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Some ATT cellphone users in at least 14 states and Washington, D. C. were unable to call 911 for a few hours on Wednesday night, officials said. City, county, law enforcement and emergency response officials took to social media over the course of almost five hours to warn people across the country of the disruption. ATT said at 10:30 p. m. that the problem had had been fixed. “Service has been restored for wireless customers affected by an issue connecting to 911,” ATT said in a statement around 10:30 p. m. “We apologize to those affected. ” The telecommunications giant did not say when and how the problem began, or how many customers were affected. The warnings began no later than 5:49 p. m. when the Monongalia County Homeland Security Emergency Management Agency in West Virginia reported the problem on Facebook. Officials continued issuing warnings until at least 10:25 p. m. The Hendricks County Communications Center in Indiana, a consolidated dispatch center for police, fire, and emergency medical service agencies, had said that 911 calls from ATT customers simply failed to connect. “We have conducted test calls locally and it will just ring,” the center wrote in a Facebook post. Ajit Pai, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said on Twitter that the agency had received reports about the problem and was investigating. Officials in at least 14 states — Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia — and Washington had posted warnings by 9:30 p. m. Some said the problem was sporadic while others said it was statewide or nationwide.	0
Conservative activist organization FreedomWorks released a statement expressing support for the Freedom Caucus’s opposition to Speaker Ryan’s “ ” bill. [FreedomWorks issued their statement in the wake of the Freedom Caucus’s press conference with Senators Rand Paul ( ) and Mike Lee ( ) opposing the speaker’s plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Jason Pye, director of public policy and legislative affairs for FreedomWorks, said: We support Rep. Jim Jordan and the Freedom Caucus’s decision to introduce repeal only legislation that passed last term. I’m proud of the members who still plan to keep their campaign promises. Unfortunately, some of them were committing fraud against the American people, voting for repeal when they knew Obama wouldn’t sign it. Now they’re supporting a different variety of Obamacare. FreedomWorks is an influential conservative grassroots organization that helped elect many conservative lawmakers. FreedomWorks’ opposition to the current “ ” package might put the bill in jeopardy. Congressmen Jim Jordan ( ) and Mark Meadows ( ) oppose Speaker Ryan’s Obamacare repeal package. Senators Lee and Paul’s opposition to the bill might endanger its chances of passing through the U. S. Senate. Jason Pye said that Republicans should embrace a solution. “Republicans are supposed to believe in free markets,” he noted. “Obamacare lite does not fit with Republican legislators’ promises, professed principles, or platform. ”	0
The Netherlands Poland Germany’s GM ban is significant considering that biotech industry representatives have been trying to keep their stranglehold on the genetically modified crop market in the country. The news will likely not be taken well by DuPont Pioneer and Dow Chemical, who have been waiting for an EU executive permit for GMO cultivation in Germany and other EU countries for nearly 15 years. Likewise, Monsanto has criticized other member states for using their ‘opt-out’ vote to ban GMOs from their countries, stating that their decisions “contradict science.” It was just over six years ago that another EU country, Hungary, strongly enforced their GM ban by destroying 1,000 acres of GM maize that had been found growing illegally. The Hungarians were the very first to take a forceful position in the European Union in relation to the use of transgenic seeds. Germany’s GMO ban is doubly important due to the planned merger between the Germany-based Bayer, and U.S.-based Monsanto. With ChemChina-Syngenta and DuPont-Dow Chemical forming their own multi-billion-dollar mergers, consumers and farmers still have a way to refuse genetically modified crops as they are increasingly incorporated into international treaties and trade agreements. As agricultural companies continue to consolidate , becoming larger and larger entities with greater capacity to lobby governments in their favor of monopolizing seed markets, the German opt-out sends a clear message to the makers of these seeds. They can grow bloated and powerful but in the end, the people will decide what they eat. Bill and Melinda Gates try to convince an EU country to embrace GMOs:	0
I was 15 years old. Not yet a proud immigrant to this country. A young Muslim growing up in Nairobi with the very good fortune of having a dad who was an airline pilot. It was 1993 when he took me on a trip to London for the first time. But it wasn’t Big Ben or Buckingham Palace that caught my eye. It was a giant theater billboard with a name I knew: Craig McLachlan, a star of the Australian soap opera “Neighbours” (British spelling, thank you very much). The soap was hugely popular in Kenya, so I recognized him immediately. Also on the poster was a woman’s name I didn’t know at the time: Debbie Gibson (or was she going by Deborah in those days?) The poster was hot pink silhouetted against the background was the face of a cool dude with sunglasses and a giant wave of jet black hair. It was advertising some show called “Grease. ” I was intrigued. I persuaded my dad to give me enough pounds for a ticket. It was sold out, so all I could get was standing room, which was fine by me. In Kenya, the only live performances I had seen were acting skits in my high school assembly hall and comedy shows on the television network. I didn’t know what to expect. I was there so I could tell my friends that I saw Craig McLachlan in the flesh. Then the lights went down, and I was blown away. Experiencing the show was like sitting in a wind tunnel. I felt assaulted by the power coming from the biggest stage I had ever seen. It was spectacular and epic and sexy and HUGE. All the emotions were supersized, the dancing was electric, the singing was stupendous, the actors were unbelievable. I was in heaven. I didn’t want it to end. Afterwards, I finagled more money from my dad and bought the cast album cassette at the theater. I had to take a tangible piece of the show with me. In bed that night, I kept seeing the colors and images and magical moving set pieces in my head. The trip came to an end, but back home in Nairobi, I couldn’t stop thinking about “Grease. ” My immediate instinct was that I had to reproduce it. Somehow, some way, I needed to make that experience happen again, and I wanted to be inside it and outside it all at once. So I sat at my Commodore 64 computer and typed out all the dialogue I could remember. I listened to the cassette on my Walkman, jogging my memory to fill in the gaps of what happened between the songs. No one told me about John Travolta and Olivia — that there was a movie version of the show I could have easily watched on VHS. Would have saved me a lot of hours. Ah well. After my “script” was complete, I talked my high school friends into being in the show and assigned their roles. No auditions necessary it’s set in a high school, after all. I would play Danny Zuko (only in Africa in the ’90s could a boy like me play the leader of the without irony). Naturally my best friend would be Kenickie. There was a problem, though: I went to Jamhuri High, an school. What about the girls’ roles? was definitely not in my consciousness at 15, so to round out the cast, I picked an school near my home, State House Girls, and set out to convince one of their teachers to allow us to partner up and put on the show. She asked me what the point of doing this was. On the spot, I said, “Well, we’re going to raise money for the K. S. P. C. A. It’s for charity. ” Good cause, check. She was sold. Next problem: money. We needed costumes, furniture, cool things to put onstage. I knew we would never recreate the incredible set pieces from London, like the end of Act I bleacher that glided magically across the stage during “We Go Together. ” (OMG, how did they do that? !) I tasked my classmates to go around town, knock on business doors and ask them to donate to our production and support the young artists of tomorrow. We raised 10, 000 Ksh (about $96 today). More than enough. So now we had a script. We had actors. We had the cassette we were going to lip sync to. (Did I mention none of us could sing?) We had the school’s permission (but not the publisher’s — sorry Samuel French, I know better now). And since this was my bright idea, I assumed the task of putting the show together as well. I directed, choreographed, designed and starred in that very makeshift, highly illegal, Nairobi premiere of “Grease. ” The show went off without a hitch. No one cared that we couldn’t have been further from the privileges enjoyed at Rydell High, or that our kinky hair stubbornly refused to slick back no matter how much grease we applied. We were kids expressing desire, heartbreak and the promise of a bright, heteronormative future where every boy gets the girl. That I had assembled every aspect of the production was intoxicating. It was no longer enough to perform. I had found my fix. I’ve moved on to telling stories more complex than “Grease. ” I’m especially attracted to plays and musicals that ask challenging questions about identity, and lately, the responsibility of citizenship. But the theater that appeals to me doesn’t shy away from spectacle, or from embracing the power of music to tell a story. A little Greased Lightning never hurts.	1
Tuesday 8 November 2016 by Danny Soz ‘Million Judge March’ to descend on home of Nigel Farage Hundreds of thousands of judges will march to the home of Nigel Farage this weekend in protest against his attempts to subvert the constitution of the nation. Britain’s senior judiciary hit back at criticism from UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, by announcing that they will march en masse to his home in Surrey where they will stage a peaceful sit-down protest. The march will be led by, The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, who issued a statement last night, telling reporters, “The members of the judiciary of this country take great exception when minor political figures like Mr Farage make disparaging statements about our judgements and bring our integrity into question. “Therefore, myself, along with every judge in the land, will march to Mr Farage’s place of residence on Saturday to give him a little reminder of what we represent and of the sovereignty of British law.” A heavy police presence is expected at the march and also at the rallying point, where extensive searches will be carried out for concealed weapons and bottles of gin. Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently	0
Take a deep breath, expanding your belly. Pause. Exhale slowly to the count of five. Repeat four times. Congratulations. You’ve just calmed your nervous system. Controlled breathing, like what you just practiced, has been shown to reduce stress, increase alertness and boost your immune system. For centuries yogis have used breath control, or pranayama, to promote concentration and improve vitality. Buddha advocated as a way to reach enlightenment. Science is just beginning to provide evidence that the benefits of this ancient practice are real. Studies have found, for example, that breathing practices can help reduce symptoms associated with anxiety, insomnia, stress disorder, depression and attention deficit disorder. “Breathing is massively practical,” says Belisa Vranich, a psychologist and author of the book “Breathe,” to be published in December. “It’s meditation for people who can’t meditate. ” How controlled breathing may promote healing remains a source of scientific study. One theory is that controlled breathing can change the response of the body’s autonomic nervous system, which controls unconscious processes such as heart rate and digestion as well as the body’s stress response, says Dr. Richard Brown, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and of “The Healing Power of the Breath. ” Consciously changing the way you breathe appears to send a signal to the brain to adjust the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system, which can slow heart rate and digestion and promote feelings of calm as well as the sympathetic system, which controls the release of stress hormones like cortisol. Many maladies, such as anxiety and depression, are aggravated or triggered by stress. “I have seen patients transformed by adopting regular breathing practices,” says Dr. Brown, who has a private practice in Manhattan and teaches breathing workshops around the world. When you take slow, steady breaths, your brain gets the message that all is well and activates the parasympathetic response, said Dr. Brown. When you take shallow rapid breaths or hold your breath, the sympathetic response is activated. “If you breathe correctly, your mind will calm down,” said Dr. Patricia Gerbarg, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College and Dr. Brown’s Dr. Chris Streeter, an associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at Boston University, recently completed a small study in which she measured the effect of daily yoga and breathing on people with diagnoses of major depressive disorder. After 12 weeks of daily yoga and coherent breathing, the subjects’ depressive symptoms significantly decreased and their levels of acid, a brain chemical that has calming and effects, had increased. The research was presented in May at the International Congress on Integrative Medicine and Health in Las Vegas. While the study was small and lacked a control group, Dr. Streeter and her colleagues are planning a randomized controlled trial to further test the intervention. “The findings were exciting,” she said. “They show that a behavioral intervention can have effects of similar magnitude as an antidepressant. ” Controlled breathing may also affect the immune system. Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina divided a group of 20 healthy adults into two groups. One group was instructed to do two sets of breathing exercises, while the other group was told to read a text of their choice for 20 minutes. The subjects’ saliva was tested at various intervals during the exercise. The researchers found that the breathing exercise group’s saliva had significantly lower levels of three cytokines that are associated with inflammation and stress. The findings were published in the journal BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine in August. Here are three basic breathing exercises to try on your own. Coherent Breathing If you have the time to learn only one technique, this is the one to try. In coherent breathing, the goal is to breathe at a rate of five breaths per minute, which generally translates into inhaling and exhaling to the count of six. If you have never practiced breathing exercises before, you may have to work up to this practice slowly, starting with inhaling and exhaling to the count of three and working your way up to six. 1. Sitting upright or lying down, place your hands on your belly. 2. Slowly breathe in, expanding your belly, to the count of five. 3. Pause. 4. Slowly breathe out to the count of six. 5. Work your way up to practicing this pattern for 10 to 20 minutes a day. Stress Relief When your mind is racing or you feel keyed up, try Rock and Roll breathing, which has the added benefit of strengthening your core. 1. Sit up straight on the floor or the edge of a chair. 2. Place your hands on your belly. 3. As you inhale, lean forward and expand your belly. 4. As you exhale, squeeze the breath out and curl forward while leaning backward exhale until you’re completely empty of breath. 5. Repeat 20 times. Energizing HA Breath When the midafternoon slump hits, stand up and do some quick breathwork to wake up your mind and body. 1. Stand up tall, elbows bent, palms facing up. 2. As you inhale, draw your elbows back behind you, palms continuing to face up. 3. Then exhale quickly, thrusting your palms forward and turning them downward, while saying “Ha” out loud. 4. Repeat quickly 10 to 15 times.	1
link There is simply no more denying, for millions of people across whatever planet we are actually on now, that the Mandela Effect is the greatest and most important single event in the history of all mankind on every possible level. That's not in question anymore, the only remaining question left is "Who done it?". Will the real one responsible for this, please stand up? Now, because this is the biggest display of sheer Power, there are a lot of government agencies whose only job is to make you think that they have power who are sitting down and yelling "we did it, we are the ones and we did it with our collider!" And there's others sitting down and yelling "we did it, with our d computers!" These collider and d computers are jokes, they can't do anything, you can barely play pacman on them - they are just impressive looking things to you which make you scared of the people who want to control you. That's all they are. You people need to stop being scared of your bullies. Your bully who took you lunch money every day in the 2nd grade - is not the same person who caused a universal-earth-ending-space-time-continuum-Shift. This is real power. Whoever can do this, isn't the same bully who took your lunch money in the 2nd grade. Your government and Nasa and Cern are all a bunch of bullies, who throw water bottles at your head then when you turn around they point to the person next to them and call them a terrorist. That's all they have done throughout the years. But whoever did the Mandela Effect is entirely different from them, whoever did that has True and Real Light. I'll just go ahead and flatly state it for the whole world to hear - I, Pyron, created the Mandela Effect through metaphysical sciences through writing. No computers no colliders, only my mind and heart. It was my true desire to create a new world where those who control you will lose control. I wrote from age 12 to age 32, obsessively for 20 years in a row without break, I've been rejected by everyone the whole time, no one out there has been continuously rejected like I have, so I just kept on continuously going into my own space and writing more and more. Not caring about money or controlling people for selfish gain or any of that, I was just going on a self-journey. And in doing that, I cracked the code for the fabric of the Space Time continuum and opened up the Stargate. And I recorded every last thing that I did, and tell the whole world exactly how I did it and how everything occurred in a 50 page book - that I've put up for free on Youtube. This 50 page book is the liberation and the Revolution for every soul in all of existence, and I offer it for free here www.youtube.com...	0
Late in January 2006, Bartolo Colon received the plaque for the American League Cy Young Award. At the time, the Colon was 32 and playing for the Los Angeles Angels, and the man who presented the award to him was Juan Marichal, the first Dominican player to be selected to baseball’s Hall of Fame. Marichal ended his major league career in 1975 with 243 victories, the most to this day among pitchers from the Dominican Republic. The only Latino pitcher with more wins than Marichal is Dennis Martinez, a Nicaraguan who finished his career with 245. Soon enough, Colon may surpass them both — but he will not do it as a member of the Mets. On Friday, Colon’s tenure with the club ended when he agreed to a deal with the Atlanta Braves for the 2017 season, according to a person in baseball with direct knowledge of the situation who requested anonymity because the deal is not yet official. The agreement, pending a physical, will be worth $12. 5 million, according to Fox Sports, an number for a pitcher who is 43 years old and carries 285 pounds on a frame. The older, and perhaps the heavier, Colon gets, the more he defies logic. With the Mets, he had three solid seasons in which he rarely missed a start and won 15 games, then 14 and then 15 again. And he did so with a pedestrian fastball that cut and dipped and generally allowed him to outwit opposing hitters. Now, as he heads to Atlanta, Colon has 233 career wins, putting him within reach of Marichal and Martinez. Can an athlete who, these days, does not even look like an athlete still end up with the most victories by any Latino pitcher? It appears likely. “All the records that I can reach are important,” Colon said in Spanish late in his 2016 season with the Mets. “I’m always chasing after myself and pushing myself. ” For Dominican baseball players, Marichal is a significant figure. He was one of the first Dominicans to play in the major leagues and, as a star with the San Francisco Giants, helped pave the way for others. Colon, who lives about 90 minutes from Marichal’s home in the Dominican Republic, said that while growing up, he had not known much about Marichal other than his intense competitiveness. He said that becoming the Dominican pitcher with the most wins would mean a lot to him. Colon’s 2017 season will be his 20th in the majors, setting the record for longevity among pitchers. His 500 starts are already tops Marichal made 457. Colon said late last season that the 2017 season could very well be his last. He has pitched 3, 172⅓ career innings and may not surpass Marichal’s 3, 507. But if Colon has another season like 2016 — record, 3. 43 earned run average and an selection — he could surely set the victory mark. “I hope that he stays as healthy and strong as possible so that he can be the one recognized as the winningest of all Latin America,” said the Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro Martinez, who is also Dominican. Martinez finished his career with 219 wins injuries hampered him late in his career. Colon, too, has sustained shoulder and elbow injuries over the course of his two decades in the majors, and he was suspended for 50 games in 2012 for using drugs. But over time, he has evolved from a hard thrower to a crafty pitcher, and it is anyone’s guess how long he might keep going. “Even though you see him as chubby, he uses his physical abilities in his favor and works hard,” Martinez said, speaking in Spanish. The Mets wanted to keep Colon around for 2017 because of the mentoring he has provided to younger teammates and the security he would offer for a starting rotation that is highly talented but prone to injuries. But money was clearly a concern. The Mets paid Colon $7. 5 million in 2016, and as they try to find a way to keep Yoenis Cespedes in Queens with a new, expensive deal, any significant money spent elsewhere — such as on Colon — could affect that effort. As a result, the Mets knew that Colon might land a better deal elsewhere amid an overall scarcity of reliable starting pitching, and his departure is not a surprise. With Colon gone, the Mets still have seven starters for 2017, at least on paper. That group is led by Noah Syndergaard, who managed to stay relatively healthy last season. Behind him are Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz and Zack Wheeler, all of whom are expected to be ready for spring training after dealing with injuries and, in some cases, surgery in 2016. The Mets can also look to Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo, two unheralded minor leaguers called up last season who were crucial to the team’s successful bid for a spot. Still, Colon’s veteran presence will be missed. As will his adventures at the plate, where his sometimes zany helped make him a folk hero to Mets fans and were worth at least half the price of admission. In all, he managed to get 15 hits as a Met, the most memorable being the home run he hit May 7 in San Diego. That shot made him the oldest player in major league history to hit his first home run. With the Braves, a rebuilding team, Colon will join R. A. Dickey, a knuckleballer who won the 2012 Cy Young Award with the Mets, moved on to Toronto and signed a deal with Atlanta on Thursday. Together, they will make the Braves more interesting, particularly if Colon can chase down Marichal and Dennis Martinez.	1
As tens of thousands of people arrive in Rio de Janeiro for the Summer Olympics this week, millions of mosquitoes, some perhaps carrying the Zika virus, await them. But what may be the best repellent around is also the hardest to get. It comes in a tube. It is a sticky gel, but it has a mild, pleasant odor, which is kind of floral. It is simply called Repelente Gel, and it is produced by and for the Brazilian Army. A military lab makes it, so good luck getting your hands on it. The occasional civilian who has managed to find it has often ended up swearing by it. I know. I am one of them. I encountered this repellent in Haiti while on assignment for The New York Times in 2010, covering the cholera epidemic and a presidential election. Brazilian soldiers were a large part of the United Nations peacekeeping force helping to police Haiti. One afternoon, I rode along with them on a patrol. As I got on a truck, a smiling soldier handed me a tube of his repellent and in English said, “For you, for the mosquitoes. ” I was intrigued at what a soldier from an Amazonian country would use. The stuff I had always picked up at the drugstore had never seemed to be quite enough. So I slathered it on. No allergic reaction, good. Better yet, even hours later, no mosquitoes — at least noticeably fewer. No buzzing in my ears. No patchwork of bites. I strained to conserve this miracle gel for the remaining days of that trip and subsequent ones, despairing when it ran out. (Hey, guys, how about another ?) I was not alone. Simon Romero, my colleague in The Times’s Rio de Janeiro bureau, swears by the stuff, too, having used it on trips with the military into the Amazon jungle. So what’s the secret? And more important, where can you get it? Well, the Brazilian Army prefers to keep its product for soldiers and is circumspect about saying exactly what makes it so effective. The main ingredient listed is diethyltoluamide, commonly known as DEET, which scientists say is among the most effective chemicals against mosquitoes. It is found in mosquito repellents available the world over, but the army’s public relations office did not answer questions about how much DEET was in it (other than to say the amount was “similar” to that found in commercially available products) or whether it contained other antimosquito ingredients. (It did say the repellent worked on “a broad spectrum of insects. ”) The office said the repellent had been developed over the course of 20 years and “was tested in the laboratory and the field by the land forces across the whole country. ” The office added, “It showed excellent results in areas of major insect pest infestation, such as Amazon, Pantanal, Angola and Haiti. ” There is no “plan for external commercialization,” the statement said. Word is getting around, though, about how good it is. The Brazilian Health Ministry wanted the gel, too. In December, the ministry asked the army for it, to give to pregnant women as part of measures, but negotiations apparently stalled. The army had expressed concern, according to news reports, that its lab could not produce the repellent on the scale that the health ministry wanted. “The army and all the country’s laboratories which we have consulted are not prepared to produce the volume of repellent we need immediately,” the health minister, Marcelo Castro, said in January. There is some hope for Olympic visitors. To protect the Games, Brazilian officials have said, they have deployed more than 85, 000 soldiers and police officers to Rio de Janeiro. You never know what a friendly soldier might share.	0
Jon Stewart (says he’ll move to another planet) Barbra Streisand (not again!) Raven Symone Well, we have help for the Hollyweirdos who say they’ll move out of the country if Trump is elected! By the way, how come these Hollyweirdos always threaten to move to Europe or Canada, but never Mexico? Aren’t they in solidarity with the swarms of Mexicans illegally crossing into America and with their Mexican hired help — their maids, house-cleaners, gardeners and nannies? H/t FOTM’s Drew H. See also:	0
Prev post Page 1 of 4 Next Nurses are among the most underappreciated professionals in the world. They care for us from the time we enter the hospital to the time we leave. They care for our loved ones during the most difficult and terrifying times of our lives. To put it simply, they save lives. Not only that; they save multiple lives every day. Because we are so troubled by whatever issues has brought us to the hospital, we rarely think of the nearly incomprehensible amount of stress that is put upon the person caring for us. This is understandable. When we are in the hospital, we are usually at our very worst and not in the mood to care for the troubles of others. Assuming the reader is not a nurse, put yourself in that position for a moment. Every day, the healthy, safety and livelihood of multiple individuals are in your hands. You may be overworked and heavily burdened, but you do not have the benefit of going on “cruise control” like many other professionals do some days. Any mistakes could cause serious consequences. Theresa Brown , a columnist for the The New York Times and registered nurse for over five years, may have said it best, “It’s not like being a waiter, where you have too many tables, which is stressful, but no one’s going to die if they don’t get their entree in time.” This why it is not difficult to understand how many of America’s nurses are getting burned out. In fact, a recent survey of forty different hospital units found that over one third of nurses reported that they intend to leave their position within the next year. This is a startling concept to imagine one third of the world’s nurses quitting. In the study, they cited two main reasons for this: emotional exhaustion and lack of personal accomplishment. One could see how they could feel emotionally exhausted, but to think that the people who dedicate their lives caring for the sick do not feel accomplished or appreciated enough? That shows that the problem may not be with the nurses, but for those around them. So, how do we fix this? Nurse burnout is a common problem, and there are multiple ideas and schools of thought as to how we should deal with it. However, to develop a proper solution, we must first fully understand the problem and its root causes. Although we do not profess to offer one grand solution that can solve nurse burn out, we do hope to examine the problem and hopefully provide some understanding. Prev post Page 1 of 4 Next Be the first to comment Leave a Reply Your email address will not be published. Comment	0
Summer Child Mind Control School - Project Monarch Child Killing In a Cage - Jakob's Diary # supernaturalgears.org 0 True Story? When I was growing up on the family farm a man came to the door and seemed to blow something into my parents face. My parents then started talking to him as if they had known them forever. Like they were great friends. He then started talking to me and said he was going to take me to school. This was during the summer. It was in July. I said "This is summer vacation I already went to school." He said yea, but I have another school for you to go to that will be fun. Your going to like this school. My parents said to go with the man. There seem to be something wrong with them as if they were in some sort of trance. I got in the car with the man as he seem to spray something into my face from a aerosol can. He drove a small foreign German made green car. I remember sort of falling asleep but was wide awake asleep and wide awake at the same time. The trance drug shocking blue made from the plant Burundanga can produce this state of mind. I remember waking up going around this road curve near the farm called horseshoe bend. This was in the 60's and the song "Something tells me I'm into something good," by the Herman's Hermits was playing on the radio. I was looking out the window when it struck me when I looked over at the driver and realized I was riding with this strange man. It freaked me out and I grabbed for the steering wheel. He yelled stop and then it was like I had no control could only obey his order. I said where are you taking me? He said to school. I said this is summer I already went to school. I said what if I jump out of the car and run into the woods? He said he would chase me and kill me. I started crying. He then said, "sorry I said that I didn't mean it." He said why don't you just sit back and enjoy the ride. I said again where are you taking me. He said to school. Your going to like this school. There are lots of other kids there. I then seem to go to sleep. I awoke what seem to be a large hospital. It was in an underground facility at the aberdeen Military proving grounds base. There were nurses everywhere with around 50 hospital beds with children lying on them looking to be asleep with medical devices attached to their heads. This nurse told me to get on the bed. I did. Then this doctor approached me who I now know was doctor Joesef Megele the Nazi angel of death. He said his name was Doctor Green. He was young. I now know he is alive and living in Lancaster Pa among the amish. He takes youth drugs he developed in the Nazi child experimentation death camps in WWII. Like in a second later. Suddenly. I then seem to awake back on the farm. I was bagging up corn in the corn shed. I felt strange. Something wasn't right. It felt like summer was almost over. I didn't remember how I got to the corn shed. I asked my grandfather what day it is. He said, it's august 27th. Glad we found you in the woods since you went missing. Went missing? My grandfather said the police had searched the woods said I was missing for a few days this week. But they found me. In my mind I freaked out, august 27th? How could that be? I really had been missing for two months. I later learned that fake memories (FM's) were put into my grandfathers mind about the recent few days missing in the woods story. I remember it seemed like moments ago it was the beginning of July where I had my last memory. Then the memories started to flood as the retrograde amnesia was lifting from the trance drug I was administered. Memories of hundreds of children from around the world in cages stacked on top of one another. I was in a cage high up me and a girl named Mary and another kid named Billy and some other kid I can't remember his name all of us together in this cage. Billy was told to kill the other little kid in the cage. If he did strangled him they would let him go. It was horrible. Sadly he did screaming and crying the whole time. JaKOBS DIaRY, TRaNCE OF THE MONaRCH. Log entry 8UYTgUYT8 Tags	1
Donald J. Trump had barely met Rowanne Brewer Lane when he asked her to change out of her clothes. Ms. Brewer Lane, at the time a model, did as Mr. Trump asked. “I went into the bathroom and tried one on,” she recalled. It was a bikini. “I came out, and he said, ‘Wow.’ ” Mr. Trump, then 44 and in the midst of his first divorce, decided to show her off to the crowd at his estate in Palm Beach, Fla. “He brought me out to the pool and said, ‘That is a stunning Trump girl, isn’t it?’ ” Ms. Brewer Lane said. Donald Trump and women: The words evoke a familiar cascade of casual insults, hurled from the safe distance of a Twitter account, a radio show or a campaign podium. This is the public treatment of some women by Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president: degrading, impersonal, performed. “That must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees,” he told a female contestant on “The Celebrity Apprentice. ” Rosie O’Donnell, he said, had a “fat, ugly face. ” A lawyer who needed to pump milk for a newborn? “Disgusting,” he said. But the 1990 episode at that Ms. Brewer Lane described was different: a debasing encounter between Mr. Trump and a young woman he hardly knew. This is the private treatment of some women by Mr. Trump, the and more intimate encounters. The New York Times interviewed dozens of women who had worked with or for Mr. Trump over the past four decades, in the worlds of real estate, modeling and pageants women who had dated him or interacted with him socially and women and men who had closely observed his conduct since his adolescence. In all, more than 50 interviews were conducted over the course of six weeks. Their accounts — many relayed here in their own words — reveal unwelcome romantic advances, unending commentary on the female form, a shrewd reliance on ambitious women, and unsettling workplace conduct, according to the interviews, as well as court records and written recollections. The interactions occurred in his offices at Trump Tower, at his homes, at construction sites and backstage at beauty pageants. They appeared to be fleeting, unimportant moments to him, but they left lasting impressions on the women who experienced them. What emerges from the interviews is a complex, at times contradictory portrait of a wealthy, and provocative man and the women around him, one that defies simple categorization. Some women found him gracious and encouraging. He promoted several to the loftiest heights of his company, a daring move for a major real estate developer at the time. He simultaneously nurtured women’s careers and mocked their physical appearance. “You like your candy,” he told an overweight female executive who oversaw the construction of his headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. He could be lewd one moment and gentlemanly the next. In an interview, Mr. Trump described himself as a champion of women, someone who took pride in hiring them and was in awe of their work ethic. “It would just seem,” he said, “that there was something that they want to really prove. ” Pressed on the women’s claims, Mr. Trump disputed many of the details, such as asking Ms. Brewer Lane to put on a swimsuit. “A lot of things get made up over the years,” he said. “I have always treated women with great respect. And women will tell you that. ” But in many cases there was an unmistakable dynamic at play: Mr. Trump had the power, and the women did not. He had celebrity. He had wealth. He had connections. Even after he had behaved crudely toward them, some of the women sought his assistance with their careers or remained by his side. For Ms. Brewer Lane, her introduction to Mr. Trump at was the start of a whirlwind romance — a heady blur of helicopter rides and hotel rooms and flashing cameras. “It was intimidating,” she said. “He was Donald Trump, obviously. ” It started at the New York Military Academy, a small, severe boarding school 90 minutes’ drive north of New York City. Strictly enforced rules prohibited girls from setting foot on the campus unless it was a special occasion. And on those special occasions, young Donald Trump paid careful mind to the kind of girls he brought to school. They had to be gorgeous — 10s, in his future parlance. “Donald was extremely sensitive to whether or not the women he invited to campus were pretty,” recalled George White, a fellow student in the class of 1964. “For Donald,” he added, “it’s display. ” He steadily built an image as a young playboy amid the deprivations of a military school, where most boys craved but rarely enjoyed the company of a girl. By senior year, his classmates had crowned him “ladies’ man” in the yearbook, a nod to the volume of his dates. Asked how he had earned the “ladies’ man” title, Mr. Trump at first demurred. “I better not tell you — I’ll get myself in trouble,” he said. He later elaborated, saying he had “a great feeling” and “a great like” for women. Mr. Trump grew up with an influential role model for how to deal with women: Fred C. Trump, his powerful and unyielding father. The elder Mr. Trump exerted control no matter how big or small the decision, as Ivana Zelnickova learned over dinner one night in the late 1970s. Her boyfriend, Donald Trump, had invited her to join his siblings and parents at Tavern on the Green, the ornate restaurant in Central Park. When the waiter came to take orders, Ivana made the mistake of asking for what she wanted. Fred Trump set her straight, she recalled in a previously unpublished interview with Michael D’Antonio, the author of “The Truth About Trump. ” Mr. Trump defended his father’s conduct. “He would’ve said that out of love,” he said. If his father had overruled her fish order, Mr. Trump said, “he would have said that only on the basis that he thought, ‘That would be better for her.’ ” The elder Mr. Trump did not hide his more traditional views on gender. When his son hired a woman, Barbara A. Res, as his head of construction in the 1980s, Fred Trump was mystified and annoyed. Mr. Trump said it was a different era. “My father,” he said, “probably never would have seen a woman in that position. ” Mr. Trump still holds up his parents as models, praising his mother for understanding and accommodating a husband who worked almost nonstop. “My mother was always fine with it,” he said, recalling her “brilliant” management of the situation. “If something got interrupted because he was going to inspect a housing site or something, she would handle that so beautifully. ” “She was an ideal woman,” he said. With his purchase of the Miss Universe Organization, Mr. Trump was now in the business of young, beautiful women. They craved his advice and approval, a fact he seemed to understand well. Temple Taggart, the Miss Utah, was startled by how forward he was with young contestants like her in 1997, his first year as the owner of Miss USA, a branch of the beauty pageant organization. As she recalls it, he introduced himself in an unusually intimate manner. Mr. Trump disputes this, saying he is reluctant to kiss strangers on the lips. But Ms. Taggart said it was not an isolated incident. At the gala celebration after the show, she said, Mr. Trump immediately zeroed in on her, telling her how much he liked her style and inviting her to visit him in New York to talk about her future. Soon enough, she said, he delivered another unwelcome kiss on her lips, this time in Trump Tower. After boasting of his connections to elite modeling agencies, he advised her to lie about her age to get ahead in the industry, she said. “ ‘We’re going to have to tell them you’re 17,’ ” Ms. Taggart recalled him telling her, “because in his mind, 21 is too old. I was like, ‘No, we’re not going to do that.’ ” His level of involvement in the pageants was unexpected, and his judgments, the contestants said, could be harsh. Carrie Prejean, who was 21 when she participated in the Miss USA contest in 2009 as Miss California, was surprised to find Mr. Trump personally evaluating the women at rehearsal. “We were told to put on our opening number outfits — they were nearly as revealing as our swimsuits — and line up for him onstage,” she wrote in her memoir, “Still Standing. ” Mr. Trump, in an interview, said he would “never do that. ” Such behavior, he said, would bruise egos and hurt feelings. “I wouldn’t hurt people,” he said. “That’s hurtful to people. ” Mr. Trump was not just fixated on the appearance of the women around him. He possessed an almost compulsive need to talk about it. Inside the Trump Organization, the company that manages his various businesses, he occasionally interrupted routine discussions of business to opine on women’s figures. Ms. Res, his construction executive, remembered a meeting in which she and Mr. Trump interviewed an architect for a project in the Los Angeles area. Out of the blue, she said, Mr. Trump evaluated the fitness of women in Marina del Rey, Calif. “They take care of their asses,” he said. “The architect and I didn’t know where he was coming from,” Ms. Res said. Years later, after she had gained a significant amount of weight, Ms. Res endured a stinging workplace observation about her own body from Mr. Trump. “ ‘You like your candy,’ ” she recalled him telling her. “It was him reminding me that I was overweight. ” Her colleague Louise Sunshine experienced similar observations from Mr. Trump when she gained weight. But she saw it as friendly encouragement, not a cruel insult. “He thought I looked much better thin,” she said. “He would remind me of how beautiful I was. ” Whenever possible, Mr. Trump wanted his visitors to see his most attractive employees, as Ms. Res learned. Mr. Trump frequently sought assurances — at times from strangers — that the women in his life were beautiful. During the 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant, he sat in the audience as his teenage daughter, Ivanka, helped to host the event from onstage. He turned to Brook Antoinette Mahealani Lee, Miss Universe at the time, and asked for her opinion of his daughter’s body. “ ‘Don’t you think my daughter’s hot? She’s hot, right?’ ” Ms. Lee recalled him saying. ‘I was like, ‘Really?’ That’s just weird. She was 16. That’s creepy. ” Ms. Brewer Lane, who dated Mr. Trump for several months in 1990 and early 1991, said it did not take long for him to solicit her view on the attractiveness of two of his previous romantic partners, Marla Maples and Ivana Trump. Mr. Trump said he did not know Ms. Brewer Lane very well, despite dating her. “I wouldn’t have asked anybody about how they rate other women,” he said. He liked to brag about his sexual prowess and his desirability as a date, no matter who was around. Barbara J. Fife, a deputy mayor under David N. Dinkins, New York’s mayor in the early 1990s, was not especially close to Mr. Trump. But that did not stop him from telling her why he was in such a hurry one day as he sat in her office at City Hall. “I have this great date tonight with a model for Victoria’s Secret,” Ms. Fife recalled him telling her. “I saw it as immature, quite honestly,” she said. At his office in Trump Tower, Mr. Trump seemed eager for his colleagues to hear about his new companion, Ms. Maples. When The New York Post feasted on her supposed satisfaction with him in bed, captured in the headline “Best Sex I’ve Ever Had,” Mr. Trump was unabashed, Ms. Res said. Mr. Trump denies boasting about the headline. He seems more bashful these days, saying he cannot recall how many women he has dated. “Not as many as people would think,” he said. “I’m not somebody that really loved the dating process. ” To build his business, Mr. Trump turned to women for a simple reason: They worked hard — often harder than men, he told them. When Mr. Trump hired Ms. Res to oversee the construction of Trump Tower, he invited her to his apartment on Fifth Avenue and explained that he wanted her to be his “Donna Trump” on the project, she said. Few women had reached such stature in the industry. He entrusted several women in his company with enormous responsibility — once they had proven themselves worthy and loyal. Ms. Sunshine had little experience in real estate, but as a top campaign for Gov. Hugh Carey of New York, she had fulfilled a lifelong wish for Mr. Trump: She secured him a vanity license plate with his initials, DJT, which adorned his limousine for years. Ms. Sunshine worked for Mr. Trump for 15 years, becoming a major New York real estate figure in her own right. Ms. Res remained at the company for 12 years, left after a disagreement over a project and then returned as a consultant for six more years. Both expressed gratitude for the chances Mr. Trump had taken on them. In a industry thoroughly dominated by men, Mr. Trump’s office stood out for its diversity, recalled Alan Lapidus, an influential architect who designed the Trump Plaza casino in Atlantic City. To women who had climbed to positions of power outside his company, Mr. Trump’s behavior could feel like a jarring throwback. Alair A. Townsend was for a time the woman inside New York’s City Hall during the Koch administration, with the title of deputy mayor for economic development. But when Mr. Trump called her, she said, her position seemed less relevant to him than her gender. It was an unthinking habit when he interacted with women, colleagues said. “At Trump Tower,” said Ms. Res, his longtime colleague, “he called me Honey Bunch. ” No single figure better encapsulated the paradoxes of Mr. Trump’s treatment of women in the workplace than his first wife, Ivana. He entrusted her with major pieces of a corporate empire and gave her the titles to match. She was the president of Trump’s Castle, a major casino in Atlantic City, and the Plaza Hotel, the storied complex on Central Park South in Manhattan. “She ran that hotel,” Ms. Res said. “And she ran it well. ” But he compensated her as a spouse, not a employee, paying her an annual salary of $1 for the Trump’s Castle job, according to her tax documents. And he grew to resent her outsize role. By the end of their marriage, Mr. Trump wrote in his 1997 book, “The Art of the Comeback,” he regretted having allowed her to run his businesses. He seems to have kept his word. His current wife, Melania, has marketed her own lines of beauty products and jewelry. But Mr. Trump remains mostly uninvolved in her work. After calling it “very successful,” he struggled to describe it. “What is it on television with the sales?” he asked. “What do they call that? Not Home Shopping, the other one. ” Once his first marriage started to collapse, Mr. Trump faced his most serious allegations of aggression toward women. When “Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump,” by the journalist Harry Hurt III, was released in 1993, it included a description of a night in which Mr. Trump was said to have raped Ivana in a fit of rage. It also included a statement from Ivana that Mr. Trump’s lawyers insisted be placed in the front of the book. In the statement, she described an occasion of “marital relations” during which “I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited toward me, was absent. ” “During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me,” the statement said. “I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense. ” Mr. Trump denied raping Ivana, and she did not respond to a request for comment. After the allegation in the news media last year, Ivana said in a statement, “The story is totally without merit. ” In the early 1990s, Jill Harth and her boyfriend at the time, George Houraney, worked with Mr. Trump on a beauty pageant in Atlantic City, and later accused Mr. Trump of inappropriate behavior toward Ms. Harth during their business dealings. In a 1996 deposition, Ms. Harth described their initial meeting with Mr. Trump at Trump Tower. Mr. Houraney said in a recent interview that he was shocked by Mr. Trump’s response after he made clear that he and Ms. Harth were monogamous. “He said: ‘Well, there’s always a first time. I am going after her,’ ” Mr. Houraney recalled, adding: “I thought the man was joking. I laughed. He said, ‘I am serious.’ ” By the time the three of them were having dinner at the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel the next night, Mr. Trump’s advances had turned physical, Ms. Harth said in the deposition. “Basically he throughout that dinner, when he wasn’t groping me under the table,” she testified. “Let me just say, this was a very traumatic thing working for him. ” Ms. Harth, who declined to comment, gave the deposition in connection with a lawsuit that alleged Mr. Trump had failed to meet his obligations in a business partnership. Mr. Trump settled that case but denied wrongdoing. Ms. Harth withdrew her own lawsuit against Mr. Trump alleging unwanted advances, but she has stood by her original claims. Mr. Trump said it was Ms. Harth who had pursued him, and his office shared email messages in which Ms. Harth, over the past year, thanked Mr. Trump for helping her personally and professionally and expressed support for his presidential candidacy. Mr. Trump says the world misunderstands his relationship with women. He sees himself as a promoter of women — a man whose business deals, like the purchase of the struggling Miss Universe pageant, have given them untold opportunities for employment and advancement. “Hundreds and hundreds of women, thousands of women, are the better for it,” he said. He has groomed his daughter, Ivanka, to run his company. And as a chief executive, he said, he admires women for a work ethic that can exceed that of the men around them. Mr. Trump recalled a telling exchange with a female worker. Several women who have held positions of power within the Trump Organization in recent years said they had never known Mr. Trump to objectify women or treat them with disrespect. “I think there are mischaracterizations about him,” said Jill Martin, a vice president and assistant counsel at the company. Ms. Martin said Mr. Trump had enthusiastically supported her decision to have two children over the past five years, even when it meant working from home and scaling back on business travel. “That’s hard with women lawyers,” she said. “For me, he’s made it a situation where I can really excel at my job and still devote the time necessary for my family. ” After competing in the 2009 Miss USA pageant, Laura Kirilova Chukanov, a Bulgarian immigrant who lived in Utah, met with Mr. Trump in his New York office and explained that she wanted to make a documentary about her home country. Mr. Trump encouraged the project and followed through on a promise to put her in touch with his production company. “He genuinely wanted to know what I wanted to do with my life and how he could help,” Ms. Chukanov said. But when Mr. Trump lost confidence in women, he could inflict lasting damage on their lives. After Alicia Machado won the 1996 Miss Universe title, something very human happened: She gained weight. Mr. Trump did not keep his critique of her changing body quiet — he publicly shamed her, she said. Mr. Trump said he had pushed her to lose weight. “To that, I will plead guilty,” he said, expressing no regret for his tactics. But the humiliation, Ms. Machado said, was unbearable. “After that episode, I was sick, anorexia and bulimia for five years,” she said. “Over the past 20 years, I’ve gone to a lot of psychologists to combat this. ”	1
When mechanical problems grounded Donald J. Trump’s private plane on Tuesday night in Indiana, Gov. Mike Pence seized the opportunity. The Mr. Trump had his three oldest children fly to meet him after he was unexpectedly stranded in Indianapolis, so Mr. Pence and his wife hosted the family for breakfast on Wednesday morning at the Governor’s Mansion. The families were chatting politely over coffee when Mr. Pence, a Midwesterner, delivered an uncharacteristically impassioned monologue, according to people with direct knowledge of his remarks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the meeting. With the vice presidency potentially hanging in the balance, Mr. Pence described his personal distaste for Hillary Clinton and her husband, the former president, and spoke of feeling disgusted at what he called the corruption of the 1990s. The monologue appeared to be a success. Even Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s a trusted adviser who had admired Newt Gingrich, came away swayed, believing that Mr. Pence could gel with the Trump team. Mr. Pence was not invited to join the Republican ticket that morning. But in a telephone call on Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump gave Mr. Pence a reassuring signal the job was his: “You’re my guy,” Mr. Trump told him, according to a person briefed on the conversation. Nonetheless, the courtship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence had all the caprices of a young romance. At first, Mr. Pence was standoffish and skeptical — only to become the suitor as the days wore on, fervently pursuing Mr. Trump and the No. 2 slot. And Mr. Trump’s screening process was unusually public, leaving admirers of Mr. Pence worried that he could end up being spurned or even humiliated. Having beckoned Mr. Pence to New York on Thursday, Mr. Trump nevertheless engaged in a final round of conversations with aides about whether he was ready to become partners with such a new acquaintance. Yet it was the breakfast gathering — for which Mr. Pence and his wife, Karen, picked fresh flowers — that appeared to have sealed Mr. Trump’s decision, capping a whirlwind three weeks that ended with the coupling of a former reality television star known for vulgarity with an Midwestern Republican of deeply conservative Christian faith. Mr. Pence has neither the élan nor the bravado of Mr. Trump’s other finalists, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Mr. Gingrich. But Mr. Trump, a natural showman, has described Mr. Pence to associates as someone who looks the part, straight out of “central casting” with his appearance. And Mr. Pence has admiringly called Mr. Trump “the people’s choice. ” “It is fair to describe the relationship as fairly new and quickly flourishing,” said Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser and pollster to both Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence. Still, close associates of the candidates say they are not a natural pair. David Kensinger, a Republican strategist in Kansas who has advised Mr. Pence in the past, said the Indiana governor was a privately charming man with a strict filter on the public stage. “He tends to be very formal in public, and he had a reputation when he was in Congress of being a bit stiff,” Mr. Kensinger said. “Pence is a man of ideas and manners. ” Only a few weeks ago, the partnership between Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence might have come as a surprise to both men, who had no personal relationship. They have still met with each other only a handful of times. An early and uncomfortable introduction, in the fall of 2011, came as Mr. Pence was preparing to run for governor and visited Trump Tower to seek a financial contribution from Mr. Trump. At the time, Mr. Trump was fascinated by gossip surrounding the marriage of Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, whose wife had divorced him to be with another man, and then remarried Mr. Daniels several years later. Mr. Trump declared to Mr. Pence that he would never take back a wife who had been unfaithful, according to the account of a witness. A second person briefed on the meeting described it as an awkward encounter for the Mr. Pence. Michael D. Cohen, a lawyer for Mr. Trump who attended many of his talks with politicians that year, said he did not remember the meeting that way. “Not only do I not recall this topic being discussed,” Mr. Cohen said, “it does not even sound like something Mr. Trump would ever say. ” Mr. Trump sent a check for $2, 500 to Mr. Pence’s campaign for governor, but no personal friendship blossomed. Indeed, when emissaries from the Trump campaign first reached out early this month to gauge Mr. Pence’s interest in the vice presidency, the governor told his political allies that he would meet with Mr. Trump — but only as a courtesy. Close advisers to Mr. Trump, including Paul Manafort, his campaign chairman, and Ms. Conway, the pollster for both men, were keen on the governor. Mr. Pence was less entranced by the idea. But when the two men played a round of golf over the Fourth of July weekend at a Trump club in Bedminster, N. J. they began to warm to each other. Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania, and Karen Pence came along. And the governor, seemingly sensitive to Mr. Trump’s boastful athletic later told NBC News that Mr. Trump had “beat me like a drum. ” After golf, the two couples had dinner, and Mr. Trump learned that Charlotte Pence, the governor’s daughter, had accompanied her parents on the trip to New Jersey. Mr. Trump insisted that the foursome have breakfast the next morning with Charlotte, whom he disarmingly peppered with questions about her life. “The thing I think both of these men have in common is their preferred leisure time is to spend their time with their families,” Ms. Conway said. Mrs. Pence and Mrs. Trump, she added, “connected as mothers. ” Friends noticed a shift after the holiday weekend: Mr. Pence no longer described conversations with the Trump campaign as a pro forma affair. Instead, he advised his allies that a spot on the national ticket, if offered, would be a hard prize to turn down. There were other signs, too, that the two men might be able to forge a partnership. They met again in April, at the Indiana Governor’s Mansion in advance of the state’s primary contest. The goal for Mr. Trump was to keep Mr. Pence neutral, at minimum, before the vote. (In a cruel irony for Mr. Christie, it was the New Jersey governor, then an adviser to Mr. Trump who had yet to become a rival to Mr. Pence for the nomination, who brokered the meeting.) The conversation was perfunctory but pleasant, and Mr. Christie told associates afterward that Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence had hit it off. Mr. Pence ultimately endorsed Senator Ted Cruz of Texas shortly before the primary, but he did not lash out at Mr. Trump or question his qualifications for office — a significant point Pence allies would later make. Mr. Pence impressed in other ways. Mr. Trump and some of his family members were delighted that the governor’s vetting check was completed quickly, with no red flags. For Mr. Trump, whose life has played out on the pages of New York’s tabloids, Mr. Pence’s lack of personal baggage came as a relief. And the other contenders had problems. The scandal over the shutdown of the George Washington Bridge was potentially hobbling to Mr. Christie Mr. Gingrich, a “pirate,” had a marital history equally colorful to Mr. Trump’s Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa was inexperienced and evoked unflattering comparisons to Sarah Palin Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee had a rough audition with Mr. Trump and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama would face scrutiny of his record on race. On Tuesday, after Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence campaigned together, and Mr. Trump’s plane breakdown left him stranded in Indiana, the unlikely partners had an impromptu dinner at the Capital Grille. And at some point during the evening, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Pence if he would say yes, were Mr. Trump to offer him the No. 2 slot. “In a heartbeat,” Mr. Pence replied.	1
Calling Trump Moscow’s favorite is nonsense created by media – Putin Calling Trump Moscow’s favorite is nonsense created by media – Putin By 0 71 The idea that Russia has a favorite in the US election was deliberately created by the media, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, adding that Moscow is “largely unconcerned” about the outcome of the vote and is ready to work with any future president. “The image [that Russia supports a candidate in the US presidential election] was created by the media,” Putin said at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi on Thursday, adding that it was done deliberately and on purpose. Read more “This idea was planted into the US public consciousness… with only one goal… to protect the interests of the Democratic candidate in her competition with the candidate of the Republicans, in this case – with Mr. Trump,” the Russian president stressed. The US media “first portrayed Russia as an enemy and then said that Trump is our [Russia’s] favorite,” Putin said, denouncing these tactics as “absolute nonsense.” “This is complete and utter rubbish, and it is just a method of internal political struggle, as well as a way of manipulating the public consciousness ahead of the US presidential elections,” he added. He went on to say that Russia is not interested in a victory of any particular candidate and is ready to cooperate with any of them. “Generally speaking, we are more or less unconcerned about it,” the Russian leader said. At the same time, he stressed that Russia welcomes words and intentions concerning normalization of relations between the US and Russia, “whoever expresses them.” He also said that it is “hard” to work with the current US administration as it does not fulfill its obligations under any agreements, adding that Russia is ready to start working with a new US president. Trump’s extravagant behavior is thought-out political strategy Donald Trump “has chosen his own method to get through to voters’ hearts,” Vladimir Putin said at a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, adding that the Republican candidate must have a reason behind his extravagant behavior. Read more “He [Trump] just represents ordinary people and portrays himself as an ordinary guy, who criticizes those who have been in power for decades,” Putin said, adding that only voting will show if this strategy is effective. At the same time, Putin stressed once again that Moscow will work with every US president who is chosen by the US people and is willing to cooperate with Russia. Earlier, Putin also dismissed all accusations concerning Moscow’s alleged meddling in the US presidential elections, saying that the ‘Russian card’ was used during the election campaign to distract voters from the real internal problems of the US. He also sharply criticized the US and the EU for attempts to portray Moscow as an enemy and stressed that “Russia is not going to attack anybody.” Putin and Russia have often been mentioned during the US presidential race. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has not only accused Donald Trump of being actively supported by Moscow, but also claimed that WikiLeaks, which repeatedly released documents hacked from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta and the Democratic National Convention, of working for the Kremlin. Via RT . This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.	0
Increasingly affordable and easy to do, immersion cooking has become trendy among food nerds who want precise control over the doneness of their meats. Sous vide, which means “under vacuum” in French, involves sealing food in an airtight bag and giving it a bath. A cylindrical gadget gently circulates and heats the water to a precise, consistent temperature, allowing the food to reach the exact temperature the cook desires without the risk of overcooking. Its advocates say the method is the key to attaining a piece of meat that is uniformly tender and juicy inside. But gosh, it can take forever. Enthusiasts who sing the praises of sous vide often try to indoctrinate home cooks with the holy grail of recipes: the perfect steak. Set the device to heat up the water to around 129 degrees, immerse the bagged steak in the water and, like magic, you have a steak that is perfectly all the way through, not just in the center. Give it a sear to brown the crust, and it’s close to something you would get at a steakhouse. Glossed over in that sales pitch is the part where sous vide takes at least an hour to cook the steak, or up to 10 times longer than it would using conventional methods, like a stove or grill. Herein lies the problem. Yes, cooking sous vide is more affordable than ever, with devices ranging from $100 to $300, but the technique may feel impractical and inaccessible to the average home cook, particularly one with a demanding schedule. The plethora of recipes published online are largely aimed at perfectionist cooks who have time on their hands. But what if sous vide actually made life easier for the home cook, even on weeknights? J. Kenji the managing culinary director of the website Serious Eats and the author of “The Food Lab,” a cookbook about the science of cooking, said that the machine could leave the realm of specialty cooking and enter the world of convenience if people just planned ahead weekly or monthly. “Most people, when they think about dinner, say, ‘What can I get at the grocery store now and get going tonight? ’” he said. “It requires a lot more forethought. ” It also requires bigger thinking — as in bigger than a single steak. To fit sous vide into his schedule, Grant Crilly, a founder of ChefSteps, a recipe website and technology company in Seattle that is devoted to the cooking method, turns to two economical cuts of meat, the pork shoulder or beef chuck roast, which cost roughly $4 to $10 a pound at a grocery store and are far less expensive than buying a comparable number of steaks. Mr. Crilly, a chef who was part of the team that produced Nathan Myhrvold’s “Modernist Cuisine” cookbook, cooks the meat sous vide for 24 hours, and then divides it into steaks. Each steak gets sealed in a plastic sandwich bag and moved to the freezer, creating a protein stockpile that can be easily transformed into delectable meals. When Mr. Crilly is ready to cook, he transfers the meat straight from the freezer into heated water and waits about 75 minutes for it to thaw. It’s kind of like gourmet astronaut food. From there, it’s up to the home cook’s imagination how to use the beef or pork. There’s the obvious, like a juicy boneless pork chop or beef steak: Add seasoning and give it a sear on the stove. Instant ramen can be upgraded into a chashu pork ramen. For taco night, grab the tortillas, slice the meat and fry it with some salt, pepper and onion. Pork shoulder and beef chuck are very tough cuts that are typically until they collapse into : think pulled pork or pot roast. But cooking them sous vide does something special. The muscles in the shoulders are among the most actively used, which means the cut contains more collagen and flavor than the more tender options in the butcher case. A long bath breaks down the collagens while keeping the texture of the meat intact. The softened collagens act like a lubricant in your mouth. The result is a beef or pork steak that tastes even juicier and more flavorful than a or pork chop — as tender as you can imagine, but not falling apart until it hits your tongue, Mr. Crilly said. “Cook it slow, unlock all that really beautiful flavor, and you’ve got a really nice piece of meat,” he said. And starting dinner prep with a versatile piece of meat that’s already cooked through, tender and flavorful is a boon to any home cook. “You end up with this instant upgrade to any dish,” Mr. Crilly said. He added that one night, when he and his wife returned exhausted from a long day of work, he reheated a frozen pork chop using sous vide, diced the meat into cubes and quickly it with vegetables for a satisfying dinner. The caveat is that 24 hours to cook a large slab of meat is a long time. Also, thawing frozen meat in a bath, as Mr. Crilly does, takes at least an hour. But to him, the is worth it. One day of prep work yields a few months’ worth of protein that can be quickly paired with items already in his refrigerator or pantry. The actual cooking is unattended and extraordinarily forgiving. It’s all but impossible to overcook meat sous vide, because the water bath stays at the temperature that you want the food to reach. And during that hour it takes a frozen steak to thaw, Mr. Crilly bakes potatoes or throws together a salad. With some forethought, you can even save yourself a little time before dinner. In the morning, you could heat a pot of water with the machine, throw in a frozen beef or pork steak and let it cook all day. By the time you get home, the meat is ready to be seared and devoured. Or you could do as Mr. does. In the morning, he moves some of the raw salmon or halibut pieces he keeps in the freezer to the refrigerator to let them thaw throughout the day. When his wife gets home from work, he turns on his device and throws the fish in the pot for 30 minutes to cook it. “It probably takes you about the same amount of effort to turn on the device and put the food in there as it does to place a delivery order with your phone,” he said.	1
By BAR editor and columnist, Dr. Marsha Adebayo T he “revolving, rigged system” that purports to be American democracy was revealed in all its corporate vulgarity on a Baltimore university stage, last week. Two U.S. Senate candidates of the duopoly parties pretended to support the Green Party’s candidate’s right to join the debate, but failed to protest when cops hauled her away. “This was their ‘Rosa Parks’ moment when they could have stood for integrity and democracy” — but failed the test. “The corporate media and the political duopoly collaborated to ensure that the Green Party message would not be heard.” US corruption during this campaign season is on full display for the entire world to ponder. No one paying even scant attention can deny the thin veneer that is used to hide state sponsored police murder of Africans, structural poverty and the cozy relationship between the 1% rulers in the Democratic and Republican parties. Green Party candidates, such as Jill Stein, Ajamu Baraka and Margaret Flowers have forced sunlight’s disinfectant power to expose a rigged, racist and revolting political system that politically and economically devours communities of color, condones police murders of Black youth, intentionally exposes communities, like Flint, Michigan, to poisoned water, promotes drone warfare and the pilfering of the natural resources of Africa and South America. The system, however is finding it more difficult to block out the voices of dissent. Such was the situation this week at the University of Baltimore College of Public Affairs where Dr. Margaret Flowers, the Green Party candidate for the Maryland US Senate seat, was refused the opportunity to participate in the only televised debate alongside Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen and Republican state Del. Kathy Szeliga. The corporate media and the political duopoly collaborated to ensure that the Green Party message would not be heard. The sham excuse used to exclude Flowers was that her poll numbers had not reached 15%. But, of course it is difficult to reach the magic number of 15% in the polls when one is systematically excluded from debates and public events. This is the revolving rigged system that Black people know so well. “When the police came to escort her off the stage neither candidate provided a meaningful protest of the anti-democratic process unfolding.” When the rigged debate started, audience members called for Dr. Flowers to join Van Hollen and Szeliga. Shouts of “let her speak” could be heard from the audience. Responding to the audience, Dr. Flowers took her place on the stage shaking hands with both candidates. Standing on the stage, she turned her attention to the audience and said: “I think it’s important for voters to understand the differences between myself and Congressman Van Hollen and Delegate Szeliga.” With the police moving on stage to remove her, she said, …”I mean, you say you’re a public university and you want to educate the public, but without having a full public discussion, that doesn’t actually happen.” While Van Hollen and Szeliga seemed to agree with Dr. Flowers participating in the debate, when the police came to escort her off the stage neither candidate provided a meaningful protest of the anti-democratic process unfolding. Delegate Szeliga noted that a third podium was available but both politicians remained silent while Dr. Flowers was forced to leave the stage. This was their “Rosa Parks” moment when they could have stood for integrity and democracy but Van Hollen and Szeliga, failed to show the smallest amount of courage, leadership and commitment to anything greater than their individual ambitions and desire for power. Margaret was escorted by police to a sidewalk outside the debate hall and that symbolically represents the state of US democracy. After church on Sunday, a sister said to me, “I know a lot of Black folks are going to vote for Hilary Clinton but I can’t vote for the lesser of two evils. I’ve decided to vote for Jill Stein. I’m going to vote my conscience!” My only response after agreeing with her analysis was to add, “Don’t forget to also vote for Margaret Flowers.“ Dr. Margaret Flowers of Green Party Interrupts Maryland Senate Televised Debate: Margaret Flowers Campaign Information: http://www.flowersforsenate.org [4] Source URL: http://blackagendareport.com/margaret_flowers_ejected_debate	1
Donald J. Trump is back at Trump Tower as his team takes shape, and he’s staying busy. ■ He invited President Rodrigo R. Duterte of the Philippines to visit the White House, despite the Filipino’s ruthless campaign of extrajudicial killings and insults to President Obama. ■ He named a new advisory team headed by the billionaire hedge fund titan Stephen A. Schwarzman. ■ He is meeting with Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, a Democrat who seems interested in a job in Mr. Trump’s cabinet, perhaps as the secretary of agriculture. Trump won the White House by pledging to be the champion of the workers in Rust Belt states — people he says have been forgotten. But that’s not the profile of those Mr. Trump has advising him on economic matters and, of course, making America great again. On Friday, he announced the creation of his Strategic and Policy Forum, headed by Mr. Schwarzman, the of Blackstone, a global investment firm, and once the face of Wall Street excess in the Recession era. Also on the panel? A who’ of the wealthiest chief executives from some of the nation’s biggest companies, among them: Mary T. Barra of General Motors, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase Company, Laurence D. Fink of BlackRock, Robert A. Iger of Disney and Virginia M. Rometty of IBM. The purpose, according to a statement released by Mr. Trump’s transition team: “To provide direct input to the president from many of the best and brightest in the business world in a frank, nonbureaucratic and nonpartisan manner. ” The liberal American Sustainable Business Council was not pleased. “Trump is doubling down on crony capitalists who don’t understand that a healthy economy requires a healthy planet and consumers with money in their pockets,” said its David Brodwin. Mr. Trump, whose unscripted telephone calls with world leaders have broken with protocol and left diplomats in Washington aghast, on Friday invited President Rodrigo R. Duterte of the Philippines to visit the White House next year, according to an aide to Mr. Duterte quoted by Reuters. Mr. Duterte, who has been criticized by the State Department for waging a bloody and ruthless antidrug campaign that has killed about 2, 000 people in the Philippines, has called President Obama a “son of a whore” and, in September, said he “can go to hell. ” The remarks prompted Mr. Obama to cancel a planned meeting with Mr. Duterte in Laos at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Mr. Trump has business and government connections in the Philippines, where he has partnered with a real estate company controlled by Jose E. B. Antonio, named in October as Mr. Duterte’s special envoy to the United States, on a $150 million office tower in Manila. Officials for Mr. Trump’s transition did not confirm the call or include it in a rundown they gave on Friday of conversations with world leaders that Mr. Trump and Vice Mike Pence had held over the past 24 hours. They did provide official accounts on Thursday of calls Mr. Trump had with the prime minister of Pakistan and the president of Kazakhstan, but those were sanitized versions of the readouts provided by those countries, which indicated that the had heaped praise on their leaders and suggested a readiness to side with them on delicate matters of diplomacy. Senator David Perdue of Georgia, a Republican and an early and vocal supporter of Mr. Trump, stopped by the microphones at Trump Tower to share his views of the legislative rush to come next year. “Job 1 is getting people put back to work — we’re talking about Obamacare, the Keystone Pipeline, the Waters in the U. S. and the Clean Power Plan,” he said, singling out the transcontinental pipeline that President Obama killed, new clean water regulations and Mr. Obama’s climate change plan. Asked about killing the Iran nuclear deal between the Islamic Republic and the western powers, he did not hide his feelings. “It’s not a treaty, it’s a presidential resolution and it can be reversed,” he said. “This is a very dangerous deal. It provides a pathway for Iran to become a nuclear power and you just cannot allow that. ” Supporters of the deal, including Mr. Obama and the governments of Britain, Japan, France, Germany and Russia say it will prevent Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, not facilitate it. Much has been said about the photo of a windblown and his tie, exposed as taped together. Well, a tall man — Brendan Buck, senior aide to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan — has come to his defense. The unemployment rate fell to 4. 6 percent in November, while payrolls rose by 178, 000, the 74th straight month of private sector gains — the longest expansion by far. Economic growth last quarter hit 3. 2 percent. Mr. Trump’s campaign painted the bleakest of portraits of the American economy, one that never really fit reality. Now, he will be taking office with a big head of steam thanks at least in part to his predecessor, President Obama. But some economic analysts greeted the news with a note of caution. “The still represents the mother of all uncertainties when it comes to domestic and foreign policies,” wrote Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist for the Economic Outlook Group. quote of the morning, from Vice Mike Pence to The New York Times: Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey may be pressing his own candidacy to be the next chairman of the Republican National Committee, but Mr. Trump, who has the final say, appears to have other ideas. A person close to Mr. Trump said the ’s allies are coalescing around Nick Ayers, a member of the transition team, to be the party’s chairman. Mercedes Schlapp, another Republican operative, is being considered for a role as . Mr. Christie called Mr. Trump to put his name forward on Thursday morning, according to Politico. That was already something of a comedown from the governor’s former job leading Mr. Trump’s transition team and his aspirations to become the attorney general. Now even the party chairmanship, which will change hands when Reince Priebus becomes Mr. Trump’s White House chief of staff, may slip out of Mr. Christie’s reach. Andrew Puzder, the chief executive of CKE Restaurants and a financial supporter of Mr. Trump’s campaign, has gained steam as a candidate to become the secretary of labor, according to a transition official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the process. Mr. Puzder, whose company oversees restaurant chains such as Hardee’s, has been extremely critical of Obama administration policies, including a push for a higher minimum wage and new overtime rules for workers who are considered management, but have few managerial responsibilities. If presidential watchers were hoping for a more presidential tone in Mr. Trump’s “victory rallies,” they didn’t see much on Thursday night in Cincinnati. “We did have a lot of fun fighting Hillary, didn’t we?” he asked. The crowd broke into the familiar chant, “Lock her up!” as the smiled and lifted a fist. Mr. Trump railed against the “extremely dishonest press” as the crowd chanted “fake news. ” And he complained that there wasn’t “the politician in Ohio,” a reference to Gov. John Kasich, who never supported Mr. Trump. Many across the nation may rally around the new commander in chief and Vice Pence, but some in the District of Columbia probably won’t. Hillary Clinton’s lead over Mr. Trump in the popular vote inched up on Thursday night to 2, 564, 276 — nearly a flat 2 percentage points. Minnesota and Massachusetts certified their totals, but votes keep trickling in from California.	1
During an interview for an upcoming episode of Breitbart News’ podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, former Utah Jazz great Karl Malone addressed the need for more respect in society and said people who purposely talk of Donald Trump in disparaging tones need to call him by his proper title — President Trump. [Malone was stressing that “respect” is a key part of gun ownership that respecting firearms is part of using them properly and safely. He then spoke more broadly and suggested that more respect is needed in all of American life. He said, “Whoever it is, like him or don’t like him, but respect the White House. Respect the President of the United States. ” Malone then addressed the way people were bothered by some of Trump’s language or statements on the campaign trail, but he said the sum of a man is more than the language he uses in a moment or the statement he makes on a given topic. He stressed that people have to have enough respect to take time and get to know the man. He spoke to the people who persist in saying “Donald Trump” as a way to ignore the office that Trump won on November 8, saying, “Call him what he is — he is the President of the United States. ” Malone added, “And I tell everyone out there that wants to protest and do all that, other countries are laughing. We are a laughingstock. Respect the White House. ” 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
WASHINGTON — In laying out his economic platform on Monday, Donald J. Trump made several assertions that glossed over the complexities of the domestic and international economy. Here are a few we checked out. Claim: “One in five American households do not have a single member in the labor force, not a single member of the household. These are the real unemployment numbers — the 5 percent figure is one of the biggest hoaxes in American modern politics. ” Fact Check: The unemployment rate was actually 4. 9 percent in July, not 5 percent. And it’s not a hoax. It is compiled by a federal agency that is respected by economists from across the political spectrum. The data, however, is incomplete. The unemployment rate measures the number of people who are actively seeking work. It does not include people who have given up in frustration, who are staying home to care for children or parents, or who have decided to retire. The evidence suggests a lot of people are still sitting on the sidelines involuntarily. Even as the unemployment rate has fallen back to a normal level, the share of adults with jobs remains unusually low. Before the recession, in July 2007, the work force included 79. 8 percent of adults ages 25 to 54. In July 2016, only 78 percent of adults in that group were working — a loss of a few million people. _____ Claim: “Finally, no family will have to pay the death tax. American workers have paid taxes their whole lives, and they should not be taxed again at death and it’s just plain wrong and most people agree with that. We will repeal it. ” Fact Check: Only a very few American workers are subject to estate taxes, and those subject to the tax are usually not termed “workers. ” Under current law, a married couple can shield up to $10. 9 million of their estate from any federal taxation. The estate tax hits roughly two of every 1, 000 American estates, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research organization. It estimated last year that a full repeal would have benefited roughly 5, 400 families in 2016. The benefit to those families, however, is considerable: an average savings of roughly $3 million. For wealthier families, like the Trumps, the savings are proportionally greater. _____ Claim: “Motor vehicle manufacturing is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country and even in the world. The U. S. economy today is 25 percent smaller than it would have been without the surge of regulations since 1980. It is estimated that current overregulation is costing our economy as much as $2 trillion a year. ” Fact Check: The auto industry is indeed heavily regulated, and regulations cost money. Federal rules, however, also have important benefits. Over the past fatality rates in automobile accidents have been halved and then halved again. In 2014, there were just 1. 08 deaths for every 100 million miles that Americans traveled. It is inherently difficult to estimate economic growth in a world that never was. Mr. Trump’s assertion is based on research published by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, which takes a dim view of regulation. Other economists regard its estimates as considerably overstated. _____ Claim: “President Obama, and the usual experts who’ve been wrong about every trade deal for decades, predicted that the trade deal with South Korea would increase our exports to South Korea by more than $10 billion — resulting in some 70, 000 jobs. Like Hillary Clinton’s broken promises to New York, these pledges all turned out to be false. Instead of creating 70, 000 jobs, it has killed nearly 100, 000 jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Our exports to South Korea haven’t increased at all, but their imports to us have surged. ” Fact Check: The early results of the free trade agreement between the United States and South Korea, which took effect in 2012, have fallen short of the administration’s predictions. South Korea bought $43. 5 billion in American exports in 2011 last year, exports totaled $43. 4 billion. And Korean imports have increased. Circumstances have played a role. The strength of the dollar has weighed on global demand for American goods, while increasing American demand for foreign goods. Also, the agreement called for some import barriers to be reduced gradually. The proposed Partnership, however, is partly an attempt to improve existing deals with South Korea and other Asian countries. There is evidence, for example, that South Korea has suppressed the value of its currency in recent years — but nothing in the current trade agreement prohibits South Korea from doing so. The proposed deal seeks to discourage that kind of currency manipulation. _____ Claim: “My plan will also help reduce the cost of child care by allowing parents to fully deduct the average cost of child care spending from their taxes. ” Fact Check: Mr. Trump is proposing a new tax deduction, meaning that people would not pay taxes on a portion of their income used for child care expenses. (The tax code currently allows a married couple to set aside up to $5, 000 in pretax income for child care expenses, or to claim a credit that reduces taxes owed on up to $6, 000 in child care expenses.) While he did not provide details, his new deduction would likely benefit a narrow group. The government lets all Americans reduce taxable income by a fixed amount. This standard deduction is $9, 300 in 2016. People who spend more on certain things, like mortgage interest or hospital bills — or, in Mr. Trump’s plan, child care bills — can itemize those expenses and claim a larger deduction. But only 30 percent of American households itemized deductions in 2013, the most recent year for which I. R. S. data is available. As one might expect, households that itemized deductions mostly had incomes above $75, 000 a year. Mr. Trump’s plan might increase the share of households that itemize because it would add a new category to the list of eligible expenses. But the bulk of the benefits almost certainly would accrue to wealthy families who spend the most money on child care, and who already incur other large deductible expenses.	1
WASHINGTON — One of the biggest worldwide public health triumphs in recent years has been maternal mortality. Global death rates fell by more than a third from 2000 to 2015. The United States, however, is one of the few countries in the world that have gone against the grain, new data show. Its maternal mortality rate has risen despite improvements in health care and an overwhelming global trend in the other direction. The United States has become an outlier among rich nations in maternal deaths, according to data released Wednesday by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, a research group funded by the Gates Foundation and based at the University of Washington. There were 28 maternal deaths — defined as deaths due to complications from pregnancy or childbirth — per 100, 000 births in the United States in 2013, up from 23 in 2005, the institute found. The rate in 2013, the most recent year for which the institute had detailed data for the United States, was more than triple Canada’s. The institute is projecting that the American rate dipped in the last two years to 25 by 2015. Increases were extremely rare among rich countries. In all, 24 countries had one from 2000 to 2015, including South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, though their rates were much higher. America’s increase put it above a number of poorer countries whose rates had declined with the global trend, including Iran, Vietnam, Russia and Romania. In all, the American rate was up by more than half since 1990, according to the institute, which uses many data sources, including countries’ vital records systems, to calculate hundreds of health measures. The findings are part of a gathering body of evidence on the dismal numbers for maternal mortality among American women and how they keep getting worse. This summer, a group of researchers published an analysis that found that the maternal mortality rate had increased by 27 percent for 48 states and the District of Columbia from 2000 to 2014. In Texas, analyzed separately, it had nearly doubled. Another analysis this month looked at increases by state and found particularly high rates in the District of Columbia, New Jersey, Georgia and Arkansas, especially among black women. (The absolute rate can vary by data set, but the upward trend has been clear.) How is it that the United States, a country with some of the most medical treatments, has some of the worst maternal mortality rates in the developed world? Most people imagine maternal mortality as deaths such as hemorrhage in childbirth or death from eclampsia, a condition involving high blood pressure. Those types of deaths still happen, but their rate has not changed much. Instead, the increase in recent years has been driven by heart problems and other chronic medical conditions, like diabetes, which has increased sharply in the population. Researchers have theorized that an increase in obesity — particularly acute among poor black women, who have much higher rates of maternal mortality than whites — may be contributing to the problem. “The really scary thing to us is all the deaths from cardiovascular disease and heart failure,” said Dr. William Callaghan, who runs the Maternal and Infant Health Branch in the Division of Reproductive Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It’s a quarter of all deaths. There were almost none in the remote past. ” Maternal deaths are notoriously hard to count. There is often not enough detail on a death certificate to tell if the death was related to pregnancy. For example, if a woman dies from heart failure six months after she gives birth, it can sometimes take a special analysis to determine if it was pregnancy related (deaths can be counted up to a year after birth, though the vast majority happen in the first six weeks). In 2003, the federal government asked states to report in the same way, and most eventually complied. Some have argued that the United States simply keeps better track now, counting deaths that would not have been included before. But federal health officials say the increase is more than just accounting. “The rise is real,” Dr. Callaghan said. Maternal mortality was relatively flat in the 1980s and 1990s, and most experts agree that the increases began around 2000. The trend has puzzled researchers and prompted a number of states to start maternal death review boards, groups of experts who sift through the deaths and consider policy changes that might reduce them. Such boards, used in Australia, Britain and a number of other European countries, are considered crucial in understanding, and potentially reversing, the trend. But only about half the states have them. “The first time I saw our results for the United States, I thought there must be some error,” said Dr. Nicholas J. Kassebaum, an assistant professor of anesthesiology and pain medicine at Seattle Children’s Hospital, who is the director of maternal and child health research at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation. “I actually started looking for what went wrong in the data processing. ” Dr. Kassebaum said it was possible that the United States was simply ahead of other rich countries in the fallout from its obesity epidemic and that chronic conditions could eventually figure more prominently into the maternal mortality numbers of other countries, too. The American health system is good at handling situations during birth, such as hemorrhage, he said, but chronic conditions are different. “It can be tricky to track down what will trigger major complications such as heart failure or a blocked artery,” he said, pointing out that women of childbearing age are by definition young and very unlikely to die at all, never mind of a chronic condition. Nor was the new trend of increased pregnancy rates in older women the main driver. Dr. Kassebaum said that he did find a substantial increase in maternal mortality among women 45 and older, but that there had been increases in all age groups. Eugene Declercq, a professor of community health sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health who has tracked maternal mortality for years, said the racial disparities in the American rates were deeply troubling, but only part of the story. “People may think this is happening because the U. S. has more minorities and poor people,” he said. “But even if you limit the analysis to whites, we would still rank behind all other industrialized countries. ”	1
Sen. Chuck Schumer ( ) used his first speech as Senate Minority Leader to attack Donald Trump’s use of Twitter — repeating a theme that Democrats and the media used often during the 2016 presidential campaign, to no real effect. [Schumer’s speech, which was hailed by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer for its toughness, laid out an opposition agenda that included holding Trump accountable for promises to change Washington. And Schumer warned Trump that Twitter would not suffice: So, Mr. President, the issues facing this country are many. We have a lot of work to do — creating jobs, raising incomes, making college and health care affordable, rebuilding our infrastructure, making trade laws work for the American worker, keeping Americans safe from threats of violence and terrorism, taking care of our vets. Now, each one takes serious thought and action. These issues are too important for mere words, our challenges too entrenched for mere tweeting. Making America great again requires more than 140 characters per issue. With all due respect, America cannot afford a Twitter presidency. We have real challenges and we have real needs to get things done. Many Americans are afraid, Mr. that instead of rolling up your sleeves and forging serious policies, for you, Twitter suffices. There’s nothing wrong with using Twitter to speak to the American people. It’s a good use of modern media. But these issues are complex and demand both careful consideration and action. We cannot tweet them away. Later, Schumer added: “America doesn’t conduct foreign policy by Tweet. ” However, the Obama administration frequently has used Twitter to conduct foreign policy. For example, under Obama, the State Department used a Twitter account, “Think Again Turn Away,” to counter propaganda from the Islamic State. The Obama administration also used Twitter hashtag campaigns, such as “#UnitedforUkraine” and “#BringBackOurGirls,” to confront various foreign policy crises. To echo @BarackObama to stand #UnitedForUkraine World should stand together with one voice pic. twitter. — John Kirby (@statedeptspox) March 26, 2014, Our prayers are with the missing Nigerian girls and their families. It’s time to #BringBackOurGirls. pic. twitter. — The First Lady (@FLOTUS) May 7, 2014, Few Democrats criticized such uses of social media, or indeed President Barack Obama’s other social media forays, such as interviews with YouTube stars and adventures with a selfie stick in the White House. In a further irony, Schumer Tweeted to promote his speech. … he tweeted. https: . — Joel B. Pollak (@joelpollak) January 3, 2017, Update: Schumer’s criticism came the same day that Trump used Twitter to push back against, and reverse, a House Republican decision to change the rules governing the Office of Congressional Ethics. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.	0
TEL AVIV — Moving the U. S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would end the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat warned on Saturday. [“We believe that moving the U. S. embassy to Jerusalem would mean the end of the peace process,” said Erekat, who is also of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) during a World Economic Forum meeting at the Dead Sea in Jordan on Saturday. Erekat’s warning is the latest of a series of similar declarations from Arab and Muslim leaders. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is slated to meet with Trump in Bethlehem on Tuesday, said in January that if Trump moves the embassy, it will “destroy the peace process. ” Abbas’ senior aide and the PA’s supreme Sharia judge Mahmoud stated that an embassy transfer would be a “declaration of war. ” And earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Erdogan said it would be “extremely ” for Trump to move the embassy. Erekat said a Palestinian state without eastern Jerusalem as its capital would have “no meaning. ” He also expressed his hope that “President Trump would give us a chance. ” “He said … he will not impose solutions on us or on the Israelis,” Erekat said. “(But) the fact that he is going to move the embassy is imposition, is dictation. ” Erekat also met with opposition member Tzipi Livni (Zionist Union) — his counterpart in negotiations — and the two expressed their hope that Trump would be successful in his efforts to jumpstart the moribund peace process. The new U. S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, welcomed the notion of an embassy relocation but said the decision was ultimately Trump’s. The president’s visit to Israel will coincide with Jerusalem Day, marking the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem since the 1967 defensive war and speculation has been rife that the president will use the opportunity to announce an embassy relocation. However, on Wednesday a senior administration official told the Times of Israel that the decision “wouldn’t be immediate” and “a final decision hadn’t been made. ” Earlier in the day, a White House official told Bloomberg that considering the upcoming attempts to restart the peace talks, moving the embassy would be . “We don’t think it would be wise to do it at this time,” he said. “We’ve been very clear what our position is and what we would like to see done, but we’re not looking to provoke anyone when everyone’s playing really nice. ” A waiver for the congressional mandate on an embassy transfer has been signed every six months by consecutive U. S. presidents since 1995. The next date for that waiver is June 1.	0
The City of Huntington Beach, California has vowed to fight an effort by attorney Kevin Shenkman to force it to abandon an system of voting in favor of a district system. [Shenkman has waged a campaign against dozens of cities in Southern California for the past several years, using a law called the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) to challenge election systems as racist. Most cities have capitulated in recent years. The CVRA allows plaintiffs to “prove” that white voters vote as a racial bloc to exclude minority candidates simply by claiming that a minority candidate might have won but for the fact of being outvoted by the racial majority. The burden of proof is very low. In addition, the law allows successful plaintiffs to recover costs from the cities they sue, if they win — but cities are not allowed to recover their own legal costs from plaintiffs if they prevail in court. In 2012, the City of Palmdale, in Los Angeles County, fought Shenkman in court, and ultimately was forced to pay $4. 5 million in a settlement. That experience has been enough to scare many other municipalities away from a fight. But Huntington Beach, located in Orange County, has become the second city in recent months to fight Shankman. The other is liberal Santa Monica, which Shankman alleges has a voting system that discriminates against Latinos, even though the current mayor is Hispanic. The Orange County Register reports: “We are prepared to vigorously defend any lawsuit,” City Attorney Michael Gates wrote in a May 18 response to the letter’s claim the city’s elections were “racially polarizing, resulting in minority vote dilution. ” … Gates refuted the notion that the city’s elections create a “racially polarized” process. Gates noted Thursday he had received unanimous backing from the mayor and City Council in closed session and was prepared to defend the city on an array of fronts, ranging from the city’s demographic diversity to the constitutionality of the voting act as applied to Huntington Beach. … Beyond factual disagreements, Gates said “there are also legal arguments where we believe the (voting rights act) has vulnerabilities, and past cases have even discussed that. ” The CVRA was once declared unconstitutional by a state court, but that decision was overturned on appeal. Since then, the Supreme Court has invalidated part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on the grounds that evidence of racial discrimination must be shown in order to justify federal “preclearance” of voting changes in certain states. Photo: file	0
Ellis Morning Editor Once upon a time, a client contacted Trick R. and asked him to figure out why files were disappearing from their website. The seemingly innocent task proved to be a swan-dive into a sewer of bad PHP, unsanitized user input, and plain-text passwords stored in the database, among other vulnerabilities. However, the following conditional took the cake for awfulness. What better way to ensure a record is really gone than by running the DELETE query a bunch of times? if( $_REQUEST['task'] == "delete_single" && preg_match("/^([0-9]+)$/", $_REQUEST['id'], $reg) ) { $qry = " delete from department where id=".$_REQUEST['id']; mysql_query( $qry ); $qry = " delete from department where id=".$_REQUEST['id']; mysql_query( $qry ); $qry = " delete from department where id=".$_REQUEST['id']; mysql_query( $qry ); $qry = " delete from department where id=".$_REQUEST['id']; mysql_query( $qry ); $qry = " delete from department where id=".$_REQUEST['id']; mysql_query($qry); $qry1="select * from department where id ='".$_REQUEST['id']."'"; $query=mysql_query($qry1); while($data=mysql_fetch_array($query)){ $qry = "delete from department where id=".$data['id']; mysql_query( $qry ); $qry = " delete from department where id=".$data['id']; mysql_query( $qry ); } $qry = " delete from department where id='".$_REQUEST['id']."'"; mysql_query( $qry ); $qry2="select * from department_login where pid ='".$_REQUEST['id']."'"; $query=mysql_query($qry2); while($data=mysql_fetch_array($query)){ $qry = "delete from department_login where pid=".$data['id']; mysql_query( $qry ); $qry = " delete from department_login where pid=".$data['id']; mysql_query( $qry ); } $qry = " delete from department_login where pid='".$_REQUEST['id']."'"; mysql_query( $qry ); $qry3="select * from files where pid ='".$_REQUEST['id']."'"; $query=mysql_query($qry3); while($data=mysql_fetch_array($query)){ $qry = "delete from files where pid=".$data['id']; mysql_query( $qry ); $qry = " delete from files where pid=".$data['id']; mysql_query( $qry ); } $qry = " delete from files where pid='".$_REQUEST['id']."'"; mysql_query( $qry ); $qry4="select * from pdf where pid ='".$_REQUEST['id']."'"; $query=mysql_query($qry4); while($data=mysql_fetch_array($query)){ $qry = "delete from pdf where pid=".$data['id']; mysql_query( $qry ); $qry = " delete from pdf where pid=".$data['id']; mysql_query( $qry ); } $qry = " delete from pdf where pid='".$_REQUEST['id']."'"; mysql_query( $qry ); $errorMsg = " Record deleted successfully !! "; } [Advertisement] Infrastructure as Code built from the start with first-class Windows functionality and an intuitive, visual user interface. Download Otter today!	0
MSNBC terrorism analyst Malcolm Nance reacted on “AM Joy” to the report that President Donald Trump’s Jared Kushner is a focus of the investigation into possible Russian interference with the 2016 election. Although Nance admitted that it is not known if the Russians “penetrated” the White House, he said we have to assume they have. “We should be taking this seriously,” Nance told host Joy Reid. “It sounds amusing when we’re talking on the panel, but I feel that we’re standing to danger right now with this situation. Everyone needs clearances pulled in that office right now. We do not know if the Russians have penetrated the oval office and we have to assume that they have because right now the Russians could have flooded the zone from December 1st until now, trying to pick up on all of the other people in the office who may have worked with Jared Kushner who may be amenable to recruitment. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent	0
Days after the government of Venezuela published a bizarre “proof of life” video of a man claiming to be opposition leader Leopoldo López, his wife and attorneys say they have yet to be allowed to see him in person. [The Organization of American States (OAS) has stepped in, demanding that its head, Luis Almagro, be allowed to meet with López in person. López has been in solitary confinement for over a month and his health status remains a mystery. On Wednesday evening, Senator Marco Rubio ( ) confirmed on Twitter that he had information that López’s health was in “very serious” condition and had been transferred to a military hospital. The government responded by denying the rumors and airing the video in question. Almagro made his demand to be allowed into Venezuela and confirm López’s wellbeing on Twitter, following nearly two days of speculation that the opposition leader, who turned 46 in prison last week, may be close to losing his life. I demand to visit @leopoldolopez based on the commitments that #Venezuela has with the System of Human Rights @OAS_official pic. twitter. — Luis Almagro (@Almagro_OEA2015) May 4, 2017, “The government of Venezuela has refused to confirm political prisoner Leopoldo López’s state of health,” Almagro added. Almagro has long been a thorn in the side of the Venezuelan government, using his power as the head of the regional organization to demand that Venezuela adhere to the OAS’s democratic charter. The organization has a right to suspend or expel nations that do not adhere to democratic standards, as it did with Cuba in the 1960s. In response to pressure from the OAS to adhere to its own constitution and hold presidential elections, the Venezuelan government officially petitioned to leave the group altogether last week. Venezuela’s withdrawal from the OAS would take at least two years, however, which means Almagro is in his right to demand to see López. On Thursday night, protesters held a candlelight vigil outside the notorious Ramo Verde prison in which López is serving a sentence for organizing peaceful protests in 2014. Leading the vigil was Lilian Tintori, his wife, and Antonieta López, his mother, who say they have not been permitted to visit López in over a month and demand to see him in person and confirm his good health. The government has also barred López’s attorneys from visiting him. Tintori posted regular updates on Twitter from the gates of Ramo Verde, confirming that the government had dispatched a line of soldiers to block her and supporters from crossing into the prison. 11:18 pm DENUNCIO estoy en la cárcel militar de Ramo Verde, no me dejan pasar. Leopoldo López tiene 32 días incomunicado. pic. twitter. — Lilian Tintori (@liliantintori) May 5, 2017, “I denounce — I am at the Ramo Verde military prison, they do not let me in,” she wrote on Twitter. “Leopoldo López has been incommunicado 32 days. ” In addition to calls from Almagro to allow international observers to confirm López’s health status, the opposition leader’s father, Leopoldo López Gil, has requested that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) send a representative to Venezuela to check on his son. Other international organizations, such as Amnesty International, have weighed in to demand López be allowed to see his family. On Wednesday night, news spread on social media that López’s condition at the prison had deteriorated so much that he had been transferred to a military hospital. Shortly after those rumors began, National Assembly minority leader and suspected drug kingpin Diosdado Cabello, who was hosting a live state television program at the time, announced that López — who he referred to as “the Ramo Verde monster” — was healthy and published a bizarre video of a man claiming to be López confirming his good health. The man in the video appeared significantly muscular and wore a belt around his waist, which some on social media noted would violate the rules of Ramo Verde. He also appeared to be in daylight, while claiming the time of the video to be 9:00PM local. Tintori denounced the video as “false” on Twitter and wrote, “The only proof of life we accept is to see Leopoldo. ”	1
Home / Be The Change / Government Corruption / Govt Corruption So Rampant, FBI Buys Billboards Asking Public to Rat Out Criminal State Agents Govt Corruption So Rampant, FBI Buys Billboards Asking Public to Rat Out Criminal State Agents Andrew Emett January 30, 2016 112 Comments Albany, NY – Instead of issuing Amber alerts for missing children or escaped fugitives, New York billboards are now asking government employees and ordinary civilians to report any state corruption directly to the FBI. Since 2012, at least 17 corrupt New York lawmakers have left office due to ethical or criminal issues. Earlier this month, billboards appeared along interstates throughout the capital city urging citizens to report corrupt politicians instead of drunk drivers. The FBI along with the New York Public Corruption Task Force and state Attorney General set up the billboards in an effort to delve deeper into the systemic subornation plaguing Albany. Prior to posting the anti-corruption billboards in New York, the FBI erected them last year in Connecticut and Kentucky. “The public plays an integral role in helping law enforcement root out corruption,” Andrew Vale, the FBI’s special agent in charge at the Albany division, told the Associated Press . “Which is why we try to make it easier to come forward and report suspected abuse.” But Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, a Manhattan Democrat who once headed the Assembly Ethics Committee, explained to the NY Daily News , “It seems to me that if someone is aware of corruption in any form, they don’t need a billboard to tell them. It’s not like the people don’t know what the FBI is and what they’ve been doing. But maybe I’m wrong.” In the last four years, at least 17 New York lawmakers have left office due to criminal or ethical issues. On December 11, 2015, former New York State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his son, Adam Skelos, were convicted of fraud, extortion, and soliciting bribes. On November 30, 2015, former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was convicted of seven counts, including conspiracy, fraud, extortion, and accepting roughly $4 million in bribes and kickbacks. On November 24, 2015, former New York State Senator Tom Libous was sentenced to six months of house arrest for lying to an FBI agent. On September 14, 2015, former New York State Assemblyman William Scarborough was sentenced to prison for wire fraud and theft. On July 24, 2015, New York State Senator John Sampson was convicted of obstruction of justice and making false statements to federal agents. Last summer, former FBI agent and New York Congressman, Michael Grimm, was sentenced to eight months in prison after pleading guilty to tax fraud. In connection with his guilty plea, Grimm admitted to exploiting immigrant workers, underreporting wages, and repeatedly lying under oath. Grimm was also caught on video threatening to throw NY1-TV reporter Michael Scotto off the balcony of the U.S. Capitol building and break him in half. Assemblymen Micah Kellner, Dennis Gabryszak, and Vito Lopez either resigned or failed to seek re-election due to allegations of sexual harassment. Assemblymen William Boyland Jr. and Eric Stevenson along with State Senator Carl Kruger were convicted of multiple counts of bribery. At least 34 New York legislators have left office due to corruption or misconduct since 2000, including 17 corrupt state officials since 2012. As Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell explained, “Anybody who is a lawmaker who is unaware that the FBI is looking at us has other cognitive problems.” With a pervasive culture of corruption, New York now apparently requires billboards to remind government employees and civilians that the FBI desperately needs their help in catching the plethora of crooked politicians. Heaven forbid someone might take it upon themselves to tackle government abuse without the FBI’s assistance. The last contracted government employee to try that was Ed Snowden. Andrew Emett is a Los Angeles-based reporter exposing political and corporate corruption. His interests include national security, corporate abuse, and holding government officials accountable. Andrew’s work has appeared on Raw Story, Alternet, Activist Post, and many other sites. You can follow him on Twitter @AndrewEmett and on Facebook at Andrew Emett . Share	1
+++ Steht ganz neben sich: Klonforscher nach erfolgreichem Experiment überwältigt +++ +++ Die Kriminalpolizei brät: Bitte Türen und Fenster geschlossen halten +++ +++ Auch wenn's schwefelt: Vulkanologe muss zur Arbeit +++ +++ Hat einen Schatten: Psychisch Kranker leidet an Verfolgungswahn +++ +++ "Docht!": Kölner zeigt Freundin, wo man die Kerze anzünden muss +++ +++ Versunken: Keine Spur von alter Kultur dichtender Kröten +++ +++ Mal wieder keinen abbekommen: Domina geht nach Fesselspielen allein nach Hause +++ rbo, kop, tsc, oga, tom/sod, bbr, lou Jetzt bestellen! Der Postillon-Newsticker-Kalender 2017 (nur 9,99€): Der Postillon: +++ Newsticker +++ Artikel teilen:	0
FBI Plan B fails: Clinton to be next president 07.11.2016 The FBI Director James Comey notified the US Congressmen that presidential nominee from the Democratic Party Hillary Clinton would not be prosecuted because of revelations connected with her e-mail. As Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, reported, 'FBI Dir just informed us 'Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Sec Clinton'. As Pravda.Ru reported, in late October the FBI Director James Comey announced that there were detected new e-mails of Clinton, which required additional investigations. The investigation got 'very high priority' level, and the FBI said that they had managed to gather a lot of evidence. Experts believe it indicates that Hillary Clinton will be the next president. It should be noted that corresponding is not the only trespass of Clinton. The US authorities always denied that monarchies of the Persian Gulf funded Jihadists, asserting that support came from rich donors of those countries. As it is evidenced in the e-mails of a member of the Clinton's campaign John Podesta, they lied. Moreover, it was found out that the US presidential candidate had created a weapons mafia for personal profit. Pravda.Ru	0
Email I was in London last weekend to view a play, ‘When Nobody Returns’ . The play, written by British writer Brian Woolland and jointly produced by Border Crossings , Ramallah-based Ashtar Theatre and Central School of Speech and Drama , tells the Greek myth known to many of Homer’s ‘Odyssey’. A mixed cast of Palestinian and British actors delivered a riveting performance of poise and emotion. The classic text rings clear, intermingled with language we all hear every day and sets that those who know the story of the Palestinians and other downtrodden people will recognise. The inspired use of a variety of sets at differing levels and positions in the theatre in Acklam Village brings the audience right in to the heart of the drama and to the edge of their seats. The analogues nature of the occupation of Ithaka, at the heart of the play, to the story of Palestinians is clear throughout the play yet not overwrought. I have been a supporter of the Palestinian cause since I became politically aware in my mid-teens. This political awakening took place during the post 9-11 atmosphere in the west. As US troops draped the star spangled banner upon and tore down Saddam’s statue in Firdos Square in Baghdad, the Second Intifada raged across the Palestinian territories and Israel. As Bob Dylan once sung, we live in a political world. As I have learnt more about the history and present occupation of Palestinian land, I have always felt that the drive to free the Palestinians of their daily humiliation at the hands of the Israeli state should be led by Palestinians. Productions such as ‘When Nobody Returns’ provide agency to Palestinians, those Palestinians who still grind out an existence on the West Bank and Gaza and those in exile, to tell their fundamental story of loss, betrayal, despair and ultimately strength. You can see and feel this strength in the performances of the actors. Iman Aoun, who plays Penelope Odysseus’s wife, exudes the granite and dignified exterior of a war widow who refuses to be beaten by the occupier. If you are a supporter of Palestinian human rights and enjoy theatre of the highest quality I encourage you to plan a visit to see ‘When Nobody Returns’ and the prequel ‘This Flesh is Mine’ (drawn from Homer’s The Iliad).	0
NAIROBI, Kenya — The Ethiopian marathoner who flashed an antigovernment gesture as he crossed the finish line in second place at the Rio Olympics will not go home. The runner, Feyisa Lilesa, will not fly back to Ethiopia on Tuesday with the rest of his team, his agent said, choosing instead to remain in Brazil with his immigration status unclear. “He didn’t plan at all for this,” said Mr. Lilesa’s agent, Federico Rosa, speaking by telephone from Brescia, Italy. ”He doesn’t want to go to Ethiopia, he wants to go to another country. The U. S. would be very good but right now we just don’t know where he’s going to go. He was very happy after winning but also a bit confused. ” By raising his arms and crossing them in an X in front of his face as he crossed the finish line Sunday, Mr. Lilesa, 26, has crossed the Ethiopian government, one of the most repressive in Africa. His gesture, which he repeated during an award ceremony on Sunday after the race, was the most visible in a growing wave of protests in recent months against Ethiopia’s government. This unusual burst of protests has erupted across Ethiopia, especially in Oromia, the region from which Mr. Lilesa hails, and where the gesture of raised arms crossed in front of one’s face has become a sign of defiance. Tens of thousands of protesters have been jailed and hundreds have been killed, according to Human Rights Watch. Mr. Lilesa said in interviews after his race that he believed that if he were to return home, he, too, would be punished. The Ethiopian government has said he has nothing to worry about and that he would be treated like a hero upon his return. Mr. Rosa said that Mr. Lilesa was a serious young man who “doesn’t like to play games. ” Some sports analysts have speculated that Mr. Lilesa, who finished the Olympic marathon in 2:09:54, and has one of the 50 fastest times in history, might chose to run for another country, such as Bahrain or Qatar. The Gulf states have wooed many other athletes with promises of large pay days if they win international competitions. Mr. Rosa said that Mr. Lilesa, who won the Tokyo marathon this year and has a contract with Nike, did not make his protest in an effort to cash in. “He didn’t plan at all to go to another country,” Mr. Rosa said. “I don’t know even when he decided to do this. He didn’t say anything to me about it. I was surprised. And you don’t do something like this for money. He did this to defend his country. ” In an interview with journalists Sunday in Rio after his race, Mr. Lilesa said he did not discuss his protest beforehand with his agent, coaches, teammates or his family. His wife and two children remain in Ethiopia. If Mr. Lilesa wants to apply for asylum in the United States, it would be difficult to do that while in Brazil. He might first have to get asylum in Brazil and then apply to the American authorities for humanitarian parole. Under that program, which is used sparingly, often for people in danger, Mr. Lilesa would be allowed to travel to the United States and stay temporarily. Once on American soil, he could apply for political asylum. Mr. Lilesa has became a sensation on social media. As of Tuesday night, nearly $100, 000 had been raised for him via a crowdsourcing website. “We assure you all the money collected will go to support this hero,” the site said.	0
In the technology industry, the sharks have never long been safe from the minnows. Over much of the last 40 years, the biggest players in tech — from IBM to to Cisco to Yahoo — were eventually outmaneuvered by that came out of nowhere. The dynamic is so dependable that it is often taken to be a kind of axiom. To grow large in this business is also to grow slow, blind and dumb, to become closed off from the very sources of innovation that turned you into a shark in the first place. Then, in the last half decade, something strange happened: The sharks began to get bigger and smarter. Nearly a year ago, I argued that we were witnessing a new era in the tech business, one that is typified less by the storied in a garage than by a posse I like to call the Frightful Five: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Together the Five compose a new superclass of American corporate might. For much of last year, their further rise and domination over the rest of the global economy looked not just plausible, but also maybe even probable. In 2017, much the same story remains, but there is a new wrinkle: The world’s governments are newly motivated to take on the tech giants. In the United States, Europe, Asia and South America, the Five find themselves increasingly arrayed against legal and regulatory powers, and often even against popular will. The precise nature of the fights varies by company and region, including the tax and antitrust investigations of Apple and Google in Europe and Donald J. Trump’s broad and often incoherent criticism of the Five for various alleged misdeeds. This is the story that will shape the contours of the next great era in tech: Five huge companies that can only get bigger are set against governments that increasingly see them as a clear threat to governing authority. So, happy New Year. Let’s start with some stats. In 2017, the Five are bigger than ever. As in 2016, they are half of the world’s 10 most valuable companies, when measured by stock market value. Their wealth stems from their control of the inescapable digital infrastructure on which much of the rest of the economy depends — mobile phones, social networks, the web, the cloud, retail and logistics, and the data and computing power required for future breakthroughs. Meanwhile, the Five are poised to jump beyond their corner of the lagoon. Over the last few years they have begun to set their sights on the biggest industries outside tech — on autos, health care, retail, transportation, entertainment and finance. The Five aren’t exactly immune to business cycles. Apple’s sales were flat last year, and after a monster 2016, Alphabet’s stock price hit a plateau. The Five also aren’t entirely safe from competition from and one of the persistent features of the tech industry is that some of the most perilous threats to giants are the hardest to spot. Still, at the moment, thanks to smart acquisition strategies and a outlook, the Five sure do look insulated from competition from today’s most valuable tech upstarts, like Airbnb, Uber and Snap, could grow quite huge and still pose little threat to the collective fortunes of the Frightful Five. What has changed is public perception. For years, most of the Five enjoyed broad cultural good will. They were portrayed in the news media as forces of innovation and delight, as the best that American capitalism had to offer. The exceptions were Microsoft, which reached towering heights through corporate ruthlessness in the 1990s, and Amazon, which got under people’s skin for, among other things, making books cheaper and more widely accessible, thereby hurting bookstores. But generally people loved tech giants. They had gotten huge just the way you’re supposed to in America — by inventing new stuff that people love. And even their worst sins weren’t considered that bad. They weren’t causing environmental disasters. They weren’t selling cigarettes. They weren’t bringing the world to economic ruin through dangerous financial shenanigans. After I noted the Five’s growing invincibility last year, the biggest pushback I got from people at these companies had to do with the moniker I had given them: Why hadn’t I called them the Fabulous Five? Over the last year perception began to change. Familiarity breeds contempt as technology wormed deeper into our lives, it began to feel less like an unalloyed good and more like every other annoyance we have to deal with. Silicon Valley grew cloistered, missing people’s unease with the speed with which their innovations were changing our lives. When Apple took on the Federal Bureau of Investigation last year over access to a terrorist’s iPhone, many in tech sided with the company, but a majority of Americans thought Apple should give in. During the long presidential campaign, Mr. Trump said a lot of things that people in tech found ridiculous. He vowed to call on Bill Gates to help him shut down the parts of the internet that terrorists were using. He promised to force Apple to make iPhones in America. He suggested that The Washington Post was running critical stories about him because its owner, Jeff Bezos, was scared that Mr. Trump would pursue antitrust charges against Mr. Bezos’s main company, Amazon. Few in the tech industry supported Mr. Trump, but the industry’s antipathy seemed to matter little to the public. For years, most of the Frightful Five were given the benefit of the doubt as economic disrupters that were undercutting the cultural and economic power of the big industries that many people despised — entertainment giants, cable and phone companies, and the news media, among others. “During the periods where incumbents are battling disrupters, in general the U. S. has done a good job of encouraging disrupters,” said Julius Genachowski, the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission who is now a partner at the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm. That describes the general direction of policy during the Obama administration. The tech giants were less giant for much of the Obama years, and various parts of the United States regulatory and legal infrastructure sought to protect and nurture them. During Mr. Genachowski’s term at the F. C. C. and then again during the term of his successor, Tom Wheeler, the commission passed rules favoring “network neutrality,” which declared that telecommunications companies could not favor some kinds of content online over others. It was a policy broadly favored by tech companies. But as Mr. Genachowski noted, as the disrupters grow, the dynamic often shifts. “The next part of the arc is that disrupters become very successful and in some ways turn into incumbents, and then you see two things — battles between incumbents and other incumbents, and a next generation of disrupters tackling incumbents,” he said. That’s where we are now. The Five have become incumbents themselves, and they are more likely to be treated as such by governments, who will look to both sides of the ledger — their benefits to society as well as their potential costs — when deciding how to police them. But there’s a twist: With the Five, unlike in previous eras of tech, it is not clear that there are many potential disrupters among today’s . The battles for dominance in cloud services, artificial intelligence and data mining, assistants, cars, virtual reality and most every other Next Big Thing are being waged among the Five. That could likely raise the hackles of regulators and lawmakers even more and depending on your position on corporate power versus governmental power, things could be fabulous, or frightful.	1
Comments North Carolina Republican Senator Richard Burr was recorded not-so-subtly wishing that gun owners might shoot Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in a despicable new tape that emerged on CNN. Burr is the Republican Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, a high title which seems inappropriate for a man of such small mind as to muse of the death of an American presidential candidate in a public place during a general election. CNN reports that : The North Carolina Republican, locked in a tight race for reelection [against Democrat Deborah Ross], quipped that as he walked into a gun shop “nothing made me feel better” than seeing a magazine about rifles “with a picture of Hillary Clinton on the front of it.” Sen. Richard Burr privately mused over the weekend that gun owners may want to put a “bullseye” on Hillary Clinton, according to audio obtained by CNN. “I was a little bit shocked at that — it didn’t have a bullseye on it,” he said Saturday to GOP volunteers, prompting laughter from the crowd in Mooresville, North Carolina. “But on the bottom right (of the magazine), it had everybody for federal office in this particular state that they should vote for. So let me assure you, there’s an army of support out there right now for our candidates.” The comments resemble similar ones made by Donald Trump in August when the GOP nominee said “Second Amendment people” could take matters into their own hands if Clinton became president. Senator Burr also mentioned how proud he was to have crippled the effectiveness of the Supreme Court by delaying President Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland which itself has set a record for longest time after such an appointment without a hearing. In the same talk, Burr bragged that he’d support keeping the court in a state of permanent dysfunction by refusing any of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s judicial appointments, including to the Supreme Court. It’s fast becoming apparent that Republicans merely used that piece of double-talk as the start of an existential attack on American-style democracy, which requires a reasonable opposition to cooperate and compromise in decisions for a functioning government for the betterment of the people. Double talk from Republican Congressmen of this type has become all too commonplace, but with Senator Burr’s lies to North Carolina voters, it’s so bold that he even gave opposite quotations to local reporters versus those inside the beltway and thought he could get away with it. Burr both publicly distanced himself from Trump and at the very same time doubled down on supporting Trump after his tapes emerged revealing the Republican nominee’s serial predilection for sex assault. Now that Richard Burr’s deplorable tape has emerged, the Republican Senator is facing calls to resign his position in the Senate altogether. Unlike Trump, the North Carolina Republican has already issued an apology, but it remains to be seen whether that will have any saving grace for the vulnerable Republican, who is locked in a death heat with Democrat challenger Deborah Ross . It is absolutely unacceptable that an elected member of the United States Senate would even make jokes about the political assassination of one of our nation’s most dedicated public servants	0
SALT LAKE CITY — From the moment the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, most elected officials in this sturdily Republican state have been eager to squash it. But something surprising is happening here. Despite deep uncertainty about the law’s future, Utah recorded one of the biggest increases of any state in residents who signed up for coverage under the act this year. Now, the state is seeing a surprising burst of activism against repealing the law — including from Republicans. “I’m naturally a really quiet person, but if I sit and do nothing and they take it away, how can I live with that?” asked Kim Nelson, 54, a Republican teacher who buys coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace and was recently treated for breast cancer. She has been calling and writing her congresswoman. Many Utah residents still detest the law, but the activity here, and in other politically conservative states, highlights the challenges Republicans and the White House face as they struggle to come up with a palatable replacement. When Representative Chris Stewart spoke with constituents by videoconference on Wednesday, a woman, who said she had gotten insurance for the first time in her life through the law, asked, “Poor people need it and you’re against it — why?” Congressional offices have been bombarded with calls, emails and social media messages, including from some constituents who had never been moved to contact them before. “Certainly this is something that’s unusual in Utah,” said Jason Stevenson, who is the education and communications director at the Utah Health Policy Project, a research group that has a federal grant to help people enroll in marketplace coverage. He said he had noticed a change in attitudes and energy. Concerned House and Senate aides have reached out to Mr. Stevenson’s group in recent weeks, he said, to request meetings and detailed information about enrollment trends here and how various Republican proposals, like pools for people with medical conditions, would work. In the past, he added, “we really had to push” to get their attention. “I would say the phone calls are rattling them,” he said. Many customers of the insurance exchanges here are young, families who rely on marketplace plans because they are or students, or they cannot afford the coverage offered through their jobs, Mr. Stevenson said. Other marketplace customers, like Ms. Nelson, took jobs that do not offer health insurance because they could get coverage through the Affordable Care Act. Ms. Nelson said the option had allowed her to work at a job she loved, at a small private school. She has called and written Representative Mia Love, the Republican who represents her district, because she is afraid she will have to change jobs if the law is repealed. Catie Weimer, a record store employee in Salt Lake City who was given a diagnosis of narcolepsy after getting a subsidized marketplace plan last year, said she had joined a group called Utahns Speak Out, which she found on Facebook, as she grew increasingly anxious about the prospect of losing her insurance. Now Ms. Weimer, who is 30 and said she had voted for Hillary Clinton, is helping administer the group’s Facebook page and helped plan a “Utah Town Hall for All” last weekend. Every member of the Utah delegation was invited, but none attended. The health law is by no means perfect in Ms. Weimer’s mind even with a subsidy, her monthly premium jumped to $95 this year, from $47, and she has a $2, 500 deductible. Her insurer, Molina Health, has refused to pay for a drug, Xyrem, that helps her function, so she gets it through a charity program. Still, she said, she would have no diagnosis or access to specialists without her coverage. “I knew Orrin Hatch, but I didn’t even know the name of my other senator before this,” Ms. Weimer said, referring to Senator Mike Lee, like Mr. Hatch a Republican. She said she had called their offices repeatedly in recent weeks, adding, “The threat of something this bad wasn’t ever there before. ” Many Utah voters were deeply uncomfortable with President Trump’s candidacy, though he still won the state with 45 percent of the vote compared with 27 percent for Mrs. Clinton and 21 percent for Evan McMullin, a conservative Mormon who ran as an independent. Mary Wood, a divorced mother of two who works three jobs, none of which offers health insurance, said she had voted for Mr. McMullin as part of “this movement in Utah of people who had a hard time completely putting themselves behind either Trump or Hillary. ” But now, she said, with Mr. Trump pushing for a repeal of the health law and for other policies she opposes, her vote is “one of the biggest regrets of my life. ” She pays $75 a month for a plan that covers her family of three, receives a subsidy of $558 and worries about the type of replacement that was laid out in a draft bill recently published by Politico. That plan would provide tax credits that would be most generous for older people Ms. Wood, 39, fears it would provide her with far less financial assistance than the subsidies she gets through the Affordable Care Act. “I tried to call Orrin Hatch, and his voice mail box was full,” she said. “I would have told him, ‘Look, this is going to personally affect me and my children, if you repeal the A. C. A. ’” In a statement, Mr. Hatch said the law was “imploding from within,” adding, “I’ve spoken to Utahns from all over the state and from all walks of life, and the vast majority favor our efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare with reforms that lower costs. ” Although much of the support for the health law here appears rooted in Salt Lake County, which is far more liberal than most of Utah and voted for Mrs. Clinton in November, resistance to repeal also appears strong in regions where a lot of people work seasonal jobs in tourism and recreation and rely on the individual market for health coverage. “Due to demand, it was like ‘The Walking Dead’ coming out of the woodwork, seeking cures,” said Charles Kulander, an insurance broker in Moab, describing the demand for coverage after the marketplace opened in 2013. Frustration with the law in Moab, he said, is focused on the state’s refusal to expand Medicaid to adults earning up to 138 percent of the poverty level, as the health law allowed, and the fact that federal premium subsidies are available only to people earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level. As in all 19 of the states that have not expanded Medicaid, tens of thousands of people in Utah are stuck in a coverage gap, eligible for neither Medicaid nor premium assistance under the law. Many still rely on charity care offered by places like the Volunteer Care Clinic, a busy free clinic run by doctors and nurses in Provo two nights a week. Even the most conservative parts of the state have residents who have benefited from the law or know someone who has. When The New York Times asked Utah readers to share their experiences, hundreds who filled out the online questionnaire said they wanted the law to survive. Many came from Republican strongholds like Utah County, home of Provo, where only 14 percent of voters backed Mrs. Clinton last fall. A healthy minority of respondents said they opposed the law and wanted it repealed, usually citing high costs and few choices for coverage. Three insurers are participating in the marketplace here this year, but most counties have only one. Premiums for midlevel plans rose here by 20 percent on average this year, with higher increases in rural areas, but about 85 percent of marketplace customers qualify for subsidies to help with the cost, often substantially. Enrollment here grew by 12. 3 percent to 197, 187 this year, a time when nationwide enrollment dipped slightly, according to preliminary federal data. And the gains were not concentrated in parts of the state: Utah County, where nearly 60 percent of voters are Republican, experienced a 26. 7 percent enrollment increase through the end of December, Mr. Stevenson said, while Salt Lake County’s enrollment grew by only 2. 3 percent. Still, many Utah residents buy insurance outside the marketplace and receive no subsidy, usually because their incomes are too high to qualify. Mike Robertson, who lives in Orem with his wife and three children, said he had switched plans this year to avoid a 66 percent increase in premium costs but still paid $1, 200 a month for a family plan with no subsidy. “Doesn’t feel like insurance. Feels like punishment,” he said. Ms. Nelson said some of her conservative friends’ and relatives’ opposition to the law softened when they realized she was benefiting from it. “Some people have said, ‘You know, Kim, you make us feel better about A. C. A. ,’” she said. “They look at me and think, ‘She used to be a runner. She never drank or smoked, but you know what, she got breast cancer. ’”	1
The Wall Street lawyer Walter J. Clayton does not travel in political circles, nor is he well known in corporate America. He is the insider’s insider — a deal maker. As such, his nomination to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission is a strong signal that financial regulation in the Trump administration will emphasize helping companies raise capital in the public markets over tightening regulation. In contrast, the agency’s two chairwomen under President Obama had regulatory or enforcement backgrounds. Mr. Clayton, known as Jay, has spent nearly his entire career in corporate boardrooms. His regulatory experience stems from advising banks on dealings with the government and helping several financial institutions with their settlements related to mortgage securities. He had a seat to the financial crisis, advising Barclays Capital in buying the assets of the bankrupt Lehman Brothers in 2008 and Bear Stearns in its fire sale to JPMorgan Chase in 2007. He has advised on mergers and initial public offerings, including the biggest ever, the $25 billion offering by Alibaba Group of China in 2013. If Mr. Clayton is confirmed, he may have to recuse himself from some matters. A similar scrutiny was applied to Mary Jo White, the agency’s current chairwoman. She had been a litigator at Debevoise Plimpton, where her clients included JPMorgan Chase, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and Kenneth D. Lewis, a former Bank of America chief executive. Still, such recusals are not unusual. Laura S. Unger, a former commissioner and acting chairwoman, said that during her tenure, she had to recuse herself from a number of matters before the commission. She said the process of deciding when to recuse oneself often took place in consultation with the commission’s ethics officer. “An ethics officer at the S. E. C. knows all of your intimate details, and the ethics officer flags for you what may be potential conflicts,” she noted. Yet Mr. Clayton’s nomination will be sure to fuel criticism that Goldman Sachs could wield too much influence in the Trump administration. Sullivan Cromwell, where Mr. Clayton is a partner, has been Goldman’s law firm for more than a century. Mr. Clayton advised Goldman Sachs on perhaps its most important deal, the $5 billion investment by Warren E. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway amid the financial crisis. Mr. Clayton’s wife works as a adviser at Goldman. The S. E. C. nomination follows the appointment of Goldman’s No. 2 executive, Gary D. Cohn, to be the top economic policy adviser to Donald J. Trump, and the selection of a hedge fund manager who was a former Goldman trader, Steven T. Mnuchin, to be Treasury secretary. Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, is a former Goldman banker. During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump had repeatedly criticized Goldman Sachs as an emblem of a financial elite. Mr. Trump, who met with Mr. Clayton on Dec. 22, said in a statement that the lawyer “will ensure our financial institutions can thrive and create jobs while playing by the rules at the same time. ” Mr. Clayton is expected to face scrutiny on his confirmation as a Sullivan Cromwell colleague, H. Rodgin Cohen, did in 2009. Mr. Cohen, the dean of Wall Street lawyers, withdrew his name from consideration for a senior Treasury role amid an outcry over his deep involvement in nearly all the bank deals struck during the financial crisis. “It’s hard to see how an attorney who spent his career helping Wall Street beat the rap will keep Trump’s promise to stop big banks and hedge funds from ‘getting away with murder,’” Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said. “I look forward to hearing how Mr. Clayton will protect retirees and savers from being exploited, demand real accountability from financial institutions the S. E. C. oversees and work to prevent another financial crisis. ” One issue could be Mr. Clayton’s representation of Alibaba. The Chinese giant is under investigation by the S. E. C. over its accounting practices. Mr. Clayton also represented Capital Management in its $1. 2 billion initial public offering a decade ago, and subsequent offerings and financing. A unit of the New hedge fund pleaded guilty for what federal prosecutors said were more than $100 million in bribes paid to officials in African countries. The hedge fund was forced to pay a $400 million settlement. Government authorities said in September that they were still investigating individuals related to case. Another issue could be a 2011 report critical of the government’s enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which argued that “the current regime” was “causing lasting harm to the competitiveness of U. S. regulated companies and the U. S. capital markets. ” Mr. Clayton was the chairman of the New York City bar association committee that drafted the report. Requests to speak with Mr. Clayton at Sullivan Cromwell were not answered. A number of fellow deal lawyers said they were glad that the practitioner could be at the helm of the S. E. C. “He’s a very smart, pragmatic guy who has real deal experience and has seen this stuff firsthand,” said Richard Truesdell, a head of Davis Polk’s global capital markets group, who has worked with Mr. Clayton on several deals. “There’s been a lot of buzz today, and I have yet to talk to anyone who isn’t pleasantly surprised by the choice. ” The role of the Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect investors and enable companies to raise capital through the public markets in a way that fosters economic growth. The latter is a key tenet of Mr. Trump’s economic plan, with the aim that companies can use the excess capital to create jobs. Harvey Pitt, a former chairman of the S. E. C. appointed by President George W. Bush, said Mr. Clayton was a “ appointment. ” “It is especially logical with respect to the agency’s obligation to promote capital formation, a subject with which the incoming administration is appropriately concerned,” said Mr. Pitt in an email. “Mr. Clayton’s background is very impressive — both for the depth of his experience, and for the quality of his efforts. ” Mr. Clayton went to the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Cambridge for separate bachelor’s degrees and then obtained his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Mr. Clayton donated to Mitt Romney and Mr. Obama in previous presidential elections and to Jeb Bush’s primary campaign in 2015, according to public records. Those who know Mr. Clayton describe him as the type, a doer who is often in the shadows of the better known Mr. Cohen at Sullivan Cromwell. “When I think about the position, the guy has a really deep understanding of the capital markets and financial regulatory matters, so he checks those boxes,” said Brad Whitman, vice chairman in mergers and acquisitions at Morgan Stanley, who has worked with Mr. Clayton over many years. “He’s got a great appreciation for what drives business and growth. ”	1
Ben Shapiro Destroys John Oliver On Abortion And Trump By: Hank Berrien October 27, 2016 On Thursday, on his daily podcast, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro decimated HBO host and supposed comedian John Oliver for his comments regarding Donald Trump's comments on abortion during the third presidential debate. Shapiro began, "HBO’s John Oliver belongs to a class of British people who think that they are smarter than everyone else by dint of their accent. They think that because they share an accent with Rex Harrison from My Fair Lady this makes them geniuses." He continued: So John Oliver does a political show on American politics; he doesn’t know much about American politics; he doesn’t know much about politics generally; but he’s been feted by the media because he’s a comedian who’s wildly to the left. So just like President Obama is going to be interviewed by Samantha Bee, who is legitimately the least funny person in human history, (she and Trevor Noah actually have a cage match next week to determine who’s the least funny person in human history. Both of them I believe, beat Stalin for that title a while back, so now were going to unify the championships), so Obama’s going to be on with Samantha Bee, where presumably they will jabber about how much they love each other and why abortion’s wonderful. John Oliver was ripping on Donald Trump the other day at some awards ceremony, and because he’s British, that means we’re supposed to pay attention to him, even though we fought a revolution so we wouldn’t have to pay attention to the Brits. Here’s John Oliver talking about abortion: The screen then showed Oliver pontificating: In terms of the communication about reproductive rights and the conversation that is so important; we really did potentially hit an idea in the modern era during that third debate because his discussions of late-term abortions showed no real understanding of how abortions work, no clear understanding of the basic biology of women’s bodies, and a very poor sense of grammar as well. So I guess we got, in a sense, what we were asking for. If you ask Donald Trump to draw a Fallopian tube, I cannot imagine what you would get back other than a child’s drawing of a cobra. Shapiro fired back: Okay. I would hesitate to ask John Oliver to draw a Fallopian tube or to describe any of the biology here, because he obviously doesn’t know. Now look, I criticized Trump for being ignorant about how he described abortion because he wasn’t graphic enough. But let me, for those who missed it, explain what exactly happens in a late-term abortion, which is what he was talking about, okay? What happens in a late-term abortion, what happens in a late-term abortion, is something completely awful; this is according to americanpregnancy.org., okay? Not a right-wing pro-life website: americanpregnancy.org: "The fetus is rotated; forceps are used to grasp and pull the legs, shoulders and arms through the birth canal. A small incision is made at the base of the skull to allow a suction catheter inside. The catheter removes the cerebral material,” that would be the brains, “until the skull collapses. The fetus is then completely removed.” Shapiro continued to explain the barbaric procedure: Okay, that’s one procedure that’s used; that’s “dilation and extraction.” In late-term abortions it usually one of these two; “dilation and evacuation” or “dilation and extraction.” “Dilation and evacuation”: The baby may be given a lethal injection to kill it; sometimes they don’t use such injections; then the doctor uses a curette or a forceps to carve up the child’s body in the womb, and remove it piece by piece. Then he proceeded to carve up Oliver: So I guess that Donald Trump could have been more graphic; I don’t know that John Oliver would have enjoyed that, but he could have been more graphic, I suppose. But this is what they do, laugh it up, “Oh, he can’t draw a Fallopian tube." Okay, John: draw an abortion. Really. Draw it; let’s see it. I want to see you get down there with a piece of paper and I want you to draw me what you think an abortion looks like. It’s not waving a magic wand, and it’s not getting rid of a cluster of cells that mean nothing. I want you to sit there and draw what it looks like when a baby is cut into pieces and removed from the womb. I would like to see that. "Okay, John: draw an abortion. Really. Draw it; let’s see it. I want to see you get down there with a piece of paper and I want you to draw me what you think an abortion looks like." Ben Shapiro Shapiro concluded: But of course he’ll never do that, other than, "It might look like a cobra; it might look like a cobra; maybe it’ll look like a princess, waving her fairy magic wand and a unicorn emerges from the vagina.” The fact that he thinks his accent covers for his basic ignorance of biology and his euphemistic willingness to ignore what amounts to child-killing is absolutely ridiculous and despicable. Video below:	1
A white Army veteran from Baltimore, who the police said traveled to New York to kill black men, was indicted on Monday on rare state charges of murder as terrorism. A grand jury voted to upgrade existing charges against James Harris Jackson, 28, who the police say confessed to plunging a sword into Timothy Caughman, 66, on March 20 in Chelsea. The killing sent shockwaves throughout New York at a time when there is widespread concern in the city and around the country over rising hate crimes. The grand jury voted to charge Mr. Jackson with murder as an act of terror in the and Joan an assistant district attorney, said during a brief appearance in Criminal Court in Manhattan. Judge Tamiko A. Amaker ordered Mr. Jackson, who was also charged with murder as a hate crime and misdemeanor weapons possession, to return to jail until his arraignment on April 13 in State Supreme Court. Mr. Jackson cocked his head back and stared at the ceiling as he stood in handcuffs and a khaki prison jumpsuit next to his defense lawyer, Sam Talkin. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison without a chance of parole. Mr. Talkin declined to comment on the grand jury charges. Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, said Mr. Jackson prowled Midtown for days in search of victims for his “campaign of terrorism. ” “Last week, with total presence of mind, he acted on his plan, randomly selecting a beloved New Yorker solely on the basis of his skin color, and stabbing him repeatedly and publicly on a Midtown street corner,” Mr. Vance said. “James Jackson wanted to kill black men, planned to kill black men, and then did kill a black man. ” The police and prosecutors say the killing stemmed from a hatred of black men “mixing” with white women. It echoed the 2015 killings of nine churchgoers in South Carolina by an avowed white supremacist, who was sentenced to death. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo both condemned the attack on Mr. Caughman, with the mayor calling it a racist act of domestic terrorism. Mr. Caughman, an ebullient man who described himself on Twitter as a can and bottle recycler, was rummaging through the trash on 9th Avenue near the corner of 36th Street around 11:15 p. m. on March 20 when Mr. Jackson pounced on him from behind and plunged the blade into his chest, according to the police. “What are you doing?” a woman told the police she heard Mr. Caughman say, according to a police complaint filed in court. As his assailant fled, Mr. Caughman staggered the short distance to the Midtown South police station on West 35th Street, where officers summoned an ambulance, the police said. He died at Bellevue Hospital. hours later, Mr. Jackson walked into the police substation in Times Square and told officers to arrest him, the police said. He told investigators that he dropped the sword in a garbage can in Washington Square Park, where it was later recovered. Carl Nimmons, 66, and his wife, Portia Clark, 64, both longtime friends of Mr. Caughman, sat at the hearing on Monday. Mr. Nimmons, who said he had known Mr. Caughman for more than 55 years, fought tears describing what it was like to see Mr. Jackson in court. “It hurt to see that man like that, doing that to someone I grew up with,” he said. “I didn’t know I was going to react like that until I seen him. I just want to see justice done, for him to get what he need to get. ”	0
Three days after the presidential election, an astute law professor tweeted a picture of three paragraphs, very slightly condensed, from Richard Rorty’s “Achieving Our Country,” published in 1998. It was retweeted thousands of times, generating a run on the book — its ranking soared on Amazon and by day’s end it was no longer available. (Harvard University Press is reprinting the book for the first time since 2010, a spokeswoman for the publisher said.) It’s worth rereading those tweeted paragraphs: Mr. Rorty, an American pragmatist philosopher, died in 2007. Were he still alive, he’d likely be deluged with phone calls from strangers, begging him to pick their stocks. When “Achieving Our Country” came out, it received a mixed critical reception. Writing for this newspaper, the critic Christopher called the book “philosophically rigorous” but took umbrage at Mr. Rorty’s warnings about the country’s vulnerability to the charms of a strongman, calling this prophesy “a form of intellectual bullying. ” Donald J. Trump enthusiasts might dispute the word strongman. But the essence of Mr. Rorty’s argument holds up surprisingly well. Where others saw positive trends — say, a dawn chorus praising the nation’s diversity — Mr. Rorty saw dead canaries in a coal mine. His basic contention is that the left once upon a time believed that our country, for all its flaws, was both perfectible and worth perfecting. Hope was part of its core philosophy. But during the 1960s, shame — over Vietnam, over the serial humiliation of — transformed a good portion of the left, at least the academic left, into a disaffected gang of spectators, rather than agitators for change. A formalized despair became its philosophy. The system was beyond reform. The best one could do was focus on its victims. The result was disastrous. The alliance between the unions and intellectuals, so vital to passing legislation in the Progressive Era, broke down. In universities, cultural and identity politics replaced the politics of change and economic justice. By 1997, when Mr. Rorty gave three lectures that make up the spine of “Achieving Our Country,” few of his academic colleagues, he insisted, were talking about reducing poverty at all. “Nobody is setting up a program in unemployed studies, homeless studies, or studies,” he wrote, “because the unemployed, the homeless, and the residents of trailer parks are not ‘other’ in the relevant sense. ” Does this overlooked category sound familiar? Mr. Rorty did not deny that identity politics reduced the suffering of minorities. But it just so happened that at the very moment “socially accepted sadism” — good phrase, that — was diminishing, economic instability and inequality were increasing, thanks to globalization. “This world economy will soon be owned by a cosmopolitan upper class which has no more sense of community with any workers anywhere than the great American capitalists of the year 1900. ” Again: Ring any bells? This group included intellectuals, by the way, who, he wrote, are “ourselves quite well insulated, at least in the short run, from the effects of globalization. ” Which left the white guy and gal up for grabs — open to populists, maybe even strongmen. In Mr. Rorty’s view, no one within academia was thinking creatively about how to relieve white anxiety. This was a problem. “Outside the academy,” he wrote, “Americans still want to feel patriotic. They still want to feel part of a nation which can take control of its destiny and make itself a better place. ” Sounds an awful lot like Make America Great Again. At the time, Mr. Rorty was staring at a slightly different political landscape. But it wasn’t that different, ultimately. Today’s just has more mature trees. In “Achieving Our Country,” he wrote about the perils of the North American Free Trade Agreement today, he’d probably have cautioned against the Partnership. In “Achieving Our Country,” Mr. Rorty railed against the “scurrilous demagogue” Pat Buchanan, who in 1991 talked about building a fence at the Mexican border today Mr. Rorty would have railed against Mr. Trump and his proposed wall. “Why could not the left,” he asked, “channel the mounting rage of the newly dispossessed?” Is his analysis a bit oversimple? Yes. Even within universities, there have always been optimistic champions of America, those who believe in the moral arc bending toward justice and work on formulating concrete, actionable policies that would make the country more just. By focusing only on his own environment, academia, Mr. Rorty’s arguments also seem strangely parochial. During the 1960s, the academic left may have started to turn its back on poverty, but actual politicians on the left were still thinking a great deal about it: Robert F. Kennedy was visiting poor white families in Appalachia Lyndon B. Johnson was building the Great Society. Right through the ’90s and into the 2000s, we had politicians singing the praises of hope, rather than the hopelessness that Mr. Rorty decries. Bill Clinton explicitly campaigned as the “man from Hope,” and Barack Obama would later campaign on a platform of “hope” and “change. ” In passing health care reform, Mr. Obama genuinely did something for the immiserated underclass, and both men, in their ways, rejected identity politics. (Remember Mr. Clinton dressing down Sister Souljah? Or Mr. Obama declaring on MTV that “brothers should pull up their pants”?) But it wasn’t enough, obviously. “Under Presidents Carter and Clinton,” Mr. Rorty wrote, “the Democratic Party has survived by distancing itself from the unions and from any mention of redistribution. ” Mr. Clinton was particularly guilty of this charge, passing Nafta, appointing Robert Rubin as his Treasury secretary and enthusiastically embracing financial deregulation. Mr. Obama pushed the Partnership. And he was one of those fancy elites. Which brings us to Hillary Clinton. She may have had a plan to relieve the misery of the working class, but she didn’t speak about it much. (Bernie Sanders did. And lost.) She was in favor of the Partnership until she was against it. In a paid speech to a Brazilian bank, she spoke of a “hemispheric common market” for energy. And though her slogan was “Stronger Together,” her campaign was ultimately predicated on celebrating difference, in the hope that disparate voting blocs would come out and vote for her. Here, Mr. Rorty’s most inflammatory words are most relevant, and also most uncomfortable: “The cultural Left has a vision of an America in which the white patriarchs have stopped voting and have left all the voting to be done by members of previously victimized groups. ” Mrs. Clinton tried this strategy. It didn’t win her the Electoral College. “This Left wants to preserve otherness rather than ignore it,” he also wrote. That didn’t work either. People are furiously arguing about what played a key role in this election — whether it was white despair, a racist backlash or terror about the pace of cultural change. It seems reasonable to think that all three played a part. What’s so striking about “Achieving Our Country” is that it blends these theories into a common argument: The left, both cultural and political, eventually abandoned economic justice in favor of identity politics, leaving too many people feeling freaked out or ignored. “It is as if the American Left could not handle more than one initiative at a time,” Mr. Rorty wrote. “As if it either had to ignore stigma in order to concentrate on money, or vice versa. ” You may quarrel with his argument you may say that he was projecting onto the larger world what was happening within his own cloistered, ivied walls. But Mr. Trump is now our .	1
WASHINGTON — It was at a campaign rally in August that President Trump most fully unveiled the dark vision of an America under siege by “radical Islam” that is now radically reshaping the policies of the United States. On a stage lined with American flags in Youngstown, Ohio, Mr. Trump, who months before had called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslim immigration, argued that the United States faced a threat on par with the greatest evils of the 20th century. The Islamic State was brutalizing the Middle East, and Muslim immigrants in the West were killing innocents at nightclubs, offices and churches, he said. Extreme measures were needed. “The hateful ideology of radical Islam,” he told supporters, must not be “allowed to reside or spread within our own communities. ” Mr. Trump was echoing a strain of theorizing familiar to anyone who has been immersed in security and counterterrorism debates over the last 20 years. He has embraced a deeply suspicious view of Islam that several of his aides have promoted, notably retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, now his national security adviser, and Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s top strategist. This worldview borrows from the “clash of civilizations” thesis of the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, and combines straightforward warnings about extremist violence with critiques of Islam. It sometimes conflates terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State with largely nonviolent groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots and, at times, with the 1. 7 billion Muslims around the world. In its more extreme forms, this view promotes conspiracies about government infiltration and the danger that Shariah, the legal code of Islam, may take over in the United States. Those espousing such views present Islam as an inherently hostile ideology whose adherents are enemies of Christianity and Judaism and seek to conquer nonbelievers either by violence or through a sort of stealthy brainwashing. The executive order on immigration that Mr. Trump signed on Friday might be viewed as the first major victory for this geopolitical school. And a second action, which would designate the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist political movement in the Middle East, as a terrorist organization, is now under discussion at the White House, administration officials say. Beyond the restrictions the order imposed on refugees and visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries, it declared that the United States should keep out those with “hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles” and “those who would place violent ideologies over American law,” clearly a reference to Shariah. Rejected by most serious scholars of religion and shunned by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, this dark view of Islam has nonetheless flourished on the fringes of the American right since before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. With Mr. Trump’s election, it has now moved to the center of American on security and law, alarming many Muslims. Mr. Trump has insisted that the executive order is not a “Muslim ban,” and his supporters say it is a sensible precaution to safeguard Americans. Asked about the seeming antipathy to Islam that appeared to inform the order, the White House pointed to Mr. Trump’s comments in the August speech and on another occasion that signaled support for Muslims. His administration, Mr. Trump said in August, “will be a friend to all moderate Muslim reformers in the Middle East, and will amplify their voice. ” James Jay Carafano, a security expert at the Heritage Foundation who advised the Trump transition at the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, said the executive order was simply “trying to get ahead of the threat. ” As pressure increases on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, he said, “tens of thousands of foreign fighters” will flee. Some could try to reach America, perhaps posing as refugees, he said, so stronger vetting of those entering the country is crucial. But critics see the order as a clumsy show of toughness against foreign Muslims to impress Mr. Trump’s base, one shaped by advisers with distorted ideas about Islam. “They’re tapping into the climate of fear and suspicion since ” said Asma Afsaruddin, a professor of Islamic studies at Indiana University and chairwoman of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. “It’s a master narrative that pits the Muslim world against the West,” appealing to Trump supporters who know nothing of Muslims or Islam beyond news reports of terrorist attacks, she said. The executive order, she said, will backfire by reinforcing the jihadist line that the United States is at war with Islam. “The White House is a huge soapbox,” she said. “The demonization of Muslims and Islam will become even more widespread. ” Those in the administration with long records of criticizing Islam begin with Mr. Bannon and Mr. Flynn. Mr. Flynn last February tweeted a link to an video and wrote, “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL. ” In an interview, he said that “Islam is not necessarily a religion but a political system that has a religious doctrine behind it. ” Mr. Bannon has spoken passionately about the economic and security dangers of immigration and took the lead role in shaping the immigration order. In a 2014 talk to a meeting at the Vatican, he said the “ West” is at war with Islam. “There is a major war brewing, a war that’s already global,” he said. “Every day that we refuse to look at this as what it is, and the scale of it, and really the viciousness of it, will be a day where you will rue that we didn’t act. ” Elsewhere, on his radio show for Breitbart News, Mr. Bannon said, “Islam is not a religion of peace — Islam is a religion of submission,” and he warned of Muslim influence in Europe: “To be brutally frank, Christianity is dying in Europe and Islam is on the rise. ” Others with similar views of Islam include Sebastian Gorka, who taught at the National Defense University and is a deputy national security adviser. Mr. Gorka’s wife, Katharine, who headed think tanks that focused on the dangers of Islam, now works at the Department of Homeland Security. Tera Dahl, who was an aide to former Representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, is a National Security Council official. Walid Phares, a Lebanese American Christian who has advised politicians on counterterrorism, advised Mr. Trump’s campaign but does not currently have a government post. All four have written for Breitbart News, the website previously run by Mr. Bannon. They all reflect the opinions of what some have described as the Islamophobia industry, a network of researchers who have warned for many years of the dangers of Islam and were thrilled by Mr. Trump’s election. They warn about the danger to American freedoms supposedly posed by Islamic law, and have persuaded several state legislatures to prohibit Shariah’s use. It is a claim that draws eye rolls from most Muslims and scholars of Islam, since Muslims make up about 1 percent of the United States population and are hardly in a position to dictate to the other 99 percent. “The majority of Muslims don’t interpret the Quran literally,” said Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution. “You can have five Muslims who all say we think this is God’s exact words, but they all disagree with each other on what that means in practice. ” Among the most outspoken of those warning about Islam are Pamela Geller, of Stop Islamization of America, Robert Spencer, of Jihad Watch, and Frank Gaffney Jr. of the Center for Security Policy. All three were hosted by Mr. Bannon on his Breitbart radio program before he became chief executive of the Trump campaign in August. Mr. Gaffney appeared at least 34 times. His work has often been cited in speeches by Mr. Flynn. Kellyanne Conway, now counselor to Mr. Trump, did polling for Mr. Gaffney’s center. Last year, the center gave Senator Jeff Sessions, who has warned of the “totalitarian threat” posed by radical Islam and is Mr. Trump’s nominee for attorney general, its annual “Keeper of the Flame” award. Mr. Gaffney has been labeled “one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The League describes him as a “purveyor of conspiracy theories. ” And even the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual meeting of politicians and activists, banned Mr. Gaffney temporarily after he accused two of its organizers of being agents of the Muslim Brotherhood. In an interview, he explained his view of Islam, which focuses less on the violent jihad of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State than on the quieter one he sees everywhere. By his account, potential enemies are hidden in plain sight — praying in mosques, recruiting at Muslim student associations and organizing through mainstream Muslim rights groups — and are engaged in “this stealthy, subversive kind of jihad. ” “They essentially, like termites, hollow out the structure of the civil society and other institutions,” Mr. Gaffney said, “for the purpose of creating conditions under which the jihad will succeed. ” The day after the election, Mr. Gaffney told the Breitbart radio show how pleased he was with Mr. Trump’s win. “It is a great blessing literally from God, but also I think obviously from the candidate himself, Donald Trump,” he said. He praised the “superb people” around Mr. Trump, naming Mr. Bannon and Mr. Flynn, who he said “are actually going to lead us to saving the Republic. ”	1
There has never been a presumptive nominee for a major party quite like Donald J. Trump. Not only is he a newcomer to the world of politics, but he would shatter the mold of party . Mr. Trump, who now appears all but certain to clinch his party’s presidential nomination, would be the first in a range of colorful categories. Mr. Trump hosted 14 seasons of “The Apprentice” on NBC, drawing millions of viewers to the show and adding to his personal fortune. He claimed in a personal financial disclosure form that he earned more than $213 million over the course of the show, but NBC never confirmed that claim. Whatever the paycheck, the show gave Mr. Trump something money cannot buy: his signature catchphrase, “You’re fired. ” _____ The candidate has his own “superstar” bio on the World Wrestling Entertainment website, which refers to him as a “captivating billionaire,” a “pop culture icon” and “outspoken alpha male. ” He has clobbered Vince McMahon with a clothesline move and then forcefully shaved his opponent’s head in the ring. He has been on the receiving end of a move from Stone Cold Steve Austin, and he has a relationship with the organization that goes back to Andre the Giant. In 2013, he was awarded the highest honor in professional wrestling: an induction into the prestigious Hall of Fame. _____ In 1989, Mr. Trump played himself in “Ghosts Can’t Do It,” a widely panned movie summed up as an “American romantic crime fantasy comedy film. ” The plot involves the main character dying and becoming a ghost, his wife trying to drown a young man so that the deceased husband can inhabit an earthly body again and engage in carnal pleasures again, and so that they can complete a business deal with Mr. Trump (or something like that). The film was a success at the Razzie awards, winning worst picture, worst actress, worst director and worst supporting actor: Mr. Trump. _____ In a Republican Party whose evangelical voting base has grown to become a major, influential voice, in particular in the nominating process, Mr. Trump is the first nominee to have been divorced twice. He divorced his first wife, Ivana, a model, in 1990, and his second wife, Marla, an actress, in 1999. He married his current wife, Melania, in 2005. _____ Presidential candidates tend to be from the upper crust of American society, and often come from the financial sector, law or a career in politics. Mr. Trump’s wealth came from numerous endeavors, but never before has a casino owner with towering properties in Las Vegas, and previously Atlantic City, held the cards of a major party’s nomination. _____ Mr. Trump has put his name in big gold letters on commercial goods as varied as and chocolates, something he reminded voters of during a speech in March. He also served Trump wines and water. _____ Mr. Trump is perhaps better known for his involvement in the Miss USA and Miss Universe beauty pageants, but he also founded a modeling agency, Trump Model Management, in 1999. A Jamaican model filed a lawsuit against the company in 2014, but it was thrown out this year. _____ Before he left the race, Senator Ted Cruz shared a parting thought: “If anyone has seen the movie ‘Back to the Future, Part II,’ the screenwriter says that he based the character Biff Tannen on Donald Trump — a caricature of a braggadocious, arrogant buffoon who builds giant casinos with giant pictures of him wherever he looks. ” (It is, indeed, true that Mr. Trump served as inspiration for the character.) _____ A grouch with a flamboyant hairstyle and the catchphrase “I have more trash than all of you,” Donald Grump arrived on “Sesame Street” in 2005 looking for an apprentice, or as he put it in a thicker New York accent than Mr. Trump’s, a “helpah. ” He continually needles and belittles those seeking to be his “helpah,” showering them with “nyahs,” and he brags about his wealth. Nonetheless, the other characters are entranced with Mr. Grump. As Oscar the Grouch glows, “His name is on every piece of trash in town. ”	1
Comment Amid the seemingly friendlier atmosphere in the South China Sea, China was reportedly in a ‘ready for combat’ position as it prepares to position its first aircraft carrier in the region. While some claimant countries in the highly disputed maritime zone, such as the Philippines, have shifted their foreign policies and began dealing with China bilaterally, tension in the region is far from over. Asserts Position In The Region As reported by the state-run news website the Global Times , China is battle ready and is prepared for any possibilities or conflict that may arise in the region. The aircraft carrier, Liaoning, is the first of its kind in the Chinese Navy. Also Read: South China Sea Row – What Will Happen Now As Donald Trump Enters The Picture? The 60,000-ton Liaoning sports a launch pad that is much wider than a typical football field. This aircraft launcher also features high-tech military capabilities that China can use in performing its patrols and surveillance in the region. But Li Dongyou, a Chinese political commissar who was aboard the Liaoning, said the showing off of the aircraft carrier was not intended to ignite tension in the region. Always War Ready “As a military force, we are always prepared for war and our combat capacity also needs to be tested by war. At this moment, we are doing our best to promote our strength and use it to prevent war, and are prepared for actual combat at any time,” Dongyou was also quoted saying by the Global Times . Also Read: South China Sea Row – India Challenges China’s Ambitions In The Region Members of local and foreign media were allowed to board the massive aircraft carrier, but the tight security measure has been implemented. Chinese officials also admitted that they specifically told those who were invited on what they can see and not see. While the world awaits Donald Trump’s position in the region, his close aide hinted that the president-elect won’t abandon its Asian allies, the Associated Press reported. If you want more World news , subscribe to our newsletter or follow us on Twitter and Facebook .	0
Save the Children Norway trialed anti-malaria drug Larium in Mozambique—1993–1994 By Moeen Raoof Moeen Raoof Roche AG, a Swiss multinational health-care company, needed to trial a new anti-malaria drug, Mefloquine, also known under the brand name Lariam, in malaria-prone areas of Africa. This was despite known serious side effects, including long-term health problems such as depression, hallucinations, anxiety and neurological effects such as poor balance, depression and impaired mental health. The Norwegian Chapter of Save the Children, also known as Redd Barna, operated in Mozambique under a Dutch national. Redd Barna began to distribute Lariam in Mozambique between 1993 to 1994. This drug was given to men, women and children, including pregnant women. The Lariam trials were conducted by distributing the drug based on the criteria of prevention and treatment of malaria and without due regard to age, medical status, or state of pregnancy. Recipients of the drug were not told of the side-effects but were actively monitored during the period of treatment, which lasted approximately 18 months, after the commencement of distribution. These trials were conducted without the consent of the Mozambican government or the Ministry of Health. Children as young as 3-years old were given whole pills to take during either the prevention or treatment phases, without regard to the side effects of the pills on very young children. Pregnant women and women with babies were also given the drug, but only if they had contracted malaria, not preventatively. The trials were more common among Mozambican men and women between the ages of 18 and 60 years, divided into prevention and treatment risk groups. They were provided a course of treatment, accordingly. One assumes that these persons were closely monitored for symptoms and side effects during and after the treatment period. Many young Mozambicans during and after the treatment period began showing signs of unusual behaviour, including bouts of violence after the testing of the drug ended in 1994. There was an increase in violent crime as well as murders in Mozambique. This, despite there being a very low crime and murder rate among civilians prior to 1993, including during the civil war that had ended 1990. Media in Mozambique explained away this increase in crime and murder post-1993 as drug-related, linking the violence to the use of the Methaqualone/Mandrax drug that was allegedly smuggled in from South Africa. However, this drug could not justify the rising cases of mental illness among all age groups, in users and non-users alike. Mandrax was the prime and only suspect drug blamed for all ills in Mozambique during the 1990s. As to why the wide use of Lariam was not considered as a possible cause relating to increase in violence, mental illness, crime, including murders remains a mystery. The Mozambican Civil War began in 1977, two years after the end of the war of independence. It resembled the Angolan Civil War in that both were proxy battles of the Cold War that started soon after the countries gained independence from Portugal. The ruling party, Front for Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO), and the national armed forces (FAM), were violently opposed from 1977 by the Mozambique Resistance Movement (RENAMO), which received funding from white-ruled Rhodesia and later, apartheid South Africa. About one million people died in fighting and from starvation; five million civilians were displaced, and many were made amputees by landmines, a legacy from the war that plagued Mozambique for more than two decades afterward. Fighting ended in 1992 and the country’s first multi-party elections were held in 1994. Roche admitted that Lariam had worse side effects than other common antimalarials. The head of drug safety and quality at Roche admitted that a study had shown there was an “increased risk” of neuropsychiatric problems compared to other drugs available. Roche further stated that anyone with pre-existing conditions such as depression should not be given the drug, stating that, “There is an increased risk but the balance of risk to the balance of benefit is still believed to be important in this global endemic, if it is prescribed to the right people.” Roche further stated, “The patient should be informed of these increased risks with Lariam and should they become aware of any of those features, a change in mood, a change in personality—then they are advised to immediately contact a doctor and stop taking it.” Medical advice regarding Lariam recommends the following, do not take Lariam if patients have or have previously experienced: an allergy to Mefloquine or any of the other ingredients of this medicine or to similar medicines such as quinine or quinidine depression, thoughts about suicide and self-endangering behaviour any other mental problem, including anxiety disorder, schizophrenia or psychosis (losing touch with reality) fits (seizures or convulsions) severe liver problems Blackwater fever (a complication of malaria that affects the blood and kidneys) Warnings and precautions—Lariam may cause serious mental problems in some people. Tell your doctor immediately if you experience any of the following while taking Lariam: suicidal thoughts	1
Updated, 9:08 p. m. Good evening on this Monday. This is New York Tonight, a evening roundup of the day’s most important New York stories. Tell us what you think at nytonight@nytimes. com or in the comments. Sigh. The workweek for many commuters got off to a shaky start. Two New Jersey Transit buses heading into the city collided in the Lincoln Tunnel during the morning commute, shutting down the tunnel’s center tube and snarling traffic for roughly two hours. More than forty people were injured, but luckily, the worst case was a broken jaw. And speaking of drama related to Hudson River crossings, all eyes are (still) on the George Washington Bridge. David Wildstein, the confessed mastermind behind the 2013 lane closings, returned today to the witness stand in Newark. The former official from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey testified that he and other members of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s inner circle did want to punish Democratic Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee, N. J. for declining to endorse Mr. Christie in the Republican governor’s 2013 campaign. And they had deliberately decided to do so during the first days of school. “The purpose was to create as big a traffic jam as possible,” Mr. Wildstein said. We leave you, now, to settle onto the couch to watch the first debate of the 2016 general election campaign for president. The between Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump — straight from Long Island, at Hofstra University in Hempstead — covered topics including the economy, crime statistics and climate. Live analysis, video and fact checks from reporters were on our live blog. • In bittersweet news, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed a bill today that will allow New Yorkers to be buried in the same cemeteries as their pets. [New York State] • NYC Transit has paid a hefty $431 million to settle lawsuits with people injured by Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses and trains. [Daily News] • Part of Greenwich Street disappeared when the first World Trade Center came along, and it was wiped from the map again on . But now, we’re seeing its resurrection. [New York Times] • Here’s how architects and urban planners are helping to reduce crime around the city. [DNAInfo] • . .. And here’s why the Bronx may be the city’s new arts hot spot. [Crain’s] • On tonight’s sports front: Yankees at Blue Jays, 7 p. m. (YES). Mets at Marlins, 7:10 p. m. (SNY). • For a global look at what’s happening, see Your Evening Briefing. • Looking ahead: The writer and actor Regina Ress shares stories from in “Compassion, Generosity and Grace,” on Tuesday at the New York Public Library. ‘Sharing a Breeze With a Baby’ The air conditioning on the arriving downtown No. 6 train was working just enough that a smattering of straphangers was visible through the window. Stepping in after ten minutes waiting on the steamy Astor Place platform, and with my strapped to my chest, I didn’t dare make a dash for the next car. Instead, we grudgingly eased ourselves into a seat by the door. “You look hot. ” I glanced up to find a young woman, dare I say a millennial, dressed in a white maxi dress and gold strappy sandals. “Yes,” I said, blowing air onto my baby’s flushed face. “Let me help you,” she said, moving from her seat across the car. “I’m switching at the next stop,” I said in an attempt at a polite refusal. From her bag, she produced an iPhone and a fan blade, everything white like her dress. She plugged the fan into the phone’s charging slot. As it came to life, she turned the gentle breeze toward my baby. “I’ve never seen one of those,” I said. “I just got it at Duane Reade,” she said. “I thought it was a joke. ” The beads of sweat forming across her brow and upper lip threatened her perfect hair and makeup, but her only apparent concern was my son. “Thank you,” I said. “He’s adorable,” she said, but offered no other small talk, swiveling the fan between him and me all the way to Bleecker Street. “I’m moving to the next car,” I said as the train came to a stop. I looked back to thank her again, expecting her to follow my move. She was still sitting, eyes closed, finally taking her turn. Read all recent entries and our submissions guidelines. Reach us via email diary@nytimes. com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.	1
LOS ANGELES — Now it’s war: Nickelodeon, once again winning the children’s ratings race against Disney Channel, has decided to throw its weight behind . .. a princess. Nickelodeon has always had its share of magical kingdoms, but this cable network has tended to leave the princess business to Disney. (And what a business it is, generating an estimated $5. 5 billion a year in merchandise revenue alone.) But here comes “Nella the Princess Knight,” which Nickelodeon will introduce on Monday in a programming block for preschoolers. The Princess Police, mostly academics who use Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and their slender ilk to make points about their negative impact on young girls, have been a perennial thorn in Disney’s side, even as the company has introduced black and Latina royals, along with a preschool one, “Sofia the First. ” Will Nickelodeon now find itself in a similar position? Maybe not. The Nella pushes boundaries, at least for television aimed at in the areas of race and gender. She is biracial, with a black father and a white mother, a decision informed by Nickelodeon research indicating that most children under 12 will be nonwhite by 2020 and that already 17 percent are biracial. The character also mashes together traditional boy and girl gender norms. Nella may ride a unicorn with a pink mane (à la My Little Pony) but she does it while brandishing a sword and wearing knight gear, a bit like a preschool version of Brienne of Tarth from “Game of Thrones. ” She is a girlie girl but does traditional boy activities (battling a dragon) and does not spend the majority of her time in a ball gown. Nickelodeon’s princess may strike some adults as subversive, particularly given the surge of conservatism that helped push Donald J. Trump into office. But children see families and the blurring of gender lines as normal, said Cyma Zarghami, Nickelodeon’s longtime chief. “Adults might say, ‘Oh, look — she’s biracial,’ but our viewers just say, ‘That looks like my friend,’” she said. “An older generation was taught tolerance, and this audience is demanding difference,” said Ms. Zarghami. She led Nickelodeon to ratings strength in 2016 among total viewers and children ages 2 to 11, even as competitors like Disney Channel and Cartoon Network recorded sharp drops. (According to Nielsen, Disney still has a big lead among viewers 6 to 14.) She added, “This series seems to be taking on a life of its own, which is incredibly exciting. ”	0
Republican Karen Handel leads Democrat Jon Ossoff by two points in the final poll of Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District special election released by the Trafalgar Group late Monday afternoon. [Polling places open less than 24 hours from now for the June 20 runoff to replace Rep. Tom Price ( ) now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The survey of 1, 100 respondents has a margin of error of 2. 9 percent, and was conducted over two days between June 17th (Saturday) and June 18th (Sunday). “This 6th District survey breaks down the voter’s preference in the 2017 special election runoff. The Trafalgar Group (TFG) recognized for having the best polling in the 2016 battleground states and Electoral College projection, conducted the poll from June 17th through June 18th,” according to the polling firm’s release: The voters were asked their preferred candidate in the Congressional District 6 race. The results were: 50. 46% Handel48. 59% Ossoff0. 95% Undecided, The Trafalgar Group noted that “[t]he results for those who claimed to have already voted “early” are as follows: 51. 32% Ossoff, 48. 68% Handel. ” “The Handel momentum we saw last week continues and has been intensified as Handel consolidates Republican leaning voters,” Robert Cahaly of the Trafalgar Group said of the latest poll. He went on to say: There is no doubt in my mind that the shooting at the GOP Congressional Baseball practice has had an impact, but I don’t see that it is the impact that most pundits expect. This tragedy and the attempt to place the blame on rhetoric has actually served to motivate frustrated Republicans who were considering sitting the election out or voting for Ossoff. The shift we see toward Handel in the closing days of this race is a bit of GOP homecoming. These disenchanted Republicans are beginning to put their concerns aside and see this election as a choice — a choice between the Party and leaders they’re disappointed in and a Democrat Party and leaders that trouble them even more. Two polls released on Friday by Savvy and Communications showed the race in a statistical tie. Ossoff had a 1. 7 percent lead in the Communications poll and less than one percent lead in the Savvy poll. Since the margin of error for the Trafalgar Group poll released on Monday is 2. 9 percent, the two percent Handel advantage is also within the margin of error. The Trafalgar Group is primarily used by Republican candidates. It has a strong recent track record, as it notes in its release: The Trafalgar Group is widely recognized as the best polling firm of the 2016 election cycle, correctly forecasting the results in key battleground and other states (PA, FL, NC, MI, OH, CO, GA) and exactly predicting the Trump electoral college margin of victory ( ). The results and information of their polls have been featured in thousands of U. S. and global news stories, television networks, and polling web sites like Real Clear Politics. You can see the full results of the Trafalgar Group poll here.	0
The only Fortune 500 CEO serving in Congress rose to support Attorney General Jeff Sessions less than six hours after Sen. Charles Schumer (D. . Y.) the leader of the Senate Democrats, called upon Sessions to resign because he met with the Russian ambassador in 2016 as a senator. [“I rise today to speak in defense of a dear colleague of ours, who is now the Attorney General Jeff Sessions, said Sen. David Perdue (R. .) who like Sessions was a campaign surrogate for President Donald Trump. “He is my friend, and more importantly, he is a former colleague of this very body,” he said. “He’s a man of integrity. He is a man of principle. I trust him and I take him at his word,” the senator said. Perdue said that Sessions has repeatedly pledged that he would recuse himself from any investigations into Russian meddling in the American political process during the 2016 election cycle. The attacks on Sessions surprised Perdue, he said. “I’ve never witnessed anything quite like this in my brief time in the United States Senate,” he said. “The last two years have been very interesting, but never have I seen the hypocrisy that we see going on around this one issue. It is increasingly clear that the Minority Party is singularly focused on sabotaging this new administration at every turn. ” Perdue said it should be remembered that Senate Democrats have used every possible delaying tactic or procedure to hamper the president from building his team. “Our President today, as we stand here in this well, cannot have a staff meeting because he doesn’t have all of his Cabinet members in place. ” Without mentioning her name, Perdue pointed out that Sen. Claire McCaskill (D. .) Tweeted that she never met with the Russians, only to have her own Twitter feed contradict her. Claire McCaskill says she’s had “no call or meeting ambassador. Ever. ” But she tweeted about two. It’s easy to forget. pic. twitter. — Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) March 2, 2017, “Thirty members, as a matter of fact, of this body met with the Russian Ambassador and ambassadors from other nations in 2015 for a sales pitch on President Obama’s deal with Iran,” he said, “Many of them — including the senior senator from Missouri — were open supporters at that time of candidates in the Presidential race,” he said. Perdue said the Democrats are desperate to spin up scandals, while Republicans are working to reverse the damage done to America and the world by President Barack Obama and his policies. That does not mean that the Russians are not a concern, he said. The Russians have invaded their neighbors, threatened our friends, and destabilized regions, such as the Middle East, he said. “Until there is a definite proof that Russians changed a single vote from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump, I will be focused on one thing, and that is doing exactly what the American people sent us up here to do — and I encourage my colleagues to do the same — and that is not to engage in political theater for the sake of partisan politics, but working together to get America back to work,” he said. Watch Sen. David Perdue (R. .) stand up Thursday for Attorney General Jeff Sessions on the Senate Floor:	0
NICE, France — Returning home after an abortive trip to find some ice cream late on Thursday evening, Mario Aufiero, a French retiree, waited patiently on the sidewalk as a big truck lumbered down the short street he needed to cross to get to his apartment building just off the Promenade des Anglais. The truck, he said, displayed no unusual menace but upset him all the same as heavy vehicles are supposed to be banned from the sedate residential area at that hour. Moreover, it was moving in the wrong direction down the street outside his apartment. “There was nothing I could do, so I went home to bed,” Mr. Aufiero recalled. The deeply uncomfortable question now confronting French leaders and the country’s security apparatus, however, is whether they, too, dozed off that night. Moments after Mr. Auferio got home, the driver of the truck he had seen remorselessly turned it into a killing machine. The truck ran over scores of people as it barreled down the Promenade des Anglais for more than a mile before police officers finally stopped it by shooting to death the driver, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a Tunisian. As investigators try to piece together what drove Mr. Lahouaiej Bouhlel to such extreme and random violence, many people in Nice and around the world are asking how, in a country that has been under a state of emergency since November, a lone driver could so easily flout elementary traffic rules and then race unimpeded through throngs of people who had gathered to watch a Bastille Day fireworks display. As in previous years, security forces, worried about a possible terrorist attack on France’s national day, set up barriers to block traffic on the Promenade des Anglais, a boulevard that stretches eastward from the city’s airport to its old port. But the barriers, devices made of hollow metal tubes, started far to the east of where Mr. Lahouaiej Bouhlel entered the boulevard. The number of police officers on duty that night was more than usual, but nearly all were concentrated in the area by the old port, where most people traditionally gather to watch the fireworks. This left Mr. Lahouaiej Bouhlel more than a mile of open road on which to crush revelers who had decided to stay outside the heavily guarded spectator zone — and build up speed before he reached the first police barriers near the point where the seaside promenade joins the Boulevard Gambetta. Such was the truck’s speed that when it first encountered any obstruction by police, “it would have required a wall of concrete” to stop it, Anthony Borré, an official in the regional government, told local television. French leaders, including President François Hollande, who visited Nice on Friday, repeatedly praised security services for swiftly stopping the truck once they encountered it. Indeed, the truck advanced only 500 or so yards after smashing through the barriers near Boulevard Gambetta. But this was only a short part of Mr. Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s long and murderous drive. “Why was he allowed to drive so far without anyone bothering him?” asked Pierre Roux, who, from his balcony, watched the truck plow through the crowd outside his apartment. “This is a terrible ” he said after emerging from his home early Friday to put a candle on a bloodied white sheet covering a corpse. How big a is still being deciphered. It is not clear, for instance, whether the police tried to shoot out the tires before being able to shoot the driver, or whether smaller cities around France prepared for the possibility of a terrorist attack with the same vigilance as, say, Paris, the scene of two major attacks last year. There, in stages starting early on France’s July 14 national day, the police snapped in place a security perimeter extending many blocks from the fireworks display at the Eiffel Tower. They closed even major thoroughfares to vehicles, including scooters, and placed checkpoints at nearly each approaching intersection to search pedestrians’ bags. The question of whether more could have been done to prevent 84 people from being killed has been taken up with gusto by local leaders on the French Riviera, most of whom represent forces opposed to France’s Socialist government in Paris. “National unity does not signify national naïveté or, even less, national incompetence,” Éric Ciotti, the president of the department in which Nice is located, told Nice Matin newspaper on Saturday. ”Zero risk never exists, but it is our duty and our responsibility to limit it to the maximum. ” France’s Socialist government has responded angrily to such criticism, insisting it did everything it could to prevent a terrorist attack. It pointed out that nobody expected a rampage by truck and that the attacker had never popped up on the radar of intelligence and other services that monitor potential extremists. Still, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced on Saturday that he was calling up 12, 000 police reserves to augment security around the country. “When you are talking after the fact, you can always find solutions,” Stéphane Le Foll, the government’s spokesman, told Europe 1 radio on Saturday. “Those who, after a tragedy like this one, come and say that they would have had the solution, that with them, nothing would have happened, I leave them to their total lack of responsibility. ” The prefecture for the department that encompasses Nice, added its own voice to the defensive chorus, issuing a statement on Saturday that said security for this year’s fireworks show had been increased with 64 national police officers and 42 from the city plus 20 soldiers. It said vehicles had been positioned to block the Promenade des Anglais beyond the closely monitored security zone but acknowledged that Mr. Lahouaiej Bouhlel had bypassed one of these control points by simply driving onto the sidewalk. Mario Aufiero and other residents in the area near a children’s hospital where the truck entered the promenade said they had seen no extra police in their neighborhood and nothing on the boulevard to impede Mr. Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s murderous progress until it was far too late. “Everything was like it always is every year on July 14. There was nothing to stop him until he got down to Gambetta,” said Pierre Devit, a resident on the promenade in the city’s Magnan district near the hospital. He also asked why it had taken so long to shoot the driver. “They should have opened fire as soon as they saw the truck approaching,” he said. Others, however, were more understanding of the authorities’ failure to quickly halt the city’s worst episode of violence since World War II. “People need to be logical. The truck was moving at 60 kilometers an hour, so what could anyone do?” asked Cuny, an employee in a foundry that makes the metal barriers studded along the seafront walkway. “We can’t put police every 10 meters. That would be completely unreasonable, and people would only complain. ” The Islamic State on Saturday gloated over the success of what it called “a new, unique operation” in Nice. In a radio broadcast claiming responsibility for the attack, it warned: “Let the crusader states know that regardless of how much they mobilize their security capabilities and tighten their procedures, they will not be safe from the strikes of the mujahedeen, which will continue to beat upon their doorsteps. ”	1
By Sarah Jones on Sun, Oct 30th, 2016 at 8:59 pm Senator Harry Reid dropped the bomb that the FBI and national security experts possess "explosive information" about ties and coordination between Russia and Donald Trump and his campaign. Share on Twitter Print This Post Talk about burying the lede. In Senator Harry Reid’s letter in which he suggests that FBI Director James Comey may have broken the law (the Hatch Law), he also drops the bomb that the FBI and national security experts possess “explosive information” about ties and coordination between Russia and Donald Trump and his campaign. Reid writes, “In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity.” Reid points out the “disturbing double standard” in Comey’s treatment of sensitive information between the two parties with a “clear intent” to aid one over the other. If the FBI and national security experts have information that Donald Trump and or his campaign are colluding or collaborating to bring about a particular result regarding the U.S. election or our foreign policy stances, this is an emergency. Which issue is so much of an emergency that a federal official might consider dropping the bomb just 11 days before an election: Electing someone who is conspiring with Russia or electing someone whose aide may have sent an email she forget to tell everyone about. The double standard is not only troubling at this point, but dangerous. Bomb dropped. Everyone already suspected Trump’s ties to Russia and his campaign has been full of ties to the Kremlin, but now Reid has confirmed information about coordination between Trump and Russia. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is an October shocker. Reid’s full letter follows: Dear Director Comey: Your actions in recent months have demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be a clear intent to aid one political party over another. I am writing to inform you that my office has determined that these actions may violate the Hatch Act, which bars FBI officials from using their official authority to influence an election. Through your partisan actions, you may have broken the law. The double standard established by your actions is clear. In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity. The public has a right to know this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public. There is no danger to American interests from releasing it. And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information. By contrast, as soon as you came into possession of the slightest innuendo related to Secretary Clinton, you rushed to publicize it in the most negative light possible. Moreover, in tarring Secretary Clinton with thin innuendo, you overruled longstanding tradition and the explicit guidance of your own Department. You rushed to take this step eleven days before a presidential election, despite the fact that for all you know, the information you possess could be entirely duplicative of the information you already examined which exonerated Secretary Clinton. As you know, a memo authored by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates on March 10, 2016, makes clear that all Justice Department employees, including you, are subject to the Hatch Act. The memo defines the political activity prohibited under the Hatch Act as “activity directed towards the success or failure of a political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group.” The clear double-standard established by your actions strongly suggests that your highly selective approach to publicizing information, along with your timing, was intended for the success or failure of a partisan candidate or political group. Please keep in mind that I have been a supporter of yours in the past. When Republicans filibustered your nomination and delayed your confirmation longer than any previous nominee to your position, I led the fight to get you confirmed because I believed you to be a principled public servant. With the deepest regret, I now see that I was wrong. Sincerely, Senator Harry Reid	1
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Seventeen years ago, the Middle East was a more hopeful place. Newspapers were filled with accounts of peace negotiations. Israel was in the midst of withdrawing its troops from southern Lebanon, in advance of an summit at Camp David. It was Bill Clinton’s last year as president, and expectations were rising that he would broker the comprehensive peace agreement that had eluded his predecessors. I lived in Israel, my first assignment as an American diplomat. During my time there, I eagerly traveled across the region, taking advantage of what I realize now was a period of exceptional openness. As I neared the end of my assignment, there was only one neighboring country I had not visited: Syria, a dictatorship frozen in time and overflowing with archaeological sites. With the prospect of peace on the horizon, I was determined to visit before it became a major tourist destination. So back in April 2000, after some nimble arranging, I traveled across Syria for a week and returned to Israel satisfied with my journey. And then as I was stationed in other countries and on other continents, the trip to Syria faded into background. Years would go by without my remembering it. Then in 2016, the trip flooded back as the Syrian civil war unleashed its fury on Aleppo, my favorite of the cities I visited. I was seized with a fever to remember more. From my current vantage point — 42 years old, the father of three young children — the trip seemed ludicrous. Did I really backpack through Syria while hiding my status as an American diplomat? Of course then, it would have seemed just as ludicrous to imagine that events in Syria would become a horrific tragedy and that borders would clang shut around the world, starting with our own. As news reports about Aleppo grew worse last summer, my daily life in Chicago bumped along. It was humid, rainy and hot. Tomatoes grew like weeds and vines dangled from every bush, trying to stretch into new territory. But my mind kept returning to that trip long ago. At first I found little evidence of it in boxes of my past: no pictures or journal entries. To help jog my memory, I ordered a copy of the 1999 Lonely Planet Syria guide I had used. When it arrived in the mail, I opened to the introduction and read a passage that is now cruelly out of date: “Along with Jordan,” Syria is “probably the single most safe country for travelers in the whole of the region. The closest you’ll come to being hijacked is to be dragged off by a friendly local to drink tea and chat. ” As I paged through the guidebook, details started to return. At the time, Syria refused entry to those with Israeli stamps in their passports, but I had both tourist and diplomatic passports, which helped circumvent this problem. I flew from Tel Aviv to Amman and prepared to enter Syria with my tourist passport. My diplomatic passport, filled with Israeli border stamps and residency permits, lay hidden at the bottom of my duffel bag. In Amman, I went straight to a bus depot, where I found a taxi about to leave for Damascus. It was not really a taxi — just a driver and his car, a version of UberPool. But the driver spoke a little English and confirmed that he was leaving for Damascus right away. That was enough for me. I crammed inside with three other men, and we left Amman. I started to worry about a later when we made an unscheduled stop in a deserted village. The driver and the other passengers, who seemed to know each other, loaded the trunk with boxes. It looked suspicious. We started up again, heading for the border. Evening turned to night. Wedged between silent men in the back of the car, my thoughts kept returning to those boxes in the trunk. Had I somehow chosen a smuggler’s car for my crossing into Syria? Not good, especially with an American diplomatic passport hidden in my bag. The Jordanian countryside grew desolate, nothing but empty land as far as the eye could see. I panicked, and wondered whether I should open the car door and fling myself out. Luckily, I did not. Instead, I took out a package of Fig Newtons, bought at the American Embassy commissary in Tel Aviv. I opened the package theatrically and offered biscuits to everyone in the car. The effect was immediate. Perhaps they just needed sugar. Or maybe they had never tasted Fig Newtons. Whatever the reason, the mood changed in a heartbeat. Smiles flashed in the darkness, the radio was turned up, and Arabic filled the car, interspersed with the words “Fig Newton. ” A few minutes later, we passed through Jordanian border control and approached the Syrian crossing, a large, building in the distance. We parked nearby everyone climbed out with the air of people who had done this type of thing before. I got out too, but trailed behind, unsure of what to do. Then the young man who had been sitting to my right turned around and looked at me. Possibly sensing my unease, he waited for me to catch up, smiled and said “Fig Newton!” I nodded eagerly. He reached for my hand, held it tight, and we walked together like that to the Syrian border. Men holding hands in a demonstration of friendship was common during my time in the Middle East, but it was new to me. For a second I was uncertain, but then, as we walked toward the border in the dark, I felt grateful and hoped my hand was not too sweaty. My friend joked with the border guards and looked at me with a certain amount of affection. I heard “Fig Newton” in the middle of a stream of Arabic. They stamped our passports, and we were through. It was after midnight when we arrived in Damascus. The city was quiet, as was the car — we had all become sleepy. We waved silent goodbyes. I left them the package of cookies, walked to a small hotel and passed out on the thin mattress. For the next few days, I explored the old cities of Damascus and Aleppo. I bought souvenirs. I ate frozen ice and watched the groaning water wheels in the city of Hama. I visited ancient houses where the walls were being used as cattle pens. There was more to see, and I vowed to return. On the way back to Jordan, I took an bus and avoided the drama of my entry. Upon my return to Tel Aviv, I put my souvenirs in boxes and started preparing for my next diplomatic assignment, to Haiti. Years passed and my memories of the trip to Syria faded away, replaced by the steady accretion of other life experiences. In recent months, I finally found the box containing mementos and letters from that era, and discovered a brass door knocker bought in a Damascus antique shop. It is in the shape of a hand with long, elegant fingers clenching what appears to be a pomegranate. I promptly installed it on the door of my study. Amid holiday cards, letters from my grandmother, and an inexplicably saved candy wrapper, I found a blank postcard depicting the dictator Hafez and his two sons, their heads floating in a murky green background. I also found my diplomatic passport — the one filled with Israeli stamps that had been hidden at the bottom of my duffel bag. Other memories appeared in vivid bursts. A rug merchant’s store, tucked into one of the Aleppo souk’s narrow passageways. Rugs in piles tens of feet high, covering every available space. They even covered his desk. In his sales pitch, the merchant said that the rug I had chosen could function as a “” framing any room to enhance its appeal. It sounded convincing, though I still do not really understand what it means. Then I remembered the oud. Walking into my wife’s office, I found the curved instrument that looks like a pear cut in half. As I held it in my arms I suddenly could picture the store in Aleppo where I bought it. The merchant was an older man, instantly wary when he saw me push open the door. We spoke in halting French. I pointed to an oud that I liked and asked him about it. He described it in basic, nonflowery terms. The gist was — it is an oud it was made in Aleppo. I bargained to get the price down. He looked crestfallen, so I quickly agreed to the original price. Then I left. The encounter took maybe five minutes. Afterward, I walked along Aleppo’s boulevards and admired the tall apartment buildings that seemed like the very heart of the city. Like the door knocker and the postcard showing the Syrian dictators, this oud had traveled with us to every diplomatic assignment — to Haiti, to Paris, to New York, to Canada. Now it sits in our apartment in Chicago. It has left its case several times, and has never been played properly. I thought of the old man who sold it to me, and wondered whether he might have made it. It was like the completion of a thought that began 17 years ago. Again and again, I see him standing up in the store as the bell chimes, ready to meet whoever walks through the door. The memory is so vivid that it could have happened hours ago. Something like this happened once to my father. One evening we were watching the rain pour down thick and straight. He leaned back in his chair and sank into himself for a minute. Then he looked at me and said, “The smell reminds me of Africa. ” He was talking about the rain splattering into the soil, humus lifting up in waves from the ground. I could tell from his expression that he was swimming in memories. years had melted away and he was back in Ivory Coast as a young Peace Corps volunteer, if only for an instant. Both of us had experienced the lifelong impact of travel, the way that it can echo for decades. My trip to Syria lasted only a few days, and yet it has apparently attached to my life like a barnacle. It clings to me, mostly forgotten, but once in a while it asserts its presence. The result is an upswelling of memory so strong that it feels like time travel. It is the umami of life, infusing ordinary days with unexpected flavor. Memories of travel can linger for a lifetime. But it gets even better. Memories bestow the same benefits as the original trip: They build empathy, broaden perspectives, and remind us, again and again, of our common humanity. They help rattle the cage of assumptions we build through the years. Most of all, they are a gift we give to ourselves — a transfer of spirit from our younger, versions to the people we are right now.	1
In the hours since Michael T. Flynn resigned as national security adviser late Monday, two narratives have emerged. One, embraced by many in the traditional legacy media, centered on what Mr. Flynn had done that led to his resignation: discussing sanctions against Russia in a conversation with the Russian ambassador, and then misleading Vice President Mike Pence about it. The other, which developed among the more news media, focused on the leaks from Washington that had put pressure on Mr. Flynn to step aside, and whether these leaks were intended to damage President Trump. One narrative holds Mr. Flynn, and others who knew about his discussions, accountable. The other portrays Mr. Flynn more as a victim. The focus on leaks intensified on Wednesday, after The New York Times reported late Tuesday that Trump aides and associates had made repeated contact with senior Russian officials during the presidential campaign. Which narrative does Mr. Trump ascribe to? On Tuesday morning, he attributed Mr. Flynn’s resignation to “illegal leaks. ” On Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump again denounced the leaks in a blizzard of tweets. It is not unusual for news media to promote different story angles. And the division between and news organizations is certainly not new. But the rift between the mainstream media and more partisan news organizations has grown starker in the nearly four weeks since Mr. Trump took office, reflecting a widening political and ideological rift. The growing division means that some readers are getting their news through an prism. Americans who get their information predominantly from Breitbart News, a news and opinion site, for instance, or from the conservative Fox News are getting a very different version of the news from Americans who read The Washington Post or watch CNN. Late Monday night, as the news broke that Mr. Flynn had resigned, news organizations rushed to publish articles. Not Breitbart. For roughly an hour after Mr. Flynn’s resignation letter began circulating, Breitbart did not change the main story on its home page, which was about immigration policy. When Breitbart made the Flynn resignation its main story, around midnight, the account hewed closely to the facts of Mr. Flynn’s resignation and quoted heavily from his resignation letter. The site also put up a more analytical article that raised questions about the motives behind the government’s monitoring of communications between Mr. Flynn and the Russian ambassador. “Democrats are clamoring for a deeper investigation of Russian ties to Trump,” the article said. “But the more serious question is whether our nation’s intelligence services were involved in what amounts to political espionage against the newly elected government. ” The article also raised questions about how the news media got its information, reinforcing a distrust of the press that Mr. Trump and his administration have assiduously tried to foster. “The fact that the contents of Flynn’s phone conversation — highly sensitive intelligence — were leaked to the media suggests that someone with access to that information also has a political axe to grind,” the article said. The emphasis on the leaks continued into Tuesday afternoon with an article at the top of Breitbart’s site on the White House briefing and the assertion by Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, that the leaks were an overlooked part of the reporting on Mr. Flynn. The narrative gained more steam on Wednesday morning, after the damaging reports Tuesday night: An article on the Breitbart home page seized on Mr. Trump’s early morning tweets attacking the coverage rather than the news about the Russian contacts. Fox News also advanced this narrative on Tuesday and Wednesday. During one segment on “Fox Friends” on Tuesday, Laura Ingraham, a conservative commentator and Fox News contributor, suggested that the leaks were politically motivated. “The long knives were out for Flynn almost the moment that he was announced,” she said. “I think this really was the death by a thousand leaks,” Ms. Ingraham added. “The leaks that were coming out of this administration and the transition, before the administration, were at a level that I don’t remember seeing for quite some time. ” Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a Republican, also focused on the leaks during an appearance on the channel. “Who tapped the phones, who was listening to it, who leaked it? I think those are legitimate questions to ask,” he said. “Let’s face it,” he later said, “leaks of this nature are incredibly damaging to America, to our national security, and we need to look into it. ” Tuesday night ended on a predictably outraged note, with Sean Hannity, a Trump supporter, suggesting on his show that the left was “willing to do anything to stop President Trump from draining the swamp and changing the status quo. ” “Impeachment of the president is clearly the end goal for the left,” Mr. Hannity added. “Facts, truth, it doesn’t really matter. Mike Flynn is just a small casualty of that bigger plan. ” On Wednesday, the main article on the Fox News home page highlighted the president’s condemnation of the leaks to the media. Journalists at more centrist news organizations, including CNN and NPR, attributed Mr. Flynn’s resignation to the strong reporting and investigative journalism that had exposed details of Mr. Flynn’s talks with Russia. Rather than casting aspersion on leaks about Mr. Flynn, these commentators praised their contributions to accountability journalism. Joe Scarborough, a host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” went so far as to call the person who had leaked information “a patriot. ” “The only reason we’re finding out about it now is because a patriot did leak this to The Washington Post, did get this information out there, or else we wouldn’t have even known about it,” said Mr. Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida. The Columbia Journalism Review, a publication that chronicles and analyzes the news media, was perhaps the most pointed. An article on Tuesday — with the headline “Flynn resignation shows leaks under Trump are working. Keep ‘em coming. ” — described how several recent leaks had ultimately forced the Trump administration to reverse course or make changes. “Some of these leaks have halted a Trump appointment and controversial policies in their tracks,” the article said, “and it’s a lesson showing how and leaks to the press are vital for democracy. ”	1
Adrian Bamforth Adrian Bamforth	0
FULING, China — mountains rise high in this sleepy Yangtze River district, best known for its crunchy pickled mustard tubers. But one of these mountains is not like the others. On the peak of Jinzi Mountain in Fuling, a single chimney stands sentinel over the adjacent Wu River. The chimney has been idle since it was built decades ago. Only in recent years has the public learned why. Fifteen years ago, the local government announced that inside the mountain lay the remnants of what was once one of China’s most ambitious military infrastructure projects: the 816 nuclear plant. Initiated in the 1960s during the height of tensions between China and the Soviet Union, the 816 project was China’s first attempt to build a nuclear reactor that could produce plutonium without Soviet involvement. But there was one catch. To reduce the possibility of an attack, Chinese officials and engineers made the unusual decision to place the reactor underground, complicating an already challenging engineering process. Over the next 18 years, more than 60, 000 workers participated in the risky project, and some died in the process. The result was what is said to be the world’s largest artificial cave, able to withstand the force of thousands of tons of explosives as well as a magnitude 8 earthquake. But when China began a sweeping civilian defense conversion of many of its military projects in the early 1980s, work on the nearly finished plant was abruptly called to a halt. For 26 years, it functioned partly as a chemical fertilizer factory before being revived for tourism in 2010 — an improbable twist of fate for this quirk of Cold War history. Still, for many former workers, the 816 project remains a source of bitter regret. Even as China charges ahead with an ambitious — if controversial — plan to build nuclear plants around the country and expand the use of nuclear energy, military nuclear projects like 816 have all but been forgotten. “Back then, the project took so much from these young men, including our livelihoods,” said Chen Huaiwen, 69, a former soldier who worked on the excavation of the mountain from 1969 to 1974. “We need to make this clear to the public. Otherwise it will have been a huge waste of our efforts and manpower. ” To address these concerns, the 816 site recently underwent a year of renovations. Since it reopened in September, visitors — including, for the first time, foreigners — can now see about of the cave, which contains nearly 13 miles of tunnel roads. On a recent afternoon, a group of tourists, led by an energetic tour guide who came dressed in military fatigues and combat boots, clambered onto a golf cart at the roadside entrance of one of the tunnels. From there, the cart burrowed straight into the belly of Jinzi Mountain, cool air whooshing by. At the tour’s first stop, a cavernous hall that once held the plant’s facilities, ominous doomsday music blared while neon lights bathed the room in blue, red and then pink. It was a scene that was perhaps more befitting of an underground rave than a Communist history education tour, apart from a display that showed, among other things, an image of a mushroom cloud from China’s first nuclear test at Lop Nur in 1964. Speaking into a microphone, Qi Hong, the tour guide, explained: “This cave represents not only the efforts of the 816 workers but also an important part of history in China’s national defense and nuclear development. ” Standing around Ms. Qi were 30 or so mostly older Chinese. Throughout the tour, Ms. Qi led the group through a maze of empty reactor halls, exhibition rooms and dim staircases, stopping frequently to lecture so the elderly visitors could catch their breath. Although most in the group had not heard of the project until recently, they were old enough to recall the historical circumstances that led the government to single out this picturesque place in southwestern China — also the backdrop of the writer Peter Hessler’s memoir “River Town” — as the site of a massive nuclear complex. It began, Ms. Qi explained, with the Third Front, the colossal defense program started by China in 1964 to create an industrial base in the country’s interior. China already had a nuclear reactor — the 404 project in the northwestern province of Gansu. But as concerns grew about that reactor’s vulnerability to attack, in 1966 Premier Zhou Enlai personally approved the plan to build a replica of the 404 project underground in Fuling. Soon after, scientists, engineers, soldiers and other supporting staff came from all around the country to this remote area — then reachable only by boat — to work on the 816 project. They represented some of the nation’s top talent, having studied at China’s leading universities, as well as in the Soviet Union and Japan. “The plant reflects the greatness of the Chinese people,” said Xia Renhui, 66, a retiree from the northeastern city of Shenyang who was touring the plant. “And now, China is even stronger. Obama’s Army is not good enough to fight us!” From the beginning, it was a project. Locals and even many of the soldiers working at the site were unaware of the project’s true purpose. The complex included schools, a market and a hospital so the workers could live in total isolation. The nearby town of Baitao disappeared from the map. “All we knew was the code name 816,” said Li Tingyong, a local resident and later head of the Fuling tourism bureau, in a 2010 television program about the 816 plant. “But we had no idea what it was a code name for. It was very mysterious. ” Life was especially hard for the more than 20, 000 young soldiers. Many had enlisted thinking they were heading to Beijing, only to find that they had been assigned to work at the 816 project site. For a small monthly salary of around 6 renminbi, or $2. 44 at the time, the soldiers — whose average age was 21 — were tasked with excavating the hard rock with only small drills, dynamite and shovels. It was dangerous work, and the pressure to finish the project was immense. Soldiers worked around the clock, urged on by the slogan “Fight the clock against imperialism, revisionism and counterrevolutionaries!” Many were injured or died. Today official figures put the number of fatalities at around 100. “But I don’t believe it,” said Ms. Qi, in a rare departure from her script, suggesting the real number was higher. “The environment was too harsh. ” By the time the project was called off in 1984, 85 percent of the construction had been finished. Over all, total investment in the 816 project is estimated at more than 746 million renminbi, or about $359 million at the time. But sunk costs aside, some experts say the decision to abandon the 816 project was ultimately a sound one. “The only good thing that happened with the project was that they didn’t finish it,” said Hui Zhang, a senior research associate at Harvard University’s Project on Managing the Atom. “In terms of the overall development of China’s nuclear program, the 816 project really did not contribute anything. ” Still, for many of the people like Mr. Chen, who gave years of their lives to the 816 project, a sense of loss and resentment lingers. “Ultimately we worked on the project because we thought we were working for the nation,” Mr. Chen said in a telephone interview as he traveled home to Shanxi Province after visiting the reopened plant. “If we knew that in the end it would be made into a tourist site, we never would have participated. ”	1
SAN FRANCISCO — The service Uber said on Wednesday that it would prohibit employees from using a program called Greyball to thwart regulators. Uber’s new policy pertaining to the use of Greyball, a tool the company developed to show individual riders different versions of its app, comes in the aftermath of a New York Times article that outlined how the company had used the tool to identify and avoid local regulators who were investigating the service. The article, which cited four former and current Uber employees, said the company had used Greyball to thwart authorities in various cities in the United States and other countries. In a statement on Wednesday, Joe Sullivan, Uber’s chief security officer, said the company was conducting a review of how the technology had been used. “We are expressly prohibiting its use to target action by local regulators going forward,” Mr. Sullivan said. “Given the way our systems are configured, it will take some time to ensure this prohibition is fully enforced. ” A company spokesman, asked why Uber could not fully enforce the prohibition immediately, declined to elaborate further. Uber said that a number of organizations had inquired about the program and that the company planned to respond once it finished its review. Last week, Marietje Schaake, a member of the European Parliament for the Dutch Democratic Party in the Netherlands, wrote to the European Commission asking if it planned to investigate the company’s use of Greyball. In addition, officials in Portland, Ore. called for an investigation into Uber’s use of Greyball there. In 2014, Uber started offering its service in Portland without getting permission. The city later declared it illegal. Law enforcement officers posed as riders during their investigation of the service but were unable to catch Uber drivers in the act. It appeared as though Uber was using Greyball to avoid the officers. In one instance, a code enforcement officer in Portland who opened the Uber app would see representations of cars on the app’s map. But the cars themselves never materialized. And the cars they were able to hail would cancel the ride before they arrived. The revelation about Uber’s use of Greyball added to the company’s recent stream of bad news. In January, Uber contended with a #deleteUber campaign by riders who thought the company was trying to take advantage of a taxi strike at Kennedy International Airport in New York. (Local taxi drivers were protesting President Trump’s immigration ban.) Last month, Uber faced increasing criticism of its workplace culture and was embroiled in a lawsuit over its cars. And last week, the company dealt with concerns regarding the temperament of its chief executive, Travis Kalanick, after a video of him berating an Uber driver became public. The company did not say, however, that it planned to prohibit the use of Greyball in all instances. Uber said it used the technology for many purposes, including the testing of new features by employees, marketing promotions, and the deterring of riders using the app in violation of its terms of services. Greyball came out of an Uber program called VTOS, short for “violation of terms of service,” which the company says it created in part to identify people it thought were using its service improperly. The program began as early as 2014 and remains in use, mostly outside the United States. Uber’s legal team approved the use of Greyball. Uber employees said the practices and tools came about partly because of a need to protect drivers who had been the target of violence in a number of countries. In France, India and Kenya, for instance, taxi companies and workers attacked new Uber drivers.	0
[LISTEN] Clinton’s Shocking Response To Claim He Slept With Black Beauty Queen Rascon spoke with Gloria and her daughter, Trina, who were apparently waiting in line to vote early, about what they thought of Trump. Neither of the women had anything negative to say. “Well, I think Trump is reaching out all citizens, including African-Americans,” Trina said. “He’s trying to address a problem… That’s what a president should do for us. He should reach out and try to help people and address problems that’s going on in our country.” When asked about how Trump has appealed to blacks by telling them they had nothing to lose by voting for him, Gloria agreed, and said that African-American should not be deceived. Advertisement - story continues below “Look at the record, look at the promises that have been made over the past from the Democratic Party. We are not voting for a party. We are voting for a man who’s been standing by all citizens ,” she told Soboroff. “He loves America. That’s what I love about him. We need somebody that loves America. And he also loves all people. All people,” she added. She also added the there is a deception out there that Trump has no black supporters. “Wrong! He does,” she concluded. Advertisement - story continues below	0
Pedro Hernandez, a former bodega stock clerk who confessed to luring Etan Patz into a basement and attacking him, was found guilty on Tuesday of murder and kidnapping, a step toward closure in a case that bedeviled investigators for decades and changed forever the way parents watched over their children. A Manhattan jury convicted Mr. Hernandez on the ninth day of deliberations after the second of two lengthy trials that brought renewed attention to Etan’s disappearance on May 25, 1979, as he walked to his school bus stop alone in SoHo for the first time. The mystery of what happened to Etan shook New York and the nation, with photographs of the smiling, boy ubiquitous on milk cartons, “missing” posters, newspaper front pages and television newscasts. The alarm caused by the abduction reverberated across America, evoking the worst fears of parents and helping to change the way the authorities tracked missing children. The vote to convict came after jurors returned to court Tuesday following a weekend and watched — “for the 100th time,” one juror said — Mr. Hernandez’s recorded confessions. Around noon, the panel sent a note to the judge saying it had reached a verdict. Though jurors declined to discuss how their views had evolved while deliberating, they acknowledged overcoming significant divisions. “Deliberations were difficult,” said Tommy Hoscheid, the jury foreman, “but I think we had constructive conversations based in logic that were analytical and creative and adaptive and compassionate, and ultimately, kind of heartbreaking. ” Years of fruitless searches and examinations of suspects had failed to yield answers for Etan’s parents, Stanley and Julie Patz, who still live in the Prince Street loft that was their home when their son vanished from what was then a area. The authorities turned their attention to Mr. Hernandez, who lived in a small New Jersey town near Philadelphia, after his called detectives in 2012 to share his suspicion that he could be responsible. For Stanley Patz, the verdict meant a vigil of almost 38 years was close to an end. “The Patz family has waited a long time, but we finally found some measure of justice for our wonderful little boy Etan,” said Mr. Patz, who sat through every day of the trial, carrying his own cushion to use on the courtroom’s hard wooden benches. He said that he had called his wife, who was not at the courthouse, and that she had cried at the news. “I’m really grateful — I’m really grateful — this jury finally came back with what I’ve known for a long time,” he added, “that this man, Pedro Hernandez, is guilty of doing something really terrible so many years ago. ” The outcome was a victory for the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr. who chose to prosecute Mr. Hernandez a second time after the earlier mistrial. That proceeding ended in 2015 after 18 days of deliberations when a lone juror declined to convict. He said he had been persuaded by defense arguments that Mr. Hernandez had mental health problems that called his admissions into question and that another suspect could have been the killer. “I’m relieved, and I’m relieved because I think it’s the right result,” Mr. Vance said in an interview. “I think it can bring all of us together in a moment of closure and healing,” he added, describing Etan’s disappearance as “something that has stayed with us as a city and as a community of New Yorkers. ” Mr. Hernandez, 56, is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 28. He faces up to 25 years to life in prison on both the kidnapping and murder charges, prosecutors said. Etan’s remains were never found, and prosecutors had no scientific evidence from crime scenes to corroborate their arguments. But the prosecution team, led by two veteran assistant district attorneys, Joan Illuzzi and Joel J. Seidemann, relied on Mr. Hernandez’s own words to build their case, pulling from the detailed confessions he gave to the authorities around the time of his arrest and to mental health experts who evaluated him later. In interviews recorded on video, which prosecutors played repeatedly for jurors during the trial, Mr. Hernandez described encountering a boy on a sidewalk outside the bodega and asking him if he wanted a soda. Mr. Hernandez told investigators he had led the boy to the basement and started to choke him. He said he had put the boy into a plastic bag and put the bag into a box that he left with garbage nearby. He said he believed the child was still alive when he left him. As part of his confession, he also signed a “missing” poster showing Etan, confirming to investigators that he was the boy he had attacked. “I just couldn’t let go,” Mr. Hernandez said in one of the interviews. “I felt like something just took over me. ” He did not offer a motive and said that he had not sexually abused Etan or any other child. But in her closing arguments, Ms. Illuzzi argued otherwise, saying that sexual abuse was the probable reason for the attack. Mr. Hernandez’s lawyers tried to undermine the credibility of his confessions, saying he was the only witness against himself and an unreliable one at that. They described Mr. Hernandez as having a low I. Q. and a personality disorder that made it difficult for him to distinguish between reality and fantasy. The defense contended that Mr. Hernandez’s admissions reflected a fiction he had concocted. They also argued that he was susceptible to pressure by detectives during an interrogation that lasted several hours. Mr. Hernandez, who stared forward blankly through much of the trial, showed little emotion as the verdict was announced. “We are obviously terribly disappointed,” Harvey Fishbein, the lead defense lawyer, said outside court. He said he planned to appeal, saying the grounds to do so were “too lengthy to start to list right here. ” “We’re confident we’ll be back here some day,” Mr. Fishbein said. “Unfortunately, in the end, we don’t believe this will resolve the story of what happened to Etan back in 1979. ” Prosecutors sought to portray Mr. Hernandez as mercurial and controlling yet deeply religious and desperate to unburden himself of the guilt he felt for attacking Etan. To support that argument, the prosecution called witnesses who testified about admissions Mr. Hernandez made over the years, with varying details, about killing a child in New York City. A member of a church group testified that Mr. Hernandez fell to his knees in tears, saying he had attacked a child. Mr. Hernandez’s former wife, with whom he has had an acrimonious relationship, recalled how he had pulled her aside before they married and told her he had killed a “muchacho,” which she inferred to be a teenage boy. She also testified that, after they were married, she found an image of Etan, taken from one of the missing posters, in a box of his in a closet. The first prosecution witness to testify when the trial began in October was Julie Patz. She recounted a hectic morning and what turned out to be her final moments with her son. It was the Friday before the Memorial Day weekend she was busy tending to her other children, and Etan jolted out of bed. He had been pushing to be more independent, she said, and he pleaded with her to let him walk about two blocks to the bus stop on his own. She said that she had reluctantly agreed and had walked him outside. He set off wearing an Eastern Airlines cap and carrying a $1 bill given to him by a neighborhood handyman on a visit to his workshop. He planned to stop in the bodega for a soda along the way. That afternoon, when Etan did not return, Ms. Patz testified, she called around and learned that he had never made it to school or boarded his bus. At the time, Mr. Hernandez was an high school dropout who had recently come to New York from Camden, N. J. Prosecutors said that soon after Etan disappeared, possibly within days, Mr. Hernandez returned to New Jersey, at some point taking a job at a dress factory. His lawyers depicted Mr. Hernandez as struggling with a mental illness that loosened his grip on reality. They said he had schizotypal personality disorder, a condition marked by symptoms that included severe paranoia, social anxiety and unusual beliefs. His youngest daughter, Becky, testified that he had discussed having hallucinations of demons and an angelic woman in white. The defense also suggested that another man could have been the culprit. The man, Jose Ramos, a convicted pedophile, had a relationship with a woman who had been hired to walk Etan home from school. He was considered a suspect for years. Prosecutors, citing a lack of evidence, dismissed the suggestion that Mr. Ramos was involved. They also said Mr. Hernandez was feigning symptoms of his mental illness. At the start of deliberations, the jury was “majorly divided,” one juror, Cateryn Kiernan, said. The confessions and the testimony about Mr. Ramos were among the major points of discussion. “We all had different hangups,” Ms. Kiernan told reporters. “It’s not a case. There’s a lot of gray. ” Ultimately, the jurors agreed with the prosecution’s arguments discrediting Mr. Ramos as a potential suspect, and found that the defense had not raised enough doubt. Another juror, Mike Castellon, called the defense strategy “spaghetti on the wall” — tossing out numerous theories, none of which stuck for him. Mr. Castellon said he found Mr. Hernandez’s confessions credible, and although he believed Mr. Hernandez might have a personality disorder, none of the experts who testified convinced him that it could make him confess to something he had invented. “That didn’t make him delusional,” Mr. Castellon said of the disorder. “We think he could tell right from wrong,” he said. “He could tell fantasy from reality. ”	1
The violence in Dallas last week is intensifying worries in Cleveland about visitors and protesters taking firearms downtown during the Republican National Convention, where thousands of people plan to demonstrate. Ohio’s laws mean that those who legally own guns can take them into the 1. area where many of the events and protests connected to the Republican convention will be held next week. Beginning Sunday, protesters are expected to flood into the city, with causes ranging from white supremacy to Palestinian rights. “Obviously, everybody is on edge after Dallas,” Brian Kazy, a member of the Cleveland City Council and its Safety Committee, said in an interview Sunday evening. Mr. Kazy said he had never been concerned about Ohio’s laws. But then Micah Johnson, an sniper said to be determined to murder white police officers, went on a rampage in Texas, which also has laws. “If you had some mass confusion, even if you had a civilian who was carrying who would attempt to help out, I think the mentality of any law enforcement officer would see an individual with a gun, would see an individual possibly shoot and would react to that,” he said. Cleveland officials are promising increased security during the Republican gathering, with resources from city, state and federal authorities. And within the convention area, the Secret Service will set up a smaller perimeter near the Quicken Loans Arena that will have stricter security and prohibit guns. Delegates to the convention, for example, will not be able to take their guns onto the convention floor. However, given the recent tumult around the country, some leaders are anxious that the environment could turn dangerous. Members of one group made up of current and former members of the military called the Oath Keepers, who have shown up at other tense events heavily armed, say they again plan to carry weapons into Cleveland. Stephen Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, said he strongly supported citizens’ rights to bear arms, but he is urging people not to take their guns anywhere near Cleveland’s downtown during the convention. “The last thing in the world we need is anybody walking around here with strapped to their back,” he said. “And the absolute tragedy in Dallas is proof positive that we just cannot allow that to happen. I would really just beg these folks, just leave your guns at home. Come, say whatever it is that you want to say, make whatever point it is that you want to make, but it’s going to be very, very difficult to deal with the R. N. C. as it is. ” He added that officers were already in a “heightened state” because of the passions generated by the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump, on both sides and the security challenges as thousands of delegates fill the city. Eric Pucillo, the vice president of Ohio Carry, a gun rights group based in Kent, Ohio, said he understood Mr. Loomis’s concerns, but stressed that people could not be legally prevented from carrying their guns downtown. Convention planners and city officials emphasize that they are prepared for the Republican gathering and the crowds it will attract. The Cleveland police chief said Friday that after the Dallas shootings the city would be changing its security plans but did not go into detail. Dan Williams, a spokesman for Mayor Frank G. Jackson, also declined to describe how Dallas had reshaped the city’s security plans, or whether officials were concerned about the state’s gun laws. “We are going to follow the law and the law is the law period,” Mr. Williams said. “We believe that we are prepared. ” Meanwhile, some are planning to take their own security forces to Cleveland. Tim Selaty, director of operations at Citizens for Trump, said his group was paying for private security to bolster the police presence. While Mr. Selaty said people should be allowed to carry guns, his group is banning long weapons from a rally in a park it is hosting on Monday. “We’re going to insist that they leave any long arms out for sure because we believe that will make sure our people are safer,” he said. “In other words, no no shotguns or sniper rifles — all of the things that you would think somebody would bring in to hurt a lot of people in a very short time. ” But, he said, he does generally believe civilians being armed make for a safer environment and that he “can’t blame” people who are scared because of Dallas and want to come to Cleveland armed. “It’s every citizen’s right to be able to defend themselves and their family, and I believe that an society is a much politer society,” Mr. Selaty said. “Regardless of whether I’m at a rally for Donald Trump or I’m walking down the street, I would rather have my gun with me than not. You know, it’s better to have a gun when you need one, than need one and not have one. ” The groups coming to Cleveland represent a broad spectrum of views. Some want simply to celebrate Mr. Trump’s nomination others identify as white supremacists and believe Mr. Trump will help advance their views. Large marches are also planned by liberal and progressive groups who see Mr. Trump as a demagogue and his candidacy as a danger to democracy. And some groups are coming with more encompassing causes, such as alleviating poverty, ending military interventions abroad and working on ways to combat institutional racism. In an interview, Mayor Jackson said that anyone coming to the city should feel confident that officials and the police would deal with whatever circumstances “appropriately. ” He added that the authorities did not plan to “overpolice,” but that they had the proper equipment and personnel needed should emergencies arise. “The City of Cleveland is going to conduct itself in a way to have a safe convention for the delegates, for the visitors, for protesters, for demonstrators, and if you come to Cleveland you should feel safe,” Mr. Jackson said. “People have a right to exercise constitutional rights. They have a right to do that and we have an obligation to protect that. What people don’t have a right to do is hurt other people or tear up property. ”	1
By Ryan Chikaraishi / filmsforaction.org After the Japanese bombed Peal Harbor in December of 1942 President Roosevelt, an alleged “progressive” Democrat, issued Executive Order 9066, which forcibly removed around 110,000 Japanese citizens regardless of citizenship living on the west coast and “relocated” them. My grandparents were forced from their homes and given two weeks to pack what they could carry before eventually ending up at camp, concentration camps as the Japanese refer to them, in Rohwer, Arkansas. They were forced to reside in hastily constructed stables that smelled of manure, were surrounded by barbed wire, and had armed guards 24/7. However, there was some beauty from the chaos for my grandparents. They met in camp and recently celebrated their 71st wedding anniversary and still reside in Chicago. Thousands of law-abiding citizens had their lives transformed overnight. They lost their livelihoods, possessions, had to register with the War Relocation Authority, and they were considered potential enemy combatants and spies because of their ethnic background despite most of them being born and raised in America. My grandparent’s families lost most of what they owned and had to rebuild from nothing after the war. After resettling my Grandfather was fired from a job because there were “too many Japanese” working there and it looked bad for business. The same poisonous conditions are building up in 2016 and this time the targets are Muslims. In Dec of 2015 Donald Trump was asked by Time if he supported the internment of Japanese American citizens during WWII, his response was, “I would have had to be there at the time to tell you, to give you a proper answer. I certainly hate the concept of it. But I would have had to be there at the time to give you a proper answer.” Given the context of his anti-immigrant, islamaphobic, and racist diatribes one can only shudder in fear of a statement that refuses to unequivocally denounce such abuses driven by racism and xenophobic ignorance. His own statements and policy recommendations have called for a “total and complete shutdown on Muslims entering America” as well as a national registry. And what is probably most unsettling of all is that there is legal and historical precedent, as well as the executive powers to do this again. In a scene out of the 1940s Trump surrogate Carl Higbie told Megan Kelly of Fox News “We’ve done it with Iran back a while ago,” and, “we did it during World War II with the Japanese.” The devil seems to be in the legal details as well. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 has a clause that states: Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. That is scary. While it is true that the first amendment protects the practice of religion there are ways to discriminate and “shut down” Muslims from entering America by excluding them based on their nationality and Trump has modified his comments on his Muslim ban, possibly because he is aware of this. In July of 2015 he stated he would halt immigration, “from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism.” This includes around 40 countries, many of which are allies of the U.S. and even Western allies such as France and Germany. Another frightening legal precedent regards one of the most infamous Supreme Court cases of all time, Korematsu v. The United States. In a 6-3 ruling the court upheld the government’s decision to incarcerate Japanese citizens during the WWII. This case has technically never been overturned. The NY Times reported that one reason it hasn’t been overruled is because a similar case has not happened again. Well, we might not have to wait long now. Trump might very well be on his way to not only using his executive powers to ban Muslims, thus discriminating based on religious background, but by also appointing what could turn out to be two justices to the Supreme Court. Trump is also eyeing Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach for Attorney General, who has plans to create a Muslim registry. Supreme Court justices themselves admit that we are not far off from this happening again. In 2014 the late Justice Scalia told a group of students in Hawaii, “But you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again” when referring to the detainment of Japanese people during WWII. And since the “war on terror” is a never-ending war and we already have Guantanamo Bay as well as various clandestine centers around the world the implications of what already exists and what is yet to come are dystopian to say the least. With Trump’s recent appointment of Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman of the leading alt-right news source, Breitbart News, and a man that the former Grand Wizard of the KKK, David Duke, has praised, the future is more Orwellian than ever and I fear greatly for our Muslim brother and sisters. We are headed into disturbingly familiar scenario by a man that spouts racist drivel and emboldens white ethno-nationalism in a veiled attempt to internalize his authoritarian proclivities. It’s up to us to makes sure that history does not repeat itself. The indigenous holocaust, transatlantic slave trade, Jim Crow, Japanese internment, endless war against the “other”; these things are all events that were allowed to happen due to outright racism and colonial policies, but they were also perpetuated by indifference and ignorance. We must be the generation that refuses to be indifferent and rises up to challenge injustices like these head on even if it means directly confronting these pernicious machinations directly and forcefully until they are vanquished forever. This work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License 4.0 ·	1
Jantar Mantar builder Maharaja Jai Singh II reincarnates to beat up Kejriwal for squatting everyday Posted on Tweet A major scuffle broke out between the incarnation of Maharaja Jai Singh II, the original owner of Jantar Mantar and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday over the rights to use Jantar Mantar. However, the property dispute was later resolved when Mr. Kejriwal decided to leave the place and protest at Red Fort. Maharaja Jai Singh II, who built Jantar Mantar in 1724, had reincarnated in 1967, and has been keeping an eye on his property for the past few decades from a tea stall across the road. He was delighted to see tourists from all over the world coming in to admire the structure he constructed, and his self-esteem had hit an all time high when he learned from the tea stall owner that his Jantar Mantar is one of the most popular tourist attractions in India. However, for the past few years, he started to become a bit wary of a muffler-clad gentleman sneaking into the premise on a regular basis with a group of people. Initially he gave him the benefit of the doubt assuming they were just a group of theater artists hired by the administrators to entertain the tourists, but soon he realized that the man was popping up almost every day. “Damn, even I didn’t come here that often when I was the king,” grumbled Mr. Singh. And on Saturday when Mr. Kejriwal sauntered to Jantar Mantar again after breakfast, he said, “Enough is enough,” and decided to confront him. He patiently waited at the gate and when Mr. Kejriwal was leaving the ground after dharna , he stopped him and asked, “What are you doing here?” Mr. Kejriwal was dumbfounded by the question. He was not expecting anyone to question his rights to enter the place he belongs to, and he mumbled,”Umm, protesting.” “What?” “We…ahem,” he cleared his throat and said, “We are protesting.” “Fine, but why here?” “This is the place where we come to when we have to protest. This is where magic happens.” “Go and protest elsewhere.” “Where else can we go?” “Protest in your house, your office, or go to JNU, but stay away from my property.” “Your property? Does this place have an owner?” “Yes, I own this place.” “Hello, this is our official protest venue and we will protest here.” Mr. Singh lost his cool. He grabbed him by the collar and pushed him to the ground. “Oh, I get it, a Modi agent!” said Kejriwal, a hint of rabid glee on his face. “Go and tell your boss that Kejriwal is not scared of anyone,” he hollered. The news spread like wildfire and AAP supporters started tweeting about how Modi is not letting Kejriwal work. A few articles were hurriedly published about the emergency like situation created by Modi. Meanwhile, a couple of policemen heard the commotion at the ground and rushed to the scene, screaming, “Ink attack, ink attack.” “No, but it’s an attack on democracy. He is not letting me protest here,” Kejriwal pointed to Jai Singh. “But why cannot he protest? He lives here,” one of the policemen asked Maharaja Jai Singh and then turned to Kejriwal and inquired, “You own this place, right?” “Umm, no.” “Then?” “No, I mean, there are open spaces, ideal for protests and no one stops us so…” “Then you cannot use this place,” asserted the police inspector. “If Delhi police were under the control of AAP, I would’ve suspended you and this guy would’ve been behind the bars.” “You mean he would’ve been giving company to your MLAs?” they giggled. Kejriwal glared daggers at the policemen. “Fine, I am leaving. I will go to Red Fort.” “Why do you need to protest at historical places?” “Because I will create history!” he avowed and left for Red Fort. He was later seen at Red Fort practicing Independence Day Speech from the ramparts.	1
On Thursday, Fresno State University canceled lecturer Lars Maischak’s scheduled classes for the next week. The cancellation comes amid a Secret Service investigation that followed a Breitbart News report on Maischak’s “Trump must hang” tweet. [On April 8, Breitbart News reported that the tweet, which has since been pulled, said: To save American democracy, Trump must hang. The sooner and the higher, the better. #TheResistance#DeathToFascismhttps: . — Lars Maischak (@LarsMaischak) February 18, 2017, Later that same day, the Fresno Bee quoted Maischak dismissing the Breitbart report, saying, “The function of articles like the one produced by Breitbart and affiliates is to whip up a digital of people sending threats and insults to my email and Twitter accounts, with the ultimate goal of silencing dissenters. ” On April 10, Maischak emailed the Bee to say that university president Joseph Castro was “allowing himself to be instrumentalized for a smear campaign” if he took the Breitbart News report to heart. On Wednesday, Maischak closed his Twitter account. He also apologized to the university, and president Castro said the apology was a “good first step. ” But Castro indicated an investigation into Maischak’s tweets was ongoing. On April 12, the Bee reported that the FBI and Secret Service were “probing” Maischak’s tweets. And Castro said he had “been in frequent contact with the FBI, Secret Service and Homeland Security since last Saturday. ” On April 13, the Bee reported that Fresno State officials cancelled Maischak’s Monday and Tuesday classes for next week. Maischak teaches history, specializing in the 19th century United States. He also teaches a course on intellectual history, called “Marx and Hegel for Historians. ” 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
Chuck Berry, who with his indelible guitar licks, brash and memorable songs about cars, girls and wild dance parties did as much as anyone to define rock ’n’ roll’s potential and attitude in its early years, died on Saturday at his home near Wentzville, Mo. He was 90. The St. Charles County Police Department confirmed his death on its Facebook page. The department said that it responded to a medical emergency at the home, about 45 miles west of St. Louis, and that lifesaving measures were unsuccessful. While Elvis Presley was rock’s first pop star and teenage heartthrob, Mr. Berry was its master theorist and conceptual genius, the songwriter who understood what the kids wanted before they knew themselves. With songs like “Johnny B. Goode” and “Roll Over Beethoven,” he gave his listeners more than they knew they were getting from jukebox entertainment. His guitar lines wired the lean twang of country and the bite of the blues into phrases with both a streamlined trajectory and a long memory. And tucked into the lighthearted, telegraphic narratives that he sang with such clear enunciation was a sly defiance, upending convention to claim the pleasures of the moment. In “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “You Can’t Catch Me” and other songs, Mr. Berry invented rock as a music of teenage wishes fulfilled and good times (even with cops in pursuit). In “Promised Land,” “Too Much Monkey Business” and “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” he celebrated and satirized America’s opportunities and class tensions. His rock ’n’ roll was a music of joyful lusts, tensions and gleefully shattered icons. Mr. Berry was already well past his teens when he wrote manifestoes like “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Rock and Roll Music” and “School Day. ” Born Charles Edward Anderson Berry on Oct. 18, 1926, in St. Louis, he grew up in a segregated, neighborhood there, soaking up gospel, blues, and rhythm and blues, along with some country music. He spent three years in reform school after a spree of car thefts and armed robbery. He received a degree in hairdressing and cosmetology and worked for a time as a beautician he married Themetta Suggs in 1948 and started a family. She survives him, as do four children: Ingrid Berry, Melody Eskridge, Aloha Isa Leigh Berry and Charles Berry Jr. By the early 1950s, he was playing guitar and singing blues, pop standards and an occasional country tune with local combos. Shortly after joining Sir John’s Trio, led by the pianist Johnnie Johnson, he reshaped the group’s music and took it over. From the Texas guitarist Walker, Mr. Berry picked up a technique of bending two strings at once that he would rough up and turn into a rock ’n’ roll talisman, the Chuck Berry lick, which would in turn be emulated by the Rolling Stones and countless others. He also recognized the popularity of country music and added some hillbilly twang to his guitar lines. Mr. Berry’s hybrid music, along with his charisma and showmanship, drew white as well as black listeners to the Cosmopolitan Club in St. Louis. In 1955, Mr. Berry ventured to Chicago and asked one of his idols, the bluesman Muddy Waters, about making records. Waters directed him to the label he recorded for, Chess Records, where one of the owners, Leonard Chess, heard potential in Mr. Berry’s song “Ida Red. ” A variant of an old country song by the same name, “Ida Red” had a backbeat with a hillbilly oompah, while Mr. Berry’s lyrics sketched a car chase, the narrator “motorvatin’” after an elusive girl. Mr. Chess renamed the song “Maybellene,” and in a long session on May 21, 1955, Mr. Chess and the bassist Willie Dixon got the band to punch up the rhythm. “The big beat, cars and young love,” Mr. Chess outlined. “It was a trend, and we jumped on it. ” The music was bright and clear, a amalgam of country and blues. More than 60 years later, it still sounds reckless and audacious. Mr. Berry articulated every word, with precise diction and no noticeable accent, leading some listeners and concert promoters, used to a different kind of singer, to initially think that he was white. Teenagers didn’t care they heard a rocker who was ready to take on the world. The song was sent to the disc jockey Alan Freed. Mr. Freed and another man, Russ Fratto, were added to the credits as songwriters and got a share of the publishing royalties. Played regularly on Mr. Freed’s show and others, “Maybellene” reached No. 5 on the Billboard pop chart and was a No. 1 RB hit. In Mr. Berry’s groundbreaking early songs, his guitar twangs his famous lick. It also punches like a horn section and sasses back at his own voice. The drummer eagerly socks the backbeat, and the pianist — usually either Mr. Johnson or Lafayette Leake — hurls fistfuls of tinkling anarchy all around him. From 1955 to 1958, Mr. Berry knocked out classic after classic. Although he was in his late 20s and early 30s, he came up with high school chronicles and plugs for the newfangled music called rock ’n’ roll. No matter how calculated songs like “School Day” or “Rock and Roll Music” may have been, they reached the Top 10, caught the early rock ’n’ roll spirit and detailed its mythology. “Johnny B. Goode,” a Top 10 hit in 1958, told the archetypal story of a rocker who could “play the guitar just like ringin’ a bell. ” Mr. Berry toured with rock revues and performed in three movies with Mr. Freed: “Rock, Rock, Rock,” “Mr. Rock and Roll” and “Go, Johnny, Go. ” On film and in concert, he dazzled audiences with his duck walk, a strut that involved kicking one leg forward and hopping on the other. Through the 1950s, Mr. Berry had pop hits with his songs about rock ’n’ roll and RB hits with less material. He spun surreal tall tales that Bob Dylan and John Lennon would learn from, like “Thirty Days” and “Jo Jo Gunne. ” In “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” from 1956, he offered a barely veiled racial pride. His pithiness and humor rarely failed him. In 1957, Mr. Berry bought 30 acres in Wentzville, where he built a amusement park, Berry Park, and a restaurant, the Southern Air. In 1958, he opened Club Bandstand in the theater district of St. Louis. In the early 1960s, Mr. Berry’s songs inspired both California rock and the British Invasion. The Beach Boys reworked his “Sweet Little Sixteen” into “Surfin’ U. S. A. ” (Mr. Berry sued them and won a songwriting credit.) The Rolling Stones released a string of Berry songs, including their first single, “Come On,” and the Beatles remade “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Rock and Roll Music. ” But by the time his music started reaching a new audience, Mr. Berry was in jail. He had been arrested in 1959 and charged with transporting a teenage girl — who briefly worked as a hatcheck girl at Club Bandstand — across state lines for immoral purposes. He was tried twice and found guilty both times the first verdict was overturned because of racist remarks by the judge. When he emerged from 20 months in prison in 1964, his wife had left him (they later reconciled) and his songwriting spark had diminished. He had not totally lost his touch, though, as demonstrated by the handful of hits he had in 1964 and 1965, notably “Nadine,” “No Particular Place to Go,” “You Never Can Tell” and “Promised Land. ” He appeared in the celebrated 1964 concert film “The TAMI Show,” along with James Brown, the Rolling Stones, Marvin Gaye, the Beach Boys and the Supremes. While he toured steadily through the 1960s, headlining or sharing bills with bands that grew up on his songs, his recording career stalled after he moved from Chess to Mercury Records in 1966. He remade some of his old hits and tried to reach the new hippie audience, recording “Live at the Fillmore Auditorium” with the Steve Miller Band, billed as the Steve Miller Blues Band at the time. When he returned to Chess in 1970, he recorded new songs, like “Tulane” and “Have Mercy Judge,” that flashed his old wit but failed to reach the Top 40. In 1972, Mr. Berry had the biggest hit of his career with “My ” a novelty song that was included on the album “The London Chuck Berry Sessions” (even though he recorded the song not in London but at a concert in Coventry, England). The New Orleans songwriter Dave Bartholomew wrote and recorded it in 1952 Mr. Berry recorded a similar song, “My Tambourine,” in 1968, and is credited on recordings as the sole songwriter of the 1972 “My . ” It was a and Mr. Berry’s first and only No. 1 pop single. It was also his last hit. His 1973 album, “Bio,” was poorly received “Rockit,” released by Atlantic in 1979, did not sell. But he stayed active: He appeared as himself in a 1979 movie about 1950s rock, “American Hot Wax,” and he continued to tour constantly. In July 1979, he performed for President Jimmy Carter at the White House. Three days later, he was sentenced to 120 days in federal prison and four years’ probation for income tax evasion. He had further legal troubles in 1990 when the police raided his home and found 62 grams of marijuana and videotapes from a camera in the women’s room of his restaurant. In a plea bargain, he agreed to a misdemeanor count of marijuana possession, with a suspended jail sentence and two years’ probation. By the 1980s, Mr. Berry was recognized as a rock pioneer. He never won a Grammy Award in his prime, but the Recording Academy gave him a lifetime achievement award in 1984. He was in the first group of musicians inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. Around his 60th birthday that year, he allowed the director Taylor Hackford to film him at his home in Wentzville for the documentary “Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll,” which also included performances by Mr. Berry with a band led by Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones and special guests. “Chuck Berry: The Autobiography” was published in 1988. Mr. Berry continued performing well into his 80s. He usually played with local pickup bands, as he had done for most of his career, but sometimes he played with fellow rock stars. When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum opened in Cleveland in 1995, Mr. Berry performed at an inaugural concert, backed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. In 2012, he headlined a Cleveland concert in his honor with a bill that included Darryl McDaniels of . M. C. and Merle Haggard. Although he told reporters before the show, “My singing days have passed,” he performed “Johnny B. Goode” and “Reelin’ and Rockin’” and joined the other musicians for the closing number, “Rock and Roll Music. ” From 1996 to 2014, Mr. Berry performed once a month at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant in St. Louis where he appeared regularly until Oct. 24. He made a surprising announcement on his 90th birthday, Oct. 18, 2016: He was planning to release his first studio album in almost 40 years. The album, called simply “Chuck” and scheduled for release in June, was to consist primarily of new compositions. And Mr. Berry’s music has remained on tour extraterrestrially. “Johnny B. Goode” is on golden records within the Voyager I and II spacecraft, launched in 1977 and awaiting discovery.	1
history , literature , romanov dinasty Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (1869 – 30 December 1916) Russian peasant, mystical faith healer and private adviser to the Romanovs. Source: Photoshot / Vostok-Photo One hundred years ago, in December 1916, Grigory Rasputin was murdered at the home of Felix Yusupov and his body dumped in the river. Over the intervening century, the story of his unexpected rise and dramatic death has been retold so many times it is now the stuff of legend. Yusupov, during the hideous and prolonged murder, became convinced that Rasputin was “the reincarnation of Satan himself”. But a new biography by award-winning historian Douglas Smith examines the man behind the myth. Dark Fairy Tale Douglas Smith – Rasputin (Macmillan/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Nov. 2016). Source: macmillan.com Rasputin remains fixed oxymoronically in the public imagination, Smith observes, as “mad monk” or “holy devil”. His life, one of the most remarkable in modern history, “reads like a dark fairy tale”: an uneducated peasant from deepest Siberia feels called by God to set off on adventures, bewitches the royal family, saves the prince’s life, gets too powerful, and is murdered by the great men of the realm. “He lived in legend, he died in legend and his memory is cloaked in legend,” wrote the brilliant satirist Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya, known by her penname Teffi, in a fabulously intimate 1924 essay on Rasputin. The piece is one of many gems in a new book of non-fiction, the first ever in English, by Teffi, famous for her sparkling short stories. The new collection is published in the UK as Rasputin and Other Ironies and in the US as Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me. Anne Marie Jackson has collaborated with Robert Chandler and other translators again to produce a glowing volume of Teffi’s prose, and her version of this essay is both funny and forceful. Teffi describes her encounters with Rasputin and his mythological status: “This man was unique, one of a kind, like a character out of a novel,” she wrote, reveling in Rasputin’s paradoxes: semi-literate peasant and yet counselor to the Tsar? Lustful satyr or saint? “How could anyone not be curious?” 'The End of Russia' Rasputin’s warning to Teffi: “if they kill Rasputin, it will be the end of Russia. They’ll bury us together” proved chillingly prophetic. Recalling dinner parties with Rasputin, Teffi says she sensed an inner discomfort under his obstinate, hypnotic exterior, that “howling inside him was a black beast.” His political power was undeniable: “He toppled ministers and he shuffled courtiers as if they were a pack of cards.” But after the revolution, she remembered “that black, bent terrible sorcerer”. And, as Smith puts it, his death plunged the whole country into “unspeakable bloodletting and misery.” Unimpressed by Rasputin: A witty female voice in a male-dominated sphere Years after meeting him, Teffi gave Rasputin’s autograph to one of his earliest biographers, J.W. Bienstock, whose book was reissued last year in the original French, along with other new biographies, including Frances Welch’s Short Life. Smith’s contrastingly capacious tome measures out a chronological account compiled from archives now scattered across the world. Rasputin includes some extraordinary incidents: tales of friendship and betrayal, scandals, mysteries, miracles, and letters written in blood. He devotes a chapter to Teffi’s account, confirming Rasputin’s love of wine, women and dance. As for his legendary status as “Russia’s greatest love machine”, Smith records that while talk of frenzied orgies and scores of ravaged maidens was fanciful, it is beyond doubt that he had lovers. Even Rasputin’s daughter, Maria, a defender of her father’s legacy conceded that: “Surrounded by women as he was, a man of natural instincts, robust and virile, he may certainly have yielded to many temptations.” The myth continues At the same time, paradoxically, Rasputin’s myth had a number of religious guises: as a member of the secret khlystian sect, a pilgrim, prophet or religious elder. It is this heady mix of cult rituals, mesmeric powers and sexual perversion that has fuelled Rasputin’s persistent legend. The same myths have generally deterred serious academics, who – in Smith’s words – saw Rasputin as “too popular, too well-known outside the university to be taken seriously. He had the whiff of the carnival about him, a figure better left to writers of fiction or pop history.” His is perhaps the most recognized name in Russian history, says Smith, citing legions of previous biographies, together with novels, films and songs, like Boney M’s 1978 Euro-disco hit about the “lover of the Russian queen.” Boney M - Rasputin. Source: Carrie S. / YouTube The myth continues to spawn bars and nightclubs, ice dances and brands of vodka, while Rasputin remains “practically invisible under all the gossip, slander, and innuendo”. Smith has undertaken an “unusually arduous” search for the truth. In extricating the man from his own mythography, Smith found that Rasputin’s story becoming “the story of Russia itself”. His turbulent biography is a fascinating lens through which to view the “twilight of tsarist Russia” and the violent history of the early 20th century. Teffi - Rasputin and Other Ironies (trans. Anne Marie Jackson et al. Pushkin Press , May 2016) and simultaneously, in U.S., as Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me ( NYRB , May 2016)	1
SHERMAN, Conn. — Bob Stackowitz escaped from a Georgia prison so long ago that he eventually stopped acting like he was on the run. He bought a house in this rural town in western Connecticut, fixed boat engines for a living and, on occasion, forgot to use his alias, Bob Gordon. But when the fugitive filed for Social Security benefits under his real name, the Georgia Corrections Department ultimately found out. The agency had long since stopped actively looking for Mr. Stackowitz, who escaped from prison in that state 48 years ago after serving about two years of a sentence for robbery. Last month, federal marshals, accompanied by a Connecticut state trooper, knocked on the door at Mr. Stackowitz’s simple cedar contemporary home. Inmate No. 0000364334, whose hair had gone from dark walnut to wispy white in the intervening had been caught. “I knew this day would come,” he calmly told the trooper, Mike Saraceno, before gathering his medications and surrendering. For residents of this picturesque town, the revelation that a fugitive had been hiding in their midst — and not just any fugitive, but Bob Gordon, for God’s sake — came as a jolt. Suddenly, television trucks were rumbling along quiet country roads where American flags waved gently and azaleas had just come into bloom. Mr. Stackowitz, a native of Bridgeport, had apparently never shared his secret. In recent years, he had spent much of his time coping with various illnesses, including bladder cancer, heart disease and diabetes. David Schneiderbeck, who owns Rizzo’s Garage, said he used to refer boat owners to Mr. Stackowitz, a mechanic known for his ability to coax bilge pumps and fuel lines back to life. Boating is a popular pastime in Sherman, which wraps around the upper part of Candlewood Lake, the state’s largest body of freshwater. “I don’t think he’s actually been under a boat for a long time because of his health,” Mr. Schneiderbeck said. “He always had guys working for him and he was directing them. ” Mr. Schneiderbeck and others said the emergence of Bob Gordon’s true identity underscored the way that many in this town of 3, 600 know one another: exchanging pleasantries while valuing their privacy. “Everyone has a past,” he said. “People keep to themselves. I’m not really a nosy guy. ” Even Mr. Stackowitz’s longtime girlfriend, Cindy Derby, said she had no inkling of his history. “He never told anybody,” said Ms. Derby, 61, a house cleaner. “I’m glad I didn’t know because then I would have always worried. I didn’t have to worry for 21 years. It wasn’t any of my business. ” Mr. Stackowitz’s life took a decidedly wrong turn in 1966, when he was convicted of robbery by force in Georgia, where he had gone on a road trip. Court records show that, from crime to sentencing, the entire case lasted less than two weeks. Ms. Derby said she was a schoolgirl in Sherman when Mr. Stackowitz was arrested in Georgia. An indictment accused him and two other men of “unlawfully, wrongfully, fraudulently and violently” stealing $9 from a man, as well as the keys to his truck. The victim, now 91 and still living in Georgia, did not respond to an interview request. On Aug. 22, 1968, Mr. Stackowitz escaped from what was once known as the Carroll County Convict Barracks, a project built as part of the New Deal that is now a dilapidated storehouse for the county’s Public Works Department. The words “Carroll County” are painted in red near the roof, but the doors are rusted, and the paint on the prison bars is peeling and cracked. Mr. Stackowitz, who agreed to be photographed but declined an interview request, has told reporters that he had access to a vehicle as part of his work duties at the prison, where he repaired buses nearby. “One morning I just got in the truck and drove myself away,” he told The Hartford Courant in a videotaped interview. “I got on a plane and I was back in Connecticut before they even knew I was gone. ” These days, there is little memory of Mr. Stackowitz in Carroll County, where the authorities said he had escaped from the prison infirmary. Peter J. Skandalakis, the current district attorney for Carroll County, was 12 years old when Mr. Stackowitz fled the barracks, about an hour’s drive west of Atlanta. The man who ran the prison in 1968 is dead, and Robert Jones, the current warden, said the county’s file on the escape did not even fill a single page. Mr. Jones said he had never heard of the episode until Georgia state investigators called this year. Now Georgia officials are grappling with what, exactly, should happen to a man who evaded capture for nearly 50 years. Some, like Mr. Jones, note that Mr. Stackowitz was convicted of a violent crime. “He did cheat the system, there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “And not just that, he cheated the victim. There is a victim in this crime. ” Mr. Stackowitz has asked for clemency, emphasizing what he calls the exemplary life he has lived since the escape and his medical condition. In April, the commissioner of the Georgia Corrections Department signed an updated warrant for Mr. Stackowitz. A spokeswoman for the department, Gwendolyn Hogan, said on Friday that the state would seek Mr. Stackowitz’s return to Georgia. A hearing is scheduled for Monday in Danbury, Conn. Mr. Stackowitz’s lawyer, Norman Pattis, said he planned to contest extradition. Mr. Stackowitz’s slate blue house sits back from Route 39, just outside the town center. A narrow staircase in the garage that leads to the first floor was outfitted with an electric chairlift. Mr. Stackowitz’s friends and neighbors in Sherman are divided over his fate. Ms. Derby, who shares his enthusiasm for boats and “hot rods,” said she believed he would not survive imprisonment, given his poor health. “He’s a good guy who lived a clean life for the past 48 years and he did something wrong that caught up with him,” she said in a phone interview. “He’d never make it in jail. ” After he was arrested on May 9, Mr. Stackowitz spent five days in the Bridgeport Correctional Center he was released after friends chipped in to help him make bond. He was hospitalized briefly with kidney problems in late May. Others here said Mr. Stackowitz should be forced to return to Georgia, his quiet life notwithstanding. “I think he should go back and face the music,” John A. Rich, who owns Sacred Grounds Coffee Roasters, said. “I don’t like the precedent that you commit a crime and aren’t accountable. ” Clay Cope, the town’s first selectman, the equivalent of mayor, said he had mixed feelings. “What kind of life is that to lead where you live in fear every day that someone will knock on your door and apprehend you?” Mr. Cope asked. Even some law enforcement officials in Georgia expressed ambivalence about reaching back through the decades to impose punishment. While the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles said it would not consider a reprieve, such as parole, until Mr. Stackowitz returned to Georgia, he was already assured of one legal victory. If he is extradited to Georgia, he will not be charged in the escape. “I look at it as a humanitarian matter, as well as a practical matter and a matter of justice,” Mr. Skandalakis, the district attorney for Carroll County, said. “There is really nothing I can do to this man. ”	1
Videos Clinton Campaign Planned To Vilify Nurses For Backing Sanders “The Clinton team’s attack on nurses as ‘fringe’ and not a ‘real union’ is deplorable, but hardly a shock." \| October 29, 2016 Be Sociable, Share! Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., waves after speaking at a rally with registered nurses and other community leaders celebrate the 50th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid, on Capitol Hill Washington. Published in partnership with Shadowproof. Robby Mook, the manager for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, urged staff to attack National Nurses United (NNU) as “fringe” and suggested they were “not a ‘real’ union,” according to emails published by WikiLeaks. NNU gave Bernie Sanders one of his biggest union endorsements. The nurses union also invested a lot of time and resources into get out the vote efforts and hosted a major People’s Summit in June that brought all the forces, which were supportive of the Sanders campaign, together in Chicago to explore how to carry on a people’s agenda after the election. RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of NNU, responded, “The Clinton team’s attack on nurses as ‘fringe’ and not a ‘real union’ is deplorable, but hardly a shock. It’s a window in how they seek to vilify any critics, as evidenced in other emails showing Clinton’s mocking disdain for environmental activists.” DeMoro continued, “Apparently, a ‘real union’ is only one that falls lock step within the Democratic Party establishment and ‘fringe’ when it fails to embrace partnerships with Wall Street and other corporate interests.” “Sadly, it’s also a preview of what we can expect in the next four years and a reminder that—from day one of the Clinton administration—NNU and our allies will need to make our voices loudly heard to advocate for social, economic, and political justice for patients and all people.” On August 9, 2015, the labor outreach director, Nikki Budzinski, indicated NNU would endorse Sanders. It was the first national labor endorsement the campaign failed to win. Mook replied, “On the nurses—can we be ready [with] background for the press team on how fringe they are? Also have they praised HRC before?” “I would be wary of trying to attack them as fringe,” Budzinski advised. However, she said the press would “love this story” and “finding a creative way to shake it I think is worth the effort.” Mook agreed and added, “I’m just worried less experienced reporters won’t understand that they’re not a ‘real’ union.” NNU is, in fact, a “real” union. It is an AFL-CIO member union. It is also the largest union of registered nurses in the United States. In July 2015, Mook favored lobbying NNU leadership to prevent them from endorsing Bernie. That pressure clearly failed. The campaign pit the nurses of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) against the nurses of NNU, trotting them out to deaden the impact of NNU’s support for Sanders. Campaign chairman John Podesta even seemed to welcome AFT president Randi Weingarten’s pledge to “go after NNU and there [sic] high and mighty sanctimonious conduct.” Individuals connected to the campaign continued to keep track of NNU and their efforts to support Sanders. Tina Flournoy of AFT notified the campaign when NNU sent out a press release condemning the Democratic National Committee for its attempt to rig the primary process by denying Sanders access to a master list of voters. Clinton campaign staff likely considered NNU “fringe” because the nurses union took a principled stand on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). They pushed for single-payer healthcare and still refuse to settle for anything less than Medicare for All. At a Democratic Platform Committee meeting in June, DeMoro criticized the ACA, as well as the Clinton campaign’s proposals for incremental market-based reform that would barely address human needs. Clinton and DNC appointees to the Platform Committee blocked the Democratic Party from including language that would have suggested the party supports expanding Medicare to cover all Americans. “The Affordable Care Act, while an improvement, is not good enough. It is structurally deficient [and] leaves healthcare as a system based on profit and ability to pay rather than patient need,” NNU declared in a statement after the platform committee voted down the single-payer language. It still means tens of millions of American have no “health coverage or ‘insurance’” because they cannot afford “high out of pocket costs.” Plus, the law has systemic problems which undermine quality of care, and it is easy for the health care industry to game the system, NNU added. President Barack Obama’s administration confirmed premiums under the ACA will go up about 25 percent. Many Americans will only have one insurance provider to choose from when buying insurance through exchanges. The spike further undermines the arguments of progressive establishment figures, who insist the ACA must be defended at all costs, including against calls to establish a universal health care system that would truly put people before profits. Finally, some of the worst attacks from Democrats and the Obama administration came in 2009 and 2010 against groups and organizations, which did not immediately fall in line and support the ACA. They lashed out those committed to single-payer healthcare or a much weaker reform, the public option. The conduct of the Clinton campaign suggests this type of disdain for principled challenges from progressives will continue under a Clinton administration, and in fact, a Clinton administration may be more crude and vicious in their efforts to stamp out dissent. Be Sociable, Share!	1
Umfrage: CETA würde enorm an Zustimmung gewinnen, wenn EU kanadische Cannabis-Standards übernehmen müsste Brüssel (dpo) - Das könnte die Wende im Streit um CETA bedeuten: Einer neuen Umfrage zufolge würde die Zustimmung der EU-Bevölkerung für das Freihandelsabkommen mit einem Schlag auf bisher unerreichte Werte steigen, wenn der Vertrag die Europäische Union dazu zwingen würde, beim Umgang mit Cannabis kanadische Standards zu übernehmen. Denn was viele CETA-Kritiker hierzulande nicht bedenken: Die kanadische Regierung unter Premierminister Justin Trudeau bereitet zurzeit eine vollkommene Freigabe von Marihuana und anderen berauschenden Hanfprodukten vor . Schon jetzt wird der Besitz und Konsum dieser Rauschmittel in der Praxis nicht verfolgt. Kommt das "Gebt das Hanf frei!"-Handelsabkommen? Sollte CETA zur Folge haben, dass auch die EU Cannabis legalisieren müsste, wäre plötzlich ein Großteil der europäischen Bevölkerung für das Zustandekommen des Abkommens. "Rund 78 Prozent aller Europäer würden dann dafür plädieren, CETA unter dieser Voraussetzung so schnell wie möglich zu unterzeichnen", sagte Dr. Martin Heumann von der Universität Wien, der die Umfrage unter mehr als 12.000 EU-Bürgern koordinierte. "Und zwar am besten noch diese Woche, bevor die letzten Brösel aufgebraucht sind und sie sich um völlig überteuerten Nachschub auf dem Schwarzmarkt kümmern müssen." Einzige Ausnahme: Während die Zustimmung für CETA unter dieser Voraussetzung überall sonst sprunghaft anstieg, ließ sich bei Umfrageteilnehmern aus den Niederlanden kein messbarer Unterschied feststellen. Ersten Schätzungen zufolge dürfte das Handelsvolumen an Cannabisprodukten zwischen der EU und Kanada innerhalb kürzester Zeit um etwa 21.000.000.000 Prozent steigen (aktuell: 50 Euro monatlich, weil Sandro Keller aus Dörmagen sein Haschisch aus unerfindlichen Gründen aus Quebec bezieht) belaufen. Derzeit werde geprüft, wieviel Gramm Marihuana auf ein Containerschiff dieser Klasse passen: Letztlich hätte eine Legalisierung wohl auch für Brüssel entscheidende Vorteile. Heumann: "Sobald die neue Drogenpolitik greift, werden die Bürger auch die negativen Folgen von CETA zufrieden grinsend ertragen. Das kann jedem EU-Politiker nur genehm sein!" pfg, ssi, dan; Foto [M]: Shutterstock Artikel teilen:	0
Ghostbusters (2016) actress Leslie Jones has condemned publisher Simon Schuster for signing a $250, 000 book deal with MILO, saying the publisher is helping people to “spread their hate. ”[In response to the outrage at the news of the deal, publisher Simon Schuster released a statement saying that the company has “always published books by a wide range of authors with greatly varying and frequently controversial opinions, and appealing to many different audiences of readers. ” “While we are cognizant that many may disagree vehemently with the books we publish we note that the opinions expressed therein belong to our authors, and do not reflect either a corporate viewpoint or the view of our employees,” the statement continued. Statement regarding recent acquisition by @threshold_books, another division of @simonschuster pic. twitter. — Simon Schuster (@SimonBooks) December 30, 2016, In response to the statement, Leslie Jones, whose complaints of harassment by other users led to MILO’s permanent ban from the platform in July last year, said that the publisher “still helps them spread their hate to even more people. ” @SimonBooks @threshold_books @simonschuster yea but you still help them spread their hate to even more people. — Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) January 2, 2017, Jones had been arguing with trolls on Twitter for hours before Milo ever mentioned her following his critical review of the box office flop Ghostbusters (2016) in which Jones had a lead role, but he was blamed for the harassment she received regardless. You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com	0
LONDON — When Cressida Dick left Scotland Yard three years ago, she said she hoped that one day a woman would lead Britain’s biggest police force to show that it was “modern and representative. ” On Wednesday, those hopes were realized when Ms. Dick herself was named the first female police commissioner in Scotland Yard’s history. A onetime beat cop in London’s West End, Ms. Dick, 56, said she was “thrilled and humbled” by the appointment. “This is a great responsibility and an amazing opportunity,” she said Wednesday in a statement. “I’m looking forward immensely to protecting and serving the people of London. ” Founded in 1829, Scotland Yard, as the city’s Metropolitan Police Service is known, is the recipient of roughly a quarter of all police spending in England and Wales. (Scotland and Northern Ireland, the other two nations in the United Kingdom, have their own legal systems and police forces.) The daughter of Oxford academics and a graduate of both Oxford and Cambridge, Ms. Dick was head of counterterrorism at Scotland Yard from 2011 to 2014, overseeing among other things the security operation for the London Olympics in 2012. She left Scotland Yard in 2014 after 31 years to become general secretary at the foreign office. Ms. Dick has held command roles in several counterterrorism operations one operation went terribly wrong in 2005: She was the senior officer in charge when Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, a Brazilian who had been mistakenly identified as an attempted suicide bomber, was fatally shot by officers at a London subway station. A jury cleared her of any wrongdoing, but Ms. Dick has repeatedly expressed regret. “I think about what happened on that terrible day very, very often,” she said in 2014. During the search for a new commissioner, the family of Mr. de Menezes wrote a letter to London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, about Ms. Dick’s potential role. “We have serious concerns about such an appointment and the signal it sends to the people of London,” they wrote. But Mr. Khan and others defended Ms. Dick’s appointment. “This is a historic day for London and a proud day for me as mayor,” he said Wednesday. Amber Rudd, the home secretary who appointed Ms. Dick with Mr. Khan’s counsel, called her an “exceptional leader” and implicitly highlighted her gender as a possible asset in some pressing issues facing Scotland Yard. “The challenges ahead include protecting the most vulnerable, including victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence,” Ms. Rudd said. “Cressida’s skills and insight will ensure the Metropolitan Police adapt to the changing patterns of crime in the 21st century. ” Of the 43 police forces in England and Wales, several have been led by women. But never London. Alex Carlile, a member of the House of Lords, Britain’s upper chamber, who served as an independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said it was “a very positive thing” that Scotland Yard had women in leadership roles. “But Cressida Dick has not been appointed because she’s a woman,” he said. “She’s been appointed because she was the person for the job. ” With Ms. Dick’s appointment, three of the most senior figures in British policing are now women, with Lynne Owens heading the National Crime Agency and Sara Thornton, one of Ms. Dick’s rivals for the Scotland Yard job, the chairwoman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council.	0
You are here: Home / US / Look at the SHOCKING Number of Kids Born To Illegals in 2014 Look at the SHOCKING Number of Kids Born To Illegals in 2014 October 27, 2016 According to the Pew Research Center’s latest numbers, in 2014, 275,000 anchor babies were born in the United States — enough to fill Orlando, Florida. The Washington Examiner reported : Moms in the United States illegally gave birth to 275,000 babies in 2014, enough birthright U.S. citizens to fill a city the size of Orlando, Florida, according to an analysis of data from the National Center for Health Statistics. The data showed that newborns to illegals accounted for 7 percent of all births in 2014, according to the analysis from the Pew Research Center. The report reviews births to unmarried foreign-born and American born women. Those who are foreign born, including illegals, are seeing their birthrate drop, though it is still making up for the decline in births by American women. Pew’s recently-released report read: “In 2014, about 275,000 babies were born to unauthorized-immigrant parents in the U.S., accounting for about 7 percent of all U.S. births, and 32 percent of all U.S. births to foreign-born mothers.” The share of new mothers who are teenagers is higher among the U.S. born (6%) than among the foreign born (2%) https://t.co/d6f9C9ALoR pic.twitter.com/ydJpV2NgXh — Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) October 26, 2016 “A third of all births to foreign-born mothers were to unmarried women – down from a peak of 37 percent in 2008. At the same time, the rate has held steady for U.S.-born women and now stands at 42 percent,” the study continued. According to Pew, the birthrate among U.S.-born women has declined, so the rise in the birthrate is solely because of immigrant mothers. The growth in annual U.S. births since 1970 has been driven entirely by immigrant moms https://t.co/bhzGRzgimg pic.twitter.com/dozNVXXVgT — Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) October 26, 2016 While the annual number of babies born in the U.S. has fluctuated in recent years – most markedly during the Great Recession when there was a significant drop in births nationwide – the trajectory over the past four decades or so has been upward. In 2014, there were 4 million births in the U.S., compared with 3.74 million in 1970. This growth has been driven entirely by the increasing numbers of babies born to immigrant women. In 2014, immigrant women accounted for about 901,000 U.S. births, which marked a threefold increase from 1970 when immigrant women accounted for about 274,000 births. Meanwhile, the annual number of births to U.S.-born women dropped by 11 percent during that same time period, from 3.46 million in 1970 to 3.10 million in 2014. So, do you think that all these people coming here, in many cases illegally, have assimilated to our culture and/or are planning on doing so? Take a look around and it’s easy to see that the answer is no. If Hillary Clinton is elected, she plans to greatly increase refugee flows and give amnesty to illegal immigrants who broke our laws. In contrast, Donald Trump has pledged to restore law and order, build a wall, enforce immigration laws, and put the safety and interests of American citizens first. Which one sounds better to you at this critical point in our country’s history?	0
1 комментариев 7 поделились Фото: Fotodom.ru/Коммерсантъ Данное постановление Pravda. Ru попросила прокомментировать профессора, доктора политических наук, замдиректора по науке Института этнологии и антропологии РАН, члена Совета при президенте по межнациональным отношениям Владимира Зорина. — Как все это понимать? Что означает статус коренного народа, что он дает? — В Российской Федерации, с точки зрения науки, понятие коренные народы в доктринальных документах не употребляются. У нас есть термин коренные малочисленные народы севера Сибири и Дальнего Востока. Но якуты к этничности не относятся. Список малочисленных народов утверждается правительством РФ и к ним относятся народы, численность которых менее 50 тысяч человек. В России ни в одной республике понятие "коренные народы" как права и нормы не присутствуют. Я думаю, что это юридический правовой казус, с которым наши юристы способны спокойно разобраться. Кстати, в государственной национальной политике термин коренные и не коренные народы также не используется. Это была согласованная позиция, в том числе всех субъектов Федерации, в обсуждении стратегии принимала участие и Якутия. Отметим, постановление Конституционного суда Якутии, прописывающее "коренное" право только за якутами, противоречит пункту 1 44-й статьи Конституции Республики Саха (Якутия), гласящему, что "территория Республики принадлежит ее многонациональному народу". Оно также входит в противоречие со статьей 46 Конституции, где указано, что русский язык является на территории государственным, наряду с саха (якутским). Как сообщает eadaily. com, данное постановление также противоречит с целым блоком Конституции республики, где прописаны права, свободы и обязанности человека и гражданина на территории Республики Саха (Якутия). Разумеется, правовое разделение жителей Якутии на "коренных" и "некоренных", при котором у одних есть четко сформулированные жизненно важные права, а у других такого нет — это нарушение законов Российской Федерации, Конституции России и международного законодательства о правах и свободах человека и гражданина. Читайте последние новости Pravda.Ru на сегодня Поделиться:	0
Pinterest With only ten days to go, Donald Trump appears to be surging with likely voters across the country. Despite an onslaught of negative coverage from all corners of the media, the Republican Presidential candidate has gained on Hillary Clinton in the latest poll from The Washington Post and ABC News. Hillary still holds a 48-44 percent edge over Trump, but that is up from 38 percent support for Trump in the last week alone, fueled by support is shoring up among political independents and hard-core Republicans. He has made up ground among white people – with a 30-point advantage among whites without a college degree, up from a 20 point advantage. Trump saw his biggest gains among political independents, favoring Trump by a 12-point margin in the latest tracking poll, 49 to 37 percent, after giving Clinton a narrow edge in late last week. Neither candidate has maintained a consistent lead among independent likely voters in Post-ABC polling this fall. Despite the surge in Trump’s popularity, still six in ten voters expect Hillary Clinton to win anyway. The same poll found that only 30 percent thought Donald Trump would prevail. This plays into the Trump narrative that the vote is somehow “rigged” in favor of Clinton and no matter how much support he has, Trump would never ascend to the presidency. Sizable minorities of likely voters express concerns about fraud and inaccuracy at the ballot box, though worries about both have declined in the past month. Fewer than four in 10 voters now say voter fraud occurs very or somewhat often (37 percent), down from 47 percent in early September. Studies of voter fraud have found that it is very rare. In a separate question, the share of voters saying they do not have confidence votes will be counted accurately dipped from 33 to 28 percent, while the percentage saying they are “very confident” rose from 31 to 43 percent. Seven in 10 Trump supporters say voter fraud occurs at least somewhat often, including 34 percent who think it happens “very often.” And Trump voters are split on whether votes will be counted accurately across the country, with 50 percent at least somewhat confident and 49 percent “not too” or “not at all” confident. While Trump voters’ concerns about fraud and vote counting have not changed significantly since last month, Clinton supporters expressed growing confidence in the election process. The share of Democrats who are “very confident” the vote will be accurately counted has grown from 45 percent last month to 70 percent in the new Post-ABC poll. And while more than 1 in 5 Democrats last month thought voter fraud occurs at least somewhat often, that has fallen to slightly more than 1 in 10 in this week’s poll. The poll was conducted with a sampling of 1,775 adults and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 2.5 percentage points.	0
Reporters Stunned to Learn Trump Fans Lining Up 12 Hours Before Rally Starts Luckily for her, the aide was close by and stepped beside her side just in the nick of time. Hillary heads over to the overflow area to say hello to the crowd in Lake Worth, Florida. But ya know, no enthusiasm there. đ pic.twitter.com/3cUDK245XK — (ââ _â )ăHillBro (@HillBroYo) October 26, 2016 From how things looked in the video, Clinton shifted just about all of her body weight onto the aide while she hoisted herself up the step. Advertisement - story continues below Needing help up one step is not a sign of good health, no matter how you look at it. Clintonâs health continues to be a concern among voters. There have been too many videos and images of her needing help up or down stairs to ignore. The nominee has also been plagued with coughing fits for the better part of this year. She has weird issues with her eyes, she has problemsÂ with “ brain fog ,” and her recent apparentÂ memory losses Â aren’t doing her any favors. Her reticence about the issue only makes speculation worse . The public’s suspicion that something could be wrong with Clinton isn’t helped by the fact that she also has a credibility problem. She has been caught lying more than once, so dishonesty about what ails her would not be surprising; it would be typical. Advertisement - story continues below	0
VIDEOS Obama, Clinton, and Sanders could stop the riots but they just watch If Obama, Clinton, and Sanders really loved America, these three would use their influence to ease the transition By Daisy Luther - Friday, November 18, 2016 1:21 PM EST Is it just me or have you also noticed that Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and President Obama have been silent about the protests? The very people who have the power to stop these protests and riots with just a few well-spoken words have been completely silent on the issue. Hillary Clinton During her concession speech , Clinton said, “We must accept this result, and then look to the future. … Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.” After that, she has been mum on the entire thing. Hillary Clinton could have asked her followers to stop this nonsense, and they probably would have listened out of respect for her. (Misplaced respect but that’s a whole different article.) Instead, her silence makes me think that she is hidden away, relishing the chaos. That she has done nothing to attempt to calm the situation underlines the fact that she was not fit to govern. A leader would look out for the best interests of a country they love, rather than watching from afar to apply balm to her wounded ego. Instead, her Twitter is full of Bible quotes (huh?) and mentions nary a word about the protests. It has not been updated since the day after her failed bid. Bernie Sanders Bernie Sanders, the one from whom the Democratic primary was fraudulently stolen, the one who backed up Hillary Clinton anyway, has also been uncharacteristically silent, especially for an aging peace-and-love hippie kind of guy. He hasn’t once asked the protesters to be peaceful or to give Trump a chance, but he has fueled the fire with his cries for them to remain vigilant. He’s already opposing Trump before the guy even gets inaugurated. Even in his essay for the NY Times yesterday, entitled “ Where Do Democrats Go From Here? ” he did not gently suggest to his supporters that they turn toward peace. He had the opportunity, the platform, and the love from his followers, and his choice to remain silent tells me that he is just as self-serving as the other politicians, despite his humble, grandfatherly demeanor. President Obama Then there’s the President, who met cordially with Trump . His Twitter account is likewise mute on the subject of vandalism, arson, and violence in reaction to the election. Note to President Obama: I didn’t like it when you were elected either, but I burned neither flags nor effigies. I peacefully dissented throughout your administration but never damaged one single item of property. You screwed the middle class with your horrible health care catastrophe, and yet no one rioted in the streets when you were re-elected to screw us for another four years. Obama’s only statement of semi-support was on Wednesday, when he said, ““The peaceful transfer of power is one of the hallmarks of our democracy. We’re actually all on the same team.” His statement about the riots was via his press secretary . White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, asked Thursday about the protests, said the president believes the right to free speech should be protected. He added, “It is a right that should be exercised without violence. And there are people who are disappointed in the outcome. And the president’s message in the Rose Garden was it’s not surprising that people are disappointed in the outcome, but it’s important for us to remember, a day or two after the election, that we’re Democrats and Republicans, but we’re Americans and patriots first.” This won’t end well. Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, sees it the same way. She has called on Obama and Clinton to address the violence, but thus far, her request seems to have fallen on willfully deaf ears. Not cool. @POTUS or Hillary should address. ‘People Have to Die’: Anti-Trump Protester Calls For Violence on CNN https://t.co/NfEqhkrTvu — Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) November 10, 2016 Not accepting the result and keeping up the protests will lead to nowhere except more trouble as the contagion of anger spreads. It is only a matter of time before it really gets out of hand and people start dying. Since protesters are now actually calling for war and death, if Obama, Clinton, and Sanders really loved America, these three would use their influence to ease the transition and call for peace. Instead, one must wonder if the rumors about a Soros-funded, Clinton-approved Purple Revolution to destabilize America are about to become our new reality. Oh – and one quick note. It has to be said The people calling for war and death are overwhelmingly anti-gun. They just might want to rethink the wisdom of directing their death threats, physical attacks, and aggression toward Second Amendment proponents. Via Daisy Luther Featured Image: Brett Weinstein/Flickr Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor. Her website, The Organic Prepper , where this article first appeared , offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter , and you can email her at	1
Police barricades wrapped around the headquarters at One Police Plaza and other department buildings in New York. Many cities issued new marching orders: no solo patrols. No officers should be alone. In Burlington, Vt. during roll call, some officers blinked away tears. In Los Angeles, the chief did the same. In the break room at a Manhattan precinct house, officers — behind closed doors, comfortable among themselves — debated what they saw on the videos of the recent fatal police shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota. Some said race had played a role. Others, one officer said, “put on blinders. ” A rookie officer in Manhattan, five days on the job, texted her mother on Friday. She was on her way to work at a protest. A protest against the police. And a Queens detective quietly seethed. “This is insanity,” said the detective, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to do so publicly. “It’s just freaking horrendous. ” Reactions to Thursday’s deadly ambush in Dallas swept through rooms and squad cars in police departments across the country. Contempt for the shooter was universal. But behind it followed other, varying observations about what it means to be a police officer in 2016, with the attending fears and frustrations, and amid a seemingly growing gulf between the police and the policed. “We have broken into tribes,” Charlie Beck, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, told a class of cadets who graduated on Friday. “All of a sudden it becomes more important who your parents are, what the color of your skin is, than whether you are American. ” “This is not about black lives, or brown lives or blue lives,” he added. “This is about America. ” Police culture all but forbids one officer from publicly criticizing or the actions of others. For that reason, officers interviewed on Friday would not comment directly on the videos taken during and immediately after the shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota. But one fact was clear: When a new video showing what appears to be police misconduct surfaces, it affects officers everywhere. “One of the worries that cops have is that no cop can control what another cop does, but all cops will be judged by what the other cop does,” Chief Brandon del Pozo of the Burlington Police Department said. “We’ll sit there in the room, watching police videos all over the country, trying to make sense of what we’re seeing and trying to make sure we’re doing the best job we can. ” There is much to watch. “Any time there is a traffic stop made, the cellphones come out,” said George Hofstetter, president of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs. “The people taking them out have nothing to do with the incident, but they feel the need to videotape it. It’s like they think, ‘I am not going to stand across the street, I am going to become part of the problem. ’” Chief del Pozo echoed that thought. “On top of all the legitimate issues in policing,” he said, “street cops worry that there are people looking to foment confrontation to generate the next headline in situations where people just sort of complied before. ” Officers, privately, do not march in lock step after watching videos, the Queens detective said. “There are people that are like, ‘Oh, the cop’s right,’” he said. “I’m not one of those people. It is what it is. ” But he said he had often perceived a rush to judgment after the release of a video and “the fanning of the emotions. ” Officer Pedro Serrano, a veteran of the New York Police Department, said that as a Hispanic he could sympathize with the anger felt by members of minority groups after shootings like those in Louisiana and Minnesota. “Growing up, I hated the police,” he said. “They abused me for no reason. It’s just because I was in the neighborhood and a person of color. ” It was in the break room at his precinct house on Friday that officers debated what was on the videos. “I work with people who are afraid of people of color, they jump with conclusions,” Officer Serrano said in an interview. “When you take that into policing you can make very bad decisions. ” At the same time, he said that he worried, particularly in light of the killing of the five officers in Dallas, that anger at the police could push some people to take things too far. “Everything that happened recently is not going to be good for us because they’re going to basically say all cops are bad,” he said. “I know that they, the people who go over the top with the protesting, I know they don’t see me for who I am. They see my uniform. ” Another New York City detective, based in the Bronx, said he was not an apologist for officers committing wrongdoing. He said he had not seen the latest videos, but added that such footage was rarely, if ever, complete. “I’ve been there when cops have shot perps,” he said. “Everything happens so quickly and you have just a moment to life or death, to living or not getting up tomorrow, or your partner being dead. It’s so much easier when you can watch a video over and over. It’s one thing to be in the safety of your own living room or watching on your electronic device, to being there. ” The emotional whiplash on Thursday — police officers branded as villains, and then seen as victims, in a span of seconds — recalled New York City in 2014, when a gunman claiming to be motivated by anger at the police ambushed two officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, in their patrol car in Brooklyn. Yet, for some, the events leading up to the shootings in Dallas seemed without precedent. For Officer Joe Nocella, a veteran of the Nassau County Police Department, those killings signified the start of a new era in policing. “Sniper fire against a police officer,” he said. “I don’t think that too many cops across the country could have put a thought in their head that something like this could happen. ” Veteran officers suggested otherwise. Some remembered wearing their uniforms in the 1960s with a fear of assassination by militant attackers. “I came on the job in the late ’70s, and that was still fresh on everyone’s mind,” Edward Davis, a former Boston police commissioner, said. “We then moved to a much better place. But now some of those feelings have crept back in the conversation. ” The Bronx detective put it more bluntly. “It’s always been a bad time to be a cop in this city,” he said. “The cops before me, in the 1970s? They had homegrown terrorists ambushing cops. You had the Weather Underground building bombs to blow up police stations. You had antiwar protesters throwing Molotov cocktails at cops. ” Though he has long worked in a detective’s suit and tie, he said he would not hesitate to leave his home in uniform. “I’m proud of my uniform,” he said. “I’d wear it anytime, anywhere. ” The Queens detective said that feeling like a target was natural to men and women in uniform. “You should always have it in the back of your mind,” he said. “Nobody comes to work thinking, ‘I’m the guy who gets killed today.’ But everyone knows that’s the risk. ” The events in Dallas heightened that sense. “That they could literally be hunted,” the Queens detective said. “That’s what happened. Like a hunter in a tree stand with a gun, lying in wait to shoot prey. ” On Staten Island, a commanding officer said he would make a special announcement at his afternoon roll call: “Be safe. Be vigilant out there. ” In Times Square, a uniformed officer watched traffic on Seventh Avenue. “People want to get angry and everything,” he said. “We’ve just got to keep doing what we do. ”	1
Anastasia Lin, the Miss World contestant whose advocacy for victims of human right abuses in China has infuriated Beijing, appears to have regained her voice. On Wednesday evening, pageant organizers gave Ms. Lin, a Canadian, the green light to speak to the news media, ending a standoff in Washington that had drawn unflattering attention to a storied beauty pageant that has become increasingly dependent on Chinese corporate sponsors. According to friends and relatives of Ms. Lin’s, employees of the beauty pageant had warned her that she would be ejected from the competition if she spoke publicly about murky, transplant programs that human rights advocates say rely heavily on the organs of murdered prisoners of conscience. China has denied the allegations, saying that organ donations in the country are voluntary. In a brief phone interview, Ms. Lin, 26, declined to discuss whether she had been silenced and praised the Miss World Organization for allowing her to compete in the finals, which will be televised Sunday night and are expected to draw a global audience of one billion. “To their credit, they did give me this platform, and I’m able to speak freely now,” she said. She also said the pageant’s executive director, Julia Morley, had given her permission to attend the premiere of a feature film, “The Bleeding Edge,” that stars Ms. Lin and seeks to dramatize the cruelties of what human rights advocates describe as Chinese programs that harvest the organs of prisoners. In an emailed statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Ms. Morley said she had never barred Ms. Lin from the premiere, which is scheduled for Wednesday night in Washington. The event is sponsored by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, an organization with obvious enmity for China’s authoritarian government. Last year, China blocked Ms. Lin from attending the Miss World finals in Sanya, the southern Chinese resort city that has hosted the finals a times since 2003. She said pageant officials had made little effort to intervene on her behalf, but they allowed her to retain the Miss Canada title for another year, paving the way for her participation in the 2016 finals. Ms. Lin sought to focus the interview on her project, which aims to raise awareness about Beijing’s persecution of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that is banned in China. Adherents face imprisonment, and those who refuse to renounce the movement are often subjected to torture. Ms. Lin and other critics of the Chinese government say Falun Gong practitioners who die in custody are unwilling providers of organs for the nation’s lucrative transplant industry. “China does not have a viable voluntary transplant system, so someone has to die,” she said. “It’s not like the organs grow on plants. ” She has few illusions that her awareness campaign will make it past China’s strict censors, but she said her appearance in the finals might inspire others willing to stand up to the authorities. During a visit to Taiwan this year, she described running into a tour group from mainland China. She was stunned, she said, when a number of people recognized her and then asked to be photographed by her side. “Despite 60 years of censorship, people don’t believe everything they hear on the news,” she said, referring to Chinese reports over the past year that have sought to demonize her. “I may end up standing in the last row this year, but if they are able to see me, I hope people will be encouraged. ”	0
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump isn’t done taunting corporate America. After last week’s Rust Belt victory lap, where he claimed credit for persuading Carrier to keep perhaps 1, 000 factory jobs in Indiana, Mr. Trump took to Twitter Sunday morning and warned of retribution for other companies contemplating moving production abroad. But even as Mr. Trump tries to put the bully in bully pulpit, the question of whether his approach is smart economic policy, improvised showmanship or a bit of both is another story. Indeed, his tactics have drawn criticism from both the left and the right, with a range of experts saying his approach may be ineffective at best, and and at worst. “Blackmail is implicit in this approach, and it’s dangerous,” said Tyler Cowen, a conservative free economist who teaches at George Mason University. “It’s a lot of political theater, but that’s not even my biggest criticism. Trump is negotiating with individual businesses outside of the rule of law and bureaucratic procedure. ” On Friday, Mr. Trump took aim at Rexnord, another manufacturer with a plant in Indianapolis, which disclosed plans in October to move to Mexico. “No more!” he said on Twitter, helping to push Rexnord’s stock down 8 percent for the week. According to Mr. Trump, the penalty would be a 35 percent tariff imposed on goods that companies ship back into the United States after they move production abroad. It is doubtful that Mr. Trump would have the legal authority to punish individual companies without congressional action. But he is also promising a broader overhaul of corporate taxes and the elimination of a host of regulations that he sees as stifling American companies, in addition to individual incentive packages like the $7 million one that Carrier received. Mike Konczal, an economist at the Roosevelt Institute, said he also thought Mr. Trump’s approach was doomed to failure, especially if he kept his campaign pledge to reduce taxes on corporations and investors. “Cutting taxes for shareholders will destroy more factories than whatever he saves by jawboning companies from the bully pulpit,” Mr. Konczal said. And incentives like the ones Carrier received only forestall the inevitable shift by multinational giants to locales like Mexico and Asia. “They will just go later after pocketing some money,” Mr. Konczal said. Making deals with big business may prove much harder than Mr. Trump is willing to acknowledge. After all, he held off on using a stick with Carrier, and handed over $7 million worth of carrots, but the company gave Mr. Trump only half of what he wanted, with 1, 000 Indiana jobs still leaving for Mexico. Moreover, Mr. Trump is pushing back against tectonic economic forces that show no sign of easing. Besides the continuing loss of factory jobs to automation, Carrier is far from unique in shifting jobs to places like Mexico, even as it keeps functions like sales and research and development in Indiana. “There isn’t a silver bullet,” said Steven Rattner, a veteran financier and Democrat who led President Obama’s successful effort to rescue the auto industry in 2009. “And what’s ironic is that there isn’t a single thing in Donald Trump’s campaign platform that would help people hurt by these trends. ” Mr. Rattner is also a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. Still, whether it’s a smart strategy or not, it is clear Mr. Trump is planning more standoffs after he moves into the Oval Office on Jan. 20. “This is no ” he said in an interview with The Times after touring the Carrier factory floor in Indianapolis on Thursday and greeting cheering workers. “That’s one of the reasons I’m here as opposed to doing it from my lobby in Manhattan. ” Rather than tax breaks or tariffs on a basis, perhaps the best argument for Mr. Trump’s tactics is that they may prompt a rethinking of corporate responsibility among executives, said Justin Wolfers, an economist and New York Times contributor who teaches at the University of Michigan. “The question is, what’s the game?” Mr. Wolfers said. “If it’s about changing norms, and saying private enrichment at the expense of the broader public good is no longer socially acceptable, that’s important. ” To be sure, actually imposing tariffs is much, much more difficult than sending Twitter posts — or negotiating deals with individual companies like Carrier and its corporate parent, United Technologies, a major defense contractor. Although the president has powers to impose trade sanctions on countries found to be manipulating their currencies or exporting goods for less than it costs to produce them, Mr. Trump is venturing into uncharted territory with tariffs aimed at individual American companies. “I’m not aware that this has been tried before or what authority the Trump administration would be relying on,” said Miriam Sapiro, who served as deputy United States trade representative from 2009 to 2014. “Then there is the question of what kind of retaliation these tariffs could cause, harming both American workers and consumers as well as companies,” said Ms. Sapiro, now a partner at Finsbury, a strategic communications firm in Washington. The nature of Mr. Trump’s outbursts may partly explain why economists have been left aghast by Mr. Trump’s tactics to keep jobs at home. But some experts say the shock is overdone. “Frankly, I’m flabbergasted by the opposition on the left,” said Alan Tonelson, an economist formerly with the United States Business and Industry Council, which represents and privately held domestic manufacturers. “They’ve been just fine imposing tariffs to help Detroit, the steel industry and organized labor. ” As for conservative and libertarian criticism, Mr. Tonelson speculated that might have more to do with corporate support for the Washington think tanks they call home, rather than genuine ideological fervor. The economic soundness of Mr. Trump’s tactics may be in question, but they clearly offer political rewards, especially in the Rust Belt, where the costs of free trade are more readily apparent than the benefits. “The dry statistics on trade aren’t working to counter Trump,” Timothy A. Duy, an economics professor at the University of Oregon, said in a blog post on Sunday. “The aggregate gains are irrelevant to someone suffering a personal loss. Critics need to find an effective response to Trump. I don’t think we have it yet. ” While the costs of free trade tend to be concentrated, benefits like lower prices for imported goods are spread very broadly, making them less obvious. In an interview on Fox News on Sunday, Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House and a Republican Trump ally, questioned whether that made sense. In some cases, he said, Americans should be “prepared to pay a little bit more for imported products” to keep jobs at home. If trade advocates can’t make a better case, or at least come up with better ways to help the inevitable economic losers of globalization cope, then free trade itself may be imperiled, whatever the overall benefits. “People who advocated for free trade policies, myself included, should have advocated more forcefully for things to help these people, through ideas like retraining or tax credits to simply maintain their incomes,” Mr. Rattner said. “If we don’t do something to help these people, we will end up without free trade, as may well happen with Mr. Trump coming into office. ”	1
DCG \| 2 Comments Rules are for little people. From Daily Mail : Hillary Clinton did not disclose ‘expensive gifts,’ free vacations, and complimentary private jet travel her family received from business interests while she was at the State Department, according to leaked emails and federal disclosure records reviewed by the DailyMail.com. Long-time Clinton aide Doug Band claimed in a confidential 2011 memo published by Wikileaks this week that he helped obtain free vacations and personal travel for Bill Clinton and his family as part of his duties. During Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department, she did not report any gifts or travel reimbursements for herself or her spouse in her financial disclosure filings. ‘In support of the President’s for-profit activity, we also have solicited and obtained, as appropriate, in-kind services for the President and his family – for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like,’ wrote Band in the Nov. 16, 2011 memo to attorneys conducting an internal review of the Clinton Foundation. He added that his job involved ‘supporting [Bill Clinton’s] family/personal needs (e.g., securing in-kind private airplane travel, in-kind vacation stays, and supporting family business and personal needs).’ The memo did not say whether Hillary Clinton was one of Bill Clinton’s family members who received vacations, gifts, or personal travel. Band did not respond to request for comment. In November 2011, according to the memo, the telecommunications company Ericsson agreed to give Bill Clinton $400,000 in private plane travel. The company also paid the former president an additional $750,000 to speak at its conference that month in Hong Kong. It was the largest speaking fee Bill Clinton had received up until that point, and with the added plane fare, the payment reached well over $1 million. Although Hillary Clinton reported in her disclosure filings that her husband received a $750,000 honorarium for the speech, she did not disclose the additional $400,000 in private plane expenses from Ericsson in the spousal income or gifts and reimbursements sections . In another Nov. 17, 2011 email, Band complained that Bill Clinton was not required to submit an internal conflict-of-interest disclosure form – unlike other top officials at the Clinton Global Initiative – despite the fact that the former president received ‘expensive gifts’ for his home from CGI sponsors . Bill Clinton and Doug Band Bill Clinton ‘does not have to sign such a document even though he is personally paid by 3 CGI sponsors, gets many expensive gifts from them, some that are at home etc,’ wrote Band. Hillary Clinton did not disclose any gift or travel expenses that she or her husband received while at the State Department. The federal disclosure form requires officials to report gifts to themselves or a spouse totalling more than $350 from a single source, such as ‘tangible items, transportation, lodging, food, or entertainment’ and ‘travel-related cash reimbursements.’ However, a federal official does not have to disclose gifts to a spouse that are ‘totally independent of their relationship’ – for example, business-related benefits that a spouse receives from his employer. While many of the companies involved in CGI and Bill Clinton’s for-profit business had interests before the State Department, government ethics experts said it can be difficult to determine whether a gift to a public official’s spouse is connected to their relationship . It is also unclear whether Hillary Clinton travelled on any of these ‘personal trips’ and ‘in-kind vacations,’ which Band wrote were given to Bill Clinton’s ‘family.’ The Clintons have a 36-year-old daughter, Chelsea, who is also involved in the Clinton Foundation. A spokesperson for Clinton’s campaign did not respond to request for comment. According to the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group, failure to report certain gifts in a financial disclosure form could violate the Ethics in Government Act or the Federal False Statements Act. Federal laws ‘require full disclosure of such expensive gifts and reimbursements when special interests use a spouse to target a government official,’ said Ken Boehm, chairman of the NLPC. ‘The just-disclosed emails of Clinton associate Doug Band that Bill Clinton and his family members benefitted from hundreds of thousands of dollars in free travel and gifts from special interests while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State raises substantial ethical and legal issues because the Financial Disclosure reports filed by Secretary Clinton does not show these expensive gifts and reimbursements,’ said Boehm. DCG	1
Производственная гимнастика уже не та… 16 ноября 2016 Общество Физкультминутка – залог продуктивного труда и бодрого настроения. Активные, неунывающие сотрудники – это гордость любого коллектива. Нормальный человек не может постоянно чахнуть под завалами работы. Всем нужен хороший отдых. Кстати, отрываясь от серьёзных дел, нам нужно не кофеёк хлестать под унылую ленту новостей, а прыгать, приседать, разминаться, делать успокоительные вдохи-выдохи! Это же так здорово! После «производственной гимнастики» у любого нытика поднимется работоспособность, появится желание творить и развиваться. Но, оказывается, в наши дни безобидный фитнес на работе может стать поводом для позорного увольнения… Талантливая белокурая девушка из Иркутской области Анастасия Мякина, вопреки стереотипу о глупости блондинок, трудилась одновременно в двух серьёзнейших областях. Симпатичная леди занимала пост депутата Думы Шелеховского района и дополнительно подрабатывала директором муниципального предприятия «Бытовые и ритуальные услуги». А кто-то ведь ещё смеет говорить, что чиновники бессовестно воруют! Работают они – в поте лица! Несмотря на загруженность и плотный график, барышня не собиралась превращаться в неухоженную начальницу, эдакую «нашу мымру». Современная леди-босс подключилась к участию в интересной онлайн-программе по снижению веса. В задачи спортсменки и просто красавицы ежедневно входила запись видеотчёта о выполненных физических упражнениях. Эх, знала бы наша героиня заранее, что любовь к спорту закончится для неё грандиозным провалом в карьере!.. Активная женщина в один прекрасный, не предвещающий беды день во время обеденного перерыва в родном похоронном бюро решила немного подкачать свою «пятую точку» – заодно и снять видеоподтверждение для виртуальных единомышленниц. Ну не весь же день ходить ей среди гробов с поникшим лицом!.. Разрядка сотрудникам домов печали тоже, знаете ли, необходима. Включив зажигательную композицию группы «Бандэрос» про красивую жизнь, Анастасия удобно расположилась рядом с венками, крестами, гробами, оградками – и начала отжигать! Улыбка до ушей, эффектные приседания, море оптимизма – просто пример для подражания всем измученным женщинам России. Как в песне поётся: «Нет времени ждать, всё хочется взять… Жизнь удалась – ещё чуть-чуть и прямо в рай. Ла-ла-ла…» Истратив калории и попотев, Мякина незамедлительно выложила видео своей физкультминутки в Интернет. Говорящее название ролика звучит весьма оригинально и позитивно – «Горижопинг». У блондинки получилась наглядная творческая видеозарисовка, призывающая всех нас радоваться жизни, активничать, несмотря на печали и утраты. Мол, гори оно всё огнём! И ты, гори скорей, мягкое место! Правда, мэр Иркутска креатив Анастасии не оценил. Несмотря на все оправдания поклонницы здорового образа жизни, девушку без разговоров выгнали поганой метлой сразу с обоих мест работы. Бывшая «единоросска» не унывает и не собирается отказываться от любимого фитнеса. Хотя Насте, пожалуй, придётся сейчас нелегко – надо же сначала как-то реанимировать карьеру. Тренировать одновременно и пятую точку, и мозги – непростое дело. Чего доброго, случится полнейший «горижоп» – и на красивой жизни придётся поставить огромный крест. Источник информации: infpol.ru , картинок: gordonua.com Теги:	0
.@ColinCowherd: Kaepernick is running out of liberal cities that need a QB. Unless Vermont joins the NFL, the Seahawks are his best fit. pic. twitter. Tuesday during a Fox Sports 1 “Speak for Yourself” debate about whether or not the Seattle Seahawks would be a good fit for free agent Colin Kaepernick, Colin Cowherd joked that Kaepernick is running out of liberal cities that would welcome the controversial quarterback who protested police shootings during the national anthem in 2016. “[H]e’s running out of liberal cities — San Francisco, Seattle,” Cowherd said. “Unless Vermont joins the league, he’s running out of liberal cities. ” He later added, “I don’t think he’s a franchise quarterback. Seattle’s probably the best fit. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent	0
La familia Erdogan y el Emirato Islámico (continuación) Red Voltaire \| 3 de noviembre de 2016 français Un grupo de hackers turcos identificado como RedHack logró piratear los emails del actual ministro de Energía. Un tribunal turco prohibió de inmediato toda publicación y reproducción de esos mensajes electrónicos. Pero los 20 Gigabits de datos sustraídos por RedHack fueron analizados por el profesor Ahmed Yayla, director adjunto del ICSVE (Centro Internacional para el Estudio del Extremismo Violento) y ex responsable del antiterrorismo turco [ 1 ]. Y resulta que esos datos confirman una serie de rumores extremadamente persistentes, aportando incluso nuevos detalles. El petróleo robado en Siria por el Emirato Islámico (Daesh) se transportaba en 8 500 camiones cisterna pertenecientes a la compañía Powertans, que obtuvo –sin licitación previa– el monopolio del trasporte de petróleo en la totalidad del territorio nacional turco. Powertans es propiedad de la misteriosa Grand Fortune Ventures, domiciliada en Singapur y posteriormente transferida a las Islas Caimán. Tras ese montaje se esconde Calık Holding, la compañía de Berat Albayrak (ver foto), casado con una hija del presidente turco Recep Tayyip Erdogan… y ministro de Energía. “ Hacked Emails Link Turkish Minister to Illicit Oil ”, Ahmed Yayla, World Policy , 17 de octobre de 2016.	0
On any given weekend, you might catch President Trump’s and top Mideast dealmaker, Jared Kushner, by the beachside ice cream machine, or his reclusive chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, on the dining patio. If you are lucky, the president himself could stop by your table for a quick chat. But you will have to pay $200, 000 for the privilege — and the few available spots are going fast. Virtually overnight, Mr. Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla. club, has been transformed into the capital of American government, a winter White House where Mr. Trump has entertained a foreign head of state, health care industry executives and other presidential guests. But Mr. Trump’s gatherings at — he arrived there on Friday afternoon, his third weekend visit in a row — have also created an arena for potential political influence rarely seen in American history: a kind of Washington steakhouse on steroids, situated in a sunny playground of the rich and powerful, where members and their guests enjoy a level of access that could elude even the of lobbyists. Membership lists reviewed by The New York Times show that the club’s nearly 500 paying members include dozens of real estate developers, Wall Street financiers, energy executives and others whose businesses could be affected by Mr. Trump’s policies. At least three club members are under consideration for an ambassadorship. Most of the 500 have had memberships predating Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, and there are a limited number of memberships still available. William I. Koch, who oversees a major mining and fuels company, belongs to as does the billionaire trader Thomas Peterffy, who spent more than $8 million on political ads in 2012 warning of creeping socialism in America. Another member is George Norcross, an insurance executive and the South Jersey Democratic Party boss, whose friendship with Mr. Trump dates to the president’s Atlantic City years, when Mr. Norcross held insurance contracts with Mr. Trump’s casinos, and Mr. Trump wrangled with the state’s Democratic leaders over tax treatment of the properties. Yet another member is Janet Weiner, part owner and chief financial officer of the Rockstar energy drink company, which has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying federal officials to avoid tighter regulations on its products. Bruce Toll, a real estate executive who Toll Brothers, one of the nation’s largest home builders, and who is still active in the industry, owns a home nearby and frequently sees Mr. Trump at he said. While they did not discuss any of Mr. Toll’s specific projects, he said, the two would occasionally discuss national issues, such as Mr. Trump’s plans to increase spending on highways and other infrastructure projects. “Maybe you ought to do this or that,” Mr. Toll said of the kind of advice that Mr. Trump got from club members. Mr. Trump’s son Eric, in an interview on Friday, rejected suggestions that his family was offering access to his father and profiting from it. First, he said, only 20 to 40 new members are admitted per year, and second, the wealthy business executives who frequent the club, among others, have many ways to communicate with the federal government if they want to. “It assumes the worst of us and everyone, and that is unfair,” Eric Trump said. Hope Hicks, a White House spokeswoman, said the president had no conflicts of interest, a reference to the fact that federal law exempts him from provisions prohibiting federal employees from taking actions that could benefit themselves financially. “But regardless, he has not and will not be discussing policy with club members,” she said in a written statement. she added, is “one of the most successful private clubs in the world,” and it “was intended to be the Southern White House, and the president looks forward to hosting many world leaders at this remarkable property. ” But unlike the real White House, it has no public access, and no official visitor log is available. When members of the White House press corps accompanied Mr. Trump to the club and nearby golf course last weekend, they were housed during part of the trip in a room whose windows had been covered with black plastic. members and their guests, on the other hand, had a seat to a brewing foreign policy crisis, when Mr. Trump and his aides huddled on the dining patio to devise a response to North Korea’s launch of an ballistic missile in the middle of a dinner with Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, and his wife. “No one needs to have a long with Donald Trump,” said Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen, a nonpartisan watchdog group. “If you can whisper in his ear for 40 seconds, that can be decisive on your policy. ” Mr. Koch — the estranged brother of his siblings, Charles G. and David H. — owns a home in Palm Beach and hosted a for Mr. Trump during the campaign. His company, Oxbow Carbon, is among the world’s largest sellers of petroleum coke, an oil byproduct, and would be a significant beneficiary of the Keystone XL pipeline, construction of which is now a Trump administration priority. Brad Goldstein, a spokesman for William Koch, said that he did not know whether the two men had ever discussed policy matters. “If I did know,” Mr. Goldstein added, “the answer would be that I decline to comment. ” Historically, of course, American presidents have often been rich men with mansions, who sometimes conducted the people’s business in weekend haunts of the wealthy: the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Me. for example, or the Kennedy family home in Hyannisport, Mass. President Dwight D. Eisenhower joined the elite Augusta National Golf Club before he was elected, frequently hanging out there with a group of affluent businessmen who became known as “the gang,” which included top executives from and an oil company, an investment banker and a . But Mr. Trump’s weekend White House appears to be unprecedented in American history, as it is the first one with customers paying a company owned by the president, several historians said. “ represents a commercialization of the presidency that has few if any precedents in American history,” said Jon Meacham, a presidential historian and Andrew Jackson biographer. “Presidents have always spent time with the affluent,” he added. “But a club where people pay you as president to spend time in his company is new. It is kind of amazing. ” John Dean, who served as White House counsel during the Nixon administration and has been a frequent Trump critic, noted that President Richard M. Nixon used to fly down to Florida to stay in an earlier winter White House: a private home in Key Biscayne that had also earned that name. But that arrangement was entirely different, Mr. Dean said, as Mr. Nixon was staying at a private home, not surrounded by some of the nation’s wealthiest business executives. “Most presidents feel very strongly about the dignity of the office they hold,” Mr. Dean said. “Mr. Trump has busted every norm in campaigning, and he seems to be doing the same with the traditions of his office. ” One longtime member is Kenneth M. Duberstein, who served as White House chief of staff under President Ronald Reagan and who now works as a corporate consultant and lobbyist. Clients of Mr. Duberstein’s firm include Alibaba Group, the Chinese internet company Amgen and Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giants and Dow Chemical and America’s Health Insurance Plans, which represents the nation’s largest health insurers. Like other members interviewed for this article, Mr. Duberstein said he did not bring up business matters with any Trump administration officials when visiting the club, which also is near a home he owns. “It is a social thing,” he said. “It is not a business thing. ” Christopher Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax Media and a longtime donor to and a friend of the president, said Mr. Trump had always conducted what amounted to informal focus groups on a variety of topics, but that face time with him since the election had become restricted to family and old friends. “It’s a myth to think that anybody could just join the club and go speak to the president,” Mr. Ruddy said, adding that the Secret Service has instituted a de facto rope line around the president’s table in recent weeks, which several other club members confirmed. But the weekly gatherings at have already drawn some scrutiny from Democrats in the Senate, who called for Mr. Trump to release a list of all of the members. “Your winter White House will provide an audience with you for those who can afford it, not to mention an increasing into your organization,” Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, and Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, wrote in a letter sent to Mr. Trump this month. “Instead of draining the swamp, it appears you’re bringing Washington right to the swamps at . ” has never been snooty in the manner of some private clubs in Palm Beach under Mr. Trump, it has long welcomed Jews, gay couples, Republicans and Democrats. (So long as they could afford the entry fee, that is: doubled that fee to $200, 000 shortly after Mr. Trump was elected members also pay $14, 000 in annual dues.) Mr. Trump spent years populating his club with people rejected by rival clubs, while also urging his friends to join. Several members said Mr. Trump’s pronouncements on topics such as immigration — and in particular his recent move to ban visas for visitors from certain nations — had caused some friction among the members at . But Bernd Lembcke, the club’s managing director, said that applications had risen since Mr. Trump’s election. “It enhances it — his presidency does,” Mr. Lembcke said, referring to membership in the club. “People are now even more interested in becoming members. But we are very careful in vetting them. ” And potential members must be sponsored by a current one, he said. “You still have to be introduced. ” The list of members is a who’s who of the world of global finance and real estate, but it is also sprinkled with other boldface names, like Howie Carr, the Boston radio show host, and Bill Belichick, the head coach of the New England Patriots, according to three lists reviewed by The Times, from 2015 through earlier this year. Several members are also major campaign contributors to Mr. Trump, like Mr. Ruddy and Brian Burns, a businessman and lawyer whom Mr. Trump has indicated he now intends to nominate as ambassador to Ireland, records show. One longtime member is Richard LeFrak, a fellow New York developer and one of Mr. Trump’s closest friends, who in turn has recruited some of his own friends to join. Jeff Greene, a Senate candidate in Florida in 2010, said he had joined at the urging of Mr. LeFrak. But where Mr. Trump’s old New York circle blurs easily into his presidency, is now a place where the president of the United States might seek guidance on a major government project the way another New Yorker might ask around for a good orthopedist. When Mr. LeFrak paid a visit to Mr. Trump at last weekend, he appeared a little startled when Mr. Trump, in a brief interlude during the conversation, told him that the Department of Homeland Security was quoting a price of more than $20 billion for the proposed border wall with Mexico. “He said, would I consider doing it? And then he suggested that the price that was being quoted in the media seemed absurdly high to him,” Mr. LeFrak said. He is not interested in the work, but said, “And I didn’t react to him one way or the other because I don’t know what the facts are. ” Mr. LeFrak said to the president, “I thought you were going to have homeland security deal with this,” he recalled, describing Mr. Trump as stymied by the bureaucracy. “And he said, ‘Yes, maybe General Kelly will call you. ’”	1
Travis Kalanick, the and chief executive of the giant Uber, often defended his eagerness to risk billions on winning the Chinese market with a simple question: If you have a chance to become Amazon and Alibaba at the same time, why not try? The implication was simple. Over the last couple of decades, Amazon, Facebook, Google and other American technology giants have each followed a similar script for world domination. Like an imperial armada rolling out from North America’s West Coast, these companies would try to establish beachheads on every other continent. But when American giants tried to enter the waters of China, the world’s largest internet market, the armada invariably ran aground. Plagued by opaque and regulations and a culturally abstruse way of doing business, American companies fell to a series of local giants. Instead of Google, Baidu. Instead of Facebook, WeChat, owned by the giant Tencent. And instead of Amazon, Alibaba. That has left us with a divide: Today, there is the Chinese internet, and there is the internet of the rest of the world. A network seen in its early days as a tool to foster financial and political unity across a fragmented planet has irrevocably cleaved into two completely separate spheres. Mr. Kalanick, a famously competitive and aggressive entrepreneur, had apparently studied these risks and seemed determined to bridge that gulf. He would try to take on China not as an afterthought, but as a central mission of his fledgling company. He would risk billions and spend a great deal of time in China to figure out the secrets of winning there. The goal seemed lofty, but the opportunity, after all, was : Amazon has a market value of $365 billion, and Alibaba is worth about $200 billion. The business might one day grow to be as valuable as if not larger — and wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could own it all, everywhere? Well, you can’t. The announcement on Monday that Uber will sell its Chinese operations to its rival Didi Chuxing, effectively ceding China to the homegrown favorite, cements an emerging global state of play: A kind of Cold War over the internet. Entrepreneurs across the globe can choose to win in China or the rest of the world. You can be Alibaba or you can be Amazon. You can be Uber or you can be Didi. But you can’t be both. Given the rising Chinese market and increasing tension over the role of American tech firms in the rest of the globe, the gulf between the two sides promises to become one of the most important factors in determining the shape of global tech innovation. How exactly might the war play out? In some ways, being at the mercy of two poles of internet leadership could be good for citizens of planet Earth. In emerging markets like India, the Middle East and parts of Africa and South America, the giants of China and the United States are increasingly investing billions to compete for local customers in social networking, ride sharing and other markets. For instance, Duncan Clark, an investment adviser in China who wrote “Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built,” pointed to the way Amazon and Alibaba act as foils for one another. “Amazon is increasingly making its own branded products, taking on Procter Gamble and others, and also getting into the logistics business, and shipping, and everything else,” Mr. Clark said. “But Alibaba is a marketplace that doesn’t hold inventory and describes themselves as helping local merchants — so maybe there’s some argument that Alibaba could serve as a counter globally to Amazon. ” But Uber’s deal with Didi — in which Uber will take an 18 percent stake in the combined company, which is certain to become the monopolistic player in the Chinese market — points to another potential outcome: A series of accommodationist deals in which giants cede large parts of the world to one another, pragmatically carving out their spheres of influence like players in The Great Game. “In that way it could be like the Yalta Conference,” said Mr. Clark, referring to the 1945 meeting in which the victors of World War II determined the postwar geopolitical order. However the global order shakes out, each side’s home territory seems safe from invasion by the other. Uber’s retreat in China was preceded by a parade of failures by earlier American tech firms. Some fell short for obvious political reasons — companies that traffic in information, like Google, Facebook and Twitter, were essentially stymied from the start by the Chinese censorship regime. Others, like Amazon and eBay, failed to appreciate some of the differences in how business got done in China, especially the importance of personal connections. Of all American tech firms, Apple has achieved the biggest success in China — about 25 percent of its sales occurred in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan in 2015. But in recent months, it, too, has been running into political hurdles in the region. “The barrels that will be thrown at you when you’re trying to do business in China will just never stop,” said Mark Natkin, the managing director of Marbridge Consulting, an advisory firm based in Beijing. “You’ll constantly be above one barrel or recovering from jumping one, and as you’re dusting yourself off you look down the road and here comes the next one. ” Compared with previous failures, Uber seemed to do everything right in China. It set up a separate company, Uber China, which had a from local investors, including from a local giant, Baidu. It hired many local experts, and worked closely with the national government to foster friendly relations. Insiders say Mr. Kalanick was also personally invested in the deal. He visited China eight times in the last year and a half, and became something of a tech star in the Chinese media. Publicly Mr. Kalanick had insisted he was fighting for total victory in China. But he must have known that Uber would always struggle to achieve dominance, given the emerging centrality of to the future of infrastructure in China. Still, even if he failed to win everything in China, investing early in the country seemed too big to skip. “The opportunity in China is basically as big as the rest of the world combined, if not bigger,” said Ben Thompson, an analyst based in Taiwan who writes the tech newsletter Stratechery. “For Uber, China was basically frosting on the cake. ” For now, it’s especially delicious frosting. The $2 billion Uber spent tackling China is now worth about $7 billion in the new merged entity if Didi does become one of China’s largest tech companies, the value of Uber’s stake in China could rise geometrically, making the firm much more attractive in a potential initial public offering. Pulling out of China also frees up Uber to invest more in other markets — India and Indonesia are big targets — as well as expand its expertise in core technological initiatives like mapping data and cars. But if spending big to tackle China ultimately works out for Uber, it will be an anomaly, and certainly not a model for other American tech giants. “The market is one the few markets where the upside is big enough to justify going in,” Mr. Thompson said. “For most other companies, going into China is still going to be nothing but pain. ”	1
HOUSTON — There was the game on the field, and there was the one watched through the political prism of these times. On social media, the Atlanta Falcons were not just the N. F. C. champions, they were for ferment, coming from a staunchly Democratic city and facing a Patriots team whose owner, head coach and starting quarterback are all friends with the president, to varying degrees. “Falcons are fun and their biggest stars aren’t pro Trump,” JayZito wrote on Twitter. “I’m a Falcons fan today. ” Not long before the game started, President Trump, in an interview on Fox, which was broadcasting the game, predicted a Patriot win by 8 points in part out of support for his friends. That prediction was the object of ridicule as Atlanta surged ahead, but then it ended up appearing prescient as the Patriots stormed back to win, in the first Super Bowl overtime. Mr. Trump did not attend the game, opting for a traditional party near his vacation home in South Florida. (Social media users dissected a picture of Mr. Trump and his family not looking enthusiastic at a table there and took sometimes harsh note of Mr. Trump’s departure with nearly an hour and a half left in the game.) Vice President Mike Pence attended the game and drew some boos when he was shown on a stadium screen talking with James Baker, who served as secretary of state under former President George Bush. Mr. Bush did the opening coin toss from a wheelchair on the field, accompanied by the former first lady Barbara Bush. A succession of commercials with themes of inclusion, immigration and multiculturalism were seen by many viewers as commentary on Trump’s executive orders restricting immigration and his calls for a wall along the Mexican border. One commercial made by follows the path of one of the company’s Adolphus Busch, as he immigrated from Germany to the United States. The ad was criticized by some commentators who created a hashtag, #BoycottBudweiser. The actor Morgan Freeman appeared in a commercial for Turkish Airlines, speaking about “bridging worlds and finding delight in our differences. ” Before, during and after the game, people talked about an ad for the company 84 Lumber that featured imagery of a Mexican mother and daughter on a journey north for a better life in the United States. The company deleted some scenes depicting a border wall but included the full ad on its website. The website Breitbart News, in its live coverage of the game, grew exasperated. “These commercials have been a bonanza of leftist activism: two immigration commercials, a feminist commercial, now an eco wacko commercial? Am I missing anything?” one of the editors wrote. About the only aspect of the game that generated a surprisingly more muted political discussion than expected was the one everybody seemed to think would cause a stir: the halftime show by Lady Gaga, a persistent critic of Mr. Trump. With a dash of patriotic imagery — red and blue drones forming the shape of the United States — she mostly stuck to her hits, with only a few gestures that some interpreted as subtle digs at the president. During her song “Million Reasons” she hugged a woman of uncertain ethnicity and sang, “Why don’t you stay,” a move that people on Twitter thought was a statement about race and immigration. The N. F. L. tried in its own way to unify the country for a few hours. Fans at the stadium were given small flags to wave during the singing of the national anthem, and when the teams ran onto the field, they were led by soldiers and sailors holding large American flags. The league even ran a commercial called “Inside These Lines” to show that “the power of football” can “bring people together. ” Still, outside the stadium it was another story. The president’s unabashed support for the Patriots turned into a punch line on social media when the Patriots fell behind by 25 points early in the second half. Some fans accused the president of jinxing the team. In Houston, hundreds of people protested the president and his policies near the stadium, crossing paths with thousands of fans heading to the game. Chants of “Black Lives Matter” were applauded by Falcons fans. Similar protests took place last week near an N. F. L. park downtown. Atlanta, the capital of a solidly red state, was suddenly adopted as a darling of football fans. One commenter on Twitter joked, “The Falcons respect an independent judiciary,” a dig at the president’s criticism of the federal judge in Seattle who temporarily halted the refugee ban. Some Patriots fans, uneasy with their team’s link to the president, encouraged fellow fans to donate to organizations like the N. A. A. C. P. and Planned Parenthood each time the Patriots scored. After the game, Martellus Bennett, a tight end for the Patriots, reiterated his vow not to attend the customary congratulatory ceremony at the White House, because he opposes Mr. Trump. Still, at the end Mr. Trump exulted, once again stoking support and derision. “What an amazing comeback and win by the Patriots,’’ he wrote on Twitter. “Tom Brady, Bob Kraft and Coach B are total winners. Wow!”	1
WASHINGTON — With Twitter posts, leaks and executive orders, President Trump is moving quickly to show he will make good on some of his key campaign pledges. Within a period this week, he ordered or signaled significant new policies on border security, terrorism, crime and voting. But as Mr. Trump’s predecessor learned in 2009 when he ordered the military prison at Guantánamo Bay closed, implementing policy is not as easy as the stroke of a pen. Details to carry out security policies exceed Twitter’s limit and in some cases the public can only infer Mr. Trump’s plans. Here is what he has promised, and what authority he has to carry it out. No political promise came to symbolize Mr. Trump’s candidacy like his pledge to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. The costs and logistical headaches of such a project — which would cut through private property — have always been daunting, but Mr. Trump’s supporters were unfazed: “Build the wall!” they chanted. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump signed an order to build it and announced that work would begin immediately on a project that is estimated to cost more than $20 billion. He offered few details, including any that would address the fact that Congress, not the White House, writes the checks. The Antideficiency Act prohibits the government from spending money for any reason that Congress has not appropriated. The president can announce whatever plans he wants. But whether the plan is “build a wall” or “close Guantánamo,” if Congress does not go along, it can amount to wishful thinking. As one Republican lawmaker said of Mr. Obama’s 2009 order on Guantánamo, “This is an executive order that places hope ahead of reality. ” Mr. Trump, a real estate developer by trade, seemed undeterred. “We do not need new laws,” he said Wednesday. “We will work within the existing system and framework. ” While that appeared to mean that he intended to shift some already appropriated money to the wall’s construction, it was unclear where the funds would come from. He cannot easily cannibalize one program to pay for the wall. “It doesn’t work out like that,” said William C. Banks, a Syracuse University law professor. So is Mr. Trump’s executive order meaningless? Not entirely. The Department of Homeland Security can start planning and discussing the project now and ask for the bulk of the money later. And if Mr. Trump really wants to break ground immediately and avoid Congress, there is — as always in Washington — a workaround that would let him do so at least in theory. Two laws, the Economy Act of 1932 and the Feed and Forage Act, give the president some spending wiggle room. The Economy Act allows presidents to move money between departments in some circumstances. The Feed and Forage Act, first enacted in 1799, was intended to allow military leaders in the field to spend money on essential clothing and medical supplies. But presidents have used that power broadly. Former President George H. W. Bush started the first gulf war under that authority, Mr. Banks said. In theory, Mr. Trump could order the military to spend extra money to protect national security, then move around the funding within the bureaucracy to pay for a wall built by the Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Banks said. But such an accounting trick has never been used to go around Congress on such a large scale, Mr. Banks said. Lawsuits would be inevitable. It would be much easier to simply ask Congress for the money. But for now, Mr. Trump gets to say he is making good on a political promise. And if Congress scuttles the plan later or lawsuits hold it up? “He can say he did his part,” Mr. Banks said. He compared the move to the playbook of former President Barack Obama: “It is very Obama. ” Mr. Trump is preparing an executive order that would clear the way for the Central Intelligence Agency to reopen overseas “black site” prisons. According to a draft of the order, Mr. Trump also intends to review the agency’s interrogation program, in which interrogators tortured some suspected terrorists through waterboarding and extensive sleep deprivation. Other suspects were shackled in painful positions, doused with water and menaced with dogs. Mr. Trump can revoke the current ban on C. I. A. prisons, but it would take much more than his signature to restore the interrogation program. Federal law now restricts interrogation techniques to those authorized by the Army Field Manual. And unlike when the tactics were first authorized — when government lawyers said no harm would come from the tactics — it is now clear that many prisoners suffered persistent psychological damage. That would make the program even more difficult to justify under laws. Mr. Trump could try to ignore all this, saying he has the authority to do so as commander in chief. But his cabinet nominees seemed to reject that theory in their confirmation testimony. As a practical matter, reopening the secret prisons would require finding countries willing to host them. Those who did so for former President George W. Bush have faced a decade of investigations, lawsuits and recriminations. Mr. Trump threatened federal intervention in Chicago if the city does not address violent crime. Chicago saw at least 762 homicides in 2016, the highest figure in two decades — more than Los Angeles and New York combined. It was not clear what Mr. Trump meant by “feds. ” But Mr. Trump has wide latitude in this area. The Justice Department could dispatch more agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration to Chicago. In more extreme situations, presidents and governors have activated the National Guard, but usually to keep the peace during riots and unrest. In a series of Twitter posts, Mr. Trump reiterated his false assertion that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2. 8 million ballots only because undocumented immigrants and others voted illegally. There is no evidence of such widespread fraud (as Mr. Trump’s campaign lawyers have acknowledged) and Mr. Trump offered none. Nor did he say what sort of investigation he had planned. Voter fraud is a crime, so Mr. Trump may have been referring to an F. B. I. investigation. But the president does not have the authority to direct F. B. I. criminal investigations. Those require a criminal predicate, or reasonable suspicion. Generally, though, Mr. Trump has the authority to order a investigation — call it a commission, task force or working group. That would allow the White House to make its findings public.	1
A quick quiz about presidential candidates and their religions. John F. Kennedy? Easy: A Catholic. George W. Bush? A Christian, who found God in midlife and frequently talked about it. Mitt Romney? A Mormon, the first to clinch his party’s nomination. Now try Donald J. Trump. Or Hillary Clinton. Not so obvious. In this election, the country has paid scant attention to the spiritual life of Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton, a fact reflected in polls that show how little voters know about their faiths. But as we found in the latest episode of The religion is central to both of their identities — though in profoundly different ways. Mr. Trump’s bravado can be traced to what he learned inside Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, according to Gwenda Blair, the author of “The Trumps,” a multigenerational portrait of the family, and one of our guests on the show. At the church, a charismatic minister named Norman Vincent Peale preached a theology of positive thinking, the rejection of negative thoughts and relentless . Sound familiar? “He was known as God’s salesman, but it was really selling the idea of success,” Ms. Blair says of Dr. Peale. That message seemed to resonate for a young Mr. Trump. “Everything he does is about winning. It’s only about winning and losing — those are the only two principles that are involved,” Ms. Blair says. “That’s a very Norman Vincent Peale notion — that notion of success above all. ” That’s not the only parallel between the two men. As I told Ms. Blair, I was struck by a word in Dr. Peale’s writings that kept popping up: “tremendous. ” We also hear from a man who is intimately familiar with the role of religion in Mrs. Clinton’s life: Burns Strider, Mrs. Clinton’s religious adviser during her first presidential campaign and a friend with whom she has prayed for years. Her family’s devotion to Methodism put her on a path toward public service, Mr. Strider says — and instilled a view of religion that elevated action over words and left an already reserved figure disinclined to loudly proclaim her faith. But it has come at a cost: Today, 43 percent of voters don’t think she’s religious. The reality: Mrs. Clinton is far more religious than many understand, and always has been, carrying a Bible in her purse, joining a prayer group in the Senate and making time every day to digest scripture. I asked Mr. Strider about the inherent tension in the Democratic party between the faithful and the secular. “If you’re honest and if you’re passionate, most folks aren’t going to freak over the fact that your center comes from a relationship with God,” he says. “They’re going to respect you for being honest and passionate about it. I think Hillary herself has more than enough leeway to talk about faith if she wants to. ” So why does it feel as if religion has receded into the background in 2016? Jonathan Martin, a national political correspondent at The Times, offers his theory, based on two years of talking to the candidates, religious leaders and voters around the country. From a desktop or laptop, you can listen by pressing play on the button above. Or if you’re on a mobile device, the instructions below will help you find and subscribe to the series. On your iPhone or iPad: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Podcasts” with a purple icon. (This link might help.) 2. Search for the series. Tap on the “search” magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen, type in “The ” and select it from the list of results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, tap on the “subscribe” button to have new episodes sent to your phone free. You may want to adjust your notifications to be alerted when a new episode arrives. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, just tap on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode. On your Android phone or tablet: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Play Music” with an icon. (This link might help.) 2. Search for the series. Click on the magnifying glass icon at the top of the screen, search for the name of the series and select it from the list of results. You may have to scroll down to find the “Podcasts” search results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, click on the word “subscribe” to have new episodes sent to your phone free. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, just click on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode.	1
Monday on MSNBC, while discussing his call on the floor of the U. S. House of Representatives for President Donald Trump to be impeached, Rep. Al Green ( ) declared he did so because he “felt compelled” after reviewing evidence. Green said, “This is not something that I wanted to do, sir, it’s something that I felt compelled to do after reviewing evidence. We live in a country where we believe no police officer, no congressman, no senator and no president is above the law. When the President decided that he would fire the FBI director who was investigating his campaign, which means that he was investigating him, the president, when he decided to fire him and he acknowledged that he was doing it for this reason, when you couple that with the fact that he said that the Russian thing was a story and he said it is a and then he went on to tweet something that may be considered an intimidating statement with reference to a recording that he might have, when you combine these things you have obstruction of justice. Article 2, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States of America recognizes obstruction of justice as an impeachable offense. ” ( Grabien) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN	0
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TEL AVIV — If Donald Trump makes good on his promise to move the U. S. embassy to Jerusalem, it would be considered “a declaration of war” on all Muslims, the Palestinian Authority’s supreme Sharia judge Mahmoud declared on Friday. [“The new American administration intends to transfer its embassy to Jerusalem. In a simple, calm, and rational manner, in clear words that need no explanation and which are unambiguous: Such a step, for every Muslim, is a declaration of war on all Muslims,” said Habbash in a Friday sermon broadcast on the Palestinian Authority’s official television network. The speech, which was attended by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, was translated by Israeli watchdog Palestinian Media Watch. “We are no one’s enemies, and we do not want to be. We are not enemies of the US and we do not want to be. However, when something harms our faith and our existence, we cannot stand by and do nothing,” Habbash, who also serves as a senior aide to Abbas, said. “Occupied Jerusalem is our eternal capital, the capital of our existence and the capital of our state. In politics, there can be compromises here and there … In politics there can be negotiation. However, in matters of religion, faith, values, ethics, and history, there can be no compromises,” he added. Trump’s team has emphasized that the is “firmly committed” to transferring the embassy to Israel’s capital as soon as possible. Saeb Erekat, of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and chief Palestinian negotiator, said that moving the embassy would “destroy” the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians and would cause the region to descend further into “more chaos, lawlessness and extremism. ” Erekat also warned that if Trump were to go ahead with the move, the PLO will revoke its recognition of Israel and the U. S. will be forced to shut down all of its embassies in the Arab world. In an interview with CBS News on Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that such a move would cause “an explosion, an absolute explosion in the region, not just in the West Bank, and perhaps even in Israel itself, but throughout the region. ” On Thursday, Jordan released a statement saying an embassy transfer would be a “red line” for the Hashemite Kingdom, warning that it would “inflame the Islamic and Arab streets” and would serve as a “gift to extremists. ” On Friday, Abbas warned Trump not to transfer the embassy, saying it was an “aggressive” move.	0
Financial Markets , Market Manipulation , U.S. Economy Cheryl Mills , Clinton Foundation , Hillary emails , Jim Comey , John Podesta , Wiener laptop admin An investor in Dave’s fund emailed him asking which way Colorado would vote tomorrow. He replied: “Depends on who counts the votes. I don’t believe this is a fair election. I think the Clinton crime machine, with the help of George Soros and a few others, have everything under their control now.” After taking the better part of a year to sift through 55,000 emails in analyzing Hillary Clinton’s behavior with regard to conducting classified Government business on her private server – which apparently was accessible to hackers and, surreptitiously, by Anthony Wieners porn laptop – Jim Comey determined in 8 days that 650,000 emails downloaded from Hillary’s private server were not relevant. Sorry Jim, that’s impossible to believe. One highly plausible is that operatives in the Deep State shut down the FBI investigation in order to preserve the treasure trove of material that will give it power over Clinton’s Presidency. The SoT was perplexed by this, so we asked John Titus his take on this. His answer was quite compelling: Here’s what I’m reasonably sure of, based on experience. (1) Jim Comey looked sick when, at the conclusion of round one, and having proven beyond all doubt that Hillary violateed 18 U.S.C 793(f), he said no reasonable prosecutor would charge her. He wasn’t acting. Bad acting comes right through camera lens, and that man looked like he was about to vomit when he left that dais; (2) it took the FBI a year to conclude round one of its investigation, which was based on its review of 55,000 emails; (3) Comey had promised to get back to congress should more info arise, and when 650,000 unexpected emails showed up, he made good on his word by letting congress know; and (4) the FBI terminated its investigation LONG before reviewing 650,000 emails. I once reviewed 250,000 documents on a case, Based on the foregoing, SOMEONE got to Comey—somewhere along the line. For all I know, though, the whole thing was scripted from start to finish, and Comey read his script at every point along the way, even when it physically disgusted him in round one. So while you might be right about the time, I think if the Deep State made a move on Comey, it happened awhile ago. That’s wholly speculative on my part. You could well be right that they got to him just recently. I just doubt it. I think he’s the Company Man because he’s a company man. For DAMN SURE you’re right about holding Hillary hostage, but she’s so evil it’s like throwing a pedophile into a daycare center with no supervision, the shades drawn and the doors locked. With that as the preface, today’s episode of the Shadow of Truth discussed the latest development in the HRC Crime Family saga: Share this:	0
There have been more than 50 government shutdowns of the Internet in 2016, costing the respective countries hundreds of millions of dollars and choking citizen freedoms during crucial moments. [According to a report from the Brookings Institute, strangling the internet cost $2. 4 billion over the course of 2016. Senior Global Advocacy Manager Deji Olukotun of the Access Now digital rights organization believes that an even greater cost can be counted in human lives. Olukotun says that the shutdowns “go hand in hand with atrocities,” citing the deaths of Ethiopian protesters “during the kind of blackout where it’s difficult to report on what’s happening. ” Other shutdowns include communication blackouts during the Ugandan elections, and governments that chose to go so far as shutting down all Internet access just to keep students from cheating on exams. The biggest losses are clustered near the top, with three major contenders. Conservative estimates suggest that India lost nearly a billion dollars due to its shutdowns, while Saudi Arabia managed nearly half a billion on its own. Morocco gave up $320 million. Even governments that didn’t wall off the entirety of the Internet still blocked access to social media in some cases, and their methods have steadily become more sophisticated. As time goes on, it grows more and more difficult for citizens to find any way around restrictions on digital information. Olukotun would like to see “telecommunications companies [push] back on government orders, or at least document them to show what’s been happening, to at least have a paper trail. ” The UN’s International Telecommunications Union could also discourage such measures by shining a light on the events as they happen. The good news is, “most governments want to expand internet access,” so that they can “participate in the global economy and be competitive. ” There have been as many or more investments in expanding access to the unlimited information made available by the Internet as there have been instances of censorship. Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both.	0
By Guitarsandmore , April 30, 2006 at 5:37 am Link to this comment (Unregistered commenter) there were the wise men, a discreet gathering of corporate lawyers, diplomats and security strategists who advised President Johnson that the costs of Vietnam were greater than any of the benefits. .. . As The New York Times finally reported on Monday, April 24, the wise men are being recreated through the Iraq Study Group, funded by Congress, co-chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, and including such power. It is funny how in this country it always comes down to economics and laws. I would think that in a true Democracy the will of the people would prevail but apparently we always need a group of wise men too. The protest marches, work stoppages, civil disobedience, will all contribute to the high cost of the war and as this group of wise men conducts the study our efforts will all factor in. It will cost us more in the long run should we become known as the country that tried to control all of the worlds resources (oil wells in Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia). The world will not think much of Democracy if we continue to invade countries based on fears of what might happen. Let the will of the people prevail. By Guitarsandmore , April 29, 2006 at 8:53 pm Link to this comment (Unregistered commenter) Excellent post professor Hayden! I am glad to see you posting here where there is some substance to the blogs. Your article is full of news, information, and valuable insights I have not been able to find elsewhere. Thank you. So Scott Ritter is frustrated (already)! Oh, boy! I first heard about the horrors of the Vietnam war when I was 15 and still in High School. Many years later in my twenties I was still protesting the Vietnam war after seeing my friends Uncle burn himself on the steps of the Capitol building. As I recall certain peace activists were expressing concerns then too about one message being delivered by the peace movement (and the right message as well). I was told to shut up and let those that can deliver a consistent singular message do so. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) split into two factions; the Progressive Labor Party and the Weathermen. But I believe it was the many different groups coming together in April and May of 1970 in Washington DC to March for peace that turned the tide of American opinion about Vietnam. I remember riding in a station wagon loaded down with 10 people that belonged to a Methodist minister and had no SDS people in it at all. Each person in that car had different reasons for marching but all came to protest the war. This weekend Tens of thousands of protesters marched Saturday through lower Manhattan to demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Everyone should continue to write to their Senators and congressmen but also participate in the marches if possible. The only points we have to agree on are these: 1.Stop the war in Iraq 2.Tell Congress to cut off funding war. 3.No more preemptive strikes anywhere. 4.Bring the troops home now. All of this should fit nicely on the front and back of two signs. You carry one and your significant other carries the other one. We can talk about how we are going to turn the oil economy into an alternate energy economy later. What we have to do right now is stop the U.S. war machine from marching across the entire world stamping out potential threats. If you have to choose between dynamite and peace marches I hope you choose peace marches. By Fadel Abdallah , April 29, 2006 at 2:06 pm Link to this comment (Unregistered commenter) Generally speaking, I liked Tom Hyden’s piece and would identify with most of its premise. However, I have and apprehension about any movement that would identify its agenda as against war; as if war is a necessary human condition we await to happen, then we mobilize to oppose it, hence the “Anti-War Movement.” I want to be part of a movement that considers wars as the ultimate evil and the ultimate form of terrorism, which shoud be prevented with sound planned activism; but not wait to react to it after the fact of war is upon us. Further, I want to be part of a movement for true democracy; not a democracy that can be sold to the highest bidders, who will always be the members of the merchants of death, represnted by the military-industial complex. I want to be part of a genuinly fair and just democracy that leads the world by example; and not be led by the wims of special interest groups, such as the Israeli Lobby. I want to be part of a movement that have at its core philosophy that might is not right. I want to be part of a genuine humanistic movement that recognizes, with regret, that we “are living at a tumultuous moment in a 500-year history of crusades, slavery, colonialism and patriarchy”, and we are going sincerely to make amends! By Scott , April 29, 2006 at 8:48 am Link to this comment (Unregistered commenter) ETSpoon (1st reply in this thread) makes a good point about this war being fought by “those who want to be there”. In Canada a fair bit of political hay is made of this we-want-to-be-there mentality by soldiers, especially after they’ve been killed. The media is usually filled with stories about the dead soldiers committment and their willingness to be at war. As in the US all Canadians are being cajoled to support our troops. Well, he fact is, as a taxpayer, I AM supporting Canada’s troops, but against my will. Sometimes it feels like the only reason we’re at war is so Canadian conservatives can use our involvement in Afghanistan as a pretext to spend a bunch of money (my money) on the military, something they’ve wanted to do for decades. I suggest that peace activists in both our countries start a tax revolt until a mechanism is in place that ensures supporters are the ones that foot the bill for the wars they want. This would certainly be in line with the long-touted user-pay principle that most war supporters inist on in virtually every other case where public monies are spent. By Ahmad-Fathi Abumaraq , April 29, 2006 at 3:49 am Link to this comment (Unregistered commenter) Thank you very informative,a treasure of information ,clear thinking precise,concise and to the point.God bless the NOBLE MEN. By S VAN DUSEN , April 27, 2006 at 8:22 pm Link to this comment (Unregistered commenter) Thank you, Tom, for your percpective on the current state of the ‘Peace Movement’ and, by extension, the progressive radical movement in general. This really does seem to be “the best of times and the worst of times.” The ‘Peace Movement’ has made a tremendous difference in keeping the issue of the Irag war from simply becoming part of the background noise of daily life. It does seem, however, to be struggling against an immensely powerful current of apathy and indifference. Progressive Radicalism too has helped to focus public attention, however fleetingly, on a broad array of pertinent issues. Still, the movement, as a whole, seems to have (d)evolved into a fractious multi- tude of cliques whose exclusionary ideological rigidity and seeming dependence on confrontational theatrics discourages committed involvement. In many ways this is no different than the conditions present during the ‘Viet Nam’ era. The ‘Anti-War Movement’ faced a tremendous uphill battle against public opinion and government repression. Other issues, when they were understood at all, faced reactions ranging from condesending amusement to violent hostility. Proponents of peace and other issues utilized an array of tactics ranging from reasoned discourse, to non-violent civil disobedience, to carnival antics, to paramilitary, guerrilla violence. Still, there are signigicant differences between then and now. For one thing, this is not all new. We’ve seen this type of thing before. Early in the Viet Nam war, those in opposition based their position on comprehensive pacifism and anti-imperialism. It took the revelations of Daniel Ellsberg and the release of the “Pentagon Papers” to expose the general public to the mind set of the decision makers in the executive branch, the intelligence community, and the military, and to the lies, deceptions, and covert, provocative actions under- taken to involve the nation in a predetermined and unnecessary war. This time around, the charges of deception and fraud began before the war started and the evidense to support those charges followed on immediately. Public disillusionment has taken months not years. Let us see how this disillusionment translates into votes in the mid-term elections. Secondly, there is no draft as we knew it then. Young men of college age (women are still not required to register) are not currently faced with the life or death possiblity of being called to involuntary military service and probable combat duty. The disproportionate representation of minorities among combat casualties is also not a current factor. The ‘backdoor draft’ created by the deployment of National Guard units (to a degree unprecedented in history), the calling up of reservists (some of whom have been effectively out of the military for years), and the indefinite extension of tours of duty has temporarily filled the military’s manpower needs. This has left the military to be viewed by many, if not most, as a volunteer force, serving in one sense or another by choice. It has also left the vast majority of otherwise draft elgible men free to pursue other options. This lack of direct personal involvement makes this particular population segment difficult to galvanize in to political action as they were during Viet Nam. It may well be the returning veterans of the Irag war, including significant numbers of women (some greviously wounded), who will form one of the most prominent segments of the current Anti-War Move- ment. Senator Kerry and other members of the Viet Nam Veterans Against the War, still active in politics and progressive causes, should cultivate this group with particular care. Third, the Anti-War Movement has thusfar avoided making some of the more egregiously boneheaded errors of the Viet Nam era. The labeling of common soldiers as “baby killers”, the disrespect, mistreatment, and abuse of returning veterans, and the general indifference to their hardships and very existence by large portions of the Movement and general public have been largely avoided. The well intentioned, but utterly inappropriate, gestures of high-profile celeb- rities meeting with the leadership of opposing forces, visiting territories con- trolled by them, and touring their military facilities has also been avoided. Those mistakes continue to haunt the Peace Movement and have, in all like- lihood, contributed to the initial public support for the Bush administration’s policies and reluctance to give credibility to those opposed to those policies. It is gratifying to see that the Peace Movement is able to learn from its errors even if this nation’s leadership cannot. Fourth, while Congress possessed a solid and powerful cadre of leaders opposed to the Viet Nam war in the form of Senators Morse, Hatfield, McCarthy, Muskie, McGovern, and Kennedy as well as several members of the House of Representatives, it still took years to develop any significant oppo- sition to White House policy in Viet Nam. It was not until the release of the “Pentagon Papers” that support for the war began to evaporate, and it was not until Watergate that political support for the Nixon administration disap- peared. Today there is a much broader base of opposition in the Congress and, after the initial acquiesence to President Bush’s call to arms, that oppo- sition has coalesced and stood strong. It is only the minority status of the Democratic representatives and the iron grip of the Republican party over its members that is keeping all support from collapsing in the face of mounting evidence of fraud, deceipt, and the abuse of power by this administration. Finally, you may be right, Tom. The Movement has, in many ways, become ‘mainstream’. Maybe the radicals are “disappearing in the midst of their own success”. The array of issues that formed the great, broad umbrella of the ‘Counter Culture’ have spread widely throughout the society as a whole. Things that once appeared alien and outrageous have now become common- place. Ideas that once appeared to be held only by “prophetic minorities” are now the intellectual property of anyone with the courage and independence to subscribe. This is, in part, a product of our ‘information age’ and it is a GOOD thing. It is good to see that some of you ‘old hands’ are still out there and speaking up, Tom. Your book, REUNION, Random House, New York, was quite infor- mative. With examples like you it will be easier for some of us to “be winter soldiers in a long war,” and spread the ‘Viet Nam Syndrome’ everywhere. By Thomas Bregman , April 27, 2006 at 6:27 am Link to this comment (Unregistered commenter) Comment #7938 by Tony Wicher on 4/26 at 8:31 am Tony. I also voted for (financially supported and walked the streets too) for Kerry, but don’t think I could do so again. Thought his 04’ loss was caused by a variety of factors (republican fear and wedge strategy, corporate media complicity, national democratic party ineptitude, tactical vote suppression, et al) he must be held personally accountable for his incredibly off kilter campaign. It seems to me that some of the other possible candidates have gotten a clue on issues, bearing and process. Though I’m not ready to commit at this point, I’ll certainly going to take a hard look at Gore, Edwards and Feingold for starters. I also think a self finanaced + netroots dark horse might emerge. Some not nutty millionaire / billionaire (like Ned Lamont’s challenge to psuedo-dem Liberman in CT) could use his/her personal $$$$ to get a campaign jump started and then use internet financing to move beyond vanity. What do think? By Edwaard A. Marshall , April 26, 2006 at 10:34 am Link to this comment (Unregistered commenter) WHY IS IT THAT WHEN BOOKING A HOTEL THE IMPERIAL SUITE SOUNDS QUITE ENTICING WHERE AS NO ONE WOULD THINK OF BOOKING A NAZI SUITE? THERE IS THE PROBLEM. By nolaman , April 26, 2006 at 8:55 am Link to this comment (Unregistered commenter) “Sen. John Kerrys call for military withdrawal by the end of this year. Kerry stands a definite chance of filling the moral void in the present political process. When he steadfastly embraces his record as a young man, the message resonates in several ways.” I am a former member of John Kerry’s Vietnam Vets Against the War. Oh, how I wish that John Kerry or someone from that era’s anti-war movement would embrace their earlier principles. During his shameful presidential run Kerry ran away from his youthful principled stand against the Vietnam war. I kept waiting for him to resolutely defend his anti-war past. The only thing he has said recently that resonated with me was his referrence to how many men died so needlessly after it was clear there was no military solution in Vietnam. There is no military solution in Iraq!!! Men dieing there as we speak are dieing to salvage the political careers of Bush and company… and even Kerry if he doesn’t take a stronger stand! By Tony Wicher , April 26, 2006 at 8:31 am Link to this comment (Unregistered commenter) Comment on Comment #7812 by Thomas Bregman on 4/25 at 9:59 am Hear, hear! My sentiments about Hillary exactly. Bill had his faults, but I’ve got much more respect for him than I do for her. Hell, she should have been there giving him blow jobs when he really needed it. I voted for Kerry. In spite of that travesty of a campaign he ran and all the shit I talked about him after the election, he still looks like the best prominent Democrat in the running. I could vote for him again if I had to, but not Hillary. As to Comment #7805 by ETSpoon, you are a damn fool. The peace movement is alive and well and succeeding. The last thing we need is naysayers like you. Why don’t you get a job with the Bush Administration? That seems to be where your true sympathies lie. By Peter Meldrum , April 26, 2006 at 7:10 am Link to this comment (Unregistered commenter) Whether America accepts it or not it has lost the war in Iraq. As predicted by many the country has descended into Civil War. Now to add the folly of assaulting Iran will, in the words of the Editorial Writer of the Daily Times, “see the region erupt in flames”. It is time for the American people to demand the return of the troops, demand a complete reassesment and retrenching of American foreign policy, to demand that American leaders address America’s internal problems, to demand America’s leaders abandon their desire to rule the world. And possibly, just possibly, return democracy to America. By G.Anderson , April 25, 2006 at 10:45 pm Link to this comment (Unregistered commenter) Just as military leaders sometimes prepare to fight the wars of the past, political movements can become mired in views of the world that have been discredited. Certainly the absence of effective political oppostition to the war and any large demonstrations against the war is an indication that something is missing… Is it just a question of leadership, or has the country become conservative after all? If that is the reason, then political rants against the war will not make one bit of difference. The Anti War Movement can only dream of having mass demonstrations on the scale of the recent pro amnesty immigration protests. On the other hand there is nothing like loosing to make your point… When American’s defeat in Iraq does come, America’s political leaders will have a better understanding of the politic’s of America’s citizens. By Bo , April 25, 2006 at 6:07 pm Link to this comment (Unregistered commenter) The America SAD DENIAL Case Your war against Fear is not justified. It is actually a Resource War for oil, and a currency war for the dollar. Global Oil production has peaked and US will suffer the most from this crisis. The United States uses 25% of the worlds oil yet only has 5% of the worlds population. America is heavily in debt and bankruptcy is unavoidable. The coming housing bust will send the economy into a second greater depression. While the Middle East countries find themselves targets in the “war on terror”, China, Russia, and Latin America find themselves targets in the recently declared and much more expansive “war on tyranny.” Whereas the “war on terror” is really a war for control of the world’s oil reserves, this newly declared “war on tyranny” is really a war for control of the world’s oil distribution and transportation chokepoints. The dollar is in collapse, the economy is going to crash, oil is getting more scarce everyday. America is a nation that has its infrastructure built exclusively to be run on abundant cheap oil, with global demand of oil increasing exponentially and supply decreasing year after year, America has no other choice than to wage a global war on oil and currency and under the ruse of terror and freedom. What? No believe? You still denial?? Is your entire country on crack? Are all you Americans out of your cotton picking minds? Are you completely freaking delusional? Homicidal? Psychotic? Have you lost any shred of a moral compass? WHAT IN THE NAME OF JESUS H. CHRIST ON A CRUTCH IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE Let me offer up one small datum which may completely change the equation for you: According to the CIA (If they have any credibility left.) even accord to them Iran is at least five years away from a nuclear weapon. Five years. Five years is time for diplomacy to accomplish a hell of a lot. I would also point out that the Atomic Energy Commission, various other international bodies and other inspections have essentially found no sign that Iran is even working on a nuclear weapon. The only actual evidence that Iran has anything close to nuclear weapons technology is blueprints that the CIA gave to them! Have you all forgotten that the evidence on Iraq was spectacularly wrong? Have you all ignored the fact that it was fabricated? Why then are we going down the exact same road of stage managed, fabricated pseudo-evidence and wild-ass hysteria? What is wrong with you people? This entire crisis has been manufactured, and has been years in the making. Stop and think back five years. What did we have five years ago? A moderate reformist Iranian government making overtures to the United States, rebuilding its relationship with Europe, liberalizing its society, and modernizing its economy. Post 9/11 vigil in Iran. 9/11 comes along, the Iranians are overflowing with sympathy. Mass candlelit vigils are held in Tehran. Iran offers aid and cooperation. Iran hates the Taliban who have executed Iranian diplomats and massacred Afghan Shiites. Iran hates Saddam Hussein. Iran hates Al Qaeda which is a Sunni Fundamentalist organization which declares Shiites infidels and subhuman. Iran shares its intelligence with America - they even arrested Taliban members and handed them over to US custody. So we’ve got the Iranian spring; things are finally going to sort out. And what happens? The Bush administration rebuffs every Iranian overture and does its best to instigate a cold war. Afghanistan is invaded, and suddenly, the Iranians are looking at American troops and allies on their eastern border. Then Iraq is invaded, and American troops and allies on their western border. Then bases and treaties in Uzbekistan, and whoops, there’s more American troops and allies on the northern border. The Persian Gulf is filled with American warships and carrier fleets. Now the Iranians are surrounded. And the tough talk is constant. Iran is part of the ‘Axis of Evil’ and Americans tell each other “Baghdad, humph, real men go to Tehran.” Essentially, America has been threatening military action against Iran for the last five years, and has surrounded the country on every side with troops, bases and allies. American aircraft invade Iranian airspace regularly, American special forces undertake operations inside Iran and Americans regularly accuse Iranians of interference in Iraq. Dick Cheney pontificates about Israel bombing Iran after he has just handed over to Israel the long range bombers and bunker busting bombs required to do the job. Meanwhile, the United States undertakes economic warfare against Iran, interfering with its business dealings with third party countries, trying to scuttle a pipeline deal with India, and it goes on and on. The hysteria about the Iranians nuclear program is just more of the same. Now how in God’s Bloody Name do you think the Iranians are going to respond to that. Should they concede the nuclear program, abandon their pipeline project? If so, its not going to do them any good. America will just seek more concessions. Each surrender will be met by new demands. This isn’t hard to figure out. It’s exactly what Bush did with Iraq. Perhaps overtures, good will gestures, trying to act like a peaceful nation. Did all those things, doesn’t matter. The Bush administration is still on a collision course. So, the Mullahs are concerned that they’re faced with a homicidal crazy state, the Iranian people are scared. When people are scared and faced with an aggressive warmongering power which keeps threatening to attack them, continually trespasses on its borders and is undertaking economic warfare… who the hell are they going to elect? Ahminajad may be a crazy bastard, but you assholes, you utter assholes did every thing you could to elect him short of donating 50,000 Diebold machines and mailing his party the trapdoor codes. So, having pursued a psychotically aggressive course, you’ve backed Iran into a corner, and engineered a regime which refuses to back further. And you are the victims in all this? You are the ones under threat? It’s self defense???? And of course, you goofily believe that you can just bomb or nuke Iran with impunity? Holy microeconomic theory batman! Iran’s nuclear facilities are distributed across the country and in hardened sites near population centers. So any strike that cripples a significant portion of Iran’s nuclear capacity will inevitably be so large and kill so many people that its going to be tantamount to inviting full scale war. Think about that. Iran is 70 million people, an area five times the size of Iraq, not disemboweled by 12 years of sanctions and air raids. On the other side of the coin, America’s ground army is busted and tied down in Iraq. There’s no troops to throw at a major Iranian military force, so you have to hope that bombing will do the trick. The occupation forces in Iraq are in occupation and not territorial defense mode. And Iraq is 65% Shiites who are probably not going to be happy that you’re blowing up their brother Shiites. Meanwhile, the Strait of Hormuz is so narrow that sinking one supertanker will block it indefinitely, and Iran borders the strait on three sides. Block Hormuz and any naval groups inside the Persian Gulf are trapped there. Any naval groups outside the Persian Gulf are trapped outside. Forget about any oil coming out of the Persian Gulf from Iraq, Kuwait, Quatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia or the UAE. Think about what that does to the price of oil, and to the world economy. Think about what that does to dependent countries like Japan, India, China and Europe. In short its so appallingly stupid and colossally risky, that I can see why your idiots in charge might consider using nuclear weapons. But throw a few nukes around and see how the rest of the world reacts? Every dirt-wad country is going to be mortgaging the Presidential palace to get its own nuclear deterrent from Pakistan or North Korea. How do you feel about the Indonesian Bomb, the Malaysian Bomb, the Thai Bomb, the Myanmar Bomb, the Algerian Bomb, the Saudi Bomb, the Egyptian Bomb, the Brazilian Bomb, the Argentine Bomb, the Venezuelan Bomb, the Cuban Bomb, the Japanese Bomb, the Canadian frigging Bomb. You are no longer trustworthy. North Korea, always borderline psychotic is going to be mondo difficult to deal with. You’ve just guaranteed yourself a full fledged nuclear arms race, balls to the wall with both Russia and China, and quite possibly Europe. And of course there’s no guarantee that the rest of the world will allow this. Do you want an armed standoff with the Russians? Suppose they ‘loan’ their finest interceptor jets, pilots and radar systems to the Iranians… Do you want to meet that on a bombing raid? And if you do meet that what are you going to do when half your planes are blasted out of the skies conducting an illegal raid on civilian populations in a foreign country? Cry? Send a harsh note? Launch a first strike? World goes boom. What happens if the Chinese decide to hold Taiwan and South Korea hostage? What do you do? Back off Iran or sell out East Asia? Hell, in that kind of standoff, someone sneezes and its not going to matter who launched a first strike. Or would you like an economic standoff, say with Europe, or with Japan and China. Suppose that the Europeans or Chinese decide “screw the worldwide depression, you assholes are just too dangerous to have around.” Trillions of dollars get dumped on the market, loans get called in, the bottom drops out of your dollar, its thousand per cent inflation and no manufacturing base and your own trade embargoes. So much for America. I mean, its morally wrong; its stupid on every level. And yet here you are discussing why maybe you should get out in front of the Republicans on this, or planning your surrender to Bush. Why are you even discussing this? What is wrong with America? Case in Iraq: Anyone here still remember the scam of Al Samoud 2? I totally forgot about it until today when I read that Iran has enriched a supply of uranium for the first time and Iran’s president has said Iran won’t back down ``one iota’’ over its nuclear program. Remember when Saddam backed down? Its been so long even MY memory’s been washed by Washington, but before the WMB bullshit we were hearing ranting and trash from Bush that it was because of Iraq’s Al Samoud 2 missiles had 10 miles extra range than allowed by the UN [funny how US itself never follows UN regulations] that the US was going to attack Iraq. Al Samoud 2 was a big issue for a while, and Bush gave Saddam an ultimatum of a week or so to disarm and destroy all 90 some missiles or else the US EVIL EMPIRE was going to attack…. what happened?	1
Home \| World \| Donald Trump: “I’m Going to Grab the World By the Pssy!” Donald Trump: “I’m Going to Grab the World By the Pssy!” By Colonel Sharkey 09/11/2016 10:14:09 has won the presidency and he will now bide his time in making his agenda known. As the safe zones crack, the microaggressions rack, and the SJWs whack, there is great fear in America today. For eight long tortuous years we have been witness to the incessant moaning of the leftist socialist contingent and their wishes to curtail free speech, to force their doctrines into peoples’ mouths, to promote their socialist utopian mirage that never happened upon the populace. As the Obama doctrine, a stout hatred of the British, a devout homosexual agenda and a consummate Marxist ideology were splattered onto every American orifice and fucked with lube, ends, it ends in shame, acrimony and the indignity of being erased completely from history without any recognition. Donald Trump will dismantle Obamacare, he will take down all these socialist executive actions, he will completely remove any evidence that Obama was ever president. There will be no trace of Obama in four years of Trump presidency left, and his legacy will be zero, just a grain of sand in an ocean of time. As for the global community, there will be a trade war with China now. The Chinese have for too long taken the U.S. for granted, and their time of selling Yanks cheap plastic trinkets that break after one day are over. Anything made in China is of the worst quality, and is immediately viewed as dispensable. The South Americans streaming over the borders will no longer be tolerated and encouraged, as much as the Democrats utilised these people as fodder for votes, those days are long gone. Look where it got Hillary? Mexico will be taxed to hell, and the illegals shipped to the border and thrown into the desert. Walk back to Mexico where you came from you dirty slickback they will say. If the blacks riot again, they will this time get a proper response, not the Obama response that was so prevalent during his tenure. There will be live ammo used on the blacks to put them firmly in their place. Anyone who says Trump is not establishment is wrong, he was not only born into the establishment but the people he knows are all establishment. One must remember that the establishment controls both sides of any argument, and whoever wins is always the establishment. When Trump met Kissinger, that was a clue that there was movement in his campaign, and this meeting alone should have signalled a change in sentiment amongst the controllers. The rhetoric used in Trump’s acceptance speech was far removed from the braggadocio and fascism of his former speeches, this is because Trump can now bide his time, he will cut down the Muslims in his own time, he will make his mark on Saudi Arabia, and Iran, in his own time, that will come. If you are a devout Muslim in America and dress like one, you will be targeted soon, so it is in your best interests to either assimilate into the American ways of dress and habits or to leave. You will be targeted in the streets, and you will be hounded out of town. This is why you must leave now, or later on find yourself in a camp, similar to how the Japanese were treated in World War two. A great war is coming, and even though Putin and Trump may seem chummy now, there is one thing you must never do, and that is trust a Russian. It is an impossible feat in itself, because how can you trust something that moves from one side to the other so quickly? We must prepare, and we must look to places of safety far away from any civilisation or U.S. interests to find that safety as the war will be long and vicious, possibly nuclear. Kudos to Trump for winning, but where he touched Americans with his emotive rhetoric he has left a warning of the future, for without constraint and patience, there will be global war soon, and this is firmly within the establishment’s agenda. Let the Purge begin.	1
by Yves Smith By Michael T. Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of The Race for What’s Left . A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation . Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1. Originally published at TomDispatch Once upon a time, when choosing a new president, a factor for many voters was the perennial question: “Whose finger do you want on the nuclear button?” Of all the responsibilities of America’s top executive, none may be more momentous than deciding whether, and under what circumstances, to activate the “nuclear codes”— the secret alphanumeric messages that would inform missile officers in silos and submarines that the fearful moment had finally arrived to launch their intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) toward a foreign adversary, igniting a thermonuclear war. Until recently in the post-Cold War world, however, nuclear weapons seemed to drop from sight, and that question along with it. Not any longer. In 2016, the nuclear issue is back big time, thanks both to the rise of Donald Trump ( including various unsettling comments he’s made about nuclear weapons) and actual changes in the global nuclear landscape. With passions running high on both sides in this year’s election and rising fears about Donald Trump’s impulsive nature and Hillary Clinton’s hawkish one, it’s hardly surprising that the “nuclear button” question has surfaced repeatedly throughout the campaign. In one of the more pointed exchanges of the first presidential debate, Hillary Clinton declared that Donald Trump lacked the mental composure for the job. “A man who can be provoked by a tweet,” she commented , “should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes.” Donald Trump has reciprocated by charging that Clinton is too prone to intervene abroad. “You’re going to end up in World War III over Syria,” he told reporters in Florida last month. For most election observers, however, the matter of personal character and temperament has dominated discussions of the nuclear issue, with partisans on each side insisting that the other candidate is temperamentally unfit to exercise control over the nuclear codes. There is, however, a more important reason to worry about whose finger will be on that button this time around: at this very moment, for a variety of reasons, the “nuclear threshold”— the point at which some party to a “conventional” (non-nuclear) conflict chooses to employ atomic weapons — seems to be moving dangerously lower. Not so long ago, it was implausible that a major nuclear power — the United States, Russia, or China — would consider using atomic weapons in any imaginable conflict scenario. No longer. Worse yet, this is likely to be our reality for years to come, which means that the next president will face a world in which a nuclear decision-making point might arrive far sooner than anyone would have thought possible just a year or two ago — with potentially catastrophic consequences for us all. No less worrisome, the major nuclear powers (and some smaller ones) are all in the process of acquiring new nuclear arms, which could, in theory, push that threshold lower still. These include a variety of cruise missiles and other delivery systems capable of being used in “limited” nuclear wars — atomic conflicts that, in theory at least, could be confined to just a single country or one area of the world (say, Eastern Europe) and so might be even easier for decision-makers to initiate. The next president will have to decide whether the U.S. should actually produce weapons of this type and also what measures should be taken in response to similar decisions by Washington’s likely adversaries. Lowering the Nuclear Threshold During the dark days of the Cold War, nuclear strategists in the United States and the Soviet Union conjured up elaborate conflict scenarios in which military actions by the two superpowers and their allies might lead from, say, minor skirmishing along the Iron Curtain to full-scale tank combat to, in the end, the use of “battlefield” nuclear weapons, and then city-busting versions of the same to avert defeat. In some of these scenarios, strategists hypothesized about wielding “tactical” or battlefield weaponry — nukes powerful enough to wipe out a major tank formation, but not Paris or Moscow — and claimed that it would be possible to contain atomic warfare at such a devastating but still sub-apocalyptic level. (Henry Kissinger, for instance, made his reputation by preaching this lunatic doctrine in his first book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy .) Eventually, leaders on both sides concluded that the only feasible role for their atomic arsenals was to act as deterrents to the use of such weaponry by the other side. This was, of course, the concept of “ mutually assured destruction ,” or — in one of the most classically apt acronyms of all times: MAD. It would, in the end, form the basis for all subsequent arms control agreements between the two superpowers. Anxiety over the escalatory potential of tactical nuclear weapons peaked in the 1970s when the Soviet Union began deploying the SS-20 intermediate-range ballistic missile (capable of striking cities in Europe, but not the U.S.) and Washington responded with plans to deploy nuclear-armed, ground-launched cruise missiles and the Pershing-II ballistic missile in Europe. The announcement of such plans provoked massive antinuclear demonstrations across Europe and the United States. On December 8, 1987, at a time when worries had been growing about how a nuclear conflagration in Europe might trigger an all-out nuclear exchange between the superpowers, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. That historic agreement — the first to eliminate an entire class of nuclear delivery systems — banned the deployment of ground-based cruise or ballistic missiles with a range of 500 and 5,500 kilometers and required the destruction of all those then in existence. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation inherited the USSR’s treaty obligations and pledged to uphold the INF along with other U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements. In the view of most observers, the prospect of a nuclear war between the two countries practically vanished as both sides made deep cuts in their atomic stockpiles in accordance with already existing accords and then signed others, including the New START , the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 2010. Today, however, this picture has changed dramatically. The Obama administration has concluded that Russia has violated the INF treaty by testing a ground-launched cruise missile of prohibited range, and there is reason to believe that, in the not-too-distant future, Moscow might abandon that treaty altogether. Even more troubling, Russia has adopted a military doctrine that favors the early use of nuclear weapons if it faces defeat in a conventional war, and NATO is considering comparable measures in response. The nuclear threshold, in other words, is dropping rapidly. Much of this is due, it seems, to Russian fears about its military inferiority vis-à-vis the West. In the chaotic years following the collapse of the USSR, Russian military spending plummeted and the size and quality of its forces diminished accordingly. In an effort to restore Russia’s combat capabilities, President Vladimir Putin launched a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar expansion and modernization program. The fruits of this effort were apparent in the Crimea and Ukraine in 2014, when Russian forces, however disguised, demonstrated better fighting skills and wielded better weaponry than in the Chechnya wars a decade earlier. Even Russian analysts acknowledge, however, that their military in its current state would be no match for American and NATO forces in a head-on encounter, given the West’s superior array of conventional weaponry. To fill the breach, Russian strategic doctrine now calls for the early use of nuclear weapons to offset an enemy’s superior conventional forces. To put this in perspective, Russian leaders ardently believe that they are the victims of a U.S.-led drive by NATO to encircle their country and diminish its international influence. They point, in particular, to the build-up of NATO forces in the Baltic countries, involving the semi-permanent deployment of combat battalions in what was once the territory of the Soviet Union, and in apparent violation of promises made to Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not do so. As a result, Russia has been bolstering its defenses in areas bordering Ukraine and the Baltic states, and training its troops for a possible clash with the NATO forces stationed there. This is where the nuclear threshold enters the picture. Fearing that it might be defeated in a future clash, its military strategists have called for the early use of tactical nuclear weapons, some of which no doubt would violate the INF Treaty, in order to decimate NATO forces and compel them to quit fighting. Paradoxically, in Russia, this is labeled a “ de-escalation ” strategy, as resorting to strategic nuclear attacks on the U.S. under such circumstances would inevitably result in Russia’s annihilation. On the other hand, a limited nuclear strike (so the reasoning goes) could potentially achieve success on the battlefield without igniting all-out atomic war. As Eugene Rumer of the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace explains, this strategy assumes that such supposedly “limited” nuclear strikes “will have a sobering effect on the enemy, which will then cease and desist.” To what degree tactical nuclear weapons have been incorporated into Moscow’s official military doctrine remains unknown, given the degree of secrecy surrounding such matters. It is apparent, however, that the Russians have been developing the means with which to conduct such “limited” strikes. Of greatest concern to Western analysts in this regard is their deployment of the Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile, a modern version of the infamous Soviet-era “Scud” missile (used by Saddam Hussein’s forces during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 and the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991). Said to have a range of 500 kilometers (just within the INF limit), the Iskander can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead. As a result, a targeted country or a targeted military could never be sure which type it might be facing (and might simply assume the worst). Adding to such worries, the Russians have deployed the Iskander in Kaliningrad, a tiny chunk of Russian territory wedged between Poland and Lithuania that just happens to put it within range of many western European cities. In response, NATO strategists have discussed lowering the nuclear threshold themselves, arguing — ominously enough — that the Russians will only be fully dissuaded from employing their limited-nuclear-war strategy if they know that NATO has a robust capacity to do the same. At the very least, what’s needed, some of them claim , is a more frequent inclusion of nuclear-capable or dual-use aircraft in exercises on Russia’s frontiers to “signal” NATO’s willingness to resort to limited nuclear strikes, too. Again, such moves are not yet official NATO strategy, but it’s clear that senior officials are weighing them seriously. Just how all of this might play out in a European crisis is, of course, unknown, but both sides in an increasingly edgy standoff are coming to accept that nuclear weapons might have a future military role, which is, of course, a recipe for almost unimaginable escalation and disaster of an apocalyptic sort. This danger is likely to become more pronounced in the years ahead because both Washington and Moscow seem remarkably intent on developing and deploying new nuclear weapons designed with just such needs in mind. The New Nuclear Armaments Both countries are already in the midst of ambitious and extremely costly efforts to “ modernize ” their nuclear arsenals. Of all the weapons now being developed, the two generating the most anxiety in terms of that nuclear threshold are a new Russian ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) and an advanced U.S. air-launched cruise missile (ALCM). Unlike ballistic missiles, which exit the Earth’s atmosphere before returning to strike their targets, such cruise missiles remain within the atmosphere throughout their flight. American officials claim that the Russian GLCM, reportedly now being deployed, is of a type outlawed by the INF Treaty. Without providing specifics, the State Department indicated in a 2014 memo that it had “a range capability of 500 km [kilometers] to 5,500 km,” which would indeed put it in violation of that treaty by allowing Russian combat forces to launch nuclear warheads against cities throughout Europe and the Middle East in a “limited” nuclear war. The GLCM is likely to prove one of the most vexing foreign policy issues the next president will face. So far, the White House has been reluctant to press Moscow too hard, fearing that the Russians might respond by exiting the INF Treaty altogether and so eliminate remaining constraints on its missile program. But many in Congress and among Washington’s foreign policy elite are eager to see the next occupant of the Oval Office take a tougher stance if the Russians don’t halt deployment of the missile, threatening Moscow with more severe economic sanctions or moving toward countermeasures like the deployment of enhanced anti-missile systems in Europe. The Russians would, in turn, undoubtedly perceive such moves as threats to their strategic deterrent forces and so an invitation for further weapons acquisitions, setting off a fresh round in the long-dormant Cold War nuclear arms race. On the American side, the weapon of immediate concern is a new version of the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile, usually carried by B-52 bombers. Also known as the Long-Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO), it is, like the Iskander-M, expected to be deployed in both nuclear and conventional versions, leaving those on the potential receiving end unsure what might be heading their way. In other words, as with the Iskander-M, the intended target might assume the worst in a crisis, leading to the early use of nuclear weapons. Put another way, such missiles make for twitchy trigger fingers and are likely to lead to a heightened risk of nuclear war, which, once started, might in turn take Washington and Moscow right up the escalatory ladder to a planetary holocaust. No wonder former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry called on President Obama to cancel the ALCM program in a recent Washington Post op-ed piece. “Because they… come in both nuclear and conventional variants,” he wrote, “cruise missiles are a uniquely destabilizing type of weapon.” And this issue is going to fall directly into the lap of the next president. The New Nuclear Era Whoever is elected on November 8th, we are evidently all headed into a world in which Trumpian-style itchy trigger fingers could be the norm. It already looks like both Moscow and Washington will contribute significantly to this development — and they may not be alone. In response to Russian and American moves in the nuclear arena, China is reported to be developing a “ hypersonic glide vehicle ,” a new type of nuclear warhead better able to evade anti-missile defenses — something that, at a moment of heightened crisis, might make a nuclear first strike seem more attractive to Washington. And don’t forget Pakistan, which is developing its own short-range “tactical” nuclear missiles, increasing the risk of the quick escalation of any future Indo-Pakistani confrontation to a nuclear exchange. (To put such “regional” dangers in perspective, a local nuclear war in South Asia could cause a global nuclear winter and, according to one study , possibly kill a billion people worldwide, thanks to crop failures and the like.) And don’t forget North Korea, which is now testing a nuclear-armed ICBM, the Musudan, intended to strike the Western United States. That prompted a controversial decision in Washington to deploy THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) anti-missile batteries in South Korea (something China bitterly opposes), as well as the consideration of other countermeasures, including undoubtedly scenarios involving first strikes against the North Koreans. It’s clear that we’re on the threshold of a new nuclear era: a time when the actual use of atomic weapons is being accorded greater plausibility by military and political leaders globally, while war plans are being revised to allow the use of such weapons at an earlier stage in future armed clashes. As a result, the next president will have to grapple with nuclear weapons issues — and possible nuclear crises — in a way unknown since the Cold War era. Above all else, this will require both a cool head and a sufficient command of nuclear matters to navigate competing pressures from allies, the military, politicians, pundits, and the foreign policy establishment without precipitating a nuclear conflagration. On the face of it, that should disqualify Donald Trump. When questioned on nuclear issues in the first debate, he exhibited a striking ignorance of the most basic aspects of nuclear policy. But even Hillary Clinton, for all her experience as secretary of state, is likely to have a hard time grappling with the pressures and dangers that are likely to arise in the years ahead, especially given that her inclination is to toughen U.S. policy toward Russia. In other words, whoever enters the Oval Office, it may be time for the rest of us to take up those antinuclear signs long left to molder in closets and memories, and put some political pressure on leaders globally to avoid strategies and weapons that would make human life on this planet so much more precarious than it already is. 0 0 0 0 0 0	1
In an interview that aired on CNN from David Axelrod’s “The Axe Files,” Sen. John McCain ( ) shot down the notion that President Donald Trump is anything like former President Ronald Reagan. Axelrod asked McCain if he saw the president as a “ figure. ” “No I don’t,” McCain replied. “And I think it’s pretty clear that there’s a difference between, well, aren’t we killers and the guy that stood there and said, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, take down this wall. ’” “[Reagan] spoke out for the captive nations, he spoke out for the people who were behind the Iron Curtain,” McCain continued. “And after the Iron Curtain fell, there were thousands who said, ‘I heard Ronald Reagan, I listened to the voice of America, I listened to Radio Free Europe — he gave us hope.’ That’s a pretty big difference. ” ( The Hill) Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent	0
BARCELONA — Imagine if streets were for strolling, intersections were for playing and cars were almost never allowed. While it sounds like a pedestrian’s daydream, and a driver’s nightmare, it is becoming a reality here in Spain’s city, a densely packed metropolis of 1. 6 million on the Mediterranean. Ever since the 1992 Summer Olympics focused global attention here, this thriving center of tourism, culture and business — often viewed as a hipper, more easygoing cousin to Madrid, the Spanish capital — has seen its popularity soar along with congestion on its streets and sidewalks. So in an initiative that has drawn international attention and represents a transformative remaking of its streetscape, Barcelona has decided that many of its streets and intersections will hardly have cars at all. Instead, they will be turned over to pedestrians. Beginning in September, city officials started creating a system of superblocks across the city that will severely limit vehicles as a way to reduce traffic and air pollution, use public space more efficiently and essentially make neighborhoods more pleasant. “We like to call it ‘winning back the streets for the people,’” said Janet Sanz Cid, a deputy mayor of the city. “People from Barcelona want to use the streets, but right now they can’t because they are occupied by cars. ” Under the plan, the superblocks will be overlaid on the existing street grid, each one consisting of as many as nine contiguous blocks. Within each superblock, streets and intersections will be largely closed to traffic and used as community spaces such as plazas, playgrounds and gardens. Ms. Sanz said that at least five superblocks were expected to be designated by 2018. Barcelona’s system of superblocks — called “superilles” in Catalan — would go well beyond the pedestrian plazas that have sprouted up on the streets of New York City. While those spaces have carved out more room for pedestrians in busy corridors, the superblocks represent a more radical approach that fundamentally challenges the notion that streets even belong to cars. The strategy has propelled Barcelona, a city better known for its soccer team and its Gaudí architecture, to the forefront of experiments and has attracted interest from transportation officials, urban planners and advocates in many other cities paralyzed by gridlock. Claire Weisz, an urban designer at WXY, a Manhattan firm that redesigned the streets around Astor Place, said Barcelona’s superblock plan could be applied in New York to redefine streets as public spaces. “The vast majority of people living in our neighborhoods don’t have cars,” Ms. Weisz said. “Yet our streets are primarily used by cars, and we have a huge need for safe places to walk and bike. ” Barcelona’s plan will redirect cars, buses and commercial vehicles to streets along the perimeter of each superblock, though local residents will still be able to drive their cars at reduced speeds and park in designated areas. Deliveries will be allowed at less congested times. But as Barcelona officials have acknowledged, introducing the superblocks will not be as easy as simply changing the rules. To be widely accepted, the plan will require a cultural shift in the way people view and use the streets. The first of the new superblocks received a mixed reaction when it was unveiled recently in El Poblenou, a former industrial area that has been redeveloped with housing and offices for technology companies. Though many residents saw the benefits of the superblock, some complained that they were not given enough time or explanation before it was put in place. Businesses have also expressed concerns that it could interfere with their work by, among other things, restricting when they can load and unload goods. To inaugurate the superblock, architecture professors and students have worked with local associations of residents and businesses to come up with alternative uses for the street space. One intersection, using tires and recycled materials, was transformed into a playground with a soccer field and sandbox. Marta Louro, 40, a teacher who lives next to an intersection, said the superblock would make streets safer and reduce pollution. “It gives priority to the pedestrian,” she said. “I believe it’s very important that people have space. ” But others have expressed concerns that they will have to walk farther to a bus stop, or will have a harder time using their cars or finding parking. “It’s not a bad idea,” said Oriol Sanchez, 25, a waiter who drives to work. “But for me, it’s a problem for my car. ” Visitación Soria, 78, said the superblock would not be embraced by everyone. “People like their cars,” she said. “People are already saying there’s a problem finding parking, and this will make it worse. ” No matter the merits, the debate over what a modern urban streetscape should look like, how it should function and whom it should serve has grown increasingly clamorous around the world. In New York City, whose population is at a record high of 8. 5 million residents, conflicts among pedestrians, cyclists and motorists have drawn attention to busy corridors. Transportation officials have recently taken steps to expand the overtaxed promenade on the Brooklyn Bridge. Polly Trottenberg, the city’s transportation commissioner, said that 53 pedestrian plazas had been built, in Times Square and other parts of the city, since 2007, and that another 20 plazas were under construction. In all, these plazas will total 27 acres, roughly the equivalent of 20 football fields, Ms. Trottenberg said. “It’s not an insignificant amount of space that we’ve wrestled back from the automobile,” she said. Ms. Trottenberg said she was aware of Barcelona’s superblocks plan and would consider applying the concept in New York — if not the name. In urban planning circles, the term “superblock” has been used to refer to sprawling public housing projects in American cities. “We’re certainly formalizing things that are close to that concept,” she said. “There are a lot of different models, and there’s not a . ” The city tried a “Shared Streets” test in August that promoted recreational use of a area of Lower Manhattan. The speed limit was reduced to 5 miles per hour, and people were encouraged to take to the streets alongside cars. The program was intended to expand on another initiative, “Summer Streets,” in which a section of Park Avenue south of 72nd Street and all of Lafayette Street were closed to vehicles on three August Saturdays. Hundreds of people participated, though not everyone got along. Pedestrians said the slower speed was not strictly enforced, while drivers complained about not being given enough warning and kept honking at people in their way. Still, Paul Steely White, the executive director of the nonprofit Transportation Alternatives, said, “It helps give people a taste of what their life could be like if that space was reapportioned for people rather just for automobiles. ” In recent weeks, the organization has called on the city to reconfigure 14th Street in Manhattan as a “PeopleWay” to accommodate more pedestrians and cyclists when a section of the L train shuts down for repairs. The proposal would limit car traffic, add bus and bike lanes and widen sidewalks. Ms. Trottenberg called it “an interesting idea,” noting that the city is working with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the city’s subways and buses, to look at options. In Barcelona, the superblock is not a new idea. The first one was introduced in 1993 near a historic church, the Basílica de Santa Maria del Mar, in the El Born neighborhood in the center of the city. Two more superblocks followed in 2005 in Gràcia, a northern neighborhood known for its plazas and narrow streets. But superblocks did not become a priority until Ada Colau, a housing activist, was elected mayor last year. Ms. Sanz Cid, the deputy mayor, said that instead of focusing on the big commercial developments favored under previous policies, the current administration was interested in “concrete, precise interventions” to directly benefit local residents. “We want to look back at the neighborhoods and rethink urban planning,” she said. The superblocks are part of a comprehensive program to improve the city’s transportation networks and reduce their environmental impact, Ms. Sanz Cid said. The effort, called the Urban Mobility Plan, includes increasing bus service, extending train lines to the suburbs and tripling the number of bike lanes. Josep Mateu, president of the Royal Automobile Club of Catalonia, which has about one million members, has called for more discussion of the superblocks plan. He described it as well intentioned and said he welcomed the city’s decision to test it in El Poblenou, a less trafficked area in Barcelona. But he added, “We cannot forget that the project does also have other, less positive effects. ” Mr. Mateu said that superblocks, if applied across the city, would significantly limit road capacity for vehicles without reducing the actual number of vehicles to the same extent. “There would be a considerable increase of congestion, which is the situation that produces more pollution,” he said. “It is true that there are areas that will lose vehicular traffic, but it is also true that this traffic would eventually move to other roads and other districts, leading to a strong division between winning roads and losing roads. ” He also noted difficulties some residents could have in gaining access to public transportation, a loss of parking spaces the program could create and negative effects it could have on businesses. “We should also take into account that the superblock project does not seem to be a priority” for Barcelona residents, he said, suggesting that issues like unemployment were more pressing. Salvador Rueda, the director of the Urban Ecology Agency, the agency that designed the superblock model, said a lesson learned from earlier superblocks was that initial opposition gave way to acceptance, in part because of a growing consensus about the benefits. No one has sued the city to remove a superblock, Mr. Rueda said. “Now we know that the main problem is the resistance to change that occurs at the beginning of the implementation of the superblocks. ” In Gràcia, where more than of the streets were turned into public spaces, car traffic has dropped to 81, 514 trips annually from 95, 889 before the superblocks were established. Street life is thriving: Pedestrians now make 201, 843 trips annually through Gràcia, up 10 percent from before the superblocks. Cyclists make 10, 143 trips annually, a 30 percent increase. The transformation has been even more significant in El Born, which by the 1990s had become so that many people avoided it. “It was very tough to walk because they used to park cars on top of the sidewalk,” recalled Isabel Ruiz, 53, a longtime resident of the neighborhood. On a recent afternoon, Jaime Batlle and Iñaki Baquero, who teach architecture at the International University of Catalonia, walked along El Born’s cobblestone streets pointing out changes the superblock had produced. Palm trees and benches were in the middle of streets. Trash was collected by an underground pneumatic system rather than trucks. There were no curbs or sidewalks, only a single lane that Mr. Batlle called a “common platform” for drivers and pedestrians so that no one felt more ownership. The lane also forced drivers, when allowed in the street, to drive cautiously. Where storefronts once stood empty, customers now flowed in and out of restaurants, wine shops, hair salons and boutiques. “It used to be full of cars, and now it’s not,” Mr. Batlle said. “Imagine that for the rest of the city. This is the kind of city we want everywhere. ”	1
A man protests against international trade agreements TTIP and CETA in front of EU headquarters in Brussels on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2016. The Canadian government raised concerns over the European Union’s regulations on chemicals on more than 20 occasions over the course of a decade, according to a letter seen by Energydesk . In a note sent to the Belgian government on October 19 , the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) claims that the Canadian state challenged the EU’s REACH regulations at the World Trade Organisation 21 times between the years 2003 and 2011. The UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) describes the REACH regulations as providing “a high level of protection of human health and the environment from the use of chemicals.” The news will raise concerns that Canadian companies may use the trade and investment deal CETA to undermine EU regulations. “The threat of undue Canadian influence on environmental regulations such as REACH is real,” CIEL CEO Carroll Muffett wrote . The CETA deal – which sets up private courts that enable foreign corporations to sue countries – has been held up by the British government as a model for post-Brexit free trade deals. Corporate courts Canadian companies have also used the trade agreements to take legal action against countries on 42 occasions, according to data from the Investment Policy Hub — with Canada ranked 5th among the nations in which this type of investor-to-state lawsuit have been filed. Earlier this year, for example, the Canadian pipeline company TransCanada sued the United States government for $15 billion over its decision to scrap the Keystone XL project — using a provision in the NAFTA trade deal. CETA, which is currently being signed by EU members following a week-long blockade by Wallonia and two other Belgian regions, sets up an investor dispute system called the Investment Court System (ICS) . In fact the ICS was among the reasons that the Wallonian government took a stand, with the region’s leader Paul Magnette saying: “I would prefer that [the ICS] disappears pure and simple and that we rely on our courts or at the very least, if we want an arbitration court, it must provide equivalent guarantees to domestic ones.” As part of the newly negotiated agreement, the Belgian government will ask the European Court of Justice to rule on the legality of the deal — and the ICS in particular. Beyond REACH REACH – the r egistration, e valuation, a uthorisation and restriction of ch emicals – is a set of extensive rules “adopted to improve the protection of human health and the environment from the risks that can be posed by chemicals” — so says the European Chemicals Agency . Canada’s concerns – which were not formal actions, but rather issues raised at the WTO – largely related to rules around competition and whether the regulations would be burdensome to business . The 21 complaints spanned the administrations of the Liberal Paul Martin, when REACH was just a draft, and the Conservative Stephen Harper. Essentially Canada – like the United States – takes issue with the European approach to regulation, which is described as the ‘precautionary principle’. This approach means products need to be proven safe by companies who seek to market them, before they enter the market. In North America, the burden of proof is on public authorities, which have to prove that a product is dangerous. Documents unearthed by CIEL show that Canada has filed objections to the EU using this approach to regulate endocrine disrupting chemicals, arguing that the “EU’s hazard-based approach could unnecessarily disrupt trade in food and feed”. Scientific studies show a range of health impacts caused by exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals – which are found in food containers and plastics – including IQ loss and adult obesity.	0
Mary Perry is seeking election for the 1st Congressional District in Nevada. She is a Republican who has an extensive experience as a lawyer. Her experience qualifies her for Congress as she has years of building multitasking skills. Even though Perry is a GOP candidate, she is moderate in her thinking. She will represent all residents of her district and Nevada. Putting the citizen’s needs and desires first is her priority. Introducing Mary Perry Perry is a strong woman with a sense of humility needed for success in Washington D.C. As a Congresswoman, she will work both sides of the aisle to secure the needs of Nevadans. She understands people who are underprivileged; her background includes growing up in a low-income family in Arkansas. When she was 14, Perry and her family moved to Galveston, Texas. Perry spent over eight years in the Air Force as a computer operator for 5 years then began working in training management. She embraced the opportunity to serve America. Perry was discharged in 1993 and chose to make Las Vegas her home. In 1996, Perry secured a Bachelor of Science degree in business management from the University of Las Vegas. Two years later she began studying at the William S. Boyd School of Law. In 2001 she graduated and passed the Nevada State Bar exam. Perry has also passed the bar in Missouri and Hawaii. Since 2003, Perry practiced family law. Her caring for people is evident and can be seen by the pro bono legal service she has provided. In fact, Perry has dedicated as much as 50 percent of her time serving those who could not otherwise afford an attorney. Mary Perry on the Issues While in Washington D.C., Perry will strive to work for Nevada’s concerns. She intends to work hard toward solutions, not create new problems. Her stand on the issues are as follows: Affordable Care Act: Unlike many politicians, she does not believe that repealing the ACA would be effective unless there is a program in place to take its place. The choices are repeal or repair. Perry has a four-part plan to improve what she calls a monstrosity of legislation to make it affordable, sustainable, and provide quality healthcare. Education: This is a huge issue for Nevada. The failing schools have proved that the Department of Education is not effective as a governing body. It is vital to rid the educational system of big government and return the power to local entities. Each state would then be empowered to tailor their program to fit the needs of their student body. Energy: Dependence on foreign oil must end. There are many ways to achieve this. We could completely end our dependency on oil by using compressed natural gas to run automobiles, heat our homes, etc. 1 – Return federal lands to the western U.S. The feds own approximately 84 percent of the land in Nevada. There is the potential of using the wind and sun as alternative energy. 2 – Allow the Keystone XL pipeline construction to proceed. 3 – Oppose all proposals to impose the environmental program referred to as cap-and-trade. Should this program be implemented, it would significantly raise household bills for energy. Additionally, it would be controlled by the federal government. 4 – End the “green energy” programs run by the federal government. 5 – “Loosen federal regulations that place heavy burdens on the exploration, drilling, and transportation of oil and natural gas.” Immigration Reform: The fact that there are individuals who do not have the right to be in the U.S. legally. 1 – Secure the border for many reasons; preventing illegal immigration, stop the flow of illegal weapons and drugs. Furthermore, the secure border would prevent possible terrorists from entering the country. 2 – Require employers to use the tool in place for determining the eligibility of employees to work in the U.S.; E-Verify. 3 – Support H.R.2131 -SKILLS Visa Act, which will encourage raising the number of immigrants with specialized skills in America. The bill is designed for the creation of worldwide employment-based immigration levels. Jobs and Economy: Eliminating red tape and keeping taxes at a minimum will promote job creation. 1 – Create a more efficient government by implementing a business like budgeting system. 2 – The tax system needs repairing. Perry explained, “It should not take an accountant and an attorney to understand it.” 3 – Tariffs need to be set encouraging companies to stay in America. If it is not more profitable for a business to operate off-shore, then there would be an increase of jobs in the U.S. 4 – “Repeal laws and regulations that negatively impact free enterprise.” Medicare and Social Security: Seniors have earned these benefits. Perry will fight to protect the programs. She will also be prepared to do what it takes to strengthen both social security and medicare. Second Amendment: The right to bear arms is a constitutional, fundamental, and individual right, as written in the Bill of Rights. It is vital to oppose any effort to restrict gun rights. Taxes: Higher taxes are bad for the economy. On Perry’s website, she lists her proposals for tax legislation. These include; voting against all net tax increases, support a simpler tax system, eliminate the federal death tax, lower corporate tax rate, and oppose increases in dividend and capital gains taxes. Veterans: As a vet, Perry is passionate about those who served the U.S. She has outlined a solid plan for veteran’s rights. The Congressional district Perry seeks to represent would benefit from a moderate politician. She served the U.S. during her years in the Air Force The training and discipline from the military, the years in college, and the time spent a lawyer have created powerful yet reasonable characteristics that Perry will use in Washington, D.C. By Cathy Milne Sources: Website: Friends of Mary Perry for Congress District One Facebook: Mary Perry Noticiero Movil: Moderate Underdog in a Blue District: Getting to Know Mary Perry Ballotpedia: Mary Perry Images Courtesy of Mary Perry – Used With Permission	1
It Will Come for You All... page: 1 (For A little Halloween atmosphere, I present this...) Someone's tale of woe has induced, a poetic response for You to see. End of Life will come for You all, but it will Never come for Me. For I will live on Eternally with, the Life Forces I will get from You. It Will happen to You all one day or night, there is Nothing to avoid it You can do. I will be Empowered evermore, even from Your Last Breath. I Will Live Forever More, for I am Known as Death...	0
Hollywood stars rushed to social media to fire off hot takes and commentary about former FBI director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. [From memes of Netflix’s House of Cards’ corrupt President Frank Underwood to Twitter screeds from the likes of actor John Cusack and comedian Billy Eichner, celebrities were piling on President Donald Trump during the hearing. Below is a roundup of the most absurd ravings from Hollywood elites. 1. Actor John Cusack, who repeatedly ended his tweets with “impeach,” suggested in a tweet that Comey’s testimony made him look more presidential than President Trump. “Comey behaving how a president is supposed to trump a repubs hanging all there hopes on the words I hope — context setting,” the actor wrote. Comey behaving how a president is supposed to trump a repubs hanging all there hopes on the words I hope — context setting, — John Cusack (@johncusack) June 8, 2017, 2. “This is basically a domestic abuse case,” the official Twitter account for the TBS show Full Frontal with Samantha Bee tweeted Thursday in response to an earlier message posted by Donald Trump Jr. This is basically a domestic abuse case. https: . — Full Frontal (@FullFrontalSamB) June 8, 2017, 3. Meanwhile, the official account for Late Night with Seth Meyers poked fun at Trump’s son, Eric Trump. James Comey is the worst thing to happen to Donald Trump since the doctor said, ”it’s an Eric!” #ComeyDay, — Late Night (@LateNightSeth) June 8, 2017, 4. Elsewhere, longtime Trump enemy Rosie O’Donnell accused the president of “defaming” her as he had “defamed” Comey. donald defamed comey — he defamed me — he’s trying 2 defame #OBAMACARE — calling it a death spiral” — a BLATANT LIE — don’t believe him EVER, — ROSIE (@Rosie) June 8, 2017, 5. Actress Minnie Driver announced via Twitter that she was watching Thursday’s hearing wearing a bizarre outfit featuring pictures of former president Barack Obama all over it. “Just so you have a clear visual of how 44 and I are watching #ComeyDay,” she tweeted. Just so you have a clear visual of how 44 and I are watching #ComeyDay pic. twitter. — Minnie Driver (@driverminnie) June 8, 2017, 6. Comedian Billy Eichner blasted President Trump, calling him a “disgusting creepy piece of sh*t. ” My verdict: Donald Trump is a disgusting creepy piece of shit. CASE CLOSED. — billy eichner (@billyeichner) June 8, 2017, 7. And then there was Avengers star Chris Evans, who took a break from bashing President Trump to beg the president to the proceedings: I’ve never wanted Trump to tweet so badly in my entire life. Pick your phone up! Do it!! DO IT! !!! — Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) June 8, 2017, Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson	0
David Franzoni, the writer of Gladiator, announced that he wants to cast Leonardo DiCaprio in the role of Rumi in an upcoming bio-pic about the medieval Persian poet . Franzoni has also suggested casting Robert Downey Jr. in the role of Rumi’s mentor and dear friend, Shams of Tabriz. White liberals, ‘people of color’ and others partial to de-colonial theory are at it again claiming that white people have misappropriated something – or in this case, someone – of their own. Hurling accusations of “whitewashing” at Franzoni and Hollywood, they are trending the hashtag #RumiWasntWhite . In fact, Rumi was white. He was an ethnic Persian who wrote the vast majority of his world-renowned poetry in his native language. The Persians are the cultural-historically dominant subgroup of the ethnic and linguistic grouping of Iranian peoples, which also includes the native peoples of the Caucasus region (especially in Azerbaijan and Ossetia), the Kurds, Pashtuns, and Balochis among others. The so-called ‘Tajiks’ of Central Asia (present-day northern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and part of Uzbekistan) are simply Persians who have been given another name by 19th century British and Russian colonialists who schemed to colonize this area of Iran. It is not just any area either. Known as “Khorasan” or sunrise land in Persian, this is where the majority of native Persian scientists and poets of the so-called ‘Islamic Golden Age’ hailed from. It is also Rumi’s birthplace. Stan means province in Persian. Afghanistan and the rest of the stans in that region are totally artificial nation-states, which is partly why they are so dysfunctional. The Persian spoken in the stans is referred to as “Dari” (Parsie Darbari or “Tajiki”) because it was the courtly (Darbari) language of the Crown (Taj). The Persians and other Iranians never called their realm “the Persian Empire” or referred to their country as “Persia.” This was an ancient Greek designation that caught on in the West. When, in 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi asked Westerners to refer to his country by its proper name he meant to remind the West that “Iran” is shorthand for Iran Shahr, a middle Persian form of the ancient Persian Aryana Khashatra or “Aryan Imperium.” To this day, many natives of the part of Khorasan that Rumi hails from refer to their land as Aryana. The first recorded usage of the term “Aryan” is in the rock carved inscriptions of ancient Persian Emperors such as Darius and Xerxes, who used to sign their decrees: “I am a Persian, son of a Persian… an Aryan of Aryan lineage.” These men were white and they established the most tolerant, humanitarian, and constructive form of government in pre-modern times, which at its zenith counted nearly 1 out of every 2 people on Earth among its subjects. I am not even counting the realms governed by Scythians and Sarmatians, northern Iranian tribes who refused the Empire, and rode freely in an area from the Ukraine to the Gobi. Their warrior women became the basis for Greek legends about the Amazons. The Persians and their northern cousins were phenotypically identical to modern Europeans, having all descended – ethnically and linguistically – from the same Indo-European or Caucasian community of prehistory. It is only beginning with the catastrophic Arab invasion of Iran Shahr in the 7th century AD that Iran’s ethnic composition began to be forcibly altered. (The Hellenistic colonization of the Persian Empire did not have this effect, since the Greeks were fellow Aryans.) Consistent with their messenger’s mandate in the Quran, after burning libraries, mutilating art, and massacring urban populations, these half-savage desert tribesmen took to enslaving and selling Persian women at public markets. Two centuries of Persian insurgency, especially in the Azerbaijan and Mazandaran regions, ended in defeat. The Zoroastrian mystics who led this Khorramdinan (“those of the Joyous Religion”) insurgency – a continuation of ancient Persia’s Mazdakite sect – donned the cloak of Islam in order to survive. They were badly persecuted nonetheless, since the idea of esoteric (Bateni) interpretation (Zand) is declared heresy by the Quran itself – which insists that its legal injunctions are clear, perfect, and unalterable. These Batenis or Zandiqs were the nucleus of the Sufi movement whose epitomizing voice Rumi eventually becomes. When he was born in 1207, Khorasan was still ethnically white. Some of the region’s illustrious scientists were forced to pen their treatises in Arabic, rather than in their native Persian, because their research was being commissioned by Arabs (who at first just tried to wipe out Persian science). However, Persian remained the language of poetry and the Persian poets of Khorasan, especially Ferdowsi, actually saved the Iranian national identity by maintaining the linguistic structure that enfolded an Aryan modality of thought within itself, and by fostering the kind of living tradition of ancient Indo-European lore that we see in the Shahnameh. The poets, and even the Iranian scientists forced to write in Arabic, effected a Persian Renaissance of sorts that both inspired and reinforced regional revolts that came to the brink of liberating large parts of Iran from the Arab Caliphate by the 11th century AD. Then the Turks and Mongols poured in from Asia in the 12th and 13th centuries, respectively. During Rumi’s adolescence, the Mongol hordes rushed into Khorasan forcing his family to flee from Balkh in 1219 and head westwards across Iran, moving each time the Mongols advanced further. Entire cities were razed. Ultimately the Mongols would be responsible for a genocide of half – yes, half – of the Iranian population. The half that survived was subjected to plunder, rape, and forced miscegenation. Rumi ultimately wound up in Anatolia, which is where Mowlana Jalaluddin Balkhi picked up his nickname. Rum (pronounced Roum) is the Persian name for “Rome”, including the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium – so Rumi means “the Roman”. Konya, where Rumi settled, was hardly Turkish when he arrived there. Easternmost Anatolia, the home of the Kurds, has always been ethnically and linguistically Iranian. This region, and the more central part of Anatolia in which Rumi’s family settled, had only been conquered by the Seljuq Turks (which the Ottomans broke off of later on) for a little over a century. It was a conquest as bloodthirsty as the Mongol one (in fact, the Turks and Mongols are ethnically related), the most catastrophic consequence of which was the miscegenation of the population of Azerbaijan – itself a Turkicized appellation for Azar Padegan or “Fire Stronghold”, that province of Iran in the Caucasus mountains that was thought to be the birthplace of Zarathustra (one reason why the insurgency against the Arab-Muslims was based there). From Baku to Tabriz, Azerbaijan was demographically white and it took centuries of Seljuq Turkish occupation to change this before Iranians re-conquered the area. So there is no reason whatsoever to think that Shams, the mentor from Tabriz that Rumi met in 1244, was other than a white man. He was certainly a native Persian speaker, and a newly arrived Seljuq Turk in Azerbaijan in those days would have spoken Turkish. The worst thing about the Turkish and Mongol invasions was not that they represented a second wave of miscegenation in a white nation already under Arab occupation, it is that both of these Asian conquerors adopted an orthodox form of Islam. Largely nomadic and illiterate tribes, unlike the highly-civilized Persians, the Mongols and Mongoloid Turks felt at home in the worldview of the Quran. One wonders how Rumi’s mystical philosophy would have taken shape had he grown up in an Iran where the Persian Renaissance of the generation before him were to have continued. Iranians say, Masnavié Mowlavi ast Qorân be zabâné Pahlavi, meaning “the Mathnawi of Rumi is the Quran in Pahlavi.” The term Pahlavi refers to the middle Persian language of Pre-Islamic Iran, so that the saying suggests Rumi made out of Islam something tolerable to the Persian ethos. Of course, as I suggested above, Rumi only represents the culmination of this process, which I would describe as a kind of Sufi Stockholm Syndrome. A brutally colonized and terrorized population of ‘very understanding’ white folks come to identify with their hostage taker and begin to make excuses for him that are so good that he would never have been able to dream them up himself. So if there is any whitewashing going on, it is Rumi who whitewashed Islam. Some of the less vile people who have jumped on the #rumiwasntwhite bandwagon have tried to say that his ethnicity really does not matter, since his message is for all mankind. The fact is that a “message for all mankind” (women included) is an Aryan idea in the first place, and a specifically Persian one at that. Ancient Greek writers and thinkers, like Herodotus and Xenophon, who lived under the Persian Empire knew that the opposition to slavery, religious tolerance, a humanitarian concern for the welfare of all peoples, and a Cosmopolitan openness to learning from other cultures were Persian ideals. They were grounded in the worship of Wisdom preached by Zarathustra and became state policy under Cyrus and Darius. This tradition survived the vicissitudes of centuries of history, influencing Roman Europe through Mithraism and guiding the statecraft of Khosrow Anoushiravan – one of the late great Persian Emperors in the century before the Arab-Muslim Conquest of Iran. There is an agenda to erasing this heritage: it allows de-colonial theorists to claim that only non-white people can be colonized, and to demonize white colonialism by excluding the benevolent Persian Empire from the history of the white world. Iran’s glorious history – that of Rumi’s folk – puts the lie to their claim that Caucasian superiority in science, technology, and the arts always came at the expense of exploited non-white peoples. Despite Rumi’s best efforts to whitewash Islam, anyone who has seriously studied Islamic scripture and law knows – as he should have – that this is apostasy: “Love’s creed is separate from all religions: the creed and denomination of Lovers is God.” “Love’s valley is beyond all religions and cults… here there is no room for religions or cults.” What these verses sound like are the teachings of the Nizari Ismailis, better known as the Order of the Assassins, who actually did and still do claim that Rumi was secretly a preserver of their movement. The Nizaris adopted Persian as their liturgical language. They were the Sufis who remained truest to the Khorramdin teachings after the failed insurgency against the Arab invasion. In fact, they renewed the insurgency by waging a winning war against the Caliphate – until the Turks and Mongols descended on Iran. #RumiWasWhite and so were all Persians and other Iranians before being colonized, genocided, raped, and plundered by Semitic Arabs and Asiatic Mongols and Turks – half-savage peoples who parasitically appropriated the greatness of Iranian (i.e. Aryan) Civilization in the name of Islam. Besides even if Rumi wasn’t white, what about 100% white roles played by black actors? Why the hell do we have movies with black vikings? Why is the heck was Heimdall played by a black actor named Idris Elba in the Thor movie? Where is the uproar there? Of course there’s no uproar because there is an agenda in which whites are labeled “evil” no matter what they do.	1

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