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The New York Times reports Breitbart Senior Editor MILO and Bill Maher agreed on many issues while appearing on HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher. [Describing MILO’s appearance on the show, the New York Times writes, “Despite a brief of controversy that preceded it, a conversation between Milo Yiannopoulos, the incendiary author and lecturer, and Bill Maher, the comedian and host of HBO’s ‘Real Time,’ on that program Friday night was a largely docile, chummy affair. There was little conflict or as both men chided the political left for avoiding or drowning out Mr. Yiannopoulos’s views rather than engaging with them. ” “Introducing Mr. Yiannopoulos, 32, an openly gay editor at Breitbart News, Mr. Maher said: ‘I think you’re colossally wrong on a number of things. But if I banned everyone from my show who I thought was colossally wrong, I would be talking to myself,’” the NYT noted. Quoting MILO, the NYT states: “’All I care about is free speech and free expression,’ Mr. Yiannopoulos explained. ‘I want people to be able to be, do and say anything. These days, you’re right, that’s a conservative issue. ’” The NYT mentioned MILO’s observations of the political left’s inability to understand comedy anymore: “In the interview on Friday night, Mr. Yiannopolous criticized female comedians like Amy Schumer and Sarah Silverman, and he described the Democrats as ‘the party of Lena Dunham,’ the creator and star of ‘Girls.’ (Mr. Maher replied: ‘Let’s not pick on fellow HBO stars. There are so many other people. ’)” Ending the article by discussing MILO’s comments on “Overtime,” Maher’s internet streamed program, the NYT stated, “Trying to defuse the tension [between the panelists] Mr. Maher wryly suggested to Mr. Yiannopoulos that he shouldn’t be so quick to spar with his fellow panelists. ‘This is the beginning of your career,’ Mr. Maher said. ‘People are only just starting to hate you. ’” Read the full article here. | 1 |
Saturday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox Friends,” while discussing federal courts in Hawaii and Maryland halting President Donald Trump’s new restrictions on travelers from countries, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz said if Trump’s predecessor former President Barack Obama had issued the same order, the courts would not have intervened on the constitutionality of the executive order. “The idea of focusing so heavily on campaign rhetoric and essentially saying, look, if Obama had issued the very same order with the same words it would be constitutional, but if Trump issues it, it’s unconstitutional because he said some things about Muslims in the to the campaign,” he said. Dershowitz continued, “That’s not the way the law is supposed to operate. And finally, the Trump Justice Department is getting smart. They are appealing this not to the Ninth Circuit where they are likely to get an adverse ruling. They are appealing it to the Fourth Circuit. The Fourth Circuit is a much more conservative court. And much more likely to uphold the travel ban, and then if the case goes to the Supreme Court and ties four to four, Trump wins. ” He added, “I actually said that this wasn’t constitutional analysis. It was psychoanalysis. There is precedent in extreme cases where legislators in enacting a statute say things that you can sometimes look to the legislative intent. But I have never heard of a case where the rhetoric of a candidate, ambiguous rhetoric to be sure — because I do not believe this is a Muslim ban — focusing on a country like Iran, the greatest exporter of terrorism, not only no vetting, it sends terrorists out in order to kill Americans. Iran has so much blood on its hands of Americans and American allies, to exclude a country like Iran from the list would be absurd. And the list — although for a different purpose — was originally designed by President Obama. So how can you say that the exclusion of six countries on the list was motivated by what Mr. Trump said when he was candidate Trump? That is not good legal analysis. I’m putting my reputation on the line — I predict the case gets to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court will uphold the major provisions of this ban. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
USA Today sports writer Lorenzo Reyes apparently cannot write about a quarterback without injecting into the story racism and racial motivations where they do not really belong. [For his January 10 article on biracial Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, Reyes found Prescott’s playing stats far less interesting than the fact that Dak is somehow amazingly able to be friendly with both the black players and the white ones on his team. “Beasley is a white receiver from Houston. Gathers is 24 and from LaPlace, La. but black. The gift Prescott has is the ability to bond with both,” Reyes writes seemingly in shock. “I grew up in Haughton, Louisiana,” Prescott told Reyes. “I go to my white grandparents’ house, and then I cross the railroad tracks and hang out with my black grandma. We have English teachers on my white side. My grandpa is a principal. And then you go to the other side and people have been in jail. ” Reyes goes on for hundreds of words and over a dozen paragraphs immersed in his amazement over Prescott’s apparently unusual ability to be nice to both blacks and whites. Reyes waxes poetic over how Prescott knows the words to rap songs yet can also sing the chorus of a country music tune, and marvels at Prescott’s ability to “get approval” from players of all races. “Being and being from the country, I can talk to guys like Travis Frederick from Wisconsin and Doug Free from Wisconsin,” Prescott says of two offensive linemen on the Cowboys. “And then I can go over and talk to Dez Bryant. I mean, think about the two different standpoints you need to have a real conversation with both, to really understand what they’ve been through. I don’t think many can do it. For me, it’s not hard. I’m blessed because it’s natural. ” After over a dozen paragraphs delving into the racial aspect of Prescott’s rise on the Cowboys, Reyes finally gets around to discussing his activities and playing record. “An outside contender for MVP, Prescott completed 67. 8% of his passes for 3, 667 yards, posted a 23:4 ratio, and ran for 282 yards and six rushing scores,” Reyes belatedly notes. And from there Reyes gives a serviceable bio on Prescott’s football career. But since it took up half of a very long review of the player’s career, clearly the sports writer found the racial aspect far more interesting than anything approaching actual sports news. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
The State of New Jersey says you can’t eat the fish or shellfish from the Lower Passaic River and Newark Bay. That’s because they’re living in the Diamond Alkali Superfund Site, where toxic leftovers from the manufacture of chemicals like DDT and the infamous Agent Orange oozed into surrounding waterways to be taken up by the animals that inhabited them. It’s an evolutionary miracle some of these animals are even alive. No, seriously. A fish that adapted to survive in this water shows evolution at its finest, according to a study published Thursday in Science. The Atlantic killifish is a slippery sliver of silver about the size of a fat finger and as common as the minnow. Starting in the late 1990s, researchers became aware that the fish was tolerant of the toxic waters at the Lower Passaic Superfund site and at least three other highly polluted areas along the Atlantic coastline. The new study found that over just a few decades, distinct populations of killifish independently developed similar genetic adaptations that make life possible in the most unlikely environments. The findings show that evolution doesn’t have to start in one place to be repeated. “It’s these shared changes as well as the unique pattern of changes in these different populations that provide us with a really useful field example of how animals can respond to rapidly changing and extreme environments,” said Diane Nacci, a biologist at the Environmental Protection Agency who worked on the study. She and other researchers, led by Noah Reid, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Connecticut, compared the whole genomes of 384 killifish from these areas and nearby, waters. They found that in all regions, one particular genetic pathway was the source of the pollution tolerance, although slightly different patterns of genetic changes were responsible in each population. Normally, toxic chemicals like dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, set off a number of changes inside sensitive fish that interfere not just with the survival of adults, but also with the development of their embryos. But in the tolerant fish, the trigger for those changes is turned off, allowing some fish to survive levels of PCBs thousands of times higher than the levels affecting sensitive fish. The mutation occurred rather quickly. This speedy evolution was made possible, the researchers think, by the huge and genetically diverse killifish populations that may have harbored a rare mutation. “Whenever you have large population sizes, there’s a chance some might actually carry mutations on their genomes that are advantageous in novel environments, like pollution,” said Michael Tobler, an evolutionary ecologist at Kansas State University who was not involved in the study but wrote a complementary paper on the research for the same issue of Science. “Any that didn’t have this lucky mutation didn’t make it. ” Those that did reproduced, and so became the Atlantic killifish. But in smaller populations with less diversity, the chance that a rare mutation like this already exists is slim: Evolution is put on hold until that mutation develops. This story “adds to the body of literatures suggesting that preserving genetic diversity within species might be important for buffering them against global climate change,” Dr. Reid said. But it’s not a mop for the pollutants we have imposed on our environment over the past century. “At first sight this study might tell us, well, it will all be fine,” Dr. Tobler said, addressing the argument that perhaps we need not worry if nature appears to be finding solutions on its own. “These killifish can do it, and there’s probably many species out there that can respond in this particular manner, but there’s probably going to be lots of species out there that can’t. ” Additionally, adaptations typically come at a cost. The story of evolution predicts that once the water becomes clean, a tolerant fish won’t do as well as a sensitive fish. What’s the consequence of turning off this pathway, which is responsible for dealing with toxicity at less extreme levels? Researchers are still looking for answers. | 1 |
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EVERYONE is familiar with this scenario: An app you once loved no longer brings the same joy. It’s gotten buggy over time, or an update transformed it to the point it became unusable. Chances are you thought about calling it quits. But after years of sharing your personal data with this app, you probably gave up and stayed in this stale relationship. You put up with the bugs and odd design changes because moving to a new, potentially better app felt harder than sticking with the bad one. Take Evernote, the app. After nearly a decade attracting millions of users, the company last year severely restricted free use of its software while raising prices for its plans by as much as 40 percent. This month, Evernote also released a redesign for its mobile app, which users complained was bloated with unnecessary features that have made note taking too complex. Even so, people have stuck with Evernote partly because taking their notes elsewhere is hardly easy. ”We understand those kind of changes don’t make everyone happy,” said Greg Chiemingo, an Evernote spokesman. “In fact, we’ve seen continued growth of paying customers over the last two years. ” People deserve better than this. Every day you stay with a bad app is time you could be spending with a superior product that will make life better. Here are my tips, based on interviews and personal experience, for a clean break. No app is perfect, but you have to draw the line somewhere. The problem is, you may be in such a rut that you can’t recognize the warning signs. An obvious one is when an app stops working reliably in a way that affects your life. For instance, I called it quits on Apple’s Calendar app when I was planning a dinner with friends last month and the software sent a calendar invite in Greenwich Mean Time rather than Pacific Standard Time. As a result, one person thought we were meeting on Saturday instead of Friday and didn’t show up. (It wasn’t the first time this happened, either.) Brian Fitzpatrick, a former manager at Google who led a team that developed tools to help people move their data to and from Google, said he dumps an app when it has stopped improving. “It’s still functioning, but you don’t see any changes in it for a very long time,” he said. “It’s sort of a zombie app, I would call it at that point. ” Another sign that it’s time to move on is when you have nobody to talk to. Many popular apps for tasks like note taking, photo management and word processing are connected to social networks, or people you can share data with. If an app’s audience is a ghost town — like Yahoo’s app, Flickr, which sank in popularity after mobile services like Instagram emerged — then it’s probably time to leave. Yahoo did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Flickr. The hardest part of breaking up with an app is moving your data. So as a rule of thumb, save a backup copy of your data so that you can export it into a new app. Then carefully search for a better app to suit your needs. As a safety measure before changing apps, you should always keep extra copies of your data somewhere, whether it be in the cloud with a service like Dropbox or on a physical hard drive. Some companies deliberately make exporting your data difficult because they want you to stick around. “It’s sort of like moving into an apartment and finding out at the end of the lease you can’t take your furniture and your books with you,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said. Evernote is a good example. It includes an “Export notes” feature, but it only lets you export notes into two formats that are compatible with just a few other apps. Microsoft’s app OneNote, along with Apple’s Notes app, can easily import Evernote records. But if your app of choice is something else, such as Google Keep, you will have to manually paste your notes in the new app. Flickr is also difficult to part ways with. Getting out your photos requires lots of manual labor: You have to download all the photos, which can take a significant amount of time if you have thousands of images, and then upload them to a new photo service. When companies don’t provide convenient tools to export your data, look elsewhere by doing a quick web search for solutions. There are plenty of people in the same boat as you, and chances are they have written scripts, or lightweight programs, to automatically pull out your data for you. If there is no convenient way to export your data, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to just take out what is most important to you. Perhaps you don’t need notes from Evernote anymore, so you could just manually paste your latest memos and get a fresh start with a different app. On the bright side, you can learn a lot from a tough breakup with an app — which can be especially useful when looking for a replacement. The biggest lessons: Pick a tool that supports a wide array of formats instead of proprietary ones. And before you commit to a new app, make sure it is as easy to get out as it is to get in. Ditching Apple’s Calendar app was fairly easy. All my calendar data was already stored online and Apple’s app supports calendars from multiple online services including Google, Microsoft and Facebook. The key was finding an app that also supported those services but performed better. After testing several apps, I decided that Fantastical 2, a new app with a cleaner interface for getting a glance at calendar events, was the best one. Once Fantastical 2 was installed, I added my Google calendar accounts to load all my events into the app. Mr. Fitzpatrick recently decided to cut ties with Google Voice, the search giant’s calling and texting service, because it had remained unchanged for years. So he made backups of his call history, text messages and address books using Google Takeout, a web tool that he helped develop for easily downloading personal data stored on Google services. Then he switched to Signal, the encrypted messaging service, which has more modern features for messaging and phone calls, and disconnected his Google Voice. Google said it updated Google Voice on Monday with photo sharing and group messaging. But that was too late to keep people like Mr. Fitzpatrick. “A lot of it comes down to, How interested are you in change?” he said. | 1 |
Will Trump make America great again? 03.11.2016 A few days are left before the presidential election in the United States. For the time being, Hillary Clinton has a slight advantage over her rival in the race, Republican candidate Donald Trump . In electoral votes, Clinton has 259 vs. Trump's 164 votes (270 votes are required for victory). It will be up to six doubting states to decide the outcome of the presidential election - Utah, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona, Florida and Ohio. Many experts believe that Trump will win the vote. Will he? First off, the United States is fed up with Obama and the Democrats, and it could be very well seen in the mid-term elections for Congress in 2014, when Democrats lost seven states and gave the vast majority of Congress seats to Republicans. The outgoing president had given many eloquent promises, but has not been able to keep them. Hillary Clinton is the successor of the dubious legacy of Barack Obama. She was part of Obama's government during his first four years as Secretary of State. The infamous Islamic State terrorist organization (banned in Russia) appeared during her stay in power. It was during Clinton's stay in power, when Putin started winning in the game against the USA, when the US Ambassador in Benghazi was killed and when the devastating Arab Spring started gathering pace. Print version Font Size A study conducted by Pew Research found that the highest approval rating of Obama (64 percent in February 2009) was the lowest for any US president since Eisenhower, that is, since the end of World War II. Also read: The many suspicious suicides surrounding Hillary Rodham Clinton Secondly, Clinton lies and makes mistakes all the time. She made her biggest mistake in her professional activities. She used her private email for officials messages, which is strictly forbidden in the USA. The FBI resumed investigation into the case a week before the election, having caused irreparable damage to Clinton's rating. Thirdly, a lot will depend on the turnout. Real wages of the middle class in the United States have not increased since 2008. The people who make the core of the USA want change that Obama has not given to them. "Who's the candidate with the most rabid supporters? Whose crazed fans are going to be up at 5 AM on Election Day, kicking ass all day long, all the way until the last polling place has closed, making sure every Tom, Dick and Harry (and Bob and Joe and Billy Bob and Billy Joe and Billy Bob Joe) has cast his ballot? That's right.." US film director Michael Moore wrote. Fourth, Trump personifies the American dream in real life. Donald Trump has made his name himself. Hillary Clinton amassed her fortune when in public service and lecturing Wall Street bankers. Trump's program says what the American people want to hear. The program raises such relevant issues as job losses, terrorist threat, immigration problems. Angry white Americans do not like the fact that various minorities in their country act as if they are a majority. Trump represents the conservative America. Therefore, immigration law, abortion ban, protection of military veterans, the revival of industry - these issues worry most Americans, especially those who go to church on Sundays and honor the commandments. Fifth, the Americans may vote contrary to propaganda. A man approached Michael Moore after a show, the director wrote in his article. "Coming back to the hotel after appearing on Bill Maher's Republican Convention special this week on HBO, a man stopped me. "Mike," he said, "we have to vote for Trump. We HAVE to shake things up." That was it. That was enough for him. To "shake things up," Michael Moore wrote. Also read: Hillary plays Russian roulette in US presidential election Sixthly, 16 Republican candidates and the Republican establishment have tried all kinds of methods to fight against Trump , but nothing could stop him. Trump does not use anything but Twitter and meetings with electors in his election campaign, but he is still very close to Hillary Clinton. "I think that Trump has very good chances to win. In fact, he has already left Clinton behind," Oleg Soskin, Ukrainian politician, economist and political scientist told Pravda.Ru. In this case, the expert believes, major geopolitical, geo-economic and strategic changes will take place as Trump's victory will bring in completely new people, forces, organizations, structures, systems, etc. For Ukraine, Trump's victory woud mark a political death for Poroshenko and his team. Germany and France will experience major changes as well, while the Baltic States will find themsleves in a difficult situation, because they completely depend on the United States. Tectonic changes will occur inside NATO as well," Oleg Soskin said. "Clinton, if she wins, will protect the interests of global financial capital," Dmitry Mosyakov, the head of the Center for Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Doctor of Historical Sciences, told Pravda.Ru. - Trump's coming to power will entail serious changes for East Asia and the Pacific region. Trump says that America should pursue its own interests in the first place in both political and economic fields. I think that Trump will win, if the election is held honestly. He says truly Republican things to revive America's own businesses," the expert told Pravda.Ru. Also read: Donald Trump and the genius of idiocy "The things that we can see happening in the USA now confirm my long-standing assumption of significant divisions of elites in the country," Karine Gevorgyan, a political scientist, expert on Iran, orientalist told Pravda.Ru. "The hegemonic role of the United States has led to chaos both in domestic and foreign policies. Therefore, a serious split inside the administration may aggravate further no matter who eventually takes office as president," the expert added. Lyuba Lulko | 0 |
India Bans Cash, Now Gold? 16, 2016
India gold import ban rumored … The Indian Bullion and Jewellers Association has warned members of a potential gold import ban … The association told Indian media the move could come by March 31 as part of the government’s ‘black money’ crackdown. –Mining Journal
Prime minister Narendra Modi recently decided to confiscate the cash of hundreds of millions of Indians, and now he may forbid Indians from importing gold.
This would have an immediate effect on gold supplies as India, despite the affinity of citizens for gold and silver, has very little in the way of domestic mining.
In part, this is because the government itself is consistently at war with Indian citizens over money and its control. This struggle has most recently manifested itself in India’s decision to remove, wholesale, large denomination bills from public circulation.
More:
The country [banned] 500 and 1000 rupee notes (worth about US$7 and $14 respectively) and the mooted import restriction [banning gold imports] could be a reaction to dealers swapping the notes for gold.
IBJA national secretary Surendra Mehta told the Times of India its members should be ready. “We hear from certain circles of this possibility, though nothing official is out yet,” he said.
The larger issue here has to do with banning cash on a global level. It is typical of reporting in this modern era that few if any of the mainstream articles covering India’s most recent move seemingly mention this.
Governments around the world are beginning to ban cash. Sweden is far advanced but Uruguay and now India are not far behind. Uruguay is soon to demand that employers cease to pay employees via cash and instead deposit paychecks directly in bank accounts.
Most recently in Australia, Citibank announced it would no longer deal in cash because most depositors did not wish to be “bothered.”
We are told these are disparate and individual decisions of various entities and nation states. But they are nothing of the sort. Once again, surreptitiously, the banking elites that want to run the world are surely organizing a pan-global stratagem to advance their control.
If everyone’s cash is controlled, further technocratic globalization of society on a worldwide scale becomes increasingly feasible.
The ongoing implementation of a global cash ban has taken on increased urgency because of growing negative interest rates worldwide. People don’t want to pay banks to hold their cash and are thus withdrawing it. The solution? Ban cash outright.
It wasn’t clear whether this sociopathic endeavor was going to apply to gold, but India’s apparent determination to attack the yellow metal as well as cash seems to give us a clear answer.
As the attacks on wealth increase, any monetary element not immediately available digitally will come under scrutiny and eventually be targeted with demands for confiscation.
Conclusion: These emergent attacks certainly illustrate a growing elite desperation to take control, worldwide, sooner rather than later. | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. After a morning of statements and Twitter posts, Donald Trump met with Times journalists and our publisher, above, at our Midtown Manhattan headquarters. We his comments. He retreated from a vow to pull out of the Paris climate accord, saying he would keep “an open mind. ” He said that he didn’t “want to energize” white supremacists. He suggested that his could help broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians. And Mr. Trump confirmed that he was dropping his threat of further investigations into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and family foundation, saying she had already “suffered greatly. ” That decision may provoke a backlash among his supporters. ____ 2. The was also asked about a meeting with a British politician, Nigel Farage, shortly after the election. According to a person present at that meeting, Mr. Trump encouraged Mr. Farage to oppose the kind of offshore wind farms that Mr. Trump believes will mar the view from one of his Scottish golf courses. “I might have brought it up,” he said during his lunch at The Times. Legal experts say Mr. Trump’s international business ventures could easily run afoul of a constitutional clause on conflicts of interest. The Supreme Court has never squarely considered the clause and there are no historical analogies. ____ 3. Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota is encountering resistance from the White House in his bid to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee. His supporters hoped he would be a fresh face for a party with a depleted bench. But President Obama’s advisers, uneasy with the progressive Mr. Ellison, are casting about for an alternative, according to multiple Democratic officials close to the president. ____ 4. Mr. Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 21 people. It’s the nation’s highest civilian honor, and Mr. Obama has awarded more of them than any other president. The honorees include Kareem above and Ellen DeGeneres, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen, the “Saturday Night Live” creator Lorne Michaels, and Bill and Melinda Gates, among other boldfaced names. He also granted clemency to 79 drug offenders, bringing the number of people whose sentences he has commuted to over 1, 000. ____ 5. More details are emerging about the school bus crash in Chattanooga, Tenn. that killed five students on Monday. The authorities say the driver was going “well above” the speed limit when the bus crashed. He’s been charged with five counts of vehicular homicide. ____ 6. The military campaign to oust the Islamic State from Mosul is in its sixth week. Our photographer and reporter covering the battle focus on an intensifying humanitarian crisis: the thousands of residents trying to flee. Stories of anguish like one from a man searching for his parents are common. “I have not heard from them,” he told our reporter. “I am always crying. ” ____ 7. Some babies who have microcephaly linked to the Zika virus might appear healthy at birth, but develop symptoms later. That’s the unfortunate finding in a new study of 13 babies in Brazil. Doctors say there will most likely be other waves of children whose brains were affected by the Zika infection, but not severely enough to be noticed in their early months or years. ____ 8. Exxon Mobil, under fire over its past efforts to undercut climate science, is accusing the Rockefeller family of masterminding a conspiracy against it. Rockefeller family charities, longtime backers of environmental causes, have supported much of the research and reporting that have called the company to account for its climate policies. In 1870, John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil, the company that became Exxon Mobil. Above, David Kaiser, a member of the Rockefeller familiy. ___ 9. There is a sense of relief in Japan after a powerful earthquake tested the safety of a nuclear power plant. The 7. quake hit near the site of the 2011 nuclear disaster in which three reactors melted down. This time, the Fukushima Daini and Daiichi power stations responded well. But critics remain concerned about whether the company is prepared for a disaster on the scale of the 2011 earthquake. ___ 10. Global warming is altering the ecology of the Arctic on a vast scale. Two sets of scientists have found that, with air temperatures far warmer and sea ice far rarer than normal, algae that form the base of the oceanic food chain are wildly proliferating. The changes are likely to have a profound impact on animals like birds, seals, polar bears and whales. ___ 11. Finally, we’ve been talking a lot about Thanksgiving dinner. But what about the before and after? Here are some recipes for appetizers on the big day, and a hearty frittata to feed overnight guests. ___ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
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Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid just sent a scathing open letter to FBI Director James Comey, calling him out for smearing Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton while hiding a sinister truth about Donald Trump that the public deserves to know. In it, he accuses the controversial FBI Director of sitting on secret “explosive” intelligence information about the Republican presidential campaign’s coordination with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. Reid wrote :
The double standard established by your actions is clear.
In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity. The public has a right to know this information. I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public. There is no danger to American interests from releasing it. And yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.
By contrast, as soon as you came into possession of the slightest innuendo related to Secretary Clinton, you rushed to publicize it in the most negative light possible. Moreover, in tarring Secretary Clinton with thin innuendo, you overruled longstanding tradition and the explicit guidance of your own Department.
You rushed to take this step eleven days before a presidential election, despite the fact that for all you know, the information you possess could be entirely duplicative of the information you already examined which exonerated Secretary Clinton.
Senator Reid continued by notifying Comey of violating the Hatch Act, whic forbids federal employees from engaging in partisan acts. Even further, Reid said that he regretted helping President Obama break a long Republican filibuster of his nomination to head the FBI just three short years ago.
It’s not surprising that there is a tangible link between Putin and Trump, especially after an interview of the Republican claiming he has a relationship with the Russian dictator was unearthed by the Democratic Coalition Against Trump and authenticated by MSNBC host Thomas A. Roberts this week .
Which begs the question, what is the Republican Party’s standard bearer hiding regarding his dealings with Vladimir Putin? Related Items: | 0 |
NICE, France — At times it was hard to know who was on trial, the smuggler or the state. The defendant, Cédric Herrou, 37, a slightly built olive farmer, did not deny that for months he had illegally spirited dozens of migrants through the remote mountain valley where he lives. He would do it again, he suggested. Instead, when asked by a judge, “Why do you do all this?” Mr. Herrou turned the tables and questioned the humanity of France’s practice of rounding up and turning back Africans entering illegally from Italy in search of work and a better life. It was “ignoble,” he said. “There are people dying on the side of the road,” Mr. Herrou replied. “It’s not right. There are children who are not safe. It is enraging to see children, at 2 in the morning, completely dehydrated. “I am a Frenchman,” Mr. Herrou declared. The trial, which began on Wednesday, is no ordinary one. It has been substantially covered by the French news media for its rich symbolism and for the way it neatly sums up the ambiguity of France’s policy toward the unceasing flow of migrants into Europe and the quandary they present. France, foremost among European nations, prides itself on enlightened humanitarianism, fraternity and solidarity. And yet, perhaps first among them, too, it is struggling to reconcile those values with the pressing realities of a smaller, more globalized world, including fear of terrorism. The contradictions are being played out in courtrooms, in politics and in farmers’ fields, on the sidewalks of Paris and in train stations from the Côte d’Azur to the northern port of Calais, where the government demolished a giant migrant camp in the fall. On the one hand, politicians in this year’s presidential election are competing to see who can take the toughest line on securing France’s borders. Most are promising a crackdown on migrants, with admission reserved for cases of political persecution. Terrorist attacks, including the one last summer in Nice that killed 85 people, have exacerbated sentiment. But in these remote mountain valleys, where Jews fleeing the Nazis and the Vichy collaborators found refuge during World War II, Mr. Herrou has become something of a folk hero by leading a kind of loosely knit underground railroad to smuggle migrants north, many destined for Britain or Germany. His work has won him admiration for his resistance to the state and his stand that it is simply right to help one’s fellow man, woman or child. Others in this region seem to agree. In the square outside the courthouse, hundreds of sympathizers gathered and shouted, “We are all children of immigrants!” Mr. Herrou got a hero’s welcome as he descended the steep steps late in the evening, trailed by television cameras. Inside, not even the prosecutor, Prêtre, seemed to want him there and praised his cause as “noble. ” He asked for an sentence, but quickly reassured the court that it should be suspended, “of course. ” Still, the law is the law. “He’s demonstrated a manifest intention to violate the law,” Mr. Prêtre told the court. “One can criticize it, but it’s got to be applied. ” The verdict, which will be made by the panel of three judges who heard the case this week — there was no jury of peers — is scheduled to be announced on Feb. 10. The appeal for leniency was both an acknowledgment of widespread discomfort with the law, as a well as recognition of Mr. Herrou’s growing status in the region around Nice and its mountainous backcountry, the Roya Valley. Mr. Herrou was voted “Azuréen of the Year” last month by the readers of the leading local newspaper, to the fury of regional officials. “I am Cédric,” read one of the placards in the crowd. “Long live the righteous of the Roya,” read another. The courtroom on Wednesday was filled with people from the mountain — the men bearded and ponytailed, the women in duffel coats — who had come to support Mr. Herrou and who were convinced right was on their side. The notion that Mr. Herrou is trying to uphold what he sees as basic French values, rather than violating the law, is much of the reason he appears to enjoy a considerable measure of popular support. The argument formed the essence of his lawyer’s defense strategy. Remember the last word in the French Republic’s motto, “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,” his lawyer, Zia Oloumi, told the court. “They are saying M. Herrou is endangering the Republic,” Mr. Oloumi told the three judges. “On the contrary, I think he is defending its values. “You see, you have got this value, fraternity, and the dictionary is quite clear,” Mr. Oloumi said. “Think about the impact of your decision on the practical application of the idea of fraternity. ” Mr. Herrou was not making any political points, Mr. Oloumi insisted. He was merely responding to a humanitarian crisis in his own backyard the Roya Valley had become a way station for migrants. The judges did not respond. But the lightness of the sentence called for by Mr. Prêtre suggested that the concepts invoked by Mr. Oloumi had resonance. Mr. Herrou’s accusers seemed most taken aback by his stubbornness. Not every migrant Mr. Herrou picks up is by the side of the road. He finds many outside the migrant camp across the Italian border at Ventimiglia, looking especially for women and children. The presiding judge, Laurie Duca, reminded him he had first been arrested in August, near his mountainside home at with a van full of migrants. At that time, the prosecutor released him, suggesting that Mr. Herrou’s humanitarian motivations absolved him. That first arrest was evidently merely a warning. “After August, you said you knew it was illegal,” Judge Duca remarked in court. No matter. Mr. Herrou persisted, describing his work to journalists last fall and even occupying a disused summer camp owned by the state railroad when his own modest homestead became overwhelmed. At that point, in the authorities decided they had had enough of him. “You were there, and you were extremely active,” the judge said. “Why so much press?” Mr. Herrou replied, “It is right that society should know about all this. ” The judge and the prosecutor suggested that this time Mr. Herrou would not get the humanitarian pass he had benefited from previously. The local political establishment is furious with him. “At the very moment when we need strict controls, Mr. Herrou’s ideological, premeditated actions are a major risk,” Eric Ciotti, the president of the departmental council and a leading member of Parliament, wrote in . Mr. Prêtre, the prosecutor, suggested that Mr. Herrou’s persistence and openness had been his undoing. “Mr. Herrou acknowledges everything,” Mr. Prêtre said, with astonishment. “This trial springs from a communications strategy for a cause that I totally respect. ” And yet, “this is what he told the police. He said, ‘I am violating the law.’ But I am the prosecutor. I must defend the law. ” | 1 |
MEXICO CITY — If President Enrique Peña Nieto invited Donald J. Trump to visit Mexico for a dialogue in the interest of democracy, the message has fallen on deaf ears. Instead, the predominant feeling here in the Mexican capital is one of betrayal. “It’s a historic error,” said Enrique Krauze, a historian. “You confront tyrants. You don’t appease them. ” On Mexico’s most popular morning television show on Wednesday, a livid Mr. Krauze likened the president’s meeting with Mr. Trump to the decision by Neville Chamberlain, then the British prime minister, to sit down with Hitler in Munich in 1938. “It isn’t brave to meet in private with somebody who has insulted and denigrated” Mexicans, Mr. Krauze said. “It isn’t dignified to simply have a dialogue. ” Yes, many Mexicans say, it was Mr. Trump who offended the people of Mexico with his disparaging comments about migrants and his promises to build a border wall paid for by Mexico. But for many Mexicans, the surprising invitation from Mr. Peña Nieto — who has likened Mr. Trump’s language to that of Hitler and Mussolini in the past — is even worse. Newspapers, television stations, social media and all manner of national communications were awash in vitriol at the idea of a meeting between the two men, while political analysts on both sides of the border said they were mystified about why Mr. Peña Nieto invited Mr. Trump. “It is Peña Nieto’s worst mistake so far and one we still don’t understand,” said Vidal Romero, the head of the political science department at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, a university in Mexico City. “This would only hurt him. ” But as others pointed out, Mr. Trump is the Republican presidential candidate, and not the first to visit a Mexican president. John McCain came to Mexico when he was running against Barack Obama. “At the end of the day, this is the Republican candidate,” said Rafael Fernández de Castro, a professor at Syracuse University and former foreign policy adviser to Felipe Calderón, the previous Mexican president. “The U. S. electorate put him in this position, and Peña is respecting that. ” Ultimately, he said, foreign policy cannot always be guided by public opinion, no matter the political consequences. “He has everything to lose in the media, but this is about governing,” Mr. Fernández de Castro said. “He had no other choice — a good relationship with the U. S. is essential for the of Mexico. ” From that perspective, with his approval ratings already low, Mr. Peña Nieto may have less to lose than is commonly thought. If the goal was to ensure national interests in the event Mr. Trump wins, then the furor over the visit seemed a political cost the government was willing to take. Still, there is “unanimity that this is a giant farce,” said Jesús Márquez, a professor at the Tecnólogico de Monterrey in Mexico City and columnist for Reforma, a Mexico City newspaper. Mr. Peña Nieto “compared Mr. Trump to Mussolini and Hitler,” he added, “and now we invite Mussolini, we are going to negotiate with Hitler when he hasn’t even won the election. ” After the men met, in what Mr. Trump described as an “excellent” occasion, they spoke at a very civil news conference. Mr. Peña Nieto promised to work with whichever candidate was elected and emphasized the importance of ties with the United States. “I shared with him the fact that there have been misunderstandings or affirmations that hurt and affected Mexicans in their perception of his candidacy,” Mr. Peña Nieto said he told Mr. Trump. “The Mexican people felt aggravated for comments that were formulated, but I am certain that he has a genuine interest in building a relationship that would lead us to provide better conditions for our people. ” While Mr. Trump hardly offered Mexicans the sort of apology many had hoped for, he was a far more chastened candidate than they had come to expect. He repeatedly lauded their hard work, and spoke of his “tremendous feeling” for Mexicans. “They are amazing people,” he noted. In the end, he called Mr. Peña Nieto a friend. Citing Mr. Trump’s more respectful tone, the government described the meeting as a success. “It was a different Trump,” said Eduardo Sánchez, the president’s spokesman. “The attitude of this Trump is different from the ones we have seen before today. ” But Shannon K. O’Neil, a Mexico expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said: “I don’t see how that helped Peña Nieto. If the reason Peña was inviting Trump was to stand up to him and show his strength in front of somebody who has attacked Mexicans, then he failed. ” Other critics were less kind. “To put it mildly, I think it was the biggest humiliation a Mexican president has suffered on his own territory in the last 50 years,” said Esteban Illades, editor of Nexos, a magazine in Mexico. “He not only managed to make Donald Trump look presidential, which is an incredibly hard thing to do, he managed to forgive Donald Trump even though he didn’t actually offer an apology in the first place. ” Mexican officials did not clearly articulate the reasons for the visit at first. Later, in a news release, the president explained the rationale for the meeting as being in the interest of democracy and to create a dialogue. In his remarks, Mr. Peña Nieto suggested that he wanted to fortify the nation’s ties with its most important global partner, while standing up for Mexico. “I also made him notice and feel the great responsibility I have as president of Mexico, to defend the Mexican people, both those who are here and abroad,” Mr. Peña Nieto said after the meeting. Some argued that the invitation was a distraction from the domestic problems that have gnawed at the president. Violence is rising, new scandals seem to emerge regularly and the impunity that lies at the heart of discord in Mexico remains undisturbed. Most recently, the president was accused of plagiarizing a third of his law school thesis, which his office explained as an error in citation. Others were not convinced by that explanation, contending meeting with Mr. Trump hardly made the other problems go away. “I do not see this as a distraction to his problems the visit will only add to the problems he faces in Mexico,” said Jason Marczak, a director in the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, a research center. “Donald Trump will come out of this meeting carrying the message of the meeting. ” “He will use Peña Nieto as a political pawn in his campaign,” he added. | 1 |
President Trump has frequently derided the news media as “fake news,” and on Tuesday his son, Donald Trump Jr. told the world there was one person he wants to see win the Pulitzer Prize, the highest honor in American journalism: Mike Cernovich. Those who do not closely follow the world of conservative social media might be moved to ask, who? Fair question. Mr. Cernovich is a blogger, author of books, YouTube personality and filmmaker with a social media following. Much of his online persona is driven by two mottos: “conflict is attention” and “attention is influence. ” He told The New Yorker, “I use trolling tactics to build my brand. ” Before this week, he was perhaps best known for promoting false claims that Hillary Clinton was part of a pedophile ring located in the basement of a pizzeria. He describes himself as an “American nationalist” and has been involved in shaping messages on social media, according to The New Yorker. But he has denied being part of the movement, calling it “too obsessed with gossip and drama for my tastes” in a blog post. “Until the right wins for once, I have no interest in arguing with the or disavowing anyone,” he wrote. “Once the right has some actual power, then it will be time to have an ideological civil war. ” This has been a busy few days for Mr. Cernovich, who lately has been promoted by people close to the president more than once. A day before the younger Mr. Trump’s tweet, for example, Kellyanne Conway, an adviser to the president, shared a link to an interview Mr. Cernovich recently gave to CBS’s “60 Minutes. ” Mr. Cernovich started out several years ago as a men’s writer whose work disdained feminism and promoted a message of men’s empowerment that often dwelled on the question of how to meet women (He is now married with an infant daughter). His advice to straight men, the subject of a book and video talks: Men should be dominant alpha males and embrace a “gorilla mindset” when dealing with the opposite sex. He has long been criticized for his argument that date rape is a liberal fiction. In a blog post published last October, he called it a “harmful concept for men and women” that leads to false rape accusations. “Lying about being in love to sleep with someone isn’t rape,” he wrote. “Getting played isn’t rape. Regret isn’t rape. Thinking, ‘I might have been date raped,’ means you weren’t raped. ” Mr. Cernovich now focuses mainly on politics. From his base in Southern California, he has become influential in parts of social media, helping to shape the narrative. He uses a steady stream of tweets and videos to promote conspiracy theories and factually incorrect claims that he bills as journalism. During the presidential campaign, for example, he doggedly promoted false stories that claimed Mrs. Clinton had serious ailments like Parkinson’s disease. He also argued that she was linked to a nonexistent pedophile sex cult located in the basement of a pizzeria in Washington, D. C. That conspiracy theory, known as #PizzaGate, spread widely online and inspired a man to show up at the restaurant to investigate the claims (he was arrested). Mr. Cernovich insisted the conspiracy was true in an hourlong YouTube video that also claimed most people employed by the news media and “every actor” in Hollywood were also pedophiles. During his recent “60 Minutes” appearance, Mr. Cernovich said that he never named the pizzeria at the center of the #Pizzagate conspiracy theory and called the shooting a “very unfortunate thing. ” He also said his claims about Mrs. Clinton’s health were based on an anonymous tip sent to him by a doctor who had never examined Mrs. Clinton before and had no access to her medical records. Nevertheless, he stood behind his claims. “They’re definitely not fake,” he said. “They are not lies at all. 100 percent true. ” In a blog post published on Sunday, Mr. Cernovich wrote “the White House Counsel’s office identified” Susan E. Rice, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, “as the person responsible for the unmasking” Trump associates who were caught up in the electronic surveillance of foreigners. Similar reports were published by other news organizations. “Unmasking” is the process by which a official, such as a national security adviser, requests the identity of a person whose name has been blacked out in an intelligence report. It does not mean leaking that information to a third party. Donald Trump Jr. praised Mr. Cernovich’s post on Twitter and said he was the first person to publish this information. In an email on Tuesday, the president’s son declined to answer questions on the record about Mr. Cernovich or his blog post. Ms. Rice denied any wrongdoing in an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday. She said she sometimes asked the identities of American citizens whose names had been redacted from intelligence reports because she needed that information to properly understand the context of the reports. She said it was part of doing her job and was “absolutely not for any political purpose, to spy, expose, anything. ” “I leaked nothing to nobody and never have and never would,” Ms. Rice said in the interview. After the president’s son tweeted about him, Mr. Cernovich said he was inundated with media requests, which he gleefully rejected one by one in a rambling live YouTube monologue. Holding his infant daughter in his arms, Mr. Cernovich derided the media as a cabal of “trust fund kids” and “trash. ” “They have no idea what it’s like to struggle the way I struggle and the way the working class struggles, and that’s why I am a hero of the working class,” he said. He added that he would not respond to media requests. “I don’t want to be your friends. I don’t respond to your emails. ” But Mr. Cernovich did respond to a direct message from me on Twitter asking about the Susan Rice blog post on Tuesday evening. In the reply, he denied that the White House Counsel’s Office had been the source for his blog post about Ms. Rice, even though it said as much in the second paragraph. “I never mentioned sources in my original report and disavow any reports that I have sources within the White House,” he said. He also twice suggested that I buy his book “Gorilla Mindset. ” In that exchange and subsequent public tweets that included screen shots of his replies, he also criticized The Times and some of its reporters by name, implied that the Mexican billionaire and Times shareholder Carlos Slim has a role in news coverage (he does not) and generally attacked the integrity of its journalists, living and dead, and its journalism, past, present and future. During his YouTube broadcast on Tuesday, Mr. Cernovich denied accusations from critics that he is a misogynist, a rape apologist or a white nationalist. He said his past statements had been taken out of context and called some of them “obvious satire” that had been misinterpreted in bad faith. “Nobody tells you how to be famous,” he said. Later, shortly before appearing on a talk show hosted by Alex Jones, another conspiracy theorist, Mr. Cernovich said he did not care if the media portrayed him positively or not. “Look at me,” he said, speaking into the camera. “I did this to Susan Rice. I did this to Hillary Clinton. I’m doing real journalism. I’m destroying your fake news outlets. Look at me. Look at my face. I’m the media now. ” | 1 |
The ’s Office (AGO) will not request a prison sentence for a “child migrant” who raped a 5 boy in late 2015, Breitbart London has established. [The migrant, who told the boy he would “break him into pieces” if he told anyone about the attack, was handed a rehabilitation order by Judge Jonathan Bennett. Defence lawyer Alwyn Jones welcomed the ruling, saying he hoped it would “address the underlying issues this young man has. ” Any member of the public can request that the Law Officers of England and Wales appeal sentences of this nature under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme. Breitbart London reported last November that at least one unknown member of the public had done so in this case. However, the AGO has since told Breitbart London that Tory MP Robert Buckland, the has “carefully reviewed the papers” and “concluded that if the sentence imposed on the offender was referred to the Court of Appeal, the Court would not increase the sentence”. It was on this basis that Buckland “decided not the refer the case”. The AGO gave Breitbart London no indication as to its own assessment of the sentence’s suitability. The original sentence was just one of a series of rulings which have encouraged accusations that the judiciary are “out of touch” with the ordinary public, with some calling for judges to be subject to retention elections, as in Japan and several American states. In one such case, last August, judges as Basildon Crown Court ruled that Alexander Bassey would serve just four years in custody after horrifically scarring and partially blinding five white teenagers in a random acid attack before calmly walking back to his laughing, gang at an Essex railway station. Criticism of the judiciary reached fever pitch following a controversial ruling in the High Court which deemed that MPs should have the final say over whether or not the UK leaves the European Union (EU) a move which saw senior judges branded “enemies of the people”. Furthermore, the courts have proven keener to resort to imprisonment for offences which are seemingly much less serious but judged to be “racially or ” in character. 35 Kevin Crehan was imprisoned for leaving bacon sandwiches on the doorstep of a mosque. He was found dead in his cell shortly after Christmas in an incident which is currently subject to an ongoing investigation. The courts have also appeared to be relatively harsh when dealing with members of the British Armed Forces, as in the case of Sergeant Alexander Blackman — better known as ‘Marine A’. Sergeant Blackman was handed a ten year sentence for shooting dead an already terrorist in Afghanistan. Critics of the sentence, which the courts reduced by just two years on appeal, have described the shot as a coup de grâce, or “shot of mercy”. Deficiencies in Sergeant Blackman’s defence mean that the original sentence may ultimately be deemed unsafe. | 1 |
Missing from much of the news media coverage of FBI Director James Comey’s testimony last week that top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin regularly forwarded classified emails to her husband, Anthony Weiner, is that the revelation directly contradicts Abedin’s own claims from last November about how the emails famously made it to Weiner’s laptop computer. [During last Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on FBI oversight, Comey stated Abedin appears to have engaged in a “regular practice of forwarding ” to Weiner’s computer, possibly for him to print out. The testimony, which came during an exchange with Sen. John Kennedy ( ) about classified emails found on Weiner’s computer, went thusly: KENNEDY: OK. Was there classified information on — on former Congressman Weiner’s computer? COMEY: Yes. KENNEDY: Who sent it to him? COMEY: His then spouse, Huma Abedin, appears to have had a regular practice of forwarding to him, for him I think to print out for her so she could then deliver them to the Secretary of State. Those details seem to contradict claims made by Abedin last November through her lawyer, Karen Dunn, immediately following reports that the FBI discovered possible Clinton emails on her estranged husband’s computer. Dunn claimed that Abedin did not know how the emails could have reached Weiner’s device and only learned about the possibility of emails being on Weiner’s laptop via media reports. “She only learned for the first time on Friday, from press reports, of the possibility that a laptop belonging to Mr. Weiner could contain emails of hers. While the FBI has not contacted us about this, Ms. Abedin will continue to be, as she always has been, forthcoming and cooperative,” Dunn said in the statement. Politico further quoted a “source familiar with Abedin’s account” as stating that, according to Politico’s portrayal, that Abedin “has told colleagues she was taken aback when she learned that the FBI found her emails on a laptop belonging to her estranged husband, Anthony Weiner, and doesn’t know how the messages got there. ” That’s a far cry from Comey’s testimony that Abedin appears to have regularly forwarded Clinton emails to Weiner. Weiner was seemingly trusted in Clinton’s inner circle. As Breitbart News reported last November, one Clinton email released at the time had Clinton asking Abedin whether a trusted staff member working for Weiner could deliver a secure cell phone to Clinton. Meanwhile, Comey’s revelation has some calling for a special prosecutor to probe Abedin. Last week, Sen. Richard Blumenthal ( ) was asked on MSNBC’s Morning Joe whether he believes Abedin’s actions were potentially criminal. “If there was classified information and it was improperly passed to a person unauthorized to receive it. Yes, it’s a crime,” he said. “Without knowing what the intentions were and so forth, there is potentially a prosecutable crime. ” “Should it have been prosecuted?” host Joe Scarborough asked. “It still may be potentially. It’s not outside the statute of limitations. Who will decide it? That’s why we need a special prosecutor to review all of this investigative material,” Blumenthal replied. Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. With research by Joshua Klein. | 1 |
Making the Transition Less Chaotic November 20, 2016
The mainstream U.S. media is faulting Donald Trump for a turbulent start to the presidential transition, but part of the chaos is baked into the process and its excessively large job turnover, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
By Paul R. Pillar
Disarray in the Trump transition apparatus has been a major news story, so much so that one of the President-elect’s recent Twitter offensives has been to assert that there isn’t any disarray and to castigate the New York Times for covering the disarray.
Amid all the transition horse race coverage of who’s in and who’s out and which appointment will be even more controversial than other appointments, almost no one is taking this episode as another reminder of how needless is much of this confusion and turmoil. Donald Trump and Mike Pence during Day Three of the Republican National Convention. (Photo credit: Grant Miller/RNC)
The United States is alone among advanced representative democracies in subjecting itself to disruption in which thousands of government officials are replaced every time the electorate changes the political leadership. Far more common among sister democracies is changing of government that entails replacement of a slate of ministers and a small number of assistants and staff, with a permanent professional service underneath them charged with carrying out whatever policies are identified with the leaders whom the voters have elected.
Granted, most of the positions that have been the focus so far of the transition in the United States are cabinet-level posts that would be changing as well in those other democracies. But there are thousands more jobs to go; the turmoil is just beginning.
The confusion is worse this year because so many of the President-elect’s presumed policies are themselves confused extrapolations from fragmentary and often contradictory comments he made during the campaign, with no prior public service on his part from which to draw conclusions. Moreover, because of the experience-free, blank-slate quality of so much of what passes for a Trump program, more is riding this year than most years on who wins the contests for plum jobs. But the disadvantages of the whole disruptive process are not unique to this transition or to Trump.
Unnecessary Disruptions
One of the biggest disadvantages is the sheer disruption itself, with all the resulting interruptions to governmental programs and foreign relations. Newcomers are still learning the location of rest rooms and the phone numbers of essential contacts elsewhere in the government as continuing business must be transacted. It also has become routine with each transition for many senior positions to remain vacant for months after the inauguration. President Barack Obama returning to the White House on Jan. 17, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
The quadrennial purge of upper levels of the U.S. Government may be consistent with the habit of thinking of U.S. policy in terms of discrete administrations, but it is inconsistent with the larger reality that — notwithstanding the understandable focus on where political parties and candidates differ — most of the important business and important interests of the United States continue across administrations.
This certainly is true of the vast majority of issues in foreign relations. Here the Trump transition has made transition confusion among overseas partners even worse by eschewing the usual procedure of coordinating a President-elect’s contacts with foreign leaders through the State Department’s operations center. The politically sensitive matter of who gets a phone call before whom has been thrown to the wind and the ordering determined by such things as whether [Australian] pro golfer Greg Norman had Trump’s phone number to give to his prime minister.
Not least important: experience, expertise, and the knowledge that comes from continuous work on a problem matter a lot in the sound administration of policy. That is what one gets from a professional civil service and does not get from most newbie political appointments.
Pre-election political support appears so far to be at least as important a criterion in Trump’s appointments as it is with other incoming administrations. It is not what makes for carefully crafted and skillfully executed policy.
Passing Out Plums
The usual rationale for making political appointments in the thousands is that this helps assure that the elected president’s policies will be fully implemented and is thus consistent with the democratic principle of policy reflecting the will of the voters who elected that president. Steve Bannon, political adviser to President-elect Donald Trump. (Photo from YouTube)
In fact, the filling of those jobs often has nothing to do with the will of the people, results in policies that may even be contrary to that will, and puts into office people more inclined to pursue their own agendas rather than any agenda associated with the president or any platform on which he or she ran.
In most transition years, probably the single factor that most influences which of the ambitious and willful people aspiring to senior executive branch jobs will get the jobs is which of those people, early in the primary stage of the election campaign, made better political predictions than other people and hitched their wagons to what turned out to be the winning horse.
Amid the disarray of this year, we have the added spectacle of senior appointments depending on such things as internal squabbling over who runs the transition, which in turn depends on such things as the President-elect’s son-in-law getting revenge on the previous transition head because he had prosecuted the son-in-law’s father for tax evasion and other crimes. None of this has much of anything to do with democracy.
The periodic purging of the senior governmental ranks is one of several ways in which, although exceptionalist-minded Americans may be reluctant to admit it, American democracy lags behind democracy elsewhere.
A Better Way?
This year’s election gives multiple reasons to long for a British-style parliamentary system. One reason is that those cabinet-level appointments that are the focus in the United States of ructious transition team politics and out-of-right-field possibilities such as a John Bolton or Rudolph Giuliani would instead mostly go to members of the winning party who had been front-bench shadow ministers, had themselves been elected by the people, and had acquired and demonstrated some expertise with clusters of issues as exhibited in parliamentary debate.
The British system also makes for far clearer and better understanding of who is responsible for policy and who should be held accountable for failures or rewarded for successes. Notwithstanding the advantages of checks and balances in the U.S. system, it does not provide democratic accountability when the electorate is ignorant, as it was with great effect this year .
For example, a poll taken two years ago by the Annenberg Public Policy Center showed that only 38 percent of respondents knew that Republicans controlled the House of Representatives. Couple that lack of knowledge among the electorate with a Congressional Republican playbook that, as Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute describes it , consisted of, “Vote in unison against everything, filibuster everything, even those things you like, to obstruct action and make it look ugly, allow damage to the country in the short term to reap political rewards in the next election.”
A result is what we saw this year: a large part of the electorate understandably frustrated with a dysfunctional government’s failure to provide better for the general welfare, but with poorly informed aim regarding where they should direct their ire.
Moving to a parliamentary system would entail a huge constitutional change, and that is not going to happen. But there is nothing in the Constitution that requires the confused and disruptive quadrennial purging of the Executive Branch.
We can’t blame the Founding Fathers for that one. The main reason that flaw in American democracy probably won’t get fixed is the reluctance of any candidate to forgo being able to offer as many plums to would-be supporters as other candidates have offered.
Paul R. Pillar, in his 28 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, rose to be one of the agency’s top analysts. He is author most recently of Why America Misunderstands the World . (This article first appeared as a blog post at The National Interest’s Web site. Reprinted with author’s permission.) | 0 |
Hillary Clinton may not be indicted on criminal charges over her handling of classified email, but the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, all but indicted her judgment and competence on Tuesday — two vital pillars of her presidential candidacy — and in the kind of terms that would be politically devastating in a normal election year. The silver lining for Mrs. Clinton is that this is not a normal election year. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign is built on the premise that she has the national security experience and instincts to keep Americans safe in the age of terrorism, and that Donald J. Trump does not. Nearly every day, she seeks to present herself as a more thoughtful and responsible leader. She has spent months describing Mr. Trump as “reckless,” “unprepared” and “temperamentally unfit” to be president, and she has pointed to her four years as secretary of state and eight in the Senate as unparalleled preparation for becoming commander in chief. Yet in just a few minutes of remarks, Mr. Comey called into question Mrs. Clinton’s claims of superiority more memorably, mightily and effectively than Mr. Trump has over the entire past year. And with potentially lasting consequences. To her charge that he is “reckless,” Mr. Trump may now respond by citing Mr. Comey’s rebuke: that Mrs. Clinton and her team “were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. ” To her promises to defend the United States, Mr. Trump may now retort with Mr. Comey’s warning that “it is possible that hostile actors gained access” to Mrs. Clinton’s email account and the top secret information it contained. And to her reproofs about his temperament and responsibility, Mr. Trump may now point to Mr. Comey’s finding that “there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes” on handling classified information — though Mr. Comey said that other factors, like Mrs. Clinton’s intent, argued against criminal charges. Worst of all was the totality of Mr. Comey’s judgment about Mrs. Clinton’s judgment. She is running as a supremely competent candidate and portraying Mr. Trump, in essence, as irresponsible and dangerous. Yet the director of the F. B. I. basically just called her out for having committed one of the most irresponsible moves in the modern history of the State Department. And a day that should have been one of Mrs. Clinton’s best of the campaign — as she stumped alongside President Obama for the first time and received his hearty endorsement — ended up as one of her worst. Her clearest selling point — that she, unlike Mr. Trump, can manage challenging relationships with allies and adversaries — has now been undercut because she personally mismanaged the safeguarding of national security information. These were only Mr. Comey’s words, of course: He did not recommend federal charges against Mrs. Clinton or any of her aides, which came as a huge relief to Democrats who feared worse. Still, as the Republican strategist Russ Schriefer put it on Tuesday, “Any time a campaign is using ‘Well, at least she wasn’t indicted’ as a cause for celebration isn’t a good day for the campaign. ” As bad as this looks for Mrs. Clinton, with voters reminded once more of the history of scandal that shadows the Clintons, she could still rebound quickly. She is no longer “under investigation,” after all, and Mr. Trump could very well bungle the political gift he has just been given. A more conventional Republican nominee would probably already be using Mr. Comey’s remarks to churn out new attack ads and bombarding television and radio audiences until every voter had heard the phrase “extremely careless” more than he or she could count. A typical nominee would have allies memorizing Mr. Comey’s best lines and repeating them on cable news and at local political events — assailing Mrs. Clinton’s judgment and experience to exploit and deepen the mistrust that many Americans feel toward her, and to drive up her unfavorability ratings in public opinion polls. But Mr. Trump is not typical. He has reserved relatively little television advertising time in swing states. He prefers to launch attacks over Twitter and at campaign rallies rather than to use commercials or surrogates as force multipliers. And he has a tendency to choose the wrong targets and overcomplicate his arguments. On Tuesday, for instance, he chose to attack Mr. Comey for not bringing charges against Mrs. Clinton, writing on Twitter, “The system is rigged. ” A few hours later, Mr. Trump issued a longer statement full of insinuations and conspiracy theories: “Our adversaries almost certainly have a blackmail file on Hillary Clinton,” he said. He argued that her lawyers and former President Bill Clinton were up to no good, and contended that Mr. Comey’s findings disqualified Mrs. Clinton from the presidency, a popular Republican talking point. But he did not attack her judgment, which could influence undecided voters, until Tuesday evening at his rally in Raleigh, N. C. “Her judgment is horrible — look at her judgment on emails, who would do it?” Mr. Trump said. But he did not prosecute the argument in any depth, and quickly moved on. This is exactly what the Clintons hope Mr. Trump will continue to do: denounce the investigative process, which few voters understand. Beat up on a relatively unknown figure like Mr. Comey, who is not running for anything. And overreach politically, by playing up conspiracy theories — delighting some voters but causing many others to roll their eyes. As long as Mr. Trump continues to do so, Mrs. Clinton and her advisers believe that she can weather Mr. Comey’s public reprimand without sustaining much damage. “The issue now for Trump is to make a case against Mrs. Clinton that, even though she may not be charged with a crime, do you want a president who was extremely careless and incompetent in handling the most important top secret materials?” said Edward J. Rollins, a veteran Republican strategist who is working with a group supporting Mr. Trump’s campaign. “Guilty, no incompetent and arrogant, yes!” But Mr. Rollins said he was not sure whether Mr. Trump was capable of making that attack consistently and effectively. Even as Democrats cringed listening to Mr. Comey deconstruct Mrs. Clinton’s sloppiness, they consoled themselves by expressing confidence that the moment would pass. “The picks, conventions and debates will overtake this news before long,” said Bill Burton, a former adviser to President Obama. “And a presidential race is a choice. And if the question is judgment, Donald Trump would be a pretty stupid answer. ” While Clinton advisers were skeptical that Mr. Comey’s remarks would sway many undecided voters, they also said relatively little publicly to avoid fanning any flames — preferring instead, they said, to wait and see if Mr. Trump might stumble and say something to take the heat off her. Mr. Trump has had weeks of unrelentingly negative news coverage, most recently about whether a Twitter post was and Clinton advisers said that they were counting on him to make some kind of flippant remark about Mr. Comey or the F. B. I. that might boomerang on him. But there was no avoiding the conclusion that Tuesday — which had held much promise for Mrs. Clinton, thanks to Mr. Obama’s endorsement — was instead one of the lowest points of her campaign so far. After eight years of a relatively administration, voters listening to Mr. Comey describe the intricacies of the F. B. I. ’s email investigation received a bracing reminder that things tend to get complicated with the Clintons. | 1 |
US Will Never Separate its Fighters from Islamists Because it Depends on Them By Dan Glazebrook
November 08, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " RT " - It was the big idea that was supposed to herald a new era of US-Russian co-operation in Syria: the separation of Western-backed moderate rebels from groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda, in order that the former could be brought into political negotiations whilst the latter were targeted by combined US and Russian military operations. Russia and Syria managed to get the UN Security Council to agree to a ban on the funding, training and arming of foreign fighters joining such groups back in September 2014, whilst the US-Russia ceasefire agreement this September reiterated that separating moderate opposition forces from Nusra [Al Qaedas Syria affiliate, now rebranded as Jabhat Fatah Al-Sham] was a key priority. As Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov recalled at a press conference last week, our agreements with the Americans linked this separation to a seven-day period of quiet. At the end of the period, the Americans undertook to show us on the map exactly where they believed there were terrorists and where there were none. On this basis, we should have jointly coordinated targets for effective engagement. To reiterate, they requested seven days for that, insisting that a seven-day pause should be a precondition. We announced this pause but it was violated with a strike against Syrian Army detachments three days later when, lest we forget, British and US bomber jets carried out a sustained attack on Syrian army troops fighting ISIS in Deir al-Zour, killing 62 and wounding over 100, effectively burying the ceasefire. Nevertheless, in response to Western demands, Syrian and Russian planes again suspended airstrikes on Aleppo two weeks ago, giving the US another chance to make good on its promises to separate its favoured rebel factions from the Al Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front. A fortnight later, however and fully ten months after his initial public call (at an International Syria Support Group meeting in February) for so-called moderates to separate themselves from Al Qaeda and co Kerry was still pleading for them to have more time to do so.
Events on the ground, meanwhile, have been moving entirely in the other direction. More and more of the groups supposedly fighting under the Wests Free Syrian Army banner (never much more than a fiction to which militias could pledge mythical allegiance in exchange for Western finance and weaponry) have been fighting with the Al Nusra-led Jaysh Al-Fateh (Army of Conquest) alliance since it was launched in March last year. Indeed, so successful has this formation been both in terms of capturing territory, mainly in Idlib province, and in establishing Nusras hegemony over the various insurgent factions that its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, apparently believes the grand merger of rebel groups he has long dreamed of, fully integrated under a Nusra chain of command, is now a realistic possibility.
It is no surprise, then, that it is precisely this Nusra-led formation that has been leading the rebel onslaught against government-held Western Aleppo launched last Friday, complete with car bombs, rockets and mortars directed against residential areas. These are thought to have killed at least 41 civilians, including 16 children, in relentless and indiscriminate raids that have shocked and appalled the UN Special Envoy to Syria Steffan de Mistura. The Independents Robert Fisk, reporting from the area following a rebel rocket attack, described a younger boy [lying] on a hospital trolley, a doctor picking metal out of his face, all his limbs heavily bandaged. He was writhing in agony, moving his legs wildly, comforted by the director of the school.
Will attacks like these, then, increase the urgency with which the US pursues its supposed desire to separate the groups in receipt of its largesse from their Al Qaeda lite allies?
This is highly unlikely: Syrian foreign minister Walid Muallem was probably correct when he stated last week that the US is unwilling to separate the factions its backs from Al Nusra, despite its repeated commitments to do so, for two main reasons.
Firstly, rebel groups have openly targeted civilians since 2011, often on the basis of ethnicity, religion or political beliefs, and this has never bothered their Western backers before. Indeed, the rebels then operating under the banner of the pro-Western Free Syrian Army heralded their entry in Aleppo in 2012 with two massive car bombs in the city centre and the burning down of the citys centuries-old souks. This was followed up with a bomb attack on Aleppo University on January 15 th 2013, killing 80, as part of the rebels morale bombing campaign against those supporters of the government. Two months later, one Syrian soldier and 19 civilians were killed in the village of Khan Al-Assal near Aleppo in a gas attack suspected by the UN Mission investigating it to have been carried out by the opposition. And as early as December 2012, Channel 4 News were reporting on suspected massacres of Alawite civilians by Free Syrian Army fighters, massacres which have been a mainstay of rebel activities. Far from dampening Western enthusiasm for the rebel cause, this particular report was followed up with calls by David Cameron to step up its assistance to the insurgency, who promised a doubling of British aid to the rebels within months. The targeting of civilians has never damaged Western support in the past, and is unlikely to do so now.
Secondly, aside from ISIS and the Syrian army, Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham and Ahrar Al Sham are clearly the most effective fighting groups on the ground, and the other rebel factions and its Western backers clearly understand this. And again, this is nothing new; sectarian Salafist groups have been the leading force in the insurgency since the start, as the West has always been fully aware. The now notorious US Defence Intelligence Agency memo of 12 th August 2012, for example which was circulated to, amongst others, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI and Central Command noted thatthe Salafist [sic], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria. And to prevent any ambiguity, DIA chief at the time, Michael Flynn, then confirmed in an interview with Al Jazeeras Mehdi Hassan, that the US governments backing of such forces was not based on ignorance, nor a mistake, but was rather a willful decision. Such groups have always been the driving force of the Wests anti-Syria operation, and the US government understands well that its insurgency would soon fizzle out without them. As the USs primary aim remains regime change rather than the defeat of terrorism, therefore, they are unlikely to make any serious attempt to divide their proxies from the fighting forces of Al Qaeda. We can, instead, expect more pleas for time from the likes of John Kerry, and more spurious rhetoric about the US commitment to fighting terrorism, combined with continued material support for the very groups now openly allied to Al Qaeda. In other words: more of the sordid same. | 0 |
MELBOURNE, Fla. — Never let it be said that President Trump waits until the last minute. With just 1, 354 days until the next presidential election, Mr. Trump kicked off his campaign here on Saturday with a boisterous, rally that lacked only an opponent for him to run against. Gathering thousands of cheering supporters inside an airport hangar, Mr. Trump put aside the stress of Washington governing and returned to the campaign trail, where he reprised many of his themes and lines from last year and drank in the adulation of the crowd. Buoyant and energized, he invited one fan onto the stage for a hug and even briefly turned over the microphone. “You’re all part of this incredible movement, this movement that we talk about so much, that’s been written about on the cover of every magazine all over the world,” Mr. Trump said in this Space Coast town 115 miles north of his getaway. “It’s a moment that’s just sweeping, it’s sweeping across our country. It’s sweeping, frankly, across the globe. ” “People want to take back control of their countries,” he added, “and they want to take back control of their lives. ” With no Democratic challengers on the horizon — or anywhere near it — only a month after he took office, Mr. Trump focused instead on another favorite target, the news media, blaming journalists for any perception that his opening days in office have been less than smooth. “They have their own agenda, and their agenda is not your agenda,” he told the appreciative audience. “They could not defeat us in the primaries, and they could not defeat us in the general election, and we will continue to expose them for what they are, and most important, we will continue to win, win, win. ” He also assailed the appeals court judges who blocked his temporary travel ban, reading from a law granting the president wide discretion in setting immigration rules and chastising the court for not addressing it. He slammed Democrats for opposing his cabinet nominations vowed again to “drain the swamp” of Washington and promoted his plans for overhauling the tax code, repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, and building roads and bridges. “This will be change for the ages, change like never before, to pursue real peace, real stability and real prosperity,” he said. “We want to secure our borders and protect our workers, to rebuild our military and our infrastructure, to fix our schools and restore safety to our neighborhoods. ” He boasted about the soaring stock market and said a new spirit was evident in the country. “It’s going to be a new day in America,” he said. “You’re going to be proud again. Jobs are already starting to pour back in. ” For anyone who has missed the buzz of the campaign trail, including, almost certainly, the victorious candidate, it was a blast from the past. Vendors sold the signature “Make America Great Again” red baseball caps. Supporters cheerfully chanted “CNN sucks” and “drain the swamp. ” Familiar rally songs by Elton John, the Rolling Stones and other artists were blasted over the loudspeakers. Mr. Trump talked about winning and assured the crowd that they could “believe me. ” This time, though, he came with an extra prop — Air Force One. The power and prestige of the presidency is unmatched, and when the plane rolled up next to the hangar to the theme song from the Harrison Ford movie “Air Force One,” the crowd, estimated by the local police to have numbered about 9, 000, exploded. The president and Melania Trump — who later introduced her husband with the Lord’s Prayer — emerged from the plane to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U. S. A. ” Never mind that an administration official had told The Washington Post two days earlier that Air Force One would not be “used in the background as a prop. ” Mr. Trump was hardly the first president to do so. The difference is that most presidents are eager to appear to remain above politics for as long as possible. Mr. Trump, by contrast, filed his papers on Inauguration Day. Asked by reporters on Air Force One as he flew here whether it was a little early to get back into campaign mode, he said: “Life is a campaign. Making our country great again is a campaign. For me, it’s a campaign to make America great again is absolutely a campaign. ” The fan Mr. Trump called onstage was Gene Huber, 47, of Boynton Beach, Fla. He was sitting directly in front of Mr. Trump, who said he had seen Mr. Huber speaking in support of him on television. At Mr. Trump’s invitation, Mr. Huber spoke at the lectern for about 40 seconds. In an interview on Saturday night, Mr. Huber, who grew up in Lake Ronkonkoma, on Long Island, said when Mr. Trump called him to the stage, “I was like, ‘Holy mackerel, this is happening. ’” Mr. Huber, a Republican who arrived for the rally at 4 a. m. said of Mr. Trump, “Everything he says, I know he’s going to do. ” It was clearly an energizing moment for a president who has shaken up Washington with a flurry of action on his campaign promises while absorbing significant setbacks. For all the enthusiasm in the hangar, Mr. Trump is struggling to win over the wider public. As of Friday, the Gallup poll put his approval rating at 38 percent, the lowest of any modern president so early in his tenure. Near the hangar, protesters yelled slogans and waved signs. At the end of his speech, Mr. Trump was clearly reading from prepared text as he talked about unity. “Let us move past the differences of party and find a new loyalty rooted deeply in our country,” he said. But he was at his most animated when in competitive mode. “We’re going to start winning again,” he said. “Believe me. ” | 1 |
BEIJING — The missiles were being prepared even before the two men finished dinner, disrupting the carefully choreographed proceedings. The American attack on Syria on Thursday unraveled China’s well laid plans for a summit meeting that would present President Xi Jinping as a global leader on par with President Trump, at once stealing the spotlight from Mr. Xi and putting him in a difficult position: choosing between condoning the kind of unilateral military action that China has long opposed, or rebuking his host. Mr. Xi’s dilemma was also acute because China has generally sided with Russia in defending Syria’s president, Bashar and because it worries that Mr. Trump might be prepared to order a similar strike on North Korea, Chinese and Western analysts said. “Xi can’t fail to be impressed by Trump’s resolve,” said Alan Dupont, an Australian military analyst who worked for that country’s Defense Department. “Xi will have to reassess what the Trump presidency means for Chinese interests in East Asia, particularly North Korea and the South China Sea. ” The American strikes on Syria would quite likely make Mr. Xi be more amenable about the White House’s demand that China squeeze North Korea’s economy, analysts said. “I suspect Xi will treat Trump’s threat against North Korea as more serious than before this, provided the language does not counteract it,” said Douglas H. Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Beijing has long been fairly confident that the United States would not risk an attack on North Korea, a much more dangerous target than Syria because of its nuclear arsenal and its capacity to hit Japan and South Korea, two American allies, Chinese analysts said. But China’s leaders are still trying to figure out Mr. Trump, and his quick decision to strike Syria may cause them to reconsider that assumption. At the same time, analysts said, China is unlikely to abandon North Korea as an ally and a strategic asset because it does not want to see a unified Korean Peninsula dominated by American troops. The first evening between Mr. Xi and Mr. Trump looked warm and welcoming on Chinese television, with lavish photographs of them chatting informally on an elegant sofa at Mr. Trump’s Florida club. The news shows also broadcast images of the two leaders sitting side by side at a vast dining table set with candelabra, and of Mr. Trump’s granddaughter, Arabella, singing in Chinese to Mr. Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, before dinner. The Chinese reports approvingly noted that the granddaughter did a performance, singing a Chinese song, “Jasmine,” and reciting the “Three Character Classic” and some Tang poetry. Mr. Trump accepted Mr. Xi’s invitation to visit China at an “early date,” the news agency Xinhua reported, a gesture that showed the two men had established the rapport that the Chinese leader was seeking to show his people at home. Then after dinner, with Mr. Xi safely back at his nearby hotel, Mr. Trump stepped to a podium to announce the strikes, making comments punctuated with emotional descriptions of the children killed by the Syrian government’s chemical weapons attack. Mr. Trump informed Mr. Xi of the attack during dinner, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said in remarks to the news media on Friday afternoon. At the Foreign Ministry in Beijing on Friday, the spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, noted China’s opposition to the use of chemical weapons and added that it was necessary to seek a political solution in Syria. “It is imperative to prevent the further deterioration of the situation,” she said. China has maintained a longstanding policy opposing unilateral military action. But Mr. Trump’s decision to order the strikes at the very moment Mr. Xi was visiting inevitably put the focus on North Korea. In an interview last weekend before the talks with Mr. Xi, Mr. Trump told The Financial Times that he was prepared to take unilateral action against North Korea if China did not cooperate with the American goal of curbing the North’s nuclear weapons program. Mr. Trump did not specify what kind of action he was considering. During his trip to East Asia last month, Mr. Tillerson said the United States might be forced to take military action if the North Koreans “elevate the threat of their weapons program” to an unacceptable level. Despite Mr. Trump’s action against Syria in the middle of Mr. Xi’s visit, there was not an exact parallel between Syria and North Korea, said Jin Qiangyi, director of the Center for North and South Korea Studies at Yanbian University in Jilin Province, which borders North Korea. Syria does not possess the capacity to hit back after the missile strikes, but North Korea, with its arsenal of weaponry and its nuclear program, does, Mr. Jin said. “The North’s nuclear capacity has reached such a level that any unilateral action from the U. S. would be extremely difficult,” he said. “The Americans have been saying a lot recently about attacking North Korea, but it is us who will be suffering from the consequences. ” The northeast area of China where Mr. Jin teaches has become increasingly fearful of radiation leaks from North Korea’s nuclear operations. An attack by the United States would be “catastrophic for the region,” he said. Another consequence for China of the Syrian attack could be an increase in the disaffection for North Korea among the population, and among those in the government and think tanks that consider the North a strategic liability. Beijing believes that the leader of North Korea, Kim is insurance against a unified Korean Peninsula dominated by the American military. But a quiet debate has grown inside the Chinese government over the wisdom of hanging onto North Korea, an increasingly troublesome ally that functions because of China’s largess. China supplies North Korea with almost all of the oil needed to keep its economy afloat, and 90 percent of North Korean trade passes through China. Some Chinese companies trade with North Korea in contravention of United Nations sanctions. The White House is trying to persuade China that its support for the North is counterproductive, an argument that Mr. Trump was prepared to make to Mr. Xi during their talks, a senior administration official told reporters before the meeting. The Syrian strike could serve to make that point, but it would not be definitive in changing China’s strategic thinking, said Andrei Lankov, a historian of North Korea who visits China. “Yes, North Korea is a liability for China,” he said. “But in the real world, the status quo is the least unpleasant option. ” If the talks with Mr. Trump on Friday go badly, Mr. Xi will be able to use the Syrian airstrikes against the American president by telling the Chinese people that they were the action of a weak leader, some Chinese analysts said. “Trump is frustrated with his own critics,” said Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Renmin University. “This airstrike was a defensive measure to deal with criticism against him. The message from Xi to the Chinese public could be: ‘This is Trump, you know he is not so good for China. ’” | 1 |
French Police in Montauban, a town near Toulouse in southern France were forced to open fire on a suspect Sunday afternoon as he ran through the town with a knife, stabbing bystanders. [Reports in French media indicate the now arrested man, who was hit by two of four rounds fired by officers, “caused panic in the streets” by driving his Volkswagen Golf car at high speeds around the and then through the streets before disembarking and attacking people with a knife, reports magazine l’Express. One bystander was injured in the shoulder with the knife during the rampage, reports local newspaper La Depeche, whose reporter on the ground Pacôme Bécot has been events, revealing that police have opened an investigation for attempted murder. The injured party is not in serious condition but has been admitted to Montauban hospital after the attack which took place around 14:30 Sunday. Une fusillade à #montauban pic. twitter. — Tonight Montauban (@TMontauban) February 19, 2017, Another couple were assaulted by the man before he was stopped by police according to reports and were knocked to the ground, but avoided injury. Although the motives for the attack are unknown, authorities have been quick to point out that they have dismissed the possibility of terrorism as a cause, reports conservative French paper Le Figaro. The suspect, who is a native of the French former colony, now overseas department of Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean has been reported to have “Psychological Problems” is “unbalanced” and has been admitted to hospital in the past. Despite the denial of a terrorist link and claim of mental illness as a possible cause, the use of a vehicle followed up by a knife attack is at least superficially similar to terror attacks elsewhere in Europe. One such was a terror rampage through Graz, Austria, which left four dead including a boy. The killer, a Bosnian Muslim who was initially reported by media to be a mentally ill Christian facing family troubles drove his car at speeds of 90 miles per hour through Graz’s shopping district before getting out of his car and setting upon bystanders with a “large knife”. This story is developing. | 1 |
Bill White November 23, 2016 Are We Seeing The End Of Progressive Liberalism?
The 2016 presidential elections were more than an upset; they were a defining moment in American history.
For the first time in living memory, the American people rose up in a united effort to throw off their political “masters” and show the politicians and media who really owns this country… We the People.
There are many reasons why Donald Trump won the presidential election , and you can find articles galore proposing one theory or another. Of course, those articles are coming from people who are on the political right.
For Democrats, the mainstream media and other liberals, the verdict is in; Trump won because of racism and sexism. In their world view, it would be impossible for anyone to beat out their anointed candidate, were it not for those “isms” and any other “ism” they can find.
But the fact of the matter is that the average conservative or moderate rarely thinks about race, unless it is merely as a means of describing one’s appearance.
We might identify someone as “Black” or “Hispanic,” but in our minds, that’s no different than saying that they are “blond” or “brunette.” It’s merely a way of identifying the person, not as part of an ethnic minority or part of a group to hate, but merely as a person who looks a certain way.
Yet to people who are focused on race (the true racists), the color of one’s skin is everything. The ability to lump people in a group, because of their skin color, provides liberals with a way of dividing the country. Thus divided, it is easier for them to influence and control certain parts of it.
The liberal cries of “racism,”“sexism” and “islamophobia” have become so common as to have dropped to the level of becoming a joke. Few, other than those who are already in the progressive liberal camp, even listen when those accusations come out. Rather, they see it as the left’s standard trump card, when they see that they are losing the argument.
Somehow or other, a cry of “racism” beats out any argument in their minds, no matter what the facts or logic say about the issue at hand.
Sadly, there are still way too many people who are willing to take that emotional argument and run with it; accepting that as their opinion on any person or issue, without thinking it through for themselves.
Yet those political masters have just been slapped in the face by a thing called reality. While they regularly call themselves the majority and refer to conservatives as “fringe,” the recent elections prove otherwise.
In fact, according to a poll by Pew Research, there are more conservatives in the country than there are liberals. Perhaps that’s why Trump managed to beat Clinton, even though the media spent 18 months touting her as the next president.
While there are many reasons why Trump beat Clinton, including the way the two candidates ran their campaigns and Hillary’s many scandals, the crux of the matter boils down to mainstream Americans being tired of the last eight years of Obama’s liberal agenda.
Liberals like to claim that they represent the ideals of the majority of American citizens. Between outspoken Democrat politicians, the left-leaning mainstream media and the fact that liberals are much more likely to demonstrate when they don’t like something, their argument is almost convincing.
But this election proved them wrong. Not only did they lose the presidential election, but both houses of Congress are in Republican hands as well.
What did all that? Basically, it boils down to progressive liberals pushing their agenda too hard and too fast. They have literally tried to change the social fabric of American society by force, rather than by more organic means. They overplayed their hand and this forced the silent majority to stand up and say “Enough!” and I’ll have to say, they said it quite well.
The liberals have lost control of two branches of our government, and over the next few years, we’ll see them losing control over the third branch as well.
As Trump has already presented the list of conservative judges he plans on picking from to fill Supreme Court vacancies, we can rest assured that liberals will not gain control of the Supreme Court anytime soon.
This was probably the biggest issue at stake in this election. Had Hillary Clinton won the presidency, she would have been able to select the replacement for Justice Scalia, as well as two to four more Supreme Court Justices. That would give firm control of the Supreme Court to the liberals for the next 20 years or more.
Does a Democrat Loss Mean That the Liberals Have Lost Their Steam?
Does it mean the end of progressive liberalism as we know it? Are we finally going to see our country go back in a rational direction, returning to our roots? Sadly, no, in my opinion.
Oh, the liberals have definitely been dealt a serious blow and their agenda has been slowed down.
If Donald Trump is able to come through and fulfill his campaign promises, we might even see some serious reversals of liberal policies in the course of the next few years. But this doesn’t mean an end to liberalism, merely a delay for them.
Liberalism is alive and well, although at the moment they’re confused and crying. They will eventually get over their collective hissy fit and take a good look at the way things stand.
If they can actually look beyond their own preconceived notions and see things as they are, they might even learn a few things about how the world works and come out stronger. They will be back and they will try to make us rue the day we voted Donald Trump into office.
Democrats face two serious problems right now. The first is that they have lost their leadership. Part of the reason why Hillary Clinton became the Democrat Party’s candidate for president, is that they didn’t have anyone else who was a strong enough figure on a national level that they could put forth.
Bernie Sanders was probably defeated more because he was an outsider, than any other reason. The Democrats never trusted him, because he wasn’t one of them. He changed parties shortly before the primaries, just so that he could run as a Democrat, and once he lost the primaries, he left the Democrat Party and went back to being an independent.
The Democrat Party’s cupboard is pretty bare in the leadership department. It’s serious enough that they’re going to have a challenge finding a candidate to float for the next presidential election. As soon as they get over their crying spell, they’re going to have to start working on that.
The second problem that the Democrats have right now is a need to reevaluate their tactics and strategies. Even with pushing illegal immigration, allowing illegal aliens to vote, and massive amounts of voter fraud in at least 16 states, they lost the election.
Worse than that, at least for the Democrats, is that the voter fraud they’ve propagated during this election cycle has been so obvious, that people across the political spectrum are noticing.
A national cry for cleaning up our voting process is rising up. While the means for doing that are still under hot debate, people are crying out for a honest, transparent process. The Democrat Party has already promised to fight President-elect Trump at every turn. They’ve actually threatened him, trying to tell him that he had better toe their line.
That just shows how little they understand the man himself. Those threats, like all the other threats that have been made against him, will merely be exposed to the voting public and then ignored for the hot air that they are.
The only chance that liberals have is to regain control of the White House or Congress. But that’s not going to be easy. The legacy of Obama’s overriding liberal agenda, manifested through his executive orders and massive regulations, is not going to be forgotten quickly.
In fact, I’d have to say that the greatest hope that the Democrat Party has right now, is that Republican lawmakers will invariably disregard the voting public. It might take several years for that to happen; but it will.
Then, when it does, there will be another chance for the Democrats to preach their message of “hope and change,” this time, against an entrenched Republican Party. While that battle will be a hard one to win, I can almost guarantee you that it will be won.
So the key now is for Congress and the President Elect to accomplish as much as they can, as quick as they can, to turn our country back towards its roots. That will probably all be undone eventually, but in the meantime, it will slow down the inevitable crawl to becoming a more and more liberal (read socialist) society.
Bill White for Survivopedia.
References: | 0 |
When the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act was adopted unanimously by Congress in December, it was widely praised as a necessary tool to help the heirs of Holocaust victims recover art stolen from their families during World War II. Now the efficacy of the HEAR Act, as it is known, may get an early test in New York State Court, where the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum, an Austrian Jewish entertainer, are citing it in efforts to claim two valuable colorful drawings by Egon Schiele. Grunbaum’s extraordinary art collection has been generating controversy almost since the Nazis confiscated it from his Vienna apartment in 1938 and shipped him to his death in the Dachau concentration camp. For years, his heirs have argued that the collection, which included 81 Schieles, was stolen by the Nazis. Collectors, dealers and some museums, however, have countered that the art was inventoried by the Nazis but not stolen, and that Grunbaum’s sold 53 of the Schieles in a legitimate transaction, to a Swiss art dealer, in 1956. They say that previous courts have found that the Schieles were not stolen and that no further claims should be considered on those works. But the Grunbaum heirs contend that the previous claims, in this case and others, were settled on legal technicalities, not the merits of the argument that the art was looted by the Nazis, and that this is just the sort of case the law was enacted to address. Arguing for the legislation last year, one sponsor, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, said that it would ensure that “claims to art are not unfairly barred by statutes of limitations and other similar nonmerits defenses. ” The law created a federal statute of limitations for such claims: six years from the time of “actual discovery” of the art’s whereabouts. It is in line with the spirit of two international proclamations stating that technicalities should not be employed to prevent stolen property from being returned to rightful owners. The legislation has also been cited by lawyers for the estate of Alice Leffman, in a federal suit against the Metropolitan Museum of Art, seeking restitution of a valuable Picasso painting, “The Actor. ” In court filings, the museum has asked that the case be dismissed, and has stated that it does not believe that the Picasso was stolen. The two Schieles now being pursued, “Woman in a Black Pinafore” (1911) and “Woman Hiding Her Face” (1912) were part of the 1956 sale to the Swiss dealer. But Raymond Dowd, a lawyer for the Grunbaum heirs — Timothy Reif, David Fraenkel and Milos Vavra — argues that the circumstances of that transaction have never been fully explored and that his clients did not discover the lost works until they were noticed for sale at an art fair in 2015. Mr. Dowd and one of the heirs, Mr. Vavra, previously pursued the restitution of another Schiele drawing from the Grunbaum collection, “Seated Woman With Bent Left Leg (Torso). ” In that litigation, filed in 2005, the court ruled in favor of a Boston businessman, David Bakalar, who had bought the work in 1963. It said too much time had passed since the Grunbaum heirs had made their claim, causing evidence to be lost. Mr. Dowd appealed the ruling, but lost. In 2015 Mr. Bakalar, who paid $4, 300 for the work, sold it at auction for $1. 3 million. Mr. Dowd filed his new suit in November of that year, after learning that Richard Nagy, a London art dealer and Schiele specialist, was trying to sell “Woman in a Black Pinafore” and “Woman Hiding Her Face” at an art fair at the Park Avenue Armory. The two drawings are valued together at roughly $5 million, according to Mr. Dowd. Mr. Nagy has fought the claim, arguing in court papers that he acquired both artworks “in good faith and in a commercially reasonable manner” after the United States Supreme Court declined to hear Mr. Dowd’s appeal of the “Bakalar” case. His lawyers argue that previous court rulings about the Schieles from the Grunbaum collection were based on a finding that they had been properly conveyed in 1956. Still, last year Judge Charles Ramos of the New York State Supreme Court ordered that the two drawings be held by Mr. Nagy’s shipping agent, pending the resolution of the legal action. Mr. Nagy and his lawyer, Thaddeus Stauber, have appealed. In an interview, Mr. Stauber said the case against Mr. Nagy should be dismissed. “It is what we call ‘Bakalar 2,’” he said. “It’s the same case being brought by these heirs and their counsel over the exact same art collection, so the case shouldn’t go forward. ” He said Mr. Dowd was wrong to invoke the act because the law says it does not apply to cases where there has already been a final judgment the Bakalar case, he said, had determined that the Grunbaum Schieles weren’t stolen. Mr. Stauber added: “It’s kind of offensive to everybody who’s been involved in this field, claimants and otherwise, to keep touting something which the courts have decided. You had your trial. Evidence was presented. It’s over. ” But Agnes Peresztegi, the president and legal counsel of the Commission on Art Recovery — an organization founded by the billionaire art collector Ronald S. Lauder to encourage the restitution of artworks stolen during World War II — said in an interview that she agreed with Mr. Dowd. The “Bakalar” case was not decided on the merits, she said, but on the technical issue that too much time had passed to pursue a claim. She said she welcomes the use of the new law in deciding whether many of the Grunbaum collection’s Schieles, including the two owned by Mr. Nagy, were stolen. “My view,” she said, “is that all claimants that have a nonfrivolous case will have a day in court, and cases without facts to support them will be dismissed. ” Mr. Dowd remains optimistic for his clients. “We believe that the expert report and scholarship of Dr. Jonathan Petropoulos, the world’s leading expert in this field, will persuade the court that the evidence shows that Fritz Grunbaum was a victim of Nazi art looting,” he wrote in an email. | 1 |
Working out only on the weekends or otherwise compressing your total physical activity into one or two prolonged runs or a single vigorous basketball or soccer game each week could lessen your risks of dying prematurely almost as effectively as more frequent, shorter workouts spread throughout the week, according to an interesting new study of the weekend warrior phenomenon. As most of us have heard by now, the standard recommendation about how much exercise we should complete each week for health purposes is 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity. Moderate exercise consists of activities like brisk walking or easy cycling that raise heart rates while still allowing us to talk to training partners, and vigorous activities are those like running, cycling, and many team sports, including basketball and soccer, that raise heart rates into a zone where speaking is difficult. Meeting these guidelines is associated with a substantially reduced risk of developing a wide range of diseases and dying too young. The guidelines also suggest that, for practical purposes, people consider breaking the 150 minutes into five moderate sessions each week or a comparable number of shorter, more vigorous workouts. But many people apparently do not have the time or inclination to exercise five times per week. About a third of American adults engage in zero weekly exercise and others pack their workouts into one or two sessions on Saturday or Sunday, when they have more free time. There has been little information, though, about whether the weekend warrior pattern of exercise lowers the risk for premature death as effectively as more frequent and generally shorter workouts. So for the new study, which was published on Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers at Loughborough University in England and other institutions decided to delve into the exercise routines of tens of thousands of men and women already participating in the Health Survey for England and the Scottish Health Survey. The researchers zeroed in on data from 63, 591 men and women who had provided detailed descriptions of their workout patterns when they first entered the study at least 15 years before, telling the survey questioners how many minutes they had exercised each week during the past month, what kinds of exercise they had undertaken, and how many times per week they had worked out. The researchers used that data to categorize the men and women into a variety of groups. Those who never exercised were defined, unsurprisingly, as inactive, while those who worked out but did not meet the standard guidelines were considered insufficiently active. Those who did exercise for the full 150 gentle or 75 vigorous weekly minutes were labeled sufficiently active. This last group was then subdivided into those who spread their physical activity over at least three sessions and those who jammed it into one or two workouts, presumably on weekends (although the actual days were not specified). Interestingly, these weekend warriors were mostly male, almost half exercised only once per week, and an overwhelming majority, almost 90 percent, reported that their exercise occurred during vigorous sports like competitive running and cycling or team sports like soccer. Finally, the researchers crosschecked their participants against death registries, to determine mortality in the intervening years since each person had joined the original survey. It turned out that exercise, in any amount, had substantially lessened the risk that someone would die from any cause, including heart disease and cancer. Men and women who exercised, even if they did not meet the guideline recommendations, were about 29 percent less likely to die prematurely than people who never worked out. Those who met the recommendations gained a slight edge in longevity, being about 30 percent less likely to have died than people who never exercised. This advantage remained about the same whether people worked out three or more times during the week or jammed all of their activity into a session or two. “Reductions in risk were similar in the weekend warriors and the regularly active,” says Gary O’Donovan, a research associate at Loughborough University who led the study. Of course, this study was observational so it can’t tell us whether exercise actually caused people to live longer but only that the two are associated. It also raises questions it cannot answer, including whether weekend warriors might be missing out on other potential health gains from exercise. Frequent exercise is generally thought to be better than fewer workouts at, for instance, preventing and controlling Type 2 diabetes, says Hannah Arem, an epidemiologist at George Washington University who wrote a commentary to accompany the new study. Weekend warriors also could be losing aerobic fitness between workouts, since endurance capacity typically declines after a or layoff. So weekend warriors might be rebuilding and maintaining but not augmenting their baseline fitness from one week to the next. And they are likely to face a higher risk of injuries than people who exercise more often. But even with those caveats, the good news from this study, Dr. O’Donovan says, is that whatever type of activity you can fit into your schedule appears to be better for your longevity than no activity at all. | 1 |
In a leap of reason, a several journals and news outlets have accused Donald Trump of “environmental racism” by pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord. [As Breitbart News reported earlier, President Trump has already been blamed for a “war on the environment” tantamount to genocide. Now, his critics have upped the ante, projecting a nefarious racial tone onto the President’s decision. Essence magazine said that Donald Trump had continued “his war on people of color in America” when he announced the United States would withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. Blavity, a website that caters to people of color, said that Trump’s decision “will worsen environmental racism,” insisting that climate change is “inherently a black issue and not just a ‘human issue. ’” The Atlantic went so far as to suggest that environmental racism is “the new Jim Crow,” referring to laws that segregated blacks and whites in their use of public schools, public places, transportation, restrooms and restaurants. Since it may not be evident to readers how a refusal to bind America to a certain level of carbon dioxide emissions constitutes racism, these same outlets have helpfully connected the dots, explaining how neglect of environmental concerns is an attack on blacks. “If Climate Change persist (sic) and the world’s average temperature rises more than two degrees Celsius,” Blavity writer Dominic A. Williams contends, “it would mean widespread extinctions, changing weather patterns, droughts, strong storms, rising sea levels and consequently the disappearance of coastal cities, and a plethora of not yet realized consequences. ” These disasters, Williams insists, will disproportionately affect people of color. Environmental Racism, he writes, “can be described as a lack of access to healthy environments and disproportionate exposure to pollutants. This means that predominantly black neighborhoods are more likely to suffer from polluted air and water than white neighborhoods. ” As Breitbart News noted earlier this week, the Paris climate accord has nothing whatsoever to do with “polluted air and water” and only seeks to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide, a colorless, odorless, gas that is a part of a healthy environment. Be that as it may, Williams eventually gets to the real bone of contention. “In addition to causing health crisis,” he argues, “Climate Change will cause meteorological disasters that will decimate vulnerable black neighborhoods. The warming of Earth will cause such as Hurricane Katrina, to occur quite regularly. ” “While climate change will affect everyone on this planet, marginalized groups will always be the ones who suffer the most,” he adds. “Environmental issues, for that reason, are inherently black issues. ” In the minds of Dominic A. Williams and other key critics of “environmental racism,” a person doesn’t need to have race in mind to be a racist. If one’s actions intentionally or unintentionally affect black people, they constitute racism. The odd thing is, these same authors are silent about a national disaster that does affect blacks far more than whites, actually causing a disproportionate number of black deaths and the decimation of the black population. This is the legally sanctioned practice of abortion. The rate of abortion among blacks is far higher than among whites, with 365 black babies aborted for every 1, 000 that are born. While blacks account for roughly 38% of all abortions in the country, they represent only 13 percent of the population, statistics that have led black Christian leaders to speak of a “black genocide” occurring at the hands of abortionists. In New York City, for instance, in recent years there were more abortions among black women in the city than there were black babies born. Both nationally and in New York City, the abortion rates among black women are significantly higher than among any other demographic group. Now that is something for people of color to get angry about. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 1 |
It’s 4 p. m. on a cold December Friday. I type an email for work with one hand, stir a pot of zucchini lentil soup with the other and usher my two daughters out of the kitchen and into the playroom with my third, invisible hand. My eyes are always on the clock, ticking down to my weekly deadline: sunset. Before the sun disappears below the horizon, I will stop whatever I am doing to light two white candles and recite a simple blessing in Hebrew to mark the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. My family lives according to traditional Jewish law, which includes observing the Sabbath, a weekly day of rest. Our Sabbath starts as the sun begins to set on Friday and continues until after nightfall Saturday. Right now, at the winter solstice, sunset in New York comes around 4:30 and there are only nine hours and 15 minutes of daylight — nearly six hours fewer than at the summer solstice in June. The early darkness is a mere inconvenience to many people, but to observant Jewish families the shorter days significantly change the rhythm of life. According to the Old Testament, God made the world in six days, and stopped on the seventh to rest and admire his work, so we, too, stop our normal routine to enjoy the home we are working so hard to create. This day of rest doesn’t mean simply refraining from “work,” it includes prohibitions against writing, cooking and electricity. We prepare food in advance, put away our phones, pack up the crayons, turn off our screens and leave our cars parked in the garage. Basically, we set aside one day every week as a day to turn off the outside world’s noise. And that means we have only six days to fit in a week’s worth of all of the normal errands and chores required of a modern home. Soon after I light the candles, we set the table with our fancy dishes, put out the wine glasses and walk our dog. (These are chores still allowed on Shabbat.) Then, finally, we gather around the dining room table. My husband, Leron, and I look at each other and we take a collective breath and exhale. Out with that breath goes the stress of a long week of work and the commotion of a busy family: the unrelenting weekly routine, the scheduling and preparing and endless . We have made it to another Friday night. For the next day the world around us will slow. We will stay in pajamas until after breakfast, linger over meals with neighbors, take naps, read books on our cozy couch, play games as a family or maybe take a walk outside if it’s not too cold. But everything else will have to wait if it wasn’t already done, it won’t be done today. In the summer, when sunset occurs after my children’s normal dinnertime, Fridays can feel like most other days of the week. Leron and I work full days, and we still have a generous window between work and sunset to set up our home for the Sabbath. This means setting timers on our lights, grabbing the stroller from our car, turning off the lights in our fridge, plugging in a warming tray to heat the food I’ve cooked in advance and anything else we need to do before sunset. If we forget to get the stroller out of the car, for example, we’ll just do without it — we won’t open the car door during Shabbat because the lights inside the car would go on. But sometime in November, right after the end of daylight saving time, as we turn the clocks back an hour, the shorter days become a challenge. Fridays inevitably become a complex operations problem, figuring out how to cram in a full day of work, errands, Sabbath preparation and child care in half as much time. On those days, I sometimes wonder whether keeping the Sabbath is making my life better or just harder. It means one less day to do laundry, to run to the supermarket, to browse the internet. As my children get older, that will be one less day to do homework, drive to the craft store for project supplies or take part in extracurricular activities. Shabbat certainly complicates life in a secular world. But it also simplifies life — for one day a week, anyway. Saturday is the only day when you can find my family of four lying on the carpet in the playroom, building cities of Legos together. We read books as a family and finally have some time to talk about the week that just passed. While many parents worry about screen time and the impact electronic toys are having on their children’s development, I have a reprieve from such concerns. When my asks to watch her favorite television show on Saturday afternoon, my response, “Sorry, we don’t watch TV on Shabbat,” is enough to quiet her. Saturday afternoon is the time I am most likely to pause to appreciate my family. I notice how mature my is becoming. She is so generous to the friends who come over for playdates, and she is always excited to take them on tours of her room. Our too, is growing. I can see how hard she works to speak like her sister her brain now holds more words then her mouth can handle. In the winter, the Sabbath starts early enough for us to eat dinner together as a family, and still put the children to bed by 8 p. m. Then, Leron and I get to spend a few precious moments together in the quiet of our house. We discuss replacing the worn couch in the living room, and then muster the energy to play a board game or read a book next to each other (trying our hardest not to fall asleep). Observing the Sabbath requires a certain amount of discipline to take a break from our digital media and entertainment, but it also forces us to be disciplined about taking time for ourselves and our family. So, here I sit, with a dog who’s begging to be petted, to admire God’s work and mine. Although my home may not be as grand as the entirety of the universe, a moment listening to the click of Legos or the turning of a story book page is about as close to heaven as I can get. | 1 |
U. S. President Donald Trump on Sunday pledged to the Saudi King Salman that he would enforce the Iranian nuclear deal “rigorously,” changing his tone from the presidential campaign in which he said he would dismantle the deal or walk away from it. [In their conversation on Sunday, Trump and King Salman also agreed on the establishment of safe zones to protect Syrian refugees in Syria and Yemen, according to a statement from the White House. Trump called on Gulf states to establish and fund such safe zones during the presidential campaign. “The president requested, and the King agreed, to support safe zones in Syria and Yemen, as well as supporting other ideas to help the many refugees who are displaced by the ongoing conflicts,” the statement said. According to Reuters, the two leaders agreed on the importance of strengthening joint efforts to fight the spread of Islamic State terrorists. The news agency quoted a senior Saudi source as saying the two leaders spoke for more than an hour. Apart from ratcheting up and military cooperation, the two also discussed ways to enhance economic cooperation. The statement from the White House said that Trump and King Salman also agreed on the need to address “Iran’s destabilizing regional activities. ” Since Trump’s election in November, his staff has mitigated his campaign pledges to “tear up” the deal with Iran, which the president called as recently as two weeks ago “one of the dumbest deals I have ever seen” in an interview with UK paper the Times of London. Saudi Arabia, competing with Iran for regional hegemony, and influence and control in the Gulf, has been among the strongest opponents to the deal, alongside Israel. In its account of the conversation, the Saudi Press Agency made no mention of Iran. The unnamed Saudi official quoted by Reuters did not say whether Trump and King Salman discussed the president’s executive order to put a moratorium on allowing refugees into the US and the temporary ban on allowing entry to travelers from Syria and six other countries. Saudi Arabia is not one of the seven countries from which entry to the US is banned. Trump and King Salman also discussed the Muslim Brotherhood. “It was mentioned that Osama bin Laden was recruited at an early stage” by the zealous Sunni organization, the Saudi source quoted by Reuters said. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have designated the Brotherhood a terrorist organization. The Brotherhood’s religious doctrine challenges the dynastic rule of the House of Saud, a view shared by the more radical organization Islamic State. According to Reuters, a debate is under way inside the Trump administration on whether the United States should also declare the Brotherhood a terrorist organization and subject it to US sanctions. | 1 |
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A new federal government document has surfaced which details the housing discrimination practices of Donald Trump and his family’s vast Trump Organization’s realty holdings in New York City’s outer boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn.
It’s the first time that tangible proof of Donald Trump’s history of racial discrimination practices has been confirmed in an official record.
found this key document from the archives of University of Michigan’s Law School, markgin the very first time that the complete list of Trump’s covered properties has been discovered.
The Republican nominee spent most of the 1970s battling federal housing discrimination charges alongside his father, a fact Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton highlighted in an attack ad this week .
However, Trump has always publicly denied culpability and hid behind the confidentiality of settlement discussions to avoid full disclosure like this new public record document exposes. In fact, he has always never admitted guilt, according to Politifact :
The case was settled and Trump never admitted guilt, though his company had to agree to stipulations meant to prevent future discrimination at his rental properties. Donald Trump’s Properties Had 75% Fewer Minorities Than Lived Nearby In Other Buildings
The Trump Organization had 9,050 apartment units covered under the settlement agreement with the federal government, which housed only 399 minority residents across 35 covered properties, or only 4.4% of Fred and Donald Trump’s New York City rental real estate empire.
The public record document proves the Trump Organization and principals Fred and Donald Trump’s buildings schemed to ignore the Fair Housing Act of 1968 but failed miserably and ultimately landed in court for two years starting in 1973.
The Trumps eventually capitulated to the government in 1975.
Keep in mind, the federal government named Donald Trump personally in their Fair Housing complaint, so he wasn’t just a bit player in the dark history of his family business’ illegal management practices — but a named defendant.
The Justice Department named 39 buildings in their original complaint, which leading to a story entitled, “ Major Landlord Accused of Antiblack Bias ,” on the front page of the New York Times.
Out of the total of 14,000 units that The Times says the Trump family owned in 1973, 68% of their holdings fell under the settlement.
The Trumps segregated a small group of non-white tenants into a few of their properties, maintained a single building with just over half minority residents, and virtually excluded minorities from 24 New York City buildings of the 36 total project covered in their 1975 settlement with the federal government which covered a mind-boggling 9,500 apartments.
Five of the Trump buildings affected had no minority residents whatsoever, and more than half of the buildings had less than ten minority residents.
There’s also spreadsheet below with easier to read copy of the key public record document proving Trump’s discriminatory housing practices, but you can see the original here:
Who Wrote This Letter At The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division And Why Did They Write It?
Drew S. Days, III transmitted the Trump Leak (below) to the Open Housing Center of New York shortly after his appointment by President Carter. It was prepared by career Civil Rights division lawyer Harvey L. Hanley in the summer of 1977,
Days , was the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights division then, where he personally oversaw the Trump family’s desegregation efforts.
He went on to become a Yale Law Professor, and eventually the US Solicitor General under President Clinton in 1993.
Days’ memo reveals that the portfolio of Trump Organization realty which was covered in the 1975 settlement, and their slow progress of racial integration as of July 11th, 1977.
By then, the Trump Organization had designated two additional buildings to accommodate significant blocks minority renters compared to other buildings.
But across the board, non-white occupancy rates only went from 4.4% to 7.2% with 663 residents of color housed.
When you factor out those two buildings – named Argyle Hall and Westminster Hall who accepted 48 of only 264 new minority tenants – the Trump Organization’s overall minority occupancy rate stood at only 6.45%. Trump Organization Management Actively Discriminated Against African-Americans
The New York Times reported in August that Trump’s property managers – both New York and Cincinnati, Ohio – marked minority housing applications for denial whether they were segregationists or more likely following their orders strictly. One manager spilled the beans on Trump’s discriminatory practices:
A former Trump superintendent named Thomas Miranda testified that multiple Trump Management employees had instructed him to attach a separate piece of paper with a big letter “C” on it — for “colored” — to any application filed by a black apartment-seeker.
That wasn’t only reason to date why the federal Department of Justice’s Civil Rights division monitored fully 2/3rds of the Trump family’s realty empire for racial discrimination in the 70s.
Case records like the one provided by DCAT below show that Trump’s manager would tell prospective tenants that their neighborhoods were safe, “because there were no blacks around.”
Furthermore, as in many housing discrimination cases, the below court document also documents testers visiting the Trump Organization’s buildings and coming out with different results based on the skin color of the prospective tenant. Federal Court Document from US vs. Trump. Click to Open in New Tab New York’s Minority Population Doubled In the 1970s
It’s important to note that demographic data from the US Census illuminates this report to show that most of Trump’s buildings had far fewer minorities than the communities in which they sat.
US Census data indicates that Kings and Queens Counties were the two most populous counties in New York back then, with 4.6 million people in 1970. (doc 2, page 11 in link) US Census Data. Click to Open in New Tab
Roughly 20% of that 1970 population was listed as African-American.
By the 1980 US Census , the population of the two New York City boroughs dipped slightly, however the percentage of African-American and hispanic residents in the two boroughs was 40% of the population. (pages 29-30 in link)
This data demonstrates that the Trump Organization’s covered apartments only had one fourth of the proportion of minority residents compared their surrounding neighborhoods in the mid-1970s, while 15% percent of their properties had zero African-Americans residing inside them.
For the purposes of this story, we used the blended average of minority population in both districts, since there’s a large portfolio of buildings. Conclusion
Donald Trump settled a federal Fair Housing Act lawsuit because most of his buildings often had few, or even no minority residents.
A careful examination of his record shows that his family’s real estate empire systematically excluded African-Americans from its housing, and even after settling with the US Department of Justice, the Trump Organization continued to use the same tactics of loading just a few properties with most of the minority tenants. | 0 |
WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Almost three months after Bashir Yussuf watched Donald J. Trump win the presidential election, he made his way to Noyes, Minn. where he set off at night into the woods and crawled across the unmarked border into Canada. “I saw what was coming,” said Mr. Yussuf, 28, who fled his home in Somalia in 2013 to make a circuitous, voyage to San Diego, where he applied for asylum but was rejected. “I knew Trump was going to deport me. ” After a walk, much of it through deep drifts, Mr. Yussuf arrived in Emerson, a small farming town in sight of the border with both North Dakota and Minnesota. Emerson’s 700 inhabitants have long known “border hoppers,” often offering them lifts to the nearby Canadian Border Services Agency office. But they have never seen them coming in these numbers. The morning before Mr. Yussuf arrived with another Somali last Sunday night, 19 other Africans had emerged on the Canadian side of the border, cold and hungry after walking much of the night across frozen farm fields. There were too many to fit into the small border office for processing, so the people of the town rushed to open the community hall, where the new arrivals could get warm, doze on sleeping mats and refuel on Nutella sandwiches, tea and coffee. Noting a worrying trend, Emerson officials convened an emergency meeting on Thursday with the police and border agents to figure out a protocol for the next wave of arrivals — which they feared would be soon. “The farmers are worried about what they’re going to find when the snow melts,” said Greg Janzen, the reeve, or chief elected executive, of the municipality. On Christmas Eve, two Ghanaians were picked up on the roadside north of town, some 10 hours after they had set off into a field near the border, sinking to their waists in snow. The temperature that morning was reported to be below zero, with windchill making it even worse. The men’s hands were so badly frostbitten that they lost almost all their fingers. Over the past couple of years, a small number of people have been sneaking across the border at Manitoba from the United States and then filing for asylum, Canadian Border Service Agency statistics show. But since the fall, refugee workers in Winnipeg say, there has been a noticeable surge. The Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, known locally as Welcome Place, typically serves 50 to 60 asylum seekers per year, said its executive director, Rita Chahal. “Since April, we’ve seen already 300,” she said. While the government of Canada was unable to provide statistics on the number of people seeking refugee status who illegally enter the country, Sgt. Harold Pfleiderer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said, “There has been an increase in illegal migration in Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia, with the largest increase being seen in Quebec. ” A loophole in the rules covering asylum seekers has led some to walk for as long as eight hours in the middle of the night, through wintry landscapes and biting prairie cold, before arriving in Emerson. While an agreement between Canada and the United States makes it impossible for them to simply present themselves at the border and claim asylum, those who make it into the country and then present themselves to border guards can do so. Now, in light of the uncertainty and disruption created by President Trump’s executive order on immigration, refugee advocates and human rights groups in Canada are demanding that the government led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suspend or cancel the refugee pact, which is known as the Safe Third Country agreement. “We are essentially encouraging people to come across the border through irregular means,” said Sean Rehaag, a York University law professor who specializes in refugee and immigration law. On Wednesday, the immigration and refugee clinical program at Harvard Law School issued a report stating that Mr. Trump’s executive orders on immigration made the United States “not a safe country of asylum” for people fleeing persecution and violence. “When Canada sends someone back to the U. S. we are saying we have confidence the U. S. is going to protect them if they need protection. We don’t see how we can have confidence to say that in the current context,” said Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council For Refugees, a nonprofit umbrella organization of 170 refugee advocacy groups. Bashir Khan, a Winnipeg lawyer, has represented 125 refugees before the Immigration and Refugee Board over the past five years. That is on top of the 17 he is representing currently. All were rejected at refugee hearings in the United States. “Let’s be honest here,” Mr. Khan said. “They did not get access to justice in the United States. They were locked up from the moment they crossed the Mexican border, and detained an average of nine months. They didn’t know how to fill out asylum forms, they were not given legal aid — not one of them. ” Ms. Chahal of Welcome Place said that in recent months her center had seen another type of applicant — people like Mourad Hassan, who flew into Chicago in December and then worked immediately to find a way across the border to make his first asylum claim in Canada. “When Trump became president, I was scared he would deport me,” said Mr. Hassan, 32, a former army officer from Djibouti who said he had been tortured for political reasons. “He doesn’t like Muslims. ” From Emerson, the refugee applicants typically take cabs for the trip to the provincial capital of Winnipeg, where they formally apply for asylum, welfare checks and legal aid. The hearings are usually scheduled within two to three months of their application, but there are no guarantees. In 2015 the Immigration and Refugee Board approved 57. 7 percent of the 16, 521 refugee claims made inside Canada’s borders. The board does not track how many claims come from people who bypassed border controls to enter Canada. With the legal status of Mr. Trump’s executive order still in limbo, Canada’s government has shown no enthusiasm for suspending its agreement with Washington. On Friday, Camielle Edwards, a spokeswoman for Ahmed Hussen, the immigration minister, said that the agreement “remains an important tool for Canada and the U. S. to work together on the orderly handling of refugee claims made in our countries. ” She said, “The conditions of the agreement continue to be met, but we are continuing to monitor the situation closely. ” Ms. Dench said that history suggests that Canada’s border will not be overwhelmed by refugee claimants if people entering from the United States are allowed to apply at the border. “It’s not as if everyone in the U. S. would suddenly want to come to Canada,” she said. And, she said, “We would not have more people crossing the border irregularly and you no longer have people losing their fingers. ” Mr. Yussuf was prepared for his journey to Emerson. He wore thermal underwear and thick gloves. And he paid a guide $600 to take him close to the border. Other asylum seekers said that they had heard from cabdrivers in Grand Forks, N. D. that they would be deported at the border. The drivers offered to drive them to a place that was better for crossing illegally, but farther from the border. They were unprepared for the wintry crossing. One man, Zurekaneni Issah Adams, wore a thin jean jacket and carpentry gloves. His trip took seven hours. “We were lucky. We were saved by God,” said Mr. Adams, 36, who fled Ghana in 2014 for Brazil, before slowly making his way by foot, bus and boat to the California border. After 16 months in detention, Mr. Adams said, his asylum request there was rejected. In Canada, he had a hearing scheduled last week, but it was postponed. “I am dreaming big,” he said. “I will not lose my hope. ” | 1 |
Hillary Clinton’s blistering new assault on Donald J. Trump has mollified many Democrats alarmed about the presidential race — while inflaming Republican fears that Mr. Trump’s improvisational style and skeletal campaign will prove inadequate in repelling the type of attack Mrs. Clinton unleashed on Thursday. Mixing stark warnings that Mr. Trump would imperil America’s security with caustic personal critiques — “I’ll leave it to the psychiatrists to explain his affection for tyrants” — Mrs. Clinton offered the first indication that she was willing to confront her unconventional opponent in the fashion many in her party believe his candidacy demands. “I thought it was one of the most important speeches Secretary Clinton has made throughout this campaign because it drew a line that for most of this campaign has not been drawn,” said Leon E. Panetta, the former defense secretary, arguing that Mr. Trump had “gotten away with murder” with his incendiary proposals and statements. Mrs. Clinton’s speech in San Diego drove home that “this is not just the fun and games of a primary, but a choice for the American people about who is going to sit in the Oval Office,” Mr. Panetta said. Democrats across the country expressed relief on Friday that Mrs. Clinton had finally delivered a comprehensive indictment of Mr. Trump’s fitness for the presidency. Senator Chris Coons of Delaware said there had been “widespread concern” among Senate Democrats that Mrs. Clinton was not drawing sharp enough contrasts with Mr. Trump. “This speech really did that,” he said. Representative Debbie Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, who was attending the Detroit Chamber of Commerce’s annual retreat on Mackinac Island with many of the state’s most influential leaders, said, “The people up here who were worried about her said she is finally finding her groove. ” For several weeks, Mrs. Clinton had tried out a version of the campaign President Obama ran against Mitt Romney in 2012, portraying Mr. Trump as a heartless corporate titan who profited off the housing crisis and avoided paying taxes. But she was receiving scant news media coverage, and Mrs. Clinton’s advisers worried that voters were not as moved by attacks against someone who unapologetically boasts about his wealth. After weeks in which Mr. Trump viciously attacked Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, over Mr. Clinton’s indiscretions, moreover, it had become clear that she needed a circuit breaker in the form of a more robust counterassault — and one that she could deliver herself, rather than relying on surrogates to deal the most forceful blows to Mr. Trump on her behalf. Her campaign’s decision was to seek to disqualify Mr. Trump on terrain that is Mrs. Clinton’s comfort zone: foreign policy. But billing her San Diego speech on Thursday as a foreign policy address was also something of a ruse: It turned out to be an acidly funny takedown of Mr. Trump and his temperament, giving him the same sort of belittling treatment he had used on his opponents to great effect. “There’s no risk of people losing their lives if you blow up a golf course deal,” Mrs. Clinton said at one point. But as satisfying as her new line of attack was to many Democrats, as Mr. Panetta said, “The real question is going to be, ‘Where does it go from here? ’” Indeed, Mrs. Clinton returned to a familiar stump speech later on Thursday in El Centro, Calif. though on a stop to a campaign office in San Diego, she joked about her new offensive. “I was listing all the reasons why Donald Trump should never get near the White House,” she told volunteers, adding, “And even I was getting nervous. ” If Mrs. Clinton is able to overcome that nervousness and drive a sustained attack echoing her San Diego speech, some Democrats said she could negatively define Mr. Trump this summer the same way that Mr. Clinton managed to define Bob Dole in their 1996 presidential race. “What she did sets the parameters about what this election is about,” said Joe Lockhart, who was Mr. Clinton’s campaign press secretary that year. “It is very hard to change that in the fight after Labor Day. ” That prospect, in turn, has Republicans deeply concerned about Mr. Trump. Despite being the party’s presumptive nominee for a month, Mr. Trump has yet to adapt his campaign to the demands of a general election. His only “war room” so far is his Twitter feed. He is campaigning in California, insisting that he can win one of the country’s most liberal states. He has spent a week attacking a Hispanic federal judge who is handling a lawsuit against him in increasingly racial terms, only drawing more attention to the case. And he continues to divide his attention: He will travel to Scotland and Ireland this month for a business event. Nor have Mr. Trump’s tactical choices inspired confidence. At a rally on Thursday night in San Jose, Calif. his main rejoinder to Mrs. Clinton’s speech was that she ought to be in jail over her use of a private email account as secretary of state. There was no broader counterattack from his campaign or his allies, a remarkable silence after Mrs. Clinton’s harshest critique yet. “He needs to get the Republican chorus singing for him, and making sure he’s got a lot of voices out there,” said Terry Nelson, a longtime Republican strategist. “He’s got to make sure he is reaching out to the party and letting them know what the message is, what to say and how to say it. ” There is little evidence of any such coordination. His campaign sent out no response to the Clinton speech. The Republican National Committee, on which Mr. Trump’s team has been leaning heavily, issued just one critique of Mrs. Clinton’s foreign policy before her remarks. His campaign is also badly lagging behind the Democrats at and there are signs this has affected spending: After a group supporting Mrs. Clinton ran ads last month against Mr. Trump, the Trump team asked about rates for television ads of its own, according to two media buyers apprised of those inquiries, but never followed up. Reached by phone, Mr. Trump addressed such concerns by saying he had proved he could rewrite political playbooks. “I think I’m defining her,” he said of Mrs. Clinton. “I think she’s being defined as a weak and ineffective person. ” Mr. Trump has four top aides who worked on Mr. Dole’s 1996 campaign. But his campaign’s problems already resemble some that plagued Mr. Dole, including a formidable opponent mounting an early offensive, and an undisciplined candidate. Mr. Dole said on Friday that Mr. Trump, whom he has endorsed, had mastered and commanding media attention like no other recent nominee. But he warned that Mrs. Clinton’s speech signaled a need for Mr. Trump to adjust. “I think Hillary tried laying a groundwork, and I think that’s going to be sort of her template,” Mr. Dole said in an interview. “He has criticism of Hillary, but it’s sort of been scattered. ” Mr. Trump, he added, “has got to catch up. ” | 1 |
Former Breitbart Senior Editor MILO celebrated Cinco de MILO today where he announced a number of new Milo, Inc. ventures. [MILO entered his Meme Mansion, packed to the rafters with anxious fans just waiting to get a glimpse of the Dangerous Faggot, with a large snake wrapped around his shoulders and accompanied by a number of large black men, “Welcome to Cinco de Milo! I’m Milo Yiannopoulos!” announced MILO, “I already have my own holiday, October 18th, is celebrated internationally as World Patriarchy Day. But that has been superseded now by Cinco De Milo. ” MILO briefly discussed the events that lead to his exit from Breitbart before continuing, “now you may have heard that I made a couple of phone calls after all that happened, after I’d been sufficiently contrite for a while. And you may have heard that I have raised twelve million dollars. ” the Dangerous Faggot said to the crowd that had begun chanting “MILO” over and over. “I want to tell you all what I’m going to do with that money so we can get back to getting trashed,” said MILO, “first of all, Simon Schuster. I am going to spend the next year making the name Simon Schuster synonymous with censorship. I am going to spend the next year giving out as many free ‘Fuck Simon Schuster’ shirts as I can. ” MILO continued, “do not worry about the scolds and the nannies. So we’re suing them … I am suing Simon Schuster for $10 million dollars. ” “But we’re taking it a step further,” said MILO, “I am going to take not just all of their best authors but all of the best authors of all of the conservative imprints in this country and launch my own imprint called Dangerous Books. We are going to publish every mischievous, dissident, hellraising guy you have ever heard of … We’re going to be going live in the next seven days. ” MILO then announced the return of his touring career stating that he would be launching a student and commercial tour called “Troll Academy. ” MILO stated that Troll Academy would be accepting applications on Monday from venues or colleges that wished to host him. MILO stated that personally would “determine whether you deserve a visit from me. ” In his final announcement of the night, MILO discussed his Free Speech Week at UC Berkeley, which will take place in the fall. | 1 |
They treaded water for seven hours before a neighbor heard their screams. On Oct. 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy flooded Staten Island. As the storm surge peaked at 14 feet in the borough — among the highest levels across New York City — the water crashed through the walls of their house, and DeBraan Varvaro and her younger sister, Carolyn Varvaro, clung to the gutter of their roof and did not let go. They waved frantically as helicopters circled overhead, but no one saw or heard them over the roaring water. “We could swim before we could walk,” the elder Ms. Varvaro said of her childhood on Staten Island’s beaches and teenage years as a lifeguard. “We’re ocean people. That’s why we survived. ” Her sister grew tired in the water, and Ms. Varvaro held her up as she treaded water. In the second hour, a garden statue of the Virgin Mary floated past. The younger Ms. Varvaro saw it as a sign they would survive. She kicked with renewed hope. Finally, at 6 p. m. a neighbor, crouched in his attic, heard the women’s screams. He helped them get the attention of more neighbors, and a young man swam through the water, filled with sewage, dead fish and gasoline, to pull them out. They were safe. But everything changed after the storm. They no longer felt safe. Over four years later, the night of the hurricane, and all the nights after, still haunt them. The elder Ms. Varvaro, now 61, a pack of her favorite Seneca cigarettes within reach, recalled in a recent interview the continuing terror, while propping her legs on a stool to ease back pain from a 1993 car accident. She cried, stopping at times midthought to find the words to describe her ordeal. Ms. Varvaro had feared displacing her sister, who is schizophrenic, so they decided to stay. The night before Hurricane Sandy hit, however, they called 911 for help, but the line was busy and they could not get through. They were among 236, 000 residents in impacted zones who did not evacuate their home before the storm, according to city estimates. Now, the sound of sirens still puts Ms. Varvaro in a panic, jolting her back to the hours spent treading water and praying for help. When she tries to sleep, she said, she hears “the of the helicopters circling overhead. ” She did not return to the beach until last summer. “I couldn’t even get to the boardwalk,” she said. “I’d have to stop. I could still smell the storm. ” In 2012, Ms. Varvaro was told that she had stress disorder. Even before the storm, her life had its difficulties. Pregnant at 23, she almost lost the pregnancy twice because of medical complications, but gave birth to a healthy daughter. The next year, in 1979, she learned she had cervical cancer, underwent surgery and fought it off. But it returned aggressively 10 years later, and she fought it again. Everything seemed fine until 2000, when the cancer returned a third time. She has been free of cancer since surgery in May 2000, and hopes to keep the disease in the past. “I’ve met the devil and survived,” she said with a shrug. “I came out the winner. ” Before her last bout with cancer, she met Kevin Killea, a sales representative, and they were together for 16 years. He died of pneumonia in 2010, and she has been alone since, except for her sister. Ms. Varvaro has been protecting and caring for her sister, who is four years her junior, since they were young. As a child, her sister often had high fevers and seizures that led to a loss of hearing Ms. Varvaro learned sign language so they could communicate. Surgery restored her hearing several years later. Ms. Varvaro has also helped her sister cope with paranoid schizophrenia and clinical depression, diagnoses she received after their mother died in 1999. “They’re only labels,” Ms. Varvaro said. “I tell my sister, ‘Other people need them. You don’t. ’” She added: “I’m a shy person until it comes to my sister, and then the bulldog comes out. I fight for the people I love. I will go for the jugular and ask God for forgiveness later. ” When her sister, who had been living in a supportive apartment program, had a nervous breakdown in 2003, after verbal abuse and neglect, she moved her to another such program. Ms. Varvaro said she had lodged a complaint with local officials against the previous program. It was later shut down. But in August 2009, her sister had another breakdown at the second residence. Ms. Varvaro then brought her home to live with her in her apartment on Staten Island. When they moved in together, Ms. Varvaro promised to keep her sister safe. After the storm, she felt she had failed her. She asked for her sister’s forgiveness. “I think all the struggles I’ve survived in life were in preparation for taking care of my sister,” Ms. Varvaro said. By attending to her sister’s needs, however, Ms. Varvaro suppressed her own anxiety. In 2014, a friend referred her to an art class and other services provided by the Jewish Community Center of Staten Island, a beneficiary agency of of New York, one of eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. Working in watercolors and pastels, she painted a small sailboat flitting in the choppy water of a dark storm. “I’m no Picasso,” she said. “But it got me out of this house. It got me out of myself. ” The art classes have been a welcome break from financial troubles that were compounded after the hurricane. The family received $10, 000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cover losses — well under what the sisters needed. They were unable to return to their first apartment together and the garden they tended daily with colorful annuals and window boxes by the kitchen. Since 2009, Ms. Varvaro’s back injury and other health problems have kept her from working as an emergency medical technician, a job she had held for 13 years. Her sister has never been able to work because of her mental illness. Together they receive $1, 736 in Social Security income and disability benefits. They also receive $375 a month in food stamps and a $575 rent subsidy from the city. They now share a apartment that is accessible only by a long, narrow staircase, which is difficult for the elder Ms. Varvaro to climb because of her arthritis and fibromyalgia. The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, another beneficiary, provided them with $850 in Neediest funds to cover one month’s rent in 2014. In September, they also received $1, 170 from the fund to replace the younger Ms. Varvaro’s broken bed and to buy a therapeutic mattress for her sister, which has greatly improved her sleep. The elder Ms. Varvaro hopes they can eventually move into a apartment. “I’ve been to hell and back,” she said. “Now I just want to help my sister have peace of mind. I’m ready to live again. ” | 1 |
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 15:15 UTC With all eyes on Russia's unveiling their latest nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which NATO has dubbed the "SATAN" missile , as tensions with the U.S. increase, Moscow's most potent "weapon" may be something drastically different. The rapidly evolving geopolitical "weapon" brandished by Russia is an ever increasing stockpile of gold, as well as Russia's native currency, the ruble. Take a look at the symbol below, as it could soon come to change the entire hierarchy of the international order - potentially ushering in a complete international paradigm shift - and much sooner than you might think. The symbol is the new designation of the Russian ruble, Russia's national currency. Similar to how the U.S. uses the dollar sign ($), the U.K. uses the pound sign (£), and the European Union uses the euro symbol (€), Russia is about to begin exporting its symbol internationally. After the failed "reset" in U.S./Russian relations by the Obama administration, and the continued deterioration of the countries relationship, Washington began targeting entire sectors of the Russian economy, as well as specific individuals, meant to impose an economic burden so severe that it would force Moscow into compliance. Instead of decimating Russia, what it precipitated was a Russian response of gradually weaning themselves off of the hegemony of the U.S. petrodollar, and working with China to create an alternative to the SWIFT payment system that isn't solely controlled by Western interests (see Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank , New Development Bank). According to the Corbett Report : New reports indicate that China is ready to launch its SWIFT alternative, and for those who have their ear to the ground this is the most significant move yet in the unfolding process of de-dollarization that is seeing the BRICS-led "resistance bloc" breaking away from the financial stranglehold of the US-led "Washington Consensus." For those who don't know, SWIFT stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication and is shorthand for the SWIFTNet Network that is used by over 10,500 financial institutions in 215 countries and territories to transmit financial transaction data around the world. SWIFT does not do any of the clearing or processing for these transactions itself, but instead sends the payment orders that are then settled by correspondent banks of the member institutions. Still, given the system's near universality in the financial system, it means that virtually every international transaction between banking institutions goes through the SWIFT network. This is why de-listing from the SWIFT network remains one of the primary financial weapons wielded by the US and its allies in their increasingly important financial warfare campaigns. Recently, financial guru Jim Rickards, author of the book " Currency Wars ," wrote that "Russia is poised for a major comeback in its economy. Russian bonds and stocks and the Russian currency, the ruble, will all benefit." Rickards believes a "strong turnaround" is coming within Russia, and that this comeback will benefit the ruble. While still suffering from the economic warfare being waged by the U.S., Russia has realized that as long they are subservient to the petrodollar, there remains a clear and present danger of the Russian economy being devastated by the whims of Washington. The Bank of Russia, that nation's central bank, is extremely clear about its mission, and monetary policy declaring on its website: Monetary policy constitutes an integral part of the state policy and is aimed at enhancing well-being of Russian citizens. The Bank of Russia implements monetary policy in the framework of inflation-targeting regime, and sees price stability, albeit sustainably low inflation, as its priority. Given structural peculiarities of the Russian economy, the target is to reduce inflation to 4% by 2017 and maintain it within that range in the medium run. In layman's terms, that means that monetary policy, similar to nuclear weapons and the military, are "an integral part of the state policy" in Russia. While many analysts have noted the increased build-up in Russia's military arsenal, seemingly few have highlighted the massive build-up of Russian gold reserves over the past decade. Below is a chart showing Russian gold reserves between 1994 and last year, 2015: Since 2006, there has been a year-on-year increase that reveals a significant upward trend. The chart clearly reveals that Russia's state policy of increasing state monetary assets, in the form of gold. Additionally, the Russian government has been converting state rubles into gold assets. From 2006 to 2015, Russia's state holdings of gold tripled. Within just the past year Russia has substantially increased its gold holdings According to the Business Insider : In July of this year, the central bank of Russia added 200,000 ounces of gold to its reserves. The one-month uptick in Russian gold reserves — 200,000 ounces — is approximately equal to the entire annual output of Barrick Gold's Turquoise Ridge gold mine in Nevada. At that same rate — 200,000 ounces per month — in a mere five months, Russia would add to state gold reserves the equivalent of the entire annual output of Barrick's massive Goldstrike mine in Nevada . Currently, Russian gold reserves rank seventh in the world. It's clear that there is a concerted effort by Russian authorities to build up the country's gold reserves as part of a national strategy to negate the effects of economic warfare waged by the United States. Rickards, in his 2011 book " Currency Wars ," theorized that Russia and China could combine their gold reserves to form a global gold-backed currency to compete against the U.S. dollar. Currently, Russian reserves stand at roughly 1,500 tonnes, with Chinese reserves totaling over 1,800 tonnes (according to China — it's likely more), which would amount to a combined total of roughly 3,300 tonnes of gold. The U.S. is about to lose overarching control of policymaking within the International Monetary Fund (IMF), thus the U.S. lockup on global gold is about to vanish, according to Business Insider. Imagine for a moment the distinctly real possibility that Russian-Chinese alliance could exercise indirect (or even direct) control over the IMF's gold reserve of over 2,800 tonnes. Russian, Chinese and IMF gold combined would equal roughly 6,100 tonnes, and would allow for direct competition with the U.S. gold reserves, estimated at 8,100 tonnes. Russia and China have realized that the petrodollar is wielded by Washington as it's weapon of choice when opposing a well-armed state, and clearly see the writing on the wall - thus working together to create a new global financial paradigm. The reality is that the United States is $20 trillion dollars in debt, and eventually the time will come when the U.S. economy begins to implode — and all the fiat currency people are stuck holding will essentially be worth nothing more than the paper it's printed on. Hard assets, such as gold and silver, should be bought and taken custody of while there is still an opportunity to do so, as a means of hedging against the potentially disastrous results of the U.S. using the petrodollar as a "weapon." Ultimately, the United States, Russia and China are all controlled by centralized power-hungry tyrants attempting to command powerful global bureaucracies like the IMF, the World Bank, SWIFT, New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. It's not Russian nuclear weapons that people should fear, as the policy of mutually assured destruction essentially voids any benefit of a state launching a first-strike nuclear attack. The true threat to America is our economic house of cards, built upon the back of a neoliberal trade policy that puts the "rights" of corporations over that of people . | 0 |
The green fraud has a lot to do with it all as exposed in the emails . http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/miranda-devine-foreignfunded-green-groups-could-take-whole-swathes-of-australia-out-of-the-productive-economy/news-story/016e5d9ff252f2444790d05269f4ed90 | 0 |
After coming under fire from her fans and celebrity colleagues, RB and soul Chrisette Michele is defending her decision to perform at an undisclosed event during Donald Trump’s inauguration. [“We can’t be present if we’re silent,” Michele wrote in an open letter she posted to Twitter Friday. The says she is willing to take the heat if it means she can “be a bridge” to bring people together. “I am willing to be a bridge. I don’t mind These Stones, if they allow me to be a voice for the voiceless,” the singer wrote. https: . | An Open Letter pic. twitter. — chrisette michele (@ChrisetteM) January 19, 2017, Though Michele has worked with the likes of Jay Z, John Legend and will. I. am, the star has faced backlash for agreeing to perform for Trump. Film director Spike Lee said he’s no longer using Michele’s song “Black Girl Magic” in his new Netflix series after he learned of her inauguration event. “I Wuz Thinkin’ ’bout Using Chrisette’s BLACK GIRL MAGIC In My Netflix Series SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT … . NOT ANYMORE,” Lee wrote in an Instagram post. Good Morning Folks. I Wuz Sorry To Read That ”Sistuh Girl” Is Singin’ At DT’s Inauguration (And To Use His Fav ). I Wuz Thinkin’ ’bout Using Chrisette’s BLACK GIRL MAGIC In My Netflix Series SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT … . NOT ANYMORE. And Dat’s Da Truth, Ruth. A photo posted by Spike Lee (@officialspikelee) on Jan 19, 2017 at 4:10am PST, Questlove, drummer for The Roots, the longtime band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, tweeted on Wednesday that he would pay Michele not to perform at Trump’s inauguration. I’d pay Chrisette to NOT perform 😔 — Questlove Gomez (@questlove) January 18, 2017, Michele joins a growing lineup of inaugural performers many of them, including Toby Keith, and rock band Three Doors Down, are expected to perform Friday for the “Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration. ” Soul singer and civil rights activist Sam Moore, who also recently defended his decision to perform at the inauguration, is also expected to tale the stage on Friday. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
Man Finds Heartbreaking Note On Car, Last Line Teaches Him NASTY Lesson Posted on October 26, 2016 by Robert Rich in News Share This
After coming out to the parking lot, a motorist was puzzled to see that there was an unexpected note on his car. However, the situation would soon take a heartbreaking turn when he read what was inside – until he got to the last line, which taught him perhaps the nastiest lesson of his life.
Although details surrounding the note are unclear, the account was posted to Reddit , along with a corresponding image on Imgur , depicting quite a strange series of events. As it turns out, a man found a note on his car only to realize that it was a devastating story about a stranger’s cancer-stricken grandfather. Stock image of note on car
As explained in the note, the writer was about 10-years-old at the time his grandmother desperately tried to get her husband to quit smoking. According to the stranger , his grandmother said to his grandfather, “If you ever want to see your grandchildren graduate, you need to stop immediately.”
The seemingly harsh message apparently had a dramatic and instant effect on his grandfather as he recalls that his eye’s welled up with tears. Sure enough, the man quit that day – but unfortunately, it was too late.
In a heartbreaking twist, the note details how the writer’s grandfather died just 3 years later of lung cancer, never seeing his grandkids graduate. As if that wasn’t gut-wrenching enough, the note went on as the stranger explained how his mother begged him never to smoke, saying “don’t put your family through what your grandfather put us through.” The note in full (Source: Mirror )
Of course, he obliged. However, the note seemed to change in sentiment at that moment, and the writer taught the driver of the car a nasty lesson with the last line of the odd note. “I must say, I feel a slight sense of regret for never having done it because your parking job was so sh*tty that it gave me cancer anyways,” he wrote. “Jesus, f*ck, please learn how to park.”
You have to admit, this dig was perhaps the most well thought out act of passive aggression that has been seen in quite some time. Although the message came across a bit rough, I think it’s safe to say that this guy won’t be parking outside the lines for quite some time. | 0 |
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The buses once ferried Syrians to school, work and dates at Damascus cafes. Now they pull up at moments of defeat, when rebel fighters and civilians, besieged and bombarded, give up their territory to government forces and board the vehicles en route to an uncertain future. The buses, once a benign, even beloved feature of the urban landscape, have become a signature of the Syrian government’s strategy. In recent days, government warplanes dropped fliers on the districts of Aleppo, offering a stark choice to the estimated 250, 000 people trapped in that strategic city: “doom,” represented by a photo of a bloody body, or “redemption,” in the form of a green bus. Images of the buses are everywhere: on state television reports and websites celebrating the evacuations, and on opposition videos mourning what they call deportations. Women and children, or fighters with guns, peer from their windows. They cry, chant defiantly or stare into space as they leave areas that have long symbolized revolt against President Bashar like the recently emptied Damascus suburb of Daraya. Riders are usually offered a choice between two destinations, but as with so many aspects of the bloody and chaotic Syrian civil war, both options are bad. They can take the green buses to government territory, where many fear arrest and conscription, or to another area, where they face continued government airstrikes — like the ones that hit a school Wednesday and killed 22 children in Idlib Province. “Damn the green buses, I’m seeing them in my dreams,” said Jalal 36, a computer technician whose neighbors in Waer, a besieged district on the outskirts of the central city of Homs, recently debated whether to board the buses in the latest evacuation offer. Mr. Telawi was experiencing a certain déjà vu. Two years ago, he took a green bus with fellow fighters out of the Old City of Homs in a deal with the government, only to face another siege in Waer. “We have a phobia — a ‘bus complex,’” he said. “In our minds, they equal displacement. ” The buses first arrived in Syrian cities with much fanfare in 2009. Back then, they were a symbol of the modernization promised by Mr. Assad. At one point painted red and plastered with the logo of a cellphone company owned by a cousin of the president, they replaced rickety repurposed school buses and supplemented the small white vans known as “servis,” providing improved, affordable public transportation for students and workers. Osama Mohammad Ali, now an antigovernment activist trapped in Waer, speaks wistfully of riding the bus to law school in Homs on rainy days alongside people from every sect and walk of life. “The driver used to play Fairuz” — the Lebanese singer and diva — “and there was a kind of respect among us,” he said. “If I saw an elderly man standing, I would give him or her my seat. ” But when demonstrations demanding political reform broke out in 2011, the buses were used to transport state security officers or militiamen through Damascus traffic to beat up and arrest protesters. As the uprising turned to armed conflict, clashes left buses rusting in the streets. The steel carcasses sometimes served as barriers between government and rebel territory. Then, in a 2014 deal supervised by United Nations officials, the green buses evacuated the last rebels from the Old City district of Homs as the government took over the area. “We were all crying, ‘Is this the end of Homs men? ’” Mr. Telawi, the technician, recalled recently. “We thought we would be liberating Homs, but instead our end will be in the green bus. ” The buses have since been used again and again in the local surrender deals that the government has promoted in place of a national peace agreement. The Syrian government and its ally Russia portray the evacuations as an act of mercy, freeing people they contend are being used as human shields. Opponents of the government increasingly see the process as “ethnic cleansing,” as it has primarily displaced members of the Sunni majority. The United Nations has condemned the evacuations as a “forced displacement” of civilians, calling for residents to be allowed to “return voluntarily, in safety and in dignity. ” But as the stretched Syrian Army continues to expel civilians from areas, the United Nations and other agencies operating in the country risk being implicated in “a dangerous precedent,” Aron Lund, an analyst at the Carnegie Middle East Center, wrote recently. Armed groups, he continued, can “target and deport civilians with impunity in Syria, and perhaps elsewhere. ” When towns refuse the deals, bombardments intensify and sieges tighten. In August, south of Damascus, the last 1, 500 people in Daraya capitulated after an incendiary bombing of their last hospital. Some went to suburbs, others to Idlib Province. Abu Adnan, 50, was one of the bus drivers. He took 20 fighters and their families to Idlib, where many of them had never been before. They wept as they crossed the checkpoint on their way out of Daraya. “Even I started tearing up — the crying of men is so hard,” he recalled in an interview, asking to be identified only by his nickname to avoid repercussions for expressing sympathy. “I saw a gunman put some soil from Daraya in a plastic bag and smell it as if it was soil from paradise. ” The drive took 30 hours, he said, with the bus stopping at many checkpoints. At some, the rebel passengers threatened to shoot if security forces clambered aboard. At others, the security men cheered for Mr. Assad while the passengers cheered for Daraya and revolution. In September came evacuations from Waer, with hundreds departing for territory farther north. Mr. Ali, the law student, chose to remain under the blockade. “I can’t stand to see these buses now,” he said, but he noted that some people saw them as a means of rescue, to “take them from hell to start a new life,” perhaps fleeing to Turkey. Next, buses — white this time — took rebels and some civilians from the Damascus suburb of Qudsaya, where remaining residents chanted their support for the government as security officials welcomed the town “back into the lap of the country. ” And on Oct. 19, rebels and activists boarded green buses bound for Idlib from the Damascus suburb of Moadhamiyeh, where chemical attacks killed hundreds in 2013. Among them was a doctor named Muhannad, who helped collect evidence for the United Nations investigation into those attacks and who spoke on the condition that he be identified by only his first name, for safety. He, his wife and their son were hoping to smuggle themselves to Austria, where the doctor once worked. Staying home was not an option: He was wanted by 16 security branches, on charges of treating wounded fighters. “I’m inside Bus No. ” he said by phone. Asked about the atmosphere, he said, “One word: crying. ” More than 2, 600 people died in Moadhamiyeh during the war, he said. “We will never have the chance to read the Fatiha over our people,” he added, referring to a prayer of mourning. The green buses were also offered — or offered as a threat — on Oct. 21 to people in the besieged eastern sections of Aleppo, the ancient city split since 2012 between government and rebel territory. After the government encircled the rebel side over the summer, a reporter, Shadi Helweh, taunted the rebels on state television. “I swear to God, the green buses will be here,” he said. “We will take selfies with those mercenaries while they leave like rats. ” People in eastern Aleppo have much to flee: government and Russian airstrikes on hospitals, apartment buildings and schools dwindling supplies of food. But the green buses idled. Virtually no one came out, though Russia had declared a unilateral halt to airstrikes and promoted evacuations. The government and Russia accused rebels of blocking civilians from leaving. Rebels said no one should be evacuated unless humanitarian aid was also allowed in — and told residents that it was not safe to take the buses without international supervision. The United Nations called for a more comprehensive humanitarian pause — with aid deliveries and medical evacuations — but that did not come to pass. It is hard to know how many residents of Aleppo and other trouble spots would leave if they had reliable safety guarantees. Many, including older residents, say they just want to stay in their homes. Mr. Telawi, the technician who rode the green bus out of Homs in 2014 but refused to board again in Waer this year, remembered that when one of his friends had gotten on the bus, he had taken out an old ticket, stamped it with the machine as if for a normal ride, and kept it. “He said he’ll use it again,” Mr. Telawi recalled. “On the way back. ” | 1 |
After battling with cancer, Michael Novak, renowned American scholar and defender of the economy and religious liberty, died on Friday at the age of 83. [The list of Novak’s accomplishments is long and varied. Hailing from the cultural left in the 1960s, Novak gradually came to see liberalism as morally and intellectually bankrupt, a journey he recounted in a winsome memoir titled Writing from Left to Right: My Journey from Liberal to Conservative. A Catholic theologian, Novak wrote more than 50 books on a broad range of topics during his prolific career, including the groundbreaking 1982 work The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, in which Novak made a moral case for the free market system. He also defended the idea of business as a vocation, an idea he revisited in greater depth in his 1996 book, Business as a Calling: Work and the Examined Life. Novak was the first theologian to make an moral, cultural, and political case for the market economy in a systematic way, garnering him enduring opprobrium from the religious and secular left. “Democratic capitalism,” Novak wrote, is “neither the Kingdom of God nor without sin. Yet all other known systems of political economy are worse. Such hope as we have for alleviating poverty and for removing oppressive tyranny — perhaps our last, best hope — lies in this much despised system. ” As many theologians were promoting liberation theology as a remedy for economic and social problems in Latin America, Novak rejected the idea of embracing socialism as a solution to for peoples, well before the public collapse of socialism in 1989. In her own memoir titled The Downing Street Years, Margaret Thatcher praised Novak’s “new and striking language” and “important insights,” and added that his writing on the morality of political economy “provided the intellectual basis for my approach to those great questions brought together in political parlance as ‘the quality of life. ’” Under Ronald Reagan, Novak worked as U. S. ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights as well as providing eleven years of service on the boards of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. In 1978, Novak began work as a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, D. C. where he served as director of social and political studies. In 1983, he was named the George Frederick Jewett Chair in religion and public policy and remained there until his retirement from the post in 2009. As Catholic League president Bill Donohue noted, “Michael Novak was more than a brilliant and dedicated Catholic, his range of scholarship was astounding. ” “Theologian, sociologist, economist, political scientist — he was all of these and more,” Donahue said. This author feels a particular debt of gratitude for more than 20 years of friendship and collaboration with Michael Novak, who was always insightful, gracious, loyal and true. In his 2008 book No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers, Novak made the argument that the line of belief and unbelief “is not drawn between one person and another, normally, but rather down the inner souls of all of us. ” He has now entered the realm where belief gives way to vision, doubts to certainty and pain and sorrow to eternal joy. Requiesce in pace, Michael. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 1 |
Citizen journalism with a punch Vladimir Putin's Top Quotes From the 2016 Valdai Forum Originally appeared at RT
The US should stop brazenly blaming Russia for the situation in Syria as it may face an equally harsh response, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned at the Valdai forum in Sochi, also addressing American exceptionalism, Trump and other issues.
Does anyone seriously think that Russia can somehow influence the choice of the American people? Is America some sort of a banana republic? America is a great state. Correct me, please, if I’m wrong. 58125553c36188bc718b4679.jpg
On the US media switching from portraying Trump as Russia’s enemy to Kremlin’s favorite:
This is complete and utter rubbish… a way of manipulating the public consciousness ahead of the US presidential election | 0 |
Convinced that previous snow plowing policies were “sexist,” the city government of the Swedish capital of Stockholm recently implemented a “feminist” system for clearing it. It ended in disaster and the city came to an absolute standstill. For a start, four times as many people than usual were hospitalized for snow-related injuries. Nearly as importantly, countless workers, most of them men, were prevented from getting to work. It would appear that the patriarchy-backed snow won, as local politicians ended up apologizing for the havoc-causing changes.
Havoc like this:
Forgetting that motor vehicles are often more impeded by snow than pedestrians (and create a greater safety risk), municipal resources, which had already been increased, were diverted to clearing bicycle paths and sidewalks and away from main roads. Areas like schools were also prioritized, which again ignores the frequently greater ease of walking in snow than driving in it, plus the longer distances car commuters face compared to children, mothers and other women walking to places. The situation is quite plainly moronic for a further reason: non-main roads and other parts of a city take up much more space, meaning that the Swedish capital’s snow removal teams were targeting a far larger, less densely used zone. To boot, this was all during a November already breaking records for snowfall .
The saga in Stockholm reads like an microcosm of feminism itself: an over-educated (meaning under-educated) group of leftists come together, create “data” based on feelings, and produce a plan of action that screws up an entire community. Feminists in Stockholm had previously complained that the thoroughfares cleaned up first and most extensively by snowplows were the ones heavily used by men. How they came to this conclusion is unclear but, given the shutdown of the city that resulted from the feminist changes, it wasn’t based on any solid reasoning. With private cars and public transport vehicles alike unable to move in many cases, the “female-friendly” snow-clearing ended up adversely impacting far more people, including women, than the old one.
Well done, feminists and white knights.
What this says about Sweden Is it really surprising that one of the people responsible for Stockholm’s “female-friendly” snow plowing scandal, Mayor Karin Wanngård, is a feminist and career politician who first joined the council in her teens?
Because Sweden is perhaps the most concentrated welfare state in the world, not having people at their jobs and instead stuck in snow is a very bad thing. How can a country continue to pay such a large bill for handouts with elected representatives of the caliber of Stockholm’s trying to ruin things? Sweden is also home to a growing class of low-skilled migrant communities, including many tens of thousands from the most recent Mediterranean waves last year. Its recent migrant population is now essentially the same proportionally-speaking as states more typically associated with multiculturalism, such as Canada and Australia. And non-ethnic Swedes in Sweden tend to come from more troublesome cultures, compared to the more assimilation-friendly East Asians and Indians emigrating to Canada and Australia.
How Sweden intends to deal with issues like this while balancing urgent economic needs remains to be seen, especially with brain-dead initiatives like the snow plow fiasco taking precedence. Add to the mix the recent creation of a “mansplaining” hotline by a Swedish labor union and you start to see the “real” problems Scandinavia’s most basketcase society is trying to solve.
So who was organizing the snow plowing–and actually doing it? Yup, you guessed it, it’s a man driving.
There’s no doubt that the feminist snow plowing scheme was an unmitigated disaster. And it’s also extremely likely that the vast majority of people tasked with clearing Stockholm’s streets are men. Oh, the irony. Not only do feminist politicians try to preference women in the removal of snow, they expect men to do the work in achieving it. Just as sanitation workers and garbage collectors are invariably male, don’t expect to catch too many female snowplow operators and other snow-clearing employees in Stockholm.
Wake up, Sweden Swedish multiculturalism in action.
Stockholm’s snow removal catastrophe is emblematic of a country refusing to deal with its real malaise. While the men who built Sweden are categorized as would-be oppressors, Swedish society itself is close to breaking point. Even Stockholm’s central train station is now terribly unsafe and various city police forces have long made it known that they do not have control of many suburbs. In particular, Malmö, Sweden’s third city, and certain districts of Stockholm are notorious for ethnic ghettos, gang violence, rape, and other crime.
But no, mansplaining hotlines and not removing snow in a new, feminist way are the clear and present dangers most Swedes should fear at night.
Read More: Australian Male Senator Shuts Down Female Colleague For Accusing Him Of “Mansplaining”
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Drone footage shows the devastation caused by twin earthquakes that rocked Borgo Sant’Antonio, near Visso, which left buildings reduced to rubble or partially collapsed.
Central Italy was struck twice in quick succession the previous day, with the first tremor hitting it at around 19:11 local time (17:11 GMT). The quake measured 5.5 on the Richter scale and could be felt as far as Rome some 240 km (149 miles). Shortly after a second quake of 6.1-magnitude, struck at around 21:18 local time (19:18 GMT). Buildings were shaking, some parts even caving in, and residents fled into the street to save themselves. Several dozen people have been treated across the region for light injuries, while four are said to have been seriously hurt.
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Hillary Is a Communist Spy- Alex Jones, Dave Hodges and Global Research
Hillary Clinton wanted for treason.
Alex Jones came out with his reasons why he believes that Hillary Clinton is a Communist Chinese spy. Alex and I both have our beliefs as to why Clinton should be considered to be a Communist operative and we both come at this from different angles. Alex maintains that Hillary is a Communist Chinese spy. I maintain that Hillary is a KGB operative. However, I believe at the time we are at today, we are both right. Alex Jones maintains that the Chinese will emerge as the dominant power whose mission it will be to usher in the NWO. I agree wholeheartedly with that statement. For the Moment, China and Russia Are Allied
Russia and China are allied and the linchpin of the Russia/Chinese alliance are the massive energy deals that Russia and China have mutually entered into. In something that our main stream media (MSM) never talks about, Russia and China are militarily aligned in Syria. as I have noted in past articles. Therefore, in the present moment, when Hillary is working for the Russians, she is also, by default, working for the Chinese.
Alex Jones has a very interesting take on why Hillary’s association with China will help perpetuate our downfall.
Global Research Declares Clinton to be Foreign Spy
It is at this point that Alex Jones and Dave Hodges find common ground.
From Global Research : During her 4 years as Secretary of State of the United States (2009-2014), Hillary Clinton controlled US foreign policy. She had access to the most confidential information and state documents, numbering in the tens of thousands, from all of the major government departments and agencies, Intelligence, FBI, the Pentagon, Treasury and the office of the President.
She had unfettered access to vital and secret information affecting US policy in all the key regions of the empire…”
“…There are several lines of inquiry against Mme. Clinton:
(1) Did she work with, as yet unnamed, foreign governments and intelligence services to strengthen their positions and against the interest of the United States?
(2) Did she provide information on the operations and policy positions of various key US policymakers to competitors, adversaries or allies undermining the activities of military, intelligence and State Department officials?
(3) Did she seek to enhance her personal power within the US administration to push her aggressive policy of serial pre-emptive wars over and against veteran State Department and Pentagon officials who favored traditional diplomacy and less violent confrontation?
(4) Did she prepare a ‘covert team’, using foreign or dual national operative, to lay the groundwork for her bid for the presidency and her ultimate goal of supreme military and political power? (Ed. Note: My assertion)
Clinton’s covert war policies, which included the violent overthrow of the elected Ukraine government, were carried out by her ‘Lieutenant’ Under-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, a virulent neo-conservative holdover from the previous Bush Administration and someone committed to provoking Russia and to enhancing Israel’s power in the Middle East. Clinton’s highly dangerous and economically destabilizing ‘brainchild’ of militarily encircling China, the so-called ‘pivot to Asia’, would have required clandestine exchanges with elements in the Pentagon – out of the State Department and possibly Executive oversight.
In other words, within the Washington political circuit, Former Secretary of State Clinton’s escalation of nuclear war policies toward Russia and China required secretive correspondences which would not necessarily abide with the policies and intelligence estimates of other US government agencies and with private business interests…” (EDITOR’S NOTE: I MAINTAIN THAT THIS ISSUE IS ALSO CONTAINED IN THE “MISSING EMAILS”).
My main interest toward Hillary Clinton’s treason has recently focused on one issue, namely, the Clinton Foundation’s selling uranium to Russia. I would argue that Clinton’s policies which pushed the US into a war mode against Russia was done so Clinton would have a willing buyer of uranium (i.e. Russia) should war every come.
Again, from Global Research:
“The executive leadership now faces the problem of how to deal with a traitor , who is the Democratic Party nominee for US President, without undermining the US quest for global power. How do the executive leadership and intelligence agencies back a foreign spy for president, who has been deeply compromised and can be blackmailed? This may explain why the FBI, NSA, and CIA hesitate to press charges; hesitate to even seriously investigate, despite the obvious nature of her offenses. Most of all it explains why there is no indication of the identity of Secretary Clinton’s correspondents in the various reports so far available”… Hillary Clinton: An Agent for Russia
I published my assertion that Clinton was a traitor in 2015. I repeated this charge nearly two months ago.
A former key member of the Obama administration and current Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, has proven herself to be the Ethel Rosenberg of her generation. You may recall your U.S. history as Ethel Rosenberg sold nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. In an act every bit as egregious as Ethel Rosenberg’s treason, Hillary Clinton sold uranium to the Russians while serving as the Secretary of State. Ironically, the original source on this treasonous act committed by Clinton was none other than the liberal rag we call the New York Times . The proof is undeniable that Hillary Clinton committed the treasonous act of selling uranium to the Russians while Secretary of State , as reported in the New York Times. The Russian blood money, as reported, is being held in an offshore account and is being used to fund her run for the Presidency.
From the New York Times….
“A Uranium One sign that points to a 35,000 acre ranch by John Christensen, near the town of Gillette, Wyoming. Uranium One has the mining rights Mr. Christensen’s property.” This is proof of more BLM chicanery which will involve multiple BLM ranches.
The New York Times further asserts that members of the Canadian mining industry, who have supported Clinton’s campaign, financed and sold off to the Russians a company known as Uranium One. Uranium One is directly responsible for transferring uranium from BLM land to the Russians through an off-shore holding company. Again, according to the NY Times, the Russians, through three separate transactions, acquired Uranium One, while paying off the Clintons and their Canadian partners from 2009-2013. The business deal also involved paying Bill Clinton $500,000 dollars for a speech on energy which was delivered in Moscow.
Conclusion Alex Jones, Global Research and Dave Hodges all agree on central point. Hillary Clinton is a foreign asset dedicated to the destruction of the United States. Alex maintains that Hillary is aligned with China and I see evidence that she is aligned with Russia. At this point in time, I do not view this as a discrepancy. Nor, do I have an issue with believing that the globalists have chosen China to usher in the NWO agenda. The central point here is that this nation sits upon the precipice of putting a person into the White House who is an absolute traitor to this country. To this point, whether it is the Chinese flavor or the Russian flavor that Hillary represents, “what does it matter?” She is going continue to sell America out to her enemies. It is interesting to note that during the Grid EX drills, which simulated a take down of the grid, both the Chinese and the Russians were invited to participate. Finally, when Alex Jones, Dave Hodges and Global Research all reach the same conclusion, via different means, THAT HILLARY CLINTON IS A SPY, perhaps it is time to pay closer attention to who we are electing as our next President. | 0 |
Monday 14 November 2016 by Neil Tollfree Donald Trump appoints Lord Voldemort as Chief of Staff
President Elect Trump has begun naming who will serve on his cabinet, and amongst the most eye-catching is the appointment of Lord Voldemort as Chief of Staff.
“We knew that President Trump would need someone who could practise magic,” said US political expert Simon Williams.
“Building a wall, repealing Obamacare, deporting three million people. That’s all on the first day. I can’t see any way of getting that done without the use of some pretty powerful magic.
“But appointing the evilest wizard for thousands and thousands of years? That is a bold move.”
Lord Voldemort, who has been described as a ‘raging psychopath, devoid of normal human responses to other people’s suffering’ will be in charge of the day-to-day operation of President Trump’s White House, including controlling access to the President, management of staff, and organising Secret Santa for the Christmas party.
It is understood that Lord Voldemort had been seeking a return to public life after his humiliating defeat at the hands of Harry Potter, and came close to replacing Randy Jackson on Season 13 of American Idol, but turned it down for a promised role in Celebrity Masterchef that fell through.
Rumours that Lord Voldemort was only offered the role after Sauron, Dark Lord of Mordor, turned it down to work with David Davis on Brexit, are so far unconfirmed. Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently | 0 |
Posted 10/31/2016 2:37 pm by PatriotRising with 0 comments Clinton image added to “Pathological lying” Wikipedia page
If you had happened to Google the term ‘pathological lying’ on Sunday evening, you would have been met with none other than the bright, smiling face of presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. Before Wikipedia administrators put a temporary lock on the entry early Monday morning, the top Google result for the term was a link to the Wiki article displaying Clinton’s photo, along with the following quote defining pathological lying:
“It is a stand-alone disorder as well as a symptom of other disorders such as psychopathy and antisocial, narcissistic, and histrionic personality disorders, but people who are pathological liars may not possess characteristics of the other disorders. Excessive lying is a common symptom of several mental disorders.”
The revision history of the entry shows the picture of Clinton was originally added to the ‘pathological lying’ Wikipedia article on the morning of October 29th, but it wasn’t until the next night that the ever-vigilant internet community took notice and excitedly spread the word on Facebook and Twitter . Check out the Google Trends report for ‘pathological lying’ below:
Unsurprisingly, most reactions were supportive of the alteration to the Wikipedia article, once again showing the public’s general distrust of the presidential candidate. A poll conducted by Quinnipiac University last year asked voters to say the first thing that came to mind when they thought of Hillary Clinton. The most popular response was “liar,” followed by “dishonest” and “untrustworthy.” Maybe if the biggest names in journalism weren’t outright colluding with Hillary’s campaign , that poll would have been more widely reported. Maybe.
Due to the fact major media corporations are completely ignoring the corruption surrounding the Clinton campaign, it has been left to Wikileaks, independent media outlets, and the social media community to push this information into the public eye. Just a week away from the election, new evidence was discovered that prompted the FBI to announce they have reopened the criminal investigation into Hillary’s private email server.
With Republican nominee Donald Trump scheduled to appear in court to face rape allegations, there is a high possibility the next president of the United States will be facing criminal charges before they’re even inaugurated. If nothing else, this election cycle is proving that people want truth — and they’ll get creative to expose it. Do you enjoy reading Patriot Rising? | 0 |
Fox Sports’ gamble on Big East basketball still results in a small fraction of ESPN’s viewership, but in addition to the defending national champion (Villanova) and Value Add player (Josh Hart) the conference boasts elite players. [When looking at the top 5 percent of all players this season, the Value Add Top 200, the ACC (27) and Big Ten (21) lead the way, followed by the Big 12 (19) and then Big East (16). The Big 12 and Big East each have only 10 teams, meaning the average teams in those smaller conferences average 1. 9 and 1. 6 Top 200 players. By that count the Big East is one of the top four conferences, ahead of the other Power 6 conferences (SEC and Pac 12) with the Atlantic 10 and American Athletic (the former Big East football teams) not far behind. Below is the ranking of conferences by Top 200 players per team, with the rank of the top player in each conference listed as well. | 1 |
An attempt to capitalize on the arrival of 135 deported Mexican nationals by having the president welcome them backfired when some of the migrants said the government abandoned them and would return to the U. S. as soon as possible. [The event took place at Mexico City’s airport when Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto welcomed a group of 135 Mexican nationals who had just been deported from the United States. “You are not alone, do not feel abandoned” Peña Nieto said. “The doors to this, your house, will always be open. ” During his speech, Peña Nieto called Mexico a land of new opportunities as he talked about various programs, new investments, and the support that the individuals would be receiving. “Today there has been the creation of jobs not seen before and there is productive investment,” EPN said. The words spoken by the Mexican president come at a time when the peso has been consistently losing value against the U. S. dollar and the price of gasoline continues to rise. During the event by EPN, government officials told the migrants about government credits of $25, 000 pesos or roughly $1, 200 USD so they could start their own business. “The Mexican consulates in the United States do not do anything for us, they are sending massive airplanes and sending a lot of people,” said one of the deported migrants. “I do not think its fair. No one is there to help on that side nor on this side, we have to do something for our people. ” Pedro Vasquez, another Mexican migrant who was interviewed by various news outlets at the airport, said he would be traveling back to the United States within 15 days and that a wall would not be able to stop him. The man from the Mexican State of Hidalgo had been living in Georgia making about $4, 800 a month before his arrest for driving without a license. | 1 |
Until recently, many scientists believed that exercise reduces the body’s ability to fight off infections. Past studies had found, for example, that after workouts, especially strenuous ones, people had fewer white blood cells in their bloodstreams than before working out, suggesting that their immune response had been weakened. But a timely new review of studies about exercise and immunity indicates that the interactions between exercise and immunity are far more intricate than scientists once suspected. Some types of workouts may hinder the immune response, according to the review, while others bolster it. Encouragingly, it also seems that a few simple precautions, including consuming carbohydrates during exhausting workouts, might help to keep our immune systems robust. To learn more about the latest science concerning exercise and immunity, I contacted two of the authors of the new review, which was published last week in the Journal of Applied Physiology. Jonathan M. Peake is a lecturer in sports science at Queensland University of Technology in Australia, while his Oliver Neubauer is a senior research fellow at the same university. What follows are edited excerpts from our conversation. Q. Why would exercise affect the immune system in the first place? Jonathan Peake: Exercise is a form of stress. The immune system responds to stress. Q. What actually happens to the immune system during a workout? Dr. Peake: White blood cell numbers typically increase in the blood during exercise, much as they would during an infection. Body temperature rises, and immune cells move from the lymph nodes, spleen, the walls of blood vessels, and the bone marrow into the bloodstream. The stimulus here is obviously not infectious, but occurs because of a rise in stress hormones such as cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine and growth hormone, which all can increase during exercise. Q. And after exercise? Dr. Peake: The number of white blood cells in the bloodstream, especially a type of cell that is particularly good at fighting infections known as natural killer cells, rapidly falls. People often have fewer natural killer cells in their blood after exercise than before they started. For many years, it was thought that exercise was destroying these cells and causing immunodepression. Q. But it isn’t? Dr. Peake: We now believe that the cells are not destroyed. Instead, it’s more likely they move out of the bloodstream and to other regions of the body, such as the lungs, gut, skin and mucous membranes of the respiratory system. This occurs in part because we can breathe in or ingest microorganisms that wind up in these tissues and require an immune response, but also because the stress of exercise causes physiological and biochemical changes within these tissues. As a result, signals go out from the tissues to the immune cells in the blood telling them that there is a potential threat to the body there, and the immune cells move to those tissues. Q. So although we get more cells in our bloodstream during a workout, many of them wind up diverted afterward into other parts of the body? Can this development leave us particularly vulnerable to infections after a stressful workout? Dr. Peake: Yes. Q. What if the exercise is relatively moderate, like a brisk walk or easy jog, instead of a more intense workout? Dr. Peake: Epidemiological evidence suggests that regular moderate exercise protects against upper respiratory illnesses, whereas regular intense exercise increases the risk of upper respiratory illnesses. Q. Because moderate exercise likely results in less physiological stress throughout the body than more vigorous exercise? Dr. Peake: That’s fair to say. The stress hormones that regulate activity of the immune system respond to intensity and duration. Generally speaking, the more strenuous the exercise, the longer it takes for the immune system to return to normal afterward. Q. For people who train hard and would prefer not to repeatedly catch colds, is there any way to maintain a healthy immune response? Oliver Neubauer: Ingesting carbohydrates during vigorous exercise may help, because carbohydrates maintain blood sugar levels. Having stable blood sugar levels reduces the body’s stress response, which in turn, moderates any undesirable mobilization of immune cells. Q. How much carbohydrate? And when? Dr. Neubauer: Most people only need carbohydrates during or prolonged exercise that lasts for 90 minutes or more. For them, between 30 and 60 grams — which is 1 or 2 ounces — of carbohydrates per hour during exercise could minimize immune disturbances related to exercise. Consuming carbohydrates in the first few hours immediately after strenuous exercise also helps to restore immune function. Q. Any additional advice for those of us who work out and wish to stay well? Dr. Peake: Washing your hands often and avoiding contact with sick people will also help. | 1 |
President Donald Trump defiantly took to Twitter Sunday, decrying widespread media speculation that he was backing away from his campaign pledge to repeal and replace Obamacare after the failure of Ryancare. [Anybody (especially Fake News media) who thinks that Repeal Replace of ObamaCare is dead does not know the love and strength in R Party! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 2, 2017, The president and his aides had been steadfast in his efforts to get a healthcare bill through Congress despite the unpopularity and flaws of the “American Health Care Act,” spearheaded by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan ( ) before it was forced to be withdrawn for lack of support among various elements of the House Republican Caucus on March 24. In criticizing the House Freedom Caucus in a tweet this past Thursday, Trump appeared to be referring to the Caucus’s instrumentality in preventing the House Republican Majority from settling for the unpopular Ryancare. “The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, fast,” the president tweeted. Sunday’s tweets, however, indicate confidence on Trump’s part that his party can still be unified behind a plan to repeal and replace former President Obama’s still unpopular Affordable Healthcare Act. The president appeared determined that a plan amenable to the desperate current of opinions that have emerged within the Republican Party over health care. Talks on Repealing and Replacing ObamaCare are, and have been, going on, and will continue until such time as a deal is hopefully struck. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 2, 2017, The tweets were backed up by a report in the Wall Street Journal that, in the hours following the tweets, President Trump met with Sen. Rand Paul ( ) along with his Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, at his Trump National Golf Club in northern Virginia. Senator Paul had been among the fiercest critics of Speaker Ryan’s bill as it made its way through the lower chamber. “They’re discussing a variety of topics, including health care,” White House deputy press secretary Stephanie Grisham told the Journal. While some in the GOP have expressed their desire to move on to other legislative priorities, the president’s latest comments on social media stand counter to mainstream media suggestions that health care reform, and by extension Trump’s ability to govern, is dead in the aftermath of Ryancare’s failure. | 1 |
by Mac Slavo
In the runup to the 2016 election Matt Drudge linked to reports that Hillary Clinton’s health was faltering. For weeks the ‘rumors’ were denied by mainstream media , especially left-leaning web sites.
As the election drew closer, The Huffington Post and other partisan web sites claimed that Clinton had an unbeatable lead. On November 4th, just days before the election, HuffPost went so far as to suggest that Clinton had a 98% chance of winning the election. All the while, alternative media researchers, journalists, commentators and bloggers were highlighting the fact that polls actually showed a dead even race , with Trump leading in some cases.
When Wikileaks released tens of thousands of emails, the propaganda went into full swing with claims that the emails sourced from the DNC and Clinton Campaign were fake, even though numerous third-party organizations certified their validity.
If you were to ask the experts, Drudge Report , Infowars , Breitbart , The Daily Sheeple , Stone Cold Truth , SGT Report , Alt-Market , Daisy Luther , TruthStream Media and scores of other alternative news websites were peddling fiction. In fact, “peddling fiction” is the exact terminology used by President Obama to marginalize the detailed economic reports being disseminated by Alternative Financial websites like Zero Hedge .
The fiction narrative, first championed by entrenched media personalities, was pushed across social media by millions of anxious Hillary fans. According to them, everything coming from independent media was a lie – it was fake.
As it turns out, Clinton’s health problems were confirmed when she was recorded stumbling and wobbling following a September 11th ceremony in New York. The Wikileaks were, in fact legit. Trump won by an electoral landslide. And the economy continues its downward spiral.
One report after another being disseminated by what left-leaning pundits call “fake news websites” has been confirmed as accurate, proving that there was a concerted effort to stifle open discourse and real journalism.
Hillary Clinton made mention of it in her Deplorables speech, warning that a lot of fake information was being released through purported “racist” websites across the web.
And if she had her way, no one would have ever read anything but positive information about her, while everything else was disappeared Orwellian-style, never to reach the masses that eventually elected Donald Trump to the Presidency.
What this year’s Presidential election has proven is that alternative media is a force to be reckoned with, and the establishment is scared shitless.
But they won’t let it happen again.
Earlier this year President Obama turned control of the internet over to the United Nations, effectively eliminating free speech protections enjoyed by citizen journalists in America. It may have sounded crazy when we sounded the alarm before the internet takeover, but today’s actions by Google and Facebook provide further evidence that the establishment media and Deep State politicians are preparing a digital lock down on any and all information that has not been approved by an as of yet unknown Truth Panel.
A Facebook spokesman said it will explicitly ban sites that traffic in fake news from using the Facebook Audience Network, saying they fall under the category of misleading, illegal or deceptive sites already barred. The audience network places ads on other websites and mobile apps.
Earlier Monday, Google said it plans to prevent Google ads from being placed “on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher’s content, or the primary purpose” of the website. The policy would cover sites that distribute false news, a Google spokeswoman said. False news stories, particularly those that spread widely on Facebook, became an issue during the recent presidential election. Google experienced its own mishap on Sunday when a story on a right-wing blog erroneously stating Donald Trump won the popular vote appeared atop some Google search results.
…
“While implied, we have updated the policy to explicitly clarify that this applies to fake news,” the Facebook spokesman said. “We vigorously enforce our policies and take swift action against sites and apps that are found to be in violation. Our team will continue to closely vet all prospective publishers and monitor existing ones to ensure compliance.”
Full report
The moves by Google and Facebook follow a recent de-monitzation effort at Youtube that has also targeted alternative media. As noted in their “Advertiser Friendly Content Guidelines,” they appear to be targeting exactly the issues often covered by alternative media by directly banning:
C ontent that is considered “not advertiser-friendly” includes, but is not limited to: Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown
So basically, anything newsworthy is no longer advertiser friendly, and these organizations will now determine whose news will or won’t be seen based on what is sure to be proprietary algorithms and secretive human curation.
The bottom line is this: the time and energy required to produce the amount of video content and investigative journalism that we saw during the election is astronomical. Thousands of journalists, bloggers and concerned citizens spent countless hours reporting the news the mainstream media wouldn’t. Many of those people depend on advertising revenue to cover their most basic website maintenance costs, as well as their monthly mortgages and the food they put on their dinner tables.
The aim with policies like this, which will no doubt be overseen by establishment hacks, is to quite literally starve independent media. In turn, they will starve the people of the information they so desperately need to understand what is being done to them.
This is only the beginning. The lockdown will continue. Previous Story | 0 |
FBI Dir. James Comey: ’It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election.” https: . pic. twitter. Wednesday at the Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, FBI Director James Comey said while he would have still announced a new investigation into presidential nominee Hillary Clinton days before the election, it made him “mildly nauseous” to think that he might have had some impact on the election results. Comey said, “Look, this is terrible. It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election, but honestly, it wouldn’t change the decision. ” He added,”This has been one of the world’s most painful experiences. I would make the same decision. I would not conceal that on October 28 from the Congress. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
Wednesday, 16 November 2016
What a week it has been for the Son of the Almighty.
Tuesday, Jesus himself was seen at the Tampa's infamous The Honey Pot night club, a night spot known for its super-hot drag show. A copy of Jesus's bar tab reveals he and his "posse" of Lucifer ( a.k.a "Lu"), Peter and Paul who were in town visiting from Miami's South Beach and his PR-man-cum-handler, John from the New testament, ran up a 2,400-dollar bar tab consisting of bottles of Crystal champagne and bottles of Ciroc vodka.
Since coming out of retirement to handle the End Times (signaled by the candidacy of Donald Trump and the emergence of the second Biblical Beast of Revelation, Mike Pence), Jesus has been quite a man around town, being seen at the hottest, newest and trendiest clubs and some of the seediest backwater bars, often extremely drunk and occasionally abrasive. "The stress is getting to him, sure," his handler, John, confessed. "I mean, his Old Man calls him out of retirement, ends his vacation and tells him he has to restore peace on Earth, and meanwhile he's got Trump and Pence claiming they're actually Christians - yeah, it irritates him. He'll be okay, though. He's got a good resume."
The revelry escalated to the point of Jesus ushering several transvestite dancers behind the silken ropes of his VIP section, where things got admittedly sloppy. "Yeah," The Prince of Darkness, Lucifer, admitted. "Things did spiral out of control, got a little crazy. I'm kind of feeling it today." Lucifer was referring to Jesus's bumping and grinding with his new cross-gendered "friends" and taking body shots off of their surgically implanted breasts.
"Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing on that place, man," The Prince of Peace admitted. "I thought Dad was going to send down the old fire and brimstone by the time Peter and Paul were swinging on the stripper pole."
Though The Almighty didn't set the club ablaze for their transgressions, the pictures of Jesus carousing with his ambiguously gendered friends did set social media on fire. The rumor mill kicked into full gear and people began to question Jesus's "orientation." He seemed to be enjoying his new "friends" from the club a little bit too much.
"I've known Jesus for a very long time," the Apostle Paul said candidly when asked about Jesus's sexual preference. "I know for a fact he's not. I mean you can ask Mary Magdalene, and a whole bunch of other females in the Old World. I mean, he put the 'fertile' in the Fertile Crescent, you know what I mean? And trust me, I know fabulous when I see it."
Long-time lawyer friend, Pontius Pilate, commented: "Absolutely not. Not a chance. That's nothing but slander and libel - and maybe a little wishful thinking on some people's parts. You know everyone wants a piece of a celebrity. But no, he's as straight as the Path of the Righteous. It's this social media. He's not too savvy with, you know? Didn't grow up with it. I've discussed it with him a hundred times. He really needs to be more careful in this day and age."
Jesus himself showed up to a press conference late the next day looking all the worse for the wear. In the press room, he kept his sunglasses on, complaining about the flashing of the cameras and how "damned loud everyone was talking." With a Bloody Mary conspicuously perched in his right hand, Jesus stepped toward the microphone and addressed the crowd about the true intention of his booze-fueled antics, which it turns out was a subtle message to Gay-rights adversary Mike Pence. "I know what we're all here for. I've seen the pictures circulating on social media and, admittedly, they don't look too good. I admit that. Things have been really tense around here lately and I guess I lashed out a bit at the other team, Trump and Pence. You know Pence with his whole Christian thing: 'I'm a Christian, a conservative and a Republican in that order.' What a clown! I admit my disgust got the better of me and I just wanted to piss Pence off. Unfortunately, it got a little crazy. But, hey, what if I was gay? I'm Jesus. I can be gay if I want, and here Pence is screwing with gays in my name. Jerk! Who's this Hoosier from Indiana anyway? I mean, he's not Jesus Christ, I am damn it. He better remember that when it comes to Judgment Day because the Old Man Upstairs isn't too happy about these Christians giving us a bad rep. You know how much PR work that takes to fix up? We're still reeling from Bush and his whole Family Values thing. And Reagan, don't even get me started."
A reporter finally asked the unthinkable: "So you're not gay?"
"I've been around a long time, like a couple millennia, man," Jesus started. "I've seen a lot of things. I'm no prude. I've been to college. We're all adults here. We've all tried things. And I don't judge. That's my dad's job. Me? My philosophy is like what Bill Clinton said: 'Don't ask, don't tell.' At the end of the day, though, Mary and I are going on almost two-thousand years together. I have my kids, good friends like Lu, Peter and Paul, and I have my health, mostly because I'm immortal. To answer your question, no. Not gay. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go lay hands on myself and fix this hangover." Make Chris Dahl's | 0 |
By George Zapo
Posted Friday, October 28, 2016 at 08:04am EDT
Keywords: Atlanta , food , food waste , fresh food , Georgia , hunger , landfills , perishable food , Second Helpings Atlanta , volunteers , waste managment
Food waste and hunger are enormous global, environmental, and public health problems. As overwhelming as these issues are, community groups, volunteers, local businesses, and organizations are working on trying to find a solution.
What started as a social action project in 2004, a few members of a small community in metro-Atlanta, Georgia took up the challenge to feed people in need and eliminate food waste.
And they’re succeeding!
The project grew into a non-profit organization with a team of more than 400 volunteer drivers, a network of more than 50 donors, and front-line agencies who feed the hungry on a daily basis.
Amazingly, the entire group has rescued more than 5.5 million pounds of food — enough to provide 4.6 million meals. Here’s more of this motivating, against-all-odds story. Food Waste and Hunger
About a third of the planet’s food goes to waste. That’s enough to feed two billion people.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Resources Institute (WRI) report that about one-third of all food produced worldwide — worth around $1 trillion — are lost or wasted in food production and consumption systems.
Furthermore, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) cites the following:
“Forty percent of the food in the United States is never eaten. But at the same time, one in eight Americans struggles to put enough food on the table.”
Nearly 800 million people worldwide suffer from hunger . But according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, we squander enough food — globally, 2.9 trillion pounds a year — to feed every one of them more than twice over.
In developing nations, much of the food is lost after harvest, because of the lack of refrigeration, good roads, and adequate storage facilities. On the other hand, developed nations waste more food when retailers order, display, or serve too much.
Additionally, consumers waste food when they ignore leftovers in the back of their refrigerators — or toss perishable food out before it expires. More Alarming Statistics of Wasted Food
Much of the wasted food in the U.S. ends up in landfills. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that food waste is the second largest category of municipal solid waste sent to landfills in the United States.
And it accounts for about 18 percent of the waste stream. That’s more than 30 million tons of food waste that the U.S. sends to the landfills each year.
Additionally, according to NRDC, on average, people dining out leave 17 percent of meals uneaten and 55 percent of these potential leftovers are not taken home.
In spite of the dismal statistics on food waste — and the struggles and pain hungry people endure — community groups, organizations, local businesses, and volunteers in metro-Atlanta, Georgia are making headway in not wasting food and feeding people in need. People Are Fed, Perishable Food Not Wasted
More than ten years ago, a few members of a community in metro-Atlanta, Georgia took up the challenge to feed people in need and eliminate food waste. They wanted to take leftover fresh food from grocery stores and restaurants and quickly deliver it to agencies that provide food to families and individuals in need.
Since the first delivery was made in 2004, the group has “rescued” more than 5.5 million pounds of food. And the group believes this figure equals enough to provide more than 4.6 million meals.
As success mounted in eliminating food waste and feeding people in their community, the group established itself as a non-profit organization called Second Helpings Atlanta . Now, Second Helpings Atlanta has 62 donors, 31 partner agencies, and a team of more than 400 volunteer drivers who pick up and drop off perishable food every day.
Executive Director Joe Labriola says, “The challenge is getting the food from those who have it to those who need it, and that’s what we do. We play a very specific role. We do 125 scheduled pickups and deliveries a week. We’ve gotten pretty good at this.” Fresh Food versus Non-Perishable
Fresh food provides more nutrition than the non-perishable, processed diet that so many people eat — especially people with low or no income. One of Second Helpings Atlanta’s goals is to change that standard, offering fresh food that will ideally help prompt healthier eating habits.
This year, the group has delivered 962,635 pounds of food and Labriola estimates they will pick up and deliver more than 1.3 million pounds by the end of the year.
“The reason we’re so focused on perishable food is that we’re providing nutrition to the diets of people who are surviving on processed food. We’re breaking the cycle and hope that some of the health benefits of fresh food will start to kick in.”
According to Labriola, he sees no reason why this type of food waste program can’t easily be adopted anywhere. He adds that 40 percent of the food produced in the U.S. is never consumed. And the average annual cost per household of food that is thrown out is $650.
Twenty percent of people in Georgia live in a food-insecure environment — meaning they’re not sure when they’re going to eat next. “It’s a pretty grim story,” Labriola says. “But if we rescue just 15 percent of that food, we can feed 25 million Americans.” How it’s Working
When people sign up to volunteer, they’re shown the available routes. Then they’re asked to choose the route that would work best with their location and schedule.
Most pickups are regularly scheduled. However, the group often gets calls from people holding weddings, bar mitzvahs, or festivals — knowing there will be leftover food at the end of the night. Then, a call goes out to find a volunteer to help pickup and delivery the leftover food.
Volunteer drivers make food deliveries every day of the year, except Christmas. Food pickups range in size — so people can pick them up no matter if they own a small sedan or a minivan. That way volunteering is within the reach of everyone.
From the time a driver leaves home — stopping to pick up the food and drop it off at a partner agency — it usually takes no longer than 90 minutes for he or she to return home. Families Volunteer
Quite often, entire families will volunteer and work together for the weekly delivery service. Labriola says families volunteering are instrumental to educating younger generations about hunger and food waste.
For example, around Thanksgiving, a family with two young children met Labriola one day to pick up dozens of turkeys at a grocery store. The children looked amazed as they helped carry the delivery — bird-by-bird — from the store to the truck, and into the agency that would distribute them to families. Labriola told the kids they just helped feed 225 families. The children soon realized what they did. One of the children said, “That’s as many kids that are in my school!”
The exemplary work and dedication exhibited by volunteers in the metro-Atlanta, Georgia community is a truly successful model of how to eliminate food waste and hunger. Perhaps more community groups, organizations, local businesses, and volunteers will consider following their worthy example. You might also like… | 0 |
BEIJING — The Chinese military, in a move analysts described as a challenge to Donald J. Trump’s strident criticism of China, has deployed an aircraft carrier to patrol the contested South China Sea, officials said on Tuesday. The ship, which is known as the Liaoning and is China’s first and only aircraft carrier, was spotted leading five other Chinese warships this week in patrols near the coasts of Taiwan and Japan. China claims the South China Sea as its own despite objections from neighboring countries and the United States. Chinese military experts called the deployment of the Liaoning a challenge to American military dominance in the Pacific. Several said the move appeared aimed at testing Mr. Trump, who has antagonized Beijing with acerbic words and actions on issues like Taiwan, trade and North Korea. “The message is: ‘If you test our bottom line, we’ll play that game too,’” said Ni Lexiong, a naval expert at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law. The decision by Beijing to deploy the carrier group seemed likely to complicate an increasingly fractious relationship between China and the United States. Nowhere are those tensions more on display than in the South China Sea, where American forces have resisted China’s efforts to build artificial islands and military outposts as part of its efforts to assert greater control over the sea, a major commercial waterway. In the weeks since Mr. Trump’s election, Beijing has increased pressure on the United States, placing weapons on disputed islands and seizing an underwater United States Navy drone from international waters. Chinese officials appear to be emboldened by Mr. Trump’s pledge to focus on domestic issues and his ambivalence toward the One China principle, an understanding between the United States and China that has underpinned relations for decades. “The mission is to signal to neighbors that Beijing will set the security table in East Asian waters, and that not even President Donald Trump can reverse that trend,” Patrick M. Cronin, a senior director at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank, said in an email. Chinese officials played down the significance of the Liaoning’s journey, saying the ships were taking part in annual training exercises. “The Liaoning aircraft carrier is entitled to the freedom of navigation and overflight under international law,” Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a news conference on Monday. “We hope that all parties will respect this. ” Officials in Taiwan and Japan said that the warships were spotted patrolling their coasts over the past several days. Taiwanese officials said the Liaoning came within 90 nautical miles of the southern tip of the island before entering the South China Sea. Japanese officials said the ships were seen near the shores of Okinawa, in the Pacific Ocean. Many people in China cheered the deployment of the Liaoning, a discarded vessel bought from Ukraine in 1998 and refurbished by the Chinese Navy. While the Liaoning lacks the capabilities of its American counterparts, it is a symbol of national pride for the government, which is in the midst of an effort to vastly upgrade its military capacity to meet its ambition of projecting strength far from Beijing. Officials have announced plans for a second aircraft carrier and other weapons. Some commentators in China seized the moment to call on officials to send the Liaoning closer to American shores. “Aircraft carriers are strategic tools which should be used to show China’s strength to the world and shape the outside world’s attitude toward China,” an editorial in Global Times, a newspaper that often adopts a nationalistic tone, said on Sunday. “As China’s only aircraft carrier fleet now, it should have the ability and courage to sail further. ” The Department of Defense declined to directly address China’s movements in the South China Sea. “We continue to observe a range of ongoing Chinese military activity in the region,” Cmdr. Gary Ross, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said in a statement on Tuesday. “The United States recognizes the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of the sea and airspace guaranteed to all countries in accordance with international law. ” In Taiwan, officials called for caution. Many residents worry that China is seeking to punish Taiwan for Mr. Trump’s actions. He surprised officials in Beijing when he took a call from President Tsai of Taiwan, breaking from decades of diplomatic practice. More recently, he suggested he might abandon the One China principle, prompting sharp rebukes from Beijing. In a speech on Tuesday, Taiwan’s defense minister, Feng spoke about the dangers facing the island and urged more training for Taiwanese soldiers. “The threat of our enemies is growing day by day,” he said, according to Reuters. As China looks to expand its power in the South China Sea, some experts argue that it risks antagonizing nearby countries, potentially pushing them to form stronger alliances with the United States. “As China’s military power grows, the fear is that so, too, will its appetite for regional hegemony,” said Mr. Cronin of the Center for a New American Security. “Thus China’s coercion will impose yet new costs on Beijing. ” Still, others note China’s ability to win allies in the region through its economic might, and they point to the shifting allegiances of countries like the Philippines, an American ally that has warmed up to Beijing in recent months. Xu Guangyu, a retired major general in the People’s Liberation Army, said China’s decision to deploy aircraft carriers in faraway waters and to expand its military were natural developments for a country of China’s stature. “People in other countries should rest assured that China will not interfere in other country’s affairs like the U. S.,” he said. | 1 |
In a Facebook video Senator Mike Lee ( ) said that even though he’s a part of the Senate’s healthcare working group, he hasn’t seen the healthcare bill the Senate is working on, and it has become clear that the bill isn’t being written by the group, but rather it’s being written by staffers of the Senate’s GOP leadership. Lee said he hasn’t seen the bill, “even though I’ve been a member of this working group among Senate Republicans assigned to help narrow the focus of some of this. I haven’t seen the bill. And it has become increasingly apparent in the last few days that, even though we thought we were going to be in charge of writing a bill within this working group, it’s not being written by us. It’s apparently being written by a small handful of staffers for members of the Republican leadership in the Senate. ” He added, “So, if you’re frustrated by the lack of transparency in this process, I share your frustration. I share it wholeheartedly. The American people need and deserve to be able to see legislation as it moves through the Senate. ” ( Mediaite) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
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WOW! Liberals can’t even let a down and out homeless person have their own opinion either!? What bullies! This homeless black woman took takes up guard for Trump’s hollywood star that got destroyed by a CRAZY liberal the other day, and now liberals are all up in her grill trying to tell her why she’s wrong to do so.
How dare they right? After they are done shouting at her about how wrong she is…they get to go home to warmth and food. While she remains in the streets…they need back off! She has a right to believe what she wants to.
What the libs REALLY didn’t take well to…was her signs, she was very real about how she felt about Obama and his treatment of black people specifically and Americans in general! Homeless Trump supporter guards @realDonaldTrump 's star on Hollywood Blvd. against all SJWs. #BasedSentinel #MAGA3X https://t.co/BjGcFO0du5 ? pic.twitter.com/K28OktL6r8 | 0 |
Early Voting Results In Key Battleground States Appear To Favor Donald Trump 7th, 2016
If you want Donald Trump then you have got to be encouraged by what you are seeing so far. Early voting has already been going on in a number of the most important battleground states, and up to this point the numbers seem to support the theory doing significantly better in key swing states than Mitt Romney did in 2012. As you will see below, the latest numbers released by Florida, North Carolina, Colorado and Arizona all have good news for the Trump campaign. Without a doubt, I still have an happen tomorrow night, but so far at least there are some encouraging signs.
Florida
Early voting has become extremely popular in Florida, and at this point close to half of all voters in the state have already cast their ballots .
Donald Trump cannot win the election without Florida’s 29 electoral votes, and so to say that this is a “must win” for the Trump campaign would be a massive understatement.
Fortunately, the Trump campaign appears to be doing much better in Florida than the Romney campaign did in 2012. The following comes from Politico …
Florida Democrats increased their lead over Republicans in casting pre-Election Day ballots to nearly 33,000 as of Sunday morning, but the sheer number of new voters and independents makes it tougher than ever for experts to say whether Hillary Clinton has a clear advantage over Donald Trump in the nation’s biggest battleground state.
Of the record 6.1 million in-person early votes and absentee ballots cast, Democrats have an advantage over Republicans of only 0.5 percentage points, with each party casting roughly 39 percent of the ballots. Though it’s a lead for Democrats, they’re not going to match their 3.7-percentage-point lead in early votes by Election Day they enjoyed in 2012. And Republicans tend to outvote Democrats on Election Day in Florida.
On Monday, updated numbers for Florida were released, and we found out that the Democrats had increased their lead to about 87,000 votes. But Trump is still doing much better than Romney was at this stage.
And the Trump campaign also has to be happy about the fact that first-time voters account for 25 percent of all the votes cast so far. Throughout this election cycle Trump has shown that he can bring out people that have never voted before, and so officials in the Trump campaign have to be smiling about this.
However, one sign of trouble for the Trump campaign is the fact that there has been a 100 percent increase in early voting by Hispanics in Florida compared to 2012, and this appears to be fueled by dislike for Trump. The following comes from the Miami Herald …
Through Saturday, 565,000 Hispanics had completed early in-person voting in Florida, a 100 percent increase over 2012, according to an analysis by Dan Smith, a University of Florida political science professor who tracks voting data.
Including absentee ballots, 911,000 Hispanics have voted — more than a third of whom did not vote in 2012. “We’re witnessing explosive early voting turnout of Hispanics — both those newly registered to vote as well as those who sat on the sidelines in 2012,” Smith said.
As discussed above, Republicans tend to outvote Democrats on Election Day in Florida, so the key for the Trump campaign will be to have the same kind of Election Day turnout that the Romney campaign had in 2012.
If Trump wins Florida, he will have a legitimate shot at winning the election, but if he loses the state it will be virtually impossible for him to make up those 29 electoral votes elsewhere on the map.
North Carolina
Another state that the Trump campaign desperately needs is North Carolina. Mitt Romney won this state back in 2012, and according to the Drudge Report the Trump campaign is doing even better than the Romney campaign did during early voting…
Another dramatic turn of events is being reported out of North Carolina this afternoon: Donald Trump has jumped past all expectations in early voting!
In 2012, Romney hit Election Day down 447,000 votes, based on early ballots. He went on to win the state by 97,000 votes.
Now, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal, Trump opens Election Day down 305,000!
North Carolina is another of the key battleground states that is going to help decide the election. While not as important as Florida, the truth is that Donald Trump pretty much has to have it to have a legitimate shot.
Colorado
All along, most of the pundits have pretty much assumed that Hillary Clinton was going to win Colorado.
Unfortunately for her, the Denver Post is reporting that the number of Republicans that have voted so far exceeds the number of Democrats that have voted…
Republicans took the lead in early voting in Colorado Friday and held the advantage through the weekend despite robust Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts.
The latest early voting numbers released Monday morning show registered Republicans cast 652,380 ballots compared to 645,020 registered Democrats — a 7,360 vote GOP advantage. The breakdown looks like this: 35.2 percent Republican, 34.8 percent Democrat and 28.5 percent unaffiliated.
If Donald Trump could find a way to actually win Colorado, that would definitely lessen the pressure of having to win Nevada where he is not doing nearly as well so far.
Arizona
The state of Arizona used to be considered “deep red” territory, but during this election cycle it has been considered a battleground state.
Fortunately for Trump the poll numbers in Arizona have shifted in his direction in recent days, and the early numbers coming out of the state look very good for him …
The Republican lead in absentee ballots returned is 95,000. Bill Dunn, the party’s director of early and absentee voting, said Republicans lead with 36.5 percent of absentee ballots requested but have an even greater advantage in absentee ballots returned, at 40 percent of the total.
In the waning days of the campaign Donald Trump has been criss-crossing the country, and he continues to draw absolutely enormous crowds. Conservative voters are far more enthusiastic about Trump than they were about Romney, but will it be enough? The scene here in Sterling Heights, Michigan just before Trump’s next rally pic.twitter.com/1OxuTNeXuN
— Jill Colvin (@colvinj) November 7, 2016
Some Republican strategists are convinced that it will not be enough. In fact, one of them told CNN that he believes going to win by “an electoral landslide”…
Hillary Clinton will win in an electoral landslide on Tuesday, but the political baggage she has accumulated over the past year-and-a-half will dissuade congressional Republicans from working with her administration, says longtime Republican political strategist John Weaver.
“I believe she’s going to win in an electoral landslide and be the most unpopular president in electoral history, which is quite the paradox,” Weaver told David Axelrod on “The Axe Files” podcast, produced by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN.
And ultimately it could be the establishment Republicans and the “never-Trumpers” that make the difference and deliver the election to Hillary Clinton. If you can believe it, some establishment Republicans are actually publicly announcing that they have voted for Hillary Clinton and are encouraging others to do the same.
If they can get just five percent of Republicans to follow them, they could completely alter the outcome of the election. So let us hope that does not happen.
On a positive note, on Monday we learned that Hillary Clinton has canceled her celebratory fireworks for Tuesday night. No reason was given for why the fireworks were canceled, but many are taking this as a sign that the Clinton campaign may not be as optimistic as they were previously.
In any event, we don’t have long to wait now until we find out who wins and who loses.
If you want Donald Trump to win, please go vote, because America may never be faced with this kind of a choice again.
I am absolutely convinced that this is a pivotal moment in American history, and on Tuesday night we find out what happens.
May God have mercy on the late, great United States of America. November 7th, 2016 | Tags: 2016 Election , Arizona , Colorado , Debts , Donald Trump , Election , Florida , North Carolina , Pain , Trump | Category: Commentary | 0 |
PHILADELPHIA — Sometimes an exhibition, planned years in advance, arrives at a moment that makes it seem remarkably prescient. That is true of a show opening on March 17 at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia and later this year at the American Jewish Historical Society in New York. Organized by the two institutions, which are collaborating on an exhibition for the first time, “1917: How One Year Changed the World” focuses on three historic events and their major impact on Jews around the world: America’s entry into World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the Balfour Declaration. The war and the revolution resulted in strict limits on immigration to the United States, reflecting a fear among Americans that unrest in Europe would spread to their country. The restrictions were not overtly aimed at Jews, but because the quotas from countries with high Jewish populations were tightened, fewer Jews were able to settle in the United States. The Balfour Declaration, meanwhile, expressed Britain’s support for a Jewish home in Palestine. The exhibition will include 130 objects, including documents, photographs and war artifacts, that are likely to resonate with visitors as President Trump aggressively seeks to tighten borders and restrict immigration. Among the items is an undated cartoon from the era that portrays a man standing in front of a wall that bears the words “Immigration Restriction. ” He is wearing a coat emblazoned with the word “Congress,” while a banner behind him says “Alien Undesirables. ” It was in 1917 that Congress began taking steps to impose new immigration quotas, an effort that led to the restrictive 1924 Act. Josh Perelman, chief curator and director of exhibitions and collections at the Philadelphia museum, described the chilling effect that World War I had on immigration. “The war was most significant because it created an environment in which a powerful group — government, culture and academia — were wary of the tribulations of Europe and scared that the immigrants would bring these people to our shores,” Dr. Perelman said in an interview, surrounded by some of the objects in the show. “After the revolution, when the Bolsheviks came to power, and the xenophobia coalesced together and had the power to influence, that fear accelerated. ” The exhibition is also a strong reminder of the number of Jews who fought for the United States during World War I. An estimated 3. 4 million were living in the country during the war years, and 250, 000 joined the military, according to the American Jewish Committee’s Office of Jewish War Records. One, Sgt. William Shemin, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama in 2015 — 97 years after his heroism during the war. He had repeatedly left the safety of his platoon’s trench to recover wounded soldiers. Jewish organizations had long lobbied for the medal on his behalf, contending that his feats had been wrongly overlooked. Visitors will be able to see Sergeant Shemin’s medal, as well as his helmet and other war gear. As the United States was entering the war, there were concerns among Jews over the persecution of those still in Russia and Eastern Europe. One piece of evidence on display is a letter from the philanthropist Julius Rosenwald to Louis Marshall, chairman of the American Jewish Relief Committee, offering to give $1 million if the committee could raise $10 million to help Jews in “belligerent lands. ” A telegram from President Woodrow Wilson said the gift “serves democracy. ” “It is to America that these starving millions look for aid,” he wrote. ”Out of our prosperity” and “free institutions should spring a vast and ennobling generosity,” he added. Not all Jewish immigrants viewed the United States as a safe haven. A handful of documents highlight the story of Boris Reinstein, who came from Russia and made a career as a druggist in Buffalo. His 1917 application for a passport is on display, as is his 1923 renunciation of his United States citizenship. Mr. Reinstein was a true believer in the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet ideology and left his wife, Anna, to return to Russia, where he worked in the Library of the Marx, Lenin and Engels Institute. For Dr. Perelman and Rachel Lithgow, executive director of the American Jewish Historical Society, one gratifying coup was the loan of two draft versions of the Balfour Declaration from the financier Martin Franklin, who acquired them from Sotheby’s in 2005 as part of the archive of Leon Simon. Mr. Simon, later Sir Simon, a Jew who become director of Britain’s General Post Office, shared the views of Chaim Weizmann, who was part of the Zionist Commission that worked on the draft of the declaration. Mr. Simon’s handwriting is on the original draft, which has never before been exhibited in the United States. It was written on the stationery of the Imperial Hotel in Russell Square in London. “This was the text that was forwarded to Lord Balfour and was used as the basis of the Balfour Declaration,” Dr. Perelman said. Arthur James Balfour, for whom the declaration is named, was Britain’s foreign secretary. The final declaration, in the form of a letter dated Nov. 2, 1917, was sent to one of Britain’s most distinguished Jewish citizens, Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild. Ultimately, it said, in part: “His Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object. ” The document also added that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing communities in Palestine. ” Explaining his purchase of the document, Mr. Franklin said: “I bought it for two reasons: one, it is probably the most important document in the creation of the state of Israel. And second, my great was the first high commissioner”: Lord Herbert Samuel, who arrived in Palestine in 1920. ”So I thought maybe we should keep it in the family. ” | 1 |
CLEVELAND — In his unlikely rise to the Republican nomination Donald J. Trump attacked lobbyists, disparaged big donors and railed against the party’s establishment. But on the shores of Lake Erie this week, beyond the glare of television cameras, the power of the permanent political class seemed virtually undisturbed. Though Mr. Trump promises to topple Washington’s “rigged system,” the opening rounds of his party’s quadrennial meeting accentuated a more enduring maxim: Money always adapts to power. At a downtown barbecue joint, lobbyists cheerfully passed out stickers reading “Make Lobbying Great Again” as they schmoozed on Monday with Republican ambassadors, lawmakers and executives. At a windowless bar tucked behind the hotel, whose rooms were set aside for the party’s most generous benefactors, allies of Mr. Trump pitched a clutch of receptive party donors on contributing to a “super PAC. ” And on Tuesday night, as Republican delegates formally made Mr. Trump their presidential nominee, a few dozen lobbyists and their clients instead sipped gin and munched on Brie puffs in an room at the Union Club. They had come to witness a more urgent presentation: Newt Gingrich, a top Trump adviser and Beltway fixture, painting an upbeat picture of the deals they could help sculpt on infrastructure projects and military spending in the first hundred days of a Trump administration. “It is the business of Washington,” said Michael J. Anderson, a Democratic lobbyist who represents American Indian tribes, after watching Mr. Gingrich speak. “Mr. Trump is talking about changing the paradigm. It’s not changing one bit. The political and influence class is going on as before. ” In Cleveland, even some of those who had worked against Mr. Trump’s candidacy now saw opportunity. In dozens of private receptions, behind a scrim of barricades and police officers, they inspected their party’s new Trump faction with curiosity and hope. There were spheres of influence to carve out. There was money to raise and money to be made, whether or not Mr. Trump ended up in the White House. There were new friends to make and old relationships to nurture. “This is an event like no other — there are governors, senators, members of Congress,” said Eric J. Tanenblatt, a longtime ally of the Bush family whose law firm, Dentons, hosted Mr. Gingrich’s remarks on Tuesday. “For people who operate in and around government, you can’t not be here. ” And so, far above the din of protesters and delegates, on the 49th floor of the Key Tower, Squire Patton Boggs, a lobbying and legal powerhouse, held packed receptions honoring Ohio and Florida officials. Not far away, Mike Leavitt, the former Utah governor turned consultant for pharmaceutical companies and health insurers, was slated to lead a panel on policies to spur the development of prescription drugs. As Speaker Paul D. Ryan helped tamp down efforts on the convention floor, his political operation ran a daily series of receptions and hospitality lounges for members of the “Speaker’s Council,” the top donors to House Republicans. “You have these two worlds colliding a little bit here,” said David Tamasi, a lobbyist at the firm Rasky Baerlein and a top Republican on K Street, who joined Mr. Trump’s team after his preferred candidate, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, went down to defeat. “That’s what’s going to be interesting: How do the establishment guys make those folks feel at home?” They are doing so, in part, by footing the bill. While some of the party’s elite donors have shunned Mr. Trump’s coronation this week, they are still paying for it. Roughly 500 wealthy Republicans poured close to $16 million into the Republican National Committee’s convention account leading up to this week, according to disclosures made to the Federal Election Commission through last Friday. The biggest donors, giving more than $100, 000 each, are also a veritable roll call of the movement, among them the billionaire investor Paul E. Singer and Marlene Ricketts, who bankrolled early efforts to deny Mr. Trump the nomination. Mr. Singer did not attend, though his political advisers made the rounds in Cleveland, as did representatives for other megadonors who remain opposed to Mr. Trump. And there were growing signs that at least some of the party’s biggest givers were warming to him: of Monday’s super PAC reception at the included Harold Hamm, a billionaire oil tycoon and former energy adviser to Mitt Romney, and Stanley Hubbard, a Minnesota television station owner and prominent donor. Among the guests was Foster Friess, the mutual fund investor and super PAC donor, who expressed optimism at his party’s prospects. “I think it could be a landslide,” Mr. Friess said in an interview. “Donald Trump has the ability to reach all the plumbers and carpenters and factory workers who usually vote Democratic. ” Mr. Trump, of course, remains unpopular among many Republican donors, and it is unclear how many will ultimately open their wallets to help fund his campaign. Some events were more sparsely attended than they would have been four years ago, Republicans said. It was a little easier to get tickets to concerts in Cleveland, a little easier to get bumped up to the premium hotel rooms. And there is no question that Mr. Trump’s blasts against unfettered trade and Wall Street banks have unsettled powerful business interests — and are now, to some extent, reflected in the party’s own DNA. In recent days, Trump activists have helped install new planks in the party platform calling for tougher trade negotiations and for reinstating the Act, the law that walled commercial banking off from investment banking. Yet those same power brokers won a more consequential victory even before the convention started, when Mr. Trump’s team helped them quash a rule proposed by some conservative delegates that would have banned lobbyists from serving as Republican National Committee members. The proposal by supporters of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas pitted Tea Party conservatives against the party’s business wing the conservative delegates were soundly defeated. “It is disappointing,” said Mary Anne Kinney, a New Hampshire state representative and Cruz delegate, who was among those who pushed for the ban. “Some of us had heard things that maybe Donald Trump was not a fan of the lobbyists. They are not always for the interest of the people. ” In fact, many of them are for the interests of Mr. Trump, at least this week. Among the floor whips prowling the convention floor in Cleveland in neon yellow baseball caps, managing and corralling delegates, were a number of volunteers from Washington government affairs firms or Capitol Hill. Many had supported other candidates during the primary. Now they were working for their party’s nominee. One of them was Robert Hoffman, a Republican lobbyist at Heather Podesta and Partners. Earlier in the week, the firm hosted a barbecue brunch for friends and delegates, where Mr. Hoffman and his colleagues handed out “Make Lobbying Great Again” stickers. Mr. Hoffman seemed to see Mr. Trump’s policy agenda more in terms of possibilities than threats. The convention, he noted, was a chance to learn more about Mr. Trump’s plans, and perhaps to help shape them. “We want to be a sounding board,” Mr. Hoffman said. “Not just for our clients, but for our campaign. ” | 1 |
WARSAW — Political outsiders across Central Europe, preaching a populist message and promising to overturn the establishment, have felt the wind at their backs since the election of the new American president. We recently profiled one of them, Veselin Mareshki of Bulgaria, who says he sees himself as “an candidate like Donald Trump. ” Many others embrace the connection, too, whether it is their backgrounds in business, their bombastic personalities, or their canny use of celebrity and social media. Andrej Babis, 62, Czech Republic Undoubtedly the in Central Europe, Mr. Babis transformed an agribusiness conglomerate into a diversified corporate behemoth that includes major media properties. In 2011, he formed his own party, ANO, and promised to bring business sense to government on an anticorruption platform. The party did so well in parliamentary elections that Mr. Babis was named finance minister. He is widely considered the likeliest next prime minister. He has rejected comparisons with President Trump, whom he criticized as a poor businessman. But he has also added that he and the new American president share an aversion to immigration and a tendency to say politically incorrect things. Boris Kollar, 51, Slovakia Mr. Kollar, a wealthy businessman, formed his own political party last year — Sme Rodina, or “We Are Family” — and shocked the Slovak establishment by earning 11 seats in the country’s National Council on a platform of libertarian economics, and fierce opposition to more immigration. His slogan: “Trust me, I’m not a politician. ” A tabloid figure and media celebrity, Mr. Kollar has 10 children from nine different mothers. Bogoljub Karic, 63, Serbia Mr. Karic, along with three brothers and a sister, built a family business empire that has expanded to telecommunications, construction, finance, media and international trade. He also started the private BK University. But his initial foray into politics ended with his fleeing into exile in 2006, under investigation by Serbia’s chief organized crime prosecutor, which he characterized as politically motivated. Mr. Karic returned to Serbia on Dec. 30, just days after the prosecutor ended the investigation without charges. Mr. Karic denies he will run for president in the coming elections, but notes that his party, the Strength of Serbia Movement, recruited 60, 000 new members since his return from exile. Aivars Lembergs, 63, Latvia The extent of Mr. Lembergs’s wealth, and its source, are fairly vague, but he has used his business and political acumen to remain the mayor and chief political force in the seaport of Ventspils, an office he has held since 1988, the year before communism fell. Flamboyant, outspoken and a familiar figure in Latvian media, Mr. Lembergs made his fortune in the tumultuous years after the transition to capitalism. His politics are populist. He refers to NATO as “an occupying force. ” And he remains the leading figure in a coalition between his party and the Union of Greens and Farmers, a conglomeration of environmental activists and conservative farm groups. He has faced repeated charges of corruption, money laundering, bribery and abuse of office. Zbigniew Stonoga, 42, Poland Mr. Stonoga owns two auto dealerships and is an avid blogger who created his own political party, named after himself. He is infamous for his blunt, and sometimes vulgar, language and for epic YouTube rants against “Zionists,” tax officials and Polish leaders. He opposes any fresh influx of migrants, whom he refers to using an American racist epithet. He is best known in Poland for having leaked a series of top secret documents from Poland’s Agency of Internal Security, resulting in the resignation of several ministers under the previous government. How he came to possess the documents has never been explained, though he insisted that he stumbled across them on a Chinese internet server. His Stonoga Polish Party collapsed after performing poorly in parliamentary elections, and he now channels his efforts through an online journal (also named after himself). Ivan Pernar, 31, Croatia Relatively young and still on the edges of Croatian politics, Mr. Pernar invites comparison with President Trump not for his background in business but for his position as a political outsider who uses social media and attacks on opponents. He first came to public attention by using Facebook to organize a series of antigovernment protests in 2011 and seemed regularly at odds with political decorum. He was once scolded for eating pizza on the floor of Parliament. Mr. Pernar’s populist message is decidedly and but also includes some attitudes from the conspiratorial fringe, including dire warnings about the pernicious influence of Freemasons. Mr. Pernar was recently removed from the floor of Parliament for interrupting proceedings with random Union diatribes. | 1 |
11.23.2016 @8:08 PM EST Soros funds anti-Trump army of liberals to fight hate crime
WASHINGTON D.C. ( INTELLIHUB ) — Billionaire George Soros just pledged $10 million in funding to liberal groups in opposition of what Soros says are ‘deeply troubling hate crimes perpetuated by the President-elect Donald Trump.’
Soros’ Open Society Foundations plans to launch next week with half of the funding pledged for starters after the Southern Poverty Law Center was flooded with reports of hate and violence.
In New York Gov, Andrew Cuomo said that the New York Police Department will be rolling out a new domestic police unit that will be responsible for enforcing hate crimes.
#policestate Norway UN/Flickr | 0 |
Don’t let your lying eyes deceive you that the stunning second half scoring assault by the South Carolina Gamecocks against the ACC champion Duke University was the reason for their win on Sunday. [Sports writer Ty Duffy at The Big Lead suggests that North Carolina’s bathroom laws ultimately brought down the Blue Devils during the second round of the NCAA tournament on Sunday. USC picked up their first NCAA win since 1973 on Friday, and overcame a dismal first half against Duke to win NCAA tournament games for the first time in the university’s history. The win eliminated any hopes for coach Mike Krzyzewski to lead the Blue Devils to their sixth NCAA tournament championship. Initially, Sunday’s round was slated to be played in Greensboro, North Carolina, but the NCAA changed venues to Greenville, South Carolina, to protest the Tar Heel state’s bathroom privacy law. The law, otherwise known as HB2, mandates people to use bathrooms in government buildings and state universities that correspond with the biological gender in which they were born. Duffy argues that the original venue in Greensboro, only an hour away from Duke University, would have made the game more of a home game for the Blue Devils. As it turned out the game being played in Greenville effectively made it a home game for the Gamecocks and gave them an advantage. “We can’t say whether a change in venue would have altered the result. Duke provided its fair share of disappointment this season. But, it certainly compounded Duke’s difficulty,” The Big Lead author penned. The NCAA notified North Carolina in February that the state could be banned from hosting the NCAA tournament for five more years. | 1 |
PRAGUE — Petra Kvitova said she was determined to play tennis again, no matter what that required, after a intruder attacked her inside her home. Kvitova, a Wimbledon champion, was released from a hospital on Friday, three days after she had surgery for injuries sustained in the attack in the town of Prostejov. With a big bandage covering her left hand and forearm, Kvitova said she had been told by the surgeon who performed the operation on Tuesday in a special clinic in Vysoke nad Jizerou that her recovery was “looking good and without complications, as it should be. ” “I feel better day by day,” she told reporters in Prague. During a session on Thursday with the doctor, she said, “I was able to move the fingers on my left hand. ” She called that “the greatest Christmas present I could have wished for. ” Apparently in a good mood and smiling, Kvitova offered thanks for the support she had received from other players, fans, her family, team and doctors. “I never received so many messages in my life at a moment,” she said. “I really appreciate that. ” The WTA, on its official Twitter account, wished Kvitova “a speedy recovery. ” “We can’t wait to see you back on court again,” the Twitter post said. Kvitova, who plays tennis had damage to the tendons in her left hand, along with injuries to all five fingers and two nerves. Doctors estimated it would take her about six months to return to tennis. Kvitova vowed to come back, sooner or later. “I don’t care about how much time it takes, if three months, six months or a year,” she said. “But that’s for sure I want to return one day, and I’ll do all I can to make that happen. I had no doubt about my return to the tennis circuit for a second. ” Kvitova won Wimbledon in 2011 and 2014. She reached a ranking of No. 2 in 2011 and finished the 2016 season at No. 11. Kvitova did not take questions but said she did not want to look back and talk about the attack. The assailant was still at large. In April 1993, Monica Seles was at the height of her success when she was stabbed in the back during a changeover at a tournament in Hamburg, Germany. A man reached over a courtside railing and stabbed her, leaving an slit between her shoulder blades. Seles returned to the game two years later and reached the 1995 United States Open final. | 1 |
Weed legalised in America because they f**king need it 10-11-16
MARIJUANA is now legal in 28 states of the US to help them through every difficult day of the next four years.
The powerful drug, which helps users blot out reality and create imaginary utopian worlds, will be prescribed to Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton to help with their crushing despair.
82-year-old Eleanor Shaw, who had hoped to see a woman president in her lifetime, said: “I am hitting the blunt tonight. Is that how you say it?
“They say that you’re lost in a fog of confusion, have no idea what’s going on and eventually find it difficult to return to reality. Hell yeah. After yesterday, reality can get fucked.” Dr Tom Booker of Illinois said: “The potential side effects of prolonged marijuana use include delusions that the planet is run by the Illuminati working in collusion with large-eyed grey aliens with no genitals. “Under current circumstances, that would be most reassuring.”
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Ever wonder what’s on the mind of today’s most notable people? Well, don’t miss our unbelievable roundup of the best and most talked about quotes of the day: “ Just because the king is the tallest piece doesn’t mean it’s the tastiest. ” —Magnus Carlsen On stereotypes “ Sometimes if an ambulance is blaring its sirens behind me while I’m driving, I’ll think about swerving my car off the side of the road and smashing into a telephone pole to see if the paramedics will abandon the call they’re on to come and save me. ” —Kate Hudson On priorities “ Don’t talk to me before I’ve had my morning baby-coffee. That’s coffee but diluted so it’s weak enough for babies. I’m no baby—but I’d sure like to play one in a movie. ” —Tom Hanks | 0 |
On this weekend’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace had a heated exchange with Jay Sekulow, who is member of President Donald Trump’s legal team. Partial transcript as follows: WALLACE: I want to ask you a direct question, does the president think that Rod Rosenstein has done anything wrong? SEKULOW: The president has never said anything about Rod Rosenstein doing anything wrong. Here’s what — what is the legal situation here. There is a constitutional issue when you have this scenario. The president made a determination based on consult of advice. He decided ultimately. He’s the commander in chief. He gets to make that decision that James Comey had a go. That was coming, by the way, from groups right, left, and center over the last year. You — you and I know that. So there had been concern about James Comey. It was put forward in a memorandum — that’s what the president’s referencing — from the deputy attorney general and the attorney general requesting the removal of James Comey as the FBI director. And, ultimately, that’s the president’s determination. So here’s the constitutional threshold question, Chris. The president takes action based on numerous events, including recommendations from his attorney general and the deputy attorney general’s office. He takes the action that they also, by the way, recommended. And now he’s being investigated by the Department of Justice because the special counsel under the special counsel relations reports still to the Department of Justice. Not an independent counsel. So he’s being investigated for taking the action that the attorney general and deputy attorney general recommended him to take by the agency who recommended the termination. So that’s the constitutional threshold question here. That’s why, as I said, no investigation — WALLACE: Well, I — what — what — what’s the question (INAUDIBLE). I mean you — you stated — you stated some facts. First of all, you’ve now said that he is getting investigated after saying that you didn’t. SEKULOW: No. WALLACE: You — you just, sir, that he’s being — SEKULOW: No, he’s not being investigated! WALLACE: You just said that he’s being investigated. SEKULOW: No, Chris, I said that the — any — let me be crystal clear so you — you completely understand. We have not received nor are we aware of any investigation of the president of the United States, period. WALLACE: Sir, you just said two times that he’s being investigated. SEKULOW: No. The context of the tweet, I just gave you the legal theory, Chris, of how the Constitution works. If, in fact, it was correct that the president was being investigated, he would be investigating for taking action that an agency told him to take. So that is protected under the Constitution as his article one power. That’s all I said. So I appreciate you trying to rephrase it, but I’m just being really direct with you, Chris. This is — let me be — WALLACE: No, I — I — sir, I didn’t rephrase it. The tape will speak — Jay, the tape will speak for itself. You said he is being investigated. And it’s not that big — SEKULOW: Chris, he is — just — no, Chris — that’s (INAUDIBLE) unfair, Chris. WALLACE: Wait a minute — wait a minute. Jay, and it’s not — Jay, it’s not just being investigated for firing Comey. There’s also the question of what he said to Comey when Comey was still the FBI director. So there’s more than just the fact that he fired Comey. SEKULOW: He — Chirrs, let me be clear, you asked me a question about what the president’s tweet was regarding the deputy attorney general of the United States. That’s what you asked me. And I responded to what that legal theory would be. So I do not appreciate you putting words in my mouth when I’ve been crystal clear that the president is not and has not been under investigation. I don’t think I can be any clearer than that. WALLACE: Well, you don’t know that he’s not under investigation again, sir. I mean you might — SEKULOW: You know, I can’t read the mind — you’re right, Chris, I can’t read the minds of the special prosecutor. WALLACE: Well, then, good, OK, so we’re in agreement, you don’t know whether he’s under — you don’t know whether he’s under investigation. SEKULOW: But I have not been notified. No one has been notified that he is. WALLACE: You don’t know whether he’s under investigation or not. SEKULOW: Chris, I — WALLACE: The question I’m asking you is, does he think that Rod Rosenstein — it’s a very simple question — does he think that Rod Rosenstein did anything wrong? SEKULOW: The president has not expressed any opinion about Rod Rosenstein. WALLACE: Does he think that Robert Mueller has done anything wrong? SEKULOW: First of all, he has not said anything about Robert Mueller. And, Chris, let me say something here. You’re asking me if I had a conversation, which I have not had, about Robert Mueller with the president of the United States on — or anyone else for that matter. I can’t discuss that and would that with you. Unlike James Comey, who leaks information to the press, I actually respect the privilege. Apparently, he did not. WALLACE: Does the President believe — well, you’re speaking for his legal team, so you’re out here to represent him and tell us what the president’s belief is, is that correct? SEKULOW: No, I’m out here to tell you what the facts are and the legal issues are. I’m not to tell you what the beliefs are. I’m not the client’s conscience I’m his lawyer. WALLACE: I understand that and the — and the client — have you spoken the — have you spoken to the president at all? SEKULOW: Yes, but I’m not going to discuss those conversations with you. Those are privileged under the privilege. WALLACE: Well, I assume that if he asked you to say something, for instance, Marc Kasowitz said all kinds of things about — after Comey’s testimony. I assumed he was speaking for the president, SEKULOW: Marc Kasowitz made a general statement to the press after the testimony of James Comey. That’s what that was about. This — you’re asking me now questions about what people are thinking in their minds, which I don’t read minds, and you’re asking me also what I may or may not have had a conversation with the president about and you understand this. I respect the privilege, unlike James Comey. WALLACE: Does — SEKULOW: I want to be real clear on that too. I’m not going to give you conversations I’ve had with — have or have not had with the president of the United States. So when I’ve had conversations with the president of the United States — WALLACE: Well, I — your — SEKULOW: As his lawyer, it’s privileged, period. WALLACE: Does the president think that Rosenstein, because you talked about this constitutional theory that he took action, that’s on the advice — SEKULOW: Yes. WALLACE: Although he says he didn’t take it on the advice of Rosenstein, does he think that Rosenstein should recuse himself, and is healing the groundwork to fire Rosenstein and Mueller? SEKULOW: I’ve had no conversations, and I’ve heard nothing without that at all. Nothing. I think this — Chris, this points out — let me tell you one thing quickly about the constitutional theory, as you called it. It’s actually called the Constitution. You know, the president has certain (INAUDIBLE) authority under the Constitution. It’s — WALLACE: Well, you called it the constitutional theory, sir. SEKULOW: Yes, it is a constitutional theory based on the Constitution. WALLACE: I understand that. SEKULOW: Not . It’s the constitutional theory. It’s part of the Constitution. The president has inherent authority. Here’s what you’re trying to — here’s what you’re trying to do, Chris, and I appreciate that you’re — you’re trying to push back. WALLACE: Well, now you’re reading minds again. Now you’re reading minds again. SEKULOW: No, Chris, I deal with fact and law. You were asking me to read people’s minds. That I don’t do. WALLACE: Well, don’t tell me what I’m trying to — well, don’t tell me what I’m trying to do because you don’t know what I’m trying to do. What I’m trying to get is a straight answer out of you. Let me ask you this — SEKULOW: Yes, well — sure. WALLACE: As a matter of law, does the President think that he can be indicted under the Constitution? SEKULOW: The president — I haven’t had that conversation with the president, but the president can’t be indicted under the Constitution of the activity alleged in something like this. Of course not. WALLACE: Why is that? SEKULOW: Because there’s not an investigation. And there’s — there’s no investigation against the president. WALLACE: Well, you don’t know whether there’s an investigation. Oh, boy, this is weird. You — you don’t know that there’s — whether there’s an investigation. You just told us that. SEKULOW: Chris, you’re asking me to speculate — so then what you’re asking me to do is to speculate on — WALLACE: And it would matter. I’m asking you as a matter of law, not whether there’s an investigation. Does the president think he can be indicted as president? SEKULOW: For — for — WALLACE: That’s a constitutional issue, isn’t it? SEKULOW: For obstruction of justice? No, the Constitution’s — WALLACE: No, for any of it. SEKULOW: Now, Chris, you know, let’s — let’s be realistic here. You know what the — the answer is. Can the president be indicted for obstruction? You know what the position has been at the Department of Justice since the 1970s and again stated in 2000. That’s not what President — that’s now how you engage a president. There’s a political process if somebody did something wrong. You’re talking about — you’re conflating a constitutional process, criminal law, with an issue of political consequence. So I am his lawyer. I’m not his political advisor. WALLACE: Senator Dianne Feinstein, a top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, responded to the president’s tweet this week with this statement. “The message the president is sending through his tweets is that he believes the rule of law doesn’t apply to him and that anyone who thinks otherwise will be fired. ” Is she wrong, sir? SEKULOW: Yes, she’s wrong. First of all, Dianne Feinstein also called for an investigation of James Comey and Loretta Lynch for that whole episode regarding her engagement and calling it a, quote, “matter,” not an “investigation. ” But with regard to this particular issue, I mean the tweet — there’s nothing illegal or inappropriate about the tweet. If the tweet came on the heels of a Washington Post story that had five anonymous sources and didn’t even identify the agency from which those sources came from, and that’s what he tweet in response to. It’s that simple, period. WALLACE: Final question, the president just — just added John Dowd, a Washington lawyer, to his legal team. Should we expect him to hire other criminal lawyers? And, in a sense, is he preparing for a potential legal battle here? SEKULOW: Look, I mean John Dowd is — is a legal legend, you know that, in — in — in the — in Washington, D. C. and the president is doing the appropriate thing by hiring lawyers necessary, if there was to be an investigation, if there were to be an investigation, you have the lawyers in place. We’ve got a great legal team led by Marc Kasowitz. We’ve got John Dowd on the team. This is a solid team. Contrary to some of the press reports, a deep team, if necessary. WALLACE: Do you think — I — I — I misspoke. I’m going to ask one more question. Because I’m not allowed to ask you what the president thinks, do you think that he should stop — SEKULOW: Of course. WALLACE: Do you think he should stop tweeting about this case? SEKULOW: Look, I — here’s the thing on that. You know, people have been asking me that. Look, the president has changed the way in which engagement goes in — I mean you’ve got great ratings, no doubt about it, Chris. But let’s face it, the president speaks to 107 million people through his social media platforms. He revolutionized the election process by utilizing media in a different way. So I — I think, look, the president knows the effectiveness of social media. He’s been very effective at it. Again, I’m his lawyer, I deal with the issues. Nothing that he’s tweeted is causing me any issues whatsoever at this point. Nothing. WALLACE: Jay, thank you. Thanks for coming in. SEKULOW: Thanks, Chris. WALLACE: It’s always — it’s always interesting to talk to you. Please, come back, and we’ll — SEKULOW: Thanks, Chris. WALLACE: We’ll continue it and maybe this time we’ll get on this — you know what, be here in studio and we can stay on the same wavelength. SEKULOW: There we go. WALLACE: All right, sir — SEKULOW: Happy Father’s Day. WALLACE: Happy Father’s Day to you too, sir. Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
BELIZE CITY, Belize — One o’clock arrived. Relatives gathered at a hotel bar to watch Olympic gymnastics on television. So did the first lady of Belize and 11 contestants in the coming Miss Belize pageant, wearing their sashes and carrying tiny flags. But where was Simone Biles? The women’s individual competition had begun 4, 000 miles away on Thursday afternoon at the Rio Games. Biles, 19, was the heavy American favorite, but there was also anticipation in an unlikely place, the tiny Central American country of Belize, where she holds dual citizenship. Phone calls were made. Television channels were changed. Beauty contestants were perplexed. Still no live gymnastics. Finally, after 30 minutes, the live feed began on Caribbean television. Biles had already performed her vault routine, but the delayed start did not mute the ecstatic cheering that greeted her second gold medal at the Rio Games. There are big stories unfolding in Belize, including a Supreme Court ruling that affirmed gay rights and the cleanup from Hurricane Earl, which churned through last week. But interest in Biles also has resonated here, in the country’s economic capital, as evidenced everywhere from the prime minister’s residence to the shade of a local plum tree, painted purple and gold, where tour guides talk politics and play dominoes. “We are taking all the gold medals she is going to win,” Kim Simplis Barrow, 44, the first lady of Belize, said with a smile. Biles’s connection to Belize is as complex and ultimately elevating as the flips, jumps and windmill spins that have made her the best gymnast of her generation, perhaps ever. She was born in 1997 in Columbus, Ohio, to a mother who struggled with addiction to drugs and alcohol, and to a father who was not part of her life. In 2002, Biles’s birth mother lost custody of her four children, who were placed in foster care and faced the possibility of being scattered by adoption. Instead, Simone, then 6, and her younger sister Adria, then 4, were adopted in 2003 by their maternal grandfather, Ron Biles, and his second wife, Nellie Cayetano Biles, who is from a prominent Belizean family of teachers and nurses and government officials. (Nellie is not Simone’s biological grandmother Simone’s other two biological siblings were adopted by Ron’s older sister.) Before, Ron and Nellie were known to Simone and Adria as Grandpa and Grandma. Now they are Mom and Dad. Nellie’s mother, Evarista Cayetano, was a teacher and an owner of a grocery store. Her father, Silas Cayetano, also began his career as a teacher, then became an official in Belize’s fishing and agricultural cooperatives, and, later, a senator. The original family home, at 118 Neal Penn Road, was made of wood. The family lived upstairs and the store was downstairs. It was a gathering place, where Silas Cayetano held court on weekends, settling neighborhood disputes, telling jokes, spinning stories. “It was community central, especially on Saturdays, when the chickens were fresh,” said Opal Enriquez, a cousin of Simone’s and the director of the Miss Belize pageant. The Cayetano home had opened its doors to the nine Enriquez children, whose family came to Belize City from the southern town of Punta Gorda. Silas Cayetano had skipped high school, worked at a seminary and passed his teacher’s exam at age 19, relatives said. He encouraged his nieces and nephews, as he had his own four children, telling them that education was the most reliable way to escape poverty. “Our uncle set the bar high,” Enriquez said. “Failure was never an option. He embedded in our brains that we were destined for greatness. Simone listened. We weren’t afraid to dream. ” When Ron and Nellie Biles adopted Simone and Adria, they had two sons of their own who were about to graduate from high school and leave for college. The couple wanted to travel. It would not be easy raising two young girls. But the girls needed parents, and adopting them was a “no brainer,” said Nellie, 61. “When you grow up, I firmly believe that you see what goes on in the family, what your father and mother do,” she said. “And you tend to mimic what you see. It’s innate. It wasn’t even a question. ” The extended Biles family is watching Simone compete at the Olympics across two continents and four time zones. Ron and Nellie and a dozen other relatives are in Rio. Others are in Spring, Tex. north of Houston, where the Bileses live and own a gymnastics center. Still more are scattered in Belize, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago. “We’re trying to put Belize on the map as much as we can,” Nellie, a retired nurse, said. “Simone is competing for the U. S. and we’re not taking any credit away from that. But the fact that she has dual citizenship, I don’t see why we cannot celebrate her second country also. ” And Belize seems happy to celebrate Biles. Formerly known as British Honduras, it gained its independence only in 1981. Belize has never produced an Olympic champion since it began competing in the Summer Games in 1968. A small contingent of three athletes was sent to Rio to compete with modest ambitions in track and field and judo. During the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Belize did have a big moment, celebrating and claiming three gold medals won in sprinting by the American Marion Jones, whose mother was born here. After winning the 200 meters, Jones held up a Belizean flag. Its coat of arms features two woodcutters, one with light brown skin carrying an ax, the other darker skinned and holding an oar, who symbolize the country’s ethnic diversity, history of slavery and its mahogany industry. Jones’s gesture brought international attention to Belize and widely endeared her to its citizens. The country later named her a sports ambassador. Though Jones’s victories were nullified and her career disgraced by doping and a scheme, which brought a prison sentence of six months, she remains popular and appreciated here. Belize’s national stadium, long being refurbished, is called the Marion Jones Sports Complex. Belize’s relationship with Simone Biles is less entrenched so far, but also less complicated. She is a bubbly teenager who has traveled here regularly to visit and to go fishing and snorkeling on vacation. Last summer, she attended the wedding of her brother here, posed for a newspaper photographer, and was spotted doing back flips off a pier. Upon arriving in Rio, she traded Olympic pins with a Belizean athlete. “Simone said, when she gets married, it’s going to be in Belize,” Nellie Biles said. Ron Biles paused as he sat on a sofa at a hotel near Rio’s Olympic Park on Monday, his 67th birthday. “It’s going to be a while longer,” he said as a group of relatives broke into laughter. “Another 16 years. ” As the Olympics approached, Simone was acknowledged by Belize’s ministry of youth and sports, interviewed on the popular Love FM radio, featured in the country’s newspaper and followed widely on social media. “People are very excited, because she has Belizean parentage, she’s a great athlete and she acknowledges her Belizean roots,” Adele Ramos, the assistant editor of Amandala, Belize’s newspaper, said of Biles. “She is the next best thing for us after Marion Jones. ” Yet some feel conflicted, not about Biles, but about the way Belize, in their view, does not fully support its homegrown athletes. Karen Vernon, the theater director of Belize’s Institute of Creative Arts and the mother of two of the country’s top cyclists, said she was happy for Biles but did not “like the fact that Belize is waiting for her to win to claim her. ” “We need to support our own athletes and artists,” Vernon said. “We have talent here. ” The Cayetano family was not athletic, Nellie Biles said the other day with a laugh, though her father did claim ornately to have been a gymnast and the source of Simone’s versatile skills. “Everybody knows that Nellie’s father was a comedian,” said Florita Avila, 59, a cousin of Simone’s. As a girl, Nellie Biles said she played tennis and did the hop, skip and jump. Ron, her husband, shook his head. “You played hopscotch,” he said. His wife did not play sports but watched them on television, Ron added, before correcting himself and saying, “You didn’t have a television. ” It is a true story, Nellie said. In 1973, at 18, she left Belize to attend nursing school at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio. Until then, she said, she had never seen a television in person, used a phone or flown on a plane. “It was, needless to say, culture shock,” she said. In 1976, she met Ron, who was stationed at Randolph Air Force Base outside San Antonio. (He is retired from the military and from his career as an air traffic controller.) In 1977, they married, and they have the playful banter of a couple who has been together for 40 years. Was it love at first sight? “No, oh no,” Nellie Biles said. “It was his good luck. ” Ron replied, “She’s still here, isn’t she?” When the adoption of Simone and Adria, now 17, became official in November 2003, the Bileses returned home from meeting with a family judge outside Houston. Nellie told the girls that they could continue to call her and Ron Grandma and Grandpa, or they could call them Mom and Dad. Simone has said that she went upstairs, practiced in the mirror, then came down and said “Mom. ” Nellie remembers Simone running back upstairs, probably giggling because it seemed funny. It was Mom from then on. “I think these girls did more for us than we did for them,” Nellie Biles said. “Simone centralized us as a family. We come together and do things and go places because of Simone. ” While on a field trip, Simone became interested in gymnastics. Her relatives in Belize remember her from those days as “little Simone,” a tiny girl in perpetual motion, a “spring chicken” and “a firecracker. ” And they say she came to possess the same discipline, insistence, confidence and expectation as Nellie, the eldest sibling in her own family, who with three partners came to own 14 nursing homes in Texas before selling them last year and turning her attention to operating a gymnastics center. “She is Nellie’s child all over,” said Felix Enriquez, 47, Opal’s brother, who is scheduled to become the second in command in Belize’s ministry of defense. “A fair but stern personality. Always demanding that things be done in a proper way. A very big thinker. She doesn’t think small. ” Ron and Nellie Biles have lived in their current home in Spring, Tex. for six years. Ron, a native of Cleveland, said he had never been in the pool until he jumped in when the Cavaliers won the N. B. A. title in June, the city’s first major championship since 1964. Would he jump in the Atlantic in Rio if Simone won gold in the women’s individual all around? “I’ll probably just cry,” he said. Nellie said she would watch nervously in the arena, grabbing someone to hold onto. Here, at the hotel bar, there was little tension, only clapping and cheering except for during Simone’s wobble on the balance beam. “I was panicking at that one,” Felix Enriquez said. Not to worry. Biles had a huge lead, which she secured on the floor exercise with elegance, strength and the stunning ability to land like a dart. “Oh my God!” Simplis Barrow, Belize’s first lady, said, putting her hands to her face, pumping her fists, and photo bombing a family picture. “Woooh. ” “She has inspired us all,” Simplis Barrow said. “No matter where you come from, you can succeed. It is all right there in that small package. ” | 1 |
Monday, 31 October 2016 1/2 of The Political Circus Parade
Henry Louis Mencken was an American journalist, satirist, cultural critic and scholar of American English. He is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the first half of the twentieth century. He died in the 1950's.
He keeps me awake at night by speaking to me about American politics and urges me to print his thoughts. In that sense, I am attempting to "channel" Menken but imperfectly. No one can equal his brilliant, acerbic take on the imperfections of the American political system and his contempt for ordinary voters politicians, and government employees.
""The American political system! It spawns an obvious lunatic by the name of Trump, and an obsessive compulsive secrecy -unimaginabed Clinton, who is a dangerous war hawk willing to risk world war III by challenging Russia in Syria! The American political system! A clown show of an election dominated by the grabbing of vaginas, penis pictures of Weiner's wiener, and trips down memory lane about Bill Clinton's cock," he tells me.
He comments to me about the FBI's interference in the current election.
"FBI director James Comey should be fired immediately by Attorney General Loretta Lynch or President Obama. He serves at their pleasure, they are his bosses. Comey is in violation of the Hatch Act. He was told by his superiors in the Justice Department not to discuss developments in the on going investigation of Hillary Clinton's e-mails 11 days for the Presidential election of 2016. It's crazy, Comey admits there is no evidence of any sort of a scandal," Menken tells me.
"The Hatch Act says that that a federal employee may not use their position to influence the outcome of elections. His letter to congress, which of course was made public, casts suspicion on Clinton, although there are no specifics about supposed wrongdoing. Comey clearly knew that his actions could implicate Clinton by insinuation, "Menken states.
Menken says neither Obama nor Attorney General Lynch will fire Comey. "If they did, that would subject them to vicious attacks from the right wing. Comey went public about investigating Clinton back in July. Why? Because he was under intense pressure by the right wing to prosecute her. No FBI Director had ever gone public about an ongoing investigation before. Comey weakly gave into Tea Party-alt.right influence then and has done it again. Both Obama and Lynch cowardly stood by and let Comey get away with violations of the Hatch Act."
"Obama! Such a hero to the liberals! He presides over I a country whose economic basis is oligarchy, whose political system is authoritarianism and spying on citizens, and whose political culture is murderous toward the rest of the world resulting in endless wars. Obama is now on pace to deport more people than the sum of all 19 presidents who governed the United States from 1892-2000! What a progressive!" cries Menken.
"But In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. A plague upon both Democrats and Republicans. And democracy! Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. Some 50 million of these enlightened will vote for a narcissistic meglomaniac in 2016! But Trump isn't crafty enough. Wait 'till someone more clever comes along and the U.S. will elect another Adolph Hitler," exclaims H.L.
Having written this, Menken is silent inside my brain as I lie down and I can resume my slumber.
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at 4:13 pm Leave a comment
These are some pretty damning results for the mainstream media. Not only does the America public seen the media as a bigger threat to election results than Russian hackers, it’s not even close.
The Washington Examiner reports:
Voters fear the media far more than Russian hackers when it comes to tampering with election results.
According to a Suffolk University/USA Today poll , 46 percent of likely voters believe the news media is “the primary threat that might try to change the election results.”
The national political establishment was the second most-suspected group at 21 percent, and another 13 percent were undecided.
Foreign interests, including “Russian hackers,” ranked fourth with 10 percent and “local political bosses” came in last with 9 percent of likely voters as the main threat to truthful election results.
Here’s the underlying data:
Just to prove the point, The Atlantic really published the following today and it wasn’t meant as a joke. Why is Hillary Clinton so widely loved? https://t.co/C6FN7sDUOP pic.twitter.com/leje2SIbjq
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) November 3, 2016
The media has no one to blame but itself.
For related articles, see:’ | 0 |
Roger Goodell, the most powerful man in professional football, prevailed again Monday in his battle with Tom Brady, one of the game’s most celebrated quarterbacks. And this time, Brady has virtually no chance of escaping a suspension. Goodell’s victory came in a ruling by a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that overturned a decision and affirmed that Goodell, the N. F. L. commissioner, had broad discretion to suspend players according to the collective bargaining agreement with the players’ union. The panel’s decision can be appealed to the full Second Circuit, or even the Supreme Court, but the chance of a victory for Brady is “close to nil,” said Michael LeRoy, who teaches labor law at the University of Illinois at . Assuming nothing changes, Brady could return to regular play as soon as Oct. 9. The N. F. L. ’s decision in the Deflategate case — suspending one of its most popular players for being “generally aware” of a plot to deflate footballs in the 2015 A. F. C. championship game — captivated the nation like few football stories. Over the years, sports leagues have fought with some of their best players, including cases in which Major League Baseball butted heads with Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. But never has a showdown between a league and a player centered on whether the player wanted to manipulate the air pressure in a ball. The case drew expert analysis from physicists and excoriation from fans — many in New England — who believed that the commissioner’s ruling was based on inadequate evidence. The saga raised fundamental questions about fairness on the field how teams look for an edge and whether the commissioner, who views himself as a stern taskmaster, had overstepped his bounds. The league’s decision to go after Brady also pitted the commissioner against Robert K. Kraft, the owner of the Patriots and long one of Goodell’s staunchest allies. At the Super Bowl in Arizona shortly after the scandal broke, Kraft, in a highly unusual move for an owner, lambasted the league for its handling of the case during an impromptu news conference. He also objected to the $1 million fine and loss of draft picks imposed on his team, but eventually accepted the penalties. Brady’s lawyers had argued that he was unfairly suspended after he was accused of involvement in a scheme to deflate footballs used in a playoff game, and last summer, a Federal District Court judge agreed, allowing Brady to play the entire 2015 season. The N. F. L. appealed that ruling to the Second Circuit, which heard oral arguments in early March. The judges were openly skeptical of many of the arguments made by Brady’s lawyer, signaling that they sided with the N. F. L. ’s case that Goodell had broad discretion to suspend players. In their decision, the judges did not consider the underlying facts of the case, including the science of football deflation, but instead looked solely at whether Goodell, as arbitrator, acted in the spirit of the collective bargaining agreement. “We hold that the commissioner properly exercised this broad discretion under the collective bargaining agreement and that his procedural rulings were properly grounded in that agreement and did not deprive Brady of fundamental fairness,” Judges Barrington Daniels Parker Jr. and Denny Chin wrote in their opinion. “Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand with instructions to confirm the award. ” In a dissent, Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann said that Goodell had overstepped his role as arbitrator by changing his reason for penalizing Brady after he had heard the quarterback’s appeal. Initially, Goodell suspended Brady for his role in the plot to deflate footballs, then argued that Brady had obstructed the league’s investigation of the incident by destroying his cellphone, which might have contained messages between Brady and members of the Patriots’ staff. The Second Circuit made “the right ruling that conforms to a very well established pattern in the labor law,” LeRoy said. The judges said that despite the protestations of Kraft, Brady and the N. F. L. Players Association, Goodell was merely acting on the powers to which the league and union had agreed in their labor deal, the latest of which was signed in 2011. The judges acknowledged that the pact in which the person who penalizes players also listens to appeals of those penalties might be unconventional, but they would not get in the way of a longstanding and transparent contract. “In their collective bargaining agreement, the players and the league mutually decided many years ago that the commissioner should investigate possible rule violations, should impose appropriate sanctions, and may preside at arbitrations challenging his discipline,” the judges wrote. The N. F. L. hailed the decision. “We are pleased the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled today that the commissioner properly exercised his authority under the collective bargaining agreement to act in cases involving the integrity of the game,” it said in a statement. “That authority has been recognized by many courts and has been expressly incorporated into every collective bargaining agreement between the N. F. L. and N. F. L. P. A. for the past 40 years. ” The players association said it was disappointed. “We fought Roger Goodell’s suspension of Tom Brady because we know he did not serve as a fair arbitrator and that players’ rights were violated under our collective bargaining agreement,” it said in a statement. If Brady’s suspension is not overturned by a higher court, he will presumably sit out the first four games of the season. (He is allowed to play and practice with the team in the preseason.) The Patriots play their opening game in Glendale, Ariz. against the Cardinals, and their next three games at home, in Foxborough, Mass. against the Miami Dolphins, the Houston Texans and the Buffalo Bills. Brady would then be eligible to return in Week 5, when the Patriots travel to Cleveland to play the Browns. The drama began on Jan. 18, 2015, when the New England Patriots hammered the Indianapolis Colts, to advance to the Super Bowl. Shortly after the game, the N. F. L. began investigating whether the Patriots had used deflated footballs to gain an unfair advantage. “It’s ridiculous,” Brady said at the time, adding, “That’s the last of my worries. ” The N. F. L. released the results of its investigation last May, which stated that two Patriots employees had knowingly deflated balls below the legal limit and that it was “more probable than not that Brady was at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities. ” A few days after the release of the report, the N. F. L. suspended Brady for four games without pay. By some measures, the case has done nothing to dent Brady’s popularity, or the country’s fascination with one of the sport’s biggest stars. On Monday, the players’ association said that licensed merchandise with Brady’s name on it was the among all players last season, topping Peyton Manning, Russell Wilson and other popular players. Given the Patriots’ success the past 15 years, some fans are scrambling to adjust to the possibility that Brady will sit out the first four weeks of the season. BookMaker Sportsbook is reassessing its predictions for the Patriots’ season opener against the Cardinals. “Jimmy Garoppolo is certainly serviceable, but he’s not Tom Brady,” the company wrote about Brady’s backup. “And putting him under center on ‘Sunday Night Football’ in Week 1 for his first career N. F. L. start is asking quite a bit, especially against an elite Arizona secondary. ” | 1 |
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter There are articles floating around the internet suggesting that the Russian government has claimed that America never landed on the moon. This is absolutely ridiculous. Neither the Russian government nor any of its representatives have alluded to this. They are, however, calling for an international investigation regarding “murky details” that surround the U.S. moon landings between 1969 and 1972. ( source ) Why a mainstream news outlet like the Washington Post would title an article “Russian official wants to investigate whether U.S. moon landings actually happened ” is curious, to say the least ( source ) Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia’s official government Investigative Committee, has argued that such an investigation could bring to light what’s been kept in the dark for a number of years with regards to these trips into outer space. Markin and the Russian government are referring to the disappearance of film footage from the original moon landing in 1969. They are also referring to the (approximately) 400 kilograms of lunar rock that was obtained during multiple missions between 1969 and 1972. “We are not contending that they did not fly (to the moon), and simply made a film about it. But all of these scientific – or perhaps cultural – artefacts are part of the legacy of humanity, and their disappearance without a trace is our common loss. An investigation will reveal what happened.”– Vladimir Markin ( source ) From the U.S. side, NASA did admit that the original recordings of the first moon landing had been completely erased. Despite this, they also said that they had managed to remaster the original television broadcast of the landing. According to Bob Dean, United States Army Command Sargent Major, who also served at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) of NATO as an intelligence analyst, there is more footage that has been erased and hidden than we’ve not been told about: “Ladies and gentlemen, my government, NASA, which many of us in the United States say stands for Never A Straight Answer, proceeded to erase 40 rolls of film of the Apollo Program — the flight to the Moon, the flight around the Moon, the landings on the Moon, the walking guys here and there. They erased, for Christ’s sake, 40 rolls of film of those events. Now we’re talking about several thousand individual frames that were taken that the so-called authorities determined that you did not have a right to see. Oh, they were ‘disruptive,’‘socially unacceptable,’‘politically unacceptable.’ I’ve become furious. I’m a retired Command Sergeant Major. I was never famous for having a lot of patience.” (source) What Really Happened Out There?
For anybody who has done any research regarding our trips to the moon, there is definitely no lack of mystery. A lot of this has been sparked by NASA astronauts themselves who have made some remarkable claims. There are so many statements from so many astronauts it’s really hard to pick the best ones.
You may instantly place this topic in the conspiracy realm, but with all of the evidence that’s emerged within the past few years alone, nobody can rely have any sound rebuttal against it. Remember, a wise man once said that “condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance.”
“I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomenon is real, although it’s been covered up by governments for quite a long time. Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered. We are not alone, they have been coming here for a long time.” – Dr. Edgar Mitchell, Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14, 6th man to walk on the moon. ( source )( source )( source )( source ) “There is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, that civilizations have been monitoring us for a very long time. That their appearance is bizarre from any type of traditional materialistic western point of view. That these visitors use the technologies of consciousness, they use toroids, they use co-rotating magnetic disks for their propulsion systems, that seems to be a common denominator of the UFO phenomenon.” ( source ) – Dr. Brian O’Leary, Former NASA Astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor “In my opinion I think they were worried that it would panic the public if they knew that someone had vehicles that had this kind of performance … so they started telling lies about it. And then I think they had to cover another lie, you know, tell another lie to cover their first lie, now they don’t know how to get out of it. Now it’s going to be so embarrassing to admit that all these administrations have told a lot of untruths…. [and that] there are a number of extraterrestrial vehicles out there cruising around.” ( source ) – Gordon Cooper, Former NASA Astronaut, Aeronautical Engineer, and test pilot; one of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury, the first manned space program of the United States
“At no time when the astronauts were in space were they alone. They were under constant surveillance by UFOs.”– Maurice Chatelain, who worked at NASA. He holds 12 patents. His expertise was to invent radio equipment used to go to the moon. Here is an example of one of his patents. ( source )
There are many more examples to choose from, and the quotes coming from NASA personnel and the people who have been in outer space could fill pages. Think about that for a moment.
For examples of declassified documents, and more verified quotes that go beyond NASA and into the military, political, and academic realms, you can click here .
You can access all of our articles on this subject by visiting the exopolitics section of our website HERE .
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 |
Leave a reply The second video on this post is very important – g
Black Box Voting , founded in 2003, performs nonpartisan investigative reporting on elections in an attempt to stop vote rigging.
You may be wondering what the term “black box” means. A “black box” system is non-transparent; its functions are hidden from the public. Elections, of course, should not be black box systems.
Here is a link to a free copy of the book, Black Box Voting HERE .
Author Bev Harris became known for groundbreaking work on electronic voting machines, which can remove transparency of the vote count.
With voting machines, all political power can be converted to the hands of a few anonymous subcontractors: SF Source InfoWars Oct. 2016 Share this: | 0 |
ISTANBUL — Women in the Turkish armed forces have been given the right to wear Islamic head scarves in a move that represents a significant cultural shift within an institution seen historically as the guardian of Turkey’s secular identity. The military was one of the last Turkish institutions to forbid the wearing of the hijab. Just 10 years ago, the military’s commanders briefly implied that they would intervene if a presidential candidate, whose wife wore a veil, became head of state. The candidate, Abdullah Gul, ultimately reached the presidency without obstruction. A decade before that, however, military intervention forced the resignation of an Islamist prime minister. The decision, made on Wednesday and announced by the Defense Ministry, highlights the transformation in the years since of both the military and society, where the head scarf has long been emblematic of the struggle between the country’s secular and religious factions. Since 2002, the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has gradually opened the public sphere to veiled women — allowing the veil on university campuses in 2011 and in the civil service in 2013. The first veiled judge appeared in court in 2015, while veiled women were permitted to serve in the police force last August. The military’s stance softened somewhat in 2015, when an army court ruled that veiled relatives of soldiers could enter military grounds. The army’s cultural shift was also reflected in last July’s failed coup attempt. The government claims that the putsch was organized by an Islamist faction within the military, an institution previously assumed to be staffed mainly by Kemalists — followers of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the secular Turkish state. Women serve only as officers or noncommissioned officers in Turkey. As of 2013, the last year of official data, there were 1, 345 female commissioned officers and 370 female noncommissioned officers out of 723, 741 military personnel in Turkey. The decision to allow female soldiers to wear head scarves threatens to deepen concerns that Mr. Erdogan seeks to sever the country from its secular moorings. Mr. Erdogan’s party has criticized claims that its members are Islamists, believers in a political system based on Islamic legislation. Nevertheless, Mr. Erdogan has increased the number of religious schools and speaks of creating a more pious generation of Turks. After the July coup attempt, Mr. Erdogan also caused alarm in secular circles when he appointed as his military adviser a former general who was fired from the army a few months before the 1997 military intervention because of concerns about his religiosity. Mr. Erdogan’s toughest critics fear he secretly hopes to create a second Iran, where a teenager was expelled from the national chess team on Monday for refusing to wear a head scarf during a tournament in Spain. Erdogan Karakus, a retired general and head of the Turkish Retired Officers Association, claimed that Wednesday’s decision was an unnecessary intervention in military affairs and argued that the head scarf was too loaded a symbol for use within the military. “We don’t want to involve politicians in our air force, army, navy,” Mr. Karakus said in a telephone call. “If somebody wants to wear beach clothes in the office in the United States, do you accept it?” But many welcomed the decision. While some criticize Mr. Erdogan for disregarding democratic norms, citing a continuing purge of thousands of people accused of being dissidents, others praise him for bringing dignity to Turkey’s pious majority, which for decades was excluded from public life by the country’s secular elite. What happened on Wednesday was the latest part of that emancipatory process, said Ravza Kavakci, a lawmaker from Mr. Erdogan’s party. “I think it is a very important step in the path of democratization,” she said. Ms. Kavakci’s older sister, Merve, was once one of those particularly affected by discrimination against veiled women. Professor Merve Kavakci is herself a former lawmaker who was screamed at, and later expelled from Parliament, when she arrived at the building wearing a head scarf in 1999. In a separate interview, the elder Ms. Kavakci said that Wednesday’s decision simply made Turkey more tolerant of religion, rather than less secular. She said it would make Turkey more like the United States, where she felt freer to display her religious identity when she lived there. “It’s not that Turkey is not secular any more. It’s that Turkey is no longer secular fundamentalist,” said the elder Ms. Kavakci, now a political scientist and head of postcolonial studies at Uskudar University. “In the past, Turkey has, with its ideology, embraced a very intolerant secularism where religion was subjugated and controlled by the state authority. And now we’re trying to change that. ” In a statement released later in the day, she added: “From the day I was ousted from the Parliament it’s a dream come true. This is a clear victory for women empowerment. ” Others were more circumspect. Professor Jenny White, an expert on the changing role of Islam and secularism within Turkey, argued that the democratization process was just one of several possible explanations for Wednesday’s intervention. “It could just be completing the process, having everyone everywhere able to wear head scarves, or it could be a way of humiliating the remaining Kemalist officer corps by breaking that last taboo,” said Ms. White, the author of “Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks,” a book about identity in contemporary Turkey. “I would characterize this,” Ms. White added, “as the ultimate humiliation of the Kemalist military. ” | 1 |
Twittergate is happening right now. 1000s of twitter Pedophile accounts discovered 1 Share Email
Several Twitter users were reporting child p0rn0graphy accounts and sending them to 0hour, an active member of Anonymous.
The Anonymous user, @0hour, was retweeting them and tagging Twitter, FBI and Disney. The YouTube user, notsafeforjerk , is providing up-to-date reports on #TwitterGate.
“Twitter cares more about silencing political opinions than protecting our children. Twitter’s CEO works for Disney .”
Hours later, 0hour got his account suspended while many of the child p0rn0graphy accounts remained active, despite the child pornography being publicly displayed on the Twitter accounts.
#TwitterGate has become a topic of discussion on several message boards such as Reddit and /pol/.
As more people become involved in the manhunt, the scope of horror increases.
Thus far, this is the list of users identified by /pol/:
NOTE: These Twitter users have not been vetted through NorthCrane channels.
@sternshow @jdharm @rmlimodriver69 @SternShowMoms @shalomshuli @SternUpdates @SBrandano @TomCotterComic @DocIvanSFN @hperik1971 @MaraReinstein @JasonFielderTV @bobohstern @LittleMikeysp @BenBarto @Stern100 @DitaFan @EliBraden @salgovernale @SternShowAddict @reporterjon @q8i_snake @JoeyBoots @Murman78 @IsaacLeicht @kimberlyratliff @craiggasscomedy @twangger @memetwalker @leithforrest @kylesimonLOL @MMABILLYMIRA @TheMikeTrainor @thisiswolfie @TARAxVx @ThisIsPiotr @MichaelSantang5 @Innocuous_Flop @FTESTERNBTLSFAN @AsianPete5 @TheRealGSid @SternShowQuotes @julianvelard @valthepoet @SternShowPundit @JustinNColumbia @Carrie_Stevens1 @heaney_sean @johnbutler1 @darkmang_25 @mydrugismusic @TheSternShow @ImGrover @bobby_rooney @Howard100 @Howard101 @IamArtieLange @WhoopAsh @RealTalkRooney @HighPitch2009 @FakeLisaG @SternShowXtra @preemiememe @beckalah428 @IamFredNorris @atsternshow @shaneomtl @RFromMN @ChadFromStL @DannyMendelson @Sternpage @cwild22
Archived link here https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/99543043/ but watch your backs please. Don’t be the person who gets caught if they need a scapegoat. | 0 |
Al Sharpton says Bill Maher got off easy when he apologized for using a racial slur on last week’s episode of his HBO show Real Time. [“It was disgraceful,” Sharpton told TMZ of Maher. “I have a lot of respect for Bill. He’s a friend, I’ve been on his show many times, but he is totally wrong. This is outrageous. He must be held accountable. There is no joke about using the . ” “I’m very disappointed in Bill and I think to just say it and apologize and not have some accountability is not enough,” the activist and former MSNBC anchor added. On Friday’s episode of Real Time, Maher referred to himself as a “house ni**er. ” The comment sparked backlash on social media and calls for Maher’s firing by Sharpton and Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson. HBO issued a statement Saturday condemning Maher’s remarks, and promised that the slur would be edited out of future broadcasts of the show. “Bill Maher’s comment last night was completely inexcusable and tasteless. We are removing his deeply offensive comment from any subsequent airings of the show,” the premium cable channel said. Maher apologized in a statement Saturday, saying “The word was offensive and I regret saying it and am very sorry. ” But Maher’s apology is meaningless, according to Sharpton. “How do you get a pass for saying something like that?” Sharpton asked. “They weren’t even talking about race! He just out of nowhere took this — you felt you got so comfortable with us that you can denigrate us?” However, Maher will apparently come out of this controversy unscathed. His weekly show is scheduled to air Friday. Sen. Al Franken ( .) has pulled out of his scheduled appearance on the show this week in the wake of the controversy, but rapper Ice Cube, former Florida congressman David Jolly, journalist David Gregory, and Symone Sanders, former national press secretary for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, are all scheduled to appear on the next episode. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
DETROIT — There are many reasons for the steady success of the three major American automakers in recent years, but none are bigger than the surging sales of pickup trucks. General Motors, Ford Motor and Fiat Chrysler dominate the segment in the United States market, and they rely on pickups for a sizable portion of their earnings in North America as a whole. But President Trump’s proposed border tax on imported vehicles could throw a wrench in the profit machine, particularly for G. M. and Fiat Chrysler, which build a large percentage of their pickups in Mexico. At the same time, Ford — which makes all of its pickups in American factories — would most likely benefit at the expense of its rivals. The Trump administration has pledged to levy tariffs of up to 35 percent on vehicles imported from Mexico and possibly elsewhere, primarily to prod automakers to increase production and jobs in the United States. In response, all three of the Detroit companies have announced plans for new investments in their American operations. Ford went a step further by canceling plans to build a $1. 6 billion plant in Mexico that had been criticized repeatedly by Mr. Trump. Yet the possibility of tariffs on trucks overshadows the so far between a new president determined to expand the American economy and automakers that count on pickups as a huge source of income. “There is an awful lot at stake with a border tax on trucks,” said Michelle Krebs, an analyst with Autotrader. com, a site. “These are the cash cows for Detroit. ” Pickup sales have been an important component of the consistent growth of the American auto market, which last year set a record with nearly 17. 5 million vehicles sold. The combination of low gas prices and a need by businesses to replace older trucks has stimulated demand, especially for pickups, more than 90 percent of which are made by the three Detroit companies. In January, the three vehicles in the nation were pickups: the Ford G. M.’s Chevrolet Silverado, and Fiat Chrysler’s Ram model. The companies earn an estimated $8, 000 to $10, 000 in profit on each truck sold — compared with $3, 000 on a passenger car — so Detroit’s financial fortunes inevitably rise and fall on the success of their truck products. Yet for G. M. and Fiat Chrysler, much of that success is dependent on truck production in Mexico, where labor costs are significantly lower than in unionized factories in the United States. Industry analysts estimate that of G. M.’s annual pickup production comes from its sprawling assembly plant in Silao, Mexico. And while Fiat Chrysler is expanding its American output of trucks, it still relies on its factory in Saltillo, Mexico, for 30 to 40 percent of its pickups, the analysts say. Ford, by contrast, makes its pickups at three plants in the United States. Automakers do not reveal profit margins on particular vehicles. But companies pay workers less than $10 an hour in Mexico, versus the top union wage of $29 in American plants. That differential makes Mexican trucks more profitable for G. M. and Fiat Chrysler than those produced in the United States. There are other costs associated with Mexican production, including shipping vehicles by rail or to American dealerships. But lower labor rates still make Mexico an attractive production option for automakers. A border tax would wipe out that cost advantage, and could prompt manufacturers to raise prices on vehicles. “Automakers could possibly eat the cost of a 5 to 10 percent tariff, but not a tax of 20 or 30 percent,” said Ron Harbour, an automotive analyst with the consulting firm Oliver Wyman. “They would probably have to pass some of that on to consumers. ” Higher prices could cool demand for pickups made by G. M. and Fiat Chrysler. The companies could also try to make up the cost of a border tax by spreading price increases across the breadth of their product lineups. While it is not uncommon to reallocate production among factories — for example, to make more trucks in American plants and shift less profitable small cars to Mexico — it is expensive and to do so. G. M. is also vulnerable to potential tariffs on imported parts for pickups made in its factories in Flint, Mich. and Fort Wayne, Ind. About 38 percent of the parts for all G. M. pickups are made in the United States and Canada, and 55 percent are produced in Mexico, according to statistics compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. About 56 percent of the parts in Fiat Chrysler’s pickups are made in the United States and Canada, and 29 percent are produced in Mexico. At Ford, about 70 percent of its pickup components are made in the United States and Canada, and 15 percent come from Mexico. For all three automakers, that mix of parts applies whether the truck is made in the United States or Mexico. It is not clear whether Mr. Trump’s vision of a border tax would apply to parts or only finished products. One industry analyst, Colin Langan of UBS Securities, singled out G. M. in a recent research report for its vulnerability to a tariff on pickups. “The border tax is a clear risk to G. M.’s pickup trucks,” Mr. Langan wrote. “The timing is also challenging as G. M. plans to retool its pickup facilities ahead of the 2018 pickup launch. ” G. M. executives declined to talk about the impact of a tariff on the company’s pickups during a conference call with analysts last week on its 2016 earnings. The company’s chief financial officer, Chuck Stevens, said it was premature to discuss the implications of a border tax. “There are a lot of moving parts,” he said. “We want to work with the administration to make sure what is best for the U. S. economy. ” G. M.’s chief executive, Mary Barra, stressed that about 80 percent of the products that the company sells in the United States are . As a member of Mr. Trump’s business advisory council, Ms. Barra said, she has outlined how difficult it is for an automaker to adjust production strategy on the fly. “I think that understanding has been well received,” she said of meeting with the president and his advisers. Other vehicles made in Mexico, such as Ford’s Fusion sedan and G. M.’s Cadillac SRX sport utility vehicle, could also be affected by a border tax. But because of their popularity and profits, pickups are the most vulnerable products. “A tariff on pickups would be a real challenge, especially for G. M.,” said Ms. Krebs of Autotrader. “Trucks are so important to their bottom line, and this is uncharted territory. ” | 1 |
BIRDSVILLE, Australia — Birdsville sits perched on the edge of the vast Simpson Desert, hundreds of miles from the nearest city, on the far reaches of the Australian outback. It is an unforgiving place, choked by swirling sandstorms and baked by summer temperatures that can reach 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Home to just 100 people, it has one primary school with six students, one tiny hospital and one police station, which are staffed by one nurse and one policeman. But every year, thousands of people descend on the town for the Big Red Bash, which its organizers claim is the remotest music festival on earth. “This is the ultimate Australian country gig,” said Jimmy Barnes, one of Australia’s rock musicians, as he lounged backstage at the festival in July. The Big Red Bash, named for the towering sand dune on which it is usually held, just outside Birdsville, is what Mr. Barnes called “a celebration of the bush. ” The event was first held in 2013 with an audience of just 600 this year’s festival had 7, 000 attendees. The influx of visitors is critical for the survival of the community that has built its recent fortunes on tourism. The town also hosts the annual Birdsville Races, a renowned horse racing event that was first held in 1882 and now attracts thousands of people each year. “Once upon a time, Birdsville depended on local ringers, stockman, drovers,” said Don Rowlands, an Aboriginal elder of the local Wangkangurru and Yarluyandi nations and a ranger of the nearby National Park, referring to the workers on the cattle ranches that surround the town. Now, he said, “it would not survive without tourism — not a chance in hell. ” For many, the attraction of the Big Red Bash is its remoteness. Fresh vegetables are delivered twice a week by truck (“road mail,” as locals call it) some residents fly their own small planes (the airfield, conveniently, is a walk from the pub) and if the lights go out, electricians must be booked from the closest city, Mount Isa, which is a drive away. “You don’t go through Birdsville, you come to Birdsville, and that makes the difference,” Nell Brook said. She and her husband, David, whose family settled in Birdsville in 1885, farm on an enormous scale. They own 40, 000 cattle on five properties that span 32, 000 square kilometers. “It’s an effort to get here,” said Ross McGregor, 51, a laundry worker who drove for two days from his home in Townsville for the Big Red Bash. “It’s a challenge. ” Sporting a bushy beard, a black pirate hat and Mr. McGregor, like many attendees, is a “gray nomad,” a movement of retirees and older citizens who traverse the country in trailers. The prevalence of vehicles, in particular, has opened up tourism in the outback. And Birdsville, Mr. McGregor said, has become a destination in itself, a “beacon in the desert. ” Established in the 1880s to collect tolls for cattle drovers moving across the borders of Australia, Birdsville was once a thriving frontier town. When the tolls were abolished with the federation of six colonies that united under the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, the town, which sits on the Diamantina River, fell into decline. Those who stayed worked on cattle ranches. While the coastal areas of Australia developed, Birdsville’s remote inland location ensured its isolation. “You can’t just go down to the shop and buy things,” Mrs. Brook said. “You always have to plan what you need for the next two months. ” She said that in the 1970s, the telegraph was the only way to connect with the outside world. A flight brought fruit, vegetables, mail and a movie that residents would gather together at the Brook home to watch. The town’s first telephone line was installed in 1986, and the first cell tower in 2011. Birdsville is expected to get broadband internet access next year. To travel to Birdsville, visitors had to fly or take the dangerous, dusty Birdsville Track, a dirt road from Marree, in South Australia, which crosses three deserts. Mailmen willing to risk the hazardous, weekslong journey on the Birdsville Track became heroes. Tom Kruse, who delivered letters to outback properties from the 1930s to the 1950s in his Leyland Badger truck, was immortalized in the 1954 documentary “The Back of Beyond. ” In the 1960s, the perils of crossing the desert made national headlines when five members of the Page family — Ernest Page his wife, Emma and their three children — ran out of gas and water and died from dehydration after abandoning their car. Their partly decomposed bodies were found near Deadman’s Sandhill under a coolibah tree on New Year’s Day in 1964. Their brutal deaths, combined with Mr. Kruse’s expeditions, helped cement the town in national legend. “It’s become a bucket list for people,” said Greg Donovan, founder of the Big Red Bash and its sister event, the Big Red Run, a ultramarathon through the Simpson Desert. Tourism has become a mainstay. Visitors flock to the Birdsville Hotel, which has quenched thirsty travelers since 1884, and the Birdsville Bakery, celebrated for its curried camel pies, with meat from feral camels that roam the desert. “I could have built a bakery in Marree to the south, Bedourie to the north, Quilpie to the east,” said Robert “Dusty” John Miller, the owner of the bakery. “I would have failed in the first year because they don’t have the iconic status this town’s got. ” Even so, tourism, along with cattle rearing, has taken its toll on the desert. As a boy, Mr. Rowlands, the park ranger, hunted for “bush tucker” after school, catching wild goanna, the native monitor lizards, and snakes to cook over a pit of hot ash like his Aboriginal ancestors. “Now, you can go down with a magnifying glass and find nothing,” said Mr. Rowlands, 58. “And here we have Birdsville full of people, but nobody really knows what has happened to the land. ” The town’s infrastructure can also buckle under the pressure. During last year’s Big Red Bash, the Birdsville Hotel ran out of food. This year, the Birdsville Bakery ran out of bread, and the town’s power grid failed. “We’re building our own little minicity with facilities, sanitations, rubbish,” said Mr. Donovan, noting that almost everything needed to be transported for hundreds of miles on dirt roads. “If you have a bit of rain, those roads get closed. There are no shortcuts. ” Mr. Donovan, who is from Sydney, applauded the “she’ ” optimism of the residents. “In the bush, you have your good years and your bad years, and people roll with that. ” Yet, with meager employment opportunities, few young people stay. Tourism is limited to the winter months, when temperatures are more temperate. In summer, “it’s back to the old days,” said Lucas Trihey, who organizes events at the Big Red Bash. “There’s no one around. You can’t go outside and eat a sandwich. It will end up full of sand. There’s a real frontier feel. ” Recreation in the summer shrinks to barbecues, swimming in the billabong, and drinking stubbies, or bottles of beer, on Big Red under the stars. But, Mr. Miller said, the lack of diversions has helped foster real community spirit in the town. “We need one another,” he said as he as he got up to dispense another curried camel pie to a hungry customer. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Seven months ago, a respected former British spy named Christopher Steele won a contract to build a file on Donald J. Trump’s ties to Russia. Last week, the explosive details — unsubstantiated accounts of frolics with prostitutes, real estate deals that were intended as bribes and coordination with Russian intelligence of the hacking of Democrats — were summarized for Mr. Trump in an appendix to a intelligence report. The consequences have been incalculable and will play out long past Inauguration Day. Word of the summary, which was also given to President Obama and congressional leaders, leaked to CNN Tuesday, and the rest of the media followed with sensational reports. Mr. Trump denounced the unproven claims Wednesday as a fabrication, a smear concocted by “sick people. ” It has further undermined his relationship with the intelligence agencies and cast a shadow over the new administration. Late Wednesday night, after speaking with Mr. Trump, James R. Clapper Jr. the director of national intelligence, issued a statement decrying leaks about the matter and saying of Mr. Steele’s dossier that the intelligence agencies have “not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable. ” Mr. Clapper suggested that intelligence officials had nonetheless shared it to give policy makers “the fullest possible picture of any matters that might affect national security. ” Parts of the story remain out of reach — most critically the basic question of how much, if anything, in the dossier is true. But it is possible to piece together a rough narrative of what led to the current crisis, including lingering questions about the ties binding Mr. Trump and his team to Russia. The episode also offers a glimpse of the hidden side of presidential campaigns, involving private looking for the worst they can find about the next American leader. The story began in September 2015, when a wealthy Republican donor who strongly opposed Mr. Trump put up the money to hire a Washington research firm run by former journalists, Fusion GPS, to compile a dossier about the real estate magnate’s past scandals and weaknesses, according to a person familiar with the effort. The person described the opposition research work on condition of anonymity, citing the volatile nature of the story and the likelihood of future legal disputes. The identity of the donor is unclear. Fusion GPS, headed by a former Wall Street Journal journalist known for his dogged reporting, Glenn Simpson, most often works for business clients. But in presidential elections, the firm is sometimes hired by candidates, party organizations or donors to do political “oppo” work — shorthand for opposition research — on the side. It is routine work and ordinarily involves creating a big, searchable database of public information: past news reports, documents from lawsuits and other relevant data. For months, Fusion GPS gathered the documents and put together the files from Mr. Trump’s past in business and entertainment, a rich target. After Mr. Trump emerged as the presumptive nominee in the spring, the Republican interest in financing the effort ended. But Democratic supporters of Hillary Clinton were very interested, and Fusion GPS kept doing the same deep dives, but on behalf of new clients. In June, the tenor of the effort suddenly changed. The Washington Post reported that the Democratic National Committee had been hacked, apparently by Russian government agents, and a mysterious figure calling himself “Guccifer 2. 0” began to publish the stolen documents online. Mr. Simpson hired Mr. Steele, a former British intelligence officer with whom he had worked before. Mr. Steele, in his early 50s, had served undercover in Moscow in the early 1990s and later was the top expert on Russia at the London headquarters of Britain’s spy service, MI6. When he stepped down in 2009, he started his own commercial intelligence firm, Orbis Business Intelligence. The former journalist and the former spy, according to people who know them, had similarly dark views of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a former K. G. B. officer, and the varied tactics he and his intelligence operatives used to smear, blackmail or bribe their targets. As a former spy who had carried out espionage inside Russia, Mr. Steele was in no position to travel to Moscow to study Mr. Trump’s connections there. Instead, he hired native Russian speakers to call informants inside Russia and made surreptitious contact with his own connections in the country as well. Mr. Steele wrote up his findings in a series of memos, each a few pages long, that he began to deliver to Fusion GPS in June and continued at least until December. By then, the election was over, and neither Mr. Steele nor Mr. Simpson was being paid by a client, but they did not stop what they believed to be very important work. (Mr. Simpson declined to comment for this article, and Mr. Steele did not immediately reply to a request for comment.) The memos described two different Russian operations. The first was a yearslong effort to find a way to influence Mr. Trump, perhaps because he had contacts with Russian oligarchs whom Mr. Putin wanted to keep track of. According to Mr. Steele’s memos, it used an array of familiar tactics: the gathering of “kompromat,” compromising material such as alleged tapes of Mr. Trump with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel, and proposals for business deals attractive to Mr. Trump. The goal would probably never have been to make Mr. Trump a knowing agent of Russia, but to make him a source who might provide information to friendly Russian contacts. But if Mr. Putin and his agents wanted to entangle Mr. Trump using business deals, they did not do it very successfully. Mr. Trump has said he has no major properties there, though one of his sons said at a real estate conference in 2008 that “a lot of money” was “pouring in from Russia. ” The second Russian operation described was recent: a series of contacts with Mr. Trump’s representatives during the campaign, in part to discuss the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta. According to Mr. Steele’s sources, it involved, among other things, a meeting in Prague between Michael Cohen, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, and Oleg Solodukhin, a Russian official who works for Rossotrudnichestvo, an organization that promotes Russia’s interests abroad. By all accounts, Mr. Steele has an excellent reputation with American and British intelligence colleagues and had done work for the F. B. I. on the investigation of bribery at FIFA, soccer’s global governing body. Colleagues say he was acutely aware of the danger he and his associates were being fed Russian disinformation. Russian intelligence had mounted a complex hacking operation to damage Mrs. Clinton, and a similar operation against Mr. Trump was possible. But much of what he was told, and passed on to Fusion GPS, was very difficult to check. And some of the claims that can be checked seem problematic. Mr. Cohen, for instance, said on Twitter on Tuesday night that he has never been in Prague Mr. Solodukhin, his purported Russian contact, denied in a telephone interview that he had ever met Mr. Cohen or anyone associated with Mr. Trump. The on Wednesday cited news reports that a different Michael Cohen with no Trump ties may have visited Prague and that the two Cohens might have been mixed up in Mr. Steele’s reports. But word of a dossier had begun to spread through political circles. Rick Wilson, a Republican political operative who was working for a super PAC supporting Marco Rubio, said he heard about it in July, when an investigative reporter for a major news network called him to ask what he knew. By early fall, some of Mr. Steele’s memos had been given to the F. B. I. which was already investigating Mr. Trump’s Russian ties, and to journalists. An MI6 official, whose job does not permit him to be quoted by name, said that in late summer or early fall, Mr. Steele also passed the reports he had prepared on Mr. Trump and Russia to British intelligence. Mr. Steele was concerned about what he was hearing about Mr. Trump, and he thought that the information should not be solely in the hands of people looking to win a political contest. After the election, the memos, still being supplemented by his inquiries, became one of Washington’s secrets, as reporters — including from The New York Times — scrambled to confirm or disprove them. Word also reached Capitol Hill. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, heard about the dossier and obtained a copy in December from David J. Kramer, a former top State Department official who works for the McCain Institute at Arizona State University. Mr. McCain passed the information to James B. Comey, the F. B. I. director. Remarkably for Washington, many reporters for competing news organizations had the salacious and damning memos, but they did not leak, because their contents could not be confirmed. (Mother Jones magazine was an exception, publishing a story on Oct. 31 that described the dossier, its origin and significance, while omitting the titillating details.) That changed only this week, after the heads of the C. I. A. the F. B. I. and the National Security Agency added a summary of the memos, along with information gathered from other intelligence sources, to their report on the Russian cyberattack on the election. Now, after the most contentious of elections, Americans are divided and confused about what to believe about the incoming president. And there is no prospect soon for full clarity on the veracity of the claims made against him. “It is a remarkable moment in history,” said Mr. Wilson, the Florida political operative. “What world did I wake up in?” | 1 |
We Are Chicago by Culture Shock Games seeks to depict the truth of a city drowning in its own blood in an effort to stanch the flow. [762 murders were committed in Chicago in 2016, and 2017 isn’t looking any better. President Trump tweeted that the violence is “totally out of control,” exclaiming, “Chicago needs help!” following the shooting deaths of seven people in one day in February. Seven people shot and killed yesterday in Chicago. What is going on there — totally out of control. Chicago needs help! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2017, The developers at Culture Shock Games are trying to do their part to help with We Are Chicago, what they hope is an affecting interactive walk in the shoes of fictional Chicago youth Aaron Davis. Aaron is a high school senior with a younger sister and a single mom. He is also a citizen of Chicago’s dangerous streets, and his journey asks the player to navigate a world in which deadly violence is a daily reality. Whether it is the sound of gunfire at dinner or Aaron’s friend holding up the fast food joint where he works, players are confronted with uncomfortably realistic scenarios that represent snapshots from the lives of real people. Based on interviews with residents, We Are Chicago draws its inspiration from the reality of life in the Windy City. Aaron struggles to avoid the influence of gangs — a support structure that tempts many desperate urban youths with the promise of security, community, and income when jobs are scarce — while navigating family life and the demands of school. The game released in February, but it has had a rough go on the Steam marketplace. Despite its mission, players have noted a host of technical issues that detract from the experience — or even make it outright unplayable. It also isn’t very long — about the length of a single chapter in the Telltale adventure games, whose influence We Are Chicago wears on its sleeve. Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both. | 1 |
Irish rock band U2 has delayed the release of its next studio album after the surprise election of Donald Trump. [Songs of Experience, the band’s to its 2014 album Songs of Innocence, was “pretty much complete,” U2 founding guitarist The Edge told Rolling Stone. Then Trump won the election and “suddenly the world changed. ” “We just went, ‘Hold on a second — we’ve got to give ourselves a moment to think about this record and about how it relates to what’s going on in the world,’” the guitarist said about the upcoming project. Trump’s election, he noted, was “like a pendulum has suddenly just taken a huge swing in the other direction. ” He noted that most of the album’s lyrics were “written in the early part of 2016,” and now need to be revised because “the world is a different place. ” U2, seeing its next record as an opportunity to make a political statement, knew it needed to put the album “on ice for a minute, just to really think about it one more time before putting it out, just to make sure that it really was what we wanted to say. ” “We may even write a couple of new songs because that’s the very position we’re in,” the guitarist said. “We’ve given ourselves a little bit of breathing space for creativity. ” “So we said look, ‘Look, let’s do both. We can really celebrate this album, which is really born again in this context, and we can also really get a chance to think about these songs and make sure they’re really what we want to put out,’” he added. U2 has remained relatively quiet during the presidential election, though the band’s frontman Bono called Trump “dangerous,” and said he’s “potentially the worst idea that ever happened to America. ” “Look, America is like the best idea the world ever came up with, but Donald Trump is potentially the worst idea that ever happened to America,” Bono said in September on CBS This Morning. “Potentially,” he added, Trump “could destroy” America. A month later, Bono bashed Trump’s proposal to build a wall on the U. S. border during a concert in San Francisco. Bono could be seen screaming “You’re fired!” at an onstage projection of Trump. “Good people are not going to stay silent while you run off with the American dream!” Bono shouted during the elaborate, virtual . On Monday, U2 announced a tour of North America and Europe to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its first album, The Joshua Tree. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
The man entered the Red Robin restaurant inside the Staten Island Mall two minutes after 6 p. m. on a Friday. He walked straight past the booths and tables and entered the men’s room. A manager would find him there seven minutes later, lying on the floor with a needle and foaming at the mouth. His name was Jonathan Ayers, 27, and he was declared dead within the hour that evening, Sept. 9, apparently of a heroin overdose. Mr. Ayers’s fatal overdose was the latest addition to a body count without precedent. So far in 2016, there have been 71 deaths that appear to be from heroin overdoses on the island, the Richmond County district attorney’s office said, already on pace to more than double the record set two years ago. Nine people died of heroin overdoses in a recent period, prosecutors said. Mr. Ayers left behind an account of his addiction. After his death, his mother, Ann Ayers, and brother, Christopher, found a journal he had kept for the last couple of years that chronicled the lies he had told them to conceal his continued dependence on drugs. “I lie mostly I think because I am scared of being judged for the truth,” Mr. Ayers wrote in May 2015. “This journal is where I tell the truth. ” Through the journal, his family would come to know the son and brother they had lost, and see the thoughts of a heroin addict. Staten Island has been home to a heroin epidemic for several years, and it rivals the Bronx for the highest rate of deaths from heroin overdoses in New York City. The drug arrived to meet demand for opiates and fill the void left by law enforcement crackdowns on prescription pills, which were widely abused there. Heroin, much cheaper than pills, became the drug of choice for the mostly white, neighborhoods on the island’s south end. It was brought in bulk from other boroughs and New Jersey, and easily found on the island as an attractive diversion for bored and restless young people — creating a crisis for law enforcement, treatment programs and the parents of addicts, who have seen too many of their children end up in jail or the morgue. Since 2010, the number of arrests on the island in which heroin or pills were found on the suspect has increased tenfold, to over 1, 000 last year. Deaths attributed to heroin overdoses have also risen: In 2012 and 2013, the toll was 33 each year, and then jumped to 41 in 2014. The deaths fall within a nationwide heroin epidemic that officials have compared to the onslaught of H. I. V. in the 1980s and 1990s. An estimated 125 people a day die from drug overdoses, 78 of them from heroin and pills. The rise in deaths has left virtually no corner of the country untouched, from New England to Appalachia to the Midwest and Southwest. On Staten Island, the numbers could be far worse. Emergency medical workers and firefighters administered naloxone, an antidote to opioid overdoses, 89 times from January through July. Police officers have used it to save lives 35 times this year. There have been new programs and initiatives and task forces and law enforcement operations and arrests. There have been infusions of funds. And yet nothing seems to be working. “The drugs are too accessible and too acceptable,” Michael McMahon, the Staten Island district attorney, said in an interview last month. “There seems to be a whole new population that thinks it’s O. K. and not taboo. ” Mr. McMahon said too few resources were being directed to the epidemic. “If this many people were dying from Zika on Staten Island, we would have an emergency crisis response to it,” he said. “Anywhere else in the city of New York, if nine people died in 10 days from one reason, it would be declared a citywide health emergency. ” Mr. McMahon, shortly after taking office in January, announced the creation of the Overdose Response Initiative, with officers responding to every fatal overdose as if it were a homicide, gathering information on the victims and combing their cellphones for leads on the identity of the dealer of the drugs. The investigations have given prosecutors and the police data on overdoses in the past, they had to wait for lengthy toxicology tests. The response has linked fatal overdoses to suspected dealers in two recent drug takedowns that led to 18 arrests. Assistant Chief Edward Delatorre, the borough commander of Staten Island, said the police were initially led to believe that dealers had taken their own measure to avoid scrutiny — selling weaker heroin. “We got word back that they were cautioning the other dealers who sold, ‘Be careful what you sell on Staten Island,’” he said. “But here we are again in September with a surge. ” Mr. McMahon believes that the recent string of deaths resulted not from a bad batch of heroin, but from the potency and ubiquity of the drug and the recklessness with which addicts are using it. “What does that tell you, the death in the mall?” said Luke Nasta, the director of Camelot, an addiction treatment center on Staten Island. “It’s part of mainstream society. Bright, shiny glass and nice stuff. The abundance of America, and using heroin and succumbing to an overdose. It’s a crosscut of society. It’s here. There’s no denying it. ” Mr. Ayers’s overdose in the mall ended a struggle with addiction about which he wrote candidly in his journal while hiding it from his family. The journal and interviews with his family offer a glimpse of a addict seeming to hold his life together even as it spun downward. “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak,” Mr. Ayers, a Catholic, quoted from the Bible in one entry. “My bones are troubled. ” Tall and stout at around 300 pounds, he was the classic gentle bear of a man, his family said. He graduated from Wagner College in 2010 with a degree in sociology but without solid plans, they said. Behind the scenes, his troubles had already begun. “I had only been drinking, but when I started college I started smoking and eventually selling marijuana,” Mr. Ayers wrote in 2015, according to a transcript of the journal provided by his brother. “It seemed harmless at first, but I guess it wasn’t enough and I started to experiment. ” This led him to pills. “And as the saying goes, ‘That was that,’” he wrote. “It went from a weekend thing to a thing only at night and eventually to an everyday thing. ” He traveled to his brother Christopher’s home in Virginia in January 2015 to get away from the island. He stayed a month, attending church with his brother and who were expecting a child, and discussing his troubles with his brother’s pastor. But he also took mysterious drives to Baltimore, Christopher said last week. Asked why, Christopher said, Mr. Ayers told him he was visiting friends. When Mr. Ayers returned to New York in February, his brother noticed $1, 100 missing from his home, and he gave Mr. Ayers an ultimatum: Go to rehab or you’ll never see your niece. Mr. Ayers had been to an outpatient center on Staten Island, but had returned to pills, his family said. This time, he traveled to Florida for a program. Mr. Ayers’s experiences were similar to those of many addicts on Staten Island. It is a widely held belief that one must leave the island to get clean. “We can’t just do the same old stuff we’ve been doing,” said Diane Arneth, the president and chief executive of Community Health Action of Staten Island, a treatment center. “This really is an incredible crisis. ” She said treatment centers have discussed identifying “crisis points” in an addict’s downward spiral when they are open to the possibility of treatment, such as after an arrest or a visit to the emergency room, where they might meet with a counselor. “That’s where people shift,” she said. Staten Island police officers see these crisis points every day, and they carry small containers of Narcan, a brand of naloxone, within easy reach in their pockets. Squirting it up the nose of an unconscious drug user blocks the absorption of opiates and stops an overdose. One officer, Crystal Vale, has saved three people with Narcan in the past year. “From being unable to respond, to being fully awake and not wanting to go to the hospital,” she said last week. She said she was present when a man was revived with Narcan, and when officers, paramedics and the man himself compared notes, they realized it was the third time he had been brought back from the brink — the Lazarus of Staten Island. Another officer, Louise Sanfilippo, has logged 13 Narcan saves in a year and a half. She uses the antidote so often that she hurries to restock after a save, uncomfortable with an empty pocket. “I never have none on me,” she said. The island lacks a crisis center and relies on offices to treat drug addicts looking for help. “People don’t need help just during regular business hours,” Ms. Arneth said. Mr. Ayers stayed clean after Florida, but not for long. “I should have never went to that damn party. Even deleting all the numbers out of my phone didn’t protect me from this,” he wrote in April 2015. “I felt so ashamed and I wasted the past 50 days of my life and let everybody down who believed in me. ” He kept using: “I can’t even look at my mom in the eye right now. All I do is ruin her life. ” A year passed. He got a job at a bar. But his mother would come home from work at Wagner College and find him on the couch. “‘I’m so sick, I’m so sick,’” he told her, Ms. Ayers said. “He’d ask me for money for Suboxone,” a prescribed drug that curbs opiate cravings, “and I gave it to him. ” In August, he wrote his last journal entry: He needed to get his life together “or I’m going to end up in jail or worse dead. ” On Thursday, Sept. 8, he said he had been to the doctor and that his prescription would be ready on Sept. 10. On Sept. 9, his mother came home from work. He was on the couch. He asked a question that almost every mother of a certain age has heard before, practically a rite of passage. Can I get a ride to the mall? He said he needed to meet a friend who had some extra Suboxone and was waiting at the massage chairs outside a Chase bank. “I don’t know where that is,” he told his mother. She did. She drove him to the mall. He said he would be right back. It is unclear exactly what Mr. Ayers did inside. But the massage chairs were right where he was told they would be, along with, his family assumes, what he came for. There he likely paused, figuring out a next move that would be his last, his mother waiting in the car outside, an escalator before him, the Red Robin below. | 1 |
During Saturday’s “AM Joy” on MSNBC, House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi ( ) argued that the GOP has an “ ” and agenda. “[The Republican] agenda is very similar to [President Donald Trump’s]. If you look at their budget over the last few years, if you look at their opposition to anything to do with the environment, to climate change, and the rest, if you look at their agenda, LGBT agenda, you name it, they’ve been there sooner, longer and in some cases, worse,” Pelosi said to Joy Reid. Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
House Speaker Paul Ryan has a critical choice to make in the next few days: Whether he will please company executives by allowing them to import more visa workers, or else please the GOP’s base of Americans by helping them get jobs at higher wages? [Business groups, led by the H2B Workforce Coalition, want him to include language in the 2017 supplemental budget which would allow companies to import another 100, 000 or more visa workers for summer work at low wages. The supplemental must be completed by April 28. But groups want the number of visas kept at 66, 000 for the year, which will force companies to raise wages and to recruit some of the millions of young Americans who have dropped out of the workforce. The group thinks Ryan has decided to back voters. “Speaker Ryan’s decision to exclude the returning worker exemption in the funding bill is a rejection of the business lobby’s desire for cheap labor and a signal that Americans will come first under the [Donald] Trump administration,” said a statement from the Federation for American Immigration Reform. The statement continues: Speaker Ryan is showing he stands with American workers by refusing big business calls for more cheap labor. Keeping the worker exemption out of the government funding bill puts businesses on notice that Congress will no longer turn a blind eye to the harm mass immigration causes American workers. In December, Ryan decided to not include the “returning worker” exemption in the 2017 federal budget, after he supported it in the 2016 budget. The exemption in the 2016 budget allowed companies to exempt visas for new workers from the annual cap of 66, 000 visas if those workers had been an worker in the previous three years. That “returning worker exemption” effectively boosted the annual size of the program from 66, 000 up to a maximum of 264, 000. If that exemption is reestablished for 2017, the inflow would be larger than the annual inflow of roughly 110, 000 employees via the visa program, which is mostly used by information technology and medical industries. Ryan’s retreat from the program is a notable change. He has long been an avid supporter of companies seeking to hire “any willing worker” from overseas in place of Americans — but the resulting economic and civic damage to American communities allowed Trump to take over the GOP and get elected in 2016. However, aside from his turnabout, there’s little evidence that Ryan supports Trump’s successful populist campaign promise of lower immigration and higher wages. On the other side of the debate, business groups say they can’t get needed workers, despite offering somewhat higher wages. They’re short of seasonal landscape workers, bricklayers, kitchen crews, hotel maids, foresters, and fish processors, and even trainees for those jobs, say company executives. “We just don’t get applicants … [even thought] we do everything we can imagine” to recruit new season workers, said Glen Ellison, the owner of Ceres+ a landscaping and architecture company in Colorado. He offers his workers a starting wage of $15. 11 an hour and U. S. workers even more. “Nobody wants to do the hard labor … I have hired every single high school kid that comes to my company,” he said. There are too few vocational schools teaching skilled trades to teenagers as the older workers retire, and too few Americans are willing or even capable of manual outdoor work, say employers. Society grants little status to skilled work, and provides too much welfare for people who don’t want to work, employers say. The problem is worsened by the federal government’s refusal to penalize companies who hire illegals to undercut companies which hire Americans, said Gary Woodworth, chief executive officer at Gallegos, a building company in Colorado. Such hiring is “prevalent,” said Woodworth, who opened a apprenticeship program and pays new employees $16. 55 an hour, or $34, 000 a year. To sway Ryan and other legislators, company owners and executives from The Workforce Coalition flew into D. C. on Wednesday to lobby their members of Congress. The executives also tailor their argument for GOP leaders, saying the workers support additional jobs for Americans and will go home at the end of each season, unlike illegal immigrants. Business advocates have won partial support from roughly 40 House members, who asked agency officials in to minimize wastage in the distribution of the 66, 000 2017 visas. A similar letter was signed by 31 Senators, led by North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who strongly supported immigration programs when he was a state legislator. More importantly, 53 House members signed a March 30 letter to leaders in the appropriations committee asking for the “Returning Worker Exemption” to be reestablished. The House signers include Republicans Barbara Comstock from Virginia, Kristi Noem from South Dakota, Elise Stefanik from New York, Thomas Massie from Kentucky, Barry Loudermilk from Georgia, and Tim Murphy from Pennsylvania. Business requests to hire foreigners instead of Americans usually receive a warm welcome in the established media, such as the Wall Street Journal. However, supporters of the visa workers programs know they are pushing a rock uphill after Trump’s shocking victory in November, which was powered by voters eager for reductions in immigration. “Brave folks” are still willing to push for an amnesty and increased inflow of admitted Michele Stockwell, of public policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, at a March 2 meeting. Nationwide, “wages for the remain stagnant or in decline and well below what they were in 30 years ago,” despite company complaints, said Steven Camarota, the research director at the Center for Immigration Studies. That huge social and political problem will be solved if legislators let the domestic labor market work, as labor supply will rise to meet higher wages and better recruiting, he said. For example, roughly 10 percent of American “prime age” men, or 7 million men aged 25 to 54, have stayed out of the nation’s workforce of 160 million amid the glut of cheap immigrant labor. The Americans are not trying to get jobs, and are not participating in the nation’s labor force, largely because of low wage rates, according to an August statement by Jason Furman, the chief economic advisor to former President Barack Obama. The glut of workers is worsened by the federal government’s immigration policy. Each year, four million Americans turn 18 and begin looking for good jobs in an increasingly automated economy. But the federal government annually imports one million new legal immigrants plus one million new contract workers — including the and — who are used by companies as cheap workers, as customers, and as urban and suburban renters. However, there’s much anecdotal evidence that the growing economy — and the gradual reduction of illegal immigration — is forcing companies to solve their workforce problems by offering higher wages, by training unskilled workers and even by recruiting unemployed Americans in rural counties. The worker shortage has set off a “bidding war” for employees among Colorado landscaping companies, said Ellison. “We’re starting to see people get more competitive” by offering higher hourly wages, said Jeff Seifried, president of the Chamber of Commerce in Branson, Mo. “We’re seeing a buck, $1. 50, or sometimes $2 raises … [up to] the $11 plus range,” he said. The city’s seasonal employers need many people to clean hotel bedrooms, serve food and run entertainment facilities, but they can’t raise wages too high for fear of deterring customers, he said. Each year, the city offsets wage pressure by importing roughly 1, 000 and visa workers. But the cap on visa workers is forcing the companies to raise wages, broaden recruitment campaigns, to improve roads and regional bus services so that seasonal workers can commute from longer distances. Some companies are even considering providing weekday housing for seasonal workers who do not wish to move permanently from their distant homes, Seifried said. In Maine, the Bangor Daily News recently reported that employers have started recruiting former convicts: “Johnson, of the Somerset Economic Development Corp. has observed felony records to be ‘one of the big barriers’ to employment for Maine men, though employers are starting to be more open to hiring people with criminal records in response to the workforce crunch. ” But the national data shows no significant wage growth for workers: Politically, if GOP leaders reject business’ demands for more contract workers, “it would put the Democrats on the defensive because it would be a substantial and real way for [President Donald] Trump to be the champion of workers over employers,” said Camarota. “One of the challenges in the U. S. economy is to draw back in the many people [who are] out of the workforce and one of the best ways to do that is to let wages rise,” he said. But, he warned, “it will take several years of strong wage growth to get them back to what they used to get paid, and even then they would be poor. ” This year, he said 19 months before the 2018 election, “why not let their wages rise?” | 1 |
US Keen to Keep South China Sea Nations Buying From Them, Not China by Jason Ditz, October 28, 2016 Share This
United States determination to keep its South China Sea territorial disputes with China going rests heavily on having nations with active claims in the sea as US client states, particularly those with claims that conflict with China’s. That used to be, with several nations having such claims.
But the US is struggling to keep those nations exclusively buying US arms. Today’s big loss was from Malaysia , which has announced they intend to buy littoral mission ships from China, instead of the United States. Details on the decision-making process are unclear, but the US problems with their own littoral combat ships breaking down, so that might’ve hurt their chances.
It’s a comparatively small deal, but part of a growing trend. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has been making headlines for weeks with his interest in ending long-standing reliance on the US. While this has grown into complaints about general US-Philippines relations, one of the early grievances was his not liking the US dictating arms sales, and expressing interest in buying from China and Russia instead.
If these countries start buying their arms from China, they’ll have a strong incentive to resolve maritime disputes with China diplomatically, which could severely limit their interest in having warships patrolling through the area to “confront” China. Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz | 0 |
Stephen K. Bannon, former Breitbart News executive chairman, founding host of Breitbart News Daily, and now chief strategist for the incoming Trump White House, made a special appearance on the final live show of 2016. [“I’m only doing this because of the great audience we’ve got here and your producing team, led by Caroline Magyarits — and you, Matt, that you’re hosting the thing. So, glad to be on,” Bannon told SiriusXM host Matt Boyle. “This was the most amazing year we’ve seen, both here in the United States and overseas,” Boyle said, describing those events as a “revolt of the working class. ” “It’s pretty amazing,” Bannon agreed. “As you know, with the website, with Breitbart and with the radio show, particularly the weekend show and then the daily show, we’ve been following this and reporting on it for years. ” “It’s something we saw build up particularly in Europe, with the great team we’ve got over in London, led by Raheem and James Delingpole,” he said, referring to Breitbart London chief editor and frequent Breitbart News Daily host Raheem Kassam. “That led ultimately to Brexit, after all the different European Parliament votes they had and everything that UKIP kind of led. ” “And then here in the United States, where we saw it build up in the primaries, and then in the general election,” he continued. “I think we’ve lived through an historic time. I think we’ll talk about what happened in this year politically for many, many decades to come. It was exciting to live through it, and very exciting to be at SiriusXM, you know, the Patriot Channel with the show, and at Breitbart to actually see and report on it and comment on it. ” Bannon said, “The best thing we ever had was both the comments section at Breitbart and the callers, the great audience we’ve got here at SiriusXM, to call and share every day what their feelings were. ” “We used to tease, after John McCain made that speech that time, that called our audience ‘hobbits,’ it was always great to hear what the hobbits had to say because at the end of the day what they had to say was what mattered most,” he said. Bannon’s message to the hobbits and “deplorables” — to quote Hillary Clinton’s memorable slander of Trump voters — was to keep in mind that it’s only the “top of the first inning” for their movement. “You’ve got to stay engaged,” he advised, pleased to see high levels of engagement in “traffic at all the different sites, and the activity you see, the comments sections at the various sites you see, and how great the radio show is doing. ” “The Trump administration, I think it’s three weeks from the day exactly is when President Trump will take the oath of office. So let’s hold people accountable and stay engaged. There will be a lot of exciting activity over the next couple of years,” he promised. “Stay engaged. Stay on top of stuff. I think ’17 will be actually more exciting than ’16 was. ” “So continue to go to various sites that are out there, where you get your news and information, and then obviously continue to listen to the various shows on the Patriot Channel. You’ve got so many great shows — you know, David Webb, Wilkow, Sean Hannity. You’ve got really a whole raft of great guys, Mark Levin, and of course the Breitbart News Daily and Breitbart Weekend shows,” he recommended. Bannon anticipates that 2017 will be as much of an “exciting time” as 2016 was. “We don’t like to try to guess what’s going to happen in the future, but I’ve got to tell you, I think people were very engaged in this election, and I think will be very engaged as time goes forward. The key is to hold people accountable. The hobbits, or the deplorables, had a great run in ’16. Everybody mocked them and ridiculed them, and now they’ve spoken. I think ’17 is going to be a very exciting year,” he predicted. “I noticed on Breitbart over the last month or two, as either certain appointments were made or certain things were done that didn’t comport with behavior that the deplorables or the hobbits thought were correct, it was interesting to see some of the articles written on the site, and the intensity in the comments,” said Bannon. “I think that’s great,” he said. “People are engaged. They feel like they have a voice. Just continue on. I know that on the show, you guys have been doing a great job every day with the production team and the great folks at SiriusXM. So it’s just going to be a great year. Let’s just stay engaged. ” He concluded by applauding Boyle for doing a great job and said to the Breitbart News audience and callers, “I really miss you guys. Have a great New Year, and look forward to talking with you guys early in 2017. ” Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 1 |
Welcome to Our Picks, a guide to the best stuff to read, watch and listen to from around the internet. Check this space for the article, the next great podcast for your commute, the tweetstorm. And yes, we’re also tooting our own horn here. We’ll share can’ Times articles from the week and reveal some gems you might have overlooked. We want to hear from you! Send us feedback about our selections to ourpicks@nytimes. com. • There’s a town that has so many bald eagles, the locals call them pigeons. What the residents of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, now know all too well is that when you live among hundreds of bald eagles, the U. S. national bird becomes less majestic and more, well, annoying. [California Sunday Magazine] • If you’re planning on a hospital stay soon (and even if you aren’t) you should read and know these five ways to reduce costs. The most important? Don’t be afraid to ask questions. [Medium] • The people who created the . .. controversial Comic Sans font tell the story of how it came to be. [The Guardian] • Photographs of these Japanese commuters will make you glad that it’s the weekend. [Huck Magazine] • If you’re having trouble finding love on dating apps, perhaps you’re just not doing it right. Now, you can pay someone to ghostwrite your flirtatious Tinder messages. [New York magazine] • Winning isn’t everything. Read about why it’s important to focus on failure. [Ozy] • How does a product earn a “Made in the USA” label? It’s more complicated than you think. [How Stuff Works] • Good news out of Detroit. The “Motor City” has just surpassed Silicon Valley as a hub for car research. [ReadWrite] • Four basketball players from across the world were recruited by a powerhouse New Jersey high school with promises of college scholarships, new homes and a better life. What they found instead was that promises are easily broken. [NJ Advance Media] • Why don’t men live as long as women? Blame it on the testosterone. The hormone does a lot of good things — it increases your metabolism and boosts your mood and libido — but for men it carries a price. [Nautilus] • Nan Talese is the editor for novelists such as Margaret Atwood and Ian McEwan. She broke through gender barriers in the literary world, “becoming one of the first female editors of literary fiction. ” She’s also married to famed writer (and former Times reporter) Gay Talese. Here, in a Vanity Fair profile that Ms. Talese initially resisted, the story of a complicated marriage between two brilliant literary minds and the professional rise of a woman unaccustomed to the spotlight. [Vanity Fair] • Music isn’t just about the lyrics. That’s why a growing number of sign language interpreters are infusing emotions and other visual cues into their interpretations of songs at live concerts. In this video, Amber Galloway Gallego shows us how it’s done. [Vox on YouTube] • One very thoughtful stepmother reckons with the evil archetype she stepped into with this Times Magazine essay. • So you’ve adapted to your home the “ magic” of tidying up, and now you have a lot of clutter to sell. Here are eight apps and websites that can help. • In the early 1900s, Wrigley pitched its gum as being good for children’s teeth. Did you grow up with wisdom that is now considered outdated? Tell us about it in the form at this link. • Nicholas Piazza keeps 600 pounds of hair in his Staten Island garage (“Russian hair cut right off people’s heads,” he said of two braids). He’s one of the last Old World wigmakers in the city. These are not your bobs. • A scientist studying “nutritional human cannibalism” during the Paleolithic era has been wondering for a decade, How nutritious are humans actually? Now we know. • We’ll let you in on a little secret. For the past year, a group of New York Times employees has been meeting to discuss one episode of one podcast a week. It’s like a book club, but for audio. Here’s a list of nine episodes we’ve discussed this year. Now, we’d like you to join The New York Times Podcast Club. We’ve started a Facebook group where you can join and chime in with your thoughts. Each Monday, we’ll post a new episode up for discussion. This week, we’re discussing all seven episodes of “ . ” Join the Facebook group ≫ Listen to “ ”: iTunes | Stitcher | RadioPublic | 1 |
vladimir putin , Valdai , sochi , RBTH Daily Russian President Vladimir Putin. Source: Kremlin.ru
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the use of what he described as a "mythical" Russian military threat is "a profitable business."
The Russian leader made this statement on Oct. 27 at a session of the Valdai international discussion club in Sochi.
"Fabricated, mythical threats like the so-called Russian military threat are constantly repeated. This is, indeed, a profitable business to seek new budgets in countries and press allies to fit the interests of one superpower, expand NATO and bring the alliance’s infrastructure, combat units and military hardware to our borders," said Putin.
"The truth is, however, that Russia is not going to attack anyone, that’s ridiculous," he continued. | 0 |
Rosanne Bloom and her family had just settled into their seats on a flight from Philadelphia to Turks and Caicos Islands on Christmas morning when two airline employees ordered Dr. Bloom, her husband and two boys off the plane. Their luggage had already been removed. The problem? Dr. Bloom had informed the crew that her teenage sons had severe nut allergies. “I said, ‘We have our medicine. We brought our own food, and we’re comfortable staying on the plane.’ I offered to sign a waiver,” said Dr. Bloom, an orthodontist in Clarksville, Md. “We were off the plane in two minutes. ” Matt Miller, a spokesman for American Airlines, said such decisions are left to the pilot. “The pilot determined it would be best for the family not to travel based on the severity of the allergy and the need to divert the airline if anyone were eating nuts,” he said. Airline carriers have a long tradition of serving peanuts on flights, and often serve little else. But the practice also presents a challenge to travelers with severe nut allergies, who can suffer a reaction simply by touching a surface that has been exposed to nuts. But tensions between passengers with food allergies and airline staff members have risen in recent years, as airlines have begun to enforce stricter rules related to preboarding passengers. In the past, parents of young children could board the plane early, giving them a chance to wipe down seats, trays and armrests to reduce exposure to allergens. But today many airlines have stopped letting families with children board before other passengers. When families request permission to preboard — or pose another request, such as asking whether nuts will be served — they risk being taken off the flight or threatened with removal, said Mary Vargas, a lawyer whose family was almost kept off a plane from London back to the United States in December because of a nut allergy. Now families with nut allergies are waging a legal challenge against such policies. Two formal complaints filed with the Department of Transportation in the last month accuse American Airlines of discrimination against passengers with allergies. The complaints cite the airline’s preboarding policy, which prohibits preboarding specifically for people with allergies, and not for others. “This is about being allowed to fly like everybody else in the United States,” said Ms. Vargas, the lawyer representing the families. Although nobody tracks medical emergencies on airplanes, studies show that medical emergencies are relatively uncommon and affect only a fraction of the estimated 3. 6 billion passengers who fly each year. Chest pain and cardiovascular events are the most common reason planes are diverted for a medical emergency. Allergic reactions make up fewer than 4 percent of all medical emergencies, according to a 2013 study published in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine. Notably, American Airlines, which operates one of the largest fleets of planes in the world, does not even serve peanuts. But it does have a peanut policy, in which it states: “Requests that we not serve any particular foods, including tree nuts, on our flights cannot be granted. We are not able to provide nut ‘buffer zones,’ nor are we able to allow passengers to to wipe down seats and tray tables. ” “Ultimately we cannot guarantee customers will not be exposed to peanuts or other nuts during the flight, and allowing people with nut allergies to preboard can create a false sense of security and does not eliminate risk,” Mr. Miller said. Individuals who suffer from severe, food allergies can experience swelling and difficulty breathing after even a mild exposure. They usually carry an which contains epinephrine, a medication that can reverse the symptoms. But in the case of a severe reaction, a person may still need urgent access to a medical facility. Research has shown that taking steps like creating buffer zones, in which nearby passengers are asked to refrain from eating nut products, and wiping down seats and trays may reduce the risk of an allergic reaction in flight. One of the complaints, filed on Dec. 28, is from Nicole Mackenzie, the mother of a with allergies to peanuts, tree nuts and seeds. She was not allowed to preboard to clean the seat before the family’s trip last fall from Portland, Ore. to Charlotte, N. C. The second complaint was filed on Jan. 10 on behalf of Food Allergy Research Education (FARE) an organization that represents individuals with all kinds of food allergies. “American Airlines’s action was clearly discriminatory,” said FARE’s chief executive officer and chief medical officer, Dr. James Baker Jr. “It has a defined policy that they put on their website, and the only people they single out from preboarding are people with food allergies. ” Lianne Mandelbaum, whose son has allergies, tracks the experiences of travelers with allergies on her website, the No Nut Traveler. She said that each airline makes its own rules but that the policies are inconsistently enforced, so travelers often don’t know what to expect when they make travel plans. “It’s like playing Russian roulette,” said Michael Silverman, a psychologist in New York City whose daughter, Sydney, has a severe allergy, but who is reluctant to raise the subject for fear of being kicked off a plane. The Department of Transportation is investigating the complaints, officials said, adding in an email that severe allergies are considered a disability under the Air Carrier Access Act, which regulates air travel, if they impact one’s ability to breathe “or substantially impact another major life activity. ” The nut industry has lobbied against restricting nut consumption on airplanes, and Congress has prohibited the Department of Transportation from imposing any restrictions. Some airlines are more accommodating to passengers with food allergies. Jet Blue will create a “buffer zone” around an allergic passenger. Southwest will avoid serving peanuts if flight attendants know an allergic passenger is on board. Delta’s policy is also to refrain from serving peanuts if an allergic passenger is onboard. But interviews with nearly a dozen families and young adults with severe allergies suggest that many people worry about being removed from a flight if they ask whether nuts will be served. Ana Govorko, a hospital administrator from Princeton, N. J. said that in July she and her teenage daughter and adult son were ordered off a Lufthansa jet bound from New York for Munich and Trieste, Italy. She had informed the gate attendant that her daughter has severe allergies and she was carrying medication. The family waited in the airport for seven hours, trying to find another flight, while airline employees, “were joking about her allergies,” Ms. Govorko said. “They were very rude. It was shocking. ” Ms. Govorko was able to get on another Lufthansa flight departing from Newark the next day. A Lufthansa spokeswoman, Christina Semmel, said that the Govorkos were allowed to fly after presenting a letter from her daughter’s physician, but Ms. Govorko says she had presented the letter when she tried to board the first flight. Laura Ilsley, a mother of two now living in Travis, Calif. had a similar experience last April, when she and her husband, who is in the military, were flying from Incirlik, Turkey, along with their son and daughter, who is severely allergic to peanuts. When Ms. Ilsley informed Air France of her daughter’s allergies, the airline’s agents said the crew planned to serve peanuts and would not alter their plans, and said the family was “not welcome on board,” Ms. Ilsley said. Eventually, an Air France manager was able to get the family on a Delta flight, where the crew made an announcement that a child with a severe allergy to peanuts was on board and that pretzels and cookies would be offered instead. “The staff was very kind and it went off without a hitch,” Ms. Ilsley said. In a statement, Air France said the flight crew had “determined it was not in the best interest of the passenger to board the flight on such short notice,” and that “the case was handled with concern for passenger safety as the top priority. ” Dr. Silverman’s daughter, Sydney, said she actually had a very good experience when she flew on Delta from Palm Beach, Fla. back to New York City over the Martin Luther King weekend. A flight attendant noticed she was wiping down her seat and asked if she was allergic to peanuts. Sydney said that she was, but that it was O. K. to serve nuts. Nevertheless, the attendant “turned to the people in the row in front of me and in back of me and asked, ‘Is it O. K. if I don’t serve you peanuts on the flight?’ And they all said yes,” Sydney said. “And then she went on the intercom and said they weren’t going to serve peanuts because someone on the flight has an allergy, and if people brought peanuts to please not eat them. “And it made me feel thankful,” she said. “No one’s ever done anything like that before. ” | 1 |
Migrant Crisis Disclaimer
We here at the Daily Stormer are opposed to violence. We seek revolution through the education of the masses. When the information is available to the people, systemic change will be inevitable and unavoidable.
Anyone suggesting or promoting violence in the comments section will be immediately banned, permanently. Daily Stormer Presents: Dr. David Duke Š Copyright Daily Stormer 2016, All Rights Reserved | 0 |
Following is the prepared text of remarks by Director James B. Comey on the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s personal email system, as released by the F. B. I. Good morning. I’m here to give you an update on the F. B. I. ’s investigation of Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email system during her time as secretary of state. After a tremendous amount of work over the last year, the F. B. I. is completing its investigation and referring the case to the Department of Justice for a prosecutive decision. What I would like to do today is tell you three things: what we did what we found and what we are recommending to the Department of Justice. This will be an unusual statement in at least a couple ways. First, I am going to include more detail about our process than I ordinarily would, because I think the American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest. Second, I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say. I want to start by thanking the F. B. I. employees who did remarkable work in this case. Once you have a better sense of how much we have done, you will understand why I am so grateful and proud of their efforts. So, first, what we have done: The investigation began as a referral from the Intelligence Community Inspector General in connection with Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email server during her time as secretary of state. The referral focused on whether classified information was transmitted on that personal system. Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified information either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way, or a second statute making it a misdemeanor to knowingly remove classified information from appropriate systems or storage facilities. Consistent with our counterintelligence responsibilities, we have also investigated to determine whether there is evidence of computer intrusion in connection with the personal email server by any foreign power, or other hostile actors. I have so far used the singular term, “email server,” in describing the referral that began our investigation. It turns out to have been more complicated than that. Secretary Clinton used several different servers and administrators of those servers during her four years at the State Department, and used numerous mobile devices to view and send email on that personal domain. As new servers and equipment were employed, older servers were taken out of service, stored, and decommissioned in various ways. Piecing all of that back together — to gain as full an understanding as possible of the ways in which personal email was used for government work — has been a painstaking undertaking, requiring thousands of hours of effort. For example, when one of Secretary Clinton’s original personal servers was decommissioned in 2013, the email software was removed. Doing that didn’t remove the email content, but it was like removing the frame from a huge finished jigsaw puzzle and dumping the pieces on the floor. The effect was that millions of email fragments end up unsorted in the server’s unused — or “slack” — space. We searched through all of it to see what was there, and what parts of the puzzle could be put back together. F. B. I. investigators have also read all of the approximately 30, 000 emails provided by Secretary Clinton to the State Department in December 2014. Where an email was assessed as possibly containing classified information, the F. B. I. referred the email to any U. S. government agency that was a likely “owner” of information in the email, so that agency could make a determination as to whether the email contained classified information at the time it was sent or received, or whether there was reason to classify the email now, even if its content was not classified at the time it was sent (that is the process sometimes referred to as “ ”). From the group of 30, 000 emails returned to the State Department, 110 emails in 52 email chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent 36 chains contained Secret information at the time and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2, 000 additional emails were “ ” to make them Confidential the information in those had not been classified at the time the emails were sent. The F. B. I. also discovered several thousand emails that were not in the group of 30, 000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014. We found those additional emails in a variety of ways. Some had been deleted over the years and we found traces of them on devices that supported or were connected to the private email domain. Others we found by reviewing the archived government email accounts of people who had been government employees at the same time as Secretary Clinton, including officials at other agencies, people with whom a secretary of state might naturally correspond. This helped us recover emails that were not among the 30, 000 produced to State. Still others we recovered from the laborious review of the millions of email fragments dumped into the slack space of the server decommissioned in 2013. With respect to the thousands of emails we found that were not among those produced to State, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received, one at the Secret level and two at the Confidential level. There were no additional Top Secret emails found. Finally, none of those we found have since been “ . ” I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional emails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them. Our assessment is that, like many email users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted emails or emails were purged from the system when devices were changed. Because she was not using a government account — or even a commercial account like Gmail — there was no archiving at all of her emails, so it is not surprising that we discovered emails that were not on Secretary Clinton’s system in 2014, when she produced the 30, 000 emails to the State Department. It could also be that some of the additional emails we recovered were among those deleted as “personal” by Secretary Clinton’s lawyers when they reviewed and sorted her emails for production in 2014. The lawyers doing the sorting for Secretary Clinton in 2014 did not individually read the content of all of her emails, as we did for those available to us instead, they relied on header information and used search terms to try to find all emails among the reportedly more than 60, 000 total emails remaining on Secretary Clinton’s personal system in 2014. It is highly likely their search terms missed some emails, and that we later found them, for example, in the mailboxes of other officials or in the slack space of a server. It is also likely that there are other emails that they did not produce to State and that we did not find elsewhere, and that are now gone because they deleted all emails they did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery. We have conducted interviews and done technical examination to attempt to understand how that sorting was done by her attorneys. Although we do not have complete visibility because we are not able to fully reconstruct the electronic record of that sorting, we believe our investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort. And, of course, in addition to our technical work, we interviewed many people, from those involved in setting up and maintaining the various iterations of Secretary Clinton’s personal server, to staff members with whom she corresponded on email, to those involved in the email production to State, and finally, Secretary Clinton herself. Last, we have done extensive work to understand what indications there might be of compromise by hostile actors in connection with the personal email operation. That’s what we have done. Now let me tell you what we found: Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. For example, seven email chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending emails about those matters and receiving emails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U. S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on email (that is, excluding the later “ ” emails). None of these emails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these emails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U. S. Government — or even with a commercial service like Gmail. Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a very small number of the emails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked “classified” in an email, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it. While not the focus of our investigation, we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified email systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government. With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal email domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked. But, given the nature of the system and of the actors potentially involved, we assess that we would be unlikely to see such direct evidence. We do assess that hostile actors gained access to the private commercial email accounts of people with whom Secretary Clinton was in regular contact from her personal account. We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving emails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account. So that’s what we found. Finally, with respect to our recommendation to the Department of Justice: In our system, the prosecutors make the decisions about whether charges are appropriate based on evidence the F. B. I. has helped collect. Although we don’t normally make public our recommendations to the prosecutors, we frequently make recommendations and engage in productive conversations with prosecutors about what resolution may be appropriate, given the evidence. In this case, given the importance of the matter, I think unusual transparency is in order. Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of a person’s actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past. In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct or indications of disloyalty to the United States or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here. To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now. As a result, although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case. I know there will be intense public debate in the wake of this recommendation, as there was throughout this investigation. What I can assure the American people is that this investigation was done competently, honestly, and independently. No outside influence of any kind was brought to bear. I know there were many opinions expressed by people who were not part of the investigation — including people in government — but none of that mattered to us. Opinions are irrelevant, and they were all uninformed by insight into our investigation, because we did the investigation the right way. Only facts matter, and the F. B. I. found them here in an entirely apolitical and professional way. I couldn’t be prouder to be part of this organization. | 1 |
Chris Hedges and Tavis Smiley Discuss Popular Resistance and the Failure of Mainstream Media Posted on Nov 1, 2016 Chris Hedges speaking to Tavis Smiley via video. (Screen shot via PBS )
Last Wednesday, author and Truthdig contributor Chris Hedges joined Tavis Smiley on Smiley’s PBS talk show for a conversation about the current election, the impending threat of neoliberalism and the need for popular progressive movements.
First, Hedges discussed the two main-party candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Hedges said that Trump is “a man with very little self-control, not much intellectual depth, no real policy experience,” and noted that Clinton is “a creature of the establishment.”
He continued:
She’s emblematic of what, again, across the political spectrum, people have risen up against.
And, therefore, she’s a very weak and a very dangerous political figure because as this assault continues on the poor, on working men and women, the shrinking middle class, she will become a lightning rod for this discontent..
Smiley asked Hedges, “So your neoliberal criticism notwithstanding, if she wins with what she interprets as a mandate and you don’t think she’s qualified to deal with these issues, what say you about how we at least go about holding her accountable?”
“We have to build popular movements to push back,” Hedges declared, “because the system itself is not going to respond.”
The conversation then turned to political representations of popular resistance. Smiley brought up the massive wave of support behind Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, and asked, “What happens to those Bernie supporters who can’t make the turn on November 8?”
“I am supporting the Green Party,” Hedges replied, “not because I think they can win, but because I look at Syriza, which is now the ruling party of Greece. Ten years ago, they were polling at four percent. I look at groups like Podemos in Spain. I think we have to build not only alternative movements, but alternative forms of political power to represent our interest.”
Smiley and Hedges began to wrap up by discussing WikiLeaks and mainstream-media accountability. “What I have not seen as yet is a robust conversation about how we process what we read from WikiLeaks,” Smiley said. “Is Secretary Clinton right essentially that we ought to dismiss this and focus on the issue of who is hacking our emails and what it means if a foreign government is doing that?”
Hedges responded:
Well, I worked for many decades as a newspaper reporter, including 15 for The New York Times, and I was leaked all sorts of material by the U.S. government, by the French Intelligence Agency, even by the Israeli Mossad. And my job as a reporter was to determine whether the information that I had been leaked was true or untrue and then run it [or not].
Now people who leaked me this stuff were not leaking it because they love democracy or an open society. They were leaking it because it was in their interest to leak it. And whoever leaked this to WikiLeaks or wherever they got it, I don’t know, but that’s not the question.
The question is, is this true? And it is a look at the inner workings of power, but I think you’re right. I think that much of the media has diverted attention from the content of the emails to speculate—and it does appear to be speculation—that this is an attempt by Russia to interfere in our elections.
Finally, Smiley asked Hedges about the role of the media in the current election. Hedges argued that it was “deeply irresponsible” for mainstream media to rely on Trump’s personality to bring in viewers and higher ratings.
“Actual discussion of content, of issues that matter to Americans, is very, very rarely heard in the press….The press has failed us on many levels,” Hedges said.
You can watch the entire interview here . | 0 |
Breitbart News Senior Editor MILO claimed that “the difference between conservatives and the new breed of Democrats is that we don’t think the working class is evil,” during his talk at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs tonight.[ “Working class Americans are fundamentally decent people,” declared MILO. “They are work hard, play hard people. They are very different than me, and frankly very different from most of you. No matter what background you come from, you shouldn’t look down on the working class, because they are what America is really about. ” “The difference between conservatives and the new breed of Democrats is that we don’t think the working class is evil, or that they need to be controlled and taught how to think,” he continued. “They care about the same things as we do. A strong America, a great economy, jobs for them AND you all when you graduate, and a safe place to live. ” “The American dream is what fuels the working class. The dream to improve economically and give their children a better life than they had,” MILO concluded. “At some point in the recent past, liberals decided that dreamers are illegal immigrants who should get cheap college tuition instead of hard working Americans who deserve more than shuttered factories. To those Americans, I say welcome to the party of Trump, it’s going to be a wild ride. ” Written from prepared remarks. MILO wears glasses by Givenchy, $350. Distressed blue jeans by True Religion, $329. Brown leather belt with gold buckle by Louis Vuitton, $450. Light pink dress shirt by Brooks Brothers, $92. Sparkly purple suit jacket by Angelino, $225. Burgundy crushed velvet slippers by Crockett Jones, $370. Socks by Ralph Lauren, 3 pairs for $21. 98. Jewellery and pearls, too much money to count. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
JERUSALEM — Israeli prosecutors on Tuesday charged a Palestinian employee of the United Nations in the Gaza Strip with providing material assistance to Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the territory, including helping to build a jetty for its military wing. The accusations against the employee, Waheed Al Bursh, came after Israel leveled charges Thursday against a Palestinian employee of World Vision in Gaza, saying he had funneled millions of dollars to Hamas. Mr. Bursh, an engineer with the United Nations Development Program since 2003, was detained on July 3 by Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet. Israeli news organizations reported that he had confessed to being instructed by Hamas officials to use his position to benefit the group. But Mr. Bursh’s relatives in Gaza insisted he was not involved with Hamas. The United Nations agency, which is helping rebuild thousands of homes and other buildings destroyed by airstrikes in Israel’s 2014 conflict with Gaza’s militant groups, said in a statement that it was “greatly concerned” about the allegations, had “zero tolerance for wrongdoing” and would cooperate fully with the Israeli authorities. The statement said the agency was reviewing “the processes and circumstances surrounding the allegations,” and noted that they appeared to involve only “seven truckloads out of a total of nearly 26, 000” bringing building materials into Gaza. But the indictment against Mr. Bursh — on the heels of the World Vision case and the revelation on Monday that the aid group Save the Children was investigating whether one of its Palestinian workers had been recruited by Hamas — raised broad questions about the vast network of humanitarian groups operating in Gaza. Emmanuel Nahshon, a spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the government was “asking for more vigilance” from groups working in Gaza, where most of the population of 1. 8 million Palestinians relies on international organizations for food and other assistance. Already, World Vision has frozen its Gaza operations while investigations continue, and Germany and Australia have suspended their donations to the World Vision projects in the Palestinian territories. “Working in the Palestinian territories was hard before, and I can’t imagine what it is going to be like now,” said Ashley Jackson, a research associate with the Overseas Development Institute in London. Robert Piper, the United Nations’ coordinator for humanitarian and development activities, issued a statement on Monday — before the allegations against the agency engineer were made public — calling any misuse of aid “a profound betrayal. ” “Everyone would pay a high price for such acts,” Mr. Piper said. “If proven by a due legal process, these actions deserve unreserved condemnation Gaza’s demoralized and vulnerable citizens deserve so much better. ” The indictment contends that Mr. Bursh transferred 300 tons of construction rubble to a port that he knew would be used at some point by the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing. It says that he was contacted in April or May 2015 by Hosni Suleiman, an activist in the Qassam Brigades who was acting on behalf of a Qassam member, Abu Anas . It also accuses him of being in contact with two men referred to only by their last names, Rantissi and Radwan, two prominent families in Gaza. The Shin Bet said in a statement that Mr. Bursh had also persuaded his managers to prioritize the rebuilding of homes in an area “populated by Hamas members,” and had notified Hamas activists when United Nations workers removing rubble uncovered openings of attack tunnels or entrances to rooms so they could take control of the sites. An uncle of Mr. Bursh’s denied the charges. He said the engineer, who is from Jabaliya, a crowded neighborhood north of Gaza City, was a quiet family man whose wife had given birth to their seventh child while he was in detention. “If Waheed came to me and said, ‘I belong to a militant group,’ I would respond to him and say, ‘You are liar,’ ” said the uncle, who would give only his nickname, Abu Abed. Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader in Gaza, said the group did “not rely on employees of international aid organizations for any needs of the resistance. ” He added that if the allegations are true, “then it is an individual act — we are not responsible. ” But Naji Sharrab, a political science professor at Al Azhar University in Gaza, said the idea of Hamas’s pressuring aid workers was not surprising because of its on power in the territory. Hamas security forces can search or shut down offices, he noted, and can prevent people from entering or leaving Gaza. “Hamas has complete authority to interfere and control all the organizations working in Gaza,” he said. | 1 |
Blizzard will be pushing out a “20th Anniversary” patch to Diablo III this week that will add the original Diablo campaign to the game, and it’s already getting a lot of attention.[ With patch 2. 4. 3, the Diablo III team will open a portal through the town of Tristram to where the franchise began. For a limited time, players will be able to travel to a recreation of the first Diablo game. The nostalgic journey comes complete with a pixelated visual filter, camera restrictions, and forced walking, all in an attempt to recall the look and feel of the original. Even the sound effects have been pared down, made purposely tinny and repetitive in the spirit of 90s gaming. The patch brings other changes and additions, as hotly contested as anything changed in an online game. Between the official announcement, YouTube, and Reddit, you’ll find opinions as varied as “the thing happening with wizard for such a long time is a heresy. They should all be fired. Change this dev team,” to “i thought this was already out. ” Character changes are overpowered or underpowered, practically cheating or absolutely worthless, depending on who you ask. Many players are disappointed that the event won’t be around for more than a month, and others are looking for new free content that is more meaningful to the endgame. There are lingering concerns about the Necromancer class being released later this year, mostly because it won’t be free. If you were a fan of Blizzard’s original action RPG — or if you never had the chance to play it — this could be a great time to jump in on the latest game in the franchise. If you’re a devoted player looking for meaningful new content or dramatic balance adjustments, you may be a little less impressed. Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both. | 1 |
Until the last mouse click of “To Build a Better Beta,” Pied Piper has existed only in the abstract, with endless promise and limitless value. Richard’s compression platform could be worth billions. It could be the next Facebook. It could change the world. Alternately, it could be utterly worthless, one of the countless failed that pile up in Silicon Valley like E. T. cartridges in a New Mexico landfill. As Erlich Bachman, the father of such stillborn incubees as Aviato and Nip Alert, says, “Shuttering a company in the Valley like a rite of passage, like herpes simplex one. ” The metaphor gets more disgusting from there. Sunday night’s episode opens with Richard feeling exposed. He has fought hard to get his idea off the ground, but there was a certain amount of comfort in not getting what he wanted. Action Jack’s push for a clunky data storage appliance may have insulted his vision of an elegant compression engine with mass utility, but he could still hide behind the box. If Jack had prevailed, Richard could grouse forever about how his brilliant algorithm was squandered by a businessman and no one could question it. Bringing the pure, uncompromised Pied Piper into the world is a dream that nonetheless puts Richard on the precipice of a true, lasting, fatal disaster. “To Build a Better Beta” is about the release of the beta version of Pied Piper, which is an important period for any tech company to work out the kinks before an official launch. It’s not one of the funnier episodes this season, because there’s so much heavy lifting required from a plotting standpoint, but it touches smartly on themes of trust, friendship and the lies we tell our friends and ourselves. That’s the benefit of “Silicon Valley” constantly bogging down its characters with setbacks and conflict: Their response clarifies who they are and brings their relationships into sharper focus. The good news for Richard is that almost everybody loves the platform, including one notoriously critical user who calls it the best beta he’s seen in 15 years in the Valley. A beaming Jared enthuses, “I don’t want to count our chickens before they’re hatched — I mean, 3 percent of hatchlings are born mutated or dead — but we may have a healthy brood on our hands. ” The bad news is that Monica, whose opinion he values the most, so dislikes it that she initially lies to him about ever trying it at all. Her reassurances are comforting: She passed on a 20 percent stake in Slack, which she still doesn’t get (“Is it email? Is it a chat room? ”) and besides, in this business, investing in people is wiser than investing in products. And yet her general complaint about Pied Piper feeling too “engineered” seems on point, given the distance between the coding nerds on Richard’s team and the ordinary flesh sacks who would actually be using the platform. “To Build a Better Beta” makes a joke out of Dinesh and Gilfoyle’s failure to fill out a invite list. It stands to reason that users would find their software too. The guys at Pied Piper know code, but they don’t know people (or business or fashion or social cues or other matters) which is in large part of what makes “Silicon Valley” so funny. Gilfoyle and Dinesh each have a cover for their personal dysfunction. Gilfoyle writes off the whole of humankind as inherently venal and untrustworthy: “It’s a war of all against all. The history of humanity is a book written in blood. We’re all just animals in a pit. ” (Jared’s deadpan response, “I feel very sad now,” may be the funniest moment of the episode.) Dinesh merely makes up friends in the dim hope that no one will try to verify them. These cool dudes are too busy “snowboarding in Tahoe” to answer questions about the beta. (As ever, Jared is sympathetic, recalling all the escape plans he hatched with his imaginary friend, Harriet Tubman.) So underneath all the lies told in “To Build a Better Beta,” there’s a pitiful, childlike vulnerability. Monica doesn’t want to hurt Richard’s feelings when his confidence is at its most fragile. Gilfoyle and Dinesh don’t want to admit that they’re the only true friends each has. Only Jared seems comfortable in his own skin, which he’s described as his “home” when he has no place to sleep. Now that they’re finally releasing Pied Piper to an internet of faceless, unsympathetic, often hostile users, they’ll be totally defenseless. The creators of “Silicon Valley” surely know the feeling. Bytes • The unraveling of Bachmanity continues apace, with Erlich and Big Head scrambling to recover $6 million in funds their devious money manager has tucked away for tax purposes. The succession of disastrous meetings gives T. J. Miller an opportunity to hold court, which is always comedy gold. I particularly liked Erlich’s upset mood over the poor recovery efforts on his missing tiki head. • The episode makes a subtle point about the total disregard Silicon Valley has for matters of privacy. Hooli finds out about the Pied Piper beta by spying on company email. Gilfoyle finds out about Hooli scamming an invite code through the “God view” he installed in the platform. The show doesn’t make them equivalent violations — Hooli’s is more nefarious, Pied Piper’s more useful — but it’s taken as a matter of course that privacy concerns are a joke in the tech world. • Big Head has lost his entire $20 million settlement, but he gets to keep both of the cannonballs he rented. He’s going to be O. K. • isn’t my favorite character, but his presence as a Erlich’s unwelcome tenant and tormentor this season has been good for a few stray laughs, none heartier than his prank phone call in the seconds before launch. “Erlich Bachman, this is your mom. You are not my baby. ” | 1 |
SEATTLE — There is almost no aspect of retail that Amazon has not upended with online shopping. Now, the company is trying to computerize the experience of buying sandwiches and soda from the corner convenience store. In the latest in its expanding set of experiments involving retail stores, Amazon has created a small grocery store in Seattle that will allow customers to pluck drinks, prepared meals and other items off shelves and walk out without having to wait in a checkout line, the company said. Amazon said on its website that a smartphone app and various other types of technology in the store had eliminated the usual bottleneck of cashiers and registers that typically stand between shoppers and the store exit. For now, only Amazon employees can shop in the store, which is on the ground floor of one of the company’s new office towers in downtown Seattle. The company said that it planned to open the store to the public early next year and that it would offer meal kits with ingredients for quickly preparing dinners at home. “Four years ago, we started to wonder: What would shopping look like if you could walk into a store, grab what you want and just go?” a narrator says in a video about the store concept, called Amazon Go, which the company posted online on Monday. Amazon did not say what its expansion plans were for Amazon Go. If they are anything like what the company has done with its other stores, new locations will open elsewhere slowly over time as Amazon learns how customers use the first one. Amazon opened its first physical bookstore just over a year ago in a Seattle shopping mall. It has added others in the San Diego and Portland, Ore. areas and has said it will open new bookstores in Chicago and Boston. It is also working on another grocery store concept that would allow customers to order food items online and then pick them up quickly by pulling into parking stalls. Two such stores are under construction in Seattle, according to documents filed with the city’s planning department and people with knowledge of the effort who asked for anonymity because the plans were confidential. Pia Arthur, an Amazon spokeswoman, declined to comment on the grocery pickup locations. In the grand scheme of Amazon’s business, analysts consider the retail stores to be an infinitesimal portion of the more than $135 billion in sales expected from the company this year. But the plans reflect a growing recognition by the company that certain categories of shopping are unlikely to move completely online. In some cases, it is simply more convenient to buy items in a store or more attractive to browse for them on physical shelves. “The way we think about it is the size of online retail is going to continue to grow dramatically but there will always be an offline option,” said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray. “They’re trying to streamline and capture a portion of that offline experience. ” Amazon still views technology as being useful in overhauling shopping in traditional retail shops. While the company has not said exactly how the Amazon Go stores will work, visitors will gain entry to them through a smartphone app. The company said the stores relied on a variety of technologies similar to those in cars, including those defined by buzzwords such as “computer vision, sensor fusion and deep learning. ” Unanswered for now are questions about how the stores would handle shoplifting and whether there would be employees on hand to check identification cards for alcohol purchases. | 1 |
Bernays affiliation with his kin, Freud, helped him establish his credentials as a manipulator. T he American journalist, Edward Bernays, is often described as the man who invented modern propaganda. The nephew of Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psycho-analysis, it was Bernays who coined the term “public relations” as a euphemism for spin and its deceptions. In 1929, he persuaded feminists to promote cigarettes for women by smoking in the New York Easter Parade – behaviour then considered outlandish. One feminist, Ruth Booth, declared, “Women! Light another torch of freedom! Fight another sex taboo!” Bernays’ influence extended far beyond advertising. His greatest success was his role in convincing the American public to join the slaughter of the First World War. The secret, he said, was “engineering the consent” of people in order to “control and regiment [them] according to our will without their knowing about it”. He described this as “the true ruling power in our society” and called it an “invisible government”. Today, the invisible government has never been more powerful and less understood. In my career as a journalist and film-maker, I have never known propaganda to insinuate our lives and as it does now and to go unchallenged. Imagine two cities. Both are under siege by the forces of the government of that country. Both cities are occupied by fanatics, who commit terrible atrocities, such as beheading people. But there is a vital difference. In one siege, the government soldiers are described as liberators by Western reporters embedded with them, who enthusiastically report their battles and air strikes. There are front page pictures of these heroic soldiers giving a V-sign for victory. There is scant mention of civilian casualties. In the second city – in another country nearby – almost exactly the same is happening. Government forces are laying siege to a city controlled by the same breed of fanatics. The difference is that these fanatics are supported, supplied and armed by “us” – by the United States and Britain. They even have a media centre that is funded by Britain and America. Another difference is that the government soldiers laying siege to this city are the bad guys, condemned for assaulting and bombing the city – which is exactly what the good soldiers do in the first city. Confusing? Not really. Such is the basic double standard that is the essence of propaganda. I am referring, of course, to the current siege of the city of Mosul by the government forces of Iraq, who are backed by the United States and Britain and to the siege of Aleppo by the government forces of Syria, backed by Russia. One is good; the other is bad. W hat is seldom reported is that both cities would not be occupied by fanatics and ravaged by war if Britain and the United States had not invaded Iraq in 2003. That criminal enterprise was launched on lies strikingly similar to the propaganda that now distorts our understanding of the civil war in Syria. Without this drumbeat of propaganda dressed up as news, the monstrous ISIS and Al-Qaida and al-Nusra and the rest of the jihadist gang might not exist, and the people of Syria might not be fighting for their lives today. Some may remember in 2003 a succession of BBC reporters turning to the camera and telling us that Blair was “vindicated” for what turned out to be the crime of the century. The US television networks produced the same validation for George W. Bush. Fox News brought on Henry Kissinger to effuse over Colin Powell’s fabrications. The same year, soon after the invasion, I filmed an interview in Washington with Charles Lewis, the renowned American investigative journalist. I asked him, “What would have happened if the freest media in the world had seriously challenged what turned out to be crude propaganda?” He replied that if journalists had done their job, “there is a very, very good chance we would not have gone to war in Iraq”. It was a shocking statement, and one supported by other famous journalists to whom I put the same question — Dan Rather of CBS, David Rose of the Observer and journalists and producers in the BBC, who wished to remain anonymous. In other words, had journalists done their job, had they challenged and investigated the propaganda instead of amplifying it, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children would be alive today, and there would be no ISIS and no siege of Aleppo or Mosul. There would have been no atrocity on the London Underground on 7 th July 2005. There would have been no flight of millions of refugees; there would be no miserable camps. When the terrorist atrocity happened in Paris last November, President Francois Hollande immediately sent planes to bomb Syria – and more terrorism followed, predictably, the product of Hollande’s bombast about France being “at war” and “showing no mercy”. That state violence and jihadist violence feed off each other is the truth that no national leader has the courage to speak. “When the truth is replaced by silence,” said the Soviet dissident Yevtushenko, “the silence is a lie.” The attack on Iraq, the attack on Libya, the attack on Syria happened because the leader in each of these countries was not a puppet of the West. The human rights record of a Saddam or a Gaddafi was irrelevant. They did not obey orders and surrender control of their country. The same fate awaited Slobodan Milosevic once he had refused to sign an “agreement” that demanded the occupation of Serbia and its conversion to a market economy. His people were bombed, and he was prosecuted in The Hague. Independence of this kind is intolerable. As WikiLeaks has revealed, it was only when the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in 2009 rejected an oil pipeline, running through his country from Qatar to Europe, that he was attacked. From that moment, the CIA planned to destroy the government of Syria with jihadist fanatics – the same fanatics currently holding the people of Mosul and eastern Aleppo hostage. Why is this not news? The former British Foreign Office official Carne Ross, who was responsible for operating sanctions against Iraq, told me: “We would feed journalists factoids of sanitised intelligence, or we would freeze them out. That is how it worked.” The West’s medieval client, Saudi Arabia – to which the US and Britain sell billions of dollars’ worth of arms – is at present destroying Yemen, a country so poor that in the best of times, half the children are malnourished. Look on YouTube and you will see the kind of massive bombs – “our” bombs – that the Saudis use against dirt-poor villages, and against weddings, and funerals. The explosions look like small atomic bombs. The bomb aimers in Saudi Arabia work side-by-side with British officers. This fact is not on the evening news. Propaganda is most effective when our consent is engineered by those with a fine education – Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Columbia — and with careers on the BBC, the Guardia n, the New York Times , the Washington Post . These organisations are known as the liberal media. They present themselves as enlightened, progressive tribunes of the moral zeitgeist. They are anti-racist, pro-feminist and pro-LGBT. And they love war. While they speak up for feminism, they support rapacious wars that deny the rights of countless women, including the right to life. In 2011, Libya, then a modern state, was destroyed on the pretext that Muammar Gaddafi was about to commit genocide on his own people. That was the incessant news; and there was no evidence. It was a lie. In fact, Britain, Europe and the United States wanted what they like to call “regime change” in Libya, the biggest oil producer in Africa. Gaddafi’s influence in the continent and, above all, his independence were intolerable. So he was murdered with a knife in his rear by fanatics, backed by America, Britain and France. Hillary Clinton cheered his gruesome death for the camera, declaring, “We came, we saw, he died!” The destruction of Libya was a media triumph. As the war drums were beaten, Jonathan Freedland wrote in the Guardian : “Though the risks are very real, the case for intervention remains strong.” Intervention — what a polite, benign, Guardian word, whose real meaning, for Libya, was death and destruction. According to its own records, Nato launched 9,700 “strike sorties” against Libya, of which more than a third were aimed at civilian targets. They included missiles with uranium warheads. Look at the photographs of the rubble of Misurata and Sirte, and the mass graves identified by the Red Cross. The Unicef report on the children killed says, “most [of them] under the age of ten”. As a direct consequence, Sirte became the capital of ISIS. Ukraine is another media triumph. Respectable liberal newspapers such as the New York Times , the Washington Post and the Guardian , and mainstream broadcasters such as the BBC, NBC, CBS, CNN have played a critical role in conditioning their viewers to accept a new and dangerous cold war. All have misrepresented events in Ukraine as a malign act by Russia when, in fact, the coup in Ukraine in 2014 was the work of the United States, aided by Germany and Nato. This inversion of reality is so pervasive that Washington’s military intimidation of Russia is not news; it is suppressed behind a smear and scare campaign of the kind I grew up with during the first cold war. Once again, the Ruskies are coming to get us, led by another Stalin, whom The Economist depicts as the devil. The suppression of the truth about Ukraine is one of the most complete news blackouts I can remember. The fascists who engineered the coup in Kiev are the same breed that backed the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Of all the scares about the rise of fascist anti-Semitism in Europe, no leader ever mentions the fascists in Ukraine – except Vladimir Putin, but he does not count. Many in the Western media have worked hard to present the ethnic Russian-speaking population of Ukraine as outsiders in their own country, as agents of Moscow, almost never as Ukrainians seeking a federation within Ukraine and as Ukrainian citizens resisting a foreign-orchestrated coup against their elected government. There is almost the joie d’esprit of a class reunion of warmongers. The drum-beaters of the Washington Post inciting war with Russia are the very same editorial writers who published the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. To most of us, the American presidential campaign is a media freak show, in which Donald Trump is the arch villain. But Trump is loathed by those with power in the United States for reasons that have little to do with his obnoxious behaviour and opinions. To the invisible government in Washington, the unpredictable Trump is an obstacle to America’s design for the 21 st century. This is to maintain the dominance of the United States and to subjugate Russia, and, if possible, China. To the militarists in Washington, the real problem with Trump is that, in his lucid moments, he seems not to want a war with Russia; he wants to talk with the Russian president, not fight him; he says he wants to talk with the president of China. In the first debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump promised not to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into a conflict. He said, “I would certainly not do first strike. Once the nuclear alternative happens, it’s over.” That was not news. Did he really mean it? Who knows? He often contradicts himself. But what is clear is that Trump is considered a serious threat to the status quo maintained by the vast national security machine that runs the United States, regardless of who is in the White House. The CIA wants him beaten. The Pentagon wants him beaten. The media wants him beaten. Even his own party wants him beaten. He is a threat to the rulers of the world – unlike Clinton who has left no doubt she is prepared to go to war with nuclear-armed Russia and China. Clinton has the form, as she often boasts. Indeed, her record is proven. As a senator, she backed the bloodbath in Iraq. When she ran against Obama in 2008, she threatened to “totally obliterate” Iran. As Secretary of State, she colluded in the destruction of governments in Libya and Honduras and set in train the baiting of China. She has now pledged to support a No Fly Zone in Syria — a direct provocation for war with Russia. Clinton may well become the most dangerous president of the United States in my lifetime –a distinction for which the competition is fierce. Without a shred of evidence, she has accused Russia of supporting Trump and hacking her emails. Released by WikiLeaks, these emails tell us that what Clinton says in private, in speeches to the rich and powerful, is the opposite of what she says in public. That is why silencing and threatening Julian Assange is so important. As the editor of WikiLeaks, Assange knows the truth. And let me assure those who are concerned, he is well, and WikiLeaks is operating on all cylinders. Today, the greatest build-up of American-led forces since World War Two is under way – in the Caucasus and eastern Europe, on the border with Russia, and in Asia and the Pacific, where China is the target. Keep that in mind when the presidential election circus reaches its finale on November 8 th, If the winner is Clinton, a Greek chorus of witless commentators will celebrate her coronation as a great step forward for women. None will mention Clinton’s victims: the women of Syria, the women of Iraq, the women of Libya. None will mention the civil defence drills being conducted in Russia. None will recall Edward Bernays’ “torches of freedom”. George Bush’s press spokesman once called the media “complicit enablers”. Coming from a senior official in an administration whose lies, enabled by the media, caused such suffering, that description is a warning from history. In 1946, the Nuremberg Tribunal prosecutor said of the German media: “Before every major aggression, they initiated a press campaign calculated to weaken their victims and to prepare the German people psychologically for the attack. In the propaganda system, it was the daily press and the radio that were the most important weapons.” This is adapted from an address to the Sheffield Festival of Words, Sheffield, England. ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS, PULL QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS • PLEASE COMMENT AND DEBATE DIRECTLY ON OUR FACEBOOK GROUP. CLICK HERE TO VISIT. 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What will it take to bring America to live according to its own propaganda? REMEMBER: ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL-QUOTES BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS. Print this post if you want. Share This: | 0 |
JERUSALEM — In a pointed act of defiance against international pressure, Israel on Tuesday approved a huge new wave of settlement construction in the occupied West Bank. The announcement made clear that just a few days into the Trump presidency, the Israeli government feels emboldened to shake off the constraints imposed by the Obama administration and more willing to disregard international condemnation. Leaders from 70 countries met in Paris more than a week ago and issued a warning that the peace solution was imperiled by Israel’s expanding of settlements in territory in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as violence against Israelis. But even though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has endorsed the principle of states, in the past few days Israel’s campaign of settlement building has only accelerated. The first step came on Sunday, when the Jerusalem City Council approved 566 new housing units in East Jerusalem that had been delayed over President Barack Obama’s objections. Then on Tuesday, the Israeli government announced that 2, 500 new housing units would be built in the West Bank. Officials said most would be built in “settlement blocs,” referring to areas of the West Bank that Israel has long intended to keep under any future agreement with the Palestinians, possibly in return for land swaps along the boundary that separated Israel from the West Bank before the 1967 war. But in years of failed negotiations, the Israelis and Palestinians have never agreed on the size or location of such blocs. The Israeli Ministry of Defense said 900 of the newly announced homes were being planned for Ariel, an urban settlement of about 20, 000 residents that Israel considers a “bloc,” but is strategically — and problematically — located in the heart of the West Bank. It also said it would bring to the cabinet a plan to build a large industrial zone to create work for Palestinians in the southern West Bank. “We are going back to normal life in Judea and Samaria,” Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s defense minister, said in a statement announcing the new settlement building, referring to the West Bank by its biblical names. Asked about the Israeli move, the White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, said that Mr. Trump was still getting his team together and that there would be discussions with Mr. Netanyahu. “Israel continues to be a huge ally of the United States,” Mr. Spicer said. “He wants to grow closer with Israel to make sure that it gets the full respect that it deserves in the Middle East, and that’s what he’s going to do. Palestinian officials immediately denounced the new plans. “Once again, the Israeli government has proved that it is more committed to land theft and colonialism than to the solution and the requirements for peace and stability,” Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, said in a statement. “It is evident that Israel is exploiting the inauguration of the new American administration to escalate its violations and the prevention of any existence of a Palestinian state,” she added, calling on the United States and other international players to take concrete measures against Israeli settlement activities. Israel’s campaign of settlement construction has brought widespread criticism. A month ago, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution condemning Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as having no legal validity and constituting a “flagrant violation under international law” after the Obama administration decided not to veto the measure. Days later, the departing secretary of state, John Kerry, rebuked Israel’s settlement activities in an impassioned speech, saying, “The status quo is leading toward one state and perpetual occupation. ” But with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in its 50th year, the Israeli government, dominated by and religious parties, is clearly expecting a friendlier approach from the White House after years of tension with the Obama administration. David M. Friedman, the bankruptcy lawyer President Trump has nominated as his ambassador to Israel, has led a arm of the settlement movement and has dismissed the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. He has declared that he intends to work in Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv, where the American Embassy has been for decades, under the State Department’s insistence that the holy city’s status be determined as part of a broader deal between Israel and the Palestinians. It was not immediately clear whether the Israeli announcement had been coordinated in advance with Mr. Trump’s team. But beyond Mr. Netanyahu’s apparent attempt to chart a new course with Mr. Trump, he is also under intense pressure from the right flank of his governing coalition to demonstrate where his domestic loyalties lie. Naftali Bennett, the education minister and leader of the staunchly Jewish Home party, has been goading the prime minister to seize the moment and take the extreme step of beginning a process of annexing the West Bank settlements to Israel. “Netanyahu is facing a historic decision: sovereignty or Palestine,” Mr. Bennett said on Monday. “We urge Netanyahu, don’t miss an opportunity that comes along once every 50 years. ” Mr. Netanyahu appeared to postpone any discussion of annexation: “This is no time for decisions or political dictations, and this is no time for surprises. ” This, he added, “is the time for considered, responsible diplomacy among friends. ” The prime minister’s office said that in a phone conversation with Mr. Trump on Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu discussed the peace process and hoped to forge a “common vision” with Mr. Trump “to advance peace and security in the region, with no daylight between the United States and Israel. ” No more details were given. The peace process has been at an impasse since the last round of talks collapsed in the spring of 2014. During the nine months of talks, Mr. Netanyahu attempted to appease Israel’s right wing by advancing plans for about 13, 000 new housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, infuriating the Palestinian side. The weakened Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who appeared reluctant to take risks of his own, never responded to the ideas that Mr. Kerry’s team had formulated for a framework to guide further negotiations. Now, with the change of American administrations, some Israeli analysts have recommended that Mr. Netanyahu take the opportunity to try to reinstate understandings that Israel had with President George W. Bush, who wrote in a 2004 letter that “already existing major Israeli population centers” should be taken into consideration in redrawing the borders between Israel and the West Bank — a reference to settlement blocs. But that came in the context of Israel’s plans to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza and from a section of the northern West Bank. And the case of Ariel serves to illustrate the contentiousness of unilaterally defining the blocs. Israelis have long labeled Ariel part of their national “consensus,” meaning that it would be included in Israel’s borders under any peace deal, and it often appears as one of the regular dots on Israeli weather maps. But Palestinian negotiators have always rejected that idea, arguing that Israeli control over Ariel would preclude the territorial contiguity of a Palestinian state. They also note that Ariel sits on a major aquifer. According to Tuesday’s announcement, 20 of the new units are to be built in Beit El, a settlement deep in the West Bank that has particularly benefited from Mr. Friedman’s activities. The government promised in 2012 to build 300 units in Beit El, a settlement of about 7, 000 residents, to compensate for the evacuation of part of a neighborhood there that was illegally built on private Palestinian land. So far, the promise has remained unfulfilled. According to Israel’s Ministry of Defense, bids will now be solicited for the construction of about 900 of the 2, 500 new units around the West Bank. But the rest, including most of those planned for Ariel, still have to go through additional planning phases, a bureaucratic process that can take months, if not years, and requires additional government approval at each stage. Oded Revivi, the chief foreign envoy of the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization representing the more than 400, 000 settlers in the West Bank, said in a statement, “We hope that this is just the beginning of a wave of new building across our ancestral homeland after eight very difficult years. ” But some in the settler camp played down the construction plans and expressed suspicions about Mr. Netanyahu’s intentions. “We are not stupid,” Bezalel Smotrich, a legislator from the Jewish Home party, wrote in a post on his Facebook page. Objecting to the government announcement mostly describing the advancement of existing plans in settlement blocs, Mr. Smotrich accused Mr. Netanyahu of “throwing a candy” to the settlers and playing “public relations tricks. ” | 1 |
Frontline Troops Forced to Wait for Reinforcements by Jason Ditz, October 26, 2016 Share This
After 10 days of upbeat reports on the invasion of Mosul, Iraqi special forces south of the city have run into their first major obstacle, with heavy resistance from ISIS forcing them to pause their advance and wait for additional reinforcements.
While officials are treating this as a brief pause, it effectively means that ISIS has temporarily broken the southern advance into Mosul, and that only the northern advance, the Kurdish forces are still approaching the city.
That could be a huge problem for the Iraqi government, as in addition to fighting ISIS they’re in a bit of a territorial battle with the Kurdish Peshmerga. The Kurds have annexed a lot of territory they’ve captured, and that could make the Mosul offensive something of a race.
It also raises concerns about the Iraqi military’s readiness for the offensive, as in the past they have not reacted well to military setbacks. The ISIS forces have been deploying a large number of car bombs to try to slow the offensive, and the addition of machine gun and sniper fire has ultimately stopped the advance. Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz | 0 |
Posted by Matthew Bernstein | Nov 2, 2016 | American Strength Washington, Not Russia, Was Responsible!
If you are been paying attention to what the Democrats are saying this election in terms of the hacks, they will tell you that it’s all part of a plot that involves Donald Trump and Russia. Every top Democrat from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama has argued that.
They have been saying this ever since the first hacks on the Democratic National Committee happened back in July. And they have continued that claim with every hack that has happened since. Most recently they have been saying that the hacks on Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, were part of yet another Russian hack.
They have claimed that the hacks were done in order to influence the election in favor of Trump. Not everyone believes that lie. In fact there are people out there that think that the source of the hack has come from the United States government.
One person that believes that is former British ambassador Craig Murray. He says that the source of the Podesta leaks was a Washington insider rather than someone from Russia. That would mean that Clinton’s campaign is continuing to make a false claim on a foreign country!
Murray told Sputnik, “The source of these emails and leaks has nothing to do with Russia at all. I discovered what the source was when I attended the Sam Adam’s whistleblower award in Washington. The source of these emails comes from within official circles in Washington DC. You should look to Washington not to Moscow.”
That means that there is someone in Washington that is doing what he or she can to end the corruption of the Clintons. And yet her camp continues to claim that someone within Russia did it. Because that is a phenomenal way to create peace between two nations that have nuclear weapons. Someone In Washington Is Trying To Make Sure Hillary Doesn’t Win
But that wasn’t the only thing that Murray went on to destroy. He went on to blast the Democrats other narrative that WikiLeaks is a source for Russia. He has said that such claims are “designed to divert attention from the content of the material.” That means that they are hiding something if they are spending this much time trying to change the story.
WikiLeaks also decided to mock the Clinton campaign’s literal obsession with conspiracy theories with a tweet. They said, “No link between Trump & Russia. No link between Assange & Russia. But Podesta & Clinton involved in selling 20% of US uranium to Russia.”
This tweet was in reference to the fact that the FBI found nothing of substance that connected Donald Trump to Russia. They literally said that he had “no clear link to Russia.” So once again, the Democrats attempt to say something like that is proven false.
That also means that if the Democrats continue to blame Trump for this supposed Russian hack on their servers, then they are definitely hiding something. Because the FBI has cleared Trump of any connection to Russia and now there is a former British ambassador that has said that the hacks were coming from someone located in Washington.
And there are other claims to back that up. There was a YouTube video that was released and has gone viral. In it, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Steve Pieczenik is talking about how there are people in the United States government are doing what they can to prevent Clinton from becoming president of the United States.
He has said that members of the United States government, including the FBI and the CIA, have “initiated a counter-coup through Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in order to stop Hillary Clinton from becoming president of the United States.” Pieczenik has also said that Assange has released “emails that we gave to him in order to undermine Hillary and Bill Clinton.”
That is two former high ranking members of their respective governments saying that the leak has come from Washington and not Russia like the Democrats want you to believe. But it goes even further than that. What Murray has said is true. They are doing whatever they can to have the people of the United States not look at those emails that were released. The Democrats Continue To Blame Russia For The Hacks. Because That Is A Great Foreign Policy Tactic
That is because those emails have shown that the Democrats are engaging in some highly illegal activity. From all the leaks that we have seen, the Democrats have engaged in election rigging, pay-to-play operations, and cheating in several different debates. But of course when you try and confront them on this, they will attempt to say that Russia was behind it or that Trump was behind it.
One of the excuses that they have also given has come from interim chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee Donna Brazile. During the second hack of the DNC back in July she attempted to scare people from reading the hacked emails by saying that they could possibly be infected with malware . Really? If you are making this big an attempt to stop people from reading them, then you are obviously hiding something!
Of course Brazile was mentioned in those WikiLeaks emails as well. She was guilty of giving Clinton a question that was going to appear in a town hall. And when someone called her out on it, Brazile attempted to say that she was being “ persecuted .” It’s not persecution if the answer is right in front of you! You were literally doing what you could to help out Clinton as much as possible.
Share this article to show that there are people out there that believe that the hacks on the Democratic Party are coming from Washington itself rather than Russia. And considering that the Democrats continue to blame Russia for the hacks means that they are just damaging the foreign relationships even more.
That is not something that the United States can afford anymore. We need people that are going to work on making our relationships with foreign governments better not worse. We also need people that are going to lead the people and not have to answer to more corruption charges. This is why we need Donald Trump. | 0 |
Monday on the “The Mike Gallagher Show,” while discussing the investigations into Russia’s hacking during last year’s presidential election, Sen. Rand Paul ( ) said “evidence” of wrongdoing before following through with a call for a special prosecutor. Paul said, “Law enforcement ought to look into whether it happened. I wouldn’t really want a special investigator if all we’re hearing is gossip in the media and nobody’s presented any proof that there have been connections or that any law has been broken for that matter. ” He continued, “I’ve been arguing that we shouldn’t politicize this thing, Republican or Democrat. We don’t need a political discussion of this. We need a law enforcement look and if there is any kind of problem law enforcement should pursue it obviously no matter which party’s involved. But I would say is People are very, very confused on this. ” He added, “So I think before people jump to sort of the hysteria of a special prosecutor, why don’t we have somebody present evidence of some sort of wrongdoing before we go forward?” ( The Hill) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
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