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CLEVELAND — It was a sparkling scene of urban renaissance: Children scampered through the fountain in Public Square, spruced up at a cost of $50 million just in time for the Republican convention here. Electricians installed security cameras on the redesigned plaza as carpenters put the finishing touches on a new cafe. Lex Horth, an amateur photographer from Gates Mills, an affluent village nearby, snapped photos and marveled at downtown’s newest jewel. “I haven’t come down here in 25 or 30 years because it was so derelict,” said Ms. Horth, 80, adding that she was blown away by “what Cleveland has done. ” Twenty minutes south, in a neighborhood called Slavic Village, Robert Smith and David Rajecki, both disabled factory workers, surveyed a vastly different scene. Historically a bustling center of Czech and Polish immigrant life, Slavic Village was sliding into decay even before it was devastated by the foreclosure crisis. Now many of its homes are boarded up. The barber on Fleet Avenue has bullet fragments in his leg rival gangs burst in last year and fired shots. Mr. Rajecki, missing teeth, cannot afford dentures. Mr. Smith calls the neighborhood “a dive” — “you don’t even got a bowling alley anymore,” he said — and Cleveland “a broke city. ” As Republicans gather in Cleveland to nominate Donald J. Trump for president, and Democrats in Philadelphia to nominate Hillary Clinton, the nation is in the thick of searing debates over terrorism, race and policing, gun violence and immigration. But the host cities, both in Rust Belt swing states, spotlight something Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton rarely discuss: the plight of urban America. Amid a widening gap between rich and poor, nothing screams income inequality louder than cities, including Cleveland and Philadelphia, case studies in renewal and gentrification, but also in crushing decline. And perhaps no Americans capture as well as those who live in and advocate for these cities the feeling that the nation’s present cannot match its past. In Washington last week, the National League of Cities released a report warning that “the promise of cities will be stifled” if issues like access to jobs, racial discrimination and gun violence were not addressed. In Philadelphia, Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat elected last year, wants “a comprehensive national program to bring our cities back. ” Here in Cleveland, Kurt Karakul, president of Third Federal Foundation, a nonprofit that works to improve Slavic Village, is furious at the attention paid to “bricks and mortar” investment downtown, while the neighborhood he is trying to help is so poor, he said, that every public school student qualifies for free or lunch. “You talk about third world countries? We’re not that far behind here, with the circumstances that people have to live in,” said Mr. Karakul, a former lawyer. “And unfortunately, I don’t see much coming out of any of the campaigns on what we can do for poverty. ” Once symbols of American industrial might and prosperity, Cleveland and Philadelphia are among the poorest cities in the nation. In 2014, Philadelphia had the highest poverty rate (26 percent) among cities with more than a million people, while Cleveland has the poverty rate (39. 2 percent) among cities with more than 100, 000 residents, according to census data analyzed by the Brookings Institution. Cleveland also has exceedingly high rates of “concentrated poverty” — poor people living in poor neighborhoods. Both cities have very segregated populations, according to William H. Frey, a Brookings demographer. In both, there are tensions between blacks and police the Cleveland Police Department operates under a federal consent decree. Like other World War manufacturing hubs — Pittsburgh, Detroit, Milwaukee, Baltimore and even Boston and New York — Philadelphia and Cleveland hollowed out during the latter half of the 20th century, losing jobs and people. Today, both cities rely on “eds and meds” — educational and medical institutions — as engines for jobs and growth. But while Boston and New York had started to rebound in the 1990s, Philadelphia and especially Cleveland have had slower rebirths. In 1950, Philadelphia was the nation’s city, with a population of nearly 2. 1 million, and Cleveland was seventh, at about 915, 000. By 2010, Philadelphia was down to about 1. 5 million and Cleveland to fewer than 400, 000. Since then, Cleveland’s population has dropped more, while Philadelphia’s has ticked up — a sign of what Rolf Pendall, a scholar at the Urban Institute in Washington, called “a comeback story. ” But some see the comeback as overrated. “The conventioneers will come here, and they won’t get away from the stadium or the downtown — they’ll think they are in a comeback city,” said Ira Goldstein, who supervises research for Reinvestment Fund, a nonprofit investor in community development. But he said other neighborhoods “have regressed over the last 10, 12 years. ” Sitting on a park bench in Rittenhouse Square, Richard Kahr, a retired real estate developer from Manhattan, said Philadelphia had “massively changed” since he arrived a decade ago. But he is troubled by “two classes” in the city, and the nation — “the people that like their life, and the people fighting for their life. ” Mantua, a proud but downtrodden West Philadelphia neighborhood whose rich history is chronicled in colorful murals, is where those two classes may one day meet. Mantua is part of a “Promise Zone,” an Obama administration initiative to help poor communities. Nearly of Mantua households have incomes below $25, 000 the typical home sells for between $10, 000 and $15, 000, Mr. Goldstein said. But Mantua also has a wealthy neighbor: Drexel University. Jimmy Allen, a retired teacher and 1960s street gang leader who functions as Mantua’s de facto mayor, knows its ills: houses, drug addiction, struggling schools. And he knows its strengths: leaders with deep community roots. But what Mr. Allen, 68, frets most over are its vacant lots. Mantua is overrun with large grassy tracts where homes once stood many have been purchased by developers and speculators. Separately, John A. Fry, the Drexel president, has just unveiled an ambitious plan: a $3. 5 billion, development of parks, businesses and to be built over four decades, connecting the campus to 30th Street Station, the nearby railroad hub. A former management consultant, Mr. Fry has worked hard to enlist neighborhood support in 2014 Drexel opened a community center in a renovated mansion, with a computer lab and playground. Mr. Fry wants neighborhoods that surround Drexel to “become stronger and better versions of themselves” — a vision he says can coexist with his effort to “position Philadelphia as a place of enormous growth and development. ” Mr. Allen is unconvinced. He worries that speculators will move in, destroying the neighborhood’s character. “Drexel has a law department we can’t afford a lawyer,” he said. “So how are you going fight the dragon? You can only duck and dodge, and hope you survive. ” That tension over gentrification is the story of many old industrial cities here in Cleveland it is playing out in Ohio City, where lively restaurants and boutiques are attracting hipsters and millennials. Syrian, Lebanese and Egyptian vendors sell fruit and vegetables at the popular West Side Market there. “I take master’s degree in my country — now I sell fruit,” said Chrestina Sedrak, a former psychology teacher who fled Cairo during the 2011 uprising. While Ms. Sedrak sees opportunity, Narrin 52, who survived the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and arrived here in 1981, is less upbeat. The restaurants and shops are bringing in customers, but sales at her spice shop are flat customers look but do not buy. Eli Fletcher, 56, a musician who strolls the market in a caped crusader costume and calls himself “Guitar Man” (“I save Cleveland one song at a time”) can no longer afford to live in Ohio City, where he grew up, the son of a former coal miner who left West Virginia for Cleveland seeking factory work. “This whole gentrification thing forgets that this is a city, and not some posh resort,” Mr. Fletcher said. As both cities look toward their moment in the spotlight, John Grabowski, a historian at Case Western Reserve University here, cautions against too much nostalgia cities, after all, are living things. Mr. Grabowski, editor of an encyclopedia of Cleveland history, grew up in Slavic Village. His boyhood home fell into disrepair after his family left, and was eventually burned. Today it is an empty lot. Returning there one recent afternoon, he could not help but grow misty. The old neighborhood where he played on the railroad tracks — “we used to grease the tracks and watch the wheels spin like crazy” — now resembles “empty spaces between somebody’s teeth. ” About 70, 000 people lived in Slavic Village at its peak the population is roughly 23, 000 now. “You have a housing stock that’s dysfunctional, a population that’s migrated out and an economy that’s flat,” said Tony Brancatelli, a city councilman. “Then you layer on the foreclosure crisis and it’s the kiss of death. ” Still, there are bright spots. The local bank Third Federal Savings and Loan — whose owners, descendants of Polish immigrants, started the foundation Mr. Karakul runs — is helping to build and finance new homes that sell for as much as $130, 000. On Fleet Avenue, a popcorn maker who sells his treats at the West Side Market is planning a new manufacturing plant. And on Broadway Avenue, in a butcher shop, a maker of cured meat and sausage is moving in. Mr. Brancatelli, who sees the foreclosure crisis and its fallout as the root of “social unrest,” said the national conversation around “old industrial cities” like Cleveland had changed — for the worse. Eight years ago, when Barack Obama ran against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, they debated in Cleveland and their advisers participated in a forum on housing at City Hall. “Now we are not hearing a peep about it,” Mr. Brancatelli said. “It scares the heck out of me. ” | 1 |
The governor of Alabama appointed his own state’s Attorney General, Luther Strange, Thursday to fill the Senate seat left vacant by former senator Jeff Sessions taking over President Donald Trump’s Justice Department. [“This is truly a remarkable time in our state’s history,” said Gov. Robert Bentley, who came into office with Strange after the 2010 election. The two men worked together to forge the state’s 2015 $2 billion settlement with BP after that company’s massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Strange was chosen after the governor and the Alabama Republican Party Executive Committee spent 20 hours interviewing potential appointees, beginning in the fall after Trump announced Sessions was his choice for DOJ. “Alabama has surely been well represented by Senator Sessions, and I am confident Senator Strange will serve as a fine representative for our people,” the governor said. “His leadership on a national level, service as a statewide elected official, and long record of taking on tough federal issues are the very qualities that will make him a strong conservative Senator for Alabama. ” Senators confirmed their colleague to be U. S. Attorney General Wednesday evening, with Sessions voting present and Sen. Joseph Manchin (D. . V.) crossing the aisle. Signing the Appointment letter for Alabama Senator Luther Strange. Personally delivering it to DC now, Senator Strange to be today. pic. twitter. — Gov. Robert Bentley (@GovernorBentley) February 9, 2017, Strange said he was thrilled to accept his new post. “I am greatly honored and humbled to accept the appointment to Alabama’s Senate seat vacated by Senator Jeff Sessions,” he said. “Senator Sessions’ commitment to public service is nearly unparalleled in Alabama history and his departure from the Senate leaves tremendous shoes to fill,” he said. “I pledge to the people of Alabama to continue the same level of leadership as Jeff Sessions in consistently fighting to protect and advance the conservative values we all care about. ” Strange said he is also looking forward to Sessions appreciating Alabama’s concerns as attorney general. “I am particularly grateful for the reprieve from federal overreach that states will surely be granted under Attorney General Sessions,” he said. “Throughout my six years in this office, I have wrestled with the Justice Department on an endless number of oppressive federal policies stemming from a total lack of constitutional deference and respect for the states. ,” he said. “I am confident that Jeff Sessions will do his part to restore the delicate balance between the states and the federal government that the Founders envisioned. ” The special election for the Senate seat is slated for 2018. Strange is expected to run in that election to keep the seat in his own right. | 1 |
Former outlaw Jeremy Meeks, whose mugshot went viral and landed him a modeling career, is now living the dream in a mansion in Los Angeles with his wife and three kids, and driving a luxury sports vehicle.[ Merry Christmas! #christmas2016 #meeksfamily #blessed #godisgood, A photo posted by JEREMY MEEKS (@jmeeksofficial) on Dec 25, 2016 at 7:44pm PST, Meeks, 32, was released from jail in March and began his modeling career with manager Jim Jordan of White Cross Management. He was arrested in Stockton, California on five weapons charges and one gang charge in the summer of 2014 as part of Operation Ceasefire, a multiagency mission involving the Stockton police gang unit, the FBI, and the U. S. Marshals Task Force. The operation was aimed at cracking down on a surge in shootings and robberies in the Weston Ranch area of Stockton. The San Francisco Chronicle points out that on his Instagram page, he posted an image of himself standing in front of a beautiful white California home, accompanied with the caption, “God is good. ” God is good, A photo posted by JEREMY MEEKS (@jmeeksofficial) on Sep 27, 2016 at 4:58pm PDT, Two months ago, a picture of him in his brand new Maserati appeared on his page for all of his fans to see: Good to be home, A photo posted by JEREMY MEEKS (@jmeeksofficial) on Nov 2, 2016 at 4:52pm PDT, Upon his release from jail, he posted a picture with Jordan expressing how thankful he was to his “family and everybody for all your love, support and prayers. ” He added, “I’m overwhelmed and grateful for what lies ahead. I’m ready. ” I want to thank my family and everybody for all your love, support and prayers. I’m overwhelmed and grateful for what lies ahead. I’m ready @jimjordanphotography and @whitecrossmanagement #jeremymeeks #jimjordan #whitecrossmanagement, A photo posted by JEREMY MEEKS (@jmeeksofficial) on Mar 9, 2016 at 4:43pm PST, At one point, Jordan said of Meeks, “The world responds to beautiful things. Jeremy is a beautiful thing. ” Meeks has nearly 700, 000 followers on his Instagram account. His Facebook page has approximately 485, 000 likes, and he has 10, 300 followers on Twitter. It appears his modeling career can’t come between his relationship with his wife of eight years. “Through thick and thin,” he wrote in the caption of a picture of him and his wife celebrating their anniversary at a vineyard, with a bottle of wine and her Chanel bag in tow. Celebrating our 8 year anniversary today and 50 more to go. Through thick and thin! #blessed #loved #aniversary #marriage, A photo posted by JEREMY MEEKS (@jmeeksofficial) on Dec 27, 2016 at 3:59pm PST, On one of his Instagram posts, Meeks wrote, “Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future. ” Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future, A photo posted by JEREMY MEEKS (@jmeeksofficial) on Sep 20, 2016 at 4:59pm PDT, Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter and Periscope @AdelleNaz | 1 |
In Gary Shteyngart’s 2010 novel, “Super Sad True Love Story,” characters carry around smart devices called äppäräts, which are something like iPhones on meth. The book is set in the near future. Staten Island is the new Brooklyn, and all the characters use their äppäräts to chat and shop and beam their lives out to the world, nonstop. Äppäräts are also equipped with a program called RateMe Plus, which constantly calculates (and broadcasts, of course) a status ranking based on users’ jobs, financials and online popularity, which is gauged by the quantity and quality of what they share. the most intimate details of your life is the only way to get ahead — job promotions and romantic prospects depend on it. Shteyngart’s extrapolations from social media are beginning to prove surprisingly prescient. The biggest companies are now slaving away to bring his vision ever closer to real ity. It’s not a philosophical or ideological statement on their part it’s just that their business model is predicated on sharing, and finding new ways to extricate more and more from us. This spring, Facebook introduced its 1. 7 billion users to a new feature called Live, which allows anyone to broadcast his or her life in a stream to friends and family. The company also said it would prioritize personal posts like Live over those from brands or news organizations — a sign that, like Shteyngart, it thinks people are far more invested in voyeurism than in anything else. (And in theory, it should know.) In August, Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, followed suit with a feature called Stories, allowing users to post photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. The company described it as a way to “share all the moments of your day, not just the ones you want to keep. ” It all feels like harmless fun, but our online lifestyles have begun to make a real impact in our offline worlds, a trend that doesn’t seem to be reversing. In 2014, Facebook talked with lenders about the possibility of linking profiles to credit scores, and one recent survey showed that 40 percent of officers now say they peruse applicants’ profiles in addition to evaluating G. P. A.s and essays. Social media tends to reward those who share the most — which means we tend to see way more from certain people than we want to see. You probably already know what I mean, and have seen it in your own feeds, as friends, and complete strangers faithfully transcribe their inner monologues in a stream. Even those who make a living in the public eye aren’t immune to the perils of oversharing — on the contrary. Two recent examples come to mind: Jennifer Weiner, a very successful author by any measure (her 2002 book, “In Her Shoes,” was made into a movie starring Cameron Diaz) recently wrote an embarrassingly long diatribe on Facebook blasting Oprah for not selecting her latest novel for her book club and the rapper the Game has posted obscene, selfies on Instagram that emphasize an enormous bulge in his underwear that may or may not be Photoshopped. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with either example — but they each clearly underline the ways that social media has stripped away our ability to tell what is O. K. to share and what is not. It’s not just that watching people vie for your attention can feel gross. It’s also that there’s a fine line between appearing savvy online and appearing desperate. In contrast, let’s look at Beyoncé for a moment. Unless televised live performances count, she has never a day in her life. She rarely gives interviews, so what we know is scraped from her presence — which isn’t much. I can tell you what outfit and hairstyle Beyoncé posted on social media last week, but I couldn’t tell you where in the world she was, what the inside of her house looks like or even which continent her primary residence is on. Her images tend not to be or even look as if they were taken with a cellphone. I couldn’t tell you who took the photos of her, because, unlike most celebrities, Beyoncé rarely posts selfies. I have no idea who comes to her pool parties, if she has a pool or has ever been to a pool party. I couldn’t guess what she wears to bed. And yet, when I speak about her, it’s as if we’ve been attached at the hip since birth. I feel, very intimately, that I know her. Beyoncé’s feed is the rice cake of celebrity feeds: low in caloric content but mystifyingly satisfying. Most people treat social media like the stage for their own reality show, but Beyoncé treats her public persona more like a Barbie — she offers up images and little more, allowing people to project their own ideas, fantasies and narratives about her life onto it. Take, for example, her response after a video leaked of her sister, Solange, attacking Beyoncé’s husband, Jay Z, in a hotel elevator. Rather than posting tweets explaining the whole thing, Beyoncé simply posted a series of photographs of herself and her sister having fun, quelling any rumors of a rift. This logic extends to her creative work too. Earlier this year, she spent an entire album, “Lemonade,” stoking rumors of marital strife with Jay Z. Lines like “You’re gonna lose your wife” seemed to confirm that her relationship was on the rocks. The release of that album felt cathartic, an answer to questions about her personal life that her fans had been obsessing over for months. But then, before the fervor over that album faded, news of another album leaked: this time, a duet album. With her husband. In a single calendar year, Beyoncé managed to reveal what seemed to be a lifetime’s worth of secrets and pain, without it being clear whether she had revealed anything at all. If anything, that only made people want more. Conventional wisdom casts Beyoncé as a control freak, and perhaps she is, but control isn’t such a bad thing. Lately, I’ve been thinking about her bifurcated self in the context of cyberfeminist theory. In the 1980s, academics believed that technology would introduce profound changes for humankind, especially women. Donna Haraway, emerita professor of the history of consciousness and feminist studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an inspiration for cyberfeminism, wrote that new technologies could liberate women from patriarchy and other oppressive systems. In the distant future, she believed, people could assume virtual bodies, allowing for “permanently partial identities” that could exist beyond gender, beyond reproach and without limits. The internet preserved many of the same biases and hierarchies Haraway so desperately hoped we could escape. And there are no true cyborgs yet. But social media has, in its own way, provided us a means of generating other selves. We just haven’t yet learned to set them free. Beyoncé has, in her own way. The Beyoncé we follow seems to live and breathe, and provokes a real emotional reaction. It’s an illusion that feels intimate and real, a hologram self for us to interact with that, in theory, provides the actual Beyoncé space to exist away from our prying eyes. This isn’t a strategy that works for only the incredibly rich and famous. I believe it’s a useful way of thinking about how we could all behave online. Why fret about oversharing, or undersharing, or to what extent our online selves are true to our ac tual self? We could instead use social media as a prism through which we can project only what we want others to see. We can save the rest for ourselves — our actual selves. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The team of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, now both senior federal government officials, has been alongside President Trump as the White House has hosted dozens of chief executives and a handful of world leaders in recent weeks. It is a rarefied crowd, one that has included the top executives of some of the world’s largest automobile, airline, chemical, pharmaceutical and tech companies. Mr. Kushner will continue to keep such select company now that he has helped create a new office that Mr. Trump is calling the White House Office of American Innovation. But the financial disclosure report released late Friday for Mr. Kushner, which shows that he and his wife still benefit financially from a real estate and investment empire worth as much as $740 million, makes clear that this most powerful Washington couple is walking on perilous legal and ethical ground, according to several prominent experts on the subject. Unlike Mr. Trump, who is exempt from conflict of interest laws, both Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump — who took a formal White House position this past week — are forbidden under federal criminal and civil law to take any action that might benefit their particular financial holdings. “Donald Trump can evade legal responsibility even if the conflicts of interest remain,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal nonprofit group. “His daughter and don’t have that escape hatch. ” Mr. Kushner did resign from more than 200 positions in the partnerships and limited liability companies that make up the real estate business. But the financial disclosure report shows that Mr. Kushner will remain a beneficiary of most of those same entities. Jamie Gorelick, who served as deputy attorney general at the Justice Department during the Clinton administration and is now advising Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump on government ethics issues, said that the couple could continue to hold on to so many of their assets because most of the value is tied up in buildings. “The real estate assets that Kushner is holding on to are unlikely to pose the kinds of conflicts that would trigger the need to divest,” Ms. Gorelick, a partner at WilmerHale, the law firm, said in a statement on Friday. “The remaining conflicts, from a practical perspective, are pretty narrow and very manageable. ” But real estate projects like the Kushner Companies’ deals have become a magnet for opaque foreign money — often from parts of the world that present thorny policy questions, such as China, where Mr. Kushner’s company has actively sought investors, as well as the Middle East and Russia. As part of his exceptionally broad portfolio in the White House, Mr. Kushner has been a crucial figure in arranging the visit of the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, on Thursday in Florida. The mystery behind many real estate investments involving foreigners prompted the Treasury Department last year to push for additional disclosures as a way to combat money laundering. While Mr. Kushner may face a potential ethical minefield, the disclosure form makes it difficult to determine exactly where those mines might be situated. The form, which runs 54 pages and lists hundreds of entities, reveals few details about the underlying investments that make up the Kushner empire, such as the addresses of buildings, sources of financing and names of partners. John Pudner, a conservative who has helped elect Tea Party candidates to Congress and now runs a nonprofit group called Take Back Our Republic, said that Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump, if they wanted to serve in the White House, would have been better off if they had taken the difficult step of liquidating their holdings. “A for the president’s family and everyone else is if there were no question anytime a decision is made that it’s being done for the good of the country,” he said. The actions by Mr. Kushner stand in contrast to the moves by some other top aides to Mr. Trump, such as Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, who before he was sworn in agreed to liquidate all of his stock holdings and his ownership stake in Exxon, putting his assets mostly into Treasury bonds and other permitted investments, such as diversified mutual funds, which make formal financial conflicts unlikely. Mr. Kushner, by contrast, continues to hold lines of credit from institutions such as Citigroup and Deutsche Bank, while companies he is still a beneficiary of have billions of dollars in additional loans from heavily regulated institutions. Richard W. Painter, who served as a White House ethics lawyer in the Bush administration, said that Mr. Kushner’s financial holdings would complicate any interactions he might have with such banks. “The one thing Jared really ought to stay completely away from is anything having to do with ” Mr. Painter said, referring to the 2010 law that increased capital reserve requirements and instituted many other regulatory changes that affected the nation’s banks. Mr. Trump has already said he hopes to roll back the law, with the help of Congress and his top aides. Several of the companies that are in business with Kushner Companies have faced scrutiny by federal law enforcement. Deutsche Bank, for example, reached a $7. 2 billion settlement last year with the Justice Department over its sale of toxic mortgage securities. Mr. Kushner, who frequently speaks with world leaders and is tasked with overseeing Middle East peace negotiations, also has an unsecured line of credit worth as much as $5 million from Israel Discount Bank. Kushner Companies has also taken out at least four loans from Bank Hapoalim, Israel’s largest bank, though they are not disclosed in the filing. That firm is the subject of a Justice Department investigation into whether it helped wealthy Americans evade taxes with undeclared accounts. Another potential conflict rests in Ms. Trump’s continued stake in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, a project that has drawn protests from ethics experts who worry that people representing special interests could stay there or host events there to gain influence with the White House, which is just a few blocks away. Ms. Trump has rolled her fashion brand into the Ivanka M. Trump Business Trust, which is overseen by her Josh Kushner, and Nicole Meyer. The documents released on Friday valued the trust at more than $50 million. Discussions about changes in federal tax law — a major agenda item for Mr. Trump that could affect issues such as depreciation on Mr. Kushner’s buildings and clothing imported for Ms. Trump’s brand — could also pose problems, or force them to recuse themselves from participating. “They are going to have to walk a fine line between matters they are involved with financially and the policies they are helping create and legislation they may be advocating,” said Scott H. Amey, general counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group. The federal ethics regulations formally prohibit federal employees from being involved in any “particular matter that will have a direct effect on a financial interest, if there is a close causal link between any decision or action to be taken in the matter and any expected effect of the matter on the financial interest. ” But Mr. Painter said that most administrations had interpreted the law more broadly, so that officials who own stakes in individual industries do not participate in even broad policy decisions affecting that sector, unless they seek a formal ethics waiver, as certain officials did during the first George Bush administration, given that they owned energy industry stocks and were participating in the decision to enter the war against Iraq over its invasion of Kuwait. Federal employees, under ethics rules that Mr. Trump imposed, are also prohibited, for at least two years after they arrive in the government, from working on particular matters that involve former employers or clients, even if these actions do not directly financially benefit the federal employee. The disclosures by Mr. Kushner and other White House officials released on Friday demonstrate just how complicated it is going to be to police these rules, given the vast and extremely complex financial assets not only within the Trump family but also among dozens of aides they have selected. The National Economic Council director, Gary Cohn, as well as the top White House aides Christopher P. Liddell and Reed Cordish, collectively reported assets with a maximum value of more than $1 billion. Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, reported assets worth as much as $53. 9 million. Even Mr. Bannon’s aide Julia Hahn, who is 25, reported investments worth between $1 million and $2. 1 million, according to a tally by The New York Times, while Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, had assets worth between $11 million and $44 million. Some of those financial holdings are already creating questions. Mr. Liddell, an assistant to the president and the director of strategic initiatives, has participated in White House meetings since January that involved several companies in which he continued at least through February to own stock in, including International Paper and General Motors. Mr. Bannon disclosed more than $500, 000 in income from entities linked to the hedge fund manager Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah Mercer, major Republican donors who were crucial figures in Mr. Bannon’s appointment as the Trump campaign’s chief executive last year. Mr. Bannon is selling off some of these assets, his financial disclosure report says, including shares in Cambridge Analytica, the political consulting firm, and Breitbart News, the website. But Mr. Bannon, even after joining the White House, has continued to interact with certain reporters at Breitbart, at times to express frustration with the site’s coverage of the White House or to discuss coverage, editors there have said. Even Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a former hedge fund manager, wrote a letter on Friday to the Office of Government Ethics saying he should not have made a supportive remark about a film, “The Lego Batman Movie,” that one of his companies helped produce. The comment was viewed by some as a commercial endorsement of the film. “The White House staff’s massive businesses are creating so many possible conflicts of interest it seems almost impossible for them to avoid running into trouble as they mix their former business interests with their new professional duties,” Mr. Bookbinder said. | 1 |
SAN FRANCISCO — In a major shift for online commerce, Amazon is quietly changing how it entices people to buy. The retailer built a reputation and hit $100 billion in annual revenue by offering deals. The first thing a potential customer saw was a bargain: how much an item was reduced from its list price. Now, in many cases, Amazon has dropped any mention of a list price. There is just one price. Take it or leave it. The new approach comes as discounts both online and offline have become the subject of dozens of consumer lawsuits for being much less than they seem. It is also occurring while Amazon is in the middle of an ambitious multiyear shift from a store selling one product at a time to a ecosystem. Amazon wants to be so deeply embedded in a customer’s life that buying happens as naturally as breathing, and nearly as often. “When Amazon began 21 years ago, the strategy was to lose on every sale but make it up on volume,” said Larry Compeau, a Clarkson University professor of consumer studies. “It was building for the future, and the future has arrived. Amazon doesn’t have to seduce customers with a deal because they’re going to buy anyway. ” Or so Amazon hopes. Digital stores live by Alec Baldwin’s maxim in “Glengarry Glen Ross”: “Always be closing. ” The retailer has been experimenting with another method of closing a sale. It tells the potential buyer what the price used to be on Amazon. For example, Amazon originally promoted the Rave Turbo Chute as being discounted by 36 percent. Then, all mention of a discount was dropped and the water slide was simply listed at $1, 573. 58, with an explanation that it used to be $1, 573. 59 — one penny more. Then, it dropped the price comparison. Then, it dropped the price to $1, 532. 01 and put the comparison back. “They still need to showcase deals, but the question is, How?” said Michael Kovarik, who runs a called Rout. That is why stores love big discounts: they work. In studies by Mr. Compeau and others, the perception of a deal is often what makes the purchase happen. “We’ve been conditioned to buy only when things are on sale,” said Bonnie Patten, executive director of TruthInAdvertising. org, a consumer information site. “As a result, what many retailers have done is make sure everything is always on sale. Which means nothing is ever on sale. ” Amazon has both benefited from that conditioning as well as encouraged it, which is most likely why it is changing cautiously. It began eliminating list prices about two months ago, pricing specialists say, both on products it sold itself and those sold by other merchants on its site. The retailer did not return multiple requests for comment. “Our data suggests that list prices are going away,” said Guru Hariharan, chief executive of Boomerang Commerce, a retail analytics firm. Last spring, Boomerang compiled a list for The New York Times of 100 pet food products that Amazon said it was selling at a discount to a list price. Only about half of them still say that. “Amazon is a company with very few sacred cows,” Mr. Hariharan said. “At the very least, it is conducting a storewide test about whether it should change its pricing strategy. ” With a majority of Amazon products, the presentation of a bargain used to be front and center. Take, for example, the Breville Infuser Espresso Machine. A few months ago, Amazon said this was an $800 machine that it was offering for $500, a discount of 38 percent. Two articles in The Times earlier this year on the problems with online list prices drew on a randomly assembled list of 47 discounted housewares, leisure and other products on Amazon, including the Breville Infuser. Over the Fourth of July weekend, the list price was gone for 39 of those products. The Infuser page, for instance, simply said what it would cost to buy at that moment, which was $483. Nineteen of the product pages tried to encourage a sale by pointing out that the price used to be higher on Amazon, although no time period was given. “Amazon is showing it can fix the problem if it wants to,” Ms. Patten said. The problem with list prices or, as they are sometimes called, manufacturers’ suggested retail prices, is that they are regularly more of a marketing concept than what anyone is actually charging. When Amazon was saying the list price of the Breville Infuser was $800, Breville itself was selling the machine for $500 — about the same as Amazon. Other retailers sell it for $500, too. Breville confirmed the price was $500. Bargains online and offline that are not real bargains are breeding legal action, much of it using a tough California law against deceptive advertising. New cases have been filed in the last few months against Macy’s, J. Crew, Gymboree, Ann Taylor, Ralph Lauren and the website Wines ’Til Sold Out, according to TruthInAdvertising. org. cases were filed in the first six months of 2016, nearly as many as the 25 in all of 2015. There have been at least 10 settlements. In April, a Los Angeles judge gave preliminary approval to a $6 million offer by Kohl’s Department Stores. That deal came on the heels of a $50 million preliminary settlement by J. C. Penney. Amazon itself was the target of a suit — an unexpected development, because all Amazon customers agree to go to arbitration instead of court. A judge dismissed the complaint but the plaintiffs are now appealing, saying the arbitration clause is “unconscionable” and should be invalidated. Amazon declined to comment on the suit. The shift away from list prices is taking some merchants on Amazon by surprise. A seller named Travis complained in an Amazon forum that the list price on his product — which he did not identify — had disappeared from the site. “I’m well aware that it is bogus but it is a common marketing tactic that works very well at boosting sales,” he wrote. Amazon also appears to have stepped up its monitoring of a vendor system that allowed some sellers to insert data that listed their products as 99 percent or even 100 percent off. Another Amazon seller who complained that his list prices were not showing up said he was told by the retailer that it was routinely checking list prices on other sites. Mr. Kovarik of Rout said his analysis indicated that Amazon was regularly eliminating more list prices. “In early May, about 29 percent of the products we saw were missing list prices, but now the number is up to about 70 percent,” he said. Amazon has always focused on driving revenue while disregarding profits. That had many implications: It was driven to try new things it could undercut any competitor who focused on price it could literally buy customer loyalty. In Amazon’s third decade, with its complete domination of the landscape, there are signs it is beginning to emphasize the value each customer brings. “They are trying to figure out what product categories have customers who are so tied into the Amazon ecosystem that list prices are no longer necessary,” Mr. Compeau, of Clarkson, said. In some categories, like groceries, Amazon seems to be using just one price, the price. If Amazon brings the milk and music into your house, not to mention videos and and the devices to consume them on, as well as a hot dinner and just about any other object you could want, that presents a pricing challenge of a different sort. Untangling what those deals are worth — as opposed to what they cost — is probably impossible. “Twenty years ago, we were hesitant to trust online companies with our credit card information,” Mr. Compeau observed. “Now we’re being asked to trust them completely. ” | 1 |
You are here: Home / *Articles of the Bound* / WARNING IOWA! List of Socialists running as Democrats WARNING IOWA! List of Socialists running as Democrats November 3, 2016, 12:26 pm by Guest Author Leave a Comment 0
By: Renee Nal | New Zeal Marxist birds of a feather…
IOWA, do not vote until you read this!
As revealed in Trevor Loudon’s film the Enemies Within , the democrat party has been compromised by subversive socialist groups, including labor unions, that seek to fundamentally transform America. While socialist Bernie Sanders did not win the democratic nomination for president, his surrogates are hard at work scheming to force as many socialists into office as possible.
See the below list of socialists who are posing as Democrats in Iowa.
Our Revolution, Brand New Congress (who has not yet announced their candidates) – and Berniecrats , a compilation of socialist candidates – are just a few of the socialist organizations focused on infusing local, state and federal government with socialists. Related to Iowa specifically, the local affiliates of the AFL-CIO and Americans for Democratic Action also endorse socialists running as democrats.
There are many other subversive organizations providing funding and other support to radical left-wing candidates, such as Emily’s List , Human Rights Campaign and Council for a Livable World .
Here is the list exclusively for Iowa, sorted by organization:* Tim Kacena , Iowa 14 State Representative
Berniecrats (socialist candidates endorsed by Bernie Sanders, or have endorsed Bernie Sanders): Mason McCoy , State Representative, IA, 3rd District Timothy Kacena , State Representative, IA, 14th District Gary Kroeger , State Representative, IA, 60th District Teresa Meyer , State Representative, IA, 63rd District Joe Stutler , County Auditor, IA, Linn Co. Jason T. Lewis , County Supervisor, IA, Johnson Co. Rod Sullivan , County Supervisor, IA, Johnson Co. Kurt Friese , County Supervisor, IA, Johnson Co. Chris Schwartz , County Supervisor, IA, Black Hawk Co. Monica Vernon , U.S. House, Iowa
*Note, many of these candidates are endorsed by – and receive funding and support by – multiple subversive organizations.
Read More: Gulag-wide Bulletins from Sovereignty Unbound We respect your privacy, time, and inbox. Track us Down @GulagBound Like the Gulag There are many important matters that Gulag Bound itself is not treating on a daily basis. For that reason we suggest The Globe & Malevolence and the sites shown under "Key Links in our Chains," below. Your Daily Intelligence Brief MattSkosh on Secret Service Agents Pay a Visit to Anti-Obama Artist Sabo Tags activism Agenda 21 anti-American revolution authoritarianism Barack Hussein Obama II candidate eligibility collectivists & propaganda communisty organizations corruption crisis strategy Democrat finance & banking fraud George Soros globalism - NWO global Marxist-fascist movement government domination of resources history illegal immigration Islam Islamism jihad jihadism Israel kleptocracy labor unions Marxism Marxofascism Marxstream media Military Mitt Romney Obamacare health control Occupy Wall Street race-baiting/racism Republican Right of Private Property Russia Sovereignty Tea Party terrorism U.S. Congress U.S. Constitution U.S. Presidency (POTUS) United Nations (UN) video violence voting youth & education Sabotage What good will it do, to protect the United States of America, or our presumed interests against the aggressiveness of China, Russia, or Islam, if, partially in fear of these threats, we lose our free and independent nation to the stealth imperialism of transnational and global governance? As America threatens to shatter, we must see how a semi-covert, global, cartel collective and their NWO in the USA ("progressive" neo-Marxists and neo-fascists corporatists, updated with 21st Century techniques and technology) intentionally perpetrate this sabotage, while we patriots try to prevent it. Have a look around our camp, as we struggle to survive. - your tour guide Archives Militarization in America About DHS militarization, see the new, breakthrough analysis from James Simpson, " Police Militarization, Abuses of Power, and the Road to Impeachment " and our earlier, "Marxist President’s Military Exercises in These U.S. Cities; Yours One?"
About the trajectory of this, we must pray, communicate, keep calm, and do not become the first to engage. If it comes to it, do not even respond in kind, until after the after the first times that extreme, anti-American violence is done by them. It calls for an attitude of self sacrifice -- first cheek, second cheek, then no more.
And speak out about the potential and strategic "sense" of the Obama/NWO's DHS carrying out false flag missions of violence, blaming it on American patriots, perhaps upon our militia movements.
We are in a real war, right now (of which others and I have been trying to alert fellow Sovereign Citizens for years) and the prime war is for the minds, hearts, and wills of the American People. We are opposed by an anti-American insurrection using any means of power (see Gramsci, Frankfurt School) including government power, as they are granted that opportunity. | 0 |
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Next weekend, President Donald Trump will complete his first 100 days in the White House, a benchmark for presidential performance ever since Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in the depths of the Great Depression. [Though there are several days left before the mark, it is already possible to evaluate President Trump’s performance, and to compare him to his predecessors. As I will argue in this column next week — with much news still to come before then — President Trump has had a remarkably active first 100 days. His major achievements have been in foreign policy and national security, where he has restored America’s military deterrent and reversed its international decline. He also appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, signed over a dozen laws repealing existing federal regulations, drastically reduced illegal immigration, and renewed economic confidence. In the face of unprecedented media opposition and Democratic “resistance,” Trump has endured some setbacks, notably the failure of the American Health Care Act, which was to have replaced Obamacare. But that effort will be revisited, along with tax reform, in the coming weeks. Absent major shocks, Trump has ample room to grow. The media disagree. CNN, among others, is declaring him a failure, claiming he has a “short list of accomplishments. ” Some historical context is in order. President Barack Obama did little of consequence in his first 100 days, aside from the $862 billion stimulus and a failed executive order to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay. Yet the mainstream media were effusive in their praise, with Jonathan Alter of Newsweek trumpeting the White House line: “Barack Obama has put more points on the board than any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. ” Only Lyndon Johnson did more, he claimed. The media are often biased to favor Democratic presidents in this way, not only because of their political preference for Democrats, but also because of their ideological predilection for the idea of government “doing” something — putting “points on the board,” in Alter’s words, even if those “points” turn out to be useless or harmful. As such, Trump will never be given the same credit for repealing regulations that Obama was given for introducing them, for example. Until Trump, only Johnson and Ronald Reagan were considered effective in their first 100 days. As scholar William Lasser wrote in 2001, anticipating an embattled presidency for George W. Bush after the grueling Florida recount: Few of Roosevelt’s successors have been even moderately successful during their early days in office, at least in terms of legislative accomplishments. Harry Truman, who took office after Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, spent his first four months in office presiding over the last days of World War a time to work with Congress on new legislation. Dwight D. Eisenhower initially focused on his campaign promise to end the war in Korea, and, despite having a Congress, expended little effort on legislative matters. John Kennedy likewise focused on foreign policy, and had little real success on the domestic side. Nor were Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George [H. W.] Bush, or Bill Clinton spectacularly successful in their first few months in office. Inexperience and disarray have also made several past presidents susceptible to rookie mistakes during the first 100 days. Jack Kennedy authorized the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, for example, in April 1961. Bill Clinton’s early mistakes doomed his health care plan, while Jimmy Carter’s missteps greatly damaged his relationship with Congress and the federal bureaucracy. The exceptions to the rule of ineffectiveness might be Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan. Johnson capitalized on his own legislative experience and the national trauma following the assassination of Jack Kennedy to push through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and a major antipoverty measure. Then he built on his landslide reelection victory in November 1964 to win approval of the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, and a massive increase in federal aid to education. Reagan, who took office amidst high unemployment and high inflation and after a hostage crisis in Iran, likewise acted quickly in 1981 to win congressional victories on tax and spending cuts (along with increases in military expenditures). Trump has not passed major legislation in his first 100 days — but neither did Obama. Obamacare and would not be passed until 2010. Arguably, the most important thing that happened in Obama’s first 100 days was that the stock market hit rock bottom. Shortly after Obama’s first 100 days, the Federal Reserve released optimistic results from its “stress tests” of U. S. banks, which helped the economic recovery — though it was the slowest since WWII. Trump’s first 100 days have been far more consequential. His approval ratings are low by historical standards — thanks largely to hostile media — and he may yet struggle to pass his legislative agenda. Like Obama, Trump has energized his opponents. His own supporters worry he will stray from his promises. And Congress (unexpectedly) and the courts (predictably) have frustrated him. Yet measured against his predecessors, Trump’s first 100 days place him in league with Reagan and Johnson, for sheer impact. 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, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
The White House statement on “DeepStateGate” — President Donald Trump’s allegations that former President Barack Obama ordered surveillance on him during his 2016 presidential campaign — has the feel of cards and chips thumping down on the table:[White House calls for probe into whether Obama abused executive powers in 2016 https: . pic. twitter. — NBC News (@NBCNews) March 5, 2017, The White House is placing a substantial bet on what Congress will uncover. Don’t expect those cards to be dealt swiftly because such investigations take time. The Obama administration was highly adept at stalling investigations until the Democratic media could pronounce them “old news” and ignore the outcome. The Trump administration can distinguish itself by cooperating energetically with this one and helping it move forward quickly. Rest assured that no matter how long it takes, the media will never consider it “old news” as long as there remains any chance for anyone connected with the Trump 2016 campaign to get in trouble over contacts with the Russians. It’s possible one reason Trump issued his explosive tweets on surveillance was to make everyone put up or shut up. That might already be working, as some of the more aggressive dealers in unsubstantiated innuendo are suddenly admitting they don’t have any actual evidence. There can’t be any hard evidence if Trump is wrong about Obama administration surveillance: Chris Coons walkback: “I have no hard evidence of collusion” between Trump world and Russians https: . — Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) March 5, 2017, Until now, Democrats and their media have been pleased to create the impression that all kinds of wiretapping operations were conducted against the Trump campaign, uncovering many scandalous, possibly illegal connections. Only by reading those articles carefully does one discover the sources are highly speculative and the evidence is thin at best. The New York Times piece from January 19 is a perfect example of this. It begins by confirming the existence of the wiretaps everyone in Obamaworld is now swearing are a figment of Donald Trump’s imagination. Mountains of innuendo about connections between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence have been spun out of what these abruptly intercepts contained, according to the anonymous leakers who currently drive almost 100 percent of mainstream media coverage. But if you read that New York Times article carefully, it admits the communications intercepts may not exist, and if they do, no one can confirm what they actually say (emphasis added): American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former senior American officials said. The continuing counterintelligence investigation means that Mr. Trump will take the oath of office on Friday with his associates under investigation and after the intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government had worked to help elect him. As president, Mr. Trump will oversee those agencies and have the authority to redirect or stop at least some of these efforts. It is not clear whether the intercepted communications had anything to do with Mr. Trump’s campaign, or Mr. Trump himself. It is also unclear whether the inquiry has anything to do with an investigation into the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s computers and other attempts to disrupt the elections in November. The American government has concluded that the Russian government was responsible for a broad computer hacking campaign, including the operation against the D. N. C. Whatever President Trump’s intentions were in using Twitter to touch off this firestorm, one of the immediate effects has been letting the gas out of all those speculative Trump stories. The Democratic media is now furiously working to prove all of its own previous coverage of the allegations was little more than idle speculation, every bit as lacking in hard evidence as Trump’s accusation that Obama was tapping his phones. After months of unfounded allegations and badly sourced speculation intended to cripple his administration, maybe Trump wanted to prove that only one side of the partisan divide is permitted to make “wild allegations. ” Obama’s plants in the Deep State can leak whatever they please, law and truth be damned. They can get an avalanche of hostile coverage moving with a few phone calls or emails. The media feels no contrition when the story turns out to be exaggerated or completely false, eagerly turning to the same Obama holdovers as sources for the next big phony scoop. No one on Trump’s team, including the president himself, is allowed to reciprocate in kind. We are meant to feel bottomless outrage that Trump would level unsubstantiated allegations against Obama, but apparently, Obama’s minions can launch a constant barrage of unsubstantiated allegations against Trump. Intentionally or accidentally, Trump just forced the press to admit how weak the bulk of those allegations were. The wiretapping timeline that has drawn so much attention since Saturday night was largely based on mainstream media reporting. The media is effectively saying, “Hey, wait, we were just blowing smoke. We didn’t think anyone would take those reports seriously and build a case that Obama was wiretapping Trump. We just wanted to make Trump look bad by pumping up vague rumors that he and his campaign might have been under observation!” Amazingly, the same media that just went through 48 hours of convulsions over a bogus “perjury” charge against Attorney General Jeff Sessions is happy to cite an actual, admitted perjurer, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, as an unimpeachable source on the exact issue he lied about to Congress. They also expect the American people to trust former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes, who openly bragged of his ability to mislead credulous reporters and construct phony narratives to sell the Iran nuclear deal. The Obama administration’s enthusiasm for surveillance and using government power against its political enemies is a matter of shameful record. The “Resistance” mindset among Democrats is painfully obvious. If they are running a “silent coup” against Trump, it’s the loudest silent coup in history. You can scarcely sleep at night over the racket this silent coup makes. Sorry, DNC Media, no sale. In the absence of hard evidence one way or the other, Team Obama is not going to win a credibility shootout with Team Trump. One of the best and most observers of the wiretapping drama is Andy McCarthy, who writes for the decidedly National Review. McCarthy’s Sunday post on the matter is well worth reading in full. His key point is that some highly unusual FISA requests for surveillance on the Trump campaign were made and were denied by the court, as very few such requests are. The Obama administration was persistent and eventually obtained the authorization it wanted, but there is reason to suspect it was not entirely candid with the FISA court on its final, successful request. McCarthy points out that if Obama believed half of what the Democrats tout as sacred truth about the Russians working with Trump’s campaign, he would have been negligent not to authorize the kind of surveillance Trump is angry about, and there is “a less than zero chance” surveillance could have been imposed “without consultation between the Justice Department and the White House. ” Robert Barnes at LawNewz also explores the idea of the FISA court approving a warrant that was submitted without Trump’s name but “which Obama then misused to spy on Trump and many connected to Trump. ” He suggests the most serious legal jeopardy that might be facing the people involved in such an effort would be perjury for lying to the FISA court and the dissemination of collected intelligence that should have been kept tightly classified. Instead, he cites reports that Obama acted to reduce the restrictions on sharing this information and to preserve material that should have been destroyed. What McCarthy and Barnes are describing is plausible and consistent with the behavior of the Obama administration over many years. That doesn’t mean it’s automatically true, but it should be investigated, every bit as thoroughly as Russian activity in the 2016 election cycle. Trump’s weekend tweets may have finally put an end to speculative reporting, strategic leaking, and innuendo. Perhaps the only way to end that game was for Trump to deal himself in. | 1 |
Friday in Washington, D. C. at the Partnership for a Healthier American 2017 Healthier Future Summit, former first lady Michelle Obama blasted “partisan” critics of her 2010 “Let’s Move!” program to combat childhood obesity, which included regulations on school lunch programs. [Obama said, “So we have a lot more work to do for sure but we got to make sure we don’t let anybody take us back. Because the question is where are we going back to? I mean this is where you really have to look at motives. You have to stop and think, why don’t you want our kids to have good food at school? “What is wrong with you? And why is that a partisan issue? Why would that be political? What is going on? Now that is up to moms. I’m talking to moms, think about this, take me out of the equation, like me, don’t like me, but think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap? Why would you celebrate that? Why would you sit idly and be okay with that? ” ‘Cause here’s the secret, If somebody is doing that, they don’t care about your kids. And we need to demand everyone to care deeply about our kids. ” ( NTK) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN, | 1 |
SALT LAKE CITY — Donald J. Trump has vowed to turn blue states red in November, but as he continues to rattle Republicans with his combative style and provocative proposals, voters in some of the country’s most conservative strongholds are considering a radical idea: supporting Hillary Clinton. The dilemma posed by this year’s choice of candidates is perhaps most apparent here in Utah, a mountain state that has not backed a Democrat for president since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. More than 50 years later, a large Mormon population with a strong distaste for Mr. Trump has left the state up for grabs, and with a substantial Mormon presence spilling into places such as Arizona, Idaho and Nevada, what would normally be a Republican safe zone could be surprisingly competitive. With the Clinton campaign looking to put states in play, the decision for many Mormon voters in Utah has become agonizing as they digest Mr. Trump’s stances toward Muslims in light of their own history as an religion, and as his “America First” message repels Mormons who travel the world on missions and who welcome refugees. “People who normally vote Republican are in a terrible state of ambivalence right now,” said Tim Chambless, a political scientist at the University of Utah. “They are so undecided. They want to vote, but they aren’t sure how to vote. ” The first signs of Mr. Trump’s troubles in Utah date to early March, when Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee and a Mormon who is beloved in the state, gave a speech here warning that Americans were being duped by Mr. Trump. Later that month, Mr. Trump was throttled by Senator Ted Cruz in the state’s caucuses, winning a paltry 14 percent of the vote. In June, two polls showed Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton deadlocked in Utah, making it increasingly plausible that its six electoral votes are really in play. With three months until the election, the Clinton campaign is now considering a possible upset in Utah, the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is aggressively wooing disenchanted Republicans, and on Monday word came that Evan McMullin, a Mormon who is a former C. I. A. official opposed to Mr. Trump, was entering the race. Voters such as Angie Melton, who has never voted for a Democrat, are feeling deeply torn. “I’m upset by this turn of events,” Ms. Melton, 41, said as she sat in the shade with her family next to the towering Salt Lake Temple, the center of Mormonism. “I’ve always voted Republican, but my thought has been that she would be less damaging in terms of world politics,” she said, referring to Mrs. Clinton. “It doesn’t mean that I agree with much of anything she says or her as a person,” Ms. Melton added, “but I would rather that she win. ” Such is common as trepidations about Mr. Trump grow. On substance and style, he evokes an antipathy among many Mormons that is rooted in culture, religion and history. For a religious group that was driven to Utah during the 19th century in the face of persecution, Mr. Trump’s calls for religious tests and a ban on Muslim migration echo a painful past, leaving some wondering if they will be next. “The issue of religious liberty is an important one in the state, and the notion of a religious test for immigration raises deep concerns,” said Chris Karpowitz, a director of Brigham Young University’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. “Mormons are sensitive to issues like this because of their own history. ” Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Saints in upstate New York in 1830. Converts, however, were often targeted as heretics for practicing polygamy, believing in scriptures exclusive to Mormonism and saying that their faith was the true restoration of Christianity. Most Mormons were Democrats in the 19th century, Professor Karpowitz notes, because of Republican opposition to polygamy, but they started to move to the right in the 20th century. By the time the 2012 presidential election came around, with Mr. Romney as the candidate, 90 percent of Utah’s Mormons voted Republican. That number is expected to drop significantly this year with Mr. Trump atop the ticket. His shifting positions on social issues, his views on immigration and his flashy lifestyle clash with Mormon sensibilities that prize humility and charity. And there is his stance against taking in refugees from abroad. “His rhetoric and the church’s rhetoric on refugees could not be more different,” said J. Quin Monson, an author of “Seeking the Promised Land: Mormons and American Politics. ” Mr. Trump’s ascendance has also divided Utah’s lawmakers, with some reluctantly saying they will support the nominee and others showing resistance. Among the holdouts is Senator Mike Lee, a Mormon whose opposition to Mr. Trump stalled in a floor fight at the Republican convention last month. He articulated in a June interview why the candidate was unpopular, pointing to statements that he said reflected religious intolerance. “My state consists of members who were a religious minority church — a people who were ordered exterminated by the governor of Missouri in 1839, and statements like that make them nervous,” Mr. Lee said. Facing a tough fight against a Democrat, Representative Mia Love, a rising Republican star, skipped the party’s convention in Cleveland and gave up her role as a delegate. She has not said if she will vote for Mr. Trump. There have even been some defections. Mark Madsen, a Republican state senator who did attend the convention as a delegate, abandoned the party in frustration in late July and became a Libertarian. Mr. Madsen, who is Mormon, said he thought he was being into supporting Mr. Trump. “It’s hard to figure out where he is on issues because he’s all over the place,” Mr. Madsen said. “I think he’s frankly boorish and banal. ” Sensing opportunity in the air, Mr. Trump’s opponents are watching Utah closely. The state has a strong libertarian streak, and Mr. Johnson, whose campaign headquarters is in Salt Lake City, has been returning regularly in hopes that he can capitalize on dissatisfaction with Mr. Trump. That he was governor in nearby New Mexico could help his cause, although if he siphons votes away from Mr. Trump, it could benefit Mrs. Clinton. Democrats are also taking Utah seriously. While they realize that their improved chances in the state are not because their nominee has suddenly surged in popularity, the party would be happy to break its losing streak. “This is the first time since the that a Democratic presidential candidate could win in Utah,” said Peter Corroon, the party’s chairman in the state. “Unfortunately, it’s not because of the Democrat, it’s because of the Republican. ” Nonetheless, the Clinton campaign has staff on the ground in Utah, and it is dispatching former President Bill Clinton to the state for a event this week. The campaign would not say if Mrs. Clinton would make a trip of her own, but the possibility remains. “There is no doubt that Donald Trump’s offensive rhetoric has made Utah more competitive than before, and we will continue to assess our options in the state,” said Marlon Marshall, the Clinton campaign’s director of state campaigns and political engagement. Young Republican Mormons such as Mary Weidman give Democrats hope. Sitting outside a soda shop in Provo, Ms. Weidman explained that after supporting Mr. Romney four years ago, she would vote for Mrs. Clinton in November. “I think it’s the lesser of two evils,” Ms. Weidman, 27, said, expressing dismay over how Mr. Trump talks about women. “When you think of a leader, he lacks every trait. ” Despite such sentiments, it is risky to count Republicans out. While the Trump campaign had no comment about its strategy, the state Republican Party said that Mr. Trump’s team was up and running in Utah. Longtime conservatives who say they are thinking about voting for Mrs. Clinton could have second thoughts on Election Day. “Republicans at this point are a little unhappy with Trump, but they’re going to vote for him,” said James Evans, the chairman of the state party. That appeared to be the case for Nathan Alder, a Republican Mormon who goes to Utah Valley University in Orem. “I don’t like Trump, but I probably will vote for him,” Mr. Alder said, explaining that his worries about what he considers Mrs. Clinton’s liberal views narrowly outweighed his fears about Mr. Trump’s temperament. “I am pretty torn. I’m not going to lie. ” | 1 |
Mindblowing Reason Elites Fear Donald Trump | 0 |
posted by Eddie Startled residents in the Austrian cities of Graz and Vienna were so spooked by an apparent UFO hovering in the skies, they called the police. Footage was uploaded on social media showing the bright object flying through the skies and while many people were skeptical of the sightings, others thought an alien invasion was imminent. In one clip, an object can be seen flying through the sky as bystanders stand in shock.
This isn’t the first time a flying object has created such hype in Austria. During the 2016 New Year festivities, another UFO was spotted reportedly being hit by lightning in Lower Austria. For now, though, “the truth is out there.” From Around the Web Founder of WorldTruth.Tv and WomansVibe.com Eddie ( 8922 Posts )
Eddie L. is the founder and owner of WorldTruth.TV. and Womansvibe.com. Both website are dedicated to educating and informing people with articles on powerful and concealed information from around the world. I have spent the last 36+ years researching Bible, History, Alternative Health, Secret Societies, Symbolism and many other topics that are not reported by mainstream media. | 0 |
I hope nobody got hurt! | 0 |
He called the family “dirty Arabs” and tried to run over the mother with a car, the authorities said. An Oklahoma man’s animosity toward the family living next door, according to court records, took a fatal turn this month when he shot one of the sons on the porch of their house in Tulsa. The man, Vernon Majors, 61, was charged Tuesday with murder in the killing of his neighbor, Khalid Jabara, 37, on Aug. 12, according to a statement by the district attorney, Steve Kunzweiler. Mr. Majors, who had recently been released on bond after being suspected of hitting Mr. Jabara’s mother with a car, was also charged with possession of a firearm by a felon, threatening an act of violence and malicious intimidation or harassment — the last count a misdemeanor reflecting the years of racism and violence that the authorities say has pervaded the stretch of grass connecting their yards. Rebecca a friend who is serving as a spokeswoman for the Jabara family, said Mr. Jabara’s death had devastated the Lebanese community in Tulsa. “From a larger community’s perspective, what they see is a man shot and killed by a man who called them ‘dirty Arab,’” Ms. said in a telephone interview. “There is no nuance. When people are using ethnic and racial slurs, this isn’t just people being sensitive about it, but that they should be taken seriously. ” Marvin Lizama, Mr. Majors’s lawyer for the earlier case, said in an email on Tuesday that he had no comment on the new charges. St. Antony Orthodox Christian Church, where Mr. Jabara’s funeral was held last Thursday, posted a smiling photograph of him on its website, mourning the “tragedy” of his killing. “Those of us at St. Antony will always remember the young man who grew up in our parish,” the announcement said. “Khalid had a huge heart. ” The Committee said that Mr. Jabara was clearly targeted because of his ethnicity. “The unfortunate murder of Jabara is a reflection of the impact and power of hateful rhetoric in politics and the society at large,” the group said, adding that allowing such to continue “will lead to additional hate crimes against minority and immigrant communities. ” News of Mr. Jabara’s death found a home on social media with the trending #justice4khalid, where it was given broader context within the national discussion on race and violence. Nearly 3. 6 million Americans trace their roots to an Arab country, many with ancestral ties to Lebanon, according to the Arab American Institute. While Oklahoma is not among the states with large populations, it does have a community in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Ms. a lawyer and former employee of the institute, said. Like others in Tulsa, the Jabara family, who are Orthodox Christians, can trace their roots back to a village in southern Lebanon called Marjayoun, which families fled to escape war. Mr. Jabara’s parents moved with Khalid and his older sister Victoria in 1983 and settled in the United States, where his younger brother Rami was born, Ms. said. While his siblings have moved away, Mr. Jabara had stayed to help with his parents’ catering business and medical care. “Khalid’s heart was big,” his sister Victoria Jabara Williams said in a Facebook post. “He cared for our entire family, our friends and people he didn’t even know. ” Mr. Majors, also known as Stanley Vernon Majors, moved next door to the Jabara family in 2011, Ms. said. While it was not immediately clear when the troubles started, family and court records document a history of animosity and of calls to the police to report racial slurs, harassment and threats by Mr. Majors. In 2013, Mr. Jabara’s mother, Haifa, took out a protective order against Mr. Majors, which court records show that he violated. In September 2015, Mr. Majors rammed Ms. Jabara with his car, and he was charged with assault and battery, according to the documents. Ms. Jabara had broken bones and a collapsed lung, the family said. In May 2016, the district attorney’s office tried to keep Mr. Majors in jail to await trial, citing his “wanton disregard for the life of the victim and the safety of the public. ” Mr. Majors, however, was able to make bail and was released. According to the police and Ms. Mr. Jabara was home with his father on Aug. 12 when he called the police out of fear of Mr. Majors. Officer Leland Ashley said the police received a call from the Jabara house saying that Mr. Majors had banged on a window. Ms. Williams said her brother had called the police to report that Mr. Majors had a gun. The police responded but left without taking any action. Then, just before 7 p. m. Officer Ashley said, a neighbor reported that there had been a shooting. Mr. Jabara was taken to the hospital, where he died of his wounds. Mr. Majors was arrested, hiding near a library, about 11 p. m. the officer said. Mr. Kunzweiler, the district attorney, said in an emailed statement before announcing the charges that the family “did everything they were supposed to do and the system failed them. ” Ms. Williams said her family had lived “in fear of this man and his hatred for years. ” “He should not have been released without monitoring,” she wrote. “Yet he was released and put back next door to us, the family he assaulted just months before. This is troubling at any time, but profoundly disturbing given the current climate of our country and the increase nationally in cases of hate crimes. ” | 1 |
Region: Europe Following in the wake of the White House policy, European poli tical elites have been stepping up their groundless propagandistic rhetoric about the growing military threat of Russia, Iran, China, which is aimed at achieving further militarization of Europe at the expense of t he social benefits of its citizens. In his recent speech at an event hosted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, NATO ‘s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that he expects a 3% real increase in defence spending in Europe and Canada, however, he added, other than the US , only four NATO members are currently spending 2% of GDP on defence . Against the background of a string of upcoming election campaigns in the EU, it’s really not that hard to predict how Europeans are going to take the announcement that their governments are planning to increase their military budgets. The most likely scenario is that a number of EU states will vote for their own version of Trumpxit, which means that an outsider candidate will have more chances that those from the ruling elites. As the living conditions of an ever increasing number of Europeans continue to deteriorate, it’s highly unlikely that EU citizens are going to tolerate new military expenditures . The data provided by the Eurostat shows that i n 2015, around 25 million children, or 26.9% of the population aged 0 to 17, in the European Union were at risk of poverty or social exclusion. A total of six member states saw a third of all children being at risk of poverty or social exclusion, these are Romania (46.8%), Bulgaria (43.7%), Greece (37.8%), Hungary (36.1%), Spain (34.4%) and Italy (33.5%). According to the Guardian, having a child while living in a rental accommodation has become unaffordable for young families in two - thirds of the UK. The most inaccessible place for those wanting to start a family was London, with a two-bedroom rental there costing 60% of the average income for someone in their 20 s and 44% for someone in their 30 s . This was followed by the south-east, south-west and the east. At the same time, the number of families with children living in emergency accommodations in England rose by 45% in the last 12 months, reaching the highest level in 12 years . In turn, the Fabian Society says the Tory’s social cuts will increase the number of kids living in poverty by 75% over the next 15 years in the UK, the Daily Mirror notes. Moreover, Berlin has already announced that social disparity will be steadily growing throughout the upcoming decade in Germany. The Finish Yle notes that the number of children living in poor families has tripled over the last two decades. What is striking is that even those families where both parents are employed full time are unable to earn an adequate revenue. Ever since 2008, the deepening social crisis in the EU has been making local citizens feeling increasingly frustrated with their elected officials. At the same time, local political elites are reluctant to address the most pressing problems of their population, instead they prefer to increase military spendings and cut social benefits provided to the poor. The chain of events, namely the Brexit and the Trumpxit shows the growing frustration of the hard-working people that are still unable to provide decent childhood for their children. And it doesn’t take a genius to know that the ruling elites are going to face a bitter electoral defeat in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Austria. There’s really no way they can win. Jean P é rier is an independent researcher and analyst and a renowned expert on the Near and Middle East , exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” Popular Articles | 0 |
By Lorraine Chow
Earth’s abundant inner heat, or geothermal energy, has incredible potential as a renewable energy source. For traditional geothermal projects, hot rocks produce steam for turbines. Over in Iceland, however, a consortium of researchers and companies want to dig much, much deeper into Earth’s crust in order to explore the renewable energy potential of molten magma.
The Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) is drilling a 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) hole into old lava flows in the Reykjanes, a region in southwest Iceland filled with geothermal sites. Once drilling is complete by the end of 2016, the Nordic nation will be home to the hottest hole in the world with temperatures between 400 and 1,000 degrees Celsius (or 752-1,832 degrees Fahrenheit), according to New Scientist .
This effort is being led by Icelandic energy companies such as Hitaveita Sudurnesja, Landsvirkjun and Orkuveita Reykjavíkur, as well as the National Energy Authority of Iceland.
Since Aug. 12, the IDDP’s rig—actually named “Thor” —has been drilling deep into a landward extension of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an underwater mountain range that extends above sea level through the center of Iceland.
“People have drilled into hard rock at this depth, but never before into a fluid system like this,” Albert Albertsson, assistant director of a geothermal energy company involved in the project, explained to New Scientist.
At this depth, seawater that has penetrated the ocean bed has not only been superheated by magma, it’s also highly pressurized (more than 200 times atmospheric air pressure). The team expects to find water in the form of “ supercritical steam ,” aka “ dragon water ,” which is neither liquid nor steam but holds more heat energy than both.
Can ‘Dragon Water’ Power the Planet With Renewable Energy? https://t.co/P4wmMRVk61 @RenewablesNews @Good_Energy
— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) November 6, 2015
Albertsson said that a well capable of harnessing this steam has an energy capacity of 50 megawatts, about 10 times more than a conventional geothermal well. Theoretically, IDDP’s new well could power 50,000 homes compared to the 5,000 homes powered by a single geothermal well.
“If they can get supercritical steam in deep boreholes, that will make an order of magnitude difference to the amount of geothermal energy the wells can produce,” Arnar Guðmundsson from Invest in Iceland, a government agency that promotes energy development, told New Scientist.
If this project this sounds a little dicey, as Motherboard explained, this isn’t the first time IDDP has tapped into Icelandic lava power:
“In 2009, an IDDP rig located in Krafla, northeast Iceland, accidentally struck a magma reservoir just over a mile underground. Excited about the prospects of new geothermal energy, the project partnered with Iceland’s National Power Company, and installed a perforated steel casing at the bottom of the well. This successfully allowed the flow of magma to create superheated, extremely pressurized steam at temperatures exceeding 800°F—at the time, a world record for geothermal heat.
“Power created by the Krafla borehole was never fed back into the grid, and the project was shuttered in 2012 after a critical valve needed repairing.”
“In the future, the success of this drilling and research project could lead to a revolution in the energy efficiency of high-temperature geothermal areas worldwide,” said Wilfred Elders, a professor emeritus of geology at the University of California, Riverside who was involved in an earlier IDDP project.
According to DeSmogBlog , New Zealand, Indonesia, the Philippines, the U.S. and Mexico already have commercial geothermal plants.
Iceland, known for its numerous bubbling hot springs and geysers, already heats up to 90 percent of its homes and supplies about a third of its electricity with geothermal.
Lorraine Chow is a reporter for EcoWatch. She tweets @lorrainelchow
Source: EcoWatch
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Interesting juxtaposition of the week: The AE show “Duck Dynasty” announces that the current season will be its last, and Paul Horner, who creates fake news stories on the internet, tells The Washington Post: “My sites were picked up by Trump supporters all the time. I think Trump is in the White House because of me. ” “Duck Dynasty,” the reality show about the Robertson family of Louisiana and its business, became a spectacular hit for AE after its debut in March 2012, then a spectacular headache in late 2013 when Phil Robertson, the patriarch, made remarks in a GQ interview that were widely seen as offensive to gay people. At that point the show was averaging nine million viewers a week, an amazing number for a reality series, but the controversy cost it cachet among some viewers, and ratings have fallen considerably since. Overexposure no doubt also played a role in the show’s decline. Members of the clan became celebrities and started turning up all over the place, and the producers churned out too many episodes too quickly. Even viewers who still loved the Robertsons and their homespun antics may have been tiring of the whole premise. During Wednesday night’s Season 11 premiere, the family announced that the series would end with the finale in April. Don’t bother making a joke about the Robertsons shelving the series so they could join Donald J. Trump’s administration — social media was flooded with them by Thursday morning. Sure, that could happen — there are certainly enough Robertsons to fill every cabinet post, and Willie Robertson, the show’s central figure, was a supporter of Mr. Trump — but this is more likely just an example of a TV show that has run out of gas. Not without leaving a legacy, however. The series helped solidify the idea that distinguishing between real and fake, truth and fabrication, isn’t really important. I spent a day with the Robertsons in West Monroe, La. in the summer of 2012, between the show’s first and second seasons. The series was still building momentum, but even at that early stage, the Robertsons readily acknowledged that their “reality show” wasn’t real at all. That’s hardly rare — most reality shows are staged or at least steered toward a preplanned result, of course. But the Robertsons were unusual in that they freely admitted it. “Guided reality” is the phrase they used. The episodes didn’t simply follow the Robertsons around in their daily lives the producers would often sketch out the parameters of a situation and have the family live it. What made the show work so well was that the Robertsons, fitting the Eastern elite’s image of hicks, were in fact savvy media manipulators, excellent improvisers and telegenic as heck. And they seemed to intuit that although many of the show’s episodes were obvious setups, no one would care. “Duck Dynasty” sensed that viewers would happily embrace the reality that they wanted, even if it was a manipulated or outright invented version of reality. And now, in 2016, we have seen this flexible definition of what’s real carry into the political arena. As Mr. Horner noted, fabricated news articles streamed into receptive minds through Facebook feeds and such were a worrisome phenomenon in the presidential election, and they continue to be. “The era,” it’s being called. (Earlier this week, “ ” was named Oxford Dictionaries’ 2016 international word of the year.) Politicians have only recently figured out how to exploit it. The Robertsons and other dynasties have been doing it for years. | 1 |
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Donald J. Trump would not be Silicon Valley’s first choice as president. Or its second. Or maybe even its third. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee wants to restrict immigration while bringing back manufacturing. He compulsively uses tech products like Twitter but is not in awe of the people who built them. He made his fortune the way, by going into the family business, in the industry of real estate. He’s not the valley’s kind of entrepreneur. Worst of all, Mr. Trump is revealing Silicon Valley’s vulnerability. In recent years, technology companies have extended their enormous reach while becoming ever wealthier and more powerful. Yet Mr. Trump has paid no political price for attacking them, with broadsides in recent months against Jeff Bezos at Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and Timothy D. Cook at Apple. “There is some surprise among tech executives — or perhaps just naïveté — that the tech mainstream is now a target,” said Garrett Johnson, an entrepreneur and one of the founders of the Lincoln Initiative, which connects tech workers. For all these reasons, support for Mr. Trump here is minimal. Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech maverick who backed Ron Paul’s presidential bid in 2008 with millions of dollars in support, is a Trump delegate. Mr. Thiel, who was revealed last week as a secret backer of the wrestler Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker Media, is the candidate’s first, and so far only, prominent enlistee in Silicon Valley. Support for Mr. Trump here may deepen. Brian Krzanich, the chief executive of Intel, was planning to hold a for Mr. Trump on Thursday night at his Atherton, Calif. house that included “a full exchange of views,” an Intel spokeswoman said on Tuesday. Hours later, Intel said the event was canceled. It did not give an explanation. A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump did not return a message for comment. He is holding a rally in San Jose, Calif. on Thursday instead. The Trump campaign just opened an office in Burlingame, Calif. south of San Francisco and on the northern fringes of Silicon Valley. One recent afternoon, two volunteers were running a phone bank. Trump lawn signs were piled up, as were . Mr. Trump has no meaningful opposition in the California primary on June 7. “I have great respect for Silicon Valley and all of the people in Silicon Valley,” the candidate said in an email message through an aide. Silicon Valley technophiles cannot necessarily claim the same. In April, as Mr. Trump was wrapping up his quest for the nomination and beginning to look ahead to the general election, a handful of people who work in tech around the country gave a grand total of $5, 395 to his campaign, according to figures that will be released Thursday by Crowdpac, a that tracks donations. Add that paltry sum to the $16, 420 that Mr. Trump raised since last summer from people who work in tech and it is still nowhere near enough to cover the cost of a year at Stanford. Hillary Clinton has raised $2. 7 million from tech donors since beginning her campaign, while Bernie Sanders has raised $6 million, according to new Crowdpac research. Mr. Trump was largely his campaign. Now, however, he requires cash — and lots of it. “Out of the millions of people who work in technology, from engineers to Uber drivers, just 52 have given to Trump. He’ll need many more if he truly intends to build a finance organization,” said Mason Harrison, a Crowdpac spokesman. “Mitt Romney raised over $8 million from the technology sector in 2012. That’s a lot of money to leave on the table. ” Whether those tech backers are out there, however, is an unsettled question. Scott Slinker, a entrepreneur in San Jose, Calif. gave the candidate $250 last summer. “I know Trump’s supporters are here,” he said. “They’re just not vocal. They don’t want to be stereotyped and pigeonholed and labeled. ” In at least some cases, this is correct. One employee at a software firm declined to speak on the record, saying it would be a bad career move for a Google search of his name to turn up any Republican connection, let alone one with Mr. Trump. Mr. Slinker, whose latest Paradata, uses big data to help brands find suppliers, said Mr. Trump was a candidate very much in the spirit of Silicon Valley: “He’s a kind of guy. He has a lot of ideas and pivots away from them if they don’t work, just like the Valley does. He’s more viral than Facebook ever was. ” Still, even Mr. Slinker says there is good reason for the lack of enthusiasm. “Silicon Valley is an extremely disruptive place, but the one thing it doesn’t want disrupted is Silicon Valley,” he said. “And so it’s pushing back on Trump. ” The venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who backed Mr. Romney in 2012, said on Twitter that he was supporting Mrs. Clinton. Meg Whitman, a former candidate for governor in California who now runs Hewlett Packard Enterprise, labeled Mr. Trump “unfit to be president. ” When Mr. Thiel was revealed as a Trump delegate, a columnist for the tech news site Pando said he was “utterly ashamed” that Mr. Thiel was a Pando investor. Mr. Thiel declined to comment. Another Trump supporter in Silicon Valley, Tyrone Pike, had some business dealings with the candidate many years ago in Atlantic City, N. J. and was favorably impressed. As for Mr. Trump’s more extreme pronouncements, “I kind of write them off,” said Mr. Pike, who sold a software to Citrix and is building another company. “He’s more of a moderate than any of his words. ” Earlier in the primaries, Mr. Trump suggested boycotting Apple if the company did not help the government crack the iPhone used by one of the attackers in the mass shooting last year in San Bernardino, Calif. clashed with Mr. Zuckerberg over immigration and posted on Twitter that if Amazon “ever had to pay fair taxes, its stock would crash. ” Bobby Franklin, the president of the National Venture Capital Association, thinks Mr. Trump will pick up support among tech people as he moderates his views. “The Trump we have all witnessed for the past several months is probably not the Trump we will all be thinking about as we go into the voting booth,” said Mr. Franklin, whose organization does not endorse presidential candidates. “A general election candidate has always been different than a primary candidate. ” Yet a few weeks ago, after Mr. Trump’s primary opponents all dropped out and he might have been expected to make conciliatory noises, he unloaded again on Amazon and Mr. Bezos. Mr. Trump said, among other things, that Mr. Bezos has “got a huge antitrust problem because he’s controlling so much. ” Mr. Bezos owns The Washington Post, which has covered Mr. Trump intensively and critically. The internet tycoon said at a tech conference that he was “very, very comfortable with all of Amazon’s approaches and behaviors,” The Post reported. Mr. Trump’s comments signal a turnabout from Amazon’s experience under President Obama. The retailer helped instigate and was the major beneficiary of an antitrust case the Justice Department brought against Apple and the major book publishers. Jay Carney, a former press secretary for Mr. Obama, is now senior vice president for corporate affairs at Amazon. He declined to comment. The Obama administration was even closer to Google, drawing several staff members from the search giant, including Megan Smith, the chief technology officer of the United States. Mrs. Clinton is a closer fit with Silicon Valley than Mr. Trump, both ideologically and culturally, but she is not campaigning as tech’s champion. Whoever wins in November, the tech community is likely to look back longingly at the last eight years. “That tech is now a flash point in campaign debates is a reflection of the industry’s power and ubiquity in American life,” said Patrick Ruffini, a Republican strategist who has worked with the tech industry. “Silicon Valley will need to learn to expect that it won’t be seen as a benevolent actor in every quarter, and prepare accordingly. ” In other words, he said, “the era of Silicon Valley exceptionalism is over. ” | 1 |
The Portuguese authorities have detained a former undercover C. I. A. officer whose extradition has been sought by Italy, where she faces a prison sentence over her role in the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric as part of a secret United States rendition program. The former officer, Sabrina De Sousa, 60, was detained Monday night and is awaiting imminent extradition to Italy, one of her lawyers, Dario Bolognesi, said. Ms. De Sousa was among 26 Americans convicted of grabbing the cleric, Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, in Milan in February 2003. The operation was one of the renditions ordered by the George W. Bush’s administration after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Suspects were captured and taken to other countries for interrogation. The program was ended by the Barack Obama administration. Mr. Nasr was taken to a military base before being moved to Egypt, where he said he was tortured. In 2013, an Italian court sentenced him in absentia to six years in prison for activities. At the time he was plucked off the streets, Ms. De Sousa, a native of India and a dual citizen of the United States and Portugal, was in Milan posing as a diplomat. She resigned from the C. I. A. in 2009. Convicted in absentia, she was sentenced to four years in prison. Despite facing possible arrest, she returned to Portugal in 2015. That October, she was briefly detained under a European arrest warrant and her passports were confiscated. She was arrested Monday as she was on her way to India to visit relatives, according to news accounts that cited her lawyer in Portugal. Mr. Bolognesi, her lawyer in Milan, said Tuesday that she emailed him Monday night to tell him that she had been arrested in Lisbon and was awaiting transfer to Italy. He said he had not heard from her since. Mr. Bolognesi met with Italian Justice Ministry officials in Rome on Tuesday, but he said that the officials told him that they “had not received any official communication” from the Portuguese authorities. At the ministry, Mr. Bolognesi reiterated his request that Ms. De Sousa be given a pardon, as had been granted to some of the officers involved in the rendition. He has also requested that she serve her time doing public service, rather than be jailed. Ms. De Sousa is likely to serve her prison sentence in Milan, Mr. Bolognesi said, because the European arrest warrant had been issued by prosecutors there. Her lawyer in Portugal, Manuel de Magalhães e Silva, could not be reached for comment. Ms. De Sousa’s case is among several related to rendition operations that have been brought to trial. In January, Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that Abdel Hakim Belhaj, a Libyan dissident who said he was abducted and tortured by American and British intelligence agents, could sue the British government and a former foreign secretary over his rendition. | 1 |
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JACKSON, Miss. — When officials in Mississippi’s rural Holmes County, about an hour’s drive north of here, hired an architecture firm to fix the county’s ailing schools, they got back plans for a new $40 million high school to serve 1, 200 students. Holmes County is among the poorest counties in the nation, plagued by systematic racism, with a population (18, 340) that has been declining for more than a . Holmes didn’t have $40 million to pay for a high school. Community leaders reached out to Derrick Johnson, state president of the N. A. A. C. P. who also helps underserved Mississippi neighborhoods and districts with strategic planning. “Poor communities here are especially vulnerable,” Mr. Johnson told me the other day. “The whole system perpetuates exploitation. Residents need people they can trust. ” So Mr. Johnson enlisted Roy Decker and Anne Marie Duvall, architects from Jackson. Since they founded Duvall Decker nearly 20 years ago, the Deckers, as they’re known, have focused mostly on neglected corners in and around Jackson, Mississippi’s capital. To pay the bills, the two have redefined for themselves the ambit of a small architectural practice. They have become developers and even branched into building maintenance: a strategy that has allowed them more than just financial breathing room. “Assuming more risk and responsibility has also given us a stronger voice, upfront, in this community, with politicians and businesspeople,” Ms. Duvall pointed out. “That’s because we have skin in the game. ” Architects are forever complaining about feeling undervalued, about having lost a seat at the table. Big ideas — the ones that shape whole cities and ultimately determine what is built, for whom and where — mostly happen “during the first 10 percent of any project,” as Mr. Decker likes to put it, meaning before architects are called in to design something. For the Deckers, like more and more socially minded architects today, reclaiming that seat is an increasing priority. “When young architects apply to work for us,” Ms. Duvall said, “we ask what they want. Sometimes they say they want to design buildings that are unique, to express themselves. Other times they say they hope their work will have good consequences in a community. We’re finding more young people answering the second way. ” The architect Billie Tsien was a juror for the Architectural League in New York that just gave the Deckers an Emerging Voices award. “There’s a lot of fashionable work out there,” Ms. Tsien said. “Anyone who has done public work for nonprofits can appreciate the effort it takes to make even a smidgen of architecture happen. ” I met some of the people who live and work in the buildings the Deckers have designed. For Midtown, a Jackson neighborhood where the poverty rate hovers around 50 percent, the architects produced a master plan with affordable housing. The homes — modernist duplexes with solar panels and tall porches — have helped resuscitate a main street. Duvall Decker also renovated a nearby strip mall long dominated by a pair of liquor stores. The stores are now gone, replaced by a community health center, the mall painted a stylish slate gray, with shiny benches and window frames beneath a lofty new portico. The Deckers eked their smidgens out of the arrangement of drainpipes and new signage. With a little money from the city housing authority and a mix of local nonprofits, a mall that used to blight the neighborhood has become an advertisement for it. The architects are looking to do something as transformative for Up in Farms, a food hub that links farmers (average income: $10, 000 a year) with Jackson restaurants, groceries and food banks. The Deckers are upgrading a dilapidated 1940s farmers market in the city. “They have also helped clarify our organization and reduce our costs,” said David Watkins Jr. who runs the hub. “They’re focused on our whole business and our outcomes, not just on designing space. ” Likewise, with Holmes County, the architects consulted parents and teachers on curriculums for kindergarten through 12th grade because the schools’ problems clearly went well beyond a single building. The Deckers brought in a tech consultant to help develop interactive digital learning tools — thinking about virtual space “in the same way we are thinking about buildings,” as Mr. Decker put it. Duvall Decker’s plan consolidates several schools in the shell of an abandoned factory whose reconfiguration will cost residents a fraction of the $40 million the earlier firm originally discussed for just the high school. It’s instructive that Mr. Decker once taught architecture alongside Samuel Mockbee, the beloved, charismatic of the Rural Studio, who died in 2001. Rural Studio trains Auburn University students to design highly refined buildings for poor communities, mostly in west Alabama. The Deckers acknowledge Rural Studio’s impact. But they don’t think of themselves as part of that legacy. Mr. Decker describes Mockbee’s initial strategy as a kind of “creative abduction and aestheticized version” of Southern vernacular design. “Rural Studio has always done great work, but we can’t depend on free labor,” Ms. Duvall added. We were talking on the sunny patio of a restaurant near Duvall Decker’s office, in a growing commercial area of 1950s buildings a couple of miles from downtown. What Mr. Decker said is the only abortion clinic left in Mississippi is just up the block. Next door is a building the Deckers bought years ago. They became almost accidental developers, acquiring a derelict site for a potential studio, receiving an offer to buy it within weeks, and realizing that real estate, on a modest scale, could subsidize their practice. Across the street, in what used to be a dry cleaner, they’re now partners in what expanded will become a hotel. At the same time, the firm fixes leaky pipes and broken windows for clients like an program called Operation Shoestring. When the lights go out at a veterans’ home mortgage association, another client, Duvall Decker sends over an electrician. When rain falls on the headquarters of a community college honor society, the Deckers themselves sometimes go up on the roof afterward to clear the gutters and sweep away puddles. It’s all of a piece: architecture conceived as buildings with many lives. Tough and pragmatic, Duvall Decker’s work relies on an evolving vocabulary of economical materials and attunement to Southern light. A state library the Deckers designed exploits the changing shadows cast by an irregular grid of precast concrete panels on the facade. Light pours through huge windows into a reading room for the state book collections. At a civil rights research center and art museum on the campus of Tougaloo, the historically black college on the northern edge of Jackson, I asked Beverly Wade Hogan, the president, what it’s like to work with Duvall Decker. “I talk a lot about what this school means and what it stands for,” she told me. “Roy and Anne listen. ” That’s the goal, Mr. Decker said. “The world is what you make of it,” he added. “For most people here in Mississippi, it’s hard. Our fundamental job as architects is to make it better. ” | 1 |
Toast lovers, I have a modest proposal for you: Do not bother with bad bread. Say goodbye to sweet, cottony, lightweight toast, the kind that squishes under a butter knife or slumps under a blanket of jam. Just get the good stuff instead, the best bread you’re able to buy, preferably handmade loaves with sturdy crusts and tender crumbs, imbued with the flavors of fermentation. It’s more expensive, and that’s no small thing. But unlike some other items for which you may pay more, good bread is worth a little extra. Then always keep it on hand. I would argue that the best way to store bread isn’t to wrap it in foil, plastic or brown paper bags, sheath it in a pillowcase or stash it in the breadbox. The best way to keep bread is to put it into the freezer — sliced. The slicing is crucial here. (It’s also a minor heresy, but hear me out.) Home bread bakers know that a whole loaf freezes incredibly well. But when you defrost it, you replicate the problem of a whole loaf fresh out of the oven: Unless you have a full house, it’s a race to finish it before it goes stale. (Yes, you could make bread crumbs, but with apologies to devotees of schnitzel and gratins, who actually needs that many bread crumbs?) There are only two of us at my place, so a big loaf of fresh bread is difficult to take down. By contrast, slices of good bread in the freezer practically qualify as convenience food: single serving and ever ready, the base of a luxuriously simple breakfast, a satisfying lunch, a restorative snack, a relaxed supper. And because you have stored your slices in the freezer, they do not degrade in the quick and nasty style of sliced bread left to languish at room temperature. Here’s what I do: Whenever I see an alluring loaf of bread, I buy it, take it home, then start slicing, cutting about half the loaf into thick, slices. I put the pieces in a plastic zipper bag and pop them into the freezer. (Halved bagels work well, too.) Then any time I want a piece of toast, I take a slice out of the freezer and put it directly into the toaster. Professional bakers may blanch, but I think the results are nearly as good as toasting a slice from a loaf on the counter. You don’t need any particular type of toaster. But you do need to think of your freezer periodically. You don’t want to just abandon bread to time and freezer burn, though I can tell you from experience that neglected slices will still work, even if the toasted texture won’t be nearly as good. Whatever you do, do not drag the microwave into this, no matter how deeply frozen the bread. This is between you, the freezer and the toaster. Bear in mind that the fresher your bread is when it goes in the freezer, the better your results will be. So gauge how much you want to eat fresh, and just freeze the rest. You could even freeze it all at once, a formidable supply of toast in case the craving strikes. | 1 |
RIO DE JANEIRO — The very idea of a medal count might seem contrary to the spirit of the Olympics, which are supposed to bring the world together for a couple of weeks and suspend the nationalism that keeps us apart. Yet keeping score is the essence of sport. And measured by the haul of gold, silver and bronze, the United States had an extraordinary Olympics in Rio, winning 121 medals, the most by an American team in a Summer Games free of boycotts. The size and depth of the United States team resulted in the most gold (46) silver (37) and bronze (38) medals of any nation. Only five countries have topped each medal category at the same Games. The Americans were the first to do it in 40 years, enabled in part by the barring of nearly a third of Russia’s team after revelations of doping. (Another reliable powerhouse, China, underperformed.) “This has been an incredible Games for Team U. S. A. by any measure,” Alan Ashley, the chief of sport performance for the United States Olympic Committee, said Sunday at a news conference. Most striking was the performance by the American women. The American men won 18 gold medals, the same as Britain. But the American women were dominant with 27 (not including a gold in mixed doubles tennis). Had the women competed as a separate country, they would have ranked third in the overall medal chart (61) behind China (70) and Britain (67) and just ahead of the American men (60). There are two primary reasons for this . The United States is one of the few countries to embed sports within the public education system. And equal access to sports for women comes with legal protections, gained with the education amendment known as Title IX in 1972 and the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act in 1978. About one of every two American girls participates in sports in high school. Of the 213 American medalists in individual and team sports in Rio, according to the U. S. O. C. nearly 85 percent participated in sports. “Those things don’t exist elsewhere in the world,” said Donna Lopiano, a former executive director of the Women’s Sports Foundation. “We have the largest base of athletic development. Our women are going to dominate, not only because of their legal rights but because women in other parts of the world are discriminated against. ” In the United States, more women than men watch the Summer Olympics on television. Girls see role models to emulate, and success perpetuates success. The champion performances by three athletes — Simone Biles, who won four gold medals in gymnastics Simone Manuel, the first black woman to win Olympic gold in an individual swimming event and Ashleigh Johnson, the goalie for the women’s water polo team — are certain to broaden participation in sports that have historically been white. Ibtihaj Muhammad, who won a bronze medal in saber team fencing, became the first Olympic athlete to compete for the United States while wearing a hijab. And it was a women’s team, in the medley relay in swimming, that won the 1, 000th gold medal for the Americans since the modern Games began, in 1896. “You get on a roll,” said David Wallechinsky, president of the International Society of Olympic Historians. “Girls are looking and saying, ‘Wow, I can do that,’ whereas 30 years ago, not so many American girls thought that. It builds and builds. ” A country of 320 million, the United States ranked only 43rd in medals per capita, well behind small countries that won multiple medals, like Jamaica, New Zealand, Denmark, Croatia, Azerbaijan and Hungary, according to medalspercapita. com. of the medals won by the United States, more than half of its total, came in swimming and track and field, the two sports offering the most chances to win medals. It also surely helped that American athletes competed in a time zone only one hour ahead of Eastern Daylight Time and did not have to risk jet lag by traveling to an Olympics in Europe or Asia. And some American success can be attributed to underperformance by other nations. Because of the doping controversy, Russia’s entire weight lifting team was barred, and so was all but one athlete on its track and field team. Australia won its fewest Olympic medals (29) since the 1992 Barcelona Games. With 70 medals, China finished second over all, but that was 30 fewer than it won at the 2008 Beijing Games. This fits a pattern of host countries’ ebbing two Olympics later, Wallechinsky said. “You have seven years to prepare for an Olympics, everybody gets pumped up, you put money into different sports, you do well at home, and you develop a bunch of role models,” Wallechinsky said. “But that doesn’t necessarily carry over twice. There’s a consistent pattern of the host doing well, then pretty well at the next Olympics, then back to normal. ” Brazil won 19 medals, its highest total ever, but not as many as recent host nations like Britain (65) in 2012, China (100) in 2008 and Australia (58) in 2000. Home teams generally receive increased financial support in preparation for a Summer Olympics, but Brazil lacks an organized funding system for sports, and the Rio Games arrived with the country in an economic and political crisis. Still, Brazil won the gold medal it prized most — its first in men’s soccer. More ambitious drug testing may have also affected the makeup of the Chinese team and others in Rio, Wallechinsky said. Several experts said that although enhanced international antidoping measures are far from perfect and have ensnared Americans, they might have particularly aided the success of the United States’ track and field team in Rio, as enhanced funding and training camps supported by shoe companies and U. S. A. Track Field did. Michelle Carter became the first American woman to win the Olympic . And the United States, long a sprint power, won medals in and running from 800 meters to the marathon, highlighted by Matt Centrowitz’s victory at 1, 500 meters, the metric mile. He was the first American to win the event since 1908. “A level playing field benefits all athletes and helps our medal chances,” said Jill Geer, a spokeswoman for U. S. A. Track Field. The ruthless nature of selecting a team at the Olympic trials, instead of by past performances, also appeared to be an important factor, Centrowitz said. Brianna Rollins, Nia Ali and Kristi Castlin of the United States swept the hurdles in Rio while the holder, an American named Kendra Harrison, did not make the team. “It’s not the three fastest people on paper it’s the best three people on a given day,” Centrowitz said, describing team selection per event at the Olympic trials. “And that’s what you had to do here, perform on that specific day. ” | 1 |
Cat lover Rachel Brown knew she wanted to adopt a feline friend and spent weeks looking at incoming cats that were brought into kill shelters. She scoured through pages of available cats and knew... | 0 |
There are dozens of them roaming the internet right now and they’re not quite sure what to do with themselves.
Anticipating a coronation of Hillary Clinton, these celebrities totally freaked out after the election results were in.
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The era of big cable sports is over. [It ended on Wednesday, April 25, 2017, when ESPN began laying off 100 writers and radio and television talent. The era began after 2011, ESPN’s high water mark, with the network viewed in over 100 million households. Then, resulting from a combination of and wanton leftist propaganda disguised as sports coverage, the cable dinosaur saw its once flourishing empire reduced to a relative fiefdom. ESPN lost over twelve million subscribers since 2012, and according to some reports, 10, 000 subscribers a day. The subscriber losses led to layoffs in 2013, and again in 2015. For much of America, and certainly most on the right, the message of ESPN’s historic setback seems clear: stop bringing leftist activism into our sports escapism. Cease using sports as a Trojan horse to masquerade a social justice agenda, and maybe people will want to watch your network. But, what lesson did ESPN take from their setback? For the purposes of this discussion, it’s more important to take a look at who ESPN didn’t layoff, as opposed to who they did. According to the sports media site Awful Announcing, which kept a tracker of the ESPN layoffs throughout Wednesday, of the 60 talent and writers who publicly acknowledged being laid off before midnight central time on Wednesday, none of them, not a single one, were among the usual suspects when it comes to purveying leftist activism at ESPN. Tony Kornheiser, who once likened Tea Party Republicans to ISIS remains at ESPN. So does his partner Michael Wilbon. Bomani Jones, who once appeared on Mike Mike in a “Caucasians” tee shirt remains at ESPN as does Kevin Blackistone, who once ripped Michael Jordan for donating one million dollars to the police. Granted, only 60 of the reported 100 have been laid off, and some of the more liberal personalities at ESPN could very well find themselves without a job on Thursday. However, as of the time of this writing, one thing is clear: If America’s and ratings killing of ESPN was an attempt to send the message that we wanted less politics in their sports coverage, that message fell on deaf ears. Not that anyone should shed a tear about what happened on Wednesday. ESPN losing influence and power is a great thing. Anytime the people who gave Caitlyn Jenner the Arthur Ashe Courage Award lose the ability to influence young minds, that’s a win for America. However, the fact that ESPN laid off none of their worst political offenders, clearly shows that the leftists are still very much in control in Bristol, and if that didn’t change after losing twelve million subscribers, it won’t change anytime soon. Why does that matter? ESPN may have laid off nearly half their total talent on Wednesday, but they didn’t hang the “going out of business” sign on the door either. The era of big, cable sports died Wednesday, but the era of big liberal sports will go on. ESPN is currently investing massively in their digital properties, sensing that digital and online offerings will become the wave of the future as more and more people move away from cable and traditional television. But, if the same people who turned the ESPYs into an Amendment infomercial are still calling the shots, then ESPN’s future digital properties will represent just as big a threat to our culture as they did when they appeared on Channel 206 of your DirecTV package. In fact, if anything, ESPN will likely become more political in the future, especially after their social justice agenda was so roundly rejected by so many. Sports fans who want to watch games and debate free of political persuasion won a battle yesterday. But, the war will go on. Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn | 1 |
How things have changed. Only nine days ago, James Comey, then director of the FBI, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on FBI oversight that he had never been an anonymous source for news reports related to the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race. [Comey further testified that he never authorized anyone else at the FBI to serve as an anonymous source in news media coverage of that investigation or the agency’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. Fast forward to yesterday. The New York Times published intimate details allegedly from inside a dinner at the White House between Comey and Trump that took place seven days after the president was sworn in. The article quoted liberally from “two people who have heard [Comey’s] account of the dinner” in what seems to be a leak from Comey’s camp to fight back after Trump fired Comey earlier this week. At one point in the article, the Times describes the sources as “associates” of Comey’s. The White House disputed the Times’ dinner account, which claims that Trump asked Comey to pledge loyalty to him. “We don’t believe this to be an accurate account,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy press secretary, told the Times. “The integrity of our law enforcement agencies and their leadership is of the utmost importance to President Trump. He would never even suggest the expectation of personal loyalty, only loyalty to our country and its great people. ” Trump also tweeted the following warning about Comey leaking to the news media. James Comey better hope that there are no ”tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017, The alleged leaks follow Comey’s May 3 testimony in which he steadfastly denied aiding in leaks to the news media regarding the FBI’s investigations into alleged Russian interference or the Clinton email probe. The denials came during the following exchange with Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley ( ): GRASSLEY: And thank you for your opening statement. I’m going to start out probably with a couple subjects you wish I didn’t bring up, and then a third one that I think everybody needs to hear your opinion on on a policy issue. It is frustrating when the FBI refuses to answer this committee’s questions, but leaks relevant information to the media. In other words, they don’t talk to us, but somebody talks to the media. Director Comey, have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation? COMEY: Never. GRASSLEY: Question two, relatively related, have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation? COMEY: No. Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. With additional research by Joshua Klein. | 1 |
The modern N. B. A. era began in the 1980s with two if only narratives. The rivalry between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson was transmitted to the public through sportswriters who typecast Bird as the white country bumpkin who gritted his way to excellence and Johnson as the black, savant who whipped up his talents into the best show on the hardwood. The cities of Boston (parochial and solemn) and Los Angeles (flashy and morally suspect) were featured in supporting roles that echoed the best and worst traits of the main characters. The reality behind “Bird versus Magic” was mostly irrelevant. What mattered was that the choice you were supposed to make between them was laid out as as possible. In recent years, there has been a movement to replace these hoary old sports stories with an atomized landscape of numbers, stats and transactional analysis — and its adherents harbor a healthy amount of scorn for anyone who thinks differently. The move toward dispassionate stats is for the greater good sportswriting and fandom are too often unctuous and absurd and lend themselves to blanket moralizing in which the athlete is reduced to some lesson about life itself. If he does not hustle to first base on a ground ball, he becomes a for the insufficient work ethic of his entire generation. If he happens to be an immigrant or from a racial minority, he becomes a for his entire people. Despite the growing influence of the rationalists — the analysts and wonks who want to tear this all down — the mainstream sports industrial complex, especially in the loftier parts of the media, doesn’t share their vision. Narrative, with all its lies, still dominates. This has been a summer filled with silly sports schlock, spurred by NBC’s Olympic Games coverage, which carried on its tradition of dramatically lit, reels: a young athlete learns to swim after meeting a dolphin at a water park in Tarzana, Calif. a towheaded future equestrian rider falls in love with a horse in Darien, Conn. and so on. But the season’s story time had already started on July 4, when Kevin Durant, one of the most beloved players in the N. B. A. announced that he would be leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Golden State Warriors. The expected take quake was set off, split along the usual lines. The new rationalists pointed out that Durant is a man and argued that nobody has any right to criticize any decision a man makes for himself and his family — before they quickly pivoted to their charts showing how Durant would change the Warriors’ expected win total. The traditionalists chanted their odes to loyalty, competitiveness and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, who each played their entire careers with one team. In Oklahoma City itself, the reaction played out much as it had in Cleveland when LeBron James left. Fans ripped up Durant jerseys and delivered weepy testimonials to the powerful bonds between a city and its star athlete. Overnight, Durant went from fan favorite to just the latest in the N. B. A. ’s litany of “selfish” players like Allen Iverson, Dennis Rodman or LeBron James, people who have come to embody everything that’s wrong with America. The next episode in this melodrama came in early August, when the Thunder and their other great player, Russell Westbrook, agreed to a contract extension. (People had speculated that he would leave too.) There were a lot of reasonable fiscal reasons for Westbrook’s decision — within the N. B. A. ’s byzantine rules, it helped him maximize the money he could make over the rest of his career — and none of Westbrook’s other rumored destinations, whether Boston or New York or Los Angeles, guaranteed the success that Durant will surely enjoy with the Warriors. But Westbrook, who has mostly stayed quiet about Durant’s exit, will now be the living embodiment of every traditional thing that fans, callers and screaming TV heads have demanded from athletes. He is staying with the team with which he began his career, saving the relevance of professional basketball in Oklahoma. He is also spurning, at least for now, the impulse to join a superteam with other superstars. Westbrook has decided to go it alone, and every Dennis from Dumont or Paulie from Passaic who calls in to WFAN and asks the host Mike Francesa how he can possibly raise a son in a world where disloyal athletes strut around unpunished has a new hero. Durant’s departure for Golden State seemed to be a bellwether moment, not only in the potential fortunes of two basketball teams but also in the way that sports news is transmuted into fable that has its own relatable and lesson. The old, familiar moralizing, mainly delivered in rants about loyalty or cowardice or traditions by a on ESPN or Fox Sports, was met with a swift and forceful response by the rationalists. During the night of Durant’s announcement, in fact, it felt as if the counterreaction beat the reaction, as hundreds of rationalists tweeted against an opinion that hadn’t even yet been aired. Sean Newell, writing for Vice Sports (I am also a correspondent at Vice) voiced their frustration when he wrote: “No one in the world should care where Kevin Durant plays basketball, and they certainly shouldn’t care enough to scream about it on ESPN. But sportswriters, even though their job is to report on topics, write fiction. ” The problem with Newell’s critique is that nearly everyone who watches the N. B. A. except a small population of analytics wonks and insiders, really does care where Kevin Durant plays basketball. The zealotry of those in pursuit of some objective “truth” in sports, I’ve started to think, might be turning the entire spectacle into something that can no longer be recognized by a vast majority of fans. If you excise both fandom and the metaphorical weight of how the actions of an athlete might reflect on your own life, then what, exactly, are we watching? And why? The impulse to expunge all this and turn watching sports into an accounting exercise filled with insider jargon reflects some of the elitism that has entered our national political conversation. While neither the stakes nor the messages are analogous, the mechanism through which they are conveyed feels very much the same. It is, in essence, a between those who believe themselves to be in the know and the simps who lap up everything they watch on cable news. But not all narratives, whether political or athletic, are fictions, and there are still emotional and existential lessons that can be summoned by the sight of men and women chasing a ball around a field. There is ample ground between the current approach to N. F. L. news, for example, which amounts to treating it as either a stock ticker of microtransactions or a perpetual machine, and the attitude given expression earlier this month by John Miller, chief marketing officer for NBC’s Olympic Games coverage, to explain why his network relegated several key Olympic events to tape delay. “More women watch the Games than men,” Miller said, “and for the women, they’re less interested in the result and more interested in the journey. ” A defense of sports narratives does not have to accept Miller’s retrograde thinking. That it so often has is not proof that every telling is corrupted, but rather that the authors have mostly failed. Durant versus Westbrook will be next year’s dominant N. B. A. motif because it brings in the full breadth of the rich, if at times overblown, metaphors that have always driven the best sportswriting: loyalty versus the individual versus the empire and solidarity with the underdog versus the cynical efficiency of the superteam. The personalities of both players, on court and off, should be enough to compel our attention, supplemented by all the data analysis you could ever want. Even if we should balk at any easy moralizing, there’s no need to sacrifice a good story in the process. | 1 |
Why isn't observer evidence like eyewitness accounts counted as evidence for UFO's? page: 1 link Eyewitness accounts have been used by Science for years. Newton used eyewtiness accounts in the Principia when talking about comets. He came up with a theory on comets based on recorded sighting throughout the world like a boy saw a comet and this is what he described. There wasn't any internet to even verify the credibility of these eyewitness accounts yet Newton used them to come up with a theory about comets which helped lead to his equations of Gravity. So if eyewitness accounts are so unreliable, how did Newton use them to come up with his theories? We also saw this with meteorites. This is from Wiki: Although meteors have been known since ancient times, they were not known to be an astronomical phenomenon until early in the 19th century. Prior to that, they were seen in the West as an atmospheric phenomenon, like lightning, and were not connected with strange stories of rocks falling from the sky. In 1807, Yale University chemistry professor Benjamin Silliman investigated a meteorite that fell in Weston, Connecticut.[27] Silliman believed the meteor had a cosmic origin, but meteors did not attract much attention from astronomers until the spectacular meteor storm of November 1833.[28] People all across the eastern United States saw thousands of meteors, radiating from a single point in the sky. Astute observers noticed that the radiant, as the point is now called, moved with the stars, staying in the constellation Leo.[29] ASTUTE OBSERVERS saw meteors radiating from a single point in the sky and to this day this is still called the radient. I thought Science never uses eyewitness accounts? Also, here's a list of published papers and studies on U.F.O.'s. This page offers a list of 100+ articles, papers and monographs about UFOs / UAPs published in professional journals and specialty publications. Two polls of professional & amateur astronomers respectively, on whether they see UFOs or not. Finally 60+ PhD dissertations and academic publications about UFOs. Very little peer-reviewed literature has been published in which academics have proposed, studied or supported non-prosaic explanations for UFOs. www.hyper.net... Why aren't there more non-prosaic explanations of U.F.O.'s? That alone lends support to the notion that extraterrestrial visitation has occurred. I have had 3 sightings myself. Two looked like probes. It was real windy one day and the wind was almost knocking me over, then this round orb passed in front of me going against the wind. It slowed down and then it sped back up. Where are all the Scientist explaining U.F.O.'s? Why are there still these unidentified objects in the sky? We have aeriel phenomena in the sky that can avoid radar, outrun our best planes and cause nuclear facilities to malfunction. After 60 or more years of these sightings why can't Scientist explain these things like Newton did with comets based on eyewitness accounts or what happened with metorites? Here's 565 eyewitness accounts | 0 |
Get short URL 0 6 0 0 Secret surveillance software developed by US communication giant AT&T to track and spy on drug traffickers for the government appears to have been migrated to be used as a universal tool to surveil the company’s entire network, additionally bringing profits to the multinational conglomerate, new documents reveal. New Reality: Future Space Weapons Will Be Able to Destroy Enemy Satellites The quietly developed program, known as Project Hemisphere, was first detailed by the New York Times in 2013, but few know when the program was initially launched. In the 2000s, AT&T was said to have created software to dig through its databases, in an attempt to identify criminal activity. The communications company was revealed in 2007 to have handed over personal user data to law enforcement, causing public outcry.
In the 2013 Times report, Project Hemisphere was branded as a cooperative effort between AT&T and the Federal Drug Administration. It was said that the communication corporation used its data-mining software to surveil its phone records, analyzing and handing over information to authorities. The data includes user locations, timing of conversations, as well as possible reasons for talks. © REUTERS/ Mike Blake Nevermind Transparency: White House Unlikely to Declassify Secret Yahoo Email Order AT&T is the second-largest communication provider in the US, after Verizon, and operates a large complement of cell towers and wireless infrastructure. It retains cellphone records of its customers, beginning in 2008.
On Tuesday, the Daily Beast released AT&T documents detailing that the corporation has been quietly cooperating with law enforcement for years, providing huge amounts of data on customers without going through the legal channels required by US law.
Episodes include the concealed facilitation by AT&T into far-reaching homicide and Medicaid fraud inquiries. The only condition that AT&T laid down on the federal surveillance agencies was that the phone company not be revealed to have freely participated in investigations. One paper details that the corporation sought to disallow law enforcement to use evidence obtained through Project Hemisphere in court. From Flying Start to Abrupt End: Sweden Bans Drone Photography “The Government agency agrees not to use the data as evidence in any judicial or administrative proceedings unless there is no other available and admissible probative evidence,” the 2014 statement reads.
Adam Schwartz, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, explained that the request pushed investigators to create false investigative narratives, that allowed for digging up evidence on suspects and keeping their sources hidden. In the meantime, AT&T enjoyed growing revenues from allowing authorities to use Project Hemisphere. According to documents, the spy-program earnings grew, from $77,924 in 2007, to $940,000 in 2011.
Christopher Soghoian, an ACLU analyst, sees Project Hemisphere as a natural evolution of AT&T’s cooperation with federal surveillance networks.
“They’ve developed this massive program and of course they’re going to sell it to as many people as possible,” he said to the Daily Beast.
The revelation has stirred controversy in the US, especially in the wake of the recently-announced merger deal between AT&T and Time Warner, which still must undergo regulatory scrutiny before being closed. ... | 0 |
I have been single for several years, and my best friend and I have come to count on each other for daily frequent dinners and weekend plans — almost like a couple, but without the sex. Recently, I met a great guy, and we’ve been dating. I was really looking forward to introducing them. But it was a disaster. Later, he said, “She’s totally possessive of you and mean. ” She said, “He’s all wrong for you. ” I decided to give them a break from each other until I consulted with you. What should I do? K. B. NEW YORK A few weeks ago, I was riding shotgun with a friend in the country. Her was strapped into his (much loathed) car seat in the back. It must have been the morning after prom. Because a limo drove toward us and a teenage girl popped up through the sunroof — topless and whooping. My friend looked at her son anxiously. He said, “Mommy, that girl isn’t wearing her seatbelt. ” Perspective is everything — both for a little boy who is wrestled into his car seat every day and also for a BFF who fears that she is on the brink of losing her support system. Be patient. Start with two conversations, one with your boyfriend and another with your bestie. To him, explain the history and emotional heft of your long friendship. With your pal, try to reassure her that while things may change a little, you aren’t going anywhere. (No need to defend your taste in men.) Shut down any snark that they may offer with a simple: “He’s my boyfriend” or “She’s my best friend,” as needed. In a couple of weeks, try another dinner for three (or four, if your boyfriend has a pal). Be direct in demanding kindness from both of them. In my experience, it will take about twice as long as you think it should for everyone to acclimate to the new arrangement. Change is scary. A new staff member at an office I visit regularly is of a gender I cannot identify. It is not my business, and I don’t care. But I would like to be able to address this person with civility and good manners. “Sir” and “ma’am” have a 50 percent chance of being wrong and possibly causing offense. I’ve decided to ask this person how he or she would like to be addressed. How should I phrase the question? ANONYMOUS You shouldn’t. Simply revert to the second sentence of your question (with a Social Q’s proviso): this person’s gender is, indeed, not your business, and allegedly you don’t care about it. What possible difference does it make in the context of visiting an office occasionally? Pinning down a person’s gender has no more to do with civility than fixing their race or age. Just smile and say, “Hello. ” If your contact is more substantive, introduce yourself. “Nice to meet you. I’m Wolfgang Mozart. ” Like magic, this other creature will then pour forth his or her name. I have a serious medical condition that is addressed with a very low sodium diet. This is not a preference it is medical necessity. When we are invited to dinners, some friends have made meals and allowed salt lovers to add salt to their hearts’ content. But recently, I told a host about my issue, and she responded,“I am making ribs with a rub containing salt. ” I almost told her that I’d eat before I came. How should I properly address this? ROBERTA I’d say you are doing a great job already, by communicating directly with your dinner hosts beforehand. Some will rethink their menus to suit your medical issue others will make sure that a few offerings comply and still others will let you know that the (true) impetus of the evening is a desire to make those ribs they saw in Bon Appétit. All three types of host are behaving just fine. And you can decide to attend (or not) based on your preference. Hosts have a responsibility to make their guests feel comfortable in their homes, not to become cooks for us. If the chef also serves a green salad and cornbread, it’s not as if you are going to die of starvation, correct? My husband and I are well off. We like to go out to dinner with friends, and sometimes we pick up the check. Always (seriously, always) our friends thank my husband, but not me. I think they should thank both of us because we are married and our money is shared. So far, I’ve kept my mouth shut. What’s your advice? L. M. Next time, pay with your credit card, and watch your guests thank you for treating them. (Just a hunch.) Your point about shared finances may be true for most married couples, and I tend to thank both partners when one pays for my dinner. But for sure, the one who whips out the credit card will always be thanked. | 1 |
From Project Veritas :
Project Veritas Action has released the sixth video in a multi-part series that is sending shockwaves through the DNC and the Clinton campaign. In a new video released by Project Veritas Action, a PVA journalist exposes how his pay for play with Robert Creamer landed him a meeting with Bradley Beychock, the President of Media Matters For America, an organization that has been attacking James O’Keefe for years.
During the meeting, Beychock gave the PVA journalist a tour of their offices. He also proudly boasted about the Media Matters assault on conservative writer and political consultant Roger Stone.
WATCH:
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Few cities in the world are as closely linked to their subways as New York City — the vast network helped shape the city and now carries nearly six million people a day. So when the most ambitious expansion of the subway system in half a century opens on Sunday, it will be a transformative moment, promising to alter the future of a large slice of Manhattan. The new Second Avenue subway will provide badly needed relief to one of New York’s most congested transit corridors and is expected to be a boon to the local economy, making restaurants and stores suddenly easier to reach. But even as the city celebrates a line many doubted would ever open, its arrival has prompted fears that rising rents could force out longtime residents and shops — the kind of displacement that has swept through many other parts of an increasingly affluent New York and deepened its inequality. People living near three new stations at 72nd, 86th and 96th Streets could face rent increases as high as $462 per month, according to a report by StreetEasy, a real estate website. Sleek are already popping up above the apartment buildings that have served as first homes for many New Yorkers. One of those is Dina Zingaro, who gravitated to the neighborhood when she moved from New Jersey. She and a roommate pay $2, 400 a month for a apartment on the fifth floor of a building. While the new line will shorten her trip to work, she worries that it could also bring a major rent increase and ultimately push her out of Manhattan. “If it was over $200, that would be tough,” she said. “We’d have to consider moving. ” Once a German enclave where elevated trains ran above Second and Third Avenues, the Yorkville neighborhood on the Upper East Side is now home to millennials looking for a deal, families drawn by good schools and older people with limited budgets. Rowdy bars with beer pong games exist alongside hordes of strollers. On its eastern border sits the verdant but way Carl Schurz Park and Gracie Mansion, the mayoral estate, whose current resident, Bill de Blasio, prefers to use chauffeured cars over the subway. The elevated lines were razed in the 1940s and 1950s, to the delight of many residents who viewed them as noisy eyesores and expected a new subway line to open soon. Instead, the area became a desert, one of the few neighborhoods in Manhattan that the subway did not reach. But this has also made the neighborhood relatively affordable by Manhattan standards. Yorkville’s median rent is about $2, 700 per month, lower than Manhattan’s rate of about $3, 300, according to StreetEasy, and there are clusters of and apartments. A real estate wave seemed forever around the corner as plans for the subway line were delayed again and again. Until now, residents have been forced to trek blocks to the nearest packed subway stops to board No. 4, 5 and 6 trains on Lexington Avenue, the nation’s subway line. The first phase of the new line, which cost about $4. 4 billion, is opening at a critical moment, with subway ridership reaching its highest level since 1948. The flood of riders has led to uncomfortable crowding and increasing train delays, while people who choose to drive or take the bus face intensifying gridlock. Since the subway first opened in Manhattan in 1904 and expanded farther into the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, it has paved the way for development, and it propelled the city’s soaring population in the first half of the 20th century. But in recent decades, the system has largely remained the same size, even as the city’s population of 8. 5 million is the highest ever and continues to climb. The city’s first new subway station in a opened at Hudson Yards on the Far West Side of Manhattan in 2015, but that was only one stop and the formerly industrial neighborhood was largely a blank slate for developers. The Second Avenue line is a different story, traversing an already dense neighborhood, and the full economic impact is not yet clear. Local businesses are bracing for steep rent increases. Peter Psirakis, the owner of a shoe repair shop on Second Avenue near 70th Street, worries that his rent each month, now more than $6, 000, could rise by thousands of dollars. He would likely have to shut his store when his lease ended in a couple of years. “I’m here 23 years,” he said. “I can’t go to another neighborhood and start a business from the beginning. ” At the same time, though, many restaurants and shops are also eagerly anticipating the return of foot traffic many people avoided the area when construction of the subway line began in 2007. Tunnel blasting rattled buildings, broke windows and produced noise and dust. Local business leaders held a news conference recently on Second Avenue with Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a Democrat who represents the area and is a longtime supporter of the project, to praise the anticipated economic stimulus. Even before the first train rolls, the area’s housing market has been heating up. New condos have risen on First and Second Avenues, with sales topping $2 million for a apartment. In the last five years, median rents near Second Avenue have grown by 27 percent to about $2, 520 per month, according to StreetEasy. Many of the same concerns over gentrification could arise as the line is ultimately extended uptown to 125th Street in East Harlem. “Displacement is a real concern,” said Thomas K. Wright, the president of the Regional Plan Association, an urban policy group. “When you increase the values in areas like this, you need to do things to protect affordable housing and retail. ” He said officials should consider a host of policies to keep the neighborhood within reach, including securing affordable housing as part of any zoning changes. A lifelong resident of the neighborhood, Carol McCabe moved to Knickerbocker Plaza on Second Avenue in 1975. Ms. McCabe, 67, who runs a senior center in the complex, is struggling to pay her rising rent of about $3, 000 per month after her husband died, and might eventually have to leave New York. “I’m not so certain about the future,” she said. “I’m worried about my apartment. ” Even Yorkville’s city councilman, Ben Kallos, 35, who grew up in the neighborhood, is weighing how he and his wife can afford to stay in the district. He said there was little he could do to slow rising rents. “Where I have to place much of my focus is on helping tenants stay in their apartment and exercise their rights,” said Mr. Kallos, a Democrat who has also pushed to set a height limit on superscrapers in the neighborhoods he represents. Austin Finan, a spokesman for Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, said the administration’s top priority remained protecting affordable housing and building new units. “We pursue that goal in every neighborhood in the city, including on the Upper East Side,” Mr. Finan said. Across the United States, good transit access often leads to higher real estate prices, with home values near rapid transit in Boston, Chicago, . Paul, Phoenix and San Francisco far outpacing other properties during the last recession, according to a report by the American Public Transportation Association. But New York City is a special case, where proximity to the subway is perhaps the most important factor for renters and buyers. Just look at the recent panic in trendy Williamsburg, Brooklyn, over the impending shutdown of the L line for more than a year. Still, the Upper East Side is unlikely to become suddenly hip, said Mitchell L. Moss, director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University. “The neighborhood is intrinsically boring,” Mr. Moss said. “People don’t live there for excitement. They live there for stability. ” Some predict an influx of shops and more chain stores, even as shuttered storefronts along Second Avenue highlight the places that closed rather than wait out the disruptive construction. Dave Goodside kept the Beach Cafe restaurant open, borrowing money, laying off employees and sometimes working nonstop to remain afloat. A sign in the dining room is a reminder of the tumultuous construction era: “One long whistle: Preparing to blast. ” Mr. Goodside expects his rent will soon rise sharply. “What we talk about all the time,” he said, “is how we can increase business and be ready for that day. ” | 1 |
Next Swipe left/right “Got tricked into clicking on a site that sells Twitter followers, where I had this conversation with the owner”
@Drewtoothpaste over on Twitter says, “Got tricked into clicking on a site that sells Twitter followers, where I had this conversation with the owner” | 0 |
10 Views November 02, 2016 GOLD , KWN King World News
According to Investors Intelligence, here is the key to a turnaround in gold and silver!
Today Investors Intelligence issued an important note about gold, silver and the mining stocks: The Precious Metals Bullish % rallied 4.55% on Wednesday, reversing the P&F chart direction back to the upside for the first time since September. … IMPORTANT: To find out which company Doug Casey, Rick Rule and Sprott Asset Management are pounding the table on that already has a staggering 18.1 million ounces of gold that just added another massive deposit and is quickly being recognized as one of the greatest gold opportunities in the world – CLICK HERE OR BELOW: Sponsored
Investors Intelligence continues: The chart has pulled out of oversold and has a new status of Bull-alert. Investors should be looking to buy upside reassertion candidates (see chart below).
The PHLX Gold & Silver Index develops a bullish P&F breakout signal at 89 with a price objective of 102 and a stop loss at 83 (see chart below).
King World News note: Despite the post-Fed meeting intervention to suppress the gold, silver and mining share markets, when Investors Intelligence states, “Investors should be looking to buy upside reassertion candidates,” what they mean is that investors should be purchasing high-quality investments in the gold and silver sector. This includes top-tier mining stocks and associated gold and silver ETFs. Although the Philadelphia Gold & Silver (mining share) Index (XAU) closed below the key level of 89 after an intra-day surge above 92, it is still very close to the breakout noted by Investors Intelligence. It will be interesting to see if the sector picks up momentum in the coming days and weeks as that will trigger additional money flows into the sector.
***KWN has now released the remarkable audio interview with Nomi Prins CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
***ALSO RELEASED: With Gold Hitting $1,300, Look At Who Is Bullish CLICK HERE.
***KWN has also released Rick Rule’s timely audio interview CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
© 2015 by King World News®. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. However, linking directly to the articles is permitted and encouraged. About author | 0 |
Students at an Iowa high school have been criticized for wearing red, white, and blue clothing to a recent basketball game with some calling the patriotic colors “racist. ”[As they have done several times in the past, students at Valley High from Des Moines, Iowa, organized a U. S. A. colors day and wore red, white, and blue and U. S. clothing to last week’s game against North High School. But the effort was deemed “controversial” by members of North High because their school has a “diverse” student body. “A lot of people were very upset about it,” North sophomore DeNasja Spencer told CBS affiliate KCCI TV. “Even if that was their theme for the game, I feel like they should have switched that because everyone knows North is a more diverse school,” she added. On Facebook, a Valley High alum named Ty Leggett slammed the students. “This is an example of BLATANT racism,” he wrote. “ALL participating should have been pulled and banned from ALL VHS extracurricular events for the remainder of the year! As a parent, I’d be mortified that my son or daughter thought this way, acted in this fashion and refrained from taking a stand against this 21st century inexcusable behavior!” Des Moines North coach Chad Ryan claimed he didn’t want to “judge those young people not knowing their motive,” but went on to say, “It’s been good for us, as a school. They learn from each other about people with different cultures and backgrounds — and we try to use it as an educational piece. ” This isn’t the first time Valley has sponsored a patriotic day. Valley High fans reportedly wore patriotic colors during a football game against rival Dowling Catholic this year as well. “We had a USA theme, which we’ve done many times in the past,” Valley freshman Dayna Dunnwald told the media. “It’s really sad, and I hope everyone can resolve it in the end because no one at Valley meant it in that way. And it was just for fun. ” Another student, Melissa was disgusted by the attacks on her school, “Now we can’t wear USA stuff without making someone upset? Oh please … . ” Despite the past patriotic events, Valley High School’s student leadership members apologized to North High’s principal. “It has been brought to our attention that the decision by the Valley High School student section to wear U. S. A. apparel at our game last night was offensive to members of your community and fan base,” the student letter read. “We are deeply sorry if we have offended anyone in any way. We have traditionally dressed in such a fashion for great games such as the one last night. Everyone here at Valley has immense respect not only for your team and players but for your community as a whole. Please know that our intent was in no way to offend or demean — just to support our own team in a way we have done before. ” Valley High’s Tigers ended up defeating the Des Moines North Polar Bears . Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
Music was not only Walter Hautzig’s vocation. It also won over the young woman who would become his wife. And it saved his life. Mr. Hautzig, a concert pianist who escaped from Vienna as a teenager armed with a fellowship from the Jerusalem Conservatory and went on to become a touring musical ambassador, died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 95. The cause was congestive heart failure, his daughter, Deborah Hautzig, said. Only five years after he blustered his way into an audition with the conservatory’s director in 1938, the Mr. Hautzig made his American debut at Town Hall in New York with an ambitious program of Bach, Beethoven and Chopin. A reviewer for The New York Times said it “augured a brilliant career. ” Years later, Mr. Hautzig recalled, “My father said I should be a doctor or a lawyer, but after Town Hall, he never left the house without the New York Times review in his pocket. ” Mr. Hautzig (pronounced ) won the 1943 Town Hall Endowment Series Award for best young artist that year. He later became a cultural ambassador for the United States, performing around the world for three decades. In the 1950s he performed frequently in Japan under State Department sponsorship. In 1979, after relations thawed, he was the first American artist officially delegated to perform in mainland China. “Beethoven and Chopin are as good for the Asians as for the Europeans as for the Jews as for the gentiles,” he told The Forward in 2007. He refused, however, to perform before a racially segregated audience in Alabama in the 1940s. “He told the concert manager, ‘You’re as bad as the Nazis! ’” Ms. Hautzig, his daughter, recalled in her eulogy at his funeral on Thursday. “They said, ‘Go back where you came from. ’” While music affected Mr. Hautzig profoundly, the instrument that spared him from Nazi persecution and led to his marriage entered his personal life serendipitously. “His father had had a big success in his business and told my grandmother she had two choices: She could have a fur coat, or she could have a piano,” Ms. Hautzig said in her eulogy. “She chose the piano. ” Her father began playing it when he was 4. Walter Hautzig was born on Sept. 28, 1921, in Vienna to the former Rosa Zwim and David Hautzig, a bookbinder. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Music until the German annexation of Austria capped a period of growing there, during which he was arrested at least once and also forced to scrub streets on his knees. “They made the world believe that they were Hitler’s first victims, but Hitler’s army was received with kisses,” he said of Austrians. When the music academy was shuttered and seized by German soldiers, he practiced the piano on his own at home. “I said to myself, ‘This they can never take away from me,’” he recalled in a documentary filmed by his granddaughter Molly DeVries. Responding to an advertisement in a Jewish newspaper, he arrived at a Vienna hotel at 8 a. m. to audition for Emil Hauser, director of the Jerusalem Conservatory and a founder of the Budapest String Quartet. Mr. Hauser was not just offering fellowships he was also offering exit visas. Mr. Hauser finally surfaced at 2 p. m. and apologized, saying he had had to rush to another appointment. Audaciously, Mr. Hautzig joined him in a taxi, and when they arrived at a private apartment that happened to have a piano, Mr. Hauser pointed to it and said, “Spiel!” (“Play! ”) Mr. Hautzig performed Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata. “When I finished playing,” Mr. Hautzig said, “he exclaimed, ‘No matter what it takes, I will make sure that you come to Jerusalem. ’” A month later he arrived in what was then Palestine, where he studied under Josef Tal and Alfred Schroeder and performed as a soloist with the Jerusalem Academy Orchestra. After a year and a half, he joined his parents and sister, who had fled through Switzerland, in New York. He studied privately with Artur Schnabel and enrolled in the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He was later a professor of piano at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, from 1960 to 1988. He continued to perform until a few years ago. Returning from Scandinavia, where he performed to raise money for war victims of the Nazis, he met Esther Rudomin. She was on her way to New York from Siberia, where her family had been exiled. She was 16 and seasick. “I played for her the G minor Ballade of Chopin,” Mr. Hautzig said, “and she said, ‘Anybody who plays like that has to be good. ’” They married in 1950. Esther Hautzig, who became an author of children’s books, died in 2009. In addition to his daughter, Mr. Hautzig is survived by a son, David, and three grandchildren. The Hautzigs lived in an Upper West Side apartment building, and Mrs. Hautzig once cited the unique challenges that urban acoustics posed for a professional musician. “A neighbor called and said, ‘Mrs. Hautzig, your husband’s practicing is driving me crazy,’” she recalled. “I gulped and apologized. The neighbor interrupted my apologies: ‘No, what’s he practicing? I know the piece and can’t remember what it is! ’” | 1 |
AMERICA CELEBRATES: Stock Market Average Sets New Record For Businessman President Trump “It’s a relief rally over the certainty of the outcome of the election and after the conciliatory tone that Trump took,” said Nick Skiming, a fund manager at Jersey, Channel Islands-based Ashburton Ltd. His firm oversees $10 billion. “There’s hope that a new president can introduce reforms that will enable corporate America to move forward.” 10, 2016 The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose to an all-time high as U.S. stocks added to a rally sparked by speculation Donald Trump’s policies will benefit businesses, with banks surging to the highest level since May 2008.
The Dow rose 163.30 points, or 0.9 percent, to 18,752.99 at 9:45 a.m. in New York, taking it above its Aug. 15 record . The S&P 500 Index advanced 0.9 percent to 2,181.50, within 0.4 percent of a record.
Banks surged 3.7 percent pushing the two-day advance to 8 percent. JPMorgan Chase & Co. jumped 4.9 percent, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. climbed 2.9 percent. Drugmakers advanced, led by Pfizer Inc.’s 3.1 percent rally. Industrial shares rose 1.6 percent, with Boeing Co. adding 2.7 percent.
The three industries have paced the rally since Trump’s surprise win on Tuesday, surging on expectations that the president-elect and Republican-controlled Congress will roll back regulations and boost infrastructure spending. Trump’s promise to revive American infrastructure means commodities used to build everything from airports to bridges will benefit under his presidency, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
“It’s a relief rally over the certainty of the outcome of the election and after the conciliatory tone that Trump took,” said Nick Skiming, a fund manager at Jersey, Channel Islands-based Ashburton Ltd. His firm oversees $10 billion. “There’s hope that a new president can introduce reforms that will enable corporate America to move forward.” SHARE THIS ARTICLE | 0 |
Seventeen Colombian nationals were arrested by the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office after allegedly running a burglary operation which targeted Asian and Pakistani communities. [The foreign nationals allegedly burglarized some 120 homes. The group was being investigated by Fort Bend County officials, along with other law enforcement agencies, the Houston Chronicle reported. Law enforcement worked tirelessly to “link burglaries with similar characteristics under those jurisdictions,” the Chronicle reported. For three months, law enforcement officials monitored each of the suspects for 24 hours a day. Five of the men arrested are currently being held in the Fort County Jail, with four of those suspected to have been living in the country as illegal aliens. The four are being detained for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. The other 12 men either have cases in the Fort Bend County area or are being held in neighboring jurisdictions. The list of suspects arrested include: John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. | 1 |
Have you ever been to Enfield? I had never even heard of it until I was 23 and living in London for graduate school. One afternoon, I received notification that a package whose arrival I had been anticipating for days had been bogged down in customs and was now in a FedEx warehouse in Enfield, an unremarkable London suburb. I was outside my flat within minutes of receiving this news and on the train to Enfield within the hour, staring through the window at the gray sky. The package in question, sent from Los Angeles, contained my monthly supply of Adderall. Adderall, the brand name for a mixture of amphetamine salts, is more strictly regulated in Britain than in the United States, where, the year before, in 2005, I became one of the millions of Americans to be prescribed a stimulant medication. The train to Enfield was hardly the greatest extreme to which I would go during the decade I was entangled with Adderall. I would open other people’s medicine cabinets, root through trash cans where I had previously disposed of pills, write friends’ college essays for barter. Once, while living in New Hampshire, I skipped a day of work to drive three hours each way to the health clinic where my prescription was still on file. Never was I more resourceful or unswerving than when I was devising ways to secure more Adderall. Adderall is prescribed to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, a neurobehavioral condition marked by inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity that was first included in the D. S. M. in 1987 and predominantly seen in children. That condition, which has also been called Attention Deficit Disorder, has been increasingly diagnosed over recent decades: In the 1990s, an estimated 3 to 5 percent of American children were believed to have A. D. H. D. according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by 2013, that figure was 11 percent. It continues to rise. And the increase in diagnoses has been followed by an increase in prescriptions. In 1990, 600, 000 children were on stimulants, usually Ritalin, an older medication that often had to be taken multiple times a day. By 2013, 3. 5 million children were on stimulants, and in many cases, the Ritalin had been replaced by Adderall, officially brought to market in 1996 as the new, upgraded choice for A. D. H. D. — more effective, longer lasting. Adderall’s very name reflects its makers’ hopes for an expanding customer base: “A. D. D. for all” is the phrase that inspired it, Alan Schwarz writes in his new book, “A. D. H. D. Nation. ” And in fact, by the time I arrived at college in 2000, four years after Adderall hit the market, nearly five million prescriptions were written in 2005, the year after I graduated, that number was just under nine million. By then, sales of A. D. H. D. medication in the United States totaled more than $2 billion. By the adults were the group receiving the drug. In 2012, roughly 16 million Adderall prescriptions were written for adults between ages 20 and 39, according to QuintilesIMS, an company that gathers data. Adderall has now become ubiquitous on college campuses, widely taken by students both with and without a prescription. Black markets have sprung up at many, if not most, schools. In fact, according to a review published in 2012 in the journal Brain and Behavior, the use of prescription stimulants had come to represent the form of illicit drug use in college by 2004. Only marijuana was more popular. We know very little about what Adderall does over years of use, in and out of college, throughout all the experiences that constitute early adulthood. To date, there is almost no research on the effects on humans of using Adderall. In a sense, then, we are the walking experiment, those of us around my age who first got involved with this drug in high school or college when it was suddenly everywhere and then did not manage to get off it for years afterward — if we got off it at all. We are living out what it might mean, both psychologically and neurologically, to take a powerful drug we do not need over long stretches of time. Sometimes I think of us as Generation Adderall. Adderall as we know it today owes its origins to accident. In the late 1920s, an American chemist named Gordon Alles, searching for a treatment for asthma, synthesized a substance related to adrenaline, which was known to aid bronchial relaxation. Alles had created the chemical now known as amphetamine. Injecting himself to test the results, he noted a “feeling of well being,” followed by a “rather sleepless night,” according to “On Speed: The Many Lives of Amphetamine,” by Nicolas Rasmussen. By the 1930s, the drug Benzedrine, a amphetamine, was being taken to elevate mood, boost energy and increase vigilance. The American military dispensed Benzedrine tablets, also known as “go pills,” to soldiers during World War II. After the war, with slight modification, an amphetamine called Dexedrine was prescribed to treat depression. Many people, especially women, loved amphetamines for their side effects and took them to stay thin, often in the form of the diet drug Obetrol. But in the early 1970s, with around 10 million adults using amphetamines, the Food and Drug Administration stepped in with strict regulations, and the drug fell out of such common use. More than 20 years later, a pharmaceutical executive named Roger Griggs thought to revisit the now largely forgotten Obetrol. Tweaking the formula, he named it Adderall and brought it to market aimed at the millions of children and teenagers who doctors said had A. D. H. D. A version of Adderall came out a few years later, which prolonged the delivery of the drug to the bloodstream and which was said to be less addictive — and therefore easier to walk away from. In theory. The first time I took Adderall, I was a sophomore at Brown University, lamenting to a friend the impossibility of my plight: a paper due the next afternoon on a book I had only just begun reading. “Do you want an Adderall?” she asked. “I can’t stand it — it makes me want to stay up all night doing cartwheels in the hallway. ” Could there be a more enticing description? My friend pulled two blue pills out of tinfoil and handed them to me. An hour later, I was in the basement of the library, hunkered down in the Absolute Quiet Room, in a state of peerless ecstasy. The world fell away it was only me, locked in a passionate embrace with the book I was reading and the thoughts I was having about it, which tumbled out of nowhere and built into what seemed an amazing pile of riches. When dawn came to Providence, R. I. I was hunched over in the grubby lounge of my dormitory, typing my last fevered perceptions, vaguely aware that outside the window, the sky was turning pink. I was alone in my new secret world, and that very aloneness was part of the great intoxication. I needed nothing and no one. I would experience this same sensation again and again over the next two years, whenever I could get my hands on Adderall on campus, which was frequently, but not, I began to feel, frequently enough. My Adderall hours became the most precious hours of my life, far too precious for the Absolute Quiet Room. I now needed to locate the most remote desk in the darkest, most neglected corner of the stacks, tucked farthest from the humming campus life going on outside. That life was no longer the life that interested me. Instead, what mattered, what compelled, were the hours I spent in isolation, poring over, for instance, Immanuel Kant’s thoughts on “the sublime. ” It was fitting: This was sublime, these afternoons I spent in untrammeled focus, absorbing the complicated ideas in the texts in front of me, mastering them, covering their every surface with my comprehension, devouring them, making them a part of myself. Or rather, of what I now thought of as my self, which is to say, the steely, undistractable person whom I vastly preferred to the lazier, glitchier person I knew my actual self to be, the one who was subject to fits of lassitude and a tendency to eat too many Swedish Fish. Adderall wiped away the question of willpower. Now I could study all night, then run 10 miles, then breeze through that week’s New Yorker, all without pausing to consider whether I might prefer to chat with classmates or go to the movies. It was fantastic. I lost weight. That was nice, too. Though I did snap at friends, abruptly accessing huge depths of fury I wouldn’t have thought I possessed. When a roommate went home one weekend and forgot to turn off her alarm clock so that it beeped behind her locked door for 48 hours, I entirely lost control, calling her in New York to berate her. I didn’t know how long it had been since I’d slept more than five hours. Why bother? By my senior year of college, my school work had grown more unmanageable, not less. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t able to complete it. My droll, aristocratic professor granted me an extension on the final term paper. One Friday evening well into December, when the idyllic New England campus had already begun to empty out for winter break, I was alone in the Sciences Library — the one that stayed open all night — squinting down at my notes on the Russian intelligentsia. Outside, it was blizzarding. Inside, the fluorescent lights beat down on the empty room. I felt dizzy and strange. It had been a particularly chemical week several days had passed since I had slept more than a handful of hours, and I was taking more and more pills to compensate. Suddenly, when I looked up from the page, the bright room seemed to dilate around me, as if I weren’t really there but rather stuck in some strange mirage. I seized with panic — what was happening? I tried to breathe, to snap myself back into reality, but I couldn’t. Shakily, I stood and made my way toward the phones. I dialed my friend Dave in his dorm room. “I’m having some kind of problem in the Sci Li,” I told him. My own voice sounded as if it belonged to someone else. An hour later, I was in an ambulance, being taken through the snowstorm to the nearest hospital. The volunteer E. M. T. was a Brown student I’d met once or twice. He held my hand the whole way. “Am I going to die?” I kept asking him. Dave and I sat for hours in the emergency room, until I was ushered behind a curtain and a doctor came in to see me. I wasn’t used to being looked at the way he was looking at me, which is to say, as if I were potentially insane, certifiable even. By then, I was feeling a little better, no longer so sure I was dying, and as I lay down on the examination table, I joked to him, “I will recline, like the Romans!” His expression remained unamused. I described what I’d been taking. His diagnosis: “Anxiety, amphetamine induced. ” I had had my first panic attack — an uncommon but by no means unknown reaction to taking too much Adderall. When I left the hospital, I left behind the canister of blue pills that I had painstakingly scrounged together. I still remember the sight of it sitting next to the examination bed. A few days later, I drew incompletes in my classes and went back home to New York. My father knew about the hospital incident, but I promised him I would stop taking the drug. And I fully intended to. I spent that long winter break at the public library on 42nd Street, soldiering lethargically through the essays I hadn’t been able to cope with while taking amphetamines. What I didn’t know then, what I couldn’t have known, was that the question of whether Adderall actually improves cognitive performance when taken — whether or not it is a “smart drug” — was unresolved. It would be another few years before studies appeared showing that Adderall’s effect on cognitive enhancement is more than a little ambiguous. Martha Farah, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania, has conducted much of this research. She has studied the effect of Adderall on subjects taking a host of standardized tests that measure restraint, memory and creativity. On balance, Farah and others have found very little to no improvement when their research subjects confront these tests on Adderall. Ultimately, she says, it is possible that “ people actually do improve on the drug, and people show no improvement or actually get worse. ” My period didn’t last very long. I turned in my incomplete school work and duly received my grades, but by graduation that spring, I was again locked into the familiar pattern, the blissful intensity and isolation followed by days of comedown, when I would laze around for hours, eating spoonfuls of ice cream from the carton, desperate for the sugar rush, barely able to muster the energy necessary to take a shower. It took me exactly one year from the time of college graduation to come to the decision that would, to a great extent, shape the next phase of my life. It hit me like a revelation: It might be possible to declare my independence from the various A. D. H. D. kids who sold me their prescription pills at exorbitant markups and get a prescription all my own. The idea occurred to me as I walked among the palm trees on the campus of U. C. L. A. By then, I was living in Los Angeles, working as a private tutor for kids, many of whom were themselves on Adderall, and taking classes in psychology and neuroscience in order to be able to apply for graduate school. I had decided I wanted to be a psychologist — infinitely more manageable than my secret ambition of being a writer, I thought. Infinitely more realistic. Like many my decisions were informed by panic and haste, but also, of course, by whatever supply of the pills I happened to be in possession of. I was now surrounded — or had surrounded myself — by others caught up in the Adderall web. Together with two of my closest friends in Los Angeles that year, we traversed the city in a state of perpetual, intensity, exchanging confidences that later we would not recall. Adderall was the currency of our friendship when one of us ran short of pills, another would cover the deficit. Driving through Los Angeles in a trance, weaving in and out of traffic, I found it all too easy to lose track of exactly how many pills I had swallowed that day. As soon as it occurred to me that I might be able to get my own prescription, I went to the nearest campus computer and searched for “cognitive behavioral psychiatrist, Westwood, Los Angeles, California. ” I knew enough about psychology by then to avoid the psychoanalysts, who would want to go deep and talk to me for weeks or maybe months about why I felt I needed chemical enhancement. No, I couldn’t turn to them — I needed a therapist with an M. D. a focus on concrete “results” and an office within a drive of U. C. L. A. The very next day, I was sitting in exactly the kind of place I had envisioned, an impersonal room with gray walls and black leather furniture, describing to the attractive young psychiatrist in the chair opposite me how I had always had to develop elaborate compensatory strategies for getting through my school work, how staying with any one thing was a challenge for me, how I was best at jobs that required elaborate multitasking, like waitressing. Untrue, all of it. I was a focused student and a terrible waitress. And yet these were the answers that I discovered from the briefest online research were characteristic of the A. D. H. D. diagnostic criteria. These were the answers they were looking for in order to pick up their pens and write down “Adderall, 20 mg, once a day” on their prescription pads. So these were the answers I gave. Fifty minutes later, I was standing on San Vicente Boulevard in the bright California sun, prescription slip in hand. That single doctor’s assessment, granted in less than an hour, would follow me everywhere I went: through the rest of my time in Los Angeles then off to London, with the help of FedEx then to New Haven, where I would pick it up once a month at the Yale Health Center then back to New York, where the doctor I found on my insurance plan would have no problem continuing to prescribe this medication, based only on my saying that it had been previously prescribed to me, that I’d been taking it for years. Any basic neuroscience textbook will explain how Adderall works in the brain — and why it’s so hard to break the habit. For years, the predominant explanation of addiction, promulgated by researchers like Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, has revolved around the neurotransmitter dopamine. Amphetamines unleash dopamine along with norepinephrine, which rush through the brain’s synapses and increase levels of arousal, attention, vigilance and motivation. Dopamine, in fact, tends to feature in every experience that feels especially great, be it having sex or eating chocolate cake. It’s for this reason that dopamine is so heavily implicated in current models of addiction. As a person begins to overuse a substance, the brain — which craves homeostasis and fights for it — tries to compensate for all the extra dopamine by stripping out its own dopamine receptors. With the reduction of dopamine receptors, the person needs more and more of her favored substance to produce the euphoria it once offered her. The vanishing dopamine receptors also help explain the agony of withdrawal: Without that favored substance, a person is suddenly left with a brain whose capacity to experience reward is well below its natural levels. It is an open question whether every brain returns to its original settings once off the drug. Nearly three years after getting the prescription, in 2008, I found myself sobbing in a psychiatrist’s office in New Haven, where I was finishing graduate school, explaining to him that my life was no longer my own. I had long been telling myself that by taking Adderall, I was exerting total control over my fallible self, but in truth, it was the opposite: The Adderall made my life unpredictable, blowing black storm systems over my horizon with no warning at all. Still, I couldn’t give it up. The psychiatrist was a kind Serbian man with an unflappable expression. He observed my distress calmly and prescribed Wellbutrin, an antidepressant with a slightly speedy quality that could cushion the blow of withdrawal and make it less painful to get off the Adderall. His theory was sound. But soon enough, I was simply taking both medications. Through my Adderall years, I lived a paradox, believing that the drug was indispensable to my very survival while also knowing that it was nothing short of toxic, poisonous to art, love and life. By 2009, I had a contract to write a book about psychoanalysis and neuroscience shortly after, I took a day job as a reporter for a news website. What was required of me there was the constant filing of short, catchy pieces: to be quick and glib and move on to the next one. It was the kind of rhythm perfect for an like me — and the kind of writing at odds with the effort to think slowly and carefully, at book length. The goal of slow and careful thinking came to feel more and more anachronistic with each passing week. It didn’t escape me that just as Adderall was surging onto the market in the 1990s, so, too, was the internet, that the two have ascended within American life in perfect . Occasionally, I would try to get off the drug. Each attempt began the same way. Step 1: the rounding up of all the pills in my possession, including those secret stashes hidden away in drawers and closets. Debating for hours whether to keep just one, “for emergencies. ” Then the leap of faith and the flushing of the pills down the toilet. Step 2: a day or two of feeling all right, as if I could manage this after all. Step 3: a bleak slab of time when the effort needed to get through even the simple tasks of a single day felt stupendous, where the future stretched out before me like a grim series of obligations I was far too tired to carry out. All work on my book would stop. Panic would set in. Then, suddenly, an internal Adderall voice would take over, and I would jump up from my desk and scurry out to refill my prescription — almost always a simple thing to achieve — or borrow pills from a friend, if need be. And the cycle would begin again. Those moments were all shrouded in secrecy and shame. Very few people in my life knew the extent to which the drug had come to define me. Over the years, I’ve been told by various experts on the subject that it should not have been so hard to get off Adderall. The drug is supposed to be relatively quick and painless to relinquish. I’ve often wondered whether my inability to give it up was my deepest failing. I’ve found some comfort in seeing my own experience mirrored back to me in the dozens and dozens of disembodied voices on the internet, filling the message boards of the websites devoted to giving up this drug. One post, in particular, has stayed with me, a mother writing on QuittingAdderall. com: I started taking Adderall in OCT 2010. And my story isn’t much different than most. . .. The honeymoon period, then all downhill. I feel like I cannot remember who I was, or how it felt, to go one minute of the day not on Adderall. I look back at pictures of myself from before this began and I wonder how I was ever “happy” without it because now I am a nervous wreck if I even come close to not having my pills for the day. There have been nights I have cried laying my daughter down to sleep because I was so ashamed that the time she spent with her mommy that day wasn’t real. “Nobody starts off by saying, I’m going to go develop a drug problem,” said Jeanette Friedman, a social worker with a specialty in addiction, when I met her in August at her Upper East Side office. “No one means to get addicted. But there’s such a casual use of something like Adderall nowadays — because it’s seen as benign, or a help to becoming more productive. And in our culture, to be productive is kind of everything. There’s a tremendous pressure not just to do well but to excel. ” When she is face to face with an addicted patient, Friedman explains, what is at stake is that patient’s very ability “to become a full person without the shadow of always needing something. ” Adderall complicates the usual dynamic of drug addiction by being squarely associated with productivity, achievement and success. “It’s very hard to think about going off it, because you don’t know if you’re going to be able to produce,” she says. “Plenty of people have gone off of it and have been able to tell the story, that yes, they definitely can produce. But the fear of not being able to is what keeps people still using. ” I remember that fear, in school and, later, at work, and it’s palpable in those pleas: The way I feel now is way worse than my A. D. D. ever was before I went on this stuff. I no longer feel, at this present time, able to get a Ph. D. I don’t feel able to do coursework, I don’t feel interested and passionate about the things I loved. I need to know from you, dear readers, that this will be temporary. Harris Stratyner, a psychologist and addiction specialist at the Caron Treatment Center in Manhattan, told me that each year he’s in practice, he sees more people desperate to get off Adderall. Stratyner estimates that he has treated more than 50 patients trying to stop using the drug currently, they range in age from 24 to 40. His Adderall patients are overwhelmingly creative people who wanted to work in the arts — yet, he says, many have chosen other paths, safer paths, resigning themselves before they’ve even really tried to achieve what they hoped for. “They often give in to practicality,” he says. “Then they feel they missed out. And when they take Adderall, it makes them feel good, so they don’t focus on the fact that they feel like they sold out. ” Many people are using Adderall to mask a sense of disappointment in themselves, Stratyner says, because it narrows their focus down to simply getting through each day, instead of the larger context of what they’re trying to build with their lives. “It becomes extremely psychologically and physiologically addictive,” he says. “It’s really a tough drug to get off of. ” The side effects of Adderall withdrawal that his patients report include nausea, chills, diarrhea, body aches and pains, even seizures. Occasionally, it is necessary for him to hospitalize his patients as they come down off Adderall. In the end, I did not get off Adderall alone. I had a brilliant psychiatrist. I believe she saved my life. On the wall of her office, she had a single image: a framed print of an Henri Matisse painting. Through our time together, Matisse came to stand for the creative process. You start one place, go through hell and wind up somewhere else, somewhere that surprises you. Adderall, we both agreed, was a perversion of that journey. Gradually, her words entered my inner dialogue and sustained me. I was 30 by the time I got off Adderall for good. This statement horrifies me even now, more than three years later, recognizing the amount of precious time I gave away to that drug. During the first weeks of finally giving up Adderall, the fatigue was as real as it had been before, the effort required to run even a tiny errand momentous, the gym unthinkable. The cravings were a force of their own: If someone so much as said “Adderall” in my presence, I would instantly begin to scheme about how to get just one more pill. Or maybe two. I was anxious, terrified I had done something irreversible to my brain, terrified that I was going to discover that I couldn’t write at all without my special pills. I didn’t yet know that it would only be in the years to follow that my book would finally come together. Even in those first faltering weeks, there were consolations. Simple pleasures were available to me again. I laughed more in conversation with my friends, and I noticed that they did, too. I had spent years of my life in a state of false intensity, always wondering if I should be somewhere else, working harder, achieving more. In the deep lethargy of withdrawal, I could shed that chemical urgency that kept me at a subtle distance from everyone around me — and from myself. On one of those earliest days of being off the drug, I was moving slowly, more than a little daunted, trying to walk the few miles to an appointment I had in Midtown Manhattan. It was a glorious summer evening, the sun just going down. As I approached Bryant Park, I heard live music and wandered in to see. A rock band was performing onstage. I hovered at the back of the crowd. The singer, muscular and bearded, gripped the microphone in front of him with two hands, pouring his heart into every word that left his mouth. His voice soared into that summer night. Suddenly, tears were streaming down my face. I was embarrassed, but I couldn’t stop. It was as if I hadn’t heard music in years. | 1 |
We Use Cookies: Our policy [X] Thousands Of Insect Rights Activists Protest I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here November 15, 2016 - BREAKING NEWS , ENTERTAINMENT Share 0 Add Comment
LONDON City came to a standstill this morning as 40,000 insect rights activists came out in protest against ITV’s popular reality television game show I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, over the mass slaughter of critters.
Complaints poured in to the ITV studios following last night’s trial, which saw callous contestants stomp and crush hundreds of insects live on air following a trial, which saw hundreds of thousands of organisms being forced into a box with four celebrities.
“The cruel bastards just got up after their trial and squashed everything in their path,” insect rights activist Dona Smith told WWN, “These vile people have no regard for life and tonight they’re actually going to eat insects alive. They obviously get off on murdering innocent insects. This show should be banned from the air – it’s disgusting”.
London police were later called to disperse today’s protesters as things got heated when one of the producers of the show tried to enter the ITV building in London situated in the south of the city.
“Tempers flared and several insect activists attacked and injured some three policemen, before overturning a car and burning it out,” confirmed one officer.
ITV confirmed that 2,345 cockroaches were killed in Australia during last night’s episode, along with 456 mealworms and 17 spiders. One rat was also treated for shock and is said to be in a stable condition today at a local vet’s surgery.
Insect rights groups have vowed to keep protesting the show’s ongoing cruelty, and a million strong march is being organised for next week in central London. | 0 |
For seven years, Uber’s stance on complying with regulations has been consistent: Ask forgiveness, not permission. On Friday, the company stuck to that position. It said it had no intention of ending a new test of its vehicles in San Francisco, even though California regulators had said the service was illegal because Uber had not obtained the necessary permits. Uber said its cars were still on the road and picking up passengers. The dispute is rooted in Uber’s refusal to seek a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which would allow it to test autonomous vehicles under certain conditions. Companies like Google, Tesla Motors and have all gotten such permits. Uber officials contend that under the letter of California law, the company does not need a permit because the motor vehicles department defines autonomous vehicles as those that drive “without the active physical control or monitoring of a natural person. ” Uber said its modified, Volvo XC90s require human oversight, and therefore do not fit California’s definition of an autonomous vehicle. “This rule just doesn’t apply to us,” Anthony Levandowski, vice president of Uber’s advanced technologies group, said in a conference call with reporters. “You don’t need to wear a belt and suspenders and whatever else if you’re wearing a dress. ” The motor vehicles department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. But in a letter to Uber on Friday, lawyers in the California attorney general’s office reiterated the state’s position that the company pull the off the road until it got the permits or face unspecified consequences. The episode serves the latest volley in Uber’s war with local and state regulators — not only in the United States, but in many of the more than 70 countries in which the company operates. Uber has previously grappled with the authorities in California over safety concerns. And Otto, the trucking founded by Mr. Levandowski and acquired by Uber in August, has flouted state laws in Nevada in the past. Uber argues the way its technology is used differs little from the way Tesla Motors, the electric carmaker founded by Elon Musk, uses its technology. Tesla offers a system called Autopilot, which gives drivers the ability to “match speed to traffic conditions, keep within a lane, automatically change lanes without requiring driver input,” according to the company’s website. As of Dec. 8, Tesla held a permit in California for testing. Uber said that permit did not apply to the wider commercial use of cars bought by consumers, and that the motor vehicle department’s process should be consistent across the types of vehicles on the road. “It’s an important issue of principle about when companies can operate cars on the roads and the uneven application of statewide rules across very similar types of technology,” Mr. Levandowski said. A Tesla spokeswoman declined to comment. | 1 |
Listen to this week’s podcast | Subscribe: iTunes | RSS | Stitcher| Audioboom Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday, cited for “new poetic expression within the great American song tradition” — leaving some delighted and some disgruntled that a songwriter would overshadow novelists and poets. Jon Pareles, The Times’s chief pop music critic, and Dwight Garner, a New York Times book critic, take to the podwaves with the pop reporter Joe Coscarelli to talk about the stakes for the literary world, about how lyrics are and aren’t poetry and about Dylan on love and death. They also discuss whether rock needs validation as literature, favorite Dylan lyrics and concerts through the years and a Dylan performance just last week — at the Desert Trip festival (also known as Oldchella) in California. “People are crazy, and times are strange,” as Mr. Dylan has observed. Please email us at popcast@nytimes. com with your thoughts and impressions, or maybe a question that you’d like us to address in a future episode. | 1 |
By John Vibes
In the midst of deepening tension between US allies NATO and Russia, NATO is planning the largest military buildup along the Russian border since the cold war.
NATO called on allied governments this week to contribute whatever troops and equipment they can to the effort. According to Reuters , thousands of troops are expected to arrive in the coming days and weeks.
It was reported that Italy, France, Denmark and other European states are expected to join the NATO military divisions that will be led by the United States along Russia’s border.
On Wednesday, Britain announced it is sending hundreds of soldiers and hardware to Russia’s borders as part of a huge military deployment.
A total of 800 troops, drones and tanks are moving to Estonia as part of the biggest military build-up of NATO troops on Russia’s borders since the Cold War.
In addition to the forces allocated for his specific operation, NATO has an army of over 40,000 ready to be called up to fight at any time.
The US military claims that this threatening move is meant to act as a “deterrent” to the Russian military, but this is obvious a move that will escalate tensions and push towards a possible third world war.
“This is a credible deterrence, not to provoke a conflict but to prevent conflict,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday — ironically ignoring the fact that it is a de facto provocation.
Just imagine what would happen if Russian troops amassed along the Mexican border and told the US that this move was to ‘prevent conflict.’
The so-called Iskander-M cruise missiles can hit targets across Poland and the Baltics, although NATO officials declined to say if Russia had moved nuclear warheads to Kaliningrad.
The United States’ envoy to NATO, Douglas Lute, told reporters that NATO and the US military may consider Russia a threat if they had nuclear weapons within range of NATO’s deployment. This statement is insane considering the fact that the US military is the one that is many miles from home on the border of someone else’s lands.
“This deployment, if it becomes permanent if the presence of nuclear weapons were confirmed, would be a change in (Russia’s) security posture,” Lute said.
If anyone is a threat, it is NATO and the US government.
These military tensions are the result of an ongoing proxy war in Syria, in which Western powers are attempting to institute a regime change in the country by funding violent rebel groups. Meanwhile, Russia has interests in keeping their allies in the Syrian government in control, putting the two superpowers at odds.
Until now, Russia and the US have been fighting through third parties, just as they had during the previous Cold War, and the same type of situation is developing today.
John Vibes is an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. He also has a publishing company where he offers a censorship free platform for both fiction and non-fiction writers. John writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com , where this article first appeared . You can contact him and stay connected to his work at his Facebook page. John is currently battling cancer naturally , without any chemo or radiation, and will be working to help others through his experience, if you wish to contribute to his treatments please donate here . Activist Post Daily Newsletter Subscription is FREE and CONFIDENTIAL Free Report: 10 Ways to Survive the Economic Collapse with subscription | 0 |
A National Guard soldier headed home from a deployment to Afghanistan says he was charged a hefty fee to check his military bag. [First Lieutenant John Rader said United Airlines made him pay $200 to check a bag on his flight to Austin, Texas, from El Paso, the final leg of his trip home from his deployment to Afghanistan, because it was overweight, Fox News reported. “I was told point blank that I’d have to pay $200 for the overage or find another bag to siphon stuff off with,” Rader told FOX 7. “Well, I didn’t have another bag so I was caught in a bind. ” Some of the things in his bag included Kevlar vests, two helmets, and boots. Rader said he was initially required to serve a deployment, but he volunteered to extend his deployment to 21 months. United says military can check up to five bags as long as they are each 70 pounds or less, according to the airline’s website. Delta has a similar policy, while American and Southwest allow military to check their bags for free provided that they are 100 pounds or less. Rader said he tried to work it out with the ticket agent so he would not have to pay the fee but was told his bag was too heavy for the military benefit. “There was no empathy to the situation. I’m not looking for sympathy, but some form of empathy in the situation. There was none of that. It was just cold. I had to either pay or leave the bag,” Rader said. He added that another soldier on his flight also had to pay a fee. United Airlines released a statement apologizing for the incident: “We are disappointed anytime a customer has an experience that doesn’t meet their expectations, and our customer care team is reaching out to this customer to issue a refund for his oversized bag as a gesture of goodwill. ” | 1 |
A Tradition of Forgetting Indian Rights November 22, 2016
Ironically, as Americans commemorate how Native Americans helped save the Pilgrims in 1621, Indian-rights activists are under attack today in defense of land that a 1868 treaty guaranteed as theirs, observes Nat Parry.
By Nat Parry @natparry
Making official a quintessential American tradition dating back to the 1621 feast between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe, President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 declared the last Thursday of November to be the national day of Thanksgiving – a vain attempt to unite the North and South at the height of the Civil War.
Five years later, continuing a closely paralleled American tradition, the U.S. government signed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which established the Great Sioux Reservation west of the Missouri River and promised no more white settlement in a huge, 18-million acre swath of land.
Over the next two decades, as Civil War Reconstruction was completed and a nationwide Thanksgiving date was finally agreed upon by Northern and Southern states, the U.S. continuously reneged on the Fort Laramie Treaty, eventually breaking the Great Sioux Reservation up into five smaller reservations: Cheyenne River Reservation, Lower Brule Indian Reservation, Rosebud Indian Reservation, Pine Ridge Reservation, and Standing Rock Reservation.
More than a century later, in 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government had illegally taken this land, and awarded $120.5 million to the Sioux Nation, based on the market value of the land in 1877, plus interest. For nearly four decades, however, the Lakota Sioux have refused to accept payment and instead continued to demand that the United States return the territory.
Today, the Sioux people are continuing to take a stand on these principles – the flashpoint now being the Dakota Access Pipeline, which, upon its completion is expected to transport some 470,000 barrels of crude oil a day across several states. Sioux tribe members and their allies have protested this pipeline for months, raising concerns about the threat it poses to their water supply, the effects that the fracked oil will have on the climate, and the process by which the project was approved, saying that it failed to take into account Native rights.
“We live with so many broken promises, there’s no reason for it,” said Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. “We understand what lands we own, and what lands were illegally taken from us.”
The government, of course, is responding the way it always has to Native American resistance – through brute force. Over the past few months, police and private security forces have viciously suppressed the water protectors, siccing dogs on them and arresting them for “trespassing.” The repression, which a group of United Nations experts called “excessive” and “increasingly militarized,” culminated Sunday night in some of worst violence against Native people seen since the 1973 siege of nearby Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
Police fired tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper spray and water at hundreds of protesters in the subfreezing North Dakota weather late Sunday night and early Monday morning, following an attempt by protesters to remove burned vehicles blocking Backwater Bridge in order to enable emergency vehicles and local traffic to move freely.
The police assault led to several reported cases of life-threatening hypothermia. “It is below freezing right now and the Morton County Sheriff’s Department is using a water cannon on our people – that is an excessive and potentially deadly use of force,” said activist Dallas Goldtooth.
Every aspect of this appears to violate the letter and spirit of the 1868 Laramie Treaty, in which the federal government not only promised to respect Sioux land rights, but also to come to the aid of Native people if they are wronged by outside forces.
“If bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States, shall commit any wrong upon the person or property of the Indians, the United States will … proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States, and also re-imburse the injured person for the loss sustained,” the treaty reads .
At this time of Thanksgiving, it would only be appropriate for President Barack Obama to insist that the “bad men” who are committing wrongs “upon the person or property of the Indians” stand down immediately, as well as to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and reimburse the Sioux for losses already sustained.
Then, perhaps, the shameful tradition of breaking treaties while giving thanks might itself be broken, and Americans might be able to enjoy their turkey dinners and family reunions without a cloud of hypocrisy hanging over their heads. | 0 |
Yesterday afternoon, MILO’s YouTube channel was tagged with a warning for a video calling the Democrats “The Party of the Cuckold,” and promptly had it’s livestream privileges revoked hours before his University of New Mexico event on immigration. Now, the morning after, it’s finally been reinstated. [YouTube addressed the appeal this morning, with this: “Thanks for contacting YouTube. I hope this email finds you well. Regards, | 1 |
A favorite trope of feminists and women claiming workplace discrimination is that female staff are the victims of “sexism” due to judgments about their appearance. But how many times have we all seen girls working in our building or out on their lunch breaks in attire more befitting of a Tinder date, raunchy nightclub, strip joint, or even the gym? Meanwhile, men must keep their fashion within a very narrow range of acceptability, otherwise they risk failing to get that fancy new job or could lose their current one.
Furthermore, guys learn to deal with the fact that the world does judge you based on your appearance. Many women have zero idea about this concept, only accepting the judgments they agree with or those ones that further their interests and career. For those opinions they don’t like, they can always conveniently claim the person giving them is sexist or misogynist, or, just as amorphously, “objectifying” a woman. This is classic attention-seeking.
Attention-whore Jayde Phoenix.
The epitome of this growing female narcissism is a British woman by the name of Jayde Phoenix . Touting herself as a “IT security expert” (despite her academic and job credentials being a fraction of what it means to be highly qualified or plain non-existent), she suggested a “guess the number of USBs in a jar” competition to promote her company. With her breasts nearly spilling out of a see-through top, she looked at the camera with a lustful gaze, what many on the Roosh V Forum would call “a thousand cock stare.” Her clothes (and demeanor) better suited a street hooker than a “professional.”
As we should have expected in our troubled times, the many critics of Phoenix’s contrived appearance were labeled as “sexists,” “bullies,” and “misogynists.” She herself tried to excoriate her detractors, emphasizing how “good” she was at her job and the professional standards she supposedly meets every day. But there are a few questions both the original photo exercise and her subsequent justifications failed to answer, namely:
If she’s so good at her job, why did she need to use a see-through bra in the picture? Why doesn’t she wear a top size that comfortably contains her breasts, rather than flaunting them? Why is she and not someone else in the photo? Though the attention-seeking of Jayde and her employer first flared up several months ago, the dilemma of girls like her is an ongoing one.
Try getting employed in an office as a man with this sort of attire Baggy pants with your underwear showing
The male office worker could be wearing black pants and not jeans, like in the photo, and sporting a typical business shirt. That doesn’t matter. No white collar company worth a dime is going to hire a man whose boxers or briefs are showing down to his ass. Compare this to the parade of female office workers who go beyond showing their arms and the hint of a bra strap to exhibiting half the surface area of their breasts. In addition, if you haven’t already noticed, the very short crop top is now a staple garment within American office (un)culture. It is not unusual to see a large part of a woman’s bare stomach and back, including over-the-top tattoos.
Hawaiian shirts and board shorts
Some workplaces, most notably those trying to appear “hip,” have drastically relaxed the need for business attire. But these employers are definitely in the minority. A man with a penchant for Hawaiian shirts, board shirts or other beach clothing will find his career options drastically limited. As they should be! The way in which you relate to your friends or fellow tourists on a holiday is almost always far different from how you should deal with clients, investors, stakeholders and the like in your profession. Men save their best (or worst) Hawaiian shirt for office charity fundraising days, company summer parties and related functions, not an average day.
Leather, lycra or ridiculously tight clothing in general
Inasmuch as tight clothing on men doesn’t tickle your or my fancy, it’s how ironic how an obese woman can wear garments twice or thrice as close-fitting in the workplace than a fit male. And, male office workers of the world, don’t even consider wearing leather pants during your next boardroom presentation. The occasional gay man or metrosexual might escape sanction for some outlandish or garish outfit, but most industries, if they value their reputation with clients, will prohibit you from donning clothing that looks like it came from the wardrobe of Lance Armstrong or someone from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy .
Excuses for female attention-seeking are out of control It seems that “Lady” Victoria Hervey and Jayde Phoenix read the same book.
There is little doubt that Jayde Phoenix’s employer expected a backlash against her. In this sense, it was a very good marketing and advertising ploy (for those prospective clients who do not care about actual professionalism, of which there are many). As for Phoenix and other women like her, this situation is win-win. At the very least, she and those of her ilk can continue their day-to-day objectification of themselves, generating desperately craved male attention in particular. Even for girls who do not receive the public’s spotlight, any roadblock or mishap in their career can later be blamed on “misogyny” after judgments about their appearance.
At best, as happened in Phoenix’s situation, she gets nation-wide and even global coverage. For narcissistic girls who take zero responsibility for how others may negatively perceive them, this is the coup of a lifetime. Yet as they age (and Jayde Phoenix looks far older than her early 20s), expect their antics to become more straw-clutching. And while these girls engage in sexual self-advancement and wage war over imaginary discriminations, the vast majority of male employees have no scapegoat they can use to rationalize their failures and virtually no means of combating institutionalized prejudice against their so-called “privilege.”
By the way, is Jayde Phoenix’s Arabic necklace indicative of some “work” she may have done in Dubai?
Read More: 6 Types Of Photos Girls Use To Attention Whore On Tinder
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Farage to act as go-between for Trump and nearest Domino’s 11-11-16
NIGEL Farage will be Donald Trump’s high powered ‘go-between’ whenever the new president wants to eat some pizza.
An excited Farage was summoned to New York by Trump yesterday to be appointed as one of the billionaire’s eight ‘fast food ambassadors’.
Farage said: “It will be my job to sit down with the nearest Domino’s and talk through Donald’s approach and his priorities. They need to understand that he wants to a deal about pizza, but it has to be the right deal.
“His claim that anchovies were only fit for Mexican rapists was campaign trail rhetoric.
“He wants to work with anchovies, he wants to work with thinly sliced ham and he wants to work with black olives.
“Well, maybe not black olives. Do olives come in beige? And if not, why not?”
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Регион: Восточная Азия Наблюдая реакцию корейской общественности на победу в президентских выборах Трампа, можно отметить «великую печаль» — политические круги Южной Кореи скорее болели за Клинтон, вспоминая желание Трампа как минимум повысить плату за содержание американского контингента в РК. Сегодня в состав этой группировки входят 28,5 тыс. военнослужащих, истребители F-16, ЗРК Patriot и другие виды наступательных и оборонительных вооружений. На их замену южнокорейскими потребуются примерно 16,3 млрд долларов, и на фоне экономического кризиса и политических проблем Сеулу будет непросто раскошелиться на такую сумму. Конечно, как только результаты выборов в США стали известны, Пак Кын Хе поздравила Трампа с избранием, указав, что американский народ выразил доверие его лидерским качествам и огромному успешному опыту в различных сферах. Глава РК также подчеркнула, что Сеул будет продолжать тесное сотрудничество с Вашингтоном в целях стабильности и процветания во всем мире. В тот же день 9 ноября администрация президента РК провела экстренное заседание Совета национальной безопасности. Там Пак Кын Хе дала указание подготовить экстренные меры реагирования в сфере экономики и безопасности в новой обстановке. 10 ноября заседание по оценке итогов президентских выборов в США провело министерство обороны РК. По его итогам военные подтвердили позицию о продолжении сотрудничества с американской стороной по вопросам ротационного размещения стратегических сил США в РК, мобильной системы ПРO THAAD и передачи Сеулу оперативного контроля над своими войсками в военное время. Кроме того, принято решение о создании рабочей группы по сотрудничеству с США в оборонной политике, направленной на сохранение крепкого союза РК и США. Первый итог работы этой группы – сделанный 14 ноября доклад о том, что новое правительство США может потребовать увеличения расходов южнокорейской стороны на содержание американского военного контингента, а также наращивания возможностей собственной армии. Прежняя политика Барака Обамы будет изменена на более активное санкционное давление, допускающее, однако, диалог. В этом контексте американской стороне надо объяснить, какие меры принимает РК для обеспечения комфортного пребывания контингента США, и указать, что вооружённые силы США вносят вклад в мир и стабильность в регионе. Ведь расходы РК на содержание американского контингента по доле к ВВП выше, чем в Японии и Германии. Отмечается и вероятность полного пересмотра условий свободной торговли. Вице-премьер по вопросам экономики Ю Иль Хо заявил, что победа Дональда Трампа на выборах может дать южнокорейской экономике новые возможности. Поскольку южнокорейские компании могут принять участие в развитии инфраструктуры и производственной отрасли США. Таким образом, правительство РК приступило к подготовке к работе с новым американским правительством, проводя тщательный мониторинг экономической программы Трампа. Комментируя действия власти, СМИ РК пишут, что оценить направления политики Дональда Трампа в отношении Севера трудно. Он то называл Ким Чен Ына «маньяком», то не исключал возможности диалога с Пхеньяном, говоря о решении ядерной проблемы Севера через давление на Китай. Что же до потенциально острых моментов в отношениях РК и США, требующих пересмотра, то это не только доля РК в расходах на содержание американского военного контингента. В настоящий момент южнокорейская сторона покрывает половину, но Трамп выражал мнение о том, что РК должна взять на себя 100% расходов, а деньги, которые США тратят на безопасность союзников, должны быть направлены на собственные нужды. Более того, им озвучивалась позиция о возможности ядерного вооружения РК и Японии, и хотя радикал-консерваторы РК уже открыто обсуждают такой вариант, официальный Сеул против, полагая, что это только ухудшит региональную стабильность. Кроме того, Дональд Трамп считает условия соглашения о свободной торговле между РК и США неравноправными и лишающими американцев рабочих мест. Он говорил о необходимости пересмотра соответствующих договорённостей. Всё это не могло не вызвать обеспокоенности традиционных союзников США. Не обходится и без опасений по поводу отсутствия прямых каналов связи с командой Дональда Трампа. Надеясь на успех Клинтон, южнокорейские политики не занимались налаживанием мостов с альтернативным кандидатом и необходимость в предварительной подготовке к сотрудничеству с новым правительством США чувствуется как никогда. Однако признаков резкого изменения политики пока нет. 9 ноября 2016 г. в ходе очередного брифинга представитель Белого дома Джошуа Эрнест указал, что, скорее всего, администрация Дональда Трампа будет придерживаться линии сохранения крепких отношений между Вашингтоном и Сеулом. Над укреплением отношений между США и РК работали и демократы, и республиканцы и, более того, определенные проблемы в отношениях двух стран (как это было, скажем, при Пак Чон Хи и Картере) чаще случались при демократах. На следующий день, в ходе состоявшегося 10 ноября телефонного разговора с президентом РК Пак Кын Хе Дональд Трамп подтвердил приверженность Вашингтона союзу с Сеулом и обеспечению безопасности РК. По данным МИД РК, в ходе десятиминутного разговора Дональд Трамп заявил, что Вашингтон без каких-либо колебаний будет продолжать сотрудничество с Сеулом в вопросе безопасности. Некоторые американские эксперты тоже полагают, что перемен не будет. Так, экс-председатель комитета по делам разведки Палаты представителей Конгресса США Питер Хукстра считает, что новое правительство во главе с Дональдом Трампом будет сохранять крепкие отношения с РК. Хукстра подчеркнул, что сегодня Сеул и Вашингтон поддерживают тесное сотрудничество в сферах экономики и безопасности, и в Южной Корее полагают, что это заявление направлено на сглаживание опасений. Конечно, пишут на международном радио РК, резкие заявления Трампа являются отражением его убеждений. Но, возможно, это связано лишь со стремлением заручиться поддержкой большего количества избирателей, и южнокорейские эксперты надеются, что жесткие высказывания Трампа не найдут продолжения в реальной политике нового правительства, которое будет придерживаться более сдержанной и разумной линии. Похоже думает и южнокорейская оппозиция. Лидер фракции оппозиционной Демократической партии Тобуро У Сан Хо заявил, что американские парламентарии не хотят изменений в отношениях РК и США, поэтому граждане РК могут особо не беспокоиться по поводу избрания президентом США Дональда Трампа, а председатель оппозиционной Народной партии Пак Чи Вон также указал на то, что Дональд Трамп будет вести политику с практической точки зрения и это может дать РК некоторые преимущества. Автор также склоняется к позиции, что радикального изменения в отношениях двух стран не произойдет и не раз высказывал эту точку зрения . Поэтому к данной теме мы вернемся только если возникнет серьезный повод для беспокойства. Константин Асмолов, кандидат исторических наук, ведущий научный сотрудник Центра корейских исследований Института Дальнего Востока РАН, специально для интернет-журнала «Новое Восточное Обозрение». Популярные статьи | 0 |
The readers of Elena Ferrante are devoted — and fiercely protective — of that anonymous Italian author. That much was clear from the swift and unforgiving backlash after an investigative journalist used financial documents to suggest in an article published on Sunday that Anita Raja, an Italian translator, was behind Ms. Ferrante’s books. Many readers saw the story — which appeared simultaneously on the website of The New York Review of Books and in an Italian, a German and a French publication — not only as a violation of privacy but as an unprovoked aggression against an author known for female protagonists who use radical to exert power over their lives and fates. In his article, Claudio Gatti, a reporter for Il Sole 24 Ore, an Italian financial daily, did not definitively name Ms. Raja as Ms. Ferrante, but he described financial records indicating that payments from Ms. Ferrante’s publishing house, Edizioni to Ms. Raja, a consultant there, had risen dramatically since 2014, when Ms. Ferrante’s four Neapolitan novels became an international publishing phenomenon. His report drew broad condemnation in the literary world, with writers for The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Times Literary Supplement and elsewhere questioning whether an intriguing literary mystery needed to be resolved through tough investigative journalism techniques. “You do an investigation into property for tax evaders, not for those who want to preserve their anonymity,” the Italian novelist Erri De Luca wrote in an email. “It’s a serious violation of the right to privacy. I’m sorry for Anita Raja, who will now be forced into celebrity. ” Running through the conversation was the notion that Mr. Gatti’s exposé was a sexist violation — yet another example, critics said, at a moment of intense debate over gender inequality, of how successful women find themselves bullied and demeaned by men. “People really went there very quickly,” Elaine Showalter, a retired professor at Princeton University and the author of numerous works of feminist criticism, said of the charge of sexism against Mr. Gatti. “Here’s a woman who is not only extremely successful but explores women’s lives in a way that doesn’t depict men very favorably,” Ms. Showalter continued. People may be seeing Mr. Gatti’s unmasking of the author, she added, “as a kind of revenge. ” Mr. Gatti said in an interview that he did not understand the strong reactions. “I wasn’t going after a woman, I was going after a mystery,” he said. “I would like to ask the people who didn’t want to know, ‘Explain what work of art in the history of art has been ruined or damaged by knowing who the artist is?’ I can name many, many cases where the art is enhanced. ” Hugh Eakin, editor of The New York Review’s blog, which published the version of Mr. Gatti’s report, said the occasion for the piece was the forthcoming release of an expanded version of a book of Ms. Ferrante’s nonfiction writings, in which the author says she grew up in Naples as the daughter of a seamstress. “Now that an expanded version is about to be published in English, it seemed there was a legitimate occasion to inquire about the relation between the book and its author,” Mr. Eakin wrote. Ms. Raja was born in Naples, but grew up in Rome, the daughter of an Italian father and, as Mr. Gatti said in a deeply reported sidebar, a Polish Jewish mother who fled Nazi Germany for Italy. Ms. Raja’s husband, the novelist Domenico Starnone, has said in interviews that he grew up in Naples and that his mother was a seamstress. He has spent years saying that he is not Ms. Ferrante. Ms. Raja has also denied authorship of Ms. Ferrante’s books. Mr. Eakin added of Mr. Gatti’s reporting, “Though it amasses considerable evidence it’s also worth noting the article does not make a conclusive statement. ” (Mr. Gatti had approached The New York Times several weeks ago about possibly publishing his research, but the newspaper decided not to pursue the arrangement, which would have involved coordinating with multiple journalistic partners.) Over the years, there have been other attempts to unmask authors, such as Joe Klein, who wrote “Primary Colors,” a roman à clef about Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, or Anne Desclos, who used a pseudonym when she wrote the 1954 erotic classic “The Story of O. ” But the effort to unveil Ms. Ferrante seemed to hit a deeper chord, perhaps because she has said in interviews that anonymity was crucial to her writing process. And it seemed to reveal a clash of sensibilities — between the journalistic and the literary, between those who believe anyone who publishes is fair game and those who believe some secrets should be kept. In short, a clash between the world of reporting and the emotional truths of fiction. The publication in four languages simultaneously was “very aggressive — more appropriate to the capture of a criminal,” the novelist Alexander Chee wrote in an email. “She seems to have offended him by keeping herself private — it’s like the literary version of ‘How to Talk to a Woman Wearing Headphones,’” he added, referring to recent controversy over a blog post. Even some readers who admit they were curious to know say that they somehow didn’t want Ms. Ferrante’s identity to be made public. The editor of The Times Literary Supplement, Stig Abell, wrote a piece called “Why the TLS Would Not Have Named Elena Ferrante,” citing the author’s right to privacy. Salman Rushdie took to Facebook. “I am Elena Ferrante,” he wrote. “In the spirit of ‘I am Spartacus,’ in the wake of the New York Review of Books’ tawdry ‘exposé’ of her identity, every writer in the world should do this now. ” Not all writers shared that position. The critic Marco Roth said that Mr. Gatti’s reporting was valuable, even inevitable. “Conditions change for all writers once they’ve been published and it’s naïve to assume that Ferrante’s pseudonymity (had it been protected) would have allowed her to flower forever in the brilliant vein of ‘My Brilliant Friend,’” Mr. Roth wrote on Facebook, referring to the first of Ms. Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. “Anita Raja will now have to work this new twist in her life into the next stage of her work, whatever that may be. No writer can control or really has the right to control the conditions of her reception,” Mr. Roth added. Some writers invoked the rhetoric of sexual assault in condemning Mr. Gatti’s approach. Alexandra Schwartz, on the website of The New Yorker, blasted Mr. Gatti’s justifications for his unmasking — that Ms. Ferrante is a public figure and the public who buys her books has a right to know. “Certainly Gatti does not explain why he feels so free to interpret Ferrante’s ‘no’ as his ‘yes,’” Ms. Schwartz wrote. Some critics speculated on why readers were so protective of Ms. Ferrante’s anonymity. “By protecting her privacy, she protected ours,” the critic Dayna Tortorici wrote in a post on N+1. “More than Ferrante herself, her readers have benefited from her choice. ” “We are as invested in her anonymity — and her autonomy — as she is,” she added. “It is a compact: she won’t tell us, we won’t ask, and she won’t change her mind and tell us anyway. In exchange, she’ll write books and we’ll read them. ” Ann Goldstein, who translated Ms. Ferrante’s novels into English, said in an interview that she hoped the latest revelations, however inconclusive, would not change how readers approached Ms. Ferrante’s books. “I think people will read them the same way they’ve always read them,” she said. “I don’t know how important the author is. I’d take her position the books are in the world. They are what they are. ” | 1 |
Homeschooling families throughout the nation are voicing opposition to a school choice bill that they say will ultimately result in regulation of homeschooling in the United States. [Many parents who homeschool their children, as well as their numerous local and national homeschooling organizations, are protesting the bill, introduced by Iowa Rep. Steve King (R) and calling upon the members of Congress who are its sponsors to “leave homeschooling families alone. ” School vouchers created by H. R. 610, the Choices in Education Act of 2017, “would be a slippery slope toward more federal involvement and control in homeschooling,” asserts William Estrada, director of federal relations for the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). King’s bill would first repeal the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. While many homeschoolers agree with the repeal of ESEA, the bill next would send all federal education funds to the states in the form of grants, which states would then distribute as vouchers to public, private, and homeschooled students. Estrada asserts the bill would essentially create a “federal right to homeschool. ” Section 104 of the bill states, “To be eligible to receive a grant … the State will … make it lawful for parents of an eligible child to elect … to enroll their child in any public or private elementary or secondary school in the State or to their child. ” Estrada explains: While this sounds good, HSLDA has fought — successfully — for decades to make sure that there is no “federal right to homeschool” because what could be created by a favorable Congress could be regulated by a future, hostile Congress. It is far better (and far more constitutionally sound) for education decisions — and homeschool freedom — to be protected at the state level. We ask our friends at the federal level to simply leave homeschooling families alone. Section 105 of the bill further states: The State shall distribute funds … based on the number of eligible children enrolled in the public schools operated by each local educational agency and the number of eligible children within each local educational agency’s geographical area whose parents elect to send their child to a private school or to their child. … On an annual basis, on a date to be determined by the Secretary, each local education agency shall inform the State educational agency of … the number of eligible children within each local educational agency’s geographical area whose parents elect … to their child. Estrada says the bill allows states to “track” homeschooling students. “There is only one way that states and school districts can do this: by requiring homeschooling families to register with them, and be tracked by the school district,” he asserts. “This will be especially problematic in states that do not require homeschooling families to file a notice of intent with the local school district. H. R. 610 will require homeschooling families in all 50 states to register with the local school district. This would be just the first cost of ‘free government money. ’” In a statement on his website about the bill, King says: In order to receive a grant or voucher under my legislation, the State must ensure that the funds be distributed appropriately on a per pupil basis. Additionally and most importantly, this bill makes it lawful for the parent to make the ultimate decision between public, private or education for their children. However, Estrada asserts it is not the job of the federal government to grant parents the freedom to decide their children’s education. “The Constitution protects the right of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children, as the U. S. Supreme Court has ruled in its seminal cases of Meyer, Pierce, and Yoder,” he says. “Federal legislation to ‘protect’ homeschooling is unnecessary. ” In an interview with Breitbart News, King says he “regrets” most of all that a meeting has not taken place with homeschooling parents prior to the uproar over his bill. The Iowa congressman says that while his legislative director has been on the phone with homeschoolers opposed to his legislation, a meeting he had slated with them may have been canceled due to his schedule. He said he and his staff have asked homeschoolers to hold back on their open criticism of the bill until he could meet with them. “And now we’ve got a national thing going on here that didn’t need to happen,” King says. “I’ve been trying for the last several weeks to have a meeting with them, and I’ve said to my staff I want to look them in the eye and I want to talk this through reasonably. ” “I’ve tried to talk openly and do business and we haven’t been able to have that meeting, and I regret that,” King emphasizes, still adding that he is surprised “there’s a nationwide effort to oppose the broadest, most sweeping bill that supports parents being in charge of their children’s education that this Congress has ever seen. ” He explains his view of the legislation: The objective is this, that we’re watching as a nationwide curriculum is being established, and that nationwide curriculum, coupled with the money that goes to that, pushes all the public schools into that system, and eventually drags the parochial schools into that curriculum. I’m watching as our values are being undermined, and I’m watching as western civilization is being deconstructed systemically throughout our public school system and especially in our universities — which we don’t touch with this, by the way. The object is to put parents back in control of their children’s education and curriculum and put it in a position where the public schools compete with the parochial schools. To have exempted homeschools from this, would have made the bill the target of homeschoolers, too. King thinks homeschoolers should participate in his bill for the sake of the new system — the intention of which, he says, is to save the culture of the country that is being destroyed by the public school monopoly. He continues: They’re missing the objective of this bill, which is to put the public schools in a position where they have to compete with the parochial schools and respect and honor the homeschools, and let the states regulate those things at that level, not the federal government. States that are unwilling to pass a voucher program have to give up their federal money. So isn’t that a much bigger goal for us — to put the public schools into competition with parochial schools than it is to preserve the status quo of homeschool? Homeschoolers, King argues, want “to be protected from ever being threatened by a state approving federal funds going through a voucher system that might tempt some of their people to accept some money that comes from the state and federal government. ” “To do that, they would not want to have parochial schools have an opportunity to compete with the public schools, which takes down our ability to allow masses of parents to decide curriculums, moral values, etc. ,” he continues. “Many parents can’t afford to send their children to a parochial school, nor can they actually homeschool their children. ” Wisconsin homeschooling parent Tina Hollenbeck, however, writes at her blog about the level of regulation King’s bill is inviting in for homeschoolers. The measure, she says, provides for states to be “mandated to send information about all children — yes, every child using any form of education — to the federal Secretary of Education in order to get the voucher money H. R. 610 claims the states are due. ” Hollenbeck continues: Of course, the states will want to report on all the children anyway — more children equals more money for state coffers even if some of us don’t take it — but even if a state wanted to behave ethically in order to protect the privacy of home educators who refuse voucher money, they are not allowed to do so under this bill. Thus, any state that currently requires any sort of notification from homeschoolers — information that previously remained at the local or state level — will now violate our privacy by giving information about us to the federal Secretary of Education — without regard to either the 4th or 10th Amendments to the Constitution. And we can expect swift ( ) action from states whose homeschool laws currently require no . They will assert that they “must” know who the homeschooled children are according to H. R. 610 … Karen Braun, a homeschooling parent from Michigan, also tells Breitbart News she is opposed to H. R. 610. “Reading the fine print, it is clear they will make sure that states distribute the funds in a manner so as to ‘ensure that such payments will be used for appropriate educational expenses,’” she explains. “And who gets to define ‘appropriate educational expense?’ They do. ” “This isn’t about giving homeschoolers help, or offering choices, but about giving the nanny state more control,” Braun concludes. The bill is by Republican Reps. Andy Harris (MD) Trent Franks (AZ) and Pete Olson (TX). Estrada observes to members of HSLDA that Franks has clarified his position on the bill after speaking with homeschoolers: [W]e talked with Franks and his staff and they agree with our concerns about homeschooling families being included in H. R. 610. As a result, there is no need to contact his office, and we are deeply grateful to him for his commitment to protecting homeschool freedom from “help” by the federal government. Here is the statement Franks gave us: “I understand the concerns of the homeschool community. My support for the bill only extends to vouchers for public school and private school students. If this bill moves forward, I would request that any language that would impose vouchers upon homeschools is taken out. ” Breitbart News reached out to Franks’ office, and his staff confirmed his statement to Estrada. The bill is introduced just as Betsy DeVos takes her post as U. S. education secretary. DeVos — whose primary areas of interest have been school choice and school voucher programs — experienced unprecedented controversy during her confirmation process from both those on the left, who fear privatization of public schools, and those on the right who have warned against regulation of private and home schools through vouchers. The school voucher — as a transfer of taxpayer funds — is a finance mechanism to create school choice and one that is associated with the highest level of regulation for schools that agree to accept them. If parents use vouchers to send their children to a private school or to homeschool them, that school choice may have additional regulatory burdens placed upon it by the state in which it is located — in the name of “accountability. ” In a 2010 study at Cato Institute, Andrew Coulson studied the question of school vouchers and increased regulation of private schools. He concluded that “vouchers … impose a substantial and statistically significant additional regulatory burden on participating private schools. ” Voucher programs, Coulson concluded, are more likely to “suffocate the very markets to which they aim to expand access,” because state funds — which invariably come with state regulation — are directly transferred, in the form of vouchers, to parents to spend in an alternate education setting. Cindy Nicolai writes at the Constitutional Home Educators Alliance that, for homeschoolers, government regulations are binding “strings. ” “ and home education must avoid those strings in order to retain our independence, sovereignty, autonomy, and most importantly, our freedom,” she explains. “We recognize the value of that freedom and are willing to pay the cost to keep home education unrestricted and free from government control. ” “Homeschools are not threatened under this bill,” King insists, but adds, “I’m still open to listen to viewpoints, but they also must listen to mine, and they have not done that. They should come and talk to me in a reasonable fashion instead of unleashing letters across the state and asking people to send tweets at me, send letters, and call my office. ” | 1 |
Eddie Mounts, the son and grandson of miners, describes the past few years in coal country as a time of economic plague. Businesses closed and people scattered, he said. They went to Tennessee, North Carolina, anywhere work could be found. If they had to learn a new trade, they did that, too. The source of the affliction, he insisted, could be traced to Washington, to the Obama administration and to regulations that Mr. Mounts, 54, said were intentionally designed to shut down the mines: “Shut them down and get them not working. ” So he was thrilled with the news on Tuesday that President Trump was signing an executive order aiming to roll back some of those regulations. “It may take a couple of years to catch fire again,” Mr. Mounts said. “But I think it will. ” It is hard to overstate the antipathy in coal country to the Obama administration’s regulatory approach, beyond even the rules that Mr. Trump has moved to undo. It included the Clean Power Plan, which would shutter older power plants, and which the Trump administration is planning to rewrite, but also the assertiveness of federal health and safety regulation. Some saw these as mere attempts to bully the mines. It came as little surprise that Mr. Trump, who was flanked by coal miners as he signed the executive order in Washington, won Appalachia by huge margins in November. Hope that he can reverse the fortunes of coal country still runs high, as could be seen in the reactions of politicians like West Virginia’s attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, a Republican: This is a widespread sentiment — even if there is little solid evidence that Mr. Trump, or any president, can make all that much of a difference. “The market’s going to be what the market is, and that’s what’s going to set the demand,” said Robert Stinson, who operates a small coal mine in the city of War, in southern West Virginia, a few miles from the Virginia state line. Regulations certainly played a part in coal’s downturn, Mr. Stinson said. But only a part. Some of the fiercest coal country critics of the Obama administration have acknowledged as much. Robert E. Murray, an outspoken mining executive, recently suggested tempered expectations for a coal rebound. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, cautioned in November that the potential impact of a regulatory rollback would be “hard to tell. ” There are too many other, more decisive factors behind the decline in central Appalachian coal mining, said Sam Petsonk, a lawyer for Mountain State Justice, a legal aid organization in Charleston, W. Va. “The reserves just aren’t there anymore,” Mr. Petsonk said, explaining that West Virginia reached its coal production peak 20 years ago, and that some of the state’s power plants had even been importing coal from elsewhere. Still, expectations are not so tempered where the downturn is most keenly felt. “We just came into work one day and they said we got a meeting, and they told us,” recalled Mark Gray, 58, of the day he learned that the mine where he worked in Harlan County, Ky. was in trouble. “They said we can’t go on with these regulations, we can’t go on with the way the government’s doing. ” A week before Christmas 2013 — five years into the Obama administration, but well before the Clean Power Plan was even announced — the mine shut down for good. Many miners scattered to Virginia or other parts of Kentucky, Mr. Gray said: “They just followed the jobs but the regulations followed them. ” Those left behind had little to turn to besides public assistance. Mr. Gray, who has black lung disease, never went back to mining. But he doubts he would have retired so soon if his mine had kept operating. He said Mr. Trump’s moves might help, at least to some degree. “It won’t ever be back the same,” Mr. Gray said. “But I hope some of the jobs come back and fix up little places like Harlan County. ” Gary Bentley, who spent a dozen years as a coal miner in eastern Kentucky, is less optimistic. Now working as a mechanic and writing about his years in the mines, he does not see a big turnaround coming. Blaming environment regulations is an old tradition, he said, one encouraged by the coal industry’s lobbyists. But it ignores too many hard facts, he said, like the increase in mechanization and the abundance of cheap natural gas. “It’s not going to make a comeback,” Mr. Bentley said of coal mining in central Appalachia. “But you get a certain amount of desperation, where you’re willing to believe stuff even though you know in your gut it’s not true. ” As much of coal country happily welcomed the news out of Washington, Mr. Bentley pointed to an announcement closer to home: This month the municipal utility of Owensboro, Ky. said its power plant, after 117 years, was going to phase out the burning of coal altogether. | 1 |
Following the publication of emails from the Democratic National Committee by WikiLeaks, chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was pushed to resign around the same time as the political party’s national convention. She privately attacked the Bernie Sanders campaign and was fiercely loyal to Hillary Clinton. However, a document recently published by WikiLeaks clearly indicates the Clinton campaign had little confidence in Wasserman Schultz’s leadership.
The document titled, “DNC Leadership,” is a memo attached to an email released as part of the “Podesta Emails.” It was circulated in December 2015, before the primary officially kicked off with the Iowa Caucuses, and it contains the campaign’s plan to appoint a chief of staff at the DNC, who could work with them during the primary instead of the DNC chairwoman.
“Though we have reached a working arrangement with them, our dealings with party leadership have been marked by challenges, often requiring multiple meetings and phone calls to resolve relatively simple matters,” the memo declares. “We are frequently caught in the middle of poor communication and a difficult relationship between the chairwoman and the executive director.”
“Moreover, leadership at the committee has been slow to respond to structural challenges within their own operation that could have real impact on our campaign, such as research.”
“Jen O’Malley Dillon has entered into a contract with the DNC as a consultant for the general election, which addresses some of these challenges and provides a connection for us within the party,” according to the memo. “However, this arrangement does not change the need for systemic shifts at the DNC leadership level—to ensure that we have strategic and operational partners within the committee that can help drive a program and deliver on our general election imperatives.”
The memo further reveals there were an array of “special projects” the campaign agreed to work on with the DNC before Clinton secured the nomination. They included “GOP opposition research, communications, and discrete data and analytics projects.” And from March through July, the campaign planned to bring on a chief of staff to “drive the day-to-day work” with the party until the convention.
NBC News reported in February that the campaign hired Dillon, a former Obama deputy campaign manager. The report suggested it was to “retool messaging and strategy,” and it was perceived as a response to Sanders’s big victory in New Hampshire. None of the reports mentioned Dillon’s role at the DNC or that hiring Dillon was planned back in December.
The memo shows the campaign favored keeping Amy Dacey on as CEO .
There were three plans of action for the DNC after the convention, none of which were executed because Wasserman Schultz resigned.
One of them involved neutering Wasserman Schultz so her role was “largely ceremonial.” She would help with fundraising and serve as a surrogate. They planned to tell her the campaign would rely on Dillon to run the DNC.
Another scenario involved replacing Wasserman Schultz with former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, an ardent supporter of Clinton.
Throughout the primary, Wasserman Schultz constantly insisted she was neutral in her role as DNC chair.
“If I wanted to favor a candidate, I would not be DNC chair and I would support that candidate,” Wasserman Schultz said back in January. “It’s a pretty convoluted way to help a candidate when I have to actually function neutrally as the DNC chair.”
However, Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii resigned from her post as vice-chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders partly because she witnessed corruption in the DNC. The party inappropriately limited the number of debates. Wasserman Schultz even disinvited her from a debate in Las Vegas.
Sanders repeatedly criticized Wasserman Schultz and the DNC. The campaign’s lawyer, Brad Deutsch, condemned a fundraising arrangement between the Clinton campaign and the DNC.
“The Hillary Victory Fund has reported receiving several individual contributions in amounts as high as $354,400 or more, which is over 130 times the $2,700 limit that applies for contributions to Secretary Clinton’s campaign,” Deutsch wrote in a letter to Wasserman Schultz. “Bernie 2016 is particularly concerned that these extremely large-dollar individual contributions have been used by the Hillary Victory Fund to pay for more than $7.8 million in direct mail efforts and over $8.6 million in online advertising, both of which appear to benefit only HFA by generating low-dollar contributions that flow only to HFA, rather than to the DNC or any of the participating state party committees.”
DNC emails published by WikiLeaks revealed the party committee sought to cover up the fact that states were only permitted to keep a small portion of the funds raised. This allowed the campaign to skirt campaign finance laws and essentially operate a money laundering scheme to keep her campaign coffers burgeoning as Sanders consistently raised more funds than her with small dollar donations.
As POLITICO reported, Marc Elias, an attorney who advises the DNC and the Clinton campaign, wrote in an email to DNC officials, “The DNC should push back DIRECTLY at Sanders and say that what he is saying is false and harmful to the Democratic party.”
Dacey responded “I do think there is too much of this narrative out there — I also worry since they are emailing to their list (which has overlap with ours!)”
At virtually no juncture did the Clinton campaign have to address their plans to coordinate with the DNC, which explicitly undermined the impartiality of the committee.
So long as the efforts to work with leadership of the DNC to defeat Sanders and the GOP nominee remained secret, it made no sense to say anything. It was much easier to let Wasserman Schultz field all the blowback from their unethical cooperation and replace her when she was no longer needed.
The post Podesta Emails: Memo Reveals Clinton Campaign’s Plan To Coordinate With DNC appeared first on Shadowproof .
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Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is a controversial character. But there’s no denying the emails he has picked up from inside the Democrat Party are real, and he’s willing to expose Hillary Clinton.
Via AlternativeNews
Now, he’s announcing that Hillary Clinton and her State Department were actively arming Islamic jihadists, which includes the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria. Clinton has repeatedly denied these claims, including during multiple statements while under oath in front of the United States Senate.
WikiLeaks is about to prove Hillary Clinton deserves to be arrested :
The Reagan administration officials hoped to secure the release of several U.S. hostages, and then take proceeds from the arms sales to Iran, to fund the Contras in Nicaragua. Sounds familiar?
Scroll Down For Video Below! In Obama’s second term, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton authorized the shipment of American-made arms to Qatar, a country beholden to the Muslim Brotherhood, and friendly to the Libyan rebels, in an effort to topple the Libyan/Gaddafi government, and then ship those arms to Syria in order to fund Al Qaeda, and topple Assad in Syria.
Clinton took the lead role in organizing the so-called “Friends of Syria” (aka Al Qaeda/ISIS) to back the CIA-led insurgency for regime change in Syria.
Under oath Hillary Clinton denied she knew about the weapons shipments during public testimony in early 2013 after the Benghazi terrorist attack. In an interview with Democracy Now, Wikileaks’ Julian Assange is now stating that 1,700 emails contained in the Clinton cache directly connect Hillary to Libya to Syria, and directly to Al Qaeda and ISIS.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Julian, I want to mention something else. In March, you launched a searchable archive for over 30,000 emails and email attachments sent to and from Hillary Clinton’s private email server while she was secretary of state. The 50,547 pages of documents span the time from June 2010 to August 2014; 7,500 of the documents were sent by Hillary Clinton herself. The emails were made available in the form of thousands of PDFs by the U.S. State Department as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request. Why did you do this, and what’s the importance, from your perspective, of being able to create a searchable base?
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, WikiLeaks has become the rebel library of Alexandria. It is the single most significant collection of information that doesn’t exist elsewhere, in a searchable, accessible, citable form, about how modern institutions actually behave. And it’s gone on to set people free from prison, where documents have been used in their court cases; hold the CIA accountable for renditions programs; feed into election cycles, which have resulted in the termination of, in some case—or contributed to the termination of governments, in some cases, taken the heads of intelligence agencies, ministers of defense and so on. So, you know, our civilizations can only be as good as our knowledge of what our civilisation is. We can’t possibly hope to reform that which we do not understand.
So, those Hillary Clinton emails, they connect together with the cables that we have published of Hillary Clinton, creating a rich picture of how Hillary Clinton performs in office, but, more broadly, how the U.S. Department of State operates. So, for example, the disastrous, absolutely disastrous intervention in Libya, the destruction of the Gaddafi government, which led to the occupation of ISIS of large segments of that country, weapons flows going over to Syria, being pushed by Hillary Clinton, into jihadists within Syria, including ISIS, that’s there in those emails. There’s more than 1,700 emails in Hillary Clinton’s collection, that we have released, just about Libya alone.
It appears that Hillary Clinton committed perjury, just like her husband was caught doing as President.
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By wmw_admin on October 31, 2016 Sanchez Manning — Daily Mail Oct 29, 2016
The BBC has been accused of acting recklessly after targeting children as young as six with a programme about a schoolboy who takes sex-change drugs.
Parents are angry that the show, available on the CBBC website, features a transgender storyline inappropriate for their children.
And concerned campaigners said it could ‘sow the seeds of confusion’ in young minds. The programme, Just A Girl, depicts an 11-year-old’s struggle to get hormones that stunt puberty, making it easier to have sex-change surgery in the future.
One mother, writing on the Mumsnet website, said her daughter had become worried after seeing the video. She said her girl, who likes wearing boys’ clothes and playing football, had ‘asked me, anxiously, if that means she was a boy’.
Tory MP Peter Bone said: ‘It beggars belief that the BBC is making this programme freely available to children as young as six. I entirely share the anger of parents who just want to let children be children.
‘It is completely inappropriate for such material to be on the CBBC website and I shall be writing to BBC bosses to demand they take it down as soon as possible.’
Former Culture Secretary Maria Miller voiced her concerns over the BBC tackling the subject in ‘an age-appropriate way’, saying such issues should be raised ‘where children can have support from parents’.
And Tory MP Julian Brazier said: ‘This programme is very disappointing and inappropriate. Children are very impressionable and this is going to confuse and worry them.’
Family campaigner Norman Wells said: ‘It is irresponsible of the BBC to introduce impressionable children as young as six to the idea that they can choose to be something other than their biological sex.’
Just A Girl is the fictional video diary of a child who calls herself ‘Amy’ and dresses as a girl. It is hosted on the CBBC website, aimed at children aged between six and 12.
In the half-hour programme, Amy – played by an actress – reveals she was born a boy called Ben but has already started using puberty-halting drugs.
Such hypothalamic blockers provoked a furore two years ago when The Mail on Sunday revealed an NHS clinic was willing to give them to children as young as nine.
Critics cited research claiming that most teenagers confused about their gender never go through with surgery, with many realising they are gay. The BBC row comes amid growing controversy over gender issues, fuelled by a number of high-profile cases. In one, a Christian couple were threatened with having their 14-year-old daughter taken away because they oppose her plans to become a boy.
In another, a seven-year-old boy was ordered to be removed from his mother’s care as ‘she was raising him as female’, causing him ‘a great deal of emotional harm’.
In Just A Girl, Amy says: ‘When I was born, Mum said Dad was so pleased that he had a boy to take to the football. But Mum knew I was different. She realised early on that I was born in the wrong body.’
She adds: ‘My Mum supported me when I did a PowerPoint presentation to my class about transitioning and that I wasn’t going to come to school in boys’ clothes any more, but girls’ clothes. I wasn’t Ben, I was Amy.’
Later Amy is shown telling a friend, Josh – a boy who wants to be recognised as a girl – that she is on hormone blockers, saying it took ‘ages’ to get them after ‘loads of tests and talks at the clinic’. ‘Once they realised I was trans for real, [I] got them,’ she says. In another entry, Amy tells viewers she has developed a crush on a boy called Liam, but confides: ‘Liam thinks I’m just a girl, but I’m not. I’m trans. And what’s he going to say if he finds out? Stop being my friend? Why? I’m still me, aren’t I?’
Child psychotherapist Dr Dilys Daws said the programme could confuse children. She said that, while it was natural for youngsters to wonder what it would be like to be the opposite sex, the BBC was irresponsible to feature the ‘extreme’ step of gender change for six-year-olds because they were too young to grapple with such issues.
The programme generated hundreds of comments on Mumsnet.
One mother, who said her seven-year-old had watched the show, asked: ‘Am I being unreasonable to think this is an inappropriate topic for a young age group?’
Another replied: ‘Don’t think this is remotely suitable for a seven-year-old. To start suggesting that children can be transgender when they’re far too young to actually have a gender is reckless and damaging. A small boy who is told that he can become a girl may take this as meaning that sex changes are possible, that sometime in the future he’ll wake up with a girl’s body.’
Another user added: ‘I don’t think hormone therapy should be normalised any more than 12-year-olds drinking or doing recreational drugs should be normalised.’
Other critics slammed the BBC. Mr Wells, director of the Family Education Trust, said: ‘The more we promote the idea that a boy can be born into a girl’s body and a girl can be born into a boy’s body, and that drugs and surgery can put things right, the more children will become utterly confused. Respecting and preserving a child’s birth sex should be seen as a child protection issue.’
But some parents on Mumsnet were more positive. One wrote: ‘I don’t believe there is “too young” for stuff like this. The earlier you teach your children that everyone is different and that nobody is “normal” the better.’
Dr Polly Carmichael, a clinical psychologist specialising in transgender children, said: ‘Raising awareness of these issues is the best way to challenge stigma and discrimination associated with identity issues. Programmes like Just A Girl can contribute to a healthy and informed public discussion.’
The BBC said: ‘Just A Girl is about a fictional transgender character trying to make sense of the world, deal with bullying and work out how to keep her friends, which are universal themes that many children relate to, and which has had a positive response from our audience.
‘CBBC aims to reflect true life, providing content that mirrors the lives of as many UK children as possible.’ | 0 |
TAARNBY, Denmark — Johnny Christensen, a stout and retired bank employee, always thought of himself as sympathetic to people fleeing war and welcoming to immigrants. But after more than 36, 000 mostly Muslim asylum seekers poured into Denmark over the past two years, Mr. Christensen, 65, said, “I’ve become a racist. ” He believes these new migrants are draining Denmark’s cherished system but failing to adapt to its customs. “Just kick them out,” he said, unleashing a mighty kick at an imaginary target on a suburban sidewalk. “These Muslims want to keep their own culture, but we have our own rules here and everyone must follow them. ” Denmark, a small and orderly nation with a progressive is built on a social covenant: In return for some of the world’s highest wages and benefits, people are expected to work hard and pay into the system. Newcomers must quickly learn Danish — and adapt to norms like keeping tidy gardens and riding bicycles. The country had little experience with immigrants until 1967, when the first “guest workers” were invited from Turkey, Pakistan and what was then Yugoslavia. Its 5. 7 million people remain overwhelmingly native born, though the percentage has dropped to 88 today from 97 in 1980. Bo Lidegaard, a prominent historian, said many Danes feel strongly that “we are a multiethnic society today, and we have to realize it — but we are not and should never become a multicultural society. ” The recent influx pales next to the one million migrants absorbed into Germany or the 163, 000 into Sweden last year, but the pace shocked this stable, homogeneous country. The government has backed harsh measures targeting migrants, hate speech has spiked, and the Danish People’s Party is now the second largest in Parliament. Some of the same hostilities were reflected this weekend in Germany, where voters in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s home state embraced candidates — an emphatic rejection of her refugee policy. There is new tension between Danes still opening their arms and a resurgent right wing that seeks to ban all Muslims and shut Denmark off from Europe. Mr. Christensen, the retired banker, supports emerging proposals for his country to follow Britain in exiting the European Union. There is tension, too, over whether the backlash is really about a strain on Denmark’s generous public benefits or a rising terrorist threat — or whether a longstanding but latent racial hostility is being unearthed. Analysts say that the public voiced little opposition after 5, 000 Poles and 3, 300 Americans, among other Westerners, emigrated to Denmark in 2014, but that there has been significant criticism of the nearly 16, 000 Syrian asylum seekers who arrived that year and the next. They and other migrants were not invited, and many ended up here by accident, intercepted on their route to Sweden. Critics complain that these newcomers have been slow to learn Danish — though the Immigration Ministry recently reported that 72 percent passed a required language exam. Some Danes bristle at what they see as ethnic enclaves: About 30 percent of new immigrants lived in the nation’s two largest cities, Aarhus and Copenhagen, where Muslim women in abayas and men in prayer caps stand out among the blond and crowds on narrow streets. Perhaps the leading — and most substantive — concern is that the migrants are an economic drain. In 2014, 48 percent of immigrants from countries ages 16 to 64 were employed, compared with 74 percent of native Danes. The Immigration Ministry has sought to avoid what it calls “parallel societies” of migrants living in “vicious circles of bad image, social problems and a high rate of unemployment. ” Tightened immigration requirements, the ministry said in its latest annual report, weed out those “who have weaker capabilities for being able to integrate into Danish society. ” Omar Mahmoud, 34, an Iraqi engineer who entered Denmark a year ago and lives in a refugee center in Randers, a city of 60, 000, is trying his best to fit in. He and his wife are taking Danish classes, and their three children are learning the language and making Danish friends in school. They are Muslim, but attend church to learn about Christianity, and he said he was not opposed to his son’s eating pork, a staple of the Danish diet, though it is forbidden in Islam. Mr. Mahmoud said his family had not encountered direct insults or threats, but was frightened by the and tenor in the public discourse. “It’s like foreigners are put in a special clan, separate from the Danish people,” he lamented. Still, Mr. Mahmoud said that “some of the Danish people are angels” and that he was relieved to be far from the violence of Iraq. “I’m in my heaven now. ” Anders a city councilman in Randers, said the influx had forced a more honest conversation about national identity. “Our problem in Denmark is that we’ve been too polite,” he said. “No one dared talk about” immigration, he added, “because they were afraid they’d be called racist. ” Denmark is just one of many European nations grappling with the wave of migrants amid a spate of terrorist attacks across the Continent by Islamic extremists: A recent Pew Research Center survey found that at least half the citizens in eight of 10 countries polled said incoming refugees increased the likelihood of terrorist attacks. The confluence of these and other factors has prompted a of the postwar promise of a unified, borderless Europe. Macedonia, Hungary and Slovenia have all built border fences. Denmark imposed new identity controls on its border with Germany in January, and for the first time since 1958, Sweden requires entering Danes to show identity papers. Many analysts saw Britain’s surprise vote to leave the European Union as an angry expression of concern that British — or, especially, English — identity was being diluted by the nation’s growing diversity. Debate is raging anew over whether certain Islamic modes of dress — swimsuits, known as burkinis, in France and face veils in Germany — inherently contravene countries’ values. Similar themes are seen as underpinning a wave of new measures here in Denmark. The government has made its citizenship test more difficult and slashed by nearly half a package of integration benefits. A measure passed in January, though rarely enforced, empowers the authorities to confiscate valuables from new arrivals to offset the cost of settling them. Last year, Denmark placed ads in newspapers stressing its tough new policies, essentially suggesting: Don’t come here. Muslims do not assimilate as easily as Europeans or some Asians, said Denmark’s culture minister, Bertel Haarder, partly because, as he put it, their patriarchal culture frowns on women working outside the home and often constrains freedom of speech. “It’s not racism to be aware of the difference — it’s stupid not to be aware,” Mr. Haarder said. “We do them a blessing by being very clear and outspoken as to what kind of country they have come to, what are our basic values. ” But much of the difference remains unspoken. This is a country where pedestrians wait for a green light to cross even when no cars are in sight, a contrast to the bustling streets of Middle Eastern capitals. Birgitte Romme Larsen, a Danish anthropologist who has studied refugees and asylum seekers in rural areas, mentioned an African refugee who did not realize that closing his curtains during the day was interpreted as being unduly secretive. Other newcomers were not aware that congregating and talking loudly at a grocery might offend Danish sensibilities. “These implicit expectations cannot be written into an integration folder” migrants receive, Ms. Larsen said. Sherif Sulaiman, an organic food scientist who moved to Denmark eight years ago from Egypt, said Muslims must not close themselves off in enclaves but open themselves up for interaction. He is the manager of an Islamic center that opened in 2014 and invites Danes in for meals and for an annual “harmony week. ” Mr. Sulaiman pushed to have the mosque complex use Scandinavian architectural style and furniture, and lends its conference room to a church for meetings. “We should be like this glass — transparent,” he said, pointing to a window. “As long as we follow the rules of the country, we are part of Danish society. ” But some immigrants who have lived in Denmark for decades say assimilation seems an elusive and target. Patricia Bandak and her brother Sylvester Bbaale came to Denmark from Uganda as babies in 1989. Like their native neighbors, they are polite and punctual and ride their bicycles everywhere. The siblings are not Muslim but said they frequently encountered racism: In school, they were called the N word, and told that they should stop eating Ugandan food like matoke, a starchy fruit. Mr. Bbaale, 27, who operates a food truck, said he was beaten on the street last year by three men who cursed at him and told him to go back to Africa. “For a lot of people, being Danish is in your blood, so I will never be Danish,” said Ms. Bandak, 28, who became a Danish citizen in 2010 and is studying documentary film. “I call myself a Dane of a different color. ” Then there is Ozlem Cekic, a Muslim who served as a leftist member of Parliament from 2007 to 2015. Her three children were born in Denmark, she wrote a 2009 memoir in Danish, and, she said, “I even dream in Danish. ” Yet Mrs. Cekic, 40, said she often received death threats and heard shouts of “Go home!” on the street. Every time terrorists strike Europe, she is bombarded by hundreds of hate messages. Lately, people have inundated her with accusations that Muslims are milking the welfare system and plotting against Danes. While in Parliament, Mrs. Cekic held “dialogue coffees,” at which she would explain — in fluent Danish — why she is as Danish as anyone. “They meet me for coffee and suddenly they say their problem isn’t with me but with those other people,” she recalled. “I tell them, ‘I am the other. ’” Karin Andersen is one of thousands of Danes trying to help the immigrants settle through groups formed on Facebook called Venligboerne, or Kind Citizens. She spends several days each month with Housam Mohammed Shamden, 38, his wife and two daughters, who fled Syria in 2014 and now live in Randers, with small Danish flags taped to the front door of their apartment and tucked into flower vases. “Danes are so concerned about losing their culture,” said Ms. Andersen, 62, a retired teacher. “But how many help the ones who want to be part of it?” However many, they are often drowned out by reports of Muslims being spat at and showered with racist slurs. In May, two Danes ripped the head scarves off two girls. The month before, a national controversy erupted after a public swimming pool in Copenhagen created lessons in response to Muslim requests. “Freedom of speech is now interpreted as freedom to say anything hateful,” said Julie Jeeg, a law student who volunteers with an antiracism group. “Denmark is closing in on itself. People are retreating inward. ” Witness the “meatball war. ” In January, after revelations that a Randers day care center had stopped serving pork meatballs since its Muslim students would not eat them, the Town Council narrowly passed a measure requiring that pork be served “on equal terms with other kinds of food. ” The councilman who pushed the measure, Frank Noergaard of the Danish People’s Party, said he was incensed that “pork could be abandoned in Denmark,” adding, “If you give in on pork, what’s next?” | 1 |
Apparently, Donald Trump has already activated the ‘reset button’ with Russia And this is why Hillary Clinton never could. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his bewilderment at why European countries were taking in so many migrants given the increasing number of rapes sweeping the continent, asserting that a society which cannot protect its children “has no future”. Putin made reference to a story out of Austria where an Iraqi migrant was not punished for raping a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in Vienna after he claimed it was a “sexual emergency” and that he didn’t understand the boy didn’t want to be raped. “I can’t even explain the rationale – is it a sense of guilt before the illegal alien Muslim migrants? A society that cannot defend its children today has no tomorrow, it has no future,” warned Putin, adding that he would not look to Europe for advice on Russia’s immigration policy given the situation that is unfolding there.
h/t Rob E | 0 |
The Playboy Mansion, the quintessential party house that held a special place in the imagination of American men for decades, has found a buyer, a Playboy spokesman said on Tuesday. The spokesman, John Vlautin, said the Los Angeles mansion, home to Hugh Hefner, 90, the founder of Playboy Magazine, was under contract to be sold to Daren Metropoulos, 32, a principal at the private equity firm Metropoulos Company and an owner of Hostess Brands, the maker of that indestructible, snack cake, the Twinkie. Mr. Vlautin declined to comment on the financial details, citing confidentiality restrictions. The house, which is nearly 20, 000 square feet, according to its sales listing, was built in 1927 in the Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles and has 29 rooms, including 12 bedrooms. It has a wine cellar, a theater, a gym, tennis courts and a huge swimming pool, complete with a shadowy grotto. Its listing price: $200 million. The listing also said the mansion was “one of a select few private residences in L. A. with a zoo license. ” Mr. Metropoulos will not have to go far once the purchase is completed: He lives next door in a house he acquired in 2009. He would, however, have to be willing to live with a nonagenarian celebrity roommate if he wanted to move in right away. Mr. Vlautin said that, regardless of the sale, Mr. Hefner planned to stay in the house indefinitely. Playboy bought the house in 1971, and Mr. Hefner moved in (permanently) in 1975. A spokeswoman for Mr. Metropoulos’s company said in a statement that after Mr. Hefner’s tenancy ends, the buyer hoped to connect his current house with the Playboy Mansion, “ultimately returning the combined 7. compound to the original vision executed by noted architect Arthur R. Kelly. ” The mansion is famous for the lavish parties hosted by Mr. Hefner and attended by the rich, the famous and the . The house has been featured as the ideal party destination for men in movies like “Beverly Hills Cop II” and television shows like “Entourage” on HBO. Holly Madison, a former girlfriend and housemate of Mr. Hefner’s and one of the stars of the E! reality show “The Girls Next Door,” which frequently featured the mansion, offered a different perspective on the house in her 2015 memoir. She called the climate “toxic” and described a stifling atmosphere that caused her to develop a stutter and even to consider suicide. Mr. Metropoulos told The Wall Street Journal, which reported the deal, that he was more interested in the mansion’s historic architecture than its reputation as a party pad. “The heritage of this property transcends its celebrity, and to have the opportunity to serve as its steward would be a true privilege,” he said. The Playboy Mansion was listed for sale early this year, and potential buyers expressed interest in acquiring Playboy Enterprises in its entirety. The company has suffered since the advent of internet pornography, and in March, its magazine stopped featuring fully nude women. | 1 |
Every morning at 5:30, an alarm clock awakens Ahmed Maher from his mattress below a stairwell at his neighborhood police station in Cairo. An officer then escorts him to the toilet and signs a notebook that Maher carries, authorizing his release until 6 that evening. Maher walks a mile to his apartment — “It is my only exercise,” he said — in the Third Settlement, a grid of tenements at the edge of the desert. After breakfast with his wife and two small children, he takes care of chores aimed at rebuilding his life — renewing his driver’s license, reactivating his cellphone he visits friends and family and searches for a job in civil engineering, his occupation before he was clapped into prison. Whatever he does, he must be back at the police station before sundown. “Every second now is important,” said Maher, a slight with a full beard, large eyes obscured behind tinted yellow lenses and a gray woolen ski cap that covered his bald pate. “If I want to visit my mother in Maadi, I can spend three hours getting there and back. ” The clock is ticking. “If I delay for 15 minutes, the police have the right to send me back to prison,” he said. Maher and I were sitting in his small, dark apartment at 3 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon in February, waiting for his children to return from their first day back at school after a vacation. A television played a soccer match in a corner, and a coffee table was strewn with textbooks from Maher’s studies at Cairo University, where he is pursuing a second degree, in political science, this one begun behind bars. It was just six years ago that Maher was celebrated around the world as a symbol of freedom and democracy. In January 2011, as the leader of a network of young activists called the April 6 Youth Movement, Maher mobilized hundreds of thousands of Egyptians in demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and across the country that took down President Hosni Mubarak. The movement was considered for a Nobel Peace Prize, and Maher traveled across Europe and the United States talking about the Arab Spring and Egypt’s future with the likes of Ban and Lech Walesa. But the hopes that were raised by the revolution dissolved into sectarianism and chaos, and Maher’s aspirations were extinguished within two years. Abdel Fattah the defense minister and commander in chief of the armed forces, seized power in July 2013 and outlawed protests. Five months later, a judge found Maher guilty of illegal demonstration, rioting and “thuggery” and sentenced him to three years in jail. Another judge added six months to Maher’s sentence for “verbally assaulting a public officer while on duty” after he demanded that the police remove his handcuffs while in court for a 2014 appeal. Maher spent almost all of that period sealed in a small cell in a wing at Tora Prison, a notorious complex on the outskirts of Cairo, built during British rule, that houses about 2, 500 political prisoners and common criminals. Hidden behind walls, the vast compound encompasses seven prison blocks, ranging from a facility for policemen and judges convicted of taking bribes to the supermax “Scorpion Prison,” a labyrinth of cells largely reserved for Islamists and April 6 leaders. Today Maher is nominally a free man, but the restrictions on his movements are stifling. The regime is deeply concerned that he could revive the network that brought his followers to the streets six years ago. As it was explained to Maher, “tweets can lead to demonstrations, and demonstrations can lead to revolution, and that will bring down the regime and create martyrs,” he said. “So if you are tweeting, you are like a terrorist. ” Every day for the next three years, Maher must spend 12 of every 24 hours at his local police station, a “surveillance period” intended to ensure that he refrains from activity. Under Egyptian law, he told me, felons “have the right to have their surveillance inside the home with a guard downstairs. But they are using this surveillance as punishment. It is a kind of control to keep me all the time under pressure. ” The front door opened, and Maher’s wife, Reham, their daughter, Meral, 9, and their son, Nidal, 5, spilled into the room. Nidal raced to the television, switched it from the soccer match to a cartoon and then snuggled up to his father. “I missed these moments,” Maher said. During his incarceration, his contact with the children was limited to short visits twice a month. The encounters left his kids perplexed and disturbed. “At first I lied when they would visit me,” Maher recalled. “My daughter asked, ‘Why you are not in our home?’ and I said, ‘This is my job.’ She said, ‘So why are you wearing blue? ’’u2009” Reham, who met Maher at Cairo University 16 years ago and married him in 2007, told me that after a year they decided to explain the situation to their daughter. “I tried to make her grasp the difference between being detained for political reasons and being a common criminal,” Reham said. “I explained what the revolution was and how people protested. And I told her that when the current regime took over, it didn’t allow people to express their opinions. Sisi knew what happened to Mubarak, so he didn’t want them to speak out again. ” In prison, Maher earned a reputation as a defiant figure, repeatedly sending antigovernment criticism and vivid descriptions of his ordeal to the Western and Egyptian news media. “When I heard the president talk about the rule of law and human rights in Egypt, I said, ‘What is this bullshit? ’’u2009” he told me. “That made me want to write about the reality. ” Denied pens and paper, he scribbled messages on tissues, using pens smuggled into his cell, and managed to smuggle the notes out. After they were published, guards would tear apart his cell, removing bricks from walls to search for hiding places. They confiscated his books, radio and clothes, leaving him with only his thin prison uniform. At one point, they covered the open exercise yard with a tarpaulin, blotting out the sunlight, suspecting that Maher might somehow be smuggling messages through the air. Still he continued devising acts of rebellion. A year into his confinement, Maher grew an extravagant handlebar mustache and a long beard and then braided it. “It bothered them — it seemed like I was making fun,” he said. “The prison officials complained to my father. They said, ‘Please tell him to shave. ’’u2009” After getting out of jail, Maher decided to keep wearing facial hair it helped disguise his identity. Maher’s face is widely recognized in Egypt, and other April 6 Youth Movement leaders have been physically attacked by regime loyalists who blame them for plunging the country into instability and violence. When his wife enrolled their children in private school after Maher was sentenced to prison, she told the administrators that their father was “out of the country on business. ” The school never connected their father’s name to the famous activist, and even now, Maher said, when he picks his children up from their school, the staff has no idea who he is. Maher had to be careful with what he told me the regime might send him back to prison if he criticized Sisi too harshly. “Even if it was something minor, they would jail him,” Reham said. “It would be a catastrophe for us. ” Yet Maher’s reluctance runs against all his instincts. Since his release, he has sensed a deepening anger toward the regime, and he believes that the political climate may be changing. “People tell me that they can see through the lies,” he said, “and that they are supporting us. ” Sisi’s crackdown on the opposition far exceeds the darkest period of repression during the Mubarak era. Human rights groups claim that as many as 60, 000 political prisoners now languish in Egypt’s jails. (At the end of Mubarak’s rule, the figure was between 5, 000 and 10, 000.) Egypt’s prisons are filled to triple their capacity, and the regime has built 16 more prisons to handle the overflow. Once described by Amnesty International as “Generation Protest,” the youths who took to the streets in Egypt to bring down a dictator in 2011 have acquired a grim new nickname: “Generation Jail. ” Many Egyptians have accepted Sisi’s argument that another prolonged round of protests could invite radical Islamists to capitalize on the chaos. “He’s positioned himself as the sole leader who makes decisions because he knows what’s best for the nation, and he’s saving us from the fate of Syria and Libya,” Khaled Dawoud, a prominent Egyptian journalist and the leader of a small opposition party, told me. Egyptians are proud that the first Arab leader to whom President Trump spoke after his electoral victory was Sisi, a sharp contrast to Barack Obama, who had suspended military aid to Egypt for two years after the police massacre of 1, 000 Muslim Brotherhood supporters in August 2013 at Rabaa, a Cairo encampment. Obama never invited the Egyptian president to the White House. “The thinking is, Egypt is returning to its rightful place as a player,” said a veteran political observer in Cairo, who like many officials I spoke to feared retribution for discussing even elements of Sisi’s policies. Sisi’s crackdown has unfolded amid one of the most expansive overhauls of the legal system in Egyptian history. After declaring a state of emergency and disbanding Parliament in 2013, he issued a series of presidential decrees that granted him unprecedented power to silence his critics. A protest law enacted in November 2013 requires three days’ notification before a demonstration can take place and gives the Interior Ministry the right to “cancel, postpone or move” the protest if it determines protesters will “breach . .. the law. ” Broad new counterterrorism laws have expanded the definition of terrorism to include civil disobedience this gives prosecutors latitude to roll over pretrial detention periods, in many cases without limit. And once a case gets to court, a compliant judiciary, long regarded as hostile to the opposition, has been unforgiving in its sentencing. “This is an extraordinarily conservative institution,” one official told me, explaining that judges tend to favor a “maximalist approach” to eliminate threats to the public order and safeguard their own interests. “They are overwhelmingly the children of judges, like gondoliers in Venice. It is a family business. ” According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, a watchdog group in Cairo, the minister of justice has fired almost half of the 75 judges who called for more democracy in an open letter to Sisi and replaced them with . Two hundred others have been sidelined with administrative chores or have left the country. One of the most notorious magistrates, Mohammed Nagy Shehata, known as the “executioner judge,” a holdover from the Mubarak era, has handed out hundreds of lengthy prison terms and death sentences to activists. In early 2016, Shehata sentenced three young members of April 6, who were attending a memorial service for a murdered comrade when they were arrested, to life terms for protesting without a license, possessing fireworks and spreading false information. (The sentences were later reduced to 10 years.) In June 2014, another Cairo judge sentenced 25 peaceful demonstrators, some of them teenagers, to 15 years for violating the protest law, blocking roads and attacking public institutions. “Kids are going to jail for four or five years,” Dawoud said, “being portrayed as anarchists and terrorists. No country in the world jails its young people for that long for demonstrating peacefully. ” During the Mubarak era, he said, “I would take part in demonstrations and spend three days in a police station. We got released because we were students, and they were not going to destroy our future. There is no more of that kind of thinking. ” Sameh Samir, a lawyer with the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, a nongovernmental organization that defends many protesters, told me that his office has been overwhelmed by the caseload. “They are making random arrests, just sweeping people off the streets,” he said. The regime has hampered the ability of human rights groups like Samir’s to defend protesters, freezing their bank accounts and making it increasingly difficult to accept foreign funds, often a lifeline for such organizations. Ten and a Half Kilometers Camp, a collection of concrete bungalows surrounded by a fence just off the highway, typifies the prisons of the Sisi era. Built under Mubarak to house violent Islamists, the camp today serves as a pretrial detention facility for Islamists and a handful of secular political prisoners. A founding member of April 6 named Ayman, who did not want his last name mentioned, landed there in December 2015 after participating in an illegal protest. Thrown into a cell with 35 Islamists, he slept amid a crush of other prisoners on a blanket on the concrete floor. They defecated in a hole surrounded by curtains and were never permitted to leave the cell. “You need to take the word ‘privacy’ out of your dictionary if you are going to survive,” he told me. After two weeks, Ayman was moved into a tiny disciplinary cell with 11 other prisoners to await interrogation. They shared a few thin blankets, drank unpurified water from a rusty pipe and survived on one piece of stale bread and cheese each day. A fluorescent light in the ceiling shone day and night. “We learned how to get it unscrewed by standing on each other’s shoulders,” he said. “We had to use a little acrobatics. ” Twice during his 26 days in the unit, he was shaken awake in the night, blindfolded, taken to an interrogation room and questioned for hours. “They asked me how the hierarchy of April 6 worked, how do we communicate,” he said. “I didn’t give them any names. ” The authorities finally moved him to Al Kanatar Prison, 15 miles from Cairo, where, after 20 days, a judge ordered his release. Ayman said that many of the prisoners he met were from the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist political organization that briefly held power after Mubarak. The group formally renounced violence in the early 1970s, but Ayman watched his cellmates grow hardened in prison. “The torture and unjust imprisonment for long periods without clear charges or trial dates created human bombs,” he said. “Each one of them was just waiting to get out. They are so thirsty for revenge. ” Last April, when he heard that the authorities were again looking for him, Ayman sought refuge in South Africa, where his wife and two young daughters eventually joined him. Egypt’s slide back into authoritarianism wasn’t foreordained. Today the leaders of April 6 admit that they weren’t prepared for the challenges that followed their initial success. Many of them were barely out of their teens Maher, from a politically aware, family in Cairo, had built the group online, connecting on Facebook and embracing techniques that he learned while demonstrating for human rights and judicial independence with a small movement. He was beaten and jailed repeatedly. The group took its name from the date of a strike in Cairo that Maher organized in 2008 in solidarity with textile workers in the Nile Delta. That led to small demonstrations against corruption and police brutality, which were quickly broken up by Mubarak’s security forces. Then, on Jan. 25, 2011, a protest march on Egypt’s National Police Day exploded into a nationwide movement. Late that morning, Maher watched with amazement as crowds filled Tahrir Square and said: “We made a revolution! We made a revolution!” Days after the Feb. 11 resignation of Mubarak, one of the world’s tyrants, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, a transitional military body, sent a bus to pick up Maher and three other protest leaders and took them to a villa owned by officials. Sisi, then the intelligence chief, and two other generals greeted them respectfully, Maher recalled. “Sisi said: ‘You are heroes. You did miracles. You brought down Mubarak. You did something we failed to do for years. But now we need you to stop demonstrating. ’’u2009” Maher and the others rejected Sisi’s request. “We said: ‘The revolution is not complete. We need to change the cabinet, change the structure of the government.’ We kept sending them demands. ” Over the next six months, Maher met with Sisi three times. “We said the same, and he said the same. ‘We need to stop demonstrating stand together against the enemies.’ Sisi always hated the protests. ” After Mubarak’s downfall, Maher traveled to the United States and captivated students in gatherings at New York University, Harvard, M. I. T. and American University, and met with leaders of the community. In Europe, he talked politics and revolution with the first vice president of the European Commission, Catherine Ashton officials from the United Nations Human Rights Council and Green Party and Social Democratic representatives to the European Parliament in Brussels. Western diplomats and politicians underestimated the structural weakness of the secular democrats, the appeal of the Islamists and the entrenched power of the “deep state” — military intelligence and the state security apparatus. Back in Egypt, the April 6 leaders searched for a strategy. “We didn’t have a vision,” admitted Walid Shawky, a dentist and a member of the April 6 Political Committee. “We didn’t have an answer for what comes next. ” Maher struggled to articulate an ideology, vaguely describing the group’s leanings as “social democratic, social liberal” — somewhere between unfettered capitalism and communism. There were debates between those who wanted to transform April 6 into a secular political party that would challenge the Muslim Brotherhood and those, like Maher, who believed that such a transformation was too ambitious. The Brotherhood “outnumbered us 10 to one,” he told me. “I thought that being a pressure group to write a new Constitution would be a better role for us. ” April 6 began an awareness campaign throughout the country. “We used to go out with slide projectors in rural areas, teaching people of all the [human rights] violations made by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces,” recalls Mamdouh Gamal, one of tens of thousands of youths who joined the movement in the immediate aftermath of the revolution. He has since left it. While April 6 members continued their activism, the Islamists cemented their political advantage. The Muslim Brotherhood won parliamentary and presidential elections but enraged much of the population when it tried to draft a Constitution based largely on fundamentalist Islamic principles. By the end of 2012, Egypt was in chaos. “There were street fights, people at one another’s throats, a real possibility of civil war,” remembered Dawoud, the journalist. April 6 gave its support to Tamarod, a movement that gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures favoring early elections that, they believed, would remove the Muslim Brotherhood from power. Maher believed that they had the military’s support. Instead, on July 3, 2013, Sisi went on television and announced that he was deposing President Mohammed Morsi and seizing power. He suspended the Constitution, disbanded Parliament, declared a state of emergency, ordered the arrests of Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders and then in August began the deadly attack on the Brotherhood protest camp at Rabaa. After nearly two years of turmoil, many Egyptians were desperate for stability, and April 6 suddenly found itself lacking any popular support. “At that time, there was not one person in the street who was against Sisi,” recalled Amal Sharaf, the April 6 spokeswoman for the foreign media. After the killings, Sharaf said, “we tried to make protests, and we got beaten. People with hammers and knives were chasing us. There was a lot of ugliness. ” Days after the coup, the interim president, Adly Mansour, a former Constitutional Court chief justice who was appointed by Sisi as a figurehead civilian leader, summoned Maher to the presidential palace. “He was asked to go on trips to Western countries and say, ‘This was not a coup, but something the people had asked for,’’u2009” said Ayman, the April 6 founding member. “Maher and the whole leadership of the movement refused to do it. We said, ‘This is a military coup — people asked for an early election. ’’u2009” (Maher won’t comment on the incident.) The movement’s leaders publicly denounced the Rabaa killings as a “massacre,” further antagonizing Sisi and sealing the group’s fate. Maher was arrested on Nov. 30 and sent to Tora Prison. In 2014, as Maher and other April 6 leaders languished in jail, Egypt’s Court for Urgent Matters, one of Sisi’s favored tools for stifling dissent, banned the group’s activities, accusing it of espionage and defaming the state. Last winter, Amr Ali, who succeeded Maher as the April 6 general coordinator, received a sentence for conspiring to overthrow the government and joining an illegal organization, another crippling blow to the movement. “The case against us is not finished,” said Mohammed Samy, the acting coordinator of the outlawed movement. “They don’t need to capture that many people now, so they put this case in the drawer, and when they want to recapture us, they will open it again. ” The government remains resolute. “April 6 was not at all a peaceful organization,” said a top Egyptian official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “It was an anarchist movement that used violence against the security forces and incited violence. They said, ‘We have to topple the government. ’’u2009” When I pressed him for an example of such violence, he cited, without offering proof, an April 6 member who, during the revolution, “seized a gun from a police officer and threw it in the Nile. ” One November afternoon in Cairo, I rode in a taxi along the bank of the Nile, passing the former site of Mubarak’s riverside National Democratic Party headquarters, now an empty lot. Set on fire and gutted by mobs of angry protesters in February 2011, the abandoned hulk was finally torn down more than a year ago, ridding the regime of a potent symbol of revolt. “We woke up one morning, and it was gone,” my translator told me. We soon found ourselves in Tahrir Square. Though protests still take place there from time to time — students assembled there last June to denounce corruption in Egypt’s abysmal education system — the police quickly break them up with tear gas. While the stability imposed by Sisi has gained him wide support, he has staked his presidency on an economic turnaround that has not materialized. Tourism has collapsed, and the regime spent over $8 billion on a huge expansion of the Suez Canal, a money pit that depleted supplies and set off shortages of sugar, medicine and rice. Sisi alienated poor Egyptians by raising the price of gasoline and instituting a tax to obtain a $12 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. Two days before my arrival last November, the regime devalued the Egyptian pound by 48 percent to combat a black market that has siphoned almost all hard currency from the legal economy. Many economists applauded the move, but the punitive effects were being felt by everyone from drivers to an administrator at an international high school in Cairo. The school was suddenly facing a doubling of its expenses, because its expatriate teachers were paid in euros. “We may not last until the end of the year,” he told me. I met the school administrator at an evening soiree, attended mostly by gay Egyptians, including my translator, and hosted by a European diplomat at his elegant apartment in a building a few blocks from the Nile. The atmosphere was festive but rife with anxiety: In a sweeping crackdown, the police have been shutting gay bars and nightclubs, entrapping gay people using online dating sites, even raiding private homes in the name of debauchery and prostitution laws. The persecution has gone far beyond the Mubarak regime’s sporadic attacks on the gay community. Over crème brûlée and Egyptian red wine, I chatted with a towering bearded man who had spent four years as a closeted member of a Salafist sect in Alexandria. “I hated myself, and I thought being a Salafist would cure me of being gay,” he told me. He had fallen in love with another fundamentalist, a Syrian who jilted him and joined the refugee flood to Europe. The man had returned to the gay scene in Alexandria and Cairo — but the oppressive atmosphere has made it nearly impossible for him to mix socially with other gay men. “We have never seen anything like this in Egypt,” he told me. “People are terrified. ” (A few days after I left Egypt, my translator would seek, and eventually gain, humanitarian asylum in Germany, claiming that the crackdown on gay Egyptians had endangered him.) Around midnight, the host cleared furniture from the salon, and the crowd gathered around the perimeter of the room to watch the evening’s entertainment. A lithe, man danced erotically around another man swathed in a black burqa, prying apart the second man’s legs and removing a beach ball, a teddy bear and other objects and tossing them around the salon. The lewdly choreographed show, taking place out of sight of Sisi’s ubiquitous security forces, seemed an act of defiance. Yet I was asked repeatedly not to identify the location of the party or anything else that might compromise those in attendance. The country’s security forces have displayed their unbridled power in other startling ways. Last year, Ziad Hassan Qenawy, a from the Cairo exurb of Al Shorouk, was detained at Cairo Airport with his father and hauled into court to face sentencing for six guilty verdicts handed down in absentia, ranging from theft to “resisting the authorities. ” Each was punishable by a year in prison. The boy’s lawyer, Mahmoud Al Shinawy, calls the case a revenge plot against the father, an affluent businessman who had refused to submit to a police shakedown. In the courtroom, Shinawy told me: “I had to lift Ziad up so the judge could see him. When the judge saw me carrying the boy, he asked me, ‘Why are you bringing your son to the court?’ I said: ‘This is not my son. This is the defendant. ’’u2009” Ziad was given suspended sentences, “but he now has a criminal record,” Shinawy said. “It will last for his entire life, and he will lose many rights. ” Egypt’s byzantine justice system seemed to be assiduous in sweeping up toddlers. Last February, a military court found Ahmed Mansour Qorani Sharara and 115 others guilty of killing three people and damaging private and public property during a Brotherhood demonstration. Ahmed was sentenced to life in prison, but the verdict was later thrown out of court. The police insist that it was a case of mistaken identity and that the real culprit, a teenager, is still being sought. One November evening, I met my translator at El Horreya cafe, an beer hall that served as a refuge for protesters fleeing the crush of humanity and occasional clouds of tear gas in Tahrir Square. Today it is a popular hangout for journalists, leftists and members of Cairo’s beleaguered L. G. B. T. community. Together we headed for a meeting with an original member of the April 6 movement who has also been caught up in the purgatory of Sisi’s courts and prisons. He had spent five months in jail for organizing the April 2016 protest against Sisi’s transfer of two uninhabited islands, Tiran and Sanafir, in the Gulf of Aqaba, to Saudi Arabia, apparently in a quid pro quo for desperately needed hard currency, gas and oil. (Egypt’s State Council, in a rare display of independence, later ruled the transfer illegal.) The activist had been given a provisional release weeks earlier and had broken a few appointments with me already, but this evening, he promised to make an appearance. My translator and I walked through the downtown streets, past stray dogs and cats feasting on piles of garbage in alleys, past derelict buildings that looked dangerously close to collapse. After 15 minutes, we arrived at the Eish and Malh bistro, a joint. The April 6 organizer, a skinny with square glasses, a white Tour de France shirt, a thin beard and a mop of curly black hair, was smoking furiously at a round table in the center of the large room. He insisted on being quoted anonymously, only to change his mind, saying, “I don’t want anyone who reads this to feel it’s a fabrication,” before anxiously changing his mind again. He recounted how plainclothes security men had jumped out of five cars at the April demonstration, punched and him, then pushed him inside one of the vehicles and blindfolded him on the way to the security headquarters. He spent the next five months in pretrial detention, before a judge ordered his strictly supervised release. Every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday afternoon, in a ritual that mimics Maher’s, he walks or takes a from his home to the local police station and sits on a bench for two hours, a humiliating routine that “has made it impossible for me to have a normal life,” he told me, lighting another cigarette. Around us, young Egyptians smoked, ate pizza and worked on their MacBooks, having settled back into their quotidian lives six years after Egypt’s aborted revolution and three years after Sisi’s military coup. At the end of five months, the organizer must appear again before a judge — who could renew his probation or send him back to jail. He checked his watch and told me he could talk for only 10 minutes more. He was worried that he would be picked up again if he stayed any longer. “I know that I am always being observed, and it drives you to an obsession,” he said. “I have thought about going abroad, but I need to be more psychologically stable first. I need to have the safe feeling, so that I can organize my life again. ” (His anxieties about being rearrested proved well founded. In February, the police detained him without explanation for six hours when he arrived late for that day’s scheduled detention, he was sent back to prison for 18 days.) As he stood up to leave the pizza parlor, I asked him if the campaign for democracy had accomplished anything. “I don’t believe it was a waste,” he told me after a pause. “It created a feeling, a space, even if we don’t have that now. Even if the people are afraid again, that experience was so important. In spite of everything, I believe it was worth it. ” In February, I returned to Cairo to meet Maher, who was released from prison on Jan. 5. As the April 6 leader prepared to report for his own far stricter surveillance, I asked him whether this routine, a constant reminder of the unyielding power of the state, demoralized him. Maher shrugged. He had recently finished reading Samuel Huntington’s 1991 book, “The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late 20th Century,” and he believed that history would prove his efforts worthwhile. “Huntington wrote that waves of revolution are greater than waves of counterrevolution,” Maher said. “So it’s three steps forward, two steps back. ” A friend picked up Maher at his home, and I followed them in my car to the station. The sun was sinking low over the desert as I drove down the wide street leading from Maher’s home, past shabby apartment blocks with laundry drying on every balcony and stunted palm trees lining the meridian. I parked at the bottom of a hill, across the street from the gated police compound, an Egyptian flag fluttering over the entrance. The wail of a muezzin wafted across the neighborhood four officers stood inside a guard post just before the gate. The driver embraced Maher and then motored away. Maher wore his woolen ski cap and carried a black satchel containing a novel and a dinner that Reham had prepared for him. “It’s a surprise,” he told me, hoisting the bag over his shoulder. “I’ll find out what it is when I get inside. ” Then he crossed the road, walked past the four unsmiling policemen and disappeared into the shadows. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader, said Tuesday that Democrats who essentially seized the House floor last month to protest the lack of votes on gun legislation might be punished for breaking House rules. The behavior was not “becoming of the U. S. Congress,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters. He said he had been told that Democrats had mistreated House staff members and had perhaps even damaged congressional furniture during their protest. Mr. McCarthy said that he and the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, would soon meet with the House to discuss investigative paths and possible ramifications for the Democrats. “This is not the way the House should work,” Mr. McCarthy said. “You first have to know all the facts. Action has to be taken on behavior taken toward professional staff. ” But Mr. McCarthy’s comments seemed more indicative of the gulf between the parties than of any real likelihood of punishment for Democrats. Censure of individuals seems very unlikely, given how many participated, and any attempts to penalize them could backfire, with Democrats wielding any such penalty as a badge of honor for their willingness to take on the majority. Filming and streaming video in the House — which the Democrats did after the regular television feed ended when Republicans gaveled the House into recess — are violations of the chamber’s rules. Other potential violations include standing in the well of the House floor and cutting off debate. An outside group has made a referral to the Office of Congressional Ethics regarding solicitations issued during the . As Democrats considered their next steps on gun legislation, Mr. Ryan was to meet Tuesday evening with Representatives John Lewis of Georgia and John B. Larson of Connecticut, the organizers of the . But the outcome seemed predetermined: Mr. Ryan, who has dismissed the protest as “a political stunt,” suggested in an interview on a Wisconsin radio program earlier Tuesday that he would not bring up Democratic proposals for a vote. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader, scheduled a news conference with advocates for Wednesday morning to keep pushing Republicans, who could face significant risks in voting on gun legislation in a contentious election year. Republicans said they intended to hold a vote this week on a measure to prevent terrorists from obtaining guns. Under the bill, the government could block the sale or transfer of a gun if it demonstrated to a judge within a few days that an individual may have links to terrorism. Similar legislation recently failed in the Senate after Democrats panned it as toothless. “The lengths the House Republican leadership will go to follow the N. R. A. ’s marching orders know no bounds,” said Drew Hammill, Ms. Pelosi’s spokesman. House Democrats made it clear that they would not stand down and were keeping their options open as they returned from the Fourth of July recess. Last week, more than 60 Democrats participated in rallies, news conferences and other events around the country on a declared “national day of action,” trying to energize supporters and keep up pressure on Republican leaders. Speaking from the House floor before their meeting, Mr. Larson called on Mr. Ryan to hold votes on measures that would restrict access to guns for those on the government’s list and expand background checks. Urging him to remember that “he is, indeed, speaker of the entire House,” Mr. Larson said that “we’re prevailing upon the decency of the other side, their understanding of the Constitution, their understanding of the rules of the House. ” Representative Tom McClintock, Republican of California, said Democrats had engaged in “one of the most disgraceful and childish breaches of the institution” by seizing the House floor on June 22. “They certainly have a right to their opinions,” he said. “They have a right to express those opinions on the House floor, and they have a right to use all of the procedures of the House to act on their opinions. What they do not have is the right to prevent those with different views from exercising the same rights, and yet that is precisely what they did. ” | 1 |
President Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, allegedly ordered surveillance of Donald Trump’s campaign aides during the last election, and maintained spreadsheets of their telephone calls, the Daily Caller reports. [The alleged spreadsheets add a new dimension to reports on Sunday and Monday by blogger Mike Cernovich and Eli Lake of Bloomberg News that Rice had asked for Trump aides’ names to be “unmasked” in intelligence reports. The alleged “unmasking” may have been legal, but may also have been part of an alleged political intelligence operation to disseminate reports on the Trump campaign widely throughout government with the aim of leaking them to the press. At the time that radio host Mark Levin and Breitbart News compiled the evidence of surveillance, dissemination, and leaking — all based on mainstream media reports — the mainstream media dismissed the story as a “conspiracy theory. ” Now, however, Democrats are backing away from that allegation, and from broader allegations of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, as additional details of the Obama administration’s alleged surveillance continue to emerge. The Daily Caller reports: “What was produced by the intelligence community at the request of Ms. Rice were detailed spreadsheets of intercepted phone calls with unmasked Trump associates in perfectly legal conversations with individuals,” diGenova told The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group Monday. “The overheard conversations involved no illegal activity by anybody of the Trump associates, or anyone they were speaking with,” diGenova said. “In short, the only apparent illegal activity was the unmasking of the people in the calls. ” The surveillance and spreadsheet operation were allegedly “ordered one year before the 2016 presidential election. ” According to a Fox News report on Monday, former White House aide Ben Rhodes was also involved. Rhodes and Rice were both implicated in a disinformation campaign to describe the Benghazi terror attack in Sep. 2012 as a protest against a YouTube video. Rhodes also boasted of creating an “echo chamber” in the media to promote the Iran deal, feeding stories to contrived networks of “experts” who offered the public a steady stream of propaganda. On Monday, Rhodes retweeted a CNN story quoting Rep. Jim Himes ( ) claiming that the alleged unmasking was “nothing unusual. ” To the extent they have reported the surveillance story at all, CNN and other news outlets have focused on Trump’s tweets last month that alleged President Obama had “wiretapped” Trump Tower, describing the claims as unfounded. CNN continued treating story dismissively on Monday, with The Lead host Jake Tapper insisting allegations of Russian interference in the election were more important than what he referred to as the president’s effort to distract from them. Later in the day, host Don Lemon declared he would ignore the surveillance story and urged viewers to do likewise. The potential abuse of surveillance powers for political purposes has long troubled civil libertarians, and could affect the of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act later this year. 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, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
Depression is caused by vitamins deficiencies but psychiatrists call them chemical imbalances in the brain.I too suffered from depression and was put on meds for a couple of years and the side effects of the medication I took were IBS and gluten and lactose intolerance,which I now have to live with for the rest of my life.
Three years ago I did a blood-test and found that my B12 level was 179 and a normal would be up to 600,but still my doctor wasn’t convinced and he told me that I was borderline.So I started taking 1000mg everyday and my depression started to ease instantly.
You see, the problem with doctors is that they dont look at the real cause but only at the symptoms,they dont want to stop the cause,cos it will make you stop visiting,beside the fact that above all, the real cause before my B12 deficiency was that I recently had been through a traumatic situation and in order for the body to cope it releases cortisol and adrenaline which in turn eats up all your stored vitamins not just B12,so I also started taking magnesium and zinc as I also later discovered that I was also deficient in.
If you go back to your past before your the depression started you realize that there was trigger,say a bereavement of someone very close to you,a repossession of your house,news that a sibling has something terminal,in short, a very traumatic(shock) situation.
You said so yourself,you stopped taking and reoccurrence took place,which in turn means,you were doing what the doctor said,masking your problem,treating the symptoms and not the cause | 0 |
For two years, a group of families in Newtown, Conn. quietly laid the groundwork for a legal case against the maker and sellers of the assault rifle that on Dec. 14, 2012, claimed 26 lives — and shattered their own — in less than five minutes. The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was carried out with an a assault rifle that has surfaced in recent mass shootings, like Aurora, Colo. and San Bernardino, Calif. On the eve of a hearing to determine whether the lawsuit can proceed, a rifle similar to the was used yet again — in an attack early Sunday at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. ,the deadliest shooting in American history. The legal challenge faces long odds, and a key hearing next week will determine its future. But the lawsuit has already progressed further than many had expected — a Connecticut judge has set a trial date and has ordered the defendants to turn over documents — and no matter the outcome, it represents a muscular campaign against the powerful gun industry. The lawsuit seeks to overcome the broad immunity given to gun makers and sellers under a 2005 federal law, protecting them from liability when guns are used in a crime. But there is a small window for holding companies accountable, including instances of negligent entrustment, in which a gun is carelessly given or sold to a person posing a high risk of misusing it. The 10 Newtown plaintiffs argue that the is a weapon of war — its cousin, the was the rifle of choice in Vietnam — and therefore should never have been marketed to civilians. They say, in effect, that the availability of a weapon capable of inflicting such rapid carnage constitutes such negligence. “The novelty of the approach is that it doesn’t depend upon an argument that the manufacturer knows that a particular shooter is a buyer,” said Heidi Li Feldman, a professor at Georgetown University Law School, who has followed the Newtown litigation. “The novelty is that it substitutes the general public for a particular individual. ” The timing of the attack in Orlando, where 49 people were fatally shot, may invigorate and inflame the legal challenge against the gun industry. advocates and victims’ rights groups have embraced the case as a way to knock down stalwart gun protections, while gun makers and dealers are watching the case intently. Eighteen months after it was filed, the lawsuit — naming the manufacturer, Remington the wholesaler and a local retailer — is still in the early stages. But the case has not yet been tossed out of court. Even some plaintiffs were startled when Judge Barbara N. Bellis of State Superior Court, who has yet to rule on a final effort to quash the case, set a trial date — two years from now — and ordered the defendants to disclose marketing materials and other internal documents. Also central to the case is the way that gun makers and dealers promote assault rifles. Just before a hearing in April, Bill Sherlach, whose wife, Mary, a school psychologist, was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting, said he was eager to see company memos. “We look forward to the discovery process, where we can see what goes on behind the curtain,” Mr. Sherlach said outside the courthouse in Bridgeport. The defendants have been vigorously seeking to have the lawsuit thrown out, and they have one last chance at a hearing on Monday in which both sides will make their cases. The judge has until October to decide whether the case will go to trial. The gun companies had asked Judge Bellis to delay the discovery phase until she ruled on the defendants’ motion to strike the case. The judge denied the defendants’ request, saying that the plaintiffs had waited long enough and that the parties should start exchanging information immediately. The Sandy Hook families’ legal team has requested numerous documents relating to the marketing of the as well as the companies’ desired customer base and use of video games for promotion, among other things. Mark Barden recalled watching his wife, Jacqueline, at the computer in the first weeks after their son, Daniel, died in the 2012 shooting. “She was trying to research how the kid around the corner got his hands on a military rifle designed for combat,” Mr. Barden said, “and carried it into our son’s school to murder him. ” Using an model known as the Bushmaster, Adam Lanza, a disturbed who lived near the Bardens, shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School. In less than five minutes, he fired 154 rounds. His mother, Nancy Lanza, whom he also killed, had legally purchased the weapon. The Bardens were stunned, they said, to see how gun companies advertised the weapons online to the general public, using militaristic language and macho phrases like “Get your man card” and “The opposition will bow down. ” The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Joshua D. Koskoff, contends that the ’s overwhelming firepower makes it a poor choice for home defense, hunting and recreation. “But there is one civilian activity in which the reigns supreme: mass shootings,” the lawsuit said. Assailants “have unleashed the rifle’s lethal power into our streets, our malls, our places of worship and our schools. ” On Sunday, Mr. Koskoff said the carnage of the Orlando attack showed how “unreasonably lethal” the is. “It’s no more a gun than a tank is a car,” he said in an interview. The which dates to the 1950s, is one of the most popular weapons in history, with dozens of gun makers issuing their own models. Several million are in American hands, according to expert estimates, despite a ban that expired in 2004. The National Rifle Association calls the “America’s rifle. ” As the ban was ending, Congress began debate on the gun immunity bill. A University of Michigan Law School professor, Sherman J. Clark, wrote a letter to lawmakers arguing against the proposed law. More than 70 law professors signed the letter, which said the bill represented a “substantial and radical departure” from American tort law. “The law provides to firearms makers and distributors a literally unprecedented form of tort immunity not enjoyed or even dreamed of by any other industry,” the letter said. In late 2005, the House of Representatives voted to approve the immunity law, officially called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, and six days later, President George W. Bush signed it into law. Remington, the company based in North Carolina that made the Bushmaster gun used by Mr. Lanza, sold one million firearms last year, according to company filings. But while sales of handguns rose, the Bushmaster rifles languished. Typically, mass shootings and terrorist acts bolster sales of assault rifles. In its most recent financial filing, Remington wrote that “after the tragic events” in Paris and San Bernardino, the company noticed “a strong but disciplined demand” for a version of its Bushmaster rifles. Dr. Garen Wintemute, a public health researcher at the University of California, Davis, said sales of all types of guns rose after mass shootings. As for why purchases of assault rifles increase, he said: “Our informed guesswork is that it’s strategic buying — buy it now because you won’t be able to later. One unanswered question is when there is such a spike, how much of that is new purchasers and how much is people buying additional firearms. ” In a motion filed on Friday to strike the Newtown lawsuit, Remington called the plaintiffs’ arguments a “strained effort to evade the immunity provided to firearm manufacturers” under the 2005 federal law. The brief argues that the “negligent entrustment” exception applies to gun sellers and dealers, not a gun maker like Remington. Of course, if Judge Bellis does allow the case to proceed, the eventual outcome is uncertain. “Trial court judges do not really go for theories or highly novel adaptations of established theories,” said Professor Feldman of Georgetown. “It goes against their experience and the nature of their job. ” | 1 |
It’s the sort of story that only feeds existing suspicions that the upcoming presidential election is being rigged to install Hillary Clinton in the White House regardless of the true vote count.
Via TruthAndAction
It strikes directly at the heart of the integrity of our election process and has the potential to cast doubt on the legitimacy of candidates who are declared the winners. The story in question appeared on the Infowars website, and while some of the details cannot be confirmed, it’s worth a look .
Elections in the United States do not have a perfect record of being free from attempts to manipulate the results through fraud. As reprehensible as that may be, it’s not entirely unexpected considering what’s at stake. Aggressive efforts to insure the integrity of our elections and the prosecution of those who would corrupt them are essential to giving the winning candidates the legitimacy they deserve.
All of this has the potential to go out the window this year as accusations of voter fraud through the manipulation of the counting of the ballots are already rampant.
A recent story appearing on the Infowars news site claims to show that one TV station is already preparing to announce a Clinton victory.
A NBC station was caught posting election results showing a Hillary Clinton victory days before the election, fueling concerns that the mainstream media is conditioning the public to accept a rigged election favoring Hillary.
Political activists discovered a hidden web site for WRCB out of Chattanooga, Tenn. showing election results with Hillary Clinton securing 343 electoral votes and 42% of the popular vote.
The web site originated from the FTP server of WorldNow, a media software company that provides real-time data – such as election results – and other media assets to local news stations.
It’s important to note that although Infowars claims that the site is a “hidden site for WRCB,” we at Truth and Action could not independently verify this . Note that Infowars states that this “hidden web site” is located in Chattanooga, Tennessee. A search of the domain name returns Ohio as the location where the domain name was registered, although that is not conclusive either as to the actual location where the site is maintained.
Even with these doubts about the authenticity of the web site under discussion, this news will do nothing to instill confidence, but will be one more factor furthering the suspicion and lack of trust surrounding the integrity of this year’s presidential election.
In fact, it dovetails nicely with the “fractional” method of counting the votes previously reported.
Election fraud expert Bev Harris was the first to uncover this method, which is also known as “vote shaving.”
“You need to have votes counted as fractions,” Harris said on The Alex Jones Show Monday. “You need the votes to be counted with decimal places, like you count money.”
“If a vote is a dollar, you also need to have cents with it. That will not show. It’s hidden.”
Vote shaving works by treating votes as decimals rather than whole numbers, which allows the machines to allocate the remaining fractional percentages elsewhere to sway election outcomes.
“There’s this one central computer, which at the end of the day, all the votes come to it,” Harris pointed out. “That’s where you take it. You don’t run around to 5,000 different precincts. You wait until the votes come to you, and then you have your way with them.”
All of this is incredibly troubling. One ray of hope is that if there really is a concerted effort to rig the vote for Hillary, that the Trump campaign is vigilant and prepared to take all legal measures to expose any vote fraud and insure that the ballots are counted accurately resulting in a decision that truly does represent the will of the people.
Source: Infowars
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Donald J. Trump plans to throw Bill Clinton’s infidelities in Hillary Clinton’s face on live television during the presidential debates this fall, questioning whether she enabled his behavior and sought to discredit the women involved. Mr. Trump will try to hold her accountable for security lapses at the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and for the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens there. And he intends to portray Mrs. Clinton as fundamentally corrupt, invoking everything from her cattle futures trades in the late 1970s to the federal investigation into her email practices as secretary of state. Drawing on psychological warfare tactics that Mr. Trump used to defeat “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz, “Little Marco” Rubio and “ ” Jeb Bush in the Republican primaries, the Trump campaign is mapping out character attacks on the Clintons to try to increase their negative poll ratings and bait them into making political mistakes, according to interviews with Mr. Trump and his advisers. Another goal is to win over skeptical Republicans, since nothing unites the party quite like castigating the Clintons. Attacking them could also deflect attention from Mr. Trump’s vulnerabilities, such as his treatment of women, some Trump allies say. For Mrs. Clinton, the coming battle is something of a paradox. She has decades of experience and qualifications, but it may not be merit that wins her the presidency — it may be how she handles the humiliations inflicted by Mr. Trump. She would make history as the first woman to be a nominee, yet she would also be viewed, in part, through the prism of her husband’s flaws. Some political allies and friends, while disgusted with Mr. Trump, see a certain cosmic symmetry at work: After decades of fighting what she once called “the politics of personal destruction,” Mrs. Clinton will reach the White House only if she survives one more crucible of sordid and scandalous accusations. “She is so prepared to be president, but holding her head high and staying dignified during the campaign is probably what will help her the most,” said Melanne Verveer, a longtime friend and former chief of staff to Mrs. Clinton. “Trump is yet another way she will be tested personally — one of her greatest tests yet. ” Mrs. Clinton has often flourished in the wake of boorish behavior: her husband’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation of her husband, the congressional impeachment proceedings. Women rallied to her side during her 2000 Senate race after her Republican opponent, Representative Rick A. Lazio, invaded her personal space during one debate, and they helped her win the 2008 New Hampshire primary shortly after Barack Obama dismissively said she was “likable enough. ” Yet Mr. Trump said he was determined not to fall into those traps. In a telephone interview, he noted that women did not like seeing Mrs. Clinton insulted or bullied by men. He said he wanted to be more strategic, by calling into question Mrs. Clinton’s judgment in her reaction to Mr. Clinton’s affairs — people close to the couple have said she was involved in efforts to discredit the women — and in her response to crises like Benghazi. “Just getting nasty with Hillary won’t work,” Mr. Trump said. “You really have to get people to look hard at her character, and to get women to ask themselves if Hillary is truly sincere and authentic. Because she has been really ugly in trying to destroy Bill’s mistresses, and she is pandering to women so obviously when she is only interested in getting power. ” He acknowledged that Republicans tried to discredit her judgment in the marathon Benghazi hearing in the fall, to little avail. But he said that he would be more pointed and memorable in linking her to the failings and deaths in Libya, and that the debate would have a vastly larger television audience than the hearing. Still, advisers of Mrs. Clinton pointed to her with the Benghazi committee as a sign of her unflappability. “From Rick Lazio to the House Benghazi committee, there’s a long line of Republicans who set out to personally attack Hillary Clinton but ended up inflicting the damage on themselves,” a Clinton campaign spokesman, Brian Fallon, said in a statement. “We know Donald Trump is the most unconventional of them all, but no matter what he throws at her, she will keep running her own campaign and won’t hesitate to call him out. ” Several Clinton advisers said they were not underestimating Mr. Trump’s ability to do some damage, acknowledging that Mrs. Clinton’s unfavorability ratings were high — though not as high as Mr. Trump’s — and that many Americans had concerns about her honesty and trustworthiness, according to polls. But these Clinton advisers expressed confidence that Mr. Trump would overreach and engender sympathy for Mrs. Clinton. Two advisers said that the campaign had done polling to test the possible effectiveness of Mr. Trump’s lines of attacks and, while not disclosing details about the data, that they were convinced that he would not seriously hurt her. Mrs. Clinton, in turn, has begun attacking Mr. Trump over his refusal to release his tax returns, suggesting he has something to hide, and over his temperament and leadership abilities by describing him as a “loose cannon. ” And political allies say that, in time, voters will see through Mr. Trump’s criticisms. “He can’t run on his agenda because he doesn’t have one, and he can’t go after her on substantive policy because she knows so much more than he does,” said Thomas R. Nides, Mrs. Clinton’s former deputy secretary of state for management and resources. Yet Mr. Trump has been steadily underestimated during the presidential campaign. His Republican rivals were certain that voters would tire of his slashing style and his harsh language, and some political strategists were sure his lack of policy details would make him unprepared in the eyes of too many. Even one of Mrs. Clinton’s biggest assets to many Democrats — becoming the first female president and returning Mr. Clinton to a White House role — can be exploited as vulnerabilities. “We’ve never had a woman at the top of the ticket, and there will be plenty of people who’ll have a problem with her gender,” said Christina Greer, a political scientist at Fordham University. And Mr. Trump “can say that Bill Clinton was accused of rape and destroyed a girl’s life,” she added, referring to allegations by Juanita Broaddrick of a sexual assault in the 1970s and to the Lewinsky affair. With polls showing that Mr. Trump has unprecedented high negative ratings with voters and is in particular trouble with women, some Republican strategists say he has no choice but to try to drive up Mrs. Clinton’s unfavorability ratings. A recent poll found that 57 percent of likely Trump supporters said that their votes were more to express opposition to Mrs. Clinton than to support Mr. Trump. “His best way to rally hostile Republican delegates before the convention is to show he’s a great Clinton attack dog,” said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who oversaw a “super PAC” supporting Mr. Bush in this year’s Republican race. Mark Penn, the chief strategist for Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, and the Harvard University Center for American Political Studies have conducted polling that indicates that attacks against Mrs. Clinton over her private email server, the deaths in Benghazi and other issues would weaken her in a matchup against Mr. Trump. “The poll shows he could bring her vote down with sharp attacks, but that does not bring his vote up,” Mr. Penn wrote in an email. At a campaign rally for Mrs. Clinton on Wednesday in New Jersey, some supporters said they were concerned about the damage Mr. Trump could do. They described him as a street fighter and worried that Mrs. Clinton would not be gutsy and nimble enough to deliver a knockout punch. “Trump is a real lowbrow brawler,” said Michael Magazzu, an entrepreneur in the energy sector from Vineland, N. J. “That’s not her style. She has to counteract him, and the best way may be to keep her cool. ” | 1 |
Report Copyright Violation Americans, never let them put voting machines for you, the election will be rigged Since 2000, the elections here has voting machines from SmartMatics, and since then, the socialists and leftists always win the presidential election. Sounds like it's just part of the globalist agenda, and the last election was rigged as fuck. The socialist Dilma won again, but her ass was kicked this year, she was impeached after put the nation into a severe economical and political crisis, almost causing a civil war, dividing the country. Hillary will probaly be your Dilma Rousseff. | 0 |
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Those of us who study how to end wars rather than find new ways to prosecute them must be stunned, like many Colombians, by a popular vote there on October 2 that rejected the peace agreement between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). No one predicted that after over five decades of fighting and more than 200,000 deaths, a peace agreement that took six years to conclude would be rejected. It’s a lesson in how the power of emotion—vengefulness, specifically—and narrow self-interest can overcome good sense. The general perception of observers is that voters who suffered from the civil war wanted to see the FARC rebels punished rather than “rewarded” with the opportunity to reenter civil society and even hold a guaranteed number of seats in the national congress.
Most civil wars end in much the same way as Colombia’s—with one side badly hurting and willing to disarm under a cease-fire, provided the government promises assistance so that the rebellious soldiers can reintegrate in civil society. Negotiations to reach such an agreement typically are arduous and often seem to be on the brink of failure. Long-held grievances come to life again and again, and it is a tribute to negotiators that they were able to come to any substantive agreement at all. So it was with high expectations that an agreement was reached, and the decision of Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, to put it to a popular vote showed his confidence that citizens weary of war would accept it. Five days after the vote, he was rewarded for his efforts with the Nobel Peace Prize.
That Colombians did not endorse the agreement evidently owes much to the politicians who campaigned for a “no” vote, including former president Àlvaro Uribe, whose father was killed by the FARC. He argues that the peace agreement is too soft on FARC leaders, allowing them to avoid prison merely by confessing their crimes and promising to make restitution to victims. According to one observer who opposes the peace accord, “Essentially, FARC members would have received the same legal power to prosecute Colombian government officials and vice versa. The rejected deal would also have shielded an unknown number of FARC guerillas from jail for drug trafficking, recruitment of child soldiers, and other crimes.” The many thousands of people whose families were directly impacted by FARC killings and kidnappings obviously agreed.
The razor-thin “no” vote (50.2 percent to 49.7 percent) also may be attributed to the bizarre fact that only 38 percent of eligible voters voted . Perhaps this was a Brexit-like situation in which many people stayed away from the polls on the assumption a “yes” vote was fairly certain. But the “no” voters were well entrenched, including not only Uribe’s party but also “the majority of the churches, the ELN [the National Liberation Army, the second-largest guerrilla force], business sectors . . ., and the majority of landowners, who were all against the proposed changes.” The right-wing groups not only considered President Santos’ peace plan soft on FARC; they also objected to his support of gay rights, reforms of land policy, and investment in rural development.
It was under Uribe, not coincidentally, that the US became a major participant in Colombia’s civil war. Under “Plan Colombia” the US provided the Colombian military with advanced weapons (such as Blackhawk helicopters) and intelligence (under a top-secret multi-billion dollar CIA program) that escalated the violence and decimated the FARC’s ranks. A FARC leader is quoted as saying that it faced “an international intervention, and it took a toll.” Civilian deaths and the displacement of about seven million people followed, caused in no small part by officially sanctioned right-wing death squads.
Some US officials believe that intervention “saved” Colombia from endless civil war by forcing FARC to the bargaining table. That is hardly an argument for peacemaking; the “no” vote was actually a defeat for the US policy of peace through war. Plan Colombia was to a great extent responsible for destroying, either through deaths or displacements, the lives of roughly 15 percent of the total population. Now the US supports a negotiated settlement, but still keeps FARC on the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations List. The Santos government and FARC have agreed to continue a cease-fire until December 31 .
We may hope the parties will be guided by the need for rehabilitation and reconstruction rather than vengeance—for peace rather than retributive justice.
As President Santos said , “Making peace is much more difficult than making war because you need to change sentiments of people, people who have suffered, to try to persuade them to forgive.” | 0 |
The California taxman wants add to taxes on space travel on top of taxing land, buildings, businesses, income, transportation and the air we breathe. [Not satisfied with being the state in the nation, the clever folks at the Franchise Tax Board disclosed their intention to begin taxing the “Apportionment and Allocation of Income of Space Transportation Companies” under a new addition to the state tax collection enforce “Code of Regulations. ” With space is internationally defined as all the infinity that is 62 miles or more above the earth, the 21st century commercial opportunities for the development of space seem to be creating a new lust among California lawmakers to find a whole new source of revenue. The Franchise Tax Board is proposing to tax the movement or attempted movement of people or property — including, without limitation, launch vehicles, satellites, payloads, cargo, refuse, or any other property — to space. In November, California voters passed Proposition 55 to extend the “temporary” 13. 3 percent top state tax rate on earners until 2030, helping the state retain the highest marginal tax rate in the nation. But the state also has the highest collections in the nation for property tax, sales tax, business tax, cap and trade tax and tax on aiplanes during the minutes that they travel in the state’s airspace. California’s local governments have also been clever in tacking on novel new revenue schemes from such items as soda and plastic (or paper) bags. In 1966, the Beatles’ George Harrison wrote lyrics for the song “Taxman,” which appeared as the first track on the Revolver album. It became the theme song for a U. K. rebellion against the British Labour Party, which had set an astronomical top income tax rate and surcharge of 98 percent while Harold Wilson was Prime Minister in 1974. Those high tax rates led to most of the members of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and other top stars of the 1960s British music scene going into a form of tax exile out of the country. Harrison’s most iconic lyrics iconic include: If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street, If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat. If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat, If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet. Don’t ask me what I want it forIf you don’t want to pay some more‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman, The current space tax is supposedly designed to only hit companies operating in California that generate at least 50 percent of revenue from space transportation. But the tax, if enacted, will undoubtedly be expanded later, and it would also apply to any company that launches a missile from the Vandenberg Air Force Base Space Launch Complex. Vandenberg launches have big advantages for commercial space missions because they fly southward, allowing payloads to be placed in polar and orbit. That allows full global coverage that is difficult to achieve through launches at Cape Canaveral’s Kennedy Space Center, where missiles must fly eastward to avoid risks to major population centers. | 1 |
In this age of rage, Madison Avenue is finding itself on red alert. Advertisers are increasingly in the cross hairs of populist activists — aided by the power and reach of social media — who are demanding that brands quickly take sides on divisive social and political issues, posing a new challenge to corporations that usually prefer to stay out of the fray. After a groundswell of online anger over reports that Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News host, had settled with at least five women who accused him of harassment, more than 50 companies pulled their ads from Mr. O’Reilly’s popular prime time program. The exodus followed similar campaigns to pressure brands with ties to President Trump, like L. L. Bean, Uber and advertisers on “The New Celebrity Apprentice. ” “Americans are now demanding that their brands articulate their values and weigh in on political issues, and I think the degree to which they are expecting that is really quite new,” said Kara Alaimo, who teaches public relations at Hofstra University and worked in communications for the United Nations, the Treasury Department in the Obama administration, and the administration of former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. “What social media is doing is forcing companies to make these decisions much more rapidly. ” Ad boycotts are not new: provocateurs like Don Imus and Glenn Beck lost their cable news soapboxes in part because an angry public used petitions and campaigns to force companies to drop their sponsorship. But the culture of social media has accelerated the process to such a degree that corporations may find themselves besieged in hours by tens of thousands of online critics. Just this week, Pepsi was excoriated for a commercial that invoked the imagery of populist protest to sell soft drinks. A Twitter post from the Rev. Bernice King, the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that mocked Pepsi was reposted more than 140, 000 times. Within roughly 24 hours of the release of the ad, Pepsi pulled it and apologized. The rapidity of this cycle has tested even the marketing giants, creating a niche for public relations specialists who say they can help companies navigate these instant social media storms. One firm offers software and training sessions that simulate “a online attack” on a brand — the corporate equivalent of war games. The boycotts may give brief satisfaction to social media activists. But many of the sponsors that turned away from Mr. O’Reilly this week are still advertising on Fox News, which reaches the biggest audience on cable television. Fox says it is working with sponsors to address any concerns about “The O’Reilly Factor. ” And specialists say there will be little to no financial impact on the network in the near future, though that could change over time. Brian Wieser, a media analyst at Pivotal Research, said that for now, Fox News was essentially just shuffling inventory — “not unlike if you run a store and have got to figure out what shelf on which you put different products. ” In the short term, the fallout could eat into revenue for “The O’Reilly Factor” as cheaper commercials replace brands, Mr. Wieser said, while the worry is that advertisers could reassess the annual budgets they spend on Fox News. Even if the effect is more symbolic than financial, there is little question that social media have proved to be potent weapons. Since November, a Twitter account called Sleeping Giants has pressured brands into removing ads that appear on Breitbart News, the conservative news and opinion website with close ties to the Trump administration. The group, which posts screenshots of advertising on Breitbart, says it has influenced hundreds of brands — citing Kellogg, Warby Parker and Allstate — to block ads from appearing on the site. Sleeping Giants, whose proprietors have remained anonymous, extended its mission this week, urging its roughly 81, 000 followers to post images on Twitter of allegations about Mr. O’Reilly to a list of advertisers. The account has then praised companies that decided to pull sponsorship. Vulnerability to that kind of online backlash is the flip side of a coin for major brands, which have spent years pursuing consumer engagement on social media. These days, big companies may try to talk like teenagers, using slang terms like “bae” and “on fleek” on their corporate accounts, or participate in viral trends like “the mannequin challenge,” an online video craze. But social media are also handy conduits for people to register their anger with brands — directly and en masse. “The intensity of this is a lot greater,” said Matthew Hiltzik, a former Democratic consultant who draws on his experience in political campaigns to advise corporate clients. “Companies need to invest time and resources in developing proactive strategies that advance and protect the brand, so that they are best prepared to deal with the unexpected. ” Weber Shandwick, the public relations firm, created a simulation software and training tool called “Firebell” in 2010 to prepare clients for social media maelstroms. Its website describes a new strain of crisis “made up of a string of critical ” which can “gain momentum and mass at . ” Firebell, introduced as one facet of responding to a crisis, is now central to the firm’s crisis management training, a spokesman said. Brands are particularly concerned that they can be unaware of where their messages are showing up until angry consumers come calling. In recent months, news outlets and activists have discovered prominent companies inadvertently financing a wide range of objectionable material online through automated ad placement, including sites that traffic in fake news and racist and videos on YouTube. The pressure represents some whiplash for an industry that had broadly moved away from relying on content as a rough proxy for groups of people, focusing instead on targeting online ads, and to a lesser extent, television ads, by audience size, browsing habits and other user characteristics. Orkin, a company that removed its ads from “The O’Reilly Factor,” does not buy ads on specific shows but instead purchases “broad day parts on networks that reach our target audience,” Martha Craft, a spokeswoman, said. The company added Mr. O’Reilly’s show to a “Do Not Buy” list after learning of the allegations against him, she said. This year, consumers pushed brands to distance themselves from “The New Celebrity Apprentice” because Mr. Trump remained an executive producer of the show. That effort stemmed from #GrabYourWallet, a social media campaign that urges boycotts of companies selling products. “We haven’t seen brands almost treated as individuals in this way before, and expected to espouse political beliefs and uphold them consistently across platforms in everything they do,” Ms. Alaimo said. Many companies are still figuring out how to cope with these situations, she said, adding that it was crucial to respond during “the golden hour of crisis. ” The term refers to the “golden hour” in emergency medicine — the window after a traumatic injury in which treatment is most likely to stave off death or permanent damage. Marc S. Pritchard, the chief brand officer at Procter Gamble, the world’s biggest advertiser, has overseen global marketing for the company since 2008. He said that when he started in the role, one of the first items on his agenda was working with the media team to “renew our standards” for television and radio ads. “There were some issues where some of the content was becoming objectionable to a large portion of our consumers, whether it was too much graphic violence, too much either sex or sexual innuendo,” Mr. Pritchard said in an interview at an industry conference this week. He said that while the media landscape has radically shifted since then, his company maintains the same standards for where its ads should appear. “I was once told, very early back in my marketing career, your brands are judged by the company they keep,” he said. | 1 |
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Wikileaks Confirming Clinton Was Complicit in the Murder of Ambassador Stevens- The CSS Printed This Allegation Four Years Ago The late Ambassador Stevens Wikileaks is about to confirm the story that The Common Sense Show told 4 years ago in that Ambassador Stevens was set up to die because his stories of gun-running, child trafficking and drug-running on behalf of the CIA in order to promote regime change in Libya using terrorists funded by these illegal activities, were leaking out and it was only a few months until the election. Subsequently, Ambassador Stevens had to be silenced. And Petraeus had to be put in a place where he was not forced to testify before Congress. At the same time, Clinton was broadcasting Stevens whereabouts and she refused to provide the extra protection Stevens was so desperately requesting. Being that Stevens was working for the CIA, then head of the CIA, David Petraeus, would have known about Chris Stevens activities. To protect Obama’s 2012 election, both Stevens and Petraeus had to be gone. People are asking me how I knew all of this four years ago and I say, “I had a source from inside of ARSOF who wanted the real truth to be told. Somebody who knew this nation could not afford to let Clinton ever become President”. This is an excerpt of what I wrote 4 years ago…..
Who had Ambassador Stevens Killed and How the Petraeus Affair Factors In
There is the reason for an event and there is the real reason behind the event. Sixty percent of all married men cheat on their spouse. The more money they make and the more power a man possesses, the more opportunity for cheating.
I have swamp land for sale, in Florida, for anyone to purchase if they are naive enough to believe that David Petraeus, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), resigned solely based upon having an extramarital affair with the biographer-turned-mistress, Colonel Paula Broadwell. How did the affair compromise Petraeus’ position as CIA director? The FBI has concluded that it did not.
The media has suggested that the affair began in 2006. So, the ignorant American public is supposed to believe that David Patraeus was vetted by the FBI, the Secret Service and the rest of the Obama goon squad and they did not discover the affair until AFTER Ambassador’s Steven’s murder? How convenient is that? This doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the CIA’s and the FBI’s vetting practices now does it? Let me be clear again about this outrageous set of facts. The most powerful and presumably thorough intelligence agency was unable to detect Patraeus’ affair during the vetting process? America, this is what you are being asked to believe!
It is abundantly clear that the extramarital affair excuse is just one more piece of excrement piled upon a growing mountain of Oba-manure perpetrated by this administration in order to cover up the fact that they had Chris Stevens murdered by the very terrorists that Stevens was running guns to on behalf of the CIA. Does Adultery Get One Fired?
Let’s examine this event through the lens of common sense. Adultery is indeed a violation of the Military Code of Justice and senior command officers have indeed lost their careers over their sexual indiscretions. However, David Patraeus is no longer a command officer in the military and would not be subject to these prohibitions. And the adultery prohibition is rarely enforced, even in the military, and when it is, it is used as a matter of political expediency in order to get rid of an undesirable.
As for the political “I did not have sex with the woman, Monica Lewinski,” crowd, adultery is not a career killer. And for the head of a federal agency, or for a cabinet member, unless the affair can be shown to compromise national security, it does not end the careers of unholy partakers of the forbidden fruit while serving in high government office. Petraeus decided to quit, though he was breaking no laws by having an affair, officials said. Janet and David A Tale of Two Tails
Rumors persist that the way to get promoted in the Department of Homeland Security is to “provide services” to one’s superiors, especially for Homeland Security Director, Janet Napolitano. So if it is permissible for Janet to be serviced in exchange for a promotion , then why should David be any different when it comes to giving an exclusive to your mistresses’ journalistic desire to become his biographer? Yet Janet is on the verge of being promoted to Attorney General, despite her indiscretions and resulting law suit. Conversely, Patraeus is out of a job. But wait, the believability of this cover story gets worse!
According to New York Times best-selling author, Aaron Klein, whom I have interviewed on my talk show , Hillary Clinton is a lesbian who surrounded herself with lesbian aides and staffers when she was the First Lady and she continues to do so as the Secretary of State. And as the Mail Online points out, why did it not seem to matter to Hillary that her husband chased anything that wore a skirt? It is because she is a serial lesbian who has had multiple affairs. Who cares?
Take Attorney General, Eric Holder, his actions, related to the topic of sex, are the most reprehensible of them all. Brandon Darby , previously an FBI informant, is speaking out on the Department of Justice’s hesitancy to assist victims of human trafficking, in particular they are refusing to help children who have been victims of sex crimes. The obvious question is, who is Holder protecting? This inaction on the part of Eric Holder is far more reprehensible, and represents a greater violation of the public trust than do the actions of Hillary Clinton and Janet Napolitano.
When one considers the fast and furious sexual life-styles of the senior cabinet members of the Obama administration, it is impossible to swallow the fact that Patraeus was sacked because of an affair.
The Patraeus dismissal based upon an extramarital affair is a cover story, plain and simple. The Rats are Jumping Off the Ship
I do not care what people do in their private lives behind closed doors. I do not care if Clinton and Napolitano are lesbians. My feelings hold true for the President, the Director of Homeland Security, the Secretary of State or the director of the CIA. However, when a fake cover story is concocted to cover up the murder of an ambassador, as it was with Chris Stevens, then it is everyone’s business.
Many of the rats of the Obama administration are jumping ship in the aftermath of the murder of Ambassador Stevens and this explains why Patraeus was fired as CIA director. Patraeus is gone for the same reason that Hillary Clinton will soon be gone. Clinton is gone for the same reasons that Eric Holder is contemplating leaving. Congressional Hearings Regarding the Death of Stevens Begin Soon
If Petraeus was subpoenaed before Congress in his role as CIA director, he could not invoke the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. If Hillary Clinton is subpoenaed to testify before Congress, in her role as Secretary of State, she cannot invoke the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. And if members of the Obama administration begin to incriminate themselves for their dirty deeds which resulted in Stevens’ death, then they implicate Obama.
This is Obama’s potential Watergate moment. If Clinton reveals before Congress that, as the senior official that oversees diplomatic security, that she denied Stevens’ requests for extra security and that she, Holder, Patraeus and Obama watch drone footage for nearly seven hours as Stevens and his party were murdered and that these senior level Cabinet officials blocked AFRICOM Commander, General Hamm , and the Commander of Carrier Task Force 3, Admiral Gayouette from rescuing the Stevens contingent, and then had both men arrested when the tried to disobey orders and rescue Stevens in violation of these executive orders from Obama administration.
The gravity of these events are stunning! All of these senior officials, including the President, are implicated as accomplices in Stevens murder. This is criminally negligent homicide. This is first degree murder! And why did Stevens have to be murdered? Stevens was murdered because he was running guns for the CIA to al-Qaeda operatives, first in Libya last year and in Syria this year . (EDITOR’S NOTE: WE KNOW THAT STEVENS WAS ALSO RUNNING KIDS AND DRUGS TO SUPPORT THE CIA IN THEIR EFFORTS TO ARM TERRORISTS IN THE OVERTHROW OF LIBYA.)
Dead men tell no tales in this Middle East version of Fast and Furious. This also explains why Patraeus had to be sacked. He was the link between Stevens’ gun running and al-Qaeda since Stevens’ gun running was a CIA operation conducted under the purview of Petraeus. This account is partially confirmed by Council on Foreign Relations member, Dr Steve Pieczenik, as states that Stevens was running guns and missiles into Syria . You remember the missing hand held stinger missiles that went missing in the NATO invasion of Libya last year? Those would be the ones! Can you imagine the public’s further outcry when al-Qaeda operatives begin brining down American commercial airliners with these weapons. Even Biden would not be able to pardon this motley crew! How Will the New World Order Spin This?
Only a month before the election, I thought Obama’s reign of terror was over. However, in the month before the election, the economic outcome appeared brighter for the first time in years. The housing market showed signs of rebounding. The stock market appeared stronger and the banks were actually talking about loosening credit.
The George Soros voting machines came into play. The military’s vote was compromised. All the stops were pulled out to extend the heinous tyranny of Obama by the global elite. Why? The very simple and obvious reason is that with Benghazi-Gate, the elite can pull Obama’s strings in any direction they want. If Obama gets out of line, the global elite will topple his presidency and the aforementioned Obamanites will go to prison for a very long time.
What will the next four years look like in America? Well, under the existing conditions, with Obama’s very freedom riding on the whims of the globalists, the future of America looks bleak as Obama is completely compromised.
END OF EXCERPT FROM NOVEMBER OF 2012
Conclusion
When Wikileaks releases their information, and it shows that Stevens was running drugs, guns and children to support the overthrow of Libya, Clinton will come into the foreground. She repeatedly turned down Stevens request for additional protection. PEtraeus was sacked for the bogus reason of having an extramarital affair so he did not have to tell Congress what he knew because he could not hide behind the 5th Amendment.
If this breaks before the election, Clinton cannot win. She alone set up Stevens by denying protection and transmitting by email Stevens location by email from her private server.
We know that Stevens was murdered. What happened to Petreaus? After he was fired from the CIA, he went to work for the NWO in Belgrade where serves as the minister of propaganda. He is the chief censorship official in Belgrade. How do I know this? I was interviewed on the Voice of Belgrade radio this past summer and I was told that they had a hard time getting me by the censors and that is when I learned that Petreaus ran State-owned Belgrade media.
Now we find out that 1,000 emails between Clinton and General Petraeus were not turned over in the original FBI investigation. These emails are going to sink the good ship Hillary. Remember, The Common Sense Show had the information about to be leaked by Wikileaks four years ago. If justice is done, Clinton will soon be doing the perp walk for the murder of Chris Stevens. | 0 |
A January 19 survey of Ohio colleges and universities found most boards and presidents determined to prohibit guns for despite a new law allowing concealed carry permit holders to be armed on campus. [Ohio’s campus carry law was signed by Governor John Kasich (R) on December 19 after lawmakers passed the measure following the November 28 knife and car attack against unarmed Ohio State students. The law removes the state’s ban on campus carry, allowing each college and university system to allow or prohibit campus carry as they see fit. The law takes effect on March 19, 2017. Cleveland. com surveyed “every private and college in Northeast Ohio and every public university statewide” and found the “general consensus” was that students would continue to be disarmed on campus by college and university policies. For example, Kent State University board of trustees chairman Lawrence Pollock said, “The university policy on deadly weapons as approved in September represents the Board’s position on this issue and we have no plans for further action. ” The policy Pollock references bars students from possessing a firearm for “inside any university building, facility, or vehicle, that is owned, operated or leased by the university. ” It also bars them “from possessing, storing, or using a deadly weapon while outside on university grounds, that is owned, operated or leased by the university. ” In other words, the Kent State system will continue to maintain a campus like Virginia Tech University had in place on April 16, 2007, when 32 unarmed innocents were shot to death. Cuyahoga Community College President Alex Johnson used an email to explain that his college system will retain its policy as well: I know this bill has been a topic of discussion across the College, and our faculty has brought various concerns to campus leadership and to me for clarification. I have been in close communication with Board Chair Victor Ruiz and the other trustees about this matter. ’s Board of Trustees has no intention of taking action to permit concealed carry in facilities. In other words, Cuyahoga Community College will continue to maintain a campus like Umpqua Community College had in place on October 1, 2015, when nine unarmed innocents were shot to death. The Ohio University faculty senate is urging the trustee executive committee to keep students disarmed on their campuses too. The faculty senate submitted a resolution to the committee, saying: Whereas the full and free discussion of potentially controversial ideas and knowledge is essential to the academic mission of the University and Whereas the possible presence of concealed weapons in instructional spaces and faculty offices will have a chilling effect on the free exchange of ideas BE IT RESOLVED that the Faculty Senate urges the Ohio University Board of Trustees to take no action that would allow concealed carry on any of our campuses in order to reaffirm our commitment to a weapon free campus. In other words, the Ohio University faculty senate wants to maintain the same kind of policies that were in place at Sandy Hook Elementary on December 14, 2012, when a gunman entered the school and had over nine minutes without armed resistance to carry out his wickedness. He was able to kill 26 innocents during that time period. 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 |
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers say Washington is dithering while a dangerous epidemic threatens American shores. They suggest darkly that the government is playing down the risk to avoid panic. They warn: Don’t wait for it to arrive at the airports and establish a perilous foothold. Fear of the Zika virus today? No, those were Republicans in 2014 as they hammered the Obama administration in the final weeks of the midterm campaign for failing to react quickly and decisively enough to the possible spread of the Ebola virus, which never really became a domestic threat. The politically heated attacks cooled quickly after the election, but the message was credited with helping Republicans sow unease about the administration as they chalked up big wins in Congress. Now it is the Congress moving slowly on providing money to combat the spread of Zika, alarming some lawmakers who fear that their colleagues do not recognize the potential consequences if the disease begins to spread in the United States. “There is just a lack of urgency about it,” said Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, who added that lawmakers could find themselves facing difficult questions about a congressional Zika response as Election Day looms this fall. “People are going to be asking, ‘Why didn’t you do anything? ’” he said in an interview. “You are going to have to have a pretty good answer, and I am not sure there is going to be one. ” Mr. Rubio has a special interest in the disease, given that the climate and conditions in his state are well known for breeding mosquitoes. He worries that even the smallest of outbreaks could send his state’s economy into a spiral as visitors stay away. “I tell people we are one infection away from serious damage to our tourism industry,” he said. He has not been alone in clamoring for a federal fix. In February, President Obama asked Congress for more than $1. 8 billion in emergency funds to step up prevention efforts and speed a vaccine for the disease, which has been linked to serious birth defects and other health problems. Last week — almost four months later — the Senate voted to begin negotiations to try to resolve differences among the House, Senate and White House approaches. Democrats are demanding a resolution by the Fourth of July recess, but there is no guarantee that the funding legislation can be completed by then. “I just think they’re long overdue,” Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, said last week. “An emergency bill could have passed — we’re over 100 days since the request. ” She noted that the public health community “could have been well down the road to what needs to be done in terms of prevention, in terms of research and the other aspects of stopping the epidemic. ” The issue is particularly grating at the White House, which came under siege in October 2014 over what Republicans called a lack of preparedness for Ebola. The administration believes it was unfairly maligned for political purposes by Republicans who saw an opening to make voters anxious close to the election. Mr. Obama said recently that he was having difficulty squaring Republicans’ position on Ebola with their much more casual approach to Zika, “given that I have, at least, pretty vivid memories of how concerned people were about Ebola. ” Republicans say there is no need for a furious rush since the administration agreed in April to redirect nearly $590 million, most of it previously allocated for Ebola prevention, to the effort against Zika, easing the pressure to act quickly. Some Democrats now think that move, perhaps wise from a policy and prevention standpoint, may have been a strategic mistake because it let Republicans off the hook. “I think we are fine,” said Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, predicting that Republicans had done what they needed to avoid a political backlash. He said that shifting the money had provided public health experts with the resources they needed and that the necessary funds “will be there in the end. ” Negotiators working on a compromise are expected to move toward the $1. 1 billion approved by the Senate as opposed to $622 million allocated by the House. Mr. Rubio and others favor providing the full amount sought initially by the White House. As of last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had identified nearly 700 Zika infections in the continental United States, though all appeared to have been contracted elsewhere. More than 1, 000 have been counted in Puerto Rico. Public health experts are now preparing for the first case of someone’s being infected by a mosquito in the United States. Mr. Rubio worries that the federal response has fallen too far behind. “I think in some ways we are already too late,” he said. “It takes time to get this implemented. Every day that goes by is wasted. ” As they try to hold on to control of the House and Senate, Republicans should hope that Mr. Rubio is wrong and that the disease does not become a crisis in the United States. If it does, it could be Democratic attacks on Republicans for moving too slowly that go viral. | 1 |
You can buy “Trump That Bitch” buttons and on Amazon to show your disdain for Hillary Clinton. You can hear the word shouted at rallies for Donald J. Trump and spread across Twitter. At one event last month, a boy standing with his mother yelled out, “Take the bitch down. ” Now, you can see the word applied to Clinton in a headline on the Opinion pages of The New York Times: “The Bitch America Needs. ” Those words appeared over the weekend above a piece that tried to reclaim that particular bit of obscenity from those trying to degrade women with it. “For more than 20 years in American politics, Mrs. Clinton has embodied what we might call Classic Bitch,” wrote Andi Zeisler, founder of a feminist organization, appropriately named Bitch Media. “She’s perceived as an interloper who challenges or threatens masculinity, entitlement and a worldview she’s the scandal magnet who can seem as heartless and venal as any ’ member. Worst of all, she’s the woman who accepts that she will be disliked and carries on anyway. ” Zeisler wrote a provocative piece, with plenty of good political history on the word, including its use against Clinton back in 2007, when someone at a public forum asked Senator John McCain, “How do we beat the bitch?” McCain responded, “Excellent question. ” Zeisler’s piece was an interesting read, strongly and . But several readers took issue both with the headline and the editors’ decision to use it. This one from Paula DiPerna of New York City was typical: “I know the piece is mere opinion, but it nevertheless represents a new low in titillation journalism, as if written by a gleeful child who just got permission to use curse words. It is a disservice to the idea of public good in that, disguised as feminism, it actually delivers nothing but tweet fodder to forces. ” I sought out the Opinion editor Rachel Dry to ask her how the essay came about as well as the concerns highlighted in DiPerna’s letter, some of which I share. Dry says she commissioned the piece because she wanted someone to wrestle with how this particular profanity is being used against Clinton. “Certainly the word focuses one’s attention,” Dry said to my questions about its use in the headline and so frequently in the story. “But that’s what the essay is about. ” I did find the essay readable and smart, and given that the pages are intended to throw out the welcome mat to all views, it’s hard to argue that this wasn’t a worthy offering. But I too was jolted by the headline. Have we really reached the point that it’s O. K. for The Times to refer to Clinton in bold type as “The Bitch America Needs”? Dry said she was unaware of a previous time when the word was used in a headline. What bothered me about the headline was that it seemed to come from the voice of The Times, at least when you come on it cold, as all readers do. It’s one thing for an author, under her own byline and in the context of her ideas, to write the type of opinion piece Zeisler did. But the word bitch — particularly when it’s lobbed at you across a room or on the street or in social media — is surely intended as crude and demeaning. I suspect that’s the same way Trump supporters use it. And it seems to be the way the Clinton campaign takes it, as it has made clear in the past. Dry says that when opinion editors write the headlines, they are distilling the author’s perspective, not the view or the voice of The Times. That may be, but referring to the first female presidential nominee as the right bitch for the job brings an air of legitimacy to the word that seems beyond where we are at this moment in history. The mainstream may someday apply this term to women who stand up for themselves and bust through feminine stereotypes. Until then, it remains an insult, degrading and misogynistic. | 1 |
We Are Change
Police and activists protesting the Dakota Access oil pipeline are in a tense standoff over the activists’ occupation of and reportedly belonging to the pipeline developer.
So far more then 260 people have been arrested since the larger demonstrations began in August.
More than 125 of the water protectors were arrested over the weekend during multiple nonviolent direct actions aimed at halting construction of the 1,100-mile pipeline which is slated to run through four states.
Armored riot police attacked a march on Saturday with tear gas and arrested 83 people on charges ranging from assault on a peace officer to rioting and criminal trespass. Police also shot down two camera drones operated by Native American journalists.
Activists report that harassment, strip searches and beatings at the hands of North Dakota police are becoming commonplace, but the assembled tribes remain determined to block the pipeline, which they say threatens both sacred lands and the water supply for millions of people.
Our friend Derrick Broze for MintPress news reporting from the Standing Rock Reservation just tweeted out that Camps are being removed. Tasers out, pepper spray, guns, riot gear, batons, LRAD. Then after that he him self had been tazed in the conflict.
Atsa E’sha Hoferer was live on the scene before the feed was lost.
https://www.facebook.com/esha.hoferer/videos/259403611123137/
https://youtu.be/-uxmV_tRuRs
This is Breaking News We will bring you more information and update this article as it comes in.
The post BREAKING: Riot Police Set Up To Raid & Evict Standing Rock Protesters appeared first on We Are Change .
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Despite the cancellation of his talk on Wednesday as a result of “ ” rioters, Breitbart’s MILO has promised he will return to deliver his talk at UC Berkeley at some point in the coming months. [In a Facebook post, MILO said that he is “planning to return to Berkeley to give the speech I was prevented from delivering. Hopefully within the next few months. I’ll keep you posted. ” The event, which was scheduled to be the finale of his ‘Dangerous Faggot Tour,’ was cancelled after rioters smashed ATMs and bank windows, looted a Starbucks, beat Trump supporters, pepper sprayed innocent individuals, set fires in the street, and as well as spraying words “Kill Trump” on storefronts. President Donald Trump condemned the riots, threatening to take away the university’s federal funding if the university “does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view. ” If U. C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view — NO FEDERAL FUNDS? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2017, Since news of the riots broke out, sales of Breitbart Senior Editor MILO’s upcoming book Dangerous increased by a staggering 12, 740% propelling it to the top of the Amazon best seller list once again. DANGEROUS is available to now via Amazon, in hardcover and Kindle editions. And yes, MILO is reading the audiobook version himself! You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 1 |
PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Coahuila — As the border state of Coahuila prepares for its upcoming gubernatorial election, the main issue that resonates with voters is how Los Zetas were able to murder and incinerate hundreds of victims while the government turned a blind eye. [In early June, the state of Coahuila will have its general elections to select the next governor, mayors, senators, and congressmen. As Breitbart Texas has been reporting, the process is closely linked to Mexican drug cartels. One of the candidates for the border city of Piedras Negras has a long list of relatives who are members of Los Zetas including one regional commander. Breitbart Texas has spoken with several residents of this border city who expressed their various viewpoints as to the ongoing situation in Coahuila, a state with a long history of being home to Mexican drug cartels and corrupt government officials. One of the key issues that residents kept bringing up is how state officials turned a blind eye to the various cartel massacres that took place in the state. As Breitbart Texas reported, from early 2011 to 2013, Los Zetas kidnapped, murdered and incinerated more than 300 victims from the rural communities in and around Allende. Half of those were incinerated inside the state prison in Piedras Negras. Residents in Coahuila continue to ask themselves how Los Zetas were able to operate with complete impunity to carry out the mass executions, set fire to and destroy dozens of homes, and avoid facing any consequences. To date, government officials do not know how many people throughout the state have actually been kidnapped and murdered by cartel gunmen due to a systemic effort throughout Mexico where government officials try to downplay cartel violence. At the time of the massacre and in the months after, the Coahuila Attorney General’s Office in the Piedras Negras and Allende region was run by Santos Vasquez Estrada and Patricia Rivera Barrera. Politically connected sources in Saltillo have revealed exclusively to Breitbart Texas that Rivera Barrera, who ignored the Allende massacre, continues to collect a director’s salary but has since been demoted to working at a PGJE archive where she handles documents tied to cases that have already been closed. Santos Estrada has since left the PGJE and is now a criminal defense lawyer. According to Zocalo, the former prosecutor who turned a blind eye to the actions of Los Zetas became the defense attorney for Juan Manuel “Padre Meño” Riojas, a priest who has been criminally accused of having violated a seminary student. New information provided to Breitbart Texas revealed that the priest is now considered a fugitive after he went into hiding and is believed to have fled the region. As Breitbart Texas reported, witness testimony from U. S. court cases and documents revealed that Los Zetas had free reign over Coahuila for many years where politicians sold control of the state in exchange for bribes. Some of the revelations point to Los Zetas having close ties to former governor Humberto Moreira, the brother of current governor Ruben Moreira. Both Moreira brothers were elected governors under Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) a political party that has a long history of being tied to drug cartels, Breitbart Texas reported. In Tamaulipas, two former governors are currently listed as fugitives of the U. S. Department of Justice on money laundering charges. One of those Tamaulipas governors is also wanted on drug trafficking and conspiracy charges. Most recently, Humberto Moreira was kicked out of the PRI for running for a plurinominal congressional seat with the Partido Joven (Young Party). As Breitbart Texas reported, internal discussion within the PRI pointed to the party trying to distance themselves from Moreira in case the U. S. unveils a criminal case against him as they have done with the two former Tamaulipas governors. Most recently, Mexico’s Reforma reported on leaked documents that revealed Moreira and his relatives managed to stash away approximately $60 million in bank accounts in Monaco and the Cayman Islands. Since the publication of Reforma’s investigation, Moreira has gone on the offensive using a Facebook page and various interviews to call the outlet’s reporting a lie. Ildefonso Ortiz is an journalist with Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. Brandon Darby is managing director and of Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart. com. | 1 |
Over roast chicken and autumn vegetables, our dinner party was rolling through the requisite topics — concerns about the rise of the far right in Germany, what it really takes to make a marriage work, where to get the best Vietnamese food in New York City — but still, the awkwardness was unshakable. Using the website Feastly, which, like an Airbnb for foodies, connects diners with chefs, my husband, Andrew, and I had paid $32 apiece on a recent evening to dine with six strangers. Two of them — the evening’s chef and her friend — were sitting directly behind us on a couch, forcing me to crane my neck and turn around to include them in the conversation. (To be fair, who in New York City under the age of 50 can comfortably seat eight people for dinner? And in other cities, like San Francisco, Feastly provides chefs access to shared space, something the company will start in New York City next year.) At the table, meanwhile, were a computer programmer and a duo — nice people, but a random combination of personalities suggesting more a cross section of an airplane flight than an artful convocation recalling, say, parties of Elsa Maxwell or other famed hosts of yore. Long a major organizing principle of urban social life, the dinner party has taken a hit in recent years as restaurant culture has thrived, raising the bar for culinary accomplishment intolerably high. At one party I gave, much of my food went untouched, and one guest complained about the lighting. At another, guests left before dessert because the conversation had devolved into a discussion about how difficult it is to get one’s kids into preschool here. Those parties were almost two years ago. Traumatized, I hadn’t invited anyone over for dinner since. But Andrew and I had fallen into a social rut, ordering meal kits for ourselves from Blue Apron and “Borgen,” the television drama about Danish politics. My social life was withering. Living in a coupled cocoon may be comfortable, but all the research says that connection — the IRL kind — is what makes people happy. So I wondered: Could I give dinner parties another try? Was there an app for this? But of course. Turns out, it’s possible to break bread with a new group of people every night of the week, thanks to gatherings booked through phones and computers in a continuing search to find one’s “urban tribe” (to borrow a phrase from the author Ethan Watters). Nick Ozkan, 45, says he’s acquired seven close pals from regularly attending 10 Chairs NYC, a social dining organization run by the chef Patricia Williams. “The friends range in age from their 30s to 70s,” Mr. Ozkan, who works in digital communications, wrote in an email. Ms. Williams told me that some strangers who met at her dinner parties, which cost $80 per head, have even wound up traveling together. Perhaps new friendships may be within reach after all. On the phone from San Francisco, where Feastly is based, the company’s founder, Noah Karesh, 34, said that he views “the dining room table as the original social network. ” And many agree. Feastly has hundreds of thousands of users across cities worldwide. “There’s a growing awareness of the disconnection plaguing millennials when the majority of the social interactions you have a day are through your iPhone,” Mr. Karesh said. “Someone may have 10, 000 followers on social media but is eating dinner alone. People want to have interactions. ” But as with an online blind date, it’s best to approach a group setup with low expectations. After the Feastly dinner, I felt defeated because the other guests didn’t seem like soul mates. But Andrew thought the evening was an unmitigated success. He argued that lifelong friendships weren’t the point. “It’s parachuting in to get a dose of varied social interaction,” he told me exuberantly on the way home. This dip into a new social pool may be easier when united around a common interest, even if that’s trying a new cuisine, as at a Balkan dinner organized by EatWith, a communal dining service, in Harlem. There Andrew and I met a young Frenchwoman studying food cultures at N. Y. U. and an affable tech professional who brought his sister who was visiting from India. The chef, Dina, told us about growing up in the former Yugoslavia and the origin of all the dishes she was serving. It’s hard to have a bad time while gobbling homemade sirnica, fluffy pastries filled with cheese. With such enticements, I got into the groove of dining with strangers. I liked it: the levity and spontaneity of topics that’s not possible when there’s a shared history, good and bad. Also, there is a certain monotony to the soirees of young marrieds that make everyone go two by two, like animals in Noah’s Ark. I liked the odd number — five — at the EatWith dinner, which, I found, liberated me from talking with other wives and the conversational constraints that go with that role. (I’m a married woman, and other women always ask me when I’m having children — something I’m rarely, if ever, asked about by men.) Coming home from that dinner, which cost $63 apiece, I felt a wave of euphoria: freedom from the shackles of couple dates! (Andrew was equally excited about the blanched pear with honey dessert.) But the next morning, my enthusiasm for this newfound social outlet waned. I received an email from EatWith asking me, “Who would you eat with again?” The rating system that’s a staple of transportation services, like Uber, now extends to leisure. Susan Kim, the chief executive of EatWith, which is now in more than 200 cities around the world, told me the site “wanted an innocuous way to establish if people wanted to connect again. ” The dining service, Ms. Kim said, is helping many people fill empty places in their social lives. “We have a lot of recently divorced people using the site, because one often takes all the friends,” she said. I understood why EatWith wanted feedback from guests about others guests. Truth be told, I was happy to see that, despite mooching cabernet from another guest because I forgot to bring wine, someone thought I “made an impression. ” Still, I wasn’t sure I wanted a nice evening out to be followed by having to rate it. “EatWith is kind of like Tinder for couples,” Ms. Kim told me. But therein lay the problem: I had been too for Tinder as a single person! For a change of pace, I decided my next foray into social dining would be one in which someone else provides the funds for me to host people in my home, offering a modicum of social control (though also the responsibility of cleaning up). OneTable is an organization that encourages millennials — of all backgrounds and religions — to host Sabbath dinners. A nonprofit that has hosted over 3, 000 dinners in its current hub cities of New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Denver since last year, it provides what they call “a nourishment credit” of $15 per person for up to 10 people that can be used at vendors like Whole Foods, FreshDirect, Instacart, Etsy or Seamless. For young people, said Aliza Kline, the executive director of OneTable, “It’s a little countercultural to have a meal these days. ” OneTable encourages hosts to create a theme for their dinners, which have been organized to support races or to give socks to the homeless. (There was even a Fashion Week Sabbath.) “Millennials don’t like to gamble with social experiences,” said Ms. Kline, who is in her 40s. “The more they know what to expect, the more people will show up. ” After sifting through OneTable’s inspirational Pinterest boards, I settled on a Mediterranean theme. My dinner was posted, and when it closed for no strangers had registered. (I couldn’t help noticing a Sabbath dinner seemed to fill up quickly.) To ensure Andrew and I wouldn’t be eating alone, I had invited two friends — a couple, Reid and Danielle — and they invited two friends, Aaron and Tamar, neither of whom we knew or knew each other. In other words, not unlike a traditional dinner party. The day before the dinner, I took advantage of one of OneTable’s 56 Sabbath coaches, a mix of Jewish professionals who can offer advice on rituals and hosting. I needed less of a tutorial about the Jewish customs and more about how to impose some structure to the meal and the conversation. After all, my friend Reid pointed out a pitfall to socializing lately: “All we do when we get together is talk about the election and our favorite TV shows. ” Sarah Krinsky, a rabbinical school student at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan and a OneTable coach, suggested I ask all the guests to talk about a question they’d been wrestling with over the last week or month. “I think that can get at some of the things we don’t usually talk about,” Ms. Krinsky said. I also wanted to steer the conversation, as much as possible, away from the election, which, at that point, was less than a week before. I’d reached my capacity for political conversations for the year, and was convinced after reading the entire internet that week that no one had anything new to say on the topic. (Little did I know.) Before our guests arrived, Andrew, who barely ever takes Advil, asked me if I had a Xanax. The combination of a trip to Moldova the next day and the stakes of Nov. 8 were about to put him over the edge. I briefly considered canceling the dinner. “Who would want to be around such anxious downers?” I thought. I looked at my glaring overhead light and wondered how long it would take someone to lodge a complaint. We would have just been better being miserable alone. But then the guests came. No one asked why I didn’t make salmon, as promised, no one left early or criticized the lighting or talked incessantly about New York City preschool admissions. Instead, we lit the Sabbath candles. We talked about our work, the world, what we were grappling with both personally and professionally. I couldn’t believe how much I was enjoying myself. It was — and I found this shocking because socializing is usually stressful for me — an exhale moment. Andrew forgot about wanting a Xanax. He said being with other people soothed him. I remembered why civilizations form bonds beyond their families and enjoy others’ company. When a group of people connects, with just enough wine, there’s a release. It’s the feeling that you could sit at the table for hours and not want to check your iPhone. It sounds simple, but it felt like nothing short of a miracle. Now I just have to work up the courage to invite them back. | 1 |
The American Voter The American Voter
Every four years, against anyone’s better judgment, the American people are entrusted to elect the next president. The Onion lets them tell their stories. The One Percenter MICHELLE CLARK, 22
“I know exactly what I want in our next president, but look, we both know what’s going to happen if this interview ends up online: my Twitter account will be flooded with vulgar, misogynistic comments and brutal attacks on my appearance. I could talk about my thoughts on the economy or immigration, but the more thoughts I share, the more material I’m giving to some Reddit user who will tell me to perform the most perverse act he can think of and then tear into me for having an opinion—any opinion. So what’s the point of saying anything? Let’s just end this interview now.” The Millennial ZIAD AYOUB, 37
“I don’t like those presidential candidates. Not a single one of them. They just don’t value human life like you and I do. I ask myself all the time how anyone could believe all the barbaric things these people believe. They refuse to see any point of view other than their own, and they have no problem going around and blowing up people that aren’t like them. I know they’re out there plotting horrible things right now. I don’t want them anywhere near me. I’ve got a wife and kids—think of what they might do to my family.” The Senior Citizen COURTNEY YOUNG, 36
“I’m a single mom juggling three kids and a full-time job, so I don’t have time to listen to any long policy speeches. I know life’s going to get worse over the next four years, so the candidates need to just cut to the chase and tell me how shitty it’s going to get. Are you going to dick me over on my taxes? Dick me over on my kids’ medical bills? Dick me over on gas prices? I’m voting for whoever has the sack to come right out and say it.” The Immigrant Voter Voices The Onion asks ordinary citizens to share their thoughts, concerns, and staggering ignorance about the 2016 election. 1 What’s the most important quality for the next president to have? Scott Pullman | 0 |
November 11, 2016 ‘Trump’s election heralds coming of Messiah’ says Deri
Shas chairman and Interior Minister Arye Deri said Thursday that Donald Trump’s election could herald the coming of the Messiah due to the blow he expects the next president will strike against the “non-Orthodox Jewish hold on the US government.”
“There is no doubt that one can give thanks to God that all those who have damned the [Jewish] covenant and would wipe out Judaism, thinking they could take control over the Land of Israel here and lead reforms in order to cause destruction received their blow,” Deri said during an address to the local religious council of Ashdod.
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WASHINGTON — In the Virginia suburb of McLean, where the local diner is a C. I. A. breakfast hangout, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who ran the agency for George W. Bush, is playing career counselor these days. With Donald J. Trump attacking the intelligence community, the general says his “old tribe’’ is feeling “a special angst. ” In Takoma Park, Md. a “ zone” since 1983, a resistance movement is taking shape. Nadine Bloch, an activist and artist, is running training on nonviolent protest — complete with mock police officers wielding rolled up newspapers as batons. And here in the District of Columbia, where 91 percent of voters cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton, “ panic” is setting in, said John Feehery, a Republican strategist and Trump enthusiast. Leslie Harris, a liberal Democratic lawyer, uses war imagery: “I feel like my city is about to be invaded. ” Washington has always been a chameleon of a city, accustomed to remaking itself when the White House changes hands. But as Mr. Trump’s inaugural draws near, in a nation so deeply divided that it seems the political middle has entirely disappeared, perhaps no place in America feels as unsteady and on edge as the capital, which Mr. Trump calls “the swamp. ” With his 6 a. m. Twitter blasts and style — and a roster of conservative Cabinet picks eager to do an on President Obama’s policies — Mr. Trump has upended the city’s rhythms and jangled its nerves. The White House press corps is fighting to keep its work space in the West Wing. lobbyists worry their clients will turn up in his Twitter feed. Civil servants, many of them working class, say he knows nothing about running a bureaucracy. “We don’t know exactly what to expect from Trump, except that he’s combative,” said Robert Dallek, a presidential biographer, who has lived here for 20 years. And furthermore, Mr. Dallek complained, “It’s offensive to be called a swamp. ” At their core, Washington and its suburbs are company towns, populated by people who live and breathe policy and politics, or work in the sprawling federal bureaucracy. The region is “one of the largest and wealthiest economies in the world,” the Brookings Institution recently reported — one reason much of America, which suffered greatly during the recession, resents those in the capital. But like the rest of America, Washington is also a real place, with real people, who have lived here for decades. The permanent occupants of “the swamp” see presidents come, and see them go. And no matter what their politics, people agree with Mr. Feehery that this transition “feels different” from any in recent memory. Ms. Harris is an archetypical northwest Washingtonian. A policy wonk, she grew up somewhere else, Atlanta, and got a taste of politics as a student. When Jimmy Carter won the presidency, she was in the unusual position of being 26 and knowing a lot of powerful people here. She attended law school at Georgetown, married a doctor and raised a daughter and a son. Now semiretired, she used to run the Center for Democracy and Technology, which advocates internet freedom. She has often worked with Republicans they are her friends. But when Mr. Trump was elected, suddenly America’s divisions hit home. When Mike Pence, the vice rented a house nearby, his neighbors decorated their homes with gay pride rainbow flags. When a white supremacist group hosted a dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant, Maggiano’s, protests erupted outside. Then Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria where Ms. Harris takes her grandchildren, was targeted by a fake news story involving Mrs. Clinton. Ms. Harris, savvy about the media, organized community support. Soon after, a gunman turned up at the restaurant and fired shots inside. “It was beyond my imagination,” she said. Just over the Maryland line, Takoma Park is a “sanctuary city,” which refuses to prosecute undocumented immigrants. Mr. Trump does not look kindly on that. Days after the election, Ms. Bloch, 55, the organizer, helped pull together Takoma Park Mobilization, a new group aimed at “standing up for our neighbors,” she said. More than 500 people attended the first meeting. They have since divided themselves into committees and subcommittees, with titles like “Immigration” and “Women” and “Civil Rights,” and have been holding weeknight meetings in the firehouse and the airy historical society headquarters, next door to Bikram Yoga and down the street from the food . Next up: sessions aimed at liberal civil servants agonizing about whether to quit their jobs. “It may be better for us for people to stay,” Ms. Bloch said, “and figure out how to resist within the system. ” In northeast Washington, a heavily quadrant of the city, such discussions seemed ludicrous people there don’t plan to protest. They just want to stay out of harm’s way. On a snowy Saturday morning at Perfection Unisex Salon, the stylist Chante Watts, 37, urged some of her clients, who are teachers, to come in for cuts on Inauguration Day. They all intend to stay home. She was running a hot comb through the hair of Chris Vera, who helped explain why. Ms. Vera, 32 and a city employee, has been asked to help with the inaugural she fears violence will erupt that day. “Nobody wants to be within a radius,” she said. “Nobody’s feeling quite safe. ” Yet in the Virginia suburb of Fredericksburg, about an hour’s drive from here and home to many military people and religious conservatives, Tina Whittington, vice president of an group, has noticed a pickup in home building. “I think there is huge anticipation that this transition is going to be good for our community,” she said, though she confessed that even there, in the heart of Trump country, the feeling is “still a little apprehensive, wait and see. ” In transitions past, Washington has filled with talk of Georgetown parties and the first lady’s ball gown, and how the city’s culture might change. When President Carter left, the capital traded a Georgia peanut farmer and nuclear engineer for an actor turned politician from California, Ronald Reagan. Bill Clinton brought a touch of Arkansas. George W. Bush ushered in Texas swagger and cowboy boots, and made McLean, where General Hayden lives, the hot neighborhood for that era’s Republican elite. The Obamas honored Stevie Wonder at the White House, and brought in art and culture. They made the city, where blacks now account for 49 percent of the population — down from 60 percent in 2000, a decline that reflects gentrification — their own. In black neighborhoods, Michelle Obama will be missed, perhaps more than her husband. (They are not going far. They have rented a lavish home in Kalorama, an exclusive section of the city where Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, will also live.) But with his wife, Melania, and son Barron keeping their primary residence at Trump Tower at least until the school year is out, Mr. Trump may not be spending much time here. That is fine with Mark Salter, a former aide to Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who is Mr. Trump’s nemesis on Capitol Hill. “The less he’s here the better, as far as I’m concerned,” Mr. Salter said. Movement conservatives, though, are ecstatic. After eight years in the policy wilderness, scholars at the Heritage Foundation, a policy organization, are helping guide the new Trump administration on ideas and personnel. “Folks were pretty happy,” said Wesley Denton, the Heritage spokesman, when Mr. Trump gave them a during his recent news conference. But in Democratic policy circles there is little lightness this time around. Neera Tanden, a former adviser and strong ally of Mrs. Clinton, has little patience for questions about the city’s mood. She now leads the Center for American Progress, a leading progressive think tank, a job that makes her a de facto leader of the Democratic resistance. “He’s going to deport undocumented people,” she wrote in an email. “How Washington responds is low on the totem pole of problems with this administration. ” The unease runs especially deep among those General Hayden calls “Republican internationalists,” who advocate engagement with other nations but possess a hawkish suspicion of Russian and Chinese intentions. Having described Mr. Trump as Russia’s “useful fool” on the opinion page of The Washington Post, the general, 71, would never be offered a job. But with Mr. Trump openly questioning the “high confidence judgment” by the C. I. A. about Russian hacking, he has been entertaining a steady stream of visitors wary of joining the new administration. “I say, ‘Yeah, by all means, if the asks you to serve, consider it seriously,’ ’’ he said. “But don’t think of it as a lifetime commitment you remain a free agent. ’’ If there is a historical parallel to this moment, it may be to President Reagan, said Kenneth M. Duberstein, a former Reagan chief of staff. He recalled how liberal Reagan critics sniffed, “How do you trust this actor with his finger on the nuclear trigger?” conveniently forgetting he had been a governor of California. (Mr. Trump, by contrast, has never held public office.) And if the denizens of the swamp appear to be in some kind of defensive crouch, Mr. Duberstein says, there is perhaps good reason for that: “Donald is saying there’s a new sheriff in town. ” | 1 |
Prof: Canoes reek of genocide, white privilege Craft has long been symbol of Canadian identity Published: 14 mins ago
(Heat Street) Forget Halloween costumes and yoga, there’s a new symbol of cultural appropriation—the canoe.
According to Misao Dean, Professor of English at the University of Victoria, the canoe can be a symbol of colonialism, imperialism and genocide due to history. She also accused the canoers of cultural appropriation because they are primarily white men and have a privileged place in society.
In a radio interview for CBC Radio, which wasn’t picked by the Internet until several months later, she claimed “we have a whole set of narratives that make the canoe into a kind of morally untouchable symbol, something that seems natural, that seems ordinary, and seems to promote values that we ascribe to.” | 0 |
October 28, 2016 The Mothers by stclair by | 0 |
Who’s a good dog? Well, that depends on whom you’re asking, of course. But new research suggests that the next time you look at your pup, whether Maltese or mastiff, you might want to choose your words carefully. “Both what we say and how we say it matters to dogs,” said Attila Andics, a research fellow at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest. Dr. Andics, who studies language and behavior in dogs and humans, along with Adam Miklosi and several other colleagues, reported in a paper to be published in this week’s issue of the journal Science that different parts of dogs’ brains respond to the meaning of a word, and to how the word is said, much as human brains do. As with people’s brains, parts of dogs’ left hemisphere react to meaning and parts of the right hemisphere to intonation — the emotional content of a sound. And, perhaps most interesting to dog owners, only a word of praise said in a positive tone really made the reward system of a dog’s brain light up. The experiment itself was something of an achievement. Dr. Andics and his colleagues trained dogs to enter a magnetic resonance imaging machine and lie in a harness while the machine recorded their brain activity. A trainer spoke words in Hungarian — common words of praise used by dog owners like “good boy,” “super” and “well done. ” The trainer also tried neutral words like “however” and “nevertheless. ” Both the praise words and neutral words were offered in positive and neutral tones. The positive words spoken in a positive tone prompted strong activity in the brain’s reward centers. All the other conditions resulted in significantly less action, and all at the same level. In other words, “good boy” said in a neutral tone and “however” said in a positive or neutral tone all got the same response. What does it all mean? For dog owners, Dr. Andics said, the findings mean that the dogs are paying attention to meaning, and that you should, too. That doesn’t mean a dog won’t wag its tail and look happy when you say, “You stinky mess” in a happy voice. But the dog is looking at your body language and your eyes, and perhaps starting to infer that “stinky mess” is a word of praise. In terms of evolution of language, the results suggest that the capacity to process meaning and emotion in different parts of the brain and tie them together is not uniquely human. This ability had already evolved in long before humans began to talk. Brian Hare, an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University who was not involved in the study, said he thought the experiment was well done and suggested that specialization of right and left hemispheres in processing information began to evolve well before human language. But, he said, it was still possible that dogs had independently evolved a similar brain organization. Dr. Hare, who studies both dogs and primates, and specializes in cognitive neuroscience and evolution, also pointed out that the dogs could leave the experiment at any time. He wrote in an email, “They were volunteers as much as is possible with animals. ” Primates, he said, cannot be trained to undergo MRI scans willingly. | 1 |
Thomas Pyle, President of the Institute for Energy Research spoke with Breitbart News Daily host Joel Pollak on Friday regarding President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. [There was “a lot in this deal that was bad for America,” said Pyle, adding that his group was very appreciative of Trump’s actions and “This will go down as one of the important decisions President Trump has made. ” Pyle emphasized that the main problem with the agreement, along with being a huge transfer of wealth, mainly to big business and the already wealthy, is that it put the government in control of the development of new energy resources, as opposed to the free market. “The biggest tragedy in all of this is the Obama administration spent billions and billions of our taxpayer money subsidizing, picking sources of energy and making bets of specific sources of energy. There’s a role for the federal government, it ought to be in basic R and D, funding those types of things that could lead to those breakthroughs. And then let the Bill Gates’s of the world, let the investor class, the people who have the resources to place bets on some of these technologies. ” “The biggest tragedy in all of this,” he said, “is the Obama administration spent billions and billions of our taxpayer money subsidizing, picking sources of energy and making bets of specific sources of energy. There’s a role for the federal government, it ought to be in basic R and D, funding those types of things that could lead to those breakthroughs. And then let the Bill Gates’s of the world, let the investor class, the people who have the resources to place bets on some of these technologies. ” Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 1 |
Home / Be The Change / Government Corruption / Assange Claims ‘Crazed’ Clinton Campaign Tried to Hack WikiLeaks Assange Claims ‘Crazed’ Clinton Campaign Tried to Hack WikiLeaks The Free Thought Project October 28, 2016 Leave a comment
(RT) — Julian Assange has claimed the Hillary Clinton campaign has attacked the servers being used by WikiLeaks. Despite the Ecuadorian embassy shutting down his internet until the US election is over, the website will continue publishing, according to Assange.
“Everyday that you publish is a day that you have the initiative in the conflict,” Assange said via telephone at a conference in Argentina on Wednesday.
The whistleblowing website has been releasing emails from Clinton’s campaign chair, John Podesta, on a daily basis since early October.
Assange claimed the release “whipped up a crazed hornet’s nest atmosphere in the Hillary Clinton campaign” leading them to attack WikiLeaks.
“ They attacked our servers and attempted hacking attacks and there is an amazing ongoing campaign where state documents were put in the UN and British courts to accuse me of being both a Russian spy and a pedophile,” he added.
Ecuador’s decision to shut down his internet was described by Assange as a “strategic position” so that its “policy of non-intervention can’t be misinterpreted by actors in the US and even domestically in Ecuador.”
He said he was sympathetic with Ecuador, insisting they face the dilemma of having the US interfere with their elections next year if they appear to interfere with the US elections next month. MORE: #WikiLeaks has activated contingency plans after #Assange 's internet link was intentionally cut off https://t.co/octsMseme1
— RT (@RT_com) October 17, 2016
Assange, who claimed the embassy will be without internet until the election is over to avoid accusations of interference, said he did not agree with Ecuador’s decision but did understand it. WikiLeaks will not be affected by the decision as they do not publish from Ecuador, he said.
He did, however, reject the idea that WikiLeaks is interfering with the US election, claiming, “this is not the interference of electoral process, this is the definition of electoral process – for media organizations and, in fact, everyone to publish the truth and their opinion about what is occurring. It cannot be a free and informed election unless people are free to inform.”
He also attacked US TV networks, many of whom he accused of being “controlled by Clinton supporters.” We were fastest on #Podestaemails6 , faster than @wikileaks , and the US conspiracy machine can’t handle it https://t.co/njAae50qDd
— RT (@RT_com) October 13, 2016
The Podesta emails will make no difference to the election result, according to Assange. “I don’t think there’s any chance of Donald Trump winning the election, even with the amazing material we are publishing, because most of the media organizations are strongly aligned with Hillary Clinton,” he said.
Assange said journalists and people who work in the media are predominantly middle class and view Trump as representing “what in their mind is white trash.” Share Social Trending | 0 |
David Frum: Hillary is a Patriot Who Will Protect the Constitution November 3, 2016 Daniel Greenfield
If David Frum had suggested that Hillary Clinton used to play for the Patriots, I would have found his argument a little more credible than claiming that she is a patriot.
But she is a patriot. She will uphold the sovereignty and independence of the United States. She will defend allies. She will execute the laws with reasonable impartiality. She may bend some rules for her own and her supporters’ advantage. She will not outright defy legality altogether. Above all, she can govern herself; the first indispensable qualification for governing others.
This is under an Atlantic piece headlined, "The Conservative Case for Hillary" which also contends, "Why support a candidate who rejects your preferences and offends your opinions? Don’t do it for her—do it for the republic, and the Constitution."
The trouble with this line of argument is that Hillary's own agenda includes a rejection of the First and Second Amendment. It's a rather unusual way to support the Constitution by destroying it.
Then there's the whole Hillary is a quarterback for the New England Patriots business. Who has ever accused Hillary Clinton of being a patriot? How was this patriotism manifested? In Benghazi? In Iran? In Russia? I'll skip over the "outright defy legality altogether" argument. Though it's certainly sad that this is now considered some sort of high water mark.
But can Hillary govern herself? Is the compulsive liar who can't help shouting, "I was in New York on 9/11" really capable of governing herself?
"I am voting to defend Americans' profoundest shared commitment: a commitment to norms and rules that today protect my rights under a president I don’t favor, and that will tomorrow do the same service for you".
Unless you make a movie about Mohammed. | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from any investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, but denied that his newly revealed contacts with a Russian official were related to the presidential campaign. Democratic leaders called on Mr. Sessions to resign. Republicans confronted a widening split in their ranks over how to proceed amid a growing uproar over questions about the Trump team’s ties to Russia, even as they mostly resisted calls for a special prosecutor or select committee. The White House disclosed that Michael Flynn, the national security adviser, and Jared Kushner, the president’s and senior adviser, also met with the Russian ambassador in December. As we reported, the outgoing Obama administration scrambled to preserve intelligence about the campaign’s possible contacts with Russia by spreading it across the government. _____ 2. On Capitol Hill, Ben Carson, the was confirmed as secretary of housing and urban development. And Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, got final approval to lead the Energy Department, a role that puts him in charge of the country’s nuclear arsenal. Another administration official, the new secretary of the interior, Ryan Zinke of Montana, arrived at his new office on horseback. _____ 3. Republican lawmakers in at least 16 states are trying to rein in protests with bills to make them more orderly or to toughen penalties when they go awry. Some of the bills are backed by the president’s supporters, and some appear to be responses to demonstrations against him and his policies. One activist called the proposals “intimidation from the right. ” _____ 4. Shares of Snap Inc. valued at $24 billion in its public offering, jumped 41 percent in the company’s first day of trading. That’s a powerful showing for Snap’s messaging service, Snapchat. Wall Street has been on an upward trajectory since Election Day. Our columnist looks at what the booming markets mean for the global economy. _____ 5. Syrian government forces again drove Islamic State militants out of Palmyra, the ancient city that was prewar Syria’s leading tourist attraction. The Islamic State had used the city as a propaganda windfall, making a sport out of pilfering and vandalizing prized antiquities it considered heretical, and using the Roman theater for public beheadings. _____ 6. A year after the European Union closed its borders to asylum seekers, tens of thousands of refugees languish in camps in Greece, many of them children. Their lives in limbo have taken on an air of permanence. “Everyone here feels depressed,” said a young Afghan. _____ 7. China has at least 10 White Houses, four Arcs de Triomphe, a couple of Great Sphinxes and at least one Eiffel Tower. But a replica of London’s Tower Bridge, celebrated as “even more magnificent” than the original, has set off a debate over whether these buildings — created as publicity stunts and popular as photo backdrops — are actually denigrating Chinese culture. _____ 8. A few prominent artists are working to preserve the house where Nina Simone was born, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. A previous owner had invested in period 1930s details, hoping to make it into a museum for the legendary singer and civil rights icon, who died in 2003 at age 70. But the project languished. “She formed a lot of who I am and my sense of history,” said one of the artists. “And I think of the town as a portal to a woman who influenced so many. ” _____ 9. New Orleans may be known for Mardi Gras, but Mobile, Ala. dates its Carnival celebration to 1703, making it the oldest in the U. S. More than 70 mystic societies celebrated this year, most of which remain segregated by race and class. Join us inside the festivities. _____ 10. Finally, the iconic cherry blossom trees that ring the Tidal Basin of the National Mall have heralded the coming of spring for nearly a century. This year, they are one more sign of climate change. The National Park Service says the blossoms could burst and reach their peak as soon as March 14, a full three weeks earlier than normal and the earliest date on record. The jump has set off a scramble to adjust a festival schedule expected to involve up to 1. 5 million people. _____ 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 |
WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that he did not believe American intelligence assessments that Russia had intervened to help his candidacy, casting blame for the reports on Democrats, who he said were embarrassed about losing to him. “I think it’s ridiculous. I think it’s just another excuse,” Mr. Trump said in the interview, on “Fox News Sunday. ” “I don’t believe it. ” He also indicated that as president, he would not take the daily intelligence briefing that President Obama and his predecessors have received. Mr. Trump, who has received the briefing sparingly as said that it was often repetitive and that he would take it “when I need it. ” He said his vice president, Mike Pence, would receive the daily briefing. “You know, I’m, like, a smart person,” he said. “I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years. ” He added that he had instructed the officials who give the briefing: “‘If something should change from this point, immediately call me. I’m available on a ’s notice. ’” Mr. Trump’s seeming dismissal of the importance of that daily interaction with intelligence agencies, as well as his claims of politically tainted intelligence reports on Russia, widened a breach between a and the agencies he will have to rely on to carry out priorities like fighting terrorism and deterring cyberattacks. His stance on the issue is also putting him increasingly at odds with senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including members of his own party, who say that the evidence of Russian interference is clear and warrants a congressional investigation. The Obama administration reached a consensus months ago that Russia was trying to meddle in the election. After initially believing that Russia’s goal was to undermine American democratic processes, the intelligence agencies concluded a week after the vote that the Russian efforts had been intended, at least in their latter stages, to help Mr. Trump. The said those new reports were politically motivated. “I think the Democrats are putting it out because they suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics in this country,” he said in the interview, recorded on Saturday. During the campaign, he also dismissed suggestions of Russian meddling. Pressed about why he did not believe the intelligence agencies’ conclusions, Mr. Trump said there was disagreement among intelligence agencies about the extent and the origin of the hacking. “They’re fighting among themselves,” he said. “They’re not sure. ” The Washington Post and The New York Times reported on Friday that American intelligence agencies had concluded that Russia took covert action during the campaign to harm the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. The new conclusion, The Times reported, was based in part on evidence found by the C. I. A. that Russian hackers had penetrated the Republican National Committee’s computer system, as well as that of the Democrats and several of Mrs. Clinton’s senior aides, but had leaked only Democratic correspondence. Mr. Trump’s transition office responded to those reports with a statement on Friday night dismissing the intelligence agencies as “the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. ” The office said it was time to “move on” from the election. The Iraq case has been the subject of a debate over whether the intelligence was tainted or whether the Bush White House read it selectively to support its decision to go to war. On the subject of Russian interference, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Sunday that it would be dangerous to dismiss the issue as a matter of partisan politics. He urged Mr. Trump to accept the agencies’ conclusions, and called on his colleagues to move forward with an investigation. “You can’t make this issue partisan it’s too important,” Mr. McCain said on the CBS program “Face the Nation. ” “A fundamental of democracy is a free and fair election. ” Referring to the hacking, Mr. McCain added, “The Russians have been using it as a tool as part of Vladimir Putin’s ambition to regain Russian prominence and dominance in some parts of the world. ” Mr. McCain was among a bipartisan group of four senior lawmakers, including the coming minority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, who issued a statement Sunday pledging to work to respond to the incursions. The statement adds pressure to Republicans, who control Congress, to investigate the hacking. “Democrats and Republicans must work together, and across the jurisdictional lines of the Congress, to examine these recent incidents thoroughly and devise comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyberattacks,” the statement said. Several senators, including Rand Paul of Kentucky and James Lankford of Oklahoma, both Republicans, expressed support for such an investigation on Sunday. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, did not comment on the issue over the weekend, but he was expected to address it in a news conference scheduled for Monday morning. Mr. McCain said on “Face the Nation” that he would like to see a select committee formed to look into the C. I. A. ’s conclusions, but that in the meantime, an armed services subcommittee under his control would “go to work on it. ” | 1 |
A team of cartel gunmen began to fire indiscriminately into a crowd of tourists — killing two and injuring at least six others — in Mexico’s resort town of Acapulco. A young girl shot multiple times by the cartel gunmen died at a local hospital. [The attack took place Saturday night in the La Reyna park in Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico’s Proceso reported. During the attack, the gunmen fired into a crowd killing a young man and injuring seven others. Soon after, a young girl shot by the assailants died at a local hospital. According to Proceso, earlier in the day, gunmen torched multiple bars and a home in Ixtapa, another of Guerrero’s famed tourists’ destinations. The raging violence in Guerrero comes after government officials stepped up their military and police in preparation for Easter Week festivities. In Mexico, students do not get a Spring Break however, most schools and businesses closed for the religious holiday of Easter. As Breitbart Texas has been reporting, the once quiet resort town of Acapulco became a hotbed of cartel violence as numerous Mexican cartels continue to fight over control of the Mexican state of Guerrero. The state provides cartels with rural areas for the production of poppy plants, access to Acapulco’s shipping port, a tourist hub with local drug demand, as well as trade routes to Mexico City and other top trafficking destinations. Ildefonso Ortiz is an journalist with Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. | 1 |
Women’s shoe clearance! We’ve got your size! Save 20 percent! Macy’s has discount fever, and signs like these pepper its sprawling flagship store in Manhattan. But while shoppers love a sale, those discounts are coming at a steep price to Macy’s and the country’s other large department stores. “It’s poison,” said Mark Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia Business School. “They’ve created no motivation for consumers to respond to their promotions, since if you missed this week’s sale you just need to wait around until next week. ” Or not at all. Shoppers may be addicted to discounts, but not necessarily those at the leading department stores. This week, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Kohl’s and J. C. Penney all reported unexpectedly weak sales, driving their stocks sharply lower. The headwinds facing department stores are coming from several directions, including from online shopping. The companies’ earnings look especially bleak in comparison with the broad retail picture in the United States. On Friday, the government reported that overall retail spending had ticked higher in April. But the results this week reinforced the degree to which companies have failed to adjust to discount retail chains like Ross and the TJX companies, T. J. Maxx and Marshalls, which have spent years developing their niche and are attracting more people. “Consumers like that idea of getting a bargain,” said Neil Saunders, a retail analyst for Conlumino. “That certainly has been unhelpful to the department stores. ” of course, is nothing new. But the hunt itself has changed. The economic collapse of 2008 forced many Americans to cling tighter to their purse strings, and forced many shoppers to more aggressively hunt for options. That spurred many consumers toward retailers like T. J. Maxx, Marshalls and Ross, where many have remained, according to Jharonne Martis, the director of consumer research for Thomson Reuters. “During the recession, they were a favorite among customers,” Ms. Martis said. A decade ago, Mr. Saunders said, there were sharper distinctions between the customers who shopped at Nordstrom and those who picked through the racks at stores. In 2005, 5. 1 percent of shoppers who regularly used retailers also shopped at department stores for clothing, he said. Last year, that figure rose to 12. 9 percent. “People that used and discount channels tended to be a bit more isolated,” Mr. Saunders said. “Now, there’s a lot more customer sharing, and a lot more people who use department stores also use retailers much more freely. ” The difference between the products offered at the different retailers is also getting blurry. Department stores and discount chains have sold increasingly similar products. Macy’s and Nordstrom may have once been associated with brands like Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, but those labels now frequently appear in the aisles as well, Ms. Martis said. That has made department stores less of a destination, she said. Still, department stores are trying to match the demand for discount shopping, slashing prices and combining points in a frenzied attempt to keep up with an increasing variety of rivals. But they have not done enough to stem the tide of losses. “When you have a significant amount of clearance, you dilute your own brand,” Ms. Martis said. “The department stores were built for a different decade. ” Macy’s and J. C. Penney declined to comment for this article. Nordstrom and Kohl’s could not be reached for comment. Ms. Martis and other retail analysts said that department stores had done a poor job of keeping up with younger consumers. Those shoppers are often and generally less inclined to shop at the same stores that their parents once did. The promotions might do a good job of targeting people looking for low prices, but the brands sometimes do not. At Macy’s in Herald Square on Thursday, shoppers combed through entire rooms dedicated to discount shoes. But the assortment, however plentiful, may not have been for everyone. “They probably missed out on that whole sneaker thing,” said Jacqui Booker, 38, who had come to Macy’s to look at appliances. “The fact that they don’t sell a Jordan in here is probably keeping every kid away,” Ms. Booker said, referring to Air Jordan, Nike’s popular athletic shoe. On Friday, J. C. Penney reported a loss of 32 cents a share, and said that sales at stores open more than a year had fallen 0. 4 percent. sales at Macy’s fell 5. 6 percent in the first quarter. Some department stores, like Nordstrom, have been aggressive about opening their own discount chains. But while business improved at Nordstrom’s discount division, Nordstrom Rack, net sales fell 2. 2 percent. Also on Friday, the Commerce Department reported that retail sales rose 1. 3 percent in April, driven in large part by sales of automobiles and gas, along with online shopping. “The retail sales numbers underscore the shift, underscore the challenges department stores are having,” said Richard Jaffe, a managing director and retail analyst with Stifel Nicolaus. Amazon represents one of those main challenges. The online shopping giant has increasingly pulled consumers away from traditional stores, and has shown every indication that it intends to grow. But while Amazon accounts for half of all by some estimates, most shopping in the United States still happens in person. The problems at the larger department stores, Mr. Saunders argued, run deeper. “Amazon plays a big part of this, but it’s not the only part,” Mr. Saunders said. “I think retailers have to take some share of the blame themselves. ” Including, some might say, for their discounts. “I think at this point,” Ms. Booker said, “everyone that knows Macy’s knows that you go on Sale Wednesday. ” | 1 |
DALLAS — The gunman who killed five police officers in Dallas had enough materials in his home to lead the authorities to believe he was planning a larger attack, the city’s police chief said on Sunday. He provided new details of how, during two hours of negotiations, the gunman sang, laughed and asked how many officers he had killed before he was killed by a robot. David O. Brown, the police chief, said evidence showed that Micah Johnson, 25, an Army Reserve veteran who told the police that he wanted to kill white officers, had been practicing detonations and that the explosive material had the potential “to have devastating effects throughout our city and our North Texas area. ” “We’re convinced this suspect had other plans and thought that what he was doing was righteous,” Chief Brown said on CNN’s “State of the Union. ” Mayor Mike Rawlings of Dallas, in an interview near the shooting site, described Mr. Johnson as having employed tactics designed to cause as much harm to people as possible. “He was really well trained in becoming a killing machine, O. K.?” he said. “Shooting low, fighting at that one point, going high, shooting down another street. This guy trained himself not for that exact location, but he knew how to elicit pain on people. ” The details emerged as the nation was immersed in protests, vigils and calls for peace from many pulpits after a week of unsettling violence that began with the fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling, in Baton Rouge, La. and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minn. The attack on officers on Thursday night in Dallas turned a peaceful demonstration against the earlier shootings into a scene of bloodshed and chaos. President Obama cut short an overseas trip and planned to travel on Tuesday to Dallas, where he, along with former President George W. Bush, will address a memorial service. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Laura Bush will also attend, the White House said. Mr. Obama, speaking in Spain, urged protesters to avoid inflammatory words and actions, but also defended the right to demonstrate, saying that one of the nation’s great virtues is its openness to protest and efforts to speak truth to power. He said Black Lives Matter had grown out of a long protest tradition that dated to the abolitionist movement. In such movements, Mr. Obama said, “there’s always going to be some folks who say things that are stupid or imprudent, or overgeneralize, or are harsh. ” Demonstrators gathered again on Sunday in cities as scattered as Dallas, Falcon Heights, Memphis, Baton Rouge, Atlanta and New York City, where 300 people marched silently, fists raised in the air, from Times Square to Union Square, with signs proclaiming “Stop police terror!” and “Stand together. ” In Baton Rouge, police officers in riot gear and flanked by SWAT trucks were trying on Sunday evening to turn back protesters who had come from a peaceful rally earlier and were trying to march to the Police Headquarters a few miles away. A Baton Rouge police spokesman said 48 arrests had been made by about 10 p. m. most for obstructing a roadway. No weapons had been confiscated, he said. News outlets in Memphis reported that protesters there had blocked traffic on the Interstate 40 bridge spanning the Mississippi River after a rally downtown. Some activists began circulating text messages asking around the country to boycott major retailers and to deposit $100 into a bank as a means of economically stopping the “slaughtering of black lives. ” Hundreds of demonstrators had been arrested Saturday night and into early Sunday in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, St. Paul and Baton Rouge, including DeRay Mckesson, a prominent activist in the Black Lives Matter movement who was released Sunday afternoon. In Phoenix, officers used pepper spray to disperse crowds. In St. Paul and Baton Rouge, the mood had been tense overnight Saturday into Sunday morning. In St. Paul, protesters had shut down an interstate highway for hours. At least 20 officers were injured as people threw rocks, bottles and bricks, the police said. The authorities in Baton Rouge, where Mr. Sterling was fatally shot early Tuesday, said they had arrested more than 100 people, charging most with obstructing the road. Among them were three members of the news media and Mr. Mckesson, who filmed his encounter with the police using the app Periscope. John Bel Edwards, Louisiana’s governor, said Sunday that the vast majority of protesters had behaved lawfully and that the police response had been moderate. He said some of the disturbances had been caused by demonstrators from outside Louisiana, but pledged that “they will not be allowed to incite hate and violence. ” Pastors across the nation called for reconciliation and compassion. At St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan spoke of a country “worried, frustrated and fatigued over senseless violence. ” “From Minnesota to Louisiana and Texas, one nation under God examines its soul,” he said. “Sadness and heaviness is especially present in our and law enforcement communities. ” He added, “We pray with and for them. ” In his television appearance, Chief Brown provided new details of the two hours of negotiations that the police conducted with Mr. Johnson, saying he had demanded to speak to a black negotiator, had sung and laughed, and had asked how many officers he had killed. Mr. Johnson also wrote the letters “R. B. ” in blood on the walls of the parking garage where he had hidden, Chief Brown said, an indication that he may have been wounded. It was not clear what those letters referred to, the chief said. Chief Brown said Mr. Johnson “obviously had some delusion. ” He described the gunman as doing “quite a bit of rambling at the scene. ” The police chief said investigators were examining Mr. Johnson’s laptop, journal and cellphone and had not completely ruled out the possibility that others were involved. He said he believed Mr. Johnson’s aim was to “make us pay for what he sees as law enforcement’s efforts to punish people of color,” including the fatal police shootings of in Louisiana and Minnesota in the days before the ambush. Those deaths, Chief Brown said, prompted Mr. Johnson to “fast track” plans to kill police officers. Describing the moments that occurred just before Thursday’s shootings, Chief Brown said that once the protesters had started to march through downtown Dallas, Mr. Johnson had driven his vehicle, a black Chevrolet Tahoe, well ahead of the group to prepare for the attack on police officers escorting the demonstrators. “You could easily see the march coming down the street they were walking, and saw an opportunity with some positions, a couple of buildings in the pathway of the marchers, and decided to take the high ground and start shooting right away,” Chief Brown said. “And we had to scramble to block intersections, which did expose our officers to this attack. And this suspect took advantage of that. And once he was in a position, officers did not know where the shots was coming from. ” Officials in recent days have revealed that Mr. Johnson, who served in the Army Reserve from 2009 to 2015, had materials, ballistic vests, rifles, ammunition and a journal of combat tactics in his home. His journal described a method of attack in which a gunman can keep moving to confuse the enemy. The chief and Mr. Rawlings, the Dallas mayor, defended the Police Department’s use of the robot bomb that killed Mr. Johnson. Critics have raised questions about the episode, which may have been the first time a local law enforcement agency in the United States had used such a device to kill a suspect. Chief Brown said that the suspect had hidden in a corner in the garage and that deploying a sniper would have exposed the police to “great danger. ” “We believe that we saved lives by making this decision,” he said. Mr. Rawlings, in the interview Sunday, described Mr. Johnson as having employed tactics designed to cause as much harm to people as possible. The mayor, who heard portions of Mr. Johnson’s discussions with police negotiators, said the gunman was “just talking about how he was just upset with the whole world and upset with police, upset with white police. ” He added, “I believe he was mentally ill. ” Mr. Rawlings added: “I believed he wanted to kill officers. He did it, and a person like that would never be satisfied usually until they were taken down. ” In a separate interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” he said that he supported the department’s use of the bomb, and that the authorities had opted to use it only after negotiators had been unable to persuade Mr. Johnson to surrender. “It was a difficult decision because the safety of our police officers were in our mind,” Mr. Rawlings said. “The chief had two options, and he went with this one. I supported him completely because it was the safest way to approach it, and we talked to this man a long time and he threatened to blow up our police officers. We went to his home, we saw that there was equipment later, so it was very important that we realize that he may not be bluffing. ” The Dallas Morning News published a editorial urging the city to emerge as an example of how to bring the nation together. “Today our country seems capable of pulling apart in ways that have not seemed possible in many decades,” the editorial said. “Dallas, again, has been bathed in blood and grief. How we respond will help show a path forward to a divided, reeling nation. ” Chief Brown called for Americans to support police officers, but acknowledged that “we’re not perfect. There’s cops that don’t need to be cops. ” And he had a message for the protesters: “We’re sworn to protect you and your right to protest. And we will give our lives for it. ” | 1 |
Topics: Hillary Clinton , Donald Trump , email
"I could've sworn this influx of duplicate emails we've already seen before would present us with some new information."
After completing his review of the recently discovered email collection, FBI Director James Comey has stated that no additional evidence to further prosecute Secretary Hillary Clinton has been found. This has come as a shock to many who don't understand history and believed that this time would end differently then every single case before it.
"I can't believe the FBI would allow such a travesty," Trump said in a speech Sunday afternoon, "I mean we went through all the necessary legal procedures. We grossly over-exaggerated everything and promised indictment without any real evidence or basis for evaluation but didn't get the results we were hoping for. The FBI is rigged, gotta be."
The Republican Presidential Candidate didn't stay negative for long though as he then went on to describe his next wildly absurd plan that would no doubt backfire on him.
"I'm proud to announce that I've been endorsed by the famous ACME Corporation! Anything you need to destroy your opponents, they've got it. Border walls, pneumonia, emails, "Nasty women", you name it, ACME is there to provide you with a service that in no way could ever end up hurting me in the end. Speaking of which, I've also come up with a new plan to paint tunnels leading to Welfare and free tacos on the border wall so when the Mexicans run into it we can quickly ship them back before they even regain consciousness. Tune in next Tuesday to see how this works out!!" Make Andrewnino12's | 0 |
Six years and contrasting personalities separated Diana Olivarez and her younger brother, Xavier. “I’m very intense,” said Ms. Olivarez, 29. “He was just carefree, didn’t take life too seriously. ” Before Xavier was born, Ms. Olivarez lived in Mexico with her grandparents. Her parents had left for the United States with the intention of finding work and making enough money to eventually return to Mexico and build a house. But once Xavier was born in the United States, the plan changed: Her parents decided to make a life in the Bronx and Ms. Olivarez joined them when she was 6. But she had difficulty adjusting. Her first winter in New York was brutally cold and dark. While her parents worked long hours, she and Xavier were handed off to babysitters. The language barrier was another hurdle. Classmates who spoke Spanish used an unfamiliar dialect, and learning English was difficult because she could not practice it with family members at home. “I became really withdrawn because I couldn’t communicate,” Ms. Olivarez said. In time, she not only taught herself English, but also started to excel in school. She received a scholarship in 2005 to attend Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N. Y. but she could not control her erratic behavior. “I was starting to get in trouble in school and I remember just having a lot of energy where I just couldn’t stop doing things,” Ms. Olivarez said. Her parents observed the behavior but did not address it, she said. Xavier rarely reacted to her outbursts, which only infuriated her, she said. At Marist, Ms. Olivarez learned the cause of her oscillating moods: She was told she had a bipolar disorder. “It costs you a lot of relationships, a lot of money and a lot of time,” she said. “People kind of stay away from you, think you’re trouble. ” Ms. Olivarez said she felt the stigma that society attached to mental illness, and it drove her into denial. She told herself that the problems were not severe, that the disorder was not what led her to drop out of Marist. Ms. Olivarez returned to school in 2011, enrolling at Fordham University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, majoring in philosophy and Spanish. In 2013, she married her longtime boyfriend. When she told Xavier about their engagement, he started to cry, a rare moment of affection between the siblings. “He said he felt like he was losing his sister and I said, ‘You aren’t losing me, I’m always going to be there for you,’” Ms. Olivarez recalled. She gave birth to a girl, Jade, in 2014, and made the choice to address her mental illness decided that she could not responsibly raise her daughter while she struggled with an untreated illness. She now takes medication. “It’s very serious if you don’t get the help that you need,” Ms. Olivarez said. “It can kill you. ” In March, Ms. Olivarez gave birth to a second daughter, Ruby. Both of her children are enrolled in early childhood programs with the Children’s Aid Society, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. Jade was placed in an early intervention program after Ms. Olivarez said she observed developmental issues. Ms. Olivarez saw in Jade her own struggles growing up and she knew she had to act, unlike her parents. “I think they just did the best they could,” she said of her parents. “But I look at my daughter and how can I see her going through this and not get her help? You just really need to be aware. ” Ms. Olivarez has since postponed her academic ambitions in order to focus on Jade’s needs. But just as Ms. Olivarez was making strides in her life — with her children, her mental illness and her relationship with her brother — she was dealt a dramatic setback. Xavier got into an argument with a man on a street corner on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in April and was fatally stabbed. The police arrested a man, who was charged with murder. The family decided to bury Xavier, who was 22, in Mexico, where Ms. Olivarez’s parents hope to return after they retire in the next few years. “The decision was made to take him there, so they can have him there,” Ms. Olivarez said. The Children’s Aid Society used $1, 000 in Neediest Funds to cover some of the burial costs. Ms. Olivarez, her husband and children live with her parents in the Bronx. They all grieved for Xavier together, which she said helped them connect in ways they had not before. Ms. Olivarez’s mother now helps care for her grandchildren, and has become more attuned to her daughter’s struggles. Ms. Olivarez said her mother now notices when she is under stress and tries to put her at ease. “I still have my ups and my downs but they’re not as intense as they were before,” she said. Ms. Olivarez hopes that by being open about her own challenges, people might become empathetic to others suffering with mental illnesses. She wants everyone to shed the unreasonable fears and misconceptions. “It is so different when you get help,” Ms. Olivarez said. “I think that a lot of people stay in a state of shame,” she added. “They don’t reach out because there is a lot of shame, but life is so much better. ” | 1 |
CHARLESTON, S. C. — The trial of Michael T. Slager, the police officer whose videotaped killing of an unarmed black man staggered a nation already embroiled in a debate about police misconduct and racial bias in law enforcement, ended in a mistrial on Monday. Judge Clifton B. Newman’s decision to halt the proceedings came three days after jurors signaled that they were within one vote of returning a guilty verdict against Mr. Slager, who could have been convicted of murder or voluntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Walter L. Scott. But on Monday, in a final note to Judge Newman, jurors said that “despite the best efforts of all members, we are unable to come to a unanimous decision. ” The outcome was disappointingly familiar to critics of police practices and conduct, and demonstrated the steep hurdles associated with prosecuting a police officer for a shooting while on duty. Although other cases involving claims of police misconduct have ended in mistrials and acquittals, few resonated as widely as this case in North Charleston, where Mr. Slager fired eight shots as Mr. Scott ran away. “The fight isn’t over, that was Round 1,” said L. Chris Stewart, a lawyer for Mr. Scott’s family. “We all saw what he did. We all saw what happened. ” In a statement, Gov. Nikki R. Haley said: “Justice is not always immediate, but we must all have faith that it will be served — I certainly do. ” Prosecutors said they would seek a new trial for Mr. Slager, who was fired after the shooting, and the Scott family expressed confidence that he would ultimately be convicted. Mr. Slager’s lawyer, Andrew J. Savage III, did not comment as he left the courtroom, where jurors had heard testimony for about four weeks. No piece of evidence was more central than a cellphone video, which a Feidin Santana, recorded as he walked to work on April 4, 2015. The video began only after Mr. Scott fled on foot from a traffic stop for a broken taillight, but it was shocking and vivid. In the recording, the men engage in a struggle, and then, as Mr. Scott runs away, Mr. Slager raises his Glock handgun and fires. Mr. Scott falls to the ground. He was at least 17 feet away when Mr. Slager began to shoot. It was a sequence that jurors saw over and over, and the sound of the gunshots repeatedly pierced the courtroom. On Monday, the existence of the video, and its inability to lead to a conviction, fueled much of the furor and frustration about the trial’s resolution, incomplete as it was. “It saddens me, but I am not shocked,” said Howard Friedman, a civil rights lawyer and the former president of the National Police Accountability Project. “The fact that out of 12 people you would find one person so prejudiced in favor of police is saddening, not shocking, because I know that kind of prejudice in favor of police is out there. ” In Missouri, where an August 2014 police killing in Ferguson spurred both peaceful protests and unrest, State Senator Maria said the outcome in Charleston had left her “hopeless. ” “When you have the video that shows that Walter Scott is running away and still you have a mistrial?” Ms. said. Here in Charleston County, investigators at first believed Mr. Slager when he said he had been attacked. But Mr. Santana’s video, which emerged within days of the shooting and provoked international outrage, made Mr. Slager a pariah to many in law enforcement, an anomaly of policing who strayed far from his duties and oath when he opened fire and, prosecutors contended, tried to stage the scene to make the shooting appear justified. “Our whole criminal justice system rides on the back of law enforcement,” the chief prosecutor for Charleston County, Scarlett A. Wilson, said during her closing argument. “They have to be held accountable when they mess up. It is very, very rare, but it does happen. ” Ms. Wilson acknowledged from the beginning of the trial that she thought Mr. Scott had contributed to his own death by running away. “If Walter Scott had stayed in that car, he wouldn’t have been shot,” Ms. Wilson said. “He paid the extreme consequence for his conduct. He lost his life for his foolishness. ” Ms. Wilson’s concession, which she made during her opening statement, was something of an effort to immunize the prosecution from a theory that the defense advanced throughout the trial: that Mr. Scott had acted in ways that made Mr. Slager fear for his life. In his closing argument, Mr. Savage said Mr. Scott had left the officer with little choice after he “made decisions to attack a police officer. ” “Should he have assumed that an unarmed man would have attacked a police officer?” Mr. Savage said of Mr. Slager, who he complained had been made a “poster boy” of police misconduct claims because of disputed killings elsewhere in the country. Mr. Slager pressed a similar argument when he testified that he had felt “total fear” and “fired until the threat was stopped, like I’m trained to do. ” The jury here had three options, besides deadlocking: a conviction for murder, a conviction for voluntary manslaughter or an acquittal. In South Carolina, a murder conviction can lead to a life sentence, and manslaughter carries a term of two to 30 years. Mr. Slager’s case and its outcome were virtually certain to revive the storm that surrounded North Charleston, a city of about 108, 000 people, after Mr. Scott’s death. City officials, who agreed to a $6. 5 million settlement with Mr. Scott’s family, have long insisted that Mr. Slager was an outlier. But critics argued last year and again on Monday that the shooting was a tragic result of an aggressive law enforcement strategy carried out by a largely white police force. Drivers and pedestrians faced frequent stops for minor violations, and the police increased their presence, especially in areas that happened to be predominantly black neighborhoods. The approach, community leaders said, eroded trust, and North Charleston’s Police Department is now the subject of a Justice Department review as part of a “collaborative reform process. ” Another arm of the Justice Department is involved in a different legal battle against Mr. Slager, who has been accused in a federal indictment of violating Mr. Scott’s civil rights. But Mr. Slager will now also face a second trial in state court, and lawyers will undoubtedly consider the feedback that emerged from a jury that appeared bitterly divided during deliberations, which began on Wednesday. In a letter to Judge Newman on Friday, a single juror said he could not “in good conscience consider a guilty verdict. ” The jury’s foreman, the panel’s only black member, said in a separate note that the group was mostly in agreement that Mr. Slager should be convicted: “It’s just one juror that has the issues. ” The foreman also said: “That juror needs to leave. He is having issues. ” But on Monday morning, the jury said in another note that a majority of its members were “still undecided. ” Later, standing outside the courthouse on an overcast day, members of Mr. Scott’s family said they were not dwelling on a trial they had hoped would end with Mr. Slager bound for prison. “God is my strength, and I know without a doubt that he is a just God,” said Mr. Scott’s mother, Judy Scott. “Injustice will not prevail. ” | 1 |
Asteroid Warning System Found ‘City-Killer’ Object Heading Toward Earth 11/01/2016
DAILY CALLER
NASA’s new asteroid warning system detected a large “city-killer” asteroid hurtling toward Earth less than a week before it narrowly missed.
The rock, officially named 2016 UR36, was first detected Oct. 25 by a telescope in Hawaii and passed by Earth five days later. The asteroid missed by a distance of only 310,000 miles, around 1.3 times further away than the Moon. That’s incredibly close in space terms.
2016 UR36 could be up to 82 feet across, roughly comparable in size to the meteor that exploded over Russia in February 2013, causing hundreds of injuries .
If 2016 UR36 had slammed into Earth, it would have struck with a force 55 times stronger than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima near the end of World War II. That’s more than enough force to level a city.
NASA director Charles Bolden told reporters in 2013 that the only response to a such a late detection of an asteroid set to collide with Earth was to “ Pray .”
Global asteroid detection programs found more than 15,176 near-Earth objects of all sizes with 1,562 new near-Earth objects being identified this year alone, according to International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planets Center . These newly discovered near-Earth objects are part of a much larger population of more than 700,000 known asteroids in our Solar System.
NASA and its European partners are now focused on finding objects that are 450 feet in diameter or larger, which could devastate a city or country if they struck Earth.
In the event an asteroid couldn’t be prevented from hitting Earth, the Planetary Defense Coordination Office would work with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Department of Defense, and other federal agencies to coordinate disaster response. | 0 |
Thursday on “Fox Friends,” discussing the Democrats opposition to President Donald Trump’s nominees, White House aide Kellyanne Conway said we were seeing the Democratic Party “unravel in front of our eyes” because of what she called “a bunch of crybabies. ” Conway said, “The Democratic Party, we’re seeing it unravel in front of our eyes and revealed in front of our eyes. A bunch of crybabies who say that they’re going to oppose the Supreme Court nominees before they even know the person’s name and academic credentials and impeccable judicial record. They are holding up our nominees to the cabinet. I was told yesterday this is the longest that the nation has gone without a secretary of the Treasury at least in modern times, if not the longest, it’s darn close to it. ” “We need a secretary of Treasury, folks, for those who actually go to work in the morning and need the dollar to flourish,” she continued. “We need a secretary of Treasury to be running things. This obstinateness and obstruction is a modern Democratic Party. I think it’s going to cost them because they’re hysterical about everything now. There’s no gradation of hysteria, everything makes them cry and scream. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
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