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AYRSHIRE, Scotland — His campaign is desperately short of cash. He has struggled to hire staff. Influential Republicans are demanding that he demonstrate that he can run a serious general election campaign. But for reasons that emphasize just how unusual a candidate he is, Donald J. Trump was to leave the campaign trail on Thursday to travel to Scotland to promote a golf course his company purchased on the country’s southwestern coast. Normally when presidential contenders travel abroad, they do so to burnish their foreign policy credentials, cramming their schedules with meetings with foreign dignitaries and opining on the pressing international issues of the day. But, to a large extent, Mr. Trump’s business interests still drive his behavior and his schedule. He has planned two days in Scotland, with no meetings with government or political leaders scheduled. And despite the fact that Mr. Trump was to touch down in Britain the day after its “Brexit” vote on whether to leave the European Union, his itinerary — a helicopter landing at his luxury resort, a ceremonial ribbon cutting and family photograph, and a news conference — reads like a junket crossed with a golf vacation. “Traditionally, nominees travel overseas during this period to brush up their foreign policy depth and visit 10 Downing Street and Israel — for politics back here,” said Scott W. Reed, senior political strategist for the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. “Everyone knows this is the wrong thing for the nominee to be doing now, and it is amazing this can’t be stopped. ” Mr. Trump will arrive Friday at Trump Turnberry, a luxury golf course and resort dating to the 1900s that he bought in 2014. The property features picturesque views of the Irish Sea and suites costing as much as 800 pounds — roughly $1, 200 — a night. He has told aides that he hopes the trip, which includes a stop in Aberdeen on Saturday, will provide a reset for his campaign. But some of the aides have said privately that they wished he would cancel it. Mr. Trump’s as a successful businessman is important to him, and, though he has said publicly that he is relying more on his children to run the Trump Organization, he remains closely tied to it. He also believes that many of his supporters are drawn to his persona of a brash billionaire, born out of his decades in the business world. He does not like to be away from his business operations for long. Save for a little more than a dozen nights during the primaries, he has returned to one of his homes at the end of each day. He usually returns to his New York City apartment, which allows him access to his office in Trump Tower, where he works and takes part in interviews. And he tends to rely on businesses while he is campaigning, further bringing together the two worlds in which he operates. Perhaps the starkest example of his business empire’s intruding on his political career came late last month. Mr. Trump delivered scathing criticism of Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel — first at a San Diego rally and then in interviews — that was less a result of a politically strategic calculation than of Mr. Trump’s concerns about rulings the judge made in a federal lawsuit against his now defunct Trump University. Mr. Trump accused the judge of being unable to render fair rulings because of his “Mexican heritage. ’’ The political backlash was swift, with many of Mr. Trump’s supporters distancing themselves from him and calling his comments racist. The Scotland trip, too, is potentially fraught. Since clinching the Republican nomination, Mr. Trump has squandered numerous opportunities to unify the Republican Party behind him, or to exhibit the discipline party leaders and donors are eager to see. When Barack Obama headed to Europe as a presidential candidate in 2008, and Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, traveled to England, Israel and Poland during his campaign, they sought to demonstrate their global savvy and stature, in meticulously planned visits. (Mr. Romney’s trip, nonetheless, was a disaster, and many of his aides later said they wished he had stayed home.) “Foreign trips are an inherently risky endeavor,” said Lanhee Chen, a fellow at the Hoover Institution who advised Mr. Romney in 2012. “Ideally, they will boost a candidate’s credibility on and familiarity with the geopolitical issues of the region they visit. But they require a lot of planning and logistical coordination. Seems to me that a foreign trip driven solely by personal financial interests — as Trump seems to be planning later this week — would be unprecedented. ” Showing up right after the Brexit vote, in the middle of a tumultuous time, is leaving Mr. Trump especially vulnerable to criticism, as well as creating the potential for an international blunder. When asked about the vote in an interview this month with The Hollywood Reporter, Mr. Trump seemed not to be familiar with Britain’s referendum, first answering, “Huh?” and then, “Hmm. ” Finally, after the Brexit vote was explained to him, Mr. Trump answered with his trademark decisiveness: “Oh yeah, I think they should leave,” he said, a sentiment he has since repeated. On Wednesday morning, however, Mr. Trump told Fox Business that his opinion on the issue was not significant because he had not followed it closely. But business has always been inextricably bound with politics for Mr. Trump, dating to his previous flirtations with presidential bids, which served largely to elevate his public profile and business interests. The latest documents submitted to the Federal Election Commission, for instance, show that Mr. Trump paid at least $1. 1 million in May to his business and family members for expenses. The largest payment, for $423, 000, went to his Club, for the use of that private Florida resort, but he also reimbursed costs associated with his private airplanes, Trump restaurants, and even Trump Tower, which houses his campaign headquarters. “Why would I use someone else’s properties?” Mr. Trump said through Hope Hicks, a campaign spokeswoman, in response to a question about why he had hosted campaign events at his properties. “Mr. Trump owns some of the finest properties anywhere in the world and he has to host events, news conferences, etc. which might as well be hosted at those properties,” Ms. Hicks added in an email. “They are paid, in accordance with F. E. C. regulations, their approximate fair market value for goods and services. ” Mr. Trump also sometimes reserves the front rows at his news conferences for members of his private clubs, almost as a membership perk. And at a primary election event in March at Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Fla. Mr. Trump was flanked by bottles (and cases) of wine, water, and a mound of raw steaks, which he tried to pass off as his brand. Even Mr. Trump’s private 757, emblazoned with his name across the side and a tool for his businesses, now occupies a central role in his campaign imagery, rolling up to airport hangars during primary rallies as a symbol of power and success. People in the crowd gawk, pointing to the plane, unprompted, as a reason they believe in Mr. Trump. Yet some Republicans still think Mr. Trump should simply disentangle the personal (and business) from the political. Mr. Chen, for instance, had a suggestion for Mr. Trump’s trip. “If he’s going to Europe anyway,” he asked, “why not take some time to visit with the NATO allies that would be affected by his plan to pull back on the U. S. commitment to the organization?” | 1 |
Good morning. We’re trying something new for our readers in Europe: a morning briefing to your day. What do you like? What do you want to see here? Email us with your feedback at europebriefing@nytimes. com. Here’s what you need to know: • The U. S. presidential race has opened a schism in the Republican Party. Donald J. Trump berated leading party members who have withdrawn support after a recording of him demeaning women in lurid terms became public. We take you inside the final weeks of Hillary Clinton’s cautious — and surprisingly risky — campaign. “I’m the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse,” she said in an interview. • President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has indefinitely postponed a trip to France after the French government said talks would be devoted solely to the Syrian crisis. The move came after President François Hollande of France and the British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, called for a war crimes inquiry. Mr. Johnson also called for protests outside the Russian Embassy in London. • A major terrorist attack in Germany was narrowly averted, the head of the country’s domestic intelligence agency said, after the arrest of a Syrian refugee suspected of having ties to the Islamic State. The Islamic State’s propaganda operations have dropped off drastically as military pressure rises. “They’re dropping the utopian sales pitch they started with,” a new study says. “And that’s hurting their recruiting effort. ” • Samsung has killed its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, an embarrassment for the tech giant. The company had tried for weeks to diagnose why some of the phones spontaneously exploded. If you have a Galaxy Note 7, turn it off. • Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany ended her trip to Africa with talks in Ethiopia on Europe’s migrant crisis. She also expressed support for protesters demanding wider freedoms. At least 500 people have been killed in antigovernment demonstrations in the past year. Back in Berlin today, she is scheduled to meet with President Idriss Déby of Chad to discuss how to deal with Boko Haram and the waves of Africans trying to reach the Continent. • A Yemeni working for Unicef talks about raising his four children amid the country’s violence. “My little boy will be 3 in December,” he said, “but he is already three wars old. ” His daughter wrote on Facebook, “We sleep afraid, we wake up afraid and leave our homes afraid. ” • Central banks, including the Bank of England, see Bitcoin’s technology as another way to complete and record transactions, or even to issue their own currencies. • The World Health Organization urged countries to impose a 20 percent tax on sugary drinks to battle the growing obesity epidemic. • Hungary’s largest opposition paper has halted publication after years of financial losses. Some say government interference played a role. • Keep your spending decisions separate from your saving decisions, advises our personal finance columnist. Don’t believe that “spending your own money saves you money in the long run. ” • Here’s a snapshot of global markets. The euro fluctuated against the dollar overnight, and the pound gained. • The New Yorker: “Turkey’s Coup. ” A comprehensive look at whether Fethullah Gulen, the exiled cleric, tried to topple the Turkish government in July. • Der Spiegel: “Refugee Helps Germans Hunt ISIS. ” A Syrian journalist is helping the German authorities in their search for Islamic State supporters who came to Europe as refugees. • Bloomberg: “Meet the Parents, Australia’s Housing Lender. ” More than half of buyers in Australia get help from Mom and Dad. • A trend of people dressing up like clowns and scaring others has spread from the United States to Britain. • To hundreds of soccer players in England, Charles Porter is the person they call to make their life go a little smoother. “We live and die by our discretion,” he said in his interview. • “L’Odyssée,” a film on the life of the French ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, opens in French cinemas. • Vineyards in Piedmont, Italy, are encroaching on forests that are home to the white truffle. A new movement is trying to restore the region’s woods to save the mushrooms. In October 1915, as World War I raged across Europe, London received reports of scores of people having been executed in Belgium, and of hundreds being arrested. Some of the civilians who were killed had sheltered wounded British and French soldiers, whom they had smuggled to safety. Edith Cavell, a British nurse, helped Allied soldiers escape and was killed by the German Army for treason on this day 101 years ago. She was viewed as a hero and a symbol of Britain’s war effort, and the news media called her “our Joan of Arc. ” “What poor psychologists the German officials are!” one Dutch newspaper wrote about her execution. Allied forces put out recruitment posters calling for volunteers to “avenge” her death. A statue of Ms. Cavell stands near Trafalgar Square in London with an inscription that begins, “Patriotism is not enough. ” Her dog, Jack, was embalmed and is on display at the Imperial War Museums. Stella Rimington, a former director general of the British intelligence service MI5, said in a BBC report that she narrated last year that there was evidence that Ms. Cavell had spied for Britain. Secret messages were concealed in the clothes of soldiers the nurse helped return to Britain, Ms. Rimington said, adding, “Espionage was still in its infancy. ” Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at europebriefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
TORONTO — As soon as Bayan Mohammad, a Syrian refugee, arrived here last winter, she began her transformation. In her first hour of she managed to glide on her own. She made fast friends with girls different from any she had ever known. New to competitive sports, she propelled herself down the school track so fast that she was soon collecting ribbons. Bayan glued herself to the movie “Annie,” the ballet “Cinderella” and episodes of “Wheel of Fortune,” all stories of metamorphosis. As her English went from halting to chatty, she ticked off everything she hungered to do: An overnight school trip. Gymnastics lessons. Building a snowman — no, a . “I just want to be Canadian,” she said. The volunteers resettling her family — a group of teachers, pediatricians and other friends and neighbors spurred by devastating images of young refugees and casualties of war — watched Bayan with wonder. Her parents, Abdullah and Eman Mohammad, a former grocery store owner and a nurse from a rural village, felt both pride and alarm. Coming to Canada with their four children, they had braced themselves for the hostility that so many refugees were encountering around the world, including just across the border, where Donald J. Trump warned of the threat posed by Syrian refugees. Instead, they found a national movement to aid them. As Syria shattered, everyday citizens, called private sponsors, were adopting the newcomers, donating their time and thousands of dollars to help guide them through their first year. The volunteers attended to the family’s every need: an apartment, doctors, tips on finding a mosque and halal food. The sponsors even applied to bring other family members to Canada — and still they wanted to know what more they could do. The Mohammads were astonished and grateful. But over 10 months, the relationship was reshaping the family, rewriting roles and rules they had always followed. Abdullah and Eman found their marriage on new ground, the fundamental compact between them shifting. Bayan, their oldest child, was going from girl to adolescent, Middle Eastern to North American all at the same time. She was the one most likely to remember their life in Syria. On some days, her parents believed that she could meld her old and new identities on others, they feared her Syrianness was being erased. If the family had landed in Munich or Minneapolis, they would have encountered new cultural dilemmas, too. But Canada’s unusual private sponsorship system made them especially acute, because it was so intimate. The Canadians and Syrians were in and out of one another’s homes for tutoring, computer lessons or celebrations. They shared parental tasks like communication with teachers, since the Mohammads spoke little English. “What they gave us, a brother wouldn’t even give to his own brother,” Mr. Mohammad said. Still, when one sponsor took the children to a ballet performance, Bayan twirled her way home and then begged for lessons — which would involve revealing outfits that would make her parents uncomfortable. The sponsors invited the children to make gingerbread houses and sing carols. Did saying yes mean that the strict Muslim family would be celebrating a Christian holiday? “Sponsorship brings the tension between East and West so close,” said Sam Nammoura, a refugee advocate in Calgary, Alberta. The Mohammads had left Syria and then Jordan to safeguard their children — but once they arrived here, they were bewildered by what they found. Why were teenagers here allowed to stay out past midnight? Did children move away from home at 18 and never look back? How much control did parents even have? “Every day I have this dilemma,” Mrs. Mohammad said. “Am I letting the kids do the right thing?” In October, Bayan craved one item above all on her wish list: to join her school’s overnight trip. For three days at the end of the month, the whole fifth grade would travel to an island in Toronto’s harbor, exploring, conducting science experiments and sleeping in dorms. “I want to go but my dad said no,” Bayan said over a family lunch of chicken and stuffed cabbage rolls. Her parents felt their children belonged at home they had never been on a sleepover. “I want to go!” Bayan repeated. “I’m sad because my best friends are going. ” By Canadian or American standards, she was being polite: no or accusations. But in Syria, children are bound to respect the authority of their parents, even in adulthood. The rule had governed the Mohammad family for generations, backed up by relatives, friends, an entire culture. Within months of arriving in Canada, Bayan shocked her parents by beginning to question their decisions out loud. “She’s stronger now, here, and she tries to express herself more than in Syria,” her mother explained. Bayan knew she had a quiet ally at the lunch table that day: Kerry McLorg, the organizer of the sponsor group. Meticulous and restrained, Ms. McLorg never wanted to push the Mohammads, and when they asked for her advice, she tended to answer with clinical distance, lest her own preferences show. But she knew Bayan yearned for the adventure. She and the other sponsors saw it as another step in the girl’s integration into Canada. Her two children had gone on the trip years ago and still talked about the traditions — visiting a lighthouse, telling ghost stories. “Every kid in Toronto does this,” Ms. McLorg had told Bayan’s parents when they had asked. “Academically, it’s not important. But socially, it is very important. ” Mr. Mohammad told Bayan again: No trip. He was not an immigrant who set out to adapt to a new world he was a refugee trying to hold on to what had been ripped from him. “We’re forced to be here,” Mr. Mohammad said later. “We’re happy, but we’re forced to be here. ” He still had a shot at preserving the identity he wanted for Bayan, but he and his wife would have to be vigilant, willing to deny their daughter some of what she wanted. “I will do this for her,” he said. “God help us. ” Only one thing about Canada seemed to disconcert Bayan: its types of families she had never seen or even imagined. She was troubled by the concept of divorce, by classmates whose parents lived in separate homes. “My mom and dad, they will not do that,” she declared. The Mohammads were from a particularly conservative village in Daraa Province. Their union was arranged by their families and governed by clear tenets. Back home, Eman Mohammad, 36, did not leave the house without asking her husband’s permission. She did not socialize with men who were not relatives. Women in the village did not drive. Against the odds, and Abdullah’s initial reluctance, she had worked as a nurse, one of only a few women in her circle to be employed outside the home after having children. Now she was far more at home in Canada than he was. She attended her first modern dance performance, thrilled by the surprise and emotion. When her husband, 36, turned down a supermarket job this summer, unsure of what kind of work he wanted, she joked that she would take it. She was determined to get certified as a nurse again, even though that would require years of language instruction and coursework. Meanwhile, she found new purpose: helping lead a therapy group for Syrian women coping with trauma and displacement. Standing in front of a whiteboard, she peppered her presentations with motivational statements: “Nothing is impossible. ” “When we work, we are helping society around us, not ourselves alone. ” She earned about 70 Canadian dollars for each weekly session. Being in Canada “opened new doors for me that I didn’t even know existed,” Mrs. Mohammad said. Her husband, however, was having difficulty. In Syria, he a grocery store and two butcher shops, and had been the unquestioned head of the household. Now the sponsors were helping support his family, along with government subsidies. While his wife went to one of the therapy groups, he took care of Bayan and the younger children, and he had been helping in the kitchen. “Sometimes I feel weak doing these things,” he said. “It’s a woman’s job. ” He told himself that spending more time with his children would draw them closer. Bayan had ambitions for her father: to learn to swim, to drive, to buy a car with six seats. “I dream, like, all the time we have a big house and a pool,” she said. But Mr. Mohammad was nowhere near finding work that could support a family of six in an expensive city, and he felt torn about whether he should continue to study English full time or just get the best job he could. “I feel lost,” he had said. Because his wife’s language skills were better, he sometimes was left out of conversations. (The Mohammads asked not to be identified by their full surnames, because they feared reprisals against relatives still in Syria. This article uses part of their family name.) If Syria heals, Mr. Mohammad said, he definitely wants to go back. His wife countered: “My future and my kids’ future is in this country. ” Then they laughed. The marriages of many Syrians who had come to Canada were far more strained, they knew, the traditional arrangements difficult to replant on new soil. Mrs. Mohammad’s counseling groups were filled with women whose husbands had turned bitter at the changed circumstances. Some wives were finally reporting years of domestic abuse. The Mohammads tried to mitigate their differences with kindness. She found ways to telegraph respect for her husband’s authority — before buying a new dress, she texted him a photo and the price for approval. For fortitude with child care duties, he turned to Islamic teachings about the value of helping one’s wife. The two had long conversations about a new favorite word, “flexibility. ” Even as Eman Mohammad craved opportunities for herself, she was not sure how much freedom she wanted for Bayan. In Syria, the path was restrictive but clear. If the war had never happened, she would already be wearing a head scarf and attending a girls’ school. Most girls in her village married at 14 or 15, though the Mohammads would have waited until at least 18. Even if she pursued university there, she would not go on unsupervised dates, get offered a beer at a party, or live alone. Now that she was in Canada, her mother felt, there was no longer a map for her daughter’s life. “I want to try everything here,” Bayan said. On the day of the school trip, with her classmates off on Toronto Island in a freezing rain, the family moved on to their next cultural debate. “What is the meaning of Halloween?” Mrs. Mohammad asked. The holiday was four days away. Bayan burst with answers. It was about being frightened in a fun way, she said, dressing as skeletons and ghosts. “It has to be something scary,” she explained. She wanted to wear a devil costume. One of the sponsors had already arranged to take them . But what Mrs. Mohammad had heard about the holiday made her dubious. Her children would celebrate death and horror, after they had escaped the real thing? Should she worry that her daughter wanted to dress as a symbol of evil? Did Canadians really believe in people coming back from the dead? Just then, Ms. McLorg arrived at the family’s apartment with a giant pumpkin for the children to carve. Bayan had asked Ms. McLorg to join them for the coming date, but the sponsor did not realize how Mrs. Mohammad felt. Ms. McLorg was trying to introduce Canadian customs without imposing on the family’s own. “They should not have to change their essence in order to become Canadian,” Ms. McLorg said later. In fact, the country officially encourages new arrivals to maintain their own culture. In the end, they all celebrated Halloween. Another sponsor hosted them for dinner and cookies: long slivers of shortbread with red icing and almond nails, meant to look like bloody fingers. Ms. McLorg arrived in a pink bunny suit. On the costume question, Bayan and her mother had reached a middle ground: a zombie princess. Abdullah Mohammad headed home early Bayan pleaded to stay later. Her mother surveyed the spiderwebs and chains lacing the street, watching her children merge into the flowing highway of . Two weeks later, Mrs. Mohammad and her two daughters were propelled into a local Walmart by Bayan’s sheer force of will. She longed for a pair of sparkly purple sneakers, and begged, nagged and nearly cried until her mother agreed. As they navigated the aisles, mother and daughters looked like members of two different families. Mrs. Mohammad wore her head scarf, gown and shawl, while the girls were in leggings and skinny jeans. The question about when Bayan would start covering her head loomed over her and her parents. As they were in Canada, her mother was willing to postpone it until seventh grade. “No!” Bayan yelled when she overheard her mother talking about it. She looked ugly with her head covered, she thought. “When I’m in grade nine — maybe,” she said. But the next day, Bayan and her mother slipped inside a building a few blocks from their apartment, where the kicked off the sneakers and knelt. Her mother draped a thin scarf over her daughter’s head, expertly folding, tucking and pinning until it covered her hair without a strand showing. This was Islamic school at the mosque, a new fixture of Bayan’s Sundays. For several hours, she studied written Arabic, verses of the Quran and Islamic values with other children. It was the only activity of hers that the sponsors had not been involved in planning that day, they were taking the rest of the family to a Santa parade, which Bayan was disappointed to miss. Sunday mornings were a compromise between Bayan and her parents: the single time each week, for now, that she would cover her head. For the main lesson that day, the teacher, Maimoonah Ali, an whose parents came to Canada as refugees from Eritrea, passed out colored Popsicle sticks and instructed the students to snap them. The sound of splintering wood filled the room. “Sometimes there are tests in life,” she told the children. “And sometimes they break us. ” Then she collected the remaining sticks into a tight bundle. One by one, the students strained and failed to break them. “It’s really, really difficult to break things when they’re all together, right?” Ms. Ali asked. “And that’s exactly like us. ” But it was not clear how much the class was going to do to help secure Bayan’s Syrian identity. In English, she could read at “Cat in the Hat” level, but her Arabic reading was worse, because the war had interrupted her schooling. Bayan was supposed to repeat the verses that a classmate was saying that day, but her partner did not speak Arabic, and Bayan could barely understand her. She was the only Syrian in the school. Other classmates’ parents came from Algeria, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Mali. Half the population of Toronto is a reflection of Canada’s openness to immigrants. In her apartment building, Bayan has friends whose families are from Israel and China. When her father picked her up, she could not take off her hijab fast enough. During lunch at home, as she chatted in English, he interjected: “Arabic!” She continued in a mix of both. When she talked about the stick exercise, her father gave a look of recognition. “I was Bayan’s age when they told me the same story,” he said. Their childhoods seemed so disconnected from one another’s. The family left Syria when Bayan was 7 or 8 — they had foundered in Jordan before coming to Canada — and her memories of the home where her family had lived for three generations were dimming. She could picture playing with her cousins by the fountain and grapevines in the courtyard, and recall the way an adjacent garden produced enough mint for the whole neighborhood. But Bayan and her sister could no longer agree on how many olive trees stood there: 20? 100? (Eight, their mother said.) After the Mohammads left Syria, the house next door was shelled or bombed and collapsed on their own home. It was ruined now, the second story gone. The sponsors helped them use Google Maps to try to find what was left, but no one could quite pinpoint it. “I love that house,” Bayan had said a few days before. Suddenly, her confidence and determination kicked in. “We’re going to build it,” she said. “My siblings. All of us. ” | 1 |
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With the effects of recent politicized FBI leaks now frighteningly clear, senior Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Justice Department to probe the bureau for leaks to the Trump campaign. Specifically, they’re calling for an investigation into how Trump co-conspirator Rudy Giuliani knew about the FBI reopening its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server before director James Comey made his scheming announcement in a letter to Congress last week.
Representatives Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and John Conyers Jr. (D-MI), the ranking Democrats on the House Committees on Oversight and Government Reform and the Judiciary respectively, sent a scathing letter Friday to Inspector General Michael Horowitz. “It is absolutely unacceptable for the FBI to leak unsubstantiated — and in some case false — information about one presidential candidate to benefit the other candidate,” they wrote. “Leaking this information to former FBI officials as a conduit to the Trump campaign is equally intolerable.”
Giuliani has repeatedly bragged about obtaining leaked information from former FBI agents. Just a few hours before the Cummings and Conyers letter was sent, the former New York mayor was asked on “Fox and Friends” if he knew of the reopened investigation before Comey’s announcement. He replied , “Did I hear about it? You’re darn right I heard about it, and I can’t even repeat the language that I heard from the former FBI agents.”
For his part, Giuliani has denied having any role in leaking the information to the public, though he has in interviews he has been quick to tout his connections to the FBI and has served as somewhat of a middleman between leakers at the bureau and the Trump campaign. He has been adamant about how “outraged” FBI agents are at the bureau’s handling of the Clinton email scandal. Then, two days before Comey sent his letter to Congress, he said that the Trump campaign “has a couple of surprises left” that would be “enormously effective.”
The Representatives’ letter also criticized the media’s unquestioning use of unsubstantiated “anonymous sources” from the FBI, singling out Fox News’ Bret Baier in particular. On Wednesday Baier ran a story claiming that the FBI’s investigation of Clinton would “continue to likely an indictment,” a lie so nefarious that he felt compelled to actually apologize for his false claims, a rather uncharacteristic occurrence at Fox News.
The letter comes against the backdrop of an FBI that has increasingly been implicated as a source of a partisan leaks to the Trump campaign. Certain agents and even high ranking officials at the bureau – which in its demographics is similar to Trump’s base – have apparently been funneling sensational and often false anti-Clinton information to the Trump campaign. “These unauthorized and inaccurate leaks from within the FBI, particularly so close to a presidential election, are unprecedented,” the letter said. “For this reason, we are calling on your office to conduct a thorough investigation to identify the sources of these and other leaks from the FBI and to recommend appropriate action.” Related Items: | 0 |
Billy Bush is officially out at NBC. The network announced the news on Monday after several days of negotiations over the terms of his departure, less than two weeks after a video from 2005 surfaced in which he and Donald J. Trump engaged in a vulgar and misogynistic conversation about women. “I am deeply grateful for the conversations I’ve had with my daughters, and for all of the support from family, friends and colleagues,” Mr. Bush, who was a of “Today,” said in a statement. “I look forward to what lies ahead. ” Terms of Mr. Bush’s departure were not disclosed but he was believed to be walking away with a payout worth millions of dollars, according to a person briefed on the settlement who spoke on condition of anonymity. The settlement does not include a noncompete clause, so Mr. Bush is free to look for a position elsewhere, the person said. It has been just 10 days since video from an “Access Hollywood” tape was made public by The Washington Post. The tape, in which Mr. Trump described sexually assaulting women, has roiled his campaign for president. Mr. Trump has said he was not proud of what he said in the video, but dismissed the comments as “locker room talk. ” In an interview broadcast on CNN on Monday night, Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania, accused Mr. Bush of egging her husband on to say “dirty and bad stuff. ” Though NBC initially had no plans to discipline Mr. Bush, he never again appeared on the air after the tape became public. Mr. Bush had started appearing on “Today” in August. NBC will now have to find a replacement for him as a of the 9 a. m. hour. In a note to the show’s staff members, Noah Oppenheim, the “Today” chief said, “While he was a new member of the ‘Today’ team, he was a valued colleague and longtime member of the broader NBC family. We wish him success as he goes forward. ” | 1 |
The first time I’d miscarried I was a newlywed and, because of a scheduling I’d had to wait two days for a D C. While I mourned the loss, I found it macabre and scary to be carrying death. Afterward, I was sad but mostly relieved. Since then I’d had several very early onset miscarriages between two live births, but nothing so traumatic. Now I was pregnant again. After an uneventful first trimester, my husband and I announced that we were expecting our third child. Our son wanted a brother and our daughter wanted a sister. They named their new sibling Lil’ Mo I have no idea why. They purchased infant socks from the Gap, months crimson with white rubber on the soles, and placed them on the mantel like Christmas stockings. Lil’ Mo’s first ultrasound photo, a dimpled knot, was pinned to the fridge with a pastel magnet that spelled . A few days later, I dropped my kids at their elementary school and headed to the gym. We had recently moved to Georgia for my husband’s job and, in the absence of family or friends, exercise classes were my lifeline. After class, I headed home only to discover that I was bleeding. I arrived at the ’s and readied myself for the inevitable devastation. But there was the of a beating heart and the beaming proclaiming, “The baby is fine!” Still, in the following weeks heavier spells of bleeding would send me back several times. Each time I was assured that half of all women bleed throughout their pregnancies it was normal and the baby was going to make it. I also drew solace from first person accounts on the internet. I picked out names: Sahara for a girl and Khyber for a boy. One evening when the bleeding sent me to the emergency room, a compassionate nurse, sorry I was having such a miserable pregnancy, whispered that I was going to have a boy. The doctor added that he was moving so fast, he was going to come out playing soccer. The next morning, after another bad night, I checked in with my regular . As she ran an ultrasound wand over my tummy, she became silent. I knew already. My baby — Khyber — was gone. Overnight. The told me that since the pregnancy was close to 16 weeks, only specially qualified doctors could perform a late stage D C. Since both the qualified doctors in our area happened to be Jewish and because I’d miscarried on the Jewish New Year, they wouldn’t be available until four days later. She assured me that my progesterone was too high for anything to happen over the weekend, and sent me home. The last time I’d had a dead baby inside of me, I’d been distressed. This time, I treasured a final weekend to hold in my baby. Friday and Saturday were a teary blur. I was unsure of how to tell my kids. I kissed the tiny crimson socks and thought of the story: “For sale: Baby shoes, never worn. ” By Sunday evening, I started to have cramps and realized I was in labor. I wish the had warned me that I might very well deliver my baby’s face into my hands. His face was no bigger than a kitchen cabinet knob. The outlines of his eyes, ears, nose and mouth were clear. He looked like an alien out of the “ ” TV show. Should I kiss him? Finally I held him to my heart before putting him in a sandwich bag as the E. R. instructed so he could be sent for an autopsy. When I got to the hospital, a Christian chaplain held my hand and prayed with me. I told him I was Muslim but that prayers are prayers. I couldn’t stop sharing the story of my miscarriage with everyone. It was as if I had opened the gates to a taboo subject. Family, friends, strangers — everyone would share either their own miscarriage story or else someone else’s. It turned out that even my mother had miscarried before me. And yet too many, including my husband, could not quite understand why I was so gutted. After all, I was told over and over again, I already had two kids. That I’d barely been 16 weeks. I could have another one, as if babies are replaceable. I was told, “It wasn’t a stillbirth. You weren’t full term. It was just a fetus. Stop being so sad!” It left me upset and alone to have conditions put on grief. That afternoon, as my kids cleaned out their Spiderman and Dora the Explorer backpacks, I blurted out: “Lil’ Mo is gone. ” “Gone?” said my son. “He died. ” My son’s best friend’s father had passed away and so my son had an inkling of life after death: Darren’s father was in heaven and heaven was a good place. “So Lil’ Mo’s in heaven?” he said as his eyes filled up. “Like Darren’s father?” “Yes,” I said and I knew that whether heaven really existed or not, it certainly belonged to little children confronted with mortality. Over the next month, we began to recover — if recovery is the correct sum of time plus healing. My son put the ultrasound pictures in a photo album with pictures of his beloved dead guinea pigs. I took the crimson socks off the mantel and tucked them in the back of a drawer. Around the same time, I lost the contract for my debut novel but never again would I equate the loss of a book with the loss of a baby these creations were not of equal magnitude. One day, I received a call from the hospital: What did I want to do with the remains? As Muslims, we bury our dead, so my husband called the local mosque to make arrangements. But he was informed that there could be no burial. In Islam it is believed a soul enters the body at 120 days of gestation (about 16 weeks) and since my miscarriage took place right around that time with no proof that a soul had indeed entered, Khyber could be considered only a soulless fetus. Fresh grief engulfed me. I called the hospital’s perinatal loss clinic: Please don’t throw him in the trash. The kind woman told me that she’d seen the remains and she could tell he’d been a beautiful baby. I managed a thank you. She said the hospital would take him, with the remains of other such babies, for a collective cremation. At first, thinking of a trip to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, I recoiled at the thought of my baby being one of many. But eventually I found comfort in the idea of a collective. That way, I told myself, Khyber would, at least, never be alone. We printed out directions to the cemetery in Stone Mountain, Ga. where the ashes were buried in an urn in a plot shaded by an oak tree. It was marked by a small marble bench with a carved dove on it. My son had brought as an offering a miniature teddy bear I’d given him for Valentine’s Day and my daughter a rose from our garden. I sat on the bench with the carved dove. I recited a prayer for my baby. I recited a prayer for all the babies. | 1 |
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With the Western United States being overrun by federal tyranny, one of the methods that is used by perpetrators to gain additional control is the use of treaties. It has been reported of late that a treaty is the “supreme law of the land,” even taking precedence over the US Constitution. But, is that really true? Who better to ask that question of than two bona fide treaty experts, Elain Willman and Lawrence Kogan, Esq.? I was delighted when they both agreed to stop by the NorthWest Liberty News studios in Kalispell, Montana, to enlighten us on the very important distinction between a treaty and the US Constitution. Please take time to view the brief video below as Elaine and Larry drill down to the real truth.
Article reposted with permission from North West Liberty News shares | 0 |
President Trump, in his third week in office, met with a class of Green Beret candidates and brought them into the Oval Office for the first time in the course’s history. [The 18 Army officers in the Special Forces Qualification Course, or “” were visiting the National Security Council in early February, as a normal part of the course. But this time, Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka, who was scheduled to speak to the students, had suggested that they meet the president. The plan was to take them into the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House, but Trump decided to invite them into the Oval Office, to take pictures with them for their families. “Halfway through the discussion, [Trump] said, ‘Hey — we’re not supposed to do this, but follow me,’ and he brought them all into the Oval Office, took a group photograph around the Resolute desk, and then — throwing the schedules into a bit of a tizzy, said, ‘OK that’s not good enough,’” Gorka told Breitbart News in an interview. “He said, ‘Everybody stand in the corner.’ They all stood in the corner, and we took photographs they can take home to their family with each future Green Beret next to the president at the Oval Office desk,” Gorka said. “That’s how much he loves our soldiers — our warriors,” he said. Gorka had earlier brought up the meeting during remarks on a panel at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday. Under Obama, he said, they “wouldn’t have even gotten into the West Wing. ” The Feb. 7 meeting, which was announced a day in advance, was not covered at the time by any news outlet. It also prompted criticism from Democrats that Trump was trying to use the military for political gain. A source familiar with the preparations for the event told Breitbart News shortly after the event occurred that the president’s decision to meet with the officers set off an “intense” scramble. The source said NSC officials scrambled to notify Pentagon officials so they would not be surprised, and no preparation materials had been drafted — such as background information on the course, expected topics of discussion, biographies of the students, talking points for the president, or other materials normally produced for a presidential meeting. The source characterized the meeting as a “photo op” for the president to “once again, wrap himself in the flag of the military. ” A White House official, responding to a query by Breitbart News, said the meeting was private and “couldn’t be publicized. ” “It’s noteworthy to take the time to do an event that couldn’t be publicized,” the official said. Photos from the event were never publicly distributed. Several Pentagon and Army officials denied there was any “scramble” and said that they were notified earlier in the week about the meeting and characterized it as a “ . ” “Army officials were notified of the photo opportunity with the President beforehand,” Army Col. Patrick Seibert told Breitbart News. Gorka also dismissed the report there was a scramble and said the plan was conceived a week and a half in advance. “The opposition media will of course want to spin it, which is just ridiculous” he said. During his first month in office, Trump has engaged with members of the military at least four times. He was sworn in on Jan. 20, and a week later on Jan. 27, he made his first trip to the Pentagon. There, he met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and attended the ceremonial swearing in of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. A few days later, on Feb. 1, he made a private visit to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, to receive the remains of Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens, a Navy SEAL who died of wounds during a mission in Yemen. Five days later, on Feb. 6, he visited MacDill Air Force Base to meet with Central Command commander Army Gen. Joe Votel and Special Operations Command commander Army Gen. Tony Thomas. He also ate lunch with enlisted service members, and spoke with representatives of the multinational coalition. The next day, back in Washington, he would meet with the Special Forces Qualification Course students. Trump has also had several strategy sessions with Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joe Dunford, the White House official said. One top Democrat criticized Trump’s meeting at Centcom, specifically his comment: “We had a wonderful election, didn’t we? And I saw those numbers, and you like me and I like you, that’s the way it works. ” The visits have prompted Democratic criticism that the president was inappropriately politicizing the military. “The president’s efforts to politicize the military, starting with his remarks at the CIA memorial, are becoming a troubling rhetorical pattern,” Rep. Adam Smith ( ) ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, said after Trump’s visit to Centcom. Specifically, Smith cited Trump’s remarks at Centcom, where he said, “We had a wonderful election, didn’t we? And I saw those numbers, and you like me and I like you, that’s the way it works. ” Multiple exit polls showed that military veterans voted for Trump according to the Washington Post. A brief search of news articles showed that former President Obama had almost as many engagements with the military during his first month in office. During the inaugural ball, Obama in Illinois National Guard members who were serving in Afghanistan. He first visited the Pentagon on day nine of his administration, two days later than Trump in his administration. About three weeks in, he visited with family members of those killed in the 2000 USS Cole bombing. He visited Fort Myers in Florida about a week later. | 1 |
By Natural Blaze Brandon Turbeville made a fascinating journey to the Middle East and lives to tell you about it. He is a geopolitical expert and author of 7 books including “The Road to... | 0 |
Dave Alpert
Why would the American people elect a racist, misogynist, narcissistic, criminal to the presidency of this country?
There is no simple answer but let’s look at the variables. First, let us look at his opponent, Hillary Clinton, one of the most disliked, distrusted candidates for the office of president in U.S. history.
Hillary represents the establishment . . . she is friendly and subservient to Wall Street, the Banksters, and the war industry. She has proven to be a war monger who has never found a war she didn’t like. Although she is the candidate of the Democratic Party, a party that likes to project themselves as the saviors of the working men and women, she does not now, nor has she ever, represented hope and relief to the working class.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), an agreement which was activated in 1994, was supported by Hillary Clinton. This is an agreement between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada that resulted in the exportation of thousands of well-paying jobs to countries with a work force willing to work for significantly lower salaries.
Thus, American corporations moved their production plants to Mexico leaving American workers without jobs and many towns, that relied for economic survival on these corporations, bankrupt. As we have learned, in a capitalistic society, the corporation’s main obligation is to the shareholders, not the workers.
Today, we are confronted with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), another trade agreement that is being pushed by President Obama, a Democrat, and originally supported by Hillary Clinton, another Democrat. This so-called trade agreement would double down on the negative and problematic effects of the NAFTA agreement on working class Americans. Only the corporations and, therefore, the shareholders, would benefit.
It was only when Bernie Sanders called her out regarding this issue that, Hillary began to modify her position on the TPP, claiming that she had not yet seen the details of the agreement and would withhold a decision whether or not to support it. Eventually, she stated that she would not support the TPP. But, as we know, campaign rhetoric is meaningless and once the campaign is over, we go back to business as usual. And, business as usual means continuing to exploit and abuse the working class for the benefit of the ruling class.
As a result of the policies of the past 20 years, the people of the Industrial Heartland or “Rust Belt” felt betrayed and angry . . . they had been abandoned. The states that make up the Rust Belt are Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and lower Michigan. These are states that are considered swing states, states that are not red or blue and can go either Democrat or Republican. Hillary Clinton did not win any of these states.
Donald Trump spoke to them, the people of the Industrial Heartland . . . he portrayed himself as an outsider, which was hard to dispute since he never held office, a populist billionaire, an oxymoron, who spoke for the working class. His style, although abrupt and insulting, was appealing to many people . . . where Donald would get in your face, with Hillary, you had to watch your back.
The initial phase of Trump’s candidacy was perplexing. He proceeded to insult Mexicans, Muslims, women, gays, blacks, and the disabled. One could hardly take his candidacy seriously. How do you insult the voters and expect to get their votes? In fact, many of us thought that Trump was being so outrageous that he would create fear and anger among the voters and push them to vote for Hillary. In other words, he was the foil for Hillary’s run for the presidency.
Trump’s rhetoric has created a dangerous situation. Racists and white supremacists, who previously were more or less background noise, were given legitimacy by Trump’s oratory. The voice of the white man now had the public’s attention.
Many of these folks are also 2nd amendment enthusiasts and do not hesitate to carry guns. This combination may at some point explode into armed conflict between the various factions in the U.S. The country is now more divided than at any time since the Civil War.
Non-Christians and people of color are now on the official hit list and may very well be targeted for deportation or abuse. Dissidents will likely be put on this administration’s neutralization list. We are moving rapidly into a fascist state.
While black men were being shot by police almost daily, Trump made it clear that he supports the police and stands for law and order. These are statements that historically were code words for targeting people of color. We can expect that the police, who are already armed with military weapons, to become more aggressive in their implementation of law and order. They have been given official sanctions.
Although we are in a crisis, we are also in a moment of opportunity. During the election period, I wrote that neither Trump nor Clinton deserved our support. People would inevitably ask, “What else can I do?” The answer has always remained the same. ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, RESIST, RESIST, AND RESIST SOME MORE.
Although Trump won the electoral college vote, Clinton won the popular vote. There will undoubtedly be a focus on the unfairness of not abiding by the will of the people. This will serve as a distraction and deflection away from the critical issues. What will be missing from the discussion is that the ruling class selects and invests in the candidates running for office, candidates that, like Trump and Clinton, are not trusted or liked and do not represent our interests . . . that we are stuck in a two party system that projects one voice, the voice of the ruling class. Alternative options are purposefully excluded from the discussion and the will of the people ignored and silenced before the voting ever takes place.
Change in the U.S. will never come from the ballot box and participating in this farce gives credibility to the ruling class’s con job. We cannot wait for the next election because, as history has shown, we will again be given the choice between two candidates, neither of whom will represent us, our needs or our concerns.
This economic and political system is rigged and corrupt. Even Donald Trump acknowledged this. It matters little who sits in the Oval Office, it is the system that must be changed. Capitalism and its imperialistic partner are destroying our planet, initiating wars worldwide and allowing the ruling class to exploit and abuse working people. Band-Aids on a broken system will not offer us meaningful relief, the system must be changed.
Working people must begin to recognize that the enemy is not Russia, China or Assad’s Syria, it is the capitalists/imperialists who are located right here in the U.S. that want to rule the world by any means necessary. As a result, hundreds of thousands have died and the homes of innocent people have been destroyed so that these men and women can fulfill their agenda of world domination. That’s what Hillary Clinton supports and that’s what Donald Trump will support.
THE PRIMARY MISSION OF THESE PEOPLE IS PROFIT.
We must take to the streets, whites, blacks, Latinos, Muslims, gays, straights, and shut down and put a stop to business as usual, and also refuse to continue participating in our own downfall.
We live in the belly of the beast, the strongest and most militarized country in the world, as well as in the history of man itself. The U.S. has perpetrated more death and destruction than any country in human history. “We” are the enemy, “we” are the threat to human survival. Yet, it is this country that marches uninvited into other countries and determines who shall lead those countries and how those people should live their lives.
IT IS TIME TO ACT . . . LET’S NOT WAIT UNTIL THE U.S. PROVOKES WW3.
Dave Alpert has masters degrees in social work, educational administration, and psychology. He spent his career working with troubled inner city adolescents. | 0 |
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A newly leaked email from Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Manager John Podesta is titled “Hillary actions / unpleasant odor.”
“People tell me that Hillary is acting ‘like a retard’ since her head injury,” wrote Podesta on March 22, 2015. “Frankly, considering her normal behavior, I’m surprised anyone noticed! (this is a joke!) Have someone talk to her doctor and see if there’s anything he can give her.”
“Also, I’ve noticed she’s had an ‘odor’ lately,” he continued. “It reminds me of a combination of boiled cabbage, urine and farts. I’m guessing it’s either connected to her fall or simply the fact that she rarely bathes.”
“Outside of encouraging her to take a shower once in a while, I don’t know what to do about this. — any suggestions would be appreciated.”
Well, apparently, Hillary Clinton is just as gross as we all thought! | 0 |
Thursday in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Sen. Ted Cruz ( ) dismissed the seriousness of a Washington Post report from a day earlier that alleged Attorney General Jeff Sessions failed to disclose meeting with Russian officials in his AG confirmation hearing as “political theater. ” Cruz, Sessions’ former colleague on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the underlying meeting a “nothing burger” and argued against an investigation into the matter. Transcript as follows: MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC HOST: Joining us now from Capitol Hill, member of the Judiciary and Armed Services Committees, Republican senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Senator, thank you for being on. JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: Senator, great to have you here. SEN. TED CRUZ (R) TEXAS: Good morning. SCARBOROUGH: Great to have you here. You are an attorney and certainly can read testimony. I was saying this morning that the Leahy question and answer wasn’t as troubling because, of course, it was about the campaign. Are you concerned, though, about the Al Franken questioning and answering, where Sessions seemed to volunteer that he had never spoken with any Russian officials? CRUZ: You know, Joe, I’m not concerned about that. I think what we are seeing is a lot of political theater. Could Jeff have been more clear in what he said? Yes. I think it — that was unfortunate. But I think context matters a lot. Jeff was being asked about the Trump campaign communicating with the Russians. I think he understood that he was answering in that capacity. And that is perfectly understandable. And the reason I say it’s political theater is the underlying meeting, you know, this morning, everyone is in high dungeon about the meeting. The underlying meeting is a nothing burger. It’s what senators do every day, meeting with foreign ambassadors that’s part of the job. And Jeff is a — was a very senator he will be a attorney general. And so I think everyone is getting all worked up because it’s a chance to beat up the attorney general and beat up the president. But I think the underlying meeting is simply doing his job. WILLIE GEIST, MSNBC HOST: Senator Cruz, it’s Willie Geist. It’s good to see you. You also are — sit on the Armed Services Committee with Senator Sessions. Did you meet with the Russian ambassador last summer? CRUZ: You know, I didn’t. But it’s interesting, when this story broke last night, I asked my team to just pull up the calendar for January and February of this year. And I met with six different ambassadors in the last two months. That’s part of being a senator. And you know, a minute ago, Joe was asking, well, gosh, when Al Franken was questioning Jeff Sessions and he — and Jeff Sessions was saying, that, as the Trump campaign, as a surrogate, he didn’t meet with Russia, you know, I’m willing to bet Al Franken has met with a great number of ambassadors. I’m also willing to bet that when Al Franken meets with foreign ambassadors, he didn’t consider it the Hillary campaign meeting with them. Al Franken was supporting Hillary Clinton, he was a surrogate for Hillary Clinton. But when he’s doing his job as a senator, he’s not a representative of the campaign. I think the same was exactly true for Jeff Sessions when he was doing his job as a senator. GEIST: But, Senator, we are talking about the Russian ambassador in the middle of all these questions surrounding links between the Trump campaign and the government of Russia. Why, specifically, did you and, according to all the reporting, no other member of the Armed Service Committee not seek a meeting with the Russian ambassador? CRUZ: Well, listen, by and large, I haven’t sought meetings with ambassadors. Typically, they call the office and want to talk with me. And you know, if the Russian ambassador had called and asked for a meeting, I imagine I probably would have taken the meeting. And that’s part of the job. But it’s — I can’t recall an instance where I’ve reached out to an ambassador and said, let’s do a meeting. But different countries want to come by. They want to discuss different issues. They’re concerned about — that’s part of doing your job when you are on the Armed Services Committee. I’m on the Armed Services Committee. I served with Jeff. I’m on the Judiciary Committee. I served with Jeff. And you know, one of the things that’s important, you know, you see Democratic politicians this morning coming out and blasting Jeff and saying things like that this was misleading. You know, many of — many of us have served with Jeff for years, sometimes decades in the Senate. Jeff Sessions is a man of integrity, he’s a man of candor. I don’t know any senator who served with Jeff Sessions, Democrat or Republican, who would say that Jeff has been anything less than totally honest. Now they don’t like that he’s a conservative. You know, the Democrats don’t like Jeff as a conservative. But he is very open and honest about his views. And, by the way, Jeff has been a serious critic of Russia. He’s not been shy calling out Putin. So the notion that there was something somehow wrong with a senior senator on the Armed Services Committee meeting with a foreign ambassador, I think that’s a nothing burger. And the testimony Jeff should have been more clear. I think he said that he wished he was more clear. But, at the end of the day, I don’t think that there’s any there there. GEIST: So do you — you’ve said repeatedly now that the meeting that Senator Sessions had with the Russian ambassador is a, quote, “nothing burger. ” Do you have information, Senator, about what they talked about in that meeting? How do you know it’s a nothing burger? CRUZ: I know that meeting with a foreign ambassador is part of the routine responsibilities of serving in the Senate. I have no idea what was talked about in that meeting or any other meeting that — you know, my understanding is Jeff met with 25 different ambassadors last year. And I don’t know what was discussed in those meetings. I don’t know what was discussed — GEIST: But not the Russian ambassador, right, Senator? CRUZ: Well, among the 25 that Sessions met with last year was the Russian ambassador. GEIST: But you haven’t met nor have any of the other members of Armed Services with the Russian ambassador? CRUZ: Well, my understanding of “The Washington Post” reporting is they asked — six didn’t respond. So we don’t know that none have. Of those that responded, they said they hadn’t met last year. But you know, I was watching on another show, Mike Rogers, who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he said, sure he’d met with the Russian ambassador. If you are doing your job, you meet with ambassadors and foreign leaders. And that’s part of the job. HALPERIN: Senator, it’s been reported, I don’t have it confirmed myself, that this meeting is being investigated by federal investigators. There’s clearly now an appearance issue, even if, as you’ve suggested, that thing’s a nothing burger. Stipulating all you said about your former colleague, is it still possible that recusal is the right thing in your mind? CRUZ: Well, I think earlier on the show, you played Jeff Sessions this morning, saying that he would recuse himself where appropriate. I mean, obviously, if there were an investigation into himself, recusal would be appropriate. I don’t have any indication that there would be an investigation because I don’t think there’s any credible allegation that Jeff did anything wrong in meeting with the Russian ambassador. He was — he didn’t speak as clearly as he should. Although I will note, Jeff had an marathon hearing, where he was getting hammered. And Jeff is — was answering as candidly, as directly as possible. And I think in context, he was answering no as part of the Trump campaign he wasn’t meeting with the Russians. And my understanding is he wasn’t thinking about his role as a senator. But I don’t see anything for there to be an investigation. But of course there, if there was into him directly, any official would recuse themselves from an investigation into their own conduct. BRZEZINSKI: Senator Ted Cruz, thank you for your perspective this morning. Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
Feb. 3 (UPI) — Before the big game Sunday, Super Bowl opponents Tom Brady and Dwight Freeney battled each other in For Honor Thursday as part of Conan O’Brien’s popular late night segment, Clueless Gamer. [The upcoming video game from publisher and developer Ubisoft, which allows players to fight using knights, vikings or samurai, was first played between Brady and O’Brien with the New England Patriots quarterback vanquishing the talk show host. The pair were then joined by Freeney, a defensive end for the Atlanta Falcons who has a history of facing off against Brady on the football field. “You have sacked Tom Brady four times, don’t you think you owe him an apology,” O’Brien asked Freeney alongside a smiling Brady who responded “Absolutely not. ” Freeney eventually agreed to apologize to Brady if he did so as well at the same time however, after O’Brien counted down to three, Freeney was the only one uttering “I’m sorry. ” Later on, the competitors were joined by Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski and running back LeGarrette Blount along with former Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch. After losing to Gronkowski in a round of For Honor, Lynch was happy to receive a small trophy to which he proclaimed, “I’m still receiving trophies even when I’m retired. ” The Patriots meet the Falcons at Super Bowl LI on Feb. 5 | 1 |
Katie Ledecky did what Katie Ledecky does best — leave her rivals deep in her wake — on her way to smashing the world in record in the freestyle. Ledecky’s final margin of victory was 11. 38 seconds over Britain’s Jazz Carlin, who clocked a 8:16. 17, of a second better than Hungary’s Boglarka Kapas. Here’s how Ledecky broke the record. The favorites in the other marquee events didn’t fare as well. Katinka Hosszu, who had already won three golds in Rio, was chased down by American Maya DiRado in the backstroke. Hosszu led for the first 180 meters. DiRado caught her near the wall and touched it first, finishing in 2 minutes 05. 99 seconds. Hosszu’s time was 2:06. 05. It was second gold medal, and fourth over all, at the Rio Games for DiRado, 23. Here’s how DiRado did it. And somebody finally beat Michael Phelps in Rio. His name’s Joseph Schooling, and he topped Phelps in the butterfly. Read about how he beat Phelps here. An Egyptian judoka declined to shake hands with his Israeli opponent after their match on Friday, eliciting jeers from the audience. Or Sasson of Israel defeated Islam El Shehaby of Egypt in a match in the heaviest weight class. After a moment of prayer, El Shehaby got up and seemed reluctant to perform the traditional bow to his opponent. Eventually, he gave a quick nod and left the mat. A judge and referee urged him to return. Sasson then approached El Shehaby with his hand extended, but El Shehaby backed away. After a moment, Sasson gave up. “That is extremely rare in judo,” the American coach Jimmy Pedro said. “It is especially disrespectful considering it was a clean throw and a fair match. It was completely dishonorable and totally unsportsmanlike on the part of the Egyptian. ” Sasson went on to win a bronze medal in the event, which was won by the French legend Teddy Riner. Read the entire story here. • The United States women’s soccer team lost to an old friend, Pia Sundhage, who used to coach the Americans but now leads the Swedes. After a draw in the quarterfinal, Sweden beat the United States on penalty kicks, eliminating the Americans without a medal. Hope Solo blasted the Swedish team after the loss, saying they had played like “a bunch of cowards. ” • The first medal event at track and field was a memorable one as Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia broke the world record in the women’s 10, 000 meters by more than 14 seconds. Ayana, 24, finished in 29 minutes 17. 45 seconds, ahead of the previous mark of 29:31. 78, set by Wang Junxia of China in 1993. Vivian Cheruiyot of Kenya was a distant second, at 29:32. 53. Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia, who won the past two Olympic races, took bronze. • Six Olympics for Kim Rhode, and now six Olympic medals. Rhode, 37, won a bronze medal in skeet shooting on Friday. Rhode had won a gold medal in the double trap event at age 17 at the Atlanta Olympics and added a medal at every Summer Games since. Her six medals tie Jackie for most individual Olympic medals by a United States woman. • The American men’s foil fencing team won a bronze medal on Friday, the first medal for the United States in the event since 1932. Alexander Massialas was the silver medalist in the individual event, and Miles has a flamboyant fencing move named after him, but it was another member of the team, Gerek Meinhardt, who was the key. Meinhardt broke open a tightly contested bronze medal match against Italy with an shellacking of Andrea Baldini, a former world champion, and put the United States in the lead to stay. The final score was . “I didn’t fence great against Egypt and Russia,” Meinhardt said, of the day’s earlier matches. “Finally I broke through. Frustration motivated me. ” The substitute Race Imboden rounded out the American team. He fought just one bout but won, and hollered at the audience in delight. The same four fencers had finished in the dreaded fourth position in London in 2012. Imboden said the camaraderie between the fencer was crucial to their success. “We’ve all known each other since we’ve been 10 years old. ” After the victory, gave Imboden a piggyback ride as the delighted team celebrated. • The butterfly is the 18th and final individual event of Michael Phelps’s career. Although with Phelps, you never know. He will try to win his fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the event, a feat he accomplished in the individual medley on Thursday. With a victory in the 800 freestyle, Katie Ledecky will become the second swimmer, joining Debbie Meyer in 1968, to win the 200, 400 and freestyles in the same Olympics. Anthony Ervin, 35, is the oldest member of the United States swim team. If he can win the freestyle, he will supplant Phelps as the oldest swimmer to win individual Olympic gold. Phelps, 31, this week surpassed Duke Kahanamoku, who won the 100 free at the 1920 Olympics at the age of 30. • The United States men’s basketball team got a call against Australia before winning by 10 on Wednesday. The Americans probably won’t hit the snooze alarm against Serbia. The U. S. women take on Canada. Simone Manuel managed to make history and break a record, all in less than a minute. Manuel became the first woman to win an individual event in Olympic swimming on Thursday night. She and Penny Oleksiak of Canada tied for the fastest time, an Olympic record in the women’s freestyle: 52. 70 seconds. “I definitely think it raises some awareness and will get them inspired,” Manuel, 20, said about the significance of her accomplishment. “I mean, the gold medal wasn’t just for me. It was for people that came before me and inspired me to stay in the sport. For people who believe that they can’t do it, I hope I’m an inspiration to others to get out there and try swimming. You might be pretty good at it. ” Manuel is sharing a room with another American swimmer, Katie Ledecky, in the athletes’ village here. She and Oleksiak shaved 0. 01 seconds off the Olympic standard of 52. 71, set earlier in the Rio Games meet by Australia’s Cate Campbell. Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom won the bronze in 52. 99. There has been a great deal of frustration this at the Rio Games, where the table tennis balls are giving players fits. They don’t bounce true, the players said. Their flight paths are unpredictable. And they frequently break. “I think this ball is very bad,” Li Ping of Qatar said after losing a match. The player who beat him, Dimitrij Ovtcharov of Germany, fumed that the official competition ball “makes it almost impossible to compete. ” Read Andrew Keh’s story on the table tennis problem here. Biles Claims the Crown: In case anybody had doubts, Simone Biles made it official: she’s the best gymnast in the world. The American dominated the women’s competition on her way to a gold medal Thursday. In doing so, she joined Mary Lou Retton, Carly Patterson, Nastia Liukin and Gabby Douglas as American winners. Aly Raisman (U. S.) won the silver, and Aliya Mustafina (Russia) won bronze. Read about Biles’s gold medal performance here. See the moves she pulled off here. Phelps Breaks an Ancient Record: Michael Phelps won the 200 individual medley easily, beating not only teammate Ryan Lochte, but an ancient Greek. Leonidas of Rhodes won 12 individual events over four Olympics. At 36, five years older than Phelps, he won his last three golds in 152 B. C. in races of about 200 and 400 meters and in a race. It wasn’t easy, but Phelps surpassed Leonidas, winning his 13th individual gold (and 22nd gold overall and 26th medal). With the victory, Phelps also joined the track and field Olympians Al Oerter and Carl Lewis as the only Americans to win an individual event four times. Phelps was timed in 1 minute 54. 66. He won by over a bodylength, and the time was his ever behind a 1:54. 23 from Beijing. He held up four fingers afterward to indicate his four consecutive victories in the event. Japan’s Kosuke Hagino took the silver. Lochte finished fifth. Read about Phelps’s big victory here. Watch Michael Phelps versus Michael Phelps through the years. | 1 |
link The simple fact is that this is not a Cold War Mark II - far from it. Russia with its declining economy is nothing like the Soviet Union, which aspired to establish a different world order to that pursued by the capitalist West. Russia is in many ways a weak country. Its leadership has a strong sense of encirclement - a view that the West is only eager to do it down - and, rightly or wrongly, this is driving Mr Putin's more assertive approach. SOURCE The article linked above is the most chilling piece I've read yet concerning the current tensions with Russia. The fact it was published by the BBC doesn't help. The article should put to rest a lot of the counter-arguments in recent WW3 threads. That is not good news. The situation is clearly worse than we're being told. edit on 27-10-2016 by Profusion because: (no reason given) | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Republicans hope to repeal major parts of the Affordable Care Act using an expedited procedure known as budget reconciliation. The process is sometimes called arcane, but it has been used often in the past 35 years to write some of the nation’s most important laws. “Reconciliation is probably the most potent budget enforcement tool available to Congress for a large portion of the budget,” the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, has said. Here is a primer. Q. What is the budget reconciliation process? A. It is a way for Congress to speed action on legislation that changes taxes or spending, especially spending for entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Although conceived primarily as a way to reduce federal budget deficits, it has also been used to cut taxes and to create programs that increase spending — changes that can raise deficits. In the Senate, a reconciliation bill can ordinarily be passed with a simple majority. For other bills, a majority is often needed to limit debate and move to a final vote. Q. Why is it called reconciliation? A. The term originated in the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which was intended to give Congress more control over the budget process by allowing lawmakers to set overall levels of spending and revenue. The process begins with a budget blueprint, a resolution that guides Congress but is not presented to the president for a signature or veto. It recommends federal revenue, deficit, debt and spending levels in areas like defense, energy, education and health care. The resolution may direct one or more committees to develop legislation to achieve specified budgetary results. By adopting these proposals, Congress can change existing laws so that actual revenue and spending are brought into line with — reconciled with — policies in the budget resolution. Q. How has reconciliation been used? A. Since 1980, Congress has completed action on 24 budget reconciliation bills. Twenty became law. Four were vetoed. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 was a vehicle for much of the “Reagan revolution. ” It squeezed savings out of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, the school lunch program, farm subsidies, student loans, welfare and jobless benefits, among many other programs. In 1996, Congress reversed six decades of social welfare policy, eliminating the individual entitlement to cash assistance for the nation’s poorest children and giving each state a lump sum of federal money with vast discretion over its use. Those changes were made in a reconciliation bill, pushed by Republicans but signed by President Bill Clinton. Congress reduced deficits with another reconciliation bill, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. That law also created the Children’s Health Insurance Program, primarily for uninsured children in families. On the same day in 1997, Mr. Clinton signed a separate reconciliation bill that cut taxes. The Bush tax cuts were adopted in reconciliation bills signed by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003. On several occasions, Congress has increased assistance to working families by increasing the tax credit in reconciliation bills. Congress also made changes to the Affordable Care Act in a reconciliation bill passed immediately after President Obama signed the health care overhaul in 2010. Later, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, they passed a reconciliation bill to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act, but Mr. Obama vetoed the bill in January 2016. Republicans say that measure will provide a template or starting point for their efforts to undo the health care law this year, with support from Donald J. Trump, who calls the law “an absolute disaster. ” Q. How does the reconciliation process work in the Senate? A. In the House, leaders of the majority party can usually control what happens if their members stick together. In the Senate, by contrast, one member or a handful of senators can often derail the leaders’ plans. The reconciliation process enhances the power of the majority party and its leaders. Senate debate on a reconciliation bill is normally limited to 20 hours, so it cannot be filibustered on the Senate floor. The Senate has a special rule to prevent abuse of the budget reconciliation process. The rule, named for former Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, generally bars use of the procedure to consider legislation that has no effect on spending, taxes and deficits. The Senate parliamentarian normally decides whether particular provisions violate the Byrd rule, but the Senate can waive the rule with a majority. Q. What does this mean for the Affordable Care Act? A. Republicans hope to use the procedure of budget reconciliation to repeal or nullify provisions of the law that affect spending and taxes. They could, for example, eliminate penalties imposed on people who go without insurance and on larger employers who do not offer coverage to employees. They could use a reconciliation bill to eliminate tens of billions of dollars provided each year to states that have expanded eligibility for Medicaid. And they could use it to repeal subsidies for private health insurance coverage obtained through the public marketplaces known as exchanges. Republicans could also repeal a number of taxes and fees imposed on certain people and on health insurers and manufacturers of prescription drugs and medical devices: tax increases that help offset the cost of the insurance coverage expansions. Those provisions were all rolled back in the reconciliation bill Mr. Obama vetoed last January. That bill did not touch insurance market standards established in the Affordable Care Act, which do not directly cost the government money or raise taxes. The standards stipulate, for example, that insurers cannot deny coverage or charge higher premiums because of a person’s conditions. Insurers must allow parents to keep children on their policies until the age of 26, and they cannot charge women higher rates than men, as they often did in the past. Such provisions are politically popular, but it is not clear how they could remain in force without the coverage expansions that help insurers afford such regulations. Without an effective requirement for people to carry insurance, and without subsidies, supporters of the health law say many healthy people would go without coverage, knowing they could obtain it if they became ill and needed it. Democrats say they will fight to preserve the law after Mr. Obama leaves office. Recent history shows that lobbying and public pressure can sometimes make a difference, altering the votes of individual lawmakers and changing the contents of a reconciliation bill. | 1 |
Rep. Jody Hice ( ) spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Friday, discussing several topics, including President Trump’s Tuesday night address to Congress, calling it “outstanding. ”[“I think it’s the best joint session speech I’ve ever heard. He knocked it out of the park,” added Hice. Hice also discussed this session’s legislative agenda and what looks like on repealing Obamacare. “The problem is on Obamacare. Just to be very honest with you, I think very few people thought Trump would win. They were in defense mode, as to what are we going to do if Hillary wins this thing, and then when, fortunately, Trump won, everything started changing rapidly. ” Hice added that there are multiple plans to replace Obamacare, and he is confident it will get done. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. | 1 |
Quantum Global assina memorando de entendimento com Surbana Jurong 27.10.2016 | Fonte de informações: Colaboração estabelecida para abordar as necessidades de planeamento urbano e infra-estrutura sustentável na Africa Sub saariana Da e squerda para a direita : Er. Louis Tey ( Director Geral Africa - S urbana J urong), Tee Eng Cheeng ( Director Executivo International - S urbana Jurong ), Franck Behiblo ( Chefe de Desenvolvimento Corporativo - Quantum Global), Tee Say Hong ( Director Executivo - S urbana J urong) Luanda , Angola , 26 de Outubro de 2016 - A Quantum Global Group, empresa internacional com experiência em identificação de oportunidades entre a África e os mercados internacionais, assinou um Memorando de Entendimento (MoU) com a Surbana Jurong (Surbana Jurong Private Ltd), uma das consultoras líderes da Ásia em infra-estrutura urbana. O acordo de cooperação marca a exploração de futuras colaborações entre as duas empresas em projectos urbanos e desenvolvimento de infra-estruturas em toda a África Subsaariana. A equipa de investimento da Quantum Global nas Maurícias gere uma família de fundos destinados ao investimento directo em África, nos sectores da Agricultura, Saúde, Hotelaria, Infraestrutura, Mineração e Silvicultura, bem como um fundo de acções estruturadas. Através da estratégia da Quantum Global "África para África", o Grupo tem vindo a reforçar os seus planos de expansão em todo o continente em mercados-chave incluindo a Nigéria, Quénia, Moçambique, Angola e Dubai, a fim de aumentar o acesso dos investidores ao vasto potencial de desenvolvimento de África. A Surbana Jurong realizou projectos de planeamento e industrialização urbana em 15 países africanos, incluindo a República do Congo, Angola, Burundi, Nigéria, Maurícias e África do Sul. "Estamos muito satisfeitos em assinar este acordo de colaboração com a Surbana Jurong, que visa prestar uma alta qualidade e contribuição credível e visível para o potencial de desenvolvimento de África, explorando interesses comuns em projectos orientados a abordar a demanda da África Subsaariana nas áreas de urbanização e infra-estrutura sustentável" declarou Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais, fundador da Quantum global Group. De acordo com a Agenda da União Africana 2063 para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável que aborda a importância de urbanização para a transformação estrutural em África, a assinatura do memorando de entendimento entre a Surbana Jurong e a Quantum Global permitiráàs duas empresas explorar o desenvolvimento de infra-estruturas, prestando especial atenção a projectos de habitação a preços acessíveis através da partilha de conhecimento e experiência, tirando partido dos recursos para atender às necessidades de desenvolvimento da região. Sobre a Quantum Global A Quantum Global é um grupo internacional de empresas que operam nas áreas de investimentos de capital privado, gestão de investimentos, gestão de riqueza privada, bem como na pesquisa macroeconómica e modelagem econométrica. A nossa equipa combina um histórico sólido e experiência comprovada para identificar e executar oportunidades de investimentos exclusivos com o foco em África. A Quantum Global trabalha em estreita parceria com os principais stakeholders para maximizar o valor do investimento e dos retornos através de uma gestão activa e criação de valor. Para mais informações, visite www.quantumglobalgroup.ch Fonte: djembecommunications.com | 0 |
Three times in the last two weeks, people — a patient, a colleague and my wife — told me stories about how out of control the price of EpiPens were. Monday, my New York Times colleagues recounted in detail how expensive the devices have become in recent years. All tell the tale of how much even basic health care can cost in the United States. But by digging a bit further, the story of EpiPens can also explain so much of what’s wrong with our health care system. When people think of allergies to drugs, food or a bee sting, they often think of a rash. And in fact that’s how many allergic reactions develop and proceed. Most can be treated with diphenhydramine (Benadryl) and careful observation. But some are more serious. Between 1 and 2 percent of people can develop what’s known as anaphylaxis, when the airways you need to breathe swell and close. Luckily, there’s a simple treatment for such reactions. Epinephrine — or adrenaline — is a hormone naturally produced by the adrenal glands. It’s part of your “fight or flight” response, and it causes your heart to beat faster, your blood vessels to constrict, your pupils to dilate and — most important here — your airways to open. Epinephrine is very, very cheap. Even in the developing world, it costs less than a dollar per milliliter, and there’s less than a third of that in an EpiPen. But to save a life, epinephrine must be delivered quickly, and in the proper amounts. People suffering severe allergic reactions often can’t do it themselves. Drawing the drug into a syringe and then administering it to someone else requires training and precision that most people lack. For that, there is the EpiPen. What makes this device so special is not the drug, but the ease with which it automatically administers the correct dose without delay. The instructions are right on the side, and even if you don’t read them, it’s pretty easy to figure out. Pull off the safety cap, put the tip against the thigh, and push. Boom. Epinephrine delivered. The EpiPen isn’t new it has been in use since 1977. Research and development costs were recouped long ago. Nine years ago, it was bought by the pharmaceutical company Mylan, which then began to sell the device. When Mylan bought it, EpiPens cost about $57 each. Few competitors existed, and for various reasons, that has remained the case. The device actually worked and saved lives. People needed it. Mylan raised the price. It also began to raise awareness. Unfortunately, epinephrine is inherently unstable. Research shows that it degrades pretty quickly over time, and it’s recommended that EpiPens be replaced every year. When my friends ask me if they can take an expired pain medication like acetaminophen or ibuprofen, I shrug and nod. If they don’t get a full dose, it’s usually not a big deal. But epinephrine is no joke. People in anaphylaxis need a full dose every time. They therefore need to replace all their EpiPens every year, again and again. Kids need them in many places. They need them at home. They need them at school. They need them at camp. They may even want to stash one at Grandma’s house. So people often need to buy quite a few. More revenue for Mylan. And it raised the price. Then in 2010, federal guidelines changed to recommend that two EpiPens be sold in a package instead of one. Studies showed that about 10 percent of children who received epinephrine from an EpiPen needed more than one dose. Better to be safe than sorry. Additionally, the Food and Drug Administration changed its recommendations to allow for the prescription of EpiPens for prevention for patients, not just for those with confirmed allergies. Mylan stopped selling individual EpiPens and began to sell only . It also raised the price. In 2013, the government went further. It passed a law that gave funding preferences for asthma treatment grants to states that maintained an emergency supply of EpiPens. As the near sole supplier of the devices, Mylan stood to make even more money. That year, Mylan raised the price again. Of course, competition would bring the price down. But it’s very hard to bring such a device to market. In 2012, the Adrenaclick and Twinject were discontinued. In 2013, Sanofi began to sell devices, which even gave audio instructions to walk people though their use. Unfortunately, they were found to give potentially improper doses, and were pulled from the shelves about a year ago. Teva had hoped to offer a generic version of the EpiPen, but concerns from the F. D. A. sent it back to the drawing board until at least next year. Adamis hoped to offer prefilled syringes, which would still be harder to use than EpiPens. But it was told by the F. D. A. that much more data would be needed before such a product could be sold. These setbacks, all in the last year, have once again left Mylan with a veritable run of the market. It raised the price of EpiPens again. As of this May, they cost more than $600 a pack. Since 2004, after adjusting for inflation, the price of EpiPens has risen more than 450 percent. An alternative still exists. The Adrenaclick, while still not cheap, is back and less expensive than the EpiPen. Some think it’s harder to use, though. It’s not on the accepted list for many health insurance plans. More important, few physicians think of it. Because of that, they write prescriptions for EpiPens. Since the Adrenaclick is not a generic version of the EpiPen, pharmacists can’t substitute one for the other. A prescription for an EpiPen must be filled with an EpiPen, regardless of what consumers might want. Some people argue that we could still just use syringes and epinephrine for far less money. Sure, they would expire every few months. Sure, they would be harder to use and likelier to break. Sure, they would require training, be hard for the uninitiated to use in an emergency and be more likely to be administered with an incorrect dose. Nonetheless, you could argue that they’re an alternative when the “Cadillac” EpiPens are financially out of reach. But those are unsatisfactory arguments. Epinephrine isn’t an elective medication. It doesn’t last, so people need to purchase the drug repeatedly. There’s little competition, but there are huge hurdles to enter the market, so a company can raise the price again and again with little pushback. The government encourages the product’s use, but makes no effort to control its cost. Insurance coverage shields some from the expense, allowing higher prices, but leaves those most most exposed to extreme outlays. The poor are the most likely to consider going without because they can’t afford it. EpiPens are a perfect example of a health care nightmare. They’re also just a typical example of the dysfunction of the American health care system. | 1 |
Good morning. Welcome to California Today, a morning update on the stories that matter to Californians (and anyone else interested in the state). Tell us about the issues that matter to you — and what you’d like to see: CAtoday@nytimes. com. Want to receive California Today by email? Sign up. The fall semester has opened at universities across California after a year in which racial and ethnic tensions flared on campuses across the state and country. This week, the spotlight turned to Cal State Los Angeles, which unexpectedly found itself having to respond to false reports that it had introduced “blacks only” housing. It started with a dubious item posted on a conservative college student news website that said the university was now offering racially segregated housing. That tidbit was picked up by a series of conservative websites, some of which dialed up the language, using “blacks only” to describe the new housing enclave. Television news broadcasts ran with the story, as thousands of people registered their anger in comment threads on social sites like Facebook and Reddit — one more reminder not to believe everything you read on social media. By early Wednesday, The Los Angeles Times and The Huffington Post had weighed in with more skeptical takes. After all the commotion, the university has made clear the reports are untrue. The campus, which serves about 28, 000 students, roughly 4 percent of them has indeed created a dorm space for 24 students oriented around the black community, a spokesman, Robert Lopez, said on Wednesday. But, it’s “open to all students. ” “This community focuses on academic excellence and learning experiences that are inclusive and nondiscriminatory,” Mr. Lopez said. Residential communities organized around themes like race and gender are neither rare nor new on American college campuses. Many California campuses offer similar residential communities, among them U. C. Davis, U. C. Berkeley, Stanford and at least two other Cal State campuses. This year, debates have erupted over racially themed environments at Princeton University, the University of Iowa and the University of Connecticut. Opponents argue that such programs promote racial silos and degrade the quality of learning, while supporters say they provide a sense of belonging to minority students who face discrimination. Jonathan Thomas, a participant of the Cal State housing program, known as the Halisi Scholars Black Community, told the local CBS station that the new housing created a feeling of inclusion. “You can go and be yourself and not have to worry about explaining how you’re doing because of your skin color,” he said. Cal State officials and black student leaders both rejected the depictions of the housing program as segregationist. Eddie Comeaux, associate professor of higher education at U. C. Riverside, said themed dorms have been a useful tool in higher education going back to at least the 1980s. “This is not new,” he said. • The California Coastal Commission voted overwhelmingly to deny a giant development proposal along one of the last big undeveloped plots on the Southern California coast. The plan faced stiff community opposition. [Los Angeles Times] • Yosemite will add 400 acres to its western edge. The parcel is small, but it’s home to crucial wetlands. [The New York Times] • The fallout from Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest is not turning out how some of his critics expected. If anything, the 49ers quarterback has gained esteem. [San Jose Mercury News] • Four Oakland police officers will be fired and seven others suspended for their roles in a sex scandal involving a teenager. [East Bay Times] • A court clerk in Orange County took bribes to fix more than 1, 000 traffic cases, officials say. [Orange County Register] • The most unequal states in America used to be in the South. Now, they’re on the coasts. [The New York Times] • A federal court in San Francisco handed Uber a legal decision that it may be able to use to fend off other driver suits. [The New York Times] • A travel writer retraced her family’s rail adventure to a revolutionary place, during the “Summer of Love. ” [The New York Times] • The artist Doug Aitken is planning to submerge three mirrored “pavilions” in a marine preserve off Catalina Island. The idea is for divers to swim around the structures. [The New York Times] • A report says Los Angeles is the most fashionable city in America. (Hear that, New York?) [LA Weekly] Readers weigh in on the issues important to them: I live in L. A. and just about everyone here agrees our biggest problem is traffic. There are just too many cars. — Anthony Mastrandrea, Los Angeles The redwoods of Humboldt County are in danger. Most people outside of California only know that patio furniture and decks look great when made of California redwood. They need to know there is not much of it left and the rest is under assault. — David Ohman, Denver These days what happens in Sacramento stays in Sacramento. . .. Legislators are in a bubble, and I believe very happy to be free of scrutiny. — Martha Hassen, Santa Barbara An airport parking lot in Los Angeles has become an improvised village of airline workers. Its residents say the space grants them something we all seek: freedom. Apple unveiled upgrades across its line of products at its showcase in San Francisco on Wednesday. The star was the new iPhone 7. Its lack of a headphone jack means the device can be the company can sell wireless earbuds and the future looks a lot less tangled. Our tech columnist Farhad Manjoo sees a dearth of dazzle. The iPhone 7 may have been the centerpiece, but the AirPod was the talk of Twitter. Part of Apple’s vision of a “wireless future,” the new headphones connect remotely to the jackless iPhone. Their unveiling gave way to a torrent of tweets, mostly making a version of the same joke: It’s just a matter of time before you lose your AirPods. The earbuds are shaped much like the old ones, but with short protruding legs. Some people worried about the fit. Many more people pointed out that, with no tether, they seemed destined to vanish into a sewer grate or a couch. At $160 a pair, replacing them would not be cheap. And there’s no word yet on whether Apple is going to sell singles. California Today goes live at 6 a. m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes. com. The California Today columnist, Mike McPhate, is a Californian — born outside Sacramento and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He lives in Davis. Follow him on Twitter. California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and attended U. C. Berkeley. | 1 |
Politics Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif attends a news conference after a meeting with his counterparts Walid al-Muallem from Syria and Sergei Lavrov from Russia in Moscow, Russia, on October 28, 2016. (Photo by Reuters)
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says comprehensive international determination is necessary to fight and uproot terrorism in the Middle East.
The Iranian foreign minister made the remarks at the end of a three-way meeting among him and his Russian and Syrian counterparts, Sergei Lavrov and Walid al-Muallem respectively, in Moscow on Friday on the latest situation in Syria.
Zarif said Tehran, Moscow and Damascus should reinforce their cooperation in the campaign against terrorism.
He stressed the importance of adopting strategies to stop the delivery of weapons and military equipment to the foreign-backed Takfiri militants wreaking havoc in Syria.
“The political settlement of the crisis in Syria will be possible through negotiations between the sides in order to put an end to this crisis,” Zarif said.
The three foreign ministers agreed to intensify the fight against terrorism and said their countries have a common stance on the anti-terror campaign in the region, particularly in Syria.
Lavrov said Iran, Russia and Syria have determined necessary frameworks for fighting terrorism and expressed their readiness to take measures that will play a key role in the campaign against the malicious phenomenon.
The Russian foreign minister added that the Moscow meeting highlighted the significance of a firm and efficient battle against terrorism in the Middle East, particularly in Syria.
He said the meeting’s participants also discussed ways to send humanitarian aid to civilians in Syria and stop the flow of weapons into the hands of terrorists operating in the war-hit country.
Muallem, for his part, said the US is making no effort to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis.
The Syrian foreign minister added that a recent agreement between Washington and Moscow, signed in the Swiss city of Geneva in September, failed to bear any fruit.
After marathon talks in Geneva, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart reached an agreement on September 10 to impose a ceasefire in the Syrian city of Aleppo and to coordinate military operations against terrorist groups in the country.
Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, remains divided between government forces in the west and foreign-backed terrorists in the east, making it a frontline battleground.
Russia, which has been conducting an aerial military campaign against extremist militants in Syria, has repeatedly voiced its readiness for a ceasefire. Russia has been insisting, however, that any such lull in fighting should be accompanied with a meticulous separation of terrorists from less extremist militants fighting against the Syrian government.
The Syrian foreign minister said Washington is not interested in solving the crisis in Damascus and takes measures only to serve the its own interests and those of its regional allies.
Since March 2011, Syria has been hit by militancy it blames on some Western states and their regional allies. Backed by the Russian air cover, the Syrian military is engaged in an operation to rid the country of Daesh and other terrorist groups.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura have put the death toll from the Syria conflict at more than 300,000 and 400,000, respectively.
This is while the UN has stopped its official casualty count in Syria, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.
Over the past few weeks, the Syrian forces have wrested control of several areas across the war-torn country as they press ahead with their counter-terrorism operations.
Iran, Russia share strong anti-terror stance: Zarif
Meanwhile, in a meeting with his Russian counterpart earlier on Friday, the Iranian foreign minister said Tehran and Moscow have “tough stances in the fight against terrorism in the region through common strategies.”
“Tehran and Moscow have broad cooperation on regional issues such as the campaign against terrorism and extremism and we share views [on these matters],” Zarif added. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) speaks with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif during a meeting in Moscow, Russia, on October 28, 2016. (Photo by Reuters)
He also noted that Iran and Russia have succeeded in making considerable progress in all fields including in economic and political sectors as well as regional and international developments.
"I am pleased that in recent years relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation, as two good neighbors and two key players, have made many positive developments,” Zarif said.
Lavrov, for his part, said Tehran and Moscow urged cooperation on an unrelenting approach to terrorists operating against the Syrian government.
Iran and Russia have similar stances on the ongoing deadly crisis in Syria. Moscow and Tehran reject any foreign interference in the affairs of the war-hit country, stressing that only the Syrians are entitled to decide their own fate.
Iran has been providing military advisory assistance to the Syrian government in its campaign against terrorism. Loading ... | 0 |
Videos Tensions Rise As Pipeline Construction Nears #NoDAPL Blockade The Oceti Sakowin tribe declared eminent domain on land bought by Dakota Access and set up their new winter camp in the direct path of the pipeline on 1851 treaty land. | October 27, 2016 Be Sociable, Share!
Oceti Sakowin, ND – On Sunday, October 23rd , water protectors extended camp beyond the overflow site, just north of the Standing Rock reservation, to the pipeline easement line. The Oceti Sakowin declared eminent domain on land bought by Dakota Access and set up their new winter camp in the direct path of the pipeline on 1851 treaty land.
As the encampment was formed, two blockades were created, one on county road 146 and one north of the new winter camp on Highway 1806. We spoke to various blockaders who stated their goal was to ensure safety of the water protectors as they prepared their camps for winter.
The video below contains interviews with various water protectors at the multiple blockades and camps. The following day, after the new winter camp was established, a no-fly zone was declared by law enforcement. FAA informed Unicorn Riot that "only response aircraft in support of law enforcement" can fly in no-fly zone https://t.co/4eax21fw59 #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/nZuNKtbFrb This no-fly zone was created, according to the Morton County Sheriff, to ground all drones being flown by water protectors and journalists. The Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) notice on the FAA’s website lists the North Dakota Tactical Operations Center as responsible for issuing the TFR .
On October 26th, 2016, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, and various other agencies working alongside them, erected a concrete blockade just two miles north of the frontline #NoDAPL blockade. The new law enforcement blockade is currently manned by sheriff’s deputies armed with automatic rifles.
We reported live from the frontline as water protectors gathered near the blockades expecting a raid on the camps by police, military and private DAPL security assets.
All day, patrol planes and helicopters flew low over the water protectors, while private security vehicles gathered on the hills west of the frontline camp. This yellow helicopter has been flying low over #NoDAPL water protectors for months- & seems to be exempt from new no-fly zone. pic.twitter.com/xPuq9bNneI
— Unicorn Riot (@UR_Ninja) October 27, 2016
Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney, who has been acting as “Director of Operations” for Morton County Sheriff, came to the new winter camp today with representatives from the National Guard and asked people to leave the new site and return to the main camp, Forum News Service reports. “We’re here telling you this is private property and you have to leave,” Laney told camp coordinator Mekasi Camp-Horinek. “We don’t want a confrontation. Please stand your people down and go back to the main camp.” Mekasi pointed at the road – “our no surrender line,” he said – and then back at the frontline camp standing in the way of the four-state, $3.8 billion oil pipeline – their “no retreat” line. “That’s your final word?” Laney asked. “That’s my final word,” Camp-Horinek said, walking away.
Pipeline construction is less than half a mile from Highway 1806 and we can verify that machines can be heard working from the new frontline camp. Law enforcement in trucks & DAPL security in dune buggies watching Oceti Sakowin front line camp from hills maybe 200 yards away. #NoDAPL pic.twitter.com/NuqlC94gVd
— Unicorn Riot (@UR_Ninja) October 26, 2016 This work (including header image) by Unicorn Riot is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. | 0 |
By Catherine J. Frompovich
This is the continuation of the testimony I will present before the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission’s Administrative Law Court November 2 and 3, 2016.
Currently, Chairman Representative Godshall is allowing three more opt out bills to become sine die this session, which should amount to an impeachable offense for denying consumers their inherent and indefeasible rights, especially of redress to government, and also according to the Pennsylvania Constitution, I contend.
Probably nothing encapsulates and explains the EMF/RFR controversy or conundrum, if you may, from a scientific viewpoint than the 35-page report “ EUROPAEM EMF Guideline 2016 for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of EMF-related health problems and illnesses ,” which is a Spanish language document and found online at https://listas.um.es/sympa/arc/anuncios/2016-07/msg00069.html This report cites 308 published scientific references, which leaves Frompovich to question why the PA PUC—and PECO in particular—are so daft in proffering that there is no updated science other than the 1940s era ‘safety’ THERMAL science regarding microwave electromagnetic energies based in ‘ancient’ radar studies the microwave industry always trots out as proof of ‘safety’.
Those ‘safety’ studies originated in Germany during World War II; are totally outmoded; but remain the present Federal Communications Commission’s rules regarding safety of cell phones and AMI Smart Meters. It is now 2016! How come 1940s microwave technology science is being applied as the ‘gold standard’ or ‘scientific criterion’ to meters that will become the key intelligence gathering technology for the Internet of Things? Frompovich has to question the credibility factor of both PECO and the PA PUC for depending upon 1940 science in today’s technology world of 2016. Where’s the science later than the 1940s? Please, may I have those studies PECO supplied to the PA PUC?
Frompovich, therefore, respectfully suggests that the PA PUC study the above-aforementioned European reports with medical and EHS health professionals, who are qualified to explain the diagnostics and varied modalities discussed, in order to issue updated regulations affecting AMI Smart Meters and their continuous RFR/EMF health-damaging electromagnetics, plus their fire-and-explosion-prone proclivities and occurrences, which definitely was not the case for all the decades utilities used safe and efficient analog meters.
Children are the most vulnerable to EMF radiation and, therefore, I introduce Exhibit U-1 “Why children absorb more microwave radiation than adults: The Consequences,” and Exhibit U-2 “American Academy of Pediatrics August 29, 2013 letter urging the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, the Federal Communications Commission and others to advise the public about Specific Absorption Rates (SARs) regarding EMF/RF exposures.”
Also, I want to apprise every one of the fact that electromagnetic sensitivity (EHS) is a growing problem and according to recently reported statistics in the peer reviewed journal ECOPSYCHOLOGY, Professor Pamela Reed Gibson states the following: 26% of the USA population; 19% of the Swedish population; 27% of the Danish population; and 32 % of the German population are EHS compromised. See Exhibit V . However, other sources claim that as much as 5% of the entire world’s population is affected.
Just as chemical sensitivities were discredited and denied by medical doctors for years—now referred to as “sick building syndrome” or “Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)—so, too, is EHS now being recognized by many, including the World Health Organization. I introduce Exhibit W “Electrohypersensitivity: a functional impairment due to an inaccessible environment.” Printout available here https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=forums&srcid=MDgxODkwOTk5NjU5OTU4ODQwNTYBMTU3NTIzMDA1MTQxNTY1NzI0NTcBTVRzdGFEOUNBUUFKATAuMQEBdjI
As Exhibit X I introduce a study no one can refute, “A review on Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and the reproductive system,” which outlines science the microwave industry, PECO and all utilities utilizing AMI Smart Meters, plus public utility commissions across the USA need to factor into the inevitable legal liability that they are assuming by committing crimes against humanity by exposing the population to unsafe microwave electromagnetics 24/7/365 from dirty electricity pulsed by AMI SMs onto home wiring and into private residences and all buildings retrofitted with AMI Smart Meters.
Before I include my previously submitted testimony, I find it necessary to impress upon the court that it should not be Frompovich’s obligation to prove the medical consequences beyond a reasonable doubt, especially in light of the ADA Amendments Act as it applies to those receiving federal funding or even that the consequences of medical problems are more probable than not, since the ADAAA provides Frompovich with disability rights and protections, which PECO and the PA PUC must abide by.
Furthermore, it should be the indisputable duty of PECO and all Pennsylvania utility companies – but more specifically that of the PA Public Utility Commission’s stated mission for being – to provide safe and non-radiating innovations in utility technology and appliances with 100% certainty, which AMI Smart Meters fail on numerous levels, especially with their proclivity for “hot sockets,” fires and explosions, EMF/RF constant emissions and dirty electricity pulses as frequent as 9600 times a day!
No medical-scientific testing has proved AMI Smart Meters EMFs safety regarding non-thermal adverse health effects that I know of. Where’s the science?
Therefore, Frompovich should not be forced to allow a proven-fire-prone AMI Smart Meter electric service on her property that would radiate dirty electricity into her residence with high RFR pulses every fifteen seconds.
Just to add more “salt to the wound,” as they would say, there are no assurances that monitoring is not part and parcel of the AMI Smart Meter agenda and an integral surveillance device of the Internet of Things, or that information will be shared with unknown third parties—for whatever reasons—and for which Frompovich does not approve nor give her permission to PECO, the PA PUC or any government agencies or agents.
Therefore, Frompovich feels her privacy, as well as her home and personal physiology, will be subjected to unlawful, unconstitutional and unnecessary interventions at various levels and, specifically, without proper legal processes, e.g., court-issued warrants, in order to surveil her home that automatically will occur from the two-way ZigBee radio transmitter system of AMI SMs and all “smart” appliances which are built to interact with the coming surveillance technology of the Internet of Things. The times Frompovich makes tea in the morning and shuts off her lights for the night are no one’s business but her own.
I’ve been researching consumer health issues and whatsoever affects human health negatively , including technologies, since the late 1970s. During my career, I was considered an expert witness providing testimony before several states’ legislature/legislative hearings on health issues. For numerous years I was ahead of both the popular curve and the allopathic paradigm of medicine regarding the role of diet, nutrition, epigenetics, and lifestyle issues in maintaining optimum health, avoiding disease and regaining health utilizing holistic health principles.
I am in my 78 th year, thank God. Since the early 1970s, when I almost lost my life due to unfortunate medical mistakes and had to remove myself from mainstream allopathic care in order to save my life, I’ve been immersed in what’s called the “holistic lifestyle.” I’ve beaten the odds, including being a breast cancer survivor, using holistic healthcare modalities. For the record, 38.3% of U.S. adults and 11.8% of U.S. children used what’s referred to as CAM in 2007 per NIH statistics[1]. Complementary and Alternative Medicine—CAM as it’s called, is popular throughout the world, while in the U.S. there is the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at the National Institutes of Health.
However, the allopathic paradigm considers it, quite frankly, a pain in its professional butt since CAM has become the “go to” healthcare system when allopathy fails one.
Therefore, I expect that I probably will educate misinformed individuals on the negative health consequences of electromagnetic frequencies from microwave energy producing technologies like cell phones and towers, Wi-Fi, ‘smart’ gadgets, and, in particular, AMI Smart Meters, which are being bully-forced onto electric, natural gas, and municipal water utility customers. Most state legislators, the media and the public are undeniably ignorant of the damage being done to their health. Fortunately, I am not one of those people, thus my refusing an AMI Smart Meter on my house. But, first I think you ought to know some of my background: I’m a well-informed, plus over 40 years published consumer health researcher, advocate-activist, journalist, and author.
That I should be taken seriously, I offer some of my professional background: retired practicing natural nutritionist; former registered lobbyist with the U.S. Congress for five years representing holistic healthcare issues; executive director for the national Coalition for Alternatives in Nutrition And Healthcare (CANAH) for five years and, as such, presented FDA-solicited expertise input regarding holistic health practices for its 1990 OTA report OTA-H-405 NTIS #PB91-104893[2] “Unconventional Cancer Treatments” [3]; expert nutrition witness before a congressional subcommittee opposing food irradiation; government relations specialist for a consortium of natural nutrition supplement makers before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; the first Government Relations specialist for the Life Extension Foundation, who set up LEF’s government relations department; a published journalist; author of numerous books regarding health and lifestyle issues with several books available on Amazon.com and my 2016 book, Eat to Beat Disease, Foods Medicinal Qualities.
Additionally, I wrote and produced two TV shows. One called, “ Turn Off the Violence ” was nominated for a Telly Award. That hour-long show was instrumental in securing the Giraffe Award given to persons, who stick out their necks for the common good. The recipient was George Mason University staff member Connie Kirkland[4], who founded a 24-hour crisis center for rape victims and promoted on-campus non-violence educational campaigns specifically relating to rape and domestic violence. What I’ve shared is much less than half of my background. More would take too much of your time. However, I feel compelled to ask, “How many people can match my qualifications to discuss consumer health issues?”
Furthermore, I want to underscore upfront that IF I were a habitual drug addict, rather than an informed, concerned health-conscious researcher and consumer being harassed for trying to protect and preserve my health, I probably would be welcomed with open arms, plus there would be all types of programs and subsidies available for help. Because I am opposing faulty and health-damaging RF/EMF ‘science’, plus vested-interest snooping, surveillance, and customer data marketing agendas using AMI smart meters, I am harassed and even threatened with termination of electric service even though all my bills are paid in full. That leaves me with no options but to dutifully invoke and defend my state and federal constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Isn’t there something radically wrong with such a construct, especially in the USA, if I have to do that?
Attorney Ward Smith’s interrogatory requesting Frompovich’s cancer health records, quite frankly, leaves everyone with whom I’ve shared that fact, totally aghast and amazed! Why? Because Frompovich’s medical records are her personal information protected under HIPPA and I must protect them. Furthermore, since the PUC Administrative Law Court hearing is of public record, Frompovich does not want her personal medical records made public information during any level in these proceedings, as that is her fundamental right.
I respectfully bring to this court’s attention that my breast cancer and medical records are NOT the issue. What’s the issue, problem, and at stake not only for me, but for all Pennsylvanians, is the total callous disregard by utility companies—PECO included, the PA PUC, and the Commonwealth for health hazards, safety, and the wellbeing of all Pennsylvanians, especially those with health issues, compromised immune systems, disabilities, and especially young, growing children—fetuses in particular—whom RF/EMF and dirty electricity produced by AMI Smart Meters affect and impact negatively.
Before presenting into the record additional reams of recent research with documentation and annotations—not 1940s vintage radar safety research—for RFs/EMFs and microwave electromagnetic energies impacts upon cancer and health, I feel it necessary to introduce something no one probably has thought about nor factored into the AMI Smart Meter hidden costs continuum , and that is, healthcare services and ancillary costs stemming from non-ionizing radiation RFs/EMFs Smart Meters impact upon human tissue.
There are mounting underlying, long-term adverse health effects accruing as we speak from PA PUC-PECO forced AMI Smart Meter 24/7/365 RF/EMF electromagnetics, pulses, harmonics and dirty electricity, specifically adverse Non-thermal health effects, impacting children and an ageing PA population, which will generate dire fiscal consequences, plus responsibilities, upon Penna. Medicaid health cost line items in each year’s operating budget for the Commonwealth.
To cement that forewarning, I offer the World Health Organization’s statistic, “Approximately 10% of reported cases of EHS [electromagnetic hypersensitivity] were considered severe,” which means specialized caregiving. That, however, does not include cancer-induced health issues from RFs/EMFs! What kind of budget shortfall will AMI Smart Meters adverse health effects eventually generate for PA’s legislature and governor to haggle about, when we’ve seen what’s been going on recently to get a state budget passed? Has anyone thought about that very real problem?
Continued in Part 3 | 0 |
Chelsea Clinton: With Scalia’s Death We Can Now Enact Gun Control | 0 |
SAN FRANCISCO — Peter Thiel, true to his reputation as the most contrarian soul in Silicon Valley, is doubling down on Donald J. Trump. The only prominent supporter of the Republican candidate in the community, Mr. Thiel is making his first donation in support of Mr. Trump’s election. He will give $1. 25 million through a combination of super PAC donations and funds given directly to the campaign, a person close to the investor said on Saturday. The donation puts the billionaire investor high on a very short list of big Trump contributors. One of the biggest donors is Robert Mercer of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies. He and his daughter Rebekah Mercer have given $15. 5 million in support of the Republican candidate’s election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Geoffrey Palmer, a Los Angeles developer, has donated $2 million. Mr. Thiel, who spoke at the Republican National Convention, apparently is unfazed by the storm around the candidate in the last week following the broadcasting of lewd conversations recorded by the syndicated program “Access Hollywood. ” The source, who requested anonymity, said the investor feels the country needs fixing, and Mr. Trump can do it. A spokesman for Mr. Thiel declined to comment. A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a message for comment. The technology world has kept its wallet shut regarding Mr. Trump. By one accounting, the Trump campaign has raised $300, 000 from tech companies by another, only $19, 000. The candidate and Silicon Valley began on a bad note, with Mr. Trump lashing out at Amazon, Apple and other large companies. His position on immigration is the opposite of the tech industry’s, and he has shown little interest in other issues important to entrepreneurs. A meeting this month between tech industry advisers and Trump advisers was largely considered a bust. Silicon Valley has been forced to confront its lack of diversity in recent years, which would make support of Mr. Trump especially problematic. Brian Krzanich, the chief executive of Intel, had planned to hold a for Mr. Trump in June, but hours after the event became public, it was abruptly canceled. In a Twitter message, Mr. Krzanich said he did not intend to endorse either presidential candidate. Mr. Thiel, 49, emigrated from Germany as a child. He PayPal and Palantir, which focuses on software. His net worth is estimated at about $2. 7 billion. Ever since Mr. Thiel was reported to be a California delegate for Mr. Trump, questions have swirled about why he had not given any of his wealth to help his candidate. At the convention, Mr. Thiel sounded a populist tone rarely heard among entrepreneurs. “Across the country, wages are flat. Americans get paid less today than 10 years ago,” he said. “But health care and college tuition cost more every year. Meanwhile, Wall Street bankers inflate bubbles in everything from government bonds to Hillary Clinton’s speaking fees. Our economy is broken. If you’re watching me right now, you understand this better than any politician in Washington D. C. ” He also said he was “proud to be gay,” the first time a Republican convention speaker had made such a statement. Mr. Thiel was identified as gay nine years ago by a blog owned by Gawker Media. He said writers at Gawker should be identified “as terrorists, not as writers or reporters,” and he eventually funded the wrestler Hulk Hogan’s successful lawsuit against the site. Gawker’s flagship website was closed by its new owner, Univision, in August. | 1 |
Some are disarmingly named, like the cutesy Chinese mitten crab. Others have names more indicative of their undesirable nature, like rock snot, an algae that slimes up cool forest streams. They are some of more than 100 invasive species that conservationists must battle in New York State, which teems with a growing number of plants, birds, fish, insects, mosses, molds and fungi that actually belong somewhere else. With some of the busiest airports and ports in the United States, New York has far more invasive species of certain types than any other state, federal officials say. Carried inside airplane wheels or in the ballast water of large boats, many creatures and spores show up in New York first, making it a laboratory of sorts where scientists and others strive to devise methods to banish the outsiders or risk losing native flora and fauna to invading hordes. Underscoring the increasing menace posed by persistent pest species, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, recently announced a $2 million grant challenging groups and institutions to come up with fresh strategies to fight living things like zebra mussels and a catastrophic fungus that causes even the most ancient oaks to wilt away. Last year, the state budget for invasive species control was nearly doubled from 2015, to $12 million. “New York State is a real epicenter for everything invasive, whether it’s aquatic, forest or terrestrial, because of where we sit in terms of international and interstate commerce,” said Robert Davies, director of the division lands and forests for the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation. “The world is getting smaller and one of the downsides of the world getting smaller is this. ” Invasive species have long been a threat unwanted visitors, once they arrive, sometimes stay forever. The Asian beetle was first discovered in New York in 1996 and has been devouring hardwood trees nationwide ever since. In the last century, chestnut blight, a fungus, wiped out nearly all of New York’s American chestnuts, once the most populous tree in the state. And gypsy moths, introduced from France in the 1860s, are still here, decimating leafy trees. Despite strict rules about what can be brought into the United States and the screening of goods and packages by federal authorities at entry points, the sheer volume of traffic makes it virtually impossible to erect a foolproof barrier. “As a global hub for international trade and travel, New York is on the front lines of protecting our nation,’’ Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. The state mobilized in December after the discovery that oak trees in Brooklyn and in Suffolk County on Long Island were infected with oak wilt, a deadly fungus that chokes off trees’ internal water supply. There is no known cure contaminated trees must be cut down and their root systems killed to prevent the fungus from spreading. The state issued an order forbidding the transporting of oak wood out of the affected counties. In Brooklyn, the outbreak was detected in a northern red oak tree — just one so far — inside the Cemetery, the final resting place for many luminaries. Now, only a stump is left of a shade tree that was over 50 years old. It was cut down last month to prevent the wilt’s spread. The stump will get a coat of herbicide that will kill the root system, which is still infected. “The potential for the devastation here is immediately impactful, but it’s also the significance for the oaks throughout the city,” said Joseph Charap, the director of horticulture for the cemetery, who first noticed the diseased oak. He stood among the graves on a recent morning, while in the bare canopy of an uninfected oak tree above him, teams of men tethered to the upper branches sawed off limbs. The discovery had set off a race to prune all 664 of the cemetery’s oak trees while they are dormant for the winter as a barricade against the spread of disease. The branches that are trimmed are treated with a special paint to guard against the fungus entering the trees. “The potential to lose our oak collection is unthinkable,” Mr. Charap said. Across the country, invasive species cause over $100 billion in damage every year, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, from blighted crops to boats covered with sharp zebra mussels. New York State does not keep a total for damage caused, but the annual bill just to control one species — the sea lamprey, a parasitic fish — is $500, 000. The overall budget for invasive species control is about $5. 5 million. While the state is at the epicenter of the problem, there are hot spots, including other parts of the East Coast, California and Texas. Sitting at the intersection of so many streams of commerce, New York has had to innovate under the pressures of invasive species. In 2009 it introduced a novel law forbidding the transporting of any firewood more than 50 miles from its source to prevent the spread of disease. (The oak at Cemetery, Mr. Charap believes, was probably infected by firewood improperly brought to the city.) Inside a laboratory at Cornell University, tiny, Galerucella birmanica beetles from China are kept under quarantine as their appetite for water chestnut is tested. An invasive aquatic species most likely introduced to New York in the 1880s, the water chestnut continues to clog the state’s fresh waterways. Someday, the bugs may be released as a biological means to control the plant. The state Conservation Department has also created an app that allows people to log sightings of plants and animals they suspect might not belong in their yards or any natural areas. Last year, over 300 people reported more than 12, 000 such sightings. On the ground, the battle is fought with teams of forestry experts going inoculating root systems against fungus. In the air, the Conservation Department uses State Police helicopters to conduct seasonal patrols to spot shriveled trees on mountainsides or to search for animals that do not belong here, such as the Eurasian boar. Such efforts do pay off. It’s been several years since the last boar sighting for Bill Burns, 75, a farmer who grows corn and other crops on over 600 acres in Spafford, N. Y. on the eastern edge of the Finger Lakes. Mr. Burns estimates that the animals, which are native to Russia and are believed to have been introduced here by game farmers who were careless with their fences, have caused more than $100, 000 in damages to his crops over the years. “They will go right down the corn planter tracks and suck the seed right out of the ground,” Mr. Burns said. He shot and killed several of them — “they taste rewarding,’’ he said — but it took a concerted effort by the state and federal authorities, which sent in specially trained trappers and dogs to round up the animals, to achieve true relief. The pigs have been eradicated from the state, according to the Conservation Department. Still, from his kitchen window, Mr. Burns can look across Skaneateles Lake and see stands of dead ash trees. He believes they have been killed by swarms of emerald ash borers, a Asian beetle first confirmed to have colonized New York State in 2009, according to Cornell University. The insects are one of the state’s top priorities. Mr. Burns fears it is too late. “I am irritated and disappointed in just about everybody in the world that is careless,” he said. | 1 |
TVE
La 1 de Televisión Española redondeó ayer un mes fantástico y volvió a ser la cadena más vista. “Cruz y Raya: el Reencuentro” congregó a millones de espectadores que disfrutaron como nunca de las mejores actuaciones de José Mota y el otro señor. El minuto de oro se produjo cuando el otro señor intentó besar a José Mota pero éste se abstuvo.
Antena 3 rozó la gloria al situarse como la segunda opción elegida por los españoles. La cadena de Atresmedia apostó por un formato nuevo consistente en emitir durante horas vídeos cortos donde diferentes marcas presentaban sus últimos productos a través de pequeñas recreaciones de la vida cotidiana. La apuesta surtió efecto consiguiendo un 17% de cuota de pantalla.
Telecinco también obtuvo cifras muy buenas atrayendo al 15% de la audiencia gracias al plano fijo de la barra de un bar español con risas enlatadas y una gorda chillándole a su esposo.
Cuatro se quedó lejos de las cifras esperadas en su nueva versión de Primeras Citas . En esta ocasión, los participantes del programa eran enfermos que acudían a su primera visita con el médico en búsqueda de un diagnóstico. Aburrido, por lo general, salvo el momento final de la colonoscopia.
Equipo de Investigación de La Sexta ya investiga cuáles han sido las causas de sus bajos números en su emisión de ayer. La audiencia no acompañó a pesar de que el programa ofreció imágenes exclusivas de un portal cualquiera del centro de Madrid y subtituló y tapó la cara a una señora que no tenía absolutamente nada que decir sobre el tema que se estaba investigando. Ni siquiera remontó cuando Gloria Serra relató dramáticamente cómo un Honda Civic aparcaba en doble fila sin poner los intermitentes.
La 2 de TVE apostó por la película Le film subvencioné avec des immigrants qui souffrent , tan independiente que todavía no se ha terminado de rodar.
Canal Sur fue la opción preferida de los andaluces tanto por la tarde, con su tercera edición de Con ese de Siesta , como en el prime time con su ya legendaria Noche de Siesta . La posibilidad de ver a algunos andaluces durmiendo siempre es muy atractiva para el resto de andaluces que se están durmiendo.
La Televisión de Galicia emitió fuego para calentar los hogares del 14% de los gallegos que ya tiene televisor.
Netflix no pasó datos de audiencia, lo que es una mala señal. La cadena estadounidense emite muchas cosas a la vez , obligando a la gente a elegir y haciendo que todo sea muy confuso. Si quieren ser competitivos en el panorama televisivo español, deberían empezar por centrarse y elegir un único programa cada hora. | 0 |
By Reuters 7:16 pm Heading into the homestretch of the presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is looking to harness some celebrity star power to help get out the vote and energize volunteers in battleground states.
By Roberta Rampton
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) – Heading into the homestretch of the presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is looking to harness some celebrity star power to help get out the vote and energize volunteers in battleground states.
Jennifer Lopez will headline a free concert for Clinton supporters in Miami on Saturday, giving the former secretary of state a chance to connect with the key demographic of millennials she has sometimes struggled to reach – and some visual counter-programming to the latest email controversy to roil her race for the White House.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Friday it is investigating more emails as part of a probe into Clinton’s use of a private email system – a late-breaking surprise that will likely continue to get extensive media play leading up to the Nov. 8 vote
Celebrity-driven events like the concert “can serve as a bit of a distraction” from the controversy, said Eric Kasper, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
“It is a way to kind of take the edge off things because it tends to be more positive,” Kasper said.
The JLo concert is the first in a series. Next week, Clinton will take the stage with Jay Z in Cleveland, and then with Katy Perry in Philadelphia on Nov. 5.
A Harvard University poll this week showed that among likely voters aged 18 to 29, Clinton is leading Republican rival Donald Trump, a celebrity in his own right who starred in the reality television show “The Apprentice.”
But turnout is a concern. The exceptionally negative tone of this year’s race for the White House has soured young Americans on politics, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows.
Presidential candidates have long sought to create buzz with help from celebrity pals, said Tevi Troy, who chronicled the strategy in his book “What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted: 200 Years of Pop Culture in the White House.”
“Campaigns do it to reach out to people who are not necessarily interested in politics but are interested in pop culture,” said Troy, a presidential historian who worked in the George W. Bush White House.
The events are like a larger version of a campaign yard sign, a way to show a “groundswell” of support behind a candidate – and a way to appeal to fans of the musicians, said Kasper, who has studied the intersection between pop culture and politics.
“It can create a kind of psychological connection that we otherwise might not have when a politician endorses a presidential candidate, for instance,” Kasper said.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Leslie Adler)
Concert plus campaign: Clinton turns to celebrities in homestretch added by Reuters on Sat, Oct 29th, 2016 | 0 |
These locations are never random. These targets aren’t accidental. They’re the very vocabulary in which assailants like the Orlando gunman speak, and he chose a place where there’s drinking. And dancing. And where L. G. B. T. people congregate, feeling a sense of welcome, of belonging. That last detail is already in the foreground of the deadliest mass shooting in American history — and rightly so. But let’s be clear: This was no more an attack just on L. G. B. T. people than the bloodshed at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris was an attack solely on satirists. Both were attacks on freedom itself. Both took aim at societies that, at their best, integrate and celebrate diverse points of view, diverse systems of belief, diverse ways to love. And to speak of either massacre more narrowly than that is to miss the greater message, the more pervasive danger and the truest stakes. We don’t yet know all that much about Omar Mateen, who pulled the trigger, again and again, in a nightclub whose name connotes life, not death: Pulse. We’ll be learning more in the hours and days to come, including just how potently homophobia in particular factored into his actions, how much ideological influence the Islamic State or other extremists had, how extensive his planning was, how far back he began plotting this, and how much he knew about Pulse itself and the specific composition of its crowd on different nights of the week. But we can assume — no, we can be sure — that he was lashing out at an America at odds with his darker, smaller, more oppressive . The people inside Pulse were citizens of it. More to the point, they were emblems of it. In Pulse they found a refuge. In Pulse they found joy. To him they deserved neither. And he communicated that with an assault rifle and bullets. The Islamic State and its ilk are brutal to gay people, whom they treat in unthinkable ways. They throw gay people from rooftops. The footage is posted online. It’s bloodcurdling, but it’s not unique. In countries throughout the world, to be gay is to be in mortal danger. To embrace love is to court death. That’s crucial context for what happened in Orlando, and Orlando is an understandable prompt for questions about our own degrees of inclusion and fairness and whether we do all that we should to keep L. G. B. T. people safe. We don’t. As Florida Gov. Rick Scott spoke publicly of his heartache on Sunday, I saw complaints on social media about his own lack of support for issues important to L. G. B. T. people. Those complaints have merit. But this isn’t a moment for identity politics, which could muddle the significance of the carnage. Yes, that carnage exposed the special vulnerability of L. G. B. T. Americans to violent extremists, recommending special levels of security. And there was a frightening coda to it on the opposite coast, in the Los Angeles area, where a man with an arsenal of weapons was arrested en route to gay pride festivities. But the threat isn’t only to L. G. B. T. Americans, as past acts of terror have shown and as everyone today must recognize. All Americans are under attack, and not exclusively because of whom we drink, dance or sleep with, but because of our bedrock belief that we should not be subservient to any one ideology or any one religion. That offends and inflames the zealots of the world. Often our politicians can’t find their voices. Sometimes their words are poignantly right. President Obama, speaking about the victims on Sunday afternoon, said: “The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub. It is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds and to advocate for their civil rights. So this is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country. ” And this was Eric Garcetti, the Los Angeles mayor, at a news conference: “Today we know that we are targeted as Americans, because this is a society where we love broadly and openly, because we have Jews and Christians and Muslims and atheists and Buddhists marching together, because we are white, black, brown, Asian, Native American. The whole spectrum and every hue and every culture is here. ” It was a perfect description of the country I love. And it was an equally perfect description of what the Orlando gunman couldn’t bear. | 1 |
British actor Hugh Laurie used his Golden Globes acceptance speech Sunday night to rip Republican lawmakers and Donald Trump. [“Thank you, this is obviously a terrible ” said Laurie, who won Best Supporting Actor in a TV Series, Limited Series or TV Movie, for his role in The Night Manager. “Thank you first of all to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for this amazing honor. Of course [it’s] more amazing because I’ll be able to say I won this at the last ever Golden Globes. ” “I don’t mean to be gloomy, it’s just that it has the words ‘Hollywood,’ ‘Foreign,’ and ‘Press’ in the title,” the actor continued. “I also think to some Republicans even the word ‘association’ is sketchy. ” Just before he left the stage, the House star took a veiled swipe at the . “I accept this award on behalf of psychopathic billionaires everywhere,” Laurie said. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson | 1 |
Monday on “Fox Friends,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said U. S. District Court Judge James Robart went “rogue” with his Friday ruling blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting travel from seven countries. Spicer said, “The law is very clear that the president has broad powers to keep this country safe and to limit access to people that could come into this country and do us harm. He utilized that power in a very legal, constitutional manner to ensure that we are safe, our people are safe, our country is safe, our institutions are safe. And it’s somewhat sad to see a judge go rogue like this. ” ( Politico) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
I don't think any different than I did before he was elected, he was a fraud before he was elected and he's still a fraud. One day when we once again live in a country where justice is blind and the rule of law prevails he as well as HRC will be prosecuted and thrown in prison. | 0 |
Andrew Korybko
There’s a lot of talk in the Balkans about what sort of a leader Trump will be and how his foreign policy will impact on the region. Although he was only just elected last week and still has over two months to go before officially coming to power, it’s already possible to make some predictions in attempting to answer those questions. Greeks In Government
The strongest indication yet about what Trump’s Balkan policy may look like comes from the appointment of Reince Priebus as his Chief of Staff. This prestigious and high-profile position will be occupied by a Greek Orthodox believer who was born to a Greek mother, so it can confidently be inferred that he has a strong sense of Greek identity which obviously plays to the Republic of Macedonia’s disadvantage vis-à-vis the name issue and other matters of mutual discord. The second factor playing in Greece’s favor is the fact that Stephen K. Bannon was appointed at the same time as Trump’s Chief Strategist. This is important because Bannon used to run the wildly successful alternative media outlet Breitbart just prior to taking on his mid-summer responsibilities as the CEO of Trump’s campaign. One of the most popular writers on the site is Milo Yiannopoulos, an outspoken homosexual of Greek descent and someone who is not at all expected to be friendly to Macedonia or its culture of conservative values. Given Breitbart’s closeness to the Trump Administration, writers such as Milo might exert a disproportionate influence on the President’s policy formulation. Soros And Macedonia
Neither Priebus, Bannon, nor Yiannopoulos are good for Macedonia, but on the other hand, the Trump team’s antipathy to Color Revolution financier George Soros is well known and could play to the country’s advantage. It’s too early to tell, but with Soros practically declaring war on Trump and reorienting his focus towards the US and away from other parts of the world (at least for now), there’s a chance that the NGO-driven Color Revolution tumult of approximately the last two years might finally be over for some time. It’s also possible that Trump and his “deep state” (the military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies) might even defeat Soros and remove him from power, thus rendering his networks null and void for some time.
In such a case, this wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of NGO-driven Hybrid War , but just that someone else might be tasked by the administration to replace him and take over his worldwide network. The visible change that this could produce would be that the message that future “Soros”-connected organizations propagate in trying to gain more regime change recruits could decisively shift from the “far left” to the “far right”, especially if Trump’s CIA realizes that it’s a lot more effective to use this sort of narrative in exploiting the palpable zeitgeist than stubbornly sticking with a discredited and proven failure from the past. It’s still too early to tell if this will happen or not, but the scenario isn’t improbable and should at the very least be countenanced by all Macedonians seeking to predict the course of American policy towards their country.
If one accounts for the influence that Greeks will have on the Trump Presidency and acknowledge that Soros might very well end up on the losing side in his War on Trump, then it’s possible to forecast that the new American leader probably won’t budge on the name issue, yet won’t be as predisposed to resort to the same type of asymmetrical aggressions against Macedonia as his predecessor did. In short, Trump would be more reasonable than Obama, though he would still lean towards Greece if forced to choose. This is very relevant in terms of the bigger Balkan picture because it’s likely that the businessman will engage in his trademark deal-making in trying to reach a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ with Russia over establishing spheres of influence, and there’s no way that the Balkans would be left out of this proposal. Spheres Of Influence The Greek Headquarters:
The US will never peacefully cede its prevailing influence over any of the NATO states, so nobody should get their hopes up that this will happen under Trump. Greece will probably be the center point of the new administration’s Balkan policy due to its energy significance with Balkan Stream, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, and the future potential that it has for transiting Israeli gas from the Eastern Mediterranean Leviathan field to the EU. Moreover, Greece is regularly at odds with Turkey due to the latter’s aggressive airspace violations in the eastern Aegean Sea, and the fierce opposition that all Greeks have to Turkish President Erdogan means that the country could become a useful base for covert destabilization operations against the multipolar-leaning leader who just barely survived a recent US coup against him. The ‘Coastal Balkans’ vs The ‘Balkan Bubble’:
As for the rest of the Balkans, it was already expressed that the US will never “hand over” any of the NATO states to Russia, so this essentially leaves just the non-NATO states as potentially falling under any prospective spheres of influence agreement with Russia. Therefore, only Bosnia, Serbia, and the Republic of Macedonia could conceivably play a part in this proposal. It’s not likely that the Croat-Muslim Federation part of Bosnia would agree to their entire country being aligned with Moscow, so it’s much more realistic that only Republika Srpska – which already enjoys close political-strategic relations with Russia – would be party to this tacit agreement. Serbia, too, would thus obviously be involved as well, as could the Republic of Macedonia, though the latter might once more find itself on the frontlines of competition seeing as how influential some Greeks are poised to become in the Trump Administration.
If one looks at it from a structural standpoint, it’s clear to see that the ‘Coastal Balkans’ would predictably come under the US’ influence, while Russia only stands to gain footing in the ‘Balkan Bubble’ of the Central Balkans, though importantly the most pivotal part of the region through which it and China’s megaprojects will pass. Balkan Stream could enter the Republic of Macedonia and thenceforth Serbia from Greece, which in this case would still give the US some degree of leverage over the project, but only up until the Greek-Macedonian border. Moreover, the Greek government has shown that it isn’t too loyal to anyone and just goes wherever the money is, so even with pro-Greek lobbyists in the Trump Administration, there’s no guarantee that Athens will agree to ‘cut its nose to spite its face’ in interfering with the Russian pipeline just for the sake of satisfying a few members of its American-based diaspora. Money talks, and Balkan Stream will be very profitable for the economically challenged country, so it probably won’t disrupt the project and sacrifice the billions of dollars of transit fees that it stands to gain from it. Macedonia In The Middle:
The Macedonian government, unlike its Greek counterpart, has consistently proven itself to be a reliable partner and does not have a history of waffling between foreign patrons for the sake of pecuniary interests. Whether it’s in building strong relations with its existing Western partners or exploring deeper avenues of cooperation with its newer Russian and Chinese ones, nothing negative is really expected to change no matter whose sphere of influence Macedonia ultimately falls under. However, due to the tumultuous regime change attempts of the past couple of years which were sponsored and engineered by the US and a few other Western countries, there’s a reasonable chance that Macedonia might responsibly ‘hedge its bets’ by moving closer to the East in response, especially when bearing in mind that the West has constantly rejected its EU and NATO applications by strongly siding with Greece in the unresolved naming dispute. In fact, by virtue of Macedonia not being in either of these two organizations, it would automatically be more likely to enter into the Russian/multipolar sphere of influence if Trump is able to clinch a related agreement with Putin. Serbia And Republika Srpska:
As for Serbia, the country’s people are overwhelmingly favorable towards Russia in spite of the Vucic government’s innate pro-Western orientation and clumsy façade of “geopolitical balancing”. Nevertheless, once more the “Balkan Bubble” of non-EU and non-NATO states comes into relevance and thus plays to Russia’s favor, increasing the probability that this country will also be “safely allowed” by the US to embrace Moscow just a little bit more substantially than it is now. That being said, Vucic isn’t a trustworthy or reliable partner , so instead of taking advantage of this just like how Macedonia and Republika Srpska will expectedly do by enhancing full-spectrum relations with Russia, the Serbian leader might just blow the opportunity by stubbornly sticking to his “geopolitical balancing” ruse in making symbolic gestures towards Russia while still deepening his country’s substantial partnerships with the West. In this sense, Republika Srpska’s President Dodik could be a better representation of the Serbian people’s will than the Prime Minister of Serbia proper is, since this subnational leader is more likely to take advantage of being part of any future Russian sphere of influence that Vucic is. Popping The ‘Balkan Bubble’
For as much of a win-win agreement as the enumerated spheres of interest proposal could be, there’s a lot that could go wrong in popping Russia’s ‘Balkan Bubble’, not least of which is the fact that it might not even happen at all if Trump isn’t able to replace and/or co-opt some of the neoconservatives embedded in the American “deep state”. Assuming that he’s able to do so to a workable extent whereby he’s empowered to carry through on his projected spheres of influence plan, then there’s always the chance that the US might just backstab Russia by activating the same geostrategic ticking time bombs that have threatened the Balkans for the past couple of years, such as a resumption of civil hostilities in Bosnia and a return to Albanian terrorism against Serbia and Macedonia.
Worse still, Trump might not even know about these or be able to fully stop them if they’re orchestrated by rogue neoconservative elements which were ‘cleansed’/’purged’ from the “deep state” and have ordered their loyal international contacts to take revenge by sabotaging the Trump-Putin ‘gentleman’s agreement’ over spheres of influence in Europe. Soros and his sympathizers could also do something similar, especially since the billionaire will probably fall out of favor with the US government during Trump’s term and might be motivated to partake in similar geopolitical vengefulness. Of course, Trump might also just be bluffing with Putin and trying to reach an agreement in order to buy time before preparing a ‘final strike’ against the last vestiges of multipolarity in the continent, but that doesn’t seem too probable since he’s more of a level-headed and stable businessman than a risky “deep state” gambler like Obama is. Concluding Thoughts
Trump has a track record of reaching deals and keeping his word, and given the positive chemistry that he’s already displayed towards Putin following their first-ever phone conversation with one another, observers can expect that the President-elect would probably stay true to any future promises that he makes to his Russian counterpart and consequently abide by any ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that he reaches over establishing a stable sphere of influence between them in ushering in a period of New Cold War Détente. While the proposed delineation might suggest that Russia doesn’t have anything to gain from the ‘Balkan Bubble’, such a conclusion would be both naïve and premature, since Moscow does in fact have a lot of geostrategic interests in the Central Balkans which it wants to use as the basis for building full-spectrum and robust partnerships with its members.
Should the predicted period of Détente last, then there’s nothing standing in the way of Russia or any of its forecasted partners reaching these sorts of mutually beneficial partnerships since the US would be disinclined to object to them so long as it keeps its word in respecting the Trump-Putin deal. This can’t be fully guaranteed no matter how convincingly it appears that it would last, but it would at the very least provide a valuable window of opportunity for both sides to intensify their relations. What’s ultimately most important is that Trump takes the US’ eyes off of the Balkans and stops trying to destabilize them like Obama did, since this could buy enough time for China’s Balkan Silk Road high-speed rail project to be constructed and thus open up an invigorating multipolar economic corridor between the Central European capital of Budapest and the Mediterranean port of Piraeus by means of the ‘Balkan Bubble’ states of Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia.
Russia should by that time have made itself comfortable in the ‘Balkan Bubble’ and could thus diversify its existing infrastructural and energy investments by expanding them into more of the real-sector economy, building off of the advantages that the Balkan Silk Road will provide in dramatically facilitating the logistical ease of conducting commercial business in the region. It might be optimistic to hope for so early at this point and two months before Trump even formally enters into power, but there’s a very real chance that the consummate outsider will indeed shake up the neoconservative-led and Soros-influenced US foreign policy establishment and carry through on his promises to normalize relations with Russia and repair some of the global destabilization wrought by the Obama years.
This in turn could only work out to the Balkans’ benefit, especially if the man who wrote “The Art Of The Deal” practices what he preached and reaches a monumental one with Putin to decide upon a stable sphere of influence in the region, though there’s still a lot that can go wrong to prevent this from happening or sabotage it if it proves to be “too successful”.
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PARIS — The policeman in the photo is nattily attired and appears to have a slight smirk as he writes out a ticket for the woman standing before him awkwardly in her offending swimwear perhaps he enjoys making her feel uncomfortable. No, she is not wearing a burkini. The photo dates from 1957. The woman is wearing a bikini on the beach at Rimini on Italy’s Adriatic coast. At the time, Italy prohibited the revealing bathing suit it was too immodest to be worn in public. In the midst of France’s fight over banning the burkini, the bikini is celebrating its 70th anniversary, and photographs chronicling its debut and early history in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s are on display in one of Paris’s chic galleries, prompting parallels to the uproar over the burkini today. What is it about women’s swimwear and more generally women’s attire that over and over in history has attracted controversy and impelled societies to legislate or regulate women’s choices? Historians, sociologists and anthropologists have argued about it for decades, but the seemingly simplistic statement that women’s bodies are a battleground has some truth to it. Formally or informally, men (primarily) have been making rules about women’s attire for a very long time. “Can’t we decide what we want to wear in 2016?” wondered Sarah Fekih, 23, from Lyon, France, in a comment she wrote to The New York Times. “If one wishes to dress skimpily or to be almost nude or to be covered from head to toe, isn’t that a personal choice that can not be dictated by law?” Of course, the burkini debate is not only about feminism. It is foremost a debate about the visibility and presence of Islam in France, and it comes in the context of the most recent act of terror to traumatize the country, this one in Nice, on the Mediterranean coast. On July 14, a man drove a cargo truck into crowds of people there, killing 86 and wounding 300. The Islamic State later called him one of its “soldiers. ” Less than a month later, the first of at least 30 bans on “inappropriate” clothing on beaches — meant to target Muslim attire — was enacted in Cannes, about 20 miles from Nice. Although France’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, struck down one town’s burkini ban on Friday — and clearly would do the same for other towns if lawsuits were brought — the fight is far from over. The Parliament could enact a ban, and some of France’s 2017 presidential candidates on the right and far right have pledged to enact measures that run from banning the Muslim veil in universities and businesses to banning almost all religious attire in public. As the debate continues, much that is important will be said about France and racism and Islam, but it is worth pondering that it is women’s clothes that are at issue. Throughout history, a combination of legislation, local regulation and social pressure has influenced the way women have dressed — corsets and décolleté, hoop skirts and bustles, the controversial advent of pants. France is now a society demanding that women undress, but in many ways this debate is part of the same narrative. In the case of both the bikini and the burkini, “people in positions of power say, ‘We’re putting these rules in place for the woman’s good,’” said Deirdre Clemente, a history professor at the University of Nevada who has studied dress codes for women. “The implication is that women are unable to regulate their appearance themselves. ” As recently as the 1980s, a number of large American corporations had extensive dress codes for women. “There would be four pages on what a woman could wear to work, and four sentences for men,” Professor Clemente said. When it came to the bikini, not only was it forbidden in some countries, with women forced to pay fines and leave many beaches if they wore one. It was also seen as subversive and a sign of moral weakness. Italy, Spain and some beaches on the Atlantic coast of France prohibited wearing the swimsuit in the first few years after it went on the market, said Ghislaine Rayer, a of “Bikini: La Légende,” a history of the . That prohibition resonates in today’s burkini debate, said Hanane Karimi, a graduate student of sociology at the University of Strasbourg. She is the leader of a feminist Muslim collective that wants mosques in France to make more space for women at prayers and to be more respectful of their involvement in religious affairs. “In some countries that had strong religiosity, like Italy, controlling women’s bodies was a part of the country’s religious morality today in France there is a civil religion of secularity,” she said. “And it has the exact same logic in respect to the control of women’s bodies: Those women who adhere to that secular morality are undressed on the beaches nothing is hidden. ” Today the French seem to believe as strongly that such undress is mandatory as Italy, under the Vatican’s influence, felt it was necessary to hide women’s bodies, she added. It was not always that way. When the designer of the first bikini, Louis Réard, coined the name (a play on the tiny atoll of Bikini, where the United States had just tested the atomic bomb) and showed his new swimsuit at the Molitor Pool in Paris on July 5, 1946, he could not find models willing to wear it. So he hired from the Paris Casino. “It was it was ahead of its time,” said Ms. Rayer, the of the book on the bikini’s history. “In that epoch, we were still puritan. ” Although the bikini quickly became popular in movies, it took more than 15 years, and longer in many places, to enter the fashion mainstream. France embraced it ahead of several other countries and eventually even allowed women to sunbathe or swim topless. Joan Wallach Scott, a social scientist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, sees France’s approbation of revealing swimwear, as well as the current burkini bans, as products of ideas going back to the French Revolution of 1789. “What you have in French republicanism is a conflict between a commitment to equality and the notion that sexual difference is a natural difference which explains why there can’t be equality between women and men,” she said. The French believe it is necessary to show the difference between men and women physically even while proclaiming their equality, Ms. Scott said. The painter Eugène Delacroix depicted “Liberty” as a woman leading the righteous French. Sculptures and reliefs of a or Marianne, a French symbol of the revolution and liberty, can still be found on government documents, buildings and postal stamps. The very depiction of women reflects how the sexes differ. “Then on the other side you have Muslim society saying that sex and sexual difference is a problem, and women, whether submitting or not, are covered. So in a sense they are exposing the contradiction in French society, and that’s intolerable,” Ms. Scott said. “It becomes a commentary on the French need to have women uncovered. ” Indeed, the deputy mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, who is a political power broker on the Côte d’Azur, has repeatedly referred to the covering of women on the beach — whether in a burkini or a large pants and hijab — as a “provocation,” suggesting a challenge to the French order. Such language mystifies one of the burkini’s designers, who sells her pieces in France. Vanessa Lourenço, the designer, said she had started creating them to give Muslim women a chance to participate in the same activities as the rest of the community. She loves to swim herself, she said, so seeing religious Muslims or other people not go swimming “struck me as unacceptable. ” Ms. Lourenço, whose internet business sells swimwear in 120 countries, is not Muslim, and people often ask her why she designs for Muslim women. “My answer is simple: At the end of the day women are women, whether Muslim or not, and we all want to be comfortable, look beautiful and feel feminine,” she said. “Most of our clients message us saying it is the first time that they were confident enough to be at a public beach enjoying themselves with their family. ” | 1 |
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November 14, 2016 ‘Communication within this company just infuriates me,’ said insufferable manager Steven Parker, after tweeting the same remark to his 3 online followers. ‘The silo mentality is toxic and we need to break down organisational barriers so that fundamental knowledge is shared. This firm is a breeding ground for interdepartmental turf wars, and we must implement some basic cross-functional solutions’.
Steven continued shouting quite loudly at every available opportunity about a matter of negligible significance – a chain email entitled: ‘Stationery cupboard low on blue pens’.
Mr. Parker runs his own family business and that his 2 support staff, wife Jenny and daughter Emma, completely despise him. jonessgl | 0 |
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No matter how the poll questions are asked, a clear majority of Americans support President Donald Trump’s January reform of the nation’s refugee policies, says a large new survey of 22, 000 people. [“Overall, 54 percent of registered voters approved of the [Jan. 25 refugee] executive order and 40 percent disapproved … Six percent did not have an opinion either way,” according to the February survey by Morning Consult. The survey asked slightly different questions to subgroups within the huge survey. But public opinion barely budged when different terms were used, Morning Consult said, There was no difference in results when respondents saw the word banning (53 approve, 40 disapprove) versus blocking (54 approve, 40 disapprove). Nor was there a difference in responses when with no time limit (54 approve, 40 disapprove) the word ‘temporary’ (53 approve, 41 disapprove) or the phrase “for 90 days” (54 approve, 40 disapprove) is used. judges in California have blocked parts of Trump’s order, which temporarily barred inflow of refugees from seven Muslim countries, halved the annual inflow of refugees to 55, 000 and declared formal opposition to the acceptance of immigrants who have “hostile attitudes. ” Trump is expected to sign a new order in the next few days to evade the judicial ban. Islamic groups and progressives oppose what they describe as Trump’s “Muslim ban” or his “travel ban,” but Trump is expected to sign a new order in the next few days to evade the judicial ban. The policy is strongly supported by Trump’s base, the survey showed. Approval was 20 percentage points higher among seniors (58 percent) than among adults under 30 years old (39 percent). Republicans (85 percent) were three times as likely to approve as Democrats (29 percent) and men (59 percent) were 10 percentage points more likely to approve than women (49 percent). The largest differences in responses came when the pollsters changed how the migrants were described: Support for the ban is 4 percentage points higher, 55 percent approve vs. 51 percent approve, when the population is described as “people” rather than “people, including U. S. lawful permanent residents and visa holders originally. The survey showed overall strong approval of 34 percent and strong opposition of 30 percent. Somewhat approval was 19 percent and somewhat disapproval was 11 percent, with 6 percent declining to pick a side. Multiple other polls show broad and stable public support for the president’s policy, despite lopsided opposition among Democrats, progressives and media outlets. | 1 |
About 25% of the Fighters Are Foreigners by Jason Ditz, November 04, 2016 Share This
A new report being circulated by the United Nations reveals a growing number of opposition fighters in Afghanistan, some 15 years after the initial US-led invasion and occupation of the country, with the most recent estimates suggesting about 45,000 opposition fighters present in the country .
While these figures are generally dominated by the Taliban insurgency, it also includes a significant ISIS affiliate in the country, along with al-Qaeda supporters and others simply described by the UN as “bad actors.” An estimated 20-25% of the fighters are foreigners.
The opposition fighter figure is never exactly a clear number, but the trend has definitely been toward growth , with NATO estimates of 25,000 to 30,000 in 2010 growing to 35,000 by mid-2012. The foreign fighters in the country are a significant factor, including a large number of Pakistanis and Uzbeks.
This growth is in spite of ever-increasing efforts to control the Afghan-Pakistan border, as well as claims of massive death tolls by the Afghan government in attacks against both Taliban and ISIS forces.
The increase in opposition fighters makes sense, however, in the context of the growing percentage of the country under opposition control, with recent reports suggesting that only 63.4% of Afghanistan can rightly be called under control anymore. Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz | 0 |
Officers with U. S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized drugs worth more than $7, 200, 000 on one day at the Port of Nogales in Nogales, Arizona. Nogales shares a border with Sonora, Mexico, and is Arizona’s largest border city. [On Saturday afternoon, a drug detection officer alerted on a tractor trailer carrying bell peppers at the Mariposa Commercial Facility. CBP officers took the produce off of the tractor and discovered that the Mexican driver had 13, 700 pounds of marijuana hidden in the produce. The drugs have an estimated street value of $6. 85 million. Officers at the Dennis DeConcini Crossing also busted a Mexican man. His vehicle was referred to be inspected when he reached the border crossing. A CBP canine alerted on the Ford SUV, and officers found more than 34 pounds of cocaine hidden in the back seats. Officials estimate the value of the drug at almost $386, 000. Officers seized the vehicles used to transport the contraband along with the drugs. Officers arrested the suspected drug smugglers turned them over to special agents from U. S. Immigration and Custom’s Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations. Nogales provides ports of entry for vehicular, pedestrian, and airport traffic. In April, Breitbart Texas reported that border officials arrested a Mexican woman after she was found to be carrying the highly dangerous drug, fentanyl, in a baby stroller that was also carrying two small children. CBP officers at the Nogales Port of Entry observed the woman crossing the pedestrian lanes. They directed her to a secondary inspection station where a officer alerted to the possible presence of drugs in the stroller. “Fentanyl can kill you,” DEA Deputy Administrator Jack Riley advised in a statement sent to law enforcement officers in 2015. “Fentanyl is being sold as heroin in virtually every corner of our country. It’s produced clandestinely in Mexico, and (also) comes directly from China. It is 40 to 50 times stronger than heroin. A very small amount ingested, or absorbed through your skin, can kill you,” he said. Breitbart Texas reported in late January that a previously deported Italian mobster was caught trying to sneak into the country through Nogales. Salvatore Marciante had been previously deported after serving time in federal prison for drug trafficking and violent assaults. The Italian drug Mafia mobster had been a permanent legal resident living in New York until he was convicted in 1995 and lost his legal status. After he had served time, officials deported him back to Italy. 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. | 1 |
POWERFUL VIDEO : Father of Kayla Mueller who was Brutally Raped and Murdered by ISIS, Endorses Donald Trump POWERFUL VIDEO : Father of Kayla Mueller who was Brutally Raped and Murdered by ISIS, Endorses Donald Trump Videos By Amy Moreno November 1, 2016
The Father of Kayla Mueller, the 26-year-old foreign-aide worker who was captured, tortured, and killed by ISIS gave a powerful speech at Donald Trump’s Arizona rally.
He told the story of his daughter and how the Obama government lied to them, and let them down, and ultimately BLOCKED them from saving their daughter.
Karl Mueller says it’s time for a change.
He endorses Donald Trump. This is a movement – we are the political OUTSIDERS fighting against the FAILED GLOBAL ESTABLISHMENT! Join the resistance and help us fight to put America First! Amy Moreno is a Published Author , Pug Lover & Game of Thrones Nerd. You can follow her on Twitter here and Facebook here . Support the Trump Movement and help us fight Liberal Media Bias. Please LIKE and SHARE this story on Facebook or Twitter. | 0 |
Brenda Barnes, a corporate chief executive whose decision to leave her top job at sparked a national debate about women juggling career and family, died on Tuesday in Naperville, Ill. She was 63. Her daughter, Erin Barnes, said the cause was complications of a stroke. The elder Ms. Barnes had had a stroke in 2010, after which she gave up her corporate career entirely. Ms. Barnes had been chief executive of North America for a year and a half when she decided in 1997 to step down, saying that after two decades of grueling hours away from home she wanted to spend time with her three children, ages 10, 8 and 7. She was 43 at the time and overseeing PepsiCo’s chief profit engine, based in Somers, N. Y. making her one of the most recognized women in corporate America. She resisted the entreaties of her peers to remain at the company, explaining that she had had her fill of days and nights away from her children. “I hope people can look at my decision not as ‘women can’t do it’ but ‘for 22 years Brenda gave her all and did a lot of great things,’” Ms. Barnes told The Wall Street Journal at the time. “I don’t think there’s any man who doesn’t have the same struggle. Hopefully, one day corporate America can battle this. ” Her choice and the blunt language she used to describe the many burdens executive women had to shoulder elicited sharp reactions. Supporters hailed her decision to put family first. Detractors argued that her retreat from such a lofty post was a defeat for women fighting to be considered men’s equals in the boardroom. The debate raged on television talk shows in the United States and in tabloid newspapers in London — much to the surprise of Ms. Barnes, who had never seen herself as a public figure pushing a cause. A private woman by disposition (her nickname growing up outside Chicago was Bashful) Ms. Barnes weathered the public outcry and returned to Illinois with her family, settling in Naperville, about 33 miles west of Chicago. She did not fully retire from corporate life, however. She became a company director, joining the boards of The New York Times (from 1998 to 2008) Avon, Lucasfilm, Sears and Staples. In 2004, with her children in high school, Ms. Barnes accepted an offer to be a top executive at Sara Lee, the food conglomerate based in Chicago. She was soon named chairwoman and chief executive — becoming one of the few women to run a major American corporation — and given a mandate to revive Sara Lee’s sinking fortunes. Ms. Barnes presided over a broad corporate restructuring, selling off noncore businesses and focusing on the company’s food brands. But the overhaul did not spur a profit recovery, and Sara Lee’s stock price remained stagnant for much of her time there. Ms. Barnes’s stroke in 2010 came in May while she was lifting weights at a local gym. It left her incapable of simple motor activities. Three months later, at 56 and after a tough rehabilitation period, she stepped down permanently from Sara Lee. She did not return to corporate life again. Brenda Jo Czajka, a granddaughter of Polish immigrants, was born on Nov. 11, 1953, in Chicago and grew up in River Grove, Ill. a gritty suburb northwest of the city. Her father was a pipe fitter at International Harvester, the agricultural manufacturer her mother stayed home to look after Brenda and her six sisters. Ms. Barnes began working at 15, helping out at a neighborhood flower shop for $1. 25 per hour. (As chief executive of Sara Lee, she earned as much as $15 million a year.) She graduated from Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill. in 1975 with a major in economics. After stints waiting on tables and sorting mail, she landed a job in the back office of Wilson Sporting Goods in Chicago in 1976. Wilson was part of the Pepsi conglomerate at the time, and Ms. Barnes began to climb the corporate ladder rapidly while working toward her master’s degree in business at Loyola University Chicago, receiving it in 1980. She then moved to a senior job marketing salty snacks at Pepsi’s division in Dallas. Also in 1980, she married Randall Barnes, a top executive at the company. The marriage ended in divorce. Besides her daughter, Ms. Barnes is survived by two sons, Jeff and Brian her partner, Sal Barrutia and five sisters, Linda Stebbins, Donna Williams, Rhonda Thompson, Laurna Czajka and Trina Baker. Another sister, Andra, died before her. In more than 20 years with Pepsi, Ms. Barnes rose from one top job to another, moving from marketing positions to broader management roles until she was named to run the company’s giant beverage business in North America in 1996. She gained a reputation for being adept at connecting with workers on the factory floor and for wooing her peers in the boardroom. But the hours were brutal. She often set her alarm for 3:30 a. m. she said, so she could catch up with work at home before rousing the children for school. “There were two things in my life, kids and job,” Ms. Barnes told The Christian Science Monitor. “Exercise? Golf? Sleep? None of that. ” | 1 |
Did the Clinton Foundation Personally Enrich Barack and Michelle Obama? Did the Clinton Foundation Personally Enrich Barack and Michelle Obama?
By Judi McLeod
Did the pay-for-play Clinton Foundation personally enrich Barack and Michelle Obama?
A question well worth thinking about because the corruption of Hillary Clinton is the horse that bolted out of the barn on the watch of Community Organizer President Barack Obama.
In her own words, Hillary Clinton went from “being broke” in 2001 to a net worth of $350 million and still counting in 2016.
oo many forget that Clinton enriched personal friends and foreign powers while she would be under scant suspicion as Obama’s chosen Secretary of State. It is vital to ask before Tuesday were Barack and Michelle two of the friends enriched by the corruption that flowed from the Clinton Foundation?
During the time of Hillary Clinton’s corruption at work, Obama did not just keep looking the other way, he actually corresponded with Clinton on her private basement server under a fake name of.
How like him to operate under a fake name as that’s what he’s been doing since 2008!
Where’s the forensic investigation to tell us how much money has been siphoned off to the bank accounts of Barack and Michelle Obama through the Clinton Foundation?
Standing in for the MIA mainstream media, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is asking the questions the voting public need need answered:
“Have the Clintons been selling United States foreign policy?
“Have the Clintons been engaging in pay for play? Meaning: You pay them and they’ll play ball with you by giving you policy considerations or what have you.” Have the Clintons been selling United States foreign policy? Engaging in pay for play?
“There is little doubt in the layman’s world that that has been going on. Proving it is quite another matter, but there’s little doubt, especially in the political world. There’s no doubt in my mind that that’s what’s been going on and that’s why she set up the server in the first place. The entire reason for the server in her basement was not because she wanted privacy per se. It’s not because she wanted convenience. It’s not because she didn’t want to go to the hassle of having a StateDepartment.gov email address. It’s not because she didn’t trust people. ( Rush Limbaugh Nov. 3, 2016)
“The reason she set up the server in her basement was specific, and it was to be able to conduct business for the foundation and keep those emails from ever being seen by anybody, including Freedom of Information Act requests. And what the Clintons have been doing via their foundation is where the real criminality is. There’s negligence and intent over on the email server side with classified data being trafficked and so forth. But over here at the foundation, that is where the Clintons have been engaging…”
There can be little doubt that Obama’s a valued player of the Bill, Hillary, Huma and Anthony Weiner baseball team.
Indeed we can see for ourselves that the Obamas are proud of what Hillary has done in the shocking and revolting pay-for-play game. Both president and First Lady have been out on the campaign trail telling Americans Hillary’s the ONLY option for president.
In praising his former Secretary of State, Obama has been telling outright lies, including the whopper that “the fate of the world is teetering” because of Donald J. Trump.
“The fate of the world is teetering” because Obama seeks to kill off all life for Western society.
How conniving Obama is in his ‘Elect Hillary’ stumping:
“You know what? She’s not flashy. She’s not going around spending all the time giving big stemwinders. And as a consequence, sometimes she’s underappreciated here at home,” he said. “But she made me a better president,” Obama told an audience of university students in Chapel Hill, N.C.
“Obama became most animated, and spent the most time, on the topic of Trump – a person he views as an existential threat to not only his legacy, but the world.
“I am not on the ballot. But I tell you what, fairness is on the ballot, decency is on the ballot, justice is on the ballot, progress is on the ballot,” he warned, his voice noticeably rising. “Our democracy’s on the ballot right now!” Clinton didn’t make Obama a better president but most likely only a richer one
Clinton didn’t make Obama a better president but most likely only a richer one.
Obama IS “On the ballot” because he’s going for a third term through the election of the country’s biggest liar.
Civil unrest is being planned by community organizers everywhere should Donald Trump be elected, and the draining of the swamp will be epic.
“For unto whomsoever much is given , of him shall be much required ,” reads Luke 12:48 in the King James Version of the Bible.
Trump’s first job should be return the White House, now a den of inequity, to the people. America needs a White House that belongs—not to the perps but to the people.
When global masters inflicted the community organizer president on the world back in 2008, it did not include a right to dictate who would follow him as president.
Today’s the last ‘Friday Dump’ until after election and millions wait for the other shoe to drop.
No matter what today’s dump brings, millions who want a better America will survive it and go on to fight the Obama-Clinton cabal to the finish.
God help us all because the devil is now running as freely in the White House as he is at the Vatican.
H/T – CanadaFreePress
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Qatar has asked Hamas to stop any actions that make the Gulf state look like a nation that provides a safe haven for the group’s terrorist activities, a senior official in Hamas told Breitbart Jerusalem. [According to the official, Qatar’s request included a demand to cease all activity in the country that is meant to harm Israel’s security. The request was detailed, said the source, and added that Hamas must desist from initiating any activity that will produce attacks. The Qatari request joins a similar one from Turkey that was made several months ago as part of that country’s rapprochement deal with Israel. As a result, a Hamas official and member of the organization’s politburo, Salah Alarouri, who Israel has accused of funding and directing attacks against Israeli targets, left Turkey. Hamas released an official statement denying that Qatar gave the organization a list of officials and other Hamas members who should be expelled from the country. The source in Hamas confirmed the denial and said that the request was reduced only to stopping actions that would lead to attacks against Israel. “We understand the Qatari request,” said the source. “Qatar is asking that Hamas not become a stimulant for external pressure at an hour when Qatar’s enemies are trying to accuse her of supporting and funding terrorist actions and that she is a political patron of the Muslim Brotherhood. ” The source said the request was received during a meeting between official Qatari representatives and Hamas’ leadership in Qatar. According to the source, Hamas’ response was affirmative: “We told our brothers in Qatar that we never initiated actions against the occupation from Qatari territory and that our actions against the occupation are carried out only in the land of Palestine and accusations that members and leaders of Hamas abroad are involved in the creation and initiation of military infrastructure are lies. We respect the sovereignty of every country in the world, and of course the countries that host us. ” On Saturday, the Lebanese Almayadeen television station associated with Iran and Hezbollah reported that Qatar gave Hamas a list of its leaders and other members that should leave the country. According to the report, the main names on the Qatari list include senior figures in the organization living in Qatar and those responsible for coordination with members and officials of the organization in the West Bank. According to the report, the list was preliminary and the goal of Qatar’s request was to shore up U. S. support for Qatar in case of an escalation in the crisis between Qatar and Saudi Arabia and the Qatari fear that Saudi Arabia will support a coup in Qatar against the current leader, Sheikh Tamim Althani. | 1 |
When Mayte Lara Ibarra, the valedictorian of her high school’s graduating class, revealed her plans to attend the University of Texas at Austin on a scholarship, she did what any graduate would do: She shared her excitement on social media. Ms. Lara also declared, proudly, that she is undocumented. “Valedictorian, 4. 5GPA, full tuition paid for at UT, 13 nice legs, oh and I’m undocumented,” she wrote in a tweet posted last week, hours after she gave her valedictory speech to fellow graduates at David Crockett High School in Austin. In an era where the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, has vowed to build a wall to keep out undocumented immigrants and many Latinos are rushing to seek citizenship to vote against him, others are finding ways to raise their voices or step out of the shadows. Ms. Lara, whose path to the United States was not immediately clear and who didn’t mention her undocumented status in her speech, chose instead to talk about AP tests, proms and pep rallies. But on the same day, a few hours north in McKinney, Tex. another valedictorian, Larissa Martinez, did. Speaking to her class, Ms. Martinez, who says she’s headed to Yale, declared that she is undocumented, and indirectly addressed sentiments voiced by Mr. Trump. According to the website Mic, she crossed the border in 2010 from Mexico with her mother and sister. “America can be great again without the construction of a wall built on hatred and prejudice,” said Ms. Martinez, according to WFAA, a local ABC affiliate. She told the station that she had a full scholarship to Yale with plans to study medicine. But some observers saw the students’ decision to express pride in being undocumented as an affront, and criticized them on social media. In Ms. Lara’s case, the outrage over her tweet led her to delete her Twitter account. One critic, Hillary Shay Davis, who has a daughter who graduated with Ms. Lara, said she believed that the teenager was proud of “taking advantage of the system. ” “I have never thought about deporting a child who graduated from a U. S. high school and fought against the odds to be successful. Until this moment,” Ms. Davis wrote on Facebook. She added, “Something else that I have NEVER thought I would support until this moment is Trump and #buildthatwall. ” Versions of this sentiment echoed throughout social media. Ms. Lara is departing the Austin Independent School District, where 58 percent of students are Hispanic, and entering a college system where Hispanic students are the share of the population. The University of Texas also offers support services for undocumented students. Gary Susswein, a spokesman for the University of Texas, said that federal law prevented him from discussing the cases of individual students, but he offered a statement that said that the university grants tuition waivers to all valedictorians of Texas public high schools regardless of their residency status. “State law also does not distinguish between documented and undocumented graduates of Texas high schools in admissions and financial aid decisions,” the statement said. “University policies reflect that law. ” Jose Antonio Vargas, the Pulitzer journalist and immigration activist who revealed that he is undocumented in The New York Times Magazine in 2011, said that gestures like Ms. Lara’s were part of a larger effort on behalf of undocumented people to be open and upfront about their status. “Being undocumented is part of her identity, as is being a Latina,” he said Thursday. He added, “For many undocumented people, this is our way of telling people that we are not who people think we are. ” Define American, a project Mr. Vargas started in 2011, holds events and online campaigns where people can share their immigration status, an effort, he said, that was meant to shape the conversation around immigration “so it’s a more ‘human’ one. ” Although people have been using Twitter and YouTube to make their immigration status public for years, Mr. Vargas said he thought the criticism of Ms. Martinez and Ms. Lara was coming at a tense time in the election cycle. In the case of Ms. Lara, he said that people were circulating misinformation, and he referred to the state law granting the waivers to valedictorians. “This young woman is not taking somebody else’s spot,” he said of the waivers. “She’s not getting special treatment. She is getting that because she graduated as valedictorian, and that’s how it is in Texas. ” | 1 |
The clock has started for one of the most eagerly awaited market debuts of 2017: that of Snapchat, the popular messaging service. The social network’s parent, Snap Inc. has filed confidentially to go public, with an eye toward being valued at more than $30 billion, people briefed on the matter said Tuesday. That would make Snap the technology company at the time of its market debut, after Alibaba and Facebook. The company is aiming to begin having its shares traded as soon as March, though the final timing for an offering has not been determined. The confidential filing, made with the Securities and Exchange Commission before the presidential election last week, comes amid a relative drought in the market for initial public offerings. There have been 96 offerings of companies with a market value of more than $50 million in the United States so far this year, down 41 percent from 2015, according to data from Renaissance Capital. A successful debut of Snap could help revive that market, encouraging other technology companies to go public. It would be the first “unicorn” — Silicon Valley lingo for private companies valued at $1 billion or more — to go public next year. Unlike Uber, Airbnb or the lender SoFi, however, Snap has a main business that is not subject to a web of government regulations that make a public listing complicated. A Snap share sale is also expected to eschew the complexities of previous technology initial public offerings like Google’s in 2004. Still, like Google, Facebook and other tech companies, Snap’s recently amended corporate charter shows that a different class of stock would enable its top executives, including its Evan Spiegel, to maintain control even after the service is publicly traded. Yet Snap will encounter intense scrutiny from potential investors, as rivals try to encroach on its turf by copying some of the photo messaging service’s signature features. In August, Facebook’s Instagram rolled out its version of the Snapchat Stories photo and video service. A spokesman for Snap declined to comment on the filing, which was reported earlier by Reuters. Founded in a Stanford University dorm room in 2011, Snapchat has become a darling of the tech world, as it has grown from a simple service into a digital video phenomenon. Its lofty goal is to essentially become the online generation’s equivalent to television. It has built up its popular Stories service, in which users upload photos or videos and share them with followers. And it gained new levels of popularity after rolling out features like lenses, which lets users transform their likenesses into cartoon dogs, silly faces — or Taco Bell tacos, paid for by sponsors. Such has been the popularity of Snapchat that media organizations have rushed to establish beachheads on the service. Even the White House has set up a Snapchat account, and President Obama has given an interview on the company’s political show. Analysts have estimated that Snap, which began its advertising business less than two years ago, could reach $1 billion in sales next year, up from more than $350 million this year. Snap’s financial information will be known when its offering filing is publicly disclosed — if the company decides to go ahead with a sale of its shares. The confidentiality of Snap’s filing was made possible by the Jumpstart Our Business . or JOBS, Act of 2012, which permits companies with less than $1 billion in revenue to conduct much of their preparation for an I. P. O. away from the glare of public scrutiny. Twitter, GoPro, Box and even the English soccer club Manchester United have filed confidentially for stock listings in the United States in this way. Under the law, companies must publicly disclose their offering documents some 15 days before they start pitching the proposed share offering to prospective investors in what is known as a “road show. ” The investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have been hired to lead the offering, people briefed on the matter have previously said. Unlike some private companies, Snap has had no trouble raising money on the private markets, so investors were not given preferential treatment regarding how many shares they will get in the event of a public offering, according to corporate documents filed in Delaware. This sets Snap apart from offerings from Square and Box. Both of those companies had to give some of their private investors special deals that diluted other early shareholders. When Square went public last November, some investors received an additional 10. 3 million shares, which came at the expense of other investors. Similarly, when Box went public in 2014, some of the company’s earlier private investors were entitled to extra shares. “Snapchat will certainly be an indicator of whether there is a big pile of investor cash ready to go into the market,” said Doug Bontemps, Silicon Valley Bank’s managing director of corporate finance. “But Snapchat is unique. It’s growing quickly, is doing some interesting things with glasses and has gotten a lot of attention. There aren’t a lot of that ilk. ” | 1 |
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In a usual twist of events, Nurse Betty Sue has prevented yet another resident from killing an unsuspecting patient.
Late in the evening, Nurse Betty Sue noticed that resident Dr. Jen Willis had ordered 100 times the usual dose of potassium via IV push which would surely result in the death of her dear patient.
Panicked, Betty Sue paged the resident but received no response. Knowing this was a fairly urgent matter, she waited 20 minutes and paged the doctor again. And after another 20 minutes, a third time.
Frustrated and concerned, she picked up the phone and called the resident knowing she would be very annoyed at best. But the doctor was not available by phone either. After some astute investigating, Betty Sue eventually found Dr. Jen Willis sleeping in the call room covered in Cheerios and saliva.
Given the grave nature of the problem, Betty touched base with the resident’s attending who ultimately corrected the faulty order. “Another brilliant batch of new doctors,” grumbled Attending Dr. Bill Wineberg.
The patient is now doing well after receiving the appropriate amount of potassium to correct her cardiac arrhythmia. “Doctors are so brilliant,” the patient stated, “I feel great!”
Nurse Betty Sue was later interviewed by the hospital’s Sentinel Event committee regarding the near miss error. When asked to comment, Betty Sue stated “I’m just doing my job and keeping my patients safe — thank you for asking.” When the resident was finally awake, Dr. Jen Willis griped, “The nurses really need to stop paging us so much.” 1K Shares | 0 |
NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Narendra Modi fired a direct shot at India’s endemic corruption with a surprise move on Tuesday to ban the country’s largest currency bills, starting the next morning. The ban is intended both to curb the flow of counterfeit money and to take aim at terrorist organizations that rely on cash. It is also expected to help the government clean up a system that has relied on cash to pay bribes and to avoid taxes. But the announcement, made on national television in both Hindi and English, led to an immediate upheaval in the country. Abolishing the current version of the 500 and 1, 000 rupee notes, worth about $8 and $15, will effectively remove 80 percent of the currency in circulation. Mr. Modi said banks would be closed on Wednesday. After that, people can exchange the banned notes through the end of the year for those of smaller denominations or new bills that are being created. A. T. M.s around the country were overrun Tuesday night with people confused about the plan and trying to complete financial transactions before the machines closed the following day. In some places, hundreds stood in line in front of a single A. T. M. Cash is so prevalent in Indian society that the ban came with a exception for paying for hospital bills and airline tickets. India’s carrier, IndiGo Airlines, sent an email warning customers that banned notes could not be used to purchase services or to pay excess baggage charges. The decision amounted to a “surgical strike” on the country’s vast amount of cash, said Manish Kejriwal, founder of Kedaara Capital Advisors, a Mumbai private equity firm, using a military term. “This is Modi’s transformational reform,” said Deepak Parekh, chairman of Housing Development Finance Corporation, one of India’s largest mortgage lenders. “It will be disruptive, it will be inconvenient, but in the medium term, it will be very good. ” Mr. Modi was elected in 2014 after running on an anticorruption platform that included a pledge to fight cash, also referred to as “black money. ” The results have been mixed. Under one tax amnesty program, Indians owned up this year to about $10 billion in income on which taxes had not been paid, the Modi administration said last month. But another effort encouraging people to declare hidden assets and income abroad met with limited success. “There’s a perception that whatever he has done on the corruption front is not enough,” said Harsh Pant, a professor of international relations at King’s College London, noting that elections in India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, were expected to take place early next year. “Politically he probably felt he needed to do something more visible. ” While the currency plan had been under discussion for some time, few had expected such a bold step. Mr. Modi kept the decision quiet to prevent holders of vast amounts of cash from outwitting the ban. The problems run deep. Global Financial Integrity, a Washington think tank, has estimated that India lost $344 billion in illicit outflows of money in the decade leading up to 2011. But it is unclear what the full impact of the ban will be. Studies have shown that corruption can be curtailed by reducing cash transactions, but it is unlikely to be eliminated by the move. “It is regrettable this will inconvenience” 1. 29 billion people, said Pradip Shah, the founder and former managing director of Credit Rating Information Services of India Limited, one of India’s first agencies, without stopping “the flow of black money. ” Even so, the ban on large bills is very likely to hasten India’s transition away from cash. About 78 percent of transactions in India last year were made in cash, compared with 20 percent to 25 percent in the United States, Britain and other countries, according to a report by Google India and the Boston Consulting Group. The new policy puts India at the “leading edge of countries restricting the use of currency notes that are now seen as mostly fueling illegal activities rather than legitimate commerce,” said Eswar S. Prasad, a trade policy professor at Cornell. As the ban works its way through the system, the real estate market could face a shock. Indian politicians, among others, not only hold vast amounts of cash, but they are also heavily invested in real estate, where it has historically been easy to convert money into legal currency. A large percentage of real estate deals are done in unaccounted for cash. Without that cash, real estate prices could fall sharply. And developers holding large amounts of unaccounted for cash would find it suddenly rendered virtually useless, making it hard for them to pay their bills and finish their projects. “Can you imagine what’s going happen in real estate tomorrow?” said Mr. Kejriwal, who also anticipated a drop in the prices of gold and luxury items. The exchange process, too, could prove problematic. For the next two weeks, people will be able to exchange only 4, 000 rupees a day, or about $60. People holding vast sums of unaccounted for cash will find it hard to exchange the money at banks because they will need to explain where they got it, risking tax investigations, experts said. “If I walk in with two crores,” Mr. Kejriwal said, using the Indian term for 20 million rupees, or about $300, 000, “people will be worried that the government will be tracking my name and address. ” “People will be scared,” he added. Mr. Modi, in his speech, addressed the inconveniences the public would most likely experience in the coming days. “Brothers and sisters, in spite of all these efforts, there may be temporary hardships to be faced by honest citizens,” he said. “Experience tells us that ordinary citizens are always ready to make the sacrifices and face difficulties for the benefit of the nation. ” | 1 |
2061 Views November 08, 2016 32 Comments commenter-corner Saker-Admin The following comment was selected by mod-kl from this post . Mod-kl found this dissertation on the various troll techniques to be quite well written and very education. We think other members of the saker community would also enjoy it. by Anonymous How To Identify Trolls And Forum Spies (Cryptome) Cointelpro Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum. There are several techniques for the control and manipulation of a internet forum no matter what, or who is on it. We will go over each technique and demonstrate that only a minimal number of operatives can be used to eventually and effectively gain a control of an ‘uncontrolled forum.’ Technique #1 – ‘Forum Sliding’ If a very sensitive posting of a critical nature has been posted on a forum – it can be quickly removed from public view by ‘forum sliding.’ In this technique a number of unrelated posts are quietly prepositioned on the forum and allowed to ‘age.’ Each of these misdirectional forum postings can then be called upon at will to trigger a ‘forum slide.’ The second requirement is that several fake accounts exist, which can be called upon, to ensure that this technique is not exposed to the public. To trigger a ‘forum slide’ and ‘flush’ the critical post out of public view it is simply a matter of logging into each account both real and fake and then ‘replying’ to prepositined postings with a simple 1 or 2 line comment. This brings the unrelated postings to the top of the forum list, and the critical posting ‘slides’ down the front page, and quickly out of public view. Although it is difficult or impossible to censor the posting it is now lost in a sea of unrelated and unuseful postings. By this means it becomes effective to keep the readers of the forum reading unrelated and non-issue items. Technique #2 – ‘Consensus Cracking’ A second highly effective technique (which you can see in operation all the time at http://www.abovetopsecret.com) is ‘consensus cracking.’ To develop a consensus crack, the following technique is used. Under the guise of a fake account a posting is made which looks legitimate and is towards the truth is made – but the critical point is that it has a very weak premise without substantive proof to back the posting. Once this is done then under alternative fake accounts a very strong position in your favour is slowly introduced over the life of the posting. It is Imperative that both sides are initially presented, so the uninformed reader cannot determine which side is the truth. As postings and replies are made the stronger ‘evidence’ or disinformation in your favour is slowly ‘seeded in.’ Thus the uninformed reader will most like develop the same position as you, and if their position is against you their opposition to your posting will be most likely dropped. However in some cases where the forum members are highly educated and can counter your disinformation with real facts and linked postings, you can then ‘abort’ the consensus cracking by initiating a ‘forum slide.’ Technique #3 – ‘Topic Dilution’ Topic dilution is not only effective in forum sliding it is also very useful in keeping the forum readers on unrelated and non-productive issues. This is a critical and useful technique to cause a ‘Resource Burn.’ By implementing continual and non-related postings that distract and disrupt (trolling ) the forum readers they are more effectively stopped from anything of any real productivity. If the intensity of gradual dilution is intense enough, the readers will effectively stop researching and simply slip into a ‘gossip mode.’ In this state they can be more easily misdirected away from facts towards uninformed conjecture and opinion. The less informed they are the more effective and easy it becomes to control the entire group in the direction that you would desire the group to go in. It must be stressed that a proper assessment of the psychological capabilities and levels of education is first determined of the group to determine at what level to ‘drive in the wedge.’ By being too far off topic too quickly it may trigger censorship by a forum moderator. Technique #4 – ‘Information Collection’ Information collection is also a very effective method to determine the psychological level of the forum members, and to gather intelligence that can be used against them. In this technique in a light and positive environment a ‘show you mine so me yours’ posting is initiated. From the number of replies and the answers that are provided much statistical information can be gathered. An example is to post your ‘favourite weapon’ and then encourage other members of the forum to showcase what they have. In this matter it can be determined by reverse proration what percentage of the forum community owns a firearm, and or a illegal weapon. This same method can be used by posing as one of the form members and posting your favourite ‘technique of operation.’ From the replies various methods that the group utilizes can be studied and effective methods developed to stop them from their activities. Technique #5 – ‘Anger Trolling’ Statistically, there is always a percentage of the forum posters who are more inclined to violence. In order to determine who these individuals are, it is a requirement to present a image to the forum to deliberately incite a strong psychological reaction. From this the most violent in the group can be effectively singled out for reverse IP location and possibly local enforcement tracking. To accomplish this only requires posting a link to a video depicting a local police officer massively abusing his power against a very innocent individual. Statistically of the million or so police officers in America there is always one or two being caught abusing there powers and the taping of the activity can be then used for intelligence gathering purposes – without the requirement to ‘stage’ a fake abuse video. This method is extremely effective, and the more so the more abusive the video can be made to look. Sometimes it is useful to ‘lead’ the forum by replying to your own posting with your own statement of violent intent, and that you ‘do not care what the authorities think!!’ inflammation. By doing this and showing no fear it may be more effective in getting the more silent and self-disciplined violent intent members of the forum to slip and post their real intentions. This can be used later in a court of law during prosecution. Technique #6 – ‘Gaining Full Con-trol’ It is important to also be harvesting and continually maneuvering for a forum moderator position. Once this position is obtained, the forum can then be effectively and quietly controlled by deleting unfavourable postings – and one can eventually steer the forum into complete failure and lack of interest by the general public. This is the ‘ultimate victory’ as the forum is no longer participated with by the general public and no longer useful in maintaining their freedoms. Depending on the level of control you can obtain, you can deliberately steer a forum into defeat by censoring postings, deleting memberships, flooding, and or accidentally taking the forum offline. By this method the forum can be quickly killed. However it is not always in the interest to kill a forum as it can be converted into a ‘honey pot’ gathering center to collect and misdirect newcomers and from this point be completely used for your control for your agenda purposes. Conclusion Remember these techniques are only effective if the forum participants do not know about them. Once they are aware of these techniques the operation can completely fail, and the forum can become uncontrolled. At this point other avenues must be considered such as initiating a false legal precidence to simply have the forum shut down and taken offline. This is not desirable as it then leaves the enforcement agencies unable to track the percentage of those in the population who always resist attempts for control against them. Many other techniques can be utilized and developed by the individual and as you develop further techniques of infiltration and control it is imperative to share then with HQ. The Essential Saker: from the trenches of the emerging multipolar world $27.95 | 0 |
A man was fatally shot by the police at a public housing complex in Brooklyn on Saturday after he hit two officers with a police baton he had grabbed from one of them, the police said. The officers, who were in uniform, went to a building in the Van Dyke I Houses in the Brownsville neighborhood around 1:30 p. m. in response to a 911 call about a suspicious man, the police said. The officers approached a man on the building’s ninth floor and asked for his identification and a “scuffle” ensued, according to James Secreto, chief of the Police Department’s Housing Bureau. The man grabbed a baton from one of the officers and began hitting them both on the head, Chief Secreto said. Both officers then shot the man, who was pronounced dead at the scene, at 362 Sutter Avenue, the police said. Relatives and the police identified the man as Erickson Gomez Brito, 21, of 563 Mother Gaston Boulevard. One of the officers sustained a gash on his head, the police said. Both officers were taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center for treatment, where they were in stable condition, the police said. Omahis Gomez Brito, 19, the victim’s sister, said her brother had been treated for depression three years ago but had not been taking medication recently. She also said he was treated for addiction at that time, but she did not specify for what. Speaking to reporters outside the building where she and Mr. Brito lived with their parents, Ms. Brito said: “I want justice for my brother. I want to know why they killed him. ” Mr. Brito’s father, Osiris Gomez, said in Spanish that his son was not violent. Mr. Brito’s aunt lives in the building where the shooting occurred, relatives said. Ms. Brito said the aunt lived on the first floor, and she was not sure why her brother was on the ninth. The Van Dyke I complex is in the 73rd Precinct as well as in the middle of a area that is among the poorest in the city, according to an analysis done by Queens College in 2014. There had been 12 homicides in the precinct this year, though none at the complex, Police Department statistics show. Katt Williams, who lives in the neighborhood, said she knew Mr. Brito. “Minds his business,” she said. “It’s sad. ” | 1 |
TEL AVIV — Speaking at a conference two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, Evelyn Farkas, a former top Obama administration official, predicted that if Donald Trump won the presidency he would “be impeached pretty quickly or somebody else would have to take over government,” Breitbart News has found. [Farkas served as deputy assistant secretary of defense under the Obama administration. She has been in the spotlight since the news media last week highlighted comments she made on television that seemed to acknowledge efforts by members of the Obama administration to collect intelligence on Trump and members of his campaign. Now it has emerged that at on October 26, 2016, Farkas made remarks as a panelist at the annual Warsaw Security Forum predicting Trump’s removal from office “pretty quickly. ” Asked at the event to address the priorities of a future Hillary Clinton administration, Farkas stated: It’s not a done deal, as you said. And so, to the Americans in the audience please vote. And not only vote but get everybody to vote. Because I really believe we need a landslide. We need an absolute repudiation of everything. All of the policies that Donald Trump has put out there. I am not afraid to be political. I am not hiding who I am rooting for. And I think it’s very important that we continue to press forward until election day and through election day to make sure that we have the right results. I do agree however with General Breedlove that even if we have the wrong results from my perspective America is resilient. We have a lot of presidential historians who have put forward very coherent the argument — they have given us examples of all of our horrible presidents in the past and the fact that we have endured. And we do have a strong system of checks and balances. And actually, if Donald Trump were elected I believe he would be impeached pretty quickly or somebody else would have to take over government. And I am not even joking. Farkas was referring to General Philip Mark Breedlove, another panelist at the conference who served as Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) of NATO Allied Command Operations. The panel discussion was about what to expect following the Nov. 8 presidential election. Farkas has also been in the news after remarks she made as a contributor on MSNBC on March 2 resurfaced last week. In the comments, she said that she told former Obama administration colleagues to collect intelligence on Trump and campaign officials. “I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill, it was more actually aimed at telling the Hill people, get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration,” stated Farkas. She continued: Because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior [Obama] people who left, so it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy … that the Trump folks — if they found out how we knew what we knew about their … the Trump staff dealing with Russians — that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we no longer have access to that intelligence. The White House has utilized Farkas’s statements to bolster the charge that Trump was being illicitly surveilled during the campaign. White House Spokesman Sean Spicer last week stated: [I]f you look at Obama’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense that is out there, Evelyn Farkas, she made it clear that it was their goal to spread this information around, that they went around and did this. … They have admitted on the record that this was their goal — to leak stuff. And they literally — she said on the record “Trump’s team. ” There are serious questions out there about what happened and why and who did it. And I think that’s really where our focus is in making sure that that information gets out. Farkas, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia until she resigned in 2015. She told the Daily Caller last week that she had no access to any intelligence. “I had no intelligence whatsoever, I wasn’t in government anymore and didn’t have access to any,” she said. Speaking to the Washington Post, Farkas denied being a source of any leaks. The Post reported: Farkas, in an interview with The Post, said she “didn’t give anybody anything except advice,” was not a source for any stories and had nothing to leak. Noting that she left government in October 2015, she said, “I was just watching like anybody else, like a regular spectator” as initial reports of Russia contacts began to surface after the election. Farkas currently serves as a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward Russia and has released numerous reports and briefs about Russian aggression. The Council is funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc. the U. S. State Department, and NATO ACT. Another Council funder is the Ploughshares Fund, which in turn has received financing from billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Farkas serves on the Atlantic Council alongside Dmitri Alperovitch, of CrowdStrike, the company utilized by the FBI to make its assessment about alleged Russian hacking into the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council. Last month, FBI Director James Comey confirmed that his agency never had direct access to the DNC’s servers to confirm the hacking. “Well, we never got direct access to the machines themselves,” he stated. “The DNC in the spring of 2016 hired a firm that ultimately shared with us their forensics from their review of the system. ” National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers also stated the NSA never asked for access to the DNC hardware: “The NSA didn’t ask for access. That’s not in our job. ” Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. With research by Joshua Klein and Brenda J. Elliott. | 1 |
Trending Articles: Trending Articles: Genetically Modified Crops in U.S. Fail to Deliver on Promise of Greater Crop Yield and Diminished Pesticide Use Published: October 31, 2016 Source: New York Times
LONDON — The controversy over genetically modified crops has long focused on largely unsubstantiated fears that they are unsafe to eat.
But an extensive examination by The New York Times indicates that the debate has missed a more basic problem — genetic modification in the United States and Canada has not accelerated increases in crop yields or led to an overall reduction in the use of chemical pesticides.
The promise of genetic modification was twofold: By making crops immune to the effects of weedkillers and inherently resistant to many pests, they would grow so robustly that they would become indispensable to feeding the world’s growing population, while also requiring fewer applications of sprayed pesticides.
Twenty years ago, Europe largely rejected genetic modification at the same time the United States and Canada were embracing it. Comparing results on the two continents, using independent data as well as academic and industry research, shows how the technology has fallen short of the promise.
An analysis by The Times using U.N. data showed that the United States and Canada have gained no discernible advantage in yields when measured against Western Europe, a region with comparably modernized agricultural producers like France and Germany . Also, a recent National Academy of Sciences report found “there was little evidence” that the introduction of genetically modified crops in the United States had led to yield gains beyond those seen in conventional crops.
At the same time, herbicide use has increased in the United States, even as major crops like corn, soybeans and cotton have been converted to modified varieties. And the United States has fallen behind Europe’s biggest producer, France, in reducing the overall use of pesticides, which includes both herbicides and insecticides. | 0 |
Before the recent torrent of daily Podesta email dumps brought renewed attention to Wikileaks (and accusations Julian Assange was working with the Kremlin despite his recent denial, which ultimately cost him his internet access), the media’s attention was closely focused on the recently emerged hacker known as Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be behind the hacking of the nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee emails and other documents distributed over the summer by WikiLeaks, and who likewise was accused of cooperating with Russia.
Earlier today, after a two week silence, Guccifer 2.0 reemerged, with a post on his blog, in which he alleges that he has information from inside the Federal Election Commission, according to which “democrats may rig the elections.” He then adds “this may be possible because of the software installed in the FEC networks by the large IT companies.”
INFO FROM INSIDE THE FEC: THE DEMOCRATS MAY RIG THE ELECTIONS I’d like to warn you that the Democrats may rig the elections on November 8. This may be possible because of the software installed in the FEC networks by the large IT companies.
As I’ve already said, their software is of poor quality, with many holes and vulnerabilities.
I have registered in the FEC electronic system as an independent election observer; so I will monitor that the elections are held honestly.
I also call on other hackers to join me, monitor the elections from inside and inform the U.S. society about the facts of electoral fraud.
It is unclear what FEC information the hacker was in possession of, or was referring to, and how he intends to observe the elections. A recent video by Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting provided a real-time demo of the GEMS vote-fraud system, “fraction magic,” an election theft mechanism with context and explanation. There is much more detail on the BlackBoxVoting website .
The demonstration below used a real voting system and real vote databases and takes place in seconds across multiple jurisdictions. Over 5000 subcontractors and middlemen have the access to perform this for any or all clients. It can give contract signing authority to whoever the user chooses. All political power can be converted to the hands of a few anonymous subcontractors. It’s a product. It’s scaleable. It learns its environment and can adjust to any political environment, any demographic. It runs silently, invisibly, and can produce plausible results that really pass for the real thing.
It is possible that this is the process that Guccifer is referring to, although we are merely speculating. We are confident he will provide more detail shortly.
While we wait, watch the following video explaining how elections can be (and perhaps are) rigged.
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This story by Paris Swade .
Trump won last night and sheeesssshhhh was it a landslide. That was ugly. Look at this. Hillary spent twice as much as Trump and got nothing for it. Hillary raised $520 million for her campaign compared to the $270 that Trump spent.
*** That means that she spent twice as much as Trump and got NOTHING for it.
That’s why she was supposedly crying the night of the election and didn’t come out and speak. Instead, she sent John Podesta out to address the crowd of social justice losers that had come to see her. Ed Klein: Hillary cried inconsolably, blamed Comey & Obama for not doing enough to stop FBI investigation. pic.twitter.com/KsqiKp5Jhz
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) November 9, 2016
Hillary Clinton stepped up today, though, and showed that it would be possible to change the toxic rhetoric that has dominated the news.
Let’s come together, y’all. To all the Bernie, Hillary, Jill and Johson supporters, we live in a Trump nation. Get used to it, but we still want you here. We just need to bring the country back to the principles that it was founded on.
*** Please, please, please go back out and let’s sow the seeds of peace!
Share, share, share, share this everywhere, y’all! It’s time to bring this nation together under the strong leadership of Donald Trump. | 0 |
Email Donald Trump warned in an interview Tuesday that Hillary Clinton's policies as president to address the Syrian conflict would lead to World War III, arguing the Democratic nominee would draw the US into armed confrontation with Russia, Syria and Iran. "What we should do is focus on ISIS. We should not be focusing on Syria," Trump told Reuters on Tuesday morning at his resort in Doral, Florida. "You're going to end up in World War III over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton." The Republican nominee, who has called for a rapprochement with Russia in order to jointly combat ISIS, argued that his Democratic rival's calls for taking a more aggressive posture in Syria to bring the conflict there to an end and combat ISIS will only draw the US into a larger war. Trump's remarks come as he trails Clinton in most national and key battleground state polls just two weeks from Election Day. "You're not fighting Syria anymore, you're fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right? Russia is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk," he said. Trump: I'd 'love' to fight Biden Trump has not laid out a clear strategy for combating ISIS or addressing the globally destabilizing conflict in Syria, which has killed hundreds of thousands and pushed millions more to flee their homes. He has suggested the US should allow ISIS, anti-government rebels and the Syrian government to fight it out and more recently has focused on joining forces with Russia -- which has aided the Syrian regime in the bombing of civilians and US-allied rebels -- to combat ISIS. "Assad is secondary, to me, to ISIS," Trump told Reuters of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom US officials have argued must step down. Clinton has called for establishing a no-fly zone over Syria to help bring the five-year civil war to an end, a proposal top Republicans in Congress have championed, which President Barack Obama and others have opposed due to the risk of entering into conflict with Russia. A US-enforced no-fly zone would mean the US could shoot down a Russian jet should it enter Syrian airspace. Clinton addressed those concerns in the final presidential debate, arguing that it would "save lives and hasten the end of the conflict," while cautioning that "this would not be done just on the first day." "This would take a lot of negotiation and it would also take making it clear to the Russians and the Syrians that our purpose is to provide safe zones on the ground," Clinton said during the debate earlier this month. "I think we could strike a deal and make it very clear to the Russians and Syrians that this was something that we believe the best interests of the people on the ground in Syria. It would help us in the fight against ISIS." Trump has additionally called for establishing safe zones in Syria to protect civilians -- as has Clinton -- which could also put the US in conflict with the Syrian government or Russia should they oppose the policy. The Clinton campaign later Tuesday pushed back against Trump's rhetoric. "National security experts on both sides of the aisle have denounced Donald Trump as dangerously ill-prepared and temperamentally unfit to serve as commander-in-chief," Clinton spokesman Jesse Lehrich said. "Once again, he is parroting Putin's talking points and playing to Americans' fears, all while refusing to lay out any plans of his own for defeating ISIS or alleviating humanitarian suffering in Syria. Moreover, this incendiary attack is aimed at a policy that his own running mate, Mike Pence, strongly supports." Poll: Most see a Hillary Clinton victory and a fair count ahead While Clinton has accused Trump of being Putin's "puppet," Trump knocked Clinton for her criticism of the Russian strongman, asking, "How she is going to go back and negotiate with this man who she has made to be so evil." And just two days after he tied the successful enactment of his agenda as president to the election of Republican majorities in Congress, Trump also returned to his more typical complaints of a lack of Republican unity weighing down his candidacy. "If we had party unity, we couldn't lose this election to Hillary Clinton," he told Reuters. That complaint didn't put Trump in more of a bipartisan mood, though, as the Republican nominee also told Reuters he would not consider putting any Democrats in his cabinet -- a departure from recent presidents, who have sought to post at least one member of their rival party in a top administration post. | 0 |
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WASHINGTON — Sensing a political opportunity they have not had in more than a decade, social conservatives are preparing for a lengthy fight over abortion rights that promises to widen the culture war fissures that Republicans have tried for years to bridge. Two fights now loom in Washington that are galvanizing the right as it solidifies control of two branches of government and moves to dominate the third: an effort in Congress to eliminate Planned Parenthood’s federal funding and President Trump’s forthcoming choice of a Supreme Court nominee. The choice for the court is likely to meet conservatives’ expectations. But fulfilling even a goal of the movement, like defunding Planned Parenthood, will be a longer and more complicated process than it appears, setting up an early and potentially defining test for the new president. Mr. Trump, an eager if improbable combatant in the cause, made bold promises about what he would do to restrict abortion if elected and, in turn, won overwhelming support from religious conservatives. Yet those promises are now tangled in intraparty politics and, in some cases at least, will be blocked by Senate Democrats. They include laws that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and permanently prohibit all federal funding, including Medicaid, from paying for abortions. Cutting off Planned Parenthood is part of the larger and messier debate over repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans so far have been unable to do. Even if the law is scrapped, there is no guarantee a Planned Parenthood funding ban could easily move forward, given that women’s groups will bring intense pressure upon moderate Republicans to vote against it. On the other side of the spectrum among women’s groups is the Susan B. Anthony List, which has been lobbying to gut Planned Parenthood’s funding and is planning to target senators who may be wavering, especially in states where Mr. Trump won. “The commitments in the House and the Senate and in the White House are so strong, and the desire to get it signed is so palpable,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group’s president. “But like everything that’s worthwhile, it’s a crooked path. It gets more complicated as it gets more real. ” Mr. Trump has committed in writing to choosing a Supreme Court nominee who opposes abortion. But a Democratic filibuster of Mr. Trump’s choice seems likely, which would force Republicans to confront the difficult question of jettisoning the Senate filibuster for all presidential nominees, once and for all. Not too far removed from the minority themselves, Senate Republicans have enjoyed the filibuster’s protections in the past. And many in the party are reluctant to move too hastily on it. While the ease and speed with which Republicans can act is in doubt, the new president’s commitment is not. Barely in office a week, Mr. Trump has already taken steps to reassure his base. Earlier this week, he reinstituted a policy prohibiting foreign aid to health providers abroad that discuss abortion as a family planning option. In a show of solidarity with the movement, Mr. Trump is sending Vice President Mike Pence to speak at an rally in Washington on Friday that is expected to draw thousands. The president’s appointments so far, both in his cabinet and among other senior White House positions, include many committed and longtime opponents of abortion. The attorney general nominee, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, has called Roe. v. Wade “one of the worst, colossally erroneous Supreme Court decisions of all time. ” Andrew Puzder, Mr. Trump’s pick to be labor secretary, was an early advocate of legal efforts to define life at conception as a way of outlawing abortion. Tom Price, who is in line to become secretary of health and human services, has been a leading proponent of defunding Planned Parenthood in Congress. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway spent her time as a pollster and messaging expert before 2016, advising groups and politicians on how to soften their approach when talking about the issue. Among her suggestions: telling a personal story about why they came to believe abortion is wrong. Mr. Trump adopted this approach during his campaign and spoke of two unnamed friends who ended up deciding against aborting a child he described now as “a total superstar. ” Ms. Conway is also a featured speaker at Friday’s rally in Washington, the annual March for Life. How Mr. Trump — a former Democrat who once declared, “I’m very pro choice” — became an unbowed voice for the movement is a story of savvy political transformation and bald expedience. Women in the movement, like Ms. Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List, once publicly declared themselves “disgusted” by him. But as it became clear he would be the Republican nominee, many social conservatives swallowed their pride to get behind him. To shore up their support, Mr. Trump pledged to name an Supreme Court justice and largely turned the party platform over to social conservatives at last July’s Republican National Convention, which yielded numerous new provisions like the endorsement of a nationwide ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Mr. Trump went even further himself, disregarding Ms. Conway’s advice by talking about abortion in the most graphic of terms, a move that endeared him to the movement’s supporters. Today, conservatives see his line “rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth” as a turning point in his campaign. In an interview, Ms. Conway marveled at how Mr. Trump had flipped the script. “I’ve been working on messaging for two decades in this town,” she said. “And it took a billionaire man from Manhattan who had spent most of his life being to deliver the most impassioned defense of life that many have ever heard. ” Ben Domenech, publisher of The Federalist, said that many conservatives felt Mr. Trump spoke to them with that line in a way that other Republican nominees, like Mitt Romney, had been too timid to pursue. Mr. Romney barely spoke about abortion at all in the 2012 general election and when he did, it was often in the context of how he did not support further restrictions. “If you feel like your side is being pushed around and then someone comes around and says, ‘I may not be one of you, but I’m going to defend your views,’ they see that as loyalty,” Mr. Domenech said. “It’s a declaration of cultural war alliance. ” One quandary that Mr. Trump will surely face is meeting the expectations of a group of supporters so hungry for a victory after setting the bar so high. “The Trump administration presents us with a new opportunity: For the first time, really, we are able to interface with the federal government to achieve our goals,” said Dean Nelson, national outreach director of the Human Coalition, an group. “We are cautiously optimistic. ” | 1 |
MOSCOW — The Kremlin, increasingly convinced that President Trump will not fundamentally change relations with Russia, is instead seeking to bolster its global influence by exploiting what it considers weakness in Washington, according to political advisers, diplomats, journalists and other analysts. Russia has continued to test the United States on the military front, with fighter jets flying close to an American warship in the Black Sea this month and a Russian naval vessel steaming conspicuously in the Atlantic off the coast of Delaware. “They think he is unstable, that he can be manipulated, that he is authoritarian and a person without a team,” Alexei A. Venediktov, the editor in chief of Echo of Moscow, a liberal radio station, said of President Trump. The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, has long sought to crack the liberal Western order, both as a competitor and as a champion of an alternative, illiberal model. To that end, he did what he could to buttress the electoral chances of Mr. Trump, who seemed like a kindred spirit with his harsh denunciations of NATO and the European Union, his endorsement of the British withdrawal from the European Union and his repeated shrugs over Russia’s destabilizing Ukraine. In this context, Mr. Trump’s election was an unexpected bonus, but the original giddiness has worn off, and Moscow has returned to its formula of creating turmoil and exploiting the resulting opportunities. “They are all telling each other that this is great, he created this turbulence inside, as we wanted, and now he is focused on his domestic problems and we have more freedom to maneuver,” Mr. Venediktov said. “Let them deal with their own problems. There, not in Ukraine. There, not in the Middle East. There, not in NATO. This is the state of mind right now. ” Sergei A. Markov, a leading analyst friendly to the Kremlin, made much the same point. “Right now the Kremlin is looking for ways that Russia can use the chaos in Washington to pursue its own interests,” said Mr. Markov, a member of the Civic Chamber, a Kremlin advisory group. “The main hope is that the U. S. will be preoccupied with itself and will stop pressuring Russia. ” Any turbulence that Russia foments also gives the Kremlin leverage that it can try to trade in the global arena at a time when it does not have much that others want. Mr. Venediktov compared the Russian position to an intrusive neighbor who promises to be helpful by avoiding noisy restoration activity at night even though it breaks the apartment building rules in the first place. Analysts say the Kremlin is aware that the tactic of creating and exploiting disarray can become in that prolonged instability could allow threats like the extremist group Islamic State to flourish. “It is important for Russia that America does its job in foreign policy,” said Alexey Chesnakov, a periodic Kremlin political adviser and the director of the Center for Current Politics, a trend analysis group in Moscow. “If there is nobody to do that job, it might not be good for us, either. ” The Middle East provides examples of both vectors, analysts say, a moment of chaos to exploit and concerns about achieving stability for the future. Moscow has begun courting Libya, where Mr. Putin seems to want to prove that the Obama administration and other Western powers made a mistake by working to force Col. Muammar from power in 2011. Russia invited various powerful figures to Moscow and sent the country’s lone aircraft carrier, the somewhat dilapidated Admiral Kuznetsov, on a port call to Libya on its way back from Syria last month. Khalifa Haftar, the military commander in eastern Libya, got a tour. The government invited veteran officials and analysts from around the Arab world this week to discuss the future of Libya and Yemen, among other topics. Syria, on the other hand, underscores the limits to Russian power. In the two months since government forces took back the city of Aleppo, there has been little movement in forging peace. Not least, Russia can ill afford the billions of dollars needed to rebuild the country. For that it needs Washington to help persuade its allies like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who all seek a political transition away from Syrian President Bashar . Like much of the world, nobody in Moscow can figure out who makes Mr. Trump’s foreign policy, never mind what it will be. Since the inauguration, it has become clear that Mr. Trump’s rosy view of Mr. Putin is not shared by the president’s top foreign policy advisers, with the possible exception of Stephen K. Bannon, his chief White House strategist. “We cannot understand how they will work in concert,” said Igor Yurgens, a Russian economist who is prominent in business and development. The Kremlin has adopted a attitude toward Mr. Trump, analysts said, expecting the first meeting with Mr. Putin in Europe sometime this summer to set the course for relations. Dmitry K. Kiselyov, the anchor of the main state propaganda program “News of the Week,” recently pronounced what seemed to be the new party line on the air. “Let’s not judge too harshly, things are still unsettled in the White House,” he said. “Still not a word from there. Only little words, and that doesn’t amount to a policy. ” Just how unsettled was underscored on Monday, when the White House announced plans to increase military spending by $54 billion, an amount just about equal to what Russia spends in total on its military annually. While the appearance of such turmoil in the White House has probably been surprising, even gratifying, to the Kremlin, analysts say Russia’s government is worried about having too much of a good thing. “It would be better for us to have a predictable partner,” Mr. Markov said. “An unpredictable one is dangerous. ” The perception of weakness calls into question here in Moscow whether Mr. Trump can ever live up to the many statements he made during the campaign about forging closer ties with Mr. Putin and Russia. “The overwhelming view of the Kremlin is that Trump is not very strong,” said Valeriy Solovey, a professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. “He might have sympathy toward Russia, but he is contained within the political establishment. ” Russia’s far right regularly predicts Mr. Trump’s assassination at the hands of the American establishment, a view occasionally echoed on state television. Alexander Dugin, a nationalist Russian philosopher, called Mr. Trump’s inauguration the happiest day of his life because it signified the demise of the liberal international order. Mr. Dugin seemed most eager for Mr. Trump to get on with his promise to “drain the swamp” in Washington, although he worried about the consequences. “It can kill,” Mr. Dugin said in an interview. “It is not so easy to drain the swamp. ” Since the inauguration, however, enthusiasm for Mr. Trump in official Russia lurched from cool to uncool seemingly overnight. Dmitri S. Peskov, the presidential spokesman, denied that the new skepticism had been ordered from the top. The speed of the change was striking, however. Russia’s political class marvels at how much time it now spends chewing over the minutiae of the American political system. Some attribute that to the fact that domestic politics are comatose, with Mr. Putin assured of winning another term in 2018. “Nobody is talking about the Putin election,” said Mr. Chesnakov, the political consultant. “We are discussing relations between Congress and Trump. ” | 1 |
MecklenburgCatawba
The complaints noted that the machines wrongly identified a voter’s choice, but in all reported cases, the voters were able to correct their ballots before casting them.
“To my knowledge, at this point, we don’t have any cases where elections officials noted significant problems with any machines based on these complaints. Of course they’re all looked into and that’s why we encourage people to immediately flag down an election official,” commented Gannon.
The NC State Board Of Election released the following statement regarding the complaints:
The N.C. State Board of Elections is aware that some voters have contacted advocacy groups or elections officials with concerns about touch-screen voting machines in several counties.
Similar reports have been made in recent elections, and we take them very seriously.
We want to ensure voters that safeguards are in place to ensure touch-screen machines accurately record voters’ selections.
Touch-screen machines are tested thoroughly before each election. They are recalibrated daily before voting begins to test and ensure accuracy. If a voter notices an issue with selection accuracy of a machine, they should raise their hand and notify an election official immediately. If needed, the machine may be taken out of service for recalibration, and the voter may be moved to a different machine.
Also, each touch-screen machine prompts voters to review their selections before casting their ballot. As with paper ballots, voters should check over their selections to ensure accuracy prior to casting their ballot. On touch-screen machines, voters also can review a real-time audit log that records all of their selections.
“We urge all voters to carefully review their selections before casting their ballots, and to immediately report any questions or concerns to elections officials,” said Kim Westbrook Strach, executive director of the N.C. State Board of Elections. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — The homebuilders lobby fears that an ambitious rewrite of the entire tax code will stifle the housing market. Retailers fret that it will make the cost of their imports soar. For charities and their representatives, the worry is that donations will be stunted, plaguing nonprofit groups that serve the neediest Americans. President Trump’s new Treasury secretary, Steven T. Mnuchin, casually predicted this week that the first true overhaul of the federal tax code in three decades would happen before lawmakers head home for their August recess. But there’s a bit of a problem: That “swamp” Mr. Trump liked to talk about on the campaign trail? It’s still undrained. And now the dwellers of that swamp are mobilizing to protect their patch of the bog, with armies of corporate lobbyists scrambling to protect their favorite provisions, exceptions and deductions before it is too late. To those who are in the trenches, talk of enacting sweeping tax legislation in the span of a few months sounds like a mix of bravado, naïveté and delusion. By definition, tax overhaul creates winners and losers on tax day, and with billions of dollars at stake, the prospect of revamping the system has already created fierce infighting among Republicans and a massing of lobbyist forces underwritten by a divided but business community. “Tax reform is a series of battles,” said Sage Eastman, who worked in vain on tax overhaul plans as a longtime senior aide on the House Ways and Means Committee and who now lobbies for Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen Thomas in Washington. “This is just the tip of the iceberg. ” The most vocal battle thus far is over the “border adjustment tax” that is the linchpin of the House Republican tax plan drafted by Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the Ways and Means chairman. They have proposed a 20 percent import tax along with the elimination of taxes on exports so that, in theory, corporate tax rates could be slashed without ballooning the deficit. The plan has divided industries that have for years called for changes to the tax system, pitting retail and energy giants — which rely heavily on imports — against America’s biggest manufacturers, which hope the proposal will make their exports cheaper around the world. But the border adjustment tax is only the first fight. Tax experts are expecting a slog that could drag well into 2018 and even cast a cloud over the midterm elections. Many aspects of the House tax blueprint, the most specific plan floating around the capital, are already creating consternation across a swath of sectors that have learned over the years how to make do with the status quo, however cumbersome. With lawmakers working to put more concrete plans together quickly, these groups are pushing back before it is too late. Within the real estate industry, for instance, the concern is that a proposal to nearly double the standard deduction would reduce the tax benefits of homeownership people enjoy when they itemize their returns and deduct mortgage interest from their incomes. Reducing the appeal of this benefit, the argument goes, could weaken the housing market. “The current plan, by raising standard deduction so high, dilutes the importance of the mortgage interest deduction,” said Gerald Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders. “It really neuters it, so we’re going to try to fix that. ” Charities face a similar threat. Tax rules encouraging charitable giving have been around for ages, and they allow people to lower their tax bills and do good deeds at the same time. But, as with housing, changes to the standard deduction proposed by Republicans could erase those incentives. Last week, Michael Kenyon, chief executive of the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners, was part of a delegation of charities that came from around the country to Washington to alert members of Congress to their concerns. They held more than a hundred meetings in the capital, where they pressed for a solution that would preserve their special status. “There is real urgency about this,” Mr. Kenyon said. Anxiety is also high in corners of the moneyed financial world that have benefited mightily from the current system. Private equity has for years guarded the special treatment of “carried interest,” a loophole that lets billionaire fund managers pay low capital gains tax rates instead of higher income tax rates on the fees they charge clients. Mr. Trump, taking up a call from his predecessor, Barack Obama, campaigned to end the loophole, and because Mr. Ryan’s plan is silent on the matter, it could be in jeopardy. Another fear is the impact of a move away from the tax deduction for interest on corporate debt in favor of the immediate deductibility of business expenses. For private equity firms that rely heavily on borrowing to make deals, the shift could significantly alter the economics of many transactions by raising the cost of capital. “We are working to educate as many lawmakers as we can,” said James Maloney, vice president for public affairs at the American Investment Council, which represents the private equity industry. Both the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have said they will need to address the repeal of the Affordable Care Act before diving into tax legislation. Separating the two, however, is not so simple. One Republican plan that has already stirred controversy would cap the amount of employee health insurance costs that employers can deduct from their corporate taxes. Republicans say the exclusion, one of the largest tax breaks in the code, limits consumer choice and ties workers too tightly to their companies, even though it is economically no different from the “Cadillac tax” on expensive health plans in the health law. groups swiftly moved to shoot down the limit on health care deductibility when it came up this month. In a letter to Gary Cohn, director of the president’s National Economic Council, lobbyists including the American Benefits Council, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Staffing Association argued that the exclusion would represent a new tax on the middle class. And they reminded Mr. Cohn of the president’s promises to protect working class voters. “American voters want lower cost and high quality health care,” they wrote. “They do not want more taxes. ” Mr. Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday is expected shed new light on his thinking about a comprehensive tax plan, but thus far the signals from his administration remain unclear. This week, for example, Mr. Mnuchin offered a tepid response when asked on CNBC about the border adjustment tax, offering only that “there’s some interesting aspects of it” and that it remained an option for consideration. For his part, Mr. Trump, who previously described the concept as overly complex, seemed to express more openness to it in an interview with Reuters on Thursday. “It could lead to a lot more jobs in the United States,” Mr. Trump said. “I certainly support a form of tax on the border,” he said. Regardless of Mr. Trump’s eventual position, Senate Republicans have been increasingly pessimistic about the border tax. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said the proposal would not win the support of 10 Republican senators, essentially declaring it dead on arrival. Even if that is overstated, Republicans will struggle to lure a sufficient number of Democrats to sign on to a tax bill. It would be a struggle just assembling the simple majority needed to make changes to the tax code through a parliamentary gambit in the budget process that would shield a tax bill from a filibuster. The forces of outside resistance, meanwhile, show no sign of letting up. The conservative advocacy and political action committee Club for Growth this week unveiled a television commercial in South Dakota to pressure Representative Kristi Noem, a Republican from that state who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, to oppose the border adjustment tax. The ad claimed that the tax would cause the prices of clothes, food and gasoline to spike. David McIntosh, the group’s president, said that he thought the fixation on an import tax was going to scuttle the chance for a big tax overhaul and that Republicans were cornering themselves by essentially advocating a tax increase. More advertisements are scheduled to be released in other Republican districts to make this case. “We’re prepared to keep going,” he said, “even if it gets to the millions. ” | 1 |
In blunt testimony revealed on Tuesday, former managers of Trump University, the school started by Donald J. Trump, portray it as an unscrupulous business that relied on sales tactics, employed unqualified instructors, made deceptive claims and exploited vulnerable students willing to pay tens of thousands for Mr. Trump’s insights. One sales manager for Trump University, Ronald Schnackenberg, recounted how he was reprimanded for not pushing a financially struggling couple hard enough to sign up for a $35, 000 real estate class, despite his conclusion that it would endanger their economic future. He watched with disgust, he said, as a fellow Trump University salesman persuaded the couple to purchase the class anyway. “I believe that Trump University was a fraudulent scheme,” Mr. Schnackenberg wrote in his testimony, “and that it preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money. ” For Mr. Trump, whose presidential campaign hinges on his reputation as a businessman, the newly unsealed documents offer an unflattering snapshot of his career since branching out, over the past decade, from building skyscrapers into endeavors that cashed in on his name to sell everything from water and steaks to ties and education. The release of the documents on Tuesday, under court order, was the latest turn in a federal lawsuit, filed in California by dissatisfied former Trump University students, that has bedeviled the businessman since 2010 and could trail him into the White House if he is elected president. Mr. Trump, who started the university in 2005, owned 93 percent of the company. From the start, he acted as its chief promoter, rather than manager, selling it as a tool of financial empowerment that would improve life for thousands of ordinary Americans. It would, he said, “teach you better than the best business school,” according to the transcript of a Web video. Within the documents made public Tuesday were internal employee guides encouraging customers with little money to pay for the tuition with their credit cards. “We teach the technique of using OPM . .. Other People’s Money,” explained the internal instructions for salespeople. The documents pushed employees to exploit the emotions of potential customers. “Let them know you’ve found an answer to their problems,” read confidential instructions to salespeople. The most striking documents were written testimony from former employees of Trump University who said they had become disenchanted with the university’s tactics and culture. Corrine Sommer, an event manager, recounted how colleagues encouraged students to open up as many credit cards as possible to pay for classes that many of them could not afford. “It’s O. K. just max out your credit card,” Ms. Sommer recalled their saying. Jason Nicholas, a sales executive at Trump University, recalled a deceptive pitch used to lure students — that Mr. Trump would be “actively involved” in their education. “This was not true,” Mr. Nicholas testified, saying Mr. Trump was hardly involved at all. Trump University, Mr. Nicholas concluded, was “a facade, a total lie. ” Lawyers for Mr. Trump on Tuesday challenged those characterizations, saying that the testimony of the former Trump University employees “was completely discredited” in depositions taken for the California lawsuit. Lawyers for Mr. Trump declined to release those depositions on Tuesday. As he has in the past, Mr. Trump argued through representatives that the complaints emanated from a small number of former students and that the vast majority had offered positive reviews of their experience. “Trump University looks forward to using this evidence, along with much more, to win when the case is brought before a jury,” said Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump. The court records show the role that Mr. Trump — and his outsize reputation — played in trying to sell the real estate classes to thousands of students. Marketing materials bearing his signature encouraged prospective students to take advantage of a downturn in the housing market to earn quick profits. He offered the kind of assurances that financial advisers have long cautioned consumers to be wary of. “How would you like to your financial future,” Mr. Trump asked in one brochure. Mr. Trump started the Trump University just as the overheated American housing market neared its peak, promising that its classes would impart his wisdom about real estate and moneymaking to the general public. But dozens of complaints about the school rolled into the offices of attorneys general in Florida, Texas, New York and Illinois, officials said, prompting multiple investigations and, eventually, the lawsuit from former students in California. Mr. Trump had fought Tuesday’s release of previously sealed documents in the case. In an apparent attempt to discredit the judge in the case, Gonzalo P. Curiel, Mr. Trump called him biased and a “hater of Donald Trump,” and he sought to draw attention to the judge’s ethnic background — “we believe Mexican,” Mr. Trump said. (Mr. Curiel was born in Indiana he is of Mexican descent.) On Friday, in response to a legal motion filed by The Washington Post, Judge Curiel ruled that the records be released. Some of the documents unsealed Tuesday were previously made public in connection with other lawsuits. The internal guidebooks for employees of Trump University provide a detailed set of instructions for how to sell the classes, even to skeptical and reluctant consumers, by tapping into their psychological needs. A chart outlines the stages of the “roller coaster of emotions” that a buyer will experience. (The “Blast” phase, it explains, is “giving your clients hope again. ” The “Probe” phase, it says, must “slowly bring the client back down to reality. ”) When it comes to selling the classes, the guidebooks leave little to chance. Inside the rooms where students are asked to enroll in classes, workers are asked to “confirm that room temperature is no more than 68 degrees. ” Of course, Mr. Trump and the promise of his engagement with the school was the biggest draw of all. In the documents released Tuesday, instructors described themselves as “ ” by Mr. Trump. But in a deposition related to the lawsuit, Mr. Trump acknowledged that he did not pick the instructors. Not all the documents made public on Tuesday were critical. Many former students said the classes delivered exactly what they had expected. “Trump University definitely made me more prepared to tackle the ‘real world’ of real estate investing,” wrote David Wright Jr. who signed up for a program. “We really learned a lot of from Trump University and have found a modicum of success,” wrote another student, Kissy Gordon. Former employees like Ms. Sommer took a dimmer view of the school. In her testimony, she said she was startled by the qualifications of some Trump University instructors. Ms. Sommer recalled that a member of the Trump University sales team, who had previously sold jewelry, was promoted to become an instructor. He had “no real estate experience,” she said. She added that many of the instructors had the quality that the school seemed to value most: “They were skilled at sales,” she said. | 1 |
New Yorkers fight to overturn ballot selfie ban New Yorkers fight to overturn ballot selfie ban By 0 119
New York voters are suing the state, arguing it is unconstitutional to ban them from showing their completed ballots to others via social media. The ballot selfie ban is becoming a hot topic this election, affecting even celebrities like Justin Timberlake.
The three New Yorkers – Eve Silber, Rebecca White, and Michael Emperor – filed the federal lawsuit in on Wednesday, seeking a judge to declare the election law banning “ballot selfies” unconstitutional, according to the attorney representing the group.
“Taking a photograph of a filled out ballot is a powerful political statement that demonstrates the importance of voting. Without the photograph, the message loses its power,” says the lawsuit, filed by lawyer Leo Glickman in Manhattan Federal Court, according to the New York Daily News.
Under the current state law, showing a marked ballot to another voter is considered a misdemeanor which can result in prison time and a hefty $1,000 fine, according to court papers.
Glickman is seeking a court injunction to stop officials from enforcing the law before the November 8 election.
Similar laws against “ballot selfies” have been struck down in Michigan, Indiana and New Hamsphire as a violation of the First Amendment guarantee of the freedom of speech.
Selfies are being allowed at the polls in Connecticut, but officials will be watching for whether the practice becomes disruptive for voters.
In New Jersey, Assemblyman Raj Mukherji is pushing for a bill that would protect voters’ right to take selfies at the ballot box, CBS radio reported.
Singer-actor Justin Timberlake got into some trouble this week after posting a photo of himself voting in Tennessee on his Instagram page. The picture prompted a reminder of the law from state officials that such photography is against the law.
Timberlake addressed the controversy during an appearance on ‘The Tonight Show’ Wednesday, telling host Jimmy Fallon he thought he was inspiring people with the picture and “had no idea” it was illegal.
Taking photos inside a voting booth is illegal in Tennessee under a 2015 state law, as it is in 17 other states, according to a review of laws banning ballot selfies conducted by the Associated Press.
Via RT . This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license. | 0 |
In December 2012, the World Agency received an email from an Olympic athlete from Russia. She was asking for help. The athlete, a discus thrower named Darya Pishchalnikova, had won a silver medal four months earlier at the London Olympics. She said that she had taken banned drugs at the direction of Russian sports and antidoping authorities and that she had information on systematic doping in her country. Please investigate, she implored the agency in the email, which was written in English. “I want to cooperate with WADA,” the email said. But WADA, the global regulator of doping in Olympic sports, did not begin an inquiry, even though a staff lawyer circulated the message to three top officials, calling the accusations “relatively precise,” including names and facts. Instead, the agency did something that seemed antithetical to its mission to protect clean athletes. It sent Ms. Pishchalnikova’s email to Russian sports officials — the very people who she said were running the doping program. The tactics of the World Agency, which is partly funded by United States taxpayers, have come under international scrutiny in recent months as major doping scandals emanating from Russia have escalated into the biggest crisis in global sports. The lab director of the 2014 Sochi Olympics told The New York Times that at least 15 Russian medal winners at those Winter Games had used banned substances as part of a program. Only after years of mounting clues of widespread doping did WADA recommend barring Russia’s track and field program from international competition the global governing body for track and field is expected to decide Friday whether to bar Russia’s team from this summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Interviews with dozens of officials and athletes in the Olympic movement revealed that the global antidoping watchdog mishandled allegations of widespread corruption, failed to investigate rigorously and was hampered by politics to the point that it was largely ineffective in its mission to protect the integrity of sports. Multiple warnings about Russia, including Ms. Pishchalnikova’s email, were sent to WADA over the past several years, and its response has left athletes and officials questioning whether the agency is willing to aggressively combat doping. WADA’s body is composed of government and Olympic representatives, an arrangement that presents possible conflicts because Olympic officials might not be inclined to reveal doping transgressions that could mar the integrity of the Games while government officials could be more inclined to protect athletes from their own countries. “There are conflicts all around the table,” said Adam Pengilly, an Olympic athlete from Britain who sits on the International Olympic Committee’s athletes’ commission. Some WADA officials defended their handling of Russian doping allegations. They said their powers to combat doping had been limited, with scant resources and, until recently, no defined responsibility to conduct investigations. But other officials and athletes expressed a growing distrust of the agency’s leadership and a concern that the agency has shirked its responsibility to ensure clean competition. “This systematic doping in Russia is being spread by WADA as sensational news, and it’s not the case,” said Arne Ljungqvist, a former medical commissioner for the International Olympic Committee and the International Association of Athletics Federations, the governing body for track and field. “They could have made an investigation,” he said about the years during which WADA received repeated tips. “But they didn’t. ” Regarded as one of the pioneers of antidoping in the Olympic movement, Dr. Ljungqvist, 85, will soon have statues erected in his honor in Monaco, the home of the I. A. A. F. and Sweden, where he worked as a medical researcher. Yet Dr. Ljungqvist is confronted with the apparent futility of his efforts to put an end to doping. “We all knew about the Russians,” Dr. Ljungqvist said over lunch in Bedminster, N. J. at the estate of the artist Sassona Norton, who has been commissioned to make the statues. Just days before the 2008 Beijing Games, seven female Russian track and field athletes were suspended for manipulating their urine samples for drug tests. An investigation conducted by the I. A. A. F. showed that the urine the athletes provided was not their own — the DNA of those samples did not match that of the athletes. One of those athletes was Ms. Pishchalnikova. “It seems to be an example of systematic doping,” Dr. Ljungqvist said at a news conference in Beijing at the time. “I find it frustrating that such planned cheating is still going on. I am very disappointed. ” A year later, Russian athletes were implicated again. This time, the biathlon world champion Ekaterina Iourieva and two of her teammates were barred from the world championships after testing positive for the hormone EPO. “We are facing systematic doping on a large scale in one of the strongest teams of the world,” Anders Besseberg, the president of the International Biathlon Union, said at the time. The Russians were left to investigate themselves. The Russian Biathlon Union was fined and promised to scrutinize its own athletes. Dr. Ljungqvist, vice president of WADA from 2008 to 2013, said he repeatedly raised concerns about Russia. The agency considered penalties against the nation, but in the end, he said, the inherent conflicts of interests within WADA and the Olympic movement won: The matter was set aside because “it was too politically infected,” he said. “You could say I was to blame, too,” he said. “But I’ve been there, and I know how hard it is to prove doping on that scale. ” In 2011, a scientific paper written by six experts carried further clues. Titled “Prevalence of Blood Doping in Samples Collected From Elite Track and Field Athletes,” it examined thousands of samples collected from 2001 to 2009. One nation — identified in the papers as Country A and known to WADA — stood out. Country A had a notably higher number of suspicious samples. According to an author of the report, Country A was Russia. “WADA always had an excuse as to why they wouldn’t move forward,” Dr. Ljungqvist said, citing limited money and investigative resources. “They expected Russia to clean up themselves. They hadn’t fully grasped that WADA had the responsibility to do this. ” Russian sports officials have acknowledged in recent months that the country has problems with doping, but they have emphatically denied charges of a drug program and dismissed ’ specific allegations. They have said that they are addressing their doping problems and that their track program should be allowed to compete in the Rio Games. When the World Agency was created in 1999, its unstated purpose was to help win back the credibility of global sports in the wake of a huge drug bust at the 1998 Tour de France and a bribery scandal involving Salt Lake City’s bid to host the 2002 Olympics. Its official purpose was not to drug test or punish cheaters but rather to serve as an independent watchdog for Olympic sports worldwide. “They were afraid sponsor money would dry up if the Olympics were perceived as dirty,” said Robert Weiner, a former spokesman for WADA and, previously, the United States Office of National Drug Control Policy. Sports officials and national governments gathered in Switzerland, home to the I. O. C. to discuss funding the new agency. The United States government was especially wary about signing on to support an agency that did not appear independent. The International Olympic Committee is in charge of the Olympic Games and derives tremendous revenue from them. I. O. C. officials — specifically the head of the marketing commission — were going to lead WADA, a doping watchdog. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the White House drug policy director at the time, objected loudly to what he saw as the I. O. C. ’s outsize influence and its lack of political will to unearth drug violations that could tarnish the Olympic brand. “The I. O. C. is hiding behind WADA,” General McCaffrey said in a recent phone interview, suggesting negative attention was deflected from one organization to another. “And WADA is hiding behind a flawed structure. ” In 1999, Richard W. Pound, WADA’s first president and an I. O. C. member, bristled when General McCaffrey accused WADA of not being independent. Of course it would be independent, Mr. Pound wrote in a letter the month before the agency was established in Switzerland. The I. O. C. hosted the agency’s first board meeting and paid for WADA’s first two years of existence. WADA started with simple pursuits. Its charge was to standardize doping rules worldwide and create and oversee individual countries’ antidoping programs. Investigative powers were not explicitly written into the agency’s code. As time went on, many expected the organization to evolve into a more active regulator and testing body, separate from the I. O. C. and the various world governing bodies overseeing Olympic sports. That never happened. Instead, drug testing was largely left to national laboratories. In Russia, that lab was run by Grigory Rodchenkov, who said he routinely covered up positive tests in his 10 years there. With a budget of $28 million, WADA is funded equally by sports bodies and governments. After the I. O. C. the United States is the agency’s single largest contributor, committing about $2 million a year from the national drug control budget. Andy Parkinson, the founding executive director of Britain’s antidoping agency, said WADA’s structure was good in theory but too often resulted in stalemates, with Olympic loyalists and national officials rarely agreeing. “It’s really hard to strip away the perception of that conflict,” Mr. Parkinson said. For years, Vitaly Stepanov, who worked for Russia’s antidoping agency, wondered about the motives of WADA officials. He was giving them insight into an elaborate, doping program, urging them to stop it, but seemingly nothing was done. “Everyone was telling me WADA is not an organization that fights doping,” Mr. Stepanov said. “It’s politics. ” Mr. Stepanov, who was from Russia but studied at Pace University in Manhattan, began working in antidoping education at the Russian agency in 2008, the same year the agency was officially founded. The more he learned about how the agency operated, the more he realized that the Russian system was far from the accepted standard. Sports officials told him he did not need to test some athletes because they were clean, Mr. Stepanov said. Athletes and coaches offered him bribes to dispose of positive tests. Workers at the national antidoping lab were covering up failed drug tests, and in the Russian sports ministry were part of that scheme. Mr. Stepanov learned even more about the ministry’s methods when, in 2009, he met and married Yuliya Rusanova, a Russian runner who told him about her doping regimen. “The ministry’s goal is not to make sports clean but to win medals for the country,” Mr. Stepanov said in a phone interview. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Mr. Stepanov met several WADA officials in a hotel and secretly began blowing the whistle on Russia, as reported in 2015 by The Sunday Times of London. WADA’s first reaction, he said, was, “What do we do?” In subsequent years, he sent some 200 emails to WADA, he said, telling antidoping officials everything he knew. “I work at a Russian antidoping agency that actually helps athletes dope,” he said in the phone interview. “I’m writing to WADA what’s going on, and nothing is happening. ” WADA’s response to many of his emails was, “Message received. ” Inside WADA’s offices, on the 17th floor of the former stock exchange building in Montreal, the agency’s officials were not sure how to handle Mr. Stepanov’s claims. David Howman, the longtime director general, whose corner office overlooks the St. Lawrence River, wavered. A lawyer from New Zealand, Mr. Howman said he thought to himself: “We don’t want to be the police. We can’t be the police. ” But he was aware that doping was becoming a criminal enterprise, and investigations — perhaps more than drug testing — were a key to exposing cheaters. (For instance, in the sprawling steroids case involving the Bay Area Laboratory or Balco, none of the athletes found to have been doping had failed drug tests.) When WADA was confronted with suggestions that the Russians had resurrected an East system of doping, Mr. Howman said, his staff seemed inadequate. The agency did not even have an investigator, and it claimed that it did not have the authority to conduct investigations. “It’s really up to us to monitor everyone that’s our job,” Mr. Howman said in an interview in Montreal last month. “The idea was not to do the investigations ourselves but to gather the information and share it with those who could actually do something about it. That’s how this whole thing started. ” But Mr. Howman eventually hired a top drug investigator from the United States: Jack Robertson, who would be the liaison between WADA and global law enforcement and who could also help WADA untangle complicated cases. In September 2011, Mr. Robertson was assigned to tackle doping investigations for WADA. His assignment was the entire world. Mr. Robertson, a former special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, had a résumé that would make any doper shudder. He ran some of the United States’ biggest doping investigations in recent history, including the case that helped bring down Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France winner who was found to have doped for most of his career. In the months before his official hiring date, Mr. Robertson joined WADA’s legal director, Olivier Niggli, in meeting Mr. Stepanov at the Boston Marathon, to hear his account firsthand. Mr. Robertson and Mr. Stepanov met again, in Turkey, the next year. (Mr. Stepanov was fired from Russia’s antidoping agency after raising his concerns internally. He and his wife eventually fled Russia and are now living in an undisclosed location in the United States with their young son.) Mr. Robertson, who was gathering information, leads and potential witnesses, also encountered misfortune. His wife died of cancer, and he himself had throat cancer, losing weight so rapidly that he needed a feeding tube. But he pressed on with the case. Officially, WADA’s explicit power to investigate would begin with a new code, approved in 2013 to take effect two years later — four years after Mr. Robertson was hired as staff investigator. Still, there did not appear to be an appetite to look deeper into Russia, especially after a new president came on board in 2014. His name was Craig Reedie, a longtime I. O. C. official who had been involved with WADA from the start. When Mr. Reedie took over as head of the agency, things changed, several staffers said. At the same time, Russia began giving an extra donation to WADA, with no reason earmarked on WADA’s financial statements — an unusual move. In all, in the past three years, Russia has given an extra $1. 14 million on top of its annual contribution, which was $746, 000 in 2015. A spokesman for the agency confirmed Russia’s contributions and said countries that choose to make additional donations had never received special treatment. Mr. Reedie, a Scot who once led the international badminton federation, was a smooth and popular leader in the political world of the Olympics. In antidoping circles, he is not regarded as an aggressive crusader. “We’re not going to turn to people and say, ‘These are the rules obey them,’” Mr. Reedie said in the lounge of the Lausanne Palace hotel in Switzerland this month. He explained that WADA was better suited to offer sports federations and countries advice when they asked for it rather than pursue accusations of cheating. Mr. Reedie’s predecessor, John Fahey, a politician from Australia, had given his blessing for Mr. Robertson to explore allegations involving Russia’s laboratories. “There was always in our mind a deep suspicion that the government was controlling Rusada,” Mr. Fahey said in a phone interview last month, using the acronym for the Russian Agency, which employed Mr. Stepanov. When Mr. Reedie took over, the inquiry into Russia stalled, according to several people at WADA. Mr. Robertson needed help on the case. He needed more personnel and more money to conduct a thorough investigation. But again and again, he was met with a attitude. Frustrated, he forced WADA’s hand, according to several people in the organization. He leaked information on the case to Hajo Seppelt, a journalist for the German broadcasting company ARD. Mr. Seppelt’s bombshell report, “The Secrets of Doping: How Russia Makes Its Winners,” aired on Dec. 3, 2014. At first, Mr. Reedie told his fellow WADA officials to stand back and see if the global media picked up the story, according to several people at WADA who were not authorized to speak to reporters. But during that delay, antidoping officials spoke out, urging WADA to investigate ARD’s claims. On Dec. 8, 2014, Travis Tygart, chief executive of the United States Agency, sent a letter to Mr. Reedie and Mr. Howman at WADA, insisting that the agency had investigative power and that it needed to apply it to Russia. WADA could not possibly hand over the case to the I. A. A. F. the track and field governing body, Mr. Tygart said, because multiple sports were implicated in the ARD report. In addition, he wrote, a vice president of the track organization was reported to be a part of the . “For WADA to sit on the sidelines in the face of such allegations flies in the face of WADA’s mandate from sport, governments and clean athletes,” Mr. Tygart wrote. Days later, WADA commissioned an independent inquiry. Mr. Pound, who had a reputation as an aggressive antidoping crusader, was installed as the chairman. Needing investigative muscle, the agency hired 5 Stones intelligence, a private investigations firm based in Miami and staffed with former members of the D. E. A. the Secret Service, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Four months into that investigation, Natalya Zhelanova, an adviser to the Russian sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, received an email from Mr. Reedie. It seemingly told her and Russia not to worry about the inquiry. Mr. Reedie assured Ms. Zhelanova that in his opinion the accusations of Russian doping stemmed from a time before Russia had implemented new laws and antidoping efforts. He gave his assurance that Russia was going to be fine because “there is no action being taken by WADA that is critical of the efforts that I know have been made, or are being made, to improve antidoping efforts in Russia. ” “On a personal level I value the relationship I have with Minister Mutko, and I shall be grateful if you will inform him that there is no intention in WADA to do anything to affect that relationship,” Mr. Reedie wrote. When The Daily Mail in London published the email in August 2015, antidoping officials, including Mr. Pound, were stunned. The president of WADA was seemingly undermining the credibility of the independent investigation. “Jeez, Craig, what are you doing?” Mr. Pound said he asked Mr. Reedie. “You know those people aren’t your friends, right? They’re the ones who released this to the media. ” Mr. Reedie offered a mea culpa in another London newspaper shortly after, saying that his note to Ms. Zhelanova had been misconstrued and that WADA was not interfering with the independent investigation. Mr. Reedie said he saw no conflicts in his dual allegiances to the Olympics and the antidoping agency. “I think we manage to do reasonably well,” he said of the current structure of the agency. “It works, and there is constant challenge from both sport and governments to everything WADA does. ” The inquiry’s findings were published in November 2015 in an explosive report that centered on track and field. Russia was accused of widespread doping. But not everything investigators had unearthed — including Ms. Pishchalnikova’s 2012 email, and WADA’s handling of it — made it into the report. Even so, the external pressure intensified for WADA to look beyond Russia’s track and field program and to scrutinize other countries that had come under suspicion. But Mr. Reedie was reluctant, according to several WADA officials. He said that WADA did not have the money and that there was not enough evidence to pursue another investigation. “You couldn’t go forward because he was in charge,” Mr. Howman said of Mr. Reedie. “You have to rely on the people in charge, and Craig was in charge of the political stuff. ” Two years earlier, however, Mr. Howman was among the top WADA officials who had received the email plea from Ms. Pishchalnikova. Mr. Reedie was on the agency’s Foundation Board at the time, but he was not yet president. In her 2012 email, Ms. Pishchalnikova named Dr. Rodchenkov, the antidoping lab director whose facility had recently been flagged by WADA for suspicious test results. She said he was substituting out athletes’ urine with clean urine. “I have proof,” the 2012 email said. The agency’s decision to forward the email to track and field officials — including Russian ones who were implicated in the allegations — was a function of protocol. In spite of having hired a staff investigator, WADA did not at that time see itself as capable of conducting investigations, the agency has said. Four months after Ms. Pishchalnikova wrote to WADA, the Russian track and field federation barred her for 10 years. She is retired from competition and living in Russia. Attempts to reach her were unsuccessful. Mr. Reedie — who said he had never heard of Ms. Pishchalnikova’s email — said he required proof before initiating investigations. “We need people to come to us with evidence, and then we will investigate,” he said in an interview. He said the decision to allow Russian track and field athletes to compete in the Summer Games was entirely up to the sport’s governing body. “That’s their problem,” he said. “I’m one of the few people who doesn’t wake up in the morning and think only about Rio. ” In recent months, athletes have agitated for further inquiries. “Clean athletes are at the point where we can’t have faith in the system,” said Lauryn Williams, a United States sprinter and bobsledder. She added that she was disappointed that the November report had not immediately spurred a broader inquiry. “Who’s defending us?” she said. “Who’s on our side?” After Ms. Williams and other athletes from around the world sent a letter to WADA and the I. O. C. last month detailing their concerns, the agency announced a new independent investigation into the allegations about cheating at the Sochi Olympics made by Dr. Rodchenkov, the lab director. Other specialized inquiries, including one into accusations of doping by Chinese swimmers, have been opened. “Investigations have become the flavor of the month,” Mr. Reedie said. Mr. Howman, who is leaving WADA this month, said that only after the Sochi investigation was complete — roughly two weeks before the Rio Games are scheduled to begin, it is expected — should WADA be judged on how it had handled the cases. “It’s a really tense time because no one wants to mess it up,” Mr. Howman said. As for Mr. Reedie, his term as WADA president runs through the end of the year. Many antidoping experts and athletes see his dual role as a vice president of the I. O. C. as emblematic of the conflict they say is derailing WADA. After the recent interview in Lausanne, Mr. Reedie handed a reporter his business card. He apologized that, with its Olympics rings logo, it was an official I. O. C. card, not a WADA one. “It’s the only one I can give you,” he said. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — After Dean G. Skelos, the New York state senator, was sentenced last month on federal corruption charges, one of his lawyers asked the judge to allow Mr. Skelos to remain free on bail while he appealed his conviction. Her argument: A case pending in the United States Supreme Court, challenging the conviction of former Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, could help undermine the criminal charges against Mr. Skelos. “It is extremely likely that the court will reverse the conviction in Governor McDonnell’s case,” Alexandra A. E. Shapiro, the lawyer, told the judge. Her prediction proved accurate. And within moments after the Supreme Court reversed Mr. McDonnell’s conviction on Monday, defense lawyers from Illinois to New York were citing the unanimous ruling as grounds to challenge past and pending criminal corruption cases brought by the Justice Department. “This is a sign of the court saying to prosecutors, ‘You are overreaching,’” said Leonard Goodman, a lawyer for former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois, who was convicted on corruption charges in 2011 and is scheduled to be resentenced in August. “They think they have unfettered discretion to take down any elected officials. ” Current and former prosecutors strongly disagreed. In Manhattan, a spokesman for Preet Bharara, the United States attorney there, said in a statement on Monday, “While we are reviewing the McDonnell decision, the official actions that led to the convictions of Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos fall squarely within the definition set forth by the Supreme Court today. ” Mr. Bharara has repeatedly said he remains committed to ending a pattern of corrupt acts by elected officials, and most recently, his office won the convictions of Mr. Skelos and Mr. Silver, a former State Assembly leader. Still, there was agreement among legal experts on Monday that the ruling would make it harder for the government to win corruption convictions. For the second time since 2010, the court narrowed the avenues that prosecutors have to file such charges. The decision could even discourage some cases from being brought in the first place. “The bar is now higher in terms of what you have to prove,” said Randall D. Eliason, a former chief of the public corruption section at the United States attorney’s office in Washington. “This will leave a lot of unsavory conduct unpunished. ” Mr. McDonnell was accused of accepting gifts, loans and vacations from an affluent Virginia businessman who wanted the governor’s help dealing with state officials. “Our concern is not with tawdry tales of Ferraris, Rolexes and ball gowns,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the court, adding that “setting up a meeting, talking to another official or organizing an event (or agreeing to do so) — without more” — does not fit the definition of an “official act. ” In 2010, in a decision also involving honest services fraud, the Supreme Court set aside the conviction of Jeffrey K. Skilling — the former chief executive of Enron, the bankrupt energy company — ruling that the law could be used to prosecute only bribery or kickbacks, not more limited actions like “self dealing,” in which an official secretly takes an action for personal gain. Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal nonprofit group, said the combination of rulings was likely to have a major impact because elected officials involved in wrongdoing often did not have the power to personally deliver the favor that had been requested. Mr. Bookbinder said examples of cases that might now be harder to prosecute included those of Representative Randy Cunningham, Republican of California, who pushed the Defense Department to select a particular contractor after receiving gifts and pleaded guilty in 2005, and Representative William J. Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana, who was convicted in 2009 of taking bribes from a company that asked him to press executive branch officials to buy its products. “The Supreme Court seems to be giving people a way to go ahead with corrupt conduct, with kind of a wink and a nod,” Mr. Bookbinder said. Joel Bertocchi, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago, cautioned against overstating the impact of Monday’s ruling. “Having the same set of facts, they may be able to file different charges,” he said. But defense lawyers and some conservative legal groups that have been critical of the Justice Department said they hoped the ruling would bring real change. They argued that the government had, in its zeal to win headlines, filed charges in recent years for activities that did not meet the standard for federal corruption. “Once again, it has taken the U. S. Supreme Court to remind prosecutors that they do not have a blank check to read all kinds of unintended and overly broad criminality into vaguely worded statutes passed by Congress,” said E. G. Morris, a lawyer in Austin, Tex. and the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The precise impact of the McDonnell ruling on the Skelos and Silver cases was not immediately clear. Lawyers for Mr. Skelos, the former State Senate majority leader and a Republican, had no comment on the decision. But at Mr. Skelos’s sentencing last month, Rahul Mukhi, a prosecutor in Mr. Bharara’s office, argued that Mr. Skelos’s corrupt acts had gone far beyond those taken by Mr. McDonnell, and that the cases were not “factually analogous. ” “McDonnell involved only meetings,” Mr. Mukhi said. “This case involved, overwhelmingly, legislation. ” Mr. Bharara’s office had said, for example, that Mr. Skelos supported legislation in Albany to benefit companies that arranged payments to his son, Adam B. Skelos, who was convicted along with his father. The elder Mr. Skelos received a prison term his son was sentenced to six and a half years. Lawyers for Mr. Silver, a Democrat who received a sentence, said Monday that the McDonnell decision “will be central” to their client’s appeal. The lawyers, Steven F. Molo and Joel Cohen, said the decision “makes clear that the federal government has gone too far in prosecuting state officials for conduct that is part of the everyday functioning of those in elected office. ” Noel J. Francisco, who argued Mr. McDonnell’s case before the Supreme Court, said that he hoped the ruling would be the end of his client’s prosecution and that the charges would be dropped entirely. “They brought the case they brought,” he said, “because that was the most they could get a conviction on. That theory has been squarely rejected. ” | 1 |
Senior Vice President for Policy and Programs Fred Fleitz of the Center for Security Policy joined SiriusXM host Joel Pollak on Monday’s Breitbart News Daily to talk about the London Bridge terror attack. [Pollak began by asking if the London Bridge attack would finally provide the call needed for those who underestimate or downplay the dangers of radical Islamic terrorism. “A lot of people who were in denial almost say the right thing after these events. They sort of can’t help themselves,” Fleitz replied. “But what really concerns me is that yes, it’s right we have to improve security — we need better outreach, we need better intelligence — but there’s something they’re not talking about in the U. K. that really needs to be focused on: the role that the failure to assimilate British Muslims has created the situation,” he said. “There are communities where British Muslims are deliberately not assimilating, are being taught to hate British society, and this is incubating radicalism. There’s actually a parallel system of sharia law courts in the U. K. that operate. ” “We may have generations of radical Islamists in the U. K. until the British government wakes up and stops the situation,” he warned. Pollak pointed out that the United States has unassimilated religious communities with their own internal systems of government that live peaceably alongside their neighbors, such as the Amish and Jewish communities in upstate New York. “It’s certainly true there are some communities in the United States that have not assimilated,” Fleitz agreed. “I’m not concerned about Amish or Jewish communities, but I will tell you that there are enclaves of Muslim communities in Michigan and Minnesota that concern me. We know that in Minnesota there’s a rising rate of measles because the community has not assimilated into the rest of the community, and is not vaccinating their children. This is wrong. This is a big problem. ” “The problem with these Muslim communities is that it is making them susceptible to this radical worldview that wants to destroy modern society, create a global caliphate, and impose sharia law on everyone on Earth,” Fleitz contended. “These other communities aren’t trying to do that. They’re peaceful religious communities. ” “Also, when we have immigrants coming to a country from another country, I think they need to learn the practices and laws of the country where they’re coming to, the country that is accepting them and serving as a refuge for them. I think when people come to their new home country, they should understand and learn about the laws of this new country. That’s not happening in the U. K.,” he said. Pollak offered the converse observation that some of the worst terrorist murderers, such as the San Bernardino jihadis, appear to be fairly . “We can have homegrown radical Islamist terrorists — and I don’t really think they’re homegrown, I think they’re inspired or directed by foreign Islamist terrorist organizations — but it’s this ideology of hate that either is being communicated to them over the Internet, or is being passed on to members of separated communities in the U. K. It’s the ideology we have to confront, and I think this problem is worse in these separate communities,” Fleitz said. Fleitz argued that measures to hinder the ability of extremists to recruit and coordinate with the Internet should be explored, with due regard for civil liberties, but he is more concerned about “radical clerics and radical mosques who are promoting this type of hate and ideology firsthand. ” “I also want to stop these ISIS videos that we know homegrown radical Islamist terrorists are taking in, and it’s playing a role in radicalizing them,” he added. “I think was a call. You could just see how Republicans and Democrats in Washington were working together against the threat. Now we’re challenged by political correctness, and people who are in denial, and don’t want to the let the government take the steps it has to take to go after radical Islam,” Fleitz reflected. “Whenever there’s a radical Islamic terrorist attack, we get these lectures about Islamophobia from our leaders, leaders in the U. K. I think that is really hobbling the ability of our government to go after this threat, and that’s unfortunate. I hope what happened in London will be a call, but I’m worried in a few weeks we’ll be lectured about Islamophobia again,” he said. “Anyone who raises concerns about radical Islam seems to be tarred and feathered as an Islamophobe in this country. I’ll let the people who peddle this term give a better explanation, but that’s my experience,” he replied when Pollak asked for a precise definition of “Islamophobia. ” Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. | 1 |
0 комментариев 4 поделились Фото: AP
Как показало исследование, рейтинг одобрения деятельности президента с августа по октябрь вырос с 78,7 до 81,8%. Положительные оценки работы правительства также выросли: с 53,6 до 58,3%.
Лучше стали жители страны относится и к работе Госдумы: в октябре рейтинг одобрения российского парламенте вырос с 39,7% в сентября до 45,5%. Также вырос и рейтинг Совета Федерации с 42,1% до 46,4%. При этом снизилась доля негативных оценок деятельности Госдумы и Совфеда: с 42,8% в сентябре до 34,8% в октябре, с 31,2% до 25,8%, соответственно.
В сентябре на фоне парламентских выборов полюса оценок сместились (доля отрицательных ответов превысила долю положительных), а в октябре вернулись на прежние места, свидетельствует опрос.
Практически не изменились за этот период рейтинги одобрения общественных институтов. Исключение - оппозиция - после всплеска в выборный месяц (36,4% в сентябре), оценки снизились, приблизившись к прежним значениям (31,6% в октябре). Работой политических партий в целом довольны 45,1% россиян, обратного мнения придерживаются 32,4%.
Среди прочих институтов наибольшую поддержку и одобрение россияне выказывают Вооруженным силам страны (83,5%), причем за десять лет эта цифра выросла почти вдвое (с 44% в октябре 2006 года). Также большинство опрошенных положительно оценивают работу Русской Православной церкви (70,4%), средств массовой информации (60,5%).
Комментируя результаты исследования, генеральный директор ВЦИОМ Валерий Федоров отметил снижение социального самочувствия россиян в январе-августе этого года на фоне ухудшающейся экономической ситуации и одновременное падение рейтингов органов государственной власти.
"К лету экономическая ситуация стала стабилизироваться, вслед за этим, с лагом в пару месяцев, остановился процесс ухудшения социального самочувствия. В сентябре стабилизация повседневной жизни дошла до политики: тренд развернулся в сторону повышения", сказал он.
Опрос ВЦИОМ проведен 22-23 октября в 130 населенных пунктах в 46 областях, краях и республиках и 8 федеральных округах России. Объем выборки 1,6 тысячи человек.
Напомним, согласно социологическому исследованию, также проведенному ВЦИОМ, несмотря на экономический кризис, число россиян, желающих эмигрировать за границу, за последние годы не увеличилось .
Как сообщают исследователи, экономический кризис и санкционная политика не оказали влияния на эмиграционные настроения россиян. Доля россиян, желающих уехать за рубеж с 2011 по 2016 года колеблется в пределах 11-13%. При этом 63% из них слабо представляют, когда именно осуществят переезд, и ничего не предпринимают для переезда за границу.
Читайте последние новости Pravda. Ru на сегодня | 0 |
November 17, 2016 102 Google's chief executive Sundar Pichai has responded to concerns about fake news stories, heightened since the US election. Share on Facebook
Here we go with the liberal left’s latest boogeyman “fake news” .
Let’s find anything, absolutely anything to blame on Hillary’s election loss…blame it on Putin, on not getting their way, on Brexit, on Farage, on not having enough safe spaces, on all the apparent injustices of the world. Now let’s blame it on the “fake news”.
WTF is “fake news” even mean. The politically correct, crying liberal masses are reaching a point of stupid, that is beyond compare in the history of mankind.
“Fake news” is right on up there with WMDs, barrel bombs, mansplaining, color revolutions, humanitarian wars, moderate rebels, gender fluidity, the patriarchy…all made up, destructive apparitions engineered to avoid confronting the man in the mirror.
Here we go with the lying establishment media, and the “socially responsible” social media tech giants jumping on board censorship in disguise, telling the world what they should or should not read. Book burning for a digital age.
Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai will “do no evil” , saying it is important for Google and other social media businesses to promote “accurate” stories to their billions of users …and Pichai is just the man to judge what is “real news” and what is “fake news”, because we the deplorables have neither the brains, nor the judgement, to discern between right and wrong, real and fake.
Thank God for the liberal left, and their neo-liberal value system, to help us plebiscites make sense of such a mixed up world.
We got conned into supporting Trump because the “fake news” seemed so real and was so enticing that we completely fell for it, and in the process prevented the the peace loving, saintly Hillary Clinton from keeping America great.
Talking to the BBC’s Economics editor Kamal Ahmed in the wake of fake news controversies during the US election campaign, Mr Pichai said the firm had made some mistakes.
“There have been a couple of incidences where… we didn’t get it right.”
“It is a learning moment for us and we will definitely work to fix it.” | 0 |
Iraqi forces score major gains south of Mosul Fri Oct 28, 2016 12:1AM
Altaf AhmadPress TV, South Mosul
Government forces are advancing on the Daesh-held city of Mosul in northern Iraq. The Commander in Chief of Iraq’s Emergency Response Division says the country army and allied forces have liberated over 1,200 square kilometers of land in Mosul’s south since the beginning of the battle last week. The Iraqi troops are expected to launch a key offensive to liberate more key ground south of Mosul in the days to come. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton on Friday sought to explain her recent mischaracterization of the F. B. I. investigation into her private email server, saying she “may have ” in her remarks during a television interview on Sunday when she asserted that the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, had called her statements about her private email servers “truthful. ” Mrs. Clinton made the remarks while taking her most extensive questions from journalists in months — after going more than 200 days without holding a formal news conference. She has been under fire from Republicans and others since her remarks Sunday on Fox News about her use of a private email server as secretary of state and the resulting F. B. I. investigation. While Mr. Comey did not recommend charges in the case, he said Mrs. Clinton had been “extremely careless” in her use of a private email server and contradicted statements she made about her handling of her email. In her remarks here before the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Mrs. Clinton tried to explain the discrepancy with what Mr. Comey actually said. “I was pointing out in both of those instances that Director Comey had said that my answers in my F. B. I. interview were truthful,” she said. “That’s really the bottom line here. ” Mrs. Clinton reiterated her explanation that the classified emails the F. B. I. had identified as having passed over her private server were not marked classified at the time. The explanation did not appease Republicans. “It’s not hard to see why she hasn’t held a press conference in 244 days,” said the Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus. “Hillary Clinton is once again proving herself incapable of telling the truth. ” During her remarks, Mrs. Clinton said she took “seriously” the problems she has had winning voters’ trust. Questioned about why a majority of voters do not trust her, Mrs. Clinton referred to her high approval ratings when she was secretary of state and a senator from New York. “Were 67 percent of the people in New York wrong? Were 66 percent of the American public wrong?” she asked. “Just maybe, when I’m actually running for a job, there is a real benefit to those on the other side with trying to stir up as much trouble as possible. ” And she explained that the economic frustration driving many of Donald J. Trump’s supporters should be taken seriously. When asked about what Mr. Trump’s millions of supporters, who are often drawn to language she and others have called racist and sexist, says about the electorate, Mrs. Clinton said that while some people were backing the businessman because of his “bigotry,” she acknowledged that many were motivated by economic hardships. “We have to recognize that of course some of the appeal is xenophobic and racist and misogynistic and offensive,” she said. “We have to acknowledge that — but let’s not lose sight of the real pain that many of Americans are feeling because the economy has left them behind. ” Mrs. Clinton also criticized Mr. Trump on Friday as someone who would be a dangerous president and stressed that if elected, she would work on issues related to systemic racism and the economy that often hit black and Hispanic communities the hardest. “He is harkening back to the most shameful chapters of our history and appealing to the ugliest impulses of our society,” she said. “We need to stand up as a country and say that Donald Trump doesn’t represent who we are and what we believe. ” Mrs. Clinton also vowed to push hard to pass a comprehensive immigration overhaul bill with a path toward citizenship for those in the country illegally, and said she would prioritize the issue during her first 100 days in office. Mrs. Clinton joins a long list of political leaders who have spoken at the groups’ conventions, which often focus on increasing diversity in newsrooms. President Obama, former President Bill Clinton, former president George W. Bush, Bob Dole and former Vice President Al Gore have all addressed past conventions. The groups invited Mr. Trump to speak, but he declined, according to the organizers. Before taking questions, Mrs. Clinton delivered a address focused mostly on how her plans to improve the economy would especially benefit blacks and Latinos. “Rosa Parks opened up every seat on the bus,” she said. “Now we’ve got to open up every opportunity. ” Hovering over the address was the image of Mrs. Clinton addressing a room full of journalists. Although she occasionally holds informal sessions with the news media on campaign stops, Clinton aides have spent months explaining why she hasn’t held an official news conference, as most candidates, particularly Mr. Trump, do regularly. “We’ll have a press conference when we want to have a press conference,” Joel Benenson, the campaign’s chief strategist and pollster, told ABC News last month. She even had some words of encouragement for the Fourth Estate: “We need you to keep holding leaders and candidates accountable,” Mrs. Clinton told the hundreds of journalists attending the conference here of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Near the end of the event, Mrs. Clinton talked about her girlfriends, whom she rarely mentions in public. Asked what the most meaningful conversation she has had with one of them, she said she was “blessed to have a crew of great friends. ” These include some of her most senior aides, including Cheryl D. Mills, Maggie Williams and Minyon Moore. “I can’t compress it into one conversation,” Mrs. Clinton said. “They’ve supported me. They’ve chastised me. They’ve raised issues with me. ” | 1 |
Breitbart’s Tom Ciccotta shut down a feminist Bucknell University professor after she repeatedly interrupted guest speaker Christina Hoff Sommers during an event in Lewisburg, PA, on Thursday night.[ During the event’s QA, the professor identified herself as a feminist philosophy professor. Throughout the evening, she repeatedly interrupted and shouted down AEI resident scholar Christina Hoff Sommers, who was the guest speaker at the event. “Are you going to keep interrupting our speaker?” asked Ciccotta after the professor repeatedly interrupted. “How many progressive professors are at Bucknell? I think it’s like eighty percent. ” “I could never conduct myself in the classroom the way you’ve conducted yourself tonight,” he continued. When asked for comment, Ciccotta added that, “She came to our event with the intention of making a scene. She had no genuine interest in respectfully engaging with our speaker. She set a poor example for the students in attendance. ” “Considering that the Bucknell classroom is a safe space for progressivism, it’s disappointing that she felt so threatened by a departure from the campus’ political orthodoxy,” he concluded. | 1 |
Marseille soap, or Savon de Marseille, is as French as wine and cheese, with a history that dates from the Middle Ages. Frenchwomen swear by the crude square blocks, which they use as a natural skin cleanser and, in a pinch, as anything from a toothpaste substitute to a moth repellent. In recent years, though, cheap Chinese and Turkish knockoffs have been flooding the market, and the soapmakers of Marseille are rallying to protect their product’s reputation. They banded together recently to ask the French government to grant them a label of authenticity, to distinguish the genuine stuff from the imitators. And that is where the trouble really began. The original Marseille soap had a specific recipe that was considered so sacred that Louis XIV protected it with a royal edict. But a battle has erupted between two soapmaking factions over exactly what the modern rules should be for what constitutes a true Marseille soap. On one side are the soapmasters, based mainly in the Mediterranean port that gave the soap its name. They say that the label of authenticity should go only to products made strictly by the original Louis recipe. It’s quite a process, involving heating a mix of soda ash, seawater and olive oil in large caldrons for several days, and then cooling it in open pits. The finished soap is and odorless. On the other side are a group of 12 large companies, including L’Occitane, a global chain retailer of body and fragrance products. They want the government to certify their recipe, which allows the use of cheaper vegetable oils along with additives and perfumes to produce scented soap bars in a rainbow of colors. “The ancient recipe is outmoded,” said Emilie Grangeon, the general secretary of the Association of Makers of Savon de Marseille, which represents the companies. “We should be able to improve the quality. ” Each side is refusing to talk to the other, while trying to convince the government that its recipe should win. The government, for its part, is using its own method to delay a decision: It has set up an investigative panel that is to deliver a recommendation in September. | 1 |
AMONA OUTPOST, West Bank — Thousands of Israeli police officers stormed this hilltop settler outpost in the occupied West Bank to raze nine illegally built homes. Settlers and their supporters hurled cinder blocks at the officers, who charged on horseback and beat protesters with batons. The homes were torn down, but 300 people were injured and the emotional scars ran deep. Some later called it a pogrom. That was a decade ago. Now the residents of Amona are readying for another battle with their own government and security forces, trying to thwart an Israeli Supreme Court order that the entire outpost be dismantled by Dec. 25. Barring an compromise, organizers expect up to 20, 000 sympathizers to move into Amona, where 40 families live in prefabricated homes and trailers, to resist a forced evacuation. “I will sit down on my backside with my arms folded,” said Avichay Buaron, a lawyer who moved to the outpost a few months after it was established in 1996. “Thousands will sit down,” he added. “If they hit us, they hit us. ” A flagship of the settler enterprise, Amona is becoming a test of how far Israel’s government will go to avoid a clash with its constituency and how vested it is in more than 100 outposts built without authorization across the West Bank. It is forcing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to balance the demands of his conservative coalition partners, the state’s judicial authorities and world leaders, who overwhelmingly view the settlements as violations of international law. The Obama administration on Wednesday condemned Israel’s plan to build 98 housing units east of Shilo, a settlement a few miles north of Amona, which are meant to accommodate the outpost’s evacuees. In an unusually sharp statement, the State Department said the plan, which Israel described as a new neighborhood of Shilo, was “deeply troubling” and would “create a significant new settlement deep in the West Bank. ” In the years since the bloody 2006 confrontation in Amona, the West Bank settler population has grown to nearly 400, 000 from about 250, 000. Support for removing settlements as a route to peace has dropped among an Israeli Jewish public jaded by failed negotiations with the Palestinians, recurring violence and the widespread perception that withdrawing from the Gaza Strip in 2005 only fomented terrorism. Mr. Netanyahu’s government has been working to retroactively legalize dozens of settler outposts that sit on public land. But Amona was built on privately owned Palestinian land, where Israel’s own judiciary insists the state cannot simply construction. “It puts the government in a very uncomfortable spot,” said Yoaz Hendel, a former aide to Mr. Netanyahu who put the current impasse down to the inertia of successive governments on the issue. Amona sits at the top of a narrow asphalt road winding up from Ofra, a vibrant settlement of about 3, 300 religious Jews near Ramallah, the Palestinian administrative capital. The outpost is strategically perched 3, 000 feet above sea level, with commanding views of the central West Bank, which the Palestinians envision as the heart of their future state. Mr. Buaron, who came as a student in his early 20s, said Amona’s founding residents were told at the time that the government wanted to set up a new neighborhood of Ofra. “We did not come as thieves in the night,” he insisted. “We were pioneers. ” Mr. Buaron married and had seven children in Amona, where his home has a slightly unkempt garden and a view of a picturesque Palestinian village in the rolling hills beyond. Now he is leading the campaign to save it. Leafing through a bound folio of maps, photographs and documents from the outpost’s early years, Mr. Buaron pointed out how the state helped provide its infrastructure: a power line, Housing Ministry plans to prepare 40 plots for permanent homes, a road. If there are legal flaws in Amona’s location, he argued, it is up to the state to find a solution that would allow its residents — lawyers, teachers, a computer programmer and farmers who grow raspberries, olives and grapes or who raise sheep — to remain in place. The settlers are pushing for legislation that would force Palestinian owners to accept compensation rather than get their land back, arguing that the current legal strictures could be applied to thousands of settler homes beyond Amona. The attorney general has already ruled out that option, but 25 of the 30 Parliament members from Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party nonetheless signed a petition backing it last month. The Amona leaders have publicly rejected the idea of relocating to the alternative site on what the government declared to be state, or public, land near Shilo. In a letter addressed to Mr. Netanyahu and posted on Facebook, they wrote, “We have nothing to lose. ” The prime minister’s office declined to comment on the options for Amona. Israel’s defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman — a settler himself — has said that the outpost cannot remain where it stands. Oded Revivi, the chief foreign envoy of the settlers’ Yesha Council, said he still hoped the government and the residents could “find the middle ground. ” They have had plenty of time. The Supreme Court ruling, which followed more than a decade of legal wrangling, came in December 2014. The Palestinians who petitioned the court are now watching from the towns and villages in the surrounding hills. Atallah Abd Hamed, 63, a resident of the Palestinian town of Silwad, said that he and his three siblings inherited an plot on the edge of Amona from his father. “It was all grapevines,” he recalled. The family has not worked the land, where a single settler home sits, since the 1980s. Mr. Hamed said that was because the only access to it was through Ofra and, in any case, the grapes went bad from disease. Accusing settlers of setting fire to his fields soon after the blight, he said, “Within 10 minutes everything was black. ” If Amona is removed, as the court has mandated, Mr. Hamed said, “I am going to plant it all again with apples and almonds. ” “Not grapes,” he added, as if the vines would be somehow cursed. Mr. Buaron, the Amona leader, said there was nothing stopping Palestinians from coming to work their land, but Mr. Hamed’s wife, Nihad, 56, expressed a widely held fear. “They would shoot us,” she said, noting that an unarmed man from Silwad was killed by Israeli soldiers in August. “I wouldn’t send my sons. ” In a feverish search for a compromise, Israel’s attorney general has been examining the possibility of leasing to the settlers plots adjacent to Amona whose Palestinian owners appear to have abandoned. The Israeli military’s custodian of abandoned West Bank lands placed an advertisement in in the Palestinian newspaper along with a map, asking anybody claiming ownership to submit objections within 30 days. The United States State Department denounced that approach, saying it “would represent an unprecedented and troubling step that’s inconsistent with prior Israeli legal opinions and counter to longstanding Israeli policy to not seize private Palestinian land for Israeli settlements. ” Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer who represented the Palestinian landowners in the Amona case on behalf of the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din, said this was an inversion of the Military Order of 1967, when the occupation began, meant to protect abandoned property until its owners returned. “If the army has a duty to preserve abandoned property,” he said, “is this the best way it can think of, giving it to people who are not ready to leave it and who have already shown that they have no problem with violating the property rights of others?” Alan Baker, of a 2012 government report that recommended authorizing settler outposts built on public land, agreed that “privacy is holy” when it comes to property rights. But contrary to Mr. Sfard, Mr. Baker argued that absentee land “is placed in the hands of the government to use and enjoy the same way as public land,” as long as it remains registered as absentee property. Abdallah Abu Rahmeh, a Palestinian Authority official who focuses on settlements, saw the Israeli debate as hairsplitting that obscures the depth of the occupation. “It is not up to Israel to determine where each piece of land is going to go in our own country,” he said. In any case, Yesh Din, the Israeli rights group assisting the Palestinian landowners, said objections had been submitted regarding the “vast majority” of the plots. One is from Maryam Hassan Abd Hamad, 81, of Silwad, whose husband, now dead, passed his property on to their six children. “The lawyer once told us they wanted to give us alternative land,” Ms. Hamad said, sitting in a domed room in her family’s compound, where chickens were running around in the yard. “We refused. We were raised there,” she said, reminiscing how her family would plant grains one year and vegetables — tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, okra — the next. “We put the blood of our hearts into our land. ” Rivka Nizri, who was born in Amona 18 years ago and was married late last month, has set up her home in a trailer that she and her new husband renovated in the outpost. She said she was trying not to think much about the possibility of being ousted before the end of the year. “I won’t go easily,” Ms. Nizri said of the impending evacuation. “They will have to take me. ” | 1 |
Мир » Европа » Восточная Европа Во вторник МИД Венгрии вызвал посла России в связи с "пренебрежительными комментариями" в российских государственных СМИ о событиях антисоветского восстания в Венгрии в 1956 году. МИД Венгрии заявил, что российские государственные СМИ описали венгерский бунт как "погром" и как первую из "цветных революций". Речь идет о сюжете "Венгры ностальгируют по "гуляш-социализму" в программе "Вести недели" Дмитрия Киселева, вышедшей в эфир 23 октября. 0 комментариев 0 поделились
Прокомментировал возникшее недоразумение для Pravda.Ru доктор социологических наук, директор Института междисциплинарных исследований Алексей Новоточинов.
- Считаете ли вы реакцию Венгрии адекватной? А почему бы нам не вызвать венгерского посла и сказать, что не потерпим, как в венгерских СМИ освещаются итоги ВОВ и ее герои?
— Мне жалко, что Дмитрий Киселев довольно недальновидно, со странным пафосом полез в очень трогательные и ощутимые сферы все еще довольно сложных отношений между Россией и Венгрией. Вот сейчас венгры вызвали посла, я догадываюсь, какие традиционные слова в этой связи могут сказать. Я квалифицирую их просто, как призыв осмотреться, вдуматься и больше этого не делать.
Я родом из Курской области Касторенского района деревня Скакун, где венгры в годы войны зверствовали так, что даже немцы не выдерживали такого количества увиденного насилия. Наши отношения сейчас с Венгрией очень ранимые. Каждый позитивный шаг дается с колоссальным трудом.
Хотя Венгрия сегодня смотрит на наши отношения сквозь призму вероятного экономического проекта АЭС Пакш-2 с надеждой на участие русских в этой работе — создание технопарка, реконструкция будапештского метро.
Со стороны Венгрии, могу вам смело заявить, я работаю с ними не первый год, это совершенно адекватная венгерская реакция, но она не является угрозой, она является призывом цивилизованно остановиться и помалкивать, потому что иначе мы последнего союзника в Европе потеряем. У нас в Европе нет ни одного союзника такого класса, как венгры.
И последнее, у меня был идеологический спор с довольно высокопоставленными венгерскими чиновниками, близкими к руководству Венгрии, относительно событий 1956 года. Ну, они выложили свой традиционный набор взаимных упреков, рассказов. А я им сказал в ответ, что радуйтесь, что не я там был, я бы вам там перца задал.
Я пояснил, в чем заключается трагичность событий 1956 года. Она разделяется на две точки зрения. Вы пытались идти на поводу у американцев, которые подпитывали антикоммунистическую ситуацию изнутри. Андропов же, защищал результаты Второй мировой войны, не давая состояться переделу. Уже тогда было понятно, что вся затея с расширением НАТО на Восток будет тяготеть к проблеме передела Европы по отношению к решениям Тегеранской, Ялтинской и Потсдамской конференций.
Могу сказать, что сегодня Венгрия ограблена, уничтожены такие идеалы экономических образчиков, как "Икарус", фирма "Глобус", уничтожена авиационная компания Малев (Malév). Фактически ликвидирована фармацевтическая группировка "Гедеон Рихтер" (Gedeon Richter Ltd) и многое-многое другое, что строилось на советские деньги.
- Но, наверное, когда они будут про "злодеяния Красной армии" в СМИ вещать, нам ведь тоже молчать не надо?
— Око за око всегда, в любом случае. Но не жить по принципу — "сам дурак". Что значит злодеяния армии? О каких миролюбивых намерениях мы ведем речь, если кадровая армия должна их молотить 24 часа в сутки. Это было и в 1956 году. Вы хотите, чтобы мы там с цветами и с мороженом ездили? Злодеяния придумали. Нужно четко держаться мысли, что Советский Союз на тот момент жестко защищал результаты Второй мировой войны, нашу победу. Нам навязывали другую точку зрения, которая сейчас вылилась просто в банальное расширение НАТО вплоть до нашей государственной границы. Нас обманули. Нас просто кинули благодаря болтунам типа Хрущева, Горбачева, Ельцина. Если венгры будут это продолжать, в чем я тоже глубоко сомневаюсь, то это будут делать люди, отнюдь не представляющие власть и не представляющие из себя ничего.
Я думаю, что думающие люди на перспективу не допустят разжигание очередной фазы нервотрепки. Тем более, что можно смело утверждать, что в известной степени подобные вещи субсидируются никак не венграми, а тем же конопатым Соросом. Венгры миролюбиво настроены по отношению к России, с точки зрения живой экономики, социально-экономических отношений и усилению долгосрочных связей. Так что Киселев, что называется, не на ту лошадь сел или ставку сделал не на ту тарелку.
Подробнее о венгерских событиях 1956 года читайте в публикациях Правды.Ру, представленных ниже: | 0 |
Sports This file photo shows members of the national Iranian men’s cycling team.
The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) has named the national Iranian men’s cycling team as the greatest team in Asia, thanks to its outstanding performances at continental sports events.
According to the latest monthly rankings released by the world’s governing body for sports cycling and international competitive cycling events, the Iranian side collected 1,587 points to claim the top position among other Asian outfits.
Kazakhstan landed in the second Asian slot of the UCI rankings with 1,451 points, followed by Japan and South Korea, which claimed the third and fourth spots respectively with 884 and 718 points.
Additionally, the Iranian cycling club, Pishgaman Kavir Yazd, accumulated 915 points to stand out in the continental ranking.
It was followed by another Iranian squad, Tabriz Shahrdari Team, with 884 points in the second place. Loading ... | 0 |
Joe Biden’s niece has managed to avoid jail time after she pleaded guilty to stealing more than $100, 000 in a credit card scam. [Caroline Biden, 30, took a plea deal at the Manhattan Supreme Court in New York City and pleaded guilty to stealing $110, 810 with a borrowed credit card to go on a shopping spree, the New York Post reported. In exchange for a guilty plea, a judge sentenced Caroline to two years probation under the condition that she stay out of trouble and pay back the money she stole. Her attorneys declined to comment on the plea. Biden’s niece asked to borrow a credit card from the unnamed victim so she could make a $672 purchase. Instead, Caroline opened an account at Bigelow Pharmacy in New York and spent over $100, 000 on store purchases from April 2015 to June 24, 2016. Police arrested Caroline May 5 and charged her with grand and petit larceny. She pleaded guilty to both charges Friday. Caroline, who has a history of abusing drugs and alcohol, also had a with the law in 2013 when got into a fight with a roommate over rent and hit a police officer. She was arrested on charges of harassment, resisting arrest, and obstruction of justice. She also managed to avoid jail in that case when the court ordered that her charges be dropped after six months so long as she stayed out of trouble and remained in the Delray Beach, Florida rehab facility where she was staying for three additional months. | 1 |
Katie Uhlaender was a United States Olympian when she competed at the Sochi Games in February 2014. She was seeking her first Olympic medal, and after four runs down an icy 1. skeleton course, she was sure she had succeeded. She had not. She placed fourth, finishing of a second behind Elena Nikitina of Russia, who took third. Two years later, after replaying the competition in her mind countless times, Ms. Uhlaender learned that Ms. Nikitina was among dozens of Russian athletes at the Sochi Games who were part of a doping program, according to the longtime director of Russia’s antidoping lab, Grigory Rodchenkov. “My gut just got all wrenchy,” Ms. Uhlaender said recently, tears welling up as she slowed her pedaling on a stationary bike. “It’s opening a wound. ” Dr. Rodchenkov’s account of how doping controls were breached at the 2014 Olympics has tarnished the performance of dozens of Russian athletes and marred the integrity of the Games. His claims also have left many athletes who finished behind Russians feeling cheated. “I’ll never know what it feels like to stand on the podium in Sochi, but I want to put this behind me,” Ms. Uhlaender said. “I want to know: Am I a bronze medalist?” Ms. Nikitina’s name appears on a spreadsheet provided to The New York Times by Dr. Rodchenkov. The document, which he said was sent to him by Russia’s sports ministry two weeks before the Sochi Games, lists key competition dates for each athlete — in Ms. Nikitina’s case, Feb. 14, the date of her final two races, in which she had some of the fastest running starts at the Games. That list, Dr. Rodchenkov said, guided him in his nightly ritual in Sochi: surreptitiously swapping out the urine of Russia’s top athletes, at least 15 of whom won medals. An investigation into Dr. Rodchenkov’s account is expected to conclude within days, three weeks before the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro are set to begin, and the full results of the investigation, due on Monday, could prove explosive. Dr. Rodchenkov has cooperated with the inquiry, which was commissioned in May by the World Agency and has been conducted by Richard McLaren, a Canadian lawyer who was part of a commission that last fall accused Russia of systematic doping. In a preliminary report last month, Mr. McLaren, who received the Sochi spreadsheet, called Dr. Rodchenkov’s story “both credible and verifiable. ” Last month, global sports officials barred Russian track and field athletes from the Rio Games. WADA has said that if the allegations prove true, it will consider recommending all Russian athletes be barred from competition Russia’s sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, said he would resign if such a ban were imposed. In an interview in Moscow this week, Mr. Mutko denied that the government had been involved in any scheme, but expressed concern that his deputy was accused of giving Dr. Rodchenkov direct orders. Mr. Mutko was alternately confident in Russia’s athletes and contrite about their attitudes toward drugs. “We have to persuade people you can win without doping,” he said. “It’s the culture. It’s a problem. ” Waiting for the Sochi inquiry to conclude, Ms. Uhlaender, who will turn 32 next week, has fought to keep her focus on the next Winter Olympics, in 2018 in South Korea. Still, she is concerned that sports officials will fail to deliver the rigorous and decisive result she craves. “I’m worried Sochi will be forgotten, and it scares me,” she said. “Rodchenkov said he tampered with the samples, and there are rules against that. I just want to see them follow the rules. ” Ms. Uhlaender is training in the desert, spending her days lifting weights in Arizona with fellow professional athletes at a gym and sprinting alongside dozens of other Olympians, mostly track and field athletes preparing for Rio. Between workouts, there is conversation of all kinds — about diets, “Game of Thrones,” the price of gas — but there is little mention of the allegations of widespread doping by the Russians. Ms. Uhlaender said she had talked about the situation twice with her coach. “What are you going to do about it?” he asked her before moving on. “The worst thing I can do is talk about it,” she said over a chicken lettuce wrap and four shots of espresso. When not training, she meditates works in education for a traumatic brain injury center, having recovered from a concussion herself watches Netflix and exchanges texts with two Navy SEAL friends who have helped keep her tough, she said. “When I come to train, I don’t want drama,” she said, fiddling with a National League championship ring belonging to her father, the former baseball player Ted Uhlaender. The ring, which she tucks into the back of her sports bra as she works out, hangs on a silver chain alongside a tiny baseball charm that holds his ashes. One of the few people Ms. Uhlaender has talked to about the doping scandal in recent months is Ms. Nikitina, her Russian competitor. In May, days after Dr. Rodchenkov’s account became public, Ms. Uhlaender and Ms. Nikitina exchanged more than a dozen messages on Facebook. Ms. Nikitina expressed shock at Dr. Rodchenkov’s statements. “We all think this is politics!” she wrote. “We basically joke about it. ” She added: “Each athlete sure of himself! As we say in Russia, ‘Such complex situations make us stronger. ’” Ms. Nikitina, who did not respond to messages from The Times, told Ms. Uhlaender her name was not on Dr. Rodchenkov’s spreadsheet, and she emphasized the sacrifices she had made to train twice a day to become a better athlete. When Ms. Uhlaender asked if Russian Olympians had doped at Sochi, Ms. Nikitina said that she could speak only for skeleton racers, and that the answer was no. Dr. Rodchenkov’s spreadsheet listed five Russian skeleton athletes, including Alexander Tretyakov, who won gold at the Games. Asked about the allegations this year, the Russian Bobsled and Skeleton Federation wrote in an email that all of its athletes “underwent doping control procedures in accordance to the rules,” adding, “All of them were clean, and not one positive result was found. ” Mr. Mutko said in Moscow this week that Mr. Tretyakov and other accused athletes had long careers with clean histories. “These athletes didn’t appear in sport all of a sudden,” he said. “No whiskey would be enough to stop them,” he said, referring to the mixture of steroids and liquor that Dr. Rodchenkov said he developed and distributed to coaches to help Russian athletes absorb drugs more quickly before traveling to international competitions for testing. Mr. Mutko said, however, that if Mr. McLaren’s inquiry proved Dr. Rodchenkov’s account true, the athletes in question would be disciplined. “I am not on the list!” Ms. Nikitina wrote to Ms. Uhlaender in a recent exchange. “I hope that the truth will prevail! And the perpetrators of this scandal will be punished!” Medalists like Ms. Nikitina received high praise for their performance at Sochi. After the Games, President Vladimir V. Putin presented Ms. Nikitina, a Olympian, with a state award, the Order for Merit to the Fatherland. “Your amazing debut,” Mr. Putin said in a public statement to Ms. Nikitina at the time, “met the expectations of your fans, coaches and teammates. ” Regardless of what may come of the investigation, Ms. Uhlaender called herself more determined than ever to work toward the only major title she has yet to capture in her career. “I want to win Korea,” she said. “If I’m first, I’ll know no one ahead of me doped. ” She said she felt sympathy for Ms. Nikitina, whether or not the claims against her were substantiated. “She’s going through something, too,” Ms. Uhlaender said. “The shininess has been dulled for both of us. ” | 1 |
Gun Control: 4 States Vote YES November 08, 2016 An audience member holds a hand lettered sign calling for further gun control at a campaign stop with U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in Nashua, New Hampshire October 16, 2015
Gun Control advocates expected to advance agenda in four states this Election Day.
Ballot measures to control gun sale and ownership in Maine, Nevada, Washington D.C., and California are expected to pass on Tuesday.
In Maine and Nevada, residents will vote on whether to mandate universal background checks for firearm sales, including private handgun transactions.
Voters in Washington state, meanwhile, will consider allowing judges to bar people from possessing guns if they pose a danger to themselves or to others, such as accused domestic abusers. In California, a referendum would ban large-capacity ammunition magazines and require certain people to pass a background check to buy ammunition.
The U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms, and gun rights advocates fiercely contest any attempt to restrict that freedom.
As reported by Charisma News in the Spring of 2016 investigative author and activist Mark Dice, during a "Man on the Street Monday" videos, asked passersby at a San Diego beach if gun control could've prevented the death of Jesus. The results gave a worrisome state of America today.
Reuters copy / TRUNEWS analysis. Article by , Correspondent for TRUNEWS | 0 |
Relieved Britain no longer biggest f**k-up of 2016 09-11-16
BRITAIN has woken up relieved to find its idiotic act of self-harm earlier this year is now a piffling historical footnote.
Across the UK, Britons are secretly delighted that when the great disasters of 2016 are remembered, Brexit will be completely overshadowed by America’s embrace of fascism.
Mary Fisher, from Croydon, said: “Wow. Like obviously bad for them, but what a total save for us.
“We’re the person who’s sick in the garden early on at the party, spends an hour thinking they’re an embarrassment, and then someone vomits explosively all over the leather couch and the new carpet.
“Brexit’s nothing now. All we’ve done is get out of the EU before their decade-long war with Russia.”
Historian Dr Helen Archer said: “For months we’ve been the world’s dumbest dickheads, and now we’re actually if anything a useful marker on the road to the total collapse of liberal democracy.
“I mean end of the world, obviously, but every cloud.”
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Writing at the Washington Post, WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange argues the CIA is declaring war on free speech by targeting WikiLeaks in retaliation for the exposure of embarrassing information included in the organization’s Vault 7 data dump on the CIA:[Mike Pompeo, in his first speech as director of the CIA, chose to declare war on free speech rather than on the United States’ actual adversaries. He went after WikiLeaks, where I serve as editor, as a “ hostile intelligence service. ” In Pompeo’s worldview, telling the truth about the administration can be a crime — as Attorney General Jeff Sessions quickly underscored when he described my arrest as a “priority. ”News organizations reported that federal prosecutors are weighing whether to bring charges against members of WikiLeaks, possibly including conspiracy, theft of government property and violating the Espionage Act. All this speech to stifle speech comes in reaction to the first publication in the start of WikiLeaks’ “Vault 7” series. Vault 7 has begun publishing evidence of remarkable CIA incompetence and other shortcomings. This includes the agency’s creation, at a cost of billions of taxpayer dollars, of an entire arsenal of cyber viruses and hacking programs — over which it promptly lost control and then tried to cover up the loss. These publications also revealed the CIA’s efforts to infect the public’s ubiquitous consumer products and automobiles with computer viruses. When the director of the CIA, an unelected public servant, publicly demonizes a publisher such as WikiLeaks as a “fraud,” “coward” and “enemy,” it puts all journalists on notice, or should. Pompeo’s next talking point, unsupported by fact, that WikiLeaks is a “ hostile intelligence service,” is a dagger aimed at Americans’ constitutional right to receive honest information about their government. This accusation mirrors attempts throughout history by bureaucrats seeking, and failing, to criminalize speech that reveals their own failings. Read the rest of the story at the Washington Post. | 1 |
We Are Change
Two-thirds of wild animals will vanish by 2020, largest mass extinction since dinosaurs.
“At some point the earth is going to say ‘enough.” A damning new report from the World Wildlife Fund has found a precipitous decline in the world’s animal populations as thousands of species scramble to survive against a sole enemy: humans.
The 2016 version of WWF’s biennial Living Planet Report , published Thursday, found a 58 percent overall decline in vertebrate populations from 1970 to 2012, the latest year with available data. The nonprofit warned that if current trends continue, the world could lose more than two-thirds of wildlife by 2020.
“As humanity continues to demand more and more of the earth and puts pressures on our natural capital, what we’re seeing is the fraying of wildlife,” said Colby Loucks , senior director for the WWF’s Wildlife Conservation Program.
Humans have affected the entire spectrum of vertebrate life ? fish, birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, the report says. The document’s warning of vanishing wildlife refers to total population size, not the number of species that will go extinct. That’s an entirely different problem .
Loucks linked wildlife losses to what he called the “five horseman” of the environmental apocalypse: habitat loss, over exploitation, pollution, invasive species and climate change. Those factors have undercut the 3,706 species documented by the WWF on land and in ocean and freshwater habitats.
Freshwater species have been hit hardest, with populations declining 81 percent, according to the report. The freshwater biome covers less than a 0.01 percent of the planet’s surface, but holds about 1 in 10 known wildlife species.
“There’s less of the cuddly panda phenomenon going on there, because humans need water to survive, to grow crops,” Loucks said, noting that “oftentimes we see freshwater for human use,” and not for conservation.
Why are there massive die offs of different species of animals around the world ?
Humanity has expanded so much ? clear-cutting rainforests , poaching big game , overfishing the seas ? that it now requires the equivalent of “1.6 earths to provide the goods and services we use each year,” the report says.
WWF ranks what it calls the “ecological footprint” of this consumption ? basically the amount of resources a human lifestyle requires in a defined region. Rich nations, including the United States, Canada and Australia, have some of the biggest footprints in the world.
“I don’t think people really know the extent of these declines,” Loucks said. “Ultimately, we’re going to need collective action to try and maintain both humans and what we need, as well as the natural world.”
Freshwater species have been hit hardest, with populations declining 81 percent, according to the report. The freshwater biome covers less than a 0.01 percent of the planet’s surface, but holds about 1 in 10 known wildlife species.
“There’s less of the cuddly panda phenomenon going on there, because humans need water to survive, to grow crops,” Loucks said, noting that “oftentimes we see freshwater for human use,” and not for conservation.
Humanity has expanded so much ? clear-cutting rainforests , poaching big game , overfishing the seas ? that it now requires the equivalent of “1.6 earths to provide the goods and services we use each year,” the report says.
Nearly three-fifths of all animals with a backbone – fish, birds, … Humanity decimating planetary wildlife as global wildlife stocks predicted to fall two – thirds by 2020 ~ The Daily Telegraph WWF ranks what it calls the “ecological footprint” of this consumption ? basically the amount of resources a human lifestyle requires in a defined region. Rich nations, including the United States, Canada and Australia, have some of the biggest footprints in the world.
“I don’t think people really know the extent of these declines,” Loucks said. “Ultimately, we’re going to need collective action to try and maintain both humans and what we need, as well as the natural world.”
Other major endeavors this year documenting animal populations have revealed similarly shocking declines. The first full census of African elephants found a 30 percent drop across the continent in just seven years. Wide swaths of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have become a coral graveyard . Even the loneliest frog on Earth died , a symbol of “the extinction crisis.”
The WWF report says there’s still time to stop mass extinction. Major worldwide initiatives to halt climate change and recent shifts toward renewable energy ensure we are not “starting from scratch,” the report says.
“The facts and figures in this report tend to paint a challenging picture, yet there is still considerable room for optimism,” the report reads. “If we manage to carry out critically needed transitions, the rewards will be immense.”
Changes should include a revamped food system that balances human need with planetary capacity.
“Sustainability and resilience will be achieved much faster if the majority of the Earth’s population understand the value and needs of our increasingly fragile Earth,” the report says. “A shared understanding of the link between humanity and nature could induce a profound change that will allow all life to thrive.”
Loucks noted that such changes are “really, really hard” and mandate long-term thinking.
“When we’re going to start seeing impacts more locally, your favorite lake dries up or your favorite species is no longer there, maybe at that point you start thinking longer term,” he said. “E ach individual is going to have their threshold when they’re going to start saying, ‘Wow, I care.’
“But at some point the earth is going to say ‘enough.’ And that’s going to be catastrophic.” written by Nick Visser Journalist/ Reporter, The Huffington Post
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How World War III Could Start November 3, 2016
The U.S. acts as if its military has an inalienable right to operate close to the borders of other nations and those nations have no right to see these actions as provocative, writes Jonathan Marshall.
By Jonathan Marshall
If humanity ever suffers a Third World War, chances are good it will start in some locale distant from the United States like the Baltic or South China Seas, the Persian Gulf, or Syria, where Washington and its rivals play daily games of “chicken” with lethal air and naval forces.
Far from enhancing U.S. security, the aggressive deployment of U.S. armed forces in these and other hot spots around the world may be putting our very survival at risk by continuously testing and prodding other military powers. What our military gains from forward deployment, training exercises, and better intelligence may be more than offset by the unnecessary provocation of hostile responses that could escalate into uncontrollable conflicts. Lockheed-Martin’s F-35 war plane.
The most obvious example is Russia, which top Pentagon officials like to remind us “poses an existential threat to the United States” by virtue of its huge nuclear arsenal. So it was discomforting to learn a few days ago that U.S. and Russian warplanes are experiencing near misses in Syrian airspace “once every 10 days-ish,” in the words of Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeff Harrigian.
The risk of war with Russia would skyrocket , of course, if the United States were to try to impose a “no-fly-zone.”
Potentially deadly incidents aren’t confined to Syria. In September , a Russian fighter jet flew within 10 feet of a U.S. Navy spy plane over the Black Sea. Six months ago, reacting to an increase in NATO war games and maneuvers, Russian aircraft buzzed a U.S. Navy destroyer conducting exercises with Poland in the Baltic Sea.
declared that the United States would have had every right to shoot down the plane. The Russians, noting that the exercises were taking place near the base of their Baltic Fleet, insisted they were simply exercising their rights to fly.
A couple of days later, a Russian jet intercepted a U.S. reconnaissance plane in the same region. A Pentagon spokesman condemned the Russian pilot’s “aggressive” and “unprofessional” maneuvers that could “escalate tensions between countries.” A Russian spokesman said its air defense forces had reacted prudently to “an unidentified target rapidly approaching the Russian border.”
Indignant over Iran
In the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy recorded 19 dangerous confrontations with Iranian vessels during the first half of this year, up from 10 in the same period in 2015. Another 11 such confrontations reportedly took place this July and August. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei speaks to a crowd. (Iranian government photo)
The most notorious incident, of course, occurred this January, when Iranian gunboats detained 10 U.S. Navy sailors for a day after they strayed into Iranian waters. The Obama administration, which had recently negotiated a nuclear accord with Iran, chose not to inflate the incident. In contrast, a trivial engagement between a U.S. Navy vessel and unarmed Iranian patrol boats in January 2008 fired up and came perilously close to triggering another Tonkin Gulf Incident.
Although Iran is not a nuclear power, it could be a regional menace if drawn into war, with ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel and Saudi oil fields, and mines that could make the Persian Gulf virtually impassable.
U.S. air and naval forces also engage in dangerous confrontations every few months with China, a nuclear state and the world’s fastest-rising conventional military power.
In late October, China’s Defense Ministry protested an allegedly “illegal” and “intentionally provocative” patrol by the guided missile destroyer USS Decatur, which was sailing close to the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea to protest Chinese maritime claims. The Chinese vowed to increase their own air and maritime patrols to “resolutely defend national sovereignty and security.”
This summer, in the space of less than a month, Chinese fighter jets twice intercepted U.S. Air Force RC-135 spy planes off of China’s coast. The Pentagon decried the Chinese response as dangerously “unsafe,” while the Chinese complained that U.S. insistence on carrying out “close reconnaissance activities against China . . . severely undermines China’s maritime security.”
Similar confrontations and now commonplace . They offer frightening reminders of the infamous 2001 Hainan Incident, which was triggered when two Chinese fighter jets intercepted a Navy EP-3 spy plane operating near the Paracel Islands and Hainan Island. One Chinese pilot maneuvered too close to the American plane and died when his cockpit was crushed. The damaged EP-3 and its crew managed to make an unauthorized emergency landing on Hainan. The George W. Bush administration brought the crew — but not the spy plane — home only after sending a letter of regret to defuse the international incident.
As geopolitical analyst Michael Moran observed at the time, “The drama of this aerial collision underscores an important and little-known post-Cold War reality: America’s surveillance network has grown so vast and formidable that in some respects it is feared as much as U.S. weaponry itself.”
Trouble with Aerial Spying
Of course, aerial spying first became a cause celèbre during the Cold War when the Soviets shot down Gary Powers and his U-2 spy plane in 1960. The resulting diplomatic crisis derailed a promising international summit on nuclear disarmament. Islands at the center of the territorial dispute between China and Japan. (Image credit: Jackopoid)
Since then, the tempo of spy flights has dramatically increased , despite the availability of satellites to monitor the world.
“On any given day, there are more than a dozen ‘strategic’ reconnaissance flights, supplemented by dozens of shorter range missions by tactical listening aircraft and helicopters,” reported William Arkin after the Hainan Incident.
Unlike satellites, intrusive planes trigger their targets’ radar systems, light up their communications networks, and provoke military command responses. That’s why American military leaders value the tactical intelligence they provide. That’s also why countries like China view them with such hostility.
The spy flight that triggered the Hainan Incident cost only one life, but history shows the risks can be far greater, especially during times of great political tension.
For example, U.S. spy flights along the Soviet Union’s eastern border helped provoke the tragic downing of a Korean Air Lines passenger jet in September 1983, when it strayed into sensitive Soviet airspace over military facilities in the Far East. The loss of 269 lives was terrible enough, but the resulting propaganda barrage from the Reagan administration helped arouse fears in the Kremlin into that war with the United States might be imminent.
The two jittery superpowers came dangerously close to nuclear war later that month when Soviet early warning systems falsely reported the launch of U.S. Minuteman missiles.
Military professionals in the United States and many of its rivals generally contain these incidents rather than letting them get out of hand. But accidents, miscalculations, and political opportunism pose ever-present risks of escalating small engagements into much larger military confrontations.
There’s plenty of blame to go around. But at the end of the day, what’s striking is that virtually every one of these dangerous incidents takes place as a result of U.S. military patrols or exercises near the borders of countries with whom we are ostensibly at peace, not while defending our own borders.
Americans raised on a pervasive ideology of “exceptionalism” all too easily assume that our far-flung military presence is simply the natural order of things, and that any challenge to it must be countered. A little reflection, however, should suggest why countries — like Russia, China and Iran — grow hostile and even paranoid as they are tested almost daily by the air and naval forces of a superpower. Even if we do not appreciate their point of view, we should seriously ask whether our military really serves U.S. security interests by provoking new opportunities for deadly confrontations almost daily. | 0 |
By Mae Chan Kombucha (pronounced kom-BOO-cha) is a fizzy, non-alcoholic fermented drink made with tea. It has gained praise and popularity in recent years for its ability to improve digestion... | 0 |
Reuters
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Wednesday suspended a Pentagon order that California National Guardsmen repay thousands of dollars in enlistment bonuses and tuition assistance they had received by mistake more than a decade ago.
“While some soldiers knew or should have known they were ineligible for benefits they were claiming, many others did not,” Carter, who is in Europe meeting with U.S. allies, said in a statement.
“This process has dragged on too long, for too many service members,” he said. “Too many cases have languished without action. That’s unfair to service members and to taxpayers.”
Thousands of California National Guard troops had been ordered to repay enlistment bonuses – some of more than $15,000 – that were improperly given to them. The Los Angeles Times, which first reported on the bonuses last week, said audits revealed the California Guard had overpaid troops in order to entice them to join and meet enlistment targets.
The Obama administration has been criticized by some military families and Republicans – including presidential candidate Donald Trump – for not doing enough for veterans. There also have been bipartisan calls in the U.S. Congress to forgive the overpayments.
“The president has been pleased to see that in the last 24 hours the Department of Defense make specific commitments to ensuring that our service members are treated fairly,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said during a media briefing in Washington.
Carter, speaking to reporters in Brussels as he announced the suspension, said the law required the Pentagon keep open the option of someday again seeking repayment.
“But the point is that … there won’t be any more collections until we put in place a process that can expeditiously and fairly deal with these issues,” he said.
Senior Defense Department officials have been told to assess the bonus situation and establish a “streamlined, centralized process” by the start of next year, Carter said in the statement. He added that about 2,000 people had been asked to repay erroneous payments.
“The objective will be to complete the decision-making process on all cases as soon as possible – and no later than July 1,” he said.
The streamlined process, which will build on existing processes, would evaluate each case individually, Peter Levine, acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, told reporters in Washington.
Levine said the amount of the improperly paid bonuses was unclear but a nationwide audit had found that the issue affected people outside California as well but the “numbers in other states are in the dozens, rather than the hundreds or the thousands.”
“The process that we have allows us to correct our records and to correct our payment,” he said. “We do not have the authority or the ability to go and change people’s credit records.”
U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement on Wednesday that Congress would “continue to work on any reforms necessary to ensure this doesn’t happen again.” | 0 |
HONG KONG — A ubiquitous source of power in most modern technology, batteries keep cellphones, laptops, electric cars and airplanes running. They are also the source of many problems, with some overheating, catching fire and even exploding. In a potentially damaging episode, Samsung, the world’s biggest maker of smartphones, announced on Friday that it would recall its Galaxy Note 7 model after discovering a flaw in the battery cell that could result in fires. The company will replace 2. 5 million phones sent to stores and consumers, in one of the industry’s largest recalls. The recall puts Samsung, which has been trying to match the success of the Apple iPhone, in a precarious position. The smartphone industry is grappling with slowing demand and intense competition. Samsung was regaining swagger with its phone models, like the Note 7, in which the screens appear to spill off the side. But the battery fires threaten to undermine Samsung’s efforts, giving an edge to Apple. The recall comes just days before Apple is expected to unveil the latest version of its iPhone. The ultimate scale of the damage to Samsung’s reputation and finances will depend on how quickly the company deals with the issues and how costly they turn out to be. Along with the expense of fixing the phones, Samsung could face lost sales if consumers grow wary of its products. Samsung said it expected that manufacturing replacement phones would take two weeks. Consumers who have already bought the phones will receive replacements before new phones go on sale, the company said. Samsung did not indicate the cost of the recall. “If you look at previous instances in tech history where there have been recalls, as long as it doesn’t drag on to the point that the company becomes the butt of a joke, then it should be minor,” said Bryan Ma, an analyst at IDC, a technology research firm. “If it becomes like a Pinto, where you don’t want to buy it because it explodes, that would be a bad situation,” he said, referring to the 1971 Ford car that became famous for erupting in flames after collisions. “But I think they’ll get past it. ” Samsung said that, so far, 35 battery episodes involving the Note 7 had been registered. Reports of the problem first started to emerge online, as consumers posted photographs and videos of the charred remains of phones they said had burst into flames, usually while being recharged. In one video, a customer shows a phone, and explains: “Came home after work, put it to charge for a little bit before I had class, went to put it on my waist, and it caught fire. Yep, brand new phone, not even two weeks old. ” Samsung said it thought the problem came from a “minute flaw” in the production of the batteries. Samsung would not name the supplier involved. The recall covers 10 countries where the phones have been sold. Samsung said the recall would not affect China, since the models sold there used a battery from a different supplier. “We acknowledge the inconvenience this may cause in the market, but this is to ensure that Samsung continues to deliver the products to our customers,” the company said in a statement. “We are working closely with our partners to ensure the replacement experience is as convenient and efficient as possible. ” The recall is a major blow to Samsung, which had just started to regain its competitive footing. The company faces pressures across its product line, with Apple on the high end and new Chinese brands on the lower end. Samsung was gaining traction with the latest Galaxy phones. The phones’ smooth, tapered edges, which make them more comfortable to hold, have been a hit with consumers. In the second quarter, Samsung’s global smartphone sales rose 5. 5 percent from a year earlier while Apple’s fell 15 percent, giving Samsung 22. 4 percent of the market compared to Apple’s 11. 8 percent, according to IDC. While some of that growth came from Samsung’s phones, IDC said that a significant part had also come from new demand for its phones, which contributed a disproportionate amount of profit. In a year that Samsung originally warned could be tough, the company has performed surprisingly well. In the most recent second quarter, the company said its operating profit rose 15 percent from a year earlier, to about $7 billion. Samsung had high expectations for the latest Galaxy phone, which was released last month, to help continue the momentum. The Note 7 is 5. 7 inches from corner to corner, making it a large phone sometimes referred to as a phablet — a combination of phone and tablet. It sells in the United States for about $900 to $1, 000 without subsidies from a wireless carrier. The phones were released just ahead of Apple’s traditional release time in autumn, before the important holiday shopping season. Apple is set to show off its latest iPhone on Sept. 7. With the new iPhone, Apple is expected to make major upgrades to both the hardware and software, as it generally does every two years. “You have to applaud Samsung for moving quickly,” said Ben Wood, mobile analyst at CCS Insight in Berlin. “But they can’t afford to miss the run up to the holiday season, so they have to fix this problem fast. ” Lightweight and powerful, batteries are the for technology, since they don’t take up much room and can quickly recharge repeatedly without wearing out. But they are also far from perfect. The batteries, which include volatile and flammable chemical compounds, can become unstable if overheated or punctured. If that happens, the battery can burst into flames or explode. Dell in 2006 recalled more than four million batteries for its notebook computers. American aviation authorities in 2013 reviewed the design of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner after a number of incidents involving batteries and the plane’s electrical system. Tesla in 2014 had to reinforce the area protecting the batteries in its Model S after it became apparent that road debris striking the bottom of the car could cause a fire. More recently, battery problems have cropped up with increasing frequency among devices. In America, airline companies began banning hoverboards from flights after it became apparent that some of the products would occasionally burst into flames. There have also been increased reports of batteries spontaneously detonating. Analysts, in part, attribute the issues to the low standards and few regulations in the global electronics supply chain that sprawls across China. As smaller Chinese companies have jumped at opportunities to make their own devices, some have cut corners, leading to a number of problems, including the occasionally combusting battery. For Samsung, the recall strikes at the heart of what has long been considered its greatest strength: its management of the supply chain. Samsung owns the facilities that produce many of the components in its smartphones — including screens, chips and batteries. The system allows it to keep closer tabs on production. Yet much like Apple, Samsung also manages a large network of suppliers. That means it must coordinate the production of a high number of parts that come from factories in disparate places run on tight margins. It must also the quality of each product, which can be exceptionally challenging given that production processes are complex and factories are sometimes known to sacrifice quality for profit. “What’s surprising is this comes from Samsung, who have such prowess and competence in manufacturing and supply chain,” Mr. Ma of IDC said. “You would think this wouldn’t happen to a company like that, but somehow it slipped through. ” | 1 |
November 14, 2016 - Fort Russ News -
Fabrizio Poggi, in Contropiano , translated from Italian by Tom Winter
Igor Dodon, President-elect of Moldova
Moldova and Bulgaria: Something new in the East
Rumen Radev, President-elect of Bulgaria
In the east - not everywhere, sadly - there is a turn towards Moscow. The newly elected presidents of Moldavia and Bulgaria seem to want to go in that direction.
In Kishinev, where two weeks ago, no candidate had a majority in round one, the Socialist Party leader, Igor Dodon, has 52.6% of the votes (not including expatriate votes from US and Canada, but these can not overturn the result) against the pro-EU Maia Sandu, leader of the Action and Solidarity Party, with 47.3% and who, in Yankee fashion, is now threatening "mass demonstrations," not recognizing the result.
Maia Sandu Dodon congratulated Sandu for the "honorable result" and invited her to discussions, without destabilizing the country. It seems (though not official at this time of writing) that the turnout was respectable; this was the first direct election of the president of the republic since 1996; since 2000 in fact, the President was elected by Parliament. There was even shortage of ballots, in particular in various stations abroad: Bologna, Parma, Paris, Moscow, Bucharest; Portugal appears to have lost the entire st of ballots.
On the eve of the vote Dodon, an experienced office-holder, (Deputy Prime Minister in 2008-2009 and Minister of Economy in 2006-2009) said that if he won, his first visit abroad would would be to Moscow, "to start working out a strategic partnership agreement" and to renew exports to Russia, which were limited after the signing of the association and free trade agreement with the EU.
Dodon has always said he was "confident of victory. People are tired of the seven years of EU coalition, poverty, corruption, lawlessness, and want to live in a state of their own and not in some province of another country."
The socialist leader has also called for the Russian peacekeepers to remain in Transnistria, until the complete solution of the political events through the federalization of Moldova, which Sandu opposes. According to Tass, all candidates had based their election campaign primarily on foreign issues: pointing on one side to the "hand of the Kremlin," and, on the other to "Washington's Regional Committee," a side which was still floating a union with Romania. The Socialists pointed to Maia Sandu as "a puppet of the US" - where she studied and worked at the World Bank, and tied her to Angela Merkel, Donald Tusk, and Jean-Claude Juncker, apparently even to former Romanian President, Traian Băsescu, who got himself awarded Moldovan citizenship [! -tr] in order to vote for Maia Sandu.
On the other side Sandu was proposing, along with strategic partnership with Washington, close contacts with Kiev, even a future union with Romania.
As expected, there are the threats of yet another "Orange Revolution," like the one in 2009 after the Communist Party won the election in Moldova, under the flags of EU and Romania, with rioting which brought broken windows and arson to the Parliament and the presidential residence.
Obviously, Brussels was on the "orange" side: the results of seven years of EU-line coalition are also seen in the demonstrations a year ago against the oligarchy in power, in the rejection of government policy on the part of 80% of the population, and in those favoring integration with Brussels falling from 70% to 37%.
In addition, the Donald Trump victory seems to have played a role also in Kishinev: "The geopolitical color of the Moldovan leadership will become less important for the United States," Andrei Popov said in a NewsMaker interview. Popov, former Deputy Foreign Minister of Moldova, added that Washington will renounce a whole series of Moldovan projects that were initiated by the Clinton circle.
Also, in Bulgaria, the coalition headed by the Socialist Party prevailed in the second presidential round of the general election: Air Force General Rumen Radev topped his opponent Tsetska Tsačeva by 4-5% (the result is not final). Tsačeva was the candidate of the pro-government coalition GERB ("Citizens for European development of Bulgaria)."
In the first round, Sunday, Nov. 6, no candidate reached the 30% necessary for the election: Radev was at 25.4% and Tsačeva at 21.9%.
The now president-elect said he was opposed to Bulgaria's permanence in NATO (of which the country has been a member since 2004) and in the EU, and has spoken out for closer relations with Russia.
The Prime Minister, the hawk Boyko Borissov had promised to resign if Radev won, while he was still hoping for a Tsačeva victory, seems to have kept his word, opening a crisis that does not seem easy to solve.
In opposition to the overtly anti-Russian, phil-atlantic policies of former President Rosen Plevneliev and Boyko Borissov, Radev said that "deepening the dialogue with Russia will reduce confrontation and tension, and hopefully lead to the normalization of the situation in Syria and Ukraine."
With regard to the anti-Russian sanctions, he stressed that this "is a matter of the government's responsibility. But, as President, I am committed to dialogue, to seek a solution with EU colleagues." As for internal affairs, he said "despite threats of the apocalypse," the voters "voted for change and democracy, overcoming apathy and fear."
An entity that in contrast does not change policy towards Russia is the European Union. Federica Mogherini, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, said that Brussels does not intend to change its own position on Russia, even if the White House, after the arrival of Donald Trump, pursues a rapprochement with the Kremlin.
The EU, as Mogherini spelled it out, "has a principled stand on the issue of the annexation of the Crimea and on the situation in Ukraine, and will not change it, regardless of any changes of position by other countries, including the United States.
"Ipse dixit et salvavit eos**; of course, the "Russian aggression!
* A view from the Italian Communist Party on-line journal; for the take of Eduard Popov on these two election victories, click.
** "She herself has said it, and saved them" [Correcting to "ipsa"] -- an apparent reference to the Catholic confessional "dixi et salvavi animam" -- I have spoken and saved my soul."
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Home / BREAKING NEWS / BREAKING: Officer Charged for Killing Innocent Unarmed Father With His Hands Up on Video BREAKING: Officer Charged for Killing Innocent Unarmed Father With His Hands Up on Video
UPDATE: On Thursday afternoon, District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler directed his staff to file a first-degree manslaughter charge against Officer Betty Shelby in the fatal shooting of Terence Crutcher. According to the Tulsa World report:
A warrant has been issued for her arrest and arrangements made for her surrender.
Kunzweiler filed the charge after reviewing dash cam video and helicopter video that captured the shooting. He also reviewed citizen 911 calls, witness interviews and other evidence, according to a news release from the District Attorney’s Office.
“Officer Shelby, although now charged, is presumed to be innocent under the law until a judge or jury determines otherwise,” the release states.
Tulsa, OK — Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby fatally shot 40-year-old Terence Crutcher Friday night when he experienced car trouble after leaving night classes at Tulsa Community College — and now, dash cam video of the shooting shows the man’s arms were in the air when Shelby took his life.
“His hands were in the air from all views,” pastor Rodney Goss of the Morning Star Baptist Church, who viewed footage from both dash cams and a police helicopter prior to the public release, told the Tulsa World . “It was not apparent from any angle at any point he lunged, came toward, aggressively attacked, or made any sudden movements that would have been considered a threat or life-threatening toward the officer.”
Police had thus far claimed Crutcher — whose SUV broke down in the middle of the road — approached the officers aggressively while refusing to obey commands to raise his arms, an action the helicopter pilot notes would perhaps be worthy of deploying the Taser.
“He’s got his hands up for her now,” the pilot says of Crutcher, adding a moment later the man appears uncooperative and may need to be tased.
Officer Tyler Turnbough then deployed his Taser against Crutcher, but Shelby fired before the electric jolt could even knock him to the ground. Video from one patrol car’s dash can and that as seen from a police helicopter circling above clearly shows Crutcher not acting aggressively as the cops surround and then murder him.
“It wasn’t a matter of minutes, it was a matter of moments,” Goss noted. “As quick as the officer released the Taser from his hand, Terence was falling to the ground having already been shot.”
Worse, he explained, the officers seemed not to treat their victim with any concern, and made no moves to provide first aid after the tasing and shooting.
“After having been shot, a couple minutes it appears, but it seemed like a lifetime, went by before anyone actually checked with him as far as pulse — as far as whatever the case may be,” Goss said.
Police on scene indeed appear infinitely more concerned with the panicked Shelby than they do with the man they just shot for no apparent reason, and footage bears out Goss’ statement it takes minutes for officers even to approach the dying man. As Crutcher lies mortally wounded on the ground, officers back away like frightened children, supporting Shelby by the arms. As the helicopter circles overhead, audio of the pilot shows he is quite startled by the inexplicable shooting.
Goss explained to the World that Crutcher moved slowly and deliberately throughout his brief interaction with the police.
But the cops’ predilection to employ force might have been a forgone conclusion, as he said, one officer is overheard in audio inexplicably describing Crutcher — the father of four, who was taking a night class in music appreciation — as “one bad dude.”
As Goss plainly summarized , “There was a perception problem before there was ever a shooting.”
Although authorities had refused to say whether or not a weapon was recovered at the scene, Crutcher’s twin sister, Tiffany insists her brother would not have been armed.
“One fact I do know is that my brother was unarmed,” she asserted in a news conference Saturday. “I’m just devastated.”
In a press conference prior to the release of the video he called “very disturbing” and “hard to watch,” Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan finally confirmed, “I’m going to tell you right now, right now, there was no gun on the suspect or in the suspect’s vehicle.”
Crutcher’s family, their attorneys, local pastors, and several activists were permitted to view the footage before police released it to the public.
“We wanted them to see it before it was released so they wouldn’t be blindsided by it,” Tulsa Police Sgt. Shane Tuell confirmed, according to ABC News . “We wanted to be able to have that intimate time with them, with their attorney, to see if they had any questions or concerns.
“With something of this magnitude, we’re trying an approach that we believe is necessary to further that transparency.”
Shelby, on the force since 2011, and Turnbough, an officer since 2009 — who were named by police on Sunday — encountered Crutcher’s stalled SUV as they were responding to another call. Both have been given the paid vacation, otherwise known as administrative leave, customarily ‘rewarded’ after the use of fatal force.
“We have to let justice take its course,” Goss said prior to the announcement the Department of Justice would conduct an investigation into the fatal shooting.
Activists gathered outside the Tulsa County Courthouse to protest the killing of Crutcher and the ballooning epidemic of police violence, while community leaders urged the public to remain calm upon release of footage.
“Protests are not a problem,” Chief Jordan told the press. “I grew up in the 60s and it’s a very valid way of people to protect their rights.”
Whether calm and justice will ultimately prevail hinges on whether or not Shelby receives proportionate punishment for taking the life of a wholly and utterly innocent man whose only crime — apparently a capital offense — was having car trouble at an inopportune moment.
This is what complying with police in America looks like. [ Editor’s note: While it was originally reported by multiple sources Terence Crutcher was a pastor , we have yet to confirm that information and have corrected the article to reflect this.] Share
i wonder what that cop dropped? Tom Harder
He didn’t drop anything. That was the suspect hitting the ground. Steve Smith
funny how you call the victim a suspect and not a PASTOR Antonio Cruz
pastor or not, it remain a suspect, until the end of the investigation. grapesodabanked
Suspect of what? He was just a random guy whose car broke down and they ran into him on their way to another call. Antonio Cruz
i do not know, what he is suspect of, I do know, in legal matters, is just a denomination for anyone, in any circunstance anywhere. Sillywilly
so if your wife or your child breaks down on the side of the road they’re suspect of something huh? Antonio Cruz
the answer is; yes anyone anywhere could be a suspect. Sevalo
So, in your mind, inhaling and exhaling makes one a suspect. Antonio Cruz
Please, for your own good, find a dictionary search for the word and then, come back, right now I am just wasting my time trying to make you understand, it is about semantics. Sevalo
From your posts that are filled with bad grammar and spelling errors, I suggest you consult not only your dictionary but also William Strunk’s The Elements of Style. Antonio Cruz
it might be because, english is not my first language, and my disability includes parcial hand movement and aphasia. in your case is just, the inability to understand your own language. Luke Yi
If you are not familiar with terminology in English perhaps you ought neither correct others’ English, nor weigh in about the legal validity of certain language.
Lawyers are experts in a very particular language. Luke Yi
“person thought to be guilty of a crime or offense”
Nice try but you ought to learn to use the dictionary yourself Sillywilly
suspect of what?? Having car trouble? billdeserthills
You must know cops refer to themselves as Us and they refer to us as Them–they lump anybody else with the criminals just like the bunch of stupid gang members they resemble Sillywilly
now that I can agree with BigJohnConnor
The answer is that you are a fucking moron who has no concept of the law or what it means to be a free citizen. Luke Yi
“Could be” is distinct from “is” Jordan Manicom
He was only a “suspect” to an assembly of fools. Steve Smith
His morality when he joined the force. Butch Taylor
Clearing Shelby and Turnbough of any wrong doing is promising to be the white wash cover up of all time. supersajin
Looks like paid vacation and a GoFundMe page is in those cops future… TroothFairy
Death penalty for cops who pull shit like this. Reaves
We can start by comparing whatever initial statement they gave to the videos we have. If an officer is intentionally deceptive, that should be a felony in its own right. TroothFairy
Completely agree. Cops need to be held to a much higher standard than ordinary citizens. d marino
They aren’t being held to ANY damn standard in today’s society. They are literally “getting away with murder”. billdeserthills
Much like our politicians, they both break their oath of office all the time Jan Miller Saylors
I think some of the above comments would certainly apply to Hillary Clinton,talk about above the law……There is no excuse to shoot an unarmed person with his hands up in the air,that is cooperating with the officer. Kevin Rogers
But he wasn’t cooperating with the officer… Officers don’t follow you to your vehicle when they feel threatened, they tell you to get on the ground. Christopher Pacella
they are they take a oath and there word in a court of law means more then yours d marino
They lie, a lot, even in court. Just like our high officials lie in court and nothing happens to the criminals of power (the cops, the lawyers, the Congressmen, the Judges, the President, etc.). edslides
YE and that is NOT discrimination. its called respect. it is expected of citizens, BUT doubly so, righteously so, for a man that swears an oath to uphold the law. accident? accidents have consequences. I kill a guy, i go to jail, period. read a few of your comments lately tooth fairy. you head is bolted on solid. it nauseates me how the cop had more compassion for the stupid fucking cunt that killed an innocent man that he/she/they had for the man they just shot. i AM SO FUCKING PISSED. David Hall
I am too, it just makes me want to puke. The sight of all the pussies cuddling up to the cunt that just murdered a man is beyond fucking words. All they cared about was her. The man is dying and they don’t give a fuck. And the low life scumbags wobder why America is against them and wants to kill all of them, every day we see why. This one takes it to a new low, even for the POS cowards and bullies. It really just makes me so fucking mad I could kill all of them POS and never lose a nights sleep. I used to wonder why guys would say when a cop was killed, good riddance…now I know why! What the fuck is the matter with the low IQ POS cops in the U.S. Thank God I don’t live in America. They have a real problem. soulshadow55
David, I totally agree with you. Just out of curiosity, what country do you live in? Lliss
Spoken by a guy who’s been arrested several times! lol Reinhold Von Kirschmann
She was charged with murder. Where’s your big mouth now? Point
Hmm… You sound like someone who would definitely leave a dying person unhelped – possibly even cause a person to die in the first place. Which makes essentially indistinguishable from the subjects your essay. Luke Yi
That’s not a very careful reading of the text, or the subtext, of david hall’s comment Point
I’m not certain there is much subtext to read from Mr. Hall’s post; I take his post as his pure and unadulterated feelings. He states the following:
“It really just makes me so fucking mad I could kill all of them POS and never lose a nights sleep.”
If I ever deliberately caused harm to a person, I know I’d never have a proper night’s sleep again. The idea that Mr. Hall would feel good about the killings of multiple people – let alone his own proposal to do it himself – seems to me precisely the mindset that supports the continued killing of people. Justsomeguy151
It’s called justice, that’s why you hate it. Point
Oh, that’s justice? Please, tell me more about your beliefs or opinions regarding justice. I am eager to hear them.
It sounds suspiciously though, that if we all agreed to follow your concept of “justice,” that we would end up with one, solitary, very sad person. The last person, and the only one to actually experience this “justice.” And frankly, the only reason he’s left is because there’s no one left to blow his brains out. Luke Yi
I think that was david halls point by the way–that this cycle of violence, which is being perpetrated in part under the auspices of the law, is leaving families bereaved, helpless, hopeless, sad, and alone.
I myself feel this disconnection. I would rather it were any other way.
But people, especially it seems white evangelicals, support “an eye for an eye” rather than the love and forgiveness suggested by the black families of the black victims at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church who were murdered by a white supremacist. Jan Honeycutt
No one in my church supports that the goes against the Bible. Luke Yi
I didn’t say anything about your church, Jan. I didn’t say anything about all Christians or all white people or all evangelicals. I said something that is true: some Christians advocate an eye for an eye. billdeserthills
That ‘eye for an eye’ stuff is from the Torah–You need to figure out which bunch of people you are trying to c rap on sonny boy Luke Yi
It’s in “Exodus” in the King James Bible.
No one needs you to reinterpret my words
But lies, distortions, and ad hominem as are par for the course aren’t you? Justsomeguy151
Easy, hypocritical POS. You think thee should be zero consequences for pigs murdering civilians for nothing but if pigs got their traitorous heads blown off for murder, THEN its justice. get it, POS? Point
I see. So to you, justice is blowing peoples’ heads off?
I guess if either of us want to see justice in action, we’re going to have to go somewhere like China. I hear there is lots of justice there. Luke Yi
He stated pretty clearly he’s upset by the situation. He employs the subjunctive tense rather than future tense to indicate a hypothetical.
As I said you’re not reading text or subtext carefully. Subtext requires understanding the background, or where the author is arriving at this point from.
David never said he was going to kill someone; he said he’s upset.
Or perhaps you’re the kind of person who, when you say “I could just kill my brother for doing that!” is actually considering killing him. Justsomeguy151
You must be fucking stupid to think that. Point
Well then I guess you’re right, and I must be fucking stupid.
Great chat, though.
I feel the same way, so glad to hear of your impending departure billdeserthills
I disagree, you aren’t related to a cop are you? Point
No, I’m not. Should it make a difference? billdeserthills
I don’t wanna be calling you a copsucker, if you aren’t one Point
Well… I’m a scientist, so I guess I’d be a sciencesucker.
Meanwhile, I’ve made my viewpoints pretty clear in this thread. You’ve reviewed it pretty carefully already, since you’ve replied to several of my comments individually.
I suggest that we can talk about the ideas I’ve been representing (which are very interesting), or me (which is considerably less interesting) – but the topics are quite separate. Which would you prefer to discuss? billdeserthills
You just done sucked the fun right outta this thread Point
A draw, then?
Who knows, if our viewpoints are so divergent, perhaps we can look forward to another go at it some other time. billdeserthills
You for or against a man’s right to Demand Satisfaction? Point
An interesting question: but I don’t know what you mean by “demanding satisfaction.” If it means you get to kill someone’s son because they killed your son, then no. I am against that. If satisfaction means that someone who harms or kills another person must answer for that in a court of law, then I am for it.
I would also like to know, if it is a right, where that right is documented? The only rights that I am aware that I have come from my U.S. citizenship, and are bestowed by the U.S. Constitution and the tributaries of law that emanate from it. When I travel outside my country, I’m no longer protected by my constitution.
I also believe strongly in the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Paris, 1948). While it is not a document with legal status, it serves to guide a fragmented and contentious world stage towards recognizing and acknowledging a series of “fundamental rights”– an ideal towards which we can strive.
One thing I do know: one does not have a “right” to something just because they claim it’s their “right.” I’m betting that people misunderstanding what their rights are – and are not – is a component in many examples of the continuing violence and contention between people now. Luke Yi
Those rights are actually not considered by the constitution or our founders to originate with the document or their ideas.
The founders considered these to be natural rights, endowed to us merely by our existence.
Of course, they thought only wealthy white males were actually human adults, and everyone else was an object for use, including women, children, and other races. billdeserthills
Lawyers seem to have made off with my right to ‘demand satisfaction’ then Point
…or, you never had such a right in the first place, and you simply invented it. billdeserthills
The Right to Demand Satisfaction did exist at one time, it seems to have ended in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s as a so-called scientist I am surprised you never heard of it– I hope you don’t also think dueling pistols are something I made up as well, mr so-called fancypants scientist Point
Hmm…“The Right to Demand Satisfaction.” Well, I guess we’ll just have to take your word on it. But honestly, it sounds like something you just made up. And “rights” simply don’t work like that.
In regard to “dueling pistols,” I’m afraid the example is not related to your earlier claim of some sort of “right.” In fact, if I’m not mistaken, duels were a matter of a code of honor, and had very little to do with rights.
It’s sort of interesting that you say your “Right to Demand Satisfaction” disappeared in “the late 1800’s or early 1900’s,” since it wasn’t long after that the modern concept of “rights” really began to enter our social consciousness. billdeserthills
Too bad the schools don’t do much of a job educating you kids these days Point
That’s fine. We’re done with our chat though, correct? billdeserthills
I suppose, you don’t really seem intelligent enough to discuss much–You can’t even remember simple things others write, even when that writing would be easily referred to, you still get it wrong–Sounds like you are just a modern-made problem waiting to happen to your next employer, sucks to be that guy, I suppose Point
Cheers. billdeserthills
I’m thinking you should definitely invest in a helmet, so you don’t fall down and cause yourself some brain damage Sounds like you need to preserve all the brain cells you can get Point
That’s also fine. I thought we were done with our discussion?
Since you have had nothing to say regarding our original topic of discussion – despite your several ongoing comments – may I suggest that at this time, we allow others to express themselves, and our discussion can become part of the archive of this article’s comments?
Cheers. billdeserthills
This isn’t a piece of paper, there is plenty of room for saying nothing at all here–besides the mods need something to do. Point
That’s going to be a problem for our friend, Billdeserthills, because he has indicated that a man has “a right to demand satisfaction.” He has also since indicated that “satisfaction” involves blowing someone’s head off. billdeserthills
Actually I said nothing of the kind. So sad to see modern education at work– Point
My bad – the person I intended to refer to is “Justsomeguy151.” billdeserthills
Sounds like you are getting smarter, I hope it isn’t just more BS Point
Cheers. billdeserthills
Totally unfounded–Hard to believe that You are actually a ‘scientist’–Real scientist’s use facts, before they shoot off they’re mouths–You should try it sometime–Facts can be your friend Luke Yi
We intentionally do not hire cops with IQs much above the mean. I understand the reasoning employed in that decision but believe it’s a moral error billdeserthills
It’s not just a ‘moral’ error–The money these so-called ‘police’ cost taxpayers Every Year could buy us all something real nice–Or even a whole bunch of Real Police Point
In many jurisdictions, it sort of depends on why you killed the guy. Christopher Pacella
innocent??? that nigger had his hands up. that means he was high on crack. Annica
Wow and your hate is the reason why there’s still racial tension. Unarmed, hands up don’t deserve to be shot dead in cold blood. Period. No human deserves that. No matter their race. Bigot. Justsomeguy151
Bigoted fagot, you’re not funny. In fact, you deserve to be brutally murdered by the very same pig’s you suck off. Point
Huh… so you do like blacks, but you don’t like gays?
Do you have a list, or something so that we can know ahead of time who’s ok, and who’s not?
It’s sort of weird, because usually people will either dislike both gays and blacks, or they won’t have a problem with either. But – eh – there’s no rules about these things. billdeserthills
Are You taking notes? Point
A list of the people who you don’t like. We’ve got blacks and gays so far. Anyone else?
I’m honestly not sure what your argument regarding gays is – I’ve read your comment a couple times, and it’s clear you don’t like them. What’s the point, though?
You’re welcome to like or to not like anyone you want, in my opinion. I don’t know if it’s a “right,” per se, but I treat it as though it is. But, if you’re going to say things that aren’t in fact true, then – if it’s a topic I am familiar with – I’ll probably say something to you about it. billdeserthills
I don’t really know any black or gay people, so I can’t say I don’t like them Point
Fair enough. Maybe I misinterpreted one of your earlier comments. Justsomeguy151
I don’t dislike gays although I hate what they do and the Gay Agenda. A list for what? Are you an idiot? We are all responsible for own actions and gays always say “I just can’t help it, I was born this way” (even though there are former gays so yes, they can definitely choose), so their perversion should be OK. Well pedophiles say the same thing but not too many people are falling all over themselves to defend them. Luke Yi
I’m certain you’re wrong about “kill a guy…go to jail”— the law has many different ways of treating killers depending on the particular circumstances.
That said I agree with the sentiment behind your expression Jan Honeycutt
If we shoot a criminal on our property we go to jail. Mike List
Not sure ‘much higher’ is good, but the parameters of police conduct need to be communicated and understood in good faith, by police and their clients. Luke Yi
Why wouldn’t higher standards be required of someone who in the course of their duties employs deadly force legally? Messier M41
They aren’t held to any standard, except whatever one they decide they want to be held to that day. If the military is being honored, then the police will say “we are just like them and we should be honored like them.” When they shoot unarmed people, the standard is “I was a scared little bitch and I wanted to make sure I got home to my family! How dare you question me!” freewheelinfranklin543
It is called Obstruction of Justice and it is a felony. Tmoney
Obstruction of justice is a felony? The obstruction the officer was talking about was not answering questions which is bullshit because you don’t have to answer questions it’s called the 5th amendment. Even if he was charged and even if it went to court that type of obstruction would be a misdemeanor. Obstruction is a broad term and can be a felony, but things like people filming an encounter and interfering with an arrest is misdemeanor obstruction. James
I’ve got a better idea. put them in the stocks and subject them to a lifetime of public humiliation and abuse. edslides
death is too generous. put that useless twat n general population in a state penitentiary, remember how dahmer got justiced? shanked in the terlet. this shit has got to be nipped in the fuckin bud. sooner rather than later. i dont care what color you are, this is just straight up bullshit. looked down the barrel of a cop gun myself twice, once for walking, once for questioning a “cops” authoritah. Jordan Manicom
I would have killed the pig billdeserthills
No you wouldn’t, I’ve had many people draw down on me and not all of them cops by a long shot–That ‘keepin it real’ bs isn’t worth a trip to jail–However you might second my desire to bring back Our Right to Demand Satisfaction? There was honor in that, someone gets slapped with a glove and someone gets killed (maybe) for their beliefs–Next time your politician disappoints you voting for the wrong side–Pistols at dawn scumbag! Or of course they could just run away, and look like dishonorable scum… Lliss
Did all of you guys on his blog get left back in at least one grade? You sound so infantile and dumb! billdeserthills
Fuck off twat, I wasn’t talking to you Luke Yi
Of course pistols were quite inaccurate then. Modern pistols would likely make that a death sentence. Also, the best shot gets their way, rather than the best person. billdeserthills
Dueling pistols are generally smooth bore, without rifling–They look to be intentionally created to be slightly inaccurate — Anyhow if you can’t shoot you could always hire someone to be your champion Luke Yi
Weapons were never designed to be intentionally inaccurate. Design of weapons has improved dramatically since the 1700s. billdeserthills
Why weren’t the barrels rifled then? At the time rifle barrels were rifled, so the weapon makers knew about the accuracy potential of rifling a barrel–You are so smart, answer me that smarty pants freewheelinfranklin543
Dahmer wasn’t shanked. He was beaten(to a bloody pulp) to death with barbells. Lliss
Again, Spoken by a cop hating guy who’s been arrested several times. Shut up Jerome Taylor
No you shut up!! Point
Notice the number of people who so easily and blithely call for the death of other people. They’re sort of in the majority.
And I walk around with these people on the street, every day, people thinking that there are people who need to be killed. And I’m sure some of them think that I need to be killed.
When I realize how little respect my fellow Americans have for life, it makes me feel like we should have hyper-aggressive cops.
If you’re calling for death, then I’m not even sure it matters why it should be so important whose death your calling for. The cops shot this man – he never bothered me, but you know what – there are plenty of people who he would have bothered. For example, America is filled with racists right now. They’ll be pleased.
Maybe this week, there will be another attack against police officers. Some people will be happy that some of them died.
I do know that there is almost no example where enough people were killed to solve whatever thing they thought was a problem. I know Hitler tried, but he missed some, and so whatever problem he thought existed because of jews, still exists. You – and a bunch of others – think that cops should be killed. Well, some folks think the same way, and have gone ahead and killed some cops. Turns out that we still have cop problems.
You know what I don’t like about these cops? That they’re reckless with life. That’s who I don’t trust: people reckless with life. Those who call for violence, who support it, overtly or silently, are the foundation of many complex contemporary social ills. Luke Yi
I think you lost track of your point when you called for hyper aggressive cops–wouldn’t they kill people? Doesn’t that mean you’re calling for killing people, which is the opposite of what you stayed you were for?
And yes, killing people literally ended Hitler’s reign of terror, so that particular problem was solved in part by killing people.
Your message is confused and mixed, you might just want to rewrite that post altogether for posterity. Point
Quite fair; my prior comment got a little out of hand.
To speak plainly: I am against all killing and injury of people. Regardless of reason. It’s an ethic I chose, and have developed based on what ultimately has been important to me, and in my honest opinion, to the long-term health of our society.
My confusing post is in response to those who make the argument – and there are many here – that the cop should be killed. The essential theme I was attempting to communicate is that there is no situation where killing someone has ultimately lead to a better world. billdeserthills
You are confused, the vast majority of people want to be peaceable and peaceful. Point
If you need it pointed out to you, I’m glad to: the population I’m referring to in reference to the “number of people” are those who have commented on this story. Not the general population. Sorry you misunderstood. billdeserthills
That just isn’t true, many people use these forums to blow off steam. I have blocked lots of people and even they had little actual desire to kill anyone. Put a gun in your pocket and you’ll see just how little it likely gets used Point
I’m quite sure that your view is the more “correct,” or more in-line with the intent of those posters. In fact, I’m sure I’ve “blown off steam” in the past also.
However: I consider that a very harmful steam. I consider it corrosive to the mind that creates the steam; I consider it poisonous to those who read it; and I feel that it is that very steam that – for a minority of us – eventually gives us the impetuous to harm another person.
And – frankly – such attitudes tend to be divisive rather than unifying. This really is a problem – the cops killing people (or – depending on what flavor steam percolates through your mind, a problem with black people) – and the solution is even more complex than the problem. Mind you, this site seems to have a bias on the political spectrum. There are other sites where I’m having conversations on this very same topic, only instead of telling people it’s wrong to want to kill – or wish the death – of a cop, I’m trying to get racists to tell me, sanely and rationally, their rationale for disliking black people.
See how it almost ruined our friendship? And neither of us blew off any steam – you and I had contention because of others’ steam.
Anyway, I enjoy that we can have this chat.
PS – you’re right, if I put a gun in my pocket, it wouldn’t get used. The same is true for many of us, even the steamy ones. My concern is the minority of folks who will use their gun. Luke Yi
Different strokes for different folks, no? Sometimes people must express their anger or (as is common for men of my age) suffer stress related illnesses such as heart attack, stroke, or high blood pressure. Luke Yi
I’m not convinced they are the majority, by any means. palvadore
The only reason LEOs behave so egregiously is because they are allowed to get away with smaller crimes.
Attacking the boot on our collective throat may help a little, but the solution is to look at those enabling the base corruption and immorality. The judges, DAs, Police Chiefs, and lawyers all have blood on their hands. Luke Yi
It is ironic to me that the same folks who believe in arming up to defend themselves from the federal government, simultaneously seem to believe the local (poorly trained) police can do no wrong. Point
I’ve always thought that the only people who deserve capital punishment are those who support capital punishment. Aleix
“I’ve always thought that the only people who deserve capital punishment are those who support capital punishment”“I’ve always thought”
so you support yourself being given capital punishment.
Think about that
Is deadly ain’t it? billdeserthills
You scientist folks sound backwards and all mixed up Point
I wouldn’t know. I only see one other person participating in our chat prepared to seriously discuss these issues, and I have no idea what he does for work. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s associated with science. Perhaps anthropology – he’s got a strong, strong insight to the human psyche. billdeserthills
So how is it that a ‘scientist’ such as yourself never heard of the scientific method? Point
Your question doesn’t really make any sense, I’m afraid.
I’m also getting a little bored with you. If you want to talk about me, it’s a very different topic. Start it elsewhere. I’ll remind you that the original topic addresses the desire of a rather sociopathic-sounding individual to see more people die in response to people dying. I think that’s a more interesting topic. billdeserthills
You can quit talking anytime you like Tmoney
Can anyone sync up the helicopter video with the ground audio with the shot? Police stated they used a taser and then shot him. Could the taser caused him to drop his hand or was he shot and then dropped his hand as a result of that. Even if he dropped his hand his car broke down on the road. How did it even come to being at gun point surrounded by police and a helicopter. These are the questions people should be asking. Freethinker
Mark my words. She will walk. They are all above the law. More than 1300 people were killed by cops last year. Out of 18 cases in 2015 in the US where cops were charged with manslaughter and or murder guess how many got convicted?…. [url=( http://thefreethoughtproject.com/record-number-cops-charged-murder-manslaughter-2015-single-officer-convicted )]ZERO[/url]Cops are untouchable and they know it. JW Mack
A job well done. Xman3
Why do you need some 5 officers, a helicopter to respond to a broken down vehicle and then kill the driver? And all of the high speed police cars endangering the public, again for a broken down vehicle? Tulsa obviously has too many police with nothing to do. Sillywilly
remember the old days when hanging was all the rage and everyone from miles around would come for a little excitement on a hot Friday night…kinda the same principle. Luke Yi
Tulsa was the home of the worst race riot in American history, during which whites destroyed an entire black community, literally the wealthiest black community in America, leaving ten thousand people homeless and killing many.
No whites were killed or injured in the riots, and no whites faced criminal punishment for their behavior.
6,000 blacks were arrested for trying to protect their homes and families and scores of blacks were killed
never came across that story before
thanks
You’re welcome. I’m still blown away.
Here’s a great documentary about the events: billdeserthills
Cops are bored, they make their own drama–It’s their own version of a snuff film Lliss
No you’re bored that’s why you are on a blog talking about people with real jobs. You would NEVER comprehend what it means to be a cop so just keep writing about shit you don’t understand billdeserthills
Just because you are an experienced ‘useful idiot’ doesn’t mean you actually know anything Luke Yi
https://youtu.be/2EeJ0U5pVi8 Lliss
Tulsa is extremely busy. This man was on pcp and that amount of officers is necessary to attempt to diffuse a bad situation and cause the person to rethink their actions and comply. Obviously you know nothing about police work besides what you watch on tv Rena Aleman-Walker
When did they release the results of there findings from the body and blood? Just because thats what she said it must be true….. I don’t think so. I have looked on a few news websites and they say that his her claim but IT DOESN’T SAY IT IS A FACT!!! Again you are looking with your rose colored glasses. pray58
Lliss stop spreading lies, there has been no results from blood work, so where do you get your information, and you accuse people of excepting false information from the news and then you post hearsay! Luke Yi
Symptoms of PCP use, for those who make claims without evidence:
They have dilated pupils. They have developed a temporary speech impediment (This can occur even when they are not on the drug). They do not move from one spot for hours. They are extremely sensitive to sound. They are seeing and hearing things that are not real. Their balance is off and they cannot walk without falling. Their eyes keep rolling back in their head. Their vision is blurry. They continually stare at nothing and are in a stupor state. They are having uncontrollable and irrational behavioral outbursts for no apparent reason KKN4LIFE
DAMN so Colin Kaepernick is STILL wrong and disrespectful grapesodabanked
Kaepernick is just a racist who wants to make everything about black people vs white people. Hugh Culliton
Actually, I think he just wants to see the law applied evenly, and to not see anymore unnecessary killings. I don’t think that meets the definition of “racist”. billdeserthills
I don’t think what he is doing is any more serious than flying the american flag upside down, or lighting it on fire and far as I can tell those things are still legal. obama refuses to place his hand over his heart when the pledge of america is recited, nor will he salute his men, so who is the real disrespectful person here? edslides
flying the flag upside down. do you understand why an AMERICAN might do that? billdeserthills
It signals an emergency, far as I know, I bet google has all kinds of reasons It isn’t ‘sticks & stones’– it doesn’t hurt anyone Sungoddess
I don’t salute the flag either because liberty and justice for all is bullshit ,second the president does salute his soldiers. I am a veteran and you only salute officers. A flag which is a piece of cloth, a song and a pledge to a nation that has screwed over many races of people does not make you a better person, the way you treat fellow human beings is what matters . Lliss
What Kind of veteran are you? I think you’re lying billdeserthills
That is all the bs I’m gonna read from you, twat–Begone palvadore
I agree with his point and I was enlisted and officer. Sungoddess
Not that I have to prove anything to you I served in the United States Army. I have no need to lie .what is your point anyway. Luke Yi
Obama doesn’t refuse to put his hand over his heart during the pledge. In fact, he’s been photographed with hand over heart while reciting the pledge many times.
Stop reading emails from your crazy great-uncle billdeserthills
Plenty of other disrespectful things obama does Luke Yi
Well then present the evidence of that, and I will answer that.
But you’re wrong about what you said and now you’ve admitted it, though evidently you will continue to hold your unsubstantiated beliefs. billdeserthills
You don’t find the thousands of lies obama has told to be disrespectful?–I suppose You think obama’s lies are unsubstantiated as well–What a wonderful ‘useful idiot’ you have become BigJohnConnor
You are a fucking asshole. john
Just say you don’t like black people and want us to die. Do you think this pastor deserved what he got? Yes or no KKN4LIFE
White people have a 400 year head start on racism remember they are the one’s who created it DUH!! How is Kaep’s racism making YOU suffer? Luke Yi
/s Yeah, there’s absolutely no history in America of any race or gender dividing the whole country up by race and gender and making laws preventing some races and genders from being able to equally participate in society. /s
Honestly, anyone who still feels that way should match the $1,000,000 contribution Kaepernick made edslides
I have one word for you bill. A-S-S-I-M-I-L-A-T-I-O-N. if i moved to afghanistan, i would feel remiss if i expected them to respect my freedom of choice. they wouldnt. he can protest all he wants. when an American physically calls him out on his bullshit, will you stand by your comment? this aint the middle east. we dont care how you do it over there. pulll that shit here, you WILL be taken to task. come to my country and disrespect my country , we will kill you. thats our policy. billdeserthills
I don’t expect tolerance to intolerant muslim scum, and I don’t see what colin is physically hurting, by donating $1,000,000 towards people who have suffered. Why not put your money where your mouth is, get contributions from all your kkk and fake nazi friends & see if you can top $1,000,000?(mod please put barfing emoticon here) ThomasJefferson
I’m still trying to figure out wtf point it was that ed was stressing bill.His analogy, (ASSuming there even IS one) STILL eludes me. But, if indeed you did figure it out, an excellent response I must say. Luke Yi
I think there is a whole presidential campaign for that billdeserthills
I think you are confused billdeserthills
I just keep seeing more and more people the police kill & I’m not seeing anyone Else doing much about it–When You put up a million of your own money to fight this problem I may begin to pay attention. poopiepants
thanks for your insight ed. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ca3f6ec0bcffbe818b2a7f93e1b48f118316ea463ca54175b44ee47199e6de76.jpg john
Just say you hate black people and we can call it a day. Do you defend this video or not? palvadore
This has nothing to do with color. It’s just the latest example the media wants you to see. Cops kill more white men every year than blacks. The media just doesn’t want to show those examples. pray58
Where is you statistics for that statement, show proof! And I mean innocent white men being killed! palvadore
Can you meet your own demand and proove how many “innocent” Africans were shot by police? And please don’t use FBI statistics or anything that you can JUST fucking GOOGLE! Like the rest of us!
I protest police misconduct not because I give a care about the poor, poor, little black man that chose to live life with the evil white man. No! I protest for all the other races! Black lives don’t matter to me at all. Luke Yi
That’s not our policy. Our policy is ensconced in the constitution, and it’s most important amendment, the 1st, which provides freedom of expression FiuToYou
I hope you’re being a satirist here! I feel you are. Colin is a patriotic hero!!!! KKN4LIFE
HUH? Colin is a WARRIOR! Jerome Taylor
My point exactly!!! Stay tuned!! This ish is getting old, you think? Richard Norgard
“That looks like a bad dude, too. Must be on something’.”
I guess that makes it ok to kill him. Whatever happened to protect and serve? billdeserthills
The police protect & serve themselves Lliss
They definitely serves, keeping that dude outa somebody’s back yard Tricornes
I’ll take 10 dead idiots who won’t comply with police orders over one decent police officer getting a scratch on his pinkie. Reinhold Von Kirschmann
Notice how in the helicopter video, the guy says he looks like a bad guy, and me must be on something.. Guilty till proven innocent. Hope this domestic terrorist goes to jail. She is a murderer plain and simple. Good Canadian Kid
He’s black, so in the eyes of a cop that makes him a bad guy and a drug user. edslides
not that it matters, but male pattern baldness is kind of a white thing. gonna revisit this point, but it doesnt matter. murder is murder. Lliss
No he was considered a bad guy because he wasn’t complying and he was considered a drug user because of his erratic behavior and the drugs found at the scene. Please be fair and stop the cop hating bullshit. Yonnie Pietrovito-Moncrief
Liar, liar, pants on fire. The usual excuses for cop killers. Jerome Taylor
You noticed that too, huh?! Four cops with weapons drawn, because they felt endangered and their life threatened!! Now I’m convinced, Cops are pussies!! I’m sure their girlfriends are really proud of them!! ScarletPimpernil
It’s common play – consider family court, for example. There, a girl says “he scares me and I’m afraid for our children. No evidence is provided to support the claim, but the guy is, often, forever ejected from his own children(‘s)(s’) lives. billdeserthills
What erratic behavior or what drugs found at the scene?!! What video are you watching?!! Luke Yi
Officers did report finding PCP in the car, and the victim had a history of addiction.
However, according to this report, the vehicle had already been secured so officers knew there was no gun inside.
Sad story all around: it seems a man with a medical problem driving home from a college class in music appreciation died for no good reason.
You surmised all that from what’s not in the video. Good Canadian Kid
And the helicopter pilot was able to determine this just by looking at him? I’ll stop hating cops when they stop killing people who are having car problems. Sungoddess
What the hell us your deal are you just somebody who likes to chime in just to insult people with no facts ? Does that make you feel go about yourself you are exactly what I was talking about when I said bitch about not saluting a flag or standing for a song but can’t bother to be a decent human being. bumboclot
Nobody on the ground would have heard that so it didn’t have anything to do with the shooting. But I did find it an interesting comment. Other than being a big black guy, and ignoring the cop’s commands, what made him a “bad guy” to that helicopter cop? I mean, he wasn’t a robbery suspect, he had a broken down car. I wonder what they were referring to. Lliss
They were referring to the fact that 4 officers were trying to get him to comply with their orders to stop and instead he chose to keep walking away and reaching into his car for god knows what. That’s what they meant by seems like a bad guy. David Boccabella
When you get 4 excited officers – all screaming different orders – which one to you follow. Luke Yi
They could have heard it as all officers have radios on them. Lliss
Yea, normal people keep walking away from officers and reachin into their cars after being told to stop! He’s a BAD GUY you lame idiot. Keep watching the biased liberal news, increasing their ratings and making them rich off your dumb racist ass when the truth WILL come to light! The news is using all of you to promote their cop hating agenda! Not because they believe it but because it hypes the people and makes them rich!!! Read between the lines. They are biased! using words like “murder” and “gunned down” doesn’t she get her day in court? Isn’t she innocent before proven guilty?” Please you all are so one sided. You don’t want peace! You don’t want justice!! You want to be treated well and to treat others as badly as you feel you’ve been treated. That’s not justice! Keep watching he news. They’ll love you for it. Rena Aleman-Walker
You say that she deserves her day in court but did he get his? No, why? Because he was killed by another cop who for some reson didnt do there job. That’s not justice to be shot in a street, they developed less abrasive measures to bring a person to there knees. Number two did she see why or understand what was going on? NO, that is WHAT IS INJUSTICE.o you shut up because you are looking at the situation just as biase as the rest . So get off your soap box and shut up like you keep telling everyone else. palvadore
No matter the criminality or deprecation of the act, police officers will always find an out for other police officers. Rena Aleman-Walker
You are RIGHT!!! Because they have a alliance, a brotherhood if you will. They are NOT going to break because if one does that one will get SOOO MUCH flack for it. They would make that one LIFE SOO MISERABLE. THEY would NEVER!!!! Rena Aleman-Walker
It is ALWAYS BEEN HARD TO DO THE RIGHT THING!!!! I know that people say anything worth doing is never EASY but i think doing the RIGHT THING in the amidst of OPPOSITION IS EVEN HARDER. ScarletPimpernil
Where is the proof they did not tell him to put his hands on his car and he was complying? Reinhold Von Kirschmann
The window was closed you racist cop appologist. The reaching in the window was a police lie. But you don’t care about that. palvadore
A cop apologist doesn’t make someone a racist. Police misconduct is epidemic and against all citizens and non citizen alike. pray58
Lliss did he get his day in court, was he innocent before proven guilty, why does she have more rights then he got. Why is it alway deadly force when it comes to black men! Why were they bothering him any ways his car was broke down why all the harassment! Stop trying to justify this madness. Nicholas Hoey
WTF! All I am thinking is it shouldnt matter what you do for a living, if you kill anybody you must be judged just like everybody else! Luke Yi
What do you mean by bad guy? I didn’t hear anyone tell him to stop in any of the video I watched. And the vehicle had already been secured, so officers knew there was no gun.
Link the video and tell us the time code for when he is told to stop?
http://m.tulsaworld.com/news/courts/terence-crutcher-family-attorneys-allege-misinformation-from-police/article_392556ce-f698-54ed-9db9-fa9736493874.html?mode=jqm Reinhold Von Kirschmann
So you stupid idiot, what do you have to say now that she’s been charged with murder huh? Loser troll with a big mouth and no brains! Shut up an go hide in your delusional world. Reinhold Von Kirschmann
She was charged with murder, how come I don’t hear you flapping your ignorant mouth now huh? Loser Reinhold Von Kirschmann
How come after she was charged with murder, I don’t hear you flapping your ignorant mouth now. Why so quiet? Fool Susan Miele
and so are all the cops with her and in the air above her; they passed judgement, failed to render aid to him and will now stay silent while the cops cook up their story. Rogue cops cost us money
For all of their reckless behavior by these trigger happy fuck ups, It is time to start drug testing all cops. Training may be lacking but I will bet 5o percent of cops are on some type of illegal drug. Marc Tremmel
wouldn’t be surprised …but alcohol is their drug because it is “legal” police have a high rate of alcoholism billdeserthills
Police steal plenty of other people’s drugs to help maintain their other habits. Evidence rooms find theft going on by police billdeserthills
Large amount of steroid use going on too ThomasJefferson
LOL, unfortunately, they’re usually just drunks or on prescription poisons.One thing’s for sure, if they ALL had a little THC, administered to them before they were inflicted upon the world at the beginning of their shift, much of THIS type of insane tragedy would be avoided. Marc Tremmel
Why is the police chief calling him a suspected? if all that happened was his car broke down???…what is he suspected of doing…the police are INSANE…talk about guilty before innocent…and the sentence is death no matter what the “crime” is ….Tulsa, ok are you kidding me!?! lmfao like that is a criminal hot bed for terrorists billdeserthills
Damage control– So do all the cops get a paid vacation? Jeffboy
“the ballooning epidemic of police violence,” it is just that it was covered up before now. bumboclot
Yeah, more like the epidemic of camera coverage. The violence was always there. 2broke4 her
I wonder if they are going to do a sacrificial lamb, to keep this from going ballistic? Bob Btme
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/28/us/minister-who-sought-peace-dies-in-a-botched-drug-raid.html
>>>Minister Who Sought Peace Dies in a Botched Drug Raid
BOSTON, March 27— The Rev. Accelynne Williams, who for decades had comforted and counseled people throughout the Caribbean, retired to Boston six years ago to be near his daughter and to study the Scriptures. On Friday a police SWAT team searching for drugs broke down his apartment door without warning and handcuffed him. Minutes later, the 75-year-old minister was dead of heart failure.
The police, it turned out, had misread a floor plan provided by an informer; they had intended to raid an apartment on the floor above Mr. Williams. sfulmer
It looks like they form a wall to block the view of the camera after the shooting. Guy
In other words. Please don’t riot and burn down our town, while we decide what sort of spin we are going to put on it !
Broken down car in middle of road, = Death Penalty ! John Henry Gunderson
I am in no way trying to condone this, but it appeared to me, the man walked to his car, lowered his hands, and attempted to open the door of his vehicle. Good Canadian Kid
Watch the video again, their is more than ten seconds between the shot and when he falls to the ground. He lowered his hands AFTER he was shot! John Henry Gunderson
I’ll be the first to admit, the cops had no business pulling their guns on this man in the first place, and because of this, they need to be held responsible for what happened. But your the one who needs to watch the video again (I already did, about five times) The man lowers his hands, grabs the door, and then you hear the shot go off. Good Canadian Kid
Nope, watch it again and compare it to the video shot from the cop car, it sure looks to me like the killer shoots then steps to her right and Terence drops his arm. This is at the beginning of the 22 second mark of the helicopter video.
Is there someone out there who can sync up both videos and play them at the same time? John Henry Gunderson
On the dash cam you see him lowering his hands at the 50 sec. mark, then you here the shot fired and see smoke at the 52 sec. mark. Good Canadian Kid
Watch this video, it shows both the helicopter and the dashcam side by side, he had his hands up when shot. (at approx. 17 seconds)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98R4e0RSry8 Lobo06
There is know accountabilty when chickenshit cops murder innocent people. She is on paid vaction giving and getting high fives for smoking another human being of color. Lobo06
Listening to these a-holes its clear they are going to cover thier backsides with all due speed and keep the white only club from getting what they so badly deserve. billdeserthills
Cops are indemnified, they cannot be convicted of a crime, in most cases–Ever wonder why although 3 cops a day are arrested, you almost never hear of one going to jail?
No way this will go unpunished. One week paid vacation, instead of two! *gasp* Jonathan Wint
Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby must suck mean cock….Not black against White Its Humans Against Blue! Becouse in this country Only BLUE LIVES MATTER! d marino
WTF is the helicopter guy talking about this is “one bad dude” and “he must be on something” comments? Where is any indication for those comments to be made?
He’s black and that’s oxygen he’s breathing. What other reason do they need? billdeserthills
Damage Control–Just that thin blue line sticking together anarchyst
…there WILL be a civil lawsuit…any award should be disbursed from the cops’ pension fund, NOT from the taxpayers. the cop should be charged and convicted just as any other civilian would be…with appropriate sentence carried out…it should be a felony, so he can never work in a police capacity ever again… Kurt Bailey
You say ‘This is what complying with police in America looks like’??? Are you on drugs? He was not following orders because he was walking to his car and not getting on the ground. The officers had no idea what he had waiting inside that truck (gun, bomb) or if he would use that truck to ram them. This is BS race baiting media. Jordan Manicom
So when the officers have no idea what is going on, they can shoot first and investigate later? They had no right to draw their weapons in the first place, anyone without their impunity would be charged for brandishing a weapon. DLHE
They will lie their way out of it, started already, he came after her aggressively and did not obey her commands, notice how they back away in tandum, these fools have loss their freaking minds, kill people and walk away, say my fault, no sorry no nothing. Thomas D’Angelo
What’s with the side argument on the side of the police vehicle starting at 1:08? That lady cop knew something. It looked like she tried to arrest that cop, he refused, then she ran away. FiuToYou
MURDER of an innocent man by a policewomen or man , should be treated JUST like a murder! This is too much! Paid vacation!! What bull sh*t. Thrown in jail would be correct! microphone
I’m doubting the validity of this post. After all, what’s a “dash can”? SuperLuminal Man
America is now a de facto police state —accelerating rapidly towards open tyranny. Michael
I just do not understand this – why were they even called to attend, a simple breakdown it is just weird billdeserthills
Somebody was too cheap for AAA–And he paid with his Life Robert Skinner
Do we know what he was reaching for in his right hand? Objecitvely speeking? Geelove
I thought both hands where up how could he be reaching for something? Robert Skinner
As he was going towards the car? Or was that me, I watched both videos tommoulton
I didn’t know they give Blind Police Officers Guns? or are they playing the wrong dialog to this video? And this just happened? This has to stop. Donald Trump hasn’t won yet! So that Shoot first and ask questions after isn’t the Policy yet. Cornelius Kappabani
Looks like one major fucked up accident to me caused by the bullshit training of Officers and Police Protocols. Officer Shelby herself sounds surprised and frightened and I have a hunch she will quit whatsoever facing the reality she just murdered a very nice person and father with no criminal record or anything. And there is no point in demonizing Shelby. Sue the shit out of the City, make the Officials understand that Police Training and Protocols are the cause of innocent people getting murdered by Police. Only then will things change. Only then Officers will become responsible for their actions. Davida Sefireth
Looks like people in the US are going to have to just stay in the house – forever – cause if you go out and God forbid you have the misfortune of encountering some problem better hope the pigs don’t just happen by.
– why, having to bend down to tie your fucking shoe lace and they may shoot you to death thinking that you are going for a gun … or some kinda dirty bomb up your arse!
What they really want, it looks like to me, is to have everybody raise their arms and say yes boss, whatever you say boss.
I just watched “Free State of Jones,”– great movie! in it there is this line: “…everybody at some point becomes the rich mans n….”!
Point is, to the rich we are all slaves! But first, they make some persons more obviously the slave than others, to create the social conditions for breeding the instruments of totalitarianism.
And, this black men kill more black men argument is just shit for distraction and excuse! – like what? – so maybe it isn’t that “bad” that white men kill some too?! Fuck that! These type of arguments use the fallout of systemic racism and poverty, to diffuse responsibility and confuse understanding about what systematic racism really is and how it metastasizes in a society.
Racism is a fundamental tool of tyranny – it excuses and normalizes the unlawful control of portions of a population. It fractures a population and authorizes terror. The purpose is always to maintain the power of the few over the many. The rich establish the roots of tyranny within a society through racism – it manifests a form of class ownership, ultimately providing the rich with the power and means to control large segments of society, effectively giving them ownership over the many and maintaining their position at the top.
The rich in their endless greed for more – wendigo spirits ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendigo ) – will eventually utilize the mechanisms of control established through the apartheid state to bring all of humanity under their yoke of ownership.
This is called totalitarianism!
Fighting racism is fighting the systemic roots of tyranny.
In circumstances like we see world wide today, when liberal democracies begin their decent into totalitarianism, by design, through the rise of fanatical nationalist fervour personified through the cult of the populous leader – classical totalitarianism, or fascism – or through the inversion of a democratic state into rule by corporate oligarchy – inverted totalitarianism, you always see the institutions of law and law enforcement radicalized beyond the scope of constitutional law – they become rogue entities serving the powers of gross ownership, that is the elite.
Therefore, I believe in what we see in the growing numbers of flagrant murders by police, is the transmutation of the police forces into the contemporary Gestapo.
There are many subroutines effectively promoting this … like their training which proposes that police first must establish “compliance” and that any resistance or suggestion there-off is “disobedience” of authority legitimizing the use of lethal force.
Cops are jacked up on the need to establish power and authority which subsequently turns citizens into victims!
The new world order means 1% Masters and the rest Slaves with some slaves given power to be bosses while thinking that they are also masters so they will keep the rest of the slaves under boot!
Welcome to the New World Order Moparman
Those POS get away with killing innocent people over and over and over again they know they will get away with it so they keep doing it it is total 100% BS Wilfred Bankole Ademokun
What a BAD BAD NEWS, if we don’t get JUSTICE on this case, and the killer cops are freed, go after the killer cops get them down. an eye for an eye. THIS ARE WHAT THE REPUBLICANS INTRODUCE IN 1969. KILL THEM AND LET THEM LOOK LIKE CRIMINALS. Am sure the killer cops have family, they will bury their own son soonest. ANIMALS IN HUMAN SKIN. ibrownie
You have just seen that your city is like every other city regarding above the law policing and killing of innocent citizen, the very citizens that pay their salaries. The whole world has now looked at America as a country that kills its people, sad to say but true, the audacity to have these officers on paid vacation is a slap in the face. Til the day I die I will never look at America the same. Rambro
Micah X Johnson, Gavin Eugene Long thank you brothers for poaching those pigs !!! Ibcamn
cops are pure criminals……..they have the god complex,judge dredd syndrome….cunts they all be,road pirates with guns….cops are criminals………. blastinbob
And the cops wonder why people run from the law this happens way to often the police are less and less trusted every day and it is their own fault. RS
It’s time to nationally ban all police forces, stand then down and rethink what we need. bumboclot
RIP to the poor guy who commited the horrible sin of having his car break down on him. As for the cop, I’m not so sure that this is anything more than a completely incompetent moron doing a job that is WAY beyond her abilities. She is such a screw up, if she was my partner, I’d quit the force. NewHampshire
Well, so long as we allow the illegal training of our local cops by foreign terrorists, this will continue. http://www.salem-news.com/articles/november222011/adl-occupy.php Martha Nassauer
What do we expect, when a hairdresser needs 12 months of training, as opposed to under 6 months of training for law enforcement? Is anyone really surprised? With a GED/High School Diploma, under 6 months of training, and these psychos are wielding badges, deadly weapons, fast cruisers and a whole lot of superior thinking? palvadore
Americans have no protection from a police officer no matter what crimes the police commit against you!
False reports, fabrication of evidence, torture, warrantless raids, abductions, force injections, harassment…those are just some of the assaults police commit against the law abiding population. Just try to report a crime in Kennesaw Ga and much worse may happen to you.
No justice – period! That makes you and me slaves. Jeff Glebe
How does this even happen? “Hi, officer, my SUV broke down..what’s that? No, no, I don’t have any weapons or drugs on me. As I was saying, my SUV broke down just over there…sure, I can put my hands up, is there something wrong? No, I don’t have a dead body in the back of my car, what makes you think that I…okay, I will walk calmly to the side of my vehicle. Officer, I really just need a tow…no, tow isn’t a ‘street word’ for I’m going to kill you.” Then the officer, goes, well, he sure looks dangerous, let’s go ahead and shoot him and make sure he isn’t a zombie or something. Dawn Mello
Enough of this shit. Cold blooded murder, plain and simple. Lliss
Saying “cops” and not “that particular. Cop” is just another example of prejudice: judging all of one group by the actions of one. STOP ALL PREJUDICE !!NO PREJUDICE IS JUST! Judge all people individually! STOP THE MADNESS!!! Rena Aleman-Walker
I dont understand any of this criminal cops. Nor the man in the helicopter for saying this looks like a bad dude. I mean how can you tell how he looks other then he is a black man. I MEAN REALLY THIS IS SO SAD!!This is the reason WHY I hate for my children to leave my sight. My sun’s are tall and large black men. In today’s White society that already means they are BAD…… this is shit!!! Marc Peek
Hey, hands up or not, don’t walk away from the police and then reach into your car window. Nothin to see here. Move along. Point
Interesting article. However, by injecting emotionally-charged language and patronizing metaphors, you have ostracized those who support a reduction in police powers and authority, and those who demand an increase for it, or otherwise feel that the current operations of police are acceptable.
Examples include:“Police on scene indeed appear infinitely more concerned with the panicked Shelby than they do with the man they just shot for no apparent reason.”
“As Crutcher lies mortally wounded on the ground, officers back away like frightened children…”
“Both have been given the paid vacation, otherwise known as administrative leave, customarily ‘rewarded’ after the use of fatal force.”
Usually, an argument featuring such a degree of bias and hyperbole is something I would ignore. Except I’m also accustomed to it from those whose primary arguments are in support of some form of racism, nationalism, or other form of bigotry.
Unfortunately, though I agree with the theme of your article, the arguments presented serve to diminish its utility. Cheri
I have so much respect for most police, they lay their lives on the line every day to keep us safe, but this video sure looks like murder, I saw his hands in the air, this must be treated as a murder. John Cokos
I’m trying to sift thru the official bullshit scenario that gets presented at every cop related murder. Folks what you saw in that video was a Ritualistic Snuff Movie carried out In Cold Blood by uniformed Sociopaths. The level of cold blooded disregard at someone who’s life was pouring out of him is just about impossible to rationalize. This story has only three outcomes after all the usual spin down and parallel reconstruction of the event’s that took place: They circle the wagon and that bitch goes on getting a paycheck.Tulsa goes the way of Ferguson and all hell beaks loose. They throw her under the bus regardless because she is now a toxic asset. She is found guilty of reckless homicide, gets fired, goes to jail. STOP FUNDING PAID VACATIONS FOR COPS THAT MURDER PEOPLE IN COLD BLOOD. DAN BAILEY19
THIS FOR THOSE OF YOU ALL WHO IS SEEM TO THINK SOMEHOW THESE OFFICER WAS IN THE RIGHT I WENT BACK AND FOUTH VIEWING THIS I WANTED TO BE SURE OF WHAT THE ONES IN THE AIR WAS SAYING AND I NOTICE THAT HE SAID THAT HE WILL HAVE TO RECORD THIS AND THEN HE SAID HE IS WALKING AND RIGHT AFTER THAT HE SAID HE ‘S FOLLOWING ORDERS BUT ONCE HE GETS CLOSE TO HIS VEHCILE THEN HE WANT TO SAY HE IS A BAD DUDE BUT ALL THE WHILE THEY LET HIM WALK WITH HIS HANDS UP UNTIL HE GETS TO HIS VEHCILE THAN ALL AT ONCE NOW HE IS A THREAT SO THEY TASE AND SHOOT HIM IF SHE FELT THEARTENED WHY THEN YOU WAIT UNTIL HE GETS TO THE VEHICLE TO EMPLOY THE TASE AND THEN SHOOT HIM.YELL AGAIN YOU WANT TO COVER UP THE FACT THAT YOU WAS WRONG IN WHAT YOU ALL HAVE DONE BE BLESS AnonGirl
Nothing will happen to the cop. She’s get desk duty after coming back from PAID leave and then go back out onto the field. The murderess will continue to patrol and may one day kill again if it happens.
The video shows the officer LIED about how things went down. LIED again when she claimed he was reaching into his vehicle because the video shows the window was CLOSED. Tim G Tim
I’ve got to say, I love what the FTP does overall. But seriously, you are really stretching with this one and a few others in recent past. The police have an insanely difficult job (no dispute) and just to keep this simple…. the word “pastor” in the title of your article is strictly for shock value, hands down! It doesn’t matter if this man was a pastor, cartel hit man, or a saint. Do the police on scene know he’s a pastor?? And why in the fucks sake is he walking TO HIS OPEN VEHICLE WINDOW with guns pointed at him???? Just scratch your head with that one for bit. Plain and simple that is NOT an innocent behavior. I carry a concealed pistol and probably would have done the same thing. How could anyone justify walking to their open car window in that circumstance? This is insane. Those officers were justified. You are inciting hate and division and need to check yourself. Guy
You’re wrong there dude ! The drivers side door window was up, proven because of the blood from the lung shot is both on the window and door !
So is you assumption of “Walking Away From A Cop, With Your Hands Up” Is justification for police murder. Unless, you are okay with the old adage, “I was in fear for my life” is ?
Just as the new and improved bandage of words like “Transparency, Building Bridges and Community Trust, are the new spin words of justifiable homicide !
All that proves one thing. Cops can kill with out remorse, for things as simple as perception of fear, all the while relying on Legal Immunity, Blue Union Membership, DA’s, The Court Legal System Setup and D.O.J.’s backing them up, in killing us ! How is that a good enough reason ? Considering, in the country of England with a population of over 35 million people, there has not been the amount of police shootings in the last 20 years, that has yet to equaled one year here ! Or the 53.000 people put in hospitals and seriously injured as the results of contact with our police, this year alone and the year isn’t over yet !
No, you are dead wrong about justification of the War that cops are waging against the American People. Why do you carry a concealed weapon ? If you felt safe, you won’t need too, all you would ever need to do is call a cop ! steve_2
You guys really should watch the video. When he was tazed and shot, his hands were not up, he was not complying with police commands to stop and raise his hands, and he reached inside the vehicle. As usual, obeying police commands is the way to not get shot. Good Canadian Kid
You should really watch this video that syncs the dash-cam with the chopper-cam. His hands were clearly up when he was shot. BTW: his window was closed so I don’t even begin to understand where you come to the conclusion that he was reaching inside his vehicle… Donna Bohdanyk
I want to puke. Joseph Mentor Nichols
Well he’s obviously trying to open his car door for some reason. I don’t even know why he’s walking to his car unless they told him to lean against it. Still, why back to his driver seat? I’m so confused.
I would hate to think that this dudes lack of common sense got him killed. It would be much more comforting to find out that the police shot him for no reason. Tmoney
Can anyone sync up the helicopter video with the shot on the ground video. I believe he drops his hand only after being shot, but if the ground audio was in the helicopter video it would be a better view and catch the timing of the shot. SSJRomance
Crutcher was not following officers commands and started walking back to his vehicle. That was his first mistake and made officers nervous. The second mistake was he reached into his vehicle. Do the officers have to wait until he pulls out a gun?
That’s what happened with the NY terrorist. The cop was yelling “show me your hands” and gave the perp too much time that allowed him to grab his gun and shot the officer 2 times. That is what officers are up against. Damed if you do damed if you don’t. Good Canadian Kid
How do you know he wasn’t following commands, the cop that shot him never bothered to turn on her recorder(s). He was just as likely returning to his vehicle as ordered to get his drivers license / registration / insurance.
When she shot him, his hands were up, look at this video that syncs the dash-cam with the chopper-cam. | 0 |
On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks argued that there is no “serious” evidence of collusion between the Trump camp and Russia, but the president is reacting in a disturbing manner. Brooks stated, “[I]t may be a witchhunt, but he’s acting like a witch. You know, to me, we’ve had this — the idea that there’s been collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign has been investigated for a long time. And so far, we’ve had no really serious evidence that they did collude, and everything else seems to be leaking out. So, I begin to be a little suspicious — and maybe I’m wrong — we’ll see over the long term whether there was any actual act of collusion. There were certainly conversations maybe about some building and some investment, but so far, no evidence of an underlying crime. ” He continued, “But this, to me, is not a criminal story. It’s a psychological story. And it’s a story about a president who seems to feel under more pressure, under more threat, lashing out in ways that are painfully but also extremely disturbing to anybody around him. And so, whether it’s the North Korean Cabinet hearing that he held recently, where they all had to praise him, or the tweets as late as this morning, this is not a president who’s projecting mental stability. And the idea that he’ll fire somebody, whether it’s Mueller or anybody else, seems very plausible. And so, to me, if there’s something really damaging here, it’s something that has not yet happened caused by the psychological pressure that he apparently feels. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
Home » Headlines » Finance News » Investment Strategist Forecasts Collapse Timeline: ‘The Last Gasp Will Come In 2018’
You have about a year to get ready for the next leg of the collapse…
From Mac Slavo, SHTFPlan :
It is no longer a question of whether or not financial markets and the U.S. economy will collapse. That, according to a host of experts, both mainstream and alternative, is a given.
The only question now is “when” that moment will come.
According to Christine Hughes, chief investment strategist at Otterwood Capital, it will be very soon. Basing her assessment on historically dead-on yield curve analysis, Hughes says in her latest update to clients that we’re looking at a maximum breaking point of 2020, but that some time in the next 12 – 15 months is the more likely scenario, which pegs the next crisis right at the beginning of 2018 .
First, the chart, which has been near perfect in its accuracy thus far and shows just how rapidly the yield curve has collapsed in the last 12 months:
Hughes explains what it means for you and why you can expect 2018 to be the year of reckoning:
As the bond market sees a recession slower growth means lower interest rates and it [the yield curve] collapses. So let’s assume we’re like every other time in history and that happens. Then it moves forward to 2018…
So, 2018, according to the yield curve, is pretty much the last gasp we have for this economic cycle. We’re closing in on 2016 now… we basically have a year… maybe a year to 15 months before we have the next crisis on our hands.
So if you are levered personally or corporately… if a lot of your assets are in illiquid stuff… the Canadian housing market comes to mind… You might want to think about existing and liquefying yourself.
Watch the video report:
Wolf Richter of Wolf Street explains why the Treasury Yield Curve is so important:
Since early July, the 30-year US Treasury Bond Price Index has plunged 8.3%. It’s now called “the rout” in longer-dated government bonds. One of the specters is rising inflation at a time of ultra-low yields.
What has become the number one predictor of a bear market in stocks over the past many decades? The US Treasury yield curve. It drives bank lending – which can strangle the economy. But this time, the risks are much higher, and the potential economic consequences steeper.
We know it is only a matter of time at this point.
Greg Mannarino of Traders Choice has made similar warnings, noting that the bond markets are signaling a massive crash ahead. And when that crash finally takes place the fall out after the debt bubble bursts, according to Mannarino, could lead to extremely serious consequences:
So, when the debt bubble bursts we’re going to get a correction in population. It’s a mathematical certainty.
Millions upon millions of people are going to die on a world-wide scale when the debt bubble bursts. And I’m saying when not if…
…
When resources become more and more scarce we’re going to see countries at war with each other. People will be scrambling… in a worst case scenario… doing everything that they can to survive… to provide for their family and for themselves.
There’s no way out of it.
Source: Analyst: “Millions Upon Millions of People Are Going to Die on a World-Wide Scale When the Debt Bubble Bursts”
If Mannarino and Hughes are right, you have about a year to get ready for the next leg of the collapse .
Buy 2017 Gold Pandas and Buy 2017 Silver Panda Coins On Pre-Sale Now! Secure Your 2017 Panda Coins Today at SD Bullion! | 0 |
By Whitney Webb
Over the course of this year’s US presidential election, which has been nothing if not bizarre, some have repeatedly speculated that the election may not actually happen at all if an opportunely timed terrorist attack or other major event occurred at just the right moment, leading to a suspension of the November election. Now, these theories appear to have more credence as sources within US intelligence have contacted Pat Milton, a CBS News senior investigative producer, warning him that terrorist attacks in three US states are highly likely come this Monday, the day before the US election. US Intelligence has allegedly alerted joint terrorism task forces that al Qaeda, not ISIS, could be planning attacks in New York, Texas, and Virginia. No specific locations within those three states were mentioned.
US authorities are said to be taking the threat seriously, though CBS News ’ sources stress that the threat is still being assessed and its credibility has yet to be confirmed. According to CBS , counter-terrorism officials were alerted to the threat out of an “abundance of caution.”
Earlier this week, there were also warnings that “polling places” could be seen as “attractive targets” for “lone wolf” attackers by individuals motivated by “violent extremist ideologies, sovereign citizen or other extremist activity.” This has led federal law enforcement to plan for several worst-case scenarios. One FBI official told CBS :
The counter-terrorism and homeland security communities remain vigilant and well-postured to defend against attacks here in the United States. The FBI, working with our federal, state and local counterparts, shares and assesses intelligence on a daily basis and will continue to work closely with law enforcement and intelligence community partners to identify and disrupt any potential threat to public safety.
However, what’s interesting here is that the terror threat is coming from al Qaeda as opposed to the Islamic State. In the Syrian “civil” war, the US has been actively helping al Qaeda there, grouping their Syrian branch – the al Nusra Front – in with the “moderate rebels” they support. Therefore, al Qaeda’s ability to launch attacks within the US has been directly aided by US intelligence, making this announcement incredibly suspect.
It’s also worth pointing out that al Qaeda, since its inception, has been a product of the US intelligence community. In the 1980s they were essentially created by the US to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Ever since, they have conveniently been used as the justification for an expansion of US wars abroad and the elimination of civil liberties domestically.
It is also interesting that the threat is al Qaeda and NOT the Islamic State. The Islamic State has been the terrorist “bogeyman” of recent years and their involvement in any threat, real or imagined, is useful justification for escalating US involvement in Syria. It seems highly likely that the Islamic State was left out due to recent revelations from WikiLeaks showing that their funding comes from the very same entities that donate millions to the Clinton Foundation.
It is also worth noting that if a terrorist attack does come to pass, it will be a big help for Hillary. Hillary has been under siege in recent weeks due to WikiLeaks’ near constant releases of her campaign chair’s emails, but also due to the FBI’s “mutiny” which led them to re-open a probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server. Any terror attack would give Clinton the opportunity to gain political ground by promoting her aggressive foreign policy aims in Syria and the rest of the Middle East.
However, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, it is also possible that a terrorist attack on US soil would give President Obama the authority to either postpone or outright cancel the election, something he could not normally do except in the event of extraordinary circumstances. Unfortunately, only time will tell which theory is correct, compelling us to stay vigilant in the meantime.
What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news! | 0 |
The power of song has run through Benita Rudolph’s life. At 8, she joined the choir at the church in Malvern, Ark. where her father was a pastor. By 11, she was composing her own music on a small keyboard her father had given her. “There’s a joy that you feel when you see people’s faces,” Ms. Rudolph said. “It was kind of amazing to me, really, to see them thinking, ‘No, that cannot be you.’ They didn’t connect my voice to the little girl. ” Ms. Rudolph, 44, enjoyed a mostly happy childhood, but a sadness seeped into her life after her parents separated when she was a teenager. She felt a disconnection from her mother, which became more pronounced after the separation. “The teenage years, a daughter needs her mother there are things they want to ask about, they are curious about,” she said. She said she struggled without her mother’s guidance, sought out love where she should not have. She became pregnant at 18 with her daughter Deandra. Ms. Rudolph’s father absorbed the news with his signature grace he was always a source of unconditional support. In her early 20s, Ms. Rudolph joined a production of the gospel musical “My Grandmother Prayed for Me,” as an understudy in two roles. The job took her to New York City in the 1990s. Deandra was left in the care of her paternal grandparents. Ms. Rudolph’s excitement was as fleeting as her success. After a few months, Ms. Rudolph returned to Arkansas. She married and had a second daughter, Dominique. Music remained her passion, but she embarked on a different career, a decision made after her father died in 2004 of congestive heart failure related to his diabetes. He had encouraged her to share her compassionate nature with others. For years Ms. Rudolph worked as a nurse’s assistant, with hopes of eventually pursuing a nursing degree. One of her patients was an elderly man with skin cancer. She soothed his pain with song he taught her about the stock market. In early 2014, after years apart, she returned to his side when his cancer returned. His family asked Ms. Rudolph to sing at his funeral in Atlanta. She not only honored the request, but Ms. Rudolph also decided to remain in Georgia with Dominque to see what opportunities they might find. She and her husband had separated in 2010, and money became so scarce that the family was on the brink of homelessness. She did not want Dominique to experience that despair, so she sent her to live with her father in Arkansas. “That was the hardest decision I ever made, to see her go,” Ms. Rudolph said. “But all I could think about was her opportunities to come. I wanted her to have the best in life. ” A short time later, a former producer called her to say that “My Grandmother Prayed for Me” was restarting a national tour in January 2015. Ms. Rudolph returned to the roles she played as an understudy years ago and added a third, on a tour that ended in New York. After the show ended, Ms. Rudolph faced a choice: Return to the South or stay in New York. “I’m not going back,” Ms. Rudolph said. “There’s something here for me to do. I don’t know what it is I’m going to figure this thing out. ” Without a place to stay, she wound up in a shelter in the summer of 2015. The decision to remain in New York came with consequences, especially missing holidays with her family, but she does not regret it. Through a caseworker, Ms. Rudolph learned about ACE Programs for the Homeless, a partner organization of Community Service Society, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. With the help of an employment training program, she got a job as a street cleaner and spent that summer picking up trash on sweltering, smelly streets. “It kept me humble, what I was doing,” she said. In August 2015, Ms. Rudolph landed a job as a customer service agent for an airline at La Guardia Airport. Ms. Rudolph also completed a certified nursing assistant program. Community Service Society used $394 in Neediest Cases funds to pay for the nursing classes at the Manhattan Institute. It also gave her $62 for MetroCards to commute to school. In the spring, she will begin a yearlong licensed practical nurse program at AMG School of Licensed Practical Nursing in Brooklyn. But before that, her focus is on the next big career step. Ms. Rudolph recently accepted an acting role in an independent film, “A Way With Anger,” which is set to begin shooting in Charlotte, N. C. later this month. “Looking back on my life, it’s amazing that I kept the faith and kept the courage and just kept moving forward despite different things that might set you back,” she said. | 1 |
geoengineeringwatch.org
Are unimaginably powerful microwave transmissions actively and aggressively being used as weapons of mass destruction? If all available evidence is examined, the logical conclusions are chilling. Understanding the full potential of the power that can be projected from the ionosphere heater installations (like HAARP) is difficult and complex. We all know and understand that microwave transmissions produced in our countertop ovens can heat a cup of water (or frozen TV dinners) at blinding speed. Unfortunately, most don't know and thus have never even considered (let alone investigated) what massively powerful and interlinked microwave transmissions can do to the planet . When immensely powerful microwave transmissions are bounced off the atmosphere (facilitated by the atmospheric aerosol saturation) and directed back into the Earth's strata (in a seismically sensitive location), the triggering of seismic activity becomes scientifically possible. The constant jet aircraft spraying of reflective and electrically conductive particles into the atmosphere (as part of the ongoing climate engineering/geoengineering assault) is a verifiable fact. Is New Zealand, yet again, the victim of microwave transmission super-weapons? There is a long list of shocking facts surrounding a number of recent catastrophic earthquakes. It is imperative to examine these facts without preconceptions or programmed denial. Let's start with the month leading up to the extremely destructive 2010 earthquake in Haiti, MIT satellite monitoring detected a radical increase in ULF (ultra low frequency/microwave) radio transmissions over the quake epicenter .
Spacecraft Saw ULF Radio Emissions over Haiti before January Quake
A French satellite observed a dramatic increase in ultra low frequency radio waves over Haiti in the month before the M7.0 earthquake earlier this year.
DEMETER’s is an unusual mission. Its job is to monitor low frequency radio waves generated by earthquakes.
Today, a group of geoscientists release the data associated with the M 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti in January. They say that DEMETER saw a clear increase in ultralow frequency radio waves being emitted from the Earth’s the crust in that region in the build up to the quake.
The anecdotal evidence of electromagnetic effects associated with earthquakes is legion. Various accounts link earthquakes with mysterious light and heating effects.
After the Haiti quake, the US military moved in and occupied the country. In addition, the long drawn-out Clinton Foundation reconstruction debacle began. The following year a deadly earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand. Many circumstances surrounding this disaster were also troubling. Did US officials know the earthquake was coming? Some excerpts from a report on the disaster are below.
Was the Christchurch earthquake a terrible natural disaster, or was it a terrible MAN MADE disaster?
9 members of US Congress were in Christchurch for a summit meeting on Feb 21 & 22 but left Christchurch 2.5 hours before the earthquake hit and relocated to Wellington even though the meeting was not due to finish until the evening of Feb 22nd.
The US Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, was supposed to be visiting Christchurch and speaking at the summit meeting on Feb 22, but on Feb 18 announced she was cancelling her visit 3. The Deputy Administrator of FEMA (US Federal Emergency Management Agency), Timothy Manning, just happened to be in Christchurch at the time with a US delegation.
All of the rest of the delegation left Christchurch shortly before the quake hit except for Mr Manning who stayed behind, and then after the quake hit he assisted with directing the emergency response. Exactly the same thing happened with FEMA delegates with the Haiti earthquake. In Haiti , the FEMA delegates just happened to be there at the time conducting training exercises for responding to major earthquakes.
Recent releases from Wikileaks resulted in the headline below:
Hillary Clinton Emails Show Advanced Warning of Christchurch Earthquake .
In the days before the catastrophic Japanese Earthquake (that occurred on March 11, 2016), world renowned research institution, MIT, yet again, noted extremely profound and anomalous atmospheric heating directly over the quake epicenter . MIT published the following report:
Atmosphere Above Japan Heated Rapidly Before M9 Earthquake
Infrared emissions above the epicenter increased dramatically in the days before the devastating earthquake in Japan, say scientists.
They say that before the M9 earthquake, the total electron content of the ionosphere increased dramatically over the epicentre, reaching a maximum three days before the quake struck.
At the same time, satellite observations showed a big increase in infrared emissions from above the epicentre, which peaked in the hours before the quake. In other words, the atmosphere was heating up.
Though the science community is desperately trying to link pre-quake atmospheric heating to some unknown phenomenon of an atmospheric coupling with the pressure buildup in the strata, is this a rational conclusion? The much more logical and straightforward conclusion is this, the atmospheric heating is being intentionally created by the global network of ionosphere heaters as immense microwave signals are bounced off of the atmosphere and back down into the planet. Unfortunately, the science community is not allowed to even consider this possibility, let alone talk about it. In the period preceding the decimating Japanese earthquake, US Japanese relations were very strained . The post-quake scenario of US/Japanese relations seemed to suddenly be unquestionable, was there a connection? Was the catastrophic quake just a natural event? Or an engineered warning to Japan?
On the 13th of November, 2016, another catastrophic earthquake struck near Christchurch, New Zealand . The list of troubling questions surrounding this earthquake is long and growing. Below are some quotes from seismologist Anna Kaiser (who is investigating the latest New Zealand earthquake activity):
We don't know what we are dealing with right now but it may be … it involves potentially more than one fault … we need to figure out what was going on before and after the 7.5 magnitude quake…
Kaiser went on to say this:
We're working very hard … this is looking quite complex. The epicenter was possibly just south of the Hope fault, but it did look like "something else was going on.
The seismologist statements are only the beginning, there are many more concerning factors surrounding the latest New Zealand Earthquake that should be considered.
In spite of the unfolding US election circumstances, in the days before the latest New Zealand quake John Kerry first went to Christchurch, and then on to McMurdo Station, Antarctica . The stated purpose of Kerry's visit was to examine the effects of global warming and the record low sea ice, but this trip at this time was criticized by some.
US Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to head back to New Zealand after checking out summer in Antarctica.
He's been criticized for heading to such a remote place while the US election riveted the world
He tweeted a photograph of himself boarding C-17 cargo plane in Christchurch saying "headed to Antarctica to see firsthand some of the drastic effects of climate change".
In Antarctica he was scheduled to meet with scientists and researchers at McMurdo Station, the largest research station of the US Antarctic programme, as well as visit surrounding areas on Ross Island, and the US Government's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.
He is the first secretary of state and the most senior US government official to ever travel to Antarctica.
He is hosted by the US National Science Foundation, which manages the US Antarctic program me.
In fact Antarctica has just broken a new climate record, with record low winter sea ice . After a peak of 18.5 million square kilometers in late August , sea ice began retreating about a month ahead of schedule and has been setting daily low records through most of September. Though Antarctic sea ice (and global sea ice) are at record shattering low levels, why else might John Kerry go to McMurdo Station at this exact window of time? Could the ionosphere heater (microwave transmission) facility that is constructed at McMurdo be a factor? Noctilucent clouds in the skies above Antarctica are an ominous harbinger of the atmospheric damage that is occurring there.
Many are under the belief that HAARP, now labeled IRI, no longer exists Operationally due to the Gakona, AK spin. One must understand that these Frequency Generators are Globally Ubiquitous. There are so many that are of dissimilar designs, and go by different acronyms, it is not seen as functionally one and the same. In the case of McMurdo’s Radome and all of the Radar equipment there ; Raytheon has had the contracts beginning to end. The National Science Foundation and Raytheon Polar Services Company are housed in the same building. For years the station has grown. It can house 1258 personnel and an average of 200 winter over.
Raytheon is one of the largest private "defense contractors" on the planet, this corporation is also the holder of numerous climate engineering patents including some that relate directly to ionosphere heaters. The power structure is likely microwaving the skies for a multitude of reasons , none of those reasons are in the interest of the common good.
Shocking atmospheric flashing lights were filmed in the skies above New Zealand as the massive Earthquake was occurring.
Kerry returned to Christchurch from Antarctica, and then promptly (and conveniently) departed only hours before the catastrophic earthquake struck .
The statement below is from CBS news.
Sec. John Kerry had left the country before it struck, and just landed in Singapore on his way to Oman when news of the quake was reported.
Is it just a coincidence that US officials always seem to safely depart quake impact zones just prior to the event?
Then there is this headline to consider:
World’s Biggest Seismic Testing “Blast” Ship – Amazon Warrior – Parked on top of New Zealand Fault Line
Is this just a coincidence?
The New Zealand Prime Minister's apparent apprehension about the US election results just days prior to the quake are also of interest.
Microwave transmission signals/rings near Antarctica are clearly visible in the satellite composite image shown below.
The regions of New Zealand near the epicenter have been constantly assaulted with aerosols spraying and microwave transmissions.
The uniform ribbing of aerosolized cloud cover is a clear indication of microwave transmission exposure. Though some "official" sources try to explain this type of cloud pattern as being a result of the underlying land topography, this explanation is patently false. The same patterns are now regularly seen over oceans as well as land as is shown in the satellite photo below that was taken of New Zealand directly over the quake region.
The image below bears testimony to what the global power structure does to those that try to get in the way of their agendas and operations. This photo is of the bridge of the Greenpeace ship "The Rainbow Warrior". It was bombed and sunk by the French Secret Service in order to prevent the ship and its crew from witnessing ongoing illegal and unimaginably destructive nuclear detonations.
Over 2 decades ago I dove alone on the wreck of the Rainbow Warrior, as it laid on the seafloor off the coast of New Zealand. I swam through the area shown above, around the ship, and examined the gapping bomb blast hole in the hull of the once noble vessel. I hovered over the wreck and contemplated the tyranny of those who rule the world. We are all at a crossroads, and the horizon is darkening rapidly. The power structure wields weapons of unimaginable destruction, they can only do so because of the order-followers that carry out their insanity. As the saying goes, "we have seen the enemy, and they are us". It is up to us, the people, all of us, to refuse any further participation in the insanity. It is up to us to fully investigate and fully face the whole truth. It is up to us to prioritize the fight for the greater good because we owe that debt to our children, to the planet, and to the whole. Make your voice heard , while you can, while it can still matter. | 0 |
By Cassius Kamarampi Era of Wisdom) This video shows you a valuable resource for researching eugenics, population control, etc. In the description of this video or the sources of this article, you... | 0 |
With the latest revelation that 650,000 emails were found on Carlos Danger’s laptop and the fact that Huma Abedin is in hot water with her main squeeze Hillary, Joe Joseph gets into why this could all be a huge psy-op to distract us from the rigging of the election.
He even offers up a simple yet effective way of doing away with election fraud and the power of special interests. Who knew it could be this simple…watch to find out!
Watch on YouTube
Sources
Hillary’s Nightmare: Feds Get a Warrant to Start Search for Classified Info in 650,000 Emails – Thousands of Them From Her Private Server – on Sexting Weiner’s Laptop. Clinton Faces Ongoing FBI Probe Even If She’s Elected President
FBI Obtains Warrant To Search Huma Abedin’s Emails
IT’S COME TO THIS=> Hillary Clinton Campaigns at Bar, In Florida, Mid Morning, On Sunday…
Venezuelan President Threatens to Jail Opponents
State House Candidates Scuffle at Beast Fest Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
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Posted on October 27, 2016 by Baxter Dmitry in News , US // 0 Comments
A voting machine has been caught on camera casting a ballot for a Democrat after the voter selected a Republican.
Donald Trump thinks Hillary Clinton and the Democrats are going to steal the next election. “ I’m afraid the election is going to be rigged, I have to be honest ,” he told a campaign rally last week.
The mainstream media are trying to portray him as mad, but take a look at this evidence:
This is attempted election theft through manipulation of the computerized voting machines – and it must be stopped. The party in power in a given state controls the programming of the voting machines.
When the establishment asked Trump if he would accept the outcome of the election a whole three weeks before the event, it was like asking a sports coach if he thinks the game was refereed fairly before the game is played.
And the Democrats are now attempting to cover all bases. They are sueing the RNC over Trump’s election rigging claims, and also suggesting if any evidence of voter fraud does emerge, then it is probably Russia’s fault .
Do not believe that voter fraud does not exist. It’s real, the numbers are huge, and it’s undermining true democracy in the United States. We must fight to eradicate it.
If you notice any sign if possible voter fraud or election rigging, call the Trump Ballot Security Project toll free on 1-855-245-4634 or email [email protected]. | 0 |
A video posted on an encrypted social media channel used by the Islamic State purportedly shows the beheading of two elderly men found guilty of “witchcraft and sorcery” in Egypt. [The killings are part of a campaign of persecution by Muslim extremist groups across the Middle East against adherents of Sufi Islam, which they see as both heretical and an obstacle to their political ambitions. Foreign Desk News describes the video: Two elderly men appear in orange jumpsuits and are taken out of a black van and led to the desert, where they are beheaded. A man reads out what he says is a verdict from a Sharia court condemning them to death for “apostasy, sorcery, claiming the ability to tell the future, and leading people to polytheism. ” [ … ] “Thanks be to God who has allowed the Islamic State’s soldiers in Sinai in applying his law and instituting religion in spite of all the infidels, apostates and envious Jews,” one fighter can be seen and heard saying. In the video, which is also notable for the fact that the men speaking in it are unmasked, fighters are shown seizing trucks full of cigarettes and drugs, and then burning them. Foreign Desk News notes that the Islamic State often levels charges of “sorcery” at followers of and mystical Sufi Islam. In fact, other scenes in the video show the ISIS “religious police” blowing up Sufi shrines. ISIS and other Salafist Muslims accuse Sufis of violating Islamic law by practicing “divination” — in other words, appealing to saints or spirits for guidance, instead of demonstrating complete faith in Allah. Last November, ISIS released photos of the kidnapping and execution of Sheikh Sulaiman Abu Haraz, a senior Sufi cleric in the Sinai Peninsula. Haraz was also accused of witchcraft and was beheaded with a sword. A newsletter published by the Islamic State in December included a warning to Egyptian Sufis from the “morality police” that they would be killed if they did not abandon their beliefs. The Islamic State also aggressively persecutes Sufis in Syria, as does . As in Egypt, dynamiting Sufi shrines is a major component of this persecution. Sufis are a significant religious minority in Egypt. The Harvard Divinity School estimates their numbers as roughly 15 percent of the population, in a report that notes Muslim Brotherhood antipathy to Sufism grew more pronounced when Sufi political parties began forming in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Professor Nile Green of the University of California postulates that in addition to profoundly opposing the Sufis’ more spiritual approach to Islam, groups like ISIS, and the Muslim Brotherhood despise them because Sufi families have deep roots in their communities, and generally had decent working relationships with the governments displaced by the Arab Spring uprisings. Sufis are therefore denounced as collaborators with the systems radical groups intend to destroy. Indeed, he portrays Sufism as a highly organized school of Islam that may be the most significant political resistance to extremists in some communities, making them inevitable targets. | 1 |
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The story of what happened to an elderly woman who was reading her Bible while aboard an airline flight is being circulated online. It is unknown when or where the interaction between the woman and the Muslim man who was seated next to her transpired, but what happened when a flight attendant intervened subsequently went viral…
This story may be apocryphal (widely circulated as being true while lacking authenticity), however, the fact that it has gone viral speaks to the fact that our culture is totally fed up with the progressive mentality that radical Islamic influence should be welcomed.
SHARE this story if you think the flight attendant’s response in this situation was spot on! | 0 |
By Brandon Turbeville Over the past few days, the Western corporate press has kicked into overdrive with reports of hospital bombings, dead civilians, and war... | 0 |
ORLANDO, Fla. — The brother of the bride arrived late for her reception. But soon enough he was mingling at the lakeside pavilion in West Palm Beach, where a diverse gathering of guests dined on chicken tikka masala and goat biryani while admiring the view of the Intracoastal Waterway just beyond the windows. Then came the moment to join in a traditional Afghan dance called the attan, in which dancers form a circle and are led through a series of synchronized turns and moves. If well executed, the attan can create an almost trancelike sense of oneness. But here was the bride’s brother — stocky, bespectacled Omar Mateen — dancing in the group and yet dancing apart. Clumsy, out of sync, his head mostly down, the man dressed in black was following his own rhythm. Four months after this celebration of life in February, the awkward man in black caused wholesale death. Chuckling and declaring allegiance to the Islamic State, he opened fire at a gay and Latino nightclub here, leaving 49 people dead and wounding 53 others before he was killed by the police to end a protracted standoff. The massacre at the Pulse nightclub early last Sunday stands as the deadliest mass shooting by one person in United States history. Rising amid the international grief is the aching and obvious question of why. But the short life of Mr. Mateen, who was 29, provides no easy road map to motivation. He had shown occasional flashes of interest in radical Islam, enough to be investigated twice by the F. B. I. in recent years for possible extremist ties. But his professed embrace of the Islamic State and its call for disaffected Muslims to attack the West seem to have come suddenly, as if something snapped. And while some reports have suggested that he was gay, federal officials say they have found no evidence in his effects or online presence to back them up. Instead, the recollections of those who knew or encountered him conjure a man who could be charming, even yet who also seemed forever aggrieved, forever not at peace, forever out of step. A chubby kid making inappropriate jokes about in the fresh wake of that catastrophe. A leering misogynist whose pursuits could rattle women. An employee who spoke casually of killing those who offended him. The security guard and wannabe cop whose scattershot anger made others feel unsafe. “He was just agitated about everything,” Daniel Gilroy, a former in the security business, recalled. “Always shaken. Always agitated. Always mad. ” Omar Mateen was that chunky kid with glasses, remembered more for his scrapes with other classmates than for his academic performance. Early on, the same schoolboy who could wear a broad smile and a Power Rangers in his school portrait could also engage in “much talk about violence sex,” according to a school assessment. A American, he was born in New York City’s borough of Queens in 1986, and moved about four years later with his Afghan parents to Port St. Lucie in Florida, where he was quickly enrolled in an English for Speakers of Other Languages program. His father, Seddique Mateen, a refugee who became a naturalized American citizen, was a financial broker whose savvy investments allowed for a comfortable home appointed with tasteful furniture and expensive silk rugs. His wife, Shahla, stayed mostly in the background, while he set a tone of cultural conservatism, especially when it came to his three other children, all accomplished women. The son, though, enjoyed male privilege. The family assimilated. But as the United States became mired in the protracted war in Afghanistan, the elder Mr. Mateen became torn between his native and adopted homes. Over the years, he would become more politically active to a point of apparent delusion, posting videos, for example, of himself in military uniform, pretending to be Afghanistan’s president. For his children, family friends say, this meant navigating a fractured world in which their Afghan roots and Muslim faith could lead to divisiveness and ostracism. Two friends say that the Mateen children feared any perceived link to Islamic extremism, and so began saying, simply, that they were Persian. Omar Mateen was a disciplinary challenge in school, unafraid to push buttons. “Constantly moving, verbally abusive, rude, aggressive,” that school assessment noted. In the third grade, his rendition of the school song at Mariposa Elementary replaced “Mariposa, Mariposa” with “marijuana, marijuana. ” The boy was formally disciplined more than 30 times in elementary and middle schools as he pursued attention and occasional conflict rather than his studies. His father would later say that young Omar preferred drawing pictures in class to listening, which seems borne out by an assessment one of his teachers wrote at the time: “Unfortunately, Omar had great difficulty focusing on his classwork since he often seeks the attention of his classmates through some sort of noise, disruption, or distraction. ” So was Omar Mateen betraying his latent extremist sympathies — or was he just being — when, at 14, he shocked other students on his school bus by imitating an exploding plane so soon after the Sept. 11 attacks? “He got on, walked up the first couple of steps, held his arms out and made sounds like a motor and then made an explosion sound — and slipped into his seat,” Robert Zirkle, another student on the bus, remembered. “He did this three or four times, and was clearly not in the mood or the same state of mind that we were in. He seemed excited. ” His unsettling pantomimes ended when others told him there would be problems if he continued. Omar cycled through three high schools, collecting a string of suspensions — for fighting and other infractions — along the way. (In one case, a charge of battery was adjudicated and a charge of disturbing school function was dropped, he later wrote to a potential employer. “This was an experience of me growing up and I learned a big lesson from it. ”) Martin Bielicki, a former dean of students at Martin County High School, remembered in an email that this student “had issues with other students, in particular,” and “always would argue back and even defend himself. ” “I remember Omar as a boy,” Mr. Bielicki wrote. “I look at that yearbook picture of him and it brings back memories of an innocent and likable young man. ” Omar matured with time. He took up soccer and skateboarding, became infatuated with weight lifting, and shed the flabbiness that had become a source of ridicule. He became so muscular that a friend, Sean Chagani, once asked him whether he was taking steroids. Recalled Mr. Chagani: “He kind of smirked and asked, ‘Can you tell? ’” The Mateen boy was more awkward than most teenagers, he recalled, but the two managed to find common ground. They played basketball, competed in video games and swam in the Chagani family’s pool. “I had plenty of friends growing up that I would consider kind of odd, and he was one of them,” Mr. Chagani said. “But certainly not aggressive, violent, homophobic, etc. ” Omar secured jobs here and there, including at a Publix grocery store, and improved so strikingly in the classroom that he graduated from Stuart Adult Community High School in April 2003 in the top half of his class — at the age of 16. He moved from one job to the next: a cashier and cook at a a cashier at a Walgreens, a cashier at a Nutrition World, a floor watcher at a Gold’s Gym, a sales clerk at a GNC vitamin and supplement store. All the while, though, he was attending a community college, working toward an associate degree in criminal justice technology. His passion, it seems, was in law enforcement: Omar Mateen saw himself in uniform, buff and armed. In May 2005, the requested to go on a with a St. Lucie County deputy sheriff. But the ride that took place after he passed a background check now seems enveloped in an air of foreboding. The deputy sheriff’s car crashed, and the teenager was taken to a hospital to be checked out. After earning his degree, Mr. Mateen applied for an officer’s job with the Florida Department of Corrections, bolstering his application with an impressive letter of recommendation from Officer Steven J. Brown of the Port St. Lucie Police. “I would sleep soundly at night knowing that a person like Omar is protecting us. ” The young man’s dream was conditionally realized when he was sworn in as a Corrections Department employee and assigned as a trainee to the Martin Correctional Institution in Indiantown, not far from where he grew up. Four months in, he seemed on his way to a career in law enforcement, having received an evaluation of meeting expectations — of having the makings of one day becoming a “good correctional officer. ” But six months in, Mr. Mateen was fired. The unsettling reasons were revealed in documents released by the Department of Corrections on Friday. An officer reported in a memorandum that during training Mr. Mateen had laughingly asked him “if he was to bring a gun to school would I tell anybody. ” He posed his question on April 14, 2007, two days before a student named Cho shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17 others on the campus of Virginia Tech. Mr. Mateen’s joke, if that is what it was, coupled with his penchant for sleeping in class and being absent without permission, prompted the warden, Powell H. Skipper, to recommend his termination. “In light of recent tragic events at Virginia Tech, Officer Mateen’s inquiry about bringing a weapon to class is at best extremely disturbing,” Mr. Skipper wrote at the time. Denied the right to wear one uniform, Mr. Mateen soon dressed in another — that of a security guard. He completed a training course, passed a background check, and began working for a security firm called G4S. At one point, perhaps as part of a G4S contract, he was working as an intake officer at a Florida juvenile assessment center. At another point, he was providing security after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, during which an undercover documentarian recorded a few of his cynical observations. “No one gives a shit here, like everyone is just out to get paid,” he is recorded as saying. “They’re like hoping for more oil to come out and more people to complain so they’ll have the jobs. Because once people get laid off here, it’s going to suck for them. They want more disaster to happen because that’s where their moneymaking is. ” Life continued. He had connected online with a young woman named Sitora Yusufiy, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, who initially found him to be a nice, funny man who treated his family well and had aspirations of becoming a police officer. He was religious — he made at least two Islamic pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia — but he never expressed sympathy for radical Islamists or terrorists, she said. And, yes, he could be homophobic. Soon after their marriage in April 2009, Ms. Yusufiy said, he began beating her and isolating her in their Florida home. With the help of her parents in New Jersey, she fled within the year. The next year, he was married again, to a woman he met online, this time to Noor Salman, in Rodeo, Calif. though he cultivated the persona of a man with a wandering eye. Mr. Mateen used a dating website to seek a relationship with a woman in Fort Pierce. He churned through usernames — “makeitlovelylol” among them — and lied about his age, according to the woman, who requested anonymity but who provided photos that she had saved from his dating profile. At one point, she said, Mr. Mateen’s pursuit veered toward stalking. He began messaging her to say he was nearby. He knew the color of her car and the general location of her place of employment. Other hints of a disturbed mind continued to emerge. In 2013, G4S removed Mr. Mateen from his security post at the St. Lucie County Courthouse after he had made “inflammatory comments” about being involved somehow in terrorism. Though and even contradictory — he claimed connections to Al Qaeda, the Sunni extremist group, and ties to its near opposite, the Shiite Hezbollah — his comments were troubling enough for the county sheriff’s office to notify the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The bureau’s subsequent inquiry was inconclusive. The next year, Mr. Mateen again attracted federal scrutiny, after an acquaintance from his mosque, the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, carried out a suicide bombing in Syria. According to F. B. I. Director James B. Comey, federal investigators concluded that Mr. Mateen knew the bomber only casually. The mosque’s imam, Syed Shafeeq Rahman, insisted that Mr. Mateen had never heard teachings at the mosque that would have radicalized him. “There is nothing that he is hearing from me to do killing, to do bloodshed, to do anything, because we never talk like that,” the imam said. By the end of 2014, Mr. Mateen — the bodybuilder who had once imagined a respected future in law enforcement — was working the guard’s booth at the entrance to PGA Village, a golf resort community in Port St. Lucie. But even in this position, he managed to unnerve and upset, especially when he seemed to think that he had been disrespected. Heath Holtzclaw, who worked security at PGA Village a few years ago, has not forgotten how enraged Mr. Mateen became when he thought someone had given him an attitude. “You could tell he wanted to say something to whoever he felt had slighted him, but he never did,” Mr. Holtzclaw said. “He just slammed things around. ” Mr. Mateen would make people wait at the gate, sometimes causing delays, if he felt he had been disrespected, or if it was time for him to do his prayers. Jasmine Kalenuik, a frequent visitor to PGA Village, came to dread encountering the guard at the gate — who, she said, “acted like a predator. ” “When I would go to grab my ID from his hand, he would cling to it and try to pull it back,” Ms. Kalenuik, 31, recalled. “He would hover over my car window and lean way in while breathing heavy on me with his teeth so clenched that you could see his jaw muscles sticking out. ” Ms. Kalenuik’s husband, Jerry, recently confronted the security guard, nearly nose to nose. But Mr. Mateen betrayed no emotion during the angry encounter. “It was like I was staring into the eyes of Ted Bundy,” Mr. Kalenuik, 27, said. “I was irate but he seemed completely detached. ” After that, he said, Mr. Mateen would grant him and his wife a curt nod as they passed through the checkpoint, but never looked them in the eye. Finally, it seems, rage consumed the man. Over what — infidels, gays, society’s failure to grant him proper deference, all of it — remains unclear. His father has suggested that Mr. Mateen was incensed by the sight of two men kissing in front of his young son, whose bedroom was with all things Disney, all things America: a helmet and bicycle, a Star Wars backpack, Star Wars drapes, a chair in the likeness of Tow Mater from “Cars,” and not one but three Mickey Mouses. Earlier this month, legally and with little wait, the man rejected by law enforcement purchased a Glock 9mm handgun and a SIG Sauer MCX rifle. Then, early last Sunday morning, he carried his recent purchases into the Pulse nightclub, where hundreds of people were drinking and dancing and celebrating life, the way families do at weddings. And, following his own rhythm, he began to shoot. | 1 |
TEHRAN — The first news report, to a nation usually kept in the dark about military matters, was shocking: 13 Iranian soldiers, all with links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, had been killed in an ambush near the Syrian city of Aleppo. What followed this spring may have been even more surprising. Details about the soldiers appeared extensively in the Iranian news media, which not only gave the names of the dead but lionized them with sweeping life stories. portraits were plastered all over their hometowns. For years, Iran covered up its military activities in Syria and Iraq, so the government could deny any official involvement on the ground. Coffins arrived with the bodies of soldiers who went unidentified, referred to only as “defenders of the shrines” of the Shiite saints. When the bodies began to come home in larger numbers, the state news media began calling them “volunteers. ” No longer. Now every Iranian killed in action is named, his picture published, his valor lauded in elaborate tributes in the news media and on Instagram accounts dedicated to the fighters. The reason for the change, analysts say, is not some newfound dedication to transparency but a rift between the Iranian establishment’s who control the military, and the moderates. The they say, want to prevent any decline in Tehran’s absolute support for Syria’s president, Bashar and to undermine the moderates, who they fear might be open to a political settlement in which Mr. Assad would step down. The Revolutionary Guards see publicizing the sacrifices of the fallen as a way to build domestic support for the current Syria policy and squelch any talk of compromise. The Instagram accounts have attracted tens of thousands of followers, most of them supporting the military effort. “By being open about our role, we can prevent a diplomatic solution in Syria,” said Hamidreza Taraghi, a political analyst close to Iran’s leaders. “First, we must defeat all terrorists in the battlefield. Only after that can we negotiate with them. ” are promulgating Iran’s military successes — and even setbacks — in a variety of ways, including news reports and documentaries. An exhibit at the recent Tehran International Book Fair allowed ordinary Iranians to pose as “defenders of the shrines,” photographed sitting on a military motorcycle in front of a billboard showing a pulverized city street in Syria. The main focus, however, is on social media. Facebook and Twitter are blocked by the state in Iran, but the app Instagram is freely accessible. Previously used mostly by Iranians showing off new puppies or vacations on the Caspian Sea, the app is now suffused with images of “martyrs” and young men proudly wielding machine guns. One of the more prominent Instagram accounts is run by a reporter for Iranian state television, Hassan Shemshadi, who honors Iranian fighters and Afghans in the Fatemiyoun brigade. Mr. Shemshadi’s more than 90, 000 followers are treated to selfies and other shots from the front lines in Syria. There are pictures of him doing a for state television in front of an armored vehicle, of his passport and boarding pass for a flight to Damascus, and of the star officer of the Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Qassem Soleimani. But most of Mr. Shemshadi’s posts concern the increasing number of Iranian casualties in Syria and Iraq. Since he started posting news of soldiers’ deaths in 2015, he has published a total of 346 of Iranians and Afghans in Syria and Iraq. That is a large majority of the 400 or so Iranian and Afghan soldiers thought to have died so far in the conflicts there. “In the name of the Lord of the Martyrs and the honest, the defenders of the shrine, Asadollah Ebrahimi and Saheb Nazari both from #Fatemiyoun, Mehdi Asgari from #Karaj, Mehdi Bidi from #Tehran, Mohammad Amin Karimian from #Mazandaran were martyred by takfiri terrorists in Syria,” Mr. Shemshadi wrote a week ago, using an Arabic word for infidels. Over 3, 700 people said they liked the post. Mr. Shemsadi continued, “They died while defending the pure Mohammedan Islam and the holy shrines and also maintaining the national security of our country, and ascended to the heavens. ” Mr. Shemshadi regularly posts images of those killed in action, like Abbas Daneshgar, who died at 23 in 2015, and two one Iranian and one Afghan, both named Mostafa Mousavi and seen holding up guns. Some scenes are of everyday life on the front. In May, Mr. Shemshadi posted a picture of a man he called “martyr Belbasi,” cutting the hair of another fighter. In hindsight, a bad omen, he wrote in a caption. “The fighters who have returned from the battle of Khan Tuman say that whomever that was barbered by martyr Belbasi was martyred. ” Mr. Shemshadi declined to be interviewed for this article. He is not shy about describing Iran’s military activities in the region, a freedom of expression that would have to be permitted at the highest levels of the government. At a conference in Mashhad in February, for instance, Mr. Shemshadi said that Iran was directly involved in the Syrian conflict and that there was a danger that its Russian allies could one day stop supporting Mr. Assad. “They may abandon us,” Mr. Shemshadi said, as seen in videos of the event posted on the Shajar. ir website. “We cannot live in fear of what might happen. We should move forward. ” Iran is in Syria and Iraq not only to defend the shrines, Mr. Shemshadi said. “It is wrong to have a view of what we are doing in Syria,” he said. Iran provides national security for the Syrians, too, and “we are there to show the real Islam,” meaning the Shiite strain. In February, he posted an image of Hadi Zolfaghari, who died fighting near the Iraqi city of Samarra. One of his followers, @fatima. baran. 110, nicknamed Isfahan Iran Muslim, wrote that she was tired of all the killing. “Are Iraq or Syria not able to defend themselves? So why should Iranian youths lose their lives for the sake of another country?” Mr. Shemshadi was quick to respond. “It is not for the sake of another country,” he said. “It is for the sake of Islam, religion, beliefs, Shiism, resistance, holy shrines and so much more. ” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Two longtime detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, made rare public appearances in separate military hearings on Thursday, including Mohamedou Ould Slahi, whose memoir recounting abuse by American interrogators became a last year after he waged a yearslong battle with the government for permission to publish it. But the expected first public appearance of another, even more prominent Guantánamo captive, Abu Zubaydah, was abruptly postponed. Mr. Zubaydah is one of three terrorism suspects the Central Intelligence Agency is known to have tortured through a technique called waterboarding. The day began with a hearing for Mr. Slahi before a Periodic Review Board, offering him his first chance to make the case for why he should be released after nearly 14 years of imprisonment. Mr. Slahi, 45, has not been charged with a crime, and the review board is considering whether to recommend that he be released. Wearing glasses and a white shirt, Mr. Slahi did not speak during the part of the hearing that was not classified and was streamed to the Pentagon for reporters to observe. There was no word on when a decision would be made on whether to free Mr. Slahi, who would prefer to be sent to Germany or Mauritania, where he was born, according to his lawyers and representatives. Mr. Slahi fought with Al Qaeda in the 1990s against Afghanistan’s Communist government and later ended up in Germany, where he was arrested after crossing paths with one of the planners of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In his book, “Guantánamo Diary,” Mr. Slahi says he was deprived of sleep for long stretches at the prison, shackled for days at a time in a freezing cell, beaten, doused with ice water and threatened by interrogators who said they could make him disappear. Interrogators also threatened to have his mother arrested and he wrote. Despite the mistreatment, the impression that emerged of Mr. Slahi during the hearing was of an engaging and intellectually curious man eager to reconnect with the world. Mr. Slahi, said one of his American military representatives, is a model prisoner, and he “is uniquely talented, and speaks multiple languages, including English. ” The military representative, who was not identified, said he believed that Mr. Slahi genuinely intended to live a peaceful life and posed no threat to the United States if released. A profile of Mr. Slahi said that if freed, he would most likely reunite with his family and travel the world to promote his book. But it also warned that releasing him was not without risks, given his old “terrorist contacts. ” The United States determined years ago that Mr. Slahi was a senior recruiter for Al Qaeda, and for some time it considered him the most dangerous person imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay. A federal judge saw the case differently, and ordered Mr. Slahi released in 2010, concluding that the government’s evidence against him was marred by coercion and mistreatment, or was “so classified” that it could not be used in court. But the Obama administration challenged the decision, which was overturned on appeal, leaving Mr. Slahi in legal limbo. Mr. Slahi’s lawyer, Theresa Duncan, said in her opening statement that her client had never taken any hostile action against the United States, noting that when he joined Al Qaeda in the early 1990s, the Islamist militants “and the United States were aligned. ” In his memoir, which was based on a handwritten diary he composed in 2005, Mr. Slahi detailed much of the treatment that tainted the government’s case, including a “special interrogation” that lasted for months. The interrogation was personally approved in 2003 by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary. Separately on Thursday, a pretrial hearing was convened in a courtroom at Guantánamo in the yearslong effort to use a military commission to prosecute five detainees accused of aiding the Sept. 11 attacks. Reporters could watch a video feed of that hearing at Fort Meade, Md. The session focused on complaints by one of the defendants, Ramzi bin who says guards are making banging noises and making his cell vibrate so that he cannot sleep. The military has denied Mr. bin ’s allegations. In November 2015, the judge overseeing the case, Col. James Pohl of the Army, issued an order not to harass him, but Mr. bin says the commotion has continued. Mr. Bin lives in Camp 7, a part of the prison complex where former C. I. A. “black site” prisoners are housed and which reporters are not permitted to visit. His lawyer, James Harrington, called as a witness another Camp 7 resident, Gouled Hassan Dourad, a Somali man who has been accused of being a member of Al Qaeda’s affiliate in East Africa and who had not been seen publicly since his capture. Mr. Dourad, bearded and dressed in white clothing and a checkered kaffiyeh, swiveled in the witness chair as he testified that he, too, had been subjected to continuous floor vibrations, bangs and bad smells since 2009. He said he had complained about the disruptions for a time, but had stopped because no one cared. “We have mental torture in Camp 7,” he said. During a prosecutor, Edward Ryan, accused Mr. Dourad of lying. Saying that he wanted to establish that the witness was biased, Mr. Ryan grilled him about alleged Qaeda activities like evaluating a military base in Djibouti for a potential suicide bombing, which Mr. Dourad denied. Mr. Harrington had intended to call Mr. Zubaydah, who was once viewed as the first “high value” terrorism suspect captured by the C. I. A. after the Sept. 11 attacks but whose significance was later downgraded. However, as Mr. Zubaydah prepared to take the stand — he was said to be waiting outside the door — a lawyer representing him told the judge that he would object if questioning went beyond the conditions of confinement in Camp 7 and reached potentially incriminating topics. Mr. Ryan said he did intend to ask about his alleged terrorist activities, and the testimony was postponed. | 1 |
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