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Editor’s Note : Not only is this the case, but she totally knows it… and she can’t wait.
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
The media has failed to address the confrontation between the U.S. State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Francis Dunford (image right) has warned both the US Senate as well Secretary of State John Kerry in no uncertain terms that a “No Fly Zone” over Syria would lead to war with both Syria and Russia, intimating a dangerous process of military escalation.
In a Senate Arms Services Committee hearing, Dunford said, responding to questions from Republican Senator Roger Whicker (Mississippi)
“Right now, Senator, for us to control all of the airspace in Syria it would require us to go to war, against Syria and Russia,… That’s a pretty fundamental decision that certainly I’m not going to make.” ( Senate Armed Services Committee, September 22, 2016, emphasis added)
At the third presidential debate, Hillary Clinton reasserted her commitment that if elected president, she would implement a no-fly-zone, intimating that the objective was to “save lives”:
“I think a no-fly zone could save lives and could hasten the end of the conflict. I am well aware of the really legitimate concerns you have expressed from both the president and the general,” Clinton said in response to a question from Fox News debate moderator Chris Wallace.
“This would not be done just on the first day. This would take a lot of negotiation and would also take making it clear to the Russians and Syrians that our purpose here was to provide safe zones on the ground … I think we could strike a deal and make it clear to the Russians and the Syrians that this was something that we believe was in the best interest of the people on the ground in Syria.” (Fox News, emphasis added)
At present, under the Obama administration, the joint chiefs of staff are opposed to the “No Fly zone”.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff are appointed by the Secretary of Defense.
Under a Clinton presidency, a new Secretary of Defense as well as a new Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, firmly committed to “A No fly Zone” over Syria would be appointed.
Michèle Angelique Flournoy, a former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy is Hillary’s choice for the position of Secretary of Defense, who favors the “No Fly Zone” option.
According to Defense One: ”The woman expected to run the Pentagon under Hillary Clinton said she would direct U.S. troops to push President Bashar al-Assad’s forces out of southern Syria and would send more American boots to fight the Islamic State in the region.”
Confirmed by the Leaked Emails Michele Flournoy is a crony of the Clintons. She has “called for “limited military coercion” to help remove Assad from power in Syria, including a “no bombing” zone over parts of Syria held by U.S.-backed rebels.” This is tantamount to a no fly zone to protect the terrorists including ISIS Daesh from actions by Syrian and Russian forces.
According to Defense One:
Flournoy, and several of her colleagues at the Center for New American Security, or CNAS, have been making the case for sending more American troops into combat against ISIS and the Assad regime than the Obama administration has been willing to commit.
Since Russia’s increased involvement, the facts on the ground in Syria, she said, “Do not support the kind of negotiated conditions we would like to get to.” U.S. policy should be the removal of Assad even if that meant “using limited military coercion,” Flournoy said, at Monday’s annual CNAS conference in Washington.
Flournoy did not deny the entire report that she favors increased U.S. intervention; for instance, she acknowledged her support for U.S. “strikes using standoff weapons — to retaliate against Syrian military targets” to enforce the no-bomb zone.
The press reports, however, did not quote the details of the discussion and testimony of General Dunford and Secretary of Defense Carter at the Arms Services Committee Hearing:
Let me see if the Chairman wants to add anything.
Senator Wicker: Well, let me just ask this, if you don’t mind, Secretary Carter. It would help if the barrel bombing ended. And I spoke to a Democratic colleague of mine today. I’ve been calling for a no-fly zone to stop the barrel bombing, and I asked this colleague of mine on the other side of the aisle if he would support that. And he said, “Yes.” He said, “I want to call it something else, rather than a no-fly zone,” but that this particular Senator it is a fact that this particular Senator has now changed his position and would like us to take action to present — to prevent the barrel bombing.
What is your position about that? And wouldn’t it help if we took decisive action and ended this carnage? Secretary Carter: I don’t know the specific proposal which you’re discussing with your colleague. I’ll make one comment and see if the Chairman wants to add anything. Senator Wicker: I think he was talking about a no-fly zone –
Secretary Carter: Well, okay.
Senator Wicker: — but described in more palatable terms.
Secretary Carter: There are — a number of different proposals have been made, but I — the one that I think it the focus on right now is the one Secretary Kerry’s trying to promote, namely a no-fly zone for the Russians and the Syrians who are attacking the Syrian people . If they’re talking about a no-fly zone for American aircraft fighting ISIL, needless to say, that — that’s not going to get any enthusiasm, get strong opposition from me.
Senator Wicker: I’m speaking about a –
Secretary Carter: But, I think that’s what a — but — it’s not called that, but Secretary Kerry is trying to get a standdown of the Syrian and Russian air force. And if he’s successful, that would be a good thing.
Let me ask the Chairman if he has anything to add.
General Dunford: Senator, the only thing I’d say is, you know, as the situation on the ground changes, I think I have a responsibility — we, the joint force, has a responsibility — to make sure the President has a full range of options. We have discussed that issue in the past under certain conditions. The conditions on the ground will change, and we’ll continue to look at those options and make sure they’re available to the President.
Senator Wicker: What about the option of controlling the airspace so that barrel bombs cannot be dropped?
General Dunford: All options –
Senator Wicker: What do you think of that option, sir?
General Dunford: Right now, Senator, for all of the airspace in Syria, it would require war against Syria and Russia. That’s a pretty fundamental decision that certainly I’m not going to make.
Concluding Remarks
From the above testimonies and statements, one thing is clear. Decision-makers at highest levels of the US government and the military believe in their own propaganda. They are not able to reflect on their actions outside the realm of propaganda. And this also applies to nuclear warfare which is presented as a “peace-making operation”.
It is unlikely that any drastic action regarding a “no fly zone” will be taken under the Obama administration prior to the November elections and the instatement of a new president of the US in January 2017.
Consequently, the next three months will be absolutely crucial for Syria. –i.e. During this period, the counterterrorism campaign waged by Syria with the support of Russia and Iran will seek to eliminate remaining terrorist pockets and pacify the entire country.
The foot-soldiers of the Western military alliance will be defeated on the ground. If this objective is achieved, it will inevitably have an impact on “US options” regarding the proposed deployment of ground-forces and the No Fly Zone. What prevails, however, is an attempt on the part of Washington to redeploy its ISIS terrorist foot-soldiers in Mosul by transferring them from Iraq to Syria.
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The Global Research website was established on the 9th of September 2001, two days before the tragic events of September 11. Barely a few days later, Global Research had become a major news source on the New World Order and Washington’s “war on terrorism”. The site publishes news articles, commentary, background research and analysis on a broad range of issues, focusing on social, economic, strategic and environmental issues. | 1 |
Tchaikovsky’s bombastic “1812 Overture” has been a staple of the Boston Pops’ Fourth of July concert since 1974, when the famed Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler added it — complete with cannon blasts and church bells — to lift attendance. It became the traditional to the fireworks display over the Charles River. But that changed over the past decade, as CBS began broadcasting the show and the “1812 Overture” was moved earlier in the evening, before the nationally televised portion began. The pyrotechnics this year instead used hits by Adele, Beyoncé, Justin Bieber and others as a soundtrack. Some traditionalists took to social media to vent their dismay. “Nice they let the Pops play ONE song at their own concert,” one viewer wrote in a sarcastic tweet, adding, “And #1812Overture relegated to commercial break. ” “For first time in 40 years #BostonPops doesn’t play 1812 Overture, opting instead for crass dreck. Pathetic sellout,” another wrote on Twitter. “I agree with a lot of that reaction,” Keith Lockhart, the orchestra’s conductor since 1995, said in an interview. “The network has very specific ideas about the demographic that they want to attract, which may not jibe with our ideas about the demographic that is going to get the most out of this, and have the best relationship with the Boston Pops. ” There is a fundamental challenge facing pops orchestras and series, which tend to have audiences older than classical ones. As music directors and administrators try various approaches to connect with new audiences — adding film screenings with live orchestral accompaniment, video game soundtracks, theatrical circus spectacles and 1990s rock acts — are they abandoning the large repertory that drew many listeners in the first place? What is disappearing, some say, are the light classics that once were staples of mainstream classical concerts that, around the middle of the last century, migrated to pops: Rossini overtures, Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsodies,” Respighi’s “Fountains of Rome,” Bach transcriptions and other colorful showpieces. “If you’re going to do a Mahler symphony as the centerpiece of a concert,” said John Mauceri, the founding director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, “you don’t have any room for von Suppé or Offenbach. ” The average age of a Boston Pops subscriber is 55 — compared with 48 for subscribers to its parent ensemble, the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Pops has been turning more and more to headliners with multigenerational appeal, such as the comedian and singer Seth MacFarlane and contestants from “Dancing With the Stars. ” Last week, the St. Louis Symphony followed orchestras in Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio, by booking the rapper Nelly. The National Symphony Orchestra has drawn much attention for performances with Kendrick Lamar and Nas: far from fluffy Strauss waltzes. “There’s kind of a lost repertoire,” Mr. Lockhart said. “As pops orchestras have begun to chase an increasingly nonclassical audience, that material is woefully underrepresented in a lot of places. It’s even represented less here than it was when I first started,” he said, referring to the Boston Pops. These changes have roots. In 2004, Henry Fogel, then president of the League of American Orchestras, wrote an article for the league’s Symphony magazine documenting the fading of works like Smetana’s tone poem “The Moldau” and Chabrier’s “España. ” Comparing classical subscription programs of six major American orchestras from the early 1920s through 2001, he showed how light classics had nearly disappeared by 1960. “The development of pops as a separate thing actually hurt orchestras,” Mr. Fogel said in a telephone interview. “It tended to remove some of the music whose principal reason for existence is pure entertainment. ” He placed some of the blame on music critics, who often dismissed tuneful pieces like Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsodies, and on conductors, who were afraid of being branded as mere entertainers. Some orchestras devoted to pops, including the New York Pops and Cincinnati Pops, continue to mix light classics with American songbook standards and film music. But others, like the Philly Pops, have abruptly changed course. When Michael Krajewski became that ensemble’s music director in 2013, he jettisoned light classics for and programs, which this season will include tributes to the Beatles and 1970s arena bands. Sarah Maiellano, a spokeswoman for the Philly Pops, credited this overhaul with a 64 percent increase in subscriptions since 2014. Concerts at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia sold at 96 percent capacity last season. A similar tactic has been used at the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, which has a history of championing contemporary American music. Last year, its pops series sold at 85 percent capacity, compared with 73 percent for its classical series orchestra officials partly credit the higher pops sales to headliners such as the country band Alabama. “Pops is a way to bring in money, but we also look at it as a way to bring in new audiences,” said Larry Tucker, the orchestra’s vice president for artistic administration, who has a lead role in overseeing concert programming. (Research from the League of American Orchestras shows that audiences seldom cross over from pops to classical concerts, but pops concerts, which involve fewer rehearsals, are known to subsidize classical series.) The New York Philharmonic is one of several major orchestras without a pops series, though its Summertime Classics concerts, which ran from 2004 to 2014, harkened back to the Fiedler model of pops repertory. The series was discontinued not because of poor ticket sales but because of touring obligations, said Edward Yim, the Philharmonic’s vice president for artistic planning, who works with the music director Alan Gilbert to plan concerts. “It would be nice to see some of that repertoire sprinkled throughout our main subscription series,” he added. “Not every subscription concert, week in and week out, should be so deadly serious. ” The Philharmonic has drawn large audiences by showing films with live accompaniment popular performances in May of Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights” and Disney’s “Fantasia: Live in Concert” were added after the season had already begun. The orchestra has started to spin off touring editions of films from its Art of the Score series, renting the production elements to other orchestras. The pilot installment, “On the Waterfront,” featuring a score by Leonard Bernstein, had its premiere in New York last September and will be presented this season by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony. A similar distribution strategy is planned for a restored version of Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” its soundtrack dotted with brassy Gershwin melodies that will be conducted by Mr. Gilbert on Sept. 16 and 17 at David Geffen Hall. As these film programs multiply (current favorites of concert presenters include “Home Alone” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” according to the online directory Movies in Concert) conductors and artistic administrators say they struggle to find room for the traditional light orchestral numbers. But Steven Reineke, the National Symphony’s principal pops conductor, doesn’t plan to abandon those older pops staples. “To play those types of pieces as preludes or interspersed throughout the programming,” he said, “I don’t see them disappearing. ” | 1 |
Logged The answer to 1871 is 1776I am one of the people, not a fictional entity created by an incorporated state issued Birth Certificate. | 0 |
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Robert Gehl reports that of all the videos and images to come out of the Milwaukee riots, there’s one that is particularly chilling.
The 2-minute video is apparently taken during the riots Saturday night following the shooting of a black, armed man who was reportedly a gang member.
Moments after the shooting occurred, hundreds of rioters took to the streets, setting cars on fire and burning about a half-dozen businesses. Chants of “Black Power!” could be heard sporadically as well. But in this video, it appears an entire gang of black youth are seeking out and targeting white people to assault.
“Hey! We’re beating up every white person! Get every white person!” the cameraman says.
When he witnesses someone being assaulted, he asks “Who they beatin’ up? Who they beaten’ up?”
At one point, when they spot a “white person,” he screams “He white! Beat his shit! Beat!”
The thug pans around looking for white people to assault. You can hear the crowd reacting, trying to point out white people. Again, he cries: “Hey! They beating up every white person!” Apparently he spots a homeless man. “Look at the f***in’ white bum! Look at the white bum!”
Throughout the rest of the video, there’s screams of white people as their racist hunt continues.
Toward the end, shots ring out in the distance, startling the cameraman. “Who the f*** is shooting? Stop shooting!” Moments later, shots are fired much closer and the video ends.”
This is the direct result of the Black Lives Matter racist, anti-police agenda and Barack Obama’s acceptance of their cause.
This is Obama’s “ post-racial America .” Welcome to it, folks . | 0 |
We Use Cookies: Our policy [X] Rumours Persist That Mourinho Almost Thought About Blaming Himself For Latest Man Utd Defeat November 4, 2016 - BREAKING NEWS , SPORT Share 0 Add Comment
SCARCELY believable rumours have been circulating in the aftermath of Manchester United’s 2-1 loss to Fenerbahce in the Europa League, as sources close to Jose Mourinho claim he almost blamed himself in some small way for the defeat.
“We’ve seen it a few times over the last decade, he almost gained some self awareness and was on the verge of realising he’s been paid £10 million a year not to be dog shite,” confirmed a source, who admitted Jose opened his mouth at one point with a look of ‘some of this may be my fault’ emblazoned on his face.
Leading football psychologists were ready to hail a breakthrough in their study of Mourihno but their hopes were dashed when he chose instead to give out about Arsene Wenger for 44 minutes, blaming him for being responsible for the defeat in some way.
As evidenced by some post-match interviews and comments the Portuguese manager was able to gather himself and get back to transparent attempts to safeguard himself from any criticisms.
“We played the game, like happy puppies, but these players of mine, they are not puppies, they are meant to be lions. Jose Mourinho is disappointed in them, when you go to the zoo, you never, ever go to see the puppies,” Mourinho explained in the first of 47 vague, almost incomprehensible asides, “also I live in a hotel”.
Mourinho would not be drawn on the speculation that he plans to add several more players to his list of scapegoats, with concern among his coaching staff that if he continues to just focus on Henri Mkhitaryan, people will soon realise the former Madrid boss is just weeks away from another cataclysmic implosion.
“We are not just surrounded by football Einsteins, we have a Fermi and an Oppenheimer, they intend to use an atomic football bomb against me, a champion,” added the manager purposefully trying to be more obscure and disconnected with each passing sentence. | 0 |
Norway’s immigration minister Sylvi Listhaug has slammed the “agenda” “liberal media” after being accused of wearing a crucifix necklace merely as a “prop” to promote “xenophobic” views. [Listhaug said the left wing media “doesn’t care about facts” as long as right wingers are the target after writer and former newspaper editor Sven Egil Omdal claimed the Progress Party politician had never worn the crucifix before being appointed immigration and integration minister. In a message posted to Facebook, alongside a picture of Ms Listhaug wearing the crucifix while speaking at the Oslo Symposium, the left wing journalist wrote: “She looks like a bishop even when she says that it ‘has never been something for us’ to live side by side with people from another culture. “Sylvi Listhaug is almost always seen wearing the cross now, and she is always talking about how important it is for her. But I’ve been through all images in the Scanpix database in the period from 2001 to December 15, 2015, when she became immigration and integration minister. She does not wear the cross necklace on one of them. ” “Would I say she’s using the cross as a political prop to appeal to strange people who think xenophobia is a Christian virtue? Yes, I would,” concluded Mr Omdal, who has weekly columns in four newspapers. Ms Listhaug hit back at what she called the “vile attack” accusing the “media mogul” of “spreading fake news” which the minister said Mr Omdal “invented to make me look evil and cynical”. “He has received well over 1, 000 likes, many of them from journalists and media professionals on an outright lie” she wrote to Facebook. She then pointed to three Scanpix photos from 2006 and 2007 attached to the post in which she can be seen wearing the crucifix, to disprove the journalist’s claim. The minister described how the jewellery piece — a gift from her grandmother who is nearly 100 years old — means a lot to her. Ms Listhaug took aim at the leftist media, writing: “It’s no wonder a growing number of people have seen through many of the leftist media and are relying less on journalists. “They have an agenda, which is attacking the right. They have no standards and they don’t care about the facts — everything is okay as long as I or the Progress Party is the target. ” Ms. Listhaug, who is Norway’s first ever immigration and integration minister, received global press attention soon after taking up the post after she said that Jesus would support her party’s tough stance on immigration. “What Jesus cared about is you should help as many people as possible — and that’s not as many as possible in Norway,” she said. She asserted it’s possible to relieve the suffering of a lot more people in refugee camps in the Middle East rather than encouraging them to make a perilous journey across Europe. | 0 |
Justifying the Saudi Slaughter in Yemen October 31, 2016
Exclusive: Official Washington insists Iran is the main Mideast troublemaker when clearly that isn’t true, but the “group think” explains why a few intercepted arms shipments to Somalia where linked to Iran and Yemen, reports Gareth Porter.
By Gareth Porter
The Obama administration has carried out a deliberately deceptive campaign accusing Iran of covertly sending arms to the Houthis by sea, a claim that Washington cites to help justify the Saudi massive air attack against the Houthis that began last year.
By repeating the accusation over and over, the administration has been largely successful in turning a dubious allegation into accepted fact, even though it is contradicted by evidence that is well-documented on the public record. Saudi King Salman bids farewell to President Barack Obama at Erga Palace after a state visit to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 27, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Secretary of State John Kerry introduced the new variant of the Obama administration’s familiar theme about Iran’s “nefarious activities” in the region two weeks after Saudi Arabia began its bombing in Yemen on March 26, 2015. Kerry told the PBS NewsHour, “There are obviously supplies that have been coming from Iran,” citing “a number of flights every single week that have been flying in.” Kerry vowed that the United States was “not going to stand by while the region is destabilized.”
Later, the administration began accusing Iran of using fishing boats to smuggle arms to the Houthis. The campaign unfolded in a series of four interceptions of small fishing boats or dhows in or near the Arabian Sea from September 2015 through March 2016. The four interceptions had two things in common: the boats did have illicit weapons alright, but the crews always said the ship was bound for Somalia – not Yemen and the Houthis.
But instead of acknowledging the obvious fact that the weapons were not related to the Iran-Houthi relationship, a U.S. military spokesman put out a statement in all four cases citing a U.S. “assessment” that the ultimate destination of the arms was Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen.
The choice of wording was significant. The intelligence community says that it “assesses” that something is true only when it does not have clear-cut proof on the matter. In the case of the alleged Iranian use of fishing dhows to smuggle arms to the Houthis, the U.S. spokesmen did not cite a single piece of evidence for that “assessment” in any of the four cases. In fact, when asked for some justification for it, the military spokesman refused.
The first fishing dhow was intercepted in the Arabian Sea on Sept. 25, 2015, by a member of a 31-nation coalition called the Combined Maritime Forces patrolling the Arabian Sea and nearby waters for piracy. The coalition ship found the dhow to be carrying 18 Konkurs anti-tank missiles, 71 other anti-tank shells and 54 missile-launchers.
Blaming Iran
The U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet later issued a statement that said, “Based on statements from the dhow’s crew the port of origin of the dhow and its illicit weapons cache is believed to be Iran.” It also said the anti-tank missiles were thought to be of Iranian and Russian origin, and that the papers on the ship had indicated that it had been checked by ports and customs officials in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province. Hassan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, addresses the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 22, 2016 (UN Photo)
But the crew of the vessel had said that it was bound not for Yemen but for Somalia, as the spokesman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet acknowledged to The Associated Press . A Saudi military spokesman suggested that Iran intended to reroute the arms later from Somalia to Yemen, but offered no evidence.
On Feb. 27, 2016, an Australian ship intercepted a second fishing dhow off the coast of Oman. The Australians found 1,989 AK-47 assault rifles, 100 rocket-propelled grenades and 40 PKM machine guns on board. The Australian Defense Force issued an official statement on the seizure that did not mention Iranian involvement. It said the boat appeared to be “stateless” and that its cache of weapons was “destined for Somalia.” The Australian Defense Force spokesman explained to CNN that the conclusion was based on interviews with crew members.
But a spokesman for U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command, Lt. Ian McConnaughey gave an entirely different political slant to the interception. In an e-mail to NBC News, McConnaughey said. “Based on the dhow’s course, Iran is believed to be its port of origin and the source of the illicit weapon,” he said. McConnaughey said the crew was “assessed” to be Iranian – implying that the crew itself had not indicated that.
McConnaughey acknowledged to NBC and The Telegraph, “According to coalition forces it is believed that the vessel’s destination was in the vicinity of Somalia.” But the CENTCOM spokesman indicated that it didn’t matter; the U.S. was insisting on its narrative about covert Iranian arms to the Houthis.
“[T]he initial U.S. assessment is the weapons’ final destination was likely to be the Houthis in Yemen,” McConnaaughey told NBC and The Telegraph.
When this writer asked McConnaughey by e-mail why the U.S. “assessed” that the weapons were intended for Yemen, despite the evidence to the contrary, he responded, “We are not going to discuss the intelligence and other information that led us to our assessment.”
A Third Shipment
On March 20, a French navy destroyer intercepted a third fishing dhow off the Island of Socotra in the northern Indian Ocean and found several hundred AK-47 assault rifles, machine guns and antitank weapons. The official statement on the seizure from the Combined Maritime Forces stated categorically, “The dhow was spotted heading toward Somalia.”
And because the weapons were “deemed to be destined for Somalia,” it explained, they “were seized under the United Nations Security Council mandated arms embargo in accordance with UNSCR 2244(2015).” That Security Council resolution mandates an embargo on Eritrea.
Australia and other states participating in the Combined Maritime Forces were thus challenging the U.S. propaganda line. But again the U.S. military used the news media to reinforce the line about Iran smuggling arms to the Houthis. Commander Kevin Stephens, a spokesman for the Fifth Fleet, told CNN that “according to a U.S. assessment,” Yemen was the “likely destination” of the arms.
A fourth interception – the third in three weeks – occurred on March 28 by a U.S. Navy ship that was not operating as part of Combined Maritime Forces but directly under U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. That allowed the Naval Forces Central Command to issue its own news story on April 4.
In its lead paragraph, the report said the United States “assessed” that the shipment of illicit arms on board the dhow “originated in Iran and was likely bound for Houthi insurgents in Yemen.”
An Earlier Ruse
The Obama administration also had sought to promote the charge that Iranian was covertly sending weapons to the Houthis by sea more than two years earlier. In January 2013, the Yemen client government backed by the United States and Saudi Arabia had claimed that its forces had intercepted a ship with a large cargo of weaponry that came from Iran and was on its way to Yemen to deliver them to the Houthis. A scene from PBS Frontline’s “Yemen Under Siege.”
The Obama administration supported that charge in briefings to journalists. After the Saudi air war against Yemen began in 2015, the U.S. pushed for a report by an experts group on sanctions against Iran that would give the charge credibility.
But the 2013 claim was soon exposed as a ruse. A Security Council Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea revealed in a June 2013 report that the crewmembers had told diplomats who interviewed them that ship’s cargo of diesel fuel was bound for Somalia, not Yemen. And, since the weapons were hidden under the diesel fuel tanks, the weapons could be accessed only after those tanks had been emptied, in other words after the ship docked in Somalia.
The monitoring group learned from authorities in the Puntland region of Somalia, where most of the smuggled weapons have entered the country, that this was a widely used method of smuggling arms into the country.
Furthermore, the monitoring group determined that the wide range of types of weapons on board the ship, which was intercepted in January 2013, as well as of their original sources indicated that the weapons cache had been assembled by arms merchants. Authorities in Puntland provided data to the monitoring group showing that most of the shipments of weapons into Puntland in the months before January 2013 had come from politically well-connected arms merchants in Yemen.
Some of the fishing boats that were intercepted with illicit arms on board in 2015-16 had Iranian owners. But the monitoring group report reveals that the real reason is the role of such Iranian fishing vessels in illegal fishing in Somali waters. The vast majority of the hundreds of fishing vessels involved in such illegal fishing networks were either Iranian or Yemeni. As many as 300 were believed to be Yemeni-owned, while Iranian-owned 180 of them.
The monitoring group said it was investigating unconfirmed reports that some of those illegal fishing vessels were also being used to carry out arms smuggling and that it had established “other connections between the illegal fishing networks and networks involved in the arms trade and connected to al-Shabaab in northeastern Somalia.”
But the Obama administration has no interest in the considerable evidence gathered by the monitoring group that provides a more credible explanation for the arms found on those four fishing dhows.
Such an explanation isn’t political useful, whereas the accusations of Iranian smuggling of arms to the Houthis fulfilled multiple political and bureaucratic interests, justifying Saudi Arabia’s bloody U.S.-backed air campaign over Yemen and endless Washington alarms about “Iranian aggression.”
Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and winner of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. He is the author of the newly published Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare . | 1 |
Formação de soldados franceses para enquadrar o Daesh (EI) Rede Voltaire | 2 de Novembro de 2016 français Español italiano Deutsch Türkçe English A 22 de Setembro de 2016, ao limpar à beira de um abrigo primitivo abandonado, não muito longe da igreja Saint-Florent, à saída de Saumur (França), trabalhadores viram três homens fugir precipitadamente numa furgoneta branca. Ao entrar na gruta, eles descobriram equipamento vídeo, um gerador, assim como jornais em língua árabe e bandeiras do Daesh (E.I.).
Acalmando o alarme da população, da polícia e da gendarmeria, e do sub-prefeito, o General Arnaud Nicolazzo de Barmon, Comandante das Escolas militares de Saumur, declarou que não se tratava de terroristas, mas, sim de um exercício de treino do Centro Inter-armas da Defesa nuclear, radiológica, biológica e química (CIA NBCR).
Sendo este o caso, a CIA NBCR teria violado as regras de notificação sobre este exercício, antes da sua realização, junto das várias diferentes autoridades públicas locais. Além disso, não se vê em que é que este material teria qualquer utilidade para exercícios de defesa nuclear, radiológica, biológica ou química.
No mesmo sítio do NBCR CIA, em Saumur, situam-se Escolas especializadas em Inteligência e em Combate Conjunto (Inter-armas)
Desde o momento de início dos acontecimentos na Síria, em 2011, está confirmada a presença de Forças francesas no local. Em 2012, 19 soldados franceses que tinham sido feitos prisioneiros foram entregues, no Líbano, ao Chefe do Estado-Maior das Forças Armadas, o Almirante Edouard Guillaud, junto com outros soldados que enquadravam o Emirado Islâmico de Baba Amr. A morte de soldados franceses enquadrando tropas islamistas foi certificada em numerosos lugares, nomeadamente em Sannayeh em 2013. Muito embora a França tenha, em 2014, apoiado a Al-Qaida contra o Daesh (E.I.), a presença de oficiais franceses no seio do Califado foi confirmada por várias testemunhas em 2016.
Em novembro de 2014, o Pentágono afirmou ter morto em Samarda um agente da DGSE trabalhando no seio da Al-Qaida, David Drugeon, enquanto o Ministério da Defesa francês desmentia qualquer relação com a vítima. Posteriormente, a imprensa norte-americana afirmou que David Drugeon tinha treinado Mohamed Mera (envolvido no atentado de Toulouse e de Montauban) e os irmãos Kouachi (atentado contra o Charlie Hebdo ).
A França jamais reconheceu oficialmente ter tropas no terreno dentro da Síria, embora tenha admitido ter aí um quartel-general comum com as forças especiais aliadas.
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Alva | 0 |
Amid all the inflated headlines about Russian “hacking” of the U. S. the Washington Post was forced to retool an article that falsely claimed a Vermont power plant was hacked by Russian hackers. [Late on Friday, December 30, the Post broke a story originally entitled, “Russian hackers penetrated U. S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont, officials say. ” The Post story went on to say, “A code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U. S. officials. ” But it appears that the paper published the shocking story before actually getting any quotes from the power company in Vermont. It also turned out that the paper’s tale was wildly exaggerated. The Vermont utility in question, the Burlington Electric Department, later released a statement clarifying where it discovered the “Russian code” and it turned out it there was not any “penetration” into the U. S. electricity grid. Later that evening, Vermont Public Service Commissioner Christopher Recchia told the Burlington Free Press that “the grid is not in danger. ” “As commissioner of public service we are very concerned about cybersecurity,” Recchia insisted. “I’ve been working with homeland security and our department of emergency management, homeland security to make sure that we are on top of things like this because this is a real concern. ” Utility officials said that the Russian malware code was found on but a single laptop computer that was not in any way connected to its power grid systems. The utility also issued a statement about the discovery of the code: Last night, U. S. utilities were alerted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of a malware code used in Grizzly Steppe, the name DHS has applied to a Russian campaign linked to recent hacks. We acted quickly to scan all computers in our system for the malware signature. We detected the malware in a single Burlington Electric Department laptop not connected to our organization’s grid systems. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 0 |
Arab former soccer player says he wouldn’t sing the national anthem with the rest of the team. Yoel Domb
“I didn’t sing the anthem during international games. Unless there will be a change in the words of the anthem not everybody can sing. The words “Jewish soul craving” do not fit the Arab sector. If I would sing the anthem it would be a lie.” Thus said the former captain of the Benei Sakhnin soccer team and former Israeli international Abbas Suan on Wednesday.
Suan who has retired from professional soccer, was speaking at a special conference initiated by the NIF and entitled :”Kicking the racism and violence out of the stadiums.” The event was coordinated with the UEFA-sponsored week of anti-racist activity in European soccer termed FARE- Football against Racism in Europe.
The conference was attended by many former and present players and managers in Israeli soccer including present Israeli manager Elisha Levi.
Levi, who had previously managed the Arab Sakhnin team, said that one need not be afraid of people who are different. “Football is a bridge spanning cultures. Sport can cause more unity in society. I would be happy if I had more players from the Arab sector in the national team. They have tremendous drive. We don’t demand that players sing the anthem, but all of them respect one another.”
Former player Alon | 0 |
Homeland Secretary John Kelly has not made a decision to expand the visa program, and his deputies have not even met with counterparts at the Department of Labor to begin the expansion process, says an agency spokesman. [“He has not yet made any determination,” said spokesman David Lapan, adding that “there is no timeline. ” Lapan’s comments suggest that Kelly has reversed his initial support for an expansion of the program, and is now looking for a P. R. strategy that allows him to deflect pressure from legislators and lobbyists who want an expansion. On May 25, Kelly told Senators on the committee which controls the DHS budget that “I’ll have my staff when they return from [the Department of ] Labor and we get some protocols in place, we’ll likely increase the numbers for this year, perhaps not by the entire number that I’m authorized. ” When asked by Breitbart if Kelly has since flipped against the unpopular expansion, Lapan responded by saying “we didn’t back off … [during the hearing] he acknowledged that his inclination would be to increase, but we as a department have not made that decision. ” The program allows companies to import 66, 000 new workers for seasonal jobs each year. GOP leader greatly expanded the program in 2015, but cut it back in 2016 once President Donald Trump won the election in November on a platform. Company owners say the foreign workers are needed because Americans will not do seasonal jobs and because there is a shortage of some skilled workers, such as bricklayers. Critics of the program say it reduces wages for both and seasonal American workers, it reduces pressure on companies to find and recruit marginalized U. S. workers, and it reduces the political pressure on companies and schools to train young Americans for skills, such as bricklaying. Critics of the program say it reduces nationwide wages for both and seasonal American workers, it reduces pressure on companies to find and recruit marginalized U. S. workers, and it reduces the political pressure on companies and schools to train enough young Americans for skills, such as bricklaying. Any expansion of the unpopular program would also contradict President Donald Trump’s inauguration day promise to “Buy American, Hire American,” say critics. Just like the visa program, the program is unpopular with the public, but lobbyists constantly pressure legislators to increase the annual inflow of foreign workers. In May, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other legislators passed the buck to Kelly, by adding language in the May budget supplemental which allows the DHS secretary to expand by roughly 70, 000 new workers each year. Lobbyists are now pressuring Kelly to quickly and quietly expand the program via regulatory changes so that foreign workers can be hired and rushed into jobs later this summer, fall and winter. Lapan’s evasive comment suggests Kelly does not want to be Ryan’s and is trying to dodge the issue without angering the politicians who control his agency’s budget. The May budget language does not direct agency officials to expand the program by 5, 000 or 10, 000 visas, Lapan told reporters. “It was not Congress adding to the cap, but allowing that we could add to the cap if the Secretary chose to,” Lapan said. Officials are still looking at the law’s language “to determine ‘What does this really mean? ’” he said. The agency is looking at the possible impact on businesses, but may also seek the view of groups which oppose the contract worker programs, he said. DHS officials have still not met with officials at the Labor Department, and the expansion authority expires in October, Lapan said. But Kelly should be forthright, said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which oppose the program. “We’d all like some clarity out of the administration … if you are going to say no … there is no time like the present to say it clearly. ” Mehlman continued: The president was very clear in his campaign that he intended to look out for the interest of American workers. The people coming in on [visas] are competing with the most vulnerable workers who have been hurt the most … the first priority should be to do what is in the interests of the American workers who have been harmed, seen their wage driven down and have been pushed to the sidelines, and we should focus on bringing those people into the workforce. The push for more cheap he added, “is the chamber of commerce talking — they just want their cheap labor. ” Here is Kelly’s May statement to the appropriations committee: This is one of things I really wish I did not have any discretion, and for every Senator or Congressman that has your view, I have another one that says ‘Don’t you dare, this is about American jobs.’ You know the argument, both sides. My staff, members of my staff, are coordinating with the Department of Labor on this. One of the things, and I have my working class root background that keeps reminding me that some of these individuals — not necessarily in Alaska — but many, many of these individuals are victimized when they come up here, in terms of what they’re paid and all the rest of it, so we’re working with Labor, Department of Labor, to come up with an answer to this, but we really do need a solution, so we’ll work with the Senate and with Congress, within the industry, this year, and again, I’ll have my staff when they return from Labor and we get some protocols in place, we’ll likely increase the numbers for this year, perhaps not by the entire number that I’m authorized, but we really do need, I’m really looking forward to working with you Senator, and the whole Congress, to get a solution to this. Each year, the federal government allows companies to import roughly 1 million and guest workers, ensuring a resident population of at least 1 million foreign workers. The government also imports 1 million legal immigrants. In 2016, roughly 500, 000 illegals joined the workforce. Roughly 4 million young Americans join the workforce each year. That annual inflow of roughly 2 million foreign workers floods the job market just as 4 million young Americans graduate and join the workforce. Follow Neil Munro on Twitter @NeilMunroDC or email the author at NMunro@Breitbart. com, | 1 |
As of a few weeks ago, advertisements for JPMorgan Chase were appearing on about 400, 000 websites a month. It is the sort of number that has become the norm these days for big companies that use automated tools to reach consumers online. Now, as more and more brands find their ads popping up next to toxic content like fake news sites or offensive YouTube videos, JPMorgan has limited its display ads to about 5, 000 websites it has preapproved, said Kristin Lemkau, the bank’s chief marketing officer. Surprisingly, the company is seeing little change in the cost of impressions or the visibility of its ads on the internet, she said. An impression is generally counted each time an ad is shown. The change illustrates the new skepticism with which major marketers are approaching online ad platforms and the automated technology placing their brands on millions of websites. In recent years, advertisers have increasingly shunned buying ads on individual sites in favor of cheaply targeting groups of people across the web based on their browsing habits, a process known as programmatic advertising — enabling, say, a Gerber ad to show up on a local mother’s blog, or a purse in an online shopping cart to follow a person around the internet for weeks. But as the risks around the far reaches of the web have been cast into stark relief, some advertisers are questioning the value of showing up on hundreds of thousands of unknown sites, and wondering whether millions of appearances actually translate into more sales. “It’s only been a few days, but we haven’t seen any deterioration on our performance metrics,” Ms. Lemkau said in an interview on Tuesday. She added that the company had also pulled ads from YouTube in the past week after reports showed other major advertisers like Verizon unintentionally appearing on videos promoting hate speech and terrorism. JPMorgan aims to restrict its ads on the platform to a “ ” list of 1, 000 YouTube channels, which it expects to be able to do by the week of April 10, she said. Much of the promise of online advertising hinges on the vast reach of the web, and the ability to reach people on niche sites at low prices. Index Exchange, an ad exchange, has estimated that the titles owned by the top 50 traditional media companies account for 5 percent or fewer of the trillions of ad impressions available for sale each day. Google’s display network alone includes more than two million websites. YouTube has more than three million channels, according to the analytics company OpenSlate, which says the average $100, 000 campaign on the platform runs on more than 7, 000 channels. If more advertisers follow JPMorgan’s lead and see similar results, it could hurt the operators of smaller sites that make up the long tail of the internet, as well as the advertising technology companies that profit from funneling trillions of ad impressions from brands to consumers through systems that mimic a stock exchange, according to Eric Franchi, of the ad technology firm Undertone. “If you charge a percentage of all of the ads that run through your platform, then the prospects can be pretty dim if all of a sudden your volume has been cut by 95 percent,” Mr. Franchi said. “So many of these companies, and some of them are public, tout the number of ads they deliver per second, per day. If you start seeing more marketers move in this direction, it will be pretty interesting. What are the metrics then that those companies start to report?” JPMorgan started looking into preapproving sites, a strategy known as whitelisting, this month after The New York Times showed it an ad for Chase’s private client services on a site called Hillary 4 Prison. It was under a headline claiming that the actor Elijah Wood had revealed “the horrifying truth about the Satanic liberal perverts who run Hollywood. ” Of the 400, 000 web addresses JPMorgan’s ads showed up on in a recent period, said Ms. Lemkau, only 12, 000, or 3 percent, led to activity beyond an impression. An intern then manually clicked on each of those addresses to ensure that the websites were ones the company wanted to advertise on. About 7, 000 of them were not, winnowing the group to 5, 000. The shift has been easier to execute than expected, Ms. Lemkau said, even as some in the industry warned the company that it risked missing out on audience “reach” and efficiency. JPMorgan had already decided last year to oversee its own programmatic buying operation, and it works with Google and AppNexus to show its ads, she said. It was not a difficult decision to extend whitelisting to YouTube, given that Chase was already making that shift across its display advertising, she said. “Before the YouTube thing happened, we were just looking at programmatic,” she said. “Now the question is, what else is out there that we should be looking at whitelisting?” She added, “At some point, a human is going to take a look. ” | 1 |
The Justice Department announced on Thursday that it had reached an agreement with a Mississippi county that, for the first time, requires a local government to provide an array of options intended to reduce mass incarceration. It includes programs offering alternatives to jail, services for inmates leaving incarceration and the prohibition of some jail sentences for failure to pay fines and fees. The settlement agreement with Hinds County, home to Jackson, Mississippi’s largest city and the state capital, comes after the Justice Department issued a letter of findings last year, having concluded that the county’s jails regularly violated the constitutional rights of inmates by keeping prisoners past their release dates, and that it failed to protect prisoners from violence inflicted by guards and other inmates. Vanita Gupta, principal deputy assistant attorney general and chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said the agreement incorporated measures, discussed by the Obama administration and by police and prison officials in the past three years, seeking to moderate the growth of a criminal justice system in which 2. 2 million people are in prisons and jails, and 4. 7 million are on probation or parole. The measures include a shift away from the use of solitary confinement, strategies seeking to reduce recidivism, and an effort to keep juveniles and the mentally ill out of jail through the use of early intervention programs. Ms. Gupta said that the kinds of problems uncovered by the Justice Department in Hinds County, including pervasive violence by guards and inmates alike, and an overreliance on solitary confinement, were similar to those in jails and prisons across the nation. “This is the first time we’ve been able to incorporate a spectrum of reform,” Ms. Gupta said. “Every jail is going to have its own specific issues, but the creativity and innovation in this is something that could be promoted in other jurisdictions. ” Carmen Y. Davis, the administrator of Hinds County, did not immediately return a phone call or email Thursday. The county sheriff, Victor Mason, did not immediately return a telephone call. The agreement was reached as police chiefs, corrections officials, judges and prosecutors joined calls for substantial reductions in prison and jail populations, to match reductions in crime rates. It also comes as Congress debates a bill to overhaul the criminal justice system that would alter mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which have played a significant role in increasing the length of time served, leading to crowding. The Justice Department found last year that Hinds County officials had regularly violated the rights of inmates at the Hinds County Adult Detention Center and the Jackson City Detention Center. Among the findings in the Justice Department’s May 2015 report was that Hinds County routinely held inmates beyond their release dates. For example, the report found that a had served 173 days without an indictment — including 70 days beyond his mandatory release date. The county’s jails were also the scene of three major riots, which led to the death of an inmate, the Justice Department found. Investigators also uncovered rampant and unnecessary violence by guards, the lack of basic equipment such as functioning radios, cases of the jail losing track of inmates, staff shortages, and inadequate safeguards and care for juvenile and mentally ill prisoners. Hinds County officials eventually agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department, which allowed the county to avoid the imposition of a federal consent decree. The settlement agreement is subject to the approval of a federal court judge, who will appoint a monitor to ensure that the changes are carried out. “For too long, the conditions in the jail have posed a serious challenge to law enforcement and the safety of our community,” George K. Davis, United States attorney for the southern district of Mississippi, said in a statement. “I appreciate the commitment made by Hinds County officials to turn the page and begin making necessary reforms. ” The settlement agreement includes a provision that prohibits the county from jailing people for failing to pay court fines and fees unless it first determines that the individual can afford to pay. The fees, which could include everything from traffic citations to the cost of a prisoner’s incarceration, have been found to fall disproportionately on minorities. The prevalence of such fines and fees — and subsequent jail stints for lack of payment — has been the source of frustration among the unemployed and the working poor, including in Ferguson, Mo. where protests broke out after the death of Michael Brown in a police shooting in 2014. But the centerpiece of the deal is a mandate to form a criminal justice coordinating committee, made up of local officials including judges, the county sheriff and members of the Board of Supervisors, as well as mental health professionals and other local residents. The committee will be guided in part by a consultant, who will be hired by the county. The Justice Department said the committee would be tasked with coming up with alternatives to incarceration — including developing strategies and changing policies to decrease the number of arrests in the county through diversion programs — many of which will focus on the mentally ill, who make up a significant share of inmates in Hinds County jails. “The coordinating committee will prioritize enhancing coordination with local behavioral health systems, with the goal of connecting individuals experiencing mental health crisis, including juveniles, with available services to avoid unnecessary arrest, detention, and incarceration,” the settlement agreement between the Justice Department and the county said. The committee will also be responsible for easing the transition to freedom after inmates are released from jail, which could include providing help with housing and job training or ensuring that those with mental illnesses receive adequate care. Criminologists have said that gaps in such services can lead to high recidivism rates because former inmates often do not the skills to find decent work and are sometimes barred from certain types of housing, as well as from loans for education and job training. The county will be required to pay for the changes, but the Justice Department said it intended to work with county officials on funding. “We are going to be helping them support the innovations,” Ms. Gupta said. | 1 |
Donald Trump’s politics have divided the nation in unforeseen ways, and now it’s adversely affecting his business. Though he likely thought that running for president would increase his... | 0 |
Shortly after UC Berkeley protesters derailed the finale of the Dangerous Faggot Tour, MILO spoke with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson about the serious issues in American higher education.[ MILO told Tucker Carlson that tonight’s riots are an embarrassment for American higher education. “I think tonight is … a horrible spectacle and very humiliating for American higher education. ” He added that he’s learned over the course of the Dangerous Faggot Tour that there isn’t much that can be said on a college campus without upsetting students. “ … I found out actually you can’t say very much at all without people getting upset. ” “No one’s safety is at risk from different opinions. No one’s physical safety is endangered by political ideas,” MILO added. Tucker Carlson pointed out that the left would likely blame MILO for the violence carried out against him. | 0 |
You are here: Home / US / Look What Students FORCED To Do After Muslims FLOOD Germany Look What Students FORCED To Do After Muslims FLOOD Germany October 27, 2016 Pinterest
Is this coming to the United States?
Children in school in Germany are being taught to chant Islamic prayers, including the phrase “Allah Akbar,” which is used before Radical Islamists commit terrorist attacks.
The father of a girl at a school in Garmisch-Partekirchen, Germany, discovered his daughter was forced to learn the Islamic prayer when he found a handout she was given, The Express is reporting . He said his daughter was “forced” by teachers to memorize the Islamic chants and forwarded the handout to a news organization in Australia.
The handout read: “Oh Allah, how perfect you are and praise be to you. Blessed is your name, and exalted is your majesty. There is no God but you.”
It had been given to the girl during a lesson in “ethics” at the Bavarian school.
Headteacher Gisela Herl did not confirm the incident when questioned, but said the school would issue a written statement detailing its position in the coming week.
The incident comes just weeks after parents complained to German newspaper Hessian Niedersächsische Allgemeine (HNA) that their children’s nursery was refusing to acknowledge “Christmas rituals” to accommodate the “diverse cultures” of other pupils.
The Sara Nussbaum House daycare centre in Kassel refused to put up a Christmas tree, tell Christmas stories or celebrate Christmas in general because it said only a minority of pupils were Christian.
A spokesman for Kassel explained: “There will be no Christmas celebrations, in the strictest sense. Because the majority of children at this kindergarten are not Christian the festival will not be celebrated in the way that it is at other schools.”
Migrants now outnumber native children at many schools in Germany as the country has been inundated with migrants in recent years.
More than one million migrants are estimated to have arrived in Germany during the last year alone.
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees estimates that another 200,000 people will apply for asylum in 2017. | 0 |
USA Today
WASHINGTON — The Army acknowledged Friday that Maj. Gen. John Rossi committed suicide on July 31, making him the highest-ranking soldier ever to have taken his own life.
Rossi, who was 55, was just two days from pinning on his third star and taking command of Army Space and Missile Command when he killed himself at his home at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. ‘
Investigators could find no event, infidelity, misconduct or drug or alcohol abuse, that triggered Rossi’s suicide, said a U.S. government official with direct knowledge of the investigation. It appears that Rossi was overwhelmed by his responsibilities, said the official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.
Rossi himself talked in March about suicide at a conference on preventing troops from killing themselves.
He held up a card from his wallet with photos of 10 soldiers who had died under his command at Fort Sill, Okla. Four of them had committed suicide.
Rossi led off the event by reading the reports of recent suicide attempts to the soldiers at the event, according to a news story on the Army’s web site. He told the conference that he received reports of four soldiers per week thinking about or attempting suicide.
“We are ultimately responsible for soldiers both on and off duty,” Rossi said.
In a separate statement on Friday, Rossi’s family asked for privacy and called on soldiers with emotional problems to seek help.
“To all the other families out there, to the man or woman who may be facing challenging times, please seek assistance immediately,” according to a statement released on the family’s behalf by the Army.
The Army, the armed forces and its veterans have struggled with the scourge of suicide since the 9/11 terror attacks and the wars that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq. About 20 veterans a day kill themselves, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, putting them at 21% higher risk of suicide compared with civilian adults.
The suicide rate for active-duty troops was similar to that of civilians in 2014, according to the most recent data released by the Pentagon. The Army’s rate of 23.9 suicides per 100,000 soldiers was the highest among the services.
Almost 20 years ago, Adm. Jeremy Boorda, the Navy’s top sailor, killed himself with a gunshot to the chest. Then the chief of naval operations, Boorda had been the focus of an investigation into his improperly wearing combat medals. The four-star officer was the highest-ranking ever to have killed himself. | 0 |
The Trump administration did not get funding for a border wall construction in its budget agreement with Democrats, so Breitbart News took a look at 99 programs that the federal budget is currently funding. [Apart from a few hundred million to repair fencing along the border, it’s pretty hard to see the president’s America First agenda in the budget | 0 |
ISTANBUL (AFP) — Turkish police on Monday used tear gas to disperse a group of protesters as they sought to defy a ban and march to Istanbul’s Taksim square to celebrate May Day, an AFP journalist reported. [Police tried to stop around 200 protesters in the Gayrettepe district on the European side of Istanbul who wanted to walk to the famous square in spite of the ban by city authorities. The protesters — made up of groups — unfurled banners as May Day comes after the April 16 referendum brought President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a narrow win to expand his powers. “Long Live May Day, No to dictator!” the banners read. At least one protester was detained, according to the AFP journalist. Turkish authorities imposed a ban on any demonstration at Taksim square, with police sealing off the avenue with barricades. Several thousand people attended celebrations in an officially designated area in Bakirkoy district near the international airport on the city’s western side. | 0 |
Shopping for consumer electronics can be overwhelming. The staff of the The Wirecutter and The Sweethome, product review websites owned by The New York Times Company, do the hard work of narrowing down the options. We spoke with Grant Clauser, smart home editor at The Wirecutter, about how to sort through the choices for home automation. How do I get started rigging my home to work for me? There are two kinds of people: those who want specific gadgets to solve particular problems and those who envision a totally integrated smart home. Most people fall into the first category, so they should think about what problem they want to solve or what daily task they want to simplify. If they want to adjust their kitchen lights from bed, then get a smart light switch or bulbs. If they want to know who’s at the front door when they’re away, then get a smart video doorbell. Eventually that person may want to add another device (rigging a smart home can get addictive, I can assure you) and at that point I’d tell the person to weigh the benefits of adding something designed to work with the first device versus something that will remain completely independent. People in the second category, who plan to go for the smart home, should probably start with an overall control system. Instead of a collection of gadgets, you are going for a system that gets them to all work together. This usually means a hub like SmartThings or Wink. These hubs work with the most popular wireless protocols ( being the primary one) and allow users to pick from a wide assortment of compatible devices. The planning and programming phase may take some time and is best for people who like to tinker, test and try out new things. A lot of people already have bits of home automation: a Nest thermostat, a surveillance camera, an Amazon Echo. Do they have to worry something they own won’t work with another they just bought? Your first purchases may influence subsequent buying decisions. Having devices that work together is convenient, especially if you have a lot of devices, but if you have only a few and are comfortable opening a separate app for your smart smoke alarm and another for your smart water sensor, you’ll be O. K. There’s really nothing wrong with having a camera and a thermostat that don’t communicate with each other. You may, however, be missing out on some features if they don’t. For instance, if your thermostat and camera work together, the geofencing built into your camera can trigger your thermostat to adjust the temperature when you leave the house. That might be a function you value. What products make no sense to you? My own rule, which I’ll probably break eventually, is that if I need to be in front of the device to take advantage of its primary use, then I don’t need it to be smart. A lot of kitchen gadgets fall under this category. There’s not much to be gained from an toaster or coffee maker because I need to be in the room with it to grab the toast or coffee, anyway. What have you done in your own house? My house is a work in progress. I’m always pulling out some device and adding another. At one point I had seven home security systems running. Most of my lights can be controlled through Amazon Alexa devices, either via smart switches or smart bulbs. When I go to bed I can shut off the downstairs lights, confirm that the thermostat has gone into night mode and lock the front door, all with my phone. My home theater system — yes, I put in one of those, too — is integrated through a universal remote and hub, which also controls the room’s lights, and all that can be operated by voice through an Echo Dot. To watch a movie all I have to do is say “Alexa, turn on Netflix,” and the projector turns on, the system loads up Netflix and the lights automatically turn off. All of that is done with easy D. I. Y. products. Is there anything you can’t live without? My Amazon Echo and Dots are probably the things I use the most. They’re connected to my lights, run my home theater, keep my shopping lists, read me the morning news and play music. I’d really miss those if they were gone. What’s your next home project? I just ordered some motion sensors for my Hue lights so my lights will automatically turn on when someone walks in the room. That will probably annoy my family for a while. | 1 |
October 31, 2016 - Fort Russ News - Semen Doroshenko, PolitNavigator - translated by J. Arnoldski
An inspection team from Canada, Denmark, and the Netherlands met with the command of the 93rd Kharkov mechanized guard brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces. The official website of the General Staff of the UAF has reported this.
The announcement says that the visit by European inspectors was intended to study the real situation on the demarcation line in Donbass.
“Military personnel from Canada, Denmark, and the Netherlands visited a training ground for fire and tactical training, where they praised the level of Ukrainian troops’ weapon mastery and happily fired at targets with rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles, automatic grenade launches, and anti-tank grenade launchers,” the report reads.
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Insists US Has 'Sense of Urgency' in Taking Over ISIS Capital by Jason Ditz, October 27, 2016 Share This
US officials in the past few days have kept talking up an imminent invasion of the ISIS capital city of Raqqa, despite so much focus presently on Mosul, and despite the obvious huge problems its going to cause between Turkey and the Kurdish YPG.
Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the US commander in Iraq, insists the US has decided it doesn’t have a choice in the matter, and feels a “ sense of urgency ” to take over Raqqa before any of the ISIS leadership in that city is able to plan any retaliatory strikes against Western targets.
“We’ve got to get to Raqqa pretty soon,” Townsend insisted, claiming that the capture of Manbij a couple of months ago uncovered ISIS plots to attack France and the US, and they are convinced even more plots are ongoing within Raqqa.
ISIS is estimated to have around 4,000 troops in Raqqa, and the attack will require the Kurdish YPG to commit substantial portions of its force to the area. That’s problematic, because Turkey has in the past attacked them when they were fighting ISIS, and has warned the US not to allow any Kurds into Raqqa. Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz | 0 |
by Yves Smith
Yves here. Even though this post is a bit wonky, it’s short and very important. And you need to read about something other than the election. Recall that Angus Deaton is the winner of the Swedish-National-Bank-named-for-Albert-Nobel prize and with Anne Case, performed an important study that exposed the spike in death rates among less-educated middle aged whites .
By Nancy Cartwright, Professor of Philosophy, University of Durham and University of California, San Diego and Angus Deaton, Senior Scholar and Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs Emeritus, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Economics Department, Princeton University. Originally published at VoxEU
In recent years, the use of randomised controlled trials has spread from labour market and welfare programme evaluation to other areas of economics (and to other social sciences), perhaps most prominently in development and health economics. This column argues that some of the popularity of such trials rests on misunderstandings about what they are capable of accomplishing, and cautions against simple extrapolations from trials to other contexts.
Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have been sporadically used in economic research since the negative income tax experiments between 1968 and 1980 (see Wise and Hausman 1985), and have been regularly used since then to evaluate labour market and welfare programmes (Manski and Garfinkel 1992, Gueron and Rolston 2013). In recent years, they have spread widely in economics (and in other social sciences), perhaps most prominently in development and health economics. The ‘credibility revolution’ in econometrics (Angrist and Pischke 2010) putatively frees empirical investigation from implausible and arbitrary theoretical and statistical assumptions, and RCTs are seen as the most ‘credible’ and ‘rigorous’ of the credible methods; indeed, credible non-RCT designs typically pattern themselves as closely as possible on RCTs. Imbens (2010) writes, “Randomised experiments do occupy a special place in the hierarchy of evidence, namely at the very top.”
In medicine, Pocock and Elbourne (2000) argue that only RCTs “can provide a reliably unbiased estimate of treatment effects”, and without such estimates, they “see considerable dangers to clinical research and even to the well-being of patients”. The link between bias and risk to patients is taken as obvious, with no attempt to show that an RCT experimental design does indeed minimise the expected harm to patients. The World Bank has run many development related RCTs, and makes claims well beyond unbiasedness. Its implementation manual states, “we can be very confident that our estimated average impact” (given as the difference in means between the treatment and control group) “constitute the true impact of the program, since by construction we have eliminated all observed and unobserved factors that might otherwise plausibly explain the differences in outcomes” (Gertler et al. 2011). High-quality evidence indeed; the truth is surely the ultimate in credibility. What Are Randomised Controlled Trials Food For?
In a recent paper, we argue that some of the popularity of RCTs, among the public as well as some practitioners, rests on misunderstandings about what they are capable of accomplishing (Deaton and Cartwright 2016). Well-conducted RCTs could provide unbiased estimates of the average treatment effect (ATE) in the study population, provided no relevant differences between treatment and control are introduced post randomisation, which blinding of subjects, investigators, data collectors, and analysts serves to diminish. Unbiasedness says that, if we were to repeat the trial many times, we would be right on average. Yet we are almost never in such a situation, and with only one trial (as is virtually always the case) unbiasedness does nothing to prevent our single estimate from being very far away from the truth. If, as if often believed, randomisation were to guarantee that the treatment and control groups are identical except for the treatment, then indeed, we would have a precise – indeed exact – estimate of the ATE. But randomisation does nothing of the kind, even at baseline; in any given RCT, nothing ensures that other causal factors are balanced across the groups at the point of randomisation. Investigators often test for balance on observable covariates, but unless the randomisation device is faulty, or people systematically break their assignment, the null hypothesis underlying the test is true by construction, so that the test is not informative and should not be carried out.
Of course, we know that the ATE from an RCT is only an estimate, not the infallible truth, and like other estimates, it has a standard error. If appropriately computed, the standard error of the estimated ATE can give an indication of the importance of other factors. As was understood by Fisher from the very first agricultural trials, randomisation, while doing nothing to guarantee balance on omitted factors, gives us a method for assessing their importance. Yet even here there are pitfalls. The t-statistics for estimated ATEs from RCTs do not in general follow the t-distribution. As recently documented by Young (2016), a large fraction of published studies have made spurious inferences because of this Fisher-Behrens problem, or because of the failure to deal appropriately with multiple-hypothesis testing. Although most of the published literature is problematic, these issues can be addressed by improvements in technique. Not so, however, in cases where individual treatment effects are skewed – as in healthcare experiments, where a one or two individuals can account for a large share of spending (this was true in the Rand Health Experiment); or in microfinance, where a few subjects make money and most do not (where the t-distribution again breaks down). Once again, inferences are likely to be wrong, but here there is no clear fix. When there are outlying individual treatment effects, the estimate depends on whether the outliers are assigned to treatments or controls, causing massive reductions in the effective sample size. Trimming of outliers would fix the statistical problem, but only at the price of destroying the economic problem; for example, in healthcare, it is precisely the few outliers that make or break a programme. In view of these difficulties, we suspect that a large fraction of the published results of RCTs in development and health economics are unreliable.
The ‘credibility’ of RCTs comes from their ability to get answers without the use of potentially contentious prior information about structure, such as specifying other causal factors or detailing the mechanisms through which they operate. A sceptical lay audience is often unwilling to accept prior economic knowledge and even within the profession, there are differences about appropriate assumptions or controls. Yet, as is always the case, the only route to precision is through prior information and controlling for factors that are likely to be important, just as in a (non-randomised) laboratory experiment in physics, biology, or even economics, scientists seek accurate measurement by controlling for known confounders. Cumulative science happens when new results are built on top of old ones – or undermine them – and RCTs, with their refusal to use prior science, make this very difficult. And any RCT can be challenged ex post by examining the differences between treatments and controls as actually allocated, and showing that arguably important factors were unevenly distributed; prior information is excluded by randomisation, but reappears in the interpretation of the results.
A well-conducted RCT can yield a credible estimate of an ATE in one specific population, namely the ‘study population’ from which the treatments and controls were selected. Sometimes this is enough; if we are doing a post hoc program evaluation, if we are testing a hypothesis that is supposed to be generally true, if we want to demonstrate that the treatment can work somewhere, or if the study population is a randomly drawn sample from the population of interest whose ATE we are trying to measure. Yet the study population is often not the population that we are interested in, especially if subjects must volunteer to be in the experiment and have their own reasons for participating or not. A famous early example comes from Ashenfelter (1981), who found that people who volunteer for a training programme tend to have seen a recent drop in their wages; similarly, people who take a drug may be those who have failed other forms of therapy. Indeed, many of the differences in results between experimental and non-experimental studies can be traced not to differences in methodology, but to differences in the populations to which they apply. The ‘Transportation’ Problem
More generally, demonstrating that a treatment works in one situation is exceedingly weak evidence that it will work in the same way elsewhere; this is the ‘transportation’ problem: what does it take to allow us to use the results in new contexts, whether policy contexts or in the development of theory? It can only be addressed by using previous knowledge and understanding, i.e. by interpreting the RCT within some structure, the structure that, somewhat paradoxically, the RCT gets its credibility from refusing to use. If we want to go from an RCT to policy, we need to build a bridge from the RCT to the policy. No matter how rigorous or careful the RCT, if the bridge is built by a hand-waving simile that the policy context is somehow similar to the experimental context, the rigor in the trial does nothing to support a policy; in any chain of evidence, it is the weakest link that determines the overall strength of the claim, not the strongest. Using the results of an RCT cannot simply be a matter of simple extrapolation from the experiment to another context. Causal effects depend on the settings in which they are derived, and often depend on factors that might be constant within the experimental setting but different elsewhere. Even the direction of causality can depend on the context. We have a better chance of transporting results if we recognise the issue when designing the experiment – which itself requires the commitment to some kind of structure – and try to investigate the effects of the factors that are likely to vary elsewhere. Without a structure, without an understanding of why the effects work, we not only cannot transport, but we cannot begin to do welfare economics; just because an intervention works, and because the investigator thinks the intervention makes people better off, is no guarantee that it actually does so. Without knowing why things happen and why people do things, we run the risk of worthless casual (‘fairy story’) causal theorising, and we have given up on one of the central tasks of economics.
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Devyn Springer is a queer black Muslim. In this three-part video series, which is part of Roqayah Chamseddine’s project, “Islam In America,” Springer talks about the difficulty of fighting homophobia in Islamic spaces.
“Oftentimes, if we’re being completely honest, I don’t fight it,” Springer confesses. “I really don’t. I stay silent most of the time. I’m very courageous when I’m at the front line of a protest, but then when you put me in a room with my umma, I stay silent. I think that’s a problem.”
As Springer shares, he used to fight homophobia when faced with it at his mosque and the Muslim student association at his school. But he has chosen silence lately just like women tired of trying to fight sexism or misogyny in Islam might choose silence.
Muslims choose silence because they want to be “model minorities,” according to Springer.
“So many Muslims are concerned with being a model minority and trying to paint this perfect picture of Islam, and it’s damaging. We want to live up to white supremacy and to whiteness and to all these Americanisms so much that we’re not willing to address the very problems in our communities. It has to stop,” Springer declares.
“We’re not model minorities. The model minority doesn’t exist. It’s a myth just to get people to assimilate.”
Roqayah’s “Islam In America” series is an ongoing project , which amplifies the stories of American Muslims and what they struggle with in their day-to-day lives beyond just Islamophobia. It promotes an alternative to the fear of Donald Trump’s presidential administration.
The post Interview: Devyn Springer, Queer Black Muslim, On Homophobia In Islamic Spaces appeared first on Shadowproof .
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Joshua Green of Bloomberg writes that Breitbart News has hired John Carney, a veteran finance journalist, to run a news vertical on the economy. [From Bloomberg: In a bid to expand its influence in the era of Donald Trump, Breitbart News, the crusading website that was an early champion of the incoming president, has hired veteran financial journalist John Carney of The Wall Street Journal to lead a new finance and economics section set to launch soon after the Jan. 20th presidential inauguration. “Breitbart was way ahead of the curve on politics and the rise of Trump,” Carney said in a telephone interview. “I think there’s an opportunity to do that for business, finance and economic news. ” In his new role, Carney will manage a roster of news contributors that includes former CNBC personality Larry Kudlow. … “There simply isn’t a better person in media to lead the economics section of an anti establishment, global news outlet,” Larry Solov, chief executive of Breitbart News Network, said in a statement. Carney, a former attorney and veteran of CNBC and Business Insider, writes about finance with a populist bent that often mirrors Breitbart’s outlook on politics. “We’re going to both break news and provide analysis and commentary as it happens,” he says. While Carney describes the site’s new contributors as having a variety of ideological backgrounds, he says all have become “converts to the cause of economic nationalism and populism. ” Read the rest of the story here. | 0 |
Scott Adams Explains How You Know the New Emails Are DISQUALIFYING For Clinton Posted on Home » Headlines » World News » Scott Adams Explains How You Know the New Emails Are DISQUALIFYING For Clinton
How do I know the new emails are THAT BAD?
While everyone on the left from Harry Reid to Pelosi to former AG Eric Holder are foaming at the mouth over the audacity of James Comey to “side with Putin” and reopen Hillary’s email investigation days before the national election, Dilbert creator Scott Adams explains how he knows the new emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop are DISQUALIFYING for Hillary Clinton:
Some say Comey is a political pawn in a rigged system. By that movie script we can explain why he dropped the initial email case. But we can’t explain why he’s acting against Clinton’s interests now. What changed?
Well, some say Comey had to reopen the case against Clinton after discovering the Weiner laptop emails. If he failed to act, there might be a revolt at the FBI and maybe a whistleblower would come forward . But that leaves unexplained why Comey detailed to Congress how Clinton appeared to be guilty of crimes at the same time he said the FBI was dropping the case. If Comey had been protecting Clinton on the first round, he would have softened his description of her misdeeds, wouldn’t he? But he didn’t seem to hold back anything.
And none of those hypotheses explain why the people who know Comey have high regard for his integrity. Comey also has the security of a 10-year appointment as Director, so he has a low chance of getting fired or politically influenced. That’s exactly why the job has a 10-year term. Given what we know of Comey before any of the Clinton emails, any movie that casts Comey as an ass-covering weasel is probably making a casting mistake.
So allow me to offer an interpretation of events that casts Comey as more of a patriot and hero than an ass-covering weasel. Compare my interpretation with whatever movie you have in your head and see which one works best for explaining and predicting.
My movie says Comey had good evidence against Clinton during the initial investigation but made a judgement call to leave the decision to the American public . For reasons of conscience, and acting as a patriot, Comey explained in clear language to the public exactly what evidence the FBI found against Clinton. The evidence looked daming because it was. Under this interpretation, Comey took a bullet to his reputation for the sake of the Republic. He didn’t want the FBI to steal this important decision away from the people, but at the same time he couldn’t let the people decide blind. So he divulged the evidence and stepped away, like the action hero who doesn’t look back at the explosion.
In the second act of this movie, Comey learns that the Weiner laptop had emails that were so damning it would be a crime against the public to allow them to vote without first seeing a big red flag. And a flag was the best he could do because it was too early in the investigation to leak out bits and pieces of the evidence. That would violate Clinton’s rights.
But Comey couldn’t easily raise a red flag to warn the public because it was against FBI policy to announce a criminal investigation about a candidate so close to election day. So Comey had a choice of either taking another bullet for the Republic or screwing the very country that he has spent his career protecting.
In this movie, Comey did the hero thing. He alerted the public to the fact that the FBI found DISQUALIFYING information on the Weiner laptop. And he took a second bullet to his reputation.
How do I know the new emails are that bad?
I start by assuming Comey is the same man now as the one who was carefully vetted before being hired to protect the integrity of one of our most important institutions. And even Comey’s critics concede he’s smart.
So…
The way you know the new emails are disqualifying for Clinton is because otherwise our hero would have privately informed Congress and honored the tradition of not influencing elections. Comey is smart enough to know his options. And unless he suddenly turned rotten at his current age, he’s got the character to jump in front of a second bullet for the Republic.
According to this movie, no matter who gets elected, we’ll eventually learn of something disqualifying in the Weiner emails.
And we can’t say we weren’t warned. Comey took two bullets to do it.
So compare this movie to your own movie and see which one does the best job of explaining the observed facts. And when we find out what is in the Weiner laptop emails, compare that news to my prediction that the information is disqualifying.
The Persuasion Filter says there is no prefered reality. We all see our own movies. In my movie, Comey’s has a consistent personality from start to finish. He starts out his career as a smart, competent patriot and he later proves it by taking two bullets for the Republic. If your movie script has Comey suddenly changing his basic character for this election season, don’t expect an Oscar.
Read more here… It’s going to be fun watching this ship burn to the ground… | 1 |
The Commission on Presidential Debates said Friday that the first debate on Monday was marred by an unspecified technical malfunction that affected the volume of Donald J. Trump’s voice in the debate hall. Mr. Trump complained after the debate that the event’s organizers had given him a “defective mike,” contributing to his widely panned performance against Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Clinton lampooned Mr. Trump’s claim, telling reporters on her campaign plane, “Anybody who complains about the microphone is not having a good night. ” Mr. Trump was clearly audible to the television audience. And there is no evidence of sabotage. But it turns out he was on to something. “Regarding the first debate, there were issues regarding Donald Trump’s audio that affected the sound level in the debate hall,” the commission said in its statement. The commission, a nonprofit organization that sponsors the presidential debates, released no other information about the malfunction, including how it was discovered, which equipment was to blame, or why the problem was admitted to only on Friday, four days after the debate. Reached by phone, a member of the commission’s media staff said she was not authorized to speak about the matter. Some members of the audience, held at Hofstra University in New York, recalled in interviews that the amplification of Mr. Trump’s voice was at times significantly lower than that for Mrs. Clinton. And at times Mr. Trump appeared to be hunching down to get his face closer to his microphone. Zeke Miller, a reporter for Time Magazine who attended the debate, mentioned the difference on Monday in a report to the traveling press pool for Mr. Trump. From his vantage point, Mr. Miller wrote, Mr. Trump was sometimes “a little quieter” than Mrs. Clinton. In an interview, Mr. Trump said he had tested out the audio system two hours before the event and found it “flawless. ” Only during the debate did he notice the problem, Mr. Trump said, and he tried to compensate by leaning down more closely to the microphone. He complained that the changing volume had distracted him and alleged again that someone had created the problem deliberately. “They had somebody modulating the microphone, so when I was speaking, the mike would go up and down,” Mr. Trump said. “I spent 50 percent of my thought process working the mike. ” He had wanted to pause the debate to address the problem, Mr. Trump said, but felt he could not. “How can I stop the show if I had 100 million people watching?” he said. Asked whether he was reconsidering participating in the next debate, scheduled for Oct. 9, Mr. Trump did not answer directly. “I want to do the next debate, but everybody is talking about the mike,” Mr. Trump said. | 0 |
Philippine’s Duterte Seeks Peace November 25, 2016
Exclusive: Filipino President Duterte oversaw a brutal anti-drug campaign but is now seeking peace with leftist revolutionaries and rejecting U.S. pressure for more counterinsurgency warfare, writes Marjorie Cohn.
By Marjorie Cohn
In April 2016, Rodrigo Duterte won the Philippine presidential election by a landslide, with more than 6 million votes. He openly declared that he was the nation’s first Left president, calling himself a socialist but not a communist. So far, his regime has been controversial, to put it mildly.
The U.S. press has focused on Duterte’s vicious war on drugs that claimed upwards of 2,000 lives and led to the incarceration of tens of thousands of people. His decision to allow former Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos’s burial in the National Cemetery of the Heroes also has drawn the ire of those who recall Marcos’s brutal two-decade regime that killed more than 3,000, tortured tens of thousands, and stole $10 billion from the Philippines. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (Photo credit: rodrigo-duterte.com)
But, significantly, Duterte is engaging with revolutionary forces in the peace process that aims to end 47 years of armed struggle against the repressive Filipino government. And Duterte has taken actions that, for the first time, challenge the longstanding military and economic power of the United States in the Philippines.
Peace Process With Opposition
Since 1969, a civil war has been raging in the Philippines. The roots of the armed conflict can be traced to the colonial and neocolonial domination of the Philippines by the Spanish, then U.S. imperialism, feudal exploitation by big landlords and capitalist interests, as well as widespread bureaucratic corruption. After Duterte’s election, he cited peace as a top priority of his administration, vowing to engage in peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
According to JustPeacePH, an international platform that supports the Philippine peace process and takes its name from its Internet site, “justpeace.ph,” “The daily, systematic and systemic injustice experienced by the people drive them to desire and seek fundamental changes in society through various means. But because the forces against fundamental social change use all means including the instruments and violence of the state to defend the status quo, many Filipinos over many generations have embraced armed struggle to overthrow the ruling system.”
The NDFP “is the alliance of progressive forces seeking to bring about fundamental change in the existing social system in the Philippines through armed revolution,” JustPeacePH states in its Primer on Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines. The NDFP alliance includes trade unions, peasants, youth, women, national minorities, teachers, health workers, religious clergy, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and the New People’s Army.
Duterte’s Peace Initiative
Two rounds of peace negotiations have already occurred since Duterte took office, with a third scheduled for January 2017 in Oslo, Norway.
In May, Duterte declared he would release all political prisoners, which number more than 400, through a presidential declaration of amnesty, provided both houses of congress approve. Nineteen NDFP consultants, who have been involved in the revolutionary movement for years, have already been released.
Duterte offered four cabinet positions to the CCP, but they declined, stating there must first be a comprehensive peace agreement. The CCP, however, recommended a veteran peasant leader who was appointed Secretary of Agrarian Reform and a veteran academic activist leader who was named secretary of social welfare and development.
“These are major appointments,” Luis Jalandoni, NDFP’s Senior Adviser on the Peace Negotiating Panel, told me at a recent conference of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers in Lisbon, Portugal.
NDFP has a people’s army and organs of political power with mass organizations in 71 out of the 81 provinces in the country, Jalandoni said. He noted that landlessness and poverty afflict the 100 million people in the Philippines.
“The NDFP insists on addressing the roots of the armed conflict in order to achieve a just and lasting peace,” Jalandoni said.
The demands in the peace talks are: Release of all political prisoners; Land reform for the peasantry (70% of the population); National industrialization to develop the economy using available human and natural resources; Protect the environment and ancestral lands of the indigenous peoples; and Philippine national sovereignty and abrogation of all unequal treaties with the United States.
Challenging U.S. Power
U.S. domination and interference in the Philippines date back to 1898, when the United States annexed the Philippines. The U.S. continued to exercise colonial rule over the country until 1946, when the Philippines gained its independence although the United States retained many military installations there and the Filipino economy maintained its dependence on the U.S. President George W. Bush, seen announcing the start of his invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, included the Philippines in his “global war on terror.”
With U.S. assistance, Marcos ruled the Philippines with an iron fist from 1965 through 1986, under martial law from 1972 to 1981. In 2002, the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo government developed Oplan Bayanihan, a counterinsurgency program modeled on U.S. strategies. After 9/11, the Bush administration gave Arroyo $100 million to fund that campaign in the Philippines.
Oplan Bayanihan led to large numbers of extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, torture and cruel treatment. Many civilians, including children, have been killed. Philippine military and paramilitary death squads murdered hundreds of members of progressive organizations. Communities and leaders opposed to large-scale and invasive mining have been targeted. Even ordinary people with no political affiliation have not escaped the government’s reign of terror.
From 2001 to 2010, the U.S. government provided more than $507 in military assistance to the Philippine government, facilitating tremendous repression.
Between 2010 and 2015, the Philippine police, military and paramilitary forces perpetrated extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, torture, illegal arrests and forced evacuation, many to enable extraction by mining companies.
The 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which President Barack Obama negotiated with Duterte’s predecessor, gave U.S. troops the right to prolonged deployment in the Philippines. The agreement is widely seen in the Philippines as a threat to the country’s sovereignty.
In September 2016, Duterte declared, “I am not a fan of the Americans … Filipinos should be first before everybody else.” He added, “In our relations to the world, the Philippines will pursue an independent foreign policy. I repeat: The Philippines will pursue an independent foreign policy.”
The United States has not apologized for all the atrocities it committed against the Filipino people, Duterte said. Responding to U.S. criticism of the Philippines for its human rights violations, he stated, “Why are you Americans killing the black people there, shooting them down when they are already on the ground.”
Duterte promised to end joint military maneuvers with U.S. forces and expel the hundreds of U.S. troops currently stationed in the Philippines. He also expressed his intention to end bilateral agreements concluded by his predecessor with the United States and reverse permission for the United States’ use of five Philippine military bases.
“I will break up with America,” Duterte said. “I would rather go to Russia and to China.” He vowed to rescind joint patrols with U.S. and Filipino forces against Chinese expansion in the disputed South China Sea. Indeed, Duterte recently traveled to China and secured valuable fishing rights for Filipinos in the South China Sea.
Hope for Peace Prospects
In an unprecedented development, both the government and the opposition declared unilateral ceasefires in August. But there are still problems with the government’s ceasefire, says Jalandoni, as Duterte doesn’t have full control of the military. The military and paramilitary forces, which are protected by the military, have engaged in several violations that imperil the ceasefire, he said.
“There is high optimism that the peace talks will prosper under the presidency of Duterte,” according to JustPeacePH. “Unlike past presidents who harbor strong anti-communist bias, Duterte seems capable of rethinking the government’s peace strategy since he claims to be a socialist.”
Opposition forces are not uncritical of the excesses in Duterte’s war on drugs. The CCP declared the campaign is becoming anti-people and anti-democratic. Due process must be respected, human rights must be upheld; the drug users and small drug dealers, who come from poverty, require rehabilitation and care, the CCP maintains.
“Understandably, Duterte’s war on drugs and other crimes is given more coverage by the global media,” JustPeacePH wrote in its primer. “But Duterte’s aim to establish a lasting peace in the provinces deserves even more attention as this strikes at the root causes of the problem of illegal drugs and related crimes.”
Jalandoni said, “Duterte is not a saint but he stands for an independent foreign policy. His stand against the United States is respected and has received a lot of support.”
The NDFP, Jalandoni noted, says that “if there are threats against Duterte by U.S. imperialism, the Left will be a reliable ally to him,” adding, “He is the first president to stand up to the United States.”
Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. She is a member of the International Legal Assistance Team that advises the National Democratic Front of the Philippines on human rights and humanitarian law in their peace negotiations. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. Visit her website at http://marjoriecohn.com/ and follow her on Twitter @marjoriecohn. | 1 |
Sigue yendo al gimnasio pese a que ahora es un McDonald’s EL MUNDO TODAY 24 HORAS El Mundo Today en tu buzón Tu Email Acción Contra el Hambre se rinde con Juan Echanove EL ACTOR PODRÍA COMERSE LAS RESERVAS DE ALIMENTOS DE LAS REGIONES MÁS POBRES Este sitio web utiliza cookies para analizar cómo es utilizado el sitio. Las cookies no te pueden identificar. Si continuas navegando supone la aceptación de la Política de Cookies. Estoy de acuerdo. Más info. | 0 |
The many men, women and children who spend their days glued to their smartphones and social media accounts might learn something from Miranda, creator of the groundbreaking megahit “Hamilton. ” Asked in an interview with Delta Sky magazine when and where he finds time to be creative, Mr. Miranda, an avid reader of books and enthusiast for unfettered downtime, replied: “The good idea comes in the moment of rest. It comes in the shower. It comes when you’re doodling or playing trains with your son. ‘Hamilton’ forced me to double down on being awake to the inspirations of just living my life. ” Mr. Miranda’s observation bodes ill for the future, not just of creativity but also of healthy bodies, minds and relationships. No doubt you’ve seen the following scenarios, probably many times: • Young couples out to dinner pull out their smartphones to check messages, emails and social networks even before scanning the menu, and check their phones repeatedly throughout the meal. • Shoppers and commuters standing in line, people crossing busy streets, even cyclists and drivers whose eyes are on their phones instead of their surroundings. • Toddlers in strollers playing with a digital device — a parent’s or perhaps even their own — instead of observing and learning from the world around them. • People walking down the street with eyes on their phones, bumping into others, tripping over or crashing into obstacles. Observations like these have prompted a New York psychotherapist to ask, “What really matters?” in life. In her enlightening new book, “The Power of Off,” Nancy Colier observes that “we are spending far too much of our time doing things that don’t really matter to us. ” Both in and outside her practice, she has encountered many people who have become “disconnected from what really matters, from what makes us feel nourished and grounded as human beings. ” The access to digital technology, starting at ever younger ages, is transforming modern society in ways that can have negative effects on physical and mental health, neurological development and personal relationships, not to mention safety on our roads and sidewalks. Don’t get me wrong. I’m no Luddite. I love technology. I love the convenience and assistance afforded by the myriad apps on my cellphone, a information bank. I remember being amazed, as a Times reporter back in the early 1980s, when I started using word processing and realized how much faster I could write an article. Now computers save tons of time and effort and avert countless embarrassing errors because I can look up facts, figures, spelling, definitions and scholarly publications without leaving my ergonomic chair. But I also love putting my computer in sleep mode and going for a walk with my dog, meeting and chatting with friends, acquaintances and strangers, some of whom have become friends. As with so much else in life, moderation in our digital world should be the hallmark of a healthy relationship with technology. Too many of us have become slaves to the devices that were supposed to free us, giving us more time to experience life and the people we love. Instead, we’re constantly bombarded by bells, buzzes and chimes that alert us to messages we feel compelled to view and respond to immediately. “Most people now check their smartphones 150 times per day, or every six minutes,” Ms. Colier wrote. “And young adults are now sending an average of 110 texts per day. ” Furthermore, she added, “46 percent of smartphone users now say that their devices are something they ‘couldn’t live without. ’” In “The World Unplugged Project,” investigators at the University of Maryland reported that “a clear majority” of students in the 10 countries studied experienced distress when they tried to go without their devices for 24 hours. One in three people admitted they’d rather give up sex than their smartphones. I fear we are turning into digital robots. Will future generations know how to converse with one another face to face? Will they notice the birds, trees, sunrise and the people with whom they share the planet? Instead of visiting art galleries, attending concerts or walking on picturesque wooded paths, one woman I know who came to Woodstock, N. Y. last summer spent the weekend on her iPad communing with her many “friends” on Facebook. All I could think was “What a waste!” Why, you may ask, is it so important to limit our digital lives? “Without open spaces and downtime, the nervous system never shuts down — it’s in constant mode,” Ms. Colier said in an interview. “We’re wired and tired all the time. Even computers reboot, but we’re not doing it. ” She continued, “It’s connections to other human beings — connections, not digital ones — that nourish us and make us feel like we count. Our presence, our full attention is the most important thing we can give each other. Digital communications don’t result in deeper connections, in feeling loved and supported. ” How often is your real work interrupted by signals from your smartphone that you find impossible to ignore? Have you ever avoided intimacy with your partner because you’re in the midst of iPhone Scrabble? Is endlessly snapping selfies and posting your every action and thought on social media creating an unhealthy ? As for physical every hour spent on a device is likely to be an indoor, sedentary one. Screens are stealing time that children and adolescents should be spending on physical activity and sports, reading, or creating and engaging directly with other children, all of which are critical to healthy physical and social development. “Children who overuse online media are at risk of problematic internet use, and heavy users of video games are at risk of internet gaming disorder” (translation: addiction) the American Academy of Pediatrics wrote in its latest policy statement on media use. Ms. Colier, a licensed clinical social worker, said, “The only difference between digital addiction and other addictions is that this is a socially condoned behavior. ” While her book contains a digital detox program, in our interview she offered three steps to help curb one’s digital dependence. 1. Start by recognizing how much digital use is really needed, say, for work or navigation or letting family members know you’re O. K. and what is merely a habit of responding, posting and . 2. Make little changes. Refrain from using your device while eating or spending time with friends, and add one thing a day that’s done without the phone. 3. Become very conscious of what is important to you, what really nourishes you, and devote more time and attention to it. | 1 |
posted by Eddie Astronomers have recorded mysterious signals from 234 stars that they believe could indicate the presence of extraterrestrial intelligence – a notion that’s sure to excite alien truthers and beyond. Astronomers Ermanno Borra and Eric Trottier from Laval University in Canada analyzed 2.5 million stars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey ( SDSS ) project. In their resulting study published in Solar and Stellar Astrophysics journal, the pair conclude that the peculiar signals they recorded could be from aliens trying to make contact with Earth. The researchers came to this potential explanation based on a previous study by Borra which predicted the shape of an extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) signal. The 234 signals identified match this shape exactly. The fact that only a small fraction – 234 out of 2.5 million – of the stars in our sun’s spectrum emitted this signal also matches the previous ETI hypothesis. However the theory that these signals are the result of aliens is only one of a number of possibilities, according to the study, and they could in fact derive from any one of “several possibilities” such as “ rotational transitions in molecules” or “rapid pulsations”. So is this the discovery we’ve been waiting for to finally confirm we’re not alone in the universe? Not quite.. The authors admit that further work is needed to confirm this theory and are also considering the ‘unlikely’ scenario that the signals are due to highly peculiar chemical compositions in a small fraction of galactic halo stars. Breakthrough Listen Initiative , a scientific and technological exploration program that includes Stephen Hawking and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on its board , has announced plans to research the findings further but says a breadth of independently verified proof is required to substantiate the claims. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” the group points out in a statement . “It is too early to unequivocally attribute these purported signals to the activities of extraterrestrial civilizations.” “Internationally agreed-upon protocols for searches for evidence of advanced life beyond Earth (SETI) require candidates to be confirmed by independent groups using their own telescopes, and for all natural explanations to be exhausted before invoking extraterrestrial agents as an explanation,” they added. From Around the Web Founder of WorldTruth.Tv and WomansVibe.com Eddie ( 8968 Posts )
Eddie L. is the founder and owner of www.WorldTruth.TV. and www.Womansvibe.com. Both website are dedicated to educating and informing people with articles on powerful and concealed information from around the world. I have spent the last 36+ years researching Bible, History, Alternative Health, Secret Societies, Symbolism and many other topics that are not reported by mainstream media. | 0 |
CHASSIEU, France — A patriotic sea of supporters, waving red, white and blue flags, greeted the newly ascendant presidential hopeful François Fillon this week at a soulless conference center in this suburb of Lyon. Mr. Fillon described radical Islam as a “totalitarianism like the Nazis” to the cheers of an enthusiastic crowd, adding that France would need Russia’s help to fight it. Catholics, Protestants and Jews “don’t denounce the values of the Republic,” he thundered — unlike the faithful of a certain other religion. “We’ve got to reduce immigration to its strict minimum,” he said. “Our country is not a sum of communities, it is an identity!” In a year when nativist politics have become the ticket to electoral victory, Mr. Fillon, 62, a former prime minister has managed to successfully ride the same nationalist and xenophobic currents as that have pushed politicians in Britain and the United States to victory. For months, Mr. Fillon polled third and even fourth among presidential contenders in France and was largely dismissed. But his defense of French values and identity has suddenly made him the as France’s Republican Party prepares to vote Sunday in a runoff to choose its in the 2017 elections — and quite possibly the next president of France. That strategy has not only vaulted Mr. Fillon to the front of the pack, surprising the French news media, pundits and politicians. It has also has shifted the playing field for French conservatives far to the right, snug alongside the National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, who may be his strongest challenger next year. The two are now competing for some of the same voters, but the xenophobic, National Front is not regarded as respectable by many French people, particularly Catholics. Mr. Fillon, on the other hand, has positioned himself as a staunch defender of French values, vowing to restore authority, honor the Roman Catholic Church and exert “strict administrative control” over Islam. Such appeals were met with fervent cheers during his campaign rally here by supporters who agreed that French identity and French values were under threat from both Islam and the secular left. If those themes sound familiar to the ones that already shaped pivotal votes in Britain and the United States this year, it is because they are. And Mr. Fillon, an unsmiling political veteran, has used them to remarkable effect in France to change his political fortunes. Few analysts give France’s Socialists and their unpopular president, François Hollande, a strong chance in the spring. But Mr. Fillon, with his frown, suggests a return to authority, and the rally crowd of about 5, 000 here loved it. “He really respects French values, and that is very, very important to us,” said Vincent Robert, a man in late who said he was a retired artisan. “There is uprightness and frankness,” Mr. Robert said. “And incredible enthusiasm for him in the middle class. ” His friend Bruno Perrin, a retired management consultant, was equally in thrall. “It’s his defense of values — Christianity, the family, our traditions — that is what we like,” he said. Mr. Fillon’s supporters say he is now the candidate best placed to bar Ms. Le Pen’s path to victory. Analysts, however, warn that Mr. Fillon’s proposed austerity cure for France’s economic stagnation — cutting 500, 000 Civil Service positions and 100 billion euros (about $105 billion) in spending — could be just the thing to push frightened voters into the arms of the National Front leader. Still, parishioners at Paris’s solidly bourgeois church, a hulking monument that looms over a busy square, were in no doubt that Mr. Fillon was the one. “He’s got a sense of honesty and the family,” said one churchgoer, Cécile Despointes, after midday Mass this week. “A man of courage and perseverance. ” It is a surprising turnabout for Mr. Fillon, who just weeks ago was best known as the unsuccessful prime minister from of a failed French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who mocked him behind his back. “Courage, Fillon!” Mr. Sarkozy would say derisively, Patrick Buisson, a journalist and adviser to Mr. Sarkozy, wrote in his recent book “The People’s Cause. ” Then, Mr. Fillon trumped both Mr. Sarkozy — humiliating him in Sunday’s round of voting — and the pollsters. He came out on top in 87 of France’s 101 départements, or districts, with 44 percent of the vote, 16 points ahead of the rival he faces Sunday, another former prime minister, Alain Juppé. Mr. Fillon won in Paris and in rural France. Mr. Juppé’s more moderate agenda — fewer cuts in the Civil Service and public spending, less accommodation of Russia, friendlier to gay couples — attracted voters, which in turn disturbed the right’s traditional electorate. “It bothered me that so many people on the left voted for him,” Michel Carron, a rural official who attended the rally here, said of Mr. Juppé. Mr. Fillon “defends our values,” he said. “We’re in a sort of despair, and he makes us live,” Mr. Carron said, adding that he knows National Front sympathizers who voted for him. As in the United States, the pollsters had failed to detect a hidden yearning for the restoration of a mythical older France, rural and dominated by the values of a conservative Roman Catholic Church. “The media, television, they are out of phase with the population, which is fed up with being called xenophobic and racist,” said Ms. Despointes, after Mass outside in Paris. Mr. Fillon is not keen on social changes like marriage and chafes at being the “vassal” of America, as he put it in his speech here. The crowd at the rally was almost all white. “He’ll help us to find our identity again,” said Jacqueline Badoux, a retired teacher who attended the rally. “In the fight against Islamic State, he will have the authority,” said Ms. Badoux’s husband, Bernard, also a retired teacher, who approved mightily of Mr. Fillon’s performance here. The very qualities the mercurial Mr. Sarkozy made fun of, according to Mr. Buisson — Mr. Fillon’s rural origins and ponderousness, “his legendary caution and his silences” — earned him favor with the crowd here. “This country is the daughter of Christianity, as well as the Enlightenment,” Mr. Fillon told the crowd outside Lyon. “I will put the family back at the heart of all public policy. ” The crowd roared. Catholics are gravitating toward him because “for the essential values — family, nation, identity — Fillon incarnates them with a certain tranquillity,” said the Rev. Grosjean, a Versailles priest who writes an influential Catholic blog. “There’s a desire to break with the spirit of May ’68 and go back to the values of family and education, to a France that is not ashamed of its roots,” said Father Grosjean, referring to a period when thousands of demonstrators took to the streets protesting France’s order. For Catholics, “he captures this alliance between conviction and realism,” he said. At the rally, Mr. Fillon promised to bring back school uniforms, restore respect in schools and stand up to America. Mr. Fillon is reminiscent of Donald J. Trump in a significant way: He is friendlier toward Russia and its leader, Vladimir V. Putin. Indeed, the French news media has detailed his numerous ties to Mr. Putin — he has stayed at Mr. Putin’s residence at Sochi, according to the newspaper Le Monde, and played billiards with him. He even received a bottle of wine from the Russian leader on the death of his mother, according to the newsmagazine L’Express, which described Mr. Fillon as the French politician who “appreciates” Mr. Putin the most. Such concerns, it appears, did little to damage Mr. Trump’s candidacy in the United States. Similarly, they may be just as easy to overlook for supporters of Mr. Fillon like Ms. Despointes. “He’s a man of conviction,” she said outside . “For people who have moral values. ” | 1 |
Fresh reports are confirming what we already knew – that Hillary Clinton was nowhere to be seen on election night because she was preoccupied with a terrible rage, losing it once again in front of her closest circle of staff and surrogates.
If these accounts have any validity, she was absolutely livid. Is there a more dangerous enemy to make, or a more unstable person to attempt to gain power over the nation?
According to The Gateway Pundit :
Radio host Todd Kincannon from The Kincannon Show tweeted today that a CNN reporter told him Hillary Clinton became physically violent towards Robby Mook and John Podesta around midnight last Tuesday as the presidency was slipping away.
Hillary was reportedly drunk and had a violent temper on full display. For one reason or another, she did not appear on stage election night to concede, delay, or anything else.
And it appears there was good reason for it, as she was busy lashing out, blaming those around and closest too her and playing the victim as her loss became more and more apparent.
CNN reporter tells me Hillary became physically violent towards Robby Mook and John Podesta around midnight; had to be briefly restrained.
— The Kincannon Show (@kincannon_show) November 14, 2016
She was. I posted about that too. She was in a “psychotic drunken rage” according to my reporter friend. Doctor added sedatives to the mix. https://t.co/jZv376ydDM
— The Kincannon Show (@kincannon_show) November 15, 2016
The report is unconfirmed, but is hardly surprising. It seems to fit the narrative we all expected.
Already accounts of that fateful election night have emerged of Hillary crying and sobbing all night, and rambling incoherently to her staff and support network.
In between her sobbing fits, Hillary reportedly remembered to blame FBI Director Comey as well as the media – and likely many others – for her loss :
Here’s what I know, not my opinion. About 6:30 this morning she called an old friend. She was crying inconsolably. She couldn’t stop crying. And her friend, her female friend from way, way back said it was even hard to understand what she was saying she was crying so hard. This is Hillary we’re talking about.
Eventually her friend said she could make out that she was blaming James Comey, the Director of the FBI, for her loss , and, I don’t understand exactly, the president of the United States for not doing enough. (via Gateway Pundit )
Only a few weeks before the election, a report emerged about Hillary’s alleged behavior backstage after the Commander-in-Chief Forum (the first pseudo-debate against Trump). According to the report, she went fully ballistic after host Matt Lauer was ‘allowed’ to ask an unscripted question pushing her on the email scandal:
Behind the scenes, NBC technicians and cameramen at the Wednesday night, Commander-in-Chief Forum (Sept 7) report that Hillary Clinton was so angry and incensed that she had been ‘blind-sided’ by one question she was not prepared for and had not approved in advance.
“When her time in front of the cameras ended, Clinton shook the hand Lauer extended to her and smiled once more for the wide camera shot and then Hillary proceeded to pick up a full glass of water and threw it at the face of her assistant and the screaming started. She was in a full meltdown and no one on her staff dared speak with her
[…]
[Hillary was] screaming at her staff, “you f – – – ing idiots, you were supposed to have this thing set up for me and you’ve screwed it up! If that f – – – ing bastard wins we all hang from nooses! Lauer’s finished…and if I lose it’s all on you ass – – – – s for screwing this up.”
[…]
Interim DNC chairman Donna Brazile, the first black woman to hold the position, was singled out by Hillary during the rant. She screamed at Donna, “I’m so sick of your face. You stare at the wall like a brain dead buffalo, while letting that f – – – ing Lauer get away with this. What are you good for, really? Get the f – – – to work janitoring this mess – do I make myself clear?”
Much more could be said about the reputation that precedes Hillary, her angry and demeaning temper, throwing objects, etc. but there is no need to go on.
The people of the United States dodged a devil… but that doesn’t mean that more evil isn’t fast approaching with the cesspool that is Washington.
No election is going to break the cycle of corruption and criminality that has long defined the actions of the leaders of the federal government.
Read more:
We Finally Know Why Hillary Disappeared On Election Night: “She Was Crying Inconsolably… It Was Hard To Understand What She Was Saying She Was Crying So Hard”
Is Something Wrong With Hillary? Will NOT Concede Tonight “She Was In Full Meltdown”: Hillary Unleashed On Donna Brazile For Unapproved Debate Question
Make No Mistake: “Everyone Who Is Warning About Clinton Is A Target and They Are Marked”
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When emergency medical technicians were called to a mass casualty event in Brooklyn last summer, dispatchers used a word more associated with apocalyptic Hollywood movies than medical emergencies: zombies. Emergency workers reported multiple people at the scene, near a subway station on Myrtle Avenue and Broadway, on the border of Bushwick and “all of whom had a degree of altered mental status that was described by bystanders as ‘zombielike,’” according to a study published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. In fact, they had overdosed on a designer drug — one that would raise alarms both in the medical community and drug enforcement circles and could, possibly, be a precursor of more potent and dangerous drugs still to come. The report, based on blood and urine samples drawn from eight of the 18 men taken to area hospitals that day, offers the first detailed look at a powerful drug that has caused dozens of people to overdose. It identifies the drug as a synthetic cannabinoid called that was originally developed by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. The report, by a team of authors, offers a window into the world of synthetic drugs, which are growing increasingly powerful even as the makers of the illicit substances continue to create new chemical compounds to evade detection. The drugs are usually described by the generic shorthand “synthetic marijuana,” but Roy Gerona, a clinical chemist at the University of California, San Francisco, who helped write the report, said the term was dangerously misleading. “There is this false idea out there that these drugs are safe, because no one overdoses on marijuana,” he said. But the drug used in Brooklyn — with the street name 24 Karat Gold — was 85 times as potent as the main agent in marijuana, THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, according to lab tests. In fact, synthetic cannabinoids have a completely different chemical structure from THC, according to the study — one of the major draws for both makers and consumers of designer drugs. These chemical compounds, often created in labs in China based on research conducted at western universities and pharmaceutical companies, are not regulated when they appear on the market and are hard to detect. “And if you are someone who is regularly drug tested, it will not show up,” adding to the drugs’ appeal, Mr. Gerona said. He traced the history of synthetic drugs back to Clemson University and a researcher, John W. Huffman, who was looking for ways to create a drug in the lab that could enhance the medicinal aspects of THC while eliminating the psychotropic effects. In the course of his work, Mr. Huffman synthesized more than 300 compounds, and his work was published in academic literature. Not long after, in about 2008, a synthetic compound began appearing on the street, called K2 in America and Spice in Europe. The main chemical agent, known as was named after the Clemson researcher. Soon was showing up around the country and was eventually scheduled as a Class 1 narcotic. The drug makers would have to evolve to stay one step ahead of law enforcement. In the case of the drug in the Brooklyn outbreak, Pfizer established a patent for a synthetic cannabinoid it called in 2009. The drug seems to have been abandoned by the company and was never tested on humans. But the patent is public, and Mr. Gerona said that drug labs in China and other foreign nations scour patents for information that can be useful in creating the next generation of drugs. These drugs move straight from the lab to the street, so the first trials of their effects are conducted on buyers. was 50 times as powerful than that first generation of designer drugs like K2, according to the study. As the drugs become more potent, the way they are mixed by middlemen becomes more crucial — with a slight miscalculation having possibly devastating effects. In Brooklyn, Mr. Gerona said, it seemed someone had gotten the dosing wrong. The result: users falling into a trancelike state, groaning and moaning, their eyes lifeless and their movements slow and seemingly mechanical. For the first time, the researchers break down how much money can be made from a product like . The way the market works is simple. Overseas labs create a new compound and often use hidden websites — also referred to as the dark web — to market and sell the product. Online, according to the researchers, could be found in powder form, selling for $1. 95 to $3. 80 a gram, or $1, 950 to $3, 800 a kilogram. It is then mixed in with cheap herbal products, allowing users to smoke the drug. A sample of the drug recovered in Brooklyn contained 16 milligrams of per gram of smokable mixture. So 1 kilogram of could be portioned out over 15, 625 doses, with a typical street price of $35. That means the dealer stands to make close to $500, 000. As soon as the drug shows up on the radar of authorities, the makers move on to the next compound. “There is this cat and mouse chase, with clandestine labs synthesizing new drug, waiting until it becomes scheduled and then moving to a new compound,” Mr. Gerona said, referring to how drugs are made illegal. And if the dangers of synthetic cannabinoids have researchers concerned, the risks of designer opioids are perhaps even greater. Just last month, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration issued an alert for a new designer drug called Pink, which had been responsible for 46 deaths, including 31 in New York and 10 in North Carolina. “Pink belongs to a family of deadly synthetic opioids far more potent than morphine,” according to the agency. “It is usually imported to the United States, mainly from illicit labs in China. ” Mr. Gerona said that while it is not in the interest of dealers to kill their clients, as these synthetic compounds become increasingly potent, the risks will continue to grow. “No compound that has been made yet has the potential to kill thousands of people,” he said. “But that is a scenario that is becoming more and more close to reality. ” | 1 |
We Use Cookies: Our policy [X] Liverpool Fans Sign Petition To End Premier League Early This Season November 7, 2016 - BREAKING NEWS , SPORT Share 0 Add Comment
FOLLOWING their commanding 6-1 victory over Watford yesterday, Liverpool fans have begun pushing for an immediate end to the Premier League season, which would see their team, currently sitting on top of the table, declared champions.
“This league is just too long, there’s always been talk of putting in a winter break, but I think fans of all teams would agree, we need the league to finish around about right this minute, to save the bodies of these fragile footballers,” one Liverpool fan urged on social media as he shared a link to the petition.
The petition entitled ‘end Premier League this week as fixture list is dangerously congested, nothing to do with the fact Liverpool would then win the league by virtue of being on the top of the table right now’ has been signed by over 1 million Liverpool fans in the last 24 hours.
“Look, this is about player welfare first and foremost, I hadn’t even realised we’re top of the league when I signed it,” confirmed another Liverpool devotee.
Manchester United fans have been forced to deny they set up the petition for their own amusement in order to watch Liverpool fans ‘lose the run of themselves’ but admitted that witnessing such an occurrence is likely the only joy they will feel this season. | 0 |
KHUZAA, Gaza Strip — The attack tunnels Hamas has constructed running from Gaza into Israel have long sown deep fears in the communities on the Israeli side of the border fence, where residents talk of nightmares about Palestinian militants popping up into their dining rooms or kindergartens. Now, the tunnels are keeping others up at night: the Palestinians who live on the Gaza side of the fence. People living on the edges of Gaza border towns, like the Israelis a few miles away, complain of hearing surreptitious digging in the wee hours, and voice a parallel anxiety about the tunnels being rapidly rebuilt near their homes becoming targets for Israeli strikes. They are raising unusually harsh — albeit anonymous, for fear of reprisal — criticism of Hamas, the militant Islamist group that rules Gaza, for putting people at risk. (They also sought anonymity to avoid their neighborhoods being targeted for Israeli strikes.) “Dear God — we will be torn apart,” said a woman in Khuzaa, a village near the fence. She spoke on the condition she be identified only as Umm Nidal — Arabic for mother of Nidal, her eldest son — for fear of reprisal by Hamas. Gesturing at the lumpy sand lot where she believes a tunnel entry point is hidden next to the shelter of tin, tarp and wood where her family members have lived since their home was destroyed in the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, she said, “I am sure, one million percent, that those with tunnels under their houses cannot sleep, or taste the joy of life. ” The fears of Umm Nidal and her neighbors only intensified over the past month as Israeli officials announced that they had located two tunnels about 100 feet underground — the first since the August 2014 that ended 50 days of fighting in which more than 2, 100 Palestinians and 70 Israelis were killed. One, the Israelis said, was equipped with electricity, communications lines and a rail to help clear rubble. The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, also reported that a captured Hamas fighter had revealed the routes of tunnels in northern Gaza and said some included rooms for resting, showers and dining areas. “Every tunnel that appeared on that map will be hit in the day before the night,” said a woman who lives with her extended family in a small shack on the edge of the northern border town of Beit Hanoun. The tunnels were the prime rationale Israel gave for its ground invasion of Gaza during the 2014 battle with Hamas, which began after 13 gunmen emerged from one at dawn about a mile from a small kibbutz. Israel’s leaders say they destroyed 32 tunnels during the 2014 operation, including 14 that penetrated into Israeli territory. During the conflict, Hamas fighters killed five Israeli soldiers after infiltrating their base through a tunnel, and at least 23 Palestinian militants were killed after invading Israel through tunnels on four separate occasions. Israeli officials have said recently that Hamas has most likely rebuilt much of its underground network. At least 18 Hamas members have been killed in tunnel accidents since the end of the war, according to death notices posted on the website of its military wing. After the announcement of the second tunnel discovery this month, Hamas fighters clashed with Israeli forces near the fence for two days, leading to Israeli airstrikes that, according to Palestinian news reports, killed a woman. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said on Friday that Hamas deliberately put civilians in harm’s way by digging tunnels underneath homes, which he called “an insidious plan” to attack Israelis “while concealing Hamas activities behind the people of Gaza. ” Taher a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said tunnels “create a sense of a balance of power” against an enemy with far more sophisticated equipment, including drones. “The Israelis can watch our fighters on the ground, but can they say what is inside a tunnel?” Mr. Nounou said. “As long as there is Israeli aggression against us, the tunnels will be our priority. ” Sari Bashi, a spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch and expert on international law regarding warfare, said that building tunnels in residential neighborhoods was not explicitly prohibited. But she said militant groups had “an obligation to take all feasible measures to protect civilians, including not taking the armed conflict to civilian areas, to the extent possible. ” Ms. Bashi said that while Gaza’s density makes that difficult, “it also seems as if armed groups are choosing to dig tunnels in populated areas because it provides cover, and that raises questions. ” In April, Israel suspended the delivery of cement to Gaza for private individuals intending to reconstruct homes destroyed in the 2014 war, accusing an official in Gaza’s economy ministry of siphoning construction materials for other purposes. The ministry denied the allegations. About 4, 065 of the 17, 800 destroyed homes, or 23 percent, have been reconstructed, according to data from the United Nations, which is overseeing the mechanism for importing construction materials. An additional 5, 095 homes were in the process of being rebuilt but the work has been halted because of the Israeli suspension. Among those are the home of a woman from Beit Hanoun, who is 42 and said that when she received her first voucher to buy cement from an approved vendor, he had nothing to sell her. At the same time, the woman — who, like a dozen border residents interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could speak frankly about Hamas and to avoid tipping off the Israeli military — and her relatives have been jolted awake over the past year by trucks rolling by at night, she said. Residents said they had heard thudding noises below an nearby shack that they think covers a tunnel entrance. They said they were too afraid to ask the truck drivers or other men they see around the shack what was going on. “How can we say they are helping when they are building tunnels?” a woman asked of Hamas, tapping the rubble under her feet. Naji Sarhan, the deputy housing minister in Gaza, denied that Hamas was taking construction material, particularly cement, intended for reconstruction, instead accusing vendors of illegally selling their supplies on the black market. He said Hamas had “its own ways” to obtain building materials. In Beit Hanoun’s “Caravan Quarter,” a cluster of donated mobile homes where hundreds have been camped since the war’s end as they wait to rebuild, the anger was palpable. “We have a Gaza City under the ground, and we have nothing up here,” said one in the camp, who spoke on the condition he be identified only as Akram, and said he made a living delivering groceries. A neighbor who is 29 and goes by the name Abu Mohammad, said that the danger of nearby tunnels made him reluctant to rebuild. “I give it 99. 5 percent that our house will be destroyed again,” he said. “I go crazy thinking about it. ” Instead, Abu Mohammad said he was trying to sell his plot of land on the fringe of Beit Hanoun and move to the relatively safer confines inside town. But the only offer he has gotten was for the equivalent of $140 a square meter — less than half the $310 he paid in 2013. In Johor another town along Gaza’s edge, one mother who goes by the name Umm Fadi said she had sold four sheep and her gold jewelry, used her savings and then borrowed money to scrape together $8, 750 to buy a quarter of an acre in sight of the fence. A similar plot farther inland would have cost more than $20, 000, she said. “You stretch your legs to the size of your mattress,” Umm Fadi said, using a Palestinian saying for living within your means. She knows there are probably tunnels under the property. Her who declined to give her name, noted that Israeli airstrikes during the 2014 conflict exposed tunnels in the area. “The land was pounded, and everything showed,” she said. A few months ago, a relative of theirs slipped into a tunnel in the area during heavy rains, and had to be pulled out by . “We lost our home last time,” Umm Fadi said, shaking her head. “This time we fear for the souls of our children. ” | 1 |
VIENTIANE, Laos — It was brief and it was only pleasantries, but President Obama and President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines spoke to each other on Wednesday, just two days after Mr. Duterte’s profane outburst prompted Mr. Obama to cancel their first meeting. The two men spoke while they were waiting with other world leaders to enter a gala dinner at a summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations here, according to a White House official. The official did not say what the two men discussed, except to suggest that it was not substantive. For reporters covering the dinner, the prospect of a meeting or handshake between Mr. Obama and Mr. Duterte was the story of the evening. Publicly, at least, it fizzled: At a photo session with the leaders, Mr. Obama stood several spots to the left of Mr. Duterte. At dinner, they were seated far enough from each other to make a chance encounter unlikely. Mr. Duterte chatted with Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia during the photo session and later over dinner, where he lifted his wineglass to toast Mr. Medvedev. Mr. Obama, meanwhile, appeared to be having a sober exchange with Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei. Mr. Obama canceled a formal meeting with Mr. Duterte after the Philippine leader called him a “son of a whore” and threatened to repeat it in person, if he raised the issue of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. Mr. Duterte later said he regretted the comments, which he described as an overreaction to news media reports he had read about Mr. Obama’s plans to press him on his tactics for combating drug trafficking. | 0 |
By Paul Craig Roberts on November 9, 2016 It seems that the oligarchs were deceived by their own media propaganda. Donald Trump has won a stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, wrongfooting investors around the world and defying Republican and Democratic political elites with his populist “Drain the Swamp” and “Make America Great Again” movement.
by Paul Craig Roberts
The US presidential election is historic, because the American people were able to defeat the oligarchs.
Hillary Clinton, an agent for the Oligarchy, was defeated despite the vicious media campaign against Donald Trump. This shows that the media and the political establishments of the political parties no longer have credibility with the American people.
It remains to be seen whether Trump can select and appoint a government that will serve him and his goals to restore American jobs and to establish friendly and respectful China, Syria, and Iran.
It also remains to be seen how the Oligarchy will respond to Trump’s victory. Wall Street and the Federal Reserve can cause an economic crisis in order to put Trump on the defensive, and they can use the crisis to force Trump to appoint one of their own as Secretary of the Treasury. Rogue agents in the CIA and Pentagon can cause a false flag attack that would disrupt Russia.
Trump could make a mistake and retain neoconservatives in his government.
With Trump there is at least hope. Unless Trump is obstructed by bad judgment in his appointments and by obstacles put in his way, we should expect an end to Washington’s orchestrated conflict with Russia, the removal of the US missiles on Russia’s border with Poland and Romania, the end of the conflict in Ukraine, and the end of Washington’s effort to overthrow the Syrian government. However, achievements such as these imply the defeat of the US Oligarchy. Although Trump defeated Hillary, the Oligarchy still exists and is still powerful. NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
Trump said that he no longer sees the point of NATO 25 years after the Soviet collapse. If he sticks to his view, it means a big political change in Washington’s EU vassals. The hostility toward Russia of the current EU and NATO officials would have to cease. German Chancellor Merkel would have to change her spots or be replaced. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg would have to be dismissed.
We do not know who Trump will select to serve in his government. It is likely that Trump is unfamiliar with the various possibilities and their positions on issues. It really depends on who is advising Trump and what advice they give him.
Once we see his government, we will know whether we can be hopeful for the changes that now have a chance.
If the oligarchy is unable to control Trump and he is actually successful in curbing the power and budget of the military/security complex and in holding the financial sector politically accountable, Trump could be assassinated. Wars
Trump said that he will put Hillary in prison. He should first put her on trial for treason and war crimes along with all of the neoconservatives. That would clear the decks for peace with the other two major nuclear powers over whom the neoconservatives seek hegemony.
Although the neoconservatives would still have contacts in the hidden deep state, it would make it difficult for the vermin to organize false flag operations or an assassination. Rogue elements in the military/security complex could still pull off an assassination, but without neocons in the government a coverup would be more difficult.
Trump has more understanding and insight than his opponents realize. For a man such as Trump to risk acquiring so many powerful enemies and to risk his wealth and reputation, he had to have known that the people’s dissatisfaction with the ruling establishment meant he could be elected president.
We won’t know what to expect until we see who are the Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries. If it is the usual crowd, we will know Trump has been captured.
A happy lasting result of the election is the complete discrediting of the US media. The media predicted an easy Hillary victory and even Democratic Party control of the US Senate. Even more important to the media’s loss of influence and credibility, despite the vicious media attack on Trump throughout the presidential primaries and presidential campaign, the media had no effect outside the Northeast and West coasts, the stomping grounds of the One Percent. The rest of the country ignored the media.
I did not think the Oligarchy would allow Trump to win. However, it seems that the oligarchs were deceived by their own media propaganda. Assured that Hillary was the sure winner, they were unprepared to put into effect plans to steal the election.
Hillary is down, but not the Oligarchs. If Trump is advised to be conciliatory, to hold out his hand, and to take the establishment into his government, the American people will again be disappointed. In a country whose institutions have been so completely corrupted by the Oligarchy, it is difficult to achieve real change without bloodshed.
CrossTalk: Trump’s Triumph! Against almost all the odds Donald Trump wins the American presidency. This is a historic political earthquake for the United States and the world. Welcome to Trumpland! CrossTalking with Mark Sleboda, Gilbert Doctorow, and Rory Suchet. Published on Nov 9, 2016 Related Posts: | 1 |
By Michael Maharrey The federal government ratcheted up its game of chicken with states over REAL ID last month, threatening once again to ban residents... | 0 |
deskpilot deskpilot | 0 |
According to the rules of modern marketing, every company, like every superhero or extreme villain, must be able to communicate an origin story. Among origin stories, while meant to lend distinction, tend instead to achieve a blurring sameness. Someone — a visionary — experiences or observes a material privation that prompts an epiphany. This typically happens while on a sofa, or in a bar or a dorm room or on a hilltop in Bhutan, after which the visionary, instead of merely saying “huh,” wondering about the next episode of “Vanderpump Rules,” and never giving the revelation another thought, begins the task of mounting an empire. The story of Warby Parker more or less conforms to this narrative: One of the young lost his glasses on a backpacking trip, discovered that they were too expensive to replace, squinted for months and then, with friends who could relate, built a company in 2010 with the goal of producing glasses that didn’t cost many hundreds of dollars. Warby Parker has done very well, opening stores across the country that evoke libraries (another, most recently in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn) and generally distilling branding to its essence. Each pair of glasses seems to say, “I don’t know anyone who has ever met anyone who has ever thought about voting for Donald Trump. ” Imagine how you would feel, though, if you had been selling eyewear for decades, and your origin story dated not to the era of Malia Obama’s years but to the period of Ellis Island arrivals and mass emigration from Minsk. Both Moscot and Cohen’s Fashion Optical are New York institutions that began as pushcart businesses, with immigrant founders — Hyman Moscot and Abe Cohen — selling eyeglasses on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the early 20th century. Their flagship stores are from each other on Orchard and Delancey Streets. Moscots and Cohens still run the businesses, and they have been forced to respond to Warby Parker’s Occupy Eyewear agenda. This month, Gary Gerber, the host of the Internet radio program “The Power Hour,” which bills itself as “optometry’s only live radio show,” interviewed Harvey Moscot, who explained to listeners outside New York that as a purveyor of eyewear in Manhattan, “you are at the center of optical chaos. ” Moscot has responded to the feverish competition by outstylizing everyone else, remodeling its Lower East Side store three years ago to look like a steampunk fantasy island. The vibe is so steeped in history and authenticity that it makes Warby Parker look like a T. G. I. Friday’s. Moscot has also expanded internationally, opening a branch in London in December. Cohen’s faces the challenge of trying to seem hip as a franchise business with 130 stores. Cohen’s, unlike Moscot and Warby Parker, sells brands that are not its own (Gucci, Tom Ford and so on). A few weeks ago, however, it began selling a house line called the Collective simple frames that are meant to look as if they come with a free Smith Corona, and sell for under $100. Cohen’s also remodeled its flagship store, outfitting it with subway tiles and making it look like the kind of place a recent graduate of a liberal arts college might come to shop. Recently, I sat down with Bob Cohen, who runs Cohen’s, at Katz’s Delicatessen on the Lower East Side. The place was packed at lunchtime and has thrived by not changing anything, not recalibrating, not making vegan pastrami. In the 1970s, the neighborhood was excluded from laws that kept many stores closed on Sundays, and Cohen’s made the most of it. People would come from Westchester County and New Jersey and Long Island to shop, and Cohen’s began offering service so that customers could go home with their glasses the same afternoon. So how can a business like Cohen’s distinguish itself in this particular moment? It is Mr. Cohen’s view that his company can prevail. “You don’t go to Warby Parker for fashion,” he said. “It’s a very basic product. ” This, of course, misreads the extent to which antifashion is fashion. As an aesthetic, antifashion as fashion is annoying and alienating, as many people who are over 40, not particularly slender or less prestigiously schooled can attest when visiting a Warby Parker outlet. There is democracy in a relatively low price, but a sense of exclusion is woven into the gestalt. Are you really smart enough to be shopping at Warby Parker? Have you read even a fraction of the books displayed? It’s dispiriting in a way to see chain stores feel as if they must contort themselves to stay vital in what is becoming an ever more polarized retail culture. A store like Cohen’s never makes you feel like a loser. Maybe it should post that outside of every branch, and declare a social victory. | 1 |
Between seemingly nonstop political jolts and springlike winter days, the world has felt like a pretty unstable place lately. As news alerts buzz your phone and temperatures fluctuate wildly from day to day, you may ask yourself, are there any stable places left in the world? The answer is yes. So, relax. An annual survey of the best countries in the world was released on Tuesday by U. S. News World Report, along with YR’s BAV Consulting and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Their 2017 rankings prioritized countries that enjoyed some measure of peace, quiet and prosperity. “Our data captured widespread global concern for the social and geopolitical changes that cast many nations into uncertainty and turmoil,” said John Gerzema, chief executive of BAV Consulting. “The new rankings reflect people’s desire to restore some sense of order by rewarding nations they perceive as championing neutrality, stability and diplomacy. ” The survey was conducted after the 2016 United States presidential election and polled more than 21, 000 people described by organizers as “business leaders, informed elites and general citizens. ” America slid three spots and was ranked the country in the world. The results are broken down into a range of categories that include the most powerful country, the best country to invest in, and the best country for women, children and retirees. Here is a quick look at their findings to satiate your escapist fantasies. Switzerland took the top spot for the first time based on a combination of its attitude toward education, democracy, business and quality of life. Canada was ranked second and Britain third. Germany, last year’s winner, slid to fourth in part because of a string of terrorist attacks and political tension over its decision to admit large numbers of refugees. Japan came in fifth place. The United States dropped to No. 7. Survey respondents gave it lower marks on business friendliness, respect for human rights and democracy, and educational quality they also said they had less desire to visit the country. Nearly 75 percent of respondents said they lost some degree of respect for the United States after the election of Donald J. Trump as president. That said, America’s slide in the general rankings did not diminish respondents’ sense that it is the most powerful country in the world, based on military and economic might and its political influence across the globe. The United States leads the world in military spending — the military gets a larger share of the federal budget than any other part of government — and President Trump has called for that to grow by $54 billion. Following the United States on the list were Russia, China, the United Kingdom and Germany. Sweden was ranked the best country in the world for women. That may come as a surprise to American conservatives, some of whom — like the Fox News host Bill O’Reilly have argued in recent weeks that criminal hordes of Muslim immigrants have forced frightened Swedish women to barricade themselves at home. That Sweden had a temporary “mansplaining” hotline last year — which women could call to report condescending instances of men explaining things to them that they already knew — may have helped matters. The United States was ranked 16th. The ranking was based on how survey respondents viewed a country’s position on human rights, gender equality, income equality, safety and overall progressive attitude. Scandinavia did well, with Sweden followed by Denmark and Norway. The Netherlands was fourth and Canada fifth. Scandinavia also dominated the rankings when respondents were asked what they thought would be the best country to raise children in. Sweden came in first again, followed by Denmark, Norway, Finland and Canada. The United States did not fare too well in this category: It came in 19th, behind much of Europe but ahead of Japan. The results were based on how respondents ranked each country in terms of its commitment to human rights, gender equality, income equality, public education and health. Respondents were also asked if they thought each country was generally happy and safe. Perhaps because this survey was partly conducted by a business school and a consulting firm, it also asked respondents which countries they would consider moving to in their retirement if price was no obstacle. The United States did not rank in the top 20. The No. 1 response was New Zealand, followed by Australia, Switzerland, Canada and Portugal. Respondents thought these countries had nice climates and were affordable, friendly, committed to public health care and respectful of property rights. They also thought taxes would be low. | 1 |
After snagging a Best Actor Oscar for Manchester by the Sea, actor and animal activist Casey Affleck is set to be the voice of an animatronic bear in an upcoming People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) protest. [The Hollywood ’s voice will be heard coming out of a animatronic bear as part of PETA’s planned march outside the Agriculture Department in Washington, D. C. on Tuesday. The protest is meant to draw attention to the mistreatment of bears held in captivity and in shows, and is part of PETA’s effort to pressure the Agriculture Department to expand protection for bears under the Animal Welfare Act. Bears shouldn’t be used for “cruel tourist traps,” Affleck said, according to the Associated Press. Days before Affleck took home the top prize at last month’s Oscars, he starred in a PSA video for PETA in which he railed against circus animal abuse. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson | 0 |
DENVER — Time has changed much in the American West. On some ranches, cowboys round up cattle on and track livestock with drones. While technology is easing tasks, though, some think it is also threatening the skills that make a cowboy a cowboy: roping, riding and a devotion to hard work. But for centuries, neighbors have gathered each spring for a day of branding newborn animals. cattlemen pull a hot iron from the fire, and calves mewl as curved steel singes hair and burns flesh. Afterward, there is cheap beer and a meal, maybe a band and a dance. The branding process has been criticized as cruel. And some families have moved to other methods, including freeze brands created with liquid nitrogen and ear tags they can read with an electronic wand. Perhaps the most notable innovation is the calf table, a viselike device that allows people to trap, flip and mark an animal, eliminating the need for a crew of helpers. In some places, that is sending the community gathering known as branding day into the past. But not on Bill Gray’s ranch, outside Ordway, Colo. Mr. Gray, 65, is a rancher who still tracks and marks his cattle the old way. His brand serves a practical purpose, allowing him to prove ownership at sale and ward off cattle thieves. (Rustling is not just a crime of the past.) “You can put the ear tag in them,” he said. “But you can tear the ear tag out. ” He has two symbols he uses to identify livestock. One, called a was passed to him by his grandfather, like a family crest. Ordway is three hours southeast of here and has about 1, 000 people. Mr. Gray calls on many of them to help in the ritual. “Tradition has a lot to do with it,” he said. “Part of ranching is neighbors helping neighbors. ” Among his chief concerns is an divide. “I’m sure urban people think that what we do, some of the practices, are barbaric. But they’re not,” he said. “If I mistreat my cattle, it’s going to cost me money. I can’t do that. ” As for his neighbors who have moved to calf tables, “I don’t hold it against them,” he said. “Some people need to use it if they’re not proficient at what we do. ” Mr. Gray has eight children and 22 grandchildren and has been through a lot lately. A dry period lasting 14 years was followed by a recent drop in cattle prices. In February, his home burned down, cause undetermined. On a recent day, Mr. Gray’s roundup began just as the sun bumped over the muddy prairie. His son, his grandson, his neighbors and part of the high school wrestling team rode up to help. Cowhands on horseback pushed hundreds of animals into corrals, and ropers lassoed the calves by the legs, flipping them onto their sides. Flankers rushed to hold the animals down as older men took out the irons. Next came vaccination, the injection of a growth hormone and, for the males, castration. Many brandings are governed by an unspoken cowboy etiquette: Young people wrestle the cattle onto the ground, while older ones handle the iron. But Mr. Gray said that he was a bit different. “I try to let everybody do some of the jobs,” he said. “That way, when it comes their time, they’ll know how to do it. ” | 0 |
■ Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina said Monday that an urgent rescue effort was underway in Lumberton, where a levee breach in the wake of Hurricane Matthew forced people to their rooftops. ■ The storm’s death toll in the United States has climbed to about two dozen, and with some residents still missing, that number could rise. Officials said it could be days before they are sure of the figures. ■ The toll in Haiti, which took a direct hit, has been hard to measure. As many as 1, 000 people have died, according to a Reuters report based on information from civil protection and local officials. Along with hundreds of lives, the storm wiped out much of the progress that an isolated city, Jérémie, had been making. Read more from Azam Ahmed » ■ Bands of heavy rain produced flooding in parts of eastern North Carolina, according to the National Hurricane Center, resulting in flooding and flash flooding across the region. Governor McCrory, addressing reporters in Raleigh on Monday, said a levee breach before dawn had endangered about 1, 500 residents in Lumberton. “Floodwaters are rising very quickly,” said Mr. McCrory, who added that water was in many places. “We do have people on the roofs as we speak, and we have a lot of helicopters and boats that have been deployed that are, at this point in time, rescuing them. ” Mr. McCrory also reported 10 fatalities in North Carolina, raising Hurricane Matthew’s death toll in the United States to at least 21. At least 1, 400 people have been rescued since Hurricane Matthew struck the state. — ALAN BLINDER A federal judge on Monday extended Florida’s voter registration deadline by one day, delivering a quick legal victory to Democrats who argued that the storm had upended plans to draw more people into the political process in one of the nation’s most closely contested states. In a harshly worded ruling, Judge Mark E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Tallahassee said residents would be allowed to join the voter rolls until 5 p. m. Wednesday. “This case pits the fundamental right to vote against administrative convenience,” Judge Walker wrote. “Of course, the State of Florida has the ability to set its own deadlines and has an interest in maintaining those deadlines. But it would be nonsensical to prioritize those deadlines over the right to vote, especially given the circumstances here. ” Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican and one of the named defendants in the lawsuit, has resisted calls from Democrats that he extend the voter registration period, which was scheduled to end on Tuesday. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. — ALAN BLINDER Several rivers in eastern North Carolina broke out of their banks on Monday, after weekend rainfalls of up to 16 inches in places, the National Weather Service reported. Some rivers reached record heights, while on others, waters are expected to keep rising for days in some areas, as the floods move downstream. The Cape Fear River south of Fayetteville crested Monday at more than 26 feet above flood stage farther downstream, near Chinquapin, the same river was forecast to rise into Wednesday. To the northeast, the Neuse River reached more than 8 feet above flood stage near Goldsboro on Monday, and was projected to rise another 2 feet, peaking on Tuesday near its record. Downstream, near Kinston, the Neuse rose more than 7 feet above flood stage, and was expected to climb 5 feet more, not cresting until Saturday. The Lumber River at Lumberton rose 4 feet higher than it had ever been measured before. The Little River at Manchester broke its previous record by 3 feet. Several South Carolina rivers also reached moderate or major flood stage, the Weather Service reported, but conditions there were not as severe. — RICHARD Storm surge and battering waves can devastate coastal beaches and the dunes behind them. So when Hurricane Matthew raked the coasts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, it carved away some beaches — though it left others relatively untouched. Brevard County, Fla. home to Cocoa Beach, the Kennedy Space Center and other famous tourist attractions, lost about one million cubic yards of sand from the county’s 72 miles of beaches, said Virginia Barker, the county’s natural resources management director. While the number is large, the damage was less than that caused by Hurricane Sandy, or the storms that passed through in 2004 and 2005. Matthew “was more of a glancing blow,” she said. It helped that the storm hit at a very low spot in the tide cycle, she said, and that the storm moved quickly. Also, she said, it was especially fortunate that “our beaches were in really good shape before the storm,” with beach and dune replenishment programs in place since 2000. “We talk about them being ‘sacrificial sands,’” she said, a kind of environmental crumple zone to blunt storm damage. Farther north, many shorelines were reshaped by the storm after a helicopter tour, Gov. Rick Scott told reporters in Jacksonville that he had seen “an unbelievable amount of beach erosion,” but that the state was “blessed” that Matthew stayed offshore. Environmental officials in states farther north said their coastal evaluations were still underway. Craft, a spokeswoman for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, said that early reports indicated “erosion is rather extensive throughout the coast,” and that many state beaches “were already experiencing significant sand deficits and chronic erosion. ” The state had been working on replenishment projects. Since the storm, the agency has also collaborated with local governments and citizens to post reports through its MyCoast app, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has posted aerial photos. — JOHN SCHWARTZ “Returning residents are encouraged to exercise patience and expect lengthy travel times, blocked roadways and detours back to evacuated areas and are asked not to drive around barricades or use emergency lanes that are needed for first responders,” the governor’s office said in a statement. The authorities in South Carolina have attributed three deaths to the storm, including two in Florence County, northwest of Myrtle Beach. — JESS BIDGOOD, in Charleston The American Red Cross has published a list of safety tips for homeowners returning to property damaged in hurricanes. Once cleanup begins, taking photographs of damaged or destroyed property before it is discarded provides a record for use in making insurance claims, says Ann Carrns, who writes the Your Money Adviser consumer finance column for The Times. In Haiti, the Bahamas and Florida, the storm left behind stories of disaster and of disaster narrowly averted. Here are some of them » On Monday, Matthew broke up and headed northeast into the North Atlantic as a diffuse system, passing the northeastern United States, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. After dropping some rain on the Northeast, it pushed out to sea with winds and heavy seas, but continued to weaken. | 1 |
LONDON — It was only a column in The Daily Mail, but in its way, it told you everything you need to know about politics in Britain these days. It was written by Sarah Vine, who is married to Michael Gove, a leader of the “Brexit” campaign, and it appeared soon after Britain shocked itself (and the Goves) by voting to leave the European Union. The referendum threw the country into turmoil, and no one, including Mr. Gove, had a coherent plan for what to do next. But that did not seem to bother Ms. Vine. Yes, she wrote, it is “an awesome responsibility that he — we — are now charged with implementing the instructions of 17 million people. ” But perhaps more urgently, she went on, the whole affair had messed up her social life and upset her and her husband’s political plans. “David Cameron was not supposed to go,” she complained, referring to the prime minister’s decision to step down after losing the referendum, when she would have preferred that he stay. “I felt the agony of what the business of politics had done to the people at the heart of all of this: how old friends had been wrenched apart in the most brutal of ways. ” You can say that again. By opposing Mr. Cameron over Brexit, Mr. Gove, the government’s justice secretary, betrayed not just his boss and the leader of the Conservative Party, but also an old friend. (Mr. Cameron and his wife, Samantha, are reportedly no longer speaking to the Goves.) That is surely sad for them, but it also illustrates the peculiarities of a system whose dysfunction — very different from the American kind — has been caused in part by the extreme incestuousness and myopia of Britain’s governing elite. It’s as if President Obama’s inner circle consisted almost entirely of his friends, neighbors and fellow Harvard graduates. Looking at the backgrounds of the leading personalities in the Brexit drama, it is hard not to conclude that Britain has been led into crisis in large part by a bunch of old chums who spent the last year holed up in a political hall of mirrors, plotting with and scheming against one another. The top four figures in the debate — Mr. Cameron Mr. Gove Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London and George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer — all went to Oxford. Both Mr. Gove and Mr. Johnson were presidents of the Oxford Union. Mr. Johnson, Mr. Cameron and Mr. Osborne all belonged to the Bullingdon Club. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Cameron were both educated at Eton. The Goves and the Osbornes take vacations together. Mr. Johnson calls Mr. Gove (or at least he did, until Mr. Gove betrayed him, too) “the Gover. ” “You really get the impression that the government is being run by a clique at public school,” said the novelist and political commentator Robert Harris. “They live in the same area of West London, they all socialize together, they were at one another’s weddings, and they are godparents to one another’s children. There’s a sense of a gilded circle who have played politics with the country, in the service of their own ambition. ” Theresa May, the home secretary and a in the race to be party leader, is not part of that coterie. She is seen as an independent operator who is loath to make boys’ deals. Appearing to be an actual in contrast to the squabbling, backstabbing men now in power, has helped position Ms. May as a welcome antidote to the current disarray. Although, to be fair, she also went to Oxford. “You’re seeing a closing of the ranks behind a candidate the Conservatives think they can support,” Peter Paul Catterall, who teaches history at the University of Westminster, said of Ms. May. “But it has something of the whiff of people desperate to go for whoever has the ability to keep the lifeboat afloat, even though no one knows where it’s going. ” Still, her ascent wasn’t part of the plan. Mr. Cameron had long been grooming Mr. Osborne to succeed him, but that idea disintegrated when the Leave side unexpectedly won the referendum. Mr. Cameron decided to step down rather than deal with the aftermath, and Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gove rushed to fill the vacuum as a team, focusing not on how, but on who, would govern (namely, the two of them). Then that alliance, too, fell apart when Mr. Gove abruptly announced that he would run against Mr. Johnson for the party leadership, and Mr. Johnson dropped out. Again, it all seemed personal, parochial and petty, playing out in the news media as Jacobean revenge tragedy or farce, take your pick. The top players in both the Tory and Labour Parties tend to go to parties and dinners with the journalists who cover them, and do their best to court the influential owners of their newspapers, too. In the London complex, everyone is connected to everyone else. Both Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gove were journalists before they became politicians Mr. Johnson still writes a weekly column for The Daily Telegraph. Mr. Gove’s sudden betrayal of Mr. Johnson also had personal repercussions, and along came Rachel Johnson to explain what they were. Ms. Johnson is an impeccably connected columnist for The Mail on Sunday — and Boris Johnson’s sister. Though the two Mails are owned by the same person, their editors are feuding, and they tend to undercut each other and take opposing editorial positions. (Do try to keep up.) So while The Mail has Ms. Vine ( ) The Mail on Sunday has Ms. Johnson ( ). In an earlier column, Ms. Johnson had already described her distress at her brother’s stance, an unpopular position in her trendy Notting Hill neighborhood. “Close friends are refusing invitations to my kitchen suppers,” she wrote. Now she unleashed her fury at Mr. Gove, portraying him as a “political psychopath,” the Brutus to her brother’s Caesar, and at Ms. Vine, whom she compared to Lady Macbeth. Then, possibly hedging her bets in case Mr. Gove somehow got into power — a situation that now looks increasingly unlikely — she added another personal note. “And yet, having said all that, and knowing them a bit, it’s hard to imagine they mean any harm,” Ms. Johnson wrote of the Goves. “I like them. They are both lively company and huge fun. Indeed, we sometimes say that we must have supper soon, and perhaps we will, when the bleeding bodies of the fallen are removed from the smoking battlefield of this campaign. ” | 1 |
On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “At This Hour,” CNN National Political Reporter MJ Lee reported that House members are working on a deal on a healthcare bill “that could potentially bring on board 18 to 20 new yes votes from the House Freedom Caucus. ” And Representative Tom Cole ( ) told her “the differences have narrowed, and this thing is very much alive. ” Lee said, “So, there are signs of a possible breakthrough on healthcare, emphasis on possible. What we know is that leaders of the Tuesday Group, as well as the House Freedom Caucus have been in talks over the easter recess to try to revive the first failed healthcare bill that was pulled from the House floor. Now, what the members are trying to work on right now is a deal that could potentially bring on board 18 to 20 new yes votes from the House Freedom Caucus. Now, I just spoke a little while ago with Republican Congressman Tom Cole, and he tells me that the differences have narrowed, and this thing is very much alive. ” She added, “Now, there are some serious obstacles heading into next week. As you know, Kate, members have to deal with the problem of funding the government, and that is sort of their first priority. And we also know that the existing splits between the conservative faction, as well as the moderates, that continues to sort of be a problem as they try to get to the 216 votes. So, we’ll see if any sort of real breakthrough comes before members come back next week. ” ( RCP Video) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 0 |
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The Pew Research Center released a report last week based on information from the National Center for Health Statistics on birth rates in the United States. Data found within the report could raise concerns over both the economic and cultural ramifications of the birth rates of foreign-born mothers in the United States.
According to the report, "In 2014, about 275,000 babies were born to unauthorized-immigrant parents in the United States, accounting for about seven percent of all U.S. births, and 32 percent of all U.S. births to foreign-born mothers."
While that figure represents a decline in the number of babies born to unauthorized immigrants in the United States, the economic impact of these children is significant, as illegal families are granted access to welfare programs through their U.S.-born children, known as “anchor babies.”
Last year, in an analysis of 2009 census data, National Review reported that 71 percent of illegal-alien-headed households with children received some sort of welfare, compared with 39 percent of native-headed households. Furthermore, children of illegals are granted access to public schools, which can cost approximately $160,000 per pupil for a K-12 public school education, based on an average yearly cost of $12,300 per student.
These 275,000 children are also granted access to healthcare. Under ObamaCare, these families are eligible for costly subsidies paid for by taxpayers who, in many cases, are not eligible for the same subsidies and therefore are faced with either exorbitant healthcare costs for their own families or stiff fines for opting out of health insurance.
Furthermore, the data also reveal that foreign-born mothers live in families that make less money than U.S.-born counterparts. Pew Research writes, “While median family income for new U.S-born moms is about $51,200 annually, this figure is $41,300 for new foreign-born moms. And while about 26% of new U.S.-born mothers live in poverty, this share rises to 31% for foreign-born new mothers.”
Pew advises, “The share of babies born to moms from Latin America has declined while the share of babies born to moms from regions such as Asia has increased."
It’s also worth noting that when these babies become adults, they will compete for wages against the children of U.S.-born parents in a slow-growing economy weighed down by crippling regulations.
Pew reports, “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 4.00 million births in the U.S., compared with 3.74 million in 1970.”
The report continues, “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% during that same time period, from 3.46 million in 1970 to 3.10 million in 2014."
The International Business Times reports that by 2042, minorities will become the majority and by 2050, will make up 54 percent of the populace. By 2023, non-whites will be the majority among children.
The impact on the cultural makeup of the United States is troubling, as it remains to be seen whether these families will assimilate into the American culture. In a piece for The New American last week, Thomas Sowell wrote, People who came here a hundred years ago usually did so in order to fit within the framework of America and become Americans. Some still do. But many come from a very different cultural background — and our own multiculturalism dogmas and grievance industry work to keep them foreign and resentful of Americans who have achieved more than they have. Some immigrant groups seek to bring to America the very cultures whose failures led them to flee to this country. Not all individual immigrants and not all immigrant groups. But too many Americans have become so gullible that they are afraid to even get the facts about which immigrants have done well and improved America, and which have become a burden that can drag us all down.
One need not look further than California to find evidence of Sowell’s observations. At Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, for example, American flag t-shirts were banned during Cinco de Mayo (May 5), a Mexican holiday, so as to not offend the Mexican students.
As noted by Mike Gonzalez, senior fellow at the Kathryn and Shelby Collom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, American has drifted far from its belief in “E Pluribus Unum” (Latin for “Out of Many, One”), and has made any expectation for assimilation into American culture a taboo and politically incorrect goal: Patriotic assimilation is the bond that allows America to be a nation of immigrants. Without it, America either ceases to be a nation, becoming instead a hodgepodge of groups — or it becomes a nation that can no longer welcome immigrants. It cannot be both a unified nation and a place that welcomes immigrants without patriotic assimilation. Over the past few decades, however, America has drifted away from assimilating immigrants. Elites — in the government, the culture, and the academy — have led a push toward multiculturalism, which emphasizes group differences. This transformation has taken place with little input from rank-and-file Americans, who overwhelmingly support assimilation. As Ronald Reagan worried just as it was first getting underway, this tectonic shift that “divides us into minority groups” was initiated by political opportunists “to create voting blocs.”
With foreign-born mothers having more children than U.S.-born mothers, the best hope to preserve the American culture is for these families to adapt to the American culture.
Meanwhile, the data reveal that an increasing number of children are being born to unmarried parents. The latest figures show that 42 percent of U.S.-born women were unmarried when giving birth.
The Pew Research Center reports, The share of babies born to unmarried mothers has consistently been higher for U.S.-born women than for immigrant women. However, the roughly 10-point gap between the two groups in 2014 is the largest disparity since birth data by nativity and marital status became available 30 years earlier.
Overall, 41 percent of babies born in 2014 were to unmarried women — double what it was 30 years ago. Teenagers comprise six percent of the births among unmarried U.S.-born women and two percent of foreign-born women. | 1 |
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It is especially painful for me, as an economist, to see that two small cities in northern California — San Mateo and Burlingame — have rent control proposals on the ballot this election year.
There are various other campaigns, in other places around the country, for and against minimum wage laws, which likewise make me wonder if the economics profession has failed to educate the public in the most elementary economic lessons.
Neither rent control nor minimum wage laws — nor price control laws in general — are new. Price control laws go back as far as ancient Egypt and Babylon, and they have been imposed at one time or other on every inhabited continent.
History alone should be able to tell us what the actual consequences of such laws have been, since they have been around for thousands of years. Anyone who has taken a course in Economics 1 should understand why those consequences have been so different from what their advocates expected. It is not rocket science.
Nevertheless, advocates of a rent control law are saying things like "this will prevent some landlords from gouging tenants and making a ton of money off the housing crisis."
The reason there is a housing crisis in the first place is that existing laws in much of California prevent enough housing from being built to supply the apartments and homes that people want. If landlords were all sweethearts, and never raised rents, that would still not get one new building built.
Rising rents are a symptom of the problem. The actual cause of the problem is a refusal of many California officials to allow enough housing to be built for all the people who want to rent an apartment.
Supply and demand is one of the first things taught in introductory economics textbooks. Why it should be a mystery to people living in an upscale community — people who have probably graduated from an expensive college — is the real puzzle. Supply and demand is not a breakthrough on the frontiers of knowledge.
A century ago, virtually any economist could have explained why preventing housing from being built would lead to higher rents, and why rent control would further widen the gap between the amount of housing supplied and the amount demanded. Not to mention such other consequences as a faster deterioration of existing housing, since upkeep gets neglected when there is a housing shortage.
Today's economists have advanced to far more complicated problems. It is as if we had the world's greatest mathematicians but most college graduates couldn't do arithmetic.
Part of the problem is that even our most prestigious colleges seldom have any real curriculum requirements that would ensure that their graduates had at least a basic understanding of economics, history, mathematics, science or other fundamental subjects.
Many students and their parents spend great amounts of money, and go into debt, for an education that too often leaves them illiterate in economics and ignorant of many other subjects.
Part of the problem is that many college graduates do not take a single course in economics. Another part of the problem is that many economics departments leave the teaching of introductory economics in the hands of some junior or transient faculty member, or even graduate students who get stuck with the job.
One of the things that made me proud of the economics department at UCLA when I taught there, decades ago, was that teaching the introductory economics course was the job of a full professor, even if not the same professor every year.
In all too many subjects today, the introductory course is taught by junior faculty, transient faculty or graduate students, while the full professors teach only upper level courses or postgraduate courses.
That may save a department the expense of staffing the introductory course with their more highly paid members. But, it is extravagantly expensive from the standpoint of society as a whole, when it means sending graduates out into the world unable to see through the wasteful economic hokum spread by politicians.
That is how you get ill-informed voters who support price controls of many kinds, without understanding that prices convey economic realities that do not change just because the government changes the prices. It is as if someone's fever was treated by putting the thermometer in cold water to bring the temperature reading down. You don't get more housing with rent control.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com .
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Donna Brazile Latest Casualty In Crooked Hillary Email Scandal As CNN Gives Her The Boot For Lying “We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor,” CNN spokeswoman Lauren Pratapas said in a statement, according to Politico. CNN has severed its relationship with Democratic strategist Donna Brazile after it became clear that she was secretly sharing information about CNN events with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was fired when WikiLeaks revealed she was heading a covert operation to steal the nomination from Crooked Hillary, she was replaced by Donna Brazile . WikiLeaks then showed us that Donna Brazile was feeding the interview questions from CNN to Crooked Hillary before the interviews and town halls took place. CNN today made a formal announcement of the severing their relationship with Donna Brazile. We are watching the complete destruction of not only the Clinton Crime Machine but of the reputation of the DNC as well.
“We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor,” CNN spokeswoman Lauren Pratapas said in a statement, according to Politico .
Brazile apparently emailed Clinton campaign staff leaked information about a CNN town hall in Flint, Michigan. Democrat Donna Brazile On Final Debate and Email Scandal:
“One of the questions directed to HRC tomorrow is from a woman with a rash,” Brazile noted in the email . “Her family has lead poison and she will ask what, if anything, will Hillary do as president to help the ppl of Flint.” In March, Brazile emailed to warn the campaign about Clinton’s stance on the death penalty.
“From time to time I get the questions in advance,” she wrote in the subject line, noting that she was worried about Clinton’s response. CNN’s Jake Tapper CONDEMNS DNC Chair DONNA BRAZILE
According to CNN , the network accepted Brazile’s resignation as a CNN contributor on October 14.
CNN announced the decision on Monday, October 31, after more emails were revealed. | 0 |
Each generation apparently must have its own Lemony Snicket adaptation, and today’s have been given a marvelously tangy one, courtesy of Netflix, that turns the franchise into an series that becomes available on Friday. Parents: Brace yourselves for a dark turn in your children’s senses of humor and a marked improvement in their vocabularies. The show is called, of course, “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” and it’s based on the popular books, ostensibly written by Lemony Snicket but in fact written by an actual person, Daniel Handler. The tone of these gothic tales is twisted and gloomy, and in Patrick Warburton this version has found the perfect Lemony to narrate them. He warns glumly that viewers are about to embark on a “descent into misery, tribulation and dire inconvenience,” and he is not wrong. The story follows three children, the Baudelaires, who, it seems, are orphaned by a fire within the first few minutes. Violet (Malina Weissman) the oldest, is a tinkerer, a sort of young MacGyver. Klaus (Louis Hynes) who is “a little older than 12,” reads more than any should. And a special casting prize should go to whoever found Presley Smith, a very expressive infant portraying Sunny, whose preverbal blatherings are not as meaningless as they sound (something we learn from subtitles). The child actors are all quite good, as they have to be — this series is all about tone, and not every young performer could nail the one required here. Things really fall into place, though, when Neil Patrick Harris materializes. It might require a double take to recognize him, as he is rather heavily made up for the role of Count Olaf, the villain of the tale, who becomes the children’s first guardian through questionable means and does not exactly have their best interests at heart. What he does have is a lust for the money they have inherited. Olaf is the role played by Jim Carrey in the 2004 movie version, a portrayal that some critics found excessive and . In her review of that film in The New York Times, Manohla Dargis wrote of the young actors who portrayed Violet and Klaus that it was “a wonder they didn’t request oxygen masks after being forced into such close proximity with so much ham. ” Mr. Harris’s performance proves that there’s an art to over the top. His Olaf is just as even but somehow not irritating. He seems to be having a wonderful time being wicked, and he invites you, the viewer, to enjoy his enjoyment. The running gag of breaking from the action to explain what various $4 and $5 words mean works beautifully, and the cast surrounding the core players is well chosen (especially Joan Cusack as Justice Strauss, Olaf’s neighbor). The whole enterprise is wrapped in a look and served with a respect for the ability of young minds to perceive offbeat, incongruous humor, the very quality that made the books so successful in the first place. | 0 |
President Donald J. Trump signed three new executive actions on Saturday afternoon, including a five year lobbying ban, reorganization of the National Security Council, and a plan to defeat the Islamic State. [From the Oval Office, President Trump signed the documents while surrounded by reporters, advisers, and his Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Regarding the lobbying ban, Trump said: So this is a five year lobbying ban, and this is all of the people — most of the people standing behind me will not be able to go to work. It’s a two year ban now and it’s got full of loopholes and this is a five year ban. So you have one last chance to get out. Good, I had a feeling you were going to say that. This was something, the five year ban, that I have been taking a lot about on the campaign trail. Ahead of the signing, a senior administration official indicated that the lobbying ban included not only a five year ban on administration officials, but a lifetime ban on administration officials lobbying for a foreign country. After signing the document to reorganize the National Security Council, the President said, “This is the organization of the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, you know pretty much what it represents, it represents a lot, and also a lot of efficiency and I think a lot of additional safety. People have been talking about this for a long time, like many years. ” President Trump signed the ISIS plan, after which he said, “This is the plan to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, in other words ISIS. I think it’s going to be very successful. That’s big stuff. ” The White House senior administration official also said ahead of the signing that the executive action regarding ISIS would give military leaders 30 days to compile and present a report to the President on a strategy to defeat ISIS. The President responded to questions about Friday’s executive order on immigration after signing each of the three executive actions, stating, “It’s not a Muslim ban, but we were totally prepared. It’s working out very nicely. You see it at the airports, you see it all over. ” Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana | 0 |
“Why I Won’t Vote for Hillary Clinton | Evan Edinger” (but then he changes his mind on that) TO CLOSE: Evan Edlinger will vote for Hillary against Trump because he thinks that whereas Hillary’s actual track-record of policies (not mere statements) in public office have been horrific, Trump’s bad statements and lack of any track-record in public office at all, make Trump even worse. That’s what he thinks. I think it makes Trump better — the better choice — as opposed to the proven evil and catastrophically harmful public official, Hillary Clinton. Edlinger is preferring an evil record as a public official, to no record as a public official. Edlinger fails to make two crucial distinctions: One is that he fails to distinguish between mere political statements, versus actual political policies carried out as a public official (which show Hillary to be a proven neocon and tool of Wall Street); and the other is his failing to distinguish between a bad record in a person’s private or business affairs, versus a bad record as an actual public official. Only the bad record as a public official should be absolutely disqualifying — and that’s Clinton, not Trump, who has a horrific record as a public official. Trump has no record at all as a public official. Edlinger at 1:30 in his video says that when he contemplates voting for Hillary,”There’s always one thing that comes in the way, and that’s trust.” He says he doesn’t trust her — but what he doesn’t actually “trust” is her words; when he says he’ll vote for her, he’s simply ignoring her actions, he’s ignoring the real person-as-a-public-official, the person who is shown and displayed beyond any reasonable doubt whatsoever. Proven selfishness in one’s private life is bad, but proven selfishness and evil in one’s public-office policies (such as “We came, we saw, he died. Ha, ha!” ) is utterly disqualifying. I argued in my “I’m a Bernie Sanders Voter: Here’s Why I’ll Vote Trump” , that Trump could possibly turn out to be a progressive President; but, even if he turns out to be a bad President, he won’t, on balance, be as horrific as will a President Hillary Clinton. With Trump, there is reason to have some hope for the future of the world; with Clinton, there is reason to expect unprecedented horrors . | 0 |
The financial media tend to report breathlessly about what the stock market did yesterday. But savvy economic analysts have always known the bond market is the place to look for a real sense of where the economy is going, or at least where the smart money thinks it is going. And right now, if the bond market is correctly predicting the economic path ahead, we should all be terrified. But, please, read on before panicking. There’s a lot more to the story. The stock market can rise and fall for all sorts of reasons, and sometimes for no apparent reason at all. But the bond market, where trillions of dollars change hands and interest rates are determined, is steadier (normally). Its prices are generally tied closely to the outlook for growth and inflation over the years ahead. The interest rates that currently prevail across all the major advanced economies are consistent with a disastrous economic future. Taken at face value, they imply that the smart money expects inflation will remain extraordinarily low for years to come, and that growth will stay so weak that central banks won’t be able to raise rates for years. It is a shift that has accelerated since Britain’s vote on June 23 to leave the European Union, but one that has been underway for years. Look at the current shape of the American “yield curve,” the chart of how rates compare for short, medium and bonds. It implies a 60 percent chance of a recession in the next year based on historical patterns, according to Deutsche Bank analysts. interest rates hit record lows last week — which is to say the lowest in the history of rates in the United States. Prices for bonds suggest that consumer prices will rise only about 1. 4 percent a year through 2021 — and only 1. 5 percent in the five years after that. They suggest that not only is the Federal Reserve unlikely to find conditions that warrant an interest rate increase in the remainder of 2016, but also that there is only about a 50 percent chance of a rate increase in 2017. Across other major advanced economies, the signals sent by bond prices are even worse. bonds are now offering negative interest rates in Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Denmark and, as of Friday’s close, the Netherlands. That means buyers of these securities will get fewer euros, yen, Swiss francs or Danish kroner back than they invested, a development without precedent in hundreds of years of financial history. But that phrase “taken at face value” is doing some heavy lifting here. There are reasons to think that current prices are reflecting idiosyncrasies in the supply and demand for safe assets, rather than a conviction among global investors that very bad times are ahead. Many of the purchasers of government bonds do so not because they find the returns offered compelling but because they have to. Insurers face regulators who may require that they do so. Pension funds seek to offset obligations with safe assets of similar duration. Banks buy bonds to comply with rules limiting how much risk they can take. In the last few years, central banks have become the biggest buyers of bonds. The Federal Reserve’s program of quantitative easing — buying bonds to try to stimulate the economy — ended in 2014, but the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan are just getting going the E. C. B. is buying 80 billion euros’ worth of securities a month. So you have a strong demand for bonds coming from institutions that are willing to buy at almost any cost — they are inelastic, in economic terms. Then on the supply side, governments have not exactly been issuing vast supplies of new bonds, for reasons involving domestic politics. The value of outstanding German general government debt was $1. 8 trillion at the end of 2015, for example, down from $2 trillion a year earlier. Whatever you think of the wisdom of using government deficits to try to prop up a faltering economy, governments for the most part simply are not responding to very low interest rates and depressed economies by radically increasing deficit spending and thus increasing the supply of bonds. So rising demand for bonds that is largely indifferent to price (even a willingness to buy the bonds at a certain loss) along with pretty much fixed supply combines to drive up prices, which in the bond market means driving down rates. And even though the United States isn’t the prime driver of this — the Fed has ended its Q. E. program, and American debt outstanding continues to rise — the bond market is sufficiently global that it’s an important part of the story. When German and Japanese bonds are offering negative returns, the 2 percent or so that United States Treasury bonds were offering earlier this year looked extremely attractive. Essentially the United States has imported this very low interest rate environment from overseas, even though the domestic economy is in pretty good shape and the Federal Reserve had been planning interest rate increases. So even though in normal times bond prices give useful information about the likely path of inflation and growth, this might be an instance when those indicators are less useful. Among the evidence that the recessionary signals out of the bond market are wrong? If bond prices are an unreliable yardstick, we can look to other markets that may be flawed, but are at least flawed in different ways. And those other markets are not flashing recession warnings at all: The United States stock market closed on Monday at a record high indexes of future stock market volatility are quite low and oil prices, after a furious rally since the winter, have mostly held onto their gains. So how much of the drop in interest rates can we really pin on these factors in the market for bonds, as opposed to a genuine shift in investors’ expectations about the future? Roberto Perli, an economist at Cornerstone Macro, has tried to disentangle the parts of the puzzle. He estimates that about of the drop in American Treasury yields since the start of the year is because of a decline in the “term premium,” or the compensation investors demand for tying up their money over many years. This is largely attributable to those factors. He attributes about of the drop to investors’ perception that the Fed will raise rates more slowly for any given economic circumstance than they had assumed at the start of the year. He attributes only of the drop to an actual belief among bond buyers that the economy will grow more slowly in the years ahead than they had thought at the start of 2016. There is good news in that as well as bad. The good news is that most of the drop in interest rates is being driven by things that have little to do with the underlying strength of economic growth. The bad news is that some portion of the drop really is being driven by more pessimistic economic views, at a time a great deal of pessimism is already baked in. The bond market right now is like a speedometer that is miscalibrated and therefore unreliable. It may be less useful than usual, and is not to be interpreted literally — but it’s still telling us something. And that something is that we should be worried about the possibility the world is in a nasty deflationary economic trap that won’t get better anytime soon. | 1 |
Johnson & Johnson Lose Third Multimillion Dollar Case Over Baby Talc Johnson & Johnson ordered to pay over $70 million in third cancer case Posted on November 1, 2016 by Carol Adl in News , US // 0 Comments
Big Pharma giant Johnson & Johnson has lost yet another legal battle in a row over its talcum powder which allegedly causes cancer.
A St. Louis jury awarded over $70 million dollars to a California woman as a result of her lawsuit which claimed that her ovarian cancer was caused by years of using Johnson & Johnson’s baby talc.
The trial started on September 26th and ended on October 27th and is the third successful lawsuit this year against Johnson & Johnson. RELATED CONTENT
Deborah Giannecchini of Modesto, California was diagnosed with the disease in 2012 and accused the company of ‘negligent conduct’ in making and and marketing the baby powder.
The lawsuit claimed Mrs Giannecchini contracted the disease after using baby powder in an intimate area.
Jim Onder, Mrs Giannecchini’s lawyer, said: ‘We are pleased the jury did the right thing. They once again reaffirmed the need for Johnson & Johnson to warn the public of the ovarian cancer risk associated with its product.’
However, the company has rejected there is any risk to using their product – even in intimate areas – and will appeal the massive award.
Carol Goodrich, spokesman for the company said: ‘We deeply sympathize with the women and families impacted by ovarian cancer. We will appeal today’s verdict because we are guided by the science, which supports the safety of Johnson’s Baby Powder.’
Earlier this year, two other lawsuits in St Louis ended in jury verdicts worth a combined $127million. But two others in New Jersey were thrown out by a judge who said there wasn’t reliable evidence that talc leads to ovarian cancer, an often fatal but relatively rare form of cancer.
Ovarian cancer accounts for about 22,000 of the 1.7million new cases of cancer expected to be diagnosed in the US this year.
About 2,000 women have filed similar suits, and lawyers are reviewing thousands of other potential cases, most generated by ads touting the two big verdicts out of St. Louis – a $72million award in February to relatives of an Alabama woman who died of ovarian cancer, and a $55million award in May to a South Dakota survivor of the disease.
Much research has found no link or a weak one between ovarian cancer and using baby powder for feminine hygiene, and most major health groups have declared talc harmless. Johnson & Johnson, whose baby powder dominates the market, maintains it’s perfectly safe.
But Onder of the Onder Law Firm in suburban St Louis, which represented plaintiffs in all three St Louis cases, cited other research that began connecting talcum powder to ovarian cancer in the 1970s.
He said case studies have indicated that women who regularly use talc on their genital area face up to a 40 per cent higher risk of developing ovarian cancer. | 0 |
Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush’s victorious presidential campaigns and founder of a constellation of political groups, has called Donald J. Trump “a complete idiot. ” He has described him as “graceless and divisive. ” He has said Mr. Trump’s boasts about beating Hillary Clinton in the polls are false. Mr. Trump has reacted with anger to such insults, calling Mr. Rove “sad” and questioning his record of success. But two weeks ago, Mr. Trump and Mr. Rove held a private meeting just as the presumptive Republican nominee was courting major party figures. The meeting took place at the Manhattan home of the casino magnate Steve Wynn, a mutual friend who brokered the according to two people briefed on the meeting and who were granted anonymity to discuss the gathering. Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, described it as a “good meeting,” but did not elaborate. An aide to Mr. Wynn did not respond to an email seeking comment, and Mr. Rove similarly declined to respond. The purpose of the meeting was unclear, although Mr. Rove is the last strategist to help elect a Republican president, and Mr. Trump is lagging organizationally for the general election. If détente was the goal, the meeting did not appear to have a lasting effect: the morning after Mr. Trump’s freewheeling, news conference last Tuesday, Mr. Rove was deeply critical of his performance. “I’m not certain it helps him with the people who are swing voters, up for grabs, and it certainly is very unpresidential,” Mr. Rove said on Fox News. “It would not be a good spectacle for our country to have a President Trump acting like candidate Trump acted yesterday. ” The tense relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Rove has deeper significance than just resolving their public sparring. Mr. Rove has longstanding relationships with many of the party’s biggest donors, and has intricate knowledge of how “super PACs” can help elect candidates. Mr. Rove also has a long relationship with Sheldon Adelson, another casino magnate who has said he would spend upward of $100 million to back Mr. Trump. Mr. Adelson and Mr. Trump met on Tuesday, their second meeting in the last few weeks. Mr. Rove has talked with Mr. Adelson about what super PAC to use as a vehicle for donating such a large sum of money to support Mr. Trump, including possibly using the Crossroads groups, which he helped establish, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. Mr. Adelson is also discussing the possibility of creating a new entity that would back Mr. Trump, and has been holding talks with Nick Ayers, the former executive director of the Republican Governors Association, according to two people briefed on the discussions. Mr. Ayers’s involvement was first reported by the website Politico. Creating a new group would give Mr. Adelson more control over how his money is spent, at a moment when there are a number of super PACs that either exist or are being formed to support Mr. Trump’s bid. Other major donors, such as Rebekah Mercer, who supported the presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, are considering backing Mr. Trump through other super PACs. Super PACs cannot coordinate with campaigns, and, so far, the Trump campaign hasn’t signaled formally whether any group has its tacit blessing. In two cases, former aides to the campaign have gone to work for super PACs that support Mr. Trump, despite “ periods” mandated by campaign finance laws when transitions like that take place. There is one super PAC supporting Mr. Trump that is run by a former aide to Ben Carson. Another proposed group, which would be backed by Tom Barrack, a financier and close friend of Mr. Trump, was created on Thursday, with more than $30 million in commitments, according to CNN. Another group is being advised by Edward J. Rollins, the strategist who was Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager and has deep ties to the Republican Party. That group has faced scrutiny over its practices, although it has donor meetings planned with prominent figures such as the financier Julian H. Robertson Jr. But in a recent meeting with Mr. Trump, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III was critical of Mr. Rollins, according to two people briefed on the exchange. Mr. Rollins and Mr. Baker were rivals during the 1980 primary race between Mr. Reagan and the elder George Bush. In an email, Mr. Rollins said he had signed on to help in an unusual year. “If others think they can do it better, have at it!” said Mr. Rollins in an email. “It is going to be a tough and expensive campaign and I would assume Mr. Trump and his team would want all the help they can get!” | 1 |
VATICAN CITY — Her accusers call her an ambitious schemer, even a spy. The presiding judge has wondered aloud whether she is “full of hot air. ” Vatican prosecutors want her in jail for as many as 15 years, charging that she stole and leaked state secrets. She calls herself a scapegoat, claiming she is the target of a vendetta and a plot by her enemies to discredit her with Pope Francis. Whatever the truth, Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui (pronounced ) has emerged as the central protagonist in what is being billed here as the “Vatileaks 2” trial, and become a lightning rod of intrigue and criticism. A hero to some and a villain to others, Ms. Chaouqui — Calabrian born, 34 years old and more than eight months pregnant — stands accused with two others of leaking confidential documents to two journalists who wrote separate books about Vatican mismanagement and corruption. The trial follows the pattern of the first Vatileaks trial, in which Paolo Gabriele, the butler to Benedict XVI, the pope emeritus, faced similar charges. The journalists, Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, face up to eight years in prison in a case that has raised widespread criticism that the Vatican is trying to muzzle free speech and squelch embarrassing revelations. One of the most secretive states, the Vatican has defined the disclosures as a threat to its security. Over more than six months of testimony, Vatican watchers hoping that the courtroom revelations would blow the lid off Dan intrigue and Machiavellian machinations inside the guarded halls of the Holy See have been disappointed. Instead, the trial, which is expected to end this month, has produced still more embarrassments. Testimony has revealed serious weaknesses in the Vatican’s security system: Unknown intruders were able to enter into what were supposed to be secure offices and break open a safe, as well as breach protected internet connections. Several witnesses called by the prosecution exposed an array of human foibles, nurtured by workplace rivalries, petty jealousies, recriminations and thwarted ambitions. Not least, the trial has raised critical questions among some Vatican observers about Francis’s staffing choices, Ms. Chaouqui foremost among them. A communications consultant, Ms. Chaouqui was part of an commission established by Francis in July 2013 to review the Vatican’s economic and administrative structures and draft recommendations for reform. His decision to appoint Ms. Chaouqui to the group raised eyebrows because she was seen as too much of an outsider. She now says that she is being set up by her enemies inside the Vatican and that the case against her is “political. ” “I am a scapegoat,” she said in a recent interview at the home of her Vatican lawyer, Laura Sgro’ in Rome. “The prosecutors haven’t produced one single bit of evidence that shows that I gave a document from A to B. ” When a Vatican gendarme testified that Ms. Chaouqui admitted in November, when she was briefly arrested, that she had given documents to one of the journalists, she retorted in court that the “documents” had been tickets to a Vatican event. She says she believes that she worked only for the good of the church, and that the mandate and recommendations of her commission have been thwarted by inaction. “My commission discovered and denounced very serious crimes” to Vatican prosecutors and financial regulators that were never acted upon, she said in the interview. “I imagined that Vatican justice would take action against these people who committed financial crimes that are really serious, far more than those written up” in the Vatileaks books, she added. “But until now nothing has happened, at least as far as I know. ” Several other members of the commission, which was disbanded after 10 months, having completed its mandate, did not respond to emails or declined to comment. The recommendations of the commission led to the creation in February 2014 of the Secretariat for the Economy, which oversees all of the Vatican’s economic and administrative activities. It also recommended the reorganization of the Vatican’s media operations, which has begun. Prosecutors insist that Ms. Chaouqui conspired with another member of the committee, Msgr. Lucio Ángel Vallejo Balda, and his secretary, Nicola Maio — both also facing 15 years in prison — to form a secretive lobby that leaked documents to journalists. But Ms. Sgro’ Ms. Chaouqui’s lawyer, said the prosecution had not yet explained “what advantage her client would achieve” from this arrangement. Critics say that Ms. Chaouqui, through Monsignor Vallejo Balda, was attempting to cement her position within the Holy See even after the commission she was part of had been disbanded. Ms. Chaouqui called the theory laughable. “Employees of the curia make around 2, 000 euros a month, which is what I earn in less than a week,” she scoffed. “It’s clear that wouldn’t be my aspiration. ” The swirl of innuendo whipped up around her has been as compelling as it is contradictory. When he took the stand in March, Monsignor Vallejo Balda recounted that Ms. Chaouqui had told him that she was a top Italian spy. He also spoke of a night in a Florentine hotel during which — “acting seductively” — Ms. Chaouqui “wanted to conquer me at any cost. ” “I understand that this night of love was the thing that most scandalized public opinion, but it’s all very false,” Ms. Chaouqui said in the interview, rolling her eyes. Her encounters with Monsignor Vallejo Balda were part of a “normal working relationship” between members of the same commission, she said. “I never wanted a job in the curia. I wanted to bring my reforms forward. ” After working for several prestigious Italian law firms managing their public relations, and then for the professional services firm Ernst Young, Ms. Chaouqui set up her own communications strategy company. It counted top entrepreneurs, private security companies and governments as clients, she said. Her credentials do not seem to have impressed the Vatican court. “Did you have the impression that she was full of hot air?” the presiding judge, Giuseppe Dalla Torre, recently asked a witness. The witness responded that, in fact, Ms. Chaouqui had made good on her promise to bring a government minister to visit a project. Soon after her selection, the Italian media published a series of disparaging messages, purportedly from Ms. Chaouqui’s Twitter account, including one suggesting that Benedict had leukemia, and that a former Italian government minister was gay. She claims that her account was hacked, and that the messages were part of a larger dossier put together by her enemies to discredit her with the pope. She repeated the assertion in court in May, and again on her Facebook account, to explain why she had been unjustly brought to trial. The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the director of the Vatican Press Office, warned in a statement in May that her accusations were “calumnious affirmations — they are absolutely unacceptable, and subject to legal action. ” Ms. Chaouqui dismissed criticisms that she has been too flippant on her social media accounts in trying to refute the accusations that have been raised in court, which she sees as part of a defamatory campaign against her. “I am not a nun. I am a communicator,” she said. “Vatileaks has become the most important communications strategy of my life. ” | 1 |
Prince wasn’t someone many people said no to. The model Naomi Campbell was apparently one who did. “I was 17 years old when I met him,” Ms. Campbell said on Thursday, the day of Prince’s death. “I was with Azzedine Alaïa and Mondino in Paris, and I remember Prince said to me not to wear high heels, and I wore the highest heels I could find. Because it went with Azzedine’s outfit. ” But the two soon became fast friends, and she was often a fixture at his concerts no matter where (or, more notably, when) Prince decided to play. “He used to call me every time he came to London or Paris,” Ms. Campbell said. “It would be 2 o’clock in the morning and he’d say, ‘I’m going to play’ and I would go out in my pajamas. That was it. He was impromptu. The last time I saw Amy Winehouse was when she performed with Prince. They sang one of her songs and one of his. They were a powerhouse, the two of them. He loved talent. ” For many in the fashion world, the film and album “Purple Rain” became their gateway to a lifelong connection to Prince, as both a performer and role model. “I saw it three times in three days,” said the photographer Bruce Weber. “It was just like ‘wow.’ Only he could make this wonderful movie that was kind of about nothing and yet was about everything. Part of what I also loved was that not only did he do great music but he was smaller than the other musicians and he always got the girl. You felt like the biggest, tallest guy even though he wore high heels because he was so short. ” George Cortina, one of the industry’s stylists, said: “I’d just gotten out of rehab when I first heard ‘Purple Rain.’ I couldn’t believe that album. It was the most brilliant thing I ever heard. ” Edward Enninful, the creative and fashion director of W, can still remember what it was like when he found out about Prince. He was a gay kid in London when his older brother came home to their mother’s flat and pulled out a copy of “Dirty Mind,” the singer’s 1980 album that featured a black and white image of the Minneapolis singer wearing an open studded trench coat that amply displayed his androgynous glory. “I’d never seen anything like it in my life,” Mr. Enninful said. “Someone so blatantly challenging the ideas of race and gender and sexuality. In a way, it was comparable to David Bowie, except that Prince brought that to the black community. ” There’d been hints of that before with Teddy Pendergrass and Rick James, as well as Sylvester and Little Richard. But the remix seemed entirely new with Prince, and Mr. Enninful worshiped at his altar, loving his ruffled shirts with the Edwardian collars and black matador outfits with the crazy crop tops. In time there were comparisons to another great superstar of his time: Michael Jackson. But Prince was different. Adept not just as a singer, guitarist, keyboard player and dancer, he was also virtually unmatched in his ability to destabilize people both privately and publicly. Where Mr. Jackson used songs like “Bad” and “Billie Jean” to shed his androgyny and sexual ambiguity, Prince reveled in them, singing, “Am I black or I straight or gay. ” “I always saw it like Prince was the bad brother and Michael was the good brother,” Mr. Enninful said. “He was pop, with clean lyrics. Prince was not scared. The first time I heard someone sing about AIDS it was Prince: ‘In France, a skinny man died of a big disease with a little name.’ He was not afraid of taboos. ” That fearlessness extended to his costumes, which were further exercises in contradiction and gender ambiguity. He rocked heavily embellished heels but his shirts were open to the navel, showing off his chest hair. “He wore the most incredible opulent fabrics and the boots were always made to match,” said Mary Kay Stolz, who worked on the singer’s costumes for the tour of “Purple Rain. ” “International Silks and Woolens, the best fabric store in L. A. would stay open late for me because I would fly in late from Minneapolis just to get fabric and turn around. ” Mystery was an essential component of his persona. There was an aura of secrecy about him even among the people who wound up in close proximity to him. “He didn’t make a lot of eye contact and I did sign a nondisclosure before I left,” Ms. Stolz said. “When I was there, the bodyguards said to people, ‘Don’t talk to Prince unless he talks to you.’ It wasn’t like, ‘Hey Prince.’ It’s not like anything was really conveyed, although he liked what he liked. I would leave the clothes at night and he would try them and if he liked them they wouldn’t be there anymore. He was in his musical world and that was it. ” Invariably, the fashion world claimed him as one of their own. Designers like Donatella Versace hired him to play at their shows, including in 2011, when Prince performed along with Nicki Minaj at an opening night party in New York for a collaboration between Versace and H M. By this point Prince was not so much the sartorial maverick he’d once been as the Las Vegas version of himself, playing guitar in a pair of black ovular shades and decked out in a tight red suit. Among those in attendance was the designer Joseph Altuzarra. “I remember how epic the performance was,” he said. “I think more than anyone, really, Prince felt like he was above it all — just such a legend, a living legend. ” Mr. Altuzarra recently channeled Prince’s style for his fall 2015 collection of ruffled lace blouses, one he said had been inspired in part by what he called the singer’s period in the 1980s. “There’s always something that he wore that I think is really fascinating, and I tend to really love looking at musicians’ wardrobes for inspiration. I’ve definitely looked at his style pictures. ” Ms. Versace, who did get to know Prince over the years, found a lack of pretension beneath the surface. “One of the last conversations I had with Prince was about coming to my show,” she said in statement. “He said to me: ‘Let’s have no celebrities in the first row, no V. I. P. s. Let’s have the smart and real people who do what they think is right and put all their energy to make our world better and don’t get the attention they deserve. ’” “I am crying,” she added. “All my memories are coming back to me. He was one of my closest friends. ” | 1 |
This Sunday, I will be flying to Israel immediately after the gala dinner of our organization, the World Values Network. I am going to attend the 50th anniversary of Jerusalem Day, when Israel reunified Jerusalem in the 1967 war, affirming the Jewish people’s rebirth in their ancient capital after the devastation of the Holocaust. [President Donald Trump will be there, too. During his campaign, he made a commitment to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and move the U. S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. In addition, the Republican Party platform at last year’s convention said: “We recognize Jerusalem as the eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish state, and call for the American embassy to be moved there in fulfillment of U. S. law. ” President Trump is being pressured from many sides to renege on that pledge. But he must resist the naysayers and do what he knows in his mind and heart to be the right thing for America and for our foremost ally, Israel. Barack Obama did good things for the Jewish state, including stepping up military and economic cooperation, as Israel repeatedly acknowledged. There was little good, however, about his policies of paying ransom to the genocidal Iranian regime, or providing funding to the Palestinian Authority so it can pay salaries to terrorists or doing nothing after Syria’s tyrant gassed his people. President Trump did the right thing in attacking the Syrian tyrant following the latest chemical weapons attack, in telling Mahmoud Abbas he must stop paying terrorists, and in denouncing the catastrophic nuclear deal with Iran. But more must be done — and the Jerusalem Embassy move is especially long overdue. It is outrageous that out of the 190 nations America has diplomatic relations with, Israel is the only one whose capital is not recognized by the U. S. government. More than 20 years ago, in 1990, Congress passed a resolution declaring that “Jerusalem is and should remain the capital of the State of Israel” and “must remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected. ” Five years later, Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation reiterating that position and requiring the U. S. embassy in Israel to be moved no later than May 1999. The Jerusalem Embassy Act passed the Senate by . The most famous Democratic Senators of the time all voted for it, including Senators Joe Biden ( ) John Kerry ( ) Harry Reid ( ) and Dianne Feinstein ( ). It is now May 2017, and the embassy remains in Tel Aviv. Trump’s predecessors, despite pledging during their campaigns to move the embassy, repeatedly signed waivers that allowed them to ignore the legislation on grounds that delaying would be in the national security interests of the United States. Trump is now being asked to sign a similar waiver to frustrate the will of Congress and to break a central campaign promise, once again. He is being told the embassy cannot be moved because it might provoke outrage in the Muslim world and violence in Jerusalem. That is blackmail and the United States cannot give in to such threats. We cannot allow others to dictate what should and should not be sovereign U. S. territory. And no one should be making threats to the most powerful and righteous nation on earth without assuming there will be serious consequences. Furthermore, the Muslim world should not be treated with such disrespect. We should not take the paternalistic view that Muslims cannot understand that Jerusalem has long been Israel’s capital and that the United States is the Jewish state’s closest ally. Reinforcing our special relationship by moving a building should not be seen as a provocation or retreat from our friendship with Arab and Muslim nations. Furthermore, Muslims in the Middle East have far more serious concerns that, unlike U. S. policy toward Jerusalem, directly affect their lives. They suffer deprivations and persecution in many of their own countries. Shiites and Sunnis are at war throughout the region. Iran is threatening the of Muslims throughout the area as well as the leaders of several Arab countries. Muslims are dying daily in fighting in Iraq, Yemen, and Syria. Will all of these problems evaporate with the relocation of our embassy? Will the ongoing conflicts stop so Muslims can redirect their anger toward the United States and Israel? Radical Islamists want to destroy our way of life and nothing we do — or don’t do — will change their agenda. Furthermore, the best way to prevent violence is to show we will not give in to threats, and to send a clear message to the provocateurs in the Palestinian Authority and elsewhere that we will not tolerate any actions on their part to incite violence. Moreover, moving our embassy will not harm the peace process. The opposite is true. By making clear the United States position that Jerusalem should remain unified under Israeli sovereignty, unrealistic Palestinian expectations regarding the city can be moderated, and thereby enhance the prospects for a final agreement. Despite the outrageously biased UN Resolution 2334, supported by Trump’s predecessor, Israel will not compromise its sovereignty over its capital. It will never give up Judaism’s holy places. It will not allow the Palestinian Authority or its supporters at UNESCO to erase the history of the Jewish people from their homeland. There is no better time than President Trump’s upcoming visit to Jerusalem to declare that, a he promised during the campaign, he will move the U. S. embassy to Israel’s eternal capital. Doing so will help him domestically by demonstrating that he is indeed a man of his word. It will help him internationally by showing that he cannot be intimidated by threats. It will advance his interest in peace by sending a message to the Palestinians that he stands by Israel and will not capitulate to their demands or force Israel to do so. Showing his commitment to Jerusalem will also restore the confidence of the people of Israel that the United States has their back. Finally, standing up for American values and correcting a historical wrong will be a part of his presidential legacy, which will earn him the gratitude of the Jewish people and the respect of all Americans. Last month, on Holocaust Memorial Day, President Trump spoke movingly about the memory of the six million Jews murdered in the Second World War. He praised genocide’s foremost witness, Elie Wiesel, as “a great man” whose “absence leaves an empty space in our hearts, but his spirit fills this room. ” This Sunday, at the World Values Network gala, Professor Wiesel’s son, Elisha, will be reciting the very last Kaddish — the Jewish prayer for the dead — for his father. Immediately after that, I will leave for Israel. We Jews do not forget. We have mourned the destruction of Jerusalem for thousands of years. President Trump has a unique opportunity to turn that mourning into the joy of celebration when he, too, arrives in Israel. He can, at a unique moment in history, move the U. S. embassy to Jerusalem and confirm its permanence as Israel’s capital. It is an opportunity he must not decline. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is executive Director of The World Values Network whose gala takes place at Cipriani on 42nd Street beginning 5pm on 21 May. For more information or to obtain tickets go to www. thisworldgala. com or write info@shmuley. com. | 1 |
on October 25, 2016 10:41 pm ·
New video has surfaced adding to the mountain of evidence that while working alongside his father, Fred Trump, young Donald Trump was part of a real estate business that discriminated against minority applicants.
As part of an investigation by NBC News, Stanley Leibowitz, who worked as a rental agent for the Trump Organization, told the news network that he personally witnessed the elder Trump explicitly lay out a racist policy for their apartment properties.
In the interview, Leibowitz said that Trump told him “I don’t rent to the n-word,” and indicates that Trump made this statement with Donald Trump in the room and that the younger Trump affirmed the policy.
The revelation comes at the same time that the Clinton campaign has released a video highlighting Trump’s run-in with the federal government over discrimination.
Undercover investigators were sent to Trump properties, and there they repeatedly ran into a policy where black applicants with identical financial backgrounds to white applicants were systematically denied housing. The white applicants were allowed into the Trump properties.
One bit of testimony determined that Trump property managers indicated applications from blacks by putting a “C” on the documents for “colored,” and that was a sign that they should be denied.
The Trumps denied the allegation, but later settled with the government over the policy without admitting wrongdoing.
Donald Trump’s involvement with his father’s business is key to the entire story of his rise to prominence in the real estate world and the media, as is his father’s $14 million dollars that he gave to Trump to start his business. But if you accept that, the Trump Organization’s history of racial discrimination and the legal entanglements that come with that are also part of the story, and no matter how Trump may try to wave it away – it’s still there.
Featured image via screen capture Share this Article! Author: Oliver Willis I was one of the first political bloggers in the world (since 2000), and was among the first bloggers to interview President Obama at the White House. I am on Twitter @owillis and write at OliverWillis.com Search | 0 |
A group of feminist performing artists ‘galloped’ seven kilometres through Stockholm past a number of the city’s statues on Saturday to protest “patriarchal” statues of men on horseback. [“When you look at the sculptures we have in the park and city in Stockholm, you see men on horses and other men,” choreographer Anna Källblad told SVT. “Statues of women tend to be naked, and quite small. ” The group ‘galloped’ past the Royal Palace, Humlegården, Royal Garden, and Gustav Adolf’s Square, pausing at statues, where participants “snorted” kicked, and flicked their hair in an attempt to mimic equine behaviour. Hoping that ‘City Horses’ could start a debate about men and women in public space, artist Helena Byström said the “feminist dance gallop” acted as a necessary “counterweight to the great hordes of men who take up room in the city in different ways”. Statues of men from Swedish history on horseback are outdated, and their presence overpowers Stockholm with “the male gaze and the idea of male power” according to Källblad. “Our performance is a fun way to confront it,” the choreographer told Svenska Dagbladet, describing the group as “living sculptures”. “Horses are a symbol of power, but at the same time they represent equestrianism and dance — both female activities which are often marginalised. “And just like the female body, horses can symbolise both the restrained and the wild,” said Källblad, remarking that “‘City Horses’ poses viewers the question of how women can occupy the public domain without being objectified. ” The idea that men occupy public spaces at the expense of women is a key theme of feminism in Sweden. Its environment minister announced in March that the country should reduce the number of cars on the road because male drivers outnumber women. “Cars are driven largely by men so by giving a lot of space to cars we’re giving a lot of space to men — at the expense of women,” she explained. | 0 |
As Chuck Peal lay in a Waterbury, Conn. emergency room one Sunday in early September, doctors furiously tried to make sense of his symptoms. Mr. Peal, 61, appeared to be dying, and they were not sure why. He slipped in and out of consciousness, his blood pressure plummeted, his potassium levels soared and his blood sugar spiked to 10 times the normal level. A doctor suspected a heart attack, but uncertainty left him urgently researching the situation on his phone. This was not a heart attack. Mr. Peal’s body was attacking itself, a severe reaction by his immune system that was a side effect of a seemingly miraculous cancer treatment aimed at saving his life. In the seven weeks prior, doctors at Yale had combated Mr. Peal’s melanoma with two of the most promising drugs in cancer treatment today. These medicines work by stimulating the immune system to attack cancer as ferociously as it does other threats, like viruses and bacteria. These immunotherapy drugs have been hailed as a breakthrough in cancer treatment, attracting billions of research dollars and offering new hope to patients out of options. But as their use grows, doctors are finding that they pose serious risks that stem from the very thing that makes them effective. An unleashed immune system can attack healthy, vital organs: notably the bowel, the liver and the lungs, but also the kidneys, the adrenal and pituitary glands, the pancreas and, in rare cases, the heart. Doctors at Yale believe immunotherapy is causing a new type of diabetes, with at least 17 cases there so far, Mr. Peal’s among them. In cancer clinics around the world, and in drug trials, myriad other side effects are showing up. Studies are finding that severe reactions occur nearly 20 percent of the time with certain drugs, and in more than half of patients when some drugs are used in combination. Another recent paper found that 30 percent of patients experienced “interesting, rare or unexpected side effects,” with a quarter of the reactions described as severe, or requiring hospitalization. Some patients have died, including five in recent months in clinical trials of a new immunotherapy drug being tested by Juno Therapeutics Inc. The upshot, oncologists and immunologists say, is that the medical field must be more vigilant as these drugs soar in popularity. And they say more research is needed into who is likely to have reactions and how to treat them. “We are playing with fire,” said Dr. John Timmerman, an oncologist and immunotherapy researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who recently lost a patient to side effects. The woman’s immunotherapy drugs had successfully “melted away” her cancer, he said, but some weeks later, she got cold and flulike symptoms and died in the emergency room from an inflammatory response that Dr. Timmerman described as “a mass riot, an uprising” of her immune system. “We’ve heard about immunotherapy as God’s gift, the chosen elixir, the cure for cancer,” he said. “We haven’t heard much about the collateral damage. ” Despite the warnings, physicians like Dr. Timmerman remain hugely supportive of drugs that are saving the lives of people who would otherwise die. Far better to cope with diabetes, hepatitis or arthritis, the thinking goes, than to die. Most reactions are not nearly so bad and are treatable. The rub, doctors and researchers say, is that the medical system — from nurses to oncologists to emergency rooms — is too often caught off guard. This is happening for a number of reasons: The drugs are new, so many side effects just have not been seen. Symptoms appear at random, sometimes months after treatment, and can initially seem innocuous. Finally, oncologists are now trying to treat patients with a combination of two or more immunotherapy drugs, hoping for more effective treatment but sometimes getting amplified risks. In the meantime, these drugs are moving from academic centers into cancer clinics across the country, where oncologists in smaller cities most likely have less experience with the side effects. And with lives to be saved and billions of dollars to be made — $250, 000 or more is the list price for a year of some regimens — not enough research has been done into the risks of the new therapies, said William Murphy, a professor of dermatology at the University of California, Davis, who reviews grants for the government. It is “a massively understudied area,” Dr. Murphy said, adding: “The No. 1 priority is effects. Everything else, however severe, is considered the price worth paying. ” Caught in the middle are patients like Mr. Peal, whose stories show the delicacy of tinkering with the immune system. It may hold the keys to curing cancer if it can be at once stoked and tamed. Mr. Peal, bespectacled and lean, was dealing with melanoma that had spread to his lungs in June 2015 when he saw a Yale oncologist, Dr. Harriet Kluger. In the past, a patient like him would have been given little chance. “We’d sit the patient down and say, ‘I’m really sorry, the median life expectancy is nine months. Get your affairs in order,’” said Dr. Kluger, who runs immunotherapy clinical trials focusing on skin and kidney cancer. Now she could offer Mr. Peal hope. Consider: One study by Dr. Kluger found positive responses in more than 40 percent of advanced melanoma patients when they used a combination of two major immunotherapy drugs, nivolumab and ipilimumab. Other research, however, shows that the promise comes with real risks. A 2015 paper in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that use of these drugs carried a risk of side effects that were severe, required hospitalization or were 54 percent of the time. “It’s at least that high, at least,” Dr. Kluger said. But, she noted, most of the side effects are manageable through immune suppression, such as with steroids. The effectiveness of immunotherapy drugs and their side effects are intimately bound by the same biological mechanisms. Called checkpoint inhibitors, the drugs work by essentially reversing a trick that cancer plays on the immune system: The cancer cells send nefarious signals to cells that cause them to stand down. Cancer is turning on the immune system’s brake. There is a valuable reason the brake exists: It can shut down the body’s powerful defenders so that they do not inadvertently attack the body itself. Cancer is taking advantage of this key survival mechanism. When an immunotherapy drug turns the brake off, the immune system can sometimes shrink tumors in mere days. Mr. Peal, an engineering technician who tests the performance of helicopter parts, started taking nivolumab and ipilimumab on July 8. Dr. Kluger told him he might feel drowsy or nauseated, or he could get a rash. A rash indeed struck with a vengeance on Aug. 30: red welts from his knees to his waist. On Sept. 1, a Thursday, he visited Dr. Kluger’s office, where he was given a steroid. The next day, he had a fever, nausea and was “dying of thirst — like beyond being in the desert,” he said. He threw up everything. His girlfriend, Keating, called Dr. Kluger’s office, and an doctor prescribed an antinausea drug. Later, Ms. Keating called back to say it was not working, and he was prescribed a second antinausea drug. By Sunday morning, Mr. Peal, unable to move, took an ambulance to the emergency room. In his wallet, he kept an information card published by Squibb. It lists dozens of risks, including that the therapy “can cause serious side effects in many parts of your body, which can lead to death. ” Mr. Peal’s family told the emergency room doctor about the treatment, Ms. Keating recalled. “The doctor kept on saying he was on chemotherapy,” she said. “I said, ‘They’re calling it immunotherapy.’ He went on his phone and started looking for information. ” But even Dr. Kluger’s experienced team, which answered the distressed phone calls that weekend, was caught off guard and did not react immediately to the symptoms. “It took us by surprise. He looked absolutely fine on Friday,” Dr. Kluger said. Part of the problem, she thinks, is that Mr. Peal was relatively new to the clinic, and so she and her staff members did not have the experience with him to accurately assess his symptoms. “It also happened very quickly. It spiraled within hours. ” Ultimately, Mr. Peal spent 24 days in the hospital, where trouble mounted. First his pancreas failed, then his bowels inflamed and his kidneys became dysfunctional, and “to top it off, he has a fever of 103 for which we can’t find a source,” Dr. Kluger said in an interview during the crisis. She was trying to figure it out and had emailed other experts around the country to see if they had ever had a patient with this combination of acute immune reactions. No one had seen it before. The pancreas problem was particularly noteworthy. Mr. Peal’s is among a growing number of such cases that have led a Yale endocrinologist, Dr. Kevan Herold, an authority on autoimmunity, to conclude that he is seeing a new form of Type 1 diabetes. Typically, the peak age of onset of Type 1 diabetes is 6 to 12, and it involves the immune system’s destroying, bit by bit, the cells in the pancreas that make the insulin needed to metabolize sugar into energy. But this is different: Patients are 50 or older and are losing insulin production all at once, including in one case of an . Dr. Herold said he was hearing similar stories from peers around the country. “A single case like this is uncommon,” he said. “As an aggregate, it’s . ” Another case at Yale involved Colleen Platt, 65, a real estate agent from Torrington, Conn. who was being treated by Dr. Kluger for kidney cancer. Ms. Platt opted for a clinical trial involving two immunotherapy drugs, atezolizumab and a second drug that Dr. Kluger declined to name because the trial is continuing. Days after the second treatment in November 2014, Ms. Platt started feeling dizzy and numb and was vomiting water. She went to Dr. Kluger’s office, where they did lab tests that “were so profoundly abnormal, we thought this was lab error,” Dr. Kluger recounted. “We thought the machine was messed up. ” The tests were right. Like Mr. Peal, Ms. Platt had gone into diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition in which her body, desperate to compensate for energy it was missing when her pancreas shut down, created a flux of acid that could keep her functioning in the short term, at the risk of gravely harming organs throughout her body. Outside the emergency room, while a chaplain visited Ms. Platt to comfort her, Dr. Kluger called the drug company to report the extraordinary reaction. Today, like Mr. Peal, Ms. Platt takes multiple insulin shots each day, and still her sugar level fluctuates wildly. On the other hand, immunotherapy has largely beaten her cancer. In fact, after consulting with other doctors and one of the drug companies, Dr. Kluger recommended Ms. Platt continue with treatment, which she did. “Her pancreas isn’t coming back,” Dr. Kluger said, referring to the diabetic effects of immunotherapy. “She has her life. ” Mr. Peal — who, like Ms. Platt, agreed to let Dr. Kluger and Dr. Herold discuss his case — feels the will be well worth it. In fact, on Friday, he got the results from a scan taken the day before and learned that immunotherapy had eliminated two of his cancer lesions and shrunk two others. “I can deal with diabetes,” he said, “if I can beat melanoma. ” Evidence of these challenges is decades old. In the Matthew Krummel, a young immunology graduate student known as Max, worked at a lab at the University of California, Berkeley, that would become one of the most influential in the development of immunotherapy. The lab was run by Dr. James Allison, who, along with Dr. Krummel, published a seminal paper in 1995 showing that they could eliminate tumors in mice by turning off a brake on the immune system. But the lab got less attention for a related experiment: The skin of some mice treated this way turned from black to white. They had lost their pigmentation, a result of the immune system’s attacking the cells that make melanin. The startling change was not but indicated the power of tinkering with the immune system. This discovery was novel but not particularly celebrated compared with the promise of curing cancer, Dr. Krummel recalled. The skin study “was kind of a footnote,” he said. Then came the TeGenero tragedy in 2006. TeGenero Immuno Therapeutics designed a drug to stimulate the immune system to fight leukemia. At Northwick Park Hospital in London, a Phase 1 trial took place, with six healthy patients getting the drug. Within hours, all suffered multiorgan failure. The devastating results tempered the enthusiasm and suggested that more work needed to be done in advance of human trials. But enthusiasm came roaring back. Part of the reason was that, ultimately, the autoimmune reactions were seen not only as an acceptable cost of these drugs but as evidence they were working. “It’s the nature of the beast,” said Martin Bachmann, a professor and immunologist at the Jenner Institute, which is affiliated with Oxford University. “I’m not sure you can get rid of the side effects — it’s really what you want. ” Chemotherapy, too, has side effects, but Dr. Kluger prefers immunotherapy’s because the drugs may offer enduring control of cancer without the need for continued treatment. So she is joining others looking to address largely unanswered questions: Who is likely to be at risk, can the side effects be recognized before turning dangerous, and how should they be treated? In June, Dr. Kluger and Dr. Herold submitted a grant proposal to the National Institutes of Health to study whether they could predict which patients would develop these symptoms. They based the proposal on a hypothesis that some patients have a biology or a genetic background that might make them more likely to have side effects. The proposal has not yet been funded. Thus far, only a modicum of work has been done on these questions. Several studies found that older mice were more susceptible than younger mice to autoimmune reactions another study, also in mice, found that obese subjects were more likely to have adverse effects. “Old or fat mice were literally dead within hours,” said Dr. Murphy, the professor at Davis who believes too little is being done. He is well positioned to see the trends: In the past year, he sat on eight government grant review committees focused on immunotherapy, and he said only three out of 500 research proposals he reviewed focused on the toxicity side of immunotherapy. Part of the problem, he said, is that the drug companies that are driving research prefer working with labs that support trials’ moving quickly. As a result, Dr. Murphy said, human trials are advancing faster than the background research can be done. Hoping to push access to lifesaving drugs, the Food and Drug Administration has a “breakthrough therapy designation” that allows faster approval. Since 2012, the agency has granted breakthrough designation about 110 times, almost a quarter of them for immunotherapy. “When people talk about moonshots, they’re talking about curing cancer, but it has to look at the whole picture,” Dr. Murphy said. With so much momentum pushing for a cure, the emphasis from researchers and oncologists is on more vigilance about the side effects. Dr. Timmerman, from U. C. L. A. said he wished he had seen the signs of trouble in his patient, who survived cancer only to die in the emergency room after exhibiting seemingly modest flulike symptoms. “If we had only known the power we had unleashed that was causing such a toll on her organ system, we might have saved her,” he said. “You have to manage this hour by hour,” he added. “Minute by minute. ” | 1 |
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WHAT does it take to herd about 15 dead cats in Victorian dress to a wedding in Brooklyn? More than two years of trying, apparently, followed by some strokes of luck. That, at least, is what was required to get “The Kittens’ Wedding,” an elaborate tableau by the Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter, to the Morbid Anatomy Museum, where it is the eerily commanding centerpiece of the new exhibition “Taxidermy: Art, Science Immortality. ” “It’s such a perfect object, with a tension between the perverse and the adorable,” Joanna Ebenstein, the museum’s and creative director, said in a telephone conversation a few days before the piece’s installation. “I think it will really shock people. ” Mr. Potter ( ) is considered a master of visionary taxidermy, familiar to generations of British vacationers who passed through his homespun museum in Sussex, England, where hundreds of pieces — from single specimens to elaborate tableaus featuring kittens, frogs, birds and rats in all manner of humanlike situations — were displayed cheek by jowl. “The Kittens’ Wedding,” completed in the 1890s, shows a wedding party gathered solemnly at an altar. (One gentleman, it must be noted, bears a striking resemblance to Winston Churchill.) It is not the largest of Potter’s tableaus, but it is the only one in which the animals are fully clothed, right down to frilly undergarments properly out of sight. The Morbid Anatomy show, running through Nov. 6, is the first formal exhibition of a Potter piece in the United States, Ms. Ebenstein said. But his work has had previous brushes with respectability. In 2001, “The Kittens’ Wedding” was shown at the Victoria Albert Museum in London, as part of the exhibition “The Victorian Vision. ” In 2003, when the entire Potter collection was put up for auction, the artist Damien Hirst offered a million pounds (about $1. 6 million at the time) to halt the sale and keep the collection intact, despite having his doubts about the Mr. Potter’s technical skills. “You can see he knew very little about anatomy and musculature,” Mr. Hirst wrote in The Guardian after his offer was rebuffed. “The kittens don’t look very much like kittens,” he added, “but that’s not the point. ” Getting Mr. Potter’s work to Brooklyn has been something of a personal quest for Ms. Ebenstein, the with Pat Morris, of the book “Walter Potter’s Curious World of Taxidermy. ” When the museum moved into its building in Gowanus in 2014, Ms. Ebenstein wanted to open with an exhibition of his work, but borrowing the often unwieldy pieces from collectors was too expensive. Then, this year, Ms. Ebenstein heard that “The Kittens’ Wedding” had been bought at auction for nearly $120, 000 by J. D. Powe, an educational software entrepreneur and collector who had previously lent pieces to the museum, in partnership with Antediluvian Antiques Curiosities, a dealer in Lake Placid, N. Y. It was subsequently sold to Sabrina Hansen, the founder of a cat sanctuary in Catskill, N. Y. who agreed to the loan. “Some people dismiss his work as Victorian whimsy, but it’s really an extraordinary piece,” Ms. Hansen, who also owns a Potter featuring a monkey riding a goat, said in an interview. “The way he twists their little heads around, it really tells a whole story. ” At Morbid Anatomy, which is dedicated to what Ms. Ebenstein likes to call objects that “fall between the cracks” of conventional categories, Potter’s feline wedding is displayed along with more than 100 other pieces involving artfully preserved animals. “We have squirrels playing cards, some frogs being spanked, a drunk monkey,” Ms. Ebenstein said, rattling off some anthropomorphic highlights. There’s also an elaborate diorama, created in Paris around 1820, showing a crew of mice hard at work in a miniature paper factory. (A number of pieces are owned by Mr. Powe, curator of the exhibition.) There are specimens of extinct species like the passenger pigeon and the heath hen, and sections dedicated to oddities ( walrus, anyone?) and to bad taxidermy, as well as what Ms. Ebenstein called a “wall of pets” — mostly dogs, lovingly presented in shadow boxes evoking eternal repose in the living room. Taxidermy was a common hobby in Potter’s time, considered a suitable pastime even for genteel ladies. But Ms. Ebenstein said that she saw Mr. Potter less as a taxidermist than as “a folk artist who used animals as his medium. ” That medium may cause discomfort in our era of vegan purses and shelters. In the later years of Mr. Potter’s museum, its proprietors felt compelled to post a sign claiming, perhaps wishfully, that no animals had been killed specifically to make Mr. Potter’s tableaus. Ms. Ebenstein, who said that most of the instructors at Morbid Anatomy’s popular taxidermy classes are animal rights activists and vegetarians, struck a note that was both and philosophical. “This was the Victorian era, before cats were routinely spayed or neutered, and unwanted kittens were routinely drowned,” she said. “This isn’t something happy, but it’s true. ” “If an animal is going to die,” she said, “why not make something beautiful and memorable out of it?” | 1 |
Drug education is the only part of the middle school curriculum I remember — perhaps because it backfired so spectacularly. Before reaching today’s legal drinking age, I was shooting cocaine and heroin. I’ve since recovered from my addiction, and researchers now are trying to develop innovative prevention programs to help children at risk take a different road than I did. Developing a public antidrug program that really works has not been easy. Many of us grew up with antidrug programs like D. A. R. E. or the Nancy antidrug campaign “Just Say No. ” But research shows those programs and others like them that depend on education and scare tactics were largely ineffective and did little to curb drug use by children at highest risk. But now a new antidrug program tested in Europe, Australia and Canada is showing promise. Called Preventure, the program, developed by Patricia Conrod, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Montreal, recognizes how a child’s temperament drives his or her risk for drug use — and that different traits create different pathways to addiction. Early trials show that personality testing can identify 90 percent of the highest risk children, targeting risky traits before they cause problems. Recognizing that most teenagers who try alcohol, cocaine, opioids or methamphetamine do not become addicted, they focus on what’s different about the minority who do. The traits that put kids at the highest risk for addiction aren’t all what you might expect. In my case, I seemed an unlikely candidate for addiction. I excelled academically, behaved well in class and participated in numerous extracurricular activities. Inside, though, I was suffering from loneliness, anxiety and sensory overload. The same traits that made me “gifted” in academics left me clueless with people. That’s why, when my health teacher said that peer pressure could push you to take drugs, what I heard instead was: “Drugs will make you cool. ” As someone who felt like an outcast, this made psychoactive substances catnip. Preventure’s personality testing programs go deeper. They focus on four risky traits: impulsiveness, anxiety sensitivity and hopelessness. Importantly, most kids can be spotted early. For example, in preschool I was given a diagnosis of attention disorder (A. D. H. D.) which increases illegal drug addiction risk by a factor of three. My difficulty regulating emotions and oversensitivity attracted bullies. Then, isolation led to despair. A child who begins using drugs out of a sense of hopelessness — like me, for instance — has a quite different goal than one who seeks thrills. Three of the four personality traits identified by Preventure are linked to mental health issues, a critical risk factor for addiction. Impulsiveness, for instance, is common among people with A. D. H. D. while hopelessness is often a precursor to depression. Anxiety sensitivity, which means being overly aware and frightened of physical signs of anxiety, is linked to panic disorder. While is not connected to other diagnoses, it raises addiction risk for the obvious reason that people drawn to intense experience will probably like drugs. Preventure starts with an intensive to training for teachers, who are given a crash course in therapy techniques proven to fight psychological problems. The idea is to prevent people with outlying personalities from becoming entrenched in disordered thinking that can lead to a diagnosis, or, in the case of to dangerous behavior. When the school year starts, middle schoolers take a personality test to identify the outliers. Months later, two workshops — framed as a way to channel your personality toward success — are offered to the whole school, with only a limited number of slots. Overwhelmingly, most students sign up, Dr. Conrod says. Although selection appears random, only those with extreme scores on the test — which has been shown to pick up 90 percent of those at risk — actually get to attend. They are given the workshop targeted to their most troublesome trait. But the reason for selection is not initially disclosed. If students ask, they are given honest information however, most do not and they typically report finding the workshops relevant and useful. “There’s no labeling,” Dr. Conrod explains. This reduces the chances that kids will make a label like “high risk” into a prophecy. The workshops teach students cognitive behavioral techniques to address specific emotional and behavioral problems and encourage them to use these tools. Preventure has been tested in eight randomized trials in Britain, Australia, the Netherlands and Canada, which found reductions in binge drinking, frequent drug use and problems. A 2013 study published in JAMA Psychiatry included over 2, 600 and in 21 British schools, half of whom were randomized to the program. Overall, Preventure cut drinking in selected schools by 29 percent — even among those who didn’t attend workshops. Among the kids who did attend, binge drinking fell by 43 percent. Dr. Conrod says that Preventure probably affected by reducing peer pressure from students. She also suspects that the teacher training made instructors more empathetic to students, which can increase school connection, a known factor in cutting drug use. Studies in 2009 and in 2013 also showed that Preventure reduced symptoms of depression, panic attacks and impulsive behavior. For kids with personality traits that put them at risk, learning how to manage traits that make us different and often difficult could change a trajectory that can lead to tragedy. | 1 |
Newly arrived Fox News host Tucker Carlson will take over the coveted 9 p. m. left by the departure of Megyn Kelly, who is heading to NBC later this year. [The host of Tucker Carlson Tonight joined the network just two months ago as a replacement for outgoing host Greta van Susteren. His 7 p. m. show has been a hit, averaging 2. 8 million total viewers and posting strong ratings in the key demo, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Carlson will begin hosting the 9 p. m. hour on Monday, January 9. Kelly’s last day at the network is Friday, January 6. “In less than two months, Tucker has taken cable news by storm with his spirited interviews and consistently strong performance,” Fox News chief Rupert Murdoch said in a statement. “Viewers have overwhelmingly responded to the show and we look forward to him being a part of Fox News’ powerful primetime . ” The move to 9 p. m. on cable’s network is Carlson’s biggest television gig yet he hosted CNN’s The Spin Room and later, its innovative talk show Crossfire, before moving on to MSNBC for several years with his own show, called The Situation with Tucker Carlson, later renamed Tucker. In 2010, he founded the conservative news website The Daily Caller. The Drudge Report was the first to report the news of Carlson’s promotion. Meanwhile, Martha MacCallum will take over Carlson’s 7 p. m. slot with a new show titled The First 100 Days, which will center on President Donald Trump’s first three months in office, and Fox News reporter Shannon Bream will appear on America’s Newsroom opposite Bill Hemmer. “Martha is a versatile and skilled anchor who has proven to be an essential component of our news programming. For the last 12 years, our viewers have trusted her reporting and we are pleased she will be part of our primetime for the first 100 days of the new presidency,” Murdoch said in a statement. Kelly, one of Fox News’s two biggest stars next to Bill O’Reilly, is leaving the network for her own daytime news show and Sunday night newsmagazine show on NBC. Her start date at the new network has not yet been announced. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 0 |
In each of the three movies Kenneth Lonergan has directed, characters move through their everyday lives under the shadow of death. The brother and sister played by Mark Ruffalo and Laura Linney in “You Can Count on Me” (2000) had, when they were children, lost their parents in a car crash, a trauma that rippled unspoken beneath their mundane adult interactions. The of Lisa Cohen, the New York teenager (Anna Paquin) at the center of “Margaret” (2011) was complicated by a fatal bus accident and colored by the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Early in Mr. Lonergan’s new film, “Manchester by the Sea,” Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) is summoned back to his hometown by news that his older brother, Joe, has died. Joe, an affable bear of a man (Kyle Chandler, in flashbacks) had had congestive heart failure for a long time, so his death, while wrenching and sad, could not have been entirely unexpected. What Joe’s son, Patrick (Lucas Hedges) and Lee face together might fall under the heading of ordinary grief: tragic to be sure, but manageable. Lee, though, already lives with a much more extreme kind of pain. You can see it in his smallest gestures and hear it in his flat, careful diction. The force of his emotion is terrifying, and so is the he must exercise to keep it invisible. Mr. Affleck, in one of the most fiercely disciplined screen performances in recent memory, conveys both Lee’s inner avalanche of feeling and the numb decorum that holds it back. The source of his anguish is revealed about halfway through the film, which almost buckles, like Lee himself, under the weight of unimaginable horror. How could anyone deal with such a disaster? How do you live with yourself afterward? Mr. Lonergan poses these questions not in the abstract, but as practical matters. Much of the action in “Manchester by the Sea” consists of dumb routines and petty disruptions, the kind of stuff that keeps happening even in the wake of enormous changes and dramatic upheavals. Before he learns of Joe’s death, Lee, who works as a janitor in a handful of apartment buildings near Boston, shovels snow, takes out the garbage and tackles plumbing problems. Once he returns home to look after Patrick, whose mother (Gretchen Mol) is out of the picture, things become a little more unpredictable. Lee has to meet with lawyers and funeral directors. He drives his nephew to band practice and heats up leftover pizza in the microwave. He forgets where he parked the car. He has to figure out what to do about Joe’s commercial fishing boat and what to say about Patrick’s complicated romantic situation. A lot happens, and a surprising amount of it is very funny. Mr. Lonergan, a brilliant playwright and a script doctor, is a master of the quotidian absurd. In his work, the laws of the universe are rigged to make human beings look ridiculous, and the species is internally wired to produce the same effect, so no amount of good taste or moral discipline can stop the jokes from coming. In Lee’s earlier life, when he lived with his wife, Randi (Michelle Williams) and their three children, he was a joker, the mischievous, wisecracking life of his own roving party. Even in his stunned, spiritually crippled later condition, the habits of sarcasm and stick with him like sensations. Joy may be out of reach, but he can’t help but find shards of humor wherever he looks. This trait clearly runs in the family. Lee and his nephew, thrown together by bereavement, have the makings of a comedy team. “What happened to your hand?” Patrick asks Lee, noticing bandages and blood. “I cut it. ” “Oh, thanks. For a minute there I didn’t know what happened. ” They’ve got a million of them. But Mr. Lonergan isn’t trafficking in bittersweet sitcom beats. He’s after a kind of realism rarely found in recent American movies, which often seem to think that audiences will be confused or offended when the silly and the serious collide onscreen. “Manchester by the Sea” is a finely shaded portrait, a study in individual misery set in a place that is observed with care and affection. Mr. Affleck and Mr. Hedges are exceptional, but the rest of the large cast is nearly as fine. (I’d single out Ms. Williams, Ms. Mol and C. J. Wilson, who plays Joe’s best pal and business partner.) The coastal Massachusetts town that gives the movie its name is picturesque in a modest, thrifty New England way. Not breathtaking, but calm and orderly, its hills flecked with tall deciduous trees and clapboard houses, its harbor ringed with rocky islands. In the opening scene — a memory of Lee, Patrick and Joe out on the boat under a bright blue sky, teasing and roughhousing and trying to catch a fish — it’s heaven. Later it feels like purgatory, a wintry place with flat skies, leaden waters and unwelcome reminders of the past. (The cinematographer who deftly captures this rough beauty is Jody Lee Lipes.) But “Manchester by the Sea” is not only about Lee and his family, and not only about their houses and boats and drinking habits and marriages. It is also about what all those things mean, and what kinds of sentimental and ideological value are attached to them. The movie takes up, indirectly and perhaps inadvertently but powerfully and unmistakably, a subject that has lately reinserted itself dramatically into American political discourse. It’s a movie, that is, about the sorrows of white men. I’m not being dismissive. I’m being specific. Mr. Lonergan is too astute about the textures of American life to assume that the racial and class identities of his characters are incidental or without larger significance. That was true of the rich New York kids in Mr. Lonergan’s play “This Is Our Youth,” from 1996, and it’s no less true of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts here, even if they are too diffident or too busy for sociological . In American cinema — from “Mystic River” to “Gone Baby Gone,” from “The Fighter” to “The Departed” — the Bay State is where the myths of white identity have been forged. Nonwhite characters are as scarce as fully articulated r’s, and the uncomfortable racial history that has existed in reality (the Boston busing battles of the 1970s, for instance) is easily ignored. There is no legacy of slavery or Jim Crow, and therefore an aura of innocence can be maintained amid the dysfunction and sentimentality and clannishness. “Manchester by the Sea,” partly because it is a product of the industrial complex, partakes of some of this but it also resists the more tiresome clichés of the Boston movie. (There are moments when the exploitation of the local accent verges on parody. Why else write an extended argument over the merits of “ Trek” or a series of jokes about ?) Mr. Lonergan is more interested in guilt than in criminality, and less concerned with nostalgia than with the psychology of loss. This is not a of redemption or revenge, with boxers and gangsters and their churchgoing moms and wives. It’s a masculine melodrama that doubles as a fable of social catastrophe. Lee, Joe and their friends would never define themselves as privileged. They have proletarian tastes and sensibilities. But they also have houses and boats, kids on track for college, decent medical care and an ironclad entitlement to the benefit of the doubt. (Observe what happens to Lee in the Manchester police station and you’ll see what I mean.) Their main problems come from women, who spoil the parties, don’t get the jokes and sometimes can’t control their drinking or keep their pants on. Some are good moms or good sports, and anyway, a man can always steal away to the boat or the basement with the guys and some beers. Cast out of this working man’s paradise, Lee is also exiled from the prerogatives of whiteness. He lives in a basement room, earning minimum wage, answering to an boss and accepting a tip from a black tenant whose toilet he has cleaned and repaired. He doesn’t complain, but it is also clear that he has chosen these conditions as a form of as punishment for his sins. Maybe its sounds like I’m or making an accusation. But to deny that “Manchester by the Sea” has a racial dimension is to underestimate its honesty and overlook its difficult relevance. Lee is guilty and angry, that what happened was not his fault and that it was, unable to apologize or to accept apologies, paralyzed by grief and stung by a sense of grievance. He’s broken, and he’s also smart enough to realize — and Mr. Lonergan is wise and generous enough to allow him to understand — that nothing will make him whole again. “Manchester by the Sea” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) for characters who curse fate and one another. Running time: 2 hours 17 minutes. | 1 |
First lady of the United States Melania Trump moved toward putting together her team with the announcement of her chief of staff on Wednesday — Lindsay Reynolds. [Reynolds formerly served in the President George W. Bush Administration White House. She will also serve as Assistant to the President, according to the White House. The chief of staff’s responsibilities will include managing the agenda for the office of the first lady as well as day to day operations. “It has been an honor to take on the responsibility of the position of first lady, with its long history as an important representative of the President, our family, and the traditions of our nation around the world,” Melania Trump said in a Wednesday statement from the White House. “I am putting together a professional and team which will take time to do properly. I am excited to be organizing and bringing together such a dynamic and forward thinking group of individuals who will work together to make our country better for everyone. ” “I look forward to the opportunity to serve as the first lady’s chief of staff,” said Reynolds. “The first lady is thoughtfully selecting her team, establishing the office of the first lady and supporting her husband President Trump. In addition, I am working to ensure that the White House Visitors Office is fully staffed and operational and ready to accept tour requests for the public in the coming weeks after a traditional temporary closure during the transition period. In the meantime, we are using this time to tend to routine maintenance, updates and renovations along the tour route to ensure the guest experience is top notch. ” The first lady’s new chief of staff has spent 14 years in political fundraising, event management, and logistics. Cincy Magazine reported in November 2008 that Reynolds served as finance chair for the former President Bush and at the time served as a finance for John McCain as he ran for President of the United States. Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana | 0 |
Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, appeared on Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 this weekend to discuss President Donald Trump’s upcoming Saturday evening rally in Melbourne, Florida, and the vehement and vitriolic hatred that the fake perpetrating establishment media has for the president. [Spicer said on the show: I think the president, after almost a month in office has, done so many things to help move the country forward — create jobs, secure the nation — and I think so many times the filter of the mainstream media loses sight of both what he’s done, accomplished, and intended to do. And I think he wants to make sure that the people who are out there who supported him, that are fighting for him and that are praying for him, know that he can talk directly to them and he can get out there and have an unfiltered conversation with them. And this is going to be a great opportunity here in Melbourne, Florida, at 5 o’clock to have that conversation with the American people so he can talk to them about all of the things he’s already done in 30 days to move the country forward. Spicer continued by noting that people in Washington, D. C. and some in New York City — those along the “Acela Corridor” that’s largely out of touch with the rest of America — “miss” what is happening. He said: I think people who are caught up in Washington, D. C. or to some extent New York City, I think they miss what’s going on here: A successful businessman went out and got into politics and has laid out a vision for America and then has actually came to Washington and did it. And there’s like a bunch of people melting down and having their minds blown by the fact that a guy is actually keeping his word and doing exactly what he said to the American people. And not just doing it, but successfully doing it, and I think that that really sort of defies the narrative about what’s supposed to happen for a lot of these individuals. I’ll tell you, we were in South Carolina yesterday at Boeing and there were 5, 000 individuals there cheering on the new 787 Dreamliner that Boeing has created — and in doing so not just that but created thousands of jobs in South Carolina to support it. It was amazing to see their support for the president and his agenda. And then down here in Florida where we are for the weekend, it’s similar. It’s refreshing to get outside of Washington, D. C. and talk to people on the street or in a convenience store who just say, ‘Hey, I really appreciate everything you’re doing, I’m standing with the president, I support everything — his agenda — and don’t get down.’ It really is reassuring to his team and to him to know that when you get outside of Washington there’s just so much support for somebody keeping his word and moving the country forward. Spicer called out several establishment media outlets, including the Associated Press and CBS News. The AP printed fake news this week, claiming inaccurately that the Trump administration was activating the National Guard to round up and remove illegal aliens. That is not true. CBS News also reported inaccurately that Trump’s designee to serve as Secretary of the Navy, Philip Bilden, is going to withdraw from serving. Spicer noted that he spoke with Bilden and that the CBS report is simply untrue. He also called out inaccurate reporting about National Security Adviser possibility, retired Vice Admiral Bob Harward’s, reasoning for turning down the job. Spicer said: It’s not just that, although I share your concern with that story, but I also think that just today I had someone tell me that our Secretary of the Navy was stepping down — from CBS News — I called him, Phil Bilden, he’s an amazing individual, and he says ‘I’m 100 percent committed, where is this coming from?’ Yesterday, these stories about Admiral Harward, a really dedicated public servant who retired after 40 years in the Navy. He had some personal and financial obstacles in the way that didn’t allow him to further his discussions with the president and he said ‘you know what, Mr. President, you have an amazing team. I’d be glad to be part of it, give me some time to get my family situation and financial situation straightened out after 40 years of serving this country in the Navy, and I’d love to do something in your administration.’ Yet, you read the mainstream media and they say, ‘Oh he didn’t accept it because of this’ — he basically stopped the process and said, ‘I can’t go any further because of these objections, but I can’t believe what an amazing national security team you have. I’d love to be part of it in a year or two once I straighten some of this stuff out.’ Yet the reporting is quite the opposite. And it’s always, Matt, the thing that troubles me is if I say it or the President of the United States says it, it’s well, ‘We got two blind sources that say the opposite.’ At some point, it’s amazing they won’t take the president’s word, but they will take two blind sources about what the president’s word is. Spicer said that outside the media the administration is seeing widespread support, even among former opponents — and that the president is not “holding grudges. ” He went on: Well I think there’s two groups of people — there are groups of people who truly do want to see the country succeed regardless of who they voted for. And then there are some people who are against him and are now for him based on the success he’s having. Frankly, at the end of the day, I’ll take anybody. If you were a fierce opponent of the president, but you like his agenda now that you’re seeing the vision that he has, we need to grow not subtract from people who want to support his agenda and move this country forward. The president talks all the time about unifying this country and bringing people together. One of the individuals who was one of the leading ‘Never Trump’ members of the movement, Paul Singer, was in the Oval Office right before the press conference and he basically said, ‘You know, Mr. President, you won and I want to be supportive of your agenda. And Mr. President, I embrace that.’ He’s not holding grudges. He wants to bring people together. He wants to move the country forward. And he understands that the more unified we are, the more we can enact policies that lift up people and get them to work. But he also said there are many people in the media who presume automatically that President Trump is doing something is a negative. Spicer said: But I think, frankly, to get to the point of your question Matt, that there are a lot of folks in the media — and I said this a couple times at the podium — the presumption is always negative. It’s ‘No matter what he does, it can’t be for the right reasons. It can’t be successful.’ It’s amazing how if you literally stripped the name from some of the words of his speeches or some of the words from Obama or Bush or Clinton rather, you could almost say the exact same thing, but the second you put his name attached to the quote it’s ‘Well, that was a negative statement because he said it — not because of the words.’ That’s what I find amazing — there’s this presumptive negativity in everything he does and says. WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY SEAN SPICER ON BREITBART NEWS SATURDAY: | 1 |
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Sunrise, Fla.
Contrary to his anti-establishment stance — which supporters readily boast as a viable alternative to Hillary Clinton — Donald Trump’s establishment roots run so deep, the billionaire real estate mogul plans to appoint a former Goldman Sachs partner and George Soros Fund manager as Secretary of the Treasury should he win the election.
Steve Mnuchin came on board Trump’s campaign as finance chair in May, raising eyebrows of many who felt his 17-year history with Sachs — and affiliation with liberal globalist George Soros as an Investment Professional of Soros Fund Management — conflicted directly with the then-presumptive nominee’s conservative stance and criticisms of establishment politicians.
“It is difficult to see how a second-generation Goldman Sachs partner would secure such a prominent position in an administration delivered by a populist wind,” Compass Point analyst Isaac Boltansky told Politico of Trump’s curious choice for Treasury Secretary.
According to Fox Business Network , Trump’s confidence in winning the White House has fomented enough to begin picking Cabinet members, and besides the anomalous choice of Mnuchin for the Treasury, sources said he’s considering New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for Attorney General and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for Homeland Security Secretary.
Trump has, of course, expended great efforts in criticizing opponent Hillary Clinton’s deep ties to the banking and Wall Street elite; and prior to garnering the Republican nomination, extended that critique to competitor Ted Cruz, saying in one debate:
“I know the guys at Goldman Sachs. They have total, total control over him. Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton.”
Zero Hedge noted when Trump hired the left-leaning hedge fund manager and financier as finance chair that Mnuchin had previously donated multiple times to various Democrats, including Barack Obama and none other than Hillary Clinton.
Further substantiating his establishing banking insider status — the precise profile Trump claims publicly to loathe — Mnuchin worked at Goldman Sachs for 17 years, headed OneWest Bank prior to its purchase by CIT Group in 2015, and now sits on CIT’s board while also serving as chairman and chief executive of Dune Capital Management, a private investment firm with a focus on financing big-time Hollywood movies, like “Avatar.”
If Mnuchin’s Wall Street ties don’t trouble Trump’s supporters enough, the hedge fund manager’s links to George Soros — an ardent Clinton fan — certainly will.
In fact, in terms of opposition, Soros has spent billions influencing global politics by inserting his brand of leftism wherever possible — and earlier this year even pledged , with others, some $15 million specifically to mobilize Latinos and immigrants to defeat Donald Trump.
“Steven is a professional at the highest level with an extensive and very successful financial background,” Trump said upon bringing Mnuchin into his campaign. “He brings unprecedented experience and expertise to a fundraising operation that will benefit the Republican Party and ultimately defeat Hillary Clinton.”
Indeed, Trump’s campaign, Quote: d by the Daily Caller , said Mnuchin “has previously worked with Mr. Trump in a business capacity and brings his expertise in finance to what will be an extremely successful fundraising operation for the Republican Party.”
While business dealings certainly bring ordinarily clashing personalities into contact on occasion, these details about the relationship between Trump and Mnuchin evidence the former’s links to the left.
Despite the nominee’s many diatribes excoriating Hillary Clinton as out-of-touch with the American populace, Trump’s own status as a billionaire belies both their decades-old friendship and striking similarities — particularly as darlings of the establishment.
Should you choose to vote on the 8th, it would be prudent to keep in mind blustery campaign rhetoric — from any politician — only constitutes so much hot air.
This article originally appeared on The Free Thought Project. | 0 |
BEIJING — Zhang Heng barged through an door, surprising a doctor and a patient. He didn’t have time to knock. In Mr. Zhang’s business, every second counts. “You have to hand it directly to the person,” said Mr. Zhang, one of the legions of package couriers in Beijing who help power China’s online shopping boom. He spoke as he blitzed through a surgical wing, medical storeroom and patient ward delivering parcels small and large, soft and square, to doctors and nurses in an effort to ensure the right person gets the right package. “Otherwise,” Mr. Zhang said, “you may get fined. ” The Chinese industry has been built on the backs of couriers — called kuaidi, or express delivery, in China — like Mr. Zhang. They number 1. 2 million, by one survey, and online retailers like Alibaba use them to zip packages to customers by scooter or electric cart. Across China, the world’s largest market for package delivery, a courier shouting “kuaidi!” through a door or a phone signals your package has arrived. But for the couriers — who are largely unskilled workers from China’s interior — the work can be and difficult. It is coming under scrutiny from labor activists and legal experts who say many couriers face punishing hours and harsh working conditions. Nearly of them work more than 12 hours a day, seven days a week, according to the survey, which covered 40, 000 couriers and was conducted by Beijing Jiaotong University and Alibaba’s research and logistics arms. A majority work more than eight hours a day each day of the week. Labor standards in the industry vary widely, but many couriers work under arrangements that might, for example, provide no overtime pay or no employer contributions to their government health care and pension benefits. Just as in the United States, where Uber drivers and many others work as contractors, those arrangements raise questions about what defines work and employment. Couriers, meanwhile, complain about fines. Some delivery companies penalize them if they do not deliver all the morning’s packages by 2 p. m. Poor penmanship, damage to a package or customer complaints can also result in fines, which can add up to a week’s pay. “I’m here to make money,” said Mr. Zhang, a former coal miner from Shanxi Province who is saving money to build a home, widely seen in the countryside as indispensable in attracting a wife. “If I’m not diligent now, I’m going to regret it. I’m almost 30 and still single. ” China hopes to move away from manufacturing and seeks to build a more economy driven by accountants, lawyers and other professionals. Yet for migrant workers at the bottom of the pay scale, service work can mean conditions not unlike those in China’s factories, where lax enforcement has long led to excessive overtime and unsafe conditions. Some couriers work directly for companies such as JD. com, an retailer, or SF Express, a delivery service. Others drive for a group of delivery companies that dominate the business of ferrying packages on behalf of online retailers like Alibaba. One of those companies, ZTO Express, last year raised $1. 4 billion in a share offering on the New York Stock Exchange. Those companies run nationwide distribution networks but rely on smaller companies for delivery — and there the relationships can become murky. Those smaller companies, which are franchisees of the big delivery companies, sign up drivers as employees or contractors. Some of those drivers subcontract their work to other drivers. Those arrangements often result in couriers who drive under the name of a big delivery company but whose hours and terms are only loosely managed, experts say. For example, many drivers lack workers’ compensation benefits or insurance in case of accidents, said Jin Yingjie, a professor specializing in labor law at the China University of Political Science and Law. Delivery companies “should work to bring the industry into the confines of the labor law,” she said. Meanwhile, tough conditions have led to unrest among couriers, said Keegan Elmer, a researcher for China Labor Bulletin, a workers’ rights group based in Hong Kong. His group has seen disputes in a number of Chinese cities, he said, along with a rise in strikes as economic growth slows. “The delivery companies are pushing drivers to the point of taking collective action,” Mr. Elmer said. In December, a weeklong strike brought deliveries by one package company partly owned by Alibaba, YTO Express, to a halt in Baoji, a city in Shaanxi Province. “Where’s our October pay?” one of the deliverymen told a local TV station. “There needs to be someone in charge handling this. There’s nobody. ” A spokeswoman for YTO Express said the strike was caused by a franchisee who did not promptly calculate fees or properly communicate with couriers. “Alibaba is a leader in big data technology,” an Alibaba spokesman said in a statement. “Taking advantage of that strength, we are committed to helping the logistics industry improve its efficiency and the working conditions for couriers and other industry participants. ” Most couriers make about $300 to $600 a month, according to the Jiaotong study — an amount roughly equal to the wages of China’s migrant factory workers. They can deliver 150 packages on a weekday, drivers said, sometimes helped by making mass deliveries to office buildings. Couriers generally make about 15 cents per package delivered, according to drivers and reports in the state news media, though they can make more by picking up outgoing packages from customers or through other tasks. The work initially appealed to many as package volume boomed. But their pay per package has barely budged in recent years as competition intensified and more drivers entered the market. About 40 percent of couriers quit within a year, according to the Jiaotong study. “Most deliverymen are like me,” said Lu Yong, who quit in December. “They work for three months and realize it’s no good. ” Mr. Lu, 29, of Henan Province, spent years assembling electronics in the southern province of Guangdong before going to work for a ZTO Express franchisee in Beijing. “The factories lack the same freedom as delivery, but it’s not cold like here,” he said. “And every month you get four days of rest, too. ” Mr. Lu’s November pay slip showed that he was paid $382 on 4, 291 packages delivered, after fines and other expenses including his uniform. He says he pays for maintenance on his cart, which bears ZTO’s logo, including new tires, replacement batteries and new brakes. He also said he never signed a labor contract. James Guo, the chief financial officer of ZTO Express, said that it required its franchisees to comply with local laws but that “it’s not up to us to manage or control the compensation of our deliverymen. ” Some thrive. Li Pengbo, 21, from Henan Province, drives for Best Express, another large delivery company in which Alibaba owns a stake. He dominates the area he subcontracted from a Best Express franchisee, he said, and earns about $2, 000 a month. “Since the sixth day of the last Chinese New Year until now I haven’t rested, not a single day,” Mr. Li said, describing an stretch. “I work from 6:30 in the morning until 11 or 12 p. m. at night. ” “My family is poor. This bitterness is nothing compared to what they’ve gone through,” he said. A spokeswoman for Best Express said its franchisees were required to follow labor laws. Franchisees say they have borne the brunt of declining delivery prices. “If we can turn a profit eight months of the year, that’s not bad,” said Wang Lin, a franchisee in Beijing for another delivery company, STO Express. Ms. Wang said her franchise does not pay for driver benefits because the drivers are contractors, not employees. “Frankly it’s not a very good job,” she said. “It’s extremely tiring, the salary is not high, and the responsibility and risks are great. We don’t have a stable work force. ” | 1 |
JERUSALEM — When President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel met in September for the last time before Mr. Obama leaves office, the session was marked by forced smiles and strained jokes about playing golf in retirement, as if bygones were bygones after nearly eight years of clawing conflict. Of course it was never going to end that way. How could it? The narrative of the tense and tetchy relationship between liberal president and conservative prime minister instead reached a climax in a showdown over war, peace, justice, security, human rights and, at last, the very meaning of international friendship. Mr. Obama’s decision on Friday not to block a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements laid bare all the grievances the two men have nursed since shortly after they took office in 2009. For Mr. Netanyahu, it was the final betrayal by a president who was supposed to be an ally but never really was. For Mr. Obama, it was the inevitable result of Mr. Netanyahu’s own stubborn defiance of international concerns with his policies. The two sides did little to hide their mutual contempt. After talks led them to conclude that Mr. Obama would not veto the resolution, as presidents of both parties have done in the past, Israeli officials essentially washed their hands of the incumbent and contacted his successor in the wings. Donald J. Trump promptly put out a statement calling on Mr. Obama to veto the resolution. When that ultimately did not stop the Council from acting, Mr. Netanyahu’s team expressed blistering anger at Mr. Obama. An Israeli official, insisting on anonymity to maintain the veneer of diplomatic protocol, gave a statement to multiple reporters on Friday blasting Mr. Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, by name. “President Obama and Secretary Kerry are behind this shameful move against Israel at the U. N.,” the official said. “The U. S. administration secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme resolution behind Israel’s back which would be a tailwind for terror and boycotts and effectively make the Western Wall occupied Palestinian territory. ” The White House bristled at the attack, denying that it was behind the resolution but defending the decision to abstain rather than veto it as consistent with longstanding, bipartisan American opposition to Israeli settlement construction as an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. The Israeli statement was “full of inaccuracies and falsehoods,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama, told reporters on a conference call. The president, he said, tried repeatedly to bring the rivals together at the negotiating table, only to see Israel continue building more housing in the occupied West Bank in a way that would make a peace agreement even harder to broker. “We tried everything,” Mr. Rhodes said. In effect, he added just after Friday’s United Nations vote, Mr. Netanyahu had it coming. “Prime Minister Netanyahu had the opportunity to pursue policies that would have led to a different outcome today,” he said. “Absent this acceleration of settlement activity, absent the type of rhetoric we’ve seen out of the current Israeli government, I think the United States likely would have taken a different view. ” The clash just four weeks before Mr. Obama leaves office culminated a fractious eight years between the men. From the start, the two did not see eye to eye. Idealistic and perhaps overconfident, Mr. Obama arrived in the White House certain that he could be the president who would finally resolve the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians. But Mr. Netanyahu saw a naïf who failed to grasp the existential threat to Israel and who demanded more of his friends than his enemies. The relationship was marked by one conflict after another, a reflection of not just personal differences but deeply held and diverging policy objectives of the men and their countries. Mr. Obama’s demand that Israel suspend new settlements to enter negotiations infuriated Mr. Netanyahu. The announcement of new construction in East Jerusalem while Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was visiting infuriated Mr. Obama. Two major pushes for negotiations by Mr. Obama unraveled amid mistrust and animosity. The multinational deal masterminded by Mr. Obama to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions proved a breaking point. At first, Mr. Obama hid the secret talks with Iran from the Israelis. After the talks became public knowledge, Mr. Netanyahu flew to Washington to excoriate the effort in a joint meeting of Congress. But he could not stop it. The two tried to put the rupture behind them last fall by sealing a $38 billion American security aid package for Israel, but even then the bitterness of their quarrels hung over the agreement. Mr. Netanyahu’s critics at home asserted that the package should have been $45 billion and that the prime minister’s speech to Congress had come with a $7 billion price tag. American officials said it never would have been that high, but the opposing sides remained scratchy. Even after the smiles and golf in New York in September, Mr. Obama made it clear that he was not yet done with his efforts to leave his mark on Middle East peace efforts as he considered outlining an American framework for an agreement. Mr. Obama was angered by Mr. Netanyahu’s proposal to save an illegal Israeli outpost in Amona by moving the settlers to another plot of land claimed by the Palestinians. Mr. Netanyahu’s critics in Israel said the Amona controversy and proposed legislation to legalize other outlaw outposts were responsible for Mr. Obama’s decision to abandon Israel’s government on Friday. “Netanyahu chose to advance the legalization bill, insisted on Amona and galloped into the wall in full knowledge that this would be the result — while choosing his personal interest over the national interest,” Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister, wrote on Facebook. Mr. Netanyahu’s team rejected that. “I think the legalization bill had nothing to do with this,” said Michael Oren, a deputy minister and former ambassador to the United States, although he conceded that “it would have been good to discuss the legalization bill at a later time just because of questions like that. ” Mr. Oren said the real obstacle to peace was Palestinian incitement, not Israeli settlements. The United Nations was hypocritical, he said, because it singled out Israel while ignoring scores of other territorial disputes around the world. “It’s not only an resolution but an resolution,” he said. In the United States, Mr. Obama faced criticism not only from Republicans but from Democrats like Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and a cross section of organizations, including several that have been at odds with Mr. Trump. “It is deeply troubling that this biased resolution appears to be the final word of the administration on this issue,” Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the League, said in a statement. If it is the last word — and there are still 27 days left in the Obama presidency — it will serve as a coda to a relationship that never clicked. | 1 |
President Donald Trump took to Twitter to support Republican congressional candidate Karen Handel on Monday, just hours before voters in Georgia go to the polls. [“Karen Handel’s opponent in #GA06 can’t even vote in the district he wants to represent because he doesn’t even live there!” Trump scoffed on Twitter about Democrat candidate Jon Ossoff. “He wants to raise taxes and kill healthcare. ” Trump urged voters to vote for Handel during the last day of campaigning. The election is Tuesday. Handel is running to succeed Tom Price, who left office to work as the Secretary for Health and Human Services for the Trump administration. Polling shows the two candidates locked in a statistical tie as Republicans and Democrats have spent roughly $50 million on the race. A loss for Handel will be interpreted by the media as a sign that Trump’s agenda is no longer supported by the American people who elected him. Handel also recently welcomed House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to campaign for her, as well as House Speaker Paul Ryan. The group “Bikers for Trump” was also recently spotted in Georgia campaigning for Handel. | 0 |
We Are Change
In this video Luke Rudkowski talks about the breaking news of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief John Podesta being invited by his brother to participate in spirit cooking, as revealed by Wikileaks. We not go over this but how the dark inner circle around Hillary Clinton goes far beyond this and is extremely worrying this election year. To support our writers and staff invest in us on https://www.patreon.com/wearechange
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https://twitter.com/WDFx2EU7/status/7…
http://www.eonline.com/shows/fashion_…
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/…
http://www.truthrevolt.org/sites/defa…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/a…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8y-F…
http://yournewswire.com/wikileaks-ema…
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/05/13/…
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The post Spirit Cooking Only The Start To Hillary Clinton’s Dark Satanic Magic appeared first on We Are Change .
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Friday during her commencement speech at Wellesley College, former Democratic former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had a coughing fit as she struggled to speak for several minutes. Clinton had to stop her speech to take a throat lozenge. Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0 |
Dang, so this email just got released: "Do we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email? And has that person been drawn and quartered?" https://t.co/jXc1mHi5vn — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 27, 2016 The Backstory:
Clinton surrogate Neera Tanden was going on CNN with Jake Tapper in July of 2015, where she was told she'd be shown a new poll comparing Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders and others, including Jeb Bush. While she didn't know the results of said poll, she told John Podesta (via email) that she expected it to be rough.
Podesta fired back:
“PS can you imagine what the Republicans would do to [Bernie] if he were the nominee?”
To which Tanden replied:
"Well, let's see what the poll actually says.
Let's hope the Democratic party is not suicidal."
Then Tanden dropped the hammer:
"Do we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email? And
has that person been drawn and quartered?
Like whole thing is fucking insane."
WikiLeaks has thus far released 33,000 Podesta emails. While the Clinton campaign has yet to confirm their accuracy, they have also not challenged their authenticity. It's been 3 weeks since @WikiLeaks began publishing Podesta emails. Not one doc has been claimed - let alone demonstrated - to be doctored. — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 27, 2016
Expect even more to come out over the next two weeks, but keep this in mind: Way back in 2015, the people at the top of the Clinton campaign were at war over the decision to let her use personal emails.
Will that continue if — or when — she returns to the White House? Image Credit: Pool/Getty Images
Editor's Note: This story was updated after publishing to correct that Tanden, not Podesta, gave the money quote. | 0 |
Theresa Crouse November 24, 2016 How To Meet The Challenges Of Urban Farming
Urban gardening and, to a smaller extent urban farming, started as a way for people who live in urban environments to grow healthy food untainted by chemicals. For some, it was a way to grow food that was healthy; for others, it was a way to be able to afford to eat good food. People wanted to grow their own food even though they lived in a city.
Regardless of why or how it started, urban gardening has grown to epic proportions and is now a movement committed to producing healthy, sustainable, locally-sourced food.
Urban farming is coming along, but it’s harder to keep animals in many urban areas.
It’s not easy to grow food in a city, so people got creative. They went from growing a couple of plants in a pot or a window box to having a full garden in the middle of the city.
There are several different methods of urban farming that range from a few plants and maybe a couple of chickens grown by one family to entire city lots grown and managed by co-ops of people with the same end goal. Indoor Gardening is great for somebody who has no porch, patio, yard, or roof where they can grow food. All plants are grown inside in containers or even small, indoor greenhouses. Some people are even lucky enough to have a solarium. Container Gardening works well for people who have small yards, porches, patios, decks, or balconies where they can grow food in containers. Window boxes, small raised beds, barrels, pots, and even kiddie pools serve as containers that plants can grow in. Community Gardening is becoming a big deal in a lot of areas. Neighbors or community members are coming together and planting edible plants in community places such as parks or other outdoor public areas. Some communities are now actually encouraging people to grow gardens on empty, abandoned lots because it makes the neighborhood look better and raises property values. Guerilla Gardening is actually one of the most interesting urban gardening methods that I’ve heard about. People subversively grow plants in public places or spaces that don’t belong to them such as vacant lots, road medians, or even strips of dirt beside sidewalks. Green roofs are a relatively new development, at least on a wide-scale basis. Roofs are designed specifically with a growing medium so that plants and trees can be grown to eat, clean the air, or make the area beautiful.
There’s no doubt that urban gardening is a good thing. It brings people together and adds green space to concrete while providing locally sourced food and plants that help clean the air.
Urban gardens can also help mitigate soil erosion and the urban heat island effect. Finally, it teaches inner city kids the value of growing things and even provides green recreational and leisure space.
The problem is that some people don’t see the benefit of it. That wouldn’t be so bad if those people weren’t complaining neighbors and members of local governments who want to put a stop to it. This was a huge issue when urban gardening was just something “troublemaking hippies” were doing.
Thankfully, it’s now becoming the vogue thing to do – thanks in large part to popular restaurants and TV shows that promote locally-sourced foods and environmental sustainability.
Because of the growing popularity and the improvements in property values due to turning a vacant lot into a garden, local governments are coming around.
However, for many of us, the struggle is still real because the problem still exists: you have no space to grow the garden that you dream of so that your family can eat healthfully and maybe even grow some of your own stockpile.
You have plenty of options, though. You can grow a small garden indoors, or if you have a small yard you can do some raised beds. You can even grow a portable garden!
Talk to the Local Farmers
But say you want to do more than grow a few plants in your house or yard – what then? How do you get involved in the bigger scene?
Well, if you have a local farmers market, then that would be a great place to start. Go down and talk to some of them.
You’ll be surprised how friendly most farmers are, and how willing they are to share information. Though cities can be huge, the farming community is probably relatively close-knit, so if you can’t find anybody who is directly involved in the local urban gardening projects, somebody can almost surely point you in the right direction.
Start Your Own Urban Farming Movement
Have you and the neighbors been talking about how nice it would be to start growing your own food? If so, you may have found some resources that you didn’t realize that you had. Hold a neighborhood meeting and see what others are willing to do.
It could be that the big empty lot between you and your neighbor is actually owned by that guy so that he didn’t have somebody move in right next to him. If so, they may be open to making it useful, and you will have a place to start your garden. Organize it!
Most municipalities don’t care as much about urban gardening as they do about urban farming. Pepper plants and apple trees don’t seem to cause as many problems as goats and chickens do.
While laws often support (or at least don’t forbid) urban gardening, most cities do not support the presence of animals within the city limits. That’s a fight you can pick, if you want, at the local level.
Personally, it may be better to talk to your neighbors to see how they feel about seeing or hearing chickens in your back yard. If you can work with them from the beginning, you may not have as many problems as you would have if you had bought some critters without speaking with them first. Even if they say no, at least you know they’re going to complain.
You can also talk to some of the local co-ops about keeping animals on a farm outside the city or participating in a meat-share or produce-share with them. You have so many options; you just need to find them.
Start growing your own food even though you live in the city. With just 10 minutes a day, you’ll never have to worry about feeding your family again. Click the banner below to discover a great option to start your urban farming!
This article has been written by Theresa Crouse for Survivopedia. 17 total views, 17 views today | 1 |
They call it ‘The Hum,’ a phrase coined by the geo-scientist David Deming of the University of Oklahoma to describe the ‘mysterious and untraceable sound that is heard in certain locations around the world by two to ten percent of the population.’
Via UsualRoutine
The noises might vary from roaring sounds in the middle of the night, to prolonged periods of noise which sound like intense industrial activity taking place in the sky. Most unusually of all, ordinary people in cities such as York in England have claimed to hear trumpet horns coming from the sky playing chilling bars of music.
Scroll Down For Videos Below! Now Slovakia has become the latest location to these bizarre and completely inexplicable noises, which have been recorded on video.
As of yet, no one has been able to offer a completely coherent explanation for these mysterious sounds. Some have suggested that the chilling noises might be caused by changes in the Earth’s core which could eventually lead to a complete polar shift. However, aside from speculation, there is little evidence to suggest that this particular theory is true. According to Deming, they may well be caused by enormous amounts of collated feedback from telephone transmissions and aircraft which are operated by the United States Navy to communicate with submarines. However, this explanation is deemed to fall short as these noises became particularly apparent in 2011 and 2012 and if Deming is correct, there should have been previous indications of this feedback reaction before this period.
Some people have suggested that the noise could be being caused by projects such as the HAARP weapons program, which is believed to be dedicated to working on high-tech weather modification technology.
If this explanation is correct, it could not explain not only the unusual noises but also why they are so often accompanied by a bizarre phenomenon in the sky, such as those which have been detected in Slovakia in recent months.
And here is another recent video. Chilling to the bone:
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The Lesser of Two Evils(image by Mark John Maguire) License DMCA
It has become common in recent days, in which the 2 leading candidates for the US Presidential election have achieved unfavourable poll ratings, to regard voting for either candidate as a vote for the "Lesser of Two Evils" (LEV). Tempting though it may be to vote for a candidate simply in the hope of excluding another, this is a questionable ethical policy with potential risks for democracy. The "Lesser of 2 Evils" principle (LEV) has a long history of application in US Foreign Policy in promoting intervention in wars to exclude a "worse evil". So ingrained has this aspect of Realpolitik become in the US political psyche that it has become axiomatic of US public polity in the conduct of government. It has recently been promoted as such by Noam Chomsky who, in an uncharacteristically weak argument, has exhorted the left in the US to vote for Hillary Clinton.
But Chomsky is wrong as is the political philosophy underpinning LEV which prevails as a result of its widespread acceptance in the US political Establishment and his argument exhibits many of the blind assumptions made concerning LEV. The principal area in which LEV is cited is in US Foreign Policy and a casual glance at its operation here gives a sense of the problems with it as an ethical system: Vietnam, , Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have all been subjected to horrific bombing, invasion and military degradation by successive US governments on the basis that to do so represented the LEV. There are few today even in the US who, with the benefit of hindsight, would concur that in its application in the US Foreign Policy sphere LEV can be supported as a sound ethical principle. There are indeed, many outside of the US who would regard its support of LEV to be an evil in itself. Clearly, there are other motivations for US invasions other than LEV considerations - not least geopolitical motives - but the adherence to LEV has enabled successive US govts to conduct a programme of widespread military aggression which it would otherwise have had few means of justifying. It has come to be the primary means of justifying a brutality that is rampant in the US and which successive Presidents have subscribed to wholeheartedly with disastrous consequences for the world.
Certainly LEV is a persuasive argument to governments facing complex issues and situations both domestically and abroad, but it is fraught with difficulties. A clear example of a sound application of LEV could be considered to be with the institution of the police force: police forces restrain liberty for the benefit of all because without them there would be a degree of lawlessness not compatible with the functioning of civilised society: it may thus be said that police forces are the LEV: a loss of liberty (evil) is incurred to avoid lawlessness (greater evil). But that brings us to the crux of the matter: LEV seems to have a reasonable application where there are 2 options and not more. If we apply it to situations were there are more than 2 options then we run into difficulty. In the case of policing it is apparent that there is no third way - or at least no-one has yet found one. LEV can therefore be safely applied in this instance. Again, in the situation where a knife-wielding madman approaching a group of school children can be disabled by running him down in a vehicle, we see an appropriate application of LEV because there seems to be no third way - and thus a great evil may be avoided by opting for a lesser evil. Were it possible to prevent the knifeman by, say, shutting the school gates, then this would remove the act of running him down from the LEV principle, because there would be 3 possibilities. If a policeman with a taser device was observed approaching then we would be in possession of a number of options: we would then have a complex moral decision to which LEV would be an unhelpful and possibly harmful remedy. That is because we would be seeking to apply a simple response to a complex problem which would potentially be detrimental and may result in a poor moral choice being made. Scaling up to the case where a conflict between the US and another country arises, there are myriad options available and by virtue of this LEV is not a good moral principle to apply. The situation in any of the recent examples of countries attacked by the US in the past 50 years has never been an either/or situation. Indeed, such situations have been subject to widespread arguments and protests concerning other options. The fact that LEV has been used to justify war, bombing, intervention etc is a testament to its misapplication rather than its wrongness as a principle per se, but given the complexity of international relations it is probably safe to regard LEV as unlikely to be applicable to most issues.
There are also severe problems with LEV in its application in the public sphere aside from these practical considerations:
1. By suggesting that evil can be right when it is the "lesser evil" it unwittingly endorses the principle of "the end justifies the means". This principle, which has been central to Western ethical thinking for at least 2000 years, is deeply flawed and it has - unsurprisingly - been used by many dictators as a means to justify an act, however bad, provided the ultimate outcome is good. For whom that outcome may be judged to be good, in what circumstances, by what measure and in what timescale are some of the many just criticisms of this notion of "consequentialism". It seems wrong intuitively for finite humans to accept such an indeterminate version of "consequentialism" in ethical decision making. There must be an applicability of timescale for consequences; there needs also to be a measure of the act in its intention as well as its consequence if we are to have a well balanced and sound ethical principle. By placing the matter of the ethical value of an act on the consequences alone, the intentions are effectively removed and an act is judged entirely on its outcome - it is not hard to imagine malign circumstances which have worked out well by chance. For example, if we judged a bank robbery which had gone awry by the inadvertent consequence of uncovering a stash of terrorist weapons in the bank vault, we may be pleased to have discovered the plot, but we would hardly be likely to applaud the robbers. It does seem that the consequence must, at the very least, be intended and it seems reasonable to argue that the end of a moral act cannot be the sole measure of its value - of course there is also a practical difficulty in that by the time the outcome of many acts can be weighed against the acts themselves, it is no longer of much practical use to do so! In such cases we must rely heavily on intention .
2. LEV involves another major problem: if both options consist of evil consequences it could only be justifiable to select one on the basis that there was no other choice . If there were other choices available then it may be argued that the LEAST evil choice was the ethical option, although the introduction of a third element would cause exponential difficulties because it would introduce other considerations such as expediency, practicality and judgements concerning relative likelihood of successful outcome. Where LEV is applied to multiple choice complex situations involving moral decisions, it is therefore a crass and inappropriate response to a situation, since it simplifies and deliberately excludes other possible solutions. - Advertisement -
3. LEV also requires heavy qualification because it is frequently used as an excuse to justify doing evil, rather than considering other options - thus in this sense it is an unethical principle when inappropriately applied. LEV must be applied to dire exigencies by its very nature for if the exigency were not urgent then action would hardly be necessary. We should also be careful to ensure that situations are properly identified as LEV situations. If we take the situation where I am in a lifeboat and there is room for only one other passenger apart from myself and there is an old man in the water and a child - which of these should I save? The other must drown. Certainly there are 2 evils present and prima facie we have a LEV situation, but on closer examination we see that there are undoubtedly other options available - I may give up my own place to them both and accept my own drowning, or I may try to accommodate both even though we may all drown and accept the increased risk of this etc. There are a number of judgements here which must be made and which affect the decision - judgements based on assumptions of what will happen; that one is more worthy of saving than the other and so forth: it is thus a complex moral decision which will require a difficult choice but is deserving of a complex consideration for that reason. Given that such decisions would be unusual in the extreme and that we would be required to act quickly rather than to sit in the boat considering the matter while both drowned, it is unlikely that the impact on the world would be great! Certainly it does not assume the great impact that LEV takes on in its application in the Public sphere where large numbers of people are affected.
This brings us to the use of LEV in democratic elections and it proves to be as dubious in its application here as it is in its use in Foreign affairs. Representative democracy is dependent on the notion of freedom of choice so that the best candidate may be elected. Anything which inhibits this undermines that principle. LEV, by its very nature, does so: rather than promoting contest between the best in the freest manner possible, it promotes the least bad option from a narrow choice, constraining and distorting the freedom of choice of the voter. That is a denial of democratic principle; if it is applied when there are other choices available, that distortion becomes even greater so that we may justly inquire whether the limited form of democracy we possess in its representative form is worthy of the name democracy at all. We should also consider that democratic elections require myriad assumptions and judgements to be made and are not therefore susceptible (nor should they be) to evil and "less evil" considerations. Furthermore, b ecause ethical values are by no means clear in themselves or invested simply in one candidate or another, then such judgements made are themselves complex and deserving of such treatment.
Noam Chomsky, with John Halle, has argued that LEV should be used in the 2016 US Presidential election and his argument is worthy of examination: Chomsky provides some general caveats by way of providing a soft-landing for his assumption of LEV and these are deeply flawed. First, to the argument that Clinton's Foreign Policy may be worse than Trump's, he advances the claim that "following the logic through seems to require a vote for Trump"! That is an astonishing non-sequitur! It makes no such requirment and can be used simply as a means of eviscerating the claims that Clinton IS the LEV in this respect, without leading to an endorsement of Trump in the wider aspect. It may equally contribute to a decision to abstain from voting or to vote for a 3rd party.
Second, he refers to "The politics of moral witness" (the argument that LEV remains evil and should not be engaged) which he counters by stating that the point of voting for LEV is to do "Less" evil which is an "obvious rejoinder". Perhaps it may seem so, but it is a "circulus in demonstrandum" type of fallacy to make such a criticism! It only seems right to someone who is already signed up to the notion of LEV - but to others it is simply evincing a premise as a proof of that which it seeks to confirm!
Thirdly, Chomsky goes on to state "The basic moral principle at stake is simple: not only must we take responsibility for our actions, but the consequences of our actions for others are a more important consideration than feeling good about ourselves". The first proposition is good - the second half has strayed from its purpose somewhat: it appears in part to try to lessen the effect of personal responsibility by stating that consequences should be regarded as more important than intentions. That is a dangerous argument. Even at a common sense level intention is given great value in human relations - often to the detriment of consequences: and this is right, because as we have seen, consequences by their nature are often unpredictable and involve many assumptions, prejudices and involve many matters not always relevant to the decision itself. "I will bomb Iraq because it will lead to a safer world and rid us and its people of an evil regime" (I purposely introduce a contentious and familiar issue here) plays out like this: my intention is good, but I have introduced some assumptions which involve great leaps of faith and logic: ie, the consequence of bombing (bad) in producing a safe world (good) justifies my action. We can see very easily where such an argument goes awry in its practical and recent application in human history. It is not safe or justifiable to take arguments beyond their remit. Viewed by intention alone the decision may be seen as good or bad depending on one's point of view; by the consequences alone (deaths of many innocent people, destruction of a nation and its infrastructure) it is clearly an evil: does this imply that had the outcome of the war been good the war would have been a good one? It seems that the intention must play heavily on the judgement and a proper balance must be observed between intention and consequence in judging the action, especially as we could not possibly know the outcome. Of course we are setting aside the notion that Iraq was not a true LEV situation since there were actions which could be taken which were considerably less evil, but the example serves to demonstrate that intention and consequence cannot easily be separated in weighing the ethical value of an action. Therefore it seems fair to alter Chomsky's proposition to "We must take responsibility for our actions which should have intrinsic good as their basis and CONSIDER the consequences as a corollary to this". That is as far as an ethical argument can take us. - Advertisement -
A final criticism of LEV, says Chomsky, is equating it with "passive acquiescence to the bipartisan status quo" and he attacks this by stating that LEV can be defended by the fact that "poorly considered electoral decisions impose a cost" and then goes on to give some subjective examples of Nixon's continuation of the Vietnam war. But this is unjustifiable by the same measures we have considered in applying assumptions and prejudices to previous arguments, for it can quite as easily be argued that an alternative to Nixon MIGHT have produced a different adminsitration; indeed, that it MIGHT have produced an alternative ending to the Vietnam war - but it might not: recent US history is not over-filled with instances in which different electoral results produced different policies! In the case of Vietnam it can be argued that the war was a war of the US Establishment - and surely no-one prosecuted that war with greater vigour and determination than democrat President LBJ? The difficulty with such examples is that we move into the realms of pure speculation in guessing what the alternative might have been. We could equally claim that the 1968 outcome may have averted nuclear war due to the initiation of the SALT negotiations by Nixon - but we should not do so, because to bring such unknowns which are dependent on so many different variables into the equation, takes us into the arena of pure political speculation and little else.
Critique of Chomsky's 8-point argument:
1) "Voting should not be directed as a form of personal self-expression or moral judgement directed in retaliation towards major party candidates who fail to reflect our values, or of a corrupt system designed to limit choices to those acceptable to corporate elites."
The immediate response to this is to ask: "Is not it a matter for my personal integrity to choose my reason for voting?" Surely my reasons for voting (or not doing so) should be determined by my view of the system, the candidates and other matters and it should not be dictated to me that I must vote, in any circumstances, whosoever the candidates may be?" There may be very good reasons why a voter may wish to vote for a candidate including those of moral, social or personal affinity and such reasons should be respected as legitimate - even though I may have my own personal view of why and how people should vote. It seems perfectly reasonable to vote as a means of self-expression, moral judgement or even of disapprobation towards one or more candidates and certainly as part of the calculation in making a judgement as to who to vote for. Chomsky's personal injunction here is no more than an expression of his personal preference and has no validity beyond that, evinces no proof in support of its validity and is of questionable morality. | 1 |
posted by Eddie Videographer David Vose released a video which he says “is not a joke” and he claims the images shown are real, just magnified many times over to reveal a massive cover-up by NASA on the original images coming from MARS. By showing the NASA MARS images, the what Vose calls the “real MARS pic without NASA enhancements,” he proceeds to make his case that NAS deliberately altered the images to hide entire cities on MARS. Via the video details, a note from VOSE: This is NOT like some other Mars videos, Not about rocks that look like lizards. This is real pictures magnified and brought into focus and proper light. Also having removed the red and brown color over that Nasa has painted over it.Mars is populated just as earth and with the same cities and civilization as we have. It appears they are simply HUMANS. Weather they have any Idea of Our existence I do not know. But We do know of theirs, NOW! I did not take these pictures or find them, I have just put them all together for this video. Thanks. As always I encourage readers to watch and determine for themselves if they agree or disagree with Vose’s assertions. (NOTE- Video reuploaded by me and added again) – More MARS videos are below the images from the original.
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Viswajith | November 15, 2016 | Trending | 18.9k SHARES
Recently after the ban of currency notes in india, many people started criticizing Prime Minister Modi, mostly crooked politicians and black money hoarders. But we have noticed a video circulating in social media in which a lady , a Hindu house wife abusing and insulting Prime Minister Modi in a very vulgar language ! The lasy was talking about the currency ban and the subsequent inconvenience it has caused her as a house wife!
In this video, the lady has a tikka on her forehead like a Hindu woman, and the background of her home is arranged in such a way that she is from a Hindu family! And the video has conveyed the idea that she is very much frustrated and in trouble due to the currency ban.But social media has completely exposed the agenda of this crooked lady. According to the reliable sources, this lady’s actual name is Nazmeen Sheikh and she is a muslim woman plus a bar dancer!
From her facebook profile it is learnt that her name is Nazmeen and by profession she is a bar dancer, this video has videoed for insulting PM Modi and large sections of Hindus who support this historic decision. We would like to inform all the crooked people who are trying to sabotage this historic decision that we the people of India are with PM Modi, as long as we are with our Prime Minister no crooked agenda can destroy this currency ban.. Following is the alleged Video
due to its extreme abusive nature we are not posting the video directly to our website. we will advise our readers not to watch this video as it is shared here for news verification purpose only
But readers can find the video on you tube for verification, here is the link to her facebook page and you tube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ktw8ldfgCeg ( warning extreme vulgarity and Graphic violence ) | 0 |
By Cassius Kamarampi (Era of Wisdom) New rain tests from Stop Spraying Us show 200 micrograms per liter aluminum in Sacramento rain, in stark contrast to the 4,700 micrograms per liter observed a few... | 0 |
Return of Kings has a great variety of information about many subjects: improving your social life , health and fitness , tourism , among several others. Still, our political perspectives might be off-putting to some readers on the left. Although you could tune out whatever you don’t agree with. you might do well to take a closer look. Not all of us agree on everything, but we do have a rough consensus on some items.
Our views on the political establishment The left blames corporations while the right blames the government, when in reality the two interests work together to subvert the will of the people
It’s pretty easy to see that this site has a mainly conservative perspective, especially on social matters. Not all of us started out that way. Many of us began our journey away from the political orthodoxy after realizing what a mess feminism has made of society. Others have been turned off by political correctness. Once upon a time, I used to be liberal, and I know I’m not the only one. Be that as it may, some of us are actually friendly to liberalism .
By the way, we don’t give a free pass to the mainstream conservative establishment either. Unfortunately, the government in countless ways seeks to amass power for itself while producing fear and dependency in the populace. Really, it’s not a Democrat problem or Republican problem; they’re basically two sides of the same coin. Heads, they win; tails, you lose.
Surely you’re in favor of progress. One good question, though, is what exactly this constitutes . Also, who gets to define what is progress? All that might seem rhetorical, but these are important matters. Likely you see change as a good thing. But who’s setting the agenda, deciding which direction that change goes? Actually, we have answers for all that.
In fact, we might have some more in common with you than you expect. Don’t care for agribusiness? Neither do we . Are you troubled by the influence of the ultra-wealthy in the political process? We are too . Do you suspect that the powerful have set up a system of managed democracy, where they’re pulling the purse strings of both the Republicans and the Democrats? (If you supported Bernie Sanders, you’ve probably figured that one out already!) We understand you.
Today’s political and social scene
You might be disenchanted by some of the things going on with the Democratic Party today. Perhaps you’ve heard of their hypocrisy and contempt for the public . Are you troubled by some of the Clinton scandals, maybe even wondered if there was more to it than you expected ?
Perhaps your questioning goes deeper; you might wonder who hijacked liberalism . It once stood for helping the working man, but some time in the 1960s it turned into so much squabbling divisiveness. Actually, there’s a reason for that ; the culture war began long before the 1990s! That wasn’t about liberation, but rather a deliberate attempt to spread divisiveness and weaken the fabric of society.
Also, taxpayers have spent untold money on social programs, but why don’t they solve problems? Instead, they create intergenerational poverty. You might be shocked to learn that encouraging dependency, along with taxing and spending to oblivion, was actually a stratagem meant to crash the system . That’s not about helping the disadvantaged; it’s about using them! Schemes like these—causing societal upheaval so a Socialist paradise will magically fall into place—are pretty reckless.
You might shake your head in bewilderment at online mobs of misguided youths spewing bile about things that don’t really matter. Sure, you’re against police brutality (as am I), but deep down you also fear what will come of all this open contempt for the law and violence against police . The authorities take a pretty dim view of cop killers; kind of sounds like someone behind the scenes wants to start a lot of trouble, doesn’t it?
Finally, you might wonder if the people on top of the liberal establishment really give a damn about the common people. We think it’s rotten that they’re using so many well-meaning people for the cynical ends of amassing money and power.
Likely you have some nagging concerns about what’s going on in society today. Why are women both liberated and spoiled , and sometimes even hostile? Can’t the feminists see that things aren’t really so bad ? Sure, you’re all about tolerance and have lots of gay friends, but you privately wonder if there should be sensible limits . You might be uncomfortable with all the evangelizing of “alternative lifestyles”, especially if you have children in school.
You consider the press to be the bedrock of a free society, but you have doubts about journalistic integrity . Hey, we understand. The propaganda is everywhere, even in shows for young children . The media has been feeding you bullshit all your life, and we think their lying is rotten. You deserve better than that.
Starting to reconsider?
A die-hard Social Justice Warrior will seethe with rage for me bringing up these uncomfortable facts. Even if you’re a moderate, you might be reluctant to consider any of this. We understand; rethinking deeply held beliefs is a painful process. For so many things, you’ll see that what you’ve been told is right is actually wrong, and what is “wrong” is really right.
Many on the left have been there before and found their way out. For me, someone explained that I’m not responsible for the world’s problems. “It’s not your fault.” The endless attempts in college to ram opinions down my throat hardened my resolve. Others who’ve made the journey have different stories. Some got religion. Others realized that their past fanaticism has hurt others . Some wondered why decades of costly social programs haven’t accomplished anything. Some came to see that preferential treatment in hiring decisions is anything but “fairness”.
It’s in your best interests to purge the misconceptions and guilt trips from your mind. Still, you don’t have to abandon everything and embrace the polar opposite. Some have reached a synthesis position .
Welcome to the other side
If you’ve read this far with an open mind—and checked out some of the referenced articles—then you might be confused. Perhaps you’re tempted to reject our message. On the other hand, you might be shocked and even angry about what’s been going on in politics and society.
We understand; enlightenment is a painful process. We’re here for you. The truth hurts, but we’ll do the best we can to tell it like it is, which is much more than can be said for what you’ll see on television. I’ve merely scratched the surface here; stick with us and you’ll see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Read More: The 12 Step Social Justice Warrior Recovery Program
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Prescription Painkiller Crisis: Why Do Americans Consume 80 Percent Of All Prescription Painkillers? March 14th, 2016
If Americans are so happy, then why do we consume 80 percent of the entire global supply of prescription painkillers? Less than 5 percent of the world’s population lives in this country, and yet we buy four-fifths of these highly addictive drugs. In the United States today, approximately 4.7 million Americans are addicted to prescription pain relievers, and that represents about a 300 percent increase since 1999. If you personally know someone that is suffering from this addiction, then you probably already know how immensely destructive these drugs can be. Someone that was formally living a very healthy and normal life can be reduced to a total basket case within a matter of weeks.
And of course many don’t make it back at all. According to the CDC, more than 28,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses in 2014. Incredibly, those deaths represented 60 percent of all drug overdose deaths in the United States for that year …
A report released by the US Centers for Disesase Control and Prevention (CDC) in January revealed that drug-overdose deaths reached a new high in 2014, totaling 47,055 people. Opioids, a type of powerful painkiller that requires a prescription, were involved in 60% of those deaths .
Many Americans that start out on legal opioids quickly find themselves moving over to heroin because it is often cheaper and easier to obtain, and the U.S. is now facing a tremendous epidemic of heroin abuse as well. In fact, the number of Americans that die of a heroin overdose nearly quadrupled between 2000 to 2013.
Finally, the federal government has started to take notice of this crisis. A bill was recently passed to spend more than a billion dollars over the next two year fighting this problem.
But as long as doctors are writing thousands upon thousands of new prescriptions for these painkillers each year, this crisis is not going to go away any time soon.
In the Appalachians, these prescription painkillers are commonly known as “ hillbilly heroin “, and all of the attention that the New Hampshire primaries received focused a lot of attention on how this crisis is destroying countless numbers of lives up in the Northeast. But one survey found that the states with the biggest problems with painkiller addiction are actually in the West …
The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a survey of approximately 67,500 people across the United States, found that the states with the highest rates of narcotic painkiller abuse were in the West – Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington.
Unless you are about to die, I would very strongly recommend that you resist any attempt by your doctor to put you on these “medications”. Just consider what happened to one stay-at-home mother named Norah Mangan …
I am an educated, suburban wife and stay-at-home mother of four. Life had been good to me until a fateful visit with an orthopedic physician, my chief complaint being mild arthritic pain in my toes. My physician handed me the first of many monthly prescriptions for Oxycodone and what followed that appointment was a rapid descent into hell. Within six months, I had become a raving drug addict .
Before too long, Norah had to turn to means that were less than legal in order to keep fueling her addiction. Her life was turned into a complete and utter disaster by drugs that were legally prescribed to her…
It wasn’t long before my legal monthly prescription fell woefully short in terms of keeping my life altering pain at bay. In the interest of not incriminating myself, I’ll simply share that when procured through other means, Oxycodone generally sells for one dollar per milligram. I was draining our savings and was out of my mind. I was so tortured that I didn’t care about the deterioration of my moral values, in fact, I didn’t even notice. It’s hard to imagine that in such a short period of time I had morphed from a Mrs. Cleaver, baking hot cinnamon buns in anticipation of my children’s arrival home from school, to Scarface crushing pills on the glass top of the executive desk in our home office while thinking to myself as I heard them arrive from school…why oh why are they home already?
You can read the rest of her amazing story right here …
The truth is that we are the most drugged people on the face of the planet. It has been estimated that 52 million Americans over the age of 12 have used prescription drugs in non-medical ways, and this problem gets worse with each passing year.
According to research that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 59 percent of all U.S. adults are currently on at least one prescription drug , and 15 percent of all U.S. adults are on at least five prescription drugs . And the numbers are far worse for older Americans. The following statistics come from one of my previous articles …
– According to the CDC, approximately 9 out of every 10 Americans that are at least 60 years old say that they have taken at least one prescription drug within the last month.
– There is an unintentional drug overdose death in the United States every 19 minutes .
– In the United States today, prescription painkillers kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined .
– According to the CDC, approximately three quarters of a million people a year are rushed to emergency rooms in the United States because of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs.
– The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.
– Children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants as children in Europe are.
– A shocking Government Accountability Office report discovered that approximately one-third of all foster children in the United States are on at least one psychiatric drug.
– A survey conducted for the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that more than 15 percent of all U.S. high school seniors abuse prescription drugs.
We are a deeply unhappy nation that has been trained to turn to pills as a “quick fix” for our hurt and our pain.
Yes, there are medical situations that call for prescription pain relievers. But what we are seeing in America today goes far, far beyond that. We are a nation of addicts that is always in search of a way to fill the gaping holes that we feel deep in our hearts. This prescription pain killer crisis is just another symptom of a much deeper problem.
So what is the solution?
Please feel free to tell us what you think by posting a comment below… HeyAHuman
It’s a combination of insane profits, population control, and keeping people zombified and distracted by addiction. SunnyFlaSnotress
I admit that I don’t understand the reasoning of painkiller addiction well, but I will guess that the pills provide some elation other than just pain killing. That sense of elation, coupled w/a local drug culture, likely creates community, albeit a pathetic one, and excuses not to participate in the real world. Of course there are also likely those who would rather be doped rather than to endure minor forms of pain. sistersoldier
It is extremely and immensely profitable for the drug companies. There will forever be more money in the treatment than in the cure. Holistic medicine is shunned by those who prefer to poison us with chemicals and some of the leading doctors in this field just keep coming up DEAD.
Though some are for relief of major illnesses or surgeries its the abuse factor that is being discussed here. Drugs are great for two tings, altering reality and creating a temporary sense of euphoria. A population is much easier to control when they have nearly all of the population under control with controlled meds. Michael stated that 80% of all prescription medication is consumed by Americans. Pharmaceutical companies are also one of – if not the biggest lobbyists on the Hill.
Imagine what would happen if they pulled the plug? Make no mistake about it – drug use increase is no accident nor warp in a lost generation. It is a dark habit with deadly consequences and many have danced to its “thorn bird” song.
The dealers have their orders and they know exactly when to stop the supply. MK Ultra on steroids for an entire nation.
Care for a little civil unrest anyone? Rick
There are many more people around the world who are being softly killed by governments, or the elite eugenicists such as Bill Gates and George Soros who control and manipulate governments. Check out GMO foods, flouride and poison additives in water, heavy metal jet emissions (chem trails) in our air, virus laden vaccines, electronic toxic radiation ( even from the iPad I’m using to write this). The list goes on and on, and our cancer and chronic illness rates go up and up, regardless of what the PhRMA companies throw at us. I do agree with you, naturopathic medicine, proper nutrition, and other preventative measures are clinically significantly greater than the conventional money draining ways we’ve been educated on. Thanks for your post. sistersoldier
Thank you and I agree with you. May the Lord use you to open even more eyes. God bless. Rick
Sunny, that’s right on. We are all different, regardless of how the socialists, communists and depraved creepo politicians tell us we are the same. Not that I’m a tough guy, but I recently had 2 wisdom teeth pulled, had Novocain and a few doses of ibuprofen, and was given a prescription for hydrocodone as well, but never needed it. It didn’t pain me much to go thru this whole process. However, there are many others who have a very low pain threshold, and who do need and take the stronger drugs for the same procedure. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just life’s differences, and I actually appreciate them. James
FYI: Novocain is not a painkiller, it is a regional anthestic. Just look at it’s generic name (Procaine).
It ends in caine Rick
Dr. James, I appreciate the commentary. You seem to be inferring that I listed it as a pain reliever? Don’t think I did, but again, for readers who might have taken it that way, thanks for the input. Think First
Because we’re much easier to control when we’re fat, sick, addicted, drug addled and complacent. Kent Harris
You know what would seriously put a huge dent in the amount of pill popping would be to attend church regularly. Unlike going to a bar or some other watering hole there is something about being around fellow believers that gives joy to the heart. To be in the presence of Almighty God along with your brothers and sister is truly a work of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Philippians 2:1-4
lol.. it was very long ago, but i still remember the pain of the boredom On a scale of 1-10, the chances of your idea catching on is -1 ALWAYSTOMORROW
I too have bad memories from long ago of the boredom. sistersoldier
For any endeavor that we pursue it requires a call to maturity. I am not saying that you are not mature in life but rather it requires maturity in God to accept His beauty as he is all together lovely for those who seek His love. Everybody needs love I don’t care who you are. But no one can come to Jesus unless the Father which is in heaven draws them. This is where you will either soften your heart or you will harden it for the day of judgement.
“For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.…” This is for those who accepted Christ but then went backwards again to be partakers of worldly desires.
I won’t to live forever Sunny, don’t you? By that I mean I want to discover new worlds that I never knew. When God spoke the universe into existence it is still expanding today. I highly doubt that he would waste that much space. Age old mysteries that are locked because humanity cannot appreciate their intrinsic and holy value. I want to know the life I could of had if I had asked God for all the blessings I forfeited because of my disobedience. Blessings in the store room of heaven with my name on them. God is still good even if He does not do another thing for me.
I want to live forever with God and the family of God. I want to see the angels that covered me while on earth and meet Michael the Arch Angel, the warrior of the saints and the Most High God. I just cannot understand how someone would pass that up because of arrogance or unbelief. If you don’t stand for something (Godly) you will fall for anything.
I want to spend eternity with those that I loved and they died in the Lord because even if you lose someone to hell you will not meet them there. It is an eternally dark place, because God is light. It is filled with pain of unimaginable proportions. I doubt that you will want to carry on a conversation. Even if it were possible for you to find them you will only know them by their suffering in the flames.
I am praying for you everyday. SunnyFlaSnotress
you don’t really think i read your stuff do u? sistersoldier
Yes, and even if you didn’t God has a way of still holding you accountable as this is one of those moments where you used the free will He gave you to reject once again the gospel of His love. GSOB
“We have the freedom to believe, but not the ability.” SunnyFlaSnotress
God won’t hold me responsible to read your windy unappreciated spiels. sistersoldier
that’s your egotism talking sistersoldier
Because you don’t believe God speaks? Or because of my confidence and boldness in His words? I just want what is best for you and that is for the angels in heaven to sign your name in the Lamb’s book of life. I just don’t want to see anyone throw away such a precious gift because it was paid for in blood. Who better to die for or die to than the One who has already died for you? Not only you but for the sins of the whole world. There is no greater love. nevergiveup
I love how you continue to speak the truth in love. It is a less intense version of David Wilkerson sharing love and faith with Nicky Cruz. Keep up the good work Sister. sistersoldier
Hello Nevergiveup: Thank you and God bless you. My soul rejoices in knowing that you are well and still striving in the eternal knowledge of God. lincolnlincolnlincoln
it sinks in, ever so slowly Jodie Lynn Gaeta
I felt that way too, when I was a kid. But now that I am an adult who chooses to go to a house of worship to pray with others, I find that it is a source of strength and inner peace. Malcolm Reynolds
I’m sure sure the board members here will appreciate your pious clap-trap. Said the buffoon that’s here to spread her pious claptrap about the boredom of socialism. sistersoldier
I believe she said the boredom of church. Malcolm Reynolds
Yes, she said that about what you said. I’m talking about her. She’s a Hillary sycophant. sistersoldier
Yeah…….ok, well I don’t have a dog in this fight. Carry on. Malcolm Reynolds
Yea, she isn’t what you could describe as self aware. sistersoldier
I respectfully recuse myself from your conversation such as in like manner a challenge (a judge, prosecutor, or juror) as unqualified to perform judgmental duties because of a possible conflict of interest or lack of impartiality. My job is to disseminate the gospel to a dying world not assess one’s political correctness. SunnyFlaSnotress
Malcolm you search for crumbs to pick on like a maggot. Malcolm Reynolds
“I’m sure sure the board members here will appreciate your pious clap-trap.”
what do you call this?
“you don’t really think i read your stuff do u?”
And this?
So then crumbs. You are indeed blissfully ignorant of yourself. Preacher62
I spent many years staring out the window and writhing in the boredom as well. Then one day God showed me that my life was not about me but about him. I find now that I am never bored because boredom can only come from an inward focus. For those who focus outwardly there is little time for boredom. SunnyFlaSnotress
I just finally accepted the fact that there ain’t no ruling guy sitting in the sky sistersoldier
Yes there is if He wasn’t there then you would not be here SunnyFlaSnotress
No, no.. there isn’t sistersoldier
You sound like you are convincing yourself? Having a little trouble with the God seed I planted? I plant, then one will come after me who waters and then God gives the increase! So even if you tune me out the seed is already there. SunnyFlaSnotress
cause you’re here and keep communicating sistersoldier
So you do or you don’t want me to communicate with you? You do realize that this is a Christian based blog don’t you? I’m confused as to why you are here unless it is to look for answers. Please enlighten me. SunnyFlaSnotress
I don’t want you to communicate with me.. I don’t hate you, but your words are unwelcome and the attention is gnat-like. This blog is under the category of an economic blog. Anything else is an unwritten supposition. sistersoldier
You cannot separate God from this blog. The author(s) are Christians. They even have a Christian Youtube Channel. Michael’s assessment of the economy comes from his relationship with God. There are plenty of blogs that are not Christian based. But maybe God had you and those who agree with you to stop by here for a reason so you will be without excuse.
Atheism is a lie. It is one of those lies where if we tell it often enough it becomes the truth to the non-believer. I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness calling, “Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God” dadelaw
Don’t even begin to try to reason with these people. They’re all crazy. I just come to the blog to rip off information, that’s all. The rest is just loony-toons… Preacher62
He created everything that is, including you and I. To deny him would be to deny our own existence. sistersoldier
That makes perfect sense! flautistmaniac
Maybe there isn’t an imaginary ruler sitting over the sky. If there is a God in control of nature, it certainly isn’t me. Would that I could tell a tree to move for me or my house to clean itself. I could will it all day and get no response. Nature follows it’s own laws and if we have little control over those laws, then whose laws do they follow? sistersoldier
I really appreciate you! Your reflections of who God is and what He means to you is pure poetry of the soul. May God bless you richly and even more so than He has blessed me. Simply humble and wonderful are your thoughts toward God. Preacher62
My blessings are far beyond my ability to count. However you are one of them. sistersoldier
and we love to pray for your salvation. thanks for the opportunity antonio
Thank you. Must read this often. sistersoldier
You have written the prescription to life though many refuse to receive it. Kent you are correct that worshiping God would circumvent allowing ourselves to be enticed by the wicked trappings of this present world. Yes, to be in the presence of God is all one needs to be whole.
The performer/actor behind drugs is Satan. Drug use opens you up to spiritual attacks because it is a stronghold and a vice. There are specific demonic spirits associated with drugs and alcohol abuse which leave you wide open for demonic possession and why it is so hard to “kick the habit”.
Drug abuse was foretold to increase as another sign that we are approaching the end of days. In order to be used by God we must be sober minded and avoid intoxicating substances. But the deception is growing that drugs can make us feel better when in fact they are numbing a generation to the will of God.
No man can serve to masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will hold to the one and despise the other. The laws that apply to human nature subjugate and necessitate that our supreme and our utmost affections can only be fixed to one object. It is the way we are wired which is why I seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and I allow Him to fill me with His Holy Spirit and whatever the Holy Spirit accepts I accept and whatever He rejects I reject.
Jesus is the Great Physician because He is the Son of the Great I AM. El Shaddai – The God that is more than enough! Rick
Jehovah-Rapha. Amen! sistersoldier
Keep calling on His name and may He manifest Himself in your life as Your Healer. Preacher62
Truth for life right there. Rdawg
Nonsense. Europeans are far more secular than Americans and do not have the same magnitude of problems with addiction. You will find that the religious are every bit as likely to become ensnared in drug addiction as non-religious persons. The problem is that Americans have become used to a culture of quick-fixes for everything; nobody wants to deal with their problems head-on. lincolnlincolnlincoln
Euro’s will be doing more drugs soon enough when they face their countries destroyed by the muslim hordes ProclaimingGodsTruth
Let’s make sure that the church you reference is a Bible-believing, Bible-teaching, Christ following church. Not all churches are true Acts 2 churches today. GSOB
Some say I am of the faith, therefore I am of the elect. Others say I am of the elect, therefore I have faith.
Which came first, election or faith? ProclaimingGodsTruth
Oh I get it …“riddle-time”? sistersoldier
It is not a trap question just a soul searching question. ProclaimingGodsTruth
OK, see my reply then. sistersoldier
I have read and it appears that you agree that election comes first. As faith comes by hearing so then by hearing the word of God. We would of necessity need to exist to hear the word of God. By selection we were chosen as those who would have hearts to receive the word of God by faith. All be it that everyone is given a measure of faith but not all will exercise the gift for good.
Now this is holy a conversation! ProclaimingGodsTruth
One stark reminder is what Jesus said in Matt 22:14 –“Many are called but few are chosen.” These are tremendously stunning words that should awaken all Christians everywhere. Shalom sistersoldier
Yes, but too many are distracted with the “elections” of politicians to care what God thinks. ProclaimingGodsTruth
Very correct!!! They are distracting Americans away from the real issues..the Lord’s return and the signs leading up to it. There is also a super abundance of deception in the rhetoric spewed from the lips of these candidates.
Just a verse on the candidates, the election and America – Hos 8:4 sistersoldier
Yes Lord! That scripture is so good and so right it is of necessity that those who do not open the Bible read it and may they understand it for their own deliverance! Praise God indeed. May you keep proclaiming God’s truth.
“They have set up kings, but not by Me; They have appointed princes, but I did not know it. With their silver and gold they have made idols for themselves, That they might be cut off.” Mary Janis
faith sistersoldier
Election came first as it is His spiritual blessing towards those who would inherit salvation. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,…” God bless. ProclaimingGodsTruth
First of all what is this “faith” in that you ask here? Christ or …? If Christ, let’s use Heb 12:1-2 as the source text for our discussion.
But to clarify, are you talking The Elect? Or just the elect?
Since the elect denotes one that has been chosen, our faith in Christ results in one being in the fellowship of the elect, meaning all those called and chosen and faithful. Matt 22:14; Rev 17:14
Ok, what say you? You after a predestination type discussion? Maybe…
*** Remember now that Christ was with the Father from the beginning. Rick
Kent, totally agree with your opinion here, in fact I was going to post something similar. Being a pharmacy doctor, I see it all too often, people suffering, and in pain. However, my wife and I recently joined the Catholic Church, and follow our theology, and teachings, and vows we took to join. We are regular weekly attenders at mass, and are deeply in love with Jesus Christ, yet I could easily be included in the group of 60 million abusers of alcohol that Michael talks about. So while I know I sin against God, and I know what I do is wrong, I still do it. And I struggle against it, I will never give up the battle as long as I am afflicted with this thorn in my side. We each have our “thorn”. I think the larger problem may be that many people are just waking up to the culture of death we live in, right here in the USA, and they don’t want to face it. They do give up the struggle against sin. We kill over 3000 babies a day in this country, and yet we want Hillary Clinton as our next president?? The Queen of the Culture of Death?? And the very same people who will vote for her are the ones on the anti-psych, anti-depressants, and pain killers. They can’t cope with what they are doing, how they are living day to day. They no longer have the ability, or desire to connect the dots, yet deep down they know it’s wrong, and there will be that day! That day will be the moment they accept the door of Mercy, and totally confess and repent, and convert, or that day will be the day of judgement. I need not describe what that will be like. In my estimation there is no “program”, no education, no amount of dollars, gold or silver, no smart talk from slick politicians that can save us now, it will only be by the great mercy of God. flautistmaniac
I think the key we are missing is to acknowledge our fallibility. We want to believe we are good, yet we would crucify Jesus for one pill or one drink. Until we accept our evil and love ourselves anyways, there is no way out. Of course, once you do this, you can no longer hate any sinner, knowing that you are just as fallible. Rick
I believe you are right. We fail to acknowledge our fallibility, our humanness. We’ve lost our sense of humility, of reverence toward God. We live in an era of entitlement think instead of greatfulness think. We buy into the programing of the media that it’s all about us, someone owes us something. Government becomes god, and is the king of the culture of death. Liberty First
Great post, thank you Kent. MichaelfromTheEconomicCollapse
After a tremendous amount of work, my wife and I have finally completed the first episode of our new television program. It will be airing on Christian television, but you can also watch it on YouTube for free. If you would like to check it out, you can find the first episode right here…
Michael, smile a little please. SunnyFlaSnotress
He looks a lil like Father Sarducci w/o the garb. sistersoldier
Awesome! Thank you and God bless. Illegal
FfThe richest country in the world has a population that won’t educate itself about living a healthy life. Peopl antonio
Nicely put. SunnyFlaSnotress
Some may also be using the pills to fight boredom, depression, etc and the answer may be reverse.. to give the addict new challenges and means of achieving. goldminer
So what is the solution? Beer. Hops are a natural pain reliever. Works for me. Haven’t seen a pill pusher for many many years. Don’t need no bible thumpin either. Ricardo
that wine was grapejuice. The English for wine doesn’t make any difference between fermented and unfermented but the original language tells you what was unfermented and what was fermented. Jesus turned water into unfermented wine. GSOB
I will venture to guess that alcohol addiction far outstrips pain killer addiction. GSOB
“Our bodies have been redeemed from deserved condemnation and hopeless slavery by the atoning sacrifice of Christ. We are to be clean, as vessels fitted for our Master’s use. Being united to Christ as one spirit, and bought with a price of unspeakable value, the believer should consider himself as wholly the Lord’s, by the strongest ties. May we make it our business, to the latest day and hour of our lives, to glorify God with our bodies, and with our spirits which are his.”– Romans 15:13 Priszilla
Guns are good painkillers. No more pain after you shoot yourself. Chicken? How about suicide by cop? But not recommended. Buy a gun yourself. And have lots of training at the shooting range. The profit doesn’t only come from gun sales but also ammo. billtheguy
When people go to the doctor or the emergency room, the question is asked of them: “On a scale 1-10 how much pain do you have?” This is where it hypothetically starts. Doctors use visuals too, but I believe people can endure some pain. Doctors only have one or two ways to deal with pain, and drugs are one. Do doctors get kickbacks from drug companies? Steeve Girard
A lot of pains are dietary of origin. Like lactose intolerance, 1,3,7 methyl-xanthine intolerance, allergic reactions etc… Rather than telling the truth and put us on a path to modify our diet to fit the intolerances, they give you a prescription for pills to neutralize the problem. And they are rarely non-permanent, you are most likely to use them for the rest of your life. . Modifying a diet is not hard… you just have to accept sacrifices. I used to like milky cheese, yogurt, ice cream, dark chocolate, quik mix, chocolate syrup, etc… and now those products are either drastically reduced to my tolerance levels, substitued with a similar product without the intolerant substance or radically eliminated. sistersoldier
Yes, drug reps (representatives) visit doctor’s offices regularly. I worked for a medical facility many years ago as an account representative. Every Wednesday and Friday we could expect very expensive “free” lunches. The drug companies would spare no costs and would make sure everyone who worked in the office received a meal on the days they would visit the good doctors. They also provided plenty of free samples. This is where you get your samples when offered by your doctor. They come from the drug companies delivered by the reps to promote their product. Not because the doctor found them to be good but because the pharmaceutical company has been good to them.
And yes again as the human body can tolerate pain and for good reason. Pain is nature’s indicator to send signals to the area of the body that needs healing. This is why after major surgeries your doctor should advise you to get up and walk, almost immediately for some, so that you will kick start your own healing process. James
Pain is nature’s indicator to send signals to the area of the body that needs healing
No it’s not. Pain is an indication that you should stop whatever you are doing that is causing the pain. Ex, stop putting your hand in a boiling pot of water. sistersoldier
Pain starts at the source of an injury or inflammation, whether it’s your toe or your lower back. When you injure yourself, the body’s automatic response is to stimulate pain receptors, which in turn release chemicals, says Dr. Tongprasert. Sanjaykumar Jobalia
I just went through the comments appearing before I sat down to write my own. Some of them are with a tinge of humour, sarcasm or comment on the current American way of living.
The solution lies in the biggest and most dreaded mafia of all times. “the pharma companies” . They will put ISIS to shame. I used to say such things about INDIA which is my origin. But I think applies to whole world. 1) Big Companies including Pharma 2) Politicians 3) Senior Government Officers 4) Print & Electronic Media & lastly 5) Top Judiciary . There is nexus of these 5 almost anywhere in the world & the nexus is simply invincible. Unless we make a move in a direction to break this nexus, things are not going to change.
As far as drugs go, this nexus simply manages to suppress ill effects of such drugs, cheaper & far better alternate forms to cure available to mankind.
IT IS ALL COMMERCE SunnyFlaSnotress
I think that’s ridiculous. I think it’s all about addicts and addict culture. When my boyfriend had legitimate need for pain pills, he has always been given a very difficult time. antonio
Good post. Steeve Girard
The main reason why the pill commerce exist, is the requirement of performance that exists today. Even when you are old and retired, you will be needed to be in shape to deal with the BS the system throws at them. And one way to do so, is by taking pills to numb pain, pills to boost metabolism, pills to control aging. Pills for this, pill for that. . People starting with the Baby Boomer generation have been indoctrinated in a mentality of the “forever young”. They want to be Superman forever (without falling from their horse and become cripple). However, the Mother of Us All, Nature makes sure we get old, weak and painfully disfunctional. Whence the need to consume fixes in the form of pills. . As long people will not accept their own mortality and leave the system knowing they can’t cope with it. They will take those fixes. . The companies knows that, and all their publicity stunts are based on the benefits of taking their drugs. Giving them the money, and causing an addiction to the general public. Because the public is addicted, they can slowly increase the price of the fixes. And you know the rest of the story. sere
Stocks rebound. Change subject and talk about painkillers. Lol SunnyFlaSnotress
Yes, digressions are all too rampant on this board. Ted
Agree with the folks who believe tptb have this all under control. Go live your life. Malcolm Reynolds
And when they take a dump again in the next week? Should we come back and Lol at you? jox
I don’t remember your comments last year. And I can’t access your history of comments. As Malcom asks you, ¿will you come back in the next crash? VigilanteCaregiver
We get pain killers for the Wife’s conditions. And neurotransmitter meds, dementia meds, seizure meds, diabetes meds, anti-spasm meds, etc.
Not worried about addiction. Try the #$%&ing cost! Just the neurotransmitter meds, even with two insurances, still gouges us $200 a month! Same thing for the seizure meds. The diabetic meds are a little cheaper, but the test strips and syringes are ridiculous!!
Feds force us to BUY insurance at gunpoint (still unconstitutional which makes it illegal for them to do); they didn’t bother including language that says insurance will pay out! Just like paying for another useless, worthless, irredeemable bureaucracy (high-paid welfare recipients). Steeve Girard
Yes it is ridiculous to fight old age and death. It will eventually happen. Why pay for it? Orange Jean
Steeve, my understanding is that his wife is quite young (I think he said in her 30s) but had a bad accident of some sort and has traumatic brain injury. Nothing to do with old age… from previous posts…he sounds like a loving husband who tries very hard to take care of his wife, their young kids, and himself. You could have been a little more sensitive.
Besides… you don’t think you’re ever going to get old?? Rick
Well who do you think wrote obamacare? VigilanteCaregiver
Truthfully: based on results, dire enemies did this. Rick
That certainly could be said. It was big insurance company lobbyist and lawyers who crafted the majority of the bill. Guess they insulated themselves with mandated profits forever? Or at least until some President with common sense comes to office, takes out HIS pen and phone, and abolishes this criminal piece of legislation that is slowly killing us all, and more rapidly killing our economy. VigilanteCaregiver
That bill was obviously crafted a long time ago. There were far more groups and usurpers involved than just lawyers and insurance folks.
My problem is this: what actually compels the next president and Congress to do what you’re wisely stating above?
I said to local candidate recently that if he’d put up his personal fortune as security or take out a bond in their name, then I’d be more inclined to believe what he’s saying. He asked why he should; I said to cover my losses from his inevitable corruption and mistakes, and to punish him for not doing his job. He didn’t like that; neither did the other candidates within earshot. These skunks won’t ever do such a thing, obviously. It had to be said, though. c_chandler
have you sought another doctor to try to limit some of these? VigilanteCaregiver
We are seeing several doctors. They don’t prescribe unless they have to. This isn’t a normal situation; herbal medicines can’t handle it anymore and pharmaceuticals are becoming less reliable with supply. Malcolm Reynolds
I’m “addicted” to prescrip painkillers. It’s not hard and it doesn’t happen because they’re happy fun times.
I have chronic and extreme pain in my back (2 blown and degenerative discs L1 and L5, and arthritis from L1 to L5) and hips (bursitis).
Doing any activity where you’re hunched over (like doing the dishes), sends my back into a tizzy.
I throw out my back almost routinely. I threw it out last week and spent 3 days working from bed, and the other two moving realllly slow. I’m extremely lucky I can actually do that.
Last year was the first time I threw out my back and literally could not walk. It was so damn painful.
I breeze thru 90 -10/325 Hydrocodone a month and have had to withdraw from them at least 3 times because the Doc wont write another script. Creepy Pedro
Been through opiate w/d….not really bad but still sucks…Benzo w/d is from the devil. Wouldnt wish that on anyone. Malcolm Reynolds
“opiate w/d….not really bad but still sucks” Yep. That’s about how I’d describe it too. Creepy Pedro
Get your liver tested if you plan to be on them along time. As long as you don’t O.D, which is pretty hard to do (unless you are just plain crazy), you will be ok. Benzos w/d and alcohol w/d are the only two that can kill you. Benzo w/d feels like opiate times 100. GSOB
Now… that’s what I like to see… helping each other out and building each other up. Your experience lends itself in empathy to Malcolm R. Romans 8:28
It’s like a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.. at least I imagine.. SunnyFlaSnotress
There we go.. you are on SSDI and have walking issues.. Admit it.. I was sorta right. Malcolm Reynolds
you are on SSDI and have walking issues.. Mmmm, nope. Bet I can still outwalk your stupid a$$. But then you spend a great deal of time on your back so…. SunnyFlaSnotress
I make you angry because I am close to your sad truth. I just pretty much totally moved myself. Endurance is a strong point of mine. I doubt you could outwalk me. You just told us how frail you are. Malcolm Reynolds
I make you angry because I am close to your vulnerabilities.
You’ve never made me angry. I think you’re a simpleton and I make fun of you because of it. But I’m interested in hearing the whole ‘close to my vulnerabilities’ theory.
used to be
Color me impressed. I used to run at least 8 miles a day at lunch when I was in the Corps and lifted plenty of weights. But yea, that is definitely “used to”.
These days, DESPITE my pain, I do karate 3 times a week, do monthly campouts in Scouts with my sons, and did the 10 mile hike around Little Wild Horse Canyon/Bell Canyon loop in Goblin Valley, Utah this past fall with ease. WONDERFUL slot canyons, BTW. I highly recommend. DESPITE my pain, I maintain a very active life.
The pain is worse when I’m sedentary.
but if you are going to criticize, I will point out the reality.
The reality is you don’t know a damned thing about me, you just seem to think you do. Orange Jean
I’m sorry to hear you are struggling with both pain and addition. I also have degenerative disc disease, plus severe arthritis in my spine, knees, neck and hands. I can barely walk now (have to use a walker at all times).
I do have a prescription for hydroconone but do not use it daily; I’ve been able to keep the pain down to a tolerable level by alternating days when I use just Tylenol (cannot use asperin or Ibuprophen any more due to bleeding) and try to use the Vicodin only on weekends (because many more things I do with chores are painful) or when there are bad storms. I get that awful arthritis pain when storms come through, sometimes to the point I can barely walk from my bed to the bathroom. But so far that seems to work for me, you might want to consider giving that kind of regime a try.
Good luck with trying to deal with it; people who don’t have chronic pain really don’t seem to understand at all. But it can happen to anyone, only a car crash away (and you don’t have to be the one causing the crash… a lot of this started for me when I was tailgated hard by someone trying to run a red light… through me!). Malcolm Reynolds
Yikes! You’re doing much better with the meds than I do. Good for you! Orange Jean
As someone said… it is individual. Probably in my case I am doing better with the meds than some because I have seen the bad effects of prescription drug addition in my mother, so I am seriously paranoid about taking drugs…
On the other hand you seem to be doing a lot better than I am with mobility.
Lest I go into pity party mode though.. there always seems to be someone worse off. I work in a MTF; the minute I seem to be feeling sorry for myself along comes some wounded warrior guy in his 20s, missing both legs. Puts things in perspective. REALIST
Read 2 Books: “WHEAT BELLY, by Dr. Davis” and “GRAIN BRAIN” by Dr. Perlmutter.
The consumption of “modern food” is at the heart of this. Add the fact we work too much, consume too much (creating stress with that cycle), and lack of exercise leads to this problem.
We have completely warped and deformed out biology.
To change you life you have to change your life. If you WON’T then you will turn to alcohol, drugs or escapism like gambling to cope. c_chandler
im reading wheat belly that often creates the muffin top fat around the belly. gm wheat in our processed bread Cal
One sign of judgment is sorceries. Two meanings the occult and derived from the Greek language…pharmakeia, translated to English, pharmacy (drugs). High Times Magazine called it in the late 70’s…decriminalization followed by the legalization of drugs starting with pot. Four events of the 60’s…removal of school prayer, JFK’s death, the Vietnam War and the start of the drug culture has lead us to the brink of extinction. My response…Call on the name of the Lord to save you and repent then let’s get the h*** out of here. Jesus saves.
Drugs and spiritism (occult) have always gone hand in hand. sistersoldier
Sometimes those pain killers are needed. They’ve always been around. But the 90s -00s unnecessary prescriptions for them exploded. Now we have a herion problem. GSOB
Explicably exploded exploitation. ramrodd
There are over 370 “mental disorders” listed in the latest version of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.) The list includes “Tobacco Addiction Disorder” among other equally mundane and ridiculous so-called “mental illnesses.”
If the DSM is the standard by which Obama wishes to remove our rights to own guns, then I’d guess 90% of the American people could probably be classified with a mental disorder of one kind or another.
BEWARE, BEWARE.. guest
i was addicted to muscle relaxers and pain killers. Jesus set me free almost nine years ago. he didn’t just set me free from pills, he set me free from all lies of the devil. for anyone who is still in their addiction don’t believe that lie that you will always want a drug. that is a lie. i have absolutely no desire for pills, or the nasty ciggarettes that i chain smoked every day. i live in complete joy and freedom now. i feel like the most grateful person on earth and all i want to do is kiss the feet of Jesus day and night for setting me free. sistersoldier
What a mighty praise report. God bless you for sharing. Preacher62
For whom the son sets free shall be free indeed. Worship is the only adequate response. God Bless as he has already. Rick
Amen! Rick
On the bright side, according to the numbers you present here as compared to the numbers you presented in 2014, we are moving in the right direction. From 70% of adults on at least one Rx, to currently only 59% on at least one Rx. Things are looking up… Scoopie
I have a prescription for hydrocodone for degenerative disc disease. I’m trying to avoid getting operated on. But why people take them to get high or whatever, I don’t know. They don’t get me high. Malcolm Reynolds
Exactly. At most it’s … how to describe it … maybe a giddy feeling. Scoopie
Been taking them for 5 years and never hit the ‘giddy’ zone either :/ REALIST
I used the stuff for 3 days after Rotator Cuff Surgery and never felt any “high” or anything. I had no pain, but there was nothing else. To me, it was “over-rated” and ended up with a Rx of 36 pills I never used. Why they issued me 40 is a mystery.
I sold them on the street for $1 each. Did I get a good deal? Scoopie
*l* There are probably (sadly) addicts out on the street saying, “where’s that sweet baby Realist guy? Running into him was like going to the dollar store for stuff to take the edge off of not having heroin”. But, would never give one away let alone sell. ProclaimingGodsTruth
Excellent article Michael and very truthful. It is this vain that American’s are seeing last days signs with rapidity:
“Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.”– Rev 9:21 (KJV)
[Sorceries = Strong’s 5331 = pharmakeía (a drug-related sorceries of various drugs) GSOB Phil
so socialist according to you everyone’s a M Jackson I bet you love Obama too and His totalitarian socialism you like him want more Big Gov. control because of the few addicts you have an Md after your name or just a Gov. controller ? see you lump every one into one category just like this guy by the way M Jackson pedophile was an addict he was not in chronic Pain! GSOB
I do love Mr. Obama. You are right about that. I think he has a bright future after he steps down.
Addiction is not a respecter of persons.
There is a market and what happened to this former musician, great entertainer – is what happens everyday in the ‘Md’ office. It’s ‘The Pusher’ that says ‘everything will be alright, take this everyday for two weeks’.
Fish got a hook in his throat, fish he has problems.
No, I’m lumping as you insinuate. You are. I suggest you investigate how MJ got started… his hair caught on fire.
Have a great day. Phil
some people do have a lagit reason that are suffering with chronic pain you lump everyone into one category so your over stating it as if 99% are drugies and addicts you sound like your in with Obama who wants to control “all Peoples lives you would take them away and make it even harder for people who do need them I get treated like that now at the pharmacies and the addicts get them any way from Canada without prescriptions so see your just another socialist freak who would love bigger Government control by the way I didn’t see a Md after your name ? who knows all you should have a Big Brother after yours my POV Mr. Cipher
It’s part of the pussification of America. Everyone wants a cushy desk job. There are few real Men left willing to get dirt under their fingernails. Any discomfort requires a pain pill. Once they started selling Harley Davidsons in the mall I knew we were thru. Phil
who made you King Obama ! you have His aditude more Big Gov and the people of the US cant think for themselves they need big Gov. Biker! OK socialist Uncle Sam would be a better name for you as a title or Chief woose to Obama ministration ! Goldenpuff2
Being a person with a pain condition requiring me to use pain meds in order to function on a daily basis, pain meds and their users get a bad rap. It is the PEOPLE who take these meds when they do not need them. It is the PEOPLE who steal from others who actually do need them. Most docs are compassionate people. By design, their job is to BELIEVE people when they tell docs they hurt. Of course, there are bad docs but most are not so again it is the PEOPLE who choose to beg, borrow, lie and steal to get these pills who are the problem. I also take an old anti-seizure med that works for pain by calming the nerve endings. It takes me a month or better to be able to increase this med yet I’m snooping one day looking up dosing or something and run across a forum where people are talking openly about taking this med – and a heck of a lot more than I would EVER take in one dose – and then going to the freaking Mall!!!! to ‘see what happens.’ Now is that stupid or what? The guy’s lucky he didn’t end up in the hospital. So it isn’t the people who are in actual pain overusing their meds, it is the IDIOT PEOPLE with no reason whatsoever to even be near these drugs that are screwing everything up. You can’t protect from Stupid.
Agreed! Mary Janis
Because thegov is killing us with poisonous vaccines, chemtrails, herbicides, pesticides, food additives and our bodies are breaking down. They are keeping good things away from us like natural remedies, raw milk, organic foods, etc…… James
That is why life expectancy is going up r Preacher62
Pills, alcohol, perverted sex, money, politics; You name it. These are the things that a human race who has rejected God and cast him aside has hold of in order to fill the hole within their lives that only God can fill. Repent and believe the gospel and you will have no more need for earthly things that cannot satisfy but only leave one wanting more. sistersoldier
Hey…..there is no such thing as perverted sex……..just sayin’…….. Preacher62
Anything that is not of God’s design of one man and one woman for life is perverted. Gay Veteran
whoa, whoa, whoa, what about all that polygamy (NOT polyandry) in the bible Preacher62
A perversion of what God intended which Jesus made very clear. Gay Veteran
ROFLOL, so “god” puts up with it ALL through the OT and then changes in the NT? Preacher62
He put up with a lot of things prior to Jesus Christ coming and clarifying the law. He still puts up with a lot of things in his patience and grace with the desire that all men should repent before it is too late. Forced slavery was condemned, voluntary slavery was not. Read the book. Gay Veteran
American slave owners used your bible to justify slavery. read some history Preacher62
A lot of people have used the Bible to justify a lot of things. That is the nature of man. Fallen man seeks only their own desires, the resulting guilt causes them to seek justification for it. Most people want to go to heaven, they just do not want God to be there when they get there. Gay Veteran
amazing how easy it is for them to use the bible for evil Preacher62
Most true statement you have ever made. Gay Veteran
because it is easy to abuse a book written by men Preacher62
The only way to be truly comfortable in the darkness is to deny the existence of light. Gay Veteran
So now you just believe that the darkness is really light. Nice switch-up. Gay Veteran
what’s your point, oh that’s right, you don’t have one awb22
what is it to you, he got the sodomy part right, stupid. Gay Veteran
you really need to get a hobby, Sodomite Obsessed Polly the Stalker awb22
still OT, idiot. Traci
Let us not forget that physical pain is real. Pain becomes chronic due to inflammation that does not resolve. Inflammation can be caused by injury, toxins, tumors, poor circulation and even eating the wrong food that sets off a cytokine storm in the body. Bad oils and grains can cause leaky gut that can lead to pain. People who live with pain are not bad people but they are miserable and suffering and they need relief from pain to have quality of life. Many things can be done to help pain to include herbs such as turmeric and boswellia and innovations such as tens units or earthing. But the Doctors do not advise of alternative and safer pain relief modalities, they only push narcotics or anti-inflammatories that mess up the adrenal glands or kidneys. Insurance will not pay for anything alternative, insurance only pays for prescription pain pills. After awhile pain pills cause tolerance, which means the body requires larger does to achieve the same amount of pain relief. People that need higher does “are not addicted” but have developed “normal tolerance”. Our health care system needs changed so that pain is treated at the root cause and not just a cover up of the pain symptom. Do not forget 1) the worst thing a doctor can do is to kill you. 2) The second worse thing a doctor can do is to cure you. SunnyFlaSnotress
If the people really need the meds, I don’t consider them addicts.. just patients. Orange Jean
I go to an ortopaedic clinic and they prescribe physical therapy a lot of the time, including many of the things you suggest as alternatives and my health insurance will pay up to 72 physical therapy visits a year. Most years lately I’ve had to use that much and more, and much of what they do helps to a point… but are not permanent cures.
In addition to cortisone shots and various pain meds, I’ve been given compression stockings (for lymphodema),. back traction, neck traction, a lot of excercises, heat and message, tens unit, cold laser therapy etc. Could have chosen chiropractor adjustments as well, but personally those made me feel worse. I’ve also tried a number of herbs which you’ve suggested, which also did nothing.
Just sayin’!! I do have both “good” days and “bad days”… and I try to be thankful for the good ones. Traci
real. Acute pain caused by an injury can become chronic pain if the injury does not resolve. (think spinal pain). Often pain has no specific known cause but develops from generalized inflammation. Inflammation can be triggered by autoimmune disorders such as fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis and food allergies. Grains and bad oils can lead to leaky gut which allows non digested proteins to leak out of the gut and into the body which will then cause a cytokine storm and abnormal immune complexes, that leads to generalized pain. Sometimes pain is caused by nerve pain due to diabetes or lack of B12. Pain is multi-faceted and has numerous etiologies. But PAIN is REAL and people suffering from chronic pain need compassion and help not blame. Pain is helped by narcotics, steroids and herbs such as turmeric and boswellia. Alternative products such as tens units, earthing and DMSO can also provide amazing relief. When people go to doctors, (whom they trust to have their best interest), they are only provided with narcotics and steroids, not alternative products. The insurance company will only pay for prescription meds. The AMA and the prescription industry have a partnership. If a doctor dare suggests alternative pain relief they can be in legal trouble. A truth about opioids is that they causes “dependence” which means as the body adjusts to the pain med, a larger does is required to provide the same amount of pain relief. Many people confuse “dependence” with “addiction”. People need relief from pain and doctors whom they trust, let them down. I do not have pain now, but I have I have had it the past. I had to become my own doctor and heal myself. Praise God for the internet! I am also a registered nurse. Orange Jean
Thank you for your kind post… it is so strange to hear how many people blame someone for being in physical pain and have NO idea what that is about. Mark A. Kuntz
People just don’t get it. The true problem is “sin”. Sin is killing us and we are trying to solve a spiritual problem through natural means, and it will not nor never can work. We will not solve any problems with money or programs. It never has worked and it never will work. Only one way to solve our problems. Be humble before God and repent for our sins. God said in 2nd Chronicles 7:14 that if we would humble ourselves and seek His face that He would “heal our land”. Its that simple. All of the worlds problems are rooted in our failure to trust in and obey God. We turn our backs on a loving Father who knows what is best for us and then wonder what went wrong and why things are always getting worse, in spite of the billions of dollars spent and the promises of politicians and every four years we really believe if we just can get “our person” elected, the country will all magically turn around. What a joke! Turn to God, that’s our only hope. And just to be clear, I could care less what any of the haters of God think. Orange Jean
So you’re telling me I have severe arthritis and chronic pain due to “sin”? Somehow, I think you’re wrong about that! CharlesH
For a very long time now, one of my biggest concerns has been what will happen in the U.S. should suddenly and without any warning there be a supply disruption of medications from the manufacturers to the doctors, hospitals and pharmacies? I have read – on many legitimate websites – that there is a maximum of a 30 day supply on hand at any given time. I’ve seen first hand what a severe addiction can do to someone – it’s horrible enough if they have their drugs (I don’t sugar coat it by calling them ‘meds’) – but imagine suddenly they’re not there. All hell literally breaks loose. John E
Blame the pills, blame the doctors, blame the religions, blame pharma companies, blame everything…..but don’t ever look in the mirror and say I let these pills rob me of my soul for a little bit of relief from real life….because after all that could be a bit painful too and require some changes.
Long gone are the days when people went to the dentist and had a tooth pulled with a little local anesthetic or shot of whiskey. Sure end of life or serious injuries can go a little smoother with pain killers but I have trouble believing that millions of Americans need that kind of pain relief from hard drugs everyday.
This is the new America, a nation of spoiled sissies and cry babies. boo.hoo…hoo. Please don’t ask for my sympathy, you did this to yourself. Dave of OK
what is going to happen to this country once the pharmaceuticals are not there to fill the need? We are going to have a lot of near zombies roaming the land. This depression is going to be a lot worse than the last depression. Not as many people were on antidepressants in the 1930’s. grumpyhillbilly
I hope they become zombies. Unfortunately it will likely be mass psychotic episodes. HENK-2
If Americans (I suppose you mean USA citizens) are so happy.
I have trouble with that.
How can 100 million unemployed people be happy?
Or the 45 million on food stamps?
I think they are very unhappy and the circumstances they live in would account for taking drugs that lessen the mental pain.
How many drugs are prescribed for people in nursing homes or for prisoners to keep them in a mental fog to keep them quiet.
Never trust the pharmaceutical industry.
I am 81 years of age and am convinced that there are parts of drugs that MAKE you dependent on them e.g I am on 2 prescription drugs which I don’t want or need but if I do not take them I lie awake for hours; this is not healthy as it is easy to think about things which are better left alone. Deal with problems but do not dwell on them.
Painkillers:
The opium poppy is the king of painkillers even when synthesized.
Because of chronic pain I was on opoids from 1991 till last year.
I was on codeine and progressed to methadone (no, I was never a junkie, this was for pain) and suboxone.
The latter is so restricted that the head of the alcohol and drug administration in the entire shire (county) treated me personally.
I received 7 pills per week, pick up on Sunday but do not bother to come on Saturday because you are not due yet.
I do not know if suboxone was responsible for what happened but a year ago I did a cold turkey on all painkillers and do not miss them, even when I suffer I can look at them and the memories of chronic constipation come back as horror stories and indignities. I am looking at them now.
I should say that I have a history of doing cold turkeys with alcohol and smoking.
It is important to understand that you cannot give those things up to please other people, you should only do it because YOU want to.
In my case my first grandchild was due and I promised myself that no grandchild would ever see me drunk. This was in 1980. And none have.
Many people have heard the expression: to hit rock bottom. But it is rarely defined.
In my case it means: I have reached the point beyond which I do not want to go.
I hope I have been of some help and wish everybody all the best; not willpower because that is soluble in alcohol. James
convinced that there are parts of drugs that MAKE you dependent Yes, they activate dopamine reception and production. It is what happens if you try to inhibit opiate receptors. James
suboxone.
Um, soboxone is the brand name for naloxone, and Buprenorphine. Two drugs that are used to treat opiod addiction. Deanna Clark
Why am I not surprised that this article about the suffering of millions gets only a bunch of religious arguments and cold judgement? This monster hurts families, friendships, whole towns. It drains money from businesses, savings, family, and brings sweet girls into prostitution…boys too. Yet there’s not a word here of sympathy or mercy. Shame… grumpyhillbilly
I don’t know. Seems like your average drug user feels sorry enough for themselves without my pity. Sorry, my user cousin is the master of exploiting empathy. Makes me the opposite any more. Deanna Clark
But they have families that can ruin themselves trying to help. Then there’s the children and spouses of the addict…the toll is horrible. All over the US are grandparents raising grandchildren, spending their savings, taking no vacations…always worried their grown child will overdose. The current crisis in STDs is due to the drugs for sex habits. They say future addicts can be predicted as children…they see every attempt to guide or advise them as an encroachment on their freedom. They have no docility…pig headed and stubborn….and they quit only when they are good and ready. Why so many now? Like junk food, booze, hook-ups and all…the answer is always, “But it makes me feel soooo good.” So maybe it does trace back to the whole world view pushed in our culture. freethedacks
the solution is to legalize cannabis. Cannabis is a non-narcotic mood elevator and pain reliever without the inherent addiction problem of drugs. Problem is the control freaks have lumped cannabis in with very strong drugs, and have even labeled it as a gateway to things like cocaine and heroin. This has been proven to be completely false. Cannabis is not even technically a rug, but an herb in it’s natural state. It is the totem herb of humanity – it has been a companion plant that has served mankind in many ways for centuries. It’s prohibition has people seeking alternatives, which end up being all the bad stuff that is easier to get. Legalize cannabis and watch the heroin epidemic go away grumpyhillbilly
C’mon pot is easy to purchase. Nor is it the answer to a miserably unhappy populace. My cure would be to end the big old pity party. James
A drug is anything that alters bodily function. Drugs can be herbs/plants. Examples include asprin.
Cannabis is not even technically a drug, but an herb in it’s natural state. Cannabis inhibits cannabis receptors, therefore it is a drug. James
. Cannabis is a non-narcotic mood elevator and pain reliever without the inherent addiction problem of drugs.
Cannabis is addicting. Well proven Orange Jean
Back when I was young I bought into that notion… tried smoking dope when I got the flu. I have NEVER been so miserable in my life! So I am not buying the “safe pain killer” idea. Might work for some people I don’t know… but I will never try that again. grumpyhillbilly
The allopaths aren’t all that they are made to be. Need stitching up in the insides – they’re your doctor of choice. Virus…don’t waste your time. They have done greatest with bacterial infections til they over prescribed antibiotics. Allopathic cancer treatment can be described as hoping to kill the cancer before they kill the patient.
Stop worshipping doctors of state sanctioned record. These days to get into med school, all you need to be is a legacy or a “minority.” Best and brightest is a wish. It shows. Say no to your doctor some day, then sit back to avoid the subsequent head explosion. Chances are your insurance won’t pay for no. Which all leads to a mind numbed populace. Now why do I think that is what our ruling oligarchs want? Orange Jean
I’m sorry to hear how many of you seem to mix up people who are drug addicts who got that way to have “fun” with people who may have become addicts through having serious chronic pain and bad advice on how to manage it. There are also plenty of people there who have nothing but chronic physical pain due to injuries or disease who are prescribed these drugs to control the pain. I’m one of them.
My body is deteriorating and I have chronic pain… sometimes severe to the point where I can barely walk. I do use drugs when I need to, but try to keep it to a minimum. I do not believe I am addicted because I can still choose what to use when, but I do understand there are risks involved. The problem is for some of us, the pain levels can be so bad you cannot function at all in life. I have a job and I live alone, so I need to continue to function as there is no one out there going to do things for me I need all the time.
And no, sorry… but I do not think going to church is going to fix it. True for some people if their problem is an addiction due to weak morals or something… but not if it’s due to severe pain. It is unfortunate that there are NO totally safe drugs to use to control severe chronic pain.
Ever hear of Job? I don’t think God promises us we will all be happy and healthy all of the time. Sometimes people luck out and sometimes they do not. And despite some people’s assumption that you can stay in good health just by eating “right” and excercising… you never know if something will come upon you and ruin your health. It may be a disease you never saw coming, something you inherited, or something as unavoidable as someone crashing into you when you are driving or riding in a vehicle (or biking or walking for that matter). lincolnlincolnlincoln
why? maybe because of the previous article…. Willard Ferch
Under communism there is little to hope for. Russia became over-run with alcoholism and the abortion rate was through the roof. As our nation declines, hope will diminish. Placing our hope in the correct place is the answer, and that place is in the Lord. Fiddlin
Jesus Christ is the solution Buffet
If these weaklings just quit crying every time they have a hangnail, then the sissies would never have any problems. I’ve had four orthopaedic surgeries and never taken so much as ONE pill of that rubbish!! It’s not that they can’t stop – they don’t WANT to stop, because they’re a bunch of strung out losers. DMCasey
In spite of so many abusing these drugs, please keep in mind that there are many who actually NEED them for serious pain relief–for example, those who have terminal illnesses, incapacitating nerve pain, chronic severe pain that keeps them from any kind of normal life.
What will happen to those who really need it if the government takes it off the market, for example? Because people abuse something why should those who are in desperate need suffer for their choices by perhaps having to come off the meds they need? Charlie Payne
Let me think? We are an aging, success conscience society that in order to be successful, most of the time people have to work wy more on average than 40 hours a week, more like 10 – 12 and sometimes 6 days or 7 days a week for periods of time, At very often back breaking work. For 20 or 30 or 40 years and now is living longer because we are what, the most successful Country on Earth… Now you wonder why so many people who are living longer have more diseases and injuries, but this weird man who is Surgeon General who thinks it is better for them/us to feel more pain, not less is healthier for all of us! I question his motives or intelligence! | 1 |
Email Ever wonder what’s on the mind of today’s most notable people? Well, don’t miss our unbelievable roundup of the best and most talked about quotes of the day: “ I always love when a fan stitches clips of the president or someone together so they are singing ‘Party In The U.S.A.’; I only wonder why none of my fans have thought to do that with clips of me. It would be much easier. ” —Miley Cyrus On music “ They say there’s no such thing as a horrible horse, but this is coming from the same people who say there’s no such thing as an excellent ostrich. ” —Alicia Vikander Unprompted “ At the end of the day, all you have is family. And if you happen to see someone in your family burn down another person’s home, even better. ” —Zadie Smith | 0 |
Cast your vote now. All answers are stored anonymously. Who won smackdown between Newt Gingrich and Megyn Kelly? Hillary: Just more Trumpian misogyny Kelly: Newt's past gives him no standing to talk about a sex obsession Kelly: She spoke for all women everywhere who are concerned about Trump Kelly: She is the best thing going at FNC Gingrich: It was a well-deserved rebuke Gingrich: He exposed Megyn's long-time obsession with destroying Trump Trump: Gingrich showed that Hillary starting World War III is more serious than who Donald kissed decades ago Other | 0 |
The actor and performance artist Shia LaBeouf was arrested early Thursday morning on misdemeanor assault and harassment charges while protesting President Trump at a livestream art installation in Queens. In videos online, Mr. LaBeouf — who has a history of provocative behavior and a record of arrests for minor offenses — expresses outrage, evidently aimed at Mr. Trump, and uses language to ask how the public can make it normal “to be a Nazi out here. ” In one video, a small gathering of fellow protesters chants “He will not divide us” as the bearded Mr. LaBeouf speaks. A police officer approaches, and Mr. LaBeouf appears to get into a verbal altercation with him before the officer places him in handcuffs and escorts him out of the camera’s view. Mr. LaBeouf was arrested just after 12. 30 a. m. and charged with misdemeanor assault and with harassment, according to Detective Adam Navarro of the New York City Police Department. He was issued a desk appearance ticket and instructed to come to court on April 4. He was not jailed. Detective Navarro said that the police were called after Mr. LaBeouf got into an argument with another man at the installation, pulled off the man’s scarf and, in the process, scratched his face. The man did not need to be hospitalized, the detective said. The livestream is part of Mr. LaBeouf’s latest art project, “He Will Not Divide Us,” a collaboration with the artists Nastja Sade Ronkko and Luke Turner. On Inauguration Day, the actor placed a camera outside the Museum of the Moving Image, in Astoria, Queens, and invited members of the public to repeat the words “he will not divide us” into the camera. The aim is to keep streaming images of people repeating the words, throughout Mr. Trump’s time in office. Representatives for Mr. LaBeouf did not immediately reply to requests for comment on Thursday morning. The arrest is not Mr. LaBeouf’s first with the law: In 2014, while at a Broadway performance of the musical “Cabaret,” he was arrested and later charged with disorderly conduct and criminal trespass. The actor first rose to prominence as a child performer on the Disney Channel television series “Even Stevens,” and in 2008 starred in Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. ” More recently, he has drawn as much attention for his unusual art projects as for his acting. In November 2015, Mr. LaBeouf arranged a marathon of all of his movies at the Angelika Film Center in Manhattan. The next month, he set up shop in an art gallery in Liverpool, England, asking people to call him and “touch his soul. ” | 0 |
This post was originally published on this site
MOSCOW, November 14. /TASS/. Head of Russia’s State Duma (lower house of parliament) Committee for International Affairs Leonid Slutsky “really hopes” that US president-elect Donald Trump will adhere to his position on recognizing Crimea as part of Russia that he expressed during the election campaign.
“As for Trump’s position on recognizing Crimea as part of Russia, I really hope he does that,” Slutsky told a press conference in Moscow.
He pointed out that “during the election campaign as well as after the election, Trump more than once reiterated his wish to meet with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and change the US attitude to the Syrian crisis.” “Let us wait for other statements on strategic matters. I think there may be a statement on the Crimean issue. I wouldn’t get too excited but as all the Russian citizens and the Crimeans in particular, I, too, would pin hopes on it,” he added.
Slutsky believes Trump will “clarify his position on this matter” in the next few weeks.
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On Friday, FBI Director James Comey informed Congress that the FBI was reopening the Hillary Clinton email investigation due to the discovery of new emails. The emails were reportedly discovered by the FBI while investigating former Congressman Anthony Weiner for possibly illegal sexting with someone under 18.
The emails were contained on Weiner’s laptop and are connected to Hillary Clinton via Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin. Abedin is one of Clinton’s closest advisors and she apparently did not make the laptop available during the initial investigation which ended in July and exposed that Hillary Clinton had continually lied about her email practices.
Due to the timing of Comey’s update in relation to the election, the Clinton campaign has gone into full attack mode against the FBI director. But reports now show the Obama Administration’s Department of Justice had been pressuring the FBI to go easy on Clinton for some time, even to the point of causing an internal revolt within the FBI.
Comey may have updated Congress to avoid his own staff leaking the information to the press ahead of him, as numerous agents have taken issue with the decision not to make a criminal referral in the email case and the Justice Department’s attempts to weaken investigations into the Clinton Foundation.
So, is Obama’s DOJ working for the Clinton campaign?
Well, a new email published by Wikileaks would appear to answer that question in the affirmative. On May 19, 2015, Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon emailed Hillary Clinton:
DOJ folks inform me there is a status hearing in this case this morning, so we could have a window into the judge’s thinking about this proposed production schedule as quickly as today.
Fallon, who previously worked at the Department of Justice, apparently is coordinating with “DOJ folks” on the Clinton campaign. He is telling Hillary Clinton, in an email chain that includes Clinton lawyer Cheryl Mills and Abedin, about a court hearing related to Clinton’s emails that he was informed of by allies that work at the Department of Justice.
It appears that political appointees like Attorney General Loretta Lynch and others at the Justice Department put pressure on the FBI to protect the Clinton campaign. The question is, how far did the coordination go?
The post Leaked Email Shows Department of Justice Coordinating With Clinton Campaign appeared first on Shadowproof .
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Posted on November 3, 2016 by Charles Hugh Smith
Let’s set aside Hillary Clinton as an individual and consider her as the perfection of a corrupt political system. As I noted yesterday, Politics As Usual Is Dead , and Hillary Clinton is the ultimate product of the political system that is disintegrating before our eyes.
The corruption of pay-to-play and the commingling of public and private influence is not the failing of an individual–it is the logical conclusion of a thoroughly corrupt political system.
Given the incentives built into politics as usual , public/private pay-to-play doesn’t just make sense–it is the only possible maximization of the political system .
Cobble together a multi-million dollar private foundation, millions of dollars in speaking fees from big-money contributors, conflicts of interest, the secrecy of private email servers, pay-to-play schemes and corrupted loyalists planted in the Department of Justice, and the inevitable result is a politics as usual money-harvesting machine that lays waste to the nation, supporters and critics alike.
All the Clintons did is assemble the parts more effectively than anyone else. Now that the machine has scooped up hundreds of millions of dollars in “contributions” and other loot, vested interests and corrupted loyalists within the federal government will do anything to protect the machine and its vast flow of funds.
The nation’s political system needs a thorough cleaning from top to bottom. Exposing the Clintons’ perfection of politics as usual won’t change the conditions and incentives that created the Clintons’ harvester of corruption.
That will require rooting out the incentives that made the Clintons’ perfection of corruption both logical and inevitable. | 0 |
November 11, 2016 Israel preparing for one-sided UN Security Council resolutions
Some members of the United Nations Security Council are planning anti-Israel resolutions during the last days of the Obama administration, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told Arutz Sheva. This comes as no surprise.
The Ambassador reported that he had been alerted to a specific effort to pass one-sided, binding resolutions in the Security Council that could have serious ramifications for the Jewish state.
“We’ve been hearing for some time from various sources about attempts to take advantage of the lame-duck period after the election, and to pass resolutions against the State of Israel in the Security Council,” Danon said.
“We’re working on a number of fronts,” the Ambassador added, “including with the present [American] government and the incoming administration, as well as with other countries, in order to prevent [one-sided UNSC resolutions].”
Danon then outlined some of the warnings he had received regarding planned efforts towards a Security Council resolution. | 0 |
On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour,” anchor Brian Williams argued President Trump’s criticisms of the media were “Because when you reduce the media enough in prestige, they — when they do report facts, those facts are diminished. ” During a discussion on Trump’s press conference earlier in the day, USA Today Senior Politics Reporter Heidi Przybyla stated, “[T]he press provided basically the most essential task that the Founders intended for us to do, which was, we outed a public official, who was lying to the public, about the nature of his contacts about what many would define as a hostile foreign power. That is the most basic function of a free press in this — in our society, and the president’s response to that was to have a and to accuse us all of purveying fake news, when in fact, his own actions, which were to fire General Flynn, proved that that news was spot on. It was 100% accurate. ” Williams then added, “Because when you reduce the media enough in prestige, they — when they do report facts, those facts are diminished. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 0 |
Anarchist protesters at MILO’s University of Washington event have had bats and sharpened sticks confiscated, local PD have reported. Riot police, helicopters, and an FBI bomb squad are all present at the event. [According to reports from Seattle PD, anarchist protesters outside MILO’s event at Washington University tonight had baseball bats and sharpened signposts confiscated by law enforcement. Police in riot gear have formed a human wall between event attendees and protesters. Police have also intercepted protesters carrying wooden poles, heavy pipes, and shields according to local news. It is unclear if the protesters were en route to MILO’s event or to protests elsewhere in Seattle. MILO’s talk, which was scheduled to begin at 10PM eastern time, has been postponed by 45 minutes. Protesters are currently preventing attendees from reaching the venue. Local reporters are posting video from the university now. Police in riot gear at entrance of Kane Hall #komonews pic. twitter. — Suzanne Phan (@SuzannePhan) January 21, 2017, Reporters on the ground captured pictures of the emerging scenes below. Threats have already been made against MILO’s life on Twitter, although it is unclear if they come from people who are actually attending the event or from internet trolls. On my way to kill Milo Yiannopoulos, — (@apayuha63wavVRS) January 21, 2017, A live Periscope of the protests can be seen below, . @PizzaPartyBen on #Periscope: Antifa https: . — Milo! Magazine (@MiloWear1A) January 21, 2017, | 0 |
By April Hamlin Election 2016 , Miscellaneous , News , Politics , Videos November 4, 2016 Obama Had The Best Reaction To A Protester Ever, So Trump Lies And Says He Did The Exact Opposite
President Obama was interrupted by a protester while he was speaking at a campaign rally for Hillary Clinton. Suffice it to say, Obama had the best reaction to a protester ever. Hands down. So, of course, Trump had to start lying about what happened.
Speaking to a crowd in Hershey, PA, Trump said that the president had done quite literally the exact opposite of what he actually did .
“You saw it today on television, right? He was talking to the protester, screaming at him, really screaming at him. By the way, if I spoke the way Obama spoke to that protester, they would say, “He became unhinged! He became –“You have to go back and look and study. And see what happened. They never moved the camera. And he spent so much time screaming at this protester and frankly, it was a disgrace.”
Okay, so let’s “go back and look” at just how President Obama handled the situation today. When the protester interrupted him, the crowd was not having it. He struggled to quiet them as they chanted “Hillary,” and when he succeeded, he began by reminding them of all the reasons they should treat this man with respect. Obama defended the protester’s First Amendment rights and then told those in attendance that this is what he means when he says they aren’t “focused.” He concluded with his now trademark phrase, “Don’t boo, VOTE!”
Watch President Obama show how to handle a protester with class, here: Obama just lost control of the crowd in North Carolina which was shouting down a Trump supporter; Obama defended the guy’s right to protest pic.twitter.com/bTjHPvadcj
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) November 4, 2016
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After Vets Fight War, Feds Demand Money Back U.S. government continues to treat troops like second class citizens Infowars Nightly News - October 27, 2016 Comments
Thanks you for your service?
No. After promising bonuses & education benefits to military in order to get them to re-enlist for the Afghanistan & Iraq Wars, the Pentagon is now demanding the money back from vets who can’t afford to pay.
This is how Obama treats veterans — just like Hillary treats those who protect her in the Secret Service.
Can anyone trust their promises? NEWSLETTER SIGN UP Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars Crew. Related Articles | 0 |
WikiLeaks has released a 20th batch of emails from the account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair. The issues discussed include Bill Clinton’s past, Benghazi, the email server scandal and even alien life.
The whistleblowing site has promised to release 50,000 messages from Podesta in the lead up to the US presidential election on November 8. A total of 34,197 communications have been released to date.
Bill’s past
Bill Clinton’s controversial past was evidently of concern to his wife’s campaign team, which discussed how to handle questions on allegations of sexual assault against him.
Preparation for what the media might throw at her included the questions: “Will you apologize to the women who were wrongly smeared by your husband and his allies?” and “How is what Bill Clinton did different from what Bill Cosby did?”
The mail was sent by Ron Klain, a member of Clinton’s debate preparation team, on January 12, 2016. Several days previous Paula Jones, one of Bill Clinton’s accusers, gave an interview calling Hillary Clinton a “liar” and “two-faced” for trying to discredit her husband’s accusers.
Let’s hope the Democratic party is not suicidal
A July 2015 email from Clinton adviser Neera Tanden to Podesta discusses a CNN poll which she guesses will show, “Bernie doing pretty well w Hillary and doing as well against Jeb or close to it.”
“Can you imagine what Republicans would do with him if he were the nominee?” Podesta replies, referring to Sanders.
“Well, let’s see what the poll actually says. Let’s hope the Democratic party is not suicidal,” Tanden says.
“Do we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email?” she asks. “And has that person been drawn and quartered?”
“Like whole thing is f*cking insane,” she adds.
An October 2015 email chain between staffers discusses upcoming paid media ads about Benghazi and Clinton’s email scandal.
The group debates whether the ads should target Iowa and New Hampshire or be a national buy. “I know the boss wants a national cable buy to reach the inside the beltway types, press and donors,” Jennifer Palmieri says. “But press will hate this.”
Oren Shur replies, “If the objective is purely to undermine the Benghazi hearings, I think these spots will certainly help do that. But if the objective is to connect emails-Benghazi and conflate the two in voters’ minds (which consultants feel is an imperative here), I’m not sure we know whether we can credibly do that.”
The campaign appears to have decided to do a national ad on the subject.
Small tweaks A March 2016 email chain discussing Clinton’s inaccurate statement about the late Nancy Reagan starting a national conversation about AIDS, when she did the opposite, reveals Clinton’s unwillingness to admit mistakes, even when she is proven to be wrong.
The subject of the meeting is described as “the difference between our contiguous universe nonviolent ETI and the celestials in our own universe.”
The team go back on forth on Clinton’s statement about the issue. “YESTERDAY I MADE A MISTAKE IN SPEAKING ABOUT NANCY REAGAN’S record on HIV AND AIDS,” it begins.
“I think the chances of her OK-ing this statement with that top are slim,” Megan Rooney says.
“Here is a revised draft of a statement. It does include the words ‘I made a mistake’ in the first line,” Rooney says. “We need a strategy for getting her to approve this. I don’t know if that means someone who is traveling with her (Maya?) making the case… or something else.”
A later draft was then sent, changing it to, “I said something inaccurate when speaking about the Reagan’s’ record on HIV and AIDS.”
“The Secretary approved the statement, with small tweaks,” Rooney says.
Extraterrestrial disclosure
Former astronaut Edgar Mitchell, known for his correspondence with Podesta regarding extraterrestrials, emails Podesta regarding the “Phoenix Lights” incident in 1997, in which thousands of people reported sightings of hovering lights in the sky.
Mitchell “was on the phone just as they were happening over Phoenix with an eyewitness describing on March 13, 1997. This incentives about disclosure, while other reports like Roswell disincentives,” according to the mail from April 2015.
The subject of extraterrestrial disclosure is “now more important than ever” according to another mail sent on Mitchell’s behalf a month later.
“It is also imperative that after your talk with Edgar, he then speak directly with President Obama via Skype for historical purposes, about the same issue, while the President is still in office,” Podesta is told. Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
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14 Comments on "We are with her, because she is with us!" Leave a Reply Click here to get more info on formatting (1) Leave the name field empty if you want to post as Anonymous. It's preferable that you choose a name so it becomes clear who said what. E-mail address is not mandatory either. The website automatically checks for spam. Please refer to our moderation policies for more details. We check to make sure that no comment is mistakenly marked as spam. This takes time and effort, so please be patient until your comment appears. Thanks. (2) 10 replies to a comment are the maximum. (3) Here are formating examples which you can use in your writing:<b>bold text</b> results in bold text <i>italic text</i> results in italic text (You can also combine two formating tags with each other, for example to get bold-italic text.)<em>emphasized text</em> results in emphasized text <strong>strong text</strong> results in strong text <q>a quote text</q> results in a quote text (quotation marks are added automatically) <cite>a phrase or a block of text that needs to be cited</cite> results in: a phrase or a block of text that needs to be cited <blockquote>a heavier version of quoting a block of text...</blockquote> results in: a heavier version of quoting a block of text that can span several lines. Use these possibilities appropriately. They are meant to help you create and follow the discussions in a better way. They can assist in grasping the content value of a comment more quickly. and last but not least:<a href=''http://link-address.com''>Name of your link</a> results in Name of your link (4) No need to use this special character in between paragraphs: ; You do not need it anymore. Just write as you like and your paragraphs will be separated. The "Live Preview" appears automatically when you start typing below the text area and it will show you how your comment will look like before you send it. (5) If you now think that this is too confusing then just ignore the code above and write as you like. SanctuaryOne October 31, 2016 8:31 pm
What a vile 4X4 matrix. 2 | 0 |
Neil Armstrong: 'Their Ships Were Far Superior To Ours – Boy, Where They Big!' Please scroll down for video
Everyone is familiar with the broadcast images of Neil Armstrong's historic first steps on the moon, and many believe his footsteps to be the first ever on the lunar surface. However, during a documented NASA symposium, Armstrong made comments alluding to the fact that not only had other species visited the moon, but that there were signs of colonization there upon. The Real Reason NASA Refuses a Return to the Moon
Armstrong stated in an interview with an unnamed professor at the symposium that their presence on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission was immediately noticed and addressed by an alien race. The beings that occupied the lunar air space made very clear their displeasure of the human's arrival on the moon's surface:
Armstrong: It was incredible … of course, we had always known there was a possibility … the fact is, we were warned off. There was never any questions then of a space station or a moon city.
Professor: How do you mean “warned off”? Related Articles Neil Armstrong’s UFO Secrets
Armstrong: I can’t go into details, except to say that their ships were far superior to ours both in size and technology – Boy, where they big! … and menacing … No, there is no question of a space station .
Armstrong: Naturally – NASA was committed at that time, and couldn’t risk a panic on earth…. But it really was a quick scoop and back again. (Above Top Secret, p. 186)
Additionally, there are reports that upon arrival on the moon Armstrong witnessed structures on the surface resembling shops and other buildings obviously not designed by man. It is believed that while footage exists of these findings, the decision was made not to make these films public so as to not incite public panic.
NASA's unwillingness to move forward with lunar cities or even stations can easily be explained by the fear of going against the will of a much more advanced race. Armstrong stated that this fear is what lead to the following Apollo missions to only include a quick landing and sample collection. With this limited access to the moon, NASA or any other space exploration organization would be greatly hindered in their efforts to establish surface space stations of any type and lunar colonies would be completely infeasible.
Could it be that human's exploration of the cosmos is closely regulated by alien races? What lengths would those races go to prevent space travel advancement by humans? Perhaps in the future, humans will gain the favor of the celestial inhabitants and be privy to the mysteries of beyond.
This article (Neil Armstrong: 'Their Ships Were Far Superior To Ours – Boy, Where They Big!') is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with full attribution and a link to the original source on Disclose.tv Related Articles | 0 |
A federal appeals court decisively struck down North Carolina’s voter identification law on Friday, saying its provisions deliberately “target with almost surgical precision” in an effort to depress black turnout at the polls. The sweeping decision by a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upended voting procedures in a battleground state about three months before Election Day. That ruling and a second decision on Friday, in Wisconsin, continued a string of recent court opinions against restrictive voting laws that critics say were created solely to keep minority and other traditionally Democratic voters away from the polls. The North Carolina ruling tossed out the state’s requirement that voters present photo identification at the polls and restored voters’ ability to register on Election Day, to register before reaching the voting age, and to cast early ballots, provisions the law had fully or partly eliminated. The court also held that the ballots of people who had mistakenly voted at the wrong polling stations should be deemed valid. In the Wisconsin decision, Judge James D. Peterson of Federal District Court ruled that parts of Wisconsin’s 2011 voter ID law are unconstitutional. He ordered the state to make photo IDs more easily available to voters and to broaden the range of student IDs that are accepted at the ballot box. The decision also threw out other rules that lengthened the residency requirement for newly registered voters, banned distributing absentee ballots by fax or email and sharply restricted the locations and times at which municipal voters, many of them Milwaukee blacks, could cast absentee ballots in person. Judge Peterson’s sharply worded ruling suggested that Wisconsin’s voter restrictions, as well as voter ID restrictions in Indiana that have been upheld in the Supreme Court, exist only to suppress votes. “The evidence in this case casts doubt on the notion that voter ID laws foster integrity and confidence,” he wrote. “The Wisconsin experience demonstrates that a preoccupation with mostly phantom election fraud leads to real incidents of disenfranchisement which undermine rather than enhance confidence in elections. ’’ The court decisions — the third and fourth federal rulings in recent weeks against voting restrictions — were made as the two political parties raced from their summer conventions into the critical final months of the campaign, with Wisconsin, like North Carolina, considered a contested state. North Carolina’s legislature rewrote the state’s voting rules in 2013 shortly after the Supreme Court struck down a section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that had given the Justice Department the power to oversee changes in election procedures in areas with a history of racial discrimination. Forty of the state’s 100 counties had been subject to oversight. Civil rights advocates and the Justice Department had sued to block the law, but a Federal District Court judge upheld it in April, writing that the state’s “significant, shameful past discrimination” had largely abated in the last 25 years. On Friday, the panel emphatically disagreed, saying the lower court’s amply documented ruling had failed to consider “the inextricable link between race and politics in North Carolina. ” The judges noted that Republican leaders had drafted their restrictions on voting only after receiving data indicating that would be the voters most significantly affected by them. “We cannot ignore the record evidence that, because of race, the legislature enacted one of the largest restrictions of the franchise in modern North Carolina history,” they wrote. “The court seems to have missed the forest in carefully surveying the many trees,” they stated. The panel stopped short of reimposing federal oversight on the state’s elections, saying that striking down the law was enough. Voting rights advocates called the ruling, which Republicans say they will appeal, a resounding victory. Fresh from speaking Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention, the Rev. William J. Barber II, the president of the North Carolina branch of the N. A. A. C. P. which is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, called the decision “a moral and constitutional vindication of our constitutional critique of this extremist legislature and our extremist governor. “A political majority doesn’t give you the power to run roughshod over the Constitution,” he said. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, who was in Baton Rouge, La. on Friday, also welcomed the decision, saying the law “sent a message that contradicted some of the most basic principles of our democracy. “The ability of Americans to have a voice in the direction of their country — to have a fair and free opportunity to help write the story of this nation — is fundamental to who we are,” she said. Republicans denounced the opinion as wrongheaded and politically motivated, particularly because the three judges who decided the case had been nominated to the appeals court by either President Bill Clinton or President Obama. (One of them, however, had originally been named by President George W. Bush in 2003 to a vacant seat on the Federal District Court in South Carolina.) “We can only wonder if the intent is to reopen the door for voter fraud” in November’s federal and state elections, State Senator Phil Berger and the House speaker, Tim Moore, said in a statement. They pledged to appeal the ruling. So did Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican who is locked in one of the country’s tightest races for governor. “Photo IDs are required to purchase Sudafed, cash a check, board an airplane or enter a federal courtroom,” Mr. McCrory said. “Yet three Democratic judges are undermining the integrity of our elections while also maligning our state. ” Republicans say the restrictions were aimed at ending rampant voter fraud. But on Friday, the appeals court dismissed that argument, saying the restrictions “constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist. ” Academic studies have repeatedly concluded that fraud at the ballot box — the sort that photo identification requirements might reduce — is already vanishingly rare. The North Carolina and Wisconsin decisions could figure in November’s elections. Friday’s ruling stated pointedly that whether or not the North Carolina restrictions were driven completely by racial bias, they were clearly devised to keep Democratic voters away from the polls. North Carolina has become a swing state in national elections in recent years in no small part because the protections of the Voting Rights Act allowed black voter turnout to approach that of whites, the court stated. The state ended its history of backing Republican presidential candidates in 2008, when Barack Obama eked out a narrow victory there. But in 2012, Mitt Romney reclaimed the state for the Republicans. This year, Democrats are resting their hopes for a victory by Hillary Clinton on a strong turnout among black voters as they try to counter Donald J. Trump’s appeal among North Carolina’s white voters. The clauses that were overturned in the North Carolina law, labeled the Voter Information Verification Act, made voting harder in a number of ways. A provision, which took effect this year, required voters either to produce one of six accepted forms of identification, such as a driver’s license, passport or military ID, or cast a provisional ballot. Critics argued that some voters lacked those documents and that the law omitted some forms of identification, such as student IDs, held by blocs of voters who favor Democrats. Among the other provisions, which were in effect during the 2014 elections, one of the most criticized shortened the state’s early voting period to 10 days, from 17. Voting rights groups charged that this would crimp voter turnout, in part by eliminating one of the Sunday voting days on which black churches typically transported worshipers to a voting site. Friday’s opinions were just the latest setbacks in recent weeks to advocates of photo IDs and other voting restrictions. The Wisconsin ruling, which appeared likely to be appealed, came only days after a different federal judge issued a separate ruling on that state’s voter ID law, stating that voters without photo identification could vote in November if they presented affidavits swearing to their identities. In Texas, a federal appeals court has ruled that the state’s photo ID law, among the nation’s toughest, must be softened to eliminate its discriminatory impact. | 1 |
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