text
stringlengths 1
134k
| label
int64 0
1
|
|---|---|
lists are stories: They tell the truth by lying. The idea that a critic can watch all the television there is today, let alone isolate the 10 best works among wildly different genres, is a fiction. But play along with it, and you tell a larger tale about what mattered that year and why. To whittle this story down to 10 titles required some little cheats. I left out ESPN’s revelatory documentary “O. J.: Made in America” because this publication reviewed it as a film. “Halt and Catch Fire” is as terrific as when I included it in 2015 I bumped it this year to make room. (Yet I repeated “The Americans,” “Transparent” and “Rectify. ” Life is unfair.) I didn’t number my list. (The best show of the year, if you’re asking, was “Atlanta,” but beyond that the order would have been arbitrary.) An improved “Better Call Saul” barely missed the cut, as did the best season of “Girls” since its first. There are series I couldn’t quite justify putting on this list but were crazy entertaining, like “Stranger Things. ” What remains is a sampler of TV as dizzying and agitated as the year we’ve just lived through. We live in interesting times, and we also get to watch them. — JAMES PONIEWOZIK ‘THE AMERICANS’ (FX) The direct heir to “Breaking Bad” may be “Better Call Saul,” but this 1980s spy drama also has a claim to that legacy. It uses a story of double lives ( Soviet spies) to create a sense of impending doom, with the added twist that its married protagonists are acting out of idealism, however misguided, not greed or bitterness. It’s a view of a Cold War chess match that has deep sympathy for the pawns. ‘ATLANTA’ (FX) For a series about people bumping up against limitations — a midlevel star and his manager — Donald Glover’s comedy was limitless in its possibilities. Sliding from grit to surrealism, from pawnshops to mansions, “Atlanta” created a diorama of life in its title city and a testament to the weirdness of existence. ‘BOJACK HORSEMAN’ (Netflix) The third season of this animated comedy follows the title character, a horse voiced by Will Arnett, on the awards circuit for his new biopic, “Secretariat. ” That journey, including a episode set at an underwater film festival, frames a hallucinatory but heartfelt story of one horse’s search for . ‘CRAZY ’ (CW) In a great year for complicated women on TV — “Fleabag,” “Lady Dynamite,” “Better Things” — this raunchy, musical did handsprings down the line between infatuated and insane. The Rachel Bloom started with a premise of lovestruck obsession, added lyrically gymnastic songs (“J. A. P. Battle,” “The Math of Love Triangles”) and dismantled romantic myths while using them as fuel. ‘FULL FRONTAL WITH SAMANTHA BEE’ (TBS) If we judge political comedy by its results — and god help us if we do — “Full Frontal” has no place here the “screaming carrot demon” (to use one of Ms. Bee’s more printable insults for Donald J. Trump) won the election anyway. But comedically, “Full Frontal” arrived fully formed and furious, establishing an outrageous voice — shocking even within the constraints of language — and an outraged sense of purpose. ‘HIGH MAINTENANCE’ (HBO) Along with “Black Mirror” and “Documentary Now!” (both of which nearly made this list) and Netflix’s uneven but adventurous “Easy,” this itinerant comedy of a Brooklyn pot dealer and his clients marked a creative resurgence of anthology TV. A move from the web to premium cable gave “High Maintenance” a production upgrade, but its humane curiosity remains pure and uncut. ‘HORACE AND PETE’ (louisck. net) Louis C. K. released his barroom drama without warning, and it unfolded like a crawl through a dark attic full of musty crates and family secrets. It seemed to exist outside of time, pouring one out for angsty 2016 within the walls of a dive bar, using distribution to recall the crackling immediacy of early theatrical television. ‘THE PEOPLE V. O. J. SIMPSON: AMERICAN CRIME STORY’ (FX) With crackling scripts and criminally strong performances, this made a story feel new again. Not only did it speak to America’s ongoing racial tensions, but it also ended up foreshadowing an election whose result — like the Simpson verdict — exposed a country whose two halves saw reality entirely differently. ‘RECTIFY’ (Sundance) Beginning with an ’s return to his home, “Rectify” expanded over four seasons into a story of forgotten people — in halfway houses, nursing homes, stores — trying to make peace with the unfairnesses of the past and find faith for the future. Its final season had two more episodes yet to air when I finalized this list, but I couldn’t leave it off. Miracles must be witnessed. ‘TRANSPARENT’ (Amazon) You could easily label the story of transgender senior citizen Maura Pfefferman (Jeffrey Tambor) and her extended family as insular TV. In fact it’s a deeply empathetic show that lets every character — from fundamentalist Christians to Jewish radical feminists — be flawed and complicated. Messy, diffuse and it’s like a hippie prayer circle where every congregant gets a turn. Not that long ago, making a list of the best international shows on American television would have been as easy, and pointless, as reprinting the PBS “Masterpiece” schedule. That handful of British imports was essentially the only foreign programming available. But like everything else in TV, that’s changed. My initial list for this first international Top 10 contained more than 80 shows, and that was a small slice of the foreign series available on TV or streaming services in 2016. A few notes. Five of the 11 shows on the list are British comedies. That might seem excessive, but it reflects my feeling that some of the best, most imaginative work in the world is being done in that place and genre. (Also the most energetic. American sitcoms are at a peak, too, but the best ones tend to have a muted, distressed energy — the sheer vitality of the Britcoms can be a welcome relief.) There’s also an overall and Eurocentrism to the list. That’s partly because American programmers still overwhelmingly favor shows, though streaming services do make a wealth of series available. So why no Korean or Chinese dramas, for instance? Because as attractive as some of them are, I still can’t reconcile myself to the saccharine and melodramatic formulas that seem to be mandatory in their original markets. Finally, five of the 11 entries were first shown in the United States by Netflix. Whether it’s a matter of taste or of aggressiveness and large acquisition budgets, no one matches Netflix in the breadth and quality of its international offerings, beginning with my No. 1 show. — MIKE HALE 1. ‘HAPPY VALLEY’ Britain (Netflix) The writer Sally Wainwright started out in soap opera and domestic drama before shifting into crime, and “Happy Valley” is both a tough, sometimes harrowing cop show and a meticulous, emotionally charged portrait of a community. Season 2 picked up the story of a gruff, weary uniformed officer (the terrific Sarah Lancashire) and her nemesis (James Norton) and found believably frightening and moving ways to extend it. 2. ‘DETECTORISTS’ Britain (Acorn) Mackenzie Crook’s melancholy comedy about the minor triumphs of a pair of friends who share a passion for metal detecting is the most delicate of shows — it feels as if it might float away while you’re watching it. In its second season, Mr. Crook and especially Toby Jones continued their marvelous work as who, most of the time, mask their frustration and rage in hilariously ineffectual diffidence. 3. ‘GOMORRAH’ Italy (SundanceTV) The first season of this series, a traditional Mafia saga set in Naples, was an addictive blend of speed, tension, desolate atmosphere and stark violence. While it raided the histories of both Italian and American film and gangster mythology for its look and style, it felt distinctly European, with an operatic realism unlike anything on American TV. 4. ‘CHEWING GUM’ Britain (Netflix) The playwright and actress Michaela Coel created and starred in this raucous, filthy, wildly inventive comedy about a young woman in the London projects whose sexual curiosity is in dire conflict with her Pentecostal upbringing. Ms. Coel’s performance as a nerdy wallflower bursting out of repression is matched by those of Susan Wokoma as her angrily devout sister and John Macmillan as her supercilious and curiously asexual boyfriend. 5. ‘CASE’ Iceland (Netflix) This smart and example of Nordic noir — a reboot of an earlier Icelandic series, “Rettur” — begins with the apparent suicide of a young dancer. Then it slowly expands into a repellent panorama of exploitation, in which young women are taken advantage of by parents (foster and biological) pimps, lawyers, youth counselors, hackers, classmates, ballet teachers, fellow dancers and just about anyone else you can think of. Magnus Jonsson and Steinunn Olina Thorsteinsdottir, as an alcoholic lawyer and a dour detective, make an art of moody inexpressiveness. 6. ‘FLEABAG’ AND ‘CRASHING’ Britain (Amazon, Netflix) Phoebe created, wrote and starred in both of these comedies this year, an impressive achievement. “Fleabag,” about a often nasty but young woman negotiating sex, love and family bonds, is the darker and more inventive of the two. “Crashing,” about the lives of a group of squatters in an abandoned hospital, is a more conventional sitcom. But both are sharp, funny and furiously up to date. 7. ‘MY HERO ACADEMIA’ Japan (Funimation) In the category of Japanese anime, this shrewdly written and dynamically drawn series posits a world in which 80 percent of humanity has developed some sort of special powers (not all of them super, and not all used for good). But it focuses on a fanboy who obsessively follows the new costumed heroes while having no abilities of his own — a perfect for the anime and manga audience. 8. ‘GLITCH’ Australia (Netflix) Dead people begin to claw out of their graves in a rural Australian town in this series that recalls the French show “The Returned,” but without the veneer. It’s a solid, straightforward paranormal mystery that left plenty of unanswered questions for its second season (already announced as a Netflix coproduction). 9. ‘IN THE LINE OF DUTY’ Britain (Hulu) Season 3 of this cop drama about an unit (the equivalent of an American squad) in the West Midlands may have been slightly below the level of the taut, previous seasons. But it’s still the closest current analogue for the unadorned procedural pleasures of the early “Law Order. ” 10. ‘CATASTROPHE’ Britain (Amazon) Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney took their dark comedy of unexpected, romance into new territory in a second season focused on the inevitable strains of parenthood. The writing wasn’t as seamless this time around — there were times when it felt as if the two were trying out routines on each other — but the best bits were still corrosively funny. Who has benefited most from the explosion of television offerings in the last decade or so? I would argue that it has been people whose tastes in humor run toward the bizarre, the scathing and the incongruous. Television had long decades when “out there” meant “My Mother the Car” or “Rowan Martin’s . ” Eventually shows like “The Simpsons” began pushing matters of taste, and now, with entire channels and streaming services devoted to outlandish comedy, there are shows unpredictable enough, scalding enough or ribald enough for almost any skewed funny bone. Of the new ones that turned up in 2016, here are my favorite 10. — NEIL GENZLINGER 1. ‘BAJILLION DOLLAR PROPERTIE$’ (Seeso) This isn’t the most demented show on this list, but it’s among the sharpest. A workplace comedy in the style of “The Office,” filmed with flourishes, it’s about a Los Angeles real estate company that deals in properties. How the company stays in business is a mystery, since the staff is full of misfits preoccupied with personal problems and infighting. The core ensemble clicks beautifully, and guest stars in ridiculous roles complete the package. 2. ‘STAN AGAINST EVIL’ (IFC) The tiny New England town of Willard’s Mill put scores of witches to death centuries ago, and since then its constables and sheriffs have had very short life spans. The wonderful John C. McGinley plays the only sheriff to have made it to retirement Janet Varney portrays the new one. They reluctantly team to battle the town’s lingering demons. It’s a gruesome, deadpan delight. 3. ‘DEBATE WARS’ (Seeso) There’s a reason that Seeso, the comedy streaming service, is on this list more often than any other outlet: It takes more chances. Who would have thought that a simple series in which comics take on topics like “Cats vs. Dogs” in high school debate style could be so funny? Not many shows make me laugh out loud. This one had me on the floor. It was introduced amid the presidential campaign it has lost its topical aura since, which is the only reason it’s not my No. 1. 4. ‘DREAM CORP LLC’ (Adult Swim) A company employs some decidedly unorthodox treatments in this daffy series, a mix of live action and animation. When patients nod off, the lead doctor (Jon Gries) inserts himself into their dreams, not always to beneficial effect. A sassy robot voiced by Stephen Merchant adds to the fun. 5. ‘LEGENDS OF CHAMBERLAIN HEIGHTS’ (Comedy Central) The great television tradition of having animated characters voice thoughts that a human actor never could is furthered by this cheeky show about three vulgar freshmen, bench warmers on the basketball team, who are trying to establish themselves at their high school. Fat jokes, racial jokes and sex jokes abound the series requires a high tolerance for raunchiness. But the reward is that it makes points bluntly that other shows can only dance around. 6. ‘FLOWERS’ (Seeso) This comic drama, which turned up on Seeso in May, is almost indescribably off kilter and anchored by a terrific performance by Olivia Coleman. The matriarch of the titular Flowers family, she teaches music and balances on the edge of sanity. Her husband writes children’s books that a drunk Dr. Seuss might have produced. Their twins, Donald and Amy, still live at home, and both have romantic designs on the female neighbor next door. It’s the kind of domestic tableau you might encounter in “The Twilight Zone,” funny, unsettling and enthralling. 7. ‘BRAINDEAD’ (CBS) Not many network comedies are going to turn up on a list like this, but the summer series “BrainDead” was one of the oddest shows of the year. A bug infested Washington: not the flu, but an actual bug that crawled into people’s ears, took over their brains and turned them into automatons. The thing was, inside the Beltway it was hard to tell the infected politicians and staff members from the regular ones. The show was delightfully cast — Aaron Tveit, Nikki M. James, Danny Pino, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jan Maxwell, Tony Shalhoub — and everyone embraced the zaniness. Alas, they will not assemble for an encore the show wasn’t renewed. 8. ‘MR. NEIGHBOR’S HOUSE’ (Adult Swim) This was a special, but it was a small masterpiece of unsettling ideas and imagery. It was a parody of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” joining Mr. Neighbor (Brian Huskey) on his kiddie TV show as he prepared to celebrate his “31st annual fifth birthday party. ” It soon became clear that this was a gentleman with an extreme case of . 9. ‘WRECKED’ (TBS) This summer series, a humorous version of “Lost,” hasn’t received much attention, but it’s a show with a sly sense of incongruity. A plane crashes on an island the survivors try to, well, survive. Among the major issues they face: where to go to the bathroom and what movie to watch with the last bit of DVD battery. It’s broad, sometimes gross comedy, delivered with verve. 10. ‘VICE PRINCIPALS’ (HBO) To like this series, you need to be able to tolerate two very unlikable lead characters. They are vice principals played by Danny R. McBride and the great Walton Goggins, enemies who band together to take on their new boss. The humor is often crass, and the lead characters have exceedingly foul mouths, but over all the series is an amusingly caustic variation on both the teenage comedy and the bromance genre. More highlights from the year, as chosen by our critics: Movies, Pop Albums, Pop Songs, Classical Music, Dance, Theater, Art, Podcasts and Performances | 1 |
Wikipedia: Eliot A. Cohen ... co-founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which was a center for prominent neoconservatives. He has been a member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, a committee of civilians and retired military officers that the U.S. Secretary of Defense may call upon for advice, that was instituted during the administration of President George W. Bush. He was put on the board after acquaintance Richard Perle put forward his name. Cohen has referred to the War on Terrorism as “World War IV”. In the run-up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, he was a member of Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a group of prominent persons who pressed for an invasion.
Cohen in WaPo May 3 2016: It’s over. Donald Trump, a man utterly unfit for the position by temperament, values and policy preferences, will be the Republican nominee for president. He will run against Hillary Clinton, who is easily the lesser evil ...
Cohen in the NYT on May 17 2016: Mr. Trump’s temperament, his proclivity for insult and deceit and his advocacy of unpredictability would make him a presidential disaster — especially in the conduct of foreign policy, where clarity and consistency matter. ... Hillary Clinton is far better: She believes in the old consensus and will take tough lines on China and, increasingly, Russia.
Cohen in The American Interest on November 10 2016 (immediately after Trump won): Trump may be better than we think. He does not have strong principles about much, which means he can shift. He is clearly willing to delegate legislation to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. And even abroad, his instincts incline him to increase U.S. strength—and to push back even against Russia if, as will surely happen, Putin double-crosses him. My guess is that sequester gets rolled back, as do lots of stupid regulations, and experiments in nudging and nagging Americans to behave the way progressives think they should.
Cohen on Twitter November 15 2016 Eliot A Cohen @EliotACohen
After exchange w Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away. They're angry, arrogant, screaming "you LOST!" Will be ugly.
Retweets 3,719 Likes 3,204 5:07 AM - 15 Nov 2016
I find the above very funny. How could that turncoat think he would be greeted by the Trump organization with anything but derision? Cohen believed he and his ilk would be welcome with candies and roses after insulting Trump in all major media? Who is the arrogant one in the above?
Oh, by the way. Here is a headline from October 2013: President Obama to Republicans: I won. Deal with it . I do not remember Cohen, or anyone else, calling that "arrogant".
While the papers are full of (badly) informed rumors about who will get this or that position in a Trump administration let's keep in mind that 90% of such rumors are just self promotions by people like Cohen who shill for the rumored job. That is why I will not write about John Bolton or Rudy Giuliani as coming Secretary of State. Both are possible (unqualified) candidates. But others are just as likely to get that position. We will only know who it is after the official release.
Meanwhile Trump yesterday had a phonecall with the Russian President Putin. They discussed bilateral relations, Syria and fighting terrorism. Today the Russian and Syrian military started the long expected big campaign against the "moderate" al-Qaeda in east-Aleppo city and Idleb governate. Air strikes on east-Aleppo had been held back for 28 days. Today missiles and cruise missiles were launched against fixed targets and dozens of carrier and land launched airplanes attacked Nusra position on the various front and in its rear. Long range bombers flown from Russia joined the campaign. Trump seems to have voiced no objections to this offensive.
The Russian military has upped its air defense in Syria. Additional to the S-400 system around its airport in Latakia seven S-300 systems were deployed as a screen against U.S. cruise missile attacks. These are joined by rehabilitated Syrian S-200 system and Pantsyr S-1 short range systems for point defense. This should be enough to deter any stupid idea the Pentagon hawks, or dumb neocons like Eliot Cohen, might have. Posted by b on November 15, 2016 at 12:13 PM | Permalink | 0 |
I was in Iraq when President Bush announced the “surge” in January 2007. I was in Afghanistan when President Obama announced the “surge” in December 2009. But it wasn’t until I visited Standing Rock... | 0 |
HILLSBOROUGH, N. C. — The firebomb hurled through the front window of the local Republican headquarters here was one of the uglier manifestations of a sour national mood. It also seemed to shatter something sacred in this small North Carolina town, where residents, in the face of cultural change, have largely found an amicable balance between liberal and conservative, traditional and trendy, in the heart of a swing state that is one of the nation’s most politically and culturally divided. “It’s just reprehensible in so many different ways,” Tom Stevens, Hillsborough’s mayor of 11 years, said on Monday. It was an attack on freedom of expression, he said, and rattled Hillsborough’s sense of safety. But he added, “I don’t think it is representative of the majority of the people in this town, who have faith in our political discourse and our political process. ” The attack, which occurred early Sunday and badly damaged the inside of the political office, remains under investigation by federal, state and local officials. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump swiftly issued denunciations. A group of Democrats created a GoFundMe page that had raised more than $13, 000 by Monday evening for the Orange County Republican Party. The authorities had not announced any arrests as of Monday afternoon. The sense that the attack did not reflect the spirit of Hillsborough was shared on Monday by liberals and conservatives, who said that this town of 6, 000 people, about 40 miles northwest of Raleigh, had found a way to peacefully manage the cultural and political tension that had come to define it. It is a tension between a Southern conservative faction and a crowd of mostly artists, authors, tech workers and foodies — a mix of people who have reimagined Hillsborough in the past 15 years or so, bringing art galleries, good restaurants and good coffee. Today, it is the kind of North Carolina hamlet where the butter beans come in a thoughtful $27 dish of tortelloni with kale butter and pecorino. In a nation where residents tend to according to political belief, this is a place where Democrats and Republicans often live cheek by jowl, and more or less agree to disagree amid this year’s tight and agitated races for president, governor and Senate. The two factions in Hillsborough do not live in absolute harmony, however. Mayor Stevens said that someone burned rainbow flags, symbols of the gay pride movement, in April at a church outside town. In August 2015, protesters held a downtown rally opposing the Hillsborough Board of Commissioners’ decision to remove the words “Confederate Memorial” from the doorway of the Orange County Historical Museum. But the idea that the two factions strive to live in peace can feel almost like a defining mythology of Hillsborough. “What might be called New South and Old South not only coexist, atypical in a region where rapid growth and the influx of outsiders have often fomented cultural clashes, but each appreciates the value the other brings to the table,” the local author Bob Burtman wrote in a 2010 anthology about the town. Evelyn the vice chairwoman of the Orange County Republican Party, who stepped carefully through the glass shards of the blackened office Monday morning, said she had witnessed the cultural change since moving to the area in the early 1980s. She said she was long used to living among Democrats and was friendly with many of them, including members of her garden club. Orange County, with Hillsborough as its seat, includes nearly all of liberal Chapel Hill, home to the University of North Carolina. Nearly half of the county’s approximately 116, 000 voters are registered Democrats, and fewer than 15 percent of voters signed up as Republicans. A substantial number of voters — nearly 38 percent — are unaffiliated. Ms. said she could not imagine that a local person was responsible for the attack, given the friendly tenor of the town. But she did not play down the seriousness. She said Mr. Stevens approached her on Sunday and said, “Oh, this is sad, Evelyn. ” “I said, ‘No, it’s not sad — it’s evil,’” she recalled. The Hillsborough police said someone had hurled “a bottle containing flammable material” through the front window of the headquarters. The authorities said they believed that the fire extinguished itself after burning furniture and causing “heavy smoke damage. ” Someone also “Nazi Republicans leave town or else” and a swastika on a nearby building. Federal, state and local officials are involved in the inquiry. The F. B. I. and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said agents were assisting the local authorities. The Republican headquarters are in a section of town that is set apart from the city center and years ago had a Daniel roadside attraction. A Daniel Boone statue remains, as do a few log cabins and wagon wheels. These days, Hillsborough’s cultural confluence is best evident amid the handsome, historic brick buildings of downtown. One short stretch of King Street includes Purple Crow Books, which shows off works by local authors like Lee Smith and Hal Crowther a community FM radio station that plays, among other things, electronic and string music Carolina Game and Fish, a purveyor of shotguns, fishing reels and live bait and Dual Supply Company, a hardware store. Inside the store, Frances O’Halloran, 55, a local herbalist, was buying a few items from Michael Woods, 56, whose father is the owner. “It just didn’t make sense to me,” said Ms. O’Halloran, who supports Mrs. Clinton. “Here, I hear all sides of every issue, and yet everybody gets along,” said Mr. Woods, an independent who said he voted for individuals, not by party affiliation. Dave Rutter, 68, a musician with an Americana group called the Pagan Hellcats, was outside Cup A Joe, King Street’s coffee shop, with members of his band. He wondered aloud whether Trump supporters had carried out the attack in an effort to earn sympathy for Republicans. “This is weird,” he said. “We have no history of any kind of violence. ” At Carolina Game and Fish, such theories prompted a few snorts of incredulity. “If it was a false flag thing, why would they do it in Orange County?” asked Michael Tulloch, 67, a retired drug abuse counselor who said he had been planning to vote for Mr. Trump until his recent handling of sexual assault allegations. “Most of the people in this area didn’t even know where the Republican headquarters was at,” Mr. Tulloch said. On Monday afternoon, Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican locked in a tight race for visited the burned building. Hours before, volunteers and local party members had set up tables outside the building, signing up volunteers and giving away yard signs that had not been melted together. Mr. McCrory expressed anger about “an assault on our democratic process. ” “The last thing we need is more types of violence and intimidation as it relates to the political process, not just in North Carolina but the United States of America,” Mr. McCrory said. “Whatever the motive,” he said, “there is no excuse for it. ” | 1 |
Pepe ESCOBAR | 30.10.2016 | OPINION American Dream, Revisited Will Trump pull a Brexit times ten? What would it take, beyond WikiLeaks, to bring the Clinton (cash) machine down? Will Hillary win and then declare WWIII against her Russia / Iran / Syria «axis of evil»? Will the Middle East totally explode? Will the pivot to Asia totally implode? Will China be ruling the world by 2025? Amidst so many frenetic fragments of geopolitical reality precariously shored against our ruins, the temptation is irresistible to hark back to the late, great, deconstructionist master Jean Baudrillard. During the post-mod 1980s it was hip to be Baudrillardian to the core; his America, originally published in France in 1986, should still be read today as the definitive metaphysical/geological/cultural Instagram of Exceptionalistan. By the late 1990s, at the end of the millennium, two years before 9/11 – that seminal «before and after» event - Baudrillard was already stressing how we live in a black market maze. Now, it’s a black market paroxysm. Global multitudes are subjected to a black market of work – as in the deregulation of the official market; a black market of unemployment; a black market of financial speculation; a black market of misery and poverty; a black market of sex (as in prostitution); a black market of information (as in espionage and shadow wars); a black market of weapons; and even a black market of thinking. Way beyond the late 20 th century, in the 2010s what the West praises as «liberal democracy» – actually a neoliberal diktat - has virtually absorbed every ideological divergence, while leaving behind a heap of differences floating in some sort of trompe l’oeil effect. What’s left is a widespread, noxious condition; the pre-emptive prohibition of any critical thought, which has no way to express itself other than becoming clandestine (or finding the right internet niche). Baudrillard already knew that the concept of «alter» - killed by conviviality - does not exist in the official market. So an «alter» black market also sprung up, co-opted by traffickers; that’s, for instance, the realm of racism, nativism and other forms of exclusion. Baudrillard already identified how a «contraband alter», expressed by sects and every form of nationalism (nowadays, think about the spectrum between jihadism and extreme-right wing political parties) was bound to become more virulent in a society that is desperately intolerant, obsessed with regimentation, and totally homogenized. There could be so much exhilaration inbuilt in life lived in a bewildering chimera cocktail of cultures, signs, differences and «values»; but then came the coupling of thinking with its exact IT replica – artificial intelligence, playing with the line of demarcation between human and non-human in the domain of thought. The result, previewed by Baudrillard, was the secretion of a parapolitical society - with a sort of mafia controlling this secret form of generalized corruption (think the financial Masters of the Universe). Power is unable to fight this mafia - and that would be, on top of it, hypocritical, because the mafia itself emanates from power. The end result is that what really matters today, anywhere, mostly tends to happen outside all official circuits; like in a social black market. Is there any information «truth»? Baudrillard showed how political economy is a massive machine, producing value, producing signs of wealth, but not wealth itself. The whole media / information system – still ruled by America - is a massive machine producing events as signs; exchangeable value in the universal market of ideology, the star system and catastrophism. This abstraction of information works as in the economy – disgorging a coded material, deciphered in advance, and negotiable in terms of models, as much as the economy disgorges products negotiable in terms of price and value. Since all merchandise, thanks to this abstraction of value, is exchangeable, then every event (or non-event) is also exchangeable, all replacing one another in the cultural market of information. And that takes us to where we live now; Trans-History, and Trans-Politics – where events have really not happened, as they get lost in the vacuum of information (as much as the economy gets lost in the vacuum of speculation). Thus this quintessential Baudrillard insight; if we consider History as a movie – and that’s what it is now – then the «truth» of information is no more than post-production synch, dubbing and subtitles. Still, as we all keep an intense desire for devouring events, there is immense disappointment as well, because the content of information is desperately inferior to the means of broadcasting them. Call it a pathetic, universal contagion; people don’t know what to do about their sadness or enthusiasm – in parallel to our societies becoming theaters of the absurd where nothing has consequences. No acts, deeds, crimes (the 2008 financial crisis), political events (the WikiLeaks emails showing virtually no distinction between the «nonprofit» Clinton cash machine, what’s private and what’s public, the obsessive pursuit of personal wealth, and the affairs of the state) seem to have real consequences. Immunity, impunity, corruption, speculation - we veer towards a state of zero responsibility (think Goldman Sachs). So, automatically, we yearn for an event of maximum consequence, a «fatal» event to repair that scandalous non-equivalence. Like a symbolic re-equilibrium of the scales of destiny. So we dream of an amazing event – Trump winning the election? Hillary declaring WWIII? - that would free us from the tyranny of meaning and the constraint of always searching for the equivalence between effects and causes. Shadowing the world Just like Baudrillard, I got to see «deep» America in the 1980s and 1990s by driving across America. So sooner or later one develops a metaphysical relationship with that ubiquitous warning, «Objects in this mirror may be closer than they appear». But what if they may also be further than they appear? The contemporary instant event/celebrity culture deluge of images upon us; does it get us closer to a so-called «real» world that is in fact very far away from us? Or does it in fact keep the world at a distance – creating an artificial depth of field that protects us from the imminence of objects and the virtual danger they represent? In parallel, we keep slouching towards a single future language – the language of algorithms, as designed across the Wall Street / Silicon Valley axis – that would represent a real anthropological catastrophe, just like the globalist/New World Order dream of One Thought and One Culture. Languages are multiple and singular – by definition. If there were a single language, words would become univocal, regulating themselves in an autopilot of meaning. There would be no interplay – as in artificial languages there’s no interplay. Language would be just the meek appendix of a unified reality – the negative destiny of a languidly unified human species. That’s where the American «dream» seems to be heading. It’s time to take the next exit ramp. | 0 |
Print
Islam and sex slavery are like peanut butter and jelly - you always find the one next to the other. Muslims kidnapping vulnerable white girls in the UK and forcing them to be sex slaves has reached an epidemic level, according to a recent report from the UK Charity Barnados. They say that Muslims are setting up fake businesses, primarily car washes, when, in reality, they are brothels and transit houses for these kidnapped girls:
Barnardo’s claims girls are being ferried from one unit to another as sex slaves for Kurds[s].
It suggests white British girls on the run from the care system in Hartlepool, Stockton-on-Tees and Middlesbrough are being targeted.
The report said: “There were connections between people that work in car washes and the sexual exploitation of children on Teesside.
…
Officers on the immigration-led operation found beds at one. It was suggested staff were living on the premises.
Cleveland Police said: “It was not confirmed that child sexual exploitation had taken place although enquiries were conducted.” ( source )
This is a sad and sickening picture of what the UK has become. Once one of the safest places in the West, it has allowed itself to become little more than a third-world cesspool, where its own women are being sold like slaves in the Muslim bazaars of old, and the government refuses to do its job to stop it, instead allowing it to continue and trying to stop those who want to put a stop to it.
Shoebat.com
*Article by Andrew Bieszad | 0 |
France — The National Front’s leafleteers are no longer spat upon. Its local candidate’s headquarters sit defiantly in a fraying Muslim neighborhood. And last week, Marine Le Pen, the party’s leader, packed thousands into a steamy meeting hall nearby for a pugnacious speech mocking “the system” and vowing victory in this spring’s French presidential election. “There’s been a real evolution,” Philippe the retired head of a small manufacturing company, said as he handed out National Front leaflets in the market on a recent day. “A few years ago, they would insult us. It’s changed. ” It has long been accepted wisdom that Ms. Le Pen and her party can make it through the first round of the presidential voting on April 23, when she and four other major candidates will be on the ballot, but that she will never capture the majority needed to win in a runoff in May. But a visit to this southeastern National Front stronghold suggests that Ms. Le Pen may be succeeding in broadening her appeal to the point where a victory is more plausible, even if the odds are still stacked against her. With a month to go, the signs are mixed. Many voters, particularly affluent ones, at markets here and farther up the coast betray a traditional distaste for the party. Yet others once repelled by a party with a heritage rooted in France’s darkest political traditions — xenophobia and a penchant for the fist — are considering it. “I’ve said several times I would do it, but I’ve never had the courage,” Christian Pignol, a vendor of plants and vegetables at the Bandol market, said about voting for the National Front. “This time may be the good one. ” “It’s the fear of the unknown,” he continued, as several fellow vendors nodded. “People would like to try it, but they are afraid. But maybe it’s the solution. We’ve tried everything for 30, 40 years. We’d like to try it, but we’re also afraid. ” French politics are particularly volatile this election season. Traditional power centers — the governing Socialists and the Republicans — are in turmoil. Ms. Le Pen’s chief rival, Emmanuel Macron, is a youthful and untested politician running at the head of a new party. Those uncertainties — and a nagging sense that mainstream parties have failed to offer solutions to France’s economic anemia — have left the National Front better positioned than at any time in its history. But if it is to win nationally, the party must do much better than even the 49 percent support it won in this conservative Var department, home to three National Front mayors, in elections in 2015. More critically, it must turn areas of the country in Ms. Le Pen’s favor and attract new kinds of voters — professionals and the upper and middle classes. Political analysts are skeptical. Frédéric Boccaletti, the party’s leader in the Var, knows exactly what needs to be done. Last week, he and his fellow National Front activists gathered for an evening planning session in La a port town devastated by the closing of naval shipyards nearly 20 years ago. Mr. Boccaletti, who is running for Parliament, keeps his headquarters here. “I’m telling you, you’ve got to go to the difficult neighborhoods — it’s not what you think,” Mr. Boccaletti told them, laughing slyly. “Our work has got to be in the areas that have resisted us most” — meaning the coast’s more affluent areas. It is not unlike the strategy that President Trump applied in the United States by campaigning in Democratic strongholds in Ohio. No one thought he stood a chance there. Yet he won. “Now, we’ve got doctors, lawyers, the liberal professions with us,” Mr. Boccaletti said. “Since the election of Marine” to the party’s presidency in 2011, “it’s all changed. ” Yes and no. Since then, to broaden the party’s appeal, Ms. Le Pen has worked to buff the National Front’s image and distance it from its founder, Le Pen, her disavowed father, even kicking him out of the party in 2015. That strategy has helped make the National Front potentially palatable to some voters who had hesitated before. In the early days, four decades ago, winning 10 percent of the vote was considered a triumph for the party. This year, some polls predict Ms. Le Pen will get as much as 45 percent of the vote. of her own edge toward the mainstream, Ms. Le Pen now buries her most incendiary proclamations. At a rally in nearby last week, she pledged to cut taxes and “drastically” reduce immigration — well inside generic political formulations. Also last week, the party dismissed an official in the region for Holocaust denial. Still, Ms. Le Pen often emits the dog whistles easily recognized by her cheering crowds, as in a recent speech at Nantes, where she denounced in quick succession “the Rothschild bank,” and the media and telecom magnate Patrick Drahi, a businessman with French and Israeli citizenship. Ms. Le Pen and her party still show little compunction over using tried and true National Front strategies that stoke racial fears. A wall at Mr. Boccaletti’s tiny party headquarters here is adorned with a poster showing a hand tearing down a star and crescent, a symbol of Islam, with the slogan “Here, We Are in France. ” Another poster showed a veiled Muslim woman accompanied by the words “No to Islamism. ” When the beaming Ms. Le Pen clambers onstage at her rallies, menacing chords give way to triumphant brassy blasts. At the more elaborate rallies, Wagnerian electric flame throwers dramatically cap her closing vows to “renew the ties of national solidarity. ” In it was Ms. Le Pen’s thrusts against the “mass immigration” and its supposed link to France’s mass unemployment that drew the loudest roars. “This is our country!” the crowd chanted. “She’s going to send home the immigrants,” said Jean Simon, a grizzled construction worker from Nice, who attended. “There’s way too much unemployment. ” Lashing the two issues together is a ploy straight from a playbook that dates to the National Front’s original doctrine in 1972. It is part of legacy that continues to give a good many French people pause. Some 58 percent of them still consider the Front a “danger” for democracy, according to a poll published in Le Monde this month, 11 percentage points more than in 2013. Yet there is enough uncertainty over whether Ms. Pen has sufficiently softened up traditional resistance that, for the first time, the candidate of a party still considered extremist by many has become the person to beat. The mainstream media is in near hysteria. Last week’s cover headline in the Journal du Dimanche warned of the “Le Pen Menace. ” The cover of this week’s L’Obs predicted in bold type: “If Le Pen is elected: The Black Scenario. ” In L’Express it was “Why Le Pen is advancing — again. ” Ms. Le Pen is in the unusual position of seeming like a winner and a loser at the same time. She is a winner because every French poll predicts she will come out on top in the first round. Four major candidates will be competing against her that day — two on the left, one in the center and one on the right. None, alone, can beat her. But she is a loser because those same polls all say she will be defeated by a hefty margin in the second round of voting on May 7, whoever her opponent is. “I don’t think she will be elected president,” said Joël Gombin of the University of Picardy Jules Verne, one of France’s leading experts on the Front. “But it’s not impossible any longer. “And even if she’s not elected, there’s a strong possibility that French political life will be turned upside down, and the National Front will play a larger role,” he added. The ambiguous status of winner and loser gives her whole campaign — the tone of her voters, her activists, her top lieutenants and even Ms. Le Pen herself — an uncertain feel, as if all are floating a few feet above reality. Muriel Fiol, a local doctor who was helping Mr. Boccaletti run the meeting, predicted that the “glass ceiling was going to explode. ” “People don’t want this political class any more,” she said. But Mr. Boccaletti urged prudence. There was still some way to go, as attitudes of many locals showed. Even if buoyed by the feeling that Ms. Le Pen is a player for the first time, volunteers conceded that the going was “difficult,” as was sometimes shown by the reception at the colorful market in this fishing port of pastel houses on the Mediterranean. Certainly, not all were convinced that Ms. Le Pen had outrun the long shadow of her party’s ugly reputation. “Sure, I took their leaflet,” Bernard Cornet, a retired teacher, said, broadly grinning. “Only so that I could throw it into the trash straight away. ” | 1 |
While Americans are scrambling to meet the 2016 tax filing deadline, the number of illegal immigrants submitting their returns in the present climate are reportedly down significantly. Also, a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) report exposing significant refund fraud has “most certainly contributed to it,” says the taxpayer advocate department within the IRS. [The Internal Revenue Service stated that millions of people who do not have Social Security numbers (SSN) most of these illegal aliens, filed federal tax returns last year, reported NPR the day before the tax deadline. Many of those who are ineligible for SSN use “ITIN,” or Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers when filing. The Taxpayer Advocate Service, an independent organization within the IRS, reports that “Without ITINs, approximately 4. 6 million taxpayers would not be able to comply with their annual tax filing and payment obligations, or receive tax benefits to which they are legally entitled. ” The advocate service states that ITIN applications and “associated return filings” “have dropped precipitously, down 58 percent between 2011 and 2014. ” They write that the “general economic climate and immigration trends” explain part of this drop, but the “IRS ITIN procedures have most certainly contributed to it. ” After the TIGTA report “alleging significant refund fraud connected to ITINS,” in 2012 the IRS made what its independent advocacy service calls “sweeping changes that require applicants to submit original identification documents (subject to a few alternatives). ” The IRS has also continued its policy of requiring applicants to apply for an ITIN with a paper tax return. The new requirements led to delays for the ITIN applicants and associated large backlogs, the Taxpayer Advocate Services says. The independent arm charges that “While concerns about refund fraud are legitimate, the IRS’s solutions do not effectively target the fraud nor do they balance the regime with the taxpayer’s need for a process no more intrusive than necessary, part of a taxpayer’s right to privacy. ” Moreover, NPR reported that tax preparers in the sanctuary city San Francisco area told them there is approximately a 20 percent decline in the number of people filing with ITIN numbers. A tax law professor at the University of Nevada said that tax preparers in other parts of the United States are making similar claims. “Sending in a tax return with your current address and information is very unnerving to a population that wants to comply with the law and is actually leaving significant refunds on the table by not filing tax returns,” educator Francine Lipman said. The IRS is barred from giving information it has obtained to other United States agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security. They may share information only under “limited circumstances” NPR reported. The professor says that those bearing ITIN numbers must decide “whether to trust that firewall. ” “Many of our clients are telling us that in years past they felt more hope and more of ability to have a pathway toward citizenship and lately there’s a lot less hope,” Max the head of a tax program at the Mission Economic Development Agency told NPR. Lana Shadwick is a writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as a prosecutor and associate judge in Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2. | 1 |
TRUNEWS 11/04/16 Spirit Cooking: Will America Repent Before The Russians Fry US November 04, 2016 Will America repent BEFORE the Russians fry our nation with nukes? Today on TRUNEWS, Rick Wiles discusses the shocking vindication of his 18 years of warnings from God’s pulpit, that our reality has been hijacked by a Luciferian blood drinking elite. Rick will detail the latest revelations from the FBI investigation into Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, involving trusted aide Huma Abedin turning State’s evidence, and WikiLeaks releasing proof the Left engages in satanic ’Spirit Cooking’ rituals.
Today’s Audio Streamcast. Click the audio bar to listen: <span itemprop="name" content="TRUNEWS 11/04/16 Spirit Cooking: Will America Repent Before The Russians Fry US"></span> <span itemprop="description" content="Will America repent BEFORE the Russians fry our nation with nukes? Today on TRUNEWS, Rick Wiles discusses the shocking vindication of his 18 years of warnings from God’s pulpit, that our reality has been hijacked by a Luciferian blood drinking elite. Rick will detail the latest revelations from the FBI investigation into Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, involving trusted aide Huma Abedin turning State’s evidence, and WikiLeaks releasing proof the Left engages in satanic ’Spirit Cooking’ rituals."></span> <span itemprop="duration" content="4200"></span> <span itemprop="thumbnail" content="http://static.panda-os.com/p/1305/sp/130500/thumbnail/entry_id/0_kgq98alm/version/1 /acv/62"></span> <span itemprop="width" content="350"></span> <span itemprop="height" content="25"></span> <a href="http://corp.kaltura.com/products/video-platform-features">Video Platform</a> <a href="http://corp.kaltura.com/Products/Features/Video-Management">Video Management</a> <a href="http://corp.kaltura.com/Video-Solutions">Video Solutions</a> <a href="http://corp.kaltura.com/Products/Features/Video-Player">Video Player</a>
Right-click to download today’s show to your local device in mp3 format: Streamcast MP3
Email: | Twitter: @EdwardSzall | Facebook: Ed Szall DOWNLOAD THE TRUNEWS MOBILE APP on Apple and Google Play ! Donate Today! Support TRUNEWS to help build a global news network that provides a credible source for world news
We believe Christians need and deserve their own global news network to keep the worldwide Church informed, and to offer Christians a positive alternative to the anti-Christian bigotry of the mainstream news media How To Listen To TRUNEWS
Here on our show pages, there are two ways to listen to TRUNEWS. The first is to use the embedded player on the page. It is the black bar that you see above. Just click the arrow on the player for today’s broadcast. If you prefer to save the program to listen to it later on your PC or mobile device, just click the ‘DOWNLOAD MP3’ link above to archive that particular streamcast. Streamcast Archives | 0 |
The ten most populous cities where local leaders shield illegal immigrants from federal law could lose $2. 27 billion in federal funds, a Reuters analysis has found. [New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and other large cities could lose federal funding for housing, education, airport improvements, HIV treatment, and more. “The [funding] numbers do not include federal money for law enforcement, which was excluded in the executive order, and programs like Medicaid, which are administered by state governments,” Reuters states. One estimate found 300 “sanctuary city” jurisdictions exist where state or local officials refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement officers, and which order cops not to discover arrestees’ immigration status. Nationwide, at least 11 million illegal immigrants live in America’s towns and cities. President Donald Trump issued an executive order Wednesday instructing Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to look at all channels of federal funding for sanctuary cities and determine how they can be changed by the administration. Trump’s actions could shrink local government workforces and indirectly bring some city operations to a grinding halt. The Port of Seattle depends on federal dollars to operate, for example. In response to the threat of lost funding, Democratic mayors like Rahm Emanuel in Chicago and Bill de Blasio in New York have made make declarations about taking the Trump administration to court. But the sanctuary city policies also create risks for local politicians. Under former mayor Rudy Giuliani, New York City forbid city employees from sharing information about immigrants and aliens to defend his sanctuary city policy after losing a Supreme Court battle. “Six days later, several participated in the most devastating attack on the city and the country in history,” on conservative commentator Heather MacDonald pointed out. The families of Kate Steinle and Sarah Root lost their daughters when illegal aliens in sanctuary jurisdictions killed them. Trump plans to increase the pressure on local politicians — he’s ordered deputies to collect and publicize data about crimes by illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities. | 1 |
JOHANNESBURG — Oscar Pistorius, the sprinter who rose to worldwide fame for overcoming his disability to compete in the 2012 Olympic Games, was sentenced on Wednesday to six years in prison for murdering his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, inside his home in 2013. Mr. Pistorius was taken directly from the courtroom to a prison near Pretoria to start serving his sentence. He will have to serve half of his term before being eligible for parole. Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa of the High Court in Pretoria cited “mitigating” factors in handing out a sentence that was significantly shorter than the minimum requested by prosecutors. Mr. Pistorius, the judge said, had shown genuine remorse in trying, repeatedly and unsuccessfully, to apologize in person to the victim’s parents. Mr. Pistorius, 29, who looked down in an expressionless stare while the judge read the sentence, showed no emotion when he was asked to rise and listen to the sentencing. Neither did Ms. Steenkamp’s family react in the courtroom. The sentencing brought to an apparent close a trial that transfixed much of this nation for years, featuring a young, handsome man whose inspiring story once spoke to the youthful hopes of South Africa. Mr. Pistorius’s fall — as well as the unsettling questions the trial raised about violence against women and the racial fears lurking behind the murder — occurred in a country increasingly disaffected with the order and its architect, the African National Congress. In handing out the sentence, Judge Masipa surprised many legal experts who had predicted that a term of at least 10 years would split the difference between guidelines that call for at least 15 years in prison for murder but that also allow for a reduction based on other considerations. Both sides can appeal the judge’s sentence, leaving the possibility that the case may not be over. Mr. Pistorius’s lawyers said they would not file an appeal. Perhaps anticipating a challenge by prosecutors, Judge Masipa said in her ruling Wednesday morning that she would be available to receive a request for an appeal that same day. Among other mitigating factors, the judge said she considered the circumstances of the shooting and Mr. Pistorius’s disability. She also noted that Mr. Pistorius was a offender who had shown himself to be a good candidate for rehabilitation. “I am of the view that a imprisonment will not serve justice,” Judge Masipa said. In remarks largely sympathetic to Mr. Pistorius, the judge added: “He’s a fallen hero who has lost his career and is ruined financially. The worst is that having taken the life of a fellow human being in the manner that he did, he cannot be at peace. ” Marius du Toit, a criminal defense lawyer, former prosecutor and judge who has closely followed the trial, said the sentence, though “erring on the side of leniency,” clearly reflected the judge’s belief that Mr. Pistorius was guilty of what amounts to an accidental murder, not one with intent. Mr. du Toit said that prosecutors could decide to contest the sentence by asking Judge Masipa to grant leave to appeal or, failing that, by petitioning the Supreme Court of Appeals directly. “But is it something that another court will interfere with? I somehow don’t think so,” he said. “I think we may have reached the end of this matter. ” Gareth Newham, a criminal justice researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, said that it was not unusual for a judge to consider mitigating factors in deviating from sentencing guidelines. But the sentence, he said, would most likely anger a public that has come to regard Mr. Pistorius much less sympathetically. “The general public feeling about this will be that it was an inappropriately light sentence, and that could lead to the N. P. A. to think that they might have a better chance of getting the sentence extended if they took it to a higher court,” he said, referring to the National Prosecuting Authority. In 2014, Judge Masipa convicted Mr. Pistorius of the equivalent of manslaughter, sentencing him to five years in prison. Mr. Pistorius served one year before being released to serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest. After prosecutors appealed, the nation’s highest appeals court found that Judge Masipa had erred in her ruling and convicted Mr. Pistorius of murder. Last month, Mr. Pistorius and Ms. Steenkamp’s family appeared in court before Judge Masipa for a new sentencing. Both sides made emotional pleas to the judge who, though working under sentencing guidelines, had the authority to reduce the sentence if she found substantial and compelling reasons. In the courtroom last month, Mr. Pistorius removed his artificial legs and walked on his stumps, resting his hand on a desk for support at one point. His lawyers argued that his disability would make him particularly vulnerable in prison and pleaded for community service instead. The victim’s father, Barry Steenkamp, 73, gave tearful testimony and said that Mr. Pistorius “had to pay for his crime. ” Mr. Steenkamp said his daughter’s killing had contributed to his having a stroke. Mr. Steenkamp, a diabetic, said that his grief has been so severe that he would take his insulin syringe and “shove it into my stomach and my arms to see if I could feel the same type of pain, but no. ” Ms. Steenkamp’s murder occurred only months after the 2012 Games, where Mr. Pistorius, a source of inspiration around the world for the disabled, was selected to carry the South African flag at the closing ceremony. Mr. Pistorius, whose lower legs were amputated when he was 11 months old, became known as the Blade Runner for his use of curved prosthetics. Mr. Pistorius and Ms. Steenkamp — a model and law school graduate — had been dating for only a few months when the killing took place, on Feb. 14, 2013. That night, Mr. Pistorius shot Ms. Steenkamp through the locked door of a bathroom in his apartment in a gated community in Pretoria. Mr. Pistorius had said that he had shot his girlfriend in the mistaken belief that somebody had broken into his home, an argument that resonated in a country with high crime — and high walls to shield the comfortable against home invasions. Prosecutors argued that he had intentionally killed Ms. Steenkamp in a jealous rage after an argument. In her initial verdict in 2014, after a courtroom drama that many compared to the O. J. Simpson trial, Judge Masipa sided with the defendant, saying his account “could reasonably be true. ” Acquitting him of murder, she ruled that prosecutors had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Pistorius had shown intent to kill. But as is permitted in South Africa, which does not have a jury system, prosecutors appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeal. In December, the appeals court sided with prosecutors, concluding that the manslaughter conviction, called culpable homicide in South Africa, had been based on a misinterpretation of laws and an erroneous dismissal of circumstantial evidence. The court said that, under a legal principle called dolus eventualis, Mr. Pistorius was guilty because he should have foreseen that his actions — firing through his locked bathroom door — would kill whoever was inside, and yet he proceeded regardless of the consequences. In describing the case as “a human tragedy of Shakespearean proportions,” the appeals court overturned Judge Masipa’s conviction and found Mr. Pistorius guilty of murder. Mr. Pistorius’s lawyers tried to take the case to the nation’s highest court, the Constitutional Court. But in March, the body, which usually handles constitutional matters, declined to hear Mr. Pistorius’s appeal. | 1 |
Remember the last debate when the internet blew up because Donald Trump said he wouldn’t necessarily accept the results of the election ? People were bemoaning him as a fascist and no one in the mainstream wanted to admit that our election process is entirely rigged . The trouble is, voter fraud on a grand scale can be tough to prove .
As it turns out, voter fraud on a smaller scale has been detected in 6 locations already, according to today’s Drudge Report . But don’t worry. These are just “glitches” or “too few to make a difference.” 1) Chicago
In the Windy City, the dead have been voting for decades. Two investigators have admitted finding proof of this, but they refuse to say that there is fraud. Relatives of the Voting Dead feel differently. They say that they’ve reported the deaths of their loved ones repeatedly, but that the names have not been removed from the rolls. But that isn’t the worst of it – not only are these people on the rolls – they’ve repeatedly voted since their deaths.
Don’t worry, though. It’s just a few hundred dead voters that they’ve been able to confirm. No biggie. ( source ) 2) Philadelphia
Chicago is not alone with the dead folks voting.There are also reports from Philadelphia that people are making their voices heard from beyond the grave. *cough* Local station Action News 6 investigated and found that a stunning number of people have been deemed “active voters” for many years since their deaths.
Don’t worry, though. The local voting board says these mistakes are simply “human error” and that there aren’t enough dead voters to actually sway the election. ( source ) 3) Hollywood, Maryland
A woman in Maryland has reported another incidence of “vote flipping.” She voted a straight Republican ticket, then checked after it was submitted. Her vote for Trump had been switched to a vote for Clinton.
Don’t worry, though. The election officials there told her to just vote again. Of course, this would “undo” the vote for Clinton, but would it really count as a vote for Trump? I’m sure it’s fine. The election officials would want to be scrupulous about something like that. ( source ) 4) Miami-Dade County, Florida
Two women have been charged with felony counts of tampering with the election. One, a temporary election worker, was caught marking ballots by her co-workers. The other was caught filling out voter registration paperwork for people who did not exist.
Don’t worry, though. These were isolated incidents that have been dealt with. In the words of State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle, a Democrat, “Anyone who attempts to undermine the democratic process should recognize that there is an enforcement partnership between the elections department and our prosecution task force in place to thwart such efforts and arrest those involved. Now we need to move forward with the election.” ( source ) 5) Alexandria, Virginia
A guy in Virginia who was formerly employed by the New Virginia Majority, an advocacy group aligned with the Democratic party, was caught using fake names to fill out voter registration applications.
But don’t worry. Commonwealth Attorney Bryan Porter said, “Since the fraudulent applications involved fictitious people, had the fraud not been uncovered the risk of actual fraudulent votes being cast was low.” ( source ) 6) Lots of places in Texas
Much like the report in Maryland, voters in various locations in Texas have reported that when they chose a straight Republican ticket, the voting machines opted for Clinton/Kaine instead of Trump/Pence . Voters in Amarillo, Arlington, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Cypress, Mesquite, and El Paso have all reported vote flipping from Trump to Clinton.
But don’t worry. Election officials in the state say it’s not a problem with the equipment . It’s just those silly voters who don’t know how to use it. ““Typically, we’ve found it’s voter error with the equipment. Sometimes they vote straight party and then click on other candidates … or do something with the wheel….There is not an issue with the equipment.” ( source ) If you’re worried about election fraud…
You can add a smartphone app by True the Vote called VoteStand to report incidents of fraud. Don’t let anything slide. If you are voting, make sure your choice is accurately recorded.
Courtesy of Daisy Luther Don't forget to follow the D.C. Clothesline on Facebook and Twitter. PLEASE help spread the word by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks. Share this: | 0 |
November 8, 2016 279 The wars the US is waging in the Middle East fulfil none of the definitions of guerrilla or "terrorist" war. The US simply calls them that so that it can deceive the American people and circumvent constitutional safeguards in order to wage wars of aggression. For those fighting and dying there – only Death is real. For the American people, Middle East Terrorism is a total fabrication. A standard definition of War is that it is “a conflict carried on by force of arms” We all know the old face of war in the classical days, where two sides in different coloured uniforms lined up and charged at each other until the sun set. Whoever had the most soldiers standing at the end of the day was the winner and they took over the territory of the losers. It was all about territory and redrawing borders. This kind of warfare held up until around the time of the American Civil War. Since then lines have become blurred. A standard definition of Guerrilla War is that it is “the use of hit-and-run tactics by small mobile groups of irregulars operating within a territory controlled by a regular military”. By the the time of the Anglo-Boer War (circa 1900) the Boers had invented Guerrilla Warfare, where small bands went in and did as much damage as possible using what they had. It was very effective. — An online register lists the names of 293,209 British Soldiers who had to be brought in to wage the war. However, adding in all the other Colonials it was probably closer to 500,000 who were needed to subdue about 30,000 rag-tag South African Boers. Eventually the British found a very workable solution. They rounded up all the women and children remaining on the farms (who had been feeding and sleeping the rebels every night) and put them all in concentration camps. Their suffering was extreme. The men had to give up. Guerrilla warfare is not about capturing Territory, but about demoralisation, damage to infrastructure, and forcing vast numbers of very expensive regulars to guard infrastructure. A standard definition of Terrorism is that it is “the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims” By the 1960s another form of warfare was emerging. We called it, “Terrorism”. We can all agree that none of the above methods are mutually exclusive. Modern mainstream Media spends a lot of time blurring these lines for the public, but I think we have a reasonably clear understandings of what the differences are. Modern Terrorism is actually more complicated than this definition. It started as aircraft high-jacking; then evolved into small bands shooting innocent people at certain events; and has now evolved into its ‘classic’ contemporary form of suicide vests, suicide vehicles etc. Terrorism is always an “Asymmetric Warfare” (for obvious reasons) where the powerful side, (usually a State or Country) has state of the art military equipment and the other side has very little other than hand held weapons and human bodies. Suicide-vests are the quintessential weapon of terror. Because they are hidden they can have a kill ratio of ten or more to one. They are therefore extremely effective as psychological weapons. Terrorists are almost by definition a very small group of disenchanted radicals who do not have access to modern sophisticated and expensive military equipment, so they have to resort to this sort of asymmetric terrorism. Terrorism has a different aim and a different modus operandi from conventional war. For terrorists time and place of battle or time and place of victory are not a factor. Terrorists choose a target, and then over time slowly start infiltrating the area. They look like regular people. They remain as “sleepers” until called to action. They are unobtrusive and have no visible weapons; they often befriend and mix freely with the local population. Once activated, they make sure that they terrorise the population. Terrorism is not about capturing Territory; it is aimed at destroying economic infrastructure, about killing and wounding the local population in a game of demoralisation, economic destruction, discrediting the existing government, and sapping the morale of the local people, which can then lead to an economic collapse and/or making the State ungovernable. History does not show many (if any) instances of a conventional military winning against Terrorism. The British-Irish insurrection lasted from 1915 until 1998 without a military victory. Finally a political settlement had to be agreed upon. The US’s standard duplicitous propaganda has given the American People a totally false view of what is going on in Syria and much of the Middle East. Most of the mainstream media are in on the game of deceit about America’s war on Terrorism. In Mosul, Raqqa, Aleppo, and all the others, the “terrorists” have magically acquired large numbers of tanks, howitzers, rocket platforms, cannon Vehicles, armoured personnel carriers, etc. They seem to have flags, uniforms, and badges. Somehow they all have the entire range of military equipment. This is absolutely not asymmetric Terrorism, this is genuine conventional war. The US and its surrogates are in a real military war. The American (and allied) politicians should be held accountable. US Politicians and mainstream media have allowed the US government to hide behind a false flag of “Terrorism”. This has fooled the people into supporting a conventional war without realising that that is what it is. When the US announced its ‘War on Terror’, it was creating a subterfuge. When a country is put on a war footing, the powers-that-be understand well that under a condition of war the conventional laws-of-the-and can be modified and sidestepped. Lots of things which would never be acceptable in times of peace can be justified in times of war. In the Middle East (and a few other places) the US cannot ever admit that they (and their surrogates) are in a military war. This would be unconstitutional . By declaring a ‘War on Terror’, the US leadership has been able to legitimise its illegal war making and put its illegal acts in a pseudo- legal framework whilst without formally declaring war placing the nation onto a war footing. The US has developed the habit of declaring anything and anybody they wish to hurt, anywhere in the world, as “terrorists” so that they can the use their loosened set of rules. Somehow the American people have failed to hold their media corporations, or their elected and appointed officials accountable. Instead they routinely allow them to subvert the Constitution by subterfuge and deceit. When the government of a country allows the well being of its people to be compromised in this way, the outcome is usually civil disobedience and/or revolution. In extreme situations, the final refuge of governments wishing to escape responsibility for their failures is War. | 0 |
Roadway fatalities are soaring at a rate not seen in 50 years, resulting from crashes, collisions and other incidents caused by drivers. Just don’t call them accidents anymore. That is the position of a growing number of safety advocates, including groups, federal officials and state and local leaders across the country. They are campaigning to change a mentality that they say trivializes the single most common cause of traffic incidents: human error. “When you use the word ‘accident,’ it’s like, ‘God made it happen,’ ” Mark Rosekind, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said at a driver safety conference this month at the Harvard School of Public Health. “In our society,” he added, “language can be everything. ” Almost all crashes stem from driver behavior like drinking, distracted driving and other risky activity. About 6 percent are caused by vehicle malfunctions, weather and other factors. Preliminary estimates by the nonprofit National Safety Council show deadly crashes rose by nearly 8 percent in 2015 over the previous year, killing about 38, 000 people. Dr. Rosekind has added his voice to a growing chorus of advocates who say that the persistence of crashes — driving is the most dangerous activity for most people — can be explained in part by widespread apathy toward the issue. Changing semantics is meant to shake people, particularly policy makers, out of the implicit nobody’ attitude that the word “accident” conveys, they said. On Jan. 1, the state of Nevada enacted a law, passed almost unanimously in the Legislature, to change “accident” to “crash” in dozens of instances where the word is mentioned in state laws, like those covering police and insurance reports. New York City adopted a policy in 2014 to reduce fatalities that states the city “must no longer regard traffic crashes as mere ‘accidents,’ ” and other cities, including San Francisco, have taken the same step. At least 28 state departments of transportation have moved away from the term “accident” when referring to roadway incidents, according to Jeff Larason, director of highway safety for Massachusetts. The traffic safety administration changed its own policy in 1997, but has recently become more vocal about the issue. Mr. Larason, a former television traffic reporter, started a blog called “Drop The A Word” and has led a campaign to get major media outlets to stop using the term. Last year, he enlisted supporters to join with groups in urging The Associated Press to clarify how reporters should use the word “accident. ” In April, The A. P. announced a new policy. When negligence is claimed or proven in a crash, the new entry reads, reporters should “avoid accident, which can be read by some as a term exonerating the person responsible. ” (The New York Times’s style guide does not take any position on the terminology.) But use of “accident” has its defenders, as Mr. Larason discovered in 2014 when he posted his thoughts on the word in a Facebook group popular among traffic reporters. “Why can’t human error be an accident even if the error is preventable,” one person wrote. “What is being solved by having this debate? What injustice are we correcting?” And when Mr. Larason suggested to officials at the Virginia Department of Transportation that they stop using “accident,” he received a note saying that drivers are familiar and comfortable with the word. Virginia officials also wrote that drivers might not consider a minor incident to be a “crash,” and so the change could be confusing. Mr. Larason counters that accident is simply the wrong word. “I’m betting it’s one of the most commonly used words that is used inappropriately,” he said. On Facebook, he posted a definition that describes accident as “an unexpected happening” that “is not due to any fault or misconduct on the part of the person injured. ” The word was introduced into the lexicon of manufacturing and other industries in the early 1900s, when companies were looking to protect themselves from the costs of caring for workers who were injured on the job, according to Peter Norton, a historian and associate professor at the University of Virginia’s department of engineering. The business community even developed a cartoon character — the foolish Otto Nobetter, who suffered frequent accidents that left him maimed, immolated, crushed, and even blown up. The character was meant to warn workers about the risks of inattention. “Relentless safety campaigns started calling these events ‘accidents,’ which excused the employer of responsibility,” Dr. Norton said. When traffic deaths spiked in the 1920s, a consortium of interests, including insurers, borrowed the word to shift the focus away from the cars themselves. “Automakers were very interested in blaming reckless drivers,” Dr. Norton said. But over time, he said, the word has come to exonerate the driver, too, with “accident” seeming like a lightning strike, beyond anyone’s control. The word accident, he added, is seen by its critics as having “normalized mass death in this country,” whereas “the word ‘crash’ is a resurrection of the enormity of this catastrophe. ” These days, the pressure to change the language stems partly from aggrieved families using social media like Facebook clubs and Twitter to lobby for change. Safety advocates often post Twitter messages to journalists and policy makers, urging them to stop using “accident” to describe a crash. When New York City changed its policy in 2014, it did so partly in response to such efforts, including from a group called Families for Safe Streets. The group is led by parents like Amy Cohen, whose son, Sammy, was run over and killed in Brooklyn in 2013. She helped start a campaign called “Crash Not Accident,” and said that the drivers in deadly wrecks should not be given the presumption of innocence just because they have lived to tell their side of the story. “Whose story do you have at the time of the crash? The driver! The victim is dead,” Ms. Cohen said. “The presumption should be to call it a crash, which is a neutral term. ” | 1 |
Matthew McConaughey has two movies out this month. In one, he gives voice to an animated koala who organizes a singing contest. In the other, he plays a schlubby dreamer turned jungle adventurer. The details are not important. The main thing is, the movies will keep him in the public eye — talk shows, awards ceremonies, magazine covers — continuing the McConnaissance that went into effect when, in a move, he gave up for more challenging fare. But if you think of him as a mere movie star, you’re wrong. His work with the directors Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Richard Linklater and Steven Soderbergh has served to provide him cover. Mr. McConaughey has really been a guru all along. Over a period of more than 20 years, almost unnoticed, he has been building a religion of sorts. Call it the Tao of Matthew McConaughey. He preaches to his flock largely through the media of men’s magazines and television commercials. Take the Lincoln campaign. Mr. McConaughey didn’t need a free car when he began pitching the Lincoln MKC in 2014. What he did need was a platform to get his message across. So while other pitchmen (like Jon Hamm, George Clooney and Jeff Bridges) play the game with just enough enthusiasm to earn the huge paychecks, Mr. McConaughey goes deep. “Sometimes you gotta go back to actually move forward,” he says in an early Lincoln ad while cruising a dark empty freeway. “And I don’t mean going back to reminisce or chase ghosts. I mean go back to see where you came from, where you been, how you got here. ” Perhaps knowing we are weak of spirit and doubting his words, he adds reassuringly: “I know there are those that say you can’t go back. Yes, you can. You just have to look in the right place. ” His work with Lincoln made him a hot enough property in the advertising industry that Wild Turkey signed him not only as the face of its brand but also as the creative director for a new series of commercials. His first spot, “The Journey Begins,” is set, no surprise, in a bar. The lights are low. The mood is mellow. We hear Mr. McConaughey’s voice: “We’re not in a rush to be most popular. ” Pause. “Not in a rush not to be. ” We follow an elegant woman carrying a glass of Wild Turkey deeper into the space. Suddenly, there is an blast of a tuba. A bar that was quiet only seconds earlier is now a wild roadhouse, filled with the sounds of the Hot 8 Brass Band, whose members mix freely with twirling dancers, and we are reminded that a tenet of the McConaughey worldview is to stay loose, to remain open to any sudden change. Once we have grown accustomed to the new surroundings, the woman leaves the bar behind for the outdoors. The sun is setting behind distant peaks. Mr. McConaughey has led us, in mere seconds, from the noisy pleasures of civilization to the tranquillity of nature. “Real bourbon, no apologies,” he says in the . “If it’s for you, you’ll know. ” This would seem to be a natural ending. But Mr. McConaughey has one more twist in store: A bright moon appears in a night sky, we hear sweet music, and guess who is sitting at a grand piano situated, incongruously, on an expanse of grass? Mr. McConaughey himself, unshaven, surrounded by revelers. Through his person, it seems, the untamed and the more refined have come together in a harmonious whole. “Ahhhhh,” he says. “Thank you!” The commercial is a distillation of McConaugheyism disguised as an enticement to drink. Listen to your own inner tune. Go where it takes you. The good things you discover along the way, you were meant to discover. Tomorrow’s hangover? You were meant to have that, too. Readers of men’s magazines are often seeking a guide, a mentor, a hip professor. And Mr. McConaughey comes through in one cover story after another. Not only does he have pectorals that look like “a pair of toasted dinner rolls,” as GQ once wrote, but also a questing mind that cannot be tamed. “Every time you think you’ve reached the end of that long street, you slip around the edge, past that stopping point,” he said in Esquire in 2011. “And at the end of your life, all the things you thought were periods, they turn out to be commas. There was never a full stop to any of it. ” In a 2012 Men’s Journal interview, he tackled the eternal question of fate versus free will: “Everything we do in life is part of a plan. Sometimes you learn what that plan is today, sometimes you learn about it tomorrow and sometimes it takes you years to figure out. ” Lest he seem too New he added a dollop of Ayn Rand to his philosophical brew in a 2013 GQ profile: “I’m a fan of the word ‘selfish,’” he said. “‘Selfish’ has always gotten a bad rap. You should do for you. ” He does not shy away from the charged subject of masculinity. “Man is never more masculine than after the birth of his first child,” he said in his most recent Esquire . “I don’t mean in a macho way. I mean in terms of giving a man strength. ” It goes down easy because Mr. McConaughey remains something of a good ol’ boy who likes his Shiner Bock and comped tickets at the line. A foundational part of his myth is the 1999 night when he was booked on a charge of suspected marijuana possession after he was arrested at his home in Austin, Tex. where he was dancing naked and playing the bongos at 3 a. m. (Who knew joy was against the law?) Years later, in an Esquire interview, he was calling himself “spiritual,” only to correct himself and say that the word spiritual was “a dodge. ” “I’m religious,” he said. “I like that word. You can use it. ” In his 2014 Oscar acceptance speech, he thanked God explicitly, saying, “He has shown me that it’s a scientific fact that gratitude reciprocates. ” That was before he said his hero is himself, Matthew McConaughey, but 10 years in the future, so that there is always “somebody to keep on chasing. ” His the first book he says he read cover to cover, is “The Greatest Salesman in the World” by Og Mandino. It tells the tale of 10 ancient scrolls and a trader named Hafid, who reveals their wisdom. Like all sages, Mr. McConaughey can be hard to follow. Confronted with his words, you may feel like Woody Harrelson’s character in “True Detective,” trapped in a car as Mr. McConaughey’s Rust Cohle speaks in riddles. But for all its mystery, McConaugheyism is not a hair shirt religion. In fact, for a number of years now, as his fans and friends have noticed, it has decreed avoiding shirts whenever possible. “I worked hard to live in Malibu, California,” he told GQ in 2014. “I’m going to the beach! I’m gonna go surfing! No, I don’t want to wear a shirt. I want to get a tan and feel the sun on my bones. ” He’s not about abnegating life’s pleasures. He likes the Dolce Gabbana suits, the Lincolns, the evening glass of bourbon. Trust the universe and it will provide. That seems fundamental to the McConaughey way. He has been saying it one way or another since he burst onto the scene in 1993 as Wooderson in “Dazed and Confused. ” It is said that he improvised Wooderson’s famous line, “Just keep livin’. ” He has since adopted it as a motto and even named his foundation after it. He was a guru from the . A year before the film’s release, he wandered into the bar of the Hyatt Regency Austin, where he happened to meet a producer. The chance encounter helped win him the role in “Dazed and Confused,” which led to his breakout in “A Time to Kill. ” Soon enough, Vanity Fair was hailing him as the next Paul Newman. “Why did I go to the bar?” he asked a writer from The Austin Chronicle in 1995. “Why did I stay there late that night? Why did this bartender with the same name as me tell me there was a producer in the bar who was working on a movie?” Why did any of us go into that bar? In the McConaughey belief system, it was destiny. He went into that bar in 1992 so that, in 2015, he could sit on a stage inside the University of Houston’s football stadium and offer the graduating class (and all of us, via YouTube) this utterance: “If there’s one thing that you can depend on people being, it’s people. ” Since he joined with Lincoln in 2014, Mr. McConaughey has dispensed many such nuggets of wisdom. But with the latest Lincoln commercial, which has no he has gone deeper into the mystic. This is messaging, and it presents us with a new figure: Silent McConaughey. Like certain Buddhist monks, like Thomas Merton and the Trappists, like Kramer on Season 9 of “Seinfeld,” Mr. McConaughey seems to be reaching for enlightenment through quietude. The ad, titled “Midnight” and directed by J. C. Chandor, opens at night, inside a modern home in the Hollywood Hills with glass walls and jetliner views. Mr. McConaughey, well groomed in a dark suit, looks as if he is back from a catered affair. He walks with purpose through the living room, toward a patio with an infinity pool. We see mountains. A sky full of glowing stars. A twinkling metropolis below. Mr. McConaughey gazes at the paradise he has won for himself. It seems he wants us, his followers, to have it, too. He stops at the edge of the pool. He turns around slowly. Then there is a cut to another McConaughey, who is driving alone at night through a long tunnel. Then we return to the pool. Back to the tunnel. And back to the pool. Is the tunnel scene a flashback to a McConaughey who existed at an earlier moment that same night? Is it perhaps a flash forward to a future McConaughey, similar to the one he chases but is never able to catch? Or do the two McConaugheys exist simultaneously, like Schrödinger’s cat? Tight shot of Mr. McConaughey, still fully clothed, at the pool’s edge. He smiles. What does it mean? He springs into a reverse back dive, and he breaks the water’s surface just as the McConaughey at the wheel of the Lincoln emerges from the tunnel and speeds toward the horizon. In this chaotic world, he seems to be telling us, find a moment to be still. Reflect. But don’t get so caught up in reflection that you cannot make a bold, blind leap of faith — into the water, toward the horizon. Mr. McConaughey has been speaking his message long enough. His followers know it by heart. Now he has gone beyond words. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Malia Obama, the older daughter of President Obama, plans to attend Harvard University beginning in the fall of 2017, the White House announced on Sunday, waiting until her father leaves office to begin her college career. Malia’s decision, announced in a news release after months of official silence from the White House about her college search process, will make her the latest in a long line of presidential children to attend the elite university in Cambridge, Mass. Both of her parents attended law school there. “The President and Mrs. Obama announced today that their daughter Malia will attend Harvard University in the fall of 2017 as a member of the Class of 2021. Malia will take a gap year before beginning school,” the White House said in a statement. In deferring her start date until 2017, Malia, 17, is availing herself of the opportunity to take a “gap year,” a popular option for high school seniors who are seeking experiences outside the classroom — some in parts of the world — before they begin pursuing a degree. Harvard actively encourages admitted students to do so. It may also yield a less scrutinized experience for Malia, whose parents have worked vigilantly to keep her out of the public eye during her years in the White House and hope to shield her from such attention as a college student. “When you’re a presidential the rest of your life you’re famous, you’re a target, you’re in a security bubble, but it’s not the same,” said Gil Troy, a presidential historian at McGill University and the author of “The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s. ” “The kids can get to at least some level of irrelevance that they absolutely cannot get when they’re still in the White House. ” Malia visited Harvard and a handful of other Ivy League and liberal arts schools last March on the East Coast, setting off speculation about where she might go. But the White House has steadfastly refused to comment on her college deliberations, even last month when she accompanied Mr. Obama on a trip to California, prompting whispers that she was giving Stanford University a final look before committing herself there. Harvard accepted 5. 2 percent of applicants this year, making this admissions cycle the most selective in its nearly history. When she arrives at Harvard, Malia will join a long list of presidential children who have attended, including John Quincy Adams and his son, John Adams II Abraham Lincoln’s son Robert the sons of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush, who went to business school there. The university has also long been a popular destination for the children of foreign leaders. Malia, who turns 18 in July, is a senior at the prestigious Sidwell Friends School here. The school sends a handful of students to Harvard most years. | 1 |
Hillary’s crime family: End of days for the U.S.A Based on the foregoing, SOMEONE got to Comey—somewhere along the line By Daily Coin - November 8, 2016
An investor in Dave’s fund emailed him asking which way Colorado would vote tomorrow. He replied: “Depends on who counts the votes. I don’t believe this is a fair election. I think the Clinton crime machine, with the help of George Soros and a few others, have everything under their control now.”
After taking the better part of a year to sift through 55,000 emails in analyzing Hillary Clinton’s behavior with regard to conducting classified Government business on her private server – which apparently was accessible to hackers and, surreptitiously, by Anthony Wieners porn laptop – Jim Comey determined in 8 days that 650,000 emails downloaded from Hillary’s private server were not relevant.
Sorry Jim, that’s impossible to believe. One highly plausible is that operatives in the Deep State shut down the FBI investigation in order to preserve the treasure trove of material that will give it power over Clinton’s Presidency. The SoT was perplexed by this, so we asked John Titus his take on this. His answer was quite compelling:
Here’s what I’m reasonably sure of, based on experience. (1) Jim Comey looked sick when, at the conclusion of round one, and having proven beyond all doubt that Hillary violateed 18 U.S.C 793(f), he said no reasonable prosecutor would charge her. He wasn’t acting. Bad acting comes right through camera lens, and that man looked like he was about to vomit when he left that dais; (2) it took the FBI a year to conclude round one of its investigation, which was based on its review of 55,000 emails; (3) Comey had promised to get back to congress should more info arise, and when 650,000 unexpected emails showed up, he made good on his word by letting congress know; and (4) the FBI terminated its investigation LONG before reviewing 650,000 emails. I once reviewed 250,000 documents on a case, Based on the foregoing, SOMEONE got to Comey—somewhere along the line. For all I know, though, the whole thing was scripted from start to finish, and Comey read his script at every point along the way, even when it physically disgusted him in round one. So while you might be right about the time, I think if the Deep State made a move on Comey, it happened awhile ago. That’s wholly speculative on my part. You could well be right that they got to him just recently. I just doubt it. I think he’s the Company Man because he’s a company man. For DAMN SURE you’re right about holding Hillary hostage, but she’s so evil it’s like throwing a pedophile into a daycare center with no supervision, the shades drawn and the doors locked.
With that as the preface, today’s episode of the Shadow of Truth discussed the latest development in the HRC Crime Family saga: | 0 |
Wow, you sound completely psychotic. | 0 |
Controversy has surrounded special “women only” screenings of the DC Comics blockbuster release Wonder Woman, with proceeds slated to be donated to Planned Parenthood. [“What better way to spend an evening than with Gal Gadot, a vat of rosé and a blissfully environment?” asked feminist news website Jezebel in an article last month, praising the “no guys allowed” screenings, and adding: Men, with their preternatural ability to sense that something might not revolve around them, immediately freaked out. Mind you, the screening was initially intended as a affair, with men having the option to attend literally any other screening at either the Drafthouse or infinite multiplexes around the world. Men make 20 percent more money than women they perform fewer child care duties and household chores (even when their wives are the family breadwinners). They pay less for pants and haircuts, and they are responsible for dictating our abortion laws. The Austin, Texas cinema chain Alamo Drafthouse, where the screenings are set to be held, registered some fierce complaints from men on its Facebook account over what some critics called the “sexist” showings. In its report about the special screenings, CBS noted a comment from one woman who attended the Brooklyn, New York showing and told 1010 WINS News about the male complaints: “Screw them. I really don’t have a lot to say to them, because their opinion does not matter to me. ” In another twist of the controversy, the charges of sexism led Stephen Clark, a gay Albany Law School professor, to file a complaint. “There was a vibrant argument happening on Facebook,” Clark, 48, told the Washington Post. “But when the theater responded to complaints, they were pretty snide about it and willing to mock anyone who had a complaint and that really struck me. ” “There is also the fact that what they were doing is illegal,” he added. Clark reportedly filed an administrative charge with Austin’s Equal Employment and Fair Housing Office, alleging the Drafthouse’s showing discriminated against men based solely on their gender. He also claimed that, since the theater emphasized it would be staffing the events with only females as well, it was illegally practicing employment discrimination. “It’s the principle of the thing,” he told the Post. “I’m a gay man, and I’ve studied and taught gay rights for years. Our gay bars have long said that you do not exclude people because they’re gay or straight or transgender — you just can’t do that for any reason. ” “We have to deal with the bachelorette parties that come to the gay bar,” he added. “They’re terribly disruptive, but if you forbid women from coming to a gay bar, you’re starting down a slippery slope. It’s discrimination. ” While the theater has reacted to the accusations of sexism by doubling down and promising to expand its screenings at its locations across the country, the Post says it walked back that sentiment, with this statement: “Obviously, Alamo Drafthouse recognizes ‘Wonder Woman’ is a film for all audiences, but our special screenings may have created confusion — we want everybody to see this film. ” The chain’s latest announcement, however, about its June 6 showing, is as follows: The most iconic superheroine in comic book history finally has her own movie, and what better way to celebrate than with an screening? Apologies, gentlemen, but we’re embracing our girl power and saying “No Guys Allowed” for one special night at the Alamo Ritz. And when we say “People Who Identify As Women Only,” we mean it. Everyone working at this screening — venue staff, projectionist, and culinary team — will be female. So lasso your geeky girlfriends together and grab your tickets to this celebration of one of the most enduring and inspiring characters ever created. The screenings have led the theater chain to expand its program across the country. “We are very excited to present select, WONDER WOMAN screenings at Alamo Drafthouse,” Morgan Hendrix, Alamo Drafthouse creative manager said in a statement to the Post. “That providing an experience where women truly reign supreme has incurred the wrath of trolls only serves to deepen our belief that we’re doing something right. ” Jezebel briefly mentioned that proceeds for the special screenings would benefit abortion vendor Planned Parenthood at the very end of its article: The theater did apologize, cheekily, to anyone offended, saying it was “truly, truly, truly sorry sorry. ”) But it needn’t have, especially since the screening’s proceeds are going to Planned Parenthood. The Warner Bros. blockbuster hauled in more than $100 million in its domestic opening weekend — a historic feat for a feature film. | 1 |
Share on Twitter
For Robin Roberts, losing her mother while she was in the midst of her own fight for her life was an especially hard blow. Roberts's mother had always been there for her through every illness and injury.
When she needed her mom the most, however, Roberts swears that she could hear her voice, encouraging her not to give up on life. Image Credit: Mireya Acierto/Getty Images
As PopSugar reports, on a recent episode of “ Harry ,” the “Good Morning America” co-host tearfully recounted the days she spent in the hospital after a bone marrow transplant. Famously open about her battles with breast cancer and a rare bone marrow disease, Roberts tells host Harry Connick Jr. that she had reached the point where the fight was too much for her:
“There was a time when I sent everybody away, and I was in my room, and I just felt like I'm slipping away. I just couldn't.”
One of the things that had made Roberts feel like giving up was the fact that her mother was no longer there by her side. However, she was soon to find that her mom was closer than she realized. She tells Harry:
“I kept hearing this voice, 'Robin! Robin! Robin!' And suddenly, I open my eyes, and it's ... my nurse Jenny. She's looking at me. That was my mother's voice. I am convinced, when I was hearing that, even though it was Jenny, it was my mother's voice I was hearing.”
Roberts believes that at her point of “ greatest isolation ,” her mother used Jenny to call her back, to remind her to keep fighting.
Jenny, Roberts says, was “invaluable” during this time. Acknowledging the bond between Roberts and her nurse, Harry surprised Roberts by reuniting her with nurse Jenny and another nurse who had cared for her. An emotional Roberts was able to thank them for not only everything they had done for her, but for what they have done for countless others:
“Thank you for being our lifeline. Thank you for being there— not only for us, but for our caregivers ... for our loved ones.” | 0 |
CULVER CITY, Calif. — Because of the political moment in which it’s landing, the new movie “Money Monster” — about a cheesy TV financial guru and the viewer who takes him hostage — will almost surely be seen as a parable of income inequality and a rigged economy. Which, in large part, it is. But to its director, Jodie Foster, it covers terrain more intimate than that, and more personal. It’s a meditation on failure: how keenly people fear it, what they do when confronted with it. Its two main characters, captor and captive, inhabit the same purgatory. They’re coming to terms with their own inadequacy. “Failure is a big one for me — people in spiritual crisis, in a moment in life of total ” Ms. Foster told me recently, explaining how the movie, to be released May 13, connects to her. Does she often think of herself as a failure? “Oh yeah,” she said. “Oh my God, yeah. If Mother Teresa is propelled to do good works because she believes in God, I am propelled to do good works because of how bad I feel about myself. It’s the first place I go. ‘Oh, what did I do wrong? ’” This is not the direction in which you expect a conversation with a Oscar winner to turn. But as guarded as so many decades in the spotlight have made Ms. Foster, there’s also something naked about her, a too fervent to stay hidden. You see it in her best performances. You saw it at the Golden Globes in 2013, when she accepted an honorary award with a raw, rambling speech that set the Internet ablaze: Had she just come out of the closet? Had she even been in the closet? She was asking at once to be understood and to be left alone, still searching all these years later for a resolution to the contradiction of celebrity, and her remarks were so messy in their way that I was stunned when she told me that she’d scripted them carefully in advance. “Every word,” she said, adding that she even had them put on a teleprompter. “I didn’t want to get it wrong. ” But what precisely was she trying to get right? The world was fixated on her allusions to her private life. She was focused on an announcement about her professional one: On the far side of 50, she was pivoting toward less glamorous work behind the scenes. She hasn’t taken a new acting assignment since, instead concentrating on directing. “Money Monster” is her fourth effort along those lines, after “Little Man Tate” (1991) “Home for the Holidays” (1995) and “The Beaver” (2011) and it’s by far the most ambitious, a New York City thriller with SWAT teams, explosives, George Clooney and Julia Roberts. Mr. Clooney is the financial guru, who loosely evokes Jim Cramer, the host of the CNBC cable show “Mad Money. ” Ms. Roberts is his producer, who’s in his ear throughout the hostage crisis, talking him through it, as steady as he is spastic. (The captor is played by Jack O’Connell.) One striking aspect of the movie is how large Ms. Roberts’s character looms, and I asked Ms. Foster if that would have been the case in a male director’s hands. She said that she hadn’t thought about that, but, in fact, many of the screenplay revisions that she requested involved fleshing out that role. Strong women are her trademark as a performer, the thread running through “The Accused” (her first Oscar for best actress) “The Silence of the Lambs” (her second) “Panic Room,” “Flightplan,” “The Brave One” and more. But not just strong women: women who don’t turn to a man in the clutch women whose strength is inseparable from the walls they’ve built around themselves. They’re “solitary characters who don’t have mothers and fathers and boyfriends,” she told me, and they demonstrate her desire, when acting, “to have an experience that’s all mine, and I don’t really want to share it. ” “Yet I’m totally desperate to communicate it to you,” she said. “It’s a really weird dichotomy. And I think that’s me in life. ” She sat on a couch, legs curled under her and shoes kicked off, in an office here on the lot of Sony Pictures, which is distributing “Money Monster. ” I’d last seen her in downtown Manhattan months earlier, when she was shooting a crucial scene and when she described, within minutes of our meeting, how powerfully the Clooney part spoke to her. “He’s just a guy on TV, but he’s imbued with this sense of power,” she said, adding that he’s forced to ask questions that she has asked herself: “Am I real? Am I a sellout? Is all of this real?” She meant the adulation that comes with fame, which she achieved early. The year she turned 14, she had five movies released, including “Freaky Friday,” “Bugsy Malone” and “Taxi Driver,” in which her precocious turn as an underage prostitute earned her an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. During her time at Yale University, she acted in another five movies, juggling them with her studies, including a thesis on literature. Henry Louis Gates Jr. then teaching there, was one of her advisers. She babysat for his two young children, and he recalled arranging an interview for her with Toni Morrison and telling the novelist only that his student Alicia Foster — that’s Jodie’s real name — was en route. “When she walked in, I think Toni almost had a heart attack,” Professor Gates, now at Harvard, told me. He and Ms. Foster remain friends, and he said that he still marvels at the poise that “allowed her to get through a crisis that probably would have been crushing to most of us. ” He was referring to John Hinckley Jr. ’s shooting of President Reagan, which Mr. Hinckley, who had stalked Ms. Foster, said he did to impress her. She was in her freshman year at Yale. Not long after she graduated, she considered ditching movies altogether and doing graduate work with Professor Gates. “The Accused” was about to be released, and she was convinced that the movie and her performance were no good. Her mother, Evelyn, worried that “The Silence of the Lambs” would be a mistake and, as Ms. Foster remembers it, said to her: “The good part is Hannibal Lecter. Why are you taking the dull part?” The two have always been extraordinarily close — her mother was a single mom and carefully steered her career early on — so it pained the actress when they had a much bigger tussle over “Nell,” in which Ms. Foster played a wild woman (literally) who spoke a gibberish of her own invention. Evelyn Foster channeled her broader apprehensions about the movie into her daughter’s specific decision to darken her hair for the role. “She was relentless, and she wouldn’t get off it,” Ms. Foster said. “She was yelling at me. Why did I have to dye my hair? She was just like, ‘You’re ruining your image,’ or whatever it was. And I remember sending her this really long letter, and the letter was, ‘I really love you, but I’m not going to talk to you for four and a half months,’” until the movie wraps. “She totally got it — she sent me flowers,” Ms. Foster added. “And then I talked to her four months later. That was one of the movies where if I thought for one minute that I was making a fool of myself, I would not be able to perform. ” She made clear to me that she was sharing that story only because it couldn’t embarrass her mother, who has advanced dementia. Ms. Foster is mindful of the privacy of family members, including her two sons, the oldest of whom will leave for college in the fall, and her wife, the photographer Alexandra Hedison. The couple began their relationship soon after that Golden Globes speech and were wed in early 2014. Ms. Foster deflected questions about that. “I never will talk about marriage and friends,” she said. “There are only so many steps I can take to protect people I love. There’s only so much I can do to keep them safe. It’s kind of a horrible feeling to know that if somebody’s close to you, you put them in danger of being hurt, of being sullied — trivialized — just by virtue of knowing you. ” In the Globes speech, she fleetingly acknowledged a previous relationship to Cydney Bernard, describing her as “my heroic my in love but righteous soul sister in life. ” Did she intend that as the kind of declaration about her sexual orientation that some advocates had long pressed for? “Everything I have to say on that subject, I said that night,” she told me, acknowledging that some people remained puzzled. “I can be vague. Vague is moving to me. ” In recent years, she has directed episodes of “Orange Is the New Black” and “House of Cards,” picking up Emmy and Directors Guild of America nominations. But her chance to helm movies came earlier, even though that opportunity still eludes many women. She was spared such resistance because so many male executives “knew me as the who showed up on time, and they didn’t see it as a risk,” she said. “They looked at me as if I was a daughter. They’d seen me grow up. They knew my professionalism. ” So did the “Money Monster” producers. “Talk to anyone who has worked with her,” said one of them, Lara Alameddine. “They’ll tell you the same thing. She is the most prepared person. She’s the first one there and the last one to leave. ” Mel Gibson, who starred in “The Beaver,” said that “the way she directs films, the way she does anything — it’s just very smart. She attacks it and deals with it and delivers. ” The two formed a deep friendship after making “Maverick” more than two decades ago, though their bond baffles outsiders. “It’s not my job to adjudicate his behavior,” she said. “He’s certainly not sexist and certainly not racist. I know the guy I know, somebody who’s really emotional, who I can have long, long conversations with, who’s trustworthy, who shows up for me. ” Mr. Gibson said: “I just love her, that’s all. You meet people like that sometimes. You just instantly fall in love, and that’s it, and it’s the purest kind of thing. We call each other up all the time and just say, ‘Hey, I love you. ’” Ms. Foster’s current emphasis on directing over acting partly recognizes that at 53, she won’t find as many great roles as she once did. But it also reflects her ceaseless process of and . “Everybody in my life said to me: When you stop acting, you’re going to be lost,” she said, meaning that directors don’t quite have the visibility and currency of actual movie stars. “What are you going to do when people don’t take your phone call or when you can’t get a reservation in a restaurant?” I looked for some sign that she was being falsely modest or pulling my leg. Amazingly, she wasn’t. “Maybe I’ll lose my identity,” she said. “But I guess I need to find out, and I’m willing to take that chance. ” | 1 |
Coalition Nations Seek to Put North Korea in a Vise October 27, 2016 Coalition Nations Seek to Put North Korea in a Vise
Japan, the United States and South Korea agreed on Thursday to work together to put more pressure on North Korea to get it to abandon its nuclear and missile programs , Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama said. Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high this year, beginning with North Korea's fourth nuclear test in January, which was followed by a satellite launch, a string of tests of various missiles, and its fifth and largest nuclear test last month, all in defiance of international sanctions.Co "We reaffirmed the necessity to increase pressure against North Korea to have it give up its nuclear and missile development and realise the denuclearization of the peninsula," Sugiyama told reporters. He was speaking after a meeting in Tokyo with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken and South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam.
(TOKYO) - Russia and North Korea's lone major ally, China, have pushed for a resumption of six-party talks on denuclearization in North Korea. The talks, which also involve Japan, South Korea and the United States, have been on hold since 2008.
Lim said his government had decided to resume talks with Japan for the conclusion of General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), a pact that would share sensitive information on North Korea's missile and nuclear activities.
READ MORE: DNI CLAPPER SAYS THAT NORTH KOREA IS A LOST CAUSE
The signing of the agreement was expected in 2012, but South Korea postponed it amid domestic opposition against concluding such a security pact with Japan, a one-time colonial ruler.
Tokyo's ties with Seoul, plagued by a territorial spat and Japan's past military aggression, have warmed after reaching a landmark agreement last December to resolve the issue of Korean girls and women forced to work in Japan's wartime brothels. 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
We believe Christians need and deserve their own global news network to keep the worldwide Church informed, and to offer Christians a positive alternative to the anti-Christian bigotry of the mainstream news media Top Stories | 0 |
Two liberals on a crusade submit petition for Oregon to secede from the Union New petition hopes to make Oregon a 'safe space' as bigoted liberals plan State's succession By Shepard Ambellas - November 11, 2016 PORTLAND ( INTELLIHUB ) — Two liberals by the names of Jennifer Rollins and Christian Trejbal, likely offended by the powerhouse personality of the new President-Elect, have filed a petition for the State of Oregon to secede from the Union.
The petition for a 2018 ballot initiative will require only 1,000 signatures to move forward as the two wish to make the state a liberal safe-space, where robust personalities with vigor can’t encroach on their feelings.
Trejbal told the Oregonian Thursday, “Oregonian values are no longer the values held by the rest of the United States.”
“Those values? “Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.”
So essentially you have two bigoted liberals who likely crave open borders, more tax, more security arising from false flag attacks like 9/11 and transgender bathrooms.
Is this what they call “happiness?”
Ladies and gentlemen, if this is the mindset of Oregonians — then all I have to say is good riddance.
However, I suspect that it is not the mindset of most Oregonians and that these two crazed loons have their own agenda in which it is okay for them to express their ideology but they do not want others, like Trump, to express his.
The not so dynamic duo plans to get the 1,000 signatures needed by the end of Thursday.
#SafeSpaceFail
Shepard Ambellas is an opinion journalist, filmmaker , radio talk show host and the founder and editor-in-chief of Intellihub News & Politics. Established in 2013, Intellihub.com is ranked in the upper 1% traffic tier on the World Wide Web. Read more from Shep’s World . Get the Podcast . Follow Shep on Facebook and Twitter . Featured Image: Mike McCune/Flickr | 0 |
Wednesday 9 November 2016 by Lucas Wilde Ooh Fuck
“Ooh Fuck”, according to reports.
Not much more is known regarding the statement, although some are speculating that it may have something to do with some kind of earthquake that happened in America last night.
It is unknown if the earthquake was literal or simply a clumsy metaphor from a lazy satirist.
“Ooh Fuck,” confirmed Democrat party spokesperson, Jay Cooper.
“That’s all I have to say on the matter. I think it’s fairly conclusive.
“You can direct any other questions to my secretary. I have several lines of coke to attend to.”
“Ooh fuck,” verified Cooper’s secretary, Elizabeth King.
“This is going to require a lot of alcohol and a fair few enquiries to the Canadian passport office- forgive me, I have said too much. Excuse me, I need to leave the room immediately.”
Americans nationwide were either weeping while exclaiming “Ooh Fuck” or, in some cases, whooping and hollering and high-fiving while cheerfully exclaiming “Ooh Fuck!”
A bleary-eyed Donald Trump reportedly awoke from his slumber this morning, remembered what happened last night and exclaimed “Ooh Fuck”; presumably having been hit with full magnitude of some kind of job that lay before him. Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently | 0 |
Longtime radio host and Fox News personality Alan Colmes passed away at the age of 66. Fox News’s official Twitter account posted the message confirming the sad news of Colmes’ passing on Thursday morning. [Fox News Channel’s Alan Colmes Dies at Age 66 https: . pic. twitter. — Fox News (@FoxNews) February 23, 2017, Host Bill Hemmer interrupted programming on America’s Newsroom and updated viewers of Colmes’ passing. The network also aired a touching tribute narrated by Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity, who with Colmes the political debate show Hannity Colmes from October 7, 1996 to January 9, 2009. In a statement to Fox News, Hannity called Alan Colmes “one of life’s most decent, kind and wonderful people you’d ever want to meet. ” “When Alan and I started ‘Hannity Colmes,’ there wasn’t a day that went by where we didn’t say we were the two most fortunate men in all of television,” said Hannity. Colmes, an outspoken liberal Democrat and host of the nationally syndicated radio show, The Alan Colmes Show, is survived by his wife, Jocelyn Crowley, who issued the following statement: Alan Colmes passed away this morning after a brief illness. He was . He leaves his adoring and devoted wife, Jocelyn Elise Crowley. He was a great guy, brilliant, hysterical, and moral. He was fiercely loyal, and the only thing he loved more than his work was his life with Jocelyn. He will be missed. The family has asked for privacy during this very difficult time. Despite their polar opposite political views, Hannity said he and Colmes “forged a deep friendship. ” “Alan, in the midst of great sickness and illness, showed the single greatest amount of courage I’ve ever seen,” Hannity added. As news of his passing spread across the internet, friends and longtime colleagues of Colmes took to social media to offer their condolences and kind words. So sad to hear of the death of Fox News colleague Alan Colmes. He and I agreed on little, but I liked him immensely. Good guy. R. I. P. — Brit Hume (@brithume) February 23, 2017, WHAT? @AlanColmes passed away? ???? Noooooooooooo! Very sad. He was a good guy. Always surprised people that way. https: . — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 23, 2017, Very sad to report our friend and colleague @AlanColmes has passed away. — Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) February 23, 2017, Shocked to hear of the passing of Alan Colmes. Thanks for providing great perspective on the stories of the day. — Mike Tobin (@MikeTobinFox) February 23, 2017, I can tell you tears r flowing @FoxBusiness @FoxNews right now. We are all devastated by the loss of kind soul @AlanColmes may god bless RIP, — Liz Claman (@LizClaman) February 23, 2017, Alan Colmes was an incredibly talented media personality but he was also my friend a mentor. Saying he will be missed is an understatement. — dianafalzone (@dianafalzone) February 23, 2017, Whoa. Alan Colmes died. We sparred a bunch, but decent guy. RIP. — Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) February 23, 2017, Deeply saddened to hear of the passing of my @foxnews colleague @alancolmes. A very nice, genuine man I had the pleasure to work with. — Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) February 23, 2017, I’m heartbroken. @AlanColmes was my fellow liberal colleague at Fox News. I admired his tenacious work ethic. He was a good man. RIP Alan. — Tamara Holder (@tamaraholder) February 23, 2017, Former Fox News stars Megan Kelly and Greta Van Susteren shared their condolences on social media. Heartbroken my friend Alan Colmes has died. He lit up the FNC halls kindness humor. Incredibly positive force. Prayers 4 his family. — Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) February 23, 2017, Alan Colmes was always a gentleman … always kind … a wonderful colleague. pic. twitter. — Greta Van Susteren (@greta) February 23, 2017, Colmes’ death comes less than a week after the passing of Fox News Channel’s Brenda Buttner, who died at age 55 following a battle with cancer. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
LOS ANGELES — For the past decade, Jeffrey Katzenberg’s identity has been indistinguishable from the DreamWorks Animation brand. A relentless advocate for his little studio, he became famous for making 40 phone calls and conducting three breakfast meetings before 10 a. m. (He always orders the same thing: Diet Coke.) Mr. Katzenberg’s campaign to keep DreamWorks Animation afloat, even as a changing film business made that increasingly difficult, came down to one desire: He wanted to be his generation’s Lew Wasserman, the M. C. A. chief who was Hollywood’s big everything — biggest political power, biggest cultural force, biggest business mogul. On Thursday, part of that dream ended. DreamWorks Animation, essentially the sole remaining piece of a splashy conglomerate founded in 1994 by Mr. Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, said it would sell itself to Comcast’s sprawling NBCUniversal for $3. 8 billion. In return for a personal payout estimated at $420 million, Mr. Katzenberg, 65, will reluctantly step aside, having never quite managed to become that kingpin. The deal will provide NBCUniversal with family film franchises like “How to Train Your Dragon,” “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda” that it can use in its quest to compete with Disney in the global theme park, consumer products and children’s television businesses. But Hollywood was really only interested in one thing: Why did the intense and bespectacled Mr. Katzenberg, a animation enthusiast, finally call it a day? For more than two decades, Mr. Katzenberg has been a fixture among Hollywood’s elite, sitting courtside at Los Angeles Lakers games with the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Rihanna and reigning over an annual Oscar that draws every mogul in town. In 2012, he made White House officials blanch by insisting President Obama spend extended time chatting with donors at George Clooney’s mansion he got his way. But as Mr. Geffen has graduated to philanthropy, donating hundreds of millions of dollars and seeing his name go up on the walls of some of the country’s top cultural institutions, when he’s not sailing the world on his and Mr. Spielberg has continued to make films, Mr. Katzenberg has had to mostly focus on the grinding task of keeping DreamWorks Animation going. With that chapter closed, Mr. Katzenberg must now decide what to do. Stephen B. Burke, NBCUniversal’s chief executive and senior vice president of Comcast, suggested in a phone interview that Mr. Katzenberg could find a next act in digital media, perhaps following the example of Barry Diller, the former Hollywood executive who built . (Mr. Katzenberg started his career at Paramount Pictures as Mr. Diller’s assistant.) Others wondered if Mr. Katzenberg was positioning himself for an ambassadorship should Hillary Clinton win the presidency. (After supporting President Obama in 2008, he has recently been one of Mrs. Clinton’s top .) There is also the possibility that Mr. Katzenberg could follow Mr. Geffen’s example and turn to philanthropy. Mr. Katzenberg seemed unsure how to handle the questions about his future. He initially agreed to speak to a reporter. But that pledge was ultimately reversed, with a spokesman saying that Mr. Katzenberg instead wished the spotlight to shine on Comcast. At a 10 a. m. meeting on Thursday for DreamWorks Animation’s 1, 500 employees, held near a monumental fountain on the studio’s campus in Glendale, Calif. Mr. Katzenberg struck an upbeat tone, according to attendees. “I rest easy in knowing that the house of dreams that we’ve spent the last two decades building together — the stories, the characters, the joy and the laughter — has found the best possible home,” he said, standing near two senior Universal executives. He added, “This is not a deal that we needed to do, but it’s the deal I’d always hoped would come along. ” The reality is that Mr. Katzenberg finds himself as both a winner and loser. After years of failed efforts to escape a cycle driven by sporadic film releases, he finally found a rich solution for his company. Comcast paid more than many people thought DreamWorks Animation was worth. (“Comcast Overpays,” read the headline of a blog post written by Rich Greenfield, a BTIG Research analyst.) DreamWorks Animation shareholders will receive $41 a share in cash. “I think we can take their existing I. P. and do more with it,” Mr. Burke said. The price puts DreamWorks Animation on par with Lucasfilm, the “Star Wars” studio that Disney bought in 2012 for about $4 billion. And Mr. Katzenberg will retain a business platform, albeit a tiny one: Comcast said he would serve as chairman of a new entity, DreamWorks New Media, which will be made up of AwesomenessTV, an online studio and distributor of content aimed at teenage girls, and NOVA, a fledgling unit that uses animation technology to assist companies like Nike and Burberry with marketing campaigns. (Contrary to reports, NBCUniversal has not decided what to do with AwesomenessTV, which is partly owned by Verizon, a Comcast rival. “You could imagine a situation where AwesomenessTV doesn’t stay as part of the company forever, but it could easily be the other way,” Mr. Burke said. “We don’t know. ”) Even so, Thursday was a day of loss for Mr. Katzenberg. People close to him said he struggled with the decision. In previous sale and merger attempts — notably one with SoftBank in 2014, followed by one with Hasbro — Mr. Katzenberg intended to come along for the ride by continuing to run the studio. But Comcast made it clear that it was only willing to pay such a high price if it could create synergies by folding DreamWorks Animation into its Universal Pictures unit, and that could happen only if Mr. Katzenberg ceded control. NBCUniversal wanted its own animation chief, Christopher Meledandri, the executive responsible for the “Despicable Me” franchise, to oversee all operations. Mr. Burke acknowledged that the sale was “not an easy thing for Jeff to grapple with,” adding, “It is his baby. ” The deal came together rapidly. Two weeks ago, Mr. Burke said he received a call from his boss, Brian L. Roberts, Comcast’s chief executive. They had heard a whisper that Mr. Katzenberg was considering a maneuver, possibly with a Chinese backer, to take his studio private. They thought that Mr. Katzenberg might instead sell to them. Mr. Roberts placed a call to Mr. Katzenberg, who immediately picked up the phone. Mr. Katzenberg told Mr. Roberts that, depending on Comcast’s price, he would love to talk. Mr. Roberts called Mr. Burke with the news, and the two men, along with a few other Comcast executives, flew to Los Angeles on April 15. The next morning at 7 a. m. the Comcast executives met Mr. Katzenberg and his top lieutenant, Ann Daly, at a downtown law office. The deal making quickly grew fast and furious, to use a term associated with a Universal movie franchise. The end of DreamWorks as a company — Mr. Spielberg in December folded what remained of the company’s film label into his Amblin Partners — reflects a changing Hollywood, where the collapse of the DVD market overwhelmed many independent studios. But the various DreamWorks enterprises also never quite gelled, perhaps because the aims of the company’s founders, despite their personal ties, almost always diverged. Mr. Spielberg, a prolific producer and director, was drawn to his own projects, and seemed often to make the most lucrative among them for companies other than DreamWorks. Mr. Geffen, a financial godfather to his partners, long ago lost interest in movies, and in 2008 withdrew from active involvement in the companies. Mr. Katzenberg, meanwhile, poured himself into DreamWorks Animation, which seemed forever trapped in a creative chase behind its rival Pixar, which often bested it at the box office and on the Oscar circuit. Mr. Katzenberg also got bogged down in an endless fight for positive quarterly earnings news and fresh capital. DreamWorks was founded shortly after Mr. Katzenberg left a senior Disney job amid deteriorating relations with then its chief executive, Michael Eisner. “Times change, the marketplace changes, the original reason the company was founded ceased to exist,” said Terry Press, a former DreamWorks executive who is now president of CBS Films. “The one thing that never changes,” she added, “is Jeffrey’s iron will to succeed. ” | 1 |
Store UK Economy Grows 0.5% in Three Months after Brexit Vote The GDP figure is driven by growth in the services sector - offsetting slides in construction, manufacturing and agriculture. Image Credits: publicdomainpictures.net .
The UK economy grew by 0.5% in the three months after the Brexit vote, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said.
The figure for July to September was down from the 0.7% growth recorded in the second quarter of 2016 – the months before Britain voted to leave the European Union.
But it is more robust than many economists had expected – and stronger than the 0.2% forecast last month by the Bank of England (BoE).
The higher-than-expected GDP figure was driven by the services sector – which accounts for more than 78% of the UK economy – which grew by 0.2% in the three months to September. | 0 |
And neither Trump nor Hillary will do anything either. Outside of an electoral miracle, Americans will get even more screwed for at least the next 8 (not 4)) years. Especially now that ACA premiums are going up due to more corporate monopolization of it. The "Affordable" part of the name is an insulting joke.
The "free market" is one of the biggest myths in American history, right up there with the belief that we're a democracy. | 0 |
OAKLAND, Calif. — The docks at the Port of Oakland are a tangle of cranes, shipping containers, railroad tracks and snaking lines of trucks waiting to load and unload cargo. Streamlining this kind of traffic is one of the few ideas Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton agree on. Mrs. Clinton has said that if she is elected president, her administration will seek to spend $250 billion over five years on repairing and improving the nation’s infrastructure — not just ports but roads, bridges, energy systems and broadband — and would put an additional $25 billion toward a national infrastructure bank to spur related business investments. Mr. Trump said he wanted to go even bigger, saying his administration would spend at least twice as much as Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Trump, taking a page from liberal economists, said he would fund his plan by borrowing several hundred billion dollars, but has offered no specifics. Mrs. Clinton’s more detailed proposal, by contrast, would be paid for by a business tax overhaul aimed at collecting additional revenue from companies that have parked assets abroad. These are only plans, of course. Either would have to get through Congress and the inevitable acrimony over any proposal to raise taxes or add to the national debt. Still, the candidates’ agreement, combined with growing accord among economists that increased spending on infrastructure could invigorate the American economy and raise overall living standards, has led to a cautious optimism that some sort of big public works push is coming, regardless of who is elected. “The next administration will be in prime position to deliver on a comprehensive infrastructure plan,” said Tom Jensen, vice president for transportation policy at UPS. Infrastructure spending, unlike many other forms of government outlays, holds the power to give the economy a sustained lift for decades down the line. First comes the addition of jobs — particularly the kinds of jobs that have been lost in recent years — and spending on products like concrete and steel to build new roads and repair bridges. After that initial jolt, the economy would continue to reap the important but benefits of fewer delays, faster internet connections and more reliable power. You can see much of that here at one of the nation’s busiest ports, an export hub that sends tons of important California products like Napa Valley wine, Central Valley almonds and Silicon Valley Teslas to China’s growing middle class. Aiming to gain other ports’ market share, Oakland has embarked on a number of projects — some big, some small — to add cargo and speed things up. There are new measures, such as an appointment system for trucks picking up cargo and extended hours at its largest terminal. It is also working on several infrastructure projects: This year, the port applied for a $140 million federal grant to build a bridge over a choked intersection where trucks waste time waiting for trains to pass. A away sit 14 new rail lines that are part of a new operation where shippers can transfer products from one container to another without leaving the port. Shipping companies often make these transfers at warehouses — wasting more time and money. The Port of Oakland, which acts as a landlord, is hoping its investment will entice companies to move more cargo to its docks. This would not just give the port more rent. The economy would also gain additional jobs as private sector shippers added their own money to erect buildings near the port’s rail connection, and fill them with machines. Weakness in those kinds of business investments is one reason the current economic recovery has been so sluggish. Companies’ spending on new buildings and equipment, which depends in part on improvements in the nation’s transportation network and energy and digital pipelines, has been a persistent weak point throughout the nation’s recovery from the Great Recession. The federal government, with its wide latitude to spend on ambitious projects, is in a singular position to make investments no one else will. But the government’s power to act has also set off a robust debate about how much more it should spend on infrastructure and how it should be funded. Spend too little, and the nation’s backbone deteriorates and the cost of future repairs mounts. Spend too much too fast, and the government could crowd out private investment, possibly leading to higher inflation and pushing up interest rates. Today, with maintenance lacking and interest rates low, a host of influential economists, including Lawrence H. Summers, who served as Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, argue that America’s need for better infrastructure is so great that it could increase its debt load and still come out ahead. In a telephone interview, Mr. Summers laid out his case: The federal government can borrow at something like 1 percent interest a year, and through enhanced productivity it would reap something like 3 percent a year in higher tax receipts. “I am as worried about the debt burden on my children’s generation as anybody, but deferring maintenance on the foundation of our economy is a much greater risk to them,” Mr. Summers said. Others argue that any rise in infrastructure spending should be paid for through a tax increase or budget cuts elsewhere. That view was bolstered by a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office, which concluded that while federal investment increased productivity, that did not automatically mean the nation would be better off by borrowing to fund such investment. Decades ago, the federal government spent big. The Interstate System of highways spawned new suburbs, and transportation grants helped build rail networks like the Bay Area Rapid Transit System, whose commuter trains hum past the Port of Oakland as they travel to and from San Francisco. Now the United States has more people and a bigger economy. But relative to its gross domestic product, the nation spends only about half as much on infrastructure as it did during the 1950s and ’60s. The result is that, like the population itself, America’s roads, bridges and power plants are aging. That’s one reason the American Society of Civil Engineers, in its most recent report card on infrastructure, gave the United States a despite the extra infrastructure spending that flowed from the big 2009 economic recovery act. The costs are substantial, if hard to see. Neglect the water system, and you may have leaky pipes and larger bills, or even lead contamination. Rough roads equal more flat tires. Substandard internet connections add to the isolation of rural communities. Each day, UPS drivers in northern New Jersey and New York City lose an average of 16 minutes — often much longer — to heavy traffic. Six years ago the company started dispatching an additional 61 drivers to make sure everyone hit their stops, and it would need more drivers if traffic got worse. Of course, even if tens of billions of dollars more were set aside for road improvements, that would not on its own guarantee that traffic congestion would ease. Infrastructure may be among the most bipartisan of federal spending areas, but politics in general can be a problem. One of the persistent criticisms from economists is federal lawmakers’ tendency to spread cash across the country instead of focusing on places where the economic payoff would be greatest. And apart from the debate over how to pay for national upgrades, there is the question of how much can be gained from additional infrastructure spending versus how much can be gained by making better use of what is already in place. Clifford Winston, an economist at the Brookings Institution and a longtime critic of how the government builds and runs the nation’s transportation infrastructure, laid out a long list. An increase in infrastructure spending would still lift the economy, Mr. Winston said, “but my God, wouldn’t it be so much better if we were more thoughtful about what we do with the money we have?” This, at least, is where the nation’s grade turns out to be good news. Economists say infrastructure’s productivity lift is greatest when investment is being raised from low levels. Put another way: The more broken down the nation becomes, the harder it is to find something that does not need to be fixed. “We’re not talking about bridges to nowhere,” Mr. Summers said. “We’re talking about bridges that are on the verge of collapsing. ” | 1 |
Donald J. Trump ran on a campaign promise to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. So it should not come as a surprise that he has signed an executive order urging his administration to fight it as much as possible. But that order, alone, won’t allow President Trump to unwind the sprawling health law known as Obamacare. Mr. Trump and Republican leaders in Congress are engaged in negotiations about legislation that might substantially undo or replace the health law. Even before the inauguration, Congress took a first step toward gutting major provisions. But as that process underscores, major changes to health policy will require new legislation. The Trump executive order should be seen more as a mission statement, and less as a monarchical edict that can instantly change the law. Mr. Trump has sent a strong signal that he intends to fight the health law, but he sent signals that were strong on the campaign trail, too, just in less legalistic language. And the order, crucially, notes that agencies can act only “to the maximum extent permitted by law. ” (How the Trump administration interprets those permissions, of course, is yet untested.) The order spells out the various ways that a Trump administration might fight the parts of the health law until new legislation comes: by writing new regulations and exercising discretion where allowed. Regulations can be changed, but, as the order notes, only through a legal process of “notice and comment” that can take months or years. On matters of discretion, the administration can move faster, but there are limited places where current law gives the administration much power to quickly change course. How much of the order is bluster and how much it signals a set of significant policy changes in the pipeline is unclear. The order was not specific and did not direct any particular actions. “Right off the bat, what do they do — something incredibly cryptic that nobody understands,” said Rodney Whitlock, a vice president of M. L. Strategies, a Washington consulting firm. Mr. Whitlock was a longtime health policy aide to Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa. The easiest way for the Trump administration to undermine the health law would be to stop defending a lawsuit brought by the House of Representatives. That suit said that the Obama administration lacked the authority to pay certain Obamacare subsidies. A lower court ruled for the House, meaning that by simply withdrawing from the appeal, the Trump administration could start a process to eliminate those subsidies and cause a collapse of the insurance market. Mr. Trump’s order said nothing about that policy choice. Another important area of discretion has to do with exemptions to the law’s unpopular individual mandate to obtain insurance. Under the law, all Americans who can afford it are expected to obtain health insurance, unless they have experienced some hardship that would make it impossible. People who feel there has been such a hardship can apply for an exemption, and employees in the Department of Health and Human Services and the Internal Revenue Service can decide on their case. Under a Trump administration, it might become easier to claim hardship and get out of the requirement to buy insurance. But people seeking those exemptions will still have to apply for them, in writing, and can do so only at particular times of the year. Current law requires them to provide documentation supporting their claim that they have recently filed for bankruptcy, for example, or been evicted, and they must legally attest to their honesty. The Trump administration could create new categories of hardship, but that would take time. And rules that effectively eliminate the requirement would almost certainly result in litigation. “It’s not a hardship to have to comply with the law, almost by definition,” said Timothy Jost, a professor of law at Washington and Lee University. Mr. Jost, who supports the health law, has examined the underlying regulations in detail. Defanging the individual mandate could have significant consequences for the individual insurance markets. If fewer healthy people buy insurance, the costs of insuring everyone else will rise, leading insurance companies to raise prices or flee the market. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office published its estimate of what would happen under a law that eliminated the mandate and some other provisions: 18 million people would lose their insurance next year alone. It’s possible that insurers will look at the language of the order and get skittish, setting off a market collapse next year. But the order itself doesn’t yet change any rules. The health and human services department and the I. R. S. will have to take further action. “Is this mostly a symbolic gesture or a signal that they intend to take apart the law piece by piece to the extent they can?” said Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health research group. “At a minimum, this creates a lot of uncertainty for insurers at a pretty critical time. ” The order directs the administration to give states more autonomy in directing health policy. And there’s a clear mechanism for that: Medicaid law provides a process in which states can waive many of the program’s usual rules to attempt “demonstration projects. ” Administrations have latitude under the law to decide what sort of new programs qualify. Mr. Trump’s selection for the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Seema Verma, has been an innovator in pushing this process in more conservative directions. Her selection, even more than the order, was a sign that the Trump administration would become more open to new Medicaid rules, including possible work requirements to obtain coverage, or premiums even for very poor Americans. But, as with the exemptions, there is still a process for such policy changes. States must submit detailed applications for waivers for the rules, and there is a legal review process that typically takes months. Mr. Trump recently promised that his team was developing a health care plan far better than the Affordable Care Act, that would insure more people and lower their costs. For people who heard that and thought Mr. Trump had gone soft on Obamacare, his executive order may come as a shock. But nothing in the order changes the law on its own. Whether Mr. Trump’s intention is a smooth transition or a rapid disruption in current policy will be determined by what comes next. | 1 |
SAN FRANCISCO — A roboticist and crucial member of the team that created Google’s car is leaving the company, the latest in a string of departures by important technologists working on the autonomous car project. Chris Urmson, a Carnegie Mellon University research scientist, joined Google in 2009 to help create the effort. He took over leadership of the team after Sebastian Thrun, the Stanford computer scientist and founder of Google X laboratory, left in 2013. Johnny Luu, a spokesman for Alphabet, the parent company of X, the company’s research division that oversees the car project, confirmed Mr. Urmson was planning to leave. “Seven years ago, the idea that a car could drive itself wasn’t much more than an idea. Chris has been a vital force for the project, helping the team move from a research phase to a point where this lifesaving technology will soon become a reality. He departs with our warmest wishes,” Mr. Luu wrote in an email message. The departures come after Google’s decision last year to hire John Krafcik, the former president and chief executive of Hyundai America, to be chief of the car project, as part of a plan to spin the effort out as a company under the Alphabet umbrella. The X research group, often called Google’s “moonshot” division, is under increasing pressure to show that at some point the company can expect a financial windfall from its projects. Google’s car project has been a pioneer in autonomous vehicle technology, but a commercial version of the car is still likely to be several years away. Mr. Urmson has been unhappy with the direction of the car project under Mr. Krafcik’s leadership and quarreled privately several months ago with Larry Page over where it was headed, according to two former Google employees. A spokesman for Google declined to comment on those discussions, but Mr. Urmson disputed they were a reason for his departure. After the dispute, Mr. Urmson decided to take the summer off and only recently decided to leave the company. He told members of the car team about his decision on Thursday, the former employees said. In a post published on Medium Friday afternoon, Mr. Urmson said he had not decided what he will do next. “If I can find another project that turns into an obsession and becomes something more, I will consider myself twice lucky,” he wrote. “I have every confidence that the mission is in capable hands. ” As a researcher at Carnegie Mellon, Mr. Urmson was a member of a team of engineers that placed second in the 2005 Darpa Grand Challenge contest for autonomous vehicles that was won by a rival team from Stanford, led by Mr. Thrun. In 2007, Carnegie Mellon got revenge when it placed first in the Darpa Urban Challenge, while the Stanford team finished second. Earlier this year, a group of Google employees, led by Anthony Levandowski, former Google Car engineer, and Lior Ron, the product lead for Google Maps, left to found the truck Otto, which is based in San Francisco. More recently, two other Google car engineers, Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu, who are considered experts on machine vision technology, left to found an according to the two people with knowledge of the Google car project. | 1 |
It never ceases to amaze me how, blinded by their narcissism, Hollyweirdos and other pop culture “celebrities” are rank hypocrites, utterly devoid of introspection.
The latest exemplar: Pop singer Mariah Carey.
Carey, 46, is the best-selling female singer of all time, with an estimate net worth of $500 million from her preternatural ability to screech like a dolphin in heat (apologies to dolphins).
Born in New York state, Carey is biracial — her father is of African descent, her mother is of Irish descent — which makes Mariah Carey a racial “minority” in the U.S.
Beginning at the 0:58 mark in the video below, Carey says she agrees with protests over the lack of women and minorities in “entertainment” because:
“I don’t think women get a fair deal in anything . . . . [In the music business] it’s obvious that we’ve had to, you know, women and minorities have had to fight for, you know, trying to get equal opportunities for, for ages . . . . There’s not enough diversity . . . . I’m just an entertainer but, um, you know, I’m a fan of Hillary [Clinton] . . . of course I’m a fan of Hillary. Of course I would love to see a woman president.”
Carey is very much in the news these days because Australian playboy billionaire James Packer recently broke off their engagement. Rumors have it that one of the reasons for the breakup was her “insane spending sprees”.
According to an account in New York Post ‘s “ Page Six ” on Oct. 27, 2016, the following are examples of Carey’s “over-the-top . . . frenzied spending that may have doomed her engagement to Packer”: Sources say Carey “regularly drops $10,000 to get her hair and makeup perfect — even if it’s all going to last just a single day.” Power 105’s The Breakfast Club radio host Charlamagne Tha God, aka Lenard McKelvey, who knows the singer, told The Post : “Mariah is the last of the divas — she’s got a very old-school approach to stardom. It’s champagne-in-the-morning type stuff. She [once] shared some with the Breakfast Club staff at 10 o’clock in the morning, but she did not pour her own champagne — someone else poured it for her.” In 2014, Carey — who once called overhead lighting “abusive” — showed up to a filmed radio interview on The Breakfast Club over an hour late, with her own lighting crew in tow. McKelvey told The Post : “I remember thinking to myself, damn, what kind of disposable income she has where she has her own lighting director? That was the first and only time that that has ever happened on the radio show.” Carey reportedly drops at least $45,000 a year on spa treatments for her dogs — Jack Russells named Cha Cha and Jill E. Beans — even flying them first class to LA in January, which cost over $2,000 per dog. A close friend of Packer told Woman’s Day last month that Carey “spends $100,000 a month ordering exotic flowers from around the world to where she happens to be.” Carey has her own yacht, the Capri, which costs a cool $340,000 per week plus expenses to maintain, according to “Entertainment Tonight” . She would use a ferry to reach Packer’s boat, the Arctic P, which is the seventh-largest privately owned vessel in the world. Carey’s closet is “the stuff of legends, packed with more stilettos than the Barneys shoe department.” She has a room just to store her shoes. In a recent Instagram showing off part of her vast footwear collection, she calls the room “always my favorite room in the house”.
But Mariah Carey tells us that women can’t get a fair deal in anything and, in the music business, women and minorities have to fight for equal opportunities.
If you buy this delusional woman’s music or go to her concerts, you’re contributing to Mariah “Marie Antoinette” Carey’s obscene spending that pollutes the environment and squanders the world’s resources.
~Eowyn | 0 |
Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones ripped a reporter Monday after a voluntary offseason workout. Jones was speaking to media for the first time since being his offseason arrest where he was caught on video wishing death on a cop when a reporter asked if he had anything to prove to the fans following his January assault, despite telling reporters he did not want to talk about his arrest. “Didn’t I just tell you don’t ask me that?” Jones replied. “You out … Turn around. Go back, go back that way. Bye. See you. Next question. ” “That’s his last interview of the year,” he said as he walked off. “Don’t come over here no more for the rest of the year. ” Per Fox 19, Jones continued to “lash out” at their reporter when cameras were off. He reportedly raised his voice and cursed at him. Teammates and head coach Marvin Lewis reportedly had to speak with Jones at his locker to calm him down. “Pacman,” who has a lengthy history of arrests, entered an treatment program and anger management following his arrest on charges of harassment with a bodily substance, assault, obstructing official business and disorderly conduct for fighting with a security guard, and later spitting on a jail nurse. Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
Get short URL 0 0 0 0 US Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work and Japanese Administrative Vice Minister of Defense Tetsuro Kuroe met on Wednesday at the Pentagon for talks on enhancing an allied presence against potential threats in Asia including North Korea, Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Gordon Trowbridge said in a press release.
In bilateral talks, both countries discussed issues that include enhancing cooperation with South Korea and Australia, expanding Japan’s military operations and strengthening ballistic missile defense cooperation, Trowbridge noted. © AFP 2016/ STR One Week After US Patrol, Beijing to Conduct Military Drills in South China Sea
“During their meeting, the two leaders discussed the rapidly evolving security environment, including the persistent North Korean threat and maritime issues in the East and South China Seas,” Trowbridge stated on Wednesday.
Work reaffirmed that the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea are administered by Japan and fall under Article 5 of the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty, the spokesman added.
Japan is shadowed by China’s growing military presence in the South China Sea, potentially threatening the Japanese economy, which relies on open and secure shipping lanes. Meanwhile, North Korea is driving efforts to develop a nuclear and ballistic weapons program. ... | 0 |
Join us for New York primary live updates. Insisting that the delegate selection process is “corrupt and crooked,” Donald J. Trump offered a vivid example on Sunday to prove his point. Imagine being wooed by Mr. Trump. “Look, nobody has better toys than I do,” he told reporters at a hotel on Staten Island, where he pressed his case that the system was rigged against him. “I can put them in the best planes and bring them to the best resorts anywhere in the world. ” But Mr. Trump said that was unseemly. “You’re basically buying these people,” he added. “You’re basically saying, ‘Delegate, listen, we’re going to send you to on a Boeing 757, you’re going to use the spa, you’re going to this, you’re going to that, we want your vote.’ That’s a corrupt system. ” Mr. Trump’s comments were the latest salvo in an escalating war against the Republican National Committee over how delegates were being selected in the presidential race. On Sunday, two days before New York’s primaries, Mr. Trump was the only Republican presidential candidate to campaign in the state, where polls showed him with a wide lead. During his visit to Staten Island, a stronghold of his support, he accepted an award from the New York Veteran Police Association and spoke at a party brunch. At a rally in Poughkeepsie, he berated party officials once again. Still, speaking to reporters on Staten Island, Mr. Trump said he hoped that the July convention “doesn’t involve violence. ” “And I don’t think it will,” he said. “But I will say this: It’s a rigged system. It’s a crooked system. It’s 100 percent crooked. ” On the Democratic side, where the primary is expected to be closer, Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders spent the day trying to drum up support. Polls have shown Mrs. Clinton with an edge over Mr. Sanders, but Mr. Sanders is hoping for an unexpectedly strong performance that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton on her adopted turf. Both candidates were knocked off balance this weekend when questioned about an issue with particular relevance in New York: a bill that would allow foreign governments to be held responsible in American courts for having a role in terrorist attacks, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The New York Times reported on Friday that Saudi Arabia had told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it would sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passed the bill. The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill’s passage, The Times reported. In television interviews broadcast on Sunday, Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton said they needed more information to say where they stood on the bill. But after Mrs. Clinton’s interview aired, her campaign released a statement breaking with the Obama administration. The statement said Mrs. Clinton supported efforts “to secure the ability of families and other victims of terrorist acts to hold accountable those responsible. ” Later in the day, Mr. Sanders’s campaign also issued a statement in support of the legislation. Mrs. Clinton made several stops in New York on Sunday. In Mount Vernon, she spoke at a Baptist church, saying she was the candidate most willing to take stands in favor of gun control, while in Upper Manhattan she danced at a block party in Washington Heights. She also held a rally on Staten Island. At a block party in the section of Brooklyn, Mayor Bill de Blasio urged New Yorkers to help turn out votes for her, and Mrs. Clinton greeted him with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Anybody see the debate?” she asked, addressing the crowd from the bed of a Ford pickup truck and referring to the Democratic debate on Thursday in Brooklyn. “We talked about the greed and recklessness of Wall Street. I take a back seat to no one in taking them on. ” After hosting packed rallies around the state, Mr. Sanders turned his attention on Sunday to courting black voters in New York City, visiting a predominantly black church in Harlem and a Brownsville housing project. Mr. Sanders also had a rally in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, which his campaign said drew more than 28, 000 people, the largest crowd of his presidential bid. In Brownsville, Mr. Sanders toured the Howard Houses along with some local elected officials, and his campaign later released a plan for affordable housing. “This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world,” Mr. Sanders said. “People should not be forced to live in dilapidated housing. ” As Mr. Sanders walked across the complex, several residents happily shouted at him. But others pointedly criticized him for using the apartments for what they viewed as a photo opportunity. Anthony Portis, 34, a construction worker, called the senator’s visit “a political stunt to gain all the black votes in the neighborhood. ” “This area always feels like we are left out,” he said. Mr. Sanders said that he understood that some would be apprehensive about his visit but that he wanted to call attention to the issues faced by people in housing projects. “Believe me, I can understand the cynicism,” he said. “But my understanding is that not too many presidential candidates have come to Brownsville housing projects. ” | 1 |
We Are Change
In the latest newly released Project Veritas video, James O’Keefe and crew have exposed a disturbing racism inside the Democratic party. Benjamin Barber, one of Hillary Clinton’s major donors, said “Blacks are seriously fucked in the head” for helping “the other side.”
In the video, a Project Veritas journalist talks to Benjamin Barber i nside a Democrat fundraiser for North Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Deborah Ross. In the video, Barber compared black people voting for Republicans to Sonderkommandos Jews who helped kill other Jews for the Nazis.
“Have you heard of the Sonderkommandos? Jewish guards who helped murder Jews in the camps. So there were even Jews that were helping the Nazis murder Jews! So blacks who are helping the other side are seriously fucked in the head. They’re only helping the enemy who will destroy them. Maybe they think ‘if I help them we’ll get along okay; somehow I’ll save my race by working with the murderers.’”
Deborah Ross also makes comments about black voters being less likely to vote if an ID law was passed requiring voters to provide a form of identification.
“Republicans know that African Americans are less likely to have the ID so they won’t vote.” – Democratic Senate candidate D eborah Ross.
In another segment of the video the Project Veritas journalist says “so it’s like they are voting against their own self interest?” to both Benjamin Barber and Leah Barber.
Both responded agreeing with the journalist’s statement.
“It doesn’t make any sense, You’re voting against your self interest. In the name of change, what is the change that they want to see.” – Leah Barber
Project Veritas showed the comments made by Benjamin Barber and U.S. senate candidate Deborah Ross to several prominent black Americans who were all absolutely disgusted by the comments.
“Wow, so that’s what they think of us? I’m speechless. For the most part it’s wrong, it’s an eye opener but that’s what happens when we as blacks vote for one party,” Robert Foster said after seeing the video.
Pastor William Cooper weighed in when questioned if he was betraying his race as an African American voter voting for a Republican.
Cooper responded “absolutely not I think I’m benefiting my race by voting against the Democrat party that takes the African American vote for granted. They don’t offer us anything.”
Bishop Patrick Wooden added his frustration and disgust saying, “I think that Deborah Ross has showed her true colors, if that’s not racism and condescending and basically calling blacks stupid and ignorant and saying we’re voting against our own self interest if we support any Republican I am appalled.”
Pamela Wooden expressed her disappointment saying she “considered it an insult to see those accusations and hear that type of discussion is insulting to me as an African American.”
Finally, John Amanchukwu said that “It’s not just dark money, it’s racist and evil money filled with venom and you can look at his eyes in the video and you can see there’s a rage there and there’s a deep seeded resentment of African Americans.”
The post Video Exposes Hillary Donor: “Blacks Are Seriously Fucked in The Head” appeared first on We Are Change .
| 0 |
James Comey asserted in his extraordinary testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee that the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is authorized to override Justice Department oversight procedures, a questionable claim which if true would raise serious questions about rules aimed at preventing abuses by federal law enforcement officials. [The former head of the FBI told the Senate panel that he believed he had received a direction from the president in February that the FBI end its investigation of Michael Flynn’s alleged involvement with Russia — a direction with which he and his of “FBI senior leadership” unilaterally decided not to comply. The Comey cabinet then decided that it would not report the receipt of this direction to Attorney General Jeff Sessions or any other Justice Department superior. The group decided that it could override standard FBI protocol and possibly legal obligations to report the incident because of its expectations that Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia matter, although that recusal would not come until weeks later. The Comey cabinet also decided that it wasn’t obligated to approach the acting Deputy Attorney General because he would likely be replaced soon. “We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in investigations. (He did so two weeks later.) The Deputy Attorney General’s role was then filled in an acting capacity by a United States Attorney, who would also not be long in the role,” Comey said. “After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to figure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed. ” According to three different former federal law enforcement officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, there is no precedent for the director of the FBI to refuse to inform a Deputy Attorney General of a matter because of his or her “acting” status nor to use the expectation of a recusal as a basis for withholding information. “This is an extraordinary usurpation of power. Not something you’d expect from the supposedly guys at the top of the FBI,” one of those officials told Breitbart News. The closest precedent to the Comey cabinet’s decision to conceal information from Justice Department superiors is likely Comey’s widely criticized earlier decision to go public about the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. That decision received a sharp rebuke in the May 9 memo by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that formed the basis for Comey’s firing by Trump. Rosenstein criticized Comey’s decision to act without consultation from the Department of Justice as usurping the Attorney General’s authority and an attempt to “supplant federal prosecutors and assume command of the Justice Department. Comey had violated a “ process” for how to deal with situations where to Attorney General faces a conflict of interest, according to Rosenstein. “The Director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General’s authority on July 5, 2016,” Rosenstein wrote. “The Director now defends his decision by asserting that he believed attorney General Loretta Lynch had a conflict. But the FBI Director is never empowered to supplant federal prosecutors and assume command of the Justice Department. There is a process for other officials to step in when a conflict requires the recusal of the Attorney General. On July 5, however, the Director announced his own conclusions about the nation’s most sensitive criminal investigation, without the authorization of duly appointed Justice Department leaders. ” Comey’s testimony on Thursday seemed to on this defense, which amounts to a claim that the FBI’s top agents can act outside of the ordinary processes intended to establish oversight and accountability at the nation’s top law enforcement agency. The FBI’s adherence to Department of Justice guidelines and instructions from Attorneys General has been a centerpiece of its ongoing independence, often cited by officials as a reason why the FBI does not need a general legislative charter that would restrict or control by statute its authority. Comey’s assertion that the FBI can override standard protocols could endanger that independence, according to a former federal law enforcement official. “He’s not only put the credibility of the bureau in doubt, he’s now putting the entire basis for our independence in jeopardy,” the official said. The official pointed to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal as explaining the dangers of an FBI that decides not to inform the Department of Justice of its activities. “Mr. Comey is describing an FBI director who essentially answers to no one. But the police powers of the government are awesome and often abused, and the only way to prevent or correct abuses is to report to elected officials who are accountable to voters. A director must resist intervention to obstruct an investigation, but he and the agency must be politically accountable or risk becoming the FBI of J. Edgar Hoover,” the Wall Street Journal wrote. A 2005 report from the FBI’s Office of Inspector General on the Department of Justice’s guidelines for FBI investigations stated, “Attorneys General and FBI leadership have uniformly agreed that the Attorney General Guidelines are necessary and desirable, and they have referred to the FBI’s adherence to the Attorney General Guidelines as the reason why the FBI should not be subjected to a general legislative charter or to statutory control over the exercise of some of its most intrusive authorities. ” | 1 |
BOMBSHELL AUDIO: Hillary Clinton Herself Recorded Calling for Rigging Election
President Obama claimed he didn’t know about Clinton’ s private server until the story erupted in the press, yet according to this email chain Obama received emails from Clinton that were not from state.gov. Top Clinton aide Cheryl Mills wrote, “ we need to clean this up – he has emails from her – they do not say state.gov .”
Email #2 “Hillary Clinton dreams of completely ‘open trade and open borders.'”
In a speech at Brazilian financial giant Banco Itau on May 16, 2013, Clinton said, “ My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere .”
Email #3 “Hillary Clinton took money from and supported nations that she KNEW funded ISIS and terrorists.”
According to the email, logistical as well as financial support was involved.
Clinton knew that Saudi Arabia and Qatar were supporting the Islamic State group, yet she still accepted millions of dollars from them.
Email #4 “Hillary has public positions on policy and her private ones.”
Clinton said in a speech for the National Multi-Housing Council on April 24, 2013: “But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.”
This is just a quick sample of the 100 damning emails compiled by Most Damaging WikiLeaks. Head on over to their site to to check out the rest. | 0 |
CLAIM: Watching scary movies could help boost your immune system and promote weight loss
Vicki Batts Tags: scary movies , immune system , weight loss (NaturalNews) Who doesn't love a good horror flick, right? There may actually be some health benefits to be found in watching scary movies, too. Experts say that when you watch something frightening, it engages your fight or flight response. This in turn raises the amount of adrenaline pumping through your veins, which can be pretty good for your body.Psychologist Mark Griffiths, a professor of behavioral addiction at Nottingham Trent University, says that there are a number of reasons why people typically seek out fear-inducing films. While the desire to experience something unusual isn't totally health related, Griffiths also commented on the potential healthy release some people may experience. "Watching such films 'may also be cathartic, providing an emotional release for pent-up frustrations,'" he told the UK's Daily Mail .But there could be more to it than just that, at least according to some new research. Evidence indicates that the fear you experience while watching a scary movie could help to temporarily bolster your immune system .Scientists from Coventry University took blood samples from a group of test subjects before, during and after they either watched a scary movie or spent time in a quiet room. Their findings, which were published in the journal Stress , revealed that white blood cell counts were increased in those who saw the horror film . Normally, white blood cells respond in this way when there is a sign of infection.According to Natalie Riddell, an immunologist at University College London, this is all part of our evolutionary process, which has been "geared to promote the survival of the individual." Getting scared can engage the "fight or flight" response, which in turn, causes the release of adrenaline.The surge of adrenaline then launches the immune system into action – leading to an increased white blood cell count.That's not all adrenaline can do, either. The survival hormone also elevates your heart rate and boosts your metabolic rate – the speed at which your body burns calories. You may think that the number of calories you could burn by watching horror movies is negligible, but studies have shown that you can actually burn a surprising amount of energy just by being scared. That's right, watching horror movies could help support your weight loss efforts.In 2012, researchers from the University of Westminster conducted an experiment to see how many calories volunteers could burn off while watching 10 classic scary films. On average, each film scared the participants into torching about 113 calories – which is equivalent to walking for about 30 minutes. The researchers found that the best horror movie for burning calories was none other than a classic Steven King film. That's right, when people watched The Shining directed by Stanley Kubrick, they burned away a whopping 184 calories.The classic films Jaws and The Exorcist came in second and third place, respectively, for total calorie burning. Dr. Richard Mackenzie, senior lecturer and specialist in cell metabolism and physiology at the university commented that each of the 10 films sent hearts beating and pulses racing. He explained, "As the pulse quickens and blood pumps around the body faster, the body experiences a surge in adrenaline. It is this release of fast-acting adrenaline, produced during short bursts of intense stress (or in this case, brought on by fear), which is known to lower the appetite, increase the basal metabolic rate and ultimately burn a higher level of calories."Overall, calorie burning increased by about one-third while the study participants watched the films. Of course, this doesn't mean that you should watch a movie instead of exercising or eating healthfully . But the next time you sit down to watch a movie, you might want to pick one from the horror genre. Sources: | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • Who is the true New Yorker? It’s the day before the New York primary, and Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump are promoting their local credentials. Who has the best case? We judge. Winning a majority of New York’s 291 Democratic delegates could give Mrs. Clinton a chance to claim mathematical victory in the nomination race, or it could deliver a significant lift for Mr. Sanders. We take a look at Mr. Sanders’s past campaigns, which reveal a willingness to play hardball. The Vermont senator, who briefly met Pope Francis at the Vatican on Saturday, also released his 2014 tax return. • In the courts. President Obama’s plan to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation and allow them to work in the country legally was sharply questioned during arguments at the Supreme Court today. An appeals court affirmed today the $1 billion N. F. L. concussion settlement. • Powerful earthquakes. Hundreds of doctors and rescue workers are heading to Ecuador’s areas after Saturday night’s 7. earthquake. At least 272 people were killed and 2, 527 were injured. Aftershocks continued in Mashiki, Japan, after two quakes — with magnitudes of 6. 2 and 7 — struck within just over a day last week and left at least 42 people dead. The Ecuador and Japan earthquakes, 9, 000 miles apart, are not related, scientists say. • Impeachment vote in Brazil. Legislators in the lower house of Congress voted on Sunday night to approve the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the nation’s first female president. The Senate will vote by a simple majority, most likely next month, on whether to hold a trial on charges that she illegally used money from banks to cover budget gaps during the worst economic crisis in decades. Many of those accusing her are themselves suspected of fraud and graft. • Health care coverage gains. Hispanics accounted for nearly a third of the increase in U. S. adults with insurance in the first full year of the Affordable Care Act, according to our analysis. Immigrants of all backgrounds — including more than a million legal residents who are not citizens — had the sharpest rise in coverage rates. • Yahoo is accepting bids for its core Internet business today. • Citigroup sold more than 60 businesses in the past seven years, and its holdings shrunk by $700 billion, illustrating the changing profile of the biggest U. S. banks. • Amazon is introducing two monthly subscription options to its Prime membership service, a change that could make the company’s video service a tougher competitor to Netflix. • Today is the last day for most individuals to file their 2015 federal income tax returns to the I. R. S. or to request extensions. Maine and Massachusetts residents have an extra day. • U. S. stocks are rising. . Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • After a trip to Greece, Pope Francis took 12 Muslim refugees from Syria with him back to Rome, where a Roman Catholic charity will help care for them. • A U. N. report said that nearly 2, 000 Afghan civilians have been killed or wounded so far this year, and that more than 80, 000 people have been displaced, record numbers for the nation. • Nine Guantánamo prisoners from Yemen were sent to Saudi Arabia. • “The Jungle Book” was the U. S. winner. • Catching up on TV: Episode recaps for “Outlander,” and the season finales of “Girls” and “Vinyl. ” • Amends for slavery? Members of Georgetown University’s community are pressing the school to confront part of its history: In 1838, 272 slaves were sold to pay the school’s debts and to secure its financial future. Researchers are seeking their descendants. “Ebony and Ivy,” published in 2013, details the connections between slavery and elite U. S. universities’ beginnings. • Off the charts. Here’s a visual look at the record of the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry. He’ll be in action tonight (10:30 p. m. Eastern, TNT) in the N. B. A. playoffs. The N. H. L. ’s Stanley Cup playoffs continue, too. • On your marks … The 120th Boston Marathon is today, with a field of about 30, 000 runners. Roberta Gibb, the first woman to compete and finish the race, is the grand marshal. • In case you missed it … Last week, readers devoured articles about Julie Miller, a triathlete accused of cheating, a account of life in a and a cabdriver who’s traveled Rome’s roads for 50 years. Plus, “A New Map for America,” and Bono’s reports about his visits to refugee families and camps in Kenya, Jordan and Turkey. • Recipe of the day. This spaghetti carbonara is a deli that has been . The winners of the Pulitzer Prizes will be announced this afternoon. It’s the centennial year for the awards, which were created by the estate of Joseph Pulitzer to honor achievement in journalism and the arts. (Our newsroom has earned the honor 117 times.) Pulitzer, a native of Hungary, was paid by a recruiter to come to the U. S. and join the Union Army during the Civil War. After the war, he acquired and merged two newspapers in St. Louis to form the St. Louis . In 1883, he bought The New York World, which gained a reputation as a champion of journalism. He changed American journalism by introducing comics, illustrations and coverage of sports and women’s fashion. But Pulitzer also engaged in the kind of sensationalism that led to the term “yellow journalism,” a phrase inspired by the “Yellow Kid” comic strip that appeared in both Pulitzer’s newspaper and that of its chief rival, William Randolph Hearst’s New York Morning Journal. In one newspaper promotion, Pulitzer crowdfunded the money needed for a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty by offering to print on the front page the name of every person who donated to its construction. You may hear his name pronounced as today. Pulitzer said his name as and that’s what the Pulitzer Board follows. Your Morning Briefing is published weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern and updated on the web all morning. What would you like to see here? Contact us at briefing@nytimes. com. You can sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox. | 1 |
Print
The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office is seeking the death penalty against John Felix, charged with the murders of two Palm Springs police officers earlier this month, according to a press release from the DA’s office. Felix previously pleaded not guilty .
Felix, 26, allegedly shot and killed officers Jose Vega, 63 and Lesley Zerebny, 27, on Saturday, Oct. 8. Felix, described as “self-admitted and known gang member” in the release, is believed to have ambushed the officers when they were responding to a family disturbance call.
“This was a heinous crime involving the murders of two police officers who were gunned down simply because they were police officers,” Hestrin said in the release. “The victims in this case were responding to a call for service and died in the line of duty protecting our community.”
[…]
Felix also faces three counts of attempted murder involving other Palm Springs officers, including one who was wounded by gunfire before being treated and released. Felix allegedly possessed an assault weapon, armor-piercing ammunition and was wearing a body vest. | 0 |
Support Us Fifa 17 – The special arrivals season playthrough – Vs Chelsea and Coulchester | 0 |
Robert Vaughn, the actor who reached the peak of his fame in the 1960s playing Napoleon Solo, the debonair international agent tasked with saving the world each week on the hit television series “The Man From U. N. C. L. E. ,” died on Friday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83. His manager, Matthew Sullivan, said that the cause was acute leukemia, for which Mr. Vaughn had been under treatment in Manhattan and Connecticut. Mr. Vaughn had numerous roles in film and on television. He played an old boyfriend of Laura Petrie (Mary Tyler Moore) on an episode of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and a gunman in “The Magnificent Seven” (1960). He was nominated for an Academy Award as best supporting actor for his role as a man accused of murder in “The Young Philadelphians” (1959) and won an Emmy in 1978 for his performance as a White House chief of staff in the “Washington: Behind Closed Doors. ” But no character he played was as popular as Napoleon Solo. From 1964 to 1968, in the thick of the Cold War, millions of Americas tuned in weekly to “The Man From U. N. C. L. E. ” to watch Mr. Vaughn, as a superagent from the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, battling T. H. R. U. S. H. (Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity) a secret organization intent on achieving world domination through nefarious if devices like gas. At the height of the show’s popularity, Mr. Vaughn said he was receiving 70, 000 fan letters a month. The show was a parody of Ian Fleming’s creation James Bond, who had been played by Sean Connery in two hit movies by the time “The Man From U. N. C. L. E. ” made its debut. (Fleming served as an adviser to the show, and is widely credited with coining the name Napoleon Solo.) “The whole show is a joke. It’s an extension of the Bond joke into a gigantic cartoon in prime time,” Mr. Vaughn told The Saturday Evening Post in an 1965 interview, to which, the magazine noted, he arrived wearing a Italian suit and a black silk tie. Joke or not, the show was wildly popular and catapulted Mr. Vaughn into overnight fame. It was also a platform for many other acting careers, most notably that of David McCallum, the Scottish actor who played Illya Kuryakin, the enigmatic Russian spy and Solo sidekick who developed a big fan following of his own. Kurt Russell (at age 10) Leslie Nielsen and Joan Collins all appeared on the show. In the first season, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, who would on “Star Trek” two years later, had roles in the same episode. Despite his acclaim, Mr. Vaughn could be a little disdainful about his vocation. “Acting has always been very boring to me,” he told The Post. “Anyone not in television to become a millionaire is a simpleton. ” At the time, Mr. Vaughn was seemingly more focused on politics than show business: He often spoke publicly against the war in Vietnam. “In our fervor to halt the potential spread of totalitarianism, what incredible precedent are we setting in Vietnam?” he asked in an impassioned speech. “By marching our legions through the countryside of foreign continents, burning homes, laying waste to the land and indiscriminately killing friend and foe alike?” Mr. Vaughn became national chairman of an organization called Dissenting Democrats in 1967 and debated the war with William F. Buckley Jr. on Mr. Buckley’s television program, “Firing Line” — a bout that Newsday, on Long Island, said Mr. Vaughn had won. “Vaughn suffered no wounds from Buckley’s expert needling,” the newspaper said. Mr. Vaughn befriended Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and was a frequent guest at Hickory Hill, Kennedy’s estate in McLean, Va. where Mr. Vaughn played touch football with luminaries like the writer Art Buchwald and the astronaut John Glenn. The Kennedys, Mr. Vaughn wrote in his autobiography, “A Fortunate Life” (2008) were big fans. “The house was covered with U. N. C. L. E. posters inside and out,” he reported, “including pictures of me with my Walther P38 at the ready. ” Robert Francis Vaughn was born on Nov. 22, 1932, in New York City into a theatrically inclined household. His father, Gerald Walter Vaughn, was heard on radio series like “Gangbusters” and “Crime Doctor,” and his mother, the former Marcella Gaudel, appeared in a 1931 Broadway production of “Dracula. ” The couple divorced when Mr. Vaughn was an infant and he moved with his mother to Minneapolis, where he was partly reared by grandparents. “I was a complete wreck as a child, emotionally unstable, excessively prideful,” he told The Sunday News of New York in a 1965 interview. When he was with his mother, she pushed his acting career, teaching him to recite the “To be or not to be” soliloquy from “Hamlet” when he was 5. While she was working as a cocktail waitress in a Chicago bar to earn extra money, his mother had young Robert perform the soliloquy for John Barrymore after Barrymore had dropped by. She later helped get her son cast on radio shows like “Let’s Pretend” and “Jack Armstrong, the Boy. ” Mr. Vaughn headed to Hollywood in 1952. During the day, he studied theater arts at Los Angeles City College and played bit parts, including a Hebrew slave in the movie epic “The Ten Commandments. ” At night he would go to local hot spots and hobnob with other aspirants and the occasional star. He hung out with Johnny Carson, dated Natalie Wood and knocked back Cutty Sark at 2 a. m. with Bette Davis. He also befriended a young James Coburn and took credit for getting him a role in “The Magnificent Seven. ” After he graduated from college in 1956, Mr. Vaughn signed with Columbia Pictures for $15, 000 a role. His career was temporarily waylaid when he was drafted he served uneventfully as a drill sergeant in the Army and was discharged after 18 months. After that, his life was a series of increasingly parts, and then he landed “U. N. C. L. E. ” The show was such a success at first that he expected it to last for many years, but the ratings dropped, and it was canceled halfway through its fourth season. He kept busy afterward, appearing on numerous TV shows and in movies like “Bullitt” (1968) and “The Towering Inferno” (1974). He also traveled extensively. He was in Prague in 1968 when Soviet tanks rolled into the city to suppress the local reform movement. Mr. Vaughn earned a doctorate in communications from the University of Southern California in 1970. His dissertation, “The Influence of the House Committee on Activities on the American Theater ” was published as a book, “Only Victims,” in 1972. But the farther away he got from “U. N. C. L. E. ,” the more Mr. Vaughn found himself taking roles that he characterized as “not quality,” among them a millionaire looking to dominate the world through computers in “Superman III” (1983) and a mercenary in “Battle Beyond the Stars” (1980) a science fiction epic conceived of as “The Magnificent Seven” in space. In the late 1980s he acted as pitchman in an infomercial for the Helsinki Formula, which claimed to be a cure for baldness. The Federal Trade Commission eventually prevented the manufacturers from making this claim, but by then they had sold $100 million worth of the product. In a 1993 interview with The Los Angeles Times, Mr. Vaughn was unapologetic about his work as a Helsinki Formula spokesman. “That was about the most profitable thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he said. “Every call that came in on the 800 number, I got a piece of that. ” During one of his rare returns to stage acting, he appeared in a production of “The Tender Trap” in Chicago in 1970. Also in the cast was the actress Linda Staab, whom he married in 1974 and who survives him. With his Hollywood stature on the decline, they moved to a stone home in Ridgefield, Conn. in 1981. Mr. Vaughn’s survivors also include a daughter, Caitlin Vaughn a son, Cassidy and two grandchildren. Mr. Vaughn continued to work as an actor into his 80s. He appeared on the British television series “Hustle” from 2004 to 2012 and on another British show, “Coronation Street,” in 2012. He was seen on an episode of “Law Order: Special Victims Unit” last year. Toward the end of his life, his view of acting, and of his luck in having a long show business career, grew rosier. As he put it in his autobiography, “With a modest amount of looks and talent, and more than a modicum of serendipity, I’ve managed to stretch my 15 minutes of fame into 50 years of good fortune. ” | 1 |
I don't believe anything that comes out of Obama or Hillarys mouth. | 0 |
Paul Joseph Watson Yet another report of vote flipping
A woman in Hollywood, Maryland is the latest in a number of early voters to claim that her ballot was switched to Hillary Clinton after she had tried to vote for Donald Trump. Maryland Trump Supporter: They Switched My Vote to Hillary – https://t.co/FkNiEUOZHH pic.twitter.com/dalY9KBWtj
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) October 28, 2016 Noting that she had seen reports on the news of votes being flipped, the woman said, “I went in and voted a straight Republican ticket and thank God I went back and checked and they had switched my vote from Trump to (Hillary).” She said that she had to get the vote changed back by alerting election officials, who simply told her to vote for a second time. “I went back the second time and made sure they didn’t change it,” she concluded. As we reported earlier this week, voters in numerous areas of Texas have made a series of complaints that votes are being switched from Trump to Clinton . One election official responded by claiming the problems were caused by voters not understanding how to use the machines properly. “Typically, we’ve found it’s voter error with the equipment,” Frank Phillips, Tarrant County’s election administrator, told WFAA . “Sometimes they vote straight party and then click on other candidates … or do something with the wheel….There is not an issue with the equipment.” However, Trump supporters continue to point to the reports as evidence that vote fraud may be taking place. | 0 |
As millions of Americans head to the polls to cast their ballots, reports of voting machine ‘irregularities’ and other various issues have already begun to surface across the country.
Please note we will continue to update as this story as new reports surface.
According to FOX2 Michigan, voters in the cities of Detroit, Sterling Heights, Novi, Holly and Roseville have reported machines being unable to accept their ballots, forcing many to leave their them in the hands of polling location volunteers.
Via Fox2
FOX 2 has received dozens of calls and emails from voters saying the machine at their polling place isn’t working correctly.
An overwhelming number of voters from several cities report the machine isn’t able to accept the ballot… Many voters are concerned, though, that their vote may not be counted since they won’t be there to physically see it go through the machine.
FOX 2 has also spoken with some election volunteers who are frustrated because they’re not sure who to contact for help getting a new machine.
One voter in Pennsylvania took to Twitter to voice his frustrations, posting footage of a voting machine swapping a vote for GOP candidate Donald Trump to Democrat Hillary Clinton.
H/T GatewayPundit
this is what I was talking about, they fixed it but it was on some nut shit at first. pic.twitter.com/GO5Y9FCnYN
— ædonis | hotep (@lordaedonis) November 8, 2016
CBS2 KDKA in reported other voters experiencing the same issue in Pennsylvania:
The Philadelphia Republican Party has posted video of voter fraud witness Brittany Foreman recounting her experience at a 52nd ward polling location.
“My name is Brittany Foreman… and today I witnessed Voter Fraud.” #VoterFraud ILLEGAL. Please SHARE pic.twitter.com/5Plk8FszuT
— Philly GOP (@PhillyGOP) November 8, 2016
A Twitter user in New Jersey alleges a possible case of identity theft in their state:
@nj1015 hearing about a case of voter fraud in mount laurel. Name was already signed for when person showed up to cast vote #voterfraud
— Cara Flodmand (@MsHistory08) November 8, 2016
Twitter user Bonco states he received the following voter guide at a Greensboro, North Carolina polling location.
@realDonaldTrump #VoterFraud in NC at the polling place in Greensboro @ Rankin Elementary School, This is being handed en-route to the door pic.twitter.com/LOoP486lRx
— Bonoc (@DievasLives) November 8, 2016
—-
Problems at the poll such as suspected voter fraud or intimidation? Report it!
-Department of Justice 800-253-3931
-Donald Trump Campaign voter hotline 844-332-2016 or submit a report online here
-Contact us to share your story here
| 0 |
For weeks, Facebook has been questioned about its role in spreading fake news. Now the company has mounted its most concerted effort to combat the problem. Facebook said on Thursday that it had begun a series of experiments to limit misinformation on its site. The tests include making it easier for its 1. 8 billion members to report fake news, and creating partnerships with outside organizations to help it indicate when articles are false. The company is also changing some advertising practices to stop purveyors of fake news from profiting from it. Facebook, the social network, is in a tricky position with these tests. It has long regarded itself as a neutral place where people can freely post, read and view content, and it has said it does not want to be an arbiter of truth. But as its reach and influence have grown, it has had to confront questions about its moral obligations and ethical standards regarding what appears on the network. Its experiments on curtailing fake news show that Facebook recognizes it has a deepening responsibility for what is on its site. But Facebook also must tread cautiously in making changes, because it is wary of exposing itself to claims of censorship. “We really value giving people a voice, but we also believe we need to take responsibility for the spread of fake news on our platform,” said Adam Mosseri, a Facebook vice president who is in charge of its news feed, the company’s method of distributing information to its global audience. He said the changes — which, if successful, may be available to a wide audience — resulted from many months of internal discussion about how to handle false news articles shared on the network. What impact Facebook’s moves will have on fake news is unclear. The issue is not confined to the social network, with a vast ecosystem of false news creators who thrive on online advertising and who can use other social media and search engines to propagate their work. Google, Twitter and message boards like 4chan and Reddit have all been criticized for being part of that chain. Still, Facebook has taken the most heat over fake news. The company has been under that spotlight since Nov. 8, when Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th president. Mr. Trump’s unexpected victory almost immediately led people to focus on whether Facebook had influenced the electorate, especially with the rise of hyperpartisan sites on the network and many examples of misinformation, such as a false article that claimed Pope Francis had endorsed Mr. Trump for president that was shared nearly a million times across the site. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has said he did not believe that the social network had influenced the election result, calling it “a pretty crazy idea. ” Yet the intense scrutiny of the company on the issue has caused internal divisions and has pushed Mr. Zuckerberg to say he was trying to find ways to reduce the problem. In an interview, Mr. Mosseri said Facebook did not think its news feed had directly caused people to vote for a particular candidate, given that “the magnitude of fake news across Facebook is one fraction of a percent of the content across the network. ” Facebook has changed the way its news feed works before. In August, the company announced changes to marginalize what it considered “clickbait,” the sensational headlines that rarely live up to their promise. This year, Facebook also gave priority to content shared by friends and family, a move that shook some publishers that rely on the social network for much of their traffic. The company is also constantly its algorithms to serve what its users most want to see, an effort to keep its audience returning regularly. This time, Facebook is making it easier to flag content that may be fake. Users can report a post they dislike in their feed, but when Facebook asks for a reason, the site presents them with a list of limited and vague options, including the cryptic “I don’t think it should be on Facebook. ” In Facebook’s new experiment, users will have a choice to flag the post as fake news and have the option to message the friend who originally shared the piece to tell him or her the article is false. If an article receives enough flags as fake, it can be directed to a coalition of groups that will it. The groups include Snopes, PolitiFact, The Associated Press, FactCheck. org and ABC News. They will check the article and can mark it as a “disputed” piece, a designation that will be seen on Facebook. Partner organizations will not be paid, the companies said. Some characterized the as an extension of their journalistic efforts. “We actually regard this as a big part of our core mission,” James Goldston, the president of ABC News, said in an interview. “If that core mission isn’t helping people regard the real from the fake news, I don’t know what our mission is. ” Disputed articles will ultimately appear lower in the news feed. If users still decide to share such an article, they will receive a reminding them that the accuracy of the piece is in question. Facebook said it was casting a wide net to add more partners to its coalition and may move outside of the United States with the initiative if early experiments go well. The company is also part of the First Draft Coalition, an effort with other technology and media companies including Twitter, Google, The New York Times and CNN, to combat the spread of fake news online. In another change in how the news feed works, articles that many users read but do not share will be ranked lower on people’s feeds. Mr. Mosseri said a low ratio of sharing an article after it has been read could be perceived as a negative signal, one that might reflect that the article was misleading or of poor quality. “Facebook was inevitably going to have to curate the platform much more carefully, and this seems like a reasonably transparent method of intervention,” said Emily Bell, director at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. “But the fake cat is already out of the imaginary bag,” Ms. Bell added. “If they didn’t try and do something about it, next time around it could have far worse consequences. ” Facebook also plans to impede the economics of spreading fake articles across the network. Fake news purveyors generally make money when people click on the false articles and are directed to websites, the majority of which are filled with dozens of ads. Facebook will review those links and check for things like whether the page is mostly filled with advertising content — a dead giveaway for spam sites — or to see whether a link masquerades as a different site, like a fake version of The New York Times. Such sites would not be eligible to display Facebook advertising on their pages. Articles disputed by the coalition will also not be eligible to be inserted into Facebook ads, a tactic viral spammers have used to spread fake news quickly and gain more clicks on their websites. Facebook said that in these early experiments it would deal with only fake news content it does not plan to flag opinion posts or other content that could not be easily classified. The changes will not affect satirical sites like The Onion, which often jabs at political subjects through humor. Facebook must take something else into consideration: its profit. Any action taken to reduce popular content, even if it is fake news, could hurt the company’s priority of keeping its users engaged on the platform. People spend an average of more than 50 minutes a day on Facebook, and the company wants that number to grow. Executives at Facebook stressed the overriding factor right now is not just engagement. “I think of Facebook as a technology company, but I recognize we have a greater responsibility than just building technology that information flows through,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Thursday. “We have a responsibility to make sure Facebook has the greatest positive impact on the world. ” | 1 |
Trump Avoids Facts Again: Wind Energy Won’t Kill ‘All The Birds’ (VIDEO) By Karen Shiebler on October 27, 2016 Subscribe
The Republican presidential candidate continues to prove himself too uninformed to be President of these United States.
In his latest attack on the facts, Republican hopeful Donald Trump went on a rant against renewable energy. As is so typical for the shallow conservative, he seized the handiest and easiest idea to sell his argument.
In essence, Donald Trump says that we can’t have wind power because it kills all the birds.
All the birds. Killed by wind turbines.
Trump was particularly worried about the fate of the eagles. Of course he was. The eagle, the symbol of America. The easiest way to tug on the heartstrings on the uninformed is to threaten the very symbol of our nation. So he did. He claimed that “thousands” of eagles are killed in California by wind energy.
Trump appeared on a radio show the other day with Republican has-been Herman Cain. He said : “[Wind power] kills all the birds. Thousands of birds are lying on the ground. And the eagle. You know, certain parts of California — they’ve killed so many eagles. You know, they put you in jail if you kill an eagle. And yet these windmills [kill] them by the hundreds.”
What an image! Hundreds of dead American eagles, all slaughtered by wind turbines.
And in keeping with the unapologetic shallowness of his position, Trump went on to complain that wind turbines are unattractive. There is no insult in Trump world more powerful than “ugly”. Here are Donald Trump's views on wind power, and Disneyland: https://t.co/mphn1qSbGU pic.twitter.com/ja1j6wltBx
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 26, 2016
So wind energy is ugly, inefficient and it kills all of those wonderful noble eagles.
Except that NONE of that is true. None of it.
Here is the truth, not that it will matter to the fact averse Donald Trump.
While it is true that many birds are killed by wind turbines (up to 368,000 annually), that figure looks low when compared to the number of birds killed by cell towers each year (6.8 million).
The biggest killer of birds is….are you ready? Cats. Cats kill up to 3.7 billion birds a year.
As for those eagles? The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that two eagles were killed by wind turbines in Palm Springs since 1997.
Trump’s rant seems even more deceitful when we consider the fact that climate change is the greatest threat to birds in the world. The Audubon Society says that up to half of the bird species on earth are threatened by rising global temperatures.
Donald Trump appears to be incapable of understanding or accepting reality. He says that climate change is a hoax created by China. He claims that wind turbines are killing “all the birds.” He mourns the loss of hundreds of eagles who haven’t died.
Whatever it is that he wants to be true is what he believes to be true.
He is delusional. He is dangerous. He has to be stopped.
Featured image by RichardGHawley via Flickr . Available through Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivs Generic license 2.0 About Karen Shiebler
Karen is a retired elementary school teacher with many years of progressive activism behind her. She is the proud mother of three young adults who were all arrested with Occupy Wall Street. To see what she writes about in her spare time, check out her blog at "Empty Nest, Full Life" Connect | 0 |
We have no intention to allow the activities of former President Obama’s administration to fade into the sunset now that he is out of office. Particularly egregious was his use of the might of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to target groups that disagreed with his political views. [And at the IRS continues. Last week, Judicial Watch reported that the agency informed the U. S. District Court that it located “an additional 6, 924 documents of potentially responsive records” relating to our 2015 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit regarding the Obama IRS targeting scandal. The lawsuit at issue sought records about the IRS selection of individuals and organizations for audits based upon applications requesting tax status filed by Tea Party and other 501( c)(4) organizations (Judicial Watch v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1: )). These newly identified records are presumably not the records contained in the “Congressional Database,” which the IRS created in 2013 to house records responsive to congressional inquiries into the IRS scandal. The IRS informed JW Monday that it is producing an additional 694 pages of documents and expects to produce an additional batch by March 24, 2017. However, at this time, the IRS still has not provided an estimate regarding when it will complete its review of the potentially responsive documents. The corruption at the IRS is astounding. Our attorneys knew that there were more records to be searched, but the Obama IRS ignored this issue for years. Remember that in July 2015, we released Obama IRS documents confirming that the agency used donor lists of organizations to target those donors for audits. The documents also show that IRS officials specifically highlighted how the U. S. Chamber of Commerce may come under “high scrutiny” from the IRS. In September 2014, another JW FOIA lawsuit forced the release of documents detailing that the IRS sought, obtained, and maintained the names of donors to tea party and other conservative groups. IRS officials acknowledged in these documents that “such information was not needed. ” The documents also show that the donor names were being used for a “secret research project. ” The Obama IRS scandal continues, and President Trump needs to clean house at the IRS as quickly as possible. ### | 1 |
BEIJING — The finances of religious groups will come under greater scrutiny. Theology students who go overseas could be monitored more closely. And people who rent or provide space to illegal churches may face heavy fines. These are among the measures expected to be adopted when the Chinese government enacts regulations tightening its oversight of religion in the coming days, the latest move by President Xi Jinping to strengthen the Communist Party’s control over society and combat foreign influences it considers subversive. The rules, the first changes in more than a decade to regulations on religion, also include restrictions on religious schools and limits on access to foreign religious writings, including on the internet. They were expected to be adopted as early as Friday, at the end of a public comment period, though there was no immediate announcement by the government. Religion has blossomed in China despite the Communist Party’s efforts to control and sometimes suppress it, with hundreds of millions embracing the nation’s major faiths — Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Taoism — over the past few decades. But many Chinese worship outside the government’s official churches, mosques and temples, in unauthorized congregations that the party worries could challenge its authority. A draft of the new regulations was published in September, several months after Mr. Xi convened a rare leadership conference on religious policy and urged the party to be on guard against foreign efforts to infiltrate China using religion. “It could mean that if you are not part of the government church, then you won’t exist anymore,” said Xiao Yunyang, one of 24 prominent pastors and lawyers who signed a public statement last month criticizing the regulations as vague and potentially harmful. The regulations follow the enactment of a law on nongovernmental organizations that increased financial scrutiny of civil society groups and restricted their contact with foreign organizations in a similar way, as well as an aggressive campaign to limit the visibility of churches by tearing down crosses in one eastern province where Christianity has a wide following. But the rules on religion also pledge to protect holy sites from commercialization, allow spiritual groups to engage in charitable work and make government oversight more transparent. That suggests Mr. Xi wants closer government supervision of religious life in China but is willing to accept its existence. “There’s been a recognition that religion can be of use, even in a socialist society,” said Thomas Dubois, a professor at the Australian National University in Canberra. “There is an attempt, yes, to carve out the boundaries, but to leave a particular protected space for religion. ” Although the governing Communist Party requires its 85 million members to be atheist, its leaders have lauded some aspects of religious life for instilling morality in the broader population and have issued directives ratcheting back the attacks on religion that characterized the Mao era. Over the past decades this has permitted a striking religious renaissance in China, including a construction boom in temples, mosques and churches. Christianity is widely considered the faith there are as many as 67 million adherents now, at least half of whom worship in unregistered churches that have proliferated across China, sometimes called underground or house churches. The new regulations are more explicit about the party’s longstanding requirement that all religious groups register with the government, and the most vocal opposition so far has come from Protestant leaders unwilling to do so. “These regulations effectively push house churches into taking on an illegal character,” said Yang Xingquan, a lawyer who is one of the signatories of the public statement. “This is very clear. ” Many Christians contend that churches are tools of the state, as sermons are vetted to avoid contentious political and social issues and clergy are appointed by the party rather than congregants or, in the case of the Catholic Church, the Vatican. The new rules call for more stringent accounting practices at religious institutions, threaten “those who provide the conditions for illegal religious activities” with fines and confiscation of property, and require the many privately run seminaries in China to submit to state control. Other articles in the regulations restrict contact with religious institutions overseas, which could affect Chinese Catholics studying theology in the Philippines, Protestants attending seminaries in the United States, or Muslims learning at madrasas in Malaysia or Pakistan. Overseas churches and activists with ties to Chinese Christians have been scathing in their attacks on the new regulations. In its annual report on religious persecution released on Wednesday, China Aid, a group based in Texas, said they violated the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religious belief. The regulations also say for the first time that religion must not harm national security, which could give security services in China greater authority to target spiritual groups with ties overseas. Chinese officials have already banned residents from attending some religious conferences in Hong Kong and increased oversight of mainland programs run by Hong Kong pastors, raising fears within the city’s vibrant Christian community. For traditional Chinese religions such as Buddhism and Taoism — which are practiced by 300 million to 400 million people and which the party views more favorably — the regulations appear intended to address a different problem: crass commercialization. Temples are often forced by local governments to charge entrance fees, which mostly go to the state and not the place of worship. About 600 people were recently detained at Mount Wutai, a Buddhist pilgrimage site in a northeastern city, for posing as monks to hustle money by fortunetelling, begging for alms and performing street shows, the state news media reported. The new regulations say spiritual sites should be “safeguarded” from tourism and development. The rules also require local governments to decide on applications to build houses of worship within 30 days and to explain denials in writing. Scholars caution that it is unclear how strictly the regulations will be enforced, noting that local officials have often tolerated and sometimes encouraged religious activity that is formally illegal, including house churches. “Past regulations have not harmed the growth of religion in China,” said James Tong, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has written extensively about religious regulation in China, “and I don’t think these will, either. ” | 1 |
By Daily News Bin | October 28, 2016 | 10 6265 SHARES
The ranking Democrats in the House of Representatives have publicly given FBI Director James Comey a very short deadline for clarifying the intentionally vague and misleading letter he sent today and fixing the mess he’s created with eleven days remaining before the Presidential election. Led by Congressman Elijah Cummings, the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, the House Democrats have made clear that they intend to finish Comey off if he doesn’t fix this in time.
Cummings wasn’t clear what the specific consequences for James Comey will be if he fails to walk back his criminal actions. But during his CNN on-air appearance on Friday night, he did make clear that Comey only has until the end of this weekend in order to find a way to rectify the mess he’s made. The Democrats do not currently have majority control over the House Oversight Committee, making it difficult for them to haul Comey in for interrogation on Monday, as none of the Republicans on the committee would likely be willing to go along with it. However that can’t stop Cummings and the other Democrats on the committee from immediately moving forward against Comey in other ways.
Among the various legal paths the House Democrats can pursue are the fact that James Comey violated the Hatch Amendment which makes it a crime to use ones position as a government official to try to rig a Presidential election; there is already Department of Justice action in this regard . Comey also severely violated the FBI’s own policy of never interfering in Presidential elections with less than sixty days remaining; in this instance there are just eleven days remaining. All eyes are now on Elijah Cummings and the House Democrats, who now have a clear intention of ending James Comey’s tenure if he continues down this illegal path beyond the weekend. If you enjoy Daily News Bin, consider making a contribution: Contributed by Daily News Bin staff 6265 SHARES | 0 |
November 4, 2016
The government has caused further controversy this morning by announcing that its appeal against the High Court’s ruling on Article 50 will not be heard by the Supreme Court but by Mary Berry, Mel and Sue, the former stars of The Great British Bake Off.
The news comes after polling showed that 52% of voters were sick of so-called ‘experts’ being asked to make decisions about the governance of the United Kingdom. A government source said: ‘The ex-Bake Off team were definitely our first choice to make a call on Article 50. They are far more likely to reach a decision that meets with public approval than those boring old farts in the Supreme Court. I mean, what have they got? OK, 265 years’ worth of legal experience between them and significant expertise in relevant fields of constitutional precedent and interpreting centuries of law. But you know, Mary Berry! Mel and Sue! Soggy bottoms! Ha ha! What do you mean, “is that really sufficient”? You’re obviously some kind of rabid anti-democratic elitist.’
Berry admitted to being ‘surprised’ but willing to rise to the challenge proposed by the government. ‘Up to now my experience hasn’t really included very much British constitutional law or international jurisprudence,’ she said. ‘But I do know when something is half-baked, impossible to prove, likely to crumble into a mess, or just leaves an absolutely disgusting taste in the mouth. So perhaps I will be able to understand the government’s Brexit strategy after all.’
‘There are all sorts of reasons why this is an absolute blinder of an idea,’ said prime minister Theresa May in a Commons statement. ‘It’s great for the employment figures as it keeps these three women in work when they’d otherwise be on the scrap heap. They’re significantly more popular with the public than those fusty old bastards who found against us last week. Although I understand Sue is openly gay, so we’ll have to make sure nobody tells the Mail. She doesn’t fence, does she?
‘Mind you, “Giedroyc”…what’s that, Polish? Somebody get Amber Rudd on the phone, quick.’ Share this story...
Posted: Nov 4th, 2016 by NewsBiscuit Click for more article by NewsBiscuit .. More Stories about: Politics | 0 |
50 Views November 15, 2016 GOLD , KWN King World News
After the election chaos of last week, is President Trump really going to revalue gold to this jaw-dropping price?
Part II of James Turk’s KWN interview: “When I say that the dollar is toast, Eric, I am of course referring to the Federal Reserve dollar (F$), which circulates as a money substitute in place of the Constitutional dollar (C$). The C$ is 11.369 grains of gold ($42.22 per ounce)… Sponsored
President Nixon “temporarily” – to use his word – suspended the conversion of F$s into C$s back in 1971.
Trump’s only option to end the clear divisions in the country is to increase prosperity with a level playing field for everyone. And the way to do that is to take away the advantages the 1%ers enjoy as a result of an unconstitutional monetary system.
The Need To Build A Sound Monetary System So President Trump has to build a sound monetary system. To do this he must end Nixon’s temporary suspension of dollar redeemability into gold. Restoring a Constitutional dollar will provide a solid the foundation for building a new monetary system. The best way to do that is to follow the precepts of the Coinage Act of 1792, which is America’s first and best time-tested law concerning money.
Back in June, when asked about the gold standard Trump replied: “Bringing back the gold standard would be very hard to do, but boy, would it be wonderful.”
The “hard” task he is of course referring to is making the gold standard credible after decades of monetary debasement. Rebuilding credibility will indeed be a difficult task, but can be accomplished over time. Initially all that is needed is to make sure that gold flows into the Treasury – and not out from it – when redemption of the dollar into gold is restored.
Will Trump Revalue Gold To $10,000? To do that Trump will need to make the new monetary system credible by accounting for all the monetary debasement of the F$ since 1971. That means the Treasury will need to be ready to act as required under a gold standard to buy gold and redeem dollars for gold at a credible price, which I calculate to be $10,000 per ounce.
Some may find $10,000 to be eye-watering, but this amount is based on historical experience. It would simply be repeating what happened in 1934. When President Roosevelt devalued the dollar by 41% from 23.222 grains of gold ($20.67) to 13.714 grains ($35), gold flowed into the Treasury in exchange for dollars. The resulting increase of sound money flowing into the economy enabled it to begin the process of recovering from the depths of the Great Depression.
So to make a new gold standard credible by getting gold to flow into the Treasury, we need to repeat what FDR did. It is easy to calculate.
After the 1934 devaluation, the weight of gold in the Treasury was 15% of the total quantity of dollars in M3. Today M3 is $17.6 trillion, and supposedly there are 261.5 million ounces of gold in Treasury vaults. Which equates to $67,304 per ounce. So 15% of that is $10,095. For simplicity, let’s round it to $10,000, meaning that one C$ would be defined as 0.048 of one grain of gold. At that $10,000 rate of exchange, gold will flow into the Treasury from the far reaches of the planet, benefitting global economies as well as the US economy.
We need to ask ourselves, won’t this resulting increase in the money supply be inflationary? Answer: No more than it was during the Great Depression. In one year after FDR’s devaluation, M3 increased by 10.2%, but there was little inflation. The bulk of the new money was not put into speculation, but rather, used in productive purposes that began rebuilding the US economy.
What’s more, commodities and other goods that were being hoarded as an alternative to bank deposits flowed into circulation, helping keep inflation under control. The same thing will happen today. But let’s not forget, what happens to the federal government’s debt mountain? I suspect some government promises will be broken – like changing Social Security to reduce payouts – to enable the debt to be brought back under control, which brings up one last point.
A credible national currency and creditworthy government are different things. They do go hand-in-hand, but you need the former to achieve the latter. The reason of course is that governments cannot create gold out of thin air, like they do paper dollars. That is the wisdom the framers enshrined in the Constitution. Let’s hope Mr Trump values their wisdom and re-establishes the monetary legacy they left for us. A sound dollar helped build a great country where everybody was given the opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
As president with a Republican controlled Congress, Trump can change everything. America’s best hope is he rescinds Nixon’s “temporary” suspension of the dollar’s redeemability into gold and puts the dollar back on a credible gold standard at $10,000 per ounce.” For those who are interested in hearing more about the gold market and the Trump shocker, KWN has just released gold, more. and you can listen to this extraordinary interview Legend Art Cashin On A Trump Presidency, The New World Order, Gold, Brexit, The Great Depression And Why We Will See Panic | 0 |
For anyone who loves the spotlight, mothering can be an ideal role — for a while. The mother is a singular star to her baby, whose gaze follows her around the room with the watchfulness of an obsessive fan. For the stars Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, that dynamic seemed to linger well into Ms. Fisher’s childhood: Ms. Fisher was the reverent observer, her mother the adored and observed. “When my mother was at home on weekends, we stayed with her as much as possible, which frequently meant we were very involved in watching our mother,” wrote Ms. Fisher in her memoir “Wishful Drinking,” including her brother, Todd Fisher, in her recollections. Sometimes, they watched her sleep often, they watched their mother transform into someone “not of this world,” a trick carried off with makeup and glitter and silk. “When our mother dressed,” Ms. Fisher wrote, “the man behind the curtain became the great and powerful Oz. ” Over the years, Ms. Reynolds and Ms. Fisher had a relationship as conflicted and layered as any other story in show business, but with an ending that they might think implausible, or even sentimental, had they read it in a script. First Ms. Fisher died on Tuesday, of heart attack at 60 a day later, her mother, 84, succumbed to heart failure of her own, although technically she was likely felled by a stroke. There is something about celebrity acts like the one lived by Ms. Fisher and Ms. Reynolds that capture the imagination in a way that famous simply do not. Think of Kris Jenner and the Kardashian sisters, Joan and Melissa Rivers, Judy and Liza. Even the most narcissistic of mothers seem to have enough psychic energy to love a child passionately, or at least to include the daughter, a younger version of herself, in the realm of things emotionally essential. As glitzy or extreme as their lives are, those represent, in the push and pull of their relationship, something familiar to so many other mothers and daughters, something they recognize in their own lives: the in the role of caregiver, the pleasure and suffocation that comes with being worried over. Whose turn is it to watch? Whose turn is it to be watched? Ms. Fisher characterizes her memoir as just one more “pathetic bid” for the attention she did not receive as a young child. Ms. Fisher, it turns out, has plenty of distracting sparkle of her own: With humor, her writing tap dances around her relationship with her mother, whom she describes (twice) as “eccentric” and whose troubled marriages Ms. Fisher mines for comic material. She and her mother were both clever, victims of those laughably imperfect men. But the public’s impression of the pair was probably more fully formed, fairly or not, by the film “Postcards from the Edge,” the script of which Ms. Fisher adapted from her autobiographical novel of the same name. The daughter in that film, played by Meryl Streep, clearly resents her mother, who infantilizes but also cares fiercely for her while she is in recovery. In one complicated scene, the mother, played by Shirley MacLaine, steals the show at a party supposedly thrown in her daughter’s honor. We see a momentary flash of loathing on her daughter’s face, which gives way — quickly — to admiration, even pure joy, in the song her mother performs for the crowd. She is her mother’s biggest fan, as only a child can be. When they are offstage, she is also her toughest critic, as only a child can be. Ms. Reynolds and Ms. Fisher took their show on the road, performing together in nightclub acts from the time Ms. Fisher was very young, and then performing again, in some version, on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” in 2011. In a lengthy interview, they spoke of their trials, including a period in which Ms. Reynolds claimed, dramatically, that they did not speak. “We talked, really badly,” Ms. Fisher clarified. She explained that at the time, she needed to separate — “to forge some kind of character out of … nothing,” she said, her famous wit momentarily leaving her. In “Postcards from the Edge,” the actress is still asking her mother: “Why do you have to completely overshadow me?” But on Oprah, and also in her own life, Ms. Fisher more than held her own, playing a tough, princess in “Star Wars”: She, too, was an icon of her time, and she, too, was not quite of this world. If her mother was forever an ingénue, albeit one who could land a wicked zinger, Ms. Fisher was a blazing comic, a teller of truths with little patience for costume and . From what she called “nothing,” she forged something big and bold and every bit as brilliant as the woman who raised her, less glittering, more glaring. Mothers and daughters who watched them on Oprah saw a mutuality in their regard for one another, and reconciliation in their rapport. There was humor and acceptance — not so much a ending as a loving truce, bound by devotion. For the entirety of her childhood, Ms. Fisher had to endure the public’s fascination with her mother, an experience she felt most keenly when they went out in public. “I did not like sharing her,” Ms. Fisher wrote in “Wishful Drinking. ” But toward the end of her mother’s life — Ms. Fisher did not know it was toward the end of her own life, as well — she wanted to show the world the person whom she saw, the mother and human, the Oz behind the curtain whom she loved. That was one reason, Ms. Fisher said, that she consented to having a documentary made about them both, called “Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds,” which will be broadcast on HBO on Jan. 7. At times, one of the documentary’s directors, Fisher Stevens, was frustrated by just how hard it was to capture the real Ms. Reynolds — sometimes, he told The Washington Post, she asked for her lines, and seemed incapable of dropping a performer’s pretense in front of the camera one interview concludes with her throwing a kiss, as if she were ending a telethon. Ms. Reynolds, offstage, was a gift she reserved for her daughter and family alone. On the Oprah special, Ms. Reynolds said of her daughter, “I always feel, as a mother does, that I protect her. Who will do that when I’m gone?” she asked. And yet at the end, it was the daughter who protected the mother, hovering over her, in the documentary, when Ms. Reynolds insists on performing despite obvious frailty. Ms. Fisher brings her mother meals, begs her to rest, agonizes over logistics so Ms. Reynolds could comfortably accept a lifetime achievement award she was receiving from the Screen Actors Guild in 2015. When her was daughter was unexpectedly gone, on Tuesday, Debbie Reynolds perhaps felt, at some level, that the show that mattered most was over. When she exited the stage a day later, it was her last and most exquisite bit of showmanship — a performance surely of love. | 1 |
Pinterest
Who does the Clinton camp want to make “happy”? Not the American people, of course, but none other than billionaire left-wing globalist George Soros.
Soros has donated around $25 million to the Clinton campaign as of July, according to Politico , and that clearly buys a great deal of influence. WikiLeaks has recently released emails from the account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta that show the lengths the campaign went to keep Soros “happy” and the huge amount of influence he exerted.
In an Oct. 7, 2014 email from top Clinton aide Huma Abedin to now-campaign manager Robby Mook, Abedin discussed a dinner Clinton was going to have with Soros. Abedin said in the email that she expected that Soros would eventually ask Clinton to attend a fundraiser for one of the numerous groups Soros helps bankroll, the liberal America Votes organization.
Mook replied to the email: “I would only do this for political reasons (ie to make Soros happy).”
Fox News reported :
During her time as secretary of state, Clinton was forwarded from Soros’ aides on Jan. 23, 2011 a message he wrote specifically for her addressing “a serious situation” in Albania. Soros even included two actions that “need to be done urgently.” One of the suggestions was appointing “a mediator such as Carl Bildt, Martti Ahtisaari or Miroslav Lajcak…”
Clinton received the email the next day. On Jan. 27, Lajcak met Albanian leaders for a mediation effort.
In another instance, just hours after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia on Feb. 13, 2016, Chris Stone, president of the Soros-founded Open Society Foundations, emailed Podesta and asked: “Remember our discussion of Wallace Jefferson, [former] Chief Justice in Texas?” Podesta simply replied, “yup.”
An adviser and spokesman for Soros, Michael Vachon, did most of the corresponding with Podesta related to Soros. Vachon scheduled phone calls and meetings along with making sure that the campaign knew Soros’ position on a variety of policy issues.
Fox News reported:
On March 7, 2016, Vachon sent Podesta a memo regarding “TPP and Malaysia’s Corruption Crisis.” The document criticized President Obama for making “visible compromises” in his quest to get a deal for the Trans Pacific Partnership completed. Podesta was ostensibly set to discuss the memo with Soros and his son, Alexander, during a dinner later that month. Six days later, Vachon got even more specific.
“In general I think George is more interested in talking about policy than the campaign per se,” Vachon wrote. “In a separate email I will send you George’s latest thinking on the migration crisis, which he is spending a lot of time on. His other big preoccupation these days is Ukraine.”
Refugees/migration, the Supreme Court, global warming, Ukraine, etc., are surely just a sampling of policy issues on which the globalist Soros has and will continue to influence Clinton.
Clinton is dangerous enough as it is, but as the man who could be directing policy decisions if Clinton is elected president? That is a scary thought. | 0 |
| July 10, 2016 at 4:05 pm | Reply
Michael Flynn is more than a valued adviser to the presumptive GOP nominee. He’s also a potential VP candidate.
The growing chatter about his key role in the Trump campaign coincides with his new book, “The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies,” scheduled for release July 12. A vice presidential trial balloon certainly would drive interest in the text, and possibly juice sales.
He teamed up on the book with Michael Ledeen, a prominent member of a group of scholars and former government officials that helped shape the views of many top national security leaders in the George W. Bush administration.
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook
Michael Ledeen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Work in the United States[edit]
In the early 1980s, Ledeen appeared before the newly established Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, alongside former CIA director William Colby, author Claire Sterlingand former Newsweek editor Arnaud de Borchgrave. Both Ledeen and de Borchgrave worked for the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University at the time.[6]All four testified that they believed the Soviet Union had provided for material support, training and inspiration for various terrorist groupings.[7] Ledeen was involved in the Iran–Contra affair as a consultant of National Security Advisor Robert C. McFarlane. Ledeen vouched for Iranian intermediary Manucher Ghorbanifar. In addition, he met with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, officials of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Central Intelligence Agency to arrange meetings with high-ranking Iranian officials, whereby U.S supported Iranians would be given weapons by Israel, and would proceed to negotiate with Hizbollah for the release of hostages in Lebanon.[8] Ledeen’s own version of the events is published in his book, Perilous Statecraft.[9]
Yellowcake forgery allegations[edit]
Main article: Niger uranium forgeries
According to a September 2004 article by Joshua Micah Marshall, Laura Rozen, and Paul Glastris in Washington Monthly:[10]“The first meeting occurred in Rome in December, 2001. It included Franklin, Rhode, and another American, the neoconservative writer and operative Michael Ledeen, who organized the meeting. (According to UPI, Ledeen was then working for Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith as a consultant.) Also in attendance was Ghorbanifar and a number of other Iranians.”
Colleagues Andrew McCarthy and Mark R. Levin have defended Ledeen, writing[11]
Up until now, the fiction recklessly spewed by disgruntled intelligence-community retirees and their media enablers—some of whom have conceded that the claim is based on zero evidence—has been that Michael had something to do with the forged Italian documents that, according to the Left’s narrative, were the basis for President Bush’s “lie” in the 2003 State of the Union Address that Saddam Hussein had obtained yellowcake uranium (for nuclear-weapons construction) in Africa.
Iraq War advocacy[edit]
Regarding the “pre-emptive” invasion of Iraq, in 2002 Ledeen criticized the views of former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, writing:[12] He fears that if we attack Iraq “I think we could have an explosion in the Middle East. It could turn the whole region into a cauldron and destroy the War on Terror.”
One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today. If we wage the war effectively, we will bring down the terror regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria, and either bring down the Saudi monarchy or force it to abandon its global assembly line to indoctrinate young terrorists.
That’s our mission in the war against terror. Ledeen specifically called for the deposition of Saddam Hussein’s regime by force in 2002: So it’s good news when Scowcroft comes out against the desperately needed and long overdue war against Saddam Hussein and the rest of the terror masters.[12] and: Question #2: Okay, well if we are all so certain about the dire need to invade Iraq, then when do we do so? Ledeen: Yesterday[13] Ledeen’s statements prior to the start of the Iraq war such as “desperately needed and long overdue war against Saddam Hussein” and “dire need to invade Iraq” caused Glenn Greenwald to label his later statement that he “opposed the military invasion of Iraq before it took place” to be an “outright lie”.[14] However, Ledeen maintains these statements are consistent since: “I advocated—as I still do—support for political revolution in Iran as the logical and necessary first step in the war against the terror masters.”[15]
Views on Iran[edit]
Although Ledeen was in favor of invading Iraq, he also believes that Iran should have been the first priority in the “war on terror.”[16] The New York Times describes Ledeen’s views as “everything traces back to Tehran”.[16] Ledeen’s phrase, “faster, please” has become a signature meme in Ledeen’s writings (it is currently the title of his blog on the Pajamas Mediawebsite) and is often referenced by neoconservative writers advocating a more forceful and broader “war on terror.” In 1979, Ledeen was one of the first Western writers to argue thatAyatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was a “clerical fascist”, and that while it was legitimate to criticize the Shah’s regime, if Khomeini seized power in Iran the Iranian people would suffer an even greater loss of freedom and women would be deprived of political and social rights. He presently believes that “No one in the West has yet supported Iranian democratic organizations” and that “aggressive support for those Iranians who wish to be free” would most likely work in ending the clerical government.[17]
According to Justin Raimondo, Ledeen “holds up Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright as patsies for Khomeini—who supposedly believed that the Ayatollah overthrew Shah Reza Pahlavibecause the Iranian government was ‘excessively repressive and intolerant.’ While it would not do to come right out and deny the savagery of the Shah’s legendary SAVAK secret police, Ledeen informs us that, under the monarch’s beneficent rule, ‘Iran had become too modern, too tolerant—especially of women and of other religious faiths—and too self-indulgent. The shah had Westernized Iran’—except, perhaps, in his prisons, where the ancient methods of torture were routinely employed on dissidents of all sorts.”[18]
Ledeen is currently against both an invasion of Iran or air-strikes within the country.[17][19] He has argued that the latter may eventually become necessary if negotiations with the Iranian government fail, but it would only be the least bad option of many options and it would lead to many negative unforeseen consequences.[19] The New York Times has called Ledeen’s skepticism towards military action against Iran surprising given his opposition to the regime.[16] In October 2007, Ledeen argued that:“Those who believe that I am part of some “hawkish gang” just haven’t noticed that I am opposed to invasion or bombing the nuclear facilities. My fear is that, by failing to promote a non-violent democratization of Iran, we make large-scale violence much more likely.”
“In any event, time will tell, and I share the fear of most commenters [sic] that we will indeed arrive at a horrible choice between Iran with the bomb, or bomb Iran, as Sarkozy and Kouchner have put it. And if that happens, it will demonstrate a terrible failure on the part of the West, including the United States, to craft a serious Iran policy lo these many years.”[17] | 0 |
Wednesday 9 November 2016 Democrats begin search for candidate who knows how to use email
Officials inside the Democrat party have begun a party-wide search for a candidate who knows how to use email.
Party strategists have decided that an inability to use email properly has cost them the White House, and that an aptitude for email will be a real vote winner in 2020.
As one DNC insider explained, “Trump has won the presidential election off the back of our inability to convince the American public we can set up and use a modern email service.
“If we can just address that one hurdle we can win back the White House in four years time.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anyone who is good with email, would you? Anyone?
“I don’t care about their policy objectives, or political views, or their religion – just promise me they know a blind-copy from a reply-all, and we’ll back them all the way.
“It’s the only reason we lost. Yes, it is, shut up.” Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently | 0 |
The U. S. Senate approved Elaine Chao’s nomination to serve as the new secretary of transportation in Donald Trump’s administration by a vote of on Tuesday. [Chao, who served in the cabinet of George W. Bush as secretary of labor in two successive administrations, will oversee important changes in transportation over coming years, such as the development of cars, as well as Donald Trump’s $1 trillion plan to comprehensively upgrade the country’s transportation infrastructure. In her hearing, Chao said that excessive regulation “dampens the basic creativity and innovation of our country,” and promised to avoid a “patchwork” of regulation in the rollout of cars. “The Department of Transportation has a key role to play in modernizing our transportation systems, strengthening our country’s competitiveness, and improving our quality of life. I look forward to working with you to rebuild, refurbish and revitalize America’s infrastructure, so our economy can continue to grow, create good paying jobs for America’s working families and enhance our quality of life,” Chao said at her first confirmation hearing last week. However, financial disclosure forms released last week showed Chao could collect up to $5 million in Wells Fargo preferred stock after assuming her new role in the Trump administration. Chao, who was born in Taiwan, is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. She becomes the fifth member of Donald Trump’s cabinet to be confirmed. You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 1 |
November 10, 2016 - Fort Russ News - PolitRussia - translated by J. Arnoldski -
Crimean leader Sergey Aksenov welcomed the choice of the American people in the US presidential elections despite what he called “numerous” violations in the electoral process.
Aksenov stated: “The American people have made their choice. Our president was clear: the Russian Federation is not interfering in or even making any attempts to influence the will of the American people. In my opinion, the elections were held with numerous violations. If this had happened in Crimea or Russia, then the elections would have been assessed differently by American politicians. They would say that everything was wrong and illegitimate. But the Americans did not allow Russian diplomats near polling stations and prevented the formation of an objective view of what was happening at polling stations and overall how the elections were being held in the US.”
Commenting on Trump’s pre-election promises in regards to Russia and the Republic of Crimea, Aksenov said: “Before elections, politicians usually make some statements, and then their program can radically change. Time will tell. I am sure that our president will make sufficient efforts so that Crimea will be recognized throughout the world.”
This summer, Trump stated that he would be ready to “look into” the question of recognizing Crimea as Russian territory and lifting the sanctions against Russia if he won the elections. He remarked that Crimeans want to be with Russia and that this should be considered by the international community. These words caused great anxiety in Kiev.
The leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, was cautious in being optimistic towards Trump’s election as US president. Zakharchenko expressed concern that after Trump moves into the White House, he will become part of the American political system and there is no guarantee that he will be able to resist this system. For the DPR, Trump’s suggested policies could signal a change in attitude towards the Ukrainian crisis.
Follow us on Facebook!
Follow us on Twitter!
Donate!
| 0 |
The mass arrest that occurred at the protest site in Standing Rock last Thursday left 141 people sitting in jail for several days before they were released. Though they likely would have been freed... | 0 |
A photographer for ABC was attacked with hot coffee while they were reporting on the cancelled event with MILO and Martin Shkreli at UC Davis. [MILO’s event was cancelled after activists began engaging in violence outside the venue, with reports and video footage of barricades being torn down and thrown at police. There were also photos of arrests being made. Frances Wang wrote on Twitter that her “photographer was doing an interview when someone poured hot coffee on him our equipment. ” My photographer was doing an interview when someone poured hot coffee on him out equipment. @ucdavis @ABC10 pic. twitter. — Frances Wang (@ABC10Frances) January 14, 2017, Wang also got footage of fights breaking out between violent protestors, who smashed windows whilst screaming slogans such as “No Milo, no KKK, no fascist USA. ” Another fight just broke out. warning: inappropriate language in this video. @ucdavis @ABC10 pic. twitter. — Frances Wang (@ABC10Frances) January 14, 2017, The event was set to be the first event on the third and final leg of the MILO’s “Dangerous Faggot Tour. ” You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 1 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. President Trump said he could “live with” a solution to the conflict, backing away from a of American policy in the Middle East. The remarks, delivered at a news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, spurred anger and bafflement among Palestinians, some of whom said the policy change would undercut the already slim chances of progress toward reconciliation. “This is going to give Israel a free hand to do what it wants,” said one man in Gaza City. _____ 2. Russia denied a New York Times report that senior Russian intelligence officials had repeated contact with Trump campaign staff members in the year before the U. S. election. But the resignation of Michael T. Flynn as national security adviser underscores lingering uncertainty about the relationship between the Trump administration and Russia. Seeking to shift the narrative, Mr. Trump focused on the leaks from American intelligence agencies to the news media. “Very !” he wrote on Twitter. Today’s episode of The Daily podcast reviews what is known about Mr. Flynn’s contacts with Russia. Listen from a computer, an iOS device or an Android device. _____ 3. Andrew Puzder, Mr. Trump’s nominee for labor secretary, withdrew from consideration after growing Republican doubts that he could be confirmed. It was a rare moment of cheer for Democrats, who had hammered Mr. Puzder — the chief executive of the CKE Restaurants chain, which owns Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. — for his treatment of workers and opposition to the minimum wage. His personal life had also been scrutinized. Senators had been shown a tape of his incognito on Oprah Winfrey’s television show in 1990, detailing her claims of abuse against him, which she later recanted. _____ 4. Our reporters are tracking the case of Jeanette Vizguerra, a mother of three who has lived in the U. S. for 20 years. She had to make a harrowing choice: check in with the immigration authorities, risking deportation and separation from her children, or bunker down inside a church for what could be months or years. U. S. citizens are also feeling pressures, as activists report an increase in requests by border agents to examine travelers’ digital devices. Here’s a guide to your rights if an agent asks you to unlock your phone. _____ 5. Throughout the country, independent bookstores have taken on a new life as centers of resistance to the Trump administration. Besides hawking George Orwell’s “1984,” they are handing out lawmakers’ contact information and hosting events to gather protesters. There are also some defections from the opposing camp. The @Trump_Regrets Twitter account has amplified the second thoughts of people who once supported the Republican president. “I voted for you but you’re still acting like a baby,” one wrote. _____ 6. The police in Malaysia detained a woman holding Vietnamese travel documents and were looking for other suspects in what appears to have been a lethal poison attack on the half brother of North Korea’s leader, Kim at the Kuala Lumpur airport. The brother, Kim had pleaded for his life in a letter to the leader in 2012, but a South Korean official said there had been “a standing order” for his assassination since Kim took power in 2011. Researchers say Mr. Kim has ordered more than 300 executions. _____ 7. For the second straight year, traffic deaths were up in the United States. Fatalities increased 6 percent to 40, 200 in 2016, according to preliminary estimates from the nonprofit National Safety Council. If the estimates are confirmed, it would be the deadliest year since 2007. There’s no single cause for the increase, but activists have pointed to more lenient enforcement of traffic safety laws and increasing numbers of distracted drivers. _____ 8. “When all eyes were on her, she didn’t decide to make herself more palatable to white viewers. Instead, she let her imagination serve her goals, her child and her community. ” That’s from one of our most popular pieces today, an essay on what Beyoncé won at the Grammys, even as she lost out on Best Album to Adele. “Black people who do transgressive or radical work must redefine and reimagine what winning is in a white supremacist capitalist culture,” the author, the writer Myles E. Johnson, argues. _____ 9. It’s never been more appropriate to say “Bon appétit. ” Our food editors bring you a cookbook by Melissa Clark on the new essentials of French cooking, filled with video instructions, historical background and practical tips and techniques. She’ll help you master 10 classic dishes, from a morning omelet to an evening soufflé. _____ 10. Finally, in the category of strange world history: As Europe teetered on the brink of World War II, Winston Churchill was preoccupied with the question of whether we are alone in the universe. In a newly discovered 1939 essay, he argued that humans aren’t all that special: “I, for one, am not so immensely impressed by the success we are making of our civilization here that I am prepared to think we are the only spot in this immense universe which contains living, thinking creatures. ” Have an excellent night, and as “The ” would say: The truth is out there. _____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
Other Writers
An Artificial Intelligence (AI) system that correctly predicted the last three US elections says Donald Trump will win
“If Trump loses, it will defy the data trend for the first time in the last 12 years since internet engagement began in full earnest.” — Sanjav Rai, Indian inventor of the MogIA artificial intelligence system in 2004
According to a report in the International Business Times (IBT) , the artificial intelligence (AI) system that accurately predicted the outcomes of the last three U.S. presidential elections has put Trump ahead of Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House.
The AI system called MogIA was created in 2004 by Sanjiv Rai, founder of Indian IT company Genic.ai.
The system works by processing 20 million data points from public platforms including Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, the IBT explained.
It then analyzes the information to generate predictions, taking into account data such as engagement with tweets and viewership of Facebook Live videos.
“If Trump loses, it will defy the data trend for the first time in the last 12 years,” developer Rai was quoted as saying.
Having already correctly predicted the winners of the Democratic and Republican primaries, the system found that people are 25 percent more engaged with Trump than they were with Barack Obama at his peak in 2008—the year he was elected president.
“While most algorithms suffer from programmers/developer’s biases, MogIA aims at learning from her environment, developing her own rules at the policy layer and develop expert systems without discarding any data,” Rai said.
In September this year, Professor Allan Lichtman from Washington D.C.’s American University , told the Washington Post that Trump is most likely to win based on a system of true/false statement that he calls “Keys to the White House.”
Professor Lichtman, who, the newspaper added, had correctly predicted the winner of every presidential election since 1984, said he based his predictions on “13 true/false questions, where an answer of ‘true’ always favors the reelection of the party holding the White House.”
“If six or more of the 13 keys are false — that is, they go against the party in power — they lose. If fewer than six are false, the party in power gets four more years,” he said.
These “keys” include questions about who holds the most seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, the lack of a significant third party campaign, the economy, the extent of a real policy change should a challenger win, the level of social unrest, foreign, and military policies.
“The keys have nothing to do with presidential approval polls or horse-race polls,” Professor Lichtman said, going on to make it evident that he personally dislikes Trump a great deal. However, on his system the Democratic party has definitely “lost” five of the “keys,” and is well on course to lose a sixth, which, he said, would give the election to Trump by default.
The New Observer has long predicted that Trump can only win if at least 70 percent of whites turn out to vote, and that he takes at least two-thirds of the white vote. Anything less than that will see a liberal minority white vote team up with the block nonwhite vote to grant Clinton victory—which was exactly how Obama was twice elected.
Trump’s only hope therefore, lies in previous non-voters turning out, a fact to which he alluded in a recent speech, where he mentioned that reports coming in from the early voting figures revealed a massive surge in people who had never voted before. | 0 |
Posted on October 26, 2016 by Paul Joseph Watson Authorities claim it’s for “security” reasons Towns across Sweden have banned Christmas street lights in the name of “security,” but the real reason is almost certainly because the country has completely capitulated to Islam after importing countless Muslim migrants over the last two years. According to an SVT report, The Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) will not allow municipalities to erect Christmas street lights on light poles that the authority manages, meaning that many towns will have no festival lights at all on major streets. According to Speisa , “The change is a victory for those who want to tone down the reminder of the country’s Christian traditions, but according to the Swedish Transport Administration, the decision for the drastic change is “security”. “Poles are not designed for the weight of Christmas lights, and we have to remove anything that should not be there,” said Eilin Isaksson, national coordinator at the Swedish Transport Administration. The argument that the lights are too heavy and pose a safety risk sounds like complete baloney. Swedes are being asked to believe that lights normally held up by tree branches are now too weighty to be supported by metal poles. Despite there being no safety issue with the street lights for decades, this new rule has been instituted right after record numbers of Muslim migrants flooded into the country – just a coincidence I’m sure. In reality, the Christmas lights ban is almost certainly an effort to avoid offending Muslim migrants who are causing chaos in cities like Malmo , where the firebombing of cars and businesses in or near Muslim ghetto ‘no-go areas’ is becoming a routine occurrence. As we previously reported , a top Swedish Bishop advocated removing crosses from a Christian church and replacing them with Islamic symbols in order to please Muslims. Last Christmas, it was also announced that a Christmas Eve special broadcast on public television would be hosted by a Muslim woman. Some areas of Sweden are even capitulating to returning ISIS terrorists by offering jihadists free driving licenses and housing benefits to help them “reintegrate into the job market”. | 0 |
Arrests for Cannabis Possession Outnumber Arrests for All Violent Crimes Combined Nov 5, 2016 1 0
As the U.S. government continues to fight its futile war on drugs , marijuana possession arrests have now become more common than all other crimes combined , according to a new report focused on showing the human toll of criminalizing drug use and published by Human Rights Watch ( HRW.org ).
The war on drugs in the U.S. is a palpable failure. Drug-possession arrests more than doubled between 1979 and 2016. The prison population now includes more than half a million Americans jailed for drug offenses , in comparison to only 41,000 in 1980. Over the last four decades, the war on drugs has restricted individual rights and created an environment of violence and inequality, but it has done almost nothing to solve the problems associated with drug abuse.
“Evaluations of specific tactics, such as raids on crack houses and crackdowns, suggest that their effects on drug availability are minimal, decay rapidly, and may displace drug activity to other areas and increase drug-related violence.” ~ 2016 study published in by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, entitled War on Drugs Policing and Police Brutality Shocking Rise in Cannabis Possession Arrests
Despite the ongoing war, cannabis usage is becoming more acceptable and even legal, proving that opinion and policy vary wildly. In fact, a study conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that the number of Americans who use marijuana has doubled from 2001-02 to 2012-13. The 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health estimates that over 22 million Americans use the plant either for medical purposes and/or recreationally.
Americans have become accepting of cannabis, even though it is still illegal under federal U.S. law. Over the last decade, immense amount of research has shown the medical benefits of the cannabis plant . Legalization of the plant in several U.S. states has demonstrated that it is not a threat to public safety. It seems that the most dangerous aspect of cannabis use is the possibility of police confrontation, arrest and incarceration.
Regardless of the trends showing an increase in cannabis popularity, the report by HRW.org found that policing of marijuana-possession laws continues to be quite aggressive when compared to the enforcement of other laws.
“Despite shifting public opinion, in 2015, nearly half of all drug possession arrests (over 574,000) were for marijuana possession. By comparison, there were 505,681 arrests for violent crimes (which the FBI defines as murder, non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault). This means that police made more arrests for simple marijuana possession than for all violent crimes combined.”
Through the evaluation of court data for the state of Texas, HRW discovered that many of those prosecuted “were prosecuted for small quantities of drugs—in some cases, fractions of a gram—that were clearly for personal use.” Other sources reveal that 8 in 10 drug arrests in 2013 were for drug possession rather than sale and manufacturing. Drug Crimes and Prisons
Every 25 seconds, someone in the U.S. is arrested for drug use or possession. More than one of nine arrests by state law enforcement are for drug possession, amounting to more than 1.25 million arrests per year.
As a result of this aggressive enforcement of drug laws, on any given day at least 137,000 people sit in local and state jails on drug possession charges awaiting their day in court. Drug possession offenders in general will soon make up 25% of the prison population. Because federal law mandates a sentence of life without parole for anyone whose third strike is a federal crime (such as drug possession and, in many states, marijuana possession), 10 times as many third-strikers are serving time for drug possession as a second-degree murder.
It’s clear that people from all demographics wish to have safe access to cannabis , both for recreational purposes as well as for a growing list of medical benefits. While access opens up in U.S. states where legalization continues to gain steam, safe access to cannabis is still an issue for many, which is why people are creating businesses like Buy Weed Online Canada , and until the government fully decriminalizes cannabis, our prison system, court system and police forces will continue to be bogged down with the persecution and prosecution of non-violent offenders.
About the Author
Vic Bishop is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com and OffgridOutpost.com Survival Tips blog. He is an observer of people, animals, nature, and he loves to ponder the connection and relationship between them all. A believer in always striving to becoming self-sufficient and free from the matrix, please track him down on Facebook .
This article ( Arrests for Cannabis Possession Outnumber Arrests for All Violent Crimes Combined ) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Vic Bishop and WakingTimes.com . Vote Up | 0 |
(Before It's News)
It is fun to look at polls, and using such data, decide which candidate will win which state, and ultimately, which candidate will win the electoral college. A lot of people and organizations do that, and for this reason, I don’t. I do not have access to polls that no one else sees. Were I to use polling data to directly predict outcomes per state, I’d use a method like that used by FiveThirtyEight, and probably come up with similar results. How boring. It would be a waste of my time to try to replicate the excellent work done by Nate Silver and his team.
Back during the Democratic Primaries, I decided that I wanted to get a handle on which candidate was likely to win, fairly early on. The polling based estimates were inadequate because most states simply didn’t have polling data that early in the process. So, I invented an alternative method, which made certain estimates of how voters with different ethnic identities would vote. That method accurately predicted several primary outcomes, outperforming the poll based methods such as those used by FiveThirtyEight.
After a while, enough primaries had been carried out that I could switch methods slightly. Using the same exact model, but primed with the results of prior primaries (that year) rather than my estimates of voter behavior, I used the ethnic distribution data for each state to predict the outcome of upcoming primary contests.
Once again, my method was very accurate, and once again, it out performed the polling based methods.
So, recently, I’ve tried to apply a similar method to estimating the electoral outcome for this year’s presidential race. But, it is impossible to use the same exact method because the entire thing happens all on one day. I can’t use the election results from a handful of states to estimate the likely future outcomes in other states.
I recognize that polling data is very limited on a national level. Things happen during an election season that probably change people’s likely voting behavior, especially among independents. Solid states are rarely polled, and small states, swing or not, are rarely polled. Many polls are of low quality. Right now, for instance, fewer than half of the states have polls that were a) taken fully after the final POTUS debate and b) have an A- or better rating from FiveThirtyEight. If I allow the use of B and occasional C ratings for recent polls, and allow a few polls to include periods of time prior to the last POTUS debate, but only in states that are very strongly in favor of one candidate or the other (and thus likely to not move anyway), I can find 32 states that have sort of usable polling data. Interestingly, states with some of the more controversial changes happening, like Utah and Iowa, are not adequately polled.
In order to apply a model like the one I used in the Primaries to the current election, I used the 32 states for which there was somewhat acceptable recent polling data to inform the model (to calculate the regression coefficients) in order to then, separately, predict the likely voting behavior (Trump vs. Clinton) in all of the states.
Before I show you the map, however, I need to discuss something else.
About a week ago the press, especially the somewhat more left leaning press, and various commenters, seeing much reaction to a series of events beginning with the NYT release of Trump’s tax return and ending with the final POTUS debate, events which sandwiched the sexual assault tapes and accusations, collectively decided that a huge gap between Clinton and Trump was rapidly opening up and the race would end with a double digit spread, an electoral rout, and a big party.
Soon after, I pointed out that this may not be correct. That polling data seemed to show, rather, that there was an expansion of the difference between the two candidates followed by a re-closing of the gap, with Clinton still leading but by about as much as before this temporary shift. To this I added a concern. If too many people assumed that the race was over and in the double digit range, perhaps there could be a GOTV backlash effect, or a funding effect, that would shift things to within shooting distance for Trump.
I was not alone in thinking this, and I was probably right. The GOP sunk, via pacs, 25 million dollars into Senate races in response to the Democrats shifting from the national race to the Senate, which was followed by the Democrats shifting back to the national race in certain states, presumably recognizing that the polls were artificially spread. Indeed, some who criticized (arguing mainly from incredulity and good wishes) my admonition noted, correctly, that some of that narrowing was because a bunch of right-leaning polls had come out all at once. This is true, but it ignores that a bunch of left-leaning polls had made the formation of the Great Gap of GOP Defeat look a lot bigger than it ever really was.
I say all this as part one of my preparation for what I’m going to tell you below, which is not the news you want to hear. Part two is some logic I’d like to bludgeon you with.
Consider these points:
1) True Trump supporters could give a rat’s ass about sexual assault, poor debate performance, or tax forms. Donald Trump was correct when he said, weeks ago, now forgotten, that he could gun someone down on the streets of Manhattan and he would not lose support form his base. These people did not abandon him when he was heard to talk about sexual assault. If anything, they were energized by it. And, I’m talking about something just shy of 40% of the voters. We live in a barely civilized asshole country.
2) Please tell me exactly which Hillary Clinton supporters, who were going to vote for Clinton over Trump all along, are NOW going to pick Clinton (if polled or on voting day) that change from not being Clinton supporters to being Clinton supporters? In other words (this is a somewhat subtle point) which people who hated Trump became True Haters of Trump after the sexual assault thing? Almost none. They were already there.
3) The third category of people, the undecideds (who are only lying about being undecided, in most cases) and the so-called “reasonable Republicans” (of which there are very, very few), who could conceivably shift from Trump to Clinton are going to divide their voting activities between Johnson, a write in (as they are being advised by Republican leaders in some cases) or simply staying home.
In other words, over the last few weeks, no source has emerged that hands Secretary Clinton more electoral votes than she probably had about a month ago, and Trump is not going to have any, or at least not many, electoral votes go away.
Those observations (part one) and that logic (part two) cause me to be utterly unsurprised to find out that an analysis of the electoral map I did on October 16th and one I did today do not show Clinton pulling farther ahead. In fact, the two analyses have Clinton being less far ahead than Trump now than ten days ago. The difference is in Ohio (shifting from Clinton to Trump) which is almost certainly going to happen, and North Carolina (which shifted from Clinton to Trump in this analysis) which seems much less likely to happen, and Arizona shifting from Clinton (that was probably wishful thinking) to Trump.
The point here is this, plain and simple. An analysis using a technique that has worked very well for me in the past shows that the difference between that moment of Maximal Clintonosity and today is plus or minus a couple of state. In other words, not different. Maybe a little worse. Really, about the same.
Here’s the current map:
Obviously, I will be watching for more data over the next few days. I assume there will be a spate of polls as we approach November 8th (the day Democrats vote. Republicans vote on the 28th of November). If so, then there will be convergence between my method of calibration and my method of calculation, and the model will consume itself by the tail and become very accurate at the same time.
But between now and then, perhaps that very small number of polls that are both recent and high quality will grow a bit more and I can do this again and resolve those closer states.
By the way, the “swing states” according to my model, the states where things are close, are Ohio, North Carolina, Arizona, and Georgia of those now in the Trump column. Those are indeed swing states. Numerically, the close states that are in the Clinton column are Virginia, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. | 0 |
by Yves Smith
Dear patient readers,
Lambert and I recognize that the caliber of reporting from both the MSM and independent news outlets has in many cases moved in a crazypants direction as Election Day nears. Unfortunately, the commentariat has taken far too much of this up, as in has featured links to dodgy stories and theories and has treated them with far more dignity than they warrant.
We have shut down comments entirely when the quality has decayed too far or they have become too fractious. We hope not to have to do that, but in the last week alone, we’ve had to rip out two entire comment threads, something we are extremely loath to do. That sort of thing should happen at most once a year, not with anything approaching this frequency.
This site has policy impact. We have spent far too many years building that to put it at risk. We lose credibility with some of the discussions that have been taking place recently. Please use better discernment as to whether the topic you’d like to chew over really belongs here, as opposed to Facebook or Zero Hedge.
At Last, a Black History Museum New York Review of Books (Kevin C)
Playboy model charged over locker room ‘body-shaming’ image BBC. Don’t go to a gym if you are so precious that you can’t look at the bodies of normal people. | 0 |
COVFEFE from Union Pub on Capitol Hill! [Former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by President Donald J. Trump, will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday morning — and Washington, D. C. elites are gathered at their favorite watering holes throughout the city to watch the giant testimony. Breitbart News will be covering the political class celebration from here, with this livewire including updates on Comey’s testimony and the reaction of the crowd of Washington elites. Union Pub, a landmark Washington, D. C. bar across the street from the Heritage Foundation on Capitol Hill, is offering all patrons who come here to watch the testimony free drinks whenever President Trump Tweets about the Comey hearing throughout its duration until 4 p. m. UPDATE 12:54 P. M. President Trump did not Tweet throughout the entire event, but Union Pub is still giving out a few round of Budweisers to everyone here! The specialty Budweiser cans, which servers are passing out now, have the special “America” name in place of “Budweiser” on the label and a camouflage design instead of the traditional red cans. Here’s a photo from Breitbart’s Kristina Wong: . @UnionPub giving out free America Budweisers at #ComeyHearing #Covfefe: pic. twitter. — Kristina Wong (@kristina_wong) June 8, 2017, And another from Breitbart News’ Penny Starr: Cheers! Comey reveals he’s a leaker and New York Times pushes FAKE NEWS! @BreitbartNews #comey pic. twitter. — Penny Starr (@PennyStarrDC) June 8, 2017, That’s all folks, we’ll leave it there for today. COVFEFE to everyone and thanks for tuning in! UPDATE 12:50 P. M. As the public part of the hearing adjourned, and Comey has completely vindicated Trump ahead of a later closed session hearing where he and senators are likely to discuss classified information he could not bring up during the televised hearing, the whole thing turned out exactly like Breitbart News Network told you it would: A giant . Except for the fact that Comey admitted he is a leaker, has a network through which he has leaked information designed to harm President Trump. Oh, and that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and other Obama administration officials may have engaged in serious misconduct worthy of further investigation — which Comey testified about today. Meanwhile, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders — from the podium at the press briefing — has told reporters that President Trump is not, despite what the leaker James Comey says, a liar. . @SHSanders45: ”No, I can definitively say the president is not a liar. It’s frankly insulting that that question would be asked.” — Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) June 8, 2017, And, of course, nevertheless President Trump persisted. He’s right back out there fighting for American workers while Democrats waste their time on nonsense. Trump takes the stage at Faith and Freedom conference “It’s wonderful to be here with all of my friends” pic. twitter. — Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) June 8, 2017, “You fought for me, now I will fight for you” Trump tells Faith and Freedom audience, — Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 12:40 P. M. Sen. John McCain ( ) a grumpy old Republican, made no sense during his questioning of Comey. Breitbart’s own Curt Schilling, the host of Whatever It Takes, questions whether everyone else had trouble following along with McCain’s nonsensical line of questioning: Am I the only one not able to follow along with senator McCain’s line of questioning? ??? — Curt Schilling (@gehrig38) June 8, 2017, Even the New York Times’ people questions whether McCain is losing his mind: McCain seems to be confusing the Clinton email case with the Russia investigation. — Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) June 8, 2017, Trump, who has not Tweeted during the hearing at all, apparently made the decision to avoid Tweeting last night. Politico’s Tara Palmeri has the scoop of why the President would not Tweet today, infuriating all the Union Pub who did not get any free drinks since President Trump did not Tweet. Trump decided the night before #comeyhearings that he would not his rebuttal https: . — Tara Palmeri (@tarapalmeri) June 8, 2017, “Why would I?” Trump apparently told White House aides about Comey’s appearance before Congress, according to a “senior White House official” who spoke with Politico’s Palmeri. Read the whole thing, including the details on how the president’s mood is “light” during the Comey testimony. UPDATE 12:37 P. M. Their hopes and dreams dashed by Comey completely vindicating Trump in this open hearing, and instead implicating administration officials like Loretta Lynch — and implicating himself as an leaker with a network through which he has leaked damaging information against the president — the left and media are pinning everything on a last ditch line of questioning from Sen. Kamala Harris ( ). This line of questioning from @SenKamalaHarris regarding the Attorney General is extraordinarily important — not to be overlooked, — Matt House (@mattwhouse) June 8, 2017, Here’s video of her comparing Trump to an armed robber though, so take whatever she says with a grain of salt: Sen. Kamala Harris seems to compare Trump to an armed robber saying ”I hope you will give me your wallet” #ComeyTestimony pic. twitter. — Mike Ciandella ن (@MikeCiandella) June 8, 2017, But MSNBC leftist media star Andrea Mitchell loves Kamala Harris, heavily highlighting the rookie Democrat Senator’s questions: . @KamalaHarris asks series of q’s about possible secret contacts between Trump camp and Russia #Comey declines to answer in open hearing, — Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) June 8, 2017, Meanwhile, Never Trumper Max Boot is in an alternate reality, saying Comey was fantastic as a witness. Bottom line for #ComeyDay: Comey a highly credible witness. Trump isn’t. Comey makes damning accusations. Trump denials unconvincing. — Max Boot (@MaxBoot) June 8, 2017, Flashback, though, to when Comey was fired and Boot with some bold predictions back on May 9: Congress needs to ask Comey to testify he needs to tell all he knows about Kremlingate. If he does Trump may regret firing him. — Max Boot (@MaxBoot) May 10, 2017, Don’t tell Max Boot about the black helicopters coming for him. Seriously. “KREMLINGATE”? What is wrong with these people? Anyway, another wonderfully fantastic flashback of this Never Trumper from when Comey was fired in May: Prediction: If Democrats take control of Congress in 2018, the firing of Comey will form one of the articles of impeachment. — Max Boot (@MaxBoot) May 10, 2017, UPDATE 12:24 P. M. Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz is calling for the Senate to officially subpoena the documents James Comey ordered leaked through his network of leakers. Senators should ask Comey the name of the Columbia professor and then subpoena the memos from him. — Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 12:21 P. M. Loretta Lynch is in serious trouble right now. Looks like the Democrats’ efforts may have backfired. Loretta Lynch is having a surprisingly bad day in the Comey testimony, — Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) June 8, 2017, If it wasn’t for Trump becoming president, the corruption with Obama’s Department of Justice would be a major story. https: . — Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) June 8, 2017, Comey also just testified that he did not believe that Lynch could “credibly deny” the Hillary Clinton email scandal investigation, and that she had a serious conflict of interest. He also testified in exchange with Sen. John Cornyn ( ) the Senate Majority Whip, that it is possible a special prosecutor was needed for the email scandal. He said he considered calling for appointing a special counsel in the scandal, but decided against it. UPDATE 12:08 P. M. Oh my. Now confirmed leaker James Comey’s leak network has been outed, or at least part of it has: Only in Washington: Someone nursing a pint of beer shouts out to a crowded bar: ”Daniel Richman of Columbia” https: . — Alexander Panetta (@Alex_Panetta) June 8, 2017, So the collusion involves former FBI director, mainstream media, and the academy to bring down the elected president #ComeyHearing https: . — Joel B. Pollak (@joelpollak) June 8, 2017, And now Comey’s leak network is confirming to the media that Comey is a leaker: Columbia Law Prof Daniel Richman confirms to @ZCohenCNN that he is the friend that provided excerpts of the Comey memo to reporters. — Ryan Nobles (@ryanobles) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 12:05 P. M. There are now serious questions being raised as to whether Loretta Lynch, the former Attorney General from the Obama administration, will be subpoenaed to testify after this hearing where Comey has implicated her. Legit question: is Loretta Lynch going to be subpoenaed as a result of this testimony? — Mike Shields (@mshields007) June 8, 2017, Meanwhile, Comey’s admission he is a leaker serious hurts him. Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School makes the case Comey may be in serious trouble: Comey admits that he leaked the internal memo through a Columbia law professor in order to force Special Counsel. Yet, that raises questions, — Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 8, 2017, Comey is doing well but leaking info runs against Comey’s image, particularly in light of the leak controversy hoiunding the Administration, — Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 8, 2017, The memos could be viewed as gov’t material and potential evidence . Leaking to a friend for disclosure can raise serious questions. — Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 12:02 P. M. Donald Trump, Jr. highlights an excellent question from Sen. Roy Blunt ( ) to Comey. Comey did not have a great answer. Sen Blunt: If you told Sessions you didn’t want to be alone with Trump again, why did you continue to take his calls? — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 12:01 P. M. From our RNC friends, here’s video of Sen. Rubio crushing another leftist media narrative during his questioning of Comey. Basically, Comey was so concerned about President Trump’s conversations with him that he alerted exactly nobody who could do anything about it. In other words, this whole thing is a giant . Except for Comey implicating himself as a leaker. UPDATE 11:58 A. M. Comey is in big trouble after this hearing. He admitted he’s a leaker, and has an actual network through which he leaks information to the press. In addition, he withheld from leaking information that would have vindicated President Trump weeks ago. White House social media director Dan Scavino captures it clearly and concisely on Twitter: Because if it was leaked that @realDonaldTrump was personally not under it would have crushed the entire narrative. pic. twitter. — Dan Scavino Jr. (@DanScavino) June 8, 2017, President Trump still has yet to Tweet, so no free drinks yet here at Union Pub. Looks like the owners here made a smart decision since this place is standing room only right now. UPDATE 11:54 A. M. Oh, man, this keeps getting better and better. Comey just shredded the Democrats AND now the fake news media. Oh Boy. Comey says there have been many many stories based on classified information about Russia that are just ”dead wrong” — Maeve Reston (@MaeveReston) June 8, 2017, I wonder if any of the media outlets that have printed repeated stories on these matters will check their reporting again or correct it if they’re wrong. Not holding my breath. UPDATE 11:50 A. M. Comey has emerged throughout this hearing before the American people looking very much like a drama queen. One of the more memorable lines is when he says when Trump called him to ask him if he was free for dinner, he had to break a date with his wife. Comey says Trump called him at his desk. ”Free for dinner tonight? ””I said yessir … I had to call my wife and break a date with her.” — Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) June 8, 2017, That’s not the only Comey testimony: COMEY JUST QUOTES HENRY 11 on what he thought Trump meant: ’Will no one rid me of this toublesome priest” — Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) June 8, 2017, Meanwhile, even CNN’s Jim Acosta — a vehemently media figure in the heart of the opposition party’s mothership CNN — is joining in on the fun. Giving info to media ”like feeding seagulls at the beach?” Fact check: True. — Jim Acosta (@Acosta) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 11:48 A. M. The leaky Capitol Hill GOP swamp aides are attacking Trump, despite the fact Comey has vindicated the president and implicated himself in potentially illegal leaks. Senate R aide: Holding nose and defending Trump is taking a lot out of these GOP senators — and they will demand some kind of repayment … — Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) June 8, 2017, The fact that Swamp Creatures on the “Republican” side on Capitol Hill are throwing shade on their own president, and party, as the GOP and Trump likely emerge from today’s masquerade mostly out of the woods is simply incredible but unsurprising. Swamp Things are going to Swamp. UPDATE 11:45 A. M. Comey’s open admission he orchestrated a potentially illegal leak puts him in serious potential trouble, the New York Times people note. That’s the story folks. He vindicated Trump, and implicated himself. Wow, what a day. Can’t remember the last time someone in DC openly acknowledged orchestrating a leak — and without any senator having even asked. — Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 11:39 A. M. CNN’s Dan Merica says that President Trump’s personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz will make a statement at the end of Comey’s public testimony. Marc Kasowitz, Trump’s lawyer outside the White House, will make a statement at the end of James Comey’s Senate testimony, — Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 11:35 A. M. As Comey continues vindicating Trump and throwing Democrats like Lynch, Obama, and Clinton under the bus — presumably accidentally — the Washington, D. C. daydrinking party scene is in full swing: Spotted at Duffy’s Irish Pub in North DC:”Comey is my homey.” pic. twitter. — Sharon Nunn (@sharonmnunn) June 8, 2017, Her “homey” James Comey, meanwhile, has actually admitted he is a leaker. Flag: Comey says he had a friend of his leak the content of his memo to a reporter to hopefully prompt the appointment of a special counsel. pic. twitter. — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 8, 2017, Comey admits to @SenatorCollins that he asked a friend to leak the contents of his memo to NYT to prompt the appointment of Special Counsel. — Joel B. Pollak (@joelpollak) June 8, 2017, Here’s video of Comey admitting he has been leaking information to the media: Here’s how I leaked my Trump memo after Trump’s “tapes” tweet, by: James Comey pic. twitter. — Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 11:32 A. M. While obstruction is now off the table for Trump, as Breitbart’s Joel Pollak detailed, Breitbart’s John Hayward notes that obstruction is back on the table for several leading officials from now former President Barack Obama’s administration. Hayward says Congress needs to investigate Loretta Lynch, the former Attorney General, as well as Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee — for obstruction of justice. Big takeaway from the Comey hearing: urgent need to investigate Loretta Lynch, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton for obstruction, — John Hayward (@Doc_0) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 11:29 A. M. Our very own Joel Pollak is out with another bombshell piece detailing how this hearing has shattered the media’s and the Democrats’ efforts to taint President Trump with “obstruction of justice. ” “Democrats have hinged their hopes for impeachment — and reversing the 2016 elections — on the idea that Trump committed obstruction of justice. That case has now been smashed beyond repair,” Pollak writes, pointing to a Comey exchange with Sen. Jim Risch ( ). Read his whole story here. UPDATE 11:26 A. M. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox, who has trolled Trump as much as he possibly can over the campaign and since, is joining with Union Pub patrons — who get free drinks if President Trump Tweets about the Comey hearing — in raising concerns with the lack of Tweets today from President Trump. . @realDonaldTrump’s silence on #ComeyDay concerns me. What’s going on, Don? I hope you don’t hurt your fingers ranting against Comey later. — Vicente Fox Quesada (@VicenteFoxQue) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 11:25 A. M. Entirely unsurprising, but leading Never Trumper Ana Navarro bashes the president — again — and praises Comey. Lot of time left, but so far, Comey is coming across as the consummate professional. A man who loves his country, colleagues agency. — Ana Navarro (@ananavarro) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 11:24 A. M. Since Comey has blown up the entire media narrative, essentially, Ric Grenell — a leading conservative advocate — notes that the media is only using “facts” that fit their worldview. Breaking: DC reporters are NOT tweeting the line where Comey destroys their anonymous sourced narratives. — Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) June 8, 2017, Kayleigh McEnany, one of the only voices on the opposition party network CNN, Tweets another homerun: Of all the leaks, the one thing that never leaked was that the President was NOT under investigation. Very suspicious! #ComeyDay, — Kayleigh McEnany (@kayleighmcenany) June 8, 2017, And Ann Coulter for the win: OBVIOUSLY Trump’s request re: Flynn was to “let go” of Trump’s firing of him. MSM was falsely claiming reason 4 firing was contacts w Russia, — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 11:21 A. M. from this morning’s Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXMTom Fitton of Judicial Watch, says there is no evidence of any wrongdoing by President Trump or his team. And he called the special counsel “wasteful. ” If Robert Mueller, the special counsel, comes up with nothing as every one of his contemporaries has before him, it will be the biggest waste of taxpayer dollars — and of Americans’ time — in a long time. Listen to the audio here, or at the link to the story from our own Dan Riehl: UPDATE 11:16 A. M. James Comey finally confirms before a congressional committee in a public setting — on video — that President Donald Trump is not under FBI investigation. James Comey confirms President Trump was not under investigation while he was FBI director https: . https: . — CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 11:15 A. M. During Comey’s back and forth with Sen. Marco Rubio ( ) the former 2016 Trump GOP primary rival astutely noted that basically the only thing that did not leak to the press is the one fact that would have helped Trump — that Trump himself was not under investigation. That is despite the fact that Congressional leaders were briefed on that point. Rubio Comey back forth indicates Gang of 8 was briefed that Trump was not personally under investigation. — Laura Rozen (@lrozen) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 11:11 A. M. Donald Trump, Jr. joins the fray on Twitter, defending his father — the president — from Comey’s ambiguous claims. Flynn stuff is BS in context 2 guys talking about a guy they both know well. I hear ”I hope nothing happens but you have to do your job” — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017, very far from any kind of coercion or influence and certainly not obstruction! — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017, Trump, Jr. says there is no way Comey would have misunderstood the president. Knowing my father for 39 years when he ”orders or tells” you to do something there is no ambiguity, you will know exactly what he means, — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017, He also notes that Comey has testified that he could be “wrong. ” Comey ”I could be wrong” — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017, Donald Trump, Jr. ’s Tweets come as many here at Union Pub — who will get free drinks if the president himself Tweets about Comey — are disappointed that President Trump himself is not Tweeting. This is probably the first time ever that people in Washington, D. C. — the Swamp — are upset that President Donald Trump is NOT Tweeting. UPDATE 11:10 A. M. Video of Comey wishing there are tapes of his conversations with Trump: Comey: ”I’ve seen the tweet about tapes. Lordy, I hope there are tapes.” (via @MSNBC) pic. twitter. — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 11:07 A. M. Breitbart’s Joel Pollak has an excellent piece up already on how Comey’s opening statement to the Committee this morning is all about him. “Former FBI director James Comey opened his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday by complaining about ‘shifting explanations’ for why he had been fired, and by attacking the Trump administration,” Pollak writes. “Comey said that he had originally intended to accept his firing quietly, but then found that the administration’s statements about the matter ‘confused me and increasingly concerned me.’ He said that President Donald Trump had assured him that he was doing a good job, and that he had assured the president in return that he intended to stay. ” Read the whole thing. Also, it’s worth noting that even the Wall Street Journal — not some rightwing blog by any stretch — even says that Comey’s written opening statement proves that President Trump should have fired him. Which is exactly what President Trump did. Read the Journal’s editorial board piece here. UPDATE 11: 00 A. M. The GOP war room is up and running. Our friends over at the Republican National Committee are cutting videos that shows Comey’s testimony actually fully vindicates President Trump, despite whatever the opposition party media and congressional Democrats say: Politico has an RNC talking points document circulated this morning. Read the whole thing here. Politico also has a story on how the RNC is taking the lead on pushing back on the highly discredited Comey’s testimony. “The RNC’s role is to support and defend the president and this White House and this week is no different,” Ryan Mahoney, the RNC communications director, told Politico. “And we prepare for everything, and we’re prepared for the hearing this week. ” Read the whole piece here. UPDATE 10:59 A. M. Despite the fact there have been a number of inaccurate pieces throughout the establishment media, the establishment media is celebrating itself. Most interesting part of Comey memo: How damn good the reporting has been. On. The. Nose. — Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) June 8, 2017, Also, fun: Sen. Feinstein wearing a seersucker: First seersucker sighting at #ComeyHearing! We see you, @SenFeinstein. 💯 pic. twitter. — ClotureClub. com (@ClotureClub) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 10:57 A. M. Feinstein tells Comey he’s “big” and “strong,” then asks him if he was overwhelmed by the Oval Office and wonders why he did not tell the president he was wrong when he brought this subject up with him. He questions whether he would have handled himself the same way if given a second chance. “I hope there are tapes,” Comey also said of his meetings with Trump, noting he has seen the president’s Tweet about the possibility of tapes. UPDATE 10:55 A. M. Comey, under questioning from Sen. Dianne Feinstein ( ) says his relationship with Trump got off to a rocky start. He also embarrasses her when she asks him if the reason he was fired had anything to do with the Russia investigation, and he said “yes, because the President said so. ” Here in Union Pub, the crowd broke out into laughter. UPDATE 10:53 A. M. Comey just killed the case against Trump over “obstruction of justice” that the media is building, as fast as they began building it. He said Trump saying he hopes Comey lets the investigation of Flynn go was not an order to drop the investigation. UPDATE 10:51 A. M. The media is highlighting two separate things early on in the Comey bonanza: The fired former FBI director’s use of the word “lie” twice, and him being concerned about meetings with President Trump. Establishment media going to do their thing. Comey has now used ”lie” twice. 1. Referring to WH defaming him and the FBI: ”those were lies”:2. His concern POTUS might ”lie” about mtg, — Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) June 8, 2017, ”I was honestly concerned [Pres. Trump] might lie about the nature of our meeting.” — James Comey on why he kept records of his meetings pic. twitter. — Good Morning America (@GMA) June 8, 2017, Flag: Comey doesn’t want to opine on Trump trying to obstruct, but says ”That’s a conclusion I’m sure the special counsel will work toward.” pic. twitter. — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 8, 2017, An extraordinary thing for an director to say about the President of the United States https: . — Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 10:48 A. M. Since Comey has nothing, and the whole case is falling apart, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Brian Fallon is sadly offering up that special counsel Robert Mueller is now investigating Trump. WH plan of declaring victory because Trump was not being investigated in January is now moot. Comey made clear Mueller is investing him now, — Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) June 8, 2017, But, sadly, if they have no evidence Trump colluded with the Russians — probably because it is likely no evidence even exists — then the special prosecutor will find the same thing that Comey found: NOTHING. But, nevertheless Hillary Clinton’s acolytes persisted: Comey said he expects Mueller to assess, as part of his investigation, whether Trump obstructed justice. That would mean he’s a subject now. — Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 10:40 A. M. Comey testified that he was “confused” about being fired by President Trump. And he said Trump spread “lies” about the FBI. Comey describes being “confused” by firing, “lies” about FBI being in disarray pic. twitter. — Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 10:38 A. M. Since Comey believes that no votes were altered in the 2016 presidential election — he testified he is “confident” none were — then what is the point of this hearing? #Comey says that he is ”confident” that no votes in 2016 were altered #ComeyHearing, — Brooke Singman (@brookefoxnews) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 10:32 A. M. Despite the fact that Comey has nothing, but instead actually ended up in his written opening statement vindicating President Trump, the media elites in Washington are celebrating Comey’s “poker face” — as if it means something substantive. James Comey’s poker face is savage. #ComeyTestimony, — Michelle Ruiz (@michelleruiz) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 10:30 A. M. As Comey comes under questions from Burr, our very own Joel Pollak notes that Comey’s altered opening statement was a deeply personal statement furthering the giant nothingburger he put out last night through the committee. Comey failing again so far, just like he did when he was working on the Hillary Clinton email scandal last year. So far the Comey testimony is all about him all about political retribution against the president for firing him. Disgraceful performance, — Joel B. Pollak (@joelpollak) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 10:26 A. M. Washington, D. C. elites are having a ball for themselves. Our intern Alex Clark with these photos: The Comey Pub Crawl! pic. twitter. — Alex Clark (@AlexCla59967291) June 8, 2017, The Comey Pub crawl! pic. twitter. — Alex Clark (@AlexCla59967291) June 8, 2017, The Comey Pub Crawl! pic. twitter. — Alex Clark (@AlexCla59967291) June 8, 2017, The Comey Pub Crawl! pic. twitter. — Alex Clark (@AlexCla59967291) June 8, 2017, But Union Pub is hardly the only place off the hook with the parties: We moved to another bar in DC. It is packed to capacity for Comey. People are WHISPERING to order their drinks so they can hear the TV. pic. twitter. — Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) June 8, 2017, There are many more. We’ll get updates up soon. UPDATE 10:20 A. M. Audible gasps of disappointment were heard throughout Union Pub as Comey said he will not his opening statement published online last night, a statement that completely vindicated President Trump. Comey, however, admits that the President can fire him whenever he wants. He also says that he heard Donald Trump thought he was doing a “great job. ” But here in Union Pub, cheers erupted as a champagne bottle was popped open for more Washington, D. C. mimosas. UPDATE 10:17 A. M. As Warner wraps his righteous opening statement, in which he stated “this is not a witch hunt” and “this is not fake news,” the STANDING ROOM ONLY crowd at Union Pub laughs as Comey is forced by the chairman to stand and be sworn in under oath for his testimony. UPDATE 10:15 A. M. This real life parody is getting more and more out of control. Fired . S. Attorney from the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara is joining Comey in the hearing room. Yes, that is Preet Bharara sitting behind James Comey. Banquo’s ghost. — Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) June 8, 2017, Meanwhile, our COVFEFE LIVEWIRE has earned the attention of New York Times media correspondent Michael Grynbaum. Breitbart’s @mboyle1 is at Union Pub in DC to cover “the reaction of the crowd of Washington elites” https: . — Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 10:12 A. M. Mark Warner, the leading Democrat on the Senate committee, opens up with his opening statement saying that this hearing has drawn focus from a lot of Washington, D. C. and that ordinary Americans really don’t care and aren’t paying attention. Maybe Congress could focus on real policy issues when this charade is over, but that would probably be asking too much of our elected representatives. UPDATE 10:11 A. M. Fox News is reporting that President Trump is expected to issue a statement disputing parts of Comey’s testimony. UPDATE 10:10 A. M. Burr to Comey: “The American people need to hear your side of the story. ” UPDATE 10:04 A. M. As Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, opens the hearing, a hush comes over the crowd inside Union Pub. COVFEFE everyone! Here we go. UPDATE 10:03 A. M. James Comey has walked into the room where is going to testify in the Senate Intelligence Committee. Folks at Union Pub don’t really seem to care much as they are engaged in deep conversation, very loudly, so loud one cannot hear the television. UPDATE 10:02 A. M. Comey’s written testimony published last night basically proved he had nothing on Trump, and this whole case is going nowhere. Even Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham ( ) admits that, saying none of this makes any sense on TV this morning. ”Nobody in their right mind who believed they had a case, would take their star witness allow them to go before the nation” — Sen. Graham pic. twitter. — CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) June 8, 2017, UPDATE 10:00 A. M. Union Pub is up and running as the Comey hearing is about to begin. It’s almost time. #Treats4Tweets #ComeyDay #ThisTown, — Union Pub (@UnionPub) June 8, 2017, All the TV’s in the bar are carrying Fox News live. If you’re wondering, #ComeyHearing will be in Senate Hart Office Building tomorrow, only 1000 feet from @UnionPub. Guaranteed DC celebs, — Barred in DC (@barredindc) June 8, 2017, The place is packed. The DC ’Super Bowl’. #ComeyHearing #ComeyDay #Covfefe pic. twitter. — Kristina Wong (@kristina_wong) June 8, 2017, Yes, our White House correspondent Charlie Spiering is correct! Breitbart News will be running this COMEY CRAZY COVFEFE LIVEWIRE live throughout the hearing and festivities all day from Union Pub! Our Pentagon Correspondent Kristina Wong is here with us, as well as our intern Alex Clark. More Breitbart staff are expected to join throughout the day! *Confirmed* Matt Boyle will be watching the Comey hearing live at Union Pub, — Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) June 8, 2017, Breitbart Live From Union Pubhttps: . — Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) June 8, 2017, UPDATE: 9:52 A. M. Owen, a federal government employee who did not want us to publish his last name but is here partying as Comey is set to testify, said about the crowd size here “it’s about what you’d expect — people here [in Washington] are easily more engaged than everyone else in the country. It’s a symbol of a healthy, vibrant democracy. ” Bloody Mary’s and Mimosos and beers by the pint are being poured by the hundreds already and Comey has not yet taken the stand. UPDATE 9:50 A. M. Breitbart’s summer intern Alex Clark joins us here and spoke with Union Pub’s general manager Ashley Saunders who told us “I’m way too busy — I’m swamped” when he asked if she could do a brief interview before the hearing begins. Union Pub is packed to the brim with Washingtonians celebrating Comey’s testimony. | 1 |
Tuesday on CNN’s “The Lead,” host Jake Tapper said on transparency issues President Donald Trump’s administration is “empirically worse and more opaque. ” than President Barack Obama’s administration was. Tapper said, “Let’s turn to our politics lead now. This afternoon, Press Secretary Sean Spicer held an briefing and took reporters’ questions. That is something that in and of itself should not be news, but in this case, it is because the Trump administrators have been keeping reporters at bay for more than a week. In many ways, the Trump administration has been less transparent than its predecessors. Even those who thought the Obama administration never lived up to its ballyhooed promises of transparency, President Obama released his taxes, and President Trump has not released his. ” “President Trump shares literally nothing about who is coming to see him,” he continued. “President Obama golfed quite a bit, as does President Trump, but the Obama house would tell the public when he was hitting the links and with whom. This White House, for whatever reason, keeps that information private. Even the White House briefings are now shorter, with more and a new trend of not allowing cameras or even audio recordings of what your White House is saying on any given day. People in power like to hide things from the public. We called it out under President Obama, and now it is empirically worse and more opaque. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
Hillary Clinton Hits Unfavorability High of 60%, Higher Than Trump October 31,
Remember last week when Hillary Clinton was shopping around for White House drapes and the "popular" wisdom was that she was inevitable? That was fun. Wasn't it. Now she hit an unfavorability rating high of 60 percent. That's higher than Trump.
It also means that the candidate who claims she's going to bring Americans together is disliked by most of the country .
Clinton is seen unfavorably by 60 percent of likely voters in the latest results, a new high. Trump is seen unfavorably by essentially as many -- 58 percent. Marking the depth of these views, 49 percent see Clinton "strongly" unfavorably, and 48 percent say the same about Trump –- unusual levels of strong sentiment.
The extent of partisan antipathy in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, is remarkable: Ninety-seven percent of Trump supporters see Clinton unfavorably; 90 percent, strongly so. Ninety-five percent of Clinton supporters see Trump unfavorably -– again, 90 percent strongly so.
But remember Hillary is "inevitable".
Now the Clinton campaign has decided to go after the FBI under the assumption that people like Hillary more than the FBI. That may be a slight misjudgment. And by slight, I mean huge. Because not only is the FBI more popular than Hillary, so are major landfills, UFO cattle mutilations and a number of international war criminals. | 0 |
Getty - Saul Loeb/AFP
Pennsylvania's incumbent Republican Senator Pat Toomey and his supporters have regularly accused Democratic challenger Katie McGinty of leading a “revolving door” career in politics and government.
Toomey's campaign released an ad in April accusing McGinty of allocating “millions of tax dollars to benefit corporations” during her time in the state government.
The Club for Growth PAC also used the “revolving door” line of attack against McGinty, calling out her career of maneuvering between lobbying and public service.
So when McGinty attempted to enter a building that only had literal revolving doors while being followed by a tracker for the conservative Super PAC America Rising, she tried to find a way around a potentially bad photo op.
McGinty can be seen in the video uploaded Tuesday pausing at multiple entrances and attempting to look for another way in the building.
But after pacing back and forth to look for an alternative entrance, McGinty ultimately caved and entered through the revolving door.
Watch the full clip below. | 0 |
Dean Blandino, the NFL’s head of officiating, has handed in his resignation and insiders say he may be headed to Fox Sports. [With his resignation, Blandino said he wanted to spend more time with his family and explore other business opportunities. Blandino, 45, said the demands of his job kept him from his family too much. Acting as head of NFL officiating since 2013, he reportedly planned to take on a bigger role this season after the league approved a centralized replay system which will allow the officiating team to review and decide calls from their office in New York. In a statement NFL vice president Troy Vincent praised the official, ESPN reported. “Dean has done an outstanding job leading our officiating staff,” Vincent said. “He’s been a trusted colleague and a friend to so many of us around the league. Dean’s knowledge of the playing rules, his tireless commitment to improving the quality of NFL officiating, and his unquestioned dedication to his job has earned him the respect of the entire football community. ” Blandino will stay with the NFL through May as the league searches for his replacement. Sources say that he may be headed to the broadcast booth for Fox Sports. According to Sports Business Daily, the former official will work NFL and college games for Fox. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
On a clear winter morning in the French Alps just over a year ago, Sascha, my son, and I stood at the top of our first run at the Serre Chevalier ski area. I stamped to knock the snow from my skis, then pushed off, carving easy turns in the groomed track that spilled through groves of larch trees, Sascha following behind. “Help, Daddy!” he cried. I jammed to a stop, looked back and saw a tangle of limbs, skis and poles. “I’m stuck!” Sascha had taken a fall and lost his poles, but his skis had stayed on his feet, which were pinned underneath him. “It hurts. Help!” he said, the panic rising in his voice. “I want to go home. ” Ugh. Our first trip wasn’t supposed to start like this. I sidestepped to him, released his skis and gently untwisted his legs. After a few comforting words and a suggestion that we take it easy, we set off side by side. “Sascha wants to spend more time with you,” my wife, Lori, had said to me late one night that fall. “He and I were talking on the way home, and he said, ‘I really want to do something with Daddy. ’” Ouch. Since we’d moved to Paris from New York three years earlier, I had been working Sundays and evenings. I knew abstractly that Sascha and his younger sister were feeling my absence. We had dropped them into the neighborhood school, and within months they were fluent in French and had made new friends. Everything was fine, or so I thought. Our interactions were limited to frantic mornings hustling them off to school and fleeting kisses when I returned from work. Before I knew it, three years had passed — and how well, really, did I know them? Something told me that an afternoon at the playground wasn’t going to cut it. Sascha was old enough to travel with me by himself, I decided. I had a few days of vacation, and winter was coming up: ski trip. But the thought of driving seven hours to the Alps, skiing for two days, then driving back seemed grim and expensive. I wondered: Could we go by train? It would add an element of adventure — and be considerably cheaper. A little research revealed that one of the few remaining routes would take us from Paris to the Southern Alps town of Briançon, the gateway to the sprawling ski station of Serre Chevalier, which bills itself as the largest resort in the southern French Alps. Rolling the dice, I booked tickets on the train, found a promising pension, the Hotel de l’Europe, in the nearby town of Le — and immediately started worrying about the lack of snow, anxiously watching as webcams revealed a brownish, parched landscape. The week before we were due to leave, it started to snow, dumping a glorious 20 inches in a few days. We packed carefully, one duffel for me and a small wheelie for Sascha. I noticed, happily, that along with comic books and adventure stories he had packed Joe, the bear he has kept close since he was a baby. Our train clattered into the Gare d’Austerlitz, looking dowdy compared with the sleek trains that are replacing the night routes across Europe. We wedged ourselves into our compartment, in the lowest of the three bunks on either side. Sascha was happy in his nest with a reading light, a thin sleeping sack and a water bottle, and plunked himself on his stomach so he could look out the window. Slowly, our train chugged out of the station, swaying as the lights of Paris gave way to the suburbs and finally the darkened fields and woods. “Tuck me in, Daddy,” he asked after a while, gripping Joe tightly. Awaking at the station in Briançon, we hopped on a shuttle bus that would take us to Le . Just past the first signs for Le Monêtier we got our first glimpse of the high mountains. We clambered off at the edge of town and walked a few hundred meters up the rustic Rue St. . At the Hotel de L’Europe, a cheerful woman with a British accent took one look at our bedraggled state and asked, “You’ll be wanting breakfast, then?” Yes, indeed. After a restorative meal of yogurt, granola, pastries and coffee (for me) and a hot cocoa (for Sascha) we checked out our room, which turned out to be a bright, newly renovated suite with one bedroom for each of us and two bathrooms. Before fatigue took hold we changed into our gear and walked to a nearby ski shop to get some intelligence about Serre Chevalier. “Keep to the middle of the mountain,” we were told — up high it would be windy and foggy later in the day, possibly stormy, and down below the snow cover was a little thin. Booted and suited, we caught a free shuttle bus to the new base lodge a few minutes away. It was surreal to be riding a chairlift in the bracing air a little more than 12 hours after leaving Paris. On the advice of the ski shop, we started with an intermediate run, Rochamout, where Sascha fell. By the bottom, helped by creamy, forgiving snow, we had our ski legs again. After lunch in the base lodge we headed back up as flurries began. Around 2 p. m. we decided to take the long chairlift from the middle of the mountain to a natural, treeless pass with the jolly name of Cucumelle. A few minutes after boarding, we were in a blizzard, pelted with stinging hail and buffeted by wind. I tucked Sascha’s neck warmer into the base of his goggles, took his poles and told him to keep his head in his lap. “We won’t be able to get down,” he said in a panicky voice. Clearly, this was test No. 2. I pushed him off the lift, pointed him downhill and told him to grab one of my poles. We inched into the teeth of this unexpected storm and after a few agonizing minutes, found ourselves back among the calm of the trees. Feeling that was enough adventure for one day, we went back to the hotel, and to a dinner of pasta carbonara speckled with rich lardons, prepared by the hotel’s proprietor and chef, Pascal Finat. (Sarah Finat, his wife, had greeted us in the morning.) Eleven hours of sleep later, we awoke to a blindingly sunny, crisp day, and cut first tracks on freshly groomed cruising runs through the larches and a few fir stands. Traditional chairlifts predominate in Serre Chevalier, so we had plenty of time to talk on the way up. I started out with softball questions: school (he didn’t much like math) friends (all boys, he said, but with a little prodding admitted to liking two girls) favorite sports (soccer, of course). He was 9, after all introspection could wait. I focused on observing his actions and moods, how school and sports like skiing came easily to him, how he stubbornly refused to ask for help until it was the only course of action left, how he was extremely sensitive to physical pain and discomfort. One of the joys of skiing in Europe is lunch, and I’d been told that the elusive restaurant L’Echaillon was the place to go. After a bit of up and down, we found a side trail that seemed to lead only to the restaurant. There, I washed down an escalope de veau milanaise with fresh tagliatelle with a hearty Savoyard red. Sascha went with a burger and a Coke, noting mischievously that he was eating the mother and I was eating the baby. Suffused with we skied as the French do after lunch, sticking to the sunniest runs and heading down early. Our destination was Le Monêtier’s other attraction: mineral baths dating to Roman times. The modern bath complex includes indoor and outdoor pools, as well as three plunge rooms — cold, tepid and scalding. By 5 p. m. we were soaking in a warm, bubbly pool, gazing up at the gathering dusk on the slopes. We treated ourselves to fondue at dinner, and fell into conversation about inventions throughout history. Sascha argued for the computer I explained the story of the printing press, and how innovation had accelerated in the past 100 years. I took the opening to segue into a quick primer on early American history, since Sascha had been learning only French history. Our luck held the next morning, another bluebird day. We headed straight up to explore more of Serre Chevalier, which has 102 marked trails, 61 lifts and nearly 10, 000 acres within its boundaries. I let Sascha take the lead. His call was to ski the terrain park, eliciting a silent groan from my arthritic left hip. I watched as he flew whooping over the jumps and grind rails, heedless of the aches, pains and worries of adulthood. On Saturday, our last day, we felt confident enough to take on some of the nearly empty expert slopes, which overnight had been draped in fresh powder. After another decadent soak in the thermal baths, we grabbed dinner at the excellent Pizza Nono, then took the shuttle back to the Briançon train station. There were no complaints from Sascha, no dawdling. He was becoming a travel partner, and I was already looking forward to our next trip. As we left the Paris station the next morning, our trip already seemed like a memory, a flash of sun and snow in a gray and drizzly Parisian winter. I sensed that Sascha was feeling some of the same melancholy. I stopped in the middle of the street and said “hug” — our code for comforting him when he was younger. He squeezed me with strength that felt more like an adult’s than a boy’s. | 1 |
In a report for Politico Magazine, Jack Shafer and Tucker Doherty analyzed the geographical data of where journalists work and determined that the liberal “media bubble” is even worse than suspected. [The liberal bubble has only grown worse as the news business has transition from print media to online publications. As Shafer and Doherty report, “Today, 73 percent of all internet publishing jobs are concentrated in either the corridor or the West Coast crescent that runs from Seattle to San Diego and on to Phoenix. ” From Politico Magazine: As the votes streamed in on election night, evidence that the country had further cleaved into two Americas became palpable. With few exceptions, Clinton ran the table in urban America, while Trump ran it in the ruralities. And as you might suspect, Clinton dominated where internet publishing jobs abound. Nearly 90 percent of all internet publishing employees work in a county where Clinton won, and 75 percent of them work in a county that she won by more than 30 percentage points. When you add in the shrinking number of newspaper jobs, 72 percent of all internet publishing or newspaper employees work in a county that Clinton won. By this measure, of course, Clinton was the national media’s candidate. Resist — if you can — the conservative reflex to absorb this data and conclude that the media deliberately twists the news in favor of Democrats. Instead, take it the way a social scientist would take it: The people who report, edit, produce and publish news can’t help being affected — deeply affected — by the environment around them. Former New York Times public editor Daniel Okrent got at this when he analyzed the decidedly liberal bent of his newspaper’s staff in a 2004 column that rewards rereading today. The “heart, mind, and habits” of the Times, he wrote, cannot be divorced from the ethos of the cosmopolitan city where it is produced. On such subjects as abortion, gay rights, gun control and environmental regulation, the Times’ news reporting is a pretty good reflection of its region’s dominant predisposition. And yes, a ethos flourishes in all of internet publishing’s major cities — Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington. The Times thinks of itself as a centrist national newspaper, but it’s more accurate to say its politics are perfectly centered on the slices of America that look and think the most like Manhattan. Something akin to the Times ethos thrives in most major national newsrooms found on the Clinton coasts — CNN, CBS, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Politico and the rest. Their reporters, an admirable lot, can parachute into Appalachia or the rural Midwest on a monthly basis and still not shake their provincial sensibilities: Reporters tote their bubbles with them. In a sense, the media bubble reflects an established truth about America: The places with money get served better than the places without. People in big media cities aren’t just more liberal, they’re also richer: Half of all newspaper and internet publishing employees work in counties where the median household income is greater than $61, 000 — $7, 000 more than the national median. Commercial media tend to cluster where most of the GDP is created, and that’s the coasts. Perhaps this is what Bannon is hollering about when he denounces the “corporatist, global media,” as he did in February at the Conservative Political Action Conference. If current trends continue — and it’s safe to predict they will — national media will continue to expand and concentrate on the coasts, while local and regional media contract. Read the rest here. | 1 |
During the Wednesday “Outkick the Coverage” broadcast on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 personality Jason Whitlock weighed in on his former employer ESPN’s increase in political coverage, saying the company has gone political in attempt to turn the world into more of a controlled safe space where everybody gets along. Partial transcript as follows, starting at the 18:16 mark: They believe in the experiment. If you really understand the far left, the Marxists, it’s like they want to take the jungle and turn it into a zoo. The world is a jungle. They want to turn it into a zoo. In a zoo, everybody gets along, everybody stays in their little safe spaces, cages, no one gets killed, there is no real competition, everybody gets fed the same stuff, and so, I think the people at ESPN think, “We can perfect this jungle if we just make it a zoo. No one will get killed. The lions and the giraffes, they’ll look at each other from across their cages and they’ll get along … ” But at the end of the day, I think there are people that rightfully believe, “God created a jungle and we can be nice and play along, but there is going to be some competition here. And if you’re weak, you’re going to get left behind. And if you’re not careful, a lion’s going to come over here and ravage you. That is what the world is. ” Again, do we need some parameters within the jungle to make things fair? Absolutely, but turn it into a zoo? No dice. Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
DANVILLE, Pa. — The Geisinger Health Plan, run by one of the nation’s health care organizations, foresees medical costs increasing next year by 7. 5 percent for people buying insurance under the Affordable Care Act. So when Geisinger requested a rate increase of 40 percent for 2017, consumer advocates were amazed. And Kurt J. Wrobel, Geisinger’s chief actuary, found himself, along with other members of his profession, in the middle of the health care wars still raging in this political year. Actuaries normally toil far from the limelight, anonymous technicians stereotyped as dull and boring. But as they crunch the numbers for their Affordable Care Act business, their calculations are feeding a roaring national debate over insurance premiums, widely used to gauge the success of President Obama’s health care law. Health plans around the country have just filed proposed rates for 2017. State insurance commissioners are still reviewing them. But questions about the proposed increases are reverberating through the health care system and into the political campaign. “Historical experience is the lifeblood of what we do,” Mr. Wrobel said, in an interview at Geisinger’s headquarters here. “We take that experience, adjust it for the underlying growth of health costs and project it into the future so we can estimate the expected costs for a particular insurance policy. ” Such niceties may be lost in this scorching campaign season. “There is panic and anger as health care costs explode!” Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, wrote in a recent Twitter post, seizing on increases of nearly 60 percent sought by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas. Obama administration officials are more sanguine. Consumers, they say, should not worry. Proposed rate increases are often reduced by state officials. Federal subsidies will generally rise along with premiums, offsetting much of the additional costs, and consumers can, in any event, switch to cheaper health plans next year. But as they prepare for the fourth year of coverage under the Affordable Care Act, many insurers are struggling to find the best ways of providing care to their new customers. The giant UnitedHealth Group, having lost money on individual policies under the federal health law, is pulling out of many insurance exchanges next year. A number of health insurance cooperatives created under the law have shut down. Geisinger is different. During debate on the 2010 health care law, Mr. Obama and members of Congress repeatedly hailed it as a model providing “ care at costs well below average,” in the president’s words. Geisinger serves residents of rural central and northeast Pennsylvania, and its roots in the community are as deep as the coal mines that once flourished here. Dr. David T. Feinberg, the president and chief executive of the Geisinger Health System, said its health plan was losing $30 million a year on coverage sold on the federal exchange in Pennsylvania. But leaving the market here would be unthinkable. “For its shareholders, United made the right decision,” Dr. Feinberg said, “but we don’t answer to shareholders. We answer to the nice people of Danville, Shamokin and Bloomsburg. ” It would be difficult to find a health plan more aligned with the goals of the federal law. The Obama administration recruited a former chief executive of the Geisinger Health Plan, Dr. Richard J. Gilfillan, to be the first director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, created by the health law to test ways to improve care and cut costs. Geisinger has been a pioneer in the use of electronic health records and genomic medicine, recruiting 100, 000 patients for DNA sequencing studies in the last two years. It has embraced “pay for performance,” offering a warranty for major surgical procedures and promising not to charge extra if complications occur. But innovation has been no match for the actuarial surprises dealt out by the Affordable Care Act. Mr. Wrobel said Geisinger had simply underestimated how much care its new customers would need. “Our rates for Medicare, Medicaid and insurance have been relatively stable, but those products have to bear the cost of our losses on exchange business,” Mr. Wrobel said. Last October the Pennsylvania Insurance Department, headed by a former Obama administration official, approved a 20 percent increase in Geisinger’s rates, about half of what the company had requested. “But based on experience,” Mr. Wrobel said, “the 2016 premium rate is too low, so we want to correct it in 2017. ” Julia T. Philips, an actuary who worked 19 years for the state of Minnesota, said insurance regulators generally do not let a company make up for past losses with future rate increases. “But regulators often allow companies to catch up,” she said. “If you assumed that claims would average $400 per member per month in 2015 and the actual cost was $440, you can use the higher number as a starting point in predicting claims costs for 2017. ” Obama administration officials suggest that insurance companies seeking big rate increases have been slow to adapt to the new law. But Geisinger executives welcome innovation, and they have celebrated the reduction in the number of uninsured under the Affordable Care Act. Geisinger is not alone. The Pennsylvania Insurance Department says insurers have proposed premium increases averaging 23. 6 percent for individual coverage for 2017. “People with conditions are now getting treatment,” said Antoinette Kraus, the director of a statewide consumer group, the Pennsylvania Health Access Network, “and it’s more expensive because they were shut out of the market for many years. ” But, she added, “we expect that they’ll eventually become healthier, so we won’t see these huge rate increases every year. ” Kevin J. Counihan, the chief executive of the federal insurance marketplace, acknowledged that “ demand for health care is greater than people expected and is lasting longer than expected. ” In April, before most insurers had filed their rate requests for 2017, the Obama administration began a campaign to play down their significance. “Proposed rates aren’t what consumers pay,” the Department of Health and Human Services said. “Most people receive tax credits and can buy a plan for less than $75 per month. ” Moreover, the administration says that the health law created a competitive market in which consumers can shop for the best deal. As evidence that this market is working, the administration boasts that more than 40 percent of returning consumers switched to different plans for 2016. However, Mr. Wrobel said, such turnover is making it more difficult for insurers to predict costs. “The whole point of what we do, the foundation of good health insurance,” he said, “is to develop relationships with our members and to make investments in their health. It’s not like buying a book on Amazon. ” Besides, he said, substantial numbers of consumers do not receive subsidies. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 12 million people will receive subsidies, in the form of tax credits, next year. But it says that an equal number — three million on the exchanges and nine million buying insurance outside the exchanges — will have to pay the full unsubsidized price. “When we developed rates for 2014,” Mr. Wrobel said, “we had no historical data. It was basically an educated guess. ” Mr. Wrobel said rates were still being affected by a federal policy, adopted in late 2013, that allowed some people to keep and renew insurance that did not meet standards in the Affordable Care Act. “Healthier people chose to keep their plans,” he said, “so the collective cost of care for people buying insurance on the exchange was higher than expected. ” Many insurers hope to profit from the Affordable Care Act, but for Geisinger, the calculus is a little different. “Geisinger has been here for 100 years, and we expect to be here another hundred,” Mr. Wrobel said. “We are going to be taking care of the people in this community one way or another. So it’s really important for this program to be financially stable and sustainable. ” | 1 |
Canada’s strict gun control, including license requirements for gun ownership and complete bans on certain categories of firearms, proved impotent as a terrorist opened fire inside a Quebec mosque Sunday night. [Reuters reports that “six people were killed and eight wounded when [a gunman] opened fire … during Sunday night prayers. ” According to The University of Sydney’s GunPolicy. org, “only licensed gun owners may lawfully acquire, possess or transfer a firearm or ammunition [in Canada]. ” Those seeking a license to own a gun “must pass a background check which considers criminal, mental health, addiction and domestic violence records. ” Additionally, applicants for a gun owner’s license must give “third party character references” and demonstrate “an understanding of firearm safety and the law. ” Those who are able to acquire a license “must and for their firearm licence [sic] every five years,” which basically means the background check is ongoing. Also, the ownership of certain categories of firearms is prohibited and “records … of individual civilians licensed to acquire, possess, sell or transfer a firearm or ammunition” are maintained. As law enforcement officials continue to divulge to journalists more information on the Quebec mosque attack, there is no indication gun laws had an effect in keeping the perpetrator from acquiring the weapons needed to conduct the shooting. The attack was similar to those in other European countries with restrictive gun control laws. For example, twelve people were shot and killed on January 7, 2015, when terrorists opened fire on Charlie Hebdo headquarters in Paris. Just months later, on November 13, 2015, more terrorists in Paris opened fire and killed 130 innocents. These transpired despite France’s ban on entire categories of weapons, and it requires the kind of expanded background checks that the Obama administration, Senators Chris Murphy ( ) and Joe Manchin ( ) and gun controller Gabby Giffords pushed as a way to make Americans safe. More recently, on July 22, 2016, a attack in Munich, Germany, was successfully executed despite similar background checks, gun bans on entire categories of weapons, and licensing requirements for gun ownership. Nine innocents were killed in the Munich attack. Strict gun control failed to protect innocents in Paris and Munich, and it has now failed to protect them in Quebec. AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com. | 1 |
0 Add Comment
AFTER reading a near never ending parade of news items relating to unfathomable, tragic loss and death, the Nation agreed that if the media could find a video of a puppy madly in love with balloons or something, it would be greatly appreciated.
The jolting and harrowing push notifications delivered by countless Irish news apps over the last few days has seen a huge surge in a desire for something to smile or laugh at, as it’s looking like it’s going to be a tough week.
“I know we slag you for posting stories about cat gifs and how you think it’s ‘journalism’ somehow, but we could really do with that now, thanks,” office worker Elaine Curran said in an appeal to the Irish news media, shortly after she sent an ‘I love you’ text to all three of her children which probably had something to do with absorbing some of the regrettable news populating newspaper front pages.
The Nation has requested that a video of a happy-go-lucky pug, preferably a chubby one, completely losing his mind at the sight of some balloons, giving the impression that his heart could explode from joy, be immediately found and uploaded to all online news sites.
“And maybe if he could fall over as well, in a funny way, like we don’t want him to get hurt. God, that’s all we need; a video of an adorable pug hurting itself,” parent Dermot Ferry shared with WWN, only making himself upset.
The Nation said that if a video of a suitably uplifting dog couldn’t be found, it was willing to settle for a video of baby laughing at its own hiccups or just a hug from someone. | 0 |
Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” during a panel discussion segment about President Donald Trump firing FBI Director James Comey, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan said argued that what “obsesses us in Washington” doesn’t necessarily obsess the rest of the country. Noonan said, “I’m thinking of, as we all speak here about this whole Comey drama, what obsesses us in Washington as we well know is not necessarily what obsesses America. What we talk about on this panel, our views are not necessarily reflected out there. I was so struck yesterday with everybody I know in conversations it was all about Comey, the FBI, who is the next guy. ” “I put on the TV, and I see the president wowing them at Liberty University,” she continued. “They got MAGA hats on. I am struck by the distance between our conversation and the national conversation. And I’m struck by the distance between Democrats and Republicans as they approve or disapprove of the Comey thing. It’s an . Democrats were 80 percent. I hate the Comey firing. Republicans were 80 percent. I love the Comey firing. ” | 1 |
VIDEOS 5 things you need to know about the Dakota Access Pipeline protests Early reports of protesters being armed and violent have proven to be misinformation spread to demonize the opposition By Nick Bernabe - October 28, 2016
A small Standing Rock Sioux site in North Dakota called the Sacred Stone Camp has been propelled into the national news narrative following their stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Due in part to independent media coverage of the ongoing standoff, the Sacred Stone camp has grown into a formidable opposition against the $3.8 billion, 1,200-mile long pipeline.
Due to misinformation coming from law-enforcement, political favoritism toward the pipeline builders, and the media’s blatant reluctance to report on the pipeline, it’s hard to tell truth from fiction. Anti-Media , along with our partners in the independent media and our embedded journalist at the opposition encampment, have been covering the unfolding standoff continuously. Here are five things you need to know. 1. Who is opposing the pipeline — and why
The Standing Rock Sioux tribe is leading the opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline. They have been joined by the largest tribal coalition in over 100 years in their stand against the pipeline. The coalition is also comprised of activists, allies, and environmentalists, collectively known as “water protectors,” at the Sacred Stone Camp, an encampment close to the location where the pipeline is planned to cross the Missouri River in North Dakota. According to the Sacred Stone camp website , they are opposing the pipeline because “[t]he Dakota Access threatens everything from farming and drinking water to entire ecosystems, wildlife and food sources surrounding the Missouri .”
The Standing Rock Sioux also say the pipeline is violating treaty land , Sioux territory that was established many years ago by the federal government. “We will not allow Dakota Access to trespass on our treaty territory and destroy our medicines and our culture.”
The opposition to the pipeline spreads across several states and is not opposed solely by Native Americans. Farmers, ranchers, and landowners are also opposed to the pipeline. Many of them have had their land taken from them against their will and given to the pipeline via eminent domain. 2. The U.S. government and the pipeline corporation are continuing a long tradition of disrespecting Native Americans
The United States has a very bad reputation for treating Native Americans, the original inhabitants of this land, as less than human. In many instances in the past, the land where Native Americans lived was deemed to be of higher value than the Natives’ lives.
Such has been the case in North Dakota — not only now, but in the past as well. According to The Atlantic :
“The land beneath the pipeline was accorded to Sioux peoples by the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868. Eleven years later, the U.S. government incited and won the Great Sioux War, and ‘renegotiated’ a new treaty with the Sioux under threat of starvation. In that document, the tribe ceded much of the Laramie land, including the Black Hills of South Dakota, where many whites believed there to be gold.”
After the federal government relegated the Sioux people to the “Great Sioux Reservation” in 1851 , the treaty was re-written and “renegotiated” by force whenever resources were discovered or when the U.S. government wanted land. Essentially, the Sioux people were victims of U.S.-sanctioned murder, and their land was stolen because gold was discovered on it.
Fast forward to 2016 and the Sioux people are once again making a stand on land that was once — and still is, according to the tribe — theirs. How is the government reacting to this stand? By brutally arresting the Native American water protectors for trespassing . If that is not a miscarriage of justice, I don’t know what is.
Further, Energy Transfer Partners, the company pulling the strings behind the DAPL, has deep pockets, and its lobbyists have cozied up to federal, state, and local governments with jurisdiction over the pipeline route. This could explain why the company began its construction of the pipeline on Army Corps of Engineers land without even securing an easement , which is required by law. Dakota Access LLC, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners, has also used the strong-arm of government to force farmers and landowners to hand over their land to the pipeline against their will. 3. Violent acts are being carried out in North Dakota, but not by the water protectors
Violence is breaking out at the Dakota Access Protest site, but the protesters have nothing to do with it. Pipeline police, bolstered by the North Dakota National Guard and sheriffs imported from around the country, have turned the standoff into a war zone. Water protectors are regularly pepper sprayed, tear gassed, and violently arrested. Over the weekend, 127 people were detained in the biggest mass arrest to date.
Militarized police at the Dakota Access Pipeline site are decked out in riot gear, armed with military grade weapons, use armored cars or MRAPs with snipers on top of them, and have regularly used LRADs, a type of mass crowd dispersal weapon that uses a high pitched noise to hurt people’s ears — sometimes permanently .
Early reports of protesters being armed and violent have proven to be instances of misinformation spread by law enforcement apparently seeking to demonize the opposition. No credible reports of violence by the protesters have been confirmed or prosecuted. Nearly all arrests stem from trespassing charges or crimes of journalism.
When protesters initially began using civil disobedience to physically shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline site, they were confronted violently by security guards from British mercenary firm G4S. The mercs sicced dogs and used pepper spray on the protesters in an assault that went viral and helped catalyze even more support for the water protectors. 4. Independent media is under attack at the Dakota Access Pipeline — and the corporate media is ignoring it
Independent media’s broadcasts over the Internet are basically the only reason people around the country and the world now know about the struggle at Standing Rock. Unfortunately, journalists are not immune to the police crackdowns in North Dakota. Dozens of journalists have now been arrested, and an arrest warrant was issued for high-profile journalist Amy Goodman. One independent media outlet, Unicorn Riot , saw four of their journalists arrested in one day in North Dakota. One filmmaker is facing up to 45 years in prison for filming acts of civil disobedience against the pipeline.
Anti-Media ’s journalist on the ground, Derrick Broze, was tased by law enforcement while covering the protests on Thursday as this article was being written.
Meanwhile, the national corporate media ignored the battle against the Dakota Access Pipeline as long as they could. For months, despite the DAPL emergence into the national narrative, ABC and NBC refused to air any coverage about it. A woman was arrested for protesting the pipeline on her own farm after Dakota Access LLC gained access to it against her will via eminent domain — yet there was still no corporate media coverage on the incident. 5. How you can help the opposition
Now that you see what water protectors are up against in North Dakota, here’s what you can do to help. Get yourself to the Sacred Stone Camp. The water protectors need reinforcements as people are regularly arrested. The bigger the stand, the more likely the pipeline’s construction will be halted. Here’s how to get there . Send supplies or donations. Water protectors need your help with supplies and funding. Go to this link to send supplies. Go to this link to donate to the cause. Support independent journalists that risk arrest to bring you the news from the front lines. Follow Sacred Stone Camp on Facebook. Share this article.
For 10 more ways to get involved, click here. | 0 |
A Long Island Rail Road train that crashed in Brooklyn on Wednesday was going more than twice the speed limit when it slammed into a train station, injuring more than 100 people, federal investigators said on Thursday. The train was traveling at more than 10 miles per hour when it hit the end of the tracks at Atlantic Terminal, where the speed limit is 5 m. p. h. said Ted Turpin, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board. He said that federal officials were investigating the crash and had not yet determined the cause. The train rammed into a bumping block during the morning rush, striking a room beyond the track and causing the first two cars to derail. The accident was reminiscent of a deadly crash in September in which a New Jersey Transit train plowed into Hoboken Terminal, killing a woman and injuring over 100 people. (That train was also traveling over twice the speed limit there when it crashed.) On Thursday, Mr. Turpin said the engineer who was operating the Long Island Rail Road train told investigators he could not remember the crash. “He does recall entering into the station and controlling the speed of the train,” Mr. Turpin said at a news conference. “But then the next thing he realized was after the collision. ” Investigators have not released the engineer’s name, but Mr. Turpin said that he was 50 and had started as an engineer at the railroad in 1999. The engineer had started working around midnight on Tuesday and was nearing the end of his shift at the time of the crash, Mr. Turpin said. In the Hoboken crash, the engineer, Thomas Gallagher, also said he did not remember the crash. His lawyer later said that Mr. Gallagher had an undiagnosed sleep disorder and discovered after the crash that he had severe sleep apnea, which disrupts sleep and may cause excessive daytime sleepiness. The engineer of the Long Island Rail Road train has been tested for drugs, but the results were not available, federal investigators said on Thursday. The engineer told investigators that he was not using his cellphone at the time of the crash. Federal investigators said they planned on Friday to interview a conductor and an assistant conductor who were also on the train. They also intend to interview two railroad employees who witnessed the crash. Mr. Turpin noted that a safety technology, known as positive train control, was not in place on the tracks where the crash happened, even though it was possible that the technology could have slowed the train. Officials from the safety board have long called for railroads to install the system to help prevent train accidents, though Mr. Turpin noted it was not required in train terminals. Nearly two years ago, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority secured a nearly $1 billion loan from the Federal Railroad Administration to install positive train control on the Long Island Rail Road and Railroad. Officials at the authority are working to meet a 2018 deadline to install the technology. | 1 |
The N. F. L. playoff picture became much clearer on Sunday, with the Patriots, Raiders and Cowboys all tightening their grips on the top spots. Elsewhere, the Packers threw a wrench in the Lions’ plans in the N. F. C. North, and the A. F. C. South is still a mess. Here’s what we learned in N. F. L. Week 15: ■ There is no quarterback controversy in Dallas. ■ Tom Brady can win in Denver, but that doesn’t mean it will be pretty. The Patriots’ quarterback came into the game with a record on the road against the Broncos (his season ended there in two of the last three seasons) but New England held onto the No. 1 seed in the A. F. C. with a boring victory. More good news for the Patriots: they probably won’t have to face Denver in the playoffs because the Broncos’ season is unraveling quickly. ■ For the first time, fans can post on social media that the Oakland Raiders have qualified for the playoffs. It was 2002, long before Facebook, Twitter or even MySpace, when the Raiders last played a playoff game, but with a win over the San Diego Chargers on Sunday they secured a trip to the playoffs, have a lead in their division, and still have a chance at home field advantage throughout the playoffs. More importantly, the team’s defense secured the victory, which could portend good things going forward. ■ The A. F. C. South is still the ugly duckling division of the N. F. L. with the underwhelming Houston Texans continuing to lead the way (by virtue of a tiebreaker over Tennessee) after Sunday’s win over Jacksonville. The Titans may not be much more fun to watch than Houston, but their upset victory over Kansas City would seemingly indicate that they are the superior team. ■ Green Bay might just do this thing. In a start to the season, the Packers seemed incompetent on both sides of the ball and were quickly falling out of postseason contention. But with four consecutive wins, and Ty Montgomery’s emergence helping to balance out the team’s offense, Green Bay will win the N. F. C. North if they win their two remaining games. A single loss after an winning streak led to a mass exodus from the Dak Prescott bandwagon last week. But the rookie quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys was apparently not willing to go off quietly into the night, having a big first half against Tampa Bay, and then holding off a valiant comeback attempt by the Buccaneers in a Dallas victory. The game was a return to form for Prescott, who threw two interceptions in last week’s loss to the Giants. For some doubters, that loss had restarted the quarterback controversy between Prescott and Tony Romo, which had seemed settled after Prescott and his fellow rookie, Ezekiel Elliott, led Dallas to the N. F. L. ’s best record with a mix of big plays and relatively few mistakes. Against Tampa Bay’s formidable defense, both Dallas rookies showed why the league has come to fear them. Prescott completed 32 of 36 passes for 279 yards, and nabbed his sixth rushing touchdown of the season, breaking a tie with Don Meredith for the franchise record, which Meredith had held since 1966. Elliott was also a driving force, carrying the ball 23 times for 159 yards and a touchdown, and he played to the home crowd in the first half by leaping into an oversized Salvation Army bucket after scoring. He increased his N. F. L. total to 1, 551 rushing yards, becoming just the seventh rookie to run for more than 1, 500. If there was a criticism of Dallas to be made it was that they had to rely on Dan Bailey to make four of his six field goal attempts to secure the win, but the team showed a great deal of resilience after Tampa Bay reeled off 14 unanswered points in the third quarter. Overall, the game was a mixed bag for Jameis Winston, who looked dominant in the third quarter but also personally accounted for four turnovers in the game, including three interceptions. He also had a costly unsportsmanlike penalty potentially cost his team a touchdown in the first half. Given the ball with a chance to win it as time was running out, Winston threw an interception on that effectively ended the game. With the win, Dallas continues to be the No. 1 seed in the N. F. C. and the team has a lead in their division over the Giants. Tampa Bay, meanwhile, was knocked out of the second position in the N. F. C. with the Washington Redskins at having a narrow lead over the Buccaneers. The Oakland Raiders have risen to the top of the standings this season thanks to a offense. But it was gutsy work in the trenches by the team’s defense that led to a victory over the San Diego Chargers, putting the Raiders back in the playoffs for the first time since 2002. Struggling offensively for much of the game, the Raiders were down in the fourth quarter when Kenneth Farrow of the Chargers ran the ball up the middle. He was stopped two yards short of the line of scrimmage and as he went down, Perry Riley of the Raiders stripped the ball away. After the officials had pulled enough players off the pile, Malcolm Smith came up with the ball, giving it back to the Raiders’ offense on the line. Oakland only came away with a field goal off the turnover, but the Raiders’ defense came through yet again, forcing the Chargers to punt. Given the ball with 6:27 left in a tie game, Derek Carr engineered a drive that ended with a field goal by Sebastian Janikowski that put the Raiders in the lead to stay. The defense then came through yet again on San Diego’s last drive, intercepting Rivers so Carr could kneel on the ball to seal the win. It was a slow day for Carr, who is considered by many to be a candidate for Most Valuable Player. He completed 19 of 30 passes for 213 yards and 1 touchdown, but he did just enough to let Janikowski, the only remaining member of the last Raiders playoff team, seal the victory. With the win, the Raiders have a lead over the Kansas City Chiefs in the A. F. C. West with two games remaining. Oakland closes out their season with a home game against the Indianapolis Colts and then travel to Denver for a division matchup against the Broncos. Tom Brady wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t need to be against the struggling Denver Broncos. Brady started the game 0 for 6 on passing attempts — tying a career high — and he completed just 50 percent of his passes for the game, but with the help of LeGarrette Blount’s 15th rushing touchdown and Stephen Gostkowski’s three field goals, the New England Patriots beat the Broncos . With the win, the Patriots locked up their eighth straight A. F. C. East division title. While the Patriots’ offense played things conservatively, with Brady completing just 16 of 32 passes for 188 yards, they got 95 rushing yards from Dion Lewis and the only true highlight of the game was when Blount ran in yet another score, breaking Curtis Martin’s franchise record for rushing touchdowns, which Martin set in 1995 and equaled in 1996. New England has a home game against the Jets next week and then finishes its season on the road against the Miami Dolphins. If the Green Bay Packers fulfill Aaron Rodgers’ promise to “run the table” after a start, which would secure the team the N. F. C. North title, it may be because the team finally found a reliable running back in the form of an unknown young wide receiver. Ty Montgomery’s big first half, and a of a second half in which the Chicago Bears erased a Packers lead, resulted in a victory for Green Bay. In the end it was Aaron Rodgers who saved the Packers. On with 40 seconds left in regulation, he threw a perfect deep ball (60 yards) to Jordy Nelson to set up the field goal by Mason Crosby. The win came in spite of Chicago having the biggest comeback in the team’s history, which dates back to 1920, and it went a long way to opening up Green Bay’s postseason chances. The Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions both lost, which means if the Packers, who face Detroit in Week 17, win the team’s two remaining games, they will win the division. temperatures in Chicago did not prevent either team from scoring, with Montgomery, who still wears No. 88 after being drafted as a receiver last season, having the best game of his young career. He has carried the ball 16 times for 162 yards, including 2 touchdowns and a scamper in the second quarter that showed off his development at the position as he spun out of a tackle at the line of scrimmage, shed another tackler down field, and then turned on the jets on the long run. Later in the second quarter, a run that helped set up a field goal was perhaps even more impressive as Montgomery carried a pile of players several yards down the field at the end of the play, showing off a power aspect of his game that had thus far been missing. The fourth quarter comeback by Matt Barkley and the Bears’ offense was the biggest by either team in 194 games against each other, but a brutal third quarter, that included a fumble on a sack and two interceptions by Barkley proved too much to overcome when all was said and done. The Packers will look to extend the team’s winning streak next week in a home game against the struggling Vikings, and could get some help in terms of a division title if the Lions lose in a tough matchup against the Dallas Cowboys. ’u200b So often already in his young N. F. L. career, Odell Beckham Jr. has seemed to pull the Giants to victory with his receiving gifts. It has almost come to be expected. And the Detroit Lions still could not stop him. A touchdown grab by Beckham late in the fourth quarter Sunday helped the Giants prevail, at MetLife Stadium in a game between two of the N. F. C. ’s best teams. At the Giants now have the conference’s record. Detroit fell to . — Zach Schonbrun Read our entire Giants game report here. Elsewhere around the league in Week 15: ■ The Baltimore Ravens survived a desperate comeback bid by the Philadelphia Eagles, escaping with a victory Sunday after stopping a conversion with 4 seconds left. If Baltimore defeats Pittsburgh on Christmas Day and Cincinnati in the finale, the Ravens will enter the postseason as AFC North champions. ■ The collapse of the Minnesota Vikings appears complete, as the team is now after a blowout loss to the Indianapolis Colts. The team’s start to the season is a distant memory. ■ Ryan Succop kicked a field goal into the wind as time expired to give the Tennessee Titans a victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on a frigid Sunday and keep the Titans tied with Houston atop the AFC South. Succop came up short on his first try at the winner, but Chiefs coach Andy Reid had called a timeout just before the snap. Given a second chance, Succop knocked it through with a couple feet to spare as the Titans poured off the bench to celebrate. ■ Drew Brees snapped out of a funk to throw for 389 yards and four touchdowns, leading the New Orleans Saints to a victory over Arizona in the N. F. L. ’s game this season. Brees, who had zero touchdown passes and six interceptions in his previous two games, threw no interceptions. Brandin Cooks caught seven passes for a 186 yards, including touchdown plays of 65 and 45 yards. ■ The Cleveland Browns’ losing streak is at 14 games this season after losing to the Buffalo Bills, . ■ The Steelers scored 15 unanswered points in the second half and won over the Cincinnati Bengals with Eli Rogers catching the touchdown from Ben Roethlisberger with 7:29 left in the game. ■ Brock Osweiler, the prized free agent quarterback who was brought in this to stabilize the Houston Texans, was benched after throwing two interceptions, but his replacement, Tom Savage, passed for 260 yards and helped lead a victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars, which kept Houston ahead of the Titans in the A. F. C. South by way of a tiebreaker. | 1 |
A school district in Kentucky has canceled the school’s “Stallions” mascot after a petition from the community argued that the mascot was “inappropriate and sexist. ”[The petition, which garnered just over 200 signatures, was successful in its efforts to have the Fayette County school district changed the new Frederick Douglass High School’s mascot from the “Stallions” to something more appropriate for female sports teams. This is inappropriate and sexist when you consider the definition from “YourDictionary” … ”The definition of a stallion is a male horse that has not been castrated, used for breeding or is slang for a powerful and virile man who has a lot of lovers” and from Wikipedia … ”because of their instincts as herd animals, they may be prone to aggressive behavior, particularly toward other stallions, and thus require careful management by knowledgeable handlers. However, with proper training and management, stallions are effective equine athletes at the highest levels of many disciplines. ” Superintendent Manny Caulk announced on Tuesday that the high school would get rid of the stallion mascot in favor of a more horse mascot, which he believes will be more appropriate as a symbol for the several female sports teams that Frederick Douglass High School will field. Despite the seemingly harmless nature of the mascot, Caulk felt it necessary to claim that the never intended to offend any members of their community with the choice: “Since the public announcement of the mascot Monday, we have received feedback from some community members who have concerns about the mascot and we want assure our constituents that there was absolutely no intent to offend or upset anyone. We also recognize that there is support from others in our community to honor the former stallions of Hamburg Place farm,” Caulk said. Caulk declared that the students of Frederick Douglass High School will have the opportunity to choose their mascot from a slate of options: “Moving forward, we will keep the Keeneland green and orange colors and horse image in the school logo to pay homage to Lexington’s rich history in the horse industry, but we will allow the incoming students of Frederick Douglass High School to choose their mascot,” Superintendent Caulk said in a statement late Tuesday. “We’ve already received suggestions of Thoroughbreds or Racers as possible alternatives to Stallions and we will solicit additional ideas from our students before they choose a mascot grounded in the land’s equestrian heritage. ” Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about social justice and libertarian issues for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart. com | 1 |
Breitbart News Senior Editor MILO declared that “America has a problem with fake hate crimes,” during his talk at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs tonight, citing numerous news stories that turned out to be false.[ “The left didn’t learn anything from the beatdown they suffered on election night. In fact they are on their identity politics,” claimed MILO. “Conservatives aren’t just deplorables and racists, we’re ‘white nationalist hatemongers’. And white women and the working class who voted for Trump are too. They’ve ramped up their fake news activities to prove how wrong we all are, and their top weapon is fake hate crimes. ” “America has a problem with fake hate crimes. The left is always searching for the next big outrage, and sometimes when the pressure gets too high, they just decide to make them up,” he continued. “That is basically how the UVA rape fantasy that ran in Rolling Stone came about by the way. This trend has just accelerated since the election. Fake attacks on Muslim women seem to be in vogue right now. But it isn’t a new trend. I wrote an article in May 2016 that documented 100 fake hate crimes in the last decade. 100 of them! And surely there were more that just didn’t make it into the public eye. ” “I bring this up because Colorado Springs is part of the list. In 2015, threats were left outside of a predominantly black church referencing the KKK and a second one says ‘Black men beware, you are the target’,” MILO declared. “There’s just one problem … . This is the evil racist local police found behind the messages. ” In Scooby Doo unmasking fashion, MILO displayed the image of the black perpetrator onto the projector. “Woops, it’s a black guy!” he announced. “Sadly, this is part of an increasing trend in the US towards sensational but untrue stories. Fake hate crimes are the original fake news. ” “I mentioned the UVA rape case, which was a complete fabrication happily carried by the leftist media. Of course everyone with a brain knows that rape culture on campus is a myth,” he concluded. “1 in 4 women on campus will not be raped, and American universities are not more dangerous than African nations. ” “Sorry about it. ” Written from prepared remarks. MILO wears glasses by Givenchy, $350. Distressed blue jeans by True Religion, $329. Brown leather belt with gold buckle by Louis Vuitton, $450. Light pink dress shirt by Brooks Brothers, $92. Sparkly purple suit jacket by Angelino, $225. Burgundy crushed velvet slippers by Crockett Jones, $370. Socks by Ralph Lauren, 3 pairs for $21. 98. Jewellery and pearls, too much money to count. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
By Jason Easley on Fri, Oct 28th, 2016 at 1:02 pm If Donald Trump wants to keep Arizona in the Republican column, he will have to spend some of his very limited time, money, and resources there, because Hillary Clinton is campaigning in the red state next week. Share on Twitter Print This Post
If Donald Trump wants to keep Arizona in the Republican column, he will have to spend some of his very limited time, money, and resources there, because Hillary Clinton is campaigning in the red state next week.
The Clinton announced that the Democratic nominee would be spending part of the last week of the campaign in Arizona, “On Wednesday, November 2, Hillary Clinton will campaign in Phoenix, Arizona, days before Election Day. Clinton will lay out what is at stake in the election. With more people voting in this election than any in history, Clinton will urge Arizona voters to take advantage of in-person early voting. Voters can check their registration status and early vote location at iwillvote.com.”
The fact that Clinton will be in usually reliably red Arizona in November during the final week of the presidential campaign tells voters all they need to know about the state of the presidential race.
Hillary Clinton is in such a good position that she can afford to spend some time during the last week of the campaign trying to turn red states blue.
The Trump campaign already deployed VP nominee Mike Pence to Utah in a bid to save that dark red state from falling, and it looks like they will have to devote resources to saving Arizona to prevent Clinton from winning a state that has been a given for Republicans in previous elections.
The Trump campaign is broke. The nominee had to give his campaign $10 million so that they could afford to buy air time in battleground states for their ads.
The Clinton campaign is trying to stretch Trump past his breaking point by making a serious play for Arizona. It is a brilliant move from a campaign that has outwitted its Republican opponent at every turn. | 0 |
After Trump’s Prediction Was Brushed Off Over A Year Ago, It JUST Came TRUE Posted on October 30, 2016 by Dawn Parabellum in Politics Share This
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump made a prediction over a year ago that many brushed aside. Most people, even those on the right, didn’t believe the billionaire and real estate mogul at the time, but now that his prediction has been proven correct, many are changing their tune about Trump and actually listening to what he has to say. Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump
Donald Trump doesn’t always say things in the most eloquent of ways. He often speaks what’s on his mind with no filter and doesn’t seem to care much about who he offends. His politically incorrect way of speaking causes too many to disregard what he has to say, but that’s all about to change after what just happened. Trump called this one over a year ago, and now, thanks to Hillary’s email scandal, he’s been proven accurate.
The FBI announced Friday that it had uncovered new emails relating to its investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information. This was discovered while conducting a separate investigation into the perverted and disgusting sexting habits of former Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, who is the estranged husband of Hillary’s closest aide, Huma Abedin, who is also front and center in Hillary Clinton’s email scandals.
Donald Trump saw this coming from a mile away, pointing fingers at Weiner as a potential national security threat all the way back in August of 2015. “It came out that Huma Abedin knows all about Hillary’s private illegal emails,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “ Huma’s PR husband, Anthony Weiner, will tell the world. ” Trump has been now been proven right. It came out that Huma Abedin knows all about Hillary’s private illegal emails. Huma’s PR husband, Anthony Weiner, will tell the world.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 3, 2015
It looks like the Donald does know a thing or two about politics and corrupt Democrats. In July, Trump said he didn’t like the thought of “Huma going home at night and telling Anthony Weiner all of these secrets.” Trump also sounded the alarm about Weiner as early September 2013, when he wrote that Huma should “dump the sicko Weiner” because he was “a calamity who is bringing her down with him.” Trump in July: “I don’t like Huma going home at night and telling Anthony Weiner all of these secrets” pic.twitter.com/ksqWCQ4iAd
— Colin Jones (@colinjones) October 28, 2016
Donald Trump’s accurate prediction is sure to make waves in the political scene. It turns out that Weiner may bring down himself, his wife, and Hillary Clinton all at once. It never pays to be a perverted and corrupt Democrat.
Hillary Clinton cannot seem to surround herself with anyone who is not neck deep in scandals and disturbing behavior. It’s kind of funny that it’s now been revealed that she should have listened to Donald Trump long ago. I bet that doesn’t make her very happy at all. | 0 |
By Nick Bernabe at theantimedia.org
A small Standing Rock Sioux site in North Dakota called the Sacred Stone Camp has been propelled into the national news narrative following their stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Due in part to independent media coverage of the ongoing standoff, the Sacred Stone camp has grown into a formidable opposition against the $3.8 billion, 1,200-mile long pipeline.
Due to misinformation coming from law-enforcement, political favoritism toward the pipeline builders, and the media’s blatant reluctance to report on the pipeline, it’s hard to tell truth from fiction. Anti-Media , along with our partners in the independent media and our embedded journalist at the opposition encampment, have been covering the unfolding standoff continuously. Here are five things you need to know.
1. Who is opposing the pipeline — and why The Standing Rock Sioux tribe is leading the opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline. They have been joined by the largest tribal coalition in over 100 years in their stand against the pipeline. The coalition is also comprised of activists, allies, and environmentalists, collectively known as “water protectors,” at the Sacred Stone Camp, an encampment close to the location where the pipeline is planned to cross the Missouri River in North Dakota. According to the Sacred Stone camp website , they are opposing the pipeline because “[t]he Dakota Access threatens everything from farming and drinking water to entire ecosystems, wildlife and food sources surrounding the Missouri .”
The Standing Rock Sioux also say the pipeline is violating treaty land , Sioux territory that was established many years ago by the federal government. “We will not allow Dakota Access to trespass on our treaty territory and destroy our medicines and our culture.”
The opposition to the pipeline spreads across several states and is not opposed solely by Native Americans. Farmers, ranchers, and landowners are also opposed to the pipeline. Many of them have had their land taken from them against their will and given to the pipeline via eminent domain.
2. The U.S. government and the pipeline corporation are continuing a long tradition of disrespecting Native Americans
The United States has a very bad reputation for treating Native Americans, the original inhabitants of this land, as less than human. In many instances in the past, the land where Native Americans lived was deemed to be of higher value than the Natives’ lives.
Such has been the case in North Dakota — not only now, but in the past as well. According to The Atlantic :
“The land beneath the pipeline was accorded to Sioux peoples by the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868. Eleven years later, the U.S. government incited and won the Great Sioux War, and ‘renegotiated’ a new treaty with the Sioux under threat of starvation. In that document, the tribe ceded much of the Laramie land, including the Black Hills of South Dakota, where many whites believed there to be gold.” | 0 |
We are witnessing the unraveling of the fabric of constitutional government, and only a fool can believe it will end well. [The nastiest opponents to President Trump inside and out of government apparently feel justified in using “any means necessary” to defeat and remove him. Every day sees more evidence of a desire not only to block his policies but to drive him from office. While it does not yet rise to the level of an organized conspiracy, it does raise serious issues of constitutional fidelity. First, in the weeks following the November election, we saw street protest and marches, followed by lawsuits, then leaks from inside government, and then talk of “impeachment” over crimes for which no evidence exists. And folks, in the words of Al Jolson, you ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s probably going to get worse. The seeds of this “cultural embarrassment” over Trump’s victory were planted in the days immediately following the November 8 election: These efforts have at least three obvious things in common: desperation born of utter shock at Trump’s election victory elitist arrogance and the active participation and support from the nation’s major media organizations. Yet, there is another novel element interwoven in these events that is even more dangerous — dangerous not simply as a political obstacle to Trump’s agenda, but inherently dangerous to the survival of our country. That novel element is the active, conscious subversion of lawful Presidential orders and initiatives by the permanent civil service apparatus called the “senior bureaucracy. ” It is also being called the “Deep State,” meaning the part of the government that is immune to political appointment and political accountability. And most dangerous of all is the involvement of our nation’s intelligence agencies in the leaks aimed at embarrassing the President. The earliest news stories about an alleged “Russian connection” openly named America’s intelligence operations as the source. Now comes this month’s FBI testimony that the agency has been conducting an investigation of the Trump campaign, and yet the FBI still has not cited any evidence of any that justifies the investigation. This involvement of intelligence agencies and the FBI in investigations — and the subsequent leaking of information gathered in the surveillance — puts into question the President’s ability to trust the information provided to him by those agencies. And THAT, my friends, can seriously impair his ability to manage national security policy and any international or crisis that occurs. The theme of an “illegitimate presidency” provides a veneer of moral justification for seemingly disconnected acts of political sabotage. If resistance to Trump’s policies is resistance to “tyranny” by a “usurper,” then nothing is out of bounds or off limits. This “ ” arrogance is what makes the campaign potentially lethal for constitutional government. The effort to paint President Trump as a usurper who deserves to be thrown out of office is unprecedented in its scope and intensity, and it will have unintended consequences for the Republic. This week there were revelations from the House Intelligence Committee supporting Trump’s allegation of Obama regime surveillance of the Trump campaign and transition. Intelligence gathered by lawful wiretaps of foreign agent activities recorded “incidental” conversations involving persons inside or close to Trump campaign. Those “intercepted” conversations reportedly had nothing to do with alleged “Russian hacking” of the election, nor did they reveal any “collusion” with Russian agents. Yet, contrary to law, the conversations were shared with Obama White House staff and then with the media. How do we explain the bizarre obsession of Democrat leaders and the media with the “Russian connection”? Not one tiny shred of evidence has been produced by anyone to show any Trump campaign collusion with Russian activities connected to the 2016 election. And yet, the media and Democrat opponents (sorry, I repeat myself) continue to raise that specter to keep alive the myth of a “stolen election. ” In the last days of the Obama administration, new rules were signed into law by Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the NSA Director as administrative amendments to Executive Order 12333, rules allowing the distribution of certain raw intelligence data to 16 additional government agencies at home and abroad. It may have been those new rules which facilitated the leaking of information concerning conversations Trump’s nominee for Mike Flynn, had with the Russian Ambassador — conversations which the FBI later said broke no laws. What this week’s revelations show is not any Russian collusion with Trump to influence the election but nearly the exact opposite: elements of the Obama government colluded with intelligence agencies to spy on the Trump campaign — or at a minimum, to use information gathered by surveillance to attack and undermine the Trump campaign team’s transition plans for an orderly changing of the guard. Opposition to Trump policies is to be expected, and by hostile bureaucrats was not unknown in the first year of the Reagan administration and other governmental changeovers. But there are legitimate and lawful means of opposition and illegitimate ones — even illegal ones, like the leaking of classified information. If the saboteurs inside government expect the American public and tens of millions of Trump supporters to tolerate organized, incipient treason against constitutional government, they are mistaken. | 1 |
A joint statement issued by Russia, Iran, and their allies in Syria denounced the U. S. missile strike on a Syrian airbase said to have launched a chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians and threatened retaliation if further such attacks occur. [“The United States crossed red lines by attacking Syria, from now on we will respond to anyone, including America if it attacks Syria and crosses the red lines. America knows very well our ability and capabilities to respond well to them, [and] we will respond without taking into consideration any reaction and consequences,” read the statement, as transcribed by ABC News. “Rest assured that we will liberate Syria from all kinds of occupying forces, it does not matter from where they came to the occupied part of Syria,” the statement added. “Russia and Iran will not allow the United States to be the only superpower in world. ” According to the statement, Syria and its patrons are “closely and deeply following American forces’ moves and presence” in both Syria and Iraq and “consider them an occupying force. ” Russia and Iran stated, “we, as Syria’s allies, will increase our military support toward Syria and support its people in many other ways. ” On Friday, Russia suspended military cooperation with the United States in Syria, including an end to the “deconfliction” agreement that was meant to prevent accidental hostile encounters between Russian and American pilots. “Amid the missile strikes, it is hardly reasonable to talk about any more increase in the risk, as the risk has increased considerably,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Over the weekend, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani urged “the Syrian people and army” to “give a response that makes Americans regret their attack. ” “Americans have never acted within international frameworks, and one instance is the sanctions they impose against Iran, unreasonably considering themselves as the world’s leader,” complained Rouhani, who was hailed as a “moderate” leader by the Obama administration. notes that Lebanon’s Hezbollah, designated a terrorist organization by the U. S. State Department, was a signatory to the statement. | 1 |
Un orangután gana el Premio Planeta de los Simios 2016 SUS COMPETIDORES HAN ARROJADO PLÁTANOS EN SEÑAL DE PROTESTA Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría
Un orangután llamado Jacinto se ha llevado el Planeta de los Simios 2016 y los 600.000 euros con los que está dotado el premio gracias “la prosa primitiva y vanguardista” de su obra “Te daré un mañana mejor”.
Un año más, los Reyes presidieron la cena de un certamen al que este año se presentaron más de cuatrocientos simios de todo el mundo. A la fiesta asistieron más de quinientas personas y unos trescientos animales, entre simios y monos. No faltaron los representantes de las principales instituciones políticas y jurídicas del Estado, y así se pudo ver junto al resto de mamíferos al presidente de la Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, con la vicepresidenta del Gobierno Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría y el Presidente de la Asociación de Circos y Zoológicos Alfonso Carcaso.
Sobre las 23:30 de la noche de ayer, Fernando Delgado, presidente del jurado integrado por Chopi, Juan Eslava Galán, Aurelio, Pere Gimferré, Yuma, Carmen Posadas, Katanga, Rosa Regás y Javi, anunciaba el nombre del ganador. El finalista, el mono bonobo N´tua, mostró su satisfacción al recoger el premio masturbándose repetidas veces sobre el galardón.
Los aplausos y gruñidos fueron empañados por las acusaciones vertidas desde ciertos medios de comunicación, según las cuales la novela ganadora no habría sido escrita por el orangután Jacinto sino por un negro. | 0 |
Former Hillary Clinton operative Huma Abedin is reportedly “working hard” to save her marriage with former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner, just months after the pair separated as a result of his multiple sexting scandals. [Sources close to the Abedin family told the New York Post that “Huma has been working hard on her relationship with Anthony. He has been spending 80 to 90 percent of his time at the [Irving Place apartment] they share. If there is a disagreement, he goes to his mother’s apartment in Brooklyn. ” “Both [his and her] families are hoping they will reconcile,” the source continued. Another source supported this story, saying that the couple’s separation was “more for optics for the campaign and pressure from Hillary’s camp. ” The potential reconciliation is perhaps surprising given Weiner’s multiple sexting scandals. The first, exposed in 2011 by the late Andrew Breitbart and dubbed ‘Weinergate,’ led to Weiner’s resignation from Congress and the issuing of a public apology. In 2013, having declared himself a candidate to be mayor of New York, other photos were published of Weiner sexting another woman under the name ‘Carlos Danger.’ Despite the revelation, Weiner did not pull out the race and eventually finished fifth with just 4. 9 percent of the vote. In August last year, Abedin revealed that she was separating from Weiner after yet another sexting incident, although she said the pair would continue to work together to raise their son, who could even be seen in one of Weiner’s photos. EXCLUSIVE: Anthony Weiner sexted a busty brunette while his son was in bed with him https: . pic. twitter. — New York Post (@nypost) August 29, 2016, Last October, Weiner checked into a sex addiction facility to overcome his urges, although he was reportedly forced to leave early having run out of money to pay for it. He was also investigated by the FBI over claims he had been sexting a girl. A laptop examined in that investigation reportedly contained emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server, as both Weiner and Abedin used the device. This development led FBI Director James Comey to announce that the bureau its investigation of Clinton’s handling of classified information. The Clinton campaign to this day claims the Comey announcement caused significant damage to her candidacy. The girl claimed that Weiner sent her nude photos, shared pornographic videos with her, discussed his “rape fantasies,” and requested that she undress and masturbate during video calls. In January, media reports revealed that federal prosecutors were looking into potential charges against Weiner for child pornography, However, despite all this, Abedin is apparently “still in love” with Weiner, blaming the “pressures of the campaign and presidential race and him drifting off into obscurity” for his latest relapse. “A lot of [their] friends believe this is an illness, that he is sick. [But] Huma takes it into consideration that there’s been no affair, or physical contact that anybody is aware of. He never met [the women],” the family friend added. You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 1 |
It wasn’t long ago that the Left represented the anti-establishment wing in politics. They used to fight against globalism (remember the anti-globalization movement?) even if their motives were different from those of today’s anti-globalists, as well as being against censorship, imperialist wars, and the expanding powers of governments and corporations. But today, you see leftists protesting against Brexit, attacking and censoring anyone who disagrees with the establishment (using Twitter on their Apple products while sipping on their Starbucks coffee), and are calling for war in Syria to challenge the Russians. So, just how the hell did did they end up becoming the patsies for the elites?
To understand, we must go back to 2011 when the Occupy movement was ongoing. The Occupy protests, which now seem like ages ago, came about as a response to the economic downturn with the people realizing that they were being screwed by the system. We can debate endlessly about exactly who these people were and the motives behind them, but the important fact is that, to the elites, it was a sign that the people were waking up and challenging their power.
The elites were in a panic as this was the first time in post-war history that the people of West mobilized in mass to threaten their rule. So, the cabals decided that they needed to act fast before the whole movement evolved to a full-blown revolution. And they already had a plan in mind: the never antiquated strategy of divide and rule.
The Diversion
When the people are discontent and angry from being powerless and dispossessed, the pressure will mount and it won’t go anywhere. The people want to vent out their frustrations. The elites know that responding directly with repression only inspires greater desire to rise up, so instead of fighting it, they prefer to re-channel that pent up energy elsewhere.
On February 2012, with the Occupy movement still raging, the elites were given that golden opportunity—or, rather, they created one—when a black teenager was shot dead in Florida: the none other than the infamous Trayvon Martin case. The shooter wasn’t even a full white, but the elites jumped at the chance and used their control of the media to throw everything they had on it; anything to divert the public attention away from them. With their efforts, it quickly became the biggest story of America.
But they didn’t stop there. Police shootings, which have always been happening and to all races, were also highly publicized by the mainstream media to stoke liberal outrage and racial tensions that led to the creation of Black Lives Matter movement—a movement that is financed by George Soros and others to stir up unrests across America.
Did the elites convert Occupy protesters into SJW patsies?
The diversion was complete as the people were now more interested in racial issues than the “1%” who were dictating their lives. The Occupy movement faded away and the people were now venting out their anger elsewhere. Although I don’t have as much proof as with the rise of BLM movement, I strongly suspect that the resurgence of social justice warriors around the same time is also the work of the elites who want the Leftists to target fellow citizens over asinine cultural issues rather than the established order.
The Strategy
Back in 19th century, Karl Marx claimed that religion and nationalism was being used to distract the masses from the fact that they were being oppressed under capitalism. If we were to apply this concept to the world today, the culture wars going on now are distractions to keep the masses from undermining the power of the elites.
The goal the elites is simple: divide the masses and let them fight each other so that they will never come together to topple those in power. Meanwhile, they themselves focus on expanding their own wealth and continue to implement institutional control to further their globalist plans. The worst case scenario the elites want to avoid is to have the common people unite as one, so they must do everything they can to fragment them by creating as many divisions as possible.
My understanding of their modus operandi is this: 1) Use hot-button issues to stir up controversy (something that doesn’t affect them like gay marriage, race issues, and all other politically correct nonsense). 2) Have the Leftists either get outraged or do something that will provoke a reaction from the Right. 3) Let the people vent out their anger onto each other and get at each other’s throats. 4) When the issue fades away, foment a new controversy to repeat the whole process. By cycling through them over and over again, the elites are able to maintain the status quo and keep the people from uniting against them.
Thus, we have our current situation where the masses are divided with blacks against whites, women against men, Islam and atheism against Christianity, Left against Right, and so on, but no more anti-globalization, Tea Party movement, or Occupy Wall Street.
As long as those on the left continue berating the right as racists, sexists, and bigots who are controlled by corporations and the right in turn accuse the left of being degenerate, socialist slackers who just want freebies from a nanny government, nothing will change. As long as the two sides see each others as enemies who are stupid and ignorant, and getting in the way of creating a decent society, the people will remain divided. As long as the rest of the population go berserk over wedding cakes for homosexuals, the latest “misogynist” outrage, or how a lion named Cecil got shot, the elites will continue to win.
A Couple More Points To Consider I know they look like an occupying army, but there’s nothing to be alarmed about. They’re just your friendly neighborhood police doing their jobs to protect you from the “terrorists.”
First, while this article has been focused on how the Left has been toyed by the globalist elites, let’s not forget that the Right are not totally immune to their influence either. Remember how Neo-cons ( globalists puppets disguised as conservatives ) effectively lured the conservatives in America through faith and patriotism? The support they got from that base was the impetus to launch their war against Iraq based on bullshit evidences of WMD’s and Saddam–Al-Queda link. While the Right has changed a lot since then, there are still “conservatives” today who are itching for a war with Russia because… USA! USA! USA! .
Second, it is crucial to remember that although the main goal is to maintain divide and rule, it is not the end of it. The elites have far more sinister aims. By raising hell in societies through demographic conflicts and terrorism, the elites are preparing for a total social control. I get the feeling that the elites are letting the chaos and violence run its course so that the people from the two opposing camps will join together in their approval of new government measures for social control.
No matter their differences, when the people get terrified of savagery and disorder, they’ll welcome the state to intervene in the name of security. Europe is already getting used to large military presence on their streets while the US government is seemingly preparing for a war against their own citizens . A leaked Soros memo also reveals that the BLM movement is potentially being used to federalize the US police . While many people seem to be concerned about violence and terrorism, it seems those are just tools used by the elites to justify a totalitarian state in the near future.
The Culture Wars: Necessary Fight Or Engineered Distraction?
The issue of culture wars is not an easy one as they are important in many ways, but are still forms of distraction implemented by the elites.
On one hand, we are playing into the hands of elites by raging against social justice and feminist pigshits instead of trying to stop the globalists, Zionists , bankers, mega-corporations , and the governments from undermining our existence. Really, do the issues of politically-incorrect Halloween costumes and whatever bathroom trannies use matter more than the fact that the middle-class is being destroyed, revelations of massive corruption in the DNC, the coming police-state, and the globalist wars that are causing death and destruction around the world? All the drama of outrage and counter-outrage is silly when the elites are snickering as their new world order is taking shape.
On the other hand, culture does matter in many ways. Uncontrolled immigration, anti-male laws, and censorship are all very relevant issues. And as much of the Leftists are now serving as pawns of the establishment, the situation isn’t exactly the divide and rule model I described above. In a way, we are now forced to fight the Left and everyone else who are getting in the way of fighting the globalist elites.
So, does this mean we should ally with those who scorn us? Or should we continue playing the elite’s games and bicker with their SJW drones? I don’t have a good answer, but whatever we choose to do, I believe it is crucial for us to focus our battles and not get trolled into petty issues that the mainstream media wants us to focus on. We should always keep in mind that it is always those at the top who are the true enemies of mankind.
Conclusion: Is There Still Hope?
Although we no longer see grassroots movements and popular mobilization, the current US election has shown that the people are still awake and sick of the establishment. To me, that alone is a hopeful sign that people are still willing to challenge the ruling class.
With Bernie Sanders brought down by the establishment and his supporters scattered into different camps, the only anti-establishment movement now is the presidential campaign led by Donald Trump. This is why we are seeing unprecedented efforts by the elites to bring down Trump and use disgruntled Leftists against his supporters.
I have my doubts about Trump , but he is thousand times preferable to the certain nightmare that Hillary Clinton will bring to America and the world if she gets elected. But besides voting, I believe that it is more important for the people themselves to wake up and be aware of the methods of control that are being implemented upon us. We can’t constantly expect some knight in shinning armor to come rally us; we must take the initiative ourselves and be willing to fight for our own destiny.
Read More: The Elites Have One Rule For Themselves, And One Rule For The Rest Of Us
| 0 |
October 28, 2016 at 11:28 AM
Reflecting on the WMD called ZIRP, I conclude that ZIRP is the best evidence of the “New World (dis)Order WORL” weapon of mass destruction in which we’ve lived for the last 8 years. This represents the equivalent of having no sheriff in town.
A simple Occam’s Razor view of ZIRP clearly shows interest rates are the equivalent of a sheriff making sure we adhere to the Constitution, both a document that helps insure that monetary rules are followed while being protected against undue harm via the Sheriff’s color of authority.
When rates reflect reality we have a monetary Sheriff watching over our fiscal safety. When rates are zero we see a total absence of law in the world.
Interest rates are the monetary rule makers and law enforcement that drive the reality of risk and reward. If a person, company or country follows the rule and obeys the normal laws of economics, finance and investment and adheres to some reasonable variant of Say’s Law, they are rewarded with reasonable rates that helps them create value,wealth and worth by accessing some form of debt that aids in that growth. The investor is rewarded with a return commensurate with risk. If the same entity runs rampant, disregarding the restraints of interest on their investments, they are called to account and forced to pay for their transgressions.
When ZIRP drives out the rule of law; the equivalent of the interest rate Sheriff being driven out of town; put out to pasture, the potential for high crimes and misdemeanors ramps upward exponentially. Is it an accident that we have seen the ascension of crime family actions that now brings us to ZIRP and its attendant insanity. The last 60 years has seen the constant unrelenting actions against real money and the reality of interest rates as one of the strongest arbiters the world of finance. ZIRP has replaced the rule of law.
Is it an accident that we see the criminal rentier class rolling in with heavy weapons, tanks and bombs, whether in a hard kinetic form that destroys entire countries, cities and neighborhoods (banks now have their own armies) or rolling in with their interest rate WDMs?
This ultra wealthy rentier class strip mines the little wealth remaining in the hands of We, the People with hard force, demented interpretations and variations of good Constitutional law or simply no law except that which they create on the fly, with the aid of a DOJ and FBI complicit i these crimes ( reference our criminal justice system).
The penumbra of destruction that weighs against the rule of law extends to politics, from the lowest to the highest levels and begets the likes of the Clinton, Bush and Obama Kriminal Klans; AJs like Lorretta Lynch and Holder and bankers like Bernanke, Yellen, Draghi, Blankfein and Dimon, all of whom go on to form new age oligarchies that steal from the people with not a single substantive charge levied or day spend in prison.
The system is rigged. There is no justice. There’s Just Us.
None of these people suffers the consequences of their predations because they not only have unlimited access to interest free capital, they own the banks that provide them with tens of trillions in capital with which to engage in war against us. They own the armies to hold us in bond and bondage if we raise a challenge to their rapacity and theft of our substance
If they win a bet against us they make billions or trillions. If they lose a bet against us, we, the tax payers, are forced to make up the losses. Their capital has no cost. Their losses are never charged against the house. Unless it’s your house and you’re forced to move or are thrown out by some variation of their army or Praetorian guard.
I’m guessing that these financial rapists will never stop because there is never enough for them. Pitchforks, torches, molotovs and the weight of humanity pressed against our oppressors will win the day and it will take some serious sacrafices and lives to win against these new age feudalists
On a lighter and better side, the Oregon jury acquitted Aamon Bundy and his friends of all charges. Count one in the win column for the good guys. Now we need to see Cliven Bundy freed from his bondage. | 0 |
A veteran Republican strategist now helping lead a “super PAC” in support of Donald J. Trump argued in a confidential memo last year that it would be dangerous to give Mr. Trump the power to launch a global war. The strategist, Alex Castellanos, has acknowledged that he had been publicly critical of Mr. Trump, but said on Sunday that he now considered Mr. Trump a superior choice to Hillary Clinton. In a private document presented to top Republican donors last fall, however, Mr. Castellanos suggested that Mr. Trump could be a threat to American security as president. He and another strategist, Gail Gitcho, drew up plans for a group named ProtectUS, and proposed to spend heavily against Mr. Trump in the Republican primaries. In the memo, Mr. Castellanos proposed to urge voters not to put Mr. Trump “in the Big Chair in the Oval Office, with responsibilities for worldwide confrontation at his fingertips. ” He also intended to highlight Mr. Trump’s past bankruptcies and predicted that his nomination would be ruinous for Republicans. Republican voters, Mr. Castellanos wrote, must be made to “see the danger and risk of a Trump Presidency. ” “Once these doubts are raised, Trump’s business record of bankruptcies, as well as his support of health care and other positions he shares with Hillary Clinton, can begin to pry GOP voters away,” the memo said. By nominating Mr. Trump, it continued, Republicans would be “assured that we lose the White House. ” “If Trump wins, everyone loses,” the memo said. “We not only lose the White House in 2016, but we also lose the Senate, competitive gubernatorial elections and moderate House Republicans, making Speaker Ryan’s job exponentially more difficult. ” Mr. Castellanos won no takers for his pitch, and the plans for ProtectUS were discarded. The New York Times first reported the existence of the memo in late February. On Monday, Mr. Castellanos did not respond to an email and a phone call seeking additional comment on the evolution of his views about Mr. Trump. But the original battle plan Mr. Castellanos drew up against Mr. Trump was strongly reminiscent of some of the tactics Democrats are now using against the presumptive Republican nominee. Mrs. Clinton argued in a speech last week that Mr. Trump could not be trusted with the powers of the commander in chief. And several Democratic leaders have called for a revival of the “Daisy” ad Lyndon Johnson produced to attack Barry Goldwater in the 1964 campaign, warning that Mr. Goldwater could trigger a nuclear war. | 1 |
dominic_mcg dominic_mcg | 0 |
We Are Change
On Sunday evening, side-by-side images of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta and his brother Tony next to police sketches of potential suspects in a 2007 kidnapping of a three-year-old girl took over the internet.
The resemblance is striking, and Reddit, 4chan, and Twitter rapidly took up the case.
We found your pedophile suspects @metpoliceuk . You're welcome. #DNCLeak2 pic.twitter.com/H8kF1jWGUN
— Jared Wyand ?? (@JaredWyand) November 7, 2016
Madeleine Beth McCann should have celebrated her 13th birthday with her family in England this year, but she vanished from her bed during a family vacation to Portugal in 2003. The case gripped the entire world, becoming one of the most high profile missing persons cases in history. Coverage of her kidnapping was comparable to the press interest in the death of Princess Diana.
Her parents had been out with friends at the hotel restaurant approximately 200 feet from where the child had been sleeping. When her mother Kate McCann went to check on her around 11 pm, but she was gone.
“We go to bed every night with the agonising feeling that just maybe tomorrow we will find something to lead us back to Madeleine. To let us know what happened. To give us hope,” Kate McCann, who is now an ambassador for Missing People, said at the launch of a new nonprofit organization called Find Every Child, in London this week .
Though it has been nearly a decade since their little girl vanished, the family has continued the search, and believe that there is a possibility that she may still be alive.
“When my little girl first disappeared, on that horrendous night that changed our lives forever, I could never have imagined that nearly 10 years later we would still be in the same position,” she continued.
In 2013, five years after Portuguese police had closed the case, they reopened it and revealed two new police sketches. It was believed that they were supposed to be of the same man, but from two different witnesses. Reddit and others on social media are now asking, what if it was actually two different men, and what if it was the Podestas?
Awkward! Sketches from 2007 Madeleine McCann case look just like Clinton associates. Victim of #SpiritCooking ? #Podestabros #DNCLeak2 pic.twitter.com/by7AHqESzD
— Jazu the Deplorable (@Jazukai) November 7, 2016
An email found in the Wikileaks release of John Podesta’s emails at the time of McCann’s disappearance implies that he may have been vacationing around the time of her disappearance, but does not indicate where.
Shortly after the rumor began to go viral, Twitter went offline for over 20 minutes, which helped to fuel the theorists even more.
That moment when you Realize they are DDOS'ing @WIkiLeaks @Twitter and @4Chan to cover up a Horrific Crime. RIP Madeleine McCann. pic.twitter.com/4EqSAcOpWA
— Kyle (@refutal) November 7, 2016
Bizarrely worded messages in the Podesta emails had lead to conspiracy theories on 4chan and Reddit that John Podesta was involved in some sort of child sex ring , last week.
"I'm dreaming about your hotdog stand in Hawaii…"
This is code for something.
Sex trafficking? https://t.co/BNulNKBi4u pic.twitter.com/L3l5j40ahy
— Mike Cernovich ?? (@Cernovich) November 3, 2016
The same evening, the world became familiar with the term “ Spirit Cooking .”
The Podestas' "Spirit Cooking" dinner?
It's not what you think.
It's blood, sperm and breastmilk.
But mostly blood. https://t.co/gGPWFS3B2H pic.twitter.com/I43KiiraDh
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 4, 2016
While it is extremely far-fetched that the Podestas would be involved in this extremely high-profile missing persons case, the fact that thousands of people are having serious discussions about it on a Sunday evening speaks volumes about the trust people have in Hillary Clinton’s inner circle.
The post Internet Sleuths Are Convinced That The Podestas Are The Kidnappers in These Police Sketches appeared first on We Are Change .
| 0 |
Over 300 million people visited the national parks system in 2015 — and many left with indelible memories. In anticipation of the park system turning 100 in August, we asked five writers — three novelists, a memoirist and a poet — to recount times when a national park left a mark on their lives. I would have opted to give the bison a wide berth even if the man who worked the entrance gate at Badlands National Park had not handed me a flier warning me to do so. Bison have charged several people, the flier exclaimed in bold text beneath an illustration of a man somersaulting into the air above a figure of an enraged bison. It was 1994, before selfies and cellphones — but not before people were idiots in the wild. I was 25 and plenty idiot too, though not in this one regard. I had grown up in northern Minnesota, where I’d learned early to respect the boundary between humans and undomesticated animals. Bison — their scientific name is, emphatically, bison bison bison — are the largest terrestrial animal in North America. The biggest weigh upward of 2, 000 pounds. Faster and more agile than their bulk would indicate, they can run about 35 miles an hour. They’re too. Shaggy, beasts with curved horns that frame their huge angular heads, American bison have always struck me, at least outwardly, as the heavy metal rockers of the animal kingdom. It’s an impression that only intensified when I had my first look at them up close a after my friend Aimee and I had entered the park. A few grazing near the road raised their grand heads to watch us as we passed in Aimee’s Honda: their faces, primordial their dark eyes, indecipherable their ability to flatten our little car if they felt like it, absolute. To see them so close felt like a lucky stroke. Millions once roamed the continent, but by 1900 their numbers had dwindled to the low hundreds in the wild. Because of conservationists — indeed, because of the existence of the national parks — the bison had persevered. To catch a glimpse of them on the prairie was to bear witness to their survival. The sun was setting by the time we reached the Sage Creek campground, a waterless patch near the park’s designated wilderness area at the end of a gravel road. All around us the world was magic, the way the world is always magic at sunset in wild places, but it seemed especially so that night, the grasslands giving way to the ancient hills and rocky buttes beyond. We pitched our tent in the fading light. When I stepped out of our tent the next morning, there was a bison grazing about 50 feet away. He lifted his head in my direction and — for a reason I do not know except to say I have always been friendly to a fault — I said, in a tone altogether too cheery, “Good morning, Mr. Buffalo. ” At the sound of my voice, the bison began to walk toward me. He did not run, but neither did he dally. His gait had the determined and mildly seething air of a teacher who was marching you straight to the principal’s office, except in this case, the bison was marching himself. To me. I bolted into the tent and zipped the mesh door closed, whispering frantically to Aimee, who shushed me. In silence we knelt in the center of the tent and looked into each other’s eyes beseechingly. Soon, the bison appeared in close profile out the mesh window at the back end of the tent. He was so near we could hear his breath and the dull thump of his hooves. He began to circle, passing by our door, then disappearing, then reappearing. It seemed clear this circling was the preamble to something worse. Though we were both near weeping, we were also suppressing laughter, each of us horrified by the grim possibility not only that we’d be trampled to death by a bison bison bison, but that we would also forever be known as those dumb people who do dumb things at national parks and then end up being referred to in categorical terms on informational fliers handed out to visitors. It just so happens that Aimee was wearing a pen on a cord around her neck. I had the maddest urge to use it to write at least a line in my own defense — to say I hadn’t done anything wrong. All I had done was say “Good morning, Mr. Buffalo!” I’d wanted only to pass through this beautiful place and leave the wild things undisturbed and unperturbed. I hadn’t meant to cause any trouble. Instead I took the pen, still attached to Aimee’s neck, and wrote “I’m sorry” on my hand and showed it to her. She nodded, apology accepted, the tears from her suppressed terror still pooling in her eyes. We waited in silence many more long minutes, until we mustered the courage to peek out of our tent to see the bison was gone, somewhere in the midst of those ancient hills. We gathered up our things and ran to the car. | 1 |
Leaked Memo Exposes Shady Dealings Between Clinton Foundation Donors And Bill’s “For-Profit” Activities Zero Hedge
We have written frequently in recent weeks about a feud that erupted between Chelsea Clinton and Doug Band back in 2011 after Chelsea raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest between Band's firm, Teneo, the Clinton Foundation and the State Department (see here , here, here and here ). The feud ultimately resulted in Band being forced to draft a memo spelling out, in vivid detail, the many entangled relationships between himself, Teneo, the Clinton Foundation and the State Department. Fortunately, today's Wikileaks dump included that memo which reveals, for the first time, the precise financial flows between the Clinton Foundation, Band’s firm Teneo Consulting, and the Clinton family’s private business endeavors.
The memo starts with a brief background on Teneo, which was created in June 2011, shortly after Declan Kelly resigned from his position as "United States Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland," a position to which he was appointed by Secretary Clinton.
In June 2009, DK Consulting was founded by Declan Kelley. Mr. Kelly served as COO of FTI Consulting until June 2009, when he stepped down and established DK Consulting. At that time, he also became the United States Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland . Pursuant to the terms of his exit agreement with FTI and consistent with the ethics agreement of his uncompensated special government employee appointment at the State Department, Mr. Kelly retained and continued to provide services to three paying clients ( Coke, Dow, and UBS ) and one pro bono client (Allstate) . In late 2009, Declan retained me as a consultant to DK Consulting to help support the needs of these clients.
In May 2011, Mr. Kelly resigned his Envoy position at the State Department. In June 2011, Mr. Kelly and I founded Teneo Strategies ; simultaneously, Mr. Kelly closed DK Consulting and shifted its clients to Teneo.
Throughout the past almost 11 years since President Clinton left office, I have sought to leverage my activities, including my partner role at Teneo, to support and to raise funds for the Foundation . This memorandum strives to set forth how I have endeavored to support the Clinton Foundation and President Clinton personally.
In a subsequent section of the memo entitled "Leveraging Teneo For The Foundation," Band spells all of the donations he solicited from Teneo "clients" for the Clinton Foundation. In all, there are roughly $14mm of donations listed with the largest contributors being Coca-Cola, Barclays, The Rockefeller Foundation and Laureate International Universities.
The donations from Dow Chemical are particularly notable for several reasons. First, because of other emails revealed by WikiLeaks and other FOIA requests, we now know that Dow Chemical CEO, Andrew Liveris, was granted special access to then Secretary Clinton back in July 2009 at the same time he was embroiled in ongoing litigation with another Clinton Foundation donor, Kuwait, over a failed joint-venture that would have netted Dow $9BN in cash . As Band notes in his memo, 1 month after being granted special access to Secretary Clinton, Liveris invited President Clinton and Band out for a day of golf. Moreover, shortly after his meeting with Secretary Clinton and golf outing with President Clinton, Liveris decided to donate $500,000 to the Clinton Global Initiative ...very convenient timing for all involved.
In August of 2009, Mr. Kelly invited Mr. Liveris to play golf with President Clinton and me. Mr. Kelly subsequently asked Dow to become a CGI sponsor at the $500,000 level, which they did , as well as making a $150,000 donation to the Foundation for President Clinton to attend a Dow dinner in Davos.
The story gets even more bizarre when Band reveals in the following footnote that Liveris provided the Dow Chemical plane to fly President Clinton and his staff from New York to California and then California to North Korea for their golf outing . We would assume this is a simple typo by Band and/or he's just geographically challenged...if not, this certainly raises a whole other set of questions for Bill.
Mr. Liveris provided the Dow plane to fly President Clinton and his staff to and from California for our trip to, and from, North Korea . As a private trip, the Foundation had to pay the costs of airfare; Mr. Liveris’ in kind contribution saved the Foundation in excess of $100,000 .
According to the Dialy Caller , Dow Chemical paid Teneo $2.8 million in 2011 and $16 million in 2012 for a variety of "consultancy services". Of course, Bill Clinton was an honorary chairman of Teneo and, as such, was set to be paid $3.5 million for that position even though he ultimately only kept $100,000 because of the scandals that erupted around the firm, including their advisory relationship with MF Global.
Finally, Band also offers the following commentary on the "$50 million in for-profit activity" he was able to secure for Bill Clinton (as of November 2011) as well as the "$66 million in future contracts, should he choose to continue with those engagements."
Independent of our fundraising and decision-making activities on behalf of the Foundation, we have dedicated ourselves to helping the President secure and engage in for-profit activities – including speeches, books, and advisory service engagements . In that context, we have in effect served as agents, lawyers, managers and implementers to secure speaking, business and advisory service deals. In support of the President’s for-profit activity, we also have solicited and obtained, as appropriate, in-kind services for the President and his family – for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like. Neither Justin nor I are separately compensated for these activities (e.g., we do not receive a fee for, or percentage of, the more than $50 million in for-profit activity we have personally helped to secure for President Clinton to date or the $66 million in future contracts, should he choose to continue with those engagements).
With respect to business deals for his advisory services, Justin and I found, developed and brought to President Clinton multiple arrangements for him to accept or reject. Of his current 4 arrangements, we secured all of them; and, we have helped manage and maintain all of his for-profit business relationships. Since 2001, President Clinton’s business arrangements have yielded more than $30 million for him personally, with $66 million to be paid out over the next nine years should he choose to continue with the current engagements.
A big part of those "for-profit" activities was a $3.5mm annual payment from Laureate...
...and millions in speaking fees arranged by Band.
Confused? Here is a simpler recap from the NYT's Nick Confessore: This Doug Band memo, in the latest Podesta dump, is the Rosetta stone of the Teneo-Clinton Foundation complex. https://t.co/a1g3nSoGPM
— Nick Halloween (@nickconfessore) October 26, 2016 Band's argument: I am not get fully compensated for all of the stuff I do for Clintonworld, so you should let me do Teneo. Everyone wins.
— Nick Halloween (@nickconfessore) October 26, 2016 Now, you could argue: So what? If Band gets his clients to pop over money to a charity, why is that bad?
— Nick Halloween (@nickconfessore) October 26, 2016 But consider that Band was selling his clients on idea that giving to foundation was, in essence, a way to bolster their influence.
— Nick Halloween (@nickconfessore) October 26, 2016 Clinton & Band built a platform for executives to bolster their companies' images, bathe in BC's praise, and do some good, while...
— Nick Halloween (@nickconfessore) October 26, 2016 ...Teneo extracted earnings for Band and, depending on what you see in these e-mails, Clinton himself. Teneo paid Clinton until late '11.
— Nick Halloween (@nickconfessore) October 26, 2016 I guess you can wave it all off as a nothingburger. But Chelsea Clinton and some of Clinton's other aides were clearly freaking out.
— Nick Halloween (@nickconfessore) October 26, 2016 Generally, the emails show Clinton's *own closest aides* troubled or horrified by things that her surrogates have spent years waving off.
— Nick Halloween (@nickconfessore) October 26, 2016
With that, we look forward to Donna Brazile's explanation of how this is all just an attempt to "criminalize behavior that is normal." | 0 |
Barron Trump, President Donald Trump’s son, reportedly “panicked” and became distressed after seeing Kathy Griffin’s “beheading” photograph because he didn’t know who Griffin was or understand the context of the photo. [According to TMZ, Trump’s youngest son was watching television Tuesday when he saw the image of Griffin holding a fake, bloody decapitated head meant to resemble the president’s head. Sources told the gossip outlet that Barron “panicked” and began calling for his mother, First Lady Melania Trump. “He’s 11. He doesn’t know who Kathy Griffin is and the head she was holding resembled his dad,” the source told TMZ. The photo of Griffin holding up Trump’s severed head — taken during a photo shoot with L. A. artist Tyler Shields — was first published Tuesday morning by TMZ and sparked a firestorm online, with backlash coming from both sides of the political aisle and thousands of people calling for a boycott of Griffin’s national comedy tour. The president responded Wednesday morning, saying the photograph had been particularly difficult for his children, including Barron. “Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick!” Trump tweeted. Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11 year old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017, Griffin apologized in a video posted to her Twitter account Tuesday, in which she said she “crossed the line” and that the photo had gone “too far. ” The Secret Service has reportedly opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the photo shoot. Meanwhile, the fallout from the incident has continued CNN, where Griffin has a live New Year’s Eve broadcast with Anderson Cooper since 2007, announced it was “evaluating” her future role in the program, while the comedian’s scheduled performance at the Route 66 Casino in Albuquerque, New Mexico has been cancelled. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
When people ask me about my current position fighting in the culture war, years after starting my writing career with “Bang” books, I simply say, “I just wanted to get laid.” From these hedonistic beginnings opened a path that I find myself in today. A reviewer of my new book Free Speech Isn’t Free also noticed this transformation:
I’ve been following the ‘Red Pill’ community for a a few years now. The members therein have been engaging in some of the most relevant conversations anywhere on the net. Roosh is one I’ve only recently become familiar with as I tend to appreciate and relate more to the more traditionalist members like Vox Day, Dalrock, and Roissy.
What is so fascinating about guys like Roosh is how their journey to acquire more sex and attention from highly attractive women has led them stumbling across uncomfortable truths about the world that we men of the West find ourselves living in.
This book is a very straightforward account of an encounter that an iconic Red Pill pillar had with the traditional media community that exposes a truly shocking level of laziness and corruption on the part of an institution that we are supposed to respect for some reason. I remember watching from a social media distance as these events went down and I had no idea just how bad it was.
I really admire the stones on this kid and I hope he stays motivated and encourages more people to be bold with the truth (which is always unPC). I’m not a fan of lotharios but I appreciate intellectual honesty and bravery. I hope Roosh’s Neomasculinity gets legs. I really do.
How did game serve as the gateway drug? Simple: I kept asking why, as if I was an annoying 8-year-old child.
Why are woman attracted to me when I dance and act like an entertaining clown ? Why did my father not have to act like a clown to attract my mom? Why has society changed to encourage women to pursue exciting “bad boys” and clowns over good men? Why are institutions like the media and universities pushing women into behaviors which harm them and the family unit? Why is there a concealed group of elites who seem to control politicians and the most important institutions? Why are those institutions attacking me for speaking the truth? There wasn’t only one step from having fun into the nightclub to fighting back against social justice warriors and the media, but several steps that had to take place over the past 15 years. My path weaved through sex and gender relations, but there are other paths as well, which I describe in The 5 Paths To Realizing Truth . For example, minimalism is another point of entry:
When you live below your means, you begin to see that most people are unnecessarily living above theirs. That leads to the conclusion that they were trained to live a life of excess by corporations with the complicit help of a government that wants to keep society in a neverending state of indebtedness and distraction so they ignore everyday injustices while losing any will or desire to fight the establishment. The easiest stepping stone out of The Truman Show is to realize that consumer lifestyles are not the path to happiness, and those those who chase material possessions are misguided.
Many other men have also had a similar path as myself, whereby promiscuous sex was a device for understanding the world and deciding on behaviors that are more sustainable to the male soul. While not every man gains wisdom during the stage of his life where he wants to sow his royal oats, many do, and they use that wisdom to devise solutions that can solve our modern problems. I do not at all regret engaging in shallow sex with many dozens of women throughout the world, because it has developed my thinking into what you read now, even though the sex itself wasn’t especially memorable and didn’t give me much except momentary pleasure.
From my current vantage point, it really does feel like it was all pre-determined, as if I was supposed to participate in shallow intimacy in order to arrive at true understanding, but that would imply some sort of divine providence. Whatever the mechanism, it’s clear to me that many of the behaviors and ideas we hold now could be mere way-stations for a grander, more universal truth. Whatever individual journey you’re a part of, I hope we’ll find out soon enough.
To see the whole story of how the media attacked me with an incredible attack of 1,600+ media articles , along with my analysis of the establishment’s master plan, check out my new book Free Speech Isn’t Free . It has a balanced mix of narrative and ideology that will also give you actionable advice to help defend yourself against establishment attacks. Click here to learn more about the book or order it now on Amazon .
Read More: 7 Game Principles I Personally Verified During My Trip To The Ukraine
| 0 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.