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Migrant Crisis Disclaimer
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A man suspected of stabbing two nuns to death in their rural Mississippi home confessed to the killings on Saturday, according to the police. Rodney Earl Sanders, 46, was arrested on Friday and charged with two counts of capital murder in connection with the deaths of Sister Margaret M. Held and Sister Paula J. Merrill, 68, whose bodies were discovered on Thursday at their shared home in Durant, a town of 3, 000 people that had gone years without a murder. “Sanders was developed as a person of interest early on in the investigation,” Lt. Colonel Jimmy Jordan, the director of the state’s Bureau of Investigation, said in a statement. Mr. Sanders has a history with the police. In 1986 he served six years in prison for an armed robbery in Mississippi, and last year he was convicted of a felony D. U. I. He had been on probation since September, Grace Simmons Fisher, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, said. An officer went the women’s home around 10 a. m. on Thursday for a wellness check after they did not report for work at the Lexington Medical Clinic, near Durant. The door to the home was open, and the officer found the bodies inside. The authorities said they believed Mr. Sanders stole the victims’ car, a blue Toyota Corolla, before abandoning it about a mile away in Holmes County, which is about 65 miles north of Jackson, the state capital. Mr. Sanders, from Kosciusko, Miss. lived about 30 miles from where the killings occurred. Sister Paula was from the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, based in Kentucky. Sister Margaret was from the School Sisters of St. Francis, in Milwaukee, which said it thanked local and state law enforcement but had many unanswered questions. “There is still much we do not know about the suspect and the circumstances that led to this brutal and senseless crime,” the order said in a statement. Willie March, the Holmes County sheriff, said late Saturday night that Mr. Sanders had confessed after an extensive interrogation “We don’t have a motive yet,” Sheriff March said. | 1 |
KARKAMIS, Turkey — In recent years, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered plans drawn up for a Turkish military incursion into Syria. At every turn, though, military commanders, already fighting a war inside Turkey against Kurdish militants, pushed back. And then last month a rebel faction of the military tried to stage a coup, and that changed everything. In the aftermath of the coup, which failed but claimed more than 200 lives, Mr. Erdogan purged thousands of officers from the ranks, leaving the military seemingly depleted. It also provoked worry from Western allies, including the United States, that Turkey would either be unwilling or unable to be a reliable partner in the fight against the Islamic State. Instead, the opposite happened on Wednesday, as Mr. Erdogan ordered Turkish tanks and special forces soldiers into Syria, under cover of American and Turkish warplanes, to assist Syrian rebels in seizing the city of Jarabulus, one of the last border strongholds of the Islamic State. More Turkish tanks rumbled into northern Syria on Thursday to support rebels there, and the Turkish military seemed to be succeeding in clearing the border area of Islamic State militants, and preventing Kurdish militias from seizing more territory in the region — a primary goal of Turkey in the campaign. The operation, coming so soon after the failed coup, has highlighted how Mr. Erdogan, even after the purge, secured more operational control of the military. It allowed him to undertake Turkey’s most ambitious role yet in the long Syrian civil war and to bolster the flagging fortunes of rebel groups, of which Turkey has been one of the most consistent supporters. Other factors holding back Turkey’s ambitions in Syria were also recently resolved. A feud with Russia, which began last year after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the border, ended after Mr. Erdogan expressed regret for the episode. After Ankara’s relations with Moscow deteriorated, a Turkish incursion into Syria could have risked war with Russia, which has been bombing rebels in support of the Syrian government. And the United States, which had previously been opposed to Turkey’s intervention, agreed to support it. The operation also buoyed the hopes of armed opposition groups that are not affiliated with the Islamic State or Al Qaeda, whose fighters and supporters have been dejected for months over losses in northern Syria that their foreign backers did little to prevent, and a fear that the United States and Turkey were preparing to abandon them to pursue of a broader deal with the Russians. A senior Turkish official, who spoke anonymously as a matter of protocol, said that many commanders had resisted an operation in Syria in recent years. Many analysts who closely follow the Turkish military have said the same thing. One of the most prominent commanders opposed to a Syria operation, the official said, was the former head of the Turkish special forces, Brig. Gen. Semih Terzi, who was one of the most prominent plotters and was killed during the coup attempt. The incursion seemed to support the opinion of many experts that the Turkish military’s combat capabilities had not been substantially diminished. “This is the second largest military in NATO,” said Ross Wilson, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington and ambassador to Turkey from 2005 to 2008. “Yes, it’s been somewhat reduced in the last month, but it is still a very potent and fighting force. They are very capable in their own region. ” On Thursday, an estimated 350 Turkish soldiers were in Syria taking part in the operation, called Euphrates Shield, including 150 members of the special forces, the local media reported. Two Syrian rebels interviewed in Karkamis, which lies just across the border from Jarabulus, said that Turkish soldiers were mainly helping to defuse and dismantle the numerous bombs and that the Islamic State, which fled the city without much of a fight, had left behind. Witnesses reported loud explosions, followed by plumes of smoke, coming from Jarabulus on Thursday afternoon. The question now, with the Turkish troops inside Syria, is how long they will remain there. Turkish officials have not given a timetable, but have indicated that the army would stay as long as it takes to neutralize security threats to Turkey — defined as the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and Syrian Kurdish militias. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. who arrived in Ankara, the capital, on Wednesday just as the operation began, seemed to suggest on Thursday that the Turkish military would stay in northern Syria indefinitely, and with the blessing of the United States. “I think the Turks are prepared to stay in an effort to take out ISIL as long as takes,” Mr. Biden said during a visit to Sweden, according to Reuters. He added that the Turks have gradually come to “the realization that ISIL is an existential threat to Turkey. ” Some analysts said that Turkish forces, wary of being perceived as occupiers, would likely clear a swath of territory west of the Euphrates River, perhaps several miles inside Syria, and then eventually turn operations in that area over to Syrian rebels backed by Turkish special operations troops and trusted local Turkmen militia forces. “While Turkey could hold whatever area they clear, I don’t think that’s the plan rather the point is to deny the area to the Kurds, and allow the other rebel groups more to Turkey’s liking to hold it,” said Patrick M. Skinner, director of special projects for the Soufan Group, a political risk assessment firm in New York. Hassan Ahmed, a Syrian rebel who works with fighting groups, but mainly concerns himself with the political side of the Syrian opposition, predicted that Turkey would remain in Jarabulus for about two weeks. Metin Gurcan, an expert on the military and a columnist at an online news outlet, said that, depending on whether Syrian Kurdish militias try to challenge the Turks, the Turkish Army would most likely end its operation within two or three weeks. Still, thwarting the Islamic State was not the only objective of the Turks, nor even its primary one. Turkish officials have made little secret that the main purpose of the operation was to ensure that Kurdish militias did not consolidate control over an area west of the Euphrates that they had seized during a United campaign against the Islamic State in the city of Manbij, south of Jarabulus. That message was strongly seconded by Mr. Biden on Wednesday. He said the Kurds had to return to east of the Euphrates or risk losing American support. Militias affiliated with the Democratic Union Party, the main Syrian Kurdish party, have been crucial allies of the United States in the fight against ISIS in Syria. But Turkey considers the group’s expansion along its border a threat to its national security because of its links to Kurdish insurgents in Turkey. Syrian Kurdish forces said in a statement on Thursday that their fighters had returned to their bases after capturing Manbij from the Islamic State, without specifying locations. A press officer for the United coalition fighting Islamic State militants said the Kurds had retreated east of the Euphrates to prepare for the eventual liberation of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State in Syria. But in the evening, the Turkish military shelled a group of Syrian Kurdish fighters near Manbij after they had made an advance west of the Euphrates, in a breach of the Kurds’ agreement with the United States. Suleiman Kankilic, a Turkish paramedic and ambulance driver, said that before the Islamic State took control of Jarabulus, merchants enjoyed a robust business selling things like wheat, milk, cooking gas and soft drinks to the city, which was then under the control of the moderate Free Syrian Army. “We really want this war to end,” he said in a small clinic about a from the border on Wednesday. “Turkey getting involved is good for us because we feel safer with our soldiers on the other side. ” | 1 |
He had been rumored to be a contender from the beginning, but most people didn’t believe it would ever happen. Not because Edward Enninful, the renowned friend of Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell, isn’t supremely talented, but because he is a black man, born in Ghana, raised in London and working in New York. To give Mr. Enninful the reins of one of the most storied woman’s fashion magazines would be to make a statement about diversity and gender that would resonate far beyond hemlines, upending decades of tradition and assumptions about men’s and women’s roles and reaffirming the importance of a global viewpoint for the fashion industry at a time when barriers are going up around the world. But on Monday, Jonathan Newhouse, the chief executive of Condé Nast International, did just that, naming Mr. Enninful the first male editor of British Vogue since its founding in 1916, and the first black editor of any edition of Vogue. Though Mr. Newhouse, contacted by email, was reluctant to engage in discussion of other magazine insiders — and many on social media — were not. Twitter lit up with the news, and “British Vogue” became a trending topic. Anna Wintour, artistic director of Condé Nast and editor of American Vogue, where Mr. Enninful is a former contributor, said: “It is a brilliant choice, and I am thrilled for him. Edward will undoubtedly shake things up in a way that will be so exciting to watch. ” Stefano Tonchi, the editor of W (and one of the few men atop a women’s fashion magazine) who hired Mr. Enninful as creative and fashion director in 2011, said, “It’s a really historic moment. ” Of the 22 global editions of Vogue, three others are edited by men: Kullawit Laosuksri at Vogue Thailand, Kwang Ho Shin at Korean Vogue and Emanuele Farneti at Italian Vogue. The two editors of Italian and British Vogue, which along with American Vogue are arguably the most influential of the Vogues, were appointed this year. Mr. Enninful and Mr. Farneti were picked to replace two of the female editors of any Vogue: Franca Sozzani at Italian Vogue and Alexandra Shulman at British Vogue. In email, Mr. Newhouse offered only the “we try to appoint the best person for the job. ” Yet given that up to now conventional wisdom had it that the best person to run a women’s fashion magazine of the stature of British Vogue was, well, a woman — someone who could wear the clothes, model the clothes and understand what her readers want from their clothes, both in terms of everyday functionality and personal identity — it is not an insignificant line. As gender boundaries blur and the old distinctions between men’s wear and woman’s wear (not to mention men’s and women’s pronouns) disappear, perhaps, too, should the old assumptions about men’s and women’s magazines. Increasingly, fashion brands, including Burberry, Calvin Klein and Gucci, are beginning to combine their men’s and women’s shows in recognition of this new reality. Alessandro Michele, the creative director of Gucci, has explained it this way: Both collections are part of the same story and reflect the same point of view, so why should they be separate? Louis Vuitton used Jaden Smith to model its women’s collection last year, and Chanel has signed Pharrell Williams for its new handbag campaign. Men and women increasingly occupy the same space in real life fashion is simply representing that truth. And now, too, are fashion publications. “Fashion is always among the first industries to recognize a new reality,” Mr. Tonchi said. “Maybe it’s an old notion that there are magazines for women and magazines for men, and it is time to just have magazines for people interested in fashion and creativity, whatever their gender. “It is true: I don’t look at women’s collections and think, ‘Oh, I want to wear that,’ or ‘Will it fit me?’ But I do think about the concept behind the clothes and the culture of the clothes. ” As ceiling smashing as Mr. Enninful’s gender is, however, so is his race. Fashion is a notoriously undiverse industry for one that is supposed to cater to a diverse clientele, and though the industry goes through regular paroxysms of mea culpas, most often in terms of the absence of minority models on the runways, the power structure itself rarely seems to change. Nearly all of the design heads of major brands are white, as are the chief executives, so the fact that a black man will be in such a visible position is an important step — especially as Britain prepares to withdraw from the European Union and prejudice and cultural isolationism become more prevalent. Mr. Enninful’s background and experience of the world are bound to inform the sensibility of the magazine he will make. As Ms. Wintour said: “He’s fearless. At a time when values are being challenged, Edward always stands up for what he believes in. You can see that clearly in the recent ‘I Am an Immigrant’ and ‘I Am a Woman’ videos he made for W. Each was so perfectly timed and hit the mark. ” Mr. Enninful himself is aware of what his new role means, on many levels. “I believe we live in a world of possibility, and my appointment is a testament to this,” he wrote in an email. “The world is as are traditional roles of male and female. The outpouring of support from people of all backgrounds has been humbling. ” | 1 |
The Cosmic Story: Scorpio New Moon, October 30, 2016 Entering the Cauldron of Regeneration The Sun entered the sign of Scorpio on Saturday, October 22, 2016. Leaving behind the airy social realm of Libra, we now plunge into the dark watery realms of the Unconscious. As we worked to balance our inner and outer lives in Libra, now we come to the point where we have to let go of what no longer serves us. This requires that we turn within and look at those emotions which keep us imprisoned in our pasts. As we face our inner darkness, the world outside is also growing dark. The Sun moves lower into the southern hemisphere, bringing them the warmth of Spring and coming Summer, while leaving us in the North with fading light, shorter days and colder weather. Nature is letting go of its life as the year dies. Samhain Ritual 2012 License DMCA Samhain Ritual/Sekhmet Just after this intense New Moon we'll be celebrating Samhain, the last Gate of the Wheel of the Year. At Samhain, the old year dies so the new year can be born. The veils between the world are very thin, and the spirits of the dead are very close to us. We celebrate Samhain, Halloween, All Hallow's Eve, the Day of the Dead, All Saints Day and All Souls Day to honor our ancestors at this transitional time. - Advertisement - The great goddess who embodies the energies of Samhain is Hecate, most ancient Goddess of the Triple Crossroads, Queen of the Witches and Guide and Protector on the road to the Underworld. She stands at the Crossroads with her two torches and her black dog at her side. She can see the past, the present and the future and while we each have to choose our path, she lends us one of her torches and sends her faithful companion to guide our steps into the mystery of our future selves. For more about Hecate: http://ladywisdomchronicles.blogspot.com/ Scorpio New Moon Scorpio is often considered the most powerful sign in the Zodiac, and those who incarnate as Scorpios, some of the most powerful souls. For Scorpio's initiation is pivotal to our soul's growth, which is to die to be reborn again. For anyone living under patriarchy, where we have been disconnected from our feminine, soulful consciousness, death is the ultimate test to our unconscious Ego. We have been taught to fear death as a punishment or an end, rather than as a transition, a change that will give us back eternal life. And so FEAR is the Gatekeeper we have to face as we sink into the dark, murky emotions from past lives which keep us stuck in old patterns of disconnection, betrayal, horror and hurt. It's interesting that the American elections are always held during the Sun's transit through Scorpio, signaling a transition of power, a transformation of our collective lives. Indeed, that's also what Scorpio is about. Power. The ruling planets of Scorpio are Mars and Pluto. Pluto, or Hades, is the Lord of the Underworld, ruling the unconscious depths within us. These depths can lie quiet when we live by ourselves, but they get stirred up when we relate to others. And that's why Scorpio also rules intimacy, the emotional sharing that's necessary for a deep, rich life. And Mars the Warrior is what is needed to give us the courage to face those emotions. Scorpio is concentrated emotional power which propels the energy of evolution, and so it is the repository of unconscious instinctual drives, old emotional patterns and attachments and the compulsive tendencies that we bring with us personally and collectively from other lifetimes as well as from our early childhood. These old emotional wounds keep us stuck in fear and suspicion. Jung called them the Shadow. They are the parts of us that we can't see about ourselves and which we tend to project onto others instead of taking responsibility for ourselves. The Shadow is alive and well in our culture at the moment. Perhaps the very obvious examples we see in the news will help us deal with our personal Shadows. - Advertisement - When we operate out of these unconscious patterns, we tend to use emotional manipulation, defensiveness and vindictiveness to get our way. This is the lowest form of Scorpionic energy, the unconscious energy of survival at all costs. The Snake often symbolizes this aspect of Scorpio, although its transformation is possible with the shedding of its skin--or our unconscious Ego drives. In many ways, snake is best seen as our instinctual wisdom so perhaps the better symbol is the Scorpion, which will sting itself in its frenzy to sting the other. We've seen this kind of lower Scorpio energy in some of Donald Trump's attacks on women and minorities instead of admitting his own mistakes. Eagle License DMCA Scorpio has three symbols because it concerns the process of transformation, and three is the number of process. The unconscious residue from other lifetimes which eats away at us is symbolized by the scorpion. Once we begin to recognize our Shadow and can name it, the symbol shifts to an Eagle. And Eagle is the highest flying bird, able to see far and wide. Like Great Spirit, it gives us an overview of our lives. Eagle Scorpios can look at and name their Shadows, but they can also repress those shadowy instincts and certainly not talk about them! They use their will power to keep those negative instincts in line. But that's just a step to the third part of the process: the death of old habits and complexes. The re-integration of those repressed emotions and instincts then give rise to a new birth, which is symbolized by the phoenix, who burns up old karma and arises out of the ashes with a new, spiritual vision. This is the initiation of Scorpio. To go through all the tests that life brings us and learn from our mistakes and find the meaning of what it is we are sent here to learn. | 0 |
Region: USA in the World US Foods Holding Corporation and Sysco, the two top American food distribution giants, are laying off thousands of workers. Wal-Mart is closing stores and terminating employees. As the price of eggs, beef, cheese, and almost all agricultural products have dropped, farmers across the United States are facing financial ruin. The ongoing glut in agricultural products is not merely the natural cycle of the market at work. Policies of the US federal government are directly linked to the low food prices. While it is clear that the ongoing agricultural surplus is very bad for the US public, the government seems to have other priorities. Broken Promises From Politicians The agricultural prowess of the United States is known across the planet. The current president of China first visited the United States in 1985. He didn’t come to see the Statue of Liberty, or the Washington Monument. Rather, Xi Jinping visited Iowa in order to study the technology and farming techniques employed by some of the most advanced and efficient farmers in the world . Love for the small farmers is voiced by almost all sectors of US political establishment, and almost always has been. The writings of Thomas Jefferson spoke at length about the “yeoman” and his role in an ideal republic. The left-wing folk singer Pete Seeger sang about how “the farmer is man who feeds them all .” Right-wing Radio host Paul Harvey plucked the heart strings of the American public with his “So God Made a Farmer” speech in 1978 . Each election year, American politicians devote special attention to the Iowa caucuses, the first vote in determining who will be the major parties’ respective nominees. As they travel across the Midwestern agricultural state, the presidential hopefuls routinely make all kinds of speeches championing “the hard working farmers.” While politicians are known to make promises to the farmers, and seem to recognize that agriculture is essential to the US economy, the policies of recent years, most of them having bipartisan support, have been anything but beneficial to those who work the land. In the current presidential race, Iowa is hotly contested, with Trump and Clinton very close in the polls. The farm glut, spawned by federal policies, is undoubtedly a big factor . In the first 8 months of 2016, 43 million gallons of milk were poured out due to the glut. According to the Wall Street Journal: “Farmers across the US are pouring out tens of millions of gallons of milk amid massive over glut that has reduced prices and filled warehouses with cheese .” Meanwhile, another WSJ article reports: “Cattle and hog prices hover near the lowest levels in years as U.S. meatpackers produce the largest volume of meat in history .” Between July of 2016 and July of 2017, the price of milk has decreased by 11%. The price of eggs has decreased by 40% . The overproduction and under-consumption of agricultural products can be directly linked to federal policies. Throughout his administration, Barack Obama has repeatedly cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and reduced the amount of food that low income families are able to purchase. The cutting of this federal program directly takes food from the mouths of low-income Americans. Despite the fact that according to the US Department of Agriculture, 13% of American households are now food insecure, the cuts have continued, and hunger is rising among America’s poor . ( l ) In addition to the obvious impact on low-income Americans, the cuts in food stamps have also cut into food sales. Food producing corporations and small farmers have seen a decrease in their sales. Wal-Mart has laid off thousands of workers and closed thousands of stores. These losses and layoffs can be linked directly to the SNAP cuts . Congress has recently discussed a plan that would eventually take $150 billion out of the federal food assistance program, a move that would undoubtedly push a lot of food producers, retail employees, and meat packers over the edge, along with many others . The reductions in food assistance are not the only factor. The economic sanctions against Russia have played a dramatic role in creating the current food glut. The collapse and breaking up of the Soviet Union’s collective farm system during the Yeltsin era of the 1990s dramatically reduced Russia’s domestic food production. This opened up new markets for American farmers, who greatly increased their exports to the former USSR. However, the new sanctions imposed in 2014, which restrict US and EU agricultural sales to Russia, have dramatically changed the landscape of the global food market. American farmers have been deprived of 143.5 million potential customers due to the ban on selling to those living in the Russian Federation. Austerity & Fascism Leave Farmers Behind Why is food assistance to low income families being cut? The claim is that the US federal budget is too large, and that hard economic times mandate austerity. However, the United States still has the largest military budget on the planet. When it comes time to reduce spending, rather than cutting the amount of money spent on tanks, bombs, and drones, the politicians have opted to cut into the nutrition of low-income Americans, along with the livelihoods of farmers and agricultural workers. The thousands of military bases around the world, along with the billions given in foreign military aid to countries like Israel, all seem be far more important to US leaders. And why has the US drastically restricted the exporting agricultural products to Russia? The sanctions were enacted in 2014, in response to the Ukraine crisis. The elected President of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovich, was toppled in orgy of street violence. The new government, with a base of support only in the western regions of the country, has within its ranks many open admirers of Adolf Hitler, and is very hostile to Russia. Since 2014, the people of Eastern Ukraine have taken up arms to resist the new regime. The people in the region of Crimea voted to become apart of the Russian Federation, whose military they had been hosting since the collapse of the USSR. Sanctions were imposed on Russia and continue, based on allegations that Russia is supporting the resistance of people in the Eastern regions against the new, pro-Western regime. US leaders tell us the sanctions are intended to punish Russia for “meddling” in Ukraine. Since the passing of the sanctions, Russia has revived its own domestic agricultural programs. Small farmers across Russia are producing beef, wheat, and other products no longer sold to them by the US and the EU. Russian agriculture has experienced a boom since 2014, and Russian President Vladimir Putin is even more popular than prior to the crisis . The decision of US leaders to wage economic warfare against Russia in support of Ukrainian fascists, while at the same time cutting assistance to low-income American families, is contrary to values often displayed throughout American history. Both Lincoln and Roosevelt saw prosperity for the agricultural heartland of the United States and the millions who lived in it as vitally important for the entire country. These two most beloved Presidents in US history both worked closely in alliance with small farmers, often in opposition to Wall Street bankers with different interests. The rallying cry of the Republican Party in its early years, was “Free Land, Free Labor, Free Men!” The “Free Soilers,” farmers who wanted to halt the expansion of slavery in new US territories were an essential part of it. While slavery found support in the financial districts of London and New York, the small farmers had a material interest in ending the barbaric practice, and anti-slavery militias appeared in Iowa and Kansas years before the Civil War broke out. It was a broad coalition of small farmers, religious abolitionists, and organized labor that eventually put Abraham Lincoln into the White House where he was forced to battle the slaveholders. The process that unfolded recreated the country, in what is widely called “The Second American Revolution.” “An American Government Cannot Allow Americans To Starve” The programs that preceded the currently existing Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) were the brainchild of Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace, who eventually became the Vice President. When the first “food stamps” were issued in 1939, the director of the program, Milo Perkins described it this way: “We got a picture of a gorge, with farm surpluses on one cliff and under-nourished city folks with outstretched hands on the other. We set out to find a practical way to build a bridge across that chasm .” While Roosevelt was universally hated by Wall Street bankers, he was very popular with organized labor, artists and musicians, as well as small farmers. As the unemployment councils and labor unions fought for a better life across the country, Roosevelt aligned himself with the mass movement in the streets. Essential in Roosevelt’s progressive coalition was the US Communist Party, an organization that sought to build a “Workers and Farmer’s Government.” When big business objected to Roosevelt’s dramatic economic reforms, he defended them by saying “An American government cannot allow Americans to Starve .” Roosevelt later aligned with the Russian people in order to defeat Adolf Hitler. FDR’s opposition to fascism and his policies of feeding of hungry Americans while subsidizing farmers were not isolated from each other. They corresponded with his overall view of the world, expressed in 1944: “We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth- is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill housed, and insecure….We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence….People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made .” In 2016, things are very different. While banks were bailed out without hesitation during the 2008 financial crisis, financial assistance to low income Americans continues to be cut. Wall Street and London see the Eurasian Bloc of Russia and China as a rising competitor to their financial hegemony. The wealthy financial elite largely support sanctions and further isolation of both countries despite whatever disastrous impact on American farmers, agricultural workers, and food distributors. Children across the United States are hungry, as 13% of households are food insecure, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Farm workers and those who work for food distributors and supermarkets are losing their jobs. Gallons of milk are at this moment being dumped out in hopes of raising the prices, while food warehouses sit filled with rotting, unsold cheese. Meanwhile, US and NATO forces are increasing their presence in Eastern Europe, threatening Russia. As agricultural sanctions on Russia continue, weapons and training are being provided to a Ukrainian military that is known to contain a number fascist sympathizers, including the infamous Azov Battalion. As discontent rises in the United States, it is largely centered in the agricultural and de-industrialized mid-western heartland. It is clear that many Americans desperately want something to change. A government that prioritizes fascism in Ukraine over farmers in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Ohio, is clearly out of touch. Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College and was inspired and involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” . Popular Articles | 0 |
Note: This documentary short film was nominated for a 2017 Academy Award. When I returned home to Greece last fall to make a film about the refugee crisis, I discovered a situation I had never imagined possible. The turquoise sea that surrounds the beautiful Greek island of Lesbos, just 4. 1 miles from the Turkish coast, is these days a deadly gantlet, choked with terrified adults and small children on flimsy, dangerous boats. I had never seen people escaping war before, and neither had the island’s residents. I couldn’t believe there was no support for these families to safely escape whatever conflict had caused them to flee. The scene was haunting. Regardless of the hardship Greeks have endured from the financial crisis, for a long time my home country has by and large been a peaceful, safe and easy place to live. But now Greece is facing a new crisis, one that threatens to undo years of stability, as we struggle to absorb the thousands of desperate migrants who pour across our borders every day. A peak of nearly 5, 000 entered Greece each day last year, mainly fleeing conflicts in the Middle East. The Greek Coast Guard, especially when I was there, has been completely unprepared to deal with the constant flow of rescues necessary to save refugees from drowning as they attempt to cross to Europe from Turkey. When I was there filming, Lesbos had about 40 local coast guard officers, who before the refugee crisis generally spent their time conducting routine border patrols. Most didn’t have CPR training. Their vessels didn’t have thermal cameras or any equipment necessary for tremendous emergencies. Suddenly, the crew was charged with keeping the small bit of water they patrolled from becoming a mass grave. Each day, thousands of refugees crossed the water on tiny, dangerous inflatable rafts. Most of the passengers, sometimes including whoever was operating the boat, had never seen the sea. Often a motor would stall and passengers would be stranded for hours, floating tenuously on a cold, volatile sea. Or the bottom of a dinghy would simply tear away and all the passengers would be cast into the water. The coast guard felt completely abandoned, they told me, as if the world had left them to handle a huge humanitarian crisis — or allow thousands to drown offshore. I followed a coast guard captain for three weeks as he pulled family after family, child after child, from the ocean and saved their lives. All the ones in this film were shot on a single day, October 28, 2015. Two additional rescues happened that same day but were not included. The problem is far from over. Many of the refugees come from Syria, where Russia is intensifying bombings that are killing thousands of civilians and devastating Syrian cities. The United States is planning to respond. According to the Greek Coast Guard, thousands of families with children are lining up along Turkish shores to make the unsafe crossing to Greece. In making this film, I was struck by the fine lines that separate us, the moments when our paths cross fleetingly, and we look at one another for the first time and sometimes for the last. This film shows that crucial moment between life and death, where regardless of political beliefs, fears or preparation, some people will go beyond themselves to save a stranger. And it raises questions about our collective responsibility — the choices we all make for ourselves, and for others. We don’t all confront the refugee crisis with the same immediacy as the coast guard captain portrayed here. But as our world becomes more interconnected, and more violent, we do all face a choice — would we act as he does, to save the life of stranger? Or would we turn away? | 1 |
on October 30, 2016 4:07 pm ·
For like the eleventy-billionth time, Sarah Palin posted a broken link to a Facebook post on Twitter Sunday. Now, at first glance her months of posting dead links and not figuring out how to fix the problem might seem moderately stupid — until you see the content of the actual post on the half-term, half-wit former Governor of Alaska’s Facebook timeline.
Referencing Clinton’s recent, mundane campaign stop at a bar, Palin — who regularly appears to be heavily intoxicated whenever she has a camera in front of her and was involved in a drunken hillbilly brawl in 2014 — quipped, “she’s gonna drive us all to drink.”
Thinking she is clever, she then adds that Clinton should have been “thinking Sam Adams” rather than “drinking Sam Adams.”
Naturally, as Palin brought up drinking, the internet decided it couldn’t let this one go: @SarahPalinUSA I see you've already started
— Clodagh Smith (@Clodagh831) October 30, 2016 @SarahPalinUSA Any excuse to drink, eh Sarah? #Lush
— John Yuma (@JohnYuma) October 30, 2016 @SarahPalinUSA Have you been day drinking again?
— Mr. Wolfcastle (@tew156) October 30, 2016 @SarahPalinUSA oh Sarah, remember when you mattered?Me neither. Open another Box O' Wine. | 0 |
REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — More than 400 Mexican soldiers have been deployed to this border city as part of an ongoing security strategy aimed at targeting various Gulf Cartel cells in the region. [Approximately 417 soldiers departed from the Mexican state of Chiapas on three military airplanes, Reynosa’s El Mañana reported. The soldiers are from the 15th Motorized Cavalry Regiment their deployment comes just weeks after 500 soldiers were sent to Ciudad Mier, Tamaulipas. The new deployment of soldiers occured days after Tamaulipas’s Governor Francisco Cabeza de Vaca announced a new security strategy for Reynosa. The mounting pressure forced Gulf Cartel’s regional boss, Julian “Comandante Toro” Loiza Salinas aka Juan Manuel Loiza Salinas, into hiding. While his commanders continue to operate in Reynosa, Loiza Salinas allegedly sought temporary refuge in Texas. During the raids, cartel gunmen have been setting up roadblocks and throwing hundreds of makeshift road spikes designed to rapidly deflate tires. The tactic is also done to flatten the tires of regular motorists, causing traffic jams. Ildefonso Ortiz is an journalist with Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. Brandon Darby is managing director and of Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. | 1 |
Here's something interesting from The Unz Review... Recipient Name Recipient Email =>
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 relations with Russia, 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 friendly relations with 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.
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.
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 bring 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. (Reprinted from PaulCraigRoberts.org by permission of author or representative) | 0 |
On the Thursday edition of Breitbart News Daily, broadcast live on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 from 6AM to 9AM Eastern, Breitbart Alex Marlow will continue our discussion of President Trump’s first 100 days. [His Eminence, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, will join us to discuss his speech at this year’s March for Life. Jeanne Mancini, President of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, will also join us to discuss this year’s March. J. Christian Adams of the Election Law Center, author of Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department, will discuss the issue of voter fraud. Adams served for five years as an attorney in the Voting Section of the United States Department of Justice. Mark Krikorian, the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, will discuss President Trump’s executive actions on the border and immigration. Laura Wilkerson, an “Angel Mom” whose teenage son was tortured and murdered by an illegal immigrant, will join us to discuss her new organization Enforcethelaw. org, which advocates for enforcing our immigration laws, defunding sanctuary cities, and securing the border. Breitbart’s new Financial Editor John Carney will discuss the DOW breaking 20, 000. Live from London, Rome, and Jerusalem, Breitbart correspondents will provide updates on the latest international news. Breitbart News Daily is the first live, conservative radio enterprise to air seven days a week. SiriusXM Vice President for news and talk Dave Gorab called the show “the conservative news show of record. ” Follow Breitbart News on Twitter for live updates during the show. Listeners may call into the show at: . | 1 |
KABUL, Afghanistan — The local people called the militia’s takeover of the giant lapis mine in northeastern Badakhshan Province a white coup — easy and bloodless. Perhaps, but the seizure has become a lesson in how the lack of accountability and rule of law in Afghanistan can turn bounty into ruin. Riding waves of excitement after a 2010 report by the United States military that Afghanistan’s mineral wealth could be worth as much as $1 trillion, the Lajwardeen Mining Company won a contract in 2013 to extract lapis lazuli in Badakhshan. For thousands of years, Afghanistan has been one of the chief sources of lapis lazuli, a prized blue gemstone associated with love and purity and admired by poets as well as jewelers. Valued at about $125 million a year in 2014, the lapis trade had the potential to be worth at least double that, and Lajwardeen, owned by an Afghan family in the business for three generations, saw a great opportunity. Yet within 21 days of officially beginning its work, the company lost the mine to a local militia supported by the Afghan political elite. In the two years since, according to interviews with company employees, Afghan officials and militia commanders, the government has done little to restore the mine to the company. Lapis is still being mined, with the rent split between the militia and the Taliban, who have established a strong foothold in a province long resistant to them. With the plunge in global commodity prices deflating some of the enthusiasm for Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, the initial excitement has faded into broader — and, among Afghans, — concerns over mismanagement, impunity and corruption. The country has failed to make even the most basic legal and regulatory changes, and even President Ashraf Ghani recently expressed fear that “we are faced with the curse of natural resources. ” Javed Noorani, an Afghan analyst who has written extensively about extractive industries, said: “We have to define a vision for our mines and how we go about extracting each. In the current reality, where do we have security control and can provide the most basic governance and oversight?” But Mr. Ghani’s government, which promised a more judicious approach to the mines, seems to be perpetuating the old way of doing business. The Afghan National Security Council, over which Mr. Ghani presides, ordered the termination of the Lajwardeen contract and moved to reopen the bidding. The council also proposed bringing the militia into the government framework. Such a change would set a strange precedent: failing to protect a contractor from a seizure of assets and then legalizing the takeover. The decision to cancel the contract was made in November 2014, the National Security Council said in a statement, because the contractor’s progress had not met the terms of the agreement and the mine was being used by “irresponsible armed men. ” While other parts of the National Security Council’s decision, such as dispatching forces to protect the mine, have not been carried out, the government said it still considered the contract annulled because Lajwardeen had not followed up on its appeal in the courts. The company, though, says it is still pursuing the case. Expansion of the mineral industry is essential to cultivating Afghanistan’s economic growth and weaning the country from foreign aid, said Stephen Carter, the leader of the Afghanistan campaign at Global Witness, an organization that investigates corruption and environmental degradation in the exploitation of natural resources. “What the lapis mines of Badakhshan show better than almost any other example is that the realistic expectation is that they are going to do precisely the opposite — that they are going to be a source of conflict and corruption and actually possibly fuel a chronic conflict,” Mr. Carter said. “So what should be a treasure is actually a poison for Afghanistan. ” A new Global Witness report explains how interests of the Taliban and the political elite align to keep the government weak and the resources in the hands of an unlawful few. The report also shows how Lajwardeen was essentially caught in a larger rivalry between two local strongmen. For much of this century, the mine was controlled by local strongmen including Zalmai Mujadidi, a member of Parliament who made his brother the leader of the security force protecting the mine. When Lajwardeen (the word is a Persian description of lapis) won the contract in 2013, the government struggled to hand over the mine as rival factions vied for control. Company executives agreed to a compromise: They gave illegal miners a few months to take as much of the stone as they could. The executives also offered them a chance to buy shares in the company once it began operations. But the company’s perceived closeness to Mr. Mujadidi set off a vicious backlash. While saying Mr. Mujadidi had not been awarded shares, company officials acknowledged that they had enlisted the support of powerful people like him, especially since his brother’s guards essentially controlled the mine such was the reality of doing business in Badakhshan. In January 2014, Abdul Malik, a militia commander and a longtime rival to Mr. Mujadidi, spread rumors that the Taliban were about to take the mine. Instead, fighters loyal to him seized it. “There was no Taliban in the district at the time they took over the mine,” said Noor Agha Nadery, who was then the district governor of Kuran wa Munjan, where the mine is situated. “The truth of the matter is that the mine was taken over with the help of senior officials in Kabul and Badakhshan, who are still trying to keep the mine in the hands of Malik. ” Imamuddin, one of Mr. Malik’s commanders, who helped take the mine but has since had a with him, said, “There were no Taliban in the district. ” That rumor, said Imamuddin, who like many Afghans uses only one name, “was spread by Malik himself. ” Mr. Malik, who believes in restoring local ownership of the mine, has said he led a popular uprising against outsiders exploiting it. Mr. Malik’s militia made about $18 million in 2014 and $12 million in 2015 from renting the mine to local extractors and collecting tolls on the roads, the Global Witness report said. As the Taliban have encroached on the area, he has been forced to pay them. He split the income in the first four months of 2016, the Global Witness report said, meaning the Taliban would get an estimated $6 million for the full year. Global Witness lists Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, who was Afghanistan’s defense minister at the time of the takeover, as one of Mr. Malik’s supporters. A longtime guerrilla commander with the Northern Alliance, a movement that for decades tapped into the lapis trade to pay for its campaigns, Mr. Mohammadi knew the value of the mine. If the allegation is true, it shows just how complex and counterintuitive war at the local level can be. It would mean that a former political figure tasked with defending against the insurgency became involved in a scheme that brought the Taliban huge profits, making them a force in a province that had long resisted them. Mr. Mohammadi was traveling and could not be reached for comment, said Shafiq Salangi, an aide. “Minister Bismillah Khan was not supporting Malik he did not support him in getting the lapis mines in Badakhshan,” Mr. Salangi said. “This claim does not have logical grounds. We reject this claim. ” But local commanders said Mr. Mohammadi had been one of the first people Mr. Malik contacted after seizing the mine. “Commander Malik called Bismillah Mohammadi to assure him that the mine was taken over, and that no one had been killed and that he would follow orders from him,” Imamuddin said. Lajwardeen hopes to reclaim the mine one day. In the meantime, it is buying lapis — from Mr. Malik’s militia. | 1 |
Monday 21 November 2016 by Pete Redfern Queen claims 70 years of Prince Philip is perfect preparation for Donald Trump
With tradition dictating that the British monarch should be amongst the first to meet a newly elected president, the Queen has assured everyone she knows exactly how to deal with men like that.
An unnamed source close to the royal family told reporters “She’s basically been living with a Trump-like character for decades, so she knows the level of bloke she’s dealing with.
“By all accounts both the Duke of Edinburgh and Donald Trump have the same insatiable sexual appetite – you can only imagine how Philip suggested they celebrate their 69th anniversary. Hopeless.
“And then there’s the racism. She will probably attempt to discuss important matters such as the economy and international relations with Trump, but she just knows he’ll lower the tone of the conversation with racial stereotypes and outdated misogynistic views.
“You know, like the ones she hears day in, day out from her husband.”
It is believed that the Queen will brace herself with a few gin and tonics before meeting Trump, in the hope that the effect of the alcohol will be to take her mind off the depressing thought that the strangely coiffed reality TV star could be the last president she knows.
Her source also added, “Some people have expressed concern about the Queen having a private meeting with a self-confessed sexual predator, but they need not have any worries.
“She can handle herself – Philip has been trying to grab her by the pussy without success since the 1970s.” Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently | 0 |
The US and NATO are building up their offensive capabilities on the Western borders of Russia and its ally Belarus, prompting Moscow to take reciprocal measures, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told the two countries’ top military brass.
“Those actions undermine strategic stability and are forcing Russia to take reciprocal defensive measures, including some in the Western theatre,” the defense minister said.
NATO “has not abandoned attempts to dictate its will to other countries through economic and political means, as well as by military force,” he said, noting that “an information war is in full swing.”
Confronted with a complex security environment, Russia and Belarus will join forces to strengthen their mutual security, Shoigu added.
“Advanced bilateral cooperation and a common stance on major global and regional security challenges allow us to successfully tackle strengthening our defense capabilities,” he stressed, adding that this approach appears to be necessary at this point, “as international crisis response mechanisms have stalled, while hotspots are already near our borders.”
In order to address the security challenges, Russia is now supplying state-of-the-art armaments and weapons systems to the army units guarding the Western borders, as well as ramping up combat training for the troops, the Defense Minister said.
Russian and Belarusian militaries are constantly working on improving their interoperability and the capacity to act in large troops formations, he added.
The remarks come amid NATO’s biggest military buildup in Eastern Europe since the Cold War. The deployment will see up to 4,000 troops deployed in the Baltic countries and Poland, in addition to the more than 1,000 soldiers already stationed there on a “rotational basis.”
A German-led battalion will deploy in Lithuania, the US will send troops to Poland, Canada is expected to station troops in Latvia, and the UK will deploy an 800-strong battle group in Estonia.
British Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon claimed in a bellicose op-ed appearing in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday that Europe “is our continent” and, as such, it will be defended by a “fully combat-capable” force.
Earlier this year, NATO staged several multinational war games, the largest of which was Anaconda 2016. Those exercises saw more than 31,000 personnel from 24 NATO and ‘partner’ countries taking part, reportedly in order to develop their capacity to “deploy, mass and sustain combat power” against a near-peer adversary.
In June, Ukraine, a non-NATO state, hosted the Rapid Trident 2016 exercise, which featured over 1,800 soldiers from 14 countries, along with dozens of combat vehicles, aircraft, and heavy weaponry. That drill was said to be the largest multinational war games ever to be held in Ukraine.
Most recently, 680 troops from 32 NATO and non-NATO states, including Georgia, Albania, Israel and Ukraine, took part in war games called Crna Gora 2016 in the Balkan country of Montenegro, where they trained for “disaster relief operations” in a series of joint exercises.
Moscow has consistently warned that the buildup does nothing to improve European security and is nothing but a “projection of force.”
NATO members “are fulfilling their confrontational schemes of military planning and military preparations in the territories along our borders,” Russia’s envoy to NATO, Aleksandr Grushko, said on Monday.
“So, a question arises: What’s next? A new wave of NATO speculation about a ‘Russian threat’ and a new arms race?” the diplomat added. “We believe this is a road to nowhere.”
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Legal Insurrection – by Leslie Eastman
About one-year ago, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the state’s assisted-suicide bill into law. It fully went into effect this June, with the opening of the first clinic . While there is no data on the number of California assisted-suicides, Oregon recorded over 130 last year as part of their legalized physician-assisted death program.
Now, one young mother says her insurance company denied her coverage for chemotherapy treatment after originally agreeing to provide the fiscal support for it, but indicated it would be willing to pay for assisted suicide instead.
Stephanie Packer, a wife and mother of four who was diagnosed with a terminal form of scleroderma, said her insurance company initially indicated it would pay for her to switch to a different chemotherapy drug at the recommendation of her doctors.
…But shortly after California’s End of Life Option Act, which authorizes physicians to diagnose a life-ending dose of medication to patients with a prognosis of six months or less to live, went into effect, Ms. Packer’s insurance company had a change of heart.
“And when the law was passed, it was a week later I received a letter in the mail saying they were going to deny coverage for the chemotherapy that we were asking for,” Ms. Packer said.
She said she called her insurance company to find out why her coverage had been denied. On the call, she also asked whether suicide pills were covered under her plan.
“And she says, ‘Yes, we do provide that to our patients, and you would only have to pay $1.20 for the medication,’” Ms. Packer said.
Packer attends meetings with others suffering from terminal illnesses. She indicates that the tone of those meetings have changed since the California assisted-suicide law was enacted.
“As soon as this law was passed – and you see it everywhere, when these laws are passed – patients fighting for a longer life end up getting denied treatment, because this will always be the cheapest option.”
Packer attends a support group for terminally ill patients. She said legally sanctioned suicide has changed the tone of the meetings, which used to be “positive and encouraging.” With patients under new societal pressure to kill themselves, she said meetings “became negative, and it started consuming people. And then they said, ‘You know what? I wish I could just end it.’”
Concerned about the enormous potential for abuse, a the national organization, Patients Rights Action Fund, has created a website for patients like Packer. The online resource offers a place for patients, family members, concerned friends to report possible coercion, failure to identify depression or other patient mental health concerns, and complications that arise from the overdose prescription or other aspects of the assisted-suicide process. Were you or someone you know pressured to use assisted suicide, misleadingly known as ‘death with dignity’ or ‘aid in dying’? Did you or a loved one have a chronic, life-threatening illness and personal circumstances where you/they felt like suicide or assisted suicide was your only option? Did a doctor advise you or someone you know of a prognosis of 6 months or less that was wrong by months, years, or even decades? Were you or a loved one denied coverage for a life-sustaining treatment or medication by your HMO or insurance company?
During his Gettysburg Address describing the first 100 days in office if he is elected President, Donald Trump indicated he would work to replace Obamcare with health savings accounts, remove barriers to purchasing health insurance across state lines, allow states to manage Medicaid funds and speed up drug approval inside the Food and Drug Administration.
However, his election would be too late help many terminally-ill Californians who are now experiencing the unintended, but quite predictable, consequence of yet another feel good progressive policy. | 0 |
Home › HEALTH › GOVERNMENT HIDING UNPRECEDENTED TB INFECTION RATES AMONG RELOCATED REFUGEES GOVERNMENT HIDING UNPRECEDENTED TB INFECTION RATES AMONG RELOCATED REFUGEES 0 SHARES
[10/26/16] J.D. HEYES- More Americans might be accepting of President Barack Obama’s zealous push to flood the country with refugees from war-torn parts of the world, if only he, along with federal and state officials, were more transparent about the entire process.
Like for instance being up front with Americans about the health threat posed by many of these refugees.
Breitbart News is reporting that officials at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, county health departments throughout the state and local offices of refugee resettlement agencies – all of whom are working closely with the Obama administration – have taken to hiding the latent tuberculosis infection rates among refugees from the general public.
The website noted further that the “culture of concealment” in Michigan contrasts with how several other states deal with latent TB infection rates among refugees.
As Breitbart News has reported in the past , the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services doesn’t collect latent TB infection rate information from county health departments or local resettlement agencies it hires to perform initial medical screenings of newly-arrived refugees. Also, the state agency obviously does not honor its legal obligation to do so under provisions of the Refugee Act of 1980. Michigan officials not keeping TB data required by law
When the news service asked MDHHS officials for data about latent TB infection rates based on the full population of refugees screened, a spokesman for the agency, Bob Wheaton, said, “We do not have that data.”
Breitbart noted that the agency has hired a number of county health departments, and in some counties private refugee health screening services, all working in cooperation with local resettlement officials for the purpose of conducting initial medical screenings of all new refugee arrivals.
Under guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and MDHHS, all refugees who complete initial health screenings are tested for latent TB infection. However, MDHHS officials said that neither the counties nor private agencies are sharing screening data. What’s more, the counties and private refugee health screeners who do have the TB data will not make that information available to the public.
As Breitbart News noted further:
“In the case of at least one private refugee health screening service, the Arab American and Chaldean Council, which MDHHS has hired to conduct refugee health screenings in Wayne County, Macomb County, and Oakland County, that data is also not being shared with health departments in those counties.”
Again, the provision of the data is a requirement of federal statutes regarding the health screening status of refugees. One-third of the rest of the world has latent TB
Many states have made this information public in annual reports. They include Minnesota, where the latent TB infection rate among newly-arrived refugees in 2014 was 22 percent; Indiana (26 percent); Arizona (18 percent); Utah (18 percent), Texas (15 percent); California (12 percent) and Florida (12 percent).
In addition, Breitbart News noted, other states made information available to the news service after repeated requests. They include Tennessee (27 percent); Vermont (35 percent); and Idaho (21 percent).
It is vital to identify refugees coming into the United States with latent TB infections, because treatment must begin immediately in order to prevent the spread of the disease. Also, studies – including one from the University of California, San Diego in 2013 – have shown that higher rates of latent TB infection among resettled refugees pose a greater health risk to the general public in regions where they have been sent.
Latent TB turns into a public health risk when it activates into infectious TB, a process that is generally associated with lower levels of immunity among those with latent TB. In the U.S., 4 percent of the general population has latent TB; 10 percent of those develop active TB at some point during their lives.
By contrast, fully one-third – 33 percent – of the rest of the world has latent TB, Breitbart News reported. Post navigation | 0 |
COLORADO SPRINGS — Standing against the backdrop of his New Shepard rocket booster and a mock capsule for carrying humans into space, Jeff Bezos revealed on Wednesday that he was selling about $1 billion in Amazon stock a year to finance his Blue Origin rocket company. Mr. Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, showed off the reusable rocket booster and the of the capsule that will take people up for panoramic views back down at earth, during a symposium here. Mr. Bezos, who hopes to build Blue Origin into a commercial and tourist venture, also disclosed that it would cost about $2. 5 billion to develop an even bigger rocket, New Glenn, capable of lifting satellites and, eventually, people into orbit. Like his fellow technology titan Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla, Mr. Bezos has identified reusable rocket parts as a key to lowering the price of admission to the field, which he said on Wednesday would lead to a “golden age of space exploration. ” “If we can make access to space then entrepreneurs will be unleashed,” he said. “You will see creativity, you will see dynamism, you will see the same thing in space that I’ve witnessed on the internet in the last 20 years. ” Last month, Mr. Bezos announced the customer, Eutelstat, a satellite company, for New Glenn, whose commercial flights would help offset costs. New Glenn is expected to fly by 2020, he said, but humans will not be passengers on the rocket until many years after that. Mr. Bezos has repeatedly expressed caution about setting timetables for the start of Blue Origin’s commercial or passenger trips, and he did not diverge from that on Wednesday. He would not say when New Shepard would undergo its next round of test flights, or set a specific date as a goal, merely mentioning next year for possible tourist trips. “It’s a mistake to race to a deadline when you’re talking about a flying vehicle, especially one that you’re going to put people on,” he said. “I still think we can do commercial paying passengers in 2018. ” Asked how much passengers would pay, Mr. Bezos said he did not know yet, but he predicted ticket prices would decline as spaceflight became more common. (Hundreds of people have already put down deposits to reserve places on similar commercial trips on Virgin Galactic that could cost $250, 000 a ticket, although that company’s spaceplane has yet to take anyone up.) New Shepard is a modest start for Mr. Bezos’s ambitions to tap into the nascent space tourism market. It is a booster with a capsule on top that is designed to carry six passengers at a time on trips of about 10 to 11 minutes. There will not be a Blue Origin crew on the spacecraft. Passengers wearing sleek jumpsuits will be able to peer out what the company says will be the largest windows in space, taking up about of the surface area of the dome. About 12 feet in diameter, the passenger capsule holds six black seats that resemble recliners, with panels offering details about altitude and other features of a trip. The engine that powers the booster produces up to about 110, 000 pounds of thrust. On ascent, passengers will experience forces of about 3 Gs, about three times the normal force of gravity that humans experience on earth. When the booster reaches a certain altitude, the capsule will detach and coast above the Karman line, which is 62 miles above sea level, officially entering into space. There, the passengers will experience about four to five minutes of weightlessness. They can unbuckle their harnesses and do somersaults, if desired, in the interior. On descent, they will encounter forces of 5 Gs. The capsule will parachute back to the plains of West Texas, slowing to a coasting speed of about 20 miles per hour, while the booster drops and fires its engine to slow down and make a vertical landing. The capsule slows to 3 m. p. h. before touching down. Both pieces are reusable to make the trips more economical. “Reusability is the key to getting millions of people living and working in space,” Mr. Bezos said. While the concept is similar to the procedures SpaceX has used to recover the boosters for its Falcon 9 rockets, SpaceX’s endeavors have been far more challenging, because the boosters must accelerate to speeds of thousands of miles per hour in order to put payloads on a trajectory to reach orbit. Just last week, SpaceX successfully launched a satellite into space with a reused booster, a first for commercial spaceflight. New Shepard has a simpler flight path: just up and down, almost like a big roller coaster that slows to a stop at the top of its arc. However, Mr. Bezos and his Blue Origin team believe that New Shepard, which is expected to fly many times, will give the company ample practice and experience that can be applied to New Glenn, which will be manufactured and launched in Florida. The New Shepard booster on display at the Colorado symposium made five successful flights beginning in November 2015. Its last flight, in October, included a test of an system that is designed to blast the capsule — and, eventually, passengers — to safety in case something goes wrong with the booster. The abort system worked. To the pleasant surprise of the engineers, the booster survived the force of separation, righted itself and descended to a landing. (It would have still been considered a successful test if the booster had crashed.) A Virgin Galactic test flight in 2014 crashed, killing one pilot and severely injuring the other. Both Mr. Bezos and Mr. Musk have much more ambitious goals beyond their current rockets. Mr. Musk wants to send settlers to Mars. Mr. Bezos has said his vision involves having millions of people living and working in space. | 1 |
Trump Mistakes Ex-Marine Black Supporter For Protester, Calls Him A ‘Thug’ (TWEET/VIDEO) By Grownmangrumbles on October 28, 2016 Subscribe
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has a few problems when it comes to Black voters. To look at the polls, you’d wonder if there is a single Black person in the entire country who is willing to give him the time of the day. They do show up, of course. Sure, sometimes they turn out to be ex-cult members turned jazz singing GOP fanatics . Sure, sometimes they are faded celebrities who accidentally use the ‘N’ word on stage. But you know, sometimes it’s a Marine or Navy serviceman who has somehow managed to look past the debase insults , juvenile tantrums , and transparent lies of the GOP’s great orange hope.
It’s such a damn shame that Trump can’t tell one group from another. They All Look The Same To Trump
His recent attempts at rebooting his campaign’s standing with Black people was something of a fiasco . It failed in part because it’s way too late for Trump to distance himself from close ties to White supremacy and antisemitism .
But it also failed because his image of the lives of Black people is that it is one of nasty, brutish, Dickensian squalor. Indeed, it’s so out of touch-offensive that even his plans to help struggling Black communities come across as being unforgivably racist.
It’s little wonder, then, that when Trump saw a black face at his rally in Kinston, North Carolina, his razor-sharp mind kicked in. He jumped to the kind of conclusion you’d expect from a man with less racial sensitivity than a 19th century British naval officer.
He assumed the man was a protester. Different Strokes Of The Pen
Sixty-three-year-old ex-Marine C.J. Cary was on a mission. Though a die-hard Republican, he had been deeply shocked by some of the things Trump has said. In an effort to reason with him, he penned a letter that, according to the Charlette Observer : “… [Urged] Trump to be less offensive and more inclusive to four demographic groups: black people, women, people with disabilities and college students.”
He never got to deliver the note.
He made his way toward the front rows shouting “Donald” and waving his document, trying to attract the nominees attention. It worked. Sort of. “We have a protester!” Trump told the crowd, adding : “By the way,were you paid $1,500 to be a thug?” Trump calls black supporter a "thug," has him kicked out of a rally in North Carolina. https://t.co/b4gkI6qx9v pic.twitter.com/eJKuu0CLRi
— Jason Sparks (@sparksjls) October 28, 2016
As the long time Republican voter was escorted from the venue he made one final attempt to get his note to the man who would be king : “I said, ‘I was trying to get to this doc to Mr. Donald … will you get this to Donald?’”
The official promised he would pass along the note. Having been treated to some common courtesy at last, Cary set off back home to watch the election coverage with that same horrified expression that we’ve all become so accustomed to.
By the way, this wasn’t the first time a Trump supporter has been mistaken for a protester simply because he wasn’t the right color:
Featured Image via Twitter About Grownmangrumbles
I'm a full- time, somewhat unwilling resident of the planet Earth. I studied journalism at Murdoch University in West Australia and moved back to the UK where I taught politics and studied for a PhD. I've written a number of books on political philosophy that are mostly of interest to scholars. I'm also a seasoned travel writer so I get to stay in fancy hotels for free. I have a pet Lizard called Rousseau. We have only the most cursory of respect for one another. Connect | 0 |
Conversations with phone on speaker 89 per cent more likely to be about annoying bullshit 02-11-16 PEOPLE using their phones on speaker are highly likely to be discussing some irritating bullshit, it has emerged. Researchers at the Institute for Studies found that speaker-phone chats were often about a hot guy from some cool party, a ‘crazy’ coincidence or work-related boasting. Professor Henry Brubaker said: “Speaker people want everyone to hear their conversation because they reckon the world is a soap opera in which they are the main characters. “Often the person holding the phone is just repeatedly saying ‘Oh my God’ and laughing maniacally while the person on the other end says ‘Oh my God’ back. “Or it’s some corporate rubbish like ‘Karl, KMG just caved in at the Didbury meeting, we’ve nailed it’.” Speaker phone fan Mary Fisher said: “Speaker mode is handy for when you’re driving or if you’re on busy public transport and you want to let the entire bus know you’ve just seen a massive cat. “I just like holding the phone directly in front of me, it looks futuristic plus I can see my lovely chin reflected in the screen.”
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PHILADELPHIA — Follow along with our coverage of the Democratic National Convention. Donald J. Trump’s apparent endorsement on Wednesday of Russian cyberspying against Hillary Clinton has pulled President Vladimir V. Putin fully into the American political fray. But Mr. Putin’s relationship with Mrs. Clinton has been tense at least since 2011, when, as secretary of state, she accused him of rigging an election and he accused her of meddling in Russian politics. Mr. Putin — who was then the prime minister, plotting his return to the presidency — said her words were a “signal” to protesters, encouraging them to take to the streets, which they did in large numbers. Her remarks also annoyed the White House, which at that time still clung to the hope that President Obama’s policy of “resetting” relations with Russia could be salvaged. That episode, late in Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, is important to understanding why Mr. Putin’s government could have a motive for hacking into the Democratic National Committee’s computers and leaking emails to damage her electoral prospects against Mr. Trump. But it also speaks to the stance toward Russia and Mr. Putin that Mrs. Clinton staked out in the Obama administration. At the same time that she was condemning Russia over its elections, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, was planning to travel to Moscow to meet Mr. Putin her harsh words complicated his diplomacy. Above all, the bitter exchange attests to a combustible relationship between two ambitious, leaders, both unafraid to exercise power — one a former K. G. B. officer who emerged from the shadows the other a famous female politician who spent decades on the public stage. “In our administration, Secretary Clinton always had a tougher line toward Putin and the Russians than other senior administration officials,” said Michael A. McFaul, an adviser on Russia who served as United States ambassador to Moscow. “It was Putin’s strong belief that we, with Clinton in the lead, were trying to meddle with his regime. ” It was one of several instances where Mrs. Clinton was more hawkish than her boss — differences the White House and the Clinton campaign have so far played down but which may loom larger in the general election. Certainly, Mrs. Clinton has been open in saying she would push back harder than Mr. Obama has against Mr. Putin’s aggression in Ukraine and Syria. Mrs. Clinton’s first meeting with Mr. Putin as secretary of state set the stage for a stormy relationship. When she went to see him in his dacha outside Moscow on March 19, 2010, he kept her waiting in front of a ceramic mantelpiece, facing a forest of cameras and boom microphones. Mr. Putin finally turned up for what was billed as a brief photo opportunity, only to lecture her in front of the reporters about how the United States needed to lift sanctions against American companies doing business in Iran. And when Mrs. Clinton started to defend the Obama administration’s policy, he promptly ordered the news media out of the room. Mrs. Clinton laughed off the episode, telling reporters what has become an story about their relationship. “Prime Minister Putin,” she recalled asking him amid his harangue about trade policy, “tell me about what you’re doing to save the tigers in Siberia. ” Eyes brightening, Mr. Putin motioned her to his private office downstairs, where he showed her a map of Russia. Pointing to various regions, he delivered a fervent lecture about endangered tigers and polar bears. He asked her whether Bill Clinton would go on a expedition with him in Siberia. If Bill was not available, he said, maybe Hillary would go? Diplomats traveling with her were impressed. “It’s like he sizes somebody up and sees them as a worthy adversary or counterpart,” said William J. Burns, a former ambassador to Moscow who served as Mrs. Clinton’s deputy at the State Department. “I’ve seen him with other people who he didn’t see that way, and he’d be much more dismissive and snarky. ” In retrospect, though, the meeting planted the seeds for future tensions. Eight months later, Mrs. Clinton canceled her attendance at a meeting he organized in St. Petersburg to save the tigers. Her excuse was that she had to stay in Washington to lobby the Senate to ratify a new arms reduction treaty. A year later, Mrs. Clinton was traveling in Lithuania when reports of ballot tampering and other fraud emerged after parliamentary elections in Russia. “The Russian people, like people everywhere, deserve the right to have their voices heard and their votes counted,” she said in a statement, drafted by her spokeswoman, Victoria J. Nuland, a career diplomat and Soviet expert known for her views about Russia. “Putin was livid that she had spoken out,” Mr. McFaul said. Russian officials even called the White House to ask whether she was speaking for the United States. That created a tempest in the West Wing, since Mr. McFaul had signed off on Mrs. Clinton’s statement. Although the president was also skeptical of Mr. Putin’s intentions, he, too, had hoped to keep the reset policy alive a little longer. There was no evidence that Mrs. Clinton had any regrets. Shortly before she left the State Department, she asked her top policy aide, Jake Sullivan, to draft a exit memo from her to Mr. Obama, warning him that the reset policy was dead, that relations with Russia would deteriorate under Mr. Putin and that the United States needed to push back hard. Advisers to Mrs. Clinton said they were confident she would pursue such a strategy as president. Mr. Trump’s latest comments — in which he said he hoped Russia would find and expose thousands of emails that Mrs. Clinton did not hand over to the State Department — only highlighted the chasm between their positions, according to these aides. “What Trump said today is reckless and demonstrates he is unfit for the Oval Office,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a former top State Department official and adviser to Mrs. Clinton. He said that he was confident that Mrs. Clinton would strongly defend the interests of the United States and its allies against any aggression by Mr. Putin. By 2014, after Russia had annexed Crimea and sent its tanks and troops to menace Ukraine, Mrs. Clinton’s exit memo to the president looked prescient. Speaking at a Democratic in California in March 2014, she likened Mr. Putin’s behavior to Hitler’s conquest of the Sudetenland in 1938. When Mr. Putin was asked about that comparison by a French television station three months later, he replied: “It’s better not to argue with women. Ms. Clinton had never been too graceful in her statements. ” | 1 |
A California college professor who called President Trump’s election win an “act of terrorism” during class was nominated to become “faculty member of the year,” Campus Reform reported. [A panel of school administrators are in charge of selecting the professor for the award, which gives the chosen faculty member a chance to speak at Orange Coast College’s commencement ceremony. The professor in question, Olga Perez declined the award for an unspecified reason, according to Doug Bennet, executive director of college advancement at OCC. Even though Cox turned down the award, some people at the school think the faculty’s decision to nominate her was wrong in the first place, given what she said last semester. “The fact that the faculty chose professor Cox for the faculty member of the year award speaks volumes to how blind they are about what she did last semester,” said Joshua of OCC’s College Republicans group. On Saturday, campus police discovered graffiti targeting the OCC College Republicans and . “Doxx Joshua Martinez OCC Young Republicans = Fascists,” one graffiti message read, according to the Los Angeles Times. says that Cox probably did not accept the nomination because of these recent events. “She understood the impact that accepting the nomination could have on the campus climate, and that is why she refused,” said. ’s group is the same group responsible for posting the video of Cox’s comments on Facebook. In her comments, Cox blamed the Electoral College for Trump’s win and and said that the “act of terrorism” was committed by someone “among us. ” “It’s an act of terrorism. One of the most frightening things for me, and most people in my life, is that the people committing the assault are among us,” Cox said. The college recently rescinded the suspension of the student who recorded Cox in class. | 1 |
Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore, whose fortitude saved most of his outnumbered battalion in 1965 in the first major battle between American and North Vietnamese troops — exploits immortalized in a book and a movie starring Mel Gibson — died on Friday at his home in Auburn, Ala. He was 94. His death was confirmed by his son Col. David Moore who, like his brother Lt. Col. Stephen Moore and their father, was a West Point graduate. General Moore recounted his battlefield heroics in 1992 in a book, “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young,” written with Joseph L. Galloway. Mr. Galloway, as a war correspondent for United Press International, had witnessed the battle, one of the war’s bloodiest, in the Ia Drang Valley in November 1965. Mr. Gibson played General Moore in “We Were Soldiers,” the 2002 film adaptation of the book. “He was a phenomenal man of great strength and character, courageous and like a father to his troops who got most of his boys out of there after he landed in a hornet’s nest,” Mr. Gibson, who visited the general a few months ago, said on Monday in a phone interview. General Moore later fended off an antiwar protest by Jane Fonda at a California base and oversaw the sweeping transition to an Army after the war. But no moment in his military career was as transformational as the brief American victory at Ia Drang, in shaping both his heroic reputation (he was George Armstrong Custer’s heir as commander of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment) and his view that America’s combat role in Vietnam was futile. “It wasn’t our place to question,” General Moore wrote with Mr. Galloway in a book, “We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam” (2008). “We were soldiers and we followed their orders. In times and places like this, where the reasons for war are lacking, soldiers fight and die for each other. ” The North Vietnamese retreated after the battle, but they went on, with the Vietcong, to wage a successful guerrilla war that ended in 1975 with the fall of Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital. Years after General Moore retired from active duty in 1977, he visited Ia Drang with his North Vietnamese battlefield counterpart for an ABC documentary, publicly supported a global ban on the production and use of land mines, and likened the American invasion of Iraq to the protracted war in Vietnam, which, he wrote, ended after 10 years “with a hasty withdrawal just ahead of defeat. ” “His mantra,” his son David said, was “Hate war, love the American soldier. ” General Moore did both. Nicholas Proffitt, a former war correspondent, wrote of “We Were Soldiers Once” in The New York Times Book Review, “General Moore’s respect and affection for his troops is evident on every page, and one can understand why he became one of the legendary commanders in Vietnam. ” And why he hated war. “As a glimpse into the abyss, into the bilious reality of war, it is a revelation,” Mr. Proffitt wrote. “As a reading experience, it’s a car crash of a book you are horrified by what you’re seeing, but you can’t take your eyes off it. ” On Nov. 14, 1965, Hal Moore, at the time a lieutenant colonel and battalion commander, and about 450 troops from his First Battalion were ferried by helicopters to Landing Zone a field near the Drang River in South Vietnam, six miles from the Cambodian border. They stumbled on more than they had bargained for: three North Vietnamese regular army regiments that at times outmanned them 12 to 1. “By midafternoon in heat we were strongly outnumbered, taking heavy casualties in a cliffhanger fight to the finish,” the general wrote in a West Point yearbook. Bloody combat ensued on a battlefield punctuated by termite mounds the size of pickup trucks and bodies strewn amid the elephant grass. Never leaving the combat zone and remaining in the thick of the fight, General Moore delivered on a vow that endeared him to his troops: “I’ll always be the first person on the battlefield, my boots will be the first boots on it, and I’ll be the last person off. I’ll never leave a body. ” Finally, reinforcements and the firepower of helicopter gunships, and American 105 mm howitzers positioned several miles away turned the tide. “Unlike Custer,” General Moore said later, referring to Custer’s Last Stand in 1876 at the Little Bighorn, “we had major fire support. ” The American death toll at was 79. As the reinforcements marched to a second landing zone named Albany, they suffered heavy casualties in an ambush that was largely covered up at the time. When the combat in both places ended, as many as 3, 000 North Vietnamese and 234 Americans were dead. By the end of November, the American toll in the Ia Drang Valley had risen to 305, branding it as the Valley of Death. “Every one of us thought at least once we were going to die there,” Mr. Galloway said in an interview on Monday. “There was only one man who thought for certain we were going to prevail, and that was Hal Moore. ” Harold Gregory Moore Jr. was born on Feb. 13, 1922, in Bardstown, Ky. then a city of about 2, 000, where his father was an insurance agent. His mother was the former Mary Crume. He was 15 when his father first suggested he consider West Point, provided he got a required recommendation from a United States senator. As a high school senior, though, all Hal was able to extract from Senator A. B. (Happy) Chandler was a patronage job in the Senate warehouse in Washington. By the time he graduated from George Washington University in 1942, though, World War II had begun, and more appointments to military academies were available. This time he was successful, making it to West Point and graduating in 1945. His wife, the former Julie Compton, died in 2004. In addition to his sons David and Stephen, he is survived by another son, Harold Gregory Moore III, known as Greg two daughters, Julie Moore Orlowski and Cecile Moore Rainey a sister, Betty Karp a brother, Ballard 12 grandchildren and four . After West Point, General Moore served in the Korean War and in Europe. He was deployed to Vietnam in 1965 and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for valor at Ia Drang. Returning to the United States, he was assigned to plan for the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam commanded Fort Ord in California, where he dealt with antiwar demonstrators, including Ms. Fonda and was named the Army’s deputy chief of staff for personnel in Washington. General Moore likened Ia Drang to the Spanish Civil War before World War II: a dress rehearsal for the tactics that both sides would employ for the rest of the war and a harbinger of a prolonged stalemate in seesaw battles over territory. “He never claimed that was an American victory, but he prevailed,” Mr. Galloway said. “At the end of the day they left and we still occupied the ground, although after we left they came back. ” | 1 |
Citing investigative reporting by the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) and advance reporting by The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group, Rep. Louie Gohmert is calling for a congressional investigation into the connection between Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman, John Podesta, and Russia. [Podesta sat on the board of the energy company alongside Russian officials who received $35 million from a Russian government fund, Breitbart News reported last August, as revealed in a GAI report titled “From Russia with Money: Hillary Clinton, the Russian Reset, and Cronyism. ” Now Gohmert, the Texas Republican firebrand who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, says Podesta’s role in the firm “certainly needs to be reviewed to see if there really is something nefarious going on with these activities. ” Podesta also sat on the executive board of an energy company, Joule Unlimited, which also received millions from a Russian government fund. The longtime Democratic operative owned “75, 000 common shares” in Joule, which Podesta had transferred to a holding company called Leonidio LLC. According to the GAI report, “Two months after Podesta joined the board, Vladimir Putin’s Rusnano announced that it would invest up to one billion rubles into Joule Unlimited, which amounts to $35 million. That represents of the entire amount of investment dollars Joule collected from 2007 to 2013. ” Furthermore, Joule board members also included senior Russian officials. Podesta had failed to fully disclose his position on Joule Unlimited’s board of directors and include it in his federal financial disclosures, as required by law, before he became President Obama’s senior adviser in January 2014. A federal lawsuit, The Daily Caller reports, cites Podesta’s role in funneling billions in devalued Russian currency into U. S. tech companies: An ongoing federal lawsuit, Neas Ltd, v. Rusnano, which is now before the U. S. District Court for Northern California, suggests Podesta and others at Joule may have unwittingly assisted Rusnano in a scheme hatched to move billions of weak rubles into valuable U. S. dollars by parking them as “investments” in companies in Boston and in Silicon Valley. Gohmert’s call for a federal probe into Podesta’s Russian ties comes amid a partisan push to link President Donald Trump and his aides to Russian and collusion during the presidential campaign. However, evidence of collusion to advance Putin’s Russia started years before Trump announced his presidential bid. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton spearheaded U. S. involvement in a Russian government technology initiative called Skolkovo. The Russian government’s stated goal for Skolkovo, touted as “innovation city,” was to be the Russian equivalent of America’s Silicon Valley. Skolkovo housed more than 30, 000 workers in facilities under Kremlin control. Despite the FBI and the U. S. Army’s warning that Putin could use Skolkovo to accelerate its military technological capabilities, Hillary Clinton’s State Department and her campaign manager developed alarming relationships with entities. Read The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group’s report here. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson. | 1 |
In 2012, Forbes dropped J. K. Rowling after eight years on its authoritative billionaires list, saying high British taxes and large charitable contributions had eroded her fortune. Forbes may want to rethink that. Last weekend, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” — the first of a new, multifilm franchise, with a script by Ms. Rowling — opened in the United States to a strong $75 million weekend. (The international box office was close to another $150 million.) Hugely popular Wizarding World of Harry Potter attractions have opened at Universal Studio theme parks in Orlando, Fla. Hollywood and Osaka, Japan, as well as a Potter attraction at Warner Bros. Studio Tour London. The drama “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” is a smash hit in London and is scheduled to open on Broadway in 2018. A book based on the play was an instant No. 1 best seller. Warner Bros. recently licensed the television rights to the Harry Potter films to NBCUniversal for as much as $250 million. Any estimate of Ms. Rowling’s fortune is at best informed speculation, and most previous attempts I’ve seen don’t seem very informed. Ms. Rowling is famously private, especially about her financial and business affairs. She denied being a billionaire after Forbes first anointed her, telling the television interviewer Katie Couric in 2005 that “I’ve got plenty of money, more money than I ever dreamed I would have. But I am not a billionaire. ” She has remained publicly silent on the subject since. So I set out this week to assess the size and scope of her fortune, not to invade her privacy but because she’s that commodity in the ranks of the ultrawealthy — a role model. Not only has she made her fortune largely through her own wits and imagination, but she also pays taxes and gives generously to charity. At a time of bitter disputes over rising income inequality, no one seems to resent Ms. Rowling’s runaway success. “It’s an impressive story,” said Steven N. Kaplan, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and an author of “It’s the Market: the Rise in the Return to Top Talent,” a study of wealth generation in the digital age. “She struggled as a single mother,” he said. “Then, she created this amazing franchise. She had tremendous talent, and she’s reaping the rewards. People don’t mind that. What they resent is when chief executives get paid for failure. ” Ms. Rowling has also been backed by some negotiating and marketing muscle — Scholastic, which published the Potter books Warner Bros. the studio behind the Potter films and now the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise and NBCUniversal, which opened the Wizarding World attractions at its theme parks. Neil Blair, a former Warner Bros. executive, has represented her and fiercely protected her interests since he founded the Blair Partnership, a literary agency, in 2011, with Ms. Rowling as his most prominent client. Mr. Blair did not respond to requests for comment. Along with other famous authors, entertainers and sports stars, Ms. Rowling has also benefited from globalization and technology advances, the same forces that have squeezed the working class. “Thirty and 40 years ago, entertainers and sports figures didn’t have that kind of money,” Professor Kaplan said. (He noted that Bob Hope was the only entertainer on the original Forbes 400, and he made most of his money in real estate.) “Thanks to globalization, the internet and social media, they can reach a much bigger market today,” he said. A close look at Ms. Rowling’s sources of income suggests that she’s worth more than $1 billion, even allowing for a large margin of error. I came up with the estimates by interviewing a range of publishing and entertainment executives and agents. Some of them have negotiated with Ms. Rowling’s representatives and knew what terms they were seeking. No one was willing to be identified because pretty much everyone hopes to do business with Ms. Rowling. “She’s a sacred cow,” one executive said. To start with the obvious, there’s the source of her wealth: The seven Harry Potter books have sold an estimated 450 million copies, with estimated total revenue of $7. 7 billion. At a standard 15 percent author’s royalty, she would have earned $1. 15 billion. These books continue to sell strongly years after they were first published. Ms. Rowling has presumably been able to negotiate better deals for her subsequent books, which include adult mysteries under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, published by a Little Brown imprint, as well as numerous Potter spinoffs. These works probably contributed at least another $50 million. Ms. Rowling’s deal with Warner Bros. is a closely guarded secret, but it has been reported that she sold the film rights to the first four Potter films for just $2 million. Nearly all such deals, though, also include a percentage of the net profits, which were substantial. The first four films grossed close to $3. 5 billion and generated an estimated $2. 5 billion in profit. If she managed to achieve a 10 percent net profit participation, that’s $250 million. The next four Potter films were far more lucrative, generating well over $4 billion in revenue. By then, she was one of the rare talents who probably had negotiated a deal providing her a percentage of a film’s gross revenue. At 10 percent, that’s another $400 million. She almost certainly, according to the people I spoke with, managed a similar deal for the “Fantastic Beasts” series. Even if the first film generates just $500 million in revenue, less than half the Potter films, that adds another $50 million to her fortune, bringing the film total to $700 million. Warner negotiated Ms. Rowling’s theme park deals on her behalf. That deal with NBCUniversal is also secret, but she is one of the unusual examples of someone who is also a “consultant” and gets a percentage of the gate. (Steven Spielberg, the only other known example, gets 2 percent of ticket sales at Universal Studios.) She also received a licensing fee estimated at $60 million to $80 million and annual development fees. Like Mr. Spielberg, Ms. Rowling also gets a percentage of gross sales of merchandise, food and beverages. NBCUniversal does not break out revenue from the Wizarding World attractions, but attendance has more than doubled since the first Harry Potter attraction opened in 2010. Last year, NBCUniversal’s parent, Comcast, said overall theme park revenue jumped more than 60 percent to $1. 4 billion. If half of that comes from Wizarding World, and Ms. Rowling gets 2 percent, then her take last year would have been $14 million. Since 2010, when the first attraction opened, I’d estimate she has earned at least $30 million on ticket sales, which would bring her total theme park earnings to roughly $100 million. NBCUniversal also bought exclusive television rights to the eight Harry Potter films this summer in a deal valued at as much as $250 million. Ms. Rowling presumably received a large piece of that, at least $125 million. That replaced a deal with Disney estimated to have been worth $50 million or more to her. That brings her total estimated earnings from books, movies, theme parks and television to more than $2. 2 billion. Assuming that she paid Britain’s top individual tax rate of 45 percent, she would have been left with $1. 2 billion. Ms. Rowling also has other income. She did not write the play “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” but no doubt earned a licensing fee and is a profit participant. hit shows can generate enormous income — the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has an estimated net worth of $1. 2 billion. She earns licensing fees on all merchandise. She owns the rights to her books, sold on her proprietary website, Pottermore. Pottermore loses money, but it said this week that it expected to earn a profit in 2017. And, of course, Ms. Rowling has substantial investment income and unrealized capital gains given the long stock market rally. An average 8 percent return on invested assets of $1 billion would generate $80 million a year, and it compounds. Ms. Rowling has given generously to charity — Forbes estimated a total of $160 million by the time it dropped her from its list in 2012 — but there’s no indication that the contributions have even offset her investment income, let alone seriously dented her net worth. Whatever the precise size of her fortune, Ms. Rowling is enormously wealthy. In this postelection holiday season, maybe her success is something everyone can feel warm about. “It’s not going to happen to everyone, but it’s an inspiration that if you work hard and have talent, really good things can happen,” Professor Kaplan said. “It’s kind of like her books: Good triumphs over evil. ” | 1 |
Collective Gridwork Fluctuations 10/23/2016
We are going through many fluctuations in the gridwork this month and these are challenging many as they are “moved” from one gridwork to the next… connected, disconnected, connected, disconnected… there are huge periods of template wipes where we go offline, disconnect and then come back up online… This is the strongest I’ve experienced this since June 2015. Huge disconnects, which need to occur so we can shift to a whole new collective timeline.
If you are feeling this, then it’s continual re-calibrations in the gridwork, which you hold/link up to with your Crystalline LightBody Structure.
A lot of people’s feelings are all over the place, whether subtly or loudly…. The more we exist as a soul, the more subtle this is. The more human, the more external/loud this is. There have been such huge energetic releases lately by collectives….
This month has been about re-calibrating our systems, massive physical upgrades for many as how we function is completely re-worked even more than before.
To cleanse collective wounds for more love to emerge from within all, many must experience what they don’t want before they understand what’s important and the kundalini fire must be ignited to awaken the spirit/soul inside. This mass root chakra awakening that was triggered collectively in January 2016 has lit the fire, fueling the souls need to emerge from within. As collectives exit the old 3D matrix simulation and awaken from the slumber, all the suppression and victimhood must be cleared as each takes their power back from within. As chaos ensues for many to release, the more released, the more the gridwork is affected by the masses coming online, going back offline, coming back online… These fluctuations are affecting all of us, in our own ways.
To understand, one must be totally connected inside and in-tune with their own energetic gridwork to be aware of what is what. While the more crystalline light we are, the less we are subjected to unconscious collectives, we are affected when our NEW Earth Gridwork is being re-calibrated with such intensity now.
So, for those who feel disconnected, this is a part of the process as we clear old timelines and move/jump into new ones. We have to disconnect from anything that’s no longer in alignment/supporting our new existence here. The programs for this were held in the physical body/cellular structures and these continue immense re-sequencing and re-coding, because of these mega-frequency upgrades that we are experiencing every day now.
As multi-dimension light beings, you can experience multiple emotions simultaneously, while not being bound by any of them. You can observe what your re-calibrations are and honor this, while not being affected by the transitional phases as much as before. Your mind is no longer dictated by the emotion you feel. You can be a peace and always feel the magic while something else cleanses/clears. You don’t shift out of alignment while your body/mind/emotions do their thing. It’s a process that you honor and understand through your presence and connection inside. You can feel disconnected yet not be totally disconnected…. for you know the adjustments are important to move you into your next phase of a more awesome reality……
The reason I write this is because if there is any human’ness left, the human aspect will go to judgement and this creates suffering inside. Let go of the judgment and be okay, accept whatever you are feeling or not feeling inside and choose how you desire to experience the phase you are going through as these huge shifts occur. Kindness and compassion towards yourself, will allow you to feel these for others too. Remember, you are evolving beyond human comprehension and you don’t always need to understand everything first…. it takes awhile….be patient and listen to your body, honor you and how you need to feel as you shift. Pull away if you need to, connect with others if you need to….
These are unprecedented vibrations we are in now. These are new territory for all. We don’t know until we experience, and those predicting can only predict according the the vibrations that they have access to thus far. No one can tell you what timeline you are going to be in, for every moment is a different vibration now. Vibrations create realities, so the moment you shift vibrationally, then your timeline changes. As you master what you are doing/creating/transmitting vibrationally, then you get to participate in which timelines you desire to activate to experience here. Some timelines are always a surprise, because there are always a gazillion that were a higher vibration than you had access to before. The faster we integrate, the faster we experience the highest one’s possible thus far.
Now, we have connected back up and the Unified Field is stronger and at a much higher frequency than before. Collectively the gridwork is back online. We have super high frequencies continually now. Much is going on for everyone moving further into being responsible for the realities that they create. The backlash of unconsciousness is going to continue to be more visible as the physical reality becomes louder for those hearts and minds not open yet. The beauty and magnificence for intentionally transmitted conscious realities become more profoundly magical by the moment. The polarity continues out there, but it does not have to inside. The more in-tune and aligned one is, the softer and easier physical realities are. These higher vibrational realities are very soft, the exchanges are beyond beautiful when all is aligned. You will know when it is not, as you won’t be happy, inspired and in-joy the experience. Just the recognition gives you the ability to choose where you are going to focus your energy and attention for what you experience here.
Get ready loves….. powerful energies is an understatement. For many of us, we are going through physical realignments more than normal, as our crystal bodies are embedded with deep sacred soul codes now. It’s not an emotional or mental experience anymore. It’s just physical re-calibrations and our physical bodies process energies much differently than before. We’ve moved beyond the heart and the head. Now the spine is the primary processing center, which is why so many are experiencing the nervous system overhauls. I’ll share more on this as we go. Bizarre is an understatement for our “new bodies”…. They require great care now.
See you guys tomorrow. Sleep well and happy traveling! p.s. We entered Galactic Frequencies a bit ago as well. Not that these all aren’t, but we’ve achieved the overall frequency field-wise to be fully galactic right now. In-JOY these exquisite HOME frequencies loves! ♥ | 0 |
HANGZHOU, China — The image of a Syrian boy, dazed and bloodied after being rescued from an airstrike on Aleppo, reverberated around the world last month, a harrowing reminder that five years after civil war broke out there, Syria remains a charnel house. But the reaction was more muted in Washington, where Syria has become a distant disaster rather than an urgent crisis. President Obama’s policy toward Syria has barely budged in the last year and shows no sign of change for the remainder of his term. The White House has faced little pressure over the issue, in part because Syria is getting scant attention on the campaign trail from either Donald J. Trump or Hillary Clinton. That frustrates many analysts because they believe that a shift in policy will come only when Mr. Obama has left office. “Given the tone of this campaign, I doubt the electorate will be presented with realistic and intelligible options, with respect to Syria,” said Frederic C. Hof, a former adviser on Syria in the administration. The lack of substantive political debate about Syria is all the more striking given that the Obama administration is engaged in an increasingly desperate effort to broker a deal with Russia for a that would halt the rain of bombs on Aleppo. Those negotiations moved on Sunday to China, where Secretary of State John Kerry met for two hours with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, at a Group of 20 meeting. At one point, the State Department was confident enough to schedule a news conference, at which the two were supposed to announce a deal. But Mr. Kerry turned up alone, acknowledging that “a couple of tough issues” were still dividing them. “We’re not going to rush,” he said, “and we’re not going to do something that we think has less than a legitimate opportunity to get the job done. ” Mr. Kerry said he would stay in China another day to keep trying. But his boss, Mr. Obama, voiced skepticism. “If we do not get some from the Russians on reducing the violence and easing the humanitarian crisis, then it’s difficult to see how we get to the next phase,” the president said after a meeting with the British prime minister, Theresa May, in Hangzhou. Whatever progress Mr. Kerry has made, officials said, could easily be unraveled by external events, whether a new offensive by Turkey or the Nusra Front — which until recently had publicly aligned itself with Al Qaeda — or intensified bombing raids by the government of President Bashar . And it is clearer than ever that if Mr. Kerry’s latest attempt at diplomacy falls short, there is no Plan B. Mr. Obama, officials said, has become increasingly skeptical about one of the major fallback options advanced by officials in the administration: expanding military aid to rebels vetted by the United States to put more pressure on Mr. Assad to compromise. With Nusra fighters playing a more dominant role in the rebellion, they said, the president has deepened his resistance to providing the rebels with more powerful weapons. In October, Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, proposed enforcing a partial zone over Syria to create safe zones for civilians in places like Aleppo. She has said little about the plan in recent months, and people familiar with her thinking say she now acknowledges that the complexity of the battlefield — with Russian planes flying raids — would make it far more difficult. Mrs. Clinton, these people said, would be open to other measures to ground Mr. Assad’s Air Force. They did not offer details, but officials in the Obama administration, including 51 State Department employees who signed a “dissent channel” memo on Syria, have pressed privately for the United States to carry out airstrikes to hit Mr. Assad’s planes on the ground and their runways. In another election season, these are the kinds of questions that would be hotly debated. But the foreign policy debate has instead revolved mainly around the fitness of the Republican nominee, Mr. Trump, to be commander in chief. Mrs. Clinton, analysts said, has other reasons for not being drawn out on Syria. “A clear imperative for the Clinton campaign is to stay as close as possible to President Obama,” Mr. Hof said. “That means neither looking for, nor emphasizing, areas of disagreement, such as Syria. ” And yet, Mrs. Clinton’s aides say, Syria remains a priority for her. At a private in the Hamptons last week, Mrs. Clinton delivered, unprompted, a lengthy policy prescription for what to do in Syria, including a gentle critique of the Obama administration for not pursuing her original proposal of a zone, according to a person who attended and described her remarks on the condition of anonymity. The views of Mrs. Clinton — and Mr. Trump, for that matter — are critical. As Andrew J. Tabler, an expert on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, noted, “Everyone in the region is just waiting for the next U. S. administration. ” In the meantime, Mr. Kerry is persevering with his diplomacy, while the situation in Syria is growing ever murkier. A particular point of contention is the central role that the Nusra Front has played during the pitched battles against the Syrian military. The Nusra fighters are commingled with rebels supplied by the C. I. A. and other Arab nations. The Russians have used the presence of Nusra fighters to justify airstrikes around Aleppo, saying the city is an important front in its campaign against terrorism. The fact that the Nusra Front was not a party to past agreements, allowing the group to continue its attacks on Syrian government troops during the fragile pauses in violence, has given added fuel to the Russian argument. The “marbling” of the various rebel groups with more extremist groups has been a sticking point in the negotiations. American officials insist that they give no support to Nusra fighters despite the group’s name change and split with Al Qaeda. “Nusra is Al Qaeda,” Mr. Kerry said. No name change, he said, “hides what it really is. ” The Russians have been pressing their advantage in recent months, bolstering Mr. Assad’s military as it claims more territory from the C. I. A. rebels and the Nusra Front and gaining leverage as the diplomacy proceeds at a glacial pace. Still, both the United States and Russia have shown an inclination to dial back the temperature of a proxy war that, for the first time since Afghanistan in the 1980s, has seen fighters backed by the C. I. A. in a direct confrontation with the Russian military. “The fight in eastern Syria is heating up, and our forces are right in the middle, in this instance some actually on the ground,” said Robert S. Ford, a former American ambassador to Syria. Military analysts say Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, would recognize the folly in waging an war in Syria, and in having to prop up Mr. Assad indefinitely. Russia’s military successes in Syria since the campaign began last year, they said, could be solidified by a political settlement, and Moscow could gradually extricate itself from direct military involvement. Some outside analysts see Mr. Kerry’s determination to broker a as driven by their assessment that the Russian offensive has reversed the fortunes of Mr. Assad’s military, sending the rebels into retreat and owning a shrinking patch of territory in northern Syria. The back and forth of the conflict continues, with insurgents making major gains against the government in central Hama Province over the weekend. Any “cleareyed” interpretation of Mr. Kerry’s actions, said Michael Kofman, an expert on Russia at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, would read this as a public admission that the United States is bowing out of continuing the proxy war against the Syrian Army, seeing a negotiated agreement as “the best means of saving what little is left of the moderate opposition. ” If he fails, though, Mr. Obama will be left with little more than the news release his national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, issued last week, in which the White House took credit for achieving its goal of taking in 10, 000 refugees from Syria, more than a month ahead of schedule — but only a small fraction of the five million Syrians who have fled their country. | 1 |
Citizen journalism with a punch How Siberia Became Part of Russia
The conquest of Siberia by Russia took place in a relatively short period of time. How did it happen? Originally appeared at RBTH
Siberia became a part of Russia with incredible speed. In 1585, the first Russian expedition attempting to cross the Eurasian continent perished beyond the Urals; only 54 years later, however, Russians reached the Pacific Ocean.
The history of Russians in Siberia
Russia's contact with Siberia's indigenous populations began long before the ill-fated military expedition to the Urals. The 14th-century Laurentian Codex, which is the oldest record of the history of Northern Russia, mentions Gurat Rogovich from Novgorod who went on an expedition to the "Ugra lands” in the 11th century. According to Russian historian Sergei Solovyov, the "great mountains and copper gaits" mentioned in the Codex are the Urals. In a subsequent period, the Ushkuiniks — pirate warriors from Novgorod who traveled along the rivers in flat-bottomed boats — would often raid those territories.
In 1483, Muscovite warriors went on a military campaign to the Urals, and in 1555, the Khanate of Sibir, an ethnically diverse Muslim state made up of indigenous Siberian tribes, became a vassal of the Russian tsar. However, in 1563, a new leader, Kuchum, became khan and reasserted the independence of the Khanate. ostrog.jpg The first full-fledged Russian colonization expedition to Siberia was Cossack Yermak's campaign against Kuchum in 1581. By that time, the khan had begun raiding bordering Russian lands. Yermak, who began his expedition with 540 Cossacks, gathered more tro
The first full-fledged Russian colonization expedition to Siberia was Cossack Yermak's campaign against Kuchum in 1581. By that time, the khan had begun raiding bordering Russian lands. Yermak, who began his expedition with 540 Cossacks, gathered more troops as he moved further into Siberia, fighting local tribes and the khan’s forces along the way. In 1585, Kuchum’s men led a raid on Yermak’s camp and killed the Cossack leader and most of his soldiers. But it was too late to stop the colonization of Siberia.
New Russian expeditions built forts in Siberia, which later evolved into large cities. In 1586, the city of Tyumen (current population 720,000) was founded; in 1604 — Tomsk (population: 570,000) and in 1628 — Krasnoyarsk, home to more than one million people today.
Not a colony
Unlike the British territories in North America, Siberia was not a colony. Russia did not divide its territories along such lines. The region just became a part of the expanding Russian Empire. The local elites were integrated into the Russian administrative systems. For example, Kuchum's son eventually signed a peace agreement, and his grandson became head of the Qasim Khanate, a Tatar vassal state of Russia.
Experts believe that before the arrival of the Russians, 240,000-300,000 indigenous people lived in Siberia on a territory of 5 million square miles. The Siberian tribes fought fiercely against one another, and many of them accepted Russian rule as a way to avoid further bloodshed. However, the further east the Cossack explorers went, the more resistance they faced from those groups who wanted to preserve their independence.
The Russian government used forts and garrisons to spread its power, but indigenous tribes attacked and burn the forts, which led to retaliatory strikes by the Cossacks. Folklorist Georgy Ergis says that in the legends of the Yakut people, Russians are described as "people of battles and massacres."
The last holdouts
The Chukchi were one of the most defiant indigenous people of Siberia. They fiercely fought the Cossacks and often even defeated them on occasion. The scale of the battles between the Chukchi and the Cossacks were not great — in one serious defeat on the Orlova River, the Russian forces lost 51 men — but eventually the imperial government had enough. In 1742, the tsar issued a decree: "Attack the restless Chukchi with an armed hand; eradicate them completely." surikov_1300.jpg Yermak's conquest of Siberia. Vasily Surikov. / Source: Wikipedia.org
Like native groups in other parts of the world, the indigenous people of Siberia were vulnerable to diseases brought by Russian explorers. "The new illnesses weakened and demoralized the indigenous population," historian John Richards wrote. "They destroyed 80 percent of the Tungusic people and 44 percent of the Yukaghir people."
Nevertheless, the aim of Russia's expansion was not genocide or the enslavement of the Siberian peoples but to impose a tribute on them and include the new lands in the Russian Empire. Usually, Russians would resort to weapons only if their diplomatic efforts failed. Today approximately 10 percent of the population of Siberia is made up of native peoples. In the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia, for example, there are more ethnic Yakuts than Russians. | 0 |
At least four automakers knew for years that Takata’s airbags were dangerous and could rupture violently but continued to use those airbags in their vehicles to save on costs, lawyers representing victims of the defect asserted in a court document filed on Monday. The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Takata’s airbags has so far painted automakers as unwitting victims duped by a rogue supplier that manipulated safety data to hide a deadly defect, linked to at least 11 deaths and over 100 injuries in the United States. But the fresh allegations against Ford, Honda, Nissan and Toyota, made as part of a lawsuit in Florida and based on company documents, point to a far deeper involvement by automakers that used Takata’s defective airbags for years. Honda vehemently denied the new allegations on Monday. The three other automakers either declined to comment or said a response would come through legal channels. Last summer, The New York Times reported indications that automakers, rather than being the victims of Takata’s missteps, had pressed their suppliers to put cost before all else. That report focused on General Motors, which is not named in the Florida case, though plaintiff lawyers said they were preparing to take action against the company. The defect has prompted the nation’s largest automotive recall ever, affecting nearly 70 million airbags in 42 million vehicles. The plaintiffs’ filing came hours before Takata pleaded guilty, under a deal announced last month, to charges of wire fraud for providing the false data, a rare outcome for businesses accused of wrongdoing. Federal prosecutors also said last month that they had charged three Takata executives with fabricating test data and fined the Tokyo company $1 billion. “I deeply regret the circumstances that resulted in the agreement today,” Yoichiro Nomura, Takata’s chief executive, said at the federal court hearing in Detroit. The company’s actions were “completely unacceptable,” he said. “Takata is fully committed to ensuring such conduct never happens again,” he added. The allegations in the Florida case came in response to a court document filed by the automakers last week that pointed to Takata’s plea deal to argue that the supplier alone was culpable. But the plaintiffs, who could gain from suing the automakers alongside Takata, argue that the automakers were more deeply involved in the handling of the defect. The fines and costs associated with the scandal have also taken a heavy financial toll on Takata, and it has been searching for a financial lifeline — possibly in the form of a white knight that would effectively take it over. One of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Kevin R. Dean, filed an objection to Takata’s plea deal on Monday in Detroit, arguing that the automakers were accomplices in the . He urged the judge to reject the agreement and for the Justice Department to further investigate the automakers’ role. The plaintiffs have taken particular issue with the amount set aside for victims in Takata’s plea — a total of $125 million. In contrast, the automakers will have recourse to draw on an $850 million fund to offset continuing recall costs. Judge George Caram Steeh dismissed Mr. Dean’s objections, saying that Takata’s plea deal was in the best interest of the victims. He said any further action against the automakers should be pursued in civil court, and approved the plea deal as is. Randi Johnston, 26, of Farmington, Utah — who was injured in September 2015 when the airbag in her 2003 Honda Civic ruptured and metal shards struck her throat — attended the hearing and said afterward that she was shocked by the judge’s decision. The shards severed most of her vocal cords, leaving her able to speak only in a whisper. “I really don’t have any words right now,” said Ms. Johnston, a plaintiff in the Florida case. The filing by the plaintiffs says emails and internal documents turned over by Honda show that in 1999 and 2000, the automaker was intimately involved in developing a problematic propellant, or explosive, used in Takata’s airbags. The propellant is housed in a steel container called the inflater, which in the Takata case can rupture, shooting metal fragments toward the car’s driver or passengers. That propellant, based on a volatile compound, raised concerns internally at Takata at the time, and long plagued the company’s engineers. During testing of Takata’s inflaters in 1999 and 2000 at Honda’s own facilities, at least two inflaters ruptured, according to the filing. Still, Honda pushed a particularly problematic configuration of the propellant over Takata’s objections, the filing said. Honda chose Takata’s airbags because of their relative “inexpensiveness,” the filing quoted Honda documents as saying. The first recalls of Takata’s airbags did not take place until almost a decade later, when Honda recalled 4, 000 vehicles in 2008. The Times has reported that Honda and Takata became aware in 2004 of an airbag explosion in a Honda Accord in Alabama that shot out metal fragments and injured the car’s driver. But the two companies deemed it “an anomaly” and did not issue a recall or seek the involvement of federal safety regulators. On Monday, Honda strongly y denied the allegations in the plaintiffs’ filing. When it installed Takata’s airbags, it said in a statement, “Honda reasonably believed, based on extensive test results provided by Takata, that they were safe. ” Honda said it believed it reacted “promptly and appropriately” in handling known airbag defects. It also said Takata’s airbags had not necessarily been cheaper than those of its competitors. “Sometimes they were more expensive, sometimes less,” the carmaker said. The filing also cites internal documents from Ford, Nissan and Toyota indicating that cost considerations influenced the automakers’ decision to adopt Takata’s airbags in the early 2000s, despite safety concerns. Toyota used Takata’s airbags “primarily” for cost reasons, even though the automaker had “large quality concerns” about Takata and considered the supplier’s quality performance “unacceptable,” the filing said. In 2003, a Takata inflater ruptured at a Toyota facility during testing, the court filing said. In 2005, Nissan began investigating the use of adding a drying agent to Takata’s airbag inflaters out of concern that exposure to moisture made the propellant particularly unstable, the filing says. Takata engineers had long known that its explosive was sensitive to moisture and adopted it despite internal concerns over its safety. Although patents show that its engineers have long struggled to tame the propellant, the company still maintains that the explosive can be stabilized to withstand moist conditions. Ford chose Takata’s inflaters over the objections of the automaker’s own inflater expert, who opposed the use of Takata’s propellant because of its instability and sensitivity to moisture, the filing said. Ford overrode those objections because it thought Takata was the only supplier that could provide the large number of inflaters Ford needed, the filing says. The filing says that Ford, Honda, Nissan and Toyota were also aware of instances of ruptures years before any recalls. It also mentions the German carmaker BMW and points to circumstantial evidence that BMW was similarly involved in what federal prosecutors, in their criminal complaint and in announcing the Takata agreement, have called a . But BMW has so far refused to submit documents in the case, the filing says. Representatives of Nissan and BMW said the companies could not comment on active cases. A Toyota representative also declined to comment. A Ford spokeswoman said the automaker would respond through appropriate legal channels. | 1 |
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Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) was the ranking minority member on the House Benghazi committee, so he knows firsthand how Republican witch-hunts work from up close personal experience.
On CNN’s New Day this morning, he revealed the real motivation behind the FBI Director’s stunningly improper memo to Congress last week.
“I don’t think the American people have a clue how hard the Republicans – particularly on my committee – have been on the FBI. This is a man – Director Comey – who they loved. They said he was the greatest thing in the world, very honorable.”
“When he came out with the decision in July to not prosecute Mrs. Clinton, they suddenly turned against him. He knows that if he makes any misstep, the Republicans are going to be all over him and they’re going to try and bring harm to him. The thing that he did say in our hearing, and it stuck with me, is that ‘there should not be a double standard to the disadvantage of Mrs. Clinton.'”
That’s right, it is heavily implied that the FBI Director was so intimidated by Congressional Republicans and their innuendo machines that he caved in and fed them the kind of vaguely worded red meat memo the Trump campaign desperately needed to keep their failing campaign on life support.
Even Comey himself admitted that his memo was going to be widely misinterpreted , which is probably why CNN’s host began her interview with Congressman Cummings by saying, “Trump is lying about the email probe.”
It hasn’t taken long for the roof to cave in on Comey’s career anyway, as his obvious meddling in the election has drawn bipartisan complaints about illegal electioneering by the FBI Director, his former boss to condemn his actions and for the Senate minority leader Harry Reid to demand answers from the FBI about the Republican candidate’s love affair with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Reid’s point was not lost on the Congressman from Maryland who told CNN:
“There has been a lot of information out there about Mr. Trump, Mr. Manafort and the Russian government and alleged attempts to take over our election. Members of Congress have asked for months, for the FBI to provide us with information if Mr. Trump, Mr. Manafort and any elements of the Russian government have any coordination or connection with each other.”
“They have not given us one syllable. So the question here is: Do we have a double standard here?”
Of course there’s a double standard!
The FBI has a responsibility to keep certain things secret, and when it comes to partisan elections that responsibility is key to the ability of our electoral democracy’s basic functioning. Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald pointed out cogently that Republican George W. Bush was investigated by the FBI in 1996, prior to running for President. Yet, the Clinton White House didn’t grab his FBI file and air all of the dirty laundry claiming a very partisan need for transparency during an election. Otherwise, the FBI could decide to influence every election in America, and over time the FBI would pick the elected officials to their liking.
Nothing can un-ring the bell that FBI Director Comey struck by letting loose his vague memo, but everyone can understand there is a sexist, partisan and blatant double standard at play by Republicans celebrating a vague memo, which only happened because an official sworn to be non-partisan decided he valued his political career more than the integrity of our electoral system
Watch it here: | 0 |
BNI Store Oct 27 2016 GERMANY: Gang of Syrian Muslim boys banned from swimming pool after sexually molesting girls as young as nine How about banning ALL Muslims? Police have launched an investigation after a gang of young Syrian asylum-seekers sexually harassed three schoolgirls at their local swimming pool. The girls – sisters aged 9, 11 and 14 – were surrounded and molested by seven Muslims, the youngest of whom was just seven. UK Express (h/t Terry D) The father of the schoolgirls said he had dropped them off at the swimming pool as a treat for the older girl’s 14th birthday. He said as soon as they started swimming they were harassed by the Muslim boys who surrounded them in the pool. The man said: “Five of the boys touched the girls’ breasts and bottoms.” He said his 11 year-old daughter managed to get away from the youths and ran to the pool supervisor to ask for help. Guess these girls didn’t have the “Don’t rape me” tattoos Germany has been giving out A police spokeswoman said the suspects were being investigated for sexual offences. She said one of the boys was 14-years-old and the rest were children between the seven and eleven. The spokeswoman said: “The suspects are said to have swam after the girls and to then have grabbed them.” The boys were all interviewed by police before being handed over to their parents after the incident in the Mariendorf district of Berlin. A spokeswoman for the swimming pool said the boys had all been banned for one year. (That’s all?) According to local reports, many girls have been victims of sexual assault by Muslim boys at the same swimming pool in Mariendorf. | 0 |
82 Views November 22, 2016 GOLD , KWN , KWN II King World News
With continued uncertainty in global markets, are we seeing a turn in the tide? Plus a remarkable look at the Kennedy and Lincoln assassinations.
A portion of today’s note from Art Cashin: On this day in 1963, the President of the United States, John Kennedy, was fatally shot while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. His assassin (as you may have heard), was Lee Harvey Oswald, who fired from the Texas Schoolbook Depository. But…of course…you know all that! The event has been the subject of several movies, at least three national investigations, countless TV specials, a few hundred books, a million magazine articles and several theories.
Having been exposed to all this, you are no doubt aware of all the trivia and oddities. There’s the Kennedy/Lincoln oddity. Jack Kennedy’s personal secretary was named Lincoln…just as Abe Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy. Both secretaries had pleaded with their bosses not to go to the place where they were shot. Both Presidents were succeeded by guys named Johnson. Both Johnson’s were Southerners and former Senators. Both Johnson’s were born 100 years apart. Kennedy and Lincoln were elected 100 years apart. John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald were born 100 years apart. Both Kennedy and Lincoln were assassinated on a Friday while sitting next to their wives. Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and tried to hide in a warehouse. Oswald was in a warehouse when he shot Kennedy, he then tried to hide in a theater. But…you recall all that.
And, if you recall all that, you probably recall that it had been raining in Dallas earlier that morning. That, fearing a bad hair day, Jackie Kennedy suggested putting the bubble top on the limo. Then, when the sun came out, the Secret Service decided to skip the bubble top.
So, then you also recall the reports that Oswald was considering dropping his plans the night before, but a buzz-off from the wife sent him back to his plot. Which means you certainly recall that the initial reports indicated that both the President and Vice President had been killed. And when they brought that report to Speaker John McCormack (still lunching in the House Dining Room), he froze at the thought that, at age 71, he was suddenly the President of the U.S. He froze so literally that he was unable even to stand up and only recovered when he was told LBJ was still alive.
On the floor of the NYSE selling had begun before any headlines hit the tape. Months later I learned that was thanks to a savvy branch manager in Dallas.
Since Presidents didn’t travel widely in 1963, he thought he would give much of the staff a treat by letting them go out and watch the Presidential parade. He kept a skeleton crew and sent the others out to watch the parade, which was due to pass about a block away.
Rather shortly the gang wandered back in looking somewhat glum and disappointed. “What happened”?, asked the manager. “Parade got canceled” mumbled one of the returnees.
After questioning, he learned that they had heard the sirens accelerate, the police lights flare and the “parade” suddenly turned right. They were many blocks away and obviously heard no shots.
The savvy manager quickly asked – “Give me a bullish reason to pull a President out of a parade?”“It’s not to sign a tax bill – that could wait.” No one could think of a bullish reason to divert a parade. Then they mulled bearish reasons. No one thought assassination. But they did think natural disaster, nuclear accident, missile threat and scores of others. That’s when they decided something “bad” must have happened and began to sell.
As their sell orders poured onto the floor and prices began to melt, they were asked by brokers – “Why the selling?” The response was the incomplete – “something about the President.”
Sometime later, the first headline hit – “Shots reported fired at President’s motorcade!” The selling broadened an accelerated. Rather quickly the next headline – “President reported hit.”
Exchange leaders hastily gathered and discussed closing the Exchange. Then the headline “Motorcade diverted to Parkland Hospital.” They rang the bell at 2:07 (EST).
The Dow fell the equivalent of what would be 460 points today. When we reopened Tuesday, there was such a sigh of relief that power had been transferred and the Constitution still functioned, that a massive rally erupted, soaring the equivalent of 710 points. An unforgettable period.
Overnight And Overseas – In Asia, most markets were better. Tokyo shrugged off the earthquake and closed moderately higher as did Shanghai and India. Hong Kong was sharply higher led by the Macau gang. Manila was odd man out, falling sharply, led by real estate.
In Europe, the FTSE is red hot, led by mining stocks. On the continent, almost all markets are higher, but in somewhat lighter volume.
The metals are percolating, with several trading “up limit”. The U.S. dollar is softer against the euro, the pound and even the Australian dollar. Crude soared overnight but is now backing off the highs.
Consensus – Let’s watch crude, which reached a technical count target and has begun to ease back. A turn in the tide? Too early to tell.
They are somewhat overbought but 19,000 may be too tempting a target. Stick with the drill – stay wary, alert and very, very nimble. May you and all your hold dear have your most wonderful Thanksgiving ever!
Look At The Stunning Levels Of Extreme Action In Gold, Silver, U.S. Dollar And Stock Market | 0 |
No they will be barking to China for their crumbs. | 0 |
DB Feedbacker Claims He Was on B29s That Fire-Bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki By Daily Bell Staff - November 18, 2016
Well now!! i was a pilot of a B 29, on the raids of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. i am 96 years old. Yes we firebombed these cities as well as Tokyo. But there were A bombs dropped on the two cities in question. –ALPHAMEG feedback to DB article
We’ve written numerous articles referring to the Pentagon’s lies about its nuclear program – both today and over the past 65 years or so. Now someone (see excerpt above) steps forward in a feedback to claim that indeed the Pentagon, along with millions of pages of military history, has not been telling the truth about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The feedback comes in response to our article, “If Trump Wants to Fix the ‘Disaster’ of the Pentagon, He Should Clean Up Its Nuclear Lies,” here.
ALPHAMEG seems to be a longtime poster but we have no idea if he is 96 years old, or if he participated in a firebombing raid on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We have no idea if his feedback is a hoax, a joke or even a “mis-remembering.”
However, in response to his lengthy feedback, we wrote the following:
Do you realize the magnitude of the cover-up you are suggesting? Hiroshima and Nagasaki were fire-bombed? This negates 65 years of recorded history and changes the entire post-war narrative. Incredible! We have doubts about the severity of the radiation by the way.
Regardless of any nuclear detonations, the idea Hiroshima and Nagasaki were firebombed radically changes the military narrative of the war’s end. But we and others have regularly offered this alternative retelling.
Even a cursory investigation of America’s pre- and post-war nuclear program reveals a good many inconsistencies and outright lies. The Pentagon has manipulated its nuclear narrative from the very beginning, and so presumably have other countries who joined in later. You can see some of the articles we’ve written on elements of the Pentagon’s apparent nuclear fiction here, here and here .
We would invite ALPHAMEG to send us a feedback elaborating on his fire-bombing raids over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Additionally, we would invite anyone else who has knowledge of these raids, or apparently participated in them or was involved with the Pentagon’s nuclear program in the early days, to write to us as well.
The early days of the Pentagon’s nuclear program, especially, have surely not been properly related. Instead, we have been subject to reams of propaganda and obfuscation. This is especially sad when we consider how many millions of school-children in the 20th century spent time practicing ducking beneath their desks so they would know how to take shelter in case of a nearby atomic explosion.
Of course the ramifications are far larger. The threat of nuclear warfare has profoundly shaped the psychology of billions of people and reshaped world history. If things are not as they seem, if the Pentagon and US government have substituted – at least in some cases – PR hype for truth-telling, we should do our best to find out more. It’s a most important effort.
Conclusion: Only once we know, can we can make informed decisions about our place in the world – and understand more clearly how our society generally operates, and what can be done to change it for the better. | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. President Donald Trump got into Twitter spats with the Iranian government, the University of California, Berkeley and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The issues ranged from missile tests to free speech to TV ratings. Speaking to a gathering of religious leaders in Washington, Mr. Trump brushed aside criticism and pledged to “destroy” a law restricting political speech by churches, a potentially huge victory for the religious right. Late Thursday, he unexpectedly shifted his stance on Israel, warning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off on settlement construction. _____ 2. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited South Korea, his first stop on an Asia trip meant to reassure U. S. allies. But his visit was overshadowed by news of Mr. Trump’s testy phone call with the leader of Australia over the weekend. He clashed with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over an agreement to take in 1, 250 refugees. European leaders are gathering in Malta to discuss a crisis that has unexpectedly overtaken the agenda: the newly unpredictable United States. _____ 3. The administration amended its immigration order to allow U. S. entry to the families of Iraqi interpreters who served the U. S. government and military forces. But tumult over the order continued. The C. E. O. of Uber is stepping down from the president’s economic advisory council, saying he did not want his participation to be mistaken for support. Somali refugees in Kenya suddenly robbed of hope say they fear reprisals from militants. And tens of thousands of people from the seven countries named in the executive order are effectively stuck in the U. S. because the State Department revoked their visas — without notifying them. _____ 4. It isn’t clear exactly what happened during the standoff at a prison in Smyrna, Del. But when authorities used a backhoe to storm it at dawn, they found a hostage corrections officer unresponsive. He was quickly pronounced dead. Sgt. Steven Floyd had worked for the Department of Correction for 16 years. Details of his death were not released, and officials said they were treating all 120 inmates as suspects. A woman who worked as a counselor was not only unharmed, she had been protected by the inmates. The inmates’ grievances included allegations of mistreatment and a lack of educational and rehabilitation programs. _____ 5. Several community groups in Michigan and Minnesota are rejecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal aid to fight violent extremism. The money comes from Homeland Security grants to counter recruitment by terrorist and white supremacist groups. But the community groups are reacting to reports that the Trump administration is considering reshaping the program to target only Muslims. _____ 6. The Super Bowl, scheduled for Sunday night in Houston, is infused with national politics like never before. During Fox’s pregame telecast, Bill O’Reilly will interview Mr. Trump, who is a friend of the Patriots’ owner, coach and star player. There may be protests outside the stadium, or at the halftime show. Lady Gaga remained coy about the plans for her halftime performance. Fox and the N. F. L. are trying to keep game commercials apolitical. A lumber company’s ad depicting a mother and daughter who encounter a wall during an arduous journey north was nixed. _____ 7. Snapchat’s parent company filed paperwork for its public stock offering. While the filing does not indicate a price for an initial public offering, Snap is expected to seek a market valuation of more than $20 billion from investors. The move puts the company’s chief executive, Evan Spiegel, in the spotlight. The chairman of Google is calling him the next Gates or Zuckerberg. _____ 8. “ . ” That’s our critic, describing “I Am Not Your Negro,” a new documentary about James Baldwin. “Whatever you think about the past and future of what used to be called ‘race relations’ — white supremacy and the resistance to it, in plainer English — this movie will make you think again, and may even change your mind. ” _____ 9. A happy ending: A woman gravely injured in the Boston Marathon bombing is about to marry the firefighter who rescued her. This week, they both walked up the 1, 576 steps of the Empire State Building, she with a prosthetic leg and he with his firefighting gear on, to benefit the Challenged Athlete Foundation. _____ 10. Finally, new research suggests a surprising function for sleep: to forget. Pruning synapses that grow exuberantly to store the day’s memories appears to be a biological necessity, protecting important moments but making space for new knowledge in the brain’s hard drive. “You can forget in a smart way,” one researcher said. Hope you get some rest. Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
Ads ISIS Chainsaw Massacre: Nine Christian Youths Literally Sawed In Half, Accused Of Being Part Of Resistance Faction Oct 27, 2016 Previous post
Just when you thought ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) could not possibly develop more heinous ways of executing captives and prisoners, news out of the besieged city of Mosul, Iraq, reveals that a group of youths have been put to death in what amounts to nothing short of a chainsaw massacre. According to a source, nine Mosul youths were killed, all accused of belonging to an anti-ISIS resistance faction.
Iraqi News reported August 31 that nine youths were convicted in an Islamic State sharia court of being members of a resistance faction in the city. They were summarily sentenced to a public execution. The nine were then tied to a pole Wednesday and cut in two with a chainsaw by ISIS militants.
A source, who wished to remain anonymous, told Iraqi News , “The death sentence pronounced by ISIS sharia court stated that the men should be tied to an iron pole in the center of Tal Afar Square in Mosul and then sliced into two with an electric chainsaw.”
The news outlet went on to note that ISIS has executed thousands of the city’s citizens since taking over Mosul in June 2014. Although allegations and charges have varied, most of those killed by the extremists were convicted of collaborating with enemy forces.
The ISIS chainsaw killings come just a week after Islamic State extremists, after convicting six individuals of collaborating with the enemy in sharia court, killed the group by lowering the then still living men into boiling vats of tar . According to Inquisitr , the killings were also a public execution in Mosul, the carrying out of the sentence said to have been done to instill fear in the citizenry.
It is doubtful that, given ISIS’ barbaric and often horrendous killing methods (not to mention the regularity with which killings are carried out), there was a need to instill fear in the local population. At best, the most that could have been accomplished was to reinforce the Islamic State’s willingness to kill any and all who oppose its authority.
As Iraqi defense forces, supported by U.S. air power, and Peshmerga troops, with assistance from various militias and paramilitary factions, tighten | 0 |
If Donald Trump were elected president and put in his stated policies, the United States would experience a lengthy recession, enormous job losses, much higher interest rates and diminished growth prospects. At least, that is the conclusion of economists from Moody’s Analytics, a recent analysis highlighted by Hillary Clinton in a speech Tuesday. The Trump campaign has noted, accurately, that the lead author of the study, Mark Zandi, has informally advised the Obama administration and donated to Democratic campaigns. So what should a properly skeptical person think of the new report? Is it an accurate projection of what will happen to the economy if Mr. Trump’s preferred policies become law, or partisan ? Given that a presidential campaign is a contest of competing forecasts, here’s how to think about the many predictions you’ll hear between now and November. A careful reading of the Moody’s report shows this: Its underlying assumptions about what Mr. Trump would do as president and how the effects of those policies would ripple through the economy are plausible, and squarely within the mainstream consensus view among economic forecasters about how the economy works. But the report also offers a big helping of false precision, giving exact numerical forecasts on effects that have vast amounts of uncertainty. It’s worth being skeptical about Moody’s projection that Trump’s policies would cause a 1. 5 percent contraction in gross domestic product in 2019. After all, forecasters aren’t even sure what G. D. P. growth will turn out to be in the second quarter of 2016, which ends in nine days. To forecast growth three years from now under an unknowable set of policies is more an intellectual exercise than anything exact. It’s not as useful to look at numerical projections that are almost certain to be wrong. Instead, let’s examine the analytical judgments underlying those numbers — and what they say about the direction of the economy in a Trump presidency: Tax cuts and larger deficits would stimulate at first, then cause a contraction. Mr. Trump has advocated major tax cuts, including reducing the highest income tax rate to 25 percent from 39. 6 percent and increasing the standard deduction for all filers. On spending, he has said he would maintain the military, Social Security and Medicare, and raise spending on veterans health care. These actions would stimulate the economy at first — the Moody’s projection has stronger growth in 2017 in a Trump administration than in a baseline case. But over time they would translate to higher deficits that would push interest rates much higher and crowd out other activity in the economy, given that they forecast the economy will be near its full potential when the next president takes office in January 2017. Moody’s predicts that Trump policies would push Treasury bond yields to 8. 6 percent in 2018, compared with 1. 6 percent today and 3 percent in their base case — leading to a contraction in business investment, housing and consumer spending. The money the government would need to borrow to fund a much larger deficit would squeeze out business investment, housing and consumer spending. Mass deportations would be a negative supply shock. The simple version of this is that if there are fewer workers in the United States because the Trump administration deports millions of undocumented immigrants or makes life unpleasant enough for them that they leave voluntarily, the nations’s economic output would fall. As immigrants leave, the Moody’s researchers write, employers will struggle to fill the vacated jobs. “Many of these positions will go unfilled, because, by the time the Trump administration is underway, the U. S. is expected to be at full employment, meaning there will be no slack labor out of which to hire workers. ” Some businesses that are heavily reliant on immigrant labor would close. To the degree the labor shortage drives up wages, it would be counteracted by Federal Reserve interest rate increases to try to slow the economy and combat inflation. Trade wars would raise prices and reduce exports. The researchers assume a Trump administration would slap a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports and a 35 percent one on Mexican imports, which in the Moody’s model raises overall consumer prices by 3 percent. Meanwhile, they figure that a retaliatory response from China and Mexico would result in new tariffs and lower American exports to those countries, reducing economic activity. And higher interest rates in the United States and a sense of global uncertainty around a potential trade war would drive up the dollar, making all United States exporters less competitive. These underlying assumptions, while built on a large body of economic research, involve some guesswork and are at least debatable. Conservatives have long argued that lower taxes on the wealthy will generate more investment and economic activity, which would offset some of the increased deficits evident in the Moody’s model. Immigration skeptics might argue that an exit of undocumented immigrants would drive up wages and would pull more workers into the labor force who are currently out of it. Perhaps Mr. Trump’s plans for tough negotiation with China and Mexico really would yield new, more favorable arrangements that don’t create import inflation or a trade war that reduces exports. But while the predictions of a recession and slower growth got all the attention in the new report, understanding why these particular economic forecasters see these effects is more useful. And there’s a lesson there in making sense of any forecast or analysis of a candidate’s policies: Focus less on the conclusion, and more on how the researcher got there. | 1 |
During a press conference on Wednesday, Donald Trump refused to take a question from CNN Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta and told him “You are fake news. ” After Trump criticized CNN for its recent report on Russia and him, Acosta asked if, since Trump was attacking them, CNN could ask a question. Trump stated, “Your organization is terrible. … Don’t be rude. No, I’m not going to give you a question. … You are fake news. ” Acosta replied that this wasn’t appropriate. Later in the press conference, Trump did take a question from CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond. Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
The reputation of Roundup, whose active ingredient is the world’s most widely used weed killer, took a hit on Tuesday when a federal court unsealed documents raising questions about its safety and the research practices of its manufacturer, the chemical giant Monsanto. Roundup and similar products are used around the world on everything from row crops to home gardens. It is Monsanto’s flagship product, and research has long found it to be relatively safe. A case in federal court in San Francisco has challenged that conclusion, building on the findings of an international panel that claimed Roundup’s main ingredient might cause cancer. The court documents included Monsanto’s internal emails and email traffic between the company and federal regulators. The records suggested that Monsanto had ghostwritten research that was later attributed to academics and indicated that a senior official at the Environmental Protection Agency had worked to quash a review of Roundup’s main ingredient, glyphosate, that was to have been conducted by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The documents also revealed that there was some disagreement within the E. P. A. over its own safety assessment. The files were unsealed by Judge Vince Chhabria, who is presiding over litigation brought by people who claim to have developed ’s lymphoma as a result of exposure to glyphosate. The litigation was touched off by a determination made nearly two years ago by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization, that glyphosate was a probable carcinogen, citing research linking it to ’s lymphoma. Court records show that Monsanto was tipped off to the determination by a deputy division director at the E. P. A. Jess Rowland, months beforehand. That led the company to prepare a public relations assault on the finding well in advance of its publication. Monsanto executives, in their internal email traffic, also said Mr. Rowland had promised to beat back an effort by the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct its own review. Dan Jenkins, a Monsanto executive, said in an email in 2015 that Mr. Rowland, referring to the other agency’s potential review, had told him, “If I can kill this, I should get a medal. ” The review never took place. In another email, Mr. Jenkins noted to a colleague that Mr. Rowland was planning to retire and said he “could be useful as we move forward with ongoing glyphosate defense. ” The safety of glyphosate is not settled science. A number of agencies, including the European Food Safety Agency and the E. P. A. have disagreed with the international cancer agency, playing down concerns of a cancer risk, and Monsanto has vigorously defended glyphosate. But the court records also reveal a level of debate within the E. P. A. The agency’s Office of Research and Development raised some concern about the robustness of an assessment carried out by the agency’s Office of Pesticide Programs, where Mr. Rowland was a senior official at the time, and recommended in December 2015 that it take steps to “strengthen” its “human health assessment. ” In a statement, Monsanto said, “Glyphosate is not a carcinogen. ” It added: “The allegation that glyphosate can cause cancer in humans is inconsistent with decades of comprehensive safety reviews by the leading regulatory authorities around the world. The plaintiffs have submitted isolated documents that are taken out of context. ” The E. P. A. had no immediate comment, and Mr. Rowland could not be reached immediately. Monsanto also rebutted suggestions that the disclosures highlighted concerns that the academic research it underwrites is compromised. Monsanto frequently cites such research to back up its safety claims on Roundup and pesticides. In one email unsealed Tuesday, William F. Heydens, a Monsanto executive, told other company officials that they could ghostwrite research on glyphosate by hiring academics to put their names on papers that were actually written by Monsanto. “We would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing and they would just edit sign their names so to speak,” Mr. Heydens wrote, citing a previous instance in which he said the company had done this. Asked about the exchange, Monsanto said in a second statement that its “scientists did not ghostwrite the paper” that was referred to or previous work, adding that a paper that eventually appeared “underwent the journal’s rigorous peer review process before it was published. ” David Kirkland, one of the scientists mentioned in the email, said in an interview, “I would not publish a document that had been written by someone else. ” He added, “We had no interaction with Monsanto at all during the process of reviewing the data and writing the papers. ” The disclosures are the latest to raise concerns about the integrity of academic research financed by agrochemical companies. Last year, a review by The New York Times showed how the industry can manipulate academic research or misstate findings. Declarations of interest included in a paper on glyphosate that appeared in the journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology said panel members were recruited by a consulting firm. Email traffic made public shows that Monsanto officials discussed and debated scientists who should be considered, and shaped the project. “I think it’s important that people hold Monsanto accountable when they say one thing and it’s completely contradicted by very frank internal documents,” said Timothy Litzenburg of the Miller Firm, one of the law firms handling the litigation. The issue of glyphosate’s safety is not a trivial one for Americans. Over the last two decades, Monsanto has genetically corn, soybeans and cotton so it is much easier to spray them with the weed killer, and some 220 million pounds of glyphosate were used in 2015 in the United States. “People should know that there are superb scientists in the world who would disagree with Monsanto and some of the regulatory agencies’ evaluations, and even E. P. A. has disagreement within the agency,” said Robin Greenwald, a lawyer at Weitz Luxenberg, which is also involved in the litigation. “Even in the E. U. there’s been a lot of disagreement among the countries. It’s not so simple as Monsanto makes it out to be. ” | 1 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Ryan Lochte, above, the American swimmer and Olympic gold medalist, lied about being robbed at gunpoint in Rio de Janeiro over the weekend, investigators in Brazil said. Instead, it appears that he and three other members of the U. S. swim team had a confrontation with a security guard, who brandished a weapon, about damage to a bathroom door at a gas station and left after the police were called. _____ 2. At the Olympics in Rio: The U. S. women’s 4 x relay team, which dropped the baton earlier on Thursday, reran the event and won the chance to advance. Ashton Eaton of the U. S. won his second consecutive Olympic gold medal in the decathlon. And the track star Usain Bolt of Jamaica earned his third straight gold at 200 meters. There’s one world champion who isn’t competing at the Olympics: Giovanna Petrucci, a slackliner. The sport, which involves performing on a thin strap of nylon or polyester tied to trees, isn’t part of the Games. Find Ms. Petrucci at the beach instead. _____ 3. Zika appears to have reached Miami Beach. A handful of cases most likely transmitted by local mosquitoes has been identified in the popular tourist destination, said a health official who insisted on anonymity. Authorities are trying to decide whether to designate a section of the city as an active Zika transmission zone. The first local cases were discovered in July in a area of the Wynwood neighborhood, also in Miami. _____ 4. Nearly two years after Laquan McDonald, 17, was shot and killed by a Chicago police officer, the department’s superintendent is calling for seven other officers to be fired. They’re accused of making false reports. Several officers who were on the scene corroborated the account of Jason Van Dyke, the white officer who is charged with murder in the death of the teenager, but video has contradicted those accounts. _____ 5. Gawker. com will shut down next week. Univision bought the news website and all of Gawker Media at auction on Tuesday for $135 million. The company filed for bankruptcy and put itself up for sale after it was hit with a $140 million judgment from a lawsuit by the former wrestler Hulk Hogan. The lawsuit was largely funded by Peter Thiel, a billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur who was the focus of a 2007 article published by Gawker’s Valleywag blog. The article was headlined, “Peter Thiel is totally gay, people. ” _____ 6. On the presidential campaign trail, Hillary Clinton met with law enforcement officials in New York just days after Donald J. Trump, at a rally in Wisconsin, accused her of being “against the police. ” Mr. Trump appeared at another rally tonight — this time, in Charlotte, N. C. It was his first public appearance since shuffling his campaign leadership (for a second time) and hiring Stephen Bannon, the Breitbart News executive, as his campaign chief. The Trump campaign, meanwhile, is showing surprising signs of weakness among white men and is causing some Republicans to worry that his struggling candidacy could cost them control of Congress, too. _____ 7. Newly released images from surveillance video show the conditions inside Border Patrol detention centers in Arizona where migrants who illegally entered the U. S. are held. The images were released as part of a lawsuit accusing the government of holding migrants in dirty and crowded cells. Some show people lying shoulder to shoulder, wrapped in thermal blankets or on bare concrete floors while neighboring cells are empty. _____ 8. The United Nations has acknowledged that its peacekeepers played a role in the initial outbreak of cholera in Haiti, but stopped short of saying the organization caused the epidemic. At least 10, 000 people have died and hundreds of thousands have been sickened since 2010, when the first victims were reported. They lived near a base where 454 U. N. peacekeepers had just arrived from Nepal, where a cholera outbreak was underway. _____ 9. An image of a dusty, bloodied and bewildered Syrian boy has grabbed the attention of people around the world. The boy, identified as Omran Daqneesh, was treated for a head wound after an airstrike in Aleppo this week. “Omran, as he is carried from a damaged building in the dark, could be Everychild,” wrote our Beirut bureau chief, who, a day earlier, reported that the Syrian government and Russia were being accused of using bombs in the area. _____ 10. In case you were wondering what it’s like to be stung by a ant, here is one man’s take: “The debilitating pain of a migraine contained in the tip of your finger. ” It is one of 83 haikulike descriptions of insect stings detailed in a new book by Justin Schmidt, above, the entomologist who has been an object of public fascination because he lets insects sting him. The Schmidt Pain Scale for Stinging Insects that he created rates stings from 0 to 4. The ant is a 2, as is a sting you may be more familiar with — the honeybee’s. _____ 11. The photo above is not of a human in a bear suit. It is of a bear, rather, who walks like a human. The American black bear, who has been nicknamed Pedals, was first spotted in northern New Jersey two summers ago. Injuries to his front legs appear to be the reason for his unusual and remarkably good posture. But in a state grappling with a large and growing bear population, his fans — and there are many he even has his own Facebook fan page — are divided on whether he should be put in a wildlife sanctuary or left alone to continue living his bipedal life. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
By wmw_admin on October 29, 2016 Morgan Chalfant — Washington Free Beacon Oct 28, 2016
U.S. and Russian military jets reportedly had a close encounter in Syrian airspace several days ago.
AFP, citing U.S. officials, reported Friday morning that a Russian fighter jet flew dangerously close to a U.S. jet in airspace over eastern Syria on Oct. 17, nearly two weeks prior.
A Russian jet escorting a larger spy aircraft flew into the vicinity of the U.S. warplane, moving to “inside half a mile” from the American plane, according to Air Force Lieutenant General Jeff Harrigian. #BREAKING Russian, US jets had near miss over Syria: US officials
— AFP news agency (@AFP) October 28, 2016
“I would attribute it to not having the necessary situational awareness given all those platforms operating together,” Harrigian further stated, according to AFP.
An unnamed defense official said that the Russian aircraft “was close enough you could feel the jet wash of the plane passing by.”
The U.S. and Russia have set up a line of communication to avoid clashes in airspace over Syria. In this incident, the American pilot reportedly attempted to communicate with the Russian warplane but was unsuccessful.
Harrigian also reported an increase in close encounters between American and Russian military jets in the region in the past six weeks. He said that Russian jets have intentionally flown close to U.S. warplanes about once every 10 days.
Tensions between the United States and Russia have been exacerbated over the situation in Syria in recent weeks, following a failed ceasefire deal and suspension of communications between the two countries.
Russian and Syrian jets have bombed civilians and U.S.-backed rebels in Aleppo, drawing ire from America. Moscow has threatened to shoot down coalition jets that target Bashar al-Assad’s forces with air strikes in Syria, after reports indicated that the Obama administration would consider targeting Syrian government forces with strikes. | 0 |
Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation, formerly an attorney with the Department of Justice, said he expected “fireworks” at the confirmation hearings for attorney general nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions on Tuesday’s Breitbart News Daily. [“What’s going on here is that, look, professionally, Jeff Sessions has the perfect background to be the U. S. Attorney General — from being a line prosecutor working for the Justice Department, to being a U. S. attorney, to being the state Attorney General in Alabama. Professionally, he’s got the perfect background for this,” von Spakovsky said. “But Democrats really don’t like him because of his views on issues,” he continued. “For example, they really don’t want someone who’s actually going to enforce our immigration laws. They’ve been giving him a hard time in the civil rights area too, even though many of their criticisms really have been false. So they’re going to give him a very hard time, even if they eventually, perhaps, on the Democratic side will vote for him, because they have to make their liberal advocacy groups that support them happy that they gave him a hard time. ” SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam suggested that Democrats would be “uncouth” to Sessions to gin up donations and political support from their base. “Yes, because I think that’s going to anger the same people all around the country that voted for Donald Trump,” von Spakovsky agreed. “And you can tell how this is going because after Sessions testifies, they’re actually pulling up a panel of other witnesses. And who have the Democrats called? They have called the director of the ACLU, the president of the NAACP, and a woman from an LGBT group. All of them are simply going to be critical of him on issues, not his professional background — and that’s not a reason to not vote for him for confirmation. ” Kassam asked von Spakovsky to discuss his recent article about how Democrats have tried to portray strong action against voter fraud by Sessions as a nefarious attempt to suppress the minority vote. “When he was a U. S. attorney in Alabama, he prosecuted three local civil rights activists who were accused of voter fraud,” von Spakovsky recalled. “They were stealing absentee ballots from voters — black voters — and changing the votes. Unfortunately, the jury found them innocent, and so ever since then, he’s been accused of having pushed this for racist reasons he was trying to suppress the black vote. ” “What all those stories leave out is that the reason this case was prosecuted was because local black voters and local black candidates called the FBI and called Sessions, saying, ‘Look, we think our vote is being stolen by these other black candidates,’” he noted. There was a power struggle going on inside the Democratic party. This was an county, in these races. The federal grand jury was presented with overwhelming evidence that these three defendants were stealing ballots. ” “Yeah, a jury found them innocent, but I actually found and interviewed the career Justice Department lawyer who worked on this case, and he said it was clearly a case of jury nullification,” von Spakovsky said. “These folks were local activists, and the jury wasn’t going to find them guilty no matter what they did. One quick example: a family of six people, testified in court that one of the defendants had changed their votes without their permission, and yet the jury didn’t believe them. They, instead, believed the defendant when he said, ‘Well, yeah, I did change their votes, but I had their permission to do it. ’” As Kassam put it, Sessions was “opposing the exploitation of minority groups, and this is now being used as a cudgel against him. ” “The NAACP came down to this case, and instead of wanting to get these convicted, they actually provided lawyers to defend these folks in the lawsuit,” von Spakovsky marveled. He said the Democrats’ position was a combination of instinctively viewing “old white guy” Sessions as a racist in a story of conflict with black activists and crass political opportunism by senior Democrats who know perfectly well what really happened in the vote fraud case. “Their attitude towards any voter fraud prosecutions has always been: if the defendants are black, well, you must be doing it for racist reasons,” he noted. “Remember, we saw that in the New Black Panther story out of Philly in 2008, when Eric Holder came in and immediately dismissed the voter intimidation case against them, despite the overwhelming evidence that the Black Panthers had been intimidating voters and poll watchers. It was dismissed by the Obama Justice Department because they didn’t believe that black defendants should be prosecuted. They don’t believe in the enforcement of the voting and election law. ” As to Sessions’ prospects of making it through the confirmation process, von Spakovsky pointed out that “there’s not a single Republican that has said he’s going to vote against Sessions. ” “I really think the worst that can happen is the Democrats put up a histrionic, almost hysterical, raising of all these issues, make all these false claims against Sessions — but in the end, like I said, the Republicans have the majority, and I think they’re going to be able to vote him in,” he predicted. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 1 |
With countless hours of media, and Clinton campaign, speculation and accusations that the source of hacked Wikileaks Democratic emails including the Podesta files, is none other than Russian president Vladimir Putin, either directly or indirectly, Julian Assange has decided to close the book on that particular loose end, and as RT reports , in a John Pilger Special, to be broadcast by RT on Saturday courtesy of Dartmouth Films, Assange categorically denied that the troves of US Democratic Party and Clinton work and staff emails released this year have come from the Russian government.
“The Clinton camp has been able to project a neo-McCarthyist hysteria that Russia is responsible for everything. Hillary Clinton has stated multiple times, falsely, that 17 US intelligence agencies had assessed that Russia was the source of our publications. That’s false – we can say that the Russian government is not the source,” Assange told the veteran Australian broadcaster as part of a 25-minute interview.
Assange spoke with Pilger at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has been for four years, and accused the US presidential candidate of being a pawn of behind-the-scenes interests, and voiced doubts about her physical fitness to take charge of the White House.
“Hillary Clinton is just one person. I actually feel quite sorry for Hillary Clinton as a person, because I see someone who is eaten alive by their ambitions, tormented literally to the point where they become sick – for example faint – as a result of going on, and going with their ambitions. But she represents a whole network of people, and a whole network of relationships with particular states.”
Over the past nine months, WikiLeaks uploaded over 30,000 emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server, while she was Secretary of State. This was followed by nearly 20,000 emails sent to and by members of the US Democratic National Committee, exposing the party leadership’s dismissive attitude to Bernie Sanders, and his outsider primaries campaign.
Finally, last month, WikiLeaks posted over 50,000 emails connected to John Podesta, Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, and a close associate of the current presidential frontrunner.
A preview of the upcoming interview is below. The Homeland Security Department and Office of the Director of National Intelligence posted a joint statement in October, claiming they were “confident” that the Russian government “directed” this year’s leaks. Moscow has rejected the accusation, with presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov calling the claims “nonsense,” while Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the “public bickering with Russia” before the US election is probably a “smokescreen” to draw the voters’ attention away from serious domestic issues.
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The stretch of Fifth Avenue in front of Donald J. Trump’s home in Trump Tower will remain open to vehicle traffic for the foreseeable future, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York said on Friday. Since the election, the tower, on Fifth Avenue between East 56th and 57th Streets, has drawn thousands of protesters and gawkers, swelling congestion in that area of Midtown Manhattan. Officials from the New York Police Department and the Secret Service have been discussing how to balance the security of Mr. Trump with the need to keep pedestrian and vehicle traffic flowing, particularly as the holiday season brings crowds to nearby Rockefeller Center and Radio City Musical Hall. The mayor said that security planners were focused on the period between now and the inauguration on Jan. 20, but that they also were preparing for the prospect that Mr. Trump would be a regular presence in the city during his term. “We have never had a situation where the president of the United States would be here on such a regular basis,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference. “But the N. Y. P. D. is up to the challenge, and the City of New York is up to the challenge. ” How much time Mr. Trump will spend in his Manhattan residence during his presidency is unclear. As a candidate, he often flew back to New York at night, just to be at home. And he has indicated that as president he would like to be in the city when possible. So far, Mr. Trump, a Republican, has made the tower his headquarters as he prepares for the presidency and assembles his administration. Advisers, emissaries, and prospective cabinet members can be seen crossing the marble lobby throughout the day. At the news conference, Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, said his administration intended to seek reimbursement from the federal government for the substantial overtime costs the city is incurring. “We think it’s a valid situation to turn to the federal government for the maximum reimbursement of the costs,” he said. Among the Secret Service agents and police officials handling presidential security at Trump Tower, there is a range of opinions regarding where Mr. Trump should spend his time. There is almost universal agreement that the ’s penthouse suite in Trump Tower poses more formidable security challenges than most presidential homes. Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who has protected both President George W. Bush and President Obama, said that compared with the residences of past presidents “the penthouse is going to be tough,” particularly if, while president, Mr. Trump decided to spend significant time there. Mr. Trump’s residence, at the top of the building, is generally reached by elevator, which poses problems in terms of getting in and out quickly. Some surrounding buildings have clear views to Trump Tower, which will need to be monitored by the Secret Service. And there is the challenge of the dense Midtown airspace, and the need to quickly try to intercept any aircraft that might veer too close. Still, Mr. Bongino said that during presidential trips abroad, the Secret Service confronts environments far more threatening than Midtown. Arnette F. Heintze, who served on the permanent details of two presidents and was later a spokesman for the Secret Service, said environments were not unfamiliar. “Him living in a in Midtown Manhattan, the Service does protective operations in and out of that environment all the time,” he said. “Once the president makes a decision they’re doing something it’s the Service’s job to make that secure, regardless of the situation, whether a a war zone or the middle of Fifth Avenue. ” “We accept a president for who they are and their particular lifestyle and nuances,” added Mr. Heintze, who is currently the chief executive of Hillard Heintze, a security firm. While Fifth Avenue remains open to vehicle traffic for now, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s New York office, David Beach, did note that security arrangements could change at any moment. “As a matter of practice, security plans will evolve to address emerging threats,” he said at the news conference, speaking after the mayor. So far, Fifth Avenue has been closed to vehicle traffic on only three occasions in the past two weeks, to allow for the installation of concrete barriers and because of demonstrations opposing the . The Police Department said that last week there were seven arrests in the vicinity of Trump Tower. Elsewhere in the city, there were 70 arrests related to Mr. Trump’s victory and the demonstrations it prompted, according to statistics provided by the department. Trump Tower has long been open to the public, and the status of both the building and the sidewalk in front of it is unclear. While shoppers and employees heading to the luxury stores are generally permitted to pass the police checkpoints at the street corner and make their way toward the Gucci Store or Tiffany on the block, others are turned away and told to walk on the opposite side of the street. At the news conference, Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill said that sidewalk and the building itself would remain open to pedestrians “who need or want access. ” “People will be allowed access into that building, but there will be a screening point,” Mr. O’Neill said. | 1 |
License DMCA The face of the Republican Party.
There is a light at the end of this tunnel called a presidential election campaign and, if the gods are not playing a cruel trick on us, that light is not on an engine with TRUMP emblazoned on its sides. In any event, the end is near and I am as weary of writing about this ugly affair probably as you are of reading about it.
The problem is, that's all most of the mainstream and social media care to talk about these days. In case you missed the other news: 1) The Cubs and Indians are in the World Series. 2) Heavily armed police in North Dakota attacked hundreds of protesters who joined the Standing Rock Sioux tribe trying to block construction of a pipeline they say threatens water supplies and sacred sites. 3) Soupy Sales, master of the pie-in-the-face, died. And 4) Tim Tebow is apparently just as good at baseball as he was at playing quarterback in the NFL.
But really, the only thing the media want to talk about are Donald Trump's repeated claims that the election is rigged and that the press -- meaning all the news outlets who report accurately on his words and actions -- lie.
These are claims that losers and demagogues resort to when everything else -- lies, threats, lies, threats, lies, threats -- fails. Honestly, it is disheartening to feel a need to point out to, apparently, millions of Americans, that Trump's claims are nonsense. It is even more disheartening to realize that many of the people who still support his candidacy don't seem to care. There is a major issue to address some day soon in that.
Meanwhile, as to his two claims: Voter fraud is virtually non-existent in America. You can check this with any legitimate news provider. The real threat is voter intimidation -- keeping some people from voting through excessive (illegal) regulations and perceived threats. Suggesting rigged elections is a serious threat to the very foundation of a free, democratic society -- an orderly transfer of power. This is something about which Trump knows little and seemingly cares less. As far as he's concerned, if he doesn't win, the powers that be must be against him. The press. Ah, the press. "They can say anything they want," he complained the other day. No kidding, Sherlock. You just noticed? He says if he's president he's going to change that and strip the major media companies of their power. He can try, of course. It won't be easy though. You see, Donald, those same forefathers who were so wise as to guarantee Americans the right to bear arms in that Second Amendment you and your followers are so fond of spouting and shouting about thought the idea of a free and unfettered press was so important to a functioning democracy that they wrote it into the First Amendment of the Constitution. That's one ahead of the guns amendment, which some might say suggests it is more important. Since a civics lesson is apparently in order for Trumpers, it should be noted that the First Amendment also guarantees everyone freedom of religion. Which is also to say, freedom from your religion.
But these are mere facts and Trump and the folks at Fox News have demonstrated the power of repeating false news over and over again until listeners -- like the inhabitants of Orwell's "1984" -- simply take it for fact. We have always been at war with Eurasia. We have never been at war with Eurasia. Love is hate. War is peace. I know Putin well. I never met the man. - Advertisement -
We are told that many Trump supporters -- virtually all of them white and the majority male -- are angry and frustrated with their lives. Somehow, goes the argument, all those black, brown, Muslim, Mexican, gay, Jewish, Arab, Asian people who don't belong here -- and some pushy American women as well -- have prevented these Trump fans from realizing the American Dream. They took all the jobs and live on welfare. Love is hate. Up is down. Bigotry has nothing to do with it. We just want to make America great again, like before all those other people said they wanted to enjoy the American Dream, too.
Enough already. At some point in a person's life, if he or she is lucky, the opportunity presents itself to take responsibility for one's actions. To take stock of how things are going. Not materially, but really. It can be frightening. It can also be rewarding. Among other things, this look in the mirror allows one to say -- if one can be honest -- "I've made some mistakes. I sincerely regret them. I hope to do better from now on." A lot of people never do this.
With that runaway train called Trump menacing the trust and tolerance that are the pillars of our, yes, already great nation, I'm thinking that a lot of people -- a lot of white, Republican people -- have a date with a mirror. It's far too late to undo the damage Trump has done or to deny any part in it, but it's not too late to admit the mistake of supporting him in spite of all the hateful, false things he said. It's not too late to admit to acting as if he didn't say them because, well, maybe because you were angry or confused or frightened or thought it would be disloyal. Maybe you feel you were lied to. Or maybe you just wanted to believe the lies.
Republican politicians who have stuck with Trump have no such out. The McCains and Ryans and Cruzes and Rubios knew Trump was bad news from day one. But he was their bad news and his lies became their lies even when they disagreed with him, because they never had the courage -- the humility, the simple decency -- to look in the mirror and say: "Enough. This man is obscene. He is an insult to our party and our nation. We made a grave mistake in pandering to the worst instincts of some of our party members in order to get their votes. Our pride kept us from admitting this. Fear drove our decisions. We allowed him to make fools of us. Indeed, we made fools of ourselves."
Speaking, if I may, for the rest of an angry, resentful nation, that day of reckoning can't come soon enough. - Advertisement - | 0 |
Posted on October 27, 2016 by Sean Adl-Tabatabai in News , US // 0 Comments
The DNC is suing the Republican National Committee due to Donald Trump’s claims that Hillary Clinton is committing election fraud.
The suit was filed in a U.S. District Court in New Jersey and aims to silence Trump’s claim that the election is rigged, which the DNC are particularly sensitive about.
Townhall.com reports:
The DNC alleges that the RNC has not done enough to reprimand Trump for claiming that the election is rigged, and seeks to have the court hold the committee in civil contempt as well as levy sanctions.
The DNC claims that because the RNC has done “ballot security” work, they are agreeing with Trump that the election is rigged.
Marc Elias, Hillary Clinton’s campaign counsel, claims that there is also a racial element to Trump’s claims of voter fraud. “Trump has falsely and repeatedly told his supporters that the November 8 election will be ‘rigged’ based upon fabricated claims of voter fraud in ‘certain areas’ or ‘certain sections’ of key states,” the Democratic attorneys, including Hillary Clinton campaign counsel Marc Elias, wrote. “Unsurprisingly, those ‘certain areas’ are exclusively communities in which large minority voting populations reside.”
Election Day is in 13 days. | 0 |
Deep in the folds of the hill, up steep stone stairs flanked with frangipani trees, stood the inner sanctum of the ancient Khmer temple of Vat Phou. We faced the mountain ridge, our backs to the waters of the Mekong River, looking for the chamber. From this angle, it was hidden. But other parts of the temple had begun revealing themselves to us. Down here, along the rutted stone path leading to the stairs, we watched as a construction crane lifted a block onto the wall of one of the outer chambers. To our right, a few carvers chipped away at other blocks with small tools. Through their hands flowed the tales of Hindu mythology, the narratives of gods in love and war that had originated on the Indian subcontinent and traveled to distant Java and to Khmer temples across Cambodia and Laos. Now that transmission of stories and beliefs and ideas was continuing here, like the flow of the Mekong, in the shadow of one of the most beautiful of those temples. Built more than 1, 000 years ago at the high point of an axis stretching from a range of mountains down to the Mekong, Vat Phou is one of the most sacred temples of the vanished Khmer kingdoms. The Khmer ruled a wide swath of Southeast Asia from the ninth to the 15th centuries, and their dedication to art and architecture is best embodied in the famous temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Lesser known and distinct from Angkor in its intimacy is Vat Phou, sometimes written in English as Wat Phu, which has been designated a World Heritage site by a United Nations agency. To see the temple and this stretch of the Mekong, my wife, daughter and I based ourselves for three nights at a new riverside hotel outside the town of Champasak. This was the middle leg of a whirlwind trip through Southeast Asia that we regarded as our farewell to the region. I had been reporting in China for The New York Times for eight years, and we had plans to leave in the coming year. We had a special attachment to Southeast Asia — my wife, Tini, is Vietnamese American and worked for seven years for The Associated Press in Vietnam before moving to China. And while in China, as a couple and then a family, we had spent much of our vacation time exploring the region. For many foreigners and Chinese ground down by living in China’s polluted, crowded and clogged megacities, the beaches, rivers and hills of tropical Southeast Asia provided a escape hatch. Neither Tini nor I had been to southern Laos before, so it made sense to choose it as the centerpiece of our final Southeast Asia vacation on this tour. Even if Laos was an authoritarian state, it was still the land of the Mekong, with palm trees lining the riverbanks, freshwater dolphins swimming between islets and fishermen casting nets over the side of skiffs. The pace of life was slower, much slower, than that of Beijing. But it would have been wrong to think of the region as timeless. The restoration of Vat Phou that we witnessed belied notions of ancient ruins lost in eternal mists. And it was there, near the entrance to the temple complex, that we discovered we were not the only escapees from the rush of development in China. As we set foot that morning on the eastern end of the pathway leading up to the inner sanctum, we met a Chinese couple from Shanghai who were in the middle of a monthlong trip through Laos with their daughter. Our daughter, Aria, instantly began following the older girl around. We told the family we were fleeing the notorious Beijing pollution. “The situation is very bad in Shanghai, too,” the father said. It was rare to see a Chinese family traveling alone in this corner of Southeast Asia, and I wondered whether they were a harbinger for a new wave of tourists. French travelers were ubiquitous here and had been so for more than a century, given France’s colonial history in Indochina, but Chinese travelers were rare, even though China bordered Laos. We had begun our trip with a flight from Beijing to Chiang Mai in Thailand to visit friends there, then entered southern Laos with a plan to spend one week before meeting other friends on a beach in Vietnam. We crossed the border near the Laotian town of Pakse. There, on a sleepy street (towns in Laos only have sleepy streets) we had lunch at Dok Mai, a restaurant run by an Italian, Corrado. He told us he had tried living and working in India, but that had been tough. “Pakse chose me,” he said. A young man sent from the River Resort then drove us the from Pakse to the hotel, built along the Mekong. We found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, but that was the point. The River Resort consisted of luxury buildings along the west bank of the Mekong, with a large room on each floor. There were two riverside swimming pools on the grounds. We had a balcony room overlooking the river. The entire wall and door facing the river was made of glass. We could wake up in bed gazing across the waters to the sunrise. At sunset, a golden light bathed the river and trees and stones. It was one of the most stunning hotels in which we had stayed in Southeast Asia. We would have enjoyed spending an entire day just on the riverbank, but Khmer civilization beckoned us. In the mountains looming to our west, hidden by jungle, lay Vat Phou. The next morning, we hired a taxi to drive us the 15 minutes to the temple. Along the range of hills, we could make out one peak that stood above the others. The builders of Vat Phou had noticed this and proclaimed it a natural lingam of Shiva. A hotel employee, Taiy, told me of the importance of rituals at the temple. “I’ve been to Vat Phou four times,” he said. “My family goes once a year. Because I have to work, I usually don’t go. I don’t have much time, so I would only be able to go at night. ” “There’s a big festival once a year,” he said. “I remember there were many people. This year, there will be a big one, and maybe I’ll have to go. ” After we met the family from Shanghai, we walked between rows of trees and up the stone steps to the inner sanctum. Along the main walkway, we passed a naga statue draped with yellow garlands. A bell rang somewhere. Inside the inner temple, a Thai family made offerings to a statue of the Buddha. They had bought incense sticks from a woman outside the temple. They prayed with the lit sticks. Sweet smoke drifted through the temple. On our walk, Aria had picked up a white frangipani flower, and now she placed it on a wooden table, atop dried candle wax. It was her offering. Around the sanctum were lintels carved with ornate scenes from Hindu mythology. One showed the god Indra atop a elephant. Another depicted deities taking part in the churning of the Ocean of Milk, an image that I had also seen a decade earlier at Angkor. Then there was the scene of Krishna tearing his uncle Kamsa in half. Outside, more worshipers were arriving. We walked along the slope of the mountain behind the temple. On the site were the ruins of a small library, a sacred spring and a cave shrine. At a cistern, Laotians anointed themselves with water that flowed from mountain springs. The Shanghainese girl told us to follow her, and she showed us a rock that our guidebook said might have been used for human sacrifices before the age of Angkor. It was the wider natural surroundings that cast a spell on us. Atop the hill, staring down the axis and toward the Mekong to the east, I could see the many frangipani flowers below, bursts of white on the brown landscape. The temple commanded the scene, as its cousins at Angkor did in the Cambodian jungles. After we walked down the stairs, four women holding umbrellas approached us. They went straight up to Aria and said “sabaidee,” or hello. She said it back, pronouncing the syllables carefully even if she did not know what the word meant. The next morning, we arranged with our hotel to take a boat over to the island of Don Daeng, in the middle of the Mekong. We had brought bicycles with us, and I strapped Aria to my back with a baby sling. A herd of water buffalo wandered languidly down the sandy beach to drink at the river. We biked along dirt paths to villages. There were five main ones on the island, with a total population of 3, 000. Locals walked from one to another or sat on the rear of trundling tractors. Outside their homes, women fried up rice cakes in pans. At lunchtime, we stopped at La Folie, a lodge. While our hotel was all modernist glass and concrete, La Folie had polished wooden panels on the floors and walls. It overlooked the river and faced the spine of mountains to the west. We could see Vat Phou in the hills. Top, a smiling man from Pakse, was working in the dining room. He had just started there one month earlier. When he found out I was from the United States, he asked about the Ultra Music Festival in Miami — Had I heard of it? Had I been there? I shook my head. “I really want to go,” he said. “My favorite D. J. s from around the world go there. ” He said that was his goal, to be a D. J. and that there were two bars in Pakse where D. J. s played. Timeless Asia, indeed. That evening, we took a sunset boat ride on the Mekong with a Dutch couple. Over canapés and bottles of Beerlao, we spoke with Kanh, a hotel worker accompanying us. He had begun working at River Resort three months earlier. He was from Pakse, he said, the son of a Vietnamese mother and a father who was Laotian and Chinese. While his mother had been born here, her parents were from Hue, the old imperial capital in central Vietnam. They had fled the fall of South Vietnam to Communist forces in 1975, only to eventually settle in another Communist country. “He’s the original mixed Southeast Asian,” Tini said with a laugh. Her ancestors, too, were from Hue, and she and her family had also fled Vietnam in 1975. They ended up deep in the American South. So went the vagaries of history. The next morning, we took a ferry across the river, followed by a bus to a river port to the south, where we hopped on a wooden boat crammed with backpackers for a ride to what is known as the Four Thousand Islands area, or Si Phan Don, on the border with Cambodia. This stretch of the Mekong was filled with small islets and rocks. Waterfalls abounded. It was here that French colonists were unable to navigate ships up the Mekong to southwest China without building a small railroad across Don Khon and Don Det. We stayed for a couple of nights on the northern side of Don Khon. We got a riverside room at Sengahloune Villa, a more rustic place than the River Resort. The narrow waterways, wooden skiffs and palm trees swaying among the islands reminded me of the backwaters of Kerala in southern India and the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, where the Mekong emptied into the South China Sea. We spent our days biking around the island and watching the sunset from the old French railroad bridge next to our hotel. One afternoon, we hired a small boat off the southern tip of Don Khon, near the old railway tracks, to see the area’s famous freshwater dolphins. As we strained from our boat to catch a glimpse of the dolphins, we saw a group of monks in saffron robes sitting in a skiff. They had come over from Cambodia. Their boat flew the Cambodian flag, with an image of the main temple at Angkor Wat. They sat there with umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun and pointed whenever the head or back of a dolphin poked above the water for a few seconds. The river flowed onward, passing around their boat and continuing for hundreds of miles to the ocean far away. | 1 |
Share on Facebook When is environmental damage too much? When is it acceptable? In what is being called “ a relatively tiny ” marine oil spill, for the Heiltsuk First Nations of the Central Coast of BC, the question is being asked in quite real terms, forcing government to answer the questions that it might have preferred to have evaded. Since running aground in mid-October , a small boat has been leaking oil into the Pacific Ocean, and along BC's Central Coast. Despite the fact that this spill comes in the aftermath of the Royal Visit to the region — a visit that sought to place the health of the coastline and all the life that dwells there within the global lens — there appears to be very little international interest. Making matters worse, there appears to be little interest from Canadian lawmakers on how best to reduce the potential for disasters like this. Along the Central Coast of British Columbia, the Great Bear Rainforest is seen as “one of the most pristine wilderness environments on earth.” Stretching approximately 400 kilometers along this sparsely populated area, the Great Bear Rainforest has long represented the very idea of conservation and intrinsic preservation to Canadians and environmentalists around the world. Along with the Kermode Bear , the area made National Geographic's “ Places of a Lifetime ” list and has been called the planet's last large expanse of coastal temperate rain forest by people like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Natural beauty, conservation projects , and provincial parks are not, however, all the region is known for. Of all things, the Central Coast offers access to the Pacific Ocean. It also provides a more-or-less direct line for fossil fuel exportation from various LNG (liquefied natural gas) sites around the province, as well as tar sands oil from the neighbouring province of Alberta. North of Bella Bella, the town of Kitimat serves as the proposed terminal destination of Enbridge's Northern Gateway Pipeline , a project that has seen a great deal of protest that, in many ways, echoes the issues coming to a head in Cannon Ball, North Dakota. One of the most attractive aspects of the region, insofar as fossil fuel extraction is concerned, is the access it offers to Asian markets , pitting the desires of big oil corporations against those of First Nations and environmentalists , alike. Even with the legislative death of Northern Gateway, the region continues to be the focal point for resource extraction. October's oil spill — which is ongoing — provides a visceral reminder of what is at stake in such discussions, pushing many local residents to demand a full tanker ban along the Central Coast . Yet, while the Coastal Rainforest is inundated with thousands of litres of oil, the federal government seems content to remain reactive . Rather than agreeing to the suggested ban, the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau instead proposed a $1.5 billion (CDN) fund to help deal with oil spills after they occur. Reactive policies like this leave the fragile ecosystems found in the Central Coast region to suffer contamination before they are dealt with, and offer no change for the way issues of sovereignty are evaluated between First Nations and the colonial Canadian government. Since his election in 2015, PM Trudeau has taken several quick steps back from his promises to respect First Nations' sovereignty and deal with environmental issues . Although this “ relatively tiny marine oil spill” can be seen as just that, a minor environmental issue that will be cleaned up with more federal money, there is a deeper implication that can be seen — one that pits ongoing environmental degradation and cultural assimilation and genocide against neoliberal economic policy . Related: | 0 |
WASHINGTON, D. C. — Breitbart News was able to infiltrate a key planning meeting for the effort of radical groups to not only protest the inauguration of President Trump, but also to “shut it down” and disrupt the historic event. Exclusive, undercover audio reveals the radical coalition will throw everything they have at “shutting down” the Trump Inaugural Parade that spans from the U. S. Capitol to the White House. They will attempt to do so by targeting police checkpoints and preventing other Americans from exercising their right to assemble and express their views.[ Breitbart’s infiltration of the radical effort also netted a map that reveals the specific locations of checkpoints that will be targeted and possibly shut down and which specific groups are responsible for each location. The map also reveals the entire infrastructure for the radical groups and which “choke points” they deem critical to the inauguration. Radical Occupy organizer and troublemaker Lisa Fithian was revealed in the audio as a trainer, apparently playing a role in the effort’s stated and recorded goal of “shutting that shit down” in reference to the Inaugural Parade. The radical left protest movement that is currently manifesting as as well as Lisa Fithian, have long histories and methods of operation that can be examined to better understand how they will act in their effort to shut down the Inaugural Parade. Fithian was a key trainer at the 2008 Republican Nation Convention (RNC) in St. Paul, Minnesota. In that instance, the radical groups used a red, yellow and green team strategy in an attempt to shut down the RNC. Red teams consisted of black bloc anarchists intent on attacking police and Republicans. Yellow teams consisted of “arrestables,” or activists willing to get arrested for civil disobedience, and the green teams consisting of average liberal protesters who could be manipulated en masse without ever knowing they were pawns in the red and yellow teams’ radical efforts to prevent other Americans from assembling and celebrating their views. In the instance of the 2008 RNC, the radicals used the mainstream liberal marches as cover for their illegal behaviors. They waited until the liberals (green team) were in the street. The radicals would have key persons manipulate the green team to stop in the street and the yellow team would use the green team for cover as the arrestables handcuffed and locked themselves in human chains across critical streets that buses of Republican delegates needed to get to the RNC. The green team would clear the street at the order of police. If the yellow team had not yet secured their roadblocking human chain efforts and needed more time, the red team would put on masks and attack police so that the yellow team had more time. Once the yellow team was ready, the red team would enter the crowd of the unknowing green team and remove their masks to blend. This history indicates that the radical protesters will use the permitted marches of liberals as cover for their efforts to shut down the Inaugural Parade and possibly other events. It indicates that human chains will be used to block the police checkpoints thereby preventing Republicans from entering the parade areas and possibly providing cover for radicals who wish to throw liquids and other items over and across the barricades that will depend on for their safety. History suggests the groups will use handcuffs to lock on to physical structures and to each other in their effort to shut down Trump’s Inaugural Parade. Brandon Darby is managing director and of Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. DISCLOSURE: The author previously worked undercover with law enforcement and in efforts to prevent many of the groups and individuals associated with J20 from shutting down the 2008 RNC mentioned in this piece. | 1 |
Comments
Admitted racist Republican State Rep. John Bennett from Sallisaw, Oklahoma, is the next Republican to publicly call for the assassination of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
“ 2 words … firing squad” read Bennet’s Facebok post, with a link to a right-wing blog blaming Clinton for the deaths of American soldiers in during the 2102 Benghazi terrorist attacks.
Half-heartedly back-peddling on the threat, Bennett, wrote in a text message to The Oklahoman that the comments were intended to be sarcastic, but that reiterated that Clinton was guilty of treason, punishable by death.
Rep. Bennet is an outspoken Islamophobe, who has openly bragged about his hatred of Muslims, claiming the Prophet Mohammed “only teaches violence” and paints Christianity as being dialectical opposition to Islam. Just last week, he presided over the waste of taxpayer dollars for an “interim study” on “radical Islam” in Oklahoma , a witch-hunt which ended with him declaring a local imam and the leader of the local Council of American-Islamic relations as “terrorists.”
Bennet’s hatred cannot be tolerated and his threats should be directly addressed; a public official who threatens the future president is not a sarcastic matter. The frequency with which right-wing politicians are actively repeating the conspiracies of radio-show wingnuts and calling for the murder of the Democratic nominee is absolutely appalling, and a sign of just how far our political system has fallen. | 0 |
Back Story Of FBI’s Hillary Cover-Up FBI corruption exposed Infowars Nightly News - October 28, 2016 Comments
Angry law enforcement investigators are talking about corruption at the top of the FBI’s “investigation” of Hillary.
Here’s how it went sideways. NEWSLETTER SIGN UP Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars Crew. Related Articles Download on your mobile device now for free. Today on the Show Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars crew. From the store Featured Videos FEATURED VIDEOS A Vote For Hillary is a Vote For World War 3 - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . The Most Offensive Halloween EVER! - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . ILLUSTRATION How much will your healthcare premiums rise in 2017? >25% © 2016 Infowars.com is a Free Speech Systems, LLC Company. All rights reserved. Digital Millennium Copyright Act Notice. 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force | 0 |
More than 42 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 59 are infected with genital human papillomavirus, according to the first survey to look at the prevalence of the virus in the adult population. The report, published on Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics, also found that certain strains of the virus infected 25. 1 percent of men and 20. 4 percent of women. These strains account for approximately 31, 000 cases of cancer each year, other studies have shown. Two vaccines are effective in preventing sexually transmitted HPV infection, and researchers said the new data lend urgency to the drive to have adolescents vaccinated. “If we can get and to get the vaccine, we’ll make some progress,” said Geraldine McQuillan, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and lead author of the new report. “You need to give it before kids become sexually active, before they get infected,” Dr. McQuillan said. “By the time they’re in their people are infected and it’s too late. This is a vaccine against cancer — that’s the message. ” (Do you have questions about HPV? Read some answers here.) She and her colleagues also found that 7. 3 percent of Americans ages 18 to 69 were infected orally with HPV, and 4 percent were infected with the strains that can cause cancers of the mouth and pharynx. HPV is a ubiquitous virus, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. About 40 strains of the virus are sexually transmitted, and virtually all sexually active individuals are exposed to it by their early 20s. The virus usually is spread through direct contact with infected genital skin or mucuous membranes during intercourse or oral sex. Over 90 percent of HPV infections are cleared by the body within two years. The figures released today were a snapshot of the prevalence of active oral HPV infection from 2011 through 2014, and active genital infection in 2013 and 2014. Sometimes, the virus persists in the body. Chronic infections with certain strains can lead to genital warts and cancers of the cervix, vagina, penis, anus and throat. Two viral strains, and cause almost all cervical cancers. “One of the most striking things that we really want people to know is that HPV is common — common in the general population,” Dr. McQuillan said. While the C. D. C. recommends routine screening for cervical cancer for all women ages 21 to 65, adults are not routinely screened for HPV infection itself. Indeed, there is no HPV test for men. (A test for women is sometimes used in conjunction with a Pap screen for cervical cancer.) There were significant differences in rates of genital HPV infection by race and ethnicity, Dr. McQuillan and her colleagues found. The highest rate, 33. 7 percent, was found among blacks the lowest, 11. 9 percent, among Asians. The prevalence of genital HPV infection was 21. 6 percent among whites and 21. 7 percent among Hispanics. Men generally have somewhat higher rates than women, but among Asian and Hispanic men, the infections are not significantly more common. The reasons for these variations are not known. | 1 |
Region: USA in the World The news these last few days has been all about the radical left being up in arms over Donald Trump’s ascendency to the US Presidency. The massive upset victory of this charismatic non-politician is crystallizing into a very divisive situation in the United States and in Europe, as EU leaders and NATO nations paint a geo-political picture of gloom and doom for us. However negative the picture may seem though, the shiny side of this leadership coin shows a glowing promise. Here’s my take on what is about to happen when Donald Trump is inaugurated. Donald Trump did not win this election on any of the bases which Clinton’s supporters profess. This is crucial to accept if we are to understand what is about to happen. Trump is not a bigot, a racist, nor is he some misogynistic woman hater. Trump is a product of both American progress and to an extend hyper-capitalism. His “locker room” talk resonates no more resoundingly than his anti-establishment diatribe against the Washington elites. For those who have watched him over the years, it is so clear the man just says what he thinks at the moment. He said he would “drain the swamp” of politically corrupt in Washington, and I think he is about to. He also said , if he was elected, he would install a special prosecutor to investigate and indict Hillary Clinton for her part in illegal activities. Those out there demonstrating do not fully understand “who” it is there are demonstrating on behalf of, nor do they understand the breadth of criminality and malfeasance Mr. Trump has suggested. WikiLeaks opened the investigation to the court of public opinion, and this is why Donald Trump is the President-elect now. I could enumerate the multiple statutes Mrs. Clinton breached while she was Secretary of State, but her alleged crimes and misdemeanors against the United States are not the reason the Democrats lost. I could list the multitude of lies the Podesta emails proved, and how Hillary Clinton told Congress, the media, the FBI, and the atmosphere of crooked dealings she and the Democrats created, but the American people did not shun her for lying to them either. Politicians lie like water flows with gravity. The American people voted for Donald Trump because the system in place the last 25 years failed them. There’s no need for a history lesson in order for me to prove my contention here. When George Herbert Walker Bush met with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the people of the world drew in a deep breath of possibility and potential. The promise was further illuminated in 1991, but the fall of the Soviet Union that was supposed to set free all the peoples of all the nations, it was never the plan. Almost simultaneously with his handshake with Gorbachev, Bush and his backers were steeled for the first invasion of Iraq. Bush’s part in lighting the fuse on today’s destabilization bomb was not his greatest betrayal of the American people though. Not many political analysts these days talk about George H.W. Bush’s role in NAFTA, but step toward globalism ruined a hundred million lives and the dreams attached to them within a few short years. NAFTA, later set in place by Bill Clinton, destroyed the United States as a manufacturing power. Not only did millions lose their jobs, the globalization strategies keyed to NAFTA would later cause the global economic and military conflicts we see right now. An easy way of seeing this is by watching the march of NATO across Eastern Europe toward the doorstep of Russia. I can show you how Bill Clinton’s administration got Yugoslavia out of the US hegemony’s way. Clinton left office as one of only two US Presidents to have been through impeachment proceedings, and after having paved the way to the coming Iraq invasion. Showing the collusion in between Clinton’s successor George W. Bush, Britain’s Tony Blair, and Europe’s leadership in what became known as the “Bush Doctrine”, which amounted to “Democratic regime change”. The Afghanistan War, the war and occupation of Iraq, the later Georgian War, Barack Obama’s part in Ukraine, then Arab Spring, Gaddafi, Assad and Syria, the spread of this quasi-democratic movement is well documented by the trail of blood and misery left in its path. Whether the reader wishes to see the march of these successive administrations as complicit or circumstantial participants in this is irrelevant. In the long view the United States’ domestic and global policies have failed billions of people. Furthermore, on some individual level, each and every one of us has felt these failures. This is true of the protesters from Austin to Washington today. These Hillary supporters are by and large, just the pawns of the globalists who pay for play via the US Treasury, and who now fund the very upheaval against President-elect Trump. The Hillary Clinton “upset” is a far bigger paradigm than anyone is telling us. At this point some readers are already asking; “So where is that glowing promise?” Donald Trump is in the process of emptying not only the “Washington swamp”, but the European one as well. Before you object, please consider what it means for a powerful outsider to enter this game of crisis-détente. Look at how EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is expressing the panic of European leadership in this comment this week: “We will need to teach the president-elect what Europe is and how it works.” News that NATO is losing it over the Trump presidency is brought into context if we look at how NATO is trying to establish Moscow as the bitter foe again. I recall something Mr. Putin said to the Valdai Conference in Sochi in 2014, when announced; “Playtime is over”. The Russian president was talking about backroom deals and underhanded dealings geo-policy makers had been engaging in for decades, and how he was not engaging in them any longer. This is vital for understanding Mr. Trump’s position with regard to positivity toward Russia and China. The globalists who have run this show for decades are now faced with powerful opponents to their plans. All of this is irrefutable, and only the minute details remain to be seen. The worst nightmare of the billionaires who have benefited from world chaos is now elected. Imagine now what will come out in a Hillary Clinton investigation without the Obama Department of Justice to block! Donald Trump has at his fingertips every underhanded shift, every bit of NSA intelligence, every USAID or CIA penny shoveled to ISIL, or to some unscrupulous EU official. Hillary and Bill Clinton, the Bushs, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Tony Blair, Cameron, billionaires like George Soros and his NGOs, the whole grimy and messy swamp of leadership corruption is now in the hands of a guy who builds skyscrapers and golf courses. Somebody outside the “club” is in the White House and nobody knows what he is going to do. No Rockefeller millions put him there. No Soros funding promoted him, and no corporate media voiced a kind word about him. The opposition to Donald Trump did every dirty, stinking, rotten deed they could to ensure he lost, but fed up America said “no”. The world’s geo-political reptiles are losing their collective minds today. Soros and MoveOn.org, the neo-socialists marching in Berlin are organizing a popular uprising, but the Trump power base is more firm. The same frustrated American that lost his manufacturing job and pension to NAFTA, he is the neighbor of that redneck veteran Obama sent to lose in Afghanistan. The shining hope I speak of is in the pragmatic realism of Trump, Putin, and any leader compelled to actually serve a people. Here is how I see it playing out. As I looked at Vladimir Putin’s Instagram account today, I could not help but notice he and former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi walking side-by-side in the woods. The reason I mention this is because the media in the west has already jumped on a fear, and a meme, in comparing Berlusconi to Trump. One of Mr. Putin’s friends, Berlusconi is a fascinating and powerful ally in Italy, a nation increasingly reticent on Germany’s and America’s control of Europe. The neo-fascist liberals who were so “all in” to get Clinton elected, now they are in chaotic disarray now over politicians like Matteo Renzi, whom Berlusconi backs. To cut short here, the Trump-Putin cohesion the far-left tried to use against the billionaire property mogul, is the same bright potential that can rescue the planet. Europe is only an extension of Washington, London, Berlin, and Paris these days, and the EU that never was has scores of nations restless for change. Trump is the catalyst for this change whether he choose to try Hillary Clinton or not. You see Trump is a businessman first, and philosopher poet last. The bottom line here is, peace with Russia and carry on business, or stand trial for betraying a billion people. These protests, the NATO and EU “warnings” to Trump, these indications tell me just how corrupt this system was. Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” . Popular Articles | 0 |
Precipitous declines in print advertising rocked the newspaper industry last year. And while The New York Times Company recorded significant growth in subscriptions and promising increases in digital advertising, it nevertheless has not avoided the inevitable. The company said on Thursday that its print advertising revenue in 2016 fell 16 percent, driving a 9 percent drop in total advertising revenue. For the quarter, print advertising revenue declined 20 percent. The story on the digital side was positive, underscoring the diverging financial narratives for print and digital that have emerged at the company. Digital advertising revenue rose 6 percent last year, to $209 million. The Times Company added 514, 000 net subscriptions for its news products during the year, bringing its total to 1. 6 million. Buoyed by readers’ intense interest in the presidential election, the company added 276, 000 net subscriptions to its news products in the last three months of the year, more additions than in 2013 and 2014 combined. Including print and crossword product subscriptions, The New York Times now has more than three million total paid subscribers, a milestone that aligns with the company’s commitment to a revenue model that is less reliant on the advertising revenue derived from page views and clicks. As for many other legacy print companies trying to adapt to an increasingly digital world, these have been challenging times for The New York Times. Last month, The Times released an internal report that called for swift changes in the newsroom, including more staff training, a commitment to hiring journalists with skills and an elimination of duplicative layers of editing. That has left employees bracing for staff reductions that newsroom leaders said could be announced in the next several weeks. Despite positive developments on the digital side, the overall financial results announced on Thursday are unlikely to assuage the tangible anxiety among journalists at The Times. Total revenue fell about 2 percent for the year, to $1. 6 billion, and 1 percent in the quarter, to $440 million. Adjusted operating profit, the company’s preferred method for assessing performance, fell to $241 million last year, from $289 million in 2015. Operating profit dropped to $102 million, from $137 million. For the quarter, adjusted operating profit was $96 million, compared with $118 million in the fourth quarter in 2015. Operating profit fell to $56 million, from $88 million. On a more positive note, circulation revenue rose 3 percent in 2016, to $881 million. Revenue from the company’s subscriptions jumped 17 percent in 2016, to $233 million. For the quarter, circulation revenue increased 5 percent, to $226 million, and subscription revenue rose 22 percent, to $64 million. Digital advertising revenue rose 11 percent. In an earnings call on Thursday, Mark Thompson, chief executive of the Times Company, called digital growth “unprecedented” and expressed optimism in the company’s growth strategy. He also used the call to needle President Trump over his claims that the publication’s audience and subscriber numbers were “dwindling. ” “Not so much, Mr. President,” Mr. Thompson said. “We had spectacular audiences in the quarter. ” Times executives said the company expected circulation revenues to increase about 6 percent in the first quarter of 2017 compared with the same quarter last year. The company also expected to see about 200, 000 net additional subscriptions to its digital news products in the first quarter. Total advertising revenue is forecast to fall in the high single digits, though digital advertising revenue is expected to increase 10 to 15 percent. On Wednesday, The Times announced the promotion of Clifford J. Levy, a top digital editor, to the position of deputy managing editor. On Thursday, the company announced a partnership with Snapchat to create a new daily edition for the app’s Discover section, with the aim of gaining exposure to a younger audience. | 1 |
LONDON — Lady Elizabeth Anson, Queen Elizabeth II’s cousin and her party planner for more than 50 years, was raised in a Downton home where servants ironed the newspapers, and was married at Westminster Abbey. But on a recent Friday, Lady Elizabeth — the orchestrator of some of Britain’s most aristocratic parties — was in her sitting room. She was wearing a gray Tomasz Starzewski jacket bought on sale more than 40 years ago, drinking tea from a tankard (an eBay find) and discussing her recovery from her weekly lottery addiction. “I still do a lucky dip if it’s a huge amount of money,” said Lady Elizabeth, who has also organized events for Tom Cruise and other celebrities seeking discretion. On her feet were what looked like Roger Vivier court shoes, but when a reporter suggested she might like to remove whatever was stuck to the bottom of them before having her photograph taken, Lady Elizabeth, 75, handed the footwear to her liveried butler. “Certainly, my lady,” he said, before getting rid of the price tags that revealed that the shoes cost £25 (about $35). “Marks Spencer’s best,” Lady Elizabeth said, looking delighted at this evidence of her frugality. And really, why shouldn’t she be? Among her “grander family,” as she calls them, frugality is a trait to be celebrated. The queen has been known to take public trains. Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge (whom Lady Elizabeth refers to as “Catherine”) is applauded for wearing dresses more than once. Let somebody else be the embarrassingly profligate relative that makes the monarchy look bad. Lady Elizabeth — daughter of Princess Anne of Denmark, goddaughter of King George VI — is just another entrepreneur, albeit possibly the only one with the word “lady” in her email address. “I do not know how to be a lady who lunches,” she said. “I love my work, and my work pays for my home. ” She asked the butler to bring her her nicotine sweets. She gave up smoking in the ’60s, picked it up after 17 years, then quit with difficulty again 11 years ago. If she were to start again, the sitting room would rebuke her. Every surface is crammed with decorative eggs — 536 of them, by her grandchildren’s last count — that she began collecting after her stepfather presented her with an alabaster one as a worry bead for her right hand when she first put down the cigarettes. Hers is a business. One of her projects is the queen’s 90th birthday this month. The milestone is being marked with street parties, pageants and ceremonies, but Lady Elizabeth handled the private family celebration, which, like all of her events, she was “not prepared to discuss. ” Still, she is as unguarded as one can possibly be when bound by confidentiality agreements, referring to one of Ivana Trump’s husbands as “looking like a frog. ” (Mrs. Trump is a former client. Things did not end well.) Of the overweight king of Tonga, whom she was looking after, along with all the other foreign heads of state, at the 2011 royal wedding, she said, “He thought he’d break the furniture in Buckingham Palace. ” The chairs there are “very low,” she said, “very wonderful Louis Quatorze. It looks as if you sat on it, it would break. But it doesn’t. ” During a discussion about the lost art of conversation because of cellphones, she took her incessantly ringing land line off the hook, letting the receiver dangle at her stockinged feet, and leaned in, saying: “I think I can tell this. It’s a bit about the royal family. ” She described how the queen had had her grandchildren over for dinner. “And she said to me that she found it really difficult,” Lady Elizabeth said, “because they didn’t really know how to talk each other. And she said, ‘I suppose it’s because they’re always getting up and down and helping somebody and putting something in a dishwasher or whatever they’re doing, because they don’t have enough staff. ’” On the subject of Her Majesty: For the record, the queen is a “most meticulous hostess,” though she does not insist only on Malvern water or yellow freesias, as has been reported. “People love creating myths,” Lady Elizabeth said. “It makes them feel very . ” In fact, it was a gardener at Windsor Castle who decreed the yellow flowers. For the wedding of William and Kate, for which Lady Elizabeth was an adviser (and planned the wedding eve family dinner) the couple had very strong ideas that the queen “was marvelous and listened to,” she said. Traditional royal weddings have no reception afterward — guests just depart after the service — but William and Kate wanted one after seeing that was what their friends had had. “And so the palace had to learn quite a lot about different canapés, because they weren’t used to doing them,” Lady Elizabeth said. Her code name around the office for the queen is (or was until it’s been published) Shirley Temple, though Lady Elizabeth said she can’t remember why. Referring to her staff of five, she said: “We literally had the funniest names possible for everybody. And the people who were the most aware of their celeb importance that I’ve ever had got names that were truly extraordinary. ” While looking at wedding sites with the actress Isla Fisher, who was marrying Sacha Baron Cohen, Lady Elizabeth was amused that Ms. Fisher (code name: Sally Dangletrot) kept three different wigs in the car to disguise herself. “I wouldn’t have known her if she was passing down the street,” she said. “I shouldn’t say that because it’s quite rude. ” Lady Elizabeth started her business at age 18, in 1960. Her inspiration was the stress of planning her own 1959 debutante party, which prevented her from enjoying the evening. Chasing down R. S. V. P. s was a particular headache, and she claims credit for inventing “this ghastly thing called the reply card” to solve the problem. The first time she created one, she forgot to leave a space for people to write their names, and so she ended up with a bunch of yeses and nos but no clue who they were from. Her first event for the queen was a disco at Windsor Castle for Prince Charles, then 15, and Princess Anne, then 13. “My business started before the discothèque was invented,” she said. “So when this man told me he was going to charge me £25 to put on records for the evening, I thought, ‘Is this man absolutely crazy?’ Anybody can put on a gramophone record. ” She soon learned it was “an art form. ” A party for the Rolling Stones ended with the police showing up as guests were drunkenly throwing unopened bottles of Dom Pérignon into the Thames, but generally Lady Elizabeth’s events are known for their calm elegance and thoughtful touches. At a dinner for 40 people last month hosted by royalty at the cavernous, drafty Victoria Albert Museum, Lady Elizabeth marched over to “my little Indian caftan man on the Portobello Road” and bought a load of white pashminas to drape on each chair. She hid bottles underneath cushions. (She also suggested to guests that they wear “heat tech from Uniqlo. ”) “It’s that ghastly boring phrase ‘the devil’s in the details. ’” she said. “The devil is in the detail, and the detail doesn’t need to cost very much. ” She can do strict protocol — working out what year various marquesses or earls were created to determine seniority (and thus seating arrangements) — but she is not afraid to break it, along with convention. Glynn Woodin, who has worked with her for 30 years as the managing director of Mustard Catering, a society favorite, recalled that recently she decided the damask tablecloth (Mr. Woodin described its color as “eau de vie with a bit of olive”) would look better flipped upside down, using the rougher textured side. “We were doing a party absolutely littered with royals,” he said. “You and I would be horrified to use a cloth on the wrong side, but it was exactly right. ” She has never advertised. Instead, she attributes her success in part to being “terribly, terribly shy” — she still bemoans a party she never quite made it to years ago where, dressed in a red velvet trouser suit and with her hair freshly done, she stood by the elevator watching people go in, unable to summon the nerve to do the same. And so she arranges party spaces with the timid in mind. “The downfall of any party in the countryside is to walk into a hall and be confronted by a dance floor,” she said. “And some young man has driven you down, so he’s got a girl on both arms, and what do you do with yourself?” Her solution: a bar, which she calls a “picking up and dumping ground. ” With multiple events a week, she said she has little time for hobbies, though she was an avid “Downton Abbey” watcher (dismayed as she was by the dining room tablecloth — “a table was a butler’s pride and joy”). She has a fondness for foraging, especially for mushrooms. “There’s a wonderful book called ‘Food for Free,’ and it’s quite amazing what you can eat from the hedgerows,” she said. She paused to contemplate what she would do if she retired, but then quickly got back to work. | 1 |
President Donald Trump defended his team of rivals in the White House, specifically his senior advisors Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner. [“Bannon … he’s actually a very good guy,” Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg News. The president joked that sometimes he called Bannon “ ” and suggested that he was “more of a libertarian” despite his widely recognized populist nationalist politics. “You know, they give him a bad rap,” Trump added. “Bannon is a very decent guy who feels very strongly about the country. ” Trump defended his Jared Kushner as “a very brilliant young guy” who was getting along with Bannon, after their widely reported feud in the White House. “They’re getting along fine … they’re getting along well,” Trump said, although he admitted that “for a while it was a little testy” between the two of them. He acknowledged that his team was “very competitive” and tried to dispel the notion that Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer were rivals. He specifically praised Sean Spicer for getting great television ratings. “He’s become the biggest star on television now, you know?” Trump said. “He’s getting more than the ‘Bold and the Beautiful’ guys, those handsome guys that they pay a fortune, right?” Trump said he expected to keep his team intact, but hinted that “probably people are going to get job offers. ” “You know, things happen,” he said. “But, but I’m very happy with our group. We’re doing very well. ” | 1 |
Donald Trump denounced some of the unsubstantiated rumors published by left wing blogs about Trump receiving “golden showers” from prostitutes while he was in Russia. [“Does anyone really believe that story?” Trump asked incredulously during his press conference at Trump Tower, after he was asked about his behavior in Russia. “I’m also very much of a germaphobe, by the way, believe me,” he added. Trump asserted that as a high profile person, he was “extremely careful” about his activity in hotel rooms and was extremely suspicious about hidden cameras. “I’m surrounded by people and I always tell them anywhere, but I always tell them, if I’m leaving this country, be very careful, because in your hotel rooms and no matter where you go, you’re going to probably have cameras,” he said. | 1 |
Stuffed inside cookie tins and between the pages of books in Diane Fields’s kitchen are multitudes of recipes. Ms. Fields has clipped them from newspapers and kept them for years, intent on preparing and sampling them all. But for the past year, a cancer diagnosis has cast those aspirations in doubt. “I won’t have the chance to cook my recipes,” said Ms. Fields, 69, who received the diagnosis in late 2015. “These are the things that come to mind when you go through something like this. ” The first sign that something was wrong came in November last year with painful stomach cramps. Doctors told Ms. Fields that she had pancreatic cancer, the same cancer that claimed the lives of one of her grandmothers in 2004 and a brother in 2010. Ms. Fields was already saddled with health problems, including heart disease, osteoporosis and a torn meniscus that forced her to retire in 2009 as a senior case manager at a maternity shelter. “I didn’t cry,” Ms. Fields recalled. “My first inclination was what are we going to do about it? What kind of options do I have?” Last December, she began chemotherapy and radiation treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan to try to shrink her tumors. Ms. Fields is still undergoing chemotherapy. “With chemo, if I’m not sick, I’m still tired,” she said. Even simple tasks, like a walk to the corner store, have left Ms. Fields suddenly and drastically immobilized. She feels discouraged about leaving her home. Her only child, Kimberly Fields, 46, is constantly by her mother’s side. She had moved into her mother’s apartment in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn a couple of years earlier when she was between jobs in retail. When her mother learned she had cancer, Kimberly Fields postponed her job search. “Since I was here anyway, I said, ‘Let me take care of my mother,’” she said. “I don’t mind certain things. I’m not saying it’s not stressful, but it’s good stress. It’s my mother. ” In addition to the crippling fatigue, the cancer has taken a psychological toll. Ms. Fields has found herself snapping at strangers for minor offenses and grousing about her daughter’s overprotective nature. Her daughter hesitates to allow her to venture out on her own, leaving Ms. Fields frustrated by her confinement. “Thank God she’s here. She helps me,” Diane Fields said. “But you want to be able to do stuff on your own. ” In May, Ms. Fields was dealt another setback. She was moved to a different insurance plan and forced to reapply for Medicaid. She then learned that the $1, 027 in Social Security benefits she receives each month disqualified her from regular Medicaid, and that she was responsible for paying $184 a month to offset the surplus income. This new financial demand, in addition to her medication costs, led to dwindling savings and put her rent into arrears. At that time, Ms. Fields sought the help of Catholic Charities Brooklyn and Queens, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. It used $500 in Neediest funds to cover the missing portion of her rent. In November, Ms. Fields was granted a fair hearing from the state to object to her Medicaid changes. She succeeded, was reimbursed for past surplus payments and no longer has to pay the additional $184 every month. With that resolved, battling her cancer remains at the forefront. The mother and daughter try to stay strong, often to lift each other’s spirits. Ms. Fields said her first good cry had happened in private, and many months after the diagnosis. “I don’t know what it was that made me start crying,” she said. “I was just sitting here thinking, and I just started crying, to let it out. ” The Fieldses greet each day with faith, optimism and gratitude. Diane Fields praises her doctors and fellow patients at Sloan Kettering for their boundless optimism. “I’m not going to say you’re not frightened,” Ms. Fields said. “But you can’t just lie down and say this is it. ” When she regains her strength, the recipes she has clipped will be waiting for her. So will a slow cooker, still in its packaging and sitting on a kitchen shelf. And she is eager to pull out her bread maker for a pizza dough recipe she has wanted to prepare. “I haven’t been able to do all that yet, but once the cancer’s gone, I will,” Ms. Fields said. | 1 |
A Russian technology executive who was named in a dossier containing unverified allegations about connections between President Trump and the Russian government has sued BuzzFeed News, which published the information. The defamation suit was filed in court on Friday in Broward County, Fla. according to lawyers for the executive, Aleksej Gubarev, the chief of XBT, a technology company based in Luxembourg. The suit focuses on allegations, made near the end of the dossier, that Mr. Gubarev and his company were involved in hacking operations against the leadership of the Democratic Party. In the complaint, Mr. Gubarev’s lawyers say that BuzzFeed acted recklessly that none of the statements have any basis in fact and that Mr. Gubarev’s association with the dossier has left his reputation “in tatters,” compromised his family’s security and damaged his company’s business prospects. It called BuzzFeed’s decision “perhaps one of the most reckless and irresponsible moments in modern ‘journalism. ’” The publishing of the dossier was one of the most startling moments of the weeks before Mr. Trump’s inauguration. Compiled by a former British intelligence operative who was hired by Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals and later by supporters of Hillary Clinton, the document had circulated for months among government officials and journalists. The veracity of its claims had been investigated but never proved. But after CNN reported last month that intelligence officials had presented a summary of the allegations to Mr. Trump and President Barack Obama, BuzzFeed decided to publish the document in full, saying that “Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the that have circulated at the highest levels of the U. S. government. ” When it published the dossier, BuzzFeed noted that it contained errors and that its claims had not been verified. The publication’s editor in chief, Ben Smith, later wrote that its reporters in the United States and Europe spent weeks investigating the report. BuzzFeed ignited a debate over both the claims in the report as well as the outlet’s decision to break from typical journalistic practices in publishing it. Mr. Trump denounced the unproven claims as a smear, and called BuzzFeed a “failing pile of garbage” during a heated news conference on Jan. 11. Mr. Gubarev’s lawsuit claims that while more than 30 publications tried to contact him after the dossier’s publication, he was not contacted by BuzzFeed for his response to the allegations. Mr. Gubarev, 36, lives in Cyprus with his wife and three children. He founded the site Webzilla — which is also identified in the report, the complaint notes — and built it into an international business, XBT, with more than 300 employees around the world. The lawsuit was filed in Florida, where Webzilla is registered. A federal lawsuit over the publishing of a sex tape featuring the wrestler Hulk Hogan that led the website Gawker to file for bankruptcy and eventually shut down was also filed in the state. That case, over invasion of privacy, remains a cautionary tale in the media world. After learning of the lawsuit on Friday, BuzzFeed removed the names of Mr. Gubarev and his company from the dossier. “We have redacted Mr. Gubarev’s name from the published dossier, and apologize for including it,” the company said in an emailed statement to The New York Times. A spokesman for BuzzFeed said it had redacted other names in the document and should have redacted Mr. Gubarev’s, but the spokesman defended the company’s decision to publish the dossier. Mr. Gubarev’s lawyers have also filed a lawsuit in Britain against the former intelligence agent who compiled the report and his consulting company. The lawsuit against BuzzFeed comes at a tense moment for the news media. Mr. Trump’s administration has castigated journalists for challenging unverified or false claims presented by the White House as fact, and the president’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, has labeled the news media “the opposition party. ” Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment scholar and lawyer, said the lawsuit was a “difficult situation for BuzzFeed to be confronted with. ” “It seems inevitable that BuzzFeed will say in some fashion that subjecting it to crippling damages for publishing the dossier would, in the end, imperil the public’s right to know just what misconduct an American president” is suspected of, he said. He added that he could foresee lawyers arguing to move the case to federal court or to a court outside Florida. In the complaint, Mr. Gubarev’s lawyers argue that he is not a public figure. But if the court disagrees, Mr. Gubarev’s lawyers would have to prove that BuzzFeed acted not only negligently, but also maliciously. One potential argument for defense lawyers is a principle called neutral reportage, which defends the publishing of some defamatory material if it is a matter of public interest and “does it in a fair and disinterested manner, without endorsing a defamatory charge,” Mr. Abrams said. The principle has been rejected by some courts, however, and has not been tested widely, he added. “I would think that wherever this case is heard, an absolutely central issue will be whether a court would adopt the neutral reportage principle and say basically precisely what the editor of BuzzFeed has been saying — that this is an enormous matter of public interest, we reported it fairly, we did not endorse it, we made very clear that these were simply charges that were well known to everyone but the American public,” he said. | 1 |
I’m proud to have made the case for Donald Trump during the presidential campaign. Now that he’s been sworn in, I’m eager to help him build a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe v. Wade and wipe out the “abortion distortion” that has plagued judicial rulings for decades. So when it comes to filling Justice Scalia’s vacancy, it’s essential to assess how the various candidates on President Trump’s Supreme Court list measure up on that score. [That’s why I must respectfully disagree with Andy Schlafly, son of the late and great Phyllis Schlafly, whose vocal opposition to almost all of the candidates on President Trump’s list has caused confusion and consternation among activists. Schlafly claims there is only one candidate among the 21 on the President’s list worthy of his endorsement. Even candidates like 11th Circuit Judge William Pryor, who has decried Roe v. Wade as the “worst abomination in the history of constitutional law” and as having “led to the slaughter of millions of innocent unborn children,” do not satisfy Schlafly’s qualifications. Pryor has won my approval, and has strong backing from Federalist Society, Alliance Defending Freedom and others whose opinion I highly value. Phyllis Schlafly herself helped put several candidates on President Trump’s list. She praised them as “ . ” Former Scalia clerk Ed Whelan (who has long argued for Roe to be overruled) has thoroughly argued against Schlafly’s criticisms. Last week Whelan wrote a response to Schlafly’s condemnation of 10th Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch pointing out that Gorsuch, in a powerful opinion, argued for allowing the state of Utah to defund Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion business. Gorsuch has written a doctoral dissertation and a book arguing against assisted suicide and euthanasia and has also declared that “human life is fundamentally and inherently valuable, and that the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong. ” Further, Gorsuch strongly supported the rights of Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor against the HHS mandate on abortifacient drugs and devices. Schlafly claims that Gorsuch “thinks courts should not correct their own mistaken precedents. ” But the sentence written by Gorsuch quoted by Schlafly, from the panel ruling in a case United States v. goes on to call for his court to overturn its wrong precedent. Schlafly also criticizes the Federalist Society for not being, and never being, . The Federalist Society doesn’t take institutional positions on any issues. But Justice Scalia helped to found the Federalist Society and remained a good friend of it until his death, precisely because of the sound legal principles that the Federalist Society helps to promote. I have every confidence that the Federalist Society is helping President Trump fulfill his pledge to appoint justices. Truth is the movement’s strongest ally in our fight to change hearts and minds in the culture while also building protections for the unborn into our nation’s law. The names being surfaced as finalists for President Trump’s Supreme Court pick provide an historic opportunity to fill the Supreme Court with strong Constitutionalists who would defend the right to life of Americans born and unborn. Marjorie Dannenfelser is the president of the Susan B. Anthony List. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — A united front of top intelligence officials and senators from both parties on Thursday forcefully reaffirmed the conclusion that the Russian government used hacking and leaks to try to influence the presidential election, directly rebuffing Donald J. Trump’s repeated questioning of Russia’s role. They suggested that the doubts Mr. Trump has expressed on Twitter about the agencies’ competence and impartiality were undermining their morale. “There’s a difference between skepticism and disparagement,” James R. Clapper Jr. the director of national intelligence, said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Russian hacks. He added that “our assessment now is even more resolute” that the Russians carried out the attack on the election. The Senate hearing was the prelude to an extraordinary meeting scheduled for Friday, when Mr. Clapper and other intelligence chiefs will repeat for Mr. Trump the same detailed, highly classified briefing on the Russian attack that President Obama received on Thursday. In effect, they will be telling the that the spy agencies believe he won with an assist from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Then Mr. Trump will have to say whether he accepts the agencies’ basic findings on Russia’s role or holds to his previous contention that inept, politicized American spies have gotten the perpetrator of the hacking wrong. That would throw the intelligence agencies into a crisis of credibility and status with few, if any, precedents. In a pair of Twitter posts early Thursday, Mr. Trump appeared to back away from the scorn he had previously expressed for the intelligence agencies’ work, as well as from his embrace of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, which released most of the hacked emails of Democratic officials. “The dishonest media likes saying that I am in agreement with Julian Assange — wrong,” he wrote. “I simply state what he states, it is for the people to make up their own minds as to the truth. The media lies to make it look like I am against ‘Intelligence’ when in fact I am a big fan!” But on Thursday night, the returned to Twitter and appeared to underscore his doubts about the F. B. I. ’s investigation of the hacking. “The Democratic National Committee would not allow the FBI to study or see its computer info after it was supposedly hacked by Russia,” he wrote, a day after a report by BuzzFeed on the issue. “So how and why are they so sure about hacking if they never even requested an examination of the computer servers? What is going on?” Early next week, the public will get its fullest information to date on the evidence the agencies have to support their contention that Mr. Putin’s government used the hacked emails to hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign and help Mr. Trump’s. Mr. Clapper said he would “push the envelope” to include as much detail as possible in the unclassified version of the intelligence agencies’ report on the Russian operation. The hacking, he added, was only one part of that operation, which also included the dissemination of “classical propaganda, disinformation, fake news. ” Mr. Clapper will step down as intelligence director later this month after a career in intelligence and military service that began when he enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1961. His replacement is expected to be Dan Coats, a retired senator from Indiana, a Trump transition official said Thursday. A conservative who served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr. Coats would oversee the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies in a job that was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to improve the sharing of information, but that is sometimes criticized as adding a layer of bureaucracy. The Coats news came on the same day that R. James Woolsey, a former C. I. A. director, stepped down as a senior adviser to Mr. Trump, citing his diminishing role in the transition. The Senate hearing on Thursday, devoted to foreign cyberthreats, was unusual as much for its context as its content — a public, bipartisan display of support for the intelligence community that seemed aimed, at times, at an audience of one. Though Mr. Clapper and most Republican senators were careful to avoid antagonizing the directly, the hearing spoke to the rift Mr. Trump has threatened to create between the incoming administration and the intelligence officials assigned to inform it. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and chairman of the committee, said the purpose of the gathering was “not to question the outcome of the presidential election” but to move forward with a full understanding of what had happened. Repeatedly, though, Mr. McCain and his colleagues seemed to undercut Mr. Trump’s past messages of support for Russia, and for Mr. Assange of WikiLeaks. “Do you think there’s any credibility we should attach to this individual?” Mr. McCain asked. “Not in my view,” Mr. Clapper said. Another witness at the hearing, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the head of the National Security Agency and United States Cyber Command, said he agreed. The intelligence director said he welcomed skeptical questioning from Mr. Trump, allowing that the intelligence community was “not perfect. ” “We are an organization of human beings, and we’re prone, sometimes, to make errors,” Mr. Clapper said. But he said the agencies had learned from their failures, notably their declaration that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Democrats on the committee repeatedly coaxed intelligence leaders to rebut Mr. Trump’s multiple assertions that a random individual hacker might have hacked Democratic targets. Senator Joe Donnelly, Democrat of Indiana, told Mr. Clapper that in the conflict between the intelligence agencies and Mr. Assange over Russian responsibility for the attack, “We’re on your side every time. ” He asked Mr. Clapper to convey his level of confidence in attributing the election attack to Russia, rather than “someone in his basement. ” “It’s, uh, very high,” the laconic intelligence director replied. At one point, Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, wondered aloud “who benefits from a trashing the intelligence community. ” Ms. McCaskill said there would be “howls from the Republican side of the aisle” if a Democrat had spoken about intelligence officials as Mr. Trump had. Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia and Mrs. Clinton’s running mate, used the occasion for an aside about Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, who has a history of sharing discredited news stories and conspiracy theories. Mr. Kaine said that he was unsure whether Mr. Flynn was acting out of “gullibility” or “malice,” but that it was a cause for “great concern” that Mr. Flynn shared stories that “most fourth graders would find incredible. ” No Republican lawmakers embraced Mr. Trump’s remarks casting doubt on the intelligence conclusions, though some were more conspicuous than others in their efforts to distance themselves. Perhaps the closest to a defense of Mr. Trump came from Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas. Denouncing “imprecise language” stating that Russia “hacked the election,” Mr. Cotton asked Mr. Clapper to confirm that the actual balloting was not affected. Mr. Cotton also suggested that the conventional wisdom that Mr. Putin favored Mr. Trump over Mrs. Clinton might be wrong. Mr. Trump promised a stronger military and more American oil and gas production — policies Mr. Cotton suggested would not be to Russia’s advantage. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, criticized the Obama administration for its response to the Russian attack. He said the White House had lobbed mere “pebbles” in retaliation for the interference. “When it comes to interfering with our election, we better be ready to throw rocks,” he said. Then Mr. Graham issued a warning for fellow Republicans who might be inclined to brush off any attack on an opposing party. “Could it be Republicans next election?” he asked. “It’s not like we’re so much better at cybersecurity than Democrats. ” | 1 |
Rep. Marsha Blackburn ( ) discussed the possible elimination of the FCC’s 2016 broadband privacy rules on Tuesday’s Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM host Alex Marlow. [“The Senate, under the leadership of Sen. Flake, took this up last week,” Blackburn said. “What we are doing is recalling a privacy rule that the FCC issued right at the end of the Obama administration, and the reason we are doing this is because it is additional and duplicative regulation. ” “The FCC already has the ability to oversee privacy with broadband providers,” she explained. “That is done primarily through Section 222 of the Communications Act, and additional authority is granted through Sections 201 and 202. Now, what they did was to go outside of their bounds and expand that. They did a swipe at the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC. They have traditionally been our nation’s primary privacy regulator, and they have done a very good job of it. ” “What the FCC did was clearly overreach. It gives you two sets of regulators that you’re trying to comply with, not one. So we are recalling the FCC’s rule, and that authority will go back to the FTC,” she said. Blackburn said Congress wants to ensure “privacy is being overseen, protected, and that when there is a necessity for enforcement, that it’s being exercised — if there is a necessity for penalties, that they are being placed. ” “In the physical space, that has rested with the FTC,” she noted. “So if someone were to abridge your online privacy and sell your information without your knowledge, without your consent, that would be something that the regulators would go after. Let’s say if someone starts to wholesale sell your data, and you said, ‘Do not share my data. Do not share my information,’ that’s the kind of effect that it has. ” She said Congress was aware of the need for more privacy and legislation, as opposed to regulations promulgated by agencies. “The other thing with the broadband providers, let’s say your ISP which is holding data, and they were to scoop up that data and then begin to sell that history without your knowledge. They are prohibited from doing that, and the FCC currently has the authority to go after them. The FTC has the ability to protect consumers, and that is what they do. They are the primary regulator. But let’s say an ISP begins to sell that data, then there would be complaints filed, and the FCC would go after that broadband provider under the regulations that are on the books,” Blackburn said. Marlow raised criticism that Internet users will be exploited by aggressive advertisers if the 2016 FCC rule is recalled. “What the Obama administration did — and I will say they did this against this, against the wishes of a lot of Democrats — they reclassified your Internet service as Title II, which is a common carrier classification. It is the rule that governs telephone usage,” Blackburn responded. “Those rules were put on the books in the thirties. So what the Democrats did, and this was pushed by the White House in the last administration, they reclassified Internet, which is an information service, as a telephone service, and then put those rules on top of your Internet service. ” “They did that so they could tax it, so they could begin to regulate it. Then one of the additional regulations — which is going to cost money for compliance and paperwork and additional bureaucrats — one of those regulations is privacy. But as we say, the authority that they need to oversee broadband is already articulated in Section 222 of the Communications Act,” she said. “You don’t need another layer of regulation. It’s like flashing alerts: We don’t need net neutrality. We don’t need Title II. We don’t need additional regulations heaped on the Internet under Title II. The Internet is not broken. It has done just fine without the government controlling it. That’s the way it should stay,” she contended. Blackburn said Democrats “think government is the solution for all things. It should be either the bureaucracy or the courts that are solving the problems. ” “To them, another added layer of regulation, where you are having a federal agency require compliance of businesses, so now they’re having to file compliance papers with two regulators, not one — they don’t see a problem with that,” she charged. “What we’re saying is, it is unnecessary it’s an added cost to doing business. Who pays those costs of doing business? It’s the consumer. It’s the end user. ” Blackburn said Ajit Pai is “doing a great job as chairman of the FCC. ” “He was my pick to lead the FCC, and I’m thrilled that he is there,” she said. “He understands the utilization of the Internet, all the components. He understands the backbone of the Internet and what and how it works. He understands why we need to be careful with spectrum so that we increase broadband deployment and utilize that spectrum in the Internet of Everything. Ajit knows that these components are critical for economic growth and jobs growth in this country. ” “We are very fortunate to have someone with skill set and understanding as we turn the corner and put the focus on broadband expansion in the country. I’m looking forward to working with him. I talk with him regularly,” she said. “We are going to go through reauthorization of the FCC, which has not been done since the early nineties. We are going to go through reauthorization of the NPIA. We’re going to put some emphasis on spectrum management and spectrum utilization from a government and also a private sector standpoint and do what we can to get broadband into these unserved areas across the country. We’re full steam ahead on that,” she promised. Marlow suggested unsolicited robocalls are an annoyance the American public would like to see controlled more tightly. “That is something that’s called the TCPA. Looking at how individuals interface with their customers is what we will do in that,” Blackburn replied, referring to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991. “We’ll pull that up after we do reauthorizations and then do a revisit on some of the components of the TCPA. ” “People who want to work with their customers need the ability to do with them, but we also want to make certain that people are not harassed, if you will, by unwanted marketing calls,” she said. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 1 |
How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? The Times’s fashion director and critic discusses the tech she uses. As a fashion critic, what’s your favorite tech product that helps you spot and keep track of fashion trends? My iPhone 5, embarrassing as that is to say, and my laptop. I am stuck with my iPhone 5 because I have a keyboard attachment for it that turns it into a BlackBerry, and which I love because during fashion shows I file reviews on my phone and they can be 1, 000 words long. I can’t do that on a touch screen. I hate lugging anything bigger than the phone around since I carry so much else. I also use the gadgets mostly to surf around Instagram and Facebook and various news sites to see what regular people are wearing during their everyday lives in places I am not. For runway trends, I just use my eyes. You’ve written a lot about wearable technology. Are smartwatches ever going to be fashionable enough to replace normal watches? I am sure they will be at some point, but who knows when that will be. The problem is they just look too much like gadgets — or like wannabe traditional watches. Someone has to come up with a third paradigm. Then whoever does that will be in clover. Beyond your job, what tech product are you currently obsessed with using in your daily life? My Kindle. It’s really the only other tech product I use. I have gone through iPad and tablet phases, and smartwatch moments, but they all end up in the back of a drawer somewhere or my kids take them. I am really interested in tech that is efficient and functional and solves problems that are real problems, not theoretical ones. After that, I find it hard to get worked up. What do you and your family do with it? Read! Plus a Kindle is very good to take to shows, because I am lugging a heavy bag full of stuff all day, and it is light and takes up almost no room. And it gives me something to occupy my mind during the endless minutes I spend waiting for shows to start. What could be better about it? The light. Shows have very complicated lighting plans and sometimes that makes it hard to read. What is your children’s favorite piece of technology and why? The favorite app for my and daughters are Snapchat and SoundCloud. That’s because they can use Snapchat to connect with their friends and stay in touch with those that are far away, and SoundCloud because it is easy and a good way to find new music and fun remixes. For my son: Spotify, because he loves listening to music. Favorite piece of technology (from all of them): their iPhones. It is like another limb for them. | 1 |
November 1, 2016
You know Hillary Clinton is getting desperate when she begins resorting to cheap tricks like this one…
As you already know, yesterday the FBI announced that they will be reopening the Clinton email investigation following the discovery of new emails on Anthony Weiner ’s laptop that Hillary thought she had deleted.
Well, as a last ditch effort to try and save her career, President Obama stepped in last minute and Ordered Attorney General Loretta Lynch to tell Comey to back off and not release the information to the public!!
You see, technically Loretta Lynch is in charge of the FBI by being attorney general. She approached Comey directly when she learned about the information and ordered him to stand down, saying he was violating Department of Justice policy.
According to her, it would “interfere with the election.”
James Comey, however, was apparently sick and tired of being bossed around. He stared back at her and declared that he had a duty to Congress and the American people to let them know what is REALLY going on.
Comey said,
“I ALSO THINK IT WOULD BE MISLEADING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WERE WE NOT TO SUPPLEMENT THE RECORD.”
So thank you, FBI Director Comey, for finally growing a pair and standing up to the Hillary Clinton and Obama machine. Now the American people know the TRUTH about Hillary Clinton, and that will end her reign of terror.
If you want to show Comey your support, then share this out so everyone can see that the man is a hero just in case Obama uses some dirty trick to try and sabotage him too… | 0 |
Lawyers for the Fox News chairman Roger Ailes filed a motion on Friday arguing that the sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him by a former anchor, Gretchen Carlson, should be moved from a New Jersey Superior Court into federal court and submitted for arbitration. Mr. Ailes’s lawyers said Ms. Carlson’s suit, which they called a “ campaign,” was a breach of her contract. The contract, they said, included a confidentiality agreement stipulating that any disputes should first go into arbitration. The motion was filed on Friday in a federal court in Newark. The motion also contends that the case should not be heard in a New Jersey Superior Court since Mr. Ailes maintains that his primary residence is in Garrison, N. Y. not in New Jersey, as the lawsuit said. Ms. Carlson lives in Connecticut. “Gretchen Carlson had an arbitration clause in her contract, stating that any employment dispute regarding her employment at Fox News must be done via confidential arbitration,” Barry Asen, Mr. Ailes’s lawyer, said in a statement. “Because Ms. Carlson’s lawsuit violated the arbitration clause, a motion was filed in federal court to have the case arbitrated. The federal court is the proper court to decide the motion because Ms. Carlson’s primary residence is in Connecticut and Mr. Ailes’s primary residence is in New York. ” Ms. Carlson’s lawyers said Mr. Ailes was trying to force the case into a secret proceeding, and away from the public spotlight of a trial. “Gretchen never agreed to arbitrate anything with Mr. Ailes, and the contract on which he relies does not mention him and is not signed by him,” her lawyers, Nancy Erika Smith and Martin Hyman, said in a statement. “Gretchen intends to fight for her right to a public jury trial, a right protected by the discrimination laws and our Constitution. ’’ Ms. Carlson did not name Fox News in the lawsuit. Mr. Ailes is the only defendant. In her lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday, Ms. Carlson argued that she was fired from her weekday afternoon show on Fox News when she rebuffed sexual advances from Mr. Ailes, and that she was a victim of sexual harassment both from him and the “Fox and Friends” host Steve Doocy. The suit sent shock waves throughout the media industry since Ms. Carlson, 50, was a prominent Fox News personality and an veteran of the network, and Mr. Ailes, 76, is one of the most powerful men in television news. Mr. Ailes emphatically denied the charges in the suit and said Ms. Carlson’s contract was not renewed because of poor ratings. Fox News’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, said on Wednesday that it is conducting an internal review of the matter. | 1 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. The declassified version of the intelligence report on Russian hacking ordered by President Obama found that Russia’s leader, Vladimir V. Putin, “ordered an influence campaign” to sway the 2016 election. He turned from seeking to “denigrate” Hillary Clinton to developing “a clear preference” for Donald J. Trump, the report states. Mr. Trump was briefed on the report’s contents by the nation’s top intelligence and law enforcement officials. Afterward, the acknowledged the possibility that Russia had hacked a variety of targets, but asserted that the hacking had not affected the outcome of the election. _____ 2. At least five people were killed and eight wounded in a shooting at Fort International Airport in Florida. The gunman targeted people in the baggage claim area of a terminal used by Delta and Air Canada, and was quickly taken into custody. Senator Bill Nelson identified him as Esteban Santiago and said he was carrying a military identification. _____ 3. Trump acknowledged that Mexico will not be paying for a wall at the border, at least now. Mr. Trump said the wall could be built faster with U. S. taxpayer money — but he still insisted that Mexico would ultimately reimburse the United States, probably through a renegotiated trade agreement. _____ 4. The last jobs report of the Obama administration showed tepid job growth but also a rise in wages. Our economics reporter says that for all of Mr. Trump’s attacks on President Obama’s economic policies, he will inherit an economy that is fundamentally solid, with consumer sentiment, corporate profits and the stock markets up. _____ 5. Much of the southeastern U. S. is bracing for harsh winter storms. Many schools and government offices in Arkansas and Oklahoma were closed on Friday. A state of emergency was declared in Alabama, North Carolina and northern Georgia, including Atlanta, above. _____ 6. Russia ordered its aircraft carrier to return home from the Syrian coast, part of a general drawdown of its forces involved in the conflict. The carrier was sent on its first combat mission last fall to mount airstrikes in support of forces loyal to President Bashar . _____ 7. A second prison riot in a week in Brazil left at least 33 inmates dead. Local news agencies reported a gruesome scene, including decapitations, days after 56 people were killed in another riot. Officials say the violence is linked to an intensifying war among drug gangs for control of Brazil’s cocaine trade. _____ 8. Here in the U. S. opioids — both heroin and prescription painkillers — have killed more than 33, 000 people since 2015. Public health officials say it is the worst drug crisis in American history. We sent a team of reporters around the country to examine how communities are searching for solutions. We also asked readers how opioid abuse has affected them. One man wrote in from Tucson, Ariz. about his son, who became addicted to OxyContin and then heroin. “Every time he lied to me about getting clean, I would believe him and try to help him out,” he wrote. “Now I just hope his bottom is not his death. ” _____ 9. Would Hillary Clinton run for mayor of New York? While the answer is almost certainly no, that’s not stopping political buffs — on the right and the left — from discussing the question. The Clintons live in the suburbs north of the city, but Mrs. Clinton would need only to move inside the city limits by Election Day to qualify for the job (which, again, there are no signs she wants). _____ 10. Finally, the holidays are behind us. “I think we’re alone now,” writes our food editor, Sam Sifton. “Let’s cook for ourselves. ” Here are his suggestions for what to cook this weekend, including pasta with caramelized cabbage, anchovies and bread crumbs. Bon appétit. _____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
I will be a camera and would like to know if there is any live streams for the Washington d.c. area. Can some one please post a time for those of us who do not even trust facebook. I have heard 7 and 12. I will go. I will love to learn and also support. I can take a hit and smile. I have extreme self control. I would gladly die with my body limp in the hopes some one else with step up behind me. My girlfriend said if some thing happens she would have a hard time not fighting we both agree that no matter if or if not life after life;then it will probably do some good so please do not start stuff this day. I believe that destruction of property may be needed but not yet. As some anon said above this can be a place for knowledge. We can grow this day. We can grow internally. We can grow our idea.i will look forward to meeting our family. You will be a great idea to see forming in a street. It is sad we have to meet mask to mask but i feel one day we will tell our kids we were there. We said no that day and i hope even more that one day we will be able to have the ability to say that to them. The only true hope at least one of the non- violent things you can do you do and be safe. Love and wishes | 0 |
The American job creation machine was in April after a disappointing March. Payrolls grew by 211, 000 jobs in the months and unemployment fell to 4. 4 percent, the lowest since May 2007. [The consensus forecast of economists was for job growth of 185, 000 and for a slight increase in unemployment. A broader measure of unemployment known as which includes people not actively looking for jobs as well as workers who can only find jobs, fell to 8. 6 percent from 8. 9 percent in March, the lowest level since November 2007. Somewhat strangely, the decline in unemployment and rise in job creation was accompanied by a tick downward in the labor force participation rate to 62. 9 percent. Wages grew seven cents an hour to an annualized pace of 2. 5 percent, a decline from March’s 2. 7 percent rate. Economists had expected wage growth to remain unchanged. The decline in the pace of wage growth may partly be explained by types of jobs that were created in March. These were concentrated in less productive, lower paying fields, with leisure and hospitality leading the way with 55, 000 positions. March now seems to have been even more dismal than originally thought. The initial read of 98, 000 jobs was revised down to 79, 000, a remarkably low number. February, however, was revised upward to 232, 000 from 219, 000. Overall, the report suggests that the economy is growing at a healthy pace despite the poor jobs number in March and sluggish first quarter GDP showing. | 1 |
Republicans going home to talk to their constituents are facing violence and death threats, with some lawmakers upping security at town hall events — a consequence of a culture of violence being fostered by activists and their allies in the liberal media. [In the lead up to the passage of ObamaCare in 2010, conservatives were vocal at town halls and other forums in their opposition to the law. Yet, despite a great deal of speculation and fearmongering by the media, town hall events were almost entirely free of violence or threats of harm. As the Democrats seek to mirror that opposition against President Trump and the Republican health care bill, the same commitment to is not there. Using similar tactics to “Antifa” activists opposing conservative speakers on college campuses, some activists are disrupting events and even resorting to threats and acts of violence. A man was arrested last week for threatening Rep. Martha McSally ( ) in voicemail messages, telling her that her days “were numbered” because of her support for the president. The Arizona Republic reported that her district is one of the most evenly divided in the nation, but the threats are especially disturbing as she represents the district represented by former Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head in 2011. McSally faced one of the more extreme crowds at a town hall in February where she was heckled as activists carried signs saying, “Stop Trump’s crusade of hate” and “No! This fascist regime must be stopped before it starts. ” Some threats, allegedly from Steven Martan who was arrested by the FBI, say: “Martha our sights are set on you, right between your (expletive) eyes” and “Can’t wait to (expletive) pull the trigger (expletive),” according to the Republic. This month, a woman was arrested after she allegedly attempted to drive Rep. David Kustoff ( ) off the road over his support of the Republican health care bill after an event. When the car stopped, she is alleged to have attacked the car, hitting the windows and reaching inside the car. She was arrested after she bragged about it on Facebook. While tempting to dismiss as incidents, the threats and attacks come amid a backdrop of a culture of violence among the left. Riots, once a rare occurrence in America, now seem commonplace from leftist thugs in the era of Trump. Hundreds of people were arrested for rioting on Trump’s Inauguration Day alone, and college campuses have seen threats and violence should they dare to invite a conservative speaker onto campus. This has even been promoted to an extent by some liberal media outlets. In addition to the general hysteria and misinformation being pushed by some outlets (such as the false claim spread by a number of outlets that the health care reform bill would “make sexual assault a condition”) there have been outright calls for harassment. Two days before the attack on Kustoff, a May 10 opinion piece by Michelangelo Signorile for HuffPost told readers, “It’s time to move beyond polite protests within specified boundaries. It’s time to escalate the expression of our outrage and our anger in a massive way. ” Starting today and from here on, no elected official ― certainly those in the GOP defending and supporting Trump on a variety of issues, for example ― should be able to sit down for a nice, quiet lunch or dinner in a Washington, DC eatery or even in their own homes. They should be hounded by protestors everywhere, especially in public ― in restaurants, in shopping centers, in their districts, and yes, on the public property outside their homes and apartments, in Washington and back in their home states. A day later, a man at a town hall meeting put his hands on Rep. Kevin Cramer ( ) and tried to stuff money into his blazer to protest his support of the health care bill. The protester, Mike Quinn, was then written about sympathetically by The Washington Post, which made much of his subsequent apology to Cramer — but included this frightening quote from Quinn: “I was out of my mind with anger for a few moments there. ” Understandably, it now seems Republican lawmakers are taking precautions. The Hill reports that, after a catalog of violence and threats, many GOP lawmakers are fearing for their safety at town halls, and some are upping security in response. Rep. Tom Garrett ( ) increased security at a town hall event after he received a number of death threats online — threats deemed “credible and real” by authorities. “Dissent is American. Praise God. We need that. That’s what made us who we are. But when it’s ‘I’m going to kill you this way. Then I’m going to kill your wife. This is what I’m going to do to your daughters,’ … I’m not going to not share it,” Garrett told The Roanoke Times. In its report documenting the threats, The Hill noted that often it isn’t the lawmakers themselves that get the threats, but members of their families. It was the young daughter, for instance, of Rep. Jeff Fortenberry ( ) who found a sign on the family lawn: “Traitors put party above country Do the right thing for once, shithead. ” Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY. | 1 |
Hundreds of protesters stormed Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone on Saturday and entered the Parliament building, demanding an end to corruption. A day later, they began to leave. What brought on this chaos, and why did it end so quickly? Images of Iraqis storming Parliament over the weekend made it seem as though a popular revolution was at hand. In reality, it was something else: partly a legitimate expression of popular anger, but partly political theater. The episode had to be somewhat condoned by the authorities, given the ease with which the protesters were able to pass through the fortresslike security. There were reports that Prime Minister Haider had tacitly supported the breach, although his office denied that. And a militia aligned with the protesters took over security around Parliament, suggesting a deal with the security forces. There were reports of lawmakers’ being attacked and slapped, but no one was seriously hurt. Protesters did attack the fancy vehicles of lawmakers — the detested black sport utility vehicles that barrel through Baghdad traffic, sirens ringing — and damaged furniture, desks and wall hangings in the hall of Parliament. But all in all, it was largely nonviolent. _____ They are mostly loyalists of the Shiite cleric Moktada who rose to prominence after the American invasion of 2003. He commanded a militia that fought the Americans, then took part in the grisly sectarian war of 2005 and 2006. After national elections in 2010, he emerged as a power broker. Mr. Sadr resurfaced in February to lead protests supporting measures by Mr. Abadi to reduce government waste, tackle corruption and end sectarian quotas. The quotas have become the foundation of Iraq’s political system, apportioning government positions based on sect over merit and arguably bringing on much of the country’s dysfunction. Mr. Sadr is nominally an ally of Mr. Abadi’s, and the protests were seen as an effort to push Mr. Abadi’s opponents to approve a cabinet filled with technocrats rather than officials loyal to a party or sect. But Mr. Sadr is unpredictable and cannot be seen as a reliable ally. He has said that if further attempts to pass a new cabinet fail, he will push for Mr. Abadi’s ouster. _____ It was a tactical withdrawal. After they jubilantly occupied Parliament on Saturday afternoon, the demonstrators moved by evening to another area of the Green Zone, a former parade ground where Saddam Hussein held military pageants. By Sunday evening, Mr. Sadr had directed an orderly end to the demonstration, saying he would allow the political class another chance to meet and approve a new cabinet. He also gave notice that he would not hesitate to use his influence among downtrodden Shiites to create havoc in the streets if his grievances were not met with government reforms. _____ The deadliest fault line in Iraqi society is the divide between the majority Shiite Arabs and the minority Sunni Arabs. This is at the heart of the war between the Iraqi state — supported by the coalition and Iran — and the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State. But the political crisis in Baghdad is largely a struggle among Shiites. The American invasion upended the old order of Sunni dominance — under Mr. Hussein, under the monarchy and under the Ottomans before the founding of modern Iraq at the end of World War I — and for the first time gave the Shiites power. Yet they have never figured out how to overcome their differences and unify Iraq. As Mr. Abadi has pushed to root out corruption, trim government and end sectarian quotas, he has been opposed by other Shiite factions. The protests — both those being led by Mr. Sadr and others that began last summer and at first were largely led by secular Iraqis — also reflect a growing anger over corruption and a failure to provide basic services. _____ The Green Zone is the name that the American military gave to the fortified heart of Baghdad that served as the seat of the occupation and the new Iraqi government. Outside the blast walls and razor wire of the Green Zone is a teeming city of traffic jams, car bombs and daily hardships like a lack of reliable electricity and clean water. But within the zone, cars move easily between checkpoints, tanks are positioned at major intersections, electricity flows and Iraqi officials live in palaces. It is home to the American Embassy, a fortress inside a fortress. For ordinary Iraqis, the Green Zone is a symbol of occupation and corruption that has long been off limits. Its breach was unprecedented, and for many of the protesters it was their first time inside, reflected in pictures of Iraqis enjoying themselves. (For an understanding of the relationship between Iraqis and the Green Zone, read this piece by Anthony Shadid, a New York Times reporter who died in 2012.) _____ Far worse, by nearly every measure. Things were not good in 2011. Al Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor of the Islamic State, was regrouping. The prime minister at the time, Nuri Kamal was showing himself to be an authoritarian and Shiite supremacist rather than the unifier the Americans had hoped for. And the Sunni Awakening, the program that paid former Sunni insurgents to work with Baghdad, was unraveling. Still, there was some measure of hope that Iraq could lurch forward. Now, it resembles a failed state on three basic levels: security, politics and, given the collapse in oil prices, economics. _____ For now, the withdrawal of Mr. Sadr’s followers from the Green Zone allows yet another chance for Iraq’s leaders to address the crisis and approve a new cabinet put forward by Mr. Abadi. But Iraq has not held together as a country. The northern Kurdish region is a de facto state, with its own foreign policy, army and visa rules. Roughly a third of Iraq is in the hands of the Islamic State, including Mosul, Iraq’s city. The reach of the central government is limited, and Shiite militias with ties to Iran are in some cases more powerful than state security forces. A decade ago, as a senator, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. called for the partition of Iraq, an idea that is likely to resurface if Iraq continues on the path it is taking. | 1 |
WIMBLEDON, England — The Kingdom clearly has bigger concerns than a mere tennis tournament, with the focus on the country’s leaving the European Union and on England’s remaining in soccer’s European Championships. It’s rather strange how that timing has worked out. But no matter what is transpiring in the wider, less orderly world, there is still plenty to play for in the bubble of Wimbledon, where the grass — at least on Henman Hill — looks even greener than usual this year. On the eve of the tournament on Sunday, the defending champions Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams spoke in the interview room at the All England Club. Neither has played an official event since the French Open. Both sat with their hands folded in front of them. Both spoke more softly and slowly than usual, but only Williams seemed subdued, keeping her answers terse, even to questions that lent themselves to rambling on, and not so subtly checking her watch as the allotted 15 minutes neared an end. She has had a fine season by nearly anyone else’s standards, reaching the finals at the Australian Open and the French Open and remaining No. 1 in the rankings. But it has definitely been a downbeat year for her, with upset losses to Angelique Kerber in Melbourne and to Garbiñe Muguruza in Paris. Williams’s mood on Sunday could be taken two different ways: One, she is still reeling, or two (and much more likely) she is simmering and much more interested in crushing serves and returns and restoring the tennis universe to its natural order than in the game. “I’m definitely ready to start playing at this point,” she said. “I’m kind of over practicing every day for two hours, then going to the gym. ” When she won here last year, Williams held all four of the Grand Slam singles titles. Now she holds only Wimbledon’s. Djokovic, her dancing partner at last year’s champions dinner, is the one on the roll now. He’s the first man to hold all four major titles since Rod Laver in 1969 and the player with a chance to do what Williams could not quite manage last year by completing the Grand Slam and winning all four majors in the same calendar year. I asked Williams what she might tell Djokovic after her unsuccessful chase last year, which ended two rounds short of the Grand Slam when she was stunned in the United States Open semifinals by Roberta Vinci. “You know, he has every opportunity to do it,” she said. “I think he’ll get it easy, so he should be fine. ” Easy sounds unlikely, given the pressure and fatigue that will surely build up in a year that also features the Olympics. Less than an hour after Djokovic won the French Open this month for his first Roland Garros title, the former star Henri Leconte walked past the Djokovic camp in the players’ lounge and said theatrically: “Two to go! Two to go! Oh, my God! Two to go!” Marian Vajda, one of Djokovic’s coaches, laughed. This was Leconte, one of tennis’s class clowns, after all. Vajda, in typical fashion, then acknowledged the reality. “Real Grand Slam, now we can think about it,” Vajda said. “This was a real mental breakthrough for Novak, to win in Paris. And now he needs to focus on going to Wimbledon fresh and going for the U. S. Open, and there’s obviously the Olympic Games in the middle, so it’s too many goals in a row. It makes it more complicated. ” More compelling, too, and all the more so because Djokovic surely never gave the Grand Slam too much serious thought earlier in his career. He was too preoccupied with leveling the playing field with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal to think about outclassing the field to this degree. Even Djokovic’s biggest supporters — his family — were not thinking about it. Vajda said he ran into Djokovic’s father, Srdjan, at a restaurant in Paris during the French Open. Srdjan was with a group of friends and asked Vajda to tell the group what Srdjan had told him when they first met. “You told me he will be No. 1,” Vajda replied, “and I started laughing because I thought you were joking with me. And Novak’s father said: ‘No, I was not joking. I knew he was going to be No. 1, knew it, but I forgot one thing. I didn’t know he would be dominating so much in the tennis world one day.’ ” But here Djokovic is, undoubtedly the world’s top player on all surfaces, with a record against the top 10 during the past two seasons. He has done it, in part, by learning how to conserve his physical and emotional energy — unplugging from the game when necessary, which he did again before Wimbledon. “Winning Roland Garros was obviously one of the most memorable and beautiful moments of my career,” said Djokovic, who will face James Ward of Britain in the opening match on Centre Court on Monday. “Also, it took a lot out of me. I thought that it’s more important for me to just rejuvenate and rest a little bit from tennis and then come back preparing for Wimbledon. ” He does not plan to overplay. Defend his title at Wimbledon, and it is entirely possible that he will play only the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and the United States Open in the two months that follow. But there are other temptations, including a Davis Cup quarterfinal versus Britain (and Andy Murray) in July and the Rogers Cup in Toronto, which could serve as a hardcourt for Rio. The Grand Slam is such a rare prize that it bears sacrificing other worthy goals, as Williams is better placed than anyone to grasp. She has not been the same irresistible force since that loss to Vinci in September, and Wimbledon is full of ghosts as well as big victories for her. Not that she remembers them all. On Sunday, she could not recall any of the details of her first appearance in 1998 (she retired in the third round versus Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain). But she surely remembers losing to Sabine Lisicki in the fourth round in 2013 and to Alizé Cornet in the third round in 2014, just as she surely remembers beating Muguruza in straight sets last year to win her sixth Wimbledon singles title. “This year, I don’t feel as much tension as I usually do,” she said. “Well, there’s some years that I haven’t felt any tension, either. I’m feeling pretty good. I don’t feel any pressure or stress. ” In truth, it was a challenge to sense what Williams was feeling on Sunday, and she will now let her racket do the talking, beginning with her match on Tuesday versus Amra Sadikovic of Switzerland, 27, who retired in May 2014 but is now back for more and making her Grand Slam debut. Williams, at 34, knows too well that life is full of such surprises, and surprise has been the rule of late in the women’s game, with the Flavia Pennetta, Kerber and Muguruza winning the past three major titles. “Think about how many women now know that they have an opening,” said Pam Shriver, an ESPN analyst. “During most of the Serena era, the players have felt there was no opening for them,” she continued, “so the question is, who is big enough to walk through it, especially at Wimbledon, where there’s more media and where you better have control of your breathing and know how to manage your nerves more than anywhere else? Because there’s a quietness and an aura about the place, and if you’re not firmly planted with two feet with your confidence, it will knock you off balance. ” | 1 |
A more appropriate euphemism would be "Monkeys clamoring around for treats thrown at them by Chinese & Japanese Tourist..." | 0 |
We Are Change
Donald Trump on Saturday was quickly ushered off the stage by Secret Service agents in the middle of a campaign speech in Nevada after an incident in the crowd near the front of the stage.
Secret Service rushes Trump off stage at Reno rally https://t.co/n82d9jXopX
— Chrissy (@omgitsmechrissy) November 6, 2016
Video shows that Trump was in the middle of his speech when the incident occurred. He was looking into the crowd, his hand over his eyes to block the glare from the stage lights, when Secret Service agents grabbed him and escorted him off the stage. Trump ducked his head as he left the stage. The crowd panicked with frightened looks on their faces, as the Secret Service and police tactical units rushed in to quickly arrest the man. Video on twitter shows the moment that the Secret Service and law enforcement took down the man. Got footage of man who was detained by police and Secret Service after @realDonaldTrump was rushed off stage by USSS agents pic.twitter.com/FVEieSYj5w
— Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) November 6, 2016
Early unconfirmed reports suggest a man was armed in the crowd according to some witnesses. One witness said that they were in the crowd when an unknown guy creeped toward the stage staring at Trump. The witness then proceeded to get the attention of four bigger guys surrounding them and confronted the man. The man then freaked out and reached into his pocket to grab what looked like a gun.” According to the witness the man was mumbling about “the delegates.” “ I was in the crowd, me and my dad saw a guy creeping toward the stage staring at trump. i got the attention of 4 big guys around me and we confronted him and when we did he spurged out and reached into his pocket to grab what looked like a gun. when we tackled him to the ground and between punches he kept saying something about “the delegates”? he must have the delegates. sorry i’m pretty shaken up right now. “ With one person in the crowd shouting “he’s got a gun.” The man was then detained by police officers, Secret Service agents and SWAT armed with assault rifles and taken to a side room for questioning. The suspect is seen below. Trump returned to the stage minutes later and proceeded to continue his speech before thanking the Secret Service and police. “Nobody said it was going to be easy for us, but we will never be stopped. We will never be stopped. I want to thank the Secret Service. These guys are fantastic.”
~Donald Trump, said.
Luke breaks down the details in the video below of the attempted assassination of the anti-establishment candidate Donald Trump.
It’s worth noting that the last Trump assassination attempt also occurred in Nevada when Michael Sandford a British citizen attempted to grab a police officer’s gun and shoot Donald Trump a few weeks ago.
Julian Assange was right when he said earlier today to John Pilger that “anti-establishment Trump Wouldn’t Be Allowed To Win.” Although Julian just missed how he would be stopped.
(THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY AND WILL BE UPDATED AS NEW DETAILS BECOME AVAILABLE.) The post #BREAKING: SECOND Assassination Attempt On Trump In NV; Suspect Detained (LIVE BLOG) appeared first on We Are Change .
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Richmond Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Lacker suddenly and unexpectedly quit Tuesday after he admitted in a statement that he discussed confidential information with an analyst in 2012. [Lacker’s role in the 2012 leak of sensitive information to an analyst at Medley Global Advisors came to light as part of a federal investigation. His resignation comes as part of a deal worked out with investigators, a person familiar with the matter said. “Once our Bank’s Board of Directors learned of the outcome of the government investigations, they took appropriate actions,” the Richmond Fed said. “I deeply regret the role I may have played in confirming this confidential information and its dissemination to Medley’s subscribers,” Lacker said. Lacker, who has been the head of the Richmond Fed for 13 years, stopped short of admitting that he was the source of the information and said that it was not his intention to reveal confidential information in his conversation with the analyst. CNBC’s Steve Liesman reported Tuesday afternoon that an attorney for Lacker said that federal authorities have said no charges will be filed against his client. Medley disclosed to its clients previously unknown details about the Fed’s plans for the third round of asset purchases, known as QE3, according to sources familiar with the matter. The leak has been under investigation internally by the Fed, by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New Yorkand the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The federal prosecutors and CFTC have been investigating possible in connection with the leaks. Lacker said that the analyst brought up an “important detail” about the Fed’s plans. Instead of ending the call, Lacker continued the conversation. The following day, Medley published its report containing the sensitive information. It remains unclear how the Medley analyst originally obtained the information that Lacker says he confirmed. But the report was so detailed that it left little doubt it was based on information. The report came after the Fed announced in September 2012 its plans to attempt to boost economic growth by buying $40 billion worth of securities each month. Medley’s October 3rd report said Fed officials had discussed adding monthly purchases $45 billion of Treasury bonds, a policy which the Fed didn’t announce until the following December. It also said that Fed officials had discussed assuring market actors that the central bank wouldn’t consider raising interest rates until unemployment fell below 6. 5% or the outlook for inflation rose above 2. 5%. Those numerical triggers weren’t formally adopted by the Fed until later that year. Other intriguing details from the Medley report include a report that staff members were working past midnight to prepare for the central bank’s meeting and that the minutes from the meeting would include a reference to a staff meeting. Those minutes were published by the Fed the day after Medley’s report. In addition to admitting that he confirmed some of the Medley analysts information, Lacker also said that he did not initially tell the Fed’s investigators that the analyst was in possession of that information during the call. Instead, he only disclosed this fact in 2015 when he was interviewed as part of the investigation by federal prosecutors, the CFTC and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. “I regret that in this instance I crossed the line to confirming information that should have remained confidential,” Lacker said. Lacker had previously announced his intention to retire this fall. Under the Fed’s rotating schedule, the Richmond Fed president will not become a voting member of the interest rate setting board until 2018. Lacker has been an advocate for the Fed to adopt a faster pace of rate hikes. He has dissented over a dozen times to the Fed’s interest rate decisions during his term, consistently arguing for a less accommodative monetary policy stance. He opposed the use of the Fed’s balance sheet to buy mortgage bonds during the financial crisis. | 1 |
BEIJING — China’s leaders thought they had a solution to the torrent of snark, jibes and condemnation on Twitter: They banned access to it at home. Yet China has become the country that Donald J. Trump seems to enjoy criticizing the most on his Twitter feed. In bursts of 140 characters or less, he has jabbed at Beijing over Taiwan, trade, the South China Sea and, most recently, North Korea. “China has been taking out massive amounts of money wealth from the U. S. in totally trade, but won’t help with North Korea. Nice!” Mr. Trump said on Twitter on Monday. How and when President Xi Jinping reads about these broadsides remains a mystery to outsiders. Translating Mr. Trump’s sarcasm — “Nice!” — could be tricky. But Chinese officials and the state news media want Mr. Trump to know that their leaders prefer doing diplomacy the way, behind closed doors and muffled in platitudes. Xinhua, the state news agency, has more or less asked Mr. Trump to shut up. “An obsession with ‘Twitter foreign policy’ is undesirable,” read the headline of a Xinhua commentary on Tuesday about Mr. Trump’s posts. “Everyone recognizes the common sense that foreign policy isn’t child’s play, and even less is it like doing business deals,” said the article, published after Mr. Trump’s latest barbed comments on China. “Twitter shouldn’t become an instrument of foreign policy,” the article said. Earlier that day, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected Mr. Trump’s accusation that Beijing had coddled North Korea. But the article acknowledged that it was probably too late to detach Mr. Trump from Twitter. Mr. Trump’s designated press secretary, Sean Spicer, has indicated that Mr. Trump will keep using the terse, punchy format after he settles in the White House. “Issuing tweets has become a habit for Mr. Trump,” Xinhua noted. Mr. Trump, it said, appeared to assume that “issuing comments and taking up sensitive issues may perhaps add to his chips for negotiating with other countries. ” Mr. Xi is most unlikely to joust directly with Mr. Trump on Twitter. The service has been banned in China since 2009, though residents find ways to poke through the firewall of censorship. And while Chinese politicians love slogans, they prefer to communicate with foreign leaders through long, tranquilizing disquisitions. Open sarcasm is rare. Sad! | 1 |
Kim Dotcom: "I know where Hillary Clintons deleted emails are and how to get them legally" Kim Dotcom ‏@KimDotcom 22s22 seconds agoI know where Hillary Clintons deleted emails are and how to get them legally @TGowdySC @seanhannity @realDonaldTrump. 100% true. Retweet. John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. | 0 |
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 03:59 UTC © Robyn Beck / AFP Despite officers threatening to clear private land, Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protesters are refusing to leave. As tensions have built up, police handling of the protest has reportedly cost nearly $6 million in just one month. "We have the resources. We could go down there at any time and we are trying everything we can to not have to do that,"Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney told reporters on Wednesday. Protesters have been occupying private land known as Cannonball Ranch, which belongs to the Dakota Access Pipeline's developer, the Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners. Since the weekend, both the company and law enforcement have been asking dozens of protesters to leave the area and move to public land. The occupation began Sunday, when demonstrators set up a new camp of at least 15 tents and 100 teepees. They have also blocked State Highway 1806, putting themselves directly in the path of the planned 1,172-mile pipeline, which will span four states. "Just come off the private property, go back to the big camp and let's talk and try figure out the solution for this. Their message was absolutely not, we are standing here," Laney said, adding that "at some point rule of law has to be enforced." Energy Transfer Partners also said in a statement that "all trespassers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and removed from the land." More than 125 people were arrested over the weekend, but the message had no effect on the protest. Demonstrators have refused to vacate the land or leave State Highway 1806, keeping traffic and local residents from using the road. Dozens of protesters formed a human blockade, enforced with horses and hay bales. "No surrender, no retreat!" protest organizer Mekasi Camp-Horinek, of Oklahoma, reportedly yelled to the people as he left negotiations. "We've got to make our bodies a living sacrifice," John Perko, a protester from South Dakota told The Bismarck Tribune. "This is the most honorable thing I could be doing right now." Last week, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which has been leading the protest since August, agreed to provide its land to relocate the unauthorized camp from the US Army Corps of Engineers property for the winter. As police try to abstain from using force, even the peaceful handling of the protests appears to be draining the budget at high speeds. According to the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services, authorities have spent $5.8 million since early September. This is nearly all of the $6 million the state borrowed from the Bank of North Dakota in emergency funds to deal with the protest against the $3.78 billion pipeline. Meanwhile, an investigation into a September 3 confrontation between protesters and private security guards has revealed license violations. It says that officers who deployed dogs on protesters were not properly licensed and could face criminal charges. | 0 |
Did you know that ancient sites like Easter Island, Nazca, Ollantaytambo, Paratoari, Tassili n’Ajjer and the Pyramids of Giza are all aligned on a single great circle? There is a mind-boggling connection among ancient structures that is indicative of a far greater meaning than we were aware of.
There have been numerous theories that ancient structures around the globe were specifically positioned by its ancient builder’s thousands of years ago. Perhaps one of the best examples –according to many— is the Great Pyramid of Giza and its curious position on Earth. For those of you who didn’t know, the Great Pyramid of Giza is the most accurately aligned structure in existence and faces true north with only 3/60th of a degree of error. Furthermore, the weight of the pyramid is estimated at 5,955,000 tons. Multiplied by 10^8 gives a reasonable estimate of the earth’s mass. As you can see, ancient structures were built with a mind-boggling precision.
But the Pyramids at the Giza plateau do not stand solitary on Earth. In fact, there are countless other sites that seem to be connected somehow. If you take a look at other ancient sites like the Nazca Lines, Machu Picchu, Easter Island, Mohenjo Daro, and Tassili n’Ajjer among others and draw down their position on a map, you will notice a connection that points perhaps towards an ancient ‘code’ embedded within these structures.
As is noted by world-mysteries.com , ancient sites like Giza, Siwa, Tassili n’Ajjer, Paratoari, Ollantaytambo, Machupicchu, Nazca, Easter Island, Aneityum Island, Preah Vihear, Sukhothai, Pyay, Khajuraho, Mohenjo Daro, Persepolis, Ur, Petra are shown clockwise from Giza on the equal azimuthal projection. The projection is centered on the axis point in southeastern Alaska. Distances to any location from the center of an equal azimuthal projection are equally scaled. Since all of the sites on the great circle alignment are equally distant from the axis point at one-quarter of the circumference of the earth, the alignment forms a perfect circle halfway between the center and the outer edge of the projection.
Check out the image below to understand the complexity of this mysterious alignment.
Jim Alison goes on to explain even further in a very intriguing chart:
The chart below lists the distance of each site from the great circle and the distance of each site from the northern axis point. There are slight variations in the distance from the axis point to the great circle depending on whether the route from the axis point to different locations along the great circle crosses over the equator or Polar Regions. The mean distance from the axis point to the great circle is 6,218 miles.
Furthermore, the alignment of these sites is easily observable on a globe of the Earth with a horizon ring. If you line up any two of these sites on the horizon ring, all of the sites will be right on the horizon ring:
Start on the Equator, at the mouth of the Amazon River, at 49° 17′ West Longitude; go to 30° 18′ North Latitude, 40° 43′ East Longitude, in the Middle East, which is the maximum latitude the line touches; then go to the Equator at 130° 43′ East Longitude, near the Northwest tip of New Guinea; then to 30° 18′ South Latitude, 139° 17′ West Longitude, in the South Pacific; and then back to 49° 17′ West Longitude, at the Equator.
As you can see, there seems to be a connection among all of the above structures that form –to the surprise of many— a massive circle encompassing all major archaeological site son planet Earth. How this is possible remains a profound enigma.
What are your thoughts? Were te ancient’s trying to tell future generations something? Or, is it possible that this fascinating connection is nothing more than another bizarre coincidence?
Ancient-Code
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We cannot be isolationist, and instead of aid from tax payers, we can promote trade to our allies and not our enemies! | 0 |
Hillary Immediately Runs From Media After What Camera Caught Outside Plane Posted on October 28, 2016 by Amanda Shea in Politics Share This Aboard Hillary Clinton’s plane (left), “Hill Force One” (right)
While Hillary Clinton was en route to Cedar Rapids, Iowa for what ended up being a very uncomfortable campaign stop, she got some bad news. The FBI is taking another look at her emails — which could likely end her. Media rushed to the runway after her arrival, where cameras caught what she tried to hide outside her private airplane.
The FBI announced that they are looking into Hillary’s previously undisclosed emails as she was mid-air and blissfully unaware and unable to prepare. Knowing what’s in those documents, she’s more aware of the ramifications than the rest of us, but because it was sprung on her, she wasn’t fully prepared for questions about it since she requires practiced answers that she receives ahead of time before talking to the public.
However, forced to face the music upon landing, Hillary couldn’t escape the press pool waiting for her as she made a beeline for her getaway car from the airplane. That’s when she did something very telling of her guilt. JUST IN: Hillary Clinton arrives in Iowa amid news the FBI is taking another look at her email server https://t.co/uH00LebKTe pic.twitter.com/rxFkJZXEvo
— CNN (@CNN) October 28, 2016
Knowing that there was no way around the reporters, Hillary hid in Hill Force One with her advisors for about 30 minutes, who we can only imagine were calming the raging candidate down before she faced the public. Our guess is, she had a moment of meltdown with the news, screamed, yelled, and then was given a shot of her favorite liquor before exiting the aircraft, where she was met with a barrage of questions about the investigation. Rather than responding, which an innocent person would do, she flashed a fake smile and wave and didn’t say a single word.
It would take too much explanation to lie, and she’d only further incriminate herself, so she gave the press the silent treatment instead, which actually spoke volumes. No matter how much Hillary ignores this, it’s not going away, as the truth will prevail against her and, hopefully, land her in the jailhouse — not the White House. | 0 |
by Tanaaz
The October 30th New Moon falls in the dreamy and introspective sign of Scorpio. Even though Scorpio energy can be deep and dark, there is a way to channel this energy into something productive and even, magical.
The energy of the October New Moon is going to guide us away from the material and external world and into a deeper, more intuitive realm. Here we will be able to receive new ideas, new inspirations and new creative visions.
In fact, the energy of this New Moon has a high creative and supernatural charge to it and we will all be guided to go deep within, so we can remind ourselves about who we really are.
There has been a lot of cleansing and releasing energy in the Universe this year, and while October’s New Moon will be asking us to go deep, it will be asking us to venture deeper than our problems and deeper than our fears, all the way into the heart of our soul.
This New Moon is about reconnecting with who you are, celebrating yourself and learning how to love and accept yourself exactly as you are.
There is also a transformative energy to this New Moon, which will be allowing us to emerge reborn.
This transformative energy is gentle, supportive and calming. It will be reminding us to nurture and care for ourselves. It will also be reminding us that sometimes the greatest healing we can offer ourselves is our own true love.
Scorpio energy supports us to dive deep into our imagination and intuition. Use the force of this New Moon to travel within and get lost in the fairytales of your mind. Use the energy to inspire your creative visions and to expand your intuition.
The New Moon also falls just one day before All Hallows Eve , making the Scorpio New Moon even more magical.
Halloween is a time when the veil between dimensions is thinnest and this New Moon will definitely be amplifying this energy.
Spirit energy will be high around this New Moon, so it is important to protect yourself energetically and stay open to any Divine messages or inspiration you may receive.
In fact, if there is something that you have been looking to receive guidance on, this New Moon will allow you to take the journey within so you can hear the answer radiating from your own soul.
The Scorpio New Moon will also allow us to take a journey into the underworld.
The underworld is our subconscious and the deeper, darker, more intuitive side of who we are. It is when we are in this place that we can truly understand the power and magnificence of our own light.
By losing our attachment to the external and going deep into the energy of the night, we will be able to realize and feel our potential shining through.
For those who already experienced a New Moon on October 1st, this second New Moon will be a Black Moon.
While the energy of the Black Moon is the same, there is a heightened energy when two New Moon’s fall in the same month. Those experiencing the Black Moon are going to feel the effects even stronger and will be encouraged to dig that little bit deeper.
This digging process is not about assessing, reviewing or analyzing, instead this digging process is about feeling. It is about feeling the soil and the earth around you, it is about feeling who you really are and allowing yourself to get lost in You.
We are not our bodies and we are not our thoughts. We are soul energy and when we can travel within to feel this soul energy, we intuitively gain an understanding about who we are and where we are heading.
If you allow the energy of the Scorpio New Moon in, you are going to be able to feel your soul; you are going to be able to feel your energy on a powerful level and you are going to be able to transform yourself with the power of your own love.
The October New Moon is beautiful, magical and supportive, so allow its energy to guide you. Allow yourself to be taken by the energy and see where you travel to. Share: | 0 |
Just now! Herb is the healing of the nations.And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass.To satisfy the desolate and wasteground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth?Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded: they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up. Page 1 | 0 |
TEL AVIV — Supernatural actor Mark Pellegrino slammed the United Nations and the U. S. for the “unethical” Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. [Pellegrino was visiting Israel for the first time last week with a group of fellow actors and other professionals from the entertainment industry. The trip, organized by Israel’s Ministry for Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy and America’s Voices in Israel, coincided with Secretary of State John Kerry’s controversial address on the conflict. The actor, who is best known for playing Lucifer in the Warner Bros. series, lambasted Kerry for condemning Israel in his speech. “[Kerry] was on the wrong side of every historical event and this was no different,” he said in an interview. He further slammed the United States for abstaining from the vote on Resolution 2334, which calls Israeli settlements a “flagrant violation of international law. ” “Leave it to the UN to do the absolute wrong thing and save it for posterity’s sake in the form of the resolution,” Pellegrino said. Pellegrino, who was joined by TV stars Meagan Good from Deception and The Walking Dead‘s Sonequa among others, made the decision to come on the trip out of a sense of “obligation to support democracies. ” “I’ve always been a huge supporter of the only democracy in the Middle East,” he said. “The way things are turning out all around the world, we have an obligation to support democracies. ” While Israel continues to be “under attack from the rest of world,” for Pellegrino as a secular person, the Jewish state is an island of hope in the region for allowing “full freedom of religion, freedom of conscience and for promoting human prosperity. ” Pellegrino said that one of the highlights of his trip was visiting the Western Wall — Judaism’s holiest site — defined in the resolution as “occupied Palestinian territory. ” Despite identifying himself as an atheist, Pellegrino conceded that being at the Western Wall made him “open to the suggestion because of its unique power that prayer goes straight to God. ” Pellegrino was also drawn to the rich archaeology of the area, which “prove[s] Israeli existence there for many thousands of years. ” But the most profound moment, unexpectedly, was visiting a hospital. The Rambam Healthcare Campus, which has Arab doctors and Jewish doctors working side by side treating Arab and Jewish patients alike — and even Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza — opened Pellegrino’s eyes to the “wide diversity in Israel. ” “It’s symptomatic of a free country, of a culture that respects everybody’s mind and values. Far more so than Arab countries,” he said. “The hospital was an entire community devoted to medical sciences, to using science to increase prosperity. It is literally changing the world,” he added. According to Pellegrino, Hollywood has a myopic, view of the conflict. “In my opinion, Hollywood doesn’t know the context. Hollywood sees a David and Goliath story with Israel being cast in the role of Goliath, as the evil aggressor,” he said. “The Palestinians are simply innocent reactors to whatever Israelis are throwing at them. And everything — like their economic situation — excuses the savagery. ” “Those people in the Hollywood community would be served by coming here,” he added. | 1 |
Then, why don’t YOU point out where he was ever right about something? I mean Anything. LOL, I agree with everyone else here. I actually think that you are KOS. You’re gay enough. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — The Syrian military was foundering last year, with thousands of rebel fighters pushing into areas of the country long considered to be government strongholds. The rebel offensive was aided by powerful missiles supplied by the Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia. Intelligence assessments circulated in Washington that the Syrian president, Bashar was losing his grip on power. But then the Russians arrived, bludgeoning C. I. A. rebel forces with an air campaign that has sent them into retreat. And now rebel commanders, clinging to besieged neighborhoods in the divided city of Aleppo, say their shipments of C. I. A. antitank missiles are drying up. For the first time since Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Russian military for the past year has been in direct combat with rebel forces trained and supplied by the C. I. A. The Afghan fighters prevailed during that Cold War conflict. But this time the outcome — thus far — has been different. “Russia has won the proxy war, at least for now,” said Michael Kofman, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. Russia’s battlefield successes in Syria have given Moscow, isolated by the West after its annexation of Crimea and other incursions into Ukraine, new leverage in decisions about the future of the Middle East. The Obama administration is now talking with President Vladimir V. Putin’s government about a plan to share intelligence and coordinate airstrikes against the Islamic State and other militant groups in Syria, and Mr. Putin has thus far met his goals in Syria without becoming caught in a quagmire that some — including President Obama — had predicted he would. But even Mr. Obama has expressed wariness about an enduring deal with Moscow. “I’m not confident that we can trust the Russians or Vladimir Putin,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference on Thursday. “Whenever you are trying to broker any kind of deal with an individual like that or a country like that, you have got to go in there with some skepticism. ” At the same time, some military experts point out that Mr. Putin has saddled Russia with the burden of propping up a Syrian military that has had difficulty vanquishing the rebels on its own. The Russian campaign began in September, after a monthslong offensive by C. I. A. rebel groups won new territory in Idlib, Hama and Latakia Provinces in northern Syria. One problem for Washington: Those groups sometimes fought alongside soldiers of the Nusra Front, which until recently was officially affiliated with Al Qaeda. The offensive took Syrian troops by surprise, prompting concerns in Moscow and Damascus that Mr. Assad’s government, long supported by the Russians, might be in trouble. Some of the rebel groups boasted at the time that powerful TOW antitank missiles provided by American and Saudi intelligence operatives were a key to their success. For several years, the C. I. A. has joined with the spy services of several Arab nations to arm and train the rebels at bases in Jordan and Qatar, with the Saudis bankrolling much of the operation. A C. I. A. spokesman declined to comment about any American assistance to Syrian rebels. But Lt. Col. Fares a former aviation engineer who heads the rebel group Fursan said during an interview in May 2015 that his group would receive new shipments of the antitank weapons as soon as the missiles were used. “We ask for ammunition and missiles, and we get more than we ask for,” he said. Yet the advance also created problems for the fractious assortment of rebel groups, as it allowed the Nusra Front to gain control over more areas of northern Syria. The Obama administration has officially forbidden any Nusra fighters to receive weapons or training. But the group has at times shown greater prowess against the Syrian government forces than the C. I. A. ’s proxies. Moreover, they have shown that they can and will destroy or sideline C. I. A. rebels who do not agree to battlefield alliances. Moscow cited the battlefield successes of the Nusra Front to justify its military incursion into Syria as a campaign to fight terrorism — even if its primary goal was to shore up Mr. Assad’s military against all insurgent groups, including the C. I. A. rebels. The Russians began a rapid military buildup in September, and launched an air campaign that targeted the Syrian rebel groups that posed the most direct threat to Mr. Assad’s government, including some of the C. I. A. groups. By Russia had escalated its airstrikes to nearly 90 on some days. About 600 Russian marines landed in Syria with the mission of protecting the main air base in Latakia that ground force has grown to about 4, 000 throughout Syria, including several hundred special forces members. It took some time for the Russian intervention to have a significant impact on the Syrian battlefield, prompting Mr. Obama to predict that Moscow might become bogged down in its own Middle East conflict. “An attempt by Russia and Iran to prop up Assad and try to pacify the population is just going to get them stuck in a quagmire, and it won’t work,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference in October. “And they will be there for a while if they don’t take a different course. ” The C. I. A. moved to counter the Russian intervention, funneling several hundred additional TOW missiles to its proxies. One rebel commander, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of threats from more radical groups within the rebel coalition, said in October that his group could at that time get as many missiles as it wanted. “It’s like a carte blanche,” he said. “Just fill in the numbers. ” But Russian firepower eventually overwhelmed the rebel groups in the north. By early this year, attacks by Russian bombers, fighter jets, attack helicopters and cruise missiles allowed the Syrian Army to reverse many of the rebel gains — and seize areas near the Turkish border that many thought the government could never reclaim. The flow of C. I. A. arms continued, but the weapons proved too little in the face of the Russian offensive. Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer who now studies Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the Russians had built a capable intelligence network in Syria, giving them a better understanding of the terrain and location of rebel forces. That has allowed Russian troops to call in precision airstrikes, making them more effective against the rebels. The mismatch has been most acute in the last several months, with Syrian government forces, with Russian help, laying siege to the parts of Aleppo. Losing their foothold in Aleppo, once Syria’s largest city, would be a big blow to the rebels. Syrian and Russian jets have carried out an indiscriminate pounding of Aleppo, including attacks on six hospitals in and around the city over the past week, according to a statement by Physicians for Human Rights. “Since June, we’ve seen increasing reports of attacks on civilians in Aleppo and strikes on the region’s remaining medical infrastructure,” said Widney Brown, the group’s director of programs. “Each of these assaults constitutes a war crime. ” Rebel groups in recent days have made surprising gains in a new offensive to try to break through Syrian military lines encircling Aleppo, but if it fails, rebels inside the city will face a choice between enduring the siege or surrendering. In recent interviews, rebel commanders said the flow of foreign weapons needed to break the siege had slowed. “We are using most of our weapons in the battle for Aleppo,” said Mustafa a member of Suqour one of the C. I. A. groups. He said the flow of weapons to the group had diminished in the past three to four months. “Now we fire them only when it is necessary and urgent,” he said. Another commander, Maj. Mousa of Division 13, a C. I. A. rebel group operating in Idlib and Aleppo, said his group had received no missiles for two weeks. “We filed a request to get TOW missiles for the Aleppo front,” he said, but the reply was that there were none in the warehouses. Rebel leaders and military experts say that perhaps the most pressing danger is that supply routes from Turkey, which are essential to the C. I. A. rebels, could be severed. “The U. S. is doing just enough to placate its allies and partners and says it is doing something, but does not seek to do what it takes to change conditions on the battlefield,” said Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and an Assad critic. Mr. Putin has achieved many of his larger goals — to prop up Mr. Assad’s government, retain access to the longtime Russian naval base on the Mediterranean Sea and use Syria as a proving ground for the most advanced Russian military technology. Some military experts remain surprised that Mr. Putin took the risky step of fighting and equipped forces head on, but they also assess that his Syria gamble appears to be paying off. It is the type of Cold battle that Mr. Obama, in October, insisted he did not want to enter. “We’re not going to make Syria into a proxy war between the United States and Russia,” he said. “This is not some superpower chessboard contest. ” | 1 |
House Speaker Paul Ryan ( .) is considering a fine of $2, 500 for U. S. representatives who use recording devices on the floor of the House. [In the event of a violation, the House would hand down the fine, the goal being to take away the social media appeal of a “ ” by effectively blocking such a protest from outside view. The Democrats held a “ ” in June and used video and photos of the event to pressure House leadership to allow a vote on gun control. According to the Washington Examiner, Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said, “These changes will help ensure that order and decorum are preserved in the House of Representatives so lawmakers can do the people’s work. GOP leaders are considering the means of curtailing interruptions of order and decorum because Democrats pledged to use “guerrilla tactics” in future efforts to secure gun control votes. That means more “” as well as disruptions of normal House business at times of high visibility, among other things. Politico quoted Democrat Caucus Vice Chairman Joe Crowley ( ) lauding the promise of “guerrilla tactics,” saying, “It’s a new day in Washington it’s a new way to fight. ” Representative John Conyers ( . ) suggests the $2, 500 fine is “clearly … intended to undermine the rights of members in the minority to freely express their views on the House floor, which is a critical means by which members communicate to the American public. ” AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com. | 1 |
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К примеру, согласно данным, представленным нардепом на сайте е-декларирования, у него в личном пользовании имеется.. Храм Успения Пресвятой Богородицы в Винницкой области. Храм, правда, небольшой - площадью всего в 41 квадратный метр. Стоимость этого имущества на сайте не указана.
Есть у депутата, как указано в декларации, три квартиры, две из которых (117,1 м. кв. и 114,5 м. кв.) находятся в Киеве, а третья - в Виннице (78 м. кв.)
Кроме того, Матвиенко в декларации указал земельные участки в Винницкой области (5 гектар и 1,5 га). Более гектара земли под Киевом в с. Лисники (1,2 га) записаны на его жену.
Также замглавы БПП задекларировал два гаража (43,8 м. кв и 14,5 м.кв), один из которых является его собственностью, а второй - жены. Семье Матвиенко принадлежат дом в Ивано-Франковской области (107,3 м. кв.) и домовладение в Лисниках (839,8 м. кв.).
Кроме того, нардеп в декларации указал собственную небольшую комнату в 62 квадратных метра, которая находится в доме отдыха Госуправления делами в Конча-Заспе.
Еще более интересна декларация главы Национальной полиции Украины Хатии Деканоидзе, В ней указан годовой доход чиновницы в 3,5 млн гривен, автомобиль Hyundai Elantra 2012 выпуска, который куплен в 2013 году за 103129 гривен, три 3 квартиры в Грузии и земельный участок там же общей площадью 1800 кв. м.
Собственно сама зарплата Деканоидзе не так уж и велика - за прошлый год она составила 88 760 гривен, а вот за работу в компании MPRI International Services LTD, an Corporation Engility ей выплатили 3 431 846 грн.
И.о. министра здравоохранения Украины Ульяна Супрун задекларировала в Едином госреестре деклараций квартиру в Киеве, более 4,3 млн долларов и почти 66 тыс. гривен наличными. При этом общая заработная плата, полученная по основному месту работы Супрун в 2015 году, равна 36 тыс. гривен.
Напомним, как сообщала Правда.Ру, интересная недвижимость обнаружилась у генпрокурора Украины Юрия Луценко. в Киеве ему принадлежит целое жилое здание, а в Крыму - квартира, стоимостью в $1 млн. Все это, конечно, было оформлено на подставных лиц. О "находке" рассказал депутат Верховной рады Сергей Лещенко.
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The early life and career hurdles of pop superstar Madonna will be the subject of an upcoming biopic currently being developed at Universal, according to a report. [Blonde Ambition, from screenwriter Elyse Hollander, will chronicle the early years of the singer — real name Madonna Louise Ciccone — as she works on her first album and forges her way into the music industry in early 1980s New York. Hollander’s script placed first on the 2016 Black List, the annual list of the best unproduced screenplays circulating around the film industry, according to the Hollywood Reporter, which first broke the news of the pickup. producer Michael De Luca (Fifty Shades of Grey, Moneyball) is set to produce under his De Luca Productions banner along with Brett Ratner’s RatPac Entertainment and Bellevue Productions’ John Zaozirny. Madonna’s early years were previously the subject of a 1994 TV movie called Madonna: Innocence Lost, that starred Terumi Matthews as the pop superstar. Madonna released her latest album, Rebel Heart, in 2015 and followed it up with a world tour of the same name. The singer has made headlines in recent months for her political activism, including her staunch opposition to President Donald Trump. In January, Madonna delivered a speech at the Women’s March in Washington in which she said she has often thought about “blowing up the White House. ” The singer was a vocal supporter of former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, at one point offering to reward Clinton voters with oral sex. No director or release date has yet been set for Blonde Ambition. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum, | 1 |
We Are Change
Hey — had you heard that uranium is an incredibly scarce resource and that Russia is buying it all up?
No, me neither.
But that’s what I’ve discovered on the campaign trail.
Apparently a few years back Hillary Clinton betrayed the country — yet again — by selling 20% of our precious uranium supply to Russia in return for yet more payola.
As secretary of state she “approved” a deal to sell Uranium One, a company that controlled a fifth of U.S. uranium production, to the Russian atomic agency Rosatom. In return she and Bill received vast amounts of payoffs from the Kremlin and related interests — most notably a $500,000 speaker fee for Bill from a Moscow-based investment bank, which works out at about $250,000 net of tax.
(Money also went to the Clinton Foundation charity, from which the Clintons personally steal money through a channel so clever and cynical that it remains hidden).
The deal is a perfect example of “Clinton Corruption,” says Donald Trump. “As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton signed off on a deal allowing Russians to take… control of about 20% of America’s uranium supply to the Russians.”
It shows the “long and lucrative history of financial deals with the Russians, particularly with the Russian government,” says Peter Schweizer, author of the book “Clinton Cash,” director of the film of the same name, and an editor at large for the always-reliable Breitbart website. Uranium is “a fundamental issue of national security,” Schweizer told Lou Dobbs Tonight on Fox Business. “It’s not like oil and gas that you can find all sorts of places. They are precious few places you can mine for uranium, in the United States is one of those areas.”
Even the New York Times — a wholly owned subsidiary of the Worldwide Clinton-Illuminati-Spectre Cabal — was critical. “Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal,” it reported in a big expose published earlier this year, in which it even floated the prospect of a Putin “monopoly” of uranium down the road.
It’s all very, very troubling. Apart from just one teensy weeny little problem.
Uranium isn’t a scarce resource that Vladimir Putin, or anyone else, is about to control.
Uranium is a massive drug on the international commodity markets. There is a worldwide glut. It is produced all around the world, and there is so much of it washing around that the price is in free-fall — and has been for almost 10 years. Right now the world’s uranium miners are so desperate that they are actually giving it away for less — literally — than it costs them to dig it out of the ground.
Uranium prices have collapsed by a staggering 88% since their peak in the summer of 2007. They are down about three quarters since the February 2011 Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster in Japan, which caused that country to switch off most of its reactors and caused everyone else to review their nuclear-energy production.
As it happens, the price of this allegedly precious commodity just hit a new low of $20 a ton (In 2007 it was $160). It’s now half the price it was when the Russians took control of Uranium One. According to the World Nuclear Association, the miners’ trade body, that’s about 20% below the average cost of digging it out of the ground. Two thirds of the world’s uranium costs more than $20 a pound to mine.
The problem is that while lots of mines are producing it, hardly anyone wants it. Nearly all of the commercial use for uranium is for nuclear energy. Nuclear reactors are being mothballed. Plans for massive nuclear expansion are being shelved or reconsidered. Fukushima caused a massive political backlash against nuclear energy.
Even countries that still plan on building many more reactors — such as China and India — started slow-walking their plans and rethinking. And then the price of other sources of energy, such as oil and gas, collapsed. So there is even less demand for new reactors.
Meanwhile, despite the panic, U.S. uranium output isn’t very important anyway. According to the World Nuclear Association, the U.S. ranks ninth among global producers. Our production is less than one quarter of Australia’s and less than one tenth of Canada’s. The U.S. accounts for about 2% of total uranium production worldwide — meaning that the U.S. mines now in Putin’s hands account for about 0.4% of world output.
Whoa! You can really see why Vladimir Putin wanted “control” of it — and why the Clintons were able to charge him in return a stratospheric $250,000 net (plus, of course, the secret funds stolen from the Clinton Foundation) in return.
Why hasn’t there been an investigation? Where is the FBI when you really need it?
OK, maybe “technically,” Hillary didn’t personally actually “approve” the deal. Turns out she had no actual veto power over it. But she was one of many people who could have referred it to the president, who could have blocked it. There are lots of others who also approved it, including multiple regulators and stock exchanges around the world (Uranium One is actually a Canadian company). The fact that they all waved it through just shows how wide the Clintons’ tentacles really stretch.
But I always like to end on a positive note, and I have one now. If uranium really is a scarce and precious resource and Vladimir Putin is secretly trying to corner the market, as so many of these sources allege, then obviously sooner or later the price is going to explode. And if that’s true, I know an easy way you can guarantee yourself a fortune.
Just go out and buy stock in Uranium Participation Corp. URPTF, -0.36% a publicly traded Canadian company that functions effectively as a uranium trust. It simply owns a lot of uranium on behalf of investors. Its price has, of course, absolutely collapsed along with the underlying price of the uranium in its vaults, and the stock is now at record lows.
Although it is a Canadian stock, and its primary exchange is in Toronto, the stock also trades freely over the counter in the U.S.
I assume that all those people raging against Hillary’s evil uranium “sell out” to Putin, and warning about the coming uranium apocalypse, have plunged tons of their own money into the stock. Right?
And if they haven’t — what does that tell you?
Via. Market Watch
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The vise appears to be tightening at the education giant ITT Educational Services. Its profits are collapsing, its stock is below $2, and last Monday the company got bad news from the Education Department in Washington, a main overseer. ITT, which operates 138 campuses in 39 states, said it had received a letter from the government demanding $44 million to cover potential obligations that might arise, such as student refunds. The department cited increased risks at ITT as the reason for the demand. A call for $44 million may not sound like a death knell. But it was just the latest in a series of setbacks at ITT. And if the past is prologue, the company’s woes could have dire consequences for its current and former students. The situation has uncanny echoes of a collapse of a educational institution about two decades ago. According to its most recent financial statement, ITT provides programs to 43, 000 students at ITT Technical Institute and Daniel Webster College locations. In April, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools told ITT Technical Institute that its schools had not demonstrated that they met certain standards. ITT said it believed that the schools were in compliance, but acknowledged that if the schools lost the accreditation, they would lose access to government loan programs. As a consequence, the company said in a regulatory filing, “we likely would not be able to continue to operate our business. ” ITT may survive these threats. But if it doesn’t, thousands of customers will be left shouldering debt that they almost surely cannot pay off. How many students are we talking about? Two years ago, ITT had 191, 225 borrowers carrying $4. 6 billion in debt, a report published last fall by the Brookings Institution said. That averages out to about $24, 000 per borrower. That number has undoubtedly increased since then. Students who have taken out loans to attend a school that later fails encounter many problems. Consider what happened at the Wilfred American Educational Corporation, which operated beauty and secretarial schools back to the 1980s. Wilfred ran roughshod over students and profited on the taxpayers’ dime. In its heyday, Wilfred enrolled over 11, 000 students at 58 campuses across the country. It closed in the after regulators uncovered routine falsification of federal student aid applications. To attend the schools, Wilfred students took out more than 61, 000 loans between 1986 and 1994, court documents show. Decades later, many of these loans are still outstanding. The company received $405 million in federal student aid between 1980 and 1989, documents show, accounting for almost all of its revenue. Former Wilfred students later confirmed in a lawsuit against the Department of Education that the company had obtained some of those federal loans without permission from students or by falsely certifying borrower eligibility. Under these circumstances, students qualify for what’s known as a “false certification discharge,” a loan forgiveness arrangement created by Congress in 1992. In such cases, the secretary of education is supposed to “discharge the borrower’s liability on the loan (including interest and collection fees) by repaying the amount owed on the loan. ” But the Education Department never notified the former Wilfred students that they could be eligible for loan forgiveness, lawyers for the students say. For years, debt collectors hounded borrowers for repayment. Many have had their tax refunds taken away. The department’s failure to alert these students to possible loan forgiveness is the subject of the 2014 lawsuit brought by former Wilfred students. The suit contends that the Education Department violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the activities of federal agencies. The Education Department has fought the lawsuit at every turn. A spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nicole Elam, an ITT spokeswoman, said in a statement that the false certification that occurred at Wilfred did not apply to ITT. “It’s not a fair comparison to raise it in any hypothetical involving our organization,” she said. Understandably, the Education Department doesn’t want to burden United States taxpayers by repaying Wilfred students’ loans. But the obligations are beyond onerous for the borrowers. Amounts owed have ballooned, thanks to interest costs and collection fees. And the debts have wrecked borrowers’ credit scores, making it impossible for many to rent an apartment or buy a car. Jane Greengold Stevens, director of litigation at New York Legal Assistance Group in Manhattan, represents the former Wilfred students in the lawsuit. She said that the average student’s loan was $2, 500 when it was taken out, but the average amount now owed has grown to $24, 000. In an interview, Ms. Stevens said she understood the government’s desire not to load forgiven student debts onto taxpayers’ shoulders. But the department, she added, “doesn’t seem to be taking into account the harm done to students who were desperate when they were recruited and who have lost part of their lives to these schools. ” The Education Department failed Wilfred students three ways, the lawsuit said. First, it didn’t take “reasonable steps to determine whether students’ eligibility for federally guaranteed loans to attend Wilfred was falsely certified. ” It erred again by enforcing Wilfred loan obligations without having taken those steps. Finally, the agency did not send notice about possible discharges “as required by statute and regulation. ” Lawyers for the former students began their battle with the Education Department in 2013 by asking it to notify all former Wilfred students that their loans could be forgiven. The department responded by saying it believed it had enough evidence to send notifications only to students who had attended one branch of Wilfred — in Philadelphia. But a 1996 documentation of Wilfred violations by a loan analyst at the Education Department, based on findings by its inspector general, concluded that fraud at roughly 50 of its locations was so pervasive that students submitting a valid application for a discharge should be approved. Anna Bernardez, of White Plains, is a plaintiff in the Wilfred case. In an interview, she harked back to 1987 when she attended a school in the Bronx, pursuing a degree in cosmetology. She dropped out after three months, and soon the school closed. “They made me sign papers, but I didn’t realize they were taking out loans in my name,” Ms. Bernardez said. What began as a $7, 000 loan ultimately grew to $22, 000. Repayment demands were unceasing. “It was a nightmare,” she said. “My credit was messed up I just started getting credit little by little now. ” Thirty years later. Last month, lawyers representing these students won a major court victory, allowing the suit against the Education Department to go forward. “The whole point of our lawsuit is that there are more than 50, 000 people out there who have no idea that the discharge application process exists,” Ms. Stevens said. “The Department of Ed is taking advantage of these people’s ignorance in the same way that the schools took advantage of their vulnerability. ” Wilfred dispensed 60, 000 loans. If ITT and other schools fail, hundreds of thousands of borrowers — maybe millions — could be in for the same treatment. Ugly, no? | 1 |
APOCALYPSE NOW: Trump Voters Warn Of ‘Revolution’ If Clinton Wins By Andrew Bradford on October 28, 2016 Subscribe
There’s nothing wrong with being passionate when it comes to your political beliefs and the candidate you support. In an electorate as deeply divided as we currently see in this country, you expect no less. But ask yourself this question: If your candidate loses, are you ready to take up arms and try to overthrow the government? For some who ardently support GOP nominee Donald Trump, the answer is a resounding yes.
Take for example Jared Halbrook, who lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and told the New York Times : “People are going to march on the capitols. They’re going to do whatever needs to be done to get her out of office, because she does not belong there. “If push comes to shove, (Clinton) has to go by any means necessary, it will be done.”
Roger Pillath said he also sees violence on the horizon if Clinton is elected: “It’s not what I’m going to do, but I’m scared that the country is going to go into a riot. I’ve never seen the country so divided, just black and white — there’s no compromise whatsoever. The Clinton campaign says together we are stronger, but there’s no together. The country has never been so divided. I’m looking at revolution right now.”
As Trump continues to talk of the election being “rigged,” his words are having an effect on people like Paul Swick, who had this ominous warning: “If she comes after the guns, it’s going to be a rough, bumpy road. I hope to God I never have to fire a round, but I won’t hesitate to. As a Christian, I want reformation. But sometimes reformation comes through bloodshed.”
Retired truck driver Alan Weegens envisions a very dark future for the United States and says he’s ready to do whatever is necessary: “I am not going to take my weapon to go out into the streets to protest an election I did not win. But I think that if certain events came about, a person would need to protect themselves, depending on where they lived, when your neighborhood goes up in flames.”
See if you can recall the last time we heard this kind of violent talk which led to actions by far right nuts who were inspired to be “heroes” in their own minds. The year was 1995 and Bill Clinton was President. Timothy McVeigh parked a rental truck loaded with explosives outside the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and killed 168 innocent Americans, including children. Words can have consequences.
Featured Image Via PBS About Andrew Bradford
Andrew Bradford is a single father who lives in Atlanta. A member of the Christian Left, he has worked in the fields of academia, journalism, and political consulting. His passions are art, music, food, and literature. He believes in equal rights and justice for all. To see what else he likes to write about, check out his blog at Deepleftfield.info. Connect | 0 |
CAIRO — Egypt has deployed a submersible to help find the wreckage of EgyptAir Flight 804 in the deep Mediterranean waters where it crashed, President Abdel Fattah said Sunday, as he warned that it might take a “long time” before the cause of the crash was determined. An international flotilla of search ships, aided by surveillance planes, was scouring a section of sea 180 miles north of the port city of Alexandria, and retrieved some wreckage, belongings and human remains over the weekend. But the search crews have yet to find the main body of the plane and its cockpit data and voice recorders, commonly known as the black boxes. They hope the recorders will explain what caused the Airbus A320, carrying 66 people, to plunge from the sky early Thursday as it headed to Cairo from Paris. A statement from the Islamic State on Saturday failed to mention the EgyptAir crash, confounding speculation that the group, which claimed to have been behind the bombing of a Russian airliner in Sinai in October, might have been responsible. Although Egyptian officials initially pointed to terrorism as the most likely cause of the crash, Mr. Sisi stressed on Sunday that all possibilities were being considered. “All hypotheses are possible,” he said. “Please, let’s not jump to any conclusions. ” So far, the strongest clues have come from signals emitted by the stricken plane indicating that several smoke detectors were activated as it hurtled toward the sea. The French air aviation authority said that while those transmissions provided evidence of a catastrophic systems failure inside the plane, they did not provide enough information to determine what had caused the crash. The uncertainty added to the anguish of the relatives of the passengers, most of them Egyptian and French citizens. Funeral services for some crew members and passengers took place in Cairo and other towns over the weekend other families remained at two hotels near the Cairo airport, waiting for news. Six of the victims came from a single village, about 50 miles north of the Egyptian capital. On Sunday night at the Abu el Makarim mosque in central Cairo, men in EgyptAir uniforms stood solemnly as prayers were offered for Mohammed Farag, one of three security officers on Flight 804. “He talked with his hands,” Ahmad Shalash said, recalling Mr. Farag. “Wherever he went, laughter followed him. ” women sat around Mr. Farag’s mother, her face streaked with tears as mourners whispered condolences and prayers in her ear. Several people expressed frustration with the slow progress in the search for bodies. Across town, hundreds of people, many of them in their 20s, attended prayer services Sunday night for Engy Selim, 26, a French teacher who died with her mother, Hala a tour guide, on Flight 804. The two had spent more than a week vacationing in Paris, where the family owned a house, said Yousra one of Ms. Selim’s closest friends. Four days after the downing of the plane, the crowd at the service on Sunday, at a mosque in the New Cairo district, seemed not to have moved on from the initial shock: Young people gathered in clusters, some smoking quietly and others whispering to one another about what may have happened to the plane. Ragia Mourad, a cousin of Ms. Selim’s, recalled learning the news. “They kept saying they couldn’t find the airplane, they couldn’t find the airplane, and we stayed in front of the TV, looking for any news, until we discovered the airplane,” she said, her voice trailing off. Ms. Reedy also struggled with words as she tried to summarize the essence of Ms. Selim, mentioning her smile, her love for her students and her ability to “forgive anyone. ” EgyptAir, in a statement on Saturday, condemned efforts by unidentified people to capitalize on the tragedy by falsely claiming to be raising money for the victims’ families. The submersible that Mr. Sisi said was headed for the search zone on Sunday is operated by the country’s Petroleum Ministry and can descend to a depth of 9, 800 feet. The vessel was not manned and is normally used for oil and gas exploration, said Hamdy Abdel Aziz, a spokesman for the Petroleum Ministry. Mr. Sisi said he hoped the submersible would find the flight voice and data recorders, although experts said it was not clear whether it had the necessary equipment to find them. Both flight recorders are fitted with acoustic beacons, or “pingers,” that can be detected from a distance of up to about three miles. But those pings can be detected only by using specialized underwater microphones attached to lengthy towing cables. Only a few organizations have that kind of equipment, and it was not believed that any of them had yet arrived in Egypt. The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in 2014 renewed the focus on efforts to make black boxes easier to find when a plane crashes at sea or in a remote area. One proposal involves using a satellite Internet system, much like the ones that provide for passengers, to transmit flight data back to the airline headquarters in real time. In Washington on Sunday, government officials debated whether the Islamic State or some other terrorist entity had orchestrated the EgyptAir crash. Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said that the preponderance of evidence he had seen suggested terrorism might be less likely than initially thought — and that if the crash was an act of terrorism, it was more likely carried out by a “lone actor. ” “We’ve looked at the signals intelligence. We’ve looked at the manifests,” Mr. Schiff said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week. ” “We have not come up with any hard evidence of terrorism as of yet. ” | 1 |
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Here we are, on the cusp of what is most definitely the most important presidential election of our lifetimes. There’s a lot on the line that goes far beyond politics. It goes into the character of the candidates, and their fitness for office. In GOP nominee Donald Trump, we have an unstable reality star who is dangerously unqualified, temperamentally unfit, and nothing more than a bigoted demagogue who has managed to fleece half the nation into believing his authoritarian ways will solve all their problems.
On the other hand, we have Hillary Clinton taking up the mantle for the Democrats. She will take the nation forward into a brighter future, reassure and protect our allies, and continue the social and economic progress that President Obama has done so much for. We’re talking about a woman who has been First Lady, a United States Senator, and Secretary of State. She performed admirably in all of those roles.
And now, at the end of what has been a bruising, ugly campaign thanks to the dangerous rhetoric of one Donald J. Trump, we have forgotten one thing: We are witnessing history. Hillary is the first woman to shatter the glass ceiling to become the nominee of one of America’s two major parties. It’s easy to lose sight of all of that in such a crazy election season, but we have much to celebrate.
Luckily, Hillary’s campaign didn’t lose sight of that, and they released an amazingly inspiring video that chronicled her meteoric rise to the Democratic Party’s nomination for President. It goes from the announcement, through the primaries, and through the ridiculousness of having to run against Donald Trump. And here we are, waiting with bated breath on the eve of this stressful election, and Hillary has given us the priceless gift of something to celebrate in a world that feels quite bleak right now. Without further ado, here it is, The Story of Us, via Hillary’s Twitter: The story of this campaign. pic.twitter.com/8cft9HD0RI
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) November 5, 2016
So, take a deep breath, watch that amazing video, and remember – VOTE BLUE.
Here’s to you, Hillary, and hopefully, in two days we’ll be calling you what you’ve been destined to be called your whole life: MADAME PRESIDENT.
Featured image via Hillary Clinton Twitter Share this Article! | 0 |
Hmm, free college, now that's an idea. | 0 |
Republican nominee Donald Trump won the US presidential vote among American citizens voting from Israel, according to an iVoteIsrael exit poll taken this week, but in an election plagued with low favorability ratings for both candidates, he had a far less impressive showing than past Republicans have in Israel.
As The Jerusalem Post exclusively reported on Wednesday, Trump received 49% of the Israeli-American vote, while Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton got 44%, according to the poll conducted by get-out-to vote organization iVoteIsrael and KEEVOON Global Research.
The majority of voters in Israel viewed the candidates unfavorably, with Trump receiving a 65% unfavorable rating and 32% favorable, and Clinton seen as 64% unfavorable and 34% favorable.
In fact, 49% of voters in Israel said the main reason they chose their candidate was because of the “danger of electing the other candidate.” More Trump voters (60%) chose this reason than Clinton voters (39%).
Despite Trump winning among Americans in Israel, more of them are registered Democrats (33%) than Republicans (27%). Of Trump’s votes in Israel, 25% came from Democrats, and 10% of Clinton’s votes came from Republicans.
iVoteIsrael’s poll found the states evenly split between the two major-party candidates, with New York, New Jersey, California, Maryland and swingstate Florida going to Trump, and Michigan, Massachusetts, Illinois and swing-state Pennsylvania choosing Clinton. The votes from Ohio, another swing state, were tied at 44%.
Trump’s margin of victory was larger among men only, 59% of whom voted for the Republican, while 52% of female voters chose Clinton.
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Mon, 24 Oct 2016 14:18 UTC © Matthew Jacobs Begonia species adapted to deep-shade conditions display blue leaf iridescence, a striking form of structural color originating from specialized chloroplasts in the epidermis. There's a very good reason for this plant's iridescent color. In the fading twilight on the rainforest floor, a plant's leaves glimmer iridescent blue. And now scientists know why. These exotic blue leaves pull more energy out of dim light than ordinary leaves because of an odd trick of quantum mechanics. A team of plant scientists led by Heather Whitney of the University of Bristol in the U.K. has just discovered the remarkable origin and purpose of the shiny cobalt leaves on the Malaysian tropical plant Begonia pavonina . The plant owes its glimmer to its peculiar machinery for photosynthesis, the process plants use to turn light into chemical energy. Strangely enough, these blue leaves can squeeze more energy out of the red-green light that reaches the eternally dim rainforest floor. Whitney and her colleagues describe the blue leaves today in the journal Nature Plants . "It's actually quite brilliant. Plants have to cope with every obstacle that's thrown at them without running away. Here we see evidence of a plant that's actually evolved to physically manipulate the little light it receives," says Whitney, "it's quite amazing, and was an absolutely surprising discovery." Slowing Down Light © Matthew Jacobs Begonia species adapted to deep-shade conditions display blue leaf iridescence, a striking form of structural color originating from specialized chloroplasts in the epidermis. These 'iridoplasts' contain highly-ordered grana whose arrangement enhances absorption Whitney and her colleagues made their fascinating discovery by working with a lab-grown crossbreed of two species of the the Begonia plant. The scientists couldn't simply use the native species found in the darkness of the Malaysian jungle, she says. It's absurdly delicate, grows slowly, and withers under anything less than perfect growing conditions. Instead, the scientists developed a much heartier breed that still sported the exotic blue leaves. The plant researchers then used an imaging tool called an electron microscope. Peering into the leaves' cellular structures, the scientists found that the plants had some peculiar chloroplasts. Chloroplasts are basically a plant's power generators—they're cellular capsules that hold all the machinery responsible conducting photosynthesis. In particular, Whitney and her colleagues noticed something funky with the spire-like structures called thylakoids found inside the chloroplast capsules. Thylakoids look like tiny towers, and the light that enters them is what's turned into chemical energy. Look inside the chloroplasts of most plants and you'd find these tower-like fairly randomly placed, like a slap-dash collection of buildings. But the thylakoids inside the Begonia's chloroplasts had a incredibly regular structure. Less like the irregular Manhattan skyline, and more like a planned city. According to Whitney, the rigid, precise structure of these thylakoids creates a couple of fascinating effects. First, their ordered placement means that the entire chloroplast capsules tend to reflect away blue wavelengths of light, which is why the leaves appear iridescent blue to our eyes. Losing this blue light isn't a problem for the Begonia plant's energy efficiency, since most blue light is absorbed by the rainforest growing above it anyway. Instead, the thylakoids are far better at absorbing red-green light, the flavor that tends to be most abundant in the perpetual dim of the rainforest floor. But here's the strangest quality of these cellular structures: Light itself actually slows down as it barrels through the Begonia plants' chloroplasts. That's due to the precise arrangement of the tower-like thylakoids, which together act like a dense crystal. While light always travels the same speed in a vacuum, it will slow down when passing through different types of matter. This effect is known in quantum physics as slow light . Combined with the increased uptake of red-green light, this effect increases the efficiency of the Begonia plant's photosynthesis up to 10 percent. Interestingly enough, Whitney says, the Begonia plants they studied had a mix of normal plant chloroplasts and the odd, highly ordered blue variety. "We think these serve a function almost like a backup generator," she says, "meaning the plant will use its [regular] chloroplasts if there's enough light, but can switch when the light levels get extremely low. "It's just wonderful and logical to think that a plant has evolved an ability to physically manipulate the lighting around it in a variety of different ways. I think it really raises the prospect that this type of phenomenon might even be more widespread than we realize in the plant kingdom. Perhaps we just don't notice other plants that are doing this because they don't have a strange color." | 0 |
One of the nation’s largest grocery chains has announced it is adding up to 10, 000 new employees as it plans expansion in the new era of Trump. [“Kroger’s growth trajectory continues to create opportunities for our people to advance their careers — and to do that in a fun, team environment with great benefits,” Kroger group vice president of human resources and labor relations Tim Massa said in a press release. The grocery giant also reported adding over 12, 000 jobs in 2016, a number that doesn’t include temporary jobs such as the construction jobs needed to build its new outlets. The number also excludes new employees brought on by several recent mergers. The supermarket chain currently employs 430, 000 workers across the country, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Kroger joins several other large American corporations by announcing plans to add new jobs as the Trump administration begins to deploy its America First agenda. Like Kroger, Walmart also announced it intends to add 10, 000 jobs to its workforce. General Motors, Amazon. com, Bayer AG, and a long list of others have also announced plans to add new jobs and increase investments in the U. S. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
Rosie Gray, an reporter who now works at The Atlantic magazine, told Breitbart News exclusively that she disagrees with the decision her old editor, BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith, made to run a fake news dossier against President Donald Trump accusing the of having untoward relations with Russia. [“I would not have made that decision to run that,” Gray told Breitbart News on Tuesday when asked if she would have run either the BuzzFeed story containing the dossier or the previous CNN piece on live television and online which aimed to lend credibility to the dossier without actually publishing it. Gray does still consider Smith a mentor and a friend, however. Gray’s decision to speak out publicly against her former employer, BuzzFeed, is noteworthy considering she was one of the top newsroom employees there. She also, in her new capacity as a reporter for The Atlantic, delivered one of the earliest and strongest hammer blows against Smith’s and CNN’s decision to publish the dossier, discrediting BuzzFeed and CNN. “It Is Fake News Meant to Malign Mr. Trump” read the headline on Gray’s exposé debunking BuzzFeed’s report on a supposed intelligence document alleging a number of salacious things about Trump and his team. “Michael Cohen, an attorney for the has denied allegations contained in a dossier published by BuzzFeed News,” Gray’s in The Atlantic reads, further blowing up the BuzzFeed scoop. The document published by her old employer, Gray wrote, “alleges that Michael Cohen, special counsel to Trump, was central to ‘the ongoing secret liaison relationship between the New York tycoon’s campaign and the Russian leadership,’ and that he met secretly with Kremlin officials in Prague in August 2016. ” But unlike BuzzFeed, which didn’t actually check to verify the allegations before it published the document, Gray actually checked to see if that specific allegation was true or not. And Gray found the first of many holes in BuzzFeed’s report, ripping her old employer’s fake news report to shreds by having made just a few phone calls to see if the allegations in the document were accurate. Gray wrote: Reached by telephone on Tuesday night, Cohen denied the dossier’s allegations. The story is ‘totally fake, totally inaccurate,’ Cohen said. ‘I’m telling you emphatically that I’ve not been to Prague, I’ve never been to Czech [Republic] I’ve not been to Russia,’ Cohen said. ‘The story is completely inaccurate, it is fake news meant to malign Mr. Trump.’ Cohen said that during the time the report places him in Prague, he was actually with his son visiting USC and meeting with the baseball coach. Gray, unlike BuzzFeed, actually called the source of the allegation to ask him if it was true before she printed it. And she called the University of Southern California, too, to verify that claim — and they confirmed it. Gray wrote at her new publication, The Atlantic: A USC baseball source confirmed Tuesday night that Cohen and his son had visited USC on August 29th. Cohen said that he was in Los Angeles from the 23rd through the 29th of August, and that the rest of the month he was in New York. He said that his only trip to an EU country over the summer had been a vacation to Italy in July. In one instance, the dossier places the alleged Prague travel in ‘ 2016.’ Cohen said he was in New York for the entire month of September. Gray is part of a group of discredited staffers who fled the publication in a recent mass exodus. Andrew Kaczynski, who was a lead researcher for BuzzFeed, went to work for CNN. And McKay Coppins, the largely discredited BuzzFeed scribe who inaccurately profiled Trump before he ran for president in a hit piece claiming Trump would never run for president, joined Gray in traveling to The Atlantic. Among other mistakes that BuzzFeed allowed its reporters to make, Coppins also inaccurately reported the fake news that Breitbart News was funded by Donald Trump during the campaign. BuzzFeed’s Smith, Gray’s old editor, has not immediately responded to a request for comment on Gray’s decision to admonish her old employer’s irresponsible editorial . CNN in many ways was worse than BuzzFeed in what they did on this front: While CNN did not actually publish the document, anchor Jake Tapper and reporters Jim Sciutto, Evan Perez, and Carl Bernstein lent enormous credibility to the source of the document without verifying any of the now discredited allegations. The episode resulted in a very public blowup for both CNN and BuzzFeed, as at Trump’s first press conference as earlier in January he blasted CNN’s Jim Acosta — who broke journalistic norms in his attempts to interrupt the — as working for a “Fake News” outlet. Trump also blasted BuzzFeed as a “failing pile of garbage” during that press conference. UPDATE 3:10 p. m. ET: Gray confirms publicly she would not have made the same decision as Smith or CNN, but then tries to rationalize it in an unhinged . ok so, before this becomes a thing, here’s what actually happened here https: . — Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) January 24, 2017, I called Boyle for a story I’m working on. He won’t cooperate, he says, unless I publicly denounce BuzzFeed for publishing the dossier. — Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) January 24, 2017, I tell him that while I wouldn’t have made same decision to publish, I won’t do what he’s asking me to do. — Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) January 24, 2017, There was no ”decision to speak out publicly,” I can tell you that much. — Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) January 24, 2017, indeed i did, which is part of why Boyle’s insistence that I take a public stand against them is so bizarre https: . — Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) January 24, 2017, Yep, misleading af https: . — Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) January 24, 2017, Then Gray proved that nobody she speaks with can trust her, since she published screenshots of her text messages with this reporter: btw you guys would get a kick out of my recent text exchanges with Matt Boyle, let me put it that way. — Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) January 24, 2017, lol pic. twitter. — Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) January 24, 2017, | 1 |
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In a four-minute speech before an Ohio audience reportedly to publicize his new movie “Trumpland,” staunch liberal Michael Moore delved into the mindset of Donald Trump’s appeal. In doing so, he inadvertently made the best case for a Trump presidency we’ve heard yet.
“Theyâre not racists or rednecks, theyâre actually pretty decent people,” Moore surprisingly said of Trump supporters. “So, after talking to a number of them, I sort of wanted to sort of write this.”
Here is an excerpt from his speech:
Donald Trump came to the Detroit Economic Club and stood there in front of the Ford Motor executives and said: if you close these factories, as you are planning to do in Detroit, and rebuild them in Mexico, I am going to put a 35% tariff on those cars when you send them back and nobodyâs going to buy them.
It was an amazing thing to see.
No politician â Republican or Democrat â had ever said anything like that to these executives. And it was music to the ears of people in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The Brexit states. You live here in Ohio. You know what I am talking about.
Whether Trump means it or not is kind of irrelevant because he’s saying the things to people who are hurting. And it’s why every beaten down, nameless, forgotten, working stiff, who used to be part of what was called the working class, loves Trump. He is the human Molotov cocktail that they’ve been waiting for; the human hand grenade that they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them.
Watch: If you make this go viral, Trump will win. It's 4 minutes that makes the choice in this election crystal clear. #EarlyVoting pic.twitter.com/UOgqSfet6a
— Jared Wyand đşđ¸ (@JaredWyand) October 25, 2016
If we make this go viral, Donald Trump could indeed win the election… And wouldn’t that be just rich, considering Michael Moore is one of the most loathsome liberal windbags we’ve been forced to endure during this election season.
SHARE this if you are voting for “the human hand grenade” Donald Trump! | 0 |
Because of Hillary Clinton, Emergency-Contraception Is Banned In Honduras Because of Hillary Clinton, Emergency-Contraception Is Banned In Honduras By Eric Zuesse Of course, one of Hillary Clinton’s proudest claims is that as the U.S. Secretary of State she championed reproductive choice throughout the world. She championed it in words, but her actions were sometimes in the opposite direction, and there is perhaps no nation where her actions as the U.S. Secretary of State had a bigger impact than Honduras, which case will therefore be examined, and her impact on this documented, here: The reason that the morning-after pill, which enables raped women to avoid becoming pregnant from a rape, was made illegal by the government that now exists in Honduras, is that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton persuaded President Barack Obama not to terminate U.S. financial aid to the coup-regime that came into power there on 28 June 2009. Without that aid, the democratically elected President would quickly have been restored. Though the U.S. Ambassador in Honduras told Secretary of State Clinton that there was no way in which that coup was legal and that consequently it undoubtedly was a “coup” and that existing U.S. law therefore required U.S. funding of the Honduran government to cease immediately, she ignored the law, and she ignored everything except her friend Lanny Davis the lobbyist whom the coup-plotters had hired to represent them to Democrats (a different lobbyist was hired to represent them to the congressional Republicans). President Obama took his Secretary of State’s advice and refused to enforce the law, and Hillary Clinton publicly praised what the regime was doing. The regime was condemned throughout Latin America, because the coup, which consisted of the local aristocracy or ‘oligarchs’, overthrew the democratically elected President of Honduras, who had wanted a land-reform law to be introduced. Immediately after the coup that overthrew him, the newly installed regime allowed the aristocrats’ paid thugs to murder anyone who tried to lead the opposition; and therefore the regime that had been imposed by Honduras’s aristocracy and kept in power by America’s aristocracy, has remained stable since. However, after the coup, Honduras has had the world’s highest murder-rate. Thus, it’s a stable but now extraordinarily violent country. (Detailed documentation of every allegation in this paragraph can be found in the “Honduras” section of this article I earlier wrote about “Hillary Clinton’s Six Foreign-Policy Catastrophes” ; and that section on Honduras, in turn, links to 68 sources, which provide the sometimes gruesome details regarding Hillary Clinton’s impact upon the lives of the Honduran people since the coup. However, that article didn’t mention this matter concerning contraception, rape, and abortion; and, so, the present article will be an extension from that earlier one, dealing specifically with Hillary Clinton’s impact upon family-planning and reproductive choice in Honduras.) One feature of the new, U.S.-backed, regime, was the imposition of draconian fundamentalist laws against contraception and intensifying the abortion-ban. On 13 February 2012, the Center for Reproductive Rights headlined “Honduras Supreme Court Upholds Absolute Ban on Emergency Contraception, Opens Door to Criminalize Women and Medical Professionals” and reported: The Honduras Supreme Court has upheld the country’s absolute ban on emergency contraception, which would criminalize the sale, distribution, and use of the “morning-after pill” — imposing punishment for offenders equal to that of obtaining or performing an abortion, which in Honduras is completely restricted. “By banning and criminalizing emergency contraception, Honduras is telling the world it would rather imprison the women of its country than provide them with safe and effective birth control,” said Luisa Cabal, director of international legal programs at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Today’s decision from the Honduras Supreme Court blatantly disregards women’s fundamental reproductive rights and completely ignores the respected medical opinion of experts around the globe. It will cause significant harm in the lives countless women and doctors across the country. … Consequently, the hell in Honduras has been accentuated by punishment of women who have been raped, and punishment of doctors and pharmacists who try to help them. The President whom Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the ten main aristocratic families of Honduras , overthrew and prohibited from running for President ever again, Manuel Zelaya, had, in April 2009, vetoed a law that the Honduran legislature (controlled by those ten families plus another 15 or so ) had just passed to ban the morning-after pill. So, that law didn’t enter into force until the U.S.-imposed regime restored it. However, the restoration of the ban wasn’t final until this decision was handed down by the Honduran Supreme Court. As Amnesty International said at that time : On 1 February, the Supreme Court in Honduras upheld a decree imposing an absolute ban on emergency contraception. This decree was vetoed in May 2009 by the former President on grounds that it conflicted with the Constitution. The Supreme Court has now concluded that the decree is constitutional and that Congress can begin to develop laws enforcing a ban of the emergency contraceptive pill on the basis of its alleged “abortive” nature. The World Health Organization, Pan-American Health Organization, and several other expert bodies have clearly stated that the emergency contraceptive pill is not abortive; it is a form of contraception that works by ensuring the egg is inaccessible and impeding fertilization. The criminalization of the emergency contraceptive pill will have appalling consequences. For example, rape victims will be unable to prevent pregnancy … And so it has been in Honduras. During the period since the 28 June 2009 Honduran U.S.-backed coup, the hell in Honduras has been so bad that Honduras has become one of the top sources of illegal immigration into the United States. The world-record-high murder-rates and crushing poverty, with no opportunity for the public to ‘move up in the world’ other than through becoming one of the paid enforcers for the aristocrats, which often also entails leading the now-booming drug-gangs there, has essentially forced out of Honduras millions of residents, and many of them have escaped through Mexico into the United States, in order to be able to have a decent life, rather than murder and be murdered. Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the U.S. Presidential campaign, Donald Trump, never talks about the hell that Clinton and Obama have been imposing around the world (except regarding non-Christian-majority countries such as Libya), and he seems to view illegal immigrants as if U.S. foreign policies have nothing to do with creating the problems that those people are facing, but there is no indication that he would continue those policies, which have been causing them to be illegal immigrants here. To the contrary, his anti-interventionist foreign-policy proposals would be inconsistent with coups and invasions regarding any foreign country whose government is not posing an imminent threat to U.S. national security. Trump’s foreign-policy proposals are not in any way favorable toward those of Hillary Clinton (who is simply an extreme version of Obama’s worst policy-orientations). (And America’s own Federation of American Scientists has stated that Obama is lying in order to ‘justify’ his policy now to ignore existing in-force nuclear treaties with Russia as being supposedly not violations of them. So, though he may not be as much of a neoconservative as she is, he basically is one, too. His aggression against Russia is subtle , but forceful .) Consequently, at least regarding foreign policy, a President Trump would be authentic change, irrespective of whether a particular voter would approve of that change as opposed to continuing America’s existing foreign policy but in a more extreme way. Among other things, a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to retain the status-quo in Honduras and around the world, but to go much farther in the same direction. A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to change that status-quo — to change (and in some important respects reverse ) that direction . The biggest impact of this election will be on foreign (including both economic and military) policy. Even domestically within the United States, the difference between the two candidates on foreign policies will have a much bigger impact, including possibly even nuclear war , than will the other policy-areas, which the general public erroneously think will have a bigger impact upon their lives and their future than will foreign policies. (And here are quoted recent reports in the Washington Post , Spiegel , Huffington Post , and other serious media, discussing her preparing her coming Administration’s plans and personnel for a war with Russia; and Obama is right now setting everything up for her to be able to start the war as soon as possible.) Regardless of whether the American public know it, the main impact of this Presidential election will be on foreign policy, including on the immense impacts that foreign policy will have domestically. So: this is not the time when the U.S. will be progressing but instead regressing, and intelligent voters will be aiming to minimize the harms, rather than to achieve progress. Progress, at this stage so late in the game, is still being hoped-for only by some fools who happen to be also progressives. Any intelligent progressive, at this late stage, is focused entirely upon minimizing the harm. And the maximum harm could happen with surprising rapidity. (Back in 1961, the estimation of experts was that — as one of the few who spoke publicly stated — “A nuclear war between the United States and Russia would be all over in 24 or 48 hours because both sides would let go with their full atomic arsenals.” The estimates today are far more precise but unpublished, and they’re all well under an hour — some as low as 20 minutes.) There wouldn’t be any surrender, nor any armistice. There would only be the end of civilization , and unspeakable misery (including details that are ignored by the major media, such as this ) until practically everyone is dead (from starvation if nothing else). Those are the stakes in this election. Even to be debating domestic issues at a time like this, simply doesn’t make any sense. But the situation in Honduras points up the ridiculousness, in a fundamentally different context, which is why I am writing about it now. | 0 |
Geneva (AFP) — The UN said Thursday it had enlisted Yusra Mardini, the teenage Olympic swimmer who braved a Mediterranean crossing in a leaky dinghy fleeing Syria, to help raise awareness about the plight of refugees. [The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said it had appointed Mardini as its newest Goodwill Ambassador, a role long famously held by US movie star Angelina Jolie. Mardini “has become a powerful voice for the forcibly displaced across the world and a powerful example of their resilience and determination to rebuild lives and positively contribute to host communities,” UNHCR said in a statement. The ’s story is indeed inspiring. In 2015, like millions of others, she fled her home in Syria. During a perilous journey to the Greek island of Lesbos on board a packed dinghy, the engine failed and the craft began taking on water. Mardini and her sister jumped into the sea, grabbed a rope and spent the next hours in the choppy water towing the boat to safety. Mardini, who has settled in Germany with her family, went on to take part in the first ever Olympic refugee team at the Rio de Janeiro games last year. “Yusra is a deeply inspiring young woman,” UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said. She added that the Syrian teen “represents the hopes, the fears and the incredible potential of the more than ten million young refugees around the globe. ” Mardini herself said she was thrilled with her appointment. “I could not be more proud to be part of this team,” Mardini told reporters in Geneva. “There is no shame in being a refugee if we remember who we are,” she said. “I am a refugee and I’m proud to stand for peace, for decency and dignity for all those fleeing violence. ” | 1 |
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