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November 9, 2016
Canada is becoming more appealing to millions of Americans as Donald Trump closes in on the presidency.
According to Independent UK, the website for Canada’s official immigration agency is crashing under heavy traffic , with Americans researching how to immigrate to Canada in the wake of Donald Trump’s looming electoral college majority. When attempting to access the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website, an error message shows on the screen after waiting several minutes for the site to load. The Canada Citizenship and Immigration site has crashed — pic.twitter.com/DISgFSB3Q1
— Ryan Parker (@TheRyanParker) November 9, 2016
The immigration rules for Canada are fairly strict, as Americans seeking refuge there will be unable to relocate there without first securing a job, a graduate study course, or another professional niche that meets Canadian work residency requirements. A thread on Quora explained the rigorous standards the Canadian government has for Americans relocating to their Northern neighbor. Tax rules are also complex for American expats seeking refuge from a Trump presidency.
One viral phenomenon that spread earlier in the election season eerily predicted the rise in interest of American immigration to Canada if Donald Trump were to win the presidency. In July, a website promoted Cape Breton Island , on the Eastern shore of Canada, as a possible refuge for Americans fleeing a President Trump.
Destination Cape Breton had to hire extra staff to field 5,000 questions from Americans who were either seriously interested in moving to the island or adjusting their summer travel plans to include a visit. Questions ranged from “What is the process to immigrate to your beautiful island?” to “What are real estate prices like?”
As of 11:51 PM Eastern, Donald Trump currently has 232 electoral college votes to Hillary Clinton’s 209. The GOP nominee has won Florida, and is still leading in Michigan and Wisconsin, which were previously thought to be solidly Democratic.
Tom Cahill is a writer for US Uncut based in the Pacific Northwest. He specializes in coverage of political, economic, and environmental news. You can contact him via email at [email protected] | 0 |
Tensions continued in North Dakota on Monday afternoon as law enforcement officials arrested 16 people at a demonstration, one day after hundreds clashed with the police over the Dakota Access Pipeline. During a news conference on Monday, officials also defended their use of fire hoses against protesters the night before, despite the weather. “Some of the water was used to repel some of the protest activities that were occurring, and it was used at a time where they were aggressive towards the officers,” the Morton County sheriff, Kyle Kirchmeier, said at the news conference. In a statement late on Sunday, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department characterized the demonstration as an “ongoing riot,” releasing photos that it said showed protesters “setting fires and using aggressive tactics” while trying to dismantle a police barricade on Backwater Bridge, which has for months been the site of a protest against the pipeline. The statement did not address what dispersal methods the department had used against what it estimated to be a crowd of 400 protesters. Rob Keller, a spokesman for the department, told The Bismarck Tribune that water was being used for crowd control, adding that water cannons had also been used to douse the fires. The paper reported that protesters had started a dozen fires and that officers from the sheriff’s department had said that rocks and logs were being thrown at them. One officer was struck on the head, it said. The Associated Press reported that at least one person was arrested. Dallas Goldtooth, a spokesman for the Indigenous Environmental Network, said in a phone interview on Monday that the Oceti Sakowin medical team, which had been working in tandem with medics from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, had reported that nearly 200 people were injured and 12 people were hospitalized for head injuries. One protester went into cardiac arrest and was revived by the medic team, he said. The medical teams attributed many of the injuries to rubber bullets, pepper spray and shrapnel from concussion grenades, according to Mr. Goldtooth, and said that water sprayed from cannons caused early signs of hypothermia. The air temperature in the area was about 23 degrees at 10:15 p. m. according to the National Weather Service. “I would love to emphasize here that this entire situation is ripe with irony,” Mr. Goldtooth said, adding that on Friday, Sheriff Kirchmeier had urged the protesters to leave their camps because they might be unfamiliar with the harshness of North Dakota winters. Late last month, tensions boiled over at a protest camp near Backwater Bridge when law enforcement officials forced demonstrators out of the area. That confrontation led to the arrests of more than 140 protesters and resulted in the setting of multiple fires. Reports coming out of the conflict have been highly contested, with law enforcement officials and protesters leveling substantive accusations of violence at each other. Dave Archambault II, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, said in a phone interview Monday that the measures law enforcement officials took on Sunday represented a clear escalation of violence. “The use of water in freezing temperatures just goes to show that they’re being more aggressive and they’re actually trying to hurt people,” he said. “This is far more threatening to human life than any other time of confrontation with law enforcement. ” A live video of Sunday’s protests was posted by a demonstrator named Kevin Gilbertt, who identifies himself on Facebook as a poet and videographer. Early Monday morning, the and unclear video had been viewed over three million times. Senator Bernie Sanders shared Mr. Gilbertt’s video on his Facebook page and called for President Obama to “take all appropriate measures” to protect the protesters. Senator Sanders also reposted a tweet that said that law enforcement officials were spraying Native Americans with water cannons in weather. The conflict over the $3. 7 billion Dakota Access Pipeline has lasted for months, as Energy Transfer Partners, a company, attempts to finish construction of the project In an interview with The Associated Press published on Friday, Kelcy Warren, the company’s chief executive, said that the company had no alternative but to stick to the plan for construction. “There’s not another way. We’re building at that location,” Mr. Warren said. Native Americans, environmental activists and others have said that the pipeline, which would carry oil from North Dakota to Illinois, threatens the local water supply and would also harm sacred Native American grounds. In an interview with NPR last month, Mr. Archambault, the tribal chairman, said that while protesters were asked to “remain prayerful and peaceful,” it was “hard to resist reacting” given the dual pressures coming from Energy Transfer Partners and law enforcement. “Our purpose is to protect the water,” he said. “And no matter what we do, nobody cares. They’re going to force this down our throats again. ” | 1 |
On Thursday, MSNBC host Katy Tur seemed to confuse when the next presidential election will be held when she asked, “Is there any chance that Donald Trump will face a primary challenger in 2018 from the Republican side?” Fellow host Chris Matthews answered, “Well probably, because he’s controversial, and there are people like George Will and his column today in the Washington Post, there’s a lot of true blue conservatives out there, and I mean that, true blue conservatives who don’t like him. And there are people in the party that see it as an opportunity to make hay. He’s going to have a tough and a tough fight. Who knows what’ll happen. ” Follow Pam Key On Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
A New Jersey judge on Friday dismissed a bid to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Gov. Chris Christie’s involvement in the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge in 2013, leaving the case in the hands of a county prosecutor’s office that is led by one of Mr. Christie’s appointees. In her decision, Judge Bonnie J. Mizdol of Bergen County Superior Court wrote that the citizen who made the request, William J. Brennan, did not have standing to make such a motion. Mr. Brennan had petitioned the court to order the recusal of the Bergen County prosecutor’s office and the state attorney general’s office, which are both overseen by appointees of Mr. Christie, a Republican. But Judge Mizdol cited various precedents that indicated that Mr. Brennan did not have the legal right to file such motions in the case. “This court is mindful of the heightened concern for conflict when a governor is facing criminal prosecution by the very state he is tasked to govern,” Judge Mizdol wrote. “However, this court is to uphold our Constitution, statutes, case law and court rules none of which convey standing upon Brennan. ” Gurbir S. Grewal, the Bergen County prosecutor and a Democrat, has recused himself and designated another prosecutor in his office, John L. Higgins III, to oversee the case. The office has the authority to decide whether to pursue the case further. Mr. Grewal’s office and the office of Christopher S. Porrino, the state attorney general and a Republican, submitted a joint brief opposing Mr. Brennan’s bid. Mr. Porrino, a former chief counsel to Mr. Christie, has also designated a subordinate to take over the case. It was not clear if either office would move forward with the matter. The Bergen County prosecutor’s office currently has control of the case, according to a spokesman for Mr. Porrino. State law requires that civilian complaints be turned over to the county prosecutor’s office if a municipal court finds there is probable cause. Mr. Brennan’s complaint was filed in Bergen County, which includes the borough where the lane closings occurred, Fort Lee. Mr. Grewal’s office did not respond to requests for comment or to questions about the case, including whether it planned to pursue it further. Mr. Brennan, an activist and retired firefighter from Teaneck, N. J. with a history of lawsuits against government agencies, called the judge’s decision “an act of judicial cowardice. ” “The only one with standing to raise a conflict of interest is the person compromised by the conflict?” he said in a statement. “This is not justice. ” Mr. Brennan filed the complaint in September, using an aspect of New Jersey law that allows citizens to bring criminal complaints. A municipal court judge had allowed it to proceed after finding probable cause in October. The basis for the case, which accuses Mr. Christie of official misconduct for failing to act to reopen access lanes to the bridge, emerged this fall during the federal trial of two of Mr. Christie’s allies involved in the closings, Mr. Brennan said. The two defendants, Bill Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, were found guilty by a jury in November of all charges related to the scheme to close the lanes to punish the mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing Mr. Christie in his bid for . Testimony during the trial indicated that the governor knew about the closings as they were happening, despite his assertions that he knew nothing about them until much later. Craig Carpenito, a lawyer for Mr. Christie, called Mr. Brennan’s complaint “baseless,” questioned his motives for filing it and lauded the judge’s opinion. He said it was appropriate that the decision about whether to pursue the case would be left to members of the Bergen County prosecutor’s office, “who have a profound obligation to ensure that justice is done. ” If the case were to proceed, it would be another challenge for Mr. Christie stemming from the lane closings, the fallout from which hurt his campaign for president and damaged his reputation as a surrogate for Donald J. Trump. Mr. Christie was replaced by Vice Mike Pence as the leader of Mr. Trump’s transition effort shortly after the election last month. In a separate legal matter on Friday involving another Christie ally, United Airlines agreed to pay a $2. 4 million settlement for reinstating a flight to South Carolina from Newark. The flight had been operated at the behest of David Samson, who was the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey at the time of the lane closings and had a home in Aiken, S. C. the Securities and Exchange Commission said. Mr. Samson, who was appointed to his post by Mr. Christie, his longtime friend, pleaded guilty in July to a felony count of bribery in the case. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Robert S. Harward, the retired vice admiral who is President Trump’s top choice to replace his ousted national security adviser, is a member of the Navy SEALs who rose through the ranks to top military positions and is close with Jim Mattis, the new secretary of defense. Mr. Harward, 60, is a former deputy commander of the United States Central Command, the military’s busiest with management of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and served on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, where he was responsible for counterterrorism issues. He is currently a top executive at Lockheed Martin, the weapons and aerospace company, overseeing business with the United Arab Emirates. Mr. Harward’s career has closely tracked that of Mr. Mattis, from the time the two worked together in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks of 2001 to his tour at Central Command from 2011 to 2013, which included an assignment heading detainee operations in Kabul. “He has faced down and defeated the world’s most ruthless and deadly enemies, and he has done all that by Mattis’s side,” said Fran Townsend, Mr. Bush’s former homeland security adviser, for whom Mr. Harward worked from 2003 to 2005. “He has been in tougher knife fights than this, and won. ” Still, it is not clear whether Mr. Harward would be willing to surrender his lucrative position and comfortable existence in Abu Dhabi to step into the tumult of the Trump White House. The new administration has been troubled by an unusual level of infighting, disorganization and grievance — including within the ranks of the National Security Council — capped off on Monday by the resignation of Michael T. Flynn as national security adviser. Raised in prerevolutionary Tehran, Mr. Harward was known to startle his Afghan counterparts during his tours there by conversing with them fluently in Farsi, which is similar to their native Dari. Trained as an elite Special Operations officer, Mr. Harward is also known for his bravado and obsession with physical fitness. As the head of detainee operations in Afghanistan, he would lead weekly hikes in the mountains outside Kabul, outpacing colleagues who were 20 years younger, and has been known to challenge them to contests that left them vomiting. Mr. Harward looks the part of a military man, a crucial factor for a president who has made clear that he considers appearance an important indicator of a job candidate’s suitability for a role. With his bald head, eyes and long scar of mysterious provenance down his cheek, Mr. Harward has the bearing of an officer who once carried out risky secret operations. But he is also an effective inside player, according to people who know him, having worked for some of the military’s top policy leaders and at the White House. James G. Stavridis, a retired admiral and former NATO commander, said Mr. Harward was “someone who will find a way to succeed no matter how daunting the task. ” “I have known him well for two decades, and have boundless admiration for his ingenuity, integrity and ability to navigate choppy seas — both operationally in the field and in the battlefield of Washington, D. C.,” said Mr. Stavridis, currently dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. “The real question,” he added, “is whether he wants to take the job. ” Some question whether Mr. Harward’s decades of military experience are the right preparation for a senior post. In a Twitter post Tuesday, Max Boot, a senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, called Mr. Harward “a great SEAL,” but said it was “not clear that running detainee ops in Afghanistan or being No 2 at Centcom is right background for this. ” Friends say Mr. Harward has experience with military special operations, but also in navigating the arcane world of the National Security Council, which is charged with synthesizing recommendations from national security and intelligence agencies and advising the president on policy. The process frequently involves managing turf battles and balancing competing interests. “He’ll bring a buffering calm and balance, as well as his using his previous experience at the N. S. C. ,” said Douglas H. Wise, a former deputy director at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Mr. Mattis is widely seen as a force for steadiness within the Trump administration, and some Republicans who have expressed misgivings about the president’s policies and his attitude toward national security matters have looked to his defense secretary as an island of reliability in a sea of unpredictability. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said on Tuesday that Mr. Trump should name a new national security adviser “who is empowered by clear lines of authority and responsibility and possesses the skills and experience necessary to organize the national security system across our government. ” Mr. McCain said he looked forward “to working with the president’s administration, especially Secretary Mattis, to defend the nation and support our military service members. ” If he is chosen for the post and accepts, Mr. Harward would be reunited with his old boss and mentor, Mr. Mattis. But he would also have to contend with Mr. Trump’s inner circle, populated by political advisers with whom Mr. Harward is not familiar, including Steven K. Bannon, the chief White House strategist. In an executive order last month — which Mr. Trump later complained privately that he had not been fully briefed on — the president placed Mr. Bannon on the principals committee of the National Security Council, giving a political adviser a position of parity with the secretaries of state and defense, and with the national security adviser. Two former national security officials who have worked closely with Mr. Harward said he would be unlikely to take the position without strong assurances from Mr. Trump and his team that the council would not be driven by partisan considerations on national security policy, and that he would have the autonomy to provide principled counsel. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on Mr. Harward’s behalf. Mr. Harward’s name surfaced briefly in 2015 in connection to the scandal involving David H. Petraeus, the former general who was forced to resign as director of the Central Intelligence Agency after admitting that he had provided classified information to his lover, and who is now also said to be in the running to be Mr. Trump’s national security adviser. Jill Kelley, a Tampa socialite who had befriended Mr. Petraeus and then become a target of threatening emails from Mr. Petraeus’ lover, had also written gushing notes to Mr. Harward and Mr. Mattis. “You ROCK! !!” Ms. Kelley wrote to Mr. Harward in 2012 regarding his dealings with foreign heads of state at a social gathering, according to emails obtained by The Washington Post. “YOU ROCK MORE! ,” Mr. Harward replied. There was no evidence of impropriety in the friendly correspondence, which would have been routine between top military commanders and civic leaders in the communities in which they were stationed. | 1 |
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Musician Stevie Wonder branded those who attempt to associate the recent terror attacks in London with Islam “liars” during Sunday’s #OneLoveManchester charity concert. [“Ariana, this is Stevie. I just wanted you to know that I’m with all of you in Manchester,” declared Wonder in a segment that appeared on screens during the #OneLoveManchester concert on Sunday. “We all know that love is truly the key. ” “I don’t care what ethnicity you are, what religion you are. Love really is the way,” he continued, before adding “So anyone who tries to make anyone think that things of destruction has anything to do with God or Allah, they’re a liar. Yes, I stand with you Manchester. ” #OneLoveManchesterStevie Wonder love! #beInspired #BeStrong Don’t spread hate, spread LOVE! pic. twitter. — B. E. Diaz (@bes2268_diaz) June 4, 2017, Reports of Saturday night’s terror attack at the London Bridge and Borough Market claimed that the attackers shouted “This is for Allah” before indiscriminately attacking and stabbing patrons at local bars. The attack killed at least six civilians and left at least 48 more injured. Wonder’s statement was broadcasted on a screen to citizens of Manchester on Sunday following the Islamic attack at an Ariana Grande concert last week which killed 22 people, including a child as young as eight, and injured over 100 others. Ariana Grande, Little Mix, The Black Eyed Peas, Imogen Heap, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Coldplay, Miley Cyrus, Niall Horan, Pharrell Williams, Usher, Robbie Williams, and Take That also made appearances at the concert. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Muhammad Ali filled the middle of three screens in the small theater. In footage taken a few years after his 1960 Olympic gold medal performance, he was explaining his decision to sit out the Vietnam War to a group of white male college students. “You won’t even stand up for me in America for my religious beliefs,” said Ali, who had converted from Christianity to Islam, “and you want me to go somewhere and fight, but you won’t even stand up for me at home. ” From her seat in the darkened room at the Muhammad Ali Center on Saturday, Emma McElvaney Talbott heard Ali’s words and couldn’t hold back. “That’s right,” she exclaimed, not caring how far her voice carried. The hometown that McElvaney Talbott and Ali shared was staging a citywide this weekend for its native son, who died late Friday after a struggle with Parkinson’s disease. Outside the center, the flags had been lowered to . Inside, McElvaney Talbott’s memories, triggered by the film of Ali’s life, were going full tilt. All around her were people who had come to pay their respects, some bearing bouquets of flowers or boxing gloves, handmade signs or letters. Or, in some cases, just silent blessings. Kerry Borvan, who had been traveling with her nephews from Chicago to the Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. made an unplanned stop at the museum and cultural center after waking up to the news of Ali’s death. Dr. Saleem Seyal, a cardiologist who was born in Pakistan and is a longtime resident of the Louisville area, had once met Ali, and he produced photographs from his smartphone to prove it. He had come to say a Muslim prayer for the former heavyweight champion of the world. There were also those who were there from the start, who knew Ali as a kid in Louisville who raced school buses on foot and walked teenage girls home from school for the prospect of a kiss, who could testify to the sentiment that Mayor Greg Fischer of Louisville had expressed at a Saturday morning memorial service when he said, “Muhammad Ali belongs to the world, but he only has one hometown. ” That rang true for McElvaney Talbott, a retired educator and a writer, and her husband, Cecil Talbott, an engineer, who are members of the center, which was by Ali and his wife, Lonnie. On Saturday, the waiving of admission fees was hardly what motivated them to join the steady procession of visitors. On a day when the weather — gray and glum with scattered sunshine between downpours — reflected the city’s collective emotions, they said they had come because each room in the center was like a page from a scrapbook. Like Ali, Cecil Talbott learned to box at a local gym run by Fred Stone, who is credited with helping to teach Ali the footwork that enabled him to flit around the ring like a dancer. With prodding from his wife, Talbott recounted a sparring session he had with the much bigger Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, when both were teenagers. Talbott said he was scrawny and stood just 5 feet 7 inches when he climbed into the ring with Ali, who was well on his way to his adult height, . Ali seemed not to care that the objective of sparring was to practice technique, not inflict torment, “In the first round, Cassius threw a hard right, and Fred warned him not to hit hard,” Cecil Talbott said. “In the second round, Cassius threw another hard right, and Freddie had to warn him again not to do it. “In my mind, I said, ‘This is not going to work,’ so in the third round, he threw another hard right, and I saw it coming. I blocked it and I threw a hard right back. Cassius looked at me and said, ‘Good shot.’ ” Talbott gave up boxing soon thereafter, but Ali was hooked. McElvaney Talbott, who was in the same class at Central High as Ali’s younger brother, recalled Ali shadowboxing in the halls as he made his way from one class to the next. He was smart, she said, but didn’t apply himself in school. “He was a cutup,” she said. “I just remember he was a lot of fun. ” Some mornings, he entertained his schoolmates by racing a dozen blocks or more as he tried to outrun the bus that McElvaney Talbott rode to school. “We’d be screaming and hollering and laughing,” she said. “We’d be yelling: ‘Go Cassius!’ ” McElvaney Talbott recalled with a laugh: “He’d always stop for the young ladies. I called him a big ol’ teddy bear. ” One day, she said, he walked her home from a skating rink, shadowboxing on the sidewalk and jabbering away. “When we got to my door, he asked me for a kiss,” she said. “I regretfully said no, and he didn’t push it. ” In 1960, the year Ali graduated from high school, he won the gold at the Summer Olympics in Rome. Upon his return home, he received a hero’s welcome, but the local adulation, like the gold in his medal, did not run deep. Instead, discrimination did. One had to be a fighter to rise above the daily humiliations of life in a segregated city, McElvaney Talbott said. Some leaned on books and learning and religion. Ali used his fists and his wit. As a child of the segregated South, she said she understood the forces that had carried Ali into the embrace of the Nation of Islam, an American Muslim sect that advocated racial separation. (He would later convert to orthodox Islam.) She said she was proud when he refused to be drafted to fight in the Vietnam War and requested status, which caused him to be stripped of his heavyweight title by boxing commissions around the country and put his career on hiatus for more than three years during his athletic prime. “We lived with him through all the injustices,” McElvaney Talbott said. “I remember feeling that he was right to refuse to go and feeling really sad when they stripped him of his title. ” She added, “He was the man for that time. ” As his fame grew, his trips home diminished. But during his visits, “he was always the hometown boy,” McElvaney Talbott said. “If you saw him, he was approachable. ” During one of those visits, she said, Ali ran into her older brother, Woody. “Give me your address,” she said Ali told her brother. An hour later, Ali showed up on his doorstep. “I ran into him at the center four years ago,” she said, “and I told him I was Woody’s sister. He was struggling with his speech, but his face lit up. ” Ali’s younger brother, who was born Rudolph but later converted to Islam and took the name Rahman Ali, spent part of Saturday receiving visitors at a house on Grand Street. It was next door to the carnation pink clapboard structure where he and his brother were raised by their mother, Odessa, a cook and house cleaner, and their father, Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr. a sign painter and church muralist. The home was restored and converted into a museum that opened last month. Visitors were greeted at the front door by Sonny Fishback, who was dressed in purple pants and a matching bowler’s shirt as if ready for the nightclub stages he once commanded. Fishback attended Central High with Ali and his brother and later became a singer and songwriter. Stories flowed freely from him as he controlled the tide of people streaming inside to buy an $8 admission ticket and pay their respects to Rahman Ali, who is as quiet as his brother was loquacious. In the bedroom the brothers shared, there are two paintings of Muhammad Ali by Rahman, who is an artist. Speaking softly, Rahman said that his brother’s physical suffering was over and that he had led a rich life. When it was suggested to him that Ali’s greatest currency was the love he gave away freely and, in his later years, was returned a thousandfold, Rah beckoned the visitor closer and kissed her on the cheek. Five miles from the house, at the Green Meadows Memorial Cemetery, which sits on the other side of the railroad tracks, a woman knelt in front of the granite gravestone shared by Ali’s parents, planting marigolds to spell out “Love. ” She identified herself as Diana Rupa but said she went by the surname Ali because the boxer embodied kindness and respect and dignity. As she was working the dirt around the flowers, she said she had never met Ali but felt a personal and spiritual connection to him. Earlier in the day, Rupa had added an elephant piñata to the makeshift shrine for Ali on the porch of his childhood home. She set another elephant at his parents’ grave site. With their thick skins, their graceful way of moving on their toes and their ability to communicate to their herd without seeming to speak, elephants remind her of Ali. The boxer known for running his mouth became a humanitarian who did not have to say a word. Referring to his Parkinson’s disease, which so diminished Ali’s voice, Rupa said, “God had to shut him up,” she said, “so that we could hear his heart. ” | 1 |
Ronald Gasser, who admitted to the police that he had shot and killed the former N. F. L. player Joe McKnight in Louisiana, was arrested on Monday and charged with manslaughter — four days after the authorities faced widespread criticism for initially freeing him. The death of Mr. McKnight, 28, a former player for the New York Jets, after what the authorities described as a “road rage” confrontation has captured wide attention amid a national debate about shootings and race. Mr. Gasser is white, and Mr. McKnight was black. Mr. Gasser was charged after investigators conducted more than 160 interviews and spoke to Mr. Gasser for more than 12 hours, Sheriff Newell Normand of Jefferson Parish said on Tuesday in an news conference in which he defended the authorities’ actions. The sheriff, bristling over suggestions that officials had been and had handled the case differently because of the race of the two men, read aloud obscene internet comments that had been directed at elected officials after Mr. Gasser’s release. He repeated two racial slurs for an slur and other crude language, and twice banged his fist on the lectern, chastising critics for what he said was a premature demand for justice. “For those who have criticized the men and women of this organization and the strategy decisions that we made relative to that: Tough. I don’t care,” he said. “Because what I know is I can put my head on the pillow every night, knowing that we’ve done the right thing for the right reasons. ” The sheriff also appeared to insinuate that the victim shared blame for the violent outcome, saying: “Two people engaged in bad behavior that day. Why? I don’t know, but they did. ” The sheriff said the charges against Mr. Gasser would be submitted to the district attorney. Mr. McKnight was shot three times at about 2:45 p. m. Thursday in Terrytown, La. about five miles southeast of New Orleans. Sheriff Normand said the confrontation began after both drivers were driving erratically, cutting each other off and zipping in front of each other, according to Mr. Gasser and witnesses. Mr. Gasser said he became irate and engaged in a “verbal altercation” with the football player. When they stopped next to each other at a red light, Mr. McKnight got out of his car and approached Mr. Gasser’s car window. Mr. Gasser then pulled out a handgun from between his seat and the console and shot Mr. McKnight, Sheriff Normand said. Mr. Gasser told the police he had feared Mr. McKnight, but witnesses disputed elements of his account, Sheriff Normand said. Sheriff Normand revealed that Mr. McKnight had a gun in his car, but that both the gun and the car belonged to his stepfather. There was no indication that Mr. McKnight had suggested during the confrontation that he had a weapon, Sheriff Normand said. Local N. A. A. C. P. leaders, former football teammates of Mr. McKnight and social media users expressed anger over officials’ decision to free Mr. Gasser initially without charging him. They said they believed he would not have been freed if he were black and that justice would be less swift because Mr. McKnight was black. “We think a black man was lynched yesterday,” Morris Reed, the president of the New Orleans branch of the N. A. A. C. P. said at a news conference on Friday. “We are demanding some answers. ” Moe Reed Jr. a lawyer, said of Mr. Gasser on Friday, “There is nothing that could’ve happened yesterday at 3 p. m. in broad daylight on a Louisiana highway, in front of many people passing back and forth in front of a gas station, that would make this man feel that he was in danger of losing his life. ” Sheriff Normand said that on Thursday night, investigators had only a statement from Mr. Gasser and no corroborating or contradictory statements from witnesses. A key witness did not come forward until Saturday, he said, and officials were still trying to find others. Charging Mr. Gasser Thursday would have compromised the ability to prosecute him. Mr. Gasser did not have a lawyer at the time, he said. “In this state, whether we like it or not, we have a very ‘stand your ground’ justifiable homicide laws,” he said. “That creates for us an obligation to make sure that we get it right. ” Investigators have conducted crime scene talked to more witnesses, located videos and interviewed Mr. Gasser again with the benefit of forensic evidence, Sheriff Normand said. “Justice has no time period,” he said. “Justice is not a sprint. It is a marathon. These investigations are marathons. ” Critics have pointed to a similar case from April, when Will Smith, a former defensive end for the New Orleans Saints who was black, was shot and killed after a vehicle collision. In that case, Cardell Hayes, who is black, was arrested at the scene and charged with murder. He is currently on trial. The sheriff angrily pushed back at the suggestion that race was a factor in Mr. Gasser’s case. When a reporter asked if he understood the concerns of the black community, he cited statistics on “black on black murders” and said that people should not “make this out to be something that it is not. ” “If we’re just going to look statistically, your fear, what you’re trying to articulate right now, is misdirected,” he said. Mr. McKnight dominated high school football in River Ridge, La. a suburb of New Orleans. His speed and versatility at the University of Southern California impressed the New York Jets enough for the team to select him in the fourth round of the 2010 N. F. L. Draft. Mr. McKnight played three years for the Jets. He was released in 2013, playing two more N. F. L. games for the Kansas City Chiefs in 2014. In February, he signed with the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League, and most recently played for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Mr. McKnight had been in contact with the Minnesota Vikings about a possible N. F. L. comeback and was working at a mental health facility, Jonathan McKnight, his brother, told WGNO, a local TV station. His sister, Johanna McKnight, described him to WDSU as a “family man. ” “We knew our brother touched a lot of people,” she said. “We just want everyone to remember the good that my brother has done, and remember who he was. ” Mr. Gasser is the owner of a telecommunications firm and a real estate business, according to The New Orleans Advocate. In February 2006, he was charged with simple battery after a confrontation with another driver that began at the same intersection in Louisiana where Mr. McKnight was shot. A man had called 911 to report that a man behind the wheel of a red pickup was driving unsafely. The man turned out to be Mr. Gasser, and a “verbal altercation” ensued. Mr. Gasser followed the man to a service station, where Mr. Gasser “confronted him and began to strike him with a closed fist several times,” the police said. The charge was later dismissed. | 1 |
By Jon Rappoport Before the polls are closed in the states. And already… The networks are tuning up viewers to expect a few key states... | 0 |
A Never Trump movement leader who once blamed Donald Trump for violent riots in Chicago has miraculously infiltrated President Trump’s White House, Breitbart News has learned. [Helen Aguirre Ferre, now the White House’s Director of Media Relations, previously very publicly — as an adviser to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s failed 2016 presidential campaign and as a GOP consultant after Bush dropped out of the race — bashed Trump repeatedly on the campaign trail, leading the Never Trump movement. Aguirre Ferre’s perhaps most egregious Never Trump comments came via Twitter on March 11, 2016, in a Tweet in which she said now President Trump “bears responsibility” for violent riots in Chicago that forced him to shut down a campaign event there ahead of the Illinois primary — which he handily won on March 15, sweeping out many of the other states that day. Then Trump rivals Sens. Ted Cruz ( ) and Marco Rubio ( ) inaccurately suggested that Trump was responsible for the violence in Chicago that caused him to cancel his planned March 11, 2016, campaign rally downtown at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “I think a campaign bears responsibility for creating an environment, when the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence — to punch people in the face. The predictable consequence of that is that it escalates and today is unlikely to be the last such instance,” Cruz said at the time, for instance. But Aguirre Ferre took it a step further on her Twitter account, saying that Cruz and Rubio “agree that” Trump “bears responsibility for violence in Chicago today” on March 11, 2016. White House press secretary Sean Spicer has not answered whether Aguirre Ferre still believes that, or why she deleted that Tweet and many others — and has not answered a detailed set of questions from Breitbart News on Aguirre Ferre’s history of and who is responsible for hiring her at the White House in the first place. But Spicer asked a deputy in the White House to ask Breitbart News to delay publication of this article. Breitbart News accommodated the White House, giving Spicer and his team several extra hours to answer the questions sent to them — including who was responsible for hiring Aguirre Ferre, whether that person who hired her informed the president of these comments she made about him before giving her a senior position in the White House communications office, and whether Aguirre Ferre still believes all these criticisms she made about Trump but has never publicly retracted other than deleting Tweets. Spicer, Breitbart News was told hours after the original scheduled publication of this investigation — which was delayed at his request — was supposed to call Breitbart News to answer these questions and others about Aguirre Ferre. But he never called. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, appearing on Breitbart News Daily on Tuesday morning, defended Aguirre Ferre when asked about her demonstrably positions before joining the administration. Huckabee Sanders said: I think it’s sad that any individual reporter or outlet would try to attack a member of the president’s staff and diminish them maybe based on some of their previous jobs and try to disqualify or discredit them because of that. We’ve got an incredible team here working really hard to carry out the president’s agenda that he laid out during the campaign, that he continues to lay out day in day out here in the White House. And we are all committed to helping move that agenda forward and we are working day and night to do that, and again we’ve got a great team doing that all focused on helping support the president and his agenda. Aguirre Ferre made many more comments on Twitter and television, including promoting a Politifact article in late 2015 that accused Donald Trump’s campaign of making “misstatements” that amounted to that publication’s “2015 Lie of the Year. ” She has also questioned whether now Attorney General Jeff Sessions, then a U. S. Senator from Alabama, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie “regret supporting Trump” or whether “the means justify the end. ” The answer to such a question, she said in a now deleted Tweet, was “telling either way. ” In February 2016, she said her Jeb Bush was “clearly … in Trump’s head” and accused the of the United States of “babbling more than usual. ” In September 2015, she praised Jeb Bush for standing up for Carly Fiorina — another Trump rival — from Trump’s “insults,” arguing that Fiorina, all women, and the whole country “deserve better” than Donald Trump as president. Aguirre Ferre also once said that President Trump’s campaign style is “not flattering” and that his aggressivness on the campaign trail was “all he’ll ever be. ” Perhaps most damning is the fact that Aguirre Ferre deleted most of these comments from her Twitter account, an action for which she, Spicer, and other White House staff have provided no explanation — or that it was the Clinton, George and David Media Matters for America (MMfA) organization that took screen shots of them and published them online months ago during the campaign. But those Tweets are not the only places she has made comments. In April 2016, according to a translation offered by Politico, Aguirre Ferre appeared on Univision’s Al Punto program to bash Donald Trump. That was long after her preferred candidate, Jeb Bush, dropped out of the race. Aguirre Ferre said in Spanish, according to Politico’s translation: There’s a side of Donald Trump that is . I’m not going to tell you he’s a misogynist … but I do think there’s something that bothers him about strong and independent women. In the case of abortion, Donald Trump held every viewpoint possible … including supporting abortion, something even many who are oppose … Donald Trump is trying so hard to win the nomination from conservative voters that he’s trying to say what he thinks the conservative voter wants to hear. And that’s why he ends up messing up, constantly. While Aguirre Ferre did go on to work for National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus — now the White House chief of staff — at the RNC later in the general election cycle, she even made disparaging comments about President Trump during the time after which he became the presumptive GOP presidential nominee. One Tweet was a link to a Washington Examiner story detailing how Trump had issues with winning over Hispanic Republicans, and she commented that Hispanic GOP members were “caught in 2016 meat grinder” with Trump as the GOP nominee. That Tweet, which was sent on May 10, 2016, came seven days after Trump won the primaries once and for all in Indiana on May 3, 2016. Another Tweet she sent out that day — a week after Trump became the nominee — was pushing a poll that argued Trump would “drive Miami Cuban Americans from GOP. A couple days earlier, she Tweeted that the GOP was “neither” Donald Trump’s nor House Speaker Paul Ryan’s party, but that Ryan “represents and lives the values of the Republican Party,” implying that Trump does not. Many people close to the president are shocked someone as could make it into a senior position in the White House like this. “The sheer contempt for the president shown by staffers like Helen Aguirre Ferre is utterly reprehensible but unsurprising given that the RNC and establishment hacks running the administration have decided to staff this administration as if it were Bush’s third term,” one said. “It is completely and utterly demoralizing to know that Donald Trump didn’t actually beat Jeb Bush after all. ” It is worth noting that most of the things Aguirre Ferre said appear on her Wikipedia page. | 1 |
Next Swipe left/right Renaming items on Antiques Roadshow makes a huge improvement Antiques Roadshow has been going since 1979, but it can be very dull. Luckily Keaton Patti has renamed items from the US version of the show to make things a bit more exciting. Here are ten of our favourites.
1. | 0 |
Unsurprisingly, Valve’s own titles still reign on their digital platform Steam, but notably none of the top five games of 2016 by average player count were released last year. [Four out of the five games sitting at the top of Steam by average player count per hour were there last year as well. Dota 2, : Global Offensive, Team Fortress 2, and Grand Theft Auto V were at #1, #2, #4, and #5 respectively in 2015. Only Fallout 4 was replaced, which fell from its #3 spot in 2015 and was replaced by Sid Meier’s Civilization V. Dota 2 636, 607 avg. players per hour (#1 in 2015) : Global Offensive 360, 600 avg. players per hour (#2 in 2015) Team Fortress 2 50, 802 avg. players per hour (#4 in 2015) Grand Theft Auto V 40, 258 avg. players per hour (#5 in 2015) Sid Meier’s Civilization V 37, 885 avg players per hour (#9 in 2015) According to GitHyp’s report, the devastating disappointment that was No Man’s Sky had the highest number of simultaneous players for new releases in 2016, reaching 212, 000 simultaneous players in an hour. It didn’t last. XCOM 2 and Dark Souls III may not have peaked anywhere near Hello Games’ disasterpiece, but they still managed robust concurrent player counts within their release windows. However, they didn’t make it into the top five for games with the highest average player count for the year. Not everyone fared so well. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare experienced a devastating 76% drop from 2015’s Black Ops III peak player count of 63, 681, managing only 15, 280 concurrent players at any point. The awkwardly hipster Watch Dogs 2 attracted no more than 39% of the players that purchased the original at launch as well. Studio’s dark horse hero shooter Paladins that was a surprising winner in 2016, averaging more than 22, 000 players per hour on Steam alone. Despite people incorrectly attempting to frame it as a clone of Blizzard’s Overwatch, it’s gained more overall traction than any other game released on Steam in 2016. Not a bad haul for the innovative independent studio behind multiplayer experiences like Global Agenda, Tribes, and SMITE. Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both. | 1 |
By wmw_admin on September 16, 2008
The ‘dots’ you are not supposed to connect… Affidavit of Richard Tomlinson By wmw_admin on February 14, 2008
“I firmly believe that there exist documents held by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) that would yield important new evidence into the cause and circumstances leading to the death of the Princess of Wales.” They Live By wmw_admin on August 19, 2012
Considered by some as prophetic, many will find eerie echoes of present day concerns in John Carpenters 24-year-old ‘They Live’. View the cult classic here The Anglo-Saxon Mission Part I By wmw_admin on March 1, 2010
Bill Ryan talks to a former City of London insider who participated in a meeting where the elite’s plans for depopulation were discussed. The meeting, which took place in 2005, also discussed a planned financial collapse Who Really Murdered Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman? By wmw_admin on February 28, 2015
Revelations that a US soldier was the killer would have jeopardised public support for the “War on Terror”. Hence a frame-up was required. A Joe Vialls classic recovered. Back to the Future!!! Part 1 By wmw_admin on May 21, 2007
Geological evidence points to an cataclysmic event that almost defies comprehension. The problem is that it may just happen again … and soon too. The Oklahoma City Bombing: 30 Unanswered Questions By wmw_admin on July 11, 2003
Timothy McVeigh may have been tried and executed, but there are still too many unanswered questions about the Oklahoma City Bombing | 0 |
Bellwether? Trump kippas outselling Hillary yarmulkes Company sees preference as 'early exit poll of Orthodox Jews' Published: 24 mins ago Print
WASHINGTON – The campaigns of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are looking for signs anywhere and everywhere that might suggest who will move into the White House in January.
A company that makes Trump and Hillary kippas or yarmulkes has some good news for one of the presidential hopefuls – Trump head coverings are winning in a landslide among the Orthodox Jewish clientele.
So far, the company, Pic-A-Kippa, has sold 331 Trump yarmulkes to 65 for Clinton.
“My kippa (yarmulke) company sells Trump and Hillary kippas and are keeping track of who is selling more,” Uri Turk, founder and “chief kippa officer,” told WND. “We see it as an early exit poll of the Orthodox Jews, a type of bellwether of where this important community is leaning. Once the first debate came around, the orders started flying in, with much more interest in the Trump kippas.”
Pic-A-Kippa is the brainstorm of two former elite red beret IDF soldiers from Miami. Turk says the company is the leader in the kippa market and has been selling Trump and Hillary custom kippas on its site since August, all the while keeping a running tally of which one has sold more.
“Our mission is to help Jews everywhere show and wear their Jewish pride, with our beautifully unique and completely customizable picture kippas,” the company says on its website.
It donates 10 percent of every kippa sale to the Lone Soldier Center in Israel, assisting young lone soldiers during difficult times.
Turk said while American Jews have leaned heavily Democratic for decades, the past few presidential races have seen Orthodox Jews, who make up over 10 percent of American Jewry, vote Republican in ever increasing numbers. He attributes that fact to the Democrats putting “daylight between America and Israel.”
A number of influential Jewish pro-Trump organizations have emerged, chief among them “Jews Choose Trump” and “Jewish Democrats For Trump.” A recent poll of Florida Jews showed Orthodox voters are leaning toward Trump by a 3-1 margin.
According to Turk, Pic-A-Kippa has sold many Trump kippas to a congregant of Ivanka Trump’s synagogue on the liberal Upper East Side of Manhattan and has gotten orders for Trump kippas from Israel, Australia, Britain and even Mexico. Pic-A-Kippa has also gotten hate mail from Jews unhappy they are selling the Trump designs, he says. | 0 |
MANILA — Philippine soldiers clashed Tuesday with members of a militant group known for beheading foreign hostages, leaving five rebels and four members of the security forces dead at a popular tourist destination in the central Philippines, the police and military said. Soldiers and the provincial police clashed with rebels on the island of Bohol, about 400 miles south of Manila, after spotting 10 armed members of Abu Sayyaf on three boats, the military said in a statement. The firefight came a day after the American and Australian Embassies warned their citizens against traveling to areas in the central Philippine region of Visayas, particularly the islands of Cebu and Bohol. They said they had received “unsubstantiated yet credible information that terrorist groups may attempt to conduct kidnapping. ” The embassies did not identify the source of the information, nor did they cite Abu Sayyaf, a small group of Islamic militants that once was an affiliate of Al Qaeda but that has since pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, according to Philippine intelligence officials. Col. Edgard Arevalo, a spokesman for the armed forces, said the troops cornered the militants in an isolated section of the coastal town of Inabanga, prompting the clashes. The rebels, who were heavily armed, he said, were “believed to be” members of Abu Sayyaf. “As of this time, five were killed on the enemy side,” Colonel Arevalo said, adding that troops had recovered four firearms and a homemade bomb from the militants. He said three soldiers and one police officer also died. Numbering around 400, Abu Sayyaf is known for abducting foreign and local tourists for ransoms. In 2004, the militants bombed a passenger ferry off Manila Bay, killing more than 100 people in the country’s worst terrorist attack. In February, the group beheaded Jürgen Kantner, 70, a yachtsman from Germany, after his government did not pay a $600, 000 ransom. They did so after seizing his boat in November as he and his partner, a woman who was reportedly fatally shot, sailed in southern Philippine waters. Last year, Abu Sayyaf beheaded two Canadian hostages they had seized from a beach resort on Samal Island, also in the south. The group operates in mostly poor areas on the southern islands of Basilan and Sulu. Despite its small size, it has rebuffed countless military offensives and remains a serious threat. Rommel Banlaoi, the director of the Center for Intelligence and National Security Studies, based in Manila, said Abu Sayyaf had survived by working with other criminal groups around the archipelago. “It remains highly capable, because it has followers in Visayas,” he said. “The core of the Abu Sayyaf group remains small, but its network with criminal groups nationwide is huge, established through arms smuggling and money laundering. ” He said intelligence data indicated that the militants had established terrorist cells in the central Philippines, with its overall commander, Alhabsi Misaya, known to have followers in Bohol. A suspect in the bombing of a night market in the southern city of Davao last year that killed 15 people was also an Abu Sayyaf associate who once worked in the central Philippines. | 1 |
Phil Mickelson, meet Todd Newman. It’s unlikely that the famous golfer knows the former portfolio manager for Diamondback Capital Management, a hedge fund based in Stamford, Conn. that went out of business in 2013. But Mickelson ought to consider reaching out to thank him. Newman is quite likely a key reason Mickelson was not charged Thursday with insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Newman and another hedge fund manager, Anthony Chiasson, were indicted in 2012 on insider trading charges by Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. (The S. E. C. also brought civil charges.) Newman was accused of regularly receiving information about two stocks — Dell, the computer company, and Nvidia, a chip maker — from company insiders, allowing him to make what amounted to illegal trades. When Newman was convicted of the charges in December 2012, he appeared to be just another Wall Street scalp for federal prosecutors, part of their aggressive, continuing effort to crack down on insider trading. In all, some 71 people had either pleaded guilty or been convicted of insider trading by Bharara’s office by the time Newman was found guilty. (Chiasson was also convicted.) But then something strange happened — or at least it seemed strange to those who had assumed that Bharara and the S. E. C. would continue to rack up insider trading convictions. In 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned Newman’s conviction (and Chiasson’s too) and tossed the original indictments. In effect, the appeals court ruled that Newman had not been guilty of insider trading. Why? Because, the court said, for a crime to have been committed, the company insider — the tipper — had to have received a personal benefit in return for offering up inside information. In addition, the person who received the tip — the “tippee” — had to know that the tipper was receiving that personal benefit. By all appearances, Newman didn’t even know who the tippers were the information got to him through a series of intermediaries, the last of whom was an analyst at Diamondback. Without that knowledge of a personal benefit, Newman had not committed a crime. Critics of the appeals court’s Newman decision, including Bharara, say that the judges essentially redefined what constituted insider trading, making it much more difficult to bring cases even when it is obvious that wrongful behavior has taken place. Defenders, including many lawyers in the defense bar, say the court was simply reiterating the law as the Supreme Court had always intended it to be, and was finally reining in overly aggressive prosecutions by Bharara. Whichever the case, the Newman decision sent an unmistakable message: “It told prosecutors they had to be cautious,” said Peter J. Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University who writes the White Collar Watch column for DealBook in The New York Times. “It has had a chilling effect. ” With that context, let’s take a closer look at what the government said about Phil Mickelson’s behavior when it announced its indictment of his friend William T. Walters, a Las Vegas businessman and successful sports gambler. The facts, as laid out by the S. E. C. are not pretty. (Mickelson is not mentioned in the indictment, only in the S. E. C. ’s civil charges against Walters.) Walters, the government said, had been trading for years on insider information provided by Thomas C. Davis, a retired investment banker who was the chairman of Dean Foods. For a number of months in the spring and summer of 2012, Davis had been engaged in confidential Dean Foods board discussions about spinning off its organic food subsidiary, WhiteWave, a move Wall Street was encouraging. Davis — who has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the government — had kept Walters informed about the discussions, and Walters had loaded up on the stock in anticipation of the spinoff. At the time, Mickelson owed Walters gambling debts. Although he was a serious gambler, Mickelson was not a big stock trader, with only about $250, 000 in the market, according to the S. E. C. Yet on July 30 and 31, 2012, after a series of phone calls and texts with Walters, Mickelson bought $2. 4 million worth of Dean Foods stock — some of it with money he borrowed. “These were his first ever Dean Foods purchases,” the S. E. C. noted. You know, of course, what happened next: A week later, Dean Foods announced the WhiteWave spinoff. The stock jumped 40 percent. The very next day, Mickelson sold his Dean Foods stock, reaping a profit of $931, 000. The case against Walters, as outlined by the S. E. C. and the United States attorney’s office, appears to be strong. In all, the government says, the inside information Walters got from Davis was worth $40 million. The government goes out of its way to play up the personal benefit Davis received in return. An inveterate gambler trying to keep up an unsustainable lifestyle, he owed money to the I. R. S. and others, including Walters. More than once, Walters bailed him out by either lending him money or arranging for a loan. The loans totaled nearly $2 million. It is also clear that Walters, who is alleged to have tipped off Mickelson in turn, got a benefit from his tippee. According to the S. E. C. Mickelson used some of his Dean Foods profits to pay back his gambling debt to Walters. But did Mickelson know about the personal benefit the original tipper, Davis, was receiving? I know it sounds a little strange, but that really is the key legal question in the wake of the Newman decision. If he didn’t know that Davis was receiving a personal benefit in return for giving inside information to Walters, he’s off the hook. (A quick aside: According to Forbes, Mickelson has reaped around $500 million in career earnings, and gets some $50 million a year in endorsement income. The fact that he was trading in Dean Foods to repay a debt to Walters surely raises questions about Mickelson’s financial well apart from whether he traded on inside information.) In its complaint against Walters, the S. E. C. seems to have highlighted Mickelson’s involvement in the case. But ultimately, it merely named him a “relief defendant,” meaning that all he had to do was return the money he had made from the Dean Foods trade, plus interest. He readily agreed. (The total is about $1. 03 million.) A spokesman for Mickelson issued a statement Thursday in which he said that Mickelson didn’t want to “benefit from any transaction that the S. E. C. sees as questionable. ” He added that Mickelson regretted any “appearance” that he had fallen short of “the high professional and ethical standards that the companies he represents expect of their employees, associates and Phil himself. ” That should do the trick: Several of the companies Mickelson endorses have already said they’ll stick with him. For Mickelson, this too shall pass — and probably pretty quickly. Still, given the set of facts laid out by the government, it’s a little hard to believe that he didn’t know what he was doing. The government won’t explicitly say the Newman case caused the government to back away from bringing charges against Mickelson. But at his news conference on Thursday, after declining to comment on that very question, Bharara did say this: “Conduct we think is nefarious, and undermines faith in the market and the fairness of the markets, will not be able to be prosecuted because of the Newman decision. ” On Thursday, Phil Mickelson became Exhibit A. | 1 |
The key concerns of Russian foreign policy heading into 2017 RD Interview: Chatham House expert James Sherr explains how a variety of global crises, particularly in the Middle East and Ukraine, are impacting Russian foreign policy RD Interview: Chatham House expert James Sherr explains how a variety of global crises, particularly in the Middle East and Ukraine, are impacting Russian foreign policy. One big variable to consider: the results of elections in the U.S., France and Germany.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Athens, on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016. Photo: AP
Major international actors are currently preoccupied with all kinds of regional crises: crises in the Middle East – including Syria , Iraq, Yemen and Libya, the rise of radical extremism, the refugee crisis , the crisis of European integration after Brexit and the rise of right-wing political parties in Europe. Moreover, the situation is exacerbated by the ongoing tensions between Russia and the West, which could take on a new dimension after elections in the U.S., France and Germany.
With that in mind, Russia Direct talked with James Sherr , an associate fellow and former head ;of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), about the possibilities for a change in Europe’s Russia policy, the prospects of the Minsk agreements and Russia’s aims in Syria.
RD: Given the crisis in the European Union, which is considered the most serious since its very beginning, how do you assess the prospects for the rise of a more independent foreign policy decision-making process within the European Union? How could a potential change of the political elites, keeping in mind elections in France and Germany, affect Europe’s Russia policy? James Sherr: Against the backdrop of uncertainty, the only thing we can say with confidence is that we should not be complacent that things will remain the same. If either Marine le Pen or, more probably, Nicolas Sarkozy becomes president of France, there will be extremely strong pressure, at least in France, to move in a different direction vis-à-vis Russia.
Also read: " The crisis of European identity and rapprochement with Russia " Nevertheless, there is a contradictory factor. Russia, in my view, is today under strong pressure to realize its objectives in Syria and the humanitarian consequences of this are already inflaming European opinion against Russia. So if you factor this in with the other variables, it would be far too optimistic for the Russians to conclude that the sanctions regime will diminish.
Look at the example of France, where President Francois Hollande a few months ago was saying that Europe should think about how to diminish sanctions, and now he is talking about increasing them. Well, I do not think they will increase, but I think it is unrealistic to assume that sanctions are going to be reduced either.
RD: What we should expect in terms of the Western policy towards Russia?
So, it is really very uncertain, but broadly speaking, many of these developments like Brexit, like the migration crisis, the evident discontent of a leader like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, make Russia more comfortable. However, this is not time to be dizzied with success. There is no basis for that.
RD: After the recent Normandy Format meeting in Berlin, is there any hope for some positive developments of the Minsk agreements? Do you believe Germany and France will increase their pressure on Kiev in order to implement their part of the agreement? J.S.: In my view, and I believe this is also the view of Kiev, Russia’s aim is not to preserve a frozen conflict – it is to use the warlords [in Eastern Ukraine] as a vehicle, a means to neutralize Ukraine with Western consent . All of the demands of the warlords, and informally those of the Russian leadership, concerning “special status” stipulate first of all absolute autonomy for these regions, something that exists in no federal state in the world.
But secondly, and even more controversially, they stipulate a right of this entity, which is four percent of Ukraine’s territory, to exert a right of veto over Ukraine’s foreign and defense policy. And this is all has been stated explicitly and it’s been reinforced in discussions on a very high level. This is absolutely unacceptable in Kiev.
RD: What about Germany and France? What is their stance on that? J.S.: Berlin and Paris are not yet ready to accept it, so they keep looking for a compromise, they keep hoping that if Ukraine compromises, the other side (the rebels in Eastern Ukraine – Editor’s note) will compromise, but I see no evidence of this and from my perspective, they don’t have any reason to do that because the West keeps putting pressure on Kiev to make compromises. So, this leads to what I think is one very dangerous possibility for Ukraine and the West, though it is very encouraging for Russia.
If Ukrainian President Poroshenko is put under pressure by the Ukrainian Parliament, and he insists on legislation that would be harmful to Ukraine’s national interests, the Parliament will reject it. The president will then have to exercise his financial or administrative resources to try to deal with this. He might do that successfully or not: if he does it successfully, then the street will revolt. In my view, this is exactly what Moscow wants to happen.
The problem is that in Europe there is not enough clarity about this situation and the West can blunder into a situation with an endangered Poroshenko regime. They do not want to do that, but after this recent Normandy meeting in Berlin , the risk of such a sequence of errors is more likely than it was before.
And therefore, I would predict the Ukrainians would do everything that is necessary to stall, resist, divert until they can talk to a new set of players in Washington after the November presidential election .
So, the Normandy Format meeting has not solved anything, it is not going to solve anything, it is an awkward bump on the road. It is going to continue until facts are created that no party can question anymore.
RD: Many experts say that one of Russia’s major goals in Syria is to divert attention from Ukraine in order to compel the West to cooperate and thus to prove that Russia is an inevitable partner, which the West has to deal with. So, do you think that it is legitimate to say so and did Russia achieve its goals in Syria? J.S.: Russia today is not only militarily but intellectually a very capable state, a very serious opponent . A great power like Russia never does something as significant as this for only one reason.
So, the strongest motivation for Russia to deploy its forces to Syria in the fall of 2015 is to recognize the Assad regime and to preserve it and preserve it on Russian terms, which means preserve it in a “usable” Syria. Russia is not interested in whether or not Syrian President Bashar al-Assad re-establishes control over all of Syria. What they want is a “usable” Syria, which means the Alawites areas, the Western areas on the coast – areas where Russia’s air base and naval facility are located and so on. This is one reason.
Also read: " The rivalry between Moscow and Washington for the right to defeat ISIS " The second is to enjoy regional dividends. The expenses do not break Russia, but if it goes on for five more years then you can talk about it. The U.S. Obama Administration created the power vacuum in the Middle East and this was for many reasons. They came into office and said the Middle East would be less important. In 2012 they decided on the “pivot to Asia,” there are all sorts of new priorities. So, Russia is enjoying now increased authority in the region, including tangible results in Turkey . This is the second.
The third is to show the West that there is no global question Russia is interested in that can’t be solved without Russia and without Russia’s opinion being accepted. In other words, there is no solution to any international problem that will be legitimate or workable without Russia’s participation.
And the fourth factor is to divert the West’s attention from everything that is going on in Europe . And that’s it.
So, this are four factors there. They each reinforce the other but again, the certain paradox is that, the more Russia does to accomplish its aims in Syria, the bigger the humanitarian consequences, the more Russia’s image suffers in the West, the more pressure there is for sanctions for tough policy and everything else. So, it does not all mesh perfectly.
But this is a very well thought-through, powerful policy which I think in the short-to mid-term is likely to succeed, but not over the long-term. This is because the fundamental factor is that Syria is a country where 60-65 percent of its population is Sunni and it’s true that the Sunni elites are in a sense part of the state’s structure, but others are not; this insurgency is very strong and even after Aleppo, the insurgency is going to remain very strong. I don’t think it will go away. | 0 |
The Department of Justice is formally objecting to the March 15 claim by a District Court judge in Maryland that President Donald Trump’s violated the religious freedom clauses of the constitution with his March 6 Executive Order on immigration reform. [The objection goes to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, whose panel includes ten judges nominated by Democratic presidents and only five nominated by GOP presidents. It will likely be sent to the Supreme Court later this year. “President Trump’s Muslim ban has fared miserably in the courts, and for good reason — it violates fundamental provisions of our Constitution,” said a response from the plaintiff’s lawyer, Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. “We look forward to defending this careful and decision in the appeals court. ” The Maryland decision targeted Trump’s March 6 E. O. 13780, titled “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States. ” Much of the judge’s decision is a complaint about the President’s political statements and promised policies, for which he was elected to implement. The judge declares: [Plaintiff] John Doe No. 1 has stated that the travel ban has “created significant fear, anxiety, and insecurity” for him and his wife and that the “ views” underlying the Executive Orders have caused him “significant stress and anxiety” to the point that he “worr( ies] that I may not be safe in this country. ” … John Doe NO. 3 has stated that the “ attitudes that are driving” the Executive Orders cause him “stress and anxiety” and lead him to “question whether I even belong in this country. ” The judge developed his claim that Trump’s policy is an illicit restraint on the religious freedom of Muslims in the United States to get visas for their foreign . “Plaintiffs, comprised of six individuals and three organizations, assert that they will be harmed by the implementation of the Second Executive Order. Collectively, they assert that because the Individual Plaintiffs are Muslim and the Organizational Plaintiffs serve or represent Muslim clients or members, the animus underlying the Second Executive Order inflicts stigmatizing injuries on them all. The Individual Plaintiffs, who each have one or more relatives who are nationals of one of the Designated Countries and are currently in the process of seeking permission to enter the United States, also claim that if the Second Executive Order is allowed to go into effect, their separation from their loved ones, many of whom live in dangerous conditions, will be unnecessarily prolonged … The judge cited Trump’s campaign promise, plus cited leaks from the Department of Homeland Security, and claims from officials who were in former President Barack Obama’s administration, to justify his claim that: In this highly unique case, the record provides strong indications that the national security purpose is not the primary purpose for the travel ban … even if the Second Executive Order has a national security purpose, it is likely that its primary purpose remains the effectuation of the proposed Muslim ban. Accordingly, there is a likelihood that the travel ban violates the Establishment Clause. The judge also revealed his proposal to reverse Trump’s reduction of refugee inflow, via a footnote in his March 15 decision where he denounced Trump’s reformist Executive Orders. Trump’s E. O. cited Section 212( f) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which gives the President power over who gets into the United States, according to a January 2017 report by Congress’ Congressional Research Service. The critical language declares, at 8 U. S. C. § 1182 (f) that: Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate, Federal law also allows the president to exclude threats, including communists and people who wish to overthrow the U. S. Constitution. For example, 212( f) section of the law says the president and his deputies can exclude: Read the decision here. | 1 |
Voter fraud is all too real — particularly so in Chicago, Illinois, where it seems dead Americans have been voting for decades.
How many dead Americans? A lot.
In fact, an investigation by local news station WBBM showed that “119 dead people have voted a total of 229 times in Chicago in the last decade.”
Here are just a few examples: Susan Sallee, who died in 1998 but voted in 2010 … Victor Crosswell, who died in 1994 but has voted six times since his death … Floyd Stevens, who died in 1993 but has voted 11 times since his death … Earl Smith, who died in 1997 but has voted twice since his death … Tadeusz Cielsa, who died in 1998 yet managed to somehow cast a ballot in 2010 …
Who the heck is going to vote next, huh — Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, JESUS!?
This sort of voter fraud exists because state governments refuse to do their due diligence and remove deceased voters from their records. Susan Sallee’s son would know. He claimed that despite having reported his mother’s death numerous times, she still remains on the voter roll.
“They’re just not taking her off the rolls,” he said.
Wonderful …
Obviously, 119 dead Americans voting 229 times seems like a small number, correct? Multiply that by 35,000 cities and towns, as estimated by The National Map , and suddenly those 119 Americans and 229 votes transform into 4.165 million Americans and 8.015 million votes.
See the problem?
Of course, the easiest way to remedy this dilemma would be to simply implement voter ID laws across the board, thus making it nearly impossible for cheaters and frauds to cast ballots on behalf of deceased Americans.
Unless the fraudsters were to look identical to the dead individuals whose identities they desire to co-opt, they would simply be out of luck. Case closed.
Except that liberals keep fighting voter ID laws tooth and nail, trying their hardest to prevent such laws from taking hold across the nation.
Why? Because they refuse to even acknowledge the existence of voter fraud, claiming instead that it “is very rare” and “nearly non-existent,” in the words of the liberal Brennan Center for Justice .
Just like with every other issue that divides Republicans and Democrats, the left refuses to recognize the facts, which are that voter fraud is real, and voter ID laws represent a reasonable solution to this problem.
Even worse, they have taken to outputting phony arguments such as this: “Voter ID laws are racist!”
Bull … | 0 |
Life spans in the world’s wealthiest countries will continue to increase in the future, and women in South Korea may be the first to live longer than 90 years on average, a new study has found. The study — a mathematical model blending 21 other forecasts and published in The Lancet — gave South Korean women born in 2030 a 57 percent chance of hitting the longevity mark. The surest bet was that they would exceed age 86 on average. Compared with women from 34 other industrialized nations the study assessed, South Korean women generally smoke less, weigh less, have lower blood pressure and see doctors more often because most have health insurance. Women in France, Japan and Spain also were expected to live longer. Currently Japanese women live the longest, but their progress will probably stagnate, the study said. South Korea also led the list for longevity in men, followed by Australia, Switzerland, Canada and the Netherlands men from all of those countries were expected to live beyond 80 on average. The United States, as usual, fared badly. American men and women are in 23rd and 27th place, respectively, in terms of life expectancy, and they were expected to fall farther as other countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, improve. Although the United States has advanced medicine, it has an obesity epidemic, little focus on preventive care, relatively high mortality among babies of uninsured mothers, and high male death rates from gunshot wounds and car accidents. American men live on average about as long as men in Slovenia and Portugal, and average longevity in other countries, including South Korea, the Czech Republic and Hungary, is improving faster. The model assumes that current trends will continue. History often invalidates that assumption, however, because health is tied to political events. Longevity in Africa rose rapidly in the 1950s and ’60s with the spread of antibiotics and vaccines, flattened as the collapse of colonialism bankrupted health care systems, plummeted in the 1990s with the spread of AIDS, and is now rising again as donors pay for AIDS drugs. Among wealthier nations, progress in Eastern Europe followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. South Korea’s projected gains would most likely be seriously compromised if the current tensions with North Korea were to lead to war. | 1 |
Two Powerful Quakes Hit Italy Within Hours page: 1 Near the location of the deadly August quake. (see ATS for the August Quake info). The first quake: a magnitude-5.5 quake struck the same region. The epicenter was about 9 kilometers away, south-southwest of Visso. (It) hit at 7 p.m. (1 p.m. ET) between Perugia and Macerata, according to ANSA. The second quake -- with a magnitude of 6.1 -- was 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) north of Visso and 58 km (36 miles) from Perugia, the USGS reported. The depth of both is 10 km. There have been 2 aftershocks, 4.1 and 4.9, also at a depth of 10 KM. "We don't have any reported victims, but we're in the dark and under a downpour," said Mauro Falcucci, the mayor of the small town of Castelsantangelo sul Nera, according to state news agency ANSA. CNN's Barbie Nadeau was in Rome when the quakes struck. "Incredible aftershock or earthquake felt in Testaccio in Rome. Wow," she said on Twitter. Video showed a blocked road. Much of the are is small vilages that can't be reached by night. Some reports of damage and an injury has come in: News.com.au The quakes crumbled churches and buildings, knocking out power and sending panicked residents into the rain-drenched streets.One person was injured in Visso, where the rubble of collapsed buildings tumbled into the streets. But the Civil Protection agency, which initially reported two injured, had no other immediate reports of injuries or deaths. “We’re without power, waiting for emergency crews,” said the mayor of Castel Santangelo Sul Nera, a tiny town just north of some of the hard-hit areas of the August 24 quake. edit on 26-10-2016 by reldra because: (no reason given) edit on 26-10-2016 by reldra because: (no reason given) Italian Prime Minister Renzi tweets: 'I want to thank those who are working in the rain in the earthquake areas. All Italy hugs those affected' - @matteorenzi edit on 26-10-2016 by reldra because: (no reason given) edit on 26-10-2016 by reldra because: (no reason given) new topics | 0 |
Watch: Police Viciously Attack, Arrest Peaceful Protesters at DAPL Including Children and the Elderly Watch: Police Viciously Attack, Arrest Peaceful Protesters at DAPL Including Children and the Elderly Matt Agorist October 26, 2016 1 Comment
Standing Rock, ND — Dramatic video from Intercept reporter, Jihan Hafiz , was released this week from the Dakota Access Pipeline protests showing a full on assault by militarized police on peaceful people. The video is from Saturday but took several days to be released as cops confiscated the camera used to film it.
The video was taken as water protectors and reporters covering the protests marched toward the construction site. However, their peaceful walk was swiftly interrupted by militarized shock troops armed with massive cans of pepper spray, batons, rubber bullets, and assault rifles.
According to Hafiz, the march was undertaken in solidarity with several protesters who had chained themselves to bulldozers and pipeline machinery at the construction site. But the marchers never made it to their destination. Instead, they were attacked by police forces who used pepper spray and beat protesters with batons. Dozens of officers, backed by military trucks, police vans, machine guns, and nonlethal weapons, violently approached the group without warning.
“Don’t move, everyone is under arrest,” a voice says from the military vehicle that appears to be equipped with a Long Range Acoustic Hailing Device, or LRAD.
As protesters attempted to leave, the police surrounded them and began their attack. According to Hafiz, several women were targeted for leading the march and dragged from the crowd to be arrested. Police body slammed one man and another woman’s ankle was broken as she ran.
The militarized police then circled the protesters in an apparent move to ‘kettle’ them — a tactic usually reserved for urban protests in which riot police force large crowds into corners to seemingly provoke them. However, the protesters stayed entirely peaceful.
Police continued their mass arrests even though the people were trying to leave. Some natives were seen running for the hills as the assault began.
One officer is seen in military camouflage with a ski mask and a tear gas grenade launcher — as if he were going to war. In total, reports Hafiz, more than 140 people were detained in half an hour. It was the largest roundup of protesters since the movement against the pipelines intensified two months ago. A majority of those arrested were charged with rioting and criminal trespass. Overall, close to 300 people have been arrested since protests against the pipeline kicked off over the summer.
Among those arrested were journalists, a teen child who was also pregnant, and an elderly woman.
They were all brought to the jail where protesters were forced to sit in the jail’s common area as police had no other place to put them. According to Hafiz, women were strip searched, protesters were refused phone calls, and no one received food or water. One woman even had her medication confiscated by police, causing her to shake and sweat profusely.
When Hafiz was finally released, she attempted to get back her camera and was told that she could not have it back. “Your camera is being held as evidence in a crime,” they said.
In the land of the free, filming cops assault peaceful men, women, and children is considered a ‘crime.’
Over the past several weeks, the police state has come out in full force as Native Americans fight to protect their water sources from the threat of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Mainstream media has remained largely silent as federal, state and local authorities worked on behalf of Energy Transfer Partners to squash dissent.
Even prominent journalists, like Hafiz, have found themselves targets of the State, charged with dubious “crimes” such as “ inciting a riot ” and “ conspiracy to theft of services ” – for doing nothing more than filming protests and the ensuing violent crackdowns. As the video below shows, the First Amendment is no obstacle when it comes to advancing the interests of the corporatocracy. Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter and now on Steemit Share | 0 |
The big business and open borders lobbies are praising an expansion of the foreign guest worker visa included in the 2017 budget. [The budget, promoted by House Speaker Paul Ryan, will allow Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to expand the number of foreign workers who come to the U. S. for jobs by at least 20, 000. The visa brings foreign nationals to the U. S. for nonagricultural jobs. The visa impacts and poor Americans most, as jobs in the hotel industry, theme parks, retail, and restaurants can insource jobs to foreign workers under the program. More than half a million jobs in the U. S. have been filled by visa workers in the last five years. Now, the key organization which lobbied members of Congress to pass the expansion of the visa is praising the move, according to POLITICOPro’s Ted Hesson, as their business allies and associates will profit from the continued insourcing of work in the U. S. The Workforce Coalition lobbied Congress to include a expansion of the visa where returning foreign workers would be exempt from the annual cap of 66, 000, quadrupling the number of foreign workers entering the U. S. and taking jobs from American workers. Instead, the Workforce Coalition got an expansion in the form of leaving the decision up to Kelly, which they are regarding as a win for business and immigration interests. As Breitbart Texas reported, claims of “labor shortages” in the U. S. workforce by advocates are unfounded, according to critics. “Missing workers,” as the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) calls them, are discouraged American workers who are either unemployed or no longer looking for work because they see a weak job market, whether that be low wages, bad working conditions, or other reasons. Currently, there are 1. 37 million “missing workers” in the American labor force between the ages of 45 and . These workers are not included in the monthly unemployment rate, but if they were, the unemployment rate would be 5. 3 percent, according to EPI. Additionally, the visa keeps American workers’ wages stagnant, and in some cases, have actually decreased their wages. According to EPI analysis, for landscaping and jobs given to foreign workers, wages decreased by 3. 4 percent between 2004 and 2014. For jobs in the amusement and recreation industry, which also employs a multitude of foreign workers, wages between 2004 and 2014 fell by 1. 3 percent. John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. | 1 |
Next Swipe left/right UK manages to go half an hour without a racist outburst on public transport The UK has set an incredible new national record after going almost thirty minutes without any noticeable racist outbursts on public transport.
The half hour relatively free of racist abuse happened between 2.34 and 3.03pm yesterday afternoon, at which point a ranting prick on a bus in Kidderminster told another passenger to fuck of back to his own country and that he looked like a paedophile.
“This is a truly momentous and special day for the UK,” said Home Secretary Amber Rudd.
“If we can manage almost half an hour relatively free of violent racist abuse in public, then with some hard work and determination I see no reason why we can’t expand that to fourty or perhaps even fourty five minutes in ten year’s time.”
“People might even be able to make an entire journey without being screamed at by a deluded bigot. That would be an incredible legacy for the people of Britain to pass down to their children.” | 0 |
Samstag, 19. November 2016 Bremen ersetzt als erstes Bundesland Schulnoten durch Emojis Bremen (Archiv) - Deutsch: 😳, Sport: 😄, Mathe: 💩 – so oder so ähnlich könnte schon ab nächstem Schuljahr ein typisches Zeugnis eines Bremer Schülers aussehen. Denn der Senat der Hansestadt hat angekündigt, das Benotungssystem ab dem nächsten Schuljahr vollständig auf Emojis umzustellen. Die neuen Zensuren sollen es Schülern erleichtern, ihre Leistungen in den verschiedenen Unterrichtsfächern richtig einzuschätzen. Bildungssenatorin Claudia Bodegan: "Die Jugendlichen von heute können mit komplexen Bewertungssystemen wie dem Zahlenraum von 1 bis 6 nichts mehr anfangen, kennen aber jedes einzelne Emoji in- und auswendig. Ich habe Schüler gesehen, die bei einer 5- verständnislos mit den Schultern zucken. Dieselben Schüler brechen in Tränen aus, wenn sie ein 😭 bekommen und geloben feierlich Besserung." Hat gerade ein 👻 in Mathe bekommen und traut sich nicht nach Hause: Timmy (9) Im neuen Notensystem soll allerdings nicht jede Note durch ein vorab festgelegtes Emoji ersetzt werden. Stattdessen können Lehrer aus hunderten der kleinen Bilder das für die Leistung des jeweiligen Schülers passendste Symbol aussuchen. Die nötige Kompetenz wird den Pädagogen in einem zweiwöchigen Lehrgang mit dem Titel "Setzen, 👾!" vermittelt. Sitzenbleiben ist nach dem neuen Notensystem nach wie vor ab der 9. Klasse möglich. Wer mehr als vier 😿 oder zwei 💩 oder zwei 👎 und ein 🙈 hat, fällt durch. Es sei denn, der Schüler kann seine schlechten Zensuren mit 🐽, 😄, 🚀 oder 😘 ausgleichen. dan, ssi; Foto rechts: Shutterstock; Hinweis: Erstmals erschienen am 17.11.15 Artikel teilen: | 0 |
TEL AVIV — U. S. Jewish groups hailed President Donald Trump’s opening remarks in his address to Congress slamming the recent spate of acts of “hate and evil. ”[“Recent threats targeting Jewish community centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week’s shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms,” the president said at the joint session to wide applause. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group, called the speech “pivotal” in its condemnation of . “We are grateful that the president condemned antisemitism during this pivotal speech to the American people before both houses of Congress. American Jewry now looks forward to robust action to combat history’s oldest scourge at home and abroad,” Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, the dean and associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a joint statement Wednesday. The rabbis further suggested that the administration commit to fully funding the U. S. State Department’s special envoy on in addition to elevating that role to the status of ambassador. B’nai B’rith International also praised Trump’s words, and further urged that the administration take “forceful measures” to combat . “ is a human rights issue, a distinct phenomenon that must be addressed as such,” the organization said. League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who has in the past lambasted the president for not specifying Jews in his statement for Holocaust Memorial Day, tweeted, “Thanks @POTUS for condemning #hate ag Jews immigrants. Now let’s fight it. ” Greenblatt’s predecessor at the ADL, Abraham Foxman, called for an end to the “politicization” of telling the Jewish Insider, “Trump said what needed to be said. It was clear and unequivocal. Now our community should move forward and work with local and national law enforcement to apprehend the culprits and design strategies to protect our community from attacks and threats. And we should all stop politicizing U. S. antisemitism here and in Israel. ” The Zionist Organization of America joined in the praise and added, “It is critical to determine who is responsible for these seemingly coordinated attacks and threats. ” “ZOA very much supports the Justice Department’s involvement, and urges that its involvement in this urgent matter be expanded to the fullest extent possible. ” Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, joined the fray, tweeting, “Powerful for @POTUS to note at top of speech. Key now is to investigate and end terror campaign. ” Watch Trump’s speech below: | 1 |
A migrant attempting to cross the border into Texas had to be rescued by Border Patrol agents after succumbing to frigid water in Rio Grande River. [Border Patrol agents assigned to the Eagle Pass Sector in south Texas responded to possible illegal activity along the river. When they arrived, they discovered a man stranded in the frigid water having failed to make a successful crossing. An agent who is also an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and others rescued the man from the river and determined he was suffering from hypothermia — a potentially deadly condition where the person’s core body temperature drops, causing the brain to shut down critical organs. The man was transported to Fort Duncan Regional Medical Center for treatment, information obtained from U. S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials stated. The rescue took place around sunrise on Monday. The man, later identified only as a Honduran national, was released from the hospital following treatment. Agents took custody of the illegal immigrant and transported him to the Eagle Pass South Border Patrol Station where he will be processed in accordance with local policies. Del Rio Sector Border Patrol officials warned that while the climate in south Texas is generally warm, the cold water can act quickly on the body creating a dangerous situation. “The winter months can bring about environmental hazards that all individuals must heed,” CBP officials wrote. “Immersion in water and exposure to cool air will accelerate the progression of hypothermia and possible death. ” “This event highlights the environmental hazards that undocumented immigrants face,” Del Rio Sector Acting Chief Patrol Agent Matthew J. Hudak said in a written statement. “Thanks to the agents’ quick thinking and training this story didn’t end in tragedy. ” “Being a Border Patrol agent means more than just enforcing the law,” Hudak continued. “It means being able to handle any situation with the commitment to preserve human life. ” 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. | 1 |
Now that the election is over, Donald Trump is deciding who he will appoint to fill his cabinet. Although most the names on his list are fairly horrifying, none more so than who he is considering for White House Chief of Staff. Trump’s top pick is reportedly former Breitbart bigwig, Steve Bannon.
So what does a chief of staff do ? Well, the person holding this position is often called “the most powerful man in Washington.”
“The duties of the White House chief of staff vary, yet traditionally encompass the following, such as: select and supervise key White House staff, control access to the Oval Office and the president, manage communications and information flow, and negotiate with Congress, executive branch agencies, and external political groups to implement the president’s agenda.”
“In fulfilling these duties, the chief of Staff oversees and coordinates the efforts of the following offices within the EOP and White House Office: the Council of Economic Advisers, National Security staff, Office of Management and Budget, Office of Legislative Affairs, and Office of Management and Administration, to name a few.”
Okay, so that’s an important job. So who the hell is Steve Bannon? Not surprisingly, he is the worst of the worst.
David Badash over at The New Civil Rights Movement summed it up quite nicely: Bannon “stepped down at Breitbart to run the final few months of Trump’s campaign, but for years he has run one of the most popular far, far right wing websites, Breitbart. It masquerades as a news site but it’s home to the alt-right, as Bannon has bragged. In other words, the white supremacists and white nationalists, the anti-Semites, the anti-LGBT crowd, the anti-Black crowd, the anti-diversity, anti-feminism, anti-Obama movement. Racists, homophobes, bigots of every stripe get their ‘news’ at Breitbart. And it got Trump elected.”
According to court filings from his divorce proceedings, Bannon is not only a sadistic wife beater , but he is also every bit as anti-Semitic as Breitbart itself. His wife testified that he fought against allowing his daughters to attend an upscale school because of the number of Jewish children that attended.
“He said that he doesn’t like the way they raise their kids to be ‘whiny brats’ and that he didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews.”
This man , this is who Trump wants to have serving as the White House Chief of Staff. His advisors are encouraging him to choose RNC Chair Reince Priebus, but we all know how Trump is with taking advice from people who might actually know what they’re talking about. Who cares if Bannon actually knows anything about how to run the damn country, Trump just wants the biggest bigot he can find.
Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Share this Article! | 0 |
Tuesday on ABC’s “The View,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ( ) said the Democrats in the Senate have enough power to block President Donald Trump nominee for Supreme Court Justice, Judge Neil Gorsuch and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Schumer said, “They need 60 votes. And I believe — if Gorsuch keeps it up he’ll have a rough road to hoe to get those 60 on votes. ” When asked about the Democrats power, he added, “We have enough to block to Gorsuch … People ask, do the Democrats have power? Are we in charge? No which means we can’t set the agenda, McConnell can do that but we can block a lot of things. Like for instance, the Affordable Care Act which originally everyone wanted to get rid of it. Now when they see what they are getting, 20 million people covered, conditions — a mom or dad has a kid with cancer the insurance companies said we’re not going to cover your kid has cancer. “And they watch their kid suffer — all these things people want. And so, now, people — because no Democrat has cooperated with the Republicans from the most liberal like Bernie Sanders to the most conservative like Joe Manchin,” he added. “They’re stuck. They’re not going to be able to repeal it in my opinion. So we have some power. We have to use it smartly and wisely. We do. And I tell people, I’m ready for the fight. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
The main reason for the gender gaps at work — why women are paid less, why they’re less likely to reach the top levels of companies, and why they’re more likely to stop working after having children — is employers’ expectation that people spend long hours at their desks, research has shown. It’s especially difficult for women because they have disproportionate responsibility for caregiving. Flexibility regarding the time and place that work gets done would go a long way toward closing the gaps, economists say. Yet when people ask for it, especially parents, they can be penalized in pay and promotions. Social scientists call it the flexibility stigma, and it’s the reason that even when companies offer such policies, they’re not widely used. A new job search company, Werk, is trying to address the problem by negotiating for flexibility with employers before posting jobs, so employees don’t have to. All the positions listed on the Werk site, including some from Facebook, Uber and Samsung, are highly skilled jobs that offer some sort of control over the time and place of work. People can apply to jobs that let them work away from the office all the time or some of the time, and at hours other than part time or with minimal travel. Another option gives workers the freedom to adjust their schedules, no questions asked, because of unpredictable obligations, like a sleepless night with a toddler or a trip to the emergency room with an older parent. “Nobody wants to be the female in the department who says, ‘My kid threw up on me this morning I can’t come in,’ ” said Annie Dean, who worked as a lawyer before starting Werk with Anna Auerbach, a former consultant. “Eighty percent of companies say they offer flexibility, but it’s a black market topic. You raise it and you’re not taken seriously. ” For now, Werk is a limited experiment. Most of the employers are small companies, and it is aimed at an elite group of women — highly educated and on a leadership track. But it could provide lessons for how to improve work and make it more equal for a broader group. Women who have less education or are paid hourly wages have significantly less flexibility than professional women to begin with. It makes working and caregiving that much harder. Motherhood presents a different challenge for the elite women that Werk was made for. The careers that pay the most and require the most education, like business and law, also have the most gender inequality. Why? Economists have found it’s a result of the long hours and limited flexibility. When educated mothers leave their jobs, it’s often because they feel pushed out by inflexible employers, according to sociologists. It’s a big reason the top of corporate America is still so male 4 percent of the chief executives of companies in the S. P. 500 are women. “They want top leadership roles,” said Ms. Dean, who thought of the idea for Werk with Ms. Auerbach after they each had children. “The only reason they’re not getting there is they’re going through this phase in their life where working 16 hours at a single desk is incompatible with their life. ” Seventy percent of working mothers say having a flexible work schedule is extremely important to them, according to a Pew survey. So do 48 percent of working fathers. Workplace flexibility reduces turnover and conflict, according to much of the research, including a study by 10 researchers from seven universities published in December. Yet when people get flexible work arrangements, they’re generally isolated cases — for longtime employees whom companies trust and don’t want to lose. The employers using Werk say they get access to highly skilled employees who might not otherwise apply. Gerard Masci, founder and chief executive of Lowercase, a eyeglass maker in Brooklyn, just hired a vice president for communications on Werk. She works and remotely, except for monthly meetings. “I don’t care if this week you work less if in a month you work more, and whether they work in the space or not is irrelevant,” Mr. Masci said. “All I care about is the productivity in the end. ” “The happier she is in her flexibility,” he said, “the more engaged she’s going to be in her work. ” Erin Fahs turned to Werk after her husband was transferred to Fort Myers, Fla. and she needed to find a new job. She wanted to work part time and from home because she was pregnant and the primary caregiver for their daughter. She found three jobs on Werk that would let her do that, and took one as the business manager for the Collective Good, which does consulting for nonprofits. “Getting to have those direct conversations with the C. E. O. about what matters made it so much different from when I was applying for jobs earlier in my career,” Ms. Fahs, 33, said. She has a baby sitter 10 hours a week and works the other 10 hours when her daughter is sleeping. She has a few set meetings, which she attends via Google Hangouts — and gives her daughter an iPad for a diversion if there is a work emergency. She plans to expand to work after maternity leave. This type of flexibility, while valuable, would not magically solve workplace problems. For one, any solution would need to be for both women and men. Some jobs have to be done at a certain time and place, like teaching and food service. And even at companies where it’s possible to let employees work at the time and place of their choosing, a different type of manager is required. Best Buy tried it for corporate employees, then revoked it. “There are a vast number of jobs that could be handled in an way, but it’s just easier to measure performance by presence,” said Slaughter, the chief executive of the think tank New America, who has written about gender and work and advises Werk. “So it is a real adjustment for managers. ” | 1 |
July 1939. The world teetered on the brink of war as Hitler menaced Poland. The 11 millionth visitor passed through the turnstiles of the New York World’s Fair. Baseball fans still reeled after Lou Gehrig’s “luckiest man” speech at Yankee Stadium. But many Americans could think only of Donn Fendler, a boy lost on Mount Katahdin in Maine, the object of a frantic search and rescue operation that dragged on for nine days, monopolizing the radio airwaves and newspaper headlines. Thousands of mothers sent prayers by Western Union to the boy’s mother. Boy Scouts joined the search, along with workers from the Millinocket paper mill. The New York State Police dispatched two of their best bloodhounds by air. Hearts sank when Donn’s footprints disappeared at the edge of a sheer precipice called Saddle Slip. “I’m still trying to make myself believe there’s a faint thread of hope,” his despondent father, Donald, told The Boston Globe. Spirits lifted when new footprints appeared near the mountain’s base two days later. Finally, on the ninth day, a miracle. “Stripped naked by eight days of fearful battling with the Maine wilderness on the slopes of Mount Katahdin, Donn Fendler came back to civilization this afternoon — wan, cruelly bitten and scratched, delirious with joy at hearing a human voice again,” The Globe reported on July 26, under the headline “Boy Found in Maine Wilds. ” The national ordeal was over. Donn Fendler died on Sunday in Bangor, Me. his son, Dennis, said. Mr. Fendler was 90. The Fendlers, from Rye, N. Y. had spent the previous four summers vacationing on Sebasticook Lake in Newport, in the center of Maine. On July 17, Donald Fendler and his sons, Ryan, Donn and Tommy, Donn’s twin, headed out after lunch to ascend Mount Katahdin, at 5, 267 feet the state’s highest peak. They were accompanied by Henry Condon, the son of a local guide, and Fred Eaton, a young family friend. Eager to climb, Donn left his father and brothers behind, pushing on with Henry and Fred, when bad weather set in. “Just as we reached the summit, the mist closed in around us and shut off our view of the mountain below,” he said in “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” (1939) an account of his adventure written with Joseph B. Egan. Ignoring the advice of his climbing mates, Donn headed back to rejoin his family. Lashed by rain and disoriented by the enveloping mist, he quickly became lost. And thus began his weeklong odyssey. Recalling his Boy Scout training, he decided to follow a small stream toward what he hoped would be a camp or town. At night, he curled up between tree roots and covered himself with moss. He ate wild berries. On the second day, tripping as he walked in the stream, he lost his sneakers, which he had tied together and carried over his shoulder. Not long after, trying to throw his soaked jeans onto a rock in the stream, he misjudged and watched as the water carried them away. “I couldn’t believe it,” he recalled in his book. “My pants were gone. There I was like a Kewpie or something. ” Small stones cut his feet. temperatures at night stiffened his limbs. Mosquitoes, black flies and moose flies bit. “Somebody ought to do something about those black flies,” Mr. Fendler said in “Lost on a Mountain in Maine. ” “They’re terrible — around your forehead, under your hair, in your eyebrows and in the corners of your eyes and in the corners of your mouth, and they get up your nose like dust and make you sneeze, and you keep digging them out of your ears. ” He prayed. He hallucinated. One day, he heard a plane circling overhead but could not find a clearing to wave at it. Twice he encountered bears, foraging, as he was, for berries. He began to lose strength and hope, before the sight of telephone wires suggested to him that he was on the right track. On July 25, he came to a clearing and saw, across a lake, two canoes and a small cabin, part of a remote camp on the east branch of the Penobscot River run by Nelson McMoarn. Mr. McMoarn emerged from the cabin and did a double take. “I crawled out on the big log so the man could see me, and began to yell,” Mr. Fendler said in his book. “I guess that yelling was pretty funny, for Mr. McMoarn told me later it sounded like a screech owl. ” After being carried to bed by Lena McMoarn, Nelson’s wife, and revived with coffee and soup, Donn was handed a telephone receiver. His mother was on the other end of the line. “Mama, I’m all right,” he told her. Scratched, swollen and eaten alive by insects, 16 pounds lighter, he had wandered 35 miles from his starting point. But he was alive. The news ran on the front page of The New York Times, above the fold. Life magazine published a photo spread. A little more than one year later, Donn was in the White House, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt awarded him the Army and Navy Legion of Valor medal, recognizing him as the outstanding youth hero of 1939. Donn Conner Fendler was born in Rye on Aug. 29, 1926. His father helped run a family business, C. M. Almy, which made clerical vestments and church goods. His mother, the former Ruth Ryan, was a homemaker. After being transported by canoe from the McMoarn camp to Grindstone and spending several days in the hospital in Bangor, Donn quickly resumed his adolescent routine. After graduating from the New Hampton School in New Hampshire, he enlisted in the Navy in 1944 and served as a Seabee in the Pacific theater during World War II. He studied forestry at the University of Maine for two years and briefly attended the University of Georgia before making a career in the Army. Trained as a Green Beret, he served in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division. In 1962, he was posted to West Germany. With the rank of lieutenant colonel, he later assumed command of a battalion at Fort Campbell, Ky. He retired in 1978 and moved to Clarksville, Tenn. not far from the Army base. In addition to his son, he is survived by three daughters, Bridget Fendler, Judith King and Joan Bedwell his brothers, Ryan and Thomas and six grandchildren. For the rest of his life, Mr. Fendler spent summers in Maine and, in the fall, visited schools there to talk about his exploits in the woods. “I hope the message that I give sinks in,” he told The Bangor Daily News in 2008. “It’s really about faith and determination. That’s the whole message. ” Visitors to Baxter State Park still hear his story, a cautionary tale that rangers know full well. For years, his book was required reading for Maine schoolchildren. In 2011, Mr. Fendler told his story in a graphic novel, “Lost Trail,” scripted by Lynn Plourde and illustrated by Ben Bishop. “When I die, my ashes are going over Mount Katahdin,” he told The Bangor Daily News in 2014. “My brother said he’d fly or get someone to fly,” he continued. “Yup, they’re going to put me in a bean can. ” | 1 |
Report Copyright Violation If Soros Is Jewish Like They Say We Jews Should Have Him Excommunicated! He can be Catholic or anything else but not one of us. In our tribe these days, the way we excommunicate someone is to bar them from entering Israel. If Jon Voight says he's scum, that's good enough for me. Fuck him and kick him out. Report Copyright Violation Re: If Soros Is Jewish Like They Say We Jews Should Have Him Excommunicated! He can be Catholic or anything else but not one of us. In our tribe these days, the way we excommunicate someone is to bar them from entering Israel. If Jon Voight says he's scum, that's good enough for me. Fuck him and kick him out. Quoting: A Jew 73270427 I'm surprised the Jews didn't take him out, as revenge for what he has done to them. Anonymous Coward Report Copyright Violation Re: If Soros Is Jewish Like They Say We Jews Should Have Him Excommunicated! He can be Catholic or anything else but not one of us. In our tribe these days, the way we excommunicate someone is to bar them from entering Israel. If Jon Voight says he's scum, that's good enough for me. Fuck him and kick him out. Quoting: A Jew 73270427 I'm surprised the Jews didn't take him out, as revenge for what he has done to them. Quoting: Garufal His son is picking up the torch of Tyranny right behind him. Anonymous Coward | 0 |
By Robert Fisk on October 29, 2016 Robert Fisk — The Independent Oct 26, 2016 The rubble of the smashed town of Mouadamiya. Click to enlarge
From the moment you cross the bridge over the old steam train railway line to Deraa, you can see what happened to this little town south-west of Damascus . It’s not just the bullet holes, the smashed buildings, the toppled mosque with its minaret lying in pathetic chunks, nor the apartment blocks that have slid into the streets after two years of Syrian tank fire and helicopter bombing. Nor the underground hospital. It’s not even the women walking with their children again through the scarred streets, nor the street-sellers outside the blitzed buildings.
It’s the young men, some bearded, eyes alert, the men of the old Liwa al-Fatah, the Liberation Brigade militia that fought the Syrian army, queuing up without their weapons to register at the checkpoint. Still proud but now working with the government to keep the government’s enemies out of Mouadamiya, they are a guarantee, of sorts, that their town will stay rebel-free. The regime still holds 800 of their relatives and friends in unknown prisons; another guarantee, of sorts, that they will remain loyal.
What also happened was a change of heart. And a phone call to the opposition from a man identified as a British “officer” called Ford. The government also realised it should never have taken the land from the people of Mouadamiya before the war, nor dismissed their peaceful protests with such arrogance in 2011. And then the men who took up arms realised, two years later, that they had been betrayed.
Such a moment came to 27-year old Mahmoud Khalifa when he took a phone call in November 2013 from the “Military Operations Centre” in Jordan, whence the West’s agents and Arab allies have tried to direct, coerce and arm the tens of thousands of men who want to destroy President Bashar al-Assad.
“There was a Saudi on the phone and he handed me over to a British officer who said his name was Ford, Dr Khalifa recalls. “We asked for help, we called for arms, weapons, money. And the answer from Ford was: ‘We can send ammunition for light weapons. We can’t send heavy or sophisticated weapons.’ I asked why, and the answer came back: ‘You are in an area so close to the capital that we will not allow you to advance.’
“They were playing with us. I insulted the two officers. I told them: ‘We will not allow you to use us like an instrument – and this is the last time you call us.’” Dr Khalifa, who is a medical doctor, narrows his eyes when he says this. His “allies”, it seems, wanted the war to continue – to destroy Syria rather than the regime. And he is a man with another burden. His older brother is one of the 800 prisoners, arrested in Damascus because the army realised his family connection to the doctor.
The Military Operations Centre is real enough. Captured rebels have talked about the “MOC” in Jordan, and Syrian intelligence officers have for months monitored communications between the MOC and elements of Jabhat al-Nusra (aka al-Qaeda) and the febrile Free Syrian Army around the southern city of Deraa. The Syrian army believes it is located close to the Jordanian-Syrian border. It is a worthy subject of investigation.
But when the war ended in Mouadamiya, promises were kept. The government agreed that Syrian militiamen in the town would remain free – and allowed to travel anywhere in Syria under government control, providing they surrendered their weapons. According to 45-year old Khaled Khodr – the head of the Liwa al-Fatah and nicknamed the Mayor by his fighting men – 600 fighters along with their families, a total of 1,500 who did not trust the government, were permitted to leave with their side-arms for rebel-held areas in Idlib province.
Dr Khalifa has been told that 95 of them are now gathered near the Turkish border, keener to become refugees in safety than carry on the fight.
But sides call this a reconciliation and it’s a miniature version of what the Syrian government must intend for eastern Aleppo: the surrender of their enemies and the expulsion of those who will not give up their weapons and the gradual restoration of life for the surviving civilians after months of ruthless bombardment. There’s even a “reconciliation committee” in Mouadamiya – one of dozens operating in other townships around Damascus and Homs – to oversee the new peace, with local mukhtars – town leaders – and former fighters and Syrian military intelligence officers on the committee.
Peace must come in stages. The electricity and water in Mouadamiya was never cut by the government, a smart move by someone in authority who realised that there were limits to a siege – albeit scarcely applied in Aleppo – which might lead to submission at a later date. Syrian troops have not entered Mouadamiya and the men who defended it believe the 800 prisoners will be freed after the new governor arrives to hoist the Syrian flag over the municipal buildings in a few days’ time and to declare the town safe. A Syrian intelligence man, a big beefy figure who refused to give his name or talk publicly, admitted that this was the intention: the prisoners would be freed “step by step”.
Could this be a model for eastern Aleppo if the slaughter ends? The ex-fighters here have their doubts. Too many of the armed groups in Aleppo are foreigners who would prefer to fight on. Too many are Islamists. In Mouadamiya, Khaled Khodr’s Liwa stepped in at once when Nusra Islamists arrived from the suburb of Ghouta and tried to join their fight – he told them to leave. But this did not spare the town. Among the buildings destroyed in the long battle was the largest school – never a rebel base, according to the former fighters – and in all 1,800 of its people were killed in the siege, most of them from the Liwa. Only just over 2,000 civilians lived on amid the wreckage. Mouadamiya’s mukhtar, Mohamed Jallab, reckons that 40,000 of its inhabitants who fled three years ago have now returned.
And reconciliation seems to work, at least publicly. The former Syrian fighters talk with government soldiers on the edge of the town, even sharing their cigarettes, queuing up to sign a register to visit Damascus and talking freely – in and out of the hearing of the soldiers — of their battle against the regime. They were, like all militiamen, civilians when there was no war to fight: I met a painter, two truck drivers, a barber, three students – one of them studying Arabic literature in Damascus, who was a nurse during the fighting – a car mechanic and a former government soldier who has agreed to rejoin the ranks of the army he fought against for so many months.
Although the “reconciliation opening” of Mouadamiya commenced less than two weeks ago, there had been a de facto truce holding – on and off – for two years, and many of the combatants knew each other. It’s always that way in a civil war – or “the crisis”, as both sides refer to the Syrian bloodbath here. There was a kind of honour during the siege. At the start, there had been Free Syrian Army men, mostly regime defectors with little heart in the battle, but the local fighters lost many of their comrades during the siege. Dr Khalifa says he lost 20 of his relatives and friends.
At the hospital – operating rooms underground, wards one floor above – Dr Ratep Daoud displayed the three primitive tables with cardiac equipment and ventilators and green sheets and flaking walls where he and his internist and pediatrician and Dr Khalifa tried to save so many lives amid the bombardment. The hospital was never hit, but 1,600 of the doctors’ patients died in this cramped building. Eighty per cent of them were fighters. Just as in eastern Aleppo, the local civil defence men pulled wounded and corpses from the rubble. They did indeed wear “white helmets” – though they were not called that – and several of them could be found resting in their trucks and office near the hospital. For them, the war is also over.
Mouadamiya is a curious town. The vegetable gardens that the 2,000 or so civilians nurtured to ward off starvation are still there. So are the plastic screens to prevent government snipers shooting at the people of Mouadamiya. There are massive ramparts of earth around the old front lines. Twenty years ago, most of this was rich farmland: prosperous families lived in the stone villas, the remnants of which stand on the outskirts. Ancient olive groves still snake their way into the town and stand behind scorched apartment blocks, their gnarled trunks and swaying branches a faintly ironic balm amid so much destruction.
These were the lands appropriated before the war, when the townspeople demanded their restitution and a new state governor. The regime did not listen to them. The same happened in Deraa. And in Homs and other cities. And of course, eventually, protest turned into war. And foreigners, who neither knew nor cared where Mouadamiya was, sent in their guns and agents to keep it running. | 0 |
Six minutes and one second. That was all it took for the 66 years of Khizr Khan’s life to become an American moment. It was not something that he could have anticipated. For years, he and his wife, Ghazala, had lived a rather quiet existence of common obscurity in Charlottesville, Va. He was known in circles that dealt with electronic discovery in legal proceedings. Another overlapping sphere was the rotating cast of cadets that passed through the Army R. O. T. C. program at the University of Virginia. His wife was a welcoming face to the customers of a local fabric store. And the last dozen years for the Khans were darkened by their heartbreak over the death of a military son, Humayun, whose body lies in Arlington National Cemetery, his tombstone adorned with an Islamic crescent. Their grief brought them closer to a university and to a young woman in Germany whom their son loved. It also gave them a conviction and expanded the borders of their lives. Some of their neighbors knew Mr. Khan liked to carry a $1 pocket Constitution around with him. In the Khan home, a stack of them always lay at the ready. Guests showed up and they were handed one, in the way other hosts might distribute a party favor. Mr. Khan wanted it to stimulate a conversation about liberty, a cherished topic of his. He liked to point out that he lives nearly in the shadow of Monticello, home of one of his heroes, Thomas Jefferson. Mrs. Khan liked to say, “We need Thomas Jefferson. ” And then the Khans stepped into a sports arena in Philadelphia and left as household names. In a passionate speech at the Democratic National Convention, the bespectacled Mr. Khan stingingly criticized Donald J. Trump and his stance on Muslim immigration, scolding him, “You have sacrificed nothing and no one. ” Quickly enough, both Khans felt the verbal lashings of Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential candidate. And just like that, they found themselves a pivot point in the twisting drama that is American politics. This is another moment in the lives of Khizr and Ghazala Khan. In 1972, he was studying law at the University of the Punjab in Lahore, the largest public university in his native Pakistan. He was intrigued by Persian literature. Learning of a Persian book reading, he went. Ghazala was the host. He was raised in Gujranwala in Punjab Province, the oldest of 10 children. His parents had a poultry farm. “My life was very ordinary,” he said in an interview this week. “There was nothing special. I grew up as every other Pakistani. No extra events took place during my lifetime, and we were modest people. ” But, he said, he had the ambition “to keep moving forward. ” The university reading was one thing, but what enchanted him was the host. She was from Faisalabad and was studying the Persian language. He engaged in some decorous maneuvering and decided that she was the woman he wanted to marry. He enlisted the help of his parents, who reached out to her parents. Then the real courtship began. In 1973, he graduated from law school and he was licensed with the Punjab bar in 1974. Already, his goal was to move to the United States. “Everybody’s dreams come true if you are able to study and complete higher education abroad,” he said. “That’s the plan we grew up with: that it makes your future better if you have a postgraduate degree from overseas, England or United States. ” But he did not have enough money. And so after the Khans were married, they moved to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. For three years, Mr. Khan worked for an American oil field company as the lawyer who handled the affairs of the expatriate workers. Their first two sons were born, Shaharyar and Humayun. In 1980, the Khans came to the United States. First, they went to Houston to save up more money. The four of them squeezed into a $ apartment. Once he had the savings, he enrolled at Harvard Law School. He graduated in 1986 with a master of laws degree and became a citizen, as did his wife. They moved to Silver Spring, Md. and he found work reviewing mortgage documents. It was not his dream job, but a third son, Omer, had been born. Mouths had to be fed. In time, he moved on to several large law firms, where he specialized in the emerging area of electronic discovery. It involved finding information that was stored electronically to answer discovery requests from opposing sides in lawsuits. Robert Eisenberg, a consultant who is a pioneer of the field, came to know Mr. Khan well and found him highly proficient at his work and immensely likable. “There is an gentility about him,” he said. “He has this veneer of formality. But under it is kindness. ” And so the Khans settled in, and they became an American life. There are different vantages from which to understand the Khans’ middle son, Humayun, and one of them is through Amir Ali Guerami. He was born in Iran and he happened to come to the Maryland middle school that Humayun attended. There were few Muslims, and that made Mr. Guerami different. And he was very overweight. He was taunted and beaten up. His middle name was Patrick. As he walked down the school hallways, bullies would bellow, “Fat Rick. ” And Humayun would hear this and step in. He would walk alongside him, a sentry staring the bullies down, deflecting them. And he intervened when Mr. Guerami was being roughed up outside the library. When he was punched in the throat in gym class and could not breathe. This cemented a friendship that continued throughout high school. Humayun was Mr. Guerami’s defender and his motivator. He urged him to exercise and to diet. And after his sophomore year, Mr. Guerami was 60 pounds lighter. As a high school student, Humayun swam and played basketball, and he taught swimming to children with disabilities. In his middle son, Mr. Khan saw the traits of his mother — farsighted and “much more balanced in her thinking and gestures. ” “I’m a little more emotional and shortsighted,” Mr. Khan said. Mr. Guerami saw this, too. “You always knew he had a plan,” Mr. Guerami said. “He wasn’t just stumbling through life like the rest of us. He was planning college from Day 1. ” They lost contact after high school. Mr. Guerami now lives in California and owns a mortgage company. He was watching the Democratic convention when the video came on about Captain Khan. And that was when Mr. Guerami learned that he had been an R. O. T. C. cadet at the University of Virginia and had joined the Army and had gone to Iraq and become a hero. That his life was frozen at age 27. The memories returned. “He had an impact on my life,” he said. “You read about kids being bullied in school and then their hurting themselves. He owed me nothing, a complete stranger. Yet he stood up for me. He was a savior. ” A German woman named Irene Auer sat down in a cafe in the Bavarian town of Amberg, and a man approached her. This was another moment in the life of Humayun Khan. He was stationed in the barracks at nearby Vilseck. This was 2002. She liked his manner, and she especially liked his English. ”There were many who spoke English very badly, or with a lot of slang, but not him,” she said. “He spoke beautiful English and had a very beautiful voice. ” They started dating. In time, she began studying international management but stayed with him in his apartment off base on weekends. His mother went to Germany in 2003, and the two became acquainted. In September 2003, Ms. Auer flew with Captain Khan to the United States to meet his father. This was serious stuff. Captain Khan loved to have a good debate with Ms. Auer, her family and her friends. One of his favorite topics was the meaning of life. As it happens, she opposed the war in Iraq. But he accepted his duty and was proud to be a soldier. “Once he even said to me, ‘You know that I am married,’ ” she said. “I asked him, ‘What do you mean you’re married?’ and he told me, ‘Yes, I am married to the U. S. Army.’ ” On Feb. 9, 2004, he left for Iraq. They planned to get married the following year and eventually settle in the United States. His intention was to go to law school. In one of the last emails she received from him, he told her to go pick out an engagement ring. It was his day off but he was not much for days off. He was the commander of the Force Protection Team of the 201st Forward Support Battalion, First Infantry Division, at Camp Warhorse in Diyala Province, Iraq. Sgt. Crystal Selby, one of the team’s drivers, went to pick him up that morning. June 8, 2004. He said he wanted to check the compound’s gate. On a day off? She told him to stay in his room. He was her boss. She could not order him to, and he got in. It was funny how she had known Captain Khan only a couple of months and yet it seemed like she had known him so much longer. It was the way he treated her and all of the soldiers. “He didn’t talk to you like he was in charge of you, but like a friend,” she said. “He taught you how to be better. Not better tanker or better fueler. Better human being. ” He made sandwiches for his soldiers when there was no time to get to lunch. He had such an easy sense of humor. “I read where someone called him a soldier’s officer,” she said. “To me, he was a human’s human. ” The drive took three or four minutes. She dropped him off outside the gate and headed to the office. An taxi carrying two suicide bombers was creeping toward the gate. Captain Khan shouted for his men to hit the dirt. That may well have saved their lives. He moved toward the taxi, trying to halt it. Sergeant Selby was still in the truck, not even to the office, when she heard the explosion. When she arrived, the news of his death was already on the radio. The Army R. O. T. C. center at the University of Virginia is on the first floor of the Astronomy Building. The program is not large — a typical Army cadet class commissions 10 to 20 people. When you walk into the offices, it is the first room on the left. The Khan Room. There are several pictures of Captain Khan. Clippings about him. One of his uniforms. A letter of condolence from the Seven Society, one of the university’s secret societies. Memorial plaques. The piece he wrote for his commissioning. It is where who he was endures. It is a functional space, serving as a conference room, a place where prospective cadets might get interviewed or meetings held. When it is empty, cadets use it to study for exams. A few months after their son’s death, the Khans moved to Charlottesville, where their other two sons were living, so they could try to recover as a family. Shaharyar, their oldest son, a biotech firm that Omer, their youngest son, works at. The Army R. O. T. C. program became a part of their restoration. Tim Leroux, who was the commander from 2009 to 2012 and retired a lieutenant colonel, saw them as the “mom and pop of the department. ” It became one of their rocks. They attended all its formal events. At the annual commissioning ceremony, Mr. Khan always spoke. When the cadets took the oath, he told them, they needed to think hard about their pledge to defend the Constitution, to reflect on what they were pledging to defend, because his son died for that document. And he would give each graduate one of his pocket Constitutions. Then there would be an award presented, the Khan award, that went to that year’s outstanding . “For years, I’ve been telling people he’s the most patriotic person I’ve ever met, and I’ve met quite a few,” Mr. Leroux said of Mr. Khan. “There are people who will put on cutoffs of the American flag and say they’re patriotic. Or they’ll put on bumper stickers — America, Love It or Leave It — and say they’re patriotic. He has a much more profound idea of being patriotic. It’s a complete understanding of what liberty and democracy mean. ” Mrs. Khan came to these commissioning ceremonies, too. They were hard for her. Her grief over her son’s death reached deep. One day not long after moving to Charlottesville, she stopped at a local fabric store, Les Fabriques. She makes her own clothing and needed fabric. Carla Quenneville, the store’s owner, waited on her. Mrs. Khan told her the story of her son’s death. “She said she came in because she was so depressed and she said, ‘I have to get off my couch and stop crying,’ ” Ms. Quenneville said. “She had cried for a solid year. And we cried together that day. ” Ms. Quenneville wanted to bring sun back into her life. She told her, if she wished, she could spend time in the store, help out if she wanted. And so she did. Pretty much every Monday, she began showing up and assisting customers, giving them tips on the sewing machines that the store sold. Since she prayed five times a day, she sometimes used a back room to pray. The fabric store helped her mend her own life. The sorrow, though, persists. “A new staff person comes on, she tells the story of her son,” Ms. Quenneville said. “And she cries. She can’t get through this. ” There was other healing to be done in the circle of their son’s life. When Ms. Auer, the woman Captain Khan planned to marry, came to his funeral, Mrs. Khan presented her with his favorite quilt. She asked her to return it when she got married, so they would know she was happy again. Two years later, Ms. Auer was still adrift. The Khans invited her to stay with them, and she did, from May until August 2006. “They said to me, come, we need you here by us,” she said. After returning to Germany, she met a man who became her husband. They have two daughters. She realizes she should return that quilt. It was important to the Khans to know the R. O. T. C. cadets, really know them, and so they began the ritual of the dinners at their house. There would be one dinner each year for the freshmen cadets and one for the seniors. A front room was filled with mementos and objects no parent ever wants — the letter of condolence from President George W. Bush, the American flag that had covered the coffin. Often, the Khans would show the cadets the room for them to understand the magnitude of the step they were taking. “The Khans didn’t become bitter when they lost their son or become angry with the military,” said Joe Riley, a cadet who graduated in 2013. “The exact opposite. They showed tremendous pride in us. ” He remembered how Mr. Khan pulled him aside and told him how he felt blessed to be in this country and how much he admired the American military. The focus at these dinners would swivel to the cadets — who they were, why they wanted to join the Army, what future they envisioned. As they shared, Mrs. Khan, always the R. O. T. C. mom, would remind them to eat their vegetables. At one dinner, he told of how he had pictures of himself as a boy wearing an Army uniform and digging tiny foxholes on the farm he lived on in Tennessee. As he got older, he just felt it was the correct thing to do, the only thing to do. He said he felt that if you live in your country and enjoy its wonders, you should give back. For him, the Army was the way to fulfill that obligation. His parents had a different view. When they learned of his plans, they did not speak to him for eight weeks. And, oh, how the Khans loved hearing this conviction in a young man, this resolute belief in guarding American democracy. In 2011, Joe Riley won the Khan Award. He went on to become a Rhodes Scholar and is now stationed in Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, Wash. an Army lieutenant. Everything had happened in the space of a week, and it was so much. The Khans were on “Meet the Press” and “State of the Union” and “PBS NewsHour,” some dozen news shows in all, fresh arrivals in the political process. All from the dominoes of chance. Months ago, Mr. Khan was quoted in an article in Vocativ, an online publication, criticizing Mr. Trump’s position on Muslims. When asked about Muslim extremism in the United States, he recounted a conversation with his older son about the need to root out “traitors” among them. Seeing the article, campaign officials for Hillary Clinton wanted to put his son in a video to be shown at the convention, and then asked the Khans if they wished to say a few words. And now all this. Mr. Khan was on “Anderson Cooper 360” this week, and he seemed spent. He said they would not become silent but they were withdrawing. “I will continue to remind you what your behavior for the whole year had been,” he said addressing Mr. Trump. “I am not going to continue to appear on television. It is really disturbing because it is emotionally disturbing. It is disturbing. ” He told The Times this week that he was exhausted from talking to reporters and that it was harming his health. In recent years, he had gone out on his own as a legal consultant. A few days ago, he took down the website promoting his law work. He said that he was getting hateful messages and that he was worried about it being hacked. Insinuations were being made, that he was involved in shady immigration cases. He said he has had no clients come to him for that sort of work. He said he did commercial law, especially electronic discovery work. The Khans had been one sort of family and now they are another. In the way that it can happen in modern society, they have become public figures. They were put up in Washington hotels for their TV appearances. People floated up to them on the street. Took selfies with them. They wanted to be themselves again, mingle with cadets and talk about sewing at the fabric store. A few days ago, done with a round of interviews in Washington, they stopped at Arlington National Cemetery to visit the grave of their son. Then they went home. | 1 |
On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Emeritus Representative Jim Jordan ( ) argued that the latest Obamacare bill isn’t a repeal of Obamacare, but is “a pretty darn good bill” and “the best bill we can get out of the House. ” Jordan said that he thinks the bill will get a vote this week, adding, “I feel this is a pretty darn good bill that we made better because we engaged in this debate. I think that the tax increases are gone right away. The Obamacare tax increases are now gone right away in this bill. adults in the Medicaid expansion population, there’s now a work requirement for them. And this waiver option that states can seek to get out from under those key Obamacare regulations that are driving up premiums for families, I think when you look at those, this is the best bill we can get out of the House. But frankly, we should be clear, this is not repeal of Obamacare. If it was repeal, you wouldn’t need the option for a waiver option for states to seek. So, we have to be clear with the voters about that, and continue to work on it. ” Jordan later said that the bill isn’t a complete repeal of Obamacare, but is a “good step, and it’s — I think — the best step. ” He added that “States can get out of some of the regulations that are driving up premium costs. conditions — as the president mentioned — is specifically covered in the legislation. And there’s $125 billion of taxpayer money that goes to the states to make sure there’s that safety net provision that we call pools available for states to use. They have to have that set up first before they can actually seek the waiver. ” Jordan further stated, “If you maintain continuous coverage, you can’t lose coverage and coverage can’t be jumped up to a higher rate if you have some tough illness happen to you or your family. That is clear. What we’re trying to do, is reward responsible behavior. You maintain coverage, that’s the right thing to do. You don’t get bumped up because something serious happens to you or your family. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
NEW YORK (AP) — NBC News is moving ahead with plans to air Megyn Kelly’s interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones this weekend despite a backlash that has cost the show advertisers and led to Kelly being dropped as host for an event by an organization founded by parents of children killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. [The network has been taken aback by the response to booking Jones, the “Infowars” host who has questioned whether the killing of 26 people in 2012 at the school in Newton, Connecticut, was a hoax. NBC News Chairman Andy Lack said the story will be edited with the sensitivity of its critics in mind. “It’s important to get it right,” Lack said. Reporters have interviewed controversial characters like Syrian President Bashar Assad and child molesters in the past without getting this kind of a reaction, Kelly said in an interview Tuesday. “What I think we’re doing is journalism,” she said. “The bottom line is that while it’s not always popular, it’s important. I would submit to you that neither I nor NBC News has elevated Alex Jones in any way. He’s been elevated by 5 or 6 million viewers or listeners, and by the president of the United States. As you know, journalists don’t get the choice over who has power or influence in our country. ” Sandy Hook Promise, an violence group, said it had asked Kelly to step down as host of its gala in Washington. The group cannot support Kelly or NBC’s decision to give a platform to Jones and hopes NBC reconsiders its plan to broadcast the interview, said Nicole Hockley, and managing director. Hockley, whose son Dylan was killed at Sandy Hook, founded the organization with Mark Barden, who lost his son Daniel. Kelly said she understood and respected the decision, but was disappointed. NBC’s plans have cost it some advertisers for this week’s edition of “Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly. ” It was not immediately clear how many only the financial firm JPMorgan Chase has been publicly identified. “That comes with the territory,” Lack said. “It’s not unusual. We kind of know when we’re doing controversial stories, that’s going to happen. It doesn’t stop us from doing controversial stories. ” To some critics, NBC’s timing makes the decision worse — airing on Father’s Day an interview that has been publicly denounced by parents who lost young children at Sandy Hook. NBC said it was scheduled for competitive reasons, because Jones had been booked to appear on ABC’s daytime show “The View” next week. A representative of “The View” said Jones had canceled his appearance there and he will not be rescheduled. Lack noted that he had suggested approaching Jones for an interview to David Corvo, the NBC News executive who supervises the network’s newsmagazines. He said there’s nothing new about putting people on the air even if they’re unpopular or have views that are deplorable to many. “I’ve got tremendous understanding of why they’re so upset, as they have every right to be,” he said. “Of course we’re looking at it. We’re looking at the editorial process. ” The interview has put Kelly, who jumped to NBC from Fox News Channel earlier this year, squarely back in the headlines the New York Daily News called it “Nutwork News” on its front page Tuesday. She was one of Trump’s favorite targets during the presidential campaign because he was annoyed at tough questions she asked him at a debate. Jones, for his part, has already denounced the interview as “fake news” and said it was purposeful hit job on him. “I knew in my gut this was going to blow up in their face,” he said on his show. | 1 |
WASHINGTON, D. C. — Standing in front of a host of Republican House lawmakers gathered for a victory lap in the Rose Garden on Thursday afternoon, President Donald Trump declared that passing the American Health Care Act would be an “unbelievable victory when we get it through the Senate. ”[After weeks of heated debate over repealing and replacing Obamacare, the House very narrowly passed what the Vice President called the first step in repealing President Obama’s signature health insurance law, Obamacare. President Trump called a press conference with House Republicans at the White House to commemorate the passage of the bill. President Trump entered the Rose Garden to a standing ovation: President Trump enters the Rose Garden greeting Republican House members after House passing American Health Care Act #AHCA #ACA #Obamacare pic. twitter. — Michelle Moons (@MichelleDiana) May 4, 2017, “Welcome to the beginning of the end of Obamacare,” said Vice President Mike Pence, as he credited the leadership and persistent work of President Trump for the bill’s passage. Pence recalled the March 2010 passage of Obamacare and Republican promises that the law “would not stand” as he stood in front of an overflowing crowd of Republican lawmakers who had rushed down to the White House from Capitol Hill. “We’ve taken a historic first step to repeal and replace Obamacare and finally give the American people the kind of health care they deserve. ” President Trump spoke of Americans suffering under the “ravages” of Obamacare. He declared confidence that the bill would pass in the U. S. Senate, that it would “get even better. ” He promised that premiums and deductibles will come down under the AHCA. “It’s gonna be an unbelievable victory, actually, when we get it through the Senate,” said Trump. House Speaker Paul Ryan said that, after serving during four presidential administrations, he had never seen the level of involvement from the White House as he has with this President and Vice President. As Ryan spoke, Trump and Rep. Mark Meadows could be seen leaning in for a few friendly words that seemed to make each of them smile. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy then took the podium, stating that it would have been easy to watch Obamacare collapse, but that wouldn’t be right, “Today is a start of a new beginning. ” House Majority Whip Steve Scalise spoke of stories from Americans in his district who have seen double digit increases in their health insurance premiums every year under Obamacare. This isn’t about a political goal, said Scalise, this is “about families. ” Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden said they reached out to Governors, Insurance Commissioners, and “innovators of this space. ” “We have the opportunity now to rescue people, to give them the opportunity to truly get the kind of care that they want, they deserve, with the doctors that they choose, and a price they can afford,” said House Budget Committee Chairwoman Diane Black. House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady said, “I know this is just a first step, but make no mistake, this is a giant step toward the day when Americans aren’t struggling under one trillion of dollars of tax hikes that hurt small businesses, that land on families, that drag our economy down, that hurt patients. ” Brady thanked Congressman Mark Meadows for remaining “at the table, worked to bring our conference together. ” Freedom Caucus Chairman Meadows then took to the podium saying, “There are three numbers that matter today, 217, 1, and 318. ” Meadows continued: Today we had a vote in the House and 217 votes actually came together from different districts, from all across the country. From Maine to California, from Michigan to Florida and in between and all of those 217 members came from different districts that represented a different kind of people. It’s a good day because of the number one, a president who wouldn’t give up, a president who got engaged, a president who said you know I don’t care what the mainstream media is saying, we’re gonna get this done and we’re gonna make it better for the American people. And Mr. President and Mr. Vice President, for those late night calls i’m glad that i’ll get some rest, but I want to thank you on behalf of the most critical number and that’s the 318 million Americans who now, once again will be able to get affordable healthcare, to allow those decisions to be made between them and their doctor and once again, make sure that they don’t have to go begging and figuring out how to pay for their healthcare premium instead of their mortgage. So Mr. President it’s a great day for America, it’s a great day for this Administration and it’s a truly great day for the American people. Rep. @RepMarkMeadows calls House passage of the AHCA a truly great day for the American people — standing with President and Rs at WH pic. twitter. — Michelle Moons (@MichelleDiana) May 4, 2017, Rep. Tom MacArthur recalled the crippling medical bills his dad worked hard to pay off after his mom got cancer. He said he was proud to have a small part in bringing affordable health care to Americans. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Director Seema Verma took the podium thanking the whole group and speaking of moms across the country with insurance cards they can’t use because their healthcare was unaffordable. House Republicans celebrate with President, Administration passage of American Health Care Act in White House Rose Garden #Obamacare pic. twitter. — Michelle Moons (@MichelleDiana) May 4, 2017, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price spoke of the attempt to provide care for every single American. “We’ve gotten to this point right now because the men and women behind us have acted upon principle. ” He spoke of principle that provides affordable health care for everybody and of the highest quality. “The journey continues, we will get it done,” said President Trump. As he concluded the event, he thanked everyone that had been involved in passing the bill through the House, adding in a entertaining and lighthearted note, “I even want to thank the media. ” ”I even want to thank the media” President Trump at Rose Garden press conference celebrating House passage of the AHCA @realDonaldTrump pic. twitter. — Michelle Moons (@MichelleDiana) May 4, 2017, Seated in the front rows for the event were many Trump Administration officials. Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana | 1 |
In an apparent sign that Senator Elizabeth Warren will not be named Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Ms. Warren was invited by Mrs. Clinton’s campaign on Tuesday to deliver a address on the first night of the Democratic convention this month — a marquee speaking slot but one that is earlier than picks typically appear. Such nominees usually speak later in the convention week to build anticipation for the top of the ticket. Two Democrats briefed on the invitation to Mrs. Warren, however, cautioned that Mrs. Clinton had not yet made a decision about a running mate and that asking Ms. Warren to take the stage on the first night did not preclude her from being tapped as the nominee. Ms. Warren and other individuals who received invitations on Tuesday to address the Philadelphia convention were told that their speaking times were subject to change depending on who was selected for vice president, according to the two Democrats, one with ties to Mrs. Clinton and the other to Ms. Warren, who both spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss convention planning. But even Ms. Warren’s allies are now increasingly skeptical that she will join the ticket as the famously cautious Mrs. Clinton enjoys a steady lead in the polls over Donald J. Trump and is eyeing Democrats who are less dynamic than Ms. Warren but would not overshadow her on the campaign trail or in the White House. Mrs. Clinton’s meetings with the remaining candidates are continuing: She has met with or is expected to meet soon with Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey Representative Xavier Becerra of California Julian Castro and Tom Perez, who both serve in President Obama’s cabinet and James G. Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral, at her Washington home. She will also campaign on Thursday alongside another potential running mate, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, in his home state. Ms. Warren had initially handed over paperwork and met with the Washington lawyer overseeing Mrs. Clinton’s search. And at a joint rally in Cincinnati last month that fueled speculation about an ticket, Ms. Warren drew loud applause for a stinging indictment of Mr. Trump as “a small, insecure money grubber. ” But any political necessity of putting Ms. Warren on the ticket to placate liberals diminished after Senator Bernie Sanders pledged to support Mrs. Clinton, and the progressive voters who flocked to his candidacy continued to coalesce around Mrs. Clinton. Some 63 percent of people who voted for Mr. Sanders during the Democratic primaries said they would vote for Mrs. Clinton in the fall, according to a CBS News poll conducted last month. | 1 |
An email released by Wikileaks reveals annoyance from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign directors with one of their media allies: left-wing CNBC Democrat John Harwood. Comment on this Article Via Your Facebook Account Comment on this Article Via Your Disqus Account Follow Us on Facebook! | 0 |
Oil Markets Rattled by US Election Uncertainty November 08, 2016 Oil Markets Rattled by US Election Uncertainty
Oil prices eased on Tuesday, paring earlier gains as voting in the U.S. presidential election got underway, in line with a retreat in U.S. stock index futures and a pickup in the dollar. In a swell of investor risk appetite, U.S. stocks racked up their biggest one-day gain since March on Monday, but this boost, which lifted oil, copper and European equities earlier on Tuesday faded. The most recent polls have put Democrat Hillary Clinton ahead of Republican rival Donald Trump in Tuesday's election. Clinton is seen by investors as offering greater certainty and stability. Brent January crude oil futures were down 19 cents at $45.96 a barrel by 1308 GMT, off a session peak of $46.69, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 22 cents to $44.67, after the U.S. dollar pared losses and S&P futures turned negative.
"Seeing oil coming off today, that's more reflective of the equity futures in the U.S. coming off the highs and European stocks coming off," CMC Markets analyst Jasper Lawler said.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries forecast demand for its oil will rise in the next three years, suggesting its 2014 decision to let prices fall to curb costlier rival supplies is delivering higher market share. [OPEC/M]
"OPEC raising its forecasts, ordinarily a positive, but we're all obviously election-focussed ... so I don’t think that's driving (oil) as much as it normally would," Lawler said.
The group meets on Nov. 30 and has pledged to reach a deal on cutting output to try to erode a two-year-old global surplus. Article by Doc Burkhart , Vice-President, General Manager and co-host of TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles | 0 |
The Algemeiner reports: Leading American Jewish groups were quick to praise President Donald Trump’s forthright condemnation of antisemitism during a Holocaust commemoration speech earlier today. [Speaking on behalf of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Stephen Greenberg, its Chairman and Malcolm Hoenlein, its Executive Vice noted appreciatively that Trump “clearly and forcefully condemned all forms of calling out Holocaust denial, threats to Israel’s existence, discourse and rhetoric and attacks on Jewish communities. ” League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt commented, “It deeply matters that President Trump used the power of his office to stand against and hate and to honor the memory of the six million Jews and millions of others murdered in Europe. ” Greenblatt encouraged Trump to “continue to use his bully pulpit to speak out against bigotry, and hatred in all forms. We urge the president and his administration to act to protect targeted communities against hate crime and discrimination. ” Read more here. | 1 |
President Donald Trump reacted again to the aftermath of the Berkeley riots in response to a scheduled speech by Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos. [“Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters are proving the point of the millions of people who voted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump wrote on Twitter on Friday. Rioters caused an estimated $100, 000 in property damage in Berkeley on Wednesday, and only one person was arrested. Bank windows and ATMs were smashed, a Starbucks was looted, graffiti was painted on store fronts, Molotov cocktails were thrown, and garbage fires were lit in the streets. On Thursday, Trump responded to the rioting by threatening to cancel federal funding for colleges that failed to protect the right of free speech. “If U. C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view — NO FEDERAL FUNDS?” Trump wrote on Twitter. | 1 |
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I am currently working as hard as I can to see that Donald Trump is defeated, that Hillary Clinton is elected president, and that Democrats gain control of the US House and Senate. The day after the election, working with millions of grass-roots activists, I intend to do everything possible to make certain that the new president and Congress implement the Democratic platform, the most progressive agenda of any major political party in the history of the United States.
That agenda includes overturning the disastrous Supreme Court decision on Citizens United, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, expanding Social Security, breaking up "too-big-to-fail banks," making public colleges and universities tuition-free for the middle class, and rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. It also includes pay equity for women, a new approach toward trade, aggressive action to combat climate change, raising taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, lowering prescription drug prices, a significant movement toward universal health care, and major reforms in our criminal justice and immigration systems.
If this election has taught us anything, it is that the American people are sick and tired of the economic, political, and media status quo. They are tired of a rigged economy in which millions work longer hours for lower wages while 52 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent. They are tired of billionaires like Trump and large profitable corporations not paying a nickel in federal income taxes while the middle class pays their fair share to support governmental services. They are tired of a corrupt campaign finance system that allows billionaires like the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and others to spend hundreds of millions to elect candidates who will represent the wealthy and the powerful. They are tired of corporate media that focus on political gossip and look at elections as personality contests, rather than provide for a serious discussion of the major crises facing our country.
The anger and frustration of the American people, all across the political spectrum, is palpable. They want a government that represents the needs of working families and not just billionaires. They want bold action to rebuild the shrinking middle class, not inside-the-beltway palliatives written by corporate lobbyists.
At a time of massive political discontent, when millions not only are contemptuous of the major political parties but are also actually giving up on democracy, we need a new administration that has both vision and courage. We need vision from the top to point the way toward a new America that is more inclusive and egalitarian -- which boldly addresses income and wealth inequality, poverty, and the needs of the uninsured. We need an administration that has the courage to take on the powerful special interests -- corporate America, Wall Street, the insurance and drug companies, the fossil fuel industry -- who stand in the way of real change and whose greed is destroying this country. - Advertisement -
There is no moral excuse for the top one-tenth of 1 percent owning as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, for one family (the Waltons) having more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of our population, for the number of billionaires increasing by ten-fold since 2000 while we continue to have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any industrialized country on earth.
There is no rational reason why we remain the only major country not to guarantee health care to all as a right or provide paid family and medical leave, or why we have more people in jail than any other country on earth at the same time as we have outrageously high levels of youth unemployment in minority communities.
Too many Americans are living in despair and hopelessness. Too many of our brothers and sisters are turning to drugs, alcohol and suicide to avoid the painful economic realities of their lives. Too many others are turning to rage and bigotry as they try to make sense of their declining standard of living.
At a time of hateful political division, a new president can bring our people together by leading and appointing an administration that will fight for working people. We need a secretary of treasury who is prepared to take on the greed and illegal behavior of Wall Street, not someone who comes from Wall Street or will leave office to go to Wall Street. We need a trade representative who understands that our current trade policies have failed, and that we must adopt a trade approach that represents workers and not the CEOs of large corporations. We need an attorney general who is prepared to vigorously enforce antitrust laws and prosecute bankers and corporate leaders who break the law.
This is an historic and pivotal moment in American history. Now is the time for our next president to rally the American people against Wall Street and corporate greed and stand up vigorously for the declining middle class. - Advertisement - | 0 |
Maybe people should use the link I gave and talk to Glen first. It doesn’t cost that much if they talk to Glen. He is giving huge discounts through me on every order. Blessings! http://prodovite.biz and Glen gives his number, several numbers, where he can be reached in the video. Again, huge discounts and it’s not as expensive as what you are seeing there. That is a different link than I gave. Thanks! | 0 |
Latest short list for Trump cabinet positions – It’s a “knife fight” Communications adviser, Jason Miller, confirmed that Trump's cabinet will be anything but "traditional" By Tyler Durden - Wednesday, November 16, 2016 10:04 AM EST
As Donald Trump’s transition team continues to debate who will fill key cabinet positions, the competition between potential appointees is growing more fierce with one insider describing it as a “knife fight.” So far, Trump has named RNC head Reince Priebus as Chief Of Staff and the controversial Breitbart executive, Steve Bannon, as Chief Strategist. While the transition team has been guarded so far about who will fill the remaining roles, communications adviser Jason Miller confirmed that Trump’s cabinet will be anything but “traditional”: “You’re going to see a number of different names that are ultimately becoming a part of the President-elect’s administration. There will be non-traditional names, a number of people who have had wide-ranging success in a number of different fields; wide-ranging success in business … People will be excited when they see the type of leaders the President-elect brings into this administration.” Of the key open positions, John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani are the rumored favorites for Secretary of State and Senator Jeff Sessions is thought to be the front-runner for Attorney General. With that said, per Reuters , here is a short list of people thought to be in the running for the various cabinet positions that need to be filled over the coming months:
SECRETARY OF STATE Bob Corker, Tennessee senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush Newt Gingrich, Republican former U.S. House Speaker Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq Rudy Giuliani, Republican former mayor of New York City
ATTORNEY GENERAL Rudy Giuliani Jeff Sessions, senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who takes a hard line on immigration Chris Christie, Republican New Jersey governor Pam Bondi, Republican Florida Attorney General Trey Gowdy, Republican congressman from South Carolina who headed the House committee that investigated the 2012 attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya TREASURY SECRETARY Steven Mnuchin, former Goldman Sachs executive and Trump’s campaign finance chairman Jeb Hensarling, Texas Republican congressman and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co chief executive officer Tom Barrack, founder and chairman of Colony Capital Inc
DEFENSE SECRETARY Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser under President George W. Bush Jon Kyl, former Republican senator from Arizona Jeff Sessions, Republican senator from Alabama and early Trump supporter, member of the Senate Armed Services Committee Kelly Ayotte, outgoing Republican senator from New Hampshire and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee Duncan Hunter, Republican congressman from California and early Trump supporter, member of House Armed Services Committee Jim Talent, former Republican senator from Missouri who was on the Senate Armed Services Committee
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY Ben Carson, former neurosurgeon and 2016 Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich Rich Bagger, former pharmaceutical executive and former top aide to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Bobby Jindal, former Louisiana governor
HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY Michael McCaul, U.S. Republican congressman from Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee David Clarke, Milwaukee county sheriff and vocal Trump supporter Joe Arpaio, outgoing Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff who campaigned for Trump
HEAD OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY Myron Ebell, a climate change skeptic at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute who is overseeing environmental policy on Trump’s transition team Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors Leslie Rutledge, Arkansas attorney general Carol Comer, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management
ENERGY SECRETARY Harold Hamm, Oklahoma oil and gas mogul, CEO of Continental Resources Inc Larry Nichols, co-founder of Devon Energy Corp James Connaughton, CEO of Nautilus Data Technologies and a former environmental adviser to President George W. Bush U.S. Representative Kevin Cramer, of North Dakota Robert Grady Sarah Palin, Republican former Alaska governor who ran for vice president in 2008 Jan Brewer, former Arizona governor Forrest Lucas, founder of oil products company Lucas Oil Harold Hamm | 0 |
ISIS terrorists set fire to a sulphur plant sending toxic gas across Mosul Hundreds suffocated in the fire which saw hospitals overwhelmed ISIS have also killed scored of police officers in Mosul over the past week Comes as Iraqi forces have been rounding up suspected ISIS fighters By JENNIFER NEWTON ISIS have suffocated hundreds of people trying to flee Mosul by setting fire to a sulphur plant sending poisonous gas across the city. Hospitals in Mosul were overwhelmed with patients including children and pregnant women who had inhaled the gas causing breathing problems and choking. It came following jihadis setting fire to the Mishraq sulphur plant last week which formed a toxic cloud that can affect those caught up without a mask. News of the casualties come after it was revealed ISIS terrorists shot dead a disabled girl who was failing to keep up as she was forcibly marched out of her village as Iraqi forces closed in Mosul. The jihadis | 0 |
A suspicious package lying against the third rail of the Metro Red Line in the heart of Hollywood prompted city officials to shut down a major segment of Hollywood Blvd, wreaking havoc for commuters on Friday at 4:30 p. m. [The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s bomb squad was summoned to investigate the package. Consequently, they shut down the Hollywood station on the corner of Hollywood Blvd and Highland. Moreover, for safety precautions nearby stations at City and were also temporarily closed, reported ABC 7. Some two hours later, shortly before 7 p. m. bomb squad officials determined that the “black backpack” was not a threat and a member of the sheriff’s department was seen carrying a large bag out of the station. Unfortunately for the rush hour commuters, the scare set off a commuting nightmare for those on the Metro Line as well as surrounding freeways. People told ABC they waited for well over an hour in the downtown area before the Metro Department send shuttle buses to transport them to the Universal Red Line station. The spectacular traffic jams caused the Metro riders to be delayed more than three hours. “Nobody gave information. There was children, there was old people. We all went, ‘that’s horrible,’” said Martha Williams who lives in North Hollywood. Besides the streets being jammed with cars, the sidewalks filled up as well. Several buildings were evacuated, including the landmark TCL Chinese and El Capitan theaters. | 1 |
SWEDEN HELP WANTED: Activities Coordinator for bored illegal alien Muslim freeloaders and rapists Muslim illegal alien invaders taking up space in Sweden and living off the government dole, say they are vandalizing and burning cars (not to mention gang-raping Swedish girls) because they do not have enough “activities” to keep them busy. Friatider “It is clear as hell that we take out our frustration by destroying and vandalizing when we have a shortage of activities here,” one of the illegals living in Skallberget in Vasteras writes in a letter to the editor in the local newspaper VLT. Vasteras has recently been subjected to a long series of car fires. The submitter tries the young man, who wishes to remain anonymous, explain what the phenomenon is due. He writes that he came to Sweden when he was young and admittedly had “good potential” but that he was subject to persistent “racism” by the authorities. (What “race” is Islam?) “Already at an early age became a man treated differently. Sometimes it was because of ethnicity, sometimes because they were at a certain place, and sometimes just to those very people who were in power felt to fuck with us. So many times I had been propped up against the wall and strip-searched in front of my loved ones. It really depressed me and my value, “he writes. The man writes that the young people in the area feel “oppressed” and that they are burning cars to “get the environment to react and listen.” Among other things, he complains that the objectives of the local football field does not have a network and that it is not organized enough “activities” for young people. “In short, it is clear as hell that we take out our frustration by destroying and vandalizing when we have a shortage of activities here. There is neither good fellowship, activities and things / objects we can make use of.” Submitters have received several responses from readers who are critical of the reasoning. “It’s just a matter of time before someone of obtained or ‘the others’ die if this continues. No pity you – all just hate you more and more,” writes , for example, the signature “Former car owners on Skallberget”.
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On this edition of the “Daily News Brief”, Joe Joseph discusses the rampant voter fraud going on in Texas and throughout the US with early voting. Not that anyone should be surprised… He also discusses a very dangerous stance that Donald Trump has taken in the past with regard to Edward Snowden. The Russians test their newest nuclear missile now that Britain has sent troops to their border to join their American allies, and the dark agenda behind “Globalism”.
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. Tiny Homes Banned in U.S. at Increasing Rate as Govt Criminalizes Sustainable Living As the corporatocracy tightens its grip on the masses – finding ever more ways to funnel wealth to t... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/tiny-homes-banned-in-us-at-increasing.html As the corporatocracy tightens its grip on the masses – finding ever more ways to funnel wealth to the top – humanity responds in a number of ways, including the rising popularity of tiny houses. These dwellings, typically defined as less than 500 square feet, are a way for people to break free of mortgages, taxes, utility bills and the general trappings of “stuff.” They’re especially attractive to millennials and retirees, or those seeking to live off-grid. But government and corporations depend on rampant consumerism and people being connected to the grid.Seeking actual freedom through minimalist living should seem like a natural fit for the American dream, but the reality is that many governments around the country either ban tiny homes or force them to be connected to the utility grid.“As of now, few cities allow stand-alone tiny houses. Most communities have minimum square footage requirements for single-family homes mandating that smaller dwellings be an “accessory” to a larger, traditional house. “Many also have rules requiring that dwellings be hooked up to utilities, which is a problem for tiny-house enthusiasts who want to live off the grid by using alternative energy sources such as solar panels and rainwater catchment systems.” Some of the more recent examples of explicit bans include Etowah, TN and Wasilla, AK , which don’t allow homes less than 600 square feet and 700 square feet, respectively. Boise, ID doesn’t allow homes less than a few hundred square feet, as Shaun Wheeler of Wheeler Homes found when he built a perfectly good and safe 310 sq. ft. home. Lawmakers spout slippery slope fallacies, saying that allowing tiny homes will lead to decay and “unsightly little cabins plunked down next to traditional homes.” Using government force to stamp out societal change in response to financial factors is this councilman’s idea of conservatism. Granted, some cities are actually encouraging tiny homes as a means of freedom or as a solution to homelessness, as in Detroit, MI . Some Los Angeles lawmakers don’t see it that way , calling tiny homes for the homeless “a threat in many ways to our public safety.” Wasilla residents are baffled by the tiny home ban, which seems to run contrary to Alaska’s wild and free nature. Tundra Tiny Houses is leading a new market of small home construction using renewable energy, and now they’ll have to tell customers Wasilla is not an option, in addition to Anchorage to Eagle River. A big priority for tiny home dwellers is their reduced environmental impact. Many are capable of producing all their own energy from solar and wind, collecting rainwater and reusing graywater. Not depending on utility inputs naturally makes a lot of sense, especially for a tiny home on wheels. Even those who put their tiny home on a piece of land away from crowded spaces – with the intention of living off-grid through renewable inputs – are considered outlaws if they don’t hook to the utility grid. This of course ensures that utility companies, which are big donors to political campaigns and profit immensely from government-enabled monopolies, will always get their cut from every household. In January we reported that sunny Nevada essentially killed its solar industry by increasing their tax on solar customers by 40 percent, causing solar providers to leave the state. The only beneficiary was NV Energy, whose energy monopoly was protected. Spur, TX was the first city to advertise being “tiny house friendly” as a “town that welcomes new pioneers”– proudly supporting “reducing costs and gaining freedom to operate according to your own plan, unfettered by onerous and unnecessary costs.” To have this “freedom,” you must secure your properly permitted tiny home to an approved foundation and be connected to city utilities. The property must always be mowed and the prime responsibility is “of course, paying your taxes!” “When cities require the same permitting for tiny houses on foundations as they do for traditional houses, it often doesn’t make financial sense to build tiny. “At that point it’s really more of a lifestyle choice than an economic choice,” said Nick Krautter, a real estate agent in Portland, Oregon, who abandoned plans for a tiny house development. 23-year-old college graduate, Sarah Hastings, built a 190-square-foot home on three acres of farmland in Hadley, MA, complete with a garden next to it. But the town found she was not in compliance with zoning ordinances, and now her home is in storage. Hastings proposed a change to the town’s laws to allow for her tiny home, but the measure was vote down “because some residents were afraid the town would be overrun with them.” There will be no minimalist, environmentally friendly living in Hadley. Clearly, the emergence of tiny homes is being met with fear, and the resulting banishment of freedom, by too many towns and cities across America that can’t quite fathom this shift in the way people think about living. It’s one thing to be concerned about safety issues, but the imposition of minimum square footage requirements and mandatory connections to city utilities is mindless authoritarianism. Let’s hope places like Fresno, CA and Rockledge, FL, which are specifically allowing tiny homes on wheels, can help their more “traditional” counterparts embrace the future. Reference: http://thefreethoughtproject.com Dear Friends, HumansAreFree is and will always be free to access and use. If you appreciate my work, please help me continue.
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The 2016 presidential election was a day reckoning for the Democratic party. According to an article in Politico, the party is experiencing unfathomable desolation and dissolution from which they are neither prepared nor equipped to recover: As Trump takes over the GOP and starts remaking its new identity as a nationalist, populist party, creating a new political pole in American politics for the first time in generations, all eyes are on the Democrats. How will they confront a suddenly awakened, and galvanized, white majority? What’s to stop Trump from doing whatever he wants? Who’s going to pull a coherent new vision together? Worried liberals are watching with trepidation, fearful that Trump is just the beginning of worse to come, desperate for a comeback strategy that can work. What’s clear from interviews with several dozen top Democratic politicians and operatives at all levels, however, is that there is no comeback strategy — just a collection of ideas, all of them challenged by reality. And for whatever scheme they come up with, Democrats don’t even have a . Barack Obama? He doesn’t want the job. Hillary Clinton? Too damaged. Bernie Sanders? Too socialist. Joe Biden? Too tied to Obama. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer? Too Washington. Elizabeth Warren? Maybe. And all of them old, old, old. The Democrats’ desolation is staggering. But part of the problem is that it’s easy to point to signs that maybe things aren’t so bad. After all, Clinton did beat Trump by 2. 8 million votes, Obama’s approval rating is nearly 60 percent, polls show Democrats way ahead of the GOP on many issues and demographics suggest that gap will only grow. But they are stuck in the minority in Congress with no end in sight, have only 16 governors left and face 32 state legislatures fully under GOP control. Their top leaders in the House are all over 70. Their top leaders in the Senate are all over 60. Under Obama, Democrats have lost 1, 034 seats at the state and federal level — there’s no bench, no bench for a bench, virtually no one able to speak for the party as a whole. Read the rest of the story here. | 1 |
For All Democrats to Ponder: the Real Reasons Hillary Clinton Lost Beyond the media spin, the four reasons for this defeat. By Tony Brasunas / medium.com As the aphorism goes, if we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. While the corporate media continues to peddle hysteria, the most important thing right now is to rationally understand why Clinton and the Democrats lost this eminently winnable 2016 race for the White House. Having taken some time to look back over the past six months, I list below what I believe are the four main underlying reasons for this defeat. As it turns out, none of the reasons is particularly complicated, but each will require consideration and systemic change by the party over the next two years. 1. The DNC subverted democracy. This was an anti-establishment year in politics, and there was an anti-establishment candidate running in both major parties. Trump was (barely) allowed to win the primary on the Republican side. On the Democratic side, despite Bernie’s obvious strength and the clear preference of the grassroots, the primary was rigged to put the less popular, establishment candidate forward. It was a colossal risk to take, but the party leadership in the DNC chose to advance their favored candidate so as to maintain their power inside the party and their fundraising with big banks and supranational corporations. The risk backfired. Free and fair democracy would have given Bernie the nomination, likely the White House, and even better, leadership in an expanding and exciting party positioned to win elections for years to come. 2. The media and the DNC deliberately elevated Trump. The wikileaks reveal that the DNC chose to deliberately use the Clinton campaign and the media to elevate Trump (as well as Ted Cruz and Ben Carson) as a candidate, thinking he would be the easiest to beat. They utilized this “pied piper” strategy for months. This was another colossal risk the DNC took, and it backfired horribly. Partly in tandem with the DNC — but largely of their own volition — the corporate media lavished hour upon hour of free coverage on Trump, daily, for a solid year. It is the height of irony today for corporate media pundits to bemoan with shock and consternation Trump’s victory, when his candidacy is truly their creation. If any candidate receives hours of coverage by the major media, for free, every single night, for a year, he or she will win elections, and possibly the presidency. 3. Clinton ran a weak and uninspired campaign. Once she had the nomination, Clinton ran a campaign without an inspiring message — other than perhaps voting for a woman for president. She courted conservatives like the Bushes, the Kochs, and Henry Kissinger, she picked corporate centrists for vice president and other prominent roles, she never connected with a base that after all of Bernie’s amazing campaigning was ripe for engagement, and she turned her back on progressive issues time and again. She stopped talking about climate change and racial justice and corruption in government, and she never addressed the pressing progressive issues of the day, such as Standing Rock and TPP. Seemingly she hoped to coast to victory with little more than platitudes and scare-tactics about Russians reminiscent of the 1950s. All of this while barely escaping two FBI indictments. She became a weak and unpopular candidate holding on to a narrow lead merely because Trump was so ridiculously bad. Trump’s inadequacy as a candidate masked the weaknesses in Clinton’s sinking campaign. For its part, as a slogan, “Stronger Together” never resonated with people who haven’t recovered yet from the Great Recession and who continue to get by with less everyday; indeed for poor and working class people who feel on the outside of the country’s latest wealth generation, this slogan seemed at best ironic and at worst to deliberately exclude them. 4. The complete failure of neoliberalism. This is perhaps the most important thing to understand. Trump didn’t win because of racism; that only got him, generously, 20% of the vote. Trump won by — like Bernie — offering everyday people an alternative to the utterly failed policies of neoliberalism. Not to scare you with this big word, but we are hearing (hopefully) the final death knell of the fancy idea, born under the Clintons, that the country could pass corporate-supremacy laws, call them “free trade” deals, and allow corporations to seek the cheapest, least regulated labor, anywhere in the world, and leave the country that supports these corporations high and dry. It’s a fabulous deal for corporations — their profits have soared — but it’s a wretched deal for working class people, the environment, unions, towns and cities, and long-term national sovereignty for the nations of the earth. People were bound to finally wake up to this, and now they have. If you don’t know what the TPP is, please go learn; Hillary and Obama want to pass this crown jewel of corporate supremacy; Bernie and Trump oppose it. There are your real reasons. Getting this right does matter, so let me know if I’ve missed anything. Honorable mentions not making the top four: Fraudulent voter purges in Florida and Ohio that favored Republicans. Voting machine election fraud. More research on this topic forthcoming. The electoral college. Clinton did win the popular vote nationwide but will lose the count of state delegates in this undemocratic system. Independent voters, progressive voters, and libertarian voters who didn’t vote, or who voted for other candidates because the DNC’s candidate didn’t inspire them should be considered symptoms of the above, not reasons unto themselves. If you run an unpopular candidate on a platform of failed policies and simultaneously elevate your opponent, you will lose any remotely fair democratic election. If you run an unpopular candidate on a platform of failed policies and simultaneously elevate your opponent, you will lose. The question now is whether the Democratic Party can right its ship and finally turn away from neoliberalism and corrupt corporate politics. Can the DNC, over the next two years, relinquish its corrupt role in guiding the party and allow the grassroots to return the party to its best historic role as genunine representatives for poor and working class people, the environment, democracy, and the rule of law? Personally I’m skeptical , but I am ready and happy to be proven wrong. Liberals, progressives, and peaceful revolutionaries of all stripes: There are many more battles ahead. Keep fighting, keep learning, and above all keep paying attention. We must learn from this election so as not to repeat it. Tony Brasunas - Where rationalism and idealism meet. 0.0 · | 0 |
Erdogan Checks in with Obama Before Bombing Syria October 27, 2016 Erdogan Checks in with Obama Before Bombing Syria
Turkey's military operation in northern Syria will target the town of Manbij, recently liberated from ISIS by Kurdish-led forces, and the jihadists' stronghold of Raqqa, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday. In a speech in Ankara broadcast live, Erdogan said he had informed U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama about his plans for the operation in a telephone call. Syrian rebels, backed by Turkish warplanes, tanks and artillery, launched an operation dubbed "Euphrates Shield" in August to push Islamic State and Kurdish militia forces away from the border area of northern Syria. In a speech in Ankara broadcast live, Erdogan said he had informed U.S. President Barack Obama about his plans for the operation in a telephone call on Wednesday. Before Manbij and Raqqa, the operation will target the town of al-Bab, he said.
(ANKARA) - Turkey has been angered at Washington's support for the Kurdish YPG militia in its battle against ISIS in Syria, with Ankara regarding it as a hostile force with deep ties to Kurdish militants fighting in southeast Turkey.
A top U.S. military commander said on Wednesday YPG fighters will be included in the force to isolate Raqqa. Arab forces, and not Kurdish ones, are expected to be the ones to take the city itself, U.S. officials say.
READ MORE: ONLY RUSSIA CAN SAVE THE WEST FROM ITSELF IN SYRIA
Defence Minister Fikri Isik told state broadcaster TRT on Thursday that Turkey had asked the United States not to allow the YPG to enter Raqqa, saying it was ready to provide the necessary military support to take over the town.
Erdogan also said that the Iraqi region of Sinjar, west of Mosul, was on its way to becoming a new base for Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants and that Turkey would not allow this to happen. Article by Doc Burkhart , Vice-President, General Manager and co-host of TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles Got a news tip? Email us at Help support the ministry of TRUNEWS with your one-time or monthly gift of financial support. DONATE NOW ! DOWNLOAD THE TRUNEWS MOBILE APP! CLICK HERE! Donate Today! Support TRUNEWS to help build a global news network that provides a credible source for world news
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Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” while discussing the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare Sen. Tom Cotton ( ) warned GOP House members “Do not walk the plank and vote for a bill that cannot pass the Senate and then have to face the consequences of that vote. ” He added, “The bill probably can be fixed, but it’s going to take a lot of carpentry on that framework. ” ( The Hill) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
As President Donald J. Trump prepares to kick off his new border security plan, various news outlets have begun to criticize the effort by focusing on the border wall. However, members from the union representing the men and women from the U. S. Border Patrol stated that the proposal comes from listening to agents instead of politicians. [Various outlets have continued to question the notion of building a border wall and have focused on the perceived challenges of such an enterprise. Other outlets have criticized the effectiveness of the measure claiming that it does not address the current immigration crisis. The various news organizations have failed to mention the complete control that Mexican drug cartels have over human smuggling, narcotics trafficking, and other illicit activities along both sides of the border. The executive orders that President Trump will be signing provides border security agents with the tools that they have been denied for too long, said Hector Garza, a U. S. Border Patrol agent and the President for the Local 2455 of the National Border Patrol Council. As part of the union’s leadership, Garza is able to speak about issues affecting the men and women that he represents. Despite the many misconceptions by pundits and individuals who have not been to the border, a wall with the addition of new manpower, surveillance technology and other equipment will be an effective tool in slowing down illegal immigration and drug smuggling, Garza said. “We know we won’t have a wall along the 2, 000 miles of border,” he said. “What we will have is a wall where it is needed. That barrier with proper manpower, resources, technology and other tools will be effective. But most important, for the first time we have a president that wants to secure the border. ” Through the NBPC, agents have been able to relay vital information to Trump and his staff about the realities of the border and what is needed in each particular sector. “During the previous administration, we had a president that failed to acknowledge the problems on the border. Now, we have a president that not only acknowledges the problems, but is willing to give us the tools needed to address them. ” Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. | 1 |
Dish Network wanted its MTV after all. On Thursday morning, Dish, the satellite TV provider, and Viacom announced that they had struck a multiyear agreement for Dish to continue to carry Viacom’s bundle of television networks, averting a threatened blackout. Dish’s 14 million customers will have uninterrupted access to 18 Viacom channels, including MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. In addition, select Viacom content will be added to Dish’s Sling TV streaming services, which offer a slimmer bundle of networks starting at $20 a month. packages for specific genres of programming also are available for an additional monthly fee. Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed. Striking the agreement was especially crucial for Viacom, which has faced several business woes in recent months. The company has reported persistently weak earnings and faced questions over its management. The looming threat that Dish could drop Viacom channels from its service added to the uncertainty about the company’s fate. The announcement that Dish and Viacom had reached an agreement reassured investors, as more than 80 percent of the company’s distribution is now locked up with deals. In the last year, Viacom has closed domestic distribution agreements with a series of satellite and cable companies, including ATT, Charter, Frontier, Mediacom and others that represent more than 44 million total subscribers. Viacom’s stock surged with the news. By midday Thursday, Viacom shares were up nearly 10 percent. Shares in Dish Network were about flat. “Today’s renewal, together with several additional affiliate agreements announced over the past year, will enable Viacom to drive growth and deliver better, more engaging viewer experiences for years to come,” Philippe P. Dauman, Viacom’s chief executive, said in a statement. Viacom said that the various distribution deals would fuel growth in the company’s affiliate revenue — the money it receives from cable, satellite and other digital distributors — in the “solid ” rates in 2017 and beyond. In February, Viacom set off investor concern when it cut expectations for affiliate revenue growth to the “low range” for the 2016 fiscal year after previously stating that it would be in the high single digits. Charles W. Ergen, chief executive of Dish, said in a statement that the deal extended a nearly relationship between the companies. “We appreciate Viacom’s willingness to continue with us on our journey as we work to deliver the best, most innovative television services available,” he said. | 1 |
LOS ANGELES — Corporate media giants always want what’s cool and edgy until what’s cool and edgy threatens the status quo that keeps the billions flooding in. The comedian Bill Maher was the textbook case for the bygone era of the universe, after ABC bought his hit show, “Politically Incorrect,” away from Comedy Central. Just after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Mr. Maher said that it was wrong to refer to the hijackers as cowards, and that the United States was more cowardly for its strategy of going after enemies with cruise missiles from afar. The White House denounced him, advertisers and affiliates flipped out, and a few months later ABC cut him loose. HBO swept in to give him a home where he continues to joke, inform and offend to this day. I headed West last week to investigate what looked to me like a version of the Maher tale, involving something more powerful than the White House: the National Football League. In this case, our protagonist, Bill Simmons, is not a bitingly funny comedian, but a bitingly influential sportswriter and commentator, who for 14 years was one of ESPN’s biggest stars. ESPN, which spends some $1. 9 billion a year for N. F. L. rights, let Mr. Simmons go last year, after he repeatedly, and colorfully, criticized Roger Goodell, the N. F. L. commissioner, over his handling of two embarrassing scandals — the New England Patriots’ alleged cheating case, known as “Deflategate,” and the league’s lackluster domestic violence investigation of the Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice. Once again, HBO swept in, giving Mr. Simmons a new talk show about sports and pop culture called “Any Given Wednesday” that makes its debut on June 22. And this month Mr. Simmons introduced his new multimedia company, The Ringer, whose main site is inspired by the sports and pop culture hub he founded at ESPN, Grantland, and features much of its main editorial team. Mr. Maher’s story was about government’s potential to chill free speech during war and the redemptive power of television when it is freed from advertising pressures. Mr. Simmons’s situation is a bit more complicated, especially when you take ESPN’s version of it into account, which I’ll get to. But it does raise questions about how media conglomerates that rely on the N. F. L. for ratings and revenue handle criticism of the league as it faces deepening concerns about its culture and the health of its players. Yet, Mr. Simmons’s story also offers hope that firebrands like him can find ways to operate independently at this opportune time in media. When I visited Mr. Simmons in his suite at the Sunset Gower Studios last week, he was excited for his fresh start, but still a little raw about ESPN. He had just issued a public apology to his old colleagues there for his quote in The Hollywood Reporter asking, “Who would work there that you respect right now?” “I read it and I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t feel that way, I wish I hadn’t said that,’” Mr. Simmons said. The incident played into criticism from ESPN executives that Mr. Simmons can be petulant and disrespectful of rival colleagues. Yet it was also in keeping with the style that ESPN hired him for. Mr. Simmons, 46, came to ESPN from AOL’s Boston “Digital City” site, where he wrote a column called “Boston’s Sports Guy. ” In that job, he could not get press passes, he said, because, “It was the internet. They were like, ‘What? No. ’” So he set out to write about sports the way he was watching them, on the tube, and in the brutally honest and sometimes language of the sports bar — as an outsider. It meant breaking from tradition with contemporary pop culture references (if a scene from “90210” came to mind, he’d say so) praise for players he loved, contempt for owners, players and commissioners he didn’t. ESPN first noticed him after he eviscerated the company’s own sports awards program, the ESPYs, which he called a “TV holocaust. ” Over all, it was a fruitful relationship that earned him accolades and made him millions. He starred on “NBA Countdown,” helped to create the successful ESPN documentary series “30 for 30” and founded Grantland, which earned three national magazine award nominations in 2015. His podcast, “The B. S. Report,” was ESPN’s most popular. Yet Mr. Simmons’s feral side often broke glass inside ESPN, which blanched at some of his stunts — a porn star in his fantasy basketball league? — and twice banned him from using Twitter after he wrote posts criticizing colleagues. Things started falling apart after Mr. Simmons called Mr. Goodell “a liar” for saying the league had not known what was contained in a damning video of Mr. Rice punching his fiancée unconscious when it initially handed Mr. Rice a light, suspension. (The tape had been leaked to TMZ.) Mr. Simmons followed that by daring ESPN to “Call me and say I’m in trouble. ” His suspension followed. Mr. Simmons says he now regrets the dare. But, he said, he was just fulfilling his role as a “disrupter,” if an imperfect one. That was what he planned to tell Disney’s chief executive, Robert A. Iger — a proponent of disruption — when he went to Mr. Iger’s office several months after his suspension. Mr. Simmons did not get to make his point. “He was like, ‘You know, when you go after Roger, it’s really hard for us we want you to do it respectfully,’” Mr. Simmons said of Mr. Iger’s counsel. “And I was like, ‘I think that’s fair. I can be relentless on him but I’ve got to do it respectfully. ”’ “Respectfully” is not what came to mind when, a few weeks later, Mr. Simmons questioned Mr. Goodell’s “testicular fortitude” in his handling of Deflategate. The next day, ESPN’s president, John Skipper, announced that Mr. Simmons’ contract would not be renewed. Mr. Simmons says he wonders if something else was at play. A few months after his ouster, Mr. Iger emerged as a champion of a proposed new stadium near Los Angeles that would have been shared by the San Diego Chargers and a relocated Oakland Raiders team — with an option to buy a stake in either team. “One of my working theories was, maybe this was driven by Iger because he wants a team. ” Disney declined to comment. But when I reached out to ESPN for a response, Mr. Skipper sent me this: “Bill would rather spin conspiracy theories and be perceived as a martyr than take responsibility for his own actions. Let me be unequivocal and clear and take responsibility for my actions: I alone made the decision, and it had nothing to do with his comments about the commissioner. I severed our relationship with Bill because of his repeated lack of respect for this company and, more importantly, the people who work here. ” The network, which has beefed up its investigative reporting staff in recent years, also disputed any notion that it goes easy on the N. F. L. sending me citations for some 70 critical items about the league. And the “Outside the Lines” investigation of the Rice case by Don Van Natta Jr. and Kevin Van Valkenburg, which influenced Mr. Simmons by describing “a pattern of misinformation and misdirection” at the league, was as tough as they come. That work is definitely worth noting. But so is ESPN’s decision in 2013 to withdraw from a documentary with “Frontline” about the N. F. L. ’s “concussion crisis” under pressure from the league, as my colleagues James Andrew Miller and Ken Belson reported then. (ESPN denied it was buckling to the N. F. L.) Surely, when a large part of your business rests with the most powerful sports league in the country, you’re probably going to watch your p’s and q’s. Mr. Simmons said he came up against this when he was seeking new partners and met with Showtime’s president, David Nevins, and Mr. Nevins’s boss, the CBS chairman Les Moonves. “I really liked Moonves, and he was totally honest,” Mr. Simmons said. “He was just like, you know, this is my biggest partner” — meaning the N. F. L. “I can’t figure out how we would make this work. ” CBS had no comment. One presumes neither Mr. Moonves nor Mr. Iger would ask their news divisions to stand down from real N. F. L. reporting. And ESPN says it keeps a “church and state” wall between business and journalism. But where’s the line between being “respectful” and being overly sparing with necessary criticism? The question is important, given the current national discussion about football and concussions. That conversation is taking place in a media environment in which the N. F. L. is that rare content producer that can deliver huge audiences for live programming, where the power of the ad endures. Expelled from the monolith, Mr. Simmons is undergoing recovery in a media market hungry for fresh programming. “I’m a proven content maker at a time when it’s great to be that,” he said. Mr. Simmons says he will cover a range of topics, including football, when he joins the same program lineup as Mr. Maher on HBO — a network with no commercials, no boundaries and no slate of N. F. L. games. | 1 |
The Canadian government may legally remove children from families that refuse to accept their child’s chosen “gender identity” thanks to new legislation passed by the Ontario province. [Bill 89, “Supporting Children, Youth and Families Act, 2017,” was approved on June 1 by a vote of 63 to 23. The Minister of Children and Youth Services, Michael Coteau, who introduced the bill, said earlier this year that a parent’s failure to recognize and support a child’s gender is a form of child abuse, and a child in these circumstances should be removed from the situation and placed into protection. “I would consider that a form of abuse, when a child identifies one way and a caregiver is saying no, you need to do this differently,” Coteau said. “If it’s abuse, and if it’s within the definition, a child can be removed from that environment and placed into protection where the abuse stops. ” The new bill replaces the Child and Family Services Act, or Bill 28, which governed child protection, foster care and adoption services. While “gender identity” and “gender expression” are included in the new legislation as important factors to be considered in determining “the best interests of the child,” the religious faith in which the parents are raising the child — present in former laws — has been removed from consideration for assessing the child’s best interests. Child protection agents, adoption service providers and judges are now required to take into account and respect a child’s “race, ancestry, place of origin, color, ethnic origin, citizenship, family diversity, disability, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. ” The former law stated that the parent of a child in care has the right “to direct the child’s education and religious upbringing. ” The new law has removed that consideration, saying parents can direct the child’s education and upbringing “in accordance with the child’s or young person’s creed, community identity and cultural identity. ” Some Christians have reacted strongly to the new bill, calling it a violation of parents’ primordial rights to educate their children and a direct assault on Christian beliefs. “With the passage of Bill 89, we’ve entered an era of totalitarian power by the state, such as never witnessed before in Canada’s history,” said Jack Fonseca, senior political strategist for Campaign Life Coalition. “Make no mistake, Bill 89 is a grave threat to Christians and all people of faith who have children, or who hope to grow their family through adoption. ” Canadian child protection services are no stranger to invasive micromanagement of according to a predetermined worldview. In April of this year, a Christian couple filed a lawsuit against Hamilton Children’s Aid Society after two foster children were removed from their care because they refused tell the children that the Easter bunny is real. “We have a policy,” said Derek Baars, one of the foster parents, as the motivation for disobeying a child support worker who ordered him and his wife to tell the two girls in their care, aged 3 and 4, that the Easter bunny is real. “We explained to the agency that we are not prepared to tell the children a lie. If the children asked, we would not lie to them, but we wouldn’t bring it up ourselves,” Baars said. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 1 |
BERLIN — President Obama and several European leaders “unanimously agreed” on Friday to keep sanctions in place against Russia for its intervention in Ukraine, amid concern that Donald J. Trump would soften the United States’ stance against Moscow. The show of solidarity came as American allies — and Ukrainians themselves — have been unsettled by uncertainty regarding what kind of foreign policy Mr. Trump will pursue. With surging populist movements straining alliances and Mr. Trump’s election upending the political calculations of many countries, Ukraine may be among the most vulnerable to the shifting political winds. Fighting in Ukraine has continued since Moscow stealthily fomented an uprising among ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine with the help of undercover Russian forces, and then annexed Crimea in March 2014. As a candidate and as Mr. Trump has frequently expressed admiration for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and a former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort, previously worked for a former Ukrainian president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, who is now exiled in Russia. Meeting in Berlin, Mr. Obama and the European leaders agreed that the sanctions should stay until Moscow upheld its pledge for a and to withdraw heavy weapons from front lines in eastern Ukraine, according to the White House. Those in attendance on Friday included the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, François Hollande, as well as the prime ministers of Britain (Theresa May) Italy (Matteo Renzi) and Spain (Mariano Rajoy). The agreement on Ukraine followed remarks by Mr. Obama on Thursday warning Mr. Trump to “stand up” to Moscow when it violated international agreements. Ms. Merkel also reminded Russia that peace in Europe had been possible over the past several years only because all nations respected the boundaries drawn after World War II. Friday’s meeting concluded a weeklong visit to European allies by Mr. Obama, whose terms ends in January. But what was supposed to be a valedictory lap turned into an exercise in calming anxieties about the future of relations spurred by the victory of Mr. Trump, who repeatedly called the NATO alliance into question during his election campaign. The group also discussed tensions in the Middle East, including the situation in Syria, the White House said. The leaders agreed that attacks on the city of Aleppo should be halted immediately, and they called on Russia and Iran to end their support for the government of President Bashar . “On Syria, of course looking at Aleppo, we were united in our condemnation of the atrocities that are taking place there,” Mrs. May told reporters, standing alongside Ms. Merkel after Mr. Obama had departed. “We agreed the need to keep up pressure on Russia, including the possibility of sanctions on those who breach international humanitarian law. ” That consensus, too, was another potential point of departure from the incoming Mr. Trump, who has signaled that he may side with Russia in backing the Assad government against the opponents trying to unseat it, including the Islamic State. After the meeting in Berlin, Mr. Obama left Germany for Latin America. | 1 |
JACKSON, Miss. — It was not that long ago that Victoria Fortenberry figured she would mark her 18th birthday by getting on a bus and getting out of Mississippi. But here she was, tattooed and 19 years old, singing at a party for a new line of craft beer to a crowd that included her girlfriend. Ms. Fortenberry came here to attend a Christian college and found a place where she could be unashamedly Southern and openly gay in a way not possible in her conservative suburban hometown, or even in the Jackson of a decade ago. And so: “At some point,” she said, “I decided I won’t just leave. ” Jackson may not register nationally as an outpost of bohemianism or urbane liberalism. But its city government, which is majority black and Democratic, refuses to fly the state flag at municipal buildings, and this month voted unanimously to oppose a new state law that creates special legal protections for opponents of marriage. And it has a place for singers — and their girlfriends. Jackson is among a group of Southern cities from Dallas to Durham, N. C. where the digital commons, economic growth and a rising cohort of millennials have helped remake the culture. Many of these cities have found themselves increasingly at odds with their states, and here in a region that remains the most conservative in the country, the conflicts are growing more frequent and particularly pitched. Fights are raging over gay rights here and in North Carolina, where a new law limits transgender bathroom access and local governments from passing their own ordinances. The resistance has been fierce in North Carolina, where companies have called off expansion plans and Ringo Starr and Bruce Springsteen have canceled concerts. The potential consequences of these boycotts point up the complications, though: In a South dominated by the politics of rural and suburban conservatives, a canceled rock concert or technology project is likely to punish the places that oppose the legislation, and have little effect on the areas that support it. “We’ve got this divide,” said Ferrel Guillory, the director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “The divide between the cultural conservatism of older suburbs and older rural areas, and these new, thriving, modern economy, diverse cities. ” The skirmishes over gay rights are only part of the growing rift between Southern cities, with their mostly Democratic municipal governments, and Southern state legislatures, which have come to be dominated by Republicans. Lawmakers in Alabama recently blocked cities from setting their own minimum wages, while Charlotte and Jackson have fought with the states over control of their airports. North Carolina’s Republican legislature has redrawn city council districts and tried to stop municipalities from becoming “sanctuary cities” for immigrants. The Arkansas and Tennessee legislatures have passed laws that, like North Carolina’s, ban local ordinances that differ from state law. This version of a civil war even extends to the Civil War. Alabama is considering a law that would prevent local jurisdictions from removing Confederate symbols without state approval. Similar efforts were proposed but have so far failed in Virginia and Louisiana. But Southern cities have pushed back with vigor. Birmingham tried to go forward with a minimum wage law even after the state made it clear it would be overruled. Several cities in Arkansas passed ordinances despite the state law that was meant to ban them. Across Mississippi, cities, counties and public institutions have responded to the Legislature’s unwillingness to take the Confederate battle cross out of the state flag by refusing to fly the flag altogether. For decades, the cultural gap between Southern cities and cities on the East and West Coasts has been narrowing to the point where the cultural riches of a place like Oxford, Miss. — with its literary scene and high end regional cuisine — are almost taken for granted. But commerce and the Internet have pushed global sophistication into new frontiers. In Starkville, Miss. an unassuming college town that Oxford sophisticates deride with the ironic nickname “StarkVegas,” a coffee bar called serves an affogato prepared with espresso from Intelligentsia, the vaunted artisanal coffee brand. With these cultural markers have come expressions of unblushing liberalism that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. In January, Bernie Sanders drew thousands to a rally in Birmingham, Ala. Last June, after the Supreme Court affirmed the right to marriage, the city government in Knoxville, Tenn. lit up a bridge in rainbow colors. The result has been a kind of overlapping series of secessions, with states trying to safeguard themselves from national cultural trends and federal mandates, and cities increasingly trying to carve out their own places within the states. All of this exasperates conservative lawmakers like State Senator Bart Hester, an Arkansas Republican, who says he is constantly playing defense against a rapidly changing culture. “Ten years ago, no one would have ever imagined someone would have deserved protections under civil rights because they didn’t know what gender they were,” he said. His biggest frustrations, he continued, are dealing with municipalities, on everything from gay rights to taxes. “It just shocks me every day how different our opinions and basic core values are,” he said. Fourteen of the 20 metro areas in the nation between 2010 and 2015 were in the South, according to an analysis of census data by the Institute for Southern Studies. That boom has not been driven by heavy industry, but by banking, insurance, health care and, increasingly, technology. Mr. Guillory, at the University of North Carolina, noted that the companies fueling the booms are often national or global, and cannot afford to brook sentiments that even begin to smack of bigotry. “It isn’t that these cities are elevating New Deal liberalism,” he said. “It’s much more of a cultural political liberalism. It’s a different kind of mixture. ” At a rally on Wednesday at the Mississippi state Capitol, thousands came in on church buses from around the state to hear the Rev. Franklin Graham, the evangelist, inveigh against marriage and secularism. Greg Smith, 64, who had come to the rally from Tylertown, did not see any fundamental change in the fact that many Mississippians, even some Republican mayors, had come out against the new law. They just feared losing out on the almighty dollar, he said. “I think the state’s basically conservative, but we’ve let money become our god,” Mr. Smith said. Melvin Priester Jr. a member of the Jackson City Council, did not agree. “It’s a completely different world,” he said, recalling how he returned home several years ago to find artists and musicians not all that different from friends in his adopted San Francisco. “Technology has ended the isolation. ” Mr. Priester, who is black, also described how gay communities in Deep South cities have steadily gained allies among urban black leaders, many of whom had traditionally been skeptical of the gay rights movement. In Greensboro, N. C. Sharon Hightower, an council member, joined in an vote recently for a resolution condemning the state law limiting bathroom access. “We know what it’s like to be discriminated against,” she said. Still, many evangelical blacks remain hesitant to support the gamut of socially liberal causes. And indeed even some of the trendiest Southern cities have a strong traditionalist streak. The city of Chattanooga, a hub of tech activity, handily rejected an ordinance establishing domestic partner benefits in 2014 Houston voted three times for an openly gay mayor, and then last fall voted overwhelmingly against a broad ordinance. But with liberals still outnumbered in most parts of the South, some worry that the boycotts and concert cancellations by opponents of certain state laws will end up doing the most economic harm to those who despise those laws. “The people who would go to those shows from a few hours away now aren’t going to go to the restaurants, or go to the bar and drink craft beer,” said Grayson Haver Currin, an editor of a North Carolina alternative weekly. He and his wife, Tina, recently started a website encouraging artists to keep their commitments in the state, but to donate proceeds to gay rights groups. On Monday afternoon in Raleigh, Carla Merritt, a transgender woman who has felt happy and accepted in this city, watched as hundreds of evangelicals — whom she called “the real country folk” — staged a boisterous rally on the Capitol lawn in favor of the new law that includes the provision limiting transgender bathroom access. Two days later, Ms. Merritt, over lunch at a downtown cafe, said she regretted using the words “country folk. ” “That sounded bigoted,” she said, “and I certainly didn’t mean it that way. ” That evening, the Currins were in front of the residence of Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, directing protesters who were blowing air horns to object to the new law. The Currins called it their “Air Horn Orchestra” — a piercing clamor of defiance that doubled, they said, as a homage to the composers they love. | 1 |
. When Does Our Consciousness Transform From Being Purely Intuitive to Linear Thought? Rather than looking at consciousness as belonging to a child or an adult, let us look at the idea of... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/when-does-our-consciousness-transform.html Rather than looking at consciousness as belonging to a child or an adult, let us look at the idea of consciousness being both an energy and at the same time a state of being. There are two states: one state is becoming, when we use the potential, the activity and the power to change what we are at present to something else. The other state is being. We become, we are.In consciousness both these possibilities exist, of becoming and of being, and these possibilities actualize themselves when in the right environment. When we are born, our consciousness is pure, without any influences or impressions of the present day environment.That pure consciousness remains with us in our young days until the age of eight. This state of consciousness is like a sponge, it is simply absorbing everything, absorbing the information received through the senses, absorbing the information received through the interactions, absorbing the information received through the intellectual and emotional inputs.In this manner the consciousness conditions itself to survive and to exist in this material plane.Until the age of eight, the information received by the consciousness is purely intuitive. Non-linear information, non-sequential information, is received — the idea of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. A child grows in our society conditioned to believe that happiness is perpetually postponed for tomorrow.When we begin our school education, a change happens in the pattern of consciousness and we begin a sequential learning process , a linear learning process. The moment the sequential and linear learning process begins, our personality changes. We become fixed in certain ideas, that A comes before B, C follows B, and in this way an understanding is developed. That understanding is a very set understanding, and this is where the personality undergoes a major transformation in life.You can give consciousness any shape you want. The family contributes to giving shape to that consciousness. The culture in which we live, the social environment, the religious environment, the educational environment, all contribute to the formation of human consciousness.Development of consciousness in all levels — intuitive, spiritual, cultural, social, personal, psychic — happens before the age of eight, before the child actually joins the first class of primary school. The day we join the first class of primary school this development stops and linear development begins.The education received by consciousness until the age of eight is a system of impressions which superimpose themselves on consciousness. They are concepts of imprints left on the mind by experience. Many traditions and philosophies have greatly emphasized the need for greater awareness during our stages of spiritual development before the age of eight, because in your future life, when you grow up, when you are thirty or forty or sixty, you become that person. You express those qualities and habits which you imbibed before the age of eight. What you are today is what you were made before the age of eight. What you were made after the age of eight is seen in the degrees and diplomas you have in your homes, in your bags and in your workplaces. That is your qualification to survive in the world, which you received after the age of eight. But the nature, the mind and the responses of the mind, the ability to manage situations in life and to deal with people, all these abilities you gained in your childhood, in that subtle education which was imbibed by the consciousness.And it is this consciousness which has to be nurtured more and more.There is a different mind beyond the rational, intellectual mind, which we call the psychic mind, or the intuitive mind, or the higher mind. When that higher mind kicks in, the mental faculties open up and manifest. It is this nature which has to be cultivated in a child.It has been the experience of people who have been working with children for many years that the receptivity of children is much greater than that of grownups. They understand things in a different way and in a better way because their mind is not cluttered with impressions, ideas and concepts. Their mind is free. While saying a little, they understand a lot. There is the limitation that they are not able to express themselves, not able to convey what they desire or feel or need or want, but their mental frequencies are much higher than the pre-defined frequencies of grownups. Grownups function in pre-defined frequencies according to their education, but children are intuitive. The main thrust of yoga education for children is to provide them with the appropriate consciousness which can be useful for them in their lives. Classification of Consciousness Normal consciousness is classified in four compartments: Waking, dreaming, sleeping and spiritually awakened. But the consciousness of children functions at a different level, at the intuitive level, until the age of eight. So for children the classification is different. It is intuitive and awake, intuitive and dreaming, intuitive and sleeping and intuitive and creative. This is the division of consciousness in a child.That is the major difference between a child's expression of the conscious faculties and a grownup's expression of the conscious faculties. In the course of time psychologists and psychoanalysts will come to this understanding that the consciousness of children has a different set, which is the flowering spiritually awakened, the highest intuitive spiritual awareness. We have lost that intuitive ability with the sequential and linear understanding of education that we have received. So we need to move from the so-called present waking state, to being spiritually awakened. We have to learn how to become like a child again. By Swami Saraswati Dear Friends, HumansAreFree is and will always be free to access and use. If you appreciate my work, please help me continue.
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Word has reached me from Washington that the FBI has reopened the Hillary case of her violation of US National Security protocols, not because of the content of the new email releases, but because voter support for Trump seems to be overwhelming, while Hillary has cancelled appearances due to inability to muster a crowd. The popular vote leaves the FBI far out on the limb for its corrupt clearance of Hillary. The agency now has to redeem itself.
I myself do not know what precisely to think. Having been at the top of the Washington hierarchy for a quarter century, I have seen many mistaken judgments. At one time I had subpoena power over the CIA and was able to inform President Reagan that the CIA had misled him. He took note and proceeded with his policy of ending the Cold War with the Soviets. On other issues I have been mistaken, because I assumed that there was more integrity in government than actually exists.
However, FBI director Comey did not need to reopen the case against Hillary simply because some new incriminating emails appeared. Having dismissed the other incriminating evidence, these emails could have passed unremarked.
The problem for the FBI, which once was a trusted American institution, but no longer is, is that there is no longer any doubt that Donald Trump will win the popular vote for president of the United States. His appearances are so heavily attended that thousands are turned away by local fire/occupancy regulations. In contrast, Hillary has curtailed her appearances, because she doesn't draw more than 30 or 40 people.
Americans are sick to death of the corrupt Clintons and the corrupt American media. The Clintons are so completely bought-and-paid-for by the Oligarchy that they were able to outspend Hollywood on their daughter's wedding, dropping $3,000,000 on the event. - Advertisement -
Nevertheless, I don't underestimate the power of the Oligarchy. As Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury I experienced the Oligarchy's power. If I had not been backed by the President of the United States, I would have been destroyed.
Indeed, the Oligarchy is still trying to destroy me.
Possibly Trump, as his enemies allege, is just another fake, like Obama who misled the electorate. However, Trump attacks the Oligarchy so strongly that it is hard to believe that Trump isn't real. Trump is asking for a bullet like John F. Kennedy, like Robert Kennedy, like Martin Luther King, like George Wallace.
In Amerika, dissidents are exterminated.
Trump is against voting machines over which he has no control. If there are no INDEPENDENT exit polls, Trump can easily be robbed of the election, as the Texas early voting scandal indicates, with the electronic machines assigning Trump votes to Hillary. The "glitch" doesn't assign any Hillary votes to Trump. - Advertisement -
My expectation is that, unless Trump's popular vote is so overwhelming, the electoral collage vote will be stolen. Because of the absence of any valid reporting by the presstitutes, I don't know what impact the orchestrated election of Hillary would have on the electorate. Possibly, Americans will break out of The Matrix and take to the streets.
I believe that Hillary in the Oval Office would convince the Russians and the Chinese that their national survival requires a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the crazed, insane government of the United States, the complete narcissistic state that in the words of Hillary and Obama is "the exceptional, indispensable country," empowered by History to impose its will on the world. This crazed American agenda is not something that Russia and China will accept.
Here is Donald Trump speaking to Americans in words Americans have been waiting to hear. Notice that Trump doesn't need teleprompters.
I do not agree with Trump on many issues, but the American people do. For me and for the world, the importance of Trump is the prospect of peace with Russia. Nuclear war makes every other problem irrelevant. | 0 |
Here's something interesting from The Unz Review... Recipient Name Recipient Email =>
The American electorate’s preference for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders has established two facts. One is that the majority of the American people do not believe the media presstitutes. The other is that only the “progressives” and “liberals” who inhabit the Atlantic Northeast and Pacific West coasts believe the presstitutes.
Trump’s election to the presidency has confirmed these holier-than-thou souls in their strongly held belief that America is a white trash racist country. They have told us this all day long today.
From these people and from the presstitutes we hear that white supremacy elected Trump. This is their propaganda, the intention of which is to discredit a Trump administration before it is inaugerated. Funny how white supremacy elected black Obama twice previously.
Truthout has lost it completely. John Knefel declares “The David Dukes of the World Prevail.”
Kelly Hayes declares “White Supremacy Elected Donald Trump.”
William Rivers Pitt declares “We have elected a fascist that Mussolini would have recognized on sight.”
Hillary carried only a handful of states, the states that comprise the One Percent’s stomping grounds. Yet Amy Goodman of Democracy Now sees meaning in political writer John Nichols claim that as Hillary carried New York and California, she won the popular vote and should be in the White House. I remember a few days ago George Soros saying that Trump would win the popular vote, but that the electoral vote would go to Hillary, thus ridding the oligarchs of Trump.
Earth Justice promises to hold Trump accountable. Trump who promises to end the threat of nuclear war with Russia and China, thereby doing more to save animal and human life than the entirety of the Democratic Party and environmental organizations, is going to be held accountable by an organization that allegedly is beyond politics and is dedicated to preserving animals from destruction.
The ACLU, of which I am a member, has also put “on notice” the president-elect who has said he will save us from nuclear war. Faced with this idiocy from the ACLU, I will not renew my membership.
Feminists tell us that we are “grieving, scared, and in shock,” and that “it is critical that we stand together and support each other.”
Jeremy Ben-Ami of the J Street Jewish Community tells us that it is “an incredibly sad and difficult day. For tens of millions of Americans who share a core belief in tolerance, decency and social justice, the election results are a severe shock. In this challenging moment, we turn to one another for comfort and community. During this election, J Street made unequivocally clear our conviction that Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States.”
Van Jones, a CNN commentator, said that Trump’s election is a nightmare, “a deeply painful moment,” a “whitelash” against minorities. While he bemoaned the pain inflicted upon poor little presstitute Van Jones, he didn’t mind insulting the American electorate and the President-elect of the United States. After all, Van Jones sees that as his racist prerogative.
And so, the holier-than-thou crowd prefers Hillary, despite her unambigious position that she would maximize conflict with Russia and China, provoke direct military conflict between the US and Russia by imposing a no-fly zone in Syria, attack Iran and other of Israel’s targets, further enrich her Wall Street handlers by privatizing Social Security, and prevent any dissent from the lowly people class of her high-handed ways. If William Rivers Pitt sees Trump as a Mussolini fascist, Trump is too mild for Pitt. He prefers Hillary, a Hitler to the third power.
The progressives have totally discredited themselves just as the presstitutes have done. Their need for a bogyman to nourish their hysteria indicates serious psychological disturbance. They actually prefer the risk of Armageddon to peace among nuclear powers. As their 501(c)3s live off corporate contributions, they prefer globalist corporate profits to jobs for ordinary Americans.
These are the people who think of themselves as our instructors and our betters.
If only Trump could exile the lot of them. They are anti-American to the core. (Reprinted from PaulCraigRoberts.org by permission of author or representative) | 0 |
(AP) — French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen envisions the protective hand of the state guiding a reordered economy that punishes companies that fail to serve the interests of the nation and rewards those that put France first. [advertisement | 1 |
It’s raining in California. Again. A storm system hitting north and central California on Monday and Tuesday will deliver two to three inches of rain to the Central Valley, and up to 10 inches of rain to the mountains, said Eric Kurth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. The service has issued a flood warning through Wednesday across most of the Sacramento River Valley and the surrounding areas. It is the latest in a string of storms this winter that have dropped an unusually high amount of water on the state, which had spent more than five years under dire drought conditions. “On its own, this system wouldn’t be much of a concern,” Mr. Kurth said. “But we have elevated stream levels, river levels. We are seeing some of the rivers up at flood levels. ” Last week, more than 180, 000 residents were ordered to evacuate from below the Oroville Dam when a damaged emergency spillway and a swollen reservoir raised concerns about a collapse. Crews rushed to fix the damaged embankment at the dam, 70 miles north of Sacramento, and to prepare it for more rain. On Saturday, a storm with winds near hurricane strength swept through Southern California, killing at least two people, flooding roads and triggering mudslides. A sinkhole in Studio City swallowed a car. Interstate 5 in the central Sacramento Valley was flooded briefly over the weekend. “That was an area that typically we don’t see much flooding,” Mr. Kurth said. “But things are so saturated. ” Across the northern part of the state, swollen rivers were lapping over their banks and reservoirs were close to flood stage. The National Weather Service reported nearly a dozen rivers were at their flood stage on Sunday. The San Joaquin River was at “danger stage” on Sunday and nearing the top of its levees at a measuring station near Vernalis, Tim Daly, a spokesman with San Joaquin County Office of Emergency Services, told The Associated Press. In Colusa County, about 60 miles north of Sacramento, Jim Saso, the assistant sheriff, told The A. P. that he was warning residents to be prepared for evacuation. “We’re telling those people to keep a bag close by and get ready to leave again,” he said. The Don Pedro Reservoir in Tuolumne County, southeast of Sacramento, was at 826 feet on Sunday — four feet below its flood level, CBS 13 reported. Authorities were preparing to release water through its spillway as early as Monday afternoon, the first time in 20 years that would have happened, CBS 13 said. The ultimate effect of the storm depends on how much of the moisture lands as rain in the valleys as opposed to snow higher up in the mountains, Mr. Kurth said. “That set of storms previously that brought a lot of trouble, the issues with the Oroville Dam, that system was very warm,” he said. This storm is not quite as warm, meaning that some of the higher amounts of moisture could be in the form of snow in the mountains and would not affect the rivers immediately. “If we get water locked up in the form of snowpack and that stays through the spring, we get a gradual water flow into the spring months and maybe into the summer,” he said. “If we get it all in the form of rain, maybe like those other storms, it’s all running down into the streams and maybe into the rivers causing some flooding. ” “We do need water. Water is good. But it’s better in the form of snow,” he said. This latest storm is what’s called an “atmospheric river” — a weather event more commonly known as the “pineapple express. ” It is moist tropical air from the central Pacific trapped in a band between different pressure systems, Mr. Kurth said. When it hits California, it unleashes a high amount of rain. “It’s like a fire hose of moisture when we get these atmospheric rivers,” he said. An atmospheric river is not especially unusual. “We usually get a couple every year,” he said. “On average we get maybe three to five or so. This year we’ve gotten quite a few more. ” How many more? “More than a dozen prior to this one,” he said. This storm also brings “pretty strong winds,” which could potentially top 60 miles an hour on Monday evening, Mr. Kurth said. The wind, when combined with the oversaturated ground, means that trees tend to topple more frequently — and when they do, they often take powers lines with them. Or they fall across highways, snarling traffic in regions that were spared flooding. ”I’ve seen more of that this year than I’ve ever seen by far,” Mr. Kurth said. The saturation also leaves areas vulnerable to mudslides. “Major arteries over the Sierras have been blocked for long periods of time, and I expect we’ll see much more of that today, too,” he said. California has been in a drought for more than five years, resulting in mandatory conservation. Reservoirs were parched, and the snowpack that helps feed the state’s rivers and streams with its spring thaw had been nearly nonexistent at times. But this year has brought a tremendous amount of rain and snow, and that has helped. “You would be to say we have a surface water drought right now,” Jay Lund, a water expert at the University of California, Davis, told The New York Times last week. Aided by the recent storms, the snowpack for the central Sierra mountains was at 182 percent of its normal level on Sunday. And the United States Drought Monitor reported that nearly 44 percent of the state was free of a drought warning last week, compared to less than 1 percent at this time a year ago. But that still leaves more than 20 million people that it estimates are living in an area affected by drought, the monitor reported. The brunt of this storm will hit on Monday and Tuesday, Mr. Kurth said, with showers continuing on Wednesday. Thursday will be “relatively dry,” he said, but warned of another potential storm arriving on Friday or Saturday. “We’re not going to see a real period. Maybe just a day or two,” he said. | 1 |
A deer that went from being a minor celebrity in Harlem to a cause célèbre after its capture, died in captivity on Friday, moments before it was to be driven upstate and released. The preliminary causes of death, according to a New York City parks spokesman, were stress and the day and a half that the deer spent at a city animal shelter in East Harlem. But that did not begin to tell the absurd tale of how the buck, known as J. R. for Jackie Robinson, and Lefty, because of his crumpled left antler, came to die. The deer had become the latest and most unlikely casualty of the feud between Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, an animosity that has manifested itself mostly on big issues like education, safety at homeless shelters and funding mass transit. But the tussle over the deer was extraordinary even by the standards set by Mr. Cuomo and Mr. de Blasio. All day Thursday and into Friday, the city and state issued competing and sometimes updates on the deer and what should be done with him. The buck had spent two weeks attracting adoring, crowds at Jackie Robinson Park, where he often was seen near a fence across the street from a bodega. How he traveled to a park in the middle of a crowded Manhattan neighborhood remains unclear. Around 4 a. m. Thursday, the buck jumped a fence into the courtyard of the Polo Grounds Towers, a public housing complex north of the park. The police were called, and they tranquilized and captured him, calling him a danger to traffic and public safety. The city announced plans on Thursday afternoon to kill the deer, citing advice from state wildlife officials. But that evening, Mr. Cuomo offered to help the city move the deer, despite the state’s policy not to issue permits to relocate deer “because acceptable release sites are not available and because the poor chances for deer survival do not warrant the risks. ” The city initially spurned the governor’s offer, saying that after the deer’s time in captivity, it would not be able to survive. “If a deer is already in a natural location and you can leave them there, then they have a chance of survival, but if not, you don’t really have another option,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said on the Brian Lehrer radio show on Friday morning. “It’s a question of is it going to be a quick and merciful death versus potentially a very long painful process. ” But Mr. Cuomo then took to Twitter, posting a statement from the state Department of Environmental Conservation saying, “We want to do everything we can to save the Harlem deer. ” And just before noon came word that officials from the conservation department were coming to get the deer, and that the city would not stand in the way. After it looked like the deer might live, allies of the mayor and governor took the opportunity to throw a few jabs. “Bureaucracy lost,” Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for the governor, wrote on Twitter. “Andrew Cuomo is an idiot,” posted Bill Hyers, who managed Mr. de Blasio’s 2013 mayoral campaign. For Mr. de Blasio’s supporters, the state’s intervention seemed to be yet another instance of Mr. Cuomo’s penchant for attempting to outmaneuver and undermine Mr. de Blasio on his own turf. Last year, for example, Mr. Cuomo took credit for bringing universal to the city, one of the mayor’s signature programs. Mr. Cuomo directed a campaign to support protections for charter schools even as Mr. de Blasio was pledging to cut their space. The mayor has accused the governor of a “vendetta” against him. The life of one deer is not normally something the state values highly. Deer have overrun the state in recent years, including on Staten Island, where the animals now numbers many hundreds and regularly cause car accidents. The state endorses various plans to reduce the deer population, including “bait and shoot,” and last year, New York State hunters legally killed more than 200, 000 deer. Nor is Mr. Cuomo personally opposed to the killing of wild animals. He is an avid outdoorsman and sometime pheasant hunter. (Then again, Mayor de Blasio has not had an exemplary track record with animals his encounter with a groundhog in 2014 did not end well.) But the Harlem deer was no ordinary deer. He was beloved, a gift to a beleaguered city, a surrogate reindeer camped out just a block from St. Nicholas Avenue. As he languished on death row on Thursday, the outcry for him to be saved grew louder. And the barrage of statements from the city and state took on a confounding, quality. The deer could not be moved out of densely populated Harlem — “Bottom line is the options are release back into Harlem or euthanasia,” a state biologist wrote to a city parks official Thursday afternoon — until suddenly he could. He could not be moved across county lines, then he could. The deer was condemned to die, then he was not, then he was, then he was not. For a few surreal minutes Thursday night, the deer, like Schrödinger’s cat, was both alive and dead, with a city official insisting he had already been euthanized and the state insisting he had not. Then, just before 2 p. m. with workers from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the federal Department of Agriculture gathering at the Animal Care Centers of NYC shelter on East 110th Street, a city parks spokesman announced that the deer had died. The spokesman, Sam Biederman, blamed the state. “Unfortunately because of the time we had to wait for D. E. C. to come and transport the deer, the deer has perished,” he told reporters, adding that the city had wanted to euthanize the deer all along. “This was an animal that was under a great deal of stress for the past 24 hours and had been tranquilized for much of that time. ” The state, naturally, blamed the delay on the city. “We offered yesterday to take possession of the deer and transport it to a suitable habitat,” the Environmental Conservation Department said in a statement. “The city did not accept our offer until just before noon today, and while we were arriving on scene the deer died in the city’s possession. ” After Mr. Biederman’s brief news conference in front of the shelter, a worker from the shelter came into the lobby, seemingly exhausted. “It’s been a long day,” she said. | 1 |
— The Sun (@TheSun) 23. November 2016 Laut Ferrero stehe jedoch schon immer klar, transparent und sichtbar auf der Verpackung der Produkte "Schokolade", "Country", "Bueno", "Riegel", "Joy", "Schoko-Bons" oder "Happy Hippo Snacks" ein Hinweis darauf, dass - wie bei den meisten anderen Schokoladeherstellern auch - Kinder in die Herstellung involviert sind. "Und zwar in großen bunten Lettern direkt über dem eigentlichen Produktnamen", heißt es weiter. "Auf 'Schokolade' ist sogar der Vorarbeiter einer unserer Kakaoplantagen an der Elfenbeinküste abgebildet." Die niedrigen Kosten von Kinderarbeit und das große Geschick kleiner Hände bei der Kakao-Ernte wirke sich demnach positiv auf die Qualität aus und komme letztendlich den Kunden zugute. "Wir sind stolz auf jeden einzelnen unserer Kinderarbeiter." Dennoch sei man bei Ferrero aufgrund der aktuellen Empörung nachdenklich geworden. "Wir versuchen künftig, bei der Herstellung von Überraschung weniger auf Kinderarbeit zu setzen. Bereits ab kommendem Jahr soll jedes siebte Überraschungsei in regulärer Erwachsenenarbeit hergestellt werden und unter dem Namen "Erwachsenen Überraschung" erhältlich sein. ssi, dan | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump said on Sunday that he had fallen short in the popular vote in the general election only because millions of people had voted illegally, leveling the baseless claim as part of a daylong storm of Twitter posts voicing anger about a recount push. “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally,” Mr. Trump wrote Sunday afternoon. The series of posts came one day after Hillary Clinton’s campaign said it would participate in a recount effort being undertaken in Wisconsin, and potentially in similar pushes in Michigan and Pennsylvania, by Jill Stein, who was the Green Party candidate. Mr. Trump’s statements revived claims he made during the campaign, as polls suggested he was losing to Mrs. Clinton, about a rigged and corrupt system. The Twitter outburst also came as Mr. Trump is laboring to fill crucial positions in his cabinet, with his advisers enmeshed in a rift over whom he should select as secretary of state. On Sunday morning, Kellyanne Conway, a top adviser, extended a public campaign to undermine one contender, Mitt Romney — a remarkable display by a member of a ’s team. In television appearances, she accused Mr. Romney of having gone “out of his way to hurt” Mr. Trump during the Republican primary contests. Claims of voter fraud have been advanced for years by Republicans, though virtually no evidence of such improprieties has been discovered — especially on the scale of “millions” that Mr. Trump claimed. Late on Sunday, again without providing evidence, he referred in a Twitter post to “serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California. ” A day earlier, Mr. Trump’s transition team ridiculed the idea that recounts were needed. “This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded,” it said in a statement, “and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused. ” That message runs counter to the one Mr. Trump sent on Sunday with his fraud claims — if millions of people voted illegally, presumably officials across the country would want to pursue ballot recounts and fraud investigations. But the Twitter posts could energize some of his supporters, who have claimed online that Mrs. Clinton’s two lead in the popular vote has been faked. Mr. Trump at times promoted other conspiracy theories during the campaign, including claiming that Senator Ted Cruz’s father was somehow tied to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Many of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters have been galvanized by the notion that vote recounts in the three states — where Mr. Trump leads by a combined total of about 100, 000 votes — could somehow overturn Mr. Trump’s commanding Electoral College victory. By announcing, three weeks after Mrs. Clinton conceded, that it would participate in the Wisconsin recount, her team has helped reignite the contentious atmosphere of the campaign, of which Mr. Trump’s Twitter barrages were a fixture. (By all accounts, Mr. Trump types out many, though not all, of his own Twitter posts.) After spending almost five days in Palm Beach, Fla. where he celebrated Thanksgiving at his resort, Mr. Trump made no public statements on Sunday other than those via Twitter. He returned in the afternoon to Trump Tower in Manhattan. Through the day, Mr. Trump appeared fixated on the recount and his electoral performance. In a series of midafternoon Twitter posts, not long before he boarded his flight, Mr. Trump boasted that he could have easily won the “ popular vote” if he had campaigned only in “3 or 4” states, presumably populous ones. “I would have won even more easily and convincingly (but smaller states are forgotten)!” he wrote. The afternoon messages followed a string of Twitter posts in which Mr. Trump railed against the recount efforts. In an initial post at 7:19, he wrote: “Hillary Clinton conceded the election when she called me just prior to the victory speech and after the results were in. Nothing will change. ” He went on to quote a comment by Mrs. Clinton during one of their debates, in which she said she was horrified by Mr. Trump’s refusal to say that he would accept the outcome of the election. And he noted that in her concession speech, she had urged people to respect the vote results. “‘We have to accept the results and look to the future, Donald Trump is going to be our President,’” Mr. Trump wrote, quoting Mrs. Clinton. One person who spoke with Mr. Trump over the holiday weekend said the had appeared to be preoccupied by suggestions that a recount might be started, even as his aides played down any concerns. Another friend said Mr. Trump felt crossed by Mrs. Clinton, who he believed had conceded the race and accepted the results. In a post on Medium, Marc Elias, the Clinton team’s general counsel, said the campaign would participate in Ms. Stein’s recount effort with little expectation that it would change the result, partly out of a sense of duty to the millions who voted for Mrs. Clinton. “We do so fully aware that the number of votes separating Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the closest of these states — Michigan — well exceeds the largest margin ever overcome in a recount,” Mr. Elias said, noting that Clinton campaign officials had found no “actionable evidence” of hacking or attempts to tamper with the vote. Late Sunday night, Mr. Elias responded on Twitter to Mr. Trump’s allegations, writing, “We are getting attacked for participating in a recount that we didn’t ask for by the man who won election but thinks there was massive fraud. ” In Wisconsin, Mr. Trump leads by 22, 177 votes. In Michigan, he has a lead of 10, 704 votes, and in Pennsylvania, his advantage is 70, 638 votes. Mr. Trump’s aides echoed his concerns about the recount effort in appearances on Sunday morning television news programs. Ms. Conway, who was his campaign manager, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Mrs. Clinton and her campaign advisers would have to decide “whether they’re going to be a bunch of crybabies. ” As for the debate over Mr. Romney, Ms. Conway, echoing comments she posted last week on Twitter, made clear that she opposed choosing Mr. Romney as secretary of state. “There was the ‘Never Trump’ movement, and then there was Gov. Mitt Romney,” she said on ABC. During the primaries, Mr. Romney called Mr. Trump a “fraud” and a “phony. ” Ms. Conway said it was important for Mr. Trump to seek to unify the Republican Party by making gestures to those who opposed his candidacy. But, she added, “I don’t think the cost of party unity has to be the secretary of state position. ” Moments after appearing on the show, Ms. Conway, who is under consideration to be Mr. Trump’s press secretary, wrote on Twitter that she had told Mr. Trump her opinion privately, “and I’ll respect his decision. ” On “Meet the Press,” she said people felt “betrayed” by the idea that Mr. Romney could get a top cabinet job. “I’m not campaigning against anyone,” she said. “I’m just a concerned citizen. ” “We don’t even know if he voted for Donald Trump,” she added. | 1 |
Column: Politics Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is heading a controversial campaign against crime, embodied in his “war on drugs” which has led to violence spanning the nation’s troubled urban centers. President Duterte’s comments have ranged from reasonable, to utterly indifferent regarding fears of extrajudicial executions, vigilantism, and very real human rights abuses – opening a door of opportunity for his political opponents both at home and abroad. President Duterte’s inability to clearly condemn extrajudicial executions and vigilante violence, along with his inflammatory, provocative, even dangerously demagogic statements both invites further abuses, as well as both legitimate and opportunistic criticism of him, his administration, and his policies. While legitimate criticism is both necessary and justified, it is undermined by disingenuous political opportunism, wielded by hypocrites who only stand to compound the Philippines’ current crisis, not solve it. America the Humane? Among President Duterte’s more opportunistic political opponents is the United States. While the United States would otherwise be justified and morally grounded in its criticism of President Duterte’s administration, there are some current and past complications that reveal such criticism as stark hypocrisy, crass opportunism, and even the cynical political exploitation of abuse, rather than any genuine attempt to constructively address or stop it. The most recent manifestation of America’s feigned concern regarding the Philippines’ ongoing campaign against accused illicit narcotic dealers was the blocking of a shipment of US-made rifles destined for Philippine police units. Some 26,000 rifles were on order before being blocked by the US Senate based on “concerns about human rights violations.” These concerns, however, have not prevented the US from selling billions of dollars worth of weapons, including warplanes, munitions, tanks, and helicopters to Saudi Arabia, who is using this vast US-made arsenal to oppress its own people and execute a war of aggression against neighboring Yemen. Saudi Arabia is also admittedly involved in arming and funding terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq, including with US-made weapons – particularly anti-tank TOW missiles. This hypocrisy exposes US “concerns” as merely politically motivated, designed to put pressure on Manila in an effort to reassert US influence over the Southeast Asian state. Not only has the US previously enjoyed greater influence over the Philippines since the end of World War II, but before the war, and for half a century, the United States literally controlled the Philippines as a US territory. It seized the Philippines in a bloody 1899-1902 war that claimed the lives of over a quarter of a million people ( some sources estimate over half a million ), and initiated an occupation marked by brutality, oppression, and torture, including the introduction of water boarding (then called “water curing”) conducted by the US as a means of attitude adjustment for local Philippine leaders. It is ironic and telling that both water boarding and attempts by the US to maintain influence over the Philippines both persist to this day. Attempts by the US to predicate its desire to control Manila on “concerns about human rights violations” not only is bitterly ironic, it undermines those genuinely attempting to expose and stop real abuses taking place amid the Philippines’ current crisis. President Duterte has been able to insulate himself from criticism precisely because of US hypocrisy and meddling. Had independent, local activists and media platforms – networked with regional and international organizations – attempted to expose and rein in President Duterte’s anti-crime campaign, it would have been immeasurably more difficult to dismiss the facts and continue with impunity. The US has in essence discredited genuine human rights concerns by hijacking them for self-serving political objectives. Extrajudicial executions, vigilante violence, and President Duterte’s indifference, even defense of both, needs to be opposed – but by the people of the Philippines – not disingenuous, exploitative, and self-serving foreign interests who are not only notorious human rights abusers today – worldwide – but who have carried out campaigns of extermination, torture, and human rights abuses in the Philippines itself, as a foreign conqueror and occupier. For President Duterte, it is more than possible for him to lead a more dignified and just campaign against criminals operating across the Philippines. Nations like Singapore have used stern, popular, but legitimate judicial measures to rein in the drug trade and organized crime, so can the Philippines. Doing so would close this door of opportunity President Duterte himself opened to the Americans, and leaves open with his current policies. Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “ New Eastern Outlook. ” Popular Articles | 0 |
On Tuesday, an election volunteer was injured at a polling location at Collin College in Plano, TX when he was sliced by box-cutter blades intentionally planted in a Trump/Pence sign.
Collin College spokeswoman Lisa Vasquez said in a statement:
“The man stopped as he left the campus to help re-position the sign to the correct location because it was blocking the official polling site sign. When he did so, box-cutter blades attached to the Trump-Pence sign cut his hands.”
Steve Spainhouer, Collin County Democratic Campaign Chair, told reporters at KTVT that the incident was “deplorable.”
“It just shows how far we have come in politics where people want to be so mean and so hateful to try and injure somebody who’s probably not got any political party persuasion one way or the other.
I think most people have already made their minds up at this point how they’re going to vote and so there’s nothing to gain by being mean spirited or hateful.”
Thankfully, the injured poll worker was not seriously hurt, but this could have been much worse. Clearly, the people who did this have listened to Trump’s violent rhetoric — they knew putting a razor blade in a misplaced sign was dangerous. And in placing the sign in the wrong place, they deliberately injured someone.
Texas Rangers are investigating the incident. Let’s hope they find the people/person who did this.
Watch the full report via KTVT here:
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Sunday on Fox News Channel’s “MediaBuzz,” counselor for President for Donald Trump Kellyanne Conway blasted the “haters,” who use sexism to unfairly criticize her. “Sometimes I’m up on FaceTime until midnight helping with slide presentations or reviewing the spelling list,” she said. “And that’s the answer as to why I look haggard too, you haters. I’m helping with math and I’m proud of it. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
There is evidence out there, supporting that cannabis oil destroys cancer , cures severe epilepsy , treats muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis, and saves lives . The National Cancer Institute has admitted cannabis oil kills cancer cells . It is widely acknowledged that natural compounds of the cannabis — a plant that the use, sale, and possession of is still illegal in the United States — can prevent, treat and manage inflammation; neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis; brain disorders such as epilepsy; lifestyle related diseases such as diabetes and cancer; chronic liver diseases such as liver cirrhosis; and medical conditions such as fibromyalgia.
Meanwhile, experts have come forward to make a strong case for eating unheated raw cannabis for maximum health benefits. While smoked or vaporized cannabis can be used as a medicinal therapy, they claim, eating raw cannabis can help prevent health issues from arising altogether — without psychoactive effect.
Dr. William Courtney, a California-based physician and a dietary raw cannabis specialist , says we are actually walking away from 99% of the benefits cannabis provides when we cook or smoke cannabis. He explains:
“In its raw form, the cannabis plant contains both THCA (Tetra Hydro Cannabinolic-Acid) and CBDA (Cannabidiolic-Acid), two cannabinoids known for their medicinal benefits; each of which must be heated in order to produce THC and CBD, respectively. Only when you decarboxylate THCA, turning it into THC, does it cause psychoactive effects or “the high” most associated with smoking cannabis.
“Additionally, the body is able to tolerate larger dosages of cannabinoids when cannabis is consumed in the raw form. This is because when you smoke cannabis, the THC actually acts as a CB1 receptor agonist and your body can only absorb 10 mg at a time.
“If you don’t heat cannabis, you can go up to five or six hundred milligrams and use the plant strictly as a dietary supplement by upping the anti-oxidant and neuro-protective levels which come into play at hundreds of milligrams of CBDA and THCA. It is this dramatic increase in dose from 10 mg of psychoactive THC to the 500 mg – 1,000 mg of non-psychoactive THCA, CBDA, and CBGA that comprises the primary difference between traditional medical cannabis treatments and using cannabis as a dietary supplement.”
It is no secret that cannabis contains a wealth of nutrients , proteins, vitamins, terpenes, Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, essential amino acids, and antioxidants. When eaten raw, our body is able to process much larger amounts of THCA and CBDA — which possess anti-inflammatory properties, anti-diabetic properties, and anti-ischemic properties — and converts these cannabinoid acids — linked to the prevention of chronic diseases such as migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, glaucoma, and fibromyalgia — into essential nutrients through its metabolism. | 0 |
OAKLAND, Calif. — The Golden State Warriors entered the N. B. A. playoffs having spent months chasing basketball magic. As they overwhelmed a conga line of opponents, the Warriors went about the uncharitable business of obliterating records, each new number more impressive than the last. Yet the Warriors have remained aware that all their feats would be meaningless without an opportunity to vie for another championship, their victories consigned to the dustbin of near renown, their records reduced to footnotes of almost greatness. They have always wanted the whole package: the wins, the records and the trophy. Golden State sustained the dream on Monday by defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder, in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals at Oracle Arena. The Warriors, the defending champions, are bound for the N. B. A. finals, where they will face the Cleveland Cavaliers for the second straight year. Game 1 is here on Thursday. “You appreciate how tough it is to get back here,” said Stephen Curry, who led the Warriors with 36 points. “That’s the one thing I’ve learned. ” Of all the Warriors’ accomplishments, this one may have been the most impressive. They had to win the final three games of the series to outlast the Thunder, whose miscues — missed shots, turnovers and wasted chances to advance — could haunt the franchise for years to come. Curry shot 13 of 24 from the field and made seven . Klay Thompson, his companion in the backcourt, added 21 points, including six 3s. The Warriors shot 17 of 37 from the line. They also set an N. B. A. record for in a series with 90, and Curry broke the individual record by sinking 32. (Yes, two more records. Big surprise.) In the series finale, the Warriors trailed by as many as 13 points in the first half before overtaking the Thunder in the third quarter. Golden State conjured its usual brand of basketball sorcery, draining and flying for dunks. When the Thunder threatened late in the fourth, whittling the lead to 4 on a short jumper by Kevin Durant, Curry emerged. With the shot clock set to expire, Curry sold Serge Ibaka, his defender, on a pump fake and drew a foul as he launched a . Curry made all three free throws. “That kind of hurt us,” Durant said, adding: “But hey, it’s a lot of . We could have said a lot throughout the whole playoffs. ” Curry sealed the win with another . As the final buzzer sounded and confetti fell around him, he cradled the ball with his left arm and pumped his right fist. “I knew we were ready for the moment,” Curry said. “We were a mature basketball team that tried our best not to listen to the noise when, six or seven days ago, we were down, and everybody thought the wheels were falling off and it was kind of the end of our run. But in that locker room, the talk was positive. It was ‘Let’s figure it out.’ ” Durant scored 27 points on shooting for the Thunder, and Russell Westbrook collected 19 points, 13 assists and 7 rebounds. Both players supplied huge minutes throughout the series — Durant played 46 minutes in Game 7, Westbrook 45 — and each suffered by the end. Fair or not, the loss also opened the door to a flood of questions about Durant, who is due for free agency at the start of July. Will he stay or will he go? “I mean, we just lost, like, 30 minutes ago, so I haven’t even though about it,” Durant said. “I’m just embracing my teammates and just reflecting on the season. ” The Warriors survived injuries, the antics of Draymond Green and three elimination games against the Thunder, including one in Oklahoma City. On Saturday, the Warriors erased a deficit to win Game 6, ensuring Monday’s finale. Kerr made one significant change for Game 7 by starting Andre Iguodala instead of Harrison Barnes. Iguodala, a versatile defender, shed his attached himself to Durant and wound up playing 43 minutes. “He’s going to need some good treatment tomorrow, for sure,” Curry said. Early on, the Warriors labored with their shooting. After having scored 41 points in Game 6, Thompson missed his first seven attempts in Game 7. Even after Thompson found his rhythm, hitting three in a span of less than 2 minutes, the Thunder took a lead into halftime. In the third quarter, Curry made consecutive — the first to tie the game, the second to give the Warriors the lead. Later, after Durant bricked a attempt, the Warriors raced the other way. Shaun Livingston, the team’s backup point guard, absorbed contact as he soared for a dunk, his play pushing the lead to 6. The Warriors did not trail again. “It was an emotional play,” Kerr said. “Our bench was into it, and it seemed to pick up our intensity that much more. ” In the finals, the Warriors will reacquaint themselves with the Cavaliers and their old friend LeBron James. Last season, with the Cavaliers hindered by injuries to Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, the Warriors clinched the series in six games. But Love and Irving are healthy, and the Cavaliers have been resting at home since they got past the Toronto Raptors in the Eastern Conference finals last week. It was no easy road to the finals for Warriors, who have been stretching themselves since the start of the season. They won their first 24 games to set an N. B. A. record, but their seasonlong pursuit of the Chicago Bulls for the best record in N. B. A. history seemed to take an emotional and physical toll. At the start of playoffs, the Warriors flirted with disaster. Curry sprained his right ankle in the first game of their series with the Houston Rockets, then sprained his right knee three games later. After missing about two weeks, Curry returned to help carry the Warriors past the Portland Trail Blazers in the second round. “I think anytime you go through a long postseason, you grow,” Kerr said. “The experience is incredibly valuable. ” But with their length and shotmaking prowess, the Thunder were a far greater challenge, especially when they dealt the Warriors blowout losses in Games 3 and 4. The Thunder could sense the delicious possibilities, one win separating them from the finals. The Warriors’ dream season teetered on the edge. On the team plane back to Oakland after Game 4, Green sat with Thompson, Curry and Andrew Bogut at a small table. They discussed their predicament. “We just kept talking about what we needed to do and what we were going to do,” Green recalled. On Monday, the Warriors proved once again that they are more than mere showmen. After a season spent chasing the impossible, they are four wins from making it real. | 1 |
The best cigarette you will ever smoke, Gregor Hens writes in his new memoir, “Nicotine,” is the relapse cigarette. It tastes better, he adds, “the longer the prior abstinence. ” This is dangerous knowledge. More than a few smokers relapsed after Sept. 11. Others did after the recent presidential election, as if heeding the poet James Dickey’s dictum that “guilt is magical. ” Some of us barely keep the urge at bay. There’s a dark sliver in a former smoker’s mind that for dire events, so as to justify lighting up again. But it’s not as if we need large cues, Mr. Hens writes, when small ones will do. “Every form of cigarette ad gives me a pang of longing, every carelessly cigarette packet at a bus stop, every cigarette butt, every beautiful woman holding a cigarette between her fingers or just looking like she could be holding one,” he writes. “My reading chair in Columbus gives me a pang, and M. ’s balcony in Berlin, and my old Jeep because I’ve smoked some of the best cigarettes while driving. ” Mr. Hens is a German writer and translator who has lived and taught in the United States. “Nicotine” is the first of his own books to be issued in English. It’s a hybrid volume: part memoir, part philosophical lament. It doesn’t always click. There are passages (“I saw myself as a part of a field of tension”) that, in this translation by Jen Calleja, veer close to psychobabble. But when “Nicotine” stays dry, earthy and combustible, like a Virginia tobacco blend, it has a lot to say and says it well. The author does not resemble your idea of a former serious smoker. There Mr. Hens is, and dimpled, in his author photo on the back flap. He looks as if he were ready to bag organic carrots during his weekend stint at the food . Indeed, he writes, he is a serious cyclist, a participant in triathlons and a member of the German Alpine Association. He’s been a health nut all along, at least in between long bouts of smoking. I can’t decide if this is suspicious or insane, like that famous photograph of the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson, taking a deep drag on a cigarette in the locker room during halftime of Super Bowl I in 1967. “I’ve smoked well over a hundred thousand cigarettes in my life, and each one of those cigarettes meant something to me,” Mr. Hens writes. He goes on: “I’ve smoked cold cigarette butts, cigars, cigarillos, bidis, kreteks, spliffs and straw. I’ve missed flights because of cigarettes and burnt holes in trousers and car seats. I’ve singed my eyelashes and eyebrows, fallen asleep while smoking and dreamt of cigarettes — of relapses and fires and bitter withdrawal. ” He sees this book as a chance finally to put the urge behind him, to comprehend it, seal it and bury it. He writes about his childhood. His father smoked so much that the author thought smoking was the older man’s job. His mother, a stylish woman who drove a Range Rover, smoked more when she was depressed. There’s a faded romance in the European brand names of the cigarettes he or his family members smoked: Finas Kyriazi Frères Kims Murattis filterless Senior Services Erntes Van Nelle Halfzwares. This book takes us to unusual and evocative locations, too, such as the Frisian island of Borkum. Mr. Hens recounts a drive to the German city of Balderschwang, which sounds like a word an American politician would utter when something livelier than “poppycock” was required. He is especially good on how those who quit become vicarious smokers. “Sometimes I walk around the city and imagine that others are smoking on my behalf,” he writes. “I silently thank the smokers in front of the cafes and office buildings and in smoking areas, imagining that they do it for me, for my inner contentment. I have people smoke for me. ” Like any author worth reading, Mr. Hens is sometimes best when he goes dispatching obiter dicta. He is brutal about the Midwest. (“The most insignificant city in the United States is Columbus, Ohio. ”) He’s interesting about aphorisms and our need to attach them, usually erroneously, to famous people. He considers how often we utter the phrase “no worries” when, in fact, we are murderously aggrieved. He charts the passing of time by noting how the white tennis balls of his youth have become neon green. This book is not a deep dive into smoking and literature, or into smoking and films. He doesn’t go out of his way to conjure the romance of two lit cigarettes and a corner table. “Nicotine” mostly omits the social pleasures of smoking. Mr. Hens is, with a metaphorical carton of American Spirits under his arm, a smoking section of one. His lapidary prose will sometimes put you in mind of the Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard’s, though Mr. Knausgaard is generally more penetrating. The small photographs in “Nicotine” recall the images in some of W. G. Sebald’s books. This edition of “Nicotine” includes an introduction by the English writer Will Self that belongs in the hall of fame of bad introductions. Mr. Self (never has his name seemed so apt) tries to Mr. Hens by bragging at length about his own peerless nicotine addiction. This introduction is profitably torn out, the way smokers of unfiltered cigarettes tear the filters from Marlboros. This seems like the place to mention that Mr. Hens compares the cottony insides of a cigarette filter, perfectly, to “artichoke hair. ” Someday, surely, smoking will be outlawed. Who will smoke the last unfiltered Camel? Some of us who quit years ago like to imagine that we will start again at the end of our lives. We agree with the English writer Charles Lamb, who hoped that “the last breath I draw in this world will be through a pipe, and exhaled in a pun. ” | 1 |
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The increasing symbiosis between the political and the leading mainstream media of the Western world implies that, grosso modo, Russia is blamed for having caused this new situation. While Russia is certainly not innocent and it usually does take two to conflict this blame is rather a sign of diminishing capacity (knowledge) and will (economic and intellectual independence and courage) to ask critical questions that now characterise the corporate media.
Defence and security political news coverage, journalistic processing, editing and commentaries have sunk to an intellectual level that is considerably lower than during the first Cold War. The entire field is given low priority by editors. Domestic issues, sports, entertainment, lifestyle etc. have made it to the top.
Out of sync with the globalising world, most media do with 1-2 pages about global affairs out of, say, 40-50 pages and they base this material on the same handful of Western news bureaus.
The double checking of a variety of sources, versatility and multi-perspective coverage are things of the past and we see more uniformity and more subjectivity in the news media coverage than ever.
Add to this that both Russia and NATO countries engage in media management, or propaganda (tax payers footing the bills) which squeezes out comprehensive knowledge and unbiased analyses as well as critical angles on one’s own policies and actions.
Like hot wars, Cold Wars are fought not only on the battle fields but also in the media, about the souls of the citizens. Fearology, therefore, has become a dominant ingredient in this war as well as in the other – equally counterproductive and self-defeating – war, the War On Terror.
The more people are made to fear, the more they submit to surveillance, authoritarian laws, self-censorship etc and turn away from democratic debate and activism – a trend that will eventually lead to the dissolution of democracy itself.
In short, these international trends and tension-increasing confrontations boomerang back on our societies in ways that are as frightening as under-stated in the debate.
To put it crudely: the new Cold War and the War on Terror both have significant, destructive effects on society, diminish its democracy and creativity, narrows the spectrum of opinions and bring us further and further away from the globally desired goals of freedom, democracy and of living in a more peaceful world.
Security politics has come to mean destruction of the core fibres of what was to be secured. Paradoxically, it promotes the closing of the once open society.
In addition, that is, to squandering absurd US $ 1700 billion (or about 30 times the entire UN budget) worldwide on one more destructive, failed war after the other.
These are issues of the greatest importance for humanity’s future, even survival. | 0 |
The president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, articulated a possible legal strategy on Wednesday for scores of Russian athletes preparing to defend themselves in sports doping prosecutions: casting doubt on the chain of custody for their urine samples. “When we provided the test samples, there were no complaints,” Mr. Putin said, going on to describe the microscopic scratches on glass sample bottles that investigators said showed that Russia’s Federal Security Service had cracked into them to switch out the athletes’ incriminating urine. “If there was a problem with scratches of whatever kind, this should have been noted in the relevant reports, but there was nothing of this sort. In other words, these samples were stored somewhere, and we cannot be held responsible for the storage conditions,” he said. The scores of glass bottles in question from the 2014 Sochi Olympics — bottles thought to be before last year’s scandal — have been stored by the International Olympic Committee in a secure lab in Switzerland for the last three years. All are being by the committee. Its ultimate disciplinary decisions, unlikely to come before the spring, are expected to be followed by challenges in the Court of Arbitration for Sport. That could push deliberation into next year and further confuse the eligibility of Russian Olympians leading to the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Mr. Putin, who has been largely dismissive of the evidence exposing an elaborate Russian doping operation, also expressed respect for the World Agency, the global antidoping regulator, and the investigations it had commissioned into Russia’s cheating. “We must pay heed to what this independent commission says, despite the shortcomings in its work,” he said, referring to a team led by the Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren that concluded in December that 1, 000 Russian athletes were involved in a doping program. “We must pay heed to its work and its results, and to WADA’s demands, because we need to acknowledge that there are established and identified cases of doping here, and this is a totally unacceptable situation,” he said. Mr. Putin’s remarks — delivered in Krasnoyarsk, a city in eastern Siberia that is preparing to host the 2019 University Games — signaled a shift after months of rejecting the basic conclusions of Mr. McLaren’s inquiry. Regulators have said Russia must accept those conclusions or credibly rebut them to return to good standing in international competition. The Russian doping scandal upended global sports last year, months before the 2016 Olympics, when the nation’s former antidoping lab chief, Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, delivered an insider’s account of Russia’s conspiracy to drug surreptitiously and dominate global standings, most notably at the Sochi Olympics, where it controlled the lab and had an opportunity to break into the bottles overnight. Since Dr. Rodchenkov spoke out and Mr. McLaren confirmed his story, Mr. Putin and Vitaly Mutko, Russia’s deputy prime minister and former sports minister, have delivered inconsistently conciliatory and defiant responses to the scandal. But with the I. O. C. having begun disciplinary proceedings for doping against 28 Russian Olympians who competed in Sochi, Mr. Putin’s remarks on Wednesday addressed specific facts about the case against his nation’s Olympians. Since leaving Sochi, the doping samples in question have been stored by the I. O. C. in a secure lab in Switzerland. And the University of Lausanne is collaborating with the committee in developing a methodology to scrutinize doping samples, according to Dr. Richard Budgett, the medical and scientific director of the I. O. C. “It has to be recorded extremely carefully. That’s why it’s taking a couple months,” Dr. Budgett said. While Mr. Putin referred to other shortcomings in the array of evidence assembled — including what he described as “inaccurate translations or inadequate evidence” presented by Mr. McLaren to international sports officials — his overall message on Wednesday was a broad acknowledgment of institutional failures. “Our existing antidoping monitoring system has not worked effectively, and this is our fault, and is something we need to admit and address directly,” Mr. Putin said. In December, top Russian sports officials acknowledged to The New York Times that “an institutional conspiracy” had implicated multiple employees of the government’s sports ministry. They insisted, however — as Mr. Putin repeated on Wednesday — that the schemes had not been supported by the state, which many officials defined as Mr. Putin and a few of his top associates. Mr. Putin’s remarks came one day after United States lawmakers called a congressional hearing, expressing outrage at Russia’s cheating and what they called global sports officials’ insufficient response to the scandal. “Exactly how far and who was involved — we don’t yet know,” Dr. Budgett, who testified at the hearing, said afterward. He acknowledged that Russia’s Federal Security Service had played a part and that Russia’s deputy sports minister had been dismissed for his involvement. “That’s what the commission is doing, getting to the bottom of who was involved within the Russian state and the Russian system. ” | 1 |
Another Trump Surrogate Admits Trump Won’t Build That Effing Wall (VIDEO) By Darrell Lucus on October 26, 2016 Subscribe Trump foreign policy surrogate and adviser Walid Phares with several Ethiophian-American Trump supporters ( image courtesy Phares’ Facebook)
Just after the Republican National Convention, I told you that a number of Donald Trump’s top surrogates have known for some time that the Donald’s signature policy proposal–a massive wall along the Mexican border– only exists in Trump’s mind . They have all but admitted what we already know–a 2,000-mile physical wall is simply not feasible.
Well, we got more confirmation earlier this week from another prominent Trump surrogate. Specifically, his chief foreign policy adviser admitted what we have long suspected–when Trump declares, “I’m building a wall,” he’s just engaging in campaign hype.
People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch noticed that on Monday, veteran foreign policy and terrorism expert Walid Phares sat down with France 24’s Surabhi Tandon to discuss Trump’s approach to foreign policy. Phares served as a top foreign policy adviser to the Mitt Romney campaign, and took up the same role with Trump. He is best known as an ardent Islamophobe who had close ties to extremist militia groups during the civil war in his native Lebanon.
The conversation soon turned to Trump’s wall. Right Wing Watch got a clip.
Tandon asked Phares how Trump’s planned wall would affect the United States’ relationship with Mexico; Trump has let it be known that one way or another, Mexico will foot the bill for the wall. Phares replied that Trump plans to build the wall along the American side of the border. However, as far as he knows, it won’t be a brick-and-mortar wall. “Now, will we see a physical wall on hundreds and hundreds of miles of border? I don’t know, and I don’t think so.”
According to Phares, what Trump has in mind is something like what exists in Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish enclaves in north Africa. He claimed that there was a simple concept in place in those cities for anyone who wanted to cross into Spain via Morocco–“you come, you knock on the door, you have your paper, and you come in.”
Tandon pounced, reminding Phares that Trump has been clamoring for a physical wall for the entire campaign. But this major Trump surrogate apparently didn’t get the memo. Phares claimed that Trump only talked about building a wall “to raise the attention.” However, since then, Phares has said that Trump has “evolved the concept” of a wall. How so? “Meaning, ‘If nothing is done, I’m going to go back to square one and build a wall. But if I can start talking with the Mexicans, I may not have to do all the wall everywhere because the Mexican government is going to finally send troops to stop these cartels.'”
But wait a minute. Trump himself has declared the wall will stretch along the entire border. And he even managed to get the wall into the Republican platform. See for yourself , on page 26: “(W)e support building a wall along our southern border and protecting all ports of entry. The border wall must cover the entirety of the southern border and must be sufficient to stop both vehicular and pedestrian traffic.”
And yet, a major Trump surrogate–indeed, his top surrogate on foreign policy–has effectively left his candidate on an island.
Watch the whole thing here ; the exchange about the wall begins at the 6:30 mark. As I write this on Wednesday night, I can find no evidence that either Trump or the RNC has spoken up to correct the record. And I can find no evidence that Phares himself has tried to clarify his remarks. I can only conclude one thing–Trump himself knows he’s not building a wall. About Darrell Lucus
Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC . Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook . Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello. Connect | 0 |
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WASHINGTON — Steven T. Mnuchin, Donald J. Trump’s pick to be Treasury secretary, failed to disclose nearly $100 million of his assets on Senate Finance Committee disclosure documents and forgot to mention his role as a director of an investment fund located in a tax haven, an omission that Democrats said made him unfit to serve in one of the government’s most important positions. The revelation came hours before Mr. Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, began testifying on Thursday before the Senate Finance Committee, which has historically been bipartisan in its demands for transparency from nominees. Mr. Mnuchin was ready to outline his vision for the economy and defend himself against claims that he headed a bank that ran a “foreclosure machine” during the financial crisis. “The Treasury secretary ought to be somebody who works on behalf of all Americans, including those who are still waiting for the economic recovery to show up in their communities,” said Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the committee. “When I look at Mr. Mnuchin’s background, it’s a stretch to find evidence he’d be that kind of Treasury secretary. ” In a hearing marked by sharp exchanges, Mr. Mnuchin struggled to answer questions about his use of tax havens as a hedge fund manager and whether he thought such loopholes should be closed. Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, pointedly asked Mr. Mnuchin if he was using Cayman Islands corporations to avoid taxation. He responded that he was working on behalf of his clients, in accordance with the law. “Let me just be clear again: I did not use a Cayman Islands entity in any way to avoid paying taxes for myself,” Mr. Mnuchin said. “I would love to work with the I. R. S. to close these tax issues that make no sense. ” He added: “I would support changing the tax laws to make sure they are simpler and more effective. ” Republicans came to Mr. Mnuchin’s defense, suggesting that none of his omissions were willful, and they gave strong indications that they would vote for him. Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, defended Mr. Mnuchin’s business record and described him as extremely qualified for the job. “Objectively speaking, I don’t believe anyone can reasonably argue that Mr. Mnuchin is unqualified for the position,” Mr. Hatch said. “If the confirmation process focused mainly on the question of a nominee’s qualifications, there would be little, if any, opposition to Mr. Mnuchin’s nomination. ” But the process was also focused on Mr. Mnuchin’s financial disclosure form, and that prompted intense scrutiny. “In his revised questionnaire, Mr. Mnuchin disclosed several additional financial assets, including $95 million worth of real estate — a in New York City, a residence in Southampton, New York, a residence in Los Angeles, California, and $15 million in real estate holdings in Mexico,” Democratic staff members of the Senate Finance Committee wrote in a memo on Thursday. “Mr. Mnuchin has claimed these omissions were due to a misunderstanding of the questionnaire. ” According to the memo, Mr. Mnuchin also initially failed to disclose that he is the director of Dune Capital International, an investment fund incorporated in the Cayman Islands, along with management posts in seven other investment funds. And he belatedly disclosed that his children own nearly $1 million in artwork. Asked about the omissions at the hearing, Mr. Mnuchin described them as a simple mistake made amid a mountain of bureaucracy. “I think as you all can appreciate, filling out these government forms is quite complicated,” Mr. Mnuchin said, noting that he had handed over 5, 000 pages of disclosures. “Let me first say, any oversight, it was unintentional. ” But Democrats pounced and tied Mr. Mnuchin to Mr. Trump’s campaign pledge to “drain the swamp” in Washington. Pressed as to whether his failure to disclose the information was an ethical lapse, Mr. Mnuchin insisted that he was following the guidance of his lawyers and made an innocent error. “I assure you that these forms were very complicated,” he said, explaining that he had pledged to be forthcoming to “the best of my knowledge. ” Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, was unsatisfied with the response and shot back, “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the words ‘list all positions. ’” To that, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, added: “Never before has the Senate considered such an ethically challenged slate of nominees for key cabinet positions. Mr. Mnuchin’s failure to disclose his Cayman Islands holdings just reeks of the swamp that the promised to drain on the campaign trail. ” And American Bridge, the Democratic super PAC, said Mr. Mnuchin’s holdings were a sign that Mr. Trump’s government would not look out for working class Americans. “By slamming through Mnuchin, Senate Republicans are becoming accessories to Trump’s future corruption, helping him stack his cabinet with shady billionaires who, like Trump, will rig the government to serve their own interests at the expense of the American people,” said Shripal Shah, vice president of American Bridge. | 1 |
BRUSSELS (AFP) — The EU warned Poland on Thursday it may take legal action to stop logging in a UNESCO World Heritage forest, risking a new clash with Warsaw’s government. [Brussels gave Poland one month rather than the usual two to address its concerns about the ancient Bialowieza forest or face being summoned by the EU’s top court. “One month was considered the right time considering the urgency of the situation,” European Commission spokesman Enrico Brivio told reporters. He said Poland’s reply to requests to stop logging in the forest was “not satisfactory” amid concerns it could cause irreparable biodiversity loss. The Bialowieza forest includes some of Europe’s last primeval woodland and has been granted protected status by the UN heritage organisation. The threat comes with Brussels and Warsaw already at loggerheads over changes to Poland’s constitutional court which the EU has warned could merit sanctions as a “systemic threat” to the rule of law. Since the populist PiS administration came to power in Warsaw in October 2015, it has come into conflict with Brussels on several fronts. The EU launched both the logging inquiry — based on a complaint by environmentalists — and the rule of law investigation last year. If the logging case goes before the European Court of Justice, Poland could face fines. But if found at fault on the rule of law Poland could face the far more serious prospect of seeing its EU voting rights suspended. The Bialowieza forest straddles Poland’s eastern border with Belarus and is home to unique plant and animal life, including a herd of some 800 European bison, the continent’s largest mammal. The vast woodland includes one of the largest surviving parts of the primeval forest that covered the European plain ten thousand years ago. The Polish government began logging in May last year, saying it was clearing dead trees to prevent damage caused by the spruce bark beetle, and insisting the policy was entirely legal. | 1 |
Email Exactly five years ago, Libya’s ex-leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was brutally murdered by rebels who discovered him in drainage pipes following a NATO air strike that hit his convoy on the outskirts of his hometown, Sirte. The following day, his body was put on display in a storage freezer in the city of Misrata. Via CollectiveEvolution
This probed a controversial response from then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who remarked, “We came, we saw, he died.” On April 2, 2011, she received an email from Sidney Blumenthal, who served as her unofficial intelligence operative. The message discussed France’s reasoning for joining the war against Gaddafi in Libya. Blumenthal wrote in the email that Gaddafi had “nearly bottomless financial resources” for pursuing his campaign against the rebels. And while Libya’s frozen bank accounts had become an obstacle, he still had nearly 143 tons of gold and a similar amount in silver that accumulated to a total of $7 billion. SPONSORED LINKS Scroll Down For Video Below!
The email goes on to say that Gaddafi had taken the gold before the rebellion in order to “establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar.” The idea was apparently to present a currency in the African region in order to compete with the French Franc. Blumenthal said, “French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.”
Just months later, on October 20, 2011, Gaddafi was murdered . Now, five years later, the once successful Arab country is in a state of chaos filled with tribal wars, leading to tens of thousands of Libyans dead, and displacing hundreds of thousands more. Gaddafi’s death immediately led to an intense power struggle that turned into a civil war. Ultimately, Islamic militant and terrorist groups, like ISIS, carried out attacks on Libyan oil and other important groundwork.
Gaddafi had, prior to his reign, advocated socialist ideas. Upon graduating from a military academy in Benghazi, he joined a plot to throw out King Idris I, which eventually happened in September 1969, leading to Gaddafi being promoted to Colonel, and his officers taking on a grand campaign to overturn Western capitalism. British and U.S. military bases in Libya were then closed down, and Western oil companies were immediately nationalized.
Gaddafi promised to rule out corruption and enact serious changes in the country’s social, economic, and political life. He created the Jamahiriya, which is an Arabic term that translates to “state of the masses.” His republic vowed to incorporate anarchist, Marxist, and Islamist practices.
By March 1977, Gaddafi called for a “people’s republic” referred to as the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. Gaddafi served as president, banning all political organizations, with the exception of his devised Arab Socialist Union.
By 1979, Gaddafi resigned in order to work for a “continuation of the revolution,” and changed his title to the Leader of the Revolution. The government took advantage of oil money to create extensive and seemingly outlandish social reforms. He proposed that women be allowed to study, serve in the army, and move up the social ladder, for instance.
The West and conservative Arab countries remained hesitant of the successful and passionate leader, and remained hands-off until the 2011 region was hit with Arab Spring “revolutions.”
The protests-turned-armed-conflict in Libya came about in February 2011, with people demanding Gaddafi to resign after 40 years of ruling the Libyan Arab Republic. Eventually, opponents gained control over almost all of Libya. On March 17, 2011, the U.S. and Western allies proposed a settlement by the UN Security Council that implemented a no-fly zone over Libya which caused Western airstrikes on Gaddafi’s forces. Gaddafi was accused of bombing his own people, and using foreign mercenaries to halt anti-government protests.
On March 19, 2011, NATO airstrikes commenced, led by France, and then followed by the US, the UK, and several other countries. NATO jets eventually targeted Gaddafi’s home on April 29, where he survived, but his youngest son and three children were killed.
On June 27, the International Criminal Court granted a request to issue a warrant for the arrest of Gaddalfi, as well as his son, Saif al-Islam.
By August 21, rebel fighters from Libya’s National Transitional Council bombarded the capital Tripoli to take over the government compound. Gaddafi refused to back down and leave the capital, and called for his loyalists to fight until the bitter end. By the 23, NTC fighters had overrun Tripoli, and taken Gaddafi’s reign out from underneath him. This caused Gaddafi and his loyalists to flee the capital 10 days later, ending up in his hometown of Sirte.
Throughout September 2011, Gaddafi loyalists were overrun, and by October, all of Sirte had been captured by the rebels, except for a northern neighborhood referred to as Number Two, where Gaddafi was hiding out. But by October 20, the Libyan rebels had pinpointed Gaddafi’s location there.
With Tripoli in ruins, and Number Two under attack, Gaddafi’s life seemed a ticking time bomb. That day, the once leader was injured from a NATO air attack, but many others were killed. Gaddafi sought refuge in a nearby drainage facility along with some of his closest aids.
His hideout was soon discovered by a unit of the National Transitional Council, who then assaulted him, including sexually, and then took him prisoner, and are believed to have tortured and killed both him and his son before they were murdered. | 0 |
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With the race for the presidency entering its last days, Donald J. Trump last Wednesday once again made his pitch to black America: a new deal aimed just at them. “I will be your greatest champion,” Trump said at a campaign rally in the battleground state of North Carolina. “I will never ever take the community for granted. Never, ever. ” The hyperbolic remarks elicited the same collective eye roll among black Americans and white progressives that they have since Trump began regularly including black Americans in his platform in August. It was then, following days of unrest in Milwaukee after the police killed a black man there, that Trump flew to Wisconsin to give a speech on race. He headed not to the heavily black city where the embers of outrage still smoldered but instead, as his critics noted with glee, took the stage at the county fairgrounds of a deeply conservative Milwaukee suburb in order to address the problems of the “inner city. ” There was, of course, the usual and expected “law and order” and rhetoric that elicited hoots and cheers from the crowd. But then Trump, as he is known to do, added an unexpected twist. “Our job is to make life more comfortable for the parent who wants their kids to be able to safely walk the streets,’’ Trump said. ‘‘Or the senior citizen waiting for a bus, or the young child walking home from school. For every one violent protester, there are a hundred moms and dads and kids on the same city block who just want to be able to sleep safely at night. ” He pointed out the high unemployment rate among black men in Milwaukee, the number of households run by single mothers who were living in poverty and the low rates. “I am asking for the vote of every citizen struggling in our country today who wants a different and much better future,” Trump told the crowd, which at times stood eerily silent. “It is time for our society to address some honest and very, very difficult truths. The Democratic Party has failed and betrayed the community. ” Trump went on to say that Hillary Clinton “panders and talks down to communities of color,” “seeing them only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future. ” It was time, Trump proclaimed, that Democrats compete for black votes. There was something utterly surreal about that moment. Trump had spent months whipping up his supporters, focusing on other minority groups whom he labeled rapists and terrorists, and now he was telling the nearly crowd that if they voted for him, he’d use his power to help black residents in the inner cities by bringing jobs back and improving their wages. Trump’s message did not seem to be directed at his audience (recent research by professors at the universities of Chicago and Minnesota showed that white Trump supporters are less likely to support government programs if they think they will help black people). As one resident of West Bend, the approximately town where the rally was held, put it to The Times: “They think we owe them something. I don’t want to seem racist or anything, but the black heritage has been raised in a certain way that there’s no incentive to get out and work, because all of a sudden you have five kids and there are no dads around. ” Nor was it directed to black people, who of all the nonwhite voters are the least poachable by the G. O. P. The message was presumably targeted at white moderates, the independents and disillusioned Bernie Sanders legions, whom Trump was most likely hoping to reassure that he was not racist despite his years of fueling the birther conspiracy theory and months of spewing bigotry about Muslims and Mexicans. But in his speeches, Trump was speaking more directly about the particular struggles of black Americans and describing how the government should help them more than any presidential candidate in years. Let that uncomfortable truth sink in. Whatever his motives, Trump was talking about the black working class in a way that few national politicians do. By now it’s no surprise that when they talk about black Americans as at all, Republican politicians typically conflate blackness with poverty, and then quickly blame black people for their struggles. In March 2014, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said that the problems in the “inner cities” Trump was talking about were rooted not in the loss of manufacturing jobs and the flight of businesses and the tax base to suburbs, but on an absence of a “culture of work. ” Liberals quickly lambasted Ryan for those remarks. But far too often, the way Democrats talk to, and about, black Americans is indistinguishable from the way their Republican counterparts do. And President Obama has been as guilty as anyone. A year before Ryan made his remarks, Obama delivered a commencement address at the historically black Morehouse College, where he warned the graduates at the prestigious school that they shouldn’t use racism as an excuse, and to be good fathers. Politicians regularly deploy this type of shaming when referring to, or even when addressing, black Americans. But it’s hard to fathom a politician, Democrat or Republican, standing before a predominately white crowd in a sagging old coal town, and blaming the community’s economic woes on poor parenting or lack of work ethic or a victim mentality. Those Americans, white Americans, are worthy of government help. Their problems are not of their own making, but systemic, institutional, out of their control. They are never blamed for their lot in life. They have had jobs snatched away by bad federal policy, their opportunities stolen by inept politicians. It would have been easy, expected, for Trump in his speeches to recycle the same old narrative for black voters. But Trump didn’t call for black people to stop lazing around and use a little more elbow grease on those bootstraps. He was pushing for more government — government — to help black folks prosper, a racially specific new deal that included investing in schools, jobs and black entrepreneurs. And in doing so, Trump, at least rhetorically, did something the Democrats and Republicans have largely failed to do — he took black citizens into the ranks of “hardworking Americans” worthy of the government’s hand. To be clear, I am not arguing that the man who called for the execution of the Central Park Five (and who still insists on their guilt) and who seeks nationwide implementation of the program ruled unconstitutional in New York City, and who warns that voting in heavily black cities is rigged, is a racial progressive who will enact policies that will help black communities. Nor am I saying black voters should buy what Trump is selling. (And they aren’t: A poll released last week by The New York Times College of likely voters in Pennsylvania found that “no black respondent from Philadelphia supported Mr. Trump in the survey. ”) What I am saying is that when Trump claims Democratic governance has failed black people, when he asks “the blacks” what they have to lose, he is asking a poorly stated version of a question that many black Americans have long asked themselves. What dividends, exactly, has their loyalty to the Democratic ticket paid them? By brushing Trump’s criticism off as merely cynical or clueless rantings, we are missing an opportunity to have a real discussion of the failures of progressivism and Democratic leadership when it comes to black Americans. Trump is not wrong when he says that black Americans have suffered in a particular way in blue cities and blue states. (Of course, they suffer in red states as well.) The most segregated cities have long been clustered above the line and are Democratically run. Some of the most segregated schools in the country educate students in New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Milwaukee. Efforts to integrate schools in these cities have met resistance from white progressives. Democrats did as much to usher in the era of mass incarceration as anyone else. And in these cities, with their gaping income inequality, black communities shoulder a terrible burden of gun violence, high unemployment, substandard schools and poverty. Though black Americans these days consistently vote Democratic at higher margins than any other racial group, this wasn’t always the case. Before 1948, black voters were fairly evenly split between Republican and Democrats. Then President Harry S. Truman pushed a civil rights platform, and a majority of black voters swung Democratic, though a significant percentage still identified as Republican. That changed in the 1960s, when black voters moved en masse to the Democratic Party after Lyndon B. Johnson showed he was willing to lose the South in order to pass the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. Southern Democrats abandoned the party to become Republicans, and Richard Nixon won the presidency in 1968 on a Southern strategy of stalling forward movement on civil rights. And the party of Lincoln came to be considered anathema to black progress. In the intervening years, modern Democrats have been far more likely to support social programs that help the poor, who are disproportionately black, and to support civil rights policies. But since Johnson left office, Democrats have done little to address the systemic issues — housing and school segregation — that keep so many black Americans in economic distress and that make true equality elusive. At the federal level, despite the fact that the National Fair Housing Alliance estimates that black Americans experiences millions of incidents of housing discrimination every year, Democrats, like Republicans, have avoided strong enforcement of federal laws that would allow black families to move to areas. Both Democrats and Republicans have failed to pursue policies that would ensure black children gain access to the good schools white kids attend. In the 1970s and ’80s, Trump battled lawsuits, while Senator Clinton was noticeably quiet when Westchester County, N. Y. a county that twice voted decidedly for Obama, fought a court order to integrate its whitest towns, including Chappaqua, the town she calls home. Instead of seeking aggressive initiatives, Democrats too often have opted for a sort of liberalism. If we work to strengthen unions, that will trickle down to you. If we work to strengthen health care, that will trickle down to you. If we work to make all schools better, that will trickle down to you. After decades of Democratic loyalty, too many black Americans are still awaiting that trickle. While Republicans rarely make any effort to court black voters, Democrats do reach out to them. But Democratic politicians have also shown again and again that they will sacrifice the needs of their most loyal constituents in order to win larger political points. I will never forget how in February 2013, President Obama flew to Chicago to give a speech that touched on gun violence. He spoke of the random shooting of Hadiya Pendleton, a Chicago teenager who had performed at his inaugural events. “There’s no more important ingredient for success, nothing that would be more important for us reducing violence than strong, stable families — which means we should do more to promote marriage and encourage fatherhood,” Obama told the predominantly black audience. But two months earlier, when he gave a speech about the Newtown shooting, he’d said no such thing about fathers and marriage, even though that violent act was carried out by a young white man from a broken home. Instead, he emphasized Congress’s inability to pass gun control. The message: Black killings are the black community’s fault white killings are a failure of government. Trump, in turning the usual rhetoric on its head — claiming that black people are living in hells and should therefore spurn the Democratic Party — has forced progressives, both black and white, into the uncomfortable position of arguing that things aren’t nearly as bad for black America as Trump would have us believe. In the weeks before Trump’s alleged sexual improprieties overtook everything else, writers dashed off thousands of words arguing that the “inner cities” are improving (gentrification!) and that poverty is not just in the inner city but in suburban America too, and that there are lots of black folks doing just fine, thank you. Writers pointed out that Trump was wrong when he said nearly half of black children are poor when it’s actually just . If Trump had raised these statistics and said black people needed to simply work harder, these same people would be arguing that candidates needed to be talking about what they were going to do address the systemic causes of devastatingly high poverty and unemployment rates that black Americans experience. And they would have been right. Most black Americans live neither in poverty nor in the inner city. And even those of us who do live in inner cities aren’t living in hell. But the inequality that black Americans experience is stark. Black children are more segregated from white children now than at any point since the early ’70s. United States census data shows that a black family is more likely to live in a poor neighborhood than a poor white family. The wealth gap between white and black families is the widest it has been in nearly three decades. This is true in cities and states run by Republicans. This is true in cities and states run by Democrats. Regardless of how you feel about Trump, on this one thing he is right: The Democratic Party has taken black Americans for granted. The problem is — and this is where Trump’s rhetoric is just that, rhetoric — black people aren’t loyal Democrats because they don’t know any better. They are making an informed decision. As Theodore R. Johnson, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and an expert on black voting behavior, points out in his research, black Americans are an electoral monolith out of necessity. Black people care about the environment and the economy and international issues, and they generally fall across the spectrum on a range of issues, just like all other human beings. But while the Democratic Party might be accused of upholding the racial status quo, the Republican Party has a long track record of working to restrict the remedies available to increase housing and school integration and equal opportunities in employment and college admissions. And most critical, Republicans have passed laws that have made the hallmark of full citizenship — the right to vote — more difficult for black Americans. Since first securing the right to vote, black Americans have had to be voters — and that single issue is basic citizenship rights. Maintaining these rights will always and forever transcend any other issue. And so black Americans can never jump ship to a party they understand as trying to erode the rights black citizens have died to secure. But it is also true that black Americans have not always been voters, and they don’t have to remain so. If Democrats want to keep black voters, they need to work for those votes, because one day Republicans might wise up. Until then, when Trump asks what the hell do black Americans have to lose? Well, a hell of a lot. | 1 |
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In a report released November 2 by the California state attorney general's office, private educational technology companies are warned to be very vigilant in their handling of sensitive student data obtained by them in the course of their dealings with public schools.
“In some instances we’re seeing evidence of companies mining data from school children beyond what’s necessary for their education,” said Daniel Suvor, chief of policy for California Attorney General Kamala Harris.
Harris’s office released their report, entitled "Ready for School: Recommendations for the Ed Tech Industry to Protect the Privacy of Student Data," to convince these corporate educational conglomerates with substantial contracts with school districts nationwide to come up with procedures that aren't careless with the private data obtained from students in the course of complying with the various standardized tests and other activities required as part of the big money agreements signed by administrators and the companies.
According to the report, education has become an $8-billion-a-year business. No wonder these companies care so much about pleasing their clients.
The purpose of the report and its recommendations is to limit "the collection and use of the student information acquired through the technology,” Harris' office said in a written statement.
As a teacher, this writer can witness firsthand to the subtle and substantial ways that these "educational companies" collect personal data from students. I have seen the forms that these companies include as part of their packets, and the information demanded of students goes far beyond anything necessary for the purpose of improving education or the classroom experience.
Naturally, much of this data mining comes from the adoption by so many states of the Common Core standards.
Common Core State Standards Initiative is the official name of the scholastic standards copyrighted by the Washington, D.C.-based National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). Common Core has come under significant fire from parents, teachers, and school administrators across the country, who declare that the standards are a bid by the federal government to take over the education system. Additionally, privacy advocates have voiced concerns over the distribution to contractors of personally identifiable information about students and their families.
As we noted in an article entitled " Orwellian Nightmare: Data Mining Your Kids, " published in 2013: One of the most troubling aspects of the “education reforms” currently being advanced by the Obama administration and its allies is the unprecedented monitoring and tracking of students — invasions of privacy so pervasive George Orwell might blush. Everything from biometric data to information on children’s beliefs and families is already being vacuumed up. Opponents of the “reform” agenda have highlighted the cradle-to-grave accumulation of private and intimate data as among the most compelling reasons to kill the whole process. Aside from data produced by the looming Common Core-aligned national testing regime, most of the data-mining schemes are not technically direct components of the plot to nationalize education standards. However, the vast collection of personal information and the accompanying data-mining are intricately linked to the federally backed standards in multiple ways, not to mention myriad other federal schemes. Despite protestations to the contrary, the new standards and the data collection go together hand in hand.
Later in the piece, we presented some evidence of just how massive the menace has grown: All across the country today, Big Brother-like technological developments in biometrics are also making schools increasingly Orwellian. Earlier this year in Polk County, Florida, for example, students’ irises were scanned without parental consent. “It simply takes a picture of the iris, which is unique to every individual,” wrote the school board’s “senior director of support services” in a letter to parents. “With this program, we will be able to identify when and where a student gets on the bus, when they arrive at their school location, when and what bus the student boards and disembarks in the afternoon. This is an effort to further enhance the safety of our students. The EyeSwipe-Nano is an ideal replacement for the card based system since your child will not have to be responsible for carrying an identification card.” In San Antonio, Texas, meanwhile, a female student made national news — and exposed what was going on — when she got in a legal battle with school officials over her refusal to wear a mandatory radio-frequency identification (RFID) device. The same devices are already being implanted under people’s skin in America and abroad — albeit voluntarily. Also in the biometric field, since at least 2007, children in states such Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New Jersey have been fingerprinted at school under the guise of “school lunch” programs and other pretexts.
"Most of the companies we spoke to throughout this process thought it made sense for us to lay a set of recommendations they could use to govern the sector,” Suvor said, after a meeting with the companies involved in the collection of student data.
Again, it's not hard to see why these companies would bend over backward for the school districts considering the enormous financial benefits that they derive from playing according to the schools' rules.
Of course, our children wouldn't be subjected to this siphoning of data if the people of the states would come to understand one simple and undeniable fact: The Constitution does not grant to the federal government any authority over education.
Parents must demand that administrators and state education officials refuse to enter into a contract with any company for any reason for any amount of money that would carry out federally mandated information collection. Furthermore, the people must insist that their local leaders reject out of hand any educational program or policy that would turn our children into informants.
If we fail to force our elected leaders to adhere to their constitutionally imposed oaths of office, we will find that our children are the latest individuals to be caught in the ever-expanding net of federal surveillance, putting our youngsters under the never-blinking eye of the potentate on the Potomac. | 0 |
A woman who accused Donald Trump of repeatedly raping her two decades ago when she was a 13-year-old aspiring teen model has again dropped a federal lawsuit over the alleged assaults.
The accuser, identified in the lawsuit by the pseudonym “Jane Doe,” was expected to appear at a news conference in Los Angeles Wednesday, but that appearance was abruptly canceled.
The lawyer who organized the event, Lisa Bloom, said Trump’s accuser had received threats and was too frightened to show up.
The accuser’s lead attorney, Thomas Meagher of New Jersey, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. He filed a one-page notice dismissing the case Friday evening in federal court in Manhattan. No explanation was given for the action.
Bloom did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.
Through his attorney, Trump had flatly denied the woman’s allegations.
There was plenty of speculation — and skepticism — from social media users about the validity of the charges.
Hillary Clinton’s niece came out for TRUMP because ‘selfish’ aunt wants to win for all the wrong reasons.
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Next Prev Swipe left/right One branch of Burger King perfectly trolled McDonald’s for Halloween When big brands try to be sassy, it often backfires and they end up looking like the corporate version of Alan Partridge , but every now and then one big brand prank slips through the net of lameness. In this case, it’s just one branch of Burger King, in New York, that has managed to come up with something funny and seasonal as it dressed the whole building as the ghost of McDonald’s.
Picture credit: Burger King As if that wasn’t throwing enough shade at ‘dead’ McDonald’s, they wrote on their sign “B ! Just kidding. We still flame grill our burgers. Happy Halloween”, which is a reference to the fact that McDonald’s fries its burgers rather than grilling them, something fast food fans might care about. Possibly.
Several people had something to say about it on Twitter. Well played, Burger King. Well played. pic.twitter.com/hQSLRj11jX
— You Had One Job (@CutPics) October 25, 2016 This Burger King dressed up as a McDonald's ghost. Savage level 10/10. pic.twitter.com/LhDzFsCaQo
— The Struggle Bus (@FactsOrDie) October 27, 2016 Leave it to a Burger King in Queens, NY to display the best Halloween costume a fast-food chain has ever worn. pic.twitter.com/Ib8sWknSZ1
— Eric Alper (@ThatEricAlper) October 27, 2016 The best Halloween costume I've seen so far this year:
Burger King dressed up as McDonald's. pic.twitter.com/2SSJ2yfir3
— Jake Hamilton (@JakesTakes) October 26, 2016 But not everyone appreciated Burger King’s efforts. @Efawccett7 tweeted “This Burger King dressing up as a McDonald’s ghost is a a level of pettiness once unheard of”
Oh, well. You can’t win them all. Over to you, McDonald’s! | 0 |
Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney said he thought President Trump handled his address to Congress “overall terrifically” on Wednesday morning’s Breitbart News Daily. [Gaffney said: If I could just make one sort of overarching observation, it seemed to me, as it’s being noted by a lot of people, this was a very presidential address. Which, I think, came as a surprise to some. It was also a very principled address, and the real message here is, they were his principles. He was not abandoning the beliefs and the promises and the policies that he had laid out up to this point. I think it’s fair to say he packaged them brilliantly, and I think that’s especially true in the national security space. The main themes of that were easy to recognize: sovereignty, and a commitment to a principle that he’s referred to, as had my old boss Ronald Reagan, as ‘peace through strength.’ Rebuilding our national security, and protecting our people, and building that great, great wall, and dealing with the threats that are internal to our country — whether it’s drug traffickers, or gangs, or violent illegal aliens of other stripes, or the people who are trying to create beachheads of terrorism. I think that is, if not an explicit reference, then certainly a code for the Muslim Brotherhood. After SiriusXM host Alex Marlow played a clip of Trump delivering the remarks in question, Gaffney said he thought the president was properly concerned with “people coming here from elsewhere, imbued with a different value system than we have — and I think specifically what that suggests is an appropriate concern about what I think is best described as sharia supremacism. ” Gaffney defined sharia supremacism as “a value system that says it’s not the U. S. Constitution and the freedoms it guarantees that should govern our people, it is sharia: a totalitarian, brutally repressive doctrine that the Islamic world has long sought to impose — not all but a lot of it. ” “It’s not just the people who come here to do the violence, it’s the infrastructure that they can tap into, whether it’s mosques and madrassas or influence operations, front groups, Islamic societies, Islamic cultural centers. That’s of concern as well, and I think he’s absolutely right, and it is such a refreshing thing to have him talking about it,” he said. He also praised Trump for focusing on “what he calls radical Islamic terrorism. ” “Reports that advisers, that others in his administration don’t agree with that term notwithstanding, he’s about it, and he’s going to try to take it down,” Gaffney said. Marlow said it was “incredible” to hear a president use the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism,” and doubted Hillary Clinton would have been able to say it. “It wasn’t said at all in the administration in which she served, the Obama administration,” Gaffney observed. “And frankly, it wasn’t possible to say it in the George W. Bush administration. It’s been 16 years getting this right, and I think it’s a huge step forward. ” Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 1 |
“Multicultural” establishment candidate Emmanuel Macron endangers France, and “sorcerers of globalism” have put the West in a state of decay warns engineer, writer, and integration expert Malika . [Noting that Germany received more than a million migrants in 2015 alone, the Algerian engineer and writer highlighted how former investment banker Macron “travelled to Berlin to pay tribute to Angela Merkel’s welcome policy” and warns Macron’s approach to migration is “dangerous”. Drawing attention to the globalist president’s declaration that “there is no French culture” in her interview with Le Figaro said he also has a “blind spot” with regards to integration policies. The engineer, who was a member of France’s High Council of Integration, went on to contend there is “hardly any” common ground between Macron and his rival, Francois Fillon. “For one, French culture does not exist, when the other is part of a desire to continue France from a cultural point of view,” the author of Decaying France told the broadsheet newspaper. “[Macron has] repeatedly made clear the fact his line on these issues is globalist and multicultural, and so his positioning on migratory flows and French culture is coherent. “[He sees France] as a country with open doors and windows, under the reign of a ‘buffet culture’ under which everyone places his and her dishes on the table and people only take what suits them. ” also drew attention to remarks in which Macron described France’s colonisation of Algeria as a “crime against humanity” writing that the president’s objective was to “seduce” voters of North African descent. But, noting the accusation “is likely to pit different groups against each other” she warns: “[The comments were] extremely serious at a time when France is at war, targeted by terrorists who justify their acts with what [the nation] is and what it has been. ” said Macron represents a continuation of the ‘Terra Nova’ strategy on the left, referencing the “progressive” think tank whose name has become synonymous with a strategy in which minorities are encouraged to band together to fight against “an electorate that defends against change”. Last year, Wikileaks revealed Macron, a former Rothschild banker, was working on an alliance with Hillary Clinton before her shock defeat in the U. S. presidential election. The globalist candidate had requested the Democratic presidential candidate’s presence at a private roundtable dinner in October with several European politicians, according to an email published by Wikileaks. Breitbart London reported Macron announced the world has entered an age of mass migration which will be inescapable for Europe. “We have entered a world of great migrations and we will have more and more of it [migration]” he declared during a debate on climate change. And earlier this month, maintaining that the mass migration of people from the third world to Europe will only accelerate, the establishment favourite to win the election said immigrants are good for France and bring “fresh bursts of creativity and innovation” to society. | 1 |
Major League Baseball officials are finally addressing something that many fans have complained about for years: the length of games. The average game last season took three hours. Playoff games are even more trying, now often stretching beyond three and a half hours. So what should be done? We invited our reporters and readers to submit proposals. Here’s a selection (add your ideas in the comments section): Major League Baseball wants more action and less downtime during games. That’s probably asking too much, because hitters are paid to work deep counts while pitchers throw harder, with better movement, than ever before. It’s no accident that the number of strikeouts rises every year. The larger issue, of course, is expanding the business, which means attracting more fans. And baseball won’t touch the biggest impediments to that effort, because it would mean less money now. Want to make the game move more quickly? Cut every commercial break by 30 seconds. Want more people to watch in the postseason? Insist that Fox show the League Championship Series on its regular network, not on the Fox Sports 1. This is most important: Make the World Series appointment viewing, as it was a generation ago. October will mark the 30th anniversary of the last World Series game held in the afternoon. If you want to appeal to young fans in all areas of the country, let them watch at least one World Series game every year before bedtime. They’ll repay that gesture when they grow up, if baseball can wait that long for the payoff. — TYLER KEPNER Boredom is the whole point of baseball, an antidote to the accelerated hysteria of modern life. But if you want to speed it up, why not make the experience as unpleasant as possible, as they do in English soccer games? Make the fans enter through tiny turnstiles surrounded by armed police officers. Make the seats really uncomfortable and humiliate anyone who leaves in the middle of play to get food or go to the bathroom. Encourage people to shout abuses at one another and to chuck garbage onto the field. No kiss cams. No stretch. You want to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” or, worse, “Sweet Caroline”? Do it on your own time. Anyone who attempts to propose to his or her partner via the Jumbotron will be ejected from the game and banned for life. As for the players: No relaxing. No chatting. No being nice to your opponents. No doing that thing where you waste time knocking the dirt out of your shoes with your bat for good luck, or whatever. You’re hit by a your from an open wound? Suck it up. Cap the games at five innings. Make sure at least 75 percent of the crowd is in a vile temper by the end of the game. If the score is tied, the winner should be determined by penalty kicks. — SARAH LYALL Ban all mound visits except when using one of three allotted timeouts per game. Imagine a basketball player has just entered the action. The buzzer sounds and she walks onto the court. But before play resumes, the coach strolls to midcourt to discuss strategy with her. A preposterous idea, of course, but that happens in baseball every time there is a pitching change, and often when there is not. The relief pitcher was just sitting in the bullpen spitting sunflower seeds for the last two hours with a telephone hookup to the dugout five feet away. Talk to him before he goes in. Now, picture a soccer goalie halting play to walk 30 yards upfield and chat about tactics with a teammate. Everyone waits until the discussion ends and play resumes. But two minutes later the goalie stops play again to walk upfield again and talk to the same teammate, and never has to ask for a timeout. That’s what catchers do with regularity. But there is no need for it. They have signs. If they can’t keep the signs straight, then practice more. That should be on them, and not on the fans who suffer through the endless mound visits. — DAVID WALDSTEIN O the interminable glory of ! O the joyous expectation that, for the willing surrender of a mere coin, we might see a match between the respective nines of New York and Chicago that could last to the End of Days! Imagine: Our sainted Christy Mathewson, “the Christian Gentleman,” twirling against those shifty triplets, Tinker and Evers and Chance — forever. Be still my sclerotic heart. Alas, this cannot be. Our children have been raised without proper discipline (I, for one, am grateful to my dear pater for having once tied me to a tree after my refusal to eat a tomato that mater had so lovingly stewed). As a result, our youth lack the necessary patience for so eager are they to return to their wireless devices and motorcars and . Now the august custodians of our national pastime are forced to consider changes to the game’s sacred text. To which I say: Bosh! Forgive me, dear readers of the female persuasion, for my coarse language. But this cannot stand. Your humble scribe suggests the following. Make the distracting billboards along the outfield walls smaller. Order dawdling batsmen to step into the box — like men! — or pay the consequences of a first pitch thrown in their absence. Prohibit the spitting, the tugging of nether regions and other unseemly habits that waste time and offend refined sensibilities. We must address these matters posthaste, before some contraption of illumination is invented that leads to this game of sunshine being played at night. Then all will be lost it truly will be the End of Days. — D. FRANCIS BARRY Part of baseball’s charm is the quirks: No two games are the same. But long ones can leave an unfavorable impression on at least some fans, so here are some ideas on how to shave off some time. First, instant replay needs refinement. The time it takes for a manager to signal for a review, or for the umpires to rule on a play, needs to be shortened. Second, games can turn painfully slow in September, when rosters expand from 25 players to as many as 40. With so many relievers suddenly at their disposal, managers start to change pitchers with every batter. But the game should not be played by one set of rules for five months and then a different set in the final month. Perhaps allow teams to choose up to, say, 28 active players per game in September, but not 38. Finally, a more radical idea: Cut down on television commercial breaks, especially when they are longer during national broadcasts. Keep the flow of the game constant, and make up for the lost revenue by putting advertisements on the jerseys, as they do in soccer and will next season in the N. B. A. — JAMES WAGNER Ban all armor and padding on batters — it’s an unfair advantage and wastes thousands of minutes as straps are adjusted between pitches. Prohibit any hitter from leaving the batter’s box once an commences, except for obvious, debilitating injury (feeling uncomfortable at the plate does not count). The penalty for stepping out: A strike is called. Do it twice in one ? Take a seat — automatic strikeout. Institute a pitch clock and strictly enforce it (a ball is called if the time expires). Any pitcher going over the clock more than five times is ejected, as with fouling out of a basketball game. Stipulate in the umpires’ union contract that each ump gets a $500 bonus for every game that ends in less than 2 hours 40 minutes. The bonus is $1, 000 for games ending in under 2 hours 25 minutes, and the entire umping crew gets the next weekend off, with pay, for games lasting less than two hours. — BILL PENNINGTON Enough about the idiosyncratic habits that obviously slow the game down, but are also part of the game’s natural appeal and help build drama. My advice is to shorten the game. No, I mean, really shorten the game. Reduce it to seven innings from nine. Beyond the time saved, think of the benefits in eliminating two innings. Starting pitchers would throw far fewer pitches, needing to only go four innings to record a victory. The scourge of serious arm and shoulder injuries would very likely diminish. Not having to rely on mediocrity before getting to the studs would also quicken the pace of games. Many games might take between two and two and a half hours, or the time it takes to play most soccer and basketball games. Games starting at 7 in the evening would be over by 9:30, making it easier for fans on work and school nights. After the seventh inning, everyone could get up, stretch and go home. — HARVEY ARATON Baseball is timeless, and often endless: enduring truths my friends and I came to appreciate as Mets fans in the empty upper decks of Shea Stadium in the early 1980s. Whenever those terribly played games got too long, copious inhalation helped along our Zen appreciation. Ah, the color schemes. … My mind is clearer now. So I’ll acknowledge that I like pitch and innings clocks. If batters haven’t adjusted gloves and cups, it’s too late to start once they step into the batter’s box. I’d limit coaching trips to the mound. Otherwise, leave the beautiful game alone. I don’t expect I will convince Commissioner Rob Manfred to put a sock in it. He is that neighbor puttering around his garage, tinkering with an old lawn mower. So here’s a thought: Forget putting a greased pig of a runner at second base in extra innings, and instead call the owners and general managers and urge them to hire blacks and Latinos and women. He’ll feel virtuous and his deeply white and male sport will benefit. — MICHAEL POWELL Enough of these suggested baby steps and timid tweaks to make baseball games shorter. It’s like trying to make a marathon markedly shorter by making it 26 miles, instead of 26. 2. Thanks for nothing. What baseball needs are a few spectacular changes to make it not only faster, but also more appealing to young fans whose attention spans have melted into the abyss of their iPads. Let’s get rid of the fourth ball, too. Let’s use a chain saw instead of a scalpel and say three strikes, three balls. Also, there should be no more free passes in this new world of speed baseball. Every foul ball would be counted as a strike. Make those changes, and the marathon becomes not much more than a 10K, just with hot dogs and beer, of course. — JULIET MACUR People keep looking for innovative ways to speed up the game, but baseball was played briskly for 100 years, so looking to the past may offer more answers. Specifically, we could look to April 16, 1993, when Mark Hirschbeck, a veteran umpire, decided there was someplace he would rather be than standing behind a catcher in San Francisco’s notoriously chilly Candlestick Park. With two outs in the ninth inning and one strike against him, Atlanta’s Ron Gant called for time and stepped out of the batter’s box. Unfortunately for Gant, Hirschbeck did not honor the request. Gant defiantly strode away from the plate and Hirschbeck, who perhaps had movie tickets or a late dinner engagement, ordered Rod Beck to start pitching. The Giants’ closer was happy to oblige, firing in another strike as Gant frantically raced back to the plate. There were plenty of words exchanged, but Beck ultimately retired Gant on a to preserve a victory. Laugh all you want about the thought of pitchers letting things rip regardless of whether the batter is in the box, but that game was over in 2 hours 16 minutes, and Gant probably thought twice for the rest of his career about calling a timeout. — BENJAMIN HOFFMAN I don’t want less baseball. I want less nonbaseball. Stepping out of the batter’s box to call a timeout, peer vaguely down the line or scratch or adjust oneself is not baseball. Stay in the box. Pitchers aren’t blameless, either. Fondling the rosin bag or chatting with your catcher is not baseball. Pitch the ball. A visit to the mound? Let’s not. If you want to make a pitching change, just sound an air horn or something, have the pitcher leave the mound and have the new one come in. And he gets three pitches, not eight. Come on, you’ve done this before! Vigilant and rigorous eradication of nonbaseball will give us the same dose of baseball in far less time. — VICTOR MATHER Several of our readers defended the game and its slow pace, claiming that the problem lay with the attention span of today’s viewers. Here are some of the best comments: Fix baseball? Fix baseball? I’ve got news for you. Baseball doesn’t need fixing! It is just about perfect the way it is. Oh, you in a hurry? Need to get back to the office? Well, then you don’t belong at a baseball game. What are you? From the MTV generation? Shorten the game? Please. You don’t go to a baseball game because you’re in a hurry. You go to a baseball game to relax and watch how it all unfolds. One of the great things about baseball is that there is no clock. You get to chill out, have a conversation or two, and take what amounts to a . The game doesn’t need shortening and those who think it does need to go to a basketball game. Or a football game. Or any other sport with a clock, so you can make sure not to miss your dental appointment. Now, leave it alone! — Bill Leeman, San Rafael, Calif. **** As a practicing Buddhist, I try to live in the present moment at every moment. A slow baseball game allows me the opportunity to meditate between pitches, compose my soul with the personnel changes on the field, calm my feelings with foul balls and intentional walks, and generally muse about life, its vicissitudes and joys, throughout a game. And how I miss the doubleheaders! May I suggest therapy for those sorry, frantic fans who have lost touch with their inner selves? Go to England and watch a cricket Test match. Go to Norway and watch their “Slow TV. ” Life is short. The calmer you are, the slower things are, the more life you have. Don’t fix baseball, FIX YOUR SOULS! Breathe! — David Glidden **** Why does baseball need fixing? Baseball isn’t checkers, it’s chess! It feasts on strategy. The visits to the mound the stepping out of the box the examination of the ball, the tosses — all of it gives us the chance to restart our thoughts about how the next half inning is going to play out. The pitcher’s toss to hold a man on base provides an opportunity for something exciting to happen that can change the game. The same is true for throwing four intentional balls from the mound to the catcher. One of those pitches can go astray, or possibly be close enough to the strike zone to allow a batter to swing — and hit the ball to an unprepared second baseman or left fielder or whomever. Baseball is a great game the way it started. Get rid of the d. h.! That was the biggest mistake — and took all the fun out of the American League. Otherwise, LEAVE BASEBALL ALONE! Not every game needs to be played for television viewing. — Barbara Ames, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. The majority of our respondents agreed that baseball was too slow and offered their opinions on how to fix it. Here is a selection from the submissions we received: If you accept that the problem with M. L. B. is that it moves too slowly and that the exciting moments are too few and far between, and that it takes too long to play, then I would fix it by borrowing from other versions of the game and other leagues: 1. Shorten the game to seven innings (like various youth and scholastic leagues) 2. Start hitters with a count (like some recreational softball leagues) 3. Allow players to “foul out” with a count (like some recreational softball leagues) 4. Move the fences in (similar to the N. H. L. effectively making goals bigger by making goalie pads smaller) to have even more home runs, and 5. Reduce the number of players on the field (like the N. H. L. ’s overtime) to create more space for base hits. — Jacob Ritvo, Palo Alto, Calif. **** Fewer commercial breaks. I feel like this is easily the worst addition to baseball games and the worst contributor to wasted time and the No. 1 reason why I don’t watch baseball on TV and don’t love going to more than a few games a year. Commercials add another 45 minutes to an hour to a game! Alas, I feel that even if changes are made to the rules, nothing will change about ridiculous advertising time and thus games will still stay the same length. I’m there to watch baseball. That is why I bought a ticket — to view a live sporting event. I did not purchase a ticket to wait around for a commercial break on TV. And shorten pitcher changes and make the pitchers and batters go faster. — Mattie Vukmir, San Francisco **** Outlaw batting gloves, which slow down the game because of the ritualistic ripping and repositioning of the Velcro on them. They don’t loosen up that fast, dudes! This is also associated with the batters stepping out of the box after every pitch, a practice that should be prevented. — Gabriella Howard, Augusta, Me. **** Start every inning with a man at second base. Have that man be Bartolo Colon. — Howard Cole, Los Angeles **** You know how fans boo every time a pitcher throws over to first base in a halfhearted attempt to pick off a runner? Limit the number of times a pitcher can do that in any given with a runner on first or third base. Say, the pitcher can attempt a pickoff throw twice, but then must throw home. If a runner is stealing second, the catcher has the better vision and ability to throw him out than the pitcher does, and if he’s stealing home, well … he’s probably not Jackie Robinson. — Max Rettig, New York **** After 11 innings, the home team can send up their best slugger (even if he was in the game and taken out). The visiting team can send out the pitcher of their choice for a home run derby. If the home team hits a home run, they win the game. If they don’t, the visiting team wins the game. — Robert Azar, Brooklyn **** Every time there’s a pause in the game (a manager’s visit to the mound, a catcher’s visit to the mound, replay review, etc.) that’s long enough, the stadium plays music, and all players on the field not involved in the specifics of the incident must dance. I figure this will either result in fewer pauses because players don’t want to dance, or will make the pauses much more entertaining. — Rebecca Thorsness, Providence, R. I. **** Abolish the abominable rule in the majors and minors. — Nelson Hernandez, Austin, Tex. **** How is it that a baseball game used to take two hours to complete and now can take up to four hours? The easy answer is to blame the players. And certainly they deserve some of it. But I believe that before commercial TV got involved, the time between innings was a lot shorter than it is now. With 17 changeovers in a full game, that really lengthens a game. Of course, there is no such thing as a complete game for a pitcher anymore, and managers are prone to add to commercial timeouts with three pitching changes for each team. But before we add a clock on the players, let’s think about putting the clock on those who are off the field — managers and TV broadcasters. — Jeff Byron, Los Altos, Calif. **** If no one is on base, let the batter run in either direction — i. e. to first base or third. All batters and runners who follow have to go in the same direction until the bases are empty. This will bring an element of suspense and interest to the game. — Mark Flannery, Fullerton, Calif. **** To improve offense, eliminate radical shifts by fixing the locations of fielders within zones until the ball reaches the plate. Inspect photos so the zones match what Ted Williams faced in 1941. Violations are errors. — Robert LaRose, Taiwan **** Relegation! Adopt the global soccer system of sending down the worst teams and bringing up the best from the level right below. This would inspire teams to compete with the larger markets rather than muddle along for decades in third or fourth place. In addition, it would bring pro baseball to smaller markets and give those cities a taste of major league talent. — Kurt Gardner, Brooklyn **** Some of us like watching professional soccer in part because we know it will be a game. You can count on it. Not so with M. L. B. Isn’t it ironic (moronic?) that M. L. B. officials are quoted as saying that they can’t shorten the breaks between innings because of the ad revenue that would be lost. So if I understand this, they’d rather have the dollars than the fans. What a strategy. How about this strategy — put the customers first by shortening the game, and that in turn would increase viewership and attendance and eventually maybe even increase revenues. . This should be all about improving the customer experience. Once you do that, the data shows, you increase your revenues. — Dennis Stern, Lyme, N. H. **** Award multiple runs for gigantic home runs, much as the basketball shot. This wouldn’t speed up the game, but it would add some excitement. — Steven Sherwood, San Francisco **** What if the batting order were eliminated? What if a manager could send up a particular player to bat as many times as he wanted in a game in whatever order he wanted? A batter could even get up consecutive times if he didn’t reach base. Presumably the team’s best hitters would get up over and over — maybe the best six would only see and the other players on the team would be defensive specialists. — Alan Stricoff **** Legalize the use of certain drugs, to be monitored by medical professionals. The drugs to be legalized should focus on maintaining health and recovering from injury. Sure, we’d have to consider stats and records from prior eras as distinct from current player accomplishments. But today, it appears we are at the point where “ drugs” is almost synonymous with “medical advancement. ” These guys play a lot of baseball. Healthier, better players spread across the league would be great for the game. And, yeah, keep the hitters in the box between pitches, too. It’s ridiculous already. — Dan Davidow, New Jersey **** Baseball is the sport where superstars have the least impact at the most crucial times. In every other sport the star can hit the big shot, throw the touchdown pass or score the goal when it counts. Here is my idea, and it’s radical for sure. In the eighth or ninth inning, the team at bat, if losing or tied, can advance the batting order back to the top of the order (one time only). We need more offense. More excitement. Let the best players put the bat in their hands against the best relievers at the most important times. — Doug Tumen, Woodstock, N. Y. **** Basically, I have only one problem with baseball that stops me from viewing a game at certain times, and that’s while I’m eating. And that problem is SPITTING! SPITTING! SPITTING! I don’t enjoy watching grown men, nor anyone for that matter SPITTING! It’s not pleasant, it’s not cool as most players and think it is and it’s certainly not . TV producers have an affinity for showing it but it needs to stop. — William McGrady, Piscataway, N. J. **** Easy fix: have one lineup for offense and one for defense (like the N. F. L. ). M. L. B. will get more hitting, more base running, more scoring … more excitement! — Larry Sternbach, Marlboro, N. J. **** One sure (and radical) way to speed up the game would be to make ALL foul balls be strikes no matter the count. If there are two strikes on the batter and he fouls a pitch off, he’s out. — Paul Morrison, Boston **** The biggest improvement M. L. B. could make is to institute an electronic strike zone. Aside from providing ultimate consistency and fairness to both pitchers and batters (and fans) the electronic strike zone would eliminate the hidden, gamesmanship practiced by pitchers, batters, catchers and bench jockeys as they try to influence the umpires’ calls. Statisticians at Stanford have determined that umpires are biased by game situations when calling balls and strikes (the same pitch with the bases loaded is more likely to be called a strike than ball four). — Andreas Lord, Brookline, Mass. **** Why don’t we enforce the rules that already exist? Batters are supposed to stay in the box, and mound visits are limited to 30 seconds. The umps and baseball need to actually, and consistently, enforce this. What’s the point of the rule if no one pays attention to it? — Erika Crawford, Washington **** 10 contemplated rule changes for 2017 that would revolutionize the sport (time saved is per game): 1. After a home run is hit, the batter just touches home plate without running the bases. Average time saved: 98 seconds. 2. A pitcher gets one free strike per inning. Thus, a count with the bases loaded and two outs becomes an inning ending with a wave of the hand. Average time saved: 21 minutes. 3. If a team is ahead by more than four runs in the seventh inning or beyond, they forfeit their right to bat. Average time saved: 36 minutes. 4. One batter on the opposing team can be designated as ineligible for any game. The same player cannot be chosen more than once per series. Average time saved: 38 minutes. 5. The third inning, and any extra inning, is three balls and two strikes instead of four and three. Average time saved: 39 minutes. 6. Managers are eliminated. Average time saved: 56 minutes. 7. Home teams get to call games two hours after the first pitch is thrown. The dilemma is the team must make this choice before the game starts. Average time saved: 58 minutes. 8. One fan, coming to the park with two screaming children, is chosen to decide when he has had enough and wants to leave. At that point, everyone, including the players, has to go home. Average time saved: 78 minutes. 9. There can be only one pitching change per inning, and none in the second, fifth and eighth innings. If a game lasts more than 10 innings, the opposing squad gets to designate the pitcher( s) for the 11th and 12th innings. Average time saved: 81 minutes. 10. The season is reduced to 12 games. Average time saved: infinity, as baseball dies. — Robert Nussbaum, Fort Lee, N. J. **** Limit visits to the mound by players and coaches a team must use them the same way football, basketball, hockey teams use timeouts. A batter must always have one foot in the batter’s box. Batters must learn to stop fidgeting around they are professionals, not kids. Shortstop and third baseman must be on the side of second base, second basemen and first basemen must be on the side of second base. Outfielders must stay in the outfield. This is before the pitch. Anything else is an illegal defense. Learn from basketball. This has nothing to do with the speed of the game but make “high socks” fashionable. — Vincent, Encinitas, Calif. **** Require all M. L. B. teams to designate a certain number of games (one per month, say) as “Youth Games. ” In a Youth Game, all tickets — and at least certain concessions — purchased by someone under a certain age (say, 16) would be STEEPLY discounted — say, by 90 percent or so. And, ALL tickets should be set aside for those games, so a box seat that might normally go for $150 would be only $15 and $20 seats would be $2. Teams might also consider ways to subsidize transportation to those games. — Ken Landau, Overland Park, Kan. **** One free pickoff attempt per after that, each pickoff attempt counts as a ball. This will speed up the game and increase excitement with more stolen bases and runs. — Rick Dorfman, Boca Raton, Fla. **** Nine innings, nine positions. The players rotate one position each inning, as in volleyball. Players would be better rounded and the disproportionate importance of pitchers would disappear. Then I would watch it with interest. — Tom Jones, Boulder, Colo. **** Drop the fourth inning. Nothing ever happens in the fourth so just go from the third to the fifth. You would still have the ninth inning, and we would be there at least 20 minutes sooner. — John Connolly, Rockville Centre, N. Y. **** We were a little surprised at how passionate people were about this subject and how much thought they put into it — we received nearly 3, 000 submissions. If you would like to see some more ideas about how to fix the game, or why it should be left alone, we’ve published the best of the rest. | 1 |
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The teenager whose explosive allegations led to a federal investigation against disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner has published an open letter about victim’s rights, and her utter betrayal by FBI Director James Comey’s partisan memo that is so heart wrenching, that it must be shared and read by every single law enforcement officer in the country, if not the world.
This entire weekend, intense media coverage has focused on one woman – Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton – most observers believe was wronged by Comey’s intentionally vague memo. All the while, the woman most harmed by FBI Director Comey’s partisan attack has been suffering in silent agony, victimized first by her abuser and then by the men with badges.
FBI agents claimed that they spoke with her to seek justice, only for Comey to turn around and betray her, to victimize her yet again, by thrusting her story into the white heat of the last week in a bitterly contested general election campaign’s final media feeding frenzy with one vaguely worded memo guaranteed to draw maximum questioning by the press.
The anonymous teen who only went to the FBI under the promise of anonymity and was grilled by agents for seven hours just last Friday. Only minutes after ending that interrogation, she was contacted by journalists who knew her identity only minutes after ending the discussions with the federal law enforcement officers.
Clearly, her identity was somehow no longer a secret. The media contacted the teen victim and her family before even the FBI case manager let her know about Comey’s memo, and it all happened before she could escape the public eye to safeguard her privacy. So she wrote this letter and delivered it to a national entertainment website :
I am the 15-year-old (now 16) who was the victim of Anthony Weiner. I now add you to the list of people who have victimized me. I told my story originally to protect other young girls that might be a victim of online predators.
Your letter to Congress has now brought this whole matter back into the media spotlight. Not even 10 minutes after being forensically interviewed with the FBI for seven hours, I received a phone call from a REPORTER asking for a statement. Why didn’t you communicate with the local FBI agents that I had just spoken to? They could have scheduled our interview sooner or scheduled a time to interview me later, or change locations of the interview. My neighborhood has been canvassed by reporters asking for details about me.
In your letter, you chose to use a vague approach, meaning the media had to keep searching to try and find out what evidence you had uncovered and how. Every media outlet from local to national has contacted me and my family to get my “story.” Why couldn’t your letter have waited until after the election, so I would not have to be the center of attention the last week of the election cycle?
In his “cooperation” with you and with his love of the spotlight, Anthony Weiner has given information that led to the media finding me. You have assisted him in further victimizing me on every news outlet. I can only assume that you saw an opportunity for political propaganda.
I thought your job as FBI Director was to protect me. I thought if I cooperated with your investigation, my identity as a minor would be kept secret. That is no longer the case. My family and I are barraged by reporters’ phone calls and emails. I have been even been blamed in a newspaper for causing Donald Trump to now be leading in some polls and costing Hillary the election.
Anthony Weiner is the abuser. Your letter helped that abuse to continue. How can I rebuild my life when you have made finding out my “story” the goal of every reporter? When I meet with my therapist next time, she will already know what we are going to talk about before I get there by reading Friday, October 28th, 2016’s New York Times article.
I may have been Weiner’s victim, but the real story here is that I am a survivor. I am strong, intelligent, and certain that I will come out from under this nightmare, but it will not be as a result of your doing your job to protect me. I hope that by making my letter to you public, you will think about how your actions affect the victims of the crimes you are investigating. The election is important, yes, but what happened to me and how it makes me feel and how others see me, is much more important. It’s time that the FBI Director puts his victims’ rights above political views.
— Girl that lost her faith in America
P.S. To all reporters: AP, FOX, CBS, NBC, and all other media outlets, please respect my position and stop interrupting my life!
It’s impossible to read this letter without tears for the teenage girl who was victimized by Anthony Wiener, and bravely stepped forward to alert the authorities so they could stop a sad sex predator so mentally ill, that after his out of control actions cost him his career and his public image, he continued his behavior until he lost his marriage and perhaps next his freedom for the safety of others.
Instead, the very authorities at the FBI who pledged to maintain her anonymity and seek justice for her, and to prevent she, and others from facing the same ills, have turned into a political party with badges – and not a very well coordinated group of people with badges either.
Our nation needs leaders who place their duty above partisan politics, and in law enforcement we need cops on the beat to protect the victims, not to abuse the victims for their own partisan games.
Our nation needs for FBI Director James Comey to admit his mistakes and vacate his position, before the next victim of crime gets victimized by his unsavory political maneuvering using the country’s top law enforcement agency to slander someone else into political compliance. | 0 |
“Jesus” will save his soul not his body, Ignorant piece of shit. | 0 |
Protesters, Police Still Clashing Over Disputed North Dakota Pipeline 11/03/2016
NPR
Police used pepper spray and what they called nonlethal ammunition to remove Dakota Access Pipeline protesters from federal land Wednesday. Demonstrators say they were trying to occupy land just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation where construction of the controversial pipeline is scheduled.
This was the first significant clash between law enforcement and protesters since demonstrations turned violent last week and more than 100 people were arrested.
According to the Morton County, N.D., Sheriff’s Department, a group of people began building a wood pedestrian bridge across a creek north of the main protest camp early Wednesday morning. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers owns the land and had asked law enforcement to remove any protesters who try to reach it.
Officers in boats pulled the makeshift bridge apart and warned protesters they would be arrested if they continued to trespass. After a several-hour standoff with police, protesters dispersed and returned to their main camp.
During the standoff, a few protesters watched from across the nearby Cannonball River. They waded into the water — some chest-deep — to shout support for colleagues closer to officers.
“I decided to get into the river and just be a presence there,” says Stephanie Jasper of Tampa Bay, Fla. She watched as law enforcement pushed protesters back toward the main camp, and says she saw officers use pepper spray. She says it was a chaotic sight as a police helicopter hovered overhead.
Several protesters standing in the river held mirrors directed at law enforcement officers lined up on the other side and at police on the river in boats.
“Everybody was just sharing love to these officers and explaining why it is we’re here and questioning why they were,” says Jasper.
One law enforcement official had a very different view of the protest. “In my 27 years in law enforcement, I have never seen such an absolute disregard for the law or other people’s rights because of someone else’s ideology,” said Cass County, N.D., Sheriff Paul Laney.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe says the Dakota Access Pipeline construction route crosses land that is sacred to its members. And the tribe worries a pipeline spill could pollute local water. The tribe wants the federal government to stop work on the pipeline and conduct a full environmental impact study of the pipeline.
The Morton County Sheriff’s Department says one person was arrested for “conspiracy to commit obstruction of a government function.” In a press release, the agency says the protester was buying canoes and kayaks for others to cross the creek. | 0 |
By wmw_admin on October 28, 2016 Alana Goodman — Daily Mail.com Oct 27, 2016
Bill Clinton is a sex-addicted ‘monster’ who mocked Hillary Clinton by calling her ‘The Warden’ in front of friends and privately boasted about his high notch count, according to his long-time mistress and childhood friend Dolly Kyle. Dolly Kyle. Click to enlarge
Kyle, now 68, says she had a decades-long affair with the former president before and during his marriage and had a front-row seat to Bill’s salacious double-life in the 1970s and ’80s.
Their on-again, off-again relationship ended abruptly in the 1990s, after Bill Clinton allegedly threatened to ‘destroy’ Kyle if she spoke to the media about their relationship.
Kyle’s decades of observations, shared in an interview with the DailyMail.com as well as in her 2016 book The Other Woman, provide a unique perspective on the Clintons’ marriage and the couple’s treatment of the women who have accused the former president of infidelity or sexual assault over the years.
Kyle, an Arkansas native who has since befriended several of Bill Clinton’s sexual assault accusers, said she was determined to come forward with her story after hearing Hillary Clinton say on the campaign trail that women who have been sexually assaulted have the ‘right to be believed’.
‘When [Hillary Clinton] said women who claim they are raped or sexually assaulted should be believed, we should support them, I thought “You lying dog hypocrite”,’ said Kyle.
She said the Clintons’ attacks on her reputation – and alleged attacks on other women who had relationships with or were assaulted by Bill Clinton – show that Hillary Clinton is not a supporter of women or victims of sexual violence.
Kyle said Bill Clinton threatened her over the phone in the early 1990s after she alerted him that a reporter had been asking her questions about their relationship.
‘When I warned him about this story, which I had no intention of cooperating with, his threat to me was, “If you cooperate with the media, we will destroy you”,’ said Kyle. ‘Bam. I slammed the phone down. It rang immediately. Kept ringing, I didn’t answer it again.’
Kyle first met Clinton at a country club in Hot Springs, Arkansas, when she was 11 and he was just shy of his 13th birthday. She described it as a ‘thunderbolt’ of immediate attraction even then.
The two became good friends and dated casually throughout high school, and later began a sexual affair in 1974 after Kyle and her first husband divorced.
Their relationship spanned three decades, continuing through Bill Clinton’s marriage to Hillary and Kyle’s remarriage, and culminating in a dramatic confrontation at the lovers’ 35th high school reunion. Hillary Clinton admires Christine Aguilera’s breasts. Clinton is rumoured to be an active bisexual. Click to enlarge
During this time, Kyle said Clinton often indicated that he was unhappy in his marriage – calling Hillary Clinton ‘The Warden’, admitting that he was a sex addict, and complaining to Kyle that his sex life was ‘over’ after he moved in with Hillary at Yale.
During one secret rendezvous in 1979, Kyle said then-Governor Clinton confided to her that he was desperate to have a baby for political reasons.
Kyle initially thought Bill wanted to have a baby with her, until he clarified that he wanted to have one with Hillary – hinting that he was concerned about political rumors that Hillary was a lesbian.
‘I said, “Why do you want to have a baby? You don’t even have time, you’re so busy”,’ said Kyle. ‘He said [Hillary and I] have to have a baby so that we will look like a normal couple, and we need to take attention away from The Warden’s “lifestyle”.’
‘Now, he did not say Hillary is a lesbian,’ she added. ‘Billy didn’t have to spell out what that meant… Everybody in Little Rock knew the same rumors about Hillary being a lesbian as they did about Billy being a lech.’
One night in 1972 when Bill was visiting with Kyle in Arkansas, he told her he had moved in with a girl named Hillary and sadly added that he thought this would be the end of his sex life.
`It was in 1972, before Billy and I were having our adult relationship, when he had moved in with Hillary,’ said Kyle. ‘He said, “I think my sex life is over”.’
Kyle said she first met Hillary Clinton two years later, when Bill brought his future wife to Hot Springs for his unsuccessful congressional race, and asked Kyle – who he was also dating at the time – to pick them up at the airport.
Kyle said she was ‘shocked’ by Hillary’s unkempt appearance, poor hygiene and matronly clothes, and didn’t believe it was the same girl Bill had moved in with.
‘I picked Billy up at the airport and he had this dowdy-looking middle-aged woman with him…this woman was Hillary,’ she said. ‘Hillary, I thought was a Hillary impersonator. Because she looked so bad and she smelled so bad I just didn’t believe this was Hillary.
‘Seriously, I thought this was some kind of a joke Billy was playing on me.’
Hillary’s eyes, glared at her from behind ‘coke-bottle-thick lenses with an air of real hostility. Her thick eyebrows melded together stretching across her forehead.
Finally the introduction: ‘Dolly, this is Hillary. Hillary, Dolly.’
‘I was stunned,’ Kyle recalled, thinking it was ‘some kind of a sick joke’– a woman in a hideous disguise.
Kyle extended her hand but Hillary only glared and nodded.
‘I couldn’t imagine why Billy would haul such a person in the plane with him in public. She was wearing a misshapen, brown, dress-like thing that must have been intended to hide her lumpy body. The garment was long, but stopped too soon to hide her fat ankles and her thick calves covered with black hair,’ Kyle said.
But was Hillary’s smell that Kyle says she remembers most.
‘In that moment I noticed that the woman emitted an overpowering odor of perspiration and greasy hair. I hoped that I wouldn’t gag when she got in my car,’ she said. ‘The sandal-shod woman with lank, smelly hair stood off to the side and glared at everyone.`
`I vowed to myself not to drive off without the other woman, no matter how bad she smelled.’
After the meeting, Kyle said Hillary Clinton sent her father and her brother to Arkansas to ostensibly help with Bill’s campaign but also to keep tabs on his womanizing.
At the time, Kyle said Bill was also dating a University of Arkansas co-ed named Marla Crider – and Hillary Clinton allegedly threw a fit when she found evidence of the fling.
‘Hillary came swooping in from Washington to Fayetteville, went through Billy’s things, found little cards and notes, you know, the cutesy kind of things you do when you’re dating someone,’ said Kyle. ‘She shredded them. She shredded those documents…these were notes to him from Marla, these were things from Marla.’
Kyle said Hillary also ‘started calling [Marla] in the middle of the night, threatening her’.
She speculated that part of the reason Hillary was so enraged was that Bill’s affair with Marla Crider undermined the public story about the Clintons’ early romance.
‘They had this story about their romance at Yale law school. Billy even repeated it at the Democratic National Convention. Well what if people knew about Dolly Kyle and Gennifer Flowers and Marla Crider? It kind of ruins Hillary’s story,’ said Kyle.
According to Kyle, Bill Clinton often used a derogatory nickname for Hillary when he was talking to his mistress or the security guards at the governor’s mansion.
‘After the day Billy introduced me to Hillary…he never used her name again. He always called her ‘The Warden,’ said Kyle. ‘She was the person who was trying to keep control of him who was in charge of what he was doing.’
Kyle said this nickname fit with Hillary’s reputation in Arkansas, where she was often portrayed as a coarse northerner who disdained the traditional role of an Arkansas first lady.
According to Kyle, there were constant stories about Hillary’s alleged temper. On the night Bill Clinton lost his congressional race in 1974, Hillary was allegedly overheard lashing out at a Jewish campaign staffer with an anti-Semitic slur.
‘Apparently that night when Billy was losing, she went on one of her tirades to a guy named Paul,’ said Kyle. ‘People in the other room heard her call him an “f***ing Jew bastard”.’
In another incident from Bill Clinton’s term as governor, Hillary Clinton was tasked with hosting an annual Easter egg hunt at the governor’s mansion for special needs children. But, according to Kyle, Hillary allegedly became irritated by the slow pace of the event. Bill and Hillary Clinton at Yale in 1973
‘Some of [the kids] were physically impaired some of them were mentally impaired. But [the governor’s staff] hid the eggs in plain sight and made it easier for these kids to find these eggs,’ said Kyle, whose close friend was involved in organizing the event.
‘So during this hunt it was getting warm in Arkansas. Well, Hillary was getting tired of it, and the kids were moving slowly, so she goes stomping onto the veranda. She said ‘When are they gonna get those f-ing retards out of here?’ said Kyle. ‘Thankfully, and blessedly, the children were oblivious to it. Their parents were appalled.’
Kyle, who says she suffered from sex addiction for many years after she was raped as a teenager, recalled one candid conversation she had with Bill Clinton after she entered therapy. She said Clinton told her he was also a sex addict.
‘I talked to Billy about that, and I went through the 25 questions we use to ask “Am I a sex addict?” It’s a self-diagnosed thing, like [Alcoholics Anonymous],’ said Kyle. ‘Billy and I went through the questions, and he said, “Oh my god. I’m a sex addict”.’
‘I don’t know if Hillary had the cognitive awareness that he was a sex addict. This is a problem that can be dealt with,’ Kyle added.
At some point in the evening, I felt a hand on my arm and it was Billy. He says “How are you?” Condescending, patronizing, despicable. “How are you?” And I just turned around, and I just said “You are such an anatomical part, I can’t believe you’d bother to ask”,’ said Kyle.
She said after a brief, heated exchange – during which a Secret Service agent tried to separate them – she finally agreed to sit down and talk to Bill Clinton in a quiet corner of the event.
She told Clinton that she had no plans to talk to the press, but was going to put out a novel that alluded to their affair.
She also told Clinton about a legal aid non-profit she had started in Dallas. The president told her to ‘come to Washington’, and allegedly promised to turn the organization into a project of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Kyle said she declined the offer.
Clinton later denied having a sexual relationship with Kyle during a deposition for the Paula Jones sexual assault case
Kyle said she was shocked to hear this, calling it ‘lie after lie’. She said just a short while before Bill’s testimony, his attorneys had tried to prevent her from testifying in the Paula Jones case by arguing that the two of them had a consensual sexual relationship and her testimony would not be relevant.
‘What he did was perjury,’ said Kyle, who ended up testifying during the Jones case about Clinton’s alleged sex addiction.
Although Kyle said she was appalled to hear the sexual assault allegations against Clinton, she said she absolutely believed them – even though Clinton was never violent to her during their relationship.
‘Knowing he was a sex addict, it was easy for me to believe that. Easy for me intellectually to believe it. Very difficult emotionally,’ she said. ‘And that’s when I started realizing, the Billy Clinton I knew was not this monster he became.’
Kyle claimed she sees a double standard in how the media covers sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.
‘I’m sorry, I’m not saying [Trump] didn’t leer at some girl. I’m not saying he didn’t pat one on the fanny. I don’t know. I don’t know what all of those charges are,’ said Kyle. ‘But the media is focusing on that every single day while Billy Clinton raped a woman, and sexually assaulted god knows how many women.’
She said that since publishing her book earlier this year, she has been contacted by multiple women who have also had sexual run-ins with Clinton but do not want to go public.
‘When I say, please come out and talk about this, they’re afraid,’ she said. ‘Because they know that the mainstream media if they get on this story, is just going to trash them.
‘Some of them say, “I was 17 at the time, I was 18 or 19 years old”, or, “I haven’t told my husband about this”, or, “my children would be appalled”, or, “my grandchildren would be embarrassed”. So they don’t say anything.’ | 0 |
The Black Swan Theory is used by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain the existence and occurrence of high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations. One example often put forth by Taleb is the life and times of the Thanksgiving Turkey.
The turkey spends the majority of its life enjoying daily feedings from a caring farmer. Weeks go by, and it’s the same thing day-in-day-out for the Turkey. Free food. Open range grazing. Good times all around.
The thinking turkey may even surmise that the farmer has a vested interest in keeping the turkey alive. For the turkey, it is a symbiotic relationship. “The farmer feeds me and keeps me happy, and I keep the farmer happy,” says the turkey. “The farmer needs me, otherwise, why would he be taking care of me?”
This goes on for a 1,000 days.
Then, two days before Thanksgiving on Day 1,001, the farmer shows up again.
But this time he doesn’t come bearing food, but rather, he’s wielding an ax.
This is a black swan event — for the turkey.
By definition, it is a high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event for the turkey, who not only never saw it coming, but never even contemplated the possibility that it could occur.
For the farmer, on the other hand, this was not a black swan event. The farmer knew all along why he was feeding the turkey, and what the end result would be.
The very nature of black swan events make them almost impossible to predict. The point of this parable is to put forth the idea that sometimes we are the Thanksgiving turkey and understanding this may make it easier to begin to, at the very least, contemplate the possibility of far-from-equilibrium events.
This year, when you enjoy that drumstick or Turkey breast, give thanks to the latest victim of the black swan for being non-contemplative, otherwise, he may have bugged-out long ago and you’d be eating a chicken instead.
Editor’s Note: We’d like to take this opportunity to thank every one of you for visiting our web site. Many of you have joined our community and often hang out in our comments area sharing your ideas with others, making new friends, and keeping us all abreast of developing news that we may not catch. It is you, the SHTFplan community, that has made this web site what it is today. In fact, without you, what we’ve achieved would simply not be possible.
Thank you for the many years of good times. I have personally met numerous folks directly via this web site that have become good friends – and not just online, but in real life! I hope others have had the same opportunity. For newer readers, this is a fantastic community. Sure, things might get a bit heated at times given the substance of the topics being posted, but all-in-all there are a lot of people here ready to share their knowledge, inspirations and friendship. It’s a great way to meet new friends who may have similar interests and beliefs, so if you’ve never posted please don’t be afraid to do so!
Thank you all! Have a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving Day!
Sincerely,
Mac Slavo
| 0 |
A United States representative from North Carolina said in a television interview on Thursday that protesters in Charlotte “hate white people because white people are successful and they’re not,” and then hours later recanted and apologized. The representative, Robert Pittenger, a Republican whose district includes parts of Charlotte, was interviewed on a British Broadcasting Corporation show, BBC Newsnight, when he made the comment. In response to an interviewer’s question about the demonstrators’ grievance, Mr. Pittenger said: “The grievance in their mind is the animus, the anger. They hate white people because white people are successful and they’re not. I mean, yes, it is, it is a welfare state. We have spent trillions of dollars on welfare, and we’ve put people in bondage so they can’t be all that they are capable of being. ” The comment drew criticism on social media. Grier Martin, a Democrat who is a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives, on Twitter called the comment “one of the most ignorant statements I have ever heard. ” Within hours, Mr. Pittenger, 68, apologized and tried to explain himself in a series of posts on Twitter. He said his “anguish” about what was happening in Charlotte prompted him to respond to a question “in a way that I regret. ” He apologized and said he hoped “we can bring peace and calm to Charlotte. ” He added that he was trying to discuss a lack of economic mobility for “because of failed policies. ” Mr. Pittenger appeared on CNN on Thursday night to defuse the criticism, but not all were convinced it was effective. | 1 |
SAN FRANCISCO — For much of this year, Airbnb has been under fire over the ease with which its hosts can reject potential renters based on race, age, gender or other factors. The barrage of criticism began with a Harvard University study, snowballed with firsthand accounts of discrimination from Airbnb guests and has prompted a lawsuit. Airbnb, the rental website, has moved quickly to tamp down the controversy. It embarked on a review of how discrimination might creep into the site. It hired prominent advisers, including former United States Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to help formulate policies. And Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s chief executive, has repeatedly said that the company needed to do better in dealing with the issue. On Thursday, Airbnb took its most forceful actions yet to combat discrimination. It told its rental hosts that they needed to agree to a “community commitment” starting on Nov. 1 and that they must hew to a new nondiscrimination policy. The company also said that it would try to reduce the prominence of user photographs, which indicate race and gender, and that it would accelerate the use of instant bookings, which lets renters book places immediately without host approval. The moves were outlined in a report that serves as a blueprint for how Airbnb plans to fight discrimination on the site. Among the other changes is a new team of engineers, data scientists and researchers, whose job includes discerning patterns of host behavior. “Bias and discrimination have no place on Airbnb, and we have zero tolerance for them,” Mr. Chesky wrote in a message to Airbnb users and hosts that accompanied the report. “Unfortunately, we have been slow to address these problems, and for this I am sorry. ” Airbnb’s response is designed to quiet the questions over discrimination that have threatened to cloud growth of the company, which is based in San Francisco. Founded in 2008, Airbnb has spread to more than 34, 000 cities and 191 countries, where people increasingly use the service as a replacement for hotels. The continued expansion of the privately held which is valued at $25 billion, depends partly on the idea that Airbnb can be a global company, providing a broad range of people with places to stay when they travel. That reputation was stained in December, when Harvard University researchers released a working paper that concluded it was harder for guests with names to rent rooms through the site. Several Airbnb users have since shared stories on social media saying they were denied a rental because of their race. In May, an Airbnb user filed a suit against the company, seeking status, saying he had been denied a place to stay because of his race. “There have been too many unacceptable instances of people being discriminated against on the Airbnb platform because of who they are or what they look like,” wrote Laura W. Murphy, a former director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office who was hired by Airbnb to compile its report. Diversity advocates said Airbnb’s actions were a notable first step, but wondered how some of the changes could be enforced and whether the moves went far enough. The biases of hosts can be cloaked — for example, one Airbnb listing in Washington states “we cannot accept guests arriving in D. C. by bus or motor coach,” without mentioning race, class or ethnicity — and may be difficult to eradicate. “The company isn’t saying that it will consistently ban hosts for discrimination, so it’s unclear whether this policy will be enough to deter bad behavior,” said Jamila an associate professor of law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. “I want more information on how the technology works and how the company will act when they identify discriminatory behavior. ” Professor said she was also concerned about potential unintended consequences of Airbnb’s new policies. If mainly minorities feel comfortable in using instant bookings to reserve rentals on Airbnb, for instance, that could end up creating a reservations system, she said. Airbnb was short on details about how some of the changes might work. Though the company said it planned to experiment with reducing the prominence of user photographs to fight discrimination, it does not intend to eliminate the photos. It did not provide specifics on what a user profile with a picture might look like. “Photos are an invitation to discriminate,” said Kristen Clarke, the president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, an organization that advised Airbnb on best practices. Wade Henderson, president and chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which also advised Airbnb on the report, said the company did not accept all of its recommendations on promoting diversity. But he called the report “an important first step that shows an openness to considering solutions to reducing discrimination on the Airbnb platform. ” To help with enforcement against discrimination, Airbnb said it was developing new tools to route discrimination concerns to a group of trained specialists, who will handle the complaints. The company also plans to begin training to address unconscious biases and is pushing for more diversity within its own work force. In the report, Ms. Murphy acknowledged that there were many difficulties to eliminating discrimination from Airbnb. “There is no one product change, policy or modification that can eliminate bias and discrimination,” she wrote. “Tackling these challenges requires a sustained and multifaceted approach. ” Ms. Murphy did not blame Mr. Chesky or his two Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk, for how the discrimination problems have mushroomed. When the three men, who are white, started Airbnb as a tiny enterprise eight years ago, they began “with the best of intentions,” she wrote. The founders “were not fully conscious of racial bias. ” | 1 |
Good morning. We’re trying something new for our readers in Asia and Australia: a morning briefing to your day. What do you like? What do you want to see here? Email us with your feedback at asiabriefing@nytimes. com. Here’s what you need to know: • The surprise election of Donald J. Trump, a real estate television star with no government experience, upended the political order in the United States and around the world. Global markets stabilized after an initial plunge. But uncertainty over Mr. Trump’s agenda, his embrace of the kind of white populism rising in Europe, and his distrust of trade pacts and climate change, raised international concerns. _____ • Mr. Trump marshaled white and voters disaffected by globalization and multiculturalism, waging a campaign that traded in derision and attacked the legitimacy of the political process. Both Hillary Clinton and President Obama were stung by the voters’ repudiation, but reinforced the importance of a peaceful, orderly transition of power. Mrs. Clinton, who said the loss was “painful, and it will be for a long time,” also insisted that the nation owed Mr. Trump “an open mind and a chance to lead. ” _____ • One party, the Republicans, will now control the White House and both houses of Congress, setting the stage for sweeping policy changes. The stunning outcome was unforeseen, undercutting the credibility of much of the American news media. Like the “Brexit” referendum, much of the polling, analysis and prominent coverage failed to capture the level of popular fury or foresee the coming revolt against the interests of what the British politician Nigel Farage derided as “big business and big politics. ” _____ • Both Russia and China have portrayed the tumultuous American election as a validation of their own authoritarian approaches. Vladimir V. Putin expressed hope for a “constructive dialogue” with Mr. Trump, whose lack of foreign policy experience and friendly positions toward Russia could play into the Kremlin’s hands. Asia greeted the election cautiously. China sent a short congratulatory note, but made no mention of Mr. Trump’s campaign promises to confront it on trade and currency issues. Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, could meet with the as early as next week. • Newspapers across the globe scrambled to create front pages that conveyed the stunning upset. [The New York Times] • If Mr. Trump scraps the Trade Partnership, a proper counterweight to China’s expansion may never emerge. [The Straits Times] • Asian analysts fear that Mr. Trump will overhaul bilateral defense pacts with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia. [Nikkei Asian Review] • Mr. Trump has said he will “end forever” the use of the visa that is employed by American companies to hire skilled workers from India and other countries. [Times of India] • Weeks before the election, President Rodrigo Duterte named Mr. Trump’s business partner in Manila as a special envoy to the United States. [The New York Times] • Silicon Valley’s reaction to Mr. Trump’s victory was beyond grim. “We didn’t do enough,” said one tech leader. [The New York Times] • California and Massachusetts legalized recreational marijuana use, reflecting a national shift in attitudes toward the drug. [The New York Times] • The one American institution that predicted Mr. Trump’s presidency: “The Simpsons. ” [Entertainment Weekly] • The markets have recovered from a wild ride, with stocks trading higher in the U. S. and in early trading in Asia. Gold pared earlier gains. Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • The Mexican peso took a beating, dropping more than 12 percent against the dollar before recovering to 8 percent. • In other news, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India arrives in Japan today for a visit during which the two countries may complete negotiations on a nuclear energy deal. • Disney reports quarterly results today, which could offer a look into the performance of the massive new resort it opened in Shanghai this year. • In Hong Kong, highly competitive “cramming centers” for exam preparations are turning their tutors into celebrities, plastering their faces on buses and billboards. • Sharbat Gula, the Afghan who appeared as a girl on a National Geographic cover, was welcomed home by Afghanistan’s president after Pakistan deported her. She has come to symbolize the plight of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees and migrants being forced to return. • President Xi Jinping’s attitudes toward law and sovereignty were apparent in China’s decision to target two politicians in Hong Kong who used the term “ ” in taking their oaths of office. • At least seven people died and dozens were injured when a tram derailed south of London. The cause was unclear, but the driver was arrested. • Roughly 50, 000 years ago, the Neanderthals and modern humans encountered one another and interbred. So why didn’t a hybrid prevail? Two new studies focus on this question and find that a principle of population genetics applies: In small populations, natural selection is less effective. We recently told you how autumn — or is it fall? — got its identity crisis. But what about summer, spring and winter? Where do their names come from? Etymologists link “winter” to the word wed, meaning “water. ” That gave way to the old German wintar, or “the wet season. ” Water also leads us to the source of spring’s name. In this case, the word was a verb before it was a noun. In the Middle Ages, “sprinc” was German for “leap” and it came to mean “source of water. ” Eventually “springing time” replaced the Old English “lent,” which had signified the entire spring season, not just the period from Ash Wednesday to Easter. It shrank down to “springtime,” then “spring. ” And while autumn now has two names, summer may originally have had none at all. Thousands of years ago, early cultures are thought to have divided the year into just three seasons. At some point, the Sanskrit “sáma,” or “season,” appears to have traveled north from the Indian subcontinent — a place that knows a thing or two about sweltering months — and became summer. P. S.: The storied firearm we told you about in our Back Story on Wednesday — an 18th century musket made for the Qianlong emperor — was sold by the Sotheby’s auction house to a private collector for more than $2. 4 million. Giovanni Russonello contributed reporting. _____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
By Amanda Froelich This tree-like skyscraper is capable of growing 24 acres-worth of crops and will be powered entirely by renewable resources. By 2050, the world’s population is estimated to reach... | 0 |
Dispatches from STEPHEN LENDMAN I t doesn’t matter. The Clintons are untouchable. Despite clear evidence of war crimes, racketeering, perjury, and Hillary’s email scandal, along with suspicion of murder, and who knows what else, they’re heading back to the White House in January. Electoral rigging virtually assures it. FBI director James Comey’s announced revisiting of Hillary’s use of her private email server to maintain and send classified information won’t derail her presidential bid. .. Last July, Comey whitewashed her criminality – serious enough to send ordinary people to prison. At the time, Trump was right, saying she “compromised the safety of the American people by storing highly classified information on a private email server with no security.” .. “Our adversaries almost certainly have a blackmail file on (her), and this fact alone disqualified her from service.” She was caught red-handed lying to the FBI and Congress – claiming she didn’t use her home server to maintain or send classified information. Comey confirmed over 100 emails were classified when sent, including top secret ones – maybe hundreds more we haven’t heard about or not yet discovered. .. Deleting thousands of emails compounded her criminality. Yet her road to the White House remains on track. Still, Comey’s Friday announcement was astonishing, less than two weeks before November’s election, an unprecedented act Trump will try using to his advantage – though likely no more successfully than earlier. .. Comey’s letter was disturbingly vague, suggesting having absolved Hillary’s criminality once, he’ll do it again. Announced “investigative steps” take time – likely concluding next year after November’s election and January’s inauguration. Here’s his letter to FBI employees explaining his action: .. “This morning I sent a letter to Congress in connection with the Secretary Clinton email investigation. Yesterday, the investigative team briefed me on their recommendation with respect to seeking access to emails that have recently been found in an unrelated case.” .. “Because those emails appear to be pertinent to our investigation, I agreed that we should take appropriate steps to obtain and review them.” .. “Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record.” .. “At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression.” .. “In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.” Judicial Watch (JW) has done important work, trying to have Hillary held accountable for her scandalous email practices – criminality without punishment so far, unlikely to change ahead, especially if she’s anointed in November to succeed Obama, a near-certainty as things now stand. .. In response to Comey’s announcement, JW president Tom Fitton issued the following statement: .. “ The FBI’s seeming decision to reopen the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information is astonishing. Once again, we suspect our Freedom of Information Act and other investigations have spurred the FBI to act. This decision highlights the corruption, favoritism, and incompetence in the FBI/Justice Department investigation of Hillary Clinton.” .. Her “email misconduct and lies, aided and abetted by the Obama administration, have created a national crisis. The FBI needs to disclose more information about what it found and when – the American voters deserve answers now.” .. “Judicial Watch helped break open the Clinton email scandal and, no matter what the FBI does, will independently continue its historic litigation and investigation.” U S voters go to the polls in 10 days. Millions already voted in advance. Things were likely rigged way ahead of November 8. Hillary is the establishment choice. Power brokers running America picked her last year to succeed Obama. Trump surprisingly emerged last man standing among a deplorable array of GOP aspirants, resembling a police lineup – or an FBI most wanted list. .. Bill and Hillary Clinton belong in prison, not high office for a third co-presidential term. Given everything publicly known, they remain irreparably tainted, a disturbing indictment of a political process too debauched to fix. Voters have no say over who leads them. Powerful interests decide everything. Democracy in America is pure fantasy, not the real thing. .. The only solution is grassroots revolution. Nothing else can work. ABOUT THE AUTHOR STEPHEN LENDMAN lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected] . His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” ( http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html ) Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com . | 0 |
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