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No you weasel, you will sit by with your tail between your legs and watch China take even more of your territory. LOL | 0 |
German magazine Der Spiegel has begun a series of articles entitled “The New Arrivals” claiming in one piece that mass migration can revive declining birth rates in small Spanish towns. [The German publication told the story of a Moroccan migrant from Tangier named Said al Ghoury who moved with his family to the small Spanish town of Visiedo with his family and claims he “rescued” the village from demographic decline. Since 1998 the number of immigrants flowing into Spain has increased ten times and in the last year alone the figure increased by 12. 2 percent. In real numbers around 4. 6 million people, many from North Africa, have flooded into Spain. The small village of Visiedo is located in the province of Teruel which has experienced a decline in its Spanish population from 136, 000 in 1998 to 123, 000 today and around 14, 000 migrants have moved to the area. Rosario Sampedro, a migration sociologist at the University of Valladolid said in some rural regions of the country the, “population was rejuvenated,” by mass migration but added, “the situation is still tense in the remote areas. ” In Teruel, the population is already ageing with of the population being over the age of 60. Vicente Gonzalvo of the “New Ways” program actively promotes the idea of sending migrants to these small villages where they would replace the ageing native Spanish. “We want to revive the dying villages,” he said adding, “The native Spaniards in the countryside must realise that they too will benefit when their communities gain new inhabitants. ” Hassan Bellahmama is another Moroccan who moved to a small town in Spain, choosing to become a shepherd in the town of Alfambra. “There are only a few Spaniards who want to do this job. Most cattle farmers in the province employ foreigners,” said Pedro José Escusa who employs Bellahmama. In Germany, experts have said that sending migrants into rural communities would not just help the dwindling populations, but would also act as an “integration laboratory” as well. Wolfgang Borst, major of the Bavarian village of Hofheim sees mass migration as an “opportunity” saying, “We are very satisfied. We are gaining a lot more villagers. ” Others like Klaus Poelitz say the main problem is the “prejudice” of the locals in rural communities. The migrant crisis hasn’t been all positive for many small towns as some have been driven into enormous amounts of debt to provide food and shelter for migrants. Some residents have reacted strongly against proposals to house large amounts of migrants in their communities. When Joachim Kebschull, the mayor of Oersdorf planned to welcome migrants into the town of only 900 several locals beat him unconscious before a meeting of the town’s urban planning committee. In France, migration mayor of Béziers Robert Ménard was fined 1, 800 euros for mentioning the changing demographics of his town. Ménard mentioned the theory of the “great replacement” coined by prolific French author Renaud Camus who said that mass migration will lead to the cultural and demographic transformation of European societies. | 0 |
2 Comments on "CrossTalk on US election: Criminal in Chief?" uncle Bob 1 Today 8:55 pm
The Clinton Foundation (Clinton crime cartel) said today “ooops,we forgot about the 1 million dollars Qatar gave us for Bill Clinton’s birthday” (my gosh if only I got birthday gifts like that,lol). According to the agreement between the regime and Hillary Clinton while she was SOS all funds given to them from foreign donors had to be cleared by the State Department. Wikileaks exposed the “gift” a while back. And now they are forced to admit it. And figure out a way to “excuse” it. Reply - Share uncle Bob 1 Today 9:25 pm
To the US’s “eternal shame” we now have the choice for President between the “smut talking clown” (Trump) and the “criminal warmonger” (Clinton).I don’t really care too much about Trump’s antics. But I have kids,and friends,I don’t want dying in neo-con wars.So the choice is totally clear for me. I’m hoping Trump wins. Though I’m not holding my breath over that hope. Reply - Share | 0 |
Near the end of his interview with Bill Murray, Howard Stern turned an already somber discussion about missed career opportunities into an existential grilling. “Is there something that you question in your own life,” Mr. Stern asked, “like why haven’t I found that great love of my life?” Mr. Murray audibly exhaled and let a pensive moment of silence pass. “Well, I think about that, I do think about that, that um, you know. I’m not sure what my — what I’m getting done here,” he said, sounding like a man questioning his ultimate purpose. Dating seemed like a bad idea, he went on, given that he was such a mystery to himself, and a mystery that he was not very eager to solve. “What has stopped you from getting in touch with you?” asked Robin Quivers, Mr. Stern’s longtime . “What stops us from looking at ourselves and seeing ourselves is that we’re kind of ugly, if we really, if we look really hard,” Mr. Murray replied. “We’re not who we think we are. We’re not, uh we’re not as wonderful as we think we are. ” As an irregular listener of “The Howard Stern Show,” I found this conversation, which took place in 2014, a bit startling. For years, Mr. Stern was known principally for pushing the limits of taste as the ringmaster of a raunchy circus of pranksters, oddballs and strippers. During his decades on terrestrial radio, his main passions seemed to be, in no particular order, boob jobs, prostitutes, lesbians and flatulence. Introspection and empathy were not fortes. What I didn’t appreciate, until hearing Mr. Murray lay bare his deepest anxieties, is that since settling in to his new home on satellite radio, which he did in 2006, Mr. Stern and his show have gradually taken on an improbable new dimension. Scattered among the gleefully vulgar mainstays are now long, starkly intimate live exchanges — character excavations that have made Mr. Stern one of the most deft and engrossing celebrity interviewers in the business and a stop for stars selling a movie or setting the record straight. “He’s truth serum,” said the comedian Amy Schumer, who has been on the show four times in the last five years. “It’s like you’re under contract to be totally honest in there, and even though it’s being broadcast, it feels super intimate and protected, even though you definitely aren’t. ” By all accounts, the metamorphosis has been slow — the result of a combination of therapy, his second marriage, mainstream acceptance and a sixth sense Mr. Stern has about how to evolve with the times. “I couldn’t have done the show I’m doing now 20 years ago,” Mr. Stern said over the phone. “I’ve changed a lot. I’d be sort of pathetic if I’d reached this point in my life and I hadn’t. How else do you have longevity? There are so many guys who started out with me in radio, who have disappeared, because they can’t broaden their view of what entertainment should be, or get in touch with what they find to be exciting and fun and funny. ” Mr. Stern, 62, has not dropped the material, and the freedom of satellite radio allows him and his crew to indulge an unconditional love for profanity. But he seems warmer now and his interest in people has never had greater depth or range. The interviews give the show a heft that it didn’t formerly have, turning his New York studio at SiriusXM into a destination of choice for those who a decade ago might have steered clear. “Today, if you go on a TV talk show and give a great six or seven minutes, people will link to it, if it’s incredible,” said Lewis Kay, who oversees media for Tracy Morgan, Amy Poehler and others. “But if you kill on Stern, it moves the needle. ” Sometimes the results are concrete. Ms. Schumer’s interview on “Howard Stern” prompted Judd Apatow to seek her out, resulting in a collaboration that produced “Trainwreck. ” But it’s far more common for celebrities to get the amorphous, though palpable, sense that by appearing on the show they have climbed a few rungs on the fame ladder. This has something to do with the fervor of Mr. Stern’s fans, and their ubiquity. “Aside from the fact that millions of people hear you, the cross section of who hears you is what blew me away,” said Ike Barinholtz, an actor and comedian who has appeared on the show three times since 2014. “When you have a head of a movie studio in Los Angeles and a New York City police officer both tell you that it was good when you made fun of Ronnie the Limo Driver,” — Mr. Stern’s chauffeur and an regular — “you know you’re dealing with a special entity. ” Revelations on the show sometimes make news, as happened last year when the “Modern Family” star Sofia Vergara discussed the feud with her over frozen embryos. (All four of the major morning TV shows turned that into a story.) But more often, Mr. Stern just elicits the most interesting version of his visitors, through curiosity, patience and the benefits of huge and blocks of time. The interviews are too long for anyone to fall back on jukebox answers they’ve been playing for years. Conan O’Brien described himself on the show as “somewhat medicated” in a discussion about his depression. Lady Gaga talked about the days she used to snort cocaine all by herself, while she wrote music. John Goodman admitted that he turned up drunk a few times on the set of “The Big Lebowski. ” In the era of the celebrity, where public image is carefully tailored on social media and authentic candor is rare, the interviews are an almost radical rebuttal to the games and singalongs popularized by Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show” Mr. Stern believes his approach isn’t just better radio, but also better for whatever product his guest is promoting. “If someone comes in and the audience feels like ‘Oh my god, I love this person,’ they will want to see their movie,” he said. “It’s a strange thing to say to someone trained in P. R. but it’s the God’s honest truth. If someone has an hour to sit and talk about their life and at the end they say, ‘By the way, that’s what brought me to this movie, or to write this book,’ it’s such a powerful vehicle for promotion. ” It wasn’t easy convincing Mr. Stern to do an interview about his skills as an interviewer. Initially he said no, and a week later, when he changed his mind, he would talk only on the phone. The irony did not elude him. “But I feel like it’s a bit for me to participate in this,” he said. “It’s one thing for you to say I’m doing a good job as an interviewer. It almost takes away from it for me to say, ‘Yeah, I am. ’” Mr. Stern started in radio in the and by 1986 he had a nationally syndicated show, one that would eventually reach 20 million listeners. To his most ardent fans, he loomed so large that he seemed like a lifestyle choice as much as an entertainer. They followed him as he ventured into books, events, television and film. The government was less enamored and fined him often enough to make him a First Amendment hero. Tired of free speech battles, he signed a five year, $500 million deal with Sirius and started swearing with élan in 2006. Some worried that Mr. Stern would disappear once he went off radio, and for many he did. But Sirius — now SiriusXM, after merging with its biggest rival — currently has 30 million subscribers. Exactly how many are listening to Mr. Stern the company won’t say, but his chops as an interviewer are a significant part of his appeal. This is especially true in Los Angeles, where meetings have been known to be delayed because people are sitting in the parking lot, waiting for the last question. “One of the most common conversations I have about Howard is something like, ‘I was stuck in my car because Sia was on,’ or ‘He was finishing up an interview with Jeff Bridges,’” said Jeff Probst, the host of “Survivor” and Stern superfan. “You start calculating how late you’ll be to the meeting based on where Howard is in his interview. ” It makes sense that the celebrity capital of the world would be so interested in celebrity chatter. “Among showbiz types, being a Stern fan is something like belonging to a secret society,” said Andy Richter, the longtime sidekick of Conan O’Brien. “So when I bump into someone like, say, Jonah Hill, one of us will invariably say ‘Did you hear Stern interview?’ — and then you fill in the blank of the last big interview he did. ” Stars have been invited on the air by Mr. Stern for nearly as long as he’s been in radio, but most kept their distance. “The show had a reputation for being nutty and off the wall and people didn’t want to be associated with it,” said Jackie Martling, known as the Jokeman, who left the show in 2001, after nearly 20 years. “Once they got there, they found out that the bark was much worse than the bite. ” There were exceptions. Back in 1983, when Mr. Stern worked at WNBC, his interview with Gilda Radner ended with her in tears. At the time, Mr. Stern lacked the emotional I. Q. to pick up signals that his guest was unnerved, until it was too late. Most interviews ended amicably, but you often had the sense that Mr. Stern was more interested in entertaining himself and his crew than making guests look good. Then there were the that he probably assumed would never appear on his show and whom he didn’t mind ridiculing, in absentia. “I didn’t think you guys liked me,” Madonna said on the air last year, explaining why she had avoided the show for so long. “You said bad things about me. ” Mr. Stern explained to her: “I used to say bad things about everyone. I was angry, quite frankly. I was an angry young man. ” Mr. Stern still claims on the show to be an anxious mess, but he sounds calmer and more content. He plainly roots for all his guests and his questions reflect sensitivities unimaginable even a few years ago. Recently, he asked Tina Fey if “Who are you wearing?” is a sexist question to ask women at the Oscars. (Nah, she said.) Lena Dunham called him “an outspoken feminist” on “The Tonight Show. ” This is the same guy who, for years, traded misogynistic quips with anyone who was game, including, Donald J. Trump. In a 2005 phone interview, the two rated the looks of the cast of “Desperate Housewives. ” “Would you go out with Marcia Cross,” Mr. Trump asked, “or would you turn gay, Howard?” “She’s got a good body,” he answered. “Just put a bag over her head. ” Pinpointing when Mr. Stern started his deep interview phase isn’t easy. It certainly was after he joined Sirius and it has intensified in the last two and a half years, according to his longtime producer, Gary Dell’Abate. “We never sat down and said, ‘This is what we’re going to do,’” he said. “It was organic. The caliber of guests got a little better, Howard’s research got a little better, publicists out there started saying, ‘Wow, that was a great interview. ’” Friends and fans attribute Mr. Stern’s evolution in large part to his marriage, in 2008, to Beth Ostrosky Stern, a former model who not only has left him lovestruck, but turned him into an animal rescue advocate. Serving as a judge on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent,” which he did for four years, also proved that his days as an outsider scrabbling for mainstream credibility were behind him. “For a long time, he was an underdog, he was always fighting the establishment,” Mr. Probst said. “Being a judge on ‘America’s Got Talent’ said to him, ‘You are deserving, you are legitimate.’ I think it is one reason Howard said to himself, ‘O. K. people really do like me. People really respect me.’ And maybe that chip on his shoulder is gone. ” Therapy has also been key. For years, Mr. Stern was in psychoanalysis, as he frequently reminds listeners. (He’s since cut back.) Not only has this given him a modicum of inner peace, it has provided him with a set of tools that he uses on guests the way a safecracker opens a vault. To the extent that Mr. Stern has competitors it is the short list of shows that interview celebrities at length. That includes public radio’s “Fresh Air,” though its host, Terry Gross, has only a fraction of the appetite for the intensely personal questions that are Mr. Stern’s bailiwick. (When was the last time she asked a pop star about groupies?) His nearest rival is perhaps WTF, the podcast of comedian Marc Maron, who fearlessly plumbs the psyches of his guests and has a special fascination with the way parents warp their children. The difference between the two hosts is stylistic. When Mr. Stern sounds like a shrink, he has the physician’s discipline to keep the conversation about the patient. Mr. Maron is more like a fellow neurotic who wants to compare notes in the waiting room. Much of his show is the host elaborating on his own struggles, which by now are pretty familiar. If Mr. Stern has a weakness as an interviewer it’s his tendency to interrupt guests, who sometimes seem one second of quiet away from a breakthrough. This occasionally gives the show an almost prosecutorial pace, and suggests he doesn’t fully trust his audience’s attention span. And in rare instances when a guest isn’t willing to bare all — Stevie Wonder comes to mind — Mr. Stern can take a little too long to grasp that sex and personal income questions aren’t working. Most of the time, though, Mr. Stern probes exactly where you would if you had the nerve. He asked Bryan Cranston if he wished there had been “ sex scenes” in “Breaking Bad. ” (Answer: yes.) He gave Katherine Heigl time to describe getting snubbed at a restaurant by her “Knocked Up” Seth Rogen because she had the movie in a Vanity Fair interview. These interviews are also strategic, as Mr. Stern has intuited that outrageousness won’t suffice on satellite radio, a realm without limits, and therefore a place where nothing is outrageous. Keep in mind that Mr. Stern could once cause a stir by referring to masturbation on the radio. No set schedule is kept for interviews, which Mr. Stern conducts Monday through Wednesday, the only days he now works, after a contract renegotiation in 2011. To prepare, he and a couple staffers will read and compile notes over the course of days. Mr. Stern might strategize for as long as a week, figuring out what he would want to hear if he were listening. Right before the interview begins, a point man will read aloud the team’s collective jottings. “And then it just sticks in my head and I memorize it,” Mr. Stern said. “I don’t love the process. I get very anxious and uncomfortable because I want it to be so good. I want the audience to enjoy it, I want the performer to feel comfortable. It’s a whole psycho deal. ” While chunks of the show are more grown up than ever, sex and strippers remain a preoccupation. The Wack Pack, an unpaid and rotating cast of eccentrics, still have plenty of time to heckle one another and the staff, though some have been rechristened with less offensive names. (Wendy the Retard is now Wendy the Slow Adult, for instance.) Prank phone calls remain a staple. Not long ago, a Hillary Clinton called a skywriting company and asked if it would spell out a derogatory slogan about Bernie Sanders’s bathroom habits. Still, the show now includes enough lengthy interviews, delving into enough serious topics, to annoy some longtime fans. They fume on Reddit. They also call the show. Mr. Stern will occasionally put them on the air and let them vent. Enough with the talk about regrets and depression, they will say. We want naked women. | 1 |
Hillary Clinton’s advisers are talking to Donald J. Trump’s ghostwriter of “The Art of the Deal,” seeking insights about Mr. Trump’s deepest insecurities as they devise strategies to needle and undermine him in four weeks at the first presidential debate, the most anticipated in a generation. Her team is also getting advice from psychology experts to help create a personality profile of Mr. Trump to gauge how he may respond to attacks and deal with a woman as his sole adversary on the debate stage. They are undertaking a analysis of Mr. Trump’s performances in the Republican primary debates, cataloging strengths and weaknesses as well as trigger points that caused him to lash out in ways. As Mrs. Clinton pores over this voluminous research with her debate team, most recently for several hours on Friday, and her aides continue searching for someone who can rattle her as a Trump during mock debates, Mr. Trump is taking the opposite tack. Though he spent hours with his debate team the last two Sundays, the sessions were more freewheeling than focused, and he can barely conceal his disdain for laborious and theatrical practice sessions. “I believe you can prep too much for those things,” Mr. Trump said in an interview last week. “It can be dangerous. You can sound scripted or phony — like you’re trying to be someone you’re not. ” Rarely are debate preparations as illuminating about the candidates as a debate itself, but Mrs. Clinton’s and Mr. Trump’s strikingly different approaches to the Sept. 26 are more revealing about their egos and battlefield instincts than most other moments in the campaign. Mrs. Clinton, a deeply competitive debater, wants to crush Mr. Trump on live television, but not with an avalanche of policy details she is searching for ways to bait him into making blunders. Mr. Trump, a supremely confident communicator, wants viewers to see him as a political outsider and trusts that he can box in Mrs. Clinton on her ethics and honesty. He has been especially resistant to his advisers’ suggestions that he take part in mock debates with a Clinton . At their first session devoted to the debate, on Aug. 21 at Mr. Trump’s club in Bedminster, N. J. the conservative radio host Laura Ingraham was on hand to offer counsel and, if Mr. Trump was game, to play Mrs. Clinton, said Trump advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the debate preparations were supposed to be kept private. He declined. Instead, Mr. Trump asked a battery of questions about debate topics, Mrs. Clinton’s skills and possible moderators, but people close to him said relatively little had been accomplished. At that gathering, and another in Bedminster on Sunday without Ms. Ingraham, Mr. Trump was joined by Roger Ailes, who was ousted as Fox News chairman last month over accusations of sexual harassment. Mr. Trump, in the interview, said he saw little use in standing at lecterns and pretending to debate his opponent. “I know who I am, and it got me here,” Mr. Trump said, boasting of success in his 11 primary debate appearances and in capturing the Republican nomination over veteran politicians and polished debaters. “I don’t want to present a false front. I mean, it’s possible we’ll do a mock debate, but I don’t see a real need. ” Mr. Trump’s certitude — “I know how to handle Hillary,” he said — reflects his belief that the debates will be won or lost not on policy points and mastery of details, which are Mrs. Clinton’s strengths, but on the authenticity, boldness and leadership that the nominees demonstrate onstage. Mr. Trump is certain that he holds advantages here, saying Mrs. Clinton is likely to come across as a typical politician spouting rehearsed lines. For Mrs. Clinton, who can appear most at peace with a briefing book in her hand, there is no such thing as too much preparation. She met on Friday with key members of her debate team — the longtime Democratic operative Ron Klain, the Washington lawyer Karen Dunn and her senior strategist, Joel Benenson — and delved into the campaign’s extensive data on Mr. Trump and the likely questions and themes at the debate, according to two campaign advisers who requested anonymity to reveal internal campaign dynamics. In compiling research to help Mrs. Clinton prepare, her advisers have cast a wide net. They contacted Tony Schwartz, the “Art of the Deal” to give them advice about Mr. Trump this summer — even though Mr. Schwartz’s immersion in Mr. Trump’s life and homes ended in the . But Clinton advisers said Mr. Schwartz and other writers who had observed Mr. Trump up close, as well as unnamed psychology experts they had spoken to, were critical to understanding how to get under Mr. Trump’s skin. These Clinton advisers agree with Mr. Trump’s belief that the debate will not be remembered as pitting a policy expert against a Washington outsider. Instead, her campaign is preparing ways for her to unnerve Mr. Trump and provoke him to rant and rave. The Clinton camp believes that Mr. Trump is most insecure about his intelligence, his net worth and his image as a successful businessman, and those are the areas they are working with Mrs. Clinton to target. Mr. Schwartz, in an interview, declined to comment about any conversations with the Clinton campaign, but he said Mr. Trump would be vulnerable if Mrs. Clinton proved to be calm, deliberate and relentless in attacking Mr. Trump’s character, volatility and readiness to be commander in chief. “Trump has severe attention problems and simply cannot take in complex information — he will be unable to practice for these debates,” said Mr. Schwartz, who was the subject of a New Yorker profile last month that portrayed Mr. Trump as a charlatan. “Trump will bring nothing but his bluster to the debates. He’ll use language, he will repeat himself many times, he won’t complete sentences, and he won’t say anything of substance. ” “Even so,” Mr. Schwartz said, “Clinton has to be careful — she could get everything right and still potentially lose the debates if she comes off as too condescending, too much of a . ” Mrs. Clinton’s advisers plan to have one person prepare extensively to play Mr. Trump in a series of mock in the days before the first debate, which will be held at Hofstra University on Long Island. Mrs. Clinton’s team is also taking a hard look at her vulnerabilities. Even supporters have often questioned the clarity and wisdom of the campaign’s responses to uproars over Mrs. Clinton’s private email server and donations to the Clinton Foundation. There is hope that the debate stage will allow her a chance to at last address such questions with more brevity and less equivocation. The least comfortable task, though, will most likely be girding for personal attacks from Mr. Trump, who has shown an eagerness to resuscitate Clinton scandals — real and imagined — at virtually every opportunity. Allies have insisted that Mrs. Clinton will not shy away from preparing for the most painful insults, including a possible focus on her husband’s infidelities. “She knows that it’s coming,” said Jennifer Granholm, a former Michigan governor and a member of Mrs. Clinton’s transition planning team. Mr. Trump said in the interview that he would “rather not” attack Mrs. Clinton on personal grounds, including Bill Clinton’s extramarital affairs. “If she hits me, though — you have to see what happens,” Mr. Trump said. It was this unpredictability that often made Mr. Trump an elusive target for fellow Republicans in the primary debates, and some close to Mrs. Clinton expressed concern that any false charges from Mr. Trump could rankle her. “This is a special challenge for Hillary, who is deeply rooted in the world,” said Paul Begala, who helped prepare Mr. Clinton for debates in 1992 and 1996. “She is more wonk than pol, so she might be especially frustrated by a steady stream of invective, conspiracy theories and lies. ” Around the Clinton campaign, the question of whom to cast as Mr. Trump has become something of a running parlor game. Mrs. Clinton’s allies have floated several options: Representative Joseph Crowley of New York, who is from Queens, where Mr. Trump grew up James Carville, Mr. Clinton’s chief strategist in 1992, who has a gift for lacerating banter or Mark Cuban, another billionaire businessman. All three are viewed as unafraid to say some humiliating things to Mrs. Clinton’s face, as Mr. Trump may. At least a few old Clinton hands have suggested enlisting professional entertainers, like Jon Stewart or Alec Baldwin. Mr. Trump’s search so far seems to be less exhaustive: He said his daughter Ivanka could end up playing Mrs. Clinton. “Wouldn’t she be great at that?” Mr. Trump asked. “Maybe. ” | 1 |
President Donald Trump on Monday touched down in Israel for a visit to the Jewish state, the second stop of his first foreign as U. S. president. [Trump was greeted at a red carpet ceremony at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv by a large delegation that included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sarah as well as Netanyahu’s cabinet, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, government ministers and Knesset Members. Trump’s tour here marks the first time a U. S. president visited Israel during a first presidential trip abroad. “Never before has the first foreign trip of the president of the United States included a visit to Israel,” Netanyahu said in his remarks at the airport ceremony. “Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for this powerful expression of your friendship to Israel. Upon landing, Trump praised “unbreakable bond” between the U. S. and Israel. “On my first trip overseas as president, I have come to this sacred and ancient land to reaffirm the unbreakable bond between the United States and the State of Israel,” Trump said. “We love Israel, we respect Israel, and I bring the warmest greetings from your friend and ally, all of the people of the United States of America,” Trump stated. He continued: During my travels in recent days, I have found new reasons for hope. I have just concluded a visit to Saudi Arabia, where yesterday I met with King Salman and leaders from across the Muslim and Arab world. In that visit we reached a historic agreement to pursue greater and greater [cooperation] against terrorism. We have before us a rare opportunity to bring security and stability and peace to this region and to its people, defeating terrorism and creating a future of harmony prosperity and peace. But we can only get there working together. There is no other way. Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, I look forward to working with both of you during my stay. Natanyahu pointed out that in Saudi Arabia yesterday, Trump “delivered a forceful speech on terrorism and extremism, called on forces of civilization to confront the forces of barbarism. ” “For 69 years, Israel has been doing just that,” Netanyahu said. “We’ve manned the of civilization. ” “In doing so we’ve protected all faiths, Muslims, Christians, everyone,” Netanyahu said. “Israel’s hand is extended in peace to all our neighbors, including the Palestinians,” Netanyahu continued. “The peace we seek is a genuine one, in which the Jewish state is recognized, security remains in Israel’s hands, and the conflict ends once and for all. ” “Mr. President, you just flew from Riyadh to Tel Aviv,” Netanyahu added. “I hope that one day an Israeli prime minister can fly from Tel Aviv to Riyadh. ” After the arrival ceremony at Ben Gurion Airport, Trump will travel by helicopter to Jerusalem and meet with Rivlin at the Israeli president’s residence. From there he will continue to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the holiest sites in Christianity, and stop for a visit to the Western Wall before heading to a private social dinner with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On Tuesday, Trump’s schedule includes a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem and a wreath laying ceremony at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. Trump will then give a speech at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem before departing the country. Trump will be in Jerusalem on Jerusalem Day, a national holiday here that marks Israel’s reunification of Jerusalem after the 1967 Six Day War and the establishment of Israeli sovereignty over the eastern sections of the city, which include the Old City, Western Wall and Temple Mount. Many will be watching to see if Trump uses the visit to announce a move of the U. S. embassy from the beach in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, although reports put that as unlikely. U. S. law requires the relocation of the embassy to Jerusalem. However, President Obama signed successive waivers delaying the move. The current waiver expires on June 1. Numerous reports in recent days cited White House officials saying that Trump is not expected to use the visit to announce an embassy move. Still, that prognosis is subject to change. “The president has not made a decision yet and is still reviewing that,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said last week. Focus will also be on whether Trump uses the trip to announce that the U. S. will broker new talks aimed at creating a Palestinian state. There have been reports Trump is seeking to talks for a period of six to twelve months without preconditions. The Palestinian Authority has a history of bolting talks and rejecting each previous Israeli offer of a state. These offers were made at Camp David in 2000, Taba in 2001, the Annapolis Conference in 2007 and again in 2008. The past few years, the PA also failed to respond to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unprecedented attempts to negotiations aimed at creating a Palestinian state, including freezing Jewish construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, and releasing Palestinian prisoners. 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. | 1 |
Doctors supporting a return to medicine say CNN’s Obamacare debate this week between Sens. Ted Cruz ( ) and Bernie Sanders ( ) shows the claims by proponents of a health care system need to be challenged. [Claim #1: 20 million people will lose health care if ACA is repealed. Sanders said repeal of Obamacare “means that if you are one of 20 million Americans who finally has received health insurance, forget about it, you’re gone. You’re off health insurance. ” “First off, among the purported 20 million who obtained health insurance through the ACA, 16 million are on Medicaid, and if ACA were repealed today, they’d still be on Medicaid,” Dr. Gerard Gianoli, the Ear and Balance Institute, reacts to Breitbart News. He continues: Also, of those 16 million, approximately 75% qualified for Medicaid before the ACA. The only reason they didn’t have Medicaid before the ACA was because they hadn’t applied for it. They had no healthcare needs and only applied after the ACA because of the proposed penalty. Among the nearly 5 million who have subsidized private insurance through the ACA, they have insurance plans with $6, 000 deductibles. These people are the poor and don’t even have a net worth of $6, 000. It would make more sense for these patients to stop wasting their money on their portion of the insurance premiums and have no insurance. They could pay cash for their healthcare needs and if they have a catastrophic illness, apply for Medicaid. Dr. Kristin Held, a ophthalmologist, also tells Breitbart News the “20 million” who would lose coverage if Obamacare is repealed is “more like four million. ” She asserts that Cruz’s use of a “map illustrating that in 70% of U. S. counties on Obamacare exchanges you have a choice of only one or two healthcare plans” was “masterful. ” Held explains: You lack choice and competition on Obamacare exchanges. Cruz proposed solutions including increasing choice, allowing people to purchase plans across state lines, expand health savings accounts, and make insurance portable — all controlled by the individual, not the government. Sen. Cruz pointed out that Obamacare isn’t working and was built on an edifice of lies — 6 million lost their plans, plans cost $5000 more not $2500 less. Government control messed this all up, and Sanders wants more government. Claim #2: Healthcare is a right. In his opening statement, Sanders cut right to the chase — the “moral” argument for “ ” health care. The senator said: The United States is the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a right. I believe we should move in that direction. The ACA has been a step forward. We have got to go further and join every other major country on Earth and say that if you are an American, you are guaranteed health care as a right, not a privilege. Both senators responded to a woman who said her Obamacare insurance plan’s high deductible and premiums prevented her from seeking further care after an abnormal pap smear. ‘Now, if you were in Canada, you know what, you would get the health care that you needed,” Sanders said to her. “If you were in the U. K. France, Germany, Scandinavia, you would get the health care you need as a right of being a citizen in this country. ” Cruz, however, responded, that when healthcare is considered a “right” to be fulfilled by government, it gets rationed to save costs. He replied: The United States, population controlled, delivers three times as many mammograms as Europe, times the number of MRI scans, and 31 percent more . We provide more health care. Not only that, in the United Kingdom, for example, wait times, in 2013, you waited 72 days for cataract surgery, you waited 89 days for hip replacement, 95 days for knee replacement. There are 3. 7 million people in the United Kingdom right now on a waiting list, waiting for health care. Whenever you put government in charge of health care, what it means is they ration. They decide you get care and you don’t. I don’t think the government has any business telling you you’re not entitled to receive health care. That’s why I think the answer is not more of Obamacare, more government control, more of what got us in this mess. Rather, the answer is empower you. Give you choices. Lower prices. Lower premiums. Lower deductibles. Empower you and put you back in charge of your health care. “Cruz superbly refuted Sanders’ claims with specifics about the failures of these systems,” Held observes. Claim #3: People go without healthcare if they have no insurance. Gianoli asserts: Sen. Sanders equates health insurance with health care. This is utter nonsense and a ploy by the left to claim that people go without healthcare if they have no insurance. In fact, people without insurance and pay cash for health care have better outcomes than those who have Medicaid. Just because you have health insurance does not mean you will get health care. Ask any of the 50, 000 Canadians who migrate south to the U. S. for health care. They got frustrated with a system that does not deliver on the promise for healthcare for all. Health insurance is not healthcare. “No one in the U. S. goes without health care,” Gianoli states. “The poorest among us (those on Medicaid) get better quality care and better access to healthcare than the richest of those in the countries with socialized medicine. ” Claim #4: 52 million people with conditions could lose coverage if Obamacare is repealed. CNN moderator Dana Bash actually made this claim when she said, “If Obamacare is repealed, 52 million Americans could lose that guaranteed coverage because of their medical histories. ” Obamacare expert Betsy McCaughey notes at the Wall Street Journal the number of Americans with conditions is “more like 500, 000. ” She continues: For starters, half of Americans get their insurance through an employer, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Another 34% are on Medicaid or Medicare. For all these people, conditions are no barrier to coverage. conditions mattered before ObamaCare only in the individual market, but even there few were affected. In 2010 Rep. Henry Waxman, then the Democratic chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, issued a report on the individual market. It stated that the four largest insurers — Aetna, Humana, UnitedHealth and WellPoint — declined to issue policies to about 250, 000 people a year because of their medical histories. A 2011 report from the Government Accountability Office found a similar number. Additionally, while health insurance proponents want Americans to focus on the issue of those with “ conditions,” Cruz observed that little attention has been given to the millions of Americans who were dropped from their insurance when Obamacare became law, as well as those for whom Obamacare’s high deductibles and premiums make their health insurance unusable. Cruz said: And, you know, the question I asked a minute ago that Bernie chose not to answer is, what do the Democrats say to the 6 million people who had their insurance policies canceled, who got a notification in the mail that you don’t get to see your doctors anymore? And not just the people who were canceled. There are people all over this country who can’t afford health insurance because of Obamacare, who the deductibles are so high, the premiums are so high, they say, you know what, my family, we can’t make it on this? “There are people who can’t afford care because of Obamacare, because the deductibles and premiums are so high,” Held agrees. “Most of the people covered by Obamacare are on Medicaid, while 6. 5 million are being fined. ” In its recently released white paper on the “ of the Affordable Care Act,” AAPS discusses why those with conditions don’t have to lose coverage if Obamacare is repealed: There is now a large pool of people with conditions, and a free market is likely to develop appropriate products. Most could be covered at a higher price. Previously existing state pools could be as Alaska recently did. As market reforms — and restoring insurance to its role of reimbursing people for catastrophic losses — result in drastic reductions in price, the burden will be much less. Claim #5: People need health insurance to obtain routine healthcare. Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and a specialist in internal medicine, tells Breitbart News if people pay for their own routine health care, costs for that care would come down. She recommends “insurance” for catastrophic care only. “‘Insurance’ ( payment) costs way too much, as does medical care, and one cost spiral enables the other,” she explains. “We need to get the middleman out of medical care, restore true insurance, and insist on honest price signals. The right ways to buy medical care are cash, catastrophic insurance, and charity. We need to stop the legal plunder. ” | 1 |
Snow reports from around the Northland through 9 a.m. Saturday By Andrew Krueger Today at 9:26 a.m. Brian Parendo of Esko shovels heavy, wet show from his driveway Friday morning. "I'm happy it lasted this long," he said, referring to the long spell of warm weather that preceded the storm. Bob King / [email protected] Snow reports from around the Northland as of 9 a.m. Saturday, as relayed by the National Weather Service in Duluth. This list will be updated if additional reports are received. Check back to www.duluthnewstribune.com for updates. Recommended for you | 0 |
President Barack Obama honored his own Vice President with a Presidential Medal of Freedom on Thursday afternoon, calling him a “lion of American History. ”[“He’s been unafraid to give it to me straight,” Obama said, referring to the advice he received from Biden over the years. Biden awkwardly stood as Obama delivered a lengthy speech praising his Vice President, wiping away tears. “This gives the Internet one last chance to talk about our bromance,” Obama joked during his speech. But when Obama surprised Biden by awarding him the medal, it prompted Biden to turn his back to the audience to hide his tears. “It is as Joe once said, a … big deal,” Obama said, referring to the moment that Biden famously dropped an expletive after Obamacare was passed. | 0 |
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Roger Ailes’s tenure as the head of Fox News appears to be over. Mr. Ailes and 21st Century Fox, Fox News’s parent company, are in the advanced stages of discussions that would lead to his departure as chairman, Susan Estrich, one of Mr. Ailes’s lawyers, said in an interview on Tuesday. The development follows a sexual harassment suit filed on July 6 against Mr. Ailes by a former anchor, Gretchen Carlson. The suit prompted 21st Century Fox to conduct an internal review and it set off an intense round of speculation in the news media and the television industry about Mr. Ailes’s future at Fox News. On Tuesday, the sides were negotiating terms that could include Mr. Ailes’s staying on in a consulting role for Fox News. Ms. Estrich said nothing had been finalized about what sort of continuing role he could have at the network. “Roger is at work,” 21st Century Fox said in a statement. “The review is ongoing. And the only agreement that is in place is his existing employment agreement. ” Mr. Ailes’s exit would be a humbling and startlingly sudden fall from power for a man who started Fox News from scratch 20 years ago and built it into a cable news network and a critical profit center for 21st Century Fox. Along the way, Mr. Ailes, a former Republican operative, established Fox News as the leading media platform for conservative politics. He also minted stars like Bill O’Reilly, Megyn Kelly and Greta Van Susteren. Mr. Ailes, 76, has also long been at the center of Republican politics, and the timing of the discussions between Mr. Ailes and 21st Century Fox was remarkable, occurring on the second day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. News of Mr. Ailes’s impending exit landed like a shock wave in Cleveland, where many of the nation’s leading television executives and personalities were gathered in tight quarters. Several Fox anchors who were approached on Tuesday afternoon declined to comment on Mr. Ailes’s fate, many having followed developments from the chaotic convention scene. Rupert Murdoch, who was on vacation with his wife, Jerry Hall, on the French Riviera, had been in constant telephone contact with his sons, James and Lachlan, on the matter, according to a person familiar with the discussions. All three were in agreement on Mr. Ailes’s fate, the person said, though the moment was particularly poignant for the elder Mr. Murdoch, whose successful partnership with Mr. Ailes spanned more than two decades. Both James and Lachlan have had disagreements with Mr. Ailes over the years. One of the people who participated in the investigation was the network’s most popular female star, Ms. Kelly. She told investigators that Mr. Ailes had made advances toward her multiple times in the past, according to two people briefed on the matter. (Ms. Kelly’s accusations were first reported by New York magazine.) Other employees also told the investigators that they had been harassed by Mr. Ailes, one of the people briefed on the matter said. In a statement, Ms. Estrich, Mr. Ailes’s lawyer, said: “Roger Ailes has never sexually harassed Megyn Kelly. In fact, he has spent much of the last decade promoting and helping her to achieve the stardom she earned, for which she has repeatedly and publicly thanked him. ” Ms. Kelly’s lawyer, Willis J. Goldsmith, said in a statement, “Megyn Kelly has made no public comment on the matter, nor will she while the review is pending, other than to say she has cooperated with the inquiry fully and truthfully. ” Her revelations to investigators contrast with comments she made earlier about the Fox News chairman. In an interview two months ago, before a special that Mr. Ailes orchestrated, she said she “loved working for Roger Ailes. ” “The number of times he’s had my back, given me opportunities, stuck his own neck out there to protect me, I feel very grateful to him,” she said. “And I feel loyal to him. ” The events leading to Tuesday’s developments began when Ms. Carlson, who had been an anchor in Fox News’s afternoon lineup, filed a lawsuit saying she had been fired from her weekday show on Fox News after rebuffing sexual advances from Mr. Ailes. On the day Ms. Carlson filed her suit, 21st Century Fox said it would conduct an internal review, and the company retained the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton Garrison to lead the investigation. Though more than a dozen personalities have come forward in the last two weeks to publicly support Mr. Ailes — with several questioning Ms. Carlson’s motivations — Ms. Kelly was, noticeably, not among them. She has the stature within the network to withstand any pressure to support Mr. Ailes. In part, that is because of her high ratings (she has the show in cable news, behind only Mr. O’Reilly’s) but she is also well liked by the Murdoch family, which has indicated it would like her to be an important part of Fox’s future. Ms. Kelly’s contract expires next year. News of Mr. Ailes’s impending exit played out chaotically over the last two days. In response to a New York magazine article on Monday that said the Murdochs were ready to push Mr. Ailes out, 21st Century Fox further fueled speculation by issuing a statement saying, “This matter is not yet resolved. ” A version of Mr. Ailes’s potential separation agreement — which included a consultancy clause and a $40 million payout — was posted online by The Drudge Report on Tuesday afternoon, prompting Fox to scramble to inform reporters that the agreement was not final. The Drudge Report, which like Fox News came of age in the late 1990s, deleted its initial Twitter message that included the agreement. Later, The Drudge Report reported that some of the network’s stars were planning a meeting to discuss a potential raising questions about whether Mr. Ailes would seek to persuade them to leave the network with him, if their contracts permitted. But Ms. Estrich, his lawyer, said he would work to ensure a smooth transition. “Roger Ailes is committed to the future and success of Fox News, and he’s devoted the last 20 years of his life to building it and he hopes it will survive long past his time and Rupert’s time,” she said. “Nobody is more committed to Fox News than the man who built it. ” Some of Fox News’s stars have a clause in their contracts that would permit them to leave if Mr. Ailes were no longer in a position of power. And though 21st Century Fox executives are aware of those clauses, they are prepared to take on that risk, a person familiar with the discussions said. Fox News has been the No. cable news station for 15 years, and it has never done better than this year: Through June, it is having its year. In October, Fox News will celebrate its 20th anniversary, a milestone executives have been proudly discussing for months. Fox News has long been controversial, and an occasional source of embarrassment to other parts of 21st Century Fox, but it has been good for business. Fox News represents about 20 percent of all earnings at 21st Century Fox, generating more than $1 billion. Meanwhile, the lawsuit against Mr. Ailes continues to grind on. On Monday, Ms. Carlson’s lawyers asked a New Jersey federal judge to dismiss Mr. Ailes’s motion that the case be sent to New York federal court and then submitted for arbitration. Mr. Ailes is named in the suit but Fox News is not. In the suit, Ms. Carlson accuses Mr. Ailes of ogling her in his office and calling her “sexy. ” She also said she had been sexually harassed by her former “Fox and Friends” Steve Doocy. When asked about the culture at Fox News in an interview with The New York Times last week, Ms. Carlson, 50, said: “Everyone knew how powerful Roger Ailes was. I certainly felt intimidated by that. ” She said that during a meeting last fall to discuss her concerns that she was being treated unfairly, Mr. Ailes told her, “I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago, and then you’d be good and better and I’d be good and better. ” Her description of sexual harassment and retaliation was followed by accounts of other women who said Mr. Ailes acted inappropriately in professional settings from the to the late 1980s. Mr. Ailes and his lawyers have been unequivocal in their response to the accusations: He said that Ms. Carlson’s contract was not renewed because it had low ratings, and his lawyers said that all of the allegations were false. | 1 |
Get short URL 0 27 0 0 The head of the German delegation, which is currently visiting Crimea, Andreas Maurer pledged on Wednesday to respond to the Ukrainian authorities' threats over the unauthorized trip, with another visit to the peninsula.
SIMFEROPOL (Sputnik) — Maurer, who is the chairman of the Left Party (Die Linke) parliamentary faction in the town of Quakenbruck in Lower Saxony, also noted that the Ukrainian authorities had threatened him with up to three years in prison for visiting the peninsula . © Sputnik/ Sergey Malgavko Putin: Crimean Integration Into Russian Legal Framework Goes Forward "I will respond to such sanctions with my next trip to Crimea . There is nothing they can do to me, it is just ridiculous. As a German citizen and a citizen of Europe, I will never allow anyone to tell me where to go and with whom to communicate," Maurer said at a press conference at the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency’s press center in Crimea .
He added that Ukraine was mistaken in assuming it could "dictate to the people of Germany, where they may travel." © Sputnik/ Vladimir Sergeev Strength Through Unity: EU to Stay United on Policy Toward Russia According to the guidelines on the legal regime of Crimea issued by the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, entry and exit of foreigners from the region is allowed only with the special permission via relevant control checkpoints.
The German delegation consists of 20 people, including politicians, acting lawmakers, public figures, and entrepreneurs. The delegation is visiting the peninsula within the framework of people's diplomacy project and will stay there until Friday.
Crimea, Russia's historical southern region, seceded from Ukraine to rejoin Russia in March 2014. Almost 97 percent of the region's population voted for reunification in a referendum. Sevastopol, which has a federal city status, supported the move by 95.6 percent of votes. The referendum was held after a coup in Ukraine in February 2014. Kiev, as well as the European Union, the United States and their allies, did not recognize the move and consider the peninsula to be an occupied territory. ... | 0 |
Timothy Caughman, an thread in Manhattan’s tapestry one week ago as he collected bottles and cans for the nickel refund, was honored Saturday by the mayor of New York City and dozens of old friends, whose hair had grayed since they saw Mr. Caughman last. On a raw morning that felt more like winter than spring, they gathered in the little red brick Mount Zion Baptist Church in South Jamaica, Queens, where Mr. Caughman’s father had once been a pastor. They sang the praise of Mr. Caughman — 66 when he was killed by an attacker armed with a sword on the night of March 20 while scavenging in Midtown — as an individual of quiet dignity and broad interests. James Harris Jackson, 28, a white man from Baltimore, has been arrested in his killing and charged with murder as terrorism. The police and prosecutors said he told investigators that he came to New York intending to kill black men. Mr. Caughman was his only victim. On Saturday, Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke for 17 minutes at Mount Zion, towering over the pulpit and over Mr. Caughman’s garlanded coffin. His rhetorical sparks resonated among appreciative mourners. The mayor’s most respectful gesture may have been his simple presence. As if to make a point by his own example that Mr. Caughman had been transformed by events into an Everyman of New York City, Mr. de Blasio remained for the entire funeral, which lasted almost two hours. He sat next to the pastor, the Rev. Christopher N. Howard. He bowed his head when that was called for. He stood and clapped his hands as the chorus sang “We’ll Understand It Better By and By,” when it would have been impossible to do anything else. “He stayed,” Mr. Howard said after the service, standing atop the steps of the church while Mr. Caughman’s extended family — Caughmans, Peeks and Johnsons — prepared to depart for Flushing Cemetery in Queens for the burial. “When the mayor comes like that, it means the world to us in South Jamaica. ” The mayor’s remarks were spirited enough to earn him the title “Reverend de Blasio” from Letitia A. James, the city’s public advocate, who followed him to the pulpit. As a pastor, Mr. de Blasio was not entirely conciliatory. Running for and dogged by a sometimes tense relationship with reporters, he obliquely mentioned newspaper articles that had discussed Mr. Caughman’s relatively minor criminal record. “There were news reports about this man that somehow dwelt on something that happened to him that happened to every single one of us in this room,” the mayor said, “which is, somewhere along the way, we made a mistake. So why, if he’s a victim, an innocent victim of a racist attack, does any reporter want to talk about a mistake he made along the way. Why is that pertinent?” As murmurs of assent began building, Mr. de Blasio declared, “What’s pertinent is that he was the victim of a racist attack. ” At that, there was applause. “Let me be straightforward,” Mr. de Blasio continued. “What if it had been a black man who traveled to another city for the sole purpose — ” when a standing ovation made it impossible to hear the rest of the sentence. “Would that have been news? Day after day?” “Still,” came the quiet answer from Kathy who knew Mr. Caughman when they were growing up in the South Jamaica Houses, a housing project just a few blocks down 107th Avenue from Mount Zion. Again, the mayor asked: “What if — instead of an older man of modest means — it had been a banker or a lawyer or a celebrity, an actor or an actress? Don’t you think that would then still be dominating our attention?” And again Ms. answered, not quite under her breath: “Every single day. Every channel. ” To the people of the South Jamaica Houses — the “40 Projects,” as they are called because of the presence nearby of Public School 40 — Mr. Caughman was Hard Rock not one to start a fight, but not one to a leave a fight unfinished, either. For 20 years, he lived in the Barbour Hotel on West 36th Street in Manhattan, which houses formerly homeless people transitioning to permanent housing. Because of that, Mr. Caughman was initially assumed to have been homeless. But he was actually a permanent resident. “He would never have been homeless,” said Mr. Caughman’s Charles W. Johnson. “Not with the family he had on both sides. ” The nickels he got from redeeming recyclable cans and bottles were used, in part, to help finance trips to Washington, where he enjoyed attending congressional hearings, said a cousin, Richard Peek. The photograph of Mr. Caughman that has been used to illustrate many news accounts was a selfie he took last year on Election Day. “Standing on line waiting to vote I love america,” he posted on Twitter. Three days later, Mr. Caughman posted, “‘Build the wall’ chants and swastikas in schools — hate crimes reports surge in US after Trump win. ” No matter the subject, Mr. Caughman was always an engaging conversationalist, said Portia Clark, who had known him since they were teenagers. She remembered being a fast walker as a girl and always cursing her fate just a bit when she ran into young Tim Hard Rock. “I knew I had to slow down because I knew it was going to be a conversation,” Ms. Clark said. “But thank God I did because every conversation was enlightening and educational. ” Her husband, Carl Nimmons, stood in the aisle of Mount Zion and glanced over at the body of Mr. Caughman, in a brilliant robe of green polished cotton, a leather crown and white gloves to cover the scars on his hands from trying to fend off the man who killed him. Mr. Nimmons described a a few months ago when the men resolved to let less time go by between reunions. “We’ve got to get together more often,” he recalled them saying to one another. “And not just at funerals. ” Moments later, the coffin lid was closed and the funeral began. | 1 |
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In perhaps the most tortured presidential answer since Bill Clinton parsed the word “is,” Barack Obama offered a response in a Friday interview that many say gives illegal aliens a green light to vote. Worse still, there may be reason to suspect he was fed the question in advance and gave a premeditated, Machiavellian answer.
While talking to actress and rapper Gina Rodriguez on the Latin-oriented YouTube channel MiTu, Obama was asked, “Many of the millennials, dreamers, undocumented, um, citizens — and I call them citizens because they contribute to this country — are fearful of voting. So if I vote, will immigration know where I live? Will they come for my family and deport us?” Here was Obama’s answer (video below): Not true. And the reason is, first of all, when you vote, you are a citizen yourself — and there is not a situation where the voting rolls somehow are transferred over and people start investigating, et cetera. The sanctity of the vote is strictly confidential in terms of who you voted for.
Many Americans, such as Arizona governor Jan Brewer, were taken aback. As Breitbart reports , “‘Shocking. Absolutely shocking,’ Brewer said to [Fox] TV host Neil Cavuto. Obama ‘should have absolutely set [the interviewer] straight that if you’re not a citizen, you don’t get to vote. And just because you’re in our country “undocumented,” you’re not a citizen. The [Democrats] want to blur the lines.’”
And no one was more shocked than Cavuto himself (video below; relevant portion starts at 34 seconds). As WND.com related : “I can’t believe that I heard what I heard,” Cavuto said on his broadcast. “The president isn’t even questioning whether the person who is an illegal is voting, outside of reminding people that if you’re a citizen, you vote. But it’s very clear that the question that is being asked was about illegals voting and afraid that they might be reported to Border Security. You’re illegal. You cannot vote.” “The President of the United States is saying, ‘Don’t worry, no one will be spying on you, catching you,'” Cavuto added. “You’re ignoring the fact that you are being questioned about illegal voting, which you can’t do. Why? Because you’re not a citizen of this country!”
Some observers say there’s more to this, pointing out that Fox didn’t play Obama’s follow-up remarks. The president had gone on to say, “If you have a family member who maybe is undocumented, then you have an even greater reason to vote.” Rodriguez then chimed in, “This has been a huge fear presented especially during this election,” prompting Obama to add: And the reason that fear is promoted is because they don’t want people voting. People are discouraged from voting and part of what is important for Latino citizens is to make your voice heard, because you’re not just speaking for yourself. You’re speaking for family members, friends, classmates of yours in school ... who may not have a voice, who can’t legally vote. But they’re counting on you to make sure that you have the courage to make your voice heard.
One outlet offering a more benign interpretation is Breitbart , which writes, “Obama’s reply was clumsily worded, but he appeared to say that if a U.S. citizen with illegal alien family members who continue to stay in the U.S. in defiance of the law votes, immigration authorities will not use that voters’ information to begin deportation proceedings against their illegal alien relatives.” And, truth be known, Obama’s reply was clumsy.
Or brilliant.
In a Machiavellian sort of way.
While Breitbart’s is one interpretation, another is that Obama was cleverly giving a green light for illegal voting while giving himself plausible deniability that he was not doing so. Note that he didn’t take issue with Rodriguez’ absurd notion that the mere fact of being present in the country and “contributing,” whatever that means (others would say “leeching”), makes one a “citizen.” Given this, Obama’s statement that “when you vote, you are a citizen yourself” could be taken to mean that the mere act of “participating” in our civic life makes you a citizen in spirit.
Note also that Obama subsequently said that you have even more of a reason to cast a ballot if you have relatives who “can’t legally vote” (emphasis added). Does this imply that they “can”— a word denoting capability , not what one should do ethically — vote illegally? After all, they certainly can , given that illegals can obtain driver’s licenses in many states, and proof of citizenship may not be a prerequisite for voting . Realize, too, that Obama has been flooding the US with illegals, ordering they not be deported and that the border patrol stand down. It’s logical to assume he’s doing this for a reason.
The obvious answer to Rodriguez’ question was, “Only citizens may vote, and if you’re a citizen, why would the government be interested in investigating you for not being one?” That Obama didn’t thus respond is suspicious.
It’s also a distinct possibility that Obama had been told of the question in advance and that this was why he could craft a Machiavellian response. WikiLeaks has exposed a shocking amount of collusion between the media and Democrat Party, with a New York Times reporter giving Hillary Clinton veto power over quotations and media figures feeding her debate questions ahead of time. Then there are the even more recent revelations that CNN and the Democratic National Committee colluded in devising questions to be asked of Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, and that a Washington Post journalist asked the DNC for anti-Trump research for an article.
As to possible Rodriguez/Obama collusion, please observe the host’s reaction, at 22-23 seconds in the first video, when Obama replies “when you vote, you’re a citizen yourself,” an answer which begins at 18 seconds. She appears as if she may be suppressing a self-satisfied smirk.
If so, there are only a few possible explanations. She might have simply been kvelling at being seated with the president — yet this doesn’t explain why she registered that reaction at that particular moment. She might have been thoroughly pleased that Obama appeared to affirm her notion that “contributing” equals citizenship.
Or she might have been reveling in helping to orchestrate a well-oiled con, in being a facilitator of clever, agenda-advancing wordplay.
Of course, this is conjecture. Readers can review the relevant portion of the video a number of times and draw their own conclusions.
Whatever the case — whether the answer was off-the-cuff or calculated — it reveals Obama’s heart. He’s a president who has repeatedly trampled the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. In opposing voter ID, the absence of which shocked the UN observers who monitored our 2012 election, Obama has signaled that he wishes to facilitate illegal voting. We also have seen Project Veritas videos in which a Democrat operative boasted that liberals have been committing vote fraud for “50 years.” Moreover, a recently released WikiLeaks e-mail shows that the Clinton campaign believes that in 2008 Obama operatives “flooded the caucuses with ineligible voters.” And the best predictor of future (mis)behavior is past (mis)behavior.
If there is any doubt about Obama’s MiTu answer, he certainly hasn’t earned the benefit of it. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — On April 3, 1962, President John F. Kennedy nominated Byron R. White to the Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed him by a voice vote less than two weeks later, after a perfunctory hearing during which the nominee smoked cigarettes and doodled while senators praised his legal skills. On Monday, one of White’s former law clerks, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, will appear at his own Supreme Court confirmation hearing. It will last for days and reflect the brutal politics of a polarized era. In 2002, as a lawyer in private practice, Judge Gorsuch recalled his old boss’s smooth ride and rued the modern judicial confirmation process, which he described in an article as “an ideological food fight. ” Fifteen years later, the atmosphere has grown even more rancorous and sour. In particular, Senate Republicans’ refusal to consider President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland to the Supreme Court last year was a shock to the system, said Nathaniel Persily, a law professor at Stanford. “The Senate confirmation process for Supreme Court justices has always been cabined by norms of behavior and unwritten rules,” Professor Persily said. “With the failure even to have a hearing on Garland, the norms have all gone out the window. The Democrats now feel emboldened to try anything. ” Senate Democrats have indeed pledged to probe every aspect of Judge Gorsuch’s background and views. They say he has failed to distance himself from President Trump’s attacks on judges, that he cannot be trusted to rein in executive power and that his jurisprudence is skewed toward business interests. It is not clear whether those critiques will resonate with the public or matter in the end. Republicans hold 52 seats in the Senate, and they say they are committed to confirming Judge Gorsuch even if that requires revisions to rules requiring a majority. Supreme Court appointments are committed to the political branches of the government, meaning they are to some extent political by constitutional design. But politics were not always in the foreground to the extent they are today. In his 2002 article, Judge Gorsuch seemed to trace the change in tone to the lingering aftermath of the Senate’s 1987 rejection of President Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork. “When a favored candidate is voted down for lack of sufficient political sympathy to those in control,” Judge Gorsuch wrote, “grudges are held for years, and retaliation is guaranteed. ” Whatever its origins, the modern confirmation process is doing harm to the Supreme Court’s authority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said in February last year. “When you have a sharply political, divisive hearing process, it increases the danger that whoever comes out of it will be viewed in those terms,” Chief Justice Roberts said. “If the Democrats and Republicans have been fighting so fiercely about whether you’re going to be confirmed, it’s natural for some member of the public to think, well, you must be identified in a particular way as a result of that process. ” “We don’t work as Democrats or Republicans,” he said, “and I think it’s a very unfortunate impression the public might get from the confirmation process. ” Chief Justice Roberts spoke just weeks before the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Justice Scalia, who was confirmed in 1986, the year before Judge Bork was voted down, was the product of a different era. “I was confirmed 98 to 0,” Justice Scalia told a bar group in 2007. “I was known as a conservative then, but I was perceived to be an honest person. I couldn’t get 60 votes today. I guess the name of the game’s changed. ” In 1991, Justice Clarence Thomas, facing accusations of sexual harassment, barely squeaked through by a vote. Last year, he said confirmation battles had turned into total war. “This city is broken in some ways,” Justice Thomas said. “We have decided that rather than confront the disagreements and the differences of opinion, we’ll simply annihilate the person who disagrees with us. ” Things were different in 1962, Judge Gorsuch wrote, when White sailed through based on “his integrity, accomplishment and life experience. ” “Excellence plainly is no longer the dispositive virtue, as it was to President Kennedy,” Judge Gorsuch wrote in 2002. Though White was nominated by the Democratic president, he was widely seen as a staunch pragmatist — and later grew comfortable as a jurist in the court of conservative Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. Instead, Judge Gorsuch wrote, “some of the most impressive judicial nominees are grossly mistreated. ” He named two, calling them “among the finest lawyers of their generation. ” One was John Roberts, who was then waiting to be confirmed to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The other was Judge Garland, who had waited 18 months before his confirmation to the D. C. Circuit. In January, just after Mr. Trump announced his nomination, Judge Gorsuch called Judge Garland. It was, some said, a welcome gesture of grace and respect. Others called it empty and calculated political theater. Given Republican control of the Senate, Judge Gorsuch is likely to be confirmed, though perhaps only after a momentous revision to Senate practices to eliminate the filibuster against Supreme Court nominees. But justices and others worry about the cost to the Supreme Court’s authority when its members are portrayed in starkly political terms. “I am sad that the public has lost confidence in the judiciary,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor told law students at the University of California, Berkeley, this month. “That so many people believe we are politicized is also saddening to me. ” The truth, she said, is “not that the court has become politicized, but that the society has. ” These days, Chief Justice Roberts said last year of Supreme Court confirmations, “the process is not functioning very well. ” “Look at my more recent colleagues, all extremely well qualified for the court,” Chief Justice Roberts said, “and the votes were, I think, strictly on party lines for the last three of them, or close to it, and that doesn’t make any sense. That suggests to me that the process is being used for something other than ensuring the qualifications of the nominees. ” senators voted against Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. who was nominated by President George W. Bush. senators voted against Justice Sotomayor, and 37 against Justice Elena Kagan, both nominated by Mr. Obama. “The court is increasingly being perceived as a political institution,” Professor Persily said. That means, he said, that the justices “are less likely to be able to rely on the reservoir of good will that they have built up over time because attitudes toward the court are now swaying with the political winds as well. ” But there is reason to think that Judge Gorsuch’s confirmation hearings will shift public opinion away from a purely political conception of the Supreme Court, said Lori A. Ringhand, a law professor at the University of Georgia and an author of “Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings and Constitutional Change. ” “One of the values of confirmation hearings is the public discussion of constitutional issues in the language of constitutional law,” Professor Ringhand said. “I don’t think hearings, over all, hurt the legitimacy of the court. Whether this particular situation hurts the legitimacy of the court will depend a lot on how it plays out. ” Justin Driver, a law professor at the University of Chicago, also said there was some reason for optimism. “Confirmation hearings can matter a great deal,” Professor Driver said. “Some people say they are a boring ritual. I agree with the ‘ritual’ part but not the ‘boring’ part. What is said at the confirmation hearings indicates a lot about the shape of our constitutional conversation. ” | 1 |
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Back in the 1990’s George Soros helped to nearly destroy the Russian economy. So, last year, this grand billionaire was banned from Russia. But, that’s not all. George Soros is now a wanted man in Russia and his organizations are considered as a “threat to Russian national security”.
From Political Reviewer:
Matt Taibbi of the Rolling Stone said of Goldman Sachs six years ago:
“The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.
“In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.”
Obviously Soros wants to be like Goldman Sachs. Phil Butler puts it well when he says: “George Soros has a finger in every political pie there is. If there is a crisis on our world, it’s a safe bet he’s had a hand in it.”
What is your opinion about this?
COMMENT AND SHARE! STOP BEING IGNORANT, SPREAD THE TRUTH, BE A PATRIOT! | 0 |
Two men in California were charged with hate crimes on Friday in connection with an attack on a Sikh man, punching him in the face and using a knife to cut up to 10 inches of his hair, which was unshorn by religious mandate, a prosecutor said. The attack, which unfolded over the span of about three minutes and a stretch of road in Richmond, Calif. on Sept. 25, started by chance, officials said. Five men who were doing subcontracting work at a refinery were staying at a local hotel and had been drinking beer most of the day when they went to get something to eat, Simon O’Connell, a deputy district attorney with the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office, said in an interview on Friday. The men were in a pickup around 8:45 p. m. when they pulled up to a red traffic light next to a sedan driven by Maan S. Khalsa, 41, of Richmond. In what Mr. O’Connell said was an unprovoked act, the occupants threw beer cans at Mr. Khalsa’s car. When he rolled down his window and said, “You guys forgot something,” the men, angered by his remark, followed him to the next red light. Two of the men — identified as Chase B. Little, 31, of Beaumont, Tex. and Colton T. Leblanc, 24, of Winnie, Tex. — ran to Mr. Khalsa’s car and repeatedly punched him in the face through the open driver’s window, officials said. A turban Mr. Khalsa was wearing as part of his Sikh religion was disturbed in the attack, during which the men forced his head down and cut up to 10 inches of his hair with a knife, prosecutors said. “The savage cutting of Mr. Khalsa’s unshorn hair, a sacred article of his faith, constitutes a hate crime under the law,” the prosecutor’s office said in a news release. Mr. Little, who was taken into custody at the scene, was charged with assault and released that night on bail. He is to appear in court on Nov. 21. A warrant for Mr. Leblanc, who left the scene, has been issued, officials said. The other occupants of the pickup were not charged. Mr. Little and Mr. Leblanc were both charged with assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury and assault with a deadly weapon, with the “special allegation” that they were committed as hate crimes. With that enhancement, they could face a maximum of 11 years in prison, Mr. O’Connell said. It was not clear if Mr. Little had a lawyer, and neither man could be reached to comment on Friday. In a statement released through the Sikh Coalition, Mr. Khalsa said he was “violently targeted” because of his faith. “The charges are the first step to addressing violence and bigotry, which plague communities across the United States,” he said. Mr. Khalsa, an information technology specialist, had a black eye, numerous damaged teeth and several knife wounds to his left hand. His little finger will be amputated at the first knuckle because of an infection from the knife wound, officials said. | 0 |
Share This An Eritrean asylum seeker to Orsa, Sweden, was found guilty of repeatedly beating and raping a young woman, ultimately impregnating her. However, the court’s final ruling proves they are more concerned with the migrant convict than his permanently traumatized victim.
An asylum seeker brutally beat, raped, and impregnated his traumatized victim only to return later and sexually assault her once more, telling her that he would kill her if she reported him. Unbelievably, the court has not only ruled that he is allowed to stay in the country as a refugee but are about to grant him an outrageous “consolation prize.”
As Europe continues to welcome the ceaseless flow of tired, poor, and hungry migrants, a devastating amount of the so-called asylum seekers are using the warm embrace to sink the knife of multiculturalism deep into the backs of their progressive hosts. The left is shocked that the tolerance and respect they bestow isn’t returned. Instead, the same brutality and oppression perpetuated in their homelands are brought with the migrant flow. Unfortunately, liberals still haven’t figured out that no matter how much they appease their guests, their hospitality will not change millennia of cultural and religious savagery.
On August 14, 26-year-old Zaid, an asylum seeker from Eritrea, was arrested for the repeated rape and physical torture of a young woman in Sweden. Amina, who is also from a third-world country, suffered severe trauma after Zaid attacked and sexually assaulted her.
“The kicks hit the thighs, legs and upper body. She screamed for help from neighbors, but she does not know if they heard. The blows and kicks hurt. She tried to break free, but she could not,” the prosecution stated.
On September 4, Zaid broke into Amina’s home in Orsa, poured a pot of boiling coffee over her chest, and punched and kicked her until she was subdued. Again, the migrant raped the poor young woman, this time impregnating her.
Amina was so terrified that Zaid would keep his promise to murder her that she refused to go to the authorities even after she had an abortion. The abuse finally came to an end when police discovered what Zaid had done, prompting the court to sentence him to a paltry 3 years in prison. However, it’s what the court is allowing him to do after 2 rapes, repeated physical assault, kidnapping, and torture that has even some on the left disgusted.
Fria Tider reports that although Zaid was given 3 years in prison, the liberal judge denied the prosecutor’s request for deportation. Not only will Zaid be out in no time and allowed to remain in Sweden on benefits, the court is considering letting him bring his wife and 2 children to Sweden to live with him on welfare as well.
As Zaid serves his meager sentence, the Swedish Migration Board is already looking over his family members’ asylum applications. The board is now considering allowing them residence permits, meaning that they will likely be provided a taxpayer-funded home while their patron is still in jail. Of course, Zaid will be out in no time to live comfortably with his family, never having to lift a finger for his welfare.
Zaid has shown no remorse for either raping or beating his victim. In fact, he told police that he shouldn’t be punished for the sexual assault because “we just played â we played a love game.”
Zaid and his victim had met in an asylum center before he began stalking the woman. Ultimately, Amina sustained punches and kicks to the body and face each time before Zaid raped her. Although he was only sentenced for two rapes, investigators believe he subjected Amina to many other sexual assaults.
“She screamed and screamed but no one came to her rescue. There are neighbors to her apartment. No one has come and responded,” reads the judgment.
Sadly, this type of leniency is far too common when it comes to migrant criminals in Sweden. On October 19, Mad World News reported that the Swedish Court of Appeals not only freed 3 migrant gang rapists from a 4-year prison sentence but also granted one of them $15,827.
The appeals court ruled that the district court sentence was illegitimate because the evidence didn’t prove “who did what.” The appeals court concluded that since the third rapist had not acted as aggressively as his accomplices, he should be compensated for wrongful conviction. Of course, the other 2 are also expected to receive financial compensation.
Earlier this month, a Swedish court freed 5 migrant rapists , concluding that there was no “probable cause” that they had forced a wheelchair-bound woman to have sex with them against her will. The court deemed that the gang rape could not be legally considered rape because the migrants had not issued “violence or threats.”
Likewise, an 18-year-old Muslim asylum seeker was freed after the court found him guilty of raping a 12-year-old Swedish girl . The judge argued that because the rapist had “some trouble with anxiety and sleep problems,” he should be given just 180 hours of community service instead of jail time.
Like the rest of Europe, Sweden is sacrificing its own civilians and culture to the most savage foreign nations, all in the name of multiculturalism. | 1 |
Chart of The Day: 58 Years of Federal Infrastructure Spending In Constant Dollars----No Starvation Here! By David Stockman. Posted On Monday, November 14th, 2016
David Stockman's Contra Corner is the only place where mainstream delusions and cant about the Warfare State, the Bailout State, Bubble Finance and Beltway Banditry are ripped, refuted and rebuked. Subscribe now to receive David Stockman’s latest posts by email each day as well as his model portfolio, Lee Adler’s Daily Data Dive and David’s personally curated insights and analysis from leading contrarian thinkers. | 0 |
Yemen’s President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi has formally requested that the United Nations brand the Shiite Houthi rebels a terrorist organization. The group has kept him out of the nation’s capital, Sanaa, since 2015. [The Yemeni government sent a letter to the UN Security Council during the weekend decrying various attacks by Houthi rebels against government forces nationwide and accused the Shiite government of Iran of arming and emboldening the Houthi rebels into committing more flagrant acts of terrorism. The Hadi government is aligned with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Iran’s longtime regional rival. The formal request followed the publication of a UN report accusing the Houthi rebels of extraordinary acts of violence against both government fighters and civilians. The report also accused former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh of cooperating with the Houthis and aiding their use of torture against captured opponents. Highlighting the abuse of civilians by Houthi rebels, the Norwegian Refugee Council announced on Monday that Houthi rebels abducted twelve of its members last week as punishment for the group’s having attempted to distribute humanitarian aid to civilians. The Houthis claimed that the Saudi government paid for the aid, rendering it unfit for distribution. The United Nations estimated earlier this month that twelve million of the nation’s 19 million people are in desperate need of humanitarian aid, more than 60 percent. Saudi Arabia’s calls for the UN to intervene against Houthi activities and the exiled government in Aden’s demands to brand them a terrorist organization appear not only to target the Houthi faction but its main benefactor, Iran. Shortly before this plea to the United Nations, the Saudi government accused Iran of exporting terrorism at unparalleled rates. “Iran remains the single main sponsor of terrorism in the world,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel said at a security conference in Munich, Germany, last week. He added that “Iran is the only one in the Middle East that hasn’t been targeted by Islamic State and . ” Both the Islamic State and have established bases in Yemen. in the Arabian Peninsula quadrupled its size since the civil war began two years ago. In response to Saudi critiques, the Iranian government has accused Riyadh of working “ ” with the region’s only democracy, Israel. Both the Iranian government and the Houthi rebels oppose the existence of Israel viscerally and harbor strong sentiment. Iran routinely sends weapons shipments to Yemen to help the Houthis against a coalition that continues to wage war against them on behalf of the nation’s legitimate government in Aden. The Houthis’ official slogan borrows somewhat from common Iranian propaganda tropes: “Allahu Akbar, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse the Jews, Victory to Islam. ” The slogan has garnered the Houthis so much international negative attention that the rebels officially apologized to the United States, according to Arabic news source claiming it was meant for “domestic consumption” only. The Houthis have not issued similar statements to Israel or the global Jewish population. The reported apology rings somewhat hollow given recent reports that Houthi rebels have been attempting attacks on American ships in the region. Last month, the Houthis attacked a Saudi frigate in the Red Sea, killing two. A Pentagon official told Fox News that the Houthis appeared to believe the ship was American: “U. S. defense analysts believe those behind the attack either thought the bomber was striking an American warship or that this was a ‘dress rehearsal’ similar to the attack on the USS Cole. ” Multiple attempts to end the conflict via peace talks have failed, with one early attempt ending in a fistfight and the latest attempt, by of State John Kerry, met with extreme apathy. “The government was not aware of nor is it interested in what Secretary Kerry announced,” Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdulmalik told reporters after asked about a attempt to bring both sides back to the negotiating table. | 0 |
Chances are, you plug in your phone before you go to bed at night, thinking it’s best to greet the morning with a fully charged device. Is this a good idea? Here’s the thing. Many people don’t expect to keep their phones for much longer than two years. For the most part, experts say, those people are not going to notice much damage to their phone batteries before they start hankering for a new device. If that sounds like you, feel free to charge every night, and as often as you like in between. But frequent charging takes a toll on the batteries in our phones. And it’s not because they can be overcharged, said Edo Campos, a spokesman for Anker, which produces phone chargers. “Smartphones are, in fact, smart,” Mr. Campos said. “They know when to stop charging. ” Android phones and iPhones are equipped with chips that protect them from absorbing excess electrical current once they are fully charged. So in theory, any damage from charging your phone overnight with an official charger, or a trustworthy charger, should be negligible. But the act of charging is itself bad for your phone’s battery. Most phones make use of a technology that allows their batteries to accept more current faster. Hatem Zeine, the founder, chief scientist and chief technical officer of the wireless charging company Ossia, says the technology enables phones to adjust to the amount of charge that a charger is capable of supplying. The technology allows power to pulse into the battery in specific modulations, increasing the speed at which the lithium ions in the battery travel from one side to the other and causing the battery to charge more quickly. But this process also leads (and ) batteries to corrode faster than they otherwise would. “When you charge fast all the time, you limit the life span of the battery,” Mr. Zeine said. If you’re intent on preserving a battery beyond the lifetime of the typical phone or tablet, Mr. Zeine suggested using a charger meant for a less powerful device, though he couldn’t guarantee that it would work. “For example, if you used an iPhone charger on an iPad Pro, it’s going to charge very slowly,” Mr. Zeine said. “If the electronics are right, they can actually preserve the battery because you’re always charging it slowly. ” People looking to preserve their batteries should make sure their phones don’t become overheated, Mr. Campos advised, because high temperatures further excite the in batteries, leading to even quicker deterioration. Apple’s website says temperatures above 95 degrees Fahrenheit (or 35 Celsius) can “permanently damage battery capacity. ” Both Mr. Zeine and Mr. Campos noted that given the constant demand for new cellphones, charging overnight might not be a point of great concern for many people. “All this actually doesn’t make a huge difference for consumers,” Mr. Campos said, citing a 2015 Gallup survey showing that 44 percent of smartphone users planned to upgrade their devices as soon as their providers allowed it — usually after two years, about the length of time it takes for batteries to start showing signs of wear. | 0 |
Nation Puts 2016 Election Into Perspective By Reminding Itself Some Species Of Sea Turtles Get Eaten By Birds Just Seconds After They Hatch WASHINGTON—Saying they felt anxious and overwhelmed just days before heading to the polls to decide a historically fraught presidential race, Americans throughout the country reportedly took a moment Thursday to put the 2016 election into perspective by reminding themselves that some species of sea turtles are eaten by birds just seconds after they hatch. Cleveland Indians Worried Team Cursed After Building Franchise On Old Native American Stereotype CLEVELAND—Having watched in horror as their team crumbled after a 3-1 World Series lead, members of the Cleveland Indians expressed concern Thursday that the organization has been cursed for building their franchise on an incredibly old Native American stereotype. Report: Election Day Most Americans’ Only Time In 2016 Being In Same Room With Person Supporting Other Candidate WASHINGTON—According to a report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center, Election Day 2016 will, for the majority of Americans, mark the only time this year they will occupy the same room as a person who supports a different presidential candidate. Nurse Reminds Elderly Man She’s Just Down The Hall If He Starts To Die DES PLAINES, IL—Assuring him that she’d be at his side in a jiffy, local nurse Wendy Kaufman reminded an elderly resident at the Briarwood Assisted Living Community that she was just down the hall if he started to die, sources reported Tuesday. | 0 |
Sam Sifton emails readers of Cooking five days a week to talk about food and suggest recipes. That email also appears here. To receive it in your inbox, register here. Good morning. Samin Nosrat joins us with a superlative article in the paper we delivered this morning to doorsteps and driveways across the nation. It’s about what she’s calling the new mother sauces. These are modernized versions of the five basic sauces of French cuisine that Samin has made appropriate to “the kind of food that cooks and eaters favor today. ” They are yogurt sauce, pepper sauce, herb sauce, tahini sauce and pesto. We’ll be making those for the rest of the summer and probably forever after. So maybe we could get started tonight with some grilled eggplants with tahini sauce or quickly broiled lamb with yogurt sauce. Or both. Let your imagination be your guide. Alternatively, you can make like the kids out at Achilles Heel in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, who Oliver Strand wrote about this week: They smoke chickens, braise them in chicken fat, then finish them over the grill for a supper. You could do something similar this week for yourself off my recipe for smoked chicken wings, omitting the braise they use at the restaurant. Figure 30 minutes of smoke for a whole spatchcocked bird, then another 30 to 40 near the actual heat of the fire, turning often and basting with Alabama white barbecue sauce. (Use the leftovers for chicken enchiladas!) Holy cow. Continuing in this vein of narrative ideas for what to cook, let’s turn to Marilyn in Seattle, who is what they call in the radio game a . She wrote Cooking recently to deliver a terrific recipe for our Wednesday delectation: summer corn shaved off the cob, tossed gently with blueberries and torn basil, and drizzled with olive oil. We’ll take it with thanks, and pair the salad with some simply cooked salmon and a glass of the grüner veltliner Eric Asimov wrote about last week. That would make a superlative midweek supper. Won’t you join us in that as well? Or, you might make Florence Fabricant’s new recipe for grilled scallion lamb pair it with rice pilaf. Or you could make Tamar Adler’s recipe for salad, a dinner for one that you can scale up with ease. We’re in love with David Tanis’s recipe for summer squash curry. And Melissa Clark’s recipe for classic shrimp scampi never goes out of style. Other recipes to cook this week are available on Cooking, each of them, of course, kitted out with the star ratings and notes by fellow users of the site and apps. Save the ones you’re interested in to your recipe boxes. And if anything goes sideways with the technology, our instruction or prose, please let us know about it: cookingcare@nytimes. com. Now, you should see this kid Viki Gomez ride a bicycle. You should read Sonny Kleinfield’s wonderful account of the full life of a voiceless man on the Upper East Side. And because I spent a full 30 minutes this week listening to a woman on the bus sing the refrain over and over, and it entered my head like a worm, you should turn up this Dottie Peoples song recorded back in 1994: “He’s an On Time God. ” Get cooking. | 0 |
Encuentran más de 600 objetos de la base secreta nazi descubierta en el Ártico ruso Publicado: 26 oct 2016 16:56 GMT | Última actualización: 26 oct 2016 20:51 GMT
La estación meteorológica Schatzgraber, que proporcionaba información para una base de submarinos del Tercer Reich, no fue descubierta hasta agosto de este año. El archipiélago de la Tierra de Francisco José Vera Kostamo Sputnik Síguenos en Facebook
Más de 600 objetos han sido retirados de la estación meteorológica Schatzgraber, una instalación secreta de la Alemania nazi que fue recientemente descubierta en el Ártico ruso.
"La colección está siendo catalogada en estos momentos. Más de 600 objetos han sido recogidos en el territorio de la estación", dijo Irina Skálina, vicedirectora del Parque Nacional Ártico Ruso, en declaraciones a la agencia TASS .
Entre los objetos encontrados destacan minas, granadas M-24, proyectiles, cajas con municiones, envases de combustible y conservas alimentarias.
La base está situada en la isla Tierra de Alexandra, en el archipiélago de Tierra de Francisco José, y fue descubierta por una expedición rusa en agosto de este año.
Según los archivos aparecidos, la estación llevaba el nombre de Schatzgraber, que en castellano significa 'buscador de tesoros'.
Sin embargo, lo que los alemanes buscaban entre los hielos del Ártico no eran tesoros, sino información exacta sobre las condiciones climáticas en este área cercana a la base de submarinos alemana más septentrional.
Esta base era de gran importancia para la Armada del III Reich, ya que la zona era utilizada por los buques británicos y soviéticos para suministrar los equipos bélicos y alimentos que los aliados mandaban a la URSS. | 0 |
NAPM condemns state and ‘expert’ apathy on deaths of hundreds of adivasi children in Malkangiri: Demands immediate medical relief and justice
Apex Court must intervene urgently: State must declare medical emergency
23rd Nov, 2016: The National Alliance of People’s Movements is extremely pained and concerned about the rising number of deaths of adivasi children in the tribal district of Malkangiri, Orissa due to outbreak of Japanese Encephalitis (JE). While the deaths have crossed the unpardonable mark of 300, the Govt. as usual, continues to undercut the number to less than the half of the actual deaths. Even taking the official figure of 121 deaths, it an extremely serious case and calls for an urgent, comprehensive action, in a situation when state apathy and delay have been primary reasons for these avoidable deaths on such a large scale.
We are indeed shocked that the ‘Team of Experts’ sent by the Centre has tried to absolve the Government of all responsibility by attributing the deaths to consumption of some local seeds (Bana Chakundi) and not to JE and governmental delay, thereby blaming the adivasis themselves for the deaths! When as per the Orissa Govt’s statistics, itself 32 cases are ‘confirmed JE’, there out to have been remedial medical response on a war-footing considering the seriousness of JE, which can be fatal or can lead to life-long intellectual, behavioral or neurological impairments in many cases. It is also a serious question as to why the Govt. did not ensure timely incorporation of JE immunization in the public health delivery, as per WHO standards and remained in denial mode. The extremely casual response of the medical department, State Govt. and now even the Centre through this ‘Expert Team’ only demonstrates that even in this time of crisis, the concern is more their ‘onus’ and ‘image’ than the life of the children.
Public Health Expert Dr. Sylvia Karpagam in her reasoned counter to the Centre’s report questions that when the so-called toxic seeds are consumed all round the year and by all families in the tribal region, since generations, it is intriguing as to why this epidemic erupts here only on children and why now. One likely reason might be that the presence of JE, in the already malnourished children, could have been aggravated by the consumption of the seeds, in some cases. But for the Central Team to take a generalized and extrapolated position on the basis of only 5 urine samples (out of 121 official, admitted death) is certainly not a scientific way of medical research or does it appear convincing in the present circumstances. Many other experts as well have questioned the Central team’s unilateral conclusions, merely on the basis of toxicity in the urine samples, especially since JE cases and deaths have been reported across the district even in the Malkangiri town.
It is also pertinent to note that the Expert team has remained completely silent on the crucial role (or failure) of the anganwadis and ICDS monitoring system in the state in providing nutritional and health support to children in the tribal areas. This is despite the fact that the Apex Court has, time and again attached highest priority to ensure health and nutrition in all the tribal tracts and hamlets across the country, in the form of hot cooked meals. This situation is clearly in violation of the orders of the Supreme Court in the Right to Food Case (Civil Writ Petition No. 196/2001). In fact, one has to only go through the fact finding reports by Right to Food Campaign in Malkangiri districts conducted in 2012 as well as 2016. The abysmal situation of Public Health Infrastructure and Food Distribution systems are one of the main reasons behind the regular outbreak of JE disease. The rampant malnutrition, under staffed public health institutions, abysmal health infrastructure are providing the perfect breeding ground for outbreak and spread of the disease. It is indeed ironical that while on the one hand the Union Ministry of Women and Child Welfare is pushing for packaged foods and gearing up to sign Corporate MoUs, in violation of SC’s norms, on the other the anganwadis and ICDS servises in many areas of Malkangiri or elsewhere, especially in tribal areas seem to be utter disarray.
In the light of this serious situation, NAPM: CALLS UPON the Centre and State to declare this as a medical emergency and ensure anti JE-immunization and other medical relief on a war-footing. DEMANDS an independent enquiry into this crisis by a multi-member team comprising of renowned public health professions, independent health activists and doctors.
CALLS UPON the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) to immediately take cognizance of the situation and their team, including Commission members and medical experts to investigate the causes, recommend immediate measures and speed up action on the ground.
CALLS UPON the Governor of Orissa to make an immediate visit to the affected areas as the constitutional custodian of peace and good government for the tribal areas and ensure relief and justice to the adivasi children and families.
APPEALS to the Hon’ble Supreme Court to immediate take up this matter in the ongoing Right to Food case (Civil WP 196/2001) and issue directions to the State and Centre and also monitor the proceedings before the Orissa High Court in the ongoing PIL against the JE.
APPEALS to all progressive activists, students, the national media and pro-people medical experts to reach Malkangiri to assist the adivasis in whatever way possible, establish the scientific and true reasons of the scale of deaths, intervene to ensure immediate medical assistance and press for accountability of the state agencies and other actors involved.
Medha Patkar – Narmada Bachao Andolan and the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM); Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey and Shankar Singh – Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan and National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, Prafulla Samantara – Lok Shakti Abhiyan & Lingraj Azad – Samajwadi Jan Parishad – Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti, NAPM, Odisha; Dr. Sunilam, Aradhna Bhargava – Kisan Sangharsh Samiti Suniti SR, Suhas Kolhekar, Prasad Bagwe – NAPM, Maharashtra; Milind Champanerkar, Editorial member, Andolan Magazine, Pune; Gabriele Dietrich, Geetha Ramakrishnan – Unorganised Sector Workers Federation, NAPM, TN; C R Neelkandan – NAPMKerala; P Chennaiah, Ramakrishnam Raju, Meera Sanghamitra, NAPM Telangana-AP, Arundhati Dhuru, Richa Singh, Nandlal Master – NAPM, UP; Sister Celia – Domestic Workers Union & Rukmini V P, Garment Labour Union, NAPM, Karnataka; Vimal Bhai – Matu Jan sangathan & Jabar Singh, NAPM, Uttarakhand; Anand Mazgaonkar, Krishnakant – Paryavaran Suraksh Samiti, NAPM Gujarat; Kamayani Swami, Ashish Ranjan – Jan Jagran Shakti Sangathan & Mahendra Yadav – Kosi Navnirman Manch,NAPM Bihar; Faisal Khan, Khudai Khidmatgar, J S Walia, NAPM Haryana; Kailash Meena, NAPMRajasthan; Amitava Mitra & Avik Saha, NAPM West Bengal; Bilal Khan, Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, Mumbai, Bhupender Singh Rawat – Jan Sangharsh Vahini & Rajendra Ravi, Madhuresh Kumar, NAPM, Delhi
Also endorsed by: Dr .Mohan Rao MBBS, PhD , Professor, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, School of Social Sciences , Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Share this: | 1 |
NEDERLAND, Colo. — Gerald Babbitt lives in these woods, in a trailer on cinder blocks that he bought for $250. His toilet is a bucket, and when he and his wife need to refill their water jugs, they drive their creaky green Jeep a mile down the mountain and into town. Most people are kind, but the other day someone called them “homeless vagrant beggars,” Mr. Babbitt said. “Yes, we’re homeless,” he said, sitting in the shade of his camper here in the Arapaho National Forest. “No, we’re not vagrants. No, we’re not beggars. We just barely are making it. What you see is by the grace of God. ” To millions of adventurers and campers, America’s national forests are a boundless backyard for hiking trips, rafting, hunting and mountain biking. But for thousands of homeless people and wanderers, they have become a retreat of last resort. Forest law enforcement officers say they are seeing more dislocated people living off the land, often driven there by drug and alcohol addiction, mental health problems, lost jobs or scarce housing in costly mountain towns. And as officers deal with more emergency calls, drug overdoses, illegal fires and trash piles deep in the woods, tensions are boiling in places like Nederland that lie on the fringes of the United States’ forests and loosely patrolled public lands. “The anger is palpable,” said Hansen Wendlandt, the pastor at the Nederland Community Presbyterian Church. Some residents have begun taking photographs of hitchhikers or videotaping confrontations with homeless people camping in the woods and posting them online, including on a private Facebook page created recently called Peak to Peak Forest Watch. Some say the campers have cursed at them for driving past without picking them up, or yelled at them while they were cycling or hiking. They say they no longer feel comfortable in some parts of the woods. But as a homeless man named Julian, 30, hiked down from the hills and into Nederland one rainy afternoon, guitar and knapsack slung on his back, he said a passing driver yelled at him to get out of town. He said he, too, felt uncomfortable and was heading toward Estes Park, Colo. then on to Oregon. He did not give his last name because he said he did not want friends and family reading that he was homeless. Mr. Wendlandt serves lunch and hands out socks to needy campers every Thursday. But he has stopped provisioning people with blankets and sleeping bags, worried that what seemed like compassion could be exacerbating a problem. A wildfire in July was a tipping point. Two men from Alabama pitched camp without permission on a privately owned hillside near Nederland, lit a campfire and read their Bibles, they told the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office. The men told officials they put some rocks on the fire to put it out, and though they discussed whether they should do more to smother it, they decided not to. One smoldering cigarette or lightning strike can ignite an entire hillside in the parched, forests across the West, and officials say the campfire galloped away and burned 600 acres of canyons and forests around Nederland. It destroyed eight homes, including that of a fire captain. The two men who started the campfire, Jimmy Suggs and Zackary Kuykendall, were arrested and charged with arson. The day before their arrest on July 10, the two men and a female companion — who was not criminally charged — happened across a reporter for The Boulder Daily Camera who was interviewing evacuees from the fire. “We were pretty close,” Mr. Suggs told the newspaper. “It looked like the whole mountain range was on fire. ” Citing the fire danger, some residents have asked the Forest Service to do what many cities have done in cracking down on the homeless: impose tighter rules on camping, or ban it in parts of the woods that have attracted the most people. The Forest Service says it is working with thin law enforcement resources. One officer is assigned to Boulder County, which encompasses Nederland and the Roosevelt and Arapaho National Forests, which dominate the western part of the county. The service is spending more and more of its budget fighting wildfires, and has pared back on filling some law enforcement posts, said Chris Boehm, the agency’s acting deputy director for law enforcement and investigations. “There may be some regions where we have one officer assigned to an entire forest or area,” he said. “That’s not what we want, but fires are expensive. ” The Nederland fire was one of a handful across the West in recent years that officials have blamed on transient campers. In Anchorage this May, officials said a brush fire appeared to start in a homeless camp. In Northern Arizona, where a homeless man was sentenced to a year in prison in 2010 for accidentally igniting a wildfire, officials stepped up patrols this summer to look for illegal fires set by people living in the woods. For years, people searching for solitude or without better options have retreated to live in the woods, in buses, vans, tents or other improvised shelters, their numbers swelling every summer and dwindling when the snow comes. But officials say public lands researchers are just beginning to study who lives there, and why. A 2015 survey of 290 law enforcement officers for the Forest Service found that officers in the Rocky Mountain West and Southwest encountered campers most often. About half of the officers said the number of these campers was on the rise, and only 2 percent said it had declined. (The rest said the number had either largely held steady or fluctuated.) Lee Cerveny, one of the researchers who conducted the survey, said it was unclear how many people might be living on public lands at any given time. “What is happening, and why are we seeing more people living in the forests?” she said. “We don’t know yet. ” National parks place strict limits on camping, but in national forests and open spaces managed by the Bureau of Land Management, people can pitch tents just about anywhere camping is not prohibited. Many forests allow camping for only two weeks at a time. In 2015, the Forest Service handled 1, 014 episodes related to violations of those rules. Around Nederland, crime reports, medical emergencies, unattended fires and other calls for help and extra patrols have soared at three Forest Service areas popular with homeless campers. The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office was called there 388 times last year, up from 213 in 2013, and officials attribute some of the rise to Colorado’s reputation as a mecca for legal marijuana, and Nederland’s embrace of retail marijuana dispensaries. Rick Dirr, the Nederland fire chief, said his largely volunteer firefighters no longer answer nighttime calls in the woods without a marshal or sheriff’s officer as backup. He said he has faced down one camper who carried a butcher knife, and searched the woods for another man who had attacked his girlfriend. There was the boy who swallowed a heroin baggie, he recalled, and a man who was hit in the head with a shovel. Others just do not understand how the forest works, he said. He responded to a report of an illegal fire to find a teenage boy and his sister alone at their campsite, bags of garbage everywhere. They and their parents had been living out of their car, and the father asked Chief Dirr when someone would come by for garbage pickup. “We still don’t have a solution,” he said. “These are the things going on unseen in the woods. ” | 1 |
LAFAYETTE, Ind. — It almost resembled Iowa, if you squinted. Senator Ted Cruz expressed gratitude for the “ good judgment” of Midwesterners. His stump speech had scarcely changed, from a favorite anecdote about a drawling West Texas farmer to a running countdown of the time remaining before the primary. (“ hours,” he said sternly.) He drew a crowd of several hundred at a community center here, whose cheers at times coaxed the Texas senator to guttural shouts. One woman held a sign: “Pray’n For Ted. ” “The eyes of the entire country,” Mr. Cruz said, “now rest on Indiana. ” Yet two days before what is widely viewed as a primary, Mr. Cruz strained to conceal a grim reality: He is in serious trouble. An NBC Street poll released on Sunday showed Donald J. Trump with a lead of 15 points among likely Republican primary voters, 49 percent to 34 percent. percent of voters said they disapproved of the agreement struck by Mr. Cruz and Gov. John Kasich, which called for Mr. Kasich to abandon campaigning in Indiana in exchange for Mr. Cruz’s withdrawal from Oregon and New Mexico. percent approved. “The mainstream media wants this race to be over,” Mr. Cruz told voters, in one of his feistiest stump speeches in memory, lumping in “New York power brokers” and John Boehner, the former House speaker and frequent Cruz foil, with his usual list of opponents. “They’ve all made their decision, and they now expect the people of Indiana to fall in line. ” Mr. Cruz, typically one of the most accessible candidates in the field, did not take questions from reporters at his rally here. About a drive away, inside a packed theater in Terre Haute, Mr. Trump reveled in his electoral edge. “If we win Indiana, it’s over, O. K.?” he said. “ Then we can focus on crooked Hillary. Please! Let’s focus on Hillary. ” In another flourish, Mr. Trump called Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich “two guys that are hanging by their fingernails. ” “Don’t let me fall!” Mr. Trump said, mimicking a climber on the edge of a cliff. “Don’t let me fall!” Seeking to break through, Mr. Cruz has in recent days pursued several strategies, tying Mr. Trump to Mrs. Clinton, naming Carly Fiorina as a running mate and drawing attention to some of Mr. Trump’s more controversial supporters. The senator noted that he and Mr. Trump had each received the endorsement of a “Mike. ” In Mr. Cruz’s case, it was Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, who came aboard on Friday. “Or do we stand instead with the convicted rapist Mike Tyson?” Mr. Cruz asked supporters here. “That’s a choice. It’s a choice we can make. ” But Mr. Pence, who praised Mr. Trump effusively before endorsing Mr. Cruz, has not embraced Mr. Cruz’s central message in the state: that Mr. Trump is essentially identical to Mrs. Clinton on policy. The tap dance speaks to the dilemma facing many Republicans who view Mr. Trump as anathema to conservatism but fear alienating his voters. Even Mr. Cruz has been reluctant to make his rejection of Mr. Trump complete. In an interview on Sunday on “Meet the Press,” Mr. Cruz grew defensive when pressed on whether he would support Mr. Trump as the Republican nominee. “You’re welcome to lobby for support for Trump as much as possible,” Mr. Cruz told the host, Chuck Todd, who tried more than a times to extract an answer, in vain. Mr. Trump has himself played down the significance of unifying the party at times, suggesting he could win regardless. On Sunday, he urged Indianans to turn out in two days to supply “a really important mandate. ” “It’s a mandate for change — but not Obama change, real change,” he said. “It’s a mandate for genius. ” Though Mr. Cruz has effectively staked his candidacy on Indiana, he has left himself wiggle room. On Thursday, Mr. Cruz called Indiana “the one thing that stands between us and plunging over the cliff. ” On Sunday, there was no such pronouncement. Mr. Cruz’s own polling has likewise shown him trailing Mr. Trump, compelling the campaign to look beyond the state, if at least for a moment. Top surrogates have described the extended primary season as a product of divine will, arguing the entire country deserves a chance to speak. “God wants every state to be on record,” Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas told voters here. And on Saturday, Mr. Cruz surrendered a full day of Indiana politicking to speak at California’s Republican convention, with an eye on the state’s June 7 election. “California,” he said there, a bit hopefully, “is going to decide this Republican primary. ” | 1 |
Email
An intriguing Ministry of Finance (MoF) report circulating in the Kremlin today says that elite Western bankers were stunned a few hours ago after the Bank For International Settlements (BIS) registered a $1.8 billion transfer from the Clinton Foundation (CF) to the Qatar Central Bank (QCB) through the “facilitation/abetment” of JP Morgan Chase & Company (JPM)—and for reasons yet to be firmly established.
According to this report, the Bank for International Settlements is the world's oldest international financial organization and acts as a prime counterparty for central banks in their financial transactions; the Qatar Central Bank is the bank of that Gulf State nations government and their “bank of banks”; JP Morgan Chase & Company is the United States largest “megabank”; and the Clinton Foundation is an international criminal money laundering organization whose clients include the Russian mafia.
With Hillary Clinton’s US presidential campaign Chairman John Podesta having longstanding ties to the Russian mafia and money laundering, this report continues, the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) maintains complete surveillance of him and his criminal associates—including both Hillary Clinton and her husband, and former US President, Bill Clinton.
On Saturday 15 October (2016), this report notes, the SVR reported to the MoF that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta met with JP Morgan Chase & Company CEO Jamie Dimon at Clinton’s Chappaqua Compound outside of New York City—and who, in 2009, both President Obama and Hillary Clinton allowed to break US laws by his, Dimon’s, being able to buy millions-of-dollars of his company’s stocks prior to the public being told his JP Morgan bank was receiving a Federal Reserve $80 billion credit line—and that caused JP Morgan’s stocks to soar and that have had an astonishing 920% dividend growth since 2010.
Within 12 hours of the Hillary Clinton-John Podesta-Jamie Dimon meeting at the Chappaqua Compound, this report continues, the BIS registered the transfer of $1.8 billion from the Clinton Foundation to the Qatar Central Bank.
To why the Clinton Foundation transferred this enormous sum of money to Qatar, this report explains, is due to the longstanding ties between this Islamic neo-patrimonial absolute monarchy and then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who oversaw the “massive bribery scheme” that allowed this Gulf State nation to secure the 2022 World Cup—and that the Qataris were so appreciative of they donated millions to the Clinton Foundation, and incredibly, in 2011, gave former US President Bill Clinton $1 million for a birthday present—bringing Hillary Clinton’s total “cash grab” from these Persian Gulf sheiks of $100 million—all occurring as recently released secret emails revealed Hillary Clinton’s knowledge that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia were, and still are, funding ISIS.
To what Jamie Dimon said to Hillary Clinton that caused her to suddenly transfer $1.8 billion to Qatar, this report notes, revolves around his JP Morgan bank being told by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in April (2016) that this “megabanks” master plan to save itself had “serious deficiencies” that could “pose serious adverse effects to the financial stability of the United States”.
Two months after the FDIC’s warning letter to Jamie Dimon, in June (2016), this report says, he cryptically “sounded a warning” that the United States sub-prime auto loan bubble was nearing collapse and stated that “someone is going to get hurt”.
Unbeknownst to the American people, MoF experts in this report explain, is that just 8 weeks ago multiple warnings began to be issued that the United States $1 trillion sub-prime auto loan bubble was beginning to collapse—and that this past week became so severe the Bank of America issued a recession warning telling its elite customers that “this market is scary”, and the British-based multinational banking and financial services company HSBC, likewise, issued a “Red Alert” warning all of its clients warning them to “prepare for a severe market crash”.
With one of the first casualties of this sub-prime auto loan bubble being the German global banking giant Deutsche Bank that is “nearing its doom” and laying off tens-of-thousands of it workers worldwide, this report grimly states, the American mainstream propaganda media is failing to allow the people of that nation to know the full extent of this looming catastrophe—who unlike Hillary Clinton who has just protected $1.8 billion of her wealth, will be left defenseless once again at the hands of their elite rulers.
As Wikileaks secret Hillary Clinton emails have now proven that the US propaganda mainstream media is now totally controlled by her, and who continue their blackout on the “Clinton Crime Story of the Century”, this report continues, the absolutely horrifying statistics released this week showing that an astounding 35% of American who have been brutalized by the Obama-Clinton regime these past 8 years are so buried in debt they can no longer pay their bills is, likewise, being kept from these most innocent of peoples. | 1 |
Raids in the UK and the North (NRW) region of Germany have led to the arrests of two Islamist sympathisers who are said to have been aiding the Front in Syria. [Police in the German city of Karlsruhe announced the success of raids carried out Wednesday morning. They claimed the two suspects had been ardent supporters of the formerly terror group in Syria, for years and had been collecting money and aid for the group, Taggeschau reports. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office released a statement on the raids saying the two individuals had used front groups to not only collect money for but also to deliver medical supplies to them. “Ambulance vehicles, medical devices, medicines, and foodstuffs have been delivered to Syria,” they said. The two groups used by the suspects were Medicine of Heart and Medicine Without Borders, which is not said to have any affiliation with the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) organisation. Medicine Without Borders project manager Mohamed Belkaid is linked to radical Islamist preacher Brahim Belkaid who goes by the name Abu Abdullah and is in the German scene. According to NRW interior minister Ralf Jäger, the organisation had already been under observation from the domestic intelligence agency prior to the raid. The prosecutor noted the investigations were still ongoing and did not mention in the statement where in the UK the raids took place. The raids come after a crackdown by the German government on Islamist networks in the wake of the Berlin terror attack in December. Radical Islamist asylum seeker Anis Amri used a lorry to kill twelve people and injure almost 50 others at a Christmas market. Last week, German authorities raided radical Islamist Salafists across the country. 1, 100 police officers took part in the operation which saw 54 properties raided. The raids led to the arrest of 16 people including a Tunisian migrant who police say not only was plotting a terror attack in Germany but had also been responsible for an Islamic State attack in Tunisia in 2015. The attack led to the deaths of 21 people at the Bardo Museum in Tunis. Raids on Salafist networks have also been carried out in Austria in recent weeks after the arrest of a Islamic State sympathiser who was plotting a terror attack in Vienna. Police arrested fourteen individuals who were plotting the overthrow of the government and the establishment of a radical Islamic caliphate. | 0 |
A sad commentary, but mostly because it is true. Even if you give Obama the benefit of the doubt and blame corporate healthcare, how naive was he to expect to dance with the devil and not get burned? | 0 |
A short summation of this election cycle would read more like a spy novel than it would a typical race. There’s been Russian intrigue, neo-Nazi violence, backstabbing, double-dealing, conspiracies, hidden foreign connections, and even a full-on James Bond-like supervillain. The world seems to have flipped upside-down, making former friends enemies and former enemies friends.
And the latest case of that is Fox’s Jeanine Pirro, who early on Sunday, took to the airwaves to side with Hillary Clinton in being critical of FBI director James Comey’s announcement of new emails last week . Yes, a Fox News anchor sided with Clinton.
Maybe the Mayans were right about this whole end of the world stuff, but they forgot to carry a zero and were a couple of years off. “All that is wrong with Washington”
There are so many non-scandals concerning email swirling around Clinton that it can be difficult to keep them separate, and they tend to blur together in a big ball of nonsense — unless you’re a right-winger, in which case you probably have a detailed ledger of all the scandals and update that ledger daily.
The latest scandal comes from FBI director James Comey, who, last week, revealed that the FBI had found additional emails they were investigating. Comey, in his infinite good sense, announced this publically, less than two weeks before the election, because nobody would assume that was good old-fashioned Nixonian ratfucking.
Except that’s exactly what happened, and that’s not just my read on the situation — it’s also Judge Jeanine Pirro’s read on it, too.
While speaking early Sunday morning, Pirro ripped into Comey, denouncing him as “symptomatic of all that is wrong with Washington.” Pirro continued :
“One of the most revered agencies in our nation’s history–now seen as putting its finger on the scales of justice–should not now be front and center. You know I support Donald Trump and want him to win, but whether it’s Hillary Clinton or anyone else, Comey’s actions violate not only longstanding Justice Department policy…but the most fundamental rules of fairness and impartiality.”
Comey, it should be noted, made his announcement without the backing of the Department of Justice . The most generous reading about this is that Comey made a short-sighted mistake and needs to be reprimanded. The most cynical reading is that Comey chose his timing so he could try to torpedo Clinton’s campaign.
Comey’s announcement confused aids and prosecutors , too, with some wondering why he would drop a “bombshell which could be a big dud” and others accusing him of acting “irresponsibly.”
Pirro explained she had something like this happen to her; she ran for New York attorney general about 10 years ago, and when she was in the homestretch, the Justice Department and the FBI broke the policy prohibiting public statements that affect elections and said they were going to open an investigation of Pirro.
Pirro called it “mean-spirited” and noted that it was bootless, with the only direct result being it cost her at the polls.
At any rate, there’s an old saying about stopped clocks on military time that’s relevant here. Watch the video below:
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President Trump | 0 |
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…..
……..Nov. 2012
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.
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Hacked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta released by WikiLeaks suggests that Obama may be working on behalf of the Saudi regime.
Via YourNewsWire
The 2008 email comes from Michael Froman, a former Citibank executive, who told Obama who to appoint in his cabinet team once elected President.
The email in question was even sent from Froman’s Citibank email address (rookie!) and includes “A list of African American, Latino and Asian American candidates, broken down by Cabinet/Deputy and Under/Assistant/Deputy Assistant level, plus a list of Native American, Arab/Muslim American and Disabled American candidates.”
Apparently Obama wasn’t as worried about placing women in senior-level positions but Froman decided to offer up some suggestions anyway.
“While you did not ask for this, I prepared and attached a similar document on women.”
Froman even went ahead and “scoped out” which people should be appointed to which cabinet positions.
“At the risk of being presumptuous, I also scoped out how the Cabinet-level appointments might be put together, probability-weighting the likelihood of appointing a diverse candidate for each position (given one view of the short list) and coming up with a straw man distribution.”
As New Republic points out, the Froman appointments ended up being almost entirely right.
The cabinet list ended up being almost entirely on the money. It correctly identified Eric Holder for the Justice Department, Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Robert Gates for Defense, Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff, Peter Orszag for the Office of Management and Budget, Arne Duncan for Education, Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs, Kathleen Sebelius for Health and Human Services, Melody Barnes for the Domestic Policy Council, and more. For the Treasury, three possibilities were on the list: Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Timothy Geithner.
This was October 6. The election was November 4. And yet Froman, an executive at Citigroup, which would ultimately become the recipient of the largest bailout from the federal government during the financial crisis, had mapped out virtually the entire Obama cabinet, a month before votes were counted. And according to the Froman/Podesta emails, lists were floating around even before that.
Many already suspected that Froman, a longtime Obama consigliere, did the key economic policy hiring while part of the transition team. We didn’t know he had so much influence that he could lock in key staff that early, without fanfare, while everyone was busy trying to get Obama elected. The WikiLeaks emails show even earlier planning; by September the transition was getting pre-clearance to assist nominees with financial disclosure forms.
So if this history is any guide then the real power within a future Clinton administration is being formed right now. In fact, another email from January 2015 reveals that Elizabeth Warren was already “intently focused on personnel issues” almost two full years ago as evidenced by the following recap of a conversation that the Hillary campaign had with her Chief of Staff, Dan Geldon.
He was intently focused on personnel issues, laid out a detailed case against the Bob Rubin school of Democratic policy makers, was very critical of the Obama administration’s choices, and explained at length the opposition to Antonio Weiss. We then carefully went through a list of people they do like, which EW sent over to HRC earlier.
We spent less time on specific policies, because he seemed less interested in that.
He spoke repeatedly about the need to have in place people with ambition and urgency who recognize how much the middle class is hurting and are willing to challenge the financial industry.
To the extent there are any purists left, this should clear up any illusion of who controls the political powers that be.
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European officials approved a new agreement on Tuesday that will allow some of the world’s largest companies, including Google and General Electric, to move digital information freely between the European Union and the United States. The pact, known as the E. U. . S. Privacy Shield, comes after months of political wrangling. It is aimed at allowing online data — from social media posts and search queries to information about workers’ pensions and payroll — to be transferred across the Atlantic. The agreement also provides extra privacy protections for European citizens when their information is moved to the United States. Here’s a primer on what was announced, what happens next and how it might affect you. What is the Privacy Shield and why does it matter? The pact allows more than 4, 000 companies that have registered with the Department of Commerce to transfer data between Europe and the United States. The new deal became necessary after Europe’s highest court ruled last year that the previous one — known as Safe Harbor — was invalid because it did not sufficiently protect Europeans’ privacy rights. These digital data transfers are vital for many businesses, particularly technology companies like Facebook, which rely on moving information quickly between regions to power their online advertising businesses. As much as $260 billion of commerce depends on the Privacy Shield, according to industry estimates, so politicians were under pressure to reach an agreement. What are the main points? The pact bolsters privacy guarantees for anyone living in Europe — but not for people in the United States — when their data is shifted across the Atlantic. Many Europeans fear that their information might be used inappropriately by the United States government, including its intelligence agencies, and by companies. The new safeguards include a greater say for Europeans on how their information is used, the right to go to American courts when people think companies or the United States government may have misused their data, and written guarantees from American officials that government agencies will not indiscriminately collect and monitor Europeans’ data without cause. A new position has been created in the State Department to handle European complaints that American intelligence agencies or other government departments may have unfairly collected and used people’s digital data. Why are Europeans so afraid of the United States government? Call it the Snowden factor. After the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden revealed in 2013 that American intelligence agencies were actively spying on people worldwide, including in Europe, the region’s population, policy makers and lawmakers were up in arms. Since the revelations, multiple legal cases have been filed across Europe, particularly involving United States tech companies caught up in the scandal, in an attempt to rein in these activities. Much of the wrangling over the Privacy Shield has focused on data protection safeguards in Europe — where privacy is viewed as a fundamental right on a par with freedom of expression — that are not fully replicated in the United States. American officials say the United States Constitution and various laws provide essentially equivalent privacy rights to Americans and foreign nationals. But European officials have nevertheless fought to guarantee a high level of privacy protection for their citizens when digital information is transferred. Is everyone happy with the Privacy Shield? American and European officials say the pact goes further than the previous deal, ensuring that Europe’s tough privacy rules are respected and replicated when data is moved to the United States. But privacy campaigners and some European national data protection watchdogs are not so sure. Earlier this year, the region’s regulators called for changes to the provisional deal, saying Europeans’ rights were still not sufficiently protected. And despite further revisions, some think the deal still does not go far enough. Legal challenges are already being prepared, and the European Court of Justice — the same court that overturned the previous data transfer deal — is likely to review the Privacy Shield to see if it meets European standards. Where does that leave us? It remains unclear whether Europe’s highest court could eventually overturn the pact, but legal experts say the case, if filed, would not be heard until late 2017 at the earliest. In the meantime, companies are spending tens of millions of dollars to ensure that their data protection rules meet Privacy Shield standards, and privacy groups are searching for test cases to use in their efforts to overturn the new agreement. (Filings are expected within months.) In the face of this uncertainty, the credibility of American and European officials is on the line. The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, and the United States Department of Commerce spent years negotiating the new deal. If it were eventually overturned in court, few companies or privacy experts would have faith that either side could do any better the next time around. “There always will be criticism because we don’t have an equivalent legal system with the U. S.,” Vera Jourova, the European Justice commissioner who negotiated the Privacy Shield, said in an interview. “I’m looking at the practical positive impact that Privacy Shield will have,” she added. “I’m not focused on what may happen with legal challenges. ” | 1 |
■ President Trump, at a political gathering of congressional Republicans, asks, “Where’s my C. I. A. director?” ■ A new Quinnipiac University poll put President Trump’s approval rating at 36 percent, compared to Barack Obama’s 59 percent in the opening weeks of his presidency. ■ The professional golfer Bernhard Langer released a statement saying he never told President Trump a story of voter fraud that Mr. Trump relayed to congressional leaders. President Trump may be unaware that America’s spy chiefs are not supposed to be creatures of partisan politics. Speaking on Thursday in Philadelphia at an annual retreat for Republican lawmakers, Mr. Trump seemed to think Mike Pompeo, the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, would be among the senators, representatives and party operatives hooting and hollering in the crowd. “Where is Pompeo? Where the hell is he?” Mr. Trump said, scanning the crowd. The answer, in case Mr. Trump has not yet figured it out: Mr. Pompeo was not in Philadelphia. The C. I. A. like the military, is supposed to be apolitical, and its chief does not have a direct role in creating administration policies. Though Mr. Pompeo has attended the Republican retreat in years past — he was a Republican representative before taking over the C. I. A. on Monday — it would be considered highly inappropriate for him to take part in his new role running the country’s premier intelligence agency. It was not the first time that Mr. Trump appeared to mix partisan politics and C. I. A business. He accused the C. I. A. ’s previous leadership of playing politics after American intelligence agencies said they believed that Russia tried to help him win the election. Then, on Saturday, he gave a speech at C. I. A. headquarters that was filled with campaign trail rhetoric. The speech was widely criticized by former C. I. A. officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations. But Mr. Trump, in an interview on Wednesday with ABC News, cast the visit to C. I. A. as a highlight of his first days in office. “That speech was a home run,” he said. “I got a standing ovation. In fact, they said it was the biggest standing ovation since Peyton Manning had won the Super Bowl, and they said it was equal. I got a standing ovation. It lasted for a long period of time. ” President Trump, now famously touchy about his approval ratings, is not doing well on that front. A new Quinnipiac University poll put his approval rating among American voters at 36 percent, 33 percent among women. In Quinnipiac’s first poll of Barack Obama’s presidency, Mr. Trump’s predecessor stood at 59 percent. Republican lawmakers who might be considering distancing themselves from their president should consider this: Mr. Trump’s rating among Republicans is 81 percent to 3 percent. Independent voters are the problem. They are more split, with 45 percent disapproving and 35 percent approving of the job that the president is doing. Gathered with the top leaders of Congress, President Trump on Monday apparently relayed the story in all seriousness: the pro golfer Bernhard Langer had told him a story that really stuck with him. As Mr. Trump relayed it, Mr. Langer had been in line to vote in Florida when he was told by an official that he could not cast a ballot. But people all around him who looked far more suspect — Mr. Trump tossed out the names of Latin American countries that the voters might have come from — were allowed to draw up provisional ballots. There was a problem with the story: Mr. Langer is a German citizen. But Mr. Langer says he never talked to Mr. Trump, that he was told the story by a friend, then told the story to a friend who told it to someone with ties to the White House — who apparently told it to Mr. Trump. He certainly never tried to vote in Florida. So, if the story was important to Mr. Trump’s erroneous belief that millions of illegal immigrants gave Hillary Clinton her 2. 8 win in the popular vote, it was based on information. There’s a slight problem with President Trump’s Great Wall with Mexico: the Tohono O’odham Nation. The Native American tribe controls about 75 miles of the border of the United States and Mexico that slices through its sovereign territory. Tribal leaders are already saying that the wall is not going to divide its territory. Verlon M. Jose, the Tohono O’odham Nation’s vice chairman, was not subtle when discussing the wall when he spoke in November to Native News Online: “Over my dead body. ” Tribal officials did say they are willing to meet with President Trump to discuss the matter further. As Mr. Jose said: There may be a Gingrich in the Vatican just yet. Callista Gingrich, the wife of Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and a friend of Mr. Trump’s, is in the running to be ambassador to the Holy See, according to a person briefed on the discussions. Mr. Gingrich, reached by telephone, said that he was aware that his wife had been on a list for the job, but declined to say where things stood. The former speaker took himself out of the running for a cabinet post after it became clear that Mr. Trump was looking elsewhere for a secretary of state. Mr. Trump has known Newt and Callista Gingrich socially for years. They’re members of his golf club in Virginia, and have been at his club, in Palm Beach, Fla. Mr. Gingrich was one of the people Mr. Trump consulted in 2015 when he had already determined he would run for president. But Mrs. Gingrich is the former speaker’s third wife — not something the church takes a shine to. Others who are being considered for the role include William Simon Jr. a friend of Rudolph W. Giuliani. Four senior management officials at the State Department resigned on Wednesday, leaving the department without the top managers charged with running the administrative, consular and foreign mission operations until their successors are in place. “As is standard with every transition, the outgoing administration, in coordination with the incoming one, requested all politically appointed officers submit letters of resignation,” Mark Toner, the department’s acting spokesman, said in a statement, adding: “Of the officers whose resignations were accepted, some will continue in the foreign service in other positions, and others will retire by choice or because they have exceeded the time limits of their grade in service. ” The most senior official to leave is Patrick F. Kennedy, the department’s longtime undersecretary for management, who oversees finances, security, facilities and consular services. But his departure had been expected, in part because of his vigorous defense of of State Hillary’s Clinton’s handling of the attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. He also sought the F. B. I. ’s help in downgrading the security classification of an email from Mrs. Clinton’s private server. Rex Tillerson, nominated to be secretary of state, is not expected to be confirmed by the Senate until next week. Nominations for the department’s deputy positions have yet to be announced or submitted. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said Thursday morning that in spite of President Trump’s perpetual tweet storms, distracting television interviews, occasional lies, and intraparty slights, they are with him on policy. “We are on the same page with the White House,” Mr. Ryan told reporters in Philadelphia, before a visit from Mr. Trump to the congressional Republican’s policy conference. On the list: a costly wall along the border with Mexico, which Mr. Ryan said would be paid for with a supplemental funding request from the White House and existing federal funding to secure the border. Also on the list is a new tax code and a replacement for the Affordable Care Act — easy! (Remember, Congress dithered for weeks and months to scrape together aid for the victims of tropical storm Sandy, to combat the Zika virus and to help the residents of Flint, Mich. while conservatives looked for offsetting spending cuts.) As for Trump’s distractions, the leaders seemed to say that’s his special sideshow. “This is going to be an unconventional presidency,” Mr. Ryan conceded, adding, “that is something we are all going to have to get used to. ” Mr. McConnell also shrugged off questions about Mr. Trump compromising the United States’ relationship with Mexico. “We intend to address the wall issue ourselves, and the president can deal with his relations with other countries on that issue and other issues,” Mr. McConnell said. The Republican chairmen of the House and Senate veterans’ affairs committees dashed off a letter to President Trump Thursday demanding to know whether his executive order freezing federal hiring applied to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Surely you didn’t mean the department under our jurisdiction, suggested Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia and Representative Phil Roe of Tennessee: Don’t be surprised if more such letters emerge as the hiring freeze starts to bite. In a week in which President Trump is busy unraveling much of Barack Obama’s legacy, the former president was defended from an unusual quarter Thursday morning: Mr. Trump. In an post on Twitter, Mr. Trump expressed outrage that Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst whose sentence for leaking American secrets was commuted by Mr. Obama, had criticized the 44th president for not being strong enough. Even though Mr. Trump repeatedly characterized Mr. Obama the same way during last year’s campaign — “weak attitude and pathetic president,” “so weak and so bad,” “he’s been weak, he’s been ineffective” — he evidently thought Ms. Manning was ungracious to do so. Mr. Trump seemed to be referring to a column that Ms. Manning wrote in The Guardian newspaper, in which she argued that Mr. Obama left “very few permanent accomplishments” because he was too willing to compromise. The column was largely a criticism of Republicans never giving Mr. Obama a chance, but it suggested that he had not been strong enough to resist them. “The one simple lesson to draw from President Obama’s legacy: Do not start off with a compromise,” Ms. Manning wrote. “They won’t meet you in the middle. Instead, what we need is an unapologetic progressive leader. ” Wonder where Mr. Trump got his idea? | 1 |
WASHINGTON — When the government was hours away from shutting down in 2011, Representative Mick Mulvaney gathered with his three fellow South Carolina Republican freshmen in a Capitol Hill chapel to seek spiritual guidance on how to vote on a measure to keep the lights on. The verdict: Vote “no. ” These South Carolinians have since gone their own ways professionally. Tim Scott is now a senator. Trey Gowdy became a conservative hero as he led a House committee to study the 2012 attack in Benghazi. And Jeff Duncan has become a social media voice for the right. On Saturday, Donald J. Trump said he would nominate Mr. Mulvaney, a founding member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus — the group that led the takedown of John A. Boehner as speaker — to be his budget director. “He’s a tremendous talent, especially when it comes to numbers and budgets,” Mr. Trump said in a statement. In Mr. Mulvaney, Mr. Trump has chosen for the Office of Management and Budget a spending to join an economic team that could be ideologically in conflict, setting up possible collisions during major next year. The team includes at Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner turned hedge fund manager who has spoken favorably of infrastructure spending that Mr. Mulvaney has opposed a commerce secretary nominee, Wilbur Ross, known for the billions of dollars he has earned through international investing and a National Economic Council director, Gary Cohn, who as president of Goldman Sachs has channeled tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to Democrats as well as Republicans. Mr. Mulvaney, who did not respond to emails seeking comment, has cut an influential swath among House conservatives since he was elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010, when he defeated a longtime representative, John Spratt, a Democrat. He won by characterizing his opponent as a liberal, unconcerned about fiscal prudence, even though as chairman of the House Budget Committee, Mr. Spratt was among his party’s leading deficit hawks. Since then, Mr. Mulvaney has perpetually rejected spending agreements and questioned the government’s need to increase its statutory borrowing limits to avoid default. He has repeatedly opposed some of his own party’s budget proposals, and quickly established himself as one of the most outspoken members of that 2010 class of Republicans. By 2013, at the start of his second term, he declined to support Mr. Boehner’s as speaker, abstaining from the vote in protest. At the same time, unlike some members of the caucus, Mr. Mulvaney, 49, has also supported Paul D. Ryan, Mr. Boehner’s successor as speaker, and has served as a quiet back channel between Mr. Ryan and conservative members. Impish and sometimes Mr. Mulvaney seemed to chafe at serving in the shadow of Mr. Gowdy and Mr. Scott, who are best friends and shining stars in their party and home state. Mr. Mulvaney has now found a political home where he can stand out. He has often served as an articulate spokesman for the right’s spending and positions, far more than many other Freedom Caucus members, who often seem more concerned with than policy persuasion. “Mick is a great choice to lead the O. M. B. ,” Mr. Scott said on Saturday. “We entered Congress together in 2010, and I am certain he will tackle his new position with the same passion he has represented the Fifth District with over the past six years. Facing a $20 trillion debt, we need someone committed to restoring fiscal sanity in Washington, and I am confident Mick will work to do so. ” As budget director, Mr. Mulvaney would help guide a repeal of the Affordable Care Act — a promise of the — a tax overhaul and, potentially, a huge federal investment in the nation’s infrastructure, which, like many Republicans, he does not want. So resolute is Mr. Mulvaney on holding the spending line that in 2013, he almost took down a $50. 7 billion emergency relief bill in the wake of Hurricane Sandy by championing an amendment requiring that the package be offset dollar for dollar with spending cuts. The amendment ultimately failed after Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey criticized Mr. Mulvaney and House Republicans sharply. But the South Carolina conservative praised the 162 votes the measure received as a harbinger for future fights over emergency relief bills. That campaign could in cabinet fights if Mr. Trump insists on pressing forward with a $1 trillion program to rebuild the nation’s roads, bridges, airports and transit systems. If, as Mr. Trump has said, such a program is intended to goose economic growth and job creation, he will be at odds with his budget director, should Mr. Mulvaney insist on equivalent spending cuts elsewhere, which would make the economic impact a wash. An early supporter of Mr. Trump during the campaign, Mr. Mulvaney has taken a hard line on spending during President Obama’s term, vowing not to raise the nation’s debt limit and embracing the term “Shutdown Caucus” because of his willingness to shut the government down instead. Strongly Mr. Mulvaney, who has a degree in international economics from Georgetown University and a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was irked as much by the Republican leadership in the House as he was by Mr. Obama’s command from the White House. If confirmed by the Senate to run the budge office, Mr. Mulvaney would be responsible for helping to shepherd the president’s spending requests through a Congress. | 1 |
Tuesday 8 November 2016 by Lucas Wilde Jeremy Vine already tripping his tits off
Veteran election reporter Jeremy Vine has embarked on his usual pre-election broadcast ritual by taking a load of drugs and hallucinating maps of the USA, pie-charts and various other election-themed visages.
The least-funny of the Vine brothers usually waits until the polls close before cracking open his thermos flask full of hallucinogens, but has decided to get on it early this year.
“I can’t say I blame him” said Lucy Millwall, Head of CGI for BBC News.
“This election has been impressive only for sheer scale of mind-numbing awfulness.
“Honestly, you try pretending to give a shit about what Gary Johnson is up to without yawning.
“It’s actually intriguing watching him dance around an empty green room, imagining he’s kicking a football marked “Florida” between Trump and Clinton.
“We just computer-generate images around whatever he’s imagining. Technically we are ‘enabling’ him but fuck it; it’s really good telly.
“We’re always careful to cut away from him before he starts talking to Peter, the ‘Rapiest Giraffe of Them All’.” Jeremy Vine election coverage
Jeremy Vine has been taking LSD ever since John Major’s first election victory; the campaign proving so overwhelmingly dull that recreational drug use became BBC protocol for several weeks.
Vine is thought to be the only one to keep this up, apart from the Chuckle Brothers, who owe their youthful energy to a vigorous cocaine regimen.
After ballot day, it is thought that Vine will commence the mother of all comedowns, which should wear off just before his next pre-election bender for a Brexit-inspired snap election sometime next month. Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently | 0 |
CAIRO — Egypt said Thursday that explosive traces had been detected on the bodies of passengers retrieved from EgyptAir Flight 804, which plunged into the Mediterranean Sea in May and killed all 66 people on board. The announcement by the Civil Aviation Ministry offers the strongest suggestion yet that a bomb might have felled the airliner as it flew to Cairo from Paris. Previously, officials had focused on a fire as a likely cause. Still, it was not clear why Egyptian officials had taken so long to draw the conclusion about explosives — most of the bodies were recovered from the sea by July — and experts said the cause of the crash remained a mystery. “The timing is odd, and the results are very late,” said Shaker Kelada, a former chief aviation investigator with the ministry. The announcement came amid new fears in Egypt over intensifying violence by the Islamic State and affiliated groups. Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing of a Coptic cathedral in Cairo on Sunday and vowed more such attacks. Egyptian air crash investigations have a record of being slow, opaque and prone to political considerations. The authorities have yet to officially declare the cause of a Russian airliner crash in 2015 that killed 224 people the Kremlin says it was caused by a bomb. Mr. Kelada said it might be no coincidence that the EgyptAir announcement came after the cathedral attack, at a time when President Abdel Fattah was seeking to galvanize the country against the Islamist threat. “The whole thing is very much politicized,” he said. “Maybe the government thought this was a good time to say ‘terrorism.’ ” No group has claimed responsibility for the EgyptAir crash. Some experts say there could be other explanations for the explosive traces besides a bomb. Readings from the plane’s data and voice recorders, made public by Egypt during the summer, indicated that smoke had spread through the cockpit just before the crash, and that one of the pilots had warned of a “fire. ” Investigators have said they did not know what caused the blaze, but the evidence indicated that the plane broke up in midair after the fire overwhelmed the crew. In September, the newspaper Le Figaro reported that French officials had found traces of explosives on the wreckage, but that their Egyptian counterparts had prevented them from conducting further tests. Egyptian officials cited in the article denied that the French team had been obstructed. The French authorities were cautious about Thursday’s announcement and declined to draw conclusions from it. The French Foreign Ministry said that the investigation would continue, “in order to determine the exact causes” of the crash. In the early months of the investigation, senior Egyptian officials openly favored the bomb theory because it shifted potential blame away from the EgyptAir crew and the company’s maintenance record, and on to the security procedures at Charles de Gaulle Airport, where the flight originated. A senior Egyptian aviation official said the latest crash update had been received by the government in November but was only made public this week for “political reasons. ” The official, who declined to elaborate, was not authorized to speak to the news media and spoke only on the condition of anonymity. Tarek Attiya, a spokesman for the Egyptian police, said prosecutors there would now turn to the French airport. “The prosecution will now have to go through diplomatic channels to uncover what happened,” Mr. Attiya said. “The plane should have left the airport in Paris completely clean. It’s completely their problem. ” Fears of terrorism have worsened the damage in Egypt’s tourism industry, which has been struggling since the Arab Spring upheavals of 2011. The crash of a Russian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula in 2015 devastated the economy along the Red Sea coast, where the flight had taken off, causing flight cancellations and hotel closings. The slump in tourism is a central factor of Egypt’s foreign currency crisis, which has precipitated a sharp decline in the value of the Egyptian pound and has led to shortages of staples like sugar. | 1 |
This past weekend brought the world another banned missile launch from North Korea followed by another emergency UN Security Council meeting. Another round of diplomatic tough talk and sanctions is surely on the way. [On February 12, North Korea launched a ballistic missile (IRBM). A decade of sanctions has not deterred the Hermit Kingdom from pursuing its goal of developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) with nuclear warheads which could target the U. S. homeland. Yet, the Trump Administration has an opportunity to escape from the cycle of following each North Korean missile test with yet more ineffectual sanctions. President Trump should order the Secretary of Defense to position American assets and shoot down Kim Jong Un’s next missile launch. Intercepting a North Korean missile would signal to Pyongyang that America has the capability and the willingness to defend our allies and the homeland. In the parlance of military strategy, the missile defense option enhances . North Korea is more likely to be deterred from developing missiles if robust, layered missile defenses deny them any strategic benefit from striking first. The only two alternatives are preemptive offensive action and, of course, more strongly worded UN Security Council resolutions and toothless sanctions. In July 2006, North Korea abandoned seven years of multilateral negotiations by testing seven ballistic missiles — including the Taepo ICBM. Shortly thereafter, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1695 condemning the launches and demanding that Kim ’s regime returns to multilateral talks and the previous launch moratorium. North Korea has responded subsequently by conducting over 30 banned missile launches and nuclear tests. Like clockwork, the United Nations and the United States responded to these violations with over 20 actions to establish, expand, or reaffirm sanctions. This weekend’s missile test followed the latest UN Security Council Resolution (2321) enacted in November 2016. Clearly, a decade of sanctions has not changed Pyongyang’s behavior. While the diplomats tussle in Turtle Bay, North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs move steadily forward. Cleary, U. S. and international diplomatic and economic instruments of power are insufficient — even combined with allies and partners. Continually signaling impotence weakens the trust of Japan, South Korea, and the American people. So, what change is needed? Should we pursue diplomatic efforts? Yes. Should we enhance economic sanctions? Yes. It’s time to back up those options with a credible show of defensive military force. Can America’s armed forces actually “hit a bullet with a bullet”? Absolutely. Led by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) the U. S. military has constructed a Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) over three decades. The BMDS represents an integrated and layered network of sensors ( and ) interceptors ( and ) and nodes that provide an umbrella of protection from inbound ballistic missile threats. The Aegis BMDS system would likely be used to defeat a North Korean threat. Aegis is a combination system capable against to ballistic missile threats for regional defense. The system also supports homeland defense through its detection and tracking capabilities. The United States has 16 Aegis BMD ships assigned to Pacific Fleet complemented by Japan’s four deployed Aegis KONGO Class Destroyers. Since 2002, Aegis BMD has a stellar test record — 34 hits (3 with Japanese KONGOs) and only 6 misses. Aegis is well suited to shoot a or Musudan out of the sky. American taxpayers have provided more than $180 billion to the MDA since 1985, including more than $16 billion for Aegis. It’s time to put the treasure of the American taxpayer to work. Absent use of defensive intercept, the military alternative is preemptive strike to take out North Korean missiles on the pad. Incidentally, two former Secretaries of Defense — Ashton Carter and William Perry — recommended preemptive strike a decade ago. The difference today is that operational missile defenses provide the option to reinforce deterrence and assure allies without necessarily escalating to offensive action. President Trump should direct Secretary of Defense James Mattis to posture our ballistic missile defense forces in the Pacific theater to intercept any and all future North Korean ballistic missile launches. A forceful military response — backing up diplomacy and sanctions — may help deter further ballistic missile and nuclear development. Congressman Jim Bridenstine, a Republican, represents Oklahoma’s First District and serves on the House Armed Services Committee. Bridenstine is a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and currently an Air National Guardsman with the 137th Special Operations Wing in Oklahoma City, OK. | 1 |
Our coverage of the Trump transition continues. Read Friday’s briefing » Donald J. Trump’s busy day in Washington has come to an end, with smiles all around and the Dow Jones industrial average at a record high, but with protests continuing in the city’s streets. Mr. Trump had intended to stay the night in Washington, but changed his mind and returned Thursday to Trump Tower in Manhattan. Check back with us as we monitor every step of the Trump transition. Steve Bannon, the conservative provocateur and Mr. Trump’s campaign chief, is now a leading candidate to become White House chief of staff, but he’d have to beat out another campaign veteran in the running, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. Mr. Bannon, the executive chairman of the conservative website Breitbart News, who took a leave to help manage the final weeks of Mr. Trump’s campaign, is well liked among Mr. Trump’s circle of overlapping advisers, who see him as a favorable influence on the . But Mr. Priebus is said to be viewed favorably by two people especially close to Mr. Trump: his daughter Ivanka and Jared Kushner. Mr. Priebus is personally close to both Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, the vice and he could serve as a helpful bridge to crucial elements of the Republican Party. Corey Lewandowski, Mr. Trump’s first campaign manager, has also been mentioned for chief of staff, despite having been fired by the campaign in June. But Mr. Trump’s children, who feuded publicly with him during the campaign, may resist. Two other names being discussed: Kellyanne Conway, Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, and David Bossie, a veteran conservative operative who became Mr. Trump’s deputy campaign manager. Mr. Trump, a man who once questioned the birthplace of the president, and Mr. Obama, who scorched Mr. Trump as unfit for the Oval Office, met the news media in that esteemed room, and at least for public consumption, let bygones and bygones. Mr. Trump, who often labeled Mr. Obama the worst president in history during the campaign, this time called him a “very good man. ” For a full account, read here. After the White House, it was on to Capitol Hill to meet with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and the speaker of the House, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin. Mr. Ryan only reluctantly endorsed Mr. Trump, called his attack on a judge of Mexican heritage the “textbook definition” of racism, and then stopped campaigning for him after a video emerged of the candidate bragging about sexual assault. On Thursday, it was all smiles. “Donald Trump had one of the most impressive victories we have ever seen, and we’re going to turn that victory into progress for the American people,” Mr. Ryan said, “and we are now talking about how we are going to hit the ground running to get this country turned around and make America great again. ” Mr. Trump added: “We had a very detailed meeting, and we’re going to lower taxes, as you know, health care, we’re going to make it affordable. We are going to do a real job on health care. ” Mr. Ryan then showed off the view from his balcony, pointing out the Old Post Office on Pennsylvania Avenue, which Mr. Trump converted into a luxury hotel. Mr. Trump planned to spend Thursday night in Washington, aides announced. No word on whether he’ll be in the new hotel. Michelle Obama welcomed Melania Trump to tea and a tour of the White House residence on Thursday, yet another extraordinary moment as the first lady, who bitterly denounced Mr. Trump and his treatment of women during the presidential campaign, welcomed his wife to her new home. While Mr. Obama and Mr. Trump held their own meeting in the Oval Office, the two women stepped out on the Truman Balcony, with sweeping views of the grounds and the Washington Monument, strolled through the State Floor with the resident curator, and even talked about raising children at the White House, said Josh Earnest, the press secretary. When they were finished, Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Trump went to the Oval Office to meet their husbands before the Trumps departed for Capitol Hill, Mr. Earnest said. Tens of thousands of Americans are rushing to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act after Mr. Trump’s victory as revitalized Republicans vow to repeal the law. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, reported that more than 100, 000 people selected health plans on Wednesday through HealthCare. gov. It was, she said on Twitter Thursday, the “best day yet” in the current period, which began Nov. 1 and ends Jan. 31. Even though premiums on the Affordable Care Act exchanges have increased sharply in many parts of the country, federal officials say most consumers can still find coverage for less than $100 a month, after subsidies help defray the cost. Mr. Trump has said he will “completely repeal Obamacare,” but has not said in detail how he would replace it. Instead of the subsidies now available to most people buying insurance through the online marketplace, Mr. Trump wants to allow people to take tax deductions equal to their premiums. “We’ll figure it out on election night. ” That’s what Mr. Trump told his advisers after they pressed him this year to name people to a transition team that was supposed to give his campaign the appearance of being serious about winning. So if Mr. Trump’s fledgling transition looks a little seat of the pants, well, blame superstition. Mr. Trump said he did not like the idea of planning ahead because he thought it might jinx him. “It’s bad luck,” he told advisers, according to one senior aide who spoke to Mr. Trump about the matter. They love Bernie Sanders, they adore Elizabeth Warren, but as Democrats regroup from Mrs. Clinton’s defeat, the progressive wing of the party is looking to another candidate to lead the Democratic National Committee: Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota. Donna Brazile replaced Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz as the committee’s interim leader over the summer after it emerged that the committee was favoring Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Sanders in the Democratic primary contest. Hacked emails released by WikiLeaks also showed that Ms. Brazile had been trying to help Mrs. Clinton. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee said on Thursday that Democrats would continue losing elections unless they aggressively take on corporate power and pointed to Mr. Ellison, who is one of two Muslims in the House and is of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “The Democratic establishment had their chance with this election,” said Stephanie Taylor, a of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “It’s time for new leadership of the Democratic Party — younger, more diverse, and more ideological — that is hungry to do things differently, like leading a movement instead of dragging people to the polls. ” Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and an ardent opponent of immigration, has been added to Mr. Trump’s transition team, according to local news reports. Mr. Kobach, who provided guidance on immigration policy to Mr. Trump during the campaign, will help the in the weeks before he takes office, according to The Wichita Eagle. He told the paper he did not expect to get an offer to serve in the Trump administration, but just having him in a formal role in the new Washington could send shudders through the nation’s immigrants. Mr. Kobach has been one of the loudest voices in the Republican Party for years. He added Mr. Trump’s call for a border wall along the southern tier into the party’s platform over the summer. Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain spoke by telephone on Thursday, affirming the “special relationship” between the two countries and agreeing to work closely together, according to a readout of the call provided by the British Embassy. It was a meeting of the “Brexits”: the prime minister ushered into power after Britons voted to exit the European Union and a who has proudly proclaimed himself “Mr. Brexit” — as big a political shock as the British vote. “The prime minister and Trump agreed that the U. S. . K. relationship was very important and very special, and that building on this would be a priority for them both,” said Laura Palts, an embassy spokeswoman. “ Trump set out his close and personal connections with, and warmth for, the U. K. ” Mr. Trump encouraged Brexit and has been supportive of Mrs. May. This year he clashed with David Cameron, Britain’s former prime minister, and Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, after they criticized his proposal to bar Muslims from entering the United States. But on Thursday Mr. Trump told Mrs. May that Britain was a “very, very special place for me and for our country” and invited her to pay him a visit as soon as possible. Republican congressional leaders have confirmed what might seem obvious with Mr. Trump’s triumph: Mr. Obama’s trade agreement with 11 Pacific Rim nations is dead. The Senate majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said “No” when reporters asked on Wednesday if the pending Partnership — the largest regional trade deal in history — would be considered in the lame duck Congress that convenes next week. “I think the made it pretty clear he was not in favor of the current agreement,” Mr. McConnell said. Mr. Trump has the authority “to negotiate better deals, as I think he would put it,” Mr. McConnell added, but that prospect is unlikely given the difficulty of renegotiating a pact at least seven years in the making among a dozen countries. One of the agreement’s strongest and Republican advocates, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, echoed the Senate leader. “This important agreement is not ready to be considered during the lame duck and will remain on hold until President Trump decides the path forward,” he said. The office of Representative Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that Mr. Pence had reached out on a phone call, and she congratulated him on his win. They agreed to meet in the coming weeks to talk more. Ms. Pelosi, the Democratic leader from California, is acquainted with Mr. Pence from his days in the House, where he was something of a rebel before joining the Republican leadership. Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, expressed interest on Thursday morning in being attorney general, telling CNN, “I certainly have the energy, and there’s probably nobody who knows the Justice Department better than me. ” The next question: Would he actually make good on Mr. Trump’s promise to put Hillary Clinton in jail? Ms. Conway, the Trump campaign manager, left the door open on Wednesday. So did Mr. Giuliani on Fox News when he said Mr. Obama should not pardon Mrs. Clinton for allegedly mishandling classified information on a private server as secretary of state. “I don’t like to see America become a country in which we prosecute people, you know, about politics,” he said. “On the other hand, there are deep and disturbing issues there in which if you don’t investigate them — ” The Fox News hosts finished the sentence: “They’re going to continue. ” Legal analysts say that a Trump attorney general would wield the power to open a new investigation, even with a special prosecutor. But he could not guarantee the outcome. Of course, maybe Mr. Giuliani won’t be in the Trump administration. He told The Times’s Matt Apuzzo on Wednesday that he was “not interested in returning to government. ” Instead, he and his friend Michael B. Mukasey, the former attorney general, would advise Mr. Trump on potential nominees. “Between us, we can locate a lot of really good people. ” | 1 |
When I was a kid, “Quantum Leap” was one of my favorite TV shows. Its conceit was ludicrous, but in a way that allowed for maximum entertainment: A experiment gone awry forces the handsome Dr. Sam Beckett to “leap” among different bodies at various points in history. Each episode began with Beckett waking up in a new situation and piecing together the mystery of his surroundings. The show didn’t shy away from serious themes: In one, he wakes up in the body of a woman who has just been raped in another, he wakes up in the body of a black man in Alabama in the 1950s. “Quantum Leap” has stayed with me all these years, I think, because it offered my young, impressionable mind a framework for normal travel. Arriving in a new place — even if it’s in the same dimension — can be disjointing and chaotic, because each new destination is governed by an invisible set of rules. Traditional guidebooks have never quite done it for me. Too often they seem to be aimed at a certain type of comfortable, traveler. And I happen to know intimately that the authors weren’t always the most informed: One of my first paid writing jobs was for a company, where I penned florid prose about sea turtles in Costa Rica a full three years before I ever set foot in the country. The rise of the social web promised a new era of personalization for . But like many things born online, as popularity of the new tools increased, efficiency and usefulness began to decrease. Brands and businesses quickly set to figuring out how to manipulate and game the services, and they soon succeeded. Yelp, for example, lost credibility after it was revealed that businesses solicited people to write fake reviews. Foursquare’s recommendations were initially a wealth of insider tips, but advertisers often bought their way into the recommendations, giving chains priority over local businesses. TripAdvisor has a slightly different problem: Its ambit is so broad that its recommendations have come to represent a safe median, a poll of polls. It’s great for making sure a restaurant you want to eat in won’t give you dysentery, but less so for identifying adventures or local secrets. Each of these shortcomings is different, but they amount to the same problem: These tools have come to replicate the biases and generic quality of the travel guides they were meant to replace. And as the vis ual web matured, this problem seemed to be replicating itself yet again. Tourist boards flew popular Instagrammers to their idyllic locations and paid them to post impossibly stunning photographs to attract other world trekkers. Locations that may have once been hidden gems, like New Zealand’s South Island, became hot spots — a boon for the local economy but bad for reliable reviews. When people talk about how the internet has changed the way we travel, they typically lament the way our compulsion to document removes us, somehow, from the actual experience. In an article for Backchannel on Medium earlier this year called “Instagram Is Ruining Vacation,” Mary Pilon wrote about dependency and how the “fight for the perfect Instagram” was influencing where — and how — people decided to spend their time. “At times, it felt like destinations were morphing into mere photo sets,” she writes about tourist behavior on a trip to Angkor Wat. But that same urge to share has created what is, for me, the best travel resource on the web: using searches on apps, especially Insta gram, to drop in, like Dr. Beckett, to different destinations. Looking at the raw feed of geotagged posts offers a graphic map in real time, which you can comb through to make your own guidebook. I like to think of it as akin to a surf cam. But instead of tuning in to see if the waves are too mushy, feeds give a feel for a place that you can use to decide if a place feels fun and seems safe — whatever that means to you. And this has become my compass, my way of navigating the world. Rather than obsessing over travel sites or print guides or bothering friends for recommendations, I check a new city or town’s location tag right before I get there and see which recent posts are most popular. What I see there is wildly unfiltered, refracted through multiple perspectives — and much more revealing than any other guide. Before I went to Senegal in March, I spent two days watching the location tags for Gorée Island, a landmark famous for its horrible history. It was there that captured Africans were imprisoned before being shipped to the Americas to be sold into slavery. The feed on the Gorée Island location tag was cluttered with tourists’ selfies. Worried that such cluelessness would ruin the experience and heighten the impact of the island’s historical trauma, I decided to see the island some other time and have dinner with a friend and her family at their home instead. This approach also affords a window into cultural insights I might not get other wise. The year before, in Morocco, a group of friends and I were unsure how best to dress when walking around a small town outside Tangier — we wanted to be especially respectful because we were visiting during Ramadan — so we browsed local Instagram posts until we had a sense of what was appropriate. In Puerto Rico, I was eager to experience the culture, so I scanned tags on Instagram until I sighted brown and black bodies in the location tag for Piñones, a beach outpost where families swim in the sea and vendors sell cold coconuts and alcapurrias, fritters stuffed with crab and cheese. It was one of the highlights of the trip. Just about any app with geolocation will do each, in its own way, offers you direct access to locals and fellow travelers alike. While on an extended trip in Norway, and desperate for nonnative Norwegians to meet, I prowled and posted on Yik Yak in Oslo to try to figure out where young brown people hung out. In Cape Cod, I used Her — a dating app — to look into where young lesbians gathered in Provincetown. These apps can also work in unexpected ways, specifically to avoid harm and danger: In Dakar, my friend and I received warnings via Grindr about inquiring openly about gay bars and hangouts, as homosexuality is still illegal in Senegal. A few months later, back home in New York, in an effort to safely celebrate Pride in the aftermath of the shootings in Orlando at Pulse, these samplings were crucial for determining the temperature of gay events around the city. Lately, I’ve been thinking about these uses through another lens. In the early 20th century, segregation and racial hostility meant that traveling while black in America was an extremely dangerous affair. In 1936, a Harlem postal worker named Victor Green published a booklet called “The Negro Motorist Green Book,” or just “The Green Book,” comprising information he and other postal workers had gathered along their routes about establishments that would welcome black travelers. The book became less relevant by the ’60s, as the rise of the civil rights movement and the fight for equal access diminished the popularity of the Jim Crow staple. But even as laws and culture have changed, the rules are still not the same for everyone in America, or the world. The reality is that we all move through the world subject to subtly different forces and dynamics. As an adult venturing out, I’ve come to figure out that adaptability requires assembling my own version of a Green Book, made in real time, generated almost accidentally by our collective need to share. | 1 |
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Trump's Wall Might Only Be a Fence in Some Areas, And Only Rows of Shubbery in Others Monday, 14 November 2016 The Trump Petting Zoo will contain many exotic specimens.
New York, NY Trump transition sources added more to the information about Trump's wall on the U.S./Mexico border. Earlier, the news was broken that Trump had said the wall might only be a fence in some places. Today, sources further admitted that many parts of the "wall" will actually be shrubbery.
"It will, however, be very tasteful but menacing-looking shrubbery and actually quite striking" a Trump source said. "There will also be parts of the wall where there is fence, shrubbery, and then sand and a petting zoo."
"It was Mr. Trump's personal idea to add the petting zoos for the kids." Make Al N.'s day - give this story five thumbs-up (there's no need to register , the thumbs are just down there!) | 0 |
Friday, 4 November 2016
First there was SpyGate, then there was DeflateGate, and now… PrankGate?
It's common knowledge amongst NFL fans that the New England Patriots seek out innovative and creative ways to gain a competitive advantage - often blurring the line between gamesmanship .and rule-breaking. We've all heard the rumors of helmet radio interference, or fire alarms sounding late at night in visiting teams' hotel rooms, or that Peyton Manning himself refused to ever speak aloud in the locker room at Foxborough. But now it is alleged that over the past decade, members of the Patriots' special teams unit have placed thousands of elaborate prank calls to opposing players and coaches in hopes of disturbing them mentally and emotionally.
Speaking anonymously, a former special teams assistant named 4-time Pro Bowl kicker Stephen Gostkowski as the ringleader of the operation:
"The plan was to pose as solicitors, family members, or even romantic partners"
According to our source, Gostkowski makes the majority of the calls himself, and finds considerable pleasure in hoodwinking his opponents.
"He refers to himself as Stephen Gotcha-kowski," confessed the whistleblower, "Stephen Gostkowski might be the best kicker in the world, but Stephen Gotcha-kowski is the greatest pranker on the planet. His words, not mine."
"When Stephen arrived in 2006, Bill [Belichick] told the special teams guys to find busywork while the offense and defense were watching game film," recalls the ex-assistant. "Stephen didn't even blink. He started dialing that day and never looked back. First we collected phone numbers of former Patriots and ex-teammates. Before the bye week, we had every number in the league."
Gostkowski took his craft seriously. Our source claims he hired a team of assistants to perform hours of research to craft the perfect call to suit each victim. When a video surfaced of Rex Ryan fetishizing his wife's feet, Gostkowski brought his own wife in and jumped on the opportunity:
"He had his wife, Hallie, flirting with Rex three or four times a week. She was just as into the pranking as Stephen was. She made up a character for herself, bought a bunch of high heels, and would act out scenes while she was on the phone with him. Rex loved that girl. He was ready to put her in his will." This prank may have backfired, however, by serving as motivation for Rex- the Jets beat the Patriots in the playoffs one month later.
Before the 2006 AFC Championship game, the shenanigans took a dark turn. Gostkowski called Colts head coach Tony Dungy, posing as a suicidal college student.
"That got intense," our source remembers. "Coach Dungy was a sweetheart. They talked for hours and by the end of it, Steve was broken down in tears. I thought Dungy was wearing him down emotionally, but as soon as they hung up, he busted out laughing and got started on the next call. That one gave me the creeps."
Again, Gostkowski's ploy failed. Despite the lack of sleep, Dungy's warm and motivational demeanor helped his Colts to defeat the Patriots on the way to a Super Bowl victory.
More than just a conniving prankster, Gostkowski also became a master impersonator. In 2010, he spent weeks honing a spot-on impression of 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh. Gostkowski studied his dialect, inflections, and even began mimicking the coach's movements and style of dress while at home. He then called Harbaugh's brother, Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, and slipped into character.
"Dude went balls out on that call," recounts the former assistant. "He drank 2 cans of Red Bull and threatened to set John's house on fire." With such a bold claim, one would think Harbaugh would catch on quickly, but that wasn't the case. "John totally bought it, almost as if the threats came as no surprise to him." Public records do indicate that police visited both brothers' homes on January 9, 2010, but it did not hinder the Ravens' performance as Harbaugh's squad thumped the Pats 33-14 in the Wild Card Playoff game the next day.
This method however did not deceive another famous pair of brothers. Gostkowski called Giants quarterback Eli Manning prior to the Patriots devastating Super Bowl XLII loss, this time posing as legendary quarterback, Peyton Manning.
"Eli was really smart about it," our source discloses. "He was one of the first to catch on. He strung Steve along, discussing 'strategy' for a good 20 minutes or so. Then Eli started asking him personal questions with increasing specificity. Steve came prepared and nailed the stuff about Peyton's favorite sandwich and the suspicious spot on his [scrotum], but crumbled when Eli brought up a childhood story about a Manning family reunion that ended in tragedy. Gostkowski pretended to lose service and hung up the phone, but he was sweating bullets."
After locking up the stunning upset, Manning made sure to catch up with Gostkowski on the field. "Eli shook Steve's hand, brought him in close, and whispered 'I dropped the turd in the gumbo'. That really pissed him off."
Just how many prank calls has Stephen Gotcha-kowski made over the years? "I would say upwards of five thousand- that's just during practice. Who knows how much pranking he did in his spare time." The source alleges that Gostkowski once convinced former Bengals head coach Jon Gruden to buy into a pyramid scheme, and even tricked friend and former teammate Wes Welker into believing he was suffering from schizophrenia.
"I could write a book on this guy," declared the assistant. When asked if he thinks the Pats' kicker is still making these types of calls: "I would bet my kidney that he's still doing it, and I only have one kidney. Stephen can't live without pranking. He's got dossiers on every player in the league, plus guys scouting for dirt on college players. The guy has at least 20 burner phones at all times. I wouldn't doubt that he had a hand in [Browns wide receiver] Josh Gordon checking into rehab just before they played the Pats. That reeks of Gotcha-kowski influence."
It remains to be seen if PrankGate will garner the same attention from mainstream news outlets as this team's previous scandals. Perhaps the league will be reluctant to pick at the Patriots' wounds so soon after an expensive and tiresome legal battle with Tom Brady. But if further evidence presents itself or more witnesses come forward, this story has the capacity to be the Pats' most shocking example of disregard for the spirit of the game. There are no specific rules in regards to making prank phone calls, but personal harassment of this magnitude is sure to violate the league's code of personal conduct policy. Who will get the last laugh in PrankGate? Probably Eli Manning. Make Hey Hey Nixon-Cox's | 1 |
Behind the headlines - conspiracies, cover-ups, ancient mysteries and more. Real news and perspectives that you won't find in the mainstream media. Browse: Home / SU 35 Vs F 35 Unbiased Detailed Comparison: Top 5 Facts Essential Reading Have You Read the Talmud Lately? By wmw_admin on September 3, 2006
The Talmud expounds some of the most virulent racism, as these extracts plainly show. However, as a reader points out not all Jews are influenced by it, or even read it. Only the ultra religious study it, the rest haven’t a clue. We leave you to decide The Liberation of the Camps By wmw_admin on January 27, 2016
It is tantamount to virtual heresy to question the ‘Holocaust’ today. But did the extermination of 6 million really happen as we’ve been taught? The Lady, The Queen and what it really means By wmw_admin on December 28, 2009
Every picture tells a story and with some photos and a few words Paul Powers shows us what was hidden in the background when Queen Elizabeth II met pop sensation Lady Gaga The Man Who Would Be King By Rixon Stewart on April 15, 2008
Some say that Prince Michael of Albany has a more legitimate claim to the throne of England than the Windsors. Are they right? And why are the Windsors and the mainstream media delberately ignoring him? Affidavit of Richard Tomlinson By wmw_admin on February 14, 2008
“I firmly believe that there exist documents held by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) that would yield important new evidence into the cause and circumstances leading to the death of the Princess of Wales.” General Ivashov: “International terrorism does not exist” By wmw_admin on February 24, 2007
Gen. Leonid Ivashov was Chief of Staff of Russian armed forces when the 9/11 attacks took place, but he says, they weren’t carried out by Osama or al-Qaeeda. The most likely culprits, says the General, were transnational mafias and international oligarchs Worlds Before Our Own 2 By Rixon Stewart on September 1, 2006
Housed in a warehouse in Ica, Peru, is a collection of ancient stone tablets which carry pictures portraying advanced medical practice. They open a Pandora’s box of questions and challenge everything we have been taught about our past The “Six Million” Myth By wmw_admin on April 16, 2011
Long before it became a crime in some countries to question the Holocaust, in fact before it is even supposed to have happened, Zionists were invoking the figure of “Six Million” and talking of a sacrifice for Israel Who Brought the Slaves to America? By wmw_admin on June 30, 2008
Contrary to what you have been told, it wasn’t White Anglo Saxon Protestants (WASP’s) who founded and monopolised the slave trade The true inside facts about the 7/7 London bombings By wmw_admin on January 21, 2008
What this website has long suspected has been confirmed. James Casbolt, himself a former MI6 operative, gets the inside story from a disaffected member of British Intelligence on who was really behind the 7/7 bombings and why | 0 |
CNN, which was dubbed Clinton News Network during the presidential campaign, is locked in a public relations battle with Donald Trump — and he’s winning, according to media experts. [“Maybe CNN gets a short term bump from the attention,” David Shuster, the former MSNBC anchor, who once worked for CNN President Jeff Zucker, told the Hill. “But the long term damage to CNN, and the boost to Trump, could be significant. He’s winning this. ” Last week, CNN dedicated massive amounts of airtime to memos alleging that there was communication between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russian officials. Numerous allegations in the report, which Trump dubbed “fake news,” have since been found to be false: FAKE NEWS — A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017, Trump himself has said he believed CNN’s coverage of him would become fair after he beat Hillary Clinton, but he noticed that it had, instead, gotten “worse. ” “I thought that CNN would get better after they failed so badly in their support of Hillary Clinton however, since election, they are worse!” he wrote in November, a few weeks after the election. “CNN is so embarrassed by their total (100%) support of Hillary Clinton, and yet her loss in a landslide, that they don’t know what to do,” Trump also wrote on Twitter. Trump’s loyal supporters had also taken notice of what they thought was CNN’s biased coverage of the Republican nominee. In October, about a month before Election Day, for example, more than 10, 000 Trump supporters chanted “CNN sucks” during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania for Trump. Supporters shout ”CNN sucks” during @realDonaldTrump rally in PA @BreitbartNews pic. twitter. — Alex Swoyer, esq. (@ASwoyer) October 11, 2016, “If there is one thing we know for sure about Donald Trump, it’s that he can hold a grudge. Just ask Rosie O’Donnell or Graydon Carter,” media analyst Brian Flood told the Hill. “It would probably take Jeff Zucker heading to Trump Tower to kiss the ring to squash the whole thing,” Flood added. “Citizen Trump would hold a grudge for life, but Trump has shown he’s willing to meet with anyone under the right circumstances. ” Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson. | 0 |
Fight to liberate Italy as a WWII Allied sniper in singleplayer, and multiplayer in Sniper Elite 4, coming to Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC on February 14. | 0 |
The messengers showed up in Bushwick, Brooklyn, on Sunday, laying their bicycles flat in the middle of Waterbury Street, then stepping back as someone distributed photocopied manifests, the term used for a list of pickups and deliveries. At 2:23 p. m. a man shouted “Go!” and they were off, about 70 men and women charging back to their bicycles, grabbing them, then speeding away to start the North American Cycle Courier Championship, a contest designed to test abilities honed over years of messenger runs. There are about 5, 000 bike messengers in New York City, more than any place else in the country, and the city has been the site of countless unsanctioned races, called alley cats, with names like Cranksgiving and Rumble Thru Da Bronx. But this was the first time the continental championship, which dates to 1998, was held in New York. Messengers are known for a brash, adrenalized approach to their work, threading through traffic at dizzying speeds and often treating red lights as mere suggestions. Occupational hazards include barreling trucks, barely visible potholes and taxi doors flinging open without warning. Messengers in the city typically earn $10 to $20 per trip, based mainly on the distance they travel and how fast they cover it. Speed is important, of course, but so is the ability to prioritize runs, calculate routes and navigate building security measures that could lengthen a trip. The race on Sunday was meant to mirror a day in the life of a working messenger — except for the absence of cars and trucks, which were blocked by police barricades from the course’s area. Participants chose from dozens of trips between 11 checkpoints. Those trips, listed on the manifests, included standard and rush deliveries of envelopes, boxes and tubes, with varying values assigned. Software created by a former messenger kept track of the trips and electronic earnings, occasionally throwing in an intentional setback for the sake of verisimilitude. The aim of the race was to complete as many lucrative trips as possible within the allotted time whoever accumulated the highest dollar amount would be declared the winner. Participants faced some of the same risks present during actual runs. Slick streets could cause crashes. Frustration over a bit of bad luck could result in a loss of focus. Rudeness to checkpoint volunteers playing the part of receptionists or mailroom clerks could carry a penalty, in this case disqualification. “Being fast is secondary to being smart in this race,” said Josh Weitzner, a race organizer and an owner of Samurai Messenger Service in the city. Another organizer, Austin Horse, who works with Flash Courier in New York and won the previous two North American championships, which were held in Minneapolis and Denver, said success often depended upon the ability to scan a manifest quickly, identify the most profitable runs and keep track of which pickup and trips could be effectively combined. “This is maybe the only cycling competition where a highlighter is performance equipment,” Mr. Horse said. Racers came from across the United States, Canada and Mexico. There were also some from outside North America, though they were not eligible to win. They included visitors from Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Scotland and Switzerland. Many participants said they came to New York as much for the camaraderie as for the competition. For days before the race, groups of messengers cycled through Brooklyn, visiting bicycle shops and bars. On Saturday night, more than 100 messengers met in a schoolyard in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and voted to hold the 2018 championship in Philadelphia. (The 2017 race was already scheduled for Milwaukee.) Afterward, a group of women met to discuss their experiences as messengers in a field dominated by men. “You definitely have to prove that you’re as good as everyone else and then that you’re better,” Kelly Pennington, a member of the Chasseurs Courrier collective in Montreal, said. “Being mediocre isn’t really an option. ” On Sunday, Ms. Pennington and the other competitors sped through wet streets with boxes crammed into backpacks and shoulder bags. They chained their bikes at each checkpoint so spectators would not simulate a theft by moving an unlocked bike. On occasion, messengers asked for a package at a checkpoint only to receive a message, generated by the race software and communicated by a volunteer, that the desired package was not yet ready for pickup. As the race ended just after 5 p. m. the software tabulated the results, revealing the winner to be Christina Peck of San Francisco. Cyclists milled on Waterbury Street afterward, discussing aspects of the race. Erick Setterlund, an independent New York messenger, said the course had provided visitors with an accurate example of what it was like to ride locally. “There were old rail lines, lots of drains and manholes, plenty of potholes to look out for,” he said. “That’s just the way it is around here. ” | 1 |
The Trump administration served notice on Thursday that its next move to deregulate broadband internet service companies would be to jettison the Obama administration’s net neutrality rules, which were intended to safeguard free expression online. The net neutrality rules, approved by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015, aimed to preserve the open internet and ensure that it could not be divided into fast lanes for web and media companies that can afford it and slow lanes for everyone else. Supporters of net neutrality have insisted the rules are necessary to protect equal access to content on the internet. Opponents said the rules unfairly subjected broadband internet suppliers like Verizon, ATT, Comcast and Charter to regulation. In a news conference, Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, mentioned the net neutrality rules affecting telecommunications and cable internet services, noting that the Obama administration had “reclassified them as common carriers. ” Mr. Spicer said President Trump had “pledged to reverse this overreach. ” The rules, Mr. Spicer said, were an example of “bureaucrats in Washington” placing restrictions on one kind of company — internet service suppliers — and “picking winners and losers. ” Telecommunications and cable television companies fought being classified as utility services, which are subject to and rules. They said the classification opened the door to government interference that would ultimately reduce incentives to invest and would therefore result in higher prices and hurt consumers. Mr. Spicer made his comments after Congress voted this week to complete its overturning of internet privacy protections and to allow broadband companies to track and sell their customers’ online information with greater ease. The vote was seen as a prelude to further deregulation for broadband companies. Mr. Spicer remarked on the rollback of privacy rules before he spoke more broadly about regulations on broadband internet services. President Trump, he said, will “continue to fight Washington red tape that stifles American innovation, job creation and economic growth. ” Mr. Trump earlier this year appointed Ajit Pai, a former lawyer for Verizon and a minority Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission, as chairman of the agency. Mr. Pai voted against the net neutrality rules as a commission member in 2015. Since becoming chairman, Mr. Pai has indicated that he plans to either roll back or decline to enforce many consumer protection regulations created during the Obama administration, including those regarding net neutrality. Getting rid of the net neutrality rules, policy experts said, will be more difficult than peeling away the privacy regulations. Congress, in a vote mainly along party lines, and by a narrow margin, overturned the privacy rules enacted last fall, using a streamlined process under the Congressional Review Act. But that faster procedure will not apply to the net neutrality rules, which were approved by the F. C. C. two years ago, beyond the timetable for such reviews. Another path to repeal would be for Mr. Pai, who now leads a commission, to revisit the issue at the F. C. C. Politically, net neutrality might be a bigger challenge as well. When it was weighing the rules in 2014 and 2015, the F. C. C. received more than one million public comments. The vast majority of them endorsed strict nondiscrimination rules that supporters viewed as necessary to preserve the democratic ethos of an open internet. That wave of response influenced the commission. “Net neutrality could be a volatile and explosive issue,” said Gene Kimmelman, president of Public Knowledge, a nonprofit consumer group. “I’m not sure the Trump administration appreciates that it addresses nondiscrimination for all kinds of speech, as much for Breitbart and Newsmax as it is for MSNBC and CNN,” referring to news sources that are staunch backers of the Trump administration and ones often seen by Republicans as harsh critics. Opponents of the net neutrality rules say the rules were mainly the result of a very effective lobbying campaign by powerful internet companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Netflix. They have deep pockets and could pay more for fast lanes for their services, they say, but used the net neutrality campaign to avoid that expense. “Regulations result in the allocation of wealth by the government,” said Jeffrey Eisenach, an economist and visiting scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who was also an adviser to the Trump transition team. “They are often an opportunity for one group of firms to grab an advantage over another group. ” | 1 |
In this News Brief, Joe Joseph is joined by good friend and legendary YouTuber “ChangeDaChannel” to discuss the election and all the controversy surrounding the Clintons.
It’s no surprise to most that the Clintons are as corrupt as they are, but it has been fairly surprising that with the abundance of evidence that has come forth, there isn’t more outrage.
What can we expect in the days and weeks ahead? Joe and Ken muse about what’s to come.
Watch on YouTube
Source:
BREAKING: I believe I have connected a convicted child abductor who was caught stealing children in Haiti with the Clintons from The_Donald
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Trump And His Supporters Are Fighting A Rigged System The elite realize that their time is short Image Credits: donaldjtrump.com .
At the third debate, Donald Trump was asked if he would accept the results of the election.
Trump responded that he would have to look at the process to determine if everything was done fairly before he could accept it. The media went berserk claiming that Trump was undermining democracy. But is the US system really rigged? And if it is, can Trump overcome it?
Why rig the system?
Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. Revelation 12:12
It is human nature to want to accumulate wealth. It is also human nature to want to keep what you have. One of the ways that the wealthy do that is through influencing the political process to ensure it is favorable to them. A democratic republic is particularly easy to influence. The wealthy elite can “buy” candidates through donations to them or to their superpacs. | 0 |
The collapse started with some rain, then accelerated with a bang. And after nearly four hours, Andy Murray was out of the United States Open, losing to Kei Nishikori, . Murray, the No. 2 seed, was in control of their quarterfinal, ahead by when it started to rain. Play was suspended to close the roof at Arthur Ashe Stadium and to dry the court. Four games after play resumed, Nishikori, the No. 6 seed, had won the second set. Murray took the third set, but became unglued in the fourth after a loud gong sound went off during a point, causing it to be stopped and replayed. He argued with the chair umpire and a tournament official over the stoppage, and lost five games in a row to drop the set, muttering throughout. He even got bothered by a moth flying around on the court, and then was broken to open the fifth too. Murray battled back from being down a break twice in the fifth set, but serving at he at to give Nishikori a break point. He converted with a stab volley into an open court. Murray angrily slammed his racket on the top of the net after the point. Nishikori closed out the match in the next game. Murray had been the most consistent player on the ATP Tour all summer. After losing in the final of the French Open, he won Queen’s Club, Wimbledon and the gold medal match at the Rio Olympics. His only loss in his previous 27 matches was in the final of the Cincinnati event right before the United States Open. In the semifinals Friday, Nishikori will face Stan Wawrinka, who ended the run of the fan favorite Juan Martín del Potro with a (5) victory in a match that ended at 1:20 a. m. This was the scene before the last game for del Potro, the 2009 champion who is having his most successful stretch since returning from a third operation on his left wrist. Wawrinka has never played a United States Open final, but has reached the semifinals three of the past four years. This is the furthest Nishikori has advanced at a Grand Slam event since reaching the United States Open final in 2014. With the loss of Murray, Novak Djokovic is the only member of the Big Four to reach the semifinals. Serena Williams’s serve was broken for the first time at this United States Open. Then she lost her first set of the tournament. But the Williams prevailed, outlasting Simona Halep, . Williams came into the tournament with a shoulder injury, but had yet to be challenged. She had not lost more than three games in any set, and Halep was the first seeded player Williams faced. After a sloppy first set, Halep raised her level in the second and saved all 12 break points, including five in a game when she served for the set at . Williams, a United States Open champion, gained the crucial break at the third game in the third set and held on from there. In Thursday night’s semifinals, Williams will play Karolina Pliskova, who defeated Ana Konjuh, earlier Wednesday. Pliskova, who will be playing her first Grand Slam semifinal, has won 10 matches in a row, including victories over four players. Williams is considered one of the best servers in the sport’s history. But Pliskova 24, leads the WTA Tour in aces and put on a brilliant serving display against Konjuh, losing only five points on her serve. Read the complete article here. The Tennis Integrity Unit, the sport’s primary anticorruption body, is investigating a women’s singles match at the United States Open after irregular betting patterns were detected. The match, in which Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland beat Vitalia Diatchenko of Russia, was played Aug. 30. A “match alert” regarding suspect betting was sent to the sport’s watchdog body by the Russian bookmaker Fonbet. Another gambling site, Bet365, appeared to have suspended betting for two games during the match and also moved to decrease the maximum wagers permitted. “While T. I. U. is not prepared to answer detailed questions on the grounds of operational confidentiality, I can confirm that the match in question is the only one subject to a betting alert reported to T. I. U. at the U. S. Open,” Mark Harrison, a spokesman for the unit, said. The unit reiterated that “an alert on its own is not evidence of match fixing. ” This is the second known investigation of a match at a Grand Slam tournament this year. A mixed doubles match at the Australian Open fell under suspicion in January. The integrity unit found no evidence of wrongdoing by any players in that case. — BEN ROTHENBERG Read the complete article here. CoCo Vandeweghe advanced to the mixed doubles final with Rajeev Ram with a (4) victory over Grönefeld and Robert Farah. A few hours earlier, Vandeweghe reached the semifinals of women’s doubles with Martina Hingis, who won the United States Open title last year with Sania Mirza. Vandeweghe and Ram will play the mixed doubles final Friday against Laura Siegemund and Mate Pavic. Vandeweghe, the granddaughter of the former Knicks great Ernie Vandeweghe, was born in New York. She is seeking her first Grand Slam title of any kind. She reached the final of the Australian Open this year with Horia Tecau. Mixed doubles and women’s doubles use different scoring systems at the United States Open. Mixed doubles has scoring and a supertiebreaker instead of a third set. Vandeweghe is not a fan of scoring. “It drives me crazy,” she said. “There’s too much luck. ” Novak Djokovic will meet Gaël Monfils in the semifinals on Friday afternoon. Monfils has not lost a set in the tournament, and Djokovic has played only two full matches because three of his opponents have retired or withdrawn because of injuries. It is not as if Djokovic needs the help. Long the world’s No. 1 player and even longer the world’s best hardcourts player, he has made a habit of demolishing opponents, too. But he considered skipping the tournament because of a wrist injury. Read a column on Djokovic here. For the second year in a row, grounds admission for the day session on the second Thursday of the United States Open is free. Known as Community Day, Thursday’s day session includes men’s and women’s doubles, junior boys and girls matches and the college invitational. There will also be a goodbye celebration to Louis Armstrong Stadium, which will be torn down after the tournament. The event, which runs from 4 to 7 p. m. will feature an exhibition match with James Blake and Gigi Fernández, a trick shot competition and a chance for children to hit on the court. | 1 |
US-Supported Terrorists Shell Russian Embassy In Damascus Published: November 1, 2016
The Sleuth Journal
They’ve done it before without causing casualties or damage. According the Russian Foreign Ministry, terrorists fired two mortar rounds at the embassy’s compound.
One shell exploded near the diplomatic mission’s entrance, damaging the building and four vehicles. The attack came from terrorist-controlled Jobar district.
On Friday, the Security Council addressed the incident, saying its “members…condemned in the strongest terms another mortar shelling of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Damascus (Syrian Arab Republic), which caused significant material damage.”
They stressed the “fundamental principle of the inviolability of diplomatic and consular premises.” Host governments are obligated “to take all appropriate steps to protect diplomatic and consular premises against any intrusion or damage, and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of these missions or impairment of their dignity, and to prevent any attack on diplomatic premises, agents and consular officers.”
Not easily done when countries are attacked by foreign-supported death squads, supplied with heavy weapons to wage war.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova expressed concern over no “international reaction…but we will try to get it,” she said, including on the platform of international organizations, because we are talking about a diplomatic mission, about systematic terrorist attacks.”
Russian upper house Federation Council Security and Defense Committee first deputy chairman Frants Klintesevich believes the latest shelling was conducted to disrupt Moscow’s humanitarian pause, saying it failed – nor can there be an “option of making any concessions to terrorists.”
Separately, heavily US-led Western pressure got General Assembly members to vote Russia off the UN Human Rights Council – a body infested with major human rights abusers, including reelected member Saudi Arabia with over a three-fourths majority vote.
Ignored was its genocidal war on Yemen, ruthless despotic rule tolerating no dissent, arbitrary arrests and imprisonments, torture and physical abuse, public beheadings and whippings, violence against women, along with other major violations of civil and human rights.
Russia, Hungary and Croatia vied for two Eastern European seats. Moscow’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said “(i)t was a very close vote and very good countries competing, Croatia, Hungary. They are fortunate because of their size, they are not exposed to the winds of international diplomacy. Russia is very exposed. We’ve been in the UNHRC for several years, and I am sure next time we will stand and get back in.”
Not easily as long as Washington maintains pressure to prevent it. US-led NATO’s undeclared war on Russia continues. Hillary’s ascension to power next year threatens to turn it red hot.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at . His new book is titled “How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War”. www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html Visit his blog site at www.sjlendman.blogspot.com . | 0 |
That was fast. Two weeks after her “America First” fashion statement at the inauguration, Melania Trump emerged last weekend from the relative seclusion of her life in New York to join her husband at a. k. a. the winter White golf club in Florida. And as far as her sartorial language went, America was — well, pretty much last. On Friday, greeting the president as he disembarked from Air Force One in Palm Beach, the first lady wore a short red Givenchy cape dress. On Saturday, at a Red Cross ball, she wore a long gown from Christian Dior (both brands connected, by the way, to LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the French luxury conglomerate led by Bernard Arnault, the only foreign luxury mogul to have made a postelection pilgrimage to Trump Tower). But on Sunday, for a Super Bowl party at Trump International Golf Club, she wore leather pants from the Row, the brand of Olsen and Ashley Olsen, and a thin knit sweater by Derek Lam, both names at New York Fashion Week. Does it matter? On one hand, Mrs. Trump has been explicit about her desire to eschew, at least for the moment, the Washington spotlight. Perhaps her clothes are a part of that, and thus the point was simply to look elegant and not to bother with more complicated billboarding. If so, she achieved that aim. However, Mrs. Trump has also said that she intends to meaningfully inhabit the role of first lady, and certainly this appearance was part of that goal. The choice of the red dress — which made for a compelling visual next to President Trump’s red tie as the two walked together along the tarmac — was consciously symbolic, according to Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Mrs. Trump’s senior adviser, who said it was in honor of “National Wear Red Day, which is to highlight the importance and raise awareness about heart disease. ” So it’s not like they haven’t been thinking this through. Or that they aren’t aware of the symbolic value of dress, especially when it comes to a first lady who prefers to let her clothes do the talking. If so, there is a contradiction implicit in her choices of clothing, given her husband’s promise in his Inaugural Address that “Buy American” would be a tenet of his administration. But the dress requirement for first ladies, historically held dear, was largely taken off the table during the Obama administration and transformed into a vehicle for outreach. It was Mr. Trump who made it an issue again, and in a forum arguably more public, and permanent, than Twitter. When asked about the issue, Ms. Winston Wolkoff emailed the following statement: “Mrs. Trump is a proud and longtime supporter of American fashion. She appreciates fashion as art. As a former model, she has always been a patron of the world’s most distinguished designers both here and abroad. Mrs. Trump buys from an international mix of brands because that is what reflects her uniquely American life experience and style. She is more excited than ever to make a platform for American designers as she did on one of the most important weeks in history, the Inauguration, showcasing the extraordinary talents of American designers. ” In other words: Buying European is a reflection of the American shopping experience. For anyone who has walked down any main shopping street in a big American city — such as Fifth Avenue in New York, where Mrs. Trump lives — it’s hard to argue with that. Though it also seems like something of a contorted rationale, and one that could be exploited by companies seeking to relocate some factories overseas. That choice is, after all, also a part of the American industrial story. In any case, it’s worth noting that Givenchy and Dior have been playing possum since the weekend, another indication of fashion’s relationship with Mrs. Trump. Neither fashion house issued the de rigueur news release trumpeting the first lady’s appearance in one of their dresses. Asked whether the brand had worked with the first lady on the red dress, a spokesman for Givenchy said that the company had no comment and that the dress had been purchased from a store, without any interpersonal discussion. (It is for sale on the Neiman Marcus website, among others, for $2, 095.) Dior simply did not respond. As for Mr. Lam, who in November told the fashion magazine WWD, “I really don’t see myself getting involved with the Trump presidency,” the situation pretty much shows the problem with that stance. After all, the first lady is free to buy his product, whether he wants to get involved or not. Which is another American story, of sorts. | 1 |
Considerable anger was on display this weekend on the part of protesters across the country. Many in Washington D. C. were to articulate their ideas, and in a story by Red Alert Politics, their behavior stole the very livlihood of someone with whom we would expect them to sympathize:[The inauguration of Donald Trump had fireworks, but for people going about their daily lives, there was just fire and chaos from protesters. A limo driver was injured while the stretch limousine he drove was torched and destroyed by protesters near the intersection of 12th and K Streets NW in Washington, DC. Muhammad Ashraf, the owner of the company, Nationwide Chauffeured Services, is now speaking out against the protesters for what they did. In an exclusive interview with Red Alert Politics, Ashraf said he wasn’t a supporter of Donald Trump during his campaign, but Friday’s protests were completely . Read the rest of the story here. | 0 |
Thursday making his way from the White House in Washington, D. C. to Philadelphia for the congressional Republican retreat, President Donald Trump boarded Air Force One for the first time at Andrews Joint Airbase in Maryland and deboarded the plane in Philadelphia. Watch: Follow Breitbart. tv on Twitter @BreitbartVideo | 0 |
Recorded audio of a series of phone conversations between former President Bill Clinton and his mistress, Gennifer Flowers, have recently surfaced.
In one of the recordings, from 1991, Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, is heard advising Flowers to deny any claims that he had aided her in getting a state job.
“If they ever asked if you’d talked to me about it, you can say no,” he says.
Related Stories Bill Clinton Leads Crowd In Litany Of Obamacare’s Failures Wikileaks: Bill Clinton Accepted ‘Expensive Gifts’ From CGI Donors Activist Who Documented DNC’s ‘Dirty Tricks’ Operation Joining Trump At Debate The recording was released Wednesday on Breitbart .
At the time of the recording, the media had been asking many questions about Clinton’s affair with Flowers and she was worried that the barrage of questions could inevitably lead to inquires into how she landed her job as an administrative assistant for the Arkansas Appeal Tribunal.
A complaint was being filed by an anonymous woman who felt that Flowers’ relationship with Clinton kept her from getting the job when, the woman claimed, she was more qualified.
In the audio, Clinton is heard coaching Flowers on how best to deal with the woman and subsequent questions that may arise.
The sections of the audio recordings dealing with the state job were given to the news media in 1992. This came just one day after Clinton had appeared on 60 Minutes with his wife, Hillary — the current Democratic presidential nominee — blatantly denying any romantic relationship with Flowers.
However, in his deposition for a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him by Paula Jones, Clinton would eventually admit to having a sexual interaction with Flowers in 1998.
Trending Stories Frustrated With Media Bias, Trump Campaign Takes Its Case Directly To Voters With Nightly Show On Facebook RNC Official Takes CNN Host To Task For Claiming There Is No Media Bias Hannity Proposes A Sendoff For Obama In The Event Of A Trump Presidency Flowers recorded conversations with Clinton from 1990 to 1991 while he was governor, prior to his campaign for president.
But it wasn’t until now that she turned over the full original recordings to a Breitbart reporter.
The timing of the leak comes at a time when — amid recent sexual harassment allegations against Republican nominee Donald Trump — Clinton has had a number of people questioning his treatment of women.
What do you think? | 0 |
Russia calls for thorough investigation of Idlib school attack October 28, 2016 TASS syria , un , sergei lavrov A general view shows a damaged classroom at a school after it was hit in an air strike in the village of Hass, in the south of Syria's rebel-held Idlib province on Oct. 26, 2016. Source: AFP / East News
Moscow is calling for a thorough investigation of the attack on a school in the Syrian province of Idlib and other incidents, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after meeting with his Syrian counterpart, Walid Muallem, and Iran’s top diplomat Javad Zarif.
"The Idlib school attack has been very much hyped lately," the Russian minister said. "The allegations particularly lay the blame on Russia and Syria. We are being accused of delivering the airstrikes that hit the school. In response to these assertions, Russia’s Defense Ministry has shared some facts that disprove the accusations and show that this media hype has been biased."
"I would also like to mention that on the same day a mine hit a school in western Aleppo and at the same time, militants from eastern Aleppo shelled a humanitarian corridor set up near that school," the minister continued. "As a result, 12 civilians were killed and 20 wounded. It is impossible to distort this information. Our journalists have visited this area and recorded this absolutely inhuman crime that the insurgents active in eastern Aleppo had committed."
All these incidents need to be thoroughly investigated, the Russian top diplomat stressed.
At the same time, Lavrov noted that "Russia and Iran welcome the Syrian government’s readiness to enhance cooperation with the UN in tackling humanitarian issues, that was confirmed today". "We believe that the UN representatives should act impartially, and refrain from responding to provocations," the Russian minister emphasized. | 0 |
. The New Spin on Aspartame If you google “aspartame,” the results will take you literally days to wade through-believe me, I kn... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/the-new-spin-on-aspartame.html If you google “aspartame,” the results will take you literally days to wade through-believe me, I know. I’ve been sifting through it for days. There’s more than enough information, research, and speculation out there on the subject to fill volumes, and this is just a small article. So rather than simply rehash everything that has been written about aspartame (I’ve included some links at the end of this article, and within it, for those who want more information), I wanted to take a different approach. I wanted to focus on a small part of the debate, and then follow it through to wherever it took me. I wanted to look at the folks who keep assuring us that it’s safe: the experts.Experts in the government, experts in the medical field, the people who keep patting us on the head and telling us not to worry, that if aspartame was dangerous, they’d tell us. The problem was, I’ve always been something of a skeptic. The more someone pats me on the head, the more I start looking for something up his sleeve. But, as skeptical as I am, what I found startled me: a concerted effort, on the part of those at the highest levels of our government and those at the highest levels of the medical community, to mislead us about the safety of aspartame. Let me be clear: We have been deceived about the safety of a dangerous product, and all in the name of corporate profits. Before you read on, check out this video: Where did aspartame come from? It was first developed by the pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle. But Searle had difficulty getting their product approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the federal agency responsible for making sure our food and drugs are safe: Apparently, the monkeys and mice the substance was tested on developed brain lesions, tumors, and seizures, and even died from it. The company’s applications for approval were rejected for 16 years, but they persisted in offering their “proof” that aspartame was safe until the FDA finally asked the Department of Justice to prosecute G.D. Searle for submitting fraudulent test data in their efforts to get the substance approved. (An FDA senior toxicologist, Dr. Adrian Gross, once told Congress, “Beyond a shadow of a doubt aspartame triggers brain tumors.”) But then G.D. Searle, producer of aspartame, made Donald Rumsfeld its CEO-yes, that Donald Rumsfeld. When Ronald Reagan took office and brought Rumsfeld with him as part of his transition team, a new FDA commissioner was appointed immediately. In one of his first acts as head of the federal agency, the new FDA commissioner approved aspartame, the artificial sweetener made by the company that Donald Rumsfeld was now the head of, over the objections of the FDA scientific board. And here’s a strange bit of trivia: When it looked like aspartame would be approved later on for use in carbonated beverages, the National Soft Drink Association itself objected, saying it wouldn’t be safe because aspartame is very unstable in liquid form and breaks down into, among other things, formaldehyde. Monsanto bought G.D. Searle and Co. in 1985, and the NutraSweet Company operated as part of Monsanto until 2000, when Monsanto sold it to J.W. Childs Equity Partners, where it remains today. And in all this time, the FDA has compiled a list of 92 symptoms associated with aspartame consumption, including nausea, dizziness, blindness, deafness, weight gain, and even death. And aspartame is still here, and it’s showing up in more and more products. In fact, the Aspartame Resource Center, at www.aboutaspartame.com, notes that it is found in more than 6,000 products worldwide. And they should know: the Aspartame Resource Center is actually a public relations and “information” arm of Ajinomoto, one of the world’s largest producers of aspartame, the other being the NutraSweet Company. (Ajinomoto is also known for its other additive, monosodium glutamate, or MSG.) The ARC site is full of cheerful information on the safety of aspartame, and they even have a section labeled “Meet the doctors,” which lists their “medical advisory board.” In that section, the ARC says: “The Aspartame Information Center Expert Medical Advisory Board was created to help guide the Center’s communications to health professionals and the public about aspartame benefits, safety and role in a healthy diet. “The board members provide counsel on current medical and nutrition science, as well as insight on tools that help address the needs of health professionals in their work. Their backgrounds span critical areas of medicine and science, and each has unique experience in health and nutrition.” But, wait. Are they confused about who they are? What is this “Aspartame Information Center” they mention? I looked it up: www.aspartame.org . They, too, have a laundry list of “experts” they use to back up their claims that aspartame is safe, including our very own FDA and something called the Calorie Control Council. In fact, the Calorie Control Council owns the Aspartame Information Center site and is listed on the bottom of every page as the copyright holder. But back to the ARC. The Aspartame Resource Center offers all sorts of “fact” sheets you can download, including one called “Straight Answers About Aspartame.” It was prepared by the American Dietetic Association... and the Calorie Control Council. At the bottom, the fact sheet notes that it has been sponsored by aspartame.org, that is, the Aspartame Information Center, a.k.a. the Aspartame Resource Center, a.k.a. Ajinomoto, one of the world’s biggest producers of aspartame. Ajinomoto, in cahoots with the American Dietetic Association? Let’s see who’s behind the Calorie Calorie Control Council. Here’s what their own site, at www.caloriecontrol.org , says: “The Calorie Control Council, established in 1966... represents 60 manufacturers and suppliers of low-calorie, low-fat and light foods and beverages, including the manufacturers and suppliers of more than a dozen different dietary sweeteners...” Go further, and you’ll see another site connected to the Calorie Contol Council, called Calories Count, at www.caloriescount.com, which lists as its sponsors... wait for it... Ajinomoto, NutraSweet, Splenda, and Sweet ‘N Low. You can take a look at their sponsorship page here: http://www.caloriescount.com/support.html . Because it’s hard to keep the players straight in the aspartame follies, let’s recap. The folks at the FDA thought aspartame was dangerous, so they wouldn’t approve it. They changed their minds when the president at that time and his buddy, Donald Rumsfeld, who just happened to be the head of the company that made aspartame, appointed a new head of the FDA. Miraculously, aspartame was approved not long afterward, after sixteen years of being rejected. And when we look for information on aspartame, to allay our concerns, we find Web sites full of comforting information showing us how safe the stuff is, written by reliable organizations like the American Dietetic Association, and sponsored by... aspartame. Got that? Okay, but there’s more. Because I was trying not to get lost in the organizational rabbit hole, I backed out again to the Aspartame Resource Center and its expert medical advisors. After all, these were the medical professionals, the people who had the scientific knowledge, not to mention the connections with both the governmental agencies that protect our health and the largest medical and health organizations. Surely, they were to be trusted. Skeptical, I started with the first name on the list, and I fell into yet another rabbit hole that seems, even now, to have no end. In fact, I never got past that first name. The first name on the list? C. Wayne Callaway, M.D. I went first to his own Web site. Once you get past the introductory quote from Hippocrates, you can find all sorts of interesting information there. In fact, he has very helpfully posted his entire curriculum vitae for all and sundry to see. C. Wayne Callaway, M.D., received his medical training at Northwestern University, Mayo Graduate School of Medicine and Harvard University. Very impressive. He’s board certified in Internal Medicine, Clinical Nutrition, and Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism and has held academic appointments at Harvard Medical School, Mayo Medical School, and George Washington University. He also works with the Mayo Clinic, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the USDA; he was an advisor to the U.S. Surgeon General and helped develop dietary guidelines for the USDA. He served as chair of the Public Information Committee of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition and the American Society for Nutrition Sciences, has been a member of the Board of Directors of the American Board of Nutrition, has been a committee member at the American Heart Association, has been an advisor to the American Medical Association. And he’s served on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, among other medical journals. Whew-busy man. Want more? His publications have appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Annals of Internal Medicine, the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, and the International Journal of Obesity, among others. The separate biography on his site tells us that Dr. Callaway “has offered his expert views on nutrition on NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, PBS, ESPN, and numerous affiliates, and has appeared on the McNeill-Lehrer Newshour, the Today Show, Good Morning America, Phil Donahue, Larry King Live, and other nationally syndicated news and talk programs.” His opinions on nutrition and health are “frequently published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, and Wall Street Journal, as well as in numerous magazines (Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Business Week, Vogue, Elle, Glamour, People, Self, Health, Prevention, and others).” You know, the mainstream media. Callaway’s bio says, “Dr. Callaway is a member of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition.” And remember, we also saw that he served as chair of the Public Information Committee of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition. But looking for the American Society for Clinical Nutrition takes you directly to the American Society for Nutrition, www.nutrition.org . They publish the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, “the highest ranked peer-reviewed journal in nutrition and dietetics,” and the Journal of Nutrition, “which provides the latest research on a broad spectrum of topics of vital interest to researchers, students, policymakers and all individuals with interests in nutrition.” Sounds impressive, until you start poking at it, as I did. If you keep going deeper down that particular rabbit hole, you find that the American Society for Clinical Nutrition, A.K.A. the American Society for Nutrition, is supported by what they call “sustaining members,” which, they say, “[provide] corporate financial support for the society’s activities in education/training, scientific programs and professional outreach.” The site says that sustaining members have “the ability to sponsor educational opportunities, grants and other items.” Oddly, they don’t specify what those “other items” might be, but I’d be willing to bet that research is one of them. Would you like to know who some of the sustaining members are? Get ready: The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. Cadbury Schweppes. | 1 |
link originally posted by: JinMI Lots of discussion over the past months. Who we're for or who we're against and platitudes of statements...some not so much. Whomever you decide to give your vote to honestly does not concern me nor should mine concern you. The debates, arguments and discussions are fun and generally informative. Vote for who you would, even if it takes a few hours. I've seen quite a bit of conversation of folks not wanting to vote at all. What does this prove? What is this standing (sitting) against? Your disapproval of the two party system or maybe you think the whole thing a charade? My opinion would leave me to believe that if your going to attempt to rebel against the system it would be a secure third party vote or a vote for the future so to speak. We as Americans need to take back our power over Government. There is more than just the Presidency at stake and to me I would think that not voting at all is a contribution to the apathy that has us in the situation we are in. Whether it be Trump or Drumf or Hillary or Shillary or Stein or Johnson or Joe Blow, I would urge you to vote! If you are not voting at all, would you please elaborate as to why? I'm trying to imagine the next president of the USA being Joe Blow. Well now President Blow, what do you think of the Cannabis trade with Mexico? Anything to declare? | 0 |
Election Day In America: The Political Earth Could Move---Trump's Route To 270 By David Stockman. Posted On Tuesday, November 8th, 2016 The political earth could move today. Even assuming there is no hidden "Brexit" factor under the surface, it would appear that there is now an outside but not farfetched route to a Trump electoral college victory. You need to login to view this content.
David Stockman’s Contra Corner isn’t your typical financial tipsheet. Instead it’s an ongoing dialogue about what’s really happening in the markets… the economy… and governments… so you can understand the world around you and make better decisions for yourself.
David believes the world -- certainly the United States -- is at a great inflection point in human history. The massive credit inflation of the last three decades has reached its apogee and is now going to splatter spectacularly.
This will have lasting ramifications on how governments tax and regulate you… the type of work you and your family members will have available and what you get paid… the value of your nest egg… and all other areas comprising your quality of life. Login
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AMERICA VANQUISHED, Part 1: America as an Israeli Colony About
This is the website of Lasha Darkmoon, an anglo-American academic with higher degrees in Classics who lives and works in England. You can read more about Darkmoon here . Subscribe to our Newsletter Subscribe to get important new posts and other updates via our occasional newsletter. Meta | 0 |
Cradling a brown paper bag filled with sake bottles in her arms, a dismayed Lauren Graham stopped short in front of Yakitori Tora, a Japanese restaurant in SoHo. The windows were dark, the tables were empty and the chairs nowhere to be seen. A meal at the restaurant was supposed to be the final stop of the night’s trifecta: first, a trip to Sakaya, a sake store on East Ninth Street then, grocery shopping at Sunrise Mart in the East Village and finally, meat skewers at Yakitori Tora. Ms. Graham, 49, most famous for her TV role as Lorelai Gilmore in “Gilmore Girls,” had planned the entire evening. Her love of “anything” Japanese, while it may come as a surprise to fans, is anything but arbitrary. Ms. Graham’s grandparents were sent to Japan as missionaries after World War II, and her mother, who died in 2005, spoke fluent Japanese and worked as a buyer for a department store in Japan. And Ms. Graham, who was born in Honolulu, lived in Japan briefly as a baby. Unfortunately, her plans to share the culture she loves were thwarted on this October evening. Even the coolest mom on television, who returns Friday with four episodes on Netflix, can do little when confronted with a locked door. Other than make you laugh. “Let me tell you of my love of Mexico,” Ms. Graham deadpanned. Instead, she pulled out her phone to call her half sister, Shade Grant, and come up with a fresh plan. They settled on Japonica on University Place, a street Ms. Graham frequented as a freshman studying acting at N. Y. U. “It was pretty overwhelming,” she said. She stuck it out for a year, but decided to transfer to Barnard College to study English, after which she received a Master of Fine Arts at Southern Methodist University in 1992. But her big break didn’t come for several more years, when she was cast in “Gilmore Girls” in 2000. Ms. Graham recalled the moment in the 1970s when she knew she wanted to act. “My dad and I went to see ‘Annie’ at the Kennedy Center, and I got an ‘Annie’ ” Ms. Graham said. “Somebody asked me in a store one day if I was in the cast of ‘Annie,’ and I said yes, because I so wanted to be in the cast of ‘Annie.’ So my first role was ‘person who was in the cast of “Annie. ”’ I think I played it pretty well. ” At Japonica, Ms. Graham plopped into a booth next to Ms. Grant, 34. Assessing their outfits for the evening — both wore black blazers over — Ms. Graham said, “I’d say we kind of dress like our mom. ” “She was a painter, a singer, she was a model, she went to art school, she was interested in writing,” Ms. Graham said of her mother. A similar artistic ambition led Ms. Graham to a variety of creative projects, including a role in the television show “Parenthood” (where she met her partner, the actor Peter Krause) a novel that was published in 2014 and a collection of autobiographical essays, “Talking as Fast as I Can,” which is to be released Tuesday. After scanning the menu, Ms. Graham quickly chose a brand of sake. “It’s not the most expensive one,” she said. “And it has gold flakes. ” The moment called to mind the witty Lorelai, a character Ms. Graham had not played in a decade. “When we did the first table read, there was so much energy in the room, and I was so nervous,” she said. In the time since she first embodied the single mom, the CW replaced the WB, Netflix became an alternative to cable channels and iPhones turned into a common accessory. That last fact is not lost on Ms. Graham, who has a alter ego named Old Lady Jackson, who disapproves of televisions in yellow taxis and phones in schools. “In today’s world, you’re eating, and you’re like, ‘Mmm, I can’t wait to … ’” Ms. Graham said, pretending to drift off in a reverie. “And somewhere over there, someone is taking a picture of you to put on their whatever page,” she said. Luckily, that did not stop her. The sisters ate plenty, swapping items and bantering. (“Let me just taste some,” Ms. Grant said of a salmon sashimi, to which Ms. Graham responded, “You can’t just try a bite of sushi. It doesn’t make any sense,” and dropped the entire piece on her plate.) At the end of the meal, Ms. Graham and Ms. Grant waved goodbye to their dinner companions and fell back into easy conversation. The bottle of sake glittered between them as Ms. Graham dived into what might be her favorite role: cool older sister. | 1 |
Radio Tuesday 8 November 2016 by Spacey If you think our media is racist, wait till you meet my grandfather, Prince Harry tells Meghan Markle
After calling out media ‘racism’ over coverage of his girlfriend, Prince Harry has warned Meghan Markle to brace herself for a meeting with Prince Philip.
The prince released a statement in which he said reporting of his relationship with the American actress had ‘crossed a line’ that was similar to suggesting you’ll get slitty eyes if you spend too long in China.
He went on to add that he understands there is curiosity about his private life, but he’s developed a tough skin that’s capable of dealing with an elderly gentleman asking if you work in a strip club.
The statement also raised concerns about Ms Markle’s safety after receiving anonymous warnings that some foreigners ‘still throw spears at each other’.
Prince Philip has revealed that he is looking forward to meeting his grandson’s new girlfriend.
“I’m not bothered where she’s from, as long as she can cook,” he said. Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently | 0 |
This handout picture released by the Venezuelan Presidency shows supporters of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro cheering during a gathering in Caracas on October 26, 2016. (Photo by AFP)
Tens of thousands of pro and anti-government protesters have gathered on the streets of Venezuela's capital Caracas.
During Wednesday’s mass rallies, in which over 20 people were injured and 39 were detained, the opponents accused President Nicolas Maduro of violating the constitutional order and blocking a recall referendum aimed at removing him from power.
They also called for his immediate resignation. Opposition supporters take part in a rally against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro next to a poster of him in Caracas, Venezuela, October 26, 2016. (Photo by Reuters)
“This is a way of pressuring Maduro so he understands that he has to go," said one protester. "Being passive is no use anymore. We have to apply more pressure," another one added.
Meanwhile, large numbers of pro-government protesters gathered near the Miraflores presidential palace in a show of support for Maduro.
As the protests were being held, the president engaged in crisis security talks in reaction to the demonstrators’ demands. In a televised speech after the talks, he called for "political dialogue and peace in Venezuela." This handout picture released by the Venezuelan Presidency shows Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro delivering a speech to supporters during a gathering in Caracas on October 26, 2016. (Photo by AFP)
Maduro is adamant about Washington's role in his country’s political and economic woes, and has accused the opposition of conspiring with the US against the South American country.
"They are desperate, they have received the order from the north to destroy the Venezuelan revolution," he added.
On Tuesday, Maduro accused the opposition of attempting a “parliamentary coup” by voting to launch an impeachment process against him.
“There has never been a parliamentary coup in Venezuela, and we shall not allow anything like this to happen, the right-wing here and there should know this,” Maduro said during a massive rally by his supporters outside the presidential palace. Opposition supporters take part in a rally against President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas, Venezuela, October 26, 2016. (Photo by Reuters)
The opposition-controlled National Assembly agreed to initiate the impeachment process against Maduro earlier on Tuesday in reaction to blocking a bid to recall him last week.
The political standoff in Venezuela has worsened since the October 20 suspension of the opposition push to hold a referendum to try to recall Maduro. Back then, four state courts said the signature-gathering process for the referendum had been “fraudulent,” effectively blocking it. Loading ... | 0 |
Sky Arts released the first trailer for its television series Urban Myths on Wednesday — and the clip is making the rounds online with lightning speed due to its containing the first images of actor Joseph Fiennes as late pop superstar Michael Jackson. [Urban Myths: A Brand New Collection of Comedies consists of eight episodes featuring some of the most legendary tall tales about celebrities. In the Michael Jackson episode, Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor (Stockard Channing) and Marlon Brando (Brian Cox) take a road trip after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Other episodes reportedly tackle stories about Cary Grant, Bob Dylan, Muhammad Ali, Alice Cooper, Samuel Beckett, the Sex Pistols and even a young Adolf Hitler. Fiennes’ casting as Jackson drew intense criticism when it was announced last year. The actor later defended the role in an interview with the Associated Press, though he said he was as “shocked” as anyone to have been casted in the part. “I deal in imagination, so I don’t think imagination should have rules stamped on them,” he told the AP. “If it promotes stereotyping, then it’s wrong. I made a distinction that the Jackson project doesn’t do that. ” The release of the trailer has done nothing to quell the criticism, judging from the reaction on social media Wednesday. I hope it loses every single dime of its budget. Every single dime. #UrbanMyths https: . — Keith Powell (@KeithPowell) January 11, 2017, They have Joseph Fiennes playing Michael Jackson. Maybe Tom Hanks will play Berry Gordy in the next Motown movie. — Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) January 10, 2017, I. CAN’T. UNSEE. THIS. https: . — janewells (@janewells) January 11, 2017, I woke up feeling like it’s going to be a beautiful day and then I remembered this is someone’s idea of Michael Jackson: pic. twitter. — Soledad O’Brien (@soledadobrien) January 11, 2017, IDGAF how pale Michael Jackson became. He was B L A C K and he said HIMSELF he didn’t want a Caucasian to play him in ANY film. Disrespect, — Stoney Σavage🏾🌙 (@Stoney_Blu) January 11, 2017, Okay? But why does Joseph Fiennes as MJ look like the scarecrow you’d find at the edge of a pumpkin patch!? pic. twitter. — Rosalina Watson † (@AboutRosalina) January 11, 2017, Urban Myths is due to premiere January 19. Watch the trailer above. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 0 |
MONTERREY, Nuevo Leon — The discovery of two bodies in shallow graves near this city set off a forensic investigation to identify two more victims of cartel violence. [The discovery was reported by Nuevo Leon law enforcement officials after they responded to the discovery of what appeared to be human remains near the La Huasteca State Park in the Santa Catarina suburb of this industrial city, information provided to Breitbart Texas by state authorities revealed. Investigators arrived at the scene and after locating some remains, an search of the area near the Rompepicos Dam found irregularities in the ground, pointing to a grave having been dug. Inside the two shallow graves, authorities found the heavily decomposed remains of a woman and a man they have not been identified. While investigators would not reveal if the victims had been shot, they confirmed that both had their hands tied in a manner consistent with victims kidnapped by cartel members. Even though the remains were heavily decomposed, authorities were able to extract DNA samples and are expected to run them with various government databases for missing persons in an effort to identify them. Law enforcement sources revealed to Breitbart Texas that the area near Santa Catarina is currently under dispute by rival factions of the Los Zetas cartel. As Breitbart Texas has been reporting, the faction known as the Old Zetas has been waging a fierce war throughout Mexico against the faction known as Cartel Del Noreste. Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by Tony Aranda from Monterrey, Nuevo León. | 0 |
Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • Israel said it would move ahead with thousands of new homes in East Jerusalem, undeterred by the United Nations Security Council’s vote last week to condemn its settlement construction. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has curbed diplomatic contacts with Security Council countries, said “we do not turn the other cheek. ” The Israeli right is pushing Mr. Netanyahu to abandon the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. _____ • Russia is cultivating an array of extremist groups across Europe in an effort to destabilize or simply disorient the European Union. Reaching out to fringe elements costs little and sometimes pays off, as it did in Hungary, where the group Jobbik is now the country’s leading opposition party. _____ • Battlefield losses have not diminished the Islamic State’s power to inspire mayhem around the world, as the attack on a Christmas market in Berlin made clear last week. Our reporter went on an Air Force jet that hunts for Islamic State targets in Syria. _____ • We also visited Diyarbakir, the informal Kurdish capital in Turkey, where resentment against the state lingers after fighting this year and recent moves to curb Kurdish power. Asylum applications from Turkey in Germany tripled this year, as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s crackdown continues after a failed coup in July. On Sunday, a judge ordered the arrest of a cafeteria manager for saying he would not serve tea to the president. _____ • With pressure mounting over his possible conflicts of interest, Donald J. Trump has said that he is formulating plans to extricate himself from his family’s business. Yet an examination of the company shows what a complex task that would be. President Obama said he would have defeated Mr. Trump had he run for a third term (which the Constitution does not permit). “NO WAY!” the responded on Twitter. _____ • “I don’t want to be another cliché. ” The death of the pop superstar George Michael stunned both fans and the many people who knew him in England, where he spent most of his life. Mr. Michael “sang about wanting to be free often enough to make you wonder whether he thought any freedom was ever attainable,” our critic writes. _____ • The European Medicines Agency is likely to leave Britain — another casualty of the vote to leave the European Union, and one with worrying implications for the country’s vibrant biotech and pharmaceuticals sector. • The troubled Italian lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena has a capital shortfall of 8. 8 billion euros, higher than previously estimated, the European Central Bank said. • The year’s best apps. Our picks include an universe of NPR audio and an upgraded app. • The Dow has risen 14. 4 percent this year, to 19, 933. 81. Just a few days remain for 2016 to claim the 20, 000 milestone. • Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • Russia said it found the flight data recorder of the military plane that crashed into the Black Sea, killing all 92 on board. Moscow said it considered it unlikely that terrorism caused the crash. [The New York Times] • Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan will pay his respects at Pearl Harbor with President Obama today, but Mr. Abe’s gesture may not be as unprecedented as initially advertised. [The New York Times] • In Ukraine, several soldiers and separatists were reported killed in an escalation of fighting last week. [Kyiv Post] • The U. S. was the world’s leader in weapons sales last year, accounting for half of the entire global market. France was second. [The New York Times] • Human error is said to have caused the plane crash in Colombia last month that killed 71 people, including most of the Brazilian soccer team Chapocoense. [Associated Press] • In just over 49 days, Thomas Coville, a Frenchman, sailed around the world alone. French officials call it a world record. [Associated Press] • In Catalonia, people climb on top of one another to create towers called castells, sometimes up to 10 tiers high. Watch one go up in our latest Daily 360 video. • Here’s how a German chef won the Liverpool soccer club over to individualized diets, locally and organically sourced foods, and compulsory four meals a day. • Hygge — the Danish word for cozy — has become such a phenomenon in Britain that the Collins Dictionary proclaimed it one of the top 10 words of 2016. • Travel advice: Airlines are wary of drones and other devices with powerful batteries. And they won’t be as delighted as you are with that virtual reality headset. • In memoriam: Léo Marjane, whose ballad “Alone Tonight” became a signature song of occupied France, and S. Newman Darby, the inventor of the sailboard, have died. • In the American Midwest, many people will tell you about a beloved holiday tradition that arrived from Germany: the Weihnachtsgurke, or Christmas Pickle. There’s just one snag: It is all but unknown in Germany. Christmas is over, but reminders of the holiday are most likely scattered around your home and office, or perhaps hiding inside a coat pocket. We’re talking about candy canes, whose ubiquity is matched by the legends surrounding their creation. One tale dates the candy to 1670, when a choirmaster at a cathedral in Cologne, Germany, needed a way to keep children entertained during long Christmas services. He asked a local confectioner to bend hard candy into the shape of a shepherd’s cane. About 200 years later, a immigrant is said to have brought the tradition to America, decorating his Christmas tree with the canes, which were all white. In 1920, a Georgia candy maker developed a way to colors into the canes, giving them their traditional red and white look, according to one account. The sweets were already popular then, and today they are part of a seasonal candy juggernaut that rakes in over $7 billion a year, according to an industry trade group. So what to do with the extra peppermint sticks? Perhaps crush them to use on ice cream or cookies. Or save them: Not only has the candy been around for centuries, it can last up to three years. Remy Tumin contributed reporting. ____ Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at europebriefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
Voltairenet.org October 27, 2016
Observing the US presidential electoral campaign, Thierry Meyssan analyses the resurgence of an old and weighty conflict of civilisation. Hillary Clinton has just declared that this election is not about programmes, but about the question «Who are the Americans?». It was not for reasons of his political programme that the Republican leaders have withdrawn their support from their candidate, Donald Trump, but because of his personal behaviour. According to Thierry Meyssan, until now, the United States was composed of migrants from different horizons who accepted to submit to the ideology of a particular community . This is the model which is in the process of breaking down, at the risk of shattering the country itself. During the year of the US electoral campaign that we have just weathered, the rhetoric has profoundly changed, and an unexpected rift has appeared between the two camps. If in the beginning, the candidates spoke about subjects which were genuinely political (such as the sharing of wealth or national security), today they are mostly talking about sex and money. It is this dialogue, and not the political questions, which has caused the explosion of the Republican party – whose main leaders have withdrawn their support for their candidate – and which is recomposing the political chess-board, awakening an ancient cleavage of civilisation. On one side, Mrs Clinton is working to appear politically correct, while on the other, «The Donald» is blowing the hypocrisy of the ex-«First Lady» to smithereens.
On one side, Hillary Clinton promises male / female equality – although she has never hesitated to attack and defile the women who revealed that they had slept with her husband – and that she is presenting herself not for her personal qualities, but as the wife of an ex-President, and that she accuses Donald Trump of misogyny because he does not hide his appreciation of the female gender. On the other, Donald Trump denounces the privatisation of the State and the racketing of foreign personalities by the Clinton Foundation to obtain appointments with the State Department – the creation of ObamaCare not in the interest of citizens, but for the profit of medical insurance companies – and goes as far as to question the honesty of the electoral system.
I am perfectly aware that the way in which Donald Trump expresses himself may encourage racism, but I do not believe for a second that this question is at the heart of the electoral debate, despite the hype from the pro-Clinton medias. It is not without interest that, during the Lewinsky affair, President Bill Clinton apologised to the Nation and convened a number of preachers to pray for his salvation. But when he was accused of similar misconduct by an audio recording, Donald Trump simply apologised to the people he had upset without making any appeal to members of the clergy. The current divide re-awakens the revolt of Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran values against those of the Calvinists, mainly represented in the USA by the Presbyterians, the Baptists and the Methodists.
While the two candidates were raised in the Puritan tradition (Clinton as a Methodist and Trump as a Presbyterian), Mrs. Clinton has returned to the religion of her father, and participates today in a prayer group composed of the army chiefs of staff, The Family, while Mr Trump practises a more interior form of spirituality and rarely goes to church. Of course, no-one is locked into the systems in which they were raised, but when people act without thinking, they unconsciously reproduce these systems. The question of the religious environment of the candidates may, therefore, be important.
In order to understand the stakes of this game, we have to go back and look at 17th century England. Oliver Cromwell instigated a military coup d’etat which overthrew King Charles 1st. He wanted to install a Republic, purify the soul of the country, and ordered the decapitation of the ex-sovereign. He created a sectarian régime inspired by the ideas of Calvin, massacred thousands of Irish Papists, and imposed a Puritan way of life. He also created Zionism – he invited the Jews back to England and was the first head of state in the world to demand the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. This bloody episode is known by the name of the «First British Civil War».
After the monarchy had been reinstated, Cromwell’s Puritans fled from England. They set up in Holland, from where some of them left for the Americas aboard the Mayflower (the «Pilgrim Fathers»), while others founded the Afrikaner community in South Africa. During the War of Independence in the 18th century the United States, we saw a resurgence of the struggle of the Calvinists against the British monarchy, so that in current manuals of British History, it is known as the «Second Civil War».
In the 19th century, the American Civil War opposed the Southern States (mainly inhabited by Catholic colonists) to the North (mostly inhabited by Protestant colonists). The History of the winning side presents this confrontation as a fight for freedom in the face of slavery, which is pure propaganda. The Southern states abolished slavery during the war when they concluded an agreement with the British monarchy). As a result, we once again saw the revolt of the Puritans against the British throne, which is why some historians speak of the «Third British Civil War».
During the 20th century, this interior confrontation of British civilisation seemed over and done with, apart from the re-appearance of the Puritans in the United Kingdom with the «non-conformist Christians» of Prime Minister David Lloyd George. It was they who divided Ireland and agreed to create the « Jewish national homeland» in Palestine.
In any case, one of Richard Nixon’s advisors, Kevin Philipps, dedicated a voluminous thesis to these civil wars, in which he noted that none of the problems had been solved, and announced a fourth confrontation [ 1 ].
The adepts of the Calvinist churches, who for the last 40 years have voted massively for the Republicans, now support the Democrats.
I have no doubt that Mrs Clinton will be the next President of the United States, or that if Mr Trump were to be elected, he would be rapidly eliminated. But over the last few months, we have witnessed a large electoral redistribution within an irreversible demographic evolution. The Puritan-based churches now account for only a quarter of the population and are swinging towards the Democrat camp. Their model looks like a historical accident. It disappeared in South Africa, and will not be able to survive much longer, either in the United States or in Israël. Beyond the Presidential election, US society will have to evolve rapidly or split once again. In a country where the youth massively rejects the influence of the Puritan preachers, it is no longer possible to displace the question of equality. The Puritans envisage a society where all men are equal, but not equivalent. Lord Cromwell wanted a Republic for the English, but only after he had massacred the Irish Papists. This is how it is at the moment in the United States – all citizens are equal before the law, but in the name of the same texts, black people are systematically condemned, while attenuating circumstances are found for white people who have committed equivalent crimes. And in the majority of states, a penal condemnation, even for a speeding ticket, is enough to cancel the right to vote. Consequently, white and black people are equal, but in most states, the majority of black people has been legally deprived of its right to vote. The paradigm of this thought, in terms of foreign policy, is the «two-state» solution in Palestine – equal, but above all, not equivalent.
It is Puritan thinking that led the administrations of preacher Carter, Reagan, Bush (Sr. and Jr. are direct descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers), Clinton and Obama to support Wahhabism, in contradiction to the declared ideals of their countries, and today, to support Daesh.
A long time ago, the Founding Fathers built communities in Plymouth and Boston which were idealised in the US collective memory. And yet the historians are formal – they claimed to be creating the «New Israël», and chose the «Law of Moses». They did not place the Cross in their temples, but the Tables of the Law. Although they are Christians, they attach more importance to the Jewish scriptures than the Gospel. They oblige their women to veil their faces and re-established corporaI punishment.
Note: The Best of Thierry Meyssan Tags: French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference. His columns specializing in international relations feature in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last two books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate . The articles on Voltaire Network may be freely reproduced provided the source is cited, their integrity is respected and they are not used for commercial purposes (license CC BY-NC-ND ). | 1 |
Across the postindustrial world, the populist right is excelling in the old bastions of the left. If there is a lesson for the United States in the decision by British voters to exit the European Union, it is the importance of the emerging split between the beneficiaries of multicultural globalism and the who feel left behind. These issues have the potential to overcome longstanding partisan ties, even in the United States. The power of these issues was evident in the British referendum Thursday evening as the votes were counted. The result in Sunderland — long a Labour stronghold, which voted 62 percent to “Leave” — was the first clear sign of the final outcome. In the end, many of Labour’s traditional strongholds in old industries across northern England voted for “Brexit. ” (The last deep coal mine in the country closed last year in North Yorkshire, in northern England.) “Remain” did better than the Labour Party normally does in the traditionally Conservative and more affluent countryside of southern England, let alone in the Conservative seats of London, but not by enough. The same story unfolded in the recent Austrian elections. The far right won areas that sided with the Social Democrats a decade earlier. Similar patterns show up in Denmark and Germany, with the doing better in cosmopolitan metropolitan areas and with populists gaining in former leftist strongholds. The result is familiar to Americans: an electorate split between the diverse and cosmopolitan metropolitan areas connected to the global economy and the older, less educated, former industrial regions that haven’t benefited from globalization. In some sense, the United States is ahead of this trend. The culture wars, which have pitted the religious right against secularism, had no equivalent in relatively secular Europe. The fights over gay marriage, guns, climate change, abortion and — before that — civil rights had already pushed many traditionally Democratic but conservative strongholds in the South and Appalachia toward the Republicans. Many affluent suburbs along the coasts have been voting Democratic. But in much the same way that immigration and nationalism proved to be more persuasive to the more secular European working class, populism — now embodied by Donald Trump — could do additional damage to the Democrats in many parts of the United States. The parallel is striking. The European like Democrats in the United States, have embraced lower taxes, free trade and immigration over the last few decades. There are many relatively secular, traditionally Democratic bastions across the North where the Republicans have made few or no gains in recent decades. Scranton, Pa. Youngstown, Ohio and the Iron Range counties in Wisconsin all gave more than 60 percent of the vote to President Obama in 2012. There are areas like this across the Northern United States — from Aberdeen, Wash. and Butte, Mont. to the coasts of Rhode Island and Maine — where the Republicans have made marginal or no gains, in no small part because cultural appeals fell flat where there were not many evangelical Christians. These were also among the places where Mr. Trump fared best in the primaries. He won 70 percent in Scranton and nearly 80 percent in nearby . He carried more than 50 percent of the vote in Youngstown, even though his opponent — John Kasich — was the state’s governor. He won more than 50 percent in all of the Iron Range counties in Wisconsin, even though he lost badly statewide. His best state was Rhode Island: the state where Democrats did best among white voters for much of the 20th century. polling data also indicates that Mr. Trump fared best among those Republicans who nonetheless remain registered as Democrats or who have a history of voting in Democratic primaries. The Brexit vote shouldn’t be interpreted as a sign that Mr. Trump will win — as my colleagues Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns have pointed out. The United States is far more diverse than Britain, and Mr. Trump might underperform the potential of his message, given his penchant to offend and his lack of experience in running for elected office. But there is no guarantee that white voters who stuck with the Democrats through the culture wars will stay with them if elections are waged on issues like trade and immigration. It’s a problem for Democrats. They are a lot more dependent on the Northern white working class than the prevailing narrative of recent electoral contests tends to acknowledge. Northern whites represent a larger share of the electorate than generally believed, and Democrats have been winning a larger share of them than has been typically understood. Already, polls show that Mr. Trump is winning white voters without a college degree by more than Mitt Romney did four years ago. Over all, he’s faring about as well among white registered voters as Mr. Romney did, despite Mr. Trump’s weakness with white voters. It may not be enough for Mr. Trump. Indeed, he trails in the same polls that show him overperforming among white voters. But the Brexit vote, and European electoral trends more generally, is a reminder that there’s a lot of room for Democrats to fall among white voters. | 1 |
November 21 - Fort Russ News -
- Mikhail KOTOV in LIFE.ru, translated by Tom Winter -
Foreign shores: why the Russian military base in Syria
Viktor Ozerov, Chairman of the Defense and Security Committee of the Federation Council, told RIA "Novosti" that the base in Tartus should become a full-fledged overseas base of the Russian Navy in half to two years after the signing of the agreement on it and its ratification. "Proceeding from his impression of the base, and of plans to improve infrastructure, which we reported to the leadership of our group in Syria, I can say that we are not going to put off the modernization of Tartus, with the most modern requirements," said Ozerov.
LIFE's journalist Mikhail Kotov understands why Russia needs this base.
We're leaving, we're leaving, we're leaving
For two decades, the Russian military presence in the world has consistently been declining. Beginning with the last years of the Soviet Union there have been fewer military bases under the red and then white-blue-red flag on the map. Since 1972, as if someone had started a countdown: the Egyptian Port Said, Berbera, Nosra. In 1991 Russians left the military bases in Germany (Rostock), Germany, and the Polish one at Swinoujscie. In 2002, Russia lost its naval base at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam, and after the beginning of the "Arab Spring" had to hastily withdraw troops from Tripoli in Libya. Against the background of a gradual retraction -- that didn't slow the growth of NATO for a minute, it seemed an utter loss.
And now the statement of the Council of Federation of the Defense and Security Committee and the previously announced Ministry of Defense plans sound like a bombshell. Is this a new renaissance of Russian troops, or just one of the episodes of the Syrian conflict? Do we need this base? Can we keep it? To find answers to these questions, it is necessary to go back and try to understand on what the principles in the world such military outposts exist in the territory of other countries.
Echoes of war
The newfound bipolar world was clearly manifested already in the last days of World War II. The threat, which temporarily united countries, was destroyed, and it became clear that there is a "we" and "they." And let no one be misled by the triumvirate of leaders at the Yalta Conference, the world is henceforth split in two. NATO, created in 1949 and the countries of the Warsaw Pact, concluded six years later, began struggling to make friends against each other.
The more active a country's foreign policy is, the more it needs assistants in all corners of the world. Not for overt fighting, rather for denoting the presence and serving as an active extension of diplomatic aspirations. [Suppose] a satellite falls in the wrong place, an uprising starts in a friendly contry, intelligence calls for support -- All these questions are much easier to solve, if you have at hand a military base closed to prying eyes. Naturally, they were differently assigned: in Cuba, the Soviet Union had the radio-electronic center and in Vietnam [the base was a] pied-a-terre for the logistics fleet.
Of course, that the Soviet Union was not the only country seeking to extend the hands of the military. The United States of America created their own bases no less actively. At the same time the United States managed an almost unprecedented situation: they do not pay for the land leased by the base, almost anywhere. Instead it is represented as a contribution to the host country's overall security. More than thirty countries, more than one hundred sites around the world. Maximum operating room.
Do not think that in each of these countries the locals are just happy to see the Yankees. The main example - the naval base in Okinawa. The island was captured by US troops in 1945, and since then, the US military base is almost 18 percent of its territory. The local population, whom the "invaders" treat as second-class citizens, regularly go to protests and demonstrations.
In total since 1972 in Okinawa, the US Army was committed 5,800 crimes, 571 of which can be categorized as serious. E.g, in 1995, twelve Japanese schoolgirls were raped by US soldiers. And nothing - the military presence is more important.
Understood, of course, that it is not that way everywhere; many European countries, including the Baltic republics, are themselves willing to provide territory for overseas military deployment. A key factor in this is skillful American diplomatic work, and many regularly asserting about possible aggression from Russia.
Return to former position
Military bases should not be taken as an outpost of the country, where one might expect an attack any time. In most cases (especially when we are talking about Russia) it is only the indicator of strength and presence in the region. But the main goal - a logistics center, giving the opportunity for a quick response to any problem that might arise in the region. So another way to think of them in Soviet times: a group of military advisors and specialists. They maintain the presence, but at the same time the money spent for the maintenance of such a mobile group is much less.
In many ways, such numerically small bases relate to the lack of funding. Even the budget of the USSR was greatly strained, containing all the foreign assistance centers, to say nothing of Russia. That is why a return to the old policy has caused so much talk.
By itself, a military base in Syria (officially the 720th logistics of the Russian Navy) was established to support the Soviet naval operations in the Mediterranean, namely the repair of ships and vessels of the 5th Mediterranean operational squadron, with their fuel supply, water and consumables. Founded in 1971, it has never been particularly great, just a few berths and facilities on the territory of the Syrian naval base (63 brigades of the Syrian Navy crew).
Russian portions of Syrian Naval base marked in red.
After 1992, when the Soviet Mediterranean Squadron, which was created as a visible and tangible rival the US Sixth Fleet, was disbanded, there began a slow fadeout of the base. In the best years more than two thousand soldiers and sailors, with marines guarding. In 2002, there were only 50 military personnel on the base, and by 2012 this number was down to only four people.
After the beginning of the participation of Russian armed forces in the Syrian civil war, the base contingent increased again. In 2015, it amounted to 1,700 people, who assisted in unloading, ship supply, and repair, and the delivery of Russian military hardware to Syria. Therefore, to talk about the creation of the base is not entirely correct, but rather, it has been a return.
A Base without a squadron
Geographically, Russia does not have normal access to the Mediterranean. The only way to leave the enclosed Black Sea is through the Turkish Bosporus Strait, the Sea of Marmara and then the Dardanelles, and then exit to the operating space of the Mediterranean. But, firstly, the outlet of all ships through the Bosporus is tightly controlled by Turkey, a NATO member, and, secondly, the passage of vessels costs money. The Turkish side collects the so-called "light dues" for passage through the strait, depending on the vessel class. Sometimes it can reach significant values. That is why the Russian bases in the Mediterranean are needed even in the absence of a permanent fleet in the region.
There have been discussions in the Naval Command about the desire to revive in full the base in Libya (Tripoli), which lasted until 2011. But the current political situation pushed the process of returning to the Mediterranean with the Syrian base. It is expected that after the modernizations are finished, it will be able to accommodate large vessels. In addition to direct military purposes, the base in Tartus is of great importance for external intelligence operations, including electronic ones.
Accounts and mutual settlements
It remains a question of the cost of all this. Most likely, in view of the current relations between Russia and the Government of Bashar al-Assad, rent at Tartus will be zero. As regards the funds that will be spent from the budget on the presence of Russian troops and support staff in Syria, earlier the Ministry of Finance decided to increase the relevant articles of the Russian budget to 678 billion rubles. It is highly likely that the money will be used to service the Russian naval base.
In addition, screenshots from Syrian TV recently appeared on the networks. In them one might well discern medium range Russian air-to-air missiles, RVV-AE (R-77). This means that Russia has quietly upgraded Syrian MiG-29 to the MiG-29SM variant. These missiles can hit an air target at speeds of up to Mach 3. The cost of each of these missiles is very high. In 2012, Malaysia bought 35 missiles RVV-AE for US $ 35 million. It is possible that this upgrade is also an integral part of the Russian-Syrian relations that resulted in the revival of the naval base in Tartus.
SyAAF MiG-29 armed with R-77!!!!
Back in the saddle?
Speaking frankly, one base in the Mediterranean without a constant fleet in the Mediterranean doesn't work. This step does not carry with it geopolitical changes. Those who wish can consider the composition of the United States Sixth Fleet, to understand that we will not threaten them from Tartus, separately, in no way.
Rather, it is a sign for the world and NATO, showing that Russia wants to return to the world stage and that its aspirations do not end with the borders of the CIS, where most Russian foreign military bases are now.
However, it should be remembered that, by investing in Tartus, Russia once and for all stands with Assad, is not trying to be above the situation, but is clearly taking one side of the game. Indeed, in the case of a Syrian Government defeat, this base would go the way of the base in Tripoli, which had to quickly fold in 2011 after the beginning of the "Arab Spring" and the death of Muammar Gaddafi.
This is a risky bet, but in the case of a successful conclusion of the war in Syria, it could be a serious step on the way of Russia's return to big geopolitics. Military action - this is just a continuation of political aspirations, and if the base is such a handy instrument, it should be used.
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Children are known for being picky eaters. But what happens when these picky eaters grow up? Many children leave behind their quirky eating habits as they get older. But “what is less certain are the predictors of who will remain a picky eater in adulthood,” said Nancy Zucker, a psychologist and director of the Duke Center for Eating Disorders. She is the lead author of a 2015 study that linked picky eating in some preschoolers with emotional problems. Adults may hang on to their youthful food dislikes — at the top of the list are vegetables — but then add more restrictions, such as consuming only smooth foods or limiting their diet to bland, white meals. Dr. Zucker said that in a sample of 2, 600 adults who identified themselves as picky eaters, 75 percent reported the pattern started in childhood. The estimates of picky eating in childhood vary widely, ranging from 5 percent to more than 25 percent, depending on the definition of selective eating. But “there is no consensus on the prevalence in adults,” Dr. Zucker said. One reason is that many adults try to keep their picky eating a secret, a common source of stress that can lead to personal or professional problems. As a child, Stephanie Lucianovic, the author of “Suffering Succotash: A Picky Eater’s Quest to Understand Why We Hate the Foods We Hate,” would hide vegetables or hold her nose during meals. As an adult, her selective eating posed new challenges when she fell in love with a man from a “foodie” family. “It’s a really scary thing to overcome,” she said. “People aren’t choosing to dislike food. There’s a lot of shame involved. There’s not a lot of empathy for picky eaters. ” Ms. Lucianovic said the key to ending her pickiness at the table was having the support of a nonjudgmental partner and learning how to cook. She still avoids steamed vegetables, but now enjoys them roasted or sautéed. “You can reset the pattern of likes and dislikes,” she said. “I did it by continuing to try things in different ways. ” Researchers at Duke and the University of Pittsburgh are studying adult picky eaters via an online questionnaire. Among the questions: “Do you get anxious about social situations because you will be expected to eat?” and “Do you gag when tasting a disliked food?” About 40, 000 adults have completed the survey. The causes of picky eating, however, remain poorly understood. In some cases, a childhood dining scare from choking or vomiting may cause lingering fear of one or more foods. “Food memories are very powerful memories,” Dr. Zucker said, adding that social anxiety associated with picky eating seems to increase with age. Other people may have a heightened sensitivity “or even somewhat distorted perception to certain tastes and smells,” said Juyun Lim, an associate professor of food science and technology at Oregon State University whose research has focused on the role of the senses in food preferences. All foods contain tens to hundreds of volatile compounds that determine aroma and flavor, she said. But the same food can be perceived differently by two individuals. “Depending on your genetics, a food can smell pleasant or unpleasant,” Dr. Lim said. While one person may enjoy the taste of cilantro, for example, another might find it soapy. Another example is pork, which contains a compound that some people can’t detect, or describe as pleasantly floral, while others characterize it as smelling like sweat or urine. Sometimes we learn to like something the more we are exposed to it. “The first time you drink beer, it never really tastes good,” Dr. Lim said. Texture also plays a role in food acceptance. One example is okra, with its slimy quality that many find disagreeable. Jane Kauer, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania, was surprised when research revealed that some adults rejected raw tomatoes for reasons that had nothing to do with flavor. Participants described being turned off by the “gross thing that happens when you pierce a tomato and the guts come out of it. ” Many adult picky eaters want to change, but they find certain foods too unappealing to even put on a plate. In extreme cases, they may shun nearly all foods, a condition the American Psychiatric Association calls food intake disorder, or Arfid. Dr. Zucker said some adult picky eaters come to the Duke center for help when they are concerned about being poor role models for their children, for example, or they panic about attending business dinners. Psychologists and social workers help patients gain insight into the biological, emotional and social factors behind their selective eating. “A person’s experiences often need to be validated and fully understood before changes are even considered,” Dr. Zucker said. New foods are then slowly introduced in an effort to expand the palate. Dr. Zucker compared the process to physical rehabilitation for an injury, requiring much work and practice. Patients who have eaten only smooth foods may, for example, need to consult with an occupational therapist to learn how to chew and swallow more effectively. They are also taught ways of handling situations like eating in public or explaining their food preferences to others. One thing experts advise: Don’t push food at adult picky eaters. “It’s incredibly stressful to them, because most of us are perfectly happy to say, ‘Come on, try it. It really tastes great,’” Dr. Kauer said. While loved ones’ concern is understandable, selective eaters consider it intrusive and an attack on their sense of self, Dr. Kauer said. “It’s getting into their space, and it has nothing to do with you. ” | 1 |
A group of lawmakers is planning to request a congressional investigation of a $418 million U. S. weapons sale to Kenya approved by the Obama administration on its last day in office. [The sale, approved by the State Department and privately notified to Congress on January 19, would allow Kenya to buy 14 weaponized planes — including two trainer planes and services, for missions against terrorist group . The deal was publicly announced the Monday after Trump’s inauguration. A handful of lawmakers, led by Rep. Ted Budd ( ) are questioning why the contract to produce the planes was awarded to major defense firm L3 Technologies — which has never produced such a plane — while a smaller, disabled company in North Carolina that already make those planes at a lower cost was not considered. The Mooresville, N. C. company, IOMAX USA Inc. costed out 14 planes at $237 million dollars, according to a Budd aide. “It looks like politics,” Budd said in a phone interview with Breitbart News on Monday. “Why are they sending it to someone that’s produced zero, for twice the price? This is inappropriate. ” Later this week, Budd and several other GOP congressmen are planning to request the investigation. It is not just Republicans puzzled by the matter. Georgia Democrat Sanford Bishop will join Republicans in signing a letter being sent to the Kenyan ambassador to the U. S. on Tuesday. The letter, obtained first by Breitbart News, says, “We believe Kenya would benefit by exploring its options in regard to this acquisition. ” “We ask that the Government of Kenya take these facts, in particular the prospect of an ongoing congressional investigation of this sale, under consideration as it decides whether or not to proceed with this arms purchase,” says the letter. The request for an investigation comes after the lawmakers have unsuccessfully tried to figure out how the New L3 received the “ ” primary contract, which means there is only one known source for the equipment requested, or only one single supplier that can fulfill the requirements. IOMAX was unaware of the contract until the State Department, which approves all foreign military sales, publicly announced it on Jan. 23, the Monday after Trump was sworn in. Typically, with a foreign military sale, an ally would notify and work with the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, a Pentagon agency, to request weapons. DSCA would then work with the nation to specify requirements and write a Letter of Request for the weapons. The letter would be sent to an “implementing agency. ” After price and other details are worked out, the Pentagon would issue a recommendation, and the State Department would approve or disapprove the sale. The DSCA would receive about a four percent cut of the total sale. Lawmakers suspect, though have no evidence, that in this case, the implementing agency — an Air Force acquisition office, known as the “Big Safari” at Air Force Base, steered the contract to L3. The Air Force directed all inquiries to DSCA and the State Department, which is in charge of the process. A State Department official, in emails obtained by Breitbart News, said in justifying L3’s selection that the Kenyan Ministry of Defense “conducted extensive market research. ” At the same time, the official said the State Department did not possess that research. An Air Force official also said in an email that it was not provided the market research. Lawmakers question whether Kenya did its own extensive research. The aide said Kenya initially requested MOOG, an ordnance company, to produce the planes, according an Air Force response to congressional inquiries. That request somehow got “clarified” to L3, who will modify the requested Air Tractor planes into weaponized versions. “We believe that the Air Force likely did something that had MOOG get replaced with L3,” the aide said. The aide said it doesn’t make sense, especially since IOMAX first began producing the weaponized planes in 2009 and has dropped more than 2, 000 bombs on already. IOMAX had used the Air Tractor airframe in its earlier versions, but switched to Thrush, based in Albany, Georgia. It currently has almost 50 of the planes in service, including in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Jordan, the aide said. The planes were first designed after the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment requested them for Yemen, the aide said. IOMAX’s founder, Ron Howard, is a retired Army aviator with the unit. He founded the company with his son in 2001. Budd said he is looking out for jobs in North Carolina. IOMAX, which takes in about $1 billion a year in sales compared to L3’s $10 billion, has 115 employees in his district, with 49 percent of them veterans who make an average of $115, 000 a year — many of them special operations forces veterans. “Our first interest is to look out for jobs in the district. These are guys who are cutting sheet metal and doing rivets at the same time as those who are installing weaponized system … It’s a whole work force down there,” Budd said. “It’s infuriating that they’d be cut out of a deal like this. ” “They have to earn this deal on their own,” he added. “We can’t get the deal for them. But we want them to have a fair shot at it … They shouldn’t catch the brunt of politics. ” The L3 contract would primarily benefit its Platform Integration Division in Waco, Texas. An L3 spokesman did not respond to a phone call asking for comment. Budd said the current deal is not a good one for the Kenyans either. He met with the Kenyan Deputy Chief of Mission last Monday, who was allegedly “flabbergasted” they were potentially paying almost $200 million more than necessary. “We’ve had several Kenyans reach out and thank us,” he said. Several Kenyan analysts also questioned the sale on Twitter, with the accompanying hashtag #KDFWeaponsScam. KDF is short for Kenyan Defense Force. We could have bought 5 of these Bell Boeing Ospreys at the $418 million expenditure #KDFWeaponsScam pic. twitter. — The Muthoka® (@MuthokaTito) February 17, 2017, Although the notification period for Congress before a foreign military sale can go forth ended Sunday, lawmakers can still halt the sale by passing a resolution of disapproval. Budd also introduced a joint resolution in the House earlier this month to halt the sale. If the resolution is adopted, it would be the first time Congress has voted to block a foreign arms deal since 1986. of the resolution include Reps. Meadows, Jones, Duncan Hunter ( ) Jeff Duncan ( ) Ileana ( ) Doug LaMalfa ( ) and Gary Palmer ( ). | 1 |
The bodies of five people were found near two capsized dinghies off the coast of Libya on Thursday, and the aid organization that recovered the bodies said it feared that more than 200 migrants may have drowned. Laura Lanuza, a spokeswoman for the organization, Proactiva Open Arms, said in a telephone interview that a search was underway for another migrant vessel believed to have run into trouble in the same part of the Mediterranean. While it was not clear how many people were aboard the capsized dinghies, she said that boats of that type often get overloaded with 120 to 140 migrants hoping to reach southern Europe. “We fear the worst,” Ms. Lanuza said. The discovery and the search come amid signs that the number of African migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean increased over the winter compared with a year ago — with tragic consequences. Since the start of this year, 559 people have died or disappeared while crossing the Mediterranean, according to the latest data from the International Organization for Migration. In 2016, 5, 098 migrants died or disappeared while undertaking the journey, according to the International Organization for Migration, but the number of attempted crossings normally picks up significantly after the winter, once the weather and conditions at sea improve. Since the start of the year, Proactiva Open Arms said that it alone had rescued about 2, 000 migrants lost at sea. “Everything suggests that the flux has risen this winter,” Ms. Lanuza said. The five corpses were found on Thursday morning about 13 miles off Sabratha, one of the ports along the Libyan coast from where human traffickers are believed to put migrants aboard overcrowded and flimsy dinghies. Based in Catalonia, Proactiva is one of the private groups that have recently been involved in efforts to prevent African migrants from drowning on the Mediterranean crossing. Its founder, Oscar Camps, has also been one of the strongest critics of the response of the European Union and its member states to the migration crisis. “The sea is like a carpet that governments are now lifting to brush underneath their dirt,” he said in an interview last fall. Alongside Proactiva Open Arms, which is using a fishing boat converted into a rescue vessel, Ms. Lanuza said that another rescue boat operated by Jugend Rettet, a German aid organization, was also searching the area. The two boats are sailing in international waters with the support of the Italian coast guard, which earlier on Thursday confirmed the recovery of the five corpses, according to Reuters. | 0 |
Cable industry analysts have debated the fall of ESPN for months, especially after its recent shedding of over 100 jobs. There has been much speculation that the network’s liberal tilt has alienated viewers, even as liberals scoff at the notion. But, statistics now show that ESPN really has lost viewers over its constant infusion of politics into its sports coverage. [For several years, news outlets, including Breitbart Sports, have said that ESPN’s politics is driving viewers away, but many of these claims have been made on anecdotal evidence as millions of sports fans take to social media and the press to complain that ESPN won’t “stick to sports. ” Recently, a poll emerged showing that Republicans have begun to turn away from ESPN, but now we have some of the first hard data to prove that, yes, ESPN has lost viewers over the last few years, a time coinciding with the network’s growing amount of liberal content. According to TV data service Deep Root, viewers that identify as Republican really have quit watching the cable sports network. Deep Root focused on a swing election state to gather its viewership data over a period. “We analyzed viewership data in a large media market in a swing state (Cincinnati, OH) for the entirety of 2015 and 2016,” Deep Root reported this week. “Also, to control for any changes in partisan identification between 2015 and 2016, Deep Root Analytics analyzed viewership among the same audiences across both years. ” Its data shows that at least in the Cincinnati market, ESPN’s audience has become far less Republican. Specifically, in 2015, the ESPN audience on average skewed Republican across all dayparts, ranging from 12% more Republican (Early News, Late Fringe, Overnight) to 21% more Republican than Democratic (Early Morning). In 2016, every daypart on ESPN became less conservative, with Daytime being only 2% more Republican than Democratic, while Late Fringe and Overnight programming became 10% and 12% more Democratic than Republican — a 22 and 28 point shift, respectively. The same is true across other ESPN properties. ESPN2 skewed Republican across most dayparts in 2015 in 2016 all dayparts skewed Democratic. Every daypart also switched on ESPN News from 2015 to 2016. ESPNU was the only network that retained its mostly Republican audience. ESPN Deportes — the network’s channel — became even more Democratic in 2016 than it already was in 2015. The Cincinnati market is likely indicative of many TV markets across the country. Deep Root does acknowledge that ESPN faces far more troubles with its business model than just losing viewers over politics. But, this data is the first evidence that ESPN’s liberalism has hurt its bottom line, at least with some viewers. The accusation now has a long lineage. Along with several years of complaints among conservative media outlets, the accusation that ESPN has become too political was at least strong enough to cause the network’s own ombudsman to address the network’s leftward tilt. Last year, ESPN ombudsman Jim Brady published a long piece exploring the the network’s liberalism. In the end, Brady decided his network had no problem with liberalism. However, even in his piece, Brady quoted ESPN President John Skipper, a former employee at Rolling Stone magazine, as insisting that the network had little intention of putting the brakes on its liberalism. “It is accurate that the Walt Disney Company and ESPN are committed to diversity and inclusion,” Skipper said. “These are values that drive fundamental fairness while providing us with the widest possible pool of talent to create the smartest and most creative staff. We do not view this as a political stance but as a human stance. We do not think tolerance is the domain of a particular political philosophy. ” So, even if more data emerges showing that its liberal content is hurting its bottom line, Skipper’s comments can be taken as an indication that ESPN has not yet learned its lesson that fans are sick and tired of politics ladled over the top of their sports coverage. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
MOSCOW — Russians awoke to an extraordinary scandal on Tuesday with the minister of economic development detained on charges of soliciting a $2 million bribe — the official arrested in Russia in decades. The minister, Aleksei Ulyukayev, 60, a liberal stalwart with a trademark porcupine haircut, was detained in the middle of the night, a tactic against officials who had fallen into disfavor that many thought had been retired. Mr. Ulyukayev was charged with extorting a $2 million bribe from Rosneft, the state oil giant, as a for endorsing a deal for it to buy a chunk of Bashneft, a smaller, oil company that the Kremlin recently confiscated from an oligarch. Late on Tuesday, President Vladimir V. Putin dismissed Mr. Ulyukayev from the minister’s job he had held since 2013, citing a “lack of trust. ” It was a rare bribery case to reach behind the high red walls of the Kremlin — though relatively small in a country where corruption is rampant — and to an unusual degree parted the curtains on the extended, opaque battle within the ruling elite over the direction and control of the sickly Russian economy. Amid myriad questions about what actually happened, which may never be made public, one explanation emerged as the favorite. The Kremlin and its allies, struggling to right an economy waterlogged by two years of recession, are seeking a life raft, analysts said. Mr. Ulyukayev’s mistake was to question their methods publicly. In this line of thinking, Mr. Ulyukayev was being punished for initially trying to block Rosneft from expanding its reach by purchasing Bashneft, and for generally restraining its growth. On a larger scale, the arrest served as a warning from the increasingly dominant security services that no one should challenge them. “I think the purpose of the whole thing was to eliminate resistance,” said Vladimir S. Milov, an opposition politician and former deputy minister of energy who now leads a think tank. “The message is, ‘Don’t stand in my way.’ A clear message for all future deals. ” The basic scenario goes something like this: As the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, a former K. G. B. agent and Putin confidant, is sitting on about $15 billion in cash. With the state’s two main reserve funds dwindling, the Russian government covets that cash. Mr. Sechin’s purchase of state assets transfers that money directly into the Russian treasury. It also increases his power, though there was a small wrinkle in the form of a law suggesting, except in extreme instances, that state assets should be sold into private hands. A private company, Lukoil, also expressed interest at a lower price. As minister of economic development, Mr. Ulyukayev had to sign off on the sale of any state assets. So Bashneft was a major test case. Mr. Sechin wanted it for Rosneft, despite the law and the widespread, negative public perception that the elite was once again, as it did in the 1990s, abusing privatization laws to seize commodity resources at bargain prices. Mr. Ulyukayev tried to postpone the deal, but Mr. Putin backed the sale after initially hesitating. In October, it was announced that Rosneft would acquire a little more than half of Bashneft for more than $5 billion. Mr. Sechin is known for a take no prisoners attitude toward anyone who challenges him, so the bribery charges against Mr. Ulyukayev were interpreted as revenge. For Mr. Putin, the nation’s special reserve funds have served as Russia’s main, tangible economic cushion. “The reserve funds have been something sacred. Putin always refers to them when he talks about economic difficulties,” Mr. Milov said. “They have been used as a strong, public indicator that the state still has capabilities. ” But they are shrinking fast with no economic revival in sight. Two sovereign funds, the Reserve Fund and the National Wealth Fund, are now down to less than $104 billion, compared with a combined $160 billion at the beginning of 2015, according to the Finance Ministry’s website. The financial reserves are expected to run out by the end of 2017, just as Mr. Putin faces a campaign for a fourth term in the spring of 2018. The Rosneft stash would help tide over the country for a longer period while the Kremlin ties its hopes to a rebound in the price of oil and the possible lifting of Western sanctions imposed over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the Ukraine crisis. Prospects for the latter brightened with Donald J. Trump’s criticism of the American policy of isolating Russia. For now, the Russian economy hovers around zero growth, and consumers still struggle with inflation caused by a sharp drop in the ruble, along with food restrictions imposed in response to the Western sanctions. With minimal outside investment, Russia’s economic fate is increasingly in the hands of the state. New statistics from the federal antimonopoly service show that the government controls about 70 percent of the economy, compared with 35 percent in 2005. Olga V. Kryshtanovskaya, a leading sociologist who studies the Russian elite, said the Ulyukayev case cast a shadow over the entire government. “People resent the fact that they had to give up French cheese in order to support the president’s policies and such corruption cases still erupt,” she said in an interview. On Tuesday, the Kremlin cranked its information machinery into high gear to paint the arrest as part of a continuing anticorruption crusade that has included the arrest of three governors in the last two years. A report called “Fight Against Corruption” was the top one for much of the day on the main television news network. A caravan of politicians appeared on screen to praise the arrest as evidence that nobody was above the law. Mr. Ulyukayev was charged with extorting a bribe, Svetlana Petrenko, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Investigative Committee, said on state television. Mr. Ulyukayev threatened to use his official standing to create future problems for Rosneft, she said, and was detained on Monday while accepting $2 million. Russian security services had monitored Mr. Ulyukayev’s telephone calls for a year, and Rosneft had put the $2 million in a safe deposit box, according to various news reports, but the accused had not touched it. Timofei Gridnev, identified by Business FM radio as Mr. Ulyukayev’s lawyer, said the minister denied all the charges, calling them a “provocation” by Rosneft against a government official. Mr. Ulyukayev was put under house arrest for two months. Another school of thought, though not as widespread as the revenge story, holds that the bribery scandal was meant to hurt Rosneft, to show that it was a source of corruption and so to weaken Mr. Sechin. Evidence for that was harder to find, however, especially because various politicians had demanded Mr. Ulyukayev’s head. Gennadi A. Zyuganov, the leader of the Communist Party, suggested that Mr. Ulyukayev was happy to enrich himself while denying the funds needed for a children’s cancer hospital in Moscow. Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, told Russian reporters, “This is a very serious accusation which calls for very serious evidence. ” He said a court would make the ultimate determination about Mr. Ulyukayev’s guilt or innocence. There was some mocking criticism of the charges from business leaders and others. Apparently referring to Mr. Sechin’s reputation, Alexander N. Shokhin, the president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, told the website Gazeta. ru that anyone who tried to shake down Rosneft for money should be the subject of a psychiatric investigation rather than a police investigation. “If Alexei Ulyukayev had been accused of running over an old lady while driving a Gelandewagen at high speed through Moscow late at night, even that would look more probable,” Mr. Shokhin said. Ilya Shumanov of Transparency International, which fights corruption, told RBC Daily, a financial newspaper, that a $2 million bribe was a paltry, unrealistic sum in Russia’s moneyed oil industry, suggesting that was the kind of sum a deputy mayor might solicit. A recent among Mr. Putin’s advisers prompted some analysts to suggest that Mr. Ulyukayev’s arrest was part of a trend of replacing seasoned veterans with a younger generation less likely to question the president’s decisions. Many analysts, however, considered the arrest part of a different trend: the increasing power of the siloviki, or members of the security services, over the whole government. Oleg Feoktistov, the head of security at Rosneft and identified in news reports as the main executive behind Mr. Ulyukayev’s arrest, used to run internal security and corruption cases in the federal security service, or F. S. B. “In the past six to eight months, these repressions have become more widespread,” said Kirill Rogov, an independent political analyst. “This is directly linked to the new people occupying new posts in the F. S. B. who want to expand their turf. ” | 1 |
Man Wearing ‘Jewmerica’ T-Shirt Never Dreamed He’d See This Day SAND SPRINGS, OK—Feeling a mixture of intense pride and abject disbelief after news networks called the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, local man Terry Williams, who is currently wearing a T-shirt adorned with the word “Jewmerica,” told reporters late Tuesday night that he never dreamed he’d see this day during his lifetime. Nation Throws Off Tyrannical Yoke Of Moderate Respect For Women WASHINGTON—Political experts are hailing Donald Trump’s historic presidential victory early Wednesday as a resounding declaration that the nation is finally ready to cast off the tyrannical yoke of moderate respect for women that has suffocated the citizens of this country for generations. Nation Elects First Black-Hearted President WASHINGTON—Shattering a barrier long thought unbreakable in the United States, Donald Trump, the 70-year-old billionaire real estate mogul from New York, became the first black-hearted man in history to win the American presidency, in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Nation’s Optimists Need To Shut The Fuck Up Right Now WASHINGTON—Saying their rosy attitude about the state of the election was not helping anything given what is currently transpiring, sources confirmed Tuesday night that the nation’s optimists need to seriously shut the fuck up as soon as humanly fucking possible. Anderson Cooper Informs Viewers CNN Just Minutes Away From First Significant Piece Of Information Of Day NEW YORK—Roughly two hours into the network’s live nine-hour-long “Election Night In America” programming block, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper informed viewers Tuesday evening he is only moments away from delivering the first piece of genuinely significant information of the day. | 0 |
none today c) REPORT ON CHINA
i)Last week’s TIC report showed a huge 346 billion dollars worth of treasuries sold. What was more disturbing was China sold 34 billion of USA treasuries. The big question is China offloading all of its foreign treasuries proportionally or just the USA. It seems the latter as Japan reports that China is gobbling up Japanese government bonds by the bucketful despite its negative yield. Last yr they bought $87 billion worth of Japanese bonds. China made its move because of the threat of higher interest rates. The chance that Japanese rates go higher is nil.
( zero hedge)
ii)Chinese bank assets total 32 trillion equiv usa, with bank liabilities at just about 30 trillion equiv USA. To give you a comparison to the uSA: the total USA banking liabilities are around 15 trillion. The problem in China is bad debts which are in the area of 15 to 20%.
Thus 5 to 6 trillion equiv dollars must be written off…where are they going to get the money for this?
(courtesy zero hedge) 4 EUROPEAN AFFAIRS
i)Deutsche bank
Investors scared as to what they are witnessing, have pulled another 8 billion dollars worth of funds from the ETF unit, causing more liquidity problems for the bank
( zerohedge)
ii)ECB
A trial balloon has been floated by the ECB that they are almost certain to continue buying bonds beyond the March 2017 deadline
( zero hedge)
iii)SPAIN
What a mess: King Felipe asks Spain to form a minority government and it will be done with abstentions. The problem here is that Rajoy promised to cut taxes and increase expenditures. The ECB wants the opposite
( Mish Shedlock/Mishtalk) iv)DEUTSCHE BANK Deutsche bank is probing its own derivatives to see if they have been misstated. They are also sharing their information with USA authorities ( zerohedge)
v)ITALY
This is all Italy needs; Central Italy (around the Perugia area) is hit with a strong 5.4 magnitude earthquake
( zero hedge)
vi) BANK OF ENGLAND/ITALIAN BANKS/DEUTSCHE BANK
Great reason for gold and silver to be whacked today: The Bank of England is asking its UK Banks to detail their exposure to both Deutsche bank and the Italian banks
( zero hedge) vii)CALAIS FRANCE (THE “JUNGLE”) We brought you the story where the authorities rounded up 8,000 refugees harbouring on the outskirts of Calais in what is referred to as the “Jungle”. They burned the refugee centers there and tried to move the migrants throughout France. This is not working as they breaking the police lines trying to get into the jungle. Generally they try and hitch a ride across the channel into England. (courtesy zero hedge) 5. RUSSIAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS
i)Trump correctly states that Hillary’s plan for Syria would eventually lead to World War iii as the Russians would be totally against her formula. The Russians know full well that the issue is to remove Russia from providing natural gas to all of Europe
( zero hedge)
ii)Russia flexes its muscle by revealing a nuclear missile capable of reaching USA soil. ( Alexander Mercouris/The Duran.com)
iii)World tensions just got hotter as Russia is forced to cancel refueling of its warships at Spain’s eastern Mediterranean port of Cueta. The warships are heading to Syria( zero hedge)
iv)what on earth is going on here? Cyberwarfare? no comment from me is necessary: ( zero hedge)
v)The warmongers are at again, as NATO is pushing for the biggest build up on Russia’s borders since the cold war; good reason to whack gold today(courtesy zero hedge) 6.GLOBAL ISSUES
Months ago, many foreign investors were flocking into Mozambique bonds due to its higher yield. This morning, they woke up to the fact that these bonds are crashing with a yield of over 20%. The government admits that it’s nation is in debt distress and they also reported on undisclosed bond issuance. The country’s Debt to GDP ratio is 86 / with total country debt/GDP at 112.
( zerohedge) 7.OIL ISSUES
After a huge gain in API inventory, the DOE reports a draw down and this causes crude to climb back above 50 dollars
(courtesy zero hedge)
Conditions inside Venezuela going from bad to worse
(courtesy zero hedge)
i)Rory Hall/Dave Kranzler interview Bill Murphy of GATA
( GATA/IRD)
ii)Chinese mining companies Zijin andShandong are in talks for stakes in Barricks Veladero mine in Argentina. This mine is a good producer for Barrick at 500,00 plus oz per year.
(courtesy GATA/R euters) 10.USA STORIES WHICH MAY INFLUENCE THE PRICE OF GOLD/SILVER
i)The following is very important: the Richmond fed finally confirms that business conditions in its area has not deteriorated this fast since Q2 of 2008.
( zero hedge)
ii)The Fed is broadcasting that it is going to let inflation run wild in the USA
( Graham Summers/Phoenix Capital Research)
iii)Apple slides after disappointing numbers:
( zero hedge)
iv)Trump unexpectedly regains the lead in Florida with the latest polls
( zero hedge)
v)Wholesale inventories fail to grow and are basically unchanged even though auto inventories are up 9%. Inventory to sales ratio improves to 1.33 but still deep in recession.
( zero hedge)
vi)Today, we see the service sector PMI surge to 54.8 and it is at its highest level in 11 months .Together with the mfg PMI it looks like the USA is growing at 2%
( zero hedge)
vii) New home sales rose only after a major revision from August:
new home sales: 593,000 but expectations were 600,000. August levels; 609,000
( zero hedge)
viii)Project Veritas 4 just released and more trouble for the DNC
( zero hedge) Let us head over to the comex:
The total gold comex open interest ROSE BY 849 CONTRACTS to an OI level of 507,617 as the price of gold ROSE $9.90 with YESTERDAY’S trading.
We are in the delivery month is October and here the OI LOST 217 contracts DOWN to 104. We had 250 notices filed YESTERDAY so we GAINED 33 contracts or 3,300 additional oz will stand for delivery.
The next delivery month is November and here the OI FELL by 176 contract(s) DOWN to 2260 contracts. This level is extremely elevated as generally November is a very poor delivery month.To give you an idea of size, on Oct 26 2015, we had an OI of only 253 contracts standing. Eventually by the end of Nov 2015, 214 notices stood for delivery for 21,400 oz (.6656 tonnes).The next contract month and the biggest of the year is December and here this month showed an decrease of 871 contracts down to 372,221. Today we had 1 notice filed for 100 oz of gold. | 1 |
Eric ZUESSE | 19.11.2016 | OPINION Obama’s Zero Legacy «Trump did more than any democrat to deflate the neocon/neoliberal agenda that liberals themselves screamed was fascist when Bush was president». That was a brilliant and profoundly true reader-comment recently posted about Hillary Clinton supporters who are demonstrating against Trump’s winning the Presidency. Clinton-Obama Democrats who remain loyal to the Democratic Party in the wake of Trump’s victory are world-champion hypocrites, even if they’re too oblivious to know it. The Clinton-Obama political tradition of pro-megacorporate government, actually repudiates, instead of embodies, that of the Democratic Party’s earlier quintessential exemplar: the 1932-1980 FDR-dominated (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) era, the most progressive period in all of U.S. history. Though I voted both times for Barack Obama, he turned out to be one of the worst U.S. Presidents, if not the worst of them all — even if he was (as I thought each time) the best of the bad (in each election). His only real legacy as President turns out to have been disasters, including things far worse than his failed Obamacare, which increased the healthcare inflation-rate in our country, where healthcare already costs twice as much — and twice as high a percentage of GDP — as the international OECD average, but delivers inferior healthcare results. America is becoming internationally even less competitive in our healthcare system than before — which was already at the international bottom. It’s sucking the lifesblood out of the U.S. economy. But most of the real hell that Obama produced is in foreign countries: his bloody coup in Ukraine followed by civil war there, and the bloody catastrophe in Libya , and the bloody years-long attempt ( ever since Obama first came into office ) to overthrow the non-sectarian leader of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, and replace him with Al Nusra and other jihadists that the Obama-regime weaponized and the Saud regime financed and recruited hoping for them to replace Assad and produce a Sharia-law Syrian government. Al Qaeda in Syria — «Al Nusra» — were leading Obama’s ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria. The Administration kept this fact hidden from the American public until late in October when Hillary’s victory seemed assured and so Obama started to acknowledge publicly that he was actually backing all of the anti-Assad people there except ISIS. Thus, for example, on October 20 th , Russia’s Sputnik News quoted an interview two days earlier in which the American Russia-expert Stephen Cohen had remarked upon this sudden change: «If you pick up a paper today the narrative is completely different», the US academic stressed, «In Aleppo there are only rebels, there are no longer terrorists. You don't see the word 'terrorist' or 'jihadist' in the narrative any more. And alongside them, with rebels protecting them, there are children who are being killed by Russian and Syrian war planes». As the whole narrative has been re-written, Moscow and Damascus are now being portrayed as «war criminals» which are targeting civilians in Aleppo, he noted. Whereas previously, Obama behind-the-scenes had been protecting and arming the non-ISIS jihadists even while acknowledging that they existed, he was now starting publicly to acknowledge that the U.S. was actually supporting them. According to the US academic, the inconvenient truth is that the US and its allies in one way or another have abetted terrorists in Syria for many years. «The motive of the United States, the only mission that the US has in Syria, is removing [Syrian President] Assad from power», Cohen emphasized, adding that the most powerful force fighting against Damascus are jihadi terrorists. But after the election, because Trump will be Obama’s successor, Obama has finally decided that Al Qaeda and the other jihadist groups that it leads in Syria are no longer ‘moderates’, but instead are people to target and kill in Syria. Finally — after his having long refused to join Russia’s air-campaign to kill them there . I write this as a three-time voter for Barack Obama (both the primaries and the general election in 2008, and then again the general in 2012). I first became disappointed with Obama soon after his election in 2008 as President, when, on 25 November 2008 , he chose as the White House’s chief economic advisor the snobbish Republican-turned-Democrat Lawrence Summers, whose advice to President Bill Clinton in 1999 had encouraged him to terminate FDR’s Glass-Steagall separation of consumer-banking (checking and savings accounts) from investment-banking (Wall Street’s casinos) . That Clinton action had left the FDIC protections of savers on the hook to bail out the billionaire gamblers who found themselves without a musical-chairs seat when the music finally stopped and George W. Bush's MBS Ponzi real-estate economy came crashing down in 2007-2008. Clinton’s repeal of Glass-Steagall necessitated the Bush-Obama bailout of Wall Street — Main Street’s bailout of Wall Street. I recognized Obama to be a total fake ‘progressive’ because, the day before, on 24 November 2008, he had appointed yet another pro-repeal ‘Democrat’, Summers’s friend Timothy Geithner , who was the G.W. Bush era’s N.Y. Federal Reserve Bank President and thus king of Wall Street, to become U.S. Treasury Secretary, supposedly to help America recover from the crash that Geithner and Summers and Bill Clinton had in crucial ways created. (The other major way they did was their supporting total deregulation of derivative securities — turning derivatives into the financial system’s crack cocaine. Brilliant! Brilliantly evil .) And even before that, on November 18th, he had appointed Eric Holder to be Attorney General, signaling that the U.S. ‘Justice’ Department was to become headed by Wall Street’s Mr. Unaccountability, an infamous champion of keeping billionaires not only unconvicted and even uncharged but uninvestigated on any criminal law the billionaire might actually have committed — and thus out of prison. Even then — before he had so much as entered the White House — Obama showed that he wasn’t really interested in serving the public but in protecting the banksters, just like Bill Clinton and G.W. Bush had done before him. I kept voting for Obama because the alternative — originally Hillary Clinton, and then John McCain, in 2008, but now Romney in 2012 — was even worse. The system itself was rotten; it gave us only a choice only between bads (goods for the aristocracy but bads for the public) — this was by now clear. And here’s how bad President Obama actually was: On 27 March 2009, Obama secretly told the chieftains of Wall Street assembled at a private meeting inside the White House (from which these morsels leaked out), «My Administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks», thus comparing these billionaires and agents of billionaires, with the martyred Blacks whom KKKers in previous decades had chased with pitchforks before lynching. But that’s not all of what Obama said to the banksters. This arrogant self-identifier with the aristocracy was very direct with them about his siding with them and their agents who had ripped off the entire world and enriched themselves thereby: «You guys have an acute public relations problem, and I want to help… I’m not out there to go after you. I’m protecting you». And that’s exactly what he then, in fact, did (he told the truth only to his masters, never to their victims the public): On 15 November 2011, TRAC Reports headlined that «Criminal Prosecutions for Financial Institution Fraud Continue to Fall» , to record lows under Obama, even below the pathetic level of George W. Bush. 2009 was a record low. 2010 was a new record low. So was 2011. TRAC Reports never issued a follow-up article on that, but on 21 October 2016, they headlined with their usual understatement, «White Collar Crime Prosecutions for August 2016» , and showed there that since 2003 each month’s white-collar-crime prosecutions had peaked in 2011, and now were at record lows in 2015 and 2016. This at least suggests that the category of white-collar crimes that consists of «financial institution fraud» had at least not risen from its all-time low posted in 2011. During Obama’s 24 January 2012 State of the Union address, he promised « to expand our investigations into the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis. (Applause.) This new unit will hold accountable those who broke the law». He lied. Two years later , the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice issued on 13 March 2014 its « Audit of the Department of Justice’s Efforts to Address Mortgage Fraud», and reported «We found mortgage fraud to be a low priority, or not [even] listed as a priority, for the FBI Field Offices we visited». No wonder that white-collar-crime prosecutions were subsequently at record lows. It’s not merely Hillary Clinton and her emails; it’s the entire aristocracy who stand above the nation’s laws, under Barack Obama’s Presidential Administration. Impunity hidden behind lies is what defines Obama’s Presidential legacy. But it’s zero in other ways, too. Obama’s most ambitious project was his three proposed mega-‘trade’ treaties — TPP, TTIP, and TISA — each of which was designed with a feature in it called «Investor State Dispute Resolution» or ISDS, which empowers international corporations to sue any signatory nation that will increase any regulation regarding the environment or product-safety or the rights of workers (employees) — no matter what the latest scientific findings on such a given subject might happen to indicate. The international corporation can sue for ‘loss of profits’ when any such regulation is made more stringent. Profits to stockholders are sovereign and protected above the citizenry, the electorate; the controlling stockholder in an international corporation is granted rights that are above the rights of any mere citizen — even if that controlling stockholder lives abroad, and even if the international corporation is a foreign corporation. ISDS grants only one-way rights to sue: corporations suing governments, no governments suing corporations. Taxpayers pay those fines. The suits are heard in no court of law in any nation but in international-corporate panels, each having three ‘arbitrators’ no judges and no juries and no democratic accountability to any electorate at all except to stockholders who elect the board of directors in their international corporation. Hillary Clinton favored it and would probably have passed some or all of these, essentially, fascist-world-government treaties, into law, but instead Donald Trump will be President. He is far less likely to move forward with Obama’s grand scheme. «Poverty Rose In 96% Of U.S. House Districts, During Obama’s Presidency» . What does Obama have to show for his 8 years in the White House? He served his masters well, even if not as well as he had been hoping. The income and wealth of the billionaires soared like at no time since 1923-1928. The «Share of income and wealth of bottom 90 % wealth holders» both declined. He served his masters well. But they weren’t the American public, and they certainly weren’t the publics in other nations, especially not in Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Honduras, and Haiti , in each of which nations Obama made things far worse, and turned them into hell. To call his legacy «zero» is actually unrealistic praise; his legacy is deeply negative . He’ll be rewarded handsomely for it, by his masters — which never were the American public. | 1 |
On the Unbearable Lightness of Whiteness On the Unbearable Lightness of Whiteness By Photo by Backbone Campaign | CC BY 2.0
To be white and from money is to live a life of largely unrecognized privilege, bequeathed as it is from one’s first wet, howling breath. In the affluent socio-economically partitioned town of Saratoga Springs, NY where I’m from there was actually a railroad track serving as the demarcation line between affluent whites residing on one side and the other side of which nothing was known because you just didn’t go there, ever. It was literally the “wrong side of the tracks”.
Raised in that remarkable state of incurious joy and suffering within narrow undiluted lines of stratified suburban sameness, I could not know or question the things kept from sight. Thus racial determinism was assumed passively, an acquired naivete fueled with the aspirational angst of middle class parenting that served as an omniscient narcotic fog, like carbon monoxide – not enough to be lethal, but just enough to render the critical faculties permanently dull until finally the things kept from sight could no longer be seen even upon close observation.
To be white is to watch but not see while being seen but never watched. It is to know that for whatever law enforcement is or is not, they are something that will never have anything to do with me. It is to know that on those rare occasions I am pulled over, it really is about a busted tail light.
To be white is to know that when a retail clerk approaches me, its about customer service and not the… | 0 |
The racism can be felt from the moment black inmates enter New York’s upstate prisons. They describe being called porch monkeys, spear chuckers and worse. There are cases of guards ripping out dreadlocks. One inmate, John Richard, reported that he was jumped at Clinton Correctional Facility by a guard who threatened to “serve up some black mashed potatoes with tomato sauce. ” “As soon as you come through receiving, they let you know whose house it is,” said Darius Horton, who was recently released from Groveland Correctional Facility after serving six years for assault. Most forbidding are the penitentiaries — Attica, Clinton, Great Meadow — in rural areas where the population is almost entirely white and nearly every officer is too. The guards who work these cellblocks rarely get to know a black person who is not behind bars. Whether loud and vulgar or insinuated and masked, racial bias in the state prison system is a fact of life. It is also measurable. A review by The New York Times of tens of thousands of disciplinary cases against inmates in 2015, hundreds of pages of internal reports and three years of parole decisions found that racial disparities were embedded in the prison experience in New York. In most prisons, blacks and Latinos were disciplined at higher rates than whites — in some cases twice as often, the analysis found. They were also sent to solitary confinement more frequently and for longer durations. At Clinton, a prison near the Canadian border where only one of the 998 guards is black inmates were nearly four times as likely to be sent to isolation as whites, and they were held there for an average of 125 days, compared with 90 days for whites. A greater share of black inmates are in prison for violent offenses, and minority inmates are disproportionately younger, factors that could explain why an inmate would be more likely to break prison rules, state officials said. But even after accounting for these elements, the disparities in discipline persisted, The Times found. The disparities were often greatest for infractions that gave discretion to officers, like disobeying a direct order. In these cases, the officer has a high degree of latitude to determine whether a rule is broken and does not need to produce physical evidence. The disparities were often smaller, according to the Times analysis, for violations that required physical evidence, like possession of contraband. Blacks make up only 14 percent of the state’s population but almost half of its prisoners. Racial inequities at the front end of the criminal justice system — arrest, conviction and sentencing — have been well documented. The degree of racial inequity and its impact in the prison system as documented by The Times have rarely, if ever, been investigated. Nor are these issues systematically tracked by state officials. But for black inmates, what happens inside can be profoundly damaging. Bias in prison discipline has a ripple effect — it prevents access to jobs and to educational and therapeutic programs, diminishing an inmate’s chances of being paroled. And each denial is likely to mean two more years behind bars. A Times analysis of hearings before the State Board of Parole over a period ending in May found that one in four white inmates were released but fewer than one in six black inmates were. Even prisons are dangerous. There are more than 50, 000 inmates doing time at 54 prisons around the state for a range of crimes, from petty theft to multiple murders. Many interviewed by The Times, like Ibrahim Gyang, who is serving 25 years to life for killing a gang rival, were confined at prisons. He acknowledged that inmates needed guards to keep order and protect them from being preyed on by the most violent among them. “I just want the system to follow the rules,” he said. Presented with The Times’s findings, officials from the State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said that while there were racial issues in any large organization, these had little impact on the disciplinary system in the prisons. “With an agency of close to 30, 000 staff, the vast majority of our work force understand that it is a challenging job, and they approach it professionally,” Tom Mailey, the department spokesman, said in a statement. The agency said that some racial disparities, like why black inmates spent more time in solitary confinement than whites, could be explained by data The Times did not have access to — most important, prisoners’ full disciplinary histories. But the department provided no data to contradict The Times’s findings of a systemwide imbalance in discipline. In July, Chavelo Borden, who is serving a sentence for robbery, met with reporters in the visiting room at Clinton, where guards had hung a sign saying “All Lives Matter. ” Mr. Borden said he and other black prisoners at Clinton were treated “like we’re another species. ” “They don’t see us with pristine eyes,” he said. So many of the racial problems in the New York’s prisons stem from a fundamental culture clash that plays out daily on the cellblocks. The largely white work force comes from places in northern, western and central New York like Elmira, Malone, Rome and Utica. These are some of the state’s poorer and less diverse communities, where, even as far north as the Canadian border, a Confederate flag can be spotted on the back of a pickup truck or hanging from a front porch. Inmates refer to some of the big facilities as “family prisons,” where members of the same family have worked for generations. In these communities, prisons are often seen as political spoils, fiercely protected by upstate politicians for the jobs they provide. With the disappearance of manufacturing upstate, prisons provide many of the jobs factories once did. They are fueled by a steady supply of inmates, mostly black or Latino, who are shipped north, far from the urban areas where they grew up. More than half of the state’s inmates are from New York City or its suburbs. Blacks and whites are treated more equitably in some of the prisons close to the city, including Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, less than an hour by train from Grand Central Terminal. Black officers make up the majority of the uniformed staff there, setting it apart from every other men’s prison in the state. There were no disciplinary disparities between whites and blacks at Sing Sing, according to a Times review of the 1, 286 violations issued to inmates there for breaking prison rules. Inmates interviewed at prisons around the state said that if they had to do time in a facility, Sing Sing would be the best place. “Everyone wants to get to Sing Sing,” said Justin Shaw, an inmate who was doing time for criminal possession of a weapon. Mr. Gyang said, “It’s coveted. ” On the cellblocks, it is a foregone conclusion that the disciplinary system is rigged. The uniformed staff is given almost total control over the process. Corrections officers make the charges — issuing “tickets,” in prison parlance — and hearing officers, typically sergeants, lieutenants or captains, determine guilt and decide punishment. Inmates almost always lose. At disciplinary hearings, inmates won only about 4 percent of the cases in 2015, according to the department. The Times analyzed 59, 354 disciplinary cases from last year. Systemwide, black inmates were 30 percent more likely to get a disciplinary ticket than white inmates. And they were 65 percent more likely to be sent to solitary confinement, where they are held in a cell 23 hours a day. Last year, black inmates got 1, 144 tickets that resulted in 180 or more days in isolation white inmates received 226 tickets that had similarly long sentences. Department officials said there were marked improvements in the past few years, thanks to a settlement the state had signed with the New York Civil Liberties Union that brought in a federal expert to oversee efforts aimed at reducing the use of solitary confinement. Between April 2014 and October of this year, the share of solitary prisoners who were had decreased to 57 percent, from 64 percent, said Mr. Mailey, the department spokesman. Taylor Pendergrass, the lead New York Civil Liberties Union lawyer in the settlement, said the department was “off to an encouraging start. ” “It will be a major undertaking to unwind practices and transform the culture of this large organization all the way down to the staff working in the cellblocks,” Mr. Pendergrass said. There has been resistance from the rank and file. In a statement, the New York State Correctional Officers Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents guards, said the settlement with the civil liberties union had made the prisons more dangerous. “The disciplinary system has been weakened in our prisons,” the association said. “Especially given the heavy gang presence and overwhelming increases in violent incidents, appropriate disciplinary measures are needed to maintain order and to protect other inmates, as well as staff. ” Solitary confinement is only one piece of the disciplinary process that had a disparity, The Times found, and it is unclear whether the settlement will affect other elements of the system. Some of the starkest evidence of bias involves infractions that are vaguely defined and give officers the greatest discretion. Disobeying a direct order by an officer can be as minor as moving too slowly when a guard yells, “Get out of the shower. ” It is one of the most subjective prison offenses. For every 100 black prisoners, guards issued 56 violations for disobeying orders, compared with 32 for every 100 whites, according to the analysis. For smoking and drug offenses, which require physical evidence, white inmates, who make up about a quarter of the prison population, were issued about a third of the tickets. Inmates have the right to appeal to an outside court and be represented by a lawyer — if they can find one willing to take their case they almost never do. Of the tens of thousands of inmates who got disciplinary tickets in 2014 and 2015, about 280 were represented by Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York, which is financed by the state. If an inmate is lucky enough to have Prisoners’ Legal Services take his case, his odds improve greatly. About of the organization’s clients won their appeals — but by then, many had completed their solitary sentence. Ibrahim Gyang said in an interview that at one of his disciplinary hearings, an officer called as a witness had to reread the ticket because he could not remember the case. And Mr. Gyang still lost. It is not just that blacks fare worse: Whites are more likely to get a break. Both white and black prisoners mention the escape of two murderers from Clinton last year as a prime example of white guards’ tendency to be more trustful of white inmates. The murderers, Richard W. Matt and David Sweat, both white, got the tools they needed to cut through walls and piping because of friendships they had developed with an officer and a civilian employee, both white. “A major reason for allowing those inmates to have the latitude that they had was because they had white privilege,” said Joseph Williams, who worked for the corrections department for 47 years and was one of its few black prison superintendents. “We know if he had been black he would have never been given that wide a latitude. ” Markus Barber, a black inmate at Green Haven Correctional Facility, called it “the complexion for the connection. ” On Oct. 23, 2014, at Clinton, John Richard was stopped by Officer Brian Poupore, who took issue with his tinted glasses even though he has vision problems and had a medical permit to wear them, according to department records. “Monkeys don’t wear glasses,” a sergeant said, according to Mr. Richard, who is serving a life sentence for murder. When Mr. Richard refused to remove them, he said, Officer Poupore and several other guards jumped him. In their internal reports, the officers said Mr. Richard punched them several times and had to be subdued. After the encounter, Officer Poupore had a minor injury, according to the medical report, while the other officers had none. The medical report said Mr. Richard had bruises all over his body, including his face, under his ear and on his back. He had trouble walking, the report said. His glasses were broken. He was found guilty of assault and spent the next six months in solitary confinement. Assault on prison workers may seem like a straightforward infraction, but a closer look reveals a disturbing pattern. There were 1, 028 such violations issued in the state system last year. Black men received 61 percent of them, while white men received 9 percent. Under department rules, officers have considerable leeway over what constitutes an assault. An inmate need not cause an injury or even touch an officer. About 20, 000 uniformed officers work in the state’s prisons. During the first half of the year, 2, 007 of them were involved in assault cases, according to department data, but 98 percent of them had no injuries or only minor ones, which can be as vague as “ . ” Eight officers suffered serious injuries, defined as a broken bone or a puncture wound. The Times reviewed 215 reports of assaults on staff from the first quarter of 2015, obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request. The department redacted the officers’ names but not the inmates’. It also redacted most information about injuries, but in several cases, The Times was able to obtain medical records through the prisoners. Among those reports, the cases of three black inmates — Darius Horton, Paul Sellers and Justin Shaw — followed the same pattern: All were involved in seemingly trivial disagreements with guards that led to minor altercations. And while it is hard to know who was responsible for escalating the episodes, the officers were not injured and remained on duty, while the inmates were punished with long stints in isolation. Mr. Sellers was returning from dinner at Five Points Correctional Facility when he was stopped by an officer for taking “a loaf of state bread” back to his cell, according to the guard’s report. “Surrender the bread,” the officer ordered. Mr. Sellers refused and grabbed the shirt of the officer, who punched him in the face. He was sent to solitary for 166 days. Mr. Shaw was stopped at Washington Correctional Facility because he was “attempting to conceal contraband,” according to the officer’s report. When challenged, “the inmate produced a stack of waffles,” the report said. Mr. Shaw was accused of then grabbing the officer’s arm and given a lockup. Mr. Horton was caught by Officer Michael Stamp at Groveland carrying a bowl of hot water from the microwave for coffee after the common room had closed. The officer ordered Mr. Horton to leave it, he refused and they got into a shouting match and bumped shoulders, according to the report. The guard claimed that Mr. Horton then punched him. In an interview, Mr. Horton denied this, saying he was jumped by Officer Stamp and six other guards. Two of the officers had minor injuries the other five were unharmed. Mr. Horton was sentenced to 270 days in isolation. How much race figured in these three encounters — if it did at all — is hard to know. The guard in Mr. Sellers’s case was Hispanic in the other two cases, the guards were white. Mr. Shaw said the officer might have just been having a bad day. “I don’t like to say everything is race,” he said. For Mr. Horton, there was no doubt that race was at play when, as he told it, he was handcuffed and beaten by seven officers, all of them white. “They took me out there and beat me like I got caught drinking at the fountain,” he said. The corrections officers’ union encourages members to report even the slightest physical contact as an assault. As the union negotiates a new contract, billboards in the Albany area have shown officers with neck braces, strapped to stretchers. Assaults on staff members have increased in recent years. There were 895 cases recorded in 2015, some involving more than one inmate, compared with 577 in 2010, according to department data. More recently, assaults on staff were down by 16 percent between January and October of this year, compared with the same period last year, the department said. Union officials did not comment on the racial disparities in discipline that The Times found. “While facing record high levels of violence and one of the most dangerous work environments in the country, corrections officers conduct themselves with professionalism and integrity to keep our prisons secure and our communities safe,” the union said in a statement. Inmates claim that officers regularly provoke altercations that are classified as assaults, including taunting them with racial slurs or touching them inappropriately during a pat frisk. The Times’s analysis showed that prisoners charged with failing to comply with a order were also often charged with assault. Over all, black men were punished seven times as often for infractions as white men, and among inmates under 25, blacks received 185 tickets, while whites got only 14. One of the more humiliating abuses inmates describe is known as the “credit card swipe. ” Officers order the prisoners to stand against a wall for a pat frisk and then swipe their hands aggressively between their buttocks. If an inmate is startled and pulls a hand off the wall, the officer has a green light to use force. When a corrections sergeant stopped Rashief Bullock on his way back from breakfast at Attica Correctional Facility in January 2015, it was not for breaking a prison rule. It was because he was acting “erratic” and “fidgety,” the sergeant’s report said. That should have been no surprise. Mr. Bullock, who is serving an sentence for selling drugs to an undercover police officer, describes himself as “mentally unstable. ” Many of his letters home to his father are confused and delusional. In one he wrote, “I haven’t been talking like how I use to because I’ve been hearing voices to much. ” In another he asked, “Why do these middle Eastern prostitutes Harass me everyday?” The sergeant wrote in his report that he conducted a pat frisk and found nothing but then, as they were heading back to his cell, Mr. Bullock suddenly punched him in the face with his left fist. Mr. Bullock, who is denies hitting anyone. Wherever the truth lies, the incident report makes it clear that no one was hurt and that all six officers involved remained on duty. Even so, Mr. Bullock was found guilty of assaulting an officer and spent six months in solitary confinement. Inmates with mental illness are often the least equipped to handle the stresses of a regimented prison life. They tend to act out more and are disciplined at far higher rates. Race magnifies their problems. Of the 100 inmates statewide who were sentenced to the most time in solitary last year, more than half were minorities who at some point had been treated in prison mental health programs, according to the Times analysis. Mr. Bullock, 32, has spent long stretches in isolation at six different prisons. “I get thrown in the S. H. U. every jail I go to because I can’t control my body,” he said, referring to cells. He is what fellow inmates call a “herb,” an easy mark for guards to pick on. Corrections officers “really don’t like me, I think,” he said. It was the same on the outside. On the evening of Jan. 8, 2009, as plainclothes officers moved in to arrest Mr. Bullock on a Staten Island street corner, his friends drove off without him, according to the police report. For much of the past summer, Mr. Bullock was confined to his cell for 23 hours a day after getting a ticket for “being out of place. ” Given how psychotic he seemed during two recent interviews in the visiting room at Elmira, it is remarkable that he could follow any of the 120 regulations for which an inmate can be disciplined. He described a “dimension portal” in Sudan that was a secret entrance to hell explained that he was from “divine lineage” and said he communicated with people in their graves, including his relative Alexander the Great. At the time, he said he was not receiving mental health treatment or taking medication. Mr. Bullock was not sure whether racism had been a factor in his case at Attica — where 96 percent of the officers are white, and only 1 percent black — although he said he had seen it a lot in prison. At Greene Correctional Facility, he said, an officer mocked him for “sweating like a black man at a math contest” at Coxsackie Correctional Facility, a guard threatened to “beat the black” off him. During the seven years in prison, he has written scores of letters to his father, Rudy Bullock. Early on, his letters were rational, focused and touching. In May 2012, he asked his father to send him a scientific calculator. Around the same time, he wrote: “Dear Pops, I wish I was home and we were going to the movies or a restaurant. I hate jail a lot. So many colored folks in jail, if I was rich I know I could of beat this case. ” But in July of that year he wrote: “I’M GOING THROUGH TO MUCH DEPRESSION. I CAN’T HANDLE THIS MUCH LONGER!” And that November: “My mental health is going horrible in here and it’s detiriating fast from being isolated in my room all day. ” “Being in the box,” he wrote in September 2014, “I have been undergoing unsurmountable stress. ” Mr. Bullock is currently doing a solitary sentence at Five Points for disobeying a direct order. He is scheduled to leave isolation on Christmas. No other prison in the state is like Sing Sing. Of the 686 uniformed staff members there, 83 percent are black or Latino, compared with 17 percent for the entire state prison system. Reggie Edwards, who is serving 25 years to life for murder, said Sing Sing’s guards were often from the same neighborhoods as the inmates. Mr. Edwards said the white guards knew city life and were more likely to have black or Hispanic friends. “They identify with us,” he said. “They see things from our perspective. ” Elizabeth Gaynes, the executive director of the Osborne Association, an inmate advocacy group, said guards at Sing Sing “see the men as less ‘foreign. ’” The disciplinary disparities in most of the other prisons do not exist at Sing Sing. Black inmates make up 57 percent of the population there and get 58 percent of the tickets. Guards write fewer disciplinary tickets there than they do at most other prisons. In 2015, there were 27 tickets given for assault on staff at Sing Sing, compared with 91 at Great Meadow Correctional Facility, a prison of similar size in Comstock. “It relieves so much stress being in one of those jails down there with all those black people,” Mr. Bullock wrote in one of his letters to his father. Being that close to home, he wrote, he could pick up Hot 97, the New York City radio station, in his cell. Because Sing Sing is so close to the city, with major nonprofits like the Fortune Society and the Osborne Association nearby, it has more programs than most state prisons. Inmates can get a college degree and participate in theater and art initiatives. Sing Sing also receives more family visits annually than any other prison in the state, the department said. For these reasons, Sing Sing is used by the corrections department as a reward for inmates with good records at other prisons. At a graduation ceremony in 68 men received certificates for completing a parenting and relationships course as wives, girlfriends, parents and children rose for one standing ovation after another. One woman in the audience, Joyce Newell, a nurse’s aide, said that when her son was at Clinton, 300 miles north of the city, she would have to catch a bus from the Bronx at 11:30 on Friday nights to be there in time for visiting hours on Saturday morning. She would arrive back in the Bronx at 2 a. m. on Sunday and then take a subway to her apartment. Now that her son is at Sing Sing, the trip takes her half an hour. “I visit him every week on my day off,” she said. Sing Sing can still be brutal. One assault case examined by The Times involved an inmate named James Wright, who was released last year after completing a robbery sentence. Mr. Wright argued with a guard, was pushed against a wall and subdued by four other officers, according to the incident report. The guards had no injuries Mr. Wright’s two front teeth were knocked out. And still, when asked if the prisons farther upstate were worse for black inmates, Mr. Wright answered, “Absolutely. ” There is evidence that the inequitable treatment of blacks in state prisons has been going on for decades. In 1993, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Prisoners’ Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society, a federal judge ordered the state to correct disparities at Elmira. Based on a detailed statistical analysis, the judge, David G. Larimer, concluded that black inmates were assigned the worst prison jobs, housed on the most decrepit cellblocks and disciplined out of proportion to their numbers. In a ruling meant to correct these imbalances, Judge Larimer mandated quotas to ensure that black prisoners would get a fair share of the good jobs and housing on preferred cellblocks. Those quotas remain in place. To this day, the Prisoners’ Rights Project receives regular reports from the corrections department listing the number of Elmira inmates by race for the most desired jobs and housing blocks. At the time, Legal Aid also asked that discipline be monitored for racial disparities, but the state resisted. John Boston, the lead lawyer for the prisoners, warned in court that without such monitoring, black inmates would continue to be singled out disproportionately for punishment. “Once everybody’s head is turned and we all move on to something else, the problem is likely to reassert itself,” he said at the time. That is exactly what happened. After more than two decades, disparities in housing and jobs at Elmira have largely disappeared. But as The Times’s analysis showed, discipline in Elmira is still as racially skewed now as it was in the 1980s, with black inmates punished at about twice the rate of whites. It is not just black inmates who suffer harassment at the hands of white guards. In the early 2000s, a group of white officers and supervisors relentlessly taunted and abused Curtis Brown, one of the few black guards at Elmira. According to documents from an investigation by the corrections department’s office, the white officers wrote “Token” on his locker, and someone attached a picture of a disheveled black man to his timecard and wrote, “This is your black ass nigger brother. ” While Officer Brown was serving in the honor guard at a funeral for a fellow officer, a corrections lieutenant, George Martin, came up to him and said, “I didn’t know they let niggers in here,” investigators reported. And at a local hockey game that Officer Brown was attending with his family, Officer Nicolo Marino said to another white guard who was present, “I see you brought your inmate porter with you,” according to a state investigation. In a federal lawsuit filed by Officer Brown, he said that another guard once came up behind him and wrapped a chain around his neck as if it were a lynching. The suit was settled in 2009 for an undisclosed amount. A white guard who stood up for Officer Brown was also targeted. The guard, Quentin Halm, reported in an affidavit that because they were friends, he was singled out by “bigots and racists. ” One guard said to Officer Halm that if he loved Officer Brown so much, “why don’t you kiss him on his big, fat lips?” Another suggested that he go to “cornrow school with your homey. ” Records from the state comptroller indicate that none of the white guards involved were suspended, and that several of them continued to work at Elmira for years after the state investigation. Whether they received some other form of punishment is not known, since state law prohibits the public release of officers’ disciplinary records. Officer Brown, now in his 28th year on the job, is one of eight black guards at Elmira. Through the years, the corrections department has made attempts to integrate the work force at some of the big upstate prisons. In the 1970s and ’80s, black officers from the Buffalo area were transferred to Attica. While the two communities are just 35 miles apart, Attica sits in the middle of farm fields, in the overwhelmingly white Wyoming County. The new black guards were mercilessly harassed, said Tyrrell Muhammad, who was imprisoned at Attica then and is now a project associate at the Correctional Association, an inmate advocacy group that has a state mandate to monitor conditions in the prisons. Mr. Muhammad said black officers were roughed up and humiliated in front of the other guards. Most left, he said. Even if the department wanted to transfer black officers into the upstate prisons, a seniority provision in the state’s contract with the guards’ union would make that impossible. It is the officers who decide where they work, not the prison superintendents or even the corrections commissioner. The state is negotiating a new contract, but union officials say that seniority rules are not negotiable. Federal intervention has been one of the few effective means of addressing the racial inequities and violations in New York State prisons. It has worked at Elmira for housing and jobs and has been somewhat successful in holding officers accountable for the worst excesses of brutality and discrimination. On Sept. 21, Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that a group of corrections officers at Downstate Correctional Facility, in Fishkill, had been arrested over the brutal beating of Kevin Moore, a black inmate. Mr. Moore, 56 at the time, had five broken ribs, a collapsed lung and shattered bones in his face. The guards, who called themselves the Downstate Four, were also accused of ripping out his dreadlocks. One of them even bragged about using the dreadlocks to decorate his motorcycle, the indictment said. Just as egregious was the Mr. Bharara said: The officers hit one of their own on the back with a baton to make him appear injured, took several photos for the record and falsified reports claiming that Mr. Moore had attacked them, according to the indictment. “Excessive use of force in prisons, we believe, has reached crisis proportions in New York State,” Mr. Bharara said at the news conference. Like Attica and Clinton, Downstate is a particularly difficult prison for minority inmates, who, in 2015, were more than twice as likely to be disciplined as whites, The Times’s analysis showed. Blacks and Latinos got 1, 078 tickets, while whites received 144. Mr. Moore was so badly beaten that he spent 17 days in the hospital. What happened next is a prime example of why many inmates consider the prison disciplinary system to be a farce. Mr. Moore was issued a ticket for assault on staff and put in solitary confinement after being discharged from the hospital. It was only when an internal affairs investigator with the corrections department intervened that Mr. Moore was let out of isolation and the assault charge was dropped. By then, he said, he had spent 26 days in solitary confinement. After the officers were indicted, he was transferred out of state custody and moved to an undisclosed location to protect him from possible reprisals by corrections officers. | 1 |
President Trump suggested to Senators on Monday morning that they ask Sally Yates, former Obama administration deputy attorney general and acting attorney general in the Trump administration’s early days, how classified information she went to the White House counsel with got leaked to the media soon after. [Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W. H. Council. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017, Yates is testifying publicly for the first time in front of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee. She is expected to discuss how she went to the White House counsel Don McGahn on January 26 with classified information that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had talked about U. S. sanctions on Moscow with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. That classified information was shortly after illegally leaked to the Washington Post, on February 9, leading to Flynn’s resignation, since he had previously told Vice President Mike Pence that he had not discussed that topic. “Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to the W. H. Council,” Trump tweeted. Trump also reminded his followers in an earlier tweet that Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama administration, amid accusations that he did not properly vet the retired Army general, who had last served as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. General Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama Administration — but the Fake News seldom likes talking about that. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer recently pointed out that when Flynn last received his top secret security clearance in 2016, it was already known that he had visited Russia in 2015 to give a speech, which is now being investigated by the Pentagon’s inspector general. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is also testifying along with Yates. He said in March that by the time he left the government in January, he had seen no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. FBI Director James Comey has confirmed an investigation into Russian interference in the elections had begun in July. Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice was invited to testify on Monday, but declined the invite after her lawyer said the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee had disagreed with the invite, calling her testimony not relevant to the hearing topic, which is Russian influence on the U. S. elections. News reports revealed last month that Rice had requested the unmasking of identities of Trump transition team officials. She has denied doing anything “untoward. ” The subcommittee’s chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham ( ) said he would continue to pursue that issue down the road. | 0 |
Region: Russia in the World In August, 2016 the Chinese city of Changchun hosted the 21st summit of international exchange and cooperation of Northeast Asian regional administration officials. The forum was attended by delegations from Russia, China, Republic of Korea, Mongolia and Japan. High-ranking representatives of these states discussed important issues of trade, transport, and environment cooperation. It’s been reported that a considerable amount of attention was paid to the development of regional tourism, in which Russia’s Primorye will play a pivotal role. In particular, the possible creation of a permanent tourist route that will connect Primorye, the Republic of Korea, China and Japan attracted a lot of attention at the forum. The plans that were announced at the forum were soon put into motion, as the parties got down to work immediately. In October 2016 Primorye received a delegation from South Korea that arrived to discuss the details of the new project. The delegation was headed by Pak Tae-wook, the head of the Maritime tourism center of Kangwon Province, that announced that Vladivostok would soon become a pivotal hub for the Asia-Pacific v oyage tours . The capital of the Primorsky region has already received a cruise liner from South Korea back in May 2016. It’s been reported that Vladivostok produced a lasting effect on the passengers of the gorgeous Costa Victoria. It has become clear now that the development of tourism in Primorye can bring huge profits for both Russian and Korean governments. According to Park Tae-wook, in the course of the next year Costa Victoria will dock in Primorye six times. With the addition of charter flights and other cruise lines, it’s safe to say that Korean tourists will be visiting Vladivostok every month. In February 2017 the tourist route will encompass China’s Tianjin port, South Korea’s Busan and Sokcho, and Japan’s Sakayminato and Hakata. When the project becomes fully operation, the total number of cruise liners visiting Primorye will increase threefold. As it has been noted by Mr. Pak, a number of the upcoming Olympic Games in the region will provide this venture with additional momentum. The next three Olympics will be held in Asia, namely in South Korea, Japan and China. Against this background sea and air tourist traffic in the region is not simply getting more important but also more profitable. In general, it should be noted that as Vladivostok gradually transfroms into a pivotal hub of the Northeast Asia, it provides the whole of Primorye with economic benefits and investments. This has become possible due to the adoption of a law that would allow foreigners to stay up to 8 days in Vladivostok without a visa. According to the International Cooperation Department of the Primorsky Territory, this year Vladivostok is to be visited by more than 500 thousand foreign tourists. In addition to the Costa Victoria, Vladivostok has already harbored five foreign liners, including the German Artania, the Japanese Nippon Maru. In July, the capital of Primorye was visited for the first time by the famous cruise liner Sun Princess, that was traveling from Sydney to Tokyo, via Malaysia, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul. This huge ship, with its length of 261 meter can accommodate up to 2,200 passengers. Despite the fact that since there are much larger cruise liners, it remains one of most famous and comfortable tourist boats. The arrival of such a world-renowned vessel to Vladivostok is an indication that it’s gradualy becoming one of the key Asia-Pacific ports. Another important event in 2016 was the first visit to the seaside capital of China’s tourist liner Chinese Taishan. Despite the fact that it’s not nearly as big as the giant Sun Princess and that it is outfitted for middle-class travelers, the arrival of Chinese Taishan is a significant event nontheless. It should be recalled that due to the increase in the welfare of Chinese citizens overseas trips have become a sort of a trend in China, that may soon become a backbone to a stable tourist flow that will be growing every year. The last cruise ship to visit Vladivostok in 2016 was the Pacific Venus, that docked in this Russian port on 20 October. It traveled from Japan, whil making a short stay in the South Korean port of Busan. The Pacific Venus is one of the largest cruisers in the region and it is the second largest Japanese ship. Speaking about milestone events, one cannot overlook the reopening of a once popular ferry line: Sokcho (South Korea) – Zarubino (Russia) – Hunchun (China). A tripartite agreement that would allow this development to take place was signed during a meeting of NEA governors. Next summer a new ferry will be carrying more up to 1000 tourists along with large volumes of cargo between the above mentioned ports. The flow of foreign tourists to Zarubino will boom in February 2016 as the Ministry of Culture has already started an initiative to allow foreign tourist a no-visa stay in this port too. It’s hard to argue these days the notion that tourism should not be underestimated. In addition to the large profits that it brings in itself, it also contributes to the development of international cultural and trade relations. Tourism leads to the prosperity of a region, provides advertising, international prestige and the influx of investors. With regard to maritime travel routes, their development is inextricably linked with the development of shipping in general. Thus, the efforts of Primorsky Krai to attract tourists from Asian countries will result in the rapid economic growth and the strengthening of Vladivostok as a major Asian-Pacific port. Sofia Pale, PhD, Research Fellow of the Center for South-East Asia, Australia and Oceania of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine – “ New Eastern Outlook. ” Popular Articles | 1 |
MEXICO CITY — In the White House, President Trump was telling American chief executives on Thursday that the days of being treated unfairly by Mexico — on trade, on immigration, on crime — were over. “You see what’s happening at the border: All of a sudden, for the first time, we’re getting gang members out,” Mr. Trump said, referring to his instructions to increase deportations of undocumented immigrants. “And it’s a military operation. ” But in Mexico, his homeland security secretary, John F. Kelly, was saying the opposite, trying to tamp down fears of a military operation and to assure the public that American soldiers would not be used to police the border. “I repeat: There will be no use of military in this,” Mr. Kelly said at a news conference on Thursday, appearing with Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson. “At least half of you try to get that right, because it continues to come up in your reporting. ” Mr. Trump has a penchant for dropping unwelcome surprises during visits between the United States and Mexico. Last month, on the first day of a trip to Washington by Mexico’s foreign minister, Mr. Trump signed an executive order to build a wall between the two countries. Then, this week, just before Mr. Kelly and Mr. Tillerson touched down in Mexico, his administration released policies that vastly expanded the potential for deportation of undocumented immigrants. Mr. Trump is certainly not the only American president to clamp down on illegal immigration. His predecessor, Barack Obama, deported record numbers of immigrants, including gang members. But Mr. Trump’s actions and disparaging remarks about Mexico have helped push relations between the two countries to their lowest point in decades. His steady stream of provocative policies and statements has enraged the Mexican public and left their leaders to consider their own leverage in the event of a meltdown in ties between the two countries, whether on trade, migration or security. On Thursday, the contradictions between the president and his top staff raised a pressing question: Which version of Washington will come to bear on Mexico in the coming months? Will it be the aggressive approach of the president or the more reassuring stance of Mr. Kelly, who will be assigned to oversee some of the proposals likely to antagonize Mexico the most? “Let me be very, very clear,” Mr. Kelly said, assuring Mexicans that the rules for deporting people from the United States had not fundamentally changed — another possible contradiction of his boss. “There will be no, repeat no, mass deportations. ” The statements during the visit offered a startling departure from past trips to Mexico by American diplomats. Four officials — two from Mexico and two from the United States — walked into a large ballroom with grim faces and made carefully worded comments without taking any questions. It was the kind of cautious staging normally seen after tough negotiations between adversaries, not talks between friendly neighbors. No one suggested that a breakthrough had been made. “Two strong sovereign countries from time to time will have differences,” Mr. Tillerson said. Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray of Mexico called it a “complex moment in the relationship. ” In the last month, Mexican officials have shown cautious restraint, and even silence, in response to Mr. Trump’s threats, often to the frustration of the Mexican people. Their logic, officials say, is cleareyed: To descend into a fight with the United States would serve no one, least of all the Mexican people who are spoiling for a harder line against Mr. Trump. But that is not to say the Mexicans are without recourse. While they are hoping to avoid a confrontation, the whispers of discontent have started to spread. The minister of economy has said there will be no trade talks without similar talks on security and migration, twin areas of vulnerability for the United States. And Mr. Videgaray, responding to a directive from Mr. Trump broadening the scope of deportations in America, has vowed to bring to the United Nations any actions by the United States to send to Mexico. Mexico is keenly aware of its leverage in the bilateral relationship: billions of dollars in agricultural purchases by Mexico, a decade of security cooperation to dismantle cartels and intercept drugs destined for the United States, and the detention of hundreds of thousands of migrants passing through Mexico on their way to America’s southern border. On trade, putting aside the supply chains of vehicles and electronics engineered by the North American Free Trade Agreement, agriculture is a major vulnerability for the United States. Mexico is an immense purchaser of American farm goods. The nation is the No. 1 purchaser of American corn, dairy, pork and rice. Mexico purchased nearly $2 billion of corn in 2016 and also bought large amounts of soybeans, wheat, cotton and beef. A Mexican lawmaker recently proposed a bill to redirect purchases of corn away from the United States, a tactic that could devastate American corn farmers in the heartland of Mr. Trump’s base. Both Brazil and Argentina offer alternatives to the American Corn Belt, experts and officials say. “There are a lot of jobs in agriculture that are dependent on Nafta in America,” said Gregorio Schneider, the founder of TC Latin America Partners, a New private equity firm that invests in Mexico. “You are talking about the center of the United States. ” On national security, Mexico also plays a large role. The government could slow down extraditions to the United States, keeping drug lords like Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, instead of sending them north. It could also stop deporting American fugitives who have fled to Mexico. Perhaps more threatening to the United States would be a reconsideration of Mexico’s participation in the drug war. For more than a decade, the Mexican authorities have cooperated in arresting top cartel leaders and intercepting drug shipments destined for the United States. Mexico could also leverage its participation in the sharing of intelligence. The vast majority of drugs funneled — and tunneled — through Mexico are not for domestic consumption. “We receive information from Mexican authorities on a daily basis that helps us better target drugs smugglers at the border,” said Gil Kerlikowske, who was the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection in the Obama administration. “These are ties we want to strengthen, not weaken. ” Mr. Kerlikowske said Mexican federal police officers were stationed in Tucson and in Laredo, Tex. where they assist American law enforcement in identifying drug cartels and human smugglers by sharing information in Mexican criminal history databases. Likewise, American Customs and Border Protection officers are assigned to a joint program in Mexico City, where they share information on possible drug traffickers through the use of American law enforcement databases. In 2015, joint operations between the Border Patrol and Mexican law enforcement led to the discovery of 30 drug tunnels and about 80, 000 pounds of drugs. Whether policing the southern American border to prevent unwanted migrants from entering the United States or examining passenger manifests to ensure suspects cannot enter through Mexico, the authorities here have been a critical component of America’s national security strategy. In 2014, Mexico launched Plan Frontera Sur to safeguard its southern border from migrants trying to enter from Central America. The plan has essentially served as a dragnet 1, 000 miles south of the Texas border, catching hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans, Hondurans and Guatemalans en route to the United States. Some experts and officials have suggested that Mexico could simply ease up on its border patrols, granting passage to large numbers of Central Americans. That would not only swamp the American authorities, but might enable potentially dangerous migrants to slip into the country. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, tried later in the day to clarify the contradiction between Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Kelly’s remarks. He said that Mr. Trump had not meant to characterize the deportation efforts as a military operation, arguing that the president had been using the word “military” as an adjective. “It’s being done with precision,” Mr. Spicer said. The meetings here on Thursday produced a modicum of agreement between the United States and Mexico. Both Mr. Tillerson and Mr. Kelly acknowledged the significance of border cooperation to address the flow of migration from Central America to the United States. It is a topic that Mr. Kelly, who led more than 1, 000 military personnel of the United States Southern Command, knows something about. He has in the past outlined a more balanced approach to protecting the borders, saying security cannot “be attempted as an endless series of ‘ stands’ on the line at the official ports of entry or along the thousands of miles of border between this country and Mexico. ” This could place him once more at odds with the mandates of his boss, Mr. Trump, whose executive order to build a wall will fall directly among Mr. Kelly’s responsibilities. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Like many presidents before him, President Trump is pushing a bold budget proposal. But for a business executive used to getting his way, he is likely to find, as his predecessors did, that final budgets often bear little resemblance to the originals after being run through the shredder on Capitol Hill. Here is a look at some of the main issues hanging over the coming budget and spending fight. Taking the ax to the Environmental Protection Agency or to State Department aid programs may excite Mr. Trump’s supporters, but he is unlikely to succeed to the extent he would like. His budget is simply a starting point and any cuts would have to be made through the congressional appropriations process. Though in the minority, Democrats retain significant leverage in crafting that legislation and can block bills they oppose in the Senate. “Enacting appropriations law — as opposed to proposing nonbinding budget resolutions — will likely require Democratic votes,” Representative Nita Lowey of New York, the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, noted tartly on Monday. It is doubtful cuts of the kind being proposed will fly. Presidential budgets are important as statements of policy and budgetary goals. They stand mainly as political manifestoes of what the White House hopes to achieve — and would do if it had its own way. The Trump administration’s budget also serves as a message to those who supported the new president that he intends to follow through on his campaign promises to cut government spending, even while bolstering the military. Mr. Trump can point to his budget as an illustration of what he had wanted to do before Congress got in his way. And while the unveiling of a budget draws a lot of media attention, the failure to meet many of its goals months or years later seldom produces anywhere near as much news coverage. Military spending remains popular and touches every state and most House districts, giving lawmakers ample incentive to support it. President Barack Obama had proposed his own spending increases. But Democrats have insisted that any increase in Pentagon spending must be matched by higher spending on domestic programs that they favor. The Trump budget, instead, seeks to raise military spending and offset the increases with cuts to domestic programs — an approach most Democrats and some Republicans will resist. At the same time, some conservative House Republicans have previously balked at Pentagon increases, arguing that they are wasteful. Then there is Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who chairs the Armed Services Committee and argues the White House is not seeking enough new money for the military. Some higher Pentagon spending is possible, but it is unclear it will be enough to satisfy Mr. Trump or Republican hawks. And it won’t come easily. Republicans certainly hope so. They will try to keep as much pressure on Democrats as possible. One strategic approach Republicans are likely to embrace is to move first on a Pentagon spending bill with added spending and then dare Senate Democrats to oppose it, attacking them for shortchanging the military. If Democrats relent and approve the bill, they will sacrifice some of their political influence over the rest of the budget. Top Democrats say their success or failure will depend on a willingness to remain united in their budget position. The party did so last year and successfully derailed the appropriations process. But they are worried about their ability to do so again this year with 10 Senate Democrats up for in 2018 in states won by Mr. Trump. Yes. In recent years, Congress has failed miserably when it comes to passing annual spending bills — the most basic responsibility of lawmakers — and has instead relied on a series of stopgap measures. Last year, the House and Senate sent Mr. Obama just one of the 12 required annual appropriations measures. The government is now running under a temporary funding bill called a continuing resolution, which expires on April 28. Given the level of budget discord, it is conceivable the government will run the entire fiscal year ending Sept. 30 at last year’s spending level. That possibility illustrates the fundamental problem for Mr. Trump. Budget priorities are enacted through the appropriations bills. Passing appropriations bills requires some level of bipartisan cooperation. As budget details emerge, it appears Mr. Trump’s spending plan will not elicit much Democratic support, severely limiting his chances of success. This fight is more between Mr. Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill. Mr. Trump promised repeatedly during his campaign to leave those huge programs untouched, reassuring his voters who rely on them. Congressional Republicans, notably Speaker Paul D. Ryan, have in the past proposed significant structural changes to the programs — particularly Medicare — to win real budget savings. If such entitlement programs are left out of the equation, more dollars have to be squeezed from agency budgets, setting up the fight over federal priorities likely to consume Congress later this year. | 1 |
Clinical, joyless humans have already finished their Christmas shopping 11-11-16
EARLY shoppers have already bought all the cold, impersonal gifts which they will hand to the humans they are obliged to exchange them with.
The organised buyers last night drew precise horizontal lines through the last names on their laser-printed lists, before looking up at empty rooms and presenting thin-lipped smiles beneath their cold, dead eyes.
Francesca Johnson, from Birmingham, said: “There. Done. And with 46 days to go.
“I don’t know why people who live chaotic lives make such a meal of it when you can get everything you need from the three-for-two at Boots.
“I’ve beaten the crowds, dodged all the Christmas music, and finished an onerous task with minimum exposure to trace amounts of seasonal goodwill.
“By Sunday evening everything will be wrapped and labelled, and by midday on December 27th the tree and decorations will be back in their stackable storage crates in the loft for another year.”
She added: “Technically these are the gifts for Christmas 2017. We’re a year ahead to be safe.
“Friends give me presents they say they’ve really thought hard about. I smile for the allotted amount of time, thank them and then put whatever it is away.”
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Netflix is following in the footsteps of Twitter, the NFL and the Democrat party with a brilliant strategy of insulting more than half the country in one fell swoop. Will they be as shocked as their compatriots when they experience a harsh blowback to injecting identity politics into well … everything? [I’m referring of course to the announcement this week of a new original show, Dear White People, an adaptation of a 2014 movie by the same name. Basically it’s an opportunity for spoilt brats of color to lecture ordinary Americans on how unconsciously racist they still are — you know, just the sort of that lost Hillary the election and makes decent people everywhere gag and heave and run for the hills. I believe I’ve pinpointed exactly why this show exists, and it isn’t globalist liberals striking out in anger at Daddy’s America. Instead there is a simpler answer to why such an astoundingly bad concept would be : Netflix is desperately seeking a followup science fiction hit to Stranger Things, and an alternate timeline story of Hillary Clinton’s presidency, one in which every conceivable identity group is in open warfare with each other, is a natural candidate. That must be it, otherwise we must confront some depressing alternatives. Can it possibly be that a pitch meeting for a Netflix series can sound like this: “We’re going to take the worst idea MTV ever had, add in a healthy amount of Buzzfeed and spice up the blend with the same disdain for regular Americans that drove the white working class away from the Democrat party and which makes even people on our own side of the political divide absolutely hate us! Yeah!” Because, if you reject my vision of Dear White People as a kooky, story, then you must presume that this pitch was met with a standing ovation in Netflix headquarters, not to mention a hefty production budget. That’s even scarier than the Stranger Things monster. I’m referring to Eleven by the way, the nameless who was a good boy who didn’t do nothing and was in the middle of turning his life around. Because the sort of people who commission shows like this are deeply stupid, they will no doubt interpret the reaction to this show as “precisely why the show is so needed. ” Nothing could be further from the truth. America hates it because America is tired of entitled brats on TV lecturing other people about Halloween costumes while turning a blind eye to the real causes of racial tension. Newsflash, Netflix: black people can be racist too. Many of them are. And by buying into the “let’s bash whitey” narrative cooked up on college campuses, you’re not helping to fix racism, you’re just further underlining the differences between people, and buying into a wacky ideology that says the color of your skin determines what you can and cannot say. It’s ugly and hateful, and it’s why Donald Trump is in the White House. (I have a dream that Americans will one day live in a nation where journalists, the entertainment industry and academics will not judge them by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.) The reaction on YouTube to Dear White People is clear, regardless of race. As of this writing, with just over 2. 1 million views, the video has 267, 000 dislikes to just 25, 000 likes. Some people are concentrating on the raw number of dislikes, which is impressive for a video in its first week, but not necessarily historic. The video may never match the YouTube losers, like this video game trailer with 3. 4 million dislikes. But the raw number of dislikes isn’t the story: the visceral rejection of Netflix’s identity politics pablum is laid bare by the percentage of overall votes that its dislikes represent. An astonishing 91 per cent of the votes on the Dear White People announcement are negative. To put this in perspective, a mere 77 per cent of the votes on the diabolical Ghostbusters trailer were negative. Congratulations, Netflix, you’ve made the worst movie I have ever seen look like it got a warm reception in comparison. I bet a bunch of Sony execs are partying right now. “We lost a ton of money and ruined our careers, but America hates someone even more than us!” The 91 per cent ratio of dislikes truly puts the Dear White People announcement in rarefied air. Very few other videos have reached a similar level of disdain. (PewDiePie reached 94 per cent negative with a video called “Can this video get 1 million dislikes?” but I feel that was cheating.) In fact, one of the few major videos to top Dear White People is YouTube’s own “Getting Started with YouTube Heroes,” a guide to the platform’s odious “ ” system, despised by most users. An intensely disliked YouTube announcement video is not the end of this story for Netflix. A vocal group has sprung up on multiple social media platforms proclaiming the cancellation of their Netflix service over the series. Can you blame them? Americans who happen to be white or conservative are getting tired of being blamed for all of the world’s problems by crybaby liberals. They don’t want to hear it, let alone pay for the privilege of hearing it! I know some people are going to say: hey, isn’t this just special snowflake behavior in reverse? And perhaps they have a point. But, you know, I can’t get too upset about the Left being forced to swallow a dose of its own medicine for once, as I explained on a recent college tour stop. And we should view this PR disaster in a wider context: social justice is tanking, and the public appetite for and tolerance of identity politics coming to a juddering halt. Journalists and commentators like to describe America as “divided,” as though these are just two sides moving further apart from each other. But actually, even liberals are losing patience with the crazies on their own side, such as online talk show host Dave Rubin, who recently announced that he has left the Left. The NFL took a serious ratings hit this season, in part thanks to politics. Based on the initial reaction from subscribers, Netflix may be about to experience the same. As we’ve seen from the reaction to the Breitbart Kellogg’s boycott, not to mention Trump’s election, liberal America is getting a taste of what happens when conservatives are sufficiently irritated to come out in large numbers. As ever, the Left invents these tactics the Right perfects them. A subscriber boycott would be a big issue for Netflix stockholders, which includes everyone from your retirement fund to George Soros. Netflix has an astronomical ratio of 340, which in simple terms means its stock price is predicated on massive continued growth and profitability. The last thing Netflix needs right now is to be shedding customers. Until now, Netflix was on an amazing run. It is the clear leader in streaming and even if their movie selection can be dodgy, they continue to achieve new heights with their original programming. This leaves us with one tremendous question: why piss off so many subscribers and potential subscribers? Is the temporary glow they gain from that they are good liberals worth all this pain? Or is it that liberals simply never learn? My money is on the latter. And there’s evidence I’m right. The Daily Dot is labeling anyone who cancels Netflix over this as “white supremacist” and “ ”. The avowed Marxists of the Left have invented a new form of economics. Let’s call it capitalism. It goes like this: “Subscribe to Netflix or you are a white supremacist drink Starbucks or you hate Muslims. ” Good luck with that, lefties: conservatives already know how to vote with their dollars, and unlike you, Republicans actually have jobs. Also, unlike liberals who quit social media crying about harassment, conservatives don’t come back to your brand two weeks later. Netflix will have to win back the customers it is currently alienating with radical ideas, such as entertaining shows that don’t vilify people by race. Shocking, I know. DANGEROUS is available to now via Amazon, in hardcover and Kindle editions. And yes, MILO is reading the audiobook version himself! Follow Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Hear him every Friday on The Milo Yiannopoulos Show. Write to Milo at milo@breitbart. com. | 1 |
November 7, 2016, 10:26 pm A+ | a- Warning
See, earlier, by Peter Brimelow: T he Trump Wrecking Ball, The Washington Cartel, And The Jews and GOP Should “Thank Heaven Fasting” For Trump But Instead Plans To Shoot Self In Testicles
Several hundred years ago, when I began attending a– completely white –“Grammar School” (= academic Middle and High School) in the north of England , it was the custom to have a “Speech Day” (= Commencement, but in the middle of the school year) at which a first-year student was publicly tortured by having him recite from memory the resounding passage from Ecclesiasticus that begins Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us. It was an annual agony waiting to see if the victim would forget his lines —in which case he would be prompted in a stage whisper by the Headmaster on the dais behind him—but agonizing suspense is not the main reason I think of that scene this Election Day. Whatever happens, it’s time to say: let us now praise famous Trumps.
Election Day suspense may be agonizing, but one thing at least is certain: The next President is not going to be Jeb Bush. Or Marco Rubio. Or even the tragically-misguided Rand Paul.
Yet at one point it appeared absolutely certain that Bush or Rubio would get the GOP nomination. (And it’s not at all clear they could have done better in the general election: for example, WikiLeaks has revealed that the Clinton campaign had even bigger opposition research files on Rubio than it did on Trump– Presidential Horse Race 2016: Wikileaks proves Trump was the best Republican to run against Hillary , by Jeffrey A. Rendall , Conservative HQ, October 26, 2016.)
Trump single-handedly destroyed every Establishment candidate. He thus gave America at least another chance to avoid the Amnesty/ Immigration Surge that the GOP elite, in combination with the rest of the Ruling Class, has been conspiring to unleash for more than fifteen years.
Indeed, by exposing to the Republican base their own party Establishment’s selfishness, spite, and sheer treachery in the face of the very real threat of a third Obama term, Trump may have finally rescued his country from the apparently endless Blight of Bush —to say nothing of the horrible prospect of a Curse of Kasich.
Donald J. Trump is infinitely better than all previous GOP nominees on VDARE.com’s key issue of immigration, in the sense that one is infinitely more than zero (I think that’s right—have to check the details with John Derbyshire ). Nevertheless, Trump has frequently driven us crazy by forgetting to use the issue, not exploiting it enough , not remembering the details , not exploring build-outs like the deeply unpopular birthright citizenship, the need for Official English , etc. etc.
But all of that fades in the face of of his extraordinary unflinching will–in defiance of literally the entire world, including an illegal alien would-be assassin promptly dispatched down the Main Stream Media Memory Hole—and the breathtaking relentless fury of his closing campaign.
To adapt sprint coach Sam Mussabini’s line to come-from-behind winner Eric Liddell in the old movie Chariots Of Fire: It’s not the prettiest race we’ve ever seen, Mr. Trump—but certainly the bravest.
Like a lot of British emigrants—I came to the U.S.in 1970 — I am mildly Anglophobic . And, although I guess I prefer slick Oxbridge Righties—let’s make that “Righties”— like Professor Andrew Roberts (pro- Thatcher , pro- Brexit ) to slick Oxbridge Lefties like Andrew Sullivan and the late Christopher Hitchens , I still found Roberts’ recent Wriston Lecture, sneering snobbishly at Donald J. Trump and indeed at the whole 2016 U.S. election process, hard to take. (The Manhattan Institute has posted a video here ; there’s a synopsis, and a link to an adaptation that appeared in the Wall Street Journal , here .)
(Interestingly, I’d say at least a few of the glittering crowd of New York fat cats seemed to agree).
The Wriston Lecture is black tie, which meant that my young wife began kicking me under the table with a particularly sharp-toed shoe when the Manhattan Institute’s genial President, Larry Mone , [ ] asked for questions. I don’t usually ask questions at these events—I lack evangelical zeal—but I did obediently get up and try to catch Larry’s eye.
I’ve known Larry for many years, but despite this (or perhaps because of it) he didn’t call on me.
But this is what I would have asked: Professor Roberts, as one Limey to another—I have to say I don’t think you get these Yanks. This is not the Cambridge Union. It’s the Wild West. You may think Donald Trump is uncouth. But he’s nowhere near as uncouth as Lyndon B. Johnson—I presume you’ve read Caro ’s biography—and he was one of the seminal Presidents in American history, for better or worse. It wasn’t pretty, but there was a real debate on principles in the Republican primaries. Trump is against these managed trade deals. The GOP Establishment —and the entire political class—is for them. Trump is against promiscuous interventions overseas—in fact, he’s against what both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson warned against: entangling alliances. The GOP Establishment—and the entire political class—is for them. Above all, Trump is against current immigration policy, which on current course will reduce whites into a minority by 204 0—a demographic transformation without precedent in the history of the world. The GOP Establishment—and the entire political class—is for it. So there was a debate about principles—and Donald Trump won. I can’t recall any such principled debate in Britain—with the exception of Brexit. The Establishment has got things sewn up pretty tight there. How can you not see this? (You were right about Brexit, though).
As I write this, I have no idea if Donald Trump will win the Presidency. I do know that if he loses, the GOP Establishment, amid the cooing of the MSM/ Democrats, will go back to sleep on immigration, as it did after Proposition 187 in 1994, Arizona’s Prop 200 in 2004, and SB 1070 in 2010, Montana’s Legislative Referendum 121 in 2012 , Oregon’s No On 88 initiative in 2013, and Dave Brat’s primary defeat of Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014 . | 1 |
When Tiah Joo Kim arrived at the Manhattan headquarters of the Trump Organization to pitch a hotel and condominium project in Vancouver, British Columbia, he expected the famous company with ventures across the globe to come with capacious offices and a staff of hundreds. Instead, he was led through a mere two floors with what appeared to be no more than a few dozen employees. “Lean,” Mr. Tiah, a young Malaysian developer, remembers thinking as he walked the halls. The first stop was a conference room, where Mr. Tiah was required to sell his vision to the boss’s three oldest children. Only after securing their support did he advance to the inner sanctum, with its sweeping views of Central Park. Mr. Tiah was not sure what to expect from the man whose face was beamed around the world through the reality television show “The Apprentice,” but the conversation that afternoon in 2012 was casual and warm. Donald J. Trump spent more time showing off a Shaquille O’Neal shoe and a Mike Tyson championship belt — prize artifacts from his display of sports memorabilia — than interrogating Mr. Tiah on the details of his business plan. “You’re a guy,” Mr. Tiah recalled Mr. Trump telling him as he gave the project his blessing. Then Mr. Trump’s trusted lawyers and other top executives swooped in to play hardball — working alongside Donald Trump Jr. to negotiate the confidential agreements that would allow the Vancouver development to be branded with Mr. Trump’s name and managed by his company. The talks consumed days for nearly a week, Mr. Tiah said, explaining: “It was tiring. They’re tough. ” That is the way business has been done at the Trump Organization, a relatively small company with a big reach and a bigger that has come under intense scrutiny as its chief prepares to become president of the United States. With extensive entanglements around the world, many packaged in a network of licensing agreements and limited liability companies, the Trump Organization poses a raft of potential conflicts of interest for a who has long exerted such control over his company that, as he told The New York Times in a recent interview, he is the one who signs the checks. “I like to sign checks so I know what is going on,” he explained. Mr. Trump — owner of all but the smallest sliver of the privately held company — has said that, while the law does not require it, he is formulating plans to remove himself and his older daughter, Ivanka, from the company’s operations. (Ms. Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner, is likely to have a role in the White House.) His sons Donald Jr. and Eric, along with other executives, will be in charge, the wrote on Twitter in adding that “no new deals will be done during my term( s) in office. ” People involved in the planning have said that Mr. Trump intends to keep a stake in the business. But in recent weeks, amid rising pressure, Mr. Trump and his advisers have been intensely debating further measures. Among other things, the has agreed to shut down his personal foundation, has ended some international development deals and has reviewed a plan for an outside monitor to oversee the Trump Organization. Yet an examination of the company underscores the complex challenges of taking Mr. Trump out of Trump the organization. His company is a distinctly family business fortified with longtime loyalists that operates less on standardized procedures and more on a culture of Trump. Mr. Trump may leave the details of contracts to his deputies, but his name — and influence — is stamped on every deal the company does. In an interview last spring with The Times, Mr. Trump explained that he approved new ventures based on his personal “feel. ” And while in recent years his three oldest children have taken on more of a leadership role, Mr. Trump has the final say, sometimes weighing in on the most minute design details of planned hotels, golf courses or other properties the company owns or manages. His other top executives — many of them natives of Queens, where Mr. Trump grew up, or Brooklyn, where his father, Fred, expanded a housing empire many years ago — have secured power not necessarily through fancy pedigrees or impressive credentials, but through decades of devotion to their boss. Allen Weisselberg, the organization’s chief financial officer, started off as an accountant for Mr. Trump’s father. Matthew Calamari, the organization’s chief operating officer, was recruited in 1981 after Mr. Trump saw him eject some hecklers while working security at the United States Open tennis tournament. For some executives, there appears to be little division between their service to the company and their service to the Trumps. “We’re not a publicly traded company. At the end of the day, I work for the Trump family,” Alan Garten, the general counsel, explained in an interview with the legal industry publication Corporate Counsel shortly before the election. “That’s how I view my job. Whether it’s protecting their business interests or protecting their personal interests. I am here to assist them and represent them in any way they need. ” When asked to elaborate in an interview last week with The Times, Mr. Garten said that in any job, “you want to be as helpful as you can,” but that “obviously the interests of the Trumps and the interests of the company are two distinct things. ” The divisions between business and politics were often fuzzy during the presidential race: Mr. Garten became a “liaison” to Mr. Trump’s campaign Michael Cohen, an executive vice president, tirelessly promoted his boss’s bid for the White House on television while battling negative media coverage and Jason Greenblatt, the company’s chief legal officer, began serving as his adviser on Israel. On Friday, it was announced that Mr. Greenblatt would be joining Mr. Trump’s administration as a special representative for international negotiations. After the election, other lines continued to blur as the and his children met with foreign businessmen with connections to their global ventures and with foreign officials with potential influence over their business dealings. Some lawyers have warned that unless Mr. Trump fully divests himself from the company and places someone independent of his family in charge, he risks entering the White House in violation of a constitutional clause that forbids him from taking payments or gifts from a foreign government entity. As Mr. Trump assumes the presidency, it is difficult to foresee him walling himself off from the company entirely, said Michael D’Antonio, the author of a critical biography, “The Truth About Trump. ” “I don’t think that he could keep himself from inquiring about the performance of these businesses any more than he can keep himself from tweeting,” Mr. D’Antonio said. “It is just too vital to his identity. Profit is the way he has always measured himself. I don’t see how he can stop. ” Mr. Trump may have business interests around the world, but his power is concentrated at a single Midtown Manhattan address: 725 Fifth Avenue. With a gleaming exterior that shoots to the sky, a lobby decked with marble and a collection of tenants, Trump Tower is his primary residence as well as his company’s headquarters. To get to work, Mr. Trump steps onto the private elevator in his gilded penthouse, presses 26 and waits a matter of seconds. When the doors open, he is at his office, surrounded by Mr. Garten, Mr. Weisselberg and other top executives. One floor down are the offices of Donald Jr. Eric and Ivanka Trump, who joined the company in the 2000s and are now his top deputies and advance guard. David Brecher, the chief executive of FM Home Loans, visited the Trump Organization about a decade ago to discuss a potential partnership and found the aesthetics telling. “Donald’s floor,” he said, recalling a swirl of gold trim and hues, “is very his style. ” “The kids,” by contrast, “have a very cool floor. Sleek. Marble. ” Photographs of Mr. Trump with the rich and powerful adorn his office walls, and his desk often overflows with papers, evidence of his refusal to communicate by email. When Mr. Trump wants to talk to someone, he calls out to his assistant, Rhona Graff, a Queens native whose office is right outside his door. She has been his gatekeeper for decades. Anyone seeking access to him over the phone has to go through Ms. Graff, sometimes with a secret code. Mr. Trump often boasts of the size of the Trump Organization. “It’s a big company,” he said in the interview last spring. A spokeswoman said the business employed “tens of thousands. ” But industry experts estimate that no more than 4, 000 people work for the Trump Organization worldwide. And executives say that the three floors that make up the headquarters appear to have no more than 150 employees. It is a family business, as everyone involved is quick to explain. And the management structure is informal if not confusing, with deputies constantly buzzing in and out of the boss’s office. “We kind of run a little bit like a in that sense,” Donald Trump Jr. said in a 2011 deposition for a lawsuit involving a Florida development. “I guess there is an organizational chart, but in theory, there is not too many levels. ” He added: “Could I make one? Yes. Is there one officially? Not that I’m aware of. ” Indeed, the elder Mr. Trump has tended to collect executives and assign duties through personal preference. In 2004, Michelle Carlson was a young lawyer determined to move to California when a friend suggested that she meet with an acquaintance who could prove useful. She entered Mr. Trump’s office hoping to secure a recommendation she could use to find work with real estate developers in Los Angeles, and she encountered a warm welcome. “I heard there was this nice Atlanta girl in the lobby,” she remembered Mr. Trump saying as he offered her a seat. Then came a series of direct questions: What were her responsibilities at her current job? How did she view her own strengths? In what areas did she want to grow? minutes later, Mr. Trump was convinced: “I’m not going to give you any recommendations in L. A. I’m going to hire you,” Mr. Trump told Ms. Carlson, who went on to spend almost four years as his assistant general counsel, often working days with a small team of lawyers while taking on other responsibilities in the real estate division. Andrew Weiss, a Romanian immigrant who grew up in Brooklyn, was hired straight out of graduate school in 1981, just as Mr. Trump was starting to make his mark. years later, having weathered many highs and lows with Mr. Trump, including the spectacular failure of his Atlantic City casinos, Mr. Weiss is still by his side, as executive vice president for development and construction. Mr. Calamari, who started out as a bodyguard, also saw his role expand as he remained committed to his boss. Five years ago, his son Matthew Calamari Jr. joined the Trump Organization as a security guard. Today, he is the director of surveillance. Brian Baudreau, the general manager of the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, began as a driver for Mr. Trump. “My father knows how to find talent in people,” Eric Trump said, recalling how Mr. Baudreau used to chauffeur him to school. “He’s totally family,” he added. Devotion is rewarded. “To succeed in this company,” Mr. Garten said, “you have to be skilled, highly dedicated and highly loyal. ” Some appear to be hired based on other calculations. For more than a decade, Ronald C. Lieberman oversaw the concession contracts for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, a post that required him to represent the interests of the city in a variety of deals with Mr. Trump. Then, in 2007, Mr. Lieberman began working for a new employer. In his job as executive vice president for management and development at the Trump Organization, he has helped Mr. Trump win contracts to operate the Central Park carousel and the Ferry Point golf course in the Bronx, the very projects he handled on behalf of the city for years. Ivanka Trump is generally seen as the powerful person at the Trump Organization, while the 11 other executive vice presidents are all men — and all white. There have been other senior female executives, like Cathy Hoffman Glosser, who oversaw the Trump Organization’s expansion into branding deals, part of its shift from building and buying real estate to selling the Trump name. (She left the company last year and did not respond to interview requests. Ms. Carlson said she left by choice to care for her baby, even though Mr. Trump made earnest attempts to keep her.) Mr. Garten said that outside the top executive ranks, “there’s greater diversity in terms of gender and ethnicity,” adding, “I don’t have the numbers in front of me. ” Jill Martin, a vice president and assistant general counsel for litigation and employment, said in an interview last spring that diversity at the company was “less forced” than at the law firms where she previously worked. “With the firms, there was a lot of attention placed on gender and ethnicity and trying to find the balance,” she said. “With the Trump Organization, I just felt like those things really fall by the wayside. What’s important is someone’s individual drive and talent. ” When Mr. Tiah was at Trump Tower to discuss the Vancouver partnership, he could not help noticing that female employees seemed to have something else in common. “You have to be attractive?” he remembers thinking. “Is that a requirement?” It was the and Phil Ruffin was in search of a partner to develop a combined hotel and condominium tower on the Las Vegas Strip. Mr. Ruffin, a casino tycoon, owned the land, but he needed an investor, a brand name to license and a team to manage the construction and operations of the property. Mr. Trump did not simply say yes to all three, Mr. Ruffin recalled. He threw himself into the details of the deal, pushing a bank to cut the interest rate on a loan by half, insisting that subcontractors lower their prices and requiring that everything about the tower reflect his taste. “We’d tour, and he’d say, ‘This is wrong this is right,’” Mr. Ruffin said. “The glass shower had to be etched glass because that’s the Trump way, more expensive. He didn’t want just a TV in the bathroom it had to be in the mirror so you can watch when you’re shaving. ” Mr. Trump, he said, remained actively involved when the financial crisis hit in 2008, threatening the financial viability of the Las Vegas venture, and the two men flew to Washington to meet with a tax lawyer. As they pulled up chairs in his office, the lawyer encouraged the men to cut their losses and declare bankruptcy. It would provide them with a handsome tax deduction. But Mr. Trump was adamant. “He said: ‘This is not Atlantic City this is Las Vegas. I think it will recover,’” Mr. Ruffin said. Instead, he and Mr. Trump poured more money into the venture and continued to move forward. Mr. Trump’s children have taken on increasing responsibility in recent years they often solicit new projects and are the primary liaisons with partners. Two years ago, Eric Trump became the Trump Organization’s main point of contact for the Las Vegas tower, Mr. Ruffin said. Ivanka Trump initiated the leasing of the old Old Post Office building in Washington, envisioning it as a new Trump hotel. But Mr. Trump has the final say on most deals, especially those involving his own money. He has signed the licensing agreements, the leases — and the big checks. And the tangle of limited liability companies used to structure all of his deals revolve around a single point of power: Mr. Trump. As one former executive described it, the company is the “hub of a wheel, and he’s in the middle. ” The company adheres to few formal corporate guidelines or procedures. When determining whether and how to enter business partnerships, nothing is decided by established committee, or through written recommendation by the children, Donald Trump Jr. explained in the 2011 deposition in the Florida case. “Other companies can operate like bureaucrats” Mr. Tiah said. “They’re not like that. ” Even so, the executives are known for playing tough. When seeking $470, 000 in outstanding legal bills from the Trump Organization a decade ago, the lawyer Y. David Scharf accidentally included a single page of a separate legal bill to another client, the business magnate Carl C. Icahn. How did Mr. Weisselberg, Mr. Trump’s chief financial officer, respond? “Mr. Weisselberg threatened to call Mr. Icahn and utilize this inadvertent clerical error in an effort to embarrass Mr. Scharf and my firm — unless my firm agreed to a 50 percent discount on the outstanding legal bills,” David A. Piedra, a partner in Mr. Scharf’s firm, Morrison Cohen, wrote in a 2007 letter to a lawyer representing Mr. Trump. “As I am sure you realize,” he wrote, “this threat, which smacks of extortion, is entirely inappropriate. ” Mr. Scharf said in an interview that his firm had resolved the matter and bore no ill will toward Mr. Weisselberg, the Trump Organization or Mr. Trump. At the time of the election, Mr. Trump’s company was party to at least 75 lawsuits across the country, according to a nationwide tally by USA Today. Mr. Garten said that not all of the lawsuits were substantial, but acknowledged that “we’re extremely and meticulous in the legal aspects of the business. ” As their boss advanced in the 2016 presidential race, Mr. Trump’s executives remained fierce and aggressive. When The Daily Beast was preparing to publish an article about Mr. Trump’s first wife, Ivana, alleging in a divorce deposition that he had raped her, Michael Cohen, one of the organization’s executive vice presidents, wrongly insisted it was impossible for a husband to rape his wife and made threats. He warned that if the reporter moved ahead with the article, “I’m going to mess your life up,” according to The Daily Beast’s account. It was just one of the many ways that Mr. Cohen had cultivated the image of a pit bull, a reputation he said was well deserved. “Mr. Trump is more than just a boss to those of us who have been fortunate enough to be close to him, both professionally and personally,” he said in an interview. “He’s more like a patriarch, a mentor. These qualities make him very endearing to me, which is why I am so fiercely loyal to him and committed to protecting him at all costs. ” He was not the only seemingly tireless proponent — and protector — of Mr. Trump’s political pursuits. Mr. Garten, the general counsel, defended his boss’s record and fought back against allegations that he had groped women and engaged in other sexual misconduct. At points it appeared as if he were threatening legal action on a daily basis against anyone who criticized Mr. Trump, including The Times and other news outlets. Last December, after Mr. Garten dangled the possibility of legal action against a “super PAC” promoting Jeb Bush and sent a letter to an group that ran $1 million in ads against Mr. Trump, supporters of Mr. Bush complained to the Federal Election Commission that the Trump Organization was illegally acting as an agent for the Trump campaign. “Trump and his agents have explicitly directed his corporate attorneys at the Organization to do the dirty work for the campaign,” a lawyer wrote in the complaint, which is pending. Six months later, Mr. Garten began to appear in the campaign’s financial reports. In the end, he was compensated by Mr. Trump for about $24, 000 of legal work for the campaign and donated thousands more dollars’ worth of services as an contribution. Mr. Garten said he saw many of the attacks on Mr. Trump as an attack on the company. It was his job to fight back, he said. The ’s deliberations over how to separate himself from his company coincided with one of its oldest and most celebrated traditions. Jill Cremer, a former vice president at the Trump Organization, fondly recalls company Christmas parties at the Plaza Hotel, the Pierre or the Rainbow Room. Mr. Trump would hand out prizes — airline tickets, luggage, cameras — and would pose with employees for photos. “The Christmas party was always the highlight,” Ms. Cremer said. “It was a real family affair. ” This year, the celebration fell on Dec. 14, two nights after Mr. Trump said he would postpone announcing the details of his plan for the stewardship of the company. He was facing a flurry of activity, including making cabinet picks and navigating calls with foreign leaders, but he found the time to stop by the atrium of Trump Tower, where the party has been held in recent years. As hundreds of Trump Organization employees and guests nibbled on steak from Trump Grill and sipped wine from Trump Winery, Mr. Trump thanked the crowd for helping build the company that bears his name. “You could see the love in the room,” Eric Trump said. | 1 |
Obama Donations Funneled Through Fake Bonuses
This is some great investigative work. And it's the kind of story that flies under the radar and it's just a small component of the Democratic machine. But it is what the setup looks like .
Jon Tester didn’t come all the way from Montana for the scrambled eggs and bacon. The US senator, virtually unknown in Boston, was in a conference room at the Thornton Law Firm that June morning to cash in at one of the most reliable stops on the Democratic fund-raising circuit, a law firm that pours millions into the coffers of the party and its politicians.
Tester, a massive, jovial man who raises livestock on his family farm, was more compelling than many of the other breakfast guests, all of them political candidates the firm hoped would defend the interests of trial attorneys. But the drill was basically the same. The personal injury lawyers listened politely for a few minutes, then returned to their offices. And Tester walked away with $26,400 in checks.
But a striking thing happened the day Tester visited in 2010. Partner David C. Strouss received a payment from the firm labeled as a “bonus” that exactly equaled his $2,400 contribution to Tester’s campaign, the maximum allowed. A few days later, partner Garrett Bradley — until recently the House assistant majority leader on Beacon Hill — got a bonus, too, exactly matching his $2,400 gift to Tester.
That's quite a coincidence.
From 2010 through 2014, Strouss and Bradley, along with founding partner Michael Thornton and his wife, donated nearly $1.6 million to Democratic Party fund-raising committees and a parade of politicians — from Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada to Hawaii gubernatorial candidate David Ige to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Over the same span, the lawyers received $1.4 million listed as “bonuses” in Thornton Law Firm records; more than 280 of the contributions precisely matched bonuses that were paid within 10 days.
No corruption to see here. Now let's move on to another fake scandal.
Thornton’s lawyers were especially generous to Vice President Joe Biden, one of Washington’s strongest advocates for trial lawyers, contributing more than $78,000 to his campaigns from 2003 to 2008.
During President Obama and Biden’s reelection campaign in 2012, Michael Thornton hosted a fund-raiser for the Obama Victory Fund at his house in Cambridge, where Biden was the guest of honor. Some of the biggest donors — some Thornton partners gave $20,000 — were escorted into a private room and offered the chance to be photographed with Biden, said someone who was there. Thornton records show the lawyers were reimbursed for those donations.
Hope and change. | 0 |
Lou Pearlman, the music executive who built a pop empire on boy bands like the Backstreet Boys and ’NSync before going to prison for running a Ponzi scheme that stole hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, died on Friday in the Miami area, where he was in federal prison. He was 62. Justin Long, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said Mr. Pearlman died of cardiac arrest at a hospital. At his death he was an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Miami. Mr. Pearlman began his career in blimp rentals before turning to the music business. All his interests, from aviation to boy bands and to the Ponzi scheme that lead to his conviction in 2008, were housed under the Trans Continental companies, whose financial centerpiece was an airline that existed only on paper. Before his scheme ran aground, however, Mr. Pearlman built some of the most successful music groups of the 1990s, one of which started the career of Justin Timberlake, managed from Mr. Pearlman’s lavish home in Orlando, Fla. But he ended up locked in legal battles with almost all the musicians he managed, who accused him of lining his pockets at their expense. In a video interview with The Wall Street Journal, three members of the Backstreet Boys said he had used his ownership of their equipment and band name to halt one of their tours briefly in retaliation for suing him. The group settled out of court. Other musical acts under his management, like ’NSync and LFO, either reached their own settlements or disbanded. Almost all the musicians Mr. Pearlman worked with were young men, and some accused him of sexual impropriety. “I would absolutely say the guy was a sexual predator,” Steve Mooney, a singer who worked as Mr. Pearlman’s assistant and lived in his home for two years, told Vanity Fair magazine in 2007. “All the talent knew what Lou’s game was. If they say no, they’re lying to you. ” Rich Cronin, a singer in LFO, told Vanity Fair that Mr. Pearlman was “always grabbing” the young men he worked with. He said he thought Mr. Pearlman had entered the music business to meet men and had become a hitmaker by accident. “Honestly, I don’t think Lou ever thought we would become stars,” Mr. Cronin said. “I just think he wanted cute guys around him this was all an excuse. And then lightning crazily struck, and an empire was created. It was all dumb luck. ” Mr. Pearlman was never prosecuted for any sex crimes, and in a 2014 jailhouse interview with Billboard magazine he denied that he had committed any. “The accusations that came out in that article, none of it was substantiated,” he said. His empire collapsed under a cascade of lawsuits filed by investors and creditors who had helped finance his endeavors. Mr. Pearlman fled the United States in 2007 after the federal authorities began an investigation. He was found in a hotel in Indonesia later that year using the alias A. Incognito Johnson. He pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges of conspiracy and money laundering in connection with a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors who had poured an estimated $300 million into a company that never actually existed. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. In his 2014 interview with Billboard, Mr. Pearlman insisted that he could have paid back the people he defrauded if the federal authorities had only allowed him to start auditioning singers, even from behind bars. “If I was given a chance to put another band together, that would have paid everybody back. ” he said. Information on survivors was not immediately available. On social media, two former members of ‘NSync, Lance Bass and Mr. Timberlake, expressed sorrow but also alluded to Mr. Pearlman’s checkered past. “He might not have been a businessman, but I wouldn’t be doing what I love today” without “his influence,” Mr. Bass tweeted on Saturday. “RIP Lou. ” Mr. Timberlake wrote, “I hope he found some peace. ” | 1 |
Email
Do you remember that scene in the old Frankenstein movie when the villagers descended on the castle with burning stakes and pitchforks? The hounds were baying, people were shouting incoherently, and ignorant, fearful villagers watched the whole thing?
Listen in particular to the speech at the beginning of this. That’s about what the person leading the charge against James Comey is saying.
That’s pretty much what is happening to FBI Director James Comey, who is in for a bumpy, maybe even death-defying, ride after i nforming Congress that an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server debacle was being reopened, against the advice of Loretta Lynch , Attorney General.
According to Harry Reid, a US Senator and one of the head honchos of the Democratic Party, James Comey “may” have broken the law by announcing that emails on devices associated with Hillary Clinton are under renewed investigation.
He’s referring to the Hatch Act, a law passed in 1939. It was officially called “An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities” and was adopted to prohibit executive branch federal employees (except the President and Vice President) from engaging in certain political activities, such as: using their “official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election”; soliciting, accepting, or receiving political campaign contributions from any person; running “for election to a partisan political office”; soliciting or discouraging participation in political activity of any person who either has an application for a grant, contract, or other status pending before the employing agency or is the subject of an ongoing audit, investigation, or enforcement action by the employing agency; engaging in partisan political activity on official duty time; on federal property; while wearing a uniform or insignia identifying them as federal officials or employees; or while using a government vehicle. ( source )
Will he be investigated for exposing a potential crime or will he be investigated for the timing of exposing a potential crime? It seems to me that keeping his mouth shut could also be in violation of the act – if he knew something and did not disclose it, wouldn’t that also affect the outcome of the election? The other villagers are joining in.
Reid isn’t alone in the monster hunt. He’s joined by some other villagers with torches, pitchforks, and hounds too.
Take former Attorney General Eric Holder, for example. In a letter to the Clinton campaign, he wrote:
Many of us have worked with Director Comey; all of us respect him. But his unprecedented decision to publicly comment on evidence in what may be an ongoing inquiry just eleven days before a presidential election leaves us both astonished and perplexed.
We cannot recall a prior instance where a senior Justice Department official—Republican or Democrat—has, on the eve of a major election, issued a public statement where the mere disclosure of information may impact the election’s outcome, yet the official acknowledges the information to be examined may not be significant or new.” ( source )
Perhaps Comey’s decision had something to do with the fact that, as Zero Hedge reported , the DoJ stifled an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation donating money to the political campaign of the wife of an FBI investigator. (I know, it’s sort of like my brother’s sister’s cousin’s husband’s uncle.”)
Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota Law School professor and the chief White House ethics lawyer for a couple of years during the Bush Administration, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times . He said he’s filing a complaint.
The F.B.I.’s job is to investigate, not to influence the outcome of an election.< Such acts could also be prohibited under the Hatch Act, which bars the use of an official position to influence an election. That is why the F.B.I. presumably would keep those aspects of an investigation confidential until after the election. The usual penalty for a violation is termination of federal employment. That is why, on Saturday, I filed a complaint against the F.B.I. with the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates Hatch Act violations, and with the Office of Government Ethics. I spent much of my career working on government and lawyers’ ethics, including as the chief White House ethics lawyer for George W. Bush. I never thought that the F.B.I. could be dragged into a political circus surrounding one of its investigations. Until this week. ( Source ) The Mainstream Media (MSM) will not be kind to Comey.
Of course, when are they ever kind to people who oppose the Clinton Monarchy? The so-called journalists have armed up with self-righteousness and propagandist pitchforks.
Here are some related headlines: In Releasing Email News, FBI Director Ignored Justice Department Advice, Tradition – Slate FBI’s James Comey under fire after jolting presidential race – MSNBC Harry Reid: FBI Director James Comey might have broken federal law – Washington Times Clinton Allies Target Comey as Probe Scrambles Campaign – Bloomberg Basically Everybody Thinks James Comey Has F***ed Up – Mother Jones
And of course, everyone knows how much I love (cough) Huffington Post , which was a trove of ridiculous headlines like: Former Attorney General Eric Holder: FBI Director James Comey ‘Violated’ Justice Department Policies Harry Reid Blasts FBI Director James Comey Over Handling Of Clinton Email Probe First Poll Since James Comey Announcement Shows No Effect On Hillary Clinton — Yet Dozens Of Former Federal Prosecutors Sign Open Letter Criticizing James Comey James Comey Just Unmasked Himself The director of the FBI is between a rock and a hard place.
If he had said nothing, he would have been pilloried for remaining silent. Today he is being pilloried because he did.
The man had a stack of resignation letters on his desk from angry FBI agents who knew what was going on. Comey was not alone in the belief that something had to be done to allow the American people to know who they are actually voting for. He’s just the one who is taking the hit for it.
A leaked memo to FBI employees probably gives the best picture of Comey’s mindset when he made the decision to put himself in the line of fire.
In a memo explaining his decision to FBI employees soon after he sent his letter to Congress, Comey said he felt “an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed.” He admitted that he broke with custom in alerting lawmakers that the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server was being reopened because of its political sensitivity.
He further explained to FBI employees that “Of course we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed . I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record.”
…“At the same time, however, given that we do not know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression,” Comey’s letter continued. “In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter, and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.” ( source )
He is in a lose-lose situation, and I’m sure he knew this. It seems to me that knowing he’s going to be dead the ex-director of the FBI sooner rather than later, he has done what he believes is the right thing.
Personally, I can’t fault Comey for doing what he did. Maybe he was trying to undo the wrong he did in letting her off in the first place. He’s taking one for the team and most likely sacrificing his career – if not also his life – by taking the action that he took, considering how things tend to go for people who run afoul of the Clintons . It’s anyone’s guess what will happen between now and November 8th.
Grab some popcorn, my friends. We’re in for an eventful week.
Article reposted with permission from DaisyLuther.com | 1 |
Former President Bill Clinton and wife Hillary Clinton will attend Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to several reports citing aides close to the Clintons. [New York magazine cited “ sources” to the Clintons saying they “decided to do so out of a sense of duty and respect for the American democratic process. ” Former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura Bush will also attend the inauguration. In a statement, the Bushes said they were “pleased to be able to witness the peaceful transfer of power — a hallmark of American democracy” by attending the ceremony in Washington, D. C. | 0 |
The small city of Cuenca, Ecuador is struggling to address a growing wave of American “Baby Boomers” who have decided to retire there to take advantage of a socialist welfare state designed for its locals. [U. S. retirees, a recent city study revealed, are also causing conflict in the city, raising real estate prices, demanding service, and threatening to sue locals accustomed to more “casual” business contracts. In a report this week, the Miami Herald highlights the blissful existence of white American migrants who have flocked to Cuenca, attracted by retiree blogs and news sites that emphasize the appeal of its temperate weather and inexpensive healthcare and real estate. “In Cuenca, a city of about 350, 000 people, they’ve found robust public transportation, an extensive museum network, solid healthcare and markets bursting with fresh fruits and produce,” the Herald notes. “It’s a place where their bath apartment costs less than $400 a month. They’ve found that for about $1, 500 a month, they can live a solidly lifestyle, dining out frequently and traveling. ” The newspaper notes that a bus ride for seniors costs $0. 12, and medical procedures are orders of magnitude cheaper than they would be at home. The city commissioned a study on its foreign population in February 2017 that identified the majority of these new Cuencans as “‘baby boomers’ who began retiring in 2010 and … 4 percent of this population, estimated at 78 million, is planning to retire abroad. ” North American countries — mostly the U. S. and Canada — make up 93 percent of Cuenca’s foreign population. Cuenca’s “boomers” are more likely to have been professors before retirement than any other occupations, with “executives” coming in second place. The study delicately notes that many of these individuals “are not interested in being part of a new culture, and are more interested in that the city and its people respond to their needs and demands. ” Paramount among the city’s concerns is that many Americans are demanding Cuencans speak English and creating neighborhoods within the city. “There is a large group for which learning a language is outside of their interests and, faced with the frustration of not being able to communicate, express annoyance with Cuencans who do not tend to their demands in English,” the study reads, adding that the city has invested in Spanish and idiomatic dictionaries for the new residents, but this has not solved the problem. Boomers are also annoyed by “the ‘slowness’ of service” in Ecuador compared to the United States, and the common use of verbal or informal contracts. “Cases have been reported in which retired foreigners suggest a lawsuit against those who have not completed a previously agreed upon work,” the report notes. In addition to cultural tensions, the study notes that 65 percent of the native Cuencan population is under 35, and many are frustrated that they must pay taxes and invest in the welfare state that foreign retiree migrants are now abusing. The Herald story, which cites some findings from this study, is the latest trend piece on Cuenca in a crowded genre. The Cuenca study followed years of anecdotal journalism noting the idiosyncratic Boomer wave moving south. The city of Cuenca, in a study published in February, found its foreign population grew 173 percent between 2001 and 2010. By 2012, outlets like the BBC were calling it an American “promised land. ” That article traced the Cuenca viral sensation among retiree migrants back to an article on the website Gringo Tree, which in turn noted that the wave of thousands of American hitting the city followed the 2009 publication of an article in International Living that described the city as “the top destination in the world to retire. ” At the time, Cuenca’s International Relations Director Dani Jara appeared pleased by the new influx of high spenders to her city. She told BBC, “Tourism we promote, one creates strategies for the medium and long term. But in the case of a migratory phenomenon, that is due to the city conditions. Cuenca has grown throughout its history into a city where one can live well. ” By 2013, Cuenca Mayor Paul Granda was describing the mass migrant wave as “a little complicated for us. ” “The city is less accessible to Ecuadorians” due to the wealthy Americans flocking there, he argued to ABC News, noting that average prices of basic goods had increased 40 to 50 percent. Two years later, Ecuador’s Secretary of the Vice Ministry of Human Mobility was warning of wealthy American “ghettos” threatening the character of Cuenca. “There should not be ghettos forming in zones where Americans live, versus those who live permanently in these places,” Humberto Cordero said. The migration, he urged, “must be regulated. ” Cuenca’s American invasion was not regulated, in part because local businesses and real estate owners preferred selling and renting to Americans. “They care for their spaces and pay what is fair,” Cuencan homeowner María Torres told Ecuador’s El Comercio newspaper last year. She noted that their comfortable economic status and lack of children made for quiet, reliable tenants. The government has nonetheless continued to express concern over American migrants overrunning the city. New International Relations Director Ana Paulina Crespo told the Herald in this week’s column that “Cuencanos are feeling like strangers in their own city” and emphasized, “Cuenca never wanted to attract retirees … we’re facing lots of problems over how to deal with a phenomenon that we aren’t responsible for creating. ” Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter. | 1 |
See Dems accept foreign cash to disrupt Trump rallies Undercover footage catches Hillary operative red-handed Published: 7 mins ago About | | Archive Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially. Print
A Hillary Clinton-supporting advocacy organization had no trouble accepting a $20,000 donation funneled through a Belize bank to use in this year’s presidential election campaign – until its decision was about to be made public in a series of undercover videos by James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Action.
Suddenly, the head of the organization expressed suspicion about the donation’s overseas origin and decided to return it.
That’s one of the significant revelations in the latest in a series of videos released by O’Keefe called “Rigging the Election.”
O’Keefe explained he had a fictitious donor meet with Bob Creamer, who was a staffer at Americans United for Change, a group supporting Clinton for president, until the videos started appearing last week.
He said Creamer, who boasted of working directly for the Clinton campaign, directed that the $20,000 donation go to AUFC “to disrupt rallies and fund bracketing ops.”
O’Keefe said he and his colleagues were very careful not to violate the law themselves.
Creamer was clear about his ties to Clinton, stating, “Every morning I am on a call at 10:30 that goes over the message being driven by the campaign headquarters.”
Sign the precedent-setting petition supporting Trump’s call for an independent prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton!
Project Veritas’ first video explained how the Clinton campaign uses “hidden connections” to incite violence at Donald Trump rallies. Its second video showed plans for step-by-step voter fraud and the third exposed “prohibited communications” between Hillary Clinton’s campaign, “the DNC and the nonprofit Americans United for Change.”
The fourth video “breaks down the process of the long-term investigation.” It comes after Creamer’s announcement that he was stepping down from campaign responsibilities.
O’Keefe and Project Veritas Action have filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission.
Among the revelations in the latest video was Creamer was boasting of his close links to President Obama.
“Oh, Barack Obama’s was the best campaign in the history of American politics, I mean the second one, I mean the first was good, too. I was a consultant to both, the second one, was everything hit on every level and every aspect,” he said. “He’s a pro, I’ve known the president since he was a community organizer in Chicago.”
When asked whether a potential donor could meet Obama, Creamer said: “OK, you may have a lot more opportunity once he is done in 98 days, 97. I was just at an event with him in Chicago, Friday of last week, he is just as good as ever. I do a lot of work with the White House on their issues, helping to run issued campaigns that they have been involved in. I mean, for immigration reform for the … the health care bill, trying to make America more like Britain when it comes to gun violence issues.”
Explained Project Veritas: “The more that was promised to Creamer, the more access Project Veritas Action journalists seemed to get. Project Veritas Action’s $20,000 investment paid off. The story was solid. Robert Creamer, Scott Foval, Jenna Price from the DNC, Brad Woodhouse from AUFC, Cesar Vargas and others opened the door to their smoke filled rooms of illegal and dirty campaign dealings, as seen in the three previous PVA videos.”
In the first video, Foval, a Democratic operative, boasted of what he called “conflict engagement,” or sending protesters to disrupt Trump events.
“We’re starting anarchy here,” he said. “And he needs to understand that we’re starting anarchy.”
In the second video, Creamer explained Clinton’s direct control over those disruption operations.
“In the end it was the candidate, Hillary Clinton, the future President of the United States, who wanted ducks on the ground, so by god we would get ducks on the ground,” Creamer said.
Creamer, the husband of Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, has starred in several of the undercover videos.
Here’s the third:
That video also revealed a direct conflict between what Creamer was confirming – Clinton’s active involvement in such decisions and campaigns – and the claim of her campaign manager, Robby Mook.
Mook told CNN over the weekend that there was no pathway between the activists staging violence and Clinton.
Sign the precedent-setting petition supporting Trump’s call for an independent prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton!
“These individuals no longer have a relationship with the DNC,” he said. “They’ve never had a relationship with the Clinton campaign and my understanding is that the events that are referenced happened I think in February of last year.
“They did not have a contract with the DNC until June. But putting all that aside, this was again a video that was leaked out with the purpose of damaging the campaign, it is edited so we don’t know what the full context is. And there’s no evidence whatsoever … that anyone ever did anything like this when they were working for the DNC.”
His comments:
After confirming it was Clinton or “wanted ducks on the ground,” Creamer warned undercover Project Veritas journalists, “Don’t repeat that to anybody.”
Creamer ran Democracy Partners, a consulting company with ties to Clinton.
He has been to the White House 342 times while Obama has been president, including 47 meetings directly with Obama.
O’Keefe’s organization reported that the coordination between the campaign, the DNC and the Americans United for Change “smacks of illegal coordinated campaign expenditures.”
Last week , Project Veritas filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission asking for an investigation into the Clinton campaign’s “criminal conspiracy.”
The filing of the complaint with the federal agency follows the release of two videos in which Democrats explain how they can attempt to change the outcome of the election through apparently fraudulent means, such as having people travel across state lines to vote illegally.
The video have resulted already in two Democratic operatives losing their jobs.
Editor’s Note: Be aware of offensive language throughout videos and in quotes from videos.
One is Scott Foval, who had worked for People for the American Way, a George Soros-funded group, and more recently with Americans United for Change.
In the video, he said: “You know what? We’ve been busing people in to deal with you f—ing a—–es for 50 years, and we’re not going to stop now.”
Also, he said he and his agents are “starting anarchy” by creating “conflict engagement … in the lines at Trump rallies.”
Also out of work is Creamer.
See the second video:
Talk-radio icon Rush Limbaugh said the evidence is worrisome.
“Every Trump rally would feature none of this [violence] unless the Democrats were paying for it. I think it’s a big deal, folks. The media is complicit. They know who these people are. … They’re in on it. They’re part of the game. … None of it’s organic. None of it’s natural. None of it’s real. Every bit of it is bought and paid for.
“[Democrats] can’t leave elections to chance because they know that, despite the way it may look, the majority of Americans would not support them if they knew who they are.”
The first video: | 1 |
By Jameson Parker Election 2016 , Miscellaneous , News , Politics November 8, 2016 The Look On Chris Christie’s Face As He Goes To Vote For Trump Says It All (IMAGE) Google Pinterest Digg Linkedin Reddit Stumbleupon Print Delicious Pocket Tumblr
Chris Christie was once one of Trump’s fiercest critics – shortly before endorsing him. Since that time, Christie has bounced from humiliation to humiliation at the hands of Trump. Stories of Trump’s schoolyard bullying of Christie range from the time he made the Governor of New Jersey get him french fries, to the time he publicly mocked his weight, to the time he told Christie to get off the stage and wait on the plane, to the time he suggested Christie could be vice president only to change him mind at the last minute and pick Mike Pence instead.
The last 16 months have been hard on Christie. The indignities were written all over his face as he walked, alone and in the dark , towards the voting booth in New Jersey. A man, broken and demoralized, casting a vote for the guy who routinely humiliated him. If a picture says a thousand words, then what does this say? Here's a picture of Christie going to vote this morning at 6:06 am, right when polls opened. He didn't tell press. https://t.co/3QIgk1sgBW pic.twitter.com/tJEMSwN1y0
— Annie-Rose Strasser (@ARStrasser) November 8, 2016
Perhaps nobody in America had a worse year than Gov. Chris Christie – and nobody has deserved his comeuppance more. All but conceding that his time in politics was over, the deeply unpopular governor ignored the job he was elected to do in New Jersey to fly around the country with Donald Trump. Those fast food orders weren’t going to pick up themselves.
In the meantime, the “Bridgegate” scandal that had torched his administration was drawing to a close, with several of his former advisers implicating Christie himself in the plan to shut down traffic to punish a political rival. Just last week, things reached their inevitable conclusion with many of his closest staffers being convicted of the crimes. Christie, who has no possible route to office ever again, seems to understand that 2016 marked a Rubicon of sorts. He crossed the river and there is no going back. His reputation, his lifetime’s work in government, his chances for a future presidency, have all gone up in smoke.
And so he drudged in the bitterly cold New Jersey pre-dawn towards the ballot box. Broken, beaten, and hollow. Chris Christie casts his vote for Donald Trump; his abuser, yes, but also the only man who will take his calls.
Featured image via Twitter | 0 |
by Yves Smith
By Gaius Publius , a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius , Tumblr and Facebook . Originally published at at Down With Tyranny . GP article archive here . Originally published at DownWithTyranny A little confusing, but follow the gray lines. The above figure illustrates how the duration of the copyright that the Walt Disney company claims in Steamboat Willie — marked by the solid gray line — has twice approached expiration — by the dashed gray line. In both instances, federal lawmakers amended the Copyright Act to extend the duration, both of copyrighted works generally and works, such as Steamboat Willie , that predated the amendments ( source ; click to enlarge). In 2023, expect copyright protection in general to be extended again. This law is colloquially called “The Mouse Protection Act.”
Normally when we think of “free trade,” us lay people, we think of removing barriers to the exchange of goods and services. Removing barriers is the “free” part of “free trade.” Of course, there really is no such thing as a “no barriers” market, since even the simplest of markets always has rules, and those who write the rules are “picking winners and losers” by definition.
Consider, for example, a flea market held in the parking lot of a local fairground on a Saturday. To participate, you have to register for a space with the organizers (the parking lot isn’t infinitely long or wide), set up an approved tent or table, and usually, if your goods are sold by weight or volume, have your weights and measuring devices certified by the organizers as honest.
All of the restrictions above place limits on the “market” — put it under control of the organizers — but consider for a minute just the last one, certified weights and measures. How is that not “picking winners and losers”? Winners — Vendors with honest scales. Losers — Vendors who cheat their customers.
Or consider a flea market without that requirement. Winners — Vendors who cheat their customers. Losers — Vendors with honest scales.
A lot has been written, in fact, about the non-existence, by definition , of anything resembling a “free market,” including much by the writer Masaccio (main site here ).
Monopolies and “Free Trade”
But that point aside, let’s consider TPP from another standpoint. Monopolies are the enemies of so-called “free trade” since, by definition, they destroy competition and invert the usual assumptions about pricing power. In a well-supplied market, a market with much available product, pricing power is with the buyers, the customers, since it is they who, in the aggregate, set the limits of “what the market will bear.”
But in a market in which the supply of something essential for life — water, food, life-saving medical supplies and care, even apartment housing in an old-style “company town” — is not “well-supplied,” but is instead controlled and constrained by a single supplier or a small cartel of non-competing suppliers, that’s just the opposite of a “free market.” It’s in fact the least free a market can get.
Thus it is with TPP. Very little actual trade will be freed up if TPP is passed, since barriers to “trade” among the many of the potential signing nations are nearly non-existent.
On the other hand, one of the most important outcomes of theTPP will be the destruction of a competitive market, the one for life-saving drugs and other “intellecual property.” For these products, the TPP raises barriers as surely as tariffs would do.
Economist Dean Baker calls the TPP a “protectionist” agreement. Baker (my emphasis):
The TPP And Free Trade: Time To Retake The English Language
The proponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are planning to do a full court press in the lame duck session of Congress following the election. We will be bombarded with speeches and columns from President Obama and other illustrious figures telling us how it is important to approve the TPP for a variety of reasons.
We can be certain that one of the reasons will be the inherent virtues of free trade. They will not be telling the truth.
The TPP is not about free trade . It does little to reduce tariffs and quotas for the simple reason that these barriers are already very low. In fact, the United States already has trade deals with six of the other eleven countries in the TPP. This is why the non-partisan United States International Trade Commission (ITC) estimated that when the full gains from the TPP are realized in 2032, they will come to just 0.23 percent of GDP. This is a bit more than a normal month’s growth.
Again, the full gains from the TPP will come to just 0.23% of GDP — one month’s growth. So what is going on with the TPP? Why do people like Barack Obama (and Pfizer, etc.) want it to pass so badly? Among the reasons is this one:
[T]he TPP goes far in the opposite direction, increasing protectionism in the form of stronger and longer patent and copyright protection . These forms of protection for prescription drugs, software, and other products, often raise the price by a factor of a hundred or more above the free market price. This makes them equivalent to tariffs of several thousand percent.
These forms of protection do serve a purpose in promoting innovation and creative work, but we have other more efficient mechanisms to accomplish this goal. Furthermore, the fact that they serve a purpose doesn’t mean they are not protectionist.
Tilting the playing field toward Money, a scheme that protects the holders of intellectual property … forever, if they can get away with it. For example, consider this:
Copyright Length And The Life Of Mickey Mouse
Last week, we reported on Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s statement that copyright law has become equal to the life of Mickey Mouse . Tom Bell has a couple of recent posts exploring issues related to Mickey Mouse and copyright, that seem worth exploring, given Rep. Lofgren’s recognition of this fact. While he notes (as we have) that there’s ample evidence to suggest that the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons really are in the public domain , he first explores how the length of copyright has followed the age of Mickey Mouse :
Bottom line: Until the current, neo-liberal capital-protecting political regime falls or is taken over, Mickey Mouse will never be in the public domain.
What About a “Free Market” for Doctors Too?
Baker finds something else significant about our so-called “free trade” agreements — they’re very selective about which markets are “freed.” Consider, for example, the market for relatively powerless manufacturing labor and the market for much more powerful (and wealthy) doctors.
Baker:
The other point to be made about free trade and protectionism is that our push for free trade has always been very selective. NAFTA and other trade deals were explicitly designed to make it as easy as possible for U.S. corporations to manufacture goods in the developing world and ship them back to the United States. …
But [while] manufacturing workers in the developing world are willing to work for much lower pay than manufacturing workers in the United States, so are doctors in the developing world .
Unlike manufacturing workers, doctors are powerful enough to get protection. It is not generally possible for a doctor trained in another country to practice medicine in the United States unless they pass a U.S. residency program — for which there is a strict quota on foreign trained students. As a result of this restriction, doctors in the United States earn on average twice as much as doctors in Canada, Germany, and other wealthy countries . This protectionism costs the United States roughly $100 billion a year (around $700 per family) in higher health care costs.
If our trade negotiators actually were interested in “free trade,” they would have constructed a system whereby foreign trained doctors could be certified as meeting U.S. standards. They would then have the same freedom to practice as any doctor born and trained in the United States.
Again, a straight-up wealth protection scheme. Baker goes on to note that the “market for doctors” really is a trade issue, not an immigration one, since many German, Canadian, French and Indian doctors could most like get into the U.S. and get jobs — as waiters, for example — they just couldn’t work as doctors.
Baker’s conclusion is exactly right, that calling a deal like the TPP a “free trade agreement” is just propaganda: “When reporters call the TPP a ‘free trade’ deal, they are acting as advocates, not reporters. The TPP is a protectionist pact for those at the top who are worried that free trade will undermine their income — like it did for those at the middle and bottom.”
There’s No “Free Market” for Political Parties Either
I think if Democrats think that the Trumpist revolt against “free trade” deals is just an expression of anti-immigrant racism — and that they can pass TPP in the lame duck session without consequences — there may be a surprise in store for them. After all, there’s no “free market” for U.S. political parties either — we have a carefully protected two-party monopoly — and there are only two ways to disrupt and revolt against it that I can think of. Neither is pretty, neither is orderly, and neither will be good for Democrats.
Forewarned? Let’s hope so. The lame duck session is just weeks away. 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 1 |
Endesa conectaba todos sus generadores a un enchufe de Iberdrola LO HA DESCUBIERTO LA SEÑORA DE LA LIMPIEZA DE IBERDROLA "TIRANDO DEL CABLE" robo
La energía que hasta ahora recibían los abonados de Endesa, una de las empresas españolas líderes en el sector eléctrico, en realidad provenía de un enchufe de Iberdrola. La noticia se hacía pública esta misma mañana después de que la señora de la limpieza de Iberdrola encontrara un extraño cable enchufado a una regleta oculta tras un mueble. Al ir tirando de él, la mujer ha llegado a la sede de la otra compañía, destapando el fraude.
“No había visto a mi jefe tan enfadado en la vida. Me ha ordenado desenchufar el cable inmediatamente y se ha ido a gritarle al de Iberdrola desde la calle”, explica la señora. Nada más desenchufarse el cable, los clientes de Endesa han dejado de recibir electricidad.
En estos momentos, Iberdrola, con su presidente José Ignacio Sánchez Galán a la cabeza, está revisando uno a uno todos los enchufes de la oficina, “no vaya a ser que también nos la estén jugando los de Fenosa o los de Abengoa, que son todos una panda de listos”. Según él, “llamas a la Policía y te dicen que no pueden hacer nada si no ha habido agresión o robo con fuerza”.
Por su parte, Borja Prado Eulate, presidente de Endesa, ha pedido que no se saquen las cosas de quicio. “Esto hay que leerlo como parte de la competencia sana en el sector”, ha argumentado Prado mientras descargaba de su coche unas bombonas de gas de la compañía Repsol y varios metros de cable de cobre.
Endesa ha informado que sus abonados experimentarán los próximos días algunos cortes en el servicio mientras sus responsables buscan otro enchufe al que conectar su red. En estos momentos, la solución más factible para Endesa es encontrar un alargador de varios kilómetros de longitud para poder robar la energía de Francia “porque allí no están tan pendientes”. | 0 |
Republican operative Roger Stone has made an entire career out of deplorable actions. He is a close friend and confidant of the Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump.
In fact, Stone is working with the Trump campaign to organize volunteers. Isn’t that special?
Most campaigns, of course, organize the volunteer brigade to knock on doors and chat with people about the candidate. Some gather willing folks to make calls, reminding people about when and where to vote.
The Trump campaign, as the world knows, is definitely not your average campaign. Definitely. Roger Stone is not the typical campaign advisor either.
Stone is reaching deep into the basket of deplorables to find each volunteer. His plan is not to have them get out the vote. In fact just the opposite is true.
Apparently the Republican nasty man is running an anti-voter fraud group which ironically calls itself “ Vote Protectors .” In spite of the fact that there is absolutely no evidence of widespread or significant voter fraud, Donald Trump continues to insist that the whole election is “rigged.”
In his effort to stop the “rigging” of the polls, Stone has asked every Vote Protectors volunteer to wear a specially designed identification badge. Each one is supposed to engage in a fake “exit poll,” asking people who they chose. Election officials believe that these actions would confuse and intimidate voters.
Of course they would confuse and intimidate voters. That’s why Roger Stone wanted those things done.
Unfortunately for Stone, however, the Huffington Post got wind of his plan and asked him about it. At first the head of the deplorables refused to explain how he intended to have the group reach its goals.
So the Huffington Post went online to the site to volunteer. What it found was eye opening, to say the least. The “volunteer” who signed up on the site followed the instructions for generating a very official looking ID badge. It would surely fool many voters if worn by someone taking an “exit poll.” Trump Loyalists Planned Voter Intimidation Using Fake ID Badges, Fake Exit Polling https://t.co/8ojaEGZiD6
— Cheri DelBrocco (@cdelbrocco) October 26, 2016
The Huffington Post reports that there was no limit to the number of badges they produced, as you can see above.
The instructions on the site also told each volunteer that he or she must: “…commit to go out in November and post their YouTube and Periscope streams to the [Vote Protectors] website, organized by state and district, as well as enter actual exit poll survey response.”
That’s right. Volunteers for Roger Stone’s “Vote Protectors” were supposed to videotape people at the polls and upload them. You can just imagine how this would impact Black or Latino voters. Or, Heaven forbid, voters from Arabic backgrounds.
When asked specifically about the ID badges, Stone emailed this to the Huffington Post: “I have ordered them taken down. Bad idea, as is video taping. First I have heard of it. I am only interested in a valid, scientifically conducted exit poll.”
Of course he is. On a “scientifically conducted” exit poll, done by a bunch of volunteer Trumpsters with no training and a profound bias.
Fabulous.
That basket of deplorables just keeps getting bigger by the day.
Watch this incredibly outrageous video of Roger Stone and the crazy pants Alex Jones talking about how Hillary is planning to steal the election.
Featured image via YouTube screegrab . About Karen Shiebler
Karen is a retired elementary school teacher with many years of progressive activism behind her. She is the proud mother of three young adults who were all arrested with Occupy Wall Street. To see what she writes about in her spare time, check out her blog at "Empty Nest, Full Life" Connect | 0 |
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