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CorbettReport.com November 8, 2016
In Douglas Adams’ So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish , there is a scene where a spaceship lands on earth and a robot emerges from the craft, proclaiming that “I come in peace” and exhorting the earthlings to “take me to your Lizard.” The story’s protagonist, Arthur Dent, has this strange request explained to him by his friend, Ford Prefect, an experienced galactic hitchhiker:
“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…”
“You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?”
“No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”
“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”
“I did,” said ford. “It is.”
“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”
“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”
“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”
“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”
“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”
“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?”
“What?”
“I said,” said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, “have you got any gin?”
“I’ll look. Tell me about the lizards.”
Ford shrugged again.
“Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them,” he said. “They’re completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone’s got to say it.”
If only this was a joke. But here we are, on the verge of a contest between the two least respected, most distrusted candidates to run for office in modern political history. And some people say these lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them.
If there is any solace at all in this year’s selection cycle it is that, as The Corbett Report has been pointing out since the very day of its inception, there is absolutely nothing at stake here; the presidential figureheads are mere puppets, false fronts for the shadow government and deep state that commands and controls the military, economic and diplomatic machinery of the US-led world empire.
Do you really think the oligarchs put their entire system up on the chopping block every four years, hoping against hope that the public doesn’t use the dreaded ballot box to vote them out of power, dashing decades (or centuries) of carefully cultivated enslavement with pencils and touchscreens? Just in case anyone dislikes rhetorical questions, let me answer that one for you: No. No they do not.
But don’t take my word for it. Take Emma Goldman. As she’s been reputed to have said (and if she didn’t, feel free to tell other people that I said it): “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”
Or take H.L Mencken, who in his usual inimitable fashion quipped :
The state—or, to make the matter more concrete, the government—consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
Or take Lysander Spooner, who wrote :
The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that – however bloody – can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave.
Or Wendy McElroy, who reminds us that:
Voting is not an act of political freedom. It is an act of political conformity. Those who refuse to vote are not expressing silence. They are screaming in the politician’s ear: “You do not represent me. This is not a process in which my voice matters. I do not believe you.”
Yes, voting is worse than a dead end. It’s less effective than bashing your head against a wall in a vain attempt to cure your headache. It’s more pathetic than allowing the oligarchs into your kitchen and then begging for a scrap of food from your own table. It is evil, immoral and contemptible. It is the act of a slave who has internalized that slavery so thoroughly that he wants to ensure that everyone around him is enslaved, too.
But, as I pointed out in yesterday’s conversation with Larken Rose, if there is any bright spot in all of this it is that your vote doesn’t matter anyway and will not change anything at all. It will not even “register as a protest” as some would like to believe, since the elections are rigged and the votes aren’t counted.
So if you are so inclined, knock yourself out. Cast a ballot. But instead of sitting back and feeling good about yourself for having done this senseless, meaningless and immoral act, can we at least agree to use the next 1460 days to do something actually productive? I leave it entirely up to you how to interpret the phrase “actually productive,” but if you’d allow me to offer some humble suggestions:
Find, join or create a community organization or freedom cell with a focus on fostering economic connections and social ties with people in your geographical area.
Find, join or create a community currency , community trading program or community exchange to foster agoristic connection between yourself and others in your area.
Commit to spending a certain amount of time each week spreading awareness about the banking oligarchy , false flag terrorism , GMO crops , or any subject you feel strongly about, either offline or online, using the work of others or by starting your own blog, newsletter or community meet up group.
Learn about gardening , canning, appliance repair, 3D printing , monetary theory , or any subject that you think will be handy in the event of a government collapse (or even if the government doesn’t collapse).
Read more books. Spend less time arguing with people online and more time making friends at the local coffee shop. Learn a new skill and teach it to someone else.
In short, do all of the million things that have nothing whatsoever to do with the phony baloney political charade exemplified by national selection day. Because if all you ever do is tick a box in a voting booth and sit back to see who wins the rigged sporting event, you probably believe the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to you.
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When should you leave for your Thanksgiving drive in order to avoid getting stuck in traffic with the tens of millions of people on the road? That depends on where you are, according to Google. Based on last year’s travel patterns from Google Maps users, the best day to leave is the Sunday before Thanksgiving, though the time varies. If you’ve already missed that window, never fear: Google has also compiled the worst time to leave. Below are the best and worst departure times and return times for 10 popular U. S. cities, as well as some airport traffic recommendations and trending destinations. If you do not see your city, the general trend is that you’ll hit less traffic if you can leave on Sunday and return on Friday, while the slowest commutes are for those departing on Wednesday and returning on Saturday. Also, stores that sell stuff tend to be busy. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 3 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 3 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 5 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Airport Traffic You’ll hit less traffic before noon or after 4 p. m. Trending Destinations How badly do you want that $5 player? “Outlet mall” searches point to heavy on Thursday and Friday. Searches for “animal shelter” are also high on Friday, which is great news for animals needing new homes. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 5 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 5 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 7 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Airport Traffic The only time to avoid O’Hare is if you’re coming from Milwaukee around 3 p. m. Otherwise, it should be business as usual. Trending Destinations Chicagoans love to party on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, with “night club” topping the list. That might explain why “Mongolian BBQ restaurant” is tops on Thanksgiving. Who feels like cooking at that point? Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 3 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 3 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 2 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Trending Destinations The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo has free admission on Thanksgiving, which may explain why “zoo” is the destination on turkey day. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 3 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 3 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 8 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Trending Destinations Pies and parades rule Houston Thanksgiving week, with “pie shop” being the most searched for term on Wednesday and “city hall” on Thursday, which points to Houston’s 67th annual Thanksgiving Day Parade. This year’s marshalls are Simone Biles and Simone Manuel. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 5 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 5 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Airport Traffic Arrive before 3 p. m. or leave after 10 p. m. to avoid the worst of it. Anyone leaving on a around 10 p. m. can expect a trip twice as long. Trending Destinations When I think of Los Angeles, ham shops always come to mind. No, not really, but “ham shop” is what people are looking for the most on the day before Thanksgiving. Is turkey not a thing in Los Angeles? Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 3 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 2 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Trending Destinations Where’s the buffet? Buzzed Miamians want to know. “Buffet restaurants” and “liquor store” are the top two search terms on Thanksgiving day. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 5 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 3 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 2 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 3 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Airport Traffic From Manhattan, arrive before 6 p. m. or the commute could be twice as long. Trending Destinations Many are wondering if the “natural history museum” is open on Thanksgiving, but not as many who are looking for a “pie shop,” which is the top term on Wednesday and Thursday. And, of course, that classic Thanksgiving tradition of dining at a “fondue restaurant” is represented with the search term on Thursday. I think we can all remember our first Thanksgiving memory quite well. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 3 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 3 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 7 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Trending Destinations Nothing out of the ordinary here, with “electronics store,” “liquor store” and “appliance store” topping the list. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 3 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 2 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 7 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Trending Destinations More folks in Phoenix are concerned about airport parking on Thanksgiving day than most of these other cities, with “airport parking lot” listed as the third most searched term. Departure Traffic Best: Sunday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 3 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Wednesday at 2 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 7 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Return Traffic Best: Friday at 6 a. m. Try to avoid driving around 4 p. m. when the traffic is the most congested. Worst: Saturday at 4 p. m. If you have to travel that day, leave by 6 a. m. to avoid the worst of it. Trending Destinations There are a lot of people shopping, but many are also checking out the historic sites, with “zoo,” “national museum” and “memorial park” rounding out the top five most searched terms on Friday.
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I’m not part of Disney’s target audience for its latest princess movie, “Moana,” but I don’t care. I’ve been excited about this film since Dwayne Johnson previewed it last year at the D23 Expo for all things Disney. As much as the new Miranda music sounds promising, what’s really exciting is the chance to see a Disney princess who doesn’t look like those we have already. I was already aging out of the children’s movie demographic when my mom took us to see Robert Rodriguez’s “Spy Kids” in 2001. Yes, it was a silly story: Children turn into spies to save their agent parents. But my sister and I became obsessed. The suave father was played by Antonio Banderas with a pronounced Spanish accent. The children were named Carmen and Juni (Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara) and the implication was that they were or Americans. As a daughter of Cuban immigrants who once struggled with her accent, I had never seen characters who looked or sounded like us as the heroes of their own story. “Spy Kids” is still one of the few positive examples I hold onto, 15 years later. I’m not alone. There are many nonwhite women and girls who don’t see movie characters who look the way they do, and the omission can affect their . That’s why the issue of diversity in movies for young people is just as important as pushing for inclusion across Hollywood, both behind, and in front of, the camera. So much of nonwhite representation in cinema is trivial at best, stereotypical at worst — the wisecracking sidekick or the background player stuck there as a token. I remembered feeling that something was amiss about Tito the Chihuahua in Disney’s “Oliver Company” (1988). Why did the only dog with a Mexican accent (voiced by Cheech Marin, who has a less embarrassing part in “Spy Kids”) have to cars? I wanted to see more of the mechanic tomboy Audrey Ramirez (Jacqueline Obradors) in “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” (2001) and wished I could forget that “Cars” (2006) has a barely visible lowrider named Ramone (Mr. Marin, again) that happens to be the only vehicle in Radiator Springs with hydraulics. I forgot that “The Emperor’s New Groove” (2000) was set in the Inca Empire, because none of the main voice actors (David Spade, John Goodman, Eartha Kitt and Patrick Warburton) sounded as if they spoke our language. Yet one of the videos in our home was “The Three Caballeros,” a Disney animated guide to South America from 1944. Donald Duck is the American protagonist, joined by the Mexican rooster Panchito (Joaquin Garay) and the Brazilian parrot José (José Oliveira) on a tour of Latin America. More than just a Technicolor spectacle (akin to “Fantasia,” in terms of trippy animated musical sequences) “The Three Caballeros” was a cultural explainer that didn’t entirely reduce our stories to cheap tropes. As an indirect product of the Good Neighbor Policy, by which the United States invested in South American ties, the movie had incentive to avoid negative portrayals. When it came to Disney princess movies, my sister and I had very different experiences. It was always easier to find a princess who looked the way I do, because I was born with much paler skin than anyone in our family. My younger sister, Cristina, didn’t decide to be Jasmine from “Aladdin” during playtime friends assigned her the character. Back then, that was the animated figure that looked closest to her, and she didn’t have many others to choose from. Luckily, the Disney renaissance of the 1990s gave us many more diverse heroines to treasure. Cristina adored Pocahontas’s free spirit and modeled herself on the strong Mulan. But they often weren’t the main princesses featured in Disney advertising or merchandise. And once their movies faded from store shelves, so would the dolls and the rest of their products. In those days, the newer princesses weren’t stocked like those of the classic era: Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora from “Sleeping Beauty. ” In this sense, “Moana” is another step in the right direction. Native Hawaiians are entering a rarefied pop culture circle, inclusion in a movie that will reach viewers around the world. Considering how women, and especially women of color, are rarely shown as leaders onscreen, this is no small victory. The evolving arc of Disney princesses — from the damsel in distress Snow White in 1937 to the entrepreneurial dreamer Tiana in “The Princess and the Frog” in 2009 — gives hope that we’ll see more animated stories starring young female characters who look as if they could be from anywhere around the world. Then again, no tickets have been sold to a Disney movie starring a Latina princess. She doesn’t exist yet. The company started a TV show, “Elena of Avalor,” about such a character, but that series lacks the production values and marketing heft of a movie. It seems like a halfhearted concession to Latinas — half a Disney princess — but it’s more than other girls still waiting to see themselves on the big screen have received. There are many still waiting for a “Moana” to call their own, a movie to pass on to their children that speaks to them about their culture. My sister ended up working for a few months this year as a performer at one of Disney’s theme parks. After several frustrating auditions, she was told she was too dark to play any character not covered in fur. She tried out to greet guests as Elena of Avalor, and she received the same answer: too dark. (She ended up playing characters while fully covered in costumes.) Not even as an adult does she fit in Disney’s kingdom. But I’m hoping that those days are numbered, and that she and other women and girls like her will never have to feel as if they didn’t belong in the Happiest Place on Earth.
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( ANTIWAR ) A day after reports NATO was soliciting even more ground troops for their deployment into Eastern Europe, officials are reporting “progress” in recruiting more troops from more member nations to participate in the deployment, intended to be around 40,000 troops along the Baltic states, near Russia’s border. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg claimed to have been “ very inspired ” by the response of nations he sought troops from, after yesterday’s report Quote: d diplomats as saying the deployment was meant to both “confront” Russia and to undercut Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s complaints NATO isn’t participating enough in its own defense.
The new participants in the deployment include Albania, Slovenia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Croatia, Belgium, and Norway. The size of individual deployments from different nations is unclear, but there will be four battalions, and the US is expected to provide the majority.
With all these troops headed to the Baltic coast, reports out of Russia’s media suggest that they are planning some new warship deployments into their Baltic Fleet, with an eye toward enhancing their targeting capacity along the shore.
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Philly.com – by Angela Couloumbis
HARRISBURG – As cities nationwide grapple with fatal police shootings, many involving unarmed black men, Pennsylvania’s legislature on Thursday passed and sent to Gov. Wolf a contentious measure that would block public officials from immediately releasing the names of officers involved in such incidents.
The measure, sponsored by State Rep. Martina White (R., Phila.) and approved by the GOP-controlled legislature, stoked sharp opinions.
Supporters say the bill, supported by local police unions, is necessary to protect officers and their families after such incidents.
“We are the protectors of our protectors,” said one proponent, State Rep. Dom Costa (D., Allegheny), a former Pittsburgh police chief.
Opponents said the bill flies in the face of transparency, which they believe is critical in police-involved shootings.
“Do not undermine the bridges that have been built between law enforcement and communities of color,” Rep. Margo Davidson (D., Delaware) said in a floor debate. “This legislation will do nothing but breed suspicion.”
Wolf has not said whether he will sign the bill. Civil libertarians said a law could be the first of its kind in the United States.
State law now lets local officials determine when to publicly identify an officer who has used force.
Under the legislation, public officials would be barred from releasing the name of an officer involved in a shooting until 30 days after the incident, or after an official investigation into it ends. Violators could be charged with a second-degree misdemeanor.
The Attorney General’s Office and district attorneys would be exempt.
The law would supersede current policy in Philadelphia, where the Police Department typically discloses names of officers involved in shootings within 72 hours if there are no credible threats to those officers. A department spokesman on Thursday would say only that if the bill became law, Philadelphia police would follow it.
The Pittsburgh Police Department generally does not identify officers involved in shootings unless they are charged with a crime. Officer Robert Swartzwelder, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 1 there, called the proposal fair.
“There’s an obligation by society to protect its police officers as well,” he said. “The police put their lives on the line to protect the public, and they don’t lose their rights because they put on a badge.”
Elizabeth Pittinger, executive director of the Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board, a city-funded independent watchdog, called the bill chilling. “Gagging a public official from disclosing a police officer’s identity and then criminalizing a public official’s accountability to the public is outrageous,” she said.
Critics also complained that Republican legislators pushed through a controversial measure on their last expected voting day without a full airing.
White’s bill was approved, 151-32, with many Philadelphia-area lawmakers against it. In the Senate, it passed 39-9.
The legislature has enough votes to override a Wolf veto, but would have to take the unusual step of reconvening for votes after Election Day to do so.
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Dr. David Duke offers a New Paradigm for Humanity. Read and listen to this amazing statement that will create a revolution in the concept of Human Rights. A recognition of the absolute right of every people to preserve its Human diversity, independence and freedom. The right of every people to preserve its culture, traditions, art forms and characteristics of society.
A path to peace and harmonious nations and societies. Why we must resist Globalist destruction of freedom, Globalist forms of economic and financial slavery, and Globalist, Zionist wars.
In the power of its reason, love and understanding, this declaration of Human Diversity and Freedom can be the moral engine to saving our European heritage and truly the rights of every people on Earth! The Foundation of Human Freedom
I believe that each of us must be committed to the preservation of Human diversity. I cherish not only the value of every form of life on Earth in what we call biodiversity, but also respect and honor the diversity of Mankind. I believe that every people has the right to preserve their expression of Humanity, its own heritage and culture. That every people on earth has the right rule themselves and the right to be free and independent.
Human freedom is the principle that all peoples must be free to be different. Humanity is not one, it is many. Destroying the variety, diversity and freedom of a diverse Humanity is a destruction of Humanity itself.
Not recognizing the inborn urge of every people to express their essence in their own forms of art, music, culture, religion, societal structure and government, leads to Human conflict and often to violence and Human suffering on a horrific scale.
Much of the world’s conflicts are not because peoples and cultures are different, but because they are not allowed to be different! because Globalists and imperialists seek to expand their empires. They want to control the resources and economy of all nations and destroy real Human diversity. Human differences in values, cultures, economies, religions and their freedom and independence to preserve and celebrated those differences stand in the way of the Globalists who want to regiment mankind and make them soulless consumers. Human Diversity is natural
Human life is expressed in a multitude of diverse peoples created by geographic and social adaption over the course of thousands of years. Whether we celebrate Human diversity as the handiwork of Nature or in a religious sense as the creation of God, we celebrate the rich tapestry of different peoples and cultures across the Earth.
We believe that every people and culture has the right to preserve its unique expression of Humanity, that every people has the right to maintain and enrich its unique culture, to nurture its particular expressions of art, music, literature, philosophies, architecture, religion, diet, traditions and values that make every people unique and add beauty and possibility for Mankind.
We believe that every people has the right to be politically free and independent, and not be ruled over or exploited by any other people or nation. And we reject the Globalist power that seeks to destroy the independence and freedom of every people and destroy Human diversity. Every people must have the right to self preservation and freedom
We believe that every free people has the right to live in a harmonious society created in its own image, its own nature and spirit.
For example, the people of Tibet have the Human right to live in a society oriented to the heritage, culture and tradition of that nation, as should all peoples. Today the Tibetan people are threatened by massive non-Tibetan immigration forced by an imperial power meant to marginalize the heritage and culture of Tibetan people in their own homeland. The loss of the unique people and culture of Tibet is a horrific loss for them and truly a loss for all of Humanity. What is true for Tibet and the Tibetan people is true for every people on Earth. We believe that the people of Tibet and every nation have the right to defend their borders, and an inherent Human right to preserve its unique ethnic and cultural character, and its freedom and independence.
Nations more similar in their cultural, ethnic, religious and social traditions are tend to be far more harmonious that those wracked with internal cultural, ethnic or religious divisions.
We also affirm that states with significant ethnic and cultural minorities tend to be more happy, peaceful and cooperative when each group has the freedom to an autonomy that makes each group feel more at home in society.
If one looks honestly at the world, he quickly recognizes that the greatest source of civil conflict, hatreds, wars, genocide and other horrific Human rights violations comes from ethnic conflict, often accompanied by religious conflict. And when that happens it is like putting a fuse into dynamite.
It is a truism that if you want to reduce ethnic conflict, you must endeavor to give every people the Human right to live and to create society and community in its own values and, that every group respect the right of every other group to do this.
We believe that these endemic conflicts are rooted in supra-national states and globalist denial of the reality of Human diversity and denial of the natural Human desire of people to live in a society reflecting their own heritage, traditions, culture and values. One size does not fit all.
Instead of recognizing this reality, the globalists and empire builders seek to destroy the distinctions of Humanity so they will become more compliant to their control and exploitation. Instead of accepting the reality of Human nature and truly the diversity of all life, including Human life, the globalists continue to promote destructive policies that destroy the harmony of traditional societies and historical character of nations. Massive immigration of diverse peoples into another people’s living space produces conflict not harmony
We believe that massive forced immigration of non-indigenous people into other people’s lands is almost always against the will of the indigenous people.
And this leads to civil repression, conflict, hatreds, violence. One does not have to look much further than the Palestinian Nakba, or the massive immigration into Tibet as examples of this universal truth, but this reality is just as true in Europe and other areas of the world that have undergone massive immigration into it regions and nation states.
Look at the riots and deep social unrest and conflict that have befallen traditional harmonious societies that have experienced massive, unwanted immigration.
A world of independent cultures is true diversity and freedom.
A multicultural state does not contribute to Human diversity. It does not contribute to Human happiness, peace and harmony. It more often than not lessens Human love and Human rights. No matter what the high motive, it produces more disharmony than harmony, more discord than accord.
Just as in the natural world every life form needs its own living space, and needs the preservation of its own ecosystem to survive and flourish, so it is true for every people of Humanity.
Every people needs a living space and eco-cultural system in which it can thrive. Ignoring this reality leads to conflict. Diverse Human peoples and cultures and religions competing in a limited living space is the greatest single cause of civil war and crimes against Humanity.
United Nations studies show ethnic, cultural and religious conflicts within nations are the primary engines of civil conflict and war which takes an enormous toll in Human suffering, numbering hundreds of millions of dead, injured, and dispossessed Human beings.
This urge to diversity has always been in Mankind, and always will be. Not to recognize this elemental part of mankind’s Nature is the progenitor of conflict.
In fact, with the rise of the idea that people have the right to be free, ethnic conflict is increasing as the imperial states created by conquest can no longer repress the desire of diverse people for their freedom and ethnic expression.
Nations whose rulers have established immigration policies ignoring Human differences are increasingly divided and conflicted. Trying to change the natural urge toward freedom is like screaming against the tide
The global elite in government and media which has a huge stake in trying to regiment the world’s populations, tell us we are all the same and they endeavor to destroy every unique culture and Human expression .
They attempt to change Human nature, but history and an increasingly conflicted world show that this is like screaming against the tide.
Better to recognize Human nature, and within that context support national and regional freedom that lessons conflict and supports mutual respect.
It is time to teach the new ethic that recognizes the Human right of every people to exist and thrive. However, those who seek their own people’s freedom must understand that these rights must be afforded to every people. And any effort toward this worthy goal must be in the spirit of not destroying the rights of others and to peaceful resolution of the conflicts.
It is far better to recognize these realities and inherent desires of Humanity and avoid as much Human conflict as possible, than to try to destroy Human distinctions in pursuit of imperialist empire or globalist regimentation and conformity. Even if the destruction of people’s is based on a utopian vision, because it goes against basic human nature it ultimately leads not to a dreamed of peace and love between people but to conflict and hate. Attempts to control, exploit or harm any people is a crime against Humanity
We must condemn violence and the harming or destruction of any people. We must adopt a clear Human ethic that attempts to control or exploit any other nation or people is a crime against Humanity.
We support Human freedom and we support Human diversity and we support the right of every people to have their own nation or society, but we do not support supremacism, control or repression of any other people. Efforts to control or exploit is a crime against Humanity.
As a person of European descent I see that much of the repressive globalism damaging the world originates in mostly European peopled nations that are today called the West. I see that this globalism not only damages and harms the world’s diversity of peoples but that it harms my own people. And I have learned that we must not allow this exploitation of our own heritage and be just as committed to the well being of all of humanity.
This is a life-changing lesson that I have learned in my own life. As a very young man I joined a non-violent Klan organization in my community. Like so many young people across the world, I longed to identify with my own people, to defend the heritage that I love and that I believed was threatened.
But still as a young man I left the organization because I came to realize I have no moral right to speak about Human rights for my own people unless I embrace the idea of the same Human rights for every people, and further, that we must be committed to securing Human rights, not with war, not with violence, not with Human suppression but the power of human ideas and ideals.
I believe that the vast majority of the earth’s people believe in the principles I set forth here. In my own life I further realized that other peoples have the same the desires for their own people’s heritage and rights that I have for mine.
I realize fully that only in a context of genuine commitment to respect the rights and freedoms of all Humanity, can one morally campaign for your own people’s fundamental rights. Defending the Diversity of Humanity is a defense of Humanity itself
There is nothing wrong with a people defending their own rights and heritage. In fact defending and preserving the diversity of Humanity is defense of Humanity itself.
But, it must come with a genuine concern for the rights and heritage of all.
In that context and only with that understanding, can we move toward peaceful resolutions of social, religious and ethnic conflicts and at the same time preserve our own heritage and the diversity and freedom of Humanity.
Nations that have an overwhelmingly unifying heritage, culture, religious and social tradition have the right to preserve their expression of Humanity and their societal harmony.
It is a crime to destroy those values in pursuit of so-called multiculturalism. And if one wants to see where massive immigration of alien peoples, cultures and religions lead, just look to what happened in the war-ravaged now dismembered nation once called Yugoslavia, look to the cultural and ethnic genocide in Tibet, look to the tribal and religious conflicts in many nations of the Mideast.
Group differences run deep. Even though the Muslim Qur’an repeatedly teaches Muslim unity, still some extremist elements of Shiites and Sunnis blow up the children of each other in the other’s holy places of worship. Nor did the admonitions of Jesus Christ against violence and for love and reconciliation stop Irish Catholics and Scottish-derived Protestants from a cascade of violence that has lead to the death of countless innocents.
Although we understand the historical motives of mass immigration of one people into another people’s lands, we must not continue to repeat those mistakes in the modern world and create more divided and strife-torn communities, regions and nations. Models of self rule and societal harmony
And just as a majority has the Human right to live in a social fabric in harmony with its history and values, so minorities must be accorded their Human right to have their own communities or regions that reflect their own essence, or helped to migrate to a sovereign region of compatriots.
This is Human freedom and this is Human rights on the most fundamental level. Those nations with significant minorities of diverse people should strive toward recognizing their desire for freedom and self expression.
Autonomy within nations, such as the German language speaking South Tyrol region of North Italy and the Italian, French and German-speaking Cantons of Switzerland offer models of how recognition of differences in language, heritage, ethnicity and a liberal degree of autonomy can lead to a more peaceful national fabric.
Nation states that seek imperial power through the conquering and subjection of other peoples are now coming apart at the seams because of the inherent will to freedom and identity that grow in suppressed people.
Even European nations divided by slight differences in history, identity, genetics and culture, seek this freedom. The artificially created nation of Czechoslovakia was composed of Czechs and Slovaks held together by 50 years of intense totalitarian physical suppression, propaganda and conditioning.
When the communist tyranny collapsed they used their new freedom to create the independent states of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.
They did this with mutual respect and not war, and without horrific crimes against Humanity.
Contrast that to the artificially created state of Yugoslavia created in name of empire, and then held together under a ruthless authoritarian regime. When Communism fell, people wedded to old ideas of empire tried desperately to hold on to control over vast areas of diverse peoples. As a result, a long war and brutality and massive crimes against Humanity occurred on both sides of the conflict.
How much better if all parties in the conflict had embraced the ethic that all people have a right to self rule and self expression in their own regions. Take for example two of the many peoples trapped in the old Yugoslavia, the Serbians and the Croatians. Even though Serbians may have dominated the government of Yugoslavia, to effectively control other peoples such a totalitarian state must suppress the natural differences in people and force a regimentation and conformity.
So even the Serbian people lost some of their unique identity as well as the other peoples over whom they ruled. People now warmly embrace the right of Serbians and Croatians to be themselves and rule themselves. Globalism is a continuation of Yugoslavian totalitarianism on a global scale
Ironically, the Serbians and the Croatians and indeed all of us, face globalist tyrants demanding to control the economy of Serbia and Croatia, their currencies, controlled by New York and London rather than by their own people, and increasingly they are subject to a media controlled by Hollywood and New York rather than the spirit of their own traditional heritage and values.
And in the height of insanity, the Globalists are eyeing mass immigration into both Serbia and Croatia of massive numbers of non-European immigrants who are far more fundamentally different than Serbs and Croats. A prescription for future Human conflict. The rights of both majorities and minorities
There are many harmonious nations on earth that are overwhelmingly of one primary heritage, with only minor differences among their inhabitants.
But, nations corrupted by the globalist power and media elite, and propagandized that Humanity is one and not many go against the people’s will and usher in massive immigration of an alien population.
This process is almost always against the democratic will of the nation’s inhabitants as history repeatedly shows. And then as the numbers increase and societal differences and conflicts and discord increase, the globalists resort to the old totalitarian tactics of suppressing free speech, free association, and all kinds of Human liberty, even to the point of forbidding the public displays of the traditional culture of the vast majority.
A powerful example is how the American government has now made it illegal to display a Christian Christmas motif on public ground, even in an overwhelmingly Christian cultural nation. America supposedly created by e pluribus unum (out of the many, one) is now dominated by identity and ethnic politics.
The most powerful lobby in American politics by far is, for instance, the Jewish Lobby, comprised of an ethnic group of two percent of the American people but driven by ethnic and religious supremacism. Jewish organizations lead the fight in the destruction of Christian Christmas traditions.
The political landscape of America is dominated by special interest groups to which every politician must now bow, except of course the European American majority which must silently watch as its cultural traditions, such as Christmas are destroyed. Of course, it goes far beyond Christmas. Americans are experiencing increasing identity politics and division such as generated by massive illegal immigration. The rights of small nations cannot be sacrificed
On the international level it must be recognized as a crime against Humanity for any imperial state to occupy another people’s lands for exploitation of its labor or resources. Where autonomy or independent regions are not possible, a degree of autonomy is certainly possible where significant groups in an area can have community institutions, schools and other structures oriented toward both their needs and their spirit.
It is time to stand for freedom for all peoples. It is time to stand up to Globalist destruction of biodiversity, destruction of Human diversity, destruction of the earth’s indigenous cultures, artistic expressions, lifestyles, traditions and independence. Zionist Globalism is actually supremacism
The globalists seek the destruction of every unique expression of Humanity. They want to destroy the unique character of your people and every people on the earth.
They seek to destroy the Human diversity of the earth so they can more easily rule over all of us, and market the same brands of junk movies, media and music. They want you and all of us to consume the same junk food from a world agribusiness and media that advertises it, that not only destroys the planet’s ecosystems, but destroys your health and the health of hundreds of millions of people spawning epidemics of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and other ills.
They want to control the value of the currency in your pocket, and force you and your nation under a corrupt Zionist-controlled global banking system that exploits you and all of us and put whole nations and peoples as slaves in a perpetual debt.
They want to put you and all of us under a soulless, Globalist government that takes away your freedom and that of every people and every nation.
And these globalists want war, perpetual wars and conflicts in their attempts to expand their power over the earth and over all people.
They grow stronger by divide and conquer tactics, and they seek to stamp out Human diversity and seek to regiment all of Humanity to their New World Order all while the New York centered Globalist media supports Israel as a quote “Jewish State”, and supports Zionist control of the International Banks and the Globalist media. So in reality, Zionist-Driven Globalism is actually form of Jewish supremacism.
Globalism is Imperialism on a global level, and the greatest threat to human freedom, diversity and independence in all of world history. Yes to Freedom, yes to Diversity and Independence
But, my dear friends all over the world, in my homeland of America and that of my brethren in Europe, but among all freedom loving people across the globe, millions of us say no to globalism.
We say yes to freedom, yes to Human diversity and independence.
We say no to globalist wars such as the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, the planned war on Iran, horrific wars that are part of the Zionist, Globalist agenda.
We say no to the Zionist dominated Globalist media that spout the lies that fuel these wars.
We say yes to a free Internet and the freedom of people create their own media, literature, music and art forms. No longer will we drink the toxic poisons of the Globalist elite.
We say no to Globalism, yes to Human freedom, yes to Human diversity, yes to world of peace and prosperity.
We say yes to every people’s striving to preserve their way of life, their particular heritage, their particular expression of Humanity.
Whether we are Kurds, or Pakistanis, or Iranians or Palestinians. Whether we are Chinese, or Japanese, or Africans or Indians or of European heritage, we say no to globalism.
We say yes to Human Freedom and Global Diversity. We say yes to the peoples of our own nations and societies determining our destiny.
We say no to the Global corporations and huge imperial powers wiping out Human diversity in pursuit of their ungodly power. We say yes to preserving our heritage and our way of life, yes to our independence and freedom no matter who we are or where we live upon the earth.
We are Humanity. We are many.
Because we honor our own heritage and traditions, we honor every heritage and tradition.
Because we value our own freedom and independence we value the freedom and independence of every people on Earth.
Because we refuse to be economically exploited we pledge not to exploit other s.
Just as most Europeans now want to preserve their own heritage and cultures, we refuse to support the Globalists who seek to use us to control and exploit other nations around the world.
Because we love peace, we refuse to support their Zionist-driven globalist wars. A New Paradigm of Human Rights
This is a new affirmation of Human rights, a new paradigm. It is the Human freedom movement and it is found wherever there are free people who desire to preserve their heritage and freedom.
It is found where people yearn for Human societies allowed to be as naturally diverse as the biodiversity in Nature.
The Globalists have global economic, media political and military power. But we represent the true desires of Humanity for freedom.
We represent the natural desires of every majority population to want to preserve the character of their nation and people, and every minority population who seeks more freedom and autonomy in their own communities or regions. Human Diversity, Freedom and Independence
We must resist rule of the Globalists over us with a Global coalition of mutually free peoples.
We are rising in every nation.
Our Paradigm for Human Freedom and Diversity is growing among people all over the world.
The Globalists cannot rule over us without our consent. They cannot defeat us if we rise in defense of Human freedom and diversity, not just for ourselves but as a new principle for all Mankind, good for all people on this planet.
The principles we stand for we hold, for our own people and for every people on the face the Earth.
This is the world I am committed to, the Humanity I am committed to, the nation in my own land that I am committed to.
I hope you join me in this quest for a new paradigm for Humanity, a new commitment to Human freedom and diversity.
Dr. David Duke
Postscript:
As I publish this most recent updated edition, Zionist Jewish Supremacists are committing mass murder against the people of Gaza. We must support Gaza! Gaza is a symbol today of the need for Global freedom from the Tyranny of Zionism. Free Palestine. Free Europe and the Western World, Free the World!
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Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach discussed his gubernatorial campaign with SiriusXM host Matt Boyle on Friday’s Breitbart News Daily. [Kobach said taxation would be a core issue in his campaign. LISTEN: “Some people may know Kansas. We did cut our income taxes quite a bit and reduced to zero the taxes on LLCs and S corporations a few years ago,” he said. “But a coalition of Democrats and liberal Republicans in the legislature just raised those taxes back up, doing so on the theory that they had to, to balance the budget. ” “I think that Kansas doesn’t have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem. We should have been cutting the budget,” he contended. On immigration, Kobach said Kansas is “a fairly conservative state, but our legislature hasn’t been conservative, and we’ve kind of become the sanctuary state of the Midwest. ” “We’re not formally a sanctuary state, but we do nothing to discourage illegal immigration,” he elaborated. “We give aliens tuition. I want to stop that. ” Kobach noted Kansas is “one of the very few states west of the Mississippi that does not have term limits,” which he saw as vital to fighting corruption. “As a result, our legislators, some of them form entire careers in the state legislature. I’d like to see us have term limits for the legislature, as well as for the entire list of statewide offices,” he said. Kobach wryly conceded, “The left is not excited that I’m running” when Boyle noted the panoply of groups denouncing his candidacy for governor. Boyle noted the left was fearful that Kobach really would put a stop to “unbelievable” policies like giving discounted tuition rates to illegal immigrants. “It’s insane,” Kobach agreed. “I mean, think about it: You’ve got someone who lives in a neighboring state, say Missouri. A kid grows up there, wants to go to Kansas University or Kansas State, pays three times as much in tuition as an illegal alien. It makes no sense whatsoever. It’s against federal law. Congress was trying to stop this way back in the nineties they passed a law saying no state could do it, but several states did anyway. ” “We’re going to try to stop that. I think you just need a governor who will come in and say, ‘Look, I’m not budging. We’re going to do it, and we’re going to do it now, or we’re going to do it later, but we’re going to do it while I’m governor,’” he said, promising to “draw some lines in the sand and not let anyone cross them. ” Kobach laid out three major points in his agenda. “One I already mentioned was term limits. Try to push term limits through. Now, that’s going to be a heavy lift since we don’t have the popular initiative. We’re going to have to push it through the legislature, and you know most politicians don’t like limiting their own terms in legislatures,” he said. “Second is pass a statute stopping the revolving door,” he continued. “Right now in Kansas, you can retire from the legislature, and then the next day, you can start lobbying your former colleagues. We’ll put time limits on how soon you can become a lobbyist in Kansas. You can become a lobbyist somewhere else if you want, but not in Kansas. ” Kobach said his third goal would be to achieve political transparency by replacing “Republicans in Name Only” who tend to side with Democrats. “We really have this problem very badly in Kansas,” he explained. “If you look at the numbers, our legislature in the Senate is 32 to 8 — 32 Republicans to 8 Democrats. Similar lopsided numbers in the House, over a majority Republican. But many of those Republicans are truly RINOs — Republicans in Name Only. They vote with the Democrats all the time. When they go home, they talk like Republicans. They might even use the word ‘conservative’ to describe themselves. But then, they come in and become a completely different person when they are in the state legislature. ” “One of the things the governor has to do is actually call people out by name and say, ‘Look, I need this person’s vote’ and try to get the public aware of who these people are who are breaching the public trust,” said Kobach. “If their district wants to elect someone who is liberal and votes with the Democrats, so be it. But there is a real deception going on. You see it in states like Kansas, where there are districts across the western part of our state which will not elect a Democrat, period. So what the Democrats do is, they just run as Republicans,” he said. Kobach agreed with Boyle that voters are tired of politicians who say one thing and do another. “I think they’re also tired of the politician who talks like everything he says is carefully polished and has gone through three focus groups,” Kobach added. “The thing that people loved about Trump is that he’s speaking from the gut. They could tell that this is what the guy really thinks. His speech wasn’t prepared and screened and reviewed by others, a bunch of baloney, but is actually a guy telling us what he thinks. I think that’s important. ” “Nobody can do it like President Trump does it, but that’s kind of the way I have spoken to my constituents as secretary of state: ‘Here, this is what I’m going to do. I’m not going to beat around the bush. If you don’t like it, don’t vote for me,’” he said. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. Listen to the full audio of the interview above.
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Mysterious Universe
As the Halloween season draws near, stories of strange experiences and supernatural hauntings ride high, and popular interest in haunted houses, phantom beings, other things deemed “paranormal” abound.
So far as the serious study of apparitions goes, opinions about the concept of “ghosts” remains varied, manifesting in a number of different folkloric motifs since humankind’s earliest days. Ghosts are most often represented in cultural traditions as being spirits of the deceased, and thus, legends often conjoin ghosts with death and the afterlife. In equal measure, traditions pertaining to belief in ghosts often view them as the stuff of terror, or perhaps even as harbingers of things–often terrible–yet to come.
This attitude, and the “fear” associated with belief in ghosts, has especially been the case with ghost stories in America. We have little doubt that thanks can be attributed to tales of popular hauntings the likes of The Amityville Horror to account for much of this. Such stories, though supposedly based in some element of fact (which is often debatable, upon further review) are further vilified on the big screen, making them the lasting stuff of horror cinema.
The attitudes and, more frankly, the biases that begin to emerge toward our ideas about ghosts in relation to cultural standards become all-too apparent, once consideration beyond these lasting stereotypes is given. In William Butler Yeats’ The Celtic Twilight, the famed poet retold a number of ghostly legends recounted to him by the people of Ireland; particularly an older gentleman Yeats identifies as an acquaintance named “Paddy Flynn.”
In the chapter on “Village Ghosts,” Yeats describes the Irish belief that to have a ghost living within one’s home is actually good luck; a stark contrast when paired alongside the modern “horror stories” of the last few decades:
“The house ghost is usually a harmless and well-meaning creature. It is put up with as long as possible. It brings good luck to those who live with it. I remember two children who slept with their mother and sister and brothers in one small room. in the room was also a ghost. They sold herrings in the Dublin streets, and did not mind the ghost much, because they knew they would always sell their fish easily while they slept in the ‘ha’nted’ room.”
“Harmless” and “well-meaning” usually aren’t the first terms that spring to mind in relation to ghost stories today. Yeats does, however, go on to describe that some of the ghosts of Ireland were viewed as harbingers, appearing before the death of another, or in the very most classic sense, returning to fulfill “unfinished business” of some sort:
“I have some acquaintances among the ghost-seers of western villages. The Connacht tales are very different from those of Leinster. These spirits have a gloomy, matter-of-fact way with them. They come to announce a death, to fulfill some obligation, to revenge a wrong, to pay their bills even—as did a fisherman’s daughter the other day—and then hasten to their rest.”
Yeats further noted that, “it is demons, and not ghosts, that transform themselves into white cats or black dogs,” the latter evoking the popular image of the “Black Shuck” of the British Isles, although the mention of a white cat representing a demon seems to contrast starkly with the traditions about black cats as the ‘familiars’ of witches.
On the subject of animals, and their relationship with the unexplained, some time ago I received an email from one of my followers, who shared his own story of what he perceived may have been an encounter with the ghost of a cat:
“I have a friend near Barnardsville NC who used to have a black cat. The cat was old and eventually died in the house. One day, after having drunk a cup of coffee, I was standing at the sink, rinsing the coffee cup, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her black cat (then deceased already) charging my ankles, like a kitten would. I called to my friend and told her that her cat had just attacked my ankles. She started laughing and assured me that her cat was dead (which I knew). I told her that, perhaps, her cat didn’t know she was dead, yet.”
Somewhat in keeping with this idea of animal specters, Yeats went on to discuss in The Celtic Twilight how some traditions in Ireland hold that ghosts, believed to be the spirits of dead people, may return in the form of various animals:
“In the surrounding villages they adopt strange disguises. A dead old gentleman steals the cabbages of his own garden in the shape of a large rabbit. A wicked sea-captain stayed for years inside the plaster of a cottage wall, in the shape of a snipe, making the most horrible noises. He was only dislodged when the wall was broken down; then out of the sold plaster the snipe rushed away whistling.”
Nearby on the Isle of Man, which lays between Ireland and England, there is a strange bit of folklore about a family named Irving who had been “haunted” by a voice which emanated from within the walls. This occurred during the 1930s, and the case was even investigated by the famous ghost researcher Harry Price around the time of the disturbance. The strange twist to the story had been that the “voice” claimed it had belonged to a mongoose, which had travelled as a stowaway from India and had been trained to speak by its master. The supposed creature even claimed a name, calling itself “Gef.”
Some commentators have offered that, rather than a ghost, the affair might have been imagined by young Voirrey Irving, the apparent target of the poltergeist, though perhaps inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s story Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, first published in 1894. Skeptic Joe Nickel has made the case that Voirrey had actually been attempting ventriloquism– perhaps poorly in some instances–as one account detailed by a news reporter indicates that Voirrey had been caught making the “mongoose” noises herself.
To this, her father intervened and attempted to make the case for Voirrey’s innocence, steering the reporter’s attention away from the girl in what appeared to be obvious collusion by members of the Irving family in a hoax. Regardless, could the strange “Gef” affair have nonetheless been inspired by those earlier legends of “ghosts” spectrally morphing into animal forms, and like the ghost of the old sea captain in snipe’s garb, haunting the walls of his former residence? “Hamlet and his father’s ghost,” by Henry Fuseli
One might argue, based even on any peripheral survey the likes of which we’ve undertaken here, that the “fear” of the ghostly experience is probably more likely the raw juxtaposition of the unordinary against the consensus reality of the everyday. But moving beyond our generally accepted attitudes about the supernatural, and our fear of it, also leads us to more basic questions, which include the most fundamental of them all: “what is a ghost?” Even simpler, perhaps we must ask with equal sincerity, “is there anything of real substance to the idea that ghosts exist?”
In short, perhaps the cultural standards that “the ghost of legend” is identified against have colored people’s attitudes about them. In turn, popular portrayal of ghosts almost inevitably come to represent to a culture of “fear” having been built around them in most parts of the world. Hence, although ghosts remain a fun and “scary” motif (especially around Halloween), one might question whether it is really the ghost itself that frightens us so badly… or, could instead be our age-old prejudices against the unknown that are the true source of fear?
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Julian Assange October Surprise REVEALED 10/28/2016 In today’s video, Christopher Greene of AMTV reports on the Julian Assange October Surprise & Rants about a Complacent Mainstream Media. 10/27/2016 TRUTH REVOLT http://youtu.be/PsVNKmb6jEc There’s a lot of accusations going around that the 2016 election is r ... Netflix Ceo: TV’s Future includes Hallucination Pills 10/27/2016 INDEPENDENT The future of TV might everyone taking hallucinogenic drugs, according to the head of Netflix. The thr ...
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Home / Be The Change / Elon Musk to Completely Revolutionize the Energy Industry with New Tesla Solar Roof Elon Musk to Completely Revolutionize the Energy Industry with New Tesla Solar Roof Jay Syrmopoulos October 31, 2016 Leave a comment
Los Angeles, CA – While the battle over the future of energy plays out in places like Standing Rock, where the Native Americans are fighting to protect their water sources from the environmental dangers associated with oil pipelines, Elon Musk was doing his part by unveiling a revolutionary new clean energy technology – the Tesla Solar Roof.
While people typically perceive Tesla as an electric-car company, the actual goal of Elon Musk’s company has been to accelerate the large-scale adoption of sustainable energy.
This past week, Musk made good on the company’s vision by unveiling the Tesla Solar Roof, made of textured glass tiles with integrated solar cells that are nearly indistinguishable from conventional tiling. In concert, he also announced an upgraded model of the company’s energy-storing Powerwall.
The Powerwall 2 is a battery for homes and small businesses that stores the sun’s energy and delivers clean, reliable electricity, even when the sun isn’t shining.
According to a report by Wired :
A couple hundred invited guests, mostly Tesla owners, ooh-ed and ahh-ed as Musk revealed that a row of suburban American houses on Wisteria Lane—the old set of Desperate Housewives—were all, in fact, topped with solar roofs. Each house’s old roofing material had been stripped away, and replaced with one of four new styles of solar tile. From the street, it was virtually impossible to tell; the roofs retained a variety of traditional looks, from textured slate shingle to terra cotta tile.
Musk said the secret to the tiles’ appearance is a special coating that becomes more or less see-through depending on your viewing angle. He described it as a series of micro louvers that work like a privacy screen on a laptop, and said the company is working with 3M on the tech. The effect is dramatic in person. From shallow angles, the tiles appear nontransparent. But as your viewing angle approaches 90 degrees, the underlying solar cell becomes more and more visible. The result is a tile that permits the passage of sunlight from overhead, but still looks opaque to anyone at ground level.
During the presentation, Musk revealed the durability of the glass tile by showing drop tests that showed the tiles to be tougher than commonly used roofing materials, such as slate or clay.
“It’s never going to wear out, it’s made of quartz, it has a quasi-infinite lifetime,” Musk said. “We need to make solar panels as appealing as electric cars have become,” added Musk. “It needs to be beautiful, affordable, and seamlessly integrated. If all of those things are true, why would you go any other direction?”
The solar roof is designed to be used in concert with the Tesla Powerwall 2.0, which Musk also unveiled at his Los Angeles presentation. The new version of the Powerwall will cost $5,500 for 14kWh of storage and 7kWh peak power draw, which is enough to power a four-bedroom home for one day. No details on pricing, availability, or the installation process for the solar roof was announced.
Musk envisions a day when people can walk into a Tesla store and buy an entire energy system, which includes a solar roof/panels, a Powerwall battery for energy storage and an electric car.
The reality is that Musk is creating a system that could eventually replace the entire traditional electrical grid, and allow for true off-grid energy independence. The idea is that you can generate and store energy by day, which then lights up your house at night – without any pollution or environmental damage.
“In order to make his vision move forward, Musk is using design with a big D,” Andy Ogden, Chair of the Industrial Design Department at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California told Wired. “He’s thinking about an overall strategy, in how these things interact and support each other, so there’s some synergy.”
Ogden believes that Musk’s plan has the potential to work. “If he can make it easier, and less expensive and more attractive for roofs to be solar, then that will drive the uptake of battery systems”
This latest revolution in the energy industry comes as Musk’s merger with SolarCity (the largest provider of solar power systems in the country), which is run by Musk’s cousin and of which Musk is already the majority stockholder, will be voted on by shareholders on November 17. Musk’s recent announcement of the new Tesla solar tiles would seemingly be a perfect fit with the Solar City brand.
Thanks to Elon Musk the future of clean energy has never looked brighter.
Please share this amazing story about the coming energy revolution! Share
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During a January 14 report on Republican efforts to reduce restrictions on firearm suppressors, CNN said one of the GOP’s goals is to eliminate the “$200, 000 tax” on the devices. [CNN intimated that the GOP wants to get rid of the “lengthy background check” associated with suppressors as well. In fact, the tax is $200 dollars — not $200, 000 — and the background check is one of the only current requirements that the GOP plans to keep in place for suppressors. What they want to get rid of is the bureaucracy of the purchase, whereby citizens are required to be photographed, fingerprinted, and then to register their suppressor with the government. And yes, the GOP also wants to get rid of the $200 tax. CNN referenced the tax correctly later in the segment, but the mention of a “$200, 000 tax” was how they launched it. Representatives Jeff Duncan ( ) and John Carter ( ) introduced legislation on January 9 that will accomplish all these things. Their bill is the Hearing Protection Act and it is focused on the hearing benefits shooters and outdoorsmen receive from suppressed firearms. CNN’s Victor Blackwell addressed the Hearing Protection Act and said opponents of suppressors see any hearing benefits claims as a “facade. ” He then showed movie clips from Casino Royale and No Country for Old Men and a narrator said, “A gun silencer, shooting enthusiasts call it a suppressor. It’s an assassin’s must have in movies. ” The narrator says that opponents of the Hearing Protection Act say the real goal is “about militarizing weapons, not about hearing,” and that suppressor ownership “will allow mass shooters to kill stealthily. ” In reporting this way, CNN shows the Democrats’ hand — as far as opposition to suppressors is concerned. They plan to fight against them the same way they fight against stocks, flash hiders, and collapsible stocks via “assault weapons” bans. And they will try to shame lawmakers into inaction by suggesting that suppressors make it possible to attack innocents without detection. Americans who are paying attention will quickly realize that the people making these arguments need to quit forming their opinions on suppressors from Hollywood films. AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com.
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November 11: Daily Contrarian Reads My daily contrarian reads for Friday, November 11th, 2016. You need to login to view this content.
David Stockman’s Contra Corner isn’t your typical financial tipsheet. Instead it’s an ongoing dialogue about what’s really happening in the markets… the economy… and governments… so you can understand the world around you and make better decisions for yourself.
David believes the world -- certainly the United States -- is at a great inflection point in human history. The massive credit inflation of the last three decades has reached its apogee and is now going to splatter spectacularly.
This will have lasting ramifications on how governments tax and regulate you… the type of work you and your family members will have available and what you get paid… the value of your nest egg… and all other areas comprising your quality of life. Login
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SAN FRANCISCO — For years, Facebook has courted publishers of all sizes, asking them to depend more and more on the social media giant to expand their audiences. Now, Facebook has a new message for publishers: Tamp down your expectations. Facebook said on Wednesday that it planned to make a series of changes to its news feed algorithm so that it will more favorably promote content posted by the friends and family of users. The side effect of those changes, the company said, is that content posted by publishers will show up less prominently in news feeds, resulting in significantly less traffic to the hundreds of news media sites that have come to rely on Facebook. The move underscores the that Facebook undertakes to maintain interest in its news feed, the company’s marquee feature that is seen by more than 1. 65 billion users every month. It is also a reminder that while Facebook is vastly important to the growth of news media companies, from older outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post to upstarts like BuzzFeed, Vice and Vox Media, publishers rank lower on Facebook’s list of priorities. “There is now an expectation, in general, on the part of publishers that platforms will change, and that they won’t necessarily be informed how they will change,” said Emily Bell, director at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. “This completely highlights how ownership of the user is a central tension between news producers and platforms. ” The changes will affect all types of content posted by publishers, including links, videos, live videos and photos. Facebook said it expected a drop in reach and referral traffic for publishers whose audience comes primarily to content posted by the publisher’s official Facebook page. Facebook plans to start making the changes as soon as this week. It will have less of an impact, however, if most of a publisher’s traffic comes from individual users sharing and commenting on their stories and videos. As has long been the case, publisher content that your friends interact with will appear higher in the feed compared to posts shared directly by a publisher. Over the last few years, publishers struggling to attract readership and draw online advertising dollars have come to view Facebook and its users as a good way to gain new audiences and lucrative revenue streams. That has resulted in closer partnerships between Facebook and publishers experimenting with new media products tailored specifically for the social media site. Last year, for example, Facebook debuted Instant Articles, a product that allowed publishers to post articles directly to the social media site. Both Facebook and publishers described the move as a better, faster reading experience for users. Facebook is also paying a number of publishers, including The Times, to create broadcasts for Facebook Live, the company’s new video product. Those features will also be affected by the algorithm change. Publishers have little choice but to deal with the changes that Facebook makes, given the dependent relationship news media companies have with the social network. Some 44 percent of adults in the United States regularly read news content on the site, according to a 2016 study by the Pew Research Center. And more than 40 percent of referral traffic to news sites comes from Facebook, according to data from Parse. ly, a digital publishing analytics company. Publishers value the referral traffic they get from Facebook, but they increasingly fear that readers will remain on the social media site for news content rather than visit the publishers’ own properties. There is also concern that some of Facebook’s products allow it to control not just the user experience but also own much of the revenue and user data. At a time when the relationship between publishers and Facebook is already tense, any change that news content is likely to deepen concern. And Facebook’s move will be just another reminder that publishers do not have direct access to their online audiences on social platforms. Many publishers were hesitant to talk about what Facebook’s latest algorithm change might mean for them. Melissa Bell, vice president of growth at Vox Media, said Facebook’s decision was not surprising. “I think it’s a characteristic of Facebook that we’ve always understood,” she said. “Facebook, at the end of the day, is a place where people want to share things that matter to them, whether it’s a news story or their child walking. ” She said Vox Media still expected to continue experimenting with Facebook’s different tools. Other news media executives were waiting to see how the changes played out. “I think we’ll simply have to watch it,” said Kinsey Wilson, executive vice president for product and technology at The New York Times. He added that he did not expect the move would result in a big strategy shift for the Times. But Facebook’s news feed tweaks could be more damaging to smaller publishers that rely on the site to help raise their profile. Rob Toledo, editor and of Exstreamist. com, a site about streaming services that he said gets roughly 500, 000 monthly page views, has already started looking to other platforms like Twitter because his site’s Facebook page is not adding to his audience in a significant way. Still, Mr. Toledo said, the algorithm change was frustrating and could halve the number of Facebook users his site reached. “It’s almost not worth it for small publishers,” he said. Facebook has a history of unilaterally changing how material from its partners is posted on its service. Zynga, a once powerful online game developer and former close partner of Facebook, saw a sharp downturn after Facebook made a set of changes on how its content appeared on the social network. Zynga was also hurt by other shifts in computing, as users moved en masse from desktop computers to mobile devices. In 2011, in one of Facebook’s earliest experiences with media publishers, The Washington Post, among others, created social reader tools, a way to more easily read and share stories on Facebook. But when the products began aggressively sending Facebook users updates on what their friends had read, Facebook made a series of changes that effectively killed the apps. Last year, the company announced that it would adjust the news feed in response to users who were “worried about missing important updates from the friends they care about” — a change that some publishers believed resulted in decreased readership. This time, in a set of “values” the company made public in a post on Wednesday, Facebook made clear that showcasing content posted by friends and family was its top priority. “The growth and competition in the publisher ecosystem is really, really strong,” Adam Mosseri, vice president of product management for the news feed at Facebook, said in a recent interview with reporters. “We’re worried that a lot of people using Facebook are not able to connect to friends and family as well because of that. ”
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The Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, suffered a serious scare tonight after being rushed off the campaign stage by Secret Service in Reno, Nevada.
CNN reported that a crowd member yelled someone had a gun in the crowd. The scuffle happened close to the front of the stage. Secret Service removed one individual who appeared to be a white man in his 30s or 40s.
However, Trump was quick to return to the stage after the individual was detained by local law enforcement and Secret Service. CNN reported that a SWAT unit also showed up at the front of the crowd.
NBC news correspondent Jacob Rascon tweeted pictures showing the man was being detained in a back bathroom. Man who caused disturbance at Trump rally being held in bathroom in back of venue. Officers inside with him, and outside on guard. pic.twitter.com/rh319Gj1Ox
— Jacob Rascon (@Jacobnbc) November 6, 2016
‘Man who caused disturbance at Trump rally being held in bathroom in back of venue. Officers inside with him, and outside on guard.’
He also tweeted when Trump returned to the stage he said, “Nobody said it was going to be easy for us. But we will never be stopped.” Trump back on stage after secret service scare: "Nobody said it was going to be easy for us. But we will never be stopped."
— Jacob Rascon (@Jacobnbc) November 6, 2016
Eric Trump, who was appearing on Justice With Judge Jeanine when the news broke, blamed liberals for the incident commenting:
‘Listen, it’s interesting. That’s the tolerant left. That are the same people that were being paid to incite violence’
You can watch the scuffle below.
Featured image screengrab from video . Share this Article!
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Nearly every day, Kathleen Hotard walks down her driveway to meet her son as he gets off the bus. Though he's only five years old, Kenneth has been taking the bus home from school for almost two years.
So when Hotard didn't see her son at the bus stop after school, she was afraid. When she learned why he wasn't there, that fear quickly turned to anger. Image Credit: Screenshot/WWL-TV
As WWL-TV News reports, Hotard had gone to the bus stop on Monday and waited for her son to appear. When he didn't, the worried mother immediately thought about the terrible things that could have happened. She tells WWL-TV:
“The driver opened the doors and my child was not on the bus. The driver informed me he was not there and that she didn't know where he was but that he had not gotten on the bus that day. You get this pit in your stomach because you don't know where your child is. You don't know if they're okay or if they're crying for you.”
Learning why her son hadn't gotten on the bus didn't make things better. Upset that the other children were throwing spitballs that sometimes hit him, Kenneth had told his teacher he had a note from his mother giving him permission to walk home from school.
Unfortunately, there was no note, but the school failed to confirm that fact with Hotard. She tells WWL-TV:
“I was informed my child had lied and said he had a parental note to walk home. I confirmed I never wrote a note, and they confirmed they never saw a note. He said he had misplaced it.”
After learning that a substitute teacher had taken Kenneth at his word with no follow-up, Hotard is now demanding action from the school. Though she says that she is angry with her son for lying, she also wonders why the school didn't check with her before allowing her son to walk home alone.
As for Kenneth, a call to the police from a concerned citizen helped find him. He was found about a half mile from school, heading in the wrong direction down a busy road. He admitted that he got “kind of” lost trying to get home.
The school superintendent has apologized and promised to investigate what went wrong. Hotard hopes that this will be followed by safeguards that will prevent the same thing from happening again. She tells WWL-TV:
“I don’t want any other parent to ever have to feel what I felt. I don’t want any other child to be on a side of a road by themselves scared.”
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Thousands of years ago, every lake was like Great Bear Lake. So pure you could lower a cup into the water and drink it. So beautiful that people composed love songs to it. So mysterious that many believed it was alive. Today, of the 10 largest lakes in the world, it is the last one that remains essentially primeval. Great Bear Lake straddles the Arctic Circle in the remote Northwest Territories of Canada. At just over 12, 000 square miles, the lake is the eighth largest in the world. It is bigger than Belgium and deeper than Lake Superior, and it is covered in ice and snow most of the year. The surrounding area is wilderness too — a sprawling land of untouched boreal forest and tundra, rivers and mountains. The only human settlement on its shores is the town of Deline, population 503. This isolated community is mostly Sahtuto’ine, meaning the Bear Lake People. They are as connected to the lake as the name implies, and for practical, cultural, historic and even prophetic reasons, they are determined to keep it pristine. Their efforts paid off in 2016. In March, the Great Bear Lake watershed was declared a Unesco Biosphere Reserve. Called the Tsá Tué Biosphere Reserve, it is the largest in North America, and the first in the world to be led by an indigenous community. Several months later, the Canadian government granted Deline ensuring local control in areas like language and education. It is the first time that an aboriginal government in Canada will represent everyone in the community, aboriginal and nonaboriginal alike. Taken together, the Unesco and announcements reinforce Deline’s ability to control what happens to Great Bear Lake. David Livingstone, now retired after decades of working on environmental issues for the Canadian government in the far north, helped Deline apply for Unesco designation. To the Sahtuto’ine, Great Bear Lake is “not just a body of water it’s fundamental to their culture,” he said. “The folks in Deline consider the lake to be a living thing. ” Great Bear Lake is important to Mr. Livingstone as well. “It is the last great lake of its size and quality on the planet,” he said. “It’s like the Mona Lisa — a world treasure. ” I had spent an hour or two in Deline back in 2014, as an American diplomat posted to Canada. It was July and the lake was endless and flat to the horizon. During my tour, it was the sole time I needed a translator, because many Deline elders speak only their own language, North Slavey. This past November, I returned to Deline to learn more about the community’s relationship with the lake, to witness the interplay of culture, language, wilderness and isolation that makes this area so distinct. It was late afternoon when the small plane dipped through a thick, cloud layer and I saw boreal forest — part of a vast biome that stretches across northern North America and Eurasia — as far as the eye could see. The plane descended toward a slender strip covered in white, Deline’s single runway. It was a short drive from the airport to the hotel where I was staying, the Grey Goose Lodge. For such a tiny community, Deline has more tourist infrastructure than I expected, including a small handicrafts store in the hotel and an ambition to welcome the growing number of tourists who travel to Canada’s north for a winter and wilderness experience. The evening I arrived, I met with Morris Neyelle, a member of the new governing council, the K’aowedo Ke, as well as Danny Gaudet, a local businessman who was Deline’s lead negotiator for . Sworn in on Sept. 1, the new Deline Got’ine Government is responsible for delivering an array of local programs and services. Mr. Neyelle, 65, tall and switches easily between English and North Slavey. He said allowed the residents of Deline to preserve their way of life and to use these traditions to tackle modern problems. In the past, Mr. Gaudet added, people would look only to the national and provincial government for help. Now, Deline would decide what was best for its people. This included making their own decisions about economic development, such as elevating cultural tourism through the Destination Deline program. “Just on tourism alone, we think we can probably put everyone to work in this town,” Mr. Gaudet said. Protecting the lake, however, is not just about and increased tourism. For the Sahtuto’ine, Mr. Neyelle and Mr. Gaudet explained, the lake was a powerful force in the world: a place critical to the survival of the human species. This belief is based on the prophecies of a Sahtuto’ine elder named Eht’se Ayah, who died in 1940. Some believe Mr. Ayah’s prophecies are literal, others believe they are allegory. Mr. Ayah foretold that in the future, people from the south would come to Great Bear Lake because it would be one of the few places left with water to drink and fish to eat. He said so many boats would come that you could walk from one to another without entering the water. Simply put, Great Bear Lake would be a last refuge for humanity. Mr. Gaudet said the predictions were a big reason the new government pushed to have authority over everyone in the area, aboriginal and nonaboriginal alike. If “hundreds of thousands of people” come because of the prophecies and because “we have the freshest water in the world,” he said, then “you have to live under our rules. ” People in Deline told me that the weather had been changing in recent years, and that the summer season was getting longer. The lake is taking longer to freeze, and it’s melting earlier. Mr. Neyelle said climate change added a note of urgency to the prophecies they may come true sooner than expected. “Maybe we’re in that era now where everything is changing,” he said, and people from the south “are going to come. ” Late that evening, I walked along Deline’s main street and tried to imagine hundreds of thousands of people coming to the area. It was hard to do. The night sky was overcast, and the temperature had dipped to minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 Celsius). Specks of ice from the of Great Bear Lake filled the air. The flecks caused outdoor lights to reflect upward, creating optical illusions called light pillars that made it seem as if each light had become a searchlight aimed at the sky. I walked off the road and into a thicket of boreal forest. Hoarfrost from the lake clung to every surface of the trees and bushes. It covered even the undersides of spruce needles. I was hundreds of feet from the shoreline, yet Great Bear Lake was everywhere — in the air, on the ground and in the trees. At 8 the next morning, I awoke to darkness. From November until January, Deline gets less than five hours of sun each day, although it makes up for that between May and July, when it gets over 22 hours daily. Eventually, I saw a glimmer of predawn on the horizon, but it was not until 10:30 a. m. that the first rays of sun peeked out. I walked outside and headed toward the church for Sunday Mass. The round, structure was in town, on the shore of Great Bear Lake. Chunks and shards of ice lay heaped on the shoreline, while farther out, the surface of the lake was alternately skimmed white with snow or glistening with ice that froze overnight. A wedge of open water was visible just offshore. It looked turbulent, straining and frothing where it encountered the surface ice, as if it were determined not to freeze. Deline is predominantly Roman Catholic. Inside the church, I witnessed the community’s focus on preserving North Slavey. An elder was leading the congregation in the rosary. His call was in North Slavey, and the response was in a mix of Slavey and English. During the Mass, the Gospel and the homily were in English, followed by an translation into North Slavey. The language is spoken everywhere — in church, on the streets and at home — as part of a concerted effort to keep it alive. The 2011 Canadian census counted only 225 people who identified the language as their mother tongue. But North Slavey is an official language of the Deline Got’ine Government and of the Northwest Territories. For the moment, North Slavey is not on the verge of extinction. It belongs to a family of North American indigenous languages that includes Apache and Navajo. Children in Deline’s primary school are taught the language this year, an elder began to teach North Slavey to high school students. Mr. Neyelle said the new government wanted to make acquiring and passing on the language a priority because it believed speaking North Slavey was crucial to preserving the culture. “Slavey is ours,” he said. “That’s where our powers lay. ” He said his descriptions in Slavey had more depth and color than those in English, even though he was fluent in both. Teenagers I spoke to echoed this thought. They said jokes were funnier in Slavey. After Mass, I walked over to Great Bear Lake, curious about the little skein of open water I had seen hours earlier. To my surprise, it had disappeared. Thinking I was turned around, I kept searching, but saw only the reflective surface of new ice and beyond that, a large field of older, ice. Mr. Neyelle confirmed that the water had frozen over during the time I was in church. He was not surprised it had happened so quickly. Sometimes, he said, you could actually see ice creeping across open water. His description made it seem like a fox or wolf stalking its prey. We drove to Ski Hill, a gathering place for the community perched on top of a cleared rise near town. The sun had been up for three hours, but already it was getting dark. Several pickup trucks were parked close together, next to a recently built hut with a blazing fire pit in the middle. Children were sledding (despite the name of the hill, no one actually skis there) and some of the adults were a new snowmobile with a powerful engine. Strips of lake trout along with moose meat and hot dogs cooked on top of barrel grills. The atmosphere was festive, perhaps because it seemed as if Great Bear Lake was finally freezing over. This meant access to the entire lake, better fishing and, eventually, an ice road that would temporarily connect Deline to the outside world. Or perhaps it was festive because these were friends gathering on a Sunday to enjoy the sunset, grilled food and conversation in North Slavey and in English. It reminded me that despite the groundbreaking nature of Deline’s and Unesco status, it was still a small town. The type of town where the phone directory is a piece of paper taped to the wall. One elder I met there was Charlie Neyelle, 72, Morris Neyelle’s older brother and the elders’ representative on the K’aowedo Ke. Charlie Neyelle is a spiritual and mental health guide for the community, and pushed for and preservation of Great Bear Lake. I asked him a question I had posed to many people during my time in Deline: What does Great Bear Lake mean to you? In response, Mr. Neyelle told me the story, about a Sahtuto’ine ancestor who lived around Great Bear Lake, in an area called Caribou Point. One day the fisherman set out four hooks. When the fisherman returned to check on them, a lake trout had broken one of the lines and taken the hook. This bothered the fisherman, because in those days, hooks were extremely valuable. So that night, he transformed himself into a losch, also known as burbot, a freshwater version of cod. The fisherman swam down to the middle of the lake to look for the hook and heard a booming sound. There, at the bottom, he saw a gigantic beating heart. All the species of fish — trout, whitefish, pickerel, herring, suckers — faced the heart, surrounding and protecting it. He swam back to shore after seeing this, and the following morning when he went to check on his three hooks, he found three trout. One of them had the hook he had lost the day before dangling from its mouth. When the fisherman saw the he realized Great Bear Lake was alive, Mr. Neyelle said. “The lake gives life to the universal: grass, insects, willow, everything. ” Some in Deline believe that the at the bottom of the lake gives life to all of the lakes, oceans and rivers in the world. For the Sahtuto’ine, this belief underscores not only why Great Bear Lake must be protected, but also why its protection is of global importance. Toward the end of our conversation, Mr. Neyelle also mentioned Eht’se Ayah’s prophecy. “When there is no food or water all around the world, many will come to Great Bear Lake,” he said. “It will be one of the last places that has both. ” No matter how many times I heard this apocalyptic prediction, it was jarring to hear, especially when inserted into conversations about Great Bear Lake’s beauty and providence. The regular evocation of this prophecy reminded me of what happened on the other side of the lake in the 1940s, in Port Radium. The site of a large uranium ore mine, it was the most significant industrial development in Great Bear Lake’s history. During World War II, uranium from Port Radium was sent to the United States for the war effort, where it provided much of the material for the Manhattan Project and the atomic bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although it stopped producing uranium in 1960 and is now abandoned, Port Radium was at its peak larger than Deline. Irene Kodakin was born near Port Radium in 1952, when the mine was still in operation. Now living in Deline, she describes Port Radium as a thriving community of aboriginal and nonaboriginal workers brought to work in the mines. Ms. Kodakin has happy memories of her childhood, in stark contrast to her experience in a residential school in Inuvik, a town more than 400 miles away. For much of the 20th century, the Canadian government forced many aboriginal children into these schools, with the goal of assimilating them into Canadian culture. “They would put their hand in our mouths and just press our bottom lips to our teeth until it bleeds” if you speak Slavey, she said. When she returned home, she could no longer speak North Slavey. Her older sister had to translate when Ms. Kodakin spoke to her own father. A generation of Sahtuto’ine lived and worked at Port Radium. Although it was known at the time that exposure to uranium was dangerous, this warning did not reach them. Long after the mine closed, Sahtuto’ine who had been in Port Radium began to die of various cancers. Ms. Kodakin’s father, George Kodakin, who had become a respected chief in Deline, died of cancer at age 64. Ms. Kodakin’s older sister, aunts and uncles also died of it, and she believes the mine was the cause. Ms. Kodakin’s belief is shared by many in the community, including Gina Beyha, a coordinator for the Unesco Biosphere Reserve who was a nurse in Deline for 15 years. While researching links between cancer and Port Radium, Ms. Beyha and others discovered that uranium taken from the sacred Great Bear Lake was most likely used in the bombs that detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many people, especially the elders, were aghast, Ms. Beyha said. In 1998, Deline sent a delegation to Japan for the annual Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony. It was a gesture of atonement as well as a way to start healing, particularly for the widows of men who had worked at Port Radium, who made traditional gifts that the delegation presented to the Japanese. During my time in Deline, the legacies of Port Radium and the residential schools were among many reasons people gave for protecting Great Bear Lake and for negotiating . The others: to preserve Sahtuto’ine culture, to develop tourism, to honor elders and ancestors, and to prepare for the realization of Eht’se Ayah’s prophecies. After a week of talking with many Deline residents, these reasons all seemed tightly connected and at the core of the community’s identity. Those not living on Great Bear Lake, however, gave another reason that was perhaps the simplest of all. The lake, like the Mona Lisa, is magnificent. It draws the gaze as an ocean does. The slate blue ice and white snow merge seamlessly into the sky so that when you leave the shoreline, with brittle tiles of ice cracking underfoot, it feels like stepping into a cloud. And in the brief moments when the wind dies down, the silence is as deep and enormous as the lake itself. During my last days in the area, I went exploring with a Deline resident, Leeroy Andre, his wife, Diane, and his daughter, Whitney. We would leave at sunrise and plunge into the boreal forest, following trails and old seismic lines. In the distance lay the frozen sheet of Great Bear Lake, and beyond, thick rolls of mist rose toward the sun, evidence of open water at the edge of the horizon. In North Slavey, this mist is called . It is a land of ptarmigan and marten, musk ox, caribou, moose, wolf and bear. One day, after we had been out four hours, we came across a huge abandoned beaver lodge at least six feet high and twice as long. Around then, despite my wearing several layers, a parka and other gear, the cold started after me. It crept up from the ground onto my snowmobile. It cracked the rubber of my boots and shouldered inside. If I concentrated, I could feel ice crystals forming in my toes. When we started moving again, the cold took on the shape of a blanket and patiently tried to cover my shoulders and back. At sunset, the moon appeared like a slender comma above the trees, glowing in the sky. We drove through marshmallow mounds: berry bushes covered in snow and hoarfrost for most of the year before they emerge in the summer and grow leaves and berries as fast as they can. Dark came quickly, and we sped across yet another small lake connected to Great Bear Lake. The snowmobile’s headlight illuminated a blizzard of snowflakes as shiny as diamonds, as if the land were showing what true wealth looked like. The northern lights appeared like a hallucination across the sky. For hours they moved in slow motion above me, as the land seemed to recede and I faced the cosmos. If a recent scientific theory proves correct, somewhere out in space is the origin of the earth’s water, which fills Great Bear Lake and gives us life. This connected with something I was told when I first arrived in Deline. To the Sahtuto’ine, Great Bear Lake is not just a lake. They are part of it and it is part of them. No longer does this seem like a belief unique to their culture — it sounds like a universal truth. The water from Great Bear Lake flows in our veins, too.
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GRIMES, Iowa — Betty and Dick Odgaard used to own the tiny church next door to their home. They had built it over 13 years into an art gallery, bistro, flower shop and framing service. They even rented out the chapel, with its bright stained glass windows, for social events. But three years ago, the Odgaards refused to rent the quaint site to two gay men for a wedding, saying it would violate their religious beliefs about marriage. The men filed a civil rights complaint, and the Odgaards settled, paying a penalty because it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. After the controversy, regular customers stopped coming. Friends and family members stopped speaking to them. The Odgaards were vilified as bigots and haters. But it was not long before the Odgaards found themselves cast as heroes as well. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, then a Republican candidate for president, visited the Odgaards’ business and videotaped a sympathetic interview with them. They joined a troupe of business owners upheld as Christian martyrs in the nation’s culture wars: the cake baker, the florist and the photographers who stood up for their religious beliefs and lost legal battles. They received a standing ovation at a Cruz rally and signed on as “religious liberty ambassadors” in his campaign. Now, a year later, the Odgaards and other conservative evangelicals interviewed in central Iowa say they feel as if they have been abandoned. Many say that they have no genuine champion in the presidential race and that the country has turned its back on them. Americans are leaving church, marriage is the law of the land, and the country has moved on to debating transgender rights. While other Americans are anxious about the economy, jobs and terrorism, conservative Christians say they fear for the nation’s very soul. Some worry that the nation has strayed so far that God’s punishment is imminent. So, in a year when many voters see nothing but bad choices, many evangelicals feel deeply torn. Long part of a reliable Republican voting bloc, many are appalled to find Donald J. Trump their only alternative to Hillary Clinton. They say he has taken positions all over the map on couples and abortion and does not have the character to be president. Others are still bewildered that Mr. Trump defeated not only Mr. Cruz — a pastor’s son who made “religious liberty” a signature issue — but also half a dozen other conservative Christian contenders they would have gladly supported. Nevertheless, polls show that the vast majority of evangelicals are now coalescing around Mr. Trump, largely out of fear that a President Clinton will appoint liberal Supreme Court justices. The change in America seemed to happen so quickly that it felt like whiplash, the Odgaards said. One day, they felt comfortably situated in the American majority, as Christians with shared beliefs in God, family and the Bible. They had never even imagined that two people of the same sex could marry. Overnight, it seemed, they discovered that even in Iowa they were outnumbered, isolated and unpopular. Everyone they knew seemed to have a gay relative or friend. Mr. Odgaard’s daughter from his first marriage disavowed her father’s actions on Facebook, and his gay second cousin will not speak to him. Even their own Mennonite congregation put out a statement saying that while the denomination opposes gay marriage, “not every congregation” or Mennonite does. Mrs. Odgaard, 64, the daughter of a Mennonite minister, was devastated. “It all flipped, so fast,” said Mr. Odgaard, a patrician who favors khakis and boat shoes. “Suddenly, we were in the minority. That was kind of a scary feeling. It makes you wonder where the Christians went. ” The beginning of the end of the Odgaards’ familiar life came Aug. 3, 2013, when Lee Stafford and Jared Ellars arrived at the Odgaards’ gallery, Görtz Haus. The couple were in a panic because the hotel they had booked for their wedding had gone bankrupt two months before the date, and they had already sent the invitations out. Mr. Odgaard spent about 45 minutes showing them the property and figuring out seating, flowers and how many guests needed meals. It was only when Mr. Odgaard asked if it was a wedding that his tone changed, they said. “I’ll remember these words for the rest of my life,” said Mr. Ellars, 35, a database administrator. “He looked at us and he said, ‘I can’t take your money, and we don’t do anything for free. ’” The couple, together for 13 years, say they never wanted the Odgaards to go out of business. They say they wanted them to stop discriminating against gay people and never put another gay couple through the rejection they experienced. The case was settled in arbitration, and the Odgaards had to pay $5, 000 to Mr. Stafford and Mr. Ellars, which they donated to an program for gay students. Their wedding was held in a barn, officiated by a minister with the Disciples of Christ church that Mr. Stafford attends. To this day, Mr. Stafford, who is 43 and a business systems analyst, is troubled that the debate over religious liberty appears to be “so ” he said. “Their religious beliefs say they don’t approve of gay marriage, but my religious beliefs say that we can,” he said. “Why does their religion trump mine?” About a year ago, the Odgaards sold Görtz Haus to Harvest Bible Chapel, a church that had been meeting in rented quarters. Its senior pastor, Ryan Jorgenson, 36, leads Sunday services in sneakers and jeans. He was trained and sent to Des Moines three years ago by a network of conservative evangelical churches based in Elgin, Ill. that believe the Bible is God’s inerrant word. Mr. Jorgenson jumped at buying the Odgaards’ picturesque property on the busiest street in Grimes, a suburb of Des Moines. He converted the lower floor, where the flower shop once stood, into a children’s ministry, and installed soundproofing to insulate the children’s ruckus downstairs from the electric guitars and drums of the church’s worship band upstairs. He liked the symbolism of converting a landmark site that had represented a defeat for conservative Christians into an outpost for preaching “God’s word, without apology,” he said. The church now draws up to 300 on a weekend, and is already outgrowing the space. On a recent weekday, the secretary sat working on a stool in a hall closet. The staff was planning a conference to teach Christians how to evangelize to atheists, agnostics and Mormons. It is necessary to train believers to hold their own, the pastor said, because “mainstream biblical Christianity is less and less mainstream. ” On Sundays, he notices that half of his neighbors do not even go to church. He expects that more and more Christians will, like the Odgaards, suffer “persecution” for their beliefs. He regularly visits the Capitol in Des Moines to pray with and lobby legislators with the Family Leader, a conservative Iowa group. Mr. Jorgenson was among many Iowa pastors who publicly supported Mr. Cruz, though not from the pulpit, and he is not sure if he will vote for Mr. Trump in November, even though Mr. Cruz has now said he will vote for Mr. Trump. Mr. Jorgenson would not even consider voting for Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, and said he did not know anyone in his church who would. But asked how much hope he had that Mr. Trump would protect the religious liberty of conservative Christians, Mr. Jorgenson held his two fingers a apart. “My hope is not ultimately in the government,” he said. “I am not of this world. Jesus is going to come back. He’s going to bring the perfect government. Until then, we live in a world of sin. ” Melissa and Tom Berkheimer started attending Mr. Jorgenson’s church after hearing him interviewed on Christian radio. They had become frustrated that their minister “watered down” his sermons and never said a word about marriage even after the Iowa Supreme Court legalized it in 2009. She is an accountant, he a chemist, and they met in a Christian chat room. They had something in common, aside from their faith: Mr. Berkheimer is and Mrs. Berkheimer had lived in Japan, and her children from her first marriage are . Over dinner at a steakhouse recently, the Berkheimers said they had nothing against gay people — a refrain the Odgaards also repeatedly sounded. “My brother was a homosexual,” Mrs. Berkheimer said. Her brother became a Christian before he died of complications from AIDS many years ago, and she named her son after him, she said. She said she became seriously alarmed about the nation in the past year as Congress failed to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood after an group released videos taken surreptitiously of the organization. The Berkheimers are in the “Never Trump” camp. “I’m worried for America if we don’t turn away from abortion,” said Mrs. Berkheimer, who is 48. “I think our country is going to be punished, with a nuclear weapon. I don’t think you can mock God forever. ” She quickly added that she was worried she would sound crazy saying such things. “The Truth” 99. 3 FM, a Christian station that features daily clips of Mr. Jorgenson’s sermons, broadcasts from a drab office building in a shopping center in Des Moines. In a studio on the sixth floor, the host of a daily afternoon talk show, J. Michael McKoy, known as Mac, sat at a broad table recently facing his three . Leaning into the microphone, he asked his listeners, “Do you boycott businesses that go against your walk with Jesus?” Should Christians boycott Target for announcing that transgender people could use the restrooms of their choice, he asked, or Ikea for a winsome ad featuring gay families? Callers’ reactions were mixed. A woman said Target “only cares about political correctness. ” A man pointed out, “Even gay parents need furniture. ” Mr. McKoy steered the conversation to the Odgaards. He had quietly played a part in their story: When Mrs. Odgaard was in the depths of despair over a boycott of Görtz Haus, she often called Mr. McKoy, and he prayed with her. He introduced the Odgaards to Mr. Jorgenson, the young pastor looking for a permanent place for his church. On air, the radio hosts suggested that the Odgaards’ story showed that Americans were developing a double standard on the notion of tolerance. “I just wish that this tolerance went across the board for Christian businesses,” said one host, Frank Thomas Holzhauser, who on air calls himself Frank (the Verse) Thomas — a nod to his facility with Scripture. When the show ended, the hosts debated the election. Only Mr. Holzhauser said he was certain he would vote for Mr. Trump, but he admitted it had caused him to lose some friends who “can’t stomach Trump. ” The others said they had not decided how they would vote. None had supported Mr. Trump in the Iowa caucuses. Mr. McKoy and Chris Rohloff had supported Senator Marco Rubio, Mr. Holzhauser had favored Ben Carson, and Bob Monserrate had backed Mr. Cruz. Mr. Rohloff said he had thought that Mr. Trump was finished last year, the moment he said at a candidates’ forum in Iowa that he had never asked God for forgiveness. “Everyone in the room just went, ‘Are you kidding me?’ Even if you’ve never done it, you should at least know the right answer,” Mr. Rohloff said. “That’s a fundamental thing for Christians. ” But by late September, Mr. McKoy said in a telephone interview that he and his had decided to vote Trump: “It’s the lesser of two evils. And I don’t know by how much. ” Some evangelicals in Iowa said Christians who praised Mr. Trump were giving Christianity a bad name. They blamed evangelicals in the South or “Nascar Christians” who go to church only when car races are not on. Some Republicans are working to lift evangelicals’ enthusiasm. Before Mr. Trump’s arrival at Senator Joni Ernst’s annual Roast and Ride in an arena at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines last month, Steve Scheffler was working a crowd of bikers and farmers sitting on hay bales near the stage. Mr. Scheffler, the president of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, used a line borrowed from the conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly: “If you’re looking for a perfect candidate, you will not find Jesus Christ’s name on the ballot. ” He sounded exasperated with Christians who disparaged Mr. Trump. “I hope the good Lord shows more grace to me as a sinner than these people show to Donald Trump,” he said. On a recent Sunday, the Odgaards walked into the church and sat in the rear, where Mrs. Odgaard, an artist whose paintings once filled the space, used to design frames for customers. The seats — stackable banquet chairs that the Odgaards had bought for their wedding business — were nearly full of mostly young worshipers. They rested their coffee cups on the hardwood floor that the Odgaards had stripped of carpet and sanded when they bought the place, spending a week on their knees. One Sunday in church, the memories were so raw that Mrs. Odgaard said she began to cry and left for home. “It’s like losing a child,” Mr. Odgaard said. Mr. Jorgenson asked the congregation to stand, and the worship band struck up a catchy song called “I’m Going Free (Jailbreak),” played with a hoedown lilt. The lyrics were projected onto a screen placed under faded windows that Mrs. Odgaard had painted long ago to resemble stained glass. While the worshipers clapped and pumped fists in the air, the Odgaards gamely sang along: “Jesus is my liberty. I’m going free. ” Church members were invited to stay afterward for a quarterly meeting. Dylan Knudsen, a made a major announcement. Harvest Bible Chapel had just been approved for a loan to buy the Odgaards’ tidy red brick house next door. The Odgaards were about to move to another town. But they planned to keep attending Harvest Bible Chapel, Mr. Knudsen said. There was brief applause. “Please thank them,” Mr. Knudsen said, “for their sacrificial role. ”
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Donald Trump: The next President of the United States of America Donald Trump will be the new President of the United States of America . Trump won 276 electoral votes with the necessary minimum of 270 votes. During his speech as the winner, Trump has promised the Americans to be president for all citizens of the country. According to him, America will not be satisfied with anything but the best. At the same time, the newly elected president has promised to seek common ground, not enmity, with partners in the world. formal voting procedure for electors will be held on December 19 and January 6, 2017, Congress will adopt its outcome. The inauguration of the president-elect is scheduled for 20 January. To win the election, a candidate needs to enlist the support of 270 electors. The procedure for their formal vote will be held on December 19, while on January 6, 2017 Congress will approve its results. The inauguration is scheduled for January 20, when the US president-elect takes office. Pravda.Ru
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Written by Daniel McAdams Both the Middle East and the South China Sea area are hot spots that can potentially lead to major wars. Will the US and Russia clash over Syria policy? What about the US and China at odds over China's reclaimed islands off their coast? As a new US Administration readies itself to tackle some of these issues, today's Liberty Report speaks with distinguished US diplomat, Ambassador Charles Freeman, to see what we might expect. Will the neocons keep the administration on a bellicose and militaristic approach to the rest of the world, or will real diplomacy be given a chance? Copyright © 2016 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
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On Wednesday, President Obama added another prestigious medal to his Nobel Prize collection when he had Defense Secretary Ash Carter award him with the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. [Secretary Carter awarded his boss with the medal on January 4 during the Armed Forces Full Honor Farewell Review for the President held at Conmy Hall, Joint Base Hall in Virginia. Carter insisted that the medal was a token of appreciation for Obama’s service as commander in chief, the Associated Press reported. After spending the last few weeks throwing roadblocks in the path of Donald Trump and his transition team, Obama nonetheless claimed in his remarks to the members of the military in attendance that “We’ve got to make sure that during this transition period that there is a seamless passing of the baton, that there’s continuity. ” Along with the AP, CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller also marked the ceremony with a Tweet to his followers. Defense Secy Carter presents Pres Obama with Dept of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. pic. twitter. — Mark Knoller (@markknoller) January 4, 2017, Many commenters on Knoller’s Twitter feed were incredulous at the award. Some likened the award to a much maligned “participation medal” and others were skeptical of Obama’s underling giving his own boss a medal. @markknoller so Carter whom was picked for Secretary of Defense by Obama gives him an award! I wonder who’s idea that was EGO CHIEF? — (@LSU_PI) January 4, 2017, @markknoller he gets awards for nothing all the time. Remember that Nobel Peace Prize? — Carmela Motto (@Carmelamotto) January 4, 2017, @markknoller @redsteeze Now he can wear it with that tan suit like any other aging 3rd world dictator. Just needs the sash epaulettes. — Grant Naylor (@Breach_Clear) January 4, 2017, @markknoller wonder if it has the ISIS emblem on it? ?? — Drema White (@DremaWhite) January 4, 2017, @markknoller — wait what? ?? pic. twitter. — Donald Wilson (@donjuanw) January 4, 2017, Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com.
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John Carney, economics and finance editor for Breitbart News, joined Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Thursday to discuss multiple topics, including news that certain stores, including Nordstrom, are cutting Ivanka Trump’s fashion line. “Ostensibly, it’s because of lagging sales,” said Marlow. [“I suspect it’s all politics,” said Carney, adding, “Even when Donald Trump was running for president, we saw Macy’s drop his clothing line. We saw NBC turn against him. ” “What I want to say,” continued Carney, “[is] all of this just emphasizes to me the sacrifices the Trump family is willing to make for America. People say conflicts of interest they’re trying to get ahead. However, time after time, we see that they’re actually sacrificing business prospects as these politically charged businesses turn against them. ” Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern.
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WASHINGTON — Facing a fierce backlash after she called historically black colleges and universities “real pioneers” of school choice, Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, spent Tuesday afternoon backtracking on the controversial statement and highlighting the institutions’ roots in racism and segregation. Ms. DeVos, in a series of Twitter posts on Tuesday and in remarks at a luncheon with presidents from some of the schools, repeatedly acknowledged that the schools were not created simply to give students more choices but because black students across the country were not allowed into segregated white schools. The controversy is the latest gaffe for Ms. DeVos, who has had a rough start. Since Vice President Mike Pence cast the tiebreaking vote to confirm her, Ms. DeVos has fled from a small group of protesters who temporarily blocked her from entering a school, been criticized by a middle school’s administrators for saying their teachers were in “receive mode,” and suffered through the embarrassment of the Education Department misspelling the name of the civil rights icon W. E. B. Du Bois in an official tweet. The latest controversy began on Monday evening when Ms. DeVos released a statement shortly after meeting with several presidents of historically black colleges and universities. In it, Ms. DeVos began by praising the schools for making “tangible, structural reforms” that allowed students, often underserved, to reach their full potential. “They started from the fact that there were too many students in America who did not have equal access to education,” she said in the statement. “They saw that the system wasn’t working, that there was an absence of opportunity, so they took it upon themselves to provide the solution. ” Historically black colleges and universities “are real pioneers when it comes to school choice,” the statement continued. “They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality. Their success has shown that more options help students flourish. ” On Twitter, hundreds of angry users accused her of ignoring the fact that many of the schools were founded because black students were not allowed to attend segregated white schools, not because education pioneers wanted to give more options in higher education. Many accused her of using the nation’s history of segregation to advance a contemporary political agenda. Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California, said the comment was “tone deaf. ” Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, called the statement “totally nuts. ” Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, was biting. On Tuesday afternoon, Ms. DeVos seemed to backpedal on her statement at a luncheon for the school presidents at the Library of Congress. “Bucking that status quo, and providing an alternative option to students denied the right to attend a quality school is the legacy of HBCUs,” she said, according to prepared remarks released by her office. “But your history was born, not out of mere choice, but out of necessity, in the face of racism, and in the aftermath of the Civil War. ” She added that historically black colleges and universities “remain at the forefront of opening doors that had previously been closed to so many,” and that the schools “made higher education accessible to students who otherwise would have been denied the opportunity. ” Ms. DeVos later published several tweets repeating those sentiments in an effort to clear up her earlier comments. Still, Ms. DeVos in her speech referred to Mary McLeod Bethune, a famous civil rights activist and educator, as a leader who “is less well known than others in the HBCU legacy. ” Ms. DeVos said Ms. Bethune, who founded University in Daytona, Fla. inspired her because she recognized that traditional school “systemically failed to provide access to a quality education — or, sadly, more often to any education at all. ” Ms. DeVos, an aggressive backer of publicly funded vouchers that public school students could use for private school tuition, also used her speech before the presidents of several historically black colleges and universities to highlight school choice programs. She pointed out that her friend and a black woman attending the luncheon, Denisha Merriweather, had been raised by a single mother in poverty, failed the third grade twice, but is now scheduled to graduate in May with a master’s degree because a family member intervened in her life “with the assistance of a school choice program in Florida. ” Ms. DeVos also mentioned an executive order signed by President Trump on Tuesday afternoon dealing with historically black colleges and universities. A White House official said the order was designed to more closely coordinate the White House with efforts to increase funding to the schools and to encourage more private groups and organizations to work with the schools.
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« Reply #505 on: July 03, 2016, 02:27:26 PM » Russia: EU prolongs economic sanctions by six months http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/07/01-russia-sanctions/ How far do EU-US sanctions on Russia go? http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28400218 Sanctions after Crimea: Have they worked? (From the horses mouth) http://www.nato.int/docu/Review/2015/Russia/sanctions-after-crimea-have-they-worked/EN/index.htm by Edward Hunter Christie NATOs Defence Economist EU Total Change To Exports To Russia (EUR mn) -8,652 Eurostat trade statistics; 2015Q1 compared to 2014Q1. Biggest loser is Germany with (EUR mn) -2,566 followed by Italy with (EUR mn) -668 . European economies are affected by the sanctions and by Russias current recession principally through trade , i.e. by losses in export revenues.Losses are caused: Directly by Western sanctions (exports of oil-producing equipment and of military and dual-use goods); Directly by Russias food import ban; And indirectly due to Russias recession and lower exchange rate, which together lead to much lower demand for imports (from anywhere in the world).The latter, indirect effect is by far the largest, but it can only be partly attributed to Western sanctions the lower oil price remains the dominant driver according to leading analysts. Logged
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As state after state has legalized marijuana in one way or another, big names in corporate America have stayed away entirely. Marijuana, after all, is still illegal, according to the federal government. But Microsoft is breaking the corporate taboo on pot this week by announcing a partnership to begin offering software that tracks marijuana plants from “seed to sale,” as the pot industry puts it. The software — a new product in Microsoft’s cloud computing business — is meant to help states that have legalized the medical or recreational use of marijuana keep tabs on sales and commerce, ensuring that they remain in the daylight of legality. But until now, even that boring part of the pot world was too controversial for mainstream companies. It is apparent now, though, that the legalization train is not slowing down: This fall, at least five states, including the biggest of them all — California — will vote on whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use. So far, only a handful of smaller banks are willing to offer accounts to companies that grow or sell marijuana, and Microsoft will not be touching that part of the business. But the company’s entry into the government compliance side of the business suggests the beginning of a legitimate infrastructure for an industry that has been growing fast and attracting lots of attention, both good and bad. “We do think there will be significant growth,” said Kimberly Nelson, the executive director of state and local government solutions at Microsoft. “As the industry is regulated, there will be more transactions, and we believe there will be more sophisticated requirements and tools down the road. ” Microsoft’s baby step into the business came through an announcement on Thursday that it was teaming up with a Los Angeles Kind, that built the software the tech giant will begin marketing. Kind — one of many small companies trying to take the marijuana business mainstream — offers a range of products, including A. T. M. kiosks that facilitate marijuana sales, working through some of the banks that are comfortable with such customers. Microsoft will not be getting anywhere near these kiosks or the actual plants. Rather, it will be working with Kind’s “government solutions” division, offering software only to state and local governments that are trying to build compliance systems. But for the young and eager legalized weed industry, Microsoft’s willingness to attach its name to any part of the business is a big step forward. “Nobody has really come out of the closet, if you will,” said Matthew A. Karnes, the founder of Green Wave Advisors, which provides data and analysis of the marijuana business. “It’s very telling that a company of this caliber is taking the risk of coming out and engaging with a company that is focused on the cannabis business. ” David Dinenberg, the founder and chief executive of Kind, said it had taken a long time — and a lot of courting of companies — to persuade the first one to get on board. “Every business that works in the cannabis space, we all clamor for legitimacy,” said Mr. Dinenberg, a former real estate developer in Philadelphia who moved to California to start Kind. “I would like to think that this is the first of many dominoes to fall. ” It’s hard to know if other corporate giants have provided their services in more quiet ways to cannabis purveyors. New York State, for instance, has said it is working with Oracle to track medicinal marijuana patients. But there appears to be little precedent for a big company advertising its work in the space. It is still possible — though considered unlikely — that the federal government could decide to crack down on the legalization movement in the states. The partnership with Kind is yet another bold step for Microsoft as its looks to replace the revenue from its fading desktop software business. On Monday, it announced that it was buying LinkedIn. Microsoft has put a lot of emphasis on its cloud business, Azure. The Kind software will be one of eight pieces of preferred software that Microsoft will offer to users of Azure Government — and the only one related to marijuana. The conflict between state and federal laws on marijuana has given a somewhat improvisational nature to the cannabis industry. Stores that sell pot have been particularly hobbled by the unwillingness of banks to deal with the money flowing through the industry. Many dispensaries have been forced to rely on cash for all transactions, or looked to like Kind, with its kiosks that take payments inside dispensaries. Governments, too, have generally been relying on smaller to help develop technology that can track marijuana plants and sales. A Florida software company, BioTrackTHC, is helping Washington State, New Mexico and Illinois monitor the marijuana trade inside their states. Kind has no state contracts. But it has already applied, with Microsoft, to provide its software to Puerto Rico, which legalized marijuana for medical purposes earlier this year. states have now legalized marijuana in some form or another, with Pennsylvania and Ohio the most recent. The biggest business opportunity, though, will come from states that allow recreational use of the drug, as Colorado, Oregon and Washington already do. This fall, five states — including, most significantly, California — will vote on whether to join that club. Mr. Karnes, the analyst, said he expected legal marijuana sales to jump to $6. 5 billion this year, from $4. 8 billion last year. He says that number could climb to $25 billion by the year 2020 if California voters approve the recreational measure this year, as is widely expected. The opening up of the market in California is already leading to a scramble for the big money that is likely to follow, and Microsoft will now be well placed to get in on the action. Ms. Nelson of Microsoft said that initially her company would be marketing the Kind software at conferences for government employees, but it could eventually also be attending the cannabis events where Kind is already a regular presence. “This is an entirely new field for us,” she said. “We would have to figure out which conference might be the premier conference in this space. That’s not outside the realm of possibility. ”
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Players that protest together stick together. [Current Denver Bronco and former college teammate of Colin Kaepernick, Brandon Marshall, made a show of Twitter support for Kaepernick on Thursday, saying it’s time for a team to sign his college buddy. Why? Because he’s better than everyone else who has already signed: It’s time my Brother @Kaepernick7 gets signed. He’s better than every QB that got signed in Free agency, — Brandon Marshall (@BMarshh54) April 14, 2017, To recap, Marshall played with Kaepernick at the University of Nevada, and took a knee in solidarity with the former 49er QB for the first three months of the 2016 season. Marshall then began losing endorsements, and soon after, ended his protest. Now, he joins several other NFL players in either questioning why Kaepernick doesn’t have a job, or calling for NFL teams to step up and sign him. To date, here’s the list of QBs who have signed deals with new teams this offseason: Mike Glennon, Geno Smith, Josh McCown, Brian Hoyer, Nick Foles, Chase Daniel, Aaron Murray and Matt Barkley. Is Colin Kaepernick a better quarterback than all of those players? Yes. But of course, it’s not that simple. The protest movement that the former 49er QB launched last year remains a real concern to NFL teams, as evidenced by the Bleacher Report story last month where an anonymous AFC general manager said, “[S]ome teams fear the backlash from fans after getting him. They think there might be protests or [President Donald] Trump will tweet about the team. ” Then there are reports that Kaepernick has asked for a contract that gives him between nine and ten million dollars a year, a contract the quarterback probably would have scoffed at three years ago. But now, after three years of regression, aging, the fact that he’s never added elements to his game, and a ton of political baggage, he seems like way too much risk in exchange for far too little reward. So, in truth, Kaepernick has no one to blame but himself for why he’s still unemployed. However, true to their millennial nature, the players supporting Kaepernick absolve him of any personal responsibility for his actions, even given the fact that he has put himself in this position. Instead, they shift focus to the teams as if there’s some great mystery or conspiracy behind why he doesn’t have a job, suggesting that a player should have the right to offend cops, veterans, and millions of ordinary American citizens while demanding unrealistic amounts of money and allowing his skill level to deteriorate, and still have a guaranteed job. How shocking that the generation which gave us safety pins and safe spaces would behave this way. Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn
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What would you do if you saw two boys of 6 years wrestling? Their shirts off, red and sweaty, they have a large group of peers around them, cheering, eyes wide and knuckles white. Would you stop them or give the young scraps some advice? Do you see a violent squabble or boys acting on natural impulses which will better equip them to defend their family and neighbours later in life? The answer you give is, in large part, dependent on your gender; so, the fact that this scenario would make an increasingly large number of men upset is a sign of a collapsing civilization. But, nil desperandum , Western civilization has the solution!
Mere horseplay!
As an early years professional, I saw education academics acknowledging the data—boys need ‘rough and tumble’ play for their mental and physical wellbeing! But they have no way of encouraging this in institutions where boys are immediately reprimanded for making finger-pistols at each other. Without saying it directly, they thought that the majority female teaching staff for younger age ranges were pushing our boys’ natural urge to fight like lion-cubs underground. What’s more, the boys were made to feel bad about themselves and their very nature.
Their solution? They suggested that more men be encouraged to teach younger children and engage in rough play with them. Until the late 1800’s, education was male dominated and boys spent a lot of time with male mentors. But, of course, there has been no effort to bring back that environment. Instead, a compromise between boys being boys and boys being fairy princesses was achieved—playing superheroes.
As though female teachers are going to tone down the disapproval as the boys shoot lasers and magic at each other. The treacherous political class present only feeble attempts to manage the symptoms of our societal masculinity problem; like sticking some tape over the burst pipe of our hemorrhaging testosterone as cultural marxism continues to swing the pick-axe of nth-wave feminism at it. So, it’s high time we took a few swings back.
But, first, we need to teach our lads how to fight. At the age of 6 or 7, Viking children were taught the martial art of Glima. This was not just father and son play-fighting; boys and occasionally girls already wrestle with friends and family up to that age. This was more systematic, a group activity.
The Greeks also taught their boys how to wrestle because our other ancestors could see the big picture. The Hoplites, for example, were individualistic free men of all ages who voluntarily came together to practise combat; this not only strengthened their communities but also allowed these farmers to fend off the Persian Empire. Yet, today, even isolated expressions of violence in computer games are questioned by SJW’s. Nevertheless, all the signs are there—our boys are yearning for the same activities practised by their forefathers.
At college, I started a unofficial fight club—men only. This based in large part on the book and movie of the same name, in which the narrator’s Nietzschean alter ego, Tyler Durden, describes the bubbling frustration inside the ever-increasing number of 30-somethings coming together for underground fights: ‘We’re a generation of men raised by women.’ Naturally, half the guys in my year were participating within a week. But, our young boys should be taught how to fight openly and without shame to avoid hidden expressions of violence and maybe even some mass-shootings by angry, loner teens. When they are young, it is the perfect time to teach them.
Young lads have no intention of seriously injurying their friends; it’s just good fun and produces healthier attitudes towards violence and confidence in self-defence and the defence of one’s community. Furthermore, a recent study has shown that fighting helps to strengthen peer relationships, meaning less bullying and segregation. It is interesting to compare the codes of honour of ancient Greek wrestling etc. with those we intuit as wrestling children.
No intentional hitting or kicking No gouging the eyes or biting No going for the balls! That’s precisely how I used to wrestle with my brothers and friends as a pup; it was just obvious. If someone took things ‘too far’, they were ostracised from the fun, at least until they calmed down and apologised. If someone got hurt, we stopped, checked whether they were just being a pussy or needed to get themselves mended; we kept calm and carried on.
‘We’re a generation of men raised by women.’ – Tyler Durden
The data are screaming that men haven’t changed, especially our need to practise fighting. We still have the same natural impulses but their suppression, no, their demonisation has made our men weak and submissive. So much so, many are self-deprecating betas who believe masculinity is toxic, full of white guilt and ashamed of Western civilization. We have everything to be proud of and need to encourage our boys’ fighting spirit so they grow some balls, some confidence in themselves and their kin. That’s the spirit which has kept our enemies, foreign and domestic at bay for thousands of years and will do the same to cultural Marxism, malevolent immigrants and anyone else who wants to have a go. If we want to turn scrapping boys into men first and gentlemen second, we need to organise some fights, not break them up.
Read More: A Short History On The Masculinity Of Fighting
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It’s now been over a week since the most glorious victory ever recorded in the war against rapacious globalism and lunatic Cultural Marxism—the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States. Like many of you, I was outside with my fellow tribesmen ( the same tribe our opponents tried to shut down in February ) until about 4 A.M. on Election Day. As you may expect, it was a joyous occasion that I’ll never forget.
Yet, as I remarked at the time, while this was a glorious victory, a decisive one that ended the campaign, the war would continue. I had hoped to be as magnanimous as possible in victory, to finally bridge some divides and begin to move past the insanity we’ve been dealing with that’s accelerated in the past few years. However, as has quickly become apparent, the Cultural Marxists, SJW’s, and their globalist overlords have no intention of coming to terms or engaging in meaningful self-reflection anytime soon. Instead, they’re doubling down on everything that voters resoundingly rejected on November 8th.
Predictably, there have been “protests” and some riots. Incidents of violence on the left have taken place and gone underreported. Just as predictably, most of these “protests” are professionally organized , with George Soros likely pulling at least a few of the strings. Learning nothing, the regressive leftists taking to the streets, complete with their Year Zero pathology, think themselves morally justified in blocking streets and attacking people, because they’re on a mission to purify society. Anything that stands in the way of that mission can be justly eliminated.
I came across one of these “protests” a few days ago. It was generic and small, basic bitch shit, really. But recall that these are merely the peons in the army of their overlords. Their intensity will dissipate with time. The safety-pin wearing, safe-space occupying, neon-haired freaks aren’t the ones to take note of on the grand strategic map. The bigger picture to focus on is the drive toward increased censorship in the past few days.
The recent counteroffensive began with the uproar over Donald Trump’s selection of Steve Bannon to be his chief White House strategist. The media and its acolytes on social media went into another coordinated attack, lambasting Bannon and Breitbart , which he ran, as having connections to the “alt-right,” which in turn, they say, is “associated with white nationalism.” To reinforce this pairing, the media ran with a couple of the most controversial Breitbart headlines.
If you recognize this tactic, it’s because the media A/B tested this against Roosh in February. They took the “ How to Stop Rape ” headline, said that it proved that Roosh was “pro-rape,” and then repeated endlessly.
This is actually a sort of hypnosis trick and was certainly done deliberately. Scott Adams calls this word-thinking :
Rational People: Use data and reason to arrive at truth. (This group is mostly imaginary.)
Word-Thinkers: Use labels, word definitions, and analogies to create the illusion of rational thinking. This group is 99% of the world.
Persuaders: Use simplicity, repetition, emotion, habit, aspirations, visual communication, and other tools of persuasion to program other people and themselves. This group is about 1% of the population and effectively control the word-thinkers of the world.
He further describes the phenomenon of word-thinking :
Word-thinking is important to persuasion because if you can convince someone to accept a label on an opponent, it turns off their critical thought and turns on their confirmation bias. Nuance is lost. Context is lost. All that matters once the label is accepted is whatever qualities the label already contained.
And this is what the media is doing. They did it with Roosh and are now doing their damndest to do it to Bannon, no doubt as one of the thousand paper cuts they hope to use to take President Trump down.
Because the term “alt-right” is relatively fresh, it’s vulnerable to being defined with the most ominous, dark terms possible, which is why the media is trying furiously to create as much connective tissue between it and “white nationalism” as possible. Remember, with word-thinking, nuance and context are lost.
And now that this first step has been achieved where it was meant to, the self-anointed moral cover for the more alarming stage of the counteroffensive is underway. Now that the ambiguous and ominous-sounding “alt-right” has been attempted to be extensively defined, the solution is obviously to crack down on it and anyone having to do with it (even if they really don’t). Given this pretext, the purges and censorship have begun, with numerous prominent Twitter accounts being suspended. Agree with these accounts or not (I often don’t), it should give you pause that this kind of blanket censorship is being implemented. If you’re just a little bit politically unorthodox, you’re now at heightened risk of being slapped with the “alt-right” label (even if you’re on record as not identifying with it) and banned from outlets of communication that are both vital for pushing your ideas forward and for promoting any business you have.
But banning individuals is only stage one. Stage two is the recent drive by Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others to censor what they call “fake news.” The media has been on a blitz against these “fake news” articles, completely unironically given that this is the same crowd that uncritically signal boosted the Rolling Stone rape hoax to the ends of the world, “fact checks” Donald Trump’s comment that Hillary Clinton “acid washed” her private email server, selectively edits clips to promote the narrative that their pets in “Black Lives Matter” are entirely peaceful when they aren’t , and fails to disclose contacts and relationships with officials of the Democratic National Committee while writing about the campaign.
No, this is not the Onion.
While this drive deserves to be a subject of laughter, we must nevertheless still take it seriously. There have already been reports of shadow bans on Twitter with prominent figures such as Mike Cernovich and Scott Adams, and it’s far from out of the question that a blacklist of sorts gets put up for outlets such as Return Of Kings , which were crucial in taking control of the narrative during the campaign. All the while, the media continues to nitpick, inflate, and manufacture anything they can turn into a controversy about the incoming Trump administration. Narrative warfare is far from over.
What Can We Do? Fortunately, we have a master persuader in Donald Trump to lead the way, but we at the grassroots, the grunts in the trenches, if you will, must continue our efforts.
First, we need to begin to de-hypnotize those that can be. Scott Adams had some thoughts on that , but here are the crucial points:
1. The basis of the hypnosis in recent days has been around pairing the terms “alt-right” and “fake news” with all sorts of bad things.
2. Take away that pairing and you’ve made significant inroads.
I’ve A/B tested this sort of thing numerous times. Remember Mike Cernovich’s maxim that “conflict is attention and attention is influence.” Here are a few pointers.
1. Just like with women, frame control is paramount. The inevitable tactic that they’ll try to use is to associate anyone opposed to them with the worst elements of their “side.” Fortunately, our opponents have arguably worse elements given their blanket of moral superiority and cultural influence. Refocus the frame on those. Make them own their own worst elements.
2. Appeal to vanity. Most people like to think of themselves as “rational.” Tell them that their word-thinking is literally shutting down their critical thinking skills. I did this with a girl after the first debate, explaining to her that because “the movie in her head pictured a ‘Mexican’ in a certain way,” her critical thinking skills turned off, and that what Trump said about “the Mexican judge” would be equally applicable to someone of another heritage like “German.” It’s a long story, but her face was a picture. Tell them that they’re seeing things not based on reality, but on the movies playing in their heads, triggered by a certain word. Then watch the cognitive dissonance come.
On the broader level, here’s what we can do:
1. Continue on as usual. Continue to make a cultural impact. Get those websites, books, movies, and so on out there. Echoing what one member of the forum said: “politics is air cover, culture is the ground war.” They can try to censor “fake news” all they want, but we are too numerous to control if we don’t cooperate. It’s now time to redouble our efforts.
2. Don’t talk to any aggrieved victimhood class on social media if they’re acting hostile to you. They’ll use any excuse to ban you. Law 36: Disdain Things You Cannot Have, Ignoring them is the Best Revenge.
3. Begin to build new networks. Gab is up and coming and is far more free speech friendly.
4. I will echo what many others have said on the forum. MAKE FUN OF THEM. They’re a prime target for humor. Believe me when I say most people are sick of the special snowflakes on the street as well as the media.
This is a time of great opportunity, but we need to readjust for the new moves our opponents are making. They’re doing everything they can to censor us and de-legitimize Trump. That’s the next focus of the campaign. We must de-legitimize them in turn.
But take heart that we’re now in the ascendant. Otherwise they wouldn’t be making these moves. I recall when I first visited Return Of Kings and the forum nearly four years ago, there was a general malaise in the atmosphere. Day after day, it seemed, we were suffering another defeat. No longer.
What a ride it’s been.
Read Next: 3 Reasons Why You Should Apply For A Job In The Trump Administration
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Why the Jobs Aren’t Coming Back. The “modern day marvel.” The machines are taking over The candidates in the current campaign – or any campaign – are all promising to “bring back good jobs” to “create good jobs.” When asked how they would do that, they are all a little light on details.About a year ago, Joe Biden was in Michigan to celebrate the opening of a new manufacturing plant that made “small metal clamps” used in all kinds of industries to hold wiring, hoses. Etc. in place. The largest market is the auto industry but they are sold to hundreds of other manufacturers. Depending on size, shape, and material, these parts sell for a few pennies or less. You have to make a lot of these parts to have any substantial billing numbers.This new plant is fully automated and runs 24/7/365 with just 14 people. Joe was quite happy saying “manufacturing is returning to America.”However, there is a backstory. That plant had been around for years. It had employed 600 people on two shifts. Then, the Chinese began to undercut the pricing, and the plant was no longer profitable and closed. Two years later, it reopened as a fully automated plant and regained the business because it could now manufacture cheaper than the Chinese.There are several stories inside the main story.The first story is about the initial plant closing. Anytime 600 people lose their jobs, you know that some employee ended up losing their home, that some cars were reprocessed, that some college kid had to quit school, etc. Retailers got hit. Utilities at the plant were no longer needed. Suppliers got hit too.More at [ My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." 09
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By Brig Asif H. Raja on October 31, 2016
Asif Haroon Raja
Editor’s note: Both BG Raja and Imran Khan are VT followers and personal friends of the Senior Editor. This is a vital untold story. IK isn’t returning emails and it would be nice to hear his side. Our bureau chief in Islamabad, Raja Mujtaba, has been gone for two years now, a huge loss for VT.
Imran Khan (IK) and his partner Sheikh Rashid pursuing politics of agitation since mid-2014 are once again on a rampage and are determined to lock down Islamabad (Isbd) and seize power by force. Their tantrums have shot up the political temperature to a boiling point and has intensified uncertainty and insecurity. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Pervez Khattak along with PTI workers is exultantly moving in a convoy from Peshawar to reach Bani Gala and participate in the already declared November 2, D-Day for the final showdown with the government (govt) at D-chowk. He has puerilely given an ethnic color to his march by playing the Pashtun card. He and his convey has been greeted by the Punjab Police with tear gas shells at Attock Bridge and Hazro interchange. The PML-Q, PAT and PSP have pledged support to IK but from a distance. The PPP is gearing up to add fuel to fire. Maulana Fazlur Rahman led JUI-F has stood up in support of the beleaguered PML-N and has warned PTI that its march to Isbd will be contested. ANP, NP, QWP and MQM (P) sympathies are also with the ruling party.
The fires of agitation lit by the PTI has spread to other cities as well. Containerization has taken the life of one army officer and one child and is causing great inconvenience to the dwellers of twin cities. Media is playing its usual negative role to keep the pot sizzling. One-seater Sheikh Rashid is being glorified and so is the bellicosity of IK, while govt’s defensive acts are demeaned. Anchors and analysts are busy upping the ante and none seem to be interested in defusing the volatile situation. Hate campaign against NS and his family by the social media has touched new heights of slander. Political wrangling and filibustering is further damaging the image of Pakistan in the world and the cause of Kashmir.
The master planners sitting in London, Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi are keeping their fingers crossed and are excitedly watching the gathering storm and hoping that the govt machinery in Isbd will be paralyzed and will force Nawaz Sharif (NS) to resign, or the Army to intervene and take over. India is incessantly throwing logs into the fire by heating up the LoC, while RAW-NDS are continuing with their covert operations in selected zones. Their major interest is to disrupt work on CPEC.
Followers of IK are bubbling with enthusiasm and have gone hyper. Some were caught carrying weapons, ammunition, tear gas shells and bullet proof jackets. Most are carrying batons and young girls are equally aggressive. PTI’s armed Tiger Force has been tasked to battle with the Police/FC if stopped. They are already seeing their charismatic leader wearing the crown and with Aladdin lamp in his hand removing all the chronic ailments of Pakistan in a flash. They are convinced that once he seizes power, milk and honey will start flowing in the rivers of Pakistan and miseries of the downtrodden will be alleviated. One reason of their euphoria is the apparent estrangement of the Army leadership over the security leak scandal. Their joys knew no bounds when Information Minister Pervez Rashid was sacked. It was seen as the beginning of the demise of NS Empire. It has further energized the PTI workers and they seem fully charged up to execute the orders of their Captain to lock down the capital city on November 2. IK has taken it as a last ditch battle. For him it is a do or die battle. He is once again expectantly looking towards Gen Raheel Sharif to raise his finger.
Undoubtedly the security leak has suddenly become a bigger challenge for the govt than the IK threat. A high powered committee comprising of members from ISI, MI and IB will carry out in-depth investigation to trace out the culprits responsible for feeding the story and that too in twisted form to the Dawn newspaper, who were behind it, what was the motive, apportion blame and prescribe punishment. It is to be seen where the trail ends. Absence of the author of the controversial story Cyril Almeida will make things difficult for the investigators.
Unlike its defensive stance to the 2014 sit-in, which had lingered on for 126 days without any outcome, this time the govt is in a defiant mood and is flexing its muscles to go to any length to defeat the sinister plans of the invaders. Containers have been placed on all entry points of Isbd and along Peshawar-Isbd road and along Bani Gala road. Large contingents of the police and paramilitary troops have been deployed while the army has been alerted to be prepared to defend Isbd under Article 245. At the moment, the entire leadership of PTI have got stranded in IK residence at Bani Gala. NS has addressed two public meetings in KP and his tone and tenor gave no sign of nervousness. Rather he was quite confident to win next elections in 2018 on the strength of his achievements and dismal performance of PTI in KP and PPP in Sindh. The govt side is of the view that there is no reason for IK to agitate when the Supreme Court has accepted his petition and NS has been summoned on account of Panama scandal. They say, PTI youth wing violated the curfew imposed under Section 144 CrPC and also defied Isbd High Court restraining order not to create mayhem.
Pervez Rashid was in bad books of IK and his colleagues due to his counter jibes whenever IK lambasted NS. But he was not the most sought target. His unceremonious exit or an in-house change doesn’t fulfil the ambition of IK to become the PM. He desires that NS should be booted out or he quits voluntarily irrespective of the fact that his name does not appear in the list of account holders in Off Shore Company. He has no idea what is in store for him if NS is forced to throw in his towel. In all likelihood, the ruckus in the aftermath of NS departure will drown IK’s ambitions. It cannot be denied that NS is still the most popular leader and he has many feathers in his cap. His 3 rd time premature boot out will make him a political martyr and will not be taken lightly by his fans in Punjab. Baluchistan govt and JUI-F would also not welcome his ouster particularly when he had presented him and his family for accountability and the matter was with the courts.
The situation will become ripe for chaos which outside powers have all along been trying to foment. The Army may have to grudgingly step in to restore semblance of order. In the wake of tense geo-political environment, terrorism, acute polarization, feudal mindset, partisanship, parochialism and secular-Islamic divide, it will not be possible for the Army to restore order and hold elections within three months as prescribed in the constitution. Supposedly, if elections do take place within 3 months, PML-N will surely win the race and perhaps PTI may lose KP as well.
Elections without reforms will otherwise be an exercise in futility. The Army will perforce have to stretch its rule to 3-5 years if not more to be able to take Operation Zarb-e-Azb, Rangers operation in Karachi, FC operation in Baluchistan and ongoing combing operation to their logical ends; to implement the National Action Plan in letter and spirit, and to complete the vital project of CPEC. Additionally it will have to carry out following reforms for a better morrow and for enabling environment for true democracy to flourish: 1. Electoral, political, police, bureaucracy, judicial, education, media reforms. 2. Breaking the nexus between crime, politics, terrorism and corruption. 3. Effective accountability system. 4. Cleansing the Aegean Stables.
All this will be possible only when there is strict martial law and politicians of all hues are kept at bay. Will this arrangement be acceptable to IK? If he is prepared to wait for 5 years, why not hold on for 1 ½ years and contest the 2018 elections and win the coveted crown!! Moreover, what is the guarantee that the Army will be able to put everything right since it was not able to do so in the past? Things may become messier. Memory of our people is very short lived. Soon they will forget the ills of NS and his good deeds will be recalled with fondness and the Army will be put on the mat with a vengeance as had happened during the four military rules. True to their tradition, anti-Pakistan foreign powers will be behind the anti-Army campaign. Political destabilization suit the conspirators since it makes it easier for them to exert pressure and dictate terms. It is indeed most unfortunate that our politicians are fighting for power among each other, while the media and so-called educated lot are supporting their favorite political leaders and feel no qualm in passing lecherous and insulting remarks against their opponents. Preferably, all our guns should be collectively firing at our enemies who are bent upon breaking up Pakistan.
The writer is a retired Brig, war veteran, defence analyst, columnist, author of 5 books, Vice Chairman Thinkers Forum Pakistan, DG Measac Research Centre, Member Executive Council PESS. [email protected] Related Posts:
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The temporary alliance between Senator Ted Cruz and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, formed to deny Donald J. Trump the Republican presidential nomination, was already fraying almost to the point of irrelevance on Monday, only hours after it was announced to great fanfare. With the pact, the two candidates agreed to cede forthcoming primary contests to each other. Mr. Kasich would, most crucially, stand down in Indiana’s primary on May 3 to give Mr. Cruz a better chance to defeat Mr. Trump there, while Mr. Cruz would leave Oregon and New Mexico to Mr. Kasich. It appeared to be a measure of last resort, but initially it seemed like a breakthrough. Mr. Cruz trumpeted what he called the “big news” in Indiana, a state that appears pivotal to stopping Mr. Trump from winning a majority of delegates. “John Kasich has decided to pull out of Indiana to give us a contest with Donald Trump,” he said. But at his own campaign stop in Philadelphia on Monday, Mr. Kasich tamped down Mr. Cruz’s triumphalism. Voters in Indiana, Mr. Kasich said, “ought to vote for me,” even if he would not be campaigning publicly there. He added, “I don’t see this as any big deal. ” Under the best of circumstances, the arrangement between Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich would seem to be a long shot — more of an expedient to stop Mr. Trump from taking a big step toward winning the nomination next week in Indiana than a permanent joining of forces. Far from forming any kind of unity ticket, Mr. Trump’s surviving challengers have both vowed to triumph in an open convention in Cleveland, and they remain irreconcilable on key matters of policy. Their agreement dealt only with three states, leaving an open question as to how directly they might compete with each other everywhere else. Even in Indiana, emerging as the most important state, the pact appeared something less than decisive. While Mr. Kasich’s campaign canceled his public appearances in the state, the governor was still slated to visit Indianapolis on Tuesday for a event at the Columbia Club. And he still had meetings scheduled with a series of Indiana Republicans, including Gov. Mike Pence, according to a leading Republican in the state. Mr. Cruz’s campaign privately advised supporters on Sunday not to endorse tactical voting, whereby his supporters might switch their allegiance to Mr. Kasich in states where the Ohio governor is running stronger against Mr. Trump. “We never tell voters who to vote for,” read the suggested Cruz talking point. “We’re simply letting folks know where we will be focusing our time and resources. ” Mr. Trump, who has taunted his opponents throughout the race for their Keystone Kops approach to undermining his campaign, seemed to relish the continuing strain between his remaining rivals. On Twitter, he mocked “Lyin’ Ted Cruz” and “1 for 38 Kasich,” referring to the latter’s dismal winning record in the Republican race, for being unable to beat him on their own. “So they have to team up (collusion) in a two on one,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Shows weakness!” At a campaign rally in Rhode Island, Mr. Trump boasted that his opponents were united against him, and said he welcomed their “collusion. ” “Actually I was happy,” he said, “because it shows how weak they are. ” Allies of both Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich did not exactly disagree with that assessment, and acknowledged that the prospect of imminent disaster in Indiana had been the impetus to reach their deal, such as it is. Still, aides to Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich seem acutely aware that they risk turning off voters who find the arrangement unseemly. Even before his rivals’ agreement, Mr. Trump had complained repeatedly that the nominating process was “rigged” against him. With Mr. Trump expected to win all five of the East Coast states that vote on Tuesday, the next opportunity to slow his campaign will come a week later in Indiana. Republicans believe he must be stopped there if they are to deny him the nomination. “Indiana is a for Ted Cruz, and it’s a for anybody who doesn’t think Donald Trump should be the nominee,” said David McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth, a conservative group opposed to Mr. Trump and supportive of Mr. Cruz. The group is airing an ad in Indiana urging voters to vote for Mr. Cruz, not Mr. Kasich, to stop Mr. Trump, and officials said they intended to keep it on the air despite the agreement. On Monday, Trusted Leadership PAC, a group supporting Mr. Cruz, said it also planned to keep a previously announced attack ad against Mr. Kasich on the air in Indiana. The group added, though, that it had shelved advertising plans in New Mexico and Oregon. Charles R. Black Jr. an adviser to Mr. Kasich, said it would be helpful to his candidate — and “a big blow to Trump” — for Mr. Cruz to win Indiana. The point of announcing the deal, Mr. Black said, was to indicate to outside “super PACs” where the campaigns and candidates were marshaling their resources. Mr. Black played down the degree to which voters would cast their ballots strategically, switching allegiance between candidates to thwart Mr. Trump. “Either the guy gets to 1, 237 or he doesn’t,” he said. “Voters don’t focus on this tactical, inside baseball stuff. ” For months, rivals of the Republican have claimed that he has succeeded only because the vote has been spread among so many alternative candidates. That argument appeared to falter in New York last week, when Mr. Trump won 60 percent of the vote and captured nearly all of the state’s delegates. Now that each of them has been granted a cleaner shot against Mr. Trump — in different states, and at different moments over the next few weeks — Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich will have no easy excuse if Mr. Trump continues to prevail. While Mr. Cruz faces the more immediate test in Indiana, Mr. Kasich will have to make swift use of his free hand in Oregon. Though the state’s primary date is May 17, the election there is conducted by mail, and voters will begin to receive their ballots this week. Ron Saxton, a prominent Kasich supporter in Oregon, said the deal “puts more pressure” on Mr. Kasich and Mr. Cruz to perform strongly against Mr. Trump. But Mr. Saxton, a former Republican candidate for governor, said there was catching up to do in his state. “None of the three G. O. P. campaigns have any real Oregon visibility yet, just the national press,” Mr. Saxton wrote in an email. “Since Cruz’s name remains on the ballot, my guess is that he’ll get close to the same votes he’d get if he hadn’t ‘withdrawn.’ Is he going to actively encourage his supporters to vote for Kasich?” On Monday, both candidates swatted away questions about whether the deal was something of an underhanded ploy. Mr. Cruz said the agreement was aimed at empowering voters against the denying that the effort to stop Mr. Trump was subverting the will of the people. “This is entirely about the will of the people,” he said. “This is about winning the votes of the Hoosier State. ” Mr. Kasich, in Pennsylvania, grew quickly agitated at the suggestion that his deal with Mr. Cruz reflected desperation. “Me? No, I’m not desperate — are you?” he asked a reporter. “Are you desperate?”
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A discussion event on driving conservative speakers like Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos off of college campuses is taking place at UC Berkeley on Thursday evening.[ are NOT fighting for ”free speech”. Come hear argument why they SHOULD be driven off campus. #WorldPressFreedomDay #Berkeley pic. twitter. — RefuseFascismSF (@SFRefuseFascism) May 3, 2017, The event, which is titled, “Battle for Berkeley: Why It’s Right and Righteous to Drive Fascists Off Campus, and Out of Power,” is scheduled for 6 PM on Thursday, May 4. Advertised as a “talk and challenge to debate,” the event is being held near the heart of the UC Berkeley campus. The discussion is being led by Sunsara Taylor, a leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, who has argued for “driving this regime out” with regards to Donald Trump’s presidency. A flyer advertising for the event describes Taylor as a “revolutionary communist and a follower of Bob Avakian. ” Avakian, a graduate of UC Berkeley, is the chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party. On Thursday, May 4: ”The Battle for Berkeley” — ”a talk and a challenge to debate” by @SunsaraTaylor @RevolutionBksB #berkmtg pic. twitter. — Berkeleyside (@berkeleyside) May 3, 2017, Taylor, who has compared both President George W. Bush and President Trump to Adolph Hitler, will argue on Thursday that students at Berkeley should actively resist the presence of conservative speakers like Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos, who have both had events canceled at the school after violence from leftist protesters. Members of the Berkeley College Republicans had trouble arranging events with speakers David Horowitz and Ann Coulter after university administrators placed unusual restrictions on their events, such as forcing them to take place far from the main center of campus and forcing them to be held during regular class hours. For Coulter’s event, law enforcement claimed that there would be a 99 percent chance of violence if the event were to have taken place. Taylor’s event is set to proceed as originally scheduled. Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart. com
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Another astonishing Security Council (SC) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that the Main Directorate for Migration Affairs (GUVM) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) reported this morning that former Clinton Foundation CEO Eric Braverman, who last week applied for “urgent and immediate” political asylum at the Russian Embassy in New York City, failed to keep his scheduled interview yesterday—with speculation being made by Federation intelligence analysts that his having gone missing is “directly related” to the mysterious and sudden death of Donald Trump’s top money guru E. Lee Hennessee. [Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]
According to this report, Mr. Braverman was scheduled to return to the Russian Embassy in New York City yesterday for an in-depth interview related to the request he made last week for “urgent and immediate” political asylum in Russia—and as we had previously reported, sent shockwaves through the Kremlin as some Federation intelligence analysts believed his request was for the purpose of “protection by publicity” due to his fears that the Clinton Crime Family wanted him killed.
Fears that he was being targeted for death by the Clinton Crime Family, specifically Hillary Clinton, this report continues, was due to Mr. Braverman’s past association with the Clinton Foundation criminal money laundering organization that he headed as CEO after being installed there by Chelsea Clinton who discovered for herself the massive corruption of this supposed to be charity.
With the American press widely reporting (though skeptically) Mr. Braverman’s asylum request (“a simple “here I am” could quiet the waters – but there has been none”), however, this report notes, Federation intelligence analysts contributing to this report note that not only did he fail to keep yesterday’s interview date at the Russian Embassy in New York City, he has yet to publically deny his actions, and since 12 October has failed to even update his Twitter page account.
To why Mr. Braverman has gone silent and missing, this report continues, the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is attributing to yet another Clinton Crime Family related mysterious death—this one being Donald Trump’s longtime billionaire money guru E. Lee Hennessee, age 64, found dead this past week in her Trump Plaza home, located in West Palm Beach, Florida—with one media account suggesting it was related to a domestic harm case involving her husband and longtime business partner, and another saying she died of a stroke—but with no autopsy having yet been performed.
Donald Trump’s money guru E. Lee Hennessee, this report explains, was one of the most powerful women financiers on Wall Street whose company, Hennessee Group LLC, achieved a staggering 2,132% increase of profits between 1987-2015 and was co-run by her husband Charles Gradante.
As to why Hillary Clinton feared and hated E. Lee Hennessee, this report says, is due to her having created for Donald Trump an “extraordinary/unique” investment portfolio that, in essence, has allowed him to run his revolutionary presidential campaign entirely debt free costing him virtually nothing as for every dollar he spent, he was able to gain back two more—thus making it the first US presidential election run in history to turn a profit.
With what is infamously called the Clinton Body Count rapidly increasing through this US presidential election cycle, this report concludes, there now appears to be a breaking of support of Hillary Clinton among America’s elites, with even the Chicago Tribune this past week saying Democrats should ask Clinton to step aside as the American political system is breaking down and their warning that it’s been crumbling for some time now, and the establishment elite know it and they’re properly frightened—and is most assuredly going to get worse with the shocking revelation that the FBI has now discovered a staggering 650,000 Hillary Clinton secret emails on the computer of her top aide Huma Abedin’s disgraced pedophile husband Anthony Weiner.
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A CHANCE encounter between two of Ireland’s leading provocateurs and opinion-havers, Eamon Dunphy and George Hook, has resulted in a stand off which now enters its 12th hour.
Bumping into each other as they both sought to post a letter, presumably of complaint, at their local postbox, Dunphy and Hook found themselves politely disagreeing on who is the more controversial figure.
This polite exchange remained reasonable for just 2.46 seconds before both men began trading exaggerated claims and quips, in an effort to both convey they were the proud owners of the Nation’s most contrary opinions.
“No. No. No! You merely despise children’s joyful faces when they eat ice-cream. I hate the little shits with every essence of my being. They’re clumsy, careless, they’re a cod, a fraud,” Dunphy barked at Hook after the Newstalk radio host and rugby pundit suggested children were just the worst.
In a desperate bid to one up his contrary counterpart, Hook’s eyes frantically searched the street around him for something to give out about.
“Cars, too noisy. Roads! Some have potholes. The sky, too bloody high for my liking. Dunphy, I bloody hate that crevasse-faced tosser,” Hook bellowed as he commented on one thing after another, trying to cement his reputation as a controversial champion of Ireland.
The pair were then forcibly removed from the street by passers by who couldn’t take much more of their droning, placing them in a room together, which has been rented especially for the broadcasters for the next month.
With the stalemate continuing into its 12th hour both men are aware they could secure victory by mentioning how Hitler made the trains run on time, but neither seem ready to share the opinion just yet.
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HOUSTON — Follow our live N. F. L. playoffs coverage here. Brock Osweiler redeemed himself after last month’s benching. Jadeveon Clowney established himself as a postseason force. And the Houston Texans got their first playoff victory since the 2012 season, beating the Oakland Raiders, on Saturday. Osweiler threw for a touchdown and ran for another to lead the Texans to the win, in the round. Clowney, erasing doubts that he deserved to be the top pick in the 2014 draft, got his first career interception, on the Raiders’ second drive. Osweiler, who got his job back last week after Tom Savage sustained a concussion, finished with only 168 passing yards but played his best game of the season. “It just goes back to having confidence in my teammates,” said Osweiler, who had never played in a playoff game, having been benched by the Denver Broncos last postseason in favor of Peyton Manning. “Believing in what you see, and just rip it. Cut it loose, and don’t have any hesitation. ” Houston ( ) and its defense, led by Clowney and Whitney Mercilus, advanced to face either the Kansas City Chiefs or the New England Patriots in the divisional round. Clowney was roundly criticized in his first two seasons before his star turn this season as he helped make up for the loss of J. J. Watt, who was placed on injured reserve in September. “Things didn’t go well earlier in my career, but I’m on the right track now,” Clowney said. The Raiders were making their first trip to the playoffs since the 2002 season, when they went to the Super Bowl, but it ended with a thud behind the struggles of their quarterback, the rookie Connor Cook. He threw for 161 yards, with one touchdown and three interceptions. “It was his first start, on the road, in a playoff game, against the No. defense,” Raiders Coach Jack Del Rio said. “It was a tough draw for him. We had hopes that we would be able to do enough around him so he wouldn’t have to do as much. ” Cook became the first quarterback in N. F. L. history to make his first start in a playoff game. The usual starter, Derek Carr, a contender for the Most Valuable Player Award, broke his leg two weeks ago, and Matt McGloin injured his shoulder last weekend. The Raiders were also missing their star left tackle, Donald Penn, whose streak of 160 straight starts ended because of a knee injury. The Raiders ( ) got touchdowns from Latavius Murray and Andre Holmes, but cornerback David Amerson said things would have been different if the team had fewer injuries. “I’ve got all the faith in Connor or Matt — any backups we’ve got,” he said. “But they know, at full strength, ain’t nobody in the league touching us, man. We’re going to take this loss on the chin, and we’re going to come back, for sure. ” Houston led by 13 at halftime after touchdowns by DeAndre Hopkins and Lamar Miller, who scored a play after Clowney’s interception. Houston increased its lead to on a run by Osweiler early in the fourth quarter.
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MIAMI — Behind a locked door aboard Norwegian Cruise Line’s newest ship is a world most of the vessel’s 4, 200 passengers will never see. And that is exactly the point. In the Haven, as this ship within a ship is called, about 275 elite guests enjoy not only a concierge and butler service, but also a private pool, sun deck and restaurant, creating an oasis free from the crowds elsewhere on the Norwegian Escape. If Haven passengers venture out of their aerie to see a show, a flash of their gold key card gets them the best seats in the house. When the ship returns to port, they disembark before everyone else. “It was always the intention to make the Haven somewhat obscure so it wasn’t in the face of the masses,” said Kevin Sheehan, Norwegian’s former chief executive, who helped design the Escape with the hope of attracting a richer clientele. “That segment of the population wants to be surrounded by people with similar characteristics. ” With disparities in wealth greater than at any time since the Gilded Age, the gap is widening between the highly affluent — who find themselves behind the velvet ropes of today’s economy — and everyone else. It represents a degree of economic and social stratification unseen in America since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, J. P. Morgan and the rigidly separated classes on the Titanic a century ago. What is different today, though, is that companies have become much more adept at identifying their top customers and knowing which psychological buttons to push. The goal is to create extravagance and exclusivity for the select few, even if it stirs up resentment elsewhere. In fact, research has shown, a little envy can be good for the bottom line. When travelers switch planes in Atlanta, New York and other cities, Delta ferries them between terminals in a Porsche, what the airline calls a “ service. ” Last month, Walt Disney World began offering access to visitors who want to avoid the crowds. In other words, you basically get the Magic Kingdom to yourself. When Royal Caribbean ships call at Labadee, the cruise line’s private resort in Haiti, elite guests get their own special beach club away from fellow travelers — an enclave within an enclave. “We are living much more cloistered lives in terms of class,” said Thomas Sander, who directs a project on civic engagement at the Kennedy School at Harvard. “We are doing a much worse job of living out the egalitarian dream that has been our hallmark. ” Emmanuel Saez, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, estimates that the top 1 percent of American households now controls 42 percent of the nation’s wealth, up from less than 30 percent two decades ago. The top 0. 1 percent accounts for 22 percent, nearly double the 1995 proportion. But even as income inequality and the wealth gap stoke the discontent that has emerged as a powerful force in this year’s presidential election, for American business it represents something else entirely. From cruise ship operators and casinos to amusement parks and airlines, the rise of the 1 percent spells opportunity and profit. Today, ever greater resources are being invested in winning market share at the very top of the pyramid, sometimes at the cost of diminished service for the rest of the public. While incomes are stagnating, the period since the end of the Great Recession has been a boom time for the very rich and the businesses that cater to them. From 2010 to 2014, the number of American households with at least $1 million in financial assets jumped by nearly to just under seven million, according to a study by the Boston Consulting Group. For the $1 cohort, estimated wealth grew by 7. 2 percent annually from 2010 to 2014, eight times the pace of gains for families with less than $1 million. “You go where the money is,” said Steven Fazzari, a professor of economics at Washington University in St. Louis. “This is where companies are innovating and where there is demand. ” In many ways, the rise of the velvet rope reverses the great democratization of travel and leisure, and other elements of American life, in the War II era. As the Jet Set gave way to budget airlines, in places like airports and theme parks even the wealthiest often rubbed shoulders with hoi polloi. These days, whether the provider is a private company or a public agency, special treatment for the very rich isn’t personal, it’s business. Late last year, public officials in Los Angeles agreed to lease a separate facility at LAX to a private firm that would serve celebrities or anyone else willing to pay $1, 800 to skip the traffic jams and lines at the main terminals. Of course, it could be more extreme, and in the past it was. The Titanic, in the early 20th century, separated the different classes of travelers with metal gates. In the 19th century, French railways refrained from putting roofs on wagons so that passengers who could afford more expensive seats would not hesitate to spend a few extra francs. What is new is just how far big American companies are now willing to go to pamper the biggest spenders. For example, as guests boarded Norwegian’s Breakaway ship in New York recently, cramming into a handful of elevators, there was ample room in one bank. But it was to anyone but Haven guests going to the top decks. Not far away, in the ship’s theater, red velvet ropes cordoned off a section up front for Haven passengers. At SeaWorld, a family of four can jump to the front of the line and score the best seats for rides and shows for an extra $80, in addition to the basic $320 admission. For people in the market for something more exclusive, there is Discovery Cove, next door to SeaWorld’s traditional park in Orlando. Forget merely swimming with the dolphins. Today, parents can relax at a cabana and beach of their own, while their budding marine biologists spend the day with a trainer, feed the park’s birds, otters, nurse sharks and other creatures and, of course, frolic with the dolphins as well. There are no lines to cut here: Daily attendance is capped at 1, 300. A day at Discovery Cove can easily cost $1, 000 for a family of four. Next year, Crystal Cruises will begin an airborne version of one of its luxury ships: a customized Boeing 777 that ferries passengers on or trips around the world. In theory, according to Steve Tadelis, a professor of economics at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley, “when an industry is able to create a richer line of products for people looking to spend their money, that makes everybody happier. But getting it right in reality is very, very hard. ” As companies separate their clientele, a debate has developed over just how obvious the distinctions should be. Some experts, like David Clarke, who works with leisure industry giants as a principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers, say that it is best to be open about what amounts to a caste system. “It’s about transparency,” he said. “What customers hate is when you’re trying to hide stuff and are not being honest with them. ” Many companies, though, have discovered that offering ordinary customers just a whiff of the rarefied air can actually enhance the bottom line, even if it stirs a certain amount of envy and resentment. As coach passengers pile into giant 747s and A380s, for example, “a glimpse of a shower or private suite creates a marker in people’s minds,” said Alex Dichter, a director at McKinsey who works with major airlines. “A lot of brands use products like these as an aspirational tool, and class segregation can create something to which people can aspire. ” While choices for the rich are expanding, poorer Americans are benefiting less from product innovation, according to new research by Xavier Jaravel, a graduate student in economics at Harvard. Whether they are selling fancy cookware, natural cheeses or single malt Scotch, purveyors of goods aimed at the wealthy are competing more and offering new products. Downscale items like canned meat or tobacco aren’t drawing as many new entrants into the market. There is also increasing demand from the most affluent shoppers. Spending by the top 5 percent of earners rose nearly 35 percent from 2003 to 2012 after adjusting for inflation, according to a study by Mr. Fazzari and Barry Z. Cynamon of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. For everyone else, spending grew less than 10 percent. And with the rise of the Internet and big data, companies can pinpoint and favor these wealthiest customers in ways unimaginable even a decade ago. “At the high end, we can get into real psychographics and know who spends more time at the concierge or goes skiing in February,” said Bjorn Hanson, who teaches courses on tourism and hospitality management at New York University. For companies trying to entice moneyed customers, that means identifying and anticipating what they want. “The premium customer doesn’t want to be asked questions,” said Mr. Clarke of PricewaterhouseCoopers. “They don’t want friction. They want things to happen through osmosis. ” But for people at the lower end of the market, as well as in the middle, plenty of friction remains. The is that the amount of hassle is precisely calibrated to just how much you are willing to pay. “At the low end, people’s expectations have fundamentally changed,” Mr. Clarke said. “Because it’s a fraction of the cost, people say, ‘I’m willing to take some discomfort because my wallet is staying full. ’” Executives describe the virtues of elite segmentation with a directness that might well serve as fodder for supporters of Occupy Wall Street or Senator Bernie Sanders. At its debut in 2006, the Haven was swamped by tourists from regular quarters who paid $200 to upgrade to one of its 40 or so rooms, Mr. Sheehan recalled. So he ordered an immediate halt to the upgrades, which undercut profit margins and undermined the Haven’s main selling point, exclusivity. “We needed to fill the Haven by getting the right people on the ship,” said Mr. Sheehan, who stepped down as chief executive last year. “When the masses overwhelmed the group in the Haven, they didn’t have the experience they were looking for. ” Mr. Sheehan’s focus on wealthier travelers proved prescient. Norwegian’s stock has surged. And as the company designed new vessels in recent years, the Haven became more defined — with its own pool, lounge, bar and restaurant — and more isolated from the rest of the ship. With the launch of the Epic in 2010, “a guest could enter the key card for access, and never leave,” said Andy Stuart, Norwegian’s president. And by last year, when the even newer Escape sailed on its maiden voyage, the Haven’s 95 staterooms were located so high up in the forward part of the ship that even guests in comparatively expensive staterooms might remain unaware of its existence. Depending on the season, a room in the Haven might cost a couple $10, 000 for a weeklong cruise vs. $3, 000 for an ordinary stateroom elsewhere on the ship. While the Haven is hidden, or at least camouflaged, on Norwegian’s cruise ships, its archrival Royal Caribbean, by contrast, makes no secret of what is available to passengers who pay the most. Its Royal Suite class isn’t a ship within a ship, but it serves much the same function with one significant difference: Regular passengers can push their noses up against the glass, literally. On Royal Caribbean’s new ship Anthem, diners must first walk past the frosted glass windows of Coastal Kitchen, reserved for suite occupants, before they can crowd around the buffet tables of the Windjammer Café. There are no chafing dishes in sight at the Coastal Kitchen, where the order of the day is white table cloths and service. The atmosphere is as calm and leisurely as Windjammer is hectic, although suite guests are free to dine at the latter if they like. Royal Caribbean’s business approach contrasts strikingly with Norwegian’s. While Norwegian executives decided to mostly hide the Haven from view, Royal Caribbean went with transparency. “It’s the American way,” said Michael Bayley, president of Royal Caribbean. “I think society is prepared to accept that if you pay more for certain elements, then you deserve them. ” Mr. Bayley and Royal Caribbean’s chairman, Richard Fain, say they ultimately decided against the concept after studying the Haven. “That’s not the mojo or the culture of Royal Caribbean,” Mr. Bayley said. “The idea of segregating people into a class system is . But if you live on Central Park, you are going to pay more. That’s how the system works. ” As has been the case elsewhere in the leisure industry in recent years, Royal Caribbean has become more comfortable with heightening the contrast between the treatment meted out to ordinary passengers and the level of service reserved for the top tier. Royal Caribbean has always considered the psychology of its guests when it designs new ships or introduces new amenities, said Adam Goldstein, the company’s chief operating officer, but there has been a shift in passenger expectations in recent years. “For a long time there was an acceptance that outside the door of your room, you were on an equal footing,” he said. “We didn’t attempt to have any differentiation in how services were delivered. ” Since the late 1990s, however, “there has been a huge evolution, maybe a revolution in attitudes,” Mr. Goldstein said. In addition to larger rooms or softer sheets, big spenders want to be coddled nowadays. “They are looking for constant validation that they are a customer,” he said. For example, room service requests from Royal Suite occupants are automatically routed to a number different from the one used by regular passengers, who get slower, less personalized service. With a week in a top Royal Suite costing upward of $30, 000, compared with $4, 000 for an ordinary cabin, the focus is on “very affluent travelers, and we have no trouble filling these rooms,” Mr. Bayley said. In May, the company will roll out its Royal Genie program — essentially a personal servant for the highest spenders on board. Royal Genies will research their guests’ preferences even before they come aboard and come up with surprises like drinks with their favorite vodka or Scotch. Even though this kind of pampering might be good for business, and delight those on the right side of the velvet rope, the gap between the privileged and the rest may ultimately leave everyone feeling uneasy, said Barry J. Nalebuff, a professor of management at Yale. “If I’m in the back of the plane, I want to hiss at the people in first class,” said Mr. Nalebuff, who has advised many Fortune 100 companies. “If I’m up front, I cringe as people walk by. ”
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Today, Project Veritas released the fourth video in their “Rigging the Election” series, titled, “ Rigging the Election – Video IV: $20K Wire Transfer From Belize Returned .” In it, Democracy Partners founder Robert Creamer, who visited the White House 342 times during President Obama’s time there — 45 times with Obama himself — and has since resigned from his position, is on tape talking about shady, offshore donations.
At the beginning of the video, Creamer admits how close he is to the White House: “I’ve known the president since he was a community organizer in Chicago […] Every morning, I am on a call at 10:30 that goes over the message being driven by campaign headquarters […] I do a lot of work with the White House.”
MRC TV reported about the video that unearthed major donations from offshore accounts in Belize that were “mysteriously returned”:
O’Keefe then claims the Clinton campaign violated Federal Election Campaign (FEC) coordination laws. He alleges they sent a fake possible donor, named Charles Roth III, to speak with members of Americans United for Change (AUFC), another organization working with the Clinton campaign, to see how they would go about helping a “donor” who wanted to stop Donald Trump from winning the presidency.
“Roth” spoke to Creamer about donating $20,000, and also inquired about how to affect Trump campaign events.
According to Creamer, who responded to Roth: “Now, Trump events is fine and frankly I spent most of my time overseeing the Trump events around the country. I mean that’s what I do, that’s what I do for the Clinton campaign…so that’s interesting as well.”
Creamer then instructed Roth to send a check to AUFC — the group that O’Keefe reported Creamer was a general consultant for. Creamer admitted that he was a consultant for AUFC, but conveniently, after the first two Project Veritas videos were releaed, Creamer’s name was scrubbed from their site.
Project Veritas dug even deeper into the corruption after AUFC confirmed that they got the $20,000 donation check from Roth via the offshore Belize account. To do so, Project Veritas sent another undercover journalist to intern with Democracy Partners and work with Creamer.
Scott Foval, who we met in the previous “Rigged Election” series videos, is now the former national field director for AUFC and spoke to who he believed was a representative for Roth: “If he wants to get dirty, we can get dirty.”
Much more was unearthed in the video — including Cesar Vargas, an illegal alien and founder of the Dream Action Coalition — who talked about conducting voter fraud in a meeting with Foval.
“What’s the goal of the campaign right,” Vargas asked and added, “Yeah and for me I totally get it, this is illegal, this is something that can be done.”
Project Veritas created a fictitious “money man” for Roth named Michael Carlson to see what these Democrat operatives would do with the promise of more money dangled in front of them. Creamer spoke to Carlson on the phone about a fictitious, wealthy client living in Syria that wanted to come to the U.S. Creamer told Carlson:
I just need to, I will try and find a couple of good referrals to you and get back to you pretty quick then. Okay? On the first…Well, I’ll just talk to…the guy I’m going to talk to first, to see if this is up his alley, the first thing is up his alley. It’s the guy who ran the campaign for President Obama. He has a firm that’s pretty well connected.
Now, where did the $20,000 go? MRC-TV reported:
The shocker of why the $20,000 was mysteriously returned led back to the direction of Woodhouse [AUFC President Brad Woodhouse]. O’Keefe claims that once Woodhouse learned of the future release of the undercover videos, the money was wire returned back to the offshore account in Belize with Woodhouse claiming suspicion of a foreign donation.
Make sure to watch the entire Project Veritas video so you can see the corruption for yourself — including a pay-to-pay situation involving Creamer who was caught admitting that a donation could buy a meeting with Clinton.
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Cranberries are a beautiful addition to any dinner plate. Their rich color dresses everything up and adds a touch of complex sweetness. Cranberries are also extremely healthy—they are chockfull of antioxidants and proanthocyanidins (or PACs) that help to prevent the adhesion of certain of bacteria (these anti-adhesion properties inhibit the bacteria associated with E. coli, and potentially those associated with gum disease and stomach ulcers as well). Cranberries are also rich in phytonutrients, giving you an upper hand at combatting various illnesses. Women have long-been using cranberry juices and extract to treat and avoid urinary tract infections.
With Thanksgiving around the corner, you might find yourself with an abundance of cranberries on hand. Resist the urge to make typical cranberry sauce and call it a day–the following recipes show a few exciting ways to change things up. And don’t limit yourself to the holidays! These dishes taste great year round.
Cranberry Red Wine Relish This recipe is a kind of adult version of the classic cranberry sauce. Tasty and colorful, if you make big batches you can put them in mason jars for beautiful holiday gifts for your friends and neighbors.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups white sugar 1 1/4 cups dry red wine ( this is a fancy one I use during the holidays) 12 ounces fresh cranberries, rinsed and sorted 1 cinnamon stick 2 tablespoons orange zest, cut into slivers Directions:
Combine sugar and red wine in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Add the cranberries, cinnamon stick and orange peel. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring often until most of the cranberries have burst (about 15 minutes). Remove from heat and chill before serving. Cranberry Chutney Again, this is a bit of a more festive take on classic cranberry sauce. Perfect with turkey and other holiday dinners .
Ingredients:
12 ounces (or 1 package) fresh cranberries 1 orange, peeled, tough membrane removed, chopped or 1 small can pineapple tidbits, drained 1/4 cup orange juice 2 tablespoons agave nectar 1 large apple, peeled, cored, chopped 1/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon cumin Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 8 minutes, or until cranberries are bursting. Chill until serving time; freeze surplus in small containers. Sweet Wheat Berry Cranberry Salad Wheat berries are a versatile whole grain. Learn more about how to use them here .
Ingredients:
Makes 8 servings
2 cups wheat berries 1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped 1/4 cup apples, diced 1/2 cup carrots, shredded 1/2 cup dried cranberries For Dressing:
1 tablespoons lemon juice 1 tablespoon orange juice 1 teaspoon honey 2 teaspoons cinnamon salt to taste Directions:
For salad: In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients. For dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together ingredients for dressing. Pour the dressing over the salad and gently toss. Refrigerate the dressed salad to allow the flavors to meld before serving. Serve it cold or heat it up for a breakfast cereal. Cranberry Quinoa with Cilantro The stronger cranberry flavor plus cilantro in this dish is a real compliment to the quinoa, which can be a bit bland. Note that the cranberries used in this recipe are dried.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups water 1 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed 1/2 cup dried cranberries 1/4 cup red bell pepper, chopped 1/4 cup yellow bell pepper, chopped 1 small red onion, finely chopped 1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro 1 lime, juiced 1/4 cup toasted sliced almonds 1/2 cup minced carrots Salt and pepper to taste Directions:
Pour the water into a saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Pour in the quinoa, cover with a lid, and continue to simmer over low heat until the water has been absorbed (about 20 minutes). Scrape into a mixing bowl and chill in the refrigerator until cold. Once cold, stir in the red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, red onion, curry powder, cilantro, lime juice, sliced almonds, carrots, and cranberries. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Chill before serving. Crockpot Cranberry Chicken This is a delicious and easy way to prepare chicken breasts. The cranberries add a welcome change to our regular chicken dinner, and I love using the crockpot to prepare meals during the week.
Ingredients:
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves 1 (16 ounce) bottle Catalina salad dressing 12 ounces fresh cranberries 1 envelope onion soup mix Directions:
Place the chicken breasts in the bottom of a slow cooker. Pour the salad dressing, cranberries, and onion soup mix over the chicken. Cook on Low 4 to 6 hours. Pamela Bofferding is a native Texan who now lives with her husband and sons in New York City. She enjoys hiking, traveling, and playing with her dogs.
This information has been made available by Ready Nutrition
Originally published November 19th, 2016 Jalapeno Infused Cranberry Pomegranate Sauce Sweet Wheat Berry Cranberry Salad Warm Drinks for the Chilly Season 8 Fantastic Fresh Fruit Salads 10 Dehydrator Meals for Your Prepper Pantry
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More than half of voters think leaking classified information to media outlets is an “act of treason,” a Rasmussen Reports poll released Wednesday finds. [A majority, or 53 percent, believe it’s an act of treason, while 30 percent disagree and 18 percent are not sure. An overwhelming majority of Republicans, or 73 percent, feel that the leaks are treasonous, as do 50 percent of independents and 36 percent of Democrats. Nearly half, or 47 percent, think the media are hurting national security, while 34 percent say the media are performing “a public service” by publishing the leaks. Nineteen percent are unsure. POLL: 53% Say Media Leaks Are Act of Treason … https: . — DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) May 31, 2017, Breitbart News reported that at least three leakers working to undermine Trump have been identified, citing CBS News and One America News Network (OANN). “Three White House staffers have been identified for leaking classified info. POTUS will fire ‘multiple people’ when he returns to DC,” wrote OANN’s chief White House correspondent on Twitter. A Rasmussen poll taken in February showed that 58 percent of voters believe that the leakers of classified information should be prosecuted, and 59 percent think “intelligence officials who withhold classified information from the president should be fired or punished. ” Pollsters questioned 1, 000 registered voters from May 29 to May 30. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.
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WASHINGTON — Despite sharp differences on immigration, refugees, trade and climate change, President Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada struck a cordial tone on Monday in their first meeting, alternating between attempting to bridge those gaps and steering clear of them. Mr. Trump has called for a halt to the admission of refugees, saying that terrorists might slip into the United States among them, while Mr. Trudeau has held out Canada as a haven for refugees, particularly people who have fled the war in Syria, publicly hugging newly arrived families. When asked at a White House news conference whether he now sees the northern American border with Canada as insecure, Mr. Trump skirted the question, speaking instead of his administration’s efforts to deport criminals from the United States. In the same vein, Mr. Trudeau declined to say whether he agreed with the president’s executive order restricting immigration. “The last thing Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they choose to govern themselves,” he said. Maintaining the country’s close political and economic links with the United States was top of the Canadian leader’s agenda before his visit to Washington. Mr. Trudeau had forged an unusually close relationship with former President Barack Obama, but many of Mr. Trump’s policies, particularly his protectionist stance on trade and his call for renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, are chilling for Canadians. They count on trade with the United States for about 25 percent of their country’s gross domestic product. “It is a real concern for many Canadians because we know that our economy is very dependent on our bonds with the United States,” said Mr. Trudeau, who has expressed a cautious openness to renegotiating the trade pact. Mr. Trump’s complaints about trade have focused primarily on Mexico, another partner in the North American agreement, and China, which he has accused of taking advantage of the United States. He did not answer a question about whether he sees Canada as a fair trader, but suggested that he does not foresee deep changes in that relationship, which he called “outstanding. ” “We’ll be tweaking it,” he said. “It’s a much less severe situation than what’s taking place on the southern border. ” He said the two leaders had spoken privately about “doing some things that will make it a lot easier for trade and a lot better and a lot faster. ” They issued a joint statement pledging to continue border security programs that began under Mr. Obama, and reaffirming their commitment to NATO, an alliance that Mr. Trump had previously questioned. In presentation and speech, Mr. Trump, a bombastic Republican, and Mr. Trudeau, a more Liberal who is 25 years younger, are poles apart. But the prime minister has carefully avoided direct criticism of Mr. Trump and his policies. After the American election, he reorganized his cabinet to better deal with the change of power in Washington and swiftly sent emissaries to meet with Mr. Trump’s advisers. The meeting was the first test of the Canadian leader’s effort to foster a good working relationship. Mr. Trump greeted Mr. Trudeau warmly, a reception similar to the president’s greeting last week to Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister. The leaders shook hands heartily when Mr. Trudeau arrived at the White House, patting each other on the shoulder with their free hands. Mr. Trudeau appears determined to maintain friendly relations with Mr. Trump despite their differences, while signaling to Canadians who are wary of their powerful neighbor that Canada still charts its own course. “We continue our policy of openness to immigration and refugees without compromising security,” the prime minister said. “There have been times where we have differed in our approaches, and that’s always been done firmly and respectfully. ” Mr. Trudeau presented the president with a framed photograph taken in the 1980s, showing Mr. Trump speaking at the head of a table of people including Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a former Liberal prime minister of Canada and the current prime minister’s father. The cabinet ministers who traveled with Mr. Trudeau on Monday had prepared for meetings with their American counterparts by emphasizing the importance of the relationship to Canadians. Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign minister, had reminded Trump administration officials that trade between the countries is roughly in balance, and that Canada is the largest buyer of American exports from 35 states. “The combination of Canada being smaller and the United States being bigger and the relationship largely being means a lot of Americans don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Canada,” Ms. Freeland said in a recent interview. “Americans are not always fully aware of the economic significance of the relationship. ” Canadian business leaders expressed some relief after their prime minister’s meeting with Mr. Trump. “On the whole, this was a good day,” said John Manley, the president and chief executive of the Business Council of Canada, which represents 150 large Canadian corporations. “There’s still lots of things to be anxious about, but I think the tone and the substance were all very positive. ” Some of those anxieties stem from uncertainty over what small changes to the United trade relationship could mean for some sectors of the economy. There had been concerns after Mr. Trump’s election that he might go after the Canadian auto industry, a major employer in Ontario, which exports most of its production to the United States. Flavio Volpe, the president of the Auto Parts Manufacturers’ Association, a trade group, said that it was important for his members to hear Mr. Trump’s message that he is not planning to dramatically remake the United States’ trade relationship to Canada. The two leaders also met on Monday with several women who are chief executives of companies from both countries to announce that Canada and the United States would set up a council to advance women into executive roles, and to encourage entrepreneurship.
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Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that the hacking attacks carried out by Russia against her campaign and the Democratic National Committee were intended “to undermine our democracy” and were ordered by Vladimir V. Putin “because he has a personal beef against me. ” Speaking to a group of donors in Manhattan, Mrs. Clinton said that Mr. Putin, the Russian president, had never forgiven her for the accusation she made in 2011, when she was secretary of state, that parliamentary elections his country held that year were rigged. “Putin publicly blamed me for the outpouring of outrage by his own people, and that is the direct line between what he said back then and what he did in this election,” Mrs. Clinton said. It is the first time Mrs. Clinton has publicly addressed the impact of the hacks since the intelligence community concluded that they were specifically aimed at harming her campaign. “Make no mistake, as the press is finally catching up to the facts, which we desperately tried to present to them during the last months of the campaign,” Mrs. Clinton told the group, which collectively poured roughly $1 billion into her effort. “This is not just an attack on me and my campaign, although that may have added fuel to it. This is an attack against our country. We are well beyond normal political concerns here. This is about the integrity of our democracy and the security of our nation. ” In her remarks, she endorsed the proposal of a bipartisan group of senators to investigate the hacking and said the inquiry should be modeled on the commission set up after the Sept. 11 attacks. “The public deserves to know exactly what happened, and why, in order for us to prevent future attacks on our systems, including our electoral system,” she said. Mrs. Clinton said the hacking was one of two “unprecedented” events that led to her defeat. The other was the release of a letter by James B. Comey, the F. B. I. director, shortly before the election disclosing new questions about emails handled by her private server. The letter, she said, cost her close races in several battleground states. “ voters made their decisions in the final days breaking against me because of the F. B. I. letter from Director Comey,” she said. Mrs. Clinton first talked about the impact of Mr. Comey’s letters in a conference call with donors a few days after the election. Since the election she has kept a low profile, mostly appearing on social media in photographs by who have spotted her walking her dogs near her home in Chappaqua, N. Y.
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Vandalism, offensive jokes, even criminal assault — reports of harassment have spiked since Donald J. Trump’s victory in the presidential race. Few of the perpetrators have been caught, but here is a look at five cases in which people have been directly accused. Some apologized. One denied being responsible. Another said his actions had been misconstrued. When Isabel Manu started sending her classmate María Sanchez internet memes that mocked Mr. Trump’s plans to crack down on immigration, Ms. Sanchez, whose parents had come to the United States illegally from Mexico, tried to shake it off: “It was just a little funny, like ha, O. K. awkward funny. ” Ms. Manu tried to turn up the humor after Mr. Trump was elected president. She failed. Using clothing and shoes, she built a wall in Ms. Sanchez’s dorm room at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Mo. and left a note saying, “Trump won so here is a little preview of what’s to come. ” Tearful and disturbed, Ms. Sanchez posted a photograph on Twitter that was shared more than 50, 000 times. “I was angry,” she said. “I threw the stuff, and I tore the paper. ” Ms. Sanchez, along with campus security officers, confronted Ms. Manu, who appeared shocked that the gag had backfired. Ms. Manu declined to be interviewed. Ms. Sanchez speculated that online humor around presidential politics had led her friend to think of the election, and what was at stake, as a joke. Ms. Sanchez said that Ms. Manu had apologized, and the two are working on reconciling. “A friendship is not all love,” Ms. Sanchez said. “There are going to be horrible things that are going to happen. We have to move on and grow from this. ” Officer Michael Peters was off duty when he flew a Confederate battle flag from the back of his pickup truck at a “Love Trumps Hate” demonstration in Traverse City, Mich. Officer Peters, an Police Department veteran, was captured in photographs getting out of his vehicle, opening a Bud Light and arguing with protesters. He could not be reached for comment, but the Traverse City police chief said he had previously displayed the divisive symbol at work. After the most recent episode was shared widely on the internet and in news reports, he resigned, which Marty Colburn, the city manager of the popular tourist destination in northern Michigan, called “necessary. ” Mr. Colburn said Mr. Peters had also offered an apology for what the former officer described as the “stain” he put on the city. He added that Mr. Peters had cut short a trip to sign the paperwork to complete his resignation. On Tuesday, Mr. Peters delivered a letter to the local newspaper, saying that he attended the rally to protest what he viewed as political correctness. He added that he believes the Confederate symbol “has nothing to do with racism, and everything to do with embracing and celebrating the simple lifestyle that is the country . ” John Sousa, a high school teacher and golf coach in Wesley Chapel, Fla. was suspended from work after students accused him of telling a group of black classmates, “Don’t make me call Donald Trump to get you sent back to Africa. ” The school district is investigating the episode. Mr. Sousa did not respond to requests for an interview. In a Facebook post, Donnie Jones Jr. a Wesley Chapel High School parent, said he had spoken with the teacher on the phone. “He actually admitted saying it,” Mr. Jones wrote online. “He said it was just an comment and wasn’t meant to be racist. He said it was a bunch of male and female students in the hallway and he was talking to everyone. ” Edward Tomasso and Parker students at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. drove onto the nearby campus of Wellesley College flying a Trump flag from their vehicle and chanted Mr. Trump’s campaign slogans outside a building where minority students can seek support. They bragged about the episode in an online video that has since been taken down. But after facing a backlash that included death threats on social media and a harsh response from officials at both schools, each posted an apology on Facebook and denied targeting minority students. “Publicly celebrating the election at a time and in a place when so many were deeply disappointed about its outcome and, indeed, genuinely grieving about it, was just not smart,” Mr. wrote. “We had no idea that our actions would be interpreted as racist, or sexist, or harassment. ” Mr. Tomasso wrote: “As a white male, I do not feel threatened by the new president. I have not had to work for that privilege. It was something I was born with. ” He included a phone number and email address where he said those he had offended could reach him directly. Quickly, though, angry comments — along with a few written in support — inundated the post, and Mr. Tomasso stopped responding. Neither Mr. Tomasso nor Mr. responded to requests for comment. Shacara McLaurin, a singer and activist in New York, said that she was walking home after a performance last week when she passed a political protest, and an elderly man who supported Mr. Trump began to heckle her. After a physical altercation in which the man fell to the ground, Ms. McLaurin, 23, was charged with assault and harassment. She said that the man had thrown himself onto the ground and appeared to be drunk, and that she had lost her day job as a home health aide because of the episode. She also said that since the incident, she has been attacked on social media. “Why should it have to come to the point where we are threatening each other and threatening each other’s lives over a presidential election?” she asked.
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Timofey Mozgov is a journeyman N. B. A. player who averaged 6. 3 points a game last season. Last week he agreed to a $64 million deal with the Los Angeles Lakers. It was a little like a character actor suddenly being paid more than Will Smith for a bit part in a summer blockbuster. The past week in the N. B. A. in which players whose contracts had expired began to negotiate new deals, has turned the sports economy on its head. An infusion of billions of dollars into the league’s coffers from a television contract agreed upon two years ago has led to this: That random guy on the bench is getting upward of $15 million a year. After his deal was announced, Mozgov told The Los Angeles Daily News that he planned to spend the summer “sitting on the beach and drinking a piña colada. ” Or five million piña coladas. Matthew Dellavedova, who last season often sat on the Cleveland Cavaliers’ bench alongside Mozgov, also cashed in, agreeing to a $38 million deal with the Milwaukee Bucks. Ryan Anderson, a sharpshooter who plays questionable defense, scored $80 million over four years with the Houston Rockets. That annual rate, $20 million, is higher than what any player made on last season’s Golden State Warriors, including Stephen Curry, the league’s most valuable player. The numbers were even bigger for players considered more talented, even if they are not recognizable to casual sports fans. The Memphis Grizzlies agreed to give Chandler Parsons $94 million over four years and Mike Conley $153 million over five years — the biggest contract in N. B. A. history. Conley is a very good point guard LeBron James he is not. This startling redistribution of wealth is a product of a TV rights extension that will go into effect next season, under which ESPN and Turner (which carries games on TNT) are paying the league $24 billion over nine years — about a 180 percent increase over the last contract. The enormous jump was seen as a reflection of the general value of live sports in an age of DVR and YouTube clips and specifically of the appeal of a exciting league. “As shocking as the numbers seem, the reality is the business is that much stronger, and the players are just getting their rightful share,” said Marc Fleisher, a basketball agent and the son of Larry Fleisher, who helped found the N. B. A. players union. The salary cap — the maximum amount each team can spend on salaries (with some exceptions built in) — was $70 million last season, a $7 million rise from the previous season. But next season it will be $94 million, and it is projected to be $107 million for the season. Also rising was each team’s salary floor, mandating that franchises spend at least 90 percent of the cap’s value on their players. Translation: There had never been a better time to be an N. B. A. free agent than this month, and there may never be again. Players whose contracts expired at the end of the recently completed season hit the jackpot as frenzied teams scrambled for bodies. “Panic is probably not the right word, but teams get afraid that they’ll be left with nothing after months and months of planning and seeing everyone get snatched up quickly,” Fleisher said. Each pro sports league has its own, often complicated salary structure. Right now, basketball players seem charmed in comparison with their counterparts in the N. F. L. and Major League Baseball. In the N. F. L. where the players’ union is relatively weak, contracts are typically not even guaranteed. In baseball, which has the strongest union and no hard limits on spending, the biggest stars have received gargantuan contracts. But the equivalent of a Dellavedova — a reserve utility infielder? — probably does not receive $9. 5 million a year. Because N. B. A. salary rules also restrict maximum payouts, favor veterans and strictly slot rookie contracts, many milquetoast players are paid above what their open market value would be. If there were an Occupy Wall Street of the N. B. A. it would not consist of the 99 percent revolting against the 1 percent. Rather, its youngest players and maybe its biggest superstars, who many argue are paid less than what they are truly worth, would take on the vast middle class. “Veterans have decided, ‘We want to shift the money from rookies to veterans,’” said Warren Zola, who teaches sports business at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. That decision was reached when most of this season’s rookies were too young to drive. Although basketball fans generally believe that more revenue should go to the players rather than the owners, many have nonetheless been dazzled by recent deals. “I wasn’t shocked Chandler Parsons got a max contract,” Joel Martinez, who, under the name The Kid Mero, a popular podcast, said on Twitter, “until I found out it was for basketball and not spraying cologne at Abercrombie. ” After committing nearly a quarter of a billion dollars to Conley and Parsons, the owner of the Grizzlies, Robert Pera, posted an image of one of the Little Rascals throwing money out a window. As much money as Pera and his fellow owners are throwing around this summer, though, they, too, are enjoying the N. B. A. ’s boom times. The high contracts reflect a fundamental reality: Business has never been better. “The bottom line is the players get somewhere between 49 and 51 percent,” Fleisher said, referring to the current apportionment of what is known in the jargon as income. “So the fact that the players are getting this just shows you how much the owners are making. ”
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on November 4, 2016 10:58 pm ·
GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has taken a ridiculously hardline – and even bigoted – stance on immigration. He has promised to build a wall and force Mexico to pay for it, and he has said that he will erect “deportation forces” to root out and get rid of all people in the United States without proper documentation. Well, as we already knew, it turns out that The Donald is the ultimate hypocrite on this one.
According to the Associated Press , it turns out that Donald Trump’s wife Melania violated immigration laws by working illegally in the United States when she first arrived from her native Slovenia. Melania often modeled using just her first name, and was first granted entry into the country on a visitor’s visa, known as a B1/B2 visa. This occurred on August 27, 1996. Melania did not get a legal work visa until October 18, 1996. During the time when she was prohibited from working in the country, Melania made money on ten different modeling assignments, totaling upwards of $20,000. She got a green card in 2000, and became a naturalized citizen in 2006.
So, in other words, Melania Trump lied about her immigration story, as recently as Thursday, when she once again touted how a million percent legal immigration is the only way to go, and that this is how she did it. Melania said, in part, in her stump speech:
“As a young entrepreneur, I wanted to follow my dream to a place where freedom and opportunity were in abundance. So of course, I came here. Living and working in America was a true blessing, but I wanted something more. I wanted to be an American.”
Well, it appears that, as has long been suspected, that Melania Trump wasn’t as kosher in her immigration and work practices as she claims. The information obtained by the AP include, but are not limited to, her contract from Metropolitan International Management – a modeling agency. Also, there’s the ledgers from the agency, which is no longer in business, that shows Melania working during the time when she had the visitor’s visa, but no work visa. It seems to be a complicated story full of many attempts to cover up Melania’s wrongdoing, but it is certainly quite interesting. This would be why Melania Trump never released actual records regarding her initial immigration to the United States and her eventual path to citizenship. While it is unlikely that her citizenship is at risk, it certainly means that she committed immigration fraud. You can read more here at the Associated Press .
The long and short of it is this: Donald Trump launched his crazy bid for the presidency preying on the fears of the “other.” Namely, immigrants. That is the height of hypocrisy, seeing as how his own wife didn’t completely comply with immigration law. Hopefully this story, and the many other lies and cover-ups and shady dealings surrounding the Trump campaign break through the hypnotism that the demagogue has spun onto so many desperate citizens of this great country, and they figure out that they are falling for the biggest con of all time.
Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images Share this Article! Share on Facebook Author: Shannon Barber Shannon Barber is a self- described queer feminist and activist for racial equality, LGBT rights, women’s rights, and secular rights in America. She is a lifelong lover of words, though her educational background is in computer science. She currently writes for 2 liberal websites, and keeps her own humor blog for lesbians. She hopes to change the world, one mind at a time. Search
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. 14 Outstanding Facts About the Anunnaki The Anunnaki, probably the number one topic when it comes to the Ancient alien theory, but what are ... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/14-outstanding-facts-about-anunnaki.html The Anunnaki, probably the number one topic when it comes to the Ancient alien theory, but what are the facts? 1. In many depictions of the Anunnaki , we can see strange objects worn by “those who came from the stars”, one of the most interesting examples are “wrist watches” which appear in almost every single depiction of the Anunnaki. 2. The Sumerians were the first people who started building actual cities, organized using actual city grids like we see in modern day cities around the world, according to the Ancient Alien theory, the Anunnaki transferred this knowledge to ancient man. 3. In the 19th century archaeologists exploring the ancient ruins of Nineveh discovered 22,000 clay tablets which are directly connected to the Anunnaki . 4. In 1976 author Sitchin published his personal translations of the Sumerian texts in a series of books called “ The Earth Chronicles “. According to Sitchin the clay tablets describe an alien race known as the Anunnaki came to Earth to mine gold . 5. Gold reflects infrared light. Infrared is basically light you don’t see it, but we interact with it in the form of heat, the radiation interacts with our molecules and that makes them vibrate faster and you’ll feel that as heat, gold also makes a good heat shield, partly because it’s so malleable. You can make gold very thin; it’s easy to work with; and it has great properties for reflecting and heat protection making it a “must have” resource not only for us but potentially for extraterrestrial visitors as Sitchin suggests. 6. Sitchin theorized that “the Anunnaki” came from another planet in our solar system that has an 3,600-year elliptical orbit. 7. According to the ancient Sumerian tablets, the Anunnaki genetically altered primitive mankind and created a labor force which allowed them to mine gold faster. 8. According to Zecharia Sitchin, “the Adamu” were the first modern humans, they were created by the Anunnaki 450,000 years ago when they genetically mixed their DNA with that of prehistoric man and that way obtained a labor force which did what the Anunnaki wanted. 9. “Adam” in Hebrew stands for “man”. “Adamu” is what the Sumerians refer to as “first man,” the Anunnaki slaves. 10. Zulu legends speak of a time when “visitors from the stars” came to excavate gold and other natural resources. These mines were worked by slaves created by the “First People“. — By Ancient Code Bonus 11. According to both texts and depictions, the Anunnaki were giants (notice the Anunnaki god below, offering agriculture to mankind — seated, he is just as tall as the two Homo Sapiens standing in front of him). 12. The Anunnaki knew about 6,000 years ago that the sun and the planets in our solar system are spherical and that they revolve around the sun (see the above depiction of our solar system), which is clear evidence that their stories about coming to Earth from outer space were real. 13. According to the so called " Lost Book of Enki ," the Anunnaki built the Egyptian pyramids after a great cataclysm that almost wiped out our species. 14. According to the Sumerian King List and the Sumerian tablets , the Anunnaki lived extremely long lives or, possibly, they could not die from natural causes. "After the kingship descended from [the] heaven[s], the kingship was in Eridug. In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years. Alaljar ruled for 36000 years. 2 kings; they ruled for 64800 years." By HumansAreFree.com
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The 59th annual Grammy Awards kick off Sunday night at 8 p. m. Eastern live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. [Beyoncé leads all artists with nine nominations, including for Album of the Year for her Black Lives album Lemonade, though she will face stiff competition from British superstar Adele in several of the night’s top categories. Singer Rihanna and rappers Drake and Kanye West are up for eight nominations apiece. Late Late Show host James Corden is set to MC the proceedings. Meanwhile, producer Ken Ehrlich has indicated that artists could get more political with their acceptance speeches than usual. Follow along with the Breitbart News livewire as the Grammys get underway in Los Angeles. All times Pacific. Latest updates at the top. 8:45 P. M. — Well, that’s a wrap on the . Stay tuned to Breitbart’s Big Hollywood for coverage and more from music’s biggest night. Good night. 8:40 P. M. — Well, she’s done it. Adele picked up Album of the Year for 25. In the “Adele vs. Beyoncé battle” that the music press spent the last couple months pushing, that’s a decisive win for Adele. In her acceptance speech, a tearful Adele called Beyoncé’s album “monumental” and appeared to drop another leading to another dead air pause from CBS. Adele wins Album of the Year, dedicates it to Beyonce: ”I can’t possibly accept this award.” #GRAMMYs pic. twitter. — Hollywood Reporter (@THR) February 13, 2017, 8:35 P. M. — Adele wins again, this time for Record of the Year for “Hello. ” That’s two big wins over Beyoncé so far. A win in Album of the Year would complete the British singer’s sweep. Stay tuned … . 8:28 P. M. — The Grammys pay tribute to the musicians lost over the past year with an “In Memoriam” segment hosted by John Legend and Cynthia Erivo. Legend and Erivo perform a poignant rendition of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows. ” We honor those we have lost in the music community this year: https: . #GRAMMYs pic. twitter. — Recording Academy (@RecordingAcad) February 13, 2017, 8:24 P. M. — Recording Academy President Neil Portnow calls on President Trump and Congress to uphold the country’s commitments to the arts. The industry may be afraid that Trump will get rid of the National Endowment for the Arts, as it was reported he might do last month. 8:20 P. M. — James Corden teases that Kanye West will present at the show and for a second, it seems like the broadcast could take a turn for the more entertaining … Alas, Corden introduces Recording Academy President Neil Portnow. 8:12 P. M. — winner tonight Chance the Rapper performs with the backing of a full orchesta. 8:08 P. M. — Pentatonix* just wrapped an impressive a capella version of the Jackson 5’s “ABC. ” Three hours in and the show feels very long. Could have done with fewer performances three hours would be a good length for the show. As it is, probably around 40 minutes left to go tonight. *Pentatonix, not Little Big Town. Like I said, the show’s length is taking its toll. 7:50 P. M. — A reunited The Time and Bruno Mars take the stage to perform a tribute to Prince. Full video when the performance is wrapped. This is a fitting tribute to Prince, especially with Mars in full purple getup. Immeasurably better than Madonna’s horrific attempt at the same tribute at last year’s Billboard Music Awards. 7:39 P. M. — Busta Rhymes joins the surviving members of A Tribe Called Quest for a tribute to Phife Dawg, who died last year. Busta goes off on Trump, calling him “President Agent Orange” and accusing him of “spreading hate” throughout the world. More on this here. 7:36 P. M. — Adele wins Song of the Year for “Hello,” beating out fellow frontrunner Beyoncé’s “Formation. ” “First of all, I really do apologize for swearing,” the singer says, explaining that she wanted to get the performance just right to honor the memory George Michael. 7:25 P. M. — Tori Kelly, Little Big Town, Andra Day and Demi Lovato perform a tribute to the . 7:15 P. M. — Album of the Year nominee Sturgill Simpson performs a collaboration with the the backing band for the late soul singer Sharon Jones, who died last year after a battle with cancer. 7:09 P. M. — Fresh off of her Super Bowl halftime show, Lady Gaga teams with Metallica for a performance of, well, not really sure yet. But James Hetfield seemed to be having trouble with his mic. Video shortly. A pissed off James Hetfield tosses his guitar 😡😡😡😡😡 #Metallica #GRAMMYs pic. twitter. — Troy Hughes (@TommySledge) February 13, 2017, 7:04 P. M. — Chance the Rapper wins Best Rap Album for Coloring Book. As he did with his first win of the night, he thanks God. 6:50 P. M. — As Roger Friedman reported this afternoon, Adele is back to perform George Michael’s “Fastlove. ” Wow. CBS bleeps out Adele during the performance as the singer swears and is forced to restart the song after a rocky start. Full video coming shortly. Other than the initial flub, Adele sounded much better on this one than in her “Hello. ” Full video: Watch Adele’s tribute to George Michael in full here: pic. twitter. — Adele Daily (@AdeleDailyInfo) February 13, 2017, “I’m sorry, I can’t mess this up for him. ” 6:45 P. M. — Maren Morris performs “Once” alongside Alicia Keys. 6:36 P. M. — Beyoncé wins Best Urban Contemporary Album for “Lemonade. ” 6:33 P. M. — Gary Clark, Jr. and William Bell perform a bluesy “Born Under A Bad Sign” in one of the night’s better performances. 6:33 P. M. — James Corden gets in another quick jab at Trump with a bit about during the show. #GRAMMYS @JKCorden jokes: ”Any fake tweets you see are not real tweets. The negative tweets are fake.” https: . pic. twitter. — Hollywood Reporter (@THR) February 13, 2017, “Any fake tweets you see [on the bottom of the screen] are fake news!” he says, as apparently negative tweets float by on the screen, including a fake one from Trump himself. 6:30 P. M. — Katy Perry delivers the first real onstage political statement by wearing a sparkly armband reading “Persist”* on her right arm during the performance of her new song, “Chained to the Rhythm. ” *From where I was sitting, it looked like the armband had said “Resist. ” Chained to The Rhythm — Katy Perry Feat. Skip Marley (At the #GRAMMYs) pic. twitter. — Katy Perry Activity (@KatyActivities) February 13, 2017, 6:28 P. M. — Little Big Town introduces Katy Perry by singing a few bars of “Teenage Dream. ” 6:16 P. M. — After an performance of “Sweet Caroline” featuring Corden, Keith Urban, Neil Diamond, Blue Ivy Carter and a bunch of others from a cardboard cutout car, Bruno Mars performs “That’s What I Like” backed by a band and a chorus of backup singers. #GRAMMYs: @JKCorden brings Neil Diamond, @JLo, @JohnLegend and Blue Ivy together for ’Sweet Caroline’ Carpool Karaoke. pic. twitter. — Hollywood Reporter (@THR) February 13, 2017, 6:10 P. M. — Maren Morris wins Best Country Solo Performance for “My Church. ” “Thank you to the Recording Academy … ” 6:04 P. M. — One hour into the broadcast and there’s been very little in the way of overt partisan political commentary so far, apart from Corden’s jab at Trump in his opening routine. Then again, there’s still two hours to go … 5:54 P. M. — A very pregnant Beyoncé takes the stage for a trippy performance of “Love Drought” and “Sand Castles. ” The performance apparently incorporates footage along with some impressive live choreography. Beyoncé herself is taking it easy with the dance moves. Full video: 5:51 P. M. — Lukas Graham performs his massive hit “Seven Years. ” 5:44 P. M. — David Bowie wins Best Rock Song for “Blackstar. ” “Like all musical heroes, his music is forever,” the presenters say in accepting the award on his behalf. That’s now 5 posthumous Grammys that Bowie has won tonight. 5:38 P. M. — James Corden copies Twenty One Pilots and introduces Ed Sheeran without his pants on. Sheeran performs his new song “The Shape of You” by himself, using an looping rig to provide his own backbeat. The could become the first artist in Grammy history to win Song of the Year two years in a row if he wins for “Love Yourself. ” 5:31 P. M. — Twenty One Pilots wins the Grammy for Best Pop Performance for “Stressed Out. ” Before accepting the award, the duo take their pants off before they take make their way onto the stage. Guys you really don’t have to do this #GRAMMYs pic. twitter. — Mashable (@mashable) February 13, 2017, 5:25 P. M. — Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood take the stage to perform “The Fighter,” which is most definitely not a country song. John Travolta introduces them as the most dynamic duo since “Danny and Sandy. ” So glad they kept Daft Punk on stage to play Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood. #GRAMMYs, — New Slang (@_NewSlang) February 13, 2017, 5:17 P. M. — The Weeknd performs “ Feel It Coming” with Daft Punk, in all their glory. We don’t remember this part in #StarWars. #GRAMMYs pic. twitter. — Entertainment Weekly (@EW) February 13, 2017, 5:14 P. M. — Chance the Rapper wins Best New Artist in a crowded field for the night’s first award. “Glory be to God. I claim this victory in the name of the Lord,” the rapper says in his acceptance speech. “I wanna thank God for my mother and my father who supported me when I was young. ” 5:10 P. M. — Host James Corden takes the stage and it’s ten minutes into the show before we get our first jab at Donald Trump. During a rapping bit, Corden mentions, “With President Trump, we don’t know what happens next. ” . @JKCorden: ”Live it all up because this is the best and with President Trump we don’t know what comes next” #GRAMMYs pic. twitter. — Hollywood Reporter (@THR) February 13, 2017, 5:00 P. M. — Adele kicks off the show with her massive hit song “Hello. ” . @Adele opens up the show with a performance of ”Hello.” #GRAMMYs pic. twitter. — The FADER (@thefader) February 13, 2017, 4: 50 P. M. — Johnny Stevens from the rock band High Suspect (nominees for Best Rock Song) makes a statement by wearing a jacket with the word “Impeach” stenciled on the back: 4: 40 P. M. — Green has arrived at the ceremony: that exploding phone was apparently ’s supervillain origin storypic. twitter. — Al Shipley (@alshipley) February 13, 2017, 4:30 P. M. — Showbiz 411’s Roger Friedman reports that Adele will open the show and will perform the tribute to late British pop star George Michael, with the song “Fastlove. ” The evening is also expected to include a tribute to Prince featuring a reunited The Time and Bruno Mars. 4:25 P. M. — Early winners on the night include Adele (Best Pop Vocal Album for 25 and Best Pop Solo Performance for “Hello”) Beyoncé (Best Music Video for “Formation,”) Sturgill Simpson (Best Country Album for A Sailor’s Guide to Earth) and Drake (Best Rap Song and Best Performance for “Hotline Bling. ”) The late pop icon David Bowie also won four Grammys Sunday (Best Alternative Album, Best Rock Performance, Best Recording Package and Best Engineered Album, ) for his final studio album, Blackstar. Other early winners include Patton Oswalt (Best Comedy Album) The Beatles: Eight Days A Week, The Touring Years (Best Music Film) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Best Score Soundtrack). 4:15 P. M. — Singer Joy Villa made an early splash on the red carpet Sunday evening by donning a “Make America Great Again” dress, in an apparent show of support for President Donald Trump. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum, Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson
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Wednesday, 2 November 2016 Is the purse of the Duchess big or deep enough, for the £millions needed?
Troubled London Stadium, Stratford, LONDON: With an expert in Stadium building announcing that the athletics stadium should be demolished and rebuilt properly as a football stadium, the Duchess of Knightsbridge has made an enormous gesture.
"Let it be known that I shall pay in FULL for the London Stadium rebuild!" cried the Duchess of Knightsbridge. In tears, she came forth to express her regret that West Ham Utd had ever left the Boleyn Ground.
"All David Sullivan kept going on about, was that the toilets were better at the London Stadium, than the Boleyn Ground! Surely we could have upgraded the toilets at the Boleyn rather than go to that athletics track up Stratford way!"
With a Stadium expert advising to knock down the violence-prone London Stadium and starting again, the Duchess of Knightsbridge has offered to open up her purse to pay for it ALL!
The rebuilding cost COULD spiral even more, the extra charge is now quoted at £52 million, but never mind, the Duchess of Knightsbridge can pay that out of her purse and has agreed to do so!
Members of Parliament are already calling for West Ham Utd to play their matches behind closed doors, but with the Duchess offering to pay for the full rebuild costs out of her purse, this 'might' quiet them down in shock! Make SpoofyDoofy's
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Can an elite, TV network based in Manhattan find a comfortable home at a Dallas telecommunications company led by an executive who is also the Boy Scouts of America president? Richard Plepler, the head of HBO, considered the question at his regular lunch spot — a corner table at The Lambs Club in New York. It had been a whirlwind few days for Mr. Plepler, and while the restaurant may have been familiar, little else about the week was business as usual. Five days earlier, HBO’s parent company, Time Warner, agreed to be taken over by ATT in an $85 billion deal that startled the media world. Mr. Plepler met his potential new boss, the ATT chief executive Randall Stephenson, for the first time last Monday, and they spent 30 minutes chatting at HBO’s headquarters overlooking Bryant Park. Still, Mr. Plepler said he was comfortable with this shotgun marriage, and for one big reason: He believes he will be able to run things the way he always has. “Randall made very clear to everybody that what they are buying they look at with enormous respect and admiration, and the last thing they have any interest in doing is messing with a winning game,” he said on Thursday. Will it be that simple? HBO, which also has operations in Los Angeles, is a creature of its coastal milieu and creates shows like “Game of Thrones” and “Westworld,” the kind of entertainment that appeals to viewers with a tolerance for amoral protagonists and graphic violence. It is also home to the liberal host Bill Maher, and the British comedian John Oliver, who delights in skewering powerful corporate interests on his show “Last Week Tonight. ” The premium cable channel is an unabashed big spender, too, throwing lavish parties and dinners at places like the Museum of Modern Art in New York City or the Hotel du Cap in Cannes, and flying actors, directors and writers across the country. ATT, though, will have $175 billion or more in debt on its balance sheet if the proposed merger is completed. “One is a connectivity sales company and another is an entertainment provider,” said Gary Arlen, the head of Arlen Communications, a research firm that examines the media and telecommunications industries. “ATT has a history as being a public utility. It’s bland and very vanilla. HBO is showbiz all the way. ” Over a plate of chicken paillard last Thursday, Mr. Plepler acknowledged that assimilation would take some time. “Obviously when you get to know people, there’s a learning curve on both sides,” he said. But he said that for HBO and other parts of Time Warner to thrive, “you have to have a Chinese wall between the creative process and everything else. ” For its part, ATT has contended it would stay out of the way. “I know they’re different cultures, and we’ll be protective of the cultures to ensure we don’t destroy the business,” Mr. Stephenson said at a conference conducted by The Wall Street Journal last week. “We’ll have the experts that know to run these businesses running these businesses. ” If the deal is not blocked by regulators, ATT will acquire not just HBO, but also CNN and entities like TBS, TNT and Warner Bros. which earn billions in revenue. But HBO is the crown jewel of Time Warner’s media properties, having won more Emmys than any other network for 15 consecutive years. Now, however, HBO faces increased pressure to find new hits and pick up new subscribers when there is more competition than ever in television. There are examples of peaceful transitions when a nonmedia company acquires a content company — like Comcast’s ownership of NBC Universal, which has gone smoothly — but others have created headaches. Universal Pictures, for instance, has endured many owners, including bankers (Standard Capital) liquor moguls (Seagram’s) and cable pioneers (Comcast). When it was owned by General Electric, about a decade ago, executives at the film studio were required to attend Six Sigma sessions — which involve meticulous business analysis exercises — in Crotonville, N. Y. to their extreme displeasure. When Columbia Pictures was owned by in the 1980s, it had hits like “Ghostbusters” and “Tootsie,” but the studio was banned from showing soft drinks, and executives chafed under Coke’s expectations about profit margin, according to “Hit and Run,” a 1996 book about the movie industry by the entertainment reporters Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters. Still, the ATT is certainly no stranger to enormous acquisitions — and bringing in a company, however different, is nothing new. “At ATT, there’s a culture within consumer marketing and there’s another culture in the engineering area, but there is mutual respect,” said James Cicconi, a former longtime ATT executive who ran external affairs and retired last year. “The same thing would be true for more creative areas or companies like an HBO. ATT is pretty sophisticated in terms of acquisitions and the importance of being able to integrate. ” As a subscription service that does not rely on ratings for revenue, HBO depends on generating excitement, striving to place its shows at the center of the cultural mainstream. It willingly approves big budgets to ensure high production quality and attract top talent, a practice that has allowed it to forge strong relationships with prominent actors, writers and directors. While many television networks now shoot in Canada because it is cheaper, for instance, HBO does not. The reason? Most actors prefer to avoid making the trip. When HBO made the film “Clear History,” Larry David’s 2013 comedy, the comedian requested that the network add a few million dollars to the budget. They gave it to him. He asked if the movie could be shot on Martha’s Vineyard, where he has a home. They did it. “If we make an investment, whether it’s a screening or an event, it’s about enhancing our brand and elevating our brand,” Mr. Plepler said. He said he would “be very surprised” if ATT did not embrace that. There are other questions about melding the two cultures. HBO has a proudly progressive view of the world, and its prominent dramas feature plenty of violence and sex. It is also willing to take risks. Michael London, a producer of “Confirmation,” an HBO original movie that recreated the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas hearings, said in an interview this year that the filmmakers “knew it would be difficult and challenging to tell the story within a corporate environment with legal threats and telephone calls. HBO is fearless. ” If ATT gets someone complaining on the phone, will there be bigger problems? “HBO has succeeded on their terms, but ATT plays a much larger game,” said Bill Miller, a prominent lobbyist based in Austin, Tex. “HBO plays to their hometown, but ATT plays to a national audience where half of them aren’t progressive, and that puts them in a bit of a bind potentially. As soon as people feel unhappy or victimized, they’ll hear a lot about it. That’s what elected officials do: They complain. But for now, it is time for the honeymoon, with Mr. Stephenson, the telecom executive and Boy Scouts president, and Mr. Plepler, the consummate media executive, developing a relationship in real time. At the conference in California last week, Mr. Stephenson said he would visit the Warner Bros. studio later that day. And then, making light of their distinct sartorial preferences, he quipped: “I’m going to unbutton my shirt like Richard’s over there. ”
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FBI Director James Comey was the most beloved man in the country to Democrats after he recommended that no charges be brought against Hillary Clinton for the illegal use of a private email server while Secretary of State.
But now, following news that the FBI will be re-opening its investigation into the Democratic nominee, the left is singing a different tune. Now, they’re treating Comey like he’s some womanizing pedophile or something… Oh, wait. Never mind, that’s Bill Clinton and they LOVE him .
Just watch…
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In clandestine corners of the world, the elite come together in secrecy. Some of them don’t mind that we know of these society meetings, while others maintain that they do not organize at all.
Yet doormen speak to their friends, initiation rites are leaked, people peek in windows, chanting in far underground lairs can be heard by a passerby. Conspiracy theorists have long held that someone, and not the Fates, is manipulating our world, and perhaps in these secret societies the strings are being pulled.
Here is a list of seven groups so secret some members will never admit to their involvement, and their meeting places hiding in plain sight.
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
Ivy league Yale University is considered to be one of the most selective higher educational institutions in the United States, if not the world. Its motto lux et veritas translates to “light and truth.” On the historic campus in New Haven, Connecticut, there is a building where “light and truth” are reserved for carefully selected members and alumni.
What is known about the Skull and Bones secret society is minimal. The organization started in 1832. An official roster of its members was published up until 1971. Bonesmen, as members are called, have been heads of corporations, senior government officials, Supreme Court justices, and even presidents. Theories about what the Skull and Bones actually do range from its members controlling the Central Intelligence Agency, being a part of a global network aimed at world domination, to being a branch of the Illuminati.
It’s also unknown exactly what happens in The Tomb, the group’s headquarters, but there are strange rumors of what is contained in the windowless sandstone building. The Egypto-Doric style of the structure makes it appear as an immense sepulcher. The tomb is thought to hold secret documents containing the roster of all members, ritual details, as well as multiple stolen relics. Some of the bones rumored to be in The Tomb include the skulls of Geronimo, Pancho Villa, Martin Van Buren, and the gravestone of Elihu Yale, the school’s founder. Bonesmen are also known to take other societies’ belongings in a show of thievery and cunning known as crooking.
OOSTERBEEK, NETHERLANDS
Hotel de Bilderberg. (Photo: Michiel1972/CC BY-SA 4.0 )
In November of 1954, 50 delegates from 11 countries in Western Europe and 11 Americans spent three days in Oosterbeek, Netherlands, at the Hotel de Bilderberg . The purpose of the meeting was said to foster conversations between Europe and North America. Those in attendance included a prince, a prime minster, and the head of the CIA. Since that meeting, each year a group of international leaders in the fields of politics, business, media, and communications have met to discuss… we’re not exactly sure.
There is no agenda, no resolutions are proposed, no voting of any kind is executed, and no positions or policy statements are issued. The meetings are held in a different location each year and each year the topics of the meeting are up for the general public to theorize over. The roster of attendees is never officially made public, but there have been leaks over the years. Conspiracy theories abound, especially because of the group’s intense level of secrecy. Many believe the group is conspiring to impose capital domination, a world government, or a planned economy. What is certain is that the more prominent you are, the more likely you’ll be to get an invitation to next year’s Bilderberg conference.
TREMENTINA, NEW MEXICO
Trementina Base, New Mexico. (Photo: Google Earth )
Scientology is most visible today because of celebrity members like Tom Cruise and John Travolta, yet the organization has been aggressive over the years in tackling critics and maintaining its secrets. One of the most controversial religious groups, some characterize the movement as a cult.
Basic Scientology belief holds that humans are immortal beings who have reincarnated and have lived on other planets before finding themselves now on Earth. One of the things that makes the religion controversial is its assertive nature, often turning to character assassination or litigation in dealing with skeptics and critics who question their practices. The church is also extremely secretive, holding many of its teachings from members until they have made it through multiple levels.
Scientology operates several churches called Celebrity Centres that are opened to the public, but are primarily meant for “anyone with the power and vision to create a better world.” The Church of the Spiritual Technology, or CST, is reserved for the most trusted of members. Many of these members manage elaborate bases including the Trementina Base . The official word from the church is that the base is a location used to preserve Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s writings, which are said to be engraved on steel sheets and encased in titanium cases. It’s thought that Trementina is more than just a location to archive Hubbard’s works, however.
Trementina contains underground dwellings and tunnels, but what’s most interesting about the base is what you see from the outside. Aerial photographs above the base show huge images dug into the Earth. The images are that of the church’s logo. Former members have claimed that the symbols are to mark the return point for members when they travel into the future. Other members have stated that this is the place where Hubbard is supposed to go when he returns.
The Illuminati: Domus Sanctae Marthae
VATICAN CITY, VATICAN Pope Francis entering Domus Sanctae Marthae (Photo: Pufui Pc Pifpef I/CC BY-SA 3.0 )
Established in 1776 in Bavaria, Germany, this group of freethinkers, humanists, and academics opposed superstition, prejudice, religion, and its influence over the public, and they supported the advancement of women.
The Illuminati were a shadowy group, believed capable of influencing movements in government and the arts. The group was infiltrated and shut down a decade after its founding, or so the official record goes. Conspiracy theorists have long been obsessed that the world has been controlled by the Illuminati for generations. There are many modern groups that claim to be the descendants of the original Bavarian Illuminati; they go so far as to use the name “Illuminati” in their title, but there is no evidence that these recent organizations are tied to the original.
Besides its actions, what is a major mystery of this group is the location of its headquarters. Theorists have claimed many prominent locations are the headquarters of the Illuminati from Disney World in Orlando, Florida, the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah, the Statue of Liberty in New York City, Big Ben in London, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and, among many others, the Vatican.
The theory that the Illuminati headquarters is located at the Vatican is especially interesting due to the group’s opposition to the church. It’s believed by conspiracy theorists that the church was long ago infiltrated by the society and so that would make its leader, the pope, one of the Illuminati’s highest ranking members. Today, the pope resides in a simple room at Domus Sanctae Marthae , a guest house adjacent to St. Peter’s Basilica. The five-story building containing 106 suites and 22 single rooms is for clergy who are in town on official Holy See business, or perhaps for an Illuminati meeting or two.
Ordo Templi Orientis: Bay Area Thelemic Temple
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA Mural of Aleister Crowley at the Abode of Chaos . (Photo: Thierry Ehrmann/CC BY 2.0 )
The Order of the Temple of the East was founded between 1895 and 1906 in either Austria or Germany. It is believed wealthy industrialist, Carl Kellner, began the religious movement, but it was famed occultist Aleister Crowley whose name and additions to the group shrouded it in curiosity and mystery.
OTO was modeled somewhat after another secret society, Freemasonry. But Crowley added a layer, his own self-created belief system called Thelema. Thelema’s practices and beliefs are written out in a book titled The Book of Law and its core belief is: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” Ideas from occultism, and Eastern and Western mysticism, found their way into Thelema and thus OTO. The religion is highly secretive and members move through the order in a series of rites and rituals, moving up levels in the forms of initiations. Levels have curious names such as Minerval, Master Magician, Illustrious Knight, Grandmaster of Light, and so on.
There are two components at the core of OTO: magical rituals, which have been rumored to include tantric sex, the summoning of angels and demons, and astral projection. Then there is the gnostic mass, reminiscent of a Catholic mass only because it contains a host and wine toward the end. The gnostic mass includes elaborate costumes, and at the climax of the mass it’s believed that the host turns into the Body of God and the wine the Blood of God.
There are multiple locations of worship called camps, oases, or lodges. The majority of them keep their locations secretive to the greater public. The relatively small location in Oakland is an oasis . They hold a weekly gnostic mass in a temple decorated in candles and Egyptian imagery. It’s unknown exactly what takes place during initiation ceremonies and what knowledge is shared during these events. According to Crowley’s autobiography, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley : “the OTO is in possession of one supreme secret. The whole of its system [is] directed towards communicating to its members, by progressively plain hints, this all-important instruction.”
Priory of Sion: Bibliothèque Nationale de France
PARIS, FRANCE National Library of France Reading Room. (Photo: Vincent Desjardins/CC BY 2.0 )
The secret of this secret society is that many people believe in its existence, but scholarly claims have repetitively stated the group is a complete myth, constructed by the imagination of a madman.
The myth begins that the Priory of Sion was a group charged with protecting the descendants of Jesus of Nazareth and Mary Magdalene who eventually went on to settle in France. It was leaked in the 1970s that the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, the French National Library, was in possession of a file calledDossiers Secrets d’Henri Lobineau that pointed to the Priory of Sion being located in France. The file contained an introduction, maps of France, genealogies, newspaper clippings, letters and a list of grand masters of the Priory of Sion that included Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo Da Vinci.
The authenticity of these files has been questioned ever since they were left at the library. Eventually, they were traced to Pierre Plantard. It is believed Plantard planted the document at the library in order to perpetuate an elaborate hoax. He himself claimed to be a descendant of Jesus’ bloodline. Academics went on to agree that the Priory of Sion was a hoax constructed by Plantard. Yet, books, articles, and movies continue to be made about this group. Whether or not there is a secret society dedicated to protecting a family descendant from biblical times we may never know.
Rosicrucianism: Rosicrucian Park
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum grounds. (Photo: Ginabovara/Public Domain )
Several manifestos were anonymously published in the early 17th century that told of legends, mysticism, alchemy, and the Order of the Temple of the Rosy Cross. One of these documents was the Fama Fraternitatis which was published in Cassel, Germany.
The Fama spoke of the 15th century German doctor and mystical philosopher Christian Rosenkreuz who traveled through parts of the Middle East where he learned esoteric wisdom, studying in places such as Turkey and Egypt. There, he claimed to learn extensive knowledge regarding nature and the universe. When he returned, he attempted to share what he learned but he was dismissed. He then formed a like-minded group called the Fraternity of the Rose Cross.
The year of his birth and death remain shadowy, but some documents claim he lived over 106 years. The group upheld Christian beliefs, but strongly opposed Roman Catholicism, and was also said to have influenced Freemasonry along with hundreds of other groups, many of which have adopted titles with similar names throughout modern times. At its simplest form, the group aimed to promote a “Universal Reformation of Mankind.” Some reports claim that the requirement for membership was that one must have been capable of using more than the average amount of brain power.
During Rosenkreuz’s life, the group was thought to have only consisted of a handful of members, each of whom was a doctor. All members took an oath to remain bachelors, and also to treat the sick without payment and to find a replacement for themselves before they died. Interest in the group peaked between 1607 and 1616 with the appearances of the anonymous works that included the Fama Fraternitatis which ranged with content that included mysticism and apocalyptic warnings.
Whether Rosenkreuz’s original idea continued is unknown. One of the hundreds of groups claiming to be tied to the original is the Ancient Mystical Order Rosea Crucis that has some connection to occultist Aleister Crowley. AMORC claims to be devoted to the “study of elusive mysteries of life and the universe.” They utilize ideas from major philosophers, including Thales and Pythagoras, healing techniques, alchemy, symbolism, and mysticism. The group claims its history can be traced to pharaoh Thutmose III in 1477. The AMORC headquarters is located at Rosicrucian Park in San Jose, California, which spans a city block and includes several structures. The park is home to elaborate gardens, a research library, a planetarium, a temple, and it houses the ashes of Harvey Spencer Lewis, founder of the secret society.
By Cynthia Pelayo, Atlas Subscura SOURCE
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RIO DE JANEIRO — Students are taking over Rio de Janeiro schools to protest crippling education cuts, while the politician who helped bring the Summer Olympics to this city is battling allegations that he pocketed millions in bribes. Grenade blasts from battles echo through Leblon, the seaside bastion of the city’s elite. Even the governor’s daughter was recently mugged at gunpoint outside her home. When Brazil’s new leader, Michel Temer, took the reins of the nation this month — a milestone in the caustic fight to oust President Dilma Rousseff, who faces an impeachment trial — he promised a new day of “national salvation. ” But what Mr. Temer did not mention is that his political party and its allies have wielded immense power here in the state of Rio de Janeiro for most of the past decade — and this place needs a whole lot of saving, too. In other words, critics lament, the same party that created a mess in Rio is now running the country. “Rio is evolving into a as its leaders find new ways to squander Brazil’s greatest oil bonanza,” said Marcelo Portugal, a Brazilian economist. The state’s finances are a shambles. Some athletes are so disgusted with the City of Rio’s bay that they want the Olympic sailing races moved. Last month, a stretch of a new $12 million bike path flowing gracefully by the coast — one of Rio’s signature upgrades for the Games — collapsed after being hit by a wave, causing two men to plummet to their deaths. “This is everything that we did not want happening at this moment,” said Rio’s mayor, Eduardo Paes, a prominent member of Mr. Temer’s party. “It’s not easy to host the Olympics in the current Brazilian environment. ” Rio’s leaders had promised that the Olympics would showcase Brazil’s triumphs. Instead, as Mr. Temer scrambles to put Brazil’s economy on stronger footing, Rio is emerging as a cautionary tale of what a government led by his Brazilian Democratic Movement Party could mean for the rest of the nation. Some of the top leaders in Mr. Temer’s party — including the head of the Senate and the former speaker of the lower house of Congress, who was forced to step down this month to face graft charges — have been accused of accepting enormous bribes. But their party, known as the P. M. D. B. is also coming under fire over accusations of mismanagement and graft involving the Olympics. Engineering executives have testified that Sergio Cabral, the former governor from the party who helped land the Rio Olympics and still exerts considerable sway, demanded millions in bribes. They say the payments were the equivalent of 5 percent of the cost of the renovation of the landmark Maracanã soccer stadium and other public works projects. Mr. Cabral also came under scrutiny for using the state’s helicopters to transport his children, their two nannies and the family dog on weekend jaunts to a beach house. “Rio’s politicians are absolutely disgusting,” said Leonardo Siqueira, 37, a cosmetics distributor. He cited the collapse of the bike path, graft scandals involving public works projects and streets that flood with sewage during rains. “Rio is in this crisis because of the P. M. D. B.,” Mr. Siqueira said. “They are politicians who govern first and foremost for themselves, not for the citizens. ” In a statement, Mr. Cabral said that he never took bribes and that his security advisers suggested using public helicopters to avoid potential attacks from drug gangs. Under Mr. Cabral, Rio carried out a polarizing “pacification” campaign to police the city aggressively and alter its notorious reputation for crime. But that, too, is coming under strain, with a crime wave marked by muggings throughout the city, an increase in the homicide rate and a terrifying surge in killings of children by stray bullets. In one tragic episode, a boy in a suburb was fatally shot this month while in his car seat. Then there is Rio’s financial crisis, which is occurring despite the revenue from oil fields off its coast. The undersea wealth helped turbocharge the regional economy just a few years ago, thanks to legislation giving state and local governments access to a trove of royalties. Now Brazil’s oil industry is in turmoil as Petrobras, the national oil company, reels from bribery scandals and low energy prices. Petrobras, based in a huge Brutalist headquarters downtown, has fired tens of thousands of employees over the past two years, sending a chill across other industries. Rio’s share of oil royalties is plummeting to about $1 billion this year, from $3. 5 billion in 2014. Rio’s leaders say the fiscal crisis has forced them to delay pension payments to retired state employees. The education budget was slashed, prompting teachers to strike and high school students to occupy more than a dozen schools to protest deplorable conditions. Some factors in Rio’s crisis are beyond the state’s control, like global oil prices and the weak national economy. But wings of government have preserved their privileges while services suffer. Judges recently won a ruling requiring the state to pay them before honoring other obligations. At the other end of the social spectrum, leaders are cutting back. A program created five years ago to provide cash subsidies of about $22 a month to about 200, 000 of the state’s poorest residents ran out of money this month. “I feel deceived as a cabinet member and revolted as a citizen,” Paulo Melo, the state official in charge of antipoverty programs, told reporters. He condemned the state government’s “generalized callousness. ” Leaders from the P. M. D. B. a largely centrist but ideologically malleable party that provided a facade of democratic opposition during Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, had vowed to reverse the decline that characterized Rio after the national capital was moved to Brasília in 1960. In 2007, Mr. Cabral took the helm of the state government, which oversees major functions like the police. Altogether, the State of Rio has a population of 16. 5 million, almost the size of Chile. Mr. Cabral, 53, nurtured an alliance with the governing Workers’ Party of Ms. Rousseff, enabling Rio to land the Olympics and secure federal funds for projects like a subway expansion. In 2009, the P. M. D. B. also took control of the City of Rio, which has about 6. 3 million people. The mayor, Mr. Paes, 46, embarked on a frenetic urban overhaul to highlight Rio on the global stage, refurbishing parts of the old center and installing light rail. In the P. M. D. B.’s favor, most venues for the Olympics have been completed, easing concerns about Rio’s preparations for the Games, in August. On a national level, Mr. Temer has named respected economists from outside the party to important posts. And party leaders say they have provided a “moderating force” in Brazil’s tumultuous democracy. “The P. M. D. B. is a pillar of governability,” said Renan Calheiros, the head of the Senate. Here in Rio, Mr. Paes emphasizes that the city’s finances are in better shape than the state’s. Still, his administration faces accusations of ineptitude involving some Olympic projects, highlighted by the collapse in April of part of the new coastal bike path. Protesters in Rio, as elsewhere in Brazil, have long complained that their leaders have prioritized lavish like the Olympics and the World Cup while neglecting essentials like hospitals and schools. It was a central grievance in the protests that shook the nation three years ago. Now, people wonder about Rio’s capacity to solve its problems. Mr. Cabral’s successor, Luiz Fernando de Souza (known by his nickname, Pezão, or Bigfoot) who took office in 2014, also came from the P. M. D. B. As Rio’s problems intensified, Mr. de Souza seemed unusually focused on a painting that hung in his office, “Death of Estácio de Sá,” depicting the agony of the Portuguese military officer who founded Rio in 1565. Complaining about negative energy emanating from the painting, Mr. de Souza called it “really heavy” and had it removed. A few weeks later, Mr. de Souza, 61, revealed that he was battling lymphoma and went on medical leave. His absence left the lieutenant governor, Francisco Dornelles, in charge. A veteran from the Progressive Party — which hews to conservative ideas and is closely allied with the P. M. D. B. — Mr. Dornelles, 81, has suggested suspending interest payments on Rio’s debt to ease the state’s woes. “The P. M. D. B. and its allies have simply run Rio into the ground through their mixture of corruption and stunning incompetence,” said Marcelo Freixo, a prominent state legislator. The leaders of the P. M. D. B. in Rio are now embracing policies commonly found in leftist countries. To raise money, the state’s leaders approved taxes of nearly 20 percent on offshore oil production in Rio’s waters. At a time of low oil prices, opponents say, the measure could destroy Rio’s oil industry. “The tax makes most of the projects in Rio unviable,” said Antonio Guimarães, the director of the Brazilian Association of Oil Producers. Despite the grim assessments, some in Rio draw on the city’s history of resilience. Ruy Castro, 68, an author, told the magazine Veja that Rio had an “unrivaled capacity to frustrate those who root against the city. ” He then added a dash of skepticism. “We’re good at partying,” Mr. Castro said. “Not at legacies. ”
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Technical explanations are out of favor, so here’s an educated guess:
I believe there were a number of institutional rebalancing programs today designed, in mild risk-off fashion, to move monies away from small caps and post-AAPL NASDAQ, without appreciably changing overall equity allocations. (The Dow, best performing today, also had the highest relative volume amongst the indices).
This would explain how the Dow could hover slightly green even as the Russell was suddenly smashed below a key weekly level, down > 1.25%, then only meekly recover, while all other indices easily achieved the standard late-day VWAP comeback.
Even so, those hoping recent RUT upside difficulties portends a more pronounced, generalized risk-off market are holding, though firmly, to only the thinnest of tea leaves, waiting for a stronger brew …
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Jack Sock was not going to be satisfied anymore with just making the third round of a Grand Slam tournament. In years past, he said, “I was happy to make the third and, you know, kind of whatever happens, happens. ” That nonchalance is perhaps befitting a but not one who aspires to be a tennis champion. Sock has been a leader of the next generation of American men since winning the United States Open junior championship in 2010. He has been in the top 30 in singles most of the past year, but his greatest success has come in doubles, in which he has won two Grand Slam titles and two medals at the Rio Olympics. This summer, though, Sock decided to stop playing doubles regularly, splitting with his longtime partner Vasek Pospisil, with whom he won Wimbledon two years ago. “It was a tough decision on one end, but also an easy decision on the other, where you get all your energy and rest and hydration and you just take all the necessary steps to do your best in singles,” Sock said. “I think it’s showing. ” Sock claimed the biggest singles victory of his career Friday, upsetting Marin Cilic, to advance to the fourth round of the United States Open for the first time. “For me to make the second week here and every Slam going forward is my goal,” said Sock, who is seeded 26th. “I feel like if I’m playing good tennis and how I can, I feel like that’s kind of where I belong. ” Sock’s only other appearance at a Grand Slam event was at the 2015 French Open, where he lost to Rafael Nadal in four sets. Nadal also advanced to the fourth round on Friday, with a victory over Andrey Kuznetsov. In the fourth round Sunday, Sock will face Tsonga, who defeated No. 23 Kevin Anderson, (4). Cilic, the tournament’s 2014 champion, had won eight straight matches and ended Andy Murray’s winning streak in the final of the Cincinnati event last week. Sock had beaten Cilic in their previous meeting, in July, overcoming a deficit in a Davis Cup quarterfinal. Sock said the victory had been “the of the summer for me. ” The Open has Caroline Wozniacki’s year. A finalist here two years ago who is now ranked 74th, Wozniacki followed her upset of Svetlana Kuznetsova with a victory over Monica Niculescu. “It feels great to be back here,” said Wozniacki, who had not advanced past the third round of a tournament since February. “It feels like my back garden and everything feels so familiar. ” Anastasija Sevastova also backed up her upset of Garbiñe Muguruza, topping Kateryna Bondarenko, to reach the fourth round at a major for the first time since 2011. Ryan Harrison, the American who beat Milos Raonic on Wednesday, was not able to follow that upset with another victory. He lost, (4) to Marcos Baghdatis, who had not advanced to the fourth round of a major since the Australian Open in 2009. Novak Djokovic is a regular in the round of 16 at majors, but he has never gotten there as easily as he has in this tournament. He has not played a full match since Monday night. Djokovic received a walkover in the second round because his opponent, Jiri Vesely, had a forearm injury. He got another break Friday when his opponent, Mikhail Youzhny, retired with a left hamstring strain six games into their match. “This particular situation I never had in my Grand Slam career,” Djokovic said after practicing for an hour in Arthur Ashe Stadium. Djokovic, who is recovering from a wrist injury, said it was good to have some days off and shorter matches. But spending so little time on court is not ideal either. Djokovic has played only two full matches since winning the Rogers Cup in Toronto at the end of July and has just four and a half sets under his belt at the Open. “As you are approaching second week of the Grand Slam, you want to have match play and you want to have time spent on center court before you face one of the top players,” he said. Djokovic managed to avoid a top player in the next round, too. His opponent will be the Briton Kyle Edmund, ranked 84th in the world, who upended John Isner, (5). Edmund, 21, is enjoying the finest Grand Slam tournament of his young career. He had won only two matches in eight Grand Slam singles appearances coming into the Open, but he knocked out Richard Gasquet in the first round before taking out Isner. Edmund broke Isner three times and piled up 43 winners. “I was pleased with my consistency throughout the match,” Edmund said. “There weren’t too many dips. And to do it on that stage, as well. Good crowd. Big court. Against John in his home country. ” He added, “These are the situations that you want to be in, that you dream about. ” Isner’s loss leaves Sock as the American man, and Sock can make a run at being the top American in the rankings. Even with his renewed focus on singles, Sock gained something from his Olympic success in doubles: a new celebration dance. At the end of Friday’s match, Sock shuffled his feet and pretended his racket was a fencing foil. It was a nod to a friend he made in Rio, the American fencer Miles who was at the match. Even in celebration, Sock was not settling for his current form. “If he’s in the box on the next one and I’m able to win,” Sock said, “you might see a technique and a better version of it. ”
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FCC Passes Sweeping Internet Privacy Rules in ‘Big Win for Civil Rights’ Posted on Oct 27, 2016 Shutterstock
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday passed sweeping new privacy rules designed to keep broadband providers from giving customers’ private data to third parties.
The rules, approved by a vote of 3-2, require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to get customers’ explicit consent before using or sharing behavioral data like browsing history, location, and other sensitive information with marketing firms or other companies, the Washington Post reports .
“It’s the consumers’ information,” FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said. “How it is used should be the consumers’ choice. Not the choice of some corporate algorithm.”
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According to the Post’s Brian Fung:
Also covered by that requirement are health data, financial information, Social Security numbers and the content of emails and other digital messages. The measure allows the FCC to impose the opt-in rule on other types of information in the future, but certain types of data, such as a customer’s IP address and device identifier, are not subject to the opt-in requirement. The rules also force service providers to tell consumers clearly what data they collect and why, as well as to take steps to notify customers of data breaches.
However, the new rules do not require providers to get clear permission before using the data themselves.
Still, watchdog groups praised the announcement, with the digital rights organization Fight for the Future calling it “a big win for consumers [and] civil rights.”
Chris Calabrese, vice president of policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology, said , “This rule represents a significant step forward in protecting internet users, who have no choice but to expose massive amounts of information to broadband providers. It reflects the reality that where we go online is private and the people we pay to carry it should treat it as private.”
Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said the vote was “a historic win for privacy and free expression and for the vitality of the internet. Just as telephone companies are not allowed to listen in to our calls or sell information about who we talk to, our internet providers shouldn’t be allowed to monitor our internet usage for profit.”
Still, he noted, “The FCC’s order is not airtight. We can expect the industry to try to exploit every crack in these protections, and hope that the spirit of vigorous oversight and consumer protection that has animated this proceeding will continue.”
The racial justice group Color Of Change, which advocated for stronger privacy protections as a safeguard against data collection—which disproportionately affects communities of color—also welcomed the announcement.
“When Color Of Change began their advocacy on behalf of communities of color, the FCC listened, and today ends the era of corporations having unfettered access to our personal data and information, which has been routinely used to take advantage of the vulnerable,” said the organization’s campaign director Brandi Collins. “Third party marketing and advertising entities can no longer shamelessly target and prey upon black people and communities of color. This ruling also takes a strong stance to eliminate schemes that require payment for data to be protected and safeguards our actions online.”
Dallas Harris, policy fellow at the media democracy group Public Knowledge, said the decision “marks a significant step forward in protecting consumer privacy. For the first time, [ISPs] will be required to get consumer consent prior to using the sensitive information they collect. While much remains to be done to protect consumers online writ large, the commission’s rules establish a baseline level of protection for all.”
“Thanks to the rules passed by the commission today, consumers now have more control over how their information is used online than ever before. Yet, consumer protection rules are only as strong as their ability to be enforced, so it is imperative that the commission follow these strong rules with strict enforcement,” Harris said. TAGS:
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BEIRUT, Lebanon — In the images, he sits alone, a small boy coated with gray dust and encrusted blood. His little feet barely extend beyond his seat. He stares, bewildered, shocked and, above all, weary, as if channeling the mood of Syria. The boy, identified by medical workers as Omran Daqneesh, 5, was pulled from a damaged building after a Syrian government or Russian airstrike in the northern city of Aleppo. He was one of 12 children under the age of 15 treated on Wednesday — not a particularly unusual figure — at one of the hospitals in the city’s eastern section, according to doctors there. But some images strike a particular nerve, for reasons both obvious and unknowable, jarring even a public numbed to disaster. Omran’s is one. Within minutes of being posted by witnesses and journalists, a photograph and a video of Omran began rocketing around the world on social media. Unwittingly, Omran — like Alan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler who drowned last September and whose body washed up on a Turkish beach — is bringing new attention to the thousands upon thousands of children killed and injured during five years of war and the inability or unwillingness of global powers to stop the carnage. Maybe it was his haircut, long and floppy up top or his rumpled showing the Nickelodeon cartoon character CatDog or his tentative, confused movements in the video. Or the instant and inescapable question of whether either of his parents was left alive. In any event, by Thursday morning, Omran’s image had been broadcast and published around the world, and Syrians were sharing of his photograph in memes that both cried for help and darkly mocked the futile repetitiveness of such pleas. One, riffing on Omran’s officelike chair, showed him at a desk as if representing his country to the world. Another pasted him like a silent accusation between President Obama and his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir V. Putin. The drafting of Omran as an emblem of despair is not new images of dead and injured children from Syria are shared daily on social media, many of them indescribably more harrowing. Pieces of children’s bodies being pulled from rubble are photographed with appalling regularity in a war of indiscriminate attacks, most often from government airstrikes and shelling but also from rebel mortars. But while the mind revolts against looking too long at those pictures, and many news media shun them as too gruesome, it may be the relatively familiar look of Omran’s distress that allows a broader public to relate to it. In the case of Alan, the Syrian toddler who washed up on a beach after his family tried to reach Europe on a smuggler’s boat, the child was dead. But his body was intact, lying in the sand as if sleeping, and dressed neatly with evident parental love for his big journey. Omran, as he is carried from a damaged building in the dark, could be Everychild. He looks around in confusion, his chubby forearm draped trustingly across the reflective stripe on his rescuer’s back, before he is plopped into the chair at the back of an ambulance, lit blindingly white. He settles into a stare, apparently too stunned to cry. Then he puts a hand to his bloody brow, looks at his palm in surprise, and tries to wipe it on the chair. He glances around, as if trying to understand where he is. Omran’s picture and video were distributed by the Aleppo Media Center, a longstanding group of antigovernment activists and citizen journalists who document the conflict. They were also shared with journalists by doctors from the hospital where he was treated, which is supported by the Syrian American Medical Society. The video shows two more small children brought to the ambulance, and then two adults. They were taken to a hospital already swamped with casualties. Mohammad a radiology nurse, was in the emergency room when Omran arrived around 9 p. m. with bruises and cuts all over his body. “The boy was traumatized,” Mr. Ahmad said. “He wasn’t speaking when he arrived. A few minutes later, he started crying from pain. ” Mr. Ahmad cleaned Omran’s face and bandaged his head, as images shared by the hospital’s medical staff showed. Doctors said they found no apparent signs of brain injury. In the chaos, the hospital workers, who communicated via online messages, could not immediately say which of the boy’s adult relatives were alive and whether they were with him. That is not unusual, medical workers say, in a city where some dead and injured children cannot even be identified because they are brought in alone. Bombings bring so many patients at once that doctors treat them on the floor, and hospitals and medical workers have been systematically targeted in the war. Later, doctors at the hospital said they had verified that Omran’s parents had survived, though their home had been destroyed. Relatives declined to speak, saying they were afraid of government reprisals. The doctors said the family may have relatives living in territory. Mahmoud Raslan, who had taken some of the video and photographs of Omran, said in an interview that the boy lived with his mother, father and three siblings, and that they were all injured. Cases like Omran’s are a daily sight in eastern Aleppo, several doctors said, adding that he was lucky in that he made it to a hospital that was still open. Mr. Ahmad, the nurse, said three other children had been hospitalized with Omran, along with a man who had been stuck under rubble for eight hours. He said that at least three people had died in the strike. “But Omran took all the attention,” he said. Mr. Raslan, the photographer, was surprised that the images of this one boy drew so much news coverage when, he said, he photographs similar events every day. On Thursday morning, journalists from around the world were clamoring in an online chat group for more information about Omran and his family. But the doctors had moved on. They were handling yet another influx from a bombing that morning, later posting new images. A boy lay on the floor, his legs missing. A woman in black put her hand to her mouth in anguish. Another boy lay on a gurney, soaked in blood, as a clinician worked on him. A few minutes later came another text message: The boy had died. His name was Ibrahim Hadiri, and there was a new photograph of his face, eyes closed. It is not likely to go viral.
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On the Monday edition of Breitbart News Daily, broadcast live on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 from 6AM to 9AM Eastern, Breitbart London Raheem Kassam will continue our discussion of President Trump’s first 100 days. [We’ll also continue our discussion of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Obamacare replacement bill, which is coming under intense criticism from all quarters and has been dubbed “Ryancare,” “ ” and “ ” by critics. Breitbart’s Washington Political Editor Matt Boyle will fill us in on the latest developments. Breitbart’s legal editor Ken Klukowski will discuss the latest legal challenge to President Trump’s new executive order on immigration and travel from six countries. Breitbart’s senior Joel Pollak will discuss the media hypocrisy in covering the customary requests for the resignations of U. S. attorneys during the change of an administration. We’ll also hear from Dan Gainor, the Vice President of Business and Culture at the Media Research Center, about the latest mainstream media meltdowns. Live from London, Rome, and Jerusalem, Breitbart correspondents will provide updates on the latest international news. Breitbart News Daily is the first live, conservative radio enterprise to air seven days a week. SiriusXM Vice President for news and talk Dave Gorab called the show “the conservative news show of record. ” Follow Breitbart News on Twitter for live updates during the show. Listeners may call into the show at: .
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organization Live Action continues its series of undercover videos investigating Planned Parenthood’s claim that it offers “ care” to pregnant women. [In the video below, Live Action investigators called Planned Parenthood affiliates throughout the country, asking if they could have an ultrasound to check on the health status of their unborn baby: “Oh, we won’t be able to tell you if it’s healthy or the gender,” says a Planned Parenthood staff member in Farmington, New Mexico. “If you’re, you know — we specialize in abortions. You know, that’s what our ultrasounds are for, to see how far along the, um, patient is. ” At Planned Parenthood in St. Paul, Minnesota, a worker states, “We do [ultrasounds] when, um, when performing abor — um, abortion procedures. ” In Corning, New York, a Planned Parenthood staff member explains, “No, we only do — we only do ultrasounds if you are terminating. ” “We have to do an ultrasound with an abortion, but we don’t offer them for — we can’t do anything to make sure that the pregnancy’s fine,” says a Planned Parenthood employee in St. Louis, Missouri. At a press conference on Capitol Hill Thursday, Live Action President Lila Rose was joined by U. S. Reps. Diane Black ( ) Vicky Hartzler ( ) Ann Wagner ( ) Trent Franks ( ) Chris Smith ( ) Steve King ( ) and other members of Congress to promote the defunding of Planned Parenthood and the redirection of its taxpayer funds to other federally qualified healthcare centers that provide comprehensive services for women without abortions. “The reality is Planned Parenthood’s focus for pregnant women is abortion,” Rose said at the press conference. “It’s not care. It’s not serving young mothers, promoting them, supporting them it’s abortion. ” “Women in our country deserve far better than abortion,” she continued. “Far better than to be seen as, ‘You need abortion in order to achieve your dream, in order to live your life, in order to have your career and your family the way you want,’ and we reject that. ” “I can think of no organization in the recent history of the world that has deceived the world more than Planned Parenthood,” said Rep. Franks, noting that the abortion chain’s president, Cecile Richards, has claimed defunding Planned Parenthood would be harmful to women. “Live Action’s investigative video series has completely exploded this ridiculous lie,” he added. “The truth is Planned Parenthood is the largest perpetrator of abortion in America, mercilessly killing some 300, 000 human babies a year. ” “Planned Parenthood is not interested in providing health care to women,” said Rep. Hartzler. “Its exclusive mission and its area of expertise is abortion. If Planned Parenthood’s mission is to serve the health needs of women, they are failing miserably. ” Rep. King said Americans must look hard at the morality of abortion and the fact that “we are borrowing money from China to fund Planned Parenthood. ” “If we fail to [defund Planned Parenthood] during this 115th Congress, shame on us,” he said. The first video of Live Action’s new campaign exposed Planned Parenthood’s marketing of care in support of its bid for taxpayer dollars. The group’s investigators were turned away at 92 different facilities, where Planned Parenthood staff said they do not provide care, but do specialize in abortions.
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VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Sunday decried a deadly attack on a Coptic church in Egypt during Palm Sunday celebrations, just weeks before his planned visit to Cairo. [The pontiff expressed his “deep condolences” to the Coptic patriarch, Tawadros II, calling him “my brother,” to the Coptic church and “all of the dear Egyptian nation,” and said he was praying for the dead and injured in the attack that occurred just hours earlier as Francis himself was marking Palm Sunday in St. Peter’s Square. The pontiff asked God “to convert the hearts of those who spread terror, violence and death, and also the hearts of those who make, and traffic in, weapons. ” The pope’s remarks on the church attack were handed to him on a piece of paper after he remembered the victims of the Stockholm attack Friday night. The Palm Sunday celebrations in St. Peter’s Square were held under tight security, with streets surrounding St. Peter’s Square blocked to traffic and security search of the faithful entering the square. The pope and cardinals in red robes led a solemn process clutching elaborately braided palm fronds as they walked through the throngs, followed by the papal blessing of palm fronds and olive branches. The processions recalls the bittersweet nature of Holy Week, with the faithful clutching simple palm fronds and olive branches to commemorate Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem only to be followed later by his death on a wooden cross. In his homily, the pope remembered the suffering in the world today, citing those who “suffer from slave labor, from family tragedies, from diseases … They suffer from wars and terrorism, from interests that are armed and ready to strike. ” After his traditional Sunday blessing, the pope circled the square in the pope mobile to greet the faithful.
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Email Print This is WHY Comey wrote the letter. This is WHERE are the documents we have all been waiting for and expecting from WIKILEAKS are coming from. NOT the Russians…. the US Intelligence Community is staging a Coup against the Clinton Corruption. Watch this now!! VIA TD News Wire Steve Pieczenik was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance and James Baker. His expertise includes foreign policy, international crisis management and psychological warfare. He served the presidential administrations of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in the capacity of deputy assistant secretary. This is no joke. This is happening RIGHT now. SHARE this everywhere before Facebook takes it down.
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A police officer with the Washington transit system has become the first American law enforcement officer to be charged with supporting the Islamic State, accused of trying to send financial help to the group after advising a friend on how to travel to Syria to join it. In court papers filed on Tuesday and made public on Wednesday, federal law enforcement officials charged the officer, Nicholas Young, with attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization. The charge is based on the allegation that Mr. Young bought gift cards worth $245 and sent their code numbers to someone he believed had joined ISIS in Syria, to help the group pay for mobile phone messaging with its supporters in the West. The documents state that agents had been shadowing Mr. Young for almost six years, that he went to Libya twice in 2011 to aid a rebel group fighting Muammar and that he had associated with two people convicted in 2012 on terrorism charges: Amine El Khalifi, who pleaded guilty to plotting a suicide bombing at the United States Capitol and Zachary A. Chesser, who admitted to trying to join the Shabab, a Islamist terror group, and to threatening violence against the creators of the television show “South Park. ” Mr. Young, a United States citizen who lives in Fairfax, Va. joined the Washington Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s police force in 2003. The authority, which said he was dismissed after his arrest on Wednesday, would not say where he was assigned or what kind of work he did. An undercover law enforcement officer who befriended and monitored him in 2011 and 2012 reported that Mr. Young had spoken of committing violence against the F. B. I. including using gasoline to set agents’ cars on fire and kidnapping and torturing an agent who had interviewed his family members and according to an affidavit by an F. B. I. agent, David Martinez. The affidavit says that Mr. Young knew he was probably under surveillance and that he took steps to evade it, like using disposable phones. But it said he did talk to the undercover officer about sneaking weapons into a federal courthouse, and stockpiling weapons. Mr. Young came under F. B. I. scrutiny in 2010 because of his acquaintance with Mr. Chesser, and then he and the undercover officer met several times in 2011 with Mr. Khalifi and discussed violent jihad, the affidavit says. In 2014, an F. B. I. informant posing as an American military veteran who supported ISIS met 20 times with Mr. Young, Agent Martinez wrote. Mr. Young advised him on how to set up anonymous email and text messaging accounts, how to travel to Syria to join ISIS without being caught, and even what gear he should take, the agent said. Mr. Young believed the other man went to Syria and kept in touch with him electronically, but in fact, he was communicating with F. B. I. agents posing as his friend, according to the affidavit. When Mr. Young asked how he could send money to ISIS without being detected, the agents requested the gift cards, and he bought them and sent the serial numbers last week, it says.
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The Greatest Name shall do its things, O heart, be of good cheer For by wile and guile the demon shall never become Solomon.
~ Hafiz
In 2014, a former, estranged disciple of Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s — an ex-Maryamiyyah member — told me that Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Russian fascist Alexander Dugin and his organization are on quite intimate terms, apparently sharing similar long-term political aspirations, and not just where their purported Traditionalism is concerned. At the time this revelation struck me as a bit odd since Nasr (and specifically his son Vali-Reza) are staunch Atlanticists –- Vali-Reza Nasr being the veritable prized subaltern ornament of Neoconservatism in America — whereas Dugin and his Eurasianism ostensibly (at least where the rhetoric is concerned) stand at the very opposite pole. The complex details of this Nasr-Dugin nexus is a discussion better left for another day, only to say that –- and as recently outlined in one academic monograph [1] — this unlikely fellowship may actually have something to do with Frithjof Schuon’s (d. 1998) underlying ideological “Aryanism” with its “de-semitization” of the theosophical Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi: an ‘Aryanism’ and ‘de-semitization’ that Dugin’s brand of occult fascism would very much be in agreement with. But let us turn here to the checkered history of the Maryamiyyah Sufi Order itself, which Seyyed Hossein Nasr currently heads [2].
The Maryamiyyah Sufi Order
The Maryamiyyah is the Sufi order created by the Swiss writer and esotericist Frithjof Schuon (d. 1998) which stems from an Algerian sub-branch of the Shadhiliyah Sufi Order [3]. After briefly visiting North Africa in the early 1930s to meet the charismatic Shaykh Ahmad al-Alawi (d. 1934) [4], from the mid 1930s onward Schuon attracted disciples of his own in his native Switzerland while as of 1936 he also began claiming to be the successor to this same Shaykh Ahmad al-Alawi. The actual successors of Shaykh Ahmad al-Alawi, however, have adamantly denied Schuon’s claims and instead maintain that Schuon only spent a sum total of a few days with their master in the early 1930s; that he was barely even initiated into their order, only authorized to transmit the Muslim confession of belief (i.e. the shahada ); let alone being the Shaykh Ahmad al-Alawi’s actual successor. This, and other related controversies, soon led to a bitter schism within the ranks of the Traditionalist school and specifically a personal falling out between Frithjof Schuon and the leading intellectual light of the movement, the Frenchman Rene Guénon (d. 1951). One recent study published in Iran suggests that Guénon’s premature death in Cairo in 1951 may have even been somehow orchestrated by the Maryamiyyah itself, thus making of Guénon’s demise possibly a murder at their hands since, had he lived longer, Guénon’s rivalry with Schuon would have certainly proven deleterious to Schuon and the Maryamiyyah’s long-term political interests [5].
Particularly after Rene Guénon’s death, Frithjof Schuon’s Maryamiyyah Sufi Order (based at the time in Basle, Switzerland and now operating almost like a quasi-Masonic order) began spreading among some elite Western intellectual circles, claiming in its ranks some notable figures among the academic Islamic Studies as well as the Comparative Religious Studies establishments of the time (eg. Huston Smith, Victor Danner, Cyril Glasse, to name few). During the 1960s Schuon now claimed mystical visions of the “Divine Feminine” in the naked form of the Virgin Mary who anointed him the Avatar of the Age, the Imam Mahdi, the Return of Christ, the Fifth Buddha, the incarnations of Kalki and Vishnu, etc. Within its specific Islamicate context, Schuon’s claims, his ‘universalist’ teachings, and some of the details of his visions of the divine feminine are eerily similar to those claimed by the Baha’i founder Mirza Husayn ‘Ali Nuri Baha’u’llah (d. 1892), with other striking similarities existing between Bahaism and the Maryamiyyah that deserves a detailed comparative analysis in its own right. Today both also enjoy a very cozy relationship with the state of Israel — with the former also sharing a cozy relationship with the Gulf potentates as well as the Moroccan elite.
One feature of the Maryamiyyah practice which they are noted for is that they pray to Schuon as well as the Virgin Mary; and, along with offering blessings ( salawat ) to the Prophet Muhammad and the Madonna, the order also offers daily blessings ( salawat ) to Frithjof Schuon –- a feature of their practice which would certainly scandalize any orthodox Muslim, Sunni or Shi’i. Much of the Maryamiyyah’s teachings and practices also seem to share common elements with the Indian Tantric Left-Hand Path tradition. Schuon’s ‘sacred nudity’ and his spin on the nature of the ‘divine feminine’ would be easily recognizable to any genuine Tantric initiate. Be that as it may, and even under the mountains of obfuscatory terminological mumbo-jumbo that the Maryamiyyah regularly use to conceal the fact, the Left-Hand Path is never mentioned nor is it remotely the ‘orthodoxy’ that Schuon insists upon in his books; but rather it is the very same ‘heterodoxy’ he incessantly decries. To date, the Maryamiyyah have never forthrightly acknowledged this fact or dealt with it in any honest manner.
That said, in 1980 Schuon, his family, entourage and disciples moved from Switzerland to Bloomington, Indiana, and henceforth made it the Maryamiyyah’s headquarters. A series of scandals and public defections rocked the cult throughout the 1980s, and in the early 1990s Schuon was even briefly indicted by an Indiana Grand Jury. These scandals stemmed from Schuon’s “Primordial Gatherings” in Bloomington were scantily clad members of the Maryamiyyah –- with Schuon sometimes appearing completely naked donning only a Native American Lakota head-dress — would publicly engage in activities resembling something between a Native American pow-wow, a Sufi majlis and a Tantric maithuna ceremony. However, the scandals were very swiftly covered up and the public prosecutors and attorneys involved against the Maryamiyyah were eventually intimidated and browbeaten by unknown, behind the scenes actors to drop the case against Schuon: a case, I might add, involving allegations by ex-members of criminal sexual impropriety in the presence of minors (including paedophilia and related felonies). Schuon was also accused of forcing some of his leading disciples to divorce their wives, which he would then promptly re-marry as his “vertical” or ‘spiritual’ wives [6].
Schuon died in 1998 and left a splintered, scandal-ridden organization in his wake with one group gravitating towards the figure of Martin Lings (d. 2005) in the UK — who had served as Guénon’s secretary in Cairo while also being among Schuon’s earliest disciples — with another group congregating around the figure of Seyyed Hossein Nasr in the Beltway area of the United States. More diehard Schuonites stayed in Bloomington, Indiana, and refused to recognize either Lings or Nasr as Schuon’s putative successors and continued with their syncretistic, nudist “Primordial Gatherings” as before.
The Maryamiyyah After Schuon and Its Marriage to Empire
Both Nasr and Lings brought the Maryamiyyah closer to the circles of Western elites. To some degree this was already a process in full swing during Schuon’s own lifetime. But Nasr and Lings each in turn made closer alliances with the British establishment and the American deep state, going so far on occasion to operate in the capacity of covert and clandestine fronts for Anglo-American ‘soft power’ in numerous locales throughout the Muslim world [7]. Seyyed Hossein Nasr himself was already a royalist insider in Pahlavi Iran, especially during the last two decades and a half of the Pahlavi regime, earning his post at Aryamehr (now Shahid Beheshti) University due to his intimate connections with the Shah’s royal court and Farah Pahlavi specifically. It was as a consequence of this royalist connection that he was forced to flee Iran in 1979 following the Islamic Revolution.
That said, while not formally accounting himself among the ranks of the Maryamiyyah, Prince Charles, for example, considers himself to be some kind of (soft) Traditionalist as well as an avid fan of the writings of Guénon, A.K. Coomaraswamy, Schuon, Nasr and other Traditionalists. It should also be pointed out that the presence of Schuonian Traditionalists among assorted reactionary monarchist groups and organizations is a regular feature of their activities virtually everywhere around the world. This would also explain their proximity to the Moroccan royalty and elite. What is not widely appreciated is their alleged closeness to the various potentates and elites in the Gulf kingdoms (who are not usually known for their love of Sufism), and particularly those in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Due to his skills and vast connections, some ex-Maryamiyyah members even contend that Martin Lings himself may have been a life-long operative of the British SIS/MI6 [8]. Then there is Seyyed Hossein Nar’s long-time association and friendship with Henry Kissinger; the fact that prominent Turkish Maryamiyyah member Ibrahim Kalin has served as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s official spokesman in Turkey for some years now; not to mention the proximity of the Maryamiyyah to the Jordanian royal family and Prince Ghazi specifically who publishes “The Muslim 500” which regularly lauds the policies of the corrupt Gulf kingdoms and celebrates Anglo-American and Israeli policy against Iran and Syria [9]. Certainly the Russian occult fascist Alexander Dugin knows all about these linkages yet continues in his association with Nasr and the Maryamiyyah, which defies conventional explanation when he, his organization and the Russian state that Dugin advises pretend to stand as geopolitical adversaries to everything Nasr, his Maryamiyyah Sufi Order and these Atlanticist connections represent.
On the ground in North America, the Maryamiyyah’s rank-and-file is predominantly composed of upper middle-class professionals (monied and college educated) with white upper middle-class converts being the most preferred among recruits. Liberal, left-leaning and anti-establishment members entering the order are often required to become apolitical and focus instead on the “inner life” and forgo all politics, but over time they are turned conservative (or, rather, reactionary) and instead made to support the establishment conservatism of the Republican Party. One former member has alleged that Seyyed Hossein Nasr was actively canvassing for George W. Bush among his acolytes during both the elections of 2000 and 2004 and for John McCain in 2008, proving that father and son share identical political views and that the proverbial apple does not fall far from the tree. Be that as it may, so much for the ‘Traditionalism’ that ostensibly seeks to shun the convoluted and corrupt materialist politics of the ‘Reign of Quantity’, especially the politics of the West which Traditionalists are supposed to believe represents the epitome of this ‘Reign of Quantity’ – or, as they elsewhere like calling it, “the system of the Antichrist.” The same contact also reported rampant classism, racism and similar discriminatory, elitist attitudes prevalent throughout the Maryamiyyah Sufi Order together with an almost “congenital hatred” for all forms of liberal/leftwing and social justice causes, issues and charities [10]. To deflect and smokescreen from his own role in the Pahlavi regime, Seyyed Hossein Nasr has even gone on public record recently besmirching the memory of Ali Shariati (d. 1977) and accusing him of having been a SAVAK mole [11]; this, while some former members have alleged that the FBI, DHS, NSA, CIA and other agencies of American law enforcement and the US deep state are crawling all over the Maryamiyyah Sufi Order as either full-fledged members, affiliates or sympathizers [12].
As a process that began under Schuon, the Maryamiyyah has also firmly entrenched itself within important segments of the Islamic/Mid East Studies establishment of the Western Ivory Tower as well as in parts of the Muslim world, strategically placing proverbial ‘gatekeepers’ in key places. Besides Seyyed Hossein Nasr himself, William Chittick, Terry Moore, Hasan Awan, Reza-Shah Kazemi and Alan Godlas are presently just a few of those names associated with the Maryamiyyah at its highest level [13]. The Iranian scholar Gholamreza Avani, who was also at one time a student of Henry Corbin’s — who, for his part, was either generally aloof, if not hostile, to the views of Guénon, Schuon and the Traditionalists — is the most eminent figure of the Maryamiyyah Sufi Order in Iran today.
In recent times, allegations of abuse and cult-like behaviour continue to bedevil the Maryamiyyah’s reputation. A noteworthy incident is the one cited by Koslow (and reiterated by Shahbazi in his book) regarding the initial publication schedule for Mark Sedgwick’s ‘ Against the Modern World ’ [14]. Apparently the book was supposed to have been published by Oxford University Press earlier than 2004. Koslow claims that Sedgwick wrote to him in 2004 to say that Oxford University Press had been “…threatened by the Schuon cult with legal harassment [regarding its initial publication draft]. Rather than face the mafioso tactics thrown at him by the Schuon cult, Sedgwick…backed down and published a rather weak assessment of Schuon’s polygamous activities, criminal actions, visions of nude Virgins and delusions of grandeur…” [15]
Withal, it should be underscored that Sufism has not always been (nor is it in all present circumstances) in the service of First World imperial, neo-colonial agendas. Historically many individual Sufis and Sufi orders have actually stood against Western imperialism, colonialism and their lackeys. Amir Abd al-Qadir Jaza’iri (d. 1883) in Algeria, Shamil Daghestani (d. 1859) in the Caucuses, Umar Mukhtar (d. 1931) in Libya and those Iranian Sufi masters with their disciples who stood on the side of the people during the period of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-09) and later with the Islamic Revolution of 1979 are just some prominent examples of Sufis who have stood against both authoritarianism as well as the colonial powers of their day.
Unfortunately Western (and specifically Anglo-American) Sufism has increasingly gone in another direction, allying itself more and more with the agendas of Western establishments and the core interests of Empire in the Muslim world (the Naqshbandi-Haqqani Sufi Order is another notable example here). This turn to the darkside by organized Sufism in the West may also explain one of the heretofore unnoted factors in the growth of Islamist ideologies and organizations among countless disaffected, marginalized (immigrant) Sunni Muslim communities, since such a blatant infiltration of Sufism by the Western establishment, with the inevitable corruption it brings with it, is unquestionably as big a betrayal of the ‘Tradition’ as Islamism itself is. It certainly also explains why a country like the Islamic Republic of Iran is generally weary of the influence and activities of such organizations as the Maryamiyyah Sufi Order and similar.
Notes
[1] See Gregory A. Lipton, “ De-Semitizing Ibn ‘Arabi: Aryanism and the Schuonian Discourse ,” Journal NUMEN, forthcoming.
[2] Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s specific circle in Maryland is sometimes also hyphenated as the Maryamiyyah-Nasriyyah (private correspondence, 2014).
[3] Note that the order’s name ‘Maryamiyyah’ is a bow to the Virgin Mary since in Arabic Mary is Maryam .
[4] See Martin Lings, A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century: Shaikh Ahmad al-‘Alawi , Cambridge, 1993.
[5] Abdollah Shahbazi, maryamiya: az frithjof schuon ta seyyed hossein-i-nasr , Tehran, 1393 solar/2014: 101-2 and passim ; an article on the site regnabit.com vaguely suggests the same thing regarding the underlying reasons for Guénon’s demise.
[6] See Mark Koslow, Frithjof Schuon: Child Molestation and Obstruction of Justice , http://www.naturesrights.com/knowledge%20power%20book/frithjof_schuon.asp (retrieved 28 October 2016).
[7] Private correspondence, 2014.
[8] Private correspondence, 2014.
[9] Private, correspondence, 2016; see The Muslim 500 site online at, http://themuslim500.com/ (retrieved 30 October 2016).
[10] Private correspondence, 2014.
[11] See (in Persian) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCf3ErXFjog (retrieved 30 October 2016).
[12] Private correspondence, 2014.
[13] Private correspondence, 2016.
[14] Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century , Oxford University Press, 2004
[15] Koslow, ibid.
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Sunday on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” while discussing the Republicans the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act dubbed Obamacare, Sen. Bernie Sanders ( ) called it “an absolute disaster” and “a disgrace. ” Sanders said, “It is an absolute disaster. It is a disgrace, and by the way, this really has nothing to do with healthcare. What, but this has everything to do with a massive shift of wealth from working people, people to the very richest people of this country. It is a $275 billion tax break for the top two percent, millionaires will get about $50, 000 a year in tax breaks while at the same time some five to 10 million people are going to lose their health insurance, premiums are going to soar AARP says that if you are 64 years of age and you make about 25, 000 a year you are going to pay up to $7, 000 more for your health insurance, they are going to defund Planned Parenthood, deny over 2 million women the right to choose the healthcare they need and designate Medicaid which is why the American medical association, the AMA, and the American Hospital Association are opposing it, in addition to the AARP. This is a disgrace. And by the way, they are so cowardly that they want to go forward before the CBO even gives an estimate as to how much it will cost and how many people will lose their insurance. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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UNITED NATIONS — Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, who represented his country through times of domestic tumult and rising tensions with the West, died on Monday morning while at work in Manhattan. He would have turned 65 on Tuesday. The Russian government said he died suddenly but did not specify a cause. The New York City police said there were no indications of foul play. “The outstanding Russian diplomat died in harness,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on Twitter. The United Nations observed a moment of silence on Monday. His death comes at a critical juncture in relations, amid allegations of Russian interference in the United States presidential election and President Trump’s praise for his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin. Relations between the two countries have deteriorated in recent years, and diplomats have been watching whether the dynamics will change under the Trump administration with the appointment of Nikki R. Haley to be the American United Nations envoy. This month, she condemned what she called Russia’s “aggressive” actions in Ukraine. Mr. Churkin, on the same day, lauded her track record in politics. She was governor of South Carolina when Mr. Trump appointed her. “I never underestimate my colleagues,” Mr. Churkin told reporters before posting on Twitter a picture of their first private meeting. Mr. Churkin had been unusually absent during several Security Council meetings recently, but this month he brushed off reporters’ questions about his health. The deputy Russian ambassador, Petr Iliichev, said in brief remarks at a United Nations meeting on Monday that Mr. Churkin had been in the office “until the final moments. ” A Fire Department official said a 911 call had reported a cardiac arrest at the Russian mission on East 67th Street in Manhattan. Police officers from the 19th Precinct station house, across the street, performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The medical examiner’s office said an autopsy would be conducted on Tuesday. A police official said Mr. Churkin had a history of medical problems, including leukemia and heart ailments. He had kept them private among his diplomatic colleagues. Mr. Churkin, a former child actor who had starred in three films, two of them biopics about Lenin, was widely considered a masterly diplomat. He could be caustic and wry in equal measure, especially in exchanges with his American counterparts. Once, after Samantha Power, a United Nations ambassador in the Obama administration, scolded him for Russia’s actions in Aleppo, Syria — “Are you truly incapable of shame?” she said — he accused her of acting like Mother Teresa. Mr. Churkin had been trained as a translator, and as an ambassador, he sometimes became visibly annoyed with United Nations interpreters who could not keep up with his speaking style. Vitaly Ivanovich Churkin was born in Moscow on Feb. 21, 1952. He held a Ph. D. in history and was a graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. He began his career in the Soviet era and quickly rose through his country’s diplomatic corps as the Soviet Union was opening up under Mikhail S. Gorbachev. He was a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry from 1990 to 1992, represented his country in peace talks in the former Yugoslavia, and became ambassador to Belgium and Canada before taking on the United Nations post in 2006. He was a forceful defender of the Kremlin under the leadership of Mr. Putin, who issued a statement of condolence on Monday. But Mr. Churkin was not always comfortable with Mr. Putin’s actions, some diplomats said privately. Tom Brokaw of NBC News, who had known Mr. Churkin for many years, recalled that at a lunch at his home in 2015, the ambassador described Mr. Putin’s administration as “a kleptocracy. ” “He was privately very critical of Putin and how he was running the country,” Mr. Brokaw said on Monday. “He was equally critical of the Obama administration. He said: ‘They just don’t get us. They’re not dealing with us the right way. ’” Russia’s relations with the United States soured during Mr. Churkin’s tenure at the United Nations, first over Libya and then over crises in Syria and Ukraine. In an interview in October, he said that relations had not been so strained since the conflict nearly brought the two Cold War powers to a military confrontation four decades ago. He was a staunch defender of the Syrian government of Bashar . He used Russia’s veto at the Security Council to block six resolutions that would have punished the Assad government, including one aimed at referring its actions to the International Criminal Court. He repeatedly questioned all evidence that appeared to point to Syrian or Russian government crimes in Syria and met every Western criticism of Russia’s conduct there with retorts about the West’s role in Yemen and elsewhere. He picked apart every word of every draft resolution to ensure that it satisfied Russian interests. But he could also surprise his fellow diplomats. Last December, he negotiated with his French and American colleagues for three hours in a closed room on the wording of a draft resolution to send United Nations monitors to oversee evacuations from Aleppo. It was the first time in months that the Security Council had reached a consensus on Syria. Mr. Churkin is survived by his wife, Irina Churkina a son, Maksim and a daughter, Anastasia. News of Mr. Churkin’s sudden death sent a shock through the diplomatic community, where he was widely seen as a deft diplomat, skilled at using the rules and protocols of the United Nations to his country’s advantage, including Russia’s veto in the Security Council. Ms. Power, who sparred with him regularly in the Council chambers, said on Twitter that she was “devastated” by the news of Mr. Churkin’s death. “Diplomatic maestro deeply caring man who did all he cld to bridge differences,” she wrote. The two were friendly enough that she once took him to see the musical “Hamilton. ” Mr. Churkin recalled that her husband, the legal scholar Cass Sunstein, had sat next to him in the theater and schooled him on the United States Constitution. A previous American ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, called Mr. Churkin “highly effective and very funny. ” Mr. Churkin had been the ambassador on the United Nations Security Council, and he sometimes jokingly referred to himself as the “permanent representative,” the formal title for each member nation’s top envoy to the United Nations.
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Email Print President Obama has proven he is nothing but a vindictive man who is upset like the rest of the liberals that the person he was lobbying for didn’t win the 2016 election. But you’d never guess what he did with hit time in the Oval Office running out. President Obama has shut down the aerial surveillance over the U.S./ Mexican border with only two months left in his presidency. He’s trying to make it difficult for President-Elect Donald Trump, as per Watchdog.org The Department of Homeland Security can no longer do its job, and it is not securing the southern border with even the limited measures it has at its disposal right now! This is a move to help illegal immigrants come into this country, with Obama making it less difficult for them to break the law! They won’t be seen, and, thus, they won’t be caught. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security shut down Operation Phalanx, the aerial program that helps halt the movement of drugs and illegals across the border. This DHS move is challenged by Rep. Henry Cuellar, who claims that Congress gave this operation funding for the whole year of 2017. Cuellar, who is a member of the House Appropriations Committee and the Homeland Security Subcommittee, is composing a letter to send to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson about the shutdown. And this is not the first time Johnson has been challenged. With the help of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Cuellar went against Johnson earlier in the year in February when the Phalanx’s flight operations were reduced. Now, Cuellar is looking for reinforcements in Texas including Sen. John Cornyn and Reps. Mike McCaul and John Carter. McCaul has previously called on DHS to “develop a strategy to gain operational control” of the border. “Over the last several years, Congress has provided billions of dollars to secure the borders but without an end goal in mind,” McCaul stated. McCaul has also worked to make legislation “to require the [DHS] secretary to gain situational awareness through the use of sophisticated technologies and others means, giving our border agents the ability to predict changes in illegal activity.” The DHS claims the illegals coming into the U.S. have declined at the Texas stretch of the border, but apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley rose 27 percent in the fiscal 2016 year alone. In the small Laredo border section, Operation Phalanx accounted for 10,559 apprehensions and 4,007 “turnbacks” from March 2012 to December 2015. Phalanx was credited with seizing 12,851 pounds of narcotics during the period. The fact that Obama would do away with that just because Donald Trump won says a lot about what kind of man our outgoing president is. He would let more criminals and drugs come into this country just to make it harder to control for Trump, but Obama is not hurting Trump—he’s hurting the American people. And that’s disgraceful. With Trump in office in January, however, Phalanx will be up and running once more… and Obama can’t do anything to stop it. What do you think of Obama’s move to shut down aerial surveillance of our southern border? Please share this story on Facebook and tell us what you think because we want to hear YOUR voice!
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HOUSTON, Texas — A video shot by a Houston man while riding his blonde horse in a Walmart store is going viral. The video, posted to Facebook on Sunday, received nearly 2 million views. At least two mounted horses are shown coming from inside the store. [Woody Fields posted his video stating he was in “Walmart on a horse grocery shopping. ” The video shows him riding his horse up and down the aisles of the store while people looked at him with shocked expressions. (function( d, s, id) (document, ’script ’)) Walmart on a horse grocery shopping, Posted by Woody Fields on Sunday, March 19, 2017, Since posting the video Sunday, Facebook users viewed the trail ride 1, 735, 903 times as of this publication. Users shared the post nearly 32, 000 times, and 8, 400 people commented on the horse adventure. Following the short tour through the store, Fields exits the store through the front door and joins a fellow rider waiting outside. A short time later, a second mounted Walmart shopper can be seen exiting the same door. It is not known if the rider waiting outside had also ventured through the store with his horse. Several small children could be seen in proximity to Fields and his horse as they rode through the store. No groceries or other items were purchased, despite his claim of “grocery shopping. ” Fields made a second post that appeared to mock the store’s greeter as he entered the building. “We were just riding, and a buddy of mines was, like, ‘Let’s go to Walmart,’ and I was, like, ‘Man, I’m not going to Walmart,’ Fields told Click2Houston. “He was, like, ‘Come on, let’s go! ’” “I wasn’t trying to hurt nobody, or do anything destructive. It was just, like, you only live once, you know? That’s all,” Fields said. KTRK ABC13 reported one of the horses relieve itself inside the store. They did not say if Fields and his companion offered to clean up the mess. Walmart officials did not appear pleased as they responded, “We in no way condone yesterday’s reckless stunt inside our store and are thankful no one was hurt by these actions. ” The Houston Humane Society also appeared to not approve of the behavior. The group posted this statement: At minimum, riding a horse inside a store is incredibly irresponsible. This would be extremely stressful on any horse. Horses can easily become spooked, endangering not only themselves, but also any shoppers they might encounter. The Houston Humane Society urges all pet owners to think and act responsibly when it comes to the lives of animals in their care. Houston is currently in the middle of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. It is not known if Fields and his companion were riding in connection to this or if they were simply out having fun during the conditions on the last official day of winter. He posted a group of photos showing his horse buddies riding in other areas of Houston, including the Galleria area. It appears everyone was having a good time and many children were able to experience the horses first hand. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.
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When the Trump administration announced Monday that it would impose new tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber imports, it elicited protests from Canadian officials, American and . [“We will be putting a very big tariff on the lumber coming into the country,” President Donald Trump said. Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland warned that the move would hurt U. S. families by raising the price of materials needed to build new homes. “You need our lumber. You need our lumber to build your homes,” Freeland said in an interview on CNBC. Beyond the headlines, however, there are signs that there may be less to the new tariffs than meets the eye. For one thing, lumber prices actually declined after the tariffs were announced. Lumber futures fell on Tuesday by the $10 exchange limit in Chicago, a 2. 5 percent drop. The prices of Canadian lumber companies rose, some sharply. Shares of Canfor Corp were up by 8. 09 percent on Tuesday and West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. rose by 2. 37 percent. As it turns out, the 20 percent tariff was smaller than what the market expected. The Trump administration has actually adopted a gentler policy on Canadian lumber than analysts and investors had forecast. It’s unlikely that the 20 percent tariff will have much of an effect on home prices, despite the protests of home buyers. Lumber prices make up a small fraction of the prices of new homes. And with the tariff coming in lower than expected and lumber prices falling, it’s just as likely that the announcement could slow rising home prices. The lumber tariff is best understood as a symbolic gesture by the Trump Administration aimed at underlining its America First stance. The intended audience are trading partners in Europe, Japan, and Mexico. Taking a stand on Canadian lumber is a way of sending the message without seriously impeding larger trade flows. Canada is the model target for such symbolism because it’s unlikely to retaliate against the U. S. for the sanctions, and penalizing Canada doesn’t risk mixing in messier concerns over race, national security or immigration. During a briefing on Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross praised Canada as “a good neighbor” and played down the possibility that this was the beginning of a larger trade war. The Trump administration also hoped the move would be welcomed by economic nationalists, first announcing the tariffs at a meeting with conservative journalists on Monday night. Many of Trump’s economic nationalist supporters have become increasingly concerned that the administration may be backing away from America First trade stance that was central to its electoral victory in November. The decision not to designate China as a currency manipulator, for example, has raised fears that trade reforms could take a back seat to other administration priorities.
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Amid a presidential campaign marked by fears about the country’s economic future, the American jobs machine keeps chugging. Employers added 156, 000 positions in September, the Labor Department said on Friday, enough to accommodate new entrants to the labor force and entice back workers who dropped out after the Great Recession. The unemployment rate, which had been stuck at 4. 9 percent since spring, ticked up slightly to 5 percent, but that was mostly because more people were drawn into the labor force by evidence that hiring is still going strong. For all the anxiety at home and turmoil abroad, like the vote in Britain to withdraw from the European Union, the current expansion shows little prospect of ending abruptly. Average hourly earnings rose by 0. 2 percentage point last month, bringing the wage gain over the last 12 months to 2. 6 percent, well above the pace of inflation. The typical workweek also grew slightly in September, after a pullback in August. “It was solid, not spectacular,” said Diane Swonk, an independent economist in Chicago. “The good news is that participation went up, even though the unemployment rate did, too. Regaining that ground is very important. ” Before the report was released, economists on Wall Street looked for the economy to add 172, 000 jobs in September. Revisions for July and August showed that 7, 000 fewer jobs were created in those months than the Labor Department first estimated. Given the latest figures, the Federal Reserve is still expected to delay raising interest rates until late this year, and there was little in the report to suggest that the job gains might lead to significantly higher inflation. “There are still plenty of unemployed people out there, enough for employers to continue to hire at a substantial pace,” said Michael Gapen, chief United States economist at Barclays. “The expansion will end before you run out of labor,” added Mr. Gapen, who estimates that the unemployment rate could drop to 4 percent by the end of 2017. The overall participation rate inched up to 62. 9 percent, above the low point of 62. 4 percent last September, but well below the most recent peak of 66. 4 percent in early 2007. With many workers still available to be hired — what economists and policy makers at the Federal Reserve blandly term “labor market slack” — the current pace of hiring should be able to continue with little threat of overheating the economy. Moreover, the labor force itself jumped by nearly half a million, a bright spot in an otherwise steady picture of the economy. The nation has added an average of 178, 000 jobs a month this year, less robust than the average monthly gain of 229, 000 in 2015 but still a healthy reading given the longevity of the recovery and the slowdown in population growth among adults of working age. Mr. Gapen attributed most of September’s dip in job creation, which was below the consensus forecast and the annual average, to an unexpected 11, 000 drop in government payrolls. The public sector added more than 50, 000 positions in July and August, and Mr. Gapen said the private sector’s relative strength was what counted, not a slowdown in government hiring. “It’s not a negative signal,” he said. “We see the miss as mainly a government issue. ” Despite the robust hiring in the last couple of years, tens of millions of workers have barely felt the benefits of the recovery, and notable pockets of economic weakness remain more than seven years after it began. Those two contrasting realities — healthy hiring and falling unemployment on the one hand, millions of economically sidelined Americans on the other — sustain the narrative of the two main presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump. Both candidates’ critiques of the economy contain kernels of truth. Friday’s report, while generally strong, contained fodder for both. The jump in participation, and healthy gains in professional services fields, bolster Mrs. Clinton’s case that the economy is growing steadily and creating jobs. The drop in manufacturing jobs by 13, 000 will underscore fears among voters that their livelihoods are imperiled, a main factor in Mr. Trump’s appeal. In addition to strong gains in services, the closely watched construction industry added 23, 000 jobs. The housing market has been booming in many parts of the country, and like manufacturing, construction remains an important source of jobs for workers with just high school diplomas. “I’m heartened to see that we have an unmistakable trend toward jobs,” said Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez. “I know there’s a doom and gloom caucus out there, but they’re on a collision course with the facts. ” Another encouraging development was a slowdown in the huge round of job cuts in the mining and logging industries prompted by falling prices for oil and other commodities. After falling for 23 consecutive months, with 223, 000 jobs slashed during that time, employment in the sector was flat last month. “Instead of declining, jobs may start coming back to the sector,” Ms. Swonk said, noting that the recent rebound in oil prices may spur new investment in exploration and drilling after a drought. Although Wall Street watches every jobs report, this one drew less attention because the Federal Reserve is not expected to raise rates until December at the earliest. The Fed will meet in November, but it is not expected to raise rates so close to the election. Moreover, waiting until December to decide whether to tighten monetary policy would allow policy makers to consider the October and November jobs reports. Mr. Gapen said December remained the most likely target for the Fed’s next interest rate increase, but he added that it was hardly certain. “We think there’s a 60 percent chance the Fed will act, or slightly better than even,” he said. “There is a little something for everyone in this report from a perspective. ” The 2. 6 percent increase in wages in the last 12 months is better than the 2. 3 percent annual increase in 2015, but it is still less than many workers would hope to see at this point in the recovery. Still, there are plenty of signs the tighter labor market is finally paying off and producing raises, for workers at both the bottom and the top of the pay scale. This trend may also indicate that minimum wage increases in many states are beginning to filter through the broader economy. As the more modest gain in payrolls for September suggests, some big employers have slowed the pace of recruiting slightly, but they continue to add to payrolls. Ernst Young, the giant accounting and consulting firm, plans to hire 15, 200 people in the United States in the 2017 fiscal year, which began July 1. In the 2016 fiscal year, Ernst Young hired 16, 375 people, said Dan Black, Ernst Young Americas recruiting leader. “It’s not a moment,” he said. “It’s more of a scenario. ”
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The ‘Two-Party Racket’ Is Incapable of Dealing With Our Present Crises Ian Sane / (CC-BY-2.0)
“Indications that Clinton is heading towards a solid win” might suggest that 2016 is “the safest year ever to vote Green, right?” No, say Democrats.
“Dems will never admit it’s a good time to go Green,” writes Scott McLarty, media coordinator for the Green Party, at The Hill. “They want a field permanently limited to two parties of war and Wall Street.”
To understand what we’ve lost under the two-party racket, compare the cringeworthy Clinton-Trump debates with Green nominee Jill Stein’s rebuttals.
Stein addressed issues that were either touched on superficially or absent from the bipartisan bicker-fest. She proposed solutions — especially the Green New Deal. Progressive ideas, the kind advanced by Bernie Sanders in his call for political revolution, are effectively censored in the debates.
Marginalization of alt-parties in the late 20th century is one of the unmentioned reasons for the triumph of the right wing in both major parties. It explains the disappearance of big progressive ideas like FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society.
The Green New Deal is a vision of how we can improve the lives of millions of people and rescue the planet from climate chaos.
Today’s Democrats give us no such vision. All they’ve offered is modest reforms, ideas that pretended to be progressive but aren’t (e.g., Obamacare, originally Romneycare), and slogans like “Change We Can Believe In.” The vision Hillary Clinton evokes is “I’m not Trump.”
The two-party racket is incapable of dealing with the crises of the 21st century: climate change; creeping corporate oligarchy and economic inequality; the national-security/mass-incarceration state; endless war.
These crises promise an era of deteriorating quality of life, increasing personal debt, eroded rights and freedoms, lawless militarism, and social breakdown. The danger they pose can be compared with the rise of totalitarian states and the Cold War’s nuclear menace during the 20th century.
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¿Llega la hora de la Tercera Guerra Mundial? 01:08 GMT
Una situación económica parecida a la actual fue superada en 1930 por la Segunda Guerra Mundial. pixabay.com
La carga de la deuda de los países desarrollados ha alcanzado el nivel máximo desde la época de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, mientras que las inversiones han llegado al mínimo, según muestran los datos del Fondo Monetario Internacional ( FMI ), citados por el portal ruso Vesti Finance .
Hoy en día, se destacan los llamados a la estimulación fiscal , pero el estado de las economías de los países desarrollados se parece a lo que vio el mundo antes de que estrellase la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Según el portal, las autoridades no ven otra salida que el aumento continuo de la carga de la deuda. Sin embargo, para calmar a la sociedad se ven obligadas a recurrir al término de un 'déficit bueno' , que sirve de "excusa para incrementar los gastos a nivel nacional".
Una situación muy parecida a la actual reinaba en EE.UU. en los años 1930, así que la Gran Depresión fue superada en gran medida como resultado del inicio de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. La realidad económica de Japón
El ministro de Finanzas de Japón, Taro Aso, recordó el pasado mes de marzo que "durante la década de 1930 en EE.UU. la situación con la deflación se desarrollaba de una manera similar ". Señaló que el mayor problema relacionado con la introducción del nuevo trato ('New Deal') del presidente Franklin D. Roosevelt constituyó en el hecho de que durante mucho tiempo los emprendedores y gerentes no estuvieron dispuestos a invertir capitales mediante préstamos.
Según Aso, esto es lo que ocurre en este momento en Japón . Destacó que "los ingresos muy altos han sido obtenidos por compañías japonesas, pero no van a gastarlos para la inversión de capitales". "Tienen fondos para aumentar sueldos o pago de dividendos, pero no lo harán. Guardan su dinero y depósitos, mientras que los beneficios reservados siguen creciendo", explicó el ministro japonés.
Según indicó Aso, esta situación en la década de 1930 fue resuelta por la guerra , ya que "la Segunda Guerra Mundial y la recuperación en los 1940 se convirtió en una solución para EE.UU.". Una guerra como un "estímulo económico"
Por su parte, Paul Krugman, premio Nobel de Economía, en su conversación con el ministro japonés opinó que "desde el punto de vista macroeconómico una guerra es un fuerte estímulo financiero ", es decir, fue la guerra que "llevó a una estimulación fiscal".
Krugman destacó que la historia de los años 1930 constituyó en el hecho de que el nuevo trato de Roosevelt se basó en la estimulación presupuestaria de 1937, ya que "en aquella época, como ahora, había muchas señales que indicaban la necesidad de equilibrar el presupuesto". El economista tachó la medida de "un error terrible", ya que "causó la segunda recesión a gran escala".
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CAIRO — Libyan officials were cautious on Thursday about declaring complete victory over the Islamic State in the coastal city of Surt, saying unknown numbers of the militant organization’s extremists remained ensconced in three neighborhoods. While the Islamic State’s headquarters in the heavily fortified Ouagadougou Center, as well as an adjacent hospital and other important buildings, were taken on Wednesday by militiamen backed by American airstrikes, the fight was clearly far from over. “If we knew how many of them were left there, we would attack tomorrow,” said Mohammed the spokesman for militia forces. “So far we have been very professional and careful. ” The newly returned mayor of Surt, Mukhtar Khalifa, told The Associated Press that the militiamen, who were from the neighboring city of Misurata and aligned with the United government in Tripoli, controlled 70 percent of the city. The mayor, who had vacated Surt while the Islamic State controlled it, predicted the rest of the city would soon fall as well. Mr. Ghasari described the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, as cornered in the three city neighborhoods, near the port. “It’s about a two square kilometer area — their days are numbered,” he said, describing an area of about 500 acres. “This shouldn’t take longer than a few weeks. They are completely cut off. We have naval forces in the water, troops on the ground and U. S. airstrikes. ” In addition to hunting down the remaining Islamic State militants, the forces had to contend with hidden bombs and mines. Many Surt residents fled the fighting. “Only a few families have returned and they went back to areas away from yesterday’s clashes,” said Reda Eissa, another spokesman for the campaign. “We advised everyone not to come back just yet. This is still a military zone and ISIS left behind a jungle of land mines. ” Mr. Eissa put the number of remaining Islamic State fighters at “several hundred,” but he said the government side now controlled 85 percent of the city. As well as taking the Ouagadougou Center, the militias drove Islamic State members from about seven of their strongholds, including the hospital, a university and other places. Despite their setbacks on Wednesday, Islamic State fighters still shot down a Libyan Air Force fighter plane, killing the pilot, Gen. Mukhtar Fakroun, and his Libyan officials have said. “Some of the residents who had fled returned to their homes but everyone is still very much terrorized,” said Ali Busitta, an official from Misurata working with a humanitarian committee that followed the fighters into Surt to provide aid to civilians. “Our committee tags along with the forces and goes in after an area is cleared to give people juice and try and comfort children. But they say the situation there is scary. Everyone is still rattled. ” Although the defeat of the Islamic State in Surt remained incomplete and qualified, the group’s presence in Libya has been severely reduced. Islamic State extremists had controlled Surt since last year, and before the militias began their offensive early this summer, the organization controlled 150 miles of coastline as well, which it has now lost. The United States carried out at least 28 airstrikes in the first nine days of August against ISIS targets in Surt, reportedly using drones based in Jordan, which the militias credited as a major element in their victory. “It would have been very difficult without the Americans,” Mr. Busitta said. “We would have seen greater casualties. ” He said military leaders had told him that the Americans had been providing vital intelligence and surveillance information to the fighters. Mr. Ghasari put the number of fighters killed in the Surt campaign at 350, including 16 in the fight for the Ouagadougou Center on Wednesday. The militias’ supporters denied reports that American or British special forces had joined the final push into Surt. “Rumors about the presence of foreign fighters are politicized,” Mr. Busitta said. He attributed the rumors to people who want to subvert the United authority in Tripoli, called the Government of National Accord, and “make it look like some kind of puppet government controlled by the West. ” France was forced to admit that it had special forces in Libya last month, after Islamic militants shot down a French helicopter near Benghazi, killing all three soldiers on board. In addition, news organizations in Italy reported Wednesday that several dozen Italian special forces troops were secretly in Libya, in the cities of Benghazi, Misurata and Tripoli, training Libyan forces.
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This post was originally published on this site Vyacheslav Volodin
© Mikhail Metzel/TASS
ST. PETERSBURG, November 24. /TASS/. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO PA) elected speaker of Russia’s State Duma (lower house of parliament) Vyacheslv Volodin the assembly’s chairman at its 9th plenary session on Thursday, a TASS correspondent reported. The decision was taken unanimously.
Earlier in the day, the CSTO PA Council recommended to elect Volodin its chairman. His candidacy was proposed by speaker of Kazakhstan’s Majilis (lower house of parliament), Nurlan Nigmatulin.
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Hundreds of Turkish migrants and dual nationals turned out onto the streets of Rotterdam to riot in support of their home country’s Islamist president last night, forcing Dutch police to take robust action to disperse them.[ People wave Turkish national flags during a demonstration near the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam on March 11, 2017. Photo: MARTEN VAN Images, Turkish residents of the Netherlands gather for a protest in Rotterdam on March 11, 2017. Photo: EMMANUEL Images, Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV) released a message in response to the unrest, telling rioters, “You are no Europeans, and you will never be. ” 🇳🇱🇹🇷 Geert Wilders’s message to Turks: ”You are not welcome here!” #Turkey #Rotterdam pic. twitter. — Keith Walker (@KeithWalkerNews) March 12, 2017, “An Islamic state like Turkey does not belong to Europe. All the values Europe stands for — freedom, democracy, human rights — are incompatible with Islam,” he said. “Turkey voted for Erdoğan, a dangerous Islamist who raises the flag of Islam. We do not want more, but less Islam. So Turkey, stay away from us. You are not welcome here. ” Aggressive crowds have gathered outside the Dutch embassy in Ankara and the consulate in Istanbul in response, calling for retaliation and chanting “Allahu Akbar!” Nu voor Nederlands consulaat in Istanbul pic. twitter. — Lucas Waagmeester (@NOSWaagmeester) March 11, 2017, The riots are in response to the Dutch government’s refusal to allow the Turkish foreign minister to land in the Netherlands to attend a rally supporting the expansion of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s powers. According to Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the refusal was made in response to being threatened with sanctions. “We can never do business under this kind of blackmail,” said Rutte, expressing amazement that family affairs minster Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya attempted to circumvent the Dutch ban on Turkish politicians campaigning in the Netherlands by bringing a fleet of ministerial cars across the German border, which the European Union’s borderless Schengen Area leaves unprotected. “We drew a red line,” he said, explaining why Kaya was escorted back to the German border — a move which prompted Erdoğan to denounce the Dutch as “fascists” and “Nazi remnants”. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim vowed there would be “a stronger reprisal against the unacceptable treatment toward Turkey and ministers who have diplomatic immunity” on Sunday afternoon. “Our European friends who speak of democracy, freedom of expression and human rights have failed their class,” he declared. It is not yet clear what form Turkish reprisals will take, but foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has hinted the country may open its borders and allow illegal migrants to flood into Europe. [Video] Dutch police with dogs harshly disperse Turkish protesters in Rotterdam pic. twitter. — ANADOLU AGENCY (ENG) (@anadoluagency) March 12, 2017, Erdoğan’s party, Justice and Development (AKP) has, like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, been described as “Moderately Islamist” — but it has grown increasingly authoritarian as it unpicks the secular settlement laid down by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey. “We are a Muslim country [and] we must have a religious constitution,” demanded parliamentary speaker Ismail Kahraman in 2016. “Secularism cannot feature in the new constitution. ” Atatürk introduced sweeping reforms which sought to confine Islam to the private sphere when Turkey was first esablished, abolishing the Ottoman Caliphate, severely curtailing Islam’s role in politics and discouraging religious dress. “My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science,” he said, according to a biography by Andrew Mango. “Superstition must go. ”
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1 coat of red cabbage 5 kiwis Half a liter of water Preparation Mix all the ingredients in a blender, then drink the smoothie fresh. For best results, drink it in every morning on an empty stomach. Besides treating diabetes and regulating your blood sugar levels, the smoothie will also make you lose up to 11 kg. in only 25 days. Of course, it doesn’t work on its own – to achieve results, you must follow a healthy diet and exercise regularly. In just 6 months, your blood pressure should return back to normal, your blood sugar levels will be regulated and most importantly, you will be diabetes-free! source:
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Pollster and analyst Pat Caddell spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Matt Boyle on Friday about his reaction to Thursday’s testimony by former FBI Director James Comey as well as the media’s reaction. [“I didn’t think it was a great day for the media, said Caddell. “However, if you watched some of the other cable news networks, you’d think this was a disaster for Trump. It was anything but. ” He went on to call out the media for pursuing a political agenda, as opposed to the truth, saying that media today is actually “a danger to democracy. ” “The media really took it on the nose,” he went on, pointing out that Trump was not lying about the three times he claims Comey told him he personally was not under investigation. “How come that didn’t leak out? That is an interesting question because enough people knew on Capitol Hill, and it tells me that it was the media. And this was really the chilling part, that they have their narrative agenda, that Trump is in collusion, Trump is this, and Trump is that, and he’s under investigation. They did not want to challenge that narrative. ” “They weren’t reporting facts,” continued Caddell. “They were reporting sources who would give them statements that would contribute to their narrative. This is not a press. This is a propaganda machine. It’s full speed against the president. ” Caddell said he could turn to almost any network and predict its coverage, “If Trump walked on water, they’d say he couldn’t swim. ” “They are so negative, as they were in the campaign,” he went on. “They haven’t let up, and they have invested themselves in a political result, not in telling the truth, and that is a danger to democracy. ” Caddell said the press has damaged the very institution of the press by having decided to bring down a president versus report the truth, and “Democrats are falling right into the path with them. ” As for Trump and Comey, Caddell said, “Comey basically vindicated him, first of all, on the question if there was collusion, or even on the Flynn matter — whether there was obstruction, and it just doesn’t hold,” he continued. “Obviously, Mueller wouldn’t let him testify if he thought there was an obstruction case. ” Added Caddell, “Comey’s behavior is just bizarre. This man really believes that he is a demigod when it comes to the law. He keeps changing the goal lines. His weakness, which he confessed to, but I think it was more a device than a critical perception, whether it was with Loretta Lynch, when she asked him to conform to the Clinton campaign, which I thought was a revealing comment and opened up a lot of other doors, when he talked about his own leaking, volunteered how he had leaked and what he had done with those memos, I thought that was just really strange. His criticism of the media, he basically denied their stories. He’s basically a very angry man, and I thought the White House handled Comey terribly, but that’s neither here nor there. ” Caddell stated, “He was the one in the meetings, and he never raised a protest, and then he said a sentence that I was stunned by. He said, ‘I did it because I gave my friend the memo to give to the New York Times because I thought we needed a special counsel.’ Here’s a man who wouldn’t have a special counsel or wouldn’t even investigate the IRS stuff, a person who didn’t do it with Hillary Clinton, particularly in terms of the Clinton Foundation, and yet it was pointed out to him by a couple of the senators, you know, basically he gave her a whitewash. He wants to do this with Trump. I thought that was devastating and puts him in a very precarious place. ” Caddell added, “It chills me to think that this person was running the FBI. ” Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN:
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by Claire Bernish
Tony Podesta — brother of the now-disgraced Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, whose files Wikileaks has been publishing — is not only a powerful Democratic Party lobbyist, but a registered foreign agent receiving a hefty monthly paycheck from the nefarious government of Saudi Arabia.
No — as tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorist as it might sound — that scenario is the absolute truth.
In 1988, John and Tony Podesta formed the Podesta Group and have used their bigwig party-insider status to lobby and influence government policies — while, at various times, simultaneously holding positions of power — which has created a number of glaring conflicts of interest.
According to the March 2016 filing made in accordance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, Tony Podesta is an active foreign agent of the Saudi government with the “ Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court ,” and acts as an officer of the Saudi Arabia account.
(click to enlarge)
At this point, the web of pay-for-play between the Washington, political heavyweights, and foreign governments comes lurching into the spotlight.
For starters, the Podesta brothers’ lobbying firm receives $140,000 every month from the Saudi government, which, in no uncertain terms — and despite a status as privileged U.S. ally — wages a bloody campaign of censorship, murder, suppression, human rights abuse, and worse against its civilian population, while bombing hospitals, schools, and aid convoys in neighboring nations.
John Podesta previously served as President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, founded the think tank Center for American Progress (which oh-so-coincidentally touts the need to reframe Saudi Arabia’s hopelessly tarnished image), counseled President Obama, and now chairs Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Tony Podesta acts as a foreign agent for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia — lobbying to influence government policy in favor of the Kingdom — while also contributing to and bundling for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Think about that for a moment.
One brother uses the influence of money to both affect United States foreign policy and infuse the Clinton campaign with cash — while the other wields the influence of power as a political insider for the same entities.
As the Washington Post reported months ago in July, Tony Podesta’s lobbying efforts “raised $268,000 for the campaign and $31,000 for the victory fund.”
“The Saudis hired the Podesta Group in 2015 because it was getting hammered in the press over civilian casualties from its airstrikes in Yemen and its crackdown on political dissidents at home, including sentencing blogger Raif Badawi to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for ‘insulting Islam,’” Alternet reported . “Since then, Tony Podesta’s fingerprints have been all over Saudi Arabia’s advocacy efforts in Washington DC. When Saudi Arabia executed the prominent nonviolent Shia dissident Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, causing protests throughout the Shia world and inflaming sectarian divisions, The New York Times noted that the Podesta Group provided the newspaper with a Saudi commentator who defended the execution.”
Notably, the Saudis’ reputation has only worsened as further atrocities pile up — concerning not only a record number of barbaric beheadings this year, but suspiciously reckless and errant U.S.-backed coalition bombings of civilian sites in several regions of active conflict.
Additionally, Tony Podesta’s status as a registered foreign agent for Saudi Arabia is at least obliquely discussed in an email from April 15, 2015 — ironically revealed by Wikileaks’ publishing of his brothers personal communiques — in which former Clinton Foundation chief development officer and now campaign national finance director Dennis Cheng wrote to a small group of insiders:
“Hi all – we do need to make a decision on this ASAP as our friends who happen to be registered with FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] are already donating and raising.
“I do want to push back a bit (it’s my job!): I feel like we are leaving a good amount of money on the table (both for primary and general, and then DNC and state parties)… and how do we explain to people that we’ll take money from a corporate lobbyist but not them; that the Foundation takes $ from foreign govts but we now won’t. Either way, we need to make a decision soon.”
To which general counsel to the Clinton campaign, attorney Marc Elias, replied [all errors original and emphasis added],
“Responding to all on this. I was not on the call this morning, but I lean away from a bright line rule here. It seems odd to say that someone who represents Alberta, Canada can’t give, but a lobbyist for Phillip Morris can. Just as we vet lobbyists case by case, I would do the same with FARA. While this may lead to a large number of FARA registrants being denied, it would not be a flat our ban. A total ban feels arbitrary and will engender the same eye-rolling and ill will that it did for Obama.”
As the exchange continues, how to precisely handle the campaign’s image with potentially controversial donors — while, at all costs, maintaining the flow of cash — becomes even more apparent. As strategist and campaign manager Robby Mook responds,
“Where do we draw the line though?”
Elias suggests a particularly intricate solution:
“If we do it case by case, then it will be subjective. We would look at who the donor is and what foreign entity they are registered for. In judging whether to take the money, we would consider the relationship between that country and the United States, its relationship to the State Department during Hillary’s time as Secretary, and its relationship, if any, to the Foundation. In judging the individual, we would look at their history of support for political candidates generally and Hillary’s past campaigns specifically.
“Put simply, we would use the same criteria we use for lobbyists, except with a somewhat more stringent screen.
“As a legal matter, I am not saying we have to do this – we can decide to simply ban foreign registrants entirely. I’m just offering this up as a middle ground.”
Mook eventually decides plainly,
“Marc made a convincing case to me this am that these sorts of restrictions don’t really get you anything…that Obama actually got judged MORE harshly as a result. He convinced me. So…in a complete U-turn, I’m ok just taking the money and dealing with any attacks. Are you guys ok with that?”
All of this political wrangling appears to have had the desired effect — despite increasing calls for the United States to either rein in or sever completely its support for the bloody Saudi regime — the U.S. approved a stunning $1.29 billion sale of smart bombs to the Kingdom in November 2015.
Tony Podesta’s specific contract with the government-run Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court, which will earn $1.68 million by year’s end, does, indeed, suggest the infusion of a pro-Saudi message into the U.S. media propaganda machine.
“Saudi Arabia is consistently one of the bigger players when it comes to foreign influence in Washington,” Sunlight Foundation spokesman Josh Stewart told the Washington Post . “That spans both what you’d call the inside game, which is lobbying and government relations, and the outside game, which is PR and other things that tend to reach a broader audience than just lobbying.”
That broader audience — the American public — has indeed been manipulated courtesy of at least the thoroughly-corrupt Clinton campaign if not surreptitiously by the Saudis, as well.
As The Free Thought Project has repeatedly reported , the evidence of collusion among the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and the mainstream presstitutes is indisputable — including no less than 65 so-called journalists listed by name in various leaks as darlings of the campaign.
Although this level of corruption and collusion would be considered intolerable in nearly any other nation on the planet. And yet, at the center of this shit storm of contention is an official nominee for the White House — who will not be held responsible for any number of questionable and criminal acts.
The system isn’t rigged — it’s performing exactly as intended — and always will as long as the vote validates its existence. Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
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Contributed by The Free Thought Project of thefreethoughtproject.com .
The Free Thought Project is dedicated to holding those who claim authority over our lives accountable.
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BNI Store Nov 2 2016 ARIZONA Charter School teacher accused of harassment and assault of Somali Muslim student just because he is a Muslim Does anyone else smell the stench of designated terrorist group CAIR lurking in the shadows? A sixth grade teacher at the Academy of Excellence, a public charter school in Phoenix, allegedly said to a Muslim student: “You’re a terrorist. I can’t wait until Trump is elected. He’s going to deport you all.” The ACLU has since filed complaints with the Obama Departments of Justice and Education. ABC15 The American Civil Liberties Union says a Somali Muslim immigrant and his sister were expelled from a Phoenix school after a sixth grade teacher allegedly discriminated against him. The complaints were made against Academy of Excellence Charter School, a public charter school in Phoenix. According to a letter sent to both state agencies, the 11-year-old student allegedly was targeted by his sixth grade teacher multiple times during the 2015-2016 school year. The letter accuses the teacher of singling out the student because of his religion and/or nationality. On one occasion, the teacher allegedly showed a video about the Sept. 11 2001 terrorist attacks. The teacher is accused of then telling the student “That’s going to be you,” suggesting that he was to become a terrorist himself, ACLU attorney Heather Weaver said. Earlier in the school year, the same teacher had refused to let A.A. pray during class one day , and is also accused of grabbing the student by his neck and choking him because he would not stop talking with his classmates . The letter said that, during a separate incident in which the teacher was speaking about Donald Trump, she turned to the student and said, “I can’t wait until Trump is elected. He’s going to deport all you Muslims. Muslims shouldn’t be given visas. They’ll probably take away your visa and deport you. You’re going to be the next terrorist, I bet.” Because of the teacher’s comments claimed by the ACLU, the student allegedly was teased by classmates on the bus ride home that day and was accused of plotting to blow up the bus, calling him a “terrorist.” She then allegedly threatened the student, saying “If you tell your mom (about the abuse), watch what happens next.” The ACLU said that when the alleged victim’s mom complained to the school, the school director sided with the teacher, stating that she had done nothing wrong. The student was accused of breaking school rules by opening an emergency window while riding on the bus. As a result, both he and his sister – a second grader at the same school – were expelled; effective immediately. The complaints against the teacher were’t lodged until after the students’ expulsion from the school. The Academy of Excellence Charter School is refuting the claims. They’ve since released a statement regarding the situation, calling the allegations false. “The Academy of Excellence Charter School Governing Board and Administration (“AOE”) refutes the allegations contained in two letters from the ACLU. Those letters, both of which are dated October 28, 2016, are devoid of any evidence and contain false and unsubstantiated allegations. AOE conducted an internal investigation on January 25, 2016. That investigation produced no evidence to support the claims now being made . Additionally, these allegations were investigated by the Phoenix Police Department but at that time, her only complaint was that “she believed that her children were kicked out of our school due to their Muslim faith.” AOE has many children who practice the Muslim faith. It was not until February 24, 2016, that the mother and her son made the allegation of ‘choking.’ This allegation was investigated by a Detective who found that, ‘At the conclusion of the investigation, a crime in this matter was unfounded. Both suspect and witnesses provided corroborating statements, and were not consistent with the victims’ statement.’ This is the “cursory and inadequate” investigation the ACLU notes in the footnotes to its letters. Finally, if you compare the timing of events contained in the ACLU’s letters and the statements made to the Police by the teacher and the student, they are completely different. The difference between the statements calls into question the motive of the plaintif. AOE’s first contact from the ACLU sought a substantial monetary payment.” (DING DING DING! It’s always about the money) See more “victim jihad” in public schools: ISLAMIZATION OF SCHOOLS
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There are lots of diiferent truths , when i hear the FBI come out and admit they ran the false flags and helped cover them up , i'm a believer . At the moment its one side much the same as the other . Lets face it if they cant even arrest or solve the JFK murder and expose the truth then there wont be any . One thing we can be certain of the crooks at the very top running the rest of the crooks will never be mentioned and while that exists nothing much will change i dont think . Its like a theftfest and when they crash it they will still have all the loot . Soros is a bigger threat to world peace and they dont stop him in fact they fund him , go figure .
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The rogue work of one nonconformist scientist could one day enable us to grow cheap replacement body parts. Humanity in general and humans in particular have one dream: to live longer than the allotted age. If we could live forever, well, that’d be just swell, never mind the consequences.
However enamored to the idea of just swapping out old organs for newer, flawless ones, we’re still a long way from mass producing body parts. Sure, there might be a few unorthodox laboratories secretly catering to the specific needs of the 0.01 percent, but these do nothing to benefit the rest of mankind. The reason behind this is that living matter is incredibly well-structured and its organized form is hard to grow outside of living things.
For example, you could multiply and grow liver cells in a lab but you would end up with an organic mass unable to serve any useful function. That’s because a liver is much more than a number of hepatic cells; these cells need to form tissue, which is fed by blood vessels and crisscrossed by a network of neurons. All this needs to sit inside a scaffold called the extracellular matrix (ECM). Huh, another matrix keeping things together.
COLORED IN BLUE ARE HUMAN CELLS GROWING ON AN APPLE SLICE SCAFFOLDING
When growing organs in the lab, scientists don’t have a lot of options regarding the scaffolding they use. It’s either sourced from live animals and cadavers or 3D printed from proprietary materials. Both these practices are time-consuming and prohibitively expensive. Well, maybe not anymore.
We used an apple and it cost pennies.
Meet scientist-entrepreneur Andrew Pelling. Also a professor at the University of Ottawa, Pelling knows the only way to truly understand the world around us is to be curious and open-minded. That is how he got worldwide recognition for growing human ears from apple slices.
In order to do this, Pelling and his team came up with some “minor modifications to well-known decellularization protocols that are typically applied to existing organs and tissues.” Decellularization is the process through which cells are flushed out from tissue, leaving behind only the extracellular matrix. Scientists have been doing this for decades, but never before has been fruit used to grow human ears.
So how did they manage this feat of biohacking? Easy. Pelling’s wife is a musical instrument maker so she carves wood for a living. The scientist simply asked his wife to sculpt some ears from Macintosh apples. After removing all the apple cells from the apple ear, Pelling was left with a ready-to-use, cheap cellulose scaffold.
“As weird as this is, it’s actually really reminiscent of how our own tissues are organized,” Pelling told the audience during a Ted Talk. “ And we found in our pre-clinical work that you can implant these scaffolds into the body, and the body will send in cells and a blood supply and actually keep these things alive. This is the point when people started asking me,’ Andrew, can you make body parts out of apples?’ And I’m like, ‘You’ve come to the right place.’”
The importance of this endeavor goes far beyond the shock value of using something as unassuming as an apple to potentially make us live longer. In a very unexpected way, fruits and veggies could help improve the lives of many sufferers. The thing is, you have to set them in a Petri dish rather than a plate.
Sensing the importance of their project, Pelling and his team posted the instructions online as open-source. That way smaller laboratories on a tight budget could one day come up with solutions “to repair, rebuild and augment our own bodies with stuff we make in the kitchen.”
That would leave us with more time to come up with great ideas, a process that coincidentally happens in the same kitchen.
“ Now, I was in my kitchen, and I was noticing that when you look down the stalks of these asparagus, what you can see are all these tiny little vessels. And when we image them in the lab, you can see how the cellulose forms these structures. This image reminds me of two things: our blood vessels and the structure and organization of our nerves and spinal cord.”
Imagine using asparagus stalks to grow new neurons and them implanting them in the bodies of those with damaged nerve connections. If researched properly, this technology has the potential to save millions. It goes without saying that an unconventional, creative way of thinking needs to be in place way before mainstream science can accept the fact that the solution to so many of our problems is right there in front of us.
In the meantime, don’t forget your fruits and vegetables. You know what they say, “an apple a day might save you from having to wear the same pair of tired-ass ears for the rest of your life.” Or so I’ve heard.
Source: UFOholic
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BOOM: Clint Eastwood Has PERFECT Response to Hollywood Libs Calling Trump Racist
While the advice allegedly came from Wolfson, the words were her own, and the message was simple: Women and minorities should be used to shame The New York Times and other liberal media outlets into writing positive stories about the Democrat nominee.
By the way, it’s worth noting that Arthur Sulzberger’s family has controlled the Times for 120 years, but Tanden reckons he’s a “schulzburger” as well as a wuss. Maybe Mr. Sulzberger should ask for more respect from political campaigns his paper endorses. Advertisement - story continues below
According to LifeZette , the email was sent in July 2015 around a time when “Hillary Clinton’s coverage in The New York Times wasn’t going the way the campaign wanted.”
Moreover, Tanden’s use of the term “brown” was politically incorrect to the max — so much so that former President George H.W. Bush was reportedly flayed by the media in 1988 after he described his Hispanic grandchildren as “the little brown ones.”
With double standards so prevalent in the contemporary age, however, it was unlikely that either Clinton or Tanden would be criticized by the media for their inappropriate use of the term.
In fact, a cursory glance of Google search results Thursday morning showed that not a single mainstream outlet had even picked this story up yet. Advertisement - story continues below
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The sports media has spent most of the offseason wondering why Colin Kaepernick hasn’t yet signed with a team. Well, according to a couple prominent sports writers, the answer is simple: no NFL team has called him. [According to Tim Kawakami of the Mercury News: A source tells me that Kaepernick to this point has had no serious talks with any team about a contract and has had no meetings, which means he has not demanded a starting role or a $10M salary or a $5M salary or any of the other things circulating among the NFL gossip mill recently. There is zero evidence that any team has come anywhere close to signing Kaepernick, and a source close to Kaepernick told me yesterday that they have not discussed even general money terms with anybody this offseason. And Kaepernick is not demanding a guaranteed starting role. How could he if he hasn’t had a single serious conversation with a team? I don’t know if Kaepernick would accept a bare minimum contract like Blaine Gabbert (! !! More on Gabbert in a bit) who just reportedly signed with Arizona to be the or QB behind Carson Palmer, but I do know, from the same source, that not a single team has asked if he would accept it. So how could Kaepernick be demanding anything of anybody? To thin air? It doesn’t make sense, unless we’re talking Fake Information World. A black ball while ferociously saying it’s not a black ball. Charles Robinson of Yahoo! agrees with Kawakami, specifically in regard to the reports that Kaepernick had asked for far too much money, saying, “And thus far, not one NFL source has been able to confirm to Yahoo Sports any number that Kaepernick is looking for in terms of contract price or even structure. In turn, not even one NFL team is confirmed to have had any financial talks with Kaepernick. By all accounts, the financial barrier to Kaepernick landing with a team appears to be bogus at this stage. ” So, what does all this mean? If you believe the reporting, it means no one has called Kaepernick about a job. Hence, all the theories about why the former 49er remains unsigned, such as how he’s not working out anymore, how he’s asking for too much money, and how he’s going to be a lifelong protester. These theories have no merit, because no one has picked up the phone and even broached the subject of signing him. This lack of contact with Kaepernick, especially in light of Blaine Gabbert signing with Arizona, and the retirements of Jay Cutler and Tony Romo, constitutes blackballing in the eyes of the media. Kaepernick made a conscious decision to perform an immensely unpopular act, repeatedly, on national television throughout the course of an NFL season. Despite the anger he sparked in millions, and the advice he received from many in the industry, he continued to do this while proudly claiming to stand for what he believed. That’s his right. It’s also the right of 32 NFL owners to take a look at that clown show and say no thanks. One person’s freedom of speech is not another person’s muzzle. The freedom to react with speech, ambivalence, or the decision not to hire someone is an inherent, and essential, corollary to the freedom of speech. If not, then the freedom to speak is nothing more than a tyranny of what the cultural establishment deems politically correct and proper. No Boston dock worker or Virginia farm boy would have ever picked up a musket to fight for that. All that being said, Colin Kaepernick isn’t truly being blackballed. At least not yet. Colin Kaepernick threw four touchdowns for every interception last year, on a team in complete disarray, with no receivers and a suspect offensive line. He’s not the quarterback he was three years ago, but he’s absolutely good enough to be in the NFL. So, why isn’t he in the NFL? Simple: it’s May, it’s the offseason. The draft is over. Free agency? Over. Baseball is less than 40 games in, and the NBA is currently mired in the most boring postseason in the history of postseasons. If an NFL team signed Kaepernick tomorrow, they would absorb the full brunt of media coverage and scrutiny for the better part of the next three months. Most of that time, with no other sport, or major sports story to distract from it. That’s not blackballing, that’s strategy. No, the real test of whether or not Kaepernick has been blackballed won’t happen in May, it’ll happen in November. It’ll happen when the starting quarterback for a playoff contending team with no viable backup gets injured. Kaepernick has played well enough to land on the very short list of available quarterbacks to receive a phone call in that situation. It’s also a heck of a lot easier to explain making the Kaepernick call at that time. In the heat of the playoff chase, no other viable alternatives, desperate times, desperate measures. With all the distractions of an NFL season in season form. If that situation, or some other similar manifestation of that situation, unfolds, without Colin Kaepernick getting an offer from an NFL team then a strong case could be made that Kaepernick was indeed blackballed by the NFL. But, you still shouldn’t care, because that’s their right, and that’s what he deserves. Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn
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During his confirmation hearing on Thursday, Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin said the unemployment rate reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not capture the reality of the conditions facing American workers. [Mnuchin’s comment was “The unemployment rate is not real,” but he doesn’t seem to have been questioning the validity of the statistics produced by BLS. U. S. News and World Report, for example, swiftly accused Mnuchin of repeating a “claim that has rankled economists” about how “government statistics have been politicized and aren’t accurate,” but that’s not what Mnuchin said. Rather, he made the case to Senator Maria Cantwell ( ) that the official unemployment statistics suggest the job market has healed to a degree most actual workers and would disagree with, because there’s so much happening that isn’t captured by that narrow statistic. There was a bit of ideological jousting in the exchange, as Cantwell was basically trying to push Mnuchin into saying his primary focus should be preventing another “major implosion” in the financial markets, while he galloped in the opposite direction and talked about Donald Trump’s commitment to the forgotten middle American. Democrats want the 2008 financial crisis to be seen as an impossible, challenge President Obama was still coping with on his last day in office. Mnuchin turned that around by talking about how the American workforce has suffered under Obama’s policies. “Let me just tell you, from having traveled with the for the last year, I absolutely understand why he got elected,” Mnuchin said. “And that is because, as you point out, the average American worker has gone nowhere. ” “The unemployment rate is not real,” Mnuchin continued. “The average American worker has gone nowhere. And the is committed — as am I, as his economic adviser — to work for the American people and grow the American economy, so that the average American worker does better. ” “That’s why I’ve been willing to sell all my investments, okay?” he said. “I’ve been willing to give up my businesses. My desire is to work for the American people, to create a better economy. And I understand that. I’ve traveled for the last year. I’ve seen this, and the understands that very clearly. ” The Hill notes that Trump himself has criticized the unemployment rate as “phony numbers” and “totally fiction. ” He’s not alone in that critique, especially in questioning how only one of the many numbers compiled by BLS gets media attention (at least, under Democrat presidents) and it doesn’t count people who have exited the workforce entirely. The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch noticed Trump transition team member Anthony Scaramucci stepping forward on Twitter to back Mnuchin’s play: He’s right. Wage growth stagnant, labor force participation at low, unemployment rate high for this stage in economic cycle https: . — Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) January 19, 2017, The numbers are accurate, but they have been cherry picked and spun dry. Headline unemployment rate is basically a useless statistic https: . — Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) January 19, 2017,
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The Greenland shark is a ludicrously late bloomer. This Arctic predator reaches sexual maturity when it’s about 150 years old. Though more than a century of prepubescence might sound bad, there’s a bright side for the sea creature. Once it hits adulthood, it still has another hundred years to live. Maybe even more. The Greenland shark has a life expectancy of at least 272 years, according to a study published Thursday in Science. If its findings are correct, that makes it the vertebrate animal in the world, surpassing some sea turtles (about 100 years) tortoises (between 100 and 200 years) and bowhead whales (around 200 years). But that number, 272, doesn’t tell the whole story of these underwater geezers. Researchers estimated that two of the 28 Greenland sharks they observed were over three centuries old. “The oldest shark that we’ve analyzed, it’s amazing,” said Julius Nielsen, a doctoral candidate at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and lead author on the study. In their paper they report that it could be 392 years old. But even that number, 392, doesn’t complete the story. The oldest shark could actually be 120 years older, he said. Mr. Nielsen and his colleagues used radiocarbon dating and statistical methods to measure the sharks’ ages. The tools can only provide accurate age ranges for each specimen, not an exact age. “We are 95 percent certain that it is between 272 and 512 years,” Mr. Nielsen said. “This is the first time ever anyone has made an age range of uncertainty of 240 years and they still consider it a success. ” Even at the lower end of the range, the Greenland shark still takes the gold for living things with backbones in the Olympics. To calculate the ages, the researchers studied the eye lenses of each shark they found. The eye lenses first develop when the sharks are still inside their mothers, and as time goes by, they grow like onions, adding layer after layer of tissue. By cutting away the layers and analyzing the nucleus of the center of the eyelens, the team can gauge how old each shark is. Similar techniques have been used to estimate the age of bowhead whales. All the sharks the team analyzed were females that were already dead. Previous studies had determined that the sharks become sexually mature when they are about 13 feet long. The new study determined that those that size or bigger were at least 150 years old. Males were left out because they were harder to find, but the team thinks life expectancy and the age when they reach adulthood will be similar. Greenland sharks are found throughout the North Atlantic. They are plump and gray, and many have a characteristic parasite latched to the corner of one or both eyes. Researchers aren’t sure what the parasites do, but they are ubiquitous among the species. The sharks are adding about a centimeter a year. The biggest in the study was about 16. 5 feet, but they can potentially grow larger than 18 feet. A behemoth that big could be around 400 or 500 years old, according to Mr. Nielsen’s estimates. Impressive, but it’s still bested by some of Earth’s inhabitants that lack backbones, like the ocean quahog, the 4, 847 year old bristlecone pine and the seemingly immortal jellyfish.
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Dr. Sebastian Gorka, deputy adviser to President Trump and former National Security editor for Breitbart News, addressed criticisms of the president’s revised immigration order on Tuesday’s Breitbart News Daily. [SiriusXM host Alex Marlow began with the charge that President Trump’s executive order is a disguised “Muslim ban” or the beginning of a “slippery slope” to block all Muslim immigration to the United States. “Well, then I guess the Obama administration were Islamophobes, as well, because the list of seven nations — which we’ve actually reduced to six, excluding a very large country called Iraq — that list was inherited from the Obama administration’s analysis,” Gorka pointed out. “The fact is, we agree with the threat analysis from the Obama administration, which also had concurrence from Congress, as well, that these are the seven nations that are most problematic when it comes to national security vetting for immigration and for refugees,” he said. “And again, I cannot make this point enough times: if there were any dread ulterior motive to this executive order with regards to Islam or Muslim nations, why is the largest Muslim nation in the world, Indonesia, not included? Why is the largest Arab Muslim nation in the world, Egypt, not included?” he asked. “This is about national security, very very simply. ” Marlow quoted an ACLU interview on National Public Radio that revealed that the crux of the argument against the new executive order will be President Trump’s campaign rhetoric, in which he referred to a “Muslim ban. ” “That’s incredibly telling,” said Gorka. “It really is part and parcel of what I call the fake news phenomena. You look at the media, and they always focus in on half a sentence, on a phrase, and believe they can generate stories out of that. That’s the same in this case. When you’re using shorthand for a very, very significant national security exercise, it’s the broader instrument that needs to be analyzed — especially if it goes to a court of law, where somebody wishes to use legal instruments to analyze it. ” “It’s good to hear they’ve tipped their hand, but yet again, if you look at the order, the text of what it predicates and why it was brought, there’s absolutely no way — in the courts or outside of the courts, using common sense — to imply anything other than this is a national security measure that is in the purview of the president,” he said. “Only the president has the prerogative, since the 1950s, to determine who comes into the United States and against what metrics they are measured. That’s not disputable. That cannot be parsed in a court of law. It is laid down in national statute. The ACLU may have an opinion, but the law remains the law. ” Marlow observed that some critics on the Right do not think the order went far enough, and he asked if it was meant as a negotiation or stalling tactic. “We start from simply a determination of where the threats are. Again, the list can be shortened. You saw that it was shortened in the last month. It can be increased. There can be more nations added to it. It’s a temporary measure — very important. This is 90 days, so it’s something that is about the review of the system,” Gorka replied. “You look at those seven nations, and there’s one thing that links them,” he said. “You take Iran out of it. Iran is a special case because they’ve been a state sponsor of terrorism since 1979. Every other country is home to the new Caliphate, the Islamic State, ISIS, or is a hotbed for activity. ” “This isn’t randomly chosen nations picked out of a hat. This is the most clear and present danger from individuals in active war zones, that have groups who say — have said this in English in their propaganda product — ‘We will exploit the refugee streams and the migrant streams to insert our individuals, our operatives, into those flows.’ It’s just hard, cold analysis,” said Gorka. Marlow cited a report from Fox News that about 300 refugees are currently the subjects of FBI terrorism investigations. Gorka said this was just part of a broader picture of the terrorist threat. “There have been, since September the 11, just under 600 successful terrorist prosecutions in the United States, in the last 16 years,” he noted. “Approximately half of those put people in prison who were not born in the United States, about half of them. And of the number that were not U. S. nationals, about three dozen were actually refugees or had asylum status. ” “So again, this isn’t hyperbole,” he stressed. “This isn’t fictional hypothesizing. It’s based on the facts of what’s happened in the last 16 years, and most importantly, Alex, it’s about preventing the next attack. Good isn’t reactive. You don’t wait until 120 people have been massacred at a rock concert in Paris. You don’t wait until somebody steals a truck and mows down 80 people, as in Nice. What you want to do is to prevent the bad guys coming in, and that’s exactly why the president brought his order,” said Gorka. Marlow quoted a complaint from the Powerline blog that Trump’s executive order does not go far enough to consider the possibility that “sons and daughters of those who will still be admitted” could become terrorists. “That’s another front in the war against global jihadism or radical Islamic terrorism,” said Gorka. “The author of the article should be fully aware of the fact that this administration understands that not all terrorism is done by foreign nationals or refugees,” he said in response to the Powerline piece. “We’ve seen this. We’ve seen this with Nidal Hassan. We’ve seen this with other individuals here in the United States. Yes, there will be other measures taken that look at the issue of what you do with people who choose the life of jihad as a U. S. national or as somebody who grows to the age of maturity and then decides to go down that path of killing their fellow American or plotting to do so. ” “Remember, this is just one executive order. Nobody in the administration is positing that we are solving all counterterrorism issues with this one executive order,” he promised. On the subject of detainees released from Guantanamo Bay and returning to terrorism, which President Trump addressed in a Tuesday morning tweet, Gorka said, “We’ve got to change the policies that we’ve seen occur over the last eight years. ” “We have an unbelievably high recidivism rate from Guantanamo Bay. The president has been clear that he understands the value of Guantanamo Bay,” Gorka said. “What needs to be understood about the facility is that it’s not just a detention facility. It’s also a very, very important intelligence asset if you look at the kinds of people that we’ve put in there and the kinds of intelligence we’ve gleaned from them. ” “There’s no ideology driving this administration that is about feeling good and releasing people when we feel that they’re no longer a threat. If these individuals have chosen the life of jihad and are committed to it, that means in perpetuity. Unless they distance themselves from it and reject it, they remain a threat to everything this nation stands for,” he declared. Gorka said President Trump’s next priority is “the finalization and deployment of the plan. ” “It’s been drawn up by the generals, by Secretary Mattis, and now the final touches will be put to that plan. The intent is — and it will happen the president said so in his joint session, when he addressed the joint session of Congress — that we will obliterate the Islamic State and wipe this type of terrorism from the face of the earth. The next large muscle movement is going to be the plan’s implementation,” he said. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN:
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More cover ups and lies! I do not trust any of them!! Our current government officials from the top to the bottom and everyone in between needs to go!!
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THE HAGUE — If there is one thing the Dutch agree on, it is to preserve the dikes that protect this country from the ravages of violent seas. That sentiment translates into politics. For the Dutch, both the British vote to leave the European Union and Donald J. Trump’s election in the United States broke political dikes, leaving the Dutch ill at ease with the conflict and uncertainty that has ensued. That, some analysts said, helps explain why the Dutch ultimately chose to contain the populist surge led by Geert Wilders, the icon, in their elections on Wednesday. “In Europe we all see the developments in the United States, and that’s not where we want to go because we see it as chaos,” said Janka Stoker, a professor in the School of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen in the north of the Netherlands. “We’re a coalition country, we don’t always like the coalitions, but we know it gives stability and people know here that we have to work together,” Ms. Stoker said. It is hard to say if the same feeling will prevail in other European countries holding elections this year. The Netherlands, a nation of essentially liberal social instincts, is some barometer, but an imperfect one, with its proportional electoral system that dissipates power and enforces cooperation. It is far less clear that the political circuit breakers in places like France or Italy will similarly hold back a populist movement. They have already blown in Britain, where the incautious choice of a referendum on Europe removed the usual electoral safeguards, and in the United States, where the Electoral College has twice overridden the popular vote since 2000. So while the sense of relief among politicians and voters was palpable on Thursday after the Dutch vote, Europe — its project of integration, its unity, its political ideals — was by no means free of populist threats. Even if the Dutch refused to hand a big win to Mr. Wilders, they backed center right parties that adopted some of his positions and language in order to win. Over all, parties, including the parties defined as populist by academics and pollsters, gained seven seats in the Dutch Parliament, giving them 57 percent of the body in this election, in contrast to 52. 6 percent in the last election when they had 79 seats. At the same time, one of the oldest Dutch political forces, the mainstream left Labor Party, cratered. The result all but guarantees that policies toward immigrants and Muslims will be more restrictive, though less than if Mr. Wilders were running the Dutch government. Yet there are several signs the “Trump effect” that was once expected to carry similarly minded populists is less powerful, or even having the opposite impact, several analysts and pollsters said. Similarly, the British vote to leave the European Union, known as Brexit, may look less inviting as a model as the reality of its messiness comes into view. Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, a research organization, said the “Trump factor” had played a role in “making people think twice about voting for a populist, as people have seen that if you elect a populist you can get all kinds of wacky policies. ” “At the same time,” he added, “we have seen a drop in populism in Europe since Brexit, as citizens have realized that, while a protest vote is fun, it can lead to the uncertainties of Brexit, which are not funny at all. That helped shift the mood in the Netherlands. ” In polls in the Netherlands that looked at perceptions of Mr. Wilders before and after Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Wilders did significantly better before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, said Maurice de Hond, one of the Netherlands’ most seasoned pollsters. “The reason Wilders ended in second place has to do with Trump,” he said, noting that there were other factors, like Mr. Wilders missing early debates. Not everyone agrees, and some analysts underscored that all politics are local. More important than Brexit or Mr. Trump may have been last weekend’s diplomatic spat with Turkey, which gave the party a lift after it took a strong stand against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president. “It’s not just that the Netherlands was not that concerned with Trump and Brexit, it’s that there’s a provincialism about these European elections,” said E. C. Hendriks, a Dutch researcher in social sciences and cultural anthropology who is now at Peking University in Beijing. “Really, everyone is on his island. ” Certainly, there are factors in both France and Germany that make their respective elections idiosyncratic and potentially less affected by the American and British political winds. Nonetheless, in France it is striking that for the most part Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, has steered clear of analogies between her politics and those of Mr. Trump. “Geert Wilders, the Le Pen Dutch equivalent, spoke a lot about Trump, he praised him on the Muslim ban and was one of the few European political figures to praise that ban,” said Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, director of the German Marshall Fund office in Paris. “Le Pen was quieter, I think she understood that to be too close to Trump right now when his administration was in a chaotic phase was not to her advantage. ” Some Dutch voters said they took Mr. Trump’s sometimes bellicose tone seriously, and consciously voted for parties that supported the European Union because they believe that Europe is stronger together and better able to stand up to the United States under Mr. Trump. For similar reasons, some said, they did not favor Brexit. “I don’t like Brexit, it weakened the system, it weakened the European Union and indirectly the Netherlands,” said Max den Voort, 19, a student at The Hague University of Applied Sciences in Delft. The Green Party, led by Jesse Klaver, was an unexpected winner, scoring the biggest parliamentary gains on the left. The D66 party also had a successful showing, getting the left’s largest share of votes. Both parties are . One important difference between the Netherlands and countries that vote later this year is that the Dutch have already had experience with populists in government, said Ronald Kroeze, a political historian at the Free University of Amsterdam. Mr. Wilders was part of the governing coalition in 2010, but when it came to supporting austerity measures in the wake of the recession, he refused to go along. That left the impression he was not serious about governing. In contrast, France and Germany have no direct recent experience with populist leadership and they may be more open to it as a result. Regardless, the continent seems to be moving in an direction that relies more on identity politics, Ms. Hoop de Scheffer said. “The mainstream parties are now stealing parts of the populist discourse, and this is undermining the attraction of the populist parties,” she said. “But it’s a dangerous game because it almost normalizes these ideas. ”
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6.3 earthquake, Central Italy! (earlier was M5.6)
Preliminary: 6.0 earthquake, Central Italy. On 2016/10/26 17:10:38 UTC (2m ago, depth 10km).
— Earthquakes Tsunamis (@NewEarthquake) October 26, 2016
M5.6 #earthquake (#terremoto) strikes 134 km NE of #Roma (#Italy) 6 min ago. Read witnesses’ M5.6 #earthquake ( #terremoto ) strikes 134 km NE of #Roma ( #Italy ) 6 min ago. Read witnesses' stories & share yours: https://t.co/ZGrD2d3wDG
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Here are the week’s top stories, and a look ahead. 1. For nearly seven months, the Democratic National Committee ignored an F. B. I. agent’s warnings that its computer systems had been hacked, our reporters found in their meticulous reconstruction of how Russian agents carried out a cyberattack aimed at disrupting America’s presidential election. President Obama defended his administration’s restrained response — he pulled President Vladimir V. Putin aside at a conference and told him to “cut it out” — and said he is considering retaliatory actions. _____ 2. The Electoral College’s 538 members will cast their votes on Monday. Donald J. Trump has 306 pledged votes, and needs 270 to become president. One Republican elector has said that he will not vote for Mr. Trump, but a revolt big enough to alter the outcome is deeply unlikely. As a Republican elector from Tennessee put it: “Hell will freeze and we will be skating on the lava before I change. ” _____ 3. How sharp is America’s partisan divide? In North Carolina, outrage and raucous protests broke out on Friday after the legislature approved a package of sweeping restrictions to curtail the power of the incoming Democratic Roy Cooper. Mr. Cooper, the state’s longtime attorney general, threatened to sue over the changes. _____ 4. 500, 000 dead. Half of a nation’s population displaced. Civilians, trying to escape the shells that kept falling on a ravaged city, turned to Twitter and WhatsApp to plead: “Please, save us. ” Syria’s nearly civil war took another brutal swing last week as attempts to evacuate Aleppo, a city that government forces are poised to recapture, repeatedly broke down. Warplanes bombed areas as trapped residents tried to flee in a chaotic and dangerous relocation effort. “Everybody has been watching helplessly as this conflict unfolds,” an analyst said. “They are watching civilians being massacred mercilessly and all they can do is tweet about it and sign petitions. ” _____ 5. Bayan Mohammad is 10. Her family escaped from Syria and resettled in Canada, where Bayan and her siblings are learning to ice skate, and navigate the childhood rituals of a new culture. Her parents are watching, with both pride and alarm, as their Syrian children transform into Canadians. Something as simple as a school field trip can become a flash point: For refugees torn away from a world they loved, adapting to a new one without losing their identities is a fraught balancing act. _____ 6. The slow burn of climate change is driving West Africans to cross the Sahara, risking their lives, to find a new place where they can earn a living — away from the droughts and heat that have blighted land where crops once grew. Nearly half of Niger’s young children are malnourished. The continent is growing hotter, wreaking havoc on food supplies, but those who try to leave have nowhere to go. As wary nations close their borders to migrants, policy makers see little chance that refugee protections will be expanded to cover the climate’s casualties. _____ 7. Dr. Henry J. Heimlich, the inventor of an antichoking technique that has saved an estimated 100, 000 lives, died Saturday at age 96, after a heart attack. Just seven months ago, Dr. Heimlich used his maneuver to save an woman at the senior residence in Cincinnati where he lived. An avid popularizer, he became a celebrity through his medical advocacy. “I can do more toward saving lives in three minutes on television,” he once said, “than I could do all my life in the operating room. ” _____ 8. Looking for a book to curl up with? Our critics, who reviewed nearly 250 books this year, winnowed the list down to their favorites. The stories they recommend include tales of a whaling expedition, a literal Underground Railroad, the Dublin Murder Squad’s crime investigations and the secrets of a small mining town. If you’re in the mood for nonfiction, follow along as authors explore America’s housing crisis, hillbilly culture, a childhood in Syria, Queen Victoria’s reign and a terminally ill neurosurgeon’s final months. _____ 9. “If Naivon is smart, why isn’t he in college?” Hearing those words, from an elementary school girl he was tutoring, jolted Naivon Lake Jr. 20, into reconsidering his aimless adulthood. With financial support from the Community Service Society, one of several organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, he enrolled in community college and is majoring in commercial photography. Now in its 105th year, the fund provides direct assistance to struggling residents in New York and beyond. Their stories illustrate how items as simple as a recliner, a graduation dress and a MetroCard can have effects. _____ 10. Do you have the next big story? If you think you have a credible tip, our newsroom wants to hear from you. Click here for secure, encrypted ways to share messages and materials with our journalists. _____ Have a great week. Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Weekend Briefing is published Sundays at 6 a. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Evening Briefing, weeknights at 6 p. m. Eastern. Want to look back? Here’s Friday’s Evening Briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com.
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WASHINGTON — After eight years of chafing under President Barack Obama’s fiscal priorities, congressional Republicans were longing for a budget proposal that did the two things that have become the party’s mantra: Make broad cuts to federal spending and reduce the federal deficit. Instead, President Trump sent them a budget even many Republicans found difficult to love. To fulfill a campaign promise to leave Social Security and Medicare — which represent more than 40 percent of annual federal spending — untouched while constructing an expensive border wall, Mr. Trump went after a relatively small pot of money, discretionary spending, goring Republicans’ pet programs in the process. He does propose increasing military spending by 10 percent, something many conservatives would also like to see, but he probably cannot unilaterally break through legal budget caps, imposed after a battle in 2011 over raising the government’s statutory borrowing limit known as the debt ceiling. Mr. Trump ran as a populist and stacked his cabinet like a conservative, yet he delivered a budget that in many respects is neither. The result is deeply unsatisfying for many in his party, which has been yearning for a unified government to finally make major changes to entitlement programs to bring the deficit in line. “This is a good budget if you want to spend your time fighting small fires,” said former Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, who as the Republican chairman of the Senate Budget Committee spent years trying to rally lawmakers to do the hard work to balance the budget. “It’s a statement of policy, which is legitimate, that the government is too big,” Mr. Gregg said. “As a practical matter, it does not affect the big issues that drive that. ” Congress could have eliminated every penny of domestic spending at its annual discretion this year, and it would not have balanced the federal budget, according to Congressional Budget Office projections, much less rid the nation of its nearly $20 trillion in government debt — which Mr. Trump told voters he could do easily in eight years. It is precisely what conservatives have wanted to control. “The fact is that until the president and Congress are willing to address the real drivers of our debt, Medicare and Social Security, we will be complicit in shackling future generations with the financial burden of our own lack of discipline,” said Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee. “That is not a legacy I want to leave. ” Mick Mulvaney, Mr. Trump’s budget director, who as a member of the House was one of the biggest deficit hawks, was confronted with the budget’s failure to deal with the debt in a news conference with reporters on Thursday. “It’s a fair question,” he said. “I would just suggest to you it’s not the right time for the question. The budget blueprint, again, does not deal with the debt. It even doesn’t even deal with the deficit. It is simply the first part of the appropriations process. ” The budget document represents a aspiration for Mr. Trump, leaving it to the House and Senate appropriations committees to do all the painful work, like finding a way to pay for a wall along the Mexican border that the White House wants. But trying to pass appropriations bills with large cuts to popular domestic programs seems almost impossible in both chambers, especially the Senate, leading Congress on another path to spending measures that Republicans have long wanted to escape. The Congressional Budget Office foresees a federal deficit for the 2018 fiscal year of $487 billion, rising steadily from there until it reaches $1 trillion in 2023. But that is driven all by an aging population, rising health care costs and rising interest payments from the escalating debt. Projected declines in discretionary spending under Mr. Trump’s plan would be more than swallowed by rising payments to Social Security and Medicare because the population aged 65 and older is expected to grow by 39 percent through 2027. In that time, spending on people 65 and older who receive Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and military and federal civilian retirement income will rise from 37 percent of federal spending in 2017 to 45 percent in 10 years. And many of his proposed cuts are at odds with congressional priorities. His budget cuts spending for the National Institutes of Health, which lawmakers gave a big funding increase last year to help attack cancer and other diseases community block grants, which help feed hungry children (a Democratic priority) and local law enforcement (popular with Republicans) as well as pet programs like funding to care for the Great Lakes, which Midwestern lawmakers have fought hard to maintain. “The president proposes and Congress disposes,” said Representative Charlie Dent, a Republican appropriator from Pennsylvania. “We can’t finance a defense buildup entirely on the back of domestic, nondefense spending. It’s not realistic and unfair. ” Mr. Trump’s budget also shows little regard for the political sensitivities of his party. His proposal to restart licensing for a nuclear waste repository in Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, creates a headache for Senator Dean Heller, a Republican who is up for in that state next year. His response was swift and blunt. “As has been stated in the past, Yucca is dead, and this reckless proposal will not revive it,” he said in a statement. It even takes an ax to programs that are important to the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, by proposing cuts in funding for the Appalachian Regional Commission and some air service that would probably eliminate two airports in his state. Mr. McConnell on Thursday went in search of a silver lining. “I’m pleased to see an increased focus on our national security and veterans budgets,” he said in a statement. “These are positive steps in the right direction. I look forward to reviewing this and the full budget when it is released later this spring. ” Mr. Trump is hardly alone in putting forth a budget dismissed by his own party. Mr. Obama pushed the idea of changing the way the inflation rate was calculated to slow the growth of big programs like Social Security, a proposal many Democrats opposed. President George W. Bush pressed to partially privatize Social Security, and many Republicans disliked that idea. But it is striking to read Mr. Trump’s budget and see clearly mixed messages from the opening pages delivered by Mr. Mulvaney, who praised the budget as a debt crusher, and from Mr. Trump, who emphasized his increases in military spending. Those contradictions are among the many reasons that even members of Mr. Trump’s party see his budget more as a mere suggestion than an edict. “Historically, presidential budgets do not fare well with Congress,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.
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November 7, 2016
Experts around the country, from rocket scientists to brain surgeons, have confessed that they’re tired of the British public.
‘If we’re not careful, we’re in serious danger of having no experts at all.’ says the nations favourite expert on absolutely everything, Professor Brian Cox. ‘I refuse to believe that’s what Joe Public really wants, but it’s what they’re in danger of getting.
Professor Jane Wilson, clinical neuroscientist at Greater London Hospital agrees. ‘Patients routinely ask me about diseases they looked up on the internet and think they have, just because they got a headache last Tuesday. I never use Google to look up symptoms, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve searched “how to become a plumber” and considered passing on my ‘expert badge’ to Barbara from Ealing – she clearly feels she’s earned it.’
The Centre for Rocket Scientists took it one step further, and released a statement that accused the public of being ‘children with the delusion of competence about issues they haven’t the slightest clue about’, and challenged any person on the street ‘to put a rocket millions of miles into space before crashing it on Mars’. LondonTom
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Mohsen Abdelmoumen : Do you think the United States can claim to be democratic simply by electing a woman president? Can we talk about democracy in the USA with a candidate of the financial lobbies and AIPAC?
Ann Garrison: No, of course not. No more than we could claim to be a democracy because we elected a Black president. These two elections signify nothing more than the inclusion of previously excluded classes of people in the super elite. The United States is an oligarchy of the .01%, 1% of the 1%. Any president who is not already among the .01%, like Bill Clinton, becomes part of the .01% by serving its interests and then peddling influence after leaving office. No one has developed an influence peddling machine as well-oiled as the Clintons, with Bill working the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative while Hillary was Secretary of State. Just imagine the new depths of corruption that the next eight years and beyond could bring. Obama has said he’s now considering a move from the White House to venture capitalism that has Silicon Valley slathering at the opportunity.
Every four years Americans are given the illusion of choice between oligarchs and/or aspiring oligarchs who will serve the interests of oligarchy. Candidates who aspire to actually represent the interests of the people are marginalized by the corporate media and the pay-to-play campaign contributions of the oligarchs.
In municipal and county elections and ballot measures, Americans often do have real choices, but the higher and more powerful the office, the greater the corruption and oligarchic control. Nevertheless, only a small minority of Americans actually vote n local elections; The Atlantic's CityLab reporting project recently concluded that fewer than 20% vote in mayoral elections in 15 of the 30 most populous cites. Disengagement is one of the most fundamental facts of American political life.
Regarding federal elections, this concept of democracy within the largest, most lethal military power the world has ever seen is bogus to begin with. When U.S. citizens cast ballots to elect a new commander-in-chief who will continue the project of perpetual war, military industrial profits, and global hegemony, how democratic is that? The vast majority of those who will suffer and die don’t get to vote; the only exceptions are members of the U.S. Armed Services who die in U.S. wars. If those on the other side of the Pentagon’s crosshairs were able to vote, I’m sure they would elect our Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who said, “We say to Trump, we don’t need no friggin’ wall! We just need to stop invading other countries.” Her running mate, vice presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka has called the humanitarian interventionist argument a new version of the white man’s burden and said, “You have to ask yourself, when was the last time the U.S. has been on the side of the people? And the answer is: NEVER.”
MORE... Top Aide to Hillary Clinton Urges the FBI to Disclose what it Knows about Trump's Russia Ties What will Hillary Clinton do for India? Not Much and Here's Why Clinton's Policies Look Like a Death Sentence for Americans 10 Things to Expect with a Hillary Clinton Presidency How do you explain the dynastic governance Clinton? Is the American dream in all its glory?
I’m not sure I can explain the Clinton dynasty except to agree that it is one. Chelsea has been very involved in the Clinton Foundation and is quite likely to enter political life and even run for president one day. We have had other political dynasties, most notably the Roosevelts, the Kennedys and the Bushes, and there are many lower level dynasties, like the Browns in California. Jerry Brown, the current governor of California, is the son of former California governor Pat Brown. New York State has the Cuomos; Governor Andrew Cuomo is the son of former Governor Mario Cuomo, and his brother Chris Cuomo is a prominent corporate television host.
Regarding the American dream, I assume you're referring to the dream that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can achieve some proportionate degree of status, security and prosperity. If so, the Clintons certainly aren't living the American dream because, although they did well in school, they've hardly played by the rules. They've enriched themselves with that well-oiled influence peddling operation I mentioned earlier, the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative. We're all wondering whether Hillary Clinton, and maybe even Bill Clinton, might finally be indicted now that the FBI has reopened its investigation of Clinton e-mail because more of it was discovered on the laptop that Anthony Weiner - a former Congressman under FBI investigation for sex offense - shared with his wife, Clinton aide Huma Abedin. If Hillary Clinton is elected, she'll have to be impeached, convicted and removed from office, but that's extremely unlikely - no matter what's in the newly discovered e-mail - if her party, the Democrats, win a majority in the House and more than a one- third minority in the Senate. It takes a majority in the House to impeach a president and a two-thirds majority in the Senate to then convict and remove a president. So Hillary Clinton is at a Berlusconi moment in her sordid career; her best chance of avoiding indictment is getting elected. Getting back to the American dream that you can get ahead by working hard and playing by the rules, Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives, for perjury and obstruction of justice regarding his affair with a 19-year-old White House intern and his testimony in a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by another former employee. However, his own party held a majority in the Senate and they acquitted him. This was all legal, according to the U.S. Constitution, but does it really sound like he was "playing by the rules"? During the final days of his presidency, Clinton acquitted Glencore International founder Mark Rich, an international fugitive who had fled to Switzerland. His ex-wife had donated to the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton Presidential Library and Hillary Clinton's New York Senate campaign.
According to the law, President Clinton had the authority to acquit Rich, but how would any rational person consider that anything but bribery and corruption?
In 2006, Clinton polished the reputation of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan's autocratic leader and human rights offender, who then gave a uranium mining lease to Canadian businessman Frank Giustra's Shell Company, making it worth tens of millions of dollars overnight. Giustra then made a big contribution to the Clinton Foundation. No one has claimed that this was illegal, but is it "playing by the rules"?
When Guistra sold a majority stake in his company, Uranium One, to Rosatom, the Russian atomic energy agency, it was approved by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Giustra then contributed $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton was offered a $500,000 speaking engagement with a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin. Does that sound like playing by the rules? And now Hillary's trying to make us believe that Russia's meddling in our elections and threatening confrontation with Russia over Syria. I don't think she's kidding about the confrontation, but the Clinton Foundation rarely passes up the chance to make another million dollars or more in any circumstances.
Meanwhile, most of the rest of us are not living the American dream. Sixty-three percent of Americans are living on the edge of financial catastrophe, unable to handle a $500 car repair or a $1000 emergency room bill . The Clintons, as I said, serve the oligarchy they have also managed to join. When Bill Clinton was on his way out, in the last months of his presidency, he worked with Republicans in the lame duck Congress to deregulate the banking industry. By 2008, its dishonest, excessive and abusive financialization scams had crashed the economy, costing millions of Americans their jobs and/or homes. Then, as a New York Senator, Hillary Clinton voted to bail out the big banks who committed the crime while many of the rest of us struggled in the crash’s wake.
How do you explain that candidate Clinton, who failed as Secretary of State with the death of the US Ambassador in Libya, her health problems, the scandal of emails, is the candidate of the Democrats?
Again, Clinton serves the interests of the oligarchy that she herself has joined. Many people believe that the nomination was stolen from Bernie Sanders, the Democratic candidate who spoke out against oligarchy, growing income inequality, and even the Israeli lobby’s dominance in American politics.
But there’s one other important element to this. Americans who identify as liberals, supporters of women's rights, and/or anti-racists have such a longstanding allegiance to the Democratic Party that supporting its nominee every four years is their knee-jerk reaction. Ever escalating foreign wars don’t seem to penetrate their consciousness or conscience, especially when those wars are waged primarily with drones and proxy armies instead of U.S. troops. And once the Republicans nominated the openly racist and misogynistic Donald Trump, defeating Trump became a liberal crusade.
There are, of course, glimmers of rationality and hope. Yesterday I was out canvassing for an Oakland, California ballot measure with a young Black man, a college sophomore. Despite Trump’s overt racism, he told me that he considers Clinton even more dangerous because he understands that she has essentially promised confrontation with Russia over Syria. He understands that such escalation increases the chance of a nuclear war, accidental or not, and that Trump, for all his faults, says that the Cold War is over, that NATO is largely obsolete, and that Clinton is recklessly risking confrontation with Russia by promising to remove Bashar Al-Assad.
Our Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is reported to be polling at 16% among voters under 35, and much of Bernie Sanders’s support was quite visibly from the same age group. Local, grassroots organizing is also empowering people to create institutions free of oligarchic and corporate control. They include community gardens, renewable energy buyers' co-operatives, and GMO-free zones. If a ballot initiative to make California's Sonoma County GMO-free passes, the whole northwest coast of California will be a GMO-free zone, from Santa Cruz to Humboldt Counties and including one inland county, Trinity.
Don't you think that the two-headed American system with the candidates of two traditional parties, Democratic and Republican is out of breath?
I wouldn’t say it’s out of breath because it’s still very much in control. However, Trump has left the Republican Party in disarray, with many Republican luminaries and funders defecting to Clinton, who is welcoming them with open arms. As Black Agenda Report Editor Glen Ford has written , the Clintons “have succeeded in assembling under one party roof nearly the whole of the U.S. ruling class and their hordes of attendants and goons. The scam that undergirded the duopoly system that has served the Lords of Capital so well for so long, has come undone. Thanks to a white nationalist billionaire who was too spoiled to play by the corporate rules, the two parties of the ruling class have become one.”
It’s hard to say whether or not the Republican Party will survive this election or what it will be in another four years if it does.
One possibility could significantly change this. If Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein wins 5% in this election, the Green Party will become an official national party eligible for 5% of the federal funds made available to official national parties to host their presidential nominating conventions and support their nominee. This year all federal funds went to the two official national parties, Republicans and Democrats, who also have access to huge amounts of plutocratic and corporate money. The Greens take no corporate money.
Five percent of the vote and five percent of the federal funding for elections may not sound like much, but it would be a huge watershed for the U.S. Greens. It would be a big psychological and visibility boost, and it would mean starting the next presidential campaign year with more than twice the funds that Jill Stein’s campaign has been able to raise.
Winning 5% would also ensure ballot access for the Greens in most states, not only in federal elections but also in down ballot races. As it is, Greens are required to spend much of their time and money just gathering enough signatures to satisfy all the byzantine ballot access requirements that vary in each of the 50 states.
Everyone knows that Clinton is the future president of the USA. In your opinion, why they are facilitated her task and who has interest in seeing Clinton in the Oval Office?
She is backed by the oligarchy, corporate and dynastic, particularly the investment bankers, the oil industry, and the weapons manufacturers who not only profit but also lobby for foreign wars. They are advancing their own interests by promoting a candidate who will serve them. Liberals have been conditioned to function as unpaid Clinton operatives in this election, and the corporate media, like the cops, serve as protectors of the oligarchy. And again, the majority of Americans are politically disengaged.
You are close to Jill Stein, head of the Green party, which emerged late in the campaign. Why was this alternative sabotaged?
Well, I wouldn’t say I’m close to Jill personally, but she knows who I am and I, of course, know who she is. I’ve reported on her campaign and on the U.S. Greens for the past year, on radio and in print and online outlets, and I’m always honored when she shares those reports on her social media pages. I write for the Black Agenda Report and feel politically and intellectually close to its editors, who have given their full support to the Green Party this year, even as Bernie Sanders surged in the polls and many imagined he might actually win the Democratic nomination. In these times that are so easy to see as the end times, shared rationality and humanity are the closest bonds that many of us have, regardless of the geographic distance between us.
Jill’s campaign could hardly compete with the Republicans' and Democrats' because neither she nor any other Greens solicit or accept corporate money. We stand behind the slogan, “People and Planet before Profits.” And we call for a halt to the death march led by the weapons manufacturers, fossil fuel giants, and agro-chemical companies who profit from it. Jill calls for immediately cutting the military budget by half, closing all the U.S. military bases in foreign countries and launching a “peace offensive.” She proposes free public education from kindergarten through college, the abolition of student debt, national health insurance and a “Green New Deal” that would reinvest the resources now squandered on weapons manufacture and all the illegal, immoral, lethal and environmentally catastrophic U.S. wars. The Green New Deal would create a renewable energy infrastructure and sustainable agriculture before it’s too late to stop the climate meltdown - if it isn’t too late already. And it would fully employ Americans in meaningful, dignified and cooperative work for the common good.
Of course that all makes far too much sense and threatens the highly concentrated wealth and power of the death-march industries. I would not be surprised if there were voter fraud to prevent Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka from winning the 5% that would make us an official national party.
I have also seen enormous oligarchic determination to stop Greens at the local level. In 2003, Matt Gonzalez, the Green Party's mayoral candidate in San Francisco, seemed to have a good chance of winning. That so alarmed the Democratic Party that it sent all its best known, most powerful names and faces to San Francisco to campaign for the Democratic candidate. They sent Hillary and Bill. They sent Jesse Jackson. They sent many Democratic Party superstars more than once. They seemed to be more concerned about defeating Matt Gonzalez and the Greens in San Francisco than they were about defeating George Bush and the Republicans in the following year’s presidential election.
One of the founders of the San Francisco Green Party was elected to the City and County Board of Supervisors twice, but when he ran for Sheriff, an executive office, Democrats pulled him aside and said they could not allow his election unless he left the Greens and joined the Democratic Party, which he did. They still got rid of him after his first term, with a really ugly campaign, but that’s another complicated story in itself. The City and County of San Francisco once had more elected Greens than any city or county in the country, but many of those that Greens worked so hard to elect have since defected to the Democratic Party for the sake of their political careers.
Is not Hillary Clinton a danger for humanity?
Hell yes. I agree with Congolese author and political activist Patrick Mbeko, who said she’s more dangerous than ISIS, for all the reasons I’ve already mentioned. Her dark alliance with the death-march industries, and her seeming eagerness to confront Russia over Syria and/or on Russia’s borders in the interest of global hegemony. Russian uranium deal aside, I think that Diana Johnstone was most likely right when she wrote that “her strategic ambition in a nutshell is regime change in Russia.”
And I have to mention my friends from the African Great Lakes Region - particularly Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo - which became the killing grounds of the 1990s, as the U.S., using African proxies, established itself as the dominant power there. Most of my friends from that part of the world are horrified by the Clintons’ all but certain return to the White House. The Clintons are deeply committed to the false history of the Rwandan war and massacres that was used to justify the First and Second Congo Wars and later the “humanitarian” interventions in Libya, Syria, and Iraq. If the truth about Rwanda and DR Congo were known, Bill Clinton would be implicated in mass murder, but that's true of every U.S. president in office in my lifetime and probably long before that. No one's going to try to refer the most lethal military power in history to an international criminal court with more than symbolic authority.
You have many worked on Africa. How do you explain the French leadership in Africa?
Well, I’m no expert in this, but I can say a few things.
First, I wouldn’t call it leadership. I’d say that France sustains a neocolonial and military presence in Africa. France was a partner in the destruction of Libya. In Mali, Niger, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, France is protecting the uranium mines essential to the nuclear power that generates 75% of its electricity. There’s no doubt that France was complicit in the assassination of resource nationalist and debt resister President Thomas Sankara and the installation of President Blaise Compaoré in Burkina Faso. I don’t see any sign that French policy towards Burkina or any of its other former colonies is any more benign now, despite its resignation to Compaoré’s ouster by a popular movement.
France and the U.S. now appear to be military partners in Africa more often than not, but during the Rwandan war and massacres and the Congo Wars of the 1990s, the U.S. displaced France as the dominant power there.
However, a source of ongoing tension between France and the U.S. has been their divergent accounts of the massacres known as the Rwandan Genocide. The U.S. defends Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s account, in which he is the savior who swept in to stop the carnage. Kagame blames France, particularly for Operation Turquoise, in which French troops created a humanitarian corridor for Rwandan refugees, mostly Hutus, who were fleeing the advance of Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Army. This conflict has recently been renewed, first with France reopening its investigation of allegations that Kagame ordered the assassination of Rwanda and Burundi’s Hutu presidents, Juvenal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, in 1994. Rwanda responded by accusing 22 French officers of helping to plan and organize genocide in Rwanda.
In 2010, Nicholas Sarkozy attempted to ease the tension between France and the U.S. and Rwanda by accepting the U.S./Rwandan account of the massacres. He publicly apologized for France’s alleged guilt in Rwanda’s tragedy , and shortly thereafter, France was rewarded with greater access to DR Congo's resource riches. However, Alain Juppé, who was the French prime minister at the time of the Rwandan massacres and Operation Turquoise, was having none of that. He even left the country during Kagame’s 2011 "reconciliaton" visit to Paris . Now Juppé seems to be leading Sarkozy in the bid for his party’s nomination, and if he is elected president, the history of Rwanda and DR Congo in the 1990s will be more fiercely contested. Most of my Rwandan friends very much hope that Juppé will be elected because he defends the dissident history of what really happened. They believe, for one, that Operation Turquoise saved many Rwandan lives.
While Africa is a young continent, How do you explain that the countries are often directed by old presidents with several mandates and who don't want lose the power?
The old presidents cling to power, and the Western powers with geo-strategic interests enable them because autocrats are easier to corrupt and control than rowdy democrats and resource nationalists who try to represent their own people. Rwanda’s Kagame and Uganda’s Museveni are two prime examples of autocrats who have proven very useful to the U.S. and other Western interests.
France, the U.S., and all the rest of the NATO nations appear to be united in their determination to topple Burundi’s Nkurunziza, who has dared to raise an independent head and to favor the East, particularly Russia, in resource extraction contracts. I can't explain Mugabe's hold on power at age 92 or Omar al-Bashir's at 72, since neither are U.S. aliies. You'll have to ask Africans in those countries to explain that.
In your opinion, is not tribalism a major factor in the destabilization of Africa? Why doesn't Africa progress and does it stay in the tribal model?
I really hesitate to say anything about that because I’m not African myself and I think Western media often use the word “‘tribe” as a racial slur that disguises Western resource interests at play in African conflicts. I recently wrote a piece about the new film A Brilliant Genocide , and Milton Allimadi, the Ugandan-born editor of the Black Star News, told me he loved the piece but asked me to remove the one instance in which I’d used the word “tribe.” I told him I'd been hesitant about using that word and was glad to remove it. I’m now reading his book, “ Hearts of Darkness: How White Writers Created the Racist Image of Africa .”
Why are Congolese being massacred in Beni Territory, North Kivu Province ? The first question I've asked to try to answer that question is, “What resources are there?” In Beni, the answer is oil, timber, gold, diamonds, wolfram, coltan and cassiterite. Beni is a vivid example of the saying, “Everybody wants a piece of Congo.” No one could convince me that the industrial nations’ hunger for all these riches is not at the heart of these conflicts. Why are all the deadly “ethnic” conflicts in DR Congo’s resource-rich eastern provinces?
The competition and/or animosity between ethnicities or groups is often real, as they are in the West, but in Africa, the geostrategic and resource interests of the industrial nations are always in play behind the scenes. Western powers often exacerbate local rivalries in pursuit of their own interests.
I sometimes co-host a show called AfrobeatRadio with my friend Wuyi Jacobs on WBAI-New York City, and we both hope to someday produce a show about Rwanda and Burundi in which we won’t have to use the words “Hutu” or “Tutsi.” Dr. Léopold Munyakazi convinced me that these two groups are better understood not as tribes or ethnicities but as social classes in Rwandan history that were exaggerated by Europeans who have found it convenient to pit one group against the other.
Libya lives total chaos. How do you analyze the situation in Libya?
It’s horrible. Like so much else, it makes me deeply ashamed to be an American. If you read Hillary Clinton’s e-mail, it’s easy to see that the U.S.]/NATO war on Libya was, for one, another Western war against another defiant resource nationalist, Muammar Gaddafi. Regardless of whatever human rights offenses Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein were guilty of, both were resource nationalists, as was Mohammed Mossadegh, the secular, democratically elected prime minister of Iran who nationalized Iranian oil before our CIA and the UK's M16 ousted him in the 1953 coup. I wrote about how this played out in Libya in “ Clinton E-MaIl: We came, we saw, we got oil .”
Obama says that failing to prepare for the aftermath of the Libyan War was the greatest mistake of his presidency, but I'd say his greatest mistake was waging the Libyan War in the first place. Like the Iraq War, it has created chaos and perpetual war that continues to spread through the Middle East and North Africa.
Interview realized by Mohsen Abdelmoumen
Who is Ann Garrison?
Ann Garrison is an independent journalist who contributes to the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, the Black Agenda Report and the Black Star News, and produces radio for KPFA-Berkeley and WBAI-New York City. In 2014, she was awarded the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize by the Womens International Network for Democracy and Peace . She can be reached at https://twitter.com/AnnGarrison?lang=en .
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Financial markets jolted as US election polls tighten FT
Democratic Voters Are to Blame for Hillary Clinton’s Headaches The New Republic. So, it’s all the fault of voters, for not bothering to vote in 2014. Which raises the obvious question: If the DNC ran better candidates, would voters perhaps be inspired to turn out? Or, to push the point a bit further, as Brecht expressed it:
Some party hack decreed that the people had lost the government’s confidence and could only regain it with redoubled effort. If that is the case, would it not be simpler, If the government simply dissolved the people And elected another?
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By Brandon Turbeville
As the United States marches forward with its war of terror abroad it is, as predicted by researchers and informed observers many years ago, clamping down on the domestic population at home. Indeed, it is virtually inevitable that the great eating machine of the empire returns home to be turned on the people who ignored it while it was grinding up so many innocent lives overseas.
So as the war drums beat louder and as America ekes closer toward the impending Clinton coronation and the possibility of the declaration of yet another “ no fly zone ,” this time over Syria, becomes more and more likely, it is poetic justice that a no-fly zone is being declared inside the United States.
While Russia stands in the way of America’s march to create Libya 2.0 in Syria, there is no one willing and virtually no one able to stand in the way of America’s declaration of war on itself, personified by the vicious police state brutality being visited upon the protestors at Standing Rock – indigenous and otherwise – and the crackdown on virtually every amendment to the Constitution including the arrest of demonstrators and journalists, some of whom are facing incredibly ridiculous amounts of time in jail.
Indeed, the United States has even declared a no-fly zone over the protest area, preventing media coverage of the ensuing bravery of the protesters and brutality of the “Serve and Protect” crew who are willing to bash every skull and crush every human right in the quest to “just do their jobs.”
One need only take a look at the photos of the protesters vs the heavily armed and militarized police (can we still call them police?) forces amassed around the location to see the crumbling of America into the police state foreseen for Western countries as the rug gets pulled out from under them economically, socially, and culturally despite their use as tools of imperialism abroad. The blunt hammer of Anglo-American hegemony that is the United States is falling apart even as it continues to strike at Syria, Iran, and Russia.
While police can murder with impunity and Black Lives Matter activists can destroy cities at will, Standing Rock protesters are charged with high crimes for spray painting bulldozers; and journalists who dare to even cover the protests are arrested and charged with trespassing, inciting riots, and conspiracy. Even left gatekeepers like Amy Goodman have been charged with such crimes. But, while Goodman’s charges were eventually dropped, other journalists such as Deia Schlosberg face 45 years in prison simply for filming a protest that involved the disruption of the pipeline’s operations.
In regards to the current events taking place at Standing Rock, Jay Syrmopoulos writes ,
This latest flashpoint in the ongoing conflict is north of the larger and more permanent encampments, which have been constructed on federally owned land where over 200 Native American tribes have gathered to oppose the pipeline’s construction.
On Wednesday, a heavily militarized law enforcement presence began mobilizing heavy equipment, including Humvees, armored personnel carriers, and buses and demanded the protesters leave the occupied area.
In an ominous sign, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has restricted flights , and banned the use of drones within a radius of about 4 ½ miles of Cannon Ball. The FAA declared that only aircraft affiliated with the North Dakota Tactical Operation Center are allowed within the restricted airspace. The flight restriction went into effect Wednesday and will last until November 5.
Indian Country Today reports :
What began with prayers and a single tipi alongside Highway 1806 quickly grew to more than a dozen tipis surrounded by tents, buses, cars and hundreds of water protectors. Some are calling it the “1851 Treaty Camp” to acknowledge their Treaty rights.
Across the road is the encroaching pipeline and a heavily militarized police force with armored vehicles, helicopters, planes, ATVs and busloads of officers. Tensions are growing as unarmed citizens worry that police will use unnecessarily harsh tactics.
In recent weeks, nearly 300 unarmed water protectors who were arrested have been subjected to pepper spray, strip-searches, delayed bail, exaggerated charges and physical violence, according to interviews with several who were taken into custody. The ACLU and National Lawyers Guild recently sent attorneys to Standing Rock to help the Red Owl Collective, a team of volunteer lawyers headed by attorney Bruce Ellison, who are representing many of those arrested.
The massive law enforcement contingent, consisting of sheriff’s deputies and officers from numerous other states and counties, as well as National Guard, began staging near the encampment — with scores of Armored Personnel Carriers, buses and Humvees poised at the ready.
“At some point the rule of law has to be enforced,” Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said Wednesday. “We could go down there at any time. We’re trying not to.”
Dakota Access LLC, the pipeline developer released a statement encouraging trespassers to “vacate the land immediately” or be “removed from the land.”
“Alternatively and in coordination with local law enforcement and county/state officials, all trespassers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and removed from the land,” the company said. “Lawless behavior will not be tolerated.”
Just days ago, sheriff’s officials had said earlier they didn’t have the resources to immediately remove activists from the private land, about 50 miles south of Bismarck. Subsequently, law enforcement officials put out a call for reinforcements, with hundreds of officers from out of state responding.
So there is an official “no fly zone” over the Standing Rock protest (which can be seen here at the FAA website ) and, on the ground, we have an army of storm troopers no doubt eager to bust heads and fire off some rounds into a group of people who only want clean water, property rights, and the honoring of the legal agreements they signed.
Across the ocean, however, we await another no fly zone with the creeping Clinton coronation and possibly even a last stab by the Obama administration once the fix for Hitlery is officially in.
In the last of three Presidential (in name only) debates, Clinton stated clearly her support for war in Syria by virtue of establishing a “no fly zone.” She stated ,
I’m going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe havens within Syria not only to help protect the Syrians and prevent the constant outflow of refugees but to, frankly, gain some leverage on both the Syrian government and the Russians so that perhaps we can have the kind of serious negotiation necessary to bring the conflict to an end and go forward on a political track.
Of course, the establishment of a “No-Fly Zone” is tantamount to a declaration of war . Such has even been admitted by top U.S. generals when explaining exactly what a No Fly Zone would entail. As General Carter Ham stated ,
We should make no bones about it. It first entails killing a lot of people and destroying the Syrian air defenses and those people who are manning those systems. And then it entails destroying the Syrian air force, preferably on the ground, in the air if necessary. This is a violent combat action that results in lots of casualties and increased risk to our own personnel.
General Philip Breedlove also echoed this description when he said,
I know it sounds stark, but what I always tell people when they talk to me about a no-fly zone is . . . it’s basically to start a war with that country because you are going to have to go in and kinetically take out their air defense capability
When Senator Roger Wicker asked Gen. Joe Dunford what it would take to impose a no fly zone upon Syria, the General responded , “Right now… for us to control all of the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia.”
Thus, the entire Western “sphere of influence” is slowly descending down to become a place of no fly zones, riot police, and a boot slowly stamping on the human face. At home, those individuals who resist the “new normal” will be steadily dealt with either by economic hardship or a rude reminder that dissenters will be silence, imprisoned, or killed.
Elsewhere, however, the Anglo-American system has begun to encounter nations who are not only willing to fight back but who are able to do so. A dying empire caught in its death throes, trying to remain alive by creating the “absence of dissent” might well launch a third world war with a nuclear power as a last stab at hegemony.
On the other hand, Rome could just burn slowly.
Rest assured, however, the skies above the city will be empty.
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WASHINGTON, D. C. — Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s tenure in public service is rife with contradictions, as an examination of her current positions juxtaposed with her past behavior reveals. [Warren’s latest book, “This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class” is her 11th. Rumors have been swirling that the progressive Democrat and Harvard law professor could be positioning herself for a run in the 2020 presidential elections. When digging into her very near past though, Warren’s hypocritical position as a champion of “equal pay for equal work,” her phony war on big business, her stance on a health care system, and her hypocrisy on school choice quickly come into question. In her 2014 book “A Fighting Chance,” she criticized her 2012 opponent Scott Brown for voting against equal pay for equal work. In the book, she said of Brown, “He’s had exactly one chance to vote for equal pay for equal work, and he voted no. … Those were bad votes for women, and it felt right to say so. ” However, a Washington Free Beacon article titled “Elizabeth Warren’s Female Staffers Made 71% of Male Staffers’ Salaries in 2016” reported that the gender pay gap in Warren’s own Senate office is “nearly 10 percent wider than the national average. ” Warren has also contradicted herself with her claims that she fights against big business — failing to mention that she worked “on behalf of a big business” and got paid over $200, 000 in a matter of three years. In 2012, the Boston Globe reported that Warren, in her sole appearance in the U. S. Supreme Court, helped represent Travelers Insurance in a case that involved dozens of lawyers and thousands of asbestos victims. “The 2009 appearance was the only time Warren helped represent a party before the nation’s highest court. And it provides a rare window into a aspect of the Harvard Law professor’s career, her time as a working attorney in the courts,” wrote the Boston Globe. The publication adds that the case — Travelers v. Bailey — was particularly “notable because Warren, who has gained fame for defending consumers against big business, was in this case working on behalf of a big business. For her contribution, Warren was paid $212, 000 over three years by Travelers, the nation’s largest insurer. ” Warren’s contradictory reputation with fighting against big business is also brought to the fore when examining her support for Massachusetts defense contractors. “Elizabeth Warren’s standing as a liberal warrior immune to the influence of Big Business hasn’t stopped her from pushing the interests of major defense contractors back home,” Politico wrote in 2015. Warren has fought to stop the Army from shifting funds away from a communications network to pay for unanticipated costs associated with the war in Afghanistan. She’s lobbied for General tactical radios. And she’s pledged to protect Westover Air Reserve Base from the budget ax — all while saying she supports ‘targeted’ cuts elsewhere. In the same piece, Politico further notes that Warren’s potential presidential candidacy would subject her to “scrutiny over the way she’s balanced her populist views with her for pursuing the practice of politics. ” Health care has proven to be one of the biggest obstacles in recent political history. In the 2008 book “Health At Risk,” edited by Jacob Hacker, Warren an essay with Deborah Thorne, titled “Get Sick, Go Broke,” where she claimed that health care was “the most obvious” solution to America’s healthcare problems. “We approach the health care debates from a single perspective: maintaining the financial stability of families confronting illness or injury,” Warren wrote. “The most obvious solution would be universal health care. This would allow people to get the care they need — without risking bankruptcy to pay for it. No more credit card debt at 29. 9 percent interest to pay for drugs no more second mortgages to pay for a hospital admission no more dealing with debt collectors who garnish wages and threaten to put liens on homes. care would also free families from dependence on an employer’s plan and make certain that everyone is covered whether or not they are employed. ” However, in 2012, Warren told a local TV host that she did not support a health care system. Asked by former NECN reporter Jim Braude if she supports healthcare, Warren said, “No, [I support] what I’ve got right now … ” Braude went on to remind Warren that she “wrote repeatedly” that she does support it to which Warren responded, “Oh! I think you need to go back and take a look. ” Braude then referenced the paragraph Warren with Thorne. “I have a paragraph: ‘The most obvious solution would be universal, health care. care would also free families from dependents on an employers’ plan and make certain that everyone is covered whether or not.’ You wrote that with a from Ohio. ” Warren shot back, “I wrote that with two. Actually, with two [ ] I think. That’s exactly right. But the point is, what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to keep moving in the direction of getting more families covered and bringing down the costs of healthcare, and I think we’ve taken a big step in that direction. ” Just last month, during remarks she delivered at the New England Council, Warren said, “I think every option needs to be on the table, and single payer sure ought to be at the top of the list. ” Asked by a reporter to clarify where she stands on single payer, considering her past inconsistency on the matter, Warren said: It depends on where we want to go next and what we can do next. If the question is, ‘can we make the Affordable Care Act better, and we can find some Republicans colleagues to do that,’ then absolutely. We should do what we can to improve it. But I want to be clear. We built a whole health care system in the hopes that it was going to be bipartisan when we built the Affordable Care Act, right? It came out of the Heritage Foundation, it had Republican ideas in it, we built it off of what Mitt Romney had done here in Massachusetts, took amendments from Republicans — how much Republican support did we get for that? None. So if we’re talking about tearing down the health care system and starting over, then I think every option needs to be on the table, and single payer sure ought to be at the top of the list. As for school choice, Warren is also hypocritical. In her 2003 book, “The Trap: Why Parents are Going Broke,” which she with her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi, Warren endorsed and emphasized the importance of school vouchers. “A voucher program would fit the bill neatly,” Warren and Tyagi wrote. “A voucher that paid the entire cost of educating a child (not just a partial subsidy) would open a range of opportunities to all children. With fully funded vouchers, parents of all income levels could send their children — and the accompanying financial support — to the schools of their choice. ” They added, “Fully funded vouchers would relieve parents from the terrible choice of leaving their kids in lousy schools or bankrupting themselves to escape those schools. ” However, this past January, Warren took a complete turn from her original statement when she wrote in a letter to for Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos that private voucher programs “in many cases” are “expensive and dangerous failures. ” She also wrote that “These private voucher programs have a history. Historically, private school vouchers have been used by some states to further racial and socioeconomic segregation. ” Warren added, “For decades, you have been one of the nation’s strongest advocates for radically transforming the public education system through the use of vouchers that steer public dollars away from traditional public schools to private and religious schools. … But the actual evidence on how private voucher programs affect educational outcomes is mixed at best, and in many cases reveals these programs to be expensive and dangerous failures that cost taxpayers billions of dollars while destroying public education systems. ” Follow Adelle Nazarian on Facebook and Twitter.
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Schools All Over America Are Closing On Election Day Due To Fears Of Violence By Michael Snyder, on October 27th, 2016
Will this be the most chaotic election day in modern American history? All across the nation, schools are being closed on election day due to safety fears. Traditionally, schools have been very popular as voting locations because they can accommodate a lot of people, they usually have lots of parking, and everyone in the community knows where they are and can usually get to them fairly easily. But now there is a big movement to remove voting from schools or to shut schools down on election day so that children are not present when voting takes place. According to Fox News , “voting has been removed or classes have been canceled on Election Day at schools in Illinois, Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and elsewhere.” Just a couple days ago , I shared with you a survey that found that 51 percent of all Americans are concerned about violence happening on election day, and all of these schools closing is just another sign of how on edge much of the population is as we approach November 8th.
Many officials are being very honest about the fact that schools are being shut down on election day because they are afraid of election violence. The following comes from Fox News …
Several schools across the nation have decided to close on Election Day over fears of possible violence in the hallways stemming from the fallout from the heated rhetoric that consumed the campaign trail.
The fear is the ugliness of the election season could escalate into confrontations and even violence in the school hallways, endangering students.
“If anybody can sit there and say they don’t think this is a contentious election, then they aren’t paying much attention,” Ed Tolan, the Falmouth, Maine police chief, said Tuesday. His community has already called off classes on Nov. 8 and an increased police presence will be felt around town.
And without a doubt, voting locations are “soft targets” that often have little or no security. We have been blessed to have had such peaceful elections in the past, but we also need to realize that times have changed. I believe that there is wisdom in what Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp told reporters …
“There is a concern, just like at a concert, sporting event or other public gathering that we didn’t have 15 or 20 years ago,” said Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, co-chairman of the National Association of Secretaries of State election committee. “ What if someone walks in a polling location with a backpack bomb or something? If that happens at a school, then that’s certainly concerning.”
All it is going to take is a single incident to change everything.
Let us hope that it is not this election day when we see something like that.
Another reason why polling locations are under increased scrutiny this election season is because of concerns about election fraud. This is something that Donald Trump has alluded to repeatedly on the campaign trail. For instance, just consider what he told a rally in Pennsylvania …
“We don’t want to lose an election because you know what I’m talking about,” Trump told an overwhelmingly white crowd in Manheim, Pa., earlier this month. “Because you know what? That’s a big, big problem, and nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody has the guts to talk about it. So go and watch these polling places .”
And of course reports are already pouring in from around the country of big problems with the voting machines. In Illinois this week, one candidate personally experienced a machine switching his votes from Republicans to Democrats…
Early voting in Illinois got off to a rocky start Monday, as votes being cast for Republican candidates were transformed into votes for Democrats.
Republican state representative candidate Jim Moynihan went to vote Monday at the Schaumburg Public Library.
“I tried to cast a vote for myself and instead it cast the vote for my opponent,” Moynihan said. “You could imagine my surprise as the same thing happened with a number of races when I tried to vote for a Republican and the machine registered a vote for a Democrat.”
In addition, if you keep up with my work on The Economic Collapse Blog , then you already know that a number of voters down in Texas have reported that their votes were switched from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton .
Well, it turns out that those voting machines appear to have a link to the Clinton Foundation …
According to OpenSecrets, the company who provided the alleged glitching voting machines is a subsidiary of The McCarthy Group.
The McCarthy group is a major donor to the Clinton Foundation – apparently donating 200,000 dollars in 2007 – when it was the largest owner of United States voting machines. Or perhaps the 200,000 dollars went to paying Bill Clinton for speeches?
Either way, it doesn’t look good.
After everything that we saw in 2012 , I am convinced that there is good reason to be concerned about the integrity of our voting machines.
But Democrats don’t like poll observers, because they think that having too many poll observers will intimidate their voters…
“It’s un-American, but at the same time we have a long history of doing things like that ,” Ari Berman, author of the 2016 book “ Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America ,” previously told The Christian Science Monitor. “Voting was very, very dangerous. I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that we’re at the same place today. I just think the loss of the [official poll observers] is going to be really problematic.”
Without a doubt, this has been the craziest election season that we have seen in decades, and I have a feeling that it is about to get even crazier.
But will the end result be the election of the most corrupt politician in the history of our country ?
If that is the outcome after all that we have been through, it will be exceedingly depressing indeed.
About the author: Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and End Of The American Dream. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.*
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Andy Hicks, owner of HIX Inc. a small health care technology consulting business in Denver, travels frequently. And as a gay man, he said, he’s enjoyed acceptance in many destinations — even in Cuba, where he traveled this year with his partner. “We didn’t know what to expect,” Mr. Hicks said. “We had zero problems. ” The travel industry offers gay travelers everything from special cruises and tours to hotels. But there are still many places in the world, including many countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific, as well as Russia, where laws or social customs create an unwelcoming and unsafe environment for travelers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. More than 75 countries consider consensual sexual relations a crime, and in about 10 countries a person could be put to death for being gay, according to the United States State Department. “Today, it is important for a L. G. B. T. person to understand the laws and how they are enforced and the culture of the countries and even cities where they visit,” said Bruce McIndoe, chief executive of iJet International, a travel risk management company. In an environment of religious extremism, he said, “individuals are more likely to lash out or take unilateral action against assumed members of the L. G. B. T. community. ” IJet, he said, has seen increased requests from clients to help prepare and protect their gay and transgender travelers after the mass shooting at an Orlando, Fla. nightclub last June and other episodes. Mr. Hicks, who has been to many countries, recently returned from North Korea. “It was absolutely a nonissue,” he said. “You have to adapt, go with the flow and fit in as best you can. ” Yves Gentil, founder of DQMPR, a travel public relations and marketing agency, has been to nearly 50 countries for work and pleasure. “When you travel with your you blend in a little bit more. But I’ve never had a problem, even in places like Saudi Arabia and Dubai. ” But then he visited Jamaica last year with his partner. “It was awkward to the point that I couldn’t wait to get out,” he said. “Not unsafe, but I just did not feel welcome. ” Jamaican law prohibits consensual sexual conduct between men, according to the State Department. Sean Williams, a senior intelligence analyst for iJet, said the duration of a stay was an important safety factor. Business travelers typically spend a few days attending meetings and return to their hotels at night. “The risk is largely minimal. It’s no different from any other business traveler,” he said. But decisions made afterward when they go sightseeing and are not completely aware of the environment can, he said, “put their lives at risk. ” Gender expression is also a risk factor. “In some countries, they expect men to have a certain appearance if you are not dressed for your gender, they can arrest you,” Mr. Williams said. In other countries, homosexuality may be legal but not culturally accepted, “so if you end up in the wrong neighborhood, it can get you in trouble. ” As Americans, he said, “we have a strong tradition to be yourself, but in some countries the safest approach is to be the person they want you to be. ” Matthew Breen, editorial director of Logo and former editor in chief of The Advocate, two media organizations aimed at an L. G. B. T. audience, said gender identification and its potential dangers had informed his personal and professional travel policies. He does not write or assign stories, he said, about “destinations where L. G. B. T. s are persecuted or where our relationships are illegal. ” IJet recommends that transgender travelers take a few extra steps to smooth interactions with airport security: Ensure that the sex designation matches on all official documents and the traveler’s physical appearance carry letters from doctors in English and in the local language when traveling internationally and anticipate that body scanners may lead to security flagging. Still, many countries and cities have rolled out the welcome mat, even ones with strong religious and machismo cultures, like Spain, with its “live and let live” attitude, and Colombia, where the number of laws to support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and the speed in which they were recently passed were “quite impressive,” Mr. Williams said. Many mainstream travel companies, including Delta Air Lines and Marriott, have provided employees with benefits and ensured that their employees are adept at handling reservations for customers with spouses and their families, experts say. And tourism boards around the globe routinely reach out to travelers. “It’s a message we are seeing loud and clear,” said John Tanzella, president and chief executive of the International Gay Lesbian Travel Association, which offers trip planning tools. Apoorva N. Gandhi, vice president for multicultural affairs for Marriott International, said, “If you take great care of your associates, they will take great care of your customers. ” Marriott, like many major brands, trains staff members about respectfully serving gay travelers. “We show a video scenario of a couple at a hotel approaching the front desk for ” Mr. Gandhi said. “If the couple requested one bed, staff is directed to not make assumptions and do what is on the reservation without comment. ” Marriott, with IBM, sponsored the LGBT Guide to Business Travel, recently published by Man About World, a digital gay travel magazine. “We’ve learned from experience that L. G. B. T. businesspeople and entrepreneurs face added pressures not only in the workplace but especially when they travel for business,” the home page of the online publication says. The number of harmful episodes, arrests, prosecutions or deaths involving gay, bisexual or transgender travelers globally is not tracked, said Renato Sabbadini, executive director of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, a nonprofit human rights group in Geneva. “The overall trend is positive,” he said, but while many countries move forward, others backtrack. India decriminalized sexual activities between men in 2009, but reversed the decision in 2013. “There is gradual change in societies all over the world,” Mr. Sabbadini added. “Maybe not as fast as it should, but it’s changing. ” Kevin Brosnahan, a press officer for the Bureau of Consular Affairs for the State Department, said many of its safety recommendations apply to all travelers: research a destination to be aware of local laws and customs register travel plans with the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, a free State Department service, so the local United States Embassy can contact you in an emergency and make sure to have appropriate documents and medical and evacuation coverage. The department’s website has a special section for L. G. B. T. travelers with and general tips, like to be discreet in rural areas of some countries, where there is a greater likelihood of problems, and to watch out for entrapment campaigns: “Police in some countries monitor websites, mobile apps, or meeting places, so be cautious connecting with the local community,” the website says. “Travelers who are well prepared often do the best,” Mr. Brosnahan said. Henry H. Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst and founder of Atmosphere Research Group, said that as a gay man he has never had a problem traveling for work to countries where homosexuality is illegal. “I knew where to ‘color within the lines’” to avoid potential problems, he said. But he added that he worried whether the changing political landscape in the United States might make travel more difficult. “For L. G. B. T. travelers, visiting some states will be like being in another country,” Mr. Harteveldt said. “And guess what? That’s going to have an impact on inbound tourism. ” Policies that curtail travel are “a ” Mr. Harteveldt said. “Destinations lose revenue and travelers lose valuable experiences. ” Some travelers remain undeterred. Do your homework, use social media, reach out to a destination’s local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and be prepared to respect different cultures, Mr. Gentil said. “But don’t be afraid to explore the world, because you just learn so much. ”
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It is the news that doctors and families in the heart of Zika territory had feared: Some babies not born with the unusually small heads that are the most severe hallmark of brain damage as a result of the virus have developed the condition, called microcephaly, as they have grown older. The findings were reported in a study of 13 babies in Brazil that was published Tuesday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. At birth, none of the babies had heads small enough to receive a diagnosis of microcephaly, but months later, 11 of them did. For most of those babies, brain scans soon after birth showed significant abnormalities, and researchers found that as the babies aged, their brains did not grow or develop enough for their age and body size. The new study echoes another published this fall, in which three babies were found to have microcephaly later in their first year. As they closed in on their first birthdays, many of the babies also had some of the other developmental and medical problems caused by Zika infection, a range of disabilities now being called congenital Zika syndrome. The impairments resemble characteristics of cerebral palsy and include epileptic seizures, muscle and joint problems and difficulties swallowing food. “There are some areas of great deficiency in the babies,” said Dr. Cynthia Moore, the director of the division of congenital and developmental disorders for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an author of the new study. “They certainly are going to have a lot of impairment. ” Dr. Deborah Levine, a professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School who has studied Zika but was not involved in either study, said there would most likely be other waves of children whose brains were affected by the Zika infection, but not severely enough to be noticed in their first year. “A lot of the developmental abnormalities we’re not going to see until later,” she said. “There’s going to be another group seen later in childhood, I’m afraid, and another group probably when they reach school age. ” In the new study, doctors at two clinics in the northeastern Brazilian states of Pernambuco and Ceará described the cases of 13 infants who had tested positive for the Zika virus. In 11 of the babies, brain scans taken days or weeks after birth showed significant neurological damage, including improperly formed brain areas, excess fluid in some places and abnormal calcium deposits, or calcification, which probably resulted from brain cell death. But the size of their heads, though small, was not small enough to be considered microcephaly. So doctors monitored their progress as they grew. Dr. Vanessa van der Linden, another author of the study and a neuropediatrician at the Association for Assistance of Disabled Children in Recife, Brazil, where most of the babies in the study are patients, said the type of brain damage in the babies who later developed microcephaly “presented the same pattern, but less severe” than those with it at birth. The babies in the study published this fall also appeared to have a pattern of similar, but less severe, brain damage, said Dr. Antonio Augusto Moura da Silva, of the Federal University of Maranhão and an author of that study, which was published in Emerging Infectious Diseases. He and his colleagues studied 48 babies with brain abnormalities in the northeastern state of Maranhão, identified six babies who did not have microcephaly at birth, and found that three of them later developed it. “We were worried, but now that we’ve started following those cases, we are very sad,” Dr. Silva said. “The picture is really terrible. At the least, if they have microcephaly, we expect them to have a very poor quality of life. ” Experts and the authors of the studies said it was unclear why these infants’ brains did not develop enough to match their age and body size. Dr. Ernesto T. A. Marques Jr. an infectious disease specialist at the University of Pittsburgh and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Recife, who was not involved in either study, said it could be that because of the initial fetal brain damage, “the necessary pathways and hormones that organize growth of the neonatal brain are not there anymore and the brain doesn’t grow. ” It could also be the result of the immune system responding to the original Zika virus infection. Dr. Moore said that another possibility might be that there was still some infection that continued to damage the brain. But she said that seemed less likely, given that tests for Zika virus conducted on seven of the babies did not find evidence of active infection. The oldest babies in these studies are only just over a year old, too young for researchers to identify cognitive problems or delays in skills like speech. But some deficits are clear: Many of the babies had serious physical deficits tied to neurological damage, including overly tense muscles, muscle weakness and the inability to voluntarily move their hands. Still, unlike many babies born with microcephaly, most of the 13 in the new study had social interaction skills like smiling and making eye contact. And eight of them had good head control, an important skill for developing the ability to sit or walk. While cautioning that the study involved too few cases to make generalizations, Dr. van der Linden said that it appeared that most of these babies had good eye contact because the damage was less severe in brain areas involving vision than it was in areas involving motor skills. Dr. Marques said that head control, the ability to lift and support the head without help, in babies with microcephaly was “quite rare. ” Having a social smile and eye contact is less rare, he said, depending on the type of visual damage and on whether they receive enough visual stimulation to strengthen their ability to use their eyes. “At this age, 80 percent of brain stimulus comes from the eyes,” he said. “If you don’t have that working and you lose this window of opportunity, these babies cannot recover it. ” One baby, a boy, had no anomalies at birth. His limbs looked normal and his head size was proportional to his body, Dr. Moore said. But brain scans soon after birth showed excess fluid and abnormalities in his cortex and corpus callosum, which separates the two hemispheres. At 11 months old, he had microcephaly, and also epilepsy, difficulty swallowing, involuntary muscle contractions, and muscles that were too stiff and restricted his movement, she said. Another baby had a sloping forehead and slight depressions in the front of his head at birth, as well as similar types of brain damage, apparent on scans, Dr. Moore said. By the time he was 1, he had developed microcephaly that was among the most severe of the babies in the study, and had muscular and swallowing problems. But he also had good eye contact, researchers reported. In six of the cases, the mothers reported having a symptom of Zika infection, a rash, between the second and fifth months of pregnancy. That supports other evidence suggesting that babies born to mothers who were infected late in the first trimester suffer the most serious effects. But since there are no symptoms in 80 percent of cases of Zika infection, it was unclear when most of the women were infected, and researchers are still unable to say whether the virus is more damaging to babies if their mothers experience symptoms.
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By Paul Craig Roberts on October 18, 2016 "...it would be extremely dangerous to have in the White House a person susceptible to uncontrollable rage" HILLARY MELTDOWN! THROW A GLASS OF WATER AT THE FACE OF HER ASSISTANT DURING RAGE AT MATT LAUER’S UNAPPROVED EMAIL QUESTION DURING NBC PRESIDENTIAL FORUM
by Paul Craig Roberts
Until I viewed the video in the URL below, I had concluded from my time spent with Republicans that the Republican Party was more corrupt than the Democratic Party. But after watching this 16 minute video report, which seems too much to be faked, the Democratic political establishment —not necessarily the Americans who vote Democrat—seem to be corrupt beyond the meaning of the word. Make up your own mind.
“In this explosive new video from Project Veritas Action — a Democratic dirty tricks operative unwittingly provides a dark money trail to the DNC and Clinton campaign. The video documents violence at Trump rallies that is traced to the Clinton campaign and the DNC through a process called birddogging.”
Published on Oct 17, 2016 Matt Lauer , NBC
This second video report — purports to be based on reports by the NBC TV crew that filmed Hillary’s September 7 interview by Matt Lauer.
Lauer departed from the pre-agreed script, and the result was a meltdown by Hillary following the interview.
This 8 minute report confirms Secret Service agent Gary Byrne’s account of Hillary’s explosive, uncontrollable temper in his book Crisis of Character.
Ex-Secret Service Agent: “People Need to Know The Real Hillary Clinton And How Dangerous She Is”
Former Secret Service officer Gary Byrne, author of the new book Crisis of Character , which examines Hillary Clinton’s conduct under his watch, appeared on FOX News Channel’s Hannity.
If these reports are true, at this time of heightened tensions between Washington and the two other major nuclear powers, it would be extremely dangerous to have in the White House a person susceptible to uncontrollable rage, especially a person who would be staffed with neoconservative warmongers. Architects of “Regime Change” wars
A vote for Hillary could be a vote for nuclear war and the end of life on earth.
See: Hannity Published on Oct 17, 2016.
James O’Keefe video exposes Democrats inciting Violence at Donald Trump Rallies, Newt Gingrich interview with Sean Hannity as a Reaction to James O’Keefe Video:
Also see:
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By Common Dreams After a national election season that many called “interminable” and where the trending phrase to describe the contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump became...
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By wmw_admin on November 5, 2016 Rebecca Rosenberg and Daniel Halper — New York Post Nov 4, 2016 Weiner on horse at The Recovery Ranch rehab centre. Click to enlarge
This horse’s ass is getting touchy-feely with a new partner.
As this exclusive Post photo shows, Anthony Weiner spent Friday morning getting a dose of “equine therapy’’ for his sex addiction at The Recovery Ranch at Nunnelly, TN, a tony woodsy respite for deep-pocketed patrons.
The perverted former Queens pol wore a bright-blue riding helmet, green T-shirt, blue jeans and sneakers as he saddled up his poor animal and hopped aboard, accompanied by a blonde.
Weiner — who was caught obsessively texting other women, including an underage girl , while married to top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin — looked pensive as he meandered through the trees at the expansive ranch.
But he turned decidedly glum when approached by The Post and asked for comment. He refused to say a word before riding slowly off.
Weiner recently got in more hot water with the Democratic Party when authorities investigating his sexting scandal discovered he had e-mails on his computer that could be linked to the FBI probe involving Clinton’s private server.
The bombshell development couldn’t have come at a worse time for Clinton, who faces Donald Trump in a presidential-race showdown Tuesday.
But Weiner, 52, is now worlds away, putting his time in at the secluded recovery ranch after Abedin jettisoned him when it surfaced that he even sexted selfies with their 4-year-old son sleeping in the background .
Weiner is bunking down at The Ranch’s Swan Creek House, one of several lodgings catering to its addled well-heeled clientele about an hour west of Nashville.
“Nestled amid rolling hills dotted with mature oaks and maples, Swan Creek House is a 15,000-square-foot home that features warm and inviting living spaces and breathtaking views of the surrounding hills,’’ The Ranch’s Web site says.
“The home’s sprawling outdoor spaces include a pond, natural rock landscaping and rolling hills as far as the eye can see.
“Also situated on the property is a state-of-the-art equestrian center equipped with lights, heated water and a ¾ bath, as well as 12 stalls, a wash area and a vet area for the equine partners.”
The center’s equine therapy ‘involves caring and interacting with horses in ways that provide valuable lessons in accountability and in how we relate to others,’’ the site says.
Weiner is without his cell phone in the 15-bed facility, which is specifically for sex addicts — who are kept strictly separate by gender.
Plunking down a cool $25,000 for the 35-day program, according to online reviews, the disgraced dad still has to make his own meals and clean up after himself.
Participants get daily group therapy. In addition to riding on a horse at least once a week, they also get plenty of other physical activity such as rope-climbing, zip-lining, hiking and canoeing, as well has have access to a gym.
Ironically, Rob Weiss, who heads the ranch’s sex-recovery unit, penned an article for the Huffington Post in 2013 in which he talked about Weiner and fellow sex-shamed former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer — as well as Ariel Castro, the monster who held captive and raped three young Ohio women for more than a decade.
Another center at the 2,000-acre ranch — which singer Rihanna reportedly once considered to get treatment for a “love addiction” — revolves around a Native American sweat lodge.
The sweat lodge is designed to offer “opportunities for physical detoxification, spiritual connection and emotional processing,’’ the ranch’s Web site says.
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