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Trump's Hollywood Walk of Fame star Destroyed with a Sledgehammer and Pick page: 1 link I guess you could say it a sign of the strength of feeling this election has generated but in the real world it's just a mindless piece of vandalism that achieves nothing. A man wearing high visibility jacket and helmet was filmed taking out his frustration in front of a group of onlookers. News report on the incident. I suppose it made him feel better but it will return before he goes to prison. edit on 26-10-2016 by gortex because: (no reason given) I suppose it made him feel better but it will return before he goes to prison. So he was charged then? You didn't provide a link. edit on 10/26/2016 by ColdWisdom because: (no reason given) You don't think he will be arrested and charged ? He may not be in custody yet but he will be , he will be caught. link pure filth that guy is. I get it...Donald sucks, whatever..cast your vote against him on the 8th. Consider if Obama gets a star, will some dumbass redneck be smashing that up also because he didn't like the politics? morons. followers of the DNC in action. Such peaceful folks. link a reply to: gortex Poor sumbeyotch. The low IQs are always on display on both sides. I hope he just gets probation. This is how sore losers everywhere will react when Trump wins by a landslide. I like how safety-conscious he was by wearing a high visibility jacket, though. This is how sore losers everywhere will react when Trump wins by a landslide. I like how safety-conscious he was by wearing a high visibility jacket, though. If a mouth breather like this is so upset before the election, damn, if Trump does win, how many of these ass clowns will go full retard after the 8th? Thought these stars were for artists like actors. What did Trump get the star for? For this "not-scripted" TV show? Is it like with the Nobel Peace Prize, everybody nowadays gets one(thinkig of Obama and the EU...) originally posted by: network dude followers of the DNC in action. Such peaceful folks. No one said he was a DNC supporter He may just be a bloke who hates racist, homophobic, misogynistic narcissists. Thought these stars were for artists like actors. What did Trump get the star for? For this "not-scripted" TV show? Is it like with the Nobel Peace Prize, everybody nowadays gets one(thinkig of Obama and the EU...) He got it for his role as producer on The Apprentice. originally posted by: roadgravel It could be a psyop by a Trump supporter. Make people feel for Trump's lost star and therefore vote for him. That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. Nobody is going to vote for him just because somebody vandalized his star in Hollywood. edit on 10/26/2016 by AdmireTheDistance because: (no reason given) | 0 |
The two undergraduates were acing their presentation. Good cadence. Sharp slides. Sunny dispositions. But it was a tough crowd. As the first slides flashed by, one audience member got up and paced the room. The other, breathing with conspicuous heaviness, rested her head sleepily on the ground. The students inflected their voices and gestured with gusto to regain their attention. So it goes when your audience is canine — specifically Teddy, a Jack Russell terrier, and Ellie, a Bernese mountain dog. The session was part of a pilot program pairing business school students at American University with amiable, if unpredictable, dogs. According to promotional material for the program: “Addressing a friendly and nonjudgmental canine can lower blood pressure, decrease stress and elevate mood — perfect for practicing your speech or team presentation. ” The audience dogs, as they are called, are a pet project of Bonnie Auslander, the director of the Kogod Center for Business Communications, which helps students hone their writing and speaking skills. Given “the whole fever pitch of dogs in therapy” — pettable pooches routinely show up before finals on some campuses — Ms. Auslander decided to use dogs to help students with speech anxiety. The center booked about a dozen sessions last semester and employed six “locally sourced” dogs, recruited for their calm personalities For now, evidence of the benefits is mostly anecdotal. “It makes you smile looking out at the dogs,” said Jessica Lewinson, a sophomore who practiced a presentation on corporate responsibility in front of Teddy and Ellie. “It kind of gives you a chance to step back from your presentation, to step out of that track you get stuck in. ” And, she added, a dog is no more distracted than your typical college student. You might even get a lick. Virtual reality has become a popular experimental treatment for a variety of anxiety disorders, including public speaking. Advocates say it is an efficient and safe form of exposure therapy, and a growing body of research backs them up. At treatment centers, participants are immersed in a environment, where a therapist guides them through contact with feared stimuli. Thanks to a free app from VirtualSpeech, students can try this method at home. By plugging a smartphone into Google Cardboard or any VR headset, users will find themselves in a virtual presentation room and have the option of uploading their own PowerPoint, which appears on the virtual screen as they address the virtual crowd. | 1 |
In light of the tidal wave of sexual assault allegations leveled at Republican nominee Donald Trump and the firestorm of controversy it has provoked, we shouldn’t be surprised that more women are coming forth to tell their stories of abuse at the hands of powerful men. The latest to step forward is an Alaska lawyer who is accusing conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of groping her at a dinner party in 1999.
“He groped me while I was setting the table, suggesting I should sit ‘right next to him. He was 5 or 6 inches down and he got a good handful and he kept squeezing me and pulling me close to him” says Moira Smith, describing how Justice Thomas groped her buttocks at a public event.
Smith was 23 at the time and is now a vice president at counsel at Enstar Natural Gas Co. Justice Thomas was previously accused of sexually harassing his employee, Anita Hill, in a widely controversial case that ended with the confirmation of Thomas as a Supreme Court Justice and a vicious character assassination campaign against Hill. Hill’s shocking testimony described how :
In lurid detail, she described Thomas as a boss who pestered her for dates and spoke graphically about pornography, bestiality, rape and his skills as a lover. “He talked about pornographic materials depicting individuals with large penises or large breasts involved in various sex acts,” she testified. The “oddest episode,” Hill said, occurred when he was drinking a Coke in his EEOC office. “He got up from the table at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can and asked, ‘Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?”‘
The National Law Journal spoke to three of Smith’s housemates , who all confirm that Smith told them about Thomas’ behavior at the time of the event. Thomas has denied the allegations.
Sexual assault and the improper behavior of powerful men towards vulnerable employees has dominated this election cycle, beginning first with the wave of allegations against FOX News CEO Roger Ailes by multiple employees and then the accounts of some dozen women recounting the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of Donald Trump.
The prominence of the issue has created a space for women to come forward and tell their tales w ith some degree of confiden ce that they will be heard and taken seriously, bravely risking the backlash of misogynistic victim-blaming that has long defined the American response to a woman’s accusation.
From the military to scientific acedemia to nursing homes , men abuse women and other men at a horrifying rate. It’s far past time we began giving women the benefit of the doubt and send a message to the predators of America that this appalling behavior will no longer be tolerated. For his part, Justice Clarence Thomas has been nothing but an obstacle to progress, mired in backwards conservatism and following the cues of now-deceased religious extremist Antonin Scalia to a tee. Perhaps Scalia shouldn’t be the only seat we replace once Hillary Clinton takes office. | 0 |
A new statement from the UN Human Rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani warned that there is growing evidence that all sides fighting around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo are engaged in war crimes by conducting indiscriminate strikes in civilian-populated areas.
Shamdasani warned that while the UN lacked details to attribute individual attacks to different factions in the area, the indications are that everyone has basically ignored the “fundamental prohibition” on launching such attacks when civilians are present.
This has been a recurring concern for months in Aleppo, with large civilian casualties reported on a disturbingly regular basis. And while most of the international forces with an interest in Syria are keen to exclusively blame one side or the other, civilians in both sides’ neighborhoods are being killed.
Russia has paused their airstrikes against Aleppo over the past couple of weeks, though an escalation in fighting further west has meant civilian casualties have continued, with reports of chlorine gas attacks by Nusra forces against government-held areas. Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz | 0 |
The uniquely uncivil presidential campaign is about to produce one of the biggest civic gatherings in decades: For 90 minutes on Monday night, a polarized nation will pause to watch the first encounter between Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump. The total audience, network executives and political strategists say, could be as high as 100 million viewers — Super Bowl territory. That would surpass the 80 million who watched Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980, the record for a presidential debate, and rank among television benchmarks like the finales of “MASH” and “Cheers. ” Not all viewers will watch from their living rooms. At the Dreamland Theater in tiny Nantucket, Mass. so many are expected for a party that the town assigned a police officer to stand watch in case of rowdiness. In Paris, many of those abroad for Fashion Week are setting alarms so they can watch the debate live — at 3 a. m. local time. “I need to feel like I’m part of this,” said Laura Brown, InStyle’s editor in chief. And in Richardson, Tex. the Alamo Drafthouse had to switch to a bigger room after overwhelming interest in a screening with refreshments like a “build a wall around it” taco salad. Mass experiences — built around news events like the moon landing, and pop culture moments for older generations like the “Who shot J. R. ?” episode of “Dallas” — are rare in an age of fragmented media and the drift toward partisan outlets, where viewers can effectively choose their own news. But tight polls and curiosity about the unconventional Mr. Trump are luring viewers. In a New York News poll this month, 83 percent of registered voters said they were very or somewhat likely to watch on Monday. “It’s a throwback to a phenomenon that has essentially disappeared in the era of digital media,” said Andrew Heyward, a former president of CBS News. “This is Americans gathering around the electronic hearth. ” Advertisers, including Audi cars and Tecate beer, are taking advantage, introducing commercials in the kind of marketing usually reserved for events like the Super Bowl. Although the debate will air without commercials, cable and broadcast channels have sold millions of dollars’ worth of ads for programming before and afterward. Television networks and online streaming sites, including Facebook and Twitter, will carry the same feed on Monday, showing a spare debate stage at Hofstra University, on Long Island, a format that predates the blaring graphics and sets that now dominate television news. Still, even if a large portion of the country is watching, what Americans see may be as much about their beliefs and preferred news outlets as what transpires onstage. About 8 percent of registered voters remain undecided, according to the New York News poll, a thin if crucial sliver of the electorate. And after Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump conclude on Monday, viewers are likely to return to their ideological silos, absorbing instant analysis from anchors on MSNBC or commentators at outlets like Breitbart News. The debate itself will be subject to instant, interpretation on social media. “Regardless of where you’re watching, whether it’s Facebook Live or NBC or Fox News, there will be a moment where we all witness it,” said Charles L. Ponce de Leon, author of “That’s the Way It Is,” a history of television news. “But that moment will quickly crumble when all the instant analysis and opining comes into play. ” The event’s impact is unlikely to rival that of, say, 1960, when John F. Kennedy’s smooth performance in the first televised debate helped sway voters against his opponent, Richard Nixon. That debate aired without commentary — or graphics and captions on the screen. “Journalists were of the opinion they should wait and ruminate and think about what went down, and then, a day or a week later, talk about it,” Mr. de Leon said. Tom Sander, who runs a program on civic engagement at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, said he was worried that voters might not have a chance to remove partisan blinders. “Many of us come to these events more to confirm what we already think we know, rather than to search for common ground,” Mr. Sander said. The candidates may hope otherwise. Mrs. Clinton has told donors privately that she expects 100 million people to watch the debate, and that 60 million of those viewers may be focusing on the campaign for the first time, a prime opportunity for her to make inroads. Many may tune in merely for the spectacle. “It’s like waiting for the fight,” said Dick Cavett, the longtime host, referring to the highly anticipated boxing bouts between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in the 1970s. Mr. Cavett said he would cut short a dinner on Monday to ensure he would be in front of a TV by 9 p. m. “There’s possible drama and fireworks and insults and horror and disaster and potential enlightenment,” Mr. Cavett said. “It would attract anybody. ” Some in TV noted that the 2008 meeting between Joseph R. Biden and Sarah Palin attracted 70 million viewers, more than any of that year’s presidential debates, a sign that civic interest may be less of a draw than seeing a colorful candidate like Ms. Palin — or Mr. Trump. The 1980 debate scored a record audience in part because it was the only matchup between the candidates in a precable era. But Neal Shapiro, a former president of NBC News, recalled that Mr. Reagan’s unusual background as a Hollywood actor spurred interest. “People wanted to see, would they really feel comfortable with Reagan as president?” Mr. Shapiro said. “People were wondering, ‘Can I live with this guy? ’” The first debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012 drew 67 million viewers. Advertisers, anticipating even more this time, are using the opportunity to unveil new ads with themes that may resonate with Americans focused on the campaign. Audi’s commercial shows a man and woman, both hotel valets, battling for the right to drive an Audi RS7 luxury car, and features the slogan “Choose the next driver wisely. ” American flags, and ice sculptures of a donkey and an elephant, convey the message that the car, as an Audi vice president for marketing put it, is “a metaphor for the importance of America. ” In a spot set for Monday night, Tecate, a Mexican beer label owned by Heineken, features a view of the Mexican border and a that declares, “The time has come for a wall — a tremendous wall. ” The wall is revealed as a resting place for Tecate beers, “a wall that brings us together. ” The ad, airing on networks including Fox News and Univision, is “absolutely not” about a political point of view or affiliation, said Felix Palau, a vice president at Tecate. “Tecate, being a Mexican beer, is a perfect protagonist of a story where a wall brings people together in a very fun way,” Mr. Palau said. The debate’s biggest televised competition on Monday is likely to be another program featuring intricate strategies and crushing blows: “Monday Night Football” on ESPN. And one famous political junkie says he may flip the channel — for a few minutes, at least — to the action on the gridiron. “The president’s fired up about ‘Monday Night Football,’” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, playfully told reporters who asked if President Obama planned to watch the debate. “There will be millions of people across the country who are quite interested to see the two candidates onstage together for the first time,” Mr. Earnest added. “I imagine the president will be one of them. ” | 1 |
China’s Communist Party celebrated its 95th birthday this summer with a lavish First of July gala at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. In Shanghai, where the First National Congress took place in 1921, the occasion was noted in a more subdued way, with the promotion of a digital map of the important sites of the party’s heroic early years in Shanghai. The map is a simple affair. Clicking on a man wearing scholar’s robes, for example, sends a cartoon icon toddling off to the brick building on Lane 163 of Zizhong Road, where Chen Wangdao, one of the party’s founding members, translated “The Communist Manifesto” into Chinese. (A and app version will soon be available for smartphones.) A problem for anyone contemplating a pilgrimage to the urban shrines of the Communist Party: Much of the historic city depicted on the virtual map has been wiped off the real map of Shanghai by two decades of breakneck development. The few remaining buildings, among them Dr. Sun ’s modest mansion in the former French Concession, stand in the shadows of or towers. On a recent visit, my quest to find Mao Zedong’s first address in Shanghai, on a street once known as the Alley of Benevolence and Kindness, ended in the Jing An Kerry Center, a 3. residential and office complex. The rowhouse, where the future Great Helmsman once folded laundry and ate rice in an attic room, now sits between a luxury mall and the Hotel’s steakhouse. Fortunately, enough examples of Shanghai’s historic architecture have survived to give visitors a sense of what life was like when the city gave birth to the Communist Party. To walk through Shanghai’s last remaining shikumen (alleyway complexes entered through a kumen, or gateway) is to return to the wicked, glamorous “Paris of the Orient” — and to get a glimpse of what has happened to Shanghai in the century since then. My first introduction to shikumen came 10 years ago, when Peter Hibbard, the former president of the Shanghai chapter of the Royal Asiatic Society China, took me on a tour of an alleyway complex near the riverfront Bund. “Up until the ’90s, 80 percent of the population lived in two or shikumen,” Mr. Hibbard told me then, as we wandered through an atmospheric maze of mostly vacant homes. “They were basically city blocks that functioned as gated communities, with guards manning the front entrance. The whole essence of old Shanghai was that life was lived horizontally — all the activity happened at street level. ” Though the complex Mr. Hibbard showed me has since been razed, you can get an idea of what shikumen were like by visiting Xintiandi, a reconditioned alleyway complex located in the Huangpu and Xuhui districts, which were until 1943 the city’s French Concession. The houses at 76 and 78 Xingye Road were saved from the wrecker’s ball only because they played host to the clandestine First National Congress of the Communist Party. Turned into a memorial 30 years later, by which time the private residences had become a noodle factory, they are now a museum and the cornerstone of Xintiandi (the name means “New Heaven and Earth”) a shopping and entertainment district. On the second floor of a thoroughly modern exhibition space, the Congress is commemorated in the orthodox Communist way — with starkly lit wax figures displayed behind glass. The skinny rowhouses that brought together two European members of the Comintern, 12 future party bigwigs and a Mao have been preserved intact. Visitors walk through a lacquered partition into a room with whitewashed walls. On a polished red floor, a dozen stools surround a long table, set with teacups and an open box of wooden matches — a staging meant to suggest the participants have just left. (The meeting was, in fact, cut short by the sudden appearance of a police informer. Mao and his colleagues fled before the police could raid, reconvening on rented sightseeing boats in the tourist town of Hangzhou.) Wandering the lanes of Xintiandi gives a hint of the magic of the typical shikumen. Faced with bricks and adorned with elaborately carved, lintels, the rowhouses call to mind a radically compacted version of the terraced workers’ housing found in northern English cities. The tributary lanes, some only eight feet wide, were built to accommodate rickshaws and bicycles, rather than cars, making shikumen tranquil oases in the heart of a city. Commissioned mostly by Western developers, the first shikumen appeared in the 1870s, designed to offer wealthy families refuge from the flooding, famine and unrest of the countryside. The local contractors who built them drew upon the interior floor plans of traditional Chinese courtyard homes and local decorative motifs. The Shikumen Open House Museum, a refurnished private residence in the north block of Xintiandi, demonstrates the beguiling collision of East and West that resulted. Leaving an exiguous forecourt — the equivalent of a front yard, generally used to wash and dry clothes — you take a big step over a wooden sill into a rectangular living room decorated with blackwood furniture and period photographs and paintings. As you walk over creaking floorboards, soft jazz emanates from the horn of a gramophone. A woman’s sleeveless silk qipao hangs from a hook a jade hair clip, a tube of lipstick and a jar of powder are neatly arranged on a dressing table. In the kitchen, bamboo baskets, colanders and a huge iron kettle are arranged around a potbellied coal stove. Halfway up a precipitous, dogleg staircase is the tingzijian, an unheated room often rented to bachelors. (Among them were the modernist writers Lu Xun and Yu Dafu, who eavesdropped on shikumen life from their pavilion rooms). The upper floor is occupied by bedrooms, some with impressive beds. The overall impression is of a luxurious, and surprisingly spacious, upper home. It’s all beautifully staged, and terribly misleading. By the late 1930s, when the Second War caused a wave of immigration to Shanghai’s zones, most shikumen homes became occupied by four families and sheltered an average of 20 people. As an idealized vision of rowhouse life, the Open House Museum is like Xintiandi itself. Until the 1990s, the area was home to 2, 000 families. Their homes were gutted, and often completely rebuilt, to make way for a shopping district where you can buy a latte at Starbucks, a mug of pilsner at the Paulaner Bräuhaus or an expensive silk scarf at the upscale clothing chain Shanghai Tang. “Xintiandi is fake vintage,” said Ruan Yisan, the director of the National Research Center of Historic Cities at Tongji University and an architectural preservationist. “There aren’t many shikumen houses left in the city. Those that remain are the living fossil of life in Shanghai. ” Professor Ruan remembers his teenage years in a Shanghai shikumen fondly. The day typically began with the “Cantata of the Alley,” the sound of night stools ( latrines) as they were cleaned with bamboo sticks after being emptied by night soil men. Then the first vendors would arrive, selling won tons, fried bean curd and fresh green olives, often delivered in baskets lowered from windows. The alleys echoed with the cries of children running off to school, often within the same complex. During unexpected cloudbursts, the grandma would rush to bring in clothes that absent neighbors had hung out to dry. In the summer, residents would gather after dinner to cheng fengliang (“enjoy the coolness”) trading gossip, playing and sharing slices of melon chilled in a water well. “Nowadays, our apartments in condominium towers have no public spaces,” he said. “We don’t even know our neighbors. ” The shikumen, Professor Ruan believes, forged the character of the Shanghainese. Contact with foreigners and people from all parts of China made them cosmopolitan, and living cheek by jowl with neighbors made them into subtle planners, capable of sidestepping disputes while quietly plotting to further their own interests. He tells me that when shikumen construction ended in 1949, Shanghai counted 9, 000 alleyway complexes, housing up to four million people. The entire spectrum of Shanghai’s life took place in them: Shikumen housed nurseries and coffin makers, universities and Buddhist temples, hotels and zones (the infamous Alley of Joint Pleasure was home to 171 brothels). Demolitions began in the 1990s, and intensified in the to Expo 2010. Most expropriated residents were offered — and accepted — relocation, usually to new residential towers up to an hour’s metro ride from their old homes. (Holdouts found themselves harassed, and in a few notorious cases even killed, by construction crews.) Professor Ruan believes that only 200, 000 Shanghai residents continue to live in alleyway complexes. “If you want to see what a typical shikumen is like,” he said, “you’d better hurry. ” I rode the metro to the Xinzha Road station and walked a few blocks to eastern Siwen Li (Gentle Lane). Built over a former cemetery by a Sephardic Jewish entrepreneur in 1914, it was once home to 11, 000 people now it’s down to 12 households. After I stepped through its threshold, the smell of exhaust was replaced by air redolent with frying garlic and stewing meat. Brownish exteriors were plastered with peeling posters for “anticorpulence tablets” or scrawled with cellphone numbers of plumbers or fake ID peddlers. Many of the doors were daubed in red paint with the Chinese character “Kōng” (“Vacant”). Between concrete sinks used for washing clothes, bicycles leaned against walls. Somewhere a rooster crowed. At the intersection of two alleys, a residents had gathered on stools to pass the time. When I told one of them, Ni Wei Ming, 57, a taxi driver, that I had never seen the inside of a real shikumen home, he invited me into his. Though its — forecourt for washing clothes, rectangular living room, steep rear staircase leading to bedrooms — mirrors the shikumen home in the Xintiandi museum, it lacked its idealized glamour. Room partitions were made of plastic sheets joined by duct tape cooking amenities were limited to a wok on a hot plate the bathtub was a wooden barrel. Though the government had offered to buy it for 7 million yuan (just over $1 million) Mr. Ni told me he was holding out for more. “That would be enough money to be comfortable,” he said. “But I’ll still have regrets. My primary school was here. I met my wife here — she lived on the same block. My children did their homework with the neighbors’ kids. There used to be a real feeling of community. Now there are only seven families left on my alley. ” Mr. Ni told me there was a rumor that a Hong Kong property developer planned to replace the complex with skyscrapers. Seeing me back to the laneway — beneath the asphalt lie the original cobblestones — Mr. Ni lit a cigarette and let his gaze run down the row of carved lintels that marked the entrance to each home. “You know, if they chose to save and restore this place, it would be better than Xintiandi,” he said. (Since my visit, the municipal government has earmarked 260 historic neighborhoods for conservation. The Shanghai office of Chipperfield Architects will oversee the preservation of eastern Siwen Li’s buildings — minus, unfortunately, the neighbors who made it into a neighborhood. The life stories of the shikumen’s residents have been collected in a beautifully illustrated book by the French architect Jérémy Cheval.) Other shikumen are scattered among Shanghai’s office and residential towers. Fude Li, where the Communist Party’s Second National Congress took place, is intact (Mao, who got lost in Shanghai’s back streets, failed to attend). The extraordinary Zhang’s Garden off West Nanjing Road, built by a Chinese merchant in 1882, has been saved from demolition because of its role as a community center for seniors. Less picturesque complexes, though, tend to be occupied by migrant workers, many of whom lack of residency permits, which makes the future of these homes tenuous. Perhaps the quickest way to get an idea of the vitality of a traditional alleyway complex is to visit Tianzifang, a walk from the Dapuqiao station. In the late ’90s, the small factories and shikumen homes along Lane 210 on Taikang Road were occupied by painters, sculptors and ceramists. Their tiny workshops eventually became a complex of 200 cultural and art sites, with older residents continuing to occupy apartments. Though local residents lament that cafes, restaurants and small businesses have begun to replace artists’ studios, the district retains its original architecture and charm. The narrow cobbled lanes, shaded by trees and potted plants, are filled with window shoppers and diners who have stopped at a terrace to enjoy exquisite Japanese coffee (Café Dan) or a chocolate milkshake or a smoked salmon bagel (Kommune). Unlike Xintiandi’s international chains, Tianzifang is home to such quirky local businesses as Pureland, which specializes in ceramic tile images of koi ponds, pagodas and other traditional Chinese landscapes, and Teddy Bear Family, a Thai restaurant where every surface is covered with plush toys. Wandering around Tianzifang is an antidote to the soaring Shanghai of magnetic levitation trains and . Like other shikumen, it’s free of cars, making it one of the rare places in Shanghai where you can stroll without having to watch out for a darting electric bike or a barreling Volkswagen taxi. It’s a gentle reminder, too, of an irony of Shanghai’s recent history. In tearing down shikumen, which fostered the canny interdependence of the Shanghainese, government officials are erasing the architectural form that saw the birth of the uniquely Chinese version of Communism. The condominium towers that are replacing them, where neighbors remain strangers, are breeding nothing but isolation. | 1 |
Posted on November 2, 2016 by Dr. Eowyn | 1 Comment
Bob Woodward, 73, is the Washington Post reporter who, with his colleague Carl Bernstein, broke the story of Nixon’s Watergate — a puny scandal compared to Hillary’s unsecured email and the Clinton Foundation. Woodward is now the associate editor of WaPo .
Speaking to Fox News Sunday ‘s Chris Wallace on Oct. 23, 2016, Woodward called Hillary Clinton’s Clinton Foundation “corrupt”.
Here’s the transcript:
WALLACE: Then there are the allegations about the Clinton Foundation and pay to play, which I asked Secretary Clinton about in the debate, and she turned into an attack on the Trump Foundation. But, Bob, I want to go back to the conversation I was having with Robby Mook before. When — when you see what seems to be clear evidence that Clinton Foundation donors were being treated differently than non-donors in terms of access, when you see this new — new revelation about the $12 million deal between Hillary Clinton, the foundation, and the king of Morocco, are voters right to be troubled by this?
BOB WOODWARD: I — yes, it’s a — it’s corrupt . It’s — it’s a scandal . And she didn’t answer your question at all. And she turned to embrace the good work that the Clinton Foundation has done. And she has a case there. But the mixing of speech fees, the Clinton Foundation, and actions by the State Department, which she ran, are all intertwined and it’s corrupt. You know, I mean, you can’t just say it’s unsavory. But there’s no formal investigation going on now, and there are outs that they have. But the election isn’t going to be decided on that.
However, Woodward said he expects Hillary will win the election, but asked:
“I think the issue is what’s going to be the aftermath of this campaign: Can somebody govern?”
Writing on Nov. 1, 2016, Alt Media freelance journalist Jim Stone claims that Woodward had “suddenly vanished from the Washington Post , the phone operator says he’s no longer there and no one is giving details or even reporting in the MSM that he is gone.”
Stone asks if Woodward “has been offed by the Clinton death machine”.
Indeed, Woodward’s last article for WaPo was published on April 5, 2016, eons ago in journalism time. Woodward’s personal website is also down. I tried it just a minute ago and got this message: Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
Woodward’s Watergate co-investigator, Carl Bernstein, has also recently spoken out about Hillary’s corruption in the context of the FBI reopening its criminal investigation of Hillary’s emails. Bernstein said :
“Well, there’s no question that the e-mails have always been the greatest threat to her candidacy for president, that her conduct in regard to the e-mails is really indefensible and . . . the one thing . . . actually that could really perhaps affect this election.
We don’t know what this means yet except that it’s a real bombshell. And it is unthinkable that the Director of the FBI would take this action lightly . . . unless it was something requiring serious investigation . . . . I want to add here that in the last, oh, 36, 48 hours, there has been an undercurrent of kind of speculative discussion among some national security people that something might surface in the next few days about e-mails. . . . [I]t’s very possible that some members of Congress very quickly are going to get an idea of what these e-mails are, and what this is all about, and for whatever purpose put some information out there.”
So if the Clintons “offed” Bob Woodward for calling the Clinton Foundation “corrupt,” then Carl Bernstein would have to be offed as well.
See also: | 0 |
New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio told CNN that he approves of the idea of shielding from deportation any illegal alien arrested for drunk driving. [During an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, host Jake Tapper pointed out to Mayor DeBlasio that the City of New York refuses to cooperate with the federal government to deport illegal aliens who have been convicted of drunk driving and grand larceny. Tapper went on to ask why the city is so quick to shield such dangerous criminals from deportation. Tapper also asked DeBlasio for a response to the recent order President Donald Trump signed stating that federal grant money will be stripped “from the sanctuary states and cities that harbor illegal immigrants. ” DeBlasio decried the move and insisted he opposes “tearing families apart” over a “small offense” such as drunk driving. DeBlasio claimed these “small” crimes don’t merit deportation, but for “any serious and violent crime, we’re going to work with” the federal government. Still, DeBlasio claimed that drunk driving could easily be seen as a lesser offense. “Drunk driving that does not lead to any other negative outcome, I could define as that,” DeBlasio said before going on to say, “Someone commits a minor offense … let’s say someone went through a stop sign, they could be deported for that and their family could be torn apart and you could have children left behind where the breadwinner in the family is sent back to a home country, that is not good for anyone. ” Of course, if someone is picked up and scheduled for deportation after being detained during a traffic stop, it isn’t the running of a stop sign that gets him deported it’s being in the country illegally. Drunk driving is not generally seen as a “small offense. ” Nearly 10, 000 Americans are killed by drunk drivers every year, according to The Hill newspaper. Indeed, for years many activists have criticized what they feel are chronically lax drunk driving laws in many states in the U. S. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
Maggie Haberman, a New York Times political correspondent, has devoted her journalistic career to two irresistible subjects: politics and New York City. At age 7, she had her first byline in The Daily News it has now appeared in all three New York dailies. A native of the Upper West Side who lives in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, she has covered 10 election cycles, from mayoral contests to presidential campaigns, including the 2016 race, which turns to New York on Tuesday for its primary. Join us for live primary updates. Hello from Crown Heights, where the trees are finally green enough to canopy over Eastern Parkway and where the New York primary has officially arrived. Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton are the heavy favorites to win in their home state, where both have been known presences for many years. But there are some tantalizing subplots that could help direct the remaining acts of this political theater. Voting began at 6 a. m. in parts of the state, and lasts until 9 p. m. everywhere. Some things to watch for: It’s a recurring question in New York, though the answer has been mostly “yes” since 2009 when the state switched to “optimum scan” machines. Still, on a day with two competitive primaries, a recent rarity in the state, there will be a particular focus on whether people are able to cast ballots without disruption. In 2008, the turnout in the state Democratic primary was at a high, with more than 1. 89 million people voting for either Mrs. Clinton, then a senator from New York, or her rival, Barack Obama, then a senator from Illinois. And more than 670, 000 Republicans voted in a primary that, by then, was clearly leaning toward Senator John McCain of Arizona. The New Yorker in the race, Rudolph W. Giuliani, had dropped out long before then. The likelihood of the Democratic turnout reaching the 2008 level is slim. But the Republicans could certainly exceed their 2008 numbers given the enthusiasm that Mr. Trump has set off in pockets of the state, including Staten Island. Large sections of heavily areas in the city, particularly in Brooklyn, propelled Mr. Obama to victory in 2008. The votes were a shift, not just away from Mrs. Clinton, but also within the black power structure of a city where Harlem had long been the epicenter. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from central Brooklyn, was a key Obama backer in 2008. He now supports Mrs. Clinton with gusto. And black voters have bolstered Mrs. Clinton’s campaign in a series of Midwestern contests with large urban centers, as well as in the South. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Mrs. Clinton’s rival, spoke derisively during their debate in Brooklyn last week of her previous wins in the South, comments in which voters could hear a thinly veiled jab at primaries with lots of black voters. But Mrs. Clinton has struggled to energize her supporters in the state, as younger voters, college students and disaffected white voters have turned toward Mr. Sanders. She will need a large black vote to buoy her here once again. However, most of the Democratic primary vote comes from the city and southern portions of the state. Mr. Trump heads into Tuesday’s vote with a lead in the polls. The chances of his not winning New York are remote to say the least. But Mr. Trump’s rivals, Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, are trying as hard as possible to keep his share of the vote below 50 percent in the state to limit the number of delegates he can accrue. The geography of victory for Mr. Trump, who barely campaigned in New York City, is also significant. Can he capture congressional districts in Manhattan, where Republicans are far from plentiful and are aligned more with, say, George Pataki, the former governor, than with Mr. Trump? If he can, it suggests that he may still be able to increase his support in the coming months if he tightens his message and becomes more disciplined. Other questions: Can Mr. Kasich capture the suburbs north of New York City, where his message should play best? And did Mr. Cruz repair any of the damage from his criticisms this year of “New York values,” or are northern parts of the state, with heavier evangelical bases, less troubled by that particular salvo? Mr. Sanders’s message is very close to that of Zephyr Teachout, who ran an insurgent campaign against the sitting governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, in the Democratic primary in 2014. Ms. Teachout did not come close to winning. But she exceeded expectations, performing particularly well in the Hudson Valley region north of New York City. Mr. Sanders, in theory, should be able to do similarly well. If he does not, it will raise questions, once again, about the durability of his campaign. “No, no, no, no!” said Omarosa Manigault, perhaps the most famous former “Apprentice” hopeful, who is now an almost advocate and Friend of Donald on cable television shows. She was standing near him in the lower lobby of Trump Tower on Monday afternoon, talking to members of the Trump “diversity coalition,” a group formed by Mr. Trump’s longtime counselor Michael Cohen to, in part, rebut claims that the candidate is racially insensitive. Two of the members were trying to wedge between the tables separating Mr. Trump from the group. Ms. Manigault put a stop to it. Mr. Trump was grateful for the support. “You look at the other folks running, they couldn’t care less about New York. We care about New York, a lot,” Mr. Trump said. It was part of a busy day for the candidates as they held their final campaign events before the primary. Several hours later, Mr. Sanders held a rally at the open field at Hunter’s Point South Park in Long Island City, Queens. “You all look beautiful!” Mr. Sanders, his voice hoarse at times, called out to the hundreds of people who attended. (He drew 28, 000 people in Prospect Park in Brooklyn on Sunday.) The montage was indeed beautiful, with state and American flags adorning the stage. Attendees lounged as the gauzy strains of the Simon and Garfunkel hit “America” played on the sound system before Mr. Sanders arrived. Children played tag with an adult. A little girl turned cartwheels. But the park was not close to full by 8 p. m. No matter. Mr. Sanders spoke to the crowd with his trademark conviction. “People are standing up and saying, ‘Sorry, the big money interests will not continue to dominate American politics.’ ” Only the New York residents, Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton, will hang around the state on Tuesday. Both will vote, most likely with reporters in tow, and then will hold election night parties. Mr. Trump’s will be at Trump Tower, while Mrs. Clinton’s will be at the Sheraton New York. | 1 |
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Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician best known for his criticism of Islam, won’t attend his own trial that begins Monday. He asserted, Monday, the trial against freedom of speech begins … against a politician who says what the politically correct elite does not want to hear. This trial is a political trial, in which I refuse to cooperate.
The trial concerns two public utterances that he made back in 2014, including one where he spoke to political supporters at The Hague. He asked them if they wanted fewer Moroccans in the country, and they responded “Fewer! Fewer! Fewer!” Wilders responded, “Well, we’ll take care of it, then.”
Some 6,400 complaints were filed with local police, mostly from Moroccans living in the country. The court sorted through them and found 35 that were valid to bring charges of discrimination against Wilders.
Wilders was also charged in 2011 with criminally insulting Islam and inciting hatred as a result. Those charges stemmed from articles that he had penned and statements that he made calling for a ban on the Koran, warning against an “Islamic invasion” of his country and the coming “tsunami of Islamization.” He described Islam as fascist, Moroccan youths as instigators of violence, and compared the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf .
He authored the script for a 2004 film entitled Fitna , a 17-minute-long argument that Islam encourages acts of terrorism, anti-semitism, violence against women, subjugation of infidels, and sanctions against homosexuals. Wilders explained his intentions, saying that the film (which is free on the Internet) was “a call to shake off the creeping tyranny of Islamisation.”
When he was acquitted of all charges in that trial, Wilders called it victory not only for himself but for freedom of speech.
The present trial is a variation on the same theme: Wilders is being charged with discrimination against a group, not a religion, which in the Netherlands is considered a hate crime. Frans Zonneveld, a spokesman for the prosecution, explained the difference: Islam is an idea, a religion, [and] according to the public prosecution service, you have a lot of room to criticize ideas. But when it comes to population groups [Moroccans make up about two percent of the 17 million citizens in the Netherlands], it’s a whole different matter. His remarks touched the very being of this population group. You cannot choose to be a part of a population group or not; it’s a group that’s decided by birth, so it’s a whole different matter.
Wilders responded: “It is a travesty that I have to stand trial because I spoke about fewer Moroccans [in the Netherlands]. It is my right and duty as a politician to speak about the problems in our country.”
In the Netherlands, Wilders does not have the guarantees provided Americans under the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, specifically those spelled out by the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Instead he is faced with a greater likelihood this time around of going to jail, or at least paying a fine or doing some community service, for his “crime.” However, his Freedom Party will face the Netherlands’ ruling party in elections in March. At present the race is too close to call. A conviction of Wilders in this case could work to his party’s advantage, as an increasing number of Dutch citizens are becoming aware of his warnings and potential threats to their culture.
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . | 0 |
The blueprint for the Trump administration’s FY 2018 budget released on Thursday “allows for significant funding of humanitarian assistance, including food aid, disaster, and refugee program funding” in the State Department. [“This would focus funding on the highest priority areas while asking the rest of the world to pay their fair share,” the blueprint states. “Taken together with the executive order, it looks like the president will keep the refugee program with a lower annual number, like the 50, 000 limit specified in Executive Order 13780, and when the annual determination is released, identify countries of concern in a way that excludes Somalia, and other countries of concern that are known to harbor terrorists,” a source familiar with the federal refugee resettlement program tells Breitbart News. “As long as he keeps the refugee program going, we are going to get more people from countries related to real security issues and regardless, the program needs to be legislatively reformed and regulations that have caused Constitutional violations repealed before restarting in FY 2018,” the source adds. The language of the blueprint, however, could be interpreted to suggest that the Trump administration’s “significant funding of . . . [the] refugee program” defines the program broadly to include safe zones in other parts of the world in addition to the federal refugee resettlement program. As such, a further reduction of refugees resettled in the United States in FY 2018 could be entirely possible. President Trump supported the establishment of safe zones for refugees during the campaign. Typically, the president releases an annual determination of the number of refugees to be allowed into the country in the month preceding the start of a new fiscal year, which begins on October 1. Under the Refugee Act of 1980, that number is determined at the sole discretion of the president. Subsequent to the president’s determination of that number, Congress has traditionally funded the refugee resettlement program at the level set by the president for the coming fiscal year. FY 2017 has proceeded differently. In September, President Obama announced a determination that he wanted Congress to fund the arrival of 110, 000 refugees in the United States in FY 2017, an increase from 84, 995 that arrived in FY 2016. Congress, caught up in an election year in which the number of refugees to be resettled, as well as their vetting and countries of origin, were key issues in the Presidential campaign, did not pass a budget for the full fiscal year prior to the beginning of FY 2017. Instead, Congress passed a temporary continuing resolution that extended the FY 2016 budget through the first ten weeks of FY 2017, then renewed an additional continuing resolution in December that runs out at the end of April. That budget funds refugee resettlement at the FY 2016 level of 84, 995 annually for a little more than a month more. Come April 28, there will be no budget authority for any discretionary budget activities — including refugee resettlement — unless Congress passes funding authority for the balance of FY 2017. Given the contentious current political environment of Washington, it is uncertain whether Congress will have such funding authority in place prior to that date. During the three months and 20 days of FY 2017, the final days of the Obama administration, 30, 122 refugees were resettled in the United States, which corresponds to an annualized rate of 83, 292. In the subsequent 55 days since the start of the Trump administration, 7, 989 refugees have been resettled in the United States, which corresponds to an annualized rate of 53, 018. To date, 38, 111 refugees have been resettled in the United States, which would leave room for a maximum of 11, 899 over the remaining six months and fourteen days of FY 2017, under President Trump’s 50, 000 level set in Executive Order 13769 signed on January 27, then set again in Executive Order 13780 signed on March 6. On Wednesday, 9th Circuit Court Federal District Judge Derrick Watson, an Obama appointee and 1991 Harvard Law School classmate of the former president, struck down Executive Order 13780 hours before it was scheduled for implementation. He based his decision, issued just two hours after the hearing was concluded, on campaign statements made by President Trump prior to his election and a leaked “draft document” from the office of a Department of Homeland Security Obama holdover whom Breitbart News had identified as one of eight top Department of Homeland Security Obama holdovers President Trump could “fire or remove. ” In striking down Section 6, the portion of Executive Order 13780 in which President Trump limited the number of refugees to 50, 000 annually, Judge Watson — for one of the first times in American history — asserted the supremacy of the judicial branch over the legislative and executive branches. Not even Judge James Robart, who stopped the first executive order of the same title (Executive Order 13769) went that far in his usurpations. Robart notably excluded Section 5 d of Executive Order 13769, in which President Trump limited the number of refugees in FY 2017 to 50, 000, from his temporary restraining order. Also on Wednesday, 4th Circuit Court Federal District Judge Theodore Chuang, another Harvard Law School graduate Obama appointee and former bureaucrat in the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, issued a similar ruling. Though Chuang did not strike down President Trump’s statutory and Constitutional authority to limit the number of refugees on Wednesday, he did schedule a March 29 hearing on plaintiffs motion to enjoin the “specific provision of the First Executive Order [Section 5 d of Executive Order 13679]” in which the president set the annual refugee limit for FY 2017 at 50, 000. “The Court will resolve that Motion, which the parties have agreed should be construed to apply to the successor provision of the Second Executive Order [13780] in accordance with the previously established schedule,” Chuang wrote in his decision. HIAS, one of the nine major voluntary agencies (VOLAGs) paid more than $1 billion annually by the federal government to resettle refugees, is one of the plaintiffs in the Maryland case. HIAS hopes to persuade Judge Chuang to double the number of refugees to 100, 000 in FY 2017. Should he rule in favor of HIAS on March 28, Chuang will accelerate the pending Constitutional crisis that may be set off by Judge Watson’s decision, as respected attorney Paul Mirengoff wrote at Powerline Blog and Rush Limbaugh suggested in his nationally syndicated radio program. As to the number refugees who will be resettled in the United States during the balance of FY 2017, President Trump may take a page from President Andrew Jackson, whose tomb he honored during his visit to Nashville on Wednesday. “John Marshall has made his decision now let him enforce it,” President Jackson said of an 1832 Supreme Court decision unfavorable to his policies issued by the Marshall Court. President Trump’s attitude to the unfavorable decision issued by Judge Watson regarding a president’s Constitutional and statutory authority to limit the number of refugees arriving in the United States, a decision Judge Chuang may agree with on March 28, may well be something like this: “Judge Watson has made his decision now let him pay for it. ” | 1 |
Why Is It So Hard to Reduce the Pentagon Budget?
By William D. Hartung / TomDispatch David B. Gleason / CC BY-SA 2.0
Through good times and bad, regardless of what’s actually happening in the world, one thing is certain: in the long run, the Pentagon budget won’t go down.
It’s not that that budget has never been reduced. At pivotal moments, like the end of World War II as well as war’s end in Korea and Vietnam, there were indeed temporary downturns, as there was after the Cold War ended. More recently, the Budget Control Act of 2011 threw a monkey wrench into the Pentagon’s plans for funding that would go ever onward and upward by putting a cap on the money Congress could pony up for it. The remarkable thing, though, is not that such moments have occurred, but how modest and short-lived they’ve proved to be.
Take the current budget. It’s down slightly from its peak in 2011, when it reached the highest level since World War II, but this year’s budget for the Pentagon and related agencies is nothing to sneeze at. It comes in at roughly $600 billion — more than the peak year of the massive arms build-up initiated by President Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s. To put this figure in perspective: despite troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan dropping sharply over the past eight years, the Obama administration has still managed to spend more on the Pentagon than the Bush administration did during its two terms in office.
What accounts for the Department of Defense’s ability to keep a stranglehold on your tax dollars year after endless year?
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Pillar one supporting that edifice: ideology. As long as most Americans accept the notion that it is the God-given mission and right of the United States to go anywhere on the planet and do more or less anything it cares to do with its military, you won’t see Pentagon spending brought under real control. Think of this as the military corollary to American exceptionalism—or just call it the doctrine of armed exceptionalism, if you will.
The second pillar supporting lavish military budgets (and this will hardly surprise you): the entrenched power of the arms lobby and its allies in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. The strategic placement of arms production facilities and military bases in key states and Congressional districts has created an economic dependency that has saved many a flawed weapons system from being unceremoniously dumped in the trash bin of history.
Lockheed Martin, for instance, has put together a handy map of how its troubled F-35 fighter jet has created 125,000 jobs in 46 states. The actual figures are, in fact, considerably lower, but the principle holds: having subcontractors in dozens of states makes it harder for members of Congress to consider cutting or slowing down even a failed or failing program. Take as an example the M-1 tank, which the Army actually wanted to stop buying. Its plans were thwarted by the Ohio congressional delegation, which led a fight to add more M-1s to the budget in order to keep the General Dynamics production line in Lima, Ohio, up and running. In a similar fashion, prodded by the Missouri delegation, Congress added two different versions of Boeing’s F-18 aircraft to the budget to keep funds flowing to that company’s St. Louis area plant.
The one-two punch of an environment in which the military can do no wrong, while being outfitted for every global task imaginable, and what former Pentagon analyst Franklin “Chuck” Spinney has called “ political engineering ,” has been a tough combination to beat.
“Scare the Hell Out of the American People”
The overwhelming consensus in favor of a “cover the globe” military strategy has been broken from time to time by popular resistance to the idea of using war as a central tool of foreign policy. In such periods, getting Americans behind a program of feeding the military machine massive sums of money has generally required a heavy dose of fear.
For example, the last thing most Americans wanted after the devastation and hardship unleashed by World War II was to immediately put the country back on a war footing. The demobilization of millions of soldiers and a sharp cutback in weapons spending in the immediate postwar years rocked what President Dwight Eisenhower would later dub the “military-industrial complex.”
As Wayne Biddle has noted in his seminal book Barons of the Sky ,the U.S. aerospace industry produced an astonishing 300,000-plus military aircraft during World War II. Not surprisingly, major weapons producers struggled to survive in a peacetime environment in which government demand for their products threatened to be a tiny fraction of wartime levels.
Lockheed President Robert Gross was terrified by the potential impact of war’s end on his company’s business, as were many of his industry cohorts. “As long as I live,” he said , “I will never forget those short, appalling weeks” of the immediate postwar period. To be clear, Gross was appalled not by the war itself, but by the drop off in orders occasioned by its end. He elaborated in a 1947 letter to a friend: “We had one underlying element of comfort and reassurance during the war. We knew we’d get paid for anything we built. Now we are almost entirely on our own.”
The postwar doldrums in military spending that worried him so were reversed only after the American public had been fed a steady, fear-filled diet of anti-communism. NSC-68 , a secret memorandum the National Security Council prepared for President Harry Truman in April 1950, created the template for a policy based on the global “containment” of communism and grounded in a plan to encircle the Soviet Union with U.S. military forces, bases, and alliances. This would, of course, prove to be a strikingly expensive proposition. The concluding paragraphs of that memorandum underscored exactly that point, calling for a “sustained buildup of U.S. political, economic, and military strength… [to] frustrate the Kremlin design of a world dominated by its will.” | 0 |
Talk about CROOKED. Clinton Foundation loves to raise money … for Bill Clinton Posted at 12:27 pm on October 27, 2016 by Sam J.
What do you call it when you’re using a position of authority for gain in your personal life … it’s right on the tip of our tongue. Gosh, what is that?
OH YEAH, conflict of interest anyone? Maybe CRIMINAL?
Cripes. This just keeps getting worse and worse. Leaked memo shows that 2 @ClintonFdn fundraisers pressed donors to steer business opportunities to Bill Clinton https://t.co/Py82voXx5I
Sure, they weren’t making their checks out to Bubba directly but they were being persuaded to make sure and send business opportunities his way. How much does he make per speech? Hrm. Trending | 0 |
The supermodel and TV personality Tyra Banks has decided to sell her Battery Park City home, a duplex facing the Hudson River, complete with dressing room and hair salon, a personal gym and separate staff and guest quarters. Ms. Banks bought her Riverhouse apartment, at 2 River Terrace, in 2009 and used it as a primary residence for about four years. But she has been spending most of her time lately on the West Coast, where she has homes in Los Angeles and Northern California, and so she has been renting out the unit since May 2015, for $50, 000 a month furnished. Tyra Beauty, her new cosmetics company, is also based in Los Angeles, as are various entertainment projects. (Ms. Banks is the new of “America’s Got Talent” and will be returning to the show she helped create, “America’s Next Top Model. ”) The Lower Manhattan apartment, which overlooks Rockefeller Park, is being offered for both rent (at $50, 000 a month) and for sale, with an asking price of $17. 5 million and monthly carrying costs of $16, 644, according to the listing broker, Adam D. Modlin of the Modlin Group. Ms. Banks, 43, who last year became a parent for the first time with her photographer boyfriend, Erik Asla, said she would prefer to sell the place rather than continue leasing it out, although she admits that she “will miss the feeling of having a home in the sky. ” When she bought it, she said in an email, she intended to create a space that felt less like an apartment and more “like a home with finishes and an experience like one would have in the Hamptons or even in an estate in Los Angeles. ” She seemed to have succeeded, at least when it comes to its sprawl and flourishes. The duplex, No. 22D, is actually a combination of four units at the Riverhouse — three on the 22nd floor and one on the 23rd — that were acquired for $10. 13 million. Ms. Banks said she spent almost as much on the extensive renovations and décor, which incorporate rich fabrics, textured wall coverings, exotic wood details and ornate light fixtures. The apartment also has surround sound, oak floors and ample storage throughout. “New amazing ideas just kept coming and coming to me,” Ms. Banks said of the renovations, which dragged on for several months. The layout of the apartment was configured to provide maximum privacy — for staff, business associates, family and guests — with various wings that can be closed off from the rest of the unit. There are five bedrooms, five full bathrooms and three powder rooms, along with several kitchens and kitchenettes. The home is entered through a hallway on the main level that leads to a spacious living room with a connecting room. Several feet away are the family room and open chef’s kitchen. The kitchen has two Miele dishwashers and other appliances, along with a butler’s pantry, a copper sink and an island of zebrawood, to name a few features. Nearby is a dining alcove with banquette seating that, Ms. Banks said, was meant to resemble “a booth at a restaurant. ” These main entertaining rooms face windows that offer expansive views of the river and beyond. “There’s the Statue of Liberty, all the ferryboats from the New York Waterway and the Midtown skyline,” Mr. Modlin said. The lower level contains the gym, mirrored dressing room, salon and laundry area. Also there are offices and a staff suite with another full kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom. The staff suite has an additional entrance. And if all that were not enough, there is another suite with a kitchenette, for guests. “She created different spaces,” Mr. Modlin said, “so you can have different things going on in the home. ” On the second level are another bedroom and an enormous master suite, which features a sitting area, kitchenette and shag carpeting. There are dual master bathrooms and dressing rooms, and a large marble soaking tub encased in white oak. The Riverhouse development, which received a gold certification in the LEED environmental building rating system, offers amenities like a concierge, valet parking, a yoga studio and fitness center, and a saltwater lap pool. It also has as a resident the actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who, like Ms. Banks, has created his own compound there. Ms. Banks said the two never ran into each other in the building. “He was always that elusive spirit that so many people talked about,” she said. “Farewell, Leo. I’ll miss my houseguests trying to spot you in our building. ” | 1 |
BAGHDAD — President Obama will send 560 more troops to Iraq to help retake Mosul, the largest city still controlled by the Islamic State, a deployment intended to capitalize on recent battlefield gains that also illustrates the obstacles that Mr. Obama has faced in trying to wind down America’s wars. The additional troops, announced here on Monday by Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, are the latest escalation of the American military role in Iraq by Mr. Obama, who withdrew the last American soldiers from Iraq at the end of 2011. He began sending them back three years later after Islamic State fighters swept into the country from Syria. Many of the newly deployed troops will be based at an airfield 40 miles south of Mosul that was reclaimed by Iraqi soldiers on Saturday. Administration officials said the airfield would be critical to a successful military operation because the United States could use it as a staging area to provide logistical support to Iraqi forces as they try to retake Mosul. The Iraqis have struggled with the logistics of moving troops and equipment and these tasks will become more difficult as their forces move closer to Mosul, 250 miles from major supply hubs in Baghdad. The deployment will bring the official number of American service members in Iraq to 4, 647. The United States had about 130, 000 service members in the country about a decade ago. “We need to move to this place to be as close to the fighting as we have been,” said Lt. Gen. Sean B. MacFarland, the head of American forces in Iraq, speaking to reporters with Mr. Carter at the Baghdad airport. For Mr. Obama, sending more troops raises the chances that he could fulfill his hope of handing over a liberated Mosul to his successor. But it also means that he will leave the next president with a significant military presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Last week, Mr. Obama announced the United States would keep 8, 400 troops in Afghanistan indefinitely. At a NATO meeting in Poland over the weekend, the president spoke of his frustrations with these military engagements. In Iraq, he noted, American troops vanquished Al Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni militant group. But the extremists reconstituted themselves in Syria as the Islamic State, before seizing the cities of Falluja and Mosul. Still, the president said Iraqi forces had made important gains in the last several weeks. Most important, they retook Falluja, a victory that he said, “got a little bit lost in the news, but that’s a big town. ” “They’re now positioning themselves so that they can start going after Mosul,” the president said. The Islamic State fighters, he said, were “on their heels, and we’re going to stay on it. ” White House officials resisted suggestions that more American troops might be needed to uproot the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, from Mosul. “The president has been very clear about what our mission is and what our mission isn’t,” the press secretary, Josh Earnest, said on Monday. “This is an effort to reinforce our support for Iraqi forces that are enjoying some success in driving ISIL out of strategic, important areas in Iraq, that can put them in a position to succeed on a much bigger goal: driving ISIL out of Iraq’s second largest city. ” Some of the American troops who will be stationed at the airfield, known as Qaiyara Airfield West, specialize in infrastructure projects, like building bridges, which is a technical skill the Iraqis will need for the assault on Mosul because the Islamic State has destroyed many around the city. The new deployment comes two years after Mr. Obama said that while the United States would help Iraq reclaim territory from the Islamic State, its efforts would “not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil. ” Since then, he has steadily increased the number of troops and given them more authority. Three service members have been killed. In April, Mr. Carter came to Baghdad to announce that Mr. Obama had given American military advisers the approval to work closer to the front lines of the conflict with smaller units of Iraqi forces. As part of that announcement, Mr. Obama deployed an additional 217 troops. Mosul is now the only major city in the country that the Iraqis do not control, and the Islamic State has not seized any substantial new territory since May 2015. Still, the Iraqis do not seem to be able to stop the Islamic State from launching devastating suicide attacks in Baghdad, including one this month that killed 300 people. “As ISIL loses territory and the fraud of the caliphate becomes more obvious, they are going to start resorting to more traditional terrorist tactics,” Mr. Obama said in his news conference. “They can’t govern. They can’t deliver anything meaningful to the people whose territory they can control. The one thing they know how to do is kill. ” To help the Iraqis stop the bombings, Mr. Carter said a general in charge of the American military’s task force on improvised explosive devices would be sent to Baghdad to work with the Iraqis. The general and his staff would bring “that substantial experience and tradecraft that we learned by hard experience in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Mr. Carter said. American commanders have begun referring to the Qaiyara Airfield West as “Key West” or “Q West” because its Iraqi name is difficult for them to pronounce. As the Iraqi military closed in on the base last week, Islamic State fighters quickly fled and the Iraqis, who lost control of it in 2014, faced little resistance. Iraqi military officials said in interviews on Monday that there was substantial damage to the air base that would require repairs. “We were surprised by how destroyed the base was and how they had done it in an organized way,” said Abdul Ghani the commander of Iraqi counterterrorism forces, who planned the operation. Mr. Assadi said one of two runways at the airfield had been badly damaged, along with some buildings. A small group of American forces surveyed the airfield shortly after the Iraqis seized it, but American military officials said it was still unclear how much time it would take before cargo planes and other aircraft could begin landing there. The official estimate of 4, 647 troops in Iraq understates the actual number of American military personnel in the country. The Pentagon uses a system for counting troops that excludes commandos and those who are supposed to be stationed in the country for less than four months. All told, Defense Department officials have said there are probably more than 5, 000 Americans in Iraq. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — As congressional Republicans on Friday discussed quickly moving ahead with plans for a southern border wall using money included in this year’s spending bills, Donald J. Trump insisted that Mexico would ultimately pay for its construction. “We’re going to get reimbursed,” Mr. Trump said during a brief telephone interview. “But I don’t want to wait that long. But you start, and then you get reimbursed. ” The congressional Republicans’ talk led to speculation that Mr. Trump was retreating on his campaign promise to make Mexico pay for the wall. Mr. Trump insisted he is not. Republicans have balked at increases in domestic spending during the Obama administration and are unlikely to enthusiastically rally behind a proposal that could require billions of taxpayer dollars. Building a wall to keep out unauthorized immigrants could also face intense opposition from a bipartisan coalition in Congress that argues that a vast barrier along the border would be ineffective in stopping people who are determined to enter the country illegally and would represent a symbolic affront to the idea that the United States is a welcoming country that embraces immigration. In the interview, Mr. Trump vowed that Mexico would ultimately reimburse the United States. He said that payment would most likely emerge from his efforts to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with the Mexican government. “It’s going to be part of everything,” Mr. Trump said of the cost of building the wall. “We are going to be making a much better deal. It’s a deal that never should have been signed. ” But he said that the trade negotiations would take time and that he supported the idea of using taxpayer money to begin construction of the border wall “in order to speed up the process. ” The full cost of a wall as described by Mr. Trump could be enormous. Attaching such a charged issue to annual, mandatory government funding measures could instigate a risky political fight. Those who want to block money for the wall by holding up the bills could find themselves accused of shutting down the government. The Government Accountability Office has estimated it could cost $6. 5 million per mile to build a fence, with an additional $4. 2 million per mile for roads and more fencing, according to congressional officials. Those estimates do not include maintenance of the fence along the nearly border with Mexico. “The chairman and the committee have no interest in threatening a shutdown,” said Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee, referring to Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen, Republican of New Jersey and the committee’s new chairman. If funding for the border wall is included in spending bills this spring, it would provide money to begin construction on a barrier that was authorized by legislation passed in 2006, but was never completed. Ms. Hing said neither Mr. Trump’s transition team nor Republican leaders had asked for funding to build a wall on the Mexican border. “If and when a proposal is received, we will take a careful look at it,” she said in an email on Friday. At a rally in August in Phoenix, hours after meeting with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico, Mr. Trump vowed that America’s southern neighbor would bear the financial burden of securing the border. “Mexico will pay for the wall, believe me — 100 percent — they don’t know it yet, but they will pay for the wall,” Mr. Trump said. “They’re great people, and great leaders, but they will pay for the wall. ” In a Twitter post on Friday, Mr. Trump mocked news reports about the possible taxpayer funding of the border barrier, suggesting that Mexico would be forced to reimburse the American government for any costs incurred in building the wall. “The dishonest media does not report that any money spent on building the Great Wall (for sake of speed) will be paid back by Mexico later!” he wrote early Friday. Vicente Fox, who was Mexico’s president from 2000 until 2006, responded to Mr. Trump’s Twitter message with a barrage of outraged posts that became an internet talking point on their own. In one of them, he made reference to the intelligence agency reports about Russian meddling in the 2016 election. “Sr Trump, the intelligence report is devastating,” Mr. Fox said. “Losing election by more than 3M votes and in addition this. Are you a legitimate president?” Representative Chris Collins, Republican of New York and one of Mr. Trump’s liaisons on Capitol Hill, said on Friday morning that members of his party in Congress were eager to get moving on construction of a border wall, even if that meant using taxpayer money to finance it. In an appearance on the CNN program “New Day,” Mr. Collins said it should come as no surprise to anyone that the United States government would have to pay for building the wall. “Of course, we have to pay the bills,” he said. “We’re building the wall. ” As a candidate, Mr. Trump’s promise to build a wall to keep out immigrants from Mexico was one of his most powerful speaking points. He often used it at rallies to whip up his supporters and bolster his argument that illegal immigration was damaging the United States. His repeated pledge to make Mexico pay was in part a way to rebut one of the central criticisms of a border wall — that its cost could run into the many billions of dollars. Democrats slammed the reports that Mr. Trump would ask Congress to fund the project. “If President Trump asks Congress to approve taxpayer dollars to build a wall, which he has always said would not be paid for by U. S. taxpayers, we will carefully review the request to determine if these taxpayer dollars would be better spent on building hospitals to care for our veterans, roads and bridges to help taxpayers get to work, and for N. I. H. to find cures for cancer,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said in a statement. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, said she thought even Republicans might balk at spending what she said could be $14 billion on a wall. “I think that’s a heavy sell,” she said. “I think that’s a tough sell for them. ” | 1 |
The leaders of the House intelligence committee are giving the NSA, FBI, and the CIA until Friday to reveal how many Americans’ private conversations were improperly ‘unmasked’ amid legal surveillance activities in the last six months, which they believe happened to President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. [The demand comes as the committee is trying to figure out who revealed Flynn’s identity during his phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December and who illegally leaked the classified contents of those calls to the news media. “Masking” refers to the protection of identities of Americans who are inadvertently caught up in surveillance — for example, of foreign individuals in the U. S. — and is referred to as a “minimization” procedure. Chairman Devin Nunes ( ) and Ranking Member Adam Schiff ( ) made the request in a letter dated Mar. 15 addressed to Director of the National Security Agency Adm. Michael Rogers, FBI Director James Comey, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo. “As you know, the Committee has been very concerned regarding the purported unauthorized disclosures of classified information, particularly when they pertain to intelligence collection on, or related to, U. S. persons (USP). To take a prominent example, a January 12, 2017 article in a major newspaper was the first to claim that ‘Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, [then ] Trump’s choice for national security adviser … . phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29. ” “Such stories would appear to contain the unauthorized disclosure of USP identities. This potential misuse is a key reason why the Intelligence Community (IC) has developed robust ‘minimization procedures’ for the protection of USP information, including requiring the ‘masking’ of USP identities in most circumstances,” they wrote. “However, as recent news stories seem to illustrate, individuals talking to the media would appear to have wantonly disregarded these procedures,” they added. Thus, the leaders have requested all policies procedures each agency uses to determine when to unmask and disseminate the identity of an American and the number of individuals who can approve an unmasking. They are also asking for the total number of times any unmasked American identity was disseminated between June 2016 and January 2017. They are also asking for the names of those unmasked Americans who had their identities disseminated in response to requests from intelligence community agencies, law enforcement, or any senior Executive Branch officials during that timeframe, in relation to either Trump or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. They also want to know who requested any unmasking and dissemination of individuals related to Trump or Clinton and why. If those answers are not produced by Friday, Nunes and Schiff will issue a subpoena for them, they said. The committee is scheduled to question Rogers and Comey at a public hearing on Monday. | 1 |
Wednesday, 26 October 2016 Was This Leg Hacked By The Russians? A London Court Will Soon Decide.
London, UK, England - You can buy anything and connect it to the internet these days; TV's and microwaves, toilets and toasters. Even the latest artificial leg comes with online capabilities and is part of our new world's Internet Of Things . Now, Mr. Evan Youngbone, is wondering if all this I.O.T. nonsense, keeping track of his every step via satellite, is all worth it, after facing a London court on 787 counts of assault on over 360 people in London's West End.
"Like I told the Police Constables piled on top of me that night, it was all the robot-leg's fault. It wasn't me!" pleaded the very sorry defendant from the witness box. "The high-tech leg I received after my car accident was hacked, probably by the Russians , causing it to go completely bonkers; kicking people all over the place! For almost an hour, I couldn't control the damn thing. It dragged me through the streets. It's like it suddenly had a mind of it's own. And it wanted to kick people really, really badly!"
"I was kicked three times in the shin, very, very hard," cried the first badly-bruised witness, Iris Lillyham (87) of Bumholeshire, near where Mr. Youngbone's kicking rampage first started. "I'll have to start using my cane again because of that man... and I hate my cane, it's very slippery when it's raining.. and I don't like the rain... because that's slippery too," added the lonely victim, who claimed that she didn't believe a word about this strange, futuristic leg being at fault; but, who also had absolutely no idea how to turn on the iphone her son had bought her for emergencies. "He had a big grind on his face!" claimed Mrs. Lillyham, regarding the attacker. "I believe he was loving every second of it!"
Mr. Youngbone's appointed lawyer is arguing that it's clearly Corninghamshire Hospital's fault, and the doctor's who first attached his client's fake leg, claiming that they never bothered to change the default password of: 1111, which comes standard with each artificial leg, (which are also suspiciously made near the Crimea River in the former Ukraine.) "This poor man was a sitting pigeon for the Russians," charged the lawyer to the courtroom, "He never even stood a chance!"
Mr. Youngbone then got up and hopped back to his lawyer's side, not wanting anything to do with his new high-tech appendage. "I'm getting fitted for a nice old-fashion wooden one, thank you very much," The defendant told reporters during a recess. He also plans on going thrift-store shopping for a new toaster and vacuum cleaner this weekend, too. That is, if he's not getting ass-raped in prison.
"I'm afraid I wouldn't get on very well in there-" said the worried kicker on the subject of jail, not thrift-stores. "Look at me, I'm very easy to catch and pin down. If I drop the soap, I'm bloody knackered, aren't I, mate. But thrift-shopping I'm very handy at, if I don't say so myself. Quite a bargainer, I am. I bet they'll knock a few quid off an old hoover, for a man with a used wooden leg!" Make Paul Blake's | 0 |
OOPS-a-daisy! Watch Team Hillary FREAK over NYT piece on her ‘gay marriage flip-flop’, from #PodestaEmails21 Posted at 11:55 am Sam J. Share on Facebook Share on Twitter
A large part of Hillary’s campaign has been pandering … er … reaching out to the LGBT community insisting she is with them, and supports their love and most of all she supports their “right” to get married.
Of course not quite 20 years ago, she felt very differently and is quoted as saying, “I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been. Between a man and a woman.”
Oops.
— Jordan (@JordanChariton) October 28, 2016
Shockingly the New York Times did a piece on her epic flip-flop on gay marriage, which clearly freaked her team out. Best piece, “Can we point those who are writing this to the 2013 video,” basically trying to control what the writer would include. Of course they missed the part that the story is really the change in her policy, not that she’s had an epiphany about gay people. Trending won't
Democrats just figured out they needed this demographic, so they all magically change their minds. See Obama and his “evolution” on gay marriage – same deal. Obamas was categorically against gay marriage during his campaign then changed his mind. when Hillary changed her mind lol she's pandering.
Actually that just means they are both pandering. You’re welcome.
Makes you wonder, is Hillary privately against gay marriage? Dear LGBTQ, Did you know that Hillary is still 'privately' against Gay Marriage? #Wikileaks #PodestaEmails21 https://t.co/1XGlvpSJSO | 0 |
5 Secrets to Wu Wei, the Taoist Principle of Effortless Effort Nov 18, 2016 6 0
As we progress through the process of ascension, several stages occur. Among them is a shake-up which inspires an initial awakening, then the full realization of truth, followed by the development of discernment to ascertain a correct course of action. We wouldn’t try to ride a bicycle before building one, nor would we attempt to sail an ocean without a boat. When things get challenging in life, we can check to see if we are practicing Wu Wei in order to refine our actions. This is the art of effortless action as described in Taoist teachings. 1. No Action Doesn’t Mean ‘Nothing’ Happens
“ The Tao does nothing and yet nothing is left undone .” – Lao Tzu
Wu Wei or 無為, translates from Chinese pinyin to mean “no-action” or “actionless action.” This is considered the ‘natural’ way to do things, as opposed to striving, opposing, and forcing, as well as lollygagging, or succumbing to complete inertia. When we are in alignment with the Source, or as Taoists call it, simply, the Tao, then we don’t have to ‘work’ at anything. This is not to be confused with doing nothing. The state of Wu Wei doesn’t give us an excuse to sit on the sidelines, observing life and critiquing others’ actions. Instead, it describes the inspired action of a person who is brimming with life energy, and that has dedicated their actions to a purpose which supports Oneness. This person does not waste energy, though, and moves only when the time is right, and then, with magnificent acumen, and seemingly magical support behind them.
The ancient ideograms and symbols used in the Chinese language and culture offer the most simplistic way to describe wu wei. We can observe this is the simple yin yang symbol. One side is active, or masculine, representing the energy of extending oneself into the world, and the other side of the symbol is passive, or more accurately, receiving, or feminine energy that causes an inward journey.
All Chinese medicine, martial, and internal arts from Tai Chi to acupuncture to meditation aim to help balance the masculine and feminine energies, the doing and ‘not-doing’ you might say, as a way to achieve wu wei. 2. The Cosmos is Not Working Against You
We aren’t sandwiched between heaven and earth, we ARE heaven and earth. To practice wu wei, we must first realize that we are connected to the Oneness of all things. Though we should have clear boundaries, like children given free rein to run and play within the confines of a beautiful park, we also should remain open to vulnerability and the lessons this may teach. Once we are open and protected we can begin to observe nature and embrace universal energy as it ebbs and flows. From there, we learn when to move with that energy – ebbing and flowing with our own actions in accordance with the Oneness of all things. An immense sense of freedom comes from knowing we don’t have to fight against the Cosmos, and understanding that it is never working against us – only we can choose to work against it’s flow. 3. Physical Action Isn’t the Only Action
Another principle of wu wei involves quieting the ever-busy mind. Even if we aren’t ‘doing’ anything physically, often our minds are busier than ever. Wu wei means that we not only quiet the body and its actions, but that we aim to quiet the mind. Otherwise, we will have no idea if we are in Universal flow, or simply acting ‘busy’ out of the needs of the ‘ego,’ we so obsessively align ourselves with.
Even with our meditation practice, we are encouraged not to ‘try too hard.’ Perhaps you’ve seen a mind game that has been installed at several museums around the U.S.. Two people sit across from one another, and attach headbands equipped with electrodes to themselves. Between the players are a group of balls that can only be moved with the brain’s waves, measured as electromagnetic currents through the headband. If a player maintains a state of relaxed calm, essentially a combination of alpha and theta waves produced by the brain when it’s relaxed, then a ball moves up a tube and is placed in a bin. The player with the most ‘balls,’ wins after a certain period of time commences. Those who try too hard, fail, as do those who don’t try hard enough. The combination of alpha and theta waves created by a wu wei mind is what wins the game every time.
Lao Tzu advises that we must be quiet and watchful, learning to listen to both our own inner voices and to the voices of our environment in a non-interfering, receptive manner. This requires a calm, but astute mind. 4. Being at One with the Tao Means Accepting Change
A key principal in Taoism, and the practice of wu wei involves the realization that there is an unceasing flow of change in nature. This change is governed by laws which are unalterable, and rarely perceived except by the most consciously evolved individuals. Fighting these laws of change would be a sisyphean task. Would you try to to stop the changing of the season or the rise and fall of the sun to the horizon? Once you observe this flow of change in nature, you can apply principles of wu wei to your own transformation. Since you are a part and parcel of nature, you will change accordingly. Why not move with that change instead of fight against it – perhaps you can even welcome change the next time it arrives at your doorstep. 5. True Wu Wei Involves Purposeless Wandering
Zhuangzi refers to a type of being in the world that many of us have never considered. He calls it flowing, or more poetically “ purposeless wandering .” Most of our cultural values frown upon this type of being. If we have ‘no purpose’ we are often deemed pathological in the context of modern day living. Yet, it would be difficult to maintain that our current values have promoted harmony and balance, either environmentally or for each individual.
In Zhuangzi’s Basic Writings , he states , “you can use the analogy of an artist or craftsman. The skilled woodcarver, the skilled swimmer. . . does not ponder or ratiocinate on the course of action he should take; his skill has become so much a part of him that he merely acts instinctively and spontaneously, without knowing why, and achieves success.” He further describes an enlightened person as being one who wanders through creation enjoying its delights without ever becoming attached to any one part of it. Vote Up Christina Sarich Christina Sarich is a musician, yogi, humanitarian and freelance writer who channels many hours of studying Lao Tzu, Paramahansa Yogananda, Rob Brezny, Miles Davis, and Tom Robbins into interesting tidbits to help you Wake up Your Sleepy Little Head, and *See the Big Picture*. Her blog is Yoga for the New World . Her latest book is Pharma Sutra: Healing The Body And Mind Through The Art Of Yoga . | 0 |
This post was originally published on this site
MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. At least six Russian athletes are suspected of bribing officials of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for concealing positive doping samples, the German TV Channel ARD reported on Friday, citing investigation materials of the Paris Prosecutor’s Office.
The Paris Prosecutor’s Office has opened a probe into the suspicions of financial fraud at the world’s athletics governing body in 2014. According to the data received by ARD from the probe’s materials, IAAF representatives demanded from 300,000 euros to 700,000 euros from six Russian athletes for not disclosing the data on their positive doping samples.
The ARD footage also notes that former head of the All-Russian Athletics Federation (ARAF) Valentin Balakhnichev was an intermediary in the corruption schemes of former IAAF President Lamine Diack: about 1.5 million euros passed hands through the ARAF ex-chief.
Diack has denied his complicity in the doping cover-up scandal, saying he would have never demanded any money from athletes. Nonetheless, as the TV channel says, the six Russians are not the sole athletes who are forced to give bribes. About 23 athletes are mentioned in the probe, ARD said.
According to the TV Channel, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) may also be involved in the doping cover-up scandal. WADA Chief Craig Reedie earlier asserted he had never heard about any cases of extortion inside the IAAF. However, in the autumn of 2014, the WADA sent a letter to the IAAF Ethics Commission with information on suspected doping samples of Russian athletes, and also about its suspicions of the athletes’ possible blackmailing by the IAAF. Despite this, the world’s anti-doping body took no efforts to open a probe into this information.
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Obama's UN Ambassador: Cuba is Right About Our Human Rights October 29, 2016 Daniel Greenfield
You may remember Ambassador Samantha Power from the time she proposed invading Israel. Since then she's gone on to a glorious career of representing the Castro regime at the UN. Or is it the Obama regime. It naturally gets confusing when the US Ambassador to the UN sides with the enemy against her own country.
"For more than 50 years, the United States had a policy aimed at isolating the government of Cuba. For roughly half of those years, UN Member States have voted overwhelmingly for a General Assembly resolution that condemns the U.S. embargo and calls for it to be ended. The United States has always voted against this resolution. Today the United States will abstain. [Applause.] Thank you."
Under Obama, Power was told to abstain from opposing a resolution critical of the United States. And they say Obama is some sort of anti-American traitor. I don't see it. If he were, we would be seeing signs of it by now.
Anyway, Power then went on to audition for the job of the UN ambassador from Cuba by claiming that critiques from a brutal Communist dictatorship about our human rights are well-founded...
"Let me be among the first to acknowledge – as our Cuban counterparts often point out – that the United States has work to do in fulfilling these rights for our own citizens. And we know that at times in our history, U.S. leaders and citizens used the pretext of promoting democracy and human rights in the region to justify actions that have left a deep legacy of mistrust."
Somehow though siding with Communist dictatorships who are the enemy while betraying our allies in the region does not create any mistrust. Only opposing the left does. | 0 |
This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics. com, South Korean TV coverage on Sunday of North Korean missile test (AFP) The United Nations Security Council met in emergency session on Monday, and issued a statement strongly condemning North Korea’s ballistic missile launches. The missile was launched on Sunday from North Korea’s Banghyon air base in the western North Pyongang Province. It reached an apogee of 344 miles and traveled out to about 313 miles before splashing into the Sea of Japan. Analysts say that the missile test is significant because the new missiles use solid fuel, and because it can be launched from vehicles traveling over rough terrain, both of which make them harder to detect than missiles. The missile test shows that it could reach targets in South Korea, China, and Japan, and that North Korea is getting close to developing a nuclear missile that could reach the United States. The UN Security Council statement said: The members of the Security Council deplore all the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea ballistic missile activities, including these launches … [We call] upon all member states to redouble their efforts to implement fully the measures imposed on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea by the Security Council. Some Security Council members have called for imposing additional economic sanctions on North Korea, but are few choices left beyond those that have already been imposed. Furthermore, it’s pretty clear that North Korea will continue developing nuclear and missile technology irrespective of any imposed sanctions. Reuters and Defense News and Deutsche Welle, Related Articles, On Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang had to answer questions about North Korea’s ballistic missile test. The exchanges became fairly testy, illustrating how anxious China is about the situation, and about how complicated it is making China’s foreign policy. Here are some excerpts showing the testy exchanges (the DPRK is North Korea, and the ROK is South Korea): Q: The DPRK allegedly tested a new type of missile yesterday … A: We have noted relevant reports and are closely following the developments. The Security Council resolutions contain clear provisions on launches using ballistic missile technology by the DPRK. China is opposed to the DPRK’s launch which violates the Security Council resolutions. Given the current circumstances, relevant parties should not engage in mutually provocative moves which could heighten regional tensions. All parties need to exercise restraint in a joint effort to maintain regional peace and stability. … Q: There is sort of a saying that China has leverage over the DPRK. Has the US communicated with China over the missile test and asked China to do more? Analysts speculate that the missile test is an opportunity for China to tie up its greater cooperation on the Korean nuclear issue with US cooperation in keeping peace and stability of the South China Sea. Is that a valid speculation? A: The root of the DPRK nuclear and missile issue lies in the differences between the DPRK and the US and between the DPRK and the ROK. As a permanent member of the Security Council and a responsible member of the international community, China has always enforced the Council’s resolutions in their entirety, promoted peace talks, and made unremitting efforts to facilitate the settlement of the issue of Korean Peninsula. China’s efforts have been widely acknowledged and acclaimed by the international community … Q: You just mentioned that the root of the DPRK nuclear and missile issue lies in the differences between the DPRK and the US and between the DPRK and the ROK. Could you be more specific as to how the differences between the DPRK and the ROK lead to the nuclear and missile issue? A: What I said just now was that the root of the DPRK nuclear and missile issue lies in the differences between the DPRK and the US and between the DPRK and the ROK. This is not the first time for us to say so. This is a viewpoint that has been repeatedly emphasized. Q: Does China believe that Washington should take the initiative on tackling the issue of missile test by the DPRK? A: The root of the DPRK nuclear and missile issue lies in the differences between the DPRK and the US and between the DPRK and the ROK … Q: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that China, who has complete control of what sustains the government of the DPRK, should play a bigger role. Do you agree with him? A: I have actually given the answer when addressing other journalists’ questions. The root of the DPRK nuclear and missile issue is the differences between the DPRK and the US and between the DPRK and the ROK. Given that, we hope that relevant parties make more efforts to resolve the DPRK nuclear and missile issue. As you can see, an exasperated Geng Shuang answered several questions the same way, essentially blaming the United States and South Korea. I’ll bet he was happy when that press conference was over. AP and China Foreign Ministry, Last year, the U. S. and South Korea announced the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in South Korea. It is considered to be the most advanced system available anywhere today because it can blast incoming missiles out of the sky with 100% success rate. The stated purpose of the deployment would be to protect South Korea from a North Korean ballistic missile attack. China has expressed enormous fury over the installation of THAAD in South Korea. When the announcement was made last year, Chinese media have attacked South Korea with inflammatory rhetoric and recommended harsh economic sanctions against South Korea. China has even been calling for demonstrations in South Korea. The reason that China has been freaking out over THAAD is that it also protects South Korea from a ballistic missile attack launched by China. Furthermore, THAAD’s advanced detection systems would provide early warning of a Chinese missile attack on the United States. Sunday’s ballistic missile test by North Korea severely complicates China’s foreign policy with regard to this issue, because it makes a THAAD system in South Korea even more necessary. According to Chinese media: Establishing THAAD on the Korean Peninsula has always been part of Washington’s plan to expand and enhance its network in the region. Aside from cooperation with allies such as Japan and Australia, the US has also deployed the THAAD system in Hawaii and Guam, destroyers with missile interceptors in the Sea of Japan, and Patriot Advanced interceptors on the Japanese soil … However, inviting the ROK to join the game being played by the US and Japan does not just respond to the DPRK’s nuclear threats but also places more countries including China under US military surveillance. Keeping Japan and the ROK committed to its Asian policy would be another boon to the US. … However, the two allies are yet to offer any solid evidence to reassure Beijing that the battery does not target any third party. Nor have they taken any action such as removing radars that might be used to spy on China to prove their point. China will not sit idle while Washington and Seoul press ahead with THAAD in the name of handling the “DPRK threat”. Another system is the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system. It is a centralized, automated, (C2) and weapons control system that was designed as a total weapon system, from detection to kill. The radar is able to perform search, track, and missile guidance functions simultaneously, with a track capacity of more than 100 targets. There are currently 84 U. S. Navy ships in service with the AEGIS Weapons System installed: 22 Cruisers and 62 Destroyers. There are an additional three new construction Destroyers with the AEGIS Weapon System installed that will enter service in FY 2018. The North Korean missile test is going to substantially increase demand for additional THAAD and Aegis system, and pose additional problems for China’s planned missile attack on the US and its allies. China Daily and Global Times (Beijing) and US Navy, Related Articles, KEYS: Generational Dynamics, North Korea, UN Security Council, China, Geng Shuang, South Korea, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, THAAD, Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense system, BMD Permanent web link to this article Receive daily World View columns by | 1 |
Politics The EU’s Nemtsov Forum Is a Phoney, Politicially Correct Waste of Time
If the European Union desires to be a truly relevent center of international order, it should not waste the resources and time of diplomats and officials on dialogues with Russian émigrés who have nothing to do with the Russian government Originally appeared at East West Accord
The European Union parliament often prides itself on being a model for international intergration on a global scale. Yet, the upcomong Boris Nemstov forum, billed as exemplifying EU-Russian dialogue, does not live up to the European parliament’s lofty reputation. Rather than EU-Russia dialogue, the forum is an example of Europeans talking to themselves and failing to engage in real politics.
The forum, which will be held late November of this year, appears to be less of a dialogue between the EU and Russia and more of a dialogue between the EU, itself and a who’s who of Russians who have no political power in Moscow and no popular electoral mandate from the Russian people. A true EU-Russia dialogue would involve symetry. The Boris Nemstov forum is akin to an academic debate on quantum physics between the faculty of MIT and the 5th grade science class at Peabody school in Cambridge Massachusetts. If this is what passes for EU-Russia dialogue these days, then the European Union is in deep crisis.
Over the course of the inception of the European Union, when the governments representing the various nations and peoples of Europe engaged in often difficult negotiations to achieve real compromise over economic, historical and political differences in pursuit of peace and progress, the EU was a serious political forum for international dialogue. Those times, and the serious statesmen who populated them, are long past. Public relations has taken the place of diplomacy and the easiest road is often labeled with the most hyperbolic, arrogant slogans. Thus the upcoming forum is billed as:
“A platform for an improved EU-Russia dialogue to repair the important strategic relationship between Russia and the European Union by involving a pro-European generation of future Russian leaders whose commitment and vision will make this possible.”
The European Union is a political-legal entity, as are the EU ambassadors lent their support to the forum. The platform is billed as EU-Russia dialogue. Yet where are the representatives of the Russian Federation, the political-legal entity which represents the Russian people and even has a seat in the UN security council? Will the Russian ambassador take part in the EU-Russia dialogue? Will Russian deputies to the Duma who actually represent the Russian people take part in the EU-Russia dialogue during the forum?
At present, initiating a serious dialogue between the EU and Russia is abysmaly difficult because the European Union has committed itself to economic sanctions against Russia which include a ban on travel to the EU for large portions of the Russian government and business elite. Of course, the European Union parliament apparently thinks it can get around this problem by meeting with a “pro-European generation of future Russian leaders.”
One wonders just how the EU knows these particular individuals (whose website boldly proclaims that the interests of the elected President of Russia are not those of the Russian people) themselves represent Russia’s true interest and will – in future – be swept to power? Precedent for such thinking on the part of Western Europeans exists: in 1918 one of the “pro-European generation of future Russian leaders,” Lenin, was swiftly sent to Moscow by the faltering German Empire to replace the Tsar, who’s interest- Lenin and his Western European allies felt- were not the interests of the Russian people. The result was a bloody Russian civil war which made the XXth century into the most deadly in all human history.
History, like real politics, are not currently popular amongst Brussels elites. Events like the Borys Nemstov forum are exercises in political naivety. They are not serious dialogue. Serious European-Russian dialogue can be found in Berlin, Paris and Minsk. It is there that the German Chancellor and the French President routinely hold talks with the President of Russia. These talks are not easy. These talks are not self-flattering festivals of wishful thinking. These talks are real politics: hard negotiations about life and death issues at the heart of the future of Europe.
If the European Union desires to be a truly relevent center of international order, it should not waste the resources and time of diplomats and officials on dialogues with Russian émigrés who have nothing to do with the Russian government. The EU should organize real international conferences where ambasadors meet ambasadors and members of parliament meet members of the Duma. A civic forum bringing together common people of different political persuasions is likewise commendable. A forum of government officials meeting with the enemies of another country’s government officials is hardly a model of good diplomacy.
In principle there is of course nothing inappropriate about hosting different groups of different political persuasions from Russia, but in this time of declining international order and the looming prospect of a new Cold War it is highly ill advized to pretend that a meeting between officials from a supposedly serious international body such as the EU and a group of ragtag émigré Russian revolutionaries is representative of “EU-Russian dialogue.” If anything, the upcoming Boris Nemstov forum in Brussels is symbolic of the political impotence of European institutions and the terrible crisis of EU-Russia relations. | 0 |
The sports landscape is littered with failed professional football leagues, such is the dominance of the N. F. L. Yet the sports agent Don Yee, who represents New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, thinks he may have found a model that will work: a league for to players who skip college to play professionally right away. Most fledgling leagues, like the defunct U. F. L. or the X. F. L. had rosters filled with castoffs who had gone undrafted out of college or who had bounced around pro teams. The quality of play was uneven, while games often overlapped with the N. F. L. and N. C. A. A. calendars, making it hard to gain attention. Yee and his investment group see their new Pacific Pro Football league, which is expected to start in summer 2018, as more of a development league filled with players who want to immediately start playing a game while getting a paycheck, rather than risking injury on a college team and receiving no compensation. “Most other leagues usually took players who were deemed not good enough for the N. F. L. ,” Yee said. “We’re now trying to go to the head of the line at the buffet instead of getting the ones. ” Despite the long odds of success, Yee is not the only person trying to get a football league off the ground. In April, a new spring league will roll out in West Virginia, where players “who may have been overlooked by the N. F. L. C. F. L. and other professional leagues” can pay $350 to showcase their talents in a season, the league’s website says. The N. F. L. also has toyed with starting a developmental league. In October, Commissioner Roger Goodell said the team owners had discussed the idea of working with 300 to 400 players to make them “ready to play as quickly as possible,” though nothing concrete emerged from the discussions. Other leagues already employ teenagers who skip college. Major League Baseball clubs draft young players and send them to their academies or minor league affiliates. Many N. H. L. teams have players as young as 18 on their rosters. Players can join N. B. A. teams if they are 19 and a year removed from high school. (In 2001, the N. B. A. started its own development league, where the players can be 18.) N. F. L. teams can draft only players who are three years removed from their high school class’s graduation, a rule the league said is intended to protect younger, less physically developed players. “The physical, mental and emotional demands of our sport would make it almost impossible for someone to have success in the N. F. L. at an earlier age,” said Brian McCarthy, a league spokesman. Richard Lapchick, the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, or Tides, said that the N. F. L. had an incentive not to undercut college football, which he said was a “great feeder system. ” Even with an alternate league, college football, where players get scholarships but are not paid, would remain a strong draw for high school players because of the potential exposure, he said. He added that requiring athletes to spend more time in college makes it more likely that they will be prepared for life in the N. F. L. and after they retire from the game. “I don’t know how broad the interest in academic development is by the pro leagues, but someone who has a broader range of interests has a more balanced life and has the potential to be a better athlete,” he said. Yee acknowledged that his venture was risky, something his advisers have echoed. Fans already have a lot of options for watching college and professional football, and just paying for the necessary training facilities and transportation could be enough to bankrupt a new league. “I’ve danced with at least three of these groups before, but money was always what killed them,” said Jim Steeg, who is an unpaid adviser to Yee and ran the Super Bowl for the N. F. L. for decades. Steeg estimated that between $5 million and $7 million would be needed to cover the costs of each team for one season, along with a comparable sum to run the league office. Still, Steeg was encouraged that Yee was starting small and aiming for a unique pool of players, and that he had already received funding from an “angel” investor. Yee said he hoped to attract enough money in the next phase of to cover the cost of a first season. The league would have four teams based in Southern California, both to reduce expenses and because the region has so many young players. The league would have a schedule plus playoffs, and finish before the college season begins. Players would be paid an average of $50, 000 in salary and benefits, including workers’ compensation, a 401( k) plan and free community college tuition. Yee wants to partner with companies in the area to create internships for the players to prepare them for when their football days are over. In addition to Steeg, Yee said he was being advised by, among others, the former N. F. L. coach Mike Shanahan Mike Pereira, who was in charge of officiating for the N. F. L. and the ESPN analyst Adam Schefter. Ed McCaffrey, a former Denver Broncos wide receiver, is a . Having enough money to get a league off the ground is one challenge. Finding a way to publicize it is another. With television already cluttered with dozens of games each week, the chances of a new league finding space on a widely distributed cable network are remote. Yee said that internet giants like Amazon and Netflix were looking for sports content to distribute. It is far from clear, however, whether one of those companies will pay Yee’s league to show games. | 1 |
PARIS (AP) — Hemmed in and closely watched by police, hundreds of Muslims have unrolled rugs and mats and prayed outdoors in the busy streets of a Paris suburb to protest the closure of their prayer hall. [advertisement | 1 |
Russia did not let Turkish planes enter Syrian airspace 28.10.2016 | Source: AP photo Turkish aircraft tried to enter Syrian airspace in the north of the province of Aleppo, but they had to turn back after a warning from Syrian and Russian forces, a source at securety services told Sputnik news agency. On August 24, the Turkish army launched Operation Euphrates Shield against the "Islamic State terrorist group (banned in Russia). With the participation of the Syrian opposition, the military took control of the border town of Jarabulus in northern Syria and continued the offensive to the south-west. According to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, the goal of the offensive is to exterminate terrorists on the territory of up to 5,000 square kilometres and create a safety zone to accommodate refugees. In northern Syria, Turkish troops regularly come into clashes with the forces of the Kurdish militia, which they consider to be related to the Kurdistan Workers' Party. However, the official Damascus shares a different opinion on the subject. The Syrian authorities estimate the presence of the Turkish army on the territory of Syria as a violation of the sovereignty of the country, which could escalate the conflict. The Middle East has turned into the largest global puzzle, the pieces of which will never come together in the original pattern. Pravda.Ru Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru Russia not to make concessions on Syria to US any more | 0 |
Still no sign of them. Two days after the release of an image that investigators said showed two men who had come upon a suitcase containing an unexploded bomb on a Manhattan street, the authorities said on Friday that their identities and whereabouts remained unknown. Investigators said they considered the men to be witnesses, and wanted to talk to them as part of their effort to piece together the events of last Saturday, when bombs exploded in Seaside Park, N. J. and on West 23rd Street in Manhattan. Several unexploded bombs were found elsewhere, including the one in the suitcase, which was found on West 27th Street a few hours after the bomb went off four blocks away, and five others, which turned up late on Sunday near a train station in Elizabeth, N. J. After coming upon the abandoned suitcase on 27th Street, the men discovered a plastic bag inside containing a pressure cooker that had been fashioned into a bomb. They set the bag on the sidewalk and left with the suitcase. The suspect in the bombings, Ahmad Khan Rahami, was arrested just hours after authorities released a photograph of him on Monday morning. By Tuesday night, federal prosecutors had charged him with several crimes connected to the bombings. The New York Police Department has thus far been unable to identify or find the two men. “We know nothing about them at this point,” a spokesman for the department said. The two have not been charged with any crimes, and the authorities said this week that their handling of the device might actually have disabled it. One possibility among many that investigators have discussed is that the men were tourists and may have already left the country. What remains are the images of the two, crystallized in time. In the photo distributed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, they can be seen walking along 27th Street between Avenue of the Americas and Seventh Avenue between 8 and 9 p. m. on Saturday, around the time of the 23rd Street explosion. One of the men is wearing a polo shirt the other appears to be holding an object in one hand. Their postures suggest a shared sense of calm. | 1 |
— Steven (@superaielman) October 26, 2016
Earlier today, GOP vice presidential candidate Mike Pence shared some very sad news with his Twitter followers: Heavy hearts today. Our beagle of 13 years passed away quietly last night. Rest In Peace, Maverick. We will miss you. pic.twitter.com/JPnFvsHB3Y
— Mike Pence (@mike_pence) October 26, 2016
But, while many offered their sympathy, this was all Jezebel could muster: An October surprise for Mike Pence's dog: death https://t.co/qxuapnkCM9 pic.twitter.com/GlBYntaJi1 | 0 |
Sen. Rand Paul ( ) mocked the “crocodile tears” in Washington after Democrats expressed outrage over President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey. [“I was not a huge Comey fan, he politicized investigations, both sides of the aisle lost confidence. Lots of crocodile tears in dc,” he tweeted Wednesday morning. I was not a huge Comey fan, he politicized investigations, both sides of the aisle lost confidence in him. Lots of crocodile tears in dc, — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) May 10, 2017, After the bombshell news of Comey’s firing broke Tuesday evening, Democrats took to Twitter and the airwaves to express shock and concern over Comey’s firing, despite some of them having previously clamored for his dismissal. Paul also tweeted: “Hypocrisy and fake outrage? Dems had been calling for months for the firing of Comey!” he added a few minutes later. Hypocrisy and fake outrage? Dems had been calling for months for the firing of Comey! — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) May 10, 2017, Comey had been unpopular on both ends of the political spectrum prior to Trump’s decision. Last July, he roiled Republicans after he announced that although Hillary Clinton was “careless” with her emails, there was no evidence of criminal intent and the FBI would not pursue charges. Democrats celebrated Comey then. But when Comey announced in October the FBI was reopening the investigation into Clinton, less than two weeks before the elections, Democrats were furious and later blamed him for her loss. Earlier this year, he made headlines again when he confirmed the FBI was investigating Russian interference in the elections, as well as any coordination between Moscow and the Trump campaign. This last week may have been the last straw, after he appeared in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and gave an impassioned defense of his decision to announce the reopening of the investigation, again angering Democrats. At the same time, he revealed that Clinton aide Huma Abedin had forwarded classified emails to husband Anthony Weiner, but that the FBI did not recommend charges against either, arguing there was no evidence of criminal intent. Later, anonymous officials told some news outlets that Comey had misspoken and that Abedin had only forwarded a “handful” of emails, including classified ones, but not “hundreds and thousands” of emails as “regular practice,” as Comey had said. And his refusal to clarify whether there was any evidence underlying Democrats’ accusation of collusion had long angered Trump supporters, making him deeply unpopular with them too. “There’s a lot of hypocrisy going around,” Paul said in an interview Wednesday morning on Fox News. “Chuck Schumer in November said he lost confidence. Hillary Clinton saying that he completely destroyed the whole election … Eric Holder says Comey violated Department of Justice procedures. ” “So I think you have a lot of people looking at it from the Democrat side who have said they have lost confidence in him, I think you have Republicans saying they should have prosecuted Clinton, nobody’s happy with his tenure at the FBI, so I think it was long past time for him to go,” he added. Trump in his statement announcing Comey’s firing said it will “mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement. ” | 1 |
10 Signs That An All-Out Attempt Is Being Made To Sabotage The Trump Campaign Michael’s Latest Video At This Current Pace, A Record-Shattering 2.4 Trillion Dollars Will Be Added To The National Debt This Year 17th, 2016
Barack Obama is about to become the 20 trillion dollar man. With less than two months to go in his second term, the U.S. national debt stands less than 150 billion dollars away from the 20 trillion dollar mark. And at the pace that the debt is increasing, it seems almost certain that we will cross 20 trillion dollars before Inauguration Day. After promising us that “deficits are under control”, the federal debt jumped by more than 1.3 trillion dollars last fiscal year, and so far this year it is on pace to rise by a record-shattering 2.4 trillion dollars . This is a recipe for national suicide, and yet it wasn’t even a major issue during the recently concluded presidential campaign.
It is really, really hard to spend a trillion dollars. For example, if you were alive when Jesus was born and you had spent a million dollars every single day since that time, you still would not have spent a trillion dollars by now.
And even though the Republicans have had control of the House of Representatives since 2010, the wild spending has not slowed down one bit. In fact, it is actually accelerating as we near the end of Obama’s second term. Last year’s rise in the debt of more than 1.3 trillion dollars was shocking enough, but this year we are on pace to top that number by more than a trillion dollars. The following comes from Simon Black …
According to data released by the Treasury Department yesterday, the US national debt has soared by a whopping $294 billion since the start of the 2017 fiscal year, just 45 days ago.
That’s an annualized increase of 13%.
So if they keep up this pace, the national debt will increase by $2.4 trillion this fiscal year, surpassing $21 trillion by next September .
The only reason we have been able to go on this debt binge for as long as we have is because the rest of the world has been willing to loan us trillions upon trillions of dollars at ridiculously low interest rates that are well below the real rate of inflation.
This is a highly irrational state of affairs, and once this changes we are going to be in a massive amount of trouble.
And since Donald Trump’s election victory, we have already seen the rate on 10 year U.S. Treasury notes shoot up dramatically .
Over the long-term, the average rate of interest paid on U.S. government debt has been about 6 percent. Right now we are way below that, but that cannot last forever.
At some point rates will rise, and if we were to just get back to the 5 percent mark we would be paying more than a trillion dollars a year just in interest on the national debt once the debt hits $21 trillion.
The bottom line is that we are racing toward national bankruptcy.
But instead of focusing on getting the debt under control, Donald Trump is already promising a whole bunch of new spending in addition to what is already taking place.
This week, Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen warned Congress about what Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure spending program may mean for our financial situation…
President-elect Donald Trump has pledged a $1 trillion infrastructure spending program to help jump-start an economy that he said during the campaign was in terrible shape.
Speaking on Capitol Hill Thursday, Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen warned lawmakers that as they consider such spending, they should keep an eye on the national debt. Yellen also said that while the economy needed a big boost with fiscal stimulus after the financial crisis, that’s not the case now.
“The economy is operating relatively close to full employment at this point,” she said, “so in contrast to where the economy was after the financial crisis when a large demand boost was needed to lower unemployment, we’re no longer in that state.”
The truth is that we simply can’t afford to keep going into so much debt.
Debt literally destroys the future, and since Barack Obama has been in the White House our government has been stealing more than 100 million dollars an hour from our children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day . It is a crime of such a magnitude that I don’t know if there are words to describe it, and yet only a very small fraction of the population is upset about this right now.
We have just come to accept that ripping off our children and our grandchildren is normal. But someday if they get the chance they will curse us for what we have done to them.
In our extreme arrogance, we actually think that it is okay to saddle them with a giant mountain of debt that they will be servicing for their entire lives. In a just society, those that have done this to future generations of Americans would be going to prison.
When you go into debt, you take consumption from the future and bring it into the present. In essence, we are taking money that they should have been able to spend, and instead we are spending it right now.
Without a doubt, government spending helps the economy in the short-term. When the government spends money, it gets into the pockets of ordinary Americans who in turn spend that money on goods and services that they need. So that is why politicians like to borrow and spend – it makes the economy perform better than it otherwise would, and voters tend to vote for incumbents when “things are going well”.
If the federal government had only spent the money that it took in through taxes over the past eight years, we would be in a rip-roaring depression right now. Barack Obama and those that work under him understand this, and that is why they were perfectly fine with running the national debt up to 20 trillion dollars. They will take credit for “fixing the economy”, but the truth is that all they did was steal trillions of dollars from our kids and our grandkids.
And anyone that has ever gotten into trouble with debt knows that a day of reckoning comes eventually.
Could our day of reckoning be just around the corner during the Trump years?
Donald Trump will be blamed if everything crashes while he is in office, but the real blame should be placed at the feet of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and a deeply corrupt Congress that always went along with the wild spending. | 0 |
After a yearslong wait, compounded by additional delays and feints, the often inscrutable RB singer Frank Ocean managed to deliver more than one new album. The first, a streaming “visual album” titled “Endless,” was released late on Thursday via Apple Music. It was followed on Saturday by two other ambitious projects: shops in four cities — Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and London — that handed out free copies of Boys Don’t Cry, an elaborate art magazine created by Mr. Ocean and “Blonde,” a LP by the singer released on Apple Music, as a stream and paid download. At its center, the magazine also contained a CD version of the new album. In a note on his personal Tumblr blog, Mr. Ocean’s preferred mode of communication with his fans, he wrote: “I had the time of my life making all of this. Thank you all. Especially those of you who never let me forget I had to finish. Which is basically every one of y’all. ” “Blonde,” the to Mr. Ocean’s 2012 debut, “Channel Orange,” had been one of the most anticipated albums of the year — and various delays only added to the expectations. He teased that “Boys Don’t Cry” (initially thought to be the name of both his second album and the magazine) would be released in July 2015. Then, the album had a tentative release date of Aug. 5. Mr. Ocean poked fun at his own lateness with an image on his website of a library slip with multiple dates crossed out. The subsequent delivery of “Endless,” which featured footage of Mr. Ocean working in a warehouse, set to a continuous flow of 18 perplexing new songs, raised more questions than it answered, and it was not available for download Apple promised “more from Frank” over the weekend. (On Saturday, in the early morning hours, an additional video for the song “Nikes” also appeared on Apple Music.) “Blonde,” which is spelled “Blond” on the album cover and “Blonde” on Apple and elsewhere, hews more closely to what was expected from a sophomore release by one of the most lauded and enigmatic young singers in pop music. Songs titles include “Pink + White,” “Be Yourself,” “Facebook Story” and “White Ferrari. ” Mr. Ocean’s accompanying glossy magazine lists album contributors including André 3000, James Blake, Jamie xx, Kanye West, Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell Williams, Rick Rubin and more. In Manhattan on Saturday, the line to get into Mulberry Iconic Magazines, on the corner of Mulberry Street and Kenmare Street, stretched more than a block just after 7 p. m. Inside the store, the essence of a standard New York bodega remained — chips, soda, detergent and so on were still for sale — but the shelves also had been stocked with copies of the magazine Boys Don’t Cry in a sealed reflective wrapping. With only a few patrons allowed entry at a time, fans browsed leisurely, helping themselves to one of three editions of the oversized publication (only the covers varied). Among the features inside: an interview with Mr. Ocean’s mother a conversation between Mr. Ocean and the outré rapper Lil B lyrics to the songs on “Blonde” and plentiful photos of sports cars, long an obsession of Mr. Ocean’s. The newest of his new albums played over Sonos speakers that had been installed in the shop. Decals bearing the name of the album and the magazine emphasized the takeover of the ordinary space — there was “Blonde” and “Boys Don’t Cry” on the beer refrigerators, the cigar cases, even the deli counter. The everyday essentials, while providing an authentic backdrop, could only be overshadowed. | 1 |
0 comments Video after video does not lie. This footage, along with leaked emails, explains so much. SHE EVEN DRINKS TWO-FISTED! Stories of Hillary Clinton’s affinity for alcohol have been around for years, and some of them, even in her own words, are legendary. Consider her vodka drinking contest with Senator John McCain. Here it is, told by none other than Democrat Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton, in her own words and posted on her Facebook page:
Then of course, there is the “trip” Yemen. Watch her walk, her mannerisms, and her fall. Pay close attention:
Our video study is just getting started, though now is a good time to mention the latest from WikiLeaks on the topic of Hillary’s “sobriety.”
On August 8, 2015, Hillary’s Campaign Chairman John Podesta wrote to Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri, “Should I call her and talk this through or better to leave with you? I’m worried she’ll get on with Cheryl and we’ll end up in a bad place. I’m in a session that lasts till 3:30 your time. Is that timely or should I walk out?”
Two hours later, Palmieria responded, “I think you should call her and sober her up some.”
It was 4:30pm, in the afternoon, and her staff is interested in sobering her up.
Hillary’s campaign staff are not the only one’s to have noticed her drinking.
Amy Chozick, a reporter for the New York Times, explained, “She likes to drink. We were on the campaign trail in 2008 and the press thought she was just taking shots to pander to voters in Pennsylvania. Um, no.”
In October of 2016, Chozick sent the following tweet:
Makes sense, especially in light of campaign videos like this one:
— Elizabeth Harrington (@LizWFB) October 10, 2016
Evidently, drinking is one of Hillary’s political strategies.
In a July 3 article, the New York Times reported that Hillary plans to “seek common ground with the G.O.P. over drinks” in her first 100 days.
It continued, “Mrs. Clinton’s ability to use alcohol as a political lubricant came up repeatedly when allies and advisers were asked how she might work with Republicans. Her tale about a drinking contest with Senator John McCain of Arizona is now a Washington legend. (She said they called it quits before things got out of hand.) She believes that a relaxed, frank discussion is more authentic than trying to bond awkwardly with adversaries over sports — and more productive than keeping them at arm’s length, as Mr. Obama has often done.
“‘She likes to cajole, she likes to make deals, and she likes to make friends,’ said Richard Socarides, a former policy adviser to Bill Clinton and a longtime supporter of Mrs. Clinton. ‘And she knows it’s much harder to go after someone who you basically like, who you’ve had a drink with.’”
One of Hillary’s confidantes, Patti Solis Doyle, once remarked, “She likes to hang out and drink and gossip.” Her drink of choice? Wine and vodka.
On that note, have a look at this these gems:
And another, this time, TWO-FISTED!
People have asked: Did Hillary Clinton’s alcohol usage lead to her current neurological condition?
Yet another video look: | 0 |
Iraq’s lawmakers have voted in favor of a reciprocal travel ban on U. S. citizens if President Donald Trump’s administration does not rescind its decision to prohibit the entry of Iraqis. [When Barack Obama blocked Iraqi refugees from entering the United States for six months in 2011, the parliament took no action. On Monday, Iraqi lawmakers voted to call on the Baghdad government to “respond in kind to the American decision in the event that the American side does not to withdraw its decision,” reports Agence (AFP) citing Iraqi member of parliament (MP) Hakim who quoted the text of the decision that was read during the parliamentary session. “Parliament voted by majority on calling on the Iraqi government and the foreign ministry to respond in kind,” declared MP Zamili. Iraqi MP Sadiq reportedly confirmed that “the vote was for a call on the government” to enact a reciprocal ban. Al Jazeera points out, “The [Iraqi parliament] vote on Monday is not thought to be binding on the government of Prime Minister Haider whose government has made no official comment on the order. ” Haider’s foreign ministry has urged the Trump administration to review the ban. The recent vote by Iraqi lawmakers came in response to President Trump’s executive order to ban citizens traveling on passports from seven nations — Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen — from entering the United States for at least 90 days in an effort to strengthen America’s refugee vetting process. “Importantly, however, Lawful Permanent Residents of the United States [green card holders] … will be allowed to board U. S. bound aircraft and will be assessed for exceptions at arrival ports of entry, as appropriate. The entry of these individuals, subject to national security checks, is in the national interest,” notes the U. S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in explaining the executive order, which President Trump signed on Friday. The executive order also allows the U. S. government to “prioritize refugee claims” from members of persecuted religious minorities in the predominantly Muslim countries covered under the ban, such as Christians and Yazidis. In 2011, Obama instituted a similar ban, although it is unclear if it included the religious minority exception. There were neither protests nor backlash from the mainstream media in response to Obama’s measure. A 2013 article by ABC News, titled “Exclusive: US May Have Let ‘Dozens’ of Terrorists Into Country As Refugees,” revealed: As a result of the Kentucky case, the [Obama] State Department stopped processing Iraq refugees for six months in 2011, federal officials told ABC News — even for many who had heroically helped U. S. forces as interpreters and intelligence assets. One Iraqi who had aided American troops was assassinated before his refugee application could be processed, because of the immigration delays, two U. S. officials said. In 2011, fewer than 10, 000 Iraqis were resettled as refugees in the U. S. half the number from the year before, State Department statistics show. The Kentucky case refers to the discovery in 2009 of two Iraqi terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green who ultimately admitted in court that they had attacked U. S. soldiers in Iraq. One of those terrorists, Waad Ramadan Alwan, entered the United States through Syria. Moreover, the seven nations covered by the order, including Iraq, had been previously identified as “countries of concern” under the Obama administration. “These seven countries were designated by Congress and the Obama Administration as posing a significant enough security risk to warrant additional scrutiny in the visa waiver context,” notes DHS. Unlike President Trump, Obama failed to announce his temporary ban on Iraqi refugees, which the leftist mainstream media has interpreted as meaning that it was not the former president’s policy to temporarily halt the entry of Iraqi refugees because he never took ownership of the measure. The recent Iraqi parliament vote echoes calls from Iran for a reciprocal travel ban on American citizens. According to the Independent, the Shiite militia coalition dubbed the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and Hashd has also been critical of Trump’s national security policy, “calling for a ban on issuing visas to Americans visiting the country and for those already in Iraq to be expelled. ” Shiite powerhouse Iran has also vowed to implement legal, political, and reciprocal measures in response to the U. S. policy, announced the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Affairs Ministry on Saturday. The Baghdad government is close to Iran. “We are against this stance from the new administration,” said Iraqi MP Laban, referring to Trump’s national security order, adding, “We hope that the American administration will rethink … this decision. ” | 1 |
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There are so many reasons Americans should not vote for Hillary Clinton, but one of those reasons is this woman’s tyrannical plans to strip us of our Second Amendment rights. What many people do not realize is that if she becomes president, Hillary would ban many of our favorite guns, as revealed in a bombshell report that was just leaked.
In a recent WikiLeaks dump, we got an inside glimpse into Hillary’s diabolical plans to trample all over our gun rights if she becomes president. If you thought Obama’s tyranny with bypassing Congress and enacting his will via executive orders was obnoxious, it won’t hold a candle to this woman’s plans. She blatantly expressed how she would impose massive gun control through executive fiat in a manner “more aggressive than Obama,” while chipping away at our Second Amendment with a myriad of new regulations and gun laws.
While Hillary likes to pump us full of crap, claiming that “law-abiding Americans wouldn’t be targeted” with her tyranny, her broad and evasive gun control measures would directly affect Americans with no criminal records, while having zero impact on the behavior of violent criminals.
One example is Hillary calling for the “reinstatement of the national assault weapons ban and a prohibition on high-capacity magazines.” However, the result of her “assault weapons” ban would essentially take up a massive category of firearms, including the popular AR-15, while making “high capacity” magazines illegal to even possess.
We all know these types of regulations are completely ineffective in preventing gun violence since criminals have no regard for laws in the first place and are obviously not going to turn over their guns just because Hillary decides to pass a law.
Her other Constitution-subverting plan is to pass a law making it legal for “victims of gun violence” to sue gun manufacturers, which would quickly bankrupt these companies. However, Hillary’s ultimate goal is to ban all guns in America completely by utilizing the Supreme Court. With her hand-picked justice filling Antonin Scalia’s vacancy, she would have the SCOTUS revisit the District of Columbia v Heller (2008) ruling. If successful, the court would eliminate it’s previous affirmation that it is an individual’s Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
When you put all the pieces together, Hillary’s plans for America is nothing short of chilling. History taught us the brutal lesson about what happens when a populace is unarmed — images of corpses from Nazi concentration camps come to mind. Add Hillary’s gun-grabbing plan to her dream of turning America into a borderless society and flooding our country with Muslim refugees, and you have the perfect recipe for disaster.
God help us if this woman is elected. Continue to share stories like this and tirelessly work to expose this woman before election day. Once she’s in office, the America that we know and love will be drastically transformed into a third-world country crap hole, and Hillary’s life-long plans will be complete. | 0 |
The Gatestone Institute reports Sunday on the striking rate of closures of churches in the United Kingdom’s capital city, a trend mirrored elsewhere in Europe, and the blooming number of mosques that have been established in their stead. [Reporting on the change in religious observation in London, the Gatestone Institute writes: “London is more Islamic than many Muslim countries put together” according to Maulana Syed Raza Rizvi, one of the Islamic preachers who now lead “Londonistan” as the journalist Melanie Phillips has called the English capital. No, Rizvi is not a extremist. Wole Soyinka, a Nobel Laureate for Literature, was less generous he called the UK “a cesspit for Islamists”. “Terrorists can not stand London multiculturalism” London’s mayor Sadiq Khan said after the recent deadly terror attack at Westminster. The opposite is true: British multiculturalists are feeding Islamic fundamentalism. Above all, Londonistan, with its new 423 mosques, is built on the sad ruins of English Christianity. The Hyatt United Church was bought by the Egyptian community to be converted to a mosque. St Peter’s Church has been converted into the Madina Mosque. The Brick Lane Mosque was built on a former Methodist church. Not only buildings are converted, but also people. The number of converts to Islam has doubled often they embrace radical Islam, as with Khalid Masood, the terrorist who struck Westminster. The Daily Mail published photographs of a church and a mosque a few meters from each other in the heart of London. At the Church of San Giorgio, designed to accommodate 1, 230 worshipers, only 12 people gathered to celebrate Mass. At the Church of Santa Maria, there were 20. The nearby Brune Street Estate mosque has a different problem: overcrowding. Its small room and can contain only 100. On Friday, the faithful must pour into the street to pray. Given the current trends, Christianity in England is becoming a relic, while Islam will be the religion of the future. Read more at The Gatestone Institute | 1 |
Iceland’s Pirate Party Makes Strong Showing in New Election Posted on Oct 30, 2016
By Common Dreams staff PiratesforIceland.party
Iceland’s Pirate Party has tripled its seats in the 63-seat parliament, Saturday night’s election results show.
Birgitta Jonsdottir, the leader of the Pirate Party, said she was satisfied with the result. “Whatever happens, we have created a wave of change in the Icelandic society,” she told a cheering crowd early Sunday morning.
The Pirates won 10 seats, more than tripling its three seats in the last election. The Left-Green Party also won 10 seats Saturday.
The left-leaning parties — the Left-Greens, the Pirates and two allies — won a total of 27 seats, just short of the 32 required to command a majority in Iceland’s Parliament, the world’s oldest.
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The governing center-right Progressive party lost more than half of its seats in the election which was triggered by Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson ‘s resignation in April in the wake of the leaked Panama Papers which revealed the offshore assets of high-profile figures.
Current Prime Minister Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson said he would resign on Sunday.
The anti-establishment Pirate Party, which was founded in 2012, had said it could be looking to form a coalition with three left-wing and centrist parties.
The Pirates’ core issues are: direct democracy, freedom of expression, civil rights, net neutrality, and transparency, all set out in a popular, crowdsourced draft of a new national Constitution that the current government has failed to act on. They also seek to re-nationalize the country’s natural resource industries, create new rules for civic governance, and issue a passport to Edward Snowden. After election press conference of @PiratePartyIS . @birgittaj : "We don't step back from anything that we said before the election." pic.twitter.com/hnf8i3cR6J — Fabio Reinhardt (@Enigma424) October 30, 2016
Pirate Party founder and MP Birgitta Jonsdottir said she was “very satisfied” with the result.
“Our internal predictions showed 10 to 15%, so this is at the top of the range. We knew that we would never get 30%,” Ms Jonsdottir told Reuters. “We want to see trickle-down ethics rather than make-believe trickle-down economics,” Ms. Jonsdottir, 49, who is also a former WikiLeaks activist, said
“We are a platform for young people, for progressive people who shape and reshape our society,” Ms. Jonsdottir told Agence France-Presse. “Like Robin Hood, because Robin Hood was a pirate, we want to take the power from the powerful to give it to the people.” Turnout in Iceland was 79.2%! If the US got anywhere near that, this would be a dramatically more progressive country. pic.twitter.com/9uCBBewNz2 — John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) October 30, 2016 TAGS: | 0 |
Liberals are ecstatic that a judge in Hawaii is writing immigration policy for the entire country, and that policy is: We have no right to tell anyone that he can’t live in America. (Unless they’re Christians — those guys we can keep out. )[As subtly alluded to in the subtitle of Adios, America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole, the goal of liberals is for the poor of the world to have a constitutional right to come here whenever they want. I can’t help but notice that the Third Worlders aren’t moving to liberals’ neighborhoods. After nearly 1 million Rwandans were murdered by other Rwandans in 1994, our government asked itself: Why not bring more of this fascinating Rwandan culture to America? Ten thousand of them poured in. So far, nearly 400 have been convicted in the United States of lying on visa applications about their role in the genocide. And that’s why we have to tighten our belt, America! Massive international investigations don’t come cheap. Almost every immigration case is a con, something we find out every time there’s a San Bernardino shooting and half the familyturns out to have scammed our immigration officials. One hundred percent of the “humanitarian” cases are frauds. Earlier this month, Rwanda’s Gervais Ngombwa was convicted for lying on his immigration application by claiming to have been a victim of the 1994 genocide. In fact, he was a perpetrator — even featured in Rwandan newspaper articles as a leader of the genocide. For most of the last two decades, Ngombwa has been living in Iowa with his wife and eight children in a house built by Habitat for Humanity — because no Americans need houses. He came to the authorities’ attention a couple years ago by setting that house on fire after a domestic dispute, then filing a fraudulent $75, 000 insurance claim. Another Rwandan genocidalist living in America was featured in Adios, America: Beatrice Munyenyezi, granted refugee status as an alleged victim of the genocide, even though she, too, had helped orchestrate it. Munyenyezi was living safely living in Kenya when she applied for a refugee visa to America. The welfare is way better here. And, luckily for us, she had a “chronic medical condition” that required constant attention from a New Hampshire hospital. Hesham Mohamed Hadayet arrived in the U. S. on a tourist visa, then immediately applied for “asylum” on the grounds that he was persecuted in Egypt — for being a member of an Islamic terrorist group. Being a member of a noted terrorist group cannot be used to block you from coming to America, thanks to Barney Frank’s 1989 amendment to the Immigration and Naturalization Act, because liberals love this country so very, very much. Being a talented neurosurgeon from Switzerland, however, is disqualifying. Hadayet’s refugee application wasn’t denied until he’d already been living here for three years. When he was called in for a visa overstay hearing, he didn’t show up, and the INS didn’t bother looking for him. After allowing Hadayet to mill about America for another year, our government granted him permanent residency and a work permit. On the Fourth of July following the attack, Hadayet shot up the El Al ticket counter at the Los Angeles International Airport. I guess the Egyptians were right! As bodies were being cleared away from the ticket counter, including Hadayet’s, his wife blamed America for the attack, denying her husband had anything to do with it. “He is a victim of injustice,” she explained. “In America, they hate Islam and Arabs after Sept. 11. ” At least immigrants are grateful. Immigration bureaucrats are so determined to transform America without anyone seeing what they’re doing that the INS initially refused to release Hadayet’s file to congressional investigators, in order to protect his “privacy. ” Of course, anybody could miss Egypt’s designating someone a terrorist. And maybe the INS’s test for Rwandan “refugees” is: Would this person be able to convince Rolling Stone magazine that “Haven Monahan” raped her? How about Rasmea Yousef Odeh? She waltzed into America after having been convicted and imprisoned in Israel for a supermarket bombing that left two Hebrew University students dead, and also for the attempted bombing of the British consulate in Israel. She was released in a prisoner exchange — whereupon Odeh made a beeline for the U. S. True, Odeh wasn’t subjected to the vetting accorded the humanitarian cases, like the Boston Marathon bombers (we were warned by Russia) Hadayet (we were warned by Egypt) or the Blind Sheik (same). But how did our immigration authorities miss a CONVICTION FOR BOMBING IN ISRAEL? Apart from the terrorism, welfare, and fraud, what great things did any of them do for our country? Ngombwa was a custodian at the Cedar Rapids Community School District in Iowa, a job that, evidently, no American would do. Munyenyezi had a job as an advocate for refugees — just one of the many jobs being created by immigrants. Hadayet ran a failing limousine company and was $10, 000 in debt. Odeh was an unemployed waitress and a Palestinian grievance activist. Recently, she’s been heavily involved in male protests, because who doesn’t like incessant Third World unrest? In 1960, 75 percent of the in America were from Europe. Today only about 10 percent are. More than a third of all post — Teddy Kennedy act immigrants — not just the wretched humanitarian cases — don’t even have a high school diploma. What is the affirmative case for this? How is it making America better? Improving the schools? The job market? Crime? The likelihood of terrorism? Can the liberals doing cartwheels over a district judge’s announcement that everyone in the world has a right to come here (except Europeans and Christians) give us the analysis they’re using? Twenty million Third World immigrants give us ( __ ) terrorists, ( __ ) welfare recipients, ( __ ) uncompensated medical costs, ( __ ) discrimination lawsuits, but it’s all worth it because ( _________________ )? | 1 |
A German federal state is considering forbidding the deportation of all migrants who happen to witness, or are victims of, “right wing” crimes when in Germany. [Brandenburg’s state parliament became the first in Germany to offer migrant victims of crime extra rights last year, after a rise in recorded “right wing” attacks. The new measure is being pushed by the Ministry of the Interior. “In addition to consistently preventing and prosecuting criminal offences, special protection of the victims and special care are necessary if the victims are people of foreign origin” proclaimed a decree of the Ministry of the Interior, issued in December 2016. It is argued that new arrivals are uniquely vulnerable, without support networks in Germany, and deportation could make their lives harder. The regional parliament also “decided, among other things, to ask the regional government to make sure that victims of right [wing] violent crimes are offered the possibility of being issued with residence permits and tolerances … ” It is believed this measure could help deter xenophobia and “far right” attacks on migrants, as such activity will only result in more migrants being allowed to stay in Germany. Migrants who commit a crime, or share responsibility for a violent incident when in Germany, will be exempt from the new rule. A resolution issued by the parliament in April 2016, in response to rising numbers of reported “right wing” crime, said “the victims of racist violent acts are migrant women as well as refugees” and argued that “such offences would be particularly difficult if their stay in the Federal Republic is unsecured”. According to the decree, crimes linked to the “right wing” in Brandenburg increased by 23 per cent in 2015 — the year the Chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany’s borders to more than 1 million irregular migrants. According to Die Welt, the populist, migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has been critical of the new proposed policy. | 1 |
in: Government Corruption , Special Interests , US News The cross section of Hillary Clinton voters is a mixture of walking dead zombies, power hungry influence peddlers, money cartel thieves and establishment diehards willing to start a global confrontation to postpone an inevitable economic collapse. As for the first category; welfare recipients, government bootlickers and mentally deranged utopians survive in a subsistence existence or in a fantasy illusion. The corruption purveyors simply want to maintain their elitist system of institutional inequality. As for the tribe of international finance, their objective always remains the same. Pick the next stooge who can be controlled. Finally, for globalist who are frantic to continue their New World Order of worldwide oppression, the elevation of Hillary Clinton to the position of the mad hatter to achieve the mutual assured destruction that these Illuminati’s masters of the universe require to purge the “Little People” from the planet. Any opposition to this band of desperate and deranged desperados is portrayed as racist, xenophobic and defiant of the “Politically Correct” secular humanism culture. Here is the fundamental point of the conflict. The abandonment of the cannons of natural and common law has produced a didactic ineptness that thrusts humanity into a technocratic prison of a meaningless existence. Dante’s Inferno of basic extinction is the ultimate society that a capitulation to the rigged electoral fraud seeks to achieve. The bloody record of Killary Clinton earns her an especially prominent place in hell. Take your choice. She may descend into Level 7 , for “The violent, the assasins, the tyrants, and the war-mongers lament their pitiless mischiefs in the river, while centaurs armed with bows and arrows shoot those who try to escape their punishment” or Level 8- the Malebolge where “The magicians, diviners, fortune tellers, and panderers are all here, as are the thieves”. Of course this allegory of punishment falls on deaf ears for the Clintonistas . For them this blameless role model for social justice warriors can do no wrong. All the evidence and proof in the world is ignored or dismissed when your patron saint of the occult wears pants suits. The reason HRC is better known as Killary has a lot to do with the body count that follows her around. THE CLINTON BODY-COUNT and the ‘CLINTON DEATH LIST’: 33 SPINE-TINGLING CASES lists several of her enemies that dared defy the queen of mean. Now are these suspicious circumstances of such deaths just another right-wing conspiracy to bring down the Arkancide crime syndicate? To an objective investigator, engaging into an in-depth probe might just get one added to this long list. But why would a Clinton supporter care, she is the epitome of the liberated woman and placing her on the throne of feminism is far overdue. Accepting, if not savoring a little reign of terror is a small price to pay as long as the body count does not include your own person. During the French Revolution the sanguinary women, known as Tricoteuse, who sat and knitted while attending public guillotine executions have more in common with Robespierre than Marie Antoinette. These devotee libbers identified with the symbol of equality, while their crowned head of elitism disdainfully admonish the peasants: “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”. Queen Marie Antoinette may not have really said, “Let them eat cake” but the regnant of the House of Clinton demonstrates throughout her entire life revealed her true sentiments; despise and contempt for the “Little People”. The knitting culture of the zombies cult of progressive authoritarianism is at the center of the public psychosis that follows the dictates of Hillary Clinton. Their identity is so caught up in the myth of collectivism that the very spirit of individual liberty is a necessary causality to join the Clinton demon worship. Look to the fictional character of Madame Defarge penned in A Tale of Two Cities for a synopsis of all that is wrong with Killary and her followers. Charles Dickens presents this viewpoint of the quintessential monster. “Her problem, it seems, is that Madame Defarge just doesn’t know where to draw the line. As far as she’s concerned, “justice” for the fate of her family isn’t just that the Marquis gets murdered. Justice should, she thinks, include the “extermination” of all of the Marquis’s family. Given her druthers, Charles, Lucie, and even little Lucie would fall under the sharp blade of La Guillotine. As Madame Defarge exclaims to her husband, “Tell the Wind and the Fire where to stop; not me!” (3.12.36). “It was nothing to her that an innocent man was to die for the sins of his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them. It was nothing to her that his wife was to be made a widow and his daughter an orphan; that was insufficient punishment, because they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as such had no right to live. To appeal to her, was made hopeless by her having no sense of pity, even for herself.” (3.14.33) So it comes as no surprise that when “The meeting between Lucie and Madame Defarge makes this absolutely clear: Lucie falls on her knees, begging for mercy on behalf of her child. Madame Defarge stares at her coldly. She doesn’t even stop knitting.” This example of the dark side of human nature is particularly relevant and applicable when analyzing the gender iniquity of the wicked witch. For femininity enablement to champion such abuse from a coldhearted degenerate is the biggest disappointment of this election cycle. Society should never condone or provide consent for anyone, male or female; who is such a habitual sociopath. The influence hucksters do not pretend to be altruistic . They would support Lucifer if they thought they would gain the riches of this world. As for the money changers, they are already archfiends in the Synagogue of Satan. Lastly, the globalist’s warmongers covet the mass eradication of billions to satisfy their lust for world transcendence. These three factions are the true irredeemables. The masses of the walking dead need to politically repent and seek civic redemption. This objective is not possible by voting for Hillary Clinton. If you do nothing else before the November 8, 2016 election watch the video, A Vote For Hillary is a Vote For World War 3 . No matter your ideological propensities, we all share a mutual objective. Prevent a nuclear war that will destroy all civilized life on the planet. After watching this presentation, every rational person must come to deal with the prospects of putting a psycho in command of the launch codes. Folks; Donald Trump is not the mad man. The schizoid is a systemic and immoral lunatic, who is ready to drop the beheading blade on all of America. Her similarity with Madame Defarge bleeds over to her decadent boosters, who are willing to sacrifice their family, friends and community for the joy of destroying our planet. For all the dissatisfied and frustrated citizens, who understand the colossal stakes of national survival intervene with any fellow acquaintance that has been indoctrinated to the propaganda of Hillaryland . Confront the zombies attitude and appeal to their individual self-interest. Put forth the prospect of not voting for Clinton, even if Trump would not be an option. Citizens will not be the only people voting. Non eligible people are being ushered into a ballot booth with predisposed programming to put Killary into the oval office. The establishment is revealing their real tyranny for any person, who is still alive and has the ability to assess the actual nature of this election. The power structure in ready to collapse and the global elites are prepared to start a world war to keep and protect their feudal system of coercion. Those who might survive will be the special and the anointed. The masses will be served up on the plate of expediency and necessity. Hillary Clinton has always been part of the gang of criminals, protected by the intelligence community, insider politicians and the legal system of corrupt lawyers and judges. Voting for her is a clear validation of pure mental illness. The fact that the discredited FBI is endeavoring to regain their credibility by reopening the criminal investigation into Killary Clinton’s attempt to hide her family’s pay to play scheme to sell out our country is dramatic. This development should provide ample reason to put any notion of voting for the diva of sleaze on hold. Thanks to the Wikileaks release of the illicit emails from the Clinton cabal, only a fool can vote for her. Come to grips with the prospects of knowingly elevating this lifelong criminal to become the commander-and-chief. Genuine national security cannot be scarified to allow a distrustful and compromised agent of foreign interests to become President. Killary is dead meat. She could never gain the confidence of the nation and her continued nihilistic conduct and her kleptocrat criminal violations cannot be tolerated or ignored any longer. If you really want to save the planet, you cannot cast your ballot for this known traitor. | 0 |
More The file photo shows former rebel Renamo fighters in Gorongosa, Mozambique. (Photo by AFP)
Secret peace negotiations between Mozambique's opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama and EU mediators were annulled at the weekend after fighting erupted between the country's army and former rebel fighters, local media say.
The meeting aimed to contribute to talks that began in May to find a solution to the conflict between the government and Dhlakama’s rebel group turned political party Renamo.
"We had agreed (with President Filipe Nyusi) that two mediators would come ... to meet me," the independent weekly Canal de Mocambique quoted Dhlakama as saying.
Dhlakama said he had cancelled the meeting after the army increased its presence near the place of the meeting.
"There was a violent shootout. I even heard explosions from here," said Dhlakama, who has been in hiding in the central Gorongosa mountains since October 2015.
"So I called (chief mediator Mario) Raffaelli to tell him that armed forces had come to ambush me," he added.
Dhlakama quoted the mediator as saying that he was "convinced" that the ruling Frelimo party "wanted to capture me during the meeting."
"It is obvious they have a plan to kill me," he added.
Raffaelli declined to comment on the matter but an EU diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that two mediators had gone to Gorongosa for a meeting with the opposition leader.
The diplomat said Dhlakama had told the mediators to "turn back at the very last moment."
The political situation in Mozambique has been tense for months with Dhlakama refusing to recognize the results of the 2014 elections, where the Frelimo party was declared the winner. The party has been in power since the southern African country’s independence from Portugal in 1975. Dhlakama also threatened to seize power by force in the northern half of the country.
Renamo and the Frelimo-led government had been engaged in a civil war for 16 years that was brought to an end in 1992.
Renamo's armed wing has conducted a string of fatal assaults in central Mozambique in recent years as it seeks to increase its share of power.
On October 19, the warring sides resumed a new round of peace talks despite the killing of an opposition negotiator on October 9.
The mediators continued separate talks on Tuesday with representatives of each side. Loading ... | 0 |
Oregon Ducks men’s basketball star forward Dillon Brooks showed off his acting skills, or lack thereof, Thursday against the Utah Utes. While fouling Utes guard Sedrick Barefield, Brooks flung his body backwards as if he was the one who had been fouled. He then added an extra dive in attempt to sell the flop even more. It was so noticeably bad, Utes fans booed and chanted “flopper” at Brooks for the rest of the game. Brooks scored 19 points to lead his Ducks to a victory. Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
by Pepe Escobar for RT
In yet one more spectacular chapter of his running Marco Polo in reverse saga, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a strategic stop in Sardinia, Italy, on his way to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima, Peru.
Why beautiful Sardinia? Certainly not for a yacht cruise in the Costa Esmeralda. This is all about, once again, the Chinese-driven New Silk Roads.
Huawei is building its largest European HQ in Sardinia. The Chinese want to buy the port of Cagliari. And fabulous pecorino sardo – serious contender for best sheep cheese on the planet – in powdered form, is already feeding millions of Chinese babies.
As a casual extra bonus “Marco Polo” Xi, on Chinese national TV, exhorted his compatriots to invest in a massive tourist invasion of Sardinia. Now this is what a stimulus package in Europe is all about.
Meanwhile, lame duck President Obama, also on his way to APEC, is in Germany passing the caretaker “leader of the free world” baton to a dear-caught-in-the-headlights Angela Merkel. The headlights go by the name Donald Trump.
TPP six feet under
The sight of an ebullient Xi side by side with a dejected Obama against the background of South America’s Pacific coast will be priceless. Those were the days, in the go-go 1990s, when Bill Clinton ruled APEC, imprinting the American agenda. Now Asia-Pacific has to come to grips not only with protectionist Trumponomics, but also the fact that Obama’s cherished TPP – the mercantile arm of the “pivot to Asia” – is, for all practical purposes, dead.
Trump’s transition team, led by Mike Pence, has advised him to bury TPP (grouping the US plus 11 Pacific Rim nations) for good within his first 100 days in office. And the road map goes still further, advising him to drop out of NAFTA as well if a long list of “concessions” is not met.
Dejected US allies – mostly Japan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand – who had all been counting on the ascension of Hillary and the enthronization of TPP, are bound to conduct “secret” meetings in Peru aiming at a revised deal. That would have to assume that Republicans in Capitol Hill might agree with Trump having a go at some sort of renegotiation.
Then there’s the – far-flung – possibility of a cut rate TPP excluding the US. The US and Japan account for roughly 60% of the combined TPP group’s GDP. A TPP without the US is another beast entirely.
And that leads us to Beijing’s subtle counter-offensive; promoting the anti-TPP along the lines of the still-under-discussion Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which groups East Asia. Japan and Malaysia, as well as non-Asian Australia – three key players – all support RCEP.
As much as the Trump-China relationship may eventually land on the proverbial stormy seas, Beijing can now be confident that the China-excluding trade arm of the pivot to Asia is history.
Here’s the official spin, via Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Li Baodong; “China believes we should set a new and very practical working plan, to positively respond to the expectations of industry and sustain momentum and establish a free-trade area in Asia-Pacific at an early date.” No TPP; more like RCEP.
All those resets
A new Asia-Pacific trade deal will definitely represent a reset in US-China relations.
Then there’s that other crucial reset; with Russia.
Lame duck Pentagon head Ashton “Empire of Whining” Carter “advised” Trump and his team not to cooperate with Russia over Syria.
He was solemnly ignored.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Moscow does want cooperation. But he also said Moscow does not intend to “persuade the Pentagon leadership to change something in this regard.”
Diplomatic translation: You – the Obama administration – as far as we’re concerned, are dead.
So there will be a reset. It will be extremely complicated, and on a Trumpian deal-to-deal basis: NATO expansion to Russia’s borders; Crimea; US missile defense; color revolution attempts. It will concern all of Eurasia. And it will start with cooperation in Syria.
Beijing and Moscow have concluded that Trump is not an ideologue (in the neocon mould); he’s a pragmatist. Resets are inevitable. Even surprises.
Trump may be inclined for the US to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), heavily demonized by the moribund Obama administration. His $1 trillion infrastructure plan is something that China has already pulled off – starting already in the late 1990s. Ellen Brown has a top suggestion; print money, and build all the infrastructure you need.
An eventual US-Russia deal in Syria would ultimately benefit – who else – China. Mirroring the original Silk Road, China sees Syria as a crucial node of the New Silk Roads, currently cut off. Picture the day in a not too distant future when Xi will be stopping in Damascus to do trade deals. And to call for a stimulus package of Chinese tourists to visit a restored Palmyra. The Essential Saker: from the trenches of the emerging multipolar world $27.95 | 0 |
UNITED NATIONS — Already furious over President Trump’s visa ban, Iran warned the United States on Tuesday not to escalate tensions over tests of Iranian missiles — tests that his administration’s new United Nations ambassador called “absolutely unacceptable. ” The Iranian warning, made in Tehran by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, came a day after American and Israeli officials accused Iran of having conducted a missile test that they said had violated a United Nations Security Council resolution. The United States called an urgent meeting of the Council on Tuesday to discuss the grievance, making Iran the subject of the first diplomatic skirmish at the United Nations by Nikki R. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who is Mr. Trump’s new ambassador. “The United States is not naïve,” she told reporters after the closed meeting. “We’re not going to stand by. You’re going to see us call them out as we said we would, and you are also going to see us act accordingly. ” Ms. Haley took no questions after her Security Council debut and proposed nothing concrete. The council agreed to refer the issue to its own sanctions committee for further inquiry, which is what it did last year after the last missile test by Iran. Iran has not confirmed that it conducted a test. But Mr. Zarif, at a joint news conference in Tehran with his visiting counterpart from France, Ayrault, said he hoped that the new American administration would not use Iran’s military defenses “as a pretext to create new tensions. ” When the nuclear deal with Iran was reached in 2015 with major powers including the United States, they agreed sanctions on Iran would be relaxed in exchange for its verifiable pledges of peaceful nuclear work. A Security Council resolution “called upon” Iran not to undertake any tests of missiles designed to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Iran contends that it has not violated the resolution and that its missiles are not designed to carry nuclear warheads — which it already has promised not to make as part of the nuclear accord. Nonetheless, the American and Israeli accusations have created what amounts to an early test of the Trump administration’s toughness on Iran. During the presidential election campaign, Mr. Trump denounced the nuclear agreement and sometimes conflated it with the Iranian missile program. Arms control experts have cautioned that Iran’s missile tests are not prohibited under the nuclear accord. Ms. Haley used tough words about such tests but did not say whether her administration regarded them as a violation of the accord. “We have said with this administration that we are not going to show a blind eye to these things that happen,” she said. “We’re going to act. We’re going to be strong. We’re going to be loud and we’re going to do whatever it takes to protect the American people and the people across the world. ” Iran’s United Nations mission added to Mr. Zarif’s warning, issuing a Foreign Ministry statement asserting that Iranian ballistic missiles are “exclusively for legitimate defense. ” The statement said missile tests “are an integral component” of Iran’s and that “we reject politically motivated comments regarding Iran’s missile program. ” Mr. Zarif also used the news conference on Tuesday to emphasize Iran’s anger over the Trump administration’s executive order on Friday suspending refugee admissions and prohibiting the issuance of visas to Iran and six other countries. Mr. Zarif called the order “a shameful act. ” The order has upended the lives of thousands of Iranians, who are by far the largest population affected among the seven countries, which also include Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Iran’s government has pledged a reciprocal response to the order. Mr. Ayrault told reporters at the news conference that France had “expressed its concern” over Iran’s missile tests, according to an account by Agence . Earlier, upon Mr. Ayrault’s arrival in Tehran, Iranian news media quoted him as saying the Trump administration’s order on refugees and visas amounted to “discrimination” and should be revoked. | 1 |
GREENSBORO, N. C. — A rested Hillary Clinton returned to the campaign trail here on Thursday after three days of recovering at home from pneumonia, and vowed a different approach on the final stretch of the campaign, one more focused on her own positive vision for the country, rather than eviscerating her rival. “I want to close my campaign focused on opportunities for kids and fairness for families,” Mrs. Clinton said after her first rally of her renewed campaign. “I want to give Americans something to vote for, not just against. ” The shift in tone felt striking after Mrs. Clinton had spent months tearing down her Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump. But with less than eight weeks until Election Day and tightening polls showing a majority of voters dislike and distrust her, aides said it was imperative that Mrs. Clinton deliver a more uplifting message. “From now until Nov. 8, everywhere I go I’m going to talk about my ideas for our country,” Mrs. Clinton said. Next week, Mrs. Clinton plans speeches to discuss how she would help young people and improve the economy, weaving in her own background as an advocate for children and as a first lady focused on women and families. That focus was central in her address here at the University of North Carolina, where she took the stage to James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good),” seeming rested and revived, eager to tell the audience that her rare couple of days of downtime allowed her to “reconnect with what this whole campaign is about. ” “I’m running for all mothers and fathers trying to stay healthy so they can be there for their kids, but perhaps most of all, I’m running for those kids,” she said. “Standing up for children has been the work of my life, as a lawyer for the Children’s Defense Fund, as first lady of Arkansas, in the White House. ” With just 54 days until the election, “sitting at home was pretty much the last place I wanted to be,” she said. But she called the time off “a gift. ” Her return to the campaign trail comes as a series of polls suggest a closer race. Mrs. Clinton has faced a more disciplined Mr. Trump and scrutiny over her failure to initially disclose her pneumonia to all but a few close aides. A New York News poll released on Thursday found her virtually tied with Mr. Trump among likely voters. Asked about the narrowing gap with Mr. Trump on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton said, “I’ve always said this is going to be a tight race. ” On her campaign plane earlier Thursday, a Mrs. Clinton said she felt fully recovered. “I am doing great,” she said before takeoff in White Plains, N. Y. as she made her way down the aisle. Mrs. Clinton flashed a wide smile at journalists studying her for signs of fatigue or illness and said she was looking forward to getting back into action. And at her rally later, she reflected on her time recuperating. “I talked with some old friends,” she said. “I spent time with our very sweet dogs. The campaign trail doesn’t really encourage reflection, and it’s important to sit with your thoughts every now and then. ” “People like me, we’re lucky,” she added. “When I’m under the weather, I can afford to take a few days off. Millions of Americans can’t. ” Mrs. Clinton offered a rare public glimpse at her humor, poking fun at herself for her plans that span “38 different policy areas. ” She said, “Like a lot of women, I have a tendency to overprepare. ” Mrs. Clinton did not entirely avoid criticizing Mr. Trump, telling reporters after the event, “We don’t need someone who rushes out a plan just weeks before an election after decades of ignoring or putting down working moms. ” It was a reference to the child care proposals that Mr. Trump and his daughter Ivanka unveiled this week. The Clinton campaign’s efforts to put forth a kinder, gentler candidate began last week with a speech that Mrs. Clinton delivered in Kansas City, Mo. on her Methodist faith. But the change in tactics hit an unexpected snag on Sunday when Mrs. Clinton abruptly left a ceremony to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Amid intense scrutiny over Mrs. Clinton’s lack of transparency over her initial diagnosis, her physician, Dr. Lisa R. Bardack, later disclosed that Mrs. Clinton had been told she had pneumonia last Friday and that she had been overheated and dehydrated on Sunday. Rather than making her case to the American people, Mrs. Clinton found herself recovering at home as her campaign confronted a series of distractions and dueling doctors’ notes from her and Mr. Trump. And she had to apologize on Saturday after a backlash over remarks she made at a Friday night in Manhattan in which she said that half of Mr. Trump’s supporters fell into a “basket of deplorables” — bigots, essentially, of one sort or the other. On Thursday, Mrs. Clinton, when pressed about her handling of her diagnosis, appeared eager to put the rough patch behind her. “I didn’t want to stop,” she told reporters. “I didn’t want to quit campaigning. I certainly didn’t want to miss the memorial. ” “It didn’t work out,” she continued. “So I got the antibiotics up and going, got the rest I needed and we’re going on from there. ” | 1 |
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Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani went to Washington D.C. where Planned Parenthood’s leadership met behind closed doors to mount its counter-attack.
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Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick was a member of Congress for 14 years, serving Michigan’s 13th Congressional District. Early in her career, she was selected to serve on the Defense Sub-Committee of Appropriations, and became the first African American to do so. This committee (on paper) has jurisdiction over the budget for the United States Department of Defense, it’s the largest appropriations bill in the United States Federal Government. She was also a board member of the United States Air Force Academy from 2003-2007. She has a long list of very significant accomplishments and achievements while serving as a member of Congress, and you can read about them HERE . Currently, she is the founder of and managing partner of J & A Global Partners, LLC. She had this to say about the UFO/extraterrestrial topic at the citizens hearing for disclosure last year (more information on the hearing later in the article). “We’ve all been in congress long enough to know something about this world and our country and how it operates. Everything that you’ve said here, this congressperson knows it to be true, from people we know and things we’ve done in our own lives. The President and the military, there’s always a friction there, governments or military, who has the power? I think it’s important that we work with the foreign governments, there’s been 10 or 15 already identified who have acknowledged this existence. I want to be a part of that, I want to go and I want to see, so I’m presenting myself for that, I want to do that.” Please start the video at 1:04.21 to see the statement. Below is a statement regarding UFO technology, the propulsion systems they use and how it’s quite clear that they don’t burn any fossil fuels. At the event where these words were given, there was plenty of information presented regarding the involvement of private contractors and industry, and how some of this technology threatens those industries. Related CE Articles: FREE ENERGY “The public private partnerships that I mentioned the other day have to do it. Once upon a time this country had horse and buggies, we moved to cars and now it’s moving to something else. When you talk about oil, gas and coal, yeah that’s the money, and it’s about money and power, but who’s to say that we can’t transition so we faze out of oil, gas and coal. I don’t think the UFO issue is separate from this.” Related CE Article: The Black Budget As far as foreign governments already acknowledging this existence, it’s true. Mexico, for example, has released a number of files documenting various UFO incursions. They’ve even released video footage of military jets scrambled to take a closer look. Below are just a few examples, amongst many: “The nations of the world are currently working together in the investigation of the UFO phenomenon. There is an international exchange of data. Maybe when this group of nations acquires more precise and definite information, it will be possible to release the news to the world” – General Carlos Castro Cavero, Spanish Air Force General (1976) One case in particular I’d like to start out with is the incident over Tehran, Iran. This incident occurred on the night of September 18th, 1976. A four page U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and NSA report describes the encounter in detail. (source) (source) Furthermore, both of the pilots involved discussed the event years later. Both of the F-4 interceptor pilots reported seeing the object visually, it was also tracked on their airborne radar. Both planes experienced critical instrumentation and electronics go offline at a distance of twenty-five miles from the object. Here is an excerpt from the report: “As the F-4 approached a range of 25 nautical miles it lost all instrumentation and communications. When the F-4 turned away from the object and apparently was no longer a threat to it, the aircraft regained all instrumentation and communications. Another brightly lighted object came out of the original object. The second object headed straight toward the F4. ” (source) (source) Perhaps the most dramatic of all were two encounters that year on December 16th by the Chilean Air Force: “Two pilots on a training mission, each flying an F5 fighter aircraft, tracked the object on their airborne radar. It gave a return equal to ten or more aircraft carriers-except this object was in the air, not floating on the water. Each pilot assumed his radar equipment was faulty, until he learned that the other pilot was also getting the same return. Not only this, but ground radar from a nearby airport also picked up the object and confirmed its huge size. The pilots also saw the object with their own eyes. One pilot later said that at a distance of twenty miles, it looked “like a plantain banana swathed in smoke.” The pilots were frightened, having no missiles or weapons. As they approached the massive object, which had been motionless all this while, it took off at an unimaginable speed. All at once, it vanished from the three radar screens.”(1) Related CE Article: This Is What Happens When A UFO Is Tracked On Military Radar About The Hearing From April 29 to May 3, 2013 researchers, activists and military/agency/political witnesses representing ten countries gave testimony in Washington, DC to six former members of the United States Congress about events and evidence indicating an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race and the planet. The Citizen Hearing on Disclosure was a very large event in terms of size, scope and the involvement of former members of the US Congress. With over 30 hours of testimony from 40 witnesses over five days the event was the most concentrated body of evidence regarding the extraterrestrial subject ever presented to the press and the general public at one time. You can find out more about the hearing HERE . Many clips are also available on youtube. We Are Not Alone There is an overwhelming amount of evidence suggesting that we are not alone, and this idea continues to gain more and more popularity as we move towards 2015. For example, NASA and the Library of Congress recently gathered together scientists, theologians and philosophers to discuss how they are going to prepare the world for extraterrestrial contact. You can read more about that HERE . CE has covered this topic for quite sometime now. To see our most recent posts on the UFO/extraterrestrial subject, visit our exopolitics section by clicking HERE . Sources: Most of them are embedded within the article (1) Huneeus, J, Antonio, “A Chilean Overview,” MUFON UFO Journal, 6/86; Huneeus, J. Antonio, “A Historical Survey of UFO Cases in Chilie,” MUFON 1987 International Symposium Proceedings ( MUFON, 1987.) Dolan, Richard. UFOs For the 21st Century Mind: New York: Richard Dolan Press, 2014
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Donald Trump Jr. — a close political adviser to his father, Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee for president — posted on Twitter on Monday night an image of a white bowl full of Skittles. The image came with this text: “If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful? That’s our Syrian refugee problem. ” Mr. Trump, 38, the candidate’s oldest child, then got an earful. Hillary Clinton’s campaign called the post “disgusting. ” A stream of social media users denounced it as both flippant and fearmongering, noting the infinitesimal odds of being killed in a terrorist attack by a refugee. Even the parent company of Skittles weighed in. But Mr. Trump’s comparison of men, women and children displaced by a horrific civil war to a chewy candy was hardly the first time he had been accused of poor taste. If his sister Ivanka Trump has become known for her polish and message discipline, he has distinguished himself by wading frequently into the shadowy waters of white supremacy, incendiary language and conspiracy theories. Other political candidates and officeholders, including Hillary and Bill Clinton, have also had relatives attract unflattering attention. But rarely are those family members so central to a campaign. Donald Jr. Ivanka and Eric Trump — the children from the elder Mr. Trump’s first marriage, to Ivana Trump — all spoke at the Republican National Convention and have been key players in their father’s White House run. This month, Donald Trump Jr. invoked the Holocaust when he argued to a Philadelphia radio station that the news media gave Mrs. Clinton a pass on “every indiscrepancy. ” If Republicans had done what she had, he said, “they’d be warming up the gas chamber right now. ” (He later claimed this was a reference to capital punishment.) He recently shared a Twitter post by Kevin MacDonald, a psychologist who has written about “Jewish influence” for a website devoted to “white identity, interests and culture” and who has testified on behalf of a Holocaust denier. A few days before that, Mr. Trump shared on his Instagram account a picture showing the faces of his father, himself and several Trump supporters with Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character that has been as a mascot by the “” an informal assembly of white nationalists, conservatives and internet provocateurs. “A friend sent me this,” Mr. Trump wrote of the image, adding that he was “honored” to have been included in it. The Trump campaign declined to make Donald Jr. available for comment, instead releasing a statement that echoed his derision of political correctness and applauded him for speaking “the truth. ” His allies and friends came to his defense. “It’s remarkable to me to see the level of outrage about a metaphor used by Don Jr. ,” the Republican nominee, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, said in an interview with NBC News. Todd Silverman, a friend from the University of Pennsylvania, said Mr. Trump “is not . ” Told about the Twitter accounts Mr. Trump had echoed and his “gas chamber” remark, Mr. Silverman, who is Jewish, said only, “That is not consistent with the person I know. ” Mr. Trump and his siblings have appeared at rallies and advised their father, who has generally eschewed traditional political consultants, on strategy. The elder Mr. Trump, a supporter, often mentions that his sons are avid hunters. Donald Jr. and Eric invited journalists to watch them hunt pheasants in Iowa before the caucuses there, and Donald Jr. once posed holding the tail of a dead elephant and other animals killed during an African safari. The siblings have also taken out big game within their father’s campaign: They pushed successfully to oust his onetime campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. Donald Jr. also has a big role in the family business, as an executive vice president whose portfolio includes expanding the company’s real estate, retail, hotel and golf interests. He has also had a taste of reality stardom, appearing as an adviser on “The Celebrity Apprentice,” an iteration of his father’s hit show “The Apprentice. ” He lives with his wife and five children in New York, where he has flirted with the notion of running for mayor. “I like to keep optionality,” he said when asked on CNN if he would consider a run. The Trump campaign has called the scrutiny of his Twitter posts unfair. “We’re truly living in remarkable times,” said Jason Miller, a spokesman for the campaign. “The media’s run out of things to attack Mr. Trump on, and so now they scour the social media accounts of his family looking for things to blow out of proportion. ” Appearing this month on “Good Morning America,” Donald Jr. was asked by George Stephanopoulos about his use of the frog picture, which Mr. Stephanopoulos called a “ symbol of the white supremacist movement. ” “I’ve never even heard of Pepe the Frog,” Mr. Trump said. “I mean, bet you 90 percent of your viewers have never heard of Pepe the Frog. ” He added: “I thought it was a frog in a wig. I thought it was funny. ” Mr. Trump’s father has also employed his Twitter feed in ways many have found offensive. He has reposted messages from white supremacists’ accounts, and in July he posted an image of Mrs. Clinton, a pile of cash and a star in the shape of the Star of David. He quickly deleted the post and said it was not intended to be but he later said it should not have been deleted. Around that time, his son was retweeting social media users. In March, Donald Jr. appeared on a radio show where one of the interviewers had had David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader now running for the Senate in Louisiana, as a guest on his affiliated show. The interviewer, James Edwards, is the host of “The Political Cesspool,” which has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “racist and . ” Mr. Trump’s Skittles post on Monday, which drew almost 24, 000 “likes” by Tuesday afternoon, seemed almost tame by comparison. Its argument is one that many have made, sometimes using MMs, against accepting Syrian refugees, and it is consistent with the Trump campaign’s talking point that Mrs. Clinton’s more inclusive stance toward refugees threatens Americans. In a year marked by anxiety over terrorist attacks, 53 percent of respondents in an Associated Press poll in July thought the United States should allow fewer refugees to enter the country, as opposed to 11 percent who believed more should be allowed in. The Wrigley company, which makes Skittles, was careful not to take a position on the matter, though it was clearly not on board with being seen as a symbol of it. “Skittles are candy,” a company official said in a statement. “Refugees are people. We don’t feel it is an appropriate analogy. ” | 1 |
On Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily, former U. N. Ambassador John Bolton discussed the significance of President Trump’s apparent openness to a “ ” rather than “ ” solution for the conflict. [“For basically the past 70 years, everybody on the Left, around the world, has insisted the only possible solution to the conflict, and specifically with the Palestinians, is the creation of a Palestinian state,” Bolton explained. “We’ve got Israel, and then you have a state called Palestine. Now, I won’t get into the extraordinarily complicated history of this. Some would say that when the British split their mandate and created Jordan, that was a Palestinian state. ” “But leaving all that aside, the fact is there’s nobody on the Palestinian side for the Israelis to negotiate with, other than terrorists like Hamas,” he continued. “There’s no guarantee that a Palestinian authority could keep up a state that wasn’t a home for terrorists. And there’s, frankly, no prospect in the near term that a Palestinian state would do anything for its own people, that it could simply not be economically viable. ” “The idea of a solution comes in a variety of forms, but it absolutely violates the theological doctrine that there must be a Palestinian state. So for Trump to say, ‘I could live with a solution, I could live with a solution’ blows up about 70 years of orthodoxy,” he said. “Of all the disruptive things he’s done in Washington in just one month, that could be the most disruptive of all,” Bolton proclaimed. “It just sends a signal all around the world that really the persecution of Israel that we’ve seen, unfortunately, in many European countries, in the U. N. for sure, is going to meet some fierce resistance from this president. ” SiriusXM host Lee Stranahan wondered if Trump signaled a willingness to accept a solution as a negotiating tactic — a means of prodding the Palestinian leadership into pursuing more realistic goals. “It’s possible,” Bolton replied. “And he did say, ‘Look, I could live with a solution if the parties agree to it.’ That part — that ultimately peace in the Middle East has to come from an agreement between the parties to the conflict it cannot be imposed from the outside — is critical. It happens to be accurate. That’s how Camp David occurred in 1979, the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. It’s how peace was reached between Israel and Jordan. ” “The solution really is an outside imposition on Israel, based in the view of many. So he’s really saying, ‘I’m going to leave it to the parties.’ If they were to come up with a solution — in other words, as you suggest, if the Palestinians got politically accountable, democratically elected leadership, foreswore terrorism, accepted the existence of Israel as a state, and were prepared to negotiate boundaries that would give Israel security — yeah, it’s possible. I think it’s unlikely,” he said. “There’s an old saying: putting the cat among the pigeons. Boy, I’m telling you, the cat’s among the pigeons today,” Bolton remarked. Stranahan asked for Bolton’s grade on the Trump administration’s handling of from Iran and North Korea. “I think when Prime Minister Abe of Japan was with the president, the North Koreans, as you say their act of provocation was firing a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan. Abe said that’s unacceptable. Trump said we’re 100 percent behind our ally Japan. I think he could have gone beyond that. He could have talked about South Korea. He could have talked about the threat to us, frankly,” Bolton said. “But I think it was a pretty clear signal. Secretary of Defense Mattis was just in the region, visited Japan and South Korea, very clear about our opposition to the North Koreans. So the rhetoric, all very good, but we’ve got to get the specifics. We’ve got to pressure China in ways that we haven’t under Obama, even under the prior Bush administration. I think this is a huge threat because it’s not only North Korea’s capacity to deliver a ballistic missile to the West Coast of the United States with a nuclear warhead, possibly in the next few years, according to our own military commanders in South Korea — but they’re cooperation with Iran on missiles and likely on nuclear programs, as well,” he warned. “The first thing that has to be dealt with, with Iran, is this wretched nuclear deal that Obama cut with them,” Bolton argued. “Before he was fired, Mike Flynn went out — I think the president’s instruction — and said he was putting Iran on notice that their ballistic missile testing was unacceptable. We’re going to have to come to a decision very soon, I wish we had done it already, to junk the Obama nuclear deal with Iran, which I don’t think the ayatollahs are complying with to begin with. I’m sure in the conversations between Trump and Netanyahu yesterday, how to deal with Iran was right at the top of the agenda, as it should be. ” Bolton judged that President Trump is “doing fine on national security matters. ” “He’s doing even better than that, frankly, on domestic matters,” he added. “But the Left is engaged in collective hysteria. I had an article in the Daily Telegraph in London on Tuesday — I should have published it in the United States! — to say there’s no basis for this hysteria, let alone the drive by the New York Times and the Washington Post and others to convict half of the administration for cooperating with Russia in hacking the 2016 election, which I think is their objective. ” “There’s no evidence of any of that activity. I think the New York Times admitted as much yesterday,” he pointed out. “But you’ve got people absolutely going over the moon about how dangerous this is. What is the purpose of all this hysteria about the cooperation with Russia, the hysteria about foreign policy, the hysteria about the cabinet nominees. The purpose of the hysteria is just to make people hysterical. It’s like shaking a tree to see what else will fall out of it. ” “They don’t have anything else. They’re not making substantive arguments. They’re looking for embarrassments and mistakes that they can then use to pillory the administration. We’re in a period of maximum turbulence, only one month into the administration. It’s really pretty unprecedented,” he argued. “I think it requires everybody in the White House — just the slogan the British had in World War II: ‘Keep Calm and Carry On.’ That’s what they need to do. Don’t get distracted by all of this. Just keep your eye on the prize and keep moving,” Bolton advised. Stranahan asked Bolton for his assessment of the threat Russia poses to the United States today. “I think you have to look at this not as to whether today the Russians are going to attack us, or even tomorrow, but what the geopolitical risks are from a Russia under an authoritarian state — rebuilding its military, enhancing its ballistic missiles, adding to its arsenal of nuclear weapons, crossing international boundaries in Europe with military force, annexing part of the Ukraine, threatening other Eastern and Central European countries, increasing its influence in the Middle East, and cooperating with China” was Bolton’s highly detailed reply. He gave an example of the latter concern: Russia’s conducting naval maneuvers with China in the Eastern Mediterranean. “Is that behavior threatening to the United States over the long term? Yes,” he said. “The essence of statesmanship is not waiting around for a threat to be existential. It’s preventing the threat from developing to that point early on. So I do think Russia’s a problem, and I think it needs to be dealt with very strongly. ” Bolton said such a strong response would cover “the Ukraine sanctions and what to do about NATO and how to handle Russia in the Middle East because they are very extensively involved in a variety of theaters. ” “The notion that somehow the Russians have become benign is just wrong,” he declared. “They went through a period of democracy in the 1990s. They struggled with it. They’ve moved out of democracy, back into authoritarianism. This is an object lesson that history doesn’t always move in a direction. We’ve got to deal with that. It’s not an ideological threat, but it is a classic nineteenth century power whose interests are widely different from those of the United States. ” Stranahan followed up by asking if the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton State Department had ‘created opportunities for Russia to become even more of a threat.’ “Absolutely,” said Bolton. “They wanted to press the famous ‘reset button.’ They thought the problems with Russia had been caused by the Bush administration. The Russians took advantage of them repeatedly by getting us to dismantle our national missile defense capabilities on Poland and the Czech Republic, agreeing to the New START arms control treaty — a really terrible agreement from the U. S. point of view — and on and on and on. ” “They took advantage of Obama’s weakness. They did it for eight straight years,” he charged. “And the big advantage of the Trump presidency is, I think, he’s demonstrated, just in the first four weeks, is that he projects a strong America. That will get Putin’s attention. We actually have a better opportunity to form a cooperative relationship with Russia, at least on a few issues, because they perceive America now has a strong leader, rather than a weak one like Obama. ” John Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and presides over his own political action committee, BoltonPAC. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 1 |
November 11, 2016 Islamic State executes scores, stockpiles chemicals
Islamic State fighters have executed scores more people around Mosul this week and are reportedly stockpiling ammonia and sulfur in civilian areas, possibly for use as chemical weapons, UN human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said on Friday.A mass grave with over 100 bodies found in the town of Hammam al-Alil was one of several Islamic State killing grounds, Shamdasani said, citing information gleaned from sources on the ground including a man who played dead during a mass execution.
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Immigration officers called the New York City Police Department for backup after a group of local residents surrounded them in an apparent attempt to interfere with the arrest of a criminal alien. [Enforcement Removal Operations (ERO) officers working in Queens arrested Hardat Sampat. The Guyanese national is accused of burglary and illegal after removal, according to a report by the New York Daily News. As officers took the foreign national into custody, his wife began to plead for his arrest, attracting the attention of others nearby. More than 30 local residents surrounded the officers and began shouting at them, attempting to stop the arrest. Officers called New York police officers to assist them controlling the crowd. The sanctuary New York City Department of Correction (NYCDOC) released Sampat from custody despite an immigration detainer being put in place by U. S. Immigration and Customs (ICE) officials, according to an official ICE statement reported by PIX11 News. ICE stated Sampat has multiple pending charges with the Queens County Criminal Court. Sampat had been a passenger in a vehicle when officers began to make the arrest. In an attempt to interfere with the arrest the ICE officers, his wife reportedly moved the car to block traffic, NBC4 New York reported. Responding NYPD officers instructed the driver to move the vehicle and clear the roadway. The driver complied with the police order. ICE officers quickly left the scene with Sampat in custody. Officers transported the Guyanese national to the Manhattan Federal Court for processing, the New York Daily News reported. He is expected to be held at an immigration detention facility in New Jersey, relatives told reporters. Reports indicate Sampat allegedly burglarized the home of a woman he knew on April 9. He allegedly broke into her home a second time and vandalized the home with white spray paint. ICE officers arrested him as he attempted to go to a court hearing on the cases. Since a February announcement by New York City Police Commissioner James O’Neill that his officers would no longer cooperate with ICE officials attempt to arrest criminal aliens, the agency has ignored more than 130 immigration detainers and released the criminals onto the streets of New York. This number is as of the April 7 ICE Declined Detainer Outcome Report. The report has since been paused pending adjustments to the data gathering methodology. Late last week, ICE officers arrested a registered sex offender the NYCDOC released, despite an immigration detainer issued by ERO officers, Breitbart Texas reported. “It is unfortunate that we continue to arrest convicted criminals off the street simply because the city refuses to honor detainers and releases them back into our communities,” New York ERO Field Officer Director Thomas R. Decker said. “Each time an officer is forced to pick up someone who could have safely been turned over it puts the officers’ safety, as well as the safety of the neighborhoods we serve, at risk. ICE strives to strengthen its relationships with local law enforcement entities in the interest of public safety. ” Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook. | 1 |
Our new country: Women and minorities hit hardest Ann Coulter: Dems import 'cultures where rape, incest and spousal murder are acceptable' Published: 51 mins ago × Receive Ann Coulter's alerts in your email
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Every ethnic group except whites bloc-votes for the Democrats. Coincidentally, the Democrats have brought in another 30 to 40 million nonwhite immigrants in the last few decades.
It doesn’t help that white voters can’t agree on what constitutes an acceptable candidate. In 2012, working-class whites sat out the election, rather than vote for the out-of-touch rich guy they saw in Mitt Romney. This year, the out-of-touch rich guys say they’ll vote for Hillary because Trump is tacky and gross.
The sad irony is that the only people who will be better off in our new country are mostly white plutocrats – the top .01 percent. The rest of us will be their servants.
The people who will be worse off are everybody else – the working class, the middle class (who will soon be working class) and, most of all, women, minorities, children, the elderly, the weakest and most vulnerable members of society.
Look to Mexico for your future – or any Third World country. Or to Univision’s Jorge Ramos. The ruling class in Mexico is composed of European-looking, white descendants of Spanish conquistadors who raped the native population, giving them only their Spanish names in return. (British settlers in America brought women with them.)
Explaining Latino culture’s acceptance of incest and child rape, criminal justice researcher Shana Maier writes in a book about rape that “the male is the head of the household, and women are subordinate to men. … Hispanics and Latinos are more likely than other racial/ethnic groups to blame the victim. The victim, not the perpetrator, is blamed for bringing dishonor to the family.”
One American detective said that, today, police are being taught to keep an “open mind” about child rape because “it’s a cultural thing.”
When it comes to multiculturalism, you can’t say, We love the empanadas – but we don’t want 40-year-old men raping their nieces . This isn’t an a la carte menu. We get ALL the attributes of the cultures we’re importing.
As described in excruciating detail in “Adios, America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole,” our media already have a totally “open mind” about incest and child rape – and murder! – when it’s committed by immigrants.
Thus, for example, where I would have chosen the headline: “Illegal Alien Convicted of Incest, Child Rape,” the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press went with the less catchy: “Man guilty in case of human smuggling.”
And where I would have used the headline, “Illegal Alien Repeatedly Raped 14-year-old Girl at Job Site,” the Commercial Dispatch in Columbus, Mississippi, went with the more subtle, “Columbus resident charged with molestation.”
Immigrant women arrive in America, thrilled to have escaped cultures where rape, incest and spousal murder are acceptable, only to discover that those crimes are perfectly acceptable in this country, too – provided the perpetrator is from the very culture they fled.
In 1989, Brooklyn Judge Edward Pincus sentenced a Chinese immigrant to probation for a premeditated murder of his wife, on the grounds that the murder flowed from “traditional Chinese values about adultery and loss of manhood.” The female head of the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Margaret Fung, applauded the ruling.
Somewhat amazingly, newspapers are more likely to report black crime than immigrant crime. (Anything to keep the Third World immigration flowing!)
In 2013, a 13-year-old girl was gang-raped by about a dozen illegal aliens, who cheered and videoed the attack.
When the news first broke, Shaneequa Jupiter, who lived with her children in the apartment building where the gang rape occurred, complained that neither the police nor apartment security had warned residents about the danger. (That could reflect poorly on illegal immigrants!)
Even if Shaneequa had scoured the headlines, she would have been on the lookout for “Austin men.” Or “Two.”
Compare these headlines about the same brutal sexual attack:
– “Two held in attack on child” – Austin American-Statesman (Texas), July 19, 2013
– “Two Mexicans placed on immigration detainers as third man is arrested over five-day gang rape hell of teenage runaway during which she smoked crack” – Daily Mail Online, July 24, 2013
Needless to say, the New York Times did not cover the Mexican illegal-alien gang rape at all.
The ultimate primer on the “blue-collar billionaire”— order Ann Coulter’s book “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!”
By contrast, the Times, and every major American news outlet, extensively covered another gang rape – of a girl about the same age, at about the same time, in about the same place.
The second case only was “rape” because of the girl’s young age – she was 11. But she was an enthusiastic participant, sneaking out of her house at night to meet the men for sex.
Those rapes, just a few years earlier, got a full-court press. The defendants were African-American. The victim was Mexican.
That time, there were articles in the Huffington Post, GQ, Slate, Salon and Mother Jones. It even made the New York Times, despite no connection to a college fraternity or lacrosse team.
Similarly, within a few months of one another in 2013, two men were arrested in separate child rape cases in Decatur, Alabama, for assaults on 9-year-old girls. One suspect was African-American, the other was a Hispanic immigrant. Only one made the newspaper. Guess which one?
When excitable Muslims raped American reporter Lara Logan in Tahrir Square (another one of Hillary’s foreign policy successes!), journalists immediately set to work to find the shortest line from the Muslim rapists to white American men.
Conclusion: The real problem was the female reporters’ American bosses and colleagues. (Definitely not Islam!)
Sampling of New York Times commentary on Logan’s rape:
– “Why We Need Women in War Zones” (“I would never tell my bosses for fear that they might keep me at home the next time something major happened. … This attack also had nothing to do with Islam.”)
– “Reporting While Female” (“Women reporters face another set of challenges. We are often harassed in ways that male colleagues are not. … In my experience, Muslim countries were not the worst places for sexual harassment.”)
Perhaps American men could do better, but, as American women may soon discover: They never had it so good.
Manifestly, the purpose of our immigration policies is not to help Americans – or the immigrants who wanted to live in a place like America. They are designed to funnel welfare-dependent voters to the Democrats and cheap labor to the rich. (The Chinese immigrant who got probation for murdering his wife, for example, came to America based on his specialized skill of being a dishwasher.)
Our country will be Zimbabwe, but – if all goes according to the Democrats’ plan – they’ll get to be Mugabe!
That’s Hillary’s dream. If she wins, Joe Sobran’s parody of the typical New York Times headline (about anything) will come true: “Women and Minorities Hit Hardest.” Receive Ann Coulter's weekly commentaries in your email BONUS: By signing up for Ann Coulter’s alerts, you will also be signed up for news and special offers from WND via email. Name * | 0 |
Shapiro Eviscerates Raucous Protesters At University Of Wisconsin By: Hank Berrien November 16, 2016
Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro spoke at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Wednesday night, and amid raucous leftist protesters who consistently tried to interrupt him and even blocked him from being seen by the audience by creating a human wall in front of him, found a way to respond with hilarious repartee that left the audience howling and the protesters eventually filing meekly out of the auditorium.
After the ovation he received on entering, Shapiro quipped, “Hey look at this. A campus that doesn’t actually try to arrest me when I come.” He continued, “Before I begin, I did come bearing gifts for the social justice warriors in this room. I hear you’ve started wearing these safety pins around because you want to show your fellow college students how you’re not one of these awful, terrible Trump people, that you’re sensitive, and that you want to signal your virtue, so I’ve brought along these safety pins, (holding up safety pins) and I also brought you something to wear them with – this diaper."
Shapiro then held up a diaper, prompting huge laughs from the audience.
When a protester yelled at Shapiro that he should be “wearing a swastika,” Shapiro held out his yarmulke, then fired back, “In case you hadn’t noticed, the folks with the swastikas aren’t too nice to my type.”
Shapiro continued, “Stop being self-indulgent children; stop pretending that everybody who voted for Trump is a vicious racist; it’s your right to protest, of course, but you just make yourself look like an idiot when you cry over a duly-held election … Donald Trump doesn’t care about your protest. Donald Trump is sitting somewhere in Trump Tower eating a steak and bathing in your salty, salty tears.”
Referring to the attempt by leftists to prevent people who weren’t university students from attending Shapiro’s lecture, Shapiro opined: “I hear that a lot of folks at this publicly-funded university want this campus to become a sanctuary campus for illegal immigrants. I do have a quick question: if this campus can be a sanctuary for people in the country illegally, why are so many people trying to ban American citizens from this community from coming to this lecture? And by the way, I’m aware of this private Facebook page titled ‘F(***) White Supremacy: Interrupting Ben Shapiro.' With all due respect, ‘F’ you right back, gang.”
After the applause subsided and Shapiro joked about how both Black Lives Mater and the KKK target him, the real fun began. Protesters stood up, chanting, “Shame” over and over again.
Shapiro quipped, “Wow, it’s like Game of Thrones . Should I get undressed and walk down the aisle?”
The bulk of the crowd started booing the protesters. Shapiro addressed the protesters, saying, “I’m happy to talk with you,” but they responded by screaming “safety” over and over. Shapiro joked, “Did somebody fart?” The crowd responded to the protesters by chanting, “USA.”
Shapiro replied, “I tell you try not to be children; the first thing you do is start screaming like my two-year-old.” He added, “You see, this is how conservatives actually treat people; you stand up and you interrupt and you shout ‘Safety,” and you’re perfectly safe. Look at that. It’s amazing.” That provoked sustained applause.
When the protesters started screaming “Shame” again, Shapiro eviscerated them, pointing out, “If you’re going to pick a chant like ‘Shame,’ watch Game of Thrones first. The bad guys shout ‘Shame.’” The audience loved that line. On a roll, Shapiro continued, “You’re not changing anybody’s mind, All you’re showing everybody is that your collective IQ, if it were channeled into electricity, night be able to toast a piece of bread lightly.”
He continued, “Okay, can we talk now, or are you going to keep shouting? Now’s your chance to get it out. Let’s hear your feelings. C’mon. Just go for it. Or is it going to be like every thirty seconds; like an annoying microwave timer?”
When the protesters resumed chanting, Shapiro responded, “If you guys want to talk, we can talk, If you want to shout, get the hell out.” More applause.
Shapiro fired, “For God's sake, at least wait until I say something that offends you before getting offended."
Shapiro returned to deconstructing the term “social justice.” When the protesters started again, a woman who runs a soup kitchen stood up, and admonished the protesters that she had driven for ten hours that day, and that they should “shut freaking up and listen to the man speak.” That prompted a standing ovation from the crowd and Shapiro. too. He added, “See, that’s what a decent, hard-working person sounds like as opposed to a loser student here on the public dime, presumably.”
Shapiro returned to his speech: “Racial diversity doesn’t mean anything; decency means everything … Diversity isn’t our strength; decency is our strength.” He turned to the protesters: Remember that? Decency.”
The protesters screamed back, “Shame!” Shapiro fired back, “Decency!” The protesters chanted “Shame” but the crowd soon joined Shapiro in chanting “Decency,” shutting the protesters up.
As Shapiro spoke of the falsity of “white privilege,” the protesters formed a line in front of Shapiro, prompting him to quip, “If you guys are all going to come up here, can we all just have circle time or something?”
The protesters chanted “Safety” for a minute and a half, but then the crowd started yelling back, “Free speech matters.” Shapiro turned to the blackboard behind him and wrote in capital letters, “MORONS” That again prompted cheering.
One member of the audience yelled to the protesters, “At least tell us what you want, or otherwise, just get out!” That brought a sustained ovation.
After one protester tried to deliver a whiny monologue, the protesters started shouting “Safety” again, then filed out, yelling “F*** white supremacy” while flipping off Shapiro and the entire audience. That prompted the crowd to sing, “Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, hey, hey, good-bye.” It also promoted this from Shapiro:
Even after leaving the lecture hall, protestors continued to pound on the door.
After Shapiro explained why the protesters had not been arrested, as the university stated that it gave the protesters time to protest at the front of the stage, or otherwise it would have to shut down the entire event, he continued, “All I can wonder is if the administration would allow the same sort of privilege for any sort of conservative who decided to do this at a leftist event.”
Even after leaving the lecture hall, protestors continued to pound on the door, prompting Shapiro to quip, “Doesn’t this school give homework? Does anybody have a job around here? I guess when you’re majoring in gender and diversity studies you have a lot of time on your hands.”
Shapiro noted that he had engaged in a back-and-forth with one of the protesters, who accused him of being a white supremacist. When he asked her why she thought so, she replied that she got that impression from his image. He fired back, “Really? Was it the yarmulke that did it for you?”
He took another shot at the protesters during the speech, noting that people were born unequal, and adding, “Some people us are born rich; some of us are born poor; some of us are born smart; some of us are born protesters.”
The rest of the speech was vintage Shapiro, as was the Q&A afterward. Even the chalk was impressive:
Went back to the lecture hall and grabbed the EXACT piece of chalk @benshapiro used to write MORONS! #FactsNotFeelings #onlyatYAF pic.twitter.com/W0Ch06SaGR — Japheth Patterson (@japhood) November 17, 2016
Video of entire event below:
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PRIPYAT, Ukraine — The road through the forest, abandoned, is at times barely discernible, covered with the debris of fallen tree limbs, vines, leaves and moss pushing up through cracks in the crumbling asphalt. The moss is best avoided, says our guide, Artur N. Kalmykov, a young Ukrainian who has made a hobby of coming here to the exclusion zone surrounding the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, set aside in perpetuity after the catastrophe in 1986. It can be radioactive, having carried buried radiation to the surface as it grew. Above all, he says, watch out for windblown dust, which could well be laced with deadly plutonium. Despite the dangers — which are actually minimal these days, except when the wind is howling — and the risk of arrest, Mr. Kalmykov is at home here. “In Kiev my head is full,” he said. “Here I can relax. I could hang out in Kiev. But this is more interesting. ” What Mr. Kalmykov and fellow unofficial explorers of the Chernobyl zone, members of a peculiar subculture who are in their 20s and call themselves “the stalkers,” have found is more interesting still: vast tracts of in the ostensibly protected forest. Mr. Kalmykov, a computer programmer who discovered the areas while exploring the zone on his weekends, took his findings to Stop Corruption, one of the civil society groups that popped up in Ukraine after the Maidan revolution two years ago, events supposed to usher in a new era of clean government in Ukraine. And yet on Ukraine’s dirtiest patch of land, Stop Corruption says, based on the stalkers’ evidence, the dealings of the bureaucrats who manage the area are flourishing as always. Distracted by the 30th anniversary of the catastrophe on April 26 and the general turmoil in Ukraine, the group says, the Exclusion Zone Management Agency has turned a blind eye to the Chernobyl logging. The Zone of Alienation, as it is also known, is a rough circle with an radius, fenced off with barbed wire. Access is strictly controlled, so that delegations and guided tours typically travel a few fixed routes. Outside those areas frequented by tourists, Stop Corruption said, under the guise of salvage logging of trees killed in wildfires, healthy pines are being felled in great numbers for sale in Ukraine and Romania, from where the timber may be resold throughout Europe. “We thought these incidents were isolated and unimportant, but when we started to investigate, it turned out the problem was gigantic and systemic,” said Vadim V. Vnukov, the group’s head lawyer. Lumber from Chernobyl, while not exactly glowing in the dark, would pose risks to anybody living in a house made from it, Mr. Vnukov said. “There is a clear health risk here,” he said. “We ran into a system worked out over the decades, and under any government, this system of corruption was preserved. ” Today, scientists say, the average radiation level in the zone is about a quarter as harmful to human health as it was in the immediate aftermath of the explosion and fire. A typical reading in the zone is about 100 microsieverts per hour, or comparable to the exposure that an airplane passenger might receive on a flight. But harmful risks lurk. Placed near the moss, for example, a Geiger counter hummed like an electric shaver. “It’s not as dangerous as it seems,” Mr. Kalmykov said with a shrug. “Some people are just radiophobic. ” In an interview in his offices in Kiev, Vitalii V. Petruk, the head of the Exclusion Zone Management Agency, denied that any illegal logging had taken place since he assumed the job in September. But since the revolution, he is the fifth director of the zone, which like the rest of Ukraine has been in a state of flux. Loggers fell burned trees after forest fires, to avoid pest outbreaks, and cut firebreaks and routes for electrical wires, he said. Since 2004, it has been legal in Ukraine to sell timber from the zone if it passes radiological controls. Mr. Petruk is an unabashed advocate of increased commercial activity in the zone, including logging. “How do we turn our shame into our advantage?” he said. His answer is “Zone of Change,” a proposal by his agency for increased logging to feed a steam power plant at the site that he noted would reduce dependence on Russian natural gas. Into this landscape recently, one careful step after another, Mr. Kalmykov pushed deeper into a thicket of vines and fallen branches. (To show reporters sites where he suspected illegal logging activity, Mr. Kalmykov and all in his party obtained permits to visit the zone, in contrast to his usual practice of slipping in to explore surreptitiously.) At an abandoned house on the roadside, with the rhythmic chirp of a Geiger counter in the background and moldy children’s clothes lying about, an eerie sense arose of a sneak preview of the end of the world. The concept of the exclusion zone, an important experiment for the nuclear industry, was to limit, through isolation, the lethality of an accident at the nuclear plant. (Fewer than 200 people stayed here after the evacuation of more than 100, 000.) Radioactive elements degrade at predictable intervals, called that can vary enormously. Particles left in the soil while their tick past harm nobody the average particle at Chernobyl is about 30 years. But logging in a postapocalyptic forest would pose a number of health concerns. Trees, like moss, absorb radiation from the subsoil. Also, churns up soil, stirring radioactive dust and accelerating erosion. At one point along the road, the forest opens to a area of several acres, sliced into healthy pine groves, though near a burned patch. “Look, they didn’t touch the dead trees,” Mr. Kalmykov said, pointing to the still standing, blackened pines. “During the change in government, nobody was paying attention, and people didn’t miss this moment” to make some money, he said of the loggers. “Everybody knows. The necessary people get the necessary money. ” A logger, his sweaty face flecked with dust and sawdust, said he simply cut the trees marked by his bosses at the exclusion zone administration. “I don’t decide,” said the man, who declined to give his name. “They say we don’t need the burned logs. ” Asked if he worried about radiation, he said he did not, as by now the radiation had settled deep into the soil. “We stamp it down so it does not come out,” he said, patting the ground with his boot. “Want to buy some wood?” | 1 |
ROMA, Texas — Four family members who ran one of the largest cartel smuggling operations in south Texas had their life in prison sentences commuted and will likely be returning to this border city from where they ran their criminal empire. One of the main destinations that the criminal organizations delivered drugs to was Chicago, Illinois. [This week, outgoing President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 209 convicted criminals and pardoned 64 others. The majority of the convictions were from drug trafficking or production offenses. Four of those convicted criminals who had been sentenced to life in prison will be released by May 17. They ran a criminal organization made up of close to 80 men and women who worked with Mexico’s Gulf Cartel to move between 100, 000 to almost 750, 000 pounds of marijuana into the U. S. during a period. The drugs were moved into Houston and then distributed to Atlanta, Chicago, and other major metropolitan areas. According to court records obtained by Breitbart Texas, brothers Cesar Moreno Sr. Eduardo Moreno, Lazaro Moreno, and Luis Moreno along with other relatives and friends had been at the helm of a drug distribution operation based out of the border city of Roma, Texas. The area has long been one of he main distribution lines used by Mexico’s Gulf Cartel to get large quantities of marijuana into the U. S. due to the remoteness of the area, lacking physical barriers, and police resources — not to mention the complicity of various law enforcement officials. In the case of the Moreno brothers, the groups invested heavily in real state and the used car business to launder millions in drug proceeds. Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning 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. | 1 |
Videos Amnesty Intl: Western Backed Syrian Rebels Must End Unlawful Attacks In W. Aleppo Up to 48 people including 17 children have been killed in civilian areas of government-controlled western Aleppo since the offensive began, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. Be Sociable, Share! A screenshot showing Syrian rebels using an American made BGM-71 TOW missile.
The fierce offensive on western Aleppo city launched by armed opposition groups on 28 October has been marked by indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas that cannot be justified as a way to break the relentless siege that has sparked a humanitarian crisis in eastern Aleppo, Amnesty International said.
Up to 48 people including 17 children have been killed in civilian areas of government-controlled western Aleppo since the offensive began, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. The goal of breaking the siege on eastern Aleppo does not give armed opposition groups a license to flout the rules of international humanitarian law by bombarding civilian neighbourhoods in government-held areas without distinction Samah Hadid, Deputy Director of Campaigns at Amnesty International’s Beirut regional office
“Armed opposition groups have displayed a shocking disregard for civilian lives. Video footage shows they have used imprecise explosive weapons including mortars and Katyusha rockets, whose use in the vicinity of densely populated civilian areas flagrantly violates international humanitarian law. Armed opposition groups must end all attacks that fail to distinguish between military targets and civilians.”
On 30 October an alleged “toxic gas” attack took place in al-Hamdaniyeh and al-Assad areas of western Aleppo causing dozens of injuries according to the Syrian state news agency SANA.
“Chemical weapons are internationally banned and their use is a war crime. Such weapons cause immense suffering and health damage. Their use can never be justified and regardless of who is behind this attack all parties to the conflict must halt the use of all prohibited weapons of war,” said Samah Hadid. Be Sociable, Share! | 0 |
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The Democratic Coalition Against Trump filed a complaint Friday against FBI Director James Comey with the Department of Justice, alleging interference with the 2016 presidential election.
The coalition, an arm of the Keep America Great PAC, filed the complaint with the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility, after Comey announced to Congress that because of new emails discovered on Huma Abedin’s electronic devices relevant to the Hillary Clinton email investigation, the agency would review those emails and assess their relevancy to the investigation.
For Scott Dworkin, senior advisor to the Democratic Coalition Against Trump, the announcement is evidence that Comey, a registered Republican, is attempting to undermine Clinton’s chances of taking the White House.
“It is absolutely absurd that FBI Director Comey would support Donald Trump like this with only 11 days to go before the election,” Dworkin said in a statement. “It is an obvious attack from a lifelong Republican who used to serve in the Bush White House, just to undermine her campaign. Comey needs to focus on stopping terrorists and protecting America, not investigating our soon to be President-Elect Hillary Clinton.”
The Democratic Coalition Against Trump has filed numerous complaints with federal agencies about figures connected to the 2016 election.
On Monday, the group filed a complaint with the FBI against Donald Trump himself for allegedly violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In other words, the group thinks Trump has called for voter intimidation and suppression on a national level.
Earlier in October, the group also filed a complaint against the Trump campaign and political strategist Roger Stone, saying both were involved with WikiLeaks and also a “foreign government” behind the hacks that lead to the release of emails from John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chair.
Podesta referred to the FBI’s Friday announcement as “extraordinary.”
“It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election,” Podesta said . “The Director owes it to the American people to immediately provide the full details of what he is now examining.”
In July, after the FBI came to a conclusion on Clinton’s private email server and said that no reasonable prosecutor would move forward with criminal charges, the Clinton campaign praised Comey as a “well-respected Republican who served as George W. Bush’s Deputy Attorney General.”
Brian Fallon, press secretary for the Clinton campaign, shamed Republicans in September , particularly GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, for “trying to bully the FBI into serving partisan interests.”
Article posted with permission from The Daily Caller Foundation . Don't forget to Like Freedom Outpost on Facebook , Google Plus , & Twitter . You can also get Freedom Outpost delivered to your Amazon Kindle device here . shares | 0 |
Canada’s Foreign Policy and Academia Canada’s Foreign Policy and Academia By 0 27
Should social scientists seek the truth regardless of whose toes may be stepped on and cite, up front, possible conflicts of interest regarding matters they study?
All academic disciplines claim independence of thought and transparency are principles that guide good research. So, what to make of a Canadian foreign policy discussion dominated by individuals with ties to the decision-making structures they study?
The highly regarded Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) is a prime example. The oldest global affairs school in Canada, Carleton University’s graduate program was established in 1965 with $400,000 ($5 million today) from long-time Senator Norman Paterson, a grain-shipping magnate. During World War II his company provided vessels for Atlantic convoys and Paterson was a major player within the Liberal Party.
Twice under-secretary of External Affairs and leading architect of post-World War II Canadian foreign policy, Norman Robertson was the school’s first director. Unhappy in a diplomatic post in Geneva, External Affairs colleagues secured Robertson the NPSIA position. During his time at Carleton, Robertson continued to be paid as a “Senior Advisor” to External Affairs, overseeing a major review of a department concerned about growing criticism that it was acting as a U.S. “errand boy” in Vietnam.
The initial chair of Strategic Studies at NPSIA was a former deputy minister of Veterans Affairs and Canada’s principal… | 0 |
Pentagon Downplays Situation as Losses Mount
The Pentagon’s narrative on the Afghan War tries to present the territory changes as brief, minor, and limited, repeatedly touting the fact that the Afghan government still controls the majority of the country. It’s a shrinking majority, however, as a new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) notes.
SIGAR noted that the data from the Pentagon showed that the Afghan government actually controlled only about 63.4 percent of the country as of the end of August, the result of steady losses throughout the summer. All indications are that the losses have continued over the past two months as well.
If these numbers sound worse than those coming from the Pentagon, it’s because they are. Officially, the Pentagon’s percentages are based on “control or influence” of population, not physical territory held. These numbers tend to be higher, because most of the major cities are still controlled by the government, even if many are surrounded.
Pentagon officials have done this not only to have bigger percentages, but to downplay the losses, arguing that they are mostly in rural areas. While this is true, the reality is that Afghanistan is a heavily rural country, and strongly dependent on farming. The Taliban has aimed in many cases specifically at the farmlands, particularly in opium-producing regions, because those are so much more economically valuable for them.
The SIGAR report also cited major casualties among Afghan security forces as a matter of concern. Again, this was in stark contrast to Pentagon statements, which have insisted that morale among the still surviving troops remains strong | 0 |
Support Us Lindsay Lohan’s Strange Accent: Another Telling Sign of a Mind Control Slave 0
A video of Lindsay Lohan giving an interview with a strange accent has lead to wild speculation from fans and media. However, to those in the know, this is yet another telling symptom of MK programming, from someone who has already displayed many other symptoms.
There’s a difference between speaking with a funny accent as a joke and speaking with a completely different speech pattern in all seriousness. One is the result of goofing around and the other is the result an alter-persona.
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Lohan’s new accent was noticed while giving an interview to a reporter in Greece. Here’s the video.
Lindsay, who is mainly based in England and Greece and was recently in a relationship with a Russian billionaire (MK handler?), was explaining to the journalist about why she has opened up a Nightclub in Athens called Lohan. After a Daily Mail article on the subject, Lohan “joked” and gave her accent (and alter-persona) a name: Lilohan.
As stated in previous articles, victims of Mind Control are programmed with alter personas that have their own history, identity and accent (read my full article on Monarch Programming here). The programming is so pervasive that the same person can speak different languages with different accents effortlessly – while the core persona cannot. For this reason, the spontaneous yet constant usage of a different accent is one of the main tell-tale signs of MK programming. And Lindsay Lohan has been identified her, on Vigilant Citizen, to be a Beta Kitten slave a long time ago. The entertainment industry has been very keen on proving this fact through symbolic pictures. Lindsay posed countless times as Marilyn Monroe who is the prototype of Beta Kitten Programming. In this photo by Tyler Shields, Lindsay lays on a bed while men get undressed. One cannot come up with a more graphic way of portraying the life of Beta Kitten slaves. Industry slaves must work with creepy photographers such as Terry Richardson. Bonus industry slave sign: One Eye sign. In another shoot with Terry Richardson, Lohan appears genuinely traumatized.
In past years, Lohan has floated in and out of rehab (aka re-programming) while increasingly appearing to be “out of it”.
Another famous person who has been displaying the same Beta Kitten symptoms is Britney Spears. Here’s an article about her speaking with a different accent in 2008 – around the time of her infamous head-shaving meltdown. Britney Spears Lapses Into a British Accent
Britney Spears has a new accessory to go with her pink wig: a British accent.
In the last several weeks, Spears, 26, has been videotaped numerous times trading her Louisiana twang for U.K. inflections.
“She had the English accent thing going the whole time” while shopping at Kitson last Thursday, according to a source. “It didn’t stop.”
Even when angry, the accent appears. On an L.A. shopping trip to Macy’s on Jan. 13, she screamed at the paparazzi, “Get out of my G—— face!” – in a British accent.
So is it all in fun or has she flipped her pink wig?
“When someone has dissociative identity disorder” – formerly known as multiple personality disorder – “each identity is split off from the other,” says L.A. psychologist Renee A. Cohen, who is not treating Spears. “Each identity would have its own name, memories, behavioral traits and emotional characteristics.”
Cohen says the critical question is: “When Britney uses the British accent, or appears to take on another identity, does she know she’s Britney Spears?”
“Otherwise, she could simply be behaving this way for attention, for sympathy, or any other reason,” adds Cohen. “It’s foolish to attempt to diagnose her without a formal evaluation.”
One possible influence could be Spears’s maternal grandmother, Lilian Bridges, who was originally from England.
Also, Spears’s new beau, photographer Adnan Ghalib, grew up in Birmingham, England.
According to paparazzi who trail the singer around the clock, one thing is for sure: the pink wig means something’s changing.
“When she puts on the pink wig, you just know something crazy is about to happen,” said one paparazzo.
– Source: People.com
While media is wondering what kind of accent Lindsay was speaking with (sounds Greek to me), we should rather wonder: Why would a 30 year old woman speak, in all seriousness, with a strange accent and a completely different speech pattern? Most of the time it is the result of a multiple-personality disorder (MPD) – which is a symptom of Monarch mind control. It is there, right in our face, but very few are actually seeing it. | 0 |
It’s almost a coronation: Every year, the Sundance Film Festival anoints a darling or two — indie who are poised to break out, usually with their first feature. (Geremy Jasper was one at the festival that just ended in Park City, Utah.) These lucky few tend to go on to or critical success, maybe even the Oscars. Think Damien Chazelle, whose “Whiplash” was the toast of the 2014 season his “La La Land” is now the . But what about the festival filmmakers whose works are lauded and distributed, but whose career paths are less charmed? After they’ve packed up their snow gear, there are tantalizing moments and deep frustrations. Many go on what’s known as the “water bottle tour,” meetings with development executives and agents in Los Angeles (where you’re more likely to leave with a bottle of Evian than a production deal). Most don’t have new scripts ready, a huge impediment, said the producer Anne Carey. Then they struggle against the industry’s narrow expectations. “Any person coming out of Sundance is in a box, particularly if you only have one film under your name,” said the filmmaker Justin Simien. “And if you happen to be in the black box or the gay box or the woman box, I think you’re in a smaller box. ” Meanwhile, the clock is ticking: “You have a whole year, and then there’s a whole new batch of kids at Sundance, and then it’s their year,” said the director Kat Candler. “Your spotlight has shifted. ” For three filmmakers — Mr. Simien, 33, from Los Angeles Ms. Candler, 42, who lives in Austin, Tex. and Sara Colangelo, 37, based in New York — who made their feature debuts in 2014, alongside Mr. Chazelle, what happened next felt like one step forward, two back. Their paths hold lessons for other artists and offer a glimpse into how Hollywood careers are really made. 2014 Two years before, Justin Simien quit his day job to make his debut feature, “Dear White People. ” He had worked in movie marketing, so he had some insider savvy. What he didn’t know was how his film, a satire of race relations set on a college campus, would be received by the mostly white audiences at Sundance. “I was kind of terrified, to be honest,” he said. “Dear White People” struck a chord, earning a festival award for breakthrough talent. A distribution deal soon followed. “I went into it just hoping that when I came out, I could at least pay my rent,” Mr. Simien said. “That didn’t happen. ” But in Los Angeles afterward, he was in demand, attending dozens of development meetings for months. He understood the process: “Part of being a development person is checking off the list” that you’ve met with Sundance alumni, he said. Nonetheless, it seemed like he had arrived. Even if the offers were not as big as those some of his white counterparts were getting — “Nobody was talking about ‘Jurassic World,’” he said, the film Colin Trevorrow landed after his Sundance debut — he didn’t feel pigeonholed. Several projects floated up, like a dark comedy with Anthony Mackie attached. Yet Mr. Simien was still strapped for cash. Driving to those Beverly Hills meetings, “I was afraid to pull up to the valet, because my hubcaps were falling off,” he said. In the spring, he sold a book version of “Dear White People” that kept him afloat financially. The film opened in the fall, to critical acclaim. 2015 As Mr. Simien toured with his film, he found a second career as a speaker, especially at colleges. “Any school that was dealing with a race issue would book the film and then book me,” he said. He made the movie to spark discussion, so these encounters were gratifying and meaningful. He jotted down stories he heard from the students, too. When a studio approached him about making a TV version of “Dear White People,” his notes — fresh ideas — were immediately useful. 2016 In May, Netflix announced the series. In June, Mr. Simien sat in a production space and marveled at his fortune. “I’m in an office! There’s a lamp from HomeGoods! It’s ” he said. He presided over a diverse writers’ room of seven people, discussing civil rights, “blacktivism” and cultural identity. With the veteran showrunner Yvette Lee Bowser, he learned to make a TV series. 2017 “That was probably the hardest thing I ever did,” Mr. Simien said in January after finishing the show’s first season. Production had wrapped on Election Day the series’ themes were landing in a much more charged cultural landscape than where they were conceived. “This show is 100 percent part of the resistance,” he said. Mr. Simien is pleased with it but itching to get to other projects. “Creatively, I just need to prove to myself and to others in the industry, I’m not a pony,” he said. Hiring for his series, he had noted that white male colleagues had been given more career chances. “The opportunities that I have tend to be ” he said, adding, “You just gotta keep grinding — which has worked out so far. ” 2014 The Sara Colangelo arrived at Sundance that January with an ambitious debut, “Little Accidents. ” Set and shot in a West Virginia town, with a sprawling story line, it was created after Ms. Colangelo won a coveted spot in the Sundance screenwriting and directing labs three years earlier, and secured a budget of $1. 2 million, all major for a indie filmmaker. The cast — including Elizabeth Banks, Josh Lucas and Chloë Sevigny — was enviable, too. But even as she set out to unveil it, Ms. Colangelo said, she knew that her film was not exactly what she wanted it to be. “There were moments in the editing room where I was like, I’m enormously proud, but these things might not be working,” she said. Was the film too sad? How would the marketplace react? “I was aware of what the challenges were. ” The film came with expectations. Critics at the festival praised the acting, though, and the . Ms. Colangelo made the Los Angeles rounds that fall, and was sent a few scripts, but no jobs materialized. She made ends meet doing corporate videos. Financially, she said, “there were nine months or so where it was like, it’s going to be tough. ” 2015 “Little Accidents” made it to theaters a full year after Sundance. Reviews were largely welcoming, but it barely eked out $10, 000 — total — at the box office. Still, Ms. Colangelo earned a nomination for best first screenplay at that year’s Indie Spirit Awards, and that led to a few jobs, polishing other people’s work. In the meantime, she watched friends and Sundance alumni — mostly men — advance. Doubts crept in: Could she have done more on “Little Accidents”? Her male counterparts were often allowed reshoots. Somehow, for them, “the money was found. ” She asked herself, “What kind of leader do you have to be to get those things? Is it charisma? Is it truly gender?” She was buoyed when Israeli producers asked her to adapt an acclaimed, foreign drama. (They declined to reveal it.) Ms. Colangelo worked on the script for months and finally signed a deal at the end of the year. 2016 As the Israeli film’s location and financiers bounced from Canada to New York, and casting decisions loomed, Ms. Colangelo hung on to direct. She vowed to be more flexible on production details and bolder in her focus on story. 2017 Her was erased, replaced with excitement, and pride: She plans to begin shooting the new film this summer, shortly after the birth of her first child. “There’s this feeling that the industry sometimes gives you, that you have this window of opportunity after Sundance and if you don’t perform perfectly in that moment or have a perfect script, then the window shuts,” she said. “And I think that’s a dangerous way to think about it. ” Momentum, she discovered, can rebound. “And it’s O. K. to retrieve it and find it later. ” 2014 A filmmaker with several shorts to her credit, Kat Candler landed at Sundance with the family drama “Hellion. ” “I was definitely hoping to get representation,” she said, a distribution deal and attention for other projects. She knew that breakout success was rare and that her route would be tough, especially without superlative reviews. A month later, she did her water bottle week in Los Angeles. “It felt like ‘The Amazing Race,’” she said, eight meetings a day. Little came of them. “Hellion,” starring Aaron Paul of “Breaking Bad,” opened in theaters five months later, and Ms. Candler hit the road to promote it. Live Q. and A. s, Skype sessions — “Anytime anybody asked, it was a yes,” she said. “It was exhausting, after a while. I wish someone had warned me. ” Her promotion helped, but not much “Hellion” just did not have the marketing dollars. In retrospect, she said, her efforts distracted her from “putting all the pieces for another project together. ” 2015 A year after Sundance, Ms. Candler was growing anxious. “I felt like, oh, what am I doing?” she said. But she was halfway into a mentorship program, sponsored by the Sundance women’s filmmaking initiative. “The life coach was pretty transformative,” she said. She shelved her jealousy about others’ deals. “I can go write for four hours and feel a sense of accomplishment,” she said. A push to break into TV directing was fruitless, though. No one wanted to an untested TV director, even if she had already conquered the big screen. (Male directors, research shows, face a lower bar for hiring.) “Sometimes you just wonder, how much harder do I have to work to prove myself?” Ms. Candler said. Her life coach offered a mantra: You belong in the room. So at every meeting, she said, “I tell myself, ‘You’ve earned your space. ’” In the summer, she shot a campaign for Canon. Besides money from teaching a college class, it was her first real paycheck in years. Still, she worried about car insurance payments and other bills. 2016 Back in Los Angeles, Ms. Candler had meetings about a feature she was writing. It could go indie or mainstream, depending on the stars and how much control Ms. Candler ceded. “Do I really want to go out for a project that doesn’t have great humanity? No,” she said. A turning point came in the spring, when she shot two episodes of “Queen Sugar,” the series created by Ava DuVernay that employs only female directors. No pitch meetings were necessary they knew each other through the festival circuit. The paucity of female directors has been a hot topic in Hollywood, but Ms. Candler was over it. “Just hire,” she said. “It really isn’t that hard. ” 2017 “Queen Sugar” was renewed, and Ms. DuVernay asked Ms. Candler to return, now as the producing director. Ms. Candler went on to shoot episodes of other series. She has work lined up through 2018. She felt confident before “Queen Sugar,” she said. “I just don’t think that people had confidence in us. Ava legitimized all of us. ” After 17 years in the field, she said, she was at last making a living as a filmmaker. | 1 |
Next Prev Swipe left/right Read the frustrating conversation a man had with his granny after accidentally phoning her Twitter user Big Daddy , also known as @YanniTsunami , has shared an awkward text conversation he had with his grandmother – because granny texts are a thing now – after he accidentally called her.
The conversation went like this:
Granny: What’s wrong Granny: Did u want anything or just wanted to talk Big Daddy: It was an accident Granny: Were u driving Big Daddy: I’m fine Granny: Who was driving Big Daddy: My mom is driving Granny: The car hurt | 0 |
President-elect Donald Trump is like a one-man meteor shower of this age. He sprays white-knuckle antipathy upon all manner of people of varied religions, ethnicities, race, and any other target of choice. He avoids the “politically correct” avenue and simply does things his own way. Trump’s age of distractions has thrown the country into a frenzy leaving people careening and disoriented. The real issue is the lack of focus is not limited to the realm of politics; it has shifted into other areas that have affected many on a personal level. This is not really about the distraction of politics, it is more centered on the politics of distraction.
One of the things that continues to rise over the past 15 years or so is the increase in diagnosis involving focus. Whether it is ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) or OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), the list of diagnosis that indicates a challenge in our ability to focus has America in the lead above any other country. The blame has shifted from the school system to the household, to the programmers of major television stations and now, Trump’s age of distractions. Famed novelist Arthur Golden said, “A mind troubled by doubts cannot focus on the course of victory.” With this in mind, it is evident that no matter who is to blame for the lack of focus, victims need to discover a remedy fast.
Focus, by definition, is the adjustment for distinct vision; a center of activity, attraction, and attention. It is the last part of the definition that really stands out, “the center of a person’s activity, attraction, and attention . ” Here is the real deal, people do not possess focus if it has not arrested those three areas of life. That is the difference between hobbies and passions. The latter captivates all you are and all you do. Many have failed simply because they have refused to bring their lives into a definite focus.
Focus allows us to harness our skills, intelligence, and resources and put them to work on our life goals. Most, at one time or another, have fallen into the trap of being a “Jack of All Trades.” The part that is often missed is that we become masters of none. We spread ourselves thin in an effort to appear busy, but life’s successes come from a laser beam approach toward tasks. This may be the reason America ranks nearly last amidst other countries with regards to productivity. We have more stuff than ever, but we seem to be doing less. The issue lies in our inability to focus.
Where do we begin? In a society that is screaming at us from sun up to sun down, how will we find the time to focus? Even on our jobs, we get assigned to one project only to be told the other five are really the priority. Everything was due two days ago. People consume fast food at alarming rates because it is supposed to be fast and no one has time to cook a balanced meal. This, however, leads to fears of illnesses like cancer and diabetes. People of all nationalities seem to be in a losing battle with the clock and now experts are telling saying the biggest problem is really the lack of focus. Listed below are solutions that can ease the pressure and help people to find focus in Trump’s age of distractions:
Admit other things are important too: One of the first mistakes we make is trying to go “cold turkey” when it comes to our distractions. You have had them long enough for them to become a new normal. Therefore, cutting them out will not be easy. First, devise a plan to lower a number of distractions by setting guidelines. By checking emails less frequently and turning the ringer off on your phone, you increase your ability to focus instantly. Solicit the help of colleagues: People tend to interrupt you because that is what you have trained them to do. Setting boundaries around yourself sends an instant message to people indicating you are in work mode. Let them know your times of “on purpose” focus and that you are not to be disturbed. Usually, people will honor it. Utilize technology, sticky notes, and lists to your advantage: In your lap right now is the power to retake your focus. You probably have a smartphone, Tablet, Kindle or some other device capable of helping you organize your time. I find if we do not have a plan, we are planning to fail. Set reminders to study in your phone, read your morning paper on your iPad while commuting, or set a to-do list the night before. All these small tasks add up to big time savers in the future. In Trump’s age of distraction, it has become easy to blame the lack of focus on external events. In reality, the only thing we really do control is our behavior in any given situation. Take back your life and readjust your focal point. You will be amazed at how closely life imitates a camera. Until it is turned on and focused, no memories are ever clearly captured. Remember, this is really not about the distraction of politics, but the responsibility of managing the politics of distraction.
Opinion by Cherese Jackson (Virginia)
Source:
New York Times: The Politics of Distraction
Photo Credits:
Top Image Courtesy of Michael Vadon- Flickr License
Inline Image Courtesy of Aaron Brinker – Flickr License
Featured Image Courtesy of Nate Steiner – Flickr License
Donald Trump , election , focus , self help | 0 |
Anita November 6, 2016 @ 2:09 pm
Who cares what Maher has to say! Liberals are all as odd as a three headed snake! BLR November 6, 2016 @ 2:08 pm
Trump gets in it will be a win win situation for libs and leftys they will get to cry and bitch in a great country for a change Ronald Dumont November 6, 2016 @ 1:52 pm
It seems Bill has done some research, This US election almost mirrors events of 1933 Germany! The only major difference is there are only tow political parties vying for control! This is not a true Right wing coup d’état, it is a industrialist transnational corporations taking power under the guise of protecting and defending us from what they have created in the first place to control us! | 0 |
Mark Crispin Miller, a professor at New York University, explains how US elections are stolen:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45799.htm
He outlines what can be done, but those in power will not do it. Revolution is probably the only solution.
The post Mark Crispin Miller, a professor at New York University, explains how US elections are stolen: appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org . | 0 |
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Новый авианосец станет вторым в составе ВМС КНР после «Ляонина». Как передает RT со ссылкой на South China Morning Post, новый авианосец построен по аналогичному принципу.
Этот авианосец является "частью планов Пекина по расширению возможностей своего флота на фоне растущих вызовов в спорных водах Восточно-Китайского и Южно-Китайского морей, а также для защиты национальных интересов за пределами собственных границ".
Напомним, в июле журнал Jane's Defence Weekly опубликовал спутниковый снимок первого китайского авианосца национальной постройки, строящегося на китайском судостроительном предприятии Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Company (Group) в Даляне.
Сообщается, что первый китайский авианосец национальной постройки практически полностью повторяет приобретенный и достроенный Китаем бывший советский тяжелый авианесущий крейсер «Варяг» советского проекта 11436, который теперь называется «Ляонин».
Судя по снимку, первый китайский авианосец национальной постройки практически полностью повторяет приобретенный и достроенный Китаем бывший советский тяжелый авианесущий крейсер «Варяг» советского проекта 11436, который теперь называется «Ляонин».
Правда.ру ранее писала, что военные Китая заявили, что КНР не будет оставаться в стороне, когда некоторые страны пытаются создать хаос в регионе Южно-Китайского моря.
Заместитель главы генштаба народно-освободительной армии КНР Сунь Цзяньго в ответ на призыв США отказаться от провокаций в Южно-Китайском море заявил, что "мы не создаем проблем, но мы и не боимся их".
Как пишет ИА Интерфакс, Сунь Цзяньго в ходе выступления на конференции по безопасности Азии в Сингапуре подчеркнул, что "другие страны должны играть конструктивную роль в этом отношении, а не наоборот".
По его словам, вопрос о Южно-Китайском море приобрел остроту из-за провокаций со стороны некоторых стран, "преследующих собственные интересы".
В Пекине отметили, что ряд стран региона намеренно используют поддержку США для эскалации напряженности в регионе. "Я подтверждаю, что наша политика в Южно-Китайском море остается неизменной, - сказал Сунь Цзяньго. - У Китая достаточно мудрости и терпения для того, чтобы преодолеть разногласия мирным путем переговоров. Я верю, что и у других государств есть мудрость и терпение для того, чтобы идти с Китаем путем мира. Страны, не имеющие непосредственного отношения к проблемам, не должны саботировать мирный путь, исходя из эгоистичных целей".
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Not guilty: The power of nullification to counteract government tyranny By John W. Whitehead Posted on November 2, 2016 by John W. Whitehead
“The people have the power, all we have to do is awaken that power in the people. The people are unaware. They’re not educated to realize that they have power. The system is so geared that everyone believes the government will fix everything. We are the government .”—John Lennon
How do you balance the scales of justice at a time when Americans are being Tasered, tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, hit with batons, shot with rubber bullets and real bullets, blasted with sound cannons, detained in cages and kennels , sicced by police dogs, arrested and jailed for challenging the government’s excesses, abuses and power-grabs?
Politics won’t fix a system that is broken beyond repair.
No matter who sits in the White House, the shadow government will continue to call the shots behind the scenes.
Relying on the courts to restore justice seems futile.
Indeed, with every ruling handed down, it becomes more apparent that we live in an age of hollow justice, with government courts, largely lacking in vision and scope, rendering narrow rulings focused on the letter of the law. This is true at all levels of the judiciary, but especially so in the highest court of the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, which is seemingly more concerned with establishing order and protecting government agents than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution.
Even s
It doesn’t matter who the activists are (environmentalists, peaceniks, Native Americans, Black Lives Matter, Occupy, or the Bundys and their followers) or what the source of the discontent is (endless wars abroad, police shootings, contaminated drinking water, government land-grabs), the government’s modus operandi
Just recently, in fact, an Oregon jury rejected the government’s attempts to prosecute seven activists
In finding the defendants not guilty—of conspiracy to impede federal officers, of possession of firearms in a federal facility, a
The Malheur occupiers were found not guilty despite the fact that they had guns in a federal facility (their lawyers argued the guns were “as much a statement of their rural culture as a cowboy hat or a pair of jeans”). They were found not guilty despite the fact that they used government vehicles (although they would argue that government property is public property available to all taxpayers). They were found not guilty despite the fact that they succeeded in occupying a government facility for six weeks, thereby preventing workers from performing their duties (as the Washington Post points out, this charge has also been used to prosecute extremist left-wingers and Earth First protesters
As law professor Ilya Somin explains, jury nullification is the practice by which a jury refuses to convict someone accused of a crime if they believe the “law in question is unjust or the punishment is excessive .” According to former federal prosecutor Paul Butler, the doctrine of jury nullification is “premised on the idea that ordinary citizens, not government officials, should have the final say
In a world of “ rampant overcriminalization ,” where the average citizen unknowingly breaks three laws a day, jury nullification acts as “ a check on runaway authoritarian criminalization
Indeed, Butler believes so strongly in the power of nullification to balance the scales between the power of the prosecutor and the power of the people that he advises
If you are ever on a jury in a marijuana case, I recommend that you vote “not guilty”—even if you think the defendant actually smoked pot, or sold it to another consenting adult. As a juror, you have this power under the Bill of Rights
Not only should the punishment fit the crime, but the laws of the land should also reflect the concerns of the citizenry as opposed to the profit-driven priorities of Corporate America.
This is wh
Various cities and states have been using this historic doctrine with mixed results on issues as wide ranging as gun control and healthcare to “ claim freedom from federal laws they find onerous or wrongheaded
For the rest of us who are dependent on the “fairness” of the system, there exists a multitude of ways in which justice can and does go wrong every day. Police misconduct. Prosecutorial misconduct. Judicial bias. Inadequate defense. Prosecutors who care more about winning a case than seeking justice. Judges who care more about what is legal than wha
The real and manufactured events of recent years—the invasive surveillance, the extremism reports, the civil unrest, the protests, t
Those protests in Ferguson , Baltimore and Baton Rouge to protest police brutality? The militarized police “ clad in Kevlar vests, helmets, and camouflage, armed with pistols, shotguns, automatic rifles, and tear gas ” turning towns into war zones? The kenneling
Employ militant nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience
And then, as I explain in more detail in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People llify the laws. Nullify everything the government does that is illegitimate, egregious or blatantly unconstitutional.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His book (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at This entry was posted in Commentary . Bookmark the | 0 |
Exhausted, Defeated Voters Finally Beginning To Relate To Hillary Clinton Close Vol 52 Issue 44 · Politics · Politicians · Hillary Clinton · Election 2016
WASHINGTON—Explaining that they have finally started to feel a connection with the Democratic Party nominee, millions of defeated and utterly exhausted voters admitted to reporters Wednesday they are now starting to relate to Hillary Clinton. “I never thought I had much in common with her before, but after waking up today feeling so drained and beaten, I think I’m beginning to see that she and I really are a lot alike,” said 34-year-old Chicago resident Anthony Pallister, echoing the sentiments of Americans across the country who claimed that over the course of the last 24 hours, the feeling that they had suffered through a long, wearying ordeal only to be summarily rejected had caused them to notice many similarities between themselves and the 69-year-old presidential candidate. “The more I think about how dejected and overcome I feel, the more I begin to see myself and my viewpoints in Hillary Clinton. In fact, I don’t know the last time I’ve related to a candidate this much.” Many Americans went on to confirm that their perception of Hillary Clinton being completely out of touch with the majority of the country has now made the former secretary of state far more likable. Share This Story: WATCH VIDEO FROM THE ONION Sign up For The Onion's Newsletter
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There is perfect symmetry to the way Stephen King aligns the opening of “End of Watch,” the smashing finale of his “Mr. Mercedes” trilogy, with that of its first installment. Mr. King isn’t flashy about it. Maybe he just can’t help writing like a pro. The first book, “Mr. Mercedes,” began in 2009 with a rabid killer stealing the car of the title and plowing into a line of helpless people attending a job fair. The third book also starts on that day, but navigates its suspenseful way toward the present to a terrifyingly resonant end. When he staged his introductory attack, the Mr. Mercedes was not satisfied with violence and notoriety alone. He went for the full trifecta and picked a cop to torment. He singled out the retired detective (or “Det. . ”) Bill Hodges, an inveterate good guy, of course. And Hodges’s very first from the killer — “they didn’t die but probably WISH they did! How about that, Detective Hodges?” — set forth everything on which the trilogy’s suspense would pivot, from the creep’s delight in maiming rather than killing to the seductive allure of driving others to suicide. The rules of engagement were set. “Finders Keepers,” the middle book, had a tangential plotline about a reclusive, writer and the havoc wrought by a dangerously obsessed fan. But it was most memorable for the detective agency of the title, led by Hodges and featuring an indispensable young backup man, Jerome Robinson, and a quirky brainiac, Holly Gibney. Holly had trouble making eye contact, but she had quite a way with a sock full of ball bearings (“the Happy Slapper”) as she demonstrated at the end of “Mr. Mercedes. ” It was Holly who stepped in, when Hodges had a disabling health crisis, and put the monster Mr. Mercedes, also known as Brady Hartsfield, into an irreversible coma. A word about that coma for readers of “End of Watch”: Ha. Mr. King does a version here of what he did fleetingly at the end of “Carrie”: He turns a quick shock into a major horror. There is a prelude set in 2009 on the day of Brady’s Mercedes attack, with two E. M. T.s hoping for a stop at McDonald’s. (One wants to order “one of those hash brown thingies that looked like a baked buffalo tongue. ” Never let it be said that Mr. King lacks uncanny powers of description.) When they get the call to pick up a horrendously injured woman who will be one of the first murder victims in “End of Watch,” it’s goodbye buffalo tongue, hello nightmare. Why would this woman, who has lived, apparently contentedly, in a wheelchair for many years suddenly make a suicide pact with her mother and give up on life? One of Hodges’s favorite pastimes has become visiting Brady’s hospital room, where the immobilized, vegetative patient cannot react to the abuse Hodges heaps on him. Brady brings out his mean streak because the trio at Finders Keepers already know Brady to be “an architect of suicide” with a history of goading others into it. And he would be a person of interest in this case — but how can he be? Get serious. You’re reading Stephen King. Whenever the very weird can happen here, of course it does. An immobilized Brady becomes even more malevolent than the one who could drive cars and nearly (in “Mr. Mercedes”) blow up a stadium full of teenage fans of a boy band. Being immobilized just makes him that much more resourceful. He was always good with telepathy and computers and those skills get him up and running again, so to speak. But while Brady cooks up ways to threaten a certain horribly vulnerable part of the populace, Hodges deals with a very different kind of peril. It seems wrong to conflate elements of Mr. King’s real life with his fiction. But there are times when it’s hard not to, especially when he has spoken so frankly about his own ordeals. He has written repeatedly about characters who have struggled with addiction, just as he did, and whose sobriety is fundamental to who they are. Mr. King has also, after a road accident that nearly killed him, written about the frailty of the human body and the fear and suffering he endured. And when he writes here about pain, he does it with astounding honesty. Hodges begins this book as a guy who’s afraid to go to his doctor to find out why his abdomen hurts so much. He goes through most of the story with a bad diagnosis and a viscerally described, mounting agony that becomes one of the book’s biggest elements of suspense. The clock is ticking for him in a fight that Brady insisted on making personal, and Hodges desperately wants the strength to see it through. Because “End of Watch” is a breathless detective story, it’s built around a very specific mystery. (The title refers to Hodges it’s a police term for finishing a shift.) How exactly is Brady operating from his hospital bed? And why do so many suicide victims own the same outdated computer game console, something like a dismal Game Boy, that contains one especially game involving colored fish? The thing looks harmless, and so does the cover of “End of Watch. ” But when you realize what this otherwise handsome cover depicts, you may not want to look at it for long. A word about Mr. King’s staying power: This is his best book since the vastly ambitious “Under the Dome” (2009) and it’s part of a newly incisive, part of his career. At some point, the phantasmagorical became less central to him than the frightening prospects to be found in the real world. And he uses his intimacy with readers to convey the damage life can wreak. An author’s note at the end here gives the number of a real suicide hotline, and the novel is full of cautionary tales about vulnerable teenagers pushed past the brink. The book’s descriptions of the victims of Brady’s also need no extra spookiness to hit home. Mr. King’s recent novels appeal to older readers more than his early ones did, but they’ve gotten tougher, not tamer. And even though a couple of this book’s principals wind up smiling by the time they get to the last page, you won’t be. That’s a promise. | 1 |
On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” House Freedom Caucus Member Representative Ron DeSantis ( ) stated that there’s “definitely a path” to an Obamacare bill, and that if they can deliver lower premiums and more choice, “I absolutely think we can pass something, relatively soon. ” DeSantis said, “I think there’s definitely a path, Bill. I mean, if you remember this March 23rd date, where this kind of blew up, that was not any deadline. That was a deadline. And what happened was, the bill really wasn’t ready for primetime. You hadn’t developed a consensus. You set a date to vote on it without having the consensus. And so, what’s happened since then, is members are talking to each other, and really the administration, I think has done a good job. Vice President Pence has been exercising a lot of leadership to try to figure out how do we actually fulfill the promises we made to the American people, and for me the core thing that we have to do is deliver lower premiums and more choice on private insurance, because that is the reason why people dislike Obamacare because their premiums have gone up and their deductibles have gone up. So, that’s really what we have to do, and I think if we can get there, I absolutely think we can pass something, relatively soon. ” DeSantis added that he thinks the House is getting closer to an Obamacare bill. Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
ISTANBUL — For almost two years, Syrian Kurds, with American weapons, air cover and training, have fought and died in battle against the Islamic State. They have taken pride in their status as the United States’ most faithful proxy in the fight against the militant group, and they have hoped their effectiveness as warriors would lead to American support for Kurdish political gains inside Syria. So, many Kurds shuddered when Turkish tanks and soldiers recently rolled into northern Syria, with American support, to push back against Kurdish gains. They saw it, perhaps prematurely, as a replay of a century of betrayal by world powers, going back to the end of World War I, when they were promised, then denied, their own state in the postwar settlement. “The Kurds are going to scream betrayal at every turn when they think things are not going to go their way, because they’ve had a century of it,” said Joost Hiltermann, the program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group, and a longtime expert on the Kurds. The Syrian Kurds say their aim is to establish an autonomous region, not their own state, where their rights are protected, in whatever settlement comes from the long Syrian civil war. And they say they hope that the United States will support them in that desire. To accomplish that, though, they need to connect two of their territories: Afrin, in the west, and Kobani, in the east, an effort that Turkey sees as a national security threat to be thwarted at virtually any cost. So, while the first aim of Turkey’s incursion last month into northern Syria was to push the Islamic State from the border town of Jarabulus, many believe Turkey’s primary goal was to thwart Kurdish territorial ambitions. That the United States supported the move by Turkey, a NATO ally, reverberated among ethnic Kurds across the region, where they are spread across four countries — Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey — and have long dreamed of their own state, while being oppressed by autocratic governments that have denied them basic political rights. “These operations by Turkey are obviously more against the Kurds than Daesh,” said Mahmoud Othman, a prominent Iraqi Kurdish politician, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. He added: “People are afraid now. People are really afraid of what could happen in the end. ” Drawing on history, Kurds see themselves as the playthings of world powers, used in proxy fights when it serves someone’s interest and then discarded. The United States, on balance, has arguably been a great friend to the Kurds, coming to their aid after the Persian Gulf war in the early 1990s and helping to establish an autonomous region for them in Iraq, safe from Saddam Hussein’s brutality. However, the United States also figures prominently in that historical memory of betrayal. In 1975, after the C. I. A. worked with Iran to supply weapons to the Kurds to fight Mr. Hussein’s regime, Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger abruptly pulled the plug after a reconciliation between Tehran and Baghdad. “In 1975, the same betrayal of the Kurds happened,” said Hasos Hard, a Kurdish journalist in northern Iraq, when asked about his reaction to the American support for Turkey’s Syria incursion. Many analysts, though, as well as Syrian Kurdish fighters on the ground, say the accusations of betrayal are not quite right — at least not yet. There is little sign that the United States has abandoned the Syrian Kurds. American officials have worked to negotiate a truce on the ground between the rebels backed by Turkey and the Kurdish militia, known as the People’s Protection Units, and fighting has calmed in recent days. But many Kurds say they now see the writing on the wall and worry that once the Islamic State is driven from its capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the United States will sell them out. Mr. Hiltermann said that when he traveled to northern Syria this year, he was asked this question, over and over, by the Kurds: “What do you think the Americans will do when Raqqa is taken?” The question highlights the conundrum that the increasingly complicated Syrian battlefield presents the United States, which has tried to balance its relations with Turkey and the Syrian Kurds — a primary Turkish enemy because of their ties to militants inside the country. Even though the United States has funneled weapons to the Syrian Kurds and provided them with military training, it has not established ties to the militia’s political wing, the Democratic Union Party, because of Turkish concerns. Nor has it promised them anything beyond military support in the fight against the Islamic State, other than expressions of support for a Kurdish role at the negotiating table when, or if, serious peace talks get underway. Aliza Marcus, an author and expert on the Kurds, said, “It seems crass by the U. S. ” to provide military support without any steps to establish political ties. This seems especially true now, she said, after the Kurds took heavy casualties in pushing the Islamic State out of Manbij, a city in northern Syria they recently liberated, and are now being asked to leave because Turkey does not want them there. Lacking United States support, the Democratic Union Party has been shut out of Syrian peace talks that have been held in Geneva, and now there are increasing worries that Washington will eventually distance itself from the Syrian Kurds in a bid to improve relations with Turkey. “The U. S. themselves, they say, these are the best fighters against Daesh,” said Mr. Othman, referring to the People’s Protection Units. “These are the best allies. Hopefully they will stick to that, and help them, and not leave them in the end. ” The recent events stand in marked contrast to a year ago, when it seemed that the Kurds were capitalizing on the turmoil in the Middle East to make historic gains. In Syria, they had secured land and found a powerful benefactor in the United States. In Turkey, for the first time, a Kurdish political party entered Parliament after elections. In Iraq, amid the fight against the Islamic State, they took control of Kirkuk, a city historically divided between Arabs and Kurds. A year later, though, those prospects have dimmed. Iraq’s Kurds, somewhat insulated from the Syrian crisis, are pushing forward with their ambitions for independence, undaunted by an economic crisis. But in Turkey a war has resumed between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and the Turkish state, and the main Kurdish political party has been isolated from national politics. In Syria, the Turkish military has quashed the Kurds’ efforts to link their two territories. Further complicating matters, the Syrian conflict has become intertwined with Turkey’s domestic turmoil. Turkey now sees itself as fighting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party on three fronts: in Turkey, in northern Syria and in northern Iraq, where its members hide out in the mountains. As a result, analysts now say that there can be no final settlement of the Syrian civil war without the resumption of peace talks between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, of which the Democratic Union Party is its Syrian affiliate. For now, the Kurds are still counting on the Americans to preserve them a place in a future Syrian state. “They should help them politically, to have rights in Syria,” Mr. Othman said. The Kurds, he said, “want a new Syria to be established, with them having a say in it. ” If nothing else, the American military support, even without any promises on the political front, has legitimized the Syrian Kurds’ ambitions. It has helped them to secure a large section of territory they say they will never give up, no matter what their patrons do. “Throughout history, the Kurds were abandoned,” said Ahmad Haj Mansour, a Democratic Union Party official who lives in Britain. “But now, the time and place is different. We don’t need world powers to survive. We are in charge of our land, and we have fighters. ” | 1 |
Surrounded by images of music icons, Billy Ray Cyrus, the actor and country singer, saw a bit of himself in David Bowie. “Dude, that’s almost my frickin’ hairdo!” an elated Mr. Cyrus said on a recent afternoon after he caught a glimpse of the late rock god’s ’70s mullet on a at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in SoHo. “I’m sending this to Miley,” Mr. Cyrus said, referring to his pop star daughter, while reaching for the garment. Even beyond appearances, it’s possible to see why both of them admire Mr. Bowie, that relentless pop chameleon. Mr. Cyrus, though never quite respected for his music or hairstyle, has managed to stretch his charisma, distinctive look and willingness to engage with the kitschy and the lowbrow into a constantly regenerating career of nearly 25 years. By embracing his cowboy camp factor, and now his aging essence, Mr. Cyrus, 54, has ambled down a surreal path from his first, biggest hit, “Achy Breaky Heart,” in 1992, to a varied acting résumé, including roles in David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive” and Disney’s “Hannah Montana,” which made Miley a star. Along the way, there were detours to tabloid purgatory, borderline irrelevance and “Sharknado 2. ” And yet even after going Hollywood, Mr. Cyrus has enough juice in the universe to carry an acerbic, original series, “Still the King,” which premieres Sunday, June 12, on CMT. “I’ve reinvented a couple times in my career, at least,” said Mr. Cyrus, who has mostly laid low since Miley’s cultural emancipation. “But how do you reinvent out of ‘Hannah Montana’?” he continued. “And then it hit me: A dysfunctional Elvis impersonator who lies his way into the church. That made sense. ” “I told Miley about it,” he added, “and she said, ‘Dad, that’s exactly what you need. ’” “Still the King,” a comedy with a gritty Southern feel, finds Mr. Cyrus, a of the show, playing an exaggerated take on the worst version of himself: “Burnin’ Vernon,” a louche wonder scamming his way into a job as a preacher and into the life of the teenage daughter he didn’t know he had. Jayson Dinsmore, the executive vice president of development for CMT, said the show represents a new push for the network into premium scripted programming. He compared Mr. Cyrus’s role in “Still the King” to that of Larry David in the comedy “Curb Your Enthusiasm” — but with a star who’s “undeniably charming. ” “Sometimes we forget how successful Billy Ray has been,” he said. “He’s one of those people who has multigenerational fans. ” Also, Mr. Dinsmore added, Mr. Cyrus is “incredibly good looking — women flock to him,” a boon for a network whose viewers lean female. Mr. Cyrus, a Kentucky native and politician’s son, whose own puts him somewhere between George W. Bush and Joe Biden in manner, said that, “I kind of traded my musical soul to be an actor. ” Despite never truly being welcomed into the country establishment, “I’m a first and foremost” and not technically a wonder, he said. “Some Gave All” — Mr. Cyrus’s first album — “had four hit singles on it,” he insisted, adding a few expletives for emphasis. “Here’s the damn truth: I’ve had more hits than any wonder in the world. I don’t mean that as bragging because I wish that my name wasn’t even in that conversation. But if you look on Wikipedia, it’ll say that. ” Despite his early musical success, Mr. Cyrus saw the writing on the Nashville wall when his third album in three years failed to match the first two. “I said, they’re coming after me,” Mr. Cyrus recalled. “The teeter has gone to totter — I’m on the way down. ” He cited his songwriting, including an emphasis on the environment. “That’s the last thing they want to hear from me,” he said. Thus began one of the stranger recent sagas in American celebrity bootstrapping as Mr. Cyrus willed his family (six Cyrus children in all) — and especially the daughter born Destiny Hope Cyrus — into becoming a household name. Following in the footsteps of diversified country stars like Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton — and more recently, rappers like LL Cool J and Ice Cube — Mr. Cyrus aimed for longevity onscreen, first in an appropriately bizarre meeting with an auteurist director. “I had two stolen chickens in my agent’s car while I did the interview with David Lynch,” Mr. Cyrus said, having rescued the baby birds with Miley and her brother before they could become snake food at a petting zoo in Malibu. After he cameoed as the philandering pool guy in “Mulholland Drive,” Mr. Cyrus was cast as the lead — a Christian physician — in “Doc,” which ran from 2001 to 2004 on Pax TV. Ms. Cyrus on the show and by 2006 had debuted as the star Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel, with Mr. Cyrus appearing as her father, Robby Ray. What followed, along with more fame and fortune, was years of (and parenting) scrutiny — Miley’s risqué Vanity Fair photos, the bong video, the twerking — that seems almost quaint in retrospect. “When you work as much in the business as we do, there’s gonna be peaks and valleys,” Mr. Cyrus said. “Fame is a dangerous thing, but when you volunteer for it, you have to accept that it ain’t all roses. ” “Here’s a lady singing about it right now,” he added, motioning to the speakers playing “Piece of My Heart” with Janis Joplin. For her part, Ms. Cyrus relishes a relationship with her father these days. The pair prefers hanging at home, playing music together (she bought him a Tibetan singing bowl for his birthday) — “no TV on, just us talking, not on our phones or out to dinner for show,” she told this reporter last year. “I feel lucky that I’m his kid. When I sit with my dad, there’s a million things I could say that he could’ve done differently — as you could with any parent — but he’s the best dad I could’ve ever chosen. ” Though he stresses his outsider status, Mr. Cyrus, who favors distressed jeans, big sunglasses and western boots, also enjoys his insider connections. At the John Varvatos store on the Bowery, a staffer referred to Mr. Cyrus as a “friend of the brand,” gifting him an American flag scarf and leather jacket. Further downtown, while perusing the Morrison gallery’s rock ‘n’ roll photos, he told persuasive stories, as if holding court on a barstool, of intimate interactions with the likes of Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Carl Perkins, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, George Jones and even Kurt Cobain. “I wrote a poem about Kurt the day he died called ‘The Circus,’” Mr. Cyrus said. It was about life under the spotlight. “That’s when I said to myself, I need to step back from this because I don’t want to die. ” Mr. Cyrus eased his hard living — his only real indulgence since the is marijuana, he said, but “just about enough to keep me from drinking” — though his ambition hasn’t slowed. In addition to his 14th studio album, “Thin Line,” due for release in September, he has been writing an environmental horror film about “fracking and all the damage it’s doing — but with blood and guts,” he said. Raised in a family of Southern Democrats, Mr. Cyrus said he follows politics “probably much deeper than anyone would think,” though he stopped short of picking sides in the presidential election, saying only that he respects both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, whom he called “a very brave and very intelligent man. ” (His promotional tour for “Still the King,” with its potential audience, included Fox News.) “If there’s a heavenly father, there’s gotta be a Mother Earth,” he said, echoing Miley’s own recent tendencies. (“I have to tell you, she learned that off me,” he added.) He also spoke out recently on Facebook against laws that regulate transgender bathroom access, citing Ms. Cyrus’s involvement in LGBT issues. But as ever, he shrugged off any suggestion that his continued relevance is due only to his daughter. “I don’t worry about it,” Mr. Cyrus said, aviator glasses shining on a New York street. “I was here first. ” | 1 |
BEIJING — North Korea’s biggest nuclear test, conducted last week less than 50 miles from the Chinese border, sent tremors through homes and schools in China’s northeast. But hours later, there was no mention of the test on China’s evening television news, watched by hundreds of millions of viewers. The decision on Friday to publicly ignore stark evidence of Pyongyang’s expanding nuclear capabilities illustrated the embarrassment that North Korea’s leader, Kim poses for his patrons in Beijing. But although North Korea remains nearly 100 percent dependent on China for oil and food, Chinese analysts say Beijing will not modify its allegiance to North Korea or pressure the country to curtail its drive for a nuclear arsenal, as the United States keeps requesting. “The United States cannot rely on China for North Korea,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. “China is closer to North Korea than the United States. ” China sees living with a state on its border as preferable to the chaos of its collapse, Mr. Shi said. The Chinese leadership is confident that North Korea will not turn its weapons on China, and that China can control its neighbor by providing enough oil to keep its economy afloat. The alternative is a strategic nightmare for Beijing: a collapsed North Korean regime, millions of refugees piling into China and a unified Korean Peninsula under an American defense treaty. The Obama administration’s decision to deploy an advanced missile defense system in South Korea also gives President Xi Jinping of China less incentive to cooperate with Washington on a North Korea strategy that could aim, for example, to freeze the North’s nuclear capacity, the analysts said. The missile defenses in South Korea, known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or Thaad, have effectively killed any chance of China’s cooperating with the United States, they said. “China is strongly opposed to North Korea’s nuclear weapons but at the same time opposes the defense system in South Korea,” said Cheng Xiaohe, an assistant professor of international relations at Renmin University. It is not clear which situation the Chinese leadership is more agitated about, he said. Beijing interprets the Thaad deployment as another American effort to contain China. The system reinforces China’s view that its alliance with North Korea is an integral part of China’s strategic interests in Asia, with America’s treaty allies Japan and South Korea and tens of thousands of American troops close by, Mr. Shi said. Washington insists that the Thaad system, due to be installed in 2017, is intended to defend South Korea against North Korean missiles, and is not aimed at China. The system “does not change the strategic balance between the United States and China,” President Obama said after meeting with Mr. Xi in Hangzhou, China, a week ago. But China is not persuaded. Chinese officials argue that the Thaad radar can detect Chinese missiles on the mainland, undermining its nuclear deterrent. So despite what Chinese analysts describe as the government’s distaste for Mr. Kim and his unpredictable behavior, China’s basic calculus on North Korea remains firm. Mr. Xi is expected to continue to ensure that North Korea remains stable. The Chinese leader, 63, has shown disdain for the much younger Mr. Kim, 32. He has not invited him to China, and has authorized only sporadic visits by Chinese officials to Pyongyang. The two militaries remain largely uninvolved with each other. But the personal and professional antagonisms do not alter Beijing’s goal of preventing a unification of North and South Korea under an American defense arrangement. The longstanding fear that punitive economic action would destabilize North Korea makes it very unlikely that Beijing will cooperate with the United States on more stringent sanctions at the United Nations, according to Chinese analysts. In March, after considerable hesitation, China agreed to Washington’s appeals and signed on to tough United Nations sanctions that included a ban on the export of North Korean coal. Now, as the West moves toward another round of United Nations sanctions, China’s mood is very different, said a former senior Chinese official who worked on North Korea. He said some officials were wondering why China would work with the United States at the United Nations after Washington went ahead with the antimissile system against Chinese wishes. Meanwhile, the sanctions imposed in March have been enforced in only a desultory fashion, trade experts said. A loophole in the sanctions allows North Korean coal to be sold if the proceeds are used for humanitarian purposes, and that opening seems to have been exploited, said Stephan Haggard, a Korea expert at the University of California, San Diego. The sale of coal since the sanctions came into force was down 12 percent from the same period last year, a marginal amount, he said. On its own, the United States imposed secondary sanctions on business entities that do business with North Korea and in the United States. But North Korean businesses have found Chinese partners or are creating front companies to use smaller Chinese banks, Mr. Haggard said. There are differing opinions in China about whether an oil embargo — an unlikely punishment — would result in Mr. Kim’s giving up his weapons. If China stopped the flow of oil, North Korea would face a severe economic crisis in about one year, and then face a choice between keeping its economy going or maintaining its nuclear program, the former senior official said. It is possible that at that point, Mr. Kim would negotiate, the former official said. But others disagree, saying the Chinese government would not dare cut the oil supply, knowing that North Korea would be able to get supplies from Russia and elsewhere. “The fundamental reason for not cutting oil is they don’t want to sacrifice the buffer zone, and they also know if they cut off the oil supply, it will not force Kim to surrender his weapons,” Mr. Shi said. Mr. Shi questioned why China would want to risk making North Korea into an enemy by cutting off the oil supply. “If you cut off the oil, there is a 50 percent possibility North Korea will not surrender their weapons, and they will hate China even more,” he said. China’s continued support of North Korea is a fundamental reason the United States should stop relying on China for progress on reducing the North Korean nuclear threat, said Joel Wit, a visiting scholar at the U. S. Institute at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Wit is among a group of American North Korea experts who believe the United States should take the lead and negotiate with the North. | 1 |
The debate about the existence of the soul and whether it is immortal or dies with the person is an endless story that for centuries has occupied the time of the great thinkers of universal history. Its mysterious nature continues to fascinate different areas of science, but now a group of researchers has discovered a new truth about it: the “soul” does not die; it returns to the universe.
Since 1996, Dr. Stuart Hameroff, an American Physicist and Emeritus in the Department of Anesthesiology and Psychology, and Sir Roger Penrose, a mathematical physicist at Oxford University, have worked in a Quantum Theory of Consciousness in which they state that the soul is maintained in microtubules of the brain cells.
Their ‘provocative’ theory states that the human soul is be contained by the brain cells in structures inside them called microtubules.
The two researchers believe the human brain is in fact a ‘biological computer’ and the ‘consciousness of humans’ is a program run by the quantum computer located inside the brain that even continues to exist after we ‘die.’
Furthermore, both scientists argue that what humans perceive as ‘consciousness’ is in fact the result of ‘quantum gravity’ effects located within the so-called ‘microtubules.’ This process is named by the two scientists “Orchestrated Objective Reduction” (Orch-OR).
The theory indicates that when people enter a phase known as ‘clinical death,’ the microtubules located in the brain lose their quantum state but maintain the information contained within them. In other words – as experts explain it after people die, their soul returns to the universe, and it does not die’.
Speaking to the Science Channel’s Through the Wormhole documentary, Dr. Hameroff said:
“Let’s say the heart stops beating, the blood stops flowing; the microtubules lose their quantum state. The quantum information within the microtubules is not destroyed, it can’t be destroyed, and it just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If the patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says “I had a near-death experience.” If they’re not revived, and the patient dies, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body, perhaps indefinitely, as a soul.”
According to this theory, the human souls are more than just ‘interactions’ of neurons in our brain and could have been present since the beginning of time.
Ancient-Code
SOURCE | 0 |
American Thinker November 1, 2016
Is it a crisis yet? The fate of a criminal probe into the activities of a possible president has been fought behind closed doors. The nation’s premier investigative agency allegedly is riven by conflict over investigating Hillary Clinton’s email, the Clinton Foundation, and Anthony Weiner’s sexting.
Devlin Barrett of the Wall Street Journal has apparently mined many sources at the FBI and the DoJ, along with other “people familiar with the matter,” and put together a remarkable piece that is providing a lot of new information. Unfortunately, it is behind a paywall, though I understand that the WSJ is offering very low initial subscription rates, as low as $4, which might be worth it even on a tight budget, considering the history unfolding before our eyes.
Barrett identifies a timeline for the Weiner email trove that begins:
… in early October when New York-based FBI officials notified Andrew McCabe, the bureau’s second-in-command, that while investigating Mr. Weiner for possibly sending sexually charged messages to a teenage minor , they had recovered a laptop. Many of the 650,000 emails on the computer, they said, were from the accounts of Ms. Abedin, according to people familiar with the matter. The FBI lacked a warrant to read the emails, but they did examine the metadata, that showed “apparently … thousands” of them were from Hillary’s private email server.
This led to a dramatic meeting:
At a meeting early last week of senior Justice Department and FBI officials, a member of the department’s senior national-security staff asked for an update on the Weiner laptop, the people familiar with the matter said. At that point, officials realized that no one had acted to obtain a warrant, these people said.
Mr. McCabe then instructed the email investigators to talk to the Weiner investigators and see whether the laptop’s contents could be relevant to the Clinton email probe, these people said. After the investigators spoke, the agents agreed it was potentially relevant.
Mr. Comey was given an update, decided to go forward with the case and notified Congress on Friday, with explosive results. Senior Justice Department officials had warned the FBI that telling Congress would violate policies against overt actions that could affect an election, and some within the FBI have been unhappy at Mr. Comey’s repeated public statements on the probe, going back to his press conference on the subject in July.
Barrett does not venture into speculation, but I believe that Comey had no choice at that point, because the news would have leaked out. Too many people knew of the discovery at this point (including, possibly, the NYPD , which may have gotten the Weiner probe going in the first place – we still don’t know). Many journalists (including me) in touch with active and retired FBI agents have heard of the extreme disappointment of many within the FBI community with Comey’s damage to the Bureau’s reputation.
The meatiest reporting, however, covers the investigation of the Clinton Foundation, which Barrett characterizes as one of “ several matters related, directly or indirectly, to Mrs. Clinton and her inner circle” (emphasis added).
New details show that senior law-enforcement officials repeatedly voiced skepticism of the strength of the evidence in a bureau investigation of the Clinton Foundation, sought to condense what was at times a sprawling cross-country effort, and, according to some people familiar with the matter, told agents to limit their pursuit of the case. The probe of the foundation began more than a year ago to determine whether financial crimes or influence peddling occurred related to the charity.
Unnamed FBI agents are characterized as “viewing FBI leadership as uninterested in probing the charity[.]” My guess is that the “senior law enforcement officials” voicing skepticism might be from Loretta Lynch’s staff. But they may include FBI officials. | 0 |
Appearing in an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, President Donald Trump said he would not be where he was if it wasn’t for his ability to speak directly to Americans through Twitter. [“Well, let me tell you about Twitter,” Trump said to Carlson. “I think that maybe I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Twitter, because I get such a fake press, such a dishonest press. ” The president also stated that he utilizes his “own form of media” and noted his massive following on the social network. “The news is not honest,” said President Trump. “Much of the news. It’s not honest. And when I have close to 100 million people watching me on Twitter, including Facebook, including all of the Instagram, including POTUS, including lots of things — but we have — I guess pretty close to 100 million people. I have my own form of media. ” President Trump also clarified his opinion of reporters in the media, saying, “Some of the press — by the way, some of the finest people I know are reporters. Reporters are wonderful. I’m talking about the fake media, the fake news. And there’s a lot of fake news. So if I’m not going to — if they’re not going to do me the honor and the public the honor of spreading my word accurately as it was meant, and you know exactly what I’m talking about, because there’s been nobody in history that got more dishonest media than I’ve gotten. ” “You look at some of the stories in The New York Times,” said Trump, “You look at some of the stories in The Washington Post. Take a look at what’s going on with CBS and NBC in particular and ABC — take a look at CNN. It’s a complete hit job. No matter what you do, no matter how good — no matter how great it is, they don’t report it in a positive fashion. ” Researchers at the University of Massachusetts published a study in December that examined how through Trump’s use of social media, “Twitter became news”: “He knew that he would get attention and it would go beyond Twitter — it would be reported on the news and in comedy [shows],” said Professor Gross. Those messages, which could be pulled up on screen by news programmes, served as “a mini press release” he added. The medium “made it easier to spread whatever he was thinking very quickly”. “In some sense Twitter made it easier to digest these and push them through the bloodstream of the American public,” said University of Massachusetts Assistant Professor of Political Science Justin Gross. Bloomberg also noted following the presidential election Trump’s successful use of Twitter in spreading his message, allowing him to “reach American voters constantly and without an editor. ” Watch President Trump’s full interview on Fox News below: Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart. com | 1 |
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) is pushing more gun control for Federal Firearms License holders (FFLs) in the city. [He couched the push as an attempt to fight straw purchases but did not mention that Illinois law already makes it illegal to sell a gun to someone who lacks the legal documentation to buy one and also prohibits someone from purchasing a gun for any individual who cannot legally purchase one themselves. In fact, the reports Illinois laws governing gun sales and transfers are some of the most stringent in the nation. Regarding the sale of guns: A person commits the offense of unlawful sale or delivery of firearms when he or she knowingly … Sells or transfers ownership of a firearm to a … person who does not display to the seller or transferor of the firearm either: (1) a currently valid Firearm Owner’s Identification Card that has previously been issued in the transferee’s name by the Department of State Police under the provisions of the Firearm Owners Identification Card Act or (2) a currently valid license to carry a concealed firearm that has previously been issued in the transferee’s name by the Department of State Police under the Firearm Concealed Carry Act. A violation of the Illinois law is a Class 4 felony that can result in up to three years in prison. And in addition to the rules barring sales to those not possessing a FOID card or concealed carry permit, another law — 720 Ill. Comp. Stat. .5 — bars individuals from buying guns for persons prohibited from buying them for themselves: A person commits the offense of unlawful purchase of a firearm who knowingly purchases or attempts to purchase a firearm with the intent to deliver that firearm to another person who is prohibited by federal or State law from possessing a firearm. In addition to the Illinois laws against straw purchases, ATF form 4473 makes clear that the purchaser of the gun must be the actual buyer of the gun as well. This is a federal regulation against straw purchases that is in addition to the state laws. Yet Emmanuel thinks more laws and regulations are in order. 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 |
posted by Eddie Scientists studying ancient stone arrangement alongside Aboriginal traditional owners in Australia’s Victorian bush say the site could pre-date Stonehenge and even Egypt’s Great Pyramids. But Wurdi Youang, as it’s known by the people of the Wada Warrung nation, is apparently not the only mysterious stone circle in Australia — just the most intact. Monash University astronomer Dr. Duane Hamacher has been studying Indigenous Australian astronomy for years, and told ABC’s Lateline he believes the Wurdi Youang structure could date back more than 11,000 years. If that’s proven, it will be yet another example of the world’s longest surviving culture’s innovations pre-dating their better known European equivalents. “Some academics have referred to this stone arrangement here as Australia’s version of Stonehenge,” Dr Hamacher said on the program Wednesday. “I think the question we might have to ask is: is Stonehenge Britain’s version of Wurdi Youang? Because this could be much, much older.” Traditional owners like Bryon Powell and the scientists they’re working with say the stones have possible solar indications, marking the movements of the sun over the year, including the summer solstice, equinox and winter solstice. A sacred sundial, if you will. The egg-shaped area is fifty metres wide and contains over 100 basalt boulders. After being noted by early European settlers and recorded by archaeologists in 1977, Wurdi Youang was only relatively recently given the attention it deserves as a site once sacred and significant. Local custodian Reg Abrahams sees the site as playing a role in contesting the increasingly-dated disproved notion that Indigenous Australians were simply nomadic hunter-gatherers. “If you’re going to have a stone arrangement where you mark off the seasons throughout the year with the solstices and equinoxes, it kind of makes sense if you’re at least most of the year in one specific location to do that,” he told the ABC. He continued: “You see a lot of agricultural and aquacultural practices, so evidence of this agriculture may go back tens of thousands of years, pre-dating what anthropologists commonly think of as the dawn of agriculture which is about 6,000 years ago in Mesopotamia.” Mysterious Mullimbimby site Wurdi Youang is just one of many stone arrangements created by Aboriginal nations that have been recorded across Australia, including in Carisbrook, Victoria and outside Mullumbimby, northern New South Wales. The site 40 kilometres outside of Mullumbimby is the stuff of legend. But a few amateur archaeologists say it’s based on much more than hearsay. It was said to contain 181 large standing pieces of sandstone — with the nearest sandstone deposit located over 20 kilometres away. In 2015, a teacher at the Brunswick Valley Historical Society, Richard Patterson unearthed letters from 1939 president of the Australian Archaeological and Education Research Society, Frederic Slater . “The mound is one of the oldest; I should say the oldest, forms of temples in the world and dates back to the Palaeolithic age with the advent of first man,” Slater is alleged to have written. Slater documented inscriptions from the site’s stones, which he said were made up of hand signs, letters and “sacred signs” that amounted to 28,000 words in the ancient language. In the 1940, the site was reportedly bulldozed by the farmer with a deed to the land, following government threats to seize his property, making further investigation virtually impossible.
A documentary on Indigenous astronomy called Star Stories of the Dreaming was released earlier this year, featuring the CSIRO’s Ray Norris and Euahlayi lawman Ghillar Michael Anderson sharing Indigenous belief systems associated with astronomy. Source: | 0 |
Consumer’s confidence in March rocketed to the highest level more than 16 years, according to data released Tuesday. America’s middle class, in particular, registered huge gains in confidence. [The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index soared to 125. 6 in March, up from 116. 1 in February. Economists had expected a decline to 114. 1. Measures of consumer and business confidence continue to defy experts by climbing ever higher since the election of President Donald Trump. Despite media reports of hate crimes and an ongoing narrative that America has unentered a period of uncertainty and surveys of consumers show that Americans are feeling better than they have for nearly all of this century. The rise in confidence since the election has widespread, cutting across regional and income groups. The biggest rise in confidence came from middle earners. The confidence index for households with incomes between $50, 000 and $75, 000 has risen from 100. 4 prior to the election to 135. 2. Households with incomes between $35, 000 and $50, 000 registered a rise from 79. 9 to 113. 4. Only those with incomes below $15, 000 are less confident now than before the election. Consumers are more confident about both their present situations and their expectations for the future, according to the Conference Board. Confidence in the jobs market has improved as well, with those saying jobs are “plentiful” rising while those claiming jobs are “hard to get” falling. | 1 |
Gold Ridge Elementary School in Folsom, California has banned the game of tag. [Principle David Frankel sent a note home to parents saying, “Students were instructed that physical contact including tag games, touch football, etc. were not allowed on the yard. ” Why would this tradition of playground fun get the axe? According to school district spokesman Daniel Thigpen, things had gotten just a bit too physical. Thigpen explained, “In this case, kids were getting too rough … so the school told them to stop playing those games … It’s not uncommon for a school to enact specific recess rules to address specific behavior problems. ” Students will face disciplinary action should they not comply. The punishments will begin with a referral, and then a conference, according to school officials. According to The Daily Mail, the school has claimed that the note was only sent home to some parents, and there’s some confusion over whether the ban applies to all students. Mallory Giddens is not a fan of the new rule. Giddens told KOVR television, “I don’t really like it. I mean I don’t really play tag but I don’t think it’s fair to everyone else that plays tag!” Giddens continued, “My principal, he doesn’t want us to have tag at school because people, they touch too hard. Sometimes they push people over and my principal doesn’t want anyone getting hurt. ” Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn | 1 |
TEL AVIV — More than 30 Israeli families who lost relatives to terror attacks have signed a letter to FIFA, the world governing body for soccer, accusing the Palestine Football Association (PFA) and its president, Jibril Rajoub, with severe violations of its statutes, including incitement to terrorism. [The letter charges the PFA with breaching two provisions of FIFA’s Statutes and two of the association’s Disciplinary Code. Included in those violations are Palestinian soccer competitions named after Palestinian terrorists, such as an annual contest named in honor of PLO founder Khalil who, according to Palestinian sources, was behind the deaths of more than 120 Israelis. Rajoub himself, the letter says, has glorified violence and incited Palestinians, lauded recent terror attacks as “individual acts of bravery” and noted that “he is proud” of the perpetrators. He has also compared Israeli Jews to Satan. In February 2014 he called for the abduction of Israelis. Later that year three Israeli teenagers, Gilad Shaer, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrach, were kidnapped and murdered. Rajoub subsequently congratulated Hamas for carrying out the triple attack. He was quoted saying, “If we had a nuke, we’d have used it [against Israel] this very morning. ” The letter also said PFA’s boycott of Israel ran contradictory to FIFA’s commitment to using soccer as a “bridge to peace. ” Rajoub has called for the expulsion of the Israel Football Association (IFA) and may use an upcoming FIFA summit in Bahrain to promote the idea again. “We are aware that the Palestinian demand to expel the Israeli Football Association may be raised at the FIFA Council and Congress, respectively on 9 and 11 May,” said Shimon Samuels, the European representative of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC). “We call, on the contrary, for the Palestinian Football Association to be expelled until all names of terrorists are removed from Palestinian teams, tournaments and stadiums. ” Ronald Lauder — president of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) — wrote to FIFA President Gianni Infantino on Thursday, telling him, “The campaign of the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) to sanction Israel has no place on the FIFA Congress agenda. ” Rajoub himself is a former terrorist who spent 15 years in Israeli jails before being released in a 1985 prisoner swap. He has served in several senior positions in the PA, including chief of its secret police. Among the bereaved family members who signed the letter to FIFA were Brenda and Nachum Lemkus, whose daughter Dalia was slain in November 2014, and Doron Mizrahi, father of Ziv Mizrachi, who was murdered in November 2015. Brenda Lemkus said: “Our darling daughter Dalia was murdered as a result of the constant incitement of the Palestinians and their glorification of terrorists. When we heard that the incitement and glorification of terrorists was so widespread in Palestinian football, we didn’t think twice about joining the campaign and signing a complaint. ” Itamar Marcus, the director of Israeli monitoring group Palestinian Media Watch, which was in charge of gathering evidence against the PFA and Rajoub, said that if FIFA neglected to address the letter, “it will be a disgrace for all the member associations and a permanent stain of FIFA’s reputation. ” Last month, Rajoub received a court summons and compensation lawsuit for $250 million upon landing at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York over his alleged involvement in the killing of an citizen in 1995. Azam Rahim’s family, who live in the state of Texas, served the court summons on Tuesday. According to the charge sheet, on September 29, 1995 Rahim was arrested by Preventive Security officials and taken to a security facility where he was tortured to death. | 1 |
Maine Gets High Marks for Supporting
By A.J. Higgins
A New York personal finance technology company is giving Maine high marks for its efforts to encourage veterans to re-enter the work force and take advantage of veterans programs.
Asees Singh, of SmartAssets, says that Maine ranks sixth in the country when it comes to several key programs.
“When veterans come back from serving, the process to adjusting to civilian life can be really difficult for them,” Singh says. “A survey from Pew Research Center found that 27 percent of veterans had a difficult time re-acclimating to civilian life.”
SmartAssets’ survey concluded that Maine should be proud of the fact that 10.5 percent of all private businesses in the state are owned by veterans.
mainepublic.org | 0 |
It feels like almost every other week there is a new headline about Uber raising more money. “Uber Closes $1. 6 Billion in Financing. ’’ “Uber Turns to Saudi Arabia for $3. 5 Billion Cash Infusion. ’’ Last week, we got this one: “Uber to Raise Up to $2 Billion in Market. ’’ If you add up all the money Uber has raised since it started in 2009 — the idea was born when its founders became annoyed that they could not get a cab in Paris — the app company is on its way to amassing a colossal $15 billion. That’s real cash, not some valuation. (That figure is $68 billion.) It has done all this while still managing to remain a private company, and its chief executive, Travis Kalanick, has insisted that a public offering is not coming soon. “I’m going to make sure it happens as late as possible,” he has repeatedly said. Consider this: When Amazon went public in 1997, it raised $54 million and was valued at $438 million. So what exactly is Uber doing with all that money? And what does it say about Uber — and the financial markets — that the company has turned most recently to selling the equivalent of junk bonds? Yes, Uber has to finance an war to gain market share in China and India. But there is more to it than that: Uber’s is seemingly part of an unspoken strategy to mark its territory. Every time Uber raises another $1 billion, venture capital investors and others may find it less attractive to back one of Uber’s many rivals: Didi Chuxing, Lyft, Gett, Halo, Juno. In other words, Uber’s efforts have seemingly become part of the contest: It’s not just a rivalry over customers and drivers it’s a war of attrition, a mad scramble to starve the competition of cash. At the moment, Uber’s success has had the opposite effect: It has spawned a long list of rivals, big and little guys who say, “We can do it too. ” But over time, as the smaller competitors run out of cash — after heavily subsidizing riders in an effort to steal business from Uber — venture capitalists should be less inclined to put up even more cash to go up against Fortress Uber. Uber’s arms race comes against the backdrop of falling valuations for many Silicon Valley unicorns — private companies worth $1 billion or more. So there’s clearly a rush to take the money while it’s still available. “It’s not the second inning or even the sixth, it’s the 14th inning in a baseball game,” Bill Gurley, the famed venture capitalist who has as a stake in Uber and sits on its board, warned on his blog about the state of Silicon Valley. He alerted investors about unicorns that come to them seeking funds: “You are not being invited to a special dance, you are being approached because you are the lender of last resort. ” The industry has long been seen as a game because of the “network effect”: The more customers sign up for Uber, the more drivers sign up, making it tougher for rivals to mount competition. There will most likely be only one or two significant players in any given market. (More on that in a moment, because there might be some cracks emerging in that point of view.) The question is whether the financing game is too. And the even larger question is whether Uber’s capital investments could ultimately act as a deterrent to investors who might consider supporting Uber’s competitors: Will they look at Uber’s balance sheet — it has some $6 billion in cash just sitting there — and throw up a white flag? So far, Uber is clearly winning the valuation game: It is worth more than virtually all of its rivals combined. But Uber still has formidable competition in the arena: Didi, the market leader in China that is engaged in a battle with Uber, just raised $7 billion, some of which came from Apple. (Mr. Kalanick, too, was hoping to raise money from Apple and had planned to meet with executives at the iPhone maker the same week Apple announced its investment in Didi.) Perhaps strangely, several of the same investors that have backed Uber are also backing Didi in China, including BlackRock and Tiger Global, so it is hard to say that one service is deterring investment in the other — at least not yet. (It is worth noting that among the investor class, some may be hoping that Uber might one day merge its Chinese operation with Didi.) Uber’s most recent effort — focused on the leveraged loan market — aims to avoid diluting the current base of shareholders. It has hired Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to sell about $2 billion in loans. By avoiding a traditional round of financing, the company also avoids the company having to risk trying to sell itself at an even higher valuation. Given the remarkably low interest rates, investors looking for yield may buy into Uber. Uber says it is profitable in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Australia — if you factor out taxes and interest payments. The challenge for Uber is breaking into China and India, perhaps the two largest markets in the world. Uber is currently on track to lose about $2 billion annually in those markets as it heavily subsidizes customers and drivers to gain market share. That means that Uber will have to pay up for the financing. But if Uber’s valuation continued to grow, it would be a bargain compared with the value of the equity. Uber is hoping to sell debt with a yield of about 4 or 4. 5 percent. Uber’s I. P. O. will probably come to pass in the next three to four years. That’s because some of the convertible debt it previously issued provides investors with a special discount if the company has not gone public by then. But by 2018 or 2019, at the rate Uber is going, who knows how much money Uber will have raised. It may need none. The question is whether it will have starved all of its competitors along the way. | 1 |
The Trumpflation Scam And The Fiscal Bloodbath Ahead By David Stockman. Without claiming too much credit, we think we hit the nail on the head in Trumped! We saw the Donald as the great populist battering ram that could overturn the destructive rule of the Wall Street/Washington elites, but also warned that Trump had no coherent or workable economic plan and that if elected the Imperial City would descend into chaos. That is, we never expected Trump to fix the mess, let alone make America great again. | 0 |
PHOENIX — There are certain unspoken talents required of television meteorologists in Phoenix, where the sun shines 296 days of the year and temperatures exceeding 100 degrees faze no one. One such skill is the ability to make the weather sound new each day. As a meteorologist for 12 News, Phoenix’s NBC affiliate, Matt Pace aims to make the recurring sunshine interesting, which is no easy task. I’ve watched Mr. Pace on the air as he searches for just the right words, from a limited list of options, to convey the very straightforward fact that it is so darn hot outside. “I go, ‘It’s hot,’ or, ‘It’s above average,’ or, ‘It’s going to be extremely warm today,’” he said on a day, from the safety of a Starbucks where he sipped a strawberry smoothie to “take the edge off the heat,” as he put it. “There’s also, ‘It’s really hot out there,’ or, ‘It’s hot, hot, hot,’ or just, ‘Triple hot! ’” On Twitter — where Mr. Pace’s often funny, always informative posts often end in exclamation points — it may well come to this: There are times when the best approach is to scrap adjectives or superlatives altogether, face the camera and declare, “The high is going to be 118 degrees today. ” When it’s that hot, Mr. Pace said, simplicity is the best way to drive the point across. Before delivering forecasts on TV, Mr. Pace, who has a Ph. D. in meteorology and climatology, was part of a team of meteorologists who monitored the weather from the edge of a runway at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, where the city’s official temperatures are recorded. (It also happens to be one of the warmest places in Phoenix.) He was basically the official whose temperature readings and assessments of visibility during dust storms might force the tower to suspend takeoffs. “I normally worked the overnight shift, when it was cooler,” he said, drawing quotation marks in the air as he said the word “cooler” to highlight what everyone who lives here knows all too well: that “cooler” has another meaning in Phoenix. During the peak of summer, overnight temperatures hardly drop below 90 degrees. But, as they say, it’s a dry heat, at least when it’s not monsoon season, with its powerful storms. “What the dry heat means,” Mr. Pace said, “is that it might be 111 degrees, but it will feel like 107. ” He took another sip from his smoothie. “I know that still feels ridiculously hot,” he said. “But I think there’s also this psychological thing to living here: You walk outside and you know it will be hot. People just accept it. ” | 1 |
By Jason Easley on Fri, Oct 28th, 2016 at 10:57 am It is a cruel reality of American electoral politics that the losers of presidential campaigns get banished from national discourse, and that process has already begun for Donald Trump. Share on Twitter Print This Post
It is a cruel reality of American electoral politics that the losers of presidential campaigns get banished from national discourse, and that process has already begun for Donald Trump.
Despite the fact that Trump has been claiming that the presidential election is going to be rigged, stolen, or unfair, his cries are beginning to fall on deaf ears. The latest Washington Post tracking poll found that confidence that votes will be counted correctly grew by 12 points from 31%-43%. The number of respondents who believed that voter fraud occurs somewhat often has dropped from 47%-37%, and those expressing concerns that all votes will be counted accurately dropped from 34% to 28%. Even Trump supporters are split 50%-49% on whether or not votes will be counted accurately.
Part of the shift is likely due to the effective job that President Obama did in addressing these concerns, but it is most likely that voters are treating Trump like the candidate who is going to lose the election.
One of the best indicators of a presidential election’s outcome as election day draws near is the question of who voters think will win.
Hillary Clinton is dominant on the question of who voters believe will win the election, which is a hint of the way that people are voting.
The process of tuning out the losing candidate has a long history in the US two party system. Losing candidates who refuse to go away, like Sarah Palin, are viewed as annoying relics who refuse to acknowledge that their time is up.
Trump’s fifteen minutes of fame on the national stage appear to be coming to an end. His words can still poison and damage our country at a cultural level, which is why he still needs to be discussed, but as far as changing minds and winning an election, it looks voters are in the process of banishing Trump from the political island. | 0 |
Next Cold War Roundup 11/1/16: Iraqi forces entered the city of Mosul and are advancing rapidly. Russia continues a halt on airstrikes in Aleppo as rebels led by al Qaeda launched an offensive in Aleppo. Turkey masses forces on borders. Experts warn of open-ended conflict with Russia. US politicians continue to accuse Russia of meddling with elections as damning material is exposed. And more from our latest roundup…
Russian Carrier Group in the Mediterranean _ The Russian carrier group is in the Mediterranean. Russian defense minister Shoigu said the fact that NATO countries denied them call at their ports along the way did not affect them as they were replenished by supply ship s.
_ Ruptly published video on Tuesday of the carrier group in the western Med doing helicopter and fighter jet takeoffs and landings.
Mosul _ Iraqi forces moved on Mosul as the battle has entered a new phase of urban warfare. Iraqi forces fought ISIS on the eastern side of Mosul and “artillery and air strikes pounded the city, still home to 1.5 million people.” Civilians from eastern Mosul , and residents of the eastern neighborhood of al-Quds said the “ultra-hardline Sunni militants had resorted to street fighting to try to hold the army back,” according to Reuters .
_ Iraqi special forces Gen. Shaghati held a press conference, saying: “ This is a good sign for the people of Mosul because the battle to liberate Mosul has effectively begun .” His troops captured a state TV building in Mosul. But reportedly there were also complications . Some of Shaghati’s men raised a Shi’ite flag. A brawl broke out between “Kurdish peshmerga fighters and mainly Arab Iraqi commandos” at a checkpoint on the Mosul-Erbil road, where they threatened to shoot each other. Christians waiting at the checkpoint for hours, scattered.
_ Mosul Eye reported that residents are in their homes, the Iraqi forces are advancing rapidly, and ISIS is disappearing from the Al-Karama section. War correspondent Elijah Magnier said Iraqi forces liberated Hay al-Samah and are advancing toward Hay al-Zohur.
_ Refugees are leaving Mosul in small boats, crossing the Tigris river ( video ) from the al-Shora area to “reach territory held by government forces” 6 miles away. Ruptly also published graphic (*caution*) video of ISIS fighters “littering the recently liberated village of al-Shora.”
_ Meanwhile, Turkey is reportedly massing tanks and troops near its border with Iraq, in the town of Silopi , as they expect the Kurdish PKK to take Sinjar. This makes 2 reports of Turkish forces massing on a border (see below reports of Turkish troops in Gazientep on the Syrian border).
_ Patrick Cockburn recalls , first hand, what happened in Mosul during the 2003 US invasion and the fall of Saddam Hussein. The Kurdish Peshmerga and others (but mainly the Kurds) took advantage of the power vacuum and looted the city while US soldiers manned checkpoints. They also took Kirkuk and other Arab territory, expanding the Kurdish territory by 40% after promising that they wouldn’t.
“As we drove into the city, we passed lines of pick-up trucks piled high with loot returning to the Kurdish-controlled enclave in northern Iraq.”
_ Cockburn gives a masterful summary of the different factions involved in the current anti-ISIS coalition advancing on Mosul and urges the Iraqi government to take and maintain control of Mosul so that it doesn’t get ripped apart and looted like before.
“The different segments of the anti-Isis forces potentially involved in seizing Mosul – the Iraqi army, Kurds, Shia and Sunni paramilitaries, Turks – may be temporary allies, but they are also rivals. They all have their own very different and conflicting agendas.”
Raqqa Campaign Will Coincide With Mosul Campaign and Will Happen “Soon” _ In a press briefing on Oct. 26 ( video , transcript ) Lt. Gen. Townsend, Operation Inherent Resolve commander, said that the campaign to take Raqqa in Syria will be done simultaneously with the Mosul campaign. They are working on the plans for the “isolation and eventual liberation of Raqqah.” It will be done in stages — first isolation and then “seizure and liberation.”
_ The Raqqah operation will be done with “a lot lighter coalition footprint” and with “our local partners in northern Syria.” Townsend said there are sufficient local forces but they plan to “recruit and equip and train more local forces for that operation.” The current Syrian Democratic Forces are 30,000 in number, mostly Kurdish. Townsend plans to recruit more local forces from the Raqqah area, similar to the way it was done in Manbij. The training will be done in northern Syria.
_ When asked if the Kurdish YPG element of the Syrian Democratic Forces will participate in the Raqqah campaign, given that Turkey has demanded no involvement of Kurds in Raqqah, Townsend said that is a “tough one.” Townsend said “it’s very important to get isolation in place around Raqqah to start controlling that environment on a pretty short timeline” and “we’re gonna take the force that we have.”
_ As for Turkey, Townsend said: “The Turks have expressed an interest to be involved in that. And we’ll — we’ll work through that later […] And I think that we’ll go with the forces that can go on the timeline that we need.” He stressed that they want to move on Raqqah “soon.”
_ Lt. Gen. Townsend said they’ll take “any partner that’s willing to join the coalition.” Would that include ex-ISIS fighters? “We’re gonna go with who can go, who’s willing to go soon. And then we’ll — once we get initial isolation in position, we’ll — we’ll look at how we prosecute the operation further.”
_ When asked about the urgency of the Raqqah campaign, Townsend said that ISIS is “up to something” and there is “and external plot” “emanating from Raqqah.”
_ A Military Times journalist asked if more US troops would be deployed to Syria, and Townsend would not answer directly but inferred that there would.
The Race for Raqqah _ Townsend, several times, avoided questions about Russia and Syria with respect to the Raqqah campaign, during the Oct. 26 briefing ( video , transcript ), until the end of the briefing when Paul Sonne asked directly about Syria and Russia’s response to Turkey participating in the Raqqa campaign and moving even further into Syria. Townsend’s answer was cryptic and hard to summarize, but important to read in full, as he signaled the official justification for US moving on Raqqah and acknowledged that the Syrian government would oppose it:
Townsend : “I just know that right now Syria seems to have their hands full. And so it’s necessary for our coalition to move about inside Syria to defeat Daesh-ISIL because it poses a threat to Syria, Iraq, the region, and our own nations.”
“So like I said, we’ll welcome any contributing nation that wants to make themselves part of the coalition to go fight Daesh in Syria. But that — join the coalition has to come with not — can’t just come with a whole bunch of strings. They got to be willing to go do what the coalition needs done. We try to employ coalition contributions whether they be troops or capabilities, we try to always, we employ them within the bounds of the wishes of their government. ”
“Once we set out what that arrangement is, then the coalition employs those capabilities. So we’ll use whoever wants to go do that, fight Daesh in Raqqa, that’s a tough place, probably won’t be a very long list. And I would imagine Syria probably isn’t thrilled with any of us there doing that. But it’s necessary to do.”
_ So the official justification for taking Raqqah, is that the Syrian army has its hands full and somebody has to take down ISIS in their capital.
_ Townsend says, multiple times, that any country, any force can join their coalition to isolate and liberate Raqqah. And each time he says it during the briefing, he does not exclude the Syrian coalition forces. When asked about Syria and Russia’s expected reaction to the Raqqah campaign, he brings it up again, that anyone can join the coalition, either with forces or “capabilities.” But they must accept that the US will be leading this coalition, even though they have no legal authority to fight or bomb inside Syria and the Syrian government repeatedly reminds the world of that.
_ Townsend then acknowledges that the Syrian government probably won’t be “thrilled” about the US coalition taking Raqqah or “with any of us” meaning Turkey. But he largely blows it off. which is interesting, and completely avoids addressing Russia specifically, again, though several journalists were anxious for him to address it. Very dicey, vague and unlike other parts of his briefing, this part sounded disingenuous.
_ Turkey is urging that the battle for Raqqa wait until after the Mosul operation is over. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus : “It would be better both militarily and strategically to conduct this operation after the Mosul operation and Turkey’s Euphrates Shield operation are completed.”
Aleppo _ Southfront reports that the Jaish al-Fatah rebel group, led by al Nusra, “has not been able to deliver a devastating blow to the Syrian government forces and to break the siege of eastern Aleppo.”
_ The rebels had launched a recent offensive with “over 2,000 so-called moderate opposition members carried out attacks on residential areas, schools and hospitals with the support of 22 tanks, 15 IFVs, multiple launch rocket systems and eight vehicles with suicide bombers.” They killed 80 civilians and injured 300 from Oct. 29 to Oct. 31 alone, and launched shells with chlorine gas on the Al-Hamdaniya neighborhood in West Aleppo.
_ Russia has not used warplanes in Aleppo for 16 days now. Rebel groups in East Aleppo continue to attack West Aleppo. Russian defense minister Shoigu said that “militants shoot dozens of civilians every day for trying to approach the humanitarian corridors.” The Russian military asked for permission to do airstrikes on Oct. 28 but Russian president Putin refused , continuing to extend the halt on airstrikes as part of a “humanitarian pause.” The Kremlin spokesman said the “humanitarian pause” will be impossible to continue if the opposition groups “resume offensive operations ” (which they have done). The Kremlin spokesman also indicated that “measures are being taken to ensure the evacuation of civilians and injured from eastern Aleppo.”
_ Ruptly published video today of the Syrian army firing “rocket salvos and heavy automatic weapons as they attempted to wrest control of the contested southwestern area.”
_ As the Russians wait for the UN and US to convince the “moderate opposition” to separate from designated terrorist groups, and the UN envoy Steffan de Mistura, in Geneva, “called on the fighters to leave the city to help enable aid to reach” East Aleppo’s civilians, the top negotiator, Khaled Khoja, in the Saudi-backed opposition umbrella group, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), also in Geneva, said it’s impossible for the rebels in East Aleppo to separate from al Nusra (al Qaeda) , and blamed it on the international community. He also denied shelling civilians in West Aleppo, which has been confirmed by numerous officials and media, as have reports of East Aleppo rebels refusing to allow civilians to leave.
_ As Russia keeps extending their halt on airstrikes, continue to keep humanitarian corridors that opposition rebels refuse to allow civilians to use to escape, and rebels launch offensives and refuse to separate from al Qaeda, the foggy, propaganda-mired situation in Aleppo becomes more clear to everyone. The US continues to refuse to provide intelligence on the location of al Qaeda or to convince the rebels they are backing to separate from them.
_ Khoja is hoping that the election next week will bring Hillary Clinton as a savior for the opposition groups and al Qaeda in East Aleppo:
HNC negotiator Khoja : “We heard (Democratic presidential candidate Hillary) Clinton talking about civilian protection, no-fly-zones, which is something we welcome and that we demand.”
Flow of ISIS fighters Between Iraq and Syria _ In the Oct. 26 briefing ( video , transcript ), Lt. Gen. Townsend said they don’t have a complete encirclement of Mosul and it’s not necessary, and there is movement out of Mosul but “when we can identify ISIL fighters, we strike them.” He said ISIS has gotten “savvy since Fallujah” and they mix fighters with families in their convoys so it’s hard to strike them.
Reshaping Syria? _ Turkish government officials are leaking some pretty explosive claims to Turkish pro-government media. Pro-Erdogan Turkish media, Yeni Safak, is reporting that Russia and Turkey made a deal to cede an extensive amount of territory in northern Syria to the control of “local elements and local assemblies after being liberated from the terror groups.” Syrian president Assad’s government” will consolidate its power in Latakia and Tartus.” The Turkish military is reportedly massing on the border in Gaziantep and will advance south to Aleppo, while Assad’s forces will vacate the city. Al Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham will be required to leave.
_ Yeni Safak reports that “a new map will be drawn including the Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia, Raqqa, Al-Hasakah and Dery ez-Zor provinces of the country.” Syrian Kurds, allied with the US-led coaliiton, plan to create an “autonomous region” to include “al-Hasakah, Tal Abyad, Ayn al Arab, Jarabulus, Al Rai, Azez, Marea and Afrin.” Turkey and Russia will not accept that plan and the Turkish government sources claimed that Russia and Turkey would fight together under Operation Euphrates Shield.
– On Tuesday,. Yeni Safak reported that the Turkish military chief of staff, Gen. Hulusi Akar, traveled to Moscow to meet with his counterpart, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, a deputy defense minister and head of the Russian military, to discuss“military cooperation and regional issues”.
Open-Ended Conflict With Russia _ Spencer Ackerman at the Guardian spoke to people in the US “national security circles,” including “retired senior US military pilots” and the director of national intelligence, who are ” increasingly alarmed that Hillary Clinton’s proposal for “no-fly zones” in Syria could lead to a military confrontation with Russia that could escalate to levels that were previously unthinkable in the post-cold war world.” Clinton’s opponent, Trump. has recently said that her “safe zones” plan could lead to World War III . Many considered the risk of aerial confrontation with Russian planes to be “severe.” DNI Clapper said he wouldn’t put it past the Russians to shoot down American aircraft. Others worry that she’ll commit the air force to an indefinite air occupation.
_ A retired Navy pilot who has flown no-fly zone missions went on the record saying no-fly zones are “the cocktail party military application of power of choice” and “it’s going to be a disaster. I hope it’s political posturing.” He also said: “I see almost nothing positive that can come from implementing [a no-fly zone] at the current time over Syria. Conversely, the potential to make a bad situation worse is very, very high.”
_ Guardian war correspondent Jonathan Steele calls Hillary Clinton’s no-fly zone plan for Syria “madness” that would not deescalate the war and “threatens to engulf us all.” He then provides a Syrian war rarity — some US/UK media truth-telling about the so called rebels:
Steele : “Syria is also mired in a propaganda war, and in the heart-rending images that the rebels put out on social media about life and death in Aleppo, the seamier side of the armed groups’ control is suppressed.”
_ Paul Mulshine from the NJ Star Ledger notes that top generals on both sides believe that a no-fly zone in Syria would lead to war with Russia.
_ Mnar Muhawesh of Mint Press News interviewed FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley on the risks of Hillary Clinton starting a world war.
Plan B for Syria: Anti-aircraft and Anti-Artillery Weapons to CIA-Backed FSA _ On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that Pres. Obama had neither agreed nor disagreed with a Plan B for Syria, to rush ship heavy weapons to “tens of thousands of” CIA-backed “rebels” in Syria, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which could be used against Russian aircraft and artillery. Plan B is supported by CIA director John Brennan and Sec. Defense Ash Carter. Some White House officials are skeptical about the CIA’s assessments. Overall, the CIA has backed “50,000 or more” fighters in a “constellation” of groups in Syria. The article had some interesting quotes:
Anonymous US official : [CIA-backed fighters are] “not doing any better on the battlefield, they’re up against a more formidable adversary, and they’re increasingly dominated by extremists […] What has this program become, and how will history record this effort?”
2nd Anonymous US official : “The FSA remains the only vehicle to pursue those goals […] You can’t defeat ISIL without removing Assad […] As long as there is a failed state in Syria, ISIL will have a homeland.”
Former senior administration official (involved in 2012 White House discussions of CIA program): “It’s a fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into[…] “There’s a huge risk here since the Russians entered. . . . The lesson out of this is that if you don’t take action early on, you should almost expect the options to get worse and worse and worse.”
2nd administration official involved in Syria discussions : “The Russians have seized the initiative […] You can’t pretend you can go to war against Assad and not go to war against Russia.”
Senior Turkish official : “They [US] promised to give more support [… But it now seems like nothing is going to happen. This coalition hasn’t delivered. It’s obsolete now. So we’re going to look at our options. If Aleppo falls, Assad wins.”
Russian Ministries Accuse US Anti-ISIS Coalition of War Crimes _ An airstrike on a mourning procession at a Shia shrine in the town of Daquq (near Kirkuk) on Oct. 21 resulted in civilian casualties leaving 17 people (15 women) dead and 50 injured, mainly women and children. Iran and Russia claimed that it was a US coalition airstrike. An official from the Kirkuk provisional council claimed it was an Iraqi plane , misinformed about ISIS positions. Iraq is investigating .
_ The Pentagon denied involvement in any airstrikes in Daquq that resulted in civilian casualties. Jason Ditz at antiwar.com notes that the “denial’s very specific caveats, that they didn’t deny attacking Daquq, or indeed the mosque, doesn’t help with credibility.” The US track record on admitting to civilian casualties during anti-ISIS missions hasn’t been very good . Locals identified the attacker as a warplane but could not tell whose plane it was.
_ Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Bahram Ghasemi, said :
Ghasemi : “Attacking innocent and mourning people cannot be justified by any excuse. The suffering people of Iraq should not be under terrorist attacks on the one hand, and on the other, bombardment by foreign military forces that prance around in Iraq under the pretext of fighting terrorism.”
_ The Russian Ministry of Defense said the US-led coalition was responsible for the strikes and inferred that they commit war crimes almost daily:
Russian MoD : “Russian reconnaissance pinpointed two jets conducting airstrikes on Daquq, located 30 kilometers to the south of Kirkuk, where, according to our data, there are no ISIS fighters. […] “These deadly attacks on civilian areas, which have all the marks of war crimes, are becoming almost a daily routine for the international coalition.”
Amnesty International: US Coalition Severely Underestimates Civilian Casualties in Syria _ Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty International’s Beirut regional office said :
Maalouf : “It’s high time the U.S. authorities came clean about the full extent of the civilian damage caused by coalition attacks in Syria […] “We fear the U.S.-led coalition is significantly underestimating the harm caused to civilians in its operations in Syria […] “Analysis of available evidence suggests that in each of these cases, coalition forces failed to take adequate precautions to minimize harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects […] Some of these attacks may constitute disproportionate or otherwise indiscriminate attacks.” [Emphasis added]
_ Based on Amnesty’s analysis of 11 US coalition attacks, the evidence suggests “as many as 300 civilians were killed.” The Pentagon has only acknowledged 1 death in these attacks. Research by other monitoring organizations indicates that the total number of civilians killed in US coalition airstrikes has been as high as 600 or more than 1000 . The strikes hit villages, homes, public markets, and shelters. In one case, a double-tap strike was reported in the village of Ayn al-Khan, Hasakah, where a helicopter gunship returned and killed first responders, even though the Kurdish fighters claimed to have warned the coalition of civilians in the area. [Emphasis added]
Survivor : “‘At this point I had a two-month-old baby boy in my arms whom I had rescued. The hit caused me to fall and drop him… I fell into the hole made by the air strike. That was what saved me… My mother, aunt, wife and children – a daughter who was four years old and a son who was two and a half were all killed. The woman and her son who I’d rescued were killed. Everyone but me was killed,’ he said.”
UN and Rights Groups Condemn Russia and Syria for Airstrikes on Idlib School _ UNICEF and monitoring groups accused Russia or Syria of airstrikes on a school compound in the rebel-held village of Haas in Idlib province. 35 people were killed, including 22 children. A graphic photo of a child with a partially severed arm was circulated on social media. UNICEF’s director called it an outrage and a war crime, if deliberate. The UN humanitarian chief said he was “incandescent with rage” and held the UN Security Council for not stopping the suffering.
_ At the UN Security Council meeting, the Russian ambassador Churkin was attacked by several parties including US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power. Churkin said Russia and Syria had halted airstrikes for the past week and there had been no recognition . US Power, after accusing Russia of not cooperating with the UN and mocking the humanitarian pause, said: Power : “You don’t get congratulations and credit for not committing war crimes for a day or a week.” She walked out again when the Syrian ambassador spoke.
Russia Lost Seat on UN Human Rights Council _ Russia was stripped of its seat on the UN Human Rights Council during a UN general assembly secret vote for re-election for membership. The US and UK won seats on the council. Rights groups had lobbied for this outcome. Hungary and Croatia gained seats in their region. Saudi Arabia kept their seat on the Human Rights Council.
Operation Euphrates Shield: Syria Threatens to Down Turkish Planes _ As Turkish-backed forces (CIA and Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Turkish military) invaded Syria in Jarablus late August, in an offensive called Operation Euphrates Shield, under the pretense of clearing ISIS from the Syrian-Turkish border areas but with the real aim of preventing Kurdish forces from securing a contiguous area in northern Syria. As they advanced westward to northern Aleppo, in the vicinity of al-Bab, they began fighting with Kurdish forces and on Oct. 20 hit the majority Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with airstrikes. Hurriyet reported , via an anonymous official, that the Syrian government then activated their air defense and threatened to shoot down any Turkish planes in Syrian airspace.
_ RT reported on Oct. 29 that the Turkish air force has not been used in Operation Euphrates shield for the past week and that “coalition forces have also decreased the number of flights in northern Syria.” The lack of air support has slowed their advance toward al-Bab.
_ Until the past few days, the Turkish forces have fought with ISIS and the Kurds in northern Syria, but not Syrian coalition forces. But Turkey claims that the Syrian forces attacked them this week near Marea. On Wednesday the Turkish foreign minister said Operation Euphrates Shield would not be deterred by the government forces “ until retaking the city of al-Bab .”
East Aleppo “Rebels” Firing Chemical Weapons Rockets at Civilian Areas in West Aleppo _ On Sunday, Syrian media reported “shells containing poison gases” fired at residential areas in West Aleppo from opposition fighters in East Aleppo. An RT crew on the ground reported “36 cases of suffocation” and Al-Mayadeen media reported that all victims were civilians. The Russian ambassador to the UN reported via the Russian foreign ministry that 16,000 people were killed by US-backed opposition groups between February and September.
_ The head of Aleppo University Hospital said 36 people (both fighters and civilians) were injured by the chlorine gas fired into West Aleppo by the opposition in East Aleppo, who have launched a recent offensive on the government-held areas after more than a week of Russia and Syria halting airstrikes. The London-based and pro-rebel Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that chemical weapon attacks happened.
Air Base in Hasakah _ The air base that US military engineers renovated months ago for use by US special forces and Kurdish forces:
For the first time, mystical Abu Hajar Airport near the town of Rmelan in the al-Hasakah Governorate #Syria #USAF pic.twitter.com/vlj78ew5if
— Aldin Abazović (@Ald_Aba) October 30, 2016
Ukraine _ Fighting has broken out in “the northern suburbs of Donetsk, the airport district, the Yasinovataya checkpoint, and Spartak village” in Ukraine, where there had been a ceasefire, according to Fort Russ .
_ The Ukraine military has reportedly been massing on the frontlines of Lugansk . There is also a report of a team of NATO troops from “Canada, Denmark, and the Netherlands” meeting with the Ukraine miltiary in the Donbass to “study the real situation on the demarcation line in Donbass” and to test weapons.
War and Elections _ Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson and Gordon Adams on the National Interest: “ No, Hillary Clinton’s Foreign Policy Judgement Isn’t As Good As Everyone Says .” Wilkerson also discussed the article on The Real News this week. Wilkerson, who served under the George W. Bush administration, says he’s very concerned because of her past history and the fact that a lot of the people who are advising her look like the people who were advising Pres. George W. Bush. Trump has been all over the place, Wilkerson said, but he has also indicated that he wouldn’t get us into the wars “on the edge of empire” that cost us so much and don’t produce good result. Wilkerson said from what he has heard, the military and the Joint Chiefs are reluctant to intervene in Syria against Assad. The policy to take down Assad is a mistake.
_ Ray McGovern, on the Real News , said nothing happened at the latest meeting on the Minsk Accords. Germany, France and Russia want the violence in Ukraine to stop, but Poroshenko is “not his own man,” according to McGovern. He’s a puppet of the US. Hillary Clinton “and the people she’s bringing in with her, they’ve openly favored giving arms, offense arms to Ukraine.” The Europeans “to their credit are worried about that.” McGovern recently visited the region on a mission with 20 people. He said Ukraine is in a shambles and the people are malnourished. His unofficial delegation visited Crimea, and other areas in Russia, and they were welcomed by “everyday Russians,” like minded people who want peace and are worried about the demonization of their president and country.
_ “ Clinton’s Allies Promise a Tougher Line on Iran .” And “ Clinton Adviser Proposes Attacking Iran to Aid the Saudis in Yemen .”
_ “ The Geniuses Who Brought You the Iraq War Are at It Again ” and they’re mainly allied with the Hillary Clinton campaign, something the partisan author of the article “forgets” to mention.
Analysis and Opinion _ Yet another warning from an expert on US-Russian relations about the buildup to war with the nuclear power. Retired intelligence analyst, Ray McGovern, lays out the recent history of the deterioration in relations and asks the right questions about why all the hype about Russia is being built up right now.
_ Stephen Walt: “ The Great Myth About U.S. Intervention in Syria : America’s standing in the world has not — and will not — be weakened by staying out of other countries’ humanitarian crises.”
_ James Carden at The Nation: “ Obama’s Foreign Policy: A Hostage to Bipartisan Consensus .” “ He may have criticized the ‘Washington playbook,’ but he couldn’t overcome DC’s interventionist orthodoxy .” Carden notes that all of Obama’s foreign policy pledges have been unfulfilled and his likely successor is a hawk which is “ an all-too-fitting monument to an era of dashed expectations.” Obama gave the wars in Libya and Syria “a veneer of legality,” started a “new and more dangerous cold war with Russia,” and launched the “Asia pivot” to begin efforts to contain of China. Obama was expected to improve the mess from the Bush years but instead “the convergence of the neoconservative and Wilsonian interventionist creeds has solidified into orthodoxy” that became necessary for war selling after the 2003 Iraq invasion fiasco. Hardcore neocons “have become devoted supporters of Hillary Clinton.” Samantha Power declared that the US national interest have been expanded from interstate affairs to intrastate affairs as well and Obama “remains firmly in the grip of a foreign-policy orthodoxy that he himself has dismissed” largely because the of the narrow spectrum of policy options considered acceptable by the “Borg”.
“Power’s casual disregard for the Westphalian principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of other states, now de rigueur among interventionists of both parties, is fused with a belief in American global hegemony, of which the Obama administration’s 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review is representative.”
_ According to Max Keiser, an American finance show host based in London, the UK is “using fake Russian threat to pass ‘snoopers charter’ law.” He cites a Guardian “exclusive”: “‘ Increasingly aggressive’ Russia a growing threat to UK, says MI5 head .” “Exclusive: In first newspaper interview given by a serving spy chief, Andrew Parker talks of terror, espionage and balance between secrecy and privacy.” The Kremlin spokesman refuted the MI5 chief’s claims.
The post Iraqi Forces Enter Mosul; Rebels Launch Offensive in Aleppo; Turkish Forces on Borders appeared first on Shadowproof .
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WATCH: CNN Called ‘Clinton News Network’ On Air by Fiery British Conservative The implosion that followed is something to see Image Credits: Wiki Commons .
CNN anchor Hala Gorani wasn’t expecting her network to be called the “Clinton News Network” by British firebrand conservative columnist Katie Hopkins from The Daily Mail and watching the ensuing implosion is a must-see.
Hopkins’ first offense was daring to believe Donald Trump is going to win the election — never a good way to start on CNN:
“I think he’s going to win. I think you guys are in for a big surprise, which I’m quite excited about. I think we’ve seen a very similar think here in the UK with Brexit. We saw a lot of the liberal press, kind of, sneering at Brexiteers. We saw a lot of the sneering that we see from the Clinton News Network.”
“That’s CNN. You’re calling us the Clinton News Network?” Gorani said in shock.
“You’re exactly correct,” Hopkins said.
The two argued over how the media are obsessed with polls, especially the ones showing Hillary Clinton in the lead. Hopkins destroyed Gorani saying, “Having sat in the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and watched your news network, it is entirely biased, I think, in coverage.”
Gorani refused to believe and said over her 18-year career at CNN, she’s only seen “nothing but balance” at the network.
Oddly enough, as the sparring match continued, Gorani repeatedly cut Hopkins off when she criticized the Clintons.
So, there goes that theory. NEWSLETTER SIGN UP Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars Crew. Related Articles | 0 |
Chinese political dissidents are having their organs cut from their bodies for 'transplant tourists'
Tuesday, November 01, 2016 by: J. D. Heyes Tags: China , organ harvesting , political prisoners (NaturalNews) In the U.S. these days, supporting GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump will earn you an assault from Left-wing cowards and bullies who support Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton . But in China, being a political dissident and opposing the ruling Communist government could earn you a trip to a hospital operating room.Where you'll have your organs removed for waiting "transplant tourists."As reported by the Epoch Times , Chinese officials began persecuting the 100 million practitioners of Falun Gong in July 1999, and have continued to do so ever since. To the Chinese communists, there is no such thing as a religious deity or belief, because communists insist that their form of government should be the only thing requiring loyalty and faithfulness.Not long ago this kind of treatment of Chinese "dissidents" would draw loud rebukes from the U.S. government, the United Nations and various human rights organizations around the world, as well as major media coverage. But since the Chinese manufacturing economy has become such an integral part of the economies of most of the world's advanced countries, outrage has been muted.The lack of outrage and subsequent media coverage and pressure by governments has essentially given the Chinese communists a green light to treat Falun Gong – and anyone else deemed a political dissident – in any barbaric way they choose. 'A new form of evil' Hence, the creation of a cottage industry of sorts – Transplant Tourism. As the Epoch Times noted, this is essentially " murder on demand " for an organ that is purchased ahead of time by someone who then travels to China for a transplant operation. It is a huge source of revenue both for the Chinese military and for private hospitals around the country, according to Nobel Prize nominees and investigators David Matas, an international human rights attorney, and David Kilgour, a former Canadian foreign secretary for Asia-Pacific.Matas and Kilgour published their first investigative report in 2006 , and evidence about forced harvesting of organs in China from prisoners of conscience has only mounted in the years since. The investigators found that the overwhelming majority of the pool of victims did not come from prisoners sentenced to death but rather from prisoners of conscience, primarily followers of Falun Gong – the largest group in China's prisons.In their 2006 report, Matas described the systematic harvesting of organs from Falun Gong adherents by the Chinese Communist Party as "a new form of evil we have yet to see on this planet."One of the founding board members of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), Dr. Dana Churchill, spoke at rallies in Los Angeles and Santa Monica Beach earlier this month. She said that to this point the world had never witnessed a "more horrific and barbaric crime as the Chinese Communist Party has committed against Falun Gong." 'Crime against humanity' She added that it wasn't just Falun Gong adherents who were being victimized, however. Others include Christians, the Uyghurs and Tibetans, all of whom have also had their organs harvested "while they are alive, unwilling, and between 20 and 40 years old, the prime of their life," Churchill – a naturopathic doctor from Pasadena, Calif., said. Epoch Times noted that recently released findings on the number of Chinese prisoners who have been murdered go way beyond original estimates collected from various investigators and organizations.Churchill said: "With Falun Gong, approximately 65,000 have been murdered, and that is according to DAFOH, our organization."At a Washington, D.C., rally on July 17, 2015, following nine years of investigation, the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong announced that it had "concluded that since July 20, 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), lead by its former head Jiang Zemin, has utilized China's entire state apparatus to harvest organs from living Falun Gong practitioners," as a way to "physically destroy" the group as a whole."This is genocide and a crime against humanity," the organization concluded. Sources: | 0 |
Get short URL 0 17 0 0 Another tremor of magnitude of 4.6 was registered in central Italy in the late hours of Wednesday, following two earthquakes earlier in the day, the head of Italy's civil protection agency, Fabrizio Curcio, said.
ROME (Sputnik) – Earlier in the day, two earthquakes of magnitudes of 6.3 and 5.4 hit the region of Marche. © AFP 2016/ Richter magnitude scale "Another earthquake of magnitude of 4.6 took place at 23:42 [21:42 GMT] in the same zone as two earlier tremors," Curcio told a briefing as broadcast by the RaiNews24 television channel.
According to Curcio, the situation is not catastrophic and nobody has been killed. ... | 0 |
Fraud fraud fraud can’t anyone see the family tree isnt even old and using care takers in pictures is beond bullshit i hate the U.S. government for everything theyve done to my family !!! Enjoy your theifing selfs your getting ready to burn in hell .. | 0 |
В августе 2016 г. в г. Чанчунь (КНР) состоялся 21-й Саммит по международному обмену и сотрудничеству региональных администраций стран Северо-Восточной Азии. В нем приняли участие делегации из России, Китая, Республики Корея, Монголии и Японии. Высокопоставленные представители указанных государств обсудили важные вопросы сотрудничества в области торговли, транспорта, экологии и др. Помимо прочих важных вопросов межгосударственного сотрудничества, немалое внимание было уделено развитию регионального туризма, в котором Приморью предстоит сыграть значительную роль. В частности, говорили о возможностях развития морского туризма и создании постоянного туристического маршрута, который соединит Приморье, Республику Корея, Китай и Японию. Планы, озвученные на Саммите, не были забыты: стороны немедленно приступили к работе. Уже в октябре 2016 г. Приморье встречало гостей из Южной Кореи, которые прибыли обсудить подробности проекта. Возглавлял делегацию Пак Тэ Ук, глава Морского туристического центра провинции Кангвон. Во время встречи с администрацией Приморского края он заявил, что Владивосток должен стать узловой точкой круизной и паромной линий Азиатско-Тихоокеанского региона. Столица Приморского края уже успела принять один круизный лайнер из Южной Кореи – в мае 2016 г. его посетила «Коста Виктория». Владивосток произвел на корейских туристов неизгладимое впечатление. Стало очевидно, что развитие туризма в этом направлении способно принести огромные доходы как российской, так и корейской стороне. По словам Пак Тэ Ука, в 2017 г. «Коста Виктория» посетит столицу Приморья шесть раз. Кроме того, туда станут совершать рейсы и другие корабли. Таким образом, корейские туристы начнут прибывать в город каждый месяц, а постоянная работа маршрута начнется уже в феврале 2017 г. Маршрут включает порт Тяньцзинь в Китае, Пусан и Сокчо в Южной Корее, Сакайминато и Хаката в Японии и Владивосток в России. Когда он заработает, общее число круизных судов, посещающих Приморье за год, возрастет втрое. Как заметил господин Пак, особое значение новым круизным маршрутам в регионе придают грядущие Олимпийские игры. Ближайшие три Олимпиады должны пройти именно в странах Северо-Восточной Азии – Южной Корее, Японии и Китае. Ввиду этого развитие судоходства и авиаперевозок в регионе становится жизненно важным и чрезвычайно прибыльным. В целом, следует отметить, что постепенно Владивосток становится все более значимым культурным и торговым центром в СВА, способствуя при этом развитию всего Приморья. Одновременно он набирает все большую популярность у иностранных туристов. Важным фактором, способствующим этому, стало принятие закона, позволяющего с начала 2016 г. иностранцам въезд и нахождение во Владивостоке в течение 8 дней без визы. По прогнозам Департамента международного сотрудничества Приморского края, за еще не окончившийся 2016 год во Владивостоке побывает более 500 тыс. иностранных туристов. Помимо «Коста Виктория», в текущем году столица Приморья приняла еще пять круизных лайнеров. Так, в марте 2016 г. во Владивосток прибыл немецкий лайнер « Artania », а в мае – японский « Nippon Maru ». В июле столицу Приморья впервые посетил знаменитый круизный лайнер «Sun Princess», совершавший рейс из Сиднея в Токио через Малайзию, Гонконг, Шанхай и Сеул. Этот огромный корабль, имеющий длину 261 метров и водоизмещение 77 441 тонн, вмещает экипаж из 1000 человек и 2200 пассажиров. После спуска на воду в 1995 г. «Sun Princess» считался одним из крупнейших круизных лайнеров в мире. Несмотря на то, что с тех пор появились и гораздо более крупные лайнеры, он по-прежнему остается всемирно известным, как одно из самых популярных и комфортабельных туристических судов. Принадлежит «Sun Princess» одной из самых больших в мире круизных компаний, мультинациональной «Carnival Corporation». Прибытие судна такого уровня – очередное свидетельство того, что Владивосток становится одним из ключевых портов АТР. Более того, за последние несколько лет столицу Приморья уже восемь раз посещал «родственник» знаменитого лайнера – не менее знаменитый « Diamond Princess », относящийся к той же серии и принадлежащий той же корпорации. Еще одним важным событием 2016 г. стало первое посещение приморской столицы туристическим лайнером из КНР «Chinese Tais h an». Несмотря на то, что это не такой гигант, как «Sun Princess», и что рассчитан он на путешественников среднего достатка, прибытие «Chinese Tais h an» – знаменательное событие. Следует напомнить, что в связи с увеличением благосостояния китайские граждане приобрели к путешествиям особую страсть. Именно они сейчас составляют основу самых мощных и прибыльных туристических потоков. Есть все основания ожидать, что с каждым годом они будут расти, а новые морские туристические маршруты приобретут чрезвычайную популярность. Последним туристическим судном, посетившим Владивосток в 2016 г., стал « Pacific Venus », пришвартовавшийся в этом российском порту 20 октября. Он совершал круиз из Японии с заходом в южнокорейский порт Пусан. « Pacific Venus » входит в число крупнейших лайнеров Японского моря и является вторым по размеру японским кораблем. На его борту прибыло более 300 туристов. За последние несколько лет это уже пятое посещение « Pacific Venus » Владивостока. Еще одним результатом августовского визита приморского губернатора в КНР стало восстановление паромного сообщения по маршруту Сокчо (Южная Корея) – Зарубино (Россия) – Хуньчунь (Китай). Соответствующее трехстороннее соглашение было подписано на встрече губернаторов регионов стран СВА. С лета 2017 г. обновленная паромная линия будет перевозить больше туристов (будут использоваться суда вместимостью до 1000 человек) и значительные объемы грузов. Следует ожидать большого потока туристов: ведь в феврале 2016 г. Министерство культуры выдвинуло инициативу о включении Зарубино в число российских портов, для прибытия в которые иностранным туристам не потребуется виза. Давно известно, что туризм нельзя недооценивать. Помимо больших прибылей, которые он приносит сам по себе, он также способствует развитию международных культурных и торговых отношений. Туризм ведет к процветанию любого региона, обеспечивает рекламу, международный престиж и приток инвесторов. Что касается морских туристических маршрутов, то их прогресс неразрывно связан с развитием судоходства в целом. Таким образом, усилия Приморского края по привлечению туристов из ведущих государств Азии ведут к экономическому росту всего региона и укреплению позиций Владивостока как одного из главных портов АТР. София Пале, кандидат исторических наук, научный сотрудник Центра Юго-Восточной Азии, Австралии и Океании ИВ РАН, специально для интернет-журнала «Новое Восточное Обозрение». Популярные статьи | 0 |
WATCH: Embattled GOP Senator Just Killed His Campaign With This Racist Remark By Carrie MacDonald on October 28, 2016
Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) faced Representative Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) in a debate last night, and he decided to go full racist and question her family’s military service. Kirk Goes Low … Again
Sen. Kirk is battling to retain his Senate seat, and his chances of doing so get slimmer by the day. In last night’s debate, he made a racist comment to Rep. Duckworth that may put the final nail in the coffin of his re-election bid.
Both candidates in the race are military veterans, and Rep. Duckworth was speaking about her own service as well as that of her family. She said : “My family has served this nation in uniform going back to the Revolution. I am a daughter of the American Revolution. I’ve bled for this nation. But I still want to be there in the Senate when the drums of war sound — because people are quick to sound the drums of war — and I want to be there to say, ‘This is what it costs. This is what you’re asking us to do. And if that’s the case, I’ll go.’ Families like mine are the ones that lead first. But let’s make sure the American people understand what we are engaging in. And let’s hold our allies accountable because we can’t do it all.”
Sen. Kirk was given the customary 30 seconds to respond. However, rather than respond with dignity and grace, he chose to take the low road, saying: “I had forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.”
Rep. Duckworth was born in Bangkok to a mother of Thai-Chinese descent and an American father.
And yes, her family’s military service on her father’s side can indeed be traced back to the American Revolution.
Kirk’s comment, made to a woman who lost both her legs and nearly lost her right arm in Iraq, was racist and indefensible. I find myself wondering what he possibly thought he could gain by making it. His campaign has come forward to say that Kirk “honors her family’s service.” If that’s true, he has a strange way of showing it.
The junior senator has come under fire in the past for lying about his own military service.
As for Rep. Duckworth, she simply smiled and let the moderator move on. My guess is she was thinking of how nice “Senator Tammy Duckworth” sounds, because Kirk may as well just bow out gracefully now.
Watch the exchange here, and remember to vote on November 8:
Featured Images by Lance Cheung and Daniel X. O’Nell via Flickr under a CC By 2.0 license About Carrie MacDonald
Carrie is a progressive mom and wife living in the upper Midwest. Connect | 0 |
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Observing the US presidential electoral campaign, Thierry Meyssan analyses the resurgence of an old and weighty conflict of civilisation. Hillary Clinton has just declared that this election is not about programmes, but about the question «Who are the Americans?». It was not for reasons of his political programme that the Republican leaders have withdrawn their support from their candidate, Donald Trump, but because of his personal behaviour. According to Thierry Meyssan, until now, the United States was composed of migrants from different horizons who accepted to submit to the ideology of a particular community . This is the model which is in the process of breaking down, at the risk of shattering the country itself. During the year of the US electoral campaign that we have just weathered, the rhetoric has profoundly changed, and an unexpected rift has appeared between the two camps. If in the beginning, the candidates spoke about subjects which were genuinely political (such as the sharing of wealth or national security), today they are mostly talking about sex and money. It is this dialogue, and not the political questions, which has caused the explosion of the Republican party – whose main leaders have withdrawn their support for their candidate – and which is recomposing the political chess-board, awakening an ancient cleavage of civilisation. On one side, Mrs Clinton is working to appear politically correct, while on the other, «The Donald» is blowing the hypocrisy of the ex-«First Lady» to smithereens.
On one side, Hillary Clinton promises male / female equality – although she has never hesitated to attack and defile the women who revealed that they had slept with her husband – and that she is presenting herself not for her personal qualities, but as the wife of an ex-President, and that she accuses Donald Trump of misogyny because he does not hide his appreciation of the female gender. On the other, Donald Trump denounces the privatisation of the State and the racketing of foreign personalities by the Clinton Foundation to obtain appointments with the State Department – the creation of ObamaCare not in the interest of citizens, but for the profit of medical insurance companies – and goes as far as to question the honesty of the electoral system.
I am perfectly aware that the way in which Donald Trump expresses himself may encourage racism, but I do not believe for a second that this question is at the heart of the electoral debate, despite the hype from the pro-Clinton medias. It is not without interest that, during the Lewinsky affair, President Bill Clinton apologised to the Nation and convened a number of preachers to pray for his salvation. But when he was accused of similar misconduct by an audio recording, Donald Trump simply apologised to the people he had upset without making any appeal to members of the clergy. The current divide re-awakens the revolt of Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran values against those of the Calvinists, mainly represented in the USA by the Presbyterians, the Baptists and the Methodists.
While the two candidates were raised in the Puritan tradition (Clinton as a Methodist and Trump as a Presbyterian), Mrs. Clinton has returned to the religion of her father, and participates today in a prayer group composed of the army chiefs of staff, The Family, while Mr Trump practises a more interior form of spirituality and rarely goes to church. Of course, no-one is locked into the systems in which they were raised, but when people act without thinking, they unconsciously reproduce these systems. The question of the religious environment of the candidates may, therefore, be important.
In order to understand the stakes of this game, we have to go back and look at 17th century England. Oliver Cromwell instigated a military coup d’etat which overthrew King Charles 1st. He wanted to install a Republic, purify the soul of the country, and ordered the decapitation of the ex-sovereign. He created a sectarian régime inspired by the ideas of Calvin, massacred thousands of Irish Papists, and imposed a Puritan way of life. He also created Zionism – he invited the Jews back to England and was the first head of state in the world to demand the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. This bloody episode is known by the name of the «First British Civil War».
After the monarchy had been reinstated, Cromwell’s Puritans fled from England. They set up in Holland, from where some of them left for the Americas aboard the Mayflower (the «Pilgrim Fathers»), while others founded the Afrikaner community in South Africa. During the War of Independence in the 18th century the United States, we saw a resurgence of the struggle of the Calvinists against the British monarchy, so that in current manuals of British History, it is known as the «Second Civil War».
In the 19th century, the American Civil War opposed the Southern States (mainly inhabited by Catholic colonists) to the North (mostly inhabited by Protestant colonists). The History of the winning side presents this confrontation as a fight for freedom in the face of slavery, which is pure propaganda. The Southern states abolished slavery during the war when they concluded an agreement with the British monarchy). As a result, we once again saw the revolt of the Puritans against the British throne, which is why some historians speak of the «Third British Civil War».
During the 20th century, this interior confrontation of British civilisation seemed over and done with, apart from the re-appearance of the Puritans in the United Kingdom with the «non-conformist Christians» of Prime Minister David Lloyd George. It was they who divided Ireland and agreed to create the « Jewish national homeland» in Palestine.
In any case, one of Richard Nixon’s advisors, Kevin Philipps, dedicated a voluminous thesis to these civil wars, in which he noted that none of the problems had been solved, and announced a fourth confrontation [ 1 ].
The adepts of the Calvinist churches, who for the last 40 years have voted massively for the Republicans, now support the Democrats.
I have no doubt that Mrs Clinton will be the next President of the United States, or that if Mr Trump were to be elected, he would be rapidly eliminated. But over the last few months, we have witnessed a large electoral redistribution within an irreversible demographic evolution. The Puritan-based churches now account for only a quarter of the population and are swinging towards the Democrat camp. Their model looks like a historical accident. It disappeared in South Africa, and will not be able to survive much longer, either in the United States or in Israël. Beyond the Presidential election, US society will have to evolve rapidly or split once again. In a country where the youth massively rejects the influence of the Puritan preachers, it is no longer possible to displace the question of equality. The Puritans envisage a society where all men are equal, but not equivalent. Lord Cromwell wanted a Republic for the English, but only after he had massacred the Irish Papists. This is how it is at the moment in the United States – all citizens are equal before the law, but in the name of the same texts, black people are systematically condemned, while attenuating circumstances are found for white people who have committed equivalent crimes. And in the majority of states, a penal condemnation, even for a speeding ticket, is enough to cancel the right to vote. Consequently, white and black people are equal, but in most states, the majority of black people has been legally deprived of its right to vote. The paradigm of this thought, in terms of foreign policy, is the «two-state» solution in Palestine – equal, but above all, not equivalent.
It is Puritan thinking that led the administrations of preacher Carter, Reagan, Bush (Sr. and Jr. are direct descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers), Clinton and Obama to support Wahhabism, in contradiction to the declared ideals of their countries, and today, to support Daesh.
A long time ago, the Founding Fathers built communities in Plymouth and Boston which were idealised in the US collective memory. And yet the historians are formal – they claimed to be creating the «New Israël», and chose the «Law of Moses». They did not place the Cross in their temples, but the Tables of the Law. Although they are Christians, they attach more importance to the Jewish scriptures than the Gospel. They oblige their women to veil their faces and re-established corporaI punishment.
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The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday for just the second time since the 2008 financial crisis. Economists talk a lot about the impact this will have on markets, but what about everyday consumers? The Fed’s decision can affect the cost of housing, cars, student loans and even the interest on your credit card — though not all necessarily right away. And when the Fed raises rates, all sorts of other expenses eventually tick up. The move is part of what will be a slow, upward climb for what’s known as the federal funds rate. Banks are ordered by law to have a certain amount of money in reserve, so they typically make overnight loans to each other to keep those balances up. The federal funds rate is the level of interest that applies to those loans. Because the rate has been close to zero since 2008, as part of the Fed’s strategy to bring the nation out of a recession, there’s hardly anywhere for it to go but up. As the economy improves and Donald J. Trump unveils his stimulus package, economists expect rates to rise steadily over a period of years. “The bottom line, ostensibly, is that the economy is getting stronger,” said Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “Nobody in their right mind would say, ‘I’d rather have higher unemployment and lower interest rates.’ Nobody wants to pay a higher interest rate, but I think that’s an easy choice for most people. ” If you’re going to buy a home, chances are that you will opt for a mortgage. Most home buyers do. Those loans have become remarkably affordable, especially since the financial crisis, with their interest rates bottoming out at around 3. 5 percent. In general, movement of the Fed’s rate does not have a large, direct impact on mortgage rates. But when the Fed’s rate goes up, banks find ways to pass their higher borrowing costs along to consumers. And because mortgage rates are set in stone, they also factor in the anticipation of future rate increases. That’s part of why mortgage rates have been shooting up in recent months: The Fed has suggested that interest rates are likely to continue rising for years. The average interest rate on a mortgage this month is 4. 3 percent, according to LendingTree, and the average loan on a mortgage is worth about $237, 000. If the borrowing rate were to rise by, say, another percentage point in the coming year, this would mean an additional $138 a month on the average mortgage — leading to nearly $50, 000 in added interest over the duration of the loan. As mortgage rates go up, people are a little less likely to buy a house, and those with mortgages are less likely to refinance (because they probably will not end up with a better deal). An interesting wrinkle is that as a result, volume — that is, the amount of new mortgage contracts being issued — goes down. So brokers could also start loosening their requirements for new mortgages. The annual percentage rate on your credit card can be anywhere from 15 percent to 20 percent — much higher than the interest rate on a mortgage or a car loan. An uptick in the Fed’s interest rate might cause your credit card’s A. P. R. if it’s variable as opposed to fixed at a specific rate, to bounce by one or two percentage points. The effects of that can be larger than they may initially seem, in part because the interest compounds. That is, you begin to pay interest on what you owe and the interest that you have been accumulating on that. “If you’re accumulating credit card debt for a year,” said Markus K. Brunnermeier, a Princeton economist, “moving from 13 percent interest to 15 percent is a much bigger deal than moving something from 1 percent to 3 percent. ” Rates for student loans, like other forms of borrowing, are at a relative low. But as the Fed’s rate rises, that will change for those just starting to think about paying for college. Federal loans are tied to the Treasury rate, which factors in the Fed’s anticipated interest rates over the coming decade. Because these rates are projected to tick up steadily by the Fed’s own forecasts, students planning to take out loans in the next few years can expect the government’s student loan rates to rise. “Students taking out new debt will be looking at higher payments,” Dr. Baker said, adding that he expected rates could rise by one or two percentage points in the next few years. Rates for car loans, too, are already climbing in response to the Fed’s expected move. Auto loans tend to last only a few years, so there is still time for car buyers to get ahead of the curve. That’s because the Fed, in its most recent economic projection, predicted that interest rates will continue climbing into the next decade. A few years from now, a car loan issued in 2017 could be fully paid off, and interest rates may still be on the rise. “If you’re thinking of buying it now or in two years’ time, you should buy it now,” Dr. Brunnermeier said. What about renters? An increase may also affect them — just not as directly. Higher rates mean that landlords must pay more to purchase and renovate their properties, so in the long run, those are costs they could easily pass on to renters — though it’s not necessarily a given that it will happen. And with the labor market improving, workers’ wages could rise at about the same time as rent prices, said Stephen D. Oliner, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and former member of the Federal Reserve Board. “It’s possible that with their wages rising, people will be able to keep up with the higher payments on their rents,” he said. | 1 |
By Jason Easley on Thu, Oct 27th, 2016 at 2:18 pm Donald Trump promised that he would bring millions of new Republicans voters into the election, but polling in swing states shows that it is Hillary Clinton who is getting new voters out to support her.
Donald Trump promised that he would bring millions of new Republicans voters into the election, but polling in swing states shows that it is Hillary Clinton who is getting new voters out to support her.
Within their discussion of a new Pennsylvania poll showing Clinton leading Trump by 7 points, The New York Times reported:
Mrs. Clinton has an 18-point lead among voters who did not participate in the 2012 election, according to our estimates, which are based on a combination of the poll results and voter file data. She fares even better among white voters who didn’t vote in 2012 than she does among white voters who did. It’s a pattern that has been true across all of the Upshot/Siena surveys in Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
There has not been an influx of new voters who might help Mr. Trump. According to our estimates, Mrs. Clinton has a 16-point lead among newly registered voters.
The idea that Trump was bringing millions of new voters to the Republican Party was always a myth.
Donald Trump got the most votes of any candidate in a Republican presidential primary. Trump also set the record for most votes cast against in a Republican primary. Trump is one of the few nominees in history to have a majority of his party’s primary ballots cast against him.
Hillary Clinton is the candidate who is attracting millions of new voters, and without a doubt, some of those voters have been motivated by Donald Trump’s campaign.
Trump was right. He has brought millions of new voters to the polls. What he neglected to tell Republicans is that they are coming for Hillary Clinton. | 0 |
Monday, 31 October 2016 Melania Trump has been recalled by Cryosphere Reanimators in Transylvania.
Two new stories about Melania Trump are converging to rock the Trump empire, this is after Donald Trump's failed presidential campaign has already severely damaged the family brand.
First the real shocker.
Meyer Hallsy of Cryosphere Reanimators in the Transylvania region of Romania issued a statement that stunned the Trumps and the world: Melania Trump was being recalled along with 1,500 other reanimation subjects due to a shorter than expected lifespan on several body parts, though they declined to say specifically which parts or organs.
Donald Trump denied the claims that Melania was reanimated in Transylvania and insisted she is from Slovenia when he talked to reporters while he was stranded at the Milwaukee airport .
"This is one of the most twisted conspiracy theories ever, and I'm sure crooked Hillary was behind it just like she was behind the rumors of Obama being born in Kenya. But if this story and the recall were true I would ask them to work on one or two of Melania's body parts in particular while they had her, you guys, if you're married, you know what I mean."
Meyer Hallsy gave a select few in the press an interview at the reanimation lab the day after his bombshell announcement about Melania and others like her.
"Before the questions, let me explain a few things that will help to make everything more clear. Melania and the other pleasurebots don't know they are reanimated from the dead because we give them memory implants. So that's why Melania thinks she's from Slovenia. So think about it, her accounts of when she came to the US and started modeling have been shown to be false, no one can corroborate her history either--that's because it's all memory implants."
The shocked press began shouting questions as Hallsy continued over the din.
"Cryosphere Reanimators will transport all pleasurebots to Transylvania and back to their current homes at our own cost. I want to tell Melania Trump and all the other units on recall that we just want to keep them well and functioning and they will all have a wonderful welcome when they return to their birthplace so to speak, and then they can return to their owners after we fix them. If you are on the recall list and you are feeling sick in any way at all please contact Cryosphere immediately."
In response to the doubters of the story, Meyer Hallsy said his company has already anticipated the need to convince some pleasurebots of the truth of their origin.
"If Melania and the other pleasurebots need to be convinced, they can call our new hotline where specially trained counselors will talk to them and tell them about a memory that only they can know about as proof that we created them."
Movement To Deport Melania Gains Steam
It was once a fringe group of liberals and conservatives questioning Melania's initial entry to the US and whether or not she had proper documents, therefore leading to questions about the legitimacy of her marriage and citizenship status as well. Now, the Deport Melania coalition has spiked in membership since Cryosphere broke the story of their reanimation project.
Besides questions about Melania's right to be in the US, even her right to exist is being questioned by anti-Trump forces, as well as religious and political leaders.
Donald Trump has also threatened to deport Melania if she gains too much weight as first lady, and Melania has been on the defensive since gaining 3 pounds during the campaign. Privately, Donald Trump is saying Melania is a slob for gaining the extra weight. Make XRhonda Speaks's day - give this story five thumbs-up (there's no need to register , the thumbs are just down there!) | 0 |
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter It’s a no brainer that as a species we want to feel good ALL THE TIME — I mean, who wakes up in the morning wanting to feel bad? — but with the way society bombards us with unrealistic ideals and goals, it feels like a nearly impossible feat. advertisement - learn more I’ve been battling with my brain the past month on whether or not I want to ‘look good’ or ‘feel good.’ Trust me, I know what the ‘right’ answer is but I just can’t overlook the idea that maybe I can have both… (you can, by the way). Perhaps I’m just looking at it all wrong. There are many different routes to happiness and on our journey there we are presented with many road blocks that either shift us ahead a step or really set us back about a mile. Either way, the destination will always be there and I believe it’s through these road blocks that we can learn more about ourselves and our bodies. One thing is for sure, while it’s important to know what our destination is, it’s also important to not fixate on it or, even worse, not allow it to change when we change (you will change during this time). Even more so, it’s important to focus on the small steps to get there. So let’s avoid overwhelming our psyche with doubt. 1. Look in the Mirror Optimistically Just the other day before getting fully undressed to take a shower, I decided I wanted to look at myself in the mirror with my underwear on. I even put my underwear back on to do this. Just as I was pulling them up I had a startling realization that all I was going to do to myself was judge my body . I knew that I wasn’t actually wanting to look at myself in the mirror in a positive way; I just wanted to remind myself about what I wanted to change. After this moment I decided that every time I looked at myself in the mirror I had to say three positive things about myself. I wasn’t going to avoid looking in mirrors, but rather encourage a positive reinforcement with my reflection. After all, we can always find something negative to say about ourselves, so why would I perpetuate the insecurity? advertisement - learn more 2. Cleanse Your Feed At this point in my life I’ve come to realize how my social media outlets work — or at least, how I want them to work. I spend a considerable amount of time on Instagram and Facebook every day so it’s really important that I control what I allow myself to be exposed to. Recently I decided to filter my social media accounts in an effort to ensure I’m only seeing content that will benefit me intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically. I use Facebook strictly for information, like articles, news, etc., and Instagram for inspiration and keeping up with friends. I do still use Facebook for this to a degree, but limit it to close friends and family. I started by unfollowing as many people or pages that offered me little to no substance. You can do this by clicking on the arrow in the top right corner of any post and selecting ‘unfollow.’ I also went through my Facebook pages and changed the setting on whichever ones I felt I gained the most knowledge from by clicking ‘Liked’ and then ‘See First.’ 3. Comparing Doesn’t Benefit Anyone Even though Instagram is pretty good at making sure you only see the pages and people you want to follow, it’s also insanely easy to see content you didn’t bargain for. This can obviously be great in helping you to discover new things and people, but it can also throw you into a never ending hole of self doubt, from fitness page to fitness page to fitness page… Sometimes this can be motivating, to see other women and men attaining their fitness goals, but most of the time it makes us wish we weren’t so ‘lazy’ or undisciplined. The one thing I always remind myself is that there is no sense in comparing . We have all led different lives that have brought us to certain points in our life. It makes no sense to compare yourself to a 25 year old fitness model when you do not value fitness yourself or are not at the same stage in your fitness journey. Not to mention all the other factors (time, money, health, genetics, etc.). It’s their job to look that way; it’s not yours. 4. Read a Book One terrible habit I’m in the midst of kicking is how much time I spend on my phone right before bed. Aside from it inhibiting my sleep , it also takes away time I could be spending learning more about myself and the world. Now, an hour or more before bed, I turn off my WiFi and data and turn airplane mode on, and I lie in bed reading a book. I have already felt a significant difference with my eyes. They don’t get as dry or feel as strained and I have a much easier time waking in the morning. Another good (and maybe obvious) tip is to read one book before starting another one. I believe that having multiple books on the go may be stressful to our subconscious minds, making us feel like we have unfinished business and making it more difficult to retain information. And of course, that stress also makes falling asleep that much harder. 5. Ditch the Guilt No one has control over the way we feel except ourselves, and far too often, we give ourselves daily beatings over decisions we’ve made or didn’t make. You HAVE to be your own best friend! Spend time with yourself often and TREAT yourself often. The next time you want to buy yourself something you want or want to try something new, DO IT. Consciously make a decision that what you are about to purchase for yourself is a GIFT. For whatever reason we are made to feel that we are not worthy of nice things or to experience a moment of zen. Every week, treat yourself. Whether that be by taking a bath, eating a dessert, buying an outfit, going for a walk, or watching a play, set a day, night, or even hour for you and yourself to go on a ‘date.’ Treat yourself how you WANT to be treated. Overall… There are so many ways we can feel good about our bodies and our minds but the best way to truly know what makes you feel good is by really tuning in to how your body feels. This may seem glaringly obvious but oftentimes we do something because we think it will feel good. The next time you have an idea of something you want to do or perhaps you’ve done something you expected would make you feel good, sit in the moment for a while and really listen to your body. Monitor the way it feels and whether or not you’ve created an expectation or if what you’re experiencing is authentic. Trust me, you’ll know.
The Sacred Science follows eight people from around the world, with varying physical and psychological illnesses, as they embark on a one-month healing journey into the heart of the Amazon jungle.
You can watch this documentary film FREE for 10 days by clicking here.
"If “Survivor” was actually real and had stakes worth caring about, it would be what happens here, and “The Sacred Science” hopefully is merely one in a long line of exciting endeavors from this group." - Billy Okeefe, McClatchy Tribune | 0 |
MILTON, Ontario — It was a day for talking, not running. Snow was piled along the streets. The driveway was icy. Ed Whitlock’s shoulder hurt. His face had been puffy. He did not feel well enough for the cemetery. At a visitor’s urging, Whitlock showed his display of novelty trophies. A beer can for winning a series of races as a . (“There’s still beer inside! ”) A coffee mug for becoming the first (and still only) person older than 70 to run a marathon in under three hours. A baseball for throwing out the first pitch at a minor league game. “It bounced three times to the catcher,” Whitlock said a few days before Christmas. “My arm is terrible. ” It is not his arm, but his legs and lungs that have made him a scientific marvel and octogenarian phenom. In October, at 85, he set his latest record, completing the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 3 hours 56 minutes 34 seconds and becoming the oldest person to run 26. 2 miles in under four hours. Having set dozens of records from the metric mile to the marathon, Whitlock remains at the forefront among older athletes who have led scientists to reassess the possibilities of aging and performance. “He’s about as close as you can get to minimal aging in a human individual,” said Dr. Michael Joyner, a researcher at the Mayo Clinic who has studied performance and aging. Whitlock’s career has been as unorthodox as it is remarkable. For starters, he trains alone in the Milton Evergreen Cemetery near his home outside Toronto. He runs laps for three or three and a half hours at a time, unbothered by traffic or the eternal inhabitants or the modern theories and gadgets of training. At the Toronto Marathon, he raced in shoes and a singlet that was 20 or 30 years old. He has no coach. He follows no special diet. He does not chart his mileage. He wears no monitor. He takes no ice baths, gets no massages. He shovels snow in the winter and gardens in the summer but lifts no weights, does no situps or . He avoids stretching, except the day of a race. He takes no medication, only a supplement that may or may not help his knees. What he does possess is a slight build: He is 5 feet 7 inches and weighs 110 to 112 pounds. He also has an enormous capacity an uncommon retention of muscle mass for someone his age a floating gait and an unwavering dedication to pit himself against the clock, both the internal one and the one at the finish line. “I believe people can do far more than they think they can,” said Whitlock, a retired mining engineer who was born in greater London and speaks with British . “You have to be idiot enough to try it. ” Four years ago, at 81, Whitlock underwent a battery of physiological and cognitive tests at McGill University in Montreal. One of the tests measured his VO2 max, the maximum amount of oxygen that can be consumed and used by the muscles during exercise. It is measured in milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute. The higher the number, the greater a person’s aerobic fitness. A top skier might have a VO2 max of 90, compared to 20 for those living independently in their 80s. Mr. Whitlock’s score was an exceptional 54. That is roughly equivalent to someone of college age who is a recreational athlete, said Russell Hepple, an exercise physiologist who performed the tests on Whitlock at McGill with his colleague and wife, Tanja Taivassalo. A VO2 max reading of 54 appears to be unsurpassed for people tested in their 80s, said Scott Trappe, the director of the laboratory at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. who has studied Swedish skiers who continued to perform at high levels into their 80s and early 90s, including the 1948 Olympic champion Martin Lundstrom. “There’s nothing higher than that in the literature,” Trappe said of Whitlock. “It’s phenomenal physiology. ” At McGill, Whitlock also underwent imaging and biopsy testing of his muscles. The smallest functional entity of muscle is called a motor unit, which consists of a neuron and the muscle fibers it activates. The number of functioning motor units declines with age. For example, a healthy young adult has about 160 motor units in the shin muscle, called the tibialis anterior, which helps lift the toes. In an octogenarian, that number could have declined to about 60 motor units, Hepple said, but Whitlock retained “closer to 100. ” This preservation might largely be explained, he said, by a chronically elevated level of circulating chemicals, called neurotrophins, which protect and nurture neurons, helping them survive. “That’s a big advantage,” said Hepple, who has recently moved to the University of Florida and is continuing to analyze his study of Whitlock and other aging athletes. “If you have more motor units, in the context of age, that would be reflected in better maintenance of muscle mass, which in turn would translate into better strength. ” Even though Whitlock’s Prince Valiant hair has long grown white and thin, a photograph of him running in his early 20s shows a physique remarkably similar to his octogenarian build, Hepple said. “It really is an astounding picture,” he said. “Normally a person of Ed’s age might lose a third to 40 percent of their muscle mass over that span. For him to have more or less the same mass as he had in his 20s, that’s really something. ” Beyond genetics, there are other factors that surely have contributed to Whitlock’s stunning endurance, said Joyner of the Mayo Clinic. He compared Whitlock to Joan Benoit Samuelson, the 1984 Olympic marathon champion who has continued to run hour marathons into her late 50s and has said she will attempt the extraordinary feat into her 60s. Neither Whitlock nor Benoit Samuelson could be considered extroverts. Yet athletes like them who remain highly active as they age “haven’t killed off their inner ” Joyner said. He described them, in general, as curious, relatively unconstrained and full of “physical and emotional vigor,” not so different from the older aunt or uncle who insists on shooting squirt guns at family reunions. “There are biological factors I’m not naïve about that,” Joyner said. “But the message with these people is not that they’re freaks. It is that a whole lot of aging, with a bit of luck, is under some volitional control. ” Inevitably, though, even Whitlock has made some concessions to growing older. His weight before the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in October dropped to 105 pounds, and he wonders whether he is experiencing some muscle wasting. His marathon time at age 85, 3:56:34, is more than an hour slower than the 2:54:48 he ran in Toronto at age 73 in what is widely considered his greatest masters race. Adjusted for age, that race was the equivalent of a runner in his prime completing a marathon in 2:04:48, which is less than two minutes off the current world record of 2:02:57. Writing in The New York Times, the running journalist Marc Bloom said that Whitlock’s performance in 2004 may have made him “the world’s best athlete for his age. ” For that startling race, Whitlock’s training log showed that he did 43 training runs of three hours apiece. He did not measure the distance, but his speed at the time suggested that a run could cover more than 20 miles, perhaps as many as 22 or 23, not much shorter than the distance of a full marathon. “I was much better prepared for that race than I have ever been before or since,” Whitlock said. In 2016, he set another flurry of records, including a half marathon run in 1:50. 47. But there were also more frequent interruptions in training — aches in his shoulder, knee, hip and groin. He was limited to 16 training runs of three hours for the most recent Toronto Marathon. His race pace of 9:01 per mile, while impressive, was nearly two and a half minutes slower than the 6:40 pace he ran at 73. “When you get to my age, the rate of deterioration is accelerating,” Whitlock said. “I’m sure every year, every six months, make a difference. I don’t seem to be able to consistently train. Whether that’s a permanent situation, I’m hoping not. ” The next looming marathon record is for age 90 and beyond. Fauja Singh of England ran 5:40:04 at the purported age of 92 in 2003, but his mark has not been ratified because he has been unable to produce a birth certificate. Otherwise, statisticians list the record variously as 6:35:47 or 6:46:34. “We’ll see if I’m running when I’m 90,” Whitlock said. “You never really know if you’ve run your last race or not. I think I do have longevity in my genes” — an uncle lived to 107, he said — “but you never know, you might get hit by a bus. ” As a schoolboy in London in the 1940s, Whitlock said, he ran a mile in 4:34. He later belonged to the same running club, Walton Athletic, as did Chris Chataway, who paced Roger Bannister to the first minute mile, in 1954, and Alan Turing, the mathematician who broke Germany’s Enigma code in World War II. Whitlock’s running career ebbed late in college when he sustained an injury to the Achilles’ tendon in his right foot. Upon graduating in 1952 from the Royal School of Mines at Imperial College in London, he emigrated to Canada, north of Toronto, and did not run for nearly two decades, until he was 41. “No one was running there at the time,” he said. “I was in no mood to be a pioneer. ” He kept in reasonable shape by refereeing soccer matches, cycling and walking. Whitlock’s long layoff from running, scientists said, probably saved wear and tear on his joints. He has also taken a year off three times to recover from aching knees. “He knows when to rest,” said Ken Young, a of the Association of Road Racing Statisticians. Whitlock’s first marathon came in 1975, at age 44, out of parental concern. His youngest son, Clive, 14 at the time, had run every day for a year and wanted to attempt a marathon. “We did our best to try to persuade him out of that,” Whitlock said. “He was not to be denied. ” Father and son ran in 3:09, and four years later, at 48, Whitlock ran his fastest marathon, in 2:31. He became more devoted to the event after retiring and attempting to become the first person 70 or older to run 26 miles 385 yards under three hours. In running and exercise science circles, he has become “a rock star,” Trappe said Amby Burfoot, the winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon and a longtime editor at Runner’s World magazine who continues to run at 70, said, “For a guy who looks like a wind could blow him down, Ed just keeps going and going, setting his own path and records and no one can come close to them. ” Asked why he kept running, Whitlock candidly said he enjoyed setting records and receiving attention. His approach remains pragmatic. He does not experience a runner’s high, he said, and does not run for his health. He finds training to be drudgery and even racing brings as much apprehension as joy. “The real feeling of enjoyment,” he said, “is getting across the finish line and finding out that you’ve done O. K. ” | 1 |
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