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New Report Finds Voters Have No Idea How Outraged They Supposed To Be About Anything Anymore WASHINGTON—Saying that at this point, they were just taking their best guesses at how they should react to each new scandal that emerged about the presidential nominees, voters across the country admitted Monday they had no clue how outraged they are supposed to be about anything anymore. Anthony Weiner Sends Apology Sext To Entire Clinton Campaign BROOKLYN, NY—In response to the FBI’s announcement that its investigation of him had produced new evidence that could pertain to its probe of the Democratic presidential nominee, Anthony Weiner reportedly sent an apology sext early Monday morning to the entire Hillary Clinton campaign. | 0 |
The Trump team came out swinging against the media — specifically Buzzfeed and CNN — after they released stories about unsubstantiated, unverified claims alleging Russia had compromising information on Trump. Both the news outlets revealed the information the night before the ’s first press conference since his victory in November. [As the press conference began, Sean Spicer set the tone: Before we start, I want to bring your attention to a few points on the report that was published in Buzzfeed last night. It’s frankly outrageous and highly irresponsible for a blog that was openly hostile to the ’s campaign to drop highly salacious and false information on the Internet just days before he takes the oath of office. According to Buzzfeed‘s own editor, there are some serious reasons to doubt the allegations in the report. The executive editor of the New York Times also dismissed the report by saying it was “totally unsubstantiated” echoing the concerns that many other reporters expressed on the Internet. The fact that Buzzfeed and CNN made the decision to run with this unsubstantiated claim is a sad and pathetic attempt to get clicks. The report is not an intelligence report, plain and simple. One issue that the report talked about was the relationship of three individuals associated with the campaign. About those three individuals: Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, and Carter Page Carter Page is an individual who the does not know and was put on notice months ago by the campaign. Paul Manafort has adamantly denied any of this involvement, and Michael Cohen who is said to have visited Prague in August and September did not leave or enter the United States during this time. We asked him to produce his passport to confirm his whereabouts and the dates in question, and there was no doubt that he was not in Prague. In fact, Mr. Cohen has never been in Prague. A new report actually suggests that Michael Cohen was actually at the University of Southern California with his son at a baseball game. One report now suggests that apparently there’s another Michael Cohen. For all the talk lately about fake news, this political witch hunt by some in the media is based on some of the most flimsy reporting and it is frankly shameful and disgraceful. Mike Pence also called out the media, saying: I have long been a supporter of free and independent press and I always will be. But with freedom comes responsibility and the irresponsible decision of a few news organizations to run with a false and unsubstantiated report when most news organizations resisted the temptations to propagate this fake news can only be attributed to media bias in an attempt to demean our President. Earlier in the day, incoming Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told ”Morning Joe” that the Buzzfeed report was “based on garbage, it’s total crap. ” “The BuzzFeed memo, the salacious details in that memo, all of those things are total garbage. It never happened. It isn’t true,” Priebus said. Nearly every question in the press conference touched on Russia in some way. Trump himself adamantly denied the allegations. As the New York Times reported: “I think it’s a disgrace that information would be let out. I saw the information, I read the information outside of that meeting,” he said, a reference to a classified briefing he received from intelligence leaders. “It’s all fake news, it’s phony stuff, it didn’t happen,” Trump said. “It was gotten by opponents of ours. ” Asked about his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump called it “an asset, not a liability” and an improvement over what he called America’s current “horrible relationship with Russia. ” In response to a question from Breitbart News editor Matt Boyle about how the media might reform itself, Trump suggested that the media could find a “moral compass. ” Later in the press conference, CNN White House Correspondent Jim Acosta repeatedly tried to interrupt the demanding that he be allowed to ask a question since Trump was “attacking” his news organization. Trump refused to take Acosta’s question, citing “fake news. ” Follow Breitbart News investigative reporter and Citizen Journalism School founder Lee Stranahan on Twitter at @Stranahan. | 1 |
Foreign Affairs Confronts Trump’s ‘Populism’ 26, 2016
The Globalization of Rage Why Today’s Extremism Looks Familiar … Militant secessions from a civilization premised on gradual progress under liberal democratic trustees—the kind of civilization that D’Annunzio and his peers denounced as feeble and corrupt—are once again brewing within the West and far beyond it: and as before, they are fueled by a broad, deep, and volatile desire for destruction. –Foreign Affairs
This is the single most important article we’ve read in Foreign Affairs in years. It grows out of the “populism versus globalism” meme we’ve been tracking regularly.
We believed from the beginning that this meme would prove extremely important. The idea was that populism would be contrasted unfavorably to globalism and that this would be developed via directed history.
We tend to think Brexit is an example of this. It still doesn’t make sense that Brexit passed when British electoral facilities are controlled by globalist elites. In other words, Brexit’s passage may have been purposeful.
The idea, for instance, would be to ensure that Brexit has a broad array of negative consequences for the British. Paint Brexit as “populist” and then paint its negative consequences as occurring because the wise precepts of globalism were not adhered to.
This is how elite propaganda works. Create a dialogue and then enforce it with the economic, legislative and military consequences – all of which are controlled by the dialogue-makers.
Global warming doesn’t exist, or not in fashion represented in the popular media. But global warming has been acted upon economically and legislatively throughout the world.
Likewise, “populism versus globalism” is a meme – a rhetorical construct – not a reality.
But there can be little doubt now that those behind the meme intend to make real. We can see the rhetoric heightening.
The consequences of a “populist” Brexit are going to be determinedly negative. If the “populist” Trump is elected in the US, the consequences will likely be similarly disastrous – and blamed on his populism.
Foreign Affairs is the magazine of the Council on Foreign Relations, which is the elite sister of the elite-controlled British Roundtable. Foreign Affairs magazine enunciates elite banking policies.
In this case, we would do well to pay heed to an emergent meme that will define the next decades.
It is not enough to suggest globalist remedies. An entire argument must be constructed around globalism if it is to be fully implemented.
And since the preferred device is Hegelian – thesis and antithesis giving way to synthesis – one needs to establish two sides. Globalism is the thesis here. Populism the antithesis. The synthesis will be a more fully emergent globalism.
In the highly charged rhetoric of this Foreign Affairs article, we can see just how vehemently this emergent meme is being pursued.
In reality, today’s malignancies are rooted in distinctly modern reactions to the profound social and economic shifts of recent decades, which have been obscured by the optimistic visions of globalization that took hold in the aftermath of the Cold War.
Notice the language. Globalism is optimistic. Its alternative (populism) is “malignant.
Then there is this:
Behind all these developments lies the fact that globalization—characterized by the mobility of people, capital, and ideas and accelerated by the rapid development of communications and information technology—has weakened traditional forms of authority everywhere, from Europe’s social democracies to the despotic states of the Arab world.
It has also produced an array of unpredictable new international actors that have seized on the sense of alienation and dashed expectations that defines the political mood in many places.
The extremists of ISIS have exploited these changes with devious skill, partly by turning the Internet into a devastatingly effective propaganda tool for global jihad.
You see? It is not enough to characterize populism as malignant. It must be conflated directly with ISIS. Trump, for instance, is not merely misguided. He is part of a larger terrorism.
And populism is to be conflated with “conspiracy theory” as well … actually a CIA-developed meme. In fact, populism – so the article informs us – is responsible for “lynch mobs and mass shooters.”
Populist and extremist attacks on reasoned debate and evidence-based analysis have made it easier for conspiracy theories and downright lies to spread and gain broad credence. Lynch mobs and mass shooters thrive in a climate where many people think of others only in terms of friends and foes and where sectarian loyalty or nativist hatred override civic bonds.
The article goes on to blame some of today’s disturbing violence and aimlessness on major media.
Of course, the article doesn’t tell us that most major media is controlled by a handful of individuals who run them to benefit the goals of the globalist elite.
Here’s the duplicitous characterization:
The world seems beset by pervasive panic, which doesn’t quite resemble the centralized fear that emanates from despotic power. Rather, people everywhere find themselves in thrall to the sentiment—generated by the news media and amplified by social media—that anything can happen, anywhere, to anybody, at any time.
The pervasive panic the article discerns is further complicated by the continued failure of globalism, which is disordering people “spiritually.”
In places where globalized capitalism has not fulfilled its promise of opportunity and prosperity, culturally and spiritually disorientated people have become increasingly susceptible to demagoguery and extremism.
The consequences of globalism, should it continue to fail, will include the disenfranchising of the world’s youth.
The inheritance of modern youth will include “racist nationalism” that will remove or reduce “freedom and prosperity.”
The sudden and rapid success of racist nationalists and cultural supremacists ought to make liberals wonder whether the millions of young people awakening around the world to their inheritance—which for even the richest among them includes global warming—will be able to realize the modern promise of freedom and prosperity, or if they are doomed to hurtle, like many Europeans in the past, between a sense of inadequacy and fantasies of revenge.
Generally speaking, populism is to be feared as the worst of all results, should it grip the world more pervasively in its icy clutches.
Militant secessions from a civilization premised on gradual progress under liberal democratic trustees … are once again brewing within the West and far beyond it: and as before, they are fueled by a broad, deep, and volatile desire for destruction.
This is a broad and ringing affirmation of globalism, which as we recently pointed out, is at root a religion.
It is an evil religion however, proposing the gathering together of the world’s population under a single ruler (or group or rulers) who will have near-absolute control over the world’s billions.
All the negatives attributed to populism in this article are actually properties of globalism. But the rhetoric justifies the ascension of globalism and the removal of populism.
Conclusion: Populism is painted as malignant, exploitative, racist and violent. These are not opinions either. This article is proposing a broad gamut of properties that the wise solons of globalism will have to act against and eventually remove. You may wish to consult the George Guidestones for the human costs involved. | 1 |
NBC News chairman Andy Lack said Tuesday that President Donald Trump “has us a bit more focused on temperament than we expected,” but he derided Trump’s complaints about “fake news” and the role the media has played in covering the campaign and now the administration. [“We’re not the opposition party, and we’re not in a popularity contest with this administration or any administration,” Lack said at a panel discussion at New York’s IESE Business School, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That referred to remarks made by White House chief strategist Steve Bannon in an interview in February, in which he said, “I want you to quote this. The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States. ” This sentiment was later back by President Trump when he told an interviewer, “I think the media’s the opposition party in many ways. ” Lack said an adversarial relationship between the press and the president is “fundamental to our democracy. We go through periods where we’re in the crosshairs, we’re targeted. ” “Here we are again,” he asserted. “We’re not going to be intimidated by that. I think it’s a distraction from what we’d like to focus on, which is policy. ” But NBC News has not always met that mark. According to the New York Post, the Wikileaks dump of Democratic National Committee emails included one from CNBC anchor John Harwood to Clinton campaign manager John Podesta saying, “Let’s be honest, is this a version of a presidential campaign?” Another email to Podesta said, “I imagine … that Obama feels some (sad) vindication at this demonstration of his point about the opposition party veering off the rails. ” On election night, Rachel Maddow said on MSNBC, “I mean, to have the first president succeeded by a guy who was endorsed by the KKK … it’s a big deal. ” Earlier in the fall, Lawrence O’Donnell, also of MSNBC, called Trump “an imbecile candidate. ” And before that, Maddow said, “I’ve been reading a lot about what it was like when Hitler first became chancellor. I think that’s possibly where we are” if Trump is elected. | 0 |
Phil Mickelson has five major golf championships and countless endorsement deals. Thomas C. Davis, a former investment banker, has a Harvard pedigree and a country club lifestyle. They also had a secret. Both men owed money to William T. Walters, a Las Vegas kingmaker, often considered the most successful sports bettor in the country. Now, federal authorities say those debts were at the center of a insider trading scheme. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Thursday unveiled criminal charges against Mr. Walters, saying that illegal stock tips from Mr. Davis helped him generate some $40 million in profits and avoided losses. They also charged Mr. Davis, who has agreed to plead guilty and who is cooperating against Mr. Walters. Mr. Mickelson was not accused of wrongdoing. But the Securities and Exchange Commission listed him in a civil complaint as a relief defendant, arguing that he was “unjustly enriched” and must disgorge “ gains” he made from trades Mr. Walters recommended. Mr. Mickelson, known as “Lefty,” agreed to repay nearly $1 million, and his lawyer said he “takes full responsibility for the decisions and associations that led him to becoming part of this investigation. ” The investigation hinged on Mr. Davis’s mounting debts, which were far larger than Mr. Mickelson’s and which may have provided a motive to share inside information. Mr. Davis retired from investment banking at Credit Suisse First Boston in 2001, the government said, but not from the lifestyle it enabled. His finances were so troubled, the authorities said, that he even misused money from a charity. Mr. Walters also lent him money. Mr. Davis, then the chairman of Dean Foods, returned the favor by feeding Mr. Walters boardroom secrets as far back as 2008, the authorities say. To disguise the scheme, they said, the two men used disposable cellphones and created “a secret code” for discussing Dean Foods, a Dallas company, referring to it as “the Dallas Cowboys. ” “Davis breached his duty and broke the law as the result of being in dire financial straits,” Andrew J. Ceresney, the head of the S. E. C. ’s enforcement division, said at a news conference on Thursday. And Mr. Walters, who was arrested at a resort in Las Vegas late Wednesday, was “gambling on a sure thing. ” The case, however, is much broader than a story about gambling debts. The charges represent one of the most notable insider trading prosecutions since a federal appellate court overturned two prominent convictions — a ruling that led to the dismissal of about a dozen other convictions. After the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned the convictions of two hedge fund managers, Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson, in December 2014 — and in the process imposed the greatest limits on prosecutors in a generation — the government predicted a chilling effect on future insider trading investigations. Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, who led a sweeping crackdown on insider trading, warned that the ruling could allow “a potential bonanza for friends and family of rich people. ” But in charging both Mr. Walters and Mr. Davis with securities fraud and wire fraud, his office and the S. E. C. are sending a message that these cases can still be made. “Brazen insider trading continues to be a blot in our securities markets, and so the integrity of our markets continues to be a priority for this office,” Mr. Bharara said at the news conference. Still, he added that “there is conduct that we think is nefarious and undermines faith in the market and undermines the strength of the market that will not be able to be prosecuted because of the Newman decision. ” Mr. Walters’s lawyer said his client had done nothing wrong. “Bill Walters is a true American success story, whose extraordinary accomplishments as a lawful sports gambler have been widely recognized and lauded,” the lawyer, Barry Berke, said in a statement. “Mr. Walters and his counsel look forward to his day in court. ” This is not the first time Mr. Walters, who is 69, has been the subject of a criminal investigation. He has faced charges four times, none of which resulted in a conviction. The latest investigation of Mr. Walters centered largely on trading in shares of Dean Foods, the nation’s largest milk processor, and its decision to spin off a subsidiary. The court filings detail the following: Days after learning of the planned spinoff in 2010, Mr. Davis flew to Las Vegas to meet with Mr. Walters. On the next business day, Mr. Walters purchased a million shares of Dean Foods. The deal was delayed. But two years later, while at his country club, Mr. Davis dialed into a Dean Foods conference call to discuss a renewed spinoff effort. Three minutes after the call ended, Mr. Davis rang Mr. Walters. Nine minutes after that, Mr. Walters called his stockbroker to buy more shares. Mr. Walters also called Mr. Mickelson and recommended that he buy shares in Dean Foods. At the time, Mr. Mickelson owed money to Mr. Walters on a gambling debt. The S. E. C. said some of the nearly $1 million in trading profit Mr. Mickelson made on shares of Dean Foods went to reimburse Mr. Walters. Mr. Mickelson, who has a reputation for betting on sports, may not have known the origins of the tip. But on at least two occasions, the F. B. I. contacted Mr. Mickelson to seek his cooperation in the case against Mr. Walters, people briefed on the investigation have previously said. Once, agents approached him on a golf course, another time at an airport hangar. At Thursday’s news conference in Lower Manhattan, the S. E. C. displayed a chart with the heading: “Mickelson’s Trades in Dean Foods. ” Gregory Craig, a lawyer for Mr. Mickelson, described the winner of the Masters golf tournament as “an innocent bystander. ” “Phil understands and deeply respects the high professional and ethical standards that the companies he represents expect of their employees, associates and of Phil himself,” Mr. Craig said in a statement. “He subscribes to the same values and regrets any appearance that, on this occasion, he fell short. ” Through all the illicit trades that underpin the case against Mr. Walters, Mr. Davis was the common thread. In addition to the 2012 spinoff, Mr. Davis provided Mr. Walters with “sneak previews” of at least six quarterly earnings statements for Dean Foods, the S. E. C. said. Authorities say that Mr. Davis also tipped Mr. Walters to a activist campaign by a group of hedge fund investors who were looking to shake things up at Darden, which owns restaurant chains including Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse. In the summer of 2013, Mr. Davis was approached by a representative of the group about its intention to acquire shares in Darden. Mr. Davis signed an agreement that he would keep the plans confidential but he told Mr. Walters nonetheless, authorities said. Mr. Davis also “misappropriated” $100, 000 from a charity he ran that raised money for a ’s shelter in Dallas, according to the court filings. He took the money to pay down a gambling debt at a Las Vegas casino. The charges against Mr. Davis include perjury — authorities said he lied to the S. E. C. during a deposition last year — and obstruction of justice because he “corruptly altered” and destroyed evidence in May 2014 when news of the investigation first emerged. Mr. Davis resigned as chairman of Dean Foods last August. Thomas M. Melsheimer, a Dallas lawyer representing Mr. Davis, said his client was “pleased to be assisting the government in its investigation. ” The case against Mr. Walters comes as prosecutors reassess their ability to bring insider trading cases. The appeals court ruling constrained the pursuit of cases involving the sharing of inside information between friends. Specifically, the appeals court required “proof of a meaningfully close personal relationship that generates an exchange that is objective, consequential and represents at least a potential gain of a pecuniary or similarly valuable nature. ” The case against Mr. Walters addressed the issue of “pecuniary” gain . The indictment not only details Mr. Walter’s longtime friendship with Mr. Davis — they first met 20 years ago on a golf course — but that he had entered into numerous business deals and personal loans with him. They invested in a software company together. Mr. Walters arranged for a friend to provide Mr. Davis with a $625, 000 personal loan. And as Mr. Davis fell deeper into financial trouble, Mr. Walters helped bail him out with a $350, 000 loan that was never repaid. “It’s a straightforward announcement that the Southern District is still in the insider trading prosecution business,” said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor, who is now a professor at Columbia Law School. “It’s also a reminder that however important Newman is, if the facts are there, you can take on the burden of proving precisely the kind of exchange that Newman demanded. ” | 1 |
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Will the 2016 election be rigged?
That depends on what the definition of “is” is – and whether or not you count blatant media bias, operatives and instigators, shady quasi-voters, bizarre electronic voting “errors” and a heavy-handed advantage in the electoral college and the shifting demographics of a socialist state that promises much to certain groups.
With the GOP leadership turning its back on Trump, and the Democratic machine dedicated solely to providing for Her, it will be a difficult win for Trump, despite overwhelming enthusiasm at rallies across the entire country and lop-sided pro-Trump crowds that literally dwarf pro-Hillary gatherings of very few.
But as most everyone knows by now, it isn’t the popular vote that counts – but only the delegates awarded state-by-state to the electoral college… and that is a game that Hillary’s operatives are very good at playing. Daily News Brief: The 2016 Election Is In The Process Of Being Stolen With Rigged Voting Machines
There are several states – in particular – that are being surprisingly maneuvered for her advantage… and if successful, will block Trump from even coming close the presidency. Texas Could Turn “Blue” For the First Time In 20 Years
This is the big enchilada, so to speak. For the first time in many decades, Texas is in play for Hillary and the Democrats. Texas has been as solidly “red” as any state in the union, but 2016 could be different.
With 38 electoral votes, the Lone Star State is the biggest prize on the map next to California, whose 55 electoral votes have gone to the Democrats since before history began. Since at least 2008, the Dems have been massaging their electioneering strategy to capitalize on shifting demographics – with plenty of Hispanics in the next generation of voters. On paper, Hillary should be able to play well to Hispanics with all the controversy over Trump’s immigration stances and talk of a border wall. Rumors of illegal immigrants be encouraged to vote could be a crucial factor, with polls in Texas close to neck and neck… it could go either way.
Of course, there is every reason to think that Team Hillary is not taking any chances.
As Michael Snyder and many others have reported , electronic voting machines have been mysteriously flipping votes for Hillary in several counties in Texas… and that doesn’t bode well for a massive electoral prize that is within range for her campaign:
Early voting has already begun in many states, and a number of voters in Texas are reporting that the voting machines switched their votes from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton. The odd thing is that none of the other choices were affected when these individuals attempted to vote for a straight Republican ticket. If Hillary Clinton is declared the winner of the state of Texas on election night, a full investigation of these voting machines should be conducted, because there is no way that Donald Trump should lose that state. I have said that it will be the greatest miracle in U.S. political history if Donald Trump wins this election, but without the state of Texas Donald Trump has exactly zero chance of winning.
At least one county is making an emergency switch to paper ballots after irregularities were found with the electronic machines during early voting.
Meanwhile, Infowars confronted the head of Texas’ elections about his decision to violate voter laws and abandon a manual count of a random sampling of 1-3% of votes (which should theoretically reflect the larger voting trend, unless something is fishy). Without that count, there is less accountability than ever:
This is major issue, and Texas isn’t the only state… just the biggest.
2. Utah’s Independent Republican Could Actually Beat Trump
OK, so Utah only has a grand total of 6 electoral college votes… and has never been a decisive swing state in a presidential election. But that is because the state has been so solidly “red.” However, this election is totally different.
A little known independent candidate named Evan McMullin has actually taken the lead in several recent polls in Utah, and is neck-and-neck with both Trump and Hillary in several other polls (at or around 30% apiece). Libertarian Gary Johnson is also playing (relatively) well at about 5% – possibly enough to swing further momentum away form Trump.
But Evan McMullin is the real surprise hit – in a state that is suddenly considered an important battleground in the election.
McMullin is a Mormon, which gives him a significant boost. He is officially tied to Better for America, which is basically a #NeverTrump operation – backed by neocons like William Kristol. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Evan McMullin has a pretty colorful and telling background : on top of being a former policy director for House Republicans, he’s also a former CIA operations officer; a member of the elite think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR); a former Goldman Sachs investment banker and a volunteer refugee resettlement officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan.
Wow! I wonder if there could be an agenda there. Hillary probably won’t win Utah, but Trump may not either – and it could make a crucial difference if he is within striking distance of 270 electoral votes.
3. Florida Is a Must Win Swing State for Trump… But Current Polls Show Possible Hillary Win
Oh boy… Florida all over again. With 29 electoral votes, it remains a major contender that is so often on the fence and swinging in the wind. It is considered essential for a Trump victory, and indeed for just about any successful Republican bid for the presidency.
Sure, we all know the polls are rigged, and may be oversampling Dems to look better for Hillary on paper – but nonetheless, that perception drives expectations.
If She can create a convincing win there, it could change the course of the election once again. Florida has consistently been the closest outcome – in 2008 and 2012 it went blue for Obama; in 2000 and 2004 it went red for Bush (and not without major controversy and some very shady recounting).
Her team is pushing heavily for early voting in Florida, and so far they claim an early voting advantage.
But campaign surrogate Roger Stone is now reporting that Hillary has met secretly with Broward County officials in Florida, and there is speculation that problems with the voting machines may soon be happening all over again.
Pay very close to what happens there, because of course, Florida could be THE deciding state (again). Right now polls are within 2 points , currently in favor of Trump by a very narrow margin.
4. Colorado Has Known Voting Fraud Issues – With Dead People on the Voter Rolls
With 9 electoral votes, Colorado is currently swinging “blue” but could go either way. CBS4 and the Washington Times reported that an investigation was started by Colorado’s Secretary of State after multiple examples were found of deceased people registered and in the voter rolls:
“This is the kind of thing you hear rumored, joked about in Chicago, that kind of thing,” Mr. Maasssaid during a Thursday evening broadcast. “Tonight, that changes. We did find voter fraud in Colorado that essentially waters down your vote.”
[…]
“This is the kind of thing you hear rumored, joked about in Chicago, that kind of thing,” Mr. Maasssaid during a Thursday evening broadcast. “Tonight, that changes. We did find voter fraud in Colorado that essentially waters down your vote.”
It’s not clear whether or not Colorado could make a difference in the outcome, but the results could prove suspect.
5. Hillary Is “Leading” In These Key Swing States
While Trump is expected to win the crucial state of Ohio, and also North Carolina, Hillary is projected to take key states including Pennsylvania, Colorado, Iowa, Virginia and Arizona.
According to the Washington Post :
if Clinton can hold Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Colorado, then she only needs one more out of many swing states — New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina, or Florida — barring any surprise Trump win in a blue-leaning state like Wisconsin. That is currently looking very plausible.
While any of these could change in the actual outcome, it shows that Hillary has definitely maneuvered to win where it counts – not with the people, but with the electoral college.
The details are too numerous to follow here, and anything could happen.
6. You Know Voter Fraud Is Happening If the Media Claim It Isn’t
What should be very telling to everyone is how loudly the major media – in concert – are trying to debunk Trump’s claims of voter fraud and insist that all is well when it is quite clear that there are major issues.
This is one claim that the system is very afraid of, because quite frankly, they have a great deal to hide.
There is more reason than ever for accountability, reporting on any irregularities and an insistence that the will of the people be respected – because the system is desperate to hold onto control at any cost.
Article reposted with permission from SHTF Plan shares | 1 |
Evan Swarztrauber, communications director of TechFreedom, spoke with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Friday about the FCC, net neutrality, and several other topics under the Trump administration, as opposed to the Obama era. [Swarztrauber stressed that the big government, mentality one usually associates with liberals and Democrats often confounded private sector efforts to advance Internet and broadband technology during the Obama administration. “There’s a lot that can be done” with the change in administration, suggested Swarztrauber. “And the FCC can play a positive role. It can be an ally to companies and consumers, rather than just trying to regulate everything. ” Swarztrauber has high hopes for FCC head Ajit Pai, whom many see as already moving ahead with Trump’s deregulatory agenda. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. | 0 |
We Are Change
Republican nominee Donald Trump will become the 45th president of the Untied States after he surpassed Hillary Clinton and received over 270 electoral votes early Wednesday morning.
Trump’s win was called by the Associated Press, and various other outlets, after he received 276 electoral votes from Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas, North Dakota, Texas, Wyoming, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, Missouri, Ohio, Florida, Idaho, North Carolina, Georgia, Utah, Iowa, Maine, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
During his victory speech Wednesday, Trump began by announcing that Clinton had called to concede.
In addition to thanks family members for their support, Trump carried a tone of unity throughout the speech, insisting that he led a movement, rather than a campaign.
“Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division. We have to get together. To all Republicans, and Democrats, and Independents across this nation, I say it time for us to come together as one united people. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans, and this is so important to me. For those who have chosen not to support me in the past—of which there were a few people—I’m reaching out to you for your guidance and your help, so that we can work together and unify our great country.”
Clinton notably did not take the stage at her campaign event in New York, and instead sent her campaign chairman, John Podesta to speak for her.
The post Donald Trump Defeats Hillary Clinton, Wins 2016 Election appeared first on We Are Change .
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FORDLÂNDIA, Brazil — The Amazon jungle already swallowed the Winding Brook Golf Course. Floods ravaged the cemetery, leaving behind a stockpile of concrete crosses. The hospital designed by the acclaimed Detroit architect Albert Kahn? Plunderers destroyed it. Given the scale of decay and decrepitude in this town — founded in 1928 by the industrialist Henry Ford in the far reaches of the Amazon River Basin — I didn’t expect to come across the stately, largely homes on Palm Avenue. But there they were, thanks to the squatters. “This street was a looters’ paradise, with thieves taking furniture, doorknobs, anything the Americans left behind,” said Expedito Duarte de Brito, 71, a retired milkman who dwells in one of the homes built for Ford managers in what was planned to be a utopian plantation town. “I thought, ‘Either I occupy this piece of history or it joins the other ruins of Fordlândia. ’” In more than a decade of reporting from Latin America, I made dozens of trips to the Amazon, lured back time and again by its vast rivers, magnificent skies, boomtowns, lost civilizations and tales of hubris consumed by nature. But somehow I never got to Fordlândia. That finally changed when I boarded a riverboat this year in Santarém, an outpost at the confluence of the Amazon and Tapajós rivers, and made the trip to the place where Ford, one of the world’s richest men, tried turning a colossal swath of Brazilian jungle into a Midwest fantasyland. I explored the outpost on foot, wandering the ruins and talking to gold prospectors, farmers and descendants of plantation workers who live here. Hardly a lost city, Fordlândia is home to about 2, 000 people, some who live in the crumbling structures built nearly a century ago. Ford, the automobile manufacturer who is considered a founder of American industrial methods, hatched his plan for Fordlândia in a bid to produce his own source of the rubber needed for making tires and car parts like valves, hoses and gaskets. In doing so, he waded into an industry shaped by imperialism and claims of botanical subterfuge. Brazil was home to Hevea brasiliensis, the coveted rubber tree, and the Amazon Basin had boomed from 1879 to 1912 as industries in North America and Europe fed the demand for rubber. But to the dismay of Brazil’s leaders, Henry Wickham, a British botanist and explorer, had spirited thousands of Hevea seeds out of Santarém, providing the genetic stock for rubber plantations in British, Dutch and French colonies in Asia. These endeavors on the other side of the world devastated Brazil’s rubber economy. But Ford despised relying on the Europeans, fearing a proposal by Winston Churchill to create a rubber cartel. So, in a move that pleased Brazilian officials, Ford acquired a giant stretch of land in the Amazon. From the start, ineptitude and tragedy plagued the venture, meticulously documented in a book by the historian Greg Grandin that I read on the boat as it made its way up the Tapajós. Disdainful of experts who could have advised them on tropical agriculture, Ford’s men planted seeds of questionable value and let leaf blight ravage the plantation. Despite such setbacks, Ford constructed an town, which he wanted inhabited by Brazilians hewing to what he considered American values. Employees moved into clapboard bungalows — designed, of course, in Michigan — some of which are still standing. Streetlamps illuminated concrete sidewalks. Portions of these footpaths persist in the town, near red fire hydrants, in the shadow of decaying dance halls and crumbling warehouses. “It turns out Detroit isn’t the only place where Ford produced ruins,” said Guilherme Lisboa, 67, the owner of a small inn called the Pousada Americana. Beyond producing rubber, Ford, an avowed teetotaler, and skeptic of the Jazz Age, clearly wanted life in the jungle to be more transformative. His American managers forbade consumption of alcohol, while promoting gardening, square dancing and readings of the poetry of Emerson and Longfellow. Going even further in Ford’s quest for utopia, sanitation squads operated across the outpost, killing stray dogs, draining puddles of water where mosquitoes could multiply and checking employees for venereal diseases. “With a surety of purpose and incuriosity about the world that seems all too familiar, Ford deliberately rejected expert advice and set out to turn the Amazon into the Midwest of his imagination,” Mr. Grandin, the historian, wrote in his account of the town. These days, the ruins of Fordlândia stand as testament to the folly of trying to bend the jungle to the will of man. Seeking to promote the automobile as a form of recreation — along with the golf course, tennis courts, a movie theater and swimming pools — managers laid out nearly 30 miles of roads around Fordlândia. But cars are mostly absent on the town’s muddy lanes, eclipsed by the motorbikes found in towns across the Amazon. By the end of World War II, it was clear that cultivating rubber trees around Fordlândia could not be profitable in the face of leaf blight and competition from synthetic rubber and Asian plantations freed from Japanese domination. After Ford turned the town over to Brazil’s government in 1945, officials transferred Fordlândia from one public agency to another, largely for unsuccessful experiments in tropical agriculture. The town went into a seemingly perpetual state of decline. “Nothing happens here, and that’s how I like it,” said Joaquim Pereira da Silva, 73, a farmer from Minas Gerais State who followed his star to Fordlândia in 1997. Now he lives on Palm Avenue in an old American house he bought for 20, 000 reais (about $6, 670) from a squatter who fixed it up. “The Americans had no idea about rubber but they knew how to build things to last,” he said. Something about the failed utopia strikes a chord with scholars and artists in other parts of the world. Fordlândia inspired a 2008 album by the Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson and a 1997 novel by Eduardo Sguiglia about an Argentine adventurer who travels here to recruit plantation laborers. Some descendants of workers who settled in Fordlândia, along with new migrants from other parts in Brazil, have small plots where zebu cattle graze. Others plant manioc in areas where rubber trees were chopped down decades ago. Many survive on small social welfare payments or pensions. Then there are residents like Eduardo Silva dos Santos, born 66 years ago in the hospital conceived by Kahn, the architect who designed much of Detroit. Mr. dos Santos now lives in a small house near the hospital’s ruins. Scavenging material left by the Americans, he fashioned a fishing lantern from old car parts and a spice grinder from discarded machinery. Mr. dos Santos expressed mixed views of Fordlândia under American stewardship, growing up in the years after Ford unloaded the town. “This place in Ford’s day was clean, no insects, no animals, no jungle in the town,” said Mr. dos Santos, one of 11 children born to a family that depended on the rubber plantation. “My father worked for them,” he said, “and he did what they ordered him to do. Workers are like dogs: They obey. ” But to Ford’s dismay, sometimes they didn’t obey. Managers tried enforcing the alcohol prohibition, but workers simply hopped on boats to a island of innocence nearby with bars and brothels. And in 1930, workers fed up with eating Ford’s diet of oatmeal, canned peaches and brown rice in a sweltering dining hall staged a riot. They smashed time clocks, cut electricity to the plantation and chanted, “Brazil for Brazilians kill all the Americans,” forcing some of the managers to decamp into the jungle. The Amazon offered its own challenges to the Americans. Some couldn’t adapt to the conditions here, suffering nervous breakdowns. One drowned when a storm on the Tapajós River toppled his boat. Another manager left after three of his children died from tropical fevers. Ford might have avoided such tragedies, and the ruinous management of the plantation, if he had sought counsel from specialists in caring for rubber trees or scholars of the Amazon’s capacity to thwart grandiose ventures. But he seemed to abhor learning from the past. “History is bunk,” Ford told The New York Times in 1921. “What difference does it make how many times the ancient Greeks flew their kites?” | 1 |
Hezbollah’s Candidate Becomes Lebanese President After Sunni Compromise Posted on Nov 1, 2016
By Juan Cole / Informed Comment
Lebanon finally has a president, Michel Aoun . In accordance with the country’s national pact, he is a Maronite Christian (a Catholic uniate church), and happens to be a former general. The US and Israel won’t be pleased that he is a strong ally of the Shiite Hizbullah party-militia and a backer of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. (Most Levantine Christians are either neutral or pro-Assad; virtually none support the Syrian rebels, now mainly fundamentalists).
Well, Americans who are eager for their own presidential election to be over with should imagine what it would be like for the contest to go on another 2.5 years before it was resolved. That’s what Lebanese have had to put up with. Of course, it has a parliamentary form of government, so most power is anyway in the hands of the prime minister and the cabinet. But still and all, not being able to elect a president has been a black mark on the parliament. The parliament, which hasn’t been able to supply the Lebanese with water, electricity or garbage collection, and which has twice extended its term of service since 2013, so that it is well past its sell-by date, could hardly take more black marks.
Lebanon has been deeply polarized since 2004, when it was occupied by thousands of Syrian troops who had originally come during the civil war of 1975-1989. Syria liked the then president, and wanted to see his term extended for three years without a new election, which contravened the constitution. Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri angrily resigned over this Syrian pressure, and then, it is likely, the Syrian secret police or a Lebanese client of same, blew Hariri up on 14 February 2005.
Maronite Christians and Sunni Arabs (Hariri was Sunni) then mobilized in vast crowds to demand that Syria withdraw from Lebanon beginning March 14 (which became their name). They were countered by the Shiite Hizbullah, which had demonstrated in favor of Syria on March 8. But in the end Syria couldn’t stay, and withdrew its troops.
In a great irony, one of the demands of March 14 was that Gen. Michel Aoun be allowed to return to Lebanon, which he did. But after a while he left the coalition and allied instead with Hizbullah and Syria.
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Politics in Lebanon is kaleidoscopic.
In the past nearly two and a half years, Hizbullah has been trying to get Aoun elected. But the election of the president is by parliament and it needs a 2/3s majority to prevail. Anti-Hizbullah forces just stayed away from scheduled votes and denied the chamber a quorum. There are 128 members of parliament ordinarily, but one resigned last year and so there are only 127 (since no new parliamentary elections have been held since 2013). On Monday, Aoun fell short of the required 86 votes for a 2/3s majority on the first ballot. After that, the candidate could be elected with a simple majority. The next two votes were voided because they turned up 128 ballots, meaning someone voted twice. On the fourth ballot the box was brought in the center of the parliamentary chamber and a close eye was kept on it, so only 127 votes were cast. Aoun received well over the required majority at that point, with 83 votes. Another 36 protest votes were case blank, and 7 were voided because of unspecified irregularities.
Aoun succeeded because he was not boycotted by the Future Bloc of Saudi-backed Sunni politician Saad Hariri (son of the slain former PM). Hariri had had his own candidate, Sleiman Frangieh, who, however, is just as pro-Syrian as Aoun.
Hariri used to be fabulously wealthy (his father had worked in Saudi Arabia and built the family fortune there), but the rumors are that his wealth is largely gone. He has had trouble paying his employees, from all accounts. Saudi Arabia considers Lebanon to be too pro-Iranian, and cut it off from a $3 bn grant, and Hariri had depended deeply on Saudi backing. He faces opposition in his own party. So some analysts (see the al-Jazeera clip below) think that Hariri has been so weakened that he finally agreed to let Aoun become president.
Aoun’s platform is strengthening the Lebanese army to fight ISIL and al-Qaeda and doing something about the burden of 1.5 million Syrian refugees (Lebanon is only a country of 4 million).
His election is a win for Hizbullah, his long-time ally, but since Hariri joined in backing him, it isn’t really a loss for the Sunni Arabs of Lebanon, who may be making their peace with the likelihood that the al-Assad regime will survive in some form. Lebanon’s Sunnis had strongly supported the Syrian revolution of 2011 and after, and tend to be favorable toward the remnants of the Free Syrian Army. But many of them have to be concerned about the influence among the rebels of an al-Qaeda-linked group, the Levantine Conquest Front, and the continued challenge of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). Both al-Qaeda and Daesh had footholds in Syrian villages along the Lebanese border.
Aoun says his first order of business is to have parliament change the country’s unwieldy electoral law, which distributes seats on a sectarian basis (and on the basis of an outdated set of statistics going back in some cases to the 1930 census).
Lebanon held successful municipal elections last spring. But most Lebanese are not holding their breath that governmental gridlock will end any time soon. And with Depression-style unemployment, the country has other problems than the political ones. TAGS: | 1 |
William Peter Blatty, the author whose book “The Exorcist” was both a milestone in horror fiction and a turning point in his own career, died on Thursday in Bethesda, Md. He was 89. The cause was multiple myeloma, his wife, Julie Blatty, said. “The Exorcist,” the story of a girl possessed by a demon, was published in 1971 and sold more than 13 million copies. The 1973 movie version, starring Linda Blair and directed by William Friedkin, was a runaway hit, breaking records at many theaters and becoming the film to date for Warner Bros. studios. It earned Mr. Blatty, who wrote the screenplay, an Academy Award. (It was also the first horror movie nominated for the Oscar.) “The Exorcist” marked a radical shift in Mr. Blatty’s career, which was already well established in another genre: He was one of Hollywood’s leading comedy writers. Mr. Blatty collaborated with the director Blake Edwards on the screenplays for four films, beginning in 1964 with “A Shot in the Dark,” the second movie (after “The Pink Panther”) starring Peter Sellers as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau and, in some critics’ view, the best. His other Edwards films were the comedy “What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?” (1966) the musical “Darling Lili” (1970) and “Gunn” (1967) based on the television detective series “Peter Gunn. ” He also wrote the scripts for comedies starring Danny Kaye, Warren Beatty and Zero Mostel. In praising his 1963 novel, “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! ,” a Cold War spoof that Mr. Blatty later adapted for the screen, Martin Levin of The New York Times invoked the humorist S. J. Perelman, one of Mr. Blatty’s literary idols Mr. Blatty, he said, “writes like Perelman run amuck. ” The phenomenal success of “The Exorcist” essentially signaled the end of Mr. Blatty’s comedy career, making him for all practical purposes the foremost writer in a new hybrid genre: theological horror. It was a mantle he was never entirely comfortable wearing. When he declined his publisher’s entreaties for a sequel to “The Exorcist” and instead delivered an elegiac memoir about his mother, “I’ll Tell Them I Remember You,” published in 1973, Mr. Blatty felt the first cinch of the straitjacket. “My publisher took it because I wanted to do it,” he was quoted as saying in “Faces of Fear” (1985) a collection of interviews with horror writers by Douglas E. Winter. “But the bookstores were really hostile. ” “The sad truth is that nobody wants me to write comedy,” he said in another interview. “ ‘The Exorcist’ not only ended that career it expunged all memory of its existence. ” Mr. Blatty gave various accounts of what led him to try his hand at horror. He sometimes said the market for his comedy had waned in the late 1960s, and he was ready to move on. At other times, he said that his mother’s sudden death in 1967 had led to a renewed commitment to his Roman Catholic faith, and to a soul searching about life’s ultimate questions, including the presence of evil in the world. In every account, he said the idea for “The Exorcist” was planted in 1949, when he was a student at the Georgetown University in Washington and read an account in The Washington Post of an exorcism under the headline “Priest Frees Mt. Rainier Boy Reported Held in Devil’s Grip. ” The incident, widely discussed at the time among Georgetown students and faculty members, came back to Mr. Blatty 20 years later as the basis for a book about something not getting much press in the fractured, murky landscape of America: the battle between Good and Evil. He began writing what he thought would be a thriller about a girl, a demon and a pair of Catholic priests. About halfway through, he later said, he sensed he had something more. “I knew it was going to be a success,” he told People magazine. “I couldn’t wait to finish it and become famous. ” William Peter Blatty was born on Jan. 7, 1928, in Manhattan to Peter and Mary Blatty, immigrants from Lebanon. His father left home when he was 6, and his mother supported the two of them by selling quince jelly on the streets, yielding a wobbly income that precipitated 28 changes of address during a childhood he once described as “comfortably destitute. ” The church figured prominently in his life. His mother was a churchgoing Catholic, and he was educated at prominent schools that admitted him on full scholarships: the Brooklyn Preparatory School, now closed, where he was the 1946 class valedictorian, and Georgetown, from which he graduated in 1950. After serving in the Air Force, Mr. Blatty worked for the United States Information Agency in Beirut. He returned to the United States for a public relations job in Los Angeles, where he hoped to begin his career as a writer. He had already published his first book — a memoir, “Which Way to Mecca, Jack?” — but was still working in public relations in 1961 when he appeared as a contestant on “You Bet Your Life,” the television quiz show hosted by Groucho Marx. He and a fellow contestant won $10, 000. His winnings freed him to quit his day job and become a writer. He never had a regular job again. Mr. Blatty lived in Bethesda. In addition to his wife, the former Julie Witbrodt, whom he married in 1983, he is survived by their son, Paul William Blatty three daughters, Christine Charles, Mary Joanne Blatty and Jennifer Blatty and two sons, Michael and William Peter Jr. from earlier marriages seven grandchildren and six . Another son, Peter Vincent Blatty, died in 2006 his death was the subject of Mr. Blatty’s 2015 book, “Finding Peter. ” His work after “The Exorcist” included several more theologically themed works of horror, including “The Ninth Configuration” in 1978 (a reworking of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane,” from 1966) — and “Legion” in 1983. Both books were made into movies, directed as well as written by Mr. Blatty the film version of “Legion” was released in 1990 as “The Exorcist III. ” Mr. Blatty became reconciled over the years to the overwhelming dominance “The Exorcist” — most recently adapted into a 2016 TV — would have on his reputation as a writer. (He also maintained a sense of humor about it, as reflected in the name of a comic novel about Hollywood he published in 1996: “Demons Five, Exorcists Nothing. ”) He knew, he told several interviewers, that it would be what people remembered him for. But one thing bothered him. Many moviegoers, including the president of Warner Bros. had interpreted the movie’s climax — in which the younger of the two priests (played by Jason Miller) goads the demon into leaving the girl to take up residence inside him instead, then jumps to his death — as a win for the demon. That was not how Mr. Blatty meant it. For years he pleaded his case to Mr. Friedkin, a longtime friend. In 2000, Mr. Friedkin relented, issuing a director’s cut of the film that made the triumph of Good over Evil more explicit. With the same purpose in mind, Mr. Blatty rewrote parts of the original book, even adding a chapter, for a edition of “The Exorcist” published in 2011. It was essential to him, he told The of New Orleans in 2000, that people understand the point of “The Exorcist”: “That God exists and the universe itself will have a happy ending. ” | 1 |
Email Ever wonder what’s on the mind of today’s most notable people? Well, don’t miss our unbelievable roundup of the best and most talked about quotes of the day: “ A lot of people don’t know this, but the bed isn’t the reason chocolate melts when you’re in bed. It’s actually your hands holding the chocolate, squeezing it close to your chest while you read under the covers. Some part of the equation had to give. Eventually I decided that I get the floor, the chocolate gets the bed, and I get my chocolate. The perfect calculation. ” —Neil deGrasse Tyson “ Life is so fragile. All it takes is one stray javelin, and it’s over. ” —Miranda Lambert On the need for javelin reform “ Checkers is a lot more fun if you pour a little water into each checker and get to sip it out as a little reward whenever you capture one. ” —Hoda Kotb | 0 |
As a police officer in a small Oregon town in 2004, Sean Sullivan was caught kissing a girl on the mouth. Mr. Sullivan’s sentence barred him from taking another job as a police officer. But three months later, in August 2005, Mr. Sullivan was hired, after a cursory check, not just as a police officer on another force but as the police chief. As the head of the department in Cedar Vale, Kan. according to court records and law enforcement officials, he was again investigated for a suspected sexual relationship with a girl and eventually convicted on charges that included burglary and criminal conspiracy. “It was very irritating because he should never have been a police officer,” said Larry Markle, the prosecutor for Montgomery and Chautauqua counties in Kansas. Mr. Sullivan, 44, is now in prison in Washington State on other charges, including identity theft and possession of methamphetamine. It is unclear how such problems may be, but some experts say thousands of law enforcement officers may have drifted from police department to police department even after having been fired, forced to resign or convicted of a crime. Yet there is no comprehensive, national system for weeding out problem officers. If there were, such hires would not happen, criminologists and law enforcement officials say. Officers, sometimes hired with only the most perfunctory of background examinations — as Kansas officials said was the case with Mr. Sullivan — and frequently without even having their fingerprints checked, often end up in new trouble, according to a review of court documents, personnel records and interviews with former colleagues and other law enforcement officials. As fatal police shootings of unarmed men and sometimes violent protests have roiled the nation, the question of how best to remove the worst police officers has been at the core of reform attempts. But a lack of coordination among law enforcement agencies, opposition from police executives and unions, and an absence of federal guidance have meant that in many cases police departments do not know the background of prospective officers if they fail to disclose a troubled work history. Among the officers, sometimes called “gypsy cops,” who have found jobs even after exhibiting signs that they might be ill suited for police work is Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland officer who fatally shot Tamir Rice in 2014. Before he was hired in Cleveland, Officer Loehmann had resigned from a suburban police force not long after a supervisor recommended that he be fired for, among other things, an inability to follow instructions. But Cleveland officials never checked his personnel file. Officer Loehmann, who was not indicted, remains on the Cleveland force. He is on desk duty pending the result of an administrative review, Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia, a police spokeswoman, said. While serving as a St. Louis officer, Eddie Boyd III a girl in the face in 2006, and in 2007 struck a child in the face with his gun or handcuffs before falsifying a police report, according to Missouri Department of Public Safety records. Though Officer Boyd subsequently resigned, he was soon hired by the police department in nearby St. Ann, Mo. before he found a job with the troubled force in Ferguson, Mo. where Michael Brown, an unarmed was fatally shot by a white officer in 2014. Officer Boyd is being sued by a woman in Ferguson who said he arrested her after she asked for his name at the scene of a traffic accident. He declined an interview request. The Ferguson police declined to comment about him, but said in a statement that their applicants “undergo extensive investigation before final hiring decisions are made, which includes, but is not limited to, a psychological examination, investigation of an applicant’s prior work history, consultation with applicant’s previous employers and a criminal background check. ” Across the state, the Kansas City police fired Kevin Schnell in 2008 for failing to get medical aid for a pregnant woman after arresting her during a traffic stop. The baby was delivered, but died a few hours later. Officer Schnell has since been hired by two other Missouri police departments, including his current employer in Independence. Officer Schnell and the Independence police declined to comment. Criminologists and police officials said smaller departments and those that lack sufficient funding or are understaffed are most likely to hire applicants with problematic pasts if they have completed training, which allows departments to avoid the cost of sending them to the police academy. Such officers can start work almost immediately, usually at a modest salary. But police officials say most departments perform reasonably well in discovering when officers have histories of misconduct. In addition to checking applicants’ work and criminal histories, and having a psychologist interview them, departments like those in Seattle and Austin, Tex. check credit histories. The Houston and Phoenix police departments are among those that administer polygraph tests. Roger Goldman, an emeritus law professor at St. Louis University and an authority on police licensing laws, said that using the National Practitioner Data Bank for physicians as a model, the government must establish a database of officers who have criminal convictions, have been fired or forced to resign, have had their law enforcement licenses revoked, or have been named in a judgment or settlement involving misconduct. “After Ferguson and the other stuff that’s happened, if we can’t get this done now, when are we going to get it done?” he said. Last year, in a report by President Obama’s task force on policing, law enforcement officials and others recommended that the Justice Department establish a database in partnership with the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training, which manages a database of officers who have been stripped of their police powers. There are some 21, 000 names on the list, but Mike Becar, the group’s executive director, said his organization lacked the resources to do a thorough job. “It’s all we can do to keep the database up,” he said. The Justice Department, which gave the association about $200, 000 to start the database in 2009, no longer funds it. The department declined to explain why it had dropped its support, but a spokesman said the goal was “ensuring that our nation’s law enforcement agencies have the necessary resources to identify the best qualified candidates to protect and serve communities. ” Law enforcement groups advocating reforms say an effective database would go a long way toward ensuring that unfit officers are not given multiple chances. “Every chief wants as much information as possible about potential hires before making a hiring decision, and hiring one wrong person can undo a lot of an agency’s prior good work,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a policy group. He said that while his group was investigating hiring practices in St. Louis County, Mo. after Mr. Brown’s death, it found that officers facing severe discipline and possible termination in many agencies were routinely allowed to resign to avoid a record of having been fired. “They could then join another area department,” Mr. Wexler said. Mr. Sullivan, who became the police chief in Cedar Vale, Kan. after being convicted on a harassment charge for kissing a girl, had been the officer in Coquille, Ore. before he was forced to resign in November 2004. While prosecutors suggested that he had been “grooming” the girl for a sexual relationship, he avoided a jail sentence. But in August 2005, not long after an Oregon judge barred Mr. Sullivan from working as a police officer, the Cedar Vale Police Department hired him. Mr. Sullivan had not told anyone about his past, local officials said. City officials involved in his hiring no longer work for Cedar Vale. Prosecutors in Kansas investigated a relationship between Mr. Sullivan and a or girl, but the girl refused to cooperate and the investigation was dropped, Mr. Markle, the Kansas prosecutor, said. Mr. Sullivan did not respond to a letter seeking comment. Eventually, officials checked the police decertification database and found Mr. Sullivan’s Oregon conviction and the order barring him from police work. Wayne Cline, Cedar Vale’s current police chief, never met Mr. Sullivan, but said he is still talked about around town. “Everybody was surprised and would say, ‘He was such a nice guy,’ and I would think, ‘Yeah, he’s a con man. They’re like that. ’” | 1 |
Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Time magazine Washington bureau chief Michael Scherer revealed the responses of an interview he conducted with President Donald Trump a day earlier. In that interview, when questioned by Scherer about his tweet claiming to have been wiretapped by the previous administration and his lack of faith in the intelligence community, Trump wrapped up his response by pointing out he is president of the United States, and therefore can not being “so badly. ” Exchange as follows: TRUMP: Hey look, in the mean time, I guess, I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president, and you’re not. You know. Say hello to everybody OK? SCHERER: Thank you very much, Mr. President. ( Mediaite) Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 0 |
Yes, “The Weight of These Wings” is Miranda Lambert’s first album since divorcing her fellow country star Blake Shelton last year. And yes, it is filled with songs about romantic skepticism and ones about how the first steps you take after an old love breaks are tentative and fragile. And yes, it is a double album, the sort of gesture intended to connote seriousness of artistic and spiritual purpose, as well as suggesting that the font of feelings serving as inspiration is a roaring waterfall that cannot easily be contained. And yet it turns out that “Wings” isn’t so much about Ms. Lambert’s relationship to Mr. Shelton as it is about hers to the Nashville mainstream, which she has shunned, coveted, flirted with and rejected at various points in the last decade. “Wings” is her sixth album, and dating to before her 2005 debut, “Kerosene,” she’s been engaged in an elaborate dance with country music tradition and the current state of the genre. On the competition “Nashville Star,” she was a striver then, on her first two major label albums, she was a dissenter, upending norms with verve and backbone. In the years since, she’s been, by turns, a traditionalist, a seemingly happy member of the Nashville establishment — especially in the years she and Mr. Shelton were winning female and male vocalist of the year at the Country Music Association Awards — and, at her most thrilling, a boundary pusher being yanked (or, more accurately, yanking) in all sorts of wild directions. You could rarely accuse her of complacency, but maybe that’s the most perverse strategy on this album, which no one would have blinked at if it were an earthquake, but which is perhaps more cunning as a tremor. For the most part, these songs — vocals and all — were recorded live to tape, leaving a texture of rustle and warm air. (There are overdubs and rerecorded vocals here, but they do not dominate.) Ms. Lambert wants to communicate that, through all of her personal struggles, she is working, right down to the flubbed then rerecorded intro to the crunchy, almost rowdy “Bad Boy,” one of this album’s better songs, written with the underheralded Mando Saenz. This approach is clearest — which is to say, the sound is the cloudiest — on this double album’s first, and better, half. “The Nerve” is unhurried, verging on indifferent, a perhaps inadvertent nod to when country first went in the 1990s. “Pushin’ Time” is strikingly intimate, as if recorded from the middle of the round. And “Highway Vagabond” is downright shaggy, even though its lyrics about hippie drifters are better suited to Jake Owen. Produced by Frank Liddell, Glenn Worf and Eric Masse, this “Wings” is modestly scaled — something Ms. Lambert never has been, and isn’t always well suited to. Partly that’s because her piercing voice breaks in just the right places when her mood grows downcast, and explodes into colorful curlicues when she’s enthused, or peeved. That rarely happens here, though there is a vicious “To Learn Her” (written with Ashley Monroe and Waylon Payne) which singes with Gary acid. And Ms. Lambert takes a quick, zany turn on the album’s first half with the songs “We Should Be Friends” and “Pink Sunglasses,” lightly comic feminism for the parts of the country where the local is a Walmart: “If you’re lookin’ for love but willin’ to men and mamas and Miller then, we should be friends. ” Mostly, though, fragility reigns. “Tin Man” is a weepy warning: “Better thank your lucky you ever felt one breakin’ ’d never want a heart. ” And “ ” is a plea, to a new lover, or to a listener expecting fireworks and instead getting a small campfire: “Like a caged bird barely set me, I’m finding my wings. ” When this album whispers, as it does on large swaths of the second half, it neuters Ms. Lambert’s gifts. Even with a voice as signature as hers, there’s little to elevate songs like “Good Ol’ Days” or “Dear Old Sun. ” Most jarringly, this album doesn’t serve as a retort to its surroundings, and retort is what Ms. Lambert does best, especially because, in her hands, it can take on myriad thrilling shapes. But doing so draws attention, and what’s clear from this album is that Ms. Lambert is in retreat. Maybe the loudest person in the room could do with a little quiet. | 1 |
The victims of a bombing in northern Syria this week were exposed to sarin, a banned but easily manufactured poison that has been widely used in chemical weapons, Turkish officials who conducted autopsies on the victims said on Thursday. Sarin is a nerve agent, one of a class of chemical weapons that affect the brain’s ability to communicate with the body’s organs through the nervous system. It is a colorless, tasteless, odorless liquid that was first synthesized in Germany in 1938 as a potential pesticide. Sarin is considered “the most volatile of the nerve agents,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “This means it can easily and quickly evaporate from a liquid into a vapor and spread into the environment. ” Sarin vapor does not last long, but it can be deadly if inhaled. Contact with sarin liquid on exposed surfaces, in food, or in water can also be fatal. Its effects may strike quickly or be delayed after exposure. All nerve agents belong to a class of organic compounds that contain phosphorus, and work in essentially the same way, by inhibiting the action of a crucial enzyme in the body that allows muscles and organs to contract. Without the enzyme’s action, the muscles and organs are constantly stimulated and stop working properly asphyxiation soon follows. Sarin is dangerous to handle and has a short shelf life, so it is usually stored in the form of two separate precursor compounds that will produce sarin when mixed together. On the battlefield, sarin and other nerve agents can be used against targets by spraying them as a liquid or an aerosol. Chemical bombs are designed to spray out the liquid on detonation. The Syrian government is believed to have used such a bomb this week in Idlib Province. The United Nations Chemical Convention, which bans the use of sarin in war, went into effect in 1997. The Syrian government agreed in 2013 to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile, including sarin. According to the United States military, sarin is 81 times as toxic as cyanide and 543 times as toxic as chlorine, which has been used in Syria as a chemical weapon. Chlorine has legitimate commercial uses and is not banned. Symptoms of exposure may include the pupils of the eyes shrinking to pinpoints, rapid breathing, vomiting, convulsions, paralysis and respiratory failure. Swift medical attention can reverse the effects of low levels of exposure. | 0 |
Knew Kelly's position long ago | 0 |
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With just days to go before the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as president, once ebullient markets have eased a bit as investors have begun to ponder more seriously the risks of a Trump administration. After a in the weeks after Mr. Trump’s election victory, stock markets in the United States have been little changed in the last month — with investors on several occasions stepping back, as opposed to elevating the Dow Jones industrial average past a 20, 000 milestone. The concerns include a dollar that has gained too much in value, worries about trade wars with China and Mexico and, most broadly, a fear that Mr. Trump will not be able to deliver on his promises to cut taxes, increase government spending and reduce regulation. The market declines in recent weeks have been very modest, and investors, for now, seem to be prepared to give Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt on his plans for the economy. Nevertheless, in the wake of his unpredictable Twitter posts, last week’s news conference and Mr. Trump’s tough talk about China, a mood of caution has tempered earlier bouts of euphoria. Mr. Trump’s comments over the weekend about the dollar being too strong, about the possibility that more countries will follow Britain out of the European Union and his intention to tax German carmakers for not building factories in the United States all heightened these concerns. “People are concerned about an appreciating dollar, how much higher rates will go and antagonizing China,” Laurence D. Fink, the chief executive of the asset management giant BlackRock, said in an interview last week. “There has been too much conversation about the glories of the U. S. stock market. ” On Tuesday, the dollar’s main index, which is measured against the world’s top currencies, dropped by more than 1 percent. Even currencies like the Turkish lira and the Mexican peso — among the world’s weakest performers in the last month — gained ground against the dollar. Economists have warned that an overly strong dollar can hurt the United States economy in several ways. America’s trade deficit would widen as exports stagnate and cheaper goods from Mexico and China flood the market. A long period of a strong dollar also increases the chances of an emerging market crisis, when crucial investment funds flee currencies that are plummeting against the dollar. The price of gold, a traditionally safe investment, was up by nearly 1. 5 percent on the day. The price of the Treasury note rose, driving its yield — an important benchmark for interest rates — down to 2. 33 percent from the previous close, 2. 4 percent, a sign that investors are searching for safety instead of returns by loading up on government bonds. And stocks in the United States continued to search for direction in the absence of tangible developments on Mr. Trump’s plans for the economy. The Standard Poor’s index closed at 2, 267. 89 on Tuesday, down 0. 3 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average ended down by the same percentage, at 19, 826. 77. The Nasdaq composite index fell 0. 63 percent to 5, 538. 73. Mr. Fink’s view, which is shared by many investors with a global outlook, is that while the has made bold promises about the need to energize what has been a tepid recovery for the nation’s economy, such transformations do not occur quickly. “These things take months and years to do,” Mr. Fink said. While stock market specialists are in broad agreement that the Trump rally has more room to run, some are beginning to question whether the marked increase in stocks has gone as far as it can without tangible policy results in the form of lower taxes and government spending initiatives. “I wonder if the euphoria has exceeded the fundamentals,” said David Lafferty, chief market strategist for Natixis Global Asset Management. “The stock market is pricing in a scenario. ” Like many, he worries that such a bout of fiscal expansionism so late in the economic cycle will lead to a sharp increase in prices and a sudden move by the Federal Reserve to play by raising interest rates faster than the market expects. Economists and investment strategists are also warning of possible global shocks that could unnerve the markets in the next year. While some of these upsets may be driven by the growth of populist political movements, across Europe in particular, this higher volatility would kick in as central banks cease intervening so aggressively in markets. Jens Nordvig, a currency specialist at Exante Data, highlighted three such concerns in a recent letter to clients. He cautioned that it had been 15 years since the last emerging market crisis and pointed to Turkey’s plunging currency and capital outflows in China as two areas of concern. He also listed a potential breakup of the European Union and any move by Mr. Trump to impose tariffs or other penalties on imports as events that could destabilize markets. “It is a complex world, with messy answers to questions that seemed simple fairly recently,” Mr. Nordvig wrote in his note. “And in this world, significant macro shocks will be more prevalent. ” | 1 |
WARSAW — President Obama on Friday deplored the shooting deaths of five police officers in Dallas, saying there was “no possible justification” for such a “vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement. ” “We are horrified over these events,” he said, “and we stand united with the people and the Police Department in Dallas. ” Mr. Obama said that he had spoken to Mayor Mike Rawlings of Dallas, and that the F. B. I. was in contact with the Dallas authorities. The president said nearly a dozen police officers had been shot, several were wounded, and five had died. The president cautioned that a lot about the attack was still not known. “But let’s be clear,” he said, “there’s no possible justification for these kinds of attacks, or any violence against law enforcement. ” Mr. Obama’s remarks, delivered in Warsaw after a meeting with European leaders, were the second time in less than 12 hours that he had interrupted his trip to the NATO summit meeting to address a surge of violence on American streets. Earlier on Friday, he spoke about shootings by police officers in Minnesota and Louisiana, which he said were “symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system. ” Mr. Obama emphasized that his critique, however impassioned, should not be interpreted as an attack on law enforcement itself. Now, Mr. Obama finds himself condemning those who targeted police officers in Dallas during a protest against those shootings. “Today is a wrenching reminder of the sacrifices they make for us,” he said. “Anyone involved in the senseless murders will be held fully accountable,” Mr. Obama said. “Justice will be done. ” The sudden escalation of violence in the United States left the president clearly shaken, and it raised questions about whether he would curtail his trip. After the summit meeting in Warsaw, Mr. Obama is scheduled to fly to Spain for a day of sightseeing in Seville, a visit with American troops at a naval base and lunch with King Felipe VI. White House officials had no announcements on the president’s itinerary, but officials said the situation was in flux. Even before the news from the United States, the NATO meeting was opening amid an atmosphere of disarray. European leaders are grappling with the continuing fallout from Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and with how to confront renewed Russian aggression on the border with Ukraine. It is not the first time that outside events have disrupted a foreign trip by Mr. Obama. In March, during a historic trip to Cuba, he awoke to news of deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels. In the fall, he set off on a trip shortly after the terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people. In both cases, he stuck to his schedule. Mr. Obama has had to walk a fine line in reacting to the deadly skein of shootings, balancing his call for rooting out racial injustice with compassion for the sacrifices made by police officers. Earlier on Friday, he spoke of receiving letters from law enforcement officials after a shooting by a police officer, in which they ask, “How come we’re under attack? How come not as much emphasis is made when police officers are shot?” But he said that did not change the fact that there are biases in the criminal justice system that need to be rooted out. And he said that people should not condemn the protests, vigils and other public responses to shootings as a form of political correctness. “When people say black lives matter, that doesn’t mean blue lives don’t matter,” Mr. Obama said. “It just means all lives matter. ” Still, he added, “The data shows black folks are more vulnerable to these kinds of incidents. ” Mr. Obama recited statistics on police stops and searches, as well as sentences and incarceration rates, which showed that blacks and Hispanics were treated differently from whites. “We can do better,” he said. “People of good will can do better. ” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Defying pleas by many of its students and faculty to reconsider, George Mason University moved on Tuesday to finalize the renaming of its law school in honor of Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice who died recently. It did so after the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia declined to block the name change, ending for now a debate that has divided George Mason’s suburban Washington campus since the university announced in March the decision to rename the school and the large gift from conservative donors prompting it. Though it was expected, the decision came as a disappointment to the students and faculty, as well as a dozen or so Democrats in the Virginia legislature, who opposed the name change out of concern that it would tie the university to a conservative justice whose views, they thought, ran counter to its educational mission. George Mason administrators ultimately found that argument unpersuasive. And on Tuesday, in a bureaucratic twist, the council’s members unanimously decided that in fact they did not have the authority to override the university’s board of visitors, which had already accepted the donations and the terms that came with them. David K. Rehr, the law school’s senior associate dean, lauded the outcome and said that though the school was better for having had the debate over the name change, it was time to move on. The combined $30 million gift — given by the Charles Koch Foundation and an anonymous donor — will fund new scholarships, a dozen new faculty positions, and two new centers in line with the school’s flagship Law and Economics Center, which emphasizes the economic effect of the law, beginning next fall. The renaming is intended to take effect July 1. “We think that looking back five, 10, 15 years from now, people will see it as an important turning point for the law school and for the students here,” Mr. Rehr said. Opponents of the renaming agree, though they argue that the changes will not be for the better, signaling to potential students of diverse backgrounds that George Mason is not welcoming to them. It is less clear what effect Tuesday’s decision will have on the increased scrutiny the gifts have prompted among faculty members over the influence conservative donors — chiefly Mr. Koch, the billionaire industrialist who has given tens of millions of dollars to pet projects there — have on Virginia’s largest public university. “This issue really brought to the surface a whole set of issues that have been alive on our campus for a long time that we have not really been responding to,” said Craig Willse, a cultural studies professor who helped lead the opposition to the change. “Specifically, the issue of Koch money has really been put on the table in a way that it hasn’t been before. ” In a series of letters to the university faculty in recent weeks, Ángel Cabrera, George Mason’s president, pledged to address concerns and reiterated that he would never cede academic independence to a private donor. A faculty senate task force studying the influence of private donors is expected to release a report in the fall. As for the name change, those who had tried to block it said they were resigned on Tuesday, if dissatisfied with the state’s inability to regulate such changes. “I think short of getting the board of visitors to change their minds, which they have demonstrated they don’t want to do, I think this is it,” said Marcus Simon, a Democratic state delegate who had led a petition drive against the change. “The name’s the name for the foreseeable future. ” | 0 |
Dr. Eowyn | 8 Comments
Friday is usually the day when controversial and incendiary news is dumped because the people doing the dumping are counting on Americans not paying due attention, preoccupied as they are with their plans for the weekend.
Yesterday, October 28, 2016, 11 days before Election Day , came news that FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to congressional leaders and relevant committee chairmen that in the course of investigating “an unrelated case,” the FBI found new emails that “appear to be pertinent” to the FBI’s case on then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unsecured private email server. As a result, the FBI is reopening its investigation of Hillary.
The FBI began their investigation of Hillary in July, 2015. A year later, Comey announced that the FBI was not recommending charges against Hillary, saying “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring such a case. But he did chastise the former secretary of state for being “extremely careless” in her handling of sensitive information. For her part, Hillary continues to insist lie that her decision to use a private email server was merely a “mistake,” that the emails contained no classified information, and that she violated no laws.
Addressed to the respective Chairpersons of Congressional Committees on Intelligence, Judiciary, Appropriations, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Oversight and Government Reform, below is Comey’s brief letter of October 28, 2016 :
U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation Washington, D. C. 20535
October 28, 2016
Dear Messrs Chairmen:
In previous congressional testimony, l referred to the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had completed its investigation of former Secretary Clinton’s personal email server. Due to recent developments, I am writing to supplement my previous testimony.
In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.
Although the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant , and I cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work , I believe it is important to update your Committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony.
Sincerely yours, James B. Comey Director
The “unrelated case” is the FBI’s investigation of illicit text messages (sextexts) sent to a 15-year-old female minor in North Carolina by Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former Congressman (D-NY) and estranged husband of Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton. Note: Even after losing his Congressional seat after news broke of his sextexts and sending a picture of his erection to a woman, Weiner has continued with his sextexts. The most recent scandal was his sending , to a busty 40-something divorcee in California, a picture of himself with an erection, in bed next to his infant child ( New York Post ).
As part of the probe, the FBI seized devices from Weiner, including a laptop computer shared by Weiner and Abedin. The laptop’s hard drive reportedly contained thousands of Abedin’s emails to Hillary and other State Department officials.
Experts believe that since Comey’s letter was sent just 11 days before the 2016 presidential election, the FBI must have found something significant despite Comey’s assertion otherwise.
Victoria Toensing, a former deputy assistant attorney general of the U.S. and a former assistant U.S. attorney, suspects agents came directly to Comey with evidence he could not ignore. Toensing said: “Well, it couldn’t be a trifling thing, because this is a big deal. You can see the brouhaha this is causing, so it couldn’t just be a little incident over email. It has to be pretty significant.”
Toensing and her husband, former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova, have publicly discussed the number of career FBI and Justice Department employees who are disgusted that Hillary was not prosecuted for her “careless” handling of classified information and that Comey refused even to recommend charges. She believes Comey may have acted Friday with that internal criticism in mind: “I think he’s felt the heat. If nobody had criticized him at all he might have made this go under the rug. He knows he’s in a glass house.”
Predictably, the news that it was Anthony Weiner’s sexual indiscretions that led the FBI to re-open its investigation of Hillary mere days before the presidential election, resulted in a flurry of jokes, puns and innuendos, such as “Cocktober Surprise”. But the best line is from ZeroHedge reader Omega_Man:
BREAKING: DNC-Clinton campaign, along with Donna Brazile, have stated that the young girl Weiner was flirting with was actually Vladimir Putin in disguise.
How ironic that the political ambitions of Hillary — the woman who means to be America’s first female president — may be scuttled by two dicks. Already neck-deep in the ever-increasing number of women who accuse Bill Clinton of sexual harassment, rape, and fathering a child out of wedlock, Hillary now finds herself re-enmeshed in FBI investigation as a result of Anthony Weiner’s sexual exploits.
It’s self-proclaimed feminist Hillary’s karmic payback for not just turning a blind eye to her husband’s decades of abusing women, but scapegoating and blaming his victims as sluts and floozies. | 1 |
Tuesday, 15 November 2016 The great wall is going to be even greater now
President-elect Donald Trump announced today that not only is he still going to build the wall and make Mexico pay for it, but he is going to make the wall out of actual Mexicans.
"We're going to round up all the illegal immigrants and mash them together into a lumpy brown paste," said The Donald from his Ivory Trump Tower. "Then we'll lay them out on a huge rug across our Southern border and roll them up like a giant bigly burrito and let it bake in the sun until it hardens into a great wall of pain and suffering."
When asked what he would do to prevent animals such as donkeys from eating the Burrito Wall, Trump said he would dig a huge moat around the base and fill it with tequila.
"It'll be the best tequila money can buy. Mexico's money, because I'm going to make them pay for that, too. So any donkeys that try to swim across and eat the wall, or any Mexicans, because let's face it some of them are probably cannibals as well as rapists, will be too drunk to climb by the time they reach it. It'll also stop any Muslims from trying to swim across because as everyone knows they're not man enough to drink, let alone drink and drown."
Trump brushed off concerns about a potential health hazard should the Tequila Moat become choked with rotting bodies."We'll just fill it with piranha fish," he said. "They'll be nothing left of the bodies except tiny scraps of flesh like those little yellow wormy things you find at the bottom of tequila bottles."
When asked if the piranhas would become too intoxicated to eat, or if they could even survive in alcohol, The Orange Overlord laughed in contempt.
"Haven't you people ever heard the expression drinks like a fish?" Make James Cavahl's day - give this story five thumbs-up (there's no need to register , the thumbs are just down there!) | 0 |
Reality TV star Chris Soules, who formerly served as a contestant on ABC’s dating show The Bachelor, was reportedly arrested in Iowa on Monday after allegedly fleeing the scene of a fatal accident. [Soules, who starred in the show’s 19th season, is currently in custody in Iowa’s Buchanan County Jail, after reportedly driving into a tractor trailer on Monday evening, according to TMZ. The crash sent the tractor into a ditch the driver was taken to a hospital and later died. Soules was reportedly apprehended by authorities after witnesses to the crash identified him and contacted the police. Soules, 35, was also taken to a hospital for medical attention but did not sustain serious injuries. TMZ claims to have obtained documents in which police confirm the reality star was in possession of alcoholic beverage containers at the time of the crash. Soules was reportedly placed in custody at the Buchanan County Jail and was set to be arraigned Tuesday morning. He is reportedly being held on a $10, 000 bond. You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 0 |
HOUSTON — The Supreme Court’s ruling Monday tossing out two of the main elements of Texas’ 2013 law regulating abortion, one of the most stringent in the country, has transformed the environment for abortion in the state. Ten abortion clinics that had been in danger of being forced to close — about half those still in existence — will be allowed to continue operating. The reopening of clinics that already shut their doors became a possibility. And some original opponents of the law — including Wendy Davis, the former state senator whose filibuster of the bill brought national attention to the restrictions and set the stage for her unsuccessful bid for governor — spoke of feeling vindicated and rejuvenated. “My immediate reaction literally was to burst into tears,” Ms. Davis said on Monday, two days after the third anniversary of the filibuster. “There was so much riding on this. ” Now, after years of the clinics being under siege, there are two main questions about abortion options in the state: Will shuttered clinics reopen, particularly outside the biggest urban areas? And how will Republicans in the Legislature respond to a stinging judicial reversal after a period in which access to abortion has been dramatically reduced? Had the Supreme Court sided with Texas and the 10 clinics closed, the country’s state by population and by size would have been left with nine abortion facilities. A decision upholding the law would have allowed the measure to be fully put into effect for the first time since the Legislature passed it in July 2013, and would have shut four clinics in Houston, two in El Paso and one each in Austin, Fort Worth and San Antonio, as well as one in McAllen temporarily. Republican leaders quickly condemned the ruling. The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, whose lawyers defended the state in the case, said in a statement on Monday that the law was “an effort to improve minimum safety standards and ensure capable care for Texas women. ” He said the ruling took “the ability to protect women’s health out of the hands of Texas citizens and their duly elected representatives. ” Two of the law’s four provisions were ruled unconstitutional. One required clinic doctors performing abortions to obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, and the other mandated that all clinics, even those that provided nonsurgical medication abortions, meet the same standards as surgical centers. Three provisions, including the requirement, had been in place statewide with only a few exceptions. The rules had never been enforced, because of litigation. Much remained unclear after the ruling, including how many abortion clinics that had closed would reopen and when. Abortion rights advocates said that shuttered clinics would not open again immediately and that it might take years for new clinics to establish themselves. In May 2013, two months before Gov. Rick Perry signed the bill into law, Texas had 41 facilities providing abortions. In November 2013, after the requirement was put in place, there were 22. “We’ve had to let leases go or sell buildings that had mortgages,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, the president and chief executive of Whole Woman’s Health, which operates abortion clinics in Texas and was the lead plaintiff. “You’ve got to find physicians and rehire staff and go through relicensing processes, and get equipment and instruments and medicine. It’s not something that is going to happen overnight. ” Nan Little Kirkpatrick, the executive director of the Texas Equal Access Fund, which provides financial assistance to women seeking abortions in the northern half of the state, predicted that some clinics would reopen, especially in the Panhandle region, which has none. “One reason we saw providers close was because they couldn’t get staff to stay on, with their jobs completely up in the air,” she said. “Now that we have some assurance from the Supreme Court, I think it will be easier for providers to attract and keep staff. ” Supporters of the law said it was too early to say what their next steps would be, but they appeared to show no signs of signaling defeat. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican who serves as the president of the Texas Senate, vowed to have senators “revisit” the issue. “We’re going to go through this line by line and see what it is that we can address in a way that a Supreme Court would approve,” Mr. Patrick said. “I’m clearly but if someone’s going to have an abortion, I want them to have it in the safest possible environment. ” Texas had been experiencing what critics of the law called an “abortion access crisis,” with 19 clinics in a state with 5. 4 million women of reproductive age. If that number had fallen to nine, abortion rights advocates said, the remaining clinics could not have met demand. Waits for appointments would have increased, they said, and more women would have attempted to abortions using drugs. There had been much confusion and uncertainty among women seeking abortions in Texas. Reproductive Services, one of two abortion clinics in El Paso, closed in June 2014, but reopened at a new location last fall after the Supreme Court temporarily blocked full enforcement of the law. “Some of the other clinics may be able to reopen, but it’s very difficult,” said Gerri Laster, the clinic’s executive administrator. “We went down that road, and it took us almost six months to get our license back. And that was after having a license for 25 years with no deficiencies, meeting all the state requirements. ” Ms. Laster said her clinic sold all its equipment when it closed, expecting it would be impossible to reopen. It spent $50, 000 to $100, 000 to get back in business, she added. The clinic used to see about 40 patients a week but now sees 20, largely because many women are unaware it reopened, she said. Had Reproductive Services and the other El Paso clinic closed, women there would have had to go to New Mexico or drive more than 500 miles to the nearest clinic in Texas. “It’s like a rock has been released from our stomachs,” Ms. Laster said. | 1 |
Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” host Sean Hannity used his opening monologue to address what he called “a campaign” against him and his show that included targeting his advertisers. Hannity was criticized over the past few weeks for his willingness to discuss former DNC staffer Seth Rich’s murder, an individual who some have claimed was the source of emails leaked to Wikileaks last year. Transcript as follows: I have to start tonight on a personal note about something that happened last week. Now, I was asked by the family of the DNC staffer that was killed in July to pull back covering the story of the death because their son and their family was hurting. Now, their family out of consideration, seeing the pain that they were going through, they told me a number of times what was happening with them, and I was honestly glad to accommodate them because as a father, I know that I would probably never recover if I lost one of my kids. I honestly don’t think it’s possible. I cannot imagine the pain this family has gone through. Now, out of respect for the family’s wishes, well, I decided for the time being not to discuss it unless there were further developments. But I also promised you, my audience, my loyal audience, that I will not stop investigating. I will not stop asking questions. And at a very high level, the bottom line here is the family wants the truth and I think the country deserves the truth because this impacts so much of what the narrative in this country is now about, which is the left and their conspiracy theory. Now, I can report I am making progress. We will have a lot more coming, probably sooner than later. And I want to address this because, well, I have now been labeled by liberals, members of the destroy Trump media, a conspiracy theorist. Why? Let me explain. Now, as we have been telling you on this program for months, Democrats and the media continue to push the Russia collusion Trump narrative without a shred of evidence. Nothing! Now, if evidence — pay close attention. If it ever does become available, we will report it on this program. However, just this past weekend, former Obama director of national intelligence James Clapper said he never saw a smoking gun or smoking gun evidence that collusion with the Trump campaign and Russia ever existed. Listen in here with his own words. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: I have to say that without specific — specifically affirming or confirming these conversations since even though they’re in the public realm, they’re still classified — but just from a theoretical standpoint, I will tell you that my dashboard warning light was clearly on, and I think that was the case with all of us in the intelligence community. I have to say, you know, at the time I left, I did not see any smoking gun certitude evidence of collusion. But it certainly was appropriate for — given all the signs, certainly appropriate for the FBI to — and necessary for the FBI to investigate. (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: OK, investigate, no evidence. Now, that’s not all. Let’s go back to January. While testifying under oath, Clapper said there was no evidence that Russia affected the actually vote tallies back in November. Watch this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CLAPPER: First, we cannot say that — they did not change any vote tallies or anything of that sort, and we had no way of gauging the impact that — certainly, the intelligence community can’t gauge the impact it had on choices that the electorate made. (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: Wow. Also back in March during an interview, “Meet the Press,” Clapper again said he had not seen any evidence of Russian collusion. Watch this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CLAPPER: We did not include any evidence in our report — and I say “our,” that’s NSA, FBI and CIA, with my office, the director of national intelligence, that had anything — that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our. CHUCK TODD, MODERATOR, “MEET THE PRESS”: I understand that, but does it exist. CLAPPER: Not to my knowledge. (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: Not to my knowledge. And Democratic lawmakers — they’ve also admitted, even as late as last week, they’ve seen no evidence of collusion whatsoever. Take a look at this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The last time we spoke, Senator, I asked you if you had actually seen evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. And you said to me — and I’m quoting you now — you said “Not at this time. ” Has anything changed since we spoke last? SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D) CALIFORNIA: Well, not — no, it hasn’t. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) but just to be clear, we haven’t — there has been no actual evidence yet. REP. MAXINE WATERS (D) CALIFORNIA: No, it has not been. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. I just wanted to … WATERS: No, it has not been. (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters! So we have no vote tallies that were actually changed. One of the top Democrats in the Senate says she has seen nothing to suggest there was collusion between the Russians and President Trump and his campaign. Now, again, if we’re presented on this program with concrete evidence collusion happened, and it hasn’t been out there for months, I promise we will report on it. So tonight, we ask an important question. Why has there been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of media coverage about the conspiracy if there’s zero evidence? Now, the funny thing is now I’m being called a conspiracy theorist because I dare to ask questions! Now, I ask my questions based on the comments of the only one person on this earth who actually knows for sure the source of the DNC to Wikileaks. As far as I know, by the way, I’m the only member of the media who has interviewed Julian Assange multiple times on radio and right here on this TV show. During those interviews, he told me repeatedly Russia was not the source of the DNC leaks — repeatedly. Now, we at this point — are we at a point in this country that I can’t ask a question without being called a liar, a conspiracy theorist? You know, and it’s also now gone to a whole other level that is very dangerous. Now my character is being assassinated. I’m being lied about, smeared and slandered. And the worst part is there are many on the left that are now working hard to get me fired, get me off the air. So this voice of ours on the show — I don’t force you to watch. I ask you to watch. I want you to watch — could no longer be heard. There is now a campaign against me in this particular case to silence me by attacking my advertisers. Now, this is all put together by in part a in part, in part, group. Now, I want to tell you something. This is not hyperbole. What has been happening to me in the last week is a kill shot. They want this show canceled. They want me off the air. It’s also an attempt to silence the FOX News Channel and talk radio. Now, this has been a tactic that has been used against many other conservatives in the past with, honestly, a certain degree of success. And also note, talk radio, FOX News right now represents the only opposition voice, an existential threat to advance everything that the left wants to accomplish in the country. We’re the only opposition, and of course, all of you. Now, we saw what happened to Dr. Laura Schlesinger, Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and now it’s my head on the chopping block. Now, for the record, I am not and have never been a conspiracy theorist, and asking questions does not make a person a conspiracy theorist. I’m actually curious. And I want to get to the answers as certain families have said publicly they want answers. And by the way, they deserve them. Now, there are conspiracy theorists on TV today, like those that work at MSNBC and CNN and ABC, NBC, CBS. And then of course, we have all the unnamed sources, always in The New York Times, Washington Post, by the way, that are now being debunked regularly. We’ll have more on that in a minute. But first, this effort has really not gone far, and the reason is all of you out there in this audience. You have shown me all of your support, and it has been extremely humbling. And because of you, now, one of my advertisers, USAA, has come back on the show because you stood up for me, free speech and this program. You spoke out. Your voices have been heard. I am beyond thankful. I’m beyond appreciative. I’m beyond humbled. And I want to thank all of these advertisers for sticking with us, the vast, overwhelming majority that did. Only a few didn’t. And as I’ve said many times on this show, I am against boycotts because it’s only an effort to silence speech that other people don’t like. I said if you don’t like someone on TV, on radio — like for example, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher and the horrific, crude, vile things they’ve said, you can turn the on and off switch off. You can change the dial. And the same goes with primetime conspiracy cable TV that is now, like, . But this Clinton Soros group that is now going after me — they have been listing every one of my advertisers. Now, they’re they saying it’s not a boycott. Ostensibly, that’s not really true, in my opinion. Now, it’s gotten to the point where freedom of speech in this country and the continuation of voices like mine here on the FOX News Channel and on talk radio as we know it, as — is in real jeopardy. There’s a real risk here. And that brings us to where we are today. My next two guests, Brian Maloney and Melanie Morgan, have come up with a new group to finally fight back and combat all these attacks to silence conservatives. In the past, there’s not one — conservatives have never fought back. Now, they’re calling it the Media Equality Project. They’ve started an operation which they call, fight fire with fire. And they’re calling for people to, quote, “stop the conservative scalping. ” Stop the scalpings. And they’re not — by the way, they’re not calling for a boycott. They’re just doing what the group is doing. They are calling for the left and the country that say they’re so for free speech to stop trying to silence conservatives. Now, Brian Maloney earlier today published an article entitled, “While Hannity remains under fire, counterpart Rachel Maddow escapes scrutiny. ” Now, this report details the extensive history of the MSNBC host, Rachel Maddow. Frankly, it’s funny. I didn’t know about them quoting the most bizarre conspiracy theories, frankly, I’ve ever heard. Now, they’re doing the same thing now to Maddow that this Clinton group, you know, who’s allegedly not calling for a boycott, is doing against me. This new group has listed the advertisers. They’re not calling for a boycott, and they are pointing out some of the most bizarre, conspiratorial, controversial things that have been said by Rachel Maddow. For example, let’s start with a few headlines courtesy of Newsbusters. Quote, “Maddow, Trump speech sees immigrants as vicious, murdering criminals. ” And then watch this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC: It will be a notable thing that the president spent a big portion of what was, in effect, a state of the union trying to, you know, tell the country what vicious, murdering criminals immigrants are. And that’s focusing on crimes committed by immigrants … (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: No, he actually said some (ph). And Maddow, you know, Trump’s speech could be a gateway drug for the KKK becoming mainstream in the GOP. Really? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: A lot of people who I think are critical of Donald Trump generally look at praise like that from somebody like Donald Duke and wonder if he is a gateway drug, if there is something beyond Donald Trump himself that means a much greater transformation of the Republican Party into something that is going to be new to mainstream politics. (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: But there’s a lot more. Back in 2011, Maddow tried to explain away then Congressman — this is actually one of my favorite — Anthony Weiner’s graphic lewd tweet. Watch this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: If the congressman was hacked, as he said he was, if he was pranked, how would that work? How could a person do that? What would that look like? The Daily Kos writer looks at the image of the congressman’s Twitter account more closely, and judging from the pixelization of the images and some other visual clues, he concludes that the damage (ph) was a composite, saved a number of times, indicating it had been Photoshopped. For a theory with fewer steps, a number of other blogs have different versions of a theory of a potential hacking that looks at the information embedded in this controversial picture. A third, but by no means final theory, has to do with the service that I was talking about earlier, Whyfrog (ph). It’s not all that hard to generate a program that would try every possible combination using your Twitter name until you got the right address to use the service to post pictures. (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: No hacking can occur. Not this time. Then in 2013, in order to mitigate the role that radical Islam played in the Boston Marathon bombing, Maddow introduced several kind of bizarre conspiracy theories in this rather strange rant. Watch this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: Pick your poison, right? I mean, it’s the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which Tamerlan Tsarnaev also apparently had a nice copy of. It’s the Protocols of Zion, or it’s truth, or it’s what Anwar al Awlaki sold (ph) to Nidal Malik Hasan, who’s now using that argument in his own defense down at Fort Bragg. It’s the Boston bombing was really carried out by the government, and was really carried out by the government, and Waco and false flags and all the rest, right? Pick your poison. There’s always been an appeal to this necrotizing conspiracy theory radicalism. (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: Now, of course, there was also that time that Maddow theorized that Republicans may be pushing assassinations as an actual political tactic. Wow! Watch this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MADDOW: Has enough kerosene been poured on the flames that the possibility of violence, even assassination is being posited as a real political tactic in the United States? (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: Now, as I mentioned earlier, this is very important to me. Freedom of speech is. I’m against boycotts. I’ve stood up against them my entire career, even when Bill Maher was on ABC’s “Politically Correct. ” I applaud the fact that our next guests say, OK, if the left stops, they will stop. If the left starts to live up to their standard of freedom of speech, every voice should be heard and the viewers get to decide. Now, I got to tell you, I didn’t notice one single liberal cable host — by the way, Lanny Davis was the only one that stood up for me. One cable liberal host that said, Let Hannity say what he wants. Leave him alone, just like I defended — I would not be a part of a Stephen Colbert boycott or a Bill Maher boycott or any of these other show boycotts. Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
Originally appeared at Strategic Culture Foundation
Both inside the US and around the world, political observers have been waiting a long time for an election that would promise relief from the most noxious features of the American system. Alas, while it is high time that the US lead the way in reversing these trends, the outcome of the 18 month struggle to elect a new administration looks likely to scuttle all hopes for serious leadership and reform.
I'm looking forward to a market crash to awaken the electorate out of our rut, honestly. Because if a Loony Tunes candidate {meaning Donald Trump – DK} doesn't give Democrats the courage to put up a push-left candidate {Bernie Sanders, or some facsimile – DK}, then catastrophe is the only correction we have left. – commenter «Snapshotist»
Both inside the US and around the world, political observers have been waiting a long time for an election that would promise relief from the most noxious features of the American system, such as neoliberal economic austerity policies that hamstring governments' ability to maintain basic services and safety nets, military aggression and destabilization of regimes across a wide swathe of the globe, wholesale violation of privacy via NSA surveillance, trade agreements designed to maximize the power of international corporations over national governments, facilitation of fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure in the face of dire climate change consequences, a financial system sucking wealth away from the population and accelerating wealth inequality, and more.
Alas, while it is high time that the US lead the way in reversing these trends, the outcome of the 18 month struggle to elect a new presidential administration looks likely to scuttle all hopes for serious leadership and reform on any of these critical issues. It follows, therefore, that in the near term (if not longer), progress will not be possible unless new forms of politics arise to deliver pressure from below on Washington, DC. But how much hope can we have for that? When will see this again? Crowds lining up hours in advance for a Bernie Sanders rally, New York, April 13th, 2016
A Trump Contribution?
By all indications, Clinton will win the election on November 8th, and virtually every political commentator will rejoice at the apparent demise of the Donald Trump phenomenon. As strange as it may seem, however, some of the passion of the Trump movement could provide fuel to the fire of reformist politics in the US. To be sure, Trump's campaign has gone far towards legitimizing and normalizing bigotry and ignorance, and this residue will persist. But Trump has also galvanized powerful resentment against an insular, self-serving political class. This sentiment dovetails with a major thrust of Bernie Sanders's advocacy of social democratic policies and empowerment of the population to reverse the accumulation of all power in the hands of wealthy campaign donors and corporations.
Further, let us not forget, Trump has consistently promoted the idea of shelving antagonism towards Russia in favor of cooperation, together with reducing the role of the US military around the world. The point is not whether Trump genuinely means what he says (although one of his advisors who spoke with us insists that he does). The point is that Trump brought these positions out into the light, which has allowed increasing numbers of Americans to question the nation's reflexive reliance on military might, expansion, and aggression as a pillar of its foreign policy. If the left is truly serious about unseating Washington's neoliberal status quo, it should make every effort to harness some of the frustration that coalesced into the Trump movement towards broadly shared goals – getting the money out of politics being the most obvious.
The Gullible Left
For the moment, of course, the huge majority of the left is consumed with the impending election, and with the perceived imperative of defeating Trump by supporting Clinton as the «lesser evil» candidate. At first glance this seems eminently reasonable. But the certitude that has swept the country regarding the preferability of Clinton over Trump ought to give us pause. For those paying close attention, it is not necessarily clear which candidate is the lesser evil. The flaws marring each candidate are so grotesque, and the variables confronting the next administration are so uncertain, that one can easily support a case in either direction. A small segment of the left will reject both Brahmins and cast affirmative votes for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, of course. But the readiness of much of the left – the gullible left – to ignore Clinton's corruption, crimes, and cynicism is preemptively sapping the strength of the resistance that will be needed to push Madame President to pursue even half-baked progressive reforms on any issue.
Meanwhile, as the gullible left and center coalesce meekly around Clinton, the real election is taking place behind the scenes: Clinton and her inner circle are lining up the key personnel who will largely determine the course of policy in her administration. Thanks to Wikileaks' publication of Clinton's current campaign chairman, John Podesta, we know very well that this process is far advanced by now. As David Dayen put it recently in « The New Republic »:
If the 2008 Podesta emails are any indication, the next four years of public policy are being hashed out right now, behind closed doors.... Who gets these cabinet-level and West Wing advisory jobs matters as much as policy papers or legislative initiatives. It will inform executive branch priorities and responses to crises. It will dictate the level of enforcement of existing laws. It will establish the point of view of an administration and the advice Hillary Clinton will receive. Its importance cannot be stressed enough, and the process has already begun. This is a fight over who dominates the Democratic Party’s policy thinking in the short and long term.
Dayen adds that «...if liberals want to have an impact on that process, waiting until after the election will be too late». Well, one wonders why Dayen is so optimistic. Another Wikileaks release revealed that Clinton had more or less decided on Tim Kaine as her running mate all the way back in mid-2015 (!). Surely many of the top positions have long since been scripted, and for those still in play, can anyone – even David Dayen -- imagine public pressure making a difference in the selection?
In short, the world should prepare itself for a Hillary Clinton administration that is full of Washington establishment clones and is diligently protected from criticism by a like-minded media establishment. Moreover, and more important, we can already see the Clinton administration maneuvering to avoid the gridlock that minimized President Obama's effectiveness by pushing key foreign and domestic policies further to the right, into the arms of the Republican Party. It is not difficult to locate telling indications on this score... «Sorry, I can't vote for Mrs. Strangelove» – commenter «natureboy» , renouncing Clinton for her hawkishness
The implications of Clinton's ascendancy on US foreign policy are already coming into view, and they are more than a little disturbing. An article from Washington Post White House correspondent Greg Jaffe on October 20th delivered news just as bad as we expected:
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a more assertive American foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White House.... the bipartisan nature of the recent recommendations, coming at a time when the country has never been more polarized, reflects a remarkable consensus among the foreign policy elite. This consensus is driven by a broad-based backlash against a president who has repeatedly stressed the dangers of overreach and the need for restraint, especially in the Middle East… Taken together, the studies and reports call for more-aggressive American action to constrain Iran, rein in the chaos in the Middle East and check Russia in Europe.
Clinton is preparing a foreign policy more aggressive than Obama's, in other words. And – take note – she'll enjoy bipartisan support for it. «The entire concept is a form of corporate blackmail» -- David Dayen , characterizing Clinton's preparation of a tax repatriation policy that will permanently lower the tax obligations of large corporations.
As far as domestic policy is concerned, meanwhile, all recent revelations point to a posture even more friendly to large corporate interests than that which has obtained under Obama. For example, an important investigation from David Dayen just a few days ago exposed the Clinton circle's coordination with top Democrats and Republicans in preparing an enormous and permanent reduction on taxation of profits corporations earn abroad. As journalist Matt Taibbi once described a similar proposal: «Let's give a big tax break to the biggest tax cheats».
Yes, we can expect a few corporate-written trade deals to follow the tax reduction on profits earned overseas. And Wall Street will not be left out. Clinton has many options to assist her finance sector sponsors, including an important plan David Sirota and Avi Asher-Shapiro revealed last week. It would deliver hundreds of billions of dollars worth of individuals' retirement accounts into the hands of asset managers employing aggressive alternative investment strategies, and net the managers billions a year in fees. Campaign contributions do indeed bring corporations colossal returns in the US. Did you enjoy this article? - Consider helping us! Russia Insider depends on your donations: the more you give, the more we can do. $1 $10 Other amount
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Posted on November 3, 2016 by DCG | 3 Comments
Ain’t multiculturalism grand?
From Daily Mail : Pictures show men lunging at each other with makeshift clubs last night next to a row of tents in the Stalingrad district of the French capital. Amid chaotic scenes, gangs of men were seen brandishing pieces of wood and squaring up for a street battle.
The violence unfolded just hours after demolition workers supported by riot police began smashing up an illegal camp full of UK-bound migrants in Paris. It also came in the wake of the destruction of the Calais Jungle which saw refugees transported around the country. It followed thousands of migrants arriving in the French capital following the razing of the Calais Jungle refugee camp last week.
While some 5,000 Jungle residents agreed to be bused to resettlement centres around France, many others headed off independently , saying they still wanted to get to Britain. Up to 3,000 set up tents on the pavements around the Stalingrad Metro station, which is close to the Gare du Nord Eurostar hub in the north of Paris.
Shortly before yesterday’s clearance French president Francois Hollande said: ‘We won’t tolerate the camps any longer.’ Referring to the Paris clearance, Mr Hollande said: ‘We are going to carry out the same operation as in Calais.’
CRS riot police around Stalingrad said there would be a ‘gradual operation’ which is likely to go on all week until all the camps are gone.
Meanwhile, the first ever official centre for refugees in Paris is due to be opened by the city’s Socialist council later this week. The £6m facility is also close to the Eurostar hub, and will have beds for 400 men.
But local residents and business owners say it will attract people smugglers, and other criminals. Jean Brossard, who has been living in the area for 30 years, said: ‘None of us asked for an immigrant centre on our doorsteps. Everybody in the area is complaining. If these men want to go to England, then send them to England.’
Others have accused the Socialists of tokenism, saying they are simply opening the camps as a humanitarian gesture that will have no long term effect on Europe’s immigrant crisis.
The official centre, which will include a football pitch, will only allow residents to stay for between five and 10 weeks, and is likely to shut down within two years. Another centre for women with children will also open in the Paris suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine later this year, or early next, but it too will only have a limited capacity of 350 temporary places.
Meanwhile, French authorities have started transporting migrant children out of Calais to processing centres around France, amid tensions around the closure of the vast Jungle camp.
Three buses carried a group of unaccompanied boys, mainly teenagers, out of the camp on Wednesday morning. French authorities transferred more than 5,000 adult migrants out of Calais last week, but the fate of its 1,500 unaccompanied children remained unclear.
Migrants from the Middle East and Africa converged on the Jungle in hopes of crossing the English Channel to Britain.
President Francois Hollande said this week that the children would be transferred within days to ‘dedicated centres’ where British officials can explore whether they have the right to UK asylum.
Mr .Hollande said the others would be put in the care of French child welfare services.
DCG | 0 |
LONDON — Theresa May, the to become Britain’s next prime minister, revealed in 2013 that she had been given a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes, a condition that requires daily insulin injections. Asked later how she felt about the diagnosis, she said her approach to it was the same as toward everything in her life: “Just get on and deal with it. ” That kind of steeliness has propelled her to center stage in the aftermath of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and the feuding that erupted in the Conservative Party over who would succeed David Cameron, the current prime minister, who said he would resign by the fall. Conservative lawmakers began voting on Tuesday to winnow the five contenders to two whose names will go to party members for the final say. In the first ballot, Ms. May led with 165 votes Andrea Leadsom was second with 66. Liam Fox received the fewest votes and was eliminated, and Stephen Crabb, who came in fourth, exited the race, lending his support to Ms. May. The balloting process is scheduled to be completed next week. Ms. May, 59, is the country’s home secretary in half a century, with a reputation for seriousness, hard work and avoiding the intrigue and treachery that has gripped her party. She is one of a growing number of women in traditionally British politics rising to the upper echelon of leadership. “I know I’m not a showy politician,” Ms. May said on Thursday. “I don’t tour the television studios. I don’t gossip about people over lunch. I don’t go drinking in Parliament’s bars. ” One former colleague in Parliament, Tim Yeo, recalled that Ms. May would attend his parties, but that she was not the type “to attract a circle of people around her roaring with laughter. ” That may be just right for the times, he said, because “her caution will stand her in good stead when there is chaos all around. ” Another colleague, Ken Clarke, said Tuesday in an unguarded moment captured on camera that “Theresa is a bloody difficult woman,” noting that he had worked with another woman with a steely reputation who also confronted politics: Margaret Thatcher. Ms. May’s tenacity has drawn parallels not only to Ms. Thatcher but also to another methodical woman in politics, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, a clergyman’s daughter, like Ms. May. Born in 1956, Ms. May grew up mainly in Oxfordshire, an only child who was first drawn to the Conservative Party at age 12. A conscientious student (a goody she once told The Daily Telegraph) she never rebelled against her religious upbringing and remains a regular churchgoer. Tellingly, her sports hero was Geoffrey Boycott, a solid, stubborn cricketer who specialized in playing the long game. Like Mr. Cameron and Boris Johnson, the former London mayor who recently dropped out of the Conservative leadership race, she won a place at Oxford (though some years before them). But while they got there by way of Eton College and joined Oxford’s hedonistic Bullingdon Club, she attended a state secondary school and had a more sedate university career. Politics was important to her, and she attended the famous Oxford Union debating society and joined the university’s Conservative Association. At one of the association’s gatherings, a fellow student — Benazir Bhutto, the future prime minister of Pakistan — introduced her to the man she would marry, Philip May. Ms. May has described her husband, who went on to become an investment banker, as her rock. The couple has no children. “It just didn’t happen,” she told The Daily Telegraph. “You look at families all the time, and you see there is something there that you don’t have. ” Ms. May worked in financial services, including for a time at the Bank of England, while pursuing her political ambitions. She won a seat in Parliament in 1997, representing Maidenhead, a prosperous town west of London, just as her party was entering a long spell out of power. She rose quickly through the Conservative ranks and gained national attention with a jolting speech at an annual party convention, an occasion usually used to flatter party activists. “Our base is too narrow, and so, occasionally, are our sympathies,” she warned her colleagues. “You know what some people call us: the nasty party. ” When the Conservatives returned to power after the 2010 election in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, she was promoted to home secretary, one of the prime jobs in government — a break that might not have happened had Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrats’ leader, demanded the post for himself. Instead, he became deputy prime minister without a departmental brief, setting Ms. May on her way. At the Home Office, she resisted pressure from the American government to extradite Gary McKinnon, a Briton accused of computer hacking, citing human rights concerns. But she negotiated a treaty with Jordan that allowed Britain to extradite Abu Qatada, a radical Islamic preacher. His extradition had been obstructed by the European Court of Human Rights, which feared he might face torture in Jordan. Ms. May also won respect by confronting a powerful interest group, the Police Federation, which represents officers. In a speech to the group in 2014, she listed a series of police failings, demanded change and was greeted with stony silence. According to Norman Baker, a Liberal Democrat who served under her in the Home Office during the coalition government, Ms. May is politically “not very liberal” and personally “hard as nails,” with a willingness to stand up even to the prime minister on policy issues. “You don’t survive as home secretary for six years without some form of aptitude,” Mr. Baker said. “I don’t want to sound too positive, because I wouldn’t want her as prime minister,” he added, “but I would rather have her than the rest of those that are standing, because at least she is competent. ” Her political Achilles’ heel is immigration, which is part of her responsibility as home secretary. Mr. Cameron promised to reduce net migration into Britain to fewer than 100, 000 people a year, but the target has repeatedly been missed. Ms. May could not curb arrivals from inside the European Union, who are legally entitled to settle in Britain. But arrivals from outside the bloc, which the government can control, have also remained stubbornly high. Over all, the net figure for 2015 was more than 330, 000. Ms. May is regarded as being more right wing than Mr. Cameron, though she supported his legalization of marriage. When the European Union referendum was called, it was whether she would campaign for or against membership. In the end, she supported Mr. Cameron’s bid to stay in the bloc, but she kept very quiet. That allows her to present herself as a unity candidate to a parliamentary party that was deeply split by the issue. However, it also means that any deal she could negotiate with the European Union over Britain’s future ties to the bloc would face close scrutiny from the union’s more ideological critics. That would leave her limited room to maneuver on the central issue, Britain’s access to the European Union’s single market of goods and services. Such access normally entails accepting free movement of workers, but that is anathema to those who want to reduce immigration. Ms. May sought to reassure last week by promising there would be no attempt to remain inside the European Union or to rejoin it through the back door. “Brexit means Brexit,” she said firmly, suggesting that if it falls to her to negotiate a British withdrawal from the European Union, she will, as ever, just get on and deal with it. | 1 |
British scientists have tied the tightest knot ever tied and, as unlikely as it may seem, this is important. Knots are useful in everyday life and specific kinds of knots are suitable for specific tasks — bowlines, cleats, hitches and nooses all hold things together in different ways. The same is true on the molecular level, where braided or knotted strings of atoms and molecules can be put together in different patterns with varying characteristics. Until now, scientists have been able to create only simple molecular knots with three or five crossings of strands. Now researchers, in a study published in Science, have described a way to tie a much more complicated, and therefore much stronger, knot. Everyone knows, for example, that Kevlar is very strong — impenetrable even to a bullet. But why? Its molecules connect to form long chains that run parallel to each other. Together these molecules form an extremely strong yet flexible material. But the structure of Kevlar is relatively simple: identical molecules packed tightly next to each other like pencils in a pencil box. Knotted or woven strands of molecules, on the other hand, can potentially create an even more flexible, lighter and stronger material — a tightly knit sweater on the molecular level. To create their stronger knot, a team of researchers mixed oxygen, nitrogen and carbon in a solution with metal ions. The organic molecules wrap themselves around sticky iron ions and chloride ions, crossing in just the right ways and at just the right points. The loose ends were then sealed together chemically, forming a completely tied knot with eight crossings. The number of crossings made the knot much tighter than anything that had ever been achieved before at the molecular level. The entire loop is tiny, the length of 192 atoms. David A. Leigh, a chemistry professor at the University of Manchester and a of the study, said that while the technique was still some time away from any practical application, the potential is clear. “Knotting and weaving have led to breakthrough technologies since prehistoric times, when men first learned to make fishing nets or weave fabrics to keep warm,” he said. “Knots are just as important at the molecular level, but we can’t exploit them until we learn how to make them. ” | 0 |
LONDON — A gunman opened fire in a Muslim prayer center in Zurich, the largest city in Switzerland, late on Monday afternoon, wounding at least three people, according to the police. Around 5:30 p. m. the gunman entered the prayer center, in a neighborhood known as Aussersihl, just south of the city’s main train station. Several worshipers were praying. The assailant opened fire, injuring three men, ages 30, 35 and 56, before fleeing. The men were taken to a hospital. Two of the three were injured seriously, and one was lightly wounded, the police said. The police said the gunman was about 30 years old and was wearing dark clothes, including a dark woolen cap. Police officers from both the city and the canton of Zurich sealed off the area, a police spokeswoman, Judith Hödl, said in a statement. “At the moment, no further information can be provided on the affected parties and on the crime,” she said, adding an appeal for witnesses to come forward. The police later reported that the body of a man had been found on Monday evening on the Gessner Bridge, which crosses the River Sihl in the center of Zurich. The identity of the man as well as the circumstances of his death were not immediately clear. Also unclear was whether the body had any connection to the shooting, which occurred a short distance away. The attack came on the same day that Russia’s ambassador to Turkey was assassinated in Ankara, and at least 12 people were killed at a Christmas market in Berlin, in what the authorities believe was an attack. The prayer center in Zurich was largely frequented by Somali immigrants, though the backgrounds of the men who were wounded were not clear. The building can be occupied by up to 80 worshipers, but typically was used by 10 or so people at a time. | 0 |
In response to growing concern about the presence of lead in drinking water at schools, Gov. Chris Christie on Monday ordered mandatory testing for all New Jersey public schools. Under the plan, the state would provide $10 million to cover the cost of the testing in 3, 000 facilities, and the results would be posted by the school districts. “People need information so that they can feel safe,” Mr. Christie said at a news conference in Trenton. Lead awareness — and public anxiety — have been running high since dangerously elevated levels of lead were discovered in the water in Flint, Mich. where the city’s water supply was contaminated, with possibly devastating public health consequences, especially for children. In March, the continuing dangers of lead were driven home for New Jersey residents when water at 30 of Newark’s 67 schools was abruptly shut off because high levels of the metal had been discovered. Even as state and school officials sought to reassure nervous parents that they had the situation under control, there were questions about how the problem had been previously handled. New Jersey has been wrestling for decades with the best way to address concerns about lead exposure. In Camden, for instance, students in the school district have been drinking bottled water since 2002 — a far cheaper response than tearing out swaths of lead piping. The decision about whether to test water for lead was left to individual school districts. Newark and Jersey City have long required testing in their schools. In early April, Mr. Christie said he wanted to act cautiously before mandating testing statewide. “Do we really want the state to be responsible for testing every faucet in every school in the entire state is, I think, a question really worthy of debate and discussion and not jumping to conclusions,” Mr. Christie, a Republican, said at the time. But on Monday, he said that it had become clear that the state needed to address the concern of parents who were hungry for information. “This is not about reporting to the state this is about reporting to the parents,” he said. “I think it is the right thing to do because there is public concern about it. ” Testing would begin before the next school year, with the Education Department working with the Environmental Protection and Health Departments to determine scientifically appropriate protocols for testing and responding to any elevated levels that are cause for concern. While replacing old pipes in places where elevated lead is found might be prohibitively expensive, Mr. Christie said, using bottled water, as in Camden, could prove a model for other districts. The governor also announced that the state would strengthen its response to lead exposure. Currently, New Jersey requires lead testing for all children ages 1 and 2. Mr. Christie said the state would lower the threshold of blood lead levels that would be a cause of concern — to between five and nine micrograms per deciliter of blood, from 10 micrograms — to match the most recent guidance of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. | 0 |
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA) reached a tentative contract deal on Tuesday as Big Hollywood relationships ave become increasingly irrelevant. [The Writers’ Guild of America’s union negotiating committee claimed it had made “gains in minimums across the board — as well as contribution increases to our Health Plan that should ensure its solvency for years to come. ” The union recommended that its 20, 000 brothers and sisters of the Los Writers Guild of America West and of Writers Guild of America East vote for the settlement. The WGA has been a dominant figure in Hollywood business and politics for 50 years. The powerful union that could shut down productions, and cost hundreds of motion picture and television studio moguls millions of dollars, went on strike in 1960, 1981, 1986 and 2007 — 2008. But when the WGAstruck studios for 100 days beginning in 2007, the 397 production companies played hard ball and stretched the strike out for 100 days. According to Deadline Hollywood, the AMPTP claimed that WGA members lost $287 million during the strike. Although the union disputes the size of the loss, and claims that 96. 3 percent of its members gave the union a strike authorization in April, WGA West financial statements reveal that 65 percent of the $2. 86 million in loans the union made to striking writers in strike have still not been repaid. The WGA reported on its website that “we made gains in minimums across the board — as well as contribution increases to our Health Plan that should ensure its solvency for years to come. ” The union estimates that the settlement is worth $130 million more and provides enhanced “Options and Exclusivity” protections for its members, compared to the original AMPTP offer. WGA added that it “also made unprecedented gains” in obtaining a minimum of 2. 4 weeks of work for each short season television episode fee a 15 percent increase in pay TV residuals $15 million in increases in subscription Video on Demand residuals pay TV residuals and job protection on parental leave. A WGA West official told Variety, “The deal that we made is the art of the possible. We did the best we could. It’s got some important new things in it, and an important old thing: the health plan has been taken care of. ” The giant media companies appeared to be in a very strong contract negotiating position versus the writers’ union. But with the Pew Research Center reporting that 75 percent of cable young people claiming they can watch what they want online, the media giants wanted to avoid a long strike that would make them more irrelevant, as creatively media content increasingly becomes available on YouTube and Instagram. | 0 |
Leave a reply AA Michael – When you are attuned to the mid-4th-dimensional frequencies of light, you relinquish the idea of being human as you have known it in the past. It is a time of the emergence of your soul consciousness as you allow it to become the reigning influence within your life. this means you begin to listen to the wisdom of your body elemental, and the signals it sends as to what is appropriate for your physical and emotional well-being. Your DNA and the cells of your body begin to integrate the higher frequencies of light, and gradually, you begin to vibrate and attune to the refined energy of the New Age. This period of the transformation process could be likened to a death of your old self-consciousness, which is really the process of removing the veils of illusion. As you integrate each new level of your oversoul/higher self, you absorb the wisdom and illumination of that facet of your vaster being. You are in the process of shedding the multiple layers of density, which you have absorbed within your auric field down through the many ages of earthly experience. The saying “the Light shall set you free” is a true statement, for the Light is dissolving the layers upon layers of negativity that you have carried for such a very long time. You begin to function within an auric field of refined light of your own creation, as you turn inward, and learn to stay focused and centered within your sacred heart in the power of the Now moment. Over time you, as light transformers, begin to draw forth and integrate the maximum amount of adamantine particles of creator light, and you then consciously radiate forth the remainder out to humanity and to the world. When you achieve a certain level of harmony within, you open the physical body gateways or portals to the higher dimensions: the ascension chakra or the medulla oblongata, and the vagus nerve at the base of the skull, and also the back portal of your sacred heart and your sacred mind. These are major steps in the ascension process. When this process is complete, you are well on your way to gaining access to the first sub-level of the fifth dimension, where your entry-level sacred triad is waiting to welcome you. The Adam/Eve Kadmon body is your original individualized seed atom god-self in a fully conscious light body form, created by the Elohim (lords of light/builders of) as the archetype of humanity. The Adam Kadmon embodies the original complete divine and spiritual nature of man/woman. It is not the same as your personal oversoul body of light which is itself evolving towards divine consciousness. Your higher selves, your spiritual/oversoul body, and your sacred triads are refracted facets of your god self, your original light body. The Kadmon light body has the ability to take on any form necessary to create and experience all forms of creation in your father/mother God’s plan for this universe. The Adam/Eve Kadmon is a spiritual-physical creation, which incarnates in the planetary worlds during all cycles of divine creation. Physical Body : In the beginning awakening process there is a desire to turn inward and to listen to the Inner wisdom of the Soul. This Soul awareness includes your Body Elemental, the Memory Seed Atom which contains the perfect blueprint for your original Adam/Eve Kadmon Light Form. Emotional Body : First you become aware that your emotions control you through your wants, needs and desires, which in the long run do not bring you a sense of happiness or satisfaction. You begin to turn inward and to question your life choices, asking Awhat have been the results of your actions@? You begin to seek answers for the pain and dissatisfaction in your life. The voice of your Super-conscious mind becomes stronger as you gradually take heed and follow your soul’s guidance. As you become comfortable, and begin to rely on this voice of higher wisdom, the ego-desire body gradually relinquishes control, and the soul-self becomes the director and guiding influence in your life. You begin to align your will with the will of your higher self, for you have gradually learned to trust the inspirational and intuitive thoughts from your sacred mind. Eventually, you begin to view all interactive events in your life from a higher vantage point. You develop emotional detachment through a more refined view of human interactions. Having experienced most of the important tests of the emotions, you develop a better understanding of the human emotional nature. Again, you learn to go with the flow, and you view your tests and challenges as gifts and opportunities for growth. You have learned to make peace with the past, and to script your future, as you endeavor to live and focus on the NOW moment. Gradually, over time, the vibrational patterns of the emotional body are lifted above the magnetic pull of the physical realm. The Mental Body : You begin to realize the limitations of your subconscious and conscious minds, and you see how rigid, limited and stuck you have been in the mass consciousness belief structure. You willingly begin a self-analysis process, whereby you reevaluate your attitudes, judgment and programmed concepts. You begin to feel a burning desire to expand your knowledge beyond your physical reality, as you seek to learn why you are here on Earth, and the greater meaning of life. Your instinctive mind gives way to your higher intellectual mind, and gradually you gain access to your sacred/intuitive mind. As your Soul-self becomes the director of your destiny. Your life begins to change dramatically for the better; then faith and trust become an inborn certainty that all is happening in Divine order. You also know with certainty that you are on an upward spiraling path to a more refined, harmonious and loving reality. All you have to do is stay in the moment, and take one step at a time as the WAY is opened before you. A self-master is: self-determined * self-conditioned * self-aware * soul-conscious. A self-master is responsive to the surrounding environment, while being the observer of mundane life experiences from a higher vantage point. Being in the world, but not of it. A most profound event is when you first experience the abounding loving energy and joy radiating forth from within your Sacred Heart and Soul. The soul’s nature is love, and while residing within the limitations of the 3rd-/4th-Dimensional environment, it is through the soul self that you connect with the love essence of your mother/father God. A self-master stands firmly centered within the sacred heart, within the midst of chaos and change, holding fast to the wisdom of the sacred mind, while gathering strength from our Father/Mother God as the illusions of the lower dimensions slowly fade away. An Adept: An Adept is a person who is firmly centered upon the path of light, and whose point of focus is from within the sacred mind and the sacred heart. He/she has balanced, harmonized and integrated all the facets of the soul self, from within the 3rd-/4th-dimensional planes of consciousness. He/she is now directly connected to his/her over-lighting sacred triad, which resides, at least, within the entry level of the 5th dimension. In order to reach this stage, an aspirant must have completed the first four stages of en-Lighten-ment, and have attained self-mastery of the first Four dimensions. This is the level of ascension open to humanity at this time, and it can, and will be, accomplished by many brave souls while in the physical vessel. A Disciple: A disciple is a person who has heeded the whisperings of the Soul Self, and who is actively seeking en-Lighten-ment, wisdom, Self-realization, and ultimately Self-mastery. Sacred Mind / Higher Mind : The human Sacred Mind is an etheric, crystalline Seed Atom stored within the upper back portion of your brain. There is a membrane of Light protecting your access to the portal into, and to the contents of your Sacred Mind, until you have raised your frequencies to the appropriate level of the higher 4th dimension. Your sacred mind contains a condensed version of your ancient past history, and a portion of the wisdom and vital information you have integrated during your many past lives in this Universe. Becoming a self-master on Earth involves gaining access to and integrating the requisite portion of the attributes, qualities and talents stored within your Sacred Mind. The mental aspect of your Higher self, or the wisdom you tap into when you connect with many facets of your vaster oversoul, will ultimately connect you with your I Am Presence / God ray / God-seed atom, which has access to the wisdom of your Father/Mother God, or the collective intelligence of this sub-universe. Divine Mind : The divine mind is the totality of your divine God-seed atom at an ever higher level: ultimately, the sacred minds of our father/mother God. For better understanding, you could say that the higher mind is a refined frequency of your consciousness, and you obtain higher consciousness levels with each download of a facet of your oversoul /higher self. As you traverse the path of ascension, and move into an accepted spectrum of light and shadow, your goal is to develop the ability to stay centered within your sacred mind and sacred heart. You learn to consciously maintain a higher perspective about what is going on around you, as you express compassion and unconditional love for everyone. That is the goal of a self-master. As you become attuned to the higher frequencies of Light, you will become accustomed to the flow of sacred fire breath, which has been called the river of life/love/light or the antakarana in ancient teachings. There is a hidden, powerful, radiant current of knowledge encoded within this living river of life. It is a code of creative genius; however, you must tap into the wisdom of the Sacred Mind and your Soul Self in order to access this inborn power. You are called “Star Seeds” for a reason, for as you return to Self-mastery, you will initiate the process of creating crystalline, life code seed atoms c a new, advanced evolutionary process, which will eventually be used by life forms within the next, forthcoming golden galaxy. We ask you to study what we have revealed, and endeavor to get the universal schematic we have created firmly within your mind, so that you will understand the next phase of the wondrous cosmic events, which are unfolding before your eyes. As a bearer of light, you promised to be our representatives on Earth. Within, you have all that you need to complete your earthly journey through the remainder of the 4th-dimensional realms. As doubts arise, remember, all of your experiences of the past, whether they were successful or seemingly failures, have given you a wealth of experience to draw upon. Shine your light for all to see. Call on us, and we will assist you in every way possible. Know that I am with you always, and you are loved most profoundly. I AM Archangel Michael Transmitted through Ronna/Sacred Scribe * SF Source Ronna Star | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump has offered the position of secretary of the interior to Montana’s freshman representative, Ryan Zinke, a former Navy SEAL commander, two officials familiar with Mr. Trump’s decision confirmed on Tuesday. The appointment of Mr. Zinke would round out Mr. Trump’s choices to lead the four agencies that will shape the future of the nation’s energy and climate change policies. Last week, he named Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general who has built a career out of suing the Environmental Protection Agency, to lead that office. On Tuesday, transition officials said he would name Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who vowed to eliminate the Energy Department, to run that agency. Mr. Trump has also chosen Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, to head the State Department, which negotiates international climate change agreements. Mr. Zinke, 55, called Hillary Clinton “the Antichrist” as he campaigned for the House in 2014. Asked that year about the established science of climate change, Mr. Zinke was quoted in the Billings Gazette, a Montana newspaper, as saying, “It’s not a hoax, but it’s not proven science either. ” Scientists overwhelmingly hold that climate change is proven. Mr. Zinke was an early supporter of Mr. Trump. His wife, Lolita, is on Mr. Trump’s transition team for the Department of Veterans Affairs. In some ways, Mr. Zinke appears to be an incongruous choice to lead the agency that oversees energy exploration on the nation’s public lands and waters. As interior secretary, Mr. Zinke would be charged with carrying out the aggressive agenda that Mr. Trump championed on the campaign trail. Mr. Zinke has spent most of his life in the military, and he ran for office largely on a national security platform. He played football at the University of Oregon and earned a degree in geology before joining the Navy. He later became a member of the SEALs. He has served in Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo and the Pacific. His autobiography, “American Commander,” was published recently. Mr. Zinke conforms with Mr. Trump’s love of military figures. He would join two retired generals, John F. Kelly and James N. Mattis, in the cabinet. Another, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, has been named national security adviser. Mr. Zinke would be a continuation of the long tradition of interior secretaries from western states, where the agency oversees millions of acres of federal lands. A Montanan who grew up in Whitefish, a small railroad and logging town, he has defended keeping the nation’s public lands in federal hands, saying he would never advocate their sale or transfer. But he has also been a staunch advocate of mining and logging on those lands. He has also consistently voted in favor of maintaining the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is funded by royalties from oil and gas exploration on public lands but intended to preserve other natural habitats. Mr. Trump hopes his interior secretary will reverse the Interior Department’s role under President Obama, who used the agency to advance his climate change, land conservation and renewable energy agenda. Under Mr. Obama’s interior secretary, Sally Jewell, the department put forward plans to block oil and gas drilling on expanses of public land and water, freeze new leases for coal mining on public lands, and promote the development of renewable energy on federal property. Mr. Zinke would have the authority to reverse most of those initiatives, although some changes could take as long as three or four years to put in effect. Environmental groups said they feared that Mr. Zinke would be prepared to carry out Mr. Trump’s agenda. “Though Mr. Zinke has expressed support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and opposes the sale of public lands, he has prioritized the development of oil, gas and other resources over the protection of clean water and air, and wildlife,” said Theresa Pierno, president and chief executive of National Parks Conservation Association. “Mr. Zinke has advocated for state control of energy development on federal lands, a move that threatens our national parks. ” But his confirmation could help Democrats in the Senate. Senator Jon Tester of Montana is one of 10 Democrats up for in 2018 in states carried by Mr. Trump. If the Interior post suits Mr. Zinke, Mr. Tester has lost a formidable challenger. | 1 |
Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” President Barack Obama said he thinks the Affordable Care Act will survive Donald Trump’s tenure. When asked if Obamacare is going to survive, Obama said, “I think it will. It may be called something else. As I said, I don’t mind. if, in fact, the Republicans make some modifications, Some of which I may have been seeking previously, but they wouldn’t cooperate because they didn’t want to make the system work, and it as Trumpcare, I’m fine with that. ” ( The Hill) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0 |
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s immigration ruling is a defeat for President Obama but could help Hillary Clinton and the fortunes of Democratic candidates across the country. The court on Thursday blocked Mr. Obama from moving ahead with his sweeping assertion of executive authority and will force him to leave office next year without the major progress he promised to millions of Latino immigrants living under the threat of deportation. But even as Republicans hailed what they called a major victory, Democrats said they believed the ruling would energize a nationwide voter registration drive intended to benefit Mrs. Clinton in her presidential campaign against Donald J. Trump. Within moments of the court’s order, Democratic activists vowed to mobilize, and a president whose face was etched with disappointment acknowledged the issue now rested with voters. “We’ve got a choice about who we’re going to be as a country, what we want to teach our kids, and how we want to be represented in Congress, and in the White House,” Mr. Obama told reporters on Thursday morning. “Americans are going to have to make a decision about what we care about and who we are. ” The ruling could also serve as political ammunition for Mr. Trump, who has accused Mrs. Clinton of wanting to expand what the Republican presumptive nominee calls the president’s illegal “amnesty” for immigrants. Mr. Trump denounced Mexican immigrants while announcing his campaign and has vowed to build a wall on the border. The House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, described the deadlocked court ruling as a vindication of the Republican view that Mr. Obama had abused his authority in ordering immigration changes affecting as many as five million unauthorized immigrants. The speaker called it “another major victory in our fight to restore the separation of powers. ” But that optimism may not carry over to the campaign trail. Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist in Florida, one of the most competitive battleground states, predicted that the court’s ruling would help unite Hispanic voters behind Mrs. Clinton. He said she could win as much as 70 percent of Hispanic votes in the state, compared with the 60 percent Mr. Obama won in 2012. Immigration is “sort of like a basic ” test with Hispanic voters, Mr. Schale said, adding that Hispanics are tuning out Mr. Trump because of his labeling of immigration reform as “amnesty” and his promise to deport millions of immigrants who are in the country illegally. The “super PACs” the Latino Victory Fund and Priorities USA immediately announced a online ad campaign aimed at bolstering support among immigrant voters in Colorado, Nevada and Florida. Ben Monterroso, the executive director of Mi Familia Vota, a separate nonprofit group that registers voters in six states with high Hispanic populations, said the ruling was the latest provocation that would increase turnout. “The road to the White House goes through the Latino community,” said Mr. Monterroso, whose group enrolled 18, 440 new voters in the first three months of 2016. Democrats and Republicans alike said the ruling all but ensured an even sharper clash over immigration during the presidential campaign. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump quickly issued statements on Thursday that agreed on only one point: The outcome of the presidential election will determine the direction of the nation’s immigration laws. “The election and the Supreme Court appointments that come with it will decide whether or not we have a border and, hence, a country,” Mr. Trump said in his statement, accusing his opponent of pledging to “expand Obama’s executive amnesty. ” Mrs. Clinton said the ruling showed “us all just how high the stakes are” because Mr. Trump has “called for creating a deportation force to tear 11 million people away from their families and their homes. ” There are an estimated 11 million immigrants in the United States illegally. The Clinton campaign has long planned an aggressive effort to mobilize the estimated 27 million eligible Hispanic voters nationwide. Lorella Praeli, the campaign’s Latino vote director, said the court ruling Thursday will add to Latino anger about Mr. Trump for comments like calling a federal judge unfit to preside in a case against Mr. Trump because of his heritage. In comments throughout the day, Mrs. Clinton sought to embrace those voters. “My heart is really breaking for the five million people in this country who’ve been waiting for the decision,” Mrs. Clinton said in an interview with Telemundo. For Mr. Obama, the court’s ruling ends his hope that his administration would be able to carry out his executive orders allowing nearly five million illegal immigrants to “come out of the shadows” and work legally. It freezes his actions for the rest of his term, leaving the program’s future, and millions of unauthorized workers, in limbo. Instead, one of the president’s chief immigration legacies will be the years of raids in immigrant communities and the increased enforcement he ordered at the border with Mexico. The tough tactics did not lead to a compromise with Republicans on legislation, and the aggressive actions, mostly in Mr. Obama’s first term, enraged families separated by the raids and deportations. The court ruling does not undo changes ordered by Mr. Obama that require immigration officers to focus on deporting unauthorized immigrants who commit crimes or who repeatedly try to enter the United States illegally. The officers have been directed not to move against illegal immigrants who have lived here for years. The court’s decision also will not affect actions Mr. Obama took in 2012 to help the Dreamers, young immigrants who were brought illegally to the United States as small children. Under his program, more than 730, 000 Dreamers received documents allowing them to work legally, without fear that they might be sent home. Mr. Obama’s 2014 executive actions came after years of fighting to get Congress to act. In 2013, the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration overhaul that the administration said the president could support. But House Republicans blocked any consideration of the legislation and accused the Senate and Mr. Obama of supporting amnesty for the millions of illegal immigrants in the United States. For most of his presidency, even Mr. Obama said he did not have the power to act unilaterally. He repeatedly told Hispanic activists that he could not use the Dreamers program as a model to expand similar protections to a much larger pool of illegal immigrants. “If we start broadening that, then essentially I would be ignoring the law in a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally,” Mr. Obama told José in an interview in September 2013, after it was clear that House Republicans were blocking the Senate’s immigration measure. “So that’s not an option. ” But the pressure from Hispanic activists only increased. (The head of the nation’s largest Latino advocacy organization once called Mr. Obama the “deporter in chief. ”) By the summer of 2014, the president had ordered Jeh Johnson, the homeland security chief, to lead a legal team in reassessing how much power Mr. Obama had to act. In remarks at the White House on Nov. 20, 2014, the president made it clear that he had reversed himself. “The actions I’m taking are not only lawful, they’re the kinds of actions taken by every single Republican president and every single Democratic president for the past ” Mr. Obama said at the time. | 1 |
This is just a guess, but the programming that is all over television at the moment feels as if it might go largely unwatched. The offerings are generally some combination of retrospective and analysis. Do admirers of President Obama really want to revisit his slow slide from 2008 triumph to 2017 vilification? Do fans of the Donald J. Trump, want to do anything other than say, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out” and then plunge into their new opportunity? That said, let’s see if we can find any reason to watch two of this week’s programs: four hours’ worth of “Frontline” on PBS titled “Divided States of America,” and a CNN production, “The End: Inside the Last Days of the Obama White House. ” The “Frontline,” which is being broadcast in chunks on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, is a rehashing of recent history that is for the most part all too familiar, a drumbeat of events that led to a government and a country defined by polarization. Large stretches of it aren’t particularly enlightening — who needs to relive the dreary, predictably acrimonious battles over budget stalemates and health care, or to hear sound bites of radio stars fanning the flames of racism and hate? The structure of this trip down memory lane doesn’t make it any more palatable. Michael Kirk, who made the documentary, is largely content to let the usual talking heads be the guides — journalists, political operatives, lawmakers or former lawmakers. Some of them are from the same chattering class that failed to grasp the rise of Mr. Trump in the first place. Hindsight wisdom of this sort seems especially out of place now. As for the ordinary Americans who put Mr. Trump in the White House, we hear them mostly in clips that only reinforce the easy stereotypes about them. Despite those criticisms, the program does manage to weave a convincing tapestry of discontent, and not just from the obvious threads. Have you forgotten, say, the odd 2009 incident in which Henry Louis Gates Jr. the Harvard scholar, who is black, was arrested after having to force his way into his own home because of a jammed door? This program hasn’t, and places it in the context of the growing schism that ultimately made Mr. Obama a divider rather than a uniter. So the documentary, though it’s not particularly rewarding to watch, does achieve its goal of painting a portrait of a country that is about as disunited as it could be, thanks to economic forces, increasingly unveiled racism and an anger that continues to be hard to pin down. President Obama’s early pronouncement that the country isn’t a collection of red states and blue states, but is “and always will be the United States of America” is heard here. By the program’s end, it has never seemed more naïve. The CNN program, Wednesday night, is the better of the two, capturing a lot of honesty as it follows staff members in the Obama White House during their final days. It has partisan stretches, of course, but its most interesting passages are a study of what has to happen to transfer the government from one group of handlers to another, regardless of who is transferring to whom. To watch this program is to be impressed with the magnitude of what will happen this week. “It’s the largest takeover of any organization not only on the planet but in history,” says Max Stier of the Partnership for Public Service, an organization focused on improving government effectiveness. Then he notes why it’s especially important now. “The point of maximum vulnerability for our nation is at the transition,” he says, “and in a world, doing this really well is vital. ” | 0 |
The tomato hitching a ride home in your grocery bag today is not the tomato it used to be. No matter if you bought plum, cherry or heirloom, if you wanted the tastiest tomato, you should have picked it yourself and eaten it immediately. That’s because a tomato’s flavor — made up of sugars, acids and chemicals called volatiles — degrades as soon as it’s picked from the vine. There’s only one thing you can do now: Keep it out of the fridge. Researchers at The University of Florida have found in a study published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that when tomatoes are stored at the temperature kept in most refrigerators, irreversible genetic changes take place that erase some of their flavors forever. Harry J. Klee, a professor of horticultural sciences who led the study, and his colleagues took two varieties of tomatoes — an heirloom and a more common modern variety — and stored them at 41 degrees Fahrenheit before letting them recover at room temperature (68 degrees Fahrenheit). When they looked at what happened inside the tomatoes in cold temperatures, Dr. Klee said the subtropical fruit went into shock, producing especially damaging changes after a week of storage. After they were allowed to warm up, even for a day, some genes in the tomatoes that created its flavor volatiles had turned off and stayed off. It’s like a symphony: “Remove the violins and the woodwinds,” Dr. Klee wrote in an email. “You still have noise, but it’s not the same. Add back just the violins and it still isn’t right. You need that orchestra of 30 or more chemicals in the right balance to give you a good tomato. ” When you can get fresh tomatoes, Dr. Klee recommends storing them at room temperature, to preserve their flavor, and eating them within a week of bringing them home. If you see your grocer storing them at temperatures that are too cold, tell them not to, he says. But this research may seem mostly academic. The average American consumes nearly 20 pounds of fresh tomatoes a year. And despite researchers, industries and farmers all striving to create the tastiest tomatoes, there are some things we can’t yet control. After all, most of the tomatoes we eat out of season are plucked from their vines probably in Florida or Mexico, just as they started to ripen. They are sorted, sized, graded and packed into a box with other tomatoes, totaling 25 pounds. Then they stay in a humidity and room (no less than 55 degrees Fahrenheit) and ingest ethylene, a gas to make them ripen, for two to four days before being transported on a truck to a warehouse. There they are repackaged, and shipped to your grocer. There, if demand is low or if there’s no room, they may be stored in a fridge, and by the time you get them, it’s been a week to ten days. “It’s probably never going to equal the one that matured in your backyard over the 80 or 90 days that you grew it, but it beats stone soup” said Reggie Brown, a manager at Florida Tomato Committee, which produces up to half of America’s fresh tomatoes in the winter. In cold months, should you endure a tomatoless diet? There are alternatives, says Dan Barber, chef at Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York, who has received multiple James Beard Awards. “My advice for consumers is don’t eat a tomato in the winter,” he said. “Make a tomato jam in the summer and store and preserve it. Use dried tomatoes from the store. Make a tomato ketchup and can it — you can have it for the whole winter. ” | 0 |
Donald J. Trump has faced a chilly reception from the Republican Party’s major donors: Some of the party’s most generous benefactors have said they are undecided about supporting him, while others have flatly said they will never give to his campaign. We found more than a dozen donors who have given millions to Republicans who say they will not give money to Mr. Trump. They explained why, through interviews, emails, their representatives or associates. Who He Is: New investor, gave big to John Kasich Why He Matters: Has given about $1. 9 million to Republicans since the 2012 campaign, embodies Wall Street’s distrust of Mr. Trump Why He Won’t Donate: “Not sure why anyone would give money to Mr. Trump since he asserts he is worth $10 billion. ” _____ Who He Is: Florida health care investor, gave big to Jeb Bush Why He Matters: One of the most prolific donors in a key swing state, has given more than $4 million to Republicans in recent elections Why He Won’t Donate: He took out newspaper ads during the primaries comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler and Mussolini. He said he would donate to Mr. Trump “when hell freezes over,” adding, “Oh no, but is that not where he resides?” _____ Who She Is: of Herschend Family Entertainment, a company, had been an enthusiastic supporter of Mike Huckabee Why She Matters: Has given over $1 million to Republicans Why She Won’t Donate: She said that Mr. Trump had degraded politics. “I’m just very disappointed in our whole country,” she said. “Our company is built on families, making people happy, and we just go down lower and lower every day. ” _____ Who He Is: Missouri businessman, runs Tamko Building Products, a roofing company, former Marco Rubio supporter Why He Matters: Has given about $2. 8 million to Republicans, part of a group of Midwestern business executives who have traditionally been generous with conservative presidential candidates Why He Won’t Donate: “I just can’t see myself supporting his announced positions on immigration and foreign policy — at all,” he said. “The whole idea of building a wall and shutting down the border is absurd. ” _____ Who She Is: New investor, strong supporter of the Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group Why She Matters: Has given about $3. 3 million to Republicans in the last few elections, part of a group of ideological donors who distrust his policies Why She Won’t Donate: “I don’t think he’s very conservative. ” _____ Who He Is: Boston finance executive, C. E. O. of the Baupost Group, donated to Mr. Bush, Mr. Rubio and Chris Christie Why He Matters: A leader in the world, has donated about $5. 5 million to Republican candidates and causes since the 2012 campaign with his wife, Beth Why He Won’t Donate: His spokeswoman said simply that he would not donate to Mr. Trump in the general election — or even vote for him. _____ Who He Is: New York finance executive, founder of CAM Capital, former Bush and Christie supporter Why He Matters: Has given Republicans over $3 million, said that a Trump versus Clinton race presented an unappetizing choice Why He Won’t Donate: “I believe his boorish behavior throughout the campaign suggested to me that he did not have the character to be president. ” _____ Who He Is: investor, supported Mr. Bush Why He Matters: Has given over $3 million to Republicans since the 2012 race, one of West Coast donors that national Republicans have typically relied on Why He Won’t Donate: He said he considered Mr. Trump such an unacceptable candidate that he would vote for Hillary Clinton instead. _____ Who They Are: He’s a founder of TD Ameritrade, a online company. Why They Matter: He has spent nearly $30 million in federal races since the 2012 campaign with his wife, Marlene, largely through their “super PAC” Why They Won’t Donate: They spent heavily against him in the primary and associates say they will sit it out this fall. Mr. Trump threatened the family when they opposed his campaign, writing on Twitter, “They better be careful. ” _____ Who He Is: Head of the New hedge fund Elliott Management, known for his hawkish foreign policy views and support for gay marriage Why He Matters: Has directed almost $28 million to Republican candidates and causes over the last three elections, backed Mr. Rubio Why He Won’t Donate: He said in a recent speech that neither Mr. Trump nor Mrs. Clinton represented his conservative values, calling this a “bleak time in the political life of America. ” _____ Who He Is: Arkansas biotechnology executive, chairman of the Club for Growth, a conservative group that spent heavily against Mr. Trump in the primaries Why He Matters: Has given about $3 million to conservative and Republican candidates and causes in the last few elections, a leader among the country’s most ideologically conservative political donors with his brother, Warren Stephens Why He Won’t Donate: “Unless the Club endorses Donald Trump, I will not be giving to him. ” _____ Who He Is: Connecticut investor Why He Matters: Has given nearly $5 million to Republicans at the federal level since 2014, said he would not only avoid giving to Mr. Trump, but that he might actually give to Mrs. Clinton — potentially a major defection Why He Won’t Donate: “He is too selfish, flawed and unpredictable to hold the power of the presidency,” he said. _____ Who He Is: Libertarian investor, of Susquehanna International Group, former Rand Paul supporter Why He Matters: Has given $3. 5 million to Republicans in recent elections, prominent in groups that favor small government Why He Won’t Donate: He said a choice between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton was a situation, paraphrasing Simon and Garfunkel: “Anyway you look at it you lose. ” Source for donation data: The Center for Responsive Politics and the Federal Election Commission | 1 |
SHOCK: 15-Year-Old Document Explodes on Hillary… 21 Children Died Oct 28, 2016 Previous post
It has been suggested that Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is perfectly OK with people dying if it furthers a particular agenda or serves to protect her own vested interests.
By way of example we could easily point to the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack, in which four Americans under the auspices of Clinton’s State Department were killed, or her staunch support for abortion , which has abruptly ended the lives of millions of innocent babies before they were even born.
Now it has been alleged that Clinton may bear responsibility for the deaths of children who had already been born, 21 of them to be exact, who perished tragically in the massive inferno that enveloped the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993, according to David T. Hardy, an attorney and Waco expert writing for The American Thinker .
Those who remember what happened in Waco will recall that there had been a long and intense standoff between dozens of members of a cult and federal authorities over alleged trafficking and possession of illegal firearms.
That standoff ultimately degenerated into an all-out assault on the compound with armored vehicles, heavy weapons and copious amounts of tear gas, eventually starting a massive fire that burned the compound to the ground, killing 74 members of the group, including 21 children.
That tragedy has been largely blamed on then-Attorney General Janet Reno, but there is some evidence to suggest that the order to assault the compound came from the Clinton White House, perhaps even from Hillary herself.
One piece of evidence that may point to that conclusion is the transcript of the FBI’s interview with Lisa Foster following the death of her husband Vince, which was ruled a suicide.
Foster described how troubled | 0 |
HOUSTON, Texas — Trump supporters who are concerned about the “civilizational jihad” waged by open borders globalists, protested in Houston at an event put on by one of the they say receive millions on resettling refugees in American communities. [The protestors gathered outside the event to support President Trump’s order on travel immigration. Organizers said a restriction on refugee resettlement is necessary to protect communities from terrorism and “civilizational jihad. ” Breitbart Texas was at the protest at the Asia Society of Texas in the posh Museum District in Houston. One of the activists carried the sign — “No more gambling with American lives! I support the Trump Ban Stop migration Jihad in America!” Another protester carried a sign that said, “Everything I ever cared to know about Islam Was taught me by Muslims on . ” Another person displayed the sign — “U. S. discriminates Against Christian Refugees: Accepts 96% Muslims 37% Christians Support Trump’s Plan to help Persecuted Christians. ” Another one said, “Interfaith Ministries TRASHING Communities on your dime!” Another protester carried a sign that said 12, 587 Syrians were resettled in the U. S. She called these numbers resettled in the nation — “Hijra. ” “Muslim immigration is a form of jihad through colonization called hijra, which [Ann Corcoran] reports dates back to the time of Mohammad. According to Corcoran, the Muslim Brotherhood pursues the hijra strategy,” reported Breitbart News in 2015. This globalization of Islam in the United States was financed and aided by the Obama administration, said those gathered at the event. Corcoran wrote a book entitled Refugee Resettlement and the Hijra to America and warned that immigration is part of a Muslim’s religious duty to spread Islam. “If you don’t help counter the hijra, we are in my opinion, doomed,” warned Corcoran when she spoke to Breitbart News. She noted that the Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi said Europe would not be conquered by guns and swords but by Muslim immigration. This prediction has become shockingly evident. Liz Theiss, founder of Stop the Magnet told Breitbart Texas: Most Americans have no idea how their communities are becoming unrecognizable and overcrowded, and increasingly dangerous. ‘ ’ are facilitating the resettlement of refugees, many from areas. Concerned Texans are demonstrating in opposition to these refugee floods, and in support of President Trump’s temporary travel ban. After California, Texas is the second in the number of refugees, and Houston is the top city for resettlement. ” Theiss also said, “Interfaith Ministries received $11. 6 million in federal tax dollars in 2016. Tonight they are using some of that money to deliver a message that compares President Trump’s immigration enforcement to Japanese internment during World War II. ” An Asia Society link on their website promoting their event states: Under Executive Order 9066, the U. S. government designated military zones in the name of national security, and the result was the mass internment of Japanese Americans. Although the official exclusion area surrounded the Pacific frontier, discrimination against Americans of Japanese ancestry occurred from coast to coast. Japanese Americans have not been the only victims of intolerance in U. S. history. Unfortunately, German, Hispanic, and Italian immigrants, among others, have experienced their own struggles in acceptance from mainstream America. In today’s world, Muslim Americans are also the targets of similar prejudice, hatred, and violence. Moreover, proposals to visually identify Muslim Americans have been critiqued as tactics reminiscent of the 1930s and 40s. Join Asia Society to discuss the memory of Japanese American internment, the current status of the community, what it means to be Muslim American in the 21st century, and how we can foster a society more welcoming to Americans and immigrants of all backgrounds. “They are claiming Trump’s executive order is discrimination,” Theiss added. “We are here to add balance to that discussion. ” Another protester, Montgomery County activist Bob Bagley, told Breitbart Texas, “We shouldn’t be taking dollars from taxpayers and donating them to charitable organizations. If people want to give their own money, that’s one thing. Amassing it from taxpayers is a totally different thing. ” “We need to take a stand against illegal immigration and unvetted refugees,” a woman who wished to keep her name private told Breitbart Texas. “We don’t need to ‘Germanate’ or ‘Swedenate’ America,” a reference to the immigration nightmare being faced by Germany and Sweden. Constitutional carry advocates were part of the event and used the protest to demonstrate their right to open carry. Breitbart Texas covered another rally by this group when they protested against an Arabic Immersion Magnet (AIM) School set up by the Houston Independent School District (HISD) — the seventh largest school district in the U. S. They were at the school calling the and kindergarten program “civilizational jihad. ” The group of protestors billed their event as “Stop the New Jihad!” They warned that the Texas school district was planning to expand grade levels in the AIM school every year. Local “Stop the Magnet” activist, Liz Theiss told Breitbart Texas at the time, “Civilizational Jihad is what we feel is a network operating within the U. S. to promote Arabic culture and language, and it operates through stealth within the community to create trust. ” Theiss says this strategy is listed in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Strategic Plan for North America. The plan was seized by the FBI during the largest terrorism financing trial in United States’ history, as reported by Breitbart Texas. Lana Shadwick is a writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as a prosecutor and associate judge in Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2. | 1 |
41 Days And 8 Months Later: Dissecting The Oregon Standoff Trial 10/31/2016
OPB
In the shadow of trees covering Chapman Square park in downtown Portland, four of seven defendants acquitted of conspiracy in the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge posed for pictures.
David Fry smiled as he flashed a peace sign. He slung his arms around co-defendants Neil Wampler — clutching a hotdog from the victory barbecue and a stack of newspapers with his face on them — and Shawna Cox. Jeff Banta stood to the far right. An alternate juror named Sarah Foultner stood between them while a supporter cycled through phones to capture the moment for everyone.
The prosecution didn’t picture the trial ending like this.
“Disappointing,” said U.S. Attorney for Oregon Billy Williams of the not guilty verdicts. “Bitterly so.”
Just as quickly as the defense proclaimed a victory for rural America, occupation opponents dubbed the result an embarrassing loss for the prosecution. And supporters of other movements — #BlackLivesMatter and #NoDAPL to name two — wondered aloud about the meaning of justice.
But 41 days and eight months later, the leaders of the armed occupation in eastern Oregon were found not guilty by a jury of peers.
Still, questions remain: How did it happen? And what happens next? Ammon Bundy Hometown: Emmett, Idaho NOT GUILTY
Leader of the Malheur refuge occupation. Before Oregon, Ammon Bundy was less prominent than his siblings in protesting the federal government. Ryan Bundy Hometown: Cedar City, Utah NOT GUILTY
Eldest of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s 14 children. Worked alongside his brother, Ammon Bundy, as a leader of the Malheur occupation. The Charges
Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy and five others were charged with conspiracy to impede federal employees from doing their jobs by force, threat or intimidation.
“It’s a favorite charge of prosecutors,” said Portland defense attorney Kevin Sali before the trial began. “When people are involved in a conspiracy they can be liable … for things their co-conspirators did.”
The Bundys, Fry, Banta and Cox also faced weapons charges. (Prosecutors dropped those against Cox .) Ryan Bundy and Kenneth Medenbach were also charged with theft of government property. Internet radio show host Pete Santilli also faced a conspiracy charge but it was later dropped .
The jury found the defendants not guilty on all but one charge. They failed to reach consensus on Ryan Bundy’s theft charge stemming from the removal of government surveillance cameras at the refuge.
In light of the verdict, questions swirled about whether the prosecution brought the proper charges.
Williams, the U.S. Attorney for Oregon, said prosecutors could have brought criminal trespass charges and tried the occupiers in state court. But misdemeanor trespassing didn’t seem to pass for muster — prosecutors wanted to bring felonies.
“If there had been some other federal statute that specifically addresses the conduct, we would have considered using it,” Williams said in an interview with OPB’s Amelia Templeton . “We have and still believe we brought the most applicable and appropriate charges under the evidence, which is our duty.” A watch tower at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Andy Dunbar, a rancher who lives adjacent to the refuge, explained his view of the occupation in court. Amelia Templeton/OPB The Prosecution
Some described the prosecution’s case as a “slam dunk.” In basketball, a slam dunk is a show of force.
Mike Arnold, Ammon Bundy’s previous attorney, told OPB’s Anna Griffin he thinks the prosecution brought felony charges to make a powerful statement with “serious prison time.”
“Their goal is to prevent any sort of activity like this in the future from the actual defendants themselves and other like-minded folks,” Arnold said.
Prosecutors brought mounds of evidence to the table — sometimes literally, like when they brought a large display of firearms and ammunition into the courtroom.
And rarely did defendants dispute the facts of the case. They admitted to illegally taking over a federal facility, even to bringing their arms.
“It didn’t bother me to be arrested because I’m where I want to be right now,” Medenbach said on the stand . “Like the Bundys, I’ve been called by a higher power … we all know this is what God called us to do.”
But prosecutors missed the dunk. And just like in basketball, a missed dunk in the courtroom can be humiliating.
Juror No. 4 — who earlier sparked a fellow juror’s dismissal by questioning his impartiality — wrote the Oregonian/OregonLive saying the prosecution came off as arrogant in its case.
“The air of triumphalism that the prosecution brought was not lost on any of us,” the juror wrote.
The prosecution moved through its case quickly. Prosecutors rested after 13 days. They cross-examined Ammon Bundy for just 15 minutes . Their closing argument lasted less than two hours.
Williams admitted the hurry with which prosecutors prepared their case may have hurt it. He called the legal timeline “extraordinary.”
The prosecution focused heavily on the occupiers’ intent behind the refuge takeover. But the jury ultimately determined the prosecution failed to prove impeding federal employees was the occupiers’ goal — even if the occupation actually did impede employees. The Defense
Matt Schindler, Medenbach’s hybrid counsel, delivered a thunderous closing argument on Oct. 19.
The charge all seven occupiers faced was conspiracy to impede federal employees from doing their jobs by threat, force or intimidation.
“I just sat through five weeks of a trial about threatening federal employees without hearing a single threat,” Schindler said in his closing argument.
The defense tried to make its case bigger than the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife employees in Harney County.
Five defendants ended up taking the stand, speaking at length about the U.S. Constitution, land management, divinity, and the 2014 standoff in Bunkerville, Nevada. Ryan Bundy questioned his wife on the stand. David Fry giggled when prosecutors asked him about using government computers. Medenbach reveled in the glory of public testimony after decades of protesting the federal government.
In their closing arguments, defense attorneys attempted to instill into the jurors a sense of political responsibility.
“We’re counting on you to stop government overreach,” Marcus Mumford, Ammon Bundy’s attorney, told the jury. “Our trust is in you.”
A jury found seven defendants charged in the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge not guilty, following a trial that lasted several weeks. The Verdict
Defense attorneys expressed shock at the verdict; even they did not expect such a result. It came despite scrutiny from U.S. District Court Judge Anna Brown and prosecutors for lack of organization .
Defendants and their supporters erupted into tearful celebration outside the federal courthouse in downtown Portland (and streamed it live online, just like much of the occupation).
“We came to Oregon — to Harney County — seeking justice,” defendant Neil Wampler said after his acquittal, “and today we found it.”
But despite defendants’ and supporters’ cries of victory, Juror No. 4 wrote in his letter to the Oregonian that the verdict was not an endorsement of the occupiers’ political beliefs.
“It should be known that all 12 jurors felt that this verdict was a statement regarding the various failures of the prosecution to prove ‘conspiracy’ in the count itself — and not any form of affirmation of the defense’s various beliefs, actions or aspirations,” the juror wrote.
Defendants and their supporters celebrated a not guilty verdict in the trial of seven people involved in the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The Celebration
The mood was jubilant among occupiers and their supporters, who grilled, milled and posed for cameras in downtown Portland on the Friday following the verdict.
Many people have said they fear the verdict will embolden defendants and their supporters. Cox and Fry both said they would participate in protests like the Oregon Standoff again.
“If I have a compelling urge to come out here to join a protest, if I think it’s a legitimate reason to come, I’ll absolutely protest,” Fry told OPB. Teressa Raiford speaks at a Don’t Shoot PDX-organized rally on Portland State University’s campus. Bradley W. Parks/OPB
The reaction was different just a few blocks away.
Don’t Shoot PDX, a Portland activist group supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement, was holding what was supposed to be a rally, unrelated to the trial, at Portland State University.
“I don’t know how I can keep telling people to protest,” lead organizer Teressa Raiford told the crowd. Raiford seemed exhausted.
The occupiers’ acquittal came the same day more than 100 protesters in North Dakota were forcibly removed from the construction site of the Dakota Access Pipeline and arrested. It came weeks after Don’t Shoot PDX protesters were pushed out of City Hall and pepper-sprayed by Portland police.
Raiford expressed anger at having to discuss the Malheur trial verdict. She and countless others on social media highlighted what many see as a double-standard in how law enforcement and the justice system punish people of color. With the exception of David Fry, defendants in the occupation case were all white. All jury members were also white.
“Forty-one days at a compound on federal land,” Raiford said, pointing to weapons at the refuge, occupiers’ refusal to leave, and threats made by occupiers against the FBI.
“The difference is we would have been murdered,” Raiford said.
Jarvis Kennedy, of the Burns, Oregon, Paiute tribe told OPB’s Amanda Peacher he was angry with the verdict. Kennedy and the Paiute tribe have been vocal opponents of the Malheur occupation from the start. However, Kennedy added he was now more motivated to fight for Native lands and rights .
Don’t Shoot PDX eventually marched past the occupation supporters’ barbecue Friday, where they staged a die-in near the courthouse steps and burned an American flag .
After a brief shouting match, Bundy supporters went back to the grill and Don’t Shoot PDX continued to City Hall. A member of the Pacific Patriots Network at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January. Many wonder if the verdict in the Oregon occupation trial will embolden militia groups to take up armed land battles throughout the West. Dave Blanchard/OPB The Implication
Ammon and Ryan Bundy are still in federal custody, despite an animated effort by Marcus Mumford to win his client’s release upon receiving the verdict.
After arguing with Judge Brown for Ammon Bundy to be let go, Mumford was tackled by U.S. Marshals, allegedly tased, briefly detained and later released.
The Bundy brothers still face charges for the 2014 standoff in Bunkerville led by their father, Cliven Bundy.
Seven Oregon occupiers still await trial in February, though the status of those proceedings could be in limbo.
Shawna Cox called Thursday’s outcome “just one win” in a larger movement to change how the federal government manages land in the American West.
U.S. Attorney Billy Williams seemed to hope more people would shun the Bundys’ form of protest.
“There are a good number of folks in rural America who are of the mind that you don’t take arms and take over a federal facility to prove your point,” Williams said.
The Oregon verdict will certainly color the conversation around the impending trial in Nevada. The result there — where the penalties for alleged crimes are slightly more harsh than Oregon — has the potential to make even bigger waves in the so-called patriot movement .
But occupiers and their supporters cooking out in downtown Portland took heart in the Oregon verdict and envisioned a long fight ahead of them on behalf of rural Americans.
Under downtown shade-trees, defendant Jeff Banta approached supporter David Zion Brugger, who decorated his hat and shirt with “NOT GUILTY” buttons, and shook his hand.
In a hushed voice, Banta said, “See you down the road.” Share On: | 1 |
AMSTERDAM — Pedram Paragomi, a Iranian medical student, was excited about his first trip to the United States. It had taken him a year to arrange a postdoctoral research post at the University of Pittsburgh. When he sat down in Seat 19E, on a Boeing 777 operated by KLM out of Tehran early Saturday, he felt that he had finally fulfilled his dream. “It’s the excitement you feel when you make a long trip to an unknown destination,” Mr. Paragomi said. It was not to be. Mr. Paragomi and six other Iranians remained stranded at Schiphol Airport outside Amsterdam on Tuesday, as their travel ordeal stretched into its fourth day. They were among thousands of people affected by President Trump’s executive order barring from the United States, for 90 days, travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The largely spontaneous and spirited protests at American airports over the weekend focused on several aspects of Mr. Trump’s order, including a ban on all refugees, an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees and an attempt — later blocked by judges — to deport people with valid visas or refugee status who had already arrived in the United States. But many travelers were stuck in various states of limbo abroad — far from the sightlines of American protesters — and their plight has only slowly come to light, in many cases through the efforts of volunteer lawyers who have been working on their cases. A Syrian man said that he had been blocked from flying from Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, to the United States, where he had a research position lined up at a university in North Dakota. He said Mr. Trump’s order would affect his career. In an email to The New York Times, he shared a copy of his United States visa — the word CANCELED was written over it — but asked that his name not be used because he did not want to jeopardize his residency status in the United Arab Emirates. In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a group of Somali refugees remained at an airport on Tuesday. Ethiopian officials ejected a journalist who tried to speak with them, citing unspecified national security concerns. The seven Iranians stuck in Amsterdam were pulled aside on Saturday by United States agents stationed at the airport. They could not leave the airport because they did not have European visas. Mr. Paragomi likened their plight to that of the character played by Tom Hanks in the 2004 film “The Terminal,” about a man stuck at an airport for nearly a year after a coup in his country made it impossible for him to fly back home. Among the Iranians stuck there were Esaghi Abolghasem and his wife, Kobra Alizadeh, who had left Iran on the same flight as Mr. Paragomi. They were heading for Washington to visit their daughter, whom they had not seen in five years. “My heart was filled with joy,” Mr. Abolghasem said. He was stunned when he heard the news that he could not travel to the United States because of Mr. Trump’s order. “I thought I would get a heart attack,” Mr. Abolghasem said. From Amsterdam, Mr. Paragomi, the medical student, called his cousin in California, who was fast asleep. “He didn’t believe it,” Mr. Paragomi recalled. “He thought I had made a mistake with my papers. He said: ‘Such things don’t happen in the United States. Of course you can travel. ’” Nobody knew what to do with the stranded Iranians. After hours of wandering through the immense airport, they met at a transfer point. All had cash, as Iranians generally do not possess international credit cards. “We sat there,” Mr. Abolghasem said. “Nobody did anything. ” After a day they started looking for places to showers, but the two airport hotels were expensive. One man in the group went to pray at the airport’s meditation center, where he met an airport official who introduced the group to a Dutch pastor who offered to help. “It’s a very sad situation,” said the pastor, Nico Sarot. “We should be uniting people. Some are building walls, where we should be tearing them down. I’m trying to help them out with the airlines and with lawyers, and also just to be there to listen to their stories, but there is just not so much we can do. ” Night after night, they slept in the chairs at the airport. “It was cold, we had no blankets,” Mrs. Alizadeh said. “I felt so sad to suddenly be in this situation. ” But there was hope, too. When they saw on the news that across the United States people had started to gather at airports in protest, they told each other to wait. “I was hoping there would be people outside of Amsterdam airport too,” Mr. Paragomi said. “We thought if we stick it out, maybe we can travel to the U. S. as well. ” By the time a federal judge in Brooklyn blocked part of Mr. Trump’s order on Saturday night, other Iranians had already given up and flown back home. But the group of seven decided to stay, hoping to be admitted. “Dutch immigration officers started coming over, asking what our plans were,” Mr. Paragomi recalled. “Airline representatives spoke to us, warning that if we didn’t go back, our tickets would become invalid. ” On Monday they were all taken to a business class lounge to have showers. They were given food, too. Lawyers from the United States got in touch with them by WhatsApp and email to help out. But by Tuesday afternoon, their resistance had started to crumble. A KLM flight heading for Tehran was leaving, and Mr. Paragomi said on Tuesday morning that he did not know what to do. “I worked so hard for this,” he said of his research post in Pittsburgh. “If there is a slight chance I can go and study in the U. S. I will stay. ” Eventually, Mr. Paragomi and four other Iranians took a plane back to Tehran, while two Iranians stayed behind, having received help from an American lawyer based in the Netherlands. As he gathered his belongings for the flight home, Mr. Paragomi asked: “I’m only a student. What did I do wrong?” | 1 |
BRUSSELS — A giant glowing orb is about to become the new home of the European Union. Nestled inside of a bold and decidedly quirky new building, the orb will be visible from the street during the day and after dark, a nod to greater transparency by an institution often dismissed as elitist and remote. When European leaders meet for the first time in their new headquarters, known as the Europa and built for about 325 million euros, or $340 million, they will experience “joyful” surroundings, Philippe Samyn, the project’s architect, said during a recent tour of the building. It has been a long time since any gathering of the bloc’s leaders could be described as joyful. Finishing touches are being applied to the orb — on close inspection it’s really more of a vase — just as hopes of European unity have faded precipitously. Britain voted in June to leave the bloc, and the willingness of the other 27 member states to play by rules decided in Brussels is being tested in ways scarcely imaginable when the project was given the a dozen years ago. Europe is being swept by populist fury, much of it directed at the European Union — at its centralizing tendencies and its often ineffectual results. National leaders have failed repeatedly to reach consensus over how to manage the debt crisis in Greece that nearly sank the euro several years ago. They still are quarreling over how to handle a mass influx of migrants from the Middle East and Africa. That crisis could resume if a delicate deal with Turkey restraining the flow collapses. At best, the new building might represent a fresh start for the European Union, along with its architecturally charmless neighborhood, known as the European Quarter. At worst, European leaders might end up meeting in their new headquarters just as they reach the nadir in the struggle to determine the future of their troubled Continent. The Europa features bespoke touches like dazzlingly colored carpets woven from New Zealand wool and designed by a Belgian artist, and a meticulously restored hallway from a previous building on the site, which once served as the headquarters for the German occupying forces during World War II. The cost of the new building is galling for member states like Greece that have endured years of punishing austerity measures in exchange for loans to rescue their economies and maintain public services. It also angered David Cameron, who resigned as the British prime minister after Britain voted to exit the bloc. He had campaigned to keep Britain in a reformed European Union. “You do wonder whether these institutions actually get what every country, what every member of the public, is having to go through as we cut budgets and try to make our finances add up,” Mr. Cameron said five years ago, after being briefed on plans for the Europa. Ministers will move next month, and European Union leaders are expected to hold their first meeting there in March. The leaders gathered two weeks ago for their summit meeting in the Justus Lipsius building, an unloved venue that has been used since the 1990s. Named for a Flemish stoic, the building evokes a postwar vogue for architectural Brutalism. Its interior is a matrix of dim hallways and soulless conference rooms. The new project, next door, was conceived to improve the quality of meeting space in anticipation of bigger gatherings as a result of an enlargement of the bloc in 2004, when 10 nations, mostly from Central and Eastern Europe, joined. A huge conference space was later added to the plan to enable European leaders to convene international delegations. The glowing central structure is intended to serve as a kind of “lantern” for Europe, said Mr. Samyn, the Belgian architect, who explained that engineering challenges had shaped his design choices. Belgian law required preservation of the historic hallway from the previous building on the site, while the new building’s conference rooms had to be kept some distance from nearby railway tunnels for structural and safety reasons. (A subway line that runs below the Europa is just one stop from the Maelbeek station, the site of a terrorist bombing in March that killed 16 people.) Mr. Samyn said that some essential elements of his design — a tiered structure that curves outward from a narrow base — came to him in a dream. At its widest point, the orb has enough room for 330 delegates and 32 interpretation booths. Where it curves in at the top and bottom there are smaller conference rooms, dining areas and space for members of the news media. Mr. Samyn festooned the structure with white strips to reflect low energy spotlights that make it glow after dark, even when no meetings are taking place. A facade that encases the orb serves as a visual hymn to the European Union’s motto, “United in diversity,” Mr. Samyn said. The facade’s 3, 750 panes of glass have been mounted in refurbished oak window frames of different sizes, which were obtained from demolition sites in each member state. The meeting rooms are laid with carpets and have ceiling coverings in 60 different colors, producing a mildly psychedelic effect. The square and rectangles motif, designed by Georges Meurant, a Belgian artist, acknowledges the importance of color to national identity while avoiding patterns that recall any individual member state’s flag. The bloc’s leaders will sit at a round table rather than the one with sharp angles that is currently in use in the Justus Lipsius. That means they will no longer need to use video monitors some of the time to see who is speaking, making the atmosphere more intimate, Mr. Samyn said. A less welcome reason for the increased intimacy: One fewer leader will be at meetings once Britain carries out its plan to depart. With politicians in France and the Netherlands riding high in the polls ahead of elections in 2017, there is widespread speculation that Britain’s departure may be the start of a great unraveling of the European Union. For the first time in its history, the bloc’s survival is being openly discussed. Unsurprisingly, the gloom that has descended on Brussels has given rise to a form of black humor, much of it directed at the Europa building. Among the quips: Rather than serving as a lantern, as Mr. Samyn has called his gently curving structure, it could one day be used as a giant funeral urn, to hold the ashes of a collapsed European Union. | 1 |
BRUSSELS — Belgium’s Parliament has quietly passed legislation giving the government extraordinary powers to deport legal residents on the mere suspicion of engagement in terrorist activities, or for “presenting a risk” to public order or national security, without a criminal conviction or the involvement of a judge. The law applies only to foreign residents, not to Belgian nationals or refugees, part of a toughening of domestic security laws that has begun to worry human rights groups and ordinary citizens as a threat to civil liberties. Besides counterterrorism concerns, supporters of this law have been motivated by sentiments, which they feel are widely shared not only in their country but across the European Union and even in the United States. Amid fears of terrorism, some other European countries have also introduced stricter immigration policies, and Hungary, Austria and the Netherlands have lowered their threshold for deportation in recent years. But the Belgian legislation stands out for its vague language, which grants unprecedented powers to the government to interpret and enforce the law as it sees fit, critics said. Last week, about 70 groups representing civil rights advocates, minorities, labor and the arts signed an open letter in protest of the new law. At least two rights groups are preparing to fight the law in the Constitutional Court, the nation’s highest court for constitutional matters. The law was first presented by Belgium’s secretary for asylum and migration, Theo Francken, a Flemish nationalist and a member of the government, in July in the wake of the Brussels terrorist attacks that killed 32 people and wounded 340. On Feb. 9, Mr. Francken managed to slip an amendment to the country’s Foreigners Law before Parliament without much of a public debate, let alone opposition. Although the law was discussed in a parliamentary committee and during a plenary session, most real discussion was limited to cabinet meetings, experts said. Since then, Mr. Francken has been increasingly on the defensive over the measure. “I am not going to put someone out of the country, who has lived here all of his life and has children here and so forth, just because he got two speeding tickets. That’s absurd,” Mr. Francken said in a telephone interview. “That is not my intention at all. ” “Let me be very clear. This is about 20 cases of terrorism and 50 cases of heavy criminality,” he said. “It’s about simplifying the procedures of orders for leaving the territory. ” But a month after the law passed, some members of Parliament and civil society groups are growing worried about the powers that it granted to the executive branch. “We’re turning the clock back 10 years,” said Jos Vander Velpen, president of the Belgian Human Rights League. “We have six months to appeal it, and we’re already intensively preparing our arguments. ” Last year, a report by Human Rights Watch on Belgium’s counterterrorism measures criticized a raft of problematic laws and policies. In particular, the report warned that a 2015 law allowing the authorities to revoke Belgian citizenship from dual nationals convicted of terrorism could create perceptions of a tier of “second class” citizens based on their ethnicity and religion. “Belgium has worked hard this past year to prevent further attacks, but its law and policy responses have been undermined by their overbroad and sometimes abusive nature,” said Letta Tayler, a senior terrorism researcher at Human Rights Watch and the report’s author. Belgium, a country of 11 million people, received 107, 000 requests for asylum over the last four years and granted it in over half of cases. During the same period, Belgium became the biggest exporter of foreign terrorist fighters in Western Europe — about 500 joined the Islamic State in Syria. The country also served as a base for most of the terrorists who carried out the attacks in Paris in November 2015 and in Brussels in March 2016. All of them had immigrant backgrounds, and only some were Belgian nationals. The new law asks officials to weigh the possible threat a foreigner poses against the links that person has with Belgian society. It will be tougher to expel someone with strong links, who has a family and a job, but easier to do so with someone who barely visits the country. In its previous form, the Foreigners Law, which dates to 1980, allowed the deportation of foreigners only after they were convicted of serious crimes, including terrorism, and with the oversight of a magistrate. People who were born in Belgium or moved there under the age of 12 were exempt from deportation. All of those restrictions have been eliminated. An amendment in 2005 built in most of these protections, “the result of a battle,” said Mr. Vander Velpen, the human rights lawyer. His organization is building a case against the new law, based on the argument that it violates the separation of powers and denies a foreign resident the right to appeal. “The Immigration Office can immediately, without interference of a judge, put someone out of the country based on indications that he or she could pose a threat to the public order,” he said. Afterward, that person can appeal the administration’s decision in front of a judge, but that does not suspend the immediate deportation, Mr. Vander Velpen explained. Government officials have offered assurances that there are exceptions in case of extraordinary emergencies — when deportation poses an imminent danger to a person’s life, for example. People representing groups that defend the interests of minorities said they worried that the law would deepen the divide between residents who hold a Belgian passport and those who don’t. They fear the law gives the Immigration Office too much power to arbitrarily interpret the meaning of “public order” and “national security. ” Those who might be affected have been vocal in their opposition. They include Belgium’s 1. 3 million legal residents who do not have Belgian nationality — some 10 percent of the total population, according to government statistics. Aya Sabi, a columnist for two Belgian newspapers, sent Mr. Francken a Twitter message last month saying that as a Dutch national with Moroccan ancestry living in Belgium for eight years, she had become deportable “since recently. ” A heated and public exchange ensued, with Mr. Francken accusing her of lying and trying to draw attention to herself. “You’ve always been deportable,” he responded. “By the law voted by the left in 2005. Why didn’t I hear from you back then?” Ms. Sabi replied that in 2005 she was 10 years old. In an interview this month, she said that “removing terrorists from Belgian soil isn’t going to solve anything they’ll just continue abroad. ” “That’s the same logic the government applied when foreign terrorist fighters started to leave for Syria,” she added, “and that didn’t turn out well, did it?” Confronted with the argument, Mr. Francken said the new law lets him withdraw the Belgian residency permits of about 20 fighters in Syria who are about to return. He will move to do so on the first day the law takes effect, which is in about 10 days, he said. “If I can keep a Syria fighter in Syria, then I’ll definitely do that, that’s for sure,” he said. “We’re already taking back all the Belgian nationals. And to be honest, we don’t know what to do with them anymore, and in fact, the whole of Europe doesn’t know what to do with these people anymore. ” | 1 |
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If you look at the numbers, there is no way that Hillary Clinton could possibly win the election without the support of a substantial percentage of evangelical Christian voters. In fact, if evangelical Christians stuck together they could pretty much elect whoever they want as president. According to the Pew Research Center, 35 percent of all adults in the United States identify themselves as “evangelical” or “born again”, and it has been estimated that there are 94 million evangelical Christian adults in this country. If evangelical Christians acted as a single voting block they could determine the outcome of every single presidential election. Unfortunately, that simply is not going to happen.
A survey that was recently conducted by LifeWay Research found that only 45 percent of Christian evangelicals plan to vote for Donald Trump and 31 percent of Christian evangelicals plan to vote for Hillary Clinton.
That same survey discovered that moral issues are becoming increasingly unimportant to evangelical voters… Overall, the economy is the top concern for Americans regardless of religious affiliation (30%). National security (17%) and personal character (17%) also are significant issues. Supreme Court nominees (10%), immigration (5%), religious freedom (2%), and abortion (1%) are less important . “For churchgoers and those with evangelical beliefs, their pocketbook and personal safety are paramount,” said McConnell. “Moral issues aren’t a priority for many of them.”
I don’t know how in the world abortion could come in at only 1 percent. Even if you add “Supreme Court nominees” and abortion together, you still only get a total of 11 percent.
This just shows that evangelicals in America have their priorities way out of order.
And unfortunately for Donald Trump, he is getting a lot less support from evangelicals than other recent presidential candidates received. According to the New York Times , previous candidates have generally received about 80 percent support from white evangelical voters, but Donald Trump is only getting about 65 to 70 percent support, and his numbers among non-white evangelicals are absolutely dismal.
If you are an evangelical Christian and you have reservations about Donald Trump, I can respect that. But there will be other names on the ballot and you do not have to vote for Hillary Clinton. As I have said before, a vote for Hillary Clinton is an act of unmitigated wickedness.
Hillary Clinton has made support for abortion one of the central pillars of her long political career. In fact, I don’t know if there is any politician in America that is more associated with abortion than Hillary Clinton. Since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, more than 58 million babies have been murdered in the United States, and Hillary Clinton’s hands are drenched with their blood.
If you vote for Hillary Clinton, your hands will be drenched with their blood too.
Needless to say, I am absolutely horrified that so many prominent evangelical leaders have come out in support of Hillary Clinton during this election season. For example, a group that represents over 6,000 Latino evangelical churches has just announced that they are endorsing Hillary Clinton …
An organization representing more than 6,000 Latino evangelical churches in the U.S. is endorsing Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.
In a statement Thursday, the group OPEN USA says Clinton has proven her willingness to engage in difficult conversations, listen to contrasting opinions and engage faith leaders.
Meanwhile, 75 evangelical leaders recently signed a petition on Change.org that strongly denounces Donald Trump…
We, undersigned evangelicals, simply will not tolerate the racial, religious, and gender bigotry that Donald Trump has consistently and deliberately fueled, no matter how else we choose to vote or not to vote.
One of the truly alarming trends that we have been seeing this election season is the number of prominent women in the evangelical movement that are openly rejecting Donald Trump and embracing Hillary Clinton. The following is a short excerpt from a recent Washington Post article that examined this phenomenon…
When Jen Hatmaker speaks to stadiums full of Christian women, she regales them with stories about her five children and her garden back in Austin, Tex. — and stays away from politics. But recently she took to Facebook and Instagram to blast Donald J. Trump as a “national disgrace,” and remind her legions of followers that there are other names on the ballot in November.
And Christianity Today recently published an editorial from one of the top female evangelical leaders in the entire country in which she publicly endorsed Hillary Clinton. According to Christianity Today, Deborah Fikes is “the former Permanent Representative to the United Nations for World Evangelical Alliance, which represents a constituency of 650 million with alliance offices in 129 countries.” Fikes says that she stepped down from some of her leadership positions so that she could openly advocate for Clinton … My recent resignations from evangelical leadership positions to endorse Hillary Clinton speaks volumes of how important I believe it is that she is elected in November. The toxic tone and atmosphere that surrounds Mr. Trump and is fueled among his supporters has done irreparable damage to not only our country and the future of the GOP but also to the public witness of evangelicals in America who are seen as some of his biggest supporters. There is no question in my mind or spirit that with the overwhelming challenges the next American president will face, Hillary Clinton is the most qualified person who has ever run for the Oval Office . On the issues of our national security, economic stability, seeing that healthcare reform continues to move forward, and tackling domestic challenges of poverty, inequality, and racism, we need her to be the person occupying this office.
A lot of these women seem to think that abortion shouldn’t be a major issue in this election, but that is like saying that the Holocaust shouldn’t have been a major issue in Nazi Germany.
Look, you don’t have to vote for Donald Trump or anyone else to be a good Christian.
But if you cast a vote for Hillary Clinton, you are casting a vote for the most evil, wicked and corrupt politician that this nation has possibly ever seen, and you are publicly endorsing the sinful positions that she is proud to stand for.
I know that I have been writing about the election a lot lately , but I feel that it is very important that I do so. Most of the media coverage has focused on Donald Trump , but I feel that this election is far more about Hillary Clinton. The things that her and her husband have done have been well documented, and if the American people willingly choose her they will know exactly what they are doing.
Unfortunately, not even Christians are standing united against the Clintons. The political divide in the evangelical Christian world has grown so deep that it has even reached Liberty University. The following comes from the Atlantic …
That’s why it was such a big deal when, two weeks ago, a group of Liberty students put out a letter explaining why they’re standing against the Republican presidential nominee. Jerry Falwell Jr., who has run the school since his father died in 2007, announced his support for Donald Trump back in January, and he has since spoken on the candidate’s behalf in interviews and at events. “We are Liberty students who are disappointed with President Falwell’s endorsement and are tired of being associated with one of the worst presidential candidates in American history,” the students wrote. “Donald Trump does not represent our values and we want nothing to do with him.”
Thousands of people signed onto the letter, including, the students said, roughly 2,000 students or alumni with liberty.edu email addresses.Dustin Wahl and Alex Forbes, two of the letter’s authors, were featured on MSNBC and CNN. They said they received supportive emails and tweets from Russell Moore, the head of the political arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Erick Erickson, the conservative radio-show host.
And the support for Clinton is particularly strong among young adult evangelicals. When I read the following paragraph on the website of the New York Times , I was absolutely astounded…
Kate Shellnutt, 30, the online editor of Christianity Today and editor of the CT Women section, said she had observed that “the millennial generation has a lot less patience for Trump.” Of the 33 influential millennial evangelicals she profiled for a cover story two years ago, she says she can now find only one, Lila Rose, who is pro-Trump, and even she has been publicly critical of him . Several have been using the hashtag #NeverTrump, Ms. Shellnutt said.
The frightening thing is that this election might be the last chance for evangelical Christians to shape the political direction of this nation, because the truth is that demographics are rapidly shifting, and this includes the demographics of the evangelical community …
As Robert Jones has expertly documented in his recent book The End of White Christian America , the number of older, conservative, white male evangelicals is shrinking each year. Meanwhile, the number of younger evangelicals of all ethnic backgrounds — whose moral and political views extend far beyond positions on gay marriage and abortion — is on the rise.
If you follow my work regularly, then you already know that I have very little hope for the future of America.
But if Hillary Clinton is elected, there will be exactly zero hope.
If evangelical Christians stood united, they could stop her, but at this point it appears that is not going to happen.
Take a look at the future of America: The Beginning of the End and then prepare shares | 1 |
CHICAGO — Blame for the tainted water in Flint, Mich. has engulfed federal regulators, the governor, state employees and city officials. On Wednesday, the Michigan attorney general took sharp aim elsewhere: the private sector. Bill Schuette, the attorney general, announced a lawsuit against two companies that he said imperiled public health in Flint and contributed to the city’s drinking water. The companies, Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews Newnam, or LAN, were awarded contracts to advise the city about using the Flint River as its drinking water source. But, Mr. Schuette said, each failed to sound alarms about lead contamination, overlooked obvious problems and were complicit in the series of events that caused lead to leach from pipes and poison children. “They failed miserably in their job,” Mr. Schuette, a Republican, said at a news conference in Flint. “Basically botched it — didn’t stop the water in Flint from being poisoned. They made it worse. That’s what they did. ” Flint’s mayor, Karen Weaver, said that she was alarmed at hearing that the companies may have been at fault, and appreciative of the continuing investigations. “It’s disturbing to hear that companies hired to ensure the safety of the city’s water supply may not have done what they were paid to do,” she said, adding that the city is still under contract with LAN, an engineering company based in Houston, which she said had received nearly $3. 5 million from the city for work before, during and after the switch to the Flint River. Veolia, an international water management company that is a subsidiary of a company, had a $40, 000 contract, a city spokeswoman said, and also received about $15, 000 for work a few years earlier. Advocates for the environment said Veolia had been accused of violations elsewhere, including polluting waterways and overbilling customers, leading to lawsuits filed in courts across the country. Residents were skeptical of the quality of its work in Flint. “I don’t have a Ph. D. but I know that if the water is brown, that means the pipes are getting torn up and something is causing the pipes to be torn up,” said Melissa Mays, a Flint resident who has protested the water conditions. “They should have figured out what it was. ” The two companies denied the attorney general’s characterization of events and defended their efforts in Flint, though neither company made executives available to be interviewed. Paul Whitmore, a spokesman for Veolia, said that the company was “disappointed” with the lawsuit and noted that a task force appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder largely faulted the state government for Flint’s water problems. Mr. Whitmore said the scope of the company’s work in Flint was always meant to be limited, and not focused on lead contamination. A statement from Lockwood, Andrews Newnam said Mr. Schuette “blatantly mischaracterized the role of LAN’s service to Flint. ” The lawsuit also named its parent company, the Leo A. Daly Company, as a defendant. The attorney general’s lawsuit, filed in Circuit Court in Genesee County, which includes Flint, was the latest fallout from the city’s water crisis, in which a sequence of failures by government and businesses left the city fearful about drinking from the tap and led to a series of investigations and political controversies. In April, Mr. Schuette filed criminal charges against two state environmental regulators and one city employee who Mr. Schuette said tampered with evidence and distorted water testing results. Mr. Snyder has faced intense criticism for his handling of the crisis, and has promised millions of dollars in aid for the city. As criminal investigations continue, with more charges expected, Mr. Schuette said he hoped the lawsuit could lead to “hundreds of millions” of dollars in damages to help repair Flint’s rotting infrastructure and provide support to affected residents, though he acknowledged that it might take years. The companies have already been sued by residents. Mr. Schuette was especially critical of Veolia, which consulted with the city after its switch to using the Flint River resulted in contaminants turning up in drinking water. He accused the company of “callously and fraudulently” dismissing medical concerns and reporting that the water was safe even as residents reported health problems and complained about water. “Can you believe that?” Mr. Schuette said. “Tell that to a pregnant woman, carrying her unborn child, whose bones, brains, kidneys can be severely damaged because of lead poisoning. ” Veolia North America employs about 7, 800 people and operates water and sewer systems for cities. According to the company, it serves close to 550 communities in North America and treats more than 2. 2 billion gallons of water and wastewater each day. In March, LeeAnne Walters, a Flint resident whose children were poisoned by lead, filed a lawsuit against LAN, Veolia and other companies that were hired to carry out the switch to Flint water or evaluate its safety. Her lawsuit argues that LAN “did not require corrosion control to ensure that corrosive water was not delivered throughout Flint’s aging water system. ” In his lawsuit, Mr. Schuette accuses LAN of making matters worse by recommending the addition of ferric chloride to the water, which he said increased the water’s corrosivity and exacerbated the leaching of lead. Veolia has had its share of controversy. It was sued in April by the attorney general of Massachusetts, who accused the company of allowing more than 10 million gallons of raw sewage to contaminate a tract of land. The lawsuit, which also named the town of Plymouth, said that it was not the first time the company was at fault for polluting the environment. “This is a case involving repeated, serious violations of state laws that threatened public health and our invaluable water resources,” Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, said in a statement in April. Veolia responded that it was working on the issues and that many had been resolved. Watchdog groups fear that once companies like Veolia sign contracts with their municipalities, they can exert powerful control over water systems, exposing residents to rate increases, overbilling and environmental damage. Veolia’s involvement in Flint was far smaller in scope: It was initially hired to do an evaluation of the city’s water nearly a year after officials had made the switch to the Flint River. Afterward, Veolia proposed more extensive work in Flint for an estimated $1. 8 million, but the city did not hire the company. Veolia, in a statement, vowed to “vigorously defend itself” against the attorney general’s lawsuit and noted that its services there were limited. “Flint hired Veolia nearly one full year after the change in water source, and the focus of Veolia’s analysis, at Flint’s direction, was only to help the city address concerns about the levels of disinfection byproducts (TTHM) discoloration, and issues related to the drinking water treatment process,” the statement said. LAN said on Wednesday that it was not to blame for the water quality, pointing to government employees instead. “LAN had regularly advised that corrosion control should be added and that the system needed to be fully tested before going online,” it said. The lawsuit comes as Flint struggles to cope with the fallout of its water crisis. Officials say the water is improving, but is still unsafe to drink without a filter. Ms. Weaver’s efforts to start replacing the lead service lines blamed for the corrosion have largely stalled, and bids to continue the work came in higher than expected. “The anxiety, the fear, the uncertainty is really having an effect,” said State Senator Jim Ananich, a Democrat who lives in Flint. “There’s a lot of people fighting, saying we’re going to come out of this stronger. But at the same time, on a basis, when you can’t use your water, it’s really demoralizing. ” | 1 |
SAN FRANCISCO — During a product showcase held on Wednesday in one of rock music’s most storied venues, Apple executives signaled that the company was heading toward a wireless future, where devices would connect without cables. A big step in that direction is the removal of a headphone jack from the latest version of the iPhone, called the iPhone 7. What was lacking in Apple’s presentation, as has been the case for the Silicon Valley giant in recent years, was a new, can’ hit like the original iPod. There wasn’t even a dramatic change to an old classic, like the bigger iPhones it introduced in 2014. But if you like tweaks to products you may already have, Apple had plenty to offer at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, a cavernous arena named for a famous music promoter that has hosted the likes of the Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan. The iPhone 7 includes a better camera and the bigger iPhone 7 Plus has a second camera with a telephoto lens. It also has an improved home button that lets users perform different tasks by varying how hard they press it. “Basically, Apple has shifted from one killer feature per upgrade, such as a larger screen, to a variety of compelling improvements that will appeal to a range of buyers,” said Frank Gillett, an analyst at Forrester Research. For more than a decade, Apple has experienced explosive revenue and earnings growth thanks to new hit products, including the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. That streak stopped with the release of the Apple Watch last year, though executives maintain that sales have exceeded expectations. Apple’s stock price is just about where it was a year ago, and this year the company has posted two consecutive quarters of declining revenue. For the first time, iPhone revenue also dipped, as the global market for smartphones began to shrink and consumers began replacing their smartphones less frequently. Executives expect sales to fall again this quarter. But there are probably plenty more dollars to be wrung from Apple’s existing products. This update to the iPhone has been a cause for excitement — and controversy — among Apple fans. Removing the port for headphones from the iPhone means they now connect only wirelessly or through a charging port. The redesign also encourages users to upgrade to Apple’s new wireless earbuds, AirPods, which cost $160. While the updates to the iPhone were incremental, Apple executives hinted that the iPhone changes were part of a companywide effort to wirelessly connect everything inside a home. Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, explained how his company’s technology could be the central way to control all sorts of home wireless devices. “This is Apple’s way of saying that someday the smartphone experience will be wireless,” said Tim Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies. But will it be enough to reignite iPhone sales? “Not by itself,” he said. “But this along with the other tech upgrades like cameras and processors should drive high interest for those needing to upgrade, as well as draw interest by new customers too. ” Talk about a wireless future had people already looking toward big changes that could be in store for next year, the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, and beyond. Mr. Bajarin, for example, expects Apple to introduce wireless charging to the iPhone in the near future. Should wireless connections become a bigger part of Apple’s future, it is not a leap to imagine closer integration between the company’s various devices and its software meant for cars, called CarPlay. This isn’t the first time Apple has risked angering customers by moving away from a traditional design. Its desktop computers accommodated a disk, rather than the standard floppy disk and more recently it eliminated the CD drive and several ports from its laptops. Some customers considered those changes shocking, even downright hostile acts. They got over it. “Apple has a history of doing what it wants and making people believe that it’s the best idea ever,” said Julie A. Ask, an analyst at Forrester Research. “The company has an affluent customer base that has in the past paid to upgrade because it cares about the quality of the experience. ” Other cosmetic changes were made to the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, which look much like their predecessors and will have starting prices of $650 and $770. The phones will come in new colors, including a shiny, jet black and matte black, in addition to the existing options of silver, gold and rose gold. Apple also unveiled an updated version of the Apple Watch that includes GPS tracking, which would make it more appealing to runners. It has a faster operating system that lets apps work more quickly and could make performing some tasks easier on the watch than on an iPhone. The Apple Watch Series 2 starts at $370. And the original Apple Watch, rebranded Apple Watch Series 1, starts at $270. The company emphasized that the Apple Watch was a useful tool for monitoring health, one of the few functions that users have embraced, and announced a partnership with Nike. It also made the new version and added tracking for swimmers. “The watch is still missing a killer app,” Ms. Ask said, noting that some of the functions that the Apple Watch performs especially well, such as payments, have not taken off. The Apple Watch still accounts for such a tiny portion of the company’s revenue that Apple doesn’t break out the number when it reports quarterly earnings. But Mr. Cook revealed on Wednesday that Apple was now the No. 2 global watch brand, measured by revenue, behind Rolex, and that Apple’s was the smartwatch. The overall market for wearable devices is growing. In the United States, 63. 7 million adults, or about a quarter of the population, use a wearable device. That number is expected to increase by more than 17 percent next year to 74. 8 million adults, according to the research firm eMarketer. Apple has grown increasingly dependent on software and services for growth. On earnings calls with analysts, the company has emphasized the role that software and services play in keeping customers hooked on Apple’s products. Ben Schachter, an analyst with Macquarie Securities, estimates that services such as Apple Music account for nearly of Apple’s quarterly profits. Mr. Cook underscored that idea at the event with updates on Apple Music and the App Store. Mr. Cook said that Apple Music had 17 million subscribers and that the company would work to nail down more exclusive deals with artists. He also said that the hit game Super Mario would come to the App Store and that Pokémon Go would be available on the Apple Watch. | 1 |
Kathy Griffin held a press conference Friday morning to address her shock photo of a “beheaded” President Donald Trump, telling reporters that the Trump family has tried to “ruin” her in the wake of the controversy and vowing to continue to make fun of the president. [Standing next to her attorney Lisa Bloom, the My Life on the star said the firestorm generated by the photograph — after which she was fired from CNN and had at least five scheduled performances cancelled — would have never occurred had the photograph been taken by a male artist. “I don’t think I will have a career after this. I’m going to be honest, he broke me,” Griffin said as she began to choke up. “If you don’t stand up, you get run over,” she added. “What’s happening to me has never happened ever in the history of this great country. Which is that a sitting president of the United States and his grown children and the First Lady are personally, I feel, personally trying to ruin my life forever. ” “He picked me, I’m the easiest target,” she continued. (Watch: Press conference begins at the 40:22 mark) Griffin said the widespread backlash she has faced over the photo is part of a sexist campaign to destroy her career. “It’s a bunch of white guys trying to silence me,” she said. “This wouldn’t be happening to a guy. This is a woman thing. ” Griffin told reporters that the process of preparing for the photograph took just minutes, and was intended to be a parody of the president’s comments about former Fox News anchor Megan Kelly, when he said last year after a presidential debate that the anchor “had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her whatever. ” “I said let’s get in trouble, let’s give them something to talk about,” Griffin recalled, adding that she “never imagined it could be misinterpreted. ” During the press conference, Griffin was asked about a report that claimed Trump’s youngest son, Barron Trump, was traumatized by the image after he saw it on television, because he did not know who Griffin was or the context in which the photograph was taken. “Allegedly” traumatized, Bloom replied. “You’re assuming everything the Trumps say is true. ” Griffin, for her part, said she “would never want to hurt anyone, especially a child. ” The comedian reiterated that she meant what she said in her apology video earlier this week, in which she said the image — taken by L. A. photographer Tyler Shields, who has since defended the work — had gone “too far” and that she had “crossed a line. ” But Griffin added that she would continue to make fun of the president in the wake of the controversy. Another attorney for Griffin confirmed during the press conference that the Secret Service had opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the photo shoot. Reaction to the press conference came swiftly on Twitter, as “Lisa Bloom” began trending on the social media platform Friday morning. Some observers said the press conference was not effective from a crisis management perspective. Lisa Bloom just failed the first rule of being an attorney: never take a question you don’t already know the answer to. — Emily Zanotti (@emzanotti) June 2, 2017, So Kathy Griffin was a victim of sexism! Of course! I just thought she posed with a disgusting beheaded image of the President. pic. twitter. — Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) June 2, 2017, Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 0 |
Good morning. (Want to get California Today by email? Sign up.) It’s go time, California. In this overwhelmingly Democratic state, Hillary Clinton is poised to dominate the presidential vote. But there will be plenty of drama when it comes to the rest of the state’s doorstop of an election ballot. Outcomes are expected to show the influence of rising power centers in California: Hispanics and young people. Early numbers suggest voters are energized. A record 19. 4 million Californians are registered, according to the secretary of state. By Monday, nearly five million votes were already cast. In Los Angeles County over the weekend, some people waited up to four hours in line to vote early, The Los Angeles Times reported. Mindy Romero, who runs the California Civic Engagement Project at U. C. Davis, said on Monday that even though we are not a swing state, many people are being propelled by anxiety over the nation’s direction. “People do think that in this election there is something at stake,” she said. “And, if nothing else, the fear factor among many voters about the other candidate is driving things. ” Some of the contests that we will be following closely as votes roll in: • Attorney General Kamala Harris is the favorite against Representative Loretta Sanchez in the race for United States Senate. Either would be the first woman of color to hold the office from California. • Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican who embraced Donald Trump, faces a threat to the seat he has held in Southern California since 2000 from the Democrat Doug Applegate, a retired Marine colonel. • sentiment could tip votes against other Republican incumbents in Congress as well. Jeff Denham and David Valadao, both in the Central Valley, and Steve Knight, in the Lancaster area, were all seen as vulnerable. The nation will be also watching trendsetting California on several crucial ballot propositions: • Will the state become the heaviest domino yet to fall in the nationwide push to legalize recreational marijuana? • Will voters abolish the death penalty? • Will a measure intended to lower prescription drug prices prevail despite more than $100 million spent to defeat it? • And how will Californians come down on a raft of taxation and questions that could shore up schools and other public projects, but also saddle the state with more debt. Look for a special election night newsletter with results from California Today. And for live coverage follow The Times, which is offering open access on the web and on its news apps. Don’t know where to vote? Look it up. And if you need last minute guidance, see reporting in The Times on all 17 of the statewide initiatives: Proposition 51 (school bond) | Proposition 52 (hospital fees) | Proposition 53 (megaprojects) | Proposition 54 (legislative transparency) | Proposition 55 (income tax) | Proposition 56 (cigarette tax) | Proposition 57 (prison sentencing) | Proposition 58 (bilingual education)| Proposition 59 (Citizens United) | Proposition 60 (condoms in adult film) | Proposition 61 (drug pricing) | Propositions 62 and 66 (death penalty) | Proposition 63 (gun control) | Proposition 64 (marijuana) | Propositions 65 and 67 (plastic bag ban) • In Los Angeles, the multimillionaire Robert A. Durst pleaded not guilty to killing his friend Susan Berman 16 years ago. [The New York Times] • Twin tunnels under the Sepulveda Pass could tame Los Angeles traffic. But the plan comes with unknowns — and a $6 billion price tag. [Los Angeles Times] • SeaWorld is rebuilding its reputation with a new killer whale exhibit. [Opinion | San Diego ] • John D. Roberts, who revolutionized the field of organic chemistry, died at his home in Pasadena. He was 98. [The New York Times] • Warner Bros. has been overshadowed by HBO. But the studio’s movie “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” may change that. [The New York Times] • Philanthropy in Silicon Valley: East Coast donors make traditional gifts. The West Coast tech elite focuses on social benefits. [The New York Times] • After a farmworker shortage, a Salinas Valley agriculture company decided to build affordable housing for farmworkers. [KQED] • “Thanks for identifying yourself as an illegal … Now get out,” an undocumented student at U. C. Berkeley was told on Facebook. [Opinion | The New York Times] • “Water: California,” a photo exhibit by Mustafah Abdulaziz, captures the state’s drought. [The New York Times] • Yuba City is home to one of the largest populations of Sikhs outside India. Thousands gathered for a religious festival. [Sacramento Bee] Think you’re voting to make the world a better place? That may be so, but researchers have also found a less noble driver of voter participation. Shame, or specifically the fear of it. Studies have shown that up to half of nonvoters lie when asked if they cast a ballot. In a new academic paper, behavioral economists from U. C. Berkeley, the University of Chicago and Harvard sought to measure the amount of shame that nonvoters experience. To figure it out, they went to a Chicago suburb after a 2010 congressional election and surveyed both voters and nonvoters. Using financial incentives and election turnout data, they were able to measure how painful it was for people who did not vote to acknowledge it. “The results document substantial shame from admitting to not voting, though little evidence of pride from conversely claiming to vote,” according to the study. For campaigns, that suggests it may be fruitful to drop hints to potential supporters, for example, that Grandma may be inquiring later about their vote. Stefano DellaVigna, a professor of economics at U. C. Berkeley and one of the study’s authors, said the reasons people vote are myriad, not least among them a desire to be counted. But concerns over social standing play a crucial part. If deployed to your side’s advantage, Professor DellaVigna said, “that might flip it in close elections. ” California Today goes live at 6 a. m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes. com. The California Today columnist, Mike McPhate, is a Californian — born outside Sacramento and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He lives in Davis. Follow him on Twitter. California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and attended U. C. Berkeley. | 1 |
UNIDENTIFIED (MUSLIM?) ‘knifeman’ on the run after stabbing four people at a Frankfurt train station The attack this afternoon occurred at Hauptwache Station and police have said there are four victims. At this stage the motive for the stabbings is not clear. ( It will become crystal clear once you identify the attacker as a Muslim ) UK Daily Mail (h/t larr) The local police force confirmed the attack by Tweeting: ‘There was a knife assault at the #Hauptwache in #Frankfurt. ‘That’s why so many colleagues [police officers] and rescue workers there.’ Frankfurt Police confirmed all four victims were still in hospital. A video of the bloody aftermath was captured on what is understood to be level B of the station. The incident was at 5.30pm local time, according to Hessenschau , who report the stabbings came after a group were quarreling. A dispute had started on one platform and spilled over onto another one. There was more bloodshed in a separate incident at the station, understood to be on a passenger train between Hauptwache and Taunusanlage. A dispute between two passengers broke out into a fight, according to Hessenschau , which led to glass being broken and people suffering cuts. Frankfurt police looked to reassure the public by tweeting: “If we recognized a threat to the local population we would communicate this.” (No, you wouldn’t) The stabbings will still raise fears the attack was ISLAMIC terror-related after a string of incidents across Europe over recent months. Germany has been rocked by ISLAMIC terror attacks this year, heaping pressure on chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door MUSLIM immigration policy. A bloody week of violence that rocked Germany began on July 18 when Pakistani MUSLIM teenager Riaz Khan Ahmadzai, 17, posing as an Afghan refugee, hacked at passengers on a train in Wurzburg with an axe, wounding five. Four days later, a German-Iranian MUSLIM teenager Ali Sonboly shot nine people dead during a rampage through a shopping centre in Munich before taking his own life. Pour prouver le lien, l'agence Amaq de l' #EI diffuse une video de l'assaillant du train en Allemagne pic.twitter.com/AxT7qcBQj0
— David Thomson (@_DavidThomson) July 19, 2016 Two days later a Syrian MUSLIM refugee, 21, hacked a pregnant woman to death in Reutlingen and on the same night Daleel, 27, injured 12 people when he detonated a rucksack packed with metal shards and screws. Daleel carried out the attack on behalf of the ISLAMIC terror group ISIS and had planned to kill hundreds by detonating him bomb at an open-air music festival. | 0 |
Hillary Clinton’un elektronik postaları ve cemaat yazan Thierry Meyssan FBI’nin Hillary Clinton’un özel elektronik postalarına yönelik yürüttüğü soruşturma, güvenlik kurallarının ihlaline değil ama Federal Devletin sunucularında arşivlendiği düşünülen yazışmalarının tüm izlerinden dikkatleri başka yöne çekmeyi hedefleyen bir komploya yönelik. Elektronik postaların bir bölümünün yasadışı finansmanlar ya da rüşvete ilişkin, bazılarının ise Clinton çiftinin Müslüman Kardeşler ve cihatçılarla bağlantılarına ilişki yazışmaları içermesi muhtemel.
Voltaire İletişim Ağı | Şam (Suriye) | 1. Kasım 2016 ελληνικά English Español français русский Deutsch Hillary Clinton ve Özel Kalem Müdiresi Huma Abedin. FBI’nin Hillary Clinton’un özel elektronik postalarına ilişkin soruşturmayı yeniden başlatması, güvenlik sorunlarına değil ama vatana ihanete kadar varabilecek entrikalara yönelik.
Teknik olarak, Dışişleri Bakanı, Federal Devletin güvenlikli bir sunucusunu kullanmak yerine, Federal Devlete ait bir makinede iz bırakmadan interneti kullanabilmek için evine özel bir sunucu yerleştirdi. Bayan Clinton’un özel teknisyeni, bu düzeneğin neden kurulduğunun anlaşılmasının önüne geçmek için FBI gelmeden sunucuyu temizlemişti.
FBI ilk olarak, özel sunucunun Dışişleri Bakanlığı sunucusunun güvenliğine sahip olmadığını gözlemledi. Dolayısıyla da Bayan Clinton sadece bir güvenlik ihlali yapmıştı. İkinci adım olarak FBI, eski Kongre üyesi Anthony Weiner’in bilgisayarına el koydu. Weiner, Hillary’nin Özel Kalem Müdiresi Huma Abedin’in eski eşi. Bilgisayarda Dışişleri Bakanı’ndan gönderilmiş elektronik postalar bulundu.
Clinton’a çok yakın bir isim olan Anthony Weiner, New York Valisi heveslisi olmuş bir Yahudi siyasetçi. Çok püriten bir skandal sonrasında istifa etmek zorunda kaldı: eşi dışında bir başka genç kadına erotik SMS mesajları göndermişti. Bu sarsıntılı günler boyunca Huma Abedin ondan resmi olarak ayrıldı ama gerçekte onu terk etmedi.
Huma Abedin, Suudi Arabistan’da eğitim görmüş bir ABD vatandaşıdır. Babası, düzenli olarak Müslüman Kardeşlerin görüşlerini üreten akademik bir dergiyi –Huma’nın yıllar boyunca yazı işleri sekreterliğini yaptığı- yönetiyor. Annesi, cemaate üye Suudi kadınların derneğini yönetiyor ve Mısır Cumhurbaşkanı Muhammet Mursi’nin eşiyle birlikte çalışıyordu. Kardeşi Hasan, Müslüman Kardeşlerin vaizi ve El-Cezire’nin manevi danışmanı Şeyh Yusuf el-Karadavi’nin hesabına çalışmaktadır.
Dışişleri Bakanı, Suudi Arabistan’a yaptığı resmi bir ziyaret dolayısıyla, cemaat üyesi kadınlar derneği başkanı Saliha Abedin ile birlikte (özel kalem müdiresinin annesi) Dar el-Hekma Kolejini ziyaret ediyor. Huma Abedin bugün, Clinton’un seçim kampanyasında, kampanya müdürü Bill Clinton’un başkanlık döneminde Beyaz Saray’ın eski genel sekreteri John Podesta’nın yanında, merkezi önemi olan bir kişilik. Podesta öte yandan 200 000 dolarlık mütevazı aylığıyla Suudi Arabistan Krallığının Kongredeki yetkili lobicisidir. 12 Haziran 2016’da, Ürdün’ün resmi haber ajansı Petra, Arabistan’ın veliaht prensi Muhammet bin Salman’ın, bir kadın olmasına rağmen Hillary Clinton’un seçim kampanyasının %20’sini yasadışı olarak finanse eden ailesinin modernliğini vurgulayan bir röportajını yayınladı. Yayının ertesi günü, ajans bu haberi iptal etmiş ve internet sitesinin bilgisayar korsanlarının saldırısına uğradığını iddia etmişti.
Ürdün’ün resmi haber ajansı Petra’nın 12 Haziran 2016 tarihli yayınına göre, Suudi Kraliyet ailesi, Hillary Clinton’un başkanlık kampanyasının %20’sini yasadışı olarak finanse etti. Bayan Abedin, Obama yönetiminin Müslüman Kardeşler cemaatiyle bağlantılı olan tek üyesi değil. Başkanın üvey kardeşi Abon’go Malik Obama, Müslüman Kardeşlerin Sudan’da misyoner işleri veznedarı ve Barack H. Obama Vakfının Başkanıdır. Doğrudan Sudan Devlet Başkanı Ömer el-Beşir’in emri altındadır. Bir başka Müslüman Kardeş, ABD’nin en büyük uygulama makamı olan Ulusal Güvenlik Konseyi üyesidir. Bu durum 2009 ile 2012 yılları arasında, Mehdi K. Elhassani için geçerliydi. Yerine kimin geçtiğini bilmiyoruz ama kanıt ortaya çıkıncaya kadar, Beyaz Saray bir Müslüman Kardeşler üyesinin Konsey üyesi olduğunu inkar ediyordu. Yine aynı şekilde İslam Konferansı nezdinde ABD Büyükelçisi olan Raşit Hüseyin de bir Müslüman Kardeşler üyesidir. Kimlikleri belirlenen diğer cemaat üyeleri daha az önemde mevkileri işgal etmektedir. Bu arada, halen Suriye Ulusal Koalisyonu üyesi ve Pentagon’un eski danışmanı Luay M. Safi’yi de saymamız gerekir.
Başkan Obama ve üvey kardeşi Abon’go Malik oval ofiste. Abon’go Malik Sudan’da Müslüman Kardeşlerin Misyoner işlerinin veznedarıdır. Nisan 2009’da, Kahire konuşmasından iki ay önce, Başkan Obama oval ofiste bir Müslüman Kardeşler cemaati heyetiyle gizlice görüşmüştü. Daha önce de, görevi yeni devraldığı günlerde, ABD Müslüman Kardeşleri Derneğinin Başkanı İngrid Mattson’u da davet etmişti.
Öte yandan Clinton Vakfı, « İklim » projesinin sorumlusu olarak, o ana kadar Kuranla ilgili yayın yapan bir televizyon programının sorumluluğunu üstlenen, Cemaatin küresel yöneticilerinden Cihat el-Haddad’ı kullandı. Babası, 1951 yılında CİA ve Mİ6 tarafından yeniden kuruluşu sırasında Cemaatin kurucu ortaklarından biri olmuştu. Cihat, Kahire’de aday Muhammet Mursi’nin, ardından da Müslüman Kardeşler’in küresel ölçekte sözcülüğü görevini üstlendiği tarih olan 2012’de vakıftan ayrıldı.
Dünyadaki cihatçı önderlerin tamamı ya Cemaatten ya da Sufi Nakşibendi tarikatından –Suudilerin Arap milliyetçiliği karşıtı örgütü Dünya İslam Birliği’nin iki bileşeni- geldiklerini bilerek, Bayan Clinton’un Suudi Arabistan ve Müslüman Kardeşler ile ilişkilerine dair daha çok şey bilmek istiyoruz.
Rakibi Donald Trump’ın ekibinde, Halifeliğin Beyaz Saray eliyle kurulmasına muhalefet eden ve kınanmasının önüne geçmek için Defense Intelligence Agency (Askeri İstihbarat Ajansı)’den istifa eden General Michael T. Flynn de yer alıyor. Federal Devlet içerisindeki Müslüman Kardeşlerin varlığını ihbar ettiği için « komploculukla » suçlanan, tarihi bir « soğuk savaşçı » Frank Gaffney’le çok yakın ilişki içerisinde.
Pek doğaldır ki FBI’in bakış açısıyla, CİA’nin politikası ne olursa olsun, cihatçı örgütlere verilen her türlü destek suçtur. 1991 yılında, polisler –ve senatör John Kerry- CİA’nin Latin esrar kartelleriyle olduğu kadar Müslüman Kardeşlerle yaptığı her türlü gizli operasyonlarda kullandığı Pakistanlı (her ne kadar Kayman Adalarında kayıtlı olsa da) BCCI Bankasının iflasına neden olmuştu.
Thierry Meyssan Çeviri
Osman Soysal | 1 |
Obama Rising in The West: The Antichrist # www.youtube.com 0
There is a spiritual war taking place that you may or may not be aware of. A host body is a vessel in which a spirit operates. Each and every person is a host and a spirit operates them. You either walk after the prince of the power of the air or have been born again and now the Holy Spirit dwells with you. This video presents evidence on a variety of factors relating to the rise of an antichrist spirit within a human host body. Tags | 0 |
Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox Friends,” while commenting on Monday’s House Intelligence Committee hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Rep. Trey Gowdy ( ) said he was troubled that FBI Director James Comey would not confirm there is an investigation into leaks of classified information. Gowdy said, “I think the most troubling part for me was when Director Comey would not assure us that there’s a leak investigation. He was more than happy to assure us that there’s an investigation into the potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, which may or may not be a crime. Leaking classified information is a crime, but he would not confirm that investigation. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0 |
Despite its lip service to “diversity,” the “Women’s March on Washington” has turned out to be just another front for the abortion lobby, promoted by Planned Parenthood and its cronies. [Ostensibly organized to protest the election of Donald Trump, the march on January 21, 2017, will showcase the losing platform of Hillary Clinton, especially her dogged devotion to . While the march’s website claims that “we join in diversity” by “defending the most marginalized among us,” women who are or defend traditional marriage and family fall outside the stated qualifications of those who wish to march and are not welcome. The “unity principles” that narrow the scope of the march specifically espouse “reproductive rights” and “LGBTQIA rights,” while omitting the rights to religious freedom or the fundamental right to life. “We believe in Reproductive Freedom,” the guidelines state. “This means open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion and birth control for all people, regardless of income, location or education. ” “We must have the power to control our bodies and be free from gender norms, expectations and stereotypes,” it reads. Although organizers hail the event as a “grassroots effort,” in reality, it is a massive choreographed assembly paid for by major donors such as George Soros and Planned Parenthood, “helmed by four national and a national coordinating committee who are working around the clock to pull it all together. ” The list of “Partners” of the event reads like a who’s who of radical feminism, and includes Catholics for Choice, the Center for Reproductive Rights, The Coalition of Nasty Women, EMILY’s List, Free the Nipple, GLAAD, NARAL America Foundation, National Abortion Federation, National Center for Lesbian Rights, National Institute for Reproductive Health, Pussyhat Project, and, of course, Planned Parenthood. The usual Hollywood shills for the abortion lobby will also be out in full force. Planned Parenthood advocate Scarlett Johansson, for instance, announced, “I am marching on Washington to let our next president know that we, men and women alike, will not stand down or be silenced and will fight to protect our bodies and our choices. ” Actress Debra Messing of Will Grace went further still, saying, “An attack on Planned Parenthood is an attack on all American women. ” Conspicuous by their absence will be the tens of millions of “American women” who believe in the right to life for all, including the unborn. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 0 |
The League (ADL) whose chief has baselessly smeared Breitbart News with claims of associations, has announced plans to build a Silicon Valley command center aimed at combating online hate. [The ADL reportedly received a seed donation from the Omidyar Network to help finance the center. The Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, also funds the International Network (IFCN) hosted by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. IFCN has partnered with Facebook to help determine whether certain stories should be flagged as “disputed. ” Poynter’s IFCN is also funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundations, as well as by the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, and the National Endowment for Democracy. The ADL announced its new center via a press release: ADL CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt announced Sunday that ADL has secured seed funding from Omidyar Network to build a command center in Silicon Valley to combat the growing threat posed by hate online. The center will employ the best technology and seasoned experts to monitor, track, analyze and mitigate hate speech and harassment across the Internet, in support of the Jewish community and other minority groups. ADL’s center on cyberhate, technology, and society will pioneer new strategies in the fight against online abuse, drawing from ADL’s three decades of expertise monitoring, tracking, and combating hate on the public and private web. It will author reports and data provide insights to government and policy makers and expose and stop specific cases of online harassment and cyberbullying. According to the release, the ADL will work with tech sector leaders to look into options for reducing “online harassment,” including “artificial intelligence, big data, reality, and other technologies. ” “Now more than ever, as Islamophobia, racism, and other hatreds have exploded online, it’s critical that we are bringing technology and resources to this fight. That’s why we will build this center in Silicon Valley, and why we are so grateful to Omidyar Network for providing seed funding for this effort,” Greenblatt stated. “This is a natural extension of the work ADL has been doing for decades and builds on the new presence we established last year in the Valley to collaborate even closer on the threat with the tech industry,” Greenblatt added. In November, the ADL released a statement announcing that the organization “strongly opposes” the appointment of former Breitbart News Executive Chairman Steve Bannon as White House Chief Strategist for the Trump administration. Greenblatt — formerly an aide to President Barack Obama — claimed Bannon is “a man who presided over the premier website of the Alt Right, a group of white nationalists and unabashed and racists. ” Greenblatt’s statement is entirely false. Breitbart News is not “the premier website of the Alt Right” and has no associations with the . Indeed, Greenblatt appeared to back off the “premier website” claim during a brief interview in November by Breitbart News’ Adelle Nazarian, while still claiming Breitbart was a “platform” for the . Following publicity over Greenblatt’s claims about Breitbart and Bannon, the ADL issued a press release conceding, “We are not aware of any statements from Bannon. ” That statement appeared at the bottom of a larger ADL piece titled “Stephen Bannon: Five Things to Know. ” The piece also claimed that under Bannon, Breitbart News “published inflammatory pieces about women, Muslims, and other groups. ” The Omidyar Network funding the ADL’s online command center, meanwhile, has partnered with Soros’s Open Society on numerous projects and has given grants to third parties using the Tides Foundation. Tides is one of the largest donors to causes in the U. S. The IFCN recently drafted a code of five principles for news websites to accept, and Facebook announced it will work with “ fact checking organizations” that are signatories to the code of principles. Facebook says that if the “fact checking organizations” determine that a certain story is fake, it will get flagged as disputed and, according to the Facebook announcement, “there will be a link to the corresponding article explaining why. Stories that have been disputed may also appear lower in News Feed. ” Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. With research by Joshua Klein. | 1 |
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Coming this weekend, over 25 million pilgrims will rally in the holy city of Karbala to mark the greatest pilgrimage of all – Arbaeen. Right at the heart of Iraq, surrounded by the Terror of the Black Flag Army it is communities of men which will gather in prayers, and in mourning to perform the last rites of Imam Hussain ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
While Arbaeen has eclipsed even the Hajj in terms of attendance, few … even within Islam have ever heard of the pilgrimage, let alone the tragedy it recalls, never mind the principles it saw enacted.
Arbaeen it needs to be said stands very much an offense to Wahhabism - this dogma the House of Saud has furiously promoted to assert its ascent to power. Arbaeen it needs to be emphasised, actually speaks of this eternal struggle in between Good and Evil, Freedom and Slavery, Piety and Dogmatism.
Sidelined by mainstream media for it speaks of Islam’s attachment and commitment to such values as Justice, Freedom and Compassion towards all men, and all fashion of faiths, Arbaeen has nevertheless towered a beacon of hope amid the furious rise of radicalism. Arbaeen I would personally argue, has become a grand symbol of resistance against oppression – the coming together of communities beyond their differences, and most importantly perhaps in spite of their differences, so that together they could oppose tyranny and offer the oppressed a rampart behind which to find refuge.
For those of you who still have no idea what in the world I am talking about, allow me to tell you the story of a man - a man whose courage, resolute strength of character and yearning for Truth have echoed across the centuries to inspire generations upon generations to think themselves free, and to rise themselves independent from the yoke of tyranny.
MORE... Messenger 40 – Muslims Develop Technology to Promote Religious Unity against Radicalism Why Muslims Hold the Biggest Human Gathering under the Threat of ISIS in Iraq? The 10th Day’s new campaign – community-building and social solidarity Shia Muslims gather in DC for anti-terror rally Imam Hussain ibn Ali’s martyrdom in the plain of Karbala over a millennium ago stands testimony to our collective struggle against injustice. And though it is Islam’s banner the Third Imam carried, his message was a universal call for freedom – an immovable promise that real tragedy lies not in our failure to defeat tyrants but in our reluctance to oppose them.
Allow me to take you back a few centuries, back when Islam’s early History was still being written, back when the name of the Prophet Muhammad was still murmured in the present tense through the lips of his progeny: the House (AhlulBayt).
Only a few decades after Islam’s last prophet’s passed, Islam stood divided as a nation-state, its religious sovereignty challenged by men of greed and oppression: Yazid ibn Muawiyah was one of them … arguably the most barbaric of them all since he envisioned slaughter to be the legacy of his throne.
As bigots brandished Islam to rationalise their heresy, and proclaim righteous exceptionalism before the abomination of their deeds, Imam Hussain had no other choice but to march against Yazid … even if alone, for as long as there was breath in him, it is Justice he would command for all people.
And so the Imam marched on … from the holy city of Mecca to the then-deserted plain of Karbala he walked knowing death would be his fate. And still he pushed on …
It is this determination to meet Evil and not relent in the task which Arbaeen speaks of most loudly. It is allegiance, loyalty and love, pilgrims manifest into reality as they walk towards their Imam, united not faith but in their humanity.
Arbaeen you most likely were never told is NOT exclusive to Islam. Arbaeen is neither Shia nor Sunni, Arbaeen is for all who dare think themselves free under God and in Him seek refuge.
And while Arbaeen has long been associated to Shia Islam for its school of thought revolve around those very principles Imam Hussain consecrated with his death, the pilgrimage stands not in opposition or rejection of any faith – quite the contrary since Christians, Yezidis, Hussainis Brahims, alongside countless other religious denominations have year after year, centuries after centuries come to Karbala to remember.
Arbaeen is remembrance of Hussain ibn Ali, remembrance of the Word of God made complete through Hussain, the man the Prophet Muhammad called his son, and whose leadership he commanded all believers to forever follow.
If many failed in their allegiance for fear rendered them motionless before their Imam’s calls, Hussain’s station in Karbala has echoed ever since of a love so brilliant and unparalleled that all people, all nations, all faiths, across time and space have found themselves compelled to walk the great walk of Arbaeen … and through Hussain ibn Ali find their humanity.
Arbaeen I have to say speaks to the best of our humanity; it is home after all to the best of humanity - martyr among all martyrs, there has never been a day like Hussain’s day - and though his name Wahhabism has worked to bury under the rubbles of History, Karbala has remembered its Imam with fierce loyalty.
A city build around and for Hussain ibn Ali, Karbala is a declaration of allegiance to the House of the prophet - those extraordinary men and women whose hearts, lips and prayers have spoken Islam in wisdom and piety, and without whom we would be orphans.
Every year without fail Karbala has fervently commemorated its Imam - even in oppression, especially when in oppression.
Before the poison of radicalism, Karbala has offered generosity and compassion, before brutal repression Karbala has opened its doors and to all oppressed offered a shelter, before the depravity of sectarianism Karbala’s pulpits have called upon men and women to hold to rope of Allah, never to disunite.
A city surrounded by the evil of Daesh Karbala has never shun brighter.
In the face of insane fanaticism Imam Hussain’s followers have never been braver.
And so coming this November 20-21, 2016 Karbala will let out a roar which will shook tyrants’ thrones. Karbala will offer all of its prayers and all of its devotion … Hussain’s name will be etched on believers’ hearts, tears of allegiance will flow, fists will rise to the sky, a promise that when called upon all will answer.
Islam today is best manifested in Karbala since Karbala shuns no one. Karbala today has put Saudi Arabia to shame since it has provided food and shelter to tens of millions of pilgrims - without expectation, without any hope of a thank you.
A city has proven more generous and compassionate in its destitution than Saudi Arabia in its wealth and might. Where the so-called custodians of Islam have cried the weight of the Hajj on their coffers, Karbala has provided beyond the mathematically feasible.
In a few short days Karbala will stop time once more … so that all could remember all martyrs are in fact alive and that the sons of Hussain are still standing vigil. | 1 |
In less than two weeks, the 2016 U.S. Presidential election will take place. While it started out as a joke, it’s gotten less and less humorous by the day. Fortunately, a bus advert by the Socialist... | 0 |
LUND, Sweden — Almost 500 years after Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to a church door, setting off more than a century of religious warfare and forever changing the practice of Christianity worldwide, Pope Francis on Monday urged atonement and Christian reconciliation. Visiting the cities of Lund and Malmo in southern Sweden for a joint commemoration of the Reformation, the pope observed the 499th anniversary of Luther’s protest of the sale of indulgences by noting the beneficial impact it had on Catholicism. “With gratitude we acknowledge that the Reformation helped give greater centrality to sacred Scripture in the church’s life,” the pope said in a joint declaration at Lund Cathedral with Bishop Munib A. Younan, the head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and the president of the Lutheran World Federation. The trip, which kicked off a year of events leading up to the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, was announced in January, but it was no less striking for those who listened to the pope. Sweden played a pivotal and troubling role in Protestant and Catholic history. From the 16th century, Catholics were persecuted and even put to death in Sweden. As recently as 1951, Catholics were barred from becoming doctors, teachers and nurses, and Catholic convents were banned until the 1970s. Some Catholics and Lutherans, especially those whose families are intermingled, hoped that the event would produce a concrete step toward the two churches’ allowing their members to take communion in each other’s worship services. In their joint declaration, Pope Francis and Bishop Younan acknowledged the divide, but said only that they were working toward a resolution through dialogue. “We experience the pain of those who share their whole lives, but cannot share God’s redeeming presence at the Eucharistic table,” the declaration said. “We long for this wound in the body of Christ to be healed. This is the goal of our ecumenical endeavors, which we wish to advance, also by renewing our commitment to theological dialogue. ” The Lutheran World Federation was founded in Lund in 1947, in an effort to unite churches after World War II. One of the main obstacles to relations between Lutherans and Roman Catholics was bridged in 1999, when the Vatican and the federation signed a joint declaration on the doctrine of justification, a core belief about God’s forgiveness of sins. Francis was the first pope to visit Sweden in 27 years, and only the second pope to visit the Scandinavian country. In Lund, he met with King Carl XVI Gustaf, Queen Silvia and Prime Minister Stefan Lofven. “We, too, must look with love and honesty at our past, recognizing error and seeking forgiveness,” Francis said. The prayer service in Lund was watched by about 10, 000 people who packed Malmo Arena, about 14 miles away, where Caritas and the Lutheran World Service, humanitarian arms of the two churches, pledged to work together for peace and justice. Teresa Jodar, 58, who lives in Stockholm but is a native of Valencia, Spain, said she had taken the train from Stockholm to Malmo in the morning to bear witness. “This is a historic event,” she said. “I am a Catholic. We are not celebrating the Reformation. That was a sad separation. But we are celebrating taking a step closer. It is wonderful that we can work together instead of thinking about all of the differences that separate us. ” Ms. Jodar said she planned to stay for an All Saints’ Day Mass that the pope will celebrate on Tuesday in Malmo for an estimated 19, 000 people. Her friend Luisa Hugosson, 67, a native of Colombia, chimed in. “The pope’s visit is good for Lutherans and Catholics,” Ms. Hugosson said. “We are living in a new time, and we must be open and show respect. ” Carmen Godawszky, 71, sat with three friends on a train from Stockholm to Malmo, and they reflected on the pope’s message urging countries in Europe to open their doors to migrants. “Of course, we can’t be against that,” Mrs. Godawszky said. “My husband came to Sweden as a refugee from Hungary in 1956. Everyone has been a refugee at one point or another. Just think of all the Swedes who moved to the U. S. A. because they didn’t have food or money. ” Although Sweden is predominantly Lutheran, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Stockholm counts 113, 000 members in 44 parishes throughout the country. Anders Arborelius, who converted to Catholicism when he was 20, is the country’s first Catholic bishop of Swedish origin since the Reformation. “We are leaving the past behind us and focusing on what we have in common, that we can together go out and help people,” he said in a telephone interview on Sunday. Although the ecumenical service on Monday marked a reconciliation, there are still major doctrinal differences between the churches, on subjects like the role of women in the church and the Eucharist. | 1 |
ROME — A statue of a winged bull from the Northwest Palace in Nimrud, Iraq, that was bulldozed by the Islamic State last year to great outcry has been faithfully recreated using modern technology and put on exhibit at the Colosseum in Rome to spur discussion of the possible reconstruction of archaeological sites. reconstructions were also made of two damaged Syrian sites: the archive room of Ebla and a portion of a ceiling from the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, as examples of how conflict can devastate a nation’s fragile heritage. “Nimrud was the first place to be destroyed,” said Frances Pinnock, the of the Ebla expedition, the most important Italian archaeological expedition to Syria. “It was a palace known as the Versailles of the ancient Near East, and so it was chosen because it was symbolic. ” “We included Ebla because it represents abandonment, what happens to a site when a mission is no longer present to protect it,” said Ms. Pinnock, who is a member of the scientific committee for the exhibit. “And Palmyra is a wound” and a place of violent murders, not just of Khalid the retired chief of antiquities for Palmyra, who was killed in August 2015, three months after the Islamic State took the city, “but of more than a dozen employees, killed in brutal ways only because they tried to protect the heritage,” Ms. Pinnock said. Though the violence in the Middle East continues, archaeologists and officials from various international organizations continue to explore various options for the reconstruction of archaeological sites in Syria and Iraq once the fighting has abated. “There’s a lot of discussion over how to reconstruct what is lost,” said Stefano De Caro, the director general of the International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, based in Rome, who is also on the scientific committee. “This is one proposal combining technical documentation and manual skill. ” This is not the first attempt to resurrect ancient art from the ashes of war. Last month, a replica of an ancient arch from Palmyra, destroyed a year ago, was erected in City Hall Park in New York. That model was made using scanning, but it is smaller than the original, and less finished, some officials here suggested. The Italian models are reconstructions based on extensive documentation of various kinds. After being created using printing techniques, the reproductions were then covered with a layer of plastic material mixed with stone powder and finished by hand to replicate the original as closely as possible. Ms. Pinnock noted that the restorer based in Florence who completed the Nimrud statue even included scratches on the surface, “to give the sense of passing time. ” Such minute detail was possible because the restorer worked from photographs taken by United States military officers and later stored in Mosul, she said. “We have shown that scientifically it is possible to do good work. ” The Ebla reconstruction was accomplished by a company based in Rome that specializes in film sets and props, while the Bel temple ceiling was made by a company in Ferrara that already works in casting copies. “These aren’t just isolated objects,” but markers of a civilization’s “history, context and value,” brought alive “thanks to Italian know how,” said Francesco Rutelli, a former mayor of Rome and culture minister and the driving force behind the exhibit. “This is also an Italian story that you see here today. ” On display are also two marble busts from the museum in Palmyra that were damaged during the occupation by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. “We baptized them the of Palmyra,” Mr. Rutelli said. The badly damaged sculptures were brought to Italy so that they could be restored, making an arduous journey from Damascus to Rome via Beirut, Lebanon. “The only artifacts to leave Syria have been part of the illicit trafficking trade, but these came out with an accord,” Mr. Rutelli said. Even though it is “very rare during a conflict that a corridor for culture opens,” he said, Damascus cultural officials had allowed the sculptures to travel because they knew the pieces would be in good hands, and on display in a prestigious spot where the plight of Syrian art would reach many. “The Colosseum is the most visited site in our country,” Francesco Prosperetti, the art official responsible for Rome’s main archaeological area, said in a statement. It was chosen to give maximum visibility to a “global message on the importance of cultural heritage and its value as part of national identity, on the need to protect it, preserve it, restore it and in some cases rebuild it,” he said. | 1 |
This story by Paris Swade .
The new and mysterious website, DC Leaks , posted documents from George Soros’ Open Society. There are new documents posted from operations in Latin America, Eurasia, Asia, Europe, The US and World Bank.
Now, take a look at this. Here is George Soros’ son posed with Tim Kaine, Clinton’s VP. A photo posted by Alexander Soros (@alexsoros) on Aug 12, 2016 at 10:10am PDT
*** Hackers broke into the website and leaked everything online.
Look what the website said about George Soros :
“George Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, political activist and author who is of Hungarian-Jewish ancestry and holds dual citizenship. He drives more than 50 global and regional programs and foundations. Soros is named as the architect and sponsor of almost every revolution and coup around the world for the last 25 years. Thanks to him and his puppets USA is thought to be a vampire, not a lighthouse of freedom and democracy. His
FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK LINK | 0 |
Thomas DiLorenzo https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/lying-cnn-scum/
The Clinton News Network’s (CNN) “official statement” announcing that it fired Dirty Donna Brazile for giving Hitlery debate questions in advance of the CNN primary debate is that it is “uncomfortable” with the fact that Dirty Donna was working hand in hand with the Clinton campaign while employed by CNN. Huh?! Everyone at CNN has been working hand in hand with the Clinton campaign for years. It is essentially a Clinton super pac disguised as a “news” organization. | 0 |
A United Airlines pilot was removed from a plane before a flight from Austin to San Francisco Saturday evening after going on a rant over the intercom system. [The pilot, who showed up late to her flight wearing “street clothes,” spoke to passengers “over the intercom about her divorce and the presidential election,” the Daily Mail reported. “Sorry I’m late, the reason I’m late is I’m going through a divorce,” she said. Some of the pilot’s comments made passengers feel uncomfortable, “causing them to question her ability to fly the plane. ” Passenger Randy Reiss said the pilot seemed friendly at first, “but things took an awkward turn when she pointed out an interracial couple sitting in first class. ” “It quickly turned from playful to scary,” Reiss told BuzzFeed News. Passengers said the pilot said that she was going to be on Oprah and then commented on the 2016 presidential election. “Look, I don’t care if you voted for Trump or Clinton, they’re both assholes,” she said. She also said she would let her fly the plane because he is a man, and she told passengers they could disembark the plane if they didn’t feel safe. “So I’ll stop, and we’ll fly the plane. Don’t worry. I’m going to let my fly it. He’s a man,” she laughed. “Okay, if you don’t feel safe, then get off the airplane. But otherwise, we can go. ” Reiss left the plane after her outburst and wrote on Twitter that half the passengers on the plane followed suit. United Airlines spokesman Charlie Hobart said the pilot was removed from the flight and a new pilot and crew took her place. United Flight 455 was delayed for more than two hours before the plane took off from Austin. “We removed her from the flight, (and) we’re going to discuss this matter with her,” Hobart said, according to the Statesman. “We were looking out for our customers to get them to where they needed to be. ” | 0 |
Videos Could US Elections Be Stolen? Election Integrity Activists Say Yes ‘If it’s a close election, the cheaters are going to win,’ says Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies who’s spent years combing through U.S. election results for evidence of electronic voting machine fraud. | November 8, 2016 Be Sociable, Share! Voters use electronic voting machines at the Schiller Recreation Center polling station on election day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015, in Columbus, Ohio.
AUSTIN, Texas — Election fraud is a dangerously real possibility in the United States, but Donald Trump is wrong about how elections could be rigged under the current system.
The Republican nominee has warned his supporters that the election could be rigged against him, and there have already been reports of Trump supporters with guns at polling places intimidating voters. Word is-early voting in FL is very dishonest. Little Marco, his State Chairman, & their minions are working overtime-trying to rig the vote.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 12, 2016 Crazy – Election officials saying that there is nothing stopping illegal immigrants from voting. This is very bad (unfair) for Republicans!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2014
However, Mark Crispin Miller, a self-described “election integrity activist,” dismissed Trump’s claims.
“It’s basically impossible to vote ten times or fifteen times,” said the professor of media studies at New York University who has spent more than a decade studying election results.
“Under current electronic voting systems, it’s no longer really possible … to get a bunch of immigrants out there to stuff the ballot box. With a computerized system, it’s extremely difficult for many people to vote even one time, much less ten or fifteen.”
Only a couple of incidents of voter fraud or vote tampering have been found during this election, including the case of an Iowa woman who was arrested after she tried to vote multiple times for Trump , but they were quickly noticed by authorities.
“Republicans commit that crime as often as Democrats, as it happens,” Miller said. He explained that this type of voter fraud happens so rarely, and is ultimately so ineffective, that it’s almost a myth. Numerous studies have found that voter fraud , as Trump imagines it, is essentially nonexistent.
However, as Miller noted, that doesn’t mean American democracy is secure and that voters’ ballots are being properly counted.
‘The attack on democracy has become much more sophisticated’ A vote counter inserts a tally card from an electronic voting machine into a card readers as they count votes at the Lake County Government Center in Crown Point, Ind., Nov. 4, 2008.
Most voters use electronic voting machines to cast their ballots, though, in a few smaller districts, they may cast paper ballots that are then counted with computerized devices. But electronic voting machines lack a paper trail that could be used to verify that votes are being counted properly, and even the optical scanners used to count paper ballots can be tampered with, Miller warned.
Miller said he believes that rigged electronic voting machines may already have been used to steal elections.
“I’ve been concerned about the vulnerability of our elections since 2000 because of the rising use of computerized voting and vote counting machinery,” Miller explained.
In 2005, he published “Fooled Again,” which documented evidence that the Republicans had used rigged electronic voting machines to tilt the 2004 election in favor of George W. Bush, and against Democratic nominee Al Gore.
In 2008, he edited “Loser Take All,” a follow-up volume containing further evidence of election rigging through electronic voting which was submitted by other electoral integrity activists and scholars. Miller summarized his findings to MintPress: “The use of electronic voting machines and optical scanners to count votes is every bit as threatening to electoral democracy for all as the old poll taxes and literacy tests. The attack on democracy has become much more sophisticated. It’s a stealth attack, very often.”
Key evidence often comes in the form of comparing exit polls with official election day results. Without a paper trail, this is the only way activists like Miller can compare voters’ stated choices to the final tally. However, some experts have warned that exit polls themselves could be flawed , limiting activists’ ability to definitively prove that fraud has occurred.
While the United States is often considered an exemplar of democracy to which other countries should or do aspire, a 2016 study by the Electoral Integrity Project found the United States trailing behind other Western countries in multiple measurements of the vitality of a democracy. Carried out by researchers from the University of Sydney and Harvard University, the study examined 180 elections held between July 2012 to December 2015 in 139 countries, and found that U.S. elections were vulnerable in multiple ways, from the influence of money in politics to frequent and worrying voting irregularities on Election Day.
“Americans often express pride in their democracy, yet the results indicate that domestic and international experts rate the U.S. elections as the worst among all Western democracies,” Pippa Morris noted in a March analysis for The Conversation. Watch “ Could the 2016 Election Be Stolen with Help from Electronic Voting Machines? ”
Harvey Wasserman, an Ohio-based electoral integrity activist, has also sounded the alarm about the vulnerability of electoral voting machines in a pair of books, “What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election” and “The Strip & Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows & Electronic Election Theft.”
In February, Wasserman told Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman that the election is vulnerable to tampering, especially in swing states where results will be close. He explained: “About 80 percent of the vote nationally will be cast on electronic voting machines. There is no verifiability. In six key swing states—Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Arizona—you have Republican governors and Republican secretaries of state, and no method of verifying the electronic vote count. At midnight or whenever it is on election night, those two guys can go in there with an IT person and flip the outcome of an electronically counted vote within about 60 seconds.”
Miller agreed that elections are most vulnerable in tight races. He suggested that’s why the GOP has been so passionate about passing voter ID laws and other forms of legal voter suppression .
“That’s one of the purposes of vote suppression, is to shrink the pool of eligible voters so the race is as close as possible, because if it’s a close election, the cheaters are going to win,” he said.
But he also stressed there’s evidence that Democrats have also fallen victim to electronic voter fraud. Ultimately, though, it’s impossible to know who is responsible for vote tampering. Among other examples, Miller cited a July report from Election Justice USA , which suggested that Bernie Sanders fell victim to electronic voter fraud during the primaries. The report’s authors wrote: “Available evidence from Arizona, New York, and California suggests more than 500,000 registrations were tampered with or improperly handled. … hundreds of thousands of voters were denied the right to vote or were forced to vote provisionally. A quarter million or more provisional or affidavit Democratic ballots were not counted. Available evidence also suggests that the vast majority of suppressed voters would have voted or tried to vote for Senator Bernie Sanders.”
‘We have to spread the word about this’ A sales executive with Sequoia Voting Systems demonstrates inserting a ballot into their electronic voting system in San Francisco, Dec. 5, 2007.
Miller said his work suffers from an almost total blackout in the mainstream media, and even independent media often refuse to report on the risks of electronic voter fraud.
“The strength of the taboo on this subject is really mind-boggling. The press has always been exceedingly hostile to any discussion of this problem, especially if it entails a focus on electronic fraud,” he said.
“It’s probably going to have to take some kind of near revolutionary movement to force [the government] to make this a real functioning electoral democracy.”
Hope for reform isn’t totally lost, though. Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Georgia, introduced a bill in September that would prohibit the government from purchasing internet-connected voting machines or machines which lack a paper trail. The legislation was inspired in part by lobbying from activists like Miller, working in concert with the National Election Defense Coalition , which Miller highlighted as one of the few NGOS effectively targeting the issue of election fraud.
Meanwhile, social media allows Miller reach new audiences beyond the confines of mainstream media. A video he published on Friday about the risks of a rigged election had been viewed nearly 10,000 times by Monday night, and he hopes it will soon be seen by many more voters as it spreads through social media shares and word of mouth.
“We have to talk about it, we have to spread the word about this,” he urged. “Because only once people know the scale of the problem will there be any pressure on the parties to fix this system.” | 1 |
Wyoming (Wyo Stat SS22-19-108)
As that same page writes:
Over the years, however, despite legal oversight, a number of electors have violated their state’s law binding them to their pledged vote. However, these violators often only face being charged with a misdemeanor or a small fine, usually $1,000. Many constitutional scholars agree that electors remain free agents despite state laws and that, if challenged, such laws would be ruled unconstitutional. Therefore, electors can decline to cast their vote for a specific candidate (the one that wins the popular vote of their state), either voting for an alternative candidate, or abstaining completely. The same corrupt democrats that have rigged the debates, rigged the polls, rigged the news media and rigged the justice system are now about to STEAL the election through bribery of Electors
Now it’s all becoming clear. Having failed to destroy Donald Trump despite the world’s most vicious barrage of lies and defamatory news slander, George Soros and the corrupt democrats have bribed enough Electors to “lock in” a victory for Hillary Clinton no matter what happens on election day .
What you’re going to see the night of Nov. 8th, in other words, is a landslide popular vote victory for Donald Trump , immediately followed by electoral votes handing the official election victory to Hillary Clinton.
The theft of the presidency will be achieved thusly. And as you might expect, the American people are going to REVOLT en masse. We the People will not accept the theft of power and the nullification of democracy
We the People will not accept the theft of power by a corrupt, criminal regime run by deceptive leftists who lie, cheat and steal their way to power at every election. The bribery of Electors is, of course, the nullification of democracy in America , since it means wealthy globalists can simply buy off the electoral votes and put anyone they want into the White House… the voters be damned.
When the American people realize their votes have just been nullified through massive bribery and corruption, they are going to revolt like we’ve never seen before. They will take to the streets in protest, and the greater the margin of victory in the popular vote by Donald Trump, the more angry the voters are going to be.
We have quite simply reached the point in American history where the people will no longer tolerate the theft of power and massive election fraud that’s now routinely pursued by democrats (and especially Clinton operatives). If this election is stolen by George Soros via the bribery of Electors, I anticipate a full-on revolt where the military, the police and the citizens storm Washington and depose the corrupt Obama / Clinton regime and install the proper election winner as President. That would be Donald J. Trump, of course.
Frankly, We the People have every right to demand that democracy be restored . It is time to take America back from the thieving, lying commie bastards running the democrat party today. | 0 |
Such ugly, judgmental people. Just ugly. Ron Moore and David Eick would not have lasted out as long if the story was “soooo terrible.” Some people are just winey and cannot be satisfied for anything. BSG in Moore’s world was gripping, thoughtful, edgy, educated, and dark. It was not all pretty, with a certain kind of human galloping in on horses, to save the day. Adama was not some all-good archon, with Tye being is lapdog. I grew up on the old version, and was — oppositely — delighted to see a version that made people think. This is why it lasted for 4 seasons, as well as had a spin-off called “Caprica,” and “Blood & Chrome.” They mythology lasted. I even use it to teach story and drama in my writing course. I cannot judge how this movie version will do, but I wish it well. | 0 |
California Assemblyman Kevin McCarty ( ) is pushing legislation to take away school administrators’ power to allow teachers with a Carry Concealed Weapon license (CCW) to be armed in classrooms for . [McCarty’s bill — AB 424 — was introduced months ago and is snaking its way through the legislative process. He introduced the bill on February 13 and in Bakersfield. com reported that it was being pushed as a way “of closing a loophole in the Gun Free School Zone Act. That act, also known as SB 707, barred firearms on school grounds, but made exceptions for anyone granted permission by local superintendents. ” AB 424 would take away superintendents’ powers to allow teachers with CCW’s to be armed for . Gun Owners of California’s Sam Peredes talked to Breitbart News on May 12 and said, “Two years ago, California passed a bill saying a concealed carry permit holder could not carry on any school campus unless they had the authorization of the school administrator. Well, out of the one thousand school districts in California, five of them decided to allow concealed permit holders to carry on their campuses. That so ticked off the legislature that now they are going to take away the authority of even administrators to allow CCW holders to carry on their campuses. ” Breitbart News previously reported that that five school districts which chose to allow CCW holders to carry on campus for are Kern High School District, Kingsburg Joint Union High School District, Folsom Cordova Unified School District, Anderson Union High School District, and Palo Cedro’s North Cow Creek School District, McCarty justified his push to disarm teachers, saying, “A safe learning environment is essential for our children to be successful in the classroom. That’s not possible if a school district allows armed civilians to roam California school campuses. ” Missing from McCarty’s appraisal is the fact that Sandy Hook Elementary was a safe learning environment until a mass attacker ignored the zone signage, and once he was in the building no one was armed to stop him. McCarty and other Democrats must realize that attackers who refuse to heed a “gun free zone” sign will have no one to stop them once the teachers and staff are disarmed in California either. AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com. | 0 |
Wednesday at the White House in an interview with ABC’s David Muir, President Donald Trump said that Mexico will reimburse the United States for the cost of the border wall and construction will start in “months. ” Trump said, “Ultimately, it will come out of what’s happening with Mexico. We are going to be starting those negotiations relatively soon. And we will be in a form reimbursed by Mexico, which I’ve always said. ” He continued, “I’m just telling you there will be a payment. It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form. You have to understand what I’m doing is good for the United States. It’s also going to be good for Mexico. We want to have a very stable, very solid Mexico. ” When asked when construction will begin Trump said, “As soon as we can, as soon as we can physically do it … I would say in months, yeah. I would say in months — certainly planning is starting immediately. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0 |
Miss USA Kara McCullough is walking back an answer she gave during Sunday night’s competition, during which she called health care “a privilege. ”[In an interview Tuesday on Good Morning America, McCullough changed her position and said she now believes health care is “a right. ” “I am privileged to have health care and I do believe that it should be a right,” McCullough said. “I hope and pray moving forward that health care is a right for all worldwide. ” “I just want people to see where I was coming from,” said the chemist and employee of the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “Having a job, I have to look at health care like it is a privilege. ” On Sunday night, McCullough sparked a social media firestorm over her answer at the pageant, after she was asked if affordable health care should be considered a right for all Americans. “I’m definitely going to say it’s a privilege,” she said at the time. “As a government employee, I am granted health care and I see firsthand that for one to have health care, you need to have jobs. ” ”I’m definitely going to say it’s a privilege.” Listen to your new #MissUSA talk about healthcare in the USA. pic. twitter. — Miss USA (@MissUSA) May 15, 2017, McCullough also clarified her thoughts on feminism, after saying Sunday that she doesn’t want to be called a feminist and prefers the term “equalism. ” “For me, where I work at with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ‘equalism’ is more of a term of understanding that no matter your gender, you are still just kind of given the same accolades on your work,” McCullough said Tuesday. “I believe that if a person does a good job, they should be, you know, credited for that in a sense. ” She added, “I don’t want anyone to look at it as if I’m not all about women’s rights, because I am. We deserve a lot when it comes to opportunity in the workplace as well as just like leadership positions. I’ve seen and witnessed firsthand the impact that women have. ” WATCH: @MissUSA 2017 Kára McCullough speaks out following her victory the other night and social response: https: . pic. twitter. — Good Morning America (@GMA) May 16, 2017, McCullough said she was “not at all” surprised by the backlash she faced for her original comments. “I believe that is what America is based on, like having opinions and views,” she said. “But I would like to just take this moment to truly just clarify … what I said. ” Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 0 |
BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party suffered the latest in a string of defeats in German state elections on Sunday, when her Christian Democratic Union was ousted from power in Berlin after its worst showing in the capital since World War II, according to preliminary results. Voters in Berlin turned out in higher numbers than in previous years, many responding to voter mobilization calls from the Alternative for Germany party. The party is now poised to enter the ’s legislature for the first time, although its share of the vote, 14. 2 percent in the preliminary results, was less than what it was two weeks ago in Ms. Merkel’s home state, where it placed second. Ms. Merkel’s party won 17. 6 percent of the vote in Berlin, not enough to allow it to continue as the junior partner in a governing coalition with the Social Democrats. The Social Democratic Party earned 21. 6 percent of the vote and is expected to form a government with two other parties: the Left Party, with 15. 6 percent, and the Greens, with 15. 2. “We are all angry that the AfD got in,” Michael Müller, Berlin’s mayor and the Social Democrats’ leading candidate, told cheering supporters in the capital, referring to the Alternative for Germany party. “But I can assure you that Berlin will remain an international city, open to the world. ” The result proved that the Alternative for Germany party is not as popular in Berlin as it is elsewhere, but it managed to draw considerable support, mostly from the city’s eastern districts. It campaigned hard against the chancellor’s decision last year to allow more than one million migrants into the country. Berlin is the 10th state in which the party has earned representation, and with little more than a year to go before the 2017 general election, the party appears to be gaining enough strength to earn seats in the national Parliament. Some commentators viewed the result as a chance for a rebirth of Germany’s struggling traditional parties and its overall democracy. “The success of the Alternative for Germany is a call that it can’t be taken for granted that society is liberal and will remain so,” Heribert Prantl, a journalist at the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, wrote in a commentary. “Nor can it be taken for granted that minorities (and not only the refugees) are and will be respected. ” Many former supporters of the chancellor’s party drifted to the liberal Free Democratic Party, which voters returned to the state legislature with about 6 percent of the vote after it was ousted in the 2011 election. But the upstart Pirate Party, which won seats in the state Parliament in 2011, was voted out. Ms. Merkel, who governs on the national level in a coalition with the Social Democrats, had blamed Mr. Müller, the mayor, for refusing to be held accountable for the chaotic circumstances faced by the 79, 000 refugees who arrived last year in the capital. “Based on my own experience, I know that leaders of government are always responsible, and they will be made responsible,” the chancellor said in an interview with the Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel before the vote. Yet many in Ms. Merkel’s own conservative bloc have criticized her for allowing the refugee influx to become a crisis. Horst Seehofer, the leader of a Bavarian sister party to Ms. Merkel’s conservatives, has been among her loudest critics. In an interview released Friday, Mr. Seehofer threatened to withhold his party’s support for her in the 2017 election unless she agreed to set a limit on the number of new refugees to be admitted. Frank Henkel, the leading candidate for Ms. Merkel’s party in Berlin, blamed squabbling for the party’s poor showing in Berlin, saying the infighting had alienated voters and led them to question the bloc’s ability to govern. | 0 |
November 4: Daily Contrarian Reads By David Stockman. My daily contrarian reads for Friday, November 4th, 2016. | 0 |
A resolution on Jerusalem that will fuel anti-Jewish incitement and violence. October 31, 2016 Joseph Puder
If anyone doubted the fact that the United Nations agencies harbored a deep-seated anti-Israel and anti-Jewish animus, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) vote on Jerusalem proved it. The UNESCO World Heritage Committee voted this week (October 26, 2016) on a resolution dealing with Jerusalem, drafted by the Palestinian and Jordanian delegations, and submitted by Kuwait, Lebanon and Tunisia (all Arab Muslim states). The Executive Committee of UNESCO approved (10 for, 2 opposed, 8 abstained, and 1 missing) the resolution that was already voted on earlier this month in which 24 member-states approved the resolution; (Algeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cuba, Chad, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Mauritius, Mexico, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan and Vietnam) 6 opposed (Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, The Netherlands, UK, and the U.S.). Among the abstaining 26 states were Argentina, France, Greece, India, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka and Sweden.
The resolution “deeply decries the continuous Israeli aggressions against civilians including Islamic religious figures and priests, decries the forceful entering into the different mosques and historic buildings, and into Muslim holy sites by Israelis, including employees of “the so-called ‘Israeli Antiquities.’” Israel is urged to “end these aggressions and abuses which inflame the tension on the ground and between faiths.”
According to Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog organization, the resolution, which is likely to be adopted, “Dangerously risks fueling anti-Jewish incitement and violence, and legitimizing the escalating Palestinian denial of Jewish and cultural rights.” Neuer added that, “This inflammatory narrative, praised last week by Hamas, rewards the past year’s relentless Palestinian stabbing and shooting attacks in Jerusalem and other parts of Israel, which we mustn’t forget, began with false claims that Israel was planning to damage the holy Muslim Shrines.”
The expected resolution mentions eleven times “Al-Haram Al-Sharif,” (the Muslim designation) to what Jews call Har Ha’bayit, the holiest shrine in Judaism (where the Temple of Solomon stood) and also known as Temple Mount. With the Islamic bloc controlling the largest voting bloc in the UN, it is no wonder that a resolution of this kind can be approved. (OIC- Organization of Islamic Cooperation, being the largest and most influential bloc at the UN, it might as well declare that the earth is flat, and it will garner a majority vote at the General Assembly or its other UN constituent agencies.) What this resolution effectively does to Jerusalem is to Islamize sites historically belonging to other faiths.
The latest draft does not describe the Western Wall as the most hallowed remains of the Jewish Holy Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70CE, but as “The Western Wall of Al Aqsa Mosque, in a blatant effort to erase the Jewish heritage and biblical truth, and as part of a campaign to Islamize the site. It shamelessly disregards the fact that Jewish worshippers have prayed at the Wall for over two thousand years. The language of the draft resolution continues the deliberate attempt by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to deny the Jewish historical connection to the Land of Israel in general and to Jerusalem in particular. Mahmoud Abbas has continued on the path of denial that Arafat initiated at Camp David.
Among the charges brought up by the PA and the other Arab-Muslim states for undertaking the resolution is that the Jerusalem light rail, which is used daily by thousands of Arab residents of Jerusalem, is having a “damaging effect on the “visual integrity” and the “authentic character” of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Yet the rail tracks pass through an existing highway and facilitates effective transportation for visitors of all faiths.
Preceding the shameless resolution and the vote that took place in the Paris headquarters of UNESCO, Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin stated at an event in his Jerusalem residence, “No forum or body in the world can come and deny the connection between the Jewish people, the Land of Israel and Jerusalem – and any such body that does so simply embarrasses itself. We can understand criticism, but you cannot change history.”
UNESCO’s Director General, Irina Bokova and the Chairman of UNESCO’s Executive Board, Michael Worbs, expressed displeasure and apologized for the resolution. In an interview with Israeli TV Channel 10 on October 14, 2016 (the day following the vote), Worbs said he hoped that the Board’s Tuesday meeting will be delayed in order to reach consensus on the resolution before a formal vote. Bokova, on her part, expressed her dismay at the resolution, saying that efforts to deny history and the City’s (Jerusalem) complex multi-faith character, harms UNESCO.
Earlier, in July, 2016 Bokova stated that, “The heritage of Jerusalem is indivisible, and each of its communities have a right to the explicit recognition of their history and relationship with the city. To deny or conceal any of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim traditions undermines the integrity of the site, and runs counter to the reasons that justified its inscription in 1981 as a “World Heritage site.”
UNESCO can be counted as one of the most anti-Israel UN agencies. In the course of a typical year, the organization’s legislative bodies will condemn Israel 10 or more times, with no criticism aimed at any other country in the world. In 2009 for example, UNESCO adopted 10 anti-Israel decisions , eight at the 181 st and 182 nd sessions of the Executive Board, and two at the 35 th session of the General Conference. Again in 2010, UNESCO adopted 10 anti-Israel decisions at the 184 th and 185 th sessions of the Executive Board. In 2011, UNESCO again adopted 10 anti-Israel decisions at the 186 th and 187 th sessions of the Executive Board and two resolutions against Israel at the 36 th session of the General Conference.
Whereas Jerusalem was King David’s capital and continued to be the capital of the Second Jewish Commonwealth, as well as Israel’s capital today, it was never the capital of any Arab or Muslim empire, Caliphate, or entity, nor was Jerusalem a spiritual center that Muslims yearned for. The Umayyad Caliphate had its capital in Damascus. The Abbasside Caliphate capital was Baghdad, and the Ottoman Empire’s (Caliphate) capital was Constantinople. Ramle, a small town in Israel, was its administrative capital in Palestine - not Jerusalem. A Palestinian state never existed as an independent entity, and the PA claims on Jerusalem are strictly contrarian – to deny Jerusalem as the heart of Jewish spirituality and yearning. Jerusalem exists in every Jewish prayer, and is invoked on every occasion and holiday.
Dore Gold, former Director General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, addressed last year’s UNESCO’s Jerusalem resolution. He pointed out that the resolution “glossed over any Jewish connection to Jerusalem, and it failed to acknowledge Christianity’s ties to Jerusalem.”
Most dismaying is the fact that Christian nations who voted for the resolution or abstained, have abandoned all vestiges of pride and honor, and are willing to deny historical truth for narrow political interests. Brazil, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic, predominantly Catholic states, are a case in point. Unfortunately other Christian countries including France, Spain, Greece, Argentina, and Sweden, who should know about Jerusalem from their church bibles, did not have the courage to reject this outrageously false resolution. It can only lead to the conclusion that perhaps cowardice and latent anti-Semitism drove their decision to accept, not reject this infamous resolution. | 1 |
Primates are unquestionably clever: Monkeys can learn how to use money, and chimpanzees have a knack for game theory. But no one has ever taught a nonhuman primate to say “hello. ” Scientists have long been intrigued by the failure of primates to talk like us. Understanding the reasons may offer clues to how our own ancestors evolved speech, one of our most powerful adaptations. On Friday, a team of researchers reported that monkeys have a vocal tract capable of human speech. They argue that other primates can’t talk because they lack the right wiring in their brains. “A monkey’s vocal tract would be perfectly adequate to produce hundreds, thousands of words,” said W. Tecumseh Fitch, a cognitive scientist at the University of Vienna and a of the new study. Human speech results from a complicated choreography of flowing air and contracting muscles. To make a particular sound, we have to give the vocal tract a particular shape. The vocal tracts of other primates contain the same elements as ours — from vocal cords to tongues to lips — but their geometry is different. That difference long ago set scientists to debating whether primates could make speechlike sounds. In the 1960s, Philip H. Lieberman, now a professor emeritus of Brown University, and his colleagues went so far as to pack a dead monkey’s vocal tract with plaster to get a rendering. They used acoustic formulas to determine what sort of sound the tract would produce. Then they tested out variations on that shape, based on how living monkeys open their jaws and move other parts of their vocal tracts. In 1969, the researchers concluded that the range of vowel sounds that monkeys could make was “quite restricted,” compared with those produced by humans. Dr. Lieberman would go on to study chimpanzee vocal tracts and look for clues to speech in the fossils of ancient humans and Neanderthals. He argued that a crucial part of the evolution of speech was a gradual anatomical change to the vocal tract in humans. Crucial to this transition was the human tongue’s descent back into the throat. “It’s not until about 75, 000 years ago that you find fossils of fully modern humans with a vocal tract like that,” Dr. Lieberman said in an interview. Dr. Fitch, a former student of Dr. Lieberman, and his colleagues came to a much different conclusion after reviewing videos of macaques. The terse title of their new paper in Science Advances nicely sums up the findings: “Monkey Vocal Tracts Are . ” In collaboration with Asif A. Ghazanfar, a neuroscientist at Princeton, Dr. Fitch filmed three rhesus macaque monkeys with a portable scanner. The goal was to survey the range of sounds monkeys will make on their own. “We only wanted them to do their natural capabilities,” said Dr. Ghazanfar. When the scientists brought another monkey into the room, for example, the animals would smack their lips. The scientists could get the monkeys to coo and grunt when presented with fruit. As they ate the fruit, the videos showed, the monkeys moved their mouths and throats into alternate positions. The scientists selected 99 stills from their videos to study in more detail. They mapped the outline of the vocal tract in each picture, and then generated a computer rendering of it, which they then used to model the sounds that a monkey could make by pushing air through that space. In theory, the researchers concluded, monkeys can make a fairly wide range of sounds. Looking at the most distinct vocal tract shapes, Dr. Fitch and Dr. Ghazanfar identified five separate vowels among the possibilities. “What you get are the vowels in ‘bit,’ ‘bet,’ ‘bat,’ ‘but’ and ‘bought,’” Dr. Fitch said. When the researchers played these sounds to people, they were able to correctly distinguish them most of the time. The scientists could even assemble the sounds into recognizable sentences. So what prevents these monkeys from gabbing all day long by the watering hole? The two researchers argue that the key to the acquisition of speech lies somewhere in the brain. “If they had the brain, they could produce intelligible speech,” Dr. Ghazanfar said. Our ancestors may have evolved special brain circuits that allowed them to learn new sounds as babies. Humans also developed a special set of nerves for the fine motor control of their vocal tracts. Dr. Lieberman isn’t convinced: His view is still that the evolution of human speech had to involve changes in both the brain and the vocal tract. Monkeys in the new study, he noted, failed to make the most distinct sounds in human speech, such as a long e. Without such a full repertoire of distinct sounds, he argues, it’s not possible to speak clearly as we do. “It’s the difference between having a very saturated color and a very pastel color,” he said. The acoustic version of saturated colors would have been important for human speech, he said. But Anna Barney, a speech scientist at the University of Southampton in England, found the research of Dr. Fitch and his colleagues more persuasive. While monkeys may not have the full range of human vowels, Dr. Barney said, their repertoire is a very good starting place for speech. Still, she cautioned that the new study left important questions about speech unresolved. Vowels are important to speech, for example, but so are consonants. “What they’ve shown is that monkeys are not ” Dr. Barney said. | 1 |
Good morning. (Want to get California Today by email? Here’s the .) Let’s turn it over to Thomas Fuller, our San Francisco bureau chief, for today’s introduction. More than four decades ago California passed a landmark law protecting the state’s farmworkers from abuse and helping them to organize. But the recent resignation of the head of a board that oversees the implementation of the law highlights the extent to which organized labor among farmworkers has collapsed since the days of the pioneering labor leader Cesar Chavez. Chavez’s activism was instrumental in the creation of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, the passage of which Gov. Jerry Brown described as a major accomplishment of his first stint as governor. In his recent resignation letter, the head of the board, William B. Gould IV, described the law as “irrelevant to farmworkers. ” He estimated that less than one percent of the agricultural work force is now represented by a union. As chairman of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, Mr. Gould was charged with overseeing the certification process of union elections. Yet Mr. Gould said virtually no workers came to the board during his tenure. “During the entire three years that I was chairman of the board there was only one petition for representation filed by a union in the state of California,” he said. Mr. Gould says a major factor for the decline of organized farm labor is the fear that undocumented workers have of dealing with the government. Around half of the Californian agricultural work force is in the country illegally. “There is not only no incentive to complain but there is no incentive to become involved with government in any way,” Mr. Gould said. California’s agricultural industry is bigger than ever. It produces roughly a third of all fruits and vegetables grown in the United States and has about a third of the nation’s farmworkers. Philip Martin, a specialist on organized farm labor, paints a less stark picture than Mr. Gould of the plight of farmworkers. Farmworker wages “have gone up significantly,” Mr. Martin said, and some workers have the benefit of voluntary agreements that growers sometimes enter with their suppliers. The average hourly wage of farmworkers in California is around $12, he said, above the state’s current minimum wage of $10. Mr. Martin, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis, says estimates on unionization rates among farmworkers in California are not very reliable because there are no government requirements to report them. But he says it is undeniable that unionization rates have plummeted from the heyday of union power in the late 1970s. “There’s not near the union activity that there used to be,” he said. Student groups at U. C. Berkeley had vowed to disrupt the scheduled appearance of a controversial, speaker. And on Wednesday, as the speaker, Milo Yiannopoulos, an editor at Breitbart News, was set to appear, protesters delivered on the promise, setting fires and throwing objects at buildings. The police canceled the event before it could begin, and buildings on the campus were locked down for several hours. Mr. Yiannopoulos condemned the outcome. “One thing we do know for sure,” he said on Facebook, “the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down. ” On Thursday morning President Trump responded on Twitter, appearing to defend Mr. Yiannopoulos and threaten the university’s funding: (Please note: We regularly highlight articles on news sites that have limited access for nonsubscribers.) • What a diverse California says about the future of political strife in the rest of the United States. [The New York Times] • A federal judge in Los Angeles blocked part of President Trump’s travel ban. [The New York Times] • The Sierra Nevada snowpack is the biggest in 22 years — and more snow is on the way. [The Mercury News] • “I have found no other country that aligns more with my view of the future than New Zealand,” wrote Peter Thiel. [The New York Times] • Snapchat’s idea: Your online identity is not a compilation of everything you’ve ever done, but “who I am right now. ” [The New York Times] • The big wave contest Titans of Mavericks was thrown into doubt after organizers filed for bankruptcy. [San Francisco Chronicle] • Oakland’s mayor said the city would not subsidize a Raiders stadium. [East Bay Times] • San Francisco’s Millennium Tower is still sinking, and residents may get stuck with the repair bill. [Bloomberg] • “About a third of all California renters today are paying more than 50 percent of their income in rent. ” [KQED] • What $1. 9 million buys in Santa Barbara, Denver and suburban Philadelphia. [The New York Times] • A hummingbird egg has stalled a project to upgrade a Bay Area bridge. [The Associated Press] • Movie review: “Water Power: A California Heist” makes the case that water is becoming the new oil. [The Salt Lake Tribune] The country’s largest Ikea is opening Wednesday in Burbank. To help grasp the vastness of the home furnishing emporium, some numbers: 8 — approximate number of football fields that could fit in the store 19 — buildings razed to make room for it 600 — seats in the restaurant 30 — checkout lanes 1, 700 — parking spaces Countless — shoppers sure to get lost in the store’s labyrinthine layout A photographer for The Burbank Leader took a tour. Take a look. Want to submit a photo for possible publication? You can do it here. California Today goes live at 6 a. m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes. com. The California Today columnist, Mike McPhate, is a Californian — born outside Sacramento and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He lives in Davis. Follow him on Twitter. California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and attended U. C. Berkeley. | 1 |
As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton routinely asked her maid to print out sensitive government e-mails and documents — including ones containing classified information — from her house in Washington, DC, e-mails and FBI memos show. But the housekeeper lacked the security clearance to handle such material.
In fact, Marina Santos was called on so frequently to receive e-mails that she may hold the secrets to E-mailgate — if only the FBI and Congress would subpoena her and the equipment she used.
Clinton entrusted far more than the care of her DC residence, known as Whitehaven, to Maria Santos who is a Filipina immigrant. She expected the Filipino immigrant to handle state secrets, further opening the Democratic presidential nominee to criticism that she played fast and loose with national security.
Clinton would first receive highly sensitive e-mails from top aides at the State Department and then request that they, in turn, forward the messages and any attached documents to Santos to print out for her at the home.
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Saturday, MTV News senior national correspondent Jamil Smith called Donald Trump “uppity” for taking presidential steps during his lame duck days. “There’s reports now he’s even upset with President Obama taking actual presidential steps in these last few lame duck days. How uppity of him,” Smith said on MSNBC’s “AM Joy. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 0 |
MALMO, Sweden — It has been only three years since she came to Sweden from Syria, but Hiba Abou Alhassane already says “we” when speaking about her new home country. “Did we, I mean did Sweden, take too many refugees? Should we close the border?” she pondered this week after President Trump’s remarks that Sweden’s immigration policies had failed. “It already happened. People aren’t coming anymore. ” In many ways, Ms. Alhassane is a perfect example of Sweden’s belief in the rightness of sheltering and helping to support migrants and refugees. She has worked hard to integrate. Already nearly fluent in Swedish, she teaches at two local primary schools. But recently Swedes also find themselves questioning the wisdom of their generosity to outsiders in need, and its potential limits, leading to the country’s harshest debate ever over immigration. Some residents see the clash as a refreshing chance to voice concerns over immigration and its effects. Others see it as both racist and redundant, since Sweden is already changing its immigration policies. Swedes are not rushing to a approach to immigration, nor are they ready to throw out their country’s humanitarian values when it comes to sheltering refugees, values that remain firmly rooted in the national psyche. Until a year and a half ago, Sweden offered lifetime protection, along with family reunification, to people deemed legitimate refugees. In 2015, about 163, 000 people came and sought that protection, and the sheer numbers led this country of roughly 10 million to tighten the rules. Protection is now subject to review after one or three years and family reunification is more difficult, making Sweden less accessible and less attractive to immigrants. “Sweden has been a top recipient of asylum seekers per capita in Europe, priding itself on a humanitarian approach to immigration,” said Daniel Schatz, a visiting scholar at Columbia University’s European Institute. “During the Iraq war, Sodertalje, a small Swedish municipality, took more Iraqi refugees than the U. S. and U. K. combined. ” “Sweden is experiencing a clash of ideals,” he added. “While the country seeks to maintain a humanitarian ideal, public concerns around immigration have begun to shift the politics of traditionally liberal Sweden to tighter immigration controls and more restrictive policies. The debate on migration is thus a very personal one for many Swedes. ” Mr. Trump is not the only person pointing to what he considers to be the troubling consequences of immigration to Sweden. This month, a seasoned investigator with the police department in Orebro, Peter Springare, caused a stir with a Facebook posting in which he discussed the case files on his desk. “What I’ve been handling this week: Rape, rape, serious rape, assault rape, black mail, black mail, assault in court, threats, attack against police, threats against police, drugs, serious drugs, attempted murder, rape again, black mail again and abuse,” Mr. Springare said. He went on to list the first names of the people he said were suspects, all but one of which were traditionally Middle Eastern. The post, which was shared 20, 500 times, led to an outpouring of support. People sent hundreds of flowers to Mr. Springare’s police station, and more than 170, 000 people joined a Facebook group supporting him. But both his superiors and the police in other departments said that they did not recognize his description, and that national levels did not resemble his claims. Manne Gerell, a lecturer in criminology with Malmo University, said more immigrants than Swedes commit crimes, but the exact numbers are hard to determine. And on the national level, he said, the imbalance is not nearly as great as Mr. Springare suggested. Still, it seems as if frustrations over the issue are spreading. In 2014, the Sweden Democrats gained 12. 9 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections to become the country’s party, up from only 2. 9 percent eight years earlier. “Shunned by mainstream parties, their stance is increasingly resonating with some voters,” Mr. Schatz said. Some of the party’s progress has to do with residents’ perceptions of crime, a significant issue here in Malmo, Sweden’s city with about 350, 000 people, which is often called the “Chicago of the Nordic region. ” The reference is not to its icy, windswept shores. The murder rate in Malmo is the highest among Scandinavian countries: 3. 4 annually per 100, 000 citizens, compared with 1. 3 in Stockholm, the capital. That has earned Malmo an unsavory reputation well beyond Sweden’s borders, but the assessment lacks context: Chicago’s homicide rate was 28 per 100, 000 citizens last year, and Saint Louis’s was 59, according to one analysis. A murder in Malmo remains so rare that it still generates headlines nationwide. More than 40 percent of the city’s residents or their parents are a fact that is often linked to Malmo’s crime rates, but Mr. Gerell, the criminologist, said a correlation was not clear, and even if there was one, immigration was not the only contributing factor. “Immigration has most likely played a part in the crime rates,” he said. “But we have many, many poor people living in poor areas so it’s not only about immigration. That said, poverty doesn’t necessarily cause crime, but when there are lots of social problems there will be more of other problems. ” Even some longtime immigrants concede that integration has not always gone smoothly, and that Sweden needs a more robust debate about what has gone wrong and what could be done better. Maher Dabour, who came to Sweden from Lebanon in the 1980s, said the main problem lay in how migrants are schooled in societal differences. “They didn’t manage to explain to us how to be citizens,” he said. “In legal terms it’s not difficult, and they’ve been more than generous, but it’s not enough to give money. ” Thirty years after leaving Lebanon, Mr. Dabour drives a Volvo and instinctively buckles his seatbelt like a Swede, but he breaks with tradition and chain smokes. He said that Swedes had built a society based on the individual’s respect for the state, discipline and rules, but that many newly arrived people come with no respect for, or trust in, government authorities, but great regard for family and elders. “The authorities say everything is O. K. and in order, but it’s not true,” Mr. Dabour said. “We need to have an open and honest discussion about the problems,” he added, referring to crime among immigrants. In Malmo, the Rosengard district has for years been named by the national police as having a high crime rate, although that has improved recently. It is home to 25, 000 people, 86 percent of them with foreign backgrounds. housing is clustered around a shopping center, where shops bear names like Noor, Najib and Orient Musik. “We try to not focus on the problems,” said Maria Roijer, the chief librarian at the public library. She tries to act as a bridge between the many nationalities of Rosengard and Swedish society. Ms. Roijer said many people of foreign origin come to the library and join the language cafe to practice their Swedish, to borrow books and use the computers. “They need them to be able to communicate with authorities,” she said. For decades area residents have felt they got more negative attention from the media than positive responses from municipal officials. “They built a nice waterfront and created 10, 000 jobs in the western part of town, but all we got was two mosques,” said Mira Dekanic, a retiree and nearby resident. But change is coming. Recently three new real estate companies bought apartment blocks here and one also acquired the shopping center. The companies say that while they must make a profit for their shareholders, they are also committed to the area’s social development so people who live in Rosengard will have jobs, better houses and more places to meet and things to do in their free time. “We’re aiming for the long term,” said Birgitta Bengtson, a representative of Trianon, one of the developers. If all goes well, more native Swedes and Swedish retailers may move to Rosengard. “HM and Espresso House is a dream,” she said. In a Turkish restaurant, a Syrian refugee, Mohammed Hoppe, was clearing tables and washing dishes. He said he had been too busy to keep up with Mr. Trump’s remarks about Sweden, but after three and a half years in the country, he hadn’t seen anything bad happen. And for her part, Ms. Alhassane, was not interested in the comments, either. “Honestly, everything coming from the U. S. these days is a kind of joke,” she said. “I wasn’t even curious to find out if what he said was true. I didn’t need to. ” | 1 |
In a seemingly recent wave of female teachers in Texas getting busted for having sex with their students, two more now stand accused of crossing the line, this time with middle schoolers. [On March 21, Trophy Club police arrested Katherine Ruth Harper, a seventh grade English teacher at Tidwell Middle School in the Northwest Independent School District. She also coached cheerleaders. Officers alleged Harper, 27, had a sexual relationship with one of her students during the summer of 2016, a then male. They charged her with improper relationship between educator and student, a second degree felony, then booked her into the Denton County Jail. She bonded out after posting $15, 000 bail. This week, details about the illicit relationship emerged including how Harper and the teenager initially became involved over flirtatious text messages. The Fort Worth reported the two had sex numerous times either at the teen’s Trophy Club home or at her Fort Worth residence from June 1, 2016 to July 31, 2016. They also exchanged naked selfies of each other by cell phone. The boy saved these images which police later retrieved when they seized his phone. Cell phone records showed the pair communicated roughly 76 times while involved intimately, according to the arrest warrant. The teenager eventually told a Child Protective Services investigator during one of their rendezvous, he and Harper drank alcohol and took off their clothes, the boy said he performed a sex act on his teacher. When a Tidwell school official questioned the teen, he cried and admitted to having the relationship. In September 2016, Northwest ISD learned about Harper’s salacious behavior but they could not investigate thoroughly because they had few details. The indicated Harper was pregnant. The district got another tip in December saying a pregnant middle school teacher was involved with a student. From this, the Trophy Club Police Department initiated a investigation that resulted in Harper’s March 21 arrest. Three days after Harper’s arrest, Grand Prairie police took into custody Rebecca Goerdel, a special education teacher at the Young Men’s Leadership Academy at the Kennedy Middle School. This follows accusations she had a sexual relationship with a juvenile, according to The Dallas Morning News. Grand Prairie ISD officials learned of the “potential impropriety” after school dismissal on March 10. They placed Goerdel, 28, on leave immediately. Local law enforcement launched a probe, leading to her arrest. On March 24, Grand Prairie ISD posted a statement on Facebook. Superintendent Susan Hull said “this kind of conduct is outrageous and will not be tolerated. ” She added: “The relationship is sacred. It reflects a vow from teachers to parents that their children are safe — as safe as they would be at home. When a teacher in Grand Prairie ISD breaks that vow, he or she will be dealt with quickly and aggressively. I encourage law enforcement to pursue all available action. ” If women educators crossing the line with students sexually seems more prevalent, it is, says Dr. Ernest Zarra III, author of Relationships: Crossing into the Emotional, Physical, and Sexual Realms. He told Breitbart Texas one reason for this is “there are many more women in education than men. ” Also the author of the professional development tool, “Addressing Appropriate and Inappropriate Relationships,” Zarra reflected on this national classroom crisis as a “a slow drip of a moral breakdown in the culture” where “sex surrounds all of us” abetted by technology, from the internet and online pornography to cell phone sexting. Access, too, becomes problematic, says Zarra because some teachers allow students to contact them at home or on vacation, blurring the walls of propriety. “What was a drip is now a tidal wave,” he added. State Senator Paul Bettencourt ( ) called the troubling situation a “plague,” Breitbart Texas reported. His proposed Senate Bill 7 intends to crack down on an epidemic of Texas education professionals sexually preying on school children. In March, the Senate unanimously passed the bill. It moved onto the House Education Committee where it remains pending. Follow Merrill Hope, a member of the original Breitbart Texas team, on Twitter. | 1 |
ARLINGTON, Virginia — The chief judge of Arlington County’s Circuit Court in Virginia dismissed a misdemeanor charge that Dr. Sebastian Gorka, White House deputy assistant and former Breitbart News national security editor, had been facing for taking a legally owned unloaded gun through a TSA checkpoint at Reagan National Airport last year. [“Dr. Gorka made a mistake. He started carrying a licensed, concealed weapon after he got death threats against his family,” his lawyer, Christopher Oprison, told reporters. “He regrets that mistake. Dr. Gorka wants to put this matter behind him and get back to the very important national security work he’s doing,” added the attorney. Chief Circuit Court Judge William Newman, Jr. dropped the charge under an agreement that resulted in no conviction for Dr. Gorka after he stayed out of trouble for six months and paid a nominal fine. The court never imposed a sentence on Gorka and, therefore, there was no conviction, explained Dr. Gorka’s attorney. The attorney suggested that the charge did not affect his client’s national security clearance. TSA agents allowed Gorka to board his plane after the agency’s machine detected the unloaded weapon on January 1, 2016, when Gorka was traveling at the behest of the Pentagon to give a briefing on the Islamic State ( ) at U. S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) headquarters in Florida. Speaking on behalf of Gorka, his lawyer thanked TSA agents for keeping the nation safe. During the final adjudication hearing of the case Friday, Judge Newman declared that “the court is moving to dismiss the case. ” Gorka had not been required to attend, according to the judge. The judge and the Commonwealth attorney’s office acknowledged that Gorka fulfilled all the court’s instructions. Death threats against himself and his family prompted Dr. Gorka to regularly attend the shooting range and carry his gun for which he has a concealed carry permit. He explained that when he was on his way to Reagan National, he accidentally grabbed the bag he takes to the range, which contained an unloaded 9mm. The TSA machine detected the weapon. After showing a TSA agent his U. S. Department of Defense identification card, he was issued a fine but was allowed to board his flight. He was also ordered to appear in court in Arlington County, and county law enforcement later confiscated his weapon. | 0 |
By Pamela Bofferding Sure, there are plenty of alternatives to fossil fuels: most people have heard of solar cells, wind and battery power, but there are other energy options as well. Some of them... | 0 |
KIRYAT ATTA, Israel — The roll call was startling for a class preparing to take Israel’s police academy exam: Mohammad Hreib, Ghadeer Ghadeer, Munis Huwari and Arafat Hassanein, dressed like a hipster and named after the Palestinian leader, whom most Israeli Jews view as a terrorist. “How did they even let you in?” an astonished colleague asked Mr. Hassanein, 20. The unusual roster is the result of an Israeli push to recruit into its police force Arab Muslims, who are both vastly underrepresented in its ranks and vastly overrepresented among criminal suspects and victims. Arab Muslims are currently 1. 5 percent of the national police force, and the public security minister seeks to increase that number in three years by adding 1, 350 new ones. Many would work in Arab cities and towns, where the ministry has promised to open 12 new police stations. (There are seven in such areas now, out of 70 across Israel.) The tension between Israel’s police and its 1. 7 million Arab citizens — about a fifth of the population — in some ways mirrors the flaring problems over race and policing in the United States. This spring and summer, the public security minister, Gilad Erdan, traveled to London and to New York — where Hispanics make up about 27 percent of the Police Department, 15 percent and Asians nearly 7 percent — to study those cities’ experiences with diversifying and sensitizing their forces and with using body cameras to address complaints of police abuse. “They are not going to disappear, and hopefully we are not, either,” Mr. Erdan said in an interview, referring to Arabs and Jews. Alongside the recruitment drive, he promoted a rare Muslim officer to deputy commissioner, the rank on the force, holding him up as an example of how high an Arab could ascend in the force. The challenge, he acknowledged, is how to enlist this new population sensitively — to do it “for them and not against them. ” Many Palestinian citizens said they felt that Mr. Erdan was pressing forward with the recruitment of Arab officers because the violence that was wreaking havoc in their communities had begun to impact the wider Jewish society. They bitterly noted that Mr. Erdan’s plan was announced only after Nashat Melhem, an opened fire on bar patrons in Tel Aviv on Jan. 1, ultimately killing three people. But Mr. Erdan denied that was the impetus for the plan, saying it had been in the works long before the attack. Building trust is his challenge. Many Arab citizens identify primarily as Palestinian, not Israeli, and see the conservative government, especially its security forces, as hostile to their interests. They are suspicious of a broader government program to invest $3. 8 billion in infrastructure, education, housing and other services in Arab communities — an effort to better integrate the residents, who suffer more poverty and unemployment, into society. The police recruitment has unleashed a particular conundrum for an Arab population that has not quite recovered since officers fatally shot a dozen Palestinian citizens of Israel and one from Gaza during violent demonstrations at the start of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000. The feeling on the street is that the disproportionate violence afflicting Arab communities is the result of deliberate police neglect. “The police don’t care for the Arabs,” said Amneh Freij, whose son Suhaib, 24, a professional soccer player, was fatally shot in January last year in Kafr Qasim. Adding to their sense of powerlessness, Ms. Freij’s husband, Mohammed, is the deputy mayor of Kafr Qasim, an Arab town of 22, 000 in Israel. His position made no difference, they said. Mr. Freij’s killer has not been caught. Had the victim been Jewish, Ms. Freij said as she wept in a recent interview, the police would have worked harder to find a suspect. “You would pluck him from between the eyelashes of the townspeople,” she said. Mr. Erdan acknowledged the Freij family’s grief, and said having more Arabs on the force would help solve such cases in the future because they could better understand local crime structures and gather intelligence and evidence. There are plenty of cases to work on. Mr. Erdan said 60 percent of Israel’s murders occurred in Arab communities, triple the Arab proportion of the population, along with more than 40 percent of traffic accidents. The Abraham Fund Initiatives, a group that promotes the coexistence of Palestinian and Jewish citizens, said an examination of prosecutions last year showed that Arabs were charged in 58 percent of all arsons, 47 percent of robberies, 32 percent of burglaries and 27 percent of cases. While Arab leaders are concerned about crime in their communities, they also complain that police use excessive force. In 2014, Arabs staged a daylong strike to protest the fatal shooting by officers of a as he retreated from their vehicle after banging on its windows with what looked like a knife, and this January, a young man was shot dead and his father beaten during a drug arrest. And so the sight of an Arab in an Israeli police uniform is, still, visual shorthand for a collaborator, and many argue that the police need reform, not recruits. A popular website refused to run the police force’s recruitment commercials. “More police isn’t the solution. Changing the mentality of the police is,” said Ayman Odeh, who leads a bloc of Arab lawmakers in Israel’s Parliament. Amnon a director of the Abraham Fund Initiatives, which has led its own initiative to improve relations between Arabs and the police, said there was a contradiction in a government that had been vocally hostile to Arabs while presenting a large budget to improve their lot. “It’s this conflicting trend — very positive on one hand, very destructive on the other,” he said. The government “is unhelpful — I’m trying to be gentle here — in its rhetoric and action when it comes to the place and collective rights of the Palestinian minority. ” Since the recruitment initiative was announced in April, about 700 Arabs have applied to the police force. Jamal Hakroush, 59, the newly promoted deputy commissioner, said about 200 were expected to make it. The first hurdle is the entrance exam, which many Arabs have struggled with because of its emphasis on Israeli civics and Hebrew, topics that often get short shrift in public school curriculums. So the police created special prep courses for potential recruits, including intensive Hebrew lessons, like the one that Mr. Hreib, Mr. Ghadeer, Mr. Huwari, and Mr. Hassanein took this summer. These recruits will be bused together to exams, on the theory that they will do better in groups. For their physical exams, they are instructed in Arabic, not Hebrew. The applicants in class here at an abandoned police barracks in northern Israel have a mix of motivations. Ahmad Sarhan, 22, said he was inspired by a relative on the force. “My cousin was a shepherd. Now look at him: He has a house,” Mr. Sarhan said. “He has a future. ” Thekra Darwish, 22, said working as a policewoman would help her fight for equality for Arabs. “If we had a Palestinian state, we would serve that one,” she said with a shrug. “But we are here. ” Aisha Dahleh, 26, a social worker, wants to help resolve crimes plaguing her town. If selected, according to Commissioner Harkoush, she would be the first ever Israeli police officer who wears a Muslim head scarf. “There will be those who say, ‘She is a girl, she is religious, she is an Arab, she is a Muslim — and she works with the state,’” Ms. Dahleh said. “But I know my goals. ” Mr. Hakroush is simultaneously leading a charm offensive with Arab mayors to raise support for the recruitment drive. On a recent day in Taibeh, a town with a particularly violent reputation, he met the mayor, Shuaa Mansour, inside his bulletproof office. Over coffee and pastries, Mr. Mansour said he would reluctantly support the plan. “Whoever has an alternative to the police — bring it,” Mr. Mansour said. “We have no alternative. ” Guy a professor at Ben Gurion University of the Negev who has researched race and policing, said that for decades, the Israeli police and Palestinian citizens mostly sidestepped each other, with tribal elders reconciling conflicts among Arabs instead. As the influence of such elders eroded in modernizing communities, some, like Kafr Qasim, organized their own security patrols. These volunteer patrols functioned like neighborhood watch groups, mostly cracking down on young men speeding, blasting music and harassing teenage girls. But they could not prevent the killing of Suhaib Freij, even though he was the son of Kafr Qasim’s deputy mayor. Mr. Freij, sitting in a living room crammed with his son’s soccer medals, was dubious about the prospects for change, but still offered a small voice of support for the new police initiative because, as he put it, “you have to try and try. ” “There are police now,” he noted, referring to a newish police station in Kafr Qasim, “and the incidents happen and happen and happen. ” | 1 |
An autocratic leader has won the vote. He has charm, yes, and smarts of a kind, but also a cruel streak. Beatings are frequent, and assassination — foreign and domestic — has become commonplace. His cultural pronouncements have had a chilling effect on the arts, theater in particular. Take your seat for “Evening at the Talk House,” an comedy by the playwright and actor Wallace Shawn (“The Designated Mourner,” “Aunt Dan and Lemon”) for the New Group that begins performances at the Signature Center on Tuesday, Jan. 31. Though written years before Donald J. Trump announced his candidacy, and first produced in London in the fall of 2015, the play may strike some as oddly prescient. Set in the course of one night, it eavesdrops on several people who worked together on “Midnight in a Clearing With Moon and Stars,” a fictitious flop from a decade ago. They have gathered for a reunion at a rundown club. As they snack and sip and reminisce, they reveal the brutality of the world outside and the ways that artists can abet it, resist it and ignore it. The London production stoked controversy, with The Independent approvingly describing a “disturbing, balefully hilarious new play,” while many other critics attacked its tone, pace and politics. More than a year later, in the wake of Brexit and the presidential election, that controversy is likely to resonate anew. On the morning of President Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Shawn, who also appears in the play, the director Scott Elliott and the other members of the cast — Matthew Broderick, Jill Eikenberry, John Epperson, Larry Pine, Claudia Shear, Annapurna Sriram and Michael Tucker — gathered at a rehearsal space to discuss drama as protest and whether or not to invite the president. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. Is this a political play? MICHAEL TUCKER Yes. It’s other things, too. But it’s most certainly political. JILL EIKENBERRY I felt when I first read it that it was extremely relevant to our situation in this world, in this country. After the election, it felt way more relevant, chillingly relevant. SCOTT ELLIOTT I decided to do it way before the election. Many people say Wally’s a prescient artist, and I’ve seen it. And then all of a sudden on election night, it was this feeling of, oh my God, this play crossed over from fiction to — — EIKENBERRY True. LARRY PINE If the election had gone the other way, this play would still be very relevant. WALLACE SHAWN Plays began as political. The Greek plays were about communities and cities and kings and queens and how a country was run. We went through a brief period in the United States of somehow being so prosperous and secure that we forgot that we lived in the world, and plays were about what was happening in somebody’s kitchen. Have you ever been a part of a play that failed unjustly? PINE Oh God, yes. Every play. SHAWN Most of my projects have been unsuccessful, so I’m a kind of expert on it. Most actors are very courageous people, and my experience is their commitment increases when it becomes clear that the show is not going to get universal approval. It’s an honorable role to be committing yourself to the unpopular play. Is there anything wrong with apolitical plays, entertainment that simply comforts? CLAUDIA SHEAR I think there’s a place for “Guys and Dolls” until the last splinter of light dies out on the planet. JOHN EPPERSON I never liked that show. But I like “The Unsinkable Molly Brown. ” SHAWN Speaking as someone who has devoted a lot of his life to doing some things that would certainly fit into the category of pure entertainment, that’s how I have lived. I’ve been paid for that. But complacency is a very serious problem. Too much soothing entertainment isn’t good for a person. If you admit that a play or a TV show or a movie can wake somebody up, you have to at least admit that possibly some plays or TV shows or movies might put people to sleep and help them in their quest for total oblivion. Personally, I would rather go to bed and have someone bring me a cup of tea. I don’t have a desire to go out and get arrested or something like that. But it may be necessary. MATTHEW BRODERICK It’s a play it’s not an essay. It’s not like we’re all sitting around saying, “Let’s change the world and its politics while we’re doing it. ” We’re creating a human world. EIKENBERRY And there’s a lot of irony, a lot of funny stuff. That’s another great way to tell a political story. In the play, theater has died out. Is this likely? ANNAPURNA SRIRAM A lot of friends my age don’t go to theater. I have one friend who will probably come, and this will be his second play. His first was another play I did. I definitely wonder what the next generation of theatergoers will look like. SHEAR They’re all outside of “Hamilton. ” BRODERICK When I first did a play, I was absolutely sure that Broadway was dead. And now every time I’m in a play, you can’t get a theater. Your young friends are going to start watching plays at some point. SRIRAM I hope so. If it did die, would that be so bad? BRODERICK I would be fine with that. We would get paid more. TUCKER It would be a great loss. When it works, there’s nothing like it. If there were no theaters, no one could ever say, “I saw that, I was there, that moment. ” EIKENBERRY It’s been around for an awful long time it’s hard to imagine that even this administration could do away with it. People don’t go to church that much anymore. They need collective experience. EPPERSON I thought the election in 2000 would spur people to make more interesting work, but it didn’t seem like it did. And then after it seemed like audiences wanted stuff. Maybe this election will make more interesting work. Scott, you said you already have things on your desk. ELLIOTT A lot of screeches. A lot of screams. In the world of the play, assassination has become the norm. Do you feel we’re moving toward a more violent world? TUCKER There’s been slaughter, genocide since history began. But this is different. SRIRAM It’s been going on for a long time, but it hasn’t been as public. SHAWN Under Bush, torture became normal and most Americans accepted it. First they were shocked, and then they accepted it. And sadly, under the very likable Obama, these assassinations have become normal, and people have accepted that. In the case of killing Bin Laden, it was boasted about by apparently nice people. I’m not sure we understand the implications of that yet, the normalization of killing individuals. What does it mean if apparently nice people just go on eating snacks and drinking cocktails and making art while these things are happening? EIKENBERRY That’s the question of the play. SRIRAM I feel grateful in real life just for the privilege of getting to be an actor, that I have the kind of sometimes insane work of putting on costumes and playing pretend, for a living! But what is my responsibility other than just trying to achieve and have ambition and success? SHAWN Our complacency is dangerous to other people. Have you always made it a point to do work that has political dimensions? TUCKER Most of us don’t have that much of a choice. There are only a few actors who can choose what they want to do. There are actors who are very political who will join or form a company that only does political work. But I’m not much of a joiner. It’s really something that we have to think about individually. EPPERSON I have a list of selfish reasons for doing it, too. My career has been a kind of trap: Performing in female clothing is one trap, and is another trap. It’s always good for me to do a job where people can realize, oh, he can do something else. BRODERICK But I think we’re going to record all of your dialogue. The reaction to this play in London a year ago was mixed to negative. Will it be received differently now? TUCKER There will be negative responses, too, I imagine. People don’t like to be confronted. EIKENBERRY Wally, do you have a fantasy — I think it happened to Sean O’Casey — that everyone gets up in the entire audience and starts throwing things at the stage? Would that make you happy? SHAWN I don’t actually enjoy that. Nobody ever says, “I hated your play, because I happen to be very conservative, and I disagree with all of your ideas. ” They say: “You’re a bad writer. We were bored. It’s not a good play. ” What about the “Waiting for Lefty” model, where the audience joins the resistance? SHAWN I’m available. If the audience is inspired to activism, I’m thrilled and I’ll join in, but things don’t really happen quite that way. Our president has a lot of strong opinions on art. How would you feel if he liked this play? BRODERICK That should happen! A fan’s a fan. PINE I don’t think he’s interested in plays. EPPERSON I saw him at a fashion show once. SHEAR I saw him at a party. ELLIOTT He was in one of my plays in the ’90s. This play called “The Monogamist. ” I videotaped prominent New York figures for the scenic transitions. Will you invite him? ELLIOTT Why not? Let him see it. SHAWN I don’t know if it could influence Trump. It’s only 90 minutes long, but he’s one of those people who’s interested in himself, and when the topic goes off of him he becomes bored. We don’t mention him in the play. Maybe we should change that. | 1 |
Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday joined a growing chorus warning that the solution, which he called “the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” could be on the verge of permanent collapse. The solution has for decades been the primary focus of efforts to achieve peace in the conflict, but the contours of what it would actually look like — and why it has been so hard to achieve — can get lost. Here’s a basic guide. It helps to start with the problem the solution is meant to address: the conflict. At its most basic level, the conflict is about how or whether to divide territory between two peoples. The territory question is also wrapped up in other overlapping but distinct issues: whether the Palestinian territories can become an independent state and how to resolve years of violence that include the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the partial Israeli blockade of Gaza and Palestinian violence against Israelis. The solution would establish an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel — two states for two peoples. In theory, this would win Israel security and allow it to retain a Jewish demographic majority (letting the country remain Jewish and democratic) while granting the Palestinians a state. Most governments and world bodies have set achievement of the solution as official policy, including the United States, the United Nations, the Palestinian Authority and Israel. This goal has been the basis of peace talks for decades. There are four issues that have proved most challenging. Each comes down to a set of bedrock demands between the two sides that, in execution, often appear to be mutually exclusive. 1. Borders: There is no consensus about precisely where to draw the line. Generally, most believe the border would follow the lines before the war of 1967, but with Israel keeping some of the land where it has built settlements and in exchange providing other land to the Palestinians to compensate. Israel has constructed barriers along and within the West Bank that many analysts worry create a de facto border, and it has built settlements in the West Bank that will make it difficult to establish that land as part of an independent Palestine. As time goes on, settlements grow, theoretically making any future Palestinian state smaller and possibly breaking it up into noncontiguous pieces. 2. Jerusalem: Both sides claim Jerusalem as their capital and consider it a center of religious worship and cultural heritage. The solution typically calls for dividing it into an Israeli West and a Palestinian East, but it is not easy to draw the line — Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites are on top of one another. Israel has declared Jerusalem its “undivided capital,” effectively annexing its eastern half, and has built up construction that entrenches Israeli control of the city. 3. Refugees: Large numbers of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in what is now Israel, primarily during the 1948 war that came after Israel’s creation. They and their descendants now number five million and believe they deserve the right to return. This is a nonstarter for Israel: Too many returnees would end Jews’ demographic majority and therefore Israel’s status as both a Jewish and a democratic state. 4. Security: For Palestinians, security means an end to foreign military occupation. For Israelis, this means avoiding a takeover of the West Bank by a group like Hamas that would threaten Israelis (as happened in Gaza after Israel’s 2005 withdrawal). It also means keeping Israel defensible against foreign armies, which often means requiring a continued Israeli military presence in parts of the West Bank. There is plenty of blame to go around. The Palestinian leadership is divided between two governments that cannot come to terms. The leadership in the West Bank lacks the political legitimacy to make but necessary concessions, and the leadership in Gaza does not even recognize Israel, whose citizens it frequently attacks. The United States, which has brokered talks for years, has taken more than a few missteps. And most important, the current Israeli leadership, though it nominally supports a solution, appears to oppose it in practice. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister since 2009, endorsed the solution in a speech that year. But he continued to expand West Bank settlements and, in 2015, said there would be “no withdrawals” and “no concessions. ” Mr. Netanyahu appears personally skeptical of Palestinian independence. His fragile governing coalition also relies on parties that are skeptical of or outright oppose the solution. Israeli public pressure for a peace deal has declined. The reasons are complex: demographic changes, an increasingly powerful settler movement, outrage at Palestinian attacks such as a recent spate of stabbings, and bitter memories of the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, which saw frequent bus and cafe bombings. And the status quo has, for most Israelis, become relatively peaceful and bearable. Many see little incentive for adopting a risky and uncertain solution, leaving Mr. Netanyahu with scant reason to risk his political career on one. There are, but they involve such drastic costs that the United States and many other governments consider all but the solution unacceptable. There are multiple versions of the solution, which would join all territories as one nation. One version would grant equal rights to all in a state that would be neither Jewish nor Palestinian in character, because neither group would have a clear majority. Skeptics fear this would risk internal instability or even a return to war. Another, advocated by some on the Israeli far right, would establish one state but preserve Israel’s Jewish character by denying full rights to Palestinians. Under this version, Israel would no longer be a democratic state. With few viable or popular alternatives, the most likely choice may be to simply maintain the status quo — though few believe that is possible in the long term. A common prediction, as Mr. Kerry stated, is that Israel will be forced to choose between the two core components of its national identity: Jewish and democratic. This choice, rather than coming in one decisive moment, would probably play out in many small choices over a process of years. For instance, a 2015 poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 74 percent of Jewish Israelis agreed that “decisions crucial to the state on issues of peace and security should be made by a Jewish majority. ” That pollster also found that, from 2010 to 2014, Jewish Israelis became much less likely to say that Israel should be “Jewish and democratic,” with growing factions saying that it should be democratic first or, slightly more popular, Jewish first. Many analysts also worry that the West Bank government, whose scant remaining legitimacy rests on delivering a peace deal, will collapse. This would force Israel to either tolerate chaos in the West Bank and a possible Hamas takeover or enforce a more direct form of occupation that would be costlier to both parties. This risk of increased suffering, along with perhaps permanent setbacks in the national ambitions of both Palestinians and Israelis, is why Nathan Thrall, a analyst with the International Crisis Group, told me last year, “Perpetuating the status quo is the most frightening of the possibilities. ” | 1 |
Regina Feltner, a retired nurse, was recovering from side effects of radiation therapy when she got the notice that her heat would be cut off. It was a January day. The snow was so high that her daughter had to come over to take the dog out. “I have lung cancer and it’s the dead of winter,” she remembers thinking. “What am I going to do?” Help came in the form of a heating subsidy: money from the federal government, delivered by the Highland County Community Action Organization, a small nonprofit in rural southern Ohio, where Ms. Feltner lives. Now, that program is on the chopping block. It is one of many cuts in President Trump’s new budget proposal that would inflict the deepest pain on the most vulnerable Americans — a great number of whom voted for him. “I understand what he’s trying to do, but I think he’s just not stopping to think that there are people caught in the middle he is really going to hurt,” said Ms. Feltner, 57, who was a nurse for 25 years and voted for Mr. Trump. “He needs to make some concessions for that. I was a productive citizen. Don’t make me feel worthless now. ” As news of Mr. Trump’s budget begins to sink in across the country, Americans are trying to parse what the changes to the government’s spending plan might mean for them. It is only a proposal, an opening bid in what is likely to be a protracted public argument over national priorities. But it is important because it signals what the new president is thinking, his wish list for the size and shape of government. In two days of interviews with beneficiaries of programs at risk in 11 states, many people said they did not see themselves reflected in Mr. Trump’s vision for the government. And some felt surprise at what has been left out. Ms. Feltner said that without the heating subsidy she would probably have to move in with her daughter and two teenage grandchildren. “I’d still like to have a little dignity left, and not have to move in with someone else,” she said. “I used to be the one packing up the food in the food pantry for people,” she said. “Now I’m the one in line. ” Another proposed cut would defund the Appalachian Regional Commission, which was founded in 1965 to strengthen economic growth in a swath of the country. Of the 420 counties in the commission’s footprint, 399 voted for Mr. Trump. “I hate to see him cut us,” said Chris Farley, 32, of Delbarton, W. Va. who was laid off from his job operating a drill at a surface coal mine in 2015 and is now in a jobs and education program partially funded by the commission. Mr. Farley worked in coal for 11 years. When he was 18, his father, a miner, helped get him a job driving a truck that carried rocks. The pay was good: He was making $20 an hour when he was laid off — a punch he did not see coming. The only work he found afterward paid minimum wage. With a wife and daughter, he struggled to pay the bills. “I tried everywhere to get a job,” he said. “I mowed lawns. I cut weeds. I hauled trash. ” Last year, his mother texted him about a job in farming through a local nonprofit called the Coalfield Development Corporation, which is partially supported by the Appalachian Regional Commission. It pays him $11. 50 an hour for 33 hours a week growing cucumbers and raising chickens and pigs. It also pays for him to attend community college six hours a week where he working toward an associate degree. His grade point average is 4. 0. “I never dreamed I’d be going back to school,” he said. “I love it. It’s amazing. College is totally different than high school. Back then I was young and I didn’t care. ” The farm had its first full year last year: a good cucumber harvest, a lot of eggs sold. Mr. Farley was reminded of eating beans and tomatoes at his grandparents’ farm as a boy. “I blew up the mountains,” he said, “and now I’m reclaiming the mountains. ” Another worker in the Coalfield Development jobs program is Tracy Spaulding, 19, the son of a longtime miner. When his father was laid off after nearly 30 years, he made ends meet by buying an industrial saw and cutting lumber. The younger Mr. Spaulding has skipped the mine altogether: He works in a wood shop making things like TV stands, cabinets and headboards for beds. In November, Mr. Spaulding cast his first vote for president. He chose Mr. Trump, something he tries not to talk about with his friends who didn’t. “They get really sore about it,” he said. “Honestly, I like Donald Trump. That’s just how I feel, I like him. A lot of people don’t and I understand that. ” When asked what he thought about the proposed cut to the commission, he thought for a bit. “He ain’t pulled nothing on us yet,” he said. He thought more. “I believe I’d be a little bit mad about it if he made that cut and I lost my job and schooling, you know? But things happen. People get laid off every day. I’ll make it one way or another. ” In Staten Island, N. Y. Raymond DeNozzo, 53, a carpenter who has lived in Sutton, W. Va. for 28 years, was back home visiting his father on Friday. He, too, voted for Mr. Trump. He believes his adopted state’s coal industry was decimated under President Barack Obama. He supports increased spending on veterans and on the military, and, at least in theory, cuts to some social programs. He thinks that welfare discourages people from working, for instance. “We need to teach our children to work and go out and be independent,” he said. But his wife is a schoolteacher, their health insurance is through her job, and Mr. DeNozzo worries about the potential cuts to schools that could result from Mr. Trump’s budget. School consolidations are already overburdening teachers, he said. And they can also harm students, he said. “That’s a concern,” Mr. DeNozzo said. “Will he keep the little schools open?” Some of the programs in Mr. Trump’s sights are like unloved stepchildren, with alphabet soup acronyms unfamiliar to anyone except fiercely dedicated . But they can have outsize effects on people’s lives. Money from a Community Development Block Grant helped pay to remodel Shantell Swenson’s bathroom and kitchen in Salt Lake City, making it easier for her to use a wheelchair in her home and allowing her to cook on a stove for the first time. There have been other benefits, too. “Now instead of spitting my toothpaste into a cup I can roll under the sink,” said Ms. Swenson, 33, who has cerebral palsy. Tired of lifting her legs into and out of a standard bathtub and begging landlords to change it, she scraped together her savings to buy a small house last May. The bathroom was finished in September, and the kitchen is on track for April. She calls the work life changing. “I would be old and gray and partially retired before I could have been able to afford this on my own,” she said. Ms. Swenson said she did not “rage toward” Mr. Trump “like some people I know. ” But when she heard about his proposed budget cuts, she said, she was “boiling with anger. ” One of those proposed cuts would kill the Legal Service Corporation, which funds 133 civil legal aid programs in the 50 states at a cost of $385 million. That funding stream makes up 40 percent of the budget for Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma, whose lawyers saved Paula and Joe Frye from losing their home. The Fryes, who live in Warner, had missed a $14 tax payment four years earlier. They learned that their property had been put up for auction only when a man pulled up to their home and Mr. Frye asked him what he wanted. “The man said he wanted to look at the land for sale,” said Mrs. Frye, a retired turkey hatchery worker. They were unable to resolve the unpaid bill themselves, but the land was sold at a county auction for $5, 000. The Fryes could not match that, or afford a lawyer. Only when they turned to Legal Aid did a lawyer there discover a technical flaw in the county’s handling of the tax arrears and the Fryes got their home back. “This is all we had,” Mrs. Frye said. “If it hadn’t been for Legal Aid, I guess we’d just live in our car. ” The Fryes, who did not vote, said they were reserving judgment on Mr. Trump. Some things are probably beyond the president’s control, Mr. Frye said. Mrs. Frye said they would be watching. “I guess until we see exactly what he does do, then I’ll know if I like him or wish he had lost,” she said. | 1 |
Posted on October 28, 2016 by Jack Burns
As The Free Thought Project has reported, Project Veritas ’ undercover sting operation, of the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee’s alleged subversive tactics using Democracy Partners and Americans United for Change, has now been exposed for the whole world to see. This week, PV released the fourth video in their series, and once again, Democracy Partners’ founder, Robert Creamer , is at the center of the controversy (It must be noted DP makes no mention on its website of Creamer as its founder and currently has him listed as a consultant ).
Creamer, who visited the White House 342 times (47 of those with Barack H. Obama), was caught on PV’s fourth video, and in emails, arranging an illegal $20,000 foreign contribution to Americans United for Change (AUFC), the same group which proudly stated was creating chaos at Trump events.
Activists at PV arranged the donation with the knowledge it was illegal, to see if AUFC would take the bait. They did. And in return, they agreed to unwittingly take on another PV activist as an AUFC staffer. In other words, PV paid AUFC $20K, and was allowed to place the pseudo-donor’s “niece” inside the organization, a move PV felt was worthwhile to be able to expose the organization’s dirty deeds. It worked.
PV’s first video revealed AUFC’s Scott Foval coordinated and arranged for paid instigators to go out and “start shit” with Trump protesters, all of which was caught on tape for the mainstream media to use in its echo chamber to paint Trump and his supporters as racists, xenophobes and bigots.
PV’s second video showed how AUFC’s organization and its affiliates commit intentional mass voter fraud. The second video is an instructional video of sorts on, “how to successfully commit voter fraud on a massive scale,” according to PV president James O’Keefe .
In the third PV video, Creamer can be seen stating Hillary Clinton herself wanted “ ducks on the ground ” in some bizarre idea to stage anti-Trump demonstrations by activists dressed as Donald Duck. The DNC’s Donna Brazile was also implicated in collaboration with the scheme.
But it’s the fourth video that’s getting all of the attention now, as it purports to show AUFC knowingly received a $20,000 illegal wire transfer out of Belize. Creamer, who we know has a close relationship with the White House via visitor logs, also brags about his friendship with Barack Obama, and intimates he can arrange meetings with the president and the former secretary of state, for a price.
“I’ve known the president since he was a community organizer in Chicago,” Creamer proudly stated adding, “Every morning, I am on a call at 10:30 that goes over the message being driven by the campaign (Clinton) headquarters.” With Creamer having spent nearly a year inside the White House, and his relationship with the president, it may be easy for some to conclude the Obama administration was also involved in Creamer’s schemes.
PV invented the donor and shell company based in Belize, Charles C. Roth III of Repulse Bay Company, who the organization claimed to Democracy Partners was a rich donor who wanted to make a difference and stop Trump from becoming the next POTUS. Creamer then tapped the president of AUFC, Brad Woodhouse, to iron out the details of the illegal contribution. The wire transfer was arranged and transmitted. Creamer confirmed as much.
On a recorded phone call Creamer can be heard saying the funds “absolutely came through.” In exchange for the donation, the outspoken friend of the Obamas granted an internship to Roth’s niece, an undercover PV journalist, to work inside Democracy Partners.
In another recorded video session, Creamer can be seen and overheard describing what he and his partners at AUFC do. Creamer stated he gets his marching orders at his 10:30 conference call to troll the Trump/Pence campaign creating incidents for the “earned media” to cover which echo the message the Clinton campaign wanted to project. That “earned media”, as we’ve come to realize through the latest email dump by Wikileaks, is the mainstream media which is apparently in the tank for Clinton.
Creamer also discussed allegations of sexual misconduct by Trump accusers and intimated those allegations came first through his organization’s connections, which is a contention Trump made at the third and final debate with Clinton. Creamer also hinted around at the possibility of arranging a meeting between Roth and Obama. “I do a lot of work with the White House on their issues,” he stated plainly adding, “helping to run issue campaigns (immigration, ACA, gun violence).”
While the PV sting was focused on the presidential election of 2016, and the White House, the DNC, and the Clinton Campaign’s involvement in painting Donald Trump as a racist, xenophobe, and bigot, Creamer’s comment on his involvement in working with the White House on issues of gun violence, leaves more questions than answers.
As an aside, here you have a well-connected political hit man like Creamer, working with AUFC to create violence, chaos and anarchy at Trump rallies, discussing his role in promoting gun violence issues for the White House. Taken together, considering Creamers comments and actions, all may lend credibility to conspiracy theorists’ claims the Obama administration has been actively promoting false flag school shootings, on-air shootings of reporters, and mall shootings, all in an attempt to sway the American public against the people’s right to keep and bear arms (2 nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution). Creamer admitted as much saying he was, “trying to make America more like Britain when it comes to gun violence issues.”
Turning again to PV fourth video, upon realizing PV was soon to go public with its expose’, AUFC returned the 20k foreign company shell company donation on September 9 th . O’Keefe, as an epilogue to the video, openly wondered why AUFC held onto the funds for a month before returning what they undoubtedly knew to be an illegal contribution. Don't forget to follow the D.C. Clothesline on Facebook and Twitter. PLEASE help spread the word by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks. Share this: | 1 |
SAN FRANCISCO — One of Frances Stroh’s earliest lessons about wealth involved a game she played as a with her father: how to not be kidnapped. Ms. Stroh would stand outside the family’s Spanish Mediterranean home in the manicured Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe in 1973 as her father, Eric Stroh, pretended to be a stranger as he drove by in his silver Chrysler, waving a chocolate bar as temptation and beckoning her to the car. As instructed, Frances would run away in tears. Her father explained that as an heiress to the largest private beer company in America, kidnapping was a concern, especially because, “They’ll ask for a ransom that we can’t possibly afford to pay,” Ms. Stroh recalled him saying. “There were very mixed messages” about money, she said in an interview. Her father’s words about their finances were indeed prescient. The Stroh family wealth, at its height in the 1980s, was estimated by Forbes to be about $9 billion in today’s dollars. Now, that money is almost completely gone. And Ms. Stroh has taken the rare step, in the secretive world of America’s wealthiest, of going public with her family’s downward spiral in a remarkably intimate book, “Beer Money: A Memoir of Privilege and Loss. ” In revealing detail, she documents a trifecta of misfortunes, some of them : the unraveling of her immediate family, shaken by alcohol and drug abuse the collapse of her family’s brewing empire and the fall of Detroit, hometown of Stroh’s beer. The book has struck a nerve in certain circles, and Ms. Stroh says she has received an outpouring of support and commiseration. “I heard from all kinds of people about lost fortunes, lost businesses, often coupled with issues within the families,” she said. “My story resonated with their own experience because of this lingering sort of sense of something that’s unresolved when a family business is lost. ” Headlines tend to focus on billionaires who fall from grace after committing crimes, like the Ponzi schemer Bernard L. Madoff, or the former WorldCom chief executive Bernard J. Ebbers. But the more and reliable way to lose a fortune, however, often comes down to just one word: family. An abundance of heirs mixed with patriarchal lines of succession that fail to produce talented leaders can be disastrous. The Strohs’ saga is a textbook example. Bernhard Stroh immigrated to Detroit from Germany in 1850, selling his popular beer . A brewery followed and grew regionally, especially thriving after World War II. By the 1980s, it was America’s beer company. Then the fourth generation of family managers decided the best way to expand was through expensive acquisitions and going national, buying the Schlitz, Schaefer and Old Milwaukee brands, among others. But debt from those deals kept the company from making competitive moves. Stroh’s missed the timely pivot to light beers, and sales plummeted. Other bad investments followed, including ventures in which the family had less expertise, like biotech and Detroit real estate as the city faced severe decline. Hundreds of millions more were lost. All through the company’s boom and bust, the number of heirs grew, many relying on annual dividends of up to hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund sometimes lavish lifestyles. Ms. Stroh’s father spent millions on antiques and collectibles, like rare cameras and guitars. (Later the family would discover many of these were fakes or worth far less than what he paid.) As the brewery’s profits dried up, the dividends to the heirs continued, but the money was siphoned from principal, further hastening the company’s decline. By 1999 the company was sold off in pieces, and the proceeds of those sales were soon depleted or poorly invested by the company’s board, until little remained. Though some families have managed to keep thriving — descendants of the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst still own media properties worth billions and the Mars candy company, founded in 1911, remains with estimated annual revenues of more than $35 billion — the same type of scenario that befell the Strohs has consumed other family fortunes. “Dynasties are suddenly hard to pull off,” said Michael McGerr, professor in the history department at Indiana University in Bloomington, who is writing a book on the Vanderbilt family, which also lost much of its wealth. “It’s because you have to be really lucky within your own family. ” Heirs are not automatically qualified, competent or visionary leaders, Dr. McGerr said, and when power is passed solely from fathers to sons, those who might better manage an empire — like women family members or outsiders — are excluded. While Ms. Stroh was being taught how to avoid being kidnapped, the men in her generation were being groomed to lead the company. “It would have been discouraged if a girl in the family had shown some ambition for a role like that,” she said. Today, Ms. Stroh is a successful businesswoman. Now 50, she lives in San Francisco, and took a relatively modest inheritance of about $200, 000 in stocks from her mother and made savvy investments in tech companies and real estate. As a developer and landlord, she is able to live independently in one of the nation’s most expensive cities. She is doing well enough that she is investing back in Detroit, but in a way that will pay a different type of dividend. She donated half of the advance and 10 percent of the book sale proceeds from “Beer Money” to 826michigan, a nonprofit organization that tutors children in writing. “One of my goals with the book was to use it as a way to with Detroit in a meaningful way,” Ms. Stroh said. | 1 |
Donald Trump, the Greatest Victim in the History of the World Posted on Nov 3, 2016
By Ann Jones / TomDispatch ( Gage Skidmore / (CC BY-SA 2.0) )
Donald Trump grabbed a new lifeline. Speaking at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on October 15th, he raised a hand as if to take an oath and declared : “I am a victim!” The great business tycoon, the one and only man who could fix America and make the place great again (trust me, folks), was laying claim to martyrdom—and spinning another news cycle. “I am a victim,” he declared, “of one of the great political smear campaigns in the history of our country. They are coming after me to try and destroy what is considered by even them the greatest movement in the history of our country.”
“I am a victim.” That pathetic line echoed in my head, which is why I’m writing this. In my long life, I had seen a large white man stand up in a public arena and proclaim those words—the shrill, self-pitying complaint of the remorseless perpetrator—only once before. That was in a courtroom in lower Manhattan in 1988. The man was Joel Steinberg , a New York lawyer who, over a 12-year period, had brainwashed and beaten into oblivion a woman named Hedda Nussbaum, once a successful young editor of children’s books. In the early years of their relationship, she had run away several times, seeking help, and every time a doctor or friend had called Steinberg to come and get her. At that point—time and again—Steinberg would administer “punishment,” breaking her bones and her spirit. She took on what police would later describe as “a zombie-like quality.”
Some years earlier, a teenage girl had hired Steinberg to arrange an adoptive home for her baby. Instead he kept the child, Lisa, until one evening when she was six years old and “stared” at him in a way he didn’t like. He responded by striking her repeatedly in the head. After which he went out to dinner with his cocaine dealer, leaving the child unconscious on the floor. Nussbaum, by then so traumatized, so absent from anything like life, thought vaguely of calling a doctor, but she was not allowed to use the phone in Steinberg’s absence. Instead, she sat on the floor and watched over the girl as she lay dying.
On trial for the child’s murder, Steinberg blamed everyone but himself. “I’m the victim here,” he whined in court. He swore that he had “never hit anyone,” not anyone , even though he was known to have assaulted a business associate and three other women before he settled into the single-minded, single-handed demolition of Hedda Nussbaum.
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Judge Harold Rothwax observed that Steinberg was “a man of extraordinary narcissism and self-involvement” who had “an extreme need to control everyone in his ambit” while he lived a “life of self-gratification.” Yet Steinberg could not see in himself the man Judge Rothwax described. He thought people should feel sorry for him. He had been disbarred and had lost a child (not to mention his Greenwich Village apartment). He railed at those who had conspired to bring him down: the police, the neighbors, the judge, the prosecutor, the expert medical witnesses, his defense attorney, the jurors, the press, and Hedda Nussbaum. “I’m the victim here,” he claimed.
At the time, nearly 30 years ago, the public blamed Hedda Nussbaum. The district attorney, the police, the doctors and psychiatrists who treated her intensively for more than a year before the trial all agreed that, on the evening in question, she was too physically and mentally “incapacitated” either to cause the girl’s injuries or take action to save her. Nonetheless, she was tried and condemned by the press and public opinion, including women who called themselves “feminists.” In court, the jurors were merciless. When they began to deliberate, only four thought Steinberg guilty of murder as charged, five were “in the middle,” and three held out for lesser charges, feeling certain that Hedda Nussbaum had somehow been responsible for killing the child.
They finally agreed upon a verdict of manslaughter. Even then, a woman juror assured the press that Nussbaum was “a very sick woman” who should have been charged and convicted of “some crime.” Another juror, also female, expressed popular opinion this way: “I just feel that she was to blame.” And a third woman juror, who claimed that “certain others” agreed with her, said, “Poor Joel. Joel’s a victim. We have to send a message to the system: ‘You don’t make victims out of nice men like Joel.’”
Judge Rothwax sentenced Steinberg to eight and a half to 25 years. Released after 17 years, Steinberg, now in his seventies, still claims to have done nothing hurtful to anyone. He has not paid a civil court-ordered settlement of $15 million to the birth mother of the dead child, nor has he ever been charged with any crime for what he did to Hedda Nussbaum.
Two lessons lurk in this story, one old and one very up to date. First, it’s a reminder of how much women at that time, even after a great wave of feminism, still blamed women (including themselves) for whatever happened to them at the hands of men; second, a man with a character like Steinberg’s is not the kind of guy you want to choose for high office—or any office at all.
Joel Steinberg stalked a far tinier stage than Donald Trump and he did more deadly damage, but the two men seem to be brothers under the skin, sharing common character defects well described in psychiatric texts: extreme narcissism, a taste for sexual predation, and very similar views of the women on whom they prey. Like Steinberg, who was incapable of seeing himself as the judge accurately described him, Trump seems blind to the real nature of his own behavior. (His current wife describes him as a “boy.”) Neither man seems capable of taking responsibility for the harm he’s done, and when their own actions finally call down retribution, branding them as losers—ah, then come the conspiracy theories and the vindictive wail of the victim.
Men Who Use Women
Last June, I published a piece at TomDispatch venturing to explain why candidate Donald J. Trump was getting “rock-bottom ratings” in the polls from women voters. Nearly 70% of them reportedly couldn’t stand the guy. I pointed out what seemed to me to be the obvious: “Trump’s behavior perfectly fits the profile of an ordinary wife abuser.” | 1 |
Email In a shocking development in United States, two law makers moved a bill to declare Pakistan as a ‘state sponsor of terrorism’. The bill moved in a very crucial time when Pakistan and India are heading towards a war like situation. The bill was moved by Congressman Ted Poe from Texas, who is the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California, who is a strong votary of the Baloch cause.The allegations which were drafted in bill says harboring Osama bin laden and Haqqani’s. The bill, HR 6069 or the Pakistan State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act . Poe condemned theterrorist attack on the Uri military camp in India, saying this is just the ”latest consequence of Pakistan’s longstanding irresponsible policy of supporting and providing operational space for all stripes of jihadi terrorist groups reported in Times of India .”Currently Pakistan PM is on official visit to New York for attending the UN meeting. PM Nawaz had one on one meeting with US secretary of state John Kerry. During the meeting John Kerry pressure Pakistan to limit its nukes. on the other hand Pakistan asked US to tell India to limit its nukes first. According to the statement issued by the Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi ” Sharif told Kerry that what was expected of Pakistan must also be implemented by India. Meanwhile international community specially US wants the debate of Kashmir out from UN session. Are we heading towards escalation ? Are we heading towards escalation? The growing concerns on both sides of the border, are giving a sinister look that both the nuclear powers are ready to lock horns. Indian army asked Modi government for the approval of punitive strikes inside Pakistan. A high level meeting in New Delhi which was chaired by the Indian PM focusing on two points agenda. 1: To isolate Pakistan diplomatically. 2: Surgical strikes inside Pakistan. | 0 |
Posted 10/31/2016 3:41 pm by PatriotRising with 0 comments Officials stockpile a million provisional ballots in swing state governed by a close Clinton ally
Virginia has printed 1 million provisional ballots, an unprecedented number that could allow a large number of previously disqualified felons to cast ballots for president in the potentially crucial swing state.
So says Reagan George, the president of the Virginia Voters Alliance.
George, a conservative election watchdog, charged on Monday that the Virginia Department of Elections is overpreparing for worst-case scenarios and increasing the likelihood of illegal votes being cast. In reply to Republican complaints earlier this month, Virginia Department of Elections Commissioner Edgardo Cortés acknowledged officials are preparing for all contingencies, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
But George said the provisional ballot printing doesn’t make sense even for contingencies. And it doesn’t compare to demand in 2012.
“The claim that it is for contingency planning is bogus,” George said in an email. “In 2012, Stafford County used less than 500 provisional ballots — in 2016 they received 30,000. In 2012, Loudoun County used 700 provisional ballots. In 2016, they received 84,000. In 2012, Fairfax used 2,500 provisional ballots; in 2016, they received over 265,000. This is ridiculous.”
But spokeswoman Dena Potter of the Virginia Department of Elections said the state is trying to accommodate a court order.
“As part of its emergency preparedness efforts and in response to the [December] 2015 consent decree related to mitigating long lines at the polls, the Department issued guidance to local registrars on August 29, 2016, that included having enough provisional ballot envelopes to equal at least 20 percent of the number of active voters as of September 1,” Potter said in an email. “As of September 30, there were 5.5 million voters registered in Virginia. As with any contingency planning, we hope that we don’t have to use these but they will be available in case we do.”
The decision to print so many provisional ballots comes after an April announcement by Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat and a key ally of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. McAuliffe said he would allow more than 200,000 released felons to vote on Nov. 8.
The decision immediately brought a legal challenge from the Republicans, who won their suit in July. Virginia law says the governor must individually clear such cases, and cannot widely add so many released felons back to the voter rolls.
George believes the court loss is part of the thinking behind the surge in provisional ballots. The thousands of felons who signed up to vote after McAuliffe’s order were initially welcomed to the voter rolls. George said left-wing voter groups were ready for the order, and signed up thousands of felons within hours.
If those felons now walk into a polling place and demand a ballot, they will be accommodated, George charged. George also said he is concerned other ineligible voters will be handed such provisional ballots simply if they demand them.
Provisional ballots are only counted by city and county election boards after Nov. 8, and Republicans should be prepared for things to go against them, George said. Each board has a Republican and a Democrat, and an McAuliffe appointee.
“Guess which way the vote is going to go,” said George.
Virginia leaders have been dealing with election headaches for months. On Oct. 13, Virginia legislators questioned Cortes at a hearing. One Republican leader, citing election problems, called for Cortés to resign, according to the Times-Dispatch.
“I think it’s incumbent upon the governor to replace you quickly with competent and nonpartisan leadership,” said Delegate Timothy Hugo, R-Fairfax. | 0 |
Are The Polls Rigged Against Trump? All Of These Wildly Divergent Surveys Cannot Possibly Be Correct Michael On Television Half Of The Population Of The World Is Dirt Poor – And The Global Elite Want To Keep It That Way 22nd, 2016
Could you survive on just $2.50 a day? According to Compassion International , approximately half of the population of the entire planet currently lives on $2.50 a day or less. Meanwhile, those hoarding wealth at the very top of the global pyramid are rapidly becoming a lot wealthier. Don’t get me wrong – I am a very big believer in working hard and contributing something of value to society, and those that work the hardest and contribute the most should be able to reap the rewards. In this article I am in no way, shape or form criticizing true capitalism, because if true capitalism were actually being practiced all over the planet we would have far, far less poverty today. Instead, our planet is dominated by a heavily socialized debt-based central banking system that systematically transfers wealth from hard working ordinary citizens to the global elite. Those at the very top of the pyramid know that they are impoverishing everyone else, and they very much intend to keep it that way.
Let’s start with some of the hard numbers. According to Zero Hedge , Credit Suisse had just released their yearly report on global wealth, and it shows that 45.6 percent of all the wealth in the world is controlled by just 0.7 percent of the people…
As Credit Suisse tantalizingly shows year after year, the number of people who control just shy of a majority of global net worth, or 45.6% of the roughly $255 trillion in household wealth, is declining progressively relative to the total population of the world, and in 2016 the number of people who are worth more than $1 million was just 33 million, roughly 0.7% of the world’s population of adults. On the other end of the pyramid, some 3.5 billion adults had a net worth of less than $10,000, accounting for just about $6 trillion in household wealth.
And since this is a yearly report, we can go back and see how things have changed over time. When Zero Hedge did this, it was discovered that the wealth of those at the very top “has nearly doubled” over the past six years, and meanwhile the poor have gotten even poorer…
Incidentally, we tracked down the first Credit Suisse report we found in this series from 2010 , where the total wealth of the top “layer” in the pyramid was a modest $69.2 trillion for the world’s millionaires. It has nearly doubled in the 6 years since then. Meanwhile, the world’s poorest have gotten, you got it, poorer, as those adults who were worth less than $10,000 in 2010 had a combined net worth of $8.2 trillion, a number which has since declined to $6.1 trillion in 2016 despite a half a billion increase in the sample size.
If these trends continue at this pace, it won’t be too long before the global elite have virtually all of the wealth and the rest of us have virtually nothing.
Perhaps you are fortunate enough to still have a good job, and you live in a large home and you will sleep in a warm bed tonight.
Well, you should consider yourself to be very blessed, because that is definitely not the case for most of the rest of the world. The following 11 facts about global poverty come from dosomething.com , and I want you to really let these numbers sink in for a moment… Nearly 1/2 of the world’s population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty — less than $1.25 a day. 1 billion children worldwide are living in poverty. According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. 805 million people worldwide do not have enough food to eat . Food banks are especially important in providing food for people that can’t afford it themselves. Run a food drive outside your local grocery store so people in your community have enough to eat. Sign up for Supermarket Stakeout . More than 750 million people lack adequate access to clean drinking water . Diarrhea caused by inadequate drinking water, sanitation, and hand hygiene kills an estimated 842,000 people every year globally, or approximately 2,300 people per day. In 2011, 165 million children under the age 5 were stunted (reduced rate of growth and development) due to chronic malnutrition. Preventable diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia take the lives of 2 million children a year who are too poor to afford proper treatment. As of 2013, 21.8 million children under 1 year of age worldwide had not received the three recommended doses of vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. 1/4 of all humans live without electricity — approximately 1.6 billion people. 80% of the world population lives on less than $10 a day . Oxfam estimates that it would take $60 billion annually to end extreme global poverty–that’s less than 1/4 the income of the top 100 richest billionaires. The World Food Programme says, “The poor are hungry and their hunger traps them in poverty.” Hunger is the number one cause of death in the world, killing more than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.
So how did we get here?
Debt is the primary mechanism that takes wealth from ordinary people like you and me and puts it into the hands of the global elite.
In my recent article entitled “ Why Donald Trump Must Shut Down The Federal Reserve And Start Issuing Debt-Free Money “, I discussed how the Federal Reserve was designed to entrap the U.S. government in an endless debt spiral from which it could never possibly escape. And that is precisely what has happened, as the U.S. national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913.
In that very same year, the federal income tax was instituted, and that is a key part of the program for the global elite. You see, the income tax is how wealth is transferred from us to the government. And then a continuously growing national debt is how that wealth is transferred from the government to the elite.
It is a very complicated system, but at the end of the day it is all about taking money from us and getting it into their pockets.
And at this point more than 99.9 percent of the population of the world lives in a country with a central bank, and almost every nation on the planet has some form of income tax.
It is a global system that is designed to create as much debt as possible, and I recently shared with my readers that the total amount of debt in the world has hit a staggering of 152 trillion dollars .
Interestingly, the Bible actually foretells of a time when rich men would hoard wealth in the last days. The following are the first five verses of the Book of James in the Modern English Version …
Come now, you rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. 2 Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up treasures for the last days. 4 Indeed the wages that you kept back by fraud from the laborers who harvested your fields are crying, and the cries of those who harvested have entered into the ears of the Lord of Hosts. 5 You have lived in pleasure on the earth and have been wayward. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.
So much of the time we focus on the other great sins that we see all around us, but the truth is that one of the greatest sins of all in our world today is the sin of greed.
The borrower is the servant of the lender, and the global elite have used various forms of debt to turn the rest of the planet into their debt slaves.
As debt levels race higher and higher all over the planet, the elite are using the magic of compound interest to grab a bigger and bigger share of the pie.
Given enough time, those at the very top would have virtually everything and the rest of us would have virtually nothing. The middle class is shrinking all over the globe, and the gap between the wealthy and the poor continues to grow at an astounding pace.
But the vast majority of people out there have no idea how money, debt, taxes and central banks really work, and so they have no idea that this is purposely being done to them.
So please share this article with as many people as you can. The truth is that we don’t have to have this much global poverty, and if we correctly identify the root causes of this poverty we can start working on some real solutions. | 1 |
HOBOKEN, N. J. — A careening commuter train plowed through the barrier at the end of the tracks and crashed into a wall at a terminal here during the morning rush on Thursday, killing one person, injuring more than 100 others and unleashing chaos as part of the station’s roof came tumbling down in a jumble of metal. The startling impact tossed commuters around on the crowded train and created enough force to knock bystanders to their knees, transforming a historic station — one of the busiest in the New York region — into a disaster area around 8:45 a. m. The person who died was a woman standing on the platform, who was hit by falling debris. Officials said they had not determined why the train, which was carrying an estimated 250 passengers, was traveling at a high speed and failed to halt on the track. “I remember thinking, Why aren’t we stopping?” said Jamie who was standing between the first and second cars on the train. “But we just kept going and going, no braking, no nothing. ” “People were screaming to stay calm, but how do you stay calm in a moment like that?” she added. The crash sent passengers flying out of their seats in a violent tumble. Then the lights cut out. Shouts and cries underscored the sense of panic. And after passengers managed to escape from the train, many crawling through its windows, they emerged to find the station a mess of metal beams, smoke and treacherously hanging wires. Water poured from ruptured pipes. The most seriously injured were carried out. Others emerged on their own with blood staining their clothes. A New Jersey Transit worker said a train is typically supposed to come to a stop about 10 to 20 feet in front of the bumper. Its speed limit while entering the station is 10 miles per hour. Instead, this train barreled over the bumper and onto a concourse, coming to rest at a wall near the station’s waiting area. The train’s engineer, who was released from the hospital, was Thomas Gallagher, 48, according to Nancy Snyder, a spokeswoman for New Jersey Transit. Mr. Gallagher has worked for New Jersey Transit for 29 years, Ms. Snyder said. Officials said the terminal, housed in a building dating to 1907, would remain closed until engineers could assess whether the significant damage had affected the building’s structural integrity. The terminal serves about 60, 000 people a day on commuter trains, light rail and buses, and is one of the largest transportation hubs for New Jersey Transit, the country’s commuter railroad. It was severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 after being swamped by five feet of water and remained closed for months. The woman who died was identified as Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, of Hoboken, who was killed when the crash caused a portion of the station’s ceiling and supporting structure to collapse, officials said. “An extraordinary tragedy,” Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said, flanked by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York and transportation officials at a news conference near the station on Thursday afternoon. In all, at least 114 people were injured in the crash, a flood of victims sent to hospitals that forced at least one to set up a triage area for some patients in its cafeteria. That hospital, the Jersey City Medical Center, treated 66 patients from the crash, releasing all but 13 of the more seriously injured by Thursday afternoon. They remained in “guarded condition,” a spokesman said. Elisa Rosario, 33, who was sitting in the hospital’s emergency room, said she was in the station when the crash occurred. She said she felt a strong wind at her back, which pushed her onto her knees. “Everything was dark and all of a sudden I start seeing things flying through the air,” she said. She felt pain in her head and knees and felt blood dripping down her face onto her lips. “It was my worst nightmare,” Ms. Rosario said. other patients were taken to Hoboken University Medical Center, and one to Christ Hospital, a spokesman for CarePoint Health said. All but two had been released by Thursday night, the spokesman said. The crash’s impact was magnified by its timing — in the midst of one of the fundamental daily routines, the morning commute to work. Many passengers, emerging from local hospitals with blood still on their clothes and skin, said the psychological toll rivaled the impact of their injuries. “The injury is nothing,” said one passenger, Mike Scelzo, who had a black eye and a facial cut. His striped shirt was splattered with blood. “It’s more just the shock of what happened,” he said. Alexis Valle, 24, a commuter from Bergenfield, N. J. who is five months pregnant, was in the first car. She walked out of Hoboken University Hospital with a large bandage and four staples on her head. “The baby’s fine, but the ceiling of the train fell on my head,” she said. “Somebody picked me up and passed me through the window to someone else. I told them, so I was the first one out. ” She is still struggling to understand what happened. “The train just didn’t stop,” she said. “It kind of picked up speed and crashed. ” The train started its journey shortly around 7:30 a. m. in Spring Valley, N. Y. and traveled south to Hoboken along the Pascack Valley line. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Railroad Administration said they were investigating the crash. They planned to interview the engineer, Mr. Gallagher, and to examine another crash at the Hoboken Terminal in 2011 involving a PATH train, which carries New Jersey commuters to Manhattan. After that crash, in which a PATH train hit a post at the end of the tracks and 30 people were injured, the safety board determined that the engineer had failed to control the train’s speed as it entered the station. The last fatal train crash involving New Jersey Transit was in 1996. Two recent train crashes in the Northeast have prompted federal officials to push for the expansion of a technology, known as positive train control, that can automatically stop or slow a train. An Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia last year, killing eight people and injuring nearly 200 others, when the engineer became distracted and accelerated to more than twice the speed limit. In 2013, when a Railroad train derailed in New York, killing four people, the safety board said the engineer had fallen asleep as a result of undiagnosed sleep apnea. In both derailments, the safety board cited the absence of the technology to stop or slow a train as contributing to the crashes. The crash on Thursday also rekindled anxiety in a region where less than two weeks ago bombs were set off in Manhattan and a town on the Jersey Shore. The suspect in the bombings was also accused of leaving five pipe bombs inside a backpack at a New Jersey Transit train station in Elizabeth, forcing the shutdown of a major line. The suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, was arrested nearby the next day. “Between terrorist attacks, natural disasters, we’ve had our hands full in this country,” Mr. Cuomo said. The victim’s mother, Sueli Bittar, was on Thursday at her home in Santos, Brazil. Ms. de Kroon was a lawyer who was married to a Dutch man and had a daughter. “She was very, very happy,” Ms. Bittar said in a telephone interview. Ms. de Kroon had worked in Brazil for the software company SAP before moving earlier this year to New Jersey, and the family was looking for a new apartment. Ms. Bittar said that her daughter wanted a little garden. Ms. Bittar was making plans on Thursday to travel to New Jersey to bring her daughter’s body home to Brazil. A friend of Ms. de Kroon’s, Sarah Alvarado, said they met when they were both studying in an M. B. A. program at Florida International University. They became fast friends, and when Ms. de Kroon moved to São Paulo before coming to the New York area, Ms. Alvarado visited her in Brazil. “She was very smart, a ” Ms. Alvarado said in a telephone interview. “She was accomplished in her career. A dynamic woman. ” Stephen Wang, 35, who usually transfers to a train at the Hoboken station, said the rerouting will probably add an hour to his normally commute — “for days or weeks or months, who knows. ” Ms. Rosario, who sustained a concussion, was still shaken hours after the crash. “I barely made it,” she said. “I’m going to go home, and kiss my kids and pray and thank God that I made it out. ” | 1 |
I think megan kelly has screwed everyone necessary at fox news, to get to where she is at. I think that makes her a sexual predator.I would really like her feedback on this. | 0 |
Scientists believe they have found ET Oct 28, 2016 Previous post
Scientists have heard hugely unusual messages from deep in space that they think are coming from aliens, reports the Independent .
A new analysis of strange modulations in a tiny set of stars appears to indicate that it could be coming from extraterrestrial intelligence that is looking to alert us to their existence.
The new study reports the finding of specific modulations in just 234 out of the 2.5 million stars that have been observed during a survey of the sky. The work found that a tiny fraction of them seemed to be behaving strangely.
And there appears to be no obvious explanation for what is going on, leaving the scientists behind the paper to conclude that the messages are coming from aliens.
“We find that the detected signals have exactly the shape of an [extraterrestrial intelligence] signal predicted in the previous publication and are therefore in agreement with this hypothesis,” write EF Borra and E Trottier in a new paper. “The fact that they are only found in a very small fraction of stars within a narrow spectral range centered near the spectral type of the sun is also in agreement with the ETI hypothesis,” the two scientists from Laval University in Quebec write.
The research has appeaed in the journal Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, under the title ‘Discovery of peculiar periodic spectral modulations in a small fraction of solar type stars’. It appears
FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK LINK | 0 |
For Muhammad Hannan and other Muslim high school students in New York City, this has been a Ramadan of contrasts and conflicting emotions. The joy of breaking a fast with the first bite of a sweet date. The horror of hearing about the attack on a gay nightclub in Florida that left 49 dead. The drudgery of reviewing a year’s worth of earth sciences and trigonometry notes. The frustration of defending Islam — and the right to be in this country — after another terrorist attack carried out in the name of the Islamic State. “I just don’t get it,” said Muhammad, a junior at Abraham Lincoln High School in Coney Island, Brooklyn, who immigrated from Pakistan with his family in 2014. “Islam is all about peace. In Ramadan, we don’t even curse. You’re not supposed to do anything bad. ” Ramadan is usually Muhammad’s favorite time. This year, though, the holiday, which encompasses a month of fasting from dawn to dusk, has not offered its usual refuge. Already, Ramadan coincided with the Regents, the series of state tests that most high school students in New York take. Then on Sunday, a Muslim man born in New York, Omar Mateen, called 911 to proclaim his allegiance to ISIS and opened fire in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Within a day, Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was renewing his call to ban Muslims from entering the United States. And the day after that, another student in Muhammad’s English class started echoing Mr. Trump’s call. “He was talking a lot of bad things, with no proof,” Muhammad said of the classmate. Muhammad replied that there were differences between Muslims like Muhammad Ali and those like Omar Mateen. “If you can tell the difference between white people and K. K. K. you can at least differentiate between Muslims and ISIS,” Muhammad recalled arguing in class. How did that student respond? “He said, ‘Because Donald Trump said so,’” Muhammad said. “Everybody in the class was laughing. ” Salwa Mozzeb, 15, who is finishing her freshman year at Millennium Brooklyn High School in Park Slope soundly dismissed Mr. Trump’s proposal. “That’s messed up,” she said on Tuesday, wearing a hijab and speaking in a brassy Brooklyn accent. A naturalized United States citizen, she came with her mother from Syria when she was 9 months old. “I was raised here,” she said. “America is my home. ” Salwa lives in a Bay Ridge apartment with her parents, grandmother and four younger siblings she has uncles and cousins who live in the same building and on the same block. She volunteers at the Arab American Association of New York, whose headquarters are in Bay Ridge. Her mother, who is from Syria, has a brother who escaped the civil war there and made his way to Sweden. Another relative has been waiting 10 years for a visa to enter the United States. Once populated largely by Scandinavian immigrants, as well as those of Italian and Irish heritage, Bay Ridge has been transformed like so much of New York. There are nine mosques in the area now, according to Tony Carnes, a sociologist who publishes an online journal, “A Journey Through N. Y. C. Religions. ” Many of the store signs on the avenues are written in Arabic. After the killings in Orlando, Salwa’s father, Abdulnoor Mozzeb, 39, a naturalized American citizen originally from Yemen, warned his daughter to be especially careful on the subway, and to sit near the conductor. The idea annoyed her. “I’m just like any other here,” she said. “I want to hang out and chill. I don’t want to stress about feeling like I’m different because I’m Muslim. ” Mr. Mozzeb approved of her convictions. “She’s strong,” he said. “When it comes to your identity, somebody is going to disrespect you, you got to stand up. ” Salwa’s mother, Manar Al Ahamar, said that in April, outside a pharmacy in Bay Ridge, an older woman had confronted her, telling her to go back to her country and cursing her in front of her son, Ahmed. Ms. Al Ahamar, 32, said she had just walked away, but had gotten so upset later that her blood pressure soared and she began to have severe chest pains. Salwa had helped her mother into in an ambulance. It was not until Wednesday that her mother revealed what had caused the emergency. Salwa did not understand how a woman could verbally attack her mother, especially in what she considers her own neighborhood. “If she doesn’t want to be surrounded by Muslims,” Salwa said, “why is she in this community? ’” As for Muhammad, he spends his days in two Brooklyn neighborhoods dotted with mosques. He and his family live in Brighton Beach, and he volunteers at the Council of Peoples Organization, a group in Midwood that serves Muslims, Arabs and South Asians. In Brighton Beach, he and his older brother, Hassan, often attend a Turkish mosque up the block from their house, or one of three smaller mosques in the area. Though from the outside, Ramadan might seem to be a hardship — rising before dawn to eat, then going back to sleep before getting up again for school — Muhammad and his friends say it is more like a sweet respite. “We get to fast, we get to stay close to Allah, we pray five times a day,” Muhammad said. “And after, when we pray at night, we go out with our friends and stay out till 1. ” Muhammad described the communal outdoor prayers in his hometown, Karachi, and how, with the streets closed, he and his friends would play cricket late into the night. He said he missed the Ramadan of his childhood, but understood why his family moved to the United States. “My parents wanted us to have a good education,” he said. He and Hassan, 21, who attends the Borough of Manhattan Community College, are permanent residents. Salwa’s parents want the same for their children. “If you have education, you are a different person,” said Salwa’s father, who works as a doorman at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The family lives half a block from their mosque at the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, decorated on the outside this month with strings of colored lights. At 10 p. m. every night, Salwa and her friends go through the women’s entrance and, bypassing the hot, crowded third floor, climb to the roof. They stay there in the soft breeze as the last embers of sunset fade and the lights of the Bridge twinkle in the background. Like most high school girls, they check their phones, compliment one another on their outfits and discuss their exam schedules, while younger children turn cartwheels nearby. When the prayers begin, the girls go into the stairwell so they can hear through the speakers, kneeling on the cold linoleum to be closer, spiritually, to Allah. Muhammad and his family usually pray at home before going to the mosque for evening prayers. Then, often until early morning, he and Hassan engage in philosophical debates in the room they share, discussions about American values versus their Pakistani upbringing. “Usually,” Muhammad said, “it’s about sneakers. ” He wants to add to his Air Jordan collection, even at $250 a pair. His brother counters: “You can feed four to five homeless people with that. ” Because of Ramadan, the brothers were awake before dawn on Sunday when the first reports of the massacre in Orlando began to appear on their phones. “I was literally praying, ‘Don’t be a Muslim,’” Hassan said. Just the week before, the brothers had watched as America mourned one of its most famous Muslims, Muhammad Ali. They were proud. Now, they are hurt and angry. “It takes people like Muhammad Ali to do good things for Islam,” Muhammad said, “and then it takes seconds for people like Omar Mateen to destroy everything. ” | 1 |
An awkward exchange made for an uncomfortable live interview Friday when actress Lena Dunham asked Maria Shriver if she “saw penis” on her HBO show during a segment on NBC’s Today. [Dunham was on the NBC morning show to promote the final season of her HBO dramedy Girls. Shriver, who was guest said she enjoyed watching the show. “You saw a penis, right?” Dunham asked, apparently catching Shriver off guard. WATCH: We don’t know what happened here … cc: @lenadunham @mariashriver pic. twitter. — TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 10, 2017, “Well, I saw more than that,” a startled Shriver responded. “You caught me there for a second. I’m not sure if you’re allowed to say that on television, but you did. ” “I won’t be coming back!” Dunham said. “Going out with a bang!” With laughter resounding through the set, Shriver begged Today Matt Lauer to bail her out. “Matt, help! She just threw me off!” Dunham began to apologize for the bizarre to which Shriver responded, “That’s okay. That’s the difference between generations. I wasn’t brought up talking like that. ” The Golden actress and Hillary Clinton supporter recently revealed that the “ pain” of Donald Trump’s election caused her to lose a significant amount of weight. The sixth and final season of Girls premieres on HBO Sunday, February 12. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Just days before Donald J. Trump raises his hand to take the oath of office, police departments in Chicago and Baltimore have agreed to federal overhauls, Cubans no longer have an easy route to residency in the United States, and new civil rights monuments in Alabama and South Carolina are on the books. Still in the works as the seconds tick by for President Obama: a negotiated release of American hostages in Afghanistan, another lengthy list of reduced prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, and a raft of appointments to obscure but important federal boards and commissions. And in the face of Mr. Trump’s repeated questioning about whether the United States was getting value for its security dollars in supporting NATO, American tanks began rolling into Poland on Thursday, making good on a promise by Mr. Obama to help Eastern European countries counter Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin. Mr. Obama’s last moments in the White House are being filled with one announcement after another, each intended to bring efforts to a conclusion before members of his administration unplug their computers, turn off the lights and leave their offices for the last time. Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club, praised the president for acting to his successor by designating three civil rights sites, ensuring that they are guaranteed recognition and protection “just days before Donald Trump takes office. ” So far, Mr. Obama has not issued any surprise pardons — though he has every right to exercise that power through his final day in office, the way President Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, a tax fugitive. At the same time, some things are already out of Mr. Obama’s reach. Federal law will not allow him to release more detainees from Guantánamo Bay after four more were released on Jan. 5. There is not enough time to finish the legal framework to regulate emissions from airplanes. And officials say there are no more monuments or federal parks to be designated before the transfer of power. But taken together, the administration’s push is an added aggravation to Mr. Trump and members of his transition team, who are anxiously counting the time until they take over. “It’s the actions of someone who isn’t fully satisfied with what he was able to do,” said Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster. “This is his chance to do these little things. ” Jason Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s transition team, called Mr. Obama’s actions “executive overreach,” which he said “hasn’t just been a problem for the past eight days, it’s been a problem for the past eight years, ranging from illegal and unconstitutional amnesty to burdensome regulations that crush small businesses. ” Obama administration officials say they are not cutting bureaucratic corners because of Mr. Trump’s impending move into the West Wing. In most cases, they note, the efforts were begun well before the outcome of the election was known. But they acknowledge that once the Trump administration takes over, many of Mr. Obama’s priorities will have been met. “The administration has made a concerted effort to complete important work that was started months or even years ago,” said Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesman for Mr. Obama. “These actions have been fully considered and are consistent with the priorities this administration has pursued for the past eight years. ” Much of that “important work” has come in a flurry of activity. On Friday, the Justice Department released the findings of a investigation into allegations that the Chicago Police Department had routinely used excessive force. The report concluded that the Chicago force has systemically violated the civil rights of residents. The release of the report was accompanied by a negotiated agreement with the City of Chicago to address the department’s problem. A similar agreement was reached on Thursday in Baltimore as Justice Department officials raced to complete their work ahead of Friday’s inauguration. Mr. Trump’s Justice Department, which is likely to be led by Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, his choice for attorney general, could still take steps to undermine federal efforts to change the police departments. But officials say that with the agreements in place, Mr. Sessions, who has spoken out against federal overhauls of police departments, would have to actively work to reverse the previous actions. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said the announcement in Chicago set in motion a process that would continue “regardless of who sits atop the Justice Department. ” On Thursday evening, Mr. Obama terminated a policy that allowed Cubans to remain in the United States as legal residents without getting visas, a change that had been long sought by the Cuban government. The elimination of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which dates to 1995, means that Cubans who arrive in the United States illegally will no longer be allowed to stay and eventually qualify to apply for legal, permanent residence. It follows Mr. Obama’s efforts to normalize relations and restore diplomatic ties with Cuba. And earlier on Thursday, Mr. Obama created three new national monuments to honor the struggle for civil rights in America. He designated the historic A. G. Gaston Motel in Birmingham, Ala. as the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument identified four sites in South Carolina to be called the Reconstruction Era National Monument and established the Freedom Riders National Monument at the Greyhound bus station where Freedom Riders were attacked in the spring of 1961. Mr. Obama also expanded two national monuments in the West, protecting more areas of cultural, historic and environmental significance in Oregon and California. Both moves could anger opponents of federal control of Western lands. Still, with less than a week before Mr. Obama leaves office, his administration is not quite done. White House officials say there is likely to be at least one last batch of commutations as the president seeks to work through a backlog of cases involving long sentences of drug offenders, most of whom are young minority men. And each day brings new appointments to government panels. In recent days, Mr. Obama has named new members to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board the Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Culture Arts Development and the United States Merchant Marine Academy. Perhaps the most dramatic action could come any day. The administration is racing to secure the release of American hostages in Afghanistan, including an American woman and her Canadian husband, who were abducted in 2012 by the Haqqani network, a powerful faction of the Taliban. The couple later had two children in captivity. The terrorist group is also suspected of abducting an American professor and his Australian colleague in Kabul in August. American Special Operations forces tried to rescue the two men several weeks later but they had been moved. The Haqqanis are demanding the release of members of their group who are being held by the Afghan government. On Wednesday, the Taliban released a video in which the professors pleaded with their governments to negotiate their release. | 1 |
The 2016 hurricane season just shifted from sleepy to fierce. Tropical Storm Hermine strengthened into a hurricane on Thursday, just in time to strike the coast of Florida — the first hurricane to hit that state in nearly 11 years. As that storm moves up the Atlantic coast, two other storms had been threatening Hawaii, a state that rarely receives such visitors. And there are probably more to come before the season concludes at the end of November. This is, in other words, the height of the season, that time of year when conditions are the most favorable for making cyclones — and for making coastal residents nervous. It is also the moment that puts on display much of what we know, and still do not know, about hurricanes, and what to expect as climate change progresses. Much of this, so far, is normal. This season is shaping up within the forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which predicted in May that, in the Atlantic, there was a 70 percent likelihood of as many as 16 named storms. As many as eight of them, the agency said, could become hurricanes (that is to say, with winds of 74 miles per hour) and as many as four could be major hurricanes with winds of 111 miles per hour or higher. So things are on track in the Atlantic. In the Pacific, however, there have been some unusually strong storms and busy seasons in recent years. All of this activity comes after what some meteorologists and news reports have called a long hurricane drought, citing a nearly run without major hurricanes making landfall in the continental United States. While that is literally true by the definitions used by climate scientists, any discussion of a hurricane drought can seem insulting to people in the Northeast and along the Texas Gulf Coast, where the Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Ike caused billions of dollars of damage. The efforts to detect a lull involve arbitrary exercises, Robert E. Hart of Florida State University wrote in a recent paper with Daniel R. Chavas of Princeton and Mark P. Guishard of the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences. A Category 3 hurricane at landfall is considered a major storm Hurricane Ike, for all its destructiveness, missed that mark, and Sandy was not considered a hurricane by the time it struck but instead an extratropical storm. Whether or not the definitions of hurricane drought should be changed, Dr. Hart said in an exchange of emails as he prepared for Hurricane Hermine to hit his home in Tallahassee, long periods without storms can foster dangerous complacency. “Memory fades about the prior events, and more people have never experienced one than before,” he said. (His home came through the storm without damage.) When it comes to hurricanes and climate change, scientists are still trying to figure out what warming is doing now and will do later. “It’s a really tough problem,” said Gabriel A. Vecchi, a climate researcher at NOAA’s geophysical fluid dynamics laboratory in Princeton. The issue might appear to be simple: Warmer oceans provide more energy for storms, so storms should get more numerous and mighty. But other factors have complicated the picture, he said, including atmospheric changes that can affect wind shear, a factor that keeps cyclones from forming. Kerry A. Emanuel, a climate scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the evidence suggested climate change would cause the strongest storms to grow even stronger, and to be more frequent. Unresolved questions surround the effect of warming on the weaker storms, but even those will dump more rain, leading over time to increased damage from flooding. In the Pacific, and especially near Hawaii, there is some evidence that the tendency toward more storms and stronger storms is underway, Dr. Vecchi said. Hiroyuki Murakami, an associate research scholar at the Princeton laboratory, said that the unusually active hurricane seasons for Hawaii were being caused mostly by subtropical warming that is part of the ocean’s natural variability, but that climate change was also having an effect. His recent research, he said, suggests that active hurricane seasons in the Pacific will grow more frequent under the influence of warming, though natural variability will still play a role in the record for any individual year. Finding the strong telltale “signal” of climate change in events is challenging, Dr. Emanuel said, because there are relatively few storms to draw data from. “If we have our numbers right,” he said, “it will be very difficult to see a signal in the actual data for a long time. ” Still, he said, prudent risk assessment calls for expecting these theories to be proved right over time, and to prepare. The fuzziness about whether hurricane patterns are changing does not undercut the overwhelming scientific consensus about climate change in general, Dr. Vecchi said. “There is no conflict between uncertainty about what global warming is going to do to hurricanes, and the reality of global warming and human activity being one of the drivers of global warming,” he said. “Just because I don’t know what you had for lunch,” he added, “doesn’t mean you don’t eat. ” Any storm can do tremendous damage where it hits, depending on the strength of its surge and winds and flooding. And overdevelopment along the nation’s coastlines means that the cost of damage is bound to escalate. A big part of preparing, Dr. Emanuel said, is overhauling the nation’s flood insurance system, which currently does little to dissuade people from living in hazardous areas. A recent report from the Natural Resources Defense Council showed that many homes are rebuilt over and over after storms with money from the National Flood Insurance Program. The owners of one Louisiana home that has flooded 40 times have received $428, 379 from the program over time. More than 2, 100 homes flooded more than 10 times and received payments from the program. The 30, 000 homes make up less than 1 percent of the five million homes in the program, but have received more than 10 percent of the claims paid since 1978. “Climate change just makes it worse,” Dr. Emanuel said, and he predicted far greater property damage and rebuilding costs in years to come. The insurance problem, he said, “sets up for a string of Katrinas and Sandys as far as the eye can see. ” | 1 |
October 28, 2016 Likud deputy minister: Italy earthquakes retribution for UNESCO vote
Deputy Minister Ayoob Kara (Likud) caused controversy when he blamed two massive earthquakes which hit Italy on Wednesday for the country’s vote in favor of a UNESCO resolution disregarding a Jewish connection to the Temple Mount.
The deputy minister, who was in Italy when the earthquakes hit, ascribed the natural disasters to divine will.
The resolution itself sparked an outcry in Israel and among the international Jewish community since it disregarded the Jewish connection to its holy sites in Jerusalem.
Kara headed an Israeli delegation to the Vatican which was sent in an effort to shore up opposition for the resolution. Kara even managed to have a short conversation with the Pope during his visit. | 0 |
November 9, 2016
The election of President Trump is not just a victory for orange people everywhere but an overwhelming mandate for those in the wall-building industry or Muslims who never wanted to visit the US. At last Americans can ‘grab pussies’ with impunity and give global warming the chance it deserves.
With a sympathetic House and Supreme Court, Trump looks set to secure his vision of a gun in every cereal box, deporting California and ‘waterboarding for fun’. The US itself will naturally be rebranded as ‘Trump States™’; with a topless golf resort covering most of the mid-west. This will be followed by criminal charges against Hilary Clinton, Megan ‘Fox’ Kelly and all menstruators refusing to compete in his compulsory swimwear contest.
Trump promised to unify a deeply divided country by imprisoning all pollsters – a decision warmly greeted by a confused electorate. In his first few days he is expected to repeal Obama-care, replacing it with the less socially inclusive ‘Who Cares?’ He will also eliminate debt, cut taxes and increase military spending – by simply redefining basic arithmetic.
With Brexit now a dumb and distant memory, US voters confirmed that there is something worse than an Adam Sandler movie. Many await to see if Trump will keep his grandiose promises – such as free Trump-Steak for all, an end to billionaire-shaming and his long term commitment to ‘teabaging’ the Chinese President. Share this story...
Posted: Nov 9th, 2016 by Wrenfoe Wrenfoe World News 0 | 0 |
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