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BURKEVILLE, Va. — Lenny Singleton is the first to admit that he deserved an extended stay behind bars. To fuel his crack habit back in 1995, he walked into 13 stores over eight days and either distracted a clerk or pretended to have a concealed gun before stealing from the cash register. One time, he was armed with a knife with a blade that he had brought from his kitchen. Mr. Singleton, 28 at the time, was charged with robbery and accepted a plea deal, fully expecting to receive a long jail sentence. But a confluence of factors worked against him, including the particularly judge who sentenced him and the ethos of the time against users of crack cocaine. His sentence was very long: two life sentences. And another 100 years. And no possibility for parole. There is a growing consensus that the criminal justice system has incarcerated too many Americans for too many years, with liberals and conservatives alike denouncing the economic and social costs of holding 2. 2 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails. And Congress is currently debating a criminal justice bill that, among other provisions, would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent offenders. But a divide has opened within the reform movement over how to address prisoners who have been convicted of violent crimes, including people like Mr. Singleton, who threatened shop owners but did not harm anyone. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union favor a swift 50 percent reduction in prison populations, while conservative prison reform organizations like Right on Crime prioritize the release of nonviolent offenders and worry that releasing others could backfire and reduce public support. Nonviolent drug offenders make up only about 17 percent of all state prison inmates around the nation, while violent offenders make up more than 50 percent, according to federal data. As the prison population has increased sharply over the past 30 years, so too has the number of those sentenced to life. Mr. Singleton is among nearly 160, 000 prisoners serving life sentences — roughly the population of Eugene, Ore. The number of such inmates has more than quadrupled since 1984, and now about one in nine prison inmates is serving a life term, federal data shows. “People are celebrating the stabilization of the prison population in recent years, but the scale of mass incarceration is so substantial that meaningful reduction is not going to happen by tinkering around the edges,” said Marc Mauer, the executive director of the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit that advocates changes in sentencing policy. The United States, which has about 4. 4 percent of the world’s population, holds 22 percent of its prisoners, according to the International Centre for Prison Studies, a research organization based in England. Mr. Singleton’s prison term, which makes it likely that he will die behind bars, attracted little attention in 1996. It was common then for judges in Virginia and the rest of the country to impose long prison terms for crimes. Still, even prosecutors who were active during that period say Mr. Singleton’s sentence seemed unduly harsh for crimes in which no one was hurt. “Crack cocaine scared the hell out of a lot of people,” said William G. Broaddus, a former Virginia attorney general who is now in private practice and had no role in the case. “It’s disappointing there wasn’t more consideration as to why this man did this. Do we really want to keep him in jail for the rest of his life? Having said that, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that this judge meted out the sentence that he did. ” William F. Rutherford, the judge who sentenced Mr. Singleton, has been retired for years. During a recent series of interviews, he said he had no recollection of the case, but after he reviewed Mr. Singleton’s court files, he said he had no regrets about how he handled it. “Under the circumstances,” he said, “it would not be unusual for me to give out that kind of sentence. ” Mr. Rutherford, who turned 89 in June, was known in Norfolk, Va. legal circles for his tough sentences, and he acknowledged that he was an intimidating presence on the bench. “I’m a guy and I wouldn’t take any crap off of defense lawyers or anybody,” he said. “The people in jail did not like coming into Courtroom No. 7. ” D. J. Hansen, the prosecutor in Mr. Singleton’s case, said Mr. Rutherford “had a reputation for being one of the tougher judges” in the courthouse. Mr. Hansen, who is now a deputy commonwealth’s attorney in Chesapeake, Va. added that “Virginia is a hard state” when it comes to doling out punishments, and pointed out that he sought a life sentence for Mr. Singleton because of the serious nature of the robberies. When compared with recent cases, Mr. Singleton’s sentence appears to be disproportionately harsh. The maximum penalty for murder in Virginia is 40 years, and people convicted in recent months of attempted murder and similar crimes have received sentences far shorter than Mr. Singleton’s. For example, Tamar Harris, 21, who shot and wounded a police officer, was sentenced in April to 23 years in prison, and Jermaine Rogers, 30, of Norfolk, who pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted murder, was sentenced in March to 10 years. Mr. Singleton, 49, who is called “Pops” by other inmates here at the Nottoway Correctional Center in central Virginia, has largely forgotten the details of his weeklong crime spree. Unlike many of his fellow inmates, he does not claim he is innocent. He recalled in an interview that before each robbery, he would smoke crack and drink a of beer. In all, he got about $500. “After I sobered up, I couldn’t believe what I had done,” he said. “I was like, ‘Damn, Lenny, what the hell? ’” Mr. Singleton played football at Langston University, the historically black college in Oklahoma from which he graduated, and later joined the Navy, but was kicked out for using drugs. In prison, he has attended substance abuse classes and become a devoted reader of books from the prison library. He works in a furniture plant at the prison and earns 80 cents an hour building furniture used in Virginia’s universities. But a percentage of his pay is subtracted for court costs and fines, and he still owes the state $1, 800. Last year, he married a high school classmate, Vandy, with whom he had lost touch. They recently compiled a book of their letters detailing his incarceration and her battles with cancer. Mr. Singleton, who prison officials acknowledge has never committed an infraction behind bars, has filed for a conditional pardon with Gov. Terry McAuliffe, saying in part that his lawyer failed to adequately represent him. Mr. Singleton said he had been unaware that he could be sentenced to life in prison until he had already pleaded guilty. His lawyer at that time, Jon M. Babineau, said he was legally prohibited from discussing Mr. Singleton’s case because of Virginia’s privilege laws, but said he had done his best to represent his client. In a prison administrative office on a recent morning, Mr. Singleton said he had seen inmates convicted of murder and rape come and go, and was hopeful that he would not die in prison. “I was out of my mind on drugs, but I wasn’t going to hurt anybody,” he said. “I was just after the money. ” | 1 |
by Michael Snyder via THE DAILY SHEEPLE
Could we see violence no matter who wins on November 8th?
Let’s hope that it doesn’t happen, but as you will see below, anti-Trump violence is already sweeping the nation. If Trump were to actually win the election, that would likely send the radical left into a violent post-election temper tantrum unlike anything that we have ever seen before. Alternatively, there is a tremendous amount of concern on the right that this election could be stolen by Hillary Clinton. And as I showed yesterday, it appears that voting machines in Texas are already switching votes from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton . If Hillary Clinton wins this election under suspicious circumstances, that also may be enough to set off widespread civil unrest all across the country.
At this moment there is less than two weeks to go until November 8th, and a brand new survey has found that a majority of Americans are concerned “about the possibility of violence” on election day…
A 51% majority of likely voters express at least some concern about the possibility of violence on Election Day; one in five are “very concerned.” Three of four say they have confidence that the United States will have the peaceful transfer of power that has marked American democracy for more than 200 years, but just 40% say they are “very confident” about that.
More than four in 10 of Trump supporters say they won’t recognize the legitimacy of Clinton as president, if she prevails, because they say she wouldn’t have won fair and square.
But many on the left are not waiting until after the election to commit acts of violence. On Wednesday, Donald Trump’s star on the Walk of Fame was smashed into pieces by a man with a sledgehammer and a pick-ax…
Donald Trump took a lot of hits today, and not just in the Presidential race. With less than two weeks to go before America decides if the ex- Apprentice host will pull off a surprise victory over Hillary Clinton, Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was destroyed early Wednesday morning by a man dressed as a city construction worker and wielding a sledgehammer and pick-ax in what looks to be a Tinseltown first.
And there were two other instances earlier this year when Donald Trump’s star was also vandalized. One came in January, and the other happened in June …
This is of course not the first time the GOP candidate’s star has been attacked or defaced since Trump announced his White House bid in summer 2015. The most extreme measure was a reverse swastika being sprayed on the star at 6801 Hollywood Blvd in late January. In June this summer, a mute sign was painted on Trump’s star in a seemingly protest against the antagonistic language and policies some have accused Trump of promoting and reveling in during the campaign. In both cases, Trump’s star was quickly cleaned and back as new within a day.
We have seen anti-Trump violence on the east coast as well. Earlier this month, someone decided to firebomb the Republican Party headquarters in Orange County, North Carolina. On the building next to the headquarters, someone spray-painted “Nazi Republicans get out of town or else” along with a swastika.
There have also been other disturbing incidents of anti-Trump violence all over the nation in recent days. A recent Lifezette article put together quite a long list, and the following is just a short excerpt from that piece…
On Oct. 15 in Bangor, Maine, vandals spray-painted about 20 parked cars outside a Trump rally. Trump supporter Paul Foster, whose van was hit with white paint, told reporters, “Why can’t they do a peaceful protest instead of painting cars, all of this, to make their statement?”
Around Oct. 3, a couple of Trump supporters were assaulted in Zeitgeist, a San Francisco bar, after they were allegedly refused service for expressing support for Trump, GotNews reports. “The two Trump supporters were attacked, punched, and chased into the street by ‘some thugs’ that a barmaid called out from the back.” Lilian Kim of ABC 7 Bay Area tweeted a photo of the men, in which one was wearing a Trump T-shirt and the other was wearing a “Blue Lives Matter” shirt.
On Sept. 28 in El Cajon, California, an angry mob at a Black Lives Matter protest beat 21-year-old Trump supporter Feras Jabro for wearing a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap. The assault was broadcast live using the smartphone app Periscope.
There is a move to get Trump supporters to wear red on election day, but in many parts of America that might just turn his supporters into easy targets. Let’s certainly hope that we don’t see the kind of violent confrontations at voting locations that many experts are anticipating.
Of course there are also many on the right that are fighting mad, and a Hillary Clinton victory under suspicious circumstances may be enough to push them over the edge.
For example, this week former Congressman Joe Walsh said that he is “grabbing my musket” if Donald Trump loses the election…
Former Rep. Joe Walsh appeared to call for armed revolution Wednesday if Donald Trump is not elected president.
Walsh, a former tea party congressman from Illinois who is now a conservative talk radio host, tweeted, “On November 8th, I’m voting for Trump. On November 9th, if Trump loses, I’m grabbing my musket. You in?”
And without a doubt, many ordinary Americans are stocking up on guns and ammunition just in case Hillary Clinton is victorious. The following comes from USA Today …
“Since the polls are starting to shift quite a bit towards Hillary Clinton, I’ve been buying a lot more ammunition,” says Rick Darling, 69, an engineer from Harrison Township, in Michigan’s Detroit suburbs. In a follow-up phone interview after being surveyed, the Trump supporter said he fears progressives will want to “declare martial law and take our guns away” after the election.
Today America is more divided than I have ever seen it before, and the mainstream media is constantly fueling the hatred and the anger that various groups feel toward one another.
Ironically, Donald Trump has been working very hard to bring America together. In fact, he is solidly on track to win a higher percentage of the black vote than any Republican presidential candidate since 1960 .
If Hillary Clinton and the Democrats win on November 8th, things will not go well for Hillary Clinton’s political enemies. The Clintons used the power of the White House to go after their enemies the first time around, and Hillary is even more angry and more bitter now than she was back then.
And the radical left is very clear about who their enemies are. This is something that I discussed on national television earlier this month …
As I write this, it is difficult for me to even imagine how horrible a Hillary Clinton presidency would be.
But at this point that appears to be the most likely outcome .
Out of all the candidates that we could have chosen, the American people are about to put the most evil one by far into the White House.
Perhaps Donald Trump can still pull off a miracle and we can avoid that fate, but time is rapidly slipping away and November 8th will be here before we know it. | 0 |
Report Copyright Violation nuclear weapons question Hello all.. I have been a longtime lurker on this board but this is my first time posting. I have many questions that I'm hoping someone can help me with since you all seem to be very knowledgeable in this area..In terms of nuclear weapons I know we have tested over 1000 and I know the radiation has increased cases of cancer and killed livestock but shouldn't there be more of an impact? I know the theory with nuclear war ending life as we know it derives from the fact that it would cause a nuclear winter there for beginning some sort of ice age on earth.. with all the weapons that have been tested should we not have already brought ourselves to this or does it more have to do with all weapons going off all at once? Another question being I heard that radiation dissipates quickly (with the most dangerous time being the first 48 hours) if so then how would it cause a nuclear winter? I know these are silly questions I am pretty bad with science so I am hoping someone can explain better.Another question.. I am very sure this article has been linked here before but wondering if someone can give me their thoughts and either disprove the article or explain why it's true. [ link to heiwaco.tripod.com ] Personally I find it's safer to believe they work, if a crazy person threatens you saying they have a gun you take it for face value. You don't want to question them about it or dare them to prove it!In terms of world 3... have all biblical prophecies been fulfilled already to believe world war 3 is next on the timeline? I would be lying if I said I'm not scared. When it comes to death. .it sucks sure but I'm not afraid for myself.. I'm afraid for my one year old! I will do ANYTHING to protect her even if it means giving up my life so she can have a beautiful, healthy, long life! I do believe in God and I find myself turning a lot to him these last few days but I can't help but be angry and feel so guilty bringing this beautiful soul into this world.. for what? So she can suffer and die before she even turns 3? I just feel so lost and hurt. If anyone can give me advice or guidance I would appreciate it more than you know. The aspect of the end being at our door isn't too much a problem for me.. it's more the aspect that I don't want this for my child! I want her to live her life! Fall in love! See the world!I don't know.. maybe the time isn't here.. we've been close to a nuclear war once before maybe just maybe we can dodge this again. Page 1 | 0 |
EARNING THE ROCKIES How Geography Shapes America’s Role in the World By Robert D. Kaplan 201 pp. Random House. $27. Well over half of American voters, having cast ballots for Hillary Clinton or candidates, awoke the next morning to a country that seems not only unfamiliar but . Populists embrace a celebrity billionaire, evangelicals welcome a Lothario, conservatives accept an opportunist whose only ideological commitment is to himself. The Republican establishment proves helpless against the hijacking of the party, the mainstream media prove ineffectual against the tide of fake news and the political system proves vulnerable to the machinations of a sinister foreign government. Longstanding global alliances are questioned, longstanding political norms are trashed — and then the candidate with the plurality loses. In what alternative universe does this make any sense? As Karl Marx said, in a very different context: All that is solid melts into air. Or maybe not. Maybe the political air is turbulent but the country’s tectonic fundamentals remain solid. Maybe American politics and geopolitics rest on a foundation as immovable as the rivers and plains of the country itself. For those who feel disoriented, and also (perhaps especially) for those who feel triumphant, Robert D. Kaplan’s small but magisterial new book, “Earning the Rockies,” is a tonic, because it brings fundamentals back into view. With only 180 uncrowded pages of text, this is a book that can be read on a flight, but fully digesting it will take much longer. Every page brings a fresh insight, a telling aperçu, a bracing reality check. If you do read the book at 30, 000 feet, it will make you yearn to be down below. To understand the country, Kaplan posits, one must still “earn the Rockies,” reaching them on terra firma as our ancestors did. “To fly to California and set your clock back three hours is not to know the ground you have covered, because you haven’t seen all the different mornings and evenings along the way. ” Kaplan is one of America’s most distinguished writers on foreign affairs, with 16 prior books to his name. (He and I are both contributing editors of The Atlantic, though we don’t know each other.) Many will recall his 1994 Atlantic article (then book) “The Coming Anarchy,” which looks eerily prescient today. In his teens as a hitchhiker and again in middle age as a journalist, Kaplan trekked across the continental United States. Today, perplexed by America’s pivot against the successful global order that Americans built, he repeats the journey, “for the answers to our dilemmas overseas lie within the continent itself. ” He returns with a musing travelogue, one that seeks, in words as carefully chosen as gemstones, to bring America’s geographic and geopolitical fundamentals back into the picture. He begins in the East, where the landscape is vertical, cluttered with tall trees and taller cities. Walking streets that are thriving and dismal by turns, and overhearing conversations in rural diners and urban coffeehouses, he encounters not one country but two. Wheeling, in West Virginia coal country, is in a shocking state of collapse, but across the bridge in Marietta, Ohio, he finds prosperity fueled by fracking. In Bloomington, the home of Indiana University, he finds “a truly global civilization,” demarcated by “miles and miles of expensive restaurants and people. ” The new “universal civilization” is slowly dissolving local distinctiveness, but only for some: Bloomington’s elites understand their British counterparts better than they do their compatriots in Wheeling. In place after place, Kaplan encounters people who, though friendly and “have in some important ways just given up. ” Even in blue states, many “feel their way of life is being endangered and fear being economically left behind in this new world of slim people on diets with stylish clothes. ” Then the “horizontal landscape” of the Great Plains unfurls before him, followed by the great American desert of the West, endless landscapes that forged an independent ethos yet, paradoxically, were built with the aid of enormous government investment. Here he finds the cradle of America’s international ambitions: “If this unending vastness could be conquered, then, after some fashion, the world could be, too. ” At last, he arrives in San Diego, overlooking the port of the mighty United States Pacific Fleet and peering over the horizon toward Asia, where the fleet’s patrols keep an uneasy peace. What do we learn along the way? For all the turbulent change swirling about us now, America was and remains the product of an exceptional geography. North America has more miles of navigable inland waterways than much of the rest of the world combined. Better still, its rivers run diagonally rather than (as in Russia) north and south, forming an ideal network for internal communication and trade. Moreover, America’s continental span and rich resource base shield it from external threat and dependency. Thus the United States is uniquely blessed by geography to form and sustain a cohesive continental union. Union is not the same as unity, but it’s a good start. America’s geographical and hydrological blessings ramify not only inward but also outward. “The United States is not a normal country: Its geographic bounty gave it the possibility of becoming a world power, and with that power it has developed longstanding obligations, which, on account of its continued economic and social dynamism relative to other powers, it keeps,” Kaplan writes. “We are,” he says (his italics) “fated to lead. ” For a host of reasons, ranging from geography to culture, no other country can play the same role. Kaplan embraces America’s role but is no imperialist. His book is most challenging, and most valuable, for the layers of paradox it mines. Geography and union make the United States a hegemon whose auspices create the conditions for globalization — but globalization diminishes America’s geographical advantages and erodes American unity. Meanwhile, as globalization uproots local economies and norms, the communications revolution spawns new tribal and ideological identities, everything from jihadism to . “It isn’t the clash of civilizations so much as the clash of artificially reconstructed civilizations that is taking place,” Kaplan writes. Finally, globalization, a product of American influence and a bulwark against chaos, erodes American influence and births new disruptions. For all its unrivaled military and economic power, the United States “now has no possibility of bringing order to the world. ” The best we can hope for is to reduce disorder. Doing that requires projecting power, yes, but with a “light and subtle footprint. ” It won’t be easy. “Earning the Rockies” was written before the 2016 election. The name “Trump” appears only a few times. Yet there is more insight here into the Age of Trump than in bushels of journalism. George H. W. Bush imagined a new world order and, for a time, built one Bill Clinton embraced soft power and democratic globalization and, for a time, made them work George W. Bush rediscovered history, confrontation, hard power and blowback Barack Obama sought to revive Clinton’s formula but, in the end, left too many behind. And then came Trump, repudiating all of the above for irredentist nationalism, and smashing crockery as none have done since Andrew Jackson. Where are we now? In territory that is uncharted but not altogether unfamiliar. President Trump may try to ignore the paradoxes of geography and globalism, but he cannot escape them. In the long run, Kaplan reminds us, the shape of the river constrains the pilot’s course. America will continue to lead, because it must. | 1 |
Working class man not particularly angry 15-11-16 A WORKING class man has confirmed that he is not remotely full of hate. Despite politicians assuming he is fuelled by rage and probably quite racist, warehouse operative Wayne Hayes explained that he enjoys playing badminton and listening to radio documentaries about the Middle Ages. Hayes said: “After Trump and Brexit, everyone seems to want to understand me, which is flattering but I’m not sure what to tell them. “I’ve had four Guardian journalists on the phone already this morning, and explained to them that my life is much the same as theirs if you just swap ‘Waitrose’ for ‘Asda’ and remember that because I don’t live in London I have a larger home. “They wanted to know if grammar schools were somehow responsible for making me into a disenfranchised political powder keg. At that point I said I needed to get back to work because I have a job where you actually have to do stuff.” Theresa May plans to visit Hayes’s workplace tomorrow, to personally ask him if there’s anything she can do to stop him being a frothing swamp of hate and resentment. Hayes added: “I’m fine to talk to her as long as I don’t have to stay late to make up the lost work time. Now that would piss me off.”
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10 Questions For Every Atheist By Jonathan Lenhardt on November 10, 2014 Subscribe
The Liberal Conservative is back here at Liberal America! I won’t make a big to-do about it since I’m willing to wager most folks don’t remember me anyway. All you have to know is that I’m an Atheist and a fiscally conservative, socially liberal Republican who detests the Tea Party with a fiery passion. I don’t always agree with full-fledged conservatives or liberals, but I do believe we can at least tolerate each other just enough to live side-by-side.
So, what brings me back after such a long absence? Believe it or not it’s not politics. It’s something I hold even more close to my heart: my aforementioned Atheism. See, I stumbled upon this article here courtesy of the kind folks at TodayChristian.net . It’s appropriately titled “10 Questions For Every Atheist” and was posted on their web site back in July with the subheading “Some Questions Atheist Cannot Truly and Honestly REALLY Answer! Which leads to some interesting conclusions?”.
Look, I won’t lie. I stopped reading right there. I mean…some questions Atheist (not Atheist s , mind you) cannot truly and honestly REALLY (for added emphasis) answer? Interesting conclusions? In the words of my generation, “Challenge accepted!” I decided I was going to respond right then, right there. Game on. Without any further delay, let’s get on with it…
Question #1: How Did You Become an Atheist?
Right off the bat we start with a question that no Atheist would have any trouble answering. Like me personally, I simply started thinking for myself around age 13; asking very serious, very real questions about the world we live in. Would an all-merciful god allow children to go hungry? Would an all-powerful god allow innocent people be tortured and killed? Soon I discovered that I had quite a few questions and no real answers. “God’s will”, “Thy will be done”, “God will one day vanquish evil”; these are not real answers. If it’s any god’s will for the world to be as horrible as it is and has been, then I wouldn’t believe in it even if I knew it existed. That would be like having a sports hero you discovered was a child pornographer. Any decent human being would stop believing in that hero.
Question #2: What happens when we die?
Our loved ones mourn while we are buried, burned or donated to science. We lose all of our senses, our ability to think. We cease to exist. It’s a pretty scary thought. One that often quite literally makes me bolt up awake at night having to shake the thought off. The thought being, “I am going to die one day and then that’s it.” Scary as it is, it makes me appreciate this life more even if I continue to only live it about a quarter of the way to its fullest. At least I’m enjoying myself.
Question #3: What if you’re wrong? And there is a Heaven? And there is a HELL!
Then I’m wrong; and God is either all-merciful like religious folk claim or he/she/it is a total jerkass. I do like how “hell” is in ALL CAPS in this question as if it’s supposed to be scary, though. Cute. Also, the punctuation is wrong; and, you never start a sentence with “and”.
Question #4: Without God, where do you get your morality from?
Empathy mainly. Empathy is a human trait, not a religious one. Logic is another source of my morality; as is reason. I’d also like to point out that so far these are really easy to answer…
Question #5: If there is no God, can we do what we want? Are we free to murder and rape? While good deeds are unrewarded?
Okay, I first noticed this with Question #3: this is actually three questions in one which I think is cheating. Would it be so wrong for Today Christian to call this article “ 14 Questions For Every Atheist “? It’s like they chose 10 because it sounds stronger. Kind of sounds like the same reason why there are Ten Commandments .
Either way, let’s start with the first one. We can do whatever we want within the confines of the law of the land. Man’s law, that is. You’ll notice that if I sleep with my neighbor’s wife – which I might; I am a heathen , after all – I won’t go to prison for it. Nor will I go to prison for looking at my buddy’s PlayStation 4 and thinking, “Aw, I want one!”
The second one? I could cite the law answer again, but this question deserves a more human answer. What kind of monster wants to murder and rape people? Is your archaic book the only reason you don’t murder and rape? Do you constantly have to fight those urges – only winning out when you spot your Holy Bible on the book shelf and remember that if you do those things you’ll end up in hell? If the answer is no, then you wouldn’t murder or rape people either. That’s called humanity and – again – empathy .
Finally, “While good deeds are unrewarded?” If the only reason you do good is for a pat on the back and recognition, then you’re not moral. You’re a creep. A needy creep.
Question #6: If there is no god, how does your life have any meaning?
Our lives are defined by the good we do for others (with or without recognition, to reference the previous question), our families, our friends, etc. I don’t need an invisible space daddy to tell me what my life means. I give my life meaning every day in one way or another. I want to be a writer who entertains people through literature, film, the occasionally whacky joke, etc. Making people laugh, smile, think, and the like – even if that dream fails – is the definition of my life. If I can make one person enjoy their day every day, then my life is complete. I did that. I gave it that meaning. By myself . I didn’t even have an instruction book! You can’t even put together IKEA furniture without an instruction book (and an AI helper, and a rocket ship, and a…) and yet I’ve figured out my life’s meaning without one.
Questions #7: Where did the universe come from?
We don’t know. That’s something religion folks don’t seem to understand. Saying “I don’t know” or “we don’t know” isn’t an admission of defeat. We just don’t know. Yet. Maybe we’ll never know. There are brilliant minds working on it; but, until we have cold hard proof that a space magician created everything we aren’t going to blindly believe it. There are theories. Quite a few of those theories are logical in a scientific sense. Will we ever prove it? That’s a damn big thing to prove. That being said, only the biggest, most self-indulgent egomaniacs of the scientific community do what hardcore religious people do and say their theory is 100% for sure without being able to absolutely prove it time and time again. “God just went click” is both simplistic and embarrassingly naive. I say that without trying to sound condescending. However, it’s a simple case of “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Or when I’m otherwise able to verify it.
Question #8: What about miracles? What all the people who claim to have a connection with Jesus? What about those who claim to have seen saints or angels?
Ugh! Another question that’s actually three questions within a question. Okay, fine… You’re aware mental illness is a thing? Okay, I’ll be less jerk-ish.
This makes me think of people who claim or are related to or otherwise know people who claim to have had a “near-death experience” or NDE. The problem with that whole thing is that it’s suspiciously similar to the effects the centrifuge test has on the men and women training to be astronauts or fighter pilots. Those folks experience the same visions – often of saints, angels, dead relatives, etc. NDE’s are nothing more than the brain vividly hallucinating sights, sounds, and the “light at the end of the tunnel” as blood rushes from the brain to other parts of the body as it struggles to both maintain equilibrium and struggle to keep living .
Throw in people who claim to see UFOs, Bigfoot, Slenderman, El Chupacabra, and Michael Bay’s talent to this next part: some people make stuff up for attention. It’s true. Or for financial gain. Or just for the goddamn fun of it. Dishonest people exist . Everywhere .
As for people who claim to have a connection with Jesus? They’re probably hearing voices in their head. That’s mental illness . If a voice in my head tells me it’s a good idea to go to a random child’s birthday party, cold cock the clown in the chin, poo on the cake, and make love to the child’s mother on the picnic table in front of the whole party, then I too would claim Jesus told me to do it since I? really wouldn’t want to go to jail or the asylum .
To wrap up Questions #8a, 8b, and 8c: miracles. Aren’t those the same things that have become strangely scarce now that cameras and other recording devices exist?
Question #9: What’s your view of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris?
They could be less militant. Look, my fellow heathens, I’m a whole-hearted Atheist. I do not believe in any gods or supernatural beings of any kind and I fully understand the atrocities often carried out in the name of religion. That being said, I don’t automatically leer down at those who are faithful. It’s true that I used to leer down on people who were. That is until I was with my now ex-girlfriend (we broke up over stuff other than religion, mind you). She mellowed out my Atheism on account of the fact that she was raised Roman Catholic and still remained pretty spiritual in one sense or another as an adult while she also just happens (happened?) to be a wonderful person. Now, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris (you’ll notice I use the Oxford comma in my writings, but to each their own) are brilliant, funny, and kind of a jerk, respectively. I understand how militant Dawkins is and Hitchens was; but, I have a hard time believing that if a faithful person respectfully approached them as a human being and simply wanted a light, brief conversation that they’d be or would have been anything but appreciative of the respect shown. Harris? Who knows? I think he’s kind of a jerk. He’s shown himself to be so in the past and I’m not even talking about the Real Time thing with Ben Affleck . I don’t think that he was behaving at all bigoted on that occasion.
Question #10: If there is no God, then why does every society have a religion?
Because every society has roots that go back to a people who knew nothing and tried their best to explain things like fire, lightning, the sun, the moon, etc. That’s how religion started: by people who knew nothing . That evolved (wink, wink) into people who wanted power which has now evolved (nudge, nudge) to people who want money; especially here in the United States.
The Tea Party – which I will never be affiliated with despite being a Republican – is basically owned by people (namely the Kochs) who are using those people’s faith as a method of moral, “spiritual” corruption. The Kochs and the politicians they own – which are voted into power by the people they control through this hysteria which is primarily faith-driven – don’t give a rat’s asshole about the well-being or happiness of the “Tea Patriots” or “Tea Baggers” or anyone for that matter. They wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire; mostly because they are working to privatize pissing on people who are on fire and they’d really rather you paid for that service.
By the way, ever noticed how each society’s religion is different? That there is no single religion? It’s almost as if each society made up their own shit along the way…
Here’s My Final Thought
Look, being an Atheist isn’t about being an elitist. Hell, Atheists all have different lifestyles, different hobbies, different daily routines, different tastes, preferences, opinions, political views, alignments; for Christ’s sake we have different favorite movies, shows, musicians, genres, sexual positions, drugs, doctors, lawyers, ways to make fun of Michael Bay, etc. Atheism isn’t a singular entity. It is a vast, diverse, wonderful place where all are welcome to discuss or even disagree so long as they discuss and disagree politely.
The only thing all Atheist groups share is that we don’t believe in god, the devil, Zeus, Odin, healing crystals, the medicinal uses of wind chimes or any of that stuff. We’re happy to live peacefully with you if you’re happy to live peacefully with us. The only reason Atheists tend to appear so combative is because pretty often? we are the ones under attack and so we are always on guard . Be it by the laws religious politicians push or name-calling on Facebook or willful ignorance about the state of the country and world or seeing good people suffer throughout the world we find ourselves and our views threatened simply because we choose not to worship on our knees. We choose instead to live on our feet. We help others not because we are told it is moral by a deity, but because we feel it’s the right, just, human thing to do.
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About Jonathan Lenhardt
I'm Jonathan Lenhardt; fiscally conservative, socially liberal Republican. I'm pro-choice, pro-2nd Amendment, anti-Tea Party, and happily atheist just to name a sparse few things about me. You can direct all hate mail to [email protected] Also, you can find me on Google+, Twitter (@JonLenTheLC), and I have an L.C.-specific Facebook page (Jonathan Lenhardt, The Liberal Conservative). Connect | 0 |
WASHINGTON — A hacker believed to be tied to the Russian intelligence services made public another set of internal Democratic Party documents on Friday, including the personal cellphone numbers and email addresses of nearly 200 lawmakers. The files appeared to be less politically embarrassing and damaging than the hacker’s initial trove, which came from the Democratic National Committee. Those documents, released by WikiLeaks last month on the eve of the party’s convention, led to the resignation of the committee’s leader, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz. But the emergence of another set of leaked documents threatened to intensify international tensions over Russia’s suspected meddling in United States politics. The hacker claiming responsibility for the breach — working under the pseudonym Guccifer 2. 0, which American intelligence officials believe is an alias for a Russian intelligence hacker — appeared eager to taunt Democrats in releasing the latest files. Those documents came from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the arm for House Democrats. “It’s time for new revelations now,” the hacker wrote in posting the files. “All of you may have heard about the DCCC hack. As you see I wasn’t wasting my time! It was even easier than in the case of the DNC breach. ” On Friday night, the hacker indicated that more leaks would follow, writing on Twitter that “the major trove” of the House committee documents would be sent to WikiLeaks. “Keep following,” the hacker wrote. While it became known last month that the House committee had been hacked along with the D. N. C. this was the first time its files had become public. In a statement, the House committee said it was investigating the authenticity of the documents and was working with federal law enforcement officials. The F. B. I. is leading the investigation. American intelligence officials said they are virtually certain that Russian intelligence officials were behind the attack. They said that the breach appears to have extended beyond the two Democratic groups to include the personal email accounts of at least 100 Democratic officials. Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House subcommittee on the National Security Agency and cybersecurity, said he was not overly concerned that his personal information was released. “If it’s simply my email being sent around, half my constituents have my email,” he said. “If it were to turn out that someone was hacking into emails, it would be a different situation. Worse comes to worst I can get a different email or cell number. ” Mr. Himes dismissed the idea that the leak could affect his, or anyone else’s, election campaign this year. “It’s hard for me to imagine how just having a bunch of numbers, cellphones and emails would in any way affect the election,” he said. “It wasn’t totally unexpected. ” He added that the cybersecurity subcommittee was likely to discuss the hack in more detail, saying the release of personal information made the threat “feel that much more real” to members. “If there were the ability for someone to hack into those accounts, that really gets worrisome,” he said. “Someone could cause a lot of damage if they were able to send emails out from a member’s account, but I’m not hearing that that’s a risk at this point. ” The D. N. C. documents that were released last month proved intensely embarrassing for committee officials because they contained emails indicating that party leaders favored Hillary Clinton as their nominee over her rival, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The committee’s interim leader, Donna Brazile, created a special cybersecurity panel this week to guard against future attacks. Much of the latest batch of documents from the House committee, including overviews of particular races and campaigns, appeared largely innocuous in comparison to the D. N. C. breach. Beyond the cellphone numbers and email addresses for Democratic lawmakers, the latest release also included passwords for some internal databases. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign files do not appear to have been directly breached in the cyberattack, but the personal accounts of some campaign officials might have been, and a voting analytics program used by the campaign was opened as part of the D. N. C. breach, officials say. The American authorities remain uncertain whether the electronic to the Democrats’ computer systems was intended as fairly routine cyberespionage or as part of an effort to manipulate the presidential election. The Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump, urged the Russians last month to try to find 33, 000 “missing” emails from Mrs. Clinton’s personal server. But after his remark produced an intense backlash, Mr. Trump said later that he was being sarcastic. | 1 |
For two years the tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington has ridden on the strength of “The Epic,” his hit triple album from 2015, playing almost 200 concerts last year and cementing a level of cultural prominence rarely afforded to jazz musicians. This week he will debut his first new work since the album, at the 2017 Whitney Biennial, which opens on Friday in its first iteration since the museum moved downtown in 2015. A gallery will feature Mr. Washington’s “Harmony of Difference,” a sweep of music with accompanying video from the filmmaker A. G. Rojas. As he has gained attention, Mr. Washington, 36, has taken up the role of a jazz ambassador. And with “Harmony of Difference,” he adopts a familiar but still relevant argument: Improvised music can represent a metaphor for a more perfect American union. In this case, Mr. Washington set out to use the musical concept of counterpoint (various melodic crosscurrents flowing together) to symbolize a coexistence that is not just peaceful but actively engaged. “With our political climate right now, there’s just so much focus on the negative aspect of our diversity,” he said last week in a phone interview from Los Angeles. “I thought it was ironic that we look at it as this problem that we have to solve, when it’s really a gift. ” Of “Harmony,” he said: “I didn’t want it to sound chaotic. I wanted to show how you can pull these different musical pieces together in a way that felt harmonious. ” The suite coheres around harmonies and rhythms that mix swing, funk and calypso. It’s of a piece with “The Epic,” which Mr. Washington recorded with a large band, a choir and a string section, though here only the final song, over 13 minutes long, features strings and voices. Through the first five tracks, Mr. Rojas’s video pans patterns painted by Mr. Washington’s sister Amani Washington. At the end of the fifth tune we see a composite canvas, with all five patterns creating an abstract face. In the gallery, that video will play simultaneously on TVs on three walls. When it ends, a projector will illuminate the one bare wall with a different video as the sixth tune begins. Patrons would presumably gather around the single screen to watch the culminating piece together. The visuals here are mostly portraits of young Angelenos, alone or in small groups, with a cosmic production style that reflects elements of Mr. Washington’s aesthetic. Mr. Rojas, who makes music videos often but rarely works with jazz musicians, said he felt a sense of freedom working with Mr. Washington. He described “a kind of fluid emotion that doesn’t really exist when you’re doing a video for an artist that has lyrics or a certain specific structure. ” This exhibition is Mr. Washington’s entree into a major museum since arriving on the national scene. Successful jazz musicians usually depend on grants and professorships if they ascend far enough, working in museums is a natural part of the career path. But Mr. Washington has come via a slightly different route. He grew up in South Central Los Angeles, the son of a jazz musician and the nephew of a dance company director, and he came of age in a small ecosystem of mentorship, learning from elders like Billy Higgins and Gerald Wilson. Working with fellow young musicians he had known since grade school, such as Ronald Bruner Jr. and Cameron Graves, he has gone on to record and tour with major Los Angeles musicians outside jazz, like Flying Lotus, Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar. He recorded most of “The Epic” in 2011, during a monthlong recording binge with the loose federation of young jazz musicians calling themselves the West Coast Get Down. Since its release, he has toured constantly, playing his rigorous, largely instrumental music at rock clubs more often than jazz venues. Mr. Washington’s album experienced remarkable success partly thanks to his reputation for working across genres, but also because it responded to a desire for dauntless, farseeing art in the age of Black Lives Matter. “The Epic” loops in elements of 1970s funk and 1980s RB without abandoning jazz’s guiding ethic — one of earnest and determined humanism. On that triple album, for all the dozens of musicians, there seems to be another, more ambiguous layer in the recording. It could just be all those instruments resonating with one another, or a result of the microphones that were used, or something more inexplicable. But a humid electricity — some illusory, conductive force — certainly hangs throughout most of the songs. It’s something like the feeling of an orchestra tuning, or the swell of a bass amplifier just before it feeds back. “When you have a lot of musicians who are connected to each other on a special level, and are really reaching for that, you get a feeling,” Mr. Washington said. “It’s a stirring. ” | 1 |
MANY people will receive drones as gifts this holiday season. But before heading to the nearest field to fly the devices, recipients may want to check their insurance coverage. “I’m sure there will be a lot of drones given as Christmas gifts, and we’ll start to see more claims,” said Chris Hackett, the senior director for personal lines at the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, an industry group. Demand for drones has surged because of their lower cost and expanded capabilities. More than 577, 000 people — many of them owners of multiple drones — have registered as hobby drone operators as of early December, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The Consumer Technology Association estimates that about 1. 2 million drones will be sold this holiday season. Drones are highly maneuverable, and they can carry cameras to record spectacular vistas from the air. But accidents do happen: Recently, news outlets reported that a drone being used to record a wedding reception in New Hampshire injured two guests, who later sued the groom. “There are a lot of unfortunate things that can go wrong,” said Christie Alderman, a vice president at Chubb Insurance. Generally, if you are using a drone for personal purposes and it injures someone or damages their property, your standard homeowner’s insurance policy would provide liability coverage up to the policy’s limits, said Mr. Hackett. (If you are using a drone to make money — even if it is a sideline, like photographing property for a real estate business — that would not typically be covered by a homeowner’s policy). It is always wise, however, to check with your insurance carrier on the specifics of your policy, said Loretta Worters, a spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group. Some insurers may exclude incidents from their policies — and those that do not do so now may decide to eventually, as the number of drones taking to the skies increases and insurers learn more about the cost of claims. “Generally speaking, we evaluate every claim on its own merit,” said Justin Herndon, a spokesman for Allstate, in an email. “We continue to follow the evolution of drones and its impact on our customers’ policies. ” It is also a good idea to reduce your risk by brushing up on drone operational and safety rules, Ms. Alderman said. The F. A. A. requires that hobby users fly drones at or below 400 feet, and keep them within sight. The agency offers a safety video on its website. Also, the Academy of Model Aeronautics, which charters more than 2, 500 clubs, works with other groups and the F. A. A. to promote safety guidelines and instruction through the Know Before You Fly initiative. Simulation software that can help you learn to fly a drone on a home computer is available for about $100, said Chad Budreau, director of public relations and government affairs for the model aeronautics group. Here are some questions and answers about drones: What other insurance options are available? One option for hobbyists: If you join the Academy of Model Aeronautics, you will receive group liability coverage as a benefit of membership. (Membership is $75 for adults, free for those under age 19.) The academy’s insurance policy, issued by a specialty insurer, typically pays out after your homeowner’s policy is exhausted, and it provides $2. 5 million in liability coverage for property damage or bodily injury. What if my drone is lost or damaged? Homeowner’s policies typically cover replacement of personal belongings, which would include a drone. But most policies have a deductible — say, $500. So unless you have a very expensive drone, it may not be worth filing a claim, Ms. Worters said. Do I have to register my drone? Federal rules now require recreational owners to register any drone — or “unmanned aircraft system,” in F. A. A. parlance — flown outdoors. Drones weighing a to 55 pounds can be registered online on the agency’s website the fee is $5 per person, can be applied to as many drones as you own and is good for three years. Failure to register a drone can be costly: The F. A. A. says generally it aims to educate operators, but can impose civil fines of up to $27, 500, and criminal penalties can be much higher. | 1 |
Posted by Claire Bernish
Tony Podesta — brother of the now-disgraced Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta , whose files Wikileaks has been publishing — is not only a powerful Democratic Party lobbyist, but a registered foreign agent receiving a hefty monthly paycheck from the nefarious government of Saudi Arabia.
No — as tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorist as it might sound — that scenario is the absolute truth.
In 1988, John and Tony Podesta formed the Podesta Group and have used their bigwig party-insider status to lobby and influence government policies — while, at various times, simultaneously holding positions of power — which has created a number of glaring conflicts of interest.
According to the March 2016 filing made in accordance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, Tony Podesta is an active foreign agent of the Saudi government with the “ Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court ,” and acts as an officer of the Saudi Arabia account.
At this point, the web of pay-for-play between the Washington, political heavyweights, and foreign governments comes lurching into the spotlight.
For starters, the Podesta brothers’ lobbying firm receives $140,000 every month from the Saudi government, which, in no uncertain terms — and despite a status as privileged U.S. ally — wages a bloody campaign of censorship, murder, suppression, human rights abuse, and worse against its civilian population, while bombing hospitals, schools, and aid convoys in neighboring nations.
John Podesta previously served as President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, founded the think tank Center for American Progress (which oh-so-coincidentally touts the need to reframe Saudi Arabia’s hopelessly tarnished image), counseled President Obama, and now chairs Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Tony Podesta acts as a foreign agent for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia — lobbying to influence government policy in favor of the Kingdom — while also contributing to and bundling for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Think about that for a moment.
One brother uses the influence of money to both affect United States foreign policy and infuse the Clinton campaign with cash — while the other wields the influence of power as a political insider for the same entities.
As the Washington Post reported months ago in July, Tony Podesta’s lobbying efforts “raised $268,000 for the campaign and $31,000 for the victory fund.”
“The Saudis hired the Podesta Group in 2015 because it was getting hammered in the press over civilian casualties from its airstrikes in Yemen and its crackdown on political dissidents at home, including sentencing blogger Raif Badawi to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for ‘insulting Islam,’” Alternet reported . “Since then, Tony Podesta’s fingerprints have been all over Saudi Arabia’s advocacy efforts in Washington DC. When Saudi Arabia executed the prominent nonviolent Shia dissident Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, causing protests throughout the Shia world and inflaming sectarian divisions, The New York Times noted that the Podesta Group provided the newspaper with a Saudi commentator who defended the execution.”
Notably, the Saudis’ reputation has only worsened as further atrocities pile up — concerning not only a record number of barbaric beheadings this year, but suspiciously reckless and errant U.S.-backed coalition bombings of civilian sites in several regions of active conflict.
Additionally, Tony Podesta’s status as a registered foreign agent for Saudi Arabia is at least obliquely discussed in an email from April 15, 2015 — ironically revealed by Wikileaks’ publishing of his brothers personal communiques — in which former Clinton Foundation chief development officer and now campaign national finance director Dennis Cheng wrote to a small group of insiders:
“Hi all – we do need to make a decision on this ASAP as our friends who happen to be registered with FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] are already donating and raising.
“I do want to push back a bit (it’s my job!): I feel like we are leaving a good amount of money on the table (both for primary and general, and then DNC and state parties)… and how do we explain to people that we’ll take money from a corporate lobbyist but not them; that the Foundation takes $ from foreign govts but we now won’t. Either way, we need to make a decision soon.”
To which general counsel to the Clinton campaign, attorney Marc Elias, replied [all errors original and emphasis added],
“Responding to all on this. I was not on the call this morning, but I lean away from a bright line rule here. It seems odd to say that someone who represents Alberta, Canada can’t give, but a lobbyist for Phillip Morris can. Just as we vet lobbyists case by case, I would do the same with FARA. While this may lead to a large number of FARA registrants being denied, it would not be a flat our ban. A total ban feels arbitrary and will engender the same eye-rolling and ill will that it did for Obama.”
As the exchange continues, how to precisely handle the campaign’s image with potentially controversial donors — while, at all costs, maintaining the flow of cash — becomes even more apparent. As strategist and campaign manager Robby Mook responds,
“Where do we draw the line though?”
Elias suggests a particularly intricate solution:
“If we do it case by case, then it will be subjective. We would look at who the donor is and what foreign entity they are registered for. In judging whether to take the money, we would consider the relationship between that country and the United States, its relationship to the State Department during Hillary’s time as Secretary, and its relationship, if any, to the Foundation. In judging the individual, we would look at their history of support for political candidates generally and Hillary’s past campaigns specifically.
“Put simply, we would use the same criteria we use for lobbyists, except with a somewhat more stringent screen.
“As a legal matter, I am not saying we have to do this – we can decide to simply ban foreign registrants entirely. I’m just offering this up as a middle ground.”
Mook eventually decides plainly,
“Marc made a convincing case to me this am that these sorts of restrictions don’t really get you anything…that Obama actually got judged MORE harshly as a result. He convinced me. So…in a complete U-turn, I’m ok just taking the money and dealing with any attacks. Are you guys ok with that?”
All of this political wrangling appears to have had the desired effect — despite increasing calls for the United States to either rein in or sever completely its support for the bloody Saudi regime — the U.S. approved a stunning $1.29 billion sale of smart bombs to the Kingdom in November 2015.
Tony Podesta’s specific contract with the government-run Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court, which will earn $1.68 million by year’s end, does, indeed, suggest the infusion of a pro-Saudi message into the U.S. media propaganda machine.
“Saudi Arabia is consistently one of the bigger players when it comes to foreign influence in Washington,” Sunlight Foundation spokesman Josh Stewart told the Washington Post . “That spans both what you’d call the inside game, which is lobbying and government relations, and the outside game, which is PR and other things that tend to reach a broader audience than just lobbying.”
That broader audience — the American public — has indeed been manipulated courtesy of at least the thoroughly-corrupt Clinton campaign if not surreptitiously by the Saudis, as well.
As The Free Thought Project has repeatedly reported , the evidence of collusion among the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and the mainstream presstitutes is indisputable — including no less than 65 so-called journalists listed by name in various leaks as darlings of the campaign.
Although this level of corruption and collusion would be considered intolerable in nearly any other nation on the planet. And yet, at the center of this shit storm of contention is an official nominee for the White House — who will not be held responsible for any number of questionable and criminal acts.
The system isn’t rigged — it’s performing exactly as intended — and always will as long as the vote validates its existence. 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 |
Se reencuentran dos gemeliers separados al nacer LOS EXPERTOS CONFIRMAN QUE SON EJEMPLARES DE LA MISMA CAMADA reencuentro
Dos gemeliers separados al nacer se han reencontrado hoy tras 18 años sobreviviendo en solitario. Los dos especímenes fueron hallados canturreando en libertad por diferentes puntos de la geografía española. Tras ser capturados por las autoridades forestales en la localidad de Aljarafe, y después de ser observados detenidamente por varios expertos, se ha concluido que se trata de dos miembros salidos de la misma camada.
Los dos gemeliers son idénticos en todo y se saben de memoria éxitos como “Grandes”, “No hay Nadie como tú” o “Chicas, Chicas”. “En ocasiones emiten sonidos, pero todavía no queremos aventurarnos a decir si se intentan comunicar con nosotros o si están creando una especie de estribillo”, explica el biólogo encargado de su estudio.
Se cree que la cantidad de gemeliers que habitan en el territorio español puede alcanzar el millar de ejemplares, sin contar con los cientos de ellos que se encuentran de gira por México, Colombia y Ecuador. Ahora que dos de ellos se han juntado, preocupa que más especímenes proliferen sin control por la península, comunicándose entre ellos a kilómetros de distancia gracias a su complejo lenguaje basado en ritmos latinos y estribillos pegadizos.
Varias protectoras han exigido que los gemeliers sean devueltos a su hábitat natural, en Sevilla, y que se les proteja de las legiones de fans y curiosos que destruyen su ecosistema y violan su intimidad. | 0 |
Desperate Obama RIPS Comey: 'We Don't Operate On Innuendo' By: November 2, 2016
Barack Obama must be pretty worried.
Earlier this week, White House press secretary Josh Earnest told the media that FBI director James Comey’s decision to reopen an investigation into Hillary Clinton didn’t spring from bias or politics. He explained :
Director Comey is a man of integrity and principle and well regarded by officials in both parties and served as a senior position in the Bush administration and got bipartisan support when his nomination to be director of the FBI was considered by the United States Senate... they speak to his good character and the president's assessment of his integrity and his character has not changed. For example, the president doesn't believe that Director Comey is trying to influence the outcome of the election. And the president doesn't believe he's secretly supporting a candidate or political party. He's in a tough spot. He's the one who will be in the position to defend his actions in the face of significant criticism from a variety of legal experts including officials who served in senior justice position for presidents led by both parties.
Now, with the polls closing to within the margin of error, President Obama has had second thoughts. He told NowThisNews :
I do think that there is a norm that when there are investigations we don’t operate on innuendo and we don’t operate on incomplete information and we don’t operate on leaks. We operate based on concrete decisions that are made. When this was investigated thoroughly last time the conclusion of the FBI, the conclusion of the Justice Department, the conclusion of repeated congressional investigations was she had made some mistakes but that there wasn't anything there that was prosecutable.
It’s worthwhile pointing out the hypocrisy here – Obama’s entire administration has been built on innuendo. His Department of Justice has destroyed police departments around the country with unsubstantiated innuendo about systemic racism. His IRS used innuendo to destroy conservative 501(c)3s. His entire 2012 campaign was rooted in innuendo about Mitt Romney’s supposed secret evils.
But more than anything, the Obama flip here shows serious desperation. What changed? The polls. On Monday, it looked like the FBI scandal would detract from Hillary’s polling numbers, but wouldn’t kill her. Now it looks like she might go down in flames. This shows how faithless Obama is – Comey was wonderful just up until the point he threatened Hillary’s chances, at which point he became a slanderer trafficking in innuendo.
If Comey has any stones, he should resign in protest at Obama’s accusations. He’s already been thrown under the bus by his commander-in-chief for not playing dead for him long enough to move Hillary into the White House. He’s got no future in his position no matter what he does. It would be a final redeeming move of honor to tell Obama and his cronies to stuff it now. Tags | 0 |
And what makes you think that, considering that mass incarceration has always stemmed from putting people in prison for a long terms for nonviolent offenses? And don't tell me that debtors prisons are illegal, America routinely breaks its own laws. | 0 |
October 29, 2016 Before: The tears of a 16-year-old Ethiopian waiting to be registered to leave for an asylum centre. After: The tears of an Ethiopian waiting to be registered to leave for an asylum centre.
In its weepy coverage of the dismantling of the Jungle invasion staging camp, the publicly-funded FranceInfo propaganda service realised it had gone a bit too far. | 0 |
If “Peaceful Uprising [is] a climate justice group that describes its task as ‘working to build an uncompromising movement to defend a livable future,’” why does it not recognize that there may BE no such thing?! After all, Dr. David Wasdell ( http://www.apollo-gaia.org/Har... , p. 15) wrote last year: “An increase of 1.5°C was implicit by around 1965. 2°C was implicit by about1978. So 2°C was already in the pipeline towards the end of the 1970s. Today we are under the illusion that reducing our emissions will still keep us under 2°C!”
If Dr. Wasdell is right about us living now with an “illusion,” the efforts of the Peaceful Uprising people are POINTLESS, and worse! Why doesn’t Dahr Jamail realize this? Why does he insist on keep feeding us a PARTIAL dose of the truth, not the WHOLE truth?! | 0 |
Tony Blair suggests a second referendum to reverse Brexit Tony Blair suggests a second referendum to reverse Brexit By 0 149
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says Britain should keep its “options open” on whether or not to leave the European Union until after Brexit talks with the bloc are completed.
During an interview on Friday with BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program, Blair described the EU referendum as “a catastrophe” and said UK voters should be given the option of a second EU referendum.
Britain should not withdraw from the EU until it becomes clearer how Brexit would impact UK’s economic, social and cultural future, Blair said.
“The bizarre thing about this referendum is that we took a decision but we still don’t know the precise terms,” he said. “There’s got to be some way, either through parliament, or through an election, possibly through another referendum, that people express their view.”
The former premier, who was in office from 1997 until 2007, said it should be possible for the public to switch their verdict if it becomes clear the… | 0 |
The disruptions caused by protesters at Los Angeles International airport caused ESPN host Sage Steele to miss a flight. Now Steele is under attack for jumping to Instagram to rail about the protests that caused her such inconvenience. [On Friday, President Trump issued his temporary moratorium on immigration from a list of seven countries the Obama administration had flagged as “countries of concern” back in 2015. Almost immediately liberal activists flooded into several big city airports across the country to protest the order. One of those groups of disruptors descended upon LAX just as NBA Countdown host Steele was attempting to catch a flight, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Steele complained that the protesters caused her to walk nearly two miles in order to catch a flight to Houston and delayed her long enough for her to miss the flight. Steele felt exasperated enough to jump on her Instagram account and decry the protesters for causing “elderly and parents with small children” to have to walk long distances to reach flights. “I love witnessing people exercise their right to protest! But it saddened me to see the joy on their faces knowing that they were successful in disrupting so many people’s travel plans,” she added. But not long after posting her complaint, some of her sports reporter colleagues began to slam her for attacking the protesters. On Twitter, Sports Illustrated writer Michael Silver slapped Steele, saying the protesters were “right” for doing what they did. Sometimes standing up for what’s right provokes inconvenience and all … https: . — Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) January 30, 2017, Steele replied that Silver didn’t actually read what she wrote. @MikeSilver better, more effective ways to do it, Silver! my post. Don’t worry — we can arm wrestle over it this week in Houston, — Sage Steele (@sagesteele) January 30, 2017, Julie another wealthy, white reporter for ESPN, also chided Steele for her Instagram post. I understand the inconvenience of missing a flight etc, but why people are protesting inhumane is much bigger than that. https: . — Julie (@JSB_TV) January 30, 2017, Steele again replied that must have missed the part where she said she supports people protesting for their political ideals and told to her Instagam post. Steele has engaged in political debate in the past. Last year she slammed the players protesting the national anthem, warning people to “look up the word democracy. ” Hey @MikeEvans13_ look up definition of the word DEMOCRACY remember this pic while your right to protest #perspective pic. twitter. — Sage Steele (@sagesteele) November 14, 2016, The ESPNer also slammed African Americans for attacking other African Americans for having opinions that run contrary to the wisdom. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
The Christian cross is “not an adornment for the house or a piece of jewelry to wear,” but a reminder of Christ’s love in saving mankind from evil and sin, Pope Francis said Sunday. [In his weekly Angelus message, the Pope reflected on the Sunday gospel reading that depicts Jesus transfigured before three of his disciples on Mount Tabor. Christ “wanted to reveal his glory to his disciples not to prevent them from experiencing the cross, but to show where the cross leads,” Francis said. “Whoever dies with Christ, will rise again with Christ. And the cross is the door of the resurrection. ” “Those who fight together with Him, will triumph with Him. This is the message of hope that the cross of Jesus contains, urging us to courage in our lives,” he said. “The Christian cross is not a decoration for the house or a piece of jewelry to wear,” Francis continued, but “a reminder of the love with which Jesus sacrificed himself to save mankind from evil and sin. ” Sunday’s Angelus was the Pope’s first public appearance since returning to Rome from a retreat in the Italian town of Ariccia. “In this Lenten season, let us devoutly contemplate the image of the crucifix, Jesus on the cross,” Francis said Sunday. “This is the symbol of the Christian faith, the emblem of Jesus, who died and rose for us. ” “Let us make sure that the Cross marks the stages of our Lenten journey to understand ever more fully the seriousness of sin and the value of the sacrifice with which the Redeemer saved us all,” he said. Christ revealed himself to his followers as a different type of Messiah than they were expecting, Francis said, and this difference reaches its culmination in the apparent defeat of the cross. As Messiah, Jesus was not “a powerful, glorious king, but a humble, defenseless servant,” Francis said, “not a gentleman of great wealth — a sign of blessing — but a poor man with nowhere to lay his head not a patriarch with numerous offspring, but an unmarried man without house or home. ” “It really is an revelation of God,” the Pope said, “and the most disconcerting sign of this scandalous reversal is the cross. But precisely through the cross, Jesus will reach his glorious resurrection, which will be final, not like this transfiguration which lasted a moment, an instant. ” Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome. | 1 |
VIDEOS The US Military lied to thousands of soldiers — and now Veterans are paying for it Reevaluating how the U.S. government goes about irresponsibly sending these men and women abroad to fight insurgents who didn’t pose a threat to Americans By Alice Salles - October 26, 2016
Shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon hired Bell Pottinger, a London-based PR agency. The PR firm was tasked with promoting what the Pentagon called “democratic elections” in Iraq, ultimately earning over a hundred million dollars yearly. Part of the firm’s job included producing “fake al Qaeda propaganda films,” the Bureau of Investigative Journalism recently reported .
Despite the PR operation’s hefty price tag, the Pentagon seemed to have no issue allocating taxpayer resources to have these videos produced. But over ten years after the Iraq invasion, the Pentagon is now concerned about its past appropriations — at least part of them, anyway.
Ten years after promising $15,000 bonuses to soldiers willing to re-enlist in 2006 and 2007, the Pentagon is now forcing California veterans to pay back the bonuses.
The Los Angeles Times reports , “officials signed up soldiers in assembly-line fashion” in 2006 and 2007, outlining the “generous terms available for six-year reenlistments” to those willing to sacrifice their safety, leaving their homes, once again, to fight abroad in exchange for a large bonus. Now, the Pentagon wants their money back. To Get Soldiers to Re-enlist, the National Guard Lied
In 2008, the movie Stop-Loss highlighted a reality few members of the public were informed about.
With the growing involvement of U.S. military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers who had already served in Iraq and Afghanistan for several tours were being asked to reenlist. Sometimes, these soldiers’ term duties were extended forcefully via the government’s controversial stop-loss policy , which allows the government to extend the period a soldier must spend on active duty involuntarily.
In California, the state’s National Guard began promising thousands of soldiers that they would receive $15,000 bonuses for going back to war.
Now, nearly 10,000 soldiers who took the National Guard’s promise at face value are being ordered to pay back the bonuses plus interest. In some cases, their wages are being garnished to fund the payments.
This issue was first brought up when veterans “ whose only mistake was to accept bonuses offered when the Pentagon needed to fill the ranks” were the target of an investigation launched in 2010.
After receiving reports of improper payments, a federal probe found “thousands of bonuses and student loan payments were given to California Guard soldiers who did not qualify for them, or were approved despite paperwork errors.”
As a result of the investigation, Army Master Sgt. Toni Jaffe, who also served as the California Guard’s incentive manager, pleaded guilty to filing false claims totaling $15.2 million in 2011. Jaffe was sentenced to spend 30 months in federal prison, and three other officers who also pleaded guilty to fraud were put on probation.
Breaking the National Guard’s promise to soldiers whose reenlistment depended on the bonus distribution, the California Guard “assigned 42 auditors to comb through paperwork for bonuses and other incentive payments given to 14,000 soldiers.”
In September 2016, these auditors finalized the investigation, finding roughly 9,700 current and retired soldiers who had been given “improper” bonuses. These soldiers have been told “to repay some or all of their bonuses” since the probe was launched and the first cases were discovered.
According to the California National Guard, these repayments have recovered more than $22 million so far, compromising veterans like Robert Richmond, who now works for a construction company in Texas. He was an Army Sergeant First Class living in Huntington Beach when in 2006, he was asked to reenlist.
“I signed a contract that I literally risked my life to fulfill,” Richmond explained , adding that he only agreed to go back to war because he was told he qualified for a $15,000 bonus as a special forces soldier.
The veteran had gone through a divorce after being deployed to Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003. Asked to consider the bonus to reenlist, Richmond thought the money was going to give him “breathing room,” so he agreed. In 2007, he was sent to Iraq’s “ Triangle of Death ,” an area a few miles south of Baghdad known for intense fighting.
In one of the hundreds of missions against insurgents he was a part of, Richmond sustained permanent back and brain injuries after his vehicle triggered a roadside bomb.
In 2014, the California Guard headquarters contacted him, letting the former special forces soldier know he was being urged to repay the $15,000 bonus he received in 2006. If he failed to make the payment, the letter said , he would face “debt collection action.”
Richmond refused to give the government any money back, filing appeal after appeal. “[Impacted soldiers] want somebody in the government, anybody, to say this is wrong and we’ll stop going after this money,” he said . ‘Support the Troops!’: Code for ‘Don’t Question War?’
In Washington, D.C., lawmakers have condemned the Pentagon, saying the soldiers were not at fault for accepting a bonus they were promised.
Promising to open an investigation into the enlistment bonus problem, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) called the Pentagon’s demands “disgraceful.”
“The Department of Defense should waive these repayments,” McCarthy said in a statement . “The House will investigate these reports to ensure our soldiers are fully honored for their service,” he added.
Rep. McCarthy says the government should not be demanding any money back from veterans in his statement. The California Republican and also argued that “we are the ones who owe a debt for the great sacrifices our heroes have made — some of whom unfortunately paid the ultimate sacrifice.”
Instead of using this opportunity to highlight the importance of safeguarding our soldiers and keeping them from engaging in unconstitutional wars that are only successfully sold to the American public because administrations lie , McCarthy celebrates these very soldiers’ sacrifices.
Using this discussion to repeat the traditional “support the troops” line, lawmakers like McCarthy steer the debate away from what’s causing these soldiers so much pain and distress , acting as if relentless war hasn’t been the reason they were lied to. Instead, McCarthy and others are pushing the government to keep its promise without reevaluating how the U.S. government goes about irresponsibly sending these men and women abroad to fight insurgents who didn’t pose a threat to Americans at the time .
In the 1964 film, The Americanization of Emily , which was based on a novel written by a veteran who had been a SeaBee officer on D-Day, character Lt. Comdr. Charles E. Madison gives a short speech explaining that “[those] who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields … perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices.”
Failing to discuss the real costs of war with the American electorate while exalting the sacrifices made by those who serve in the military is part of an ongoing campaign — deliberate or otherwise — to keep America involved in perpetual war.
Don’t believe me? Don’t take my word for it. Instead, read what journalist Randolph Bourne had to say about the country’s thirst for war in 1918: In times of peace, we usually ignore the State in favour of partisan political controversies, or personal struggles for office, or the pursuit of party policies. It is the Government rather than the State with which the politically minded are concerned. The State is reduced to a shadowy emblem which comes to consciousness only on occasions of patriotic holiday. … “With the shock of war, however, the State comes into its own again. The Government, with no mandate from the people, without consultation of the people, conducts all the negotiations, the backing and filling, the menaces and explanations, which slowly bring it into collision with some other Government, and gently and irresistibly slides the country into war.
War, Bourne concluded , “is the health of the state.” This is not because all individuals involved with governing enjoy death and destruction per se , but because “it is … in war that the urgency for union seems greatest, and the necessity for universality seems most unquestioned,” which forces the public to unite behind the state no matter what — especially if the occasion leading to war is “terrifying” the public.
While veterans whose bonuses are being questioned ten years later should be heard and protected from government abuse, we must not forget it was government’s own thirst for war that initiated this cycle of deception. Let us not ignore the reasons why we should support our troops — and how we should go about it; simply claiming to be interested in celebrating U.S. soldiers for their sacrifice does nothing for them. | 0 |
In a campaign commercial that ran just before the election, Donald J. Trump’s voice boomed over a series of Wall Street images. He described “a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations. ” The New York Stock Exchange, the hedge fund billionaire George Soros and the chief executive of the investment bank Goldman Sachs flashed across the screen. Now Mr. Trump has named a former Goldman executive and with Mr. Soros to spearhead his economic policy. With Wednesday’s nomination of Steven Mnuchin, a Goldman trader turned hedge fund manager and Hollywood financier, to be Treasury secretary, a new economic leadership is taking shape in Washington. Mr. Mnuchin will join Wilbur L. Ross Jr. a billionaire investor in distressed assets, who has been chosen to run the Commerce Department, and Todd Ricketts, owner of the Chicago Cubs, who has been picked to be deputy commerce secretary. All are superwealthy and to be overseen by the first billionaire president in United States history. That two investors — Mr. Mnuchin and Mr. Ross — will occupy two major economic positions in the new administration is the most powerful signal yet that Mr. Trump plans to emphasize policies friendly to Wall Street, like tax cuts and a relaxation of regulation, in the early days of his administration. While that approach has been cheered by investors (the stocks of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been on a tear since the election) it stands in stark contrast to the populist campaign that Mr. Trump ran and the support he received from voters across the country. Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge fund executive and member of the Trump transition team, insisted on Wednesday that appointing wealthy investors did not contradict the campaign’s populist message. “The people of the United States, they need a break,” Mr. Scaramucci said. “And we need to switch them from going from the working class into the working poor into what I call the aspirational working class, which my dad was a member of. ” Still, Democrats were quick to attack the latest nomination. “Steve Mnuchin is just another Wall Street insider,” Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said in a joint statement. “That is not the type of change that Donald Trump promised to bring to Washington — that is hypocrisy at its worst. ” So far, none of the nominees who will be shaping economic policy have any significant experience in government. Mr. Mnuchin, 53, and Mr. Ross, 79, are both familiar with buying distressed properties and selling for a profit. But they are political neophytes with scant experience in managing large organizations. They will oversee two government agencies that together employ about 130, 000 people around the world. In the case of Mr. Mnuchin at Treasury, his experience as a principal investor who made large sums of money through wagers suggests that he will look critically at the thicket of regulations that now constrain the activities of investment banks. That could mean a reassessment of what has come to be known as the Volcker Rule, part of the financial overhaul that followed the 2008 financial crisis. The rule forbids banks to make certain speculative investments with their own capital. “I would say the No. 1 problem with the Volcker Rule is it’s too complicated and people don’t know how to interpret it,” Mr. Mnuchin said in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday. “So we’re going to look at what to do with it as we are with all of . The No. 1 priority is going to be to make sure that banks lend. ” In the interview, Mr. Mnuchin also said he would look to cutting corporate tax rates as a way to increase economic growth. And he said the wealthy would not see a big tax cut. “Any reductions we have in taxes will be offset by less deductions so that there will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class,” Mr. Mnuchin said in the interview. “There will be a big tax cut for the middle class, but any tax cuts we have for the upper class will be offset by less deductions that pay for it. ” There is a Washington tradition of presidents calling on a Goldman Sachs luminary to take the reins of the economy, including the Democrat Robert E. Rubin in 1995 and Henry M. Paulson Jr. a Republican, in 2006. Mr. Mnuchin’s Goldman pedigree is as good as it gets, given that his father, Robert, was a pioneer in stock trading who spent 35 years at the firm. While the Goldman brand may have initially attracted Mr. Trump, for the broader financial community it is Mr. Mnuchin’s track record at hedge and private equity funds, which is where the real money is made on Wall Street these days, that makes him appealing. “Mnuchin as Treasury secretary is somebody who can speak to bankers — Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, James Gorman and Brian Moynihan. He can speak their language,” said Gary Kaminsky, a former vice chairman at Morgan Stanley, referring to the chief executives of JPMorgan Chase, Goldman, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America. “He comes from a trading desk, and that’s something that is very strong,” Mr. Kaminsky, who has attended for Mr. Trump, added. While there is little doubt that Mr. Mnuchin can speak the language of Wall Street, he has had little experience running large, complex bureaucracies. Mr. Rubin and Mr. Paulson had ascended to the top at Goldman, and had many years of experience managing people and organizations under their belt. Mr. Mnuchin did assume a leading role in the restructuring and reinventing of IndyMac, now known as OneWest, a California mortgage giant that collapsed in 2008. He and partners acquired the firm and later made billions. After he moved from New York to the West Coast, Mr. Mnuchin was targeted by protesters who claimed that the bank was too quick to foreclose on struggling homeowners. Last year the bank was sold to the CIT Group, a lender run at the time by another Goldman Sachs alumnus, John A. Thain. In a statement announcing his economic appointments, Mr. Trump highlighted the deal. “He purchased IndyMac Bank for $1. 6 billion and ran it very professionally, selling it for $3. 4 billion plus a return of capital,” he said of Mr. Mnuchin. “That’s the kind of people I want in my administration representing our country. ” Mr. Mnuchin has faced other controversies. In 2010, he and his brother, Alan, were sued over their mother’s early investment with Bernard L. Madoff, an investor who was convicted of running a Ponzi scheme. The lawsuit, filed by a trustee for Madoff victims, alleged that $3. 2 million of the money Mr. Mnuchin withdrew from his mother’s account shortly after she died belonged to other victims. The lawsuit was dropped last year because of a time limit. Hollywood has been another reinvention for Mr. Mnuchin. In 2006, he and a partner, Chip Seelig, struck a deal through their company Dune Entertainment to invest $325 million in 28 movies produced by 20th Century Fox. It was a successful partnership Fox delivered hits (made in part with Dune’s money) like “Avatar,” which took in $2. 8 billion worldwide in 2009. After breaking with Mr. Seelig in 2012, Mr. Mnuchin teamed up with a company called RatPac, owned by the rowdy filmmaker Brett Ratner and the Australian billionaire James Packer. Mr. Ratner was then notorious in Hollywood he resigned as a producer of the Academy Awards in 2011 after using an slur at a public event and making frank remarks about his sex life on Howard Stern’s radio show. (He apologized.) But together the three men formed a vehicle to invest $450 million in an extensive array of Warner Bros. movies. Some have been major hits, like “Gravity,” which took in $723. 2 million. But there have also been money losers, including “Pan” and “In the Heart of the Sea. ” Still, Mr. Mnuchin has clearly enjoyed a Hollywood lifestyle, whether attending parties at the Hôtel du during the Cannes Film Festival or going in with a movie industry friend to buy a Dassault Falcon 50 jet (since sold). He can currently be seen in a cameo — playing a Merrill Lynch executive — in Warren Beatty’s new movie “Rules Don’t Apply. ” Beyond the entertainment industry, there other similarities between Mr. Trump and Mr. Mnuchin. They are both twice divorced, and their third partners are decidedly younger. (Mr. Mnuchin’s fiancée is Louise Linton, a actress from Scotland.) They also both have a taste for landmark Manhattan real estate: Trump Tower for the and 740 Park Avenue for Mr. Mnuchin. But there are differences, too. Despite his Hollywood appetites, Mr. Mnuchin is described by people who know him as slightly awkward and not one to command a room. Friends of the two men describe them more as social and professional acquaintances than close friends. The names of flashier prospects had been floated as possible candidates for Treasury, according to a fund manager close to the ’s economic brain trust. Among them: Henry Kravis of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Company, Jonathan Gray of Blackstone, Jamie Dimon, Mitt Romney, and Thomas J. Barrack Jr. of Colony Capital, a Los real estate investor who has been close to Mr. Trump for decades. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — President Obama is delaying a planned veto of a bill that would allow the families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for any role in the plot, hoping to tap into an unusual well of buyer’s remorse among senators who passed the measure unanimously in the spring. The measure sailed through the House last week after a surprise vote, raising the prospect of the first veto showdown between Mr. Obama and a bipartisan coalition in Congress. But an intense lobbying campaign by the White House and Saudi Arabia, among others, has cast doubt on what had appeared to be an inevitable override of the president’s veto. Officials have refused to say when Mr. Obama would veto the bill, and he has until next Friday to do so. His advisers are considering whether he should wait until then, after Congress is expected to recess on Thursday for the November elections, which could give him weeks to persuade lawmakers to drop their support for the measure before they return and consider the veto override. Already, cracks are showing, even among Republicans who generally would love to exercise the first veto override against Mr. Obama. “I have tremendous empathy for the victims,” said Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, who, like the rest of his colleagues, agreed to the measure in May. “But at the same time, I have concerns about the precedent it would set,” fearing, as many lawmakers now do, that Americans could be sued by other nations in retaliation, or by the families of innocent people killed in drone attacks. The trepidation about overriding a presidential veto is shared by Republicans and Democrats alike. Many lawmakers apparently had believed that the House would never pass the bill, as it hastily did after the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, encountered families of the Sept. 11 victims at a on Long Island. “I’m going to have to give very careful consideration to the president’s explanation for his veto,” said Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware. “This is a delicate balancing act. ” If Mr. Obama cannot persuade lawmakers, his aides acknowledge, proponents of the bill could muster the of the House and Senate necessary to override a veto. “You don’t have to have an advanced degree in math to understand the significant support that exists in the United States Congress for this bill,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said on Thursday. “But the concerns that we have about this legislation are significant, and there are many members of Congress who are sympathetic to the argument. ” Mr. Obama argues that the legislation, whose passage has demonstrated the lasting clout of the Sept. 11 families, could open the United States to a barrage of lawsuits from private citizens overseas. It would amend a 1976 law that grants other countries broad immunity from American lawsuits, allowing nations to be sued in federal courts if they are found to have played any role in terrorist attacks that killed Americans on United States soil. The passage of the bill last week in the House left opponents scrambling, and it set off a week of lobbying by Saudi officials and firms that Riyadh has hired to advance its interests in Washington. On Thursday, the Saudi foreign minister, Adel spoke with Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, to reiterate Saudi concerns about the bill and warn of its potential consequences. “They made it very clear to us that this is a hostile act,” Mr. Graham said. “This is an odd situation. The families are high on everyone’s list to be taken care of. But it comes at a time when Saudi Arabia believes America is not a reliable ally. ” Earlier this year, Mr. Jubeir told lawmakers that the Saudis might be forced to sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of assets inside the United States if the bill became law — a defensive measure to ensure that they are not exposed in civil litigation. Mr. Jubeir is in the United States for the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Two lobbying and public relations firms under contract with the Saudi government, Qorvis MSLGroup and Podesta Group, circulated this week a compilation of recent statements by foreign officials warning that passing the legislation could set off a wave of retaliatory measures by other counties. But the families have also been a force for policy makers to reckon with since the weeks right after the attacks, and lawmakers had no interest in getting into a public brawl with them a few months before an election. “The families have been an immensely powerful voice and face in this tragedy,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, who is pressing members to override the impending veto. In a statement Thursday night, several family members said senators, including Mr. Corker and Mr. Graham, were forsaking them by working to postpone the override vote until after the elections. “Justice delayed is justice denied,” the statement said. “Who knows what if anything Congress will be doing in two months?” The White House is eager to push the veto override into the lame duck session in November both so it has more time to lobby members of Congress, and because several Republican senators who are up for may feel pressure to override the bill now but would be less inclined to once their race is behind them. | 1 |
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If humans were largely moral and ethical beings, then globalization could be a workable proposition. Unfortunately, the dark behavioral narcissism expressed by compulsive greed and an infinite appetite for power seems to have become the guiding precept of our collective nightmare. If only the desire to dominate others and have a lot more than them were not the prime motivations for the global elite on top of the human food chain, we could all have our respective modest slice of happiness on this planet. The Utopia of globalization through institutions such as the United Nations (UN), World Bank , and International Monetary Fund (IMF) was supposed to eradicate the universal pestilence of war, extreme poverty , hunger and slavery using the might of the above supranational institutions to prevent the rise of so-called rogue nations usually ruled by dictators. (image by Byung Chul Kim) License DMCA
World order of chaos with misery for profit
The opportunity of this push for a supranational form of government has to be understood in the psychological context of a world traumatized by World War II. Many public servants, who had fought against the Nazis and their Japanese and Italian allies, had genuinely the best intentions at heart when institutions like the UN were set up. If some of the original ideas were good and moral to some extend, a rot almost immediately contaminated and perverted most of the created institutions and quickly -- using the pretext of the Cold War -- allowed the birth of a monstrosity such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO ). The globalists have controlled and ultimately Wall Street has financed, supranational government instances such as the UN, IMF, World Bank and a myriad of non-governmental organization (NGO) little helpers. Not only have these done nothing to curtail the man-made disasters of war, climate change , slavery and poverty, but they have exacerbated them, all for the sake of profit. - Advertisement - License DMCA
In this Orwellian time of moral decay, human misery is good for business. In a globalization controlled by Wall Street's puppeteer sociopaths, who believe they are the masters of the universe, ordinary people everywhere have become canon fodder and slave labor. They are not even collateral damage but human lubricant, as viewed by the elite. One can see that if they are not stopped immediately, trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and its Trans-Atlantic counterpart could seal the deal of the establishment of an atrocious world government, controlled by a few thousands, in complete disregard of not only national interest, but also cultural diversity. (image by John Getchel) License DMCA - Advertisement -
Look what happened to Detroit, Michigan, and countless other manufacturing towns in the United States that are all collateral damage of Bill Clinton's North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The massive trade agreements in the works, to be put in place by the globalists if they remain in power, are intended to annihilate any form of economic or political independence from the signatory countries and to scatter their populations to the wind, as in the case in the globalist-controlled demolition of the Middle East in Iraq, Libya and Syria. Displaced and disenfranchised populations are beaten into submission and used as docile worker bees. (image by Mark Rain) License DMCA
Drastic action or hell on earth
If we let the globalists complete their worldwide coup already in progress, then all sovereignty would be lost, and most of the world's population would become slave-wage laborers at the mercy of the global corporate empire. Countries with a diversified agriculture would be turned into one-crop wastelands to ensure that most of the food supply has to be imported. Pseudo local governments would merely officiate as the slave drivers for the global elite. This must be stopped at all cost and undone by all means necessary. If we allow this final coup by the geriatric psychopaths at the top of the current world order, thousands of years of our rich human experience would be wiped out. Like poorly made cheap electronic products, the cultural garbage of the lowest common denominator empire would flood the world. This cultural homogenization would affect primarily the information available to people. Since dissent is impossible without correct information and critical thought, the globalists want their propaganda to become the only source of information. With the UN, the World Bank and the IMF, the political and economic framework financed by a worldwide network of banksters is already in place. Influential nations, on paper, like France and the United Kingdom, which are still officially full fledged members of the UN Security Council, have de facto abdicated their sovereignty to become vassals and secondary enforcers of the globalist plan. We are at the edge of an existential threat of greater magnitude than ever before in human history. (image by IMFarchive) License DMCA
The semantics of deception
Machiavelli is known for his cynical view of political power; however, the advice the author of The Prince gave to the powerful of his time seems innocent by comparison to the depravity of today's puppet masters. Words and ideas are gutted of their meaning to signify, most of the time, the exact opposite. For example, globalist eminence grise George Soros' Open Society Foundation is an opaque giant NGO, with more than 100 offshoots worldwide by its own admission, but its tentacles are in reality more far reaching. The recent publications of Wikileaks in the voluminous Podesta email files have been a revelation of the extent of deception victimizing United States citizens. John Podesta may be viewed as a Soros right-hand man in the US in charge of delivering the returns for the globalist's investments in the US elections. The connection between the two men is not only obvious but also official considering that Soros financed Podesta's so-called Center for American Progress, the fake left equivalent of the neocon think tanks. The term progress is a lure that signifies power, just like Soros' open society is, in reality, an exclusive club as tight as oysters reserved only for Soros' chosen associates to savor. What is apparent from the email treasure trove is that Podesta's job is really to supervise Hillary Clinton on behalf of Soros. In this context, the expression, leader of the free world, to describe the US president becomes a lie. The current world order of the globalists is anything but free, and one applicant for the job, Hillary Clinton, is not a queen on the chessboard, but a pawn. | 0 |
November 17, 2016 "Fake News" About Trump Continues Unabated
Clinton makes some twenty different issues or person responsible for her loss - everyone and everything except the DNC, her staff or herself. But a campaign that did just enough to get the states it thought it needed and not one bit more was going to lose no matter how much money it would spend. Shunning progressives and implausibly blaming Russia for her own mistakes did not help either. She failed as a candidate and politician. It is just as simple as that. But now another culprit responsible for her loss is rolled out. "Fake news" that somehow wasn't sorted out on social networks.
But my personal impression was that there was more fake news about Trump than about Clinton. The NYT like most other mainstream media was so much off from reality that its publisher now wrote a letter to request that staff "rededicate .. to the fundamental mission of .. journalism". He thereby admits that the NYT had failed as a news organization.
But there is no rededication, neither in the NYT nor elsewhere, that I can see. The fairy tales about and around Trump seem not to stop for a minute. It will be claimed in top headlines that Trump will make John Bolton or Rudy Giuliani Secretary of State, lunatic Frank Gaffney will be his advisor. Trump wants security clearances for his children! Of course hardly any the active promoters of such nonsense will put the official denials of these lies on top of their pages or mention them at all. Poltico today told me that Wall Street is celebrating the Trump win, implying that Clinton would have been much better. Trump received some $5 million in donations from the finance sector, Clinton received $105 million - guess why.
Trump wants to abandon a No-First-Strike policy for U.S. nuclear weapons is one current scare (650 retweets!). That is a policy the U.S. never-ever had. Obama, like Clinton, rejected a NFS policy. How could Trump abandon it? Trumps wants to register all Muslims? The National Security Entry-Exit Registration System was introduced in 2002 and only applied to visitors and residents from majority Muslim countries. (In 2011 the system was replaced with a new one that practically has the same purpose.) The no-fly-lists are largely lists of Muslim - even four years old ones. Obama waged drone war in seven countries and bombed five. All were majority Muslim. So what please could Trump actually do to Muslim people that would be worse than what Bush or Obama have done?
Trump is a racist and his voters are white supremacists is a fake news claim that is still rolled out on a daily base. The facts do not support it. If they were true why did he get more votes from blacks and hispanics than Romney or McCain?
Why not take Trump for what he is? A fast talking salesman, born too rich, but politically a centrist who long supported Democrats and who will simply continue the political path Clinton, Bush and Obama created and walked before him. There is some hope that he will be less "globalist", neoconned and belligerent in his foreign policy but that still needs to be proven. On many of his announced policies there will likely be more Democrats in Congress supporting him than Republicans.
The man should be attacked on his politics and policies whenever that is justified. There will plenty such opportunities, especially with his economic and tax plans. Instead we get a daily dose of fake news about Trump this or that and one scare story after the other.
Is it so difficult, or even impossible, for journalists and media to "rededicate" themselves from feverish pro-Clinton and anti-Trump advocates back to (semi-)serious reporting?
That would be bad news for everyone. Posted by b on November 17, 2016 at 01:25 PM | Permalink | 0 |
There May Be Another Planet in Our Solar System It could be responsible for tilting the sun Image Credits: fotomanu_93/Flickr .
Earlier this year an announcement raised a tantalizing possibility: a ninth planet lurking in the outer reaches of our solar system.
The announcement turned the astronomy and planetary science world upside down.
Caltech astronomer Michael Brown and theoretical astrophysicist Konstantin Batygin found evidence for a possible 10 Earth mass planet that may be tilting long-orbiting dwarf planets on their sides and shepherding them into clusters far past the orbit of Neptune in highly eccentric orbits. In the last several months, more and more papers have been published about the possible planet and how it might prove an explanation for other strange things happening in our solar system.
At a press conference held this afternoon, at the AAS Division of Planetary Sciences annual meeting in Pasadena Ca, another announcement was made about Planet Nine’s effects on the spin-axis tilt of our Sun. This time, the paper titled Solar Obliquity Induced by Planet Nine is lead by Caltech graduate student Elizabeth Bailey, with Brown and Batygin as co-authors. | 0 |
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For the first time, biologists have succeeded in growing human stem cells in pig embryos, shifting from science fiction to the realm of the possible the idea of developing human organs in animals for later transplant. The approach involves generating stem cells from a patient’s skin, growing the desired new organ in a large animal like a pig, and then harvesting it for transplant into the patient’s body. Since the organ would be made of a patient’s own cells, there would be little risk of immune rejection. The pigs would be examples of chimeras, animals composed of two different genomes. They would be generated by implanting human stem cells into an early pig embryo, resulting in an animal composed of mixed pig and human cells. One team of biologists, led by Jun Wu and Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte at the Salk Institute, has shown for the first time that human stem cells can contribute to forming the tissues of a pig, despite the 90 million years of evolution between the two species. Another group, headed by Tomoyuki Yamaguchi and Hideyuki Sato of the University of Tokyo, and Hiromitsu Nakauchi of Stanford, has reversed diabetes in mice by inserting pancreas glands composed of mouse cells that were grown in a rat. The Salk team’s report is published in Thursday’s issue of Cell and the team’s in Wednesday’s issue of Nature. The two reports together establish the feasibility of trying to grow replacement human organs in animals, though such a goal is still far off. “I think this is very promising work in principle,” said Rudolf Jaenisch, a stem cell expert at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass. Many technical and ethical barriers have yet to be overcome, but the research is advancing alongside the acute need for organs some 76, 000 people in the United States alone are awaiting transplants. Creating chimeras, especially those with human cells, may prove controversial, given the possibility that test animals could be humanized in undesirable ways. One would be if human cells should be incorporated into a pig’s brain, endowing it with human qualities. Almost no one wants a talking pig. Another untoward outcome would be if human cells should come to compose the pig’s reproductive tissues. Few people want to see what might result from the union between a pig with human sperm and a sow with human eggs. In 2005, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas introduced a bill imposing a $1 million fine on anyone creating and profiting from a chimera with human cells in its brain or reproductive tissues. That bill went nowhere, but in deference to public concerns the National Institutes of Health in 2015 instituted a moratorium on using public funds to insert human cells into animal embryos. The N. I. H. proposed last August to lift the ban, but to require grant proposals involving the insertion of human stem cells into early animal embryos to be examined by an expert committee. The public comment period on the proposal drew 22, 000 responses that it reviewed. . The ban is still in place, and it’s unclear whether the Trump administration would continue to consider lifting the moratorium or whether new objections would be raised to using public funds for this line of research. “We have no indication one way or another that they have any opinions on this,” said Carrie D. Wolinetz, the associate director for science policy at the N. I. H. Insertion of human stem cells into the early embryos of monkeys was prohibited in 2009, and remains so because monkeys, given their evolutionary closeness to humans, might easily have their brains altered by human cells. Biologists’ interest in chimeras has been prompted by the limited success in coaxing medically useful tissues from stem cells grown in glassware. human stem cells were first derived from human embryos in 1998 and from ordinary adult tissue cells in 2007. After each discovery there were hopes of converting the cells into therapeutic tissues by exposing them in glassware to the sequence of natural chemicals that in the living embryo directs them into constructing the heart, brain, lungs and other organs. But no one knows exactly what sequence of chemicals is required for the generation of each different tissue or organ. This may be why glassware experiments with stem cells have not yet lived up to their full promise. Some biologists believe a better approach may be to grow stem cells not in glassware but in a developing embryo, where they will be exposed to the natural sequence of chemicals required to induce each type of organ. “In the last 18 years, hundreds of labs, including ours, have tried to generate different cell types from human pluripotent stem cells in the culture dish with a cocktail of factors,” Dr. Izpisua Belmonte said. “But the cocktails are not identical to what the cells experience in the embryo. So I thought, ‘Why not let nature do the job? ’” Dr. Izpisua Belmonte’s and Dr. Nakauchi’s teams have both pursued a strategy of directing the human donor cells to generate specific organs in the recipient species. This is desirable for both technical and ethical reasons. Dr. Nakauchi has disabled the master gene in rats for making a pancreas so that when mouse stem cells are injected into the early embryo of such a rat, the growing embryo has no choice but to construct its pancreas of pure mouse cells, instead of the usual mixture of rat and mouse cells. Generating inviting homes for the donor cells may reduce the risk that they will be incorporated in nontarget tissues like the brain or reproductive tissues. Also, an organ made purely of donor cells can be transplanted into the donor animal with minimal fear of rejection. In practice, about 10 percent of the mouse pancreases generated in rats was composed of rat cells, because the rat supplies the blood vessels for the organ. But the rat blood vessels seem to be quickly replaced when the organs are transferred to mice. The mice with their new pancreases lived in good health for a year after the transplant. They came from the same inbred strain as the donor mice, so they did not reject their new organs. The result provides proof of principle that Type 1 diabetes can be treated by growing a pancreas from an individual’s cells in another animal, Dr. Nakauchi and colleagues conclude. The next step is to repeat the experiment in pigs, which produce organs of a more suitable size for use in humans. Dr. Izpisua Belmonte’s team has now shown that human stem cells do survive in pig embryos and help form their organs, although not very efficiently. “The human cell doesn’t contribute much. To the brain we observed little or no contribution at all,” said his colleague Dr. Wu. “This is good news because we can guide the human cells to the organ we want. ” Both Dr. Izpisua Belmonte and Dr. Nakauchi said there was a long way to go before human organs could successfully be grown in animals like pigs. Chimeras will be more immediately useful in studying human embryogenesis, testing drugs and following the progress of disease. To achieve the goal of growing human organs for transplant, researchers must first engineer pigs that cannot make the organ of interest. In mice, this has already been done for the pancreas, heart and eye. They must then show that human stem cells can construct such an organ in a pig. Since the pig will supply the blood vessels and nerves, these will need to be replaced by the recipient’s cells after transplant without triggering immune rejection. If rejection does occur, the researchers will have to knock out the pig’s vasculature genes and arrange for these too to be humanized. Complex organs, like the heart, will be harder to grow than those like the pancreas which has a single kind of progenitor cell. All these steps, though they seem feasible, will require several years to develop and test. Both scientists expressed confidence that ethical concerns about chimera research could be addressed. Chimeras are typically mosaics in which each organ is a mixture of the host and donor cells. But new techniques like the gene editing system should allow the human cells in a pig embryo both to be channeled into organs of interest and to be excluded from tissues of concern like the brain and reproductive tissues. “This isn’t dangerous research. We’re not creating monsters,” Dr. Nakauchi said. “There isn’t a need to get into a debate about moral humanization if scientists target the organs where the human cells will go,” said Insoo Hyun, a medical ethicist at Case Western Reserve University. “Scientists are not making chimeras just for fun — it’s to relieve the dire shortage of transplantable organs. ” Concern about human cells’ incorporation into a lower animal’s brain is not without basis. Dr. Steven Goldman of the University of Rochester Medical Center found in 2013 that mice injected with a special type of human brain cell had enhanced learning abilities. But other forms of humanized mice, such as mice engineered to have a human immune system, are routine laboratory animals that seem to occasion little angst. Dr. Izpisua Belmonte’s insertion of human stem cells into pig embryos was not affected by the N. I. H. moratorium on such chimeras because he used private funds. His experiment was approved by the authorities in Spain and in California, and following their advice, the development of the pig chimeras was stopped after four weeks in the womb. Dr. Nakauchi moved his lab to Stanford from Tokyo in 2014 because Japanese regulations do not allow chimera research, only to be hit with the N. I. H. moratorium a year later, which prevented him from making chimeras with human cells. His mouse pancreas experiment has taken eight or nine years to complete. “I have been in a very frustrating situation,” he said. | 1 |
Minnesota state Senator Jeff Hayden ( ) is pushing legislation to designate $200, 000 in taxpayer funds as annual gifts to gun control groups. [In a press conference to announce the legislation, Hayden thanked Michael Moms Demand Action for their “organizing power. ” The text of the bill says: This act may be cited as the “Taylor Hayden Gun Violence Prevention Act. ” To reduce the number of injuries and deaths of innocent individuals in the community and to increase community safety, the commissioner of human services shall develop a competitive bidding process to award grants to nonprofit organizations with expertise in gun violence prevention. A nonprofit organization awarded a grant must use the money for gun violence prevention or public awareness and education campaigns on gun violence prevention. Hayden explained that his push to use Minnesotans’ tax dollars for gun control is the result of the death of his sister, Taylor Hayden, who was killed in a suspected drug deal gone bad in Atlanta, Georgia. Hayden explained that Taylor was out with friends in July 2016 “for some dancing and fun. ” He said, “As they were leaving the place where they had eaten and were having fun, gunfire erupted between two parties that were apparently having a problem. ” During the exchange of gunfire, someone grabbed Hayden’s sister and used her “as a human shield. ” She was shot twice and killed. Hayden said his sister “represented everything that we want our children to represent” and he wants to fund gun control in Minnesota to help with “gun violence prevention and outreach. ” He said gun violence is “a public health crisis” and he believes it is fitting to designate tax payer dollars “to get people to understand what happens when you use a gun. ” 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 |
BLOG If You See A Woman Wearing A Ring On Her Pinky Finger, THIS Is What It Means posted by Eddie When a person gets engaged, people around them pay a lot of attention to the ring. However, who says a woman needs to wait for someone else to give them a shiny rock? Engagement rings are wonderful, but they shouln’t be the epitome of your worthiness of love. This is what engagement rings symbolize: A commitment to wed A partner’s sense of belonging However, there is another way to show love, which is why a lot of women have started wearing a ring on her pinky finger. It means that she’s chosen herself. It is a symbol of self-love among women to show the world how much they love themselves. And of course the ‘self-love’ ring isn’t just any ring. It’s a diamond heart ring that’s specially designed. Because it’s a beautiful skill to be able to love yourself independent of a partner, the ring represents a celebration of you. Many women are getting their own pinky rings and wearing them proudly. In this day and age, singleness is nothing to be embarrassed about and a pinky ring let’s women express their feelings about it. Along with the ring, there’s a contract that reads ‘I [your name], pinky promise to honor myself, to choose myself, to remember myself, on a daily basis.’ The cost of the pinky ring is about $150 for sterling silver and $325 for yellow, white or rose gold. Seriously though, could these rings be any more gorgeous? Source: | 0 |
AMSTERDAM — The painting convinced experts at the Louvre. Top French cultural officials declared it a national treasure. Dutch curators at the Mauritshuis joined the chorus of scholars who decided the enigmatic portrait of a man dressed in black was an undiscovered masterwork by Frans Hals. To many, “Portrait of a Man” was that rare find, a truly great old master painting that had simply never surfaced. In 2011, Sotheby’s auction house in New York brokered a private sale to an art collector for about $10 million. This month, though, Sotheby’s declared the work a “modern forgery. ” The portrait was linked to a event back in March, when the French police seized a painting attributed to Lucas Cranach the Elder that had passed through the hands of the same collector who had sold the Hals. The auction house sent the “Hals” for an technical analysis that determined that it contained traces of materials, which meant that “it could not have been painted in the 17th century. ” Sotheby’s rescinded the sale and reimbursed the buyer. If Sotheby’s was right, the question of who may have committed the forgery remains a mystery. Sotheby’s says an investigation is continuing but declines to discuss it further, as do the French authorities. But no matter who is responsible, the story of how this ostensibly fake Hals managed to pass muster with so many leading experts provides a chilling glimpse into the complex but ultimately subjective process of authenticating art. There are those who still have doubts. Martin Bijl, a Dutch old masters restorer who has worked on about 30 Hals paintings in the past seven years, said that he had seen some of the data culled by Orion Analytical for Sotheby’s, and that he was not certain that the work was a forgery. “The ones who have researched it until now are good researchers, but they’re not familiar with the handwriting of Frans Hals, so to speak, so that’s an extra reason to be careful,” he said. Are there other forgeries out there, perhaps from the same source? Several paintings deemed “new discoveries” that came through the hands of the same collector have been called into question. These include “David Contemplating the Head of Goliath,” attributed to Orazio Gentileschi, and a portrait of “Saint Jerome” attributed to the circle of the Italian painter Parmigianino, which Sotheby’s sold in 2012 for $842, 500. It has been recalled and sent in for testing. “It’s mushrooming into a big scandal,” said Bob Haboldt, an art dealer in Dutch old master paintings. Some other art dealers are quick to play down the threat. The old master dealer Johnny van Haeften said, “I think it’s a very isolated incident, and it’s not as widespread as people think. ” Those in the field admit, however, that what is unsettling is how easily this work slipped through the system. New Hals works rarely surface, and this one was unknown — both reasons it should have received more scrutiny, scholars now say. It had never appeared in any scholarly literature about the artist’s oeuvre and had never been exhibited in the 350 years since the artist’s death in 1666. Mr. Bijl, former chief restorer of the Rijksmuseum, said he could not remember an unknown Hals work showing up in at least the last 25 years. It should have raised suspicions, he said, but added: “Sometimes you find the provenance much later than a painting is found. We don’t know everything. ” The origins of the current narrative can be traced to 2008, when a collector named Giuliano Ruffini asked Christie’s in Paris to look at a painting he said he had purchased from a Spanish art dealer. Mr. Ruffini had been told by an art expert that the work “might be a school of Hals or follower of Hals,” according to his lawyer, Philippe Scarzella. The auction house’s own specialists examined the work, he said, and felt strongly it was probably an original. Christie’s applied for a license to export the painting to its London headquarters for further examination. Such licenses must be sanctioned by the Louvre and the French ministry of culture, and so the work was shared with curators at the Paris museum. Rather than allow the painting to be shipped out of France, the French state declared it a national treasure in 2008 and put a temporary export restriction on it. That same month, the Louvre decided to try to acquire it. A contract from October 2008, sent by Mr. Scarzella to The New York Times, clearly states the intended sale to the Louvre of “Portrait of a Man” by Frans Hals for 5 million euros and designates Christie’s as Mr. Ruffini’s representative. Blaise Ducos, the chief curator of Dutch and Flemish paintings at the Louvre, was invited to look at the painting. The French Museums Restoration and Research Center collected infrared and ultraviolet images of the work to try to determine its authenticity, but did not submit it for a pigment analysis, according to a spokesman for the center. The Louvre also shared it with other scholars, such as Quentin Buvelot, senior curator at the Mauritshuis in The Hague. “Several art historians had already seen the painting and had expressed their enthusiasm about its appearance, and Blaise and I shared that enthusiasm,” Mr. Buvelot wrote in an email to The New York Times. This work is “executed with so much refinement and skill that many connoisseurs believed it was painted by the master himself,” he added. After the sales contract was drawn up, however, Christie’s began to have “doubts on provenance and attribution,” according to Belinda Bowring, a spokeswoman. She declined to discuss the specific concerns and who raised them. The auction house asked Mr. Ruffini to guarantee the attribution. In response, he sent a letter noting that he was “in no way” responsible “for the attribution and authenticity of the work,” which he said were in the hands of the experts. “He didn’t want to guarantee anything,” Mr. Scarzella said. “It’s not his job, you know. ” Meanwhile, Mr. Ducos invited a number of prominent Dutch and French businessmen, as well as several Hals experts, to look at the painting in private. Mr. Haboldt attended one such event, which took place at the Dutch ambassador’s residence in Paris. “I didn’t doubt it at the time,” Mr. Haboldt said. “Of course, I wasn’t looking with buyer’s eyes. It had already been vetted by the Louvre. I looked at it congratulating the dealer, but I didn’t try to analyze it to see if I was dealing with a fake. ” In the end, the Louvre did not purchase the painting, but it is unclear why. Mr. Haboldt said it was because the museum could not raise the funds the Louvre said in a statement only that “at the end of the procedure (April 2011) examining the whole context, the Louvre didn’t acquire this painting. ” The painting’s lack of documentation did not necessarily concern Mr. Buvelot, who a paper on the painting with Mr. Ducos in The Burlington Magazine in 2014, calling it “a very important addition to Hals’s oeuvre. ” “It is not an uncommon phenomenon that old master paintings are not listed in the existing literature,” he said by email. “One should not forget that the first serious oeuvre catalogs were only made in the 19th century. ” After the temporary export ban was lifted, the art dealer Mark Weiss purchased it from Mr. Ruffini for a reported $3 million in 2010. In a statement emailed to The New York Times, Mr. Weiss said he believes the painting is authentic because so many established experts have held that view. “The only dissenting voice,” he wrote, “was that of the other acknowledged Hals scholar, Claus Grimm, who thought it was by Hals’s son Peter. ” Mr. Grimm confirmed this, adding: “I felt that the author of the painting was an imitator, but had no clear suggestion for an alternative attribution. I did not believe it as a recent fake since I never came across such a close imitation. ” The following year, Sotheby’s arranged a private treaty sale for “about $10 million,” Sotheby’s said. The buyer, the collector Richard Hedreen of Seattle, declined to comment. As for the earlier Christie’s qualms about the work, Lauren Gioia, a spokeswoman for Sotheby’s, wrote in an email: “We cannot confirm whether this is factually accurate as we were not involved at the time. We were, obviously, not aware of it. ” All seemed well until March of this year, when the French police seized the painting “Venus With a Veil,” attributed to Lucas Cranach the Elder belonging to the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein, from an exhibition in because of concerns about its authenticity. The seizure caused a stir in the art community: The painting was linked to the collection of Mr. Ruffini. That was when Sotheby’s decided to look into its Hals, since it came from the same seemingly tainted source. Mr. Hedreen sent the painting back for . Orion Analytical examined the work, and its analysis was peer reviewed by another leading conservation scientist. Sotheby’s concluded in a statement, “Unfortunately, that analysis established that the work was undoubtedly a forgery. ” Mr. Weiss still doubts, he said, that the “Hals” is a forgery, because he has not had the chance to undertake corroborative investigations, which he believes should be done given the enormous impact a forgery finding could have on the art market and historical research. Either way, this year the police raided Mr. Ruffini’s estate near Parma, Italy. The French police seized two paintings in addition to the one attributed to Cranach, according to Mr. Scarzella: a copy of a carnival scene, perhaps attributed to Brueghel, and a head of a Christ by A. Solario. No charges have been filed against Mr. Ruffini, Mr. Scarzella said. “The French police hoped to find a hidden forgery workshop, and didn’t find anything,” he said in an email to The New York Times. Moreover, he added, “Mr. Ruffini has no reason to think that these paintings could be fakes. He entrusted professionals, experts, art dealers and museums to study and determine their attributions. Most of whom were sure and enthusiastic. He is not responsible for their change of opinion. ” | 1 |
Anniversary of Great Reporter’s Death By Daily Bell Staff - November 23, 2016
We got the very sad news today, Nov. 22, 2015, that Dave McGowan passed away from cancer at 12:47 p.m. – Truth and Shadows
We missed the anniversary of McGowan’s death, which was yesterday, but he was one helluva a writer, exposing in brief books the“directed history” of the modern era. So, we’ll remember him today. We’ve written about him before, here.
He died of an extremely aggressive form of lung cancer, which made some of his fans speculate that he’d actually been assassinated. Unfortunately, much of Dave’s work is no long freely available on the ‘Net, though some is available here .
The following is Dave’s last post here from his Blog Center for an Informed America (June 14, 2015).
Just nine weeks ago, on April 14, I presented a lengthy video deconstruction of the 2013 Boston Marathon incident through the Caravan to Midnight radio show/podcast. About a week later (on April 20, of all days), the nearly four-hour video presentation was uploaded to YouTube.
Not long after that, someone using the username Phoenix Archangel posted an interesting comment: “John [Wells, the host of the show] always signs off with some of the best advice ever. Speaking of advice: this David McGowan fella really ought to quit smoking. With all the elitist feathers he’s ruffling, he’s likely to come down with a spontaneous case of hitherto undiagnosed stage 4 inoperable Pancreatic cancer.”
… Mr./Ms Archangel … wasn’t too far off, though I’ve been told that it’s actually incurable small-cell lung cancer that has already spread to my liver and bones. And no, that’s unfortunately not a joke. It’s my new reality as of just a few short weeks ago, when my entire world was turned upside-down and I suddenly found myself being admitted to the oncology ward at Glendale Adventist Medical Center. Four days later, I was beginning my first round of chemotherapy infusions. The second round begins tomorrow, on Monday, June 15.
More from Truth and Shadows:
The first thing I read from McGowan was his series on the Apollo Moon missions called “Wagging the Moondoggie.” This amazing 14-part series is what finally convinced me that the Moon landings never took place. What struck me was not only his insight but his wit. Very dry, which is the best kind.
In addition to what became a whole series on 9/11, I was also blown away by series on the Boston Marathon “bombing” and dark side of the music scene in Laurel Canyon in the 1960s (which became a book). Other books he has written include Programmed to Kill, Understanding the F-Word: American Fascism and the Politics of Illusion, and Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don’t Want You to See.
We ran into McGowan’s work very early in the 2000s when we were researching an article on the Peak Oil hoax. At the time, libertarian analysis was mostly theoretical, but we were trying to focus on a synthesis between free-market theory and “directed” history.
We could hardly believe McGowan’s comments on Peak Oil. Without, apparently, a deep background in Austrian free-market economics, he nonetheless fully grasped the idiocy of asserting that the modern world was running out of oil, and that since alternatives were not going to be developed in a timely manner, the only solution was drastic, government action. He even mentioned abiotic oil, see here, as we recall.
When we read his short books, we were further impressed. McGowan moved far beyond simplistic assertions of “conspiracy” to show you clearly how modern history seemed to work.
For us, the book on the mid-1960s Laurel Canyon music scene here was perhaps the most brilliant. Who knew that Jimi Hendrix was in the military, here, prior to becoming a rock star? Who knew that many of the musical stars of the early- to the mid-1960s were somehow gathered together in Laurel Canyon prior to their fame, here – and that many or most had military ties or came from military families.
McGowan didn’t state everything. Some things he left up to you. But it was hard to come away from his books without understanding his main point, that society was directed purposefully from above and that before the Internet (and people like McGowan), you would live your entire life unknowingly according to someone else’s plan.
His short book about Laurel Canyon not only shows how directed history operates, it makes the point, resonantly, that society and even culture can be shifted according to elite strategies. In other words, in not very many pages it SHOWS (not tells) how Western social manipulation actually works. Likely it has worked this way for thousands of years.
Before McGowan, it was easy to believe that social manipulation must inevitably be a clumsy affair, imposed brutally as it was in the USSR. McGowan presents ways cultural reconfiguration can take place secretly and powerfully, without anyone but a handful knowing it is happening.
For instance, the standard story of the 1960s is that young people got upset over the war and in the process of protesting, quickly created an entire counterculture that opposed much of what “corporate America” stood for. The trouble with the 1960s counterculture was that it never adequately defined the real problem, nor did it fully explain the solution.
The hippie ethos blamed much of what was wrong with America on corporate greed and the like. This led to the conclusion that government itself could rectify what was wrong. But both modern corporations and today’s massive governments are the result of monopoly force wielded behind the scenes.
In reality, as McGowan showed, the 1960s movement was likely painstakingly created to generate certain results, mostly by reinforcing social chaos. Thus, blaming problems on corporations and looking to government for solutions was only to be expected, though it was wrongheaded on numerous levels.
As we know today from Internet information, government is seemingly supported by a handful of unfathomably rich individuals – those who likely control central banking – to provide “solutions” that inevitably generate more problems not less.
We know from Austrian economics that almost every law and regulation is surely a price fix that must drain prosperity from society. We know, via “marginal utility” here that valid prices can only be generated via market competition itself.
The 1960s hippie revolution explored little of this because – as McGowan suggested – it was created and sustained by the CIA. So many 1960s figures were apparently working with the CIA.
These may have included singer Jim Morrison, whose father helped initiate the fake military incidents that Lyndon Johnson used to generate the full-on Vietnam war here – and many other musicians, promoters and business opportunists. And also those individuals who initially dispersed CIA-created LSD, here.
In fact, one can speculate that the Vietnam War itself was created as part of a Hegelian dialectic that included the creation of a manipulated 1960s alternative “hippie” culture. Each Hegelian thesis demands an antithesis that leads to a synthesis. The war was the thesis, and the counterculture was the antithesis leading to the synthesis we have today.
The goal is always globalism, apparently. And social chaos must be regularly induced in order to reinforce additional government actions. If one has the patience and the desire, it is relatively easy to discern the evolution of these modern manipulations and even to predict their future.
It’s one reason, we continue to distrust narratives present in the mainstream media and even those being offered, sometimes, in the alternative media. We’re not sure that this presidential election, for instance, is what it seems. And we have written numerous articles suggesting that a good deal of purposeful propaganda surrounds nuclear weapons, to name one additional promotion, here .
Conclusion: McGowan helped show the way, however, and we simply need to follow his lead to better our own comprehension. It’s not pleasant to pursue such information, nor come to additional conclusions, but the alternative is living in ignorance of the true influences on our life and times. Some people are content to live without embarking on such explorations. Others are not. | 0 |
When Michelle Lewis, a Los Angeles songwriter, gets her quarterly royalty statements from Ascap, she receives a stark reminder of how songs are valued in the digital age. The tunes she writes for TV shows like Disney’s “Doc McStuffins” bring in thousands of dollars, but streaming outlets like Pandora and Spotify yield less than $100 combined. “The honest truth is that if it weren’t for the TV stuff, I’d be working at Starbucks,” said Ms. Lewis, who has writing credits on pop hits by Cher, Little Mix and Katharine McPhee. “There is no way I could afford to be a songwriter just on streaming and digital radio. ” As the reach of streaming music has grown, songwriters — an essential but often invisible part of the music world — have become increasingly vocal about their unhappiness with the amount of compensation they receive from digital outlets. Those complaints have reached a peak since last month, when the Justice Department ruled that Ascap and BMI, the two largest royalty clearinghouses, must change their licensing procedures to comply with federal regulations. On Tuesday, Ms. Lewis and Songwriters of North America, an advocacy group she helped found a year ago, sued the Justice Department, saying that the agency overstepped its authority and that its ruling violated the property rights of songwriters by potentially nullifying private contracts between writers who have worked on the same song. The suit is the latest step in an extensive campaign by the music industry to fight the ruling, but it is the first organized response by songwriters. In the suit, Ms. Lewis was joined by two other songwriters with extensive résumés: Tom Kelly, who helped write hits like “True Colors” and “Like a Virgin,” and Pam Sheyne, who was a writer on Christina Aguilera’s hit “Genie in a Bottle. ” “Songwriters want to have a seat at the table,” said Dina LaPolt, an entertainment lawyer who is advising Songwriters of North America on its suit. The Justice Department declined to comment on the lawsuit. Last month’s ruling by the Justice Department has to do with one of the most complex — and most bitterly disputed — issues in music copyright. For songs to be played on the radio, on streaming services or even in public places like restaurants and retail stores, performing rights organizations like Ascap and BMI collect royalties for songwriters and music publishers. In the United States, these fees amount to more than $2 billion a year. But the music industry has long been unsatisfied by the rates paid by online companies, and two years ago Ascap and BMI asked the Justice Department for changes to the regulatory agreements that have governed the organizations for decades. Last month, the agency declined those requests, and instead ruled that to comply with their existing rules, Ascap and BMI must institute what is known as 100 percent licensing: When a song has multiple writers, the organizations must have the legal clearance to represent the entire song or remove it from their catalogs. Broadcasters and digital companies hailed the ruling as a cleareyed application of copyright law. But music industry groups said it would disrupt decades of practice and cause tumult throughout the business. (Songwriters don’t always belong to the same rights organization, meaning broadcasters and digital outlets would have to have deals in place with various groups.) BMI has said it will challenge the rule in federal court, with a hearing expected on Friday. The lawsuit by Songwriters of North America contends that the Justice Department’s ruling on 100 percent licensing violates the property rights of songwriters, since it would mean that private contracts among songwriting collaborators — a common arrangement — might not comply with the new rule. In its announcement last month, the Justice Department suggested that writers with such agreements would need to renegotiate those deals. The songwriters’ lawsuit argues that this change violates the Fifth Amendment by removing property rights without due process and seeks a declaration that the new rule is unlawful. In addition to the Justice Department itself, the suit names as defendants Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and Renata B. Hesse, who oversees the agency’s antitrust division. “The 100 percent mandate,” the suit says, “is an illegitimate assertion of agency power in gross violation of plaintiffs’ due process rights, copyright interests and freedom of contacts, and needs to be set aside. ” In preparing its suit, Songwriters of North America was also advised by Jacqueline C. Charlesworth, a former general counsel of the United States Copyright Office, which has argued that 100 percent licensing would conflict with copyright law. The songwriters are represented in their suit by Gerard P. Fox, a Los Angeles lawyer known in music circles for representing the Isley Brothers when they successfully sued Michael Bolton for copyright infringement in the 1990s. Mr. Fox is representing Songwriters of North America on a pro bono basis, Ms. Lewis said. The organization has about 200 members, and it began with a meeting early last year when Ms. Lewis and other writers, confused and exasperated by their minuscule online royalties, asked Ms. LaPolt to explain to them the complex system of online copyright licensing. Ms. Lewis said she hoped the lawsuit would reveal more about the lives of songwriters, who, even when they write major hits, are often little known to the public. “We are the worker bees churning out the songs,” Ms. Lewis said. | 1 |
In the past week alone, there was the girl in Falcon Heights, Minn. who was captured on video consoling her mother after they watched a police officer shoot the mother’s boyfriend through the window of a car. And there was the boy in Baton Rouge, La. who sobbed uncontrollably in front of television cameras after the similar shooting death of his father. Then there were the four brothers, ages 12 to 17, whose mother was shot by the sniper who opened fire on officers in Dallas on Thursday night while the family was protesting police violence against blacks. The mother, who survived, threw herself atop one boy, as the others ran for their lives. Again and again, children are finding themselves enmeshed in the country’s roiling debate over police treatment of . The views of violence, obviously traumatizing, are giving rise to a generation of young people who distrust authority, grow up well before their time and suffer nightmares that seem too real. “As a mother, I have now been forced to raise a son who is going to remember what happened to his father,” said Quinyetta McMillon, the mother of the boy in Louisiana who sobbed over the death of his father, Alton Sterling. “That I can’t take away from him. ” While adults around them protest and demand criminal justice reform, young witnesses of the carnage are reeling from their losses and harboring depression that often comes pouring out in panic attacks and breakdowns, relatives say. The list of young people burdened by these tumultuous times includes Tamir Rice’s teenage sister, who lost 50 pounds after watching the police shoot him in 2014 the daughter of Oscar Grant III, killed by a transit officer while lying down on a California train platform in 2009, who as a would ask playmates to duck when she saw the police and the nephew of Sandra Bland, who began sleeping in his mother’s room after Ms. Bland’s death last year in a jail cell. “They are aware of what’s going in the world, of how you can leave your house and you can very well end up in a body bag,” said a sister of Ms. Bland’s, Shante Needham, whose four children continue to struggle with the death of their aunt. “They watch the news. They see all the stuff going on on Facebook. And it’s sad that kids even have to think like that, that if I get stopped by the police, I may not make it home. ” Ms. Bland, 28, was arrested after being pulled over for failing to signal a lane change in Waller County, Tex. and was later found hanged in her cell. Her family has questioned the ruling of her death as a suicide and believes that the arresting officer made up an accusation after she refused to put out her cigarette. One of Ms. Needham’s sons, now 17, tried to hold in his grief but ended up sobbing and punching a hole in a wall three days after his aunt’s death. Ms. Needham’s daughter usually cannot sleep more than five hours a night. And her son has taken to sleeping in her room at night out of fear of being alone. “He was sleeping in his own bed for a little while, and then one day he came up to me and said, ‘Listen, Mom, I can’t sleep,’” said Ms. Needham, of Naperville, Ill. He said he could not stop thinking of his aunt. Trauma is also rippling through the children of the officers killed and injured during the Dallas shooting. The widow of one slain officer lamented on Facebook that her children would now endure a lifetime without their father. The daughter of an officer who was wounded by the sniper told reporters she was just glad her mother had survived. The tumult of the past few days has hit Esaw Snipes Garner, the widow of Eric Garner, hard. She said she and the couple’s five children had been forced to see her husband die over and over again because video of his death would resurface when another died at the hands of an officer. Mr. Garner, 43, died in July 2014 after a police officer placed him in a chokehold while arresting him in connection with selling untaxed cigarettes on Staten Island. The couple’s daughter Erica, 26, has channeled her pain into becoming an outspoken activist, but their youngest son, Emery, 16, keeps his feelings bottled up. Ms. Garner is also concerned about the couple’s young grandchildren. She took pictures of Mr. Garner off her walls to keep them from always asking about him. “They see the police, and they say, ‘That’s the cop that killed my grandpa,’” she said. The children have even repeated slogans used by the Black Lives Matter movement, Ms. Garner said. “And for them to say, ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ and ‘I can’t breathe,’ it’s cute, but it’s not cute,” she said. “They are . They should not know ‘hands up, don’t shoot.’ They shouldn’t know that the police killed their grandpa. ” Denise Jones, the of Corey Jones, a black man who was shot in October by a plainclothes officer in Florida while waiting for a tow truck, also sees trauma in her daughters, Tyrina, 13, and Nariyah, 10. For some time, Nariyah was terrified of the family being separated. Now she checks her parents’ gas gauge and insists that they buy fuel if she thinks it is too low. “She is afraid we are going to break down, and if the police come we could be killed,” said Ms. Jones, who is married to Corey Jones’s brother. “I worry about how it is going to affect them in the long run. Things like this keep happening, and I don’t want them to be fearful but I am afraid they will live in fear for the rest of their lives. ” Tyrina said that while her younger sister cried often, she tried to put on a brave face. “I try to hold it in and be strong and everything, but sometimes I can’t,” she said. “I don’t like police. They say there is always good police and bad police, but you just never know. They can change in a quick second. ” Samaria Rice understands that pain well. Her son, Tamir, was fatally shot in front of his sister Tajai by a Cleveland police officer. Tajai, now 16, spent most of her days playing video games and sports with Tamir. She has since lost more than 50 pounds from stress and has missed about 100 days from school, her mother said. “She has suffered with breakdowns and crying. She can’t sleep,” Ms. Rice said. “She’s having panic attacks, anxiety attacks. It’s terrible. It is the worst trauma that anybody can experience. ” Ms. Rice and her two other children, Tasheona, 20, and Tavon, 18, cannot escape the haunting spectacle of Tamir’s shooting, either. The scene was caught on camera and has been broadcast repeatedly. This week was especially tough, she said, because of the deaths of Mr. Sterling, a CD vendor who was fatally shot by the police in Louisiana, and Philando Castile, who was shot by an officer in Minnesota and whose girlfriend captured his death by streaming video on Facebook. “This is an open wound because my son was killed by the police,” Ms. Rice said. “It was like they put salt in my wound with Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. ” Martinez Sutton, 33, agreed and said he had missed some of the ways his young children understood the magnitude of the loss of his sister Rekia Boyd. Ms. Boyd, 22, was shot in the back of the head in 2012 by an Chicago police detective who had argued with her and her friends about making too much noise. A year after her death, while looking through footage on a video camera, Mr. Sutton found several clips showing just how much his sons, Travez and Demirez, who were 4 and 6 at the time of the shooting, understood. The pair used pencils as drumsticks on their dressers as they recorded songs. “They were just singing, ‘Why they killed my auntie? My auntie was a good woman,’” Mr. Sutton said. “It’s heartbreaking. ” | 1 |
NEWARK — Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey knew that three of his top officials were involved in a plan to shut down lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge as it was happening and that the closings were intended to punish a local mayor for declining to support him, federal prosecutors said on Monday. The assertion was an unexpected and startling beginning to the trial of two former Christie administration officials charged with closing the lanes in 2013 and then covering it up. And it was a surprising claim because of the side of the courtroom it came from, as lawyers made opening statements. Defense lawyers have long argued that Mr. Christie, a Republican, and his top advisers were well aware of the lane closings and that they directed the as they tried to protect the governor’s political aspirations — saying their clients were “thrown under the presidential bus,” as one lawyer argued on Monday. But this was the first time a prosecutor had pointed a finger at Mr. Christie. And it directly contradicts the governor’s statements in the three years since the lanes were mysteriously closed, paralyzing the borough of Fort Lee, N. J. Mr. Christie, a former top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, has consistently denied that he knew about the lane closings as they unfolded, and argued that the United States attorney’s office had “exonerated” him when it declined to indict him along with the defendants now standing trial. The prosecutor, speaking for the United States attorney’s office, said that two of the alleged in the case, David Wildstein and Bill Baroni, had “bragged” to the governor about the lane closings at a memorial service for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, on the third day of the closings, and that they had been done to “mess” with Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee, a Democrat, because he had declined entreaties to endorse the governor’s . Mr. Baroni and Bridget Anne Kelly, who were close allies of Mr. Christie, are the two defendants in the trial. Mr. Wildstein and Mr. Baroni boasted to Mr. Christie that panicked phone calls from Mr. Sokolich, pleading that the lane closings were a “public safety emergency,” were deliberately being ignored, the prosecutor said. The prosecutor, Vikas Khanna, quickly moved to quell any curiosity the jury might have about why Mr. Christie was not charged in the plot. “The evidence may show that others could have, should have, perhaps known certain aspects of what was going on in Fort Lee,” he said. “Perhaps you will even wonder what happened to those people. But at the end of this case the only issue for you to decide is whether Bridget Kelly and Bill Baroni are guilty of the crimes with which they are charged beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s it. ” Defense lawyers quickly seized on his comments in their own opening statements. Michael Critchley, a lawyer for Ms. Kelly, a former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, said: “We know who they’re talking about. They’re talking about Governor Christie. They’re talking about Kevin O’Dowd. ” (Mr. O’Dowd was the governor’s chief of staff at the time of the closings.) A spokesman for Mr. Christie, Brian Murray, responding to the prosecutor’s assertion, referred reporters on Monday to statements the governor made in 2014, in which he said he had not known about the plan to close the lanes. Mr. Murray declined to address whether the governor knew about the closings while they were happening. The office of the United States attorney, Paul J. Fishman, declined to comment on why the governor was not charged, but Mr. Fishman has said in the past that merely knowing is not a federal crime. Mr. Christie was intimately woven into the story both sides told in the packed courtroom on Monday. Prosecutors and defense lawyers alike described an administration tightly controlled by the governor, one that worked with his campaign to trade favors for endorsements. The governor was trying to win a big and broad margin of victory, and to win over Democratic mayors like Mr. Sokolich, so he could make the case that he was the Republican best able to win the White House. Mr. Khanna said Mr. Baroni covered up the lane closings because “this was something that was important to Trenton. ” He added, “Trenton: the governor’s office. ” Mr. Baroni’s lawyer, Michael Baldassare, later told the jury it would be hearing a lot about Trenton. “Trenton, Trenton, Trenton Trenton is the governor,” he said. “Let’s make no mistake. Open a dictionary: Trenton, the governor. ” The details of the plot that Mr. Khanna laid out are largely familiar by now — that Ms. Kelly sent an email in August 2013 saying “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” after confirming that the mayor of that borough would not endorse Mr. Christie. A month later, two of three access lanes to the George Washington Bridge were shut down. Mr. Baroni, then the official at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the bridge, studiously ignored the mayor as he pleaded by text, email and a handwritten letter for the agency to reopen the lanes. Mr. Critchley, Ms. Kelly’s lawyer, said Mr. Christie and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York developed a strategy to cover up the lane closings as soon as they ended, and executed it through official statements over the next several weeks, lying that the closings had been a “traffic study. ” Mr. Critchley characterized their strategy as one that sought not to “inflame the issue. ” “The idea that they — the governors of New Jersey and New York — they’re going to let a single mother of four control the future is also crazy,” he added, referring to Ms. Kelly. A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo flatly denied that he had any involvement. “The governor did not have any role — direct or indirect — in any press statements regarding the purported traffic study,” he said. The case will hinge on the government’s star witness, Mr. Wildstein, a former political blogger hired to a position created specially for him at the Port Authority, who has admitted, in a guilty plea as part of a deal to cooperate with the government, that he conceived the idea to close the lanes. Defense lawyers characterized him as crazy, a liar described even by witnesses for the prosecution as “a vicious guy,” “maniacal” and “a horrible person. ” And it was Mr. Christie, they said, who installed Mr. Wildstein at the agency to be his enforcer. Mr. Baldassare, Mr. Baroni’s lawyer, said the governor referred to Mr. Wildstein as his “fixer,” or “Mr. Wolf,” after the Harvey Keitel character in the movie “Pulp Fiction,” the guy who cleans up the dead bodies. And everyone — Mr. Baroni included — feared crossing him. “At the Port Authority at the time, when David Wildstein spoke, Governor Christie’s voice came out and everybody knew it,” Mr. Baldassare said. “It wasn’t just Bill. David Wildstein, based on this evidence, looks like a ventriloquist’s doll sitting on Christopher J. Christie’s lap. ” Mr. Christie, defense lawyers said, was United States attorney when he began talking to Mr. Wildstein, then the author of an anonymous and gossipy political blog in New Jersey the governor hired him after seeing his ability to work in the shadows as a virtue. Mr. Wildstein was a political operative so wily, Mr. Baldassare said, that he once stole Senator Frank R. Lautenberg’s jacket before a debate so that Mr. Lautenberg would have to borrow someone else’s jacket and be uncomfortable during a debate with Mr. Wildstein’s candidate, Representative Millicent H. Fenwick. At the Port Authority, Mr. Baldassare said, he operated on “one constituent rule,” wanting to please only Mr. Christie. He and the governor played a “red light, green light” game, Mr. Critchley said, going down a list and firing people they did not like, greenlighting those who remained in their favor. Mr. Wildstein’s goal, Mr. Critchley said, was to run Mr. Christie’s presidential campaign in one of the important early states — Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina. As the bridge scandal threatened to take down those presidential hopes, Mr. Critchley said, Mr. Christie pinned the blame on Ms. Kelly. “This case is not only about traffic, it’s about a presidential campaign for the United States of America,” he said. “What she knew could be fatal to an embryonic presidential campaign. ” She was scapegoated, he argued, by a “coterie of cowards. ” “Cowards who were addicted to power,” he said. “Cowards who despite all their titles, when it became time to speak the truth, they showed they were nothing more than opportunists, ambitious opportunists. ” | 1 |
Syria A man receives treatment at a hospital following a Daesh chemical attack in the Sheikh Maqsood neighborhood of Syria’s Aleppo, April 7, 2016. (Photo by RT)
Syria has dismissed as baseless recent allegations brought against the Damascus government by Western countries in connection with chemical attacks in the war-torn Arab country.
“The Syrian Arab Republic has repeatedly denied all allegations circulated by some Western circles and their agents about the use of chemical poisonous materials by Syrian sides, like chlorine gas,” during military operations against terrorists, Syria’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official SANA news agency on Wednesday.
The statement came four days after an international inquiry blamed Syrian government forces for a toxic gas attack in Qminas in northwestern Idlib province on March 16, 2015.
The accusation was made in the fourth report from the 13-month-long probe by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
However, the Syrian Foreign Ministry statement said that there was no "tangible evidence" for the inquiry's findings.
“Syria has repeatedly warned against repercussions of politicizing this issue regarding the credibility of the work of international relevant sides,” the ministry added.
It also stressed that the Syrian government remains committed to all its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, a multilateral treaty that bans chemical weapons and requires their destruction.
Daesh has frequently used chemical weapons in both in Syria and Iraq, where the Takfiri terrorist group is mainly active.
A report by the Syrian-American Medical Society published back in March said that Daesh had carried out more than 160 attacks involving “poisonous or asphyxiating agents, such as sarin, chlorine, and mustard gas” since the beginning of the conflict in Syria. The report added that over 1,490 people had been killed in the chemical attacks.
Since March 2011, Syria has been hit by militancy it blames on some Western states and their regional allies. Loading ... | 0 |
Military Plane Approaching A UFO. See What Happens Then... # Grey 0
It’s not very often that someone has to catch a UFO and at the same time, military fighter planes in the sky.
The video recording captures a UFO of elliptical shape that is chased by a military jet. Tags | 0 |
PITTSBURGH — I’m parked on a patch of gravel outside the old Heinz ketchup bottling factory here early on a Monday morning, and I’m frustrated. My Uber car will not start driving itself. The engineer in the passenger seat next to me, an Uber employee for all of three weeks who asked if I wanted to take a turn behind the wheel, chimes in to say I should turn the car off and start it again, as if rebooting a computer. In this case, my “computer” is a modified Ford Fusion hybrid sedan Boron 6, an atomic element often found in magnets, laundry detergent and nuclear reactors. Uber has outfitted it with more than 20 cameras, seven lasers, a spinning detection system and 1, 400 other aftermarket parts that render millions of bits of data about the environment in real time as I drive through it. If the car works as advertised, someday neither I nor anybody else will sit in the driver’s seat of a car again. For now, a few square miles in downtown Pittsburgh represent Uber’s dreams of a mobile future, in which people eschew car ownership in favor of hailing a safer, driverless ride directly from their smartphone. I experienced those ambitions firsthand this week, riding in Boron 6 for about an hour in light downtown traffic. On Wednesday, Uber rolled out a pilot program of its driverless cars to its most loyal customers in Pittsburgh, giving them the chance to hail an autonomous Uber for the first time. With the trial, a handful of test vehicles — Ford Fusions at first — will roam the streets, each car coming with a human safety engineer who has undergone training to reassure riders that the process is safe. During my ride, most of which I spent as a passenger in Boron 6’s back seat, my safety engineer proved his worth. At various moments, he had to take over the wheel and turn through intersections where locals are known to speed. When a truck driver backed out into the road illegally, he put his foot on the brake, immediately taking control of the car. If the safety engineer felt unsafe, he could at any time smack down a big red button in the center console — suspiciously similar to a seat ejector switch from a James Bond film — to disengage from mode. To turn the feature back on, he need only press a sleek steel button next to an embossed nameplate stamped on the console. If I felt unsafe as a passenger, I could also request that the driver take over the vehicle, or press a button on a screen facing the back seat that would end the ride. I also monitored the infrared environment the car had rendered from the screen, a world updating in real time, and took a selfie from a camera built into the console. After the ride, Uber texts to passengers an animated GIF of the modeled route taken, along with the selfie. But for most of the ride, I felt safe. In mode, turns and stops were near seamless, and I often had to check in with my driver to see whether he or the computer was steering the car. I did grow a bit nervous a few times when watching how close the computer drove us to cars parked on the right side of a street. Though, admittedly, that could have been my mind playing tricks on me by being more vigilant than usual about my surroundings. In many ways, Pittsburgh is the perfect test environment for the company. The city, in essence a peninsula surrounded by mountains, is laid out in a giant triangle, replete with sharp turns, steep grades, sudden speed limit changes and dozens of tunnels. There are 446 bridges, more than in Venice. Residents are known for the “Pittsburgh left,” a risky intersection turn. Raffi Krikorian, engineering director of Uber’s Advanced Technologies Center, located in the city’s industrial Strip District, put it this way: “Pittsburgh is the diamond of driving. ” The challenge expressed in Mr. Krikorian’s ski analogy is one that Uber has taken to heart. From the company’s point of view, the vehicle operates more safely than any human driver. Uber said autonomous cars can reduce deaths, including the nearly 40, 000 that occurred in the United States last year, which was the deadliest for deaths since 2008 and had the largest percentage increase in 50 years, according to the National Safety Council. There has been at least one reported and confirmed death of a driver operating a semiautonomous vehicle, that of a Tesla owner involved in a crash in May, while the car’s Autopilot system was engaged. On Wednesday, the Chinese government television news channel reported that a Tesla owner had been killed in a crash in January in which the Autopilot feature was reportedly in use. My driverless Uber stopped far behind cars in front of us at intersections. It stayed exactly at the speed limit — 25 miles per hour where we drove — even when there was no traffic around. At one stoplight, the car waited for the green signal before turning right. The human drivers behind us were not pleased. As my ride in Boron 6 wound down — in total, I traveled roughly 20 miles in the vehicle — it was hard not to feel like a celebrity, or perhaps more like a Martian. Other motorists gawked, and a boy on a Razor scooter gaped at me from a corner, waving to his mother to come look. This future has been a long time coming. Advertising for cars goes at least as far back as the 1950s, with images of families in cars huddled around game boards in the back seat, playing dominoes. Some of the people involved in the Uber project have spent their entire careers working toward a day like Wednesday. But how they will get rich from it remains unclear. Much of Uber’s success has been based on the premise that people could share their idle cars with the public by driving during their spare time. A car obviates the need for human drivers, a clear source of tension among Uber drivers today. Company executives said cars would be only one part of Uber’s business in the future, with a mix of drivers and autonomous vehicles. And Uber isn’t the first to place big bets on cars, with Google, Apple, Tesla, BMW and Infiniti all offering or developing autonomous features for vehicles. Some of these efforts have run into hurdles — Apple’s initiative, Project Titan, has had ups and downs. Some of Uber’s own aims may have been overly ambitious. When the company announced its autonomous car pilot last month, the tests were expected to roll out with Volvo XC90s, sport utility vehicles that would be modified in partnership with the automaker. Uber now says the XC90s are expected to hit the road by the end of the year, but it offered no explanation for the delay, and Volvo did not respond to a request for comment. All of these companies face an uncertain regulatory environment for driverless vehicles that could impede the rollouts of the cars across the country. There will be delays and bugs, such as the one I encountered my first time behind the wheel when the car didn’t drive itself. That’s the whole point of the pilot test. The wealth of sensors and recording equipment will see what happens — warts and all — “so we can learn more about what makes drivers and riders comfortable and safe,” said Emily Duff Bartel, a product manager at the Advanced Technologies Center. For me, it took about 10 minutes of troubleshooting to work through the glitches, but Boron 6 eventually turned on and started driving itself. That is, after a little bit of human intervention. | 1 |
With less than 28GB of usable memory, the Nintendo Switch is already proving inadequate for installing some games. [The good news: the Nintendo Switch does not require you to install physical copies of titles before they are playable. The bad news: there’s a good chance it will not be possible anyway for some titles. Already in Japan, the hefty Dragon Quest Heroes I II double pack has proved too large for the drive that comes standard with Nintendo’s newest console. While most titles seem to sit between one and five gigabytes in size, even the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild asks for about half of the total hard drive space on offer to install it. If you run out of space, you’ll need to purchase a separate MicroSD card. That means if you want to take advantage of the additional games and DLC to be made available in Nintendo’s eShop, you’re almost certainly in for an additional investment above and beyond, That means if you want to take advantage of the additional games and DLC to be made available in Nintendo’s eShop, you’re almost certainly in for an additional investment above and beyond the Switch’s $300 price tag. Similar problems didn’t hamper the Nintendo Wii’s over 100 million units sold, though the Wii U struggled out of the gate with a model that offered the same 32GB the company is offering with the Switch — an amount that was just barely adequate, even for the time. Almost 5 years later, it’s even less likely to get a free pass from consumers. Despite its struggles, the Nintendo Switch presale numbers are looking very healthy, and Nintendo is standing by a prediction that they’ll move 2 million consoles within the Switch’s first month of release. Once the core group of fans have been sated, however, it remains to be seen how the larger market will react. Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both. | 1 |
Florida Senator Marco Rubio praised Donald Trump for empowering the Cuban people by reversing some of former President Barack Obama’s diplomatic concessions with the Castro brothers. [“More than anything else this change empowers the people of Cuba … America is prepared to outstretch its hand and work with the people of Cuba, but we will not empower their oppressors,” Rubio said during an event in Florida to highlight Trump’s policy changes with Cuba. Rubio joined Trump for an event in Florida to highlight Trump’s policy changes with Cuba, at a packed room at the Manuel Artime Theater in Miami. “Less than a year and half ago, an American president landed in Havana, to outstretch his hand to a regime,” he said. “Today, a new president lands in Miami to reach out his hand to the people of Cuba. ” Rubio told the people gathered for the event that since Trump was elected, he repeatedly asked him how he could help the people of Cuba. “He has not faltered in that committment,” Rubio said. Trump was also gracious while discussing his former campaign rival for the Republican presidential nomination, calling him a “tough competitor. ” “He is tough! Man! He is tough and he is good!” Trump said. | 1 |
Verboten! Don’t speak German on the streets of post-Brexit Britain, warns lawyer Verboten! Don’t speak German on the streets of post-Brexit Britain, warns lawyer By 0 108
Germans living in Britain have been cautioned against speaking their native language in public places after the Brexit vote set hate crimes soaring.
Speaking to the German newspaper Die Welt, lawyer Carmen Prem thought it was best to not speak “too loudly” when out and about.
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“The tone has changed,” said the mother-of-two who has been living in London for 13 years. “No Briton would ever say ‘we do not want you here.’ But it is now ‘we and you.’”
She also recounted how on the bus home she had recently heard the driver tell passengers to “kindly speak English.”
In the piece, other Germans tell of “stronger xenophobia” in the country since the referendum in June.
There is a “new bitterness, an anger which hardly any of the countless non-British on the island expected,” it adds.
Race and religious crimes saw a 41 percent rise in the month after the Brexit vote. Nearly 5,500 incidents were recorded by the Home Office in July alone.
The overall hate crime rate was also up 19 percent on last year. Four out of five of the crimes reported were motivated by race hatred, seven percent by religion.
King’s College London professor Mischa Dohler told Die Welt he was now considering moving abroad.
The German academic claimed he had been offered several jobs, including an opportunity at Cambridge, but had to turn them down as he does not know what will follow the Brexit negotiations.
“Many non-British academics simply see no future here,” he said. Abuse & insecurities
Worries among German citizens come after a Spanish man was knocked down by a passerby with a wooden plank in Bournemouth earlier this month.
The man was reportedly speaking to his girlfriend in his native language when the thug approached him shouting “f***ing Spanish, speak in English” before hitting him with a piece of wood grabbed from a nearby building.
READ MORE: French nationals suffer post-Brexit abuse, claims ambassador
The French were also reportedly reconsidering their future in Britain after being subjected to “negative or aggressive language” following the UK’s decision to leave the European Union. Up to 300,000 French nationals are currently registered as living in the country.
Via RT . This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license. | 0 |
Hundreds of bee hives worth over a half million dollars shipped to California’s Central Valley for the annual almond tree pollination were stolen on January 17, the Los Angeles Times reports. [Montana beekeeper Lloyd Cunniff, owner of Beeline Honey Co. shipped 488 bee hives to Sutter County in to service his almond grower pollination contracts. But after tending his bees in a grove near Meridian on Monday, he returned Tuesday morning to find his $542, 000 of hives missing. Bee pollination is not only important to rural agricultural communities throughout the Central Valley it also provides a global economic benefit of about $290 billion in 2015. There are an estimated 115, 000 — 125, 000 beekeepers in the United States. Although the vast majority of beekeepers are hobbyists with fewer than 25 hives, there are a few thousand commercial operators with 300 or more beehives. The 2. 6 million domestic honey bee colonies in the U. S. produced 149 million pounds of honey in 2013. With a wholesale price of about $2. 12 a pound, the crop was worth about $317 million. California was the fifth largest American producer with 10. 9 million pounds, worth $22. 9 million, according to the National Honey Board. Because millions of acres of U. S. fruit, nut, vegetable, oilseed and legume seed crops worth about $19 billion depend on bees, commercial operators are paid by growers to migrate their colonies each year to provide pollination services. But with demand drastically outstripping California’s local supply, Beeline travels 900 miles from Choteau, Montana each year to service contracts around the Sacramento area. According to government U. S. agricultural data, the cost of renting honey bee hives for almond pollination has vaulted for about $50 per hive in 2003, to $ $200 per hive today. It now takes more than a million bee colonies to service California’s annual crop. After 500 hives were stolen last year, the California State Beekeepers Assn. issued an advisory to beekeepers across the state to beware of an “unprecedented” rise in beehive thefts. | 1 |
VIENTIANE, Laos — The Obama administration’s latest effort to broker a in Syria’s civil war fell short on Monday, after a meeting between President Obama and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia failed to resolve problems between them. “Given the gaps of trust that exist, that’s a tough negotiation, and we haven’t yet closed the gaps in a way where we think it would actually work,” Mr. Obama declared at a news conference at the end of a Group of 20 summit meeting in Hangzhou, China. He did not describe the points of contention. Other officials have said they involve technical issues like how to staff checkpoints in combat areas. But the checkered history of Syrian — the United States agreed to one with Russia in February, only to watch it unravel weeks later — has left the president deeply leery. On a day of diplomacy and history, Mr. Obama later flew to Laos, becoming the first sitting American president to visit this country, where children still stumble over unexploded bombs dropped by the United States during the Vietnam War. Having failed to halt the guns in Syria, Mr. Obama will seek reconciliation with the victims of a war long over. He insisted he was not giving up on Syria, however. Mr. Obama said he had instructed Secretary of State John Kerry to continue negotiating with the Russians this week to see if a deal on Syria was possible. The goals would be to halt the rain of bombs on Aleppo and to give breathing space to a United effort to find a political end to Syria’s war between the forces of President Bashar which are backed by Russia, and an array of insurgents seeking to depose him. “The faster we can offer some relief to folks on ground,” Mr. Obama said, “the better off we’re going to be. ” At his own news conference in Hangzhou, Mr. Putin said the Syria talks were on the “right track,” though he declined to discuss details of a deal. He expressed hope that an agreement could be reached “in the next few days,” despite earlier disagreements. “Then we can say that our joint work with the United States in the fight against terrorist organizations, including along the Syrian track, will be significantly improved and intensified,” Mr. Putin said. Mr. Obama’s appearance was his last at the Group of 20, a gathering of industrialized nations that is supposed to focus on economic issues but often finds those matters eclipsed by war and terrorism. He reminisced about his first meeting, in 2009, when the world was still reeling from the financial crisis. This time, the meeting dramatized both his status and the changed world that his successor will inherit. On Sunday, during a photograph session with the other leaders, Mr. Putin and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey huddled with each other. A curious Mr. Obama peered at them from the other side of the room. Tensions between Russia and Turkey have escalated over Syria, but the two countries’ leaders have begun talking more in recent weeks, just as Turkey’s ties with the United States have frayed. Mr. Obama had a rough welcome in Hangzhou on Saturday, when a dispute over the stairs he would use to exit Air Force One left him disembarking from a door in the belly of the plane. Some China experts interpreted it as a snub of a departing leader by a rising power. On his departure, however, the Chinese arranged for a shiny set of stairs with a strip of blue lights beneath the railing to be rolled up to the plane. Mr. Obama remains a central figure in conversations on a variety of issues, including Iran and international economics. But there was a palpable sense on his Asia trip that the world was awaiting a new president to reassess American policies in Syria, Ukraine and North Korea. On Syria, Mr. Obama left the diplomatic heavy lifting to Mr. Kerry, who met twice in Hangzhou with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov. On Sunday, the Americans were confident enough of success that they scheduled a briefing to announce a agreement, erecting two lecterns for the secretary of state and foreign minister. Soon afterward, State Department officials hastily removed one, and Mr. Kerry turned up alone to report that the United States and Russia had been unable to move past a handful of “tough issues. ” The talks continued, though, with the Russians appearing more eager than the Americans to elevate them to the presidential level. Mr. Obama has been openly skeptical of the likelihood of a durable deal involving the Russians. After the meeting with Mr. Putin, it was clear his suspicions had not been dispelled. He recalled the failure of the previous deal that the United States had made with Russia. “Slowly, it unwound, and we’re back into a situation in which Assad’s regime is bombing with impunity,” he said. “That is a very dangerous dynamic. ” As he often does, Mr. Obama characterized his exchange with Mr. Putin as blunt and businesslike. There was no shortage of thorny subjects. The president said they had discussed computer security, though he declined to say whether he had brought up allegations that Russia breached the computer systems of the Democratic National Committee. “We’ve had trouble with cyber intrusions from Russia in the past,” he said. “We’re moving into a new era. ” Mr. Obama is also hoping to turn the page in Laos. The ostensible reason for the visit is two regional conferences that will give him a chance to promote his strategy of pivoting to Asia: the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the East Asia Summit. But Laos has other resonance for Mr. Obama, who has made a vocation, from Cuba to Myanmar, of opening ties to closed societies. The United States and Laos have a difficult relationship that dates to the C. I. A. ’s undeclared war in the 1960s and ’70s, when American warplanes dropped 270 million bombs on this country, many of which are still buried in fields and forests. Mr. Obama, administration officials said, would pledge millions of dollars in additional funding to help clear unexploded ordnance from the Laotian countryside. “Since Laos is still a relatively poor country that is developing, their capacity alone to clean that up is hampered by lack of resources,” he said. “We should help. ” First, though, the president canceled a meeting scheduled for Tuesday with the leader of the Philippines, an American ally in Southeast Asia. Earlier in the day, the new Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, delivered a diatribe against Mr. Obama, calling him, among other things, a “son of a bitch. ” Mr. Duterte threatened to do so again face to face if the president challenged his inflammatory words or his unorthodox tactics in his country’s drug war. Mr. Obama has yet to meet Mr. Duterte, and the timing would have been important: The Philippines is in the midst of a dangerous with China over disputed islands in the South China Sea. Still, Mr. Obama questioned the wisdom of putting Mr. Duterte and himself in a room together. “I always want to make sure if I’m having a meeting that it’s actually productive,” he said. “Clearly, he’s a colorful guy,” Mr. Obama added. | 1 |
Toxic chemicals found in children’s Halloween makeup – study Published time: 26 Oct, 2016 23:45 Get short URL © Carlo Allegri / Reuters Halloween is supposed to make your skin crawl, but not like this. A new study finds the scariest part of the holiday may not be the costumes, but makeup for kids. Out of 48 makeup palettes, almost half contained toxic heavy metals.
Nearly 20 percent of makeup palettes contain lead and cadmium, according to the newly published study by the Breast Cancer Fund. The study found that some products contained as many as four metals, including arsenic and chromium. Indiana housing complex to be razed after toxic lead levels detected https://t.co/qZy4gfTmnC pic.twitter.com/5bGsRti1Im — RT America (@RT_America) August 31, 2016
Nine of the palettes were found to contain lead, a chemical that is unsafe at any level, for children particularly. Parents may have purchased and applied these products to their children unwittingly, as the makeup doesn’t have to list ingredients on their labels.
The BCF may have been among the first to test the palettes, as the FDA does not regulate this particular product.
" The FDA that regulates makeup does not have the power to require pre-market testing ," Jen Coleman with the Oregon Environmental Council told KGW.
The cosmetic safety law enacted 75 years ago does not require testing even for products marketed to children. While the FDA cannot do anything about the problem, they have issued guidelines to avoiding “ a rash, swollen eyelids, or other reaction ” this Halloween.
The guidelines make no mention of potential heavy metal poisoning, but they do offer advice like “ Follow all directions carefully ,” and “ Don't decorate your face with things that aren't intended for your skin. ”
What’s a parent to do in the meantime? Other than use all-natural makeup, the best option is to avoid dark pigments. The BCF study found a correlation between the darkness of the color and the lead content. The darker the color, the more lead it was found to contain. | 0 |
"Virginia Roberts Affidavit" a teen diary of Randy Prince Andy and Alan Dirtbag0witz at Orgy Island. This AD report is consistent with Veterans Today on the ruling Demonic Warlords kiddy diddling ring. BTW....lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein is Ken Starr.... | 0 |
The above photo was snapped in Ferguson as thugs burned the city down. Could we see a repeat of that fateful event and perhaps a worsening of it soon to a city near you?
The election is the focus of every news channel ad nauseum. But few people are focused on the day after the election. No matter who wins this year’s presidential “selection” the possibility of civil unrest the day after election day and beyond is a real possibility. Are you ready for chaos if it develops?
The nation is so divided we are likely to run into problems.
The ugliest scenario for the day after election day plays out if Trump wins. If Trump wins, get ready for Black Lives Matter, the Black Panthers, The Race (La Raza) and other racially motivated anti-white groups to come out and possibly start burning cities down again. After all, they have been given carte blanche all year long to do so in Ferguson, Baltimore, Charlotte, and San Jose . A worrisome precedent has been set.
Of course, Trump won’t be in power the day after election day (we have to wait until Inauguration Day for him to clean up any potential messes) so Barack Hussein Obama is likely to give the racial hate groups the green light once again while the media whips out their collective Stradivarius, plays my heart bleeds for thee, and sympathizes with the devils destroying the nation.
If The Bitch wins conservative groups may clash with leftists over rights being stripped away
If Hillary wins, there’s the real possibility of protests the day after the election, and the social conditioning of whites to be polite and docile even as they’re railroaded in what was formerly their nation may not hold this time around. A Hillary win means the chaos and possibly violence could wait until she starts stripping constitutional rights away. Then, we are likely to see conservatives finally come out and start raising some righteous hell. There could be racially motivated clashes on the horizon as white people standing up for themselves goes against a long-established narrative that they’re all evil racists.
Few people think of the effects civil unrest could have on their livelihood and well-being. It’s time for a little education on just how thinly stretched the American supply chain is, and what could happen with only a short-term disruption in it.
Here’s a scenario – just one of many possible scenarios. Video of rioters stopping and then looting a semi tractor-trailer in Charlotte is worrying because if trucks stop, America stops. If attacks on truckers happen often enough, truckers may decide it’s not worth the risk to their lives to continue moving freight around and stop driving. Within a day, bedlam could ensue as the supply chain runs on a razor’s edge in modern America and everything from food to medication to gasoline starts running out.
Supply Chain Rioters broke into trucks on I-85 and burned cargo in Charlotte
According to the American Trucking Association (ATA) a disruption of 24 to 48 hours means hospitals and nursing homes would run out of food. Fuel supplies at gas stations would also run out in that time frame. Garbage would start to pile up. Most grocery and retail stores would start to run out of food and merchandise. ATM and bank cash supplies would also run out.
The tight rope the corporate system walks quickly breaks when merchandise stops moving.
As an example, the ATA tells us this is what happens during a hurricane. Imagine what would happen with days or weeks of rioting in major cities.
In a hurricane situation, supplies that would normally last a few days, such as water, powdered milk, and canned meat, typically disappear within one day. Given these inventory rates, this means that perishable goods could be depleted in a matter of days and non-perishables in just a few days. Runs on food and non-food staples during hurricanes, and even before big winter storms, provide a good example of how fast some retail inventories can be depleted during panic buying. The same quick depletion of inventories could occur if trucks stopped making deliveries for any reason.
Panic buying means no food on the shelves. When people don’t have food at home and then the grocery store doesn’t have food, rioting will intensify. Things could get ugly in a hurry as one small disruption leads to a domino effect, after which Bedlam ensues.
So, it is best to be prepared with non-perishable items just in case things get out of hand. Have at least several weeks food supply on hand. But, how do you stop people from coming and taking your stash?
Be Armed The police won’t be around to protect you if Bedlam ensues
Contrary to gun propaganda from the media , you absolutely want to be armed in the event the election and its aftermath don’t pass peacefully. What happens when stores no longer have food and gas stations no longer have gas? Gangs form looking for homes that do have those items.
They’re going to pick out the weakest home in the neighborhood and pounce.
A home with guns is a safe home. Just as this YouTube video shows , armed thugs may bust into a house looking for money or food, but they started jumping through plate glass windows and scrambling like cockroaches once the homeowner came out with guns blazing.
Several handguns with extra ammunition are advised. Know how to use them. Be steady with the trigger. And don’t be afraid to use them if looters come to your house.
The police will NOT be there to protect you as they’ll have their hands full with the chaos.
Better To Be Safe Than Sorry The idea of an intact nuclear family may be a trite memory, but protecting your loved ones is still key
With the meltdown of America happening right before our very eyes, we are entering an unstable period in the nation’s history, to say the least. No matter who wins the election the nation we once knew and loved is passing away. Trump may be able to turn things around temporarily, but even if he does the country now has so many immigrants it will be impossible to assimilate them all.
We are entering a period in which America will resemble a third world country more and more. The demographics of the nation are being changed on purpose so white people are diminished at the ballot box and Democrats will gain a lock grip on the levers of power in the nation in the coming years . Divisions between rich and poor will grow, and the evil media will be there stirring the pot with racial, class, and gender division every step of the way . Peace will become a thing of the past as squabbling factions compete with each other for dominance.
In this transition from prosperity to despotism, it is best to be safe than sorry. The day after election day will be telling in that it will set the tone for the next four years. It may be a somewhat peaceful turn towards Communism if The Bitch wins, or it may not be.
But my money is on a steady degradation of civil society in the coming years. Tend your own garden, as I know I will be tending my own. My military friends are already discussing what will happen in SHTF scenario. You should be thinking about it, too.
Read More: Has The Theft Of The 2016 Presidential Election Already Begun?
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President Donald Trump offered the most forthright criticism of Cuba since John F. Kennedy when he addressed a crowd in Miami ahead of signing an executive order reversing the Obama administration’s policy of normalization. [In a speech frequently interrupted by applause, and by cameo appearances from activists, Trump laid out a moral case against the Castro regime and its policies that few previous presidents have dared to make. “We will not be silent in the face of communist oppression any longer,” Trump said. He laid out his principles and policies, including regime change: “With God’s help, a free Cuba is what we will soon achieve,” he said, to sustained cheers and chants of “ !” He listed some of the human rights abuses of the Castro regime, acknowledging those in the audience who had suffered the “true and brutal nature of the Castro regime … many of you witnessed terrible crimes committed in service of a depraved ideology. ” He mentioned activists in Cuba who were prevented from leaving to attend his speech. He saluted exiles and dissidents present, some of whom had suffered decades of imprisonment in Cuba. Trump declared defiantly — in a swipe at his predecessor: “Now that I am president, America will expose the crimes of the Castro regime and stand with the Cuban people in their struggle for freedom. Because we know it is best for America to have freedom in our hemisphere, whether in Cuba or Venezuela, and to have a future where the people of each country can live out their own dreams,” he said. He added: For nearly six decades, the Cuban people have suffered under communist domination. To this day, Cuba is ruled by the same people who killed tens of thousands of their own citizens, who sought to spread their repressive and failed ideology throughout our hemisphere, and who once tried to host enemy nuclear weapons ninety miles from our shores. The Castro regime has shipped arms to North Korea, and fueled chaos in Venezuela. While imprisoning innocents, it has harbored cop killers, hijackers, and terrorists. It has supported human trafficking, forced labor, and exploitation all around the globe. This is the simple truth of the Castro regime. My administration will not hide from it, excuse it, or glamorize it. And we will never, ever be blind to it. We know what’s going on, and we remember what happened. And he declared: The previous administration’s easing of restrictions on travel and trade does not help the Cuban people. They only enrich the Cuban regime. The profits from investment and tourism flow directly to the [Cuban] military. The regime takes the money and owns the industry. The outcome of [the] last administration’s executive action has been only more repression, and a move to crush the peaceful, democratic movement. He later laid out conditions for a new agreement to improve relations, including dramatic improvements in Cuba’s human rights policies, the holding of free elections supervised by international observers, and the “return of the cop killer, Joanne Chesimard. ” (The latter is known as “Assata Shakur” and is still lionized by the American left.) It was all too much for at least one Obama administration adviser. As Trump spoke, former Obama White House official Ben Rhodes, one of the main architects of normalization with Cuba, tweeted furiously in opposition. He declared: “Trump doesn’t care about the human rights of the Cuban people and his policies will do nothing to help them. ” Rhodes also challenged the in the audience: “The few people in Miami enabling Trump in carrying out this charade should be held accountable. He could care less about Cubans,” he tweeted. “It’s tragic that some people in Fla are so determined to cling to a failed hardline on Cuba that they’re hitching themselves to Donald Trump,” he later added. Trump left the door open to diplomacy, stating that his new policy will maintain the U. S. embassy in Havana: “Our embassy [in Cuba] remains open in the hope that our countries can forge a stronger and much better path,” he said. “We will respect Cuban sovereignty, but we will never turn our backs on the Cuban people,” he later added. Trump left no doubt that relations would henceforth have to be based on a foundation of truth — not lenience toward a regime that secured concessions from the Obama administration without any domestic political change. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
Nancy Armour, writing at USA Today, believes Tom Brady has a lot of explaining to do this Super Bowl week for his friendship with President Donald Trump. Moreover, in the same article, she praises Colin Kaepernick for being “eloquent” in his criticism of law enforcement in America. [The San Francisco 49ers quarterback, who refused to stand for the Star Spangled Banner this season and wore socks with pigs dressed in police uniforms, is “eloquent in detailing his concerns over police brutality in minority communities. He’s sparked conversations and reflection in NFL locker rooms and beyond,” states Armour. “Kaepernick has been open, available and consistent with his opinion. ” As she trashes the 45th president of the United States, Armour seems surprised when Kaepernick is “portrayed as and . ” The writer empathizes with the beleaguered QB because after all, he denies those charges. “He’s had insults, slurs and worse directed at him. He was blamed for the drop in TV ratings early in the season,” Armour laments. And to the author, perhaps the worst insult you could possibly levy on Kaepernick is that “One person last week even tried to say Trump’s election was partly the result of Kaepernick’s protests. ” Of course, as far as Brady is concerned he deserves some tough questioning for his friendship with the president. “Trump’s campaign was steeped in racism, bigotry, and misogyny, and he has doubled down on his hatred in his first week as president. It’s left Americans across the country angry and frightened, fearful that the ideals that have made this country exceptional for more than 200 years are being abandoned,” Armour opines. Brady describes his relationship with Trump as a long time friendship. He also had the audacity to have a “Make America Great Again” hat in his locker. For Armour that makes the Patriot’s star in support of racism and misogyny, that is unless he can unfriend Trump, Armour leads us to believe. But, Brady said about the president that, “if you know someone, it doesn’t mean that you agree with everything that they say or do. Right?” “There’s things I don’t believe [in] absolutely. I don’t believe in, you know, there’s a lot of things,” Brady continued. “Not to denounce anything, it’s just that there are different things that I feel like, you know … I don’t agree with everything. That’s fine, right?” Nope. That’s not good enough for Armour. Brady must be interrogated this week about Trump. And if he doesn’t know how to open himself to the media then all he needs to do is call on Colin. Because, “If Brady needs an example of how that’s done, he can look at Kaepernick,” Armour informs us. | 1 |
News, information and analysis from the black left. Black Agenda Radio for Week of Nov. 7, 2016 Submitted by Nellie Bailey a... on Mon, 11/07/2016 - 19:35 Venezuela Hi-Tech Production in the Service of Humanity in Mississippi
Renaissance Jackson, the organization that briefly won the mayor’s office in predominantly Black Jackson, Mississippi, has launched a campaign to purchase a coding and programming capacity and a 3-D fabrication facility. They call it “Fab Lab.” This technology, “if it is democratically controlled, could actually serve humanity,” said Cooperation Jackson spokesman Kali Akuno . These kinds of projects are crucial, “first and foremost, to satisfy some of the basic needs of our community, and -- on a deeper level -- to really put this means of production directly in our community’s hands.” High tech is “one of these areas of the so-called ‘digital divide’ that Black people have been sorely and strategically absent from,” said Akuno. “So, we are doing it for ourselves.” Obamacare “Imploding and Beyond Repair”
The current wave of insurance rate hikes and medical service cutbacks is the predictable result of an Affordable Care Act (ACA) that “was pretty much a gift to the health insurance industry” when Congress passed it, in 2010, said Dr. John Geyman , professor emeritus of family medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine, in Seattle. ACA “was never designed for affordability -- it’s a misnomer in the name of the bill,” he said. Obamacare is “imploding and beyond repair,” and unsustainable. “Tweeks cannot work in the long term. The main fight should be for what will save money and give universal coverage to everyone: namely, single payer national health insurance.” Dr. Geyman said single payer healthcare could save $500 billion a year -- about the same as the entire U.S. “defense” budget. The Fight for Education for Liberation in Detroit
At a “Community Conversation on the Crisis in the Schools,” Detroit activists, educators and parents gathered to address the question: “Who Created the School Crisis, and How are We Responding to it?” Among those wrestling with the issue was Dr. Thomas Pedroni , professor of Curriculum Studies at Wayne State University. He said the decline began with the state takeover of schools in the 1990s, and worsened dramatically after the imposition of state-appointed “emergency managers.” “School could be one of the most meaningful places for our communities, but instead, it’s deadened,” Dr. Pedroni told the crowd at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. “But, we’re going to fight to get back to the place where we have culturally relevant curriculum, not just producing a test score but to develop people who are self-empowered and who know how to fight for their community.” Venezuela Weathering Financial Storm, Despite Disinformation Campaign
“I challenge you to find one item of news that is positive to Venezuela in these last 16 or 17 years,” said Maria Paez Victor , a Venezuelan-born sociologist living in Toronto, Canada, and author of an article titled “Hating Venezuela.” Ms. Victor said the United States and its rightwing allies in Venezuela have kept up a non-stop disinformation campaign ever since the late Hugo Chavez and his Socialist Party were democratically elected in 1998. A crisis triggered by the collapse of world oil prices allowed the opposition to capture the legislature, last year, but Victor says the government is coping. “Venezuela has managed to weather a terrible financial situation, but this is bad news for corporate capitalism and for the United States, because they want Venezuela to be controlled by their lackies.” Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:00am ET on PRN. Length: one hour. | 0 |
The statistic that Obamacare plan premiums are increasing by an average of 25% is misleading, because a large portion of those increased rates get at least partially paid for relatively poor customers by the US Government through the provisions of Obamacare. If it weren't for Obamacare, those customers would not be able to afford healthcare insurance at all, and most of our commercial healthcare insurance companies would be raising their premiums even fast than that as was the case prior to the enactment of Obamacare. | 0 |
Media and Hollywood elites were among the many who mocked incoming senior Donald Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, over the outfit she wore for President Trump’s inauguration on Friday. [What Conway told NBC News was her “Trump revolutionary wear” is actually a red, white, and blue Gucci coat. Conway wore the $3, 600 coat with a bright red hat and red gloves. It didn’t take long for the internet to notice Conway’s outfit, and she was mercilessly mocked. Below is a sampling of some of the sexist insults hurled at Trump’s incoming senior strategist, many of them from the very media tasked to cover the Trump White House. The Daily Show Twitter: Kellyanne Conway dressed as the era Trump wants to take America back to. #InaugurationDay pic. twitter. — The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) January 20, 2017, blog Jezebel: Haha what the fuck is Kellyanne Conway wearing #inauguration2017 https: . pic. twitter. — Jezebel (@Jezebel) January 20, 2017, The Huffington Post Lifestyle: Kellyanne Conway really loves America. Just ask her outfit. https: . pic. twitter. — HuffPost Lifestyle (@HPLifestyle) January 20, 2017, The Hollywood offshoot : Kellyanne Conway dresses like court jester for #TrumpInauguration: https: . pic. twitter. — (@pretareporter) January 20, 2017, NBC, Today Show reporter Ronan Farrow: My aesthetic is Kellyanne Conway revolutionary war cosplay. pic. twitter. — Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) January 20, 2017, Staff writer for The Hollywood Reporter Ryan Parker: pic. twitter. — Ryan Parker (@TheRyanParker) January 20, 2017, Managing Editor, Video for Mic Slade Sohmer: ♫ Guns. And ships. And so the balance shifts. ♫ pic. twitter. — Slade Sohmer (@Slade) January 20, 2017, New York Time SundayStyles reporter Katie Rosman: Because I can’t stop tweeting about Kellyanne Conway’s awful $3500 Gucci coat: please salute the Homewood, Alabama HS drum major team! pic. twitter. — katie rosman (@katierosman) January 20, 2017, Assignment Editor for New York Daily News Joseph Barracato: Ready, Set, Inaugurate! @KellyannePolls wears ‘Trump Revolutionary Wear’ coat to inauguration https: . pic. twitter. — Joseph Barracato (@JoeBarracato) January 20, 2017, Columnist, Opinion Producer, CBC Robyn Urback: For inauguration day, Kellyanne Conway debuts the uniform of the new Trump guard pic. twitter. — Robyn Urback (@RobynUrback) January 20, 2017, The Huffington Post reporter Matt Fuller: Can’t believe Steve Bannon didn’t wear a matching outfit with Kellyanne Conway. pic. twitter. — Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) January 20, 2017, NFL Draft analysts Tyler Brooke: Why does Kellyanne Conway look like the old New England Patriots logo? pic. twitter. — Tyler Brooke (@TylerDBrooke) January 20, 2017, Late Night With Seth Meyers writer Dina Gusovsky: Here’s Kellyanne Conway fresh from defeating the Hessians at the battle of Trenton CC: @jeffkbell pic. twitter. — Dina Gusovsky (@DinaGusovsky) January 20, 2017, | 1 |
Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell committed suicide Wednesday night in his Detroit hotel room by hanging himself, a medical examiner has confirmed. [“The cause of death has been determined as hanging by suicide. A full autopsy report has not yet been completed. There is no additional information at this time,” the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office announced Thursday afternoon. Cornell’s representative Brian Bumbery told the Associated Press that the singer was found in his hotel room at the MGM Grand Detroit hours after his performance Wednesday at the city’s Fox Theatre. Cornell had been touring with the reunited Soundgarden, the band he fronted for 30 years. Rock legends including Elton John, Steven Tyler, Neil Roger, Billy Idol, and more mourned the late singer on social media Wednesday. Shocked and saddened by the sudden death of @chriscornell. A great singer, songwriter and the loveliest man. pic. twitter. — Elton John (@eltonofficial) May 18, 2017, THERE’S A NEW STAR IN THE HEAVENS TONIGHT … THAT WILL SHINE FOREVER FROM THE MEMORY OF YOUR … https: . — Steven Tyler (@IamStevenT) May 18, 2017, A mutual friend called me and tells me my bro passed away. #RIPChrisCornell You are a great artist Love to Vicki and fam @nilerodgers pic. twitter. — Nile Rodgers (@nilerodgers) May 18, 2017, x https: . — Coldplay (@coldplay) May 18, 2017, Very sad news about Chris Cornell today. A sad loss of a great talent to the world, his friends and family. Rest In Peace. pic. twitter. — Joe Perry (@JoePerry) May 18, 2017, SO SO stunned to hear about Chris Cornell! Such a terrible and sad loss! Thinking of his family tonight! RIP, — Dave Navarro (@DaveNavarro) May 18, 2017, RIP Chris CornellIncredibly TalentedIncredibly YoungIncredibly Missed. pic. twitter. — Jimmy Page (@JimmyPage) May 18, 2017, Sad 2 hear of Chris Cornell passing. .great singer and artist … another blow … RIP, — Billy Idol (@BillyIdol) May 18, 2017, Cornell also put out four solo studio records and a live record and went viral with a cover of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U, that has been played nearly 8 million times. Footage of the singer’s final gig surfaced on Youtube on Thursday morning, amid news of his passing. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson | 1 |
The Trump administration is working on an executive order that could be much broader than the dumping measures reported earlier, according to Axios. [Last week, the New York Times reported that President Donald Trump would sign an executive order targeting Chinese dumping into the U. S. soon after the conclusion of China President Xi Jinping state visit in Florida. Under the Obama administration, a preliminary study by the Commerce Department found that China was dumping steel into the U. S. at below market prices. Back in September, the U. S. International Trade Commission affirmed a decision to impose and duties on certain steel imports from Australia, Brazil, Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea and Turkey. The Trump administration recently launched a investigation into the massive and persistent trade deficits the U. S. runs with “trading partnets” and the unfair trading policies that may be causing them. Axios describes the potential for an executive order with broader trade sanctions as “explosive,” although it reports that while the plans are “very fluid” and there are internal disagreements about how aggressive the order will be, it likely won’t be confined to steel. Axios report Jonathan Swan says White House sources have told him: A White House official told Breitbart News that it is likely any executive order to emerge prior to the investigation into trade deficits is completed would be narrowly tailored to commodities and metals such as steel and aluminum and wouldn’t include broader manufactured goods such as appliances. | 1 |
No moment in the 2016 presidential campaign has cried out more for a unifying candidate than the police shootings of two black men last week and the ensuing national uproar, followed by the shocking sniper ambush that killed five police officers in Dallas. And no other moment has revealed more starkly how hard it is for Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton to become that candidate. Never have two presidential nominees been as unpopular as Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton, and they are not fully trusted by their own parties nor showing significant crossover appeal in the polls. Mr. Trump, the champion of law and order, is also the political figure many people blame for sowing division and hatred with his attacks on illegal immigrants, Muslims, Mexicans and others. Rather than defuse tension, he electrifies crowds and vanquishes rivals through provocations that he delights in calling politically incorrect. Of the two, Mrs. Clinton would seem more able, and driven, to try to bring the country together. She has a large following among black voters and speaks ardently about the need for “respect” and “love and kindness. ” After Dallas, she called on “white people to understand how feel every day. ” Yet many on the right and some on the left dislike her intensely, and even her admirers say she lacks the public emotion, oratorical skills and reputation for honesty to persuade large numbers of Americans to see things her way. The need for a reassuring and healing voice has come at a particularly bad time for the two presumptive presidential nominees. For many Americans, Mrs. Clinton’s credibility was further damaged last week as the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, sharply criticized her for being “extremely careless” about her use of private email as secretary of state. At the same time, Mr. Trump alienated many voters with his mixed comments about Saddam Hussein and his defensiveness over a Twitter post that many people regarded as . “Trump is 100 percent saying the right things about police and respecting authority, but then he says these other comments that are too weird for voters to ignore,” said Fred L. DeLuca, a Trump supporter and former police officer who owns a graphic supply store in Youngstown, Ohio. “And Hillary — I don’t trust what she says about law enforcement, not at all. ” Traumatic events have at times become opportunities for presidential candidates to step up and grow in the eyes of the American public, such as when Bill Clinton went to Los Angeles in 1992 in the aftermath of the riots there, or when Barack Obama pushed for aggressive, bipartisan action from the federal government to stem the banking crisis and protect taxpayers. Mr. Clinton’s image and empathic personality appealed across party lines, as did Mr. Obama’s historic candidacy. And in moments of national crisis, presidents have shown ability to unify the country, if fleetingly, like George W. Bush did after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. These candidates did not have to sell themselves to voters against such an intense combination of terrorism, mass shootings, police and gun violence, social unease and fear. Still, the current run of crises has, in the view of many Democrats and Republicans, served only to spotlight the shortcomings of both Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton. “The sense of alienation and estrangement is so great today that it’s hard to unite people, and these candidates haven’t done it,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Clinton backer. The historian Doris Kearns Goodwin compared the current political climate to the Civil War era and recalled Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech, during his 1858 Senate campaign, in which he analyzed the deep divisions between the North and the South and predicted that the country would become more united — but first slavery had to be eliminated or made the law of the land. She said Lincoln proved to be a president who would go to war to unify the country, and credited President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with mobilizing forces around the country and in Congress in the 1960s to pass civil rights legislation that — while highly divisive — also brought greater equality for Americans. “If Trump was a more disciplined, focused candidate, this could be his moment to win over Americans because the desire for a strong leader is great in moments of turbulence,” she said. “But look at his record. After ‘Brexit,’ he talked about the weak currency helping his golf course. After the Orlando shootings, it was, ‘I told you so.’ After the F. B. I. report on Hillary, he couldn’t focus on that. Voters want candidates to show we can trust them, and both candidates have this problem. ” In several recent polls, roughly of Americans said that Mrs. Clinton was not honest and trustworthy Mr. Trump drew similar numbers on the question. These polls were conducted before the F. B. I. director rebuked Mrs. Clinton over her private email and handling of classified material. Mr. Trump, whose poll ratings grew after his forceful responses to terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. tried to sound similarly resolute on Friday evening, saying in a video that law enforcement was “the force between civilization and total chaos. ” And, he said, “Now is the time for prayers, love, unity and leadership. ” These remarks were relatively restrained for him, and his advisers hope that he can build on his image as a powerful, executive and attempt to unify voters. He is the choice of most voters who say they are particularly interested in electing a strong leader — a little over of the electorate, according to a recent Bloomberg Politics survey. A Gallup poll conducted in May showed that six in 10 Americans consider him a strong and decisive leader. Vernita Blocker, a retired social work administrator from Lindenwold, N. J. supports Mrs. Clinton but said she worried that Mr. Trump might be better suited to capitalize on Americans’ concerns about fraying social order. “The more people are afraid, the more it plays into Trump’s hands because they will want a president,” Ms. Blocker said. “Hillary has to find more ways to persuade people that she could really unite the country despite all the people who don’t like her. ” Yet Mr. Trump is still having trouble uniting his own party, while Mrs. Clinton appears further along with Democrats. The conventions this month will be huge opportunities for the nominees to galvanize the faithful, but also a chance to reach out to the other side with traditionally positive speeches about their hopes for the country. On policy, Mrs. Clinton is also eager to find common ground on gun control and criminal justice reform — issues that resonate with many voters at a time of seemingly endless violence. While new gun laws are opposed by many on the right, she wants Americans to at least talk about finding solutions — if not uniting behind them. “I think ‘unity’ is the wrong goal, and what we need can’t be achieved by lofty oratory alone,” said Wendy L. Wall, an associate professor of history at Binghamton University. “Often in our past, unity has meant burying disagreements rather than solving common problems. What we need now is someone who can work across differences, not erase them. ” “I think there is no way Trump could do this,” she added. “I think the jury is still out on Clinton. ” | 1 |
The path to total Dictatorship: America’s Shadow Government and its silent coup Unaffected by elections. Unaltered by populist movements. Beyond the reach of the law By John W. Whitehead - October 27, 2016 “Today the path to total dictatorship in the U.S. can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by Congress, the President, or the people . Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system … a well-organized political-action group in this country, determined to destroy our Constitution and establish a one-party state…. The important point to remember about this group is not its ideology but its organization… It operates secretly, silently, continuously to transform our Government…. This group … is answerable neither to the President, the Congress, nor the courts. It is practically irremovable.”— Senator William Jenner, 1954 speech
Unaffected by elections. Unaltered by populist movements. Beyond the reach of the law.
Say hello to America’s shadow government.
A corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country, this shadow government represents the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its citizenry.
No matter which candidate wins the presidential election, this shadow government is here to stay. Indeed, as recent documents by the FBI reveal, this shadow government— also referred to as “The 7th Floor Group” —may well have played a part in who will win the White House this year.
To be precise, however, the future president will actually inherit not one but two shadow governments.
The first shadow government, referred to as COG or Continuity of Government, is made up of unelected individuals who have been appointed to run the government in the event of a “catastrophe.” COG is a phantom menace waiting for the right circumstances—a terrorist attack, a natural disaster, an economic meltdown—to bring it out of the shadows, where it operates even now. When and if COG takes over, the police state will transition to martial law.
Yet it is the second shadow government —also referred to as the Deep State—that poses the greater threat to freedom right now. Comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes, this government within a government is the real reason “we the people” have no real control over our government.
The Deep State, which “ operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power ,” makes a mockery of elections and the entire concept of a representative government.
So who or what is the Deep State?
It’s the militarized police, which have joined forces with state and federal in order to establish themselves as a standing army. It’s the fusion centers and spy agencies that have created a surveillance state and turned all of us into suspects. It’s the courthouses and prisons that have allowed corporate profits to take precedence over due process and justice. It’s the military empire with its private contractors and defense industry that is bankrupting the nation. It’s the private sector with its 854,000 contract personnel with top-secret clearances, “a number greater than that of top-secret-cleared civilian employees of the government.” It’s what former congressional staffer Mike Lofgren refers to as “ a hybrid of national security and ”: the Department of Defense, the State Department, Homeland Security, the CIA, the Justice Department, the Treasury, the Executive Office of the President via the National Security Council, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a handful of vital federal trial courts, and members of the defense and intelligence committees.
It’s every facet of a government that is no longer friendly to freedom and is working overtime to trample the Constitution underfoot and render the citizenry powerless in the face of the government’s power grabs, corruption and abusive tactics.
These are the key players that drive the shadow government.
This is the hidden face of the American police state that will continue long past Election Day.
Just consider some of the key programs and policies advanced by the shadow government that will continue no matter who occupies the Oval Office.
Domestic surveillance. No matter who wins the presidential popularity contest, the National Security Agency (NSA), with its $10.8 billion black ops annual budget, will continue to spy on every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone. Thus, on any given day, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. Local police have been outfitted with a litany of surveillance gear, from license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices to biometric data recorders. Technology now makes it possible for the police to scan passersby in order to detect the contents of their pockets, purses, briefcases, etc. Full-body scanners, which perform virtual strip-searches of Americans traveling by plane, have gone mobile, with roving police vans that peer into vehicles and buildings alike—including homes. Coupled with the nation’s growing network of real-time surveillance cameras and facial recognition software, soon there really will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
Global spying. The NSA’s massive surveillance network, what the Washington Post refers to as a $500 billion “ espionage empire ,” will continue to span the globe and target every single person on the planet who uses a phone or a computer. The NSA’s Echelon program intercepts and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax and email message sent anywhere in the world. In addition to carrying out domestic surveillance on peaceful political groups such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace and several religious groups, Echelon has also been a keystone in the government’s attempts at political and corporate espionage .
Roving TSA searches. The American taxpayer will continue to get ripped off by government agencies in the dubious name of national security. One of the greatest culprits when it comes to swindling taxpayers has been the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), with its questionable deployment of and complete mismanagement of millions of dollars’ worth of airport full-body X-ray scanners, punitive patdowns by TSA agents and thefts of travelers’ valuables. Considered essential to national security, TSA programs will continue in airports and at transportation hubs around the country.
USA Patriot Act, NDAA. America’s so-called war on terror, which it has relentlessly pursued since 9/11, will continue to chip away at our freedoms, unravel our Constitution and transform our nation into a battlefield, thanks in large part to such subversive legislation as the USA Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act. These laws completely circumvent the rule of law and the rights of American citizens. In so doing, they re-orient our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the U.S. Constitution, is the map by which we navigate life in the United States. These laws will continue to be enforced no matter who gets elected.
Militarized police state. Thanks to federal grant programs allowing the Pentagon to transfer surplus military supplies and weapons to local without charge, police forces will continue to be transformed from peace officers into heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace, will continue to keep the masses corralled, controlled, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens.
SWAT team raids. With more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans by local police for relatively routine police matters and federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions, the incidence of botched raids and related casualties will continue to rise. Nationwide, SWAT teams will continue to be employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community nuisances including angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession.
Domestic drones. The domestic use of drones will continue unabated. As mandated by Congress, there will be 30,000 drones crisscrossing the skies of America by 2020, all part of an industry that could be worth as much as $30 billion per year. These machines, which will be equipped with weapons, will be able to record all activities, using video feeds, heat sensors and radar. An Inspector General report revealed that the Dept. of Justice has already spent nearly $4 million on drones domestically, largely for use by the FBI , with grants for another $1.26 million so police departments and nonprofits can acquire their own drones.
School-to-prison pipeline. The paradigm of abject compliance to the state will continue to be taught by example in the schools, through school lockdowns where police and drug-sniffing dogs enter the classroom, and zero tolerance policies that punish all offenses equally and result in young people being expelled for childish behavior. School districts will continue to team up with law enforcement to create a “schoolhouse to jailhouse track” by imposing a “double dose” of punishment: suspension or expulsion from school, accompanied by an arrest by the police and a trip to juvenile court.
Overcriminalization. The government bureaucracy will continue to churn out laws, statutes, codes and regulations that reinforce its powers and value systems and those of the police state and its corporate allies, rendering the rest of us petty criminals. The average American now unknowingly commits three felonies a day, thanks to this overabundance of vague laws that render otherwise innocent activity illegal. Consequently, small farmers who dare to make unpasteurized goat cheese and share it with members of their community will continue to have their farms raided.
Privatized Prisons. States will continue to outsource prisons to private corporations, resulting in a cash cow whereby mega-corporations imprison Americans in private prisons in order to make a profit. In exchange for corporations buying and managing public prisons across the country at a supposed savings to the states, the states have to agree to maintain a 90% occupancy rate in the privately run prisons for at least 20 years.
Endless wars. America’s expanding military empire will continue to bleed the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour). The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. Yet what most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense.
Are you getting the message yet?
The next president, much like the current president and his predecessors, will be little more than a figurehead, a puppet to entertain and distract the populace from what’s really going on.
As Lofgren reveals, this state within a state, “concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue ,” is a “hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose.”
The Deep State not only holds the nation’s capital in thrall, but it also controls Wall Street (“which supplies the cash that keeps the political machine quiescent and operating as a diversionary marionette theater”) and Silicon Valley.
This is fascism in its most covert form, hiding behind public agencies and private companies to carry out its dirty deeds.
It is a marriage between government bureaucrats and corporate fat cats.
As Lofgren concludes:
[T]he Deep State is so heavily entrenched, so well protected by surveillance, firepower, money and its ability to co-opt resistance that it is almost impervious to change … If there is anything the Deep State requires it is silent, uninterrupted cash flow and the confidence that things will go on as they have in the past. It is even willing to tolerate a degree of gridlock: Partisan mud wrestling over cultural issues may be a useful distraction from its agenda.
In other words, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People , as long as government officials—elected and unelected alike—are allowed to operate beyond the reach of the Constitution, the courts and the citizenry, the threat to our freedoms remains undiminished.
So the next time you find yourselves despondent over the 2016 presidential candidates, remember that it’s just a puppet show intended to distract you from the silent coup being carried out by America’s shadow government. | 0 |
Delta Air Lines has banned a disruptive passenger who shouted Trump and Clinton remarks at fellow passengers on a flight from Atlanta to Allentown, Pa. last week, the airline’s chief executive said on Monday. The chief executive, Edward H. Bastian, said in a memo published on Delta’s website that other travelers on the flight Nov. 22 would receive refunds for their tickets. “This individual displayed behavior that was loud, rude and disrespectful to his fellow customers,” Mr. Bastian said in the statement. He added, “We must require civility on our planes and in our facilities. ” The decision by Delta came after the airline received criticism on social media for its initial response to the episode, which a passenger identified as Emma Baum videotaped and released online and to news organizations. Ms. Baum was quoted by The Morning Call on Nov. 26 as saying that she had first noticed the man, who was not identified, shouting slogans in the terminal while waiting to board Flight 248. The man ended up sitting next to her, and she told him she had been out of the country and asked him about the election, she said. Ms. Baum told The Morning Call that as the man became animated, jumping out of his seat, she began recording him with her cellphone. In the video, the man is seen clapping his hands and shouting at other passengers. He says in part: “Donald Trump, baby! We got some Hillary bitches on here?” The man also yelled: “Donald Trump! It’s your president. Every goddamn one of you. If you don’t like it, too bad. ” A Daily Beast writer was also provided with a copy of the video. Ms. Baum said the man was briefly removed from the plane and then allowed back on the flight before it took off. She said she reported him to the authorities when the plane landed. After the video was posted online, Delta Air Lines issued a statement on Nov. 26, apologizing to customers for the disruption and saying, “We have followed up with the teams involved and all agree that this customer should not have been allowed to continue on the flight. ” Mr. Bastian said in the statement on Monday: “After questioning the customer, our team members made the best decision they could given the information they had and allowed him to remain on the flight. ” He added, “If our colleagues had witnessed firsthand what was shown in the video, there is no question they would have removed him from the aircraft. He will never again be allowed on a Delta plane. ” The video was shared widely online, with many commentators noting that the man, who is white, was not ejected from the flight, but that passengers who are Muslim, Sikh, and other races and ethnicities have been subjected to extra scrutiny or outright removal by various airlines while engaging in routine activities. It was not immediately clear what, if any measures, were taken at the airport in Allentown when the man disembarked. Assistant Chief Gail Struss of the Allentown Police Department said in an email on Monday: “It’s possible we were called, but no report was taken by us that I can find. We would have referred the caller to the airport police. ” Officers at the Police Department at the Airport Authority were not dispatched to respond to any passenger disturbance on Nov. 22, a spokesman, Colin Riccobon, said in an email. | 1 |
It's good to see infidel countries losing their relationships with each other | 0 |
Wall Street's Calling The Sheep To The Slaughter Again! We return to the fiscal theme because one thing we are endeavoring to accomplish here at Contra Corner is to stay ahead of the shocks and surprises that neither Wall Street nor the mainstream media can seem to even remotely anticipate. In that regard, we believe that the shock of Donald Trump's election will soon be vastly exceeded by an even more shocking shutdown of Washington governance within days of the inauguration. | 0 |
■ Donald J. Trump is postponing until January his announcement about how he will handle his private business interests. ■ The Clinton campaign breaks its silence and demands declassification of the intelligence on Russian election meddling. ■ Mr. Trump takes to Twitter to deny Russian involvement in his victory. ■ Senator John McCain says there is no doubt about Russian hacking, which he called “warfare. ” ■ Carly Fiorina for director of national intelligence? She certainly took the ’s line on China. For those waiting to see Mr. Trump hold a news conference to discuss the ethical concerns about conflicts with his business, you’ll have to wait a little longer. Transition officials said on Monday evening that they were postponing a news conference scheduled for Thursday at which Mr. Trump had said he would reveal his plans to avoid conflicts of interest with his sprawling real estate business. The instead will make that announcement in January — likely before his inauguration and after an extended vacation at his resort in Florida — officials said, confirming a report in Bloomberg News. Officials said the focus on building a cabinet had consumed more of Mr. Trump’s time than expected. And they said that it was taking time to address how to address the large, iconic real estate holdings that are part of the global Trump business. As the swirl of allegations around Russia’s efforts to elect Mr. Trump roils Washington, one voice has been absent: Hillary Clinton’s. John D. Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, broke the silence on her behalf, demanding the declassification of all information about Russia’s meddling as well as an explanation from the Obama administration of what it knew and when it knew it. “We now know that the C. I. A. has determined Russia’s interference in our elections was for the purpose of electing Donald Trump,” Mr. Podesta wrote in a statement. “This should distress every American. Never before in the history of our republic have we seen such an effort to undermine the bedrock of our democracy. ” “This is not a partisan issue, and we are glad to see bipartisan support in the Congress for an investigation into Russia’s role,” he continued. “We believe that the administration owes it to the American people to explain what it knows regarding the extent and manner of Russia’s interference and this be done as soon as possible. To that end, we also support the request from members of the Senate Intelligence Committee to declassify information around Russia’s roles in the election and to make this data available to the public. ” Thrown on the defensive, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said on Monday that the White House did not announce a major probe of Russia’s interference before the election partly because many voters would have seen such an announcement as political meddling. He said Russia did not hack the electoral process or the counting of votes. “But what is also clear is that the results of the hack and leak effort carried out on the orders of Russia were extensively discussed prior to the election,” Mr. Earnest said. With evidence mounting that Russian intelligence promoted his election, the continued his denial, via Twitter. That second post is a head scratcher. The United States government formally accused Russia of trying to sow discord in the democratic process through its hacking in early October. It stopped short of saying the goal was to elect Mr. Trump. And forensic analysis does allow experts to trace the source of a hack. Oh, and fresh off his shot at Boeing over the cost of an Air Force One upgrade, Mr. Trump took a jab at another expensive military program, the stealth fighter. On that one, he will have bipartisan support — just not in congressional districts where the fighter is built. Mr. McCain said on Monday that there was “no doubt about the hacking” by Russian intelligence services into Democratic campaign accounts, which he called “another form of warfare. ” Appearing on “CBS This Morning” with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the next minority leader, Mr. McCain said the investigation of Russian meddling in the election would include his committee as well as the Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees. He said a Senate investigation would be necessary despite President Obama having already ordered up an inquiry, as that one would not be completed before the end of the Obama administration. The implication was that the new Trump administration would not follow through. “We don’t want to point a finger, and I don’t want this to turn into the Benghazi investigation,” Mr. Schumer added, referring to the House investigation into the attacks on an American compound in Libya, which he said had been partisan. “This is serious stuff. ” One week before the Electoral College meets to ratify Mr. Trump’s election victory, 10 electors — including a Texas Republican who has turned on Mr. Trump, and Christine Pelosi, the daughter of Representative Nancy Pelosi — have demanded their own intelligence briefing on Russian efforts to elect Mr. Trump. Their request: Ms. Fiorina, the former chief executive, emerged from a meeting with the at Trump Tower on Monday to talk tough, not on Russia but on China, which she called “our most important adversary and a rising adversary. ” Ms. Fiorina was called in to discuss the job of director of national intelligence, a senior transition official said. And Ms. Fiorina, once a bitter foe of Mr. Trump’s, was effusive. “We talked about hacking, whether it’s Chinese hacking or purported Russian hacking,” she said. “We talked about the opportunity that the has to literally reset things, to reset the trajectory of this economy, to reset the role of government, to reset America’s role in the world and how we’re perceived in the world. And I think it’s why he’s getting such fantastic people in his administration. ” Mr. Trump and Ms. Fiorina clashed bitterly when she ran against him for the Republican nomination. Mr. Trump denigrated her appearance last year in an interview with Rolling Stone, saying, “Look at that face!” Ms. Fiorina briefly agreed to be Senator Ted Cruz’s running mate before he, too, was vanquished by the eventual nominee. All appears to be forgiven. “First I want to say, he has really cool stuff in his office,” she said. “All of these athletes have given him all this incredible memorabilia. I was particular taken by Shaq O’Neal’s shoe, which is huge. I guess it takes a champion to know a champion. ” Three days ago, an image calling for the extermination of Muslims was posted on former Representative Allen West’s Facebook page. The outrage prompted an aide to Mr. West, a former Army lieutenant colonel, to claim credit and take the image down. The outrage wasn’t too great to deny Mr. West another audience with the on Monday at Trump Tower. Nor was it enough to prompt a question from the reporters in the Trump Tower lobby, though they did ask Mr. West about Russian efforts to elect Mr. Trump president. Reporters: Should there be a bipartisan investigation of Russia hacking? Mr. West: “I think there are more important things. We’re about to see a collapse in Syria, Iraq is falling apart. the Iran nuclear deal is horrific. China and Russia are expanding. I think that’s where we need to focus your intelligence efforts. ” The Trump transition team officially named Gary D. Cohn, the longtime president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, to be the director of the White House National Economic Council. After a campaign full of attacks on Wall Street — and Goldman Sachs in particular — Mr. Trump will have Goldman’s No. 2 in the West Wing and a former Goldman partner, Steven Mnuchin, next door at Treasury, if he is confirmed. But the transition team tried to find something inspirational in the latest multimillionaire: That is one of the rare moments where Shaker Heights, an affluent suburb of Cleveland, is mined for inspirational struggle. Mr. Trump is looking at appointing a rising Republican star from South Dakota, Representative Kristi Noem, as his secretary of agriculture, a senior official working on the transition said Monday. The transition team is vetting Ms. Noem now, and she is scheduled to meet with Mr. Trump this week. Ms. Noem, 45, would be one of the younger members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet — a group that so far consists mostly of older men. She has been planning to leave Congress at the end of her next term in 2018 to run for governor of South Dakota. Another name floated for the agriculture job, Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, is being considered for a variety of jobs, including energy secretary. Because she is a Democrat — and would likely be replaced in the Senate by a Republican — the transition official said she could essentially have “whatever job she wants. ” Speaking of roles, the former Texas governor, Rick Perry, who wanted to eliminate the Department of Energy but could not remember its name on live television, has emerged as a leading candidate for energy secretary. Although Texas is rich in energy and Mr. Perry is big on extracting it, he cannot afford too many “oops moments” if he is named to that post. The Energy Department’s primary role is to design nuclear weapons and ensure the safety and reliability of the nation’s aging nuclear arsenal — through a constellation of scientific laboratories. The two men who served as President Obama’s energy secretaries were scientists, one with a Nobel Prize, the other from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Trump is also looking at two other possibilities for energy secretary. He likes Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota — both Democrats — for the job. Both are under tremendous pressure from fellow Democrats not to accept a cabinet job. | 1 |
On the subject of travel, my father used to say: “You can’t go back. Avoid the places you loved when you were young, because they’ll have changed, and you’ll be disappointed. ” Occasionally my husband agrees, “That’s right, you can’t go back. ” But does that mean that the cities and countries where we were happiest and most enchanted must forever be crossed off the list of destinations? Can’t some places remain unspoiled (or possibly even improve)? And, at the very least, isn’t it interesting to see how different a place looks to us at various points in our lives? This spring, I decided to find the answer to some of these questions by revisiting Sicily, one of my favorite places on earth. I’d first been there in 1992, with my mother, my husband and our two sons (then aged 10 and 14) and written — for this newspaper — about watching Mount Etna erupt. I’d returned for six weeks in early 2002 to write a brief book that was partly about how an immersion in Sicilian history, with its appalling violence and inspiriting record of recovery and resilience, had provided some comfort in the recent aftermath of Sept. 11. Now, almost a quarter century after my first visit, I was returning with my husband, Howie our younger son, Leon our Jenny and our two granddaughters, Emilia and Malena. One advantage of returning to a region you know reasonably well — and, I suppose, of getting older — is that you lose the greedy compulsion to go everywhere and see everything. Were this a first visit, or were I alone with Howie, I couldn’t have resisted Palermo: the glorious mosaics in the cathedral of Monreale, the exuberant Baroque statuary of the Quattro Canti, the vibrant markets and delicious street food. But vivid memories of yanking my sons out of the way of speeding cars and rogue motorini convinced me that it might be more relaxing to begin our vacation in Cefalù, a seaside town about 40 minutes from Palermo, to which we flew from Rome. We rented a car at the airport (a more efficient process than in years before) and drove to Cefalù. The first sign of serious improvement was that the traffic seemed less maniacal than I remembered, making the trip more like an ordinary (that is, vaguely harrowing) autostrada drive, and less like a ferocious scramble for survival. We spent three nights in Cefalù, a beautiful town on the sea. Hugging a curve of the coastline, Cefalù has a picturesque, mazelike old city and a magnificent cathedral that you can see from far away. In the Duomo is a remarkably mosaic of Christ Pantocrator in the central apse, just above the Madonna and surrounded by the Twelve Apostles. The village is like a much smaller, more intimate version of Monreale — without the crowds. During our last stay in Cefalù, Howie and I returned to the church every few hours to watch the changing light play on the mosaics, but we knew that these obsessive pilgrimages were unlikely to appeal to the girls, who much preferred playing on the beach and in the gentle waves. (One necessity of traveling with family, it became clear, was figuring out — in advance or on the spot — the many minor but essential compromises and adjustments that needed to be made.) I’d very much wanted to revisit the lovely inn and restaurant, Gangivecchio, in an ancient, aristocratic villa in the Madonie mountains above Cefalù, but I wasn’t sure how well the children would like the twisty drive. Instead we took a much shorter (less than a ) trip to the handsome town of Castelbuono, where we had an extraordinary lunch at Nangalarruni, a restaurant that specializes in dishes prepared with local mushrooms. The menu includes a marvelous sort of gratin made with potatoes and mushrooms, a medallion of pork encrusted with honey, pistachios and almonds, and pastas with a variety of delectable mushroom sauces. Easily navigable and unpretentious, Castelbuono is also an art town, with frescoes in the crypt of the church Matrice Vecchia in the castle is a chapel encrusted with the giddily Baroque decorations of the sculptor Giacomo Serpotta. But by the time we finished lunch, late on a Palm Sunday afternoon, the town seemed to have slipped into a peaceful postprandial sleep, and (in lieu of seeing its art treasures) we settled for buying honey and olive oil in a shop selling produce from a nearby organic cooperative. If you like to cook, as we do, the great frustration of tourism is the inability to shop at local markets and make dinner. One thing that’s greatly changed travel over the last decade has been the advent of Airbnb and its online gallery of rentable apartments and houses. For us, the fantasy was irresistible: the smell of olive oil and garlic, the family gathered around platters of steaming pasta and seafood bought that very day. We could be like Italians! The reality was somewhat different. The amiable hosts who showed us to our rental cottage in Cefalù had forgotten to mention the high chance of burning out the clutch as we climbed the driveway, which rounded precipitous curves (without guardrails) along the edge of a cliff, nor did we know (from the online photos) that the only access to the bedrooms was via a ladder, a problem for two little granddaughters, my and, to be honest, for me. In Syracuse, where we went next, our elegant, spacious, comfortable apartment, also an Airbnb, had another sort of glitch: The electricity had been turned off in a country where, we well knew, it could be weeks for it to be turned back on. Perhaps my father should have said: You can’t go back and rent an apartment. Ultimately, these issues, which featured moments evoking “National Lampoon’s Vacation” films, hardly mattered. Our little family fled both Airbnbs and checked into local hotels, the gracious and comfortable La Plumeria in Cefalù, and in Syracuse, after our genuinely kindly, regretful landlady refunded our money, (though our Cefalù “host” refused) the elegant Algilà. When the travelers who had come for Easter filled its rooms, we moved again to the seafront Hotel des Étrangers. In Syracuse, we stayed on Ortigia, the lovely island across a small bridge from the mainland. Though there were far more restaurants and souvenir shops than I recalled from my previous visits, Ortigia’s architecture, the atmospheric cobbled streets, the dramatic waterfront and especially the Piazza del Duomo (particularly beautiful when illuminated at night) were no less thrilling than I remembered. Nor was it any less fascinating to observe the layers of history so visible everywhere throughout the city. On one side of the Duomo, you can see the columns that upheld the structure during its original iteration as a Greek temple consecrated as a Christian church in the seventh century, the Norman cathedral was rebuilt, in its current Baroque splendor, after the earthquake of 1693. Among Syracuse’s wonders is one of Caravaggio’s major — and most beautiful — paintings, “The Burial of St. Lucia,” which was done in 1608 when the artist briefly took refuge in Sicily, on the run from a murder charge in Rome. The painting, temporarily housed in the church Santa Lucia alla Badia, on one side of the Piazza Duomo, depicts the interment of the city’s patron saint, her delicate frame stretched out near the bottom of the canvas, surrounded by mourners and half blocked from our sight by the broad, powerful back of the gravedigger all this — the action of the painting, as it were — transpires in a narrow band, beneath a vast expanse of empty dark space that has been restored since I last saw it (then in Syracuse’s art museum) to reveal a brick niche, dimly visible in the sepulchral gloom. On the mainland, a short cab or bus ride (or longer walk) from Ortigia, is Syracuse’s archaeological zone, a sort of classical entertainment center featuring one of the largest and most impressive Greek theaters in existence, as well as an elliptical Roman arena that often served as the stage (and could be flooded) for simulated naval battles. In the same park are a series of caverns, or latomie. Now surrounded by a pleasant garden planted with lemon and orange trees and heavily populated by songbirds, are the caves that were used as prisons by the region’s despotical rulers. Perhaps the most of these caves, the Ear of Dionysius, was (at least supposedly) given its name by Caravaggio, who observed the way in which the cave’s entrance resembles an enormous ear. Our granddaughters loved running in and out of these dark, slightly daunting natural wonders, and were suitably impressed by the unusual acoustics, where the slightest whisper can be heard throughout the cavern. Legend has it that this feature was used by the rulers to eavesdrop on the conversations of the unsuspecting prisoners, though it seems more probable that this natural amplification was ingeniously employed to increase the audibility of the plays performed in the Greek theater. As in much of Sicily, the food in Syracuse is — to put it simply — great. One of the best meals we had on our trip was at Burgio, a sort of upscale grocery store and restaurant in one corner of Ortigia’s appealing market. Burgio focuses on local produce — cheeses, sausages and salamis. They serve sandwiches made to order, artisanal beers, local wines and elaborate platters on which are arranged small dishes of sliced meats, fish, cheese and marinated vegetables, each selection paired with perfectly complementary relishes. Eating at Burgio was our consolation for not being able to shop in, and cook from, the market, but it was by no means the only excellent restaurant in Ortigia. Walking around, checking out menus, it’s not hard to find someplace where the food is superb and not terribly expensive. We especially liked Sicilia in Tavola, which has a terrific selection of seafood dishes — and pasta Bolognese for the girls! — and where I had pasta with sea urchin, pasta ai ricci, a dish with which I am obsessed and order every chance I get. We also liked a place called DiVino Mare, which is near the market and serves grilled, wonderfully fresh fish at unusually reasonable prices. We spent much of our time (four days) in Syracuse just walking around and eating. I would have liked to spend more time traveling up and down the Ionian Sea coast, and to the inland mountain towns of Ragusa and Modica. I’d hoped to take the family to the fish market in Catania, where once, eating pasta with sea urchin in a little trattoria at the edge of the pescheria, I watched the restaurant and the market stalls empty as everyone gathered to marvel at a gargantuan tuna that one of the fishermen had brought in. I would have liked to have lunch at the coastal beauty spots Aci Trezza and Aci Castello, and to visit Noto, the wildly Baroque town where every cornice and window sill appears to vie for the greatest complexity of decoration, and where a balcony might be upheld by mermaids, griffins or galloping horses carved from stone. I would have liked to make a side trip to the Villa Romana del Casale, near Piazza Armerina, a restored Roman villa with famously spectacular mosaics depicting a chariot race, an epic hunting scene, a parade of women in what appear to be bikinis. But of the three generations traveling together, each one had their own reasons for wanting to relax, to take things slow and easy. Ultimately, some of the most pleasurable moments were the most unexpected, and the ones that most fully disproved my father’s warning against returning to the familiar. I had an experience of pure bliss, riding through the gently rolling, unusually green Sicilian countryside between Cefalù and Syracuse, looking at ruins of ancient farmhouses and flocks of grazing sheep, and hearing my granddaughters sing at the top of their lungs along with Adele’s “Hello. ” Perhaps my favorite moment of the entire trip occurred at Segesta, where there is an unfinished but nonetheless grand Doric temple and an amphitheater (dating from the third century B. C.) on a hill above the temple. The structures are themselves magnificent, but their beauty is greatly enhanced by the setting: a semideserted, (about 40 minutes from Palermo) and wholly rural mountaintop from which you can see far across the bucolic countryside and, beyond it, the sea. Of Sicily’s three major Greek temples — at Agrigento, Selinunte and Segesta — Segesta was the one I wanted my family to see, the one I wanted to revisit myself. When we reached Segesta, after getting lost in search of a nearby lunch spot, it was midafternoon. The busloads of tourists and Italian schoolchildren had mostly departed. We took the shuttle bus up to the amphitheater, where a strong wind was blowing, and where — as their parents and grandparents sat on the stone benches encircling the theater and took in the view — the girls ran up and down the levels like graceful little mountain goats and treated the ancient theater as their personal terraced playground. From the shuttle bus, going back downhill, you suddenly see the temple, solitary and majestic, exerting a kind of presence you can feel even from afar. The bus driver stopped so his passengers could take a picture, and I had the sense that even he — navigating this road, day after day — had never reached the point of taking the temple’s beauty for granted, and was still awed by its magnificence. The hike from the parking area to the temple is slightly steep and long. Leon and Howie and the girls ran up ahead, while I walked more slowly to keep my company. By the time we reached the temple, the girls had made it their own. Malena, who never walks when she can run, was scrambling over the rocks that surrounded the structure, inspecting every inch of the hilly area around the monumental columns. Emilia was having quite a different reaction. In the open space, with the temple behind her, she seemed to have become intoxicated by the gorgeousness of the place. With her arms outstretched she twirled and twirled around, the afternoon sunlight shining through her pale skirt and picking out the highlights in her long reddish brown hair. Graceful and free, powered by the sheer joy of being a child, by the happiness of finding herself in such an astonishing spot, she turned and turned and turned. Watching her, I thought: You can go back. This is better. Returning can be better than seeing a place for the first time. The temple at Segesta had never before seemed to me so striking, so timeless, so precious. I thought: This — right here, right now — is the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen. The budget airline, Meridiana, has direct flights from New York to Palermo, Sicily, but there are also flights from a number of European capitals to Palermo and Catania. We flew Alitalia from Rome to Palermo, and rented a car at the airport. La Plumeria Hotel, Corso Ruggero 185, Cefalù . it double rooms from $182. Algilà Ortigia Charme Hotel, Via Vittorio Veneto 93, Syracuse . it double rooms from $364. Hotel des Étrangers, Passeggio Adorno, Syracuse . com double rooms from $244. Nangalarruni, Via delle Confraternite, 5, Castelbuono . it lunch for two with wine: $100. Fratelli Burgio, Piazza Cesare Battisti 4, Syracuse . com lunch for two with wine: $80. Sicilia in Tavola, Via Cavour 28, Syracuse siciliaintavola. eu dinner for two with wine: $90. | 1 |
Look, we don’t want to write about every presidential campaign tweet that teeters on the brink of the absurd like a mirror revealing the political Frankentheater that the entire electorate has collaborated to create, whether actively or by submission. We’d never get anything else done. But O. K. fine, this one could use some explanation. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, was responding to a tweet from Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee: Mrs. Clinton’s missive, most likely written and sent by her campaign staff, quickly became one of the most widely shared tweets of the 2016 campaign. It was precisely the kind of tweet that political junkies, and anyone else checking Twitter for a midday distraction, thirsts for in the middle of the afternoon when they’d prefer to think about something other than work. But it’s worth noting, to the unfamiliar, that “Delete your account” was not a sudden turn of phrase by a coldblooded social media manager, let alone the candidate herself. The phrase has a long history as a dismissive rejoinder, especially on Twitter. It translates roughly as “Your tweet or opinion is so bad that you should be immediately disqualified from further participation on the platform. ” Mr. Trump then responded, and other political figures quickly jumped on board. Mrs. Clinton has not always been totally hip, jiggy and on fleek with the cool kids. She was widely panned for a tweet in August that struck some watchers as a tad too pandering. On Friday, a day after it was announced that Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, was endorsing Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump unleashed a typical tweet, mocking the senator’s heritage. But Ms. Warren, who has taken to matching the Republican taunt for taunt on social media, could not resist resurrecting Clinton’s tack. There. Now you understand politics again. | 1 |
posted by Eddie Owned by Unilever, the Axe brand includes a range of men’s grooming products with many of the ingredients never even tested for safety according to the C.I.R. – Cosmetic Ingredient Review. Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals. Axe products are loaded with endocrine disrupting chemicals. Endocrine disruptorsare exogenous, synthetic chemicals that have hormone-like effects on both humans and wild-life and interfere with the endocrine system by either mimicking or blocking our natural hormones and disrupting their respective body functions. Member scientists of the Endocrine Society issued a report in which they claim: “We present the evidence that endocrine disruptors have effects on male and female reproduction, breast development and cancer, prostrate cancer, neuroendocrinology, thyroid, metabolism and obesity, and cardiovascular endocrinology.” New studies are also revealing that these harmful chemicals may be causing physical feminization in males. A study published by the International Journal of Andrology found that feminization of boys can now be seen through their play habits. Medical experts are now wondering whether exposure to years of these toxic chemicals is part of the reason so many older men are low on testosterone and experiencing erectile dysfunction. So they take a little blue pill and get exposed to even more chemicals and the cycle continues. Aluminum Zirconium Tetrachlorohydrex Gly Aluminum zirconium tetrachlorohydrex gly is the active ingredient in Axe deodorant products. One or more animal studies show kidney or renal system effects at very low doses, mammalian cells show positive mutation results, animal studies show reproductive effects at moderate doses. Aluminum was first recognized as a human neurotoxin in 1886, before being used as an antiperspirant. A neurotoxin is a substance that causes damage to nerves or nerve tissue. Cocamidopropyl Betaine Cocamidopropyl betaine is a very toxic ingredient which has been linked to cancer in animal tests. The biggest danger of using a product with cocamidopropyl betaine is its potential contamination with nitrosamines . Nitrosamines are created when nitrosating agents are combined with amines. Nitrosamines have been identified as one of the most potent classes of carcinogens, having caused cancer in more than 40 different animal species as well as in humans. PPG-14 Butyl Ether PPG stands for popypropylene glycol, which is made from a completely artificial petroleum product, methyl oxirane. Another name for that is propylene oxide (which is a probable human carcinogen). Propylene oxide is also an irritant and highly flammable. Butyl ethers are in the paraben family, and they are toluene derivatives (toxic petrochemical compounds). Toluene has proven to have a harmful affect on the reproductive system while parabens have been linked to cancer. PEG-8 Distearate According to a report in the International Journal of Toxicology by the Cosmetic Ingredient Review (CIR) committee, impurities found in various PEG compounds include ethylene oxide; 1,4-dioxane; polycyclic aromatic compounds; and heavy metals such as lead, iron, cobalt, nickel, cadmium, and arsenic. Many of these impurities are linked to cancer. A 1988 Swedish study by Thompson looked at both BHT and BHA. They found that both were toxic and tumour promoting. Both antioxidants were observed to be cytotoxic in a concentration-dependent manner at concentrations ranging from 100 to 750 microM. At equimolar concentrations BHT was more cytotoxic than BHA. source: | 0 |
The Times of Israel reports: After their husbands praised the “unbreakable bond” between Israel and the US at the welcome ceremony for US President Donald Trump, Sara Netanyahu, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, told US First Lady Melania Trump that the two couples had more in common than pure geopolitical interests. [Chatting candidly on the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport on Monday, Sara Netanyahu said that, like the Trumps, Israel’s “first couple” had been treated unfairly by the media but were loved by the people. “You know in Israel all the people like us. The media hate us but the people love us,” Netanyahu told the first lady in a recording that picked up their private conversation. “Like you. ” “We have a lot in common,” Trump replied. Netanyahu, with a broad smile on her face, promised to continue the discussion “over dinner. ” Read more here. | 1 |
españa , almirante kuznetsov , ceuta , portaaviones Imagen del portaaviones Almirante Kuznetsov. Fuente:Reuters
La ruta y la misión del portaaviones Almirante Kuznetsov, según el secretario de prensa del presidente de la Federación de Rusia, Dmitri Peskov, se encuentran en un sobre cerrado en el que se lee “Completamente secreto”.
Sin embargo, según informaba anteriormente el Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores español, se preveía que el portaaviones llegara al puerto de Ceuta el 28 de octubre . En Madrid señalan que el permiso correspondiente se expidió el pasado mes de septiembre.
No obstante, en cuanto la noticia sobre la inminente llegada de los buques a Ceuta llegó a la prensa, España comenzó a recibir críticas de sus aliados en la OTAN.
El secretario general de la Alianza, Jens Stoltenberg, señaló que en otras condiciones no tendría nada que objetar al abastecimiento de los buques rusos, pero que en la actualidad está extremadamente preocupado porque estos “puedan utilizarse para atacar Alepo”.
Otros políticos de Gran Bretaña y EE UU hicieron declaraciones similares.
En España las críticas más duras que ha recibido el gobierno provienen de Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya. Su servicio de prensa ha confirmado a Kommersant que los miembros del Congreso de los Diputados de este partido han exigido al ministro de Asuntos Exteriores en funciones, José Manuel García-Margallo y al ministro de Defensa en funciones, Pedro Morenés, que expliquen por qué razón unos barcos rusos que participan en la operación siria hacen escala en Ceuta. 9 cosas que no sabías sobre el portaaviones “Almirante Kuznetsov”
Las autoridades portuarias de las ciudad han expresado su descontento por lo sucedido. Desde el año 2011 por este puerto han pasado, según el El País , más de 60 buques rusos.
“Los criterios para permitir la escala en Ceuta son la seguridad del medio ambiente, de la ciudad y de su población”, cita el periódico The Spain Report a fuentes en la administración del puerto. Sin embargo, debido al aluvión de críticas recibidas, el Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de España anunció ayer que “iba a celebrar una consulta para estudiar la decisión”.
Hacia el mediodía de ayer la embajada de Rusia en Madrid comunicó a Exteriores que retiraba la petición de permisos de escala para la escala de los buques y, por lo tanto, quedan canceladas. “Confirmamos que nuestros barcos no entrarán en el puerto de Ceuta porque se ha modificado su ruta”, declaraban desde la embajada. La reacción de Moscú
Vasili Nioradze, secretario de prensa de la embajada, instaba a no dramatizar la situación en declaraciones a Kommersant.
“La negociación sobre este tipo de escalas en los puertos es un procedimiento rutinario –señalaba este-. Nosotros enviamos la solicitud de forma anticipada y para tomar una decisión al respecto se tiene en cuenta el derecho internacional y los requisitos del país. En esta ocasión se ha decidido una cosa, y en otros casos la respuesta será distinta”.
Ígor Konashenkov, representante oficial del Ministerio de Defensa explica que el departamento ruso contemplaba la posibilidad “de la escala acordada con el gobierno español de algunos buques o embarcaciones de apoyo de la flotilla rusa”.
Sin embargo, según el representante del Ministerio de Defensa ruso, no se envió ninguna solicitud oficial.
Además, comenta: “Los representantes del gobierno español han declarado que debido a la presión de Estados Unidos y de la OTAN el paso de buques rusos por el puerto de Ceuta no es oportuno”. Las autoridades de España no han hecho ninguna declaración similar en público. Madrid ha perdido dinero
El director del Centro de Análisis de Estrategias y Tecnología, Ruslán Pújov, no ve ninguna tragedia en el cambio de ruta del Almirante Kuznetsov.
“Nuestros buques pueden repostar sin problemas en Argelia o en Malta. Apuesto por Argelia, ya que Malta es miembro de la UE y se enfrentará a los mismos problemas que España”, informa el experto a Kommersant .
Según Pújov, la llegada del grupo del Almirante Kuznetsov a Siria apenas cambiará la correlación de fuerzas en la región, aunque sí permitirá a Rusia elevar su prestigio internacional.
“Los franceses tienen un portaaviones en la región porque no tienen base, pero nosotros sí que tenemos–declara el experto-. La misión del Kuznetsov es más bien una operación de entrenamiento. Los pilotos de los aviones navales necesitan entrenar y Siria les ofrece la posibilidad de hacerlo en condiciones de combate reales”.
El experto del mismo centro Andréi Frolov añade que la expedición del Almirante Kuznetsov también tiene un “componente publicitario”: La India está pensando en comprar cazas navales MiG-29K/KUB para sus futuros portaaviones, y la demostración de sus características en Siria podría ayudarle a decidirse”. Lea más | 0 |
10/27/2016 at 10:24 pm
Noticed you were inactive and glad you’ve recovered from your illnesses. All the best to you and you family- On the fake Corbett websites, Can you blame them? We all want to be you James! At least, we all strive to be the great researcher you’re teaching us to be! Keep up the great work. | 0 |
Posted on November 4, 2016 by Eric Zuesse. By Paul Antonopoulos, originally published at almasdarnews.com , on 5 November 2016
23 year old Munir al-Adam has been sentenced to death for alleged “attacks on police” during protests in the predominately Shi’ite Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia in late 2011.
Al-Adam is partly blind and was already partially deaf at the time when the Saudi forces arrested him, however, he is now fully deaf in one ear because of police brutality while in custody.
Al-Adam’s family say his confession to any crime was extracted under torture.
“Munir Adam’s appalling case illustrates how the Saudi authorities are all too happy to subject the most vulnerable people to the swordsman’s blade – including juveniles and people with disabilities,” said Reprieve’s Death Penalty Team Director Maya Foa.
“Like so many others, Munir was arrested for allegedly attending protests, and tortured into a ‘confession’ – he was beaten so badly that he lost his hearing. It’s a scandal that Munir now faces beheading on the basis of a bogus statement that he has since recanted,” she added.
Saudi Arabia has recently been re-elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council. | 0 |
How tragic for the world if true | 0 |
Most mornings at 4:30, half an hour before the “first call” awakens inmates at the Fort Leavenworth military prison in Kansas, an alarm rings within an cell. Inmate 89289, slightly built with short hair, rises to apply makeup and don female undergarments and a brown uniform before the men in the adjacent cells stir. That is the routine for Chelsea Manning, America’s most famous convicted leaker and the prison’s most unusual inmate. She is serving the longest sentence ever imposed for disclosing government secrets — 35 years — and her status as a celebrity of sorts and an incarcerated transgender woman presents continuing difficulties for the military. During the day, Ms. Manning, who was an Army intelligence analyst known as Bradley Manning when she disclosed archives of secret military and diplomatic files to WikiLeaks in 2010, builds picture frames and furniture in the prison wood shop. In the evenings, before the 10:05 p. m. lockdown, she reads through streams of letters, including from antisecrecy enthusiasts who view her as a . “I am always busy. I have a backlog of things to do: legal, administrative, press inquiries, and writing — lots of writing,” Ms. Manning wrote in response to questions submitted by The Times because the Army does not permit her to speak directly to journalists. “Being me is a job. ” But Ms. Manning, who is struggling to transition to life as a woman while enduring a bleak existence at a male military prison, has asked President Obama to commute the remainder of her sentence before he leaves office next week. She poses particular challenges as a prisoner, with a volunteer support network that helps bring global attention to her treatment, fragile mental state — she twice tried to commit suicide in 2016 — and need for treatment that the military has no experience providing. Her request comes as the world is again focused on WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, whom her leaks made famous. The organization last year published Clinton campaign emails, obtained in a hacking, as part of what American intelligence officials claim was a covert Russian operation aimed at tilting the election to Donald J. Trump. (Ms. Manning declined to discuss WikiLeaks, saying only that her decision to send documents to it “was neither an endorsement nor an affiliation. ”) It also comes at a time of flux in the military’s policies on gender identity. Last June, the Obama administration rescinded a ban on transgender people serving in the military and began overhauling its practices, which eventually would include providing gender reassignment surgery. But Mr. Trump has derided the lifting of the ban as “politically correct,” raising the possibility that his administration may roll back the changes. The White House declined to comment on Ms. Manning’s commutation request. The Army declined to comment about her situation at Fort Leavenworth, citing privacy laws. A military prosecutor had called Ms. Manning a “traitor” at her 2013 and officials have said the disclosures disrupted government operations and put people at risk, although prosecutors did not claim anyone was killed because of them. In a statement accompanying her petition asking Mr. Obama to reduce her sentence to the nearly seven years she already has served, Ms. Manning, now 29, said she never intended to hurt anyone and pleaded for a chance to start her life over. “I need help,” she wrote. “I am living through a cycle of anxiety, anger, hopelessness, loss, and depression. I cannot focus. I cannot sleep. I attempted to take my own life. ” On Aug. 22, 2013, the day after her sentencing for sending documents to WikiLeaks, Ms. Manning’s lawyer read a statement on the “Today” show announcing that she was female, wanted to be called “Chelsea” rather than “Bradley” and would seek hormone therapy. To observers of her this was no surprise. Her motivation for leaking hundreds of thousands of files she had copied from a classified computer network while serving in Iraq, as she wrote at the time, was hope that they would spark “worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms. ” But at her trial, she apologized and noted that she was “dealing with a lot of issues” when she had made that decision. Testimony showed that she had been in a mental and emotional crisis as she came to grips, in the stress of a war zone, with the fact that she was not merely gay, as she had believed while growing up in Oklahoma, but had gender dysphoria — a disconnect between one’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth. In the months before her leaks and May 2010 arrest, she had been behaving erratically and emailed a picture of herself wearing a woman’s wig to her supervisor. The military sent Ms. Manning to serve out her sentence as a inmate at the Fort Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks, its main prison for male inmates. Court documents show that Ms. Manning has had counseling sessions with a prison psychologist, Dr. Ellen Galloway, at least once a week, and military authorities have over time allowed her access to some treatments doctors prescribed for her gender dysphoria, in part because of pressure from a lawsuit filed by Chase Strangio, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, in September 2014. She can now wear female prison undergarments, including a sports bra, and “subdued cosmetics. ” In early 2015, she was permitted to get speech therapy to feminize the tone and pitch of her voice and began hormone therapy prescribed, Mr. Strangio said, by an endocrinologist brought in from the military’s Walter Reed hospital. Since then, Ms. Manning wrote, she has developed breasts and curvier hips. “There have been significant changes since I’ve been taking the hormones, and I am happy with them,” she said. But, citing security risks, the military rejected the recommendation of an outside psychologist who said she should be permitted to further feminize her appearance by growing her hair longer than male military standards. Mr. Strangio is helping her challenge that restriction. “Plaintiff feels like a freak and a weirdo — not because having short hair makes a person less of a woman — but because for her, it undermines specifically recommended treatment and sends the message to everyone that she is not a ‘real’ woman,” he wrote in a court filing. “She is getting hormones, but it sounds like the inability to socially transition, or to have surgery, could be contributing to suicidality — especially when she is looking at decades in prison and thus a certain hopelessness about whether that might ever be available for her,” said Dan Karasic, a University of California, San Francisco psychiatrist and the chairman of the American Psychiatric Association’s work group on gender dysphoria he cautioned that he had not examined her. The military turned down a request by The New York Times to visit the facility. But an Army spokesman, Wayne Hall, provided written answers from the Army Corrections Command to questions posed by The Times, from which a sketch of her environment emerged. Ms. Manning’s cell, like others at Fort Leavenworth, contains a bed, toilet, sink, locker, storage bin, chair and desk, according to the Army. She showers in a nearby communal bathroom with individual stalls. She has no access to the internet, but says she receives “at least a couple hundred pieces of mail every week. ” The Army does not permit her to see people who did not know her before her incarceration, so she is not allowed to meet with a handful of volunteers who have formed an informal network of supporters, but she calls one of them daily. A volunteer who relayed questions from The Times to her asked not to be named, citing security concerns. Ms. Manning said she recently finished reading “Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies,” a book about artificial intelligence by the Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, and “1Q84,” a dystopian novel by Haruki Murakami. She is interested in efforts to develop stronger encryption and has been “going through” the “Princeton Companion to Mathematics. ” She also said she reads women’s athletic, fashion and lifestyle magazines like Shape, Vogue, Vanity Fair and Cosmopolitan. Her cell door has a window looking onto a central “day room” with tables, chairs, pay phones and televisions. For a time, Ms. Manning played Dungeons Dragons with a few fellow inmates, but she said she had had no time in recent months. She eats meals with other inmates in a dining facility and works on a team at the wood shop. The roughly 424 inmates held at Fort Leavenworth with Ms. Manning include men accused of routine crimes as well as some who drew public attention, including Nidal Hasan, convicted in a 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood and held on the prison’s death row wing, and Robert Bales, who murdered 16 Afghans in Kandahar and was sentenced to life without parole in August 2013. Ms. Manning declined to say much about the guards or fellow inmates, other than to say that they have never bullied or attacked her. “It’s best to keep to yourself and try not to get involved in any drama,” she wrote. “It’s a little harder for me to keep to myself, since the staff is constantly watching me and those that interact with me. But I’m used to it by now. I don’t feel threatened by the other prisoners. I have friends. ” Her special status at Fort Leavenworth is evident. Nancy Hollander, one of the lawyers working on the appeal of her conviction and sentence, said the Army built a special secure information facility in a windowless basement room so she could meet with them and discuss documents she leaked. While Ms. Manning said she could not say on her monitored phone calls “anything critical of the prison or the current administration or I can get charged for violation of a lawful general order,” her supporters pay close attention to her treatment. Scrutiny of the military’s struggles to deal with Ms. Manning go back to her confinement at the Quantico, Va. brig after her arrest, when she was held for months in isolation, shackled during exercise and sometimes stripped of clothing and glasses to prevent her from harming herself — even after a prison psychologist said such steps were unnecessary. A military judge ruled that the treatment had been illegal. At Leavenworth, after a minor disagreement with a guard in 2015, officials punished her, among other things, for “medical misuse” because they found a tube of toothpaste in her cell that was past its expiration date. Her supporters publicized the incident. In September, her supporters issued a news release saying she was on a hunger strike because of an “overzealous administrative scrutiny” and lack of progress in getting more treatment. She resumed eating after five days. Mr. Strangio said an official told her she would be eligible for the same medical treatment as transgender soldiers, suggesting she would eventually be permitted to proceed with surgery. But months have passed, and Ms. Manning wrote that she has not seen a surgeon. Later in September, a prison board disciplined Ms. Manning for the disruption a July suicide attempt had caused. The punishment: solitary confinement. While in isolation in October, she tried again to kill herself — by choking herself on a piece of clothing, according to a support network member — before guards intervened. About a week further into that stint in solitary, she experienced a bizarre episode in which four people impersonating guards simulated breaking into the prison one night and pretended to kill her regular guards, filling her with fear, according to an account she filed with the army inspector general. A military official denied her account. Dr. Stuart Grassian, a specialist in the psychological effects of solitary confinement, said her description is consistent with hallucinations often experienced by unstable people placed in isolation. Now, with 28 years of her sentence to go and uncertainty over whether the Trump administration will deny her surgery, Ms. Manning is hoping Mr. Obama will take mercy on her and free her from military prison, which goes by the acronym U. S. D. B. “I am not asking for a pardon of my conviction. I understand that the various collateral consequences of the conviction will stay on my record forever,” she wrote in her commutation application. “I am merely asking for a first chance to live my life outside the U. S. D. B. as the person I was born to be. ” | 1 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. We’ll be off on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. See you Tuesday. 1. The House joined the Senate in laying the groundwork for speedy action to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Donald J. Trump again attacked Hillary Clinton over her emails on Twitter. We took a look at the first cabinets of the past few presidents, and determined that Mr. Trump’s will be the least diverse since that of President Ronald Reagan. _____ 2. A Justice Department report found the Chicago police systematically violated the civil rights of residents, particularly and Latinos, by using excessive force. The report came in the wake of the city’s highest murder rate in 20 years in 2016. In an effort to fix the problems, federal and city officials reached a preliminary agreement on changes to police practices. _____ 3. Takata pleaded guilty to charges stemming from its handling of defective airbags, and will pay $1 billion in penalties. Three of its executives face criminal charges. The airbags can rupture violently when they deploy. They have been linked to at least 11 deaths, which prompted the largest automotive recall in American history. _____ 4. Chelsea Manning is asking Mr. Obama to commute her sentence before he leaves office next week. Ms. Manning, who was an Army intelligence analyst known as Bradley Manning when she disclosed archives of secret military and diplomatic files to WikiLeaks in 2010, is serving a sentence. She is struggling to transition to life as a woman in a male prison, and attempted suicide twice last year. _____ 5. China has banned child abuse at its infamous digital detox boot camps. There are just a few of the camps, but they’re known for harsh treatment, including beatings and electroshock therapy to get children offline. The law also sets a daily limit on how long minors can play online games at home or in internet cafes. _____ 6. Thousands of members of the New York Police Department attended the funeral of Officer Steven McDonald, who was paralyzed in a 1986 shooting but became a symbol of forgiveness and hope. Officer McDonald had less than two years on the job when he was shot by a in Central Park. He publicly forgave his attacker and eventually traveled the globe, speaking of his Roman Catholic faith and the importance of compassion. He died on Tuesday at 59, several days after a heart attack. _____ 7. The U. S. Mint will release a commemorative gold coin featuring Lady Liberty as a black woman. It’s the first time that she’s been depicted as anything other than white on the nation’s currency. The coin will have a $100 face value and goes on sale April 6 to commemorate the 225th anniversary of the mint’s coin production. _____ 8. What’s the right time to put your home on the market? Whenever you want. A real estate article of faith once had it that to the start of the spring season, was the best time to list a property. But now that everyone looks at listings online, realtors say the rules about timing have gone out the window. _____ 9. If one of your vacation goals is inspiring envy in others, you may want to bookmark these tips on how to take great travel photos. Make a list of key shots, shoot at sunrise and sunset and experiment with angles. And after all that planning, don’t forget to be spontaneous. _____ 10. Finally, we bring you the back story of the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe’s white dress fluttering up as she stands over a subway grate in “The Seven Year Itch. ” What made it into the movie was actually a reshoot of a discarded and more risqué scene filmed on the Upper East Side in the summer of 1954. The discarded version happened to also be captured on film by an amateur filmmaker who lived nearby. Jules Schulback often talked about the footage, but no one saw it for 50 years, until he was 92 and his granddaughter found it. Have a great weekend. _____ 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 |
Projections for the next President of the United States have begun to roll in from many states. Multiple key states are currently too close to call, including Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, and Georgia. Donald Trump is leading the popular vote across the nation.
As of 8:50 p.m. ET, Trump has a projected 66 electoral votes. It is predicted that he will win Indiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Alabama.
Hillary Clinton is the projected winner of Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, Rhode Island, Delaware, Illinois, and D.C. This would garner her 68 electoral votes.
It has been reported that Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maine, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Missouri have been added to the list of states that are too close to call. However, Trump is leading in North Carolina and Clinton is ahead in Virginia.
Guardian Liberty Voice will follow the election until the United States has a president-elect.
Written by Jeanette Smith
Sources:
MSNBC: Live
POLITICO: 2016 Presidential Election Results
Image Courtesy of H2Woah!’s Donald Trump , Hillary Clinton , projections | 0 |
Waking Times
In the background of modern life, as people go on debating politics and working for a living, something dreadful is happening to the eco-systems which support us. Major disasters like the ongoing radioactive leak at Fukushima , the apocalyptic fires burning throughout Indonesia , even bee colony collapse disorder , seem to fall out of view in day-to-day life, as we seem to have lost our power and will to directly participate in the stewardship of planet earth.
A new crisis is now happening all around us affecting trees. It appears that millions, hundreds of millions even, of trees are dying in North America and around the world from a basket of reasons, promising to completely and permanently alter the landscape and environment around us.
Tree are among the most abundant and the most critical organisms on planet earth, and only recently have we been able to assess just how many trees inhabit planet earth. A study published in 2015 gave us this picture:
“A new study published in Nature estimates the planet has 3.04 trillion trees. The research says 15.3 billion trees are chopped down every year. It also estimates that 46% of the world’s trees have been cleared over the past 12,000 years.” [ Source ]
Now in 2016, alarm bells are ringing and in California alone, the problem has become incredibly severe:
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today that the U.S. Forest Service has identified an additional 36 million dead trees across California since its last aerial survey in May 2016. This brings the total number of dead trees since 2010 to over 102 million on 7.7 million acres of California’s drought stricken forests. In 2016 alone, 62 million trees have died, representing more than a 100 percent increase in dead trees across the state from 2015. Millions of additional trees are weakened and expected to die in the coming months and years.” [ Source ]
A New York Times feature on trees in California warns us that many of the state’s trees were already dead before forest fires moved in, thereby making the fire situation worse. Beyond California
Many of the tree deaths in Northern California have been linked to Sudden Oak Death in addition to an ongoing drought, but, the tragic die-off of trees is far from limited to California. In 2010, Hawaii’s well ohi’a trees began to die on the Big Island due to a disease now referred to as ohi’a disease, and scientists still don’t understand its origins or how to treat it. These are just a few examples of many in a wave of issues killing trees in many parts of America and around the world.
‘The plight of the ohi’a is not unique – it’s part of a quiet crisis playing out in forests across America. Drought, disease, insects and wildfire are chewing up tens of millions of trees at an incredible pace, much of it driven by climate change.” [ Source ]
Entire mountainsides are dying off in short order, leaving a bleak future for wildlife and residents. Some speculate that the widespread loss of trees due to such a wide conflagration of issues is a sign that trees, the most rugged of all plants, are in general weakened from an environment under complex attack by pollution and even climate engineering projects.
“In California and in other parts of the world, many are making the connection between climate engineering these tree die-offs. Also known as geoengineering , this is the modification of the earth’s atmosphere with the supplementation of compounds and chemicals, ostensibly as a means of favorably influencing the climate.” [ Source ]
Could be, although there is nothing like a consensus on the issue of why trees are in such a weakened state that so many are succumbing to so many issues. Thousands of trees killed by mountain pine beetles in western Rocky Mountain national park.
A Planet Out of Balance “Natural ecosystems have been altered in various ways by nitrogen, sulfur, and mercury deposited in rain, snow, or as gases and particles in the atmosphere. Through decades of scientific research, scientists have documented how local, regional, and global sources of air pollution can produce profound changes in ecosystems. These changes include acidification of soils and surface waters, harmful algal blooms and low oxygen conditions in estuaries, reduced diversity of native plants, high levels of mercury in fish and other wildlife, and decreased tolerance to other stresses, such as pests, disease, and climate change.” – Issues in Ecology , Fall 2011 Edition –“Setting Limits – Using Air Pollution Thresholds to Protect and Restore U.S. Ecosystems” The web of life cannot be damaged in one area without the effects being felt elsewhere. Just as bees and other insects are dying off en masse by a number of causes, some known and unknown, trees are also harbingers of the health of our planet. With such little attention given to the state of this earth and so much attention given to the human and political dramas that occupy our attention 24/7, will the human race wake up and react in time to avert a major planetary crisis? What are your thoughts on this important and pressing issue? Please leave your comments below, and share this article far and wide. Read more articles by Alex Pietrowski . About the Author
Alex Pietrowski is an artist and writer concerned with preserving good health and the basic freedom to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. He is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com and Offgrid Outpost , a provider of storable food and emergency kits . Alex is an avid student of Yoga and life.
This article ( Not Just Bees, Trees Are Dying Off at an Alarming Rate With Little Public Attention ) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Alex Pietrowski and WakingTimes.com . It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement.
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The fate of Donald Trump’s presidency depends on whether Sen. Chuck Schumer can block construction of the border wall, says Vanity Fair. [The magazine’s writer, T. A. Frank, is a liberal with some understanding of the Trump coalition and he argues that the Democrats hope to break Trump’s presidency by blocking funds for the wall: Thwart Trump and he looks weak. You force him to break his signature promise. His agenda stalls. The Hispanic vote moves even more solidly to the left. The Democratic base gets energized, and Trump’s base gets demoralized and stays home in the next couple of elections. It’s . That’s why Chuck Schumer has spoken of “shutting down the government” if Trump tries to get the wall going … People are now suggesting Trump has given up on the wall in all but rhetoric. And this would be momentous. If Trump’s wall is dead, then Trump’s presidency is dead, But Trump is still trying to get funds for the wall, in the face of uniform and public Democratic opposition plus widespread opposition from GOP leaders. In a Friday, April 28 speech to the National Rifle Association, for example, he declared that: “We’ll build a wall. Don’t even think about [not getting a wall]. Don’t even think about it. Don’t even think about it. That’s an easy one. ” Amid unified Democratic opposition, Trump only has two choices, argues Vanity Fair: Trump’s options are limited. He could in theory play — or have played — a ruthless game to get his way, since Trump has the power to revoke the “deferred action for childhood arrivals” or DACA order that Barack Obama signed in order to shield those who have arrived here illegally as children. An icier type wouldn’t have hesitated to hold the fate of these people hostage for wall funding, employing rhetoric about the importance of tying today’s forgiveness to tomorrow’s prevention, and so on. But Trump shows few signs of being that callous, and he has conveyed only reassurances to the Dreamers. So threats of this sort will not be his approach. The second option would be to try to sell the wall — and do a better job of it than he did with Ryancare … Trump could try to sell people on a vision of America with tighter labor markets [that push up higher wages] more equitable distribution of wealth, and less [civic] balkanization … He could pair this with a pitch for the wall, arguing that walls are peaceful and usually effective, and they reduce the need for more intrusive forms of enforcement such as workplace raids and deportation. But Trump has only figured out how to use the wall to sell himself. He never figured out how to use himself to sell the wall. Democrats oppose the wall, in large part, because it is an effective barrier that future politicians can’t remove, and is also a concrete symbol of Americans’ determination to block the flow of cheap labor, customers, renters and future voters from Mexico to cities along the coasts. But Trump also faces a huge problem in getting top GOP leaders to fund his plans for a wall, because the wall would shrink the flow of illegal immigrants sought by many business groups in Texas, Georgia and other red states. Throughout April, that GOP opposition meant that GOP leaders failed to push Democrats to approve Trump’s request to build an additional 48 miles of border barrier in 2017. The requested $1 billion was blocked by Democrats, although congressional leaders say Trump will get the extra funds for other homeland security tasks in the 2017 supplemental budget, now slated for approval in early May. The GOP opposition is cloaking itself as a supporter of alternatives to Trump’s permanent barrier, such as an invisible fence of expensive sensors and border patrol agents which later can be switched off as soon as Trump leaves the White House. A wall “really means ‘security’ … It could be open surveillance to prevent people from crossing,” Florida GOP Rep. Dennis Ross told Bloomberg in December. “It does not mean an actual wall. ” “I’ve always thought the wall was a metaphor for securing the border,” not an actual wall, claimed Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson during an April CNN interview. “There will never be a wall built, period,” claimed South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican. “I think it’s become symbolic of better border security. It’s a code word for better border security. If you make it about actually building a wall, that’s a bridge too far. ” “I think a wall is anything that will stop people from coming into the country illegally,” claimed Pennsylvania GOP Rep. Lou Barletta. “It could be a variety of what can be used to be successful. ” House Speaker Paul Ryan is also downplaying the wall part of the wall. “Conditions on the ground determine what you need in a particular area,” he told CBS’s “60 Minutes. ” Immigration reformers are pushing Trump to fight for wall funding in the 2018 budget, due in October. “Construction of a border wall was one of the president’s signature promises during his campaign,” said a statement from the Federation for American Immigration Reform. As he has made clear, an effective border security plan would include a wall in areas of the border where it is a viable and effective deterrent and that other sections of the border would be enhanced by technology and additional manpower. We expect that the president will deliver on these commitments. Unfortunately, past versions of a ‘comprehensive border security plan’ have been ineffective because they did not require the laying of a single brick of border wall. Such a cosmetic approach was a precursor to amnesty and both have been consistently rejected by the American people. We look forward to seeing details of the president’s plan that will actually get the job done of securing our southern border. ” However, border security is only one component of a needed overhaul of immigration. Much more is expected by the American people and the White House must demand Congress pass meaningful reforms to eliminate the incentives for illegal immigration and create a legal immigration system that truly serves identifiable national interests. ” Read more about the wall here. | 1 |
DETROIT — The 2017 GMC Acadia sport utility vehicle that is just starting to arrive in dealerships around the country is 700 pounds lighter than the version it replaces, and can go 23 miles on a gallon of gasoline, up from 18 m. p. g. a 28 percent improvement. One of the secrets to the big weight loss? Glue. Many of the steel parts of the Acadia’s underbody are held together not by rivets or welds but by advanced adhesives similar to those used in modern airplanes like the Boeing Dreamliner. Since this bonds parts together all along the seam where they connect, not just in certain spots, the parts become stiffer. Because of the stiffness, General Motors is able in many cases to switch to thinner steel, helping the new Acadia shed pounds. The grades of steel are thinner by only about the width of a human hair, but “it’s all the little things that add up to the big number,” said Charlie Klein, executive director of G. M.’s global reduction strategy. Automakers are racing to improve fuel efficiency to meet the increasing mileage standards that environmental regulators have set for the next nine years. adhesives are being used more widely, just one of the many leaps manufacturers are taking to reduce weight and save fuel. But to continue their gains, automakers must find additional innovations. One promising technology on the horizon is a new type of hybrid that draws power from a battery, which is more powerful than a standard auto battery but less expensive and less complicated than the power packs of 200 volts or more found in hybrids like the Toyota Prius. The battery drives an electric motor that gives the engine an extra 20 or so horsepower, cutting fuel use in starts and acceleration. Mary Gustanski, vice president of engineering and program management at Delphi, an auto supplier that is going to produce systems for car companies, believes these hybrids can improve the fuel economy of normal cars by 15 percent or more with little additional cost. “Is it leaps and bounds?” she said. “No, but does it move us further along? Definitely. ” Hyundai Motor, the Korean automaker, is “working very hard on technology,” said Michael O’Brien, the company’s vice president of corporate and product planning. He declined to say when those cars would be on the market. G. M. also expects to offer cars in the United States market in the next few years, an executive said. Ms. Gustanski said Delphi’s technology would first appear in Europe and China in 2018. Continental, another supplier, plans to begin producing systems for automakers by the end of this year. Even with new technologies, automakers still have a steep uphill climb to keep pace with targets. By 2025, they are supposed to sell a fleet of vehicles that hits an average of 54. 5 miles per gallon. That number is based on a complicated formula that gives credits for reducing emissions from and selling electric vehicles, among other things. In driving, the target equals a fleet average of about 40 miles per gallon. The average for cars and light trucks that were sold in July was 25. 4 miles per gallon, according to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. Last month, a joint report from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department said automakers were probably able to reach only an average rating of about 50 miles per gallon by 2025 — about 36 miles per gallon in situations. The main problem is that low gasoline prices and the absence of high fuel taxes that are common in most other advanced industrial nations have enticed Americans to move away from cars and buy more pickup trucks and S. U. V. s, which score lower on fuel efficiency. Missing the 2025 target would result in higher levels of carbon dioxide emissions, which regulators are trying to reduce in a bid to battle climate change. Regulators have just begun a review of the standards and by April 2018 must decide whether to ease them in some ways — a path automakers would prefer — or leave them unchanged. Automakers and regulators are at odds. At an industry conference in Michigan earlier this month, the E. P. A. ’s director for air quality, Christopher Grundler, shrugged off suggestions that the 2025 target should be lowered. He said the standards were “working spectacularly,” and noted that carmakers had made good progress and already offered many models that met the 2025 level. These include hybrid and models from Ford Motor, Hyundai, Toyota and others, as well as pure electric vehicles like Tesla models and G. M.’s Chevrolet Bolt. Ford’s pickup truck, when equipped with the company’s EcoBoost V6 engine, comes close to the 2025 requirement — 23 miles per gallon in driving — for vehicles of that size. Automakers agree that electric cars offer impressive numbers, but counter that consumers buy too few of them to move the average number. The big challenge, they say, is in improving fuel economy in conventional cars without adding so much cost that consumers turn away. “It is going to be extremely difficult for traditional powertrains to hit those targets in the last couple of years” leading to 2025, said Richard L. Gezelle, a senior program manager at Toyota. Toyota is one automaker that has less interest in “mild” hybrids, as they are known in the industry. Mr. Gezelle said his company thought automakers would need to focus more on breakthrough technologies — such as electric cars and fuel cell vehicles — that can meet the 2025 standard and continue improving fuel efficiency beyond then. For now, automakers are making gains from a series of technologies they started introducing about six years ago. These include shrinking the size of engines while adding turbocharging, which increases power and efficiency by forcing extra air into an engine. This approach enables a engine to put out about the same power as a traditional V6, and a V6 to replace a V8. At the same time, automakers are hoping for advancements from a new wave of innovations. They include: This system shuts off the engine when a car stops at a light or in traffic. Some vehicles already have this feature, but their rough restarts have turned off many consumers. Hybrids with systems promise improvements. FREEWHEELING Also known as coasting, this lets an engine shut off momentarily while a car is coasting, reducing fuel consumption. A hybrid car can use its electric motor to maintain cruising speed, letting the engine remain off longer. NEW MATERIALS Automakers already use more aluminum and advanced, lightweight steel. Now magnesium, which is a third lighter than aluminum, is appearing more frequently. Fiat Chrysler is using the metal in the tailgate of the 2017 Chrysler Pacifica minivan. CYLINDER DEACTIVATION For years engines have had the ability to shut off two or four cylinders to conserve fuel. Using new computer algorithms, Delphi, G. M. and Tula, a Silicon Valley tech company, are working on “dynamic skip fire,” a way of turning individual cylinders on and off as needed. | 1 |
Think about this for one second. What are the British supposed to do now? It's not a reversible thing. Paksitan was created much the same way as Israel. Do you want to undo the creation of Pakistan? Then what? | 0 |
Occult Expert Breaks Down Wikileaks Exposed Clinton Campaign Satanism Occult Expert Breaks Down Wikileaks Exposed Clinton Campaign Satanism Videos By TruthFeedNews November 5, 2016
Earlier we covered the revelation of the Podesta family’s odd SATANISM Fetish revealed by Wikileaks.
Alex Jones goes in depth on the disgrace and many times occultists have tried to recruit him and drag him down to their level.
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DISPATCHES FROM DANIEL ESPINOSA working to defeat the Big Lie in all its forms In the Manichean universe of US propaganda, the “bad guys” seem to be fond of killing children and bombing hospitals. Having clearly identified the bad guys, the US, its allies and mainstream media ask patiently for a hesitant international community to act on its “Responsibility to Protect”. By now it would seem mainstream media are tired of calling for humanitarian intervention in Eastern Aleppo to stop the Syrian Arab Army and Russian jets, tired of trotting out statistics and quotes from the terrorist/rebel-infested White Helmets (WHs) and the opposition-supporting Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, a one-man operation located in a London suburb, while completely ignoring civilian victims of a rebel force said to be composed of 50% al-Nusra (AKA al Qaeda terrorists. (1) Confident of their media cover, the WHs haven’t been smart enough to hide their ties with the notorious al-Nusra and other terrorist factions and are now in danger of being fairly discredited. (2) At the same time, the SOHR, probably designed as a short-term propaganda asset at a time when rebel/terrorist funding was still obscure and the world didn’t know it was actually Al-Nusra calling the shots in the ´moderate´ opposition side, is also losing credibility. But before the media is no longer able to sustain the lie even among their most uninformed victims, the chant of “the international community must act’ grows louder by the minute. But this time it’s not just client states, lapdog allies and some weak third world ‘regime’, subject to easy de-stabilization, otherwise it would be business as usual: subvert, demonize, invade, set up a facade regime and get ready for the next target. This time there’s Russia to reckon with. And Russia has her own independent reasons to be in Syria, ground zero for world terrorism. Gaddafi murdered by Washington-controlled jihadists. A mafia hit pure and simple, ordered by the biggest mafia outfit on earth. UK’s Daily Mirror, a typical media shill for the imperialists, whitewashing the ugliness of what its masters did. In all these sanctimonious exercises favored by the Western media, in reality little but a Ministry of Disinformation for global capitalism, we should notice the rigid script followed by the press, the lack of options when demanding interventions, as well as a complete lack of any kind of explanation of how their proposed intervention is supposed to take place, as if ‘humanitarian intervention’ meant some sort of magical way to end conflicts and save civilians, all of which shows their complete disregard for the recent past. Many journalists—who by dint of sheer ignorance (they too are subject to the brainwash afflicting most Americans, plus the pressures of careerism) are now lining up behind the ‘no-fly zone’ banner, some of them clearly not knowing exactly what it means, especially its sinister and extremely dangerous implications, but they know something better: Power (and their paychecks) demand it (again). As it did in 2003 when the official initial pretext to rally the country for war, Iraq´s Weapons of Mass Destruction narrative, was losing steam, the people of Iraq —according to our brave media—suddenly started to need ‘freedom’ and ‘protection’, to quote the usual doublespeak. Needles to say the very same same Powers which had ruthlessly imposed a brutal regime of sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of children and women between 1991 and 2003, were now eager to deliver humanitarian aid. (3) T hose children passed unnoticed by our deeply concerned journalists while the tragedy of their slow-motion death was taking place; their pictures not used to call for any kind of humanitarian relief or intervention, as the corporate media attention to the suffering of civilians tends to be very selective, as Ed Herman and David Peterson explain with typical lucidity in The Politics of Genocide: “When we ourselves commit mass-atrocity crimes, the atrocities are Constructive , our victims are unworthy of our attention and indignation, and never suffer ‘genocide’ at our hands –like the Iraqi untermenschen who have died in such grotesque numbers over the past two decades. But when the perpetrator of mass-atrocity crimes is our enemy or a state targeted by us for destabilization and attack, the converse is true. Then the atrocities are Nefarious and their victims worthy of our focus, sympathy, public displays of solidarity, and calls for inquiry and punishment”. Eight years after Iraq’s 2003 invasion, history repeated itself in Libya, where another putative tyrant was ‘about to commit an atrocity against his own people’, as was suggested by European leaders and a deafening mainstream media chorus. Eventually, the Great Hegemon, with headquarters in Washington, also heard the call for action, and joined the crusade. (Actually, the whole ruse had been plotted in close coordination in the true axis of evil of our time, the Washington-London-Paris triad of international gangsterism, with Obama’s regime this time playing the coy, reluctant imperialist furnishing largely logistical and intel support). According to the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, which was “unable to visit Tripoli, Benghazi, Tobruk or anywhere else in Libya due to the collapse of internal security and the rule of law” in 2016, “…out of a total Libyan population of 6.3 million people, 3 million people have been impacted by the armed conflict, and 2.4 million people require protection and some form of humanitarian assistance”. (4) For its part, the Human Rights Watch stated, also in 2016, that “…Forces engaged in the conflict continued with impunity to arbitrarily detain, torture, unlawfully kill, indiscriminately attack, abduct and disappear, and forcefully displace people from their homes. The domestic criminal justice system collapsed in most parts of the country, exacerbating the human rights crisis”. (5) This seems to be the paradoxical result of a recent ‘humanitarian intervention’ from which the mainstream media is not morally prepared to take any valuable lessons. Of course, the paradox is nothing of the sort when you understand the real reasons behind the intervention, regarding the French government, and particularly its ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, as stated by a US State Department intelligence advisor: “A desire to gain a greater share of Libya oil production; Improve his internal political situation in France”, among other supposedly deeply humanitarian causes. The US State Department, as expected, went along with the farce. B ut what is exactly a no-fly zone? According to US Army General Martin Dempsey in a letter to the US Congress in 2013: “This option uses lethal force to prevent the regime from using its military aircraft to bomb and resupply. It would extend air superiority over Syria by neutralizing the regime’s advanced, defense integrated air defense system. It would also shoot down adversary aircraft and strike airfields, aircraft on the ground, and supporting infrastructure… Risks include the loss of U.S. aircraft, which would require us to insert personnel recovery forces. It may also fail to reduce the violence…” And going back to the House of Commons assessments of 2016, when “…France and UK argued that the international community should simply impose a no-fly zone… former US Ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder, pointed out: ´Cameron was pushing for a no-fly zone, but in the US there was great skepticism. A no-fly zone wasn´t effective in Bosnia, it wasn’t effective in Iraq, and probably wasn’t going to be effective in Libya… Gaddafi was attacking people. A no-fly zone wasn’t going to stop him. Instead, to stop him we would need to bomb his forces attacking people.’” Of course, Daalder was describing the ineffectiveness of a NFZ while pushing for stronger measures. The crime of “optional imperialist war” remained the same, regardless of the methods eventually used. Similarities with the Syrian ‘civilian’ uprising of 2011 abound, as UK Former Chief of Defense Staff Lord Richards of Herstmonceux later confirmed, intelligence on the composition of the rebel militias was not ‘as good as one would wish’, and when these rebels with affiliations to Al-Qaeda finally got their hands on the “tyrant”—a man who had on numerous occasions been feted in Italy and France’s capitals, and who had built one of the most advanced social safety nets for his people—they simply do what jackals do, they tortured and murdered him, with the mainstream media, particularly in England and the US, reacting in a fashion that would make hyenas look like sheep: under headlines like “Mad Dog Put Down” most front pages showed gruesome pictures of Gaddafi’s last moments, the word ’murdered’ nowhere to be found. Demonized “tyrants” aren´t murdered, they are executed or, as the New York Post stated: “Killed by a Yankee Fan”, in a humorous reference to a boy wearing a New York Yankees cap among the killers. (6) The New York Times’ Kareem Fahim refers to the “trophies of war”, in an article filled with pictures of Gaddafi’s and one of his sons’ dead bodies surrounded by cheering men, where any other “trophy”, as his golden gun, is only mentioned briefly to give the idea he isn´t referring to the corpses. (7) Andrew Gilligan wrote in the Telegraph: “the one thing Gaddafi retained to the very end was his ability to put on a show…” (8). Ability shared by many journalists when cheering for interventions known for causing worse catastrophes than those that supposedly caused the intervention in the first place. Many rationales are given for the explicit, openly celebratory content. As Chris Elliot, The Guardian’s reader’s editor explains: “ On reflection – and having read the complaints – I feel less convinced about the way we used these photographs, although I still feel strongly that they are an important part of this story and should have been used. The scale of the photo on the newspaper front page of 21 October and prominent picture use on the website took us too close to appearing to revel in the killing rather than reporting it”. (Emphasis added). This reveling over Gaddafi’s corpse reflects the celebration of an establishment victory by its subservient propaganda media, but it also served to focus attention away from the unlawful killing of many others, and the exact details of how the killing took place. As Media Lens observed: “…but there was more than the lonely killing of a “tyrant” that went unreported. Human Rights Watch reported that between six and ten people appeared to have been executed at the scene of the Libyan leader’s capture. Around 95 bodies were found in the immediate vicinity, many of them victims of NATO airstrikes. In fact, it is clear that NATO, with the assistance of Special Forces (although ground troops were strictly forbidden by UN resolution 1973), had maintained a no-drive zone around Sirte: a crucial factor facilitating the murder of Gaddafi. CBS reported 572 bodies ‘and counting’ in Sirte, including 300, ‘many of them with their hands tied behind their backs and shot in the head’, collected and buried in a mass grave”. (9) (Emphasis added) There should be little doubt regarding the reasons behind the selective use of pictures of bloodied children by mainstream media (and many NGOs), especially when they endorse calls for ‘humanitarian intervention’ against governments previously targeted for regime change, as it has already been clearly established in the case of Syria long before the 2011 uprising, via many US secret documents revealed by WikiLeaks. Propaganda is particularly transparent in this case: create a sense of guilt and impotence, prepare public opinion to demand what has already been planned elsewhere, in the darker councils of unaccountable power. The scandalous double-standard that selectively shows the suffering of “worthy” children while hiding the pain and death of those victimized for sordid reasons by the “Exceptional Nation” and its equally murderous accomplices dressed in civilized garb, is the great hypocrisy of our time, flowing smoothly from its deeply corrupt DNA. The obvious options such as putting an end to the funding of ‘moderates’ by the US, in reality the open funding of terrorists, is never considered, as important facts contradicting the official imperialist narrative are systematically omitted by the “Free Press.” Notes: Ruptly Tv. LIVE: UN Security Council meets to discuss situation in Syria. ( Online Video clip) Youtube, published on 09/25/16. [Recoverd: 10/13/16 (CHECK min. 28) at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx3XbFYqOoo] RT. ‘Intl. community still financing & protecting terrorists’ –Mother Agnes . (Online video clip) Youtube, published 10/25/16 [recovered 10/28/16 from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbUTnSsNbfc ] Shah, Anup. Effects on Iraq Sanctions . (Global Issues, 10/02/05) [http://www.globalissues.org/article/105/effects-of-sanctions] House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK’s future policy options. Third Report of Session 2016-17 (UK Parliament, 09/14/16) [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/119.pdf] Quoted in HCFAC (note 4). The Guardian. Gaddafi dead: the front pages – In pictures . (The Guardian, 10/21/11) [https://www.theguardian.com/media/gallery/2011/oct/21/gaddafi-dead-front-pages] Fahim, Kareem. After Making Capture in Pipe, Displaying the Trophies of War . (New York Times, 10/20/11) [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/world/africa/brutalized-libyan-city-rejoices-with-gruesome-trophies-of-war.html ] Quoted in: Media Lens. Killing Gaddafi . (Media Lens, 10/27/11) [http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2011/653-killing-gaddafi.html] Ibid. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Associate Editor Daniel Espinosa Winder (34) lives in Caraz, a small city in the Andes of Peru. He graduated in Communication Sciences in Lima and started researching mainstream media and more specifically, propaganda. His writings are a often a critique of the role of mass media in our society. Daniel also serves as Editorial Director for TGP’s Spanish Language edition. =SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.= free • safe • invaluable If you appreciate our articles, do the right thing and let us know by subscribing. It’s free and it implies no obligation to you— ever. 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Email
The day after Hillary Clinton testified in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi last October, John Podesta, the Democrat’s campaign chairman, met for dinner with a small group of well-connected friends, including Peter Kadzik, a top official at the Justice Department.
The dinner arrangement, revealed in hacked Podesta emails released by Wikileaks, is just the latest example of an apparent conflict of interest between the Clinton campaign and the federal agency charged with investigating the former secretary of state’s email practices.
Podesta and Kadzik, the assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, were in frequent contact, other emails show. In one email from January, Kadzik and Podesta, who were classmates at Georgetown Law School in the 1970s, discussed plans to celebrate Podesta’s birthday. And in another sent last May, Kadzik’s son emailed Podesta asking for a job on the Clinton campaign.
The post-Benghazi dinner was attended by Podesta, Kadzik, superlobbyist Vincent Roberti and other well-placed Beltway fixtures.
The exchanges are another example of the Clinton campaign’s “cozy relationship” with the Obama Justice Department, one former U.S. Attorney tells The Daily Caller. | 0 |
Telegraph “Journalist” Calls For the Assassination of Donald Trump The Deletes Her Twitter Account Telegraph “Journalist” Calls For the Assassination of Donald Trump The Deletes Her Twitter Account Breaking News By Amy Moreno November 10, 2016
Monisha Rajesh, who is a “journalist” for Telegraph, called for the assassination of Donald Trump on Twitter.
She was instantly called out, and then deleted the tweet.
However, slews of screen shots were captured and the information went viral which prompted this “journalist” to delete her entire twitter account.
https://twitter.com/GoosesTweets/status/796771781520592896
— Trump Vol (@DamnVol) November 10, 2016 . @SecretService again, just in case @monisha_rajesh deletes the tweet, which it looks like she has. pic.twitter.com/3l3MhL0MXL
— The Coonskin Cap (@TheCoonskinCap) November 10, 2016 Apparently @monisha_rajesh has deleted the tweet and also deactivated her account 😉😂 https://t.co/wgrqWfmevT
These violent and emotionally unstable liberal idiots need to be held accountable for their actions.
Please contact Telegraph and DEMAND they fire this idiot.
Telegraph Twitter page here .
Facebook page here .
Email : telegraphenquiries@ telegraph.co.uk Amy Moreno is a Published Author , Pug Lover & Game of Thrones Nerd. You can follow her on Twitter here and Facebook here . Support the Trump Presidency and help us fight Liberal Media Bias. Please LIKE and SHARE this story on Facebook or Twitter. | 0 |
A judge ruled Friday that one additional woman who says Bill Cosby sexually assaulted her will be permitted to testify at his trial later this year on charges that he sexually assaulted a former Temple University staff member in 2004. Legal experts have said that the account of a second woman describing what she said was an act of sexual assault could strengthen the case against Mr. Cosby, 79, who has denied any misconduct. But the judge’s decision was far from a full victory for prosecutors in Montgomery County, Pa. who had sought to introduce testimony from 13 women who have accused Mr. Cosby of assaulting them. The prosecutors had told Judge Steven T. O’Neill of the Court of Common Pleas that the testimony of the group of women was important in showing a pattern of conduct by Mr. Cosby that bolstered the account of Andrea Constand, the former Temple employee. Judge O’Neill agreed to allow the testimony of the one woman, identified only as “Prior Alleged Victim Six,” in a decision that briefly discussed his legal reasoning. The judge said that he had considered the evidence, the legal arguments and aimed for “a careful balancing of the probative value of the other acts evidence and the prejudice to the Defendant. ” While the judge’s decision was too brief to completely understand his reasoning, the account given by the woman is similar to that given by Ms. Constand, who says she was drugged and sexually assaulted at the entertainer’s home near Philadelphia. Two years ago, the new witness appeared at a news conference, alongside her lawyer, Gloria Allred, where she was identified only as Kacey and described working as an assistant to Mr. Cosby’s agent at the William Morris Agency in the 1990s. She and Mr. Cosby were friendly, she said, and once had dinner at his home where they both read from a script, their scene ending in a passionate kiss that made her uncomfortable. Then, she said, she went to lunch at his California hotel bungalow in 1996 where, she said, she passed out after he gave her a “large white pill,” and woke up in bed next to Mr. Cosby, who was naked beneath an open robe. “Once Prior Victim Number Six was incapacitated, defendant sexually assaulted her,” prosecutors said in court papers last year. The woman said at the news conference that she never pressed charges because she feared retaliation. Mr. Cosby has denied all the allegations of sexual assault and has described his encounter with Ms. Constand as consensual. His spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, declined to comment on the ruling. Mr. Cosby’s legal team is expected to challenge Ms. Constand’s credibility. Legal experts said the judge’s ruling made that job more difficult, but that the admittance of testimony from multiple women would have been significantly more damaging. “He has two people to challenge rather than just one in that sense, it’s a defeat,” said Dennis McAndrews, a Pennsylvania lawyer and former prosecutor. But, he added: “If five or more had been admitted, it would have been devastating for his case. It is easier to attack the testimony of two. ” Mr. Cosby’s lawyers had fought to block the women’s accounts, which had not been the subject of criminal complaints or adjudicated at trial, and which they disparaged as vague. “There has never been a shred of physical evidence to support such claims, they have never been reported to any authority and today their stories of ‘that night spent partying with a famous celebrity’ are based solely on the tainted, unreliable memories of women, now in their senior years, recalling alleged events from a single encounter from the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s,” his lawyers Brian J. McMonagle and Angela C. Agrusa said in court papers in October. Ordinarily, prosecutors cannot introduce evidence or accusations of prior bad behavior because it is viewed as too prejudicial for a jury as it considers the facts of the single case before it. But in Pennsylvania, as in other states, such evidence is permitted when it shows conduct so similar it can be argued that it demonstrates a common scheme or plan, a kind of unique signature of the defendant. Prosecutors characterized the accounts of the 13 women as being similar to Ms. Constand’s in that the women said Mr. Cosby had befriended or mentored them, gave them a pill or other intoxicant, and that when they awoke hours later, they said, they had been sexually abused. Kevin R. Steele, the Montgomery County District Attorney, on Friday described the judge’s ruling as important, saying, “The jury will now be allowed to assess evidence that is relevant to establishing a common plan, scheme and design of sexual abuse. ” For many of the women, testifying represented a final opportunity to confront Mr. Cosby legally. Most never came forward decades ago, when they say the episodes occurred, and have been unable to bring civil cases against Mr. Cosby because the statutes of limitation have expired. On Friday, Ms. Allred congratulated the 13, seven of whom were at least once her clients, saying, “Even though they will not be able to testify in this case, they have been very important in the effort to seek justice. ” For prosecutors, there is a risk in introducing prior bad acts as evidence. In one recent case where such evidence helped lead to a conviction, the decision was overturned by an appeals court that found the admission of the evidence had, in fact, prejudiced the jury. The case involved a senior official in the Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia who had been convicted on charges related to failing to stop child sexual abuse by some priests. Isabelle A. Kirshner, a criminal defense lawyer in New York who is not involved in the case, said that by only allowing one of the women in, Judge O’Neill had reduced the chance that any verdict would be reversed on appeal. As for the Cosby team, she said, “I am sure that they are not happy another witness is coming in, but given that they wanted 13, this is a victory for him. ” In December, in another crucial decision, Judge O’Neill ruled that deposition testimony, given by Mr. Cosby in a separate 2005 lawsuit filed by Ms. Constand, could be admitted as evidence in the coming criminal trial. In the deposition, Mr. Cosby admitted to affairs and acknowledged obtaining quaaludes as part of his efforts to have sex with women. Mr. Cosby is seeking a change of venue for the trial, now set for Norristown, Pa. or for jurors to be brought in from another county, arguing that he has been harmed by negative publicity and media coverage. A hearing on that motion is scheduled for Monday. | 1 |
A Harrisburg, Pennsylvania abortion clinic has been shut down after the state Department of Health found serious violations affecting the safety and health of patients. [State Secretary of Health Dr. Karen Murphy ordered the Hillcrest Women’s Medical Center to suspend its services following a June 5 unannounced inspection found “serious deficiencies and violations,” said a press release. Three Pennsylvania state senators responded to the report of Hillcrest’s violations with questions about why the Department of Health (DOH) has not revoked the abortion clinic’s license, reports CatholicNewsLive. Hillcrest has violated the state’s health laws four times in the past six years. State Sens. Joe Scarnati (R) Bob Mensch (R) and John DiSanto (R) wrote to Murphy: The DOH inspection report portrays a facility which is clearly unsafe and unhealthy for both patients and staff alike. Given this, we would like an explanation as to why DOH did not immediately move to suspend or revoke Hillcrest Women’s Medical Center’s license upon finding such numerous egregious violations. These health and safety violations are obviously deeply troubling. However, even more problematic appears to be DOH’s response, which was to allow the abortion clinic to continue operating while granting Hillcrest a six month grace period to correct the cited “deficiencies. ” During an inspection in February, the abortion clinic was found to have improper staffing — no registered nurse on staff, and failure to show documentation that its physician was a board eligible the Department of Health’s report says. Hillcrest was also found to have failed compliance with the state’s Child Protective Services Law. The clinic has been treating girls younger than 18 years of age, though at least eight staff members had not had the background checks required for working with children. According to the report, the Department of Health reviewed 12 patient records and found all 12 patients had no nursing care or monitoring while recovering from anesthesia administered during surgical abortion. Murphy said in the department’s statement: The health and safety of patients served at any Pennsylvania health care facility is a top priority of the Wolf Administration. On Monday, Department of Health staff conducted an unannounced monitoring visit to Hillcrest Women’s Medical Center. The department concluded that it was no longer safe for the facility to continue providing medical services to patients. Therefore, I have ordered the facility to suspend all services until such time that it can demonstrate it is safe for women to receive care. While the June inspection found that a registered nurse was on the premises, additional violations were identified — including expired sterilization and medical supplies — that led to the decision to close the clinic. “The Hillcrest Women’s Medical Center deserved to be closed down, but the truth is that the March deficiency report was far from the worst we have seen in our research of abortion facilities,” says Operation Rescue president Troy Newman. “All abortion facilities that cannot pass health inspections should be closed. We urge every state to conduct unannounced inspections of abortion facilities so they can see the real conditions and practices women face at these abortion dumps on an everyday basis. ” Hillcrest’s violations come after Pennsylvania enacted a law in 2011 requiring abortion clinics to be subject to unannounced inspections. The law was passed following the case of West Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted in 2013 of murdering babies born alive during abortions by cutting their spinal cords. Gosnell, who operated a clinic that became known as the “house of horrors” because of its filthy conditions, also was found guilty in the death of one of his patients. The abortion industry and its political and media allies continue to fight against states in court that pass health and safety laws that would raise the standard of care in abortion clinics to those of other outpatient treatment facilities. The abortion lobby claims these laws are unfair to women who wish to access the procedure. In its latest investigative report, organization Americans United for Life (AUL) provides details of hundreds of violations of state laws regulating abortion clinics. The report, titled “Unsafe: The Public Health Crisis in America’s Abortion Clinics Endangers Women,” challenges the narrative advanced by abortion advocates that the U. S. Supreme Court’s decision in the recent Texas case of Whole Woman’s Health vs. Hellerstedt prevents state legislatures from requiring health and safety standards in abortion clinics. | 1 |
Madonna railed against the Trump administration Saturday at the Women’s March on Washington and confessed during her speech that’s she’s been thinking about “blowing up the White House. ”[“Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I’m outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House, but I know that this won’t change anything,” Madonna told the crowd to roaring applause. Are you ready to shake up the world?” Madonna asked the crowd. “Welcome to the revolution of love, to the rebellion, to out refusal as women to accept this new age of tyranny, where not just women are in danger but all regionalized people. Where being uniquely different, right now, might truly be considered a crime. ” Moments later, Madonna dropped the on live TV. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “The singer’s remarks aired uncensored on CNN and MSNBC. ” “It took this horrific moment of darkness to wake us the fuck up. ” she said. The pop performed two of her biggest songs “Express Yourself” and “Human Nature. ” During the latter, Madonna changed the song’s lyric to say “Donald Trump — suck a dick. ” She also led the crowd of revelers in a chant: “I’m not your bitch. ” Madonna also sent a vulgar message to her and protester’s “detractors. ” “And to our detractors that insist that this march will never add up to anything, fuck you! Fuck You!” she said. Madonna at #WomensMarch: “It took this horrific moment of darkness to wake the f — up. ” pic. twitter. — Hollywood Reporter (@THR) January 21, 2017, | 1 |
Harvard Law School emeritus professor, liberal Democrat, and noted defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz has penned an in the Hill opposing the appointment of a special counsel to oversee the investigation into possible ties between President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government. [Dershowitz makes a case against the special counsel. First, he says, the Trump campaign is not facing criminal accusations. Second, he says, even if collusion were to be found between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, or if Trump were found to have divulged secrets to the Russian foreign minister, none of that would be illegal, and ought to be punished by voters, not prosecutors. Third, he argues, Trump’s decision to fire James Comey does not constitute obstruction of justice, and a special counsel could not impeach him anyway. The only legitimate targets of a special counsel, Dershowitz says, would be “those current and former intelligence officials who willfully leaked classified and highly secret information to the media” over the past several months. He concludes: So what will the special prosecutor be doing? The short answer is that we don’t know and may never know, because he will be operating in secret. His most powerful weapon will be the grand jury, which has the power to subpoena witnesses to be questioned without their lawyers behind closed doors. It is a crime to disclose or leak grand jury testimony (except in special situations). At the end of his super secret investigations, the special counsel has essentially three options: he can issue indictments and prosecute the defendants, he can issue a statement that no indictments are warranted and close down his investigation, or he can issue a report. If he were to issue a report, it would be and based on an investigation not geared towards knowing the whole truth, but rather to develop and present to the grand jury sufficient evidence to show probable cause that a crime may have been committed. The grand jury hears only one side — the prosecutor’s. A report, based on no criminal investigation, is likely to be and incomplete. Dershowitz writes that he would have preferred to see “a investigatory commission to uncover the whole truth” about Russia’s role in the election. Read Dershowitz’s entire here. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
Indian Country – by Theresa Braine
More details are emerging about yesterday’s police action on Highway 1806 about three miles from the Cannonball River. Commencing shortly before noon, a large contingent of heavily armed officers worked to clear a route for Dakota Access oil pipeline (DAPL) trenches in a relentless push that resulted in numerous instances of violent confrontations, culminating in the seizure of the newly established Treaty Camp and removal of a number of tents, tipis and sweat lodges.
The Morton County Sheriff’s Department said that 141 people had been arrested and that at least one bullet had been fired from the frontlines.
“Officers met violence and resistance including a protester who fired a gun at officers in the police line, protesters who threw molotov cocktails at them and set vehicles and debris on fire,” the sheriff’s office said in a post on Facebook .
An AP news story cites state spokesperson Cecily Wong describing a woman who drew a .38 caliber pistol and firing three times at officers, an account disputed by activists and not recorded on any of the on-the-scene video or live feeds currently circulating.
However, tribal law enforcement apprehended a heavily-armed man crouched in a creek with apparent connections to a private security firm hired by DAPL’s builders. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe posted a description of the incident on its Facebook page . A man was apprehended carrying an assault rifle, with papers indicating he was employed by a private security firm, according to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
“As reported via video evidence from the front lines on 10-27-16. A man bearing an assault rifle broke thru a barricade and was speeding toward the Oceti Sakowin camp, he was run off the road 1/4 mile north from the Camp. The man exited the vehicle where he appeared to be disguised as a water protector. He than fired several shots from his assault rifle. Tribal Law Enforcement responded, the man was then apprehended. Insurance Documents from the vehicle reveal that it is owned by Dakota Access Pipeline. We commend the BIA Law Enforcement to their commitment of public safety and for their quick response and apprehension of the suspect, who was clearly meaning to do harm.”
A statement by the Camp of the Sacred Stones, one of three prayer camps set up near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, catalogued exactly how the unarmed protectors were met by lots of firepower: “Over 300 police officers in riot gear, 8 ATVs, 5 armored vehicles, 2 helicopters, and numerous military-grade humvees showed up north of the newly formed frontline camp just east of Highway 1806. The 1851 Treaty Camp was set up this past Sunday directly in the path of the pipeline, on land recently purchased by DAPL. Today this camp, a reclamation of unceded Lakota territory affirmed as part of the Standing Rock Reservation in the Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1851, was violently cleared. Both blockades established this past weekend to enable that occupation were also cleared.”
At least one sniper atop a Humvee scanned the crowd of protectors. People and horses were shot at with beanbag guns, noise concussion devices were used, and fire-extinguisher-sized canisters of tear gas and mace were deployed. Police used pepper spray and mace liberally. (Photo: Savannah Joe/Facebook)
Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II blasted the use of force, the continued construction and the numerous violations of civil and human rights.
“We have repeatedly seen a disproportionate response from law enforcement to water protectors’ nonviolent exercise of their constitutional rights,” he said in a statement. “Today we have witnessed people praying in peace, yet attacked with pepper spray, rubber bullets, sound and concussion cannons. We urge state and federal government agencies to give this tense situation their immediate and close attention.”
He noted that DAPL parent company Energy Transfer Partners had completely ignored the request by the administration of President Barack Obama to voluntarily halt construction while the legal issues raised by the tribe were resolved.
“By deploying law enforcement to support DAPL construction, the State of North Dakota is collaborating with Energy Transfer Partners and escalating tensions,” Archambault said. “We need our state and federal governments to bring justice and peace to our lands, not the force of armored vehicles.”
Archambault urged everyone who supports Standing Rock’s efforts to divert or halt the pipeline to remain peaceful and prayerful and not resort to violence or lash out in anger.
“Any act of violence hurts our cause and is not welcome here,” he said. “We invite all supporters to join us in prayer that, ultimately, the right decision—the moral decision—is made to protect our people, our sacred places, our land and our resources. We won’t step down from this fight. As peoples of this earth, we all need water. This is about our water, our rights, and our dignity as human beings.”
Firsthand accounts bore stark witness to the events as they happened, via Facebook live feeds, social media posts and other dispatches from the front lines.
Dallas Goldtooth, organizer of the Keep It in the Ground movement with the Indigenous Environmental Network, posted updates throughout the day.
“President Obama had asked that work stop within 20 miles of river yet National Guard were used to clear the way for yesterday’s police sweep & DAPL construction,” he wrote. “DAPL security forces were part of the invasion. They had armed men with AR-15 and had malicious intent to sneak into the camp.”
He said that men and women had been pulled out of a sweat lodge ceremony at gunpoint.
“The similarities to Wounded Knee cannot be ignored. There was potential last night to turn a peaceful protest into a major tragedy,” he wrote.
Goldtooth also contrasted such treatment of unarmed water protectors with the acquittal, on the same day, of the armed militia who took over Malheur Wildlife Refuge.
“The racial undertones of yesterday’s actions cannot be ignored,” Goldtooth wrote. “Armed white men stand off against police in Oregon: Acquitted. Unarmed water protectors in North Dakota: Concussion grenades, rubber bullets and batons.”
He said that North Dakota police’s characterization of them as “armed vigilantes” was patently false. Jesus Wagner was shot in the face with a rubber bullet. (Photo: Facebook)
“The only weapons on site yesterday were in the hands of militarized police,” he wrote. “Assault rifles, snipers, concussion grenades, batons, etc.”
The harm was not limited to humans. Riders on horseback were also assaulted, and one horse was killed.
“Horseback riders were attacked by police on ATVS resulting in one horse being hurt so severely that it had to be put down,” Goldtooth said. “There were national guard humvees on site with snipers stationed on top.”
Not even medical personnel were immune.
“They sprayed me with my hands up and my back to them, with all my medic markings clearly showing. They sprayed me head to toe,” said one man in a Facebook post by the Standing Rock Medic & Healer Council. “They pointed shotguns at me. They pointed shotguns at my back while I was treating patients.”
Jon Eagle Sr., Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, spoke of the heartbreak.
“My heart hurts,” he said on Facebook. “Because of the actions of a few, many people were hurt today. People were shot with rubber bullets and beanbags. They used pepper spray, percussion grenades and sound cannons. Numerous arrests. I can’t believe what I witnessed today and it’s still going on. Prayers for the protectors tonight.”
There were uplifting moments as well. As the conflict escalated, a woman yelled at everyone to “look at the buffalo!”
“We all turned to the east to see a herd of buffalo come charging,” Eagle said. “Behind them were young warriors on horse back. Police in ATV’s charged after them. There were shots fired. The young men rode through the line of ATV’s and made their get away. A war cry went up from the crowd. I’m proud to say we are still the greatest light cavalry in the world!”
Many activists and protectors used social media to describe feelings of nausea, light-headedness and sickness after returning to the camps near Standing Rock, and also this morning as a new, uncertain day dawned on the plains.
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/10/28/conflicting-accounts-emerge-after-treaty-camp-police-action-166259 | 0 |
In the most recent installment of WikiLeak’s CIA Vault 7 series, the whistleblowing group has published details on a server virus codenamed “Pandemic. ”[In the latest leak, published on Thursday, WikiLeaks outlines the use of the CIA’s “Pandemic” project. This leak is a virus that targets Windows computers, sharing files with remote users in a local network. WikiLeaks described the program on their website writing, “Today, June 1st 2017, WikiLeaks publishes documents from the ‘Pandemic’ project of the CIA, a persistent implant for Microsoft Windows machines that share files (programs) with remote users in a local network. ‘Pandemic’ targets remote users by replacing application code with a trojaned version if the program is retrieved from the infected machine. To obfuscate its activity, the original file on the file server remains unchanged it is only while in transit from the pandemic file server before being executed on the computer of the remote user. The implant allows the replacement of up to 20 programs with a maximum size of 800 MB for a selected list of remote users (targets). ” “As the name suggests, a single computer on a local network with shared drives that is infected with the ‘Pandemic’ implant will act like a ‘Patient Zero’ in the spread of a disease. It will infect remote computers if the user executes programs stored on the pandemic file server. Although not explicitly stated in the documents, it seems technically feasible that remote computers that provide file shares themselves become new pandemic file servers on the local network to reach new targets. ” Documentation published by WikiLeaks states that the virus is installed via a minifilter device driver. Jake Williams, a malware expert at Rendition InfoSec, spoke to Ars Technica about the virus stating, “This code looks like it was developed with a very specific use in mind. Many larger organizations don’t use Windows file servers to serve files. They use special built storage devices (network attached storage). My guess here would be that this was designed to target a relatively small organization. ” Williams worked at the National Security Agency’s elite Tailored Access Operation until 2013 and believes that WikiLeaks may be withholding some documentation relating to Pandemic. “If you handed me this tool, I don’t have enough information to make it go,” he said. “There’s more documentation than this. It’s anyone’s guess as to why it wasn’t released. ” Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart. com | 1 |
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LOS ANGELES — One of Marvel Entertainment’s most sprawling superhero mythologies, the Inhumans, is headed to the small screen in a major way. But the Inhuman likes of Black Bolt, Crystal and Lockjaw, the teleporting dog, will first appear on big screens. As in the biggest. Imax Corporation, Marvel and the ABC broadcast network announced a partnership on Monday to introduce — and finance — a lavish new television series that will focus on the Inhuman royal family. Under the agreement, a version that combines the initial two episodes of “Marvel’s The Inhumans,” shot entirely with Imax cameras, will play exclusively for two weeks next September on Imax screens worldwide. Shortly thereafter, the episodes — edited to include additional scenes — will run on ABC, with new installments unspooling in typical fashion. (The look of the series on TV will be enhanced due to Imax technology.) The series, billed as a family with signature Marvel humor, will be set in the present day, with some action seeming to take place on the moon. The deal is significant for several reasons. As their live audiences have dwindled and competition has increased, broadcast networks have struggled to create sizzle around new shows. ABC, which urgently needs new hits, is betting that Imax, with its strength among younger consumers known as fanboys, will help make “The Inhumans” a event. “In the incredibly crowded marketplace of television, we are very excited about this because it’s a unique and innovative and bold way to debut our best new content,” Ben Sherwood, president of Television Group, said by phone. The deal also indicates that Disney remains focused on telling Marvel stories on ABC after an unexceptional start to that effort. “Marvel’’s Agents of S. H. I. E. L. D. ” has brought more male viewers to ABC, but it has been only a modest ratings performer. Another effort, “Agent Carter,” was a misfire. ABC wants what Marvel Television and ABC Studios have supplied to Netflix — widely watched series like “Luke Cage” and “Daredevil. ” A arrangement with Imax will allow ABC and Marvel to spend more to make “The Inhumans,” which will include visual effects. (One criticism of “Agents of S. H. I. E. L. D. ” has been that certain action sequences are less than dazzling.) Imax has never before served as a financing participant in a TV series, according to Richard L. Gelfond, the company’s chief executive. “We think this is a business for us,” Mr. Gelfond said of the financing arrangement. “Because Imax has an equity participation both in the pilot and in the series, this deal will be financially advantageous to Imax on an ongoing basis. ” Imax has dabbled in the past at showing TV content on its supersize screens. Last year, for instance, it played a couple of Season 4 episodes of “Game of Thrones. ” But a series has never before made its debut through Imax, which has more than 1, 000 locations worldwide. “We see it as a way to extend the Imax brand and diversify our revenue,” Mr. Gelfond said. In particular, he hopes television content could help draw crowds to Imax locations at times of the year — like fall — when there is a dearth of movies. Imax worked for years to find a winning strategy for quieter times at the box office most recently it tried showing films aimed at older audiences, which delivered weak results. “We’re confident our exhibition partners will be excited about this,” Mr. Gelfond said. “The response from conceptual conversations has been extremely positive. ” Marvel, which has been on a tear, initially expected to turn the Inhumans into a string of movies, even announcing its plans publicly in 2014. But the studio ultimately decided the property would be a better fit for TV, in part because there were already a lot of different Marvel movie franchises continuing. Mr. Sherwood, noting pains have been taken to make sure ABC affiliates are on board with the Imax debut, said the “sneak peek” of “The Inhumans” would include “big, theatrical moments specially conceived for the Imax screen. ” The series debut will also come at a time when no Marvel movies are playing in theaters. “We’ve worked very carefully with our friends at Marvel Studios — and this is a critical point — to make sure that and we are only enhancing the Marvel universe,” he said. | 1 |
The tens of millions of Americans watching Super Bowl LI Sunday night were treated to a from company Airbnb, which launched its #WeAccept ad campaign with a spot highlighting diversity and multiculturalism. [“No matter who you are, where you’re from, who you love, or who you worship, you deserve to belong,” Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky wrote on Sunday with a link to the #WeAccept campaign, which shows the faces of people of various ages, races, and religions along with the inspiring message. Former U. S. attorney general Eric Holder — who was hired by Airbnb last July “to help craft a policy” — also tweeted about the #WeAccept campaign. “This is who we truly are — We work together. We stand together. We are one nation. We are one people. @Airbnb @bchesky #weaccept together,” Holder wrote to his Twitter followers. This is who we truly are — We work together. We stand together. We are one nation. We are one people. @Airbnb @bchesky #weaccept together, — Eric Holder (@EricHolder) February 6, 2017, Hollywood and Silicon Valley have heavily opposed President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily suspending the U. S. Refugee Admissions Program. Super Bowl Sunday saw a series of politicized commercials meant to shine a spotlight on the administration’s immigration policies. But AirBnB’s #WeAccept effort is a longterm campaign, and it’s being spearheaded by Holder, who has already been hired by the California legislature to help lead the legal fight against Trump. In his role at the $30 billion company, Holder is crafting the company’s and housing policy, according to Chesky. Airbnb users received an email on Monday morning detailing the company’s intentions to provide housing for 100, 000 people over the next five years, including refugees. “Today we’re setting a goal to provide housing over the next five years for 100, 000 people in need. We’ll start with refugees, disaster survivors, and relief workers, though we want to accommodate many more types of displaced people over time,” the company’s founders announced. “To help people around the world facing displacement, we’ll work with our community of hosts to find not just a place to stay, but also a place to feel connected, respected, and a part of a community again,” Airbnb says. “In addition, Airbnb will contribute $4 million over the course of four years to the International Rescue Committee to support the most critical needs of displaced populations globally. ” Last year, Airbnb launched a investigation following charges of racism from black renters who took to social media and shared stories of being turned away by hosts once their race was disclosed. The hashtag “#AirbnbWhileBlack” trended online. Airbnb apologized for the discrimination complaints and began to enact a series of policies. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson | 1 |
A new study released Tuesday shows that American adults are having less sex than a quarter of a century ago, with the biggest decline being among married people. [The study, published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, showed a decline in sexual activity across gender, race, region, education level, and work status. One of the factors for this decline is the increase in the percentage of unpartnered people, who tend to have less sex than partnered ones. But a major factor for this decline stems from a steady decline in the rate of sexual activity for people who are married or living with partners. The study found that American adults have sex seven to nine fewer times per year than in the 1990s, according to data from the General Social Survey from . The average person used to have sex 60 to 62 times a year in the 1990s, but by 2014 that number dropped to less than 53 times per year. The drop in sexual activity among married people was even sharper, going from 73 times a year in 1990 to 55 in 2014. The frequency of sexual activity among married people was below that of unmarried people, who have sex an average of 59 times a year. The study said people who are not in couples, including those married in the past, have sex half as much as those who are. The decrease in couples backs up this claim. Americans were living with a partner in 1986 in 2014, only 59 percent were, according to GSS data. The report listed possible factors for the decline in sexual activity, including increased access to entertainment and social media a decline in happiness among people 30 and over higher incidence of depression and use of associated with sexual dysfunction. The study found a steady drop in sexual activity as people aged, but when comparing the same time period in each generation, it turns out that those born in the 1930s had sex the most often, while those born in the 1990s had sex the least. The sharpest decline in sexual activity was among people in their 50s, people with a college degree, people with children, people in the South, and those who do not watch pornography, according to the study. | 1 |
In two articles for the New York Times‘ Sunday Review, the Gray Lady attacks Breitbart News and its founder, Andrew Breitbart, and encourages an effort to “destroy” the company by appealing directly to advertisers not to support the website. [One article, “How to Destroy the Business Model of Breitbart and Fake News,” written by someone actually called “Pagan Kennedy” (was “Antichrist Roosevelt” not available?) celebrates the flagging effort of anonymous Twitter trolls who have tried to target and intimidate companies whose ads appear alongside Breitbart News articles, via third party platforms. These censors of the totalitarian left have decided that since they cannot defeat conservative views and arguments on the merits, they would prefer to eliminate them. The Times, which prides itself as a guardian of free speech and press freedom, gives its backing to this (unsuccessful) campaign with nearly 2, 000 words of space. The article includes instructions on how to join the effort, copied verbatim — “Step 1 … Step 2 … ” — from the anonymous activists’ Twitter page. And Breitbart News, the “biggest fish,” is not the last intended target: the group declares that it “would like to broaden its campaign to take on a menagerie of bad actors. ” Evidently it is very important to the Times that this failing, and effort to censor Breitbart News be shored up, because it has allowed several embarrassing factual errors and omissions into the article which undermine both the credibility of the “Pagan” author and the “paper of record” itself: Speaking of “fake news,” the New York Times is a prime exemplar of the genre, having manufactured several stories with the clear intent of attacking and undermining conservatives, including but not limited to Breitbart News. A few recent examples: As far as “hate” is concerned, the Times has published by avowed terrorists like Ahmed Yousef of Hamas, the organization that is determined to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible to achieve its genocidal aims. It has also published the work of Russian president Vladimir Putin, who is the left’s bogeyman today, but who in 2013 the Times wished to help reach a wider audience, the better to stop U. S. intervention in Syria and to attack American exceptionalism. In a second Sunday “The Tea Party and the Art of the Mean Joke,” British travel writer Jonathan Raban concocts a twisted recollection of the Tea Party convention in Nashville in 2010 to explain, so he claims, the origins of Trump’s rhetorical style. Raban claims, erroneously, that Tea Party activists were dreaming of a politically incorrect “strongman” — a ridiculous and false claim, given the ambivalence of the Tea Party movement about political leaders in general (even their own). He goes on to claim that Trump “inherited the mantle of speaking in public like a barfly from the man who turned out to be the star of the Nashville show: Andrew Breitbart, founder of the eponymous media outlet. ” Evidently Trump’s long public record has eluded Raban, who argues that Trump learned his craft from Breitbart: “The has the blunt pugnacity of the Breitbartian style. Like his tweets, his policy statements have the brutal concision of jokes. ” Raban goes on to compare Trump — and, by implication, Breitbart — to a Latin American dictator: “I once heard Jorge Luis Borges talk about how dictators relished cruel jokes as demonstrations of their power,” he says, relishing this bit of recalled armchair political philosophy as some kind of proof. In fact, in his lifetime — as Trump’s many detractors were wont to point out during the election — Andrew Breitbart had criticized Trump at times. (One area where Trump earned Andrew Breitbart’s praise: his ability to see through the media’s pretenses.) But again, never mind the facts. Raban describes Breitbart as a “ bully,” exactly inverting Breitbart’s character. Andrew stood up to bullies, and relished nothing more than confronting the bullies in the mainstream media — such as propagandists like Raban, who descend from upon high to pour scorn on the little people of Nashville, their naïve effort at democracy as a kind of nascent fascism, making up fake historical “facts” they expect no one will dare to challenge. Six years later, the little people of Nashville have finally won something, and the New York Times cannot stomach its loss. So it has attacked Breitbart News in an attempt to “destroy” it. There is no greater accolade than to be considered the Times‘ greatest enemy. But one expects something more effective — and more principled — from such a formerly august institution. Sadly, the Times has decided to go the fascist route, urging the destruction of its most effective conservative competitor, using “fake news” to make the case for censorship to its credulous readership. It is an effort as illiberal as it is futile. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
SAN FRANCISCO — Digital ads pop up online so frequently and ubiquitously that many people are using software to block them. But if you try to stop ads from showing up on Facebook’s desktop website, you will now be out of luck: The social network has found a way to block the ad blockers. On Tuesday, Facebook flipped a switch on its desktop website that essentially renders all ad blockers — the programs that prevent websites from displaying ads on the page when a user visits the site — useless. The change allows the Silicon Valley company to serve ads on its desktop site even to people who have software installed and running. “Disruptive ads are an industry problem, and the rise of ad blockers is a strong signal that people just don’t want to see them,” Andrew Bosworth, vice president for Facebook’s ads and business platform, said in an interview. “But ad blockers are a really bad solution to that. ” Facebook’s move is set to add to a furious debate about the ethics of ad blocking. On one hand, many digital ads are a nuisance — they slow loading times of web pages and detract from the online experience. Yet the ads also serve as the business foundation for many digital publishers to provide content to readers. Ad blockers have become a threat to publishers including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, which are facing declining advertising revenue. About 200 million people worldwide use software on their desktop computers, according to estimates from PageFair, an . An additional 420 million use ad blockers on their smartphones, the company said. Several digital publishers, including Wired, Forbes and The Times, have begun experimenting with techniques, including asking visitors who use ad blockers to “whitelist” their sites so that ads may still appear. “We need to spell this out clearly to our users. The journalism they enjoy costs real money and needs to be paid for,” Mark Thompson, president and chief executive of The Times, said at an ad industry conference in June where he addressed ad blocking. “Advertising is a vital part of the revenue mix. ” Mr. Bosworth of Facebook said ad blockers were “certainly bad for the publications who are robbed of half of the value exchange between users and publishers. ” But rather than blocking all ads, he said, Facebook needed to find a way to serve better ads. Facebook’s move is perhaps the strongest measure taken by a major technology company, especially one that serves advertising to more than 1. 7 billion monthly users globally. The effort is risky for the company, which prides itself on delivering the best user experience, because it could alienate some people for whom ad blocking is an ideological stance on how they wish to gain access to the internet. To shut down the blockers, Facebook is taking aim at the signifiers in digital ads that blockers use to detect whether something is an ad. Facebook’s desktop sitewide changes will then make ad content indistinguishable from content. For blockers to get around these changes, Facebook said they would have to begin analyzing the content of the ads themselves, a costly and laborious process. Still, Facebook will continue to let people have some control over the ads they do and do not see. On Tuesday, the company also introduced an overhauled version of its ad preferences tool, which lets people opt out of seeing certain types of ads on the site. That will help Facebook serve more relevant ads, rather than bombard people with ads they do not want. “We want people to help us do a better job with ads, rather than to fundamentally alter the way the service is rendered,” Mr. Bosworth said. The move against ad blockers on the desktop site will not affect blockers used to access Facebook on a mobile web browser, the company said. It will also not apply to Facebook’s mobile apps, which already include advertising that cannot be blocked by outside programs. Facebook did not announce plans to expand the changes to mobile browsers in the future. Executives in the industry denounced Facebook’s decision, calling it a misguided waste of time that would harm the social network’s members. “It takes a dark path against user choice,” Ben Williams, communications and operations manager at Eyeo G. m. b. H. the company behind AdBlock Plus, wrote in a blog post after Facebook announced the change. The move also stoked the ire of those who support ad blockers because of their ability to prevent the use of tracking software, which is often employed to monitor users’ browsing habits across the web without their knowledge or express consent. But the advertising industry welcomed the change. “Facebook should be applauded for its leadership on preserving a vibrant value exchange with its users,” Randall Rothenberg, president and chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, said in a statement. “For hundreds of years, advertising and marketing have been central to the delivery of entertainment and services that are otherwise free to consumers. ” For Facebook, which is a member of the I. A. B. advertising forms the core of its business. The company generated $3. 69 billion in profit on $17. 93 billion in revenue in 2015, a majority of which came from paid advertising. In its most recent quarter, Facebook said mobile ads produced 84 percent of ad revenue. One of Facebook’s biggest advertisers recently called into question the effectiveness of some of the company’s ads. On Tuesday, Procter Gamble told The Wall Street Journal it was scaling back on hypertargeted ad campaigns on the social network. A P. G. spokeswoman said the company would not be spending less money on overall Facebook ads. “Facebook has a history of going out of their way to keep advertisers happy,” said Ian Schafer, founder and chief executive of Deep Focus, an ad agency. “This plays into what advertisers demand in terms of accountability for publishers. ” Others said that Facebook was striking a middle ground by stopping ad blockers but still giving people some options over what ads they would see. “Many users rely on ad blockers because they are concerned about privacy or malware,” said Jules Polonetsky, chief executive of the Future of Privacy Forum, an industry think tank that is funded in part by tech companies, including Facebook. “Facebook’s change lets users continue to use ad blockers to protect themselves, while ensuring ads are displayed. ” | 1 |
A Defeated Obama Condescendingly Mocks Winner Trump, Says ‘He Can’t Keep Campaign Promises’ Obama scolded his Republican successor for believing he can deliver on his campaign promises. 'I think that he successfully mobilized a big chunk of the country to vote for him,' Obama told reporters. Barack Obama delivered a series of patronizing backhanded compliments to President-Elect Donald Trump on Monday during a lengthy White House press conference conducted before his final trip abroad as America’s leader. While he praised Trump for pulling off ‘one of the biggest political upsets in history,’ Obama scolded his Republican successor for believing he can deliver on his campaign promises . ‘I think that he successfully mobilized a big chunk of the country to vote for him,’ Obama told reporters. But ‘regardless of what experience or assumptions he brought to the office, this office has a way of waking you up.’‘And those aspects of his positions or predispositions that don’t match up with reality, he will find shaken up pretty quick. Because reality has a way of asserting itself.’ Trump campaigned on an no-holds-barred agenda of dismantling much of Obama’s agenda including immigration reforms put in place without congressional input, a widely criticized Iranian nuclear deal and an Obamacare system whose pilings have grown shaky. But the president suggested the billionaire’s poetic rallies can never jive with Washington’s messier prose. ‘I think it’ll be important for him to have the room, to staff up, to figure out what his priorities are, to be able to distinguish between what he was campaigning on and what is practical – what he can actually achieve,’ Obama cautioned. ‘You know, there are certain things that made for good good soundbites, but don’t always translate into good policy. And that’s something that he and his team will wrestle with in the same way every president wrestles with.’ Ultimately, Obama hinted , he believes Trump is more a realist than a principled conservative – despite connecting with a previously disengaged voting base on the strength of broad promises. | 0 |
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Corbett • 11/22/2016
This month on Film, Literature and the New World Order, James is joined by Prof CJ of the Dangerous History podcast to explore James Ellroy’s “American Tabloid.” What do you get when you have a novel with fictional FBI/CIA/Mafia/Anti-Castro Cuban stooges embroiled in a years-long mess that ends up with the assassination of the president? A more plausible scenario than 99% of the documentaries and books out there on the subject, that’s what. Find out more in this edition of FLNWO.
CLICK HERE for the mp3 audio and show notes for this podcast | 0 |
North Korea Rocket Launch Plans ( 71 ) 0 15 0 0 Deputy foreign ministers of Japan, South Korea and the United States will hold trilateral talks in Tokyo on Thursday to discuss the hot-button issue of North Korea's nuclear and missile threats.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The negotiations will bring together US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken, South Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam and his Japanese counterpart Shinsuke Sugiyama. © AP Photo/ Ahn Young-joon US, Japan Push to Fortify Alliances Amid Threat Posed by North Korea
According to the US State Department, the deputy-level talks will focus on cooperation on a range of regional security and global issues, including North Korea's nuclear threat, in particular, its ballistic missile programs . "They will discuss the international community’s efforts to hold North Korea accountable for its destabilizing behavior, including its January 6 and September 9 nuclear tests and litany of ballistic missile launches, which constitute flagrant violations of UN Security Council resolutions," the State Department said. © REUTERS/ KCNA US Spy Chief: Asking North Korea To Stop Nuke Program a ‘Lost Cause’
According to media reports, later this year, Japan, South Korea and China are likely to hold a tripartite summit between late November and early December, with North Korea's nuclear and missile development high on the agenda.
In 2005, North Korea declared itself a nuclear power. So far, it has conducted five underground nuclear tests — in 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2016, raising concerns of both the neighboring states and the international community. Pyongyang's cites prospective aggression from South Korea and its major ally, Washington, as the reason for North Korean nuclear program development.
Pyongyang is currently under pressure from the international community since its latest nuclear test in September and a long-range rocket launch in February, which resulted in tightening sanctions against North Korea in the new UN Security Council resolution in March. ... | 0 |
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s Saturday started with a trip to the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. By Saturday night, on one of the few weekends since the inauguration that Mr. Trump remained in Washington, the president was dining at the Trump International Hotel a few blocks from the White House. He was greeted by as he entered and exited the hotel’s steakhouse restaurant, BLT Prime by David Burke, with his daughter and . On Sunday morning, Mr. Trump was once again at the family’s Virginia golf course. For Mr. Trump, it was just another weekend with a spotlight on his family’s business outlets, a pattern that started during his transition when he drew international attention to the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N. J. by interviewing potential cabinet picks there. Saturday’s stops marked the eighth weekend in a row — out of the 10 weekends he has been in office — that Mr. Trump has visited a property, including his resort in Palm Beach. White House officials have said Mr. Trump goes to his clubs and restaurants because he is comfortable there, but critics increasingly argue that the visits are priceless advertising and that Mr. Trump and his family are using the presidency as a way to enrich themselves. “It is normal for presidents to get out — and it can be a boost for small businesses across the city and the country,” said Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen, a liberal nonprofit group. “But with President Trump, he spends his down time as a walking advertisement for his businesses. It is a major departure from historic norm and degradation of the office. ” Eric Trump, in an interview this month, disputed any suggestion that his father’s visits to family properties represented a conflict of interest. But he agreed that the Trump Organization’s assets — from where interest in memberships has surged, to its golf courses — were doing well. “The stars have all aligned,” said Eric Trump, during a recent news conference in Washington to promote the upcoming Senior PGA Championship tournament at the Trump National Golf Course in Sterling, Va. Memorial Day weekend. (He did not mention his father by name.) As executive vice president of the Trump Organization, he oversees its 16 owned or operated golf courses around the world. “I think our brand is the hottest it has ever been. ” The president has now made three visits to the Trump National Golf Club. . Tickets to the event are being sold as Mr. Trump is pushing the golf course into the spotlight, with reporters and photographers in tow on Saturday for a daylong visit. On Sunday shortly after 11 a. m. with reporters placed at the complex’s indoor tennis center, Mr. Trump made a quick visit to the club for what White House officials said were three meetings. By noon Mr. Trump was headed back to Washington. Photos of Mr. Trump surfaced on social media on Saturday and Sunday that appeared to show him in golf shoes and out on the golf course on Saturday, and then sitting at the golf club, during his short visit Sunday, watching a game of golf on television. The New York Times confirmed, via tools, that the items were posted Sunday from the Trump National Golf Club. But the White House officials did not respond when asked about the photographs, and would not confirm whether Mr. Trump played golf. The warm welcome Mr. Trump received Saturday night at the Trump hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue offered a hint of why Mr. Trump may visit his family’s establishments so often: He is almost guaranteed the kind of enthusiastic crowd he would never find at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains. “Keep up the good work!” one man shouted after Mr. Trump wrapped up his dinner at the hotel on Saturday. “Thank you, Donald! Thank you, Trump!” another man yelled. Mr. Trump arrived shortly after 9 p. m. — a reporter from The Times was already having dinner at the hotel’s only restaurant — and walked through the lobby’s expansive atrium and into the restaurant, BLT Prime. guests turned to one another in disbelief. A man shouting Mr. Trump’s name had to be quieted by hotel security. Mr. Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump and his Jared Kushner, were led to the mezzanine, which looks out onto the vast lobby. Hotel guests leaned over the railings of the upper floors to gawk at the president sitting down for a family dinner. Mr. Trump has a particular preference for steaks, well done and with ketchup, although the restaurant would not confirm what he dined on Saturday night. The meal went on for more than two hours, even as guests had stopped eating and had turned around simply to watch Mr. Trump. One diner sitting a few feet from the Trump party said the president had interrupted his meal several times to allow to greet him. Members of the Secret Service took over a table on the first floor and ordered drinks while waiting for the president to conclude his meal. Right above them, Mr. Trump’s personal security guard, Keith Schiller, patrolled the mezzanine level while chatting and joking with guests. “We ate slowly,” said John Nix, who was having dinner at BLT Prime with his wife and three children on their final night at the hotel, which he said they had found on TripAdvisor. The family was visiting Washington from Columbus, Ga. to see sights and visit colleges, and had made a reservation for the restaurant a month before. As the two hours passed, hotel guests who had been at the bar and waiting in the lobby formed a long line, hoping to meet the president as he left. Mr. Trump happily obliged. Around 11:30 p. m. he and Ms. Trump worked the crowd, which included a teenager in a red “Make America Great Again” hat and a young girl asleep on the shoulders of her parents. Screams then gave way to dozens of people chanting “U. S. A.! U. S. A. !” A few minutes later, Mr. Trump disappeared into his motorcade for the short ride home. | 1 |
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It’s funny how Clinton scandals always seem to get covered up by a loss of emails. Hillary’s current email scandal is not the first time this has happened to her or her hubby. During Bill Clinton’s tenure in the White House, a “glitch” (or person) turned off an automatic email archiving system causing the loss of around one million emails . The emails that just “happened” to disappear were the same ones Kenneth Starr was subpoenaing for the Monica Lewinsky scandal and that Congress was asking for in its investigation of “Filegate.”
Also coincidentally, the lost emails were from the server that controlled the email accounts of President Clinton and other potential witnesses in the above scandal. The people who discovered the emails were missing were threatened with jail if they spoke about the loss.
According to the House Oversight Committee report released in December 2000:
The White House installed an Automated Records Management System (ARMS) to store all email correspondence in one central place, and make it easier to respond to document subpoenas. Due to a misconfiguration in the system, e-mail to about 500 White House officials was never recorded. E-mail was first discovered missing in January 1998, but the extent of the problem was not realized until later that year.
Top White House officials were notified in June. Despite the fact that e-mail was being subpoenaed in a number of civil and criminal cases, including the Lewinsky affair and the Filegate scandal, the White House did not notify investigators that some of it was missing. In mid-February 2000, the ex-chief of White House computer operations, Sheryl Hall who had moved to the Treasury Dept. came forward with allegations that Clinton administration officials were involved in an e-mail cover-up. Betty Lambuth, working for a private employer under contract to the White House, charged that White House technicians had been threatened with loss of job, arrest, and jail if they revealed the problem.
The White House later said the problem was resulted from an“unintentional ‘glitch’ and blamed it on ‘human error,’ attributing the problem to a ‘disconnect’ between technicians and lawyers who, apparently, did not realize that the computer mistake might have an effect on the pending subpoena requests.”
Betty Lambuth, who worked for CEXEC, a subcontractor for Northrop-Grumman that ran and maintained the White House computer system, heard about the missing emails from one of her subordinates, Robert Haas. Hass audited the White House system in June 1998 because he and other technicians discovered that automated archiving system wasn’t scanning and storing Internet email sent to the server used by the Executive Office of the President. Lambuth testified under oath, that when she informed the White House, Office of Administration counsel Mark Lindsay told her, ”If I or any of my team who knew about the email problem told anyone else about it we would lose our jobs, be arrested and put in jail.”
She said Lindsay specified that she was not to tell even her private-sector boss, Steve Hawkins, who she said eventually removed her from her White House assignment when she refused to tell him about the e-mail problem. Lambuth said she and her co-workers dubbed the e-mail problem ”Project X,” [as a joking reference to the TV show “The X Files”] and because of the threats, she and her staff took to meeting in a park close to the New Executive Office Building and in a nearby Starbucks when discussing the matter.
Lambuth also told the court , a subordinate told her some of the emails deal with “Vice President Al Gore’s involvement in campaign fund-raising controversies” and “the sale of Clinton Commerce Department trade mission seats in exchange for campaign contributions.” The subordinate also told her the emails also contained “information on the White House’s improper gathering of FBI background files of long-ago Republican appointees and the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal”
A Northrop Grumman official, Joseph Vasta, testified that the Clinton-Gore White House intimidated the email contractor, into participating in the e-mail cover-up. “Vasta testified that it was made apparent that Northrop Grumman could lose its $50 million contract if it didn’t play ball with the Clinton-Gore White House.”
Not all of the White House emails were lost– just the ones on the Mail2 server. The officials served by the Mail2 server included Doris Matsui, Marsha Scott, Sidney Blumenthal, Cheryl Mills, Bruce Lindsey, Erskine Bowles, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Hernreich, John Podesta, Ira Magaziner, Ann Lewis, Charles Ruff, Lanny Breuer, Paul Begala, and President Clinton.
If some of those names sound familiar, they should. People such as Sid Blumenthal and Cheryl Mills have been questioned as part of the present Clinton email scandal, and John Podesta is running Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Bruce Lindsey, now the Chairman of the Board of the Clinton Foundation, was the foundation’s CEO from 2003 to 2013 during Hillary Clinton’s term as secretary of state which, according to Peter Schweizer’s best-selling book “Clinton Cash,” was a time when the foundation and the State Department were involved in cronyism.
As far as the historic documents and reports remaining on the web, news about “Project X” began to fade in October 2000 as the country approached the presidential election – perhaps, because liberal media were trying to protect then-Vice President Al Gore as he campaigned for a promotion (which sounds like the current Clinton email case, where the lefty media are doing their best to cover up the scandal). Betty Lambuth even testified that some of the missing emails involved possible Gore campaign fund-raising controversies.
Additionally neither the documents examined nor a subsequent internet search, turned up any mention that the Project X emails dealing with the possible Bill Clinton White House scandals have have ever been recovered and turned over to the national archives.
From Bill Clinton’s Project X to Hillary Clinton’s private server scandal, losing large volumes of important emails seems to run in the family. | 0 |
in: Collapse , Economy & Business , Multimedia In the following interview, Elijah Johnson and Silver Doctors bring you the latest interview with someone we haven’t heard from in a while, Dr. Jim Willie. To begin the financial portion of the interview, Elijah begins by asking Dr. Willie about the unprecedented bond dumping by China and Saudi Arabia, and of course what Elijah is referring to is how several weeks ago the markets witnessed never before seen numbers when $28 billion in U.S. Treasuries were dumped one week, followed by another $23 billion a week or so later.
Consider the massive sell-off’s just further evidence in a long line of existing examples regarding why the days of the U.S. Dollar as the World Reserve Currency are numbered. Our creditors are aware that the Fed has been engaged in non-stop printing of money out of thin air, and even though the short-term effect has been the propping up of U.S. Treasury prices, our creditors know history, something Americans seems to pay no attention to. Our creditors know that just like other countries who have engaged in the same kinds of reckless monetary policy in the past, eventually when the QE (printing money out of thin air), is removed, hyperinflation will set in, and there will be massive devaluation of the same Treasuries that were artificially propped up for so long. Most creditors expect the QE to be shut off the moment this U.S. election is over, because unlike uninformed American voters, our creditors know that In addition to his role in allowing the largest case of massive voter fraud in America history to take place on his watch, Captain Transparency in the White House has made sure his loyal servant at the Fed, Janet Yellen, has continued committing massive financial fraud at the Fed at the same time. All of these actions by the U.S. result in what Dr. Willie refers to as psychological damage not just to the full faith and credit of the United States Dollar, but to the United States itself. Creditors of U.S. debt are watching a never before seen transition in the U.S. to a system of pure corruption, undermining ANY faith they might have had in the Dollar, and giving them every reason in the world to want to distance them from the U.S. Dollar. Dr. Willie explains that any “perceived” moral authority the U.S. once might have had is long gone. Among other things, the world learned not long ago through a shocking revelation by Wikileaks that Obama and Hillary not only knew of funds being used to provide ISIS (our enemy), with weapons during a time of war, the world has now seen that Barack Obama and Hillary allowed it. With almost a week until the official election we have heard tremendous stories of voter fraud including stories revealing as many as 20/20 examples of machines switching votes from Trump to Hillary, we know the polls have been massively rigged, and thanks to a national media as corrupt and dishonest and those they are tasked with watching over, Dr. Willie briefly mentions millennials who were recently highlighted on the Steven Colbert show expressing their excitement that Obamacare premiums are doubling in some states. The level of stupidity that is coming out of liberal indoctrination centers known as public schools or universities, where graduates have no ability to exercise critical thinking skills, is exactly why 20% college graduates are now living with their parents or grandparents, and Michael Snyder explains below. Expect that number to keep climbing considerably, particularly with a Clinton Presidency. Michael Snyder writes: In America today, more than 60 million people live in multi-generational households. That number is so large that it may seem difficult to believe, but the truth is that vast numbers of young adults have had to move back in with their parents and grandparents in recent years due to the deteriorating economy . Millions of our young people cannot find decent jobs once they leave school, and millions of them are absolutely overwhelmed by debt. Of course some of them are just lazy, but whatever the reason it is undeniable that multi-generational households are on the rise. According to the Pew Research Center , 12 percent of the U.S. population was living in multi-generational households back in 1980. Today, that number is up to 19 percent. That means nearly one out of every five U.S. adults now live with their parents or their grandparents. One of the big culprits, of course, is student loan debt. | 0 |
Photographs show that a Wichita State University rally against campus carry drew 15 people on Tuesday, counting the speaker. [The rally was in support of proposed legislation that would undo campus carry for citizens, forcing said citizens to wander the campus defenseless like everybody else. According to KMUW, “a small group” of students and staff rallied the Rhatigan Student Center. Their motto was “Carry Minds, Not Guns. ” Freshman Ian Englebright said campus carry “creates more problems than solutions. ” He said lawmakers who supported guns for “think that by having concealed carry on this campus they’re making it safer, when in fact, I feel more uncomfortable because I don’t know if the person next to me has a gun or not. ” The 15 person rally at Wichita State was designed to pressure lawmakers into adopting a revision of the state’s campus carry law. That revision would allow colleges and universities to opt out of campus carry, creating a situation like we currently see in Ohio, where campus carry is legal at the state level but barred by every college and university because some students get nervous when citizens are armed for . For example, Ohio State University president Michael Drake is against campus carry. And even after 11 people were hospitalized following the November 28 car and knife attack attack on the Ohio State campus, Drake voiced his opposition for allowing students to be armed to fight back. He said, “We had a circumstance here where there was someone who was a threat to the community and he was neutralized by a professional within one minute and that would be how we think things should go. ” The legislative change sought in Kansas would result in numerous colleges and universities taking a similar position, mandating that students remain defenseless in the classroom and simply dial 911 then shelter in place while law enforcement responds. This is the type of plan that was followed on April 16, 2007, when 32 unarmed people were shot to death on Virginia Tech’s campus. 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 |
Topless Protesters Arrested At Trump’s Polling Station 11/08/2016
DAILY CALLER
The polling station where Republican candidate Donald Trump plans to vote Tuesday morning in New York was crashed by angry, shirtless protesters.
Two topless female protesters entered the New York City polling station, disturbing voters and chanting. The women were reportedly saying “Trump, grab your balls!” in reference to the leaked audio of his lewd conversation with Billy Bush from 2005.
The protesters had “Femen USA” painted on their backs. Femen is a mostly-European, extreme feminist activist group, increasingly spreading in the United States.
“I can assure you sure that once American women are trained and ready to act as Femen, every place of gender injustice, every representative of patriarchal culture, will be a target of Femen USA,” one activist told The Daily Beast . | 0 |
Most Russians wan to ignore criticism from the West 08.11.2016 | Source: AP photo One should not pay much attention to the criticism of Russia that comes from the West, more than half of Russians (59%) said in a recent opinion poll conducted by Levada Center, Interfax reports.The West perceives Russia as a competitor in an attempt to weaken the Russian Federation, 43% of respondents said. Thirty-five percent of respondents said that the criticism of the West was hostile. Every fourth (25%) respondent believes that Western critics often criticize Russia for what they should be criticized themselves . Every fifth respondent (21%) said that Europe and the US have little understanding of life in Russia, "but they still want to teach us."Critical remarks against Russia from Western countries are not worthy of attention, 30% of respondents said. The survey was conducted on October 21-24 among 1,600 people in 137 settlements of Russia.The majority of respondents 74% noted that the West wants to weaken and humiliate Russia by tightening sanctions against the country. According to 13 percent of respondent, the sanctions were imposed on Russia in an attempt to restore the geopolitical balance after Russia reunited with the Crimea. Another five percent believe that the sanctions policy of the West is aimed at ending the war in the east of Ukraine, while eight percent were undecided.At the same time, opinion polls conducted in the last days of October showed an increase in the ratings of the president and the government. The survey showed that the approval rating of the president rose from 78.7 to 81.8% from August to October. Positive assessments of the government's work increased from 53.6 to 58.3%.The Russian parliament's approval rating rose from 39.7% in September to 45.5%.Russia's armed forces have the support of 83.5% of the Russian population. The figure has doubled in ten years - from 44% in October 2006. Pravda.Ru Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru Russians name their main enemies | 0 |
Visiting Aba Abd-Allah is a good evidence of esteeming and honoring the divine rituals, and display love and friendship with prophet's household, according to the Quranic verse of "Mavaddat". 4 Shares
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Presenting and attendance million of Shias at Arbaeen, create a massive and international unity among Shias. This capacity can be useful for huge cultural action.
"Mashrigh" and "Tasnim" report that different religions ever require their followers to attend in specific days in the year for solidarity and correlation between followers to identify the social stream. This kind of attendance is a good publicity of that social stream, and influences the international community.
Easter, the Christians religious day
For example Christians celebrate "Easter" as the most important religious day with a long history every year.
This day is a holiday in Christian’s calendar, and followers of Jesus Christ hold various ceremonies and celebration in the church.
MORE... The 10th Day’s new campaign – community-building and social solidarity Shia Muslims gather in DC for anti-terror rally Letting freedom ring: How Islam’s universal message continues to speak through Imam Husayn ibn Ali The Jews carnival “Purim”
"Purim" is a great religious festival in Jewish religion. Jews have named the fourteenth and fifteenth day of Adar in Hebrew calendar "Purim”, and celebrate it.
Jews hold celebration in "Synagogue" with reading the book "Esther". After ceremonies, children and youth wear the colorful clothes and masks, and launch the carnival of joy in occupied Palestine territories and Jewish cities. This ceremony is advertised extensively by the Jewish dictatorial media..
But Muslims...
About 5.5 million Muslims from all over the world travel to Mecca, Saudi Arabia in "Hajj days" and perform Hajj. But " Pure Mohammadi Islam" and "Alavi education" is not advertised and explained properly in Hajj because of the restrictive policy of Saudi regime.
Imam Reza, peace be upon him, stated: If the beauty of Islam is heard by others, they all will follow wholeheartedly the prophet's household inevitably.
"Arbaeen", golden opportunity
Attending million of Shias in Arbaeen create a massive and international unity among Shias .
Karbala can be a "symbol" of unity and allegiance to Imam, that has the "world's effects". The start of Husseini Magnetic Attraction is in "Arbaeen". This is the magnetic that exists in my and your heart over the centuries.
So if we can't publish the Shia massage efficiently in Hajj, we can universalize it in Shia glorious presence in the Husseini massive rally.
In fact the Hajj pilgrimage for Imam Hussein followers is in Karbala, their try between Safa and Marvah in the " Beyn Al-Haramain", and their "Ihram clothes" is the "mourning clothes for Aba Abd-Allah".
Walking to shrines is topical
Imam Hassan Askari, peace be upon him, mentioned that one of the real believer's sign is walking to visit Imam Hussein in Arbaeen.
Imam Sadigh, peace be upon him, told to one of his followers: Visit Imam Hussein's shrine, and don't give it up. I asked: What is the reward for visiting him? Imam –pbuh- stated: When you walk to visit Imam Hussein, Allah gives you a reward and removes your guilt, and raises your grade.
At the other time, Imam Sadigh said: If someone goes out of his home and walks to visit Imam Hussein's shrine, Allah gives him a reward and removes him guilt for each step to visit Aba Abd-Allah, when he reaches to shrine, Allah considers him among righteous favorites. When his rites finish, Allah registers him among success, when he is coming back an angel of God stays on him and tells: The messenger of Allah says Hello and gives tidings to you that all your faults are forgiven, start again your actions.
Walking tradition has an old history.
In a way, walking tradition for Imam Hussein in Arbaien has an old history. Walking to visit Karbala was customary at Sheikh
Ansary's time. But it was forgotten for a long time. It revives again by "Sheikh Mirza Hussein Noori". He walked to visit Aba Abd-Allah in 1319 (Hegira) for the last time.
Although visiting Imam Hussein s shrine was often difficult, and pilgrims were not safe and secure, but they were willing to take risks and had an audience to Imam Hussein in Arbaeen.
Islamic life style
At that time with full of great interest and knowledge, in the way "Hussein path" that leads to Karbala, Shias called each other just with "Hussein visitors" (zayer Al-Hussein), or "Hussein server" (khadem Ol-Hussein), that is a symbol of Islamic life style.
Pilgrims of this holy and spiritual journey have a lot of blessing and gifts from God, such as: the nice spiritual state with "holy Sayyed Al-Shohada" - generous dealing with pilgrims entertaining and receiving by Hussein servers- sacrificing and respecting for each other- treating elders and sayyeds kindly and considerately- visiting the Imam Hussein's holy shrine in Arbaeen.
Role and place of Imam Hussein's visitors
Visiting Aba Abd-Allah is a good evidence of esteeming and honoring the divine rituals, and display love and friendship with prophet's household, according to the Quranic verse of "Mavaddat".
Imam Hussein's holy shrine visitors enter into heaven before all, their guilt is disappeared, their life will be long, and God provides for them and removes their sadness and sorrow.
Of course if this old tradition that is established again after destruction of Iraqi dictator, not to be cultural pathology, it will certainly have the negative effects.
Because every phenomenon is threatened, it seems if this pilgrimage tradition becomes a primer to the cultural work, it will be more effective and blessings than today. | 0 |
Written by Daniel McAdams We know that one of the major candidates will win today's presidential election. We don't know which one. But we do have a few predictions for what will change and what will stay the same regardless of who wins. Foreign policy - will it change? How about Congress - will they finally begin standing up to their Constitutional obligations? The Supreme Court - is the next nominee so important and what Congress can do. In today's Liberty Report we balance our cynicism with a solid dose of silver lining in discussing what to look for in the immediate future: Copyright © 2016 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given. | 0 |
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