sites around the world at any given time. The data are transmitted to a central archive which now contains more than 15 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials generated every second.
Our purpose is to examine subtle correlations that may reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world. We hypothesize that there will be structure in what should be random data, associated with major global events that engage our minds and hearts.
Subtle but real effects of consciousness are important scientifically, but their real power is more immediate. They encourage us to make essential, healthy changes in the great systems that dominate our world. Large scale group consciousness has effects in the physical world. Knowing this, we can intentionally work toward a brighter, more conscious future.
The revolutionary system is called the Global Consciousness Project and its a revolutionary results acquired after more than 50 years of extensive studies.
Experts strategically positioned electronic circuits around the globe which act as ‘coin flippers’ but instead of coins being flipped, the flip bits – digital bits.
In the experiment, scientists characterized ‘heads’ as being 1s and ‘tails’ as being 0s. The system generates random sequences of 1s and 0s.
So what did scientists actually do? To get the system starting, scientists asked people to focus their mind so the system could generate more 1’s. Results showed that ‘somehow’ aft the end of the study, the system registered spikes in the random number generator RNG which came up with more 1s than 0s.
After years of tests and studies, experts discovered there were biases showing in the randomness. The system that should behave ‘randomly’ no longer behaved so when people interact mentally with them.
These fascinating results –which many people find impossible— gave scientists an idea to create so-called RNG eggs around the globe. These ‘devices constantly work and acquire data.
So far there are around 60 of these ‘devices, aka eggs.’ They are located all around the globe: Europe, the US, Canada, India, Fiji, New Zealand, Japan, China, Russia, Brazil, Africa, Thailand, South America, and Australia.
That’s fascinating but how does it work? Ok, so you have these RNG ‘eggs’ which are basically like receivers. Imagine each egg is flipping a coin and trying to guess the outcome. Every time it guesses correctly, it’s interpreted as a ‘hit.’ The ‘eggs’ can do this 100 times every second.
Experts behind the Global Consciousness Project found that they obtain a large number of hits, more than what can be attributed to pure chance, which coincides with MASSIVE global events.
According to reports, hours before tragedy struck the United States and the first place crashed into the WTC on 9/11, researchers noticed huge spikes in the number of registered hits. Apparently, this anomaly was first noticed then Princess Diana died.
These spikes would appear around different noteworthy global events.
After 20 years of tracking these events, expert’s realized that the results were far above random and that they were onto something.
Reports indicate that over the 426 pre-determined events measured in the entirety of the project, the recorded probability of a hit was greater than 1 in 2. In fact, the probability is one in a trillion that the effect is due to chance.
Many people believe that these results are the ultimate evidence that some sort of collective, entity or consciousness exists on planet Earth.
Today, the Global Consciousness projects is an international multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists and experts in different fields. They monitor and collect data from a global network of random number generators around the planet.
A mobile app has been created which can notify you when there is a spike somewhere near you, or on a global scale.
The mobile apps can also be used to track the activity of RNG around the globe.
Dean Radin, a scientist that participates in the project explains in the video below:
Ancient-Code SOURCE | 0 |
Home This Month Popular Feminism Has Lost The Minds Of Young Women Feminism Has Lost The Minds Of Young Women Maximus Decimus Meridius
Maximus is a Man, capital M, period. Love. Truth. Justice. Liberty. Respect. These are the lodestones pointing true to magnetic masculinity in a polarized feminist west. His goal for writing on ROK is to be the gadfly that provokes thought and counters groupthink. October 29, 2016 The Sexes
The idea that feminism is dead is gaining ground all across the west. One would like to think it is because of the trail blazing of the man-o-sphere, and to a great degree it is. But truly, the root of feminism’s death was in Man, capital M, from the very beginning. One look at Conan is all a man needs to know this truth.
Feminism is dead. The movement is absolutely dead.
The women’s movement tried to suppress dissident voices for way too long. There’s no room for dissent. It’s just like Mean Girls.
If they had listened to me they could have gotten the ship steered in the right direction. My wing of feminism—the pro-sex wing—was silenced. I was practically lynched for endorsing The Rolling Stones. Susan Faludi is still saying I’m not a feminist. Who made her pope?
Feminist ideology is like a new religion for a lot of neurotic women. You can’t talk to them about anything.
~ Camille Paglia on Rob Ford, Rihanna and rape culture for MacLeans.ca
Neurotic women indeed.
Paul Joseph Watson of Infowars/Prison Planet fame was bang on in his assessment of feminism at the end of 2014. But he may have underestimated his conclusions in my opinion. Feminists did not just lose the debate, they lost the war.
The feminist attempt to demonize normal male/female behaviour in public— men initiating contact with a female with a hello and attempt to strike up a conversation —backfired in less than a month.
When you have a woman volunteer to walk down the street as Princess Leia, the QUEEN of 70’s patriarchal sexist ‘misogyny’, to ridicule feminists, you have lost the war for hearts and minds.
And when I say hearts and minds… I mean the silent majority of young women who want NOTHING to do with feminism.
Leia makes it clear in this video that boys will be boys. So too will jawas, Darth Vader and even Yoda apparently, that sly dude. Who knew?
And that’s a good thing! Men and women are meant to interact and engage in romantic courtship. Feminists may hate this, but the vast majority of women still prefer, and expect, the man to take the initiative to get the girl. This is how men and women were created and evolved, you can’t fight Darwin and God and come out on top.
This video shows that the majority of NORMAL women LOVE male attention. They WANT men to look at them. They WANT men to notice them. Why?
THEY WANT A MAN!!!
I realized this is the case when I decided to google the fast rising phenomenon of women against feminism .
This image from the Women Against Feminism Tumblr page really hits home the loss for feminism. This woman was raped. She is not running around spreading lies like the UVA RAPE HOAX story that Rolling Stone ran and had to retract . She justs wants to go back to living a normal life. She does not want to be angry at ALL men for the crime of ONE of them. She does not want to demonize all men in some sad attempt to get revenge. She does not want to be a victim. Feminists have lost the female youth of Millenials, the very generation that is supposed to obliterate the patriarchy completely in the 21st century.
I understand some men who are still angry over feminism may proclaim these women are doing nothing more than crying for sympathy and attention now that Millenial men have become vocal, blunt and merciless in their attacks against feminism and the current generation of ‘women’ it has reared . The problem with this type of knee-jerk reaction is just that—you’re being a jerk. Yes, far too many western women for comfort are no good for a relationship anymore. But, that does not also translate into there being no young women who are not just as frustrated and angry at feminism as you are and the feminists who claim to speak for them.
Young women might not think about it as much since feminism has clearly made the road to independence (an illusion) easier for them to choose, but these women are taking note that men are completely ignoring them now that they have surpassed men in almost all aspects of western society.
Case in point.
I met a wonderful young Russian blonde a little while back. Twenty-three. Tight. Feminine. So freaking perfect. We hit it off immediately on first contact. Having myself only traveled outside the west twice, I still primarily meet foreign women in my own country and every time I do, I am blown away by their immediate friendliness and ease in my company compared to western girls. As I conversed with this well educated and refined young Russian lady, she told me she was attending university and so naturally, I asked her what she noticed most about the boys on campus compared to back home.
Her answer was revealing… Boys? They completely ignore the girls. Don’t even look at them. Just walk on by.
This really surprised her. Being a feminine Russian girl who expects men to look at women, this behaviour by western men was completely alien to her.
Men, young boys, in their prime 20s, completely ignoring women on campus as they go about their day.
According to Wikipedia, women against feminism started on Tumblr in 2013 . I see #WomenAgainstFeminism as a sign that many young women are fed up with feminism and male bashing in western society. It is not a sign of women speaking with two faces and trying to work both sides of the gender war to their advantage. All you have to do is look into the eyes of this young woman to know just how desperate these girls are for a real relationship, one with love and respect . I don’t think men realize how significant a movement like women against feminism is.
As men, we are naturally comfortable with open conflict and expressing not just dissenting, but offensive opinions. The very existence of women openly declaring they are rejecting feminism, and risking social ostracism in a wholly feminist dominated university climate, is why feminists are hyperventilating and going into ape-shit, mentally insane overdrive mode to try and salvage what support they have left . Here are just a few mainstream articles trying to push the meme feminism is not dead and just needs a ‘generational’ adjustment. | 0 |
| October 29, 2016 at 10:52 am | Reply
The Great Climate Change Bamboozle
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H. L. Mencken
Earth’s carbon cycle contains 46,713 Gt (E15 gr) +/- 850 Gt (+/- 1.8%) of stores and reservoirs with a couple hundred fluxes Gt/y (+/- ??) flowing among those reservoirs. Mankind’s gross contribution over 260 years was 555 Gt or 1.2%. (IPCC AR5 Fig 6.1) Mankind’s net contribution, 240 Gt or 0.53%, (dry labbed by IPCC to make the numbers work) to this bubbling, churning caldron of carbon/carbon dioxide is 4 Gt/y +/- 96%. (IPCC AR5 Table 6.1) Seems relatively trivial to me. IPCC et. al. says natural variations can’t explain the increase in CO2. With these tiny percentages and high levels of uncertainty how would anybody even know?
Mankind’s modelled additional atmospheric CO2 power flux (W/m^2, watt is power, energy over time) between 1750 and 2011, 261 years, is 2 W/m^2 of radiative forcing. (IPCC AR5 Fig SPM.5) Incoming solar RF is 340 W/m^2, albedo reflects 100 W/m^2 (+/- 30 & can’t be part of the 333), 160 W/m^2 reaches the surface (can’t be part of the 333), latent heat from the water cycle’s evaporation is 88 W/m2 (+/- 8). Mankind’s 2 W/m^2 contribution is obviously trivial, lost in the natural fluctuations.
One popular GHE theory power flux balance (“Atmospheric Moisture…. Trenberth et al 2011jcli24 Figure 10) has a spontaneous perpetual loop (333 W/m^2) flowing from cold to hot violating three fundamental thermodynamic laws. (1. Spontaneous energy out of nowhere, 2. perpetual loop w/o work, 3. cold to hot w/o work, 4. doesn’t matter because what’s in the system stays in the system) Physics must be optional for “climate” science. What really counts is the net W/m^2 balance at ToA which 7 out of 8 re-analyses included in the above cited paper concluded the atmosphere was cooling, not warming (+/- 12.3 W/m^2). Of course Dr. Trenberth says they are wrong because their cooling results are not confirmed by his predicted warming, which hasn’t happened for twenty years. (“All of the net TOA imbalances are not tenable and all except CFSR imply a cooling of the planet that clearly has not occurred.”)
Every year the pause/hiatus/lull/stasis continues (IPCC AR5 Box TS.3) IPCC’s atmospheric and ocean general circulation models diverge further from reality.
As Carl Sagan observed, we have been bamboozled, hustled, conned by those wishing to steal our money and rob us of our liberties. Hardly a new agenda.
BTW I have a BSME same as Bill Nye so I’m as much a scientist as he is. | 0 |
November 18, 2016 - Fort Russ News -
- Enrico VIGNA in Opinione Pubblica , translated from Italian by Tom Winter -
The election of Igor Dodon follows upon decades of the robbery and systematic looting of the country by politicians and related parties, financed and protected by
the West, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the EU and NATO,
which have made the country Europe's poorest; in fact, according to an IMF study, per capita income in Moldova at constant purchasing power is $ 5,006. This is a figure referring to those who physically live in the country, disregarding those who have emigrated to the West.
Even a UNDP report (United Nations Development Program), has determined that 8.1% of the population lives below the international poverty line of $ 1.25 a day (2000-2007); but 48.5% live below the so-called national poverty line.
Moldova is a country located between Ukraine and Romania with population of 3.6 million, of whom more than half live abroad. Its official language is Romanian, but a large part speaks Russian.
Moldova is considered one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, preceded only by Georgia, located at 103rd position in the Corruption Perceptions Index 2015 of Transparency International.
On November 13 there was the second round of presidential elections, where the candidate of the Socialist Party of the Republic of Moldova prevailed with 52.18% of the total, but in Moldova without the foreign votes, the figure is 75%.
This is despite the whole set of the "big powers" system: parties, apparatus, media and pro-Western NGOs that have made every effort and financial investment, electoral sabotage, blackmail, pressure and threats in the press and the media, which are completely in the hands of pro-Western rulers.
An example reported by the electoral bloc for the Socialist candidate Dodon is that while in the West the Moldovan government set up hundreds of polling places to allow their emigrants to vote, (overwhelmingly supporters of the West as they became rich and culturally westernized, no need to comment further), in the first round in Italy 80% had voted for the American Sandu and 7% for Dodon!
BUT, in Russia and in other countries where the migrant workers do not recognize the West as a model or solution, the government reduced polling places to a minimum: just think that in a city like Moscow, where more than 700,000 Moldovan emigrants live and work, the government only put up three polling places.
On the ballot were Igor Dodon, a lawyer and economist, until 2011 leader of Moldovan communists, who then joined the Socialist Party, of which he is currently president; and Maia Sandu, former education minister from 2012 to 2015, of the corrupt governments of Filat, who is currently in jail.
She represents the Action and Solidarity Party, supported by the US and EU; she graduated in the United States where she lived from 1989 to 1994, served as an official of the World Bank, protected by the Soros Foundation.
Igor Dodon is a man who comes from the people, the father of three sons, the person who founded the Charity Foundation "Solution," which, in all the years of its existence has helped tens of thousands of people; who organized and leads the patriotic campaign "I love Moldova," which managed hundreds of actions at national level supporting the Moldovan identity and the defense of Orthodoxy as the spiritual heritage of the people.
The clash between the candidates was very deep and went beyond the exclusively Moldovan reality. Rather it involves a change of balance with geopolitical meanings, which could give a strong blow to the Western hegemonic and imperialist aims: just think of the internal problem of Transnistria, the hitherto close relationship between the coup leaders in Ukrainian Kiev and the pro-europeen forces of Chisinau, the position towards the Donbass Popular Republics, Belarus, South Ossetia and especially the position of rejecting NATO.
Yes this a sensitive issue and a harbinger of strategic upheavals; in addition to the rejection of reunification with (in fact as a submission to) Romania, Ms Sandu supported the Association and Free Trade with the European Union Agreement ratified in 2014, which is now part of the DCFTA (Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area. Dodon instead proposed and supported Moldova's entry into the Eurasian Economic Union with Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, and supported trying for closer relations and investment with China.
The Dodon victory is based 90% on the population that lives out the devastated social reality produced during thirty years of robbery and wild privatization, namely the workers and the poorest peasants, regional minorities such as the Gagauz, the Bessarabi and the Russians; by the hundreds of thousands of migrants in Russia; and even the Orthodox Church supports the change.
The pro-European candidate was driven primarily by the inhabitants of the capital Chisinau, by profiteers who settled in the state and public offices, through corruption and political favoritism, and especially by the emigrants in the West.
Now, it is a matter of waiting for the excellent election platform to be applied into Moldovan reality, and above all the next steps, including calling new elections.
One thing is certain: the programs hitherto adopted resulted in impoverishment and social devastation, products of Western policies in the former Soviet countries, but they have found they here an unexpected setback, and the Moldovan people, like others in the realities of Eastern Europe, are taking charge of their destiny.
Hope finds a seedling to nurture and strengthen. In any case it is a disturbing signal for the aims of Western expansion and domination, and especially the military ones and oppression by NATO.
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Home / Health / America’s Most Popular ‘Legal’ Drug is Responsible for 25% of ALL Cancer America’s Most Popular ‘Legal’ Drug is Responsible for 25% of ALL Cancer John Vibes October 29, 2016 Leave a comment
There are many factors contributing to the massive rise in cancer cases in the US, but according to a new study from the American Cancer Society, cigarette smoke is by far the leading cause. The study found that roughly 25% of all cancer deaths could be attributed to cigarette smoking.
Although cigarette smoking has waned somewhat in recent years, nearly 40 million adults in the U.S. currently smoke cigarettes. The CDC says cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the U.S., responsible for more than 480,000 deaths annually.
According to the study :
We estimate that at least 167 133 cancer deaths in the United States in 2014 (28.6% of all cancer deaths; 95% CI, 28.2%-28.8%) were attributable to cigarette smoking. Among men, the proportion of cancer deaths attributable to smoking ranged from a low of 21.8% in Utah (95% CI, 19.9%-23.5%) to a high of 39.5% in Arkansas (95% CI, 36.9%-41.7%), but was at least 30% in every state except Utah. Among women, the proportion ranged from 11.1% in Utah (95% CI, 9.6%-12.3%) to 29.0% in Kentucky (95% CI, 27.2%-30.7%) and was at least 20% in all states except Utah, California, and Hawaii. Nine of the top 10 ranked states for men and 6 of the top 10 ranked states for women were located in the South. In men, smoking explained nearly 40% of cancer deaths in the top 5 ranked states (Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky). In women, smoking explained more than 26% of all cancer deaths in the top 5 ranked states, which included 3 Southern states (Kentucky, Arkansas, and Tennessee), and 2 Western states (Alaska and Nevada).
Smoking is one of the leading causes of illness and death in the world. The use of tobacco has become more widespread than ever and the substance itself is far more dangerous than it has ever been before.
Today, cigarettes are mass produced and treated with thousands of additives and chemicals. Carcinogenic, poisonous chemicals and toxic metals can all be found in modern tobacco products. These chemicals are present for many reasons ranging from taste and preservation to being purposely addictive. There are over 4000 of these chemicals in cigarettes and all of them are not revealed to the public. They are protected under law as “trade secrets” — meaning they can add anything they want in there without our knowledge.
The financial advantage alone should be enough of an argument to quit smoking. In most states, cigarettes are now over 6 dollars a pack, more than half of which is taxes. So people are literally paying the government and rich multinational corporations an average of 10 dollars every day, for a product that destroys their bodies. It is true that there are addictive chemicals in cigarettes but their strength and power has been blown way out of proportion.
The psychological addiction is always much stronger than the physical addiction even with harsh narcotics like heroin and especially with nicotine. All you have to do is stop and get through a few days without it. Soon enough the smell and taste will no longer be desirable to you and you will be happy to have that extra 6 dollars a pack in your pocket. It will be easier to breathe, you won’t get sick as often and you will overall be in better spirits. Quitting cigarettes is one decision that you can make that will drastically improve your life in a number of ways and it will give the elite less control of your money and your health. 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 here . Share | 0 |
Posted on October 30, 2016 by Charles Hugh Smith
Back in August, I asked Could the Deep State Be Sabotaging Hillary? I think we now have a definitive answer: “These blast points on Hillary’s campaign… too accurate for the Mainstream Media. Only the forces of the Imperial Deep State are so precise.”
The Mainstream Media is presenting the FBI investigation as a “lose-lose” situation for embattled FBI Director Comey. If Comey remained quiet until after the election, he would be accused of colluding with the Clinton campaign and its allies in the Department of Justice (sic).
But in going public, he stands accused by Democrats of “intervening in an election,” i.e. raising doubts about Hillary’s judgement and veracity days before Americans go to the polls.
Another narrative has Comey’s hand forced by the threat of disgusted FBI agents leaking information that would show the FBI caved into political pressure from the Democratic Party and Clinton campaign to keep relevant material out of the public eye until after the election.
I submit another much more powerful dynamic is in play: the upper ranks of the Deep State now view Hillary as an unacceptable liability. The word came down to Comey to act whether he wanted to or not, i.e. take one for the good of the nation/Deep State/Imperial Project.
As a refresher: the Deep State is the unelected government (also called the invisible or shadow government) that is not as monolithic as generally assumed.
The neo-conservative globalists who want Hillary to continue pushing their agenda are the more visible camp, but another less visible but highly motivated camp realizes Hillary and her neo-con agenda would severely damage the nation’s security and its global influence. It is this camp that is arranging for Hillary to lose.
The consensus view seems to be that the Establishment and the Deep State see Trump as a loose cannon who might upset the neo-con apple cart by refusing to toe the neo-con line.
This view overlooks the reality that significant segments of the Deep State view the neo-con strategy as an irredeemable failure. To these elements of the Deep State, Hillary is a threat precisely because she embraces the failed neo-con strategy and those who cling to it. From this point of view, Hillary as president would be an unmitigated disaster for the Deep State and the nation/Imperial Project it governs.
Whatever else emerges from the emails being leaked or officially released, one conclusion is inescapable: Hillary’s judgement is hopelessly flawed. Combine her lack of judgement with her 24 years of accumulated baggage and her potential to push the neo-con agenda to the point of global disaster, and you get a potent need for the Deep State’s most prescient elements to derail her campaign and clear a path to Trump’s executive team.
Once this path is clear, the management of Trump’s executive team can begin in earnest, a management process aimed at disengaging the nation and its global Empire from neo-con overreach.
If you think this scenario is “impossible,” let’s see how the election plays out before deciding what’s “impossible” and what’s inevitable. | 0 |
Miss USA Kara McCullough faced widespread backlash from liberal social media users after she called health care a “privilege” and not a right while answering questions onstage during Sunday night’s pageant. [McCullough, a scientist who works for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and who competed as Miss District of Columbia, was asked if she believes health care should be a right or a privilege for American citizens. “I’m definitely going to say it’s a privilege,” the pageant winner said, adding that taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to subsidize someone else’s health care. “As a government employee, I’m granted healthcare. And I see firsthand that for one, to have healthcare, you need to have jobs, so therefore we need to continue to cultivate this environment so that we’re given the opportunities to have healthcare as well as jobs for all Americans worldwide,” McCullough said. ”I’m definitely going to say it’s a privilege.” Listen to your new #MissUSA talk about healthcare in the USA. pic. twitter. — Miss USA (@MissUSA) May 15, 2017, The answer sent social media users into a frenzy, as many user chided McCullough for her answer. #MissUSA Miss DC just lost me with that answer … . Affordable healthcare is a privilege? Girl bye. pic. twitter. — Kat ❤ (@dazella_may) May 15, 2017, Miss DC was my fav but … not after that answer. Everyone has a right to healthcare. #MissUSA pic. twitter. — Charlsley✿ (@CharlsleyCarey) May 15, 2017, DC just disqualified herself with that answer #MissUSA, — Keeni Rodgers (@keeniz__) May 15, 2017, Some Twitter users, however, defended McCullough. Black people hating on #MissUSA because of conservative positions need to stop acting like owned brainwashed slaves to the left. — darnell (@cross_bearer89) May 15, 2017, CHILL FOLKS … Freaking out about Miss DC’s answer on healthcare? She’s just saying that you need to pay for it it’s not free #MissUSA, — Jackie Cunningham (@Cubsin2020) May 15, 2017, Way to go Miss DC You are correct! Healthcare is not a privilege — xoxo a nurse! #MissUSA, — 🌞TrumpsAmerica🌞🌊 (@irshroz) May 15, 2017, During the competition, McCullough was also asked if she considered herself a feminist, to which she said she prefers to “transpose” the word feminism to “equalism. ” “I don’t want to call myself a feminist. Women, we are just as equal as men, especially in the workplace,” McCullough said. “I believe we’ve come a long way and there is more work to be done. I think domestically we are making progress and I do believe that we will become equal one day,” she added. McCullough beat out first Miss New Jersey Chhavi Verg, a student at Rutgers University. McCullough will compete next in the Miss Universe contest. “I’m extremely thankful for this opportunity,” she said after the event. ““I just want to encourage so many women nationwide to find their passion in any subject possible and understand that nothing is difficult if you really, truly put the work in for it. ” | 1 |
ORION TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Ten years ago, a tech entrepreneur named Elon Musk published a secret master plan for Tesla Motors, an ambitious electric car he had funded. Revolutionary technologies always start as impractical and expensive, Mr. Musk explained, so Tesla’s first car would be a roadster that sold for $110, 000. But by plowing profits from that car into research and production capacity, Mr. Musk promised that Tesla would quickly create a series of cheaper cars in higher volumes, all toward an almost mythical aim: creating a electric car that could travel more than 200 miles on a single charge, but that cost less than $40, 000 for the privilege. This year, Mr. Musk’s white whale — a car that will get 238 miles per charge, and will sell for about $30, 000 after a federal rebate — will finally make it to the roads. Mr. Musk’s master plan has gone exactly as he promised, except for one tiny hitch. A first affordable electric car, which I drove last month and which blew my mind, is not a Tesla. I had to fly from Silicon Valley to Detroit to drive it because the vehicle was invented not by a celebrated but by that hoariest cliché of tarnished American manufacturing glory, Chevrolet, which is owned by General Motors. The car is the Chevy Bolt EV, a squat, compact hatchback. It is an important car for G. M. and, in a larger sense, for the traditional auto industry. It demonstrates the seriousness with which automakers are taking the threat posed by that are promising to alter everything about the car business. Not only is the Bolt the first inexpensive electric on the road, but it will also function as G. M.’s platform for testing new models for and autonomous driving. The Bolt is also proof that, in the car industry, size matters — that even if they may be slow to come around to the latest tech, big automakers can alter the car business even more radically than Tesla has, purely as a function of their bigness. Mr. Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, has made a habit of embarrassing his naysayers, but there are increasing signs that his little is nearing the limits of its potential. This spring, Tesla unveiled its own car, the Model 3, which will sell for just under $30, 000 after a rebate, and will go 215 miles on a charge, which is less than the Bolt. About 400, 000 people have paid $1, 000 to get on the waiting list for the vehicle, which Tesla says will begin shipping to customers in late 2017. But few industry analysts think Tesla will meet its production goals, and the very fact that there is a waiting list highlights its fundamental hardship. Tesla paved the way for the broad acceptability of electrics, but the Model 3 is, at this point, merely a concept car. G. M.’s Bolt goes on sale this year, and the company will probably be able to make enough to satisfy everyone who wants one. It’s a delicious irony: Cocky billionaire makes grand promises in a blog post. Ten years later, he gets his wish, in the worst way. Before we get to the Bolt’s implications, let me describe the car. Most of the fully electric cars on the road today — vehicles like the Nissan Leaf, the BMW i3 or Volkswagen — are afflicted with a problem that is a nonstarter for many Americans. They get, at most, around 100 miles per charge. That is enough for a lot of people to get to work and back, but not enough to let them feel entirely comfortable about it. At the other end of the spectrum are Tesla’s luxury rides, the Model S and Model X, which each get more than 200 miles per charge, enough to put to rest any range anxiety. But relief comes at a cost. After federal rebates, the S starts at $66, 000, and the X starts at $74, 000. The Bolt isn’t a luxury car. It’s surprisingly spacious inside (it could easily accommodate two car seats for my children) and has a nicely designed infotainment panel. But it looks and largely drives like a generic compact car. What is revolutionary about the Bolt is that it bridges category distinctions — it brings luxury car electric range at prices. In fact, it beats the luxuries. In their cheapest configurations, every Tesla gets a lower range than the Bolt. “Normally for electric vehicles we talk about going from point A to point B and back to A,” said Darin Gesse, G. M.’s product manager for the Bolt. “This car is designed to go from A to B to C to D and back to A, so it has more of a lifestyle focus, and it’s not just a commuter car. ” How did G. M. create Tesla’s dream car first? There is a lot to it, as I saw on a tour of the company’s Bolt operations. G. M. started building one of the world’s most advanced battery testing facilities in 2008, around the time the company faced imminent death after the financial crisis. The car that emerged out of that research, the hybrid Chevy Volt, can be said to have literally saved the company. The Volt was frequently held up as evidence of G. M.’s creativity by politicians who favored a bailout of Detroit. President Obama, who led the successful rescue, said in 2012 that he would buy a Volt after he left office. Most of G. M.’s advantages come down to size and operational efficiency. Tesla has had to build a huge factory to produce the Model 3’s batteries at scale. G. M. batteries are being outsourced to the electronics giant LG Chem. Tesla has had to retool a facility in Fremont, Calif. for its own purposes, while G. M. is tapping into its existing production system. At the company’s Orion Assembly plant outside of Detroit, I saw Bolts on the same line as Chevy Sonics and Buick Veranos. Robots and workers seamlessly shifted between the Bolt and more traditional cars as if nothing was different. Finally, G. M. enjoys the regulatory advantage of producing a fleet. Because the Bolt helps the company stay under the federal government’s standards, it perversely allows G. M. to keep selling more profitable, cars, like the Tahoe S. U. V. As a result, G. M. could lose money on each Bolt and still find the overall project valuable to its bottom line. Can Tesla compete with these advantages? Tesla fanboys (they exist) might point out that the Model 3 will have some luxury appointments that the Bolt lacks, including the option to upgrade to Tesla’s semiautonomous driving system, and access to the company’s network of stations. Tesla also has brand cachet and exclusivity that elude Chevy. And when its battery factory is running at scale, it should be able to produce batteries at a lower price, bumping up its profitability. Tesla declined to comment for this article, but analysts I spoke to are skeptical of its plans. One question is whether Tesla will hit its production goals. The company made about 50, 000 cars in 2015, and it is on track to produce about 82, 000 this year, despite some recent setbacks. Though Tesla has frequently missed Mr. Musk’s targets, he has again promised big production increases in the coming years. Tesla is aiming to make 100, 000 to 200, 000 cars in 2017, and 500, 000 in 2018. But the company is running out of cash, and investors have been miffed by Mr. Musk’s hasty plan to buy out his solar panel company, SolarCity. Another worry is that Tesla will hit its production targets, but only by skimping on quality. Over the last few decades, in a project first started by Toyota, global car manufacturers have greatly reduced defects using production systems that let workers slow down the line when they spot mistakes. Edward Niedermeyer, an analyst who edits the industry site Daily Kanban, said Tesla has departed from those methods to speed up its line. As a result, its cars have been afflicted by poor reliability. Last year, Consumer Reports stopped recommending the Model S after a survey showed that customers’ cars were plagued by squeaks, rattles, leaks and various other problems. “If you don’t have quality right, you start building cars really quickly, and then a defect happens, and you can’t stop yourself from producing hundreds or thousands of defective vehicles,” Mr. Niedermeyer said. G. M. has of course had its own share of defects. But its history of building a lot of cars mostly well may be a over a quickly growing . “We have 108 years of manufacturing ” Pam Fletcher, G. M.’s chief electric vehicles engineer, told me. “This is what we do. ” | 1 |
First Lady Melania Trump introduced her husband before his speech in Melbourne, FL on Saturday. After saying the Lord’s Prayer, Trump said, “The America we envision is one that works for all Americans, and where all Americans can work and succeed, a nation committed to a greater civility and unity between people from all sides of the political divide. I will always stay true to myself, and be truthful to you, no matter what the opposition is saying about me. I will act in the best interest of all of you. I’m committed to creating and supporting initiatives near to my heart, which will have impacts on women and children all around the world. ” Follow Breitbart. tv on Twitter @BreitbartVideo | 1 |
PHILADELPHIA — Mets Manager Terry Collins was in the middle of a television interview near the entrance to the visitors’ clubhouse at Citizens Bank Park when Jose Reyes dumped beer on his boss’s head. “Thank you for bringing me back, man,” Reyes said, hugging Collins. Reyes was not on the Mets’ roster when the season began. Neither was James Loney, nor Jay Bruce nor T. J. Rivera nor Seth Lugo nor Robert Gsellman. Saturday’s starter, Bartolo Colon, was supposed to have been in the bullpen by now. Up and down that battered and patchwork roster, the Mets looked distinctly different from the team that won the National League East and reached the World Series last season. Yet there they were on Saturday afternoon after a win over the Philadelphia Phillies, celebrating a return to the postseason that seemed improbable six weeks ago. “This year was harder for us to get in, even if it is to play only one game,” Colon said, his shirt wet with beer and Champagne. With the victory, the Mets secured the top N. L. spot they will host a game on Wednesday at Citi Field against either the St. Louis Cardinals or the San Francisco Giants. It is only the second time in the Mets’ history that they have reached the playoffs for a second consecutive season. To secure their berth, the Mets required 46 players, 87 wins, eight months and countless visits to the training room. By winning on the penultimate day of the regular season, the Mets can save their best starter, Noah Syndergaard, who was originally scheduled to start on Sunday, for their biggest game of the year. “It’s like every little kid’s dream come true to pitch in a game,” Syndergaard said. “I’ll embrace it, and I look forward to it. ” Colon allowed two runs but provided five solid innings on Saturday. The bullpen, as it has often done during the surge, completed the win. Loney smashed a homer in the sixth and then dropped his bat and pointed to the Mets’ dugout in glee. “You don’t script that,” said Loney, whom the Mets plucked from the San Diego Padres’ AAA affiliate in late May to fill the void left by an injury to first baseman Lucas Duda. “Your body just takes over. Those are the moments you dream of. ” Having to play a game after a World Series appearance may seem disappointing, but not to a team that sustained so many significant injuries. “A huge accomplishment,” said catcher Travis d’Arnaud, one of seven players from the Mets’ opening day lineup who spent time on the disabled list. The starting rotation, the backbone of the Mets last season, was hit the hardest. Zack Wheeler, who was supposed to have replaced Colon in the rotation, never joined the Mets in the season’s second half, as planned, because of setbacks in his rehabilitation from Tommy John surgery. Matt Harvey has not pitched since July 4. Jacob deGrom has not pitched since Sept. 1, and Steven Matz, who will have surgery next week, has not pitched since Aug. 14. “Surprisingly, our greatest strength was deeper than we even expected that strength to have been,” Mets General Manager Sandy Alderson said. In the far corner of the clubhouse, Gsellman and Lugo, the unheralded prospects who saved the rotation, posed together for a photo amid the revelry. Gsellman started the season at Class AA Binghamton. Lugo posted unimpressive numbers in Class AAA, and some scouts doubted that he would ever reach the majors. Yet as deGrom and Matz succumbed to injuries, Lugo and Gsellman impressed everyone with their poise and their pitching. The Mets went in games they started. “There are no words to describe this feeling,” Gsellman said. “This is the first step to the playoffs. Hopefully, this is not our last time. ” The Mets were also missing second baseman Neil Walker, who has been out since Aug. 27, and the team’s captain, third baseman David Wright, who has not played since May 27. He was replaced by Reyes, who was released by the Colorado Rockies after serving a domestic violence suspension and was given a second chance by the Mets. Many players pointed to Reyes’s energy as a catalyst. But so were the returns of Asdrubal Cabrera and Yoenis Cespedes from injuries on Aug. 19. That day, the Mets lost to the Giants in San Francisco and fell to . They sat five and a half games out of the second spot. A feeling grew within the clubhouse that this was a doomed season. But behind Cabrera, Cespedes and Reyes, the Mets started a hot streak. The offense improved. Cabrera persevered despite a balky left knee. “It wasn’t easy,” Cabrera said. “I gave my 100 percent — actually my 200 percent — to help the team win. ” Since the season’s low point in San Francisco, the Mets have been the best team in the majors, going thanks in part to a soft September schedule. “It’s great to see the team this year accomplish as much as it did with as many obstacles placed in its path,” Alderson said. Roster moves throughout the season paid off. Although Bruce struggled for more than a month after the Mets acquired him in a trade on Aug. 1, he caught fire at the plate in late September. The already dominant relievers Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia received help from Fernando Salas, also acquired by trade. “Sandy deserves so much credit,” Collins said. “He took a chance on Jose Reyes when nobody else would. He brought kids up from the minor leagues and stuck them in the rotation. He’s not afraid. ” As the celebration in the clubhouse died down, Alderson and the assistant general manager John Ricco sat in Collins’s office to talk. The preparation for Wednesday’s game had begun. | 1 |
Saturday on Fox News Channel’s “Justice,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich took aim at MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough, his former colleague in the U. S. House of Representatives, for suggesting Gingrich’s criticism of former FBI Director Robert Mueller was tied to the appointment Gingrich’s wife, Callista Gingrich, to the U. S. ambassadorship to the Vatican. This is grotesque and fans the flames of rage among the unbalanced. What exactly is the price of an ambassadorship these days? https: . — Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) June 15, 2017, Gingrich told host Jeanine Pirro his support for Trump had been a constant and that for Scarborough to have said that suggest he is a “prostitute. ” “Now we know to the degree of which Joe [Scarborough] is a prostitute that apparently he would do that,” Gingrich said. “I wouldn’t. My record of being for Trump is clear. It’s unending. I just wrote a book, ‘Understanding Trump.’ I am deeply committed to this presidency because I think we need to shake up Washington. By the way, when I ran in ’12, it was very similar to Trump except I wasn’t as good as he is. So there’s a long continuum of my support for Reagan, to the ‘Contract With America,’ to Donald Trump. And I would challenge Joe Scarborough, who knows me pretty darn well, to be honest about this. ” ( The Right Scoop) Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
RALEIGH, N. C. — A federal judge on Monday upheld sweeping changes to election rules, including a voter identification provision, that civil rights groups say unfairly targeted and other minorities. The ruling could have serious political repercussions in a state that is closely contested in presidential elections. The opinion, by Judge Thomas D. Schroeder of Federal District Court in upheld the repeal of a provision that allowed people to register and vote on the same day. It also upheld a reduction in the period the end of preregistration, which allowed some people to sign up before their 18th birthdays and the repeal of a provision that allowed for the counting of ballots cast outside voters’ home precinct. It also left intact North Carolina’s voter identification requirement, which legislators softened last year to permit residents to cast ballots, even if they lack the required documentation, if they submit affidavits. The ruling could have significant repercussions in North Carolina, a state that Barack Obama barely won in 2008, and that the Republican Mitt Romney barely won four years later. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which sits in Richmond, Va. will be the first to consider an appeal, which the law’s opponents said they would pursue. If the Fourth Circuit or the Supreme Court does not intervene, the changes will be in force when voters go to the polls this autumn. North Carolina voters will also elect a governor in what is expected to be one of this year’s most competitive state races. The ruling is an early signal of how federal judges might regard changes and challenges to voting laws in the aftermath of a 2013 Supreme Court decision that effectively eliminated a portion of the Voting Rights Act that had forced nine states, mostly in the South, to obtain advance federal approval before changing their election laws. “North Carolina has provided legitimate state interests for its voter ID requirement and electoral system,” Judge Schroeder said near the end of his opinion. The judge, an appointee of President George W. Bush, found that North Carolina’s system was not beyond “the mainstream of other states. ” Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, who signed the bill scaling back the voter access provisions in August 2013, welcomed the decision. He said in a statement that “this ruling further affirms that requiring a photo ID in order to vote is not only common sense, it’s constitutional. ” But critics vowed to appeal the ruling, and charged, as they often have, that the legislature sought to eliminate tools that made it easier for everyone, but particularly minority voters, to get to the polls. “By meticulously targeting measures that were most used by people of color — in addition to imposing a restrictive photo ID requirement — the legislature sought to disturb the levers of power in North Carolina, ensuring only a select few could participate in the democratic process,” Penda D. Hair, of the Advancement Project and a critic of the law, said in a statement. “This fight is not over. ” In his ruling, the judge suggested that past discrimination had abated. “There is significant, shameful past discrimination,” he wrote. “In North Carolina’s recent history, however, certainly for the last quarter century, there is little official discrimination to consider. ” The law, which originally included a much stricter voter ID provision, was passed by the legislature in summer 2013, shortly after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Shelby County v. Holder. The ruling effectively eliminated what was known as the “preclearance” process, in which certain states and local governments had to submit proposed voting changes to the Justice Department or to a federal court in Washington. Judge Schroeder’s decision capped a trial court record that stretched more than 23, 000 pages and included weeks of testimony about the General Assembly’s revisions to the election laws here. The voter identification standard, which required voters to display one of six forms of documentation, was central to an overhaul that supporters described as a bulwark against fraud. But opponents of the changes said they were intended to disenfranchise black and Hispanic voters, an assertion they repeated on Monday. “Through widespread actions, rallies, marches and protests, we have said all along that we would accept no less than unabridged access to the ballot for all eligible voters,” said the Rev. William J. Barber II, the president of the North Carolina N. A. A. C. P. “Just like those who carried on before us, we will continue our movement challenging regressive and discriminatory voter suppression tactics on behalf of Latinos, seniors, students and all those for whom democracy has been denied. ” Such comments surfaced occasionally on Monday here in the state capital, where Mr. Barber led demonstrations against the state’s new law about gay and transgender rights and, occasionally, veered into other issues that have propelled his Moral Monday movement of activism. The N. A. A. C. P. the League of Women Voters and the Justice Department were among the plaintiffs challenging the 2013 law. A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Daniel T. Donovan, said he expected a higher court to block the changes from being enforced this year. “We’re disappointed in the ruling, reviewing the decision carefully and evaluating our options,” said Dena Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department. The plaintiffs may have reason to be optimistic about their chances at the Fourth Circuit. In fall 2014, a panel of the appellate court issued a preliminary injunction forcing the state to temporarily restore two ballot access provisions: one that allows registration and another that allows for the counting of provisional ballots filed outside voters’ home precincts. The panel ruled that the elimination of those two provisions probably violated another section of the Voting Rights Act that remains intact, known as Section 2, which prohibits racially discriminatory voting rules. Judge James A. Wynn Jr. wrote at the time that there was “undisputed evidence” that those two provisions “were enacted to increase voter participation, that voters disproportionately used those electoral mechanisms and that House Bill 589 restricted those mechanisms and thus disproportionately impacts voters. ” | 1 |
The Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee withdrew from the committee’s business Tuesday, forcing the committee to delay voting on confirming Steven Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary and Rep. Thomas E. Price (R. .) for Health and Human Services Secretary. [Leading the walkout was Sen. Ron Wyden (D. .) the committee’s ranking member, who said the extreme action was a tactic to force Mnuchin and Price to answer questions from the Democrats. Wyden said he opposes both men for nomination. “This morning, the Finance Committee was scheduled to vote on two nominees who have misled the public and held back important information about their backgrounds,” he said. “Until questions are answered, Democrats believe the committee should not move forward with either nomination. ” Senate Finance Committee rules require at least one member of the minority party to be present for the committee to conduct official business. Wyden said he was not satisfied with the answer Price gave him regarding his stock trading. “I asked Congressman Price directly if he got an exclusive discount on stock in an Australian biomedical firm, and he said no,” the senator said. “From the committee’s investigation to company documents to the company officials’ own words, the evidence tells a different story. It looks more and more like Congressman Price got special access to a special deal. ” The Oregon senator said he was also concerned about the fullness and veracity of Mnuchin’s answers regarding his leadership at OneWest Bank. “Mr. Mnuchin denied that OneWest Bank under his leadership engaged in foreclosure documents, but that is indisputably false,” he said. “Court documents and testimony show that OneWest employees processed hundreds of documents a week, spending only seconds on each, and they routinely did so without verifying their contents,” he said. “What OneWest did is the textbook definition of shady practices. ” was a common practice in the middle of the last decade as the real estate boom overwhelmed the capacity of banks and other financial and real estate companies to properly review documents. Lawyers have challenged documents that were approved by and employees under pressure to process paperwork more quickly, which produced the practice. Wyden said Democrats on the Finance Committee are committed to denying quorum for the committee until they have their concerns allayed and questions answered in regards to Mnuchin and Price. “The Finance Committee needs to continue following its bipartisan vetting process that has been upheld for more than 20 years,” the senator said. “This is about getting answers to questions, plain and simple. Ethics laws are not optional, and nominees do not have a right to treat disclosure like a shell game. ” | 1 |
Republicans are starting to stammer, talk of delay and say we can’t repeal all of Obamacare. One GOP plan even keeps the Obamacare taxes. Another GOP plan says to blue states: “If you like Obamacare, you can keep it!” and red states will pay for it. Other GOP plans want to keep Obamacare subsidies but rename them refundable tax credits. [Conservatives need to unite behind immediate and complete repeal! At the same time, conservatives need to rally to a plan that allows more people to buy insurance at a cheaper price. I have just such a plan, and it is gaining momentum. We should not hesitate. Repeal and Replacement should happen as soon as humanly possible. Each day, more stories appear about when to repeal, when and how to replace, and every day it seems some in my party lose their nerve. Let me be as clear as I possibly can: The time is NOW. We must keep our promises and FULLY repeal Obamacare, every bit of it. We must also at the same time offer to the American people our plan for healthcare going forward, and it must take us away from government control and toward a free market. Big Government approaches are wrong, whether they are offered by Democrats and Republicans. We must move in another direction. I’ve offered a broad, bold and free market Obamacare Replacement bill. It is available to view at paul. senate. gov, along with a summary. My plan will ensure millions more people have access to better, less expensive health care. First, my plan legalizes the sale of inexpensive insurance. Under Obamacare, it became illegal to sell or buy less expensive catastrophic insurance plans. Second, my plan allows people to save for insurance by expanding Health Savings Accounts (HSA’s). My plan allows the individual to use their HSA: As more and more people spend their first dollar out of their HSA account, a marketplace will develop that makes patients cost conscious driving prices down. Third, my plan will allow every individual the freedom to join an association to buy their health insurance. For the mom and pop small business, my plan allows them to leave behind a terrible system that causes them to live in fear of becoming ill or getting cancer. Allowing individuals to join an association with hundreds of thousands of other individuals will allow them to gain leverage to get less expensive insurance and demand protections against conditions clauses. Virtually every item in my bill has been previously introduced by Republican legislators. My bill is a consensus bill that compiles the reforms all Republicans generally agree with and leaves out controversial subjects like refundable tax credits that will create a new trillion dollar entitlement program. While it may not be everything everyone would want, it is largely everything we agree on. So let’s get it done, and then continue to work on it over the next year. So I say, Repeal Now. Replace Now. Keep our promises to those who overwhelmingly voted for change, and do it right now. As a physician, no one hates Obamacare more than I do. I ran against it. I will vote to repeal it, and I want the chance to do so very soon. But as a physician, I also know the underlying system is still broken, and simply repealing won’t fix it by itself. We need the kind of reforms I have proposed. I spoke last week to my fellow physician, incoming HHS Secretary Dr. Tom Price. He agreed with me on the need to move soon, and the need to both repeal and offer a replacement. In fact, as I pointed out to him, many of the ideas in my plan came from bills he has offered in the past as a member of Congress. So we have broad agreement. We have a mandate from the elections. We just need to have the political will to get it done. I plan to lead this charge. | 1 |
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Как сообщает Crienglish.com, кота компания рассчитывает найти до 10 ноября. В этот день в преддверии крупнейшего в КНР торгового фестиваля состоится гала-вечер интернет-магазина Tmall (его символом является черный кот). В Alibaba рассчитывают, что животное станет объектом для новых мемов и вирусных видео, а также увеличит продажи.
Ранее Alibaba ранее уже удалось привлечь ставших популярными в сети котов, к примеру, сердитого котика из США (Grumpy Cat), кота по кличке Анри из Франции, Мару из Японии. В должности заинтересованы Милк и Орео из Великобритании, а также китайские коты, сообщает портал.
Напомним, компания Alibaba основана в 1999 году. В ее структуру входит десяток интернет-площадок, в том числе AliExpress, Taobao и китайское подразделение Yahoo!.
Американские ученые пришли к выводу, что гладить кошек - опасно для здоровья.
В ходе исследований ученые выяснили, что близкое общение с кошками опасно для человеческой жизни, сообщает РИА VladNews со ссылкой на Информинг.
Согласно исследованиям, домашние любимцы передают своим хозяевам инфекции чаще, чем считалось ранее. Результат исследования показал, что кошачьи царапины, которые появляются в ходе общения между кошками и их хозяевами, могут привести к серьезному заболеванию - «кошачьей лихорадке».
Ранки от кошачьих ногтей могут спровоцировать высокую температуру и даже могут стать причиной летального исхода.
По словам специалистов, не следует заводить кошек, когда в доме есть маленькие дети, а также после общения с животными следует тщательно мыть руки.
Специалисты-фелинологи уже полгода ведут наблюдение за хвостатыми подопытными и к 2021 году обещают объяснить, что означает вся гамма издаваемых нашими любимцами звуков.
Исследователи в процессе опыта записывают все звуки, которые выдают 50 подопытных котов, когда они голодны, испуганы, ищут ласки или просто довольны.
Полученные результаты анализируют и классифицируют. Уже установлено, что кошки способны изменять интонацию или мелодику осознанно, желая донести до хозяина определенную информацию, делится наблюдениями специалист в области фонетики Сусанна Шетц . Например, когда кошка просит еду, она мяукает тоньше.
По мнению фелинологов, вербальное общение - не главное средство связи этих животных с человеком: диалог в основном идет на языке тела и запахов. Некоторые проблемы во взаимопонимании возникают еще и потому, что по сравнению с собаками, и уж тем более людьми, мурки имеют очень мало лицевых мышц. Впрочем, научившись шифровать эмоции, сами они легко считывают информацию с лиц хозяев.
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Late night host Jimmy Kimmel took to social media Wednesday to attack Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. [“Put simply, Scott Pruitt is a piece of sh*t,” Kimmel wrote to his eight million Twitter followers. “If you care about the outdoors, stop him. #PruittHearing” Put simply, Scott Pruitt is a piece of shit. If you care about the outdoors, stop him https: . #PruittHearing, — Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) January 18, 2017, The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host’s tweet linked to a website for Washington, D. C. environmental nonprofit American Rivers. “ Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency is someone who has fought consistently to block environmental protections,” the group’s website reads. “The American people did not vote to put the EPA in the hands of someone who has recklessly worked against its mission to protect Americans’ water. ” Pruitt, who has served as Oklahoma Attorney General since 2010, has been a relentless critic of President Obama’s climate strategy, the “Clean Power Plan,” and has sued the EPA. Pruitt attended a hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Wednesday morning. Pruitt told lawmakers Wednesday that he “does not believe that climate change is a hoax. ” “I believe the ability to measure with precision the degree of human activity … is subject to more debate on whether the climate is changing or [that] human activity contributes to it,” Pruitt said. As for Kimmel, he’s been tapped to host the broadcast of the 89th annual Academy Awards on February 26 on ABC. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
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When Tom Hayden died on Oct. 23, we lost a courageous warrior for peace and equality. Hayden was on the front lines of nearly every major progressive struggle for more than 50 years. Vilified by the Right and at times criticized from the Left, Hayden remained steadfast in his commitment to social, economic and racial justice.
An activist, political theorist, organizer, writer, speaker and teacher, Hayden was a Freedom Rider in the South during the 1960s; a founder of Students for a Democratic Society; a leader of the anti-Vietnam War movement; a community organizer; a negotiator of a gang truce in Venice, California; the author of more than 19 books; and an elected official in California for nearly two decades.
"Tom made important contributions as a writer and a political leader, but his greatest strength was as a visionary strategist," said Bill Zimmerman, who worked with Hayden in the Indochina Peace Campaign and later managed his 1976 U.S. Senate campaign. "Tom was able to see far over the political horizon, and was then able to create and lead political movements that were often ahead of their time. Whether it was radical opposition to war or mainstream support for candidates, progressive ballot initiatives and necessary legislation, he was a true leader, clay feet and all."
The Indochina Peace Campaign (IPC), founded in 1972 by Hayden and Jane Fonda, who became his wife the following year, was a traveling road show that opposed the war in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Daniel Ellsberg, whose leak of the Pentagon Papers helped to end the war, traveled with Fonda, Holly Near and others for two weeks, speaking around the clock against the war.
According to Ellsberg, IPC was instrumental in ending the war. While some in the organization took to the road to organize opposition to the war, others lobbied Congress to cut the funding for combat operations. Although the Paris Peace Accord was signed in 1973, many, including Ellsberg, knew the war was not over. - Advertisement -
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was pressuring President Richard Nixon to restart the bombing. Congress cut the funding in 1975 and the U.S. war in Vietnam finally ended.
"IPC was a model of grassroots activism and lobbying," Ellsberg said.
Hayden was steadfast in his opposition to the Vietnam War. He made several trips to North Vietnam, calling attention to the U.S. bombing of civilians. On one trip, at the request of the North Vietnamese government, Hayden returned to the U.S. with American prisoners of war. Since the U.S. government refused to recognize the government in Hanoi, the Vietnamese would only release the prisoners to Americans in the anti-war movement.
Advice from Dr. King
A transformative event in Hayden's life occurred in 1960 when he was a college student. He interviewed Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on a picket line outside the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. The picket demanded that the Democratic Party include a strong commitment to civil rights in its platform. King told Hayden, "Ultimately, you have to take a stand with your life." - Advertisement - | 0 |
by Yves Smith
This unprecedented election season is finally coming to a close. Join us for commentary and discussion as the results roll in.
Lambert will kick off the election night live blog at 8:30 PM tomorrow evening. With the presidency and the Senate majority in play, there’s a lot to watch. The presidential and vice presidential live blogs were lively, so we expect another evening of incisive and often humorous conversation. 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 0 |
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The fury over the Nobel Prize for Literature having been awarded to music legend Bob Dylan— and his subsequent snubbing of it— has come from many sources.
But the most surprising source may be liberals who have championed Dylan for decades as the troubadour of progressive politics— even though he's long since moved on from his folk song beginnings. Image Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for AFI
As Chris Queen of PJ Media points out in a piece posted there Wednesday, this isn't the first time Dylan has failed to be on “the right side” of an issue— his pro-Israel stance has been irritating progressives forever. Image Credit: Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images
Queen cites a recent Al-Jazeera editorial written by French sociologist and media critic Ali Saad.
In the article, Saad takes exception with much of the media for not pointing out Dylan's pro-Israel political stance when reporting the news of his Nobel award.
Saad writes:
“....media outlets, both Arab and international, framed the story without taking issue with Dylan's pro-Israel stance and instead portrayed him exclusively through the prism of his constructed image as defender of the oppressed.”
Saad also cites Dylan's early '80s song “Neighborhood Bully,” whose lyrics supposedly express support of Israel metaphorically, as proof that Dylan has held that point of view for decades.
Naturally, since the majority of ultra-progressives tend to view Israel as an “occupying force” with an aggressive military, Saad sees it as unbecoming of an anti-war icon to pledge allegiance to such a state. Image Credit: Cynthia Johnson/Getty Images
Of course, more than a few were simply angry over Dylan's refusal to acknowledge that he'd received the honor at all. The musician still hasn't responded to the Nobel organization's attempts to contact and congratulate him.
As Ultimate Classic Rock writes:
"Bob Dylan‘s decision to not acknowledge having won the Nobel Prize for Literature, unsurprisingly, isn’t sitting too well with the Swedish Academy, the body that awards the prize. Calling it 'an unprecedented situation,' an academy member has lashed out at Dylan for ignoring their attempts to contact him.
'It’s impolite and arrogant,' Per Wastberg, a Swedish writer said on SVT public television, as reported by The Guardian.
'Yesterday, we reported that Dylan has rebuffed every attempt by the committee to contact him, either directly or through someone described as his “closest collaborator.” He even removed the acknowledgement of the prize from his website. They are remaining optimistic that Dylan will attend the ceremony on Dec. 10, at which point he will be given an 18-carat gold medal and a check for approximately $900,000. As of now, Dylan’s current tour is scheduled to conclude on November 23."
But should any of it— Dylan's “Zionism,” his public indifference to having received what's considered one of the great humanitarian honors in the world— surprise anyone?
Dylan has a long history of defying expectations, from when he abandoned folk music for electric rock 'n roll, becoming a “Judas” to millions of folk fans, to when he converted to Christianity in the '70s and wrote gospel tunes. He even famously once beat up a stalker in 1971. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
It seems that the man whom poet Allen Ginsberg once called a “trickster hero” isn't someone who wants to be on anyone's team. | 0 |
DAILY CALLER
330,000 Russian troops amassing along European borders.
NATO will contribute a 4,000-strong force to bolster the defenses of its members in the Baltic states and eastern Europe. Four battle groups will be created out of forces by early next year. The battle groups will be bolstered by a 40,000-strong reaction force, and various reinforcements as needed. The plan is the fulfillment of a promise to increase the defenses of former Soviet-bloc members under threat from Russian aggression.
“This month alone, Russia is deploying nuclear-capable Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad and suspending a weapons-grade plutonium agreement with the United States,” said Stoltenberg Wednesday while attending a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Belgium. The deployment of the missiles to Kaliningrad, a small Russian satellite territory located between Poland and Lithuania, puts Poland and the Baltic states directly in Russia’s sights.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced a battalion of 900 “battle-ready” soldiers will be deployed to eastern Poland as part of the new commitment. British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said his country will be sending a battalion of 800 soldiers to Estonia, in addition to a contingent of Typhoon fighter aircraft to Romania. Canada plans to send 450 troops to Latvia, backed by 140 Italians. Germany will contribute 400 to 600 troops to Lithuania.
Russia steadily built up its military presence on the European border for several months. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced a plan to recruit 30,000 additional forces to be stationed on Russia’s eastern flank in May, followed by the deployment of the Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad in early October.
The massive military build-up represents one of the largest since the Cold War, and comes at a time when tensions between the West and Moscow at are dangerously tense.
Send tips to [email protected] . | 0 |
World Crisis Radio
ISIS stronghold of Mosul Rapidly Becoming Untenable for Terrorists by Webster G. Tarpley Refusal to Honor Result of Nov. 8 Election Is No Laughing Matter as GOP Down-ballot Runs for Cover; Republican Party on Track to Self-Destruct Over Coming Months, Starting with Issue of Whether to Concede Defeat; Democrats Now Have a 73% Chance of Taking Over U.S. Senate; Which Is Worse: Autocracy or Triangulation?
Partners | Washington D. C. (États-Unis) | 27 October 2016 Download audio file
Webster G. Tarpley | 0 |
LinkedIn Could Soon Be Banned in Russia
Business networking site LinkedIn refuses to utilize Russian servers, and collects information on people without their consent Originally appeared at RT
The world's largest professional network LinkedIn could soon be blocked in Russia. The company has failed to comply with a law that obliges companies to keep data on Russian users in the country.
Apart from not moving servers to Russia, LinkedIn collects and sends information about people who are not users of the network without their consent, according to the Russian internet watchdog Roskomnadzor.
"We are seeking a court order to block LinkedIn. We twice sent requests in the summer, but they did not provide answers to our questions," said Roskomnadzor spokesman Vadim Ampelonskiy in an interview with the TASS news agency.
According to the spokesman, Moscow’s Tagansky District Court has ruled in favor of the watchdog, but LinkedIn has appealed to a higher court.
“If the appellate court upholds the judgment, and it will no longer be appealed, the decision will enter into force within 30 days. We will include the appropriate IP address in the register of violators of the personal data rights, which means blocking,”Ampelonskiy said. The decision will be announced on November 10.
The watchdog will remove the ban, if the social network provides information that it has fulfilled the law and moved servers with data about Russians to the country.
"This is the first company we are suing in court. In future we will use the same mechanism in relation to other companies,"the spokesman said.
Roskomnadzor also told Kommersant daily that another reason for the lawsuit was "numerous publications in the media about repeated leaks of user data from the social network."
In May, website Haker.ru reported the sale of 167 million stolen LinkedIn accounts, and passwords for 117 million accounts on the dark web. LinkedIn said the leak happened in 2012, and passwords have now been updated.
LinkedIn is the world's largest business and employment oriented social network. As of 2015, it had 400 million users with 5 million people registered in Russia.
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Barrel Bomb: The Cataclysmic Close of Campaign 2016 By Chris Floyd
Well, here we are: at the bottom of the barrel under forty feet of slag. In a few days time, well know our fate: the five-alarm fire of Trump Rule (oh, how those police unions are chomping at the bit!) or the Clinton Age of Hyper-War (oh, how those neocons are chomping at the bit!). In either case, the entrenched coagulation of corporate interests and war profiteers that have strangled the peace, prosperity and prospects of the American people will not be budged an inch. The change that people are so desperately hungry for so hungry that that some of them might well elect an Establishment insider whose sinister clowning makes him appear to be a rebel will not come. Thus their bitterness will grow deeper, more sour, erupting more and more often in physical violence: from militarized police against protestors, from Trump-empowered racists (if he wins or loses), from extremist militias, from angry, maddened people on every side. And of course there will be more much more of the horrific, never-ending, globe-spanning violence of the bipartisan Terror War that churns on and on, no matter who is sitting temporarily in the White House.
Theres no use in pretending thats not what we face. But theres also no use in pretending that this situation is somehow sui generis , some terribly unlucky conflation of unforeseen circumstances coming together at this particular time. It is in fact the culmination and embodiment of the deliberate choices of the most powerful forces in society: the choices to enrich themselves beyond all reason and extend their military and economic dominance over the earth.
It doesnt matter that many if not most of the practitioners and functionaries of this system believe in its rightness. It doesnt matter that brutal neoliberal nostrums and extremist imperial notions have become religious dogmas for those who see themselves as the meritocracy. It doesnt matter if the leaders and factotums genuinely believe in the exceptionalism they preach or if they are cynical power-seekers. It doesnt matter if they actually believe their rapacious financial machinations are reflections of the natural law of the the market that will eventually benefit all, or if they know themselves to be what they really are: ugly souls disfigured by greed. The end result has been the same: a long series of deliberate choices by a bipartisan elite that have hollowed out the lives and communities and futures of millions of Americans, and created a living hell of war, ruin and hatred over much of the earth.
This is a system that has delegitimized itself, a system that has undermined its own institutions. Through its own actions, it has rotted out the foundations of trust and reason which once upheld it. Some might say, Oh, but theres been a decades-long, concentrated effort by right-wing billionaires and corporate forces to foment ideological and religious extremism to undermine the legitimacy of secular government, which might restrict their profiteering or let more people have a share in power. And thats true. But its been accompanied at every step by the collusion and cowardice of the putative opposition. The so-called New Democrats, exemplified by the Clintons, jettisoned concern for the common good to embrace centrist and technocratic policies: i.e., to adopt the neoliberal dogma that unbridled pursuit of private profit by a connected elites will somehow, someday, lead to general prosperity. The idea that the party should fight to improve the lives of ordinary people in the here and now, to fight for their quality of life in a genuine, substantive way, came to be seen as old-hat, a quaint and fusty notion of has-beens and dreamers who didnt understand the way the world really worked. A true, savvy moderate knows you must compromise every ideal, show yourself to be a willing and avid servant of the monied interests and the militarists, in order to gain power so you can make a few cosmetic changes around the edges, a few little social improvements here and there (but only of course! in partnership with private interests), but never, ever challenge the system at its core.
This is the only deal in town: outright, unvarnished right-wing rule, or simpering, cowardly moderate management of a violent, rapacious system. Thats been the choice on offer since 1976. Thats the choice on offer today. The only difference is that the system has metastasized to a monstrous degree over the years: lacking any genuine opposition, the system has grown more violent, more rapacious.
Establishment collusion and Democratic cowardice finally and completely degraded and delegitimized the American electoral process 16 years ago, when the Supreme Court with two members who had direct family ties to the Bush campaign stopped a recount that would have resulted in the actual winner of the election to take office. This outrageous action was accepted by every single organ and institution of the American system. (With the momentary exception of the Black Congressional Caucus, whose members tried, in vain, to get a single Democratic senator to challenge the result.) Instead, Americans were encouraged to applaud the fact that power had changed hands without tanks in the street. That is, we were to celebrate that an actual coup detat had taken place before our eyes without the slightest show of resistance.
Once in place, the coup regime staffed at the highest levels by extremists who a year before had publicly called for a vast militarization of American policy and society, even if the public had to be galvanized by a new Pearl Harbor led the nation into a disastrous war based on false pretenses, a vast crime that not only killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people but has led directly to unbridled turmoil, extremism, conflict and corruption around the world. The elite-supported coup regime instituted torture programs and death squads, and launched an orgy of war profiteering unprecedented in world history. The regime then presided over the worst economic collapse in generations.
Not a single member of the regime was ever tried or even investigated, at even the most preliminary level for a single crime committed during its time in power. There were no high-profile Congressional investigations into the hideous carnage and ruin and instability they wrought; not even a Chilcot Commission into the origins of the war, as the UK belatedly launched. Instead the regimes leaders and top factotums were heaped with honors and wealth. Today their endorsement is eagerly sought and gained by the progressive Democratic candidate for president.
In 2008, the desperate electorate turned to a figure presented to them as an outsider who would at last bring real change. He had the trappings of difference a black man with a Muslim name, who spoke eloquently of peace and social justice, who most people thought was far to the left but voted for him anyway. But Barack Obama was of course a meritocratic centrist to his core. Riding an enormous wave of popularity, and a strong Congressional majority, he proceeded to bail out Wall Street fraudsters and finaglers with tax money and create a health care system based on the plan of a rightwing think-tank that prioritized corporate profit and probably killed the chance for a genuinely public health care system for generations, if not for good. He also doubled down on the Terror War, expanding it to more countries, extended Bushs death squads, helped destroy nations like Libya and Yemen (thus spawning more chaos and terror), expanded illegal surveillance of the populace (and the world) to an extent beyond the wildest dreams of the Stasi or KGB. And after saving Big Money from itself and securing the guaranteed profits of the healthcare-insurance corporate complex, he spent most of his time on the domestic front trying to strike a grand bargain with Republicans to cut Social Security and Medicare.
Again, all hopes of any real change were thwarted. So now the nation swings from being ready to embrace a perceived leftist to the brink of voting in a bellicose rightist as it seeks the genuine change no one will give them. Of course, after the scorched-earth tactics of bipartisan neoliberalism and the inevitable moral degradation and brutalization that comes from year after year after year of vicious aggressive war, the choice for Trump is more nihilistic. Its as if people believe positive change is no longer possible so lets tear everything down and see what happens. (This is the actual, open philosophy of the Breitbart gang, who are now directing Trumps campaign.)
Even if Clinton wins, this nihilism will still be rampant. And given that she happily embodies the bipartisan Establishment now roundly despised on all sides for its many depredations, the nihilism will grow even worse especially as she has given no indication whatsoever that she will even try to make substantive changes in the neoliberal-militarist system that is strangling us. Quite the contrary.
So yes, this has been a campaign like no other but mostly because it has brought the systematic decay of the Republic into the sharpest possible relief, and has shown, more clearly than before, that the neoliberal-militarist ascendency offers no hope for a better life, a better world; indeed, that it offers nothing at all except more violence, more bitterness, more ruin, more degradation for us all.
Chris Floyd blogs at www.chris-floyd.com . | 0 |
Actress and comedienne Melissa McCarthy is tasked with saving animals and the environment in Kia’s new Super Bowl LI commercial. [In the spot, titled “Hero’s Journey,” the Ghostbusters star is seen saving the whales, trees, ice caps, and rhinos with each daring attempt at heroism ending in painfully dramatic fashion. “Watch Melissa McCarthy during the Big Game as she sets off on a mission to save the planet,” Kia says of its new Super Bowl advert. “Unfortunately, she finds out the hard way that it’s not easy to be an . ” With Bonnie Tyler’s song “Holding Out for a Hero” playing in the background, McCarthy is seen driving the “fuel efficient” 2017 Kia Niro to save the day: “People will go to great lengths to support the causes they are passionate about, and the Niro is a ‘smarter kind of crossover’ for those looking to go green without making sacrifices,” Michael Sprague, chief operating officer and executive vice president for Kia Motors America, said in a press release, Ad Age reports. “The Niro is like nothing consumers have seen before, and with an audience of over 100 million people tuning in, Melissa McCarthy is the perfect partner to tell the world about Kia’s uniquely alluring yet practical new crossover. ” McCarthy said the Kia ad was the “perfect project” for her, one that combined her signature comedy with her “desire to help save the environment. ” “For years, I’ve been trying to find the perfect project that combined the real threat of me breaking every bone in my body, with my desire to help save the environment,” the actress said in a statement. “Thanks Kia! !! XOXO Love, Melissa. ” Watch McCarthy get pulverized by a whale, fall off a tree, slide into an icy ocean, and be trampled by a rhino in the video above. The Kia Super Bowl commercial will air on FOX during Super Bowl LI on February 5. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson. | 1 |
Since its origin in Entebbe, Uganda, in 1947, the Zika virus has spread through Brazil, into South and Central America and the Caribbean.
The Zika virus is contracted through a bite from an Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus mosquito, native to Brazil. It can also be transferred through sexual intercourse with an infected person. The virus was first found in a monkey, in 1947, and finally released as the Zika virus in 1952.
In 1954, a human in Nigeria was infected. From then until 2015, there have been minimal cases of the Zika virus, around the world, including Africa and Asia, in 2007. At first, the virus was mistaken for dengue fever, which is also spread through mosquito bites. It is viral and transmitted throughout the tropics. Side effects include a rash, conjunctivitis, and arthralgia. Serum taken from the patients showed ribonucleic acid (RNA) from the Zika virus, even though both conditions are similar.
The symptoms of the Zika virus are usually mild and most of those infected do not even notice. However, a few adults have experienced temporary paralysis. Unfortunately, the virus can cause severe birth defects in the brain of the baby, as it develops. It can cause the infant to have brain damage and a smaller head. Pregnant women have been urged by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) not to return to areas that have been affected by the virus, and women who are looking to get pregnant have been told to get tested for the virus. In three months, Brazil reported over 3,500 cases of birth defects, and some have led to death.
In late July 2016, the Florida State Department of Health released information reporting that four people were discovered to have contracted the virus, revealing that it had reached the U.S. The location was limited to a small area in Miami, but according to the CDC there are travel-related virus cases in all the states. The worst was Florida.
Unlike these four patients, over 1,600 people in America have been infected by the Zika virus due to travel to an affected area. These four people were infected by a mosquito located in Florida. Researchers have said this was inevitable due to the state’s close proximity to Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, which are both highly infected areas.
They believe that the mosquitoes in Florida are not the original mosquitoes that carry this virus since their travel is limited to 500 feet. Instead, researchers think the mosquitoes bit people already infected with the virus, and that is how it began to spread, in southern Florida. In an effort to rid the Miami area of these mosquitoes, Wynwood, a small part of the city, has been aerially spraying pesticides to kill the pests.
Public health officials are fairly confident that the number of infected people would be limited since most homes in the south have air conditioning, unlike many of the other countries that have been infested. The Aedes aegypti mosquito is rare in the U.S. and is not often found in the northern hemisphere. This newly reported information has led to a push for Congress to allow more funding to battle this virus. In July 2016, Congress left for recess without approving any funding for the virus.
However, in late September, due to the continuing outbreak of the Zika virus, the U.S. Senate approved $1.1 billion in funding to battle the virus. This money will go toward rebuilding Louisiana, increased control of the mosquitoes, continue to fund research on the virus, and hopefully find a possible vaccine.
Most recently, the Florida Department of Health stated there were 878 cases of the virus. In the U.S. alone, there have been 3,358 cases. It is even more staggering in the U.S. territories, where the number of infected people reached close to 20,000, as of September, according to the CDC website. The virus is becoming a serious health issue in the U.S. Federal and state agencies are working together to battle this virus from spreading any further.
By Allison Murphy
CDC: Case Counts in the US
The New York Times: 4 Zika Cases in Florida Were Likely Spread by Local Mosquitoes, CDC Says
Zika Virus: History
Local 10 News: Senate approves $1.1 billion to fight Zika virus
CBS News: Zika warning lowered for part of Miami, as spraying continues
CBS News: Florida triples Zika transmission area as new cases reported
Image by Master Sgt. Brian Ferguson Courtesy of Airman Magazine’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License Congress , florida , spot , Zika | 0 |
Thursday, 17 November 2016
In surprising news today, Hillary Clinton was named attorney general by president-elect Trump.
Sources indicate that the Trump transition team has found plenty of Republicans with significant foreign policy experience and plenty of Republicans with lucrative consulting contracts with other countries.
Unfortunately, they happen to be the same people. Trump tweeted, "If my attorney general has conflicts of interest, I couldn't care less, but the media will be all over it, so I am proposing a very Trumpian move--hire crooked Hillary! The media will love me!"
In a related tweet, Clinton said, "I am sure Donald and I will have fewer conflicts than I would have had with all those Democratic whiners who blame me for losing the election and I look forward to building on our foreign policy successes such as financially crippling Russia for invading the Crimea."
Trump retweeted her statement adding, "I thought we were going to make Russia part of NATO." Make wasabiphil's | 0 |
House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Devin Nunes ( ) announced on Wednesday that he had learned that members of President Donald Trump’s transition team had been under surveillance by the Obama administration, that individual names had been “unmasked” by the intelligence community, and that those names had been leaked to the media. [Nunes’s information — which he said he would deliver to the White House later — vindicates the bulk of Trump’s claims earlier this month. Nunes said that while there was no direct “wiretap” by President Barack Obama of Trump Tower, there was indeed surveillance — perhaps collected incidentally — of people close to Trump, possibly including Trump himself. Much of that had been suspected, on the basis of mainstream media reports, but Rep. Nunes reported something new: that the surveillance did not involve the ongoing Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) inquiry into Russia’s alleged involvement in the 2016 presidential election. Indeed, none of the surveillance had intelligence value, he said. “I believe it was all done legally,” Nunes told a press conference. The question, he said, was why names of those swept up in the surveillance had been leaked. The collection of the intelligence appeared to have been legal, but the leaking may have been illegal. Most of the activity occurred during the transition period from November to January. Furthermore, Nunes said, he did not know whether phone calls — including phone calls involving Trump — were among the communications captured. Nunes added that the new information had come to light after Monday’s hearing with FBI Director James Comey, when the congressman had appealed to anyone with new information to come forward. He said the new revelations had been “legally brought to me by sources who thought that we should know it. The new information vindicates earlier reporting by Breitbart News, Mark Levin, and others, and which President Trump may have relied upon in tweeting the wiretapping claim Mar. 4. Following Monday’s hearing, the mainstream media appeared to celebrate Comey’s statement that there was no evidence of wiretapping at Trump Tower. Politicians, too, piled on — including some Republicans, like Sen. Jeff Flake ( ) who demanded that Trump apologize to Obama. However, the only new revelation at the hearing was that senior members of the Obama administration may have been involved in “unmasking” former General Michael Flynn in intelligence reports. Wednesday’s revelations by Rep. Nunes confirm earlier media reports of surveillance of Trump aides and associates, with the added twist that the revelations were unrelated to investigations of Russian ties to the Trump campaign. No evidence of any collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign has been found, and former Obama administration intelligence officials have said publicly that such evidence does not exist. Though the media, and the political opposition, had attacked Trump for his claims about wiretapping, he later clarified that he had used the term to refer to surveillance in a general sense. He also suggested that more evidence would soon emerge. The result is a vindication of Trump’s controversial claims. Questions remain about whether President Obama himself knew of the surveillance, which other Obama administration officials were involved, and whether Trump was monitored directly. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
This post was originally published on this site
MOSCOW, November 17. /TASS/. The Anti-Doping Administration & Management System (ADAMS) has started to malfunction in the wake of hacker attacks, spokesperson of Russia’s Federal Medical and Biological Agency Veronika Loginova told the All-Russian Athlete Forum.
“Recently ADAMS has frequently been glitching because of hacker attacks,” she said. “But athletes have an opportunity to report this fact by sending an email to the address available on the WADA and the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) websites. This email will serve as an excuse, if athletes fail to register in the ADAMS system.
ADAMS is a web-based database management system that coordinates anti-doping activities worldwide under the World Anti-Doping Code. Each athlete has his or her profile containing information on the athlete’s whereabouts, doping probes and permission to use various medications.
Some time ago, the Fancy Bear hacker group hacked the ADAMS database and began to publish documents proving that in the past years some renowned athletes had taken banned substances for medical purposes. A total of six lists were disclosed with 127 athletes from different countries on the lists. The sole Russian athlete mentioned in the documents was boxer Mikhail Aloyan.
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“It is what it is. People know how I feel about it. Just follow me on Twitter,” New England Patriots tight end Martellus Bennett said when he announced he would not attend the White House celebration with President Trump for the victors of Super Bowl LI on Sunday. [Bennett stated that he’s “not really worried” about the fact that Tom Brady, Coach Belichick, and Patriots owner Robert Kraft have all expressed their friendship with the nation’s 45th president. “I’m not worried about it at all,” he insisted. One day before the November presidential election, Bennett tweeted “I’m with her,” indicating that he planned on casting his vote for Hillary Clinton. I’m with her. — Martellus Bennett (@MartysaurusRex) November 8, 2016, Bennett also tweeted in January that the “president dude” was not inclusive and worried that Trump may ban celebrating the Chinese New Year in America: America was built on inclusiveness not exclusiveness. — Martellus Bennett (@MartysaurusRex) January 30, 2017, Surprised the president dude didn’t ban celebrating Chinese New Year in America!! — Martellus Bennett (@MartysaurusRex) January 29, 2017, The second round draft choice by the Dallas Cowboys in 2008 insists that he doesn’t bring his political views to work. “We all have our beliefs. We accept people for who they are,” asserts Bennett. Apparently, Bennett who connected with Brady for five passes and drew a crucial pass interference call toward the end of overtime doesn’t plan on accepting President Trump “for who he is,” as Yahoo Sports pointed out. Bennett is not the first to boycott a Super Bowl gathering with the sitting president. In 2015, after the Pats won Super Bowl 49 by beating the Seahawks, Tom Brady did not make it to the White House gala hosted by former president Barack Obama. | 1 |
Will the 2016 election be rigged?
That depends on what the definition of “is” is – and whether or not you count blatant media bias, operatives and instigators, shady quasi-voters, bizarre electronic voting “errors” and a heavy-handed advantage in the electoral college and the shifting demographics of a socialist state that promises much to certain groups.
With the GOP leadership turning its back on Trump, and the Democratic machine dedicated solely to providing for Her, it will be a difficult win for Trump, despite overwhelming enthusiasm at rallies across the entire country and lop-sided pro-Trump crowds that literally dwarf pro-Hillary gatherings of very few.
But as most everyone knows by now, it isn’t the popular vote that counts – but only the delegates awarded state-by-state to the electoral college… and that is a game that Hillary’s operatives are very good at playing.
Daily News Brief: The 2016 Election Is In The Process Of Being Stolen With Rigged Voting Machines
There are several states – in particular – that are being surprisingly maneuvered for her advantage… and if successful, will block Trump from even coming close the presidency.
Texas Could Turn “Blue” For the First Time In 20 Years
This is the big enchilada, so to speak. For the first time in many decades, Texas is in play for Hillary and the Democrats. Texas has been as solidly “red” as any state in the union, but 2016 could be different.
With 38 electoral votes, the Lone Star State is the biggest prize on the map next to California, whose 55 electoral votes have gone to the Democrats since before history began. Since at least 2008, the Dems have been massaging their electioneering strategy to capitalize on shifting demographics – with plenty of Hispanics in the next generation of voters. On paper, Hillary should be able to play well to Hispanics with all the controversy over Trump’s immigration stances and talk of a border wall. Rumors of illegal immigrants be encouraged to vote could be a crucial factor, with polls in Texas close to neck and neck… it could go either way.
Of course, there is every reason to think that Team Hillary is not taking any chances.
As Michael Snyder and many others have reported , electronic voting machines have been mysteriously flipping votes for Hillary in several counties in Texas… and that doesn’t bode well for a massive electoral prize that is within range for her campaign:
Early voting has already begun in many states, and a number of voters in Texas are reporting that the voting machines switched their votes from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton. The odd thing is that none of the other choices were affected when these individuals attempted to vote for a straight Republican ticket. If Hillary Clinton is declared the winner of the state of Texas on election night, a full investigation of these voting machines should be conducted, because there is no way that Donald Trump should lose that state. I have said that it will be the greatest miracle in U.S. political history if Donald Trump wins this election, but without the state of Texas Donald Trump has exactly zero chance of winning.
At least one county is making an emergency switch to paper ballots after irregularities were found with the electronic machines during early voting.
Meanwhile, Infowars confronted the head of Texas’ elections about his decision to violate voter laws and abandon a manual count of a random sampling of 1-3% of votes (which should theoretically reflect the larger voting trend, unless something is fishy). Without that count, there is less accountability than ever:
This is major issue, and Texas isn’t the only state… just the biggest.
2. Utah’s Independent Republican Could Actually Beat Trump
OK, so Utah only has a grand total of 6 electoral college votes… and has never been a decisive swing state in a presidential election. But that is because the state has been so solidly “red.” However, this election is totally different.
A little known independent candidate named Evan McMullin has actually taken the lead in several recent polls in Utah, and is neck-and-neck with both Trump and Hillary in several other polls (at or around 30% apiece). Libertarian Gary Johnson is also playing (relatively) well at about 5% – possibly enough to swing further momentum away form Trump.
But Evan McMullin is the real surprise hit – in a state that is suddenly considered an important battleground in the election.
McMullin is a Mormon, which gives him a significant boost. He is officially tied to Better for America, which is basically a #NeverTrump operation – backed by neocons like William Kristol. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Evan McMullin has a pretty colorful and telling background : on top of being a former policy director for House Republicans, he’s also a former CIA operations officer; a member of the elite think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR); a former Goldman Sachs investment banker and a volunteer refugee resettlement officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan.
Wow! I wonder if there could be an agenda there. Hillary probably won’t win Utah, but Trump may not either – and it could make a crucial difference if he is within striking distance of 270 electoral votes.
3. Florida Is a Must Win Swing State for Trump… But Current Polls Show Possible Hillary Win
Oh boy… Florida all over again. With 29 electoral votes, it remains a major contender that is so often on the fence and swinging in the wind. It is considered essential for a Trump victory, and indeed for just about any successful Republican bid for the presidency.
Sure, we all know the polls are rigged, and may be oversampling Dems to look better for Hillary on paper – but nonetheless, that perception drives expectations.
If She can create a convincing win there, it could change the course of the election once again. Florida has consistently been the closest outcome – in 2008 and 2012 it went blue for Obama; in 2000 and 2004 it went red for Bush (and not without major controversy and some very shady recounting).
Her team is pushing heavily for early voting in Florida, and so far they claim an early voting advantage.
But campaign surrogate Roger Stone is now reporting that Hillary has met secretly with Broward County officials in Florida, and there is speculation that problems with the voting machines may soon be happening all over again.
Pay very close to what happens there, because of course, Florida could be THE deciding state (again). Right now polls are within 2 points , currently in favor of Trump by a very narrow margin.
4. Colorado Has Known Voting Fraud Issues – With Dead People on the Voter Rolls
With 9 electoral votes, Colorado is currently swinging “blue” but could go either way. CBS4 and the Washington Times reported that an investigation was started by Colorado’s Secretary of State after multiple examples were found of deceased people registered and in the voter rolls:
“This is the kind of thing you hear rumored, joked about in Chicago, that kind of thing,” Mr. Maasssaid during a Thursday evening broadcast. “Tonight, that changes. We did find voter fraud in Colorado that essentially waters down your vote.”
[…]
“This is the kind of thing you hear rumored, joked about in Chicago, that kind of thing,” Mr. Maasssaid during a Thursday evening broadcast. “Tonight, that changes. We did find voter fraud in Colorado that essentially waters down your vote.”
It’s not clear whether or not Colorado could make a difference in the outcome, but the results could prove suspect.
5. Hillary Is “Leading” In These Key Swing States
While Trump is expected to win the crucial state of Ohio, and also North Carolina, Hillary is projected to take key states including Pennsylvania, Colorado, Iowa, Virginia and Arizona.
According to the Washington Post :
if Clinton can hold Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Colorado, then she only needs one more out of many swing states — New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina, or Florida — barring any surprise Trump win in a blue-leaning state like Wisconsin. That is currently looking very plausible.
While any of these could change in the actual outcome, it shows that Hillary has definitely maneuvered to win where it counts – not with the people, but with the electoral college.
The details are too numerous to follow here, and anything could happen.
6. You Know Voter Fraud Is Happening If the Media Claim It Isn’t
What should be very telling to everyone is how loudly the major media – in concert – are trying to debunk Trump’s claims of voter fraud and insist that all is well when it is quite clear that there are major issues.
This is one claim that the system is very afraid of, because quite frankly, they have a great deal to hide.
There is more reason than ever for accountability, reporting on any irregularities and an insistence that the will of the people be respected – because the system is desperate to hold onto control at any cost.
Courtesy post via SHTFPlan.com
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First Lady Melania Trump upstaged her peers during her final visit abroad this week with President Donald Trump to Sicily, Italy for the G7 Summit. [In a luxurious and Dolce Gabbana floral coat, covered in an array of flowers, along with a matching floral clutch, Melania stole the show from the other spouses of foreign leaders during the NATO event. As the First Lady was photographed in the center for the spouses, her peers opted for more subtle looks. Newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife, Brigitte, dressed down for the occasion, arriving in an orange knit top paired with white skinny jeans and red wedges. The wife of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Akie, wore a floral look as well, but couldn’t match up to Melania’s vibrant coat and matching clutch purse. Meanwhile, the wife of Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni, Emanuela Mauro, remained casual in a white linen top and black trousers, while the wife of Catania, Italy’s Mayor Enzo Bianco, Amanda Succi, kept it subtle in a pale blue dress. TIZIANA Images, Melania’s arrival at the meeting of international leaders marks her and her husband’s last visit abroad before heading back to the United States from their first global trip as President and First Lady. The First Lady took the fashion world by storm on the trip with her choice of high fashion outfits of mostly coats, dresses and belts, stunning the foreign press in Dolce and Gabbana, Reem Acra, Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors. Melania is a friend of Dolce Gabbana designer Stefano Gabbana, who takes to Instagram to celebrate each time she wears one of his creations. | 1 |
From the earliest days of his campaign, Donald J. Trump made keeping manufacturing jobs in the United States his signature economic issue, and the decision by Carrier, the big company, to move over 2, 000 of them from Indiana to Mexico was a talking point for him on the stump. On Thursday, Mr. Trump and Mike Pence, Indiana’s governor and the vice plan to appear at Carrier’s Indianapolis factory to announce a deal with the company to keep roughly 1, 000 jobs in the state, according to officials with the transition team as well as Carrier. Mr. Trump will be to alter the economic forces that have hammered the Rust Belt for decades, but forcing Carrier and its parent company, United Technologies, to reverse course is a powerful tactical strike that will hearten his followers even before he takes office. “I’m ready for him to come,” said Robin Maynard, a veteran of Carrier who builds furnaces and earns almost $24 an hour. “Now I can put my daughter through college without having to look for another job. ” It also signals that Mr. Trump is a different kind of Republican, willing to take on big business, at least in individual cases. And just as only a confirmed like Richard Nixon could go to China, so only a businessman like Mr. Trump could take on corporate America without being called a Bernie socialist. If Barack Obama had tried the same maneuver, he’d probably have drawn criticism for intervening in the free market. In exchange for keeping the factory running in Indianapolis, Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence are expected to reiterate their campaign pledges to be friendlier to businesses by easing regulations and overhauling the corporate tax code, according to a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump. The state of Indiana also plans to give economic incentives to Carrier as part of the deal to stay, according to local officials. The message from Mr. Trump that captivated the Carrier workers — keeping manufacturing jobs in the United States after decades of losses to overseas factories and automation — resonated throughout the Rust Belt. That promise, plus his opposition to pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement, were key reasons he was able to edge out Hillary Clinton in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Political symbolism aside, saving 1, 000 Carrier jobs doesn’t loom so large in an economy that’s created an average of 181, 000 jobs a month this year, noted Jared Bernstein, a liberal economist who served as adviser in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011. Still, he confessed a grudging admiration for Mr. Trump’s political jujitsu. “If I weren’t so scared of the damage a Trump administration might do, I’d find it refreshing to see an administration fighting for factory jobs like this,” he said. “That said, no one should confuse what Trump is doing here with sustainable economic policy. ” Over the long term, and for less prominent firms, the temptation to move to cheaper locales for manufacturing will stay great, said Robert Reich, a prominent liberal Democrat who served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration. “Memories are short but the economic fundamentals remain the same,” he said. “Wall Street is breathing down companies’ necks to cut costs, and the labor savings in Mexico is too great. ” Mr. Trump first announced he was talking to Carrier on Thanksgiving Day via Twitter, which the company quickly confirmed. The discussions have continued this week, and with a tentative deal in hand on Tuesday, transition officials scheduled Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Pence’s visit to Indianapolis. “I didn’t think it would be this quick,” Mr. Maynard said. While the standoff loomed large in the lives of its employees in Indiana, for United Technologies the forgone savings is tiny — equivalent to about 2 cents per share in earnings. “Every penny counts, but if we step back and I’m looking at earnings of $6. 60 per share this year, 2 cents is an easy concession if the listens to some of the company’s bigger concerns,” said Howard Rubel, a senior equity analyst with Jefferies, an investment banking firm in New York. When Carrier announced in February that the two Indiana factories would be closing, it did offer benefits to employees facing layoffs, including paying for them to go back to school and retrain for other careers. Even with that, however, once the layoffs were to begin in most of the workers would have had a hard time finding jobs that paid anywhere near the $20 to $25 an hour that veteran line workers earn. Carrier is best known for its but it also sells a variety of other heating and cooling equipment for homes and businesses, like the gas furnaces and fan coils for electric furnaces made at the Indianapolis factory. The jobs in Indiana Mr. Trump has referred to are in two separate sites — the Carrier plant in Indianapolis, with 1, 400 employees, and a United Technologies factory in Huntington, Ind. with 700. While Carrier will forfeit some $65 million a year in savings the move was supposed to generate, that’s a small price to pay to avoid the public relations damage from moving the jobs as well as a possible threat to United Technologies’ military contracting business. Roughly 10 percent of United Technologies’ $56 billion in revenue comes from the federal government the Pentagon is its single largest customer. With $4 billion in profit last year, the company has the flexibility to find the savings elsewhere. Members of Congress have been pressing to punish big military contractors if they move jobs outside the United States. Many industrial companies face intense pressure from Wall Street to increase profits, even when the economy grows slowly — a major reason United Technologies decided to move. That won’t change after Mr. Trump takes office — especially when hourly pay in the Indianapolis plant is equivalent to what workers in Mexico make in a day. “This is a spot solution,” said Mohan Tatikonda, a professor at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. “If it goes through it helps some Carrier employees for a period of time, but it doesn’t address the loss of manufacturing jobs to technological change, which will continue. ” | 1 |
TOKYO — Since becoming prime minister for the second time in 2012, Shinzo Abe has made it a centerpiece of his foreign policy to steer Japan closer to the United States. Even as Washington has lost ground in the region, with China expanding its presence in the South China Sea and North Korea defying efforts to restrain its nuclear development, Mr. Abe has stood by the Obama administration, holding it close. Yet as Mr. Abe visits Pearl Harbor on Tuesday with President Obama, in a symbolic capstone to the relationship between the two leaders, that approach may be tested more than ever. The Partnership, the multinational trade deal that both Mr. Abe and Mr. Obama championed, is in tatters now that Donald J. Trump has promised to torpedo it. North Korea appears to be on the verge of a nuclear breakthrough. China has lately been more aggressive in both the East and South China Seas. And Mr. Trump brings other kinds of uncertainty, grumbling about Japanese trade barriers and the cost of United States military support, and raising the specter of a more confrontational approach to China that could have unpredictable results in the region. “Japan is in a kind of a crisis over what direction we can go,” said Kyoji Fukao, a professor of international economics at Hitotsubashi University. The alliance between Japan and the United States has endured since the end of World War II, but analysts say Mr. Abe, a conservative nationalist, and Mr. Obama, a liberal who had ambitions to change the world, have helped to make the partnership stronger than it has been for decades. “This is the strongest, most reliable and trusting relationship probably in the last 40 years at least,” said Takatoshi Ito, a professor of international finance and trade at Columbia University. “This has been a good four years. ” Given Mr. Abe’s nationalist leanings, he might not have seemed the most likely Japanese leader to embrace the United States, or a Democrat like Mr. Obama, so warmly. Yet since he took office four years ago, after an earlier stint as prime minister in Mr. Abe has committed Japan to several policies favored by the Obama administration. Mr. Abe expanded Japan’s support of United States military bases despite fierce opposition in Okinawa, and pushed through controversial security legislation that allows Japan’s military, the Self Defense Forces, to participate in combat missions abroad. He offered nonmilitary aid to countries battling the Islamic State, even as ISIS militants killed a Japanese hostage. The clearest motivation for Mr. Abe was the need for a partner in defending against a rising China. “In the regional geopolitics, I think Japan and the U. S. are both pushed closer to each other by China,” Mr. Ito said. “For security, there is no one but the U. S. which can provide the security to Japan, so there is no question about it. ” Mr. Obama provided very clear promises of protection. In 2014, during a visit to Tokyo, he declared that a security treaty obligated the United States to defend Japan in its confrontation with China over a set of disputed islands in the East China Sea, known in Japan as the Senkaku and in China as the Diaoyu. It was the first time an American president had explicitly said so. Now Japan’s leaders are warily watching Mr. Trump’s approach to China. They may like that Mr. Trump is taking a more aggressive stance toward Beijing on issues like trade, Taiwan and the South China Sea, but there are also risks for Japan if that stance triggers a hostile response. “Standing tall Beijing is of course welcome,” said Sheila A. Smith, a Japan expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. But “the potential for use of force or a much more bellicose U. S. relationship would be an uncomfortable spot for Tokyo. ” Partly in hopes of providing another counterweight to China, Mr. Abe has worked for months to develop a relationship with Russia, trying to resolve a dispute over a set of islands that has prevented the signing of a peace treaty since World War II ended. But a recent summit meeting in Japan between Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and Mr. Abe ended with little progress. Perhaps an even bigger disappointment for Mr. Abe is Mr. Trump’s vow to pull the United States out of the Partnership, on which both Mr. Abe and Mr. Obama spent considerable political capital. For Mr. Abe, it was in part an excuse to push for changes in Japan’s agricultural industry, as well as an opportunity to gain access for Japanese manufacturers to export markets in the United States and elsewhere. Now his only hope is to try to persuade Mr. Trump to resuscitate the deal. Mr. Abe briefly met Mr. Trump in New York in November, and he hopes to see Mr. Trump again in Washington shortly after the inauguration. Mr. Abe has said he will continue to push for trade deals with other countries, and he is also seeking international partners on other issues. He visited Cuba and talked with the former leader Fidel Castro before he died, asking for Mr. Castro’s help in reining in North Korea’s nuclear program. In October, Japan and Britain conducted their first joint military exercises as part of a move to establish closer security ties in the East and South China Seas. But the alliance with the United States remains the bedrock of Japan’s security, and none of its leaders are currently considering any other significant alternative. Given that, Mr. Abe and other Japanese officials will work hard to persuade Mr. Trump to maintain a strong partnership. Some analysts said that may be a matter of education as much as anything else. “We are not sure that he knows the concrete measures or details of U. S. security relations,” said Fumiaki Kubo, a professor of political science at the University of Tokyo, speaking of Mr. Trump. “What Prime Minister Abe has to do is give him Lesson 101 on U. S. relations,” Mr. Kubo said. | 1 |
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Peak Energy – by Dr. Thomas Levy
For many years, truth be known, cardiologists have just believed that getting a heart attack was bad luck, blaming it on a bad family history, a poor diet, being overweight, or saying “I guess it was just your time, because you haven’t been doing anything wrong.”
For the past century, scientific articles have continued to pour in showing that there are very many risk factors for heart disease, like elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and so on. There is no question that such risk factors are clearly associated with heart disease, and, when uncontrolled, appear to accelerate its development. But, there IS a missing link that we must discuss right now. ‘Preventative cardiology’ is becoming the new medicine for heart patients
In recent years, cardiology now appears to have collectively realized and accepted that coronary atherosclerosis (arterial narrowing and blockages) never develop in the absence of inflammation in the coronary arterial wall, initially in the endothelium, its innermost layer. As doctors despise treating anything they feel they do not understand, this revelation has helped many of my cardiologist colleagues to feel comfortable that they are no longer treating just ‘unlucky’ individuals, and that they are no longer limited to just taking care of their patients after the heart attack has already occurred.
Instead, the thought process is akin to: “Your coronary arteries are chronically inflamed, and we need to minimize that inflammation as best we can.”
Yet, while the focus has now shifted to coronary artery inflammation, the conclusion is still that a heart attack victim is more unfortunate than anything else, but that there is now a name for that ‘misfortune’: inflammation. Nobody, it seems, is yet ready to ask why the elephant named inflammation is in the room to begin with. Focal coronary arterial scurvy causes the inflammation
Most people, including healthcare practitioners, think of scurvy only as a severe vitamin C deficiency throughout the body that rarely occurs any longer in the modern world. And this is correct. However, scurvy also occurs when vitamin C is severely depleted in one tissue or organ while the rest of the body has ample amounts.
This is known as focal scurvy – which often exists in individuals who appear to be otherwise completely healthy. And where there is focal scurvy, there is focal inflammation, as discussed below.
Normally, vitamin C is present literally everywhere in the body, both inside and outside the cells. All organs contain it and need it to function correctly and optimally. A point that continues to be missed by many clinicians and even basic researchers is the following:
Inflammation cannot exist where there is no vitamin C deficiency. Pathophysiologically, inflammation and vitamin C deficiency are the same.
This is because inflammation results in nothing more than increased oxidative stress (prooxidation), and such increased oxidative stress cannot exist where enough vitamin C (antioxidant) is present at the same time. So, any factor that increases oxidative stress consumes a proportionate amount of vitamin C, and any decrease in the ongoing supply of vitamin C to an area of the body allows oxidative stress to go unquenched, and this allows the clinical and laboratory evidence of vitamin C deficiency (aka focal scurvy) to appear. This means that…
Focal inflammation is a synonym for focal scurvy.
And since all disease pathologies feature increased oxidative stress in the affected tissues and cells, it can be further stated that:
All chronic diseases are states of focal scurvy in the affected tissues and organs.
So, in the case of coronary atherosclerosis – we must ask an important question. Why is there always inflammation and a state of focal scurvy in the coronary arterial walls?
The only common way for the coronary artery to become severely deficient in vitamin C is to have pathogenic microorganisms take root there and metabolically consume (oxidize) all, or nearly all, of the vitamin C normally present. When this is occurring chronically, the result is chronic inflammation.
If there is a short-lived infection elsewhere in the body and only transiently releasing pathogens into the bloodstream, inflammation can come and go, and vitamin C levels can be restored. But when the pathogen supply in the blood is continuous, the inflammation remains and even vigorous vitamin C supplementation will typically not resolve that inflammation. That inflammation then becomes the disease, as the macrophages and other immune system agents enter the inflamed area of the coronary artery and try to chronically “cure” the incessant seeding of pathogens.
The increased oxidative stress due to the release of reactive oxygen species from the white blood cells resulting from the chronic inflammation in the absence of the vitamin C is the initiator and primary propagator of the atherosclerotic process. Every cardiologist needs to understand the significance of gum disease
For some years now, the cardiology and dental literature has shown that chronic periodontal disease (infected gums) is clearly “associated” with increased coronary artery disease. While this is true, it is finally becoming clear that this “association” is really cause-and-effect. That is to say, the oral pathogens directly cause the atherosclerosis.
Multiple studies now reveal that the blood vessel walls and the atherosclerotic plaques contain the same array of pathogens that are found in the infected gums. In addition, a much higher concentration of these pathogens has been found to be present in the blood clots that acutely and completely block off the coronary artery and cause the heart attack. Yet the literature continues to assert only an “association” between these pathogens and coronary artery pathology.
Sometimes simple logic just gets tossed out the window.
How could a heart attack-causing blood clot accumulate a high concentration of organisms from blood that is supposed to be completely sterile when cultured? Of course, no researcher is going to resolve gum disease, document the disappearance of coronary inflammation, and then re-infect the gums to show the return of the inflammation.
Without the use of clear-headed logic, the oral pathogen-coronary inflammation connection remains forever a mere “link or association,” and clinicians need not feel compelled to make oral examination and treatment a mandatory part of the treatment of any patient with suspected or documented coronary heart disease.
The chronic infection of root canal-treated teeth is the source of the coronary inflammation for most heart attack patients, probably 70% of the time or so. Chronic gum disease probably accounts for another 20 to 25% of cases. The remainder comes from other unidentified sources chronically seeding pathogens into the blood, like infected tonsils or perhaps even a chronically constipated and pathogen-proliferating gut. A ‘take home’ message for every heart disease patient
The point is that all coronary heart disease patients are not being correctly and completely treated if their mouths have not even been examined or considered in the evaluation and treatment of their condition.
In point of fact, such patients are having the most important reasons for their heart disease being ignored or otherwise neglected. Oral pathogens are the reason for well over 90% of heart attacks, and probably less than 5% of cardiologists and other physicians even know to look for this causative factor.
A heart attack patient is NOT just unlucky. Rather, the heart attack patient has an overwhelming likelihood of having a steady supply of oral pathogens and toxins coming from root canal-treated teeth and/or chronically infected gums.
Bottom line, while nobody likes to get in the dental chair, avoiding the proper dental care and intervention can result in a much sicker and a much shorter life.
References: Haraszthy et al. (2000) Identification of periodontal pathogens in atheromatous plaques. Journal of Periodontology 71:1554-1560. PMID: 11063387 Mattila et al. (2005) Dental infections and cardiovascular disease: a review. Journal of Periodontology 76:2085-2088. PMID: 16277580 Caplan et al. (2006) Lesions of endodontic origin and risk of coronary artery disease. Journal of Dental Research 85:996-1000. PMID: 17062738 Caplan et al. (2009) The relationship between self-reported history of endodontic therapy and coronary artery disease in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study. Journal of the American Dental Association 140:1004-1012. PMID: 19654253 Willershausen et al. (2014) Association between chronic periodontal and apical inflammation and acute myocardial infarction. Odontology 102:297-302. PMID: 23604464 Ott et al. (2006) Detection of diverse bacterial signatures in atherosclerotic lesions of patients with coronary artery disease. Circulation 113:929-937. PMID: 16490835 Pessi et al. (2013) Bacterial signatures in thrombus aspirates of patients with myocardial infarction. Circulation 127:1219-1228. PMID: 23418311 | 0 |
Warner Bros. superhero tentpole Wonder Woman held on to the top spot at the box office while Universal’s Tom The Mummy reboot failed to unwrap big gains domestically as Hollywood’s bleak summer continued this weekend. [Wonder Woman — starring Gal Gadot as the Amazonian World War I peacekeeper — raked in $16 million Friday for an estimated $57. 2 million weekend total in its second week of release, according to Box Office Mojo. The Patty film, with a 93 percent “fresh” rating on reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, fell just 45 percent in its second weekend for a domestic total of $205 million. The film has fared even better overseas, with its international tally standing at $435 million. Wonder Woman‘s success — (the 45 percent drop is the one of the lowest ever for a superhero movie) — provides a shot in the arm to DC’s universe of superhero movies as Warners preps the launch of Justice League later this year. Meanwhile, Universal’s monster movie The Mummy debuted to a paltry estimated $32. 2 million frame to come in second place for the weekend. The Tom film, meant to launch Universal’s “Dark Universe” of monster movies, reportedly cost $125 million to produce before marketing, meaning the film will have to perform exceptionally well overseas to turn a profit for the studio. For comparison, each of the three Brendan Mummy films in the early 2000s opened higher than this latest iteration. Mummy did fare far better overseas, where Cruise’s name still carries a ton of star firepower. The film opened to an estimated $52. 2 million in China, a record for a film in the country, on its way to an international total of $141. 8 million, the best international launch for any film in the actor’s career. Universal undoubtedly hoped for a better opening for Mummy, as it was meant to serve as the first film in its “Dark Universe” series. Upcoming entries in the series are reported to include a Bill Bride of Frankenstein movie in 2019, and the Johnny The Invisible Man. Dreamworks Animation’s Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie came in third place with an estimated $12. 3 million haul. The animated movie featuring the voices of Kevin Hart and Ed Helms has earned $44. 5 million domestically, according to Box Office Mojo, a solid if unremarkable result for a film that reportedly cost just $30 million to produce. Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales continued its underwhelming run at the box office with a estimated take of $10. 7 million and a finish, bringing its domestic total to around $135 million. Johnny Depp’s fifth outing as the buoyant Captain Jack Sparrow has delivered overseas, however, with an estimated global tally of close to $600 million. Disney’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 rounded out this weekend’s top five with an estimated $6. 2 million in domestic receipts. The James superhero ensemble kicked off the summer season in early May with a $145 million debut weekend, and until Wonder Woman, was this summer’s only real box office hit. The film’s global haul stands at $828 million. Overall, the summer to date has been a disaster for studios, with only Wonder Woman and Guardians breaking out as bona fide hits. The season has suffered with a string of bombs, including Mummy, the aforementioned Pirates sequel, the Ridley sequel Alien: Covenant and Warner Bros.’ Charlie King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Other misfires included Paramount’s Baywatch reboot and the Amy Hawn kidnap caper Snatched. According to Bloomberg, theater companies AMC and IMAX have seen their stock fall precipitously this year due in part to poor box office results. Cowen Co. analyst Doug Creutz told the outlet that this summer’s offerings to date have collectively fallen $300 million short of expectations, and summer 2017 could beat out the summer of 2014 to become the worst summer at the box office since at least the . Industry observers will be holding out hope for other scheduled releases this summer, including next weekend’s Pixar animated sequel Cars 3, Michael Bay and Universal’s Transformers: The Last Knight, and Warner Bros’ Christopher World War II epic Dunkirk. Other movies will include Universal’s Despicable Me 3, Pictures’ : Homecoming and Fox’s War for the Planet of the Apes. View this weekend’s full box office results at Box Office Mojo. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
Clinton Campaign Paid Beyonce and Jay Z $62 Million For Cleveland Concert to Secure Black Votes SHARE tweet
Cleveland, Ohio – Beyonce and Jay Z performed for “free” at the Get out the Vote concert last night for Hillary Clinton. However, sources revealed that the power couple was paid $62 Million to perform.
According to sources closely connected with the power couple, Clinton and her campaign flew Beyonce and Jay Z out to a private meeting to discuss the election. With Hillary lacking the African-American voting numbers that Barack Obama had during his 2008 presidential, the Clinton campaign made a quick and desperate move in their final efforts to secure African-American votes.
“Jay and Beyonce got a call a few weeks ago from Clinton. She invited them for a weekend stay at a luxury hotel to meet regarding the election. Before Jay Z or Beyonce could voice any concerns or ask questions, Hillary pulled out a check. Beyonce saw the check first and her eye lit up like Christmas lights. On the last day of the meeting, Hillary told said to everyone, including Jay Z and Beyonce, “We definitely got the black vote now.” MUST READ: Nvidia moves into your living room with a device not just for gaming
On the flight back to New York, Jay Z said, “You know what, Black Lives Matter, they matter because we got paid $62 Million to represent them.”
Hillary Clinton can officially add Beyoncé and Jay Z to her list of devoted supporters. The musical power couple headlined a free get-out-the-vote concert in Cleveland on Friday night. MUST READ: Puppy Monkey Baby Ad Scares Little Girl Into Gouging Her Own Eyes Out
J. Cole, Chance The Rapper, and Big Sean were also among the list of artists who performed, offering their support to the Democratic nominee for president.
As the concert’s official main headliner, Jay-Z kicked off the event with “Dirt Off Your Shoulder,” “F—WithMeYouKnowIGotIt,” and a couple of his older hit records. Shawn “Jay Z” Carter also brought out Big Sean to perform “Clique”. SCROLL DOWN AND CLICK NEXT TO CONTINUE READING EmpireHerald Warren Stallings
I dont believe this one iota, yet why isnt the media covering the “ghetto music comments and the “why do they have to dress so negro” comments hillary spouted on a live lapel microphone?
It seems you will believe anything. csh
You know why…. They are nothing more than Soros puppets, just like Hillary. Deb Anker
If she really said that, don’t you think the audio would be released, just as the audio of Trump bragging about committing sexual assault was? Warren Stallings
suck the koolaid dear…….you think a jew owning the ny times is gonna report it. Darcy Lewis
It’s ok, Hillary brought along her hot sauce! Weekdaygirl
Just more delusion republicans Beyonce is not that kind of star she would do it for free because she just would if they knew her before they wrote this article. She is rich filthy rich she don’t need no money not even Jay z he got his own millions. Barney
except that most rich people want even more money.. Jonathan Miller
You would be like Madonna and give head for a vote, wouldn’t you? Beyonce would screw the Devil for 62 million dollars… SecedeTexas
try and denounce this on Truth or Fiction. If it wasn’t true they would be all over it. Cjarmaine
If you recall many many people left after everyone was done performing and Hillary started talking. So i guess the money doesn’t matter that’s why they did it, they knew the crowd would dwindle once they were done…. LMAO!!!! bubbaclinton
You know she is crooked to the bone. Lawrence Hodge
Yea totally. Because the key to Black Votes is Jay Z and Beyonce. That’s like saying Trump paid Bruce Springsteen $50 million to secure White votes. Ken Adams
Except Springsteen is another liberal idiot, so your logic fails, you moron. TomAZUSA
Total bullshit. I don’t believe this. Noli Timere
Think of the POVERTY and Student Loans they could wipe out with that JACK! Liam Kelly
62 million, sure, unnamed sources claims. Not one respectable news organization has verified that number. These guys are playing Gawker Roulette. pitriver
Might want see if the 62 million came from the foundation. Liam Kelly
Might want to see if that 62 million number is anything close to real. All stories use this as their source. This has no source. So in other words its a bunch of lies.
Yes Empire Herald I am calling you out on your obvious and flagrant lie. SecedeTexas
the fact that Truth or Fiction is not commenting tells me that this true. Liam Kelly
Any source to back up your 62 million dollar claim? I mean remember what happened to Gawker. I’m sure Jay Z and Beyonce could take you to the cleaners. Weather | 0 |
SNL has a place to go where you’ll never be triggered and will always have a safe space just in case you are:
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On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” columnist Charles Krauthammer argued that there’s no question that President Obama “was intent on leaving behind landmines. ” He added that “What this is is the revenge of the losers. These are people who wanted to make trouble for an administration of a guy who they thought wasn’t going to win and shouldn’t have won, and to see what happens, and that’s what I think is going on. ” Krauthammer said, “I don’t think there’s any question the president was intent — the former president, was intent on leaving behind landmines. And you’re right, the NSA stuff is curious. Normally, when NSA is listening in on a foreigner, they take great care to redact any American involved. The NSA’s not supposed to spy on Americans. Here, it was the reverse, and there was an obvious attempt, it was reported in the New York Times, to make sure this was spread as widely as possible, that it would become a problem for the Trump administration. I wouldn’t call it the deep state. … What this is is the revenge of the losers. These are people who wanted to make trouble for an administration of a guy who they thought wasn’t going to win and shouldn’t have won, and to see what happens, and that’s what I think is going on. To some extent, it’s happened in other administrations, but I think it’s more obvious, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it, because there are going to be a lot of investigations. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “AC360,” former Labor Secretary Robert Reich asked, “how can you possibly say that Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act actually was cruel or a burden to people? That’s absurd. ” During a discussion with economist Stephen Moore, Reich said, “Steve Moore, you said a moment ago that, actually, a lot of people are suffering a hardship under Obamacare, under the Affordable Care Act. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, 20 million people, or 24 million, if you believe the Congressional Budget Office, would have lost their health insurance because of the former Republican plan. We don’t know how many millions are going to lose their health insurance now. Those subsidies, by the way, kept up with increases in premiums. Health insurance costs are going up all over the country, even for people who are not in Obamacare. That is a problem, but it’s a problem that is a generic problem right now. We’ve to get control of those health insurance costs. But how can you possibly say that Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, actually was cruel or a burden to people? That’s absurd. ” Reich later added that Obamacare has flaws, but that it can be fixed. Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
“Get ready for war with Russia†if Hillary Clinton is elected president, said progressive Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein.
“This election, we are not only deciding what kind of world we will have, but whether we will have a world or not going forward,†Stein warned, explaining that Clinton’s trigger-happy militarism “is a mushroom cloud waiting to happen.â€
While Stein adamantly opposes a Trump presidency, she explained that the dangers posed by a Clinton presidency are “arguably even more immediate and intense.â€
Stein blasted Clinton’s “warmongering†that “almost singlehandedly†brought us the turmoil in Libya and could lead us into a nuclear war if Clinton were elected president.
“Hillary brought us Libya almost singlehandedly,†Stein explained in a Thursday Fox Business interview. She continued:
And she has said that she will lead the charge with a no-fly zone in Syria, and that basically amounts to a declaration of war against Russia, who is there under international law, having been invited by the sitting government. Like it or not, Russia has the sanction of international law to be there. For us to go in and declare a no-fly zone means get ready for war with Russia. Both of us have 2,000 nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert. This is the most dangerous moment— according to the former president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, who, two weeks ago, said this is the most dangerous nuclear moment ever.
Stein elaborated on this view during a Facebook Live interview with progressive Marc Lamont Hill, who has endorsed Stein over Clinton: “In this election, we are not only deciding what kind of world we will have, but whether we will have a world or not going forward,†Stein said, adding:
Not only in regards to climate, not only in regards to these expanding wars where Hillary has this proven track record ‌ of the most pro-conflict military policy as possible, and she’s calling for a no-fly zone in Syria, which means we’re essentially declaring war on Russia if Hillary gets elected–declaring war on Russia at a time when we have 2,000 nuclear weapons between us and the Russians on hair trigger alert. This is a mushroom cloud waiting to happen. So it’s really important right now for us to stand up and start building a force to do the right thing.
“No one should fool themselves into thinking that the dangers will be smaller, that they will be mitigated in any way for having Hillary in White House. In some ways, they’re arguably even more immediate and intense,†Stein said. “But the dangers will be mitigated if we have created a strong force and we stand up loud and clear and we have a political base for this social movement that is coming together across this country and, really, across the world–this movement that puts people, planet, and peace over profit.â€
“It’s very clear what kind of a trend we’re on,†Stein explained:
This is a race to the bottom between the greater and lesser evil. Where is the exit strategy if you buy into this [idea that one must vote for one of the major parties]? It means that in every election, we have two candidates that are more corporatist, more militarist, more imperialist, more economic elites, more serving Wall Street, offshoring our jobs, more of these rigged corporate trade agreements, more of this climate policy. ‌ There is no exit strategy if you buy into the lesser evil. It means with each race, we come closer and closer to the cliff.
“We must find and elect alternatives to the Wall Street-backed oligarchy, the warmongers, and the anti-humanitarians,†Stein wrote on Twitter.
Stein, who has previously described Clinton as “Queen of corruption,†attacked Clinton for her questionable ties to Qatar and Saudi Arabia:
During her interview with Stein, Fox Business host Kennedy blasted other members of the mainstream media for ignoring and trying to “smother†Stein’s “authentic†and “interesting†candidacy.
“I’m surprised that the mainstream media has taken an interesting, authentic candidate like yourself— they were so obsessed with Bernie Sanders— and you’ve got someone, the embodiment of this new and interesting political tapestry, and they’ve essentially ignored you and smothered your candidacy,†Kennedy said.
Stein agreed and said that the corporate media’s blackout of her campaign and their perpetuation “speaks volumes.†She said, “My campaign is a very inconvenient truth that there is a politics of integrity out there. ‌ Every day, there are more revelations how both ‌ [Trump and Clinton] are walking, talking scandal machines, and people are clamoring for something else.†She added, “The corporate media, the apologists for the Democrats and Republicans, and the political pundits are doing everything they can to intimidate people into voting for the system that’s throwing them under the bus.â€
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Written by Mark Almond November 13th was as unlucky for stalwart backers of the foreign policy-line embodied by Hillary Clinton just as 8th November was for her domestic supporters. In both Bulgaria and Moldova, the voters rejected candidates for president who had been openly endorsed by Washington and Brussels. Having witnessed how small states with tiny electorates but vital Electoral College votes dealt body-blows to Hillary Clinton's hopes of winning the US Presidency, it would be short-sighted and arrogant - as the Euro-Atlantic establishment has so often been - to dismiss voters in small East European states as irrelevant. Having presumed that Bulgaria was irretrievably anchored in the Euro-Atlantic power-structure by its accession to both NATO and the EU, the choice of an openly pro-Russian candidate for president of the country is a wake-up call to Brussels and Washington. Similarly, the Moldovan elite had seemed locked into an "irreversible" course as its premier put it to integration - better said subordination - to the Euro-Atlantic model. In both cases, the majority of citizens thought different. Until the implosion of the neo-con regime-change foreign policy embodied by Hillary Clinton and her attack-dog for Eastern Europe, Victoria Neuland, we could have been confident that the heavy-hands of Washington and Brussels would have pressured both Bulgaria and Moldova to reverse such results. Yet even cash inducements like the IMF's sudden dole of US $36 million to the Moldovan regime just six days before the poll could not buy enough support . Even more striking was the Bulgarian public's rejection of the pro-EU candidate who had boasted about how much EU aid to the poverty- stricken Balkan EU member was at stake. What ordinary Bulgarians and Moldovans know, and what the Euro-Atlantic elites and media never admit, is that EU funds have been a motor of the corruption suffocating their economies. Precisely because of the easy pickings EU and IMF cash provides to the ruling elites, they have no incentive to act in the majority's interests. Real reforms are tough to enact and make the people richer not the insiders in the political class. Until Trump's election, the USA and EU deployed their massive power and influence to making any vote against their policy-options seem futile despite popular recognition of how they had gutted the productive aspects of both the Bulgarian and the Moldovan economies. Sunday's elections in both countries may be straws in the wind. They are victories for the genuine people power of the ballot box, not the street-based populism of crowds favoured by Washington and Brussels to impose "people power" on the people. It is striking that the Bulgarian premier, Borisov, who is often criticised as "authoritarian" by state media in the EU like Deutsche Welle and the BBC as well as by Euronews, immediately resigned. He drew the democratic consequence of his own candidate's defeat. But the premier of Moldova, Filip, who has been boosted by Euronews etc. as a model European, immediately said the popular vote would have no effect on his policies! Even so, the election of advocates of better ties to Russia is a small geo-political earthquake in states NATO and the EU saw as securely-controlled bases for launching anti-Putin policies. No-one has died in these tremors in Bulgaria and Moldova. But the fact that the upheaval has been peaceful through the ballot-box leaves only violence as a viable way of reversing the will of the people. Both Bulgaria in 1997 and Moldova in 2009 saw violent Putsches from the street enthusiastically endorsed in Brussels and Washington as "People Power". If the kind of Soros-sponsored protests Americans themselves are now witnessing at home against Trump are switched on in the East European dissident states the counter-explosion could destabilise the whole EU-NATO project in the vast post-Communist region which had seemed willing to lick the West's hand no matter how often the West had imposed destructive poverty-promoting policies. But now it would be unwise to think that the East European dogs can be kicked with impunity. They could turn vicious as the French say and bite back. A change of course in Washington could re-earn the pro-American consensus squandered over the last twenty-five years by the cynical Euro-Atlantic consensus. But can Western elites swallow their pride and learn the lesson of popular alienation. Or will they sink into denial and double-down on the policies which have rendered them despised by ordinary folk who see through phony rhetoric about swallowing touch economic medicine for their own good. East Europeans know that playing the reform politician not the entrepreneur is the way to get rich in their societies. Sadly, a lot of people in the West are coming to a similar conclusion. So the Trump Effect has emboldened the ordinary voters of Eastern Europe to demand that their elite put the people first. Maybe the Donald didn't mean that to be the outflow of his victory in the USA, but that's how people there see it. If the rigid and impoverishing policies promoted by the US-EU consensus cannot be revised, then more results like those in Bulgaria and Moldova can be expected. What should worry the US-EU establishment is that elections are coming in countries which won't be so easy to ignore as small East European states. Next spring, the Dutch and the French vote. The anti-establishment tide in those two important EU and NATO states is running strongly. Years of rhetoric about reform and anti-corruption strategies across the New Europe of the old Soviet bloc coincided with rampant influence-peddling and bribe-taking. "Drain the Swamp!" was one of Trump's most effective slogans. Across Europe, it echoes powerfully precisely because of the hypocrisy and cynicism of domestic and Brussels-based elites who talked so loudly about their commitment to the right kind of anti-corruption strategies but, as East Europeans say, have their left hand cupped behind their backs. Related | 0 |
Hillary Clinton refused to send help as the terrifying Benghazi attacks unfolded, according to messages allegedly hacked from her email server and distributed by Russian operatives.
RadarOnline has obtained a report about the allegedly hacked messages that was created by Italy’s foreign intelligence agency, or the Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Esterna, after a meeting with their Russian counterparts on October 22. (These files were written in Italian, and then translated by a respected New York City professor of the language.)
One section of the report deals with September 2012 — the same month as the attack that killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, and three others. In an alleged message from Clinton to top aide Huma Abedin, the secretary made it clear she wasn’t going to rush to take action.
“Avoid that they appeal to the AUMF, lets give a political weight to the wait, take time,” the message reads. (The acronym AUMF most likely refers to an “authorization for the use of military force.”)
The text continues, “What has happened has happened, at Sigonella they are standing still, they have to remain firm.”
Sigonella almost certainly refers to Naval Air Station Sigonella, located in the Italian island region of Sicily. According to reports, a US Air Force source once claimed that attack jets were being armed and fueled at Aviano Air Force Base in northern Italy on Sept. 11, 2012, or the night of the Benghazi attacks. The source has said the jets could have refueled at Sigonella, which is located some 400 miles from Benghazi, and helped stave off the slaughter.
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Monday on Fox Business Network’s “Varney Co. ,” conservative commentator Ann Coulter, author of “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!” suggested rather than impose a ban on people from certain countries, President Donald Trump should enact a temporary ban on all immigration to the United States. Coulter said if everyone were banned, that would eliminate the religious aspects that are preventing Trump from enacting his policy on immigration. “I mean, what Trump, for example, suggested in his immigration policy paper, the greatest document since the Magna Carta, was a temporary ban on all immigration,” Coulter said. “You have no religious problem then. Why doesn’t he go back to that? It’s both more aggressive — be very careful. Let in a few a year. We’re letting in 2 million people a year — illegal, legal, guest workers. Probably more than 2 million. And The New York Times writes, ‘Well, it’s just impossible to vet that many people coming in.’ Well, don’t let in that many people then. It’s not that hard. ” “And as for the detention, I would say yes, there are ways to be aggressive,” she continued. “I’d think in some ways I’d be more aggressive. But I don’t think it would raise as many hackles because it looks nothing like an internment. I mean, Europe as an easier time than we do. They don’t have a First Amendment. In Germany, it’s a crime to support the Nazi Party. Are you worried about the Nazis today? No, but we are worried about ISIS. We are worried about Islamic terrorism. It ought to be a crime not merely to communicate, but to advocate that ideology and they ought to be thrown out of the country. ” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
Former FBI Director James Comey revealed that former President Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch tried to influence his statements on Hillary Clinton’s email investigation during the election. [“At one point the attorney general had directed me not to call it investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which concerned and confused me,” Comey said. Comey made his remarks during a Senate hearing, offering testimony about the ongoing investigation into Russia’s attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election and the decision by former President Donald Trump to fire him. He acknowledged during the hearing that there were other reasons why he felt he had to make the statement about Clinton’s investigation, including “one significant” reason, which had to remain classified. He said that Lynch’s meeting on the tarmac with former president Bill Clinton during the campaign was the ultimate reason why he decided to make a public statement when the department decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. “In a ultimately conclusive way, that was the thing that capped it for me, that I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department,” he said. Comey confessed that he followed Lynch’s advice, admitting that he could have resisted more. “I just said this isn’t a hill worth dying on and so I just said, ‘O. K.,” Comey said, but added that he was “concerned” that the Clinton campaign was referring to the investigation with the same language. | 1 |
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer ripped into the media on Friday for continuing to ask questions about a connection between the Trump campaign and Russia, noting that there’s been no evidence of that. [“Everyone who’s been briefed on this subject, from Republican to Democrat to CIA — former Obama administration’s [Director of National Intelligence James] Clapper, [CIA Director John] Brennan, you name it — all of the people come back with the same conclusion … that there’s been no evidence,” he said at the White House press briefing. Spicer said if anyone was trying to engage with Russia, it was Hillary Clinton. “It was Hillary Clinton, who was the architect of the last administration’s failed reset policy — she told Russian state TV that it was designed to strengthen Russia. That was their goal: to strengthen Russia,” he said. “She used her office to make concession after concession, selling off of our country’s uranium, paid speeches, paid deals, getting personal calls from Vladimir Putin. I think if there’s — really want to talk about a Russian connection and the substance, that’s where we should be looking,” he added. Spicer was referring to how in 2010, of State Clinton was one of nine to sign off on Russia’s purchase of a controlling stake in Uranium One, an international mining company headquartered in Canada. Around the same time, a Russian investment bank paid Bill Clinton $500, 000 to give a speech. “When you talk about connections to Russia, the only connection that anyone’s made with President Trump is multiple years ago he hosted a pageant there and he’s — some of the — you know, he owns condos around the world and some of them were sold to some Russians and I think he sold a house to one several years back. That’s his connection,” he said. “So when you compare the two sides in terms of who’s actually engaging with Russia, trying to strengthen them, trying to act with them, trying to interact with them, it is night and day between our actions and her actions,” he said. “And yet no one questioned what she was doing or how she was handling it. ” Critics of President Trump have argued that his campaign aides colluded with Russia to help him get elected. While intelligence officials have assessed that Russia tried to interfere in the U. S. elections in favor of Trump by hacking into the Democratic National Committee and Clinton aide John Podesta and leaking embarrassing emails, there has been no evidence that Russia affected the outcome of the election or that there was collusion with Trump campaign officials. The FBI is investigating the matter, and the House and Senate intelligence committees are also investigating it. But Clapper told NBC News on March 5 that no evidence existed that showed any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. “Not to my knowledge,” he said, when asked if any evidence existed. Clapper said there could have been information found since he left the government on January 20, but as of then, “We had no evidence of such collusion. ” | 1 |
Страна: Южная Корея Мы продолжаем информировать аудиторию о развитии скандала вокруг конфидантки президента РК , представляя сводку событий за неделю. 19 ноября в 46 городах и провинциях страны прошли массовые акции с требованием отставки Пак Кын Хе с поста президента РК. Наиболее крупные выступления общественности имели место в центре Сеула, где по подсчетам организаторов, на улицы вышли около шестисот тысяч человек. Как и в предыдущем подобном мероприятии, состоявшемся в прошлую субботу , в нынешних акциях принимали участие лидеры оппозиции и представители полутора тысяч гражданских организаций. Начиная со второй половины дня, по восьми разным маршрутам прошли демонстрации, участники которых к 18 часам собрались на площадях Кванхвамун и Чхонгечхон. Как и в прошлый раз, полиция выдвинула требование провести шествие на расстоянии не менее 200 метров от администрации президента. В остальных 45 городах и провинциях проходят мероприятия меньшего масштаба. По подсчётам организаторов, общее количество их участников составило 950 тыс.человек в то время как полиция с иным принципом оценки участия насчитала около 260 тысяч человек по всей стране. Таким образом, с одной стороны, движение распространяется по всей стране, с другой — активность в целом несколько снизилась – неделю назад столько же демонстрантов было только в Сеуле. Впрочем, это НЕ главные новости этой недели. К таковым в контексте скандала автор отнес бы иное – назначение специального прокурора и первый блок обвинений, предъявленных Чхве Сун Силь. 15 ноября в Национальное собрание РК было направлено прошение о проведении парламентского расследования скандала вокруг Чхве Сун Силь, а также был подготовлен законопроект о назначении специального прокурора. Под документом подписались 209 депутатов правящих и оппозиционных сил, хотя руководство правящей Сэнури не стало ставить свои подписи. Вопреки ожиданиям оппозиции о том, что процедура утверждения законопроекта будет задержана Сэнури, в том числе, руководством, которые выступали против, 17 ноября закон о назначении специального прокурора был принят — 196 депутатов за, 10 против, 14 воздержались. Закон предусматривает выдвижение на пост специального прокурора двух кандидатов по одному от каждой оппозиционной партии, после чего президент выберет кандидатуру. В состав команды специального прокурора будут включены 105 человек, в том числе 4 помощника, около 20 прикомандированных прокуроров и около 40 специальных следователей. Затем в течение 20 дней прокурор будет заниматься подготовкой к расследованию и через 70 дней должен будет завершить процедуру расследования и принять решение о возбуждении судебного иска против президента РК. Максимальный срок расследования составляет 120 дней. В первую очередь специальный прокурор будет расследовать утечку служебной документации администрации президента, в которой обвиняется ряд высших должностных лиц, включая секретаря президента по общим вопросам Ли Чжэ Мана личного секретаря президента Чон Хо Сона и секретаря по связям с общественностью Ан Бон Гына. Следствие попытается выяснить, действительно ли они причастны к передаче секретной документации Чхве Сун Силь, её старшей сестре Чхве Сун Дык и другим родственникам. Затем, речь идёт о деле против бывшего старшего советника по вопросам государственной политики Ан Чжон Бома. Сейчас он подозревается в причастности к сбору средств с крупных компаний в пользу фондов MIR и K-Sports. Специальный прокурор попытается выяснить, обещал ли он руководителям крупнейших предприятий страны в обмен на пожертвования «решение проблем», касающихся помилования руководителей компаний и одобрения законопроекта о реформировании рынка труда. Также прокурор будет расследовать вмешательство Чхве Сун Силь в государственные дела и назначение должностных лиц, уход от налогов, незаконное обогащение, а также обстоятельства приёма её дочери Чон Ю Ра в университет Ихва. Теперь по обвинениям. 20 ноября 2016 г. СМИ РК со ссылкой на прокуратуру объявили о том, что Пак Кын Хе была осведомлена о значительной части нарушений и преступлений, которые совершили два ее бывших помощника и давняя подруга, и могла находиться в сговоре с ними. Чхве же предъявили обвинения в том, что она оказывала давление на крупные компании, вынуждая их вносить средства в подконтрольные ей коммерческие фонды. Следствие установило, что 53 компании перевели на счета фондов Mir и K-Sports в общей сложности 77,5 млрд вон или более 65 млн долларов. Также известно, что 24 июля 2015 года президент пригласила 17 руководителей крупнейших компаний на официальный обед в свою резиденцию, где высказала пожелание создать фонд с целью поддержки распространения корейской культурной волны. Это были глава компании Hyundai Motors Чон Мон Гу, президент Hanhwa Group Ким Сын Ён, глава SK SUPEX Ким Чхан Гын, вице-президент Samsung Electronics Ли Чжэ Ён, глава группы LG Ку Бон Му, глава группы CJ Сон Гён Сик председатель группы SK Чхве Тхэ Вон и другие: все они вызваны на допрос. Обвинение в содействии преступной деятельности предъявлено и бывшему старшему секретарю президента по политическим вопросам Ан Чжон Бому. Бывший личный секретарь президента Чон Хо Сон также предстанет перед судом по обвинению в передаче Чхве Сун Силь для ознакомления документов администрации президента и правительства. Установлено, что до апреля этого года он передал Чхве Сун Силь около 180 документов, в том числе, 47 секретных. Они касались назначений министров и заместителей министров. Итого, лоббирование и доступ к ДСП доказаны, но вывод средств фондов на личные нужды и идеологическая правка речей — нет. Однако, если выяснится, что Чхве так или иначе влияла на порядок назначения чиновников, это станет серьезным ударом и поводом поминать Распутина не всуе. + есть обвинение самого президента в содействии тем, кто точно станет объектом уголовного преследования. Между тем, в соответствии с Конституцией, действующий глава государства не может быть подвергнут судебному преследованию, но его можно вызвать на допрос. Хотя прокуратура требовала провести допрос до 18 ноября, адвокат Ю Ён Ха, назначенный Пак Кын Хе, высказался о необходимости отложить расследование с участием президента на более позднее время. По его мнению, необходимо собрать больше улик, подтверждающих причастность президента к данному скандалу. Ю Ён Ха также добавил, что президент сохраняет готовность сотрудничать с прокуратурой, но на подготовку к допросу необходимо время. Поэтому было предложено перенести его дату. Кроме того, адвокат указал, что желательно выяснить все вопросы, интересующие прокуратуру, в ходе одного допроса. Давление оппозиции на президента на этом фоне продолжается. Так, встреча между президентом РК Пак Кын Хе и лидером оппозиционной Демократической партии Тобуро Чху Ми Э, которую планировалось провести 15 ноября, отменена по инициативе оппозиции. Сама Чху Ми Э написала в социальных сетях, что приложит все усилия для того, чтобы, следуя воле народа, освободить главу государства от должности, нормализовать систему государственного управления и провести демократизацию правительства. Председатель временного комитета Народной партии Пак Чи Вон также заявил о планах выработать меры по отстранению президента, а 42 южнокорейских эксперта в области внешней политики и воссоединения (правда, почти все – оппозиционеры) опубликовали заявление, требующее от президента РК Пак Кын Хе отказаться от внешнеполитической деятельности. В заявлении также говорится, что президент Пак Кын Хе вызвала хаос в политике воссоединения, дипломатии и государственной безопасности. Если это будет продолжаться, то неизбежен крах государства. Бывший министр по делам воссоединения РК Чон Сэ Хён сказал, что неучастие президента в саммите АТЭС в Перу означает, что она признала свою неспособность самостоятельно принимать решения по внешней политике. Правда, не то он, не то иной подписант говорил, что если Пак поедет на саммит, это покажет ее пренебрежение к воле народа и низкопоклонство перед внешними силами. Между тем, Ким Чжон Пхиль — ветеран корейской политики, который хорошо помнит и отца Пак — Пак Чжон Хи, отметил в своем интервью, что Пак «слишком упряма, чтобы уйти добровольно. Даже если бы все 50 миллионов корейцев вышли бы на демонстрацию протеста и потребовали ее отставки, она все равно сама не ушла бы». На этом фоне вбрасываются новые информационные поводы – вроде истории о том, что в качестве олимпийского талисмана Пак предлагала не тигра, а собаку, и противящийся этому человек был вынужден уйти со своего поста, к чему«наверняка причастна» Чхве; что, по словам Чху Ми Э, президент собирается пойти на введение военного положения (военные, правда, ничего об этом не слышали); что Пак получала анонимные косметические услуги под псевдонимом имени героини сериала. Что характерно, последнюю новость принес тот самый канал JTBC, который до того «обнаружил планшетный компьютер Чхве с правками президентских речей». Как будет развиваться ситуация, все еще покажет время, тем более, что назначение специального прокурора означает, что результат этого расследования в рамках соответствующего регламента будут объявлены через девяносто дней. Таким образом, если в ближайшее время не произойдет чего-то экстраординарного, можно сказать, что в сериале вокруг конфидантки президента наступает пауза, в рамках которой власти, как минимум, будут пытаться следить за тем, чтобы на объективный ход расследования не давили какие-нибудь массовые митинги. 21 ноября 2016 г. пришли последние новости. Заявление прокуратуры вызвало как жесткую реакцию самого президента, отказавшегося быть допрошенной (формально, ее право), так и реприманд со стороны администрации. Как заявил ее представитель Чон Ён Гук, в заявлении прокуратуры не учтены объективные свидетельства, а оно само основывается на домыслах и предположениях. Президент столкнулась с жёстким решением прокуратуры о ее виновности, вынесенном в ситуации неприемлемого политического давления, а также нарушения её конституционного права на справедливое расследование и суд. В администрации также подчеркнули, что готовы к активному содействию со следствием, которое будет проводиться специальным прокурором, чтобы доказать необоснованность предъявленных обвинений, но если нынешнее политическое давление, опирающееся на односторонние утверждения следственной группы, продолжится, это приведёт к хаосу в стране и отрицательным последствиям для всех. Оппозиция в ответ тоже «пошла на принцип» и предложила приступить к обсуждению возможности объявления импичмента. 21 ноября лидер Демократической партии Тобуро Чху Ми Э сообщила о намерении немедленно приступить к подготовке импичмента. По её словам, Конституционный суд должен определить, достаточно ли доказательств, собранных прокуратурой для объявления импичмента президенту. С аналогичным заявлением выступила другая оппозиционная Народная партия. Как заявил бывший лидер Демократической партии Мун Чжэ Ин, обвинения в адрес действующего президента – позор для страны и для объявления импичмента достаточно самого факта. Да, и позицию президента, и позицию оппозиции конструктивной не назовешь, а потому, вероятно, и впредь минимум раз в неделю автор будет держать аудиторию в курсе событий. Константин Асмолов, кандидат исторических наук, ведущий научный сотрудник Центра корейских исследований Института Дальнего Востока РАН, специально для интернет-журнала «Новое Восточное Обозрение». Популярные статьи | 0 |
LANSING, Mich. — Donald J. Trump and his allies have filed separate legal challenges in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in a suddenly robust effort to stop the presidential election recount efforts there. None of the challenges immediately derailed the recounts in those states, but they promised to complicate them with more legal wrangling by Mr. Trump, groups supportive of him, state officials and Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate. Ms. Stein initiated the recounts and a successful drive after suggesting that voting machines were susceptible to hacking. On Friday, Mr. Trump filed a lawsuit in the Michigan Court of Appeals in an attempt to block the recount there, which had not yet begun. “If the Bureau of Elections moves forward with the recount, it will waste the State’s scarce resources, create a logistical nightmare for counties across the State, and assure that Michigan’s Electoral College voters will not be counted,” the filing said. Bill Schuette, Michigan’s attorney general, filed a separate lawsuit in a bid to halt the recount, saying that it put the state’s voters at risk of “paying millions and potentially losing their voice in the Electoral College in the process. ” In his court filing, Mr. Schuette, a Republican who is widely mentioned as a possible candidate for governor in 2018, said, “This court cannot allow a dilatory and frivolous request for a recount by an aggrieved party to silence all Michigan votes for president. ’’ In Wisconsin, a lawsuit against the state Elections Commission was filed Thursday in Federal District Court by the Great America PAC, the Stop Hillary PAC and Ronald R. Johnson, a Wisconsin resident. The lawsuit said that the recount could “unjustifiably cast doubt” on Mr. Trump’s victory in that state. The plaintiffs argued that the recount, which began across the state’s 72 counties on Thursday morning, should be halted immediately, in part because there was a substantial chance that it cannot be accurately completed by . Results must be certified before the Electoral College meets on Dec. 19. In 2011, a statewide recount took close to a month. A federal judge said Friday that he would not halt the recount, but allowed the lawsuit to proceed. Lawyers for Mr. Trump and his allies are also seeking to halt legal proceedings by Ms. Stein to contest the statewide election results in Pennsylvania. Hillary Clinton’s campaign has participated only lightly, paying for lawyers to be present at recount sites. Still, the recounts have generated excitement among some of her supporters, hoping that the small margins in the three traditionally Democratic states might swing to Mrs. Clinton in a recount. But Edward B. Foley, director of the Election Law Project at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, said there was no comparison between this recount and the 2000 Florida impasse between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Then, he said, “it was quite plausible that Gore might prevail in a recount. ’’ The chance that these state recounts could reverse the outcome of the 2016 election, Mr. Foley said, was “essentially zero or infinitesimal. ” Ms. Stein, in a statement, said the challenges to the recounts were an effort to put “party politics above country. ” “Trump’s desperate attempts to silence voter demands for recounts raise a simple question: Why is Donald Trump afraid of these recounts?” she said. In Michigan, where the recount is still pending, the Board of State Canvassers on Friday heard a formal objection from Mr. Trump and his campaign to plans to recount that state’s 4. 8 million votes. Lawyers for Mr. Trump told the state board, which is made up of two Democrats and two Republicans, that it should not allow a new count, describing it as needless, too expensive and not required under Michigan law. Ms. Stein, who got 51, 463 votes in Michigan, hardly met the state’s standard as an “aggrieved” party, the lawyers argued. But a lawyer for Ms. Stein, Mark Brewer, said Mr. Trump’s campaign was making a “desperate attempt” to avoid a recount. Of the three states where recounts are contemplated, Michigan had the smallest gap between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton: 10, 704 votes. “I would remind everybody that the original source of the allegation that this election was rigged was Mr. Trump,” Mr. Brewer, a former chairman of Michigan’s Democratic Party, told the board. In the end, after several tense exchanges over the practical value and cost of a recount, the Board of State Canvassers split, 2 to 2, along party lines, meaning the recount objection failed. Barring a court order in Mr. Schuette’s case or some other legal development, Michigan, which has not seen a statewide recount in half a century, could begin a hand recount by Wednesday. In Pennsylvania, Ms. Stein’s recount campaign is operating along dual tracks, with its challenge of the statewide results proceeding along with petitions to recount specific voting districts. Lawrence J. Tabas, general counsel of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, said in an interview on Friday that Ms. Stein’s lawyers had fallen short of demonstrating that there was fraud or illegal action in the Nov. 8 election. “They know they have no claim,” he said. “This action by Jill Stein and her supporters — I couldn’t even call it a Hail Mary pass, because that would be insulting to the Hail Mary pass,” said Mr. Tabas, who along with other lawyers, submitted a lengthy court brief on Thursday. On Friday afternoon in Philadelphia, teams of observers were monitoring election workers as they rechecked counts on electronic voting machines used in 75 precincts, a small fraction of the nearly 1, 700 across the city. The groups — which included representatives from each of the parties and candidates — quietly made their way from machine to machine in a dimly lit warehouse in North Philadelphia where the city stores its 4, 000 machines. Philadelphia has been using the machines, which record votes on cartridges, since the early 2000s. The review mirrored the steps that automatically take places after elections, said Al Schmidt, a city commissioner and a Republican, who said he did not expect the vote tally to change. “We are doing the exact same thing that we did during the computation process,” he said. “We are just doing it once again. ” Rich Garella, 50, a Stein supporter who petitioned for the recount and was serving as a monitor on Friday, said the effort felt worthwhile, but he had hoped that election officials would approve a more rigorous forensic audit of the machines, which Ms. Stein had requested. “We as voters don’t really understand how these machines work,” Mr. Garella said. “We don’t understand how they are programmed. ” He predicted that one result of the recount effort, at least in Philadelphia, could be to shed light on the unseen part of the voting system. “What we may end up showing from this is just that we are not being allowed to see how our election works and to see that our votes are being counted properly,” he said. | 1 |
We Are Change
Pennsylvania Law Would Ban Naming Police Officers Involved in Shootings For 30 Days The bill sailed through the legislature, still needs governor’s signature.
Pennsylvania lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a new bill last week—heavily backed by state and national police unions, including the Fraternal Order of Police—which would forbid the public release of the names of officers involved in shootings of civilians for 30 days, or until an internal police investigation is completed. The penalty for violating the government-wide gag order would be a second misdemeanor charge, however, exemptions would be made for the Attorney General and district attorney’s offices.
The bill sailed through Pennsylvania’s House 151-32 and 39-9 in the Senate, with a significant amount of Philadelphia-area lawmakers voting against it, according to Philly.com . Gov. Tom Wolf (D) still needs to sign the bill to make it law, but he has made no public indication of whether or not he will do so.
The bill was introduced by Rep. Marina White (R) as a means of providing officers involved in shootings “basic protection from threats” After voting in favor of the bill, Rep. Dominic Costa (D) declared, “We are the protectors of our protectors.”
Last year, then-Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey changed the department’s long-standing policy of releasing officers’ names whenever it felt it was appropriate to limiting the delay to a maximum of 72 hours. Ramsey was quoted by NPR as saying, “I don’t think you can shoot someone and expect to remain anonymous…and I do think that we have a responsibility as a police agency that work[s] for the people to provide that information, unless there are some extenuating circumstances.” If the bill becomes law, it would supersede Philadelphia’s more transparent policy.
Writing of the proposed bill, the Cato Institute’s Jonathan Blanks noted:
Current Pennsylvania law is bad enough as it is. Authorities already have the discretion to release or withhold the names of officers involved in use-of-force incidents. Without a timetable for release of officers’ names, the process to get to the bottom of what happened can be a very lengthy one.
Transparency is also a problem for the Pennsylvania State Police , which makes public very little information about its officer involved shootings, nearly all of which are ruled justified.
Photo Credit: Flickr/Savannah River Site
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MONTERREY, Nuevo Leon — Cartel gunmen killed three men and injured a fourth in an apparent hit outside a bar in one of the most exclusive suburbs in this city. [Early Thursday morning, a security detail transported a Mexican businessman, his wife and a group of other men to a local bar when unknown gunmen suddenly attacked. The gunmen began to rain gunfire on their victims, information released to Breitbart Texas by the Nuevo Leon government revealed. The shooting took place in the Centrito Valle entertainment district of the upscale San Pedro neighborhood. The brief shooting killed three of the men and injured one of the bodyguards right outside a bar called La Unica. Nuevo Leon public safety officials identified the three murder victims as Jose Herrera Aispuro from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, Michael Raciel Almela Martinez from Mexico State, and Carlos Sanchez Pliego Mier from the State of Queretaro. In the case of Sanchez Pliego authorities could not determine his exact age since the man appears to have various sets of identification documents indicating various ages. At the crime scene, investigators noted that Herrera Aispuro wore a Rolex and had a large amount of Mexican currency in his possession. Mexican investigators revealed to Breitbart Texas that Herrera Aispuro is believed to have been an attorney working for operatives of the Beltran Leyva Cartel. As Breitbart Texas has reported, Centrito Valle has been an area under the control of Beltran Leyva operatives who hold a monopoly over the street level drug distribution in the upscale sector. Breitbart Texas confirmed that last week, an accountant for the Beltran Leyva was also gunned down in Monterrey pointing to an apparent escalation of violence between rival cartels over the drug territories in Nuevo Leon. Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by Tony Aranda, from Monterrey, Nuevo León. | 1 |
Email
WSJ The political organization of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, an influential Democrat with longstanding ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, gave nearly $500,000 to the election campaign of the wife of an official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation who later helped oversee the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email use.
Campaign finance records show Mr. McAuliffe’s political-action committee donated $467,500 to the 2015 state Senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, who is married to Andrew McCabe, now the deputy director of the FBI.
The Virginia Democratic Party, over which Mr. McAuliffe exerts considerable control, donated an additional $207,788 worth of support to Dr. McCabe’s campaign in the form of mailers, according to the records. That adds up to slightly more than $675,000 to her candidacy from entities either directly under Mr. McAuliffe’s control or strongly influenced by him. The figure represents more than a third of all the campaign funds Dr. McCabe raised in the effort | 0 |
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win!” Mahatma Gandhi, India’s legendary activist. It is now time for a NEW New World Order! A patriotic and conservative world order because we had enough of what we already experienced for years!
One of the most confounding aspects of Donald Trump’s election as 45th President of the United States is that in the space of a year – indeed less than a year – a man with zero political experience has destroyed two of the most entrenched political dynasties: Bush and Clinton.
Just pause on this for a moment, and place it in the context of someone who in response to his appearance on the political stage as a candidate for the Republican nomination was met with ridicule and scorn. Consequently, a mainstream media and liberal commentators for whom politics is an exclusive club, the preserve of a select group of blessed people who belong to the club as if by divine right, have just been delivered one almighty slap-down The sense of entitlement that emanated from the Clinton campaign during this election was astonishing to behold. Hillary Clinton emitted the demeanour of a woman approaching a coronation rather than an election, disdaining not only on Donald Trump but also his supporters, whom she infamously described as “deplorables”. This was her undoing.
One of the most salient consequences of the 2008 global economic crash, which ushered in the worst crisis within capitalism since the 1930s, has been the collapse of the political center ground and with it the dominance of the liberal order.
In this respect, it is just as Karl Marx opined in his Communist Manifesto:
“All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life‌”
The analogy that best describes this process is a battlefield after the smoke has cleared to reveal the ideological right on one side and its left wing counterpart on the other, ready to go to war over the right to shape the future. And as Brexit in the UK and now Trump’s electoral victory in the US leaves no doubt, this is a struggle currently being won by the right.
This is not to suggest the struggle is completely over however. On the contrary, the political, social, economic and constitutional crisis ushered in by Brexit proves that there remains some distance to travel before the matter is settled in Britain, while Trump’s election will inevitably give rise to strong opposition in the streets, perhaps even sparking a much needed revival of the left across the US, which based on the success of the Sanders campaign is far from dead.
Focusing in on Donald Trump and based on statements he made in the course of his campaign, it is interesting to observe that among the many places where you will find the most grievously disappointed people in response to his victory, are NATO headquarters in Brussels and Daesh (also known as ISIL/ISIS) and Nusra headquarters in Syria. It is evidence of the hitherto insurmountable contradiction that has lain at the heart of Washington’s geopolitical priorities and strategy these past few years. Trump, in contrast, laid it out very simply when he said, “Russia is killing ISIS. Assad is killing ISIS. I think it would be a good idea to get along with Russia.”
This being said, the acid test is what he does rather than what he has said, which is why it remains far too soon to be complacent in welcoming a new dawn in Washington’s relations with Russia or the rest of the world. Trump also said some harsh things about China and Iran during his election campaign, which taken in conjunction with the fact that as president he immediately becomes the CEO of an empire that is no longer sustainable, requires us to exercise caution rather than celebration at this stage.
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WASHINGTON, D. C. — President Donald Trump unveiled a slate of ten judicial nominees to the federal courts on Monday who are mainstream conservatives, taking the next step to fulfill his campaign promise after his successful appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. [When it comes to judicial nominations, the president is best known for his victory in his nomination and confirmation of Gorsuch. But even if Trump gets the expected opportunity to nominate two more justices during his first term, those three picks will be less than two percent of his judicial selections over the next four years. Trump has already made one other judicial nomination: Judge Amul Thapar to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Thapar is currently a federal district judge (the trial court in the federal system) in Kentucky. But at this moment, there are 122 judicial vacancies in addition to the one Thapar will fill when he is confirmed. On Monday, Trump nominated ten additional picks to fill many of those seats, five for the federal appeals courts and four for the federal district courts (in addition to one for a specialized court, the Court of Federal Claims). Most of the public attention will go to the appellate nominees, because more than 99 percent of the time a decision from a federal appeals court is a final decision because the Supreme Court does not select it for review. The president’s nominees to the appeals courts are: Two of these five, Larsen and Stras, were on Trump’s List of 21 for the Supreme Court vacancy filled by Gorsuch. Most of them clerked for justices on the Supreme Court, and all have stellar records and are regarded as principled originalists who believe in interpreting the Constitution and other written laws according to their original public meaning. Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, praised the list as “very impressive,” adding that these nominees “are natural prospects for federal judicial service at the Court of Appeals level. ” Carrie Severino, general counsel of the Judicial Crisis Network and a former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, agreed. President Trump “is taking the next step in carrying out his campaign promise by appointing highly qualified and principled judges to the lower federal courts,” Severino said. “The nominees have stellar qualifications and a record of courageous commitment to the rule of law that will make them excellent additions to the federal bench,” she added. Ken Blackwell, a member of the American Civil Rights Union policy board who is also a former domestic policy advisor to Trump’s presidential transition team and former U. S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, gave his reaction, speaking exclusively with Breitbart News about the president’s selections. “President Trump is showing a courageous commitment to picking principled conservatives for the federal bench,” Blackwell said. “There are millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump because this was their issue. President Trump is giving them one reason after another to celebrate!” “The fate of many of the issues most dear to these millions of Americans are in the hands of the courts, more than Congress, the White House, or statehouses,” Blackwell added. “From religious liberty, to the Second Amendment, to voter integrity, to securing our borders and national security, the makeup of the federal bench will shape the destiny of our nation. ” “President Trump, and those whom he has chosen to serve in his administration, like Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, are proving in spades that they understand this issue, and that it is a top priority for them,” Blackwell concluded. These nominations for lifetime appointments now go the U. S. Senate for confirmation. Ken Klukowski is senior legal editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski. | 1 |
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The alt-right and other Trump supporters were flush with excitement yesterday as their online echo chamber resounded with stories that Hillary Clinton was about to be indicted on the basis of the newly discovered emails on Anthony Weiner’s computer. Today, of course, we learned that this was nothing but a bold-faced lied. While many of the more obscure right -wing blogs named nothing but imaginary sources to support their outrageous claims , the most legitimate source of the false story was none other than Fox News.
On November 2 Fox News’ Bret Baier claimed that, according to two anonymous sources within the FBI, the agency’s investigation of Clinton would “continue to likely an indictment.” The very next day reality forced him to walk back those claims, which he called “inartful,” acknowledging that “that’s not the process.”
Nonetheless, Baier did not entirely disavow his ruse of an imminent Clinton indictment, maintaining that “there is confidence in the evidence.” Given that Clinton’s indictment has been impending for months in the right-wing universe one would think that these shameless schemers would have wised up to the fact that it’s not going to happen – and for good reason . Instead, every time there is the slightest mention of Clinton’s emails, no matter how vague and clearly inconsequential , the alt-right rumor mill kicks into overdrive on its vicious crusade to smear the potential first female president in any way possible.
In reality, there is absolutely nothing so far to suggest that there is anything incriminating in the most recent batch of Clinton emails, and it has become increasingly clear that FBI Director James Comey’s announcement of the renewed investigation was nothing but a cynical and hypocritical political ploy. In part the announcement was designed to fuel a new Republican storyline that Clinton is unfit for the presidency because she is under federal investigation. The demagogues making these claims conveniently ignore the fact that Trump is under investigation in no fewer than 75 cases , including the rape of a 13 year-old girl.
Another disconcerting storyline in yesterday’s firestorm of right-wing rumors is the political interference of Trump supporters in the FBI. If Baier’s so-called anonymous sources really were FBI agents, it would represent yet another recent example of meddling in the presidential election by Trump supporters at the supposedly impartial agency. In any case, the endless lies and distortions of the right-wing pseudo-media, from Fox News down to the lowliest blog, are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. | 0 |
I had intended to use this final column before the presidential election to explain at length why I cannot vote for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump and plan to vote for Gary Johnson for president. In a nutshell, big government is our biggest problem. It thrives on more debt, more taxes, more regulations, more war, a secretive deep state and less personal freedom. Both Clinton and Trump would grow the government. Only Johnson would shrink it.
One of the most dangerous tendencies of big government is the generation of a police state — wherein laws, rules and procedures are primarily written and can often be bent to aid law enforcement when it is encroaching on our personal freedoms. We saw a terrifying example of that last week when FBI Director James Comey behaved as if he were his most infamous predecessor, J. Edgar Hoover.
Here is the back story.
Late last week, in an effort to redeem himself from the consequences of having ignored a mountain of evidence of guilt against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last summer, Comey told Congress in a cryptic letter that the FBI would resume investigating her emails based upon the belief that more of them may be located in the laptop of disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner. Weiner is the alleged sexual predator who remains the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s closest aides. Abedin backed up all her emails onto the laptop that she and her husband shared.
At the time he sent his Friday letter, Comey had not yet seen the contents of the Weiner laptop because the search warrant authorizing FBI agents to access its contents was not signed until Sunday. If he saw something incriminating before he wrote his letter, he saw it unlawfully; yet his duty was to bring what he saw to the Department of Justice, for which he works, not to hint about it publicly to Congress.
Comey’s progress report to Congress is prohibited by the internal regulations of the DOJ and the FBI — and by the canons of legal ethics that regulate lawyers. Comey had no obligation to send the letter at any time; moreover, sending it last week was a direct violation of DOJ and FBI rules that prohibit all public announcements about candidates for public office within 60 days of Election Day.
Comey told FBI staffers early this week that he sent the letter because he felt duty-bound to members of a congressional committee to whom he had given a promise that he would keep them informed of the status of the email investigation. That was a troublesome promise because its compliance violated other duties imposed upon Comey. Worse than making a promise and not keeping it is making a promise that should not be kept.
The genesis of all this was Comey’s unprecedented news conference on July 5, at which he announced that no charges would be filed against Clinton because no prosecutor would take the case. That was not an announcement for him to make. The FBI’s job is to gather facts and present them to the DOJ, not to make legal evaluations. He made his announcement when he did to head off the behavior of some of his agents who were seeking Clinton’s medical records, unlawfully, from the National Security Agency to ascertain the gravity of her head injury — an injury she posited during her FBI interrogation as the reason for her professed memory loss.
I have argued that Comey’s July 5 decision was dead wrong; there is a mountain of evidence with which to indict and convict Clinton on espionage charges. Yet it should have been presented to a grand jury — it was not — rather than at a news conference. The July 5 announcement was bizarre in that it not only exonerated Clinton but also described the quantity and quality of the evidence against her. This insulted the agents who worked on the case and produced the lowest collective FBI morale since Watergate. If Comey sent his Friday letter to address the problems he caused by his July 5 announcement, he did the wrong thing for the wrong reasons.
But perhaps the gravest of Comey’s violations is that of the constitutional guarantee of due process. The essence of due process is notice and fairness. How exquisitely unfair of Comey to say, in effect, “We have something that warrants investigation of you, yet we don’t know its significance, so we can’t say what it is.” This is reminiscent of Franz Kafka’s “The Trial,” in which the lead character is being pursued for a year on unnamed charges, against which he cannot defend himself.
In his play “A Man for All Seasons,” Robert Bolt shows Sir Thomas More arguing with William Roper, a colleague, who suggests that government lawbreaking can be justified for the greater good, particularly if the target is the devil (which Trump has called Clinton). More demolishes that argument in a few now iconic lines: “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man’s laws, not God’s — and if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”
To my friends who have rejoiced in James Comey’s letter, please take warning that, as More accurately predicted, the tables can be turned. If there is any moral lesson in all this, it is that the history of human freedom consists of paying careful attention to constitutional guarantees and legal protections, no matter the reputation of the accused.
Copyright 2016 Andrew P. Napolitano. Distributed by Creators.com. | 0 |
Share This An 87-year-old man was beaten nearly to death after giving a ride to a migrant.
A sweet 87-year-old man offered a young migrant a ride to the train station, hoping to show him a small act of kindness. However, as soon as they pulled up to his stop, the migrant thug attacked the elderly man, beating him to a bloody pulp and punching a hole in his eye after he made one simple request.
An elderly Swede saw just how far tolerance and open-mindedness reaches with other cultures after giving a 27-year-old Colombian migrant a ride from Gnosjö to Gislaved. Graciously obliging the Hispanic migrant, the old man and his wife took him 20 minutes away to the local train station. Unfortunately, the pensioner made a nearly fatal mistake when they arrived at their destination.
According to Fria Tider , the 87-year-old unnamed man pulled up to the station and politely told the migrant that they had arrived at his destination. Simply informing the foreigner that it was time to exit the vehicle apparently sent him into a rage, causing him to brutally beat the driver almost to death.
Repeatedly punching him in the torso and head at least a dozen times, the migrant beat the old man so badly that he broke his rib and punched a hole in his right eye, damage that was so extensive that doctors worried he would go completely blind even after 3 weeks in the hospital.
“He can no longer read newspapers or see on television,” according to the court report. “It is unclear if he will ever see again. Before the beating, he was alert and active in the community. Now, he needs the help of four times a day.”
When police arrested the migrant, whose identity is protected by the liberal Swedish government, he told authorities that his victim had sparked the beating by calling him “little” and a “negro.” It wasn’t long before the thug admitted that he lied about the accusations and simply beat the sweet old man because he knew he’d get away with it.
The convict laughed during his interrogation, telling police that he was amused that a man just over 5 feet tall could take down a feeble, elderly man a foot taller. “It is what it is,” the migrant heckled. “A man of 6 feet getting knocked out — me leveling a man of 6-feet is really laughable. I cut him down like a tree,” he added, telling police that it doesn’t matter if he’s convicted because “I’ll be on the loose. I will come out soon again. You can’t lock me up for very long,” according to Expressen . Left-leaning Swedish authorities protect the identity of the migrant thug, forcing the media to censor his face and the Colombian flag patch on his jacket.
Sickeningly enough, the migrant thug was right. Thanks to the politically correct justice system, he received just over 2 years in prison for aggravated assault, a sentence that will likely either be appealed, overturned, or reduced with good behavior. In fact, his appeal is currently being heard by a higher court, which is considering reducing his sentence based because he was located on social media and forced to go into hiding because of his brutal crime.
Unfortunately, this type of racially-motivated violence is nothing new to Europe. Just over a week ago, Mad World News reported that a group of 5 white men, 3 U.S. citizens and 2 Danes, were approached by 8 to 10 Muslim migrants who asked if they were Americans. When the 3 admitted that they are, the asylum seekers attacked all 5 of them, brutally beating and threatening to kill them with a knife.
The victims received no help from the Danish government and have been ignored by local authorities. Even the central investigating police headquarters refused to take the case.
As the elderly Swedish man discovered, it doesn’t matter if you extend tolerance and respect, many of these migrants see Westerners as inferior humans who must be forced to submit. This is exactly what a bleeding-heart liberal found out after volunteering at the Calais “Jungle” camp.
Last week, Mad World News reported that a 38-year-old female interpreter was helping a male journalist make a documentary about the plight of migrants when a group of 3 Afghan asylum seekers attacked them at knifepoint. One of the migrants raped her while the others restrained the journalist and stole his equipment.
Those who despise our culture, values, and laws won’t have a change of heart when we show them just how progressive and open-minded our society is. They know this, and it’s the very reason they hate us. In fact, they see our kindness as an opportunity to impose their oppressive and violent values on us without fear of being opposed. After all, we wouldn’t want to be considered racist, would we? | 0 |
Who rode it best? Jesse Jackson mounts up to fight pipeline; Leonardo DiCaprio to the rescue? Posted at 6:41 pm on October 26, 2016 by Brett T. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter
Vladimir Putin might have popularized the shirtless-on-horseback calendar pose that was echoed recently by Alex Jones , but Jesse Jackson deserves credit for at least one thing: he chose to keep his shirt on Wednesday when he rode up to the front lines of a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
— Marisa Villarreal (@marisa_villarr) October 26, 2016 Proud to stand with the Sioux Indians today in North Dakota. #StandingWithStandingRock pic.twitter.com/0dPbDk6RJD
— Rev Jesse Jackson Sr (@RevJJackson) October 26, 2016 Jesse Jackson on the frontline with that native bling #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/QevCYFugN3
— Ruth Hopkins (@RuthHHopkins) October 26, 2016
Seen standing with Jackson (literally; check over his shoulder above) was “Avengers” actor Mark Ruffalo, who offered his own exclusive scoop of sorts by confirming that climate crusader Leonardo DiCaprio would be stopping by Thursday, assuming his green-friendly private jet that runs on unicorn tears isn’t delayed. This is happening! #noDapl ! Rev. Jesse Jackson calls @POTUS from #StandingRock ! Mark Ruffalo confirms Leonardo DiCaprio comes tomorrow pic.twitter.com/6b2Gd8FFpd
— Asani Isapoet (@Asani) October 26, 2016
President Obama seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach to the pipeline. The Seattle Times reports that the administration asked Energy Transfer Partners for a second time Tuesday to voluntarily cease construction, to no avail. And Hillary? No one’s even sure yet where she really stands on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but a few of Ruffalo’s fans aren’t happy that he’s now with her, sort of. Please please please. This is is worth getting out and voting for. A vote for HRC is a vote for @BernieSanders and @SenWarren ! https://t.co/9YElwJ48AJ
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) October 16, 2016 @MarkRuffalo @BernieSanders @SenWarren It most certainly is not. That's propaganda Clinton stans like to push. I vote for who I believe in.
— Stan Dallas 😍 (@FanInTheMoon) October 16, 2016 @MarkRuffalo @BernieSanders @SenWarren I don't recall Sanders being pro TPP, pro fracking and circling China with missiles. Lay off the weed
— Tony Gagliardi (@hornetgags) October 16, 2016 @MarkRuffalo @BernieSanders @SenWarren @1lolamarina Sorry Mark, never was a turn the other cheek kind of guy. She wronged us. Never Democrat
— John Jenkins (@Oteachjohn) October 18, 2016 @MarkRuffalo @BernieSanders @SenWarren NO. A vote for HRC is a for #ElectionFraud , corporate rule, corruption & endless war. #NeverHillary
— Basement Barista (@SouthBoulder) October 16, 2016 @MarkRuffalo @dailykos So vote for Hillary who is a pro-fracking warhawk? Time to get the @GreenPartyUS 5% for a true progressive voice.
— Eric Magnuson (@emmagnuson) October 17, 2016 . @MarkRuffalo Jill Stein's PROGRESSIVE policies are more like Bernie than HRC's. Why should Hillary get my vote? #JillNotHill 🌍💚☮️
— #DNC fraud lawsuit (@Ontheotherhand) October 16, 2016 @MarkRuffalo @BernieSanders @SenWarren A vote for HRC is NOT a vote for Bernie Sanders. Go Green. Vote Stein, not a corrupt warmonger.
— Justin Kelly (@JKelly_80) October 16, 2016
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How "unfit and Fascist" was Hillary in your mind, Karl, and was it "obvious"?
Did it worry you that she was the driving force behind two wars (Libya and Syria) and responsible for as many deaths as Bush Jr is for his wars?
There are plenty of other serious objections to Hillary, but mass killing really does have to top the list. Did you endorse her bloody efforts, that is the interesting question. | 0 |
The Times of Israel reports: A Palestinian boy on a school trip to the West Bank’s only municipal zoo had his arm bitten off on Tuesday by a bear that he had apparently tried to feed. [A Palestinian police spokesperson told the Ma’an news service that the child, from the Tulkarem area of the West Bank, had crossed a security fence to get to the bear’s cage at the Qalqilya Zoo. The boy, whose arm was severed from the elbow, was rushed to Qalqilya Hospital, and from there to the National University Hospital in Nablus. The UK’s Daily Mail reported that the animal had eaten the severed limb. Read more here. | 1 |
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Trump smiles, waves, starts rounding them up 09-11-16 A SMILING president-elect Donald Trump has instructed aides to ‘get them’. The 45th president of the United States grinned and waved at cheering supporters as he whispered the simple instruction into a henchman’s ear. An onlooker said: “It wasn’t clear who ‘they’ are but I think we can assume it’s people with whom Donald is not on the best of terms, or whose features are not ideally suited to modern America. “And it’s too early to say why they were being ‘got’. Perhaps they were being taken to a nice celebration party with free massive cookies for all, or maybe something a tad more sinister. “I think he also mentioned ‘get the witch first’ but it was hard to hear over all the cheering. “These really are interesting times.”
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Al-Qaeda's Assault on Aleppo Continues Despite Lack of Progress
Rebels are doing a lot of dying but not taking much ground so far Print Originally appeared at The Moon of Alabama
For four days now al-Qaeda in Syria (aka Jabhat al Nusra aka Fatah al-Sham) and assorted other "rebel" groups have tried to attack Aleppo from the west to break the siege on al-Qaeda associated groups in east-Aleppo. The New York Times in now openly admitting that CIA supported groups are acting under al-Qaeda's operational command. The piece though, which belonged on page one, was in the back of the paper. There is no public outcry over this disturbing fact.
The attack on west-Aleppo had been talked about for over two weeks and the defenders are well prepared. waleppoattack.jpg
As can be seen on the map above the areas al-Qaeda and its allies managed to capture so far are only small rural outskirts. Every attempt to attack actual city estate under roof was repelled by the defenders. Small infiltrations like shown in the map were immediately cleaned up. The marked area is back in the hands of the Syrian army. It is estimated that the several thousand attackers have so far lost more than 500 men. A 1,000 more are likely injured. Every attack has to be carried over mostly open land and is received by heavy artillery fire. Air attacks ravage their supply and preparation ares.
The attackers launched over 20 suicide-vehicle bombs so far but only a few reached their targets and their damage was limited. Yesterday one suicide vehicle bomb, ready to be launched for a new attack, was hit by a missile from a Syrian helicopter and exploded at its preparation and launching position. Over 60 "rebels" were killed by it and their attack had to be call off.
The good news is that the defense is holding. The bad news is that the al-Qaeda "rebels" received huge amounts of artillery missiles and launchers from their "western" and Gulf sponsors. Several hundred have been launched at the densely populated areas of west-Aleppo. More than a 100 civilians have been killed by them and several hundred civilians were wounded. Some of the missiles contained gas and people had to be taken to hospital with extreme breathing difficulties. The UN envoy condemned these attacks as "possible war crimes".
The whole attack operation was launched under the direct supervision of al-Qaeda in Syria leader Abu Muhammad al-Golani. He was shown in pictures at the "rebel" headquarter of the attack discussing further operations.
Despite any progress on their part the al-Qaeda forces seem far from giving up. More attacks to break the siege are expected. We can be sure that some of their surprises are still in store. But the defenders are ready and the Syrian army is said to prepare for a large counter operation which may include a serious effort to liberate east-Aleppo of the al-Qaeda occupation.
Other fronts in Syria are relatively quiet. The Turks have been told by Russia to stop all air attacks within Syria. The message has been received. The Turkish plan to occupy Al Bab east of Aleppo is unlikely to happen as it would be out of range of the Turkey based artillery and have no air support. The U.S. would like to go to Raqqa but has no proxy ground force to do that. Some Obama officials are now arguing for more U.S. boots on the ground in Syria. Will Obama agree to that mission creep? | 0 |
David Duke Slams the NFL and Black Lives Matter in Monday NIght Football Game Senate Campaign Ads –NFL Bosses cringe. November 7, 2016 at 8:40 pm
“David Duke Slams the NFL and Black Lives Matter in Monday NIght Football Game Senate Campaign Ads. NFL Bosses cringe.”
During the middle of Monday Night Football, Senate candidate Slams NFL for their salute to Black Panthers and Black Lives Matter in Superbowl which incited Black racist shootings in Dallas and our own Baton Rouge.
Thank God, under campaign rules, there is still some freedom of speech in America!
Don’t you love it! | 0 |
LONDON — David Cameron, the British prime minister, has no one to blame but himself. In 2013, besieged by the increasingly assertive Union wing of his own Conservative Party, Mr. Cameron made a promise intended to keep a peace among the Tories before the 2015 general election: If he would hold an referendum on continued British membership in the bloc. But what seemed then like a relatively ploy to deal with a political problem has metastasized into an issue that could badly damage Britain’s economy, influence the country’s direction for generations — and determine Mr. Cameron’s political fate. As the nation prepares to vote on Thursday, the betting markets are signaling that Britain will choose to remain in Europe, but polls suggest that the outcome is still too close to call. On Tuesday, speaking in front of No. 10 Downing Street, Mr. Cameron warned that a decision to leave would be an “irreversible” choice. Appealing to older voters, many of whom tend to favor leaving Europe, Mr. Cameron urged them to think about what they would bequeath to the next generation. “Above all it is about our economy,” he said. The bluff, ruddy Mr. Cameron is famously lucky, having pulled out victories in numerous other scrapes. But in this case, many analysts say, he will be damaged goods even if he wins, with rivals circling to succeed him and Conservatives more divided than ever. If he loses, he will come under pressure to resign, and even if he hangs on for some portion of the four years left in his government’s term, whatever substantive legacy he might have built will be lost to what many consider to be a wholly unnecessary roll of the dice. Martin Wolf, the economic columnist of The Financial Times, wrote that “this referendum is, arguably, the most irresponsible act by a British government in my lifetime. ” Summarizing the nearly unanimous opinion of economists that a British exit — “Brexit” — would be followed by a major shock and permanent loss of growth, he concluded: “The outcome might well prove devastating. ” Mr. Cameron argues that the referendum had to be called to resolve the festering debate over Britain and the European Union. As in the Scottish referendum on independence in 2014, he says, this vote represents a “great festival of democracy” on a very difficult and divisive topic. But if the Scottish referendum turned nasty, and kept the United Kingdom together, this one has become poisonous, with Mr. Cameron’s own cabinet colleagues and supposed friends saying that he has eroded trust in politics, portraying him as a liar and acting like a government in waiting. It has been a campaign punctuated by numerous claims that have little relationship to the facts, with sharp tones of xenophobia, racism, nativism and Islamophobia. And it was marked tragically last Thursday by the assassination of a young Labour member of Parliament, Jo Cox, who fiercely supported remaining in the union. On Tuesday evening, some of that bitterness surfaced in a fiery television debate in which London’s new mayor, Sadiq Khan, who wants Britain to remain in the bloc, said that the campaign of his opponents “hasn’t been project fear, it’s been project hate as far as immigration is concerned. ” Steven Fielding, a professor of political history at the University of Nottingham, said that Mr. Cameron “has made the case against himself, and he’s damaged either way. ” The prime minister presumably thought it would be an easy win for the “Remain” forces, Mr. Fielding added. “But it’s far tighter than anyone thought,” he said, “and rather than a salve on the Tory party, it’s made the fever worse. ” Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, is slightly less harsh. “It’s really a binary legacy” for Mr. Cameron, he said. “It is either one that ends in almost complete failure or one that seems pretty respectable in electoral and policy terms. I can’t think of another prime minister who had so much riding on one decision. ” If the Remain campaign loses, “the chances of him staying on are pretty remote,” Professor Bale said. “He will go down as the person who miscalculated, taking us out of Europe almost by mistake, and then shuffled off the stage” in “a pretty ignominious exit. ” Even if Britain votes to stay in the bloc, Mr. Bale said, given Mr. Cameron’s small parliamentary majority, “the number of euroskeptics and he’ll be subject to defeats and blackmail until he steps down. ” There are those who support the contention that Mr. Cameron had to call this referendum in the face of Tory division and the rise of the U. K. Independence Party and its leader, Nigel Farage. UKIP was cutting into the Conservative vote by arguing, as the “Leave” campaign does now, that Britain could limit immigration and control its own borders only by leaving the European Union. Mr. Cameron, who had repeatedly pledged to get immigration down to the “tens of thousands” — even though last year net migration was some 330, 000 people — never had a persuasive answer to the immigration question. To pacify the growing number of Union Tories, keep his leadership position and undermine UKIP, he promised this referendum if he won the 2015 election, which he did by a larger margin than expected. Even before the election, some, like Robin Niblett, the director of Chatham House and a supporter of the Remain movement, argued that a referendum would come at some point, and that it would be more easily won under Mr. Cameron and the Tories. Charles Lewington, a former director of communications for the Conservative Party, said there had to be a referendum. By 2013, he said, “there was tremendous pressure for an referendum and not just from the old guard. ” Mr. Lewington cited growing concern from Conservative members of Parliament that they were at risk of losing their seats in districts where UKIP was strong. Given the panic in the party, he said, “I don’t think he could have avoided making an manifesto commitment. ” But Tony Travers, a professor of government at the London School of Economics, is less sure. “Cameron didn’t need to do it,” Professor Travers said. Like Harold Wilson, the Labour prime minister who organized a referendum on Europe in 1975, Mr. Cameron began the referendum as an exercise in “internal party discipline,” he said. It was called “for party reasons more than national ones,” he added. Nicholas Soames, Winston Churchill’s grandson, a friend of Mr. Cameron’s and a Tory legislator, was more scathing about the failure of several Conservative leaders to confront, rather than appease, the Tory euroskeptics. “If you have an Alsatian sitting in front of you, and it growls at you and bares its teeth, there are two ways of dealing with it,” Mr. Soames said in an interview with the British website Conservativehome. “You can pat it on the head, in which case it’ll bite you, or you can kick it really hard. ” “Successive prime ministers, and it’s not the present prime minister alone, have never understood that they have to take these people on,” Mr. Soames said. If the Remain side loses, both Mr. Cameron and his deputy, the chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, are likely to be gone within months, Mr. Lewington said. While all denying any ambition to replace Mr. Cameron, the sharks are in the water, led by Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London and a prominent campaigner for leaving the European Union. But the winner of such contests in the Tory party is rarely the one who wields the knife, and while Mr. Johnson would seem to lead the race, his success is far from assured. | 1 |
Since 2011, VNN has operated as part of the Veterans Today Network ; a group that operates over 50 plus media, information and service online sites for U.S. Military Veterans. Citigroup bank chose Obama’s 2008 cabinet – WikiLeaks By VNN on October 31, 2016 The single biggest beneficiary was Citigroup, which was given $45 billion in cash in the form of a government stock purchase, plus a $306 billion government guarantee to back up its worthless mortgage-related assets. Obama’s cabinet – 2008
WSWS.Org.
One month before the presidential election of 2008, the giant Wall Street bank Citigroup submitted to the Obama campaign a list of its preferred candidates for cabinet positions in an Obama administration. This list corresponds almost exactly to the eventual composition of Barack Obama’s cabinet.
The memorandum, revealed by WikiLeaks in a recent document release from the email account of John Podesta, who currently serves as Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, was written by Michael Froman, who was then an executive with Citigroup and currently serves as US trade representative. The email is dated Oct. 6, 2008 and bears the subject line “Lists.” It went to Podesta a month before he was named chairman of President-Elect Obama’s transition team. Why is this Ex-Citigroup Executive Pushing TPP “Fast Track”?
The email was sent at the height of the financial meltdown that erupted after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15 . Even as Citigroup and its Wall Street counterparts were dragging the US and world economy into its deepest crisis since the 1930s, they remained, as the email shows, the real power behind the façade of American democracy and its electoral process.
Froman’s list proved remarkably prescient. As it proposed, Robert Gates, a Bush holdover, became secretary of Defense; Eric Holder became attorney general; Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security; Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff; Susan Rice, United Nations ambassador; Arne Duncan, secretary of Education; Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services; Peter Orszag, head of the Office of Management and Budget; Eric Shinseki, secretary of Veterans Affairs; and Melody Barnes, chief of the Domestic Policy Council.
For the highly sensitive position of secretary of the Treasury, three possibilities were presented: Robert Rubin and Rubin’s close disciples Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner. Obama chose Geithner, then president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Geithner, along with Bush Treasury Secretary (and former Goldman Sachs CEO) Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, had played the leading role in organizing the Wall Street bailout.
Rubin had served as Treasury secretary in the Bill Clinton administration from 1995 until 1999, when he was succeeded by Summers. In that capacity, Rubin and Summers oversaw the dismantling of the Glass-Steagall Act (1933), which had imposed a legal wall separating commercial banking from investment banking. Immediately after leaving Treasury, Rubin became a top executive at Citigroup, remaining there until 2009.
A notable aspect of the Froman memo is its use of identity politics. Among the Citigroup executive’s lists of proposed hires to Podesta were a “Diversity List” including “African American, Latino and Asian American candidates, broken down by Cabinet/Deputy and Under/Assistant/Deputy Assistant level,” in Froman’s words, and “a similar document on women.” Froman also took diversity into account for his White House cabinet list, “probability-weighting the likelihood of appointing a diverse candidate for each position.” This list concluded with a table breaking down the 31 assignments by race and gender.
Citigroup’s recommendations came just three days after then-President George W. Bush signed into law the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which allocated $700 billion in taxpayer money to rescue the largest Wall Street banks.
The single biggest beneficiary was Citigroup, which was given $45 billion in cash in the form of a government stock purchase, plus a $306 billion government guarantee to back up its worthless mortgage-related assets. The President and Wall Street – 2008
Then-presidential candidate Obama played a critical political role in shepherding the massively unpopular bank bailout through Congress.
The September financial crash convinced decisive sections of the US corporate-financial elite that the Democratic candidate of “hope” and “change” would be better positioned to contain popular opposition to the bailout than his Republican rival, Senator John McCain of Arizona.
As president, Obama not only funneled trillions of dollars to the banks, he saw to it that not a single leading Wall Street executive faced prosecution for the orgy of speculation and swindling that led to the financial collapse and Great Recession, and he personally intervened to block legislation capping executive pay at bailed-out firms.
The same furtive and corrupt process is underway in relation to a new U.S. administration.
Froman’s email is one of many thousands released by WikiLeaks from the account of Podesta. HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE’S “PRIVATE EMAIL SERVER” HACKED
Those communications, such as the Froman email, which expose who really rules America, have been virtually ignored by the media.
The pro-Democratic Party New Republic called attention to it in an article published Friday , but the story has received little if any further coverage.
The media has instead focused on salacious details of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s sexual activities, designed, in part, to divert attention from the substance of the Clinton campaign-related emails being released by WikiLeaks and other sources.
The New Republic drew attention to the Froman memo not because it opposes such machinations, but as a warning to the interests it represents that they must move now to influence the eventual composition of a Hillary Clinton administration.
“If the 2008 Podesta emails are any indication, the next four years of public policy are being hashed out right now, behind closed doors,” wrote New Republic author David Dayen. “And if liberals want to have an impact on that process, waiting until after the election will be too late.” | 0 |
Robert Spencer
Breitbart reported Saturday that among the many revealing and damning emails that WikiLeaks has revealed from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, one has “White House chief of staff Denis McDonough responding favorably to an email forwarded to him by Podesta from a leftwing ‘Catholic’ organization that said it was arranging meetings with Catholic prelates to urge them to press U.S. senators to vote for the Iran Treaty.”
This plan was apparently hatched by Fred Rotondaro, chairman of the far-Left and Catholic-in-name-only Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG), as well as a senior fellow with Podesta’s Soros-funded “Islamophobia” propaganda organ, the Center for American Progress.
Rotondaro wrote to Podesta and others in the Clinton camp:
John,
I thought you might be interested in this report from the CACG exec director Chris Hale on efforts to have the Catholic org community promote the Iran Treaty. There is a tremendous amount of potential in these inter Faith orgs including the ability to reach some working class voters,
Fred
Hale wrote in his report:
Our advertisement began running on National Catholic Reporter and Commonweal yesterday. Right now, when you click the advertisement, the link takes you to MoveOn’s 60 Day to Stop A War Take Action website. From there, you are able to dial into your Member of Congress and request them to support the Iran Deal.
At some point today, that link will change to our own website, which will list all the groups’ names, simple talking points, and give people a chance to dial in three elected officials (their one US Representatives and two Senators). While the MoveOn site is very effective, ours will ensure that people calling into the offices identify as a person of faith, which is important in both our narrative creation (Catholics support the deal) and coalition building (the God Squad takes action).
Hale wrote about contacts with other legislators as well. According to Breitbart, “Podesta forwarded the report to McDonough at the White House, who
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White House lawyers have strengthened two immigration enforcement memos from the Department of Homeland Security which end President Barack Obama’s border policies. [The comprehensive border security reforms of Obama’s policies were signed by DHS chief Gen. John Kelly on Feb. 17. After a review by White House lawyers, the memos were changed to give officials more leeway in enforcing immigration laws, and more authority to close a “advance parole” amnesty created by Obama. The final memos implement most of President Donald Trump’s popular promises to enforce the nation’s immigration laws, and to accelerate repatriation of criminal illegal immigrants — but are being loudly criticized by amnesty advocates. However, the memos also postpone action on his promise to end Obama’s 2012 for younger illegals, his promise to reform the contract worker program that has now provide work permits for roughly 650, 000 foreign graduates in the United States, and his call for a reduction in the annual inflow of 1 million legal immigrants. The memos direct DHS officials to use an expedited repatriation process for illegals who have been in the United States for up to two years, to return Mexicans home while their appeals for entry are adjudicated, and to prosecute illegal aliens who hire to get their children into the United States. Under Obama, officials were only allowed to use the expedited repatriation process for illegals who arrived within the prior two weeks. Also at Obama’s direction, were released into the United States while border officials considered the appeals for asylum, and border officials were required to partner with the coyotes by delivering their cargo — the foreign youths and children — from the borders to their parents residing throughout the United States. The Kelly memos also revive the 287( g) program, which helps state and local police force work with DHS agents to enforce the nation’s popular immigration laws. Obama shuttered the 287( g) program in 2014. The memos direct officials to hire an additional 15, 500 immigration officers, and to start building the border fence. The first memo, titled “Enforcement of the Immigration Laws to Serve the National Interest” is six pages long and says that “personnel shall faithfully executive the immigration laws of the United States against all removable aliens. ” The second memo is focused on immigration enforcement far from the border. The second memo is 13 pages long and is titled “Implementing the President’s Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements Policies. ” Some changes were made to the memos after they were signed by Kelly. For example, the phrase “In my judgment, such [advance parole] authority should be exercised sparingly,” was added to the section in the border security memo that shuts down Obama’s backdoor “advance parole” amnesty process. The enforcement memo adds a section giving officials more authority to enforce the law, saying “the Director of ICE, the Commissioner of CBP, and the Director of USCIS may, as they determine is appropriate, issue further guidance to allocate appropriate resources to prioritize enforcement activities within these example, by prioritizing enforcement activities against removable aliens who are convicted felons or who are involved in gang activity or drug trafficking. ” The annual inflow of legal immigrants and contract workers adds roughly 2 million workers to the labor supply each year, even though 4 million young Americans also begin looking for work each year. In contrast, illegal immigration adds only several hundred thousand workers to the estimated population of at least 11 million illegal aliens each year. The overall inflow of legal and illegal foreign workers transfers roughly $500 billion from employee’s pockets each year to employers and investors. For complete details about the memos, read this. | 1 |
After 18 years of trying to get noticed, the rapper and teenage eccentric Lil Yachty has been forced recently to practice blending in. It’s mostly the hair. On a recent Saturday, following a dayslong spate of promotional appearances and photo shoots, the internet supernova, who found fame online and beyond this year with a series of catchy mixtapes and goofy viral moments, hoped to do a little shopping in the heart of Brooklyn. But before he could peacefully enter Kith, the streetwear store that specializes in sneakers and sugary cereal, Lil Yachty needed to hide his trademark accessory: his skinny braids adorned with clear plastic beads. As his chauffeured S. U. V. approached the buzzing shop, the Atlanta rapper grabbed a knit cap from the head of a friend, who assented without a word, seemingly familiar with the routine. It worked. Locks tucked atop his head, Lil Yachty, whose face is usually obscured by the clacking tentacles, proved unrecognizable even to those who may have binged on his whimsical music videos or Instagram account. Like a millennial Clark Kent, he went unbothered in the maw of his target demographic, drawing stares only as he stacked five pairs of shoes and two art books (“Pharrell,” “KAWS”) by the register. As with the spree, there was still some thrill in needing to go undercover. “At the beginning of this year, I used to walk through the local mall and say, ‘One day, I’m not going to be able to walk through this mall,’” Lil Yachty said later in the privacy of a Caribbean restaurant, his hair since released. “No way I could walk through the mall now. Unless I’m hiding. ” Last winter, the teenager born Miles McCollum, who had recently dropped out of college and had been arrested in a Florida mall for credit card fraud, was hoping to shake his anonymity. Rapping was a relatively new pastime (it still is) though striving for fame came naturally to a diligent student of social networks. “I always knew I was going to be something,” he said. “I didn’t know what. ” Now, at the end of a 2016, Lil Yachty seems more certain. “I’m not a rapper, I’m an artist,” he said. “And I’m more than an artist. I’m a brand. ” The stats back him up. In addition to releasing the popular “Lil Boat” and “Summer Songs 2” mixtapes, filled with his taffylike digital wails and cartoon melodies, and reaching No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 with his guest verse on D. R. A. M.’s “Broccoli,” Lil Yachty has modeled Kanye West’s Yeezy line at Madison Square Garden, starred in a Sprite commercial with LeBron James and teamed up with Nautica on a capsule collection for Urban Outfitters. An official debut album with Capitol Records is planned for early 2017. Yet even among the bevy of singular voices in the new Atlanta scene, where male rappers can wear dresses and carry designer bags, moan about their feelings and dance with their hips, Lil Yachty is demonstrably odd, flaunting his indifference to rap traditionalism and aiming to remain somewhat wholesome: more schoolyard than trap house. “Rappers don’t have endorsements because of their images,” he said. “Endorsement money is huge. And I care about my character. ” He added: “I don’t rap about drinking or smoking, ever, because I don’t do it. I don’t rap about anything I don’t do. ” Instead, Lil Yachty preaches an positivity fueled by timeless adolescent ambitions: chasing girls, looking cool and hanging out with friends. (Lil Yachty’s crew is known as the Sailing Team: “If you’re a fan of me, then you know my friends, because I push them just as hard. ”) His most menacing raps can feel playful, his sexuality disarmingly juvenile and his boasts betray his age: “Parents mad at my ass ’cause their kids sing my song in class,” he taunts while proclaiming himself the King of the Teens. “We are the youth!” goes another battle cry. As with his breakout viral hits “1 Night” and “Minnesota,” Lil Yachty’s music relies less on technical rapping than on simple melodies that invoke warped nursery rhymes, with bright, bubbly production and an affecting falsetto smoothed with . Along with Kanye West and Kid Cudi, both of whom count as elder statesmen to someone born in 1997, his most direct influences include the outre internet rappers Lil B and Soulja Boy, along with pop acts like Coldplay, Daft Punk and Fall Out Boy. While modeling for Nautica last month to his own personal playlist, Lil Yachty mimed air guitar to “Paradise City” by Guns N’ Roses and boogied to Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets” when he wasn’t belting Chris Martin ballads. Between looks, he dined on his preferred menu of Domino’s pepperoni pizza, candy and cookies, head buried in his two Louis iPhones. (One had a message: “LETS BE RICH FOREVER. ”) At the same time, Lil Yachty’s stated indifference toward the catalogs of Tupac and the Notorious B. I. G. has made him a punching bag for rap purists, the poster child for a new school dismissively dubbed “mumble rap. ” He’s leaned into that mantle, so online schadenfreude bubbles up every time Lil Yachty, say, bombs a freestyle over ’90s beats or fails miserably at dunking a basketball. “I ask myself all the time, ‘How do I always go viral? ’” Lil Yachty said with a grin. “I’m the face of the youth, the new sound. Nobody likes my truth. ” Except the youth, that is. “They relate to me because I’m so like them,” he said, “but on a global scale. ” Music, it turns out, was something of an afterthought, despite his deep roots in Southern rap. Though he was raised mostly by his mother in the Atlanta suburb Austell, his father, Shannon McCollum, lived in the city and worked as a photographer with local acts such as Outkast, Goodie Mob and Lil Jon. But hanging around stars as a child bolstered Lil Yachty’s sense of style and business acumen more than his sense of history. “I would let him help direct photo shoots, and I would always show him my invoices so he could see what I made,” Mr. McCollum, 46, said. “I used to photograph Miles every week. By 3 or 4, he was so comfortable in front of a camera. ” An obsession with fashion followed. “Once, when he was about 7, we were picking up his friend, and Miles had on a pink polo shirt,” his father recalled. “The little boy got in the back seat and started laughing uncontrollably at Miles, calling him a girl. Miles just said, ‘You don’t know nothing about this, man. ’” In high school, influenced by the bright colors favored by Pharrell Williams and Tyler, the Creator, Lil Yachty would spend the money he earned working at McDonald’s or as an assistant to his father at thrift stores. “ cents, 50 cents, I just knew how to put it together,” he said. His mother even taught him to sew. His confidence and originality helped to win over his eventual manager, Coach K, an Atlanta stalwart who has worked with Young Jeezy, Gucci Mane and Migos. “It was like your first meeting with Marilyn Manson,” Coach K said of encountering Lil Yachty. “You’ve got this freakish look, but he’s not scared of who he is. He’s wearing it with pride. Instantly I said, ‘This is it. ’” Lil Yachty had already determined that packaging a mystique was his strong suit. After graduating from high school, he traveled repeatedly to New York and Los Angeles — his father’s day job at Delta gave him access to free flights — where he slept on couches and worked to ingratiate himself with tastemakers like Ian Connor and Luka Sabbat. “I was simply trying to get people who had an audience to hang out with me, so that I could get that audience,” Lil Yachty said. “I was making music, but I wasn’t really pushing it yet. I knew exactly how it worked. ” He corrected himself. “I know exactly how it works. ” Still, even he has been surprised by the speed of his ascent. “It just feels like a dream,” he said, recalling that in January, he couldn’t make it past the door of Kanye’s studio. “I sat in the hallway for hours while ASAP Rocky was in there. They wouldn’t let me in. By August, I was working with him. ” Nautica, too, came calling only after a year of Lil Yachty’s attempting to get the maritime brand’s attention via social media. It was backstage among the V. I. P.s at Jay Z’s Made in America festival in September that Lil Yachty’s new reality started to sink in. “Obama’s daughters knew who I was,” he said. “They were huge fans. Jay Z said my name to me before I introduced myself. ” And yet, persona aside, a teenager can only be a teenager. At an Urban Outfitters in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, among decidedly less dazzling guests, the rapper hid once again behind his hair and phone as overeager young fans offered him anything they could find to autograph: $5 bills, laptops, water bottles, purses, coats and, yes, eventually breasts. Not yet immune to such attention at close range, Lil Yachty could only giggle to himself, shaking his head as he mouthed the words to his own music. | 1 |
From fish markets in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to coffee shops in Chappaqua, New Yorkers made Tuesday’s election, like so many other things, all about themselves — their personal idiosyncrasies, their campaigns for social justice, their immigrant journeys and their settling of old political scores. Eager to expound on a contest with opinions that until now nobody had really asked for, they described their preferences at the ballot box with a combination of New York emotion and parochialism. A Manhattan actor was eager to punish Bill Clinton for the sin of mocking Barack Obama eight years ago in South Carolina. (His choice: Bernie Sanders.) A retiree wanted to align herself with Ted Cruz because they shared so much. (“I’m Hispanic,” she explained. “I’m voting for Ted. ”) An immigrant from Britain tried to tug the Republican Party to the left with a vote for John Kasich. “I’m not really a Republican,” the man, a screenwriter named Mayuran Tiruchelvam, confided as he explained his electoral calculations outside a polling site on West 101st Street. “I want to ensure that the least socially conservative candidate is the nominee. ” Across the state, on a balmy April day conducive to higher voter turnout, millions of voters showed up for presidential primaries that bestowed an unfamiliar role on New York: potential kingmaker at a point when party nominations have usually been sewn up. “I can’t remember the last time the New York primary actually mattered,” said Bill Weeden, 75, a Manhattan Democrat who has voted religiously, and with little impact on the primary process, for decades. “This time, we count. ” The reality produced an unusually intensive campaign in which candidates from both parties lavished their time and attention on frequently overlooked upstate towns like Scotia and Syracuse. But much of the action on Tuesday unfolded in the southern half of the state, where the vast majority of New Yorkers live and where New York City streets were filled with crisscrossing caravans of candidates and their armies of volunteers. The five boroughs became a colorful canvass of campaign fliers and placards as supporters competed, like real estate agents, to festoon lampposts and subway stairwells with their candidate’s name. In Manhattan, Broadway was a sea of baby blue “Bernie” signs. In the Bronx, megaphones echoed with Hillary Clinton’s name. For many, dozens of interviews show, this is an oddly intimate campaign. The leading contenders are not the distant, figures of the past they are recognizable New York characters who were born and raised here, in the case of Mr. Sanders and Donald J. Trump, or now call it home, as with Mrs. Clinton. For Laurie Matthews, 50, a lawyer in Chappaqua, a wealthy suburb to the city’s north, the political was very personal: Mrs. Clinton is a neighborhood fixture whom she bumps into at Starbucks. “Some say she’s very cold,” Ms. Matthews said, “but in this environment she’s very warm. ” Across the state, voters expressed anger and confusion over rules that forbade independents to vote in Tuesday’s primaries, foiling plans to cast ballots for the popular candidacies of Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump. In a small fish market on Lee Avenue, a commercial artery of the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Williamsburg, Emerich Tauber, 69, said he wanted to vote for Mr. Trump. The problem: He is a registered Democrat. “He’s crazy. But we need change,” Mr. Tauber said as he stood beside tubs of live carp. “He can do it. ” He dismissively waved off the Democrats. “The old guy — surely not,” he said, reducing Mr. Sanders, a senator, to a demographic. and with a candidate, guided many. The Vasconi family on Staten Island drove to the polls together and voted for Mr. Trump together. Danny Vasconi, 57, is a retired police officer, and his son, Nicholas, is a current member of the force. What bound them to Mr. Trump, they said, was his unflinching support for police officers, firefighters and military personnel. “I think having a president who supports our police is a major thing,” said Nicholas Vasconi, 24. Throughout New York City, individual voters kept finding ways to defy this year’s conventional wisdoms: that Jewish neighborhoods would uniformly vote Democratic that Republicans would find little support in boroughs like the Bronx and that black communities were widely skeptical of Mr. Sanders. “Bernie supports black people, plain and simple,” said Corey Smith, 30, a black hotel worker in the midst of a shave at the Gabaron Barber Shop on 116th Street in Harlem. Mr. Smith has an son, and he said Mr. Sanders’s plan for free college tuition appealed to him. Besides, he added, he couldn’t get past Mrs. Clinton’s support of the 1994 crime bill. Outside the Mitchell Community Center in the Bronx, Edda Reyes, 74, a pastor’s daughter who moved to New York from Puerto Rico when she was 10, explained why she was voting for Mr. Cruz: a shared heritage and a disgust for his Republican rival Mr. Trump. She grew agitated at the mere mention of the New York businessman’s name. “He a racist,” she said, pointing to his plans to build a wall at the border between Mexico and the United States. During choir practice at her nearby church, that consensus is unmistakable, she said. “In the choir, nobody likes Trump. ” Of course, this being New York, consensus was elusive on Tuesday. And voluble arguments were inevitable. So it was that on West 72nd Street on Tuesday, two close friends, retirees and Democrats who had met through a Jewish men’s group, made the mistake of discussing how they had voted. Mark Fleischer, 79, favored Mrs. Clinton Abraham Hershow, 88, backed Mr. Sanders. “Sanders,” said Mr. Fleischer, “I can’t stand how he talks and we don’t need a socialist. That leaves me with Hillary, I guess. She’s experienced and I like her husband. ” Mr. Hershow shook his head emphatically. “I can’t stand someone who takes hundreds of thousands of dollars for speeches,” he said, referring to Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Fleischer cut him off. “How come?” he pressed his friend. “Good for her. ” “Look, look, the issue here is money and power,” Mr. Hershow shot back. “Just read Paul Krugman. ” Mr. Fleischer rolled his eyes. “You know what?” said Mr. Hershow. “We should avoid talking politics if we’re going to remain friends. ” On that they could agree, allowing Mr. Fleischer to move on to the next order of business. “Oh shut up!” he yelled at a man who sped by on a motorcycle. | 1 |
Scandalous Poll: 84% of Ukrainians want Putin as their president November 13, 2016 - Fort Russ - Zavtra - translated by J. Arnoldski - The Ukrainian publication Nedelya.UA conducted a poll among its readers asking the following question: “Which politician would you entrust with the governance of your country?” The survey was participated in by 41,600 readers and showed the following figures: 84% (34,900) of Ukrainian respondents want to see Vladimir Putin as president of Ukraine. In second place with 5% (2,000) was Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Third place with 2% (820) was claimed by Xi Jinping and fourth, also with 2% (708) was leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky. The current president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, took 5th place with only 1% (538 votes). Further down the list were German Chancellor Angela Merkel (1%, 430 votes), the chairman of the French National Front Marine Le Pen (1%, 426 votes), Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev (1%, 318), and US President Barack Obama (1%, 244 votes). Notably enough, former Georgian president and until recently head of the Odessa region, Mikhail Saakashvili, was not included on the list. According to doctor of economic sciences and director of the Institute for Problems of Globalization, Mikhail Delyakin, the results are not representative. The expert remarked: “Without a doubt, the figures are unrepresentative: not only Ukrainians could take part in the voting, and the audience of the site speaks Russian - there is no Ukrainian version. At the same time, it is hardly likely, for example, that the Russian readers of this Ukrainian site are supporters of Putin. They are most likely fans of Bandera.” “On the other hand, the main part of Ukraine (including Banderites) speaks Russian, not Ukrainian. This was exposed by Guinness, which conducted an innocent poll on the quality of vegetables and allowed respondents to choose between surveys in Ukrainian or Russian. 77% chose Russian. Since then, this share has declined, but it is still clearly more than half even taking into account the departure of Crimea, the DPR and LPR, and the fact that most educated and cultured, i.e., Russian-speaking Ukrainians have fled to every corner, and mainly Russia, from this ‘victorious democracy’ and the European Nazi course,” Delyagin pointed out. “Nevertheless, it might be that overall these figures reflect the real mood of those Ukrainians who have been brutalized by the complete nobody thieves and killers imposed upon them by the West as their leaders. For the same motives, the most respected political leader in Russia is Stalin. Respect for Putin even sometimes appears among Russophobes who think: ‘With such a leader, we would have long ago defeated those Moskals,” Delyagin continued. The economist concluded with the following commentary: “Of course, this does not mean that the destructive liberal socio-economic policies pursued in Russia by appointees like Medvedev and Navulinnaya are correct. However, against the general backdrop of the nobody leaders of the modern West and its satellites, Putin is really a symbol of reason and hope for a better future for all of humanity, not the rapidly dwindling ‘Golden Billion.’” Follow us on Facebook! | 0 |
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Michael Moore has made some terrific movies in the past, and Where to Invade Next may be the best of them, but I expected Trumpland to be (1) about Trump, (2) funny, (3) honest, (4) at least relatively free of jokes glorifying mass murder. I was wrong on all counts and would like my $4.99 back, Michael.
Moore's new movie is a film of him doing a stand-up comedy show about how wonderfully awesome Hillary Clinton is -- except that he mentions Trump a bit at the beginning and he's dead serious about Clinton being wonderfully awesome.
This film is a text book illustration of why rational arguments for lesser evilist voting do not work. Lesser evilists become self-delusionists. They identify with their lesser evil candidate and delude themselves into adoring the person. Moore is not pushing the "Elect her and then hold her accountable" stuff. He says we have a responsibility to "support her" and "get behind her," and that if after two years -- yes, TWO YEARS -- she hasn't lived up to a platform he's fantasized for her, well then, never fear, because he, Michael Moore, will run a joke presidential campaign against her for the next two years (this from a guy who backed restricting the length of election campaigns in one of his better works).
Moore maintains that virtually all criticism of Hillary Clinton is nonsense. What do we think, he asks, that she asks how many millions of dollars you've put into the Clinton Foundation and then she agrees to bomb Yemen for you? Bwahahaha! Pretty funny. Except that Saudi Arabia put over $10 million into the Clinton Foundation, and while she was Secretary of State Boeing put in another $900,000, upon reportedly made it her mission to get the planes sold to Saudi Arabia, despite legal restrictions -- the planes now dropping U.S.-made bombs on Yemen with U.S. guidance, U.S. refueling mid-air, U.S. protection at the United Nations, and U.S. cover in the form of pop-culture distraction and deception from entertainers like Michael Moore.
Standing before a giant Air Force missile and enormous photos of Hillary Clinton, Michael Moore claims that substantive criticism of Clinton can consist of only two things, which he dismisses in a flash: her vote for a war on Iraq and her coziness with Wall Street. He says nothing more about what that "coziness" consists of, and he claims that she's more or less apologized and learned her lesson on Iraq.
What? It wasn't one vote. It was numerous votes to start the war, fund it, and escalate it. It was the lies to get it going and keep it going. It's all the other wars before and since. She says President Obama was wrong not to launch missile strikes on Syria in 2013. She pushed hard for the overthrow of Qadaffi in 2011. She supported the coup government in Honduras in 2009. She has backed escalation and prolongation of war in Afghanistan. She skillfully promoted the White House justification for the war on Iraq. She does not hesitate to back the use of drones for targeted killing. She has consistently backed the military initiatives of Israel. She was not ashamed to laugh at the killing of Qadaffi. She has not hesitated to warn that she could obliterate Iran. She is eager to antagonize Russia. She helped facilitate a military coup in Ukraine. She has the financial support of the arms makers and many of their foreign customers. She waived restrictions at the State Department on selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Qatar, all states wise enough to donate to the Clinton Foundation. She supported President Bill Clinton's wars and the power of the president to make war without Congress. She has advocated for arming fighters in Syria and for a "No Fly" zone. She supported a surge in Iraq even before President Bush did.
That's just her war problem. What about her banking problem, prison problem, fracking problem, corporate trade problem, corporate healthcare problem, climate change problem, labor problem, Social Security problem, etc.?
Moore parts company from substantive critique in order to lament unproven rightwing claims that Hillary Clinton has murdered various people. "I hope she did," screams Moore. "That's who I want as Commander in Chief!" Hee hee hee. - Advertisement -
Then Moore shamelessly pushes the myth that Hillary tried to create single-payer, or at least "universal" healthcare (whatever that is) in the 1990s. In fact, as I heard Paul Wellstone tell it, single-payer easily won the support of Clinton's focus group, but she buried it for her corporate pals and produced the phonebook-size monstrosity that was dead on arrival but reborn in another form years later as Obamacare. She killed single-payer then, has not supported it since, and does not propose it now. (Well, she does admit in private that it's the only thing that works, as her husband essentially blurts out in public.) But Moore claims that because we didn't create "universal" healthcare in the 1990s we all have the blood of millions on our hands, millions whom Hillary would have saved had we let her.
Moore openly fantasizes: what would it be like if Hillary Clinton is secretly progressive? Remember that Moore and many others did the exact same thing with Obama eight years ago. To prove Clinton's progressiveness Moore plays an audio clip of her giving a speech at age 22 in which she does not hint at any position on any issue whatsoever.
Mostly, however, Moore informs us that Hillary Clinton is female. He anticipates "that glorious moment when the other gender has a chance to run this world and kick some righteous ass." Now tell me please, dear world, if your ass is kicked by killers working for a female president will you feel better about it? How do you like Moore's inclusive comments throughout his performance: "We're all Americans, right?"
Moore's fantasy is that Clinton will dash off a giant pile of executive orders, just writing Congress out of the government -- executive orders doing things like releasing all nonviolent drug offenders from prison immediately (something the real Hillary Clinton would oppose in every way she could).
But when he runs for president, Moore says, he'll give everybody free drugs. - Advertisement -
I'll tell you the Clinton ad I'd like to see. She's standing over a stove holding an egg. "This is your brain," she says solemnly, cracking it into the pan with a sizzle. "This is your brain on partisanship." hillary and bush | 0 |
SHTF Plan – by Mac Slavo
This election remains more heated than any other in modern history – and for many, it has become a call to arms, even if only metaphorically.
Despite the fact that DNC operatives have been exposed as the ones inciting violence at rallies – Robert Creamer and Scott Foval for example – and working overtime to bus in illegal voters and rig the vote – the media is going out of its way to paint Trump supporters and grassroots Americans as the ones plotting violence.
Most recently, they are latching onto comments made by former congressman Joe Walsh, now a conservative radio host, who suggested he would ‘pick up a musket’ if Trump loses the election. On November 8th, I'm voting for Trump.
On November 9th, if Trump loses, I'm grabbing my musket.
You in?
— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) October 26, 2016
Did Walsh mean to imply violence? That is certainly how the media is portraying it, as his comments spark controversy and fuel fire to the debate over the nearing election.
The irony that his commentary drew from the imagery of founding-era patriots who stood up to tyranny was deeply lost on the left, who see opponents to Hillary in black and white terms – racist, xenophobic, utterly deplorable and inherently violent.
CNN followed up, asking Walsh what he meant by statement.
via CNN :
Former Rep. Joe Walsh appeared to call for armed revolution Wednesday if Donald Trump is not elected president. […]
Walsh … did respond to CNN’s Jake Tapper via Twitter when he asked: “What exactly does that mean?”
“It means protesting. Participating in acts of civil disobedience. Doing what it takes to get our country back,” he responded to Tapper. @jaketapper It means protesting. Participating in acts of civil disobedience. Doing what it takes to get our country back.
— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) October 26, 2016
After a firestorm on social media, Walsh doubled down, stating on Twitter: I'm serious. I don't think a musket would do much good these days, but it's time for civil disobedience on the right. https://t.co/ThJPEbALWZ
— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) October 26, 2016
His heated rhetoric is a response to the endless episodes of fraud, dirty trick and foul play by the Hillary campaign, as it seems that she will stop at nothing to become the first female POTUS – just the sort of abuse of power that the founders warned about.
1775-76 erupted in response to a long train of abuses – acts of oppression and hostility listed in the Declaration of Independence that is being largely repeated in modern day America.
Could Hillary’s reported election victory – or Donald Trump’s defeat – signal civil unrest and a new wave of resistance, particularly if the results are widely viewed as fraudulent or “rigged”? Trump, for one, has certainly been talking up the possibility of a stolen election.
The scenario is plausible enough that the Pentagon and Homeland Security have been carrying out secret drills in the lead up to the election to prepare for the possibility of a martial law response to violence or civil unrest.
As SHTF detailed in an exclusive report, a whistleblower has come forward on the ominous contingency plan to keep and/or restore order if the populace revolt against the establishment’s “selection” for president:
If there is any truth to it, the 2016 election could be a kick-off for total tyranny.
According to an unnamed source – who has provided accurate intel in the past – an unannounced military drill is scheduled to take place during a period leading up to the election and throughout the month after.
Date: October 30th – 30 days after the election Suspected Region: Northeast, specifically New York
1st Phase: NROL (No Rule of Law) – drill involving combat arms in metro areas (active and reserve). Source says active duty and reserve service members are being vaccinated as if they are being deployed in theatre.
2nd Phase: LROL (Limited Rule of Law) – Military/FEMA consolidating resources, controlling water supply, handing out to public as needed.
3rd Phase: AROL (Authoritarian Rule of Law) – Possible new acronym or term for “Martial Law”. Curfew, restricted movements, basically martial law scenario.
Source said exercise involves FEMA/DHS/Military
At this point, no one can say for certain what will happen in the aftermath of November 8, but it is clear that millions and millions of Americans are dissatisfied with the status quo, troubled about the economic realities perpetuated by the Fed and angry that Hillary may be put in the Oval Office rather than a jail cell, despite a trail of corruption with virtually no end.
How far will things go?
And will things ever be reset without a new American Revolution? | 0 |
Cuban police stormed into the home of Leticia Ramos Herrería, a member of the Ladies in White dissident group, and confiscated toys the group had collected to distribute in celebration of the Christian feast day of Epiphany. [“Police executed an operation at the home of Leticia Ramos Herrería without her being present and took all the toys away that she had bought to distribute to more than 200 children this Three Kings’ Day,” according to Cuba’s dissident leader Martha Beatriz Roque, using another name common for the holiday. “They took everything,” Berta Soler, the head of the Ladies in White group, lamented to Martí Noticias. The Diario de Cuba adds that two of Ramo Herrería’s relatives, her son and brother, were beaten during the siege on her home. While Epiphany is a holiday, Latin American Catholics and Spaniards hold special celebrations on January 6, the twelfth day of Christmas. The celebration is intended to observe the arrival of the Three Wise Men to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. As the wise men brought gifts with them to the manger, it is traditional to give children toys as presents on this day. The Ladies in White are a group of mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives of Cuban prisoners of conscience. They are a Catholic group, and their main act of protest is to attend Catholic Mass on Sundays dressed in white, then silently march home holding photos of their loved ones, imprisoned for their opposition to Communism. They are not alone in openly celebrating Epiphany as a symbolic protest — the family of Danilo Maldonado Machado, an artist known more commonly as “El Sexto,” organized a party for local Havana children on Friday and shared cake and a piñata with them. Maldonado was arrested in November for publicly celebrating the death of dictator Fidel Castro on the streets of Havana. His mother says Cuban police have assaulted him on multiple occasions while in custody, denying him medication to control his asthma. Maldonado was moved to a maximum security prison after repeatedly shouting, “down with Castro,” from his prison cell. He has yet to be charged with a crime. As with most Catholic holidays, the Cuban Communist Party did away with Three Kings’ Day early in its tenure. According to the Diario de Cuba, the Castro regime only reinstated a version of Three Kings’ Day in the 1990s: Children’s Day, a secular holiday in July meant to combat the influence of a resurgence in Christmas celebrations organized by the Spanish embassy in the country. Private acts of Christian celebration are still subject to censure, however, as in the case of the Ladies in White toy drive. In another instance of Christian oppression, a man was arrested in 2015 for organizing an inflatable Santa Claus display in Havana. January 6 continues to be a day of celebration, however, and parents do attempt to purchase toys to give their children. Cuba boasts few toy stores, however, with limited supplies at exorbitant prices. An employee of one Cuban toy store estimated to Cubanet that toy prices typically triple shortly before the holiday. While many dissidents adhere to the Christian faith, the Vatican has largely done little to aid their work to liberate the island. Some priests have banned the Ladies in White from attending their Masses, while Pope Francis met with Fidel Castro before his death and called the nonagenarian’s overdue demise “sad news” in a condolence missive to dictator Raúl Castro. | 1 |
On the Friday Fox Sports 1 “Undisputed” broadcast, contributor Rob Parker weighed in on the New England Patriots players visiting the White House April 19 to celebrate their Super Bowl LI victory over the Atlanta Falcons with President Donald Trump. Parker called for a White House “whitewash,” saying all of the black Patriots players should boycott the visit. “I think there should be a whitewash at the White House, and I mean black players should boycott the visit,” Parker said. “When a guy shows you his cards and tells you what he thinks of you and your people and minorities in this country, take notice, because he’s telling you the truth. I think if you’re a black player and you’re going there just to take a photo op with the guy who has basically said and done the things that he’s done to this point, what would be the purpose of that?” Parker went on to applaud 2016 Patriots defensive lineman Chris Long, a white player, for not going but said the minority players are the ones who should be boycotting the visit. Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
A bill in Congress could make it harder for workers to keep employers from getting access to their personal medical and genetic information and raise the financial penalties for those who opt out of workplace wellness programs. House Republicans are proposing legislation aimed at making it easier for companies to gather genetic data from workers and their families, including their children, when they collect it as part of a voluntary wellness program. The bill, the Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act, introduced by Representative Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina and the chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, would also significantly increase the financial costs faced by someone who does not join a company wellness program. The bill, which is under review by other House committees and has yet to be considered by the Senate, has already provoked fierce opposition from a wide range of consumer, health and privacy advocacy groups, as well as by House Democrats. Critics claim it undermines existing laws aimed at protecting an individual’s personal medical information from use by employer and others. “We strongly oppose any legislation that would allow employers to inquire about employees’ private genetic information or medical information unrelated to their ability to do their jobs, and to impose draconian penalties on employees who choose to keep that information private,” a group of advocates, including AARP, the American Diabetes Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Epilepsy Foundation, the March of Dimes and others wrote in a letter this week to Ms. Foxx. As wellness programs proliferate across the corporate landscape, workers are increasingly being asked by their companies to undergo health screenings and medical assessments. Employees can opt out of these programs, and personal information specific to a worker is not supposed to be shared directly with the company. The prohibition is aimed at preventing someone from being fired or otherwise discriminated against because of a serious medical condition. The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has vigorously pursued legal action against some employers it claimed went too far and used these programs inappropriately, but the courts have largely been sympathetic to the employers’ arguments. Companies also complained that the regulations were confusing, and the commission issued final rules in May aimed at addressing some of their concerns. Companies defend the wellness programs, saying they keep workers healthier and help reduce insurance costs. But some studies have questioned the effectiveness of these initiatives. Critics argue that workers are essentially being coerced into giving up private medical information, such as their weight, their blood pressure and whether they are at particular risk for cancer. Under the Affordable Care Act, employers can entice a worker by offering as much as a 30 percent reduction in insurance payments. Although the financial incentives offered have typically been lower, an employee who refused to participate could lose as much as thousands of dollars in savings. The bill would also weaken the role of the E. E. O. C. in overseeing wellness programs and its ability to prevent violations of antidiscrimination laws established under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act. Employers would be generally governed by rules established by different agencies. The bill “is trying to streamline the regulatory scheme,” said Kathryn Wilber, a senior official at the American Benefits Council, which represents employers’ interests. She said that companies remain committed to protecting the privacy of this information and that employers take this responsibility “very, very seriously. ” Bethany Aronhalt, a spokeswoman for the House committee, said the goal was to address employers’ concerns rather than to drastically change the laws protecting workers. “We want to ensure working families can continue to benefit from these voluntary programs, and so did the Obama administration,” Ms. Aronhalt said. “This legislation will reaffirm existing law and provide regulatory clarity so that employers can have the certainty they need to help lower health care costs for their employees. ” Opponents contend that the bill would leave workers much more vulnerable because the rules under the antidiscrimination laws would not apply if someone volunteered personal health information under a wellness program. “It just takes away the workplace protection,” said Jennifer Mathis, the director of policy and legal advocacy of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. The E. E. O. C. does not comment on pending legislation, a spokeswoman said. The bill would significantly increase the amount of money at stake by allowing an employer to offer higher incentives, up to 30 percent of the cost to cover the whole family, as opposed to 30 percent of an individual’s coverage cost. | 1 |
USA Today reports:
Aoun, 81, is an ally of Hezbollah, the Shiite militia and political party backed by Iran that has helped Syrian President Bashar Assad survive a five-year civil war on Lebanon’s border.
The vote for Aoun, by 83 of parliament’s 127 members, shows Iran-backed political factions shouldered past those aligned with Saudi Arabia, replacing Syria as Lebanon’s chief foreign power broker.
Aoun’s “victory now is a victory for Hezbollah and that alliance, and certainly a kind of black eye for Saudi Arabia,” said Paul Salem, vice president for policy and research at the Middle East Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C.
Saad Hariri, a pro-Western and Saudi-oriented politician, formally endorsed Aoun last week after failing to garner enough support for the presidency. In return, Aoun is expected to appoint Hariri prime minister.
“It’s a power-sharing system,” Salem said. “In a way, the status quo will continue.”
U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby congratulated Lebanon on the election results.
“This is a moment of opportunity, as Lebanon emerges from years of political impasse, to restore government functions and build a more stable and prosperous future for all Lebanese citizens,” he said in a statement.
Asked later about Aoun’s support from Hezbollah, which the State Department has designated a terrorist organization, Kirby said: “Let’ see what decisions he makes, what kind of leadership he exudes as president.”
The U.S. routinely assesses its foreign assistance programs “and we will do that with Lebanon going forward,” Kirby said at a press briefing.
Aoun’s election drew immediate praise from a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
The adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, described the choice as a victory for Iran and its allies in Lebanon, because the Lebanese president is “a very significant ring in the chain of the Islamic resistance,” according to Iran’s government-owned Tasnim News Agency.
Aoun, in his first speech after becoming president, pledged to fight corruption and protect Lebanon from the fires raging around it, referring to the Syrian civil war, according to the Associated Press. He also promised to liberate contested territory under “Israeli occupation,” according to Hezbollah’s Al Manar-TV, apparently referring to territory Israel considers part of the Golan Heights, which it conquered from Syria during the 1967 war. Saad Hariri and Michel Aoun
Lebanon has been without a head of state since May 2014, when then-president Michel Suleiman’s six-year term expired. Since then, 45 sessions to elect a new leader have failed because of political infighting, the AP reported. Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and Michel Aoun | 0 |
Hollywood’s biggest stars took to social media Wednesday to respond harshly to news that President Donald Trump has decided to withdraw the U. S. from the Paris Climate Agreement. [President Trump seemed to affirm the reports, tweeting Wednesday that his announcement was imminent. “I will be announcing my decision on the Paris Accord over the next few days,” he wrote. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” I will be announcing my decision on the Paris Accord over the next few days. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017, Actor and climate change activist Mark Ruffalo said Trump “will have the death of whole nations on his hands” if he decides to pull the U. S. out of the agreement. If this is true he will have the death of whole nations on his hands. People will be looking to the USA for retribution for what they loose. https: . — Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) May 31, 2017, Actor Don Cheadle used the breaking news to attack the president’s son, Barron. “If you care about your kids maybe reconsider your #ParisAgreement decision. Barron will thank you when he sees you, whenever that is,” the Avengers actor wrote Wednesday. If you care about your kids maybe reconsider your #ParisAgreement decision. Barron will thank you when he sees you, whenever that is. https: . — Don Cheadle (@DonCheadle) May 31, 2017, Other stars, including Beauty and the Beast star Josh Gad and talk show host Chelsea Handler referenced children and their future on Earth as the reason President Trump should consider keeping the U. S. in the Paris agreement. Our children our grandchildren have all just been handed a dark future because of a man who tweets at 3:00 AM doesn’t ”trust” science 😉👌 https: . — Josh Gad (@joshgad) May 31, 2017, Yeah, who cares about climate change? Only every single person with a child. Republicans in congress need to end this childish mayhem. — Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) May 31, 2017, Below is a roundup of the reaction to the news of Trump’s decision from some of the entertainment would’s biggest stars. 2 Ppl of The🌎. Pls Know There R ”MILLIONS”Of Us 🐝ing Held Hostage By Insane DICTATOR‼️He Trashes🇺🇸’n Values Admires Killers #ParisAccordNOW, — Cher (@cher) May 31, 2017, What a huge step backward. We should be leading the world on this. #ActOnClimate https: . — Ben Stiller (@RedHourBen) May 31, 2017, what is diabolical about this is that these leaders know better. They know science is real. They know climate change isn’t a hoax. — Ron Perlman (@perlmutations) May 31, 2017, @AGSchneiderman! Wish you could make #Trump reverse his decision to pullout of #ParisAgreement #climatechange. https: . — Rosie Perez (@rosieperezbklyn) May 31, 2017, @XavierBecerra @AGSchneiderman Global scientific consensus on Climate Change is solid. If We pull out of Paris accord sue 4 negligence . — Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) May 31, 2017, I agree @Alyssa_Milano https: . — Ellen Pompeo (@EllenPompeo) May 31, 2017, i’m trying to figure out the meaning of backing out the #ParisAgreement 😞 https: . — Questlove Gomez (@questlove) May 31, 2017, Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson is taking a hard line against Russia on the eve of his first diplomatic trip to Moscow, calling the country “incompetent” for allowing Syria to hold on to chemical weapons and accusing Russia of trying to influence elections in Europe using the same methods it employed in the United States. Mr. Tillerson’s comments, made in interviews aired on Sunday, were far more critical of the Russian government than any public statements by President Trump, who has been an increasingly lonely voice for better ties with Russia. They seemed to reflect Mr. Tillerson’s expectation, which he has expressed privately to aides and members of Congress, that the American relationship with Russia is already reverting to the norm: one of friction, distrust and mutual efforts to undermine each other’s reach. “This was inevitable,” said Philip H. Gordon, a former Middle East coordinator at the National Security Council who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Trump’s early let’ initiative was incompatible with our interests, and you knew it would end with tears. ” The Russians’ behavior has not changed, Mr. Gordon added, and they “are using every means they can — cyber, economic arrangements, intimidation — to reinsert themselves around the Middle East and Europe. ” Mr. Tillerson made it clear he agreed with that view, sweeping past Mr. Trump’s repeated insistence, despite the conclusion of American intelligence agencies, that there was no evidence of Russian interference in last year’s election. The meddling “undermines any hope of improving relations,” Mr. Tillerson said on ABC’s “This Week,” “not just with the United States, but it’s pretty evident that they’re taking similar tactics into electoral processes throughout Europe. ” Such tough talk will make Mr. Tillerson’s job even harder when he arrives Tuesday for the first visit to Moscow by a top Trump administration official. While he must offer sharp warnings to Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov and to President Vladimir V. Putin, if they meet — it was unclear whether such a meeting had been quietly arranged — he must also find a way forward with them to counter the Islamic State and then deal with the Syrian president, Bashar . Yet as Mr. Tillerson arrived in Italy to meet with foreign ministers before going to Moscow, the administration was sending conflicting signals about its policy on Syria and the extent to which it would hold the country’s patron Russia responsible for continued violence. Mr. Tillerson and the new national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” said the American attack last week on a Syrian air base was intended solely to halt future chemical attacks, not to destabilize or overthrow the Assad government. “What’s significant about the strike is not that it was meant to take out the Syrian regime’s capacity or ability to commit mass murder of its own people,” said General McMaster, who is new to the Sunday television circuit, “but it was to be a very strong signal to Assad and his sponsors that the United States cannot stand idly by as he is murdering innocent civilians. ” Neither man would commit to further military action in Syria even if Mr. Assad continued to kill civilians in large numbers by conventional means rather than with the chemical weapons that prompted Mr. Trump to reverse his stance on intervention. Instead, Mr. Tillerson said that defeating the Islamic State remained the first priority. Only then, he said, would he turn to a process leading to elections, so that “the Syrian people can decide the fate of Assad. ” But the American ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, suggested that such a process was doomed as long as Mr. Assad was in power. “We know there’s not any sort of option where a political solution is going to happen with Assad at the head of the regime,” she said on CNN. “If you look at his actions, if you look at the situation, it’s going to be hard to see a government that’s peaceful and stable with Assad. ” That statement stood in contrast not only to Mr. Tillerson’s comments but also to Ms. Haley’s own remarks a week ago — before Mr. Assad carried out his latest chemical weapons attack on civilians — in which she insisted that his departure from office was not a diplomatic priority for the United States. Still, the overall tone of suspicion and condemnation of Russia’s actions in Syria indicated that Mr. Trump’s top national security advisers were nudging him back to a more traditional Russia policy. During his days as the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, Mr. Tillerson received a friendship award from Mr. Putin, and he is aware of the suspicions surrounding those ties and has gone the furthest in the administration in separating himself from the Russian leader. The challenges have only multiplied in recent days. The Russians, angry about the attack on the air base, have threatened to cut off a communication line that the American and Russian militaries have used to notify each other about air operations in Syria. And the attack has forced Mr. Putin into a tighter relationship with Mr. Assad, perhaps tighter than the Russian leader wants. Ms. Haley, who, like Mr. Tillerson, is new to diplomacy, has also apparently concluded that a hard line toward Russia is the safest course. The contrast between her remarks and Mr. Trump’s warm words for Mr. Putin on the campaign trail — as well as his refusal to acknowledge Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election — has been striking. The Trump administration’s Syria policy has been difficult to parse. Mr. Tillerson, in his first television appearances since taking office, seemed to describe two different strategic objectives: halting chemical attacks and ultimately negotiating a . But he made it clear that he had no intention of backing a military intervention that would overthrow Mr. Assad. That suggested that as long as the dictator used conventional means to kill his own people — barrel bombs instead of sarin gas — the United States would keep its distance. “I think what the United States and our allies want to do is to enable the Syrian people to make that determination” about Mr. Assad’s fate, Mr. Tillerson said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” — a line that was often used by his predecessor in the Obama administration, John Kerry. “You know, we’ve seen what violent regime change looks like in Libya and the kind of chaos that can be unleashed. ” Those remarks indicate that Mr. Trump does not yet have a grander strategy for Syria. Longtime Middle East experts said that might be a good thing. “I for one am glad he does not have a fully strategy on Syria, because if he did, he’d probably get it wrong,” said Ryan C. Crocker, perhaps the most experienced American career diplomat in the region, and dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas AM University. “There are too many variables, too many unknowns,” he said, among them the expectation of American allies, including Saudi Arabia, that Mr. Trump should emphasize getting rid of Mr. Assad over defeating the Islamic State. | 1 |
Under the leadership of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the first 100 days at the Department of Justice have seen perhaps the most straightforward and earnest efforts to bring the promises of the Trump movement to fruition. [Stepping into leadership at a DOJ managed for eight years by Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, Sessions has had an uphill battle to implement the key tenets of law and order that so many Americans have long craved and which President Donald Trump promised as a candidate: an end of the lawless hypocrisy on the southern border and in the internal enforcement of our immigration laws, especially in state a jurisdictions that openly flaunt federal law and proclaim themselves “sanctuaries” a firm commitment to get a handle on rising violent crime, especially in our most dangerous inner cities and steadfast support of our law enforcement officers at a time when they face danger and disparagement from inside the government and without. Attorney General Sessions was confirmed by the Senate on February 9, 2017, three weeks into the new administration. One of the very first national politicians to endorse candidate Trump, he was the fifth cabinet member to take his seat, but not before a smooth yet contentious confirmation process yielded one of the most awkwardly worded and forced political slogans of recent memory. “Nevertheless, she persisted,” the line goes, a reference to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s ( ) explanation of his use of Senate rules to prevent Sen. Elizabeth Warren ( ) reading a old letter from Coretta Scott King to imply racist motives to then Senator Sessions. The use was later criticized by Ms. King’s niece. The fireworks on the Senate floor were quickly followed up in the White House. On his first day as Attorney General, Sessions stood by President Trump’s side as he signed no fewer than four executive orders pertaining to the Justice Department. Without doubt, cracking down on illegal aliens and the resultant lawlessness on the border and in our immigration system has been the greatest focus of Sessions’ attentions in his tenure at DOJ. Merely the signal of will from the new administration has already brought extraordinary results. March of 2017 saw the lowest number of illegals caught on the border in 17 years, a 72 percent reduction in apprehensions from the last month of the Obama administration. Rhetoric was repeatedly backed up with action on the Attorney General’s part. In early March, the DOJ shifted 50 immigration judges to detention center along the border and in illegal alien heavy cities. The were set to work in shifts to help clear the massive backlog of deportation cases. This proved to be merely a prelude to much more substantial reform. On the morning of April 11, 2017, the Attorney General toured the southern border with officers of U. S Customs and Border Protection. Addressing them and the nation, he proclaimed, “For those that continue to seek improper and illegal entry into this country, be forewarned: This is a new era. This is the Trump era. ” “The catch and release practices of old are over,” Sessions continued, announced that 125 additional immigration judges would be hired on expedited basis. They would be needed because from this point on all adults apprehended at the border were to be detained by federal authorities. A new set of guidelines was sent to every federal prosecutor in the country. Those who illegally enter the United States a second time will now face felony prosecution as a matter of course, as well those who illegal enter after having been deported, and transporting or harboring three or more illegal aliens. Charges of aggravated identity theft are to be levied on those caught with fraudulent documentation. These measures are designed to work in tandem with a similar ramping up at the Department of Homeland Security, where 10, 000 additional ICE officers have been authorized and are in the process of being hired. Attorney General Sessions made a point of making joint appearances with DHS Secretary John Kelley, presenting a united front to bring order to the border. The two cabinet officials noted increased arrests, more deportations of criminals, and other operations contributing to the apparent decrease in illegal border crossings. While President Trump has, so far, not seen it fit to reverse Obama’s Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals executive order, granting amnesty to those who came illegal as children and register with the federal government, the Attorney General has made it clear that the law remains the law. Asked by Fox News in April about the deportation of certain DREAMer (after the never enacted DREAM act) Sessions was unequivocal, “The policy is that if people are here unlawfully, they’re subject to being deported. Our priority is clear. Our priority is to end the lawlessness at the border. ” From the very beginning of his tenure, Attorney General Sessions has tried to bring jurisdictions who refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement back to legal normality, even if it means cutting their federal funds to convince them to do so. Sessions has done this in the face of steadfast refusal to cooperate by some of nation’s most powerful local leaders. For example, Chicago, under the leadership of Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, went so far as to issue a new type of identification available to illegal alien without the city keeping records in response to fears the administration might be able to force the “sanctuary” to give up information on immigration status. Sessions made a point of calling out a California prosecutor who appears to, as a matter of policy, be reducing charges to avoid triggering “violent felon” deportation requirements. The most troubling resistance, however, came this final week of the first 100 days, as a federal court in San Francisco blocked enforcement of President Trump’s executive order commanding Sessions to cut off federal funds from recalcitrant jurisdictions. At the moment, as the administration has released no comprehensive plan as to what funds are subject to suspension, it is unclear what effect this temporary order will have. It will, however, prevent the use of that executive order’s authority while a lawsuit from a number of California sanctuary jurisdictions makes its way through the courts. Sessions has not taken this tactic to continue flaunting federal immigration law lightly. In a statement Wednesday, the Attorney General was very clear as to how he saw the lawsuit: At the heart of this immigration debate is disagreement over whether illegally entering this country is a crime. Our duly enacted laws answer that question. Nevertheless, actions that have always been understood to be squarely within the powers of the President, regardless of the Administration, have now been enjoined. The Department of Justice cannot accept such a result, and as the President has made clear, we will continue to litigate this case to vindicate the rule of law. Separate from the wider pledge to cut the flow of federal funds to sanctuary jurisdictions, Sessions has used his independent authority to bring pressure to bear. After weeks of threatening action, the Department of Justice sent letters to nine of the states and cities who most vigorously stifle immigration enforcement, demanding they show compliance by June 30 or forfeit their DOJ Bryne Grants for law enforcement. As these grants already have requirements to follow federal law attached to them, these letters may be unaffected by the ongoing court fracas over President Trump’s executive order. The mayhem of our inner cities in the waning years of the Obama administration was no less troubling than the chaos on the border. On the day Sessions took office, an executive order established a task force for tackling the violent crime increase seen in certain cities. Sessions has spoken on numerous occasions on his support for a return to “broken windows” policing and taking local law enforcement’s side in their effort to wrestle their crime rates back down to the historic lows seen only a few years ago. Some of the violence is fueled by what the justice department calls “transnational criminal organizations,” brutal gangs like and networks like the Mexican drug cartels. At a meeting of the Attorney General’s Organized Crime Council, Sessions made clear his department would have “zero tolerence” for gang violence as it brings an executive order targeting these organizations for deportation and dismantling into reality. On several occasions, Sessions has highlighted his continued support for the type of rigorous policing that came under intense fire in the last administration. To many Americans, the DOJ’s failure to keep crime in check and the border under control was compounded by the perceived failure to adequately support law enforcement officers and their in this trying time. Black Lives Matter and other groups brought rhetoric to the forefront of the public discourse and politicized violence against the police made headlines throughout 2014, 2015 and 2016. The Justice Department responded by launching investigations into police brutality, bias, and misconduct, making it anything but clear that American law enforcement had their unequivocal support. Spearheaded by Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta’s Civil Rights Division, the Obama administration responded to riots in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland by launching federal investigations into those cities’ and others like Chicago’s, police departments. The results were predictable. A “Ferguson Effect,” where officers were reluctant to make the routine stops necessary to keep crime under control for fear of being sanctioned for misconduct contributed to a shocking rise in violent crime in the very communities supposedly protected by federal oversight of police. Initially dismissed as a conspiracy theory, the Ferguson Effect has since been supported by a survey of police officers and by a National Institute of Justice study funded by the Obama DOJ. When Attorney General Sessions took the reigns at DOJ, there was an immediate shift in tone. “Please know that you have the full support of our Department,” Sessisons told a meeting of police chiefs in April. He went on to call out the former administration’s treatment of police: In recent years, as you know, law enforcement as a whole has been unfairly maligned and blamed for the crimes and unacceptable deeds of a few bad actors. Amid this intense criticism, morale has gone down, while the number of officers killed in the line of duty has gone up. Attorney General Sessions has done what is in his power to try and reverse the damage done to Law Enforcement relations. He ordered a complete review of all investigations into local law enforcement. He has even sought to scale back the consent decree reached to install federal monitoring of Baltimore’s Police Department in the waning days of the Obama administration. When the federal judge in the case refused to reopen the issue, Sessions issued a public statement criticizing the whole endeavor, saying, “There are clear departures from many proven principles of good policing that we fear will result in more crime. ” Wednesday saw the first of Attorney General Sessions’ subordinates take office: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Over the coming weeks, it is expected that serious progress will be made on nominating and confirming permanent occupants for the dozens of political positions at the Department of Justice, including the over 90 U. S. Attorneys who lead federal criminal prosecutions. The key victories of the first 100 days were accomplished by the Attorney General without any of them in place. As his team assembles around him, Attorney General Sessions looks to be better able to direct the legal policy of the United States government to restore his vision of law and order. | 1 |
Russian scientists to track sea lions from space October 28, 2016 TASS kamchatka , animals , space , russian far east Steller sea lions are found everywhere near the coast of the Kamchatka peninsula, but the largest reproductive rookery is located on the Aleutian and Kuril Islands. Source: Lori Images
Researchers at the Kamchatka branch of the Pacific Institute of Geography of Russia’s Science Academy’s Far East Department now have the opportunity to monitor Steller sea lions that are on Russia’s Red List of Threatened Species, from space, the Komandorsky Nature Reserve’s Spokesman Alexei Veledinsky told TASS on Oct. 28. The researchers succeeded in installing five GPS tags on two full-grown sea lionesses and three cubs on the national park’s territory.
"It was not an easy task as these animals are very timid. They had to be knocked out using tranquillizers so that they could be tagged," Veledinsky said.
However, right after the animals woke up, scientists started receiving the data on their movement. In one case, a few days after being tagged, a sea lionesses and her cub travelled several hundred kilometers from the Commander Islands through the Pacific Ocean to Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. All of the sea lions’ movements are depicted on a map via a computer program.
"Researchers will be able to follow the sea lions for approximately one year. The tags placed on the animals’ heads will fall off when they begin to shed their fur. That said, the tags are glued to their fur with a specific paste," Veledinsky explained. 10 UNESCO treasures in Russia on one map
One of the main goals of this research is to garner scientific data on the winter habitats of the sea lions populating the Commander Islands as their number has been falling. In the 1960s and 1970s up to 12,000 sea lions used to spend the winter on the islands, while in summer there were 2,000 to 5,000 animals there. Now there are no more than 600 sea lions. The new data will enable the creation of more safe conditions in the sea lions’ rookeries. There are four rookeries where sea lionesses bear cubs on the Commander Islands, which is encompassed by the national park. Besides that, there are also three rookeries where cubs are not born.
The Komandorsky Nature Reserve, founded in 1993, is the largest marine sanctuary in Russia with a territory of more than 3 mln hectares. | 0 |
The CEO of the aerospace defense company Lockheed Martin, Marillyn Hewson, pledges to create an additional 1, 800 jobs and significantly reduce the high cost of Joint Strike Fighter program previously criticized by Donald Trump. [“We are going to increase our jobs in Fort Worth by 1, 800 jobs and when you think about the [ ] supply chain across 45 states in the U. S. it’s going to be thousands and thousands of jobs,” Hewson said outside Trump Tower following a meeting with the . “I also had the opportunity to give him some ideas on things we think we can do to continue to drive the cost down on the program, so it was a great meeting,” she continued. The announcement is another victory for Trump’s promise to bring jobs back to America, with companies promising tens of thousands of additional jobs following his victory. One notable success for the incoming Trump administration was Ford’s announcement last week cancelling its plans to build a new plant in Mexico. Instead, it seeks to invest $700 million in Michigan, creating 700 new jobs in the process. Another piece of good news for Trump was Hewson’s promise to reduce the cost of the military defense program, designed by Lockheed, which Trump has previously described as having costs that are “out of control. ” The program and cost is out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2016, “We had the opportunity to talk to him about the program and I certainly share his views that we need to get the best capability to our men and women in uniform and we have to get it at the lowest possible price,” she said. “So I’m glad I had the opportunity to tell him that we are close to a deal that will bring the cost down significantly from the previous lot of aircraft to the next lot of aircraft and moreover it’s going to bring a lot of jobs to the United States,” Hewson continued. Donald Trump’s choice for defense secretary, General James Mattis, reiterated Trump’s commitment to the program on Thursday, saying that “the has talked about the cost of [the ] but he has in no way shown a lack of support for the program. He just wants the best bang for the buck. ” The U. S. Air Force and the U. S. Marine Corps, plus numerous other countries, uses the . The Marines’ version can and lend vertically, similar to a helicopter. You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 1 |
Saturday Night Live star Michael Che is not apologizing for calling Boston, Massachusetts the “most racist city” he has ever visited. [Che had originally made the remarks during a “Weekend Update” segment on the NBC show the night before the Super Bowl. “I just want to relax, turn my brain off, and watch the blackest city in America beat the most racist city I’ve ever been to,” Che told SNL viewers. @GerryCallahan @KirkAndCallahan yep figured you appreciate this one from SNL last night. pic. twitter. — Junk_That_Jersey (@junkthatjersey) February 5, 2017, The controversial comment came up again Thursday during an appearance at Boston University. Che explained that he had received a ton of angry feedback over his Boston remarks, the Boston Globe reports. He said he had responded to one woman, who was exceptionally outraged by the line, by insisting that she “talk to your closest black friend and ask them to explain it to you. ” “Touche,” the woman replied, according to Che. The New York native also slammed Trump Thursday, telling the audience that it would be better if Trump was running another country instead of being in “our own little slice of crazy. ” Che reportedly made it a point to tell the audience that he never apologizes for his comedic language or for his controversial statements because he’s “just trying to be more presidential. ” After the presidential election, Che told Esquire magazine that he agreed with President Trump’s criticism that SNL is politically “biased” and — opting to ding Republicans and conservative viewpoints far more than Democratic and liberal dogma. “Oddly, I agree with him,” he said. “We try to write that way. But I do agree with him. I think the show should show all views and we make a conscious effort to do so. ” Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
Fallece guionista de 'Los Simpson' 43 GMT
El ganador de seis premios Emmy colaboraba con la serie de animación desde 1998. Amanda Edwards AFP
El guionista de 'Los Simpson' Kevin Curran ha fallecido este martes a la edad de 59 años en Los Ángeles (EE.UU.) tras una larga lucha contra el cáncer, informa la BBC . El ganador de seis premios Emmy colaboró 17 años con la serie de animación, desde 1998.
"Kevin Curran era un hombre amable, brillante, que dijo muchas cosas divertidas, algunas impublicables, otras que van a vivir siempre en dibujos animados para niños", destacó Al Jean, el productor ejecutivo de 'Los Simpson' en un comentario para ' The Hollywood Reporter '. | 0 |
The conventional wisdom holds that sweeping demographic shifts propelled Barack Obama to the presidency. So here’s a simple question: Why haven’t these demographics swept Hillary Clinton to a big polling lead and a smooth glide to victory? Donald J. Trump, after all, has alienated just about every growing demographic group and every category that helped push Mr. Obama to victory. The biggest reason is that demographic change was an overrated contribution to Mr. Obama’s victory, and it will help Mrs. Clinton only at the margins this year. Analysts have conflated all of the effect of higher turnout and percentage of support among nonwhite voters with demographic shifts. In truth, the turnout and support were far more powerful components. Mrs. Clinton is not poised to match the gains Mr. Obama made among nonwhite voters over previous Democratic nominees. That brings the pace of Democratic gains down to the slow crawl of demographic change. The traditional demographic story is fairly simple: Between 2000 and 2012, the white, share of voters plummeted. According to the census, white, voters represented just 74 percent of the electorate in 2012 — down from 81 percent in 2000. The shift was, indeed, driven by demographic change. The white, share of adult citizens — roughly the pool of people eligible to vote — fell by roughly the same amount over the same period. The white, share of adult citizens who are eligible voters has continued to fall — probably down to around 68 percent, although the census information is not yet up to date. The growing diversity of the electorate has undoubtedly helped the Democrats. However, many people look at these numbers and assume that the preponderance of Democratic gains over the last decade can be attributed to these shifts. That is not so. In fact, John Kerry would have probably lost the 2004 election even if eligible voters had been just as diverse as they were in 2012. Conversely, Mr. Obama would have probably won his two elections even if the last decade of demographic shifts had never happened. How? Because Democratic gains come from three largely distinct sources: demographics, support and turnout. Demographic trends did help Democrat nominees, a little. But they were helped just as much by favorable turnout trends — the huge surge in black turnout, in particular — and by favorable trends in support. Mr. Obama did much better than Mr. Kerry among Hispanic voters, among black voters and even among white voters outside the South and Appalachia. On balance, these other factors — support and turnout — not only outweighed demographic shifts as drivers of growing Democratic strength, but they also made demographic shifts more powerful. Demographic change, for instance, wouldn’t have done Mr. Kerry nearly as much good as it did Mr. Obama because Mr. Kerry didn’t do as well among Hispanic and Asian voters — the main drivers of demographic shifts. Here’s one way to look at it: Between 2004 and 2012, the Democratic margin among Hispanic voters roughly doubled, from 18 percentage points to 38 points, according to The Upshot’s estimates, which are based on polls, census data and the actual results. But over the same period, the number of Hispanic voters increased by just 20 percent, a far smaller contribution to Democratic strength. The impact of turnout and support over demographic shifts was even greater in the battleground states. Many of the key Northern battleground states — Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, New Hampshire and Wisconsin — saw changes in the composition of the electorate. In these states, Mr. Obama nonetheless ran ahead of Mr. Kerry by energizing black voters and doing better among white voters as well. Even the states with “demographic shifts” — like North Carolina and Colorado — actually had demographic shifts. And many of the biggest demographic shifts occurred in the Sun Belt states where Democrats talked about being competitive, like Georgia and Arizona, even Texas, but really weren’t. Demographic shifts in these areas were often canceled out by considerable losses among white voters over the same period. My view is that this is somewhat coincidental. Many of the red states with growing nonwhite populations also have the sort of older, Southern, less educated and more religious white populations that have trended toward the Republicans, even in states with far less demographic change and far fewer nonwhite voters (Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Missouri). The states with rapid demographic change but fewer Southern white voters — like California or New Jersey — did not see the same weakening in Democratic strength. Yes, demographic shifts will continue to slowly help Democrats. But Mrs. Clinton isn’t getting the same leaps in support and turnout among nonwhite voters that let Mr. Obama grow the Democratic coalition as much as he did. On average, Mrs. Clinton leads among Hispanic voters by almost the exact same amount that Mr. Obama did in polls in 2012. This is lost in many articles that the most shockingly results. The results that don’t show her doing so well — like a Pew poll showing her leading by 50 to 26 — are dismissed, even though the same pollsters four years ago showed Mr. Obama faring about as well as he ultimately did.’ ”Another reason Mrs. Clinton’s relative weakness among nonwhite voters has been overlooked is that analysts and journalists have tended to focus on how Mr. Trump is doing worse than Mr. Romney (Mr. Trump has only 15 percent support among Hispanics compared with Mr. Romney’s 27 percent in the exit polls). But they leave out that Mrs. Clinton, by the same measure, is doing worse than Mr. Obama to the same extent.” ’A final problem is that a handful of polls specifically targeting Latino voters tend to show Mrs. Clinton ahead by a larger margin than other surveys do. These pollsters argue that they’re a more accurate reflection of the Latino electorate. Whether this is true is beside the point: The methodology employed by these surveys has always yielded stronger results for Democrats than other surveys, including the exit polls.’ ”As a result, comparing these polls with the exit polls tends to show Democrats gaining when, in fact, they may not be at all. Mr. Obama, for instance, led the final Latino Decisions poll by a margin of 75 percent to 23 percent, about the same as Mrs. Clinton’s current lead in a recent survey.” ’Why isn’t Mrs. Clinton doing better than Mr. Obama among Hispanic voters? Part of her problem, I suspect, is that Hispanic voters are disproportionately young, and she has had a tough time rallying the support of young voters. It is also possible that she is struggling among less educated or Hispanic voters who may vote more similarly to less educated white voters. Mrs. Clinton isn’t doing better than Mr. Obama among black voters, either. While several polls have suggested that Mr. Trump is winning a vanishingly small share of that vote, the polls showed something similar in 2012. Then, polls showed Mr. Obama beating Mr. Romney by an even greater margin than the polls currently show Mrs. Clinton beating Mr. Trump. Mr. Obama held a percent lead among likely black voters (92 to 3 among registered voters). Most of the analysis that shows Mrs. Clinton faring better depends on a comparison with the exit polls, which showed Mr. Romney winning 6 percent of the black vote. My view is that the polls were probably right, and that Mr. Obama won black voters by an even greater margin than the exit polls found. The exit polls are not good at measuring clustered groups, as the exit pollsters have long acknowledged. But regardless of which measure most accurately depicts the electorate, the comparison is the sounder one. It shows more stability than change. Mrs. Clinton is also in danger of losing at least some of the favorable shifts in turnout between 2004 and 2012, which benefited Mr. Obama. Black turnout may not exceed white turnout again, either because black turnout fades a bit, or because white turnout increases. I’m agnostic on this question: It is very difficult to project turnout with that kind of precision. But there’s more room for Mrs. Clinton to fall here than to make additional gains. The bottom line is that Mrs. Clinton is unlikely to benefit from the same jump in black turnout and support that Mr. Obama had. Similarly, she is unlikely to repeat the same jump in support from Hispanic voters. It is possible she won’t see any gains among these groups at all. Democratic gains from nonwhite voters have greatly slowed, to the marginal gains from demographic shifts alone. The end result: According to The Upshot’s estimates, Mrs. Clinton’s gains from demographic change could be as small as a single percentage point. | 1 |
So Trump opposes "free trade" and Hillary is all for it. This is not denied, yet T/O spins a BS story to make Trump the villain. He doesn't make anything, that is all down the subcontracting chain, and requiring everything to be made in the USA would be a complex and expensive effort. So he, and no one else does this, including our government! However, if trade were regulated, this would fix the problem for all, as Trump wants. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court rejected on Monday an appeal from Texas officials seeking to restore the state’s strict voter ID law. As is the court’s custom, its brief order in the case, Abbott v. Veasey, No. gave no reasons for turning down the appeal. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued an unusual statement explaining that the Supreme Court remains free to consider the case after further proceedings in the lower courts. The Texas law, enacted in 2011, requires voters seeking to cast their ballots at the polls to present photo identification, like a Texas driver’s or gun license, a military ID or a passport. Federal courts have repeatedly ruled that the law is racially discriminatory. The Texas law was at first blocked under Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act, which required some states and localities with a history of discrimination to obtain federal permission before changing voting procedures. After the Supreme Court effectively struck down Section 5 in 2013 in Shelby County v. Holder, an Alabama case, Texas officials announced that they would start enforcing the ID law. After a trial in 2014, Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Federal District Court in Corpus Christi struck down the law on Oct. 9 in a opinion. She said that it had been adopted “with an unconstitutional discriminatory purpose” and that its effect was to disenfranchise “a disproportionate number of and Hispanics. ” In 2015, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, vacated part of the ruling concerning the law’s purpose but affirmed the part concerning its effect. Last July, the full Fifth Circuit largely adopted the panel’s distinctions and reasoning, and it returned the case to the trial court to consider an appropriate remedy. Texas officials nonetheless asked the Supreme Court to review the appeals court’s ruling immediately. The people and groups challenging the law, the officials said, “presented no evidence that the law resulted in diminished minority political participation or prevented even a single person from voting. ” The challengers responded that about 600, 000 registered voters in Texas, or about 5 percent of all registered voters in the state, lacked the required forms of ID. The law, they said, “disproportionately affects minority voters at a statistically significant rate. ” On Monday, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the case would be better suited for Supreme Court review after the lower courts completed their work. Ken Paxton, Texas’ attorney general, said he was disappointed that the court “did not immediately take our case. ” “Chief Justice Roberts made it very clear that the case will be an even stronger posture for Supreme Court review after further proceedings in lower courts,” Mr. Paxton said in a statement. “Texas enacted a common sense voter ID law to safeguard the integrity of our elections, and we will continue to fight for the law. ” J. Gerald Hebert of the Campaign Legal Center, which represents voters challenging the law, said he was pleased that “the justices recognize that this case does not merit review at this time. ” “Texas, which ranks poorly in voter participation, should work to ensure that every eligible voter in the state is able to cast a ballot going forward,” Mr. Hebert said in a statement. | 1 |
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s ( ) leadership was called into question by new voices Thursday night as hopes expire of passing a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare before President Donald Trump’s first 100 days end on Saturday. [At a meeting on the Hill late Thursday night, the speaker and his House Republican leadership team decided to further delay the vote. With what appeared to be the acquiescence of conservatives in the Freedom Caucus and like Club for Growth and FreedomWorks, who took much of the blame for the failure of the first attempt to pass the American Health Care Act (AHCA) in March, hopes were buoyed that passage was imminent. Instead, according to Politico, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy ( ) told reporters as he left the meeting, “We are not voting on health care tomorrow. We’re still educating members. ” Syndicated radio host Laura Ingraham joined Fox News’s Hannity to vent her frustration with House Republicans. “This is another loss for Paul Ryan,” she told host Sean Hannity: Paul Ryan was given this assignment to quarterback this legislation through the House. It wasn’t easy. It was going to be difficult. You have a lot of different factions, different people, different values, different personalities, but this is something you had to do. If you can’t get health care done, and done right, eight years after saying you were gonna do it … I don’t even know what to say about that. What does that say about your ability to lead at a critical time for our economy? Ingraham then hinted she may be at the end of her patience with Speaker Ryan’s leadership. “I’m not gonna sugarcoat this. This is an embarrassment that this couldn’t get done,” she fumed. “You’ve got to get better communications. You have to know your caucus. Otherwise, just give it to someone who can do it. That’s all I can say”: Hannity’s next guest, fellow Fox host Lou Dobbs, went even further in his condemnation of Ryan’s handling of healthcare legislation. “Laura, bless her heart, is trying to be nice to Paul Ryan,” he said. “I think the man is absolutely a disaster. He’s become nothing less than a caricature as House speaker. He’s inept, and the conference, if they don’t get rid of him, we’re going to watch this nonsense go on in perpetuity. ” Dobbs explained that, in his view, President Trump was doing all he could to move his political agenda along and that House GOP leadership had to be held responsible for the sluggish pace on legislative priorities. He then explicitly called for Speaker Ryan’s ouster and replacement by Rep. Mark Meadows ( ) chairman of the Freedom Caucus, or his predecessor in that position, Rep. Jim Jordan ( ): Paul Ryan is not a conservative, never has been. His leadership team is a mixed bag of conservatives [and] moderates. The Freedom Caucus are traditional conservatives and great Americans, all of them. … You and I both know Mark [Meadows] and Jim Jordan … for the great Republicans they are. I think either one of those two would make such a terrific speaker. Dobbs’s suggestion would not be the first time Paul Ryan and the Freedom Caucus found themselves in contention. Members of the Freedom Caucus themselves have called Ryan’s continuation as speaker of the House into question. The entire Freedom Caucus leadership also refused to endorse Ryan in his 2016 primary challenge from the right by businessman Paul Nehlen, although they did assent to Ryan’s speakership the previous year. Ingraham and Dobbs’s comments add to a growing chorus of voices on the right of the Republican Party calling for Ryan to relinquish the speaker’s mace in the wake of the failure to see through the key GOP platform plank of repealing and replacing Obamacare. | 1 |
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Dear Mexican: Why is it that even though we Latinos have similar backgrounds (Indian-Spanish) across America , there is a lack of unity among us here in the USA ? We could be a powerhouse during election times, and definitely obtain a more friendlier immigration deal.
El Peruano
Dear Cholo: I usually only answer preguntas about Mexicans, but I’ll make an exception here because of Election Day. And it hierve down to this: Who wants to be united? Latinos certainly don’t. Nowhere except Cuba is a country of the same political thought—and look how good it’s working out for them. Although the Mexican’s politics are Marxist of the Grouch variety, I’m also of the escuela that we need Latino conservatives, anarchists, vendidos , progressives, libertarians, Zapatistas, sinarquistas (ok, maybe not them)—all political thoughts. Such diversity keeps us in balance, teaches us about democracy, and will make us stronger as gabachos continue to align themselves into puritanical camps of caca . Let us squabble away—oh, and #fucktrump. In America , the candidates for president spend millions of dollars in other peoples’ money for a job that could never pay that money back. Is it the same for Mexican candidates, or does it even matter, since those fucking Mexicans can never get the elections right anyway?
Conservative, but #fucktrump
Dear Gabacho: For most of the 20th century, Mexican presidents came from the PRI, and their method of picking a new leader was simple: el dedazo . The finger—not flipping the pájaro , but a symbolic pointing of the finger toward someone. Yeah, that’s totally corrupt—but at least we don’t spend billions of dollars like fucking gabachos who can never get their elections right anyway, you know? Oh, and #fucktrump.
GET OUT EL VOTO !: Gentle cabrones , the Mexican doesn’t endorse candidates not named Alfred E. Neumann (source of the greatest quote EVER: “English is a language in which double negatives are a no-no!”), but I can tell you who NOT to vote for: Donald Trump, and anyone supporting the pendejo . He represents the greatest threat to raza since NAFTA, an agreement he claims to hate but only says that to gain gabachos votes to toss Mexicans across the Rio Grande with a deportation cannon. Hillary Clinton is nowhere near the perfect candidate, and the Mexican won’t be voting for her because she’s the beneficiary of the Democratic Party own dedazo system—but even a candidate as terrible as her is un chingo better than Trump. If you vote for her, no hate on my part—just tell her to hold her tacos right.
More importantly, vote in your local elections, and RESEARCH. Don’t just vote for the people with the paisa name—sometimes, our own people are worse to Mexicans than any Trumpbot. And if you can’t vote because you’re undocumented? Volunteer for those politicos who are striving for amnesty and who oppose walls. May you celebrate Election Day with one giant fiesta instead of tragos amargos . Oh, and #fucktrump.
Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano! | 0 |
JOHANNESBURG — When South African voters last month handed the African National Congress its losses, seemingly chastened party leaders said they would engage in “introspection. ” They promised to reach out to South Africans disillusioned by the A. N. C. ’s apparent transformation from a celebrated liberation movement with cherished ideals to a corrupt party interested in and . But in the weeks since the Aug. 3 municipal elections, the A. N. C, which remains in power at the national level, has brushed aside calls from inside and outside the party to replace the president, Jacob Zuma, before the end of his term in 2019. Instead of introspection, Mr. Zuma and his allies have moved aggressively to tighten their grip on the state’s coffers, surprising opponents and allies alike with their undisguised moves. With little explanation, Mr. Zuma announced that he would directly oversee the state enterprises that have long been the source of public corruption. And his allies have renewed their attacks on Mr. Zuma’s finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, who has built a reputation for probity and has tried to uproot malfeasance in government even one of the A. N. C. ’s closest allies, the South African Communist Party, has described the moves against the minister as intended to “weaken Treasury’s struggle against corruption. ” “This is further confirming the people’s suspicions about the A. N. C. ,” said Sasabona Manganye, the chairman of the Sefako Makgatho branch of the A. N. C. in Johannesburg, which has called on Mr. Zuma and the party’s top leaders to resign. “Unfortunately, the biggest loser out of all of this is the A. N. C,” he said. “If the A. N. C. leaves Zuma to remain president until 2019,” he added, “we should just accept that Zuma will be the last president that the A. N. C. had. ” The party’s reaction to the rebuke of voters has deepened doubts that, 22 years after winning power after the end of apartheid, it can fully transform itself from a liberation movement to a political party. Will it suffer the fate of Africa’s other liberation movements, which, years after abandoning their original ideals, have clung to power through patronage, coercion or even force? The liberation movements that helped free much of southern Africa decades ago are still in power — in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique and Angola. Like the A. N. C. they have used their liberation credentials to maintain their grip on power and to fend off rivals. But their records in government have been mixed at best, or, in the case of Zimbabwe, deeply tarnished. “We’re in the lingering days of these liberation movements,” said Roger Southall, a professor emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and an expert on liberation movements. “They’re not suddenly going to lose power,” he added. “They’ll go on organizationally. But they’ve certainly lost their shine, the hopes that they were embodied with, and, in South Africa, that process has been hugely accelerated by the Zuma presidency. ” Many African nations gained their independence in the 1960s after former colonial rulers withdrew from the continent. But the liberation movements took up armed struggle against colonial powers or white settlers, in that way gaining greater moral authority. In the constellation of liberation movements, none shone brighter than the A. N. C. and its most famous leader, Nelson Mandela. To liberation movement leaders like Mr. Zuma, who said last year that the A. N. C. “comes first,” even before the nation, nothing remains more vital than the movement. Many leaders have described their movement in religious terms, including Mr. Zuma, who until last month often said that the A. N. C. would rule “until Jesus comes. ” The qualities that were prized in liberation leaders and movements have often proved detrimental in government. “The A. N. C. is now being forced to change into a political party,” said Rekgotsofetse Chikane, a university student leader and A. N. C. member who is the son of a famous party leader, the Rev. Frank Chikane. “Even though it’s a political party in name, it is still a liberation movement through its actions — the way it thinks about how it’s going to deliver services, the way it builds its rhetoric and the way it defends itself. ” Because of its past as a liberation movement, the younger Mr. Chikane said, the A. N. C. practices a “centralized democracy” in which leaders simply give commands and are not used to a with other party members or with voters. Given the strength of South Africa’s democratic institutions compared with those of its neighbors in the region, Mr. Chikane said he was optimistic that the party would successfully transform itself. But he said it would be an arduous process because many in the party, shocked by last month’s elections, were focused simply on retaining power through two more presidential elections, or through 2024. “Those who’ve been pillaging the state in one way or another will pillage as much as possible until the last possible moment, so that when the game is over, they will be set for the rest of their lives,” Mr. Chikane said. “That’s what we’re going to see with parastatals,” he added, referring to state enterprises. In Zimbabwe, the same liberation movement and leader remain in power 36 years after the end of white minority rule. In the first years after liberation, decades before Zimbabwe degraded into a kleptocracy, President Robert Mugabe and his party were celebrated around the world, including by Western governments, as embodying the hopes of a new Africa. Over the weekend, Mr. Mugabe accused the West of continuing to plot to replace southern Africa’s liberation movements with “pliant puppet regimes. ” Zimbabwe’s economy is in free fall government workers, who make up most of the 10 percent of Zimbabweans fortunate enough to be employed in the formal sector, are being paid weeks late because of the government’s severe cash shortage. The fierce struggle to succeed Mr. Mugabe, increasingly frail at 92, has dominated the capital, Harare, in recent months. Zimbabwe’s political elites have focused their attacks on rivals’ liberation credentials — exhuming events that occurred generations ago. Joice Mujuru, a liberation hero known by her nom de guerre, Spill Blood, served as Mr. Mugabe’s vice president for a decade until she was expelled from the governing party in 2014. officials, who once lauded her wartime heroics, have been calling her a fraud since she created her own party this year. They say that the act of heroism for which Ms. Mujuru became famous — shooting down an enemy helicopter — was a fabrication. In turn, Ms. Mujuru and her allies have said that Mr. Mugabe — an intellectual who was imprisoned for years before becoming one of the liberation movement’s political leaders — was not a war veteran. He did not see combat, they said, and did not even have a nom de guerre. “ and the A. N. C. will never change because their support is based on the history of their liberation struggles,” said Margaret Dongo, a former politician who is now allied with Ms. Mujuru. “That’s their trump card. ” Ms. Dongo, who also fought during the war of liberation and was known as Tichaona Muhondo, or We Shall See in the War, led the latest riposte against Mr. Mugabe and his liberation credentials. The has reinforced the popular impression that the country’s politicians make up a class out of touch with the nation’s problems. “People are concerned about the issues of this country and not how this and that became a hero or turned into a villain,” said Richmond Gumbo, a student who was reading newspapers in the library of the University of Zimbabwe in Harare recently. He added, “Leaders need to bow down to the needs, the basic needs of the people, and not to brag about how they fought in the liberation war over 36 years ago. ” | 1 |
LAS VEGAS — In the seven months since Heriberto Diaz Marcial was shot and killed walking home from his job as a casino porter on the Vegas Strip, church volunteers have knocked on hundreds of doors in his neighborhood and handed out fliers seeking information. The police released blurry security footage of a gray sedan tied to his three killers. His wife, Maria Diaz, has gone on television to plead for help. “I just want answers,” Ms. Diaz said as she sat in her living room, where a memorial poster from his at the Paris Las Vegas hotel is still tucked beside the TV. “I want to see them face to face. I want to ask them, was it worth it?” But so far, nothing. Detectives in Las Vegas pride themselves on having one of the country’s better track records for solving homicides, clearing nearly eight in every 10 cases while many other departments struggle to solve half of their murders. But like other big cities across the nation, Las Vegas is in the midst of a dramatic rise in homicides. The rising murder rate is now testing whether the 19 homicide detectives at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department can keep solving those crimes as new calls pour in, from parks awash in heroin, from streets where gang allies are quick to draw their guns, and from poor neighborhoods that lie just blocks from the shimmering casinos of the Strip. The nation’s murder rate, which has declined sharply for the last 20 years, rose by nearly 11 percent in 2015, the largest jump in nearly 50 years. But there are still far fewer murders than in the 1990s, and criminologists believe that many large cities are in a period in which they will see steep, and unpredictable, rises and falls in homicides, but that murder rates across the country will remain fairly constant. A few cities were responsible for much of the increase, according to F. B. I. figures. In Las Vegas, the victims are a mix of whites and Latinos who have been killed during robberies, gang shootings, drug disputes and domestic violence incidents. For homicide detectives here, the most disturbing factor may be that much of the killing is being committed by teenagers and men in their early 20s, many of whom do not understand the consequences of engaging in violence. Recently, a arrested after a double homicide, asked investigators if he was going to be released so he could start a new job. In another recent shooting, one boy killed another boy amid a barrage of 80 bullets during a gun battle that encompassed three crime scenes. The police are also finding more guns on the street — the percent of homicides killed by guns has increased this year to 72 percent, from 66 percent last year. “You find out there was a minor altercation and someone pulled out a gun,” said Lt. Daniel McGrath, who heads the Police Department’s homicide section. “They are so quick to resort to violence that it goes from profanity to shooting. ” As homicides here have swelled to 125 so far this year — a 27 percent increase over 2015 — detectives have watched caseloads grow to five or six apiece, and have become accustomed to phones ringing at 3 a. m. bringing more bad news. “I’ve got a lot of tired people,” Lieutenant McGrath said. The pace of the killings has been relentless, even for veteran detectives, who have seen the number creep steadily upward, from 84 in 2012, and are spending more of their time at crime scenes. April was especially violent, with 24 homicides, the most in any month in the city’s history. While the pace has slowed somewhat, the count this year may surpass the 157 killed in 2006. The city’s worst year was 1996, when 167 people were murdered. The homicide clearance rate for Las Vegas remains a point of satisfaction for investigators even as they are swamped with cases. Last week, the unit added two detectives to bring the total to 21, in order to help with the caseload, Lieutenant McGrath said. And Las Vegas is still far better than most cities at clearing homicides — which generally means that a suspect has been arrested or identified. In Chicago, for instance, detectives solve about 30 percent of their cases, and Philadelphia and Baltimore investigators clear about 50 percent. But clearance rates can swing drastically. Detroit, for instance, solved only about 9 percent of its murders in 2012, but now reports a clearance rate of more than 60 percent. Clearance data, like all crime numbers, are by police departments, which arrive at them in various ways. For instance, while some agencies include the solving of cold case murders to bolster their annual clearance rates, Las Vegas says it counts only cases solved in the year the crimes were committed. Higher murder rates do not necessarily mean more unsolved cases. Criminal research has shown that resolving a case hinges largely on how quickly officers get to a murder scene, how many detectives work the case, and how motivated investigators are to solve it. When a killing happens in Las Vegas’s more violent neighborhoods, volunteer teams allied with the police head to the scene and to hospitals and funerals to urge people not to answer blood with blood. Weeks later, they knock on doors with community policing units to urge witnesses to come forward and help find the killer. “The root of this problem is poverty and drugs,” said Lekisha Hayes, who runs the Stars community development program in her central Las Vegas neighborhood of Cambridge Square. “Drugs are so much more powerful than a gang. People are hungry. It’s hard times. ” But for victims’ families, the math of murder is simple and unforgiving: More deaths across the Police Department’s jurisdiction of about 1. 5 million people mean more open cases, more unanswered questions, more fears about killers still uncaught. And more families like the Diazes left in limbo. The Diazes worked at the same casino on the Strip, Maria at cafes and gift shops on the day shift, and Heriberto cleaning casino floors at night. Their opposing shifts meant they spent most days apart, but she would take him a coffee and he would come to her shop and tap on the counter to let her know he was there. He did not care for the Spanish language’s bouquet of affectionate nicknames, so she was surprised when he called her “mija” shortly before he was killed. Ms. Diaz passes the spot where her husband was killed, just seven houses from her front door, each day as she takes her son and daughter to school. She thinks about his last thoughts, and whether she could be doing something to unravel the mystery of his murder. His cellphone was stolen in the attack, she said, and she has kept paying the bills for seven months, just in case someone uses it and provides a potential clue for the police. She said she called the number for the first time last week, but it went straight to voice mail. Ms. Diaz said she and her son and daughter, Eduardo, 17, and Monic, 12, have been unnerved by the gunshots, ambulance sirens and yells of drunks that animate the night around their blue stucco home in northeast Las Vegas, perpetually strung with Christmas lights. Eduardo found a bullet that had pierced the garage door a few months ago. On the other side of town, in Amber Santee’s garden apartment, memorial candles are clustered on the kitchen counter dried rose petals from her father’s funeral sit in a glass vase and newspapers mentioning his unsolved April murder are piled on the kitchen table. “This is my life now,” Ms. Santee, 28, said. The night her father, Mark, was killed in April, he was the lone security guard working a p. m. shift at a luxury apartment complex being built on the west side of Las Vegas. He traded text messages with Ms. Santee, cheering her on as she got ready for chemistry and statistics finals. For years, Mr. Santee, 48, had been just shy of an associate degree, and worked a series of hourly security and factory jobs. “Keep on pushing for the gold Am! !!” he wrote at 6:41 p. m. By about 10:30 p. m. Ms. Santee said, he was dead. The police believe Mr. Santee may have been trying to stop a robbery when he was shot several times in the head. In the months after his death, public attention swelled and faded as Ms. Santee agonized over troubling details of his murder. The crosses she planted outside the Elysian apartments to mark his death were torn down recently when rock gardens were put in. But Ms. Santee said she had faith her father’s killers would be caught. “We just have to wait,” she said. | 1 |
0 комментариев 3 поделились источник Pravda.Ru
Как сообщает Associated Press со ссылкой на документы судебных органов, "секретная информация, украденная бывшим подрядчиком Агентства национальной безопасности, включает в себя имена тайных сотрудников разведки".
По данным Российской газеты, защита 51-летнего Гарольда Томаса Мартина III Глен Берни будет просить федерального судью в пятницу рассмотреть вопрос об освобождении его клиента из-под стражи на том основании, что следствие по этому делу продолжается.
Судья Дэвид Кпперзайт отклонил подобную просьбу на прошлой неделе, согласившись с прокуратурой, что освобождение Мартина представляет риск, якобы потому, что "враги Соединенных Штатов хотели бы узнать больше о секретной информации, найденной в его доме".
Защита Мартина настаивает на версии, что бывший лейтенант ВМС США просто "увлекся", взяв документы на дом в надежде усовершенствовать свои навыки и стать более опытным специалистом в своем деле.
Адвокаты говорят, что их клиент "любит свою семью и свою страну", и что нет никаких доказательств того, что он поделился информацией с иностранным государством или намеревался сделать это.
Фирма Booz Allen Hamilton, где он работал, уволила Мартина, как только узнала о его аресте, и заявила в четверг, что наняла бывшего директора ФБР Роберта Мюллера, чтобы пересмотреть свою практику безопасности.
Как сообщает Reuters, Гарольд Томас Мартин работал в той же компании Booz Allen Hamilton, что и Эдвард Сноуден. Напомним, Сноуден в 2013 году передавший в прессу разоблачительные материалы о действиях спецслужб США.
По словам помощника генерального прокурора США по национальной безопасности Джона Карлина, "возможна ситуация, когда "во второй раз за три года сотрудник сумел похитить у АНБ строго засекреченную информацию, нанеся серьезный ущерб".
Сообщается, что изначально Мартин отрицал свою вину, но позже на допросе в ФБР признался в краже секретных данных.
Ранее электронная версия The New York Times сообщила, что сотрудники Федерального бюро расследований (ФБР) арестовали подрядчика Агентства национальной безопасности (АНБ) по подозрению в краже и раскрытии "строго секретных кодов, разработанных для взлома сетей правительств других государств", в том числе России.
Поделиться: | 0 |
A panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Thursday unanimously upheld a Federal District Court judge’s decision to temporarily block the Trump administration from carrying out its executive order on immigration. The executive order would bar entry into the United States of citizens from seven countries. Here are some highlights from the ruling: The court summarizes what the case is about at this stage. Its job is not to look squarely at whether the executive order is lawful, but rather at whether the standards have been met to temporarily block the government from enforcing it while the broader legal questions are more fully considered. The judges unanimously decided to keep blocking the order. The Trump administration had argued that the appeals court should reject the lawsuit without scrutinizing any of its legal merits, because the two states that filed it had no standing to sue. The appeals court disagreed, primarily because of the impact the travel ban would have on public universities. The Trump administration has argued that the judiciary should stay out of the case. The appeals court strongly disagrees as a matter of constitutional first principles. Several days after Mr. Trump issued his executive order, the administration partially pulled back with a directive from his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, saying it would not apply to green card holders. The judges are dubious about the credibility of what the executive branch says is happening. This is the core of the ruling. The court thinks it is likely that the executive order will eventually be struck down as an unconstitutional violation of people’s due process rights. In deciding whether to let the executive order be enforced while the arguments are more fully litigated, the courts have to weigh the potential injury to the people who would be affected by the travel ban against the potential injury to society of blocking the order in the interim. Because the Trump administration offered no evidence suggesting that the prior system was inadequate for screening visitors from the seven countries, the court ruled against the government. | 1 |
Guards at Rikers Island continue to use brutal force against inmates at an “alarming rate,” punching them in the head, slamming them into walls and then lying about it, according to a report submitted on Monday by a federal monitor overseeing reforms at the jail complex. Inmates are dragged and kicked while handcuffed, as well as doused with pepper spray when routine verbal commands and techniques would suffice, according to the report. The report, the third published by an independent monitoring team since a federal judge gave approval in 2015 to a sweeping settlement agreement meant to clean up Rikers, paints a pessimistic portrait of conditions at the jails. The number of fights among inmates has spiked, particularly among the youngest. In the last three months of 2016, officers sustained more injuries than inmates did. “While the reforms required by the consent judgment are far too new to have resulted in significant decreases in inmate violence, the rates of violence were not expected to increase,” the report said. The report is sure to support calls to close Rikers. Last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio backed a plan to replace the complex with smaller jails, although he stopped short of saying that one should be placed in each of New York’s five boroughs. But the mayor estimated that it would be at least a decade before the nine jails on the island are closed for good. The city has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to improve conditions at Rikers, hiring new officers, bolstering training and expanding programs for inmates. “We have incessantly changed the situation,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference on Monday. “Different approach to recruiting officers. Different approach to training officers. We’re increasing the number of officers, largely to reduce situations where conflicts arise because there isn’t enough personnel present to keep the situation under control. ” And still the violence continues. The report, which covers Aug. 1 to Dec. 31, 2016, documented 305 altercations that involved a strike to the head, a technique that is to be used as a last resort. While some of the strikes were necessary, according to the report, “many were utilized to punish, discipline or retaliate against an inmate. ” The report recounts an inmate who sustained 10 discrete head injuries during a confrontation with seven correction officers. Contrary to the officers’ claims, investigators found no evidence that the inmate had tried to strike a guard. There were 30 injuries classified as serious during the five months covered by the report, and nearly 700 lesser injuries. When officers use excessive force, the report found, they sometimes collude to falsify documents as a way to cover up the truth. In one case, an officer asserted that an inmate had attacked him, causing him to suffer “severe pain. ” A video showed that the inmate’s elbow “made contact with the officer’s upper body” then the officer punched him in the head. The disciplinary process remains dysfunctional, the report found. Internal Affairs investigators are often biased, favoring officers and failing to pursue discipline even when a guard’s wrongdoing is clear. The monitors described a Rikers captain who was caught on video slamming an inmate into a wall. An investigator concluded that there was no evidence the captain intended “harm. ” “Too often, even where objective evidence of wrongdoing is clearly apparent, the department failed to pursue adequate discipline,” the report said. The monitors praised the Department of Correction for moving quickly to install surveillance cameras, which can help to minimize violence. By Jan. 31, the department had installed 6, 681 cameras 8, 000 are required by the settlement. But officers have failed to properly use cameras during confrontations with inmates. Devices were turned away or never switched on. Joseph Ponte, the correction commissioner, said his department “is moving quickly to fix the issues the monitor identifies,” adding that progress was being felt. Serious injuries in confrontations between guards and inmates declined significantly in 2016. And according to department data from 2017, the use of force by guards had reached the lowest level in years in the two jails that house the youngest inmates. Mary Lynne Werlwas, the director of the Prisoners’ Rights Project at Legal Aid and a lead attorney in the suit that led to the settlement, called the report’s findings “deeply disappointing. ” “Progress requires a fundamental shift in the culture of impunity for misconduct and mismanagement,” Ms. Werlwas said. “It is that culture that will remain long after Rikers Island is shuttered if it is not faced squarely and robustly right now. ” | 1 |
There’s a reason David Brock, founder of the liberal group Media Matters for America, chooses to house an unregistered professional solicitor in his office to raise money for his conglomerate of super PACs and nonprofits.
Professional solicitors are required to disclose their active solicitation contracts. Brock wants his unregistered solicitor, the Bonner Group, to keep its client list hidden for a very specific reason.
David Brock is laundering money
Related Stories Consumers Need Protection From New Consumer Protection Bureau Rule Here’s What The Markets Are Telling Us… Exposed: Profiteers Of Governing – And These Are The Ones Who Got Caught! Brock has seven nonprofits, three super PACs, one 527 committee, one LLC, one joint fundraising committee and one unregistered solicitor crammed into his office in Washington .
Uncovered records expose a constant flow of money between these organizations.
The Bonner Group, his professional solicitor, works off a commission. Every time money gets passed around, Bonner receives a 12.5 percent cut.
Follow the money
Nonprofits are required to disclose to whom they give cash grants.
But they aren’t required to disclose who gives them cash grants.
This weak system of one-way verification is being abused by Brock. He’s been cycling money between his organizations for years, and the Bonner Group’s 12.5 percent commission gets triggered after every pass.
Trending Stories Frustrated With Media Bias, Trump Campaign Takes Its Case Directly To Voters With Nightly Show On Facebook RNC Official Takes CNN Host To Task For Claiming There Is No Media Bias Hannity Proposes A Sendoff For Obama In The Event Of A Trump Presidency In 2014, Media Matters for America raised more than $10 million.
The Bonner Group was credited for raising these funds. Media Matters paid it a $1.1 million commission.
That same year, Media Matters gave a $930,000 cash grant to Brock’s Franklin Education Forum , an organization that shares office space with Media Matters.
In 2014, the Franklin Education Forum reported $994,000 in total contributions, and 93.6 percent of that total came from Media Matters.
Surprisingly, though, the Franklin Education Forum gave full credit to Bonner for raising that money. It paid the fundraiser a $124,250 commission in 2014.
Notice what happened?
Brock’s Media Matters gave a $930,000 cash grant to Brock’s Franklin Education Forum. Brock’s Franklin Education Forum credited the Bonner Group for raising those funds, triggering the 12.5 percent commission. Brock paid the Bonner Group a $124,250 commission to solicit a cash grant … from himself! It doesn’t stop there
After the Franklin Education Forum retained $869,750, it sent a $816,224 cash grant to Brock’s Franklin Forum .
Note: The Franklin Education Forum is a 501(c)3, and The Franklin Forum is a 501(c)4. They are not the same company.
The Franklin Forum 501(c)4 paid Bonner a commission in 2013 , so it’s safe to assume the fundraiser received a $102,028 commission in 2014. Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell for sure. It still hasn’t filed its taxes for 2014!
Let’s recap
Say, for example, you donate $1,062,857 to Media Matters for America. This is how David Brock would have used your charitable donation in 2014:
Media Matters would receive your $1,062,857 donation. The Bonner Group would earn a $132,857 commission. Media Matters would retain $930,000. Next, Media Matters would give what’s left of your entire donation , $930,000, to the Franklin Education Forum. The Bonner Group would “earn” a $116,250 commission. The Franklin Education Forum would retain $813,750. The Franklin Education Forum would then forward the remaining $813,750 to The Franklin Forum. The Bonner Group would “earn” a $101,718 commission. The Franklin Forum would retain $712,031. In the end, Brock’s solicitor would have pocketed $350,825, almost a third of your initial donation. That’s a far cry from the advertised 12.5 percent commission.
As bizarre as that scenario may sound, this is exactly what Brock did in 2014.
How can we be sure this is intentional?
Brock is the chairman for each of these organizations. How could he not know what’s going on?
He’s a hands-on chairman. According to their tax returns, Brock allocates time, weekly, to his organizations:
Media Matters: 31.50 hours per week Franklin Education Forum: three hours per week The Franklin Forum: one hour per week Furthermore, The New York Times reports that Brock shares a summer rental in the Hamptons with Mary Pat Bonner, the president of the Bonner Group.
Brock would have a hard time claiming ignorance on this. These transfers are intentional. He vacations with his solicitor. Case closed.
Still not convinced?
Brock didn’t even bother to give his organizations different phone numbers. They all share the same number.
What if …?
We even located the Bonner Group’s solicitation agreement with Media Matters on Florida’s Gift Givers’ Guide . Clarification on the commission can be found on page 2:
In English: Contractually, Brock has the option to exclude certain contributions from triggering the commission. In spite of this option, he intentionally chooses to trigger the 12.5 percent commission for money grants between his organizations.
Note: Yes, we are making the assumption that all of Brock’s organizations have the same solicitation agreement with the Bonner Group. Given that his organizations share the same address, board members and telephone number, we feel it’s safe to assume they also share the same solicitation agreement.
This barely scratches the surface
Utilizing public-facing tax returns, along with records submitted to the Federal Election Commission, we mapped out all the significant money transfers from 2014 that took place in Brock’s office:
Summary
This is all from just one year! No further commentary required.
We understand this may be hard to believe. We first came across this in July, and are still having a hard time wrapping our heads around it.
All of the data referenced in this article originated from publicly accessible sources. Check for yourself — we provided links to the source material in our article exposing the organizations operating in Brock’s office. These data have been sitting out in the open, gathering dust for years.
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
We’ve spent months trying to find some sort of loophole to justify this activity. But there aren’t any loopholes. David Brock has something to hide. Just last month, The Daily Caller reported the following:
“Brock’s former long-time live-in boyfriend William Grey (whom Brock has thanked in several of his books) threatened to go to the IRS with damaging information about how Brock was running his Media Matters empire. What did Brock do? He paid Grey $850,000 to keep quiet. Brock reportedly had to sell his home in Rehoboth, Delaware, to come up with the money. This certainly seems to indicate that Brock was terrified about what the authorities would uncover.”
Adding to this, Fox News reported the following:
“Grey accused Brock of ‘financial malfeasance’ and threatened to undermine Brock’s fundraising efforts.
“‘Next step is I contact all your donors and the IRS,’ Grey wrote in an email dated May 19, 2010. ‘This is going to stink for you if you do not resolve this now.'”
We believe that the information presented in this article is what has Brock so terrified. We feel confident in saying, with close to absolute certainty, that David Brock is laundering money through his Media Matters conglomerate.
This article first appeared at The Citizens Audit .
The views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website.
What do you think? | 0 |
Nine busloads of immigrant activists from Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island will depart before dawn for the trip to Washington, intent on making their voices heard. They will be blasting protest playlists while carrying posters and flags, from the familiar rainbow to the worn colors of Haiti. But they are not going to the better known Women’s March on Washington, planned for Jan. 21, the day after Donald J. Trump’s inauguration. Instead, they are headed to the nation’s capital on Saturday for a more modest rally focused on the rights of immigrants, called We Are Here to Stay and scheduled to start at 11 a. m. at the Metropolitan A. M. E. Church. For these groups, there was a practical, if not urgent, reason to hold the rally on Jan. 14: Barack Obama will still be president. “As an organizer, the 14th is a date that I feel safe mobilizing people to Washington,” said Natalia Aristizabal, of Make the Road New York, one of the rally’s sponsors. “We don’t know what’s going to happen after the inauguration. ” National and local organizers said they were concerned about the possibility of undocumented protesters being arrested during the new administration, especially since Mr. Trump said he planned to deport the two million to three million undocumented immigrants that he said had criminal convictions. Cristina Jiménez, the executive director of United We Dream, the national organization promoting the interests of undocumented youth known as dreamers, called the threat to immigrant communities “imminent” and added: “To be quite frank, we fear the worst. ” That is not to say that immigrants will be avoiding the women’s march. Some organizations, like United We Dream and the New York Immigration Coalition, are partners in both, and there is other overlap. New York’s Association, which is led by Linda Sarsour, is also a sponsor of the Women’s March, of which Ms. Sarsour is one of the main organizers. Part of the mission statement of the Women’s March calls on “immigrants of all statuses” to attend, but that event has a broader platform that includes issues of pay equity, reproductive rights and safety from domestic violence. Organizers of the immigrant rally said that their protest aims to highlight the disparate groups who make up their movement, and who represent the estimated 11 million undocumented people living in the United States. “It’s of the immigrant community, of people of color, it’s broader than people who are first generation,” said Muzna Ansari, 28, the immigrant policy manager for the New York Immigration Coalition. A child of Indian immigrants, she is Muslim. “It’s a moment of connection, too. There are black immigrants who we don’t talk about. ” Ninaj Raoul, a founder and executive director of Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, said she had seen the immigration rights movement focus on the Latino community since the 2012 election. But black immigrants, who are far less likely to be undocumented, have pressing issues of their own, she said. “Now more than ever it’s important for the Haitian voice to be heard in this movement,” Ms. Raoul said. “Not just for the incoming government, where we have so many reasons to be worried, but for the current government because of the actions they’ve taken on Haitian immigrants. ” Over the last several months more than 80 Haitian immigrants have walked into her Brooklyn office seeking help, she said, anguished by the shifting American policy that has left them separated from family members. And those living in the city because of temporary protection granted after their country’s 2010 earthquake do not know how long that will last. Migrants from Haiti have flooded the southern border of Mexico since last spring, many making dangerous journeys through nine countries after fleeing South America. In September, the Obama administration detained Haitians at the U. S. border arriving without visas and ordered deportations. Some pregnant women and mothers with children were given a temporary humanitarian reprieve to stay, but their husbands were deported. After Hurricane Matthew struck in early October, the administration delayed deporting Haitians, but then resumed deportations in November. For Haitians who have been living in the United States with temporary protection granted after the earthquake, that status that is set to expire in July. Ms. Raoul said that because Hurricane Matthew damaged food supplies, those Haitians did not know if they could return. So Haitian immigrants are going to Washington to appeal to Mr. Obama while they still can. They want him to take executive action to grant Haitian migrants at the southern border permission to temporarily enter the United States on humanitarian grounds, and to extend the temporary protections for another 18 months. Ms. Raoul plans to bring 10 Haitian immigrants, and their country’s flag, to Washington. They will take the bus from Sunset Park with 55 young people representing Atlas: D. I. Y. which serves undocumented immigrant youth in the neighborhood. Michelina Ferrara, the deputy director of Atlas, plans to blast her “revolutionary playlist,” with RB and artists, both on the bus speakers and from her fanny pack. For those not traveling to Washington on Jan. 14, immigrant actions are also planned in 50 other cities. The New York Immigrant Coalition will be kicking off a statewide campaign called This is Our New York with events in Union Square Hempstead, on Long Island and the Hudson Valley. By then, Kathia Gutierrez, 48, will be in Washington with her daughter, Kathya, 29. They arrived 16 years ago from Bolivia. Kathya works as a nanny, saving money for college she can work legally because of President Obama’s program giving certain rights to undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children by their parents. Kathia, her mother, is an activist for Make the Road New York and is going to Washington to deliver a message for Trump: “Look out for the youth. ” They will be joined by others fighting for their own subset of immigrant rights, including Alexis Pampillón, 44, an Argentine immigrant who identifies as gender nonconforming he and 20 others members of Make the Road’s L. G. B. T. Q. rights group will be leaving from Queens. Make the Road’s members, drawn from places including Bridgeport, Conn. Elizabeth, N. J. and Pennsylvania, will fill eight buses. Not all will fit into the church in Washington, which has a capacity of about 2, 500. More than 3, 000 protesters are expected, organizers said. Some, said Ms. Aristizabal of Make the Road, will stand outside with signs in Spanish and English: “Aquí Estamos y no Nos Vamos,” and “We are Here to Stay. ” That slogan is familiar, she said, adding, “But it has never been so much of a declaration of defiance. ” | 1 |
Syria Is Another Pipeline War | Print This
By Gaius Publius , a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius , Tumblr and Facebook . Originally published at at Down With Tyranny . GP article archive here .
Proposed pipeline routes through the Middle East to gas markets in Europe. The purple line is the Western-supported Qatar-Turkey pipeline. All of the nations it passes through — Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey (all highlighted in red) — have agreed to it … except Syria. The red line is the “Islamic Pipeline” from Iran through Iraq into Syria. See text below for further explanation. (Source: MintPress News ; click to enlarge)
Summary first: We have been at war in Syria over pipelines since 1949. This is just the next mad phase.
I’m not sure most Americans have figured out what’s happening in Syria, because so much of what we hear is confusing to us, and really, we know so little of the context for it. Is it an insurgency against a brutal ruler? Is it a group of insurgencies struggling for power in a nearly failed state? Is it a proxy war expressing the territorial and ideological interests of the U.S., Russia, Turkey and Iran?
Or something else?
According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. it is something else — a war between competing national interests to build, or not build, a pipeline to the Mediterranean so natural gas can be exported to Europe. Inconveniently for Syria, that nation lies along an obvious pipeline route.
Which makes it another war between interests for money — something not very hard to understand at all.
Here’s Kennedy’s argument via EcoWatch. This is a long piece, well worth a full read, but I’ll try to present just the relevant sections here.
The Historical Context: Decades of CIA-Sponsored Coups and Counter-Coups in Syria
Kennedy’s introductory section contains an excellent examination of the history of U.S. involvement in Syria starting in the 1950s with the Cold War machinations of the Eisenhower-appointed Dulles brothers, John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State, and Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA. Together, they effectively ruled U.S. foreign policy.
Kennedy writes (my emphasis):
Syria: Another Pipeline War
… America’s unsavory record of violent interventions in Syria—obscure to the American people yet well known to Syrians —sowed fertile ground for the violent Islamic Jihadism that now complicates any effective response by our government to address the challenge of ISIS. So long as the American public and policymakers are unaware of this past, further interventions are likely to only compound the crisis. Moreover, our enemies delight in our ignorance.
… [W]e need to look at history from the Syrians’ perspective and particularly the seeds of the current conflict. Long before our 2003 occupation of Iraq triggered the Sunni uprising that has now morphed into the Islamic State, the CIA had nurtured violent Jihadism as a Cold War weapon and freighted U.S./Syrian relationships with toxic baggage.
During the 1950’s, President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers rebuffed Soviet treaty proposals to leave the Middle East a cold war neutral zone and let Arabs rule Arabia. Instead, they mounted a clandestine war against Arab Nationalism—which CIA Director Allan [sic] Dulles equated with communism—particularly when Arab self-rule threatened oil concessions. They pumped secret American military aid to tyrants in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon favoring puppets with conservative Jihadist ideologies which they regarded as a reliable antidote to Soviet Marxism. At a White House meeting between the CIA’s Director of Plans, Frank Wisner, and Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, in September of 1957, Eisenhower advised the agency, “We should do everything possible to stress the ‘holy war’ aspect.”
The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949 —barely a year after the agency’s creation. Syrian patriots had declared war on the Nazis, expelled their Vichy French colonial rulers and crafted a fragile secularist democracy based on the American model. But in March of 1949, Syria’s democratically elected president, Shukri-al-Kuwaiti, hesitated to approve the Trans Arabian Pipeline, an American project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria. In his book, Legacy of Ashes , CIA historian Tim Weiner recounts that in retaliation, the CIA engineered a coup , replacing al-Kuwaiti with the CIA’s handpicked dictator , a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za’im. Al-Za’im barely had time to dissolve parliament and approve the American pipeline before his countrymen deposed him , 14 weeks into his regime.
Kennedy then details the history of coups and counter-coups in and against Syria, and concludes this section with this:
Thanks in large part to Allan Dulles and the CIA, whose foreign policy intrigues were often directly at odds with the stated policies of our nation, the idealistic path outlined in the Atlantic Charter was the road not taken. In 1957, my grandfather, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, sat on a secret committee charged with investigating CIA’s clandestine mischief in the Mid-East . The so called “Bruce Lovett Report,” to which he was a signatory, described CIA coup plots in Jordan, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Egypt, all common knowledge on the Arab street, but virtually unknown to the American people who believed, at face value, their government’s denials.
The report blamed the CIA for the rampant anti-Americanism that was then mysteriously taking root “in the many countries in the world today.”… A parade of Iranian and Syrian dictators, including Bashar al-Assad and his father , have invoked the history of the CIA’s bloody coups as a pretext for their authoritarian rule, repressive tactics and their need for a strong Russian alliance. These stories are therefore well known to the people of Syria and Iran who naturally interpret talk of U.S. intervention in the context of that history.
While the compliant American press parrots the narrative that our military support for the Syrian insurgency is purely humanitarian, many Syrians see the present crisis as just another proxy war over pipelines and geopolitics. Before rushing deeper into the conflagration, it would be wise for us to consider the abundant facts supporting that perspective.
So much for our supposed interest in “humanitarian” intervention in Syria. From a Syrian point of view, it has never been thus. It has been about pipelines since 1949, and they understand that, even if we don’t.
The Current Conflagration
Kennedy then turns to the present, or the near-present. Refer to the map above as you read:
A Pipeline War
In [the Syrians’] view, our war against Bashar Assad did not begin with the peaceful civil protests of the Arab Spring in 2011. Instead it began in 2000 when Qatar proposed to construct a $10 billion, 1,500km pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey .
Qatar shares with Iran, the South Pars/North Dome gas field, the world’s richest natural gas repository. The international trade embargo, until recently, prohibited Iran from selling gas abroad and ensured that Qatar’s gas could only reach European markets if it is liquefied and shipped by sea, a route that restricts volume and dramatically raises costs.
The EU, which gets 30 percent of its gas from Russia, was equally hungry for the pipeline which would have given its members cheap energy and relief from Vladimir Putin’s stifling economic and political leverage. Turkey, Russia’s second largest gas customer, was particularly anxious to end its reliance on its ancient rival and to position itself as the lucrative transect hub for Asian fuels to EU markets. The Qatari pipeline would have benefited Saudi Arabia’s conservative Sunni Monarchy by giving them a foothold in Shia dominated Syria.
The Saudi’s geopolitical goal is to contain the economic and political power of the Kingdom’s principal rival, Iran , a Shiite state, and close ally of Bashar Assad. The Saudi monarchy viewed the U.S. sponsored Shia takeover in Iraq as a demotion to its regional power and was already engaged in a proxy war against Tehran in Yemen, highlighted by the Saudi genocide against the Iranian backed Houthi tribe.
Which puts the Qatari pipeline squarely opposite to Russia’s national interest — natural gas (methane) sales to Europe.
Of course, the Russians, who sell 70 percent of their gas exports to Europe, viewed the Qatar/Turkey pipeline as an existential threat. In Putin’s view, the Qatar pipeline is a NATO plot to change the status quo, deprive Russia of its only foothold in the Middle East, strangle the Russian economy and end Russian leverage in the European energy market. In 2009, Assad announced that he would refuse to sign the agreement to allow the pipeline to run through Syria “to protect the interests of our Russian ally.”
That was likely the last straw vis-à-vis the U.S. Which brings us to another pipeline, the so-called “Islamic Pipeline” (see map above):
“Assad further enraged the Gulf’s Sunni monarchs by endorsing a Russian approved “Islamic pipeline” running from Iran’s side of the gas field through Syria and to the ports of Lebanon. The Islamic pipeline would make Shia Iran instead of Sunni Qatar, the principal supplier to the European energy market and dramatically increase Tehran’s influence in the Mid-East and the world. Israel also was understandably determined to derail the Islamic pipeline which would enrich Iran and Syria and presumably strengthen their proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Another, competing pipeline which would run through Syrian territory, but this time carrying Iranian gas instead of Qatari gas. Thus the demonizing of Assad as evil in the mold of Saddam Hussein, instead of just a run-of-the-mill Middle East autocrat, as bad as some but better than others. Kennedy includes a good section on the history of the al-Assad family’s rule of Syria, including this information from top reporters Sy Hersh and Robert Parry:
According to Hersh, “He certainly wasn’t beheading people every Wednesday like the Saudis do in Mecca.” Another veteran journalist, Bob Parry, echoes that assessment. “No one in the region has clean hands but in the realms of torture, mass killings, civil liberties and supporting terrorism, Assad is much better than the Saudis.”
In September 2013, the Sunni states involved in the Qatar-Turkey pipeline were so determined to remove Syrian opposition to the pipeline that they offered, via John Kerry, to carry the whole cost of an U.S. invasion to topple al-Assad.
Kerry reiterated the offer to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL27): “With respect to Arab countries offering to bear the costs of [an American invasion] to topple Assad, the answer is profoundly Yes, they have. The offer is on the table.”
Obama’s response:
Despite pressure from Republicans, Barrack Obama balked at hiring out young Americans to die as mercenaries for a pipeline conglomerate . Obama wisely ignored Republican clamoring to put ground troops in Syria or to funnel more funding to “moderate insurgents.” But by late 2011, Republican pressure and our Sunni allies had pushed the American government into the fray.
The rest is a history of provocation and over-reaction — a great deal of both — and chaos and death in Syria. Kennedy provides much detail here, at one point adding:
[Syria’s] moderates are fleeing a war that is not their war . They simply want to escape being crushed between the anvil of Assad’s Russian backed tyranny and the vicious Jihadi Sunni hammer that we had a hand in wielding in a global battle over competing pipelines . You can’t blame the Syrian people for not widely embracing a blueprint for their nation minted in either Washington or Moscow. The super powers have left no options for an idealistic future that moderate Syrians might consider fighting for. And no one wants to die for a pipeline.
I’ll leave it there, but again, do read the entire piece if you want to truly understand what’s going on in Syria, and what is about to go on.
Bottom Line
Bottom line, it’s as Kennedy said: “No one wants to die for a pipeline”… but many do and will.
I’ll offer three thoughts. One , if we weren’t so determined to be deeply dependent on fossil fuels, this would be their war, not ours. Two , we are deeply dependent on fossil fuels because of the political machinations of the oil companies, their CEOs, and the banks and hedge funds who fund them, all of whom pay our government officials — via campaign contributions and the revolving door — to prolong that dependence. We’re here because the holders of big oil money want us here.
And three , keep all this in mind during the term of the next president. It will help you make sense of the phony warrior- cum -humanitarian arguments we’re almost certain to be subjected to.
We have been at war in Syria over pipelines since 1949. This is just the next mad phase. | 0 |
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