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I was actually born in Kenya, says Obama 09-11-16
BARACK Obama has admitted he was born in Kenya and ‘you can all go fuck yourselves’.
At a White House press conference, the soon to be former president confirmed he had thoroughly enjoyed his time in office and had been lying about his birth certificate all along.
He said: “Job done. Got to live here for eight years. It is a seriously nice place. I also had a huge plane and a helicopter and I could play golf whenever I wanted.”
He added: “Anyway, enjoy this total shitfest. I’m going to become a professor, or head of some big UN thing.”
President Obama then laughed and went back to watching a marathon session of Salvage Hunters and looking at a brochure for ‘one of those massive Audis’.
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The Arctic Ocean may seem remote and forbidding, but to birds, whales and other animals, it’s a dining destination. “It’s a great place to get food in the summertime, so animals are flying or swimming thousands of miles to get there,” said Kevin R. Arrigo, a biological oceanographer at Stanford University. But the menu is changing. Confirming earlier research, scientists reported Wednesday that global warming is altering the ecology of the Arctic Ocean on a huge scale. The annual production of algae, the base of the food web, increased an estimated 47 percent between 1997 and 2015, and the ocean is greening up much earlier each year. These changes are likely to have a profound impact for animals further up the food chain, such as birds, seals, polar bears and whales. But scientists still don’t know enough about the biology of the Arctic Ocean to predict what the ecosystem will look like in decades to come. While global warming has affected the whole planet in recent decades, nowhere has been hit harder than the Arctic. This month, temperatures in the high Arctic have been as much as 36 degrees above average, according to records kept by the Danish Meteorological Institute. In October, the extent of sea ice was 28. 5 percent below average — the lowest for the month since scientists began keeping records in 1979. The area of missing ice is the size of Alaska and Texas put together. Since the researchers like Dr. Arrigo have been trying to assess the effects of retreating ice on the Arctic ecosystem. The sun returns to the Arctic each spring and melts some of the ice that formed in winter. Algae in the open water quickly spring to life and start growing. These algae are the base of the food chain in the Arctic Ocean, grazed by krill and other invertebrates that in turn support bigger fish, mammals and birds. Dr. Arrigo and his colleagues visited the Arctic in research ships to examine algae in the water and to determine how it affected the water’s color. They then reviewed satellite images of the Arctic Ocean, relying on the color of the water to estimate how much algae was growing — what scientists call the ocean’s productivity. The sea’s productivity was rapidly increasing, Dr. Arrigo found. Last year he and his colleagues published their latest update, estimating that the productivity of the Arctic rose 30 percent between 1998 and 2012. But Mati Kahru, an oceanographer at the University of California, San Diego, was skeptical. As an expert on remote sensing, he knew how hard it is to get a reliable picture of the Arctic Ocean. The ocean is notoriously cloudy, and algae are not the only thing that tinting the water. Rivers deliver organic matter into the Arctic Ocean, which can give the impression that there’s more algae in the water than is actually there. Dr. Kahru and his colleagues decided to take an independent look, scouring satellite databases for images taken from 1997 to 2015 — “every image available,” he said. The scientists used a mathematical equation to determine how the color in each pixel of each image was determined by algae, runoff, and other factors. Dr. Kahru decided that Dr. Arrigo was right: The Arctic Ocean has become vastly more productive. Marcel Babin, an oceanographer at Université Laval in Quebec who was not involved in the new study, said that the researchers had done “very careful work” that confirmed the earlier studies. “It’s an important finding,” he said. Not only is the Arctic Ocean producing more algae, but it’s doing so sooner each year. “These blooms are coming earlier, sometimes two months earlier,” Dr. Kahru said. In fact, the bloom may be coming even sooner than satellites can record. On research cruises, Dr. Arrigo and his colleagues have found that open water is no longer a requirement for algae to grow. The ice has gotten so thin that sunlight reaches through it. “Now they’re not even waiting for the ice to melt,” said Dr. Arrigo said of algal organisms. If we stay on our current course, pouring more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the Arctic will only get warmer, perhaps becoming in the summer. If algae can find more nitrogen and other nutrients in the ocean, its productivity may continue to rise. Scientists can’t yet say what the ecological effects of this transformation will be. “It is probable it will have an impact on the whole food web,” Dr. Babin said. Dr. Babin and his colleagues have been studying that impact over the past two summers on an expedition called the Green Edge Project, which has studied the ecology in Baffin Bay off the coast of northern Canada. They hope to present the first results of the survey next year. Some species may thrive because they can graze on the extra algae. But if the ecosystem comes to life earlier in the year, many species may be left behind. Fish larvae may not be able to develop fast enough. Migrating whales and birds may show up too late. A lot of the extra algae may drop to the sea floor by then, untouched. “It’s going to be a different Arctic unless we turn things around,” said Dr. Arrigo. | 1 |
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[Ed. – How to take the fun out of Halloween.]
As Halloween approaches, hair-raising yard displays can often cause people to stop, gawk and whip out their cellphones.
Larethia Haddon is well aware of that, and is using it to shine some light on real-life horrors, rather than typical Halloween themes.
In her yard at the corner of Mendota and Santa Maria avenues in Detroit, there are six dummies portraying police shootings, slain children, the Flint water crisis, and other horrors.
Last year, a single dummy placed face-down in the grass, realistically depicting a dead body in her yard, shocked passersby and caused fearful calls to the police.
This time around, Haddon wants to inspire a broader range of thought, rather than just shock.
“We’re trying to do something positive instead of just having a dead body laying in the yard,” she said. “Want to get people to be a little more focused on the issues, what’s going on in the world. We need to stick together more. We need to come together. And if we don’t, this scene in my yard is going to be reality every single day.” | 0 |
Posted on October 29, 2016 by Sean Adl-Tabatabai in Sci/Environment // 0 Comments
People from Melanesia contain traces of DNA belonging to an unknown species, according to an exciting new computer analysis.
Scientists say that Melanesians, people from a region in the South Pacific, contain DNA of an unknown human species in their genetic makeup.
Ryan Bohlender told the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics that the DNA was very unlikely to be Neanderthal or Denisovan – but is likely a third, unknown “human” relative.
Sciencealert.com reports:
“ We’re missing a population, or we’re misunderstanding something about the relationships ,” Ryan Bohlender, a statistical geneticist from the University of Texas, told Tina Hesman Saey at Science News . Alien DNA? People from the Pacific Islands carry DNA from a third, unknown “human” relative
Bohlender and his team have been investigating the percentages of extincthominid DNA that modern humans still carry today, and say they’ve found discrepancies in previous analyses that suggest our mingling with Neanderthals and Denisovans isn’t the whole story.
It’s thought that between 100,000 and 60,000 years ago, our early ancestors migrated out of Africa, and first made contact with other hominid species living on the Eurasian landmass.
This contact left a mark on our species that can still be found today, with Europeans and Asians carrying distinct genetic variants of Neanderthal DNA in their own genomes.
And that’s not all they’ve given us.
Earlier this year, researchers investigated certain genetic variants that people of European descent inherited from Neanderthals, and found that they’re associated with several health problems, including a slightly increased risk of depression, heart attack, and a number of skin disorders.
And a separate study published earlier this month found evidence that modern genital warts – otherwise known as the human papillomavirus (HPV) – were sexually transmitted to Homo sapiens after our ancestors slept with Neanderthals and Denisovans once they left Africa.
While our relationship with Neanderthals has been widely researched, how we interacted with the Denisovans – the distant cousins of Neanderthals – is less clear.
The problem is that Neanderthals are well represented in the fossil record, with many remains having been uncovered across Europe and Asia, but all we have of the Denisovans is a lone finger bone and a couple of teeth that were found in a Siberian cave in 2008.
Using a new computer model to figure out the amount of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA carried by modern humans, Bohlender and his colleague found that Europeans and Chinese people carry a similar amount of Neanderthal DNA: about 2.8 percent.
That result is pretty similar to previous studies have estimated that Europeans and Asians carry, on average, between 1.5 and 4 percent Neanderthal DNA.
But when they got to Denisovan DNA, things were a bit more complicated, particularly when it came to modern populations living in Melanesia – a region of the South Pacific that includes Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, West Papua, and the Maluku Islands.
As Hesman Saey explains for Science News : “Europeans have no hint of Denisovan ancestry, and people in China have a tiny amount – 0.1 percent, according to Bohlender’s calculations. But 2.74 percent of the DNA in people in Papua New Guinea comes from Neanderthals. And Bohlender estimates the amount of Denisovan DNA in Melanesians is about 1.11 percent, not the 3 to 6 percent estimated by other researchers. While investigating the Denisovan discrepancy, Bohlender and colleagues came to the conclusion that a third group of hominids may have bred with the ancestors of Melanesians.”
“Human history is a lot more complicated than we thought it was,” he told her . | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Vice Mike Pence and the top Republicans in Congress made clear on Wednesday, more powerfully and explicitly than ever, that they are dead serious about repealing the Affordable Care Act. How they can uproot a law deeply embedded in the nation’s health care system without hurting some of the 20 million people who have gained coverage through it is not clear. Nor is it yet evident that millions of Americans with medical conditions will be fully protected against disruptions in their health coverage. But a determined Republican president and Congress can gut the Affordable Care Act, and do it quickly: a health care revolution in reverse that would undo many of the changes made since the law was signed by President Obama in March 2010. The Senate intends to pass a budget resolution next week that would shield repeal legislation from a Democratic filibuster. If the Senate completes its action, House Republican leaders hope that they, too, can approve a version of the budget resolution next week. Whether they can meet that goal is unclear. The resolution contains seemingly innocuous language, instructing four committees that control health care policy — two in the Senate, two in the House — to draft legislation within their jurisdiction that would cut at least $1 billion from the deficit over 10 years. But that language has real teeth. The legislation produced to meet those instructions can pass the Senate with a simple majority — 51 votes if all senators are present — obliterating the power of the Democratic minority to block it. Those four committees would have just a few weeks, until Jan. 27, to produce legislation repealing major provisions of the Affordable Care Act. House Republicans have some practice at this, because they have voted more than 60 times since 2011 to repeal some or all of the law. The budget blueprint will guide Congress but will not be presented to the president for a signature or veto. The committees — House Energy and Commerce, House Ways and Means, Senate Finance, and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions — will quickly assemble legislation intended to eviscerate the health care law. The repeal legislation will be in the form of a reconciliation bill, authorized by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. Such bills can be adopted under special procedures. But Senate rules generally bar the use of those procedures for measures that have no effect on spending or revenue. So the legislation, as now conceived, would probably leave the most popular provisions of the health law intact, such as the prohibition on insurers’ denying coverage to people with conditions. Instead, the legislation would: ■ Eliminate the tax penalties imposed on people who go without insurance and on larger employers who do not offer coverage to employees. ■ Eliminate tens of billions of dollars provided each year to states that have expanded eligibility for Medicaid. ■ Repeal subsidies for private health insurance coverage obtained through the public marketplaces known as exchanges. It could also repeal some of the taxes and fees that help pay for the expansion of coverage under the Affordable Care Act. But some Republicans have indicated that they may want to use some of that revenue for their plan to replace the health care law. The 2010 law imposed taxes and fees on certain people and on health insurers and manufacturers of prescription drugs and medical devices, among others. Republicans have not said for sure which taxes they will scrap and which they may keep. Republicans say they will delay the effective date of their repeal bill to avoid disrupting coverage and to provide time for them to develop alternatives to Mr. Obama’s law. They disagree over how long the delay should last, with two to four years being mentioned as possibilities. Within days of taking office, Donald J. Trump plans to announce executive actions on health care. Some may undo Obama administration policies. Others will be meant to stabilize health insurance markets and prevent them from collapsing in a vast sea of uncertainty. “We are working on a series of executive orders that the will put into effect to ensure that there is an orderly transition, during the period after we repeal Obamacare, to a health care economy,” Mr. Pence said at the Capitol on Wednesday. He did not provide details, and Trump transition aides said they had no information about the executive orders. But some options are apparent. The federal government could continue providing financial assistance to insurance companies to protect them against financial losses and to prevent consumers’ premiums from soaring more than they have in the last few years. Even as they move full speed toward gutting the existing health law, Republicans are scrambling to find a replacement. At the moment, they have no consensus. Mr. Pence said on Wednesday that the replacement would probably encourage greater use of personal health savings accounts and make it easier for carriers to sell insurance across state lines. Also, he said, it would encourage small businesses to band together and buy insurance through “association health plans” sponsored by business and professional organizations. Some type of subsidy or tax credit for consumers, to help defray the cost of premiums, is also likely. States would have more authority to set insurance standards, and the federal government would have less. Mr. Trump has also endorsed the idea of “ pools” for people with conditions who would otherwise have difficulty finding affordable coverage. Many experts have said that repealing the health law without a clear plan to replace it could create havoc in insurance markets. Doctors, hospitals and insurance companies do not know what to expect. Without an effective requirement for people to carry insurance, and without subsidies to buy it, supporters of the law say many healthy people would go without coverage, knowing they could obtain it if they became ill and needed it. Democrats in Congress say they will do everything they can to thwart Republican efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. They plan to dramatize their case by publicizing the experiences of people whose lives have been saved or improved by the law. In the Senate next week, Democrats will demand votes intended to put Republicans on record against proposals that could protect consumers. Defenders of the law also hope to mobilize groups like the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association to speak up for patients. The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, and the House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi of California, are encouraging their colleagues to organize rallies around the country on Jan. 15 to oppose the Republicans’ health care agenda. And to buttress their case, Democrats are compiling statistics from the White House and from researchers at groups like the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Commonwealth Fund and the Urban Institute, which warn of catastrophic consequences if the law is repealed. | 1 |
George Takei Invited To Thanksgiving At The Baldwins’ To Referee Trump Feud (TWEETS/VIDEO) By Natalie Dailey
This has been one of the craziest election seasons in our lifetimes. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is saying incredibly disgusting and insulting things just about every day. It has caused major angst and arguments among many families.
A famous family, the Baldwins, has been arguing about the candidates on Twitter. The youngest brother, Stephen Baldwin, supports Trump, and he had a heated Twitter exchange with his brother, Billy.
Star Trek actor George Takei, retweeted the exchange: Waiting for Alec as Trump to weigh in, bigly. pic.twitter.com/ZaVkmO4SQy
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) October 27, 2016
Billy Baldwin weighed in again when he said: Hey George… you want to come to Thanksgiving this year?
We are going to need a referee.
— Billy Baldwin (@BillyBaldwin) October 28, 2016
Their older brother, Alec Baldwin, has played Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live for several sketches now. Alec did such a good job, that it drew the attention of whiny baby Trump, who said : “Watched ‘Saturday Night Live’ hit job on me. Time to retire the boring and unfunny show. Alec Baldwin portrayal stinks. Media rigging election!”
Stephen Baldwin also weighed in on his older brother’s Trump impression when he said : “Well, he’s got the voice down very wellI. I think it’s getting a little too nasty right now. I don’t think it’s very funny. I don’t think there’s anything funny about this election. I think it’s very serious.[sic]”
Stephen Baldwin is definitely an ardent Trump supporter. He posts lots of tweets supporting the Oompa Loompa for president. Mr. President … | 0 |
Good guy.
👍👍👍👍 | 0 |
Trump Kicks Presstitutes’ Teeth Down Their Lying Throats
And Presstitute David Remnick in true presstitute fashion tries to turn it against Trump.
Only Trump sins, never the presstitutes. It is OK for the presstitutes to lie, but not OK
to hold the media accountable.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45898.htm
The post Trump Kicks Presstitutes’ Teeth Down Their Lying Throats appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org . | 0 |
ISTANBUL — Several hundred people suspected of being Islamic State operatives were arrested in a series of coordinated raids by the Turkish police on Sunday, in what constitutes one of Turkey’s largest operations against the jihadist group on the country’s soil. Nearly 450 suspects were rounded up in the early hours of Sunday, according to the Anadolu Agency, a news wire. Independent television reports later said 690 suspects had been held by the end of the day. At least one attack was said to have been thwarted in the process, according to Anadolu. The operation was distinct from crackdowns on those accused of being supporters of last summer’s failed coup, and on members of the country’s political opposition. More than 130, 000 Turks have been arrested or fired from government posts in the past seven months as part of those efforts, according to government data. Sunday’s raids were the latest salvo in a conflict between Turkey and the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. In the early years of the Syrian revolution, Turkey was accused of turning a blind eye to the movement of thousands of Islamic State fighters over its southern border with Syria, where they joined the war against the forces of the Syrian president, Bashar . But the Turkish Army is now in direct conflict with the group in northern Syria, where Turkey is leading attempts to expel the Islamic State from the strategically important city of Al Bab. Turkey has suffered numerous attacks linked to the Islamic State since 2014, most recently in the early hours of this year, when a fighter killed 39 people at a nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city. The group is also believed to be behind an October 2015 bombing in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, that killed more than 100 people, and was accused of organizing the killing of 45 people at Istanbul’s main airport last summer. This weekend’s raids occurred across an unusually wide area, with suspects seized in 18 provinces. The move is a change in strategy by the Turkish police, who have usually detained only small numbers of jihadists at a time, said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat, and an analyst who focuses on Turkey for Carnegie Europe, a think tank. But the detentions may not necessarily lead to court cases. “Over all, Turkey’s efforts to combat the influence and network of the Islamic State at home is still handicapped by discrepancies between the different arms of the Turkish state,” Mr. Ulgen said. “An effort led by law enforcement is sometimes handicapped by the decisions of the Turkish judiciary, which as we have seen in the recent past has let go people associated with the Islamic State. ” Ahmet Yayla, a former counterterrorism chief in Turkey and a critic of the Turkish government, also questioned the effectiveness of such a large raid, which he argued could overwhelm the capacity of the counterterrorism police. Officers may not be able to properly handle the paperwork, interrogations and bureaucracy associated with processing more than 50 suspects, said Dr. Yayla, who headed counterterrorism operations in a southeast Turkish province from 2010 to 2012. “It is impossible to process that many terrorists in one operation,” said Dr. Yayla, who now lives in the United States, and who began to publicly criticize the Turkish government after his teenage son was jailed on suspicion of a connection to the coup attempt. | 1 |
Breitbart is a “very extreme right” organization that pumps out “fake news” but has no impact in the real world because it is ignored by the mainstream media. [I learned this from a Berkeley professor of linguistics called George Lakoff who was given space by the BBC to spout his views, virtually unchallenged, for half an hour this week on a Radio 4 programme called Word of Mouth. Lakoff was introduced as an “eminent linguist” at the “forefront of the debate. ” But no indication was given by the presenter Michael Rosen that he is, in fact, a professor from a university best known for writing books about how awful conservatives are and, most recently, for his vocal opposition to Donald Trump. Perhaps this is because Rosen is himself. As I’ve argued over similar issues before, none of this would matter a damn if Radio 4 were a commercial channel paid for by advertising or a subscription channel for smug liberals who wanted none of their prejudices challenged. But Radio 4 is neither of those things. It’s a branch of Britain’s state broadcasting arm, the BBC — an organization funded by a compulsory subscription fee which all users are obliged to pay on pain of imprisonment. While it’s true that you don’t need a TV license to listen to the radio, it’s also true that Radio 4 is a beneficiary of the BBC’s domination of Britain’s airwaves. It has virtually no competition in the field of features on the radio, firstly, because it has dominated the medium for so long and secondly because it is so massively subsidised (hence the lack of irritating adverts!) it would be virtually suicidal for any commercial venture to try to compete with it. In return for this extremely privileged position — which ought, by rights, to have long since been withdrawn by regulators — it is obliged under the terms of the BBC’s charter to produce output that is rigorously fair and balanced. This is why we should get cross: not because nasty, horrid, untrue things were said about Breitbart, but because nasty, horrid, untrue things were said about Breitbart by an organization wearing the mantle of authority and the mask of objectivity. Whether rightly or no, the BBC is a media outfit that commands considerable respect around the world. By allowing this professor to make his claims unchallenged on air, the BBC has legitimized the malign, dangerous, and defamatory notions that Breitbart is a) unprofessional, b) outside the realms of acceptable public discourse, and c) on par with the Nazis, the fascists, the Ku Klux Klan, and all the other groups routinely associated with the “extreme right. ” And, note, that “extreme right” was not the phrase Lakoff used. Nope, it was “very extreme right. ” Now, suppose for a moment the BBC had managed to find a conservative professor of linguistics — unlikely, I know, but just suppose … — and he’d vented about some media outfit he didn’t like, calling it “extreme ” and accusing it of putting out “fake news. ” How do you think he would have been treated by the BBC? At the very least, I would suggest, the BBC would have invited him to justify his criticism. He certainly wouldn’t have been given the free pass that was afforded this Berkeley leftist. The other thing that would have been routinely expected of him is a degree of expertise. What, after all, is the point of inviting an “expert” on if he’s not going to display superior insights into the subject that is supposedly his field? But, shamingly, Lakoff failed almost completely on this score. He claimed that “snowflake” is used as a “slur against gays, who are seen as delicate and flakey. ” Really? I don’t think I’ve ever seen “snowflake” used in that context. It’s used as a term of mockery for hypersensitive millennials who prefer to be protected from ideas or language they don’t agree with, whether they happen to be gay or straight is neither here nor there. He claimed that the phrase “alt right plays on the word ‘alt,’ meaning old, calling up issues from Germany, which is interesting. ” Do you see what the professor did there? Yep. Shameless beyond belief, I know, but he really did just invent a spurious etymology for the “alt” in “alt right. ” (Of course, it stands for alternative and has nothing to do with the German word for “old. ”) He then used it as a way of hinting that the people involved in the “alt right” are sorta, kinda like Hitler. He claimed that the term “fascists” has been embraced by people on the right and that they are proud to define themselves in opposition to the “antifas. ” Nope. Again, he has got it completely wrong. It’s the left that uses “fascist” ad nauseam to describe anyone it disagrees with. “Antifa” is a term the left has chosen to point up this false distinction. He claimed that “ ” is a phrase proudly used by progressives to indicate “I know what’s right. These are our values. ” Again, 100 percent incorrect, professor. “ ” was a phrase coined by the classical journalist James Bartholomew in the Spectatori to mock the left’s priggish . This, remember, is a professor of linguistics speaking. Knowing this stuff is his job. But though he doesn’t appear to have mastered even the basics, he is yet taken seriously enough by the BBC to spout his vile and ignorant prejudice for a full on an afternoon radio show. Fake news indeed. | 1 |
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There are a lot of unpleasant numbers for Republicans in the Congressional Budget Office’s assessment of their health care bill. But congressional leadership found one to cheer: The report says that the bill will eventually cut the average insurance premiums for people who buy their own insurance by 10 percent. House Speaker Paul Ryan pressed that point in a series of appearances Monday night, suggesting that the budget office had found that the House bill would increase choice and competition and lead to lower prices. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, issued a statement saying, “The Congressional Budget Office agrees that the American Health Care Act will ultimately lower premiums and increase access to care. ” But the way the bill achieves those lower average premiums has little to do with increased choice and competition. It depends, rather, on penalizing older patients and rewarding younger ones. According to the C. B. O. report, the bill would make health insurance so unaffordable for many older Americans that they would simply leave the market and join the ranks of the uninsured. The remaining pool of people would be comparatively younger and healthier and, thus, less expensive to cover. Other changes would help make health insurance skimpier — cheaper, but with deductibles that are higher than those criticized by Republicans under Obamacare. Under the G. O. P. bill, the C. B. O. finds that insurance premiums would first spike, by 15 percent to 20 percent more than under Obamacare over the next two years. But by the end of a decade, the average plan would cost 10 percent less than it would under the Affordable Care Act. (Over all, though, 24 million fewer people would have insurance, it found.) Insurers price their products by spreading out the cost of care for their customers. In general, older customers cost substantially more to cover than younger ones because they have more health needs and use their insurance more. By discouraging older people from buying insurance, the plan will lower the average sticker price of care. But that doesn’t mean prices will get lower for everyone. Currently, the subsidies under Obamacare are devised to help limit how much and Americans can be asked to pay for health insurance. The Republican plan works differently. It increases the amount that insurers can charge older customers, and it awards flat subsidies by age, up to an income of $75, 000. On premiums alone, prices would rise by more than 20 percent for the oldest group of customers. By 2026, the budget office projected, “premiums in the nongroup market would be 20 percent to 25 percent lower for a and 8 percent to 10 percent lower for a — but 20 percent to 25 percent higher for a . ” But the change in tax credits matters more. The combined difference in how much extra the older customer would have to pay for health insurance is enormous. The C. B. O. estimates that the price an average earning $26, 500 would need to pay after using a subsidy would increase from $1, 700 under Obamacare to $14, 600 under the Republican plan. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the C. B. O. concludes that many, many fewer will continue buying insurance in this market. By 2026, the uninsured rate for those 50 to 64 earning less than about $30, 000 would more than double, from around 12 percent to around 30 percent. Those older customers who would lose out on insurance coverage are more likely than the young customers who would buy it to need help paying big medical bills. Mr. Ryan has said that it is appropriate that the G. O. P. plan will cause more Americans to go without health insurance because it doesn’t have a mandate that people buy coverage or pay a penalty. “We’re saying the government’s not going to force people to buy something that they don’t want to buy,” he said on Fox News Monday afternoon. “And if we end an Obamacare mandate that says you must buy this government plan, guess what? People aren’t going to buy that. ” But the C. B. O. did not conclude that insurer competition would increase in this new policy environment, or drive down premium prices. And poor, older customers whose insurance costs more than half their income may not really have much of a choice. The Republican plan is designed to pass using a special budget procedure requiring only 50 votes in the Senate. As a result, it doesn’t do much to change the regulations on health insurance that many Republicans believe have made insurance costly under Obamacare. Insurers will still need to charge sick and healthy customers of the same age the same price. And all plans will still need to cover a minimum package of benefits that include maternity care and treatment for drug addiction. The bill does make some changes to how much health insurance plans can ask customers to pay before their coverage kicks in. Under Obamacare, poorer customers get help not just with their premiums but with deductibles and for their plans. That means that even the hypothetical older customer who could pony up $14, 600 for insurance under the G. O. P. plan would also pay substantially more out of pocket for any health care services. And changes to the requirements for health plans mean that, across the board, deductibles and will increase. So the average plan that the C. B. O. says will be cheaper will also be less generous than a comparable Obamacare plan. Finally, the C. B. O. concludes that new funding in the law, intended to compensate insurance companies for the cost of caring for the sickest patients, may also help stabilize premiums. That provision is set to expire after 2026, just after the C. B. O. ’s evaluation period ends. | 1 |
President Donald Trump has slid back from his campaign promises to curb the annual legal immigration of roughly 1 million foreigners. [In an interview with Economist magazine, Trump was asked: “Do you want to curb legal immigration?” Trump responded by saying he prefers immigration of skilled people. The interviewer pressed him again on the scale of legal immigration, asking “[are you] not looking to reduce the numbers?” “No, no, no, no, we want people coming in legally. No, very strongly,” Trump replied, as two of his economic advisors sat beside him — top economic staffer Gary Cohn, and Steve Mnuchin, the Secretary of the Treasury. Trump also backed proposals to keep importing temporary contract workers for the agricultural sector, even though the cheap labor will retard farmers’ emerging interest in buying new machinery, such as robot and robot . Trump told the Economist: We also want farm workers to be able to come in. You know, we’re going to have work visas for the farm workers. If you look, you know we have a lot of people coming through the border, they’re great people and they work on the farms and then they go back home. We like those people a lot and we want them to continue to come in. Immigration reform advocates are not surprised at Trump’s but they are confident that Trump’s dependence on his base in the 2020 election is pressuring him to stick with his campaign promises, amid constant elite pressure for more legal immigration. “The president was unambiguous in his [2016] campaign … one of the things he said was that he would support reductions in immigration,” said Ira Mehlman, communications director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “If he is backing off, we will fight to remind him that he did make this commitment during the campaign and we intended to hold him to it,” he told Breitbart. “Anyone following Trump’s primary campaign could have predicted this — he repeatedly justified guestworker visas of various kinds and stressed the ‘big beautiful door’ that would be built into his wall,” wrote Mark Krikorian, the director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “Both the crowd and some immigration hawks mistook Trump’s commitment to enforcement (which seems genuine) to mean he was also skeptical of the overall level of immigration,” he said, adding that the next generation of populist GOP leaders — such as Sen. Tom Cotton — understands the many harms caused by mass immigration. But Trump’s backsliding isn’t a done deal. Former President Barack Obama also backed off many of his promises, even while he was urging his supporters to publiccly protest his actions and to push back the lobbies that were blocking his agenda. Obama also adopted a gradualist political strategy which helped the GOP establishment ignore his gradual progress towards his goals, and he achieved many goals for his supporters via court decisions and agency regulations by allied appointees. With constant pressure by Trump’s supporters, Trump will be more willing and better able to ignore or overcome establishment opposition and gradually get his agenda implemented . In August 2015, Trump issued his very popular immigration plan to raise wages by reducing legal and illegal immigration: The influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working class Americans — including immigrants themselves and their children — to earn a middle class wage … Every year, we voluntarily admit another [1] million new immigrants, [plus 1 million] guest workers, refugees, and dependents, growing our existing historic record population of 42 million immigrants. We need to control the admission of new workers in order to: help wages grow, get teenagers back to work, aid minorities’ rise into the middle class, help schools and communities falling behind, and to ensure our immigrant members of the national family become part of the American dream. Requirement to hire American workers first. Too many [contract worker] visas, like the have no such requirement. In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed. Petitions for workers should be mailed to the unemployment office, not USCIS … . Immigration moderation. Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers. This will help reverse women’s plummeting workplace participation rate, grow wages, and allow record immigration levels to subside to more moderate historical averages. Trump repeated those commitments in many subsequent speeches. For example, in March 2016, Trump called for a pause in legal immigration, saying “I think for a period of a year to two years we have to look back and we have to see, just to answer the second part of your question, where we are, where we stand, what’s going on … I’d say a minimum of one year, maybe two years. ” In his January 2017 inauguration speech, he described the theme of his administration as “Buy American, Hire American. ” Some polls show that promise is extremely popular. For example, a November 2016 poll by Ipsos showed that only 12 percent of respondents strongly opposed plans to “change the legal immigration system to limit legal immigration. ” Four times as many, or 57 percent, back reductions in legal immigration, while 13 percent did not take a position. To a large extent, Trump has followed through on those promises. He has revived enforcement of immigration law, slashed the inflow of illegal immigrants, and he is pushing a popular reform that would likely reduce the inflow of unskilled legal immigrants. Trump’s reform is also backed by some GOP legislators who want to increase Americans’ productivity, not just the number of American consumers. But Trump is under constant pressure from business leaders — including some of his advisors — who have a huge incentive to boost legal immigration, no matter the cost to ordinary Americans. In strictly economic terms, legal immigration is far more important than illegal immigration, because it is far larger and has far greater impact on employees, companies, and investors, wages, housing prices, profits and stock prices. In fact, multiple economists — including economists at Goldman Sachs — say government should try to boost the size of the economy by importing more consumers and workers. Federal immigration policy adds roughly 1 million legal people, workers, consumers and renters per year to the economy. This annual inflow is further expanded by the immigrants’ children, which now combine to create a population of roughly 63 million consumers and workers — not counting roughly 21 million illegals and their U. S. children. That means roughly of the nation’s consumers have been imported into the 330 economy via legal or illegal immigration. This legal inflow includes some very skilled workers and some people who become very successful entrepreneurs, but it also dumps a lot of unskilled workers into the country just as a new generation of technology is expected to eliminate many types of jobs. It also annually shifts $500 billion from employees to employers and Wall Street, and it forces state and local government to provide $60 billion in taxes to businesses via routine aid for immigrants, and it pushes millions of marginal U. S. workers out of the labor force and into poverty, crime and opioid addiction. High immigration also reduces employers’ need to recruit disengaged Americans, to build new facilities in areas, or to buy machinery or to demand that local schools rebuild high school vocational training departments for the millions of youth who don’t gain much from colleges. The resulting poverty and civic conflicts increase support for Democrats, ensuring that more states — especially California — are dominated by the Democratic Party’s policies. Under Obama, the annual inflow of legal immigrants was roughly twice the inflow of illegals. Roughly 550, 000 illegals arrived in 2016, but fewer are expected in 2017, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Whenever the inflow of extra immigrant customers is threatened by public opposition, business groups say their companies and investors will be damaged. For example, in July 2016, a Wall Street firm tried to help Hillary Clinton by declaring that Trump’s opposition to illegal immigration would hurt companies and investors by forcing them to pay higher wages, and by reducing the cost of housing. “As the immigrants leave, the already tight labor market will get tighter, pushing up labor costs as employers struggle to fill the open job positions,” the report declared. “Mr. Trump’s immigration policies will thus result in … potentially severe labor shortages, and higher labor costs,” the critical report promised. The formal unemployment rate would immediately drop by a third, from 5 percent in 2016 to 3. 5 percent in 2017, the report predicts. Housing prices would drop by almost 4 percent in 2018 and 2019, says the Moody’s report, which did not admit that higher wages and lower housing prices are popular throughout America. “Reduced immigration would result in slower labor force growth and therefore slower growth in potential GDP,” or annual economic activity, according to a 2017 report by Goldman Sachs. Similarly, Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, recently called for an amnesty for illegals and a potentially huge increase in immigration to help stimulate the economy. “I hope eventually we have proper immigration. Good people who have paid their taxes and haven’t broken the law, get them into citizenship at the back of the line … [and] if people get educated here, and they’re foreign nationals, get them a green card,” he said. In the same interview, Dimon portrayed himself as concerned about the economic condition of ordinary Americans, saying: wages haven’t gone up. One is, wages haven’t gone up enough to create a living wage. One is, people losing jobs, more to automation than anything else. … There’s some more terrible numbers — men, age 25 to 55, the participation rate is down 10%. That’s unbelievable. There are 35, 000 dying of opioids every year. Seventy percent of kids age 17 to 24 can’t get into the US military because of health or education. Obesity, diabetes, reading and writing. Is that the society we wanted? No. We should be working on these things, acknowledge the flaws we have, and come up with solutions. Not Democrat. Not Republican. Not . But the 2016 election showed that Trump and centrist Americans recognize that higher immigration means reduced wages, more unemployment, more drug addition, higher housing prices and longer commutes. That is how Trump won the 2016 election in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, and why his immigration policy is at the core of his impending 2020 race. Follow Neil Munro on Twitter @NeilMunroDC or email the author at NMunro@Breitbart. com, | 1 |
Donald J. Trump enters the general election campaign laboring under the worst financial and organizational disadvantage of any major party nominee in recent history, placing both his candidacy and his party in political peril. Mr. Trump began June with just $1. 3 million in cash on hand, a figure more typical for a campaign for the House of Representatives than the White House. He trailed Hillary Clinton, who raised more than $28 million in May, by more than $41 million, according to reports filed late Monday night with the Federal Election Commission. He has a staff of around 70 people — compared with nearly 700 for Mrs. Clinton — suggesting only the barest effort toward preparing to contest swing states this fall. And he fired his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, on Monday, after concerns among allies and donors about his ability to run a competitive race. The Trump campaign has not aired a television advertisement since he effectively secured the nomination in May and has not booked any advertising for the summer or fall. Mrs. Clinton and her allies spent nearly $26 million on advertising in June alone, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, pummeling Mr. Trump over his temperament, his statements and his mocking of a disabled reporter. The only sustained reply, aside from Mr. Trump’s gibes at rallies and on Twitter, has come from a pair of groups that spent less than $2 million combined. Mr. Trump’s for May reflects his lag in assembling the core of a national finance team. In the same month that he clinched the Republican nomination, Mr. Trump raised just $3. 1 million and was forced to lend himself $2 million to meet costs. Some invitations to Trump events have featured the same short list of national Republican finance volunteers regardless of what city the event is held in, suggesting Mr. Trump has had some trouble lining up local . A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to an inquiry about the campaign’s spending plans. During an interview on Monday on CNN, Mr. Lewandowski defended the candidate’s approach. “We are leaner, meaner, more efficient, more effective. Get bigger crowds. Get better coverage,” Mr. Lewandowski said. “If this was the business world, people would be commending Mr. Trump for the way he’s run this campaign. ” But the shortfall is leaving Mr. Trump extraordinarily dependent on the Republican National Committee, which has seen record this campaign cycle and, long before Mr. Trump even declared his upstart candidacy, had begun investing heavily in a plan to bolster the party’s technical and organizational capacity. In a first for a major party nominee, Mr. Trump has suggested he will leave the crucial task of field organizing in swing states to the Republican National Committee, which typically relies on the party’s nominee to help fund, direct and staff national Republican political efforts. His decision threatens to leave the party with significant shortfalls of money and manpower: On Monday, the party reported raising $13 million during May, about a third of the money it raised in May 2012, when Mitt Romney led the ticket. “It’s like a waterfall,” said Brian O. Walsh, a Republican campaign strategist. “There are things that have to happen, and someone has to pay for them. ” Mr. Trump’s cash crunch marks a stark reversal from the 2012 presidential campaign, which seemed to inaugurate a new era of virtually unlimited money in American politics, buoyed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision two years earlier. By the same point that year, President Obama and Mr. Romney were raising tens of millions of dollars per month with their parties. And while Mr. Romney faced a larger deficit overall against Mr. Obama in June 2012, he was raising far more money than Mr. Trump is now, with big donors flocking to his cause. “The campaign has got to be the entity that’s out there driving the car,” said Austin Barbour, a lobbyist who served as national finance of the Romney campaign. “And it better be a big old Cadillac. ” Mr. Trump has defied conventional wisdom before, clinching the Republican nomination with a small organization and modest outlays on television. And Republican officials believe they are well prepared to compensate for Mr. Trump’s late start. The Republican National Committee has more than 500 field staff members on the ground in swing states, far more than in 2012, and a robust digital and data operation. Allies of Mr. Trump say they believe the tide is already turning. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump will appear at a in New York City hosted by some of the most prominent names on Wall Street. for Mr. Trump, who asked for anonymity to discuss internal discussions, said they were now hoping to raise up to $500 million in joint efforts with the Republican National Committee, or an average of $100 million a month from June through October. He is now reliably raising between $5 million and $7 million in each city where he raises money, those donors said. A joint effort with Mr. Trump and 11 state Republican parties yielded the Republican National Committee $3 million in just five days at the end of May. Some of the largest checks came from a handful of wealthy Trump supporters who are not party mainstays, suggesting Mr. Trump could tap new sources of campaign money. But Mr. Romney was also backed by expansive network of “super PACs” and other outside groups that collectively spent hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to elect him. This year, the Democrats are leading in outside money. Priorities USA Action, a group focused on advertising in support of Mrs. Clinton, announced on Monday that it had raised $12 million in May and had $52 million on hand — a huge reserve. The outside spending effort to help Mr. Trump, by contrast, has been chaotic and underfunded, hampered by a profusion of competing groups, one of which has spent only $1 million so far on Mr. Trump’s behalf. The most prominent group, Great America, is advised by Ed Rollins, who managed Ronald Reagan’s 1984 campaign, and other more seasoned Republican operatives. But it, too, has had difficulty persuading big donors: On Monday, it reported raising just $1. 4 million during the month of May. efforts for Mr. Trump have been hampered by the candidate’s own erratic public comments. He has repeatedly said he will pay for his own campaign even as his volunteers fan out around the country to solicit checks, confusing allies and potential donors alike. “Two days ago, he said, ‘I may fund it myself,’” Mr. Rollins said. “Donors are all being cautious about what’s going to happen here. ” | 1 |
Posted on November 5, 2016 by JimQ
In Part One of this article I laid out the case against the criminal establishment and how the regeneracy is being driven by the anti-establishment sentiment sweeping across the land. This atonement Fourth Turning will de-establish decade’s worth of delusional decisions. This election has destroyed the last vestiges of trust in this fraudulent system.
This dysfunctional rigged presidential election reflects the tearing of the civic fabric at points of maximum susceptibility. As a country we have neglected, denied, or delayed necessary action on a plethora of vital issues threatening our long term viability as a nation. The deferral of difficult painful decisions has been a ploy of the ruling class, allowing them to further siphon the wealth of a dying empire, while maintaining control over the masses through laws, regulations, taxes, surveillance, intimidation, technology bread and circuses, and mainstream media propaganda.
This is a country truly divided, much along the lines of the first Civil War. The divisions aren’t just along political party lines, but race, education, geography, gender, age, class, religion and ability to think critically. The presidential polls (IBD) reveal many of these divisions clearly: | 0 |
Sex toy company has been ordered to pay out nearly $3 million after it was revealed that a “smart vibrator” was secretly collecting intimate data. [The 4 Plus vibrator, which allows users to customize their sexual experience with a variety of options via an app, was discovered to be secretly sending “vast quantities of user data to ’s parent company,” while it was also revealed that the device could be hacked from a “close proximity. ” “Following a lawsuit in an Illinois federal court, ’s parent company Standard Innovation has been ordered to pay a total of C$4m [Canadian dollars] to owners, with those who used the vibrator’s associated app entitled to the full amount each. Those who simply bought the vibrator can claim up to $199,” reports The Guardian. “The app that controls the vibrator is barely secured, allowing anyone within Bluetooth range to seize control of the device. ” “In addition, data is collected and sent back to Standard Innovation, letting the company know about the temperature of the device and the vibration intensity — which, combined, reveal intimate information about the user’s sexual habits,” they continued. The security concerns were reportedly exposed at 2016’s Def Con Hacking Conference in Las Vegas. “At Standard Innovation we take customer privacy and data security seriously,” declared the company in a statement. “We have enhanced our privacy notice, increased app security, provided customers [with] more choice in the data they share, and we continue to work with leading privacy and security experts to enhance the app. With this settlement, Standard Innovation can continue to focus on making new, innovative products for our customers. ” Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
Dear Mr. President- How Many Jobs Will Building a Wall Create? Part 2 By Lee Adler. In this report, we drill down into industry subsectors to see who the biggest losers and biggest winners might be, and whether any of these smaller employment groupings offer any hope for the future. I will demonstrate to you that they do not, and that you should plan your investments accordingly. | 0 |
I agree WB….that’s an awfully thin slice of ham not to have two sides. | 0 |
Home / Badge Abuse / Cop’s Attempt to Abuse His Authority During Fit of Road Rage is Shutdown by Informed Citizen Cop’s Attempt to Abuse His Authority During Fit of Road Rage is Shutdown by Informed Citizen Matt Agorist June 14, 2016 9 Comments
Baldwin, AL — Jonathon Hinote was out with a friend enjoying a boat ride this weekend when he was stopped, harassed and promised a citation for legally practicing his freedom of speech.
The incident began as Hinote was attempting to pull out into traffic. According to Hinote, he was trying to merge onto the highway, when Pritchard police officer Lopez pulled behind him. Lopez, according to Hinote, became impatient and laid on his horn.
“I gave him the finger for beeping at me to pull out into oncoming traffic when I had a 20 ft trailer behind my truck,” recalls Hinote.
After Hinote had expressed his feelings about being honked at, the officer became enraged and proceeded to abuse his power.
Flipping the bird has been ruled to be free speech many times over. In fact, in a 14-page opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit addressed the specific action of flipping off cops when it ruled that the “ancient gesture of insult is not the basis for a reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation or impending criminal activity.”
However, we’ve seen citizens pepper-sprayed, assaulted, and arrested for this act of free speech. And, as the video below shows, police could not care less about protecting your free speech if it’s something they don’t like.
“What gives you the right to flip me off at the intersection?” asks the officer, apparently oblivious to the Bill of Rights.
Hinote attempts to explain that the officer was honking at him which sparked the hand gesture.
“If somebody comes up to you and flips you off, what would you do?” asks the clearly oblivious officer.
Well officer, if someone flips off those of us in the citizen class, we can’t do anything about it, because it is an act of free speech and being offended gives you no legal right to initiate violence or attempt to detain that person at all.
However, because this officer has a badge and a gun, he is able to detain otherwise entirely innocent people for his own personal vendetta.
Hinote then proceeds to explain to Lopez that the Supreme Court has, in fact, ruled that flipping the bird is 100 percent protected — even when it’s aimed at police officers.
When the officer is schooled on the law, he does what many other officers do and tries to turn freedom of speech into ‘disorderly conduct.’ But he’s dealing with someone who clearly knows his rights.
“Am I being detained?” asks Hinote.
“Yes, see those blue lights? You are being detained,” replies officer Lopez.
Hinote knows he did nothing wrong, so he stands his ground. Eventually, the officer realizes he has no legal basis for the stop and backs down, but not before threatening an act of extortion through the mail.
Below is an example of how police can and will act out their rage with impunity — for the simple fact they have a badge and a gun. Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Follow @MattAgorist Share | 0 |
Colorado taxpayers paid more than half a billion dollars to imprison criminal illegal aliens over the past 20 years, according to a report. [An analysis of the Colorado Department of Corrections’ State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) applications showed that taxpayers paid more than $522 million toward the incarceration of aliens, CBS Denver reported. SCAAP is a federal grant designed to foot the bill for some of the costs associated with incarcerating illegal aliens. In order to receive SCAAP funding, the state’s prisons must give the Department of Justice a list of names of illegal aliens and how much time they have served behind bars. In 2015 alone, the Colorado prison system harbored 1, 992 illegal aliens, who made up 7. 8 percent of the state’s prison population, at a cost of $59. 7 million to the taxpayers. But that amount of money only includes the amount spent on state prisons. Here is a breakdown of how much illegal aliens cost taxpayers at the county and city levels: Robert Dunn, a victim of an assault by an illegal alien, says he “feels victimized” by having to pay taxes to support the cost of his assailant’s life behind bars. His assailant is now serving a prison sentence in a Colorado state prison. “I think America is welcoming and we try to do our best to help people who come over here but we just don’t need those kind of people,” said Dunn. “Send him back right away, why should I feed him for six years?” The federal government is only reimbursing 4 percent of the costs of incarcerating illegal aliens through SCAAP, leaving the rest of the burden to the taxpayer. “When we say immigration is only a federal problem, it’s not,” said state Sen. Lambert (R). “We don’t want people to forget that a lot of the impacts are also on the states because the federal government is not reimbursing us for the cost of this incarceration. ” President Trump plans to cut much of this SCAAP funding at the federal level and shift funding to the state and local level. A county judge in Texas, however, demanded in February that the federal government reimburse Bexar County for the $22. 3 million the county spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. | 1 |
Posted: Nov 14th, 2016 by Guest Click for more article by Guest .. More Stories about: Ticker | 0 |
According to legend, the World War II-era Nazi meteorological station called the ‘Schatzgraber’ or ‘Treasure Hunter’ was constructed in 1942. It had been lost for so long, people weren’t even sure that it was real or just a myth.
Turns out, it was real.
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Margo Solomon has health insurance for herself and her four children. But actually getting treatment is another matter. Ms. Solomon, a mother from the Bronx, says she has struggled to find a doctor who accepts her insurance. And with three of her children coping with asthma, and one with more complicated medical problems, locating a specialist is even more challenging. And once in the door, she cannot afford the costs, including for deductibles and medications. “I feel like I am all alone out here,” Ms. Solomon said. She is not alone. A new study to be released on Monday by the Children’s Health Fund, a nonprofit based in New York City that expands access to health care for disadvantaged children, found that one in four children in the United States did not have access to essential health care, though a record number of young people now have health insurance. The report found that 20. 3 million people in the nation under the age of 18 lack “access to care that meets modern pediatric standards. ” Guidelines issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics say that all children should get health maintenance visits for immunizations and other preventive services management of acute and chronic medical conditions access to mental health support and dental care and have availability of emergency services and timely access to subspecialists. While Medicaid and many private insurance plans recommend or require that all of those services be provided, under the umbrella of what is known as the medical home, the study found that millions of insured children are not receiving many of the benefits. There are many children with insurance who cannot get primary care and those who do can often have problems getting specialty care. As Donald J. Trump, a Republican, vows to repeal some, if not all, of the Affordable Care Act, which extended health care coverage to an additional 20 million people, the report’s authors worry that even more children could have trouble receiving the care they need. “The fact that more than 20 million children in the U. S. experience insurance and noninsurance barriers to getting comprehensive and timely health care is a challenge that needs to get the attention from the new administration,” said the report’s lead author, Dr. Irwin Redlener, president of the nonprofit Children’s Health Fund and a professor of pediatrics and health policy and management at Columbia University. Over the past two decades, the number of children without health insurance has steadily decreased to 3. 3 million last year from around 10 million in 1997, according to an analysis of federal data and the federal government’s 2015 National Health Interview Survey. The effort to extend coverage began 50 years ago with the creation of Medicaid, which provides health insurance for the poor. It continued more recently with the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which offers coverage to those who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid and, under the Obama administration, with the Affordable Care Act, offering subsidized coverage and state exchanges. The study relied on census data and reports by federal agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prominent medical journals, as well as information extrapolated from the fund’s clinics and from its national network of programs that provide health care to underserved children across the country. The findings reveal a system in which getting quality care is often confusing and expensive, with even those who benefit from government programs often becoming deeply frustrated. For the insured, affordability is still an issue. The report noted that health insurance premiums for family coverage increased by 73 percent from 2003 to 2013. Employees’ contributions to the cost of the premiums climbed by 93 percent over that same period, though the rate of increase slowed after the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. The average deductible for an individual with health insurance was 5 percent of median income in 2013, up from 2 percent in 2003, the report said. The study also cited a survey that found that 59 percent of pediatricians said they had a hard time collecting patients’ shares of deductibles and from families covered by private health plans. For those with Medicaid, like Ms. Solomon, difficulties in getting care have also grown. Many clinics and health systems do not accept patients with Medicaid, the study said, because of the low reimbursement rates. Ms. Solomon’s experience is typical. “When I was pregnant with my last child, I had such a hard time finding prenatal care,” she said. She called 15 to 20 doctors before finding one who took her insurance. “I mean, we would call places and they would be like, ‘We take it,’ but it turned out they didn’t,” she said. “It was so hard. ” Even something as simple as getting medicine recently for her son’s strep throat was not simple. Because of a with her insurance card, Ms. Solomon had to cover a $20 for a prescription that should have been free, she said. The report said experiences like hers were common, both with government programs and some private insurers. “The impacts of these barriers are significant,” the report said. “Parents faced with financial barriers might seek to save money by calling their doctor for advice, rather than seeing that doctor in person rather than fill expensive prescriptions, a parent might rely on a limited supply of pharmaceutical samples. The medical debt incurred by such costs has been linked to reduced access to care, creating a vicious cycle. ” Perhaps just as significant are the barriers caused by demographics. Dr. Michael Kappy, a pediatric endocrinologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado just outside Denver, has seen the problem firsthand. Since 1996, he has traveled in Colorado, Montana and Wyoming to reach children in areas that do not have large medical centers or specialists. “My focus has been strictly speaking to solving the geographic barrier,” Dr. Kappy said. The study estimates that around 14 million children live in areas with a shortage of health professionals. More than three million residents in New York live in federally designated shortage areas where, among other criteria, there is less than one primary care doctor for every 3, 000 people. The Affordable Care Act sought to address that problem by expanding the National Health Service Corps, but 65 percent of rural areas still have shortages of health professionals. Dr. Kappy said one encouraging trend was the use of telemedicine, allowing for patients to be evaluated over the internet, with a local physician assistant aiding with work. To expand and improve options, however, the programs need to be properly reimbursed, he said, adding that programs that fund the work of doctors doing outreach to isolated communities were critical. Dr. Redlener, the study’s chief author, warned that repealing the Affordable Care Act without an adequate replacement could result in more than three million children losing their insurance. “So far,” Dr. Redlener said, “none of the proposed replacements will do anything to mitigate what children would potentially lose if the A. C. A. is actually repealed. ” | 1 |
Senate Democrats aren’t playing around with FBI Director James Comey. Four top Democrats sent Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch a letter demanding details on the emails that the FBI is investigating by Monday. In the letter, Sens. Carper, Leahy, Feinstein, and Cardin wrote:
Senate Democrats aren’t fooling around. They want answers, and they want them right now. As more details become known, FBI Director Comey’s motives have come under criticism. Comey was advised by Attorney General Lynch not to send his letter until after the election, but he sent it anyway.
Comey worried to FBI employees that his letter would be misunderstood, but he could have easily avoided any misunderstanding by either being specific in his letter or not sending the letter at all. It is becoming difficult to look at Comey’s actions in an objective manner and not see partisan political motivations.
The FBI Director has interfered in a presidential election with new emails that have nothing to do with the Democratic nominee, but can be used by her opponents for political purposes.
Democrats are demanding answers, and if James Comey doesn’t answer their questions by Monday, he will be forced to under oath if the Democratic Party wins a majority of seats in the Senate.
Either way, Comey’s October surprise has blown up in his own face. | 0 |
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii — Little lives up here except whispering hopes and a little bug called Wekiu. Three miles above the Pacific, you are above almost half the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere and every step hurts. A few minutes in the sun will fry your skin. Brains and fingers go numb. At night, the stars are so close they seem tangled in your hair. Two years ago, this mountaintop was the scene of a cosmic traffic jam: honking horns, vans and trucks full of astronomers, V. I. P. s, journalists, businesspeople, politicians, protesters and police — all snarled at a roadblock just short of the summit. Abandoning their cars, some of the visitors started to hike up the hill toward what would have been a groundbreaking for the biggest and most expensive stargazing machinery ever built in the Northern Hemisphere: the Thirty Meter Telescope, 14 years and $1. 4 billion in the making. They were assembling on a plateau just below the summit, when Joshua Mangauil, better known by his Hawaiian name of Lanakila, then 27, barged onto the scene. Resplendent in a tapa cloth, beads, a red loin cloth, his jet black hair in a long Mohawk, he had hiked over the volcano’s cinder cones barefoot. “Like snakes you are. Vile snakes,” he yelled. “We gave all of our aloha to you guys, and you slithered past us like snakes. ” “For what? For your greed to look into the sky? You guys can’t take care of this place. ” No ground was broken that day or since. To astronomers, the Thirty Meter Telescope would be a tool to spy on planets around other stars or to peer into the cores of ancient galaxies, with an eye sharper and more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope, another landmark in humanity’s quest to understand its origins. But to its opponents, the telescope would be yet another eyesore despoiling an ancient sacred landscape, a gigantic colossus joining the 13 telescopes already on Mauna Kea. Later this month, proponents and opponents of the giant telescope will face off in a hotel room in the nearby city of Hilo for the start of hearings that will lead to a decision on whether the telescope can be legally erected on the mountain. Over the years, some have portrayed this fight as a struggle between superstition and science. Others view the telescope as another symbol of how Hawaiians have been unfairly treated since Congress annexed the islands — illegally in the eyes of many — in 1898. And still others believe it will bring technology and economic development to an impoverished island. “This is a very simple case about land use,” Kealoha Pisciotta, a former telescope operator on Mauna Kea who has been one of the leaders of a group fighting telescope development on the mountain for the last decade. “It’s not science versus religion. We’re not the church. You’re not Galileo. ” Hanging in the balance is perhaps the best stargazing site on Earth. “Mauna Kea is the flagship of American and international astronomy,” said Doug Simons, the director of the Telescope on Mauna Kea. “We are on the precipice of losing this cornerstone of U. S. prestige. ” The road to the stars once ended in California at Palomar Mountain, whose telescope was long considered the size limit. The bigger a telescope mirror is, the more light it can capture and the fainter and farther it can see — out in space, back in time. In the 1990s, however, astronomers learned how to build telescopes with thin mirrors that relied on supports to keep them from sagging or warping. There was an explosion of telescope building that has culminated, for now, in plans for three giant telescopes: the European Extremely Large Telescope and the Giant Magellan, both in Chile, and the Thirty Meter Telescope. Not only would they have a Brobdingnagian appetite for light, but they are designed to incorporate a new technology called adaptive optics, which can take the twinkle out of starlight by adjusting telescope mirrors to compensate for atmospheric turbulence. Richard Ellis, a British astronomer now at the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany, recalled being optimistic in 1999 when he arrived at the California Institute of Technology to begin developing what became known as the Thirty Meter Telescope. “The stock market was booming,” he said. “Everything seemed possible. ” Canada, India and Japan eventually joined the project, now officially known as the TMT International Observatory. It has been helped along by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, formed by the founder of Intel, which has contributed advice and $180 million. The telescope, originally scheduled to be completed by 2024, is modeled on the revolutionary Keck telescopes that Caltech and the University of California operate on Mauna Kea. Like them, it will have with a segmented mirror composed of small, hexagonal pieces of glass fitted together into an expanse wider than a tennis court. There are only a few places on Earth that are dark, dry and calm enough to be fit for a telescope. Rising 33, 000 feet from the seafloor, Mauna Kea is one of the biggest mountains in the solar system. The dormant ancient volcano has been the center of Polynesian culture — the umbilical cord connecting Earth and sky — seemingly forever. The mountain is part of “ceded lands” that originally belonged to the Hawaiian Kingdom and are now administered by the state for the benefit of Hawaiians. On its spare, merciless summit, craters and cinder cones of indefinable age keep company with a variety pack of architectural shapes housing telescopes. In 1968 the University of Hawaii took out a lease on 11, 000 acres for a dollar a year. Some 500 acres of that are designated as a science preserve. It includes the ice age quarry from which stone tools were being cut a thousand years ago, and hundreds of shrines and burial grounds. The first telescope went up in 1970. Many rapidly followed. Places like Mauna Kea are “cradles of knowledge,” said Natalie Batalha, one of the leaders of NASA’s Kepler mission. “I am filled with reverence and humility every time I get to be physically present at a mountaintop observatory. ” But some Hawaiians worried that knowledge was coming at too great a cost. “All those telescopes got put up with no thought beyond reviving the Hilo economy,” said Michael Bolte, an astronomer from the University of California, Santa Cruz, who serves on the TMT board. “Not a lot of thought was given to culture issues. ” Some native Hawaiians complained that their beloved mountain had grown “pimples,” and that the telescope development had interfered with cultural and religious practices that are protected by state law. Construction trash sometimes rolled down the mountain, said Nelson Ho, a photographer and Sierra Club leader who complained to the university. “They wouldn’t listen,” he said. “They just kept playing king of the mountain. ” An audit by the State of Hawaii in 1998 scolded the university for failing to protect the mountain and its natural and cultural resources. An environmental impact study performed by NASA in 2007 similarly concluded that 30 years of astronomy had caused “significant, substantial and adverse” harm to Mauna Kea. The tide began to shift in 2001 when NASA announced a plan to add six small telescopes called outriggers to the Keck complex. The outriggers would be used in concert with the big telescopes as interferometers to test ideas a for a future space mission dedicated to looking for planets around other stars. Ms. Pisciotta led a band of environmentalists and cultural practitioners who went to court to stop NASA. The group included the Hawaiian chapter of the Sierra Club and the Royal Order of Kamehameha, devoted to restoring the Kingdom of Hawaii. Ms. Pisciotta said she had once dreamed of being a cosmologist but lacked the requisite math skills and instead took a night job operating a radio telescope on Mauna Kea. She became disenchanted when a family shrine disappeared from the summit and the plans for the outriggers impinged on a cinder cone. “Cinder cones are burial sites. It’s time to not let this go on,” she said. The group prepared for court by reading popular books about trials. In 2007, Hawaii’s third district court found the management plan for the outriggers was flawed and revoked the building permit. “NASA packed up and left,” Ms. Pisciotta said. The prospective builders of the TMT knew they had their work cut out for them. In 2007, the Moore Foundation hired Peter Adler, a consultant and sociologist, to look into the consequences of putting the telescope in Hawaii. “Should TMT decide to pursue a Mauna Kea site,” his report warned, “it will inherit the anger, fear and great mistrust generated through previous telescope planning and siting failures and an accumulated disbelief that any additional projects, especially a physically imposing one like the TMT, can be done properly. ” The astronomers picked a telescope site that was less anthropologically sensitive, on a plateau below the summit with no monuments or other obvious structures on it. They agreed to pay $1 million a year, a fifth of which would go to the state’s Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the rest to stewardship of the mountain. Quietly, they also pledged another $2 million a year toward science and technology education and work force development on the island of Hawaii. The Moore Foundation also put some $2 million into the Imiloa Astronomy Center, a museum and planetarium run by the University of Hawaii. Dr. Bolte, a U. C. S. C. professor with a soothing lilt to his voice, became one of the most visible promoters of the project in community meetings. He recalled going to a meeting in Hilo once where tensions were very high. Afterward, he said, he was afraid to go out to his car. Sure enough, a crowd rushed him when he got there. “What kind of astronomy do you do?” they asked eagerly. “The aloha spirit really exists,” Dr. Bolte said. “Exploring the universe is a wonderful thing humans do,” he added. Nevertheless, “there was a core we never won over. ” “In retrospect, we might have underestimated the strength of the sovereignty movement. ” In the years since the first telescopes went up on Mauna Kea, Hawaiian people and culture had experienced a resurgence of pride known as the Hawaiian Renaissance. In 1976, a band of Hawaiians sailed the outrigger canoe Hokulea from Hawaii to Tahiti. The feat showed how ancient Polynesians could have purposefully explored and colonized the Pacific, navigating the seas using only the sun, stars, ocean swells and wind. “And that was the first spark of shutting up everybody who said that we were inferior, that we were not intelligent,” Mr. Mangauil, the protester, said. In 1978, the state recognized Hawaiian, which once had been banned from schools, as an official language. With rising pride came — at least among some more vocal native Hawaiians — questions about whether the occupation and annexation of Hawaii by the United States in the 1890s was legal. Telescopes on a sacred mountain constitute a form of “colonial violence,” in the words of J. Kehaulani Kauanui, an anthropologist at Wesleyan University. Or as Robert Kirshner, a Harvard professor who is now also chief science officer at the Moore Foundation, put it, “The question in that case become not so much whether you did the environmental impact statement right, but whose island is it?” Having cut their teeth fighting the outrigger project, Ms. Pisciotta’s group, known informally as the Mauna Kea Hui, was prepared when the TMT Corporation formally selected the mountain for its site in 2009. Many Hawaiians welcomed the telescope project. At a permit hearing, Wallace Ishibashi Jr. whose family had an ancestral connection to Mauna Kea, compared the Thirty Meter’s mission to the search for aumakua, the ancestral origins of the universe. “Hawaiians,” he said, “have always been a creative and adaptive people. ” Ms. Pisciotta and her friends argued among other things that an observatory, which would be the biggest structure on the whole island of Hawaii, did not fit in a conservation district. In a series of hearings in 2010 and 2011, the state land board approved a permit for the telescope but then stipulated that no construction could begin until a contested case hearing, in which interested parties could present their arguments, was held. The state won that hearing, and a groundbreaking ceremony was scheduled for Oct. 7, 2014. The groundbreaking was never intended to be a public event, said Bob McClaren, associate director of the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy, which is responsible for scientific activities on the mountain. “I thought it was reasonable to restrict access to those who were invited,” he said. Mr. Mangauil, who makes his living teaching hula dancing and Hawaiian culture, said later that he had wanted only to make the astronomers feel uncomfortable to be on the mountain and to get protesters’ signs in view of the television cameras. In an interview, he said he had nothing against science or astronomy, but did not want it on his mountain. “Our connection to the mountain is like, that’s our elder, the mother of our resources,” he said. “We’re talking about the wau akua, the realm of where the gods live. ” There are no shrines on the very summit, he pointed out, which should be a lesson: Not even the most holy people are supposed to go there. Unable to get to the groundbreaking, the Hawaiians formed their own blockade. Tempers flared. “We were seeing the native Hawaiian movement flexing its muscles,” Dr. Bolte said. Seeing people hiking up the mountain past the Mr. Mangauil stormed after them and wound up on the hood of a ranger truck, even more angry. Lanakila’s barefoot run set the tone for two years of unrest and demonstrations. Protesters calling themselves Guardians of the Mountain set up a permanent vigil across the road from the Mauna Kea visitor center, stopping telescope construction crews and equipment from going up. Dozens were arrested. Gov. David Ige has tried to appease both sides. While saying that “we have in many ways failed the mountain,” he said the Thirty Meter Telescope should go forward, but at least three other telescopes would have to come down. Astronomers and business leaders grew frustrated that the state was not doing enough to keep the road open for construction trucks and workers. “The result of the faulty law enforcement surrounding Mauna Kea is fostering tension, aggression, racism and business uncertainty,” business organizations and the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce wrote to the governor. “Ambiguity surrounding the rule of law has prompted a poor economic climate. ” Stopping trucks on the steep slope was dangerous, said Dr. Bolte, adding that “people were basically trapped at the summit. ” Dr. Simons, the director, grew increasingly worried about the effect of the protests on the astronomers, who became reluctant to be identified as observatory staffers. “It really tugged at us to see the staff going from being proud to scared in a matter of weeks,” he said. Meanwhile Ms. Pisciotta‘s coalition was plugging through the courts. On Dec. 2, the Hawaiian Supreme Court revoked the telescope building permit, ruling that the state had violated due process by handing out the permit before the contested case hearing. “Quite simply, the Board put the cart before the horse when it issued the permit,” the court wrote. By Clarence Ching, another member of the opposition, stood in a crowd with other Hawaiians and watched trucks carrying equipment retreat from the mountain. “David had beaten Goliath,” he said. “We were even happy and sad at the same time — sad, for instance, that somebody had to lose — as we had fought hard and long. ” The court’s decision set the stage for a new round of hearings, now scheduled to start in . The case, presided over by Riki May Amano, a retired judge appointed by the Land Board, is likely to last longer than the first round, which consumed seven days of hearings over a few weeks, partly because there are more parties this time around. Among them is the Hawaiian group called Perpetuating Unique Educational Opportunities or PUEO, who contend the benefits of the TMT to the community have been undersold. Whoever wins this fall’s contested case hearing, the decision is sure to be quickly appealed to the Hawaiian Supreme Court. In an interview, Edward Stone, a Caltech professor and vice president of the Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory, the group that will build the telescope, set April 2018 as the deadline for beginning construction. Depending on how it goes in Hawaii or elsewhere, the telescope could be ready sometime in the last half of the next decade. “We need to start building this thing somewhere,” he said. “We still hope Hawaii will work,” he added. “What we need is a timely permit, and we need access to the mountain once we have a permit. ” But there is no guarantee that even if the astronomers succeed in court they will prevail on the mountain. In an email exchange, J. Douglas Ing, lawyer for the TMT Observatory, said they were “cautiously optimistic” that local agencies would uphold the law, but the astronomers have also been investigating alternative sites in Mexico, Chile, India, China and the Canary Islands. “It’s wise of the TMT to be exploring other sites,” said Richard Wurdeman, the lawyer for the Mauna Kea Hui. I asked Ms. Pisciotta what would happen if the giant telescope finally wins. “It would be really hard for Hawaiian people to swallow that,” she said. “It’s always been our way to lift our prayers up to heaven and hope they hear us. ” Dr. Bolte said he had learned to not make predictions about Hawaii. In a recent email, he recalled photographing a bunch of Hawaiian owls. “These are called pueo, and they are said to be the physical form of ancestor spirits,” Dr. Bolte recounted. Referring to the Hawaiian term for a wise elder, he said, “I had one kupuna tell me it was a great sign for TMT that so many pueo sought me out that trip, and another tell me it was a sign that we should leave the island immediately before a calamity falls on TMT. ” | 1 |
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Things have gotten steadily worse for Democrats after Donald Trump’s election to the Presidency of the United States. Scores of celebrities are freaking out across social media, Hillary supporters are holding “Cry Ins” to help each other cope, visits to Canada’s immigration website have skyrocketed , and coping videos are starting to make the rounds online.
While many shocked Clinton supporters have found solidarity with thousands of others by protesting and rioting in the streets, some, like movie star Robert DeNiro, have fallen into a depressive state .
And according to The Hill , those overwhelming feelings of depression have led to suicidal thoughts in many. So much so that suicide hotlines across the country are struggling to keep up:
Phones have been ringing off the hook at suicide hotlines since Donald Trump was named president-elect Tuesday.
According to multiple reports, many of those calling or texting into hotlines are members of the LGBTQ community, minorities and victims of sexual assault who are worried about Trump’s victory. The Suicide Prevention Lifeline told “ The Washington Post” it is seeing calls “unmatched in the hotline’s history,” with a response unlike that in 2008 or 2012.
…
Election stress is nothing new. Psychologists have noted upticks in anxiety and stress during and following contentious election cycles. This specific election, many have observed, is no exception and is exceeding average numbers in those seeking mental care and counseling.
If you are someone you know can’t handle the stress, please share this video. Mac Slavo Views: Read by 130 12th, 2016 Website: www.SHTFplan.com
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Sheeple News Shot: Joe Joseph discusses drills that are kicking off in the Balkans by NATO and Russia. These drills are happening at the same time and in the same region.
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The New York City public school system has stopped serving a Kellogg’s brand cereal to students, replacing it with a healthier, organic brand of cereal made by a small California company. [Last year the Kellogg Company discontinued several flavors of its Kashi brand cereal, a product advertised as a healthier cereal choice. But instead of simply picking some of Kellogg’s other brands to replace Kashi, school officials decided to hold taste testing for other, newer brands. Ultimately the district chose the Back to the Roots brand, The New York Times reported. The new brand features lower levels of sugar and salt, as well as fewer calories than any of the Kellogg’s cereals, the paper reports. The small company’s offering is also free of preservatives and does not artificially add vitamins. In addition, its cereals are certified as organic. “Breakfast is really important to us, and we’re trying to get our menu to where we want it to be,” said Eric Goldstein, the chief executive of the Office of School Support Services, told the paper. “In the world we live in, though, there are so many constraints, so being able to offer Back to the Roots cereals for us is like a breath of fresh air. ” Up to 254, 000 children a day eats breakfast at New York City schools, according to district officials. The move to replace several of the Kellogg’s brands with the healthier choice comes on the heels of pressure from Congress, the state and some parents for schools to make better choices for school food programs. New York school officials also said that during the taste testing, kids chose the Back to the Roots brand over others. The district is still offering brands by the big cereal companies — General Mills, Post Foods, and even Kellogg’s, among them — but school administrators feel the new brands are offering a healthier choice. The big change in New York only adds to the woes of the Kellogg company, whose stock has been falling along with its market share. Only a month ago the company announced it was slashing its sales force, laying off over 1, 000 workers, and shuttering 39 distribution centers. The February announcement came on top of major cuts already announced this year. Early in January Kellogg Co. announced it was firing 250 workers. The multiple rounds of cutbacks occurred after Kellogg’s decided to cut its advertising with Breitbart News at the end of 2016, thereby snubbing Breitbart’s 45 million readers. In November, Kellogg’s noted that Breitbart News’s conservative readers are not “aligned with our values as a company. ” While the decision by Kellogg’s to cease advertising made virtually no revenue impact on Breitbart. com, it did represent an escalation in the war by leftist companies like Target and Allstate against conservative customers whose values propelled Donald Trump into the White House. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — years after Imperial Japanese warplanes destroyed the Pacific fleet here and drew the United States into World War II, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan on Tuesday stood next to President Obama at the site of the attack and offered repentance but did not apologize. “I offer my sincere and everlasting condolences to the souls of those who lost their lives here, as well as to the spirits of all the brave men and women whose lives were taken by a war that commenced in this very place, and also to the souls of the countless innocent people who became victims of the war,” Mr. Abe said. He added, “We must never repeat the horrors of war again. ” For his part, Mr. Obama described in detail what occurred on the day of the attack, highlighted acts of heroism by American service members and said that the visit of Mr. Abe “reminds us of what is possible between nations and between peoples. ’’ Mr. Obama added, in what seemed a warning after the scorching American presidential campaign: “Even when hatred burns hottest and the tug of tribalism is at the most primal, we must resist the urge to turn in. We must resist the urge to demonize those who are different. The sacrifice made here, the angst of war, reminds us to seek the divine spark that is common to all humanity. ” The president and prime minister made their remarks at the end of a long pier that overlooks Pearl Harbor and the memorial to the attack — a small building on top of the carcass of the battleship Arizona in Pearl Harbor, where 2, 400 American sailors, Marines and others were killed in the surprise military strike on Dec. 7, 1941. Mr. Abe and Mr. Obama laid wreaths made of white peace lilies at the memorial, and then dropped purple Hawaiian orchids into the water. The war that began here ended with the United States dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. But out of the ashes of war, the two countries forged one of the most enduring partnerships of the past century, demonstrating that bitter enemies can make peace and become allies. Mr. Abe thanked the United States for helping to rebuild Japan after the attacks. “Under the leadership of the United States, Japan, as a member of the free world, was able to enjoy peace and prosperity,” Mr. Abe said. “The good will and assistance you extended to us Japanese, the enemy you had fought so fiercely, together with the tremendous spirit of tolerance, were etched deeply into the hearts and minds of our grandfathers and mothers. ” The ceremony was another chapter in the reconciliation between the countries and mirrored a similar event in May, when Mr. Obama visited the peace memorial in Hiroshima. In a speech there, Mr. Obama did not apologize for the dropping of the bombs but vowed to continue to work toward ridding the world of nuclear weapons — a message greeted warmly in Japan, the only country to suffer such an attack. “ years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed,” Mr. Obama said at the time. “Technological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us,” Mr. Obama said, adding that such technology “requires a moral revolution as well. ” The Japanese have long had difficulty making sense of their country’s decisions during World War II. Some have rationalized the attack on Pearl Harbor as a necessary response to an embargo that was destroying Japan’s economy. In the 1950s, three Japanese prime ministers — including Mr. Abe’s grandfather Nobusuke Kishi — visited Honolulu, although there is no record that they participated in a memorial ceremony at Pearl Harbor. In the decades that followed, senior Japanese leaders largely avoided the site. When Emperor Akihito planned to visit the memorial in 1994, nationalist protests in Japan led to his canceling the visit. But six months after Mr. Obama visited Hiroshima, Mr. Abe told the president in a meeting at an economic forum in Peru that he wanted to visit Pearl Harbor. In a statement earlier this month, the White House said that “the meeting will be an opportunity for the two leaders to review our joint efforts over the past four years to strengthen the U. S. alliance, including our close cooperation on a number of security, economic, and global challenges. ” The Japanese, who are increasingly alarmed about the rise of China, have largely embraced the visit, as many see it as a way to strengthen ties with the United States. In Japan, NHK, the public broadcaster, played the speeches live, but otherwise, early media coverage of the speeches was muted. There have been suggestions in the Japanese news media that Mr. Abe’s approval ratings will rise in the days after the ceremony, strengthening his hand as he decides whether to call an election in January. Mr. Abe has made closer ties with the United States a central part of his foreign policy, at least under Mr. Obama. Donald J. Trump has struck a far more hawkish tone toward Japan. During Mr. Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, Mr. Trump, at that time the presumptive Republican nominee, said on Twitter: “Does President Obama ever discuss the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor while he’s in Japan? Thousands of American lives lost. ” Mr. Trump has also criticized the Japanese for being too reliant on the United States for their country’s defense and for not paying enough for that protection. And Mr. Trump suggested that Japan would be better off if it had nuclear weapons. Mr. Abe met with Mr. Trump in November at Trump Tower, in a meeting that Mr. Abe’s aides said left him feeling optimistic about the prospects of Japan’s relationship with the United States. But the Japanese remain deeply unnerved about Mr. Trump as they view his statements and the suggestion that Japan should acquire its own nuclear arsenal as undermining its strategic alliance with the United States and antithetical to the country’s pacifist Constitution. Before Mr. Obama and Mr. Abe visited Pearl Harbor, they had a formal meeting at Marines Corps Camp H. M. Smith, where they discussed a wide range of issues, including trade. The day’s events interrupted Mr. Obama’s vacation. Since becoming president, he has spent every Christmas in his native Hawaii. He arrived here 10 days ago and has spent his time golfing and seeing friends. On Christmas Day, he and his wife, Michelle Obama, visited troops stationed here. He is expected to be in Hawaii through the New Year. The day marked what is likely Mr. Obama’s last meeting with a foreign leader as president, as there are just 24 days left before Mr. Trump is to be sworn in. | 1 |
Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser, resigned on Monday night after it was revealed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other top White House officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States. Mr. Flynn, who served in the job for less than a month, said he had given “incomplete information” regarding a telephone call he had with the ambassador in late December about American sanctions against Russia, weeks before President Trump’s inauguration. Mr. Flynn previously had denied that he had any substantive conversations with Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak, and Mr. Pence repeated that claim in television interviews as recently as this month. But on Monday, a former administration official said the Justice Department warned the White House last month that Mr. Flynn had not been fully forthright about his conversations with the ambassador. As a result, the Justice Department feared that Mr. Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow. In his resignation letter, which the White House emailed to reporters, Mr. Flynn said he had held numerous calls with foreign officials during the transition. “Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of events, I inadvertently briefed the vice and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador,” he wrote. “I have sincerely apologized to the president and the vice president, and they have accepted my apology. ” “I am tendering my resignation, honored to have served our nation and the American people in such a distinguished way,” Mr. Flynn wrote. The White House said in the statement that it was replacing Mr. Flynn with retired Lt. Gen. Joseph K. Kellogg Jr. of the Army, a Vietnam War veteran, as acting national security adviser. Mr. Flynn was an early and ardent supporter of Mr. Trump’s candidacy, and in his resignation he sought to praise the president. “In just three weeks,” Mr. Flynn said, the new president “has reoriented American foreign policy in fundamental ways to restore America’s leadership position in the world. ” But in doing so, he inadvertently illustrated the brevity of his tumultuous run at the National Security Council, and the chaos that has gripped the White House in the first weeks of the Trump administration — and created a sense of uncertainty around the world. Earlier Monday, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, told reporters that “the president is evaluating the situation” about Mr. Flynn’s future. By Monday evening, Mr. Flynn’s fortunes were rapidly shifting — his resignation came roughly seven hours after Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to the president, said on MSNBC that Mr. Trump had “full confidence” in the retired general. And when he did step down, it happened so quickly that his resignation does not appear to have been communicated to National Security Council staff members, two of whom said they learned about it from news reports. Officials said Mr. Pence had told others in the White House that he believed Mr. Flynn lied to him by saying he had not discussed the topic of sanctions on a call with the Russian ambassador in late December. Even the mere discussion of policy — and the apparent attempt to assuage the concerns of an American adversary before Mr. Trump took office — represented a remarkable breach of protocol. The F. B. I. had been examining Mr. Flynn’s phone calls as he came under growing questions about his interactions with Russian officials and his management of the National Security Council. The blackmail risk envisioned by the Justice Department would have stemmed directly from Mr. Flynn’s attempt to cover his tracks with his bosses. The Russians knew what had been said on the call thus, if they wanted Mr. Flynn to do something, they could have threatened to expose the lie if he refused. The Justice Department’s warning to the White House was first reported on Monday night by The Washington Post. In addition, the Army has been investigating whether Mr. Flynn received money from the Russian government during a trip he took to Moscow in 2015, according to two defense officials. Such a payment might violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits former military officers from receiving money from a foreign government without consent from Congress. The defense officials said there was no record that Mr. Flynn, a retired Army general, filed the required paperwork for the trip. Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement late Monday that Mr. Flynn’s resignation would not close the question of his contact with Russian officials. “General Flynn’s decision to step down as national security adviser was all but ordained the day he misled the country about his secret talks with the Russian ambassador,” said Mr. Schiff, noting that the matter is still under investigation by the House committee. Two other Democratic lawmakers — Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan and Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland — called for an immediate briefing by the Justice Department and the F. B. I. over the “alarming new disclosures” that Mr. Flynn was a blackmail risk. “We need to know who else within the White House is a current and ongoing risk to our national security,” they said in a statement. Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and the chairman of the House intelligence committee, was supportive of Mr. Flynn until the end. “Washington, D. C. can be a rough town for honorable people, and Flynn — who has always been a soldier, not a politician — deserves America’s gratitude and respect,” Mr. Nunes said in a statement. The White House had examined a transcript of a wiretapped conversation that Mr. Flynn had with Mr. Kislyak in December, according to administration officials. Mr. Flynn originally told Mr. Pence and others that the call was limited to small talk and holiday pleasantries. But the conversation, according to officials who saw the transcript of the wiretap, also included a discussion about sanctions imposed on Russia after intelligence agencies determined that President Vladimir V. Putin’s government tried to interfere with the 2016 election on Mr. Trump’s behalf. Still, current and former administration officials familiar with the call said the transcript was ambiguous enough that Mr. Trump could have justified either firing or retaining Mr. Flynn. Mr. Trump, however, had become increasingly concerned about the continued fallout over Mr. Flynn’s behavior, according to people familiar with his thinking, and told aides that the media storm around Mr. Flynn would damage the president’s image on national security issues. Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, asked for Mr. Flynn’s resignation — a move that he has been pushing for since Friday, when it became clear that the national security adviser had misled Mr. Pence. Around 8:20 p. m. Monday, a sullen Mr. Flynn was seen in the Oval Office, just as preparations were being made for the of newly confirmed Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. Soon after, Mr. Flynn’s resignation letter started making the rounds. Administration officials said it was unlikely that Mr. Kellogg would be asked to stay on as Mr. Flynn’s permanent replacement. Mr. Flynn brought Mr. Kellogg into the Trump campaign, according to a former campaign adviser, and the two have remained close. K. T. McFarland, the deputy national security adviser who also was brought on by Mr. Flynn, is expected to leave that role, a senior official said. One person close to the administration, who was not authorized to discuss the personnel moves and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that retired Vice Admiral Robert S. Harward is the leading candidate to replace Mr. Flynn, although Mr. Kellogg and David H. Petraeus are being discussed. It was not clear whether Mr. Petraeus is still expected to appear at the White House this week, as initially discussed by advisers to the president. Mr. Flynn’s concealment of the call’s content, combined with questions about his management of his agency and reports of a demoralized staff, put him in a precarious position less than a month into Mr. Trump’s presidency. Few members of Mr. Trump’s team were more skeptical of Mr. Flynn than the vice president, numerous administration officials said. Mr. Pence, who used the false information provided by Mr. Flynn to defend him in a series of television appearances, was incensed at Mr. Flynn’s lack of contrition for repeatedly embarrassing him by withholding the information, according to three administration officials familiar with the situation. Mr. Flynn and Mr. Pence spoke twice in the past few days about the matter, but administration officials said that rather than fully apologize and accept responsibility, the national security adviser blamed his faulty memory — which irked the typically Mr. Pence. The slight was compounded by an episode late last year when Mr. Pence went on television to deny that Mr. Flynn’s son, who had posted conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton on social media, had been given a security clearance by the transition team. The younger Mr. Flynn had, indeed, been given such a clearance, even though his father had told Mr. Pence’s team that he had not. Officials said classified information did not appear to have been discussed during the conversation between Mr. Flynn and the ambassador, which would have been a crime. The call was captured on a routine wiretap of diplomats’ calls, the officials said. But current Trump administration officials and former Obama administration officials said that Mr. Flynn did appear to be reassuring the ambassador that Mr. Trump would adopt a more accommodating tone on Russia once in office. Former and current administration officials said that Mr. Flynn urged Russia not to retaliate against any sanctions because an overreaction would make any future cooperation more complicated. He never explicitly promised sanctions relief, one former official said, but he appeared to leave the impression that it would be possible. During his 2015 trip to Moscow, Mr. Flynn was paid to attend the anniversary celebration of Russia Today, a television network controlled by the Kremlin. At the banquet, he sat next to Mr. Putin. Mr. Flynn had notified the Defense Intelligence Agency, which he once led, that he was taking the trip. He received a security briefing from agency officials before he left, which is customary for former top agency officials when they travel overseas. Still, some senior agency officials were surprised when footage of the banquet appeared on RT, and believed that Mr. Flynn should have been more forthcoming with the agency about the nature of his trip to Russia. | 1 |
On Fridays at 10 a. m. we heard his voice before we saw the flash of his bright blue jacket. Bill was hard of hearing and always spoke loudly, very loudly. We had to speak loudly to him, too, always talking directly into his right ear. If he was making his way down to us this meant he had completed hours of designing his On the Street and Evening Hours columns with John Kurdewan, his long time collaborator and close friend. He never deviated from his daily uniform: blue jacket, khaki pants and sensible black sneakers. He said once that Vanity Fair wanted to put him on their list and asked for his fashion essential. “Duct tape is what I will tell them!” he said. (He sometimes his jackets to prolong their use.) “Miss Joanna! Miss Val!” he would call out as he approached our desks. He was so focused on getting his pictures precisely organized on the layout, he usually forgot to eat breakfast. So one of us or another colleague would go out and get his regular order: a sugar doughnut (with the sugar scraped off) and a coffee with milk. The total was $2, not that he would let any of us pay for it. Cecilio, who works at the coffee cart across the street, always knew the was for Bill, and would say, “Tell Billy I said hi. ” Over the course of the day — almost every Friday until Bill’s death on June 25 — we worked with him on our projects. He and Joanna would go to a conference room so they could record his popular On the Street videos. Nothing was rehearsed or scripted. He would give a nod and then start. “Hello, this is Bill Cunningham. ” His Billisms were always left in, like his throat clearing as he said his introduction or his laughing at his own jokes. There might be tangents about how all the kids had a fashion revolution at Sheep Meadow in Central Park on Easter Sunday 1967, or about the giddy feeling he got when he saw Courrèges’ first collection. Bill never watched the completed videos. He just said, “Child, I trust you. ” (He would often call people “child,” and sometimes “Miss Muffett. ”) Maybe he didn’t want to suggest he was questioning the work. Maybe he didn’t like to hear the sound of his voice. The meeting with Val would be in her cubicle. Bill described her job as “doing the words,” the words being the names and scene setters in his Evening Hours column and the descriptive paragraphs in On the Street. He would dictate. She would take down everything he said. Together they would edit. This was a task taken on by many New York Times employees over the years, a lot of copy editors among them. It was not without its difficulties. There was always the tension of the looming 3:30 p. m. deadline. He had a tendency to make changes at the last minute. He wanted his columns to be just the way he wanted them to be. What mattered to him was the quality of the pages hitting doorsteps that Sunday. Bill embraced fashion’s eccentrics and didn’t care about celebrities. (He refused to say Kanye West’s name in the most recent Met Gala video, referring to him as “one man. ”) Though it was a photo of Greta Garbo that earned him his first spread of pictures in 1978, the only reason he had photographed her was because he loved how her coat fell on her shoulder. He knew the back stories and family trees of the “unknown” guests he repeatedly photographed at society parties. And he loved babies and children. While every other photographer was shooting clothes on the runway, Bill turned his camera to the “kiddies” in the front row. “Are you kids interested in this?” was one of his favorite questions. He had a passion for museums. Many weeks, his Evening Hours column was a roundup of names, but on certain occasions, such as when the Frick Collection and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum were involved, he would leave extra space for a narrative. Flowers received special attention, as well, and they often appeared in his photographs. In the office, when he saw arrangements wilting on someone’s desk, he would rush to get a cup and water them, muttering as he did it, “Oh, what a crime. ” Bill expressed his enthusiasm regularly and effusively. He complimented all of us who worked with him, and he was a generous, playful colleague. On days when the vending machines would malfunction, he would call everyone over and hit the numbers to hand out free sodas. He’d ham it up when friends from other departments came by and even consented to pose with us for selfies, against his better instincts. When Joanna wore red lipstick to work, Bill would ask her, “Oh child, do you have a date tonight?” After she told him she just liked to wear red lipstick for herself, he replied: “That’s right, child. Just remember they need you, you don’t need them!” He considered those who worked with him family. On Thanksgiving, he would invite many of us over to his modest apartment, which had a view of the parade. He would hand out chocolate turkeys and let people sit on his bed, a thin mattress on a wood strip over two box crates. This year, he gave everyone feathers that he used on his hats when he was a milliner. Bill marked every holiday with gifts. On Easter, he’d hand out toy bunnies. On the Fourth of July, it was scarves with a print of the United States flag on them. On Christmas, a box of truffles from Godiva or Myzel’s, a small chocolate shop on 55th Street from the ’60s, where Kamila Myzel, a Polish immigrant, still makes the chocolates by hand. When he received a Christmas card that lit up, he rushed downstairs to show us how it worked. This year, for Valentine’s Day, Bill left us paper hearts with a toy bird attached to each one. The birds were the same ones he had in his apartment. He was giving us a piece of himself. | 1 |
China Airport Security Robot Gives Electroshocks 11/02/2016
ACTIVIST POST
While debate surrounds the threat of autonomous “killer robots,” the mechanized replacement of humans continues across the workforce.
The industrial robotics industry is logging record sales worldwide, and there appears to be no sign of a slowdown. As you can see in the graphic below, 2015 sales surged 12% over a previous record year to reach almost 1/4 million units.
There are many factors driving this growth, which you can read about here; but one point worth noting is that the two leading countries are the US and China, with China leading the way.
The nature of robotics is also changing, as new developments in artificial intelligence are giving robots an increasing range of potential uses. One key area, of course, is security. Robot security guards have already begun appearing at prisons , care facilities , and schools, in various locations around the world.
One U.S. robot company, Gamma 2 Robotics, has designed several models for mass production. Their latest – RAMSEE – can be seen in the video below. A true mass roll-out of this fully autonomous security guard could significantly impact the 1.5 million humans that are currently employed in some form of security patrol.
RAMSEE advertises the following capabilities: Is a physical presence that autonomously patrols without supervision Provides real-time data: intruders, motion, heat, fire, smoke, gases & more Is a human-machine interface that creates a powerful force multiplier
Significantly, Gamma 2 Robotics has partnered with Hexagon Safety & Infrastructure: “the global leader in public safety and security solutions.”
However, RAMSEE is missing one thing: weapons. For that, we have to travel to China, where they seem to have embraced police robots full throttle.
In late 2015, I covered an announcement from China’s Xinhua news agency where they announced the development and deployment of 3 weaponized “anti-terrorism” robots that would be far more active than a mere patrol:
“The toy-sized robots can coordinate with each other on the battlefield,” said the report, following their unveiling at the 2015 World Robot Conference in Beijing.
The first model is known as a “reconnaissance” robot, which scouts for poisonous gases, dangerous chemicals and explosives before transmitting its findings back to base.If this initial investigation detects a simple bomb is the source of danger, the second robot model – a small explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) machine – would be sent in to diffuse it.
But with other, more complicated threats, an attacker robot would start its mission, armed with “minor-caliber weapons, recoilless rifles and grenade launchers”.
“With a sighting telescope, a trigger and a safe installed, the attacker can hit its target from a long distance,” Xinhua said.
The local police force in Beijing was reported to be among the buyers for the three robots , which are priced at 1.5 million yuan (£156,000) for the set by manufacturers HIT Robot Group, who are based in the northern city of Harbin.
“Apart from anti-terror operations, they can also be applied in fire fighting, public security, forestry and agriculture,” the company’s sales manager Chen Deqiang said, according to Xinhua.
If we have learned anything about anti-terrorism efforts, authorities consider front-line deployment to be areas of public travel. We were given the TSA based on such notions, and have since witnessed its intrusive role in airports, and soon-to-be at other public transportation if authorities have their way.
China has gone to the next level with a robot TSA of sorts called AnBot that is equipped with what is essentially a taser-like device that is being fittingly compared to a cattle-prod.
Image Credit
It was first introduced at a tech show earlier in the year, and was speculated to have been designed for protest suppression. For now, its first job is to patrol China’s Shenzhen airport.
Most alarming, however, is that it is tied to one of the most powerful supercomputers on the planet.
The back end of this “intelligent security robot” is l inked to China’s Tianhe-2 supercomputer , where it has access to cloud services . AnBot conducts patrols, recognizes threats and has multiple cameras that use facial recognition.
These cloud services give the robots petascale processing power , well beyond onboard processing capabilities in the robot. The supercomputer connection is there “to enhance the intelligent learning capabilities and human-machine interface of these devices,” said the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review, in a report released Tuesday that examines China’s autonomous systems development efforts . [emphasis added]
( Source )
This link to “cloud services” is a new trend in robot artificial intelligence that also has been referred to as the Wikipedia for Robots – essentially an Internet Cloud Brain. Through robot-to-robot information sharing they can speed up their learning process … autonomously. Examples have included robots that can learn to cook, and robots that can learn the tasks involved in care-giving. However, when applied to policing, things become much more ethically troubling.
People were outraged in the U.S., for example, when a robot in Dallas was used to deliver a pound of C-4 explosive to a U.S. citizen whom the police deemed a sufficient threat worthy of immediate execution. At least, in that case, a human made the decision. But it is being viewed as a tip-toe along the path to the widespread use of “killer robots” much as we have seen with the use of drones. Discussion was once limited to overseas – egregious enough – but there has been a growing voice of those who are urging weaponized domestic police drones.
As John Vibes wrote , it might be inevitable:
The Taser corporation is planning on building a drone that is equipped with a stun gun, according to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal.
Not only will the drones be equipped with tasers, but there is also talk of them being autonomous, meaning that an actual human won’t necessarily be needed to fly the drone.
This is actually already being done in India , the first country to have approved the use of drones attached with “non-lethal” weapons. And, just this week, British tabloid, The Sun , had a feature entitled “Vladimir Putin’s Russia is preparing an army of robots and drones to take on its enemies, Deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin admits.” Given the available facts, this title no longer seems so deliberately sensational.
Clearly we are entering a potentially dangerous convergence of expanding robotic artificial intelligence along with the political will to continue allowing robots more and more autonomy as they carry out the traditional duties of the military and police. Some experts argue that the precision of robotics will curb many of the abuses we have seen from our military and police. But is that the trend we are actually seeing? Or will automated systems of violent control inevitably lead to even greater industrial-level suppression and killing?
Nicholas West writes for ActivistPost.com . This article may be republished in part or in full with author attribution and source link . | 0 |
Itinerant Philosopher and Journalist Y ou say “European cultural institutions”, and what should come immediately to mind are lavish concerts, avant-garde art exhibitions, high quality language courses and benevolent scholarships for talented cash-strapped local students. PHOTO : Mozart, Bach, Beethoven—some of the Giants that gave European civilization its right to claim supremacy over others. What would they think if they could understand the gravity of the cultural and social decomposition brought about by the embrace of essentially an immoral and downright criminal system of social organization? It is all so noble, so civilized! Or, is it really? Think twice! I wrote my short novel, “Aurora” , after studying the activities of various Western ‘cultural institutions’, in virtually all the continents of the Planet. I encountered their heads; I interacted with the ‘beneficiaries’ of various funding schemes, and I managed to get ‘behind the scenes’. What I discovered was shocking: these shiny ‘temples of culture’ in the middle of so many devastated and miserable cities worldwide (devastated by Western imperialism and by its closest allies – the shameless local elites), are actually extremely closely linked to Western intelligence organizations. They are directly involved in the neo-colonialist project, which is implemented virtually on all continents of the world, by North America, Europe and Japan. ‘Culture’ is used to re-educate and to indoctrinate mainly the children of the local elites. Funding and grants are put to work where threats and killing were applied before. How does it work? It is actually all quite simple: rebellious, socially-oriented and anti-imperialist local artists and thinkers are now shamelessly bought and corrupted. Their egos are played on with great skill. Trips abroad for ‘young and talented artists’ are arranged, funding dispersed, scholarships offered. Carrots are too tasty, most would say, ‘irresistible’. Seals of approval from the Empire are ready to stamp those blank pages of the lives of still young, unrecognized but angry and sharp young artists and intellectuals from those poor, colonized countries. It is so easy to betray! It is so easy to bend. Some, very few countries are almost incorruptible, like Cuba. But Cuba is a unique country. And it is intensively demonized by Western propaganda. “La Patria no se vende!” they say there, or in translation “One does not sell the Fatherland!” But one, unfortunately, does, almost everywhere else in the world: from Indonesia to Turkey, from Kenya to India. *** “ Aurora” opens in a small cafe in an ancient city in Indonesia (which is not called Indonesia). Hans, the German head of an unnamed cultural institute is talking to his local ‘disciples’. He loves his life here: all the respect he gets, those countless women he is sexually possessing and humiliating, the lavish lifestyle he is allowed to lead. A woman enters; a beautiful woman, a proud woman, an artist, a woman who was born here but who left, many years ago, for far away Venezuela. Her name is Aurora. Her husband is Orozco, a renowned revolutionary painter. Aurora’s sister was killed in this country, because she refused to give up her revolutionary art. She was kidnapped, tortured, raped, and then murdered. Hans, the head of a European cultural organization, was involved. Aurora confronts Hans, and in reality, the entire European culture of plunder and colonialism. And that night she is joined, she is supported, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, or more precisely, by his merry ghost, who is thoroughly disgusted of being used as one of the symbols of the ‘culture’ which destroyed him personally, which destroyed the very essence of the arts, and which has been in fact destroying, for centuries, this entire Planet. *** When I recently shared the plot of “Aurora” with a local ‘independent’ filmmaker in Khartoum, Sudan, he first listened attentively, and then with horror, and in the end he made a hasty dash towards the door. He escaped, not even trying to hide his distress. Later I was told that he is fully funded by Western ‘cultural institutions’. After reading it, my African comrades, several leading anti-imperialist fighters, immediately endorsed the book, claiming that it addressed some of the essential problems their continent is facing. The cultural destruction the Empire is spreading is similar everywhere: in Africa, Asia and in Latin America.
I wrote “Aurora” as a work of art, as fiction. But I also wrote it as a J’accuse 1 – a detailed study of cultural imperialism.
My dream is that it would be read by millions of young thinkers and artists, on all continents, that it would help them to understand how the Empire operates, and how filthy and disgraceful betrayal is.
1 J’accuse is French for “I accuse,” and is generally used to mean an attack against social injustice. It references a 1898 newspaper article by Emile Zola who accused the French government of fabricating a charge of treason against a Jewish military officer, Alfred Dreyfus, because he was Jewish. Andre Vltchek Philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist, Andre Vltchek has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel “Aurora” and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: “ Exposing Lies Of The Empire ” and “ Fighting Against Western Imperialism ” . View his other books here . Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter . PLEASE COMMENT AND DEBATE DIRECTLY ON OUR FACEBOOK GROUP INSTALLATION Note to Commenters Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: [email protected]
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During an interview with DNC Chairman Tom Perez on Thursday’s edition of MSNBC’s “MTP Daily,” host Chuck Todd asked Perez why he didn’t take the Montana special election for the US House “seriously” sooner, and told Perez “you didn’t put your money where your mouth is. ” Todd said, “[Y]ou caught a break here at the end. … But the question is whether the Democrats were there in time to take advantage. I know it’s late here. But you look at the spending advantage. The Republican Congressional Campaign Committee has outspent the Democrats 3 to 1. The Republican PACs, including one led by Speaker Ryan, has outspent the Democratic PACs in this race 16 to 1. Your own organization would not tell us how much money you’ve spent, but the RNC has spent almost a million dollars. The fact of the matter is, why didn’t you guys take this race seriously earlier? You did — you have lately, but you — the money, you didn’t put your money where your mouth is. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
Gerard Baker, the editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal, vigorously defended his newspaper’s coverage of President Trump on Monday, rejecting suggestions that The Journal had not been aggressive enough. Facing tough questioning at a meeting with the staff, Mr. Baker denied that The Journal had been too soft in its coverage, according to several people who participated in the meeting. He suggested that other papers had discarded objectivity, and that anyone who wanted to work at an organization with a more oppositional stance toward the administration could find a job elsewhere, these people said. “It’s a little irritating when I read that we have been soft on Donald Trump,” he said, according to three of the people. During the meeting, which lasted more than an hour and a half, Mr. Baker addressed the unease among some in the newsroom who feared that the paper was holding them back from aggressively covering Mr. Trump — and that he might be playing a role in shaping more favorable coverage. Mr. Baker offered a different interpretation, according to two participants in the session: The administration wants to engage the news media in a battle, he said, and The Journal should not become part of it. “We can’t allow ourselves to be dragged into the political process, to be a protagonist in the political fight,” he said, according to one of the people. He said that Americans already distrusted the news media, and that if The Journal covered Mr. Trump in an overly confrontational way, that distrust might increase. He joked that any stories suggesting The Journal had been soft in its coverage of Mr. Trump were akin to “fake news. ” The meeting came after months of uncertainty and frustration in the newsroom. The Journal has begun a sweeping newsroom strategy review, called WSJ2020, that the management recently indicated would result in about $100 million in cost savings. Buyouts and layoffs have roiled the staff. A significant overhaul of the print newspaper resulted in the elimination of some sections, including Greater New York, and the consolidation of others. And though employees recently ratified a new union contract with Dow Jones, the publisher of The Journal, there is worry that there could soon be another tense standoff. Morale sank lower last week when Mr. Baker said that Rebecca Blumenstein, a deputy editor in chief who had been at The Journal for 22 years, was leaving for The New York Times, where she will become one of the paper’s editors. The announcement surprised and saddened many in the newsroom, where Ms. Blumenstein had been viewed as a potential successor to Mr. Baker. At Monday’s meeting, Mr. Baker answered questions about The Journal’s strategy going forward and acknowledged that the paper had to address concerns about diversity and offer more opportunities for women in the newsroom. But the issue of covering Mr. Trump was front and center, after an episode two weeks ago when Mr. Baker sent a note instructing editors to avoid the phrase “seven majority Muslim countries” when writing about Mr. Trump’s executive order on immigration. “It’s very loaded,” Mr. Baker wrote at the time. “The reason they’ve been chosen is not because they’re majority Muslim but because they’re on the list of countries Obama identified as countries of concern. ” Mr. Baker later sent a note to employees clarifying that there was “no ban on the phrase ‘ country’” but that the publication should “always be careful that this term is not offered as the only description of the countries covered under the ban. ” The discontent among a faction of journalists over coverage of Mr. Trump stretches back months, according to current and former employees. There was unease in the newsroom after Mr. Baker wrote a column in The Spectator, a conservative British magazine, about Mr. Trump’s victory. During the meeting on Monday, Mr. Baker, in answer to a question about the column, admitted that he probably should have resisted the temptation to write it, according to some of the people who participated. The Journal’s coverage has also drawn criticism from outside. In late November, after Mr. Trump falsely claimed on Twitter that “millions of people” had voted illegally, the paper was derided online for printing a headline that parroted Mr. Trump’s assertion without pointing out that it was inaccurate. In a statement at the time, a spokeswoman for The Journal said, “We evaluate all statements by Trump for their news value and then subject them to the tough, thorough and impartial reporting we bring to all issues we report upon. ” Disturbed by the paper’s coverage, a number of journalists at The Journal began communicating by email about their concerns. The internal email chain, a portion of which was obtained by The Times, included general concerns about how articles on the new administration were being framed and objections to certain wording choices. Some on the email chain proposed writing a letter to top management or creating a “no euphemisms” style guide. “We need to be able to cover the new administration with the probing, aggressiveness and authority that our readers deserve and pay for,” one journalist wrote. It is an especially sensitive time for journalists, particularly in the mainstream news media, and journalists in many newsrooms are on edge. Relentless has ravaged news organizations that have yet to find ways to offset steep declines in print advertising and circulation. Against this backdrop, Mr. Trump and his aides have vilified the news media, calling it the “opposition party” and singling out certain organizations as purveyors of “fake news. ” There are some bright spots at The Journal. In an earnings call last week, Robert Thomson, the chief executive of News Corporation, said The Journal, like other publications, had benefited from interest in the election, adding more than 110, 000 digital subscriptions in the quarter. The Journal now has more than one million digital subscribers, representing more than 50 percent of the publication’s total subscribers, he said. Still, total advertising revenue at Dow Jones, a subsidiary of News Corporation, declined about 20 percent in the last quarter. Mr. Baker said on Monday that about 200 people had taken buyouts or been laid off, but that there were no plans for further layoffs. | 1 |
CHARLESTON, S. C. — As Dylann S. Roof made what was probably his final appearance in open court, his grandfather offered the earnest apology to the families of Mr. Roof’s nine victims that the Charleston church killer has steadfastly declined to make on his own. “I just want to say loudly and repeatedly and constantly we’re sorry,” Joseph Roof, a Columbia, S. C. real estate lawyer, said on Monday in Charleston County Circuit Court. “We’re just as sorry as we can be that this has happened. We regret it. It has ruined lives, and I cannot put those back together. ” His grandson, a white supremacist who had just pleaded guilty to nine counts of murder for the June 17, 2015, massacre at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, looked ahead impassively, just as when sentenced to death in federal court in January. Under a plea arrangement, he received life terms for each of the murder charges, which will be appended consecutively to the 18 death sentences imposed by a judge and jury in his federal trial. Mr. Roof turned down an offer to address the court directly on Monday, leaving his grandfather as his only advocate. It was the first time a relative had spoken on his behalf in court. “Everyone should understand that nothing is all bad, and Dylann is not all bad,” Joseph Roof said, adding that he and his wife pray each day for the victims’ families. “There’s no way we could ever feel what they’ve felt and what they’ve lost, just as no one can understand what we’ve been through. ” The elder Mr. Roof, who occasionally attended the federal trial, said he still could not fathom what had driven his grandson to such violence in the expressed hope of inciting a race war. “I will go to my grave not understanding what happened,” he said. The hearing Monday effectively ended the prosecution of Mr. Roof, who turned 23 a week ago. He is expected to be transferred soon to a federal penitentiary to await execution while appealing the death sentences he received in United States District Court. A federal jury found Mr. Roof guilty in December on 33 counts of hate crimes resulting in death, obstruction of exercise of religion and use of a firearm to commit murder, then returned after the holidays to determine his punishment. Both state and federal prosecutors pursued the death penalty against Mr. Roof for different charges, but the federal government won the race to try him first. The Justice Department rejected Mr. Roof’s offer to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, citing the number of his victims and the heinous nature of his crimes. His sentencing in federal court — directly across Broad Street from the county judicial building — left Scarlett Wilson, the chief prosecutor for Charleston County, to decide whether redundant death sentences were necessary. She said she chose to spare the survivors and victims’ families the added trauma of sitting through a second presentation of gruesome crime scene photos and remorseless confessions. “We believe this is the surest way to see that Dylann Roof is executed,” she said on Monday. The testimony in Mr. Roof’s federal trial showed that he had plotted his attack for months, scouting the location during numerous visits from his home near Columbia. On the night of June 17, 2015, he walked through the church’s unlocked side door and joined 12 worshipers gathered for Bible study in the fellowship hall. The pastor, the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, who was also a state senator, invited the visitor to sit next to him. Mr. Roof said little until the church members closed their eyes in benediction. At that point, he removed a Glock . 45 caliber handgun from his fanny pack and began picking off his victims, one after the next, starting with Mr. Pinckney. Two women and a girl survived, and Mr. Roof’s guilty pleas on Monday included three counts of attempted murder. Several victims’ family members spoke briefly at the hearing, including Nadine Collier, the daughter of Ethel Lance, a victim. It was Ms. Collier who stunned the nation by leading a procession of family members who expressed forgiveness for Mr. Roof at his bond hearing, only two days after the shootings. She reinforced that message in addressing Mr. Roof on Monday. “I just want to say,” Ms. Collier said, “have mercy on your soul. ” | 1 |
Tweet Widget by Horace G. Campbell
From championing impunity for suspected masterminds of crimes against humanity, to frustrating African liberation and unity by working in cahoots with Empire; from publicly supporting Israel's desire to join the African Union, to being a conduit for illicit financial flows from Africa; Kenya is fundamentally unfit to lead the AU. A deeply entrenched kleptocracy has ruined Kenya and actively undermined African interests for over half a century. Can Kenya lead the African Union? by Horace G. Campbell
This article previously appeared in Pambazuka News .
“ At every step of the way since 1963, Kenya worked against African independence.”
Introduction
The African Union will choose a new Chair of the AU Commission in January 2017. There are six candidates for this position, viz. Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi of Botswana, Farki Mahamat of Chad, Agapito Mba Mokuy of Equatorial Guinea, Amina Mohamed of Kenya, Abdoulaye Bathily of Senegal and Jakaya Kikwette of Tanzania. The post of Commission Chair became vacant after the expiration of the term of South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who had been at the helm since 2012 and did not apply for a second term.
At the last AU meeting held in July in Kigali, the election was suspended because, after seven rounds of voting, none of the top three contenders from Botswana, Equatorial Guinea and Uganda obtained the required two-thirds majority. Since the suspension of the process, Specioza Wandira Kazibwe of Uganda dropped out and three new candidates have appeared. Kenya has offered the Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs to lead the African Union. The government of Kenya has embarked on a multimillion-dollar diplomatic offensive to persuade Africans that Kenya should lead the African Union. Should Kenya lead the African Union?
Let’s begin this analysis by going back 53 years ago. At the dawn of independence in 1963, the political leaders in Kenya under Jomo Kenyatta and Oginga Odinga had agreed that, after independence, all British troops would leave Kenya. A few weeks after independence in December 1963, the so-called “Shifta rebellion” began and the political leaders of Kenya requested Britain to maintain their armed personnel in Kenya to assist in crushing the “rebellion.” The British troops have remained in Kenya since then.
Was Britain instrumental in fomenting this “Somali question” within Kenya? This and related questions have become pertinent as the records of the British are open and we know of the findings of the Northern Frontier District (NFD) Commission along with the debates within Britain over the future of Somalia. Fifty-three years later, Somali descendants who live in Kenya are still being used as political football as Kenya has vowed to close the largest refugee camp in the world, the Dadaab, that hosts mostly Somali refugees following the collapse of their state in 1991.
Kenya is fighting the so-called war on terror in Somalia and there are credible reports that this has been a very lucrative business venture for sections of the financial and sugar barons in Kenya.
“Kenya had been used as a base to foil genuine support for decolonization, and since the so called ‘War on Terror’ Kenya has been serving as an ally of the US.”
It is this section of the barons that leads Kenya that has now put forward the name of Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed to be the next head of the AU Commission. It is in this context of the lobbying by the Kenyan government that this author wants to put forward a number of reasons why Kenya cannot lead the African Union.
The political leadership of Kenya since President Jomo Kenyatta, Daniel Arap Moi, Mwai Kibaki and now Uhuru Kenyatta has been servants of imperial intrigue and skullduggery to undermine African independence and Unity. Kenya had been used as a base to foil genuine support for decolonization, and since the so called ‘War on Terror’ Kenya has been serving as an ally of the US providing the political support for the US Africa Command and activities of the West in the Indian Ocean region.
For a short while when the questions of the killings with impunity suggested the possibility of international justice, the present Kenyan leadership of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto (both indicted for crimes against humanity) embarked on an overheated campaign to represent themselves as African nationalists opposed to imperial machinations of the International Criminal Court. Kenyan diplomats, with Amina Mohamed in the vanguard, led a diplomatic offensive against the ICC and since the charges have been dropped against President Kenyatta and Ruto, the leadership has been going on overdrive to harness international support for the accumulation of prowess of the barons in Kenya.
These political forces hosted President Barack Obama for a global “entrepreneurship” conference in August, 2015, followed by Pope Francis’s visit in November. Kenya hosted the 10 th Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization in December 2015 and in 2016 hosted the meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). These latter meetings set back the agenda of Africans who had been struggling within the WTO for the rich countries to accede to the DOHA development round. While scuttling the African agenda in the WTO and without notice withdrawing its “peacekeeping” forces from South Sudan, the Kenyan leadership is asking Africans to support Amina Mohammed for the top position as AU Commissioner.
In light of the aggressive diplomatic forces of the Moroccan leadership to reverse the position of the African Union on the independence of Western Sahara, it will be important for progressive forces within the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) to raise their voices about the present diplomatic campaign of not only Kenya, but also the other countries, Botswana, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, and Senegal who have fielded candidates for the position of AU Commissioner. Below we detail the number of reasons for opposing the leadership of Kenya at this historical moment.
Illicit financial flows from Eastern Africa
The number one reason why Kenya cannot lead the African Union is that Kenya has been a base for illicit financial flows out of Eastern Africa. Most of the fraudsters that steal from their societies have a base in the real estate and financial sectors of Kenyan society. Two years ago the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) estimated that economies of Africa lost approximately US$1Trillion and about US $50 billion per year from illicit financial flows. The Report of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa drew attention to the varying forms of fraud that had been employed to export capital from Africa, noting that,
“Some of the effects of illicit financial outflows are the draining of foreign exchange reserves, reduced tax collection, cancelling out of investment inflows and a worsening of poverty. Such outflows which also undermine the rule of law, stifle trade and worsen macroeconomic conditions are facilitated by some 60 international tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions that enable the creating and operating of millions of disguised corporations, shell companies, anonymous trust accounts, and fake charitable foundations. Other techniques used include money laundering and transfer pricing.”
This High Level Report went on to highlight the role of Kenya in illicit financial flows out of Africa: “Kenya is believed to have lost as much as $1.51 billion between 2002 and 2011 to trade misinvoicing. The role of IFFs and their adverse effect on the country’s GDP cannot be ignored. A recent study shows that Kenya’s tax loss from trade misinvoicing by multinational corporations and other parties could be as high as 8.3 per cent of government revenue, hampering economic growth and resulting in billions in lost tax revenue.”
It does not take rocket science to grasp the fact that all of the malfeasance of disguised corporations, shell companies, anonymous trust accounts, fake charitable foundations, money laundering and transfer pricing are present in Kenya. From the period of 1960 and the gold scandals from Eastern Congo, Nairobi has been the base for money laundering in Eastern Africa. Illicit funds from the Eastern DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, Southern Sudan and Somalia all pass through the money laundering facilities of Kenya. Other illicit money grabbers from as far afield as Nigeria use the recourses and networks of the Kenya financial barons; the real estate boom in Kenya in the past fifteen years is directly linked to these fraudulent funds being laundered in Kenya.
“From the period of 1960 and the gold scandals from Eastern Congo, Nairobi has been the base for money laundering in Eastern Africa.”
Most recently, there was a report on the nexus of corruption and conflict in the Sudan, which brought out revealing figures on the extent of the real estate holdings in Nairobi and of the top officials of the South Sudanese state. Entitled War Crimes Shouldn't Pay [2] , the report found that "top officials ultimately responsible for mass atrocities in South Sudan have at the same time managed to accumulate fortunes, despite modest government salaries".
Kenyan bureaucrats and financiers have been implicated in the top four ways of draining valuable resources out of South Sudan: (a) extractive services, (b) the military state (c) state spending and (d) money laundering.
Questions on the complicity of Kenya in the debacle of the struggles between differing factions in South Sudan increased after Kenya decided to pull its troops out of South Sudan after the Secretary General of the United Nations sacked the Kenyan commander of the UN “peacekeeping” forces in South Sudan.
When the High Level Panel outlined the extent of illicit financial flows out of Africa, they had given clear recommendations as to how to stop these forms of drainage out of Africa. The Panel called for member states of the African Union to inter alia: (a) Determine the nature and patterns of illicit financial outflows from Africa; (b) Raise awareness among African governments, citizens and international development partners of the scale and effect of such financial outflows on development; and (c) Propose policies and mobilize support for practices that would reverse such illicit financial outflows.
It is the expectation of millions of the working poor in Africa that their representatives at the African Union would be at the forefront of calling for the return of stolen assets to African societies. One would have expected that because Kenya has been so prominent in the business of money laundering, the loudest calls for ending these forms of capital accumulation would come from inside the society. However, as one component of the disorientation of activists, the NGO mentality predisposes many to seek solutions from “donor agencies” without understanding that these so called “donors” form an essential link in the chain of draining resources out of Africa.
Instead of robust voices exposing the role of Kenya in money laundering, the Kenyan political leadership has invested millions of dollars to send Vice President William Ruto on a spirited tour proclaiming the candidature of Amina Mohammed. On these trips to other African countries, Ruto has been proclaiming the virtues of Kenya as a base for trade and investment.
War on terror as a business in Kenya
The second reason for objecting to the bid for Kenya to take over the position as AU Commissioner relates to the role of Kenya in Somalia and the fact that the so-called “Operation Linda Nchi” has for all intents and purposes been a business venture by the sugar and military barons of Kenya. The African Union had committed its reputation on the future of peace in supporting African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). However, Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia have played geo-political games with the lives of the people of Somalia and there is credible evidence that this Kenyan mission has been using the peacekeeping mission as a business venture. For years the United Nations Monitoring Group for Somalia has been reporting on the scale of the involvement of AMISOM troops in the sale of charcoal and sugar using the port of Kismayo under the control of AMISOM.
When progressive forces in Eastern Africa did not take up the issue vigorously, a group named Journalists for Justice documented the reality that elements from the Kenyan army have been involved in a US$400 million sugar smuggling racket in Somalia and have also funded militants that they were supposed to be fighting. Far from fighting the Al Shabaab, the Kenyan Defense Forces (KDF) are “in garrison mode sitting in bases while senior commanders are engaged in corrupt business practices.” This report [3] on Kenya’s Criminal Racket in Somalia has produced enough evidence to corroborate the information that has been produced for nearly a decade about how war is a business in Somalia.
Progressives have shirked from quoting from the reports of this organization in so far as the organizations also seek to use information on KDF involvement in racketeering in supporting the voices of those calling for the disbanding of the African Union.
Layering and the barons of Kenya
Apart from investigative journalists who have been documenting the war business in Somalia very few scholars have actually interrogated how the global war on terror feeds into the illicit global economy. It has been estimated by the World Economic Forum that the international illicit economy is valued at over US $3.8. trillion. This means that in terms of GDP, the illicit economy is among the top 10 economies in the world. It is in this global illicit economy where one finds the layering of barons with the financial barons at the top of the food chain. Next to the financial barons are the real estate barons, the land grabbers/barons, the sugar barons involved in smuggling and illegality, the drug barons – (see cases of cocaine smuggled as sugar), education and business of procurement, barons in hospitals and medicine – (see the Constant Gardner and Kenya as a place for fake drugs), military and security barons – war on terror as a business venture – ethnic and regional power brokers, political fixers and counterfeiting barons.
“If we do not fight the cartels, we become their slaves.”
These barons form the base for the Kenyan capitalist class and they have an agreement among themselves to divide the working peoples of Kenya on the basis of ethnicity, regionalism and religion. In the particular case of Kenya, there is public knowledge of the criminality of the cartels with the former Chief Justice Dr. Willy Mutunga raising questions of how these barons and cartels pose a threat to the wellbeing and security of the peoples of Kenya and East Africa. He had noted that, “The influence of the cartels is overwhelming. They are doing illegal business with politicians. If we do not fight the cartels, we become their slaves. But leaders who do take on the cartels must be prepared to be killed or exiled.”
The statement of the Chief Justice provides the context for better understanding the spate of killings that have been labeled as “terror” attacks since the Kenyan Defense Forces invaded Somalia in 2011. A series of high profile incidents such as the Al-Shabaab siege of the Westgate shopping center in Nairobi that left 67 people dead, ensured that there was international support for counter-terrorism in Kenya. This was followed by the killing of approximately 68 people in Mpeketoni, Majembeni and Poromoko at the coast in June 2014; the killing of 28 people in a bus in Mandera in November 2014; the killing of 36 people in a Mandera quarry in December 2014; and the killing of 147 students on the campus of Garissa University College in April 2015. It is these kinds of killing with impunity that disqualify Kenya fundamentally since the aggressive stand on the ICC was not accompanied by an equally aggressive stand to pursue the perpetrators of the post-election killings in Kenya in 2008.
Kenya undermining the African cause at the WTO
One of the supposed strong points of Amina Mohamed was her leadership of Kenya at the 10 th Ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization in December 2015. Prior to the WTO meeting in Seattle in 1999, Kenyan intellectuals had been at the forefront of challenging the intellectual property rights claims of the pharmaceuticals. After the debacle in Seattle, the Global South had organized collectively to ensure that the rules of international trade did not continue to deepen the impoverishment of the billions of poor farmers in the South. Since 2001, there had been negotiations with the former colonized peoples over the future rules in a round of negotiations that had been named after the city of Doha, Qatar. From the moment of those negotiations in November 2001 until December 2015 there had been nothing but duplicitous back and forth between the North and the peoples of the South. The designation of these negotiations as the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) never seriously considered addressing the obstacles placed in the global trading system to foster real trading cooperation, which supports socioeconomic transformation in the South.
From the formation of the WTO the African members along with others from the Global South had taken a collective stand on the hypocrisy of the North in relation to trade and investment, intellectual property and agriculture. Since the WTO came into existence, the countries of the European Union and North America failed to live up to the expectations at the end of the Uruguay Round that they would liberalize their agriculture sector and significantly reduce their subsidies. In the particular case of farmers from Africa, there had been opposition to the subsidies granted to European farmers, while African farmers live in poverty.
In the particular case of African cotton exporters – Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali – collectively known as the Cotton 4 or C-4 – they had successfully urged fellow WTO members to stand with Africa on questions of food security and the outstanding questions of subsidies. At the Nairobi 10 Ministerial Meeting, Amina Mohamed as Chairperson of the meeting jettisoned the claims of the Global South and hurriedly agreed to exclude the “African Issues” before the WTO. The newspapers of the financial barons in Kenya then proceeded to publicize the outcome pointing to a nebulous “Nairobi package” that postponed real discussions of the trade war against the South by the North.
Somalia a political football: Question of oil and gas discoveries
Attention had already been drawn to how the question of Somalia has been manipulated for the past fifty years by the Kenya barons. The manipulation of the poor refugees reached new heights as the Kenyan leadership has threatened to close the largest refugee camp in the world.
The anti-Pan African position of the Kenyans reached new lows over the question of the demarcation of the land and sea boundaries. After Kenyans had agreed with the British to maintain the Northern Frontier District as part of Kenya in 1964, there were questions as to the real boundaries between Kenya and Somalia. These questions became more urgent after oil and gas companies began to explore the very large reserves of oil and gas from the Somalia coast through Kenya, Tanzania, down to Mozambique. Faced with differing maps from the colonial offices of Britain and Italy, the Kenyans and Somalians have been disputing a narrow triangle off in the Indian Ocean, about 100,000 square kilometers (62,000 square miles). Capitalists and speculators from Kenya, Somalia and their external supporters covet this area because it has a large deposit of oil and gas. Neither the political leaders of Kenya nor the possible leaders of Somalia offered a Pan-African vision of shared responsibility and cooperation to develop the resources in order to benefit the peoples of Africa. Instead, Kenya sought to use their legal, economic and regional muscle to start exploration and to begin discussions with foreign oil companies.
Faced with the aggressive position of the Kenyan barons, the Somalis decided to take the matter to the International Court of Justice. Kenya objected to legal arbitration of an area that should not be disputed if Kenya supported the goals of a future united Africa. The position of Kenya thus far on border issues in Eastern Africa goes against the spirit of the African Union’s position with respect to Delimitation and Demarcation of Boundaries in Africa.
Kenya ineligible to lead Africa at this point
From the above reasons, this author wants to remind readers of the role of Kenya in becoming the champion of Israel and hosting the Israeli Prime Minister in July of 2016. The Kenyan President proudly claimed that Kenya would be an advocate for Israel before the African Union. This leadership under Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto and Amina Mohammed has thus agreed to undermine the Pan African position of supporting the self-determination of the Palestinian peoples.
One can raise similar questions with respect to the real commitment of Kenya to continue to respect the rights of the peoples of Western Sahara. For the past two years the government of Morocco has been on an intense campaign to rejoin the African Union. In principle, progressive Africans welcome the return of Morocco to the African Union, but it must be spelt out clearly to Morocco that their return will be without conditions. That is, the political leadership of Morocco cannot demand that Africa drop recognition of the Polisario leadership. The summit of the African Union in January 2017 will be a testing ground to see how many societies of Africa will stand firm against Morocco and their supporters in France.
If not Amin Mohammed, then who?
Of the current six candidates to lead the African Union, the one candidate with a clear track record of commitment to the goals of Pan Africanism is Abdoulaye Bathily of Senegal. As a progressive historian, Bathily made his mark among a generation of intellectuals. Unfortunately, however, this position of the AU Commission Chair is being pushed by the government of Senegal with both France and Morocco dictating the foreign policy choices of Senegal. Without this subservience to France and Morocco by the Senegalese leadership, Bathily would be the obvious choice.
The candidacies of Chad, Botswana and Equatorial Guinea already foundered at the meeting of the African Union in Kigali. Like Senegal, the government of Chad fronts for western interests and Chad was one of the few countries to send troops to fight with NATO to destroy Libya. Africa needs to take an independent position on the question of the manipulation of the so-called war on terror and on this matter, Chad ranks with those who need to account for their relationship with Boko Haram.
Jakaya Kikwete has been a colorless leader of Tanzania for ten years. His friendship with leaders of the George W. Bush party in the USA will raise questions; however, with the arrival of Donald Trump, that faction of the US militarists, the Bush faction is no longer in the driver’s seat.
African intellectuals and activists cannot afford to be bystanders at this moment. In this short essay, this author has pointed out how at every step of the way since 1963, Kenya worked against African independence. During the anti-apartheid struggles, Kenya supported UNITA and the MNR and for good measure, western security established the banking infrastructure for illicit dealing through Bank of Credit and Commerce International. There was the formation of the “Safari Club” C France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Morocco and the conservative elements of the USA – to support the apartheid regime in South Africa and the conservative leaders of Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
“The one candidate with a clear track record of commitment to the goals of Pan Africanism is Abdoulaye Bathily of Senegal.”
Since the global war on terror, Kenya has participated in the rendition programs of the US intelligence agencies and stepped up their business operations by working with the CIA to fund groups such as the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (APRCT). ARPCT was a coalition of military entrepreneurs who understood war as a business and knew how to manipulate western intelligence agencies.
According to a report in the Washington Post in 2006, “Despite its name, the ARPCT probably does little to combat terrorism and is more interested in maintaining the lawless status quo in which the warlords thrive. Experts say the moniker is an attempt to make the group appealing to Western governments, highlighting their battle against the spread of an Islamic militia.”
Ten years after this exposure, organizations such as the Bell Pottinger group continue to wage information warfare against Kenyans and Africans on the so-called terrorist threats in Eastern Africa. If Kenya had spent every cent that it has been spending on Operation Linda Nchi on building schools, roads, hospitals and water supply systems in Somalia, then the issues before Africa and the African Union would be very different from the divisive questions of illicit trade in sugar, charcoal and the question of boundary demarcation.
That eastern Africa continues to be strategically important to western security interests can be gleaned from the patience that the British exhibited in ensuring that Kenya maintained a military agreement with Britain for Britain to base troops in Kenya. In this case, Britain is acting as a front for US military interest. Kenya is important strategically to the U.S. Access to Kenyan air and a seaport facilitates imperial capabilities to project air and naval power in the Indian Ocean.
The political leadership of China has bought into the idea that the Kenyan leadership is anti-imperialist because the leaders were taken to The Hague and the ICC. This kind of analysis by Chinese strategists exposes their limited understandings of class struggles in Eastern Africa and the history of Kenya selling out Africans. From time to time newspapers and journalists revisit the scandals after scandals [4] with respect to primitive accumulation in Kenya.
Conclusion
What needs to be understood is that Kenya’s Goldenberg or Anglo Leasing scandals and others are components of a model of capital accumulation in the illicit global economy. This illicit global economy is a legitimate component of the financialization forms of capital that diminishes real production and commerce.
When the AU was formed, the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) had been mandated to bring to the fore the questions that affect Africans in all six regions. It is in this context where there needs to be new focus of the AU. At the last meeting in Kigali, there were feeble efforts to raise revenues for the AU. None of the governments took seriously the illicit global economy and the recommendations of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows. The western “donors” dominate the discussions on how to stem financial flows and downplay the importance of the return of stolen assets. Kenya was quite willing to raise the question of reparative justice with respect to the crimes of Britain during the colonial wars, but that same Kenyan leadership refuses to support the reparative claims of the global African community. Horace G. Campbell is Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University and the newly appointed Kwame Nkrumah Chair at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. | 0 |
November 7, 2016 US faces host of global threats during transition until next president
Sharks are circling as the US prepares to vote, on the lookout for signs of American weakness and indecision around the world during the months-long transition period until the next president is firmly established in the White House. Call it a window of vulnerability.
No matter whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump wins on Tuesday, Barack Obama bequeaths a world fraught with danger. From Asia to the Middle East and eastern Europe, governments and forces hostile to US and the west may try to exploit America’s power vacuum.
The problem is not new. Unlike in Britain, the US constitution does not allow a quick handover. Clinton or Trump will be sworn in at noon on 20 January 2017. Until then Obama remains in office, but as a “lame duck” president his wishes are increasingly irrelevant.
Once installed, it can still take months for the new incumbent to establish his or her authority and complete thousands of appointments. The most important, such as national security adviser and the secretaries of defence and state, must be confirmed by Congress. This can be a contentious, lengthy process. | 0 |
Ed Temple, who coached Wilma Rudolph, Wyomia Tyus and 38 other Olympians in his 43 seasons as the most celebrated women’s track and field coach in the United States, died on Thursday. He was 89. A track team spokesman at Tennessee State University, where Temple coached, said Temple’s daughter, Edwina, had confirmed the death. No other details were given. From 1950 until he retired in 1993, Temple mentored a roster of athletes that few coaches in any sport could rival for speed, power and skill. The 40 Olympians he produced at Tennessee State, a predominantly black college in Nashville, won 13 gold medals, six silver medals and four bronze medals. In the 1960 Summer Games in Rome, the four women who won the relay for the United States were Tennessee State runners coached by Temple. His teams, known as the Tigerbelles, won 34 national titles: 16 indoor, 13 outdoor and 5 junior. When he started in 1950, right after graduating from Tennessee State, women’s track and field was a minor sport in the United States, and especially at the university, where it faced unending budget constraints. In his first year, with a shoestring budget of $300 (the equivalent of about $3, 000 today) his team participated in just one meet. Years later, scheduled to compete in New York, the team piled into an old DeSoto station wagon and spent 22 hours on the road to get there, stopping only for gas and hamburgers. There was no money for a hotel, even if they could find one on the way that would serve blacks. Temple himself had little help at first. “I coached, I rubbed down, I was the counselor, I was the parent, I was everything,” he said, “but you had to be because there was no other person there. ” He had no athletic scholarships to offer in his first 18 years as coach. Even Rudolph — “the greatest woman athlete of all time,” Temple said — who won three gold medals in the 1960 Rome Olympics and did more to elevate women’s track in the United States than anyone before her, had to spend two hours a day doing clerical work and sweeping out the gymnasium. “The people who ran for me ran simply because they loved the sport,” Temple said. They also ran fast. Besides Rudolph’s three gold medals, Tyus took successive gold medals in the dash in 1964 (in Tokyo) and 1968 (in Mexico City). Temple’s track and field stars also included Mae Faggs, Edith McGuire, Madeline Manning Mims, Willye B. White, Martha Watson and Chandra Cheeseborough, who succeeded Temple as the Tennessee State coach. In 1981, Temple wanted to bring six athletes to the Amateur Athletic Union national indoor championships at Madison Square Garden. Tennessee State could afford only four, but those four — Cheeseborough, Brenda Morehead, Kathy McMillan and Debbie Jones — won the title. Temple was the head women’s track coach for the United States Olympic teams in 1960 and 1964 and an assistant coach in 1980, when the United States boycotted the Moscow Games. He was the head women’s track coach for the United States teams in the 1959 and 1975 Games. He was elected to six halls of fame, including the National Track and Field Hall of Fame and the United States Olympic Hall of Fame. To Temple, track was more than a sport. “I would always tell the girls that first, you are young ladies,” he told The Tennessee Tribune in 1995. “Always carry yourself that way. Next, you are a track person. You are using your track in exchange for an education. You are doing this to walk across that stage and receive your degree. Athletics opens up doors for you, but education keeps them open. ” Of his 40 Olympians, 39 graduated with bachelor’s degrees, 28 earned master’s degrees and 8 earned medical degrees or doctorates. He was a father figure to many of them. “He understands other people’s problems, especially girls’ problems,” said Rudolph, who died at 54 in 1994. “He works with the total person, not just the athlete. He provides motivation and inspiration. ” Tyus said: “He seeks out good girls. He’s a good person, and he demands discipline. ” Edward Stanley Temple was born on Sept. 20, 1927, in Harrisburg, Pa. and raised there, the only child of Christopher and Ruth N. Temple. He was an athlete in track, football and basketball at John Harris High School in Harrisburg. Tennessee State, then known as Tennessee State Agricultural and Industrial School, recruited Temple in 1946 on a track scholarship. When he arrived, he found that the track was not the usual oval but 300 meters and because the university had not finished filling in an adjacent dump. He became the women’s track coach soon after graduating in 1950. (The same year he married the former Charlie B. Law.) The coach at the time was leaving for another job, so the university suggested that Temple step in to fill the role. As part of the deal he would also run the campus post office while studying for a master’s degree in sociology in preparation for a faculty position. He did become an associate professor of sociology there while coaching. “When I was thinking about coaching,” he said, “I was really thinking about football or basketball, or maybe in a high school, coaching football, basketball and track. ” He added: “At that time, people weren’t too keen on women participating in sports. Everything was geared toward football and basketball at Tennessee State, but the Tigerbelles came along. They worked hard and it paid off. ” By 1976 the rubberized surface of the university’s track had become so worn and pocked with holes that it was dangerous for sprinters to use. Temple announced that the track program would have to end. But Nashville business leaders quickly raised more than $100, 000, and the State Board of Regents provided the rest of the $700, 000 that was needed. In 1978, Tennessee State dedicated the new Edward S. Temple Track. In 2015, a statue of Temple was installed near the outfield at First Tennessee Park, a sports stadium and home of the Nashville Sounds minor league baseball team. Besides his daughter Edwina, Temple and his wife had a son, Lloyd. Complete information on his survivors was not immediately available. In retirement, Temple played basketball every day, taught a sociology course and made speeches. But he never attended another Olympics. “I enjoy looking at it on television,” he said. “I don’t need all that commotion. I had it. I went through it. I enjoyed it. That’s it. I passed the baton to somebody else. ” | 1 |
Former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly opted for a sultry dress design for her first NBC News interview this weekend, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. [In a blue velvet Yigal Azrouel dress costing roughly $990, Kelly showed off not only her shoulders, but also her legs as a large slit was cut up the side of the skirt. Kelly paired the look with black velvet platform heels, tousled hair, black toenail polish and a giant gold ring that sat on her right hand. Kelly posted a photo on Twitter of her visit to St. Petersburg for a state dinner with Putin. At state dinner party at Konstantin Palace in St. Petersburg with Russian President Putin and Indian PM Modi. More tonight @NBCNightlyNews pic. twitter. — Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 1, 2017, EXCLUSIVE: NBC News’ @megynkelly joins Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi ahead of tomorrow’s International Economic Forum in Russia. pic. twitter. — NBC News (@NBCNews) June 1, 2017, Days before, Kelly donned a trench coat look for an interview in St. Petersburg with a Russian state TV broadcaster. The look was paired with a black dress with a white collar and dark black tights. Things are looking up in St. Petersburg — the rain stopped … I will interview President Putin on Friday. pic. twitter. — Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 1, 2017, | 1 |
From the first piece headlined James Comey is damaging our democracy :
First, the FBI director, James B. Comey, put himself enthusiastically forward as the arbiter of not only whether to prosecute a criminal case — which is not the job of the FBI — but also best practices in the handling of email and other matters. Now, he has chosen personally to restrike the balance between transparency and fairness , departing from the department’s traditions.
From the second piece by notorious mud-slinger Dana Milbank:
I’ve long believed in Comey’s integrity. But if he doesn’t step forward and explain his October Surprise, he may inadvertently wind up interfering in the political process — perhaps even reversing the outcome of a presidential election — in a way that would have made J. Edgar Hoover gape.
And the third strike :
FBI Director James B. Comey’s stunning announcement that he has directed investigators to begin reviewing new evidence in the Clinton email investigation was yet another troubling violation of long-standing Justice Department rules or precedent, conduct that raises serious questions about his judgment and ability to serve as the nation’s chief investigative official .
Back to the July 7 editorial:
“It appears damage is being done to the rule of law,” Mr. Ryan said. He’s right, but the FBI director isn’t doing the damage. The wreckers are those who cast baseless aspersions on U.S. law enforcement in the service of their partisan goals .
I for one believe that Comey was wrong in July and is right today. He should have pressed for charges against Clinton early on. Using a “secret” private email server for confidential state business is not legal and would have been out of bounds for anyone else. Now possible new evidence was found and must be investigated. It is not Comey’s job to ask if the timing of a renewed investigation is convenient for the potential culprit. He also had to inform Congress because he had reasonably promised to do so. (He also needed to save his ass before anyone else in his department talked to the media.)
The so called “election” of a U.S. president is always a sorry show. But this season’s version has at least some amusing moments. Seeing the hypocrites at Fred Hyatt’s Funny Pages™ squirm is one of them. It makes me smirk. | 0 |
Controversial Proposal for Nurses Could Expand Access to Care for Veterans ‹ › Yanira is the Operations Editor for the Veterans Today Network. She has been on the job since 2008. New Veterans Affordable Housing Complex Complete in Minneapolis Suburb By Yanira Farray on October 27, 2016 WNC provided approximately $1.97 million in LIHTC equity to fund construction of Linden Grove Veteran Apartments MINNEAPOLIS, Oct. 27, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — WNC, a national investor in real estate and community development initiatives, announced today the completion of Linden Grove Veteran Apartments, a 37-unit affordable housing complex exclusively constructed for homeless veterans of the United States Armed Forces in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Cloud, Minnesota. WNC provided approximately $1.97 million in low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) equity to fund the new development. As part of the St. Cloud VA Health Care System, and located adjacent to the St. Cloud VA Medical Center, Linden Grove Veteran Apartments is designated as permanent housing for low-income veterans who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Completed in approximately 11 months, Linden Grove Veteran Apartments is a three-story building situated on six acres of land located at 4804 Veterans Drive. Community amenities include an activity/community room, computer lab, exercise facility, central laundry, picnic area, elevators, media room, library and a playground. “WNC is pleased to help deliver these permanent affordable housing units to veterans in need,” said WNC Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Gaber. “This new community features a number of amenities for residents to enjoy. We couldn’t be happier to give back to those who have served our country, and thank our investment partners for their commitment to this important project.” Linden Grove Veteran Apartments was developed by St. Michael Development Group LLC, a subsidiary of The Sand Companies, Inc. Affordable Housing Initiatives LLC served as the managing general partner of the project and Jamie Thelen served as its developer. About WNC WNC, founded in 1971 and headquartered in Irvine, Calif., is a national investor in real estate and community development initiatives, as well as a leading investor in low-income housing tax credits (LIHTC). WNC has acquired more than $7.7 billion of assets totaling in excess of 1,300 properties in 45 states, Washington D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Since 2000, WNC has been awarded four New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) allocations, totaling $178 million, and has facilitated development of 17 low-income community projects. WNC’s investor base exceeds 19,500 institutional and retail clients, including Fortune 500 companies, multinational banks, and insurance companies. Additional information is available at www.wncinc.com . Related Posts: | 0 |
The German government will allocate the entire six billion euro 2016 budget surplus to migrants after the two coalition parties failed to agree on how to spend it. [Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party proposed using the €6. 2 billion surplus to pay off debts, while the Social Democrats (SPD) wanted to spend it on digital infrastructure projects. As a compromise the money has gone solely to migrant projects instead, Der Spiegel reports. The present funds allocated toward migrant programmes is already €12 billion, which is thought to be more than enough to handle the needs of the over one million migrants in Germany. The budget surplus would take the money up to over 18 billion — far more than required. On Friday, the government is expected to release a supplementary budget decision that aims to put €3. 5 billion into rehabilitating schools in financially disadvantaged areas. The plan was intended to be decided in January but due to clashes between the CDU and the SPD, the proposal has been repeatedly delayed. Last year, the government also allocated the entire budget surplus to migrant issues. The 2015 surplus was far larger at €13 billion, and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble expressed concern at the time the money may lead to wasteful spending. Over the course of the year, reports have emerged that confirmed the fears of the finance minister. A migrant home in Bad Berleburg houses only 21 migrants but was meant to house 500. The contractors, rent, and other costs of the asylum home are costing taxpayers over €500, 000 per month. The expenditure at a migrant home in Bad Laasphe is even more wasteful, costing over €600, 000 per month and not housing a single migrant. Germany expects migrants to cost the taxpayer over €90 billion by the end of 2020 and could grow even higher if migration numbers significantly increase. As a result of the enormous cost projection and the falling popularity of her party ahead of the 2017 federal elections, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has earmarked €90 million for migrants who voluntarily leave Germany to return to their countries of origin. The chancellor hopes the incentive will encourage a large portion of the estimated 81, 000 failed asylum seekers still in Germany to leave. | 1 |
In his most extensive remarks about feminism, President Obama wrote an essay for Glamour magazine in which he reflected on American women’s long fight for equality and called on men to fight sexism and create equal relationships. In the essay, which was published online Thursday and will appear in the September print magazine, the president argued that “when everybody is equal, we are all more free. ” He praised the progress of American women over the past century while pledging to work on securing equal pay and reproductive rights. The president also warned against “dated assumptions about gender roles. ” The president said that it was important to his daughters that he be a feminist, “because now that’s what they expect of all men. ” “We need to keep changing the attitude that raises our girls to be demure and our boys to be assertive, that criticizes our daughters for speaking out and our sons for shedding a tear,” he wrote. “We need to keep changing the attitude that punishes women for their sexuality and rewards men for theirs. “We need to keep changing the attitude that permits the routine harassment of women, whether they’re walking down the street or daring to go online. We need to keep changing the attitude that teaches men to feel threatened by the presence and success of women. ” Brenda Weber, the professor and the chairwoman of the gender studies department at Indiana University, said she was “delighted” by the essay, which she said showed a nuanced sense of women’s issues. It is unusual for a man to write such an essay, let alone a president, she said. To claim the identity of feminism and discuss why it is personally important to him and his daughters is a meaningful gesture coming from someone with the cultural authority of the president, she said. “Those are all pretty radical statements in terms of a politician at that level of influence,” she said. It is not the first time that the president has declared himself a feminist. In June, while speaking at a White House summit meeting on women, he declared: “This is what a feminist looks like. ” Cindi Leive, the editor of Glamour, said on “CBS This Morning” that she thought the essay went “beyond the kind of boilerplate ‘I believe in strong women’ that at this point anybody can mouth pretty effectively. ” “It did strike me as this very modern moment, something that we wouldn’t have heard probably from any other president, but honestly we would not have heard before this year,” she said. “I do think the embrace of the term feminism by men as well as women has really been on the rise. ” | 1 |
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Richard W. Painter wrote in a New York Times an op-ed: The F.B.I.’s job is to investigate, not to influence the outcome of an election.
Such acts could also be prohibited under the Hatch Act, which bars the use of an official position to influence an election. That is why the F.B.I. presumably would keep those aspects of an investigation confidential until after the election. The usual penalty for a violation is termination of federal employment.
And that is why, on Saturday, I filed a complaint against the F.B.I. with the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates Hatch Act violations, and with the Office of Government Ethics. I have spent much of my career working on government ethics and lawyers’ ethics, including two and a half years as the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, and I never thought that the F.B.I. could be dragged into a political circus surrounding one of its investigations. Until this week.
This is the second complaint to be filed against FBI Director Comey. The Democratic Coalition Against Trump has also filed a complaint against Comey for interfering in a presidential election as a federal employee.
Suspicion around Comey’s actions has grown as the FBI Director is not expected to make any additional statements on this matter before the presidential election. Director Comey appears to have set himself for problems after the election as Senate Democrats are making it known that they are open to holding hearings to investigate the FBI investigation if they win back the Senate majority.
Unless Trump wins and Republicans take control of Congress, Director Comey is going to have to answer for his decisions.
As the complaints pile up, it looks like Congressional testimony may be the least of James Comey’s future problems. | 0 |
I’ve been living in South East Asia for almost a decade now, and over that time I’ve come to have a matured perspective on living here and a fair appreciation of the pros and cons of doing so. Like most people who come here, I set off thinking I was going to live in paradise. That’s far from the reality, let me tell you!
Living in South East Asia has its pros and cons, just like anywhere else. While I myself have decided to return west for a while, I’ll always have a connection to Asia and I’m sure I’ll be back many times throughout my life.
So what’s the REAL story with living in Asia? Is it all its cracked up to be? What does a man have to be aware of when coming here? Let’s look at six common stereotypical ideas about living in South East Asia, and assess them in the light of reality.
1. Asian Women Are Kind, Gentle, And Compliant To Their Husbands So sweet! Not so fast….
This is, most definitely, a myth, and if you come out here expecting to find some little house pet who does your bidding, you’ll be in for a rude awakening.
It’s definitely true that Asian women, in my experience, are a lot more traditional. They give the man his place in the house, rarely question your final decisions, and do not resent housework and basic wifely duties.
However, the idea that they’ll just do whatever you tell them without question is nonsense. They’re human beings with a will of their own and you wouldn’t be the first guy to get a smack in the head from a five-foot-two broad who weighs 90 pounds if you disrespect her.
The idea that Asian women are some sort of angelic alternative to Western women is also nonsense. While it’s not the norm, I’ve met several Western men who have been taken to the cleaners by their Asian wives and girlfriends. When you move here, you’re completely at her mercy and you will never have any legal rights as a citizen.
Asian women generally are a lot more traditional, but this stereotype that they’re some sort of perfect wife material has got to go. They’re individuals—and there are all kinds, good and bad, among them.
Read this guide to dating Asian women for a more complete perspective on the issue. It’s a thorny subject, and there’s a lot of misunderstanding surrounding it.
2. Asia Is Ridiculously Cheap
This is one I’d have to lean slightly towards agreeing with.
Most things in Asia are a lot cheaper. Eating out for my entire family often costs less than $15, meaning I can afford to do it basically every day. My rent for a condo apartment costs less than $150 a month, although that’s mostly because I live in the sticks and am not in a major city.
A general rule of thumb is that outside of major cities like Bangkok, Singapore, and KL, you can divide the cost of living by three and get a rough estimate.
Note, this does not apply to consumer goods such as cars and electrical appliances, which are in and around the same price. It certainly does not apply to luxury goods, which are often much more expensive because of the taxes placed on them by local governments.
Asia is cheaper overall, but anything other than the basics costs roughly the same. Life in South East Asia CAN be cheaper, but it isn’t necessarily so—it depends on your lifestyle.
3. You Can Become A Citizen Of An Asian Country And Stay Forever Becoming a citizen in an Asian country is nigh on impossible. Even if you could, you probably wouldn’t want to.
You can get a variety of visas like permanent residency, and each country aims to facilitate the spouses of their nationals and, especially, retirees with proven cash in the bank. However, you’ll not become a CITIZEN with all of the various rights they enjoy.
It’s also worth noting: while you might get permanent residence, you’ll never be “one of them.” Even if you live here for 30 years, you will always be a foreigner and will be viewed as such by locals. This has pros and cons to it, but you’ll never quite feel at home and accepted as one of the group.
You’ll get undue respect from some for being a Westerner, but forget about talking politics or leveling criticisms at the way things are done—you’ll be met with hostility and resentment for the latter.
4. The Weather In Asia Is 24/7 Sunshine
The weather in South East Asia is generally pretty awesome, and you can live an outdoors life you’ll truly enjoy if you’re that type.
The sun shines almost every day, and even when it’s overcast it’s warm, meaning you can go out and about and do anything from walk on the beach to shop in the city.
However, when the storms come, you’d better be prepared to get your ass inside. The rainfall and wind in many countries in South East Asia is truly terrifying. Just switch on any news station the next time a major storm hits the Philippines and you’ll see what it’s like.
Thankfully, after 1.5 years of living in the Philippines , I’ve never been caught directly in a major storm, although I’ve seen the tail end of plenty of them.
The weather is good when it’s good, and utterly awful when it’s bad. Check this clip out to see how bad it can get:
5. Asia Is 100 Years Behind The West In Terms Of Development
This is a stereotype that’s deeply mistaken, and whether or not it’s true depends on which country you go to.
True, countries like Laos and Bangladesh are miles behind any Western nation, but head to Singapore and you’ll be shocked by how far ahead of us they are in terms of tech and development.
Asia is developing at breakneck pace, and with that development comes super highways, skytrains, skyscrapers and everything else we usually associate with an advanced country. It won’t be long before many countries out here catch up and surpass the West, although it is definitely true that most of them are slightly behind for now.
There’s a phenomenon called “leapfrogging” which virtually guarantees Asian countries will catch up to and surpass the West quickly. Leapfrogging is when they can skip all of the evolution and development and simply emulate modern day technology developed elsewhere—a great example is India, where they have skipped the transition from dial-up to mobie internet and gone straight from nothing to mobile.
If you think this can’t be done and there are intellectual property laws to protect tech from being stolen wholesale, I salute you, but I have to laugh. There are no such laws, and even if there were, nobody would bother to enforce them.
On the other hand, you still have many scenes like this outside your window when you get out of the main cities:
6. Asians Are Extremely Family Oriented Again, this is one I lean towards agreeing with. There are exceptions to every rule, but the family unit is extremely strong in Asia, especially countries like the Philippines.
I don’t want to wax lyrical or speculate as to why this is. It’s enough to acknowledge it as a fact and accept that it’s the case. 90% of the Asian people I have ever met and gotten to know from Indonesia to the Philippines to Thailand are devoted to their families to the extent that we’d consider it cult-like in most Western countries.
I pass no judgment on this whatsoever. It can be a great thing or a bad thing, depending on your own perspective. I personally like it and think it’s something we’ve lost in many European countries, and America, too.
This is an idea about Asia I agree with—the dedication to family above individuality is definitely true, and so by default if you get into a relationship with an Asian woman, be prepared for this.
The family unit is the sun around which everything orbits in most Asian countries.
Living In Asia Summary Sorry to disappoint you, fellas, but you won’t find paradise in South East Asia.
What you will find is a place with many opportunities, pitfalls, pros and cons, but which I do not regret living in for a single second and which has come to be a large part of my life’s story.
I came out for a year and stayed for almost a decade. However, I’ve decided that time is now over and it’s time to go home.
I’d love to hear about your experiences living or traveling in Asia. Do you find my perceptions to be accurate, or do you have a different view?
Read More: Why Western Men Prefer Foreign Women Over Their Own
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Gove left wife in hotel to go out partying with 11-year-old son 31-10-16 MICHAEL Gove left his fully-grown wife alone in a hotel room while he went out partying with their 11-year-old son, it has been confirmed. Gove told his wife that and he and their son would be back when they were back, and not to wait up. A source said: “Michael and his son went out in the afternoon and had a whale of a time. They had ice creams and fizzy pop and they even managed to walk around the Natural History museum after every one else had gone.” “ They got photos of themselves with the dinosaurs and everything.” Gove and son returned to their hotel room at 11.30pm after a roller disco, all pooped out from their adventures and ready for bed. Gove’s wife Sarah Vine said: “As much as I’m annoyed that they didn’t tell me where they were going, I was happy to have them out of my hair for a few hours. Last time this happened Michael was sick from eating too many sweets.” Michael Gove then slept soundly, right through the night, only waking once after a nightmare about a tyrannosaurus rex with Boris Johnson’s head chasing him through the Houses of Parliament.
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For the first time since a cholera epidemic believed to be imported by United Nations peacekeepers began killing thousands of Haitians nearly six years ago, the office of Secretary General Ban has acknowledged that the United Nations played a role in the initial outbreak and that a “significant new set of U. N. actions” will be needed to respond to the crisis. The deputy spokesman for the secretary general, Farhan Haq, said in an email this week that “over the past year, the U. N. has become convinced that it needs to do much more regarding its own involvement in the initial outbreak and the suffering of those affected by cholera. ” He added that a “new response will be presented publicly within the next two months, once it has been fully elaborated, agreed with the Haitian authorities and discussed with member states. ” The statement comes on the heels of a confidential report sent to Mr. Ban by a longtime United Nations adviser on Aug. 8. Written by Philip Alston, a New York University law professor who serves as one of a few dozen experts, known as special rapporteurs, who advise the organization on human rights issues, the draft language stated plainly that the epidemic “would not have broken out but for the actions of the United Nations. ” The secretary general’s acknowledgment, by contrast, stopped short of saying that the United Nations specifically caused the epidemic. Nor does it indicate a change in the organization’s legal position that it is absolutely immune from legal actions, including a federal lawsuit brought in the United States on behalf of cholera victims seeking billions in damages stemming from the Haiti crisis. But it represents a significant shift after more than five years of denial of any involvement or responsibility of the United Nations in the outbreak, which has killed at least 10, 000 people and sickened hundreds of thousands. Cholera victims suffer from dehydration caused by severe diarrhea or vomiting. Special rapporteurs’ reports are technically independent guidance, which the United Nations can accept or reject. United Nations officials have until the end of this week to respond to the report, which will then go through revisions, but the statement suggests a new receptivity to its criticism. In the report, obtained from an official who had access to it, Mr. Alston took issue with the United Nations’ public handling of the outbreak, which was first documented in 2010, shortly after people living along the Meille River began dying from the disease. The first victims lived near a base housing 454 United Nations peacekeepers freshly arrived from Nepal, where a cholera outbreak was underway, and waste from the base often leaked into the river. Numerous scientists have since argued that the base was the only plausible source of the outbreak — whose real death toll, one study found, could be much higher than the official numbers state — but United Nations officials have consistently insisted that its origins remain up for debate. Mr. Alston wrote that the United Nations’ Haiti cholera policy “is morally unconscionable, legally indefensible and politically . ” He added, “It is also entirely unnecessary. ” The organization’s continuing denial and refusal to make reparations to the victims, he argued, “upholds a double standard according to which the U. N. insists that member states respect human rights, while rejecting any such responsibility for itself. ” He said, “It provides highly combustible fuel for those who claim that U. N. peacekeeping operations trample on the rights of those being protected, and it undermines both the U. N.’s overall credibility and the integrity of the Office of the . ” Mr. Alston went beyond criticizing the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to blame the entire United Nations system. “As the magnitude of the disaster became known, key international officials carefully avoided acknowledging that the outbreak had resulted from discharges from the camp,” he noted. His most severe criticism was reserved for the organization’s Office of Legal Affairs, whose advice, he wrote, “has been permitted to override all of the other considerations that militate so powerfully in favor of seeking a constructive and just solution. ” Its interpretations, he said, have “trumped the rule of law. ” Mr. Alston also argued in his report that, as The New York Times has reported, the United Nations’ cholera eradication program has failed. Infection rates have been rising every year in Haiti since 2014, as the organization struggles to raise the $2. 27 billion it says is needed to eradicate the disease from member states. No major water or sanitation projects have been completed in Haiti two pilot wastewater processing plants built there in the wake of the epidemic quickly closed because of a lack of donor funds. In a separate internal report released days ago after being withheld for nearly a year, United Nations auditors said a quarter of the sites run by the peacekeepers with the organization’s Stabilization Mission in Haiti, or Minustah, that they had visited were still discharging their waste into public canals as late as 2014, four years after the epidemic began. “Victims are living in fear because the disease is still out there,” Mario Joseph, a prominent Haitian human rights lawyer representing cholera victims, told demonstrators in last month. He added, “If the Nepalese contingent returns to defecate in the water again, they will get the disease again, only worse. ” In 2011, when families of 5, 000 Haitian cholera victims petitioned the United Nations for redress, its Office of Legal Affairs simply declared their claims “not receivable. ” (Mr. Alston called that argument “wholly unconvincing in legal terms. ”) Those families and others then sued the United Nations, including Mr. Ban and the former Minustah chief Edmond Mulet, in federal court in New York. (In November, Mr. Ban promoted Mr. Mulet to be his chief of staff.) The United Nations refused to appear in court, claiming diplomatic immunity under its charter, leaving Justice Department lawyers to defend it instead. That case is now pending a decision from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. The redress demanded by families of the 10, 000 people killed and 800, 000 affected would reach $40 billion, Mr. Alston wrote — and that figure does not take into account “those certain to die and be infected in the years ahead. ” “Since this is almost five times the total annual budget for peacekeeping worldwide, it is a figure that is understandably seen as prohibitive and unrealistic,” he said. Still, he argued: “The figure of $40 billion should stand as a warning of the consequences that could follow if national courts become convinced that the abdication policy is not just unconscionable but also legally unjustified. The best way to avoid that happening is for the United Nations to offer an appropriate remedy. ” Mr. Alston, who declined to comment for this article, will present the final report at the opening of the General Assembly in September, when presidents, prime ministers and monarchs from nearly every country gather at United Nations headquarters in New York. Mr. Haq said the secretary general’s office “wanted to take this opportunity to welcome this vital report,” which he added “will be a valuable contribution to the U. N. as we work towards a significant new set of U. N. actions. ” | 1 |
A California woman accused of murdering her was videotaped during her police interview celebrating his death and showing no remorse.[ Prosecutors showed jurors a videotape of Cynthia Cdebaca, 65, raising her arms in celebration of Geoward Eustaquio’s death by shooting, the Daily Mail reported. Cdebaca told police that she had planned on shooting Eustaquio for two weeks and that she bought a gun specifically for the purpose of killing him, KSWB reported. “Did you check on him after you shot him?” asked detectives. “I didn’t care,” answered Cdebaca. “I would do it again. ” Cdebaca told detectives that she got into a fight with her the morning of the shooting. “I got dressed and he said, ‘you can’t go like that.’ He told me you look ghetto,” said Cdebaca during the video testimony. She said she got angry when Eustaquio told her she wasn’t invited to attend her granddaughter’s spelling bee that day, and that she reached her breaking point after that argument. She even recounted how she shot her 10 times, even stopping to reload and shoot at him again after initially wounding him. “I shot him 10 times, then he went inside the house and locked the door,” said Cdebaca. That’s when she said she shot through the door, entered the home, fired the final rounds and stood over him. “Did you shoot till it was empty?” a detective was heard asking Cdebaca. “Yes, until it was empty,” said Cdebaca. Cdebaca told investigators that she and her family suffered Eustaquio’s abuse for 13 years. “So mean to me, to all of them. Yes he is,” said Cdebaca. “They were afraid of him, yes. So mean to my daughter. I told her 13 years ago, he’s evil. ” The video showed each member of Cdebaca’s family hugging her and saying goodbye before she was taken to jail. When Cdebaca asked her youngest granddaughter for a hug, the girl refused. “No, you killed my dad,” said the girl. | 1 |
In a Caribbean resort city, far from the jungles where guerrilla battles once raged, the Colombian government and the country’s largest rebel group signed a peace agreement on Monday evening. The ceremony, held in Cartagena, brought an end to a war with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, whose Marxist insurgency marked the last major war in the Americas. “What we sign today is a declaration from the Colombian people before the world that we are tired or war,” President Juan Manuel Santos said in his prepared remarks, “that we don’t accept violence as the means of defending ideas. ” It was a moment perhaps reminiscent of the Good Friday Agreement that ended the conflict in Northern Ireland or the Oslo Accords that promised peace in the Middle East. And it was an image that generations of Colombians had yearned to see on their soil: A sitting president shaking the hands of the very rebel leader whom government forces had once hunted in the mountains, as the two sides pledged a future of peaceful politics. “Let no one doubt that we will now pursue politics without weapons,” said Rodrigo Londoño, the top commander of the FARC, offering an apology to the war’s victims. Soon, the choice will be in the hands of the Colombian people, who have the last word. Mr. Santos, who as defense minister ordered offensives against Mr. Londoño’s forces, has called for a referendum vote on Sunday to ratify the accord he has signed. Polls indicate that it will coast to victory by a wide margin. The FARC’s war against the government marked one of the first insurgencies in Latin America, a struggle that would inspire guerrilla movements from Cuba to Nicaragua. While the conflict gradually diminished, the group’s fighters, in the tents and hammocks of their continued to preach Marxist armed struggle until early this year. “This was like the stars that have burned out years ago — but still you can see their light for many years afterward,” said Bernard Aronson, the American diplomat who worked as an intermediary during the talks. “This is what the FARC had become. ” The war tore the social fabric of Colombia. Decades of fighting brought the rise of paramilitary groups who massacred civilians and burned villages. The FARC eventually turned to the profitable cocaine trade to finance its insurgency, while shaking down rural people and terrorizing city dwellers with kidnappings and killings. All told, some 220, 000 people lost their lives, and more than five million were displaced. Many argued that the time had come at last to end generations of unrest. “Who could oppose that people go back to using the land? That there are no more children in war? That the mines be removed?” said Armando Benedetti, a Colombian senator and longtime supporter of the peace deal. Yet the agreement has faced stiff criticism, most notably from Mr. Santos’ predecessor as president, Álvaro Uribe. Mr. Uribe is widely credited with the crackdown that brought the FARC to the negotiating table. He has since become the leader of the movement to sink the deal through the referendum, saying that the government had gone too easy on the guerrillas and calling Mr. Santos a “traitor. ” “With these agreements, there is neither justice nor truth for the victims,” said Mr. Uribe, who is now an opposition senator in Congress, in a Twitter post. In coming months the FARC will hand over arms to United Nations inspectors, beginning a process in which they will begin a life as ordinary Colombians. In return, the country will agree to a “transitional justice” system in which, according to Mr. Santos, soldiers will be granted amnesty or given reduced sentences for crimes they committed. The rebels held what they called the 10th Conference last week, where many began to plan their future. Guerrilla fighters donned and attended outdoor concerts as they voted to end their insurgency. Many saw it as their first step toward a life after their rebellion. The process of reconciliation will continue in Colombia, long after the signing ceremony and even the referendum, as the country pulls together. Yet the survivors must live with their memories of war. There are those like Yolanda Perea, who as an in 1997 was living in the village of La Pava when a guerrilla entered her home, which had no door, walked past her five siblings and her grandfather, and raped her with a gun pointed to her head. Ms. Perea did not know she had become pregnant until another guerrilla beat her and she had a miscarriage. Days later, she said, several more guerrillas arrived and fatally shot her mother. Ms. Perea eventually had two children. She lives in Medellín working with a nongovernmental organization that protects women’s rights. She is planning a “yes” vote for the referendum. “I don’t win anything if I continue to hate,” she said. “I have to vote yes because peace depends on each of us. There are more of us who are good, and we simply have to keep fighting for a quiet country for our children and grandchildren. ” The accord was celebrated in other cities around the world. At a gathering in Times Square, David Oliveros, a college student from Bogotá who is studying biochemistry at Columbia, choked up as he described the peace agreement. “I’ve never lived in a country in peace, without war,” he said. “It’s a moment I’ve waited for all of my life. ” | 1 |
Black Activist Blasts Hillary Clinton Over Wikileaks Revelation Eric Garner's daughter speaks out against Clinton campaign for using her father's death Infowars Nightly News - October 28, 2016 Comments
Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, blasts Hillary Clinton campaign over discussions staffers had about her father’s death, as revealed in WikiLeaks emails. NEWSLETTER SIGN UP Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars Crew. Related Articles Download on your mobile device now for free. Today on the Show Get the latest breaking news & specials from Alex Jones and the Infowars crew. From the store Featured Videos FEATURED VIDEOS A Vote For Hillary is a Vote For World War 3 - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . The Most Offensive Halloween EVER! - See the rest on the Alex Jones YouTube channel . ILLUSTRATION How much will your healthcare premiums rise in 2017? >25% © 2016 Infowars.com is a Free Speech Systems, LLC Company. All rights reserved. Digital Millennium Copyright Act Notice. 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force Brain Force – 25% OFF 34.95 22.46 Flip the switch and supercharge your state of mind with Brain Force the next generation of neural activation from Infowars Life. http://www.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/brainforce-25-200-e1476824046577.jpg http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force http://www.infowarsstore.com/health-and-wellness/infowars-life/brain-force.html?ims=tzrwu&utm_campaign=Infowars+Placement&utm_source=Infowars.com&utm_medium=Widget&utm_content=Brain+Force | 0 |
Guardian Plays Robin to MI5s Batman By Jonathan Cook
Today the Guardian offers decisive confirmation that it is only too willing to serve as an establishment mouthpiece. It proudly announces that it is the venue selected by Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, Britains FBI, to receive the agencys first-ever newspaper interview.
If the Guardian were a proper independent newspaper, it would regard this interview as a stain. Instead it bills it as a front-page exclusive. Exclusively, the Guardian has been given the chance to regurgitate MI5s propaganda propaganda designed to help stoke a new Cold War with Russia.
In fact, this is not an interview as the Guardian claims, for the simple reason that the papers two interviewers one of them its deputy editor, Paul Johnson have no basis on which to question the quality of the classified information they are being fed.
Everything Parker tells them could have been guessed at without the interview:
the Russians under Vladimir Putin are an evil empire; Islamic jihadists are everywhere but MI5 is brilliant at foiling their terror attacks; the increased budget MI5 has received is entirely justified because it is doing such a brilliant job of foiling terror attacks; MI5s extra powers to surveil us all are necessary to foil those terror attacks; whatever happens with Brexit, MI5 will continue doing a brilliant job protecting the British people; MI5 is determined to become a friendlier place for women and minority ethnic applicants. This isnt journalism, its the very definition of stenography.
Even the Guardian seems to sense that its readers might wonder why this interview is being published in their newspaper. But rather than discuss why the Guardian would want to publish an interview with Parker, the paper asks the opposite question: why has MI5 chosen the Guardian? This is framed in a way to make it look as though Parker has entered a combative environment in coming to the Guardian. The paper reminds us that it broke the Edward Snowden story.
In fact, the Guardians Snowden revelations seem like another era. Remember that the Guardian got access to Snowdens documents only via their star columnist Glenn Greenwald, who has since departed after what appeared to be an increasingly troubled relationship, especially after the Snowden revelations. Instead Parker is once again given an opportunity to attack Snowden, accentuating the damage that was done to the work of British and allied intelligence agencies by Snowdens efforts to bring to public attention the systematic and secretive invasions of our privacy.
The Guardian is in far more comfortable territory playing Robin to MI5s Batman.
So why has Parker selected the Guardian rather than, say, the more obviously establishment London Times?
Because the Guardians articles are not behind a paywall and so are easily accessible to anyone online? Because it has become the preferred British news source for American elites, whose own media are even more servile to power? Because the Guardians (unjustified) reputation for leftwing and critical journalism will bestow on this MI5 press release the necessary pretence that Parker has been subjected to tough questioning from the Guardian? Or because Parker knew that the Guardian would be as docilely accepting of his propaganda as any rightwing outlet of the corporate media?
Draw your own conclusions.
Jonathan Cook is a Nazareth- based journalist and winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism | 0 |
Many older physical trainers, and even those younger ones who were proteges of the older men, will tell the trainee that there is an inverse correlation between strength and speed—that being too big and muscular will slow down an athlete (for whatever reason, I have found that this is most prevalent amongst traditional martial artists). The usual reason given is that the increased mass is simply a “dead weight”, while those with a little bit more knowledge will explain that lifting will develop “slow twitch” muscles over the “Fast twitch” muscles needed for sprinting, jumping, punching, and kicking.
I am here to tell you that the “common wisdom” is completely wrong-when done properly, weightlifting will not impede your speed, and will in fact enhance your speed and explosiveness!
Anecdotes Perhaps you’ve heard of this man?
That is of course Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world, and holder of multiple Olympic records. Also worth noting is that in an interview, Mr. Bolt revealed that he squats 400 pounds, and at least partially attributes his nigh inhuman speed to his training regimen. And he’s not the only speed athlete who this can be said of-look at any Olympic class sprinter, they are all quite muscular fellows.
Similarly, other athletic disciplines (that’s “athletics” in the specific rather than general sense, I’m using the European term for what my countrymen call “track and field”) have claimed to utilize weightlifting in their training, such as the long jump and the hurdles. Or, you can take my word for it: at my best I had a one rep max squat of 320 pounds, and had a 38 inch vertical leap (I am judging this by my ability to perform a standing jump over 2nd-highest position hurdles, which are measured at 38 inches ).
In fact, many world-level athletes of all disciplines are utilizing Olympic style weightlifting to develop speed and powe r.
Anyway you slice it, compound weight training is a fantastic supplement to all athletes, even those who seemingly don’t need that raw brute strength.
The Science As I elaborated in this article , as well as in the free PDF I offer to subscribers to my website (the subscription sign-up is on the front page) there’s more than one type of way to be athletic. More accurately, there are three, speaking purely in terms of muscular and/or nervous system function, so this does not include hand-to-eye coordination or other skills related to team sports. These three things can, loosely, correlate to the three types of muscle fibers-Red—or slow—Oxidative, Fast Glycolytic-or White-, and Fast Oxidative. Rather than rehash an article that I’ve already written, we will focus on the white muscle, the fast glycolytic. This is the type of muscle you want to be training for if you want to develop sprinting speed or a high vertical leap.
Or, to put this into terms of Newton’s second law of motion, Acceleration=Force/Mass, ie: the amount of muscular force you can exert, divided by your body weight=how fast you can accelerate. And yes, I am aware that there’s probably a more mathematically accurate way of putting this.
Which Exercises To Do? It is at this point that you’re probably asking which exercises you should train to develop those physical skills you desire. If you read my articles regularly, you will know what I am likely to say-compound free weight lifting!
In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say if you don’t know which exercise you should do to develop a certain physical trait, you should always default to a compound lift unless you receive some further information that says otherwise. Training for speed or vertical leap is no exception to this rule.
If you are looking for sheer running speed and leaping ability, the power lifts that hit the lower body are most effective: deep “Ass to grass” squats, deadlifts, and the clean and jerk are used by professional athletes to great effect.
Similarly, if you want the ability to throw a ball or punch harder, upper body compound lifts are the key: bench presses, overhead presses and, yes, the clean and jerk, will see you through.
So for those of you who are afraid that your athletic performance will be somehow impeded by heavy weightlifting, nothing could be further from the truth.
Read More: Improve Your Weightlifting With A Video Camera
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Rep. Barbara Lee ( ) said on Tuesday that she does not agree with states’ rights because President Donald Trump believes in restoring states’ authority on a wide range of issues, including education and health care insurance markets. [Lee made the remarks at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, where she referenced states rights as it applies to Trump’s decision this month to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate change agreement, a move she claims would hurt the U. S. economy. Moreover, Lee said, California is still committed to fighting global warming. “Pulling out of the Paris Accord is also a job killer,” Lee said. “Because the energy sector — the green sector — coming from California we’re doing a lot of things — I think some other states will follow. “Because the jobs that are being created will be destroyed now as a result of what this president has done,” Lee said. “I don’t agree with states’ rights because that is kind of this administration’s push but in some instances when we have to just go at it on our own — we need to go at it on our own,” Lee said. But according to Robertson Williams, a professor at the University of Maryland and director of academic programs for Resources for the Future, a group that studied the climate change agreement, it is difficult to know exactly what the economic impacts of withdrawing will be. Williams was interviewed by the Boston public radio station in May where he was asked about the economic impact of leaving the agreement. “One of the problems we have, we’re much better at modeling the cost of doing something to reduce emissions than we are modeling the cost of doing nothing,” Williams said. “We don’t know very well how other countries are gonna react. “If other countries react by doing less to fight climate change, that has very real costs,” Williams said. “That unchecked climate change could have very serious costs for the U. S. economy. “But knowing exactly how big that is is really hard,” Williams said. | 1 |
According to a report by the San Diego the wave of increasing automation is about to put military jobs in jeopardy. [The San Diego reports, “ vehicles poised to take taxi, train and truck driver jobs in the civilian sector also could nab many slots in the Army. ” Additionally, “Warehouse robots that scoot goods to delivery vans could run the same chores inside Air Force ordnance and supply units. ” “New machines that can scan, collate and analyze hundreds of thousands of pages of legal documents in a day might outperform Navy legal researchers,” they continued. “Nurses, physicians and corpsmen could face competition from computers designed to diagnose diseases and assist in the operating room … Frogmen might no longer need to rip out sea mines by hand — robots could do that for them. ” “Just as in the civilian economy, automation will likely have a big impact on military organizations in logistics and manufacturing,” said University of Pennsylvania professor Michael Horowitz. “The U. S. military is very likely to pursue forms of automation that reduce ‘ ’ costs over time, as well as remove soldiers from deployments where they might face risk from adversaries on fluid battlefields, such as in transportation. ” Henrik Christensen, the director of the Institute for Contextual Robotics at UC San Diego, added that “the jobs that are most boring will be the ones that get replaced. ” “Robots will continue to replace the dirty, dull and dangerous jobs, and this will affect typically more uneducated and unskilled workers,” said Christensen. “You need to look at the mundane things. Logistics tasks will not be solved by people driving around in trucks. Instead, you will have fewer drivers. The lead driver in a convoy might be human, but every truck following behind will not be. The jobs that are the most boring will be the ones that get replaced because they’re the easiest to automate. ” During an interview with Quartz last week, Microsoft founder Bill Gates called for a robot tax to offset the jobs lost from automation. “Certainly there will be taxes that relate to automation. Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50, 000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, social security tax, all those things,” declared Gates. “If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you’d think that we’d tax the robot at a similar level. ” “There are many ways to take that extra productivity and generate more taxes. Exactly how you’d do it, measure it, you know, it’s interesting for people to start talking about now,” he continued. “Some of it can come on the profits that are generated by the efficiency there. Some of it can come directly in some type of robot tax. I don’t think the robot companies are going to be outraged that there might be a tax. It’s OK. ” Gates also added that “you ought to be willing to raise the tax level and even slow down the speed of that adoption somewhat to figure out, ‘OK, what about the communities where this has a particularly big impact? Which transition programs have worked and what type of funding do those require? ’” Billionaire and entrepreneur Mark Cuban also claimed on Sunday that robots are going to “cause unemployment,” posting, “Automation is going to cause unemployment and we need to prepare for it,” to Twitter on Sunday, while in November, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk also predicted that automated robots would lead to mass unemployment, which he claimed could eventually create a universal wage from the government. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
Home / #Solutions / BOMBSHELL: AAA Safety Foundation Finds No Scientific Basis that THC in Blood Impairs Driving BOMBSHELL: AAA Safety Foundation Finds No Scientific Basis that THC in Blood Impairs Driving Claire Bernish May 10, 2016 19 Comments
No scientific basis exists to legitimize current THC testing in place in five states who base their impaired driving standards on THC levels in blood. According to a study from auto club giant AAA’s safety foundation, a blood test threshold for THC — the chemical component of cannabis that makes people ‘high’ — is simply not scientifically possible.
Yet, in five of six states where cannabis is legal, the tests are used to determine whether or not drivers should be considered impaired. Those tests employ a blood level-based judgment similar to that used for determining alcohol impairment. But AAA found such tests for THC are wholly unreliable — sending potentially unimpaired drivers to jail and putting impaired drivers back behind the wheel.
“There is understandably a strong desire by both lawmakers and the public to create legal limits for marijuana impairment in the same manner we do alcohol,” said AAA president and CEO, Marshall Doney, as reported by the Associated Press . “In the case of marijuana this approach is flawed and not supported by scientific research.”
After discovering the tests had no value, the safety foundation recommended Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington simply ditch their THC impairment testing laws — and that other states considering similar laws abandon the proposed legislation.
As the study notes, determining actual impairment from THC consumption is quite different than for alcohol. Tolerance for the chemical would mean though a regular cannabis user might have high blood levels of THC, they are perfectly safe behind the wheel — while a relatively low THC blood level could be found in someone unfit to drive.
Instead of what amounts to arbitrary blood testing, AAA recommends specialized law enforcement officers who would better observe behavior as a determination of impairment, which would then be backed up by THC blood testing.
As the AP noted, nine states — even some with legalized medicinal cannabis — currently have zero-tolerance policies in place for THC-impaired driving. Those states’ laws include not only blood testing for THC, but also for its metabolites which can persist in blood long after the last use of cannabis.
Obviously, explained New York University professor and specialist in drug issues and criminal policy, Mark A. R. Kleiman, such laws make no sense.
“A law against driving with THC in your bloodstream is not a law you can know you are obeying except by never smoking marijuana or never driving,” he explained. Kleiman, however, disagrees with AAA’s recommendation to adjust current laws, and instead feels such offenses should by traffic violations.
According to Kleiman, compared to other potentially dangerous impairments, cannabis is likely the least offensive on the list. While some studies showed roughly double the risk of accidents caused by cannabis impairment, nationally-legal hands-free cellphone usage quadruples the crash risk — and blood alcohol content of .12 increases accident risk 15-fold.
A “noisy child in the back of the car” presents the same increased dangers as driving under the influence of cannabis, Kleiman said — noting an exception would be use of both cannabis and alcohol together, which would greatly increase impairment.
Clearly, ineffectual and illegitimate laws that senselessly send people to jail need to be abandoned with a quickness — and the AAA safety foundation’s findings on THC blood impairment testing would be a fantastic place to start. Share
This is really OLD news. They should have read this: http://www.bisdro.uni-bremen.de/boellinger/cannabis/09-robbe.pdf zimbo
good link, but older than this. the fact that interested people from along the whole world expect news in studies and decisions based on founded experiences to cannabis and society makes this “kind of new” : “now we know that we knew it before, but we didnt believe…”. all the studies in europe are hard work because of “illegalitity”. as only holland has a moderate view on that and a few countries like portugal or poland have anti criminal laws for owning a few gram, there is almost no way for good representative studies, except for medical science. thats why this 1994 study from holland is so important, and is translated in a big interpretation range along europe. The federal comission (same that was asked for 1ng level in 2002) tried to uplift the level to 3ng this january, due to later sciences, but was not succesful. relevant science of countries with “legalisation” is important for other countries, and such statements from the aaa too, as it comes from big brother u.s., thats always a door opener, holland science isn t so much for lobby germoney marianne
It’s not about making sure people aren’t impaired, it was never about that. It’s just yet another means of trying to screw over anyone who breaks stupid prohibitionist drug laws. From that perspective, the law makes perfect sense. Michael
This is only a surprise for the people who have never experienced or used marijuana. 2 hours after you smoke it, you’re as good as new most of the time. Sometimes it last a little longer but not very often especially if its mexican ditch weed. It has to be really good strain to last any longer than 2 hours. However, if you ingest it there is a longer buzz. It takes an hour or so after you ingest it to begin the buzz.
Again, marijuana is far far far more safe to use and understand how to use, than alcohol. If you wanna make your life better stop drinking alcohol which will definitely kill you and smoke a doobie, relax and enjoy the music knowing that what you just put in your body will NOT kill you.. marianne
To be fair, alcohol isn’t all that deadly if used in moderation. Moderate consumption even has some health benefits. I mean it’s certainly a drug with the potential to be very dangerous if misused, more so than most illegal drugs, but drinking alcohol won’t definitely kill you (though it very well might if you overuse it). William Carmichael
“To be fair, alcohol ISN’T ALL THAT DEADLY if used in moderation.” LOL! What a statement. marianne
True enough, I did phrase that in a somewhat amusing way! Elizabeth Pallett
Or you could try eating it to ensure good health, mental and physical, smoking has a very short term effect even for pain, ingesting has far more benefits and is better for you too. JD Salinger
The point of the article is getting tested for impairment. If you eat it you still have thc in your system. You can still get popped. The article says the tests are unreliable are unscientific. But thanks for your view on edibles anyway. mantirig41
I know I am a much kinder diver when stoned. Sober I drive like a bat out of hell Chris Sky
Laws aren’t about “The Greater Good” they are about MONEY and CONTROL for the people in power. AlPennG
WE NEED ACCESS TO THE WHOLE PLANT SO WE CAN LIVE A WHOLE LIFE!! PERIOD!! THERE IS NOT ENOUGH PROFIT IN IT SO THAT HAS TO BE BAD!! THAT IS THEIR THINK ON EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING ALL BULLSHIT THEY KEEP SHOVELING!! WE CRY, WE DIE AND THE POLITICIANS LIE!! zimbo
interesting. to drive drunk and stoned is no option for me, and i appreciate possibilities to keep people away from driving a car as long as they are not able to. the question about how to find out, the level and penalty in other countries brought me here.I heard about colorados level of 10ng thc/ml serum. for german administration law you are “unable impaired” for car and bike with 1ng thc/ml serum, thats up to 24h after a 34mg joint. or 75 ng thc metabolites /ml serum; or a official witness for using car or bike within 12h after smoking joint (telling this in wrong environment can be enough) you loose your license and begin a half or one year psychological and medical odyssey for a 50/50 chance to get it back. (for blood alcohol the level is 1,1). psychologists earn a lot of money with that. in switzerland, you may drive trolley car with up to 3ng/ml serum- as operator. both laws based on the 1994 limburg university study by h.w.j. robbe, also posted below. As there is no succesful way to criminalize people with a joint or a bit cannabis by criminal law in germany due to high “costs for nothing”, the admin.law is misused, and you can loose your license even by smoking in a park or carrying 3 joints in a taxi. Finally i like the link to the noisy backseat kids. interesting: this year several people lost their lives getting involved in accidents by spontaneous street races. as the license is older than 2 years, the drivers get it back automatically after 1 -3 months. there is no significant statistic on marihuana caused accidents. in combination with alcohol there are. every known european study say that marihuana leads to defensive and careful appearances, while alcohol leads to aggresive and overestimational behaviour. beer is an huge economical factor here, followed by pharmaceutics, which are not further considered in such discussions.
on a tv documentation of german truckers they talk in every way about all kind of pharmaceutics taken before while and after their hard job… Misty Trenshaw
http://sprout.news/cops-confess-people-drive-better-when-they-are-high/#wysija
So, what’s the problem? You stop at a stop sign and wait for it to turn green? You’re overly cautious? A good driver? It’s all about government control.
I divorced my parents because of control when I was 17. I divorced my ex husband because of control when I was 32. I think it’s high time we divorced our government. BarleySinger
unfortunately, all over the world people are in abusive relationships with their governments Kokopelli
Weed causes people to drive more slowly & more cautiously. Alcohol makes people drive faster & more recklessly. BarleySinger
The inability to account for “Tolerance” isn’t specific to cannabis. Is is true for nearly every intoxicant. It *very* true about alcohol. The cytochrome p450 system is different for every person. There is no simple roadside testing method in existence that can prove impairment. JackmeOFF
Pot is for losers complete fucking drones JD Salinger
I bet you are a hoot at parties. Social | 0 |
Saturday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, backed “100 percent” by President Donald Trump, condemned North Korea for reportedly launching a missile into its eastern sea, calling the test launch “absolutely intolerable. ” Prime Minister Abe released the following statement through a translator: North Korea’s most recent missile launch is absolutely intolerable. North Korea must fully comply with the relevant U. N. Security Council resolutions. During the summit meeting that I had with President Trump, he assured me that the United States will always [be] with Japan 100% and to demonstrate his determination as well as commitment, he is now here with me at this joint press conference. President Trump and I myself completely share the view that we are going to promote further cooperation between the two nations and also we are going to further reinforce our alliance. That is all from myself. President Trump followed up Abe’s statement by affirming his support. “I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
in: Natural Medicine For those who cannot or simply wish not to take chemical drugs for menstrual pain (dysmenorrhea), a time-tested and now clinically confirmed natural alternative exists based on the flavorful herb fennel. In a recent double-blinded, cross-over study published in Iranian Journal of Nursery and Midwifery Research, involving 68 female university students (mean age 21.8 years), the participants were divided into two groups of 34 and randomly administered either a combination of fennel/vitamin E or ibuprofen for two months. [i] Up to 60.3% of the subjects in the trial had missed school or daily activities due to dysmenorrhea, 89.7% participants reported use of tranquilizers, and 22.1% had family history of dysmenorrhea. Additionally, a pre-study survey (2007) on a dysmenorrheic population in Tehran found that 95.7% of the participants reported using another drug for pain relief in the case group and about 95.5% used these drugs in the control group. [ii] The results of the intervention were reported as follows: “The mean of peak pain intensity in the first, second, third, sixth, and forty-eighth hours in the group that had used combination of fennel extract/vitamin E was lower than the group that had used ibuprofen, and statistical differences were observed between the two groups in the first and second hours; combination of fennel extract/vitamin E was more effective than ibuprofen in the first hour ( P < 0.03) and second hour ( P < 0.04). The mean of peak pain intensity in the first, second, third, sixth, and forty-eighth hours in the group that had used combination of fennel extract/vitamin E was lower than the group that had used ibuprofen, and statistical differences were observed between the two groups in the first and second hours; combination of fennel extract/vitamin E was more effective than ibuprofen in the first hour ( P < 0.03) and second hour ( P < 0.04).” The study concluded, “Combination of fennel extract/vitamin E is effective on decreasing the intensity of pain of primary dysmenorrhea, and it is advised to those who cannot use chemical drugs.” Beyond the obvious pain and quality of life issues of painful menstrual cycles, it has been estimated that in the United States alone, missed work due to dysmenorrhea leads to 600 million work hours per year, with economic loses are an estimated $2 billion per year. [iii] Unfortunately, there are severe side effects associated with conventional treatment for dysmenorrhea, which rely mostly on painkillers, and whose wide range of deleterious effects include liver damage ( Tylenol ), bleeding disorders ( aspirin / ibuprofen ), and severe addiction (opioids), to name but a few of over 100 known adverse health effects of this drug class. [iv] In a recent article, “ Ibuprofen Kills Thousands Each Year, So What is the Alternative? ” we discussed the fallout from a recent Lancet article indicating the risk of heart attack increases as much as a third and the risk of heart failure doubles among heavier users of NSAID drugs. Given how common the use is of chemical drugs for this common health complaint, the fennel/vitamin E’s comparable potency is quite encouraging. While the fennel/vitamin E trial did not disclose the exact formula and dosages of ingredients used, a previous trial found that fennel seed (technically a fruit) extract at 2% concentration (25 drops, orally every 4 waking hours) compared favorably to another NSAID drug known as mefenamic acid. [v] These are not the only two trials comparing fennel to a drug in the treatment of dysmenorrhea. Previous published studies include: Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal (2006): Two groups of high school girls with dysmenorrhea received either fennel extract or mefenamic acid for 2 months, resulting in comparable levels of pain relief and recovery of functional activity. [vi] Ayu (2012): 60 adolescent girls suffering from dysmenorrhea received either 30mg of fennel extract, four times a day for three days from start of their menstrual period or a placebo a capsule in the same dosage scheme. The fennel intervention was more effective than the placebo group in pain relief. [vii] Iranian Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Research (2013) : 60 college students with dysmenorrhea were randomly assigned to two groups, one with fennel drops (2% fennel extract, 25 drops every 6 hours) and the other with mefenamic acid (250 mg every 6 hours). The pain relief was comparable between groups. [viii] [Note: the researchers observed increased bleeding in the fennel group. Those prone to this should exercise additional caution]. Fennel is one of a wide range of traditional herbs used to address symptoms of dysmenorrhea. At GreenMedInfo.com we have indexed 20 substances that have been studied for this condition, as well as 8 Therapeutic Actions : Dysmenorrhea research . [i] Masoomeh Nasehi, Fahimeh Sehhatie, Vahid Zamanzadeh, Abbase Delazar, Yousef Javadzadeh, Bahman Mohammady Chongheralu. Comparison of the effectiveness of combination of fennel extract/vitamin E with ibuprofen on the pain intensity in students with primary dysmenorrhea. Iran J Nurs Midwifery Res. 2013 Sep ;18(5):355-9. PMID: 24403936 [ii] 30. Tark ZS, Akhavan AM, Mojab M, Alavi MH. Effect of Fennel extract on primary dysmenorrhea. Iran J Fertil Steril. 2007;8:45–51. [ Ref list ] [iii] Ahmed M, Minawi EL, Fred M. Howard. Pelvic Pain Diagnosis and management. Philadelphia: LWW; 2000. Dysmenorrhea; pp. 100–9. | 0 |
by Jerri-Lynn Scofield
Jerri-Lynn here: This short post by Jack Gao of the Institute for New International Thinking (INET) highlights a pressing problem afflicting the world economy: the slowdown of international trade. As the post summarises, there’s no consensus among economists on the causes for that slowdown.
One major quibble with the post. Gal’s passing statement below, “The desire of those hurt by globalization to shield themselves from foreign competition via protectionist or retaliatory policies is a growing influence in the political life of a number of countries, including the world’s most advanced democracies,” seems to fail to grasp the true basis for widespread opposition to pending so-called “trade agreements”. Opposition movements are not necessarily motivated by opposition to trade per se, but by concerns over transparency, how the gains from these agreements have and will be distributed, and limitations on sovereignty and regulation imposed by procedures such as the Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism. And the responses to such concerns under discussion are not what I would describe as traditionally protectionist or retaliatory, but instead combine calls for greater transparency, attention to distributional issues, and a halt– or at minimum, profound rethink– of measures that constrain sovereignty or stymie effective regulation (e.g., threats to the European Union’s precautionary principle). To be fair, these issues are peripheral to Gao’s major aim in the piece, which is to account for the slowdown in international trade.
I should also remind readers who’re only familiar with Paul Krugman through his New York Times column that his initial academic work concerned international trade.
By Jack Gao, who is a Program Economist at the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), with interests in international economics and finance, energy policy, economic development, and the Chinese economy. He previously worked in financial product and data departments in Bloomberg Singapore, and reported on Asian financial markets in Bloomberg News from Shanghai. Jack holds a MPA in International Development from Harvard Kennedy School, and a B.S. in Economics from Singapore Management University. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking Website .
Challenged by mathematician Stanislaw Ulam to name one idea in economics that was both true and non-trivial, Nobel economics laureate Paul Samuelson famously nominated comparative advantage — the notion that even a country less productive in producing everything, could still benefit from international trade by specializing in the commodity it faces the least disadvantages in producing. But comparative advantage fails to explain why international trade, which has underpinned the global economy for much its modern history, is showing signs of a slowdown.
Originally attributed to the English classical economist David Ricardo and later formalized by generations of economists including Samuelson, trade theories rooted in comparative advantage hold that free trade should raise the overall welfare of all nations that engage in it. Wages of Chinese workers should rise, as would income levels of American capital owners, if the two countries open up to trade. And any negative impact domestically could be ameliorated by making the necessary transfers to compensate those hurt by trade. The remarkable rise in the living standards of citizens in Japan, the four “Asian Tiger” economies, and most notably China, are testaments to free trade working its magic.
However, many find the marked slowdown in global trade since the 2008 financial crisis as puzzling as the tepid GDP growth that has accompanied the recovery.
First, some facts. In the heyday of its economic expansion, China’s current account surplus stood at more than 10% of its GDP; that figure was a mere 2% for the first half of this year. The IMF has documented a 3% annual expansion of global trade since 2012, less than half of its annual growth rate in the previous three decade. This trend holds within developed countries, as well as between developed and developing countries.
Experts are debating the underlying causes of the trade slowdown. The most obvious explanation may be to point to the disruption caused by the 2008 financial crisis, and the prolonged weakness in subsequent economic activities. With the collapse of the western financial system, world economic growth dipped into negative territory for the first time in recent history — from its pre-crisis level of around 4% — and global trade decline ensued. Since then, however, trade, which has historically grown at twice the rate of GDP growth, has grown more or less in tandem with the sluggish output recovery. Clearly, something else is causing the breakdown.
Another explanation frequently offered has been the restructuring in China. The world’s second largest economy, which in recent decades powered the world’s economic activities, had been an even more important driver of growth in world trade. But after 2008, Beijing put more emphasis on domestic economic concerns instead of promoting foreign trade. This rebalancing, however, represents a response to the fall in external demand rather than a deliberate strategy to turn away from trade, and thus is unlikely to be causing the global trade decline.
The WTO warned that these trends could damage an already weak world economy. The desire of those hurt by globalization to shield themselves from foreign competition via protectionist or retaliatory policies is a growing influence in the political life of a number of countries, including the world’s most advanced democracies. But while they may pose serious threats to the future of globalization, protectionist policies have not been implemented on a time frame that could have caused the trade slowdown. Nor is the decline in trade restricted to commerce between countries where populist influence is strongest.
Economist Paul Krugman sees the answer lying in the relative speed of technological progress in transportation and the rest of the economy. Real transport costs could rise, according to Krugman, if the technological advances in transportation are slower than the economy-wide technological changes. Economists in the IMF believe believe changes in the pace of international vertical specialization, the decision to use domestic versus imported inputs, are causing the lackluster expansion of trade. All of these explanations, however, seem unlikely in the context of a world of such great differences in cost and technology — precisely the conditions under which, through the logic of comparative advantage, free trade promised such universal benefits.
If the causes of a slowdown in global trade remain a matter of ongoing debate, its impact and implications for the global economy are unmistakably real and increasingly urgent. 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 0 |
Street scene near Temple University, 2016(image by Linh Dinh) License DMCA Over three days last week, at least 150 blacks attacked whites at random around Temple University. Victims were surrounded, punched and kicked. Wallets and phones were stolen. Rocks were thrown at passing cars. When cops showed up, one was knocked from her bike and a police horse was even punched twice in the muzzle. Most of the assaults took place on Friday. On Saturday, Joe Lauletta, a father of one victim, reported on FaceBook : I spent last night in the ER at St. Mary's HospitaI. I received a call from my daughter Christina after my sons football game. She was crying, I couldn't understand her, my heart dropped, I became scared, I said what is the matter? Dad, I was jumped, I'm beat up pretty bad. Where r u? Temple, they stole my phone. We're heading to the police station. I do not hear from her until she gets to her apartment. Rage is running through my mind the whole time. She said she is getting a ride home and wants to go to St. Mary's. I find out that her and her 2 male friends where badly beaten by a group of 30-40 black teenagers on their way home from the Temple football game. This happened after they got off the subway at Broad and Cecil B Moore. These sick animals held her down and kicked and stomped on her repeatedly. Thank god, the people from the pizza place intervened. They arrested 2 people at the scene. I have not let Christina out of my sight, she is resting. Every part of her body is badly bruised, it makes me cry just thinking about it. No broken bones. If you have children at Temple, tell them to be careful. Please keep Christina Lauletta in your thoughts. CBS Philadelphia describes another victim's ordeal: He says around 9:30 Friday night he was leaving work when he saw what looked to be at least 200 juveniles walking in large groups. He said he overheard police saying the kids were playing the knockout game. He says a juvenile around 10 years old started shouting obscenities at him and grabbed his phone out of his hand. The student says the juvenile then came back and threw the phone at him, striking him in the face. - Advertisement - Around 15 minutes later, the student says he was walking with his girlfriend when they were approached by at least seven juveniles. The student says he went to hit the Temple Police alert button when his girlfriend was struck by one of the juveniles. As the student was chasing them away, he says he was struck in the face by a someone he estimates to be eight years old. This is not new. In 2014, five black girls, aged 17, 15, 15, 15 and 14, committed three separate attacks on random white people at Temple University. Struck across the face with a brick, a 19-year-old white student suffered a fractured jaw and nearly had her teeth knocked out. Her 15-year-old assailant, Zaria Estes , was given a 2 -6 year sentence. Across America, gangs of blacks have beaten random people for decades, just for the sport of it. This cathartic recreation has been dubbed wilding, catch and wreck , knock out game or flash mob, and it can happen at parks, shopping malls, state fairs or even your living room. In 2012, a mentally-handicapped woman was relaxing on her stoop in Chester, just outside Philadelphia, when she was attacked by six black teenaged girls. When the terrified woman tried to flee inside, they rushed into her living room to continue the savage beating . Had these girls not posted their exhilarating workout on FaceBook, they might never have been caught. - Advertisement - A white bartender at my neighborhood dive was attacked, just outside her front door, by a group of black kids around 12 years old. After throwing a rock at her head and knocking her down, they kicked her a few times as she curled up on the ground, then they scattered. "Just like that, it was over. All I could do was go inside and cry." Not surprisingly, the latest incident at Temple University has received scant media attention. Though AP did cover it, it never pointed out that these were racial crimes. As usual, only "teens" are fingered, with their race not mentioned. Had mobs of whites attacked random blacks, the entire world would have known about it by now. Locally, a black writer editorializes in the Philadelphia Inquirer that gentrification is ultimately responsible. In "Behind Temple attacks, rage often comes with exclusion," Solomon Jones explains : In a city where poverty is concentrated outside the universities, we can't truly expect the poor to watch jobs and wealth and excess pass them by without any reaction at all. | 0 |
A British Christian theatre group has staged their annual Passion Play in Trafalgar square, London, part of a tradition of Easter pageants in the United Kingdom depicting the final days of Christ going back hundreds of years. [Once a common feature of Holy Week celebrations in the United Kingdom, the Medieval tradition of Passion Plays has largely abided except in some villages and cities, and London, where the Wintershall players stage the Passion of Jesus before 20, 000 people in Trafalgar Square on Good Friday. Sharing of bread and wine, Roman soldiers, in authentic uniforms, make their entrance, Pontus Pilate has made his decision, Carrying the cross, Crucifixion in central London, Truly, He is Risen, All pictures by Rachel Megawhat Breitbart London | 1 |
A federal judge in Hawaii issued a nationwide order Wednesday evening blocking President Trump’s ban on travel from parts of the Muslim world, dealing a stinging blow to the White House and signaling that Mr. Trump will have to account in court for his heated rhetoric about Islam. A second federal judge in Maryland ruled against Mr. Trump overnight, with a separate order forbidding the core provision of the travel ban from going into effect. The rulings were a second major setback for Mr. Trump in his pursuit of a policy that he has trumpeted as critical for national security. His first attempt to sharply limit travel from a handful of predominantly Muslim countries ended in a courtroom fiasco last month, when a federal court in Seattle halted it. Mr. Trump issued a new and narrower travel ban, affecting six countries, on March 6, trying to satisfy the courts by removing some of the most contentious elements of the original version. But in a pointed decision that repeatedly invoked Mr. Trump’s public comments, Judge Derrick K. Watson, of Federal District Court in Honolulu, wrote that a “reasonable, objective observer” would view even the new order as “issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion, in spite of its stated, religiously neutral purpose. ” In Maryland, Judge Theodore D. Chuang echoed that conclusion hours later, ruling in a case brought by nonprofit groups that work with refugees and immigrants, that the likely purpose of the executive order was “the effectuation of the proposed Muslim ban” that Mr. Trump pledged to enact as a presidential candidate. Mr. Trump lashed out at Judge Watson during a rally in Nashville late on Wednesday. Raising his voice to a hoarse shout, Mr. Trump accused the judge of ruling “for political reasons” and criticized the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which upheld the earlier decision against his administration and will hear any appeal to the Hawaii ruling. “This ruling makes us look weak, which by the way we no longer are, believe me,” Mr. Trump said, to mounting cheers from a loyal crowd. Mr. Trump even said he might reissue the initial version of the order, rather than the one blocked on Wednesday, which he described as “a version of the first one. ” After he signed the revised ban, Democratic attorneys general and nonprofit groups that work with immigrants and refugees raced back into court, claiming that Mr. Trump’s updated decree was still a thinly veiled version of the ban on Muslim migration that he proposed last year. Judge Watson, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, ruled that the State of Hawaii and an individual plaintiff, Ismail Elshikh, the imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii, had reasonable grounds to challenge the order as religious discrimination. And he concluded that allowing the travel restrictions to go into effect at midnight, as scheduled, could have caused them irreparable harm. Judge Watson flatly rejected the government’s argument that a court would have to investigate Mr. Trump’s “veiled psyche” to deduce religious animus. He quoted extensively from the remarks by Mr. Trump that were cited in the lawsuit brought by Hawaii’s attorney general, Doug Chin. “For instance, there is nothing ‘veiled’ about this press release,” Judge Watson wrote, quoting a Trump campaign document titled “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. ” Judge Watson singled out Mr. Elshikh, an American citizen whose Syrian had been pursuing a visa to enter the United States, as having an especially strong claim that the travel regulations would harm him on the basis of his religion. “This is a great day for democracy, religious and human rights,” Mr. Elshikh, who was out of the country, said in a message relayed through Hakim Ouansafi, the chairman of the Muslim Association of Hawaii. “I am very pleased that the processing of my ’s paperwork will not stop now but more importantly that this Muslim ban will not separate families and loved ones just because they happen to be from the six countries. ” Mr. Elshikh, who is Egyptian and previously worked in Michigan, was recruited to the Hawaii mosque more than a decade ago, Mr. Ouansafi said. And when the association began recruiting someone to serve as a plaintiff, the imam, who became a citizen last year, agreed to do so without reservation, Mr. Ouansafi said. After he became the face of the lawsuit, he received several threats from the mainland, Mr. Ouansafi said. “If we lived in any other state, I would not have asked him to come forward,” he said. In the Maryland case, Judge Chuang, who was also appointed by Mr. Obama, declined to block the entire executive order from going into effect, but ruled that the most important section — banning travel from half a dozen countries — could not be enforced. His decision cited Mr. Trump’s public comments to conclude that there were “strong indications that the national security purpose is not the primary purpose for the travel ban,” and that Mr. Trump may have intended to violate the constitutional prohibition on religious preferences. In addition to the Hawaii and Maryland suits, a federal judge in Washington State heard arguments Wednesday in cases challenging the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s order, including one brought by a coalition of Democratic attorneys general, and another by nonprofit groups. Administration lawyers have argued that the president was merely exercising his national security powers. In the scramble to defend the executive order, a single lawyer in the United States solicitor general’s office, Jeffrey Wall, argued first to a Maryland court and then, by phone, to Judge Watson in Honolulu that no element of the order, as written, could be construed as a religious test for travelers. Mr. Wall said the order was based on concerns raised by the Obama administration in its move toward stricter screening of travelers from the six countries affected. “What the order does is a step beyond what the previous administration did, but it’s on the same basis,” Mr. Wall said in the Maryland hearing. After Mr. Trump’s speech in Nashville, the Justice Department released a more muted statement disputing the Hawaii decision, calling it “flawed both in reasoning and scope. ” Sarah Isgur Flores, a spokeswoman for the department, said it would continue to defend the legality of the presidential order. Refugee organizations and civil rights groups greeted the Hawaii ruling with expressions of triumph and relief. Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, one of the groups that sued Mr. Trump in Maryland, hailed Judge Watson’s ruling as “a strong and unequivocal rejection of the politics of hate. ” At the same time, advocates for refugees and immigrants acknowledged that significant uncertainty would hang over some of their more practical decisions, as a longer legal process plays out around Mr. Trump’s order. “It’s a preliminary decision, but it recognizes that there continue to be problems with the constitutionality of this revised order, particularly with discriminatory intent toward Muslims,” said Betsy Fisher, policy director at the International Refugee Assistance Project at the Urban Justice Center. The original ban, released on Jan. 27, unleashed scenes of chaos at American airports and spurred mass protests. Issued abruptly on a Friday afternoon, it temporarily barred travel from seven nations, making no explicit distinction between citizens of those countries who already had green cards or visas and those who did not. It also suggested that Christian refugees from those countries would be given preference in the future. After the federal court in Seattle issued a broad injunction against the policy, Mr. Trump removed major provisions and reissued the order. The new version exempted key groups, like green card and visa holders, and dropped the section that would have given Christians special treatment. Mr. Trump also removed Iraq from the list of countries covered by the ban after the Pentagon expressed worry that it would damage the United States’ relationship with the Iraqi government in the fight against the Islamic State. Yet those concessions did not placate critics of the ban, who said it would still function as an unconstitutional religious test, albeit one affecting fewer people — an argument Judge Watson concurred with in his ruling. The lawsuits have also claimed that the order disrupts the operations of companies, charities, public universities and hospitals that have deep relationships overseas. In the Hawaii case, nearly five dozen technology companies, including Airbnb, Dropbox, Lyft and TripAdvisor, joined in a brief objecting to the travel ban. The second, executive order preserved major components of the original. It would have ended, with few exceptions, the granting of new visas and green cards to people from six countries — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — for at least 90 days. It would have also stopped all refugees from entering for 120 days and limited refugee admissions to 50, 000 people in the current fiscal year. Mr. Obama had set in motion plans to admit more than twice that number. Mr. Trump has said the pause is needed to screening procedures for immigrants from the six countries. “Each of these countries is a state sponsor of terrorism, has been significantly compromised by terrorist organizations, or contains active conflict zones,” he wrote in the order. The two court orders were not a final ruling on the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s ban, and the administration has expressed confidence that courts will ultimately affirm Mr. Trump’s power to issue the restrictions. But the legal debate is likely to be a protracted and unusually personal fight for the administration, touching Mr. Trump and a number of his key aides directly and raising the prospect that their public comments and private communications will be scrutinized. The lawsuits against the ban have extensively cited Mr. Trump’s comments during the presidential campaign. Attorney General Bob Ferguson of Washington, who successfully challenged Mr. Trump’s first order, has indicated that in an extended legal fight, he could seek depositions from administration officials and request documents that would expose the full process by which Trump aides crafted the ban. As a candidate, Mr. Trump first proposed to bar all Muslims from entering the United States, and then offered an alternative plan to ban travel from a number of Muslim countries, which he described as a politically acceptable way of achieving the same goal. The lawsuits also cited Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who advises Mr. Trump. Mr. Giuliani said he had been asked to help craft a Muslim ban that would pass legal muster. And they highlighted comments by Stephen Miller, an adviser to the president, who cast the changes to Mr. Trump’s first travel ban as mere technical adjustments aimed at ushering the same policy past the review of a court. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Wednesday that the financial outlook for Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund had deteriorated slightly in the last year and that Social Security still faced serious financial problems. The report, from the trustees of the two programs, could inject a note of fiscal reality into a presidential campaign that has given scant attention to the government’s fiscal challenges as the population ages. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has proposed increasing Social Security benefits and allowing people age 55 to 64 to “buy into” Medicare, while Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has repeatedly said he would not cut either program. Under existing law, the trustees said Wednesday, Medicare’s hospital trust fund would be depleted in 2028, two years earlier than projected in last year’s report. In addition, they said, the Social Security trust funds for benefits and disability insurance, taken together, could be depleted in 2034, the same year projected in last year’s report. Tax collections would then be sufficient to pay about of promised benefits through 2090, they said. Social Security and Medicare account for about 40 percent of all federal spending. Obama administration officials often say the Affordable Care Act has slowed the growth of health spending, compared with estimates made just before the law was adopted in 2010. But the trustees said Wednesday that the financial outlook for Medicare had worsened in the last year because of changes in their assumptions and expectations. Medicare actuaries now expect higher use of inpatient hospital services, as well as lower projected improvements in workers’ productivity and lower payroll tax revenue, as a result of slower growth in wages in the next few years. In their report, the trustees — four administration officials — said that the costs of Medicare and Social Security would grow faster than the economy through the because of the aging of the baby boom generation. As for Medicare, they said, “growth in expenditures per beneficiary exceeds growth in per capita gross domestic product over this time period. ” The projected growth in Medicare spending will not immediately set off automatic cuts in the program under a controversial provision of the Affordable Care Act that generally requires such cuts when spending is expected to exceed certain benchmarks. However, such cuts could be required in a few years under the trustees’ forecast. Under current projections, they said, the automatic cuts could take effect for the first time in 2019. Medicare now spends an average of nearly $13, 000 per beneficiary, and this figure is expected to exceed $16, 000 in five years, the report said. “ drugs are a major driver of Medicare spending growth,” said Andrew M. Slavitt, the acting administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Such projections in years past have prompted leaders in both parties to at least broach the idea of benefit cuts or tax increases for entitlement programs. By contrast, President Obama said in Elkhart, Ind. this month that Social Security should be made “more generous,” and that “we could start paying for it by asking the wealthiest Americans to contribute a little bit more. ” Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said Wednesday that he saw no contradiction there. The two objectives — ensuring the solvency of Social Security and increasing benefits — are “not at all inconsistent” if they are discussed in the context of “a broader conversation” about taxes and benefits, he said. The report predicts that Social Security will provide a modest adjustment, increasing benefits by of 1 percent next year. But, it warned of a “substantial increase” in Medicare premiums in 2017 for about 30 percent of beneficiaries. Under assumptions in the report, the standard premium, now $121. 80 a month, would rise to $149, and the change could be announced just weeks before Election Day on Nov. 8. Congress took action last year to shore up Social Security’s disability insurance trust fund, but the report says the legislation was a fix. The law postponed the projected depletion of the disability trust fund by seven years, to 2023, Mr. Lew said. Like other Democrats, Mr. Lew said the report showed the “positive impact” of the Affordable Care Act. Since the health law was signed, he said, “increases in health care costs have slowed substantially. ” Carolyn W. Colvin, the acting commissioner of Social Security, said Americans should begin a serious discussion of how to close the “future financing gap” in Social Security. Sixty million people now receive Social Security benefits totaling more than $74 billion each month. The number of Social Security beneficiaries is expected to reach 76 million by 2025. | 1 |
The views expressed herein are the views of the author exclusively and not necessarily the views of VNN, VNN authors, affiliates, advertisers, sponsors, partners, technicians or and its assigns. Notices Posted by VNN on November 2, 2016, With 0 Reads, Filed under Africa , Asia , Australia & Oceana , Europe , North America , South America , World . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . You can leave a response or trackback to this entry FaceBook Comments One Response to " Putin: ‘America is a great nation, not some banana republic. Correct me if I’m wrong’ " Debbie Menon November 2, 2016 at 4:40 pm
Trump: At the Third debate: Now we can talk about Putin. I don’t know Putin. He said nice things about me. If we got along well, that would be good. If Russia and the United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good. He has no respect for her (Hillary). He has no respect for our president.
She (Hillary) doesn’t like Putin because Putin has outsmarted her at every step of the way.
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An omnipresent, marketing campaign propelled “The Angry Birds Movie” to No. 1 at the North American box office over the weekend, giving Sony Pictures an important feather for its frayed cap. “Angry Birds,” based on a 2009 mobile game that became a craze, sold an estimated $39 million in tickets, on the high end of prerelease analyst expectations. The movie, which received mediocre reviews, has generated an additional $111 million overseas. “Taking a video game and bringing it to life as a film brand is a very difficult thing to do, and we’re thrilled to have launched a new franchise,” Josh Greenstein, Sony’s president of worldwide marketing and distribution, said by phone on Sunday. Most of the “Angry Birds” financial risk fell to Rovio, the Finnish video game company, which paid $173 million to make and market the movie. As such, Rovio will receive the bulk of any profit. Sony, working hard to move beyond a prolonged rough patch, distributed “Angry Birds” in return for an 8 percent slice of ticket sales. Rovio also paid Sony Pictures Imageworks to animate the film. “Captain America: Civil War” (Disney) fell to second place, taking in about $33. 1 million, for a domestic total of $347. 4 million, according to comScore, which compiles data. “Civil War” has collected an additional $706. 1 million overseas. Despite receiving good reviews, “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising” (Universal) fizzled in third place, collecting an estimated $21. 8 million, or 55 percent less than its series predecessor generated upon its 2014 arrival. Comedy sequels often falter, although the “Sorority Rising,” which cost about $35 million to make, seemed ready to break that curse. For whatever reason — the story line, a crowded marketplace — fans did not buy in. Similarly disappointing was “The Nice Guys” (Warner Bros.) an action comedy set in the 1970s that cost a reported $50 million to make. Starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe, “The Nice Guys” took in $11. 3 million. Funding for the film was raised by the producer Joel Silver Warner then bought domestic distribution rights. | 1 |
Poll: How Millennials View BLM and the Alt-Right Susan Page and Karina Shedrofsky, USA Today, October 31, 2016
Most Millennials have a positive view of the Black Lives Matter movement, a USA TODAY/Rock the Vote Millennial Poll finds, but attitudes are more mixed about the less well-known alt-right.
In the survey of Americans 18 to 34 years old, 58% say they have a favorable opinion about Black Lives Matter, an activist movement that grew from protests over the shooting deaths of unarmed African Americans. Among blacks, an overwhelming 81% have a favorable view, including 50% who are “very favorable.” Just 14% of blacks have an unfavorable opinion.
Whites have a positive impression of the movement by 53%-39%, Hispanics by 64%-31%, and Asian Americans by 54%-40%.
{snip}
The online poll of 1,299 young adults, including an over-sample of minorities, was taken Oct. 21-24 by Ipsos Public Affairs. {snip}
The alt-right movement, which includes groups on the far right, has gained attention recently because of the support for Donald Trump by some white supremacists and anti-Semites. But it is much less well-known among Millennials. Nearly half of those surveyed, 45%, say they don’t know enough about the alt-right to have an opinion of it, compared with just 8% who say that of Black Lives Matter.
Among those who express an opinion, 34% say they have a favorable opinion of the alt-right, 21% an unfavorable one.
Among whites, the favorable-unfavorable divide is 33%-19%. Among African Americans, it is 31%-27%. Among Hispanics, 46%-23%. Among Asian Americans, 37%-23%.
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WASHINGTON — The Senate voted on Thursday to keep a proposal to block gun sales to terrorism suspects alive, but placed it in a procedural limbo that made its adoption unlikely anytime soon. The compromise measure, drafted by Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, had emerged as the one piece of legislation since the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla. with a chance of winning bipartisan support and passage in Congress. The measure, which had been in danger of failing because of Republican opposition, would block gun sales to anyone on the government’s list or the “selectee” list of people subjected to heightened screening before they are allowed to board a plane. Republican leaders, however, had expressed deep misgivings about the bill because they said it would deny due process to individuals who might have ended up on the lists without just cause. That left them in a quandary of how to stall the measure without allowing Democrats to gloat that Republicans were so opposed to tighter gun restrictions that they defeated even a bill offered by a member of their own party. The solution was a procedural maneuver by which the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, scheduled the bill for a vote on a motion to table it. By voting not to table it, Republicans could keep it alive without advancing or defeating it outright — putting it in a sort of legislative purgatory. Supporters of the measure sought to preserve some hope, but it was a reach. “It is absolutely not dead,” said Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Democrat of North Dakota, who was a main partner with Ms. Collins in drafting the proposal and selling it to Democrats. But asked whether the measure was still alive, Ms. Heitkamp was less certain. “Well, we’ll see,” she replied. | 1 |
I'm so tired of all these psychotics babbling anti Trump Propaganda Fucking libtards are completely brainless.I don't like Trump. Never have. Never watched The Apprentice. Turned the channel every time he came on TV. He was like the Khardashians to me. Crass commercialism by a person who was neither talented nor interesting. But. I am sick of all this insane Bullshit. 1. He is not a racist. He has been a public figure for 50 freaking years and nobody ever said that until he runs for President. And we know that they call every Republican racist. So why the fuck are you repeating, it you brainless fucktard? Don't you know propaganda when you hear it?- building a wall and saying SOME Mexicans are criminals IS NOT RACIST. Some Mexicans are criminals. Just look at the Federal Prison stats, idiot.- saying we must ban Muslims UNTIL WE KNOW WHO THEY ARE AND WHY THEY ARE HERE is not racist. There are assholes walking into malls in Minneapolis now screaming 'Allah Ahkbar' as they stab my fellow Americans. They BLEW UP THE FUCKING BOSTON MARATHON. So take that 'Islamaphobia' propaganda and shove it up your fucking ass. - saying 'the mexican judge' who keeps ruling against me in a lawsuit is biased is not racist. The Fucker is part of LaRaza. The law firm that brought the suit is sending other La Raza lawyers into the court to try the case. That is a conflict of interest. And I don't care if the guy was born in fucking Illinois. There are all kind of guys I know, he was born in NY. He is still 'Irish' to me because his family was. Or 'Italian'. Or 'A Jew'. It's just a shorthand, especially used a lot by New Yorkers because everyone is something. 2. The sexual harassment crap is bullshit. The guy has been running for President for over a year. Not a tweet. Not a chirp. Then he whacks that fucking fat-ass midget with the mean streak and the history of documented lying who covered for her whore hopping scumbag husband for 30 years with it all, and suddenly Gloria Allred, A CLINTON DELEGATE TO THE DNC CONVENTION, starts popping up people from left field to make spurious claims out of the ass while CNN, run by MAJOR CLINTON SUPPORTER Zucker, shills for the whole thing. What are you fucking stupid eating that bullshit? You look like an idiot.3. Nuclear Codes. What a bunch of shit. First, Hillary is an old ill woman who has seizures, can't stand up, can't hear, and when she testifies before Congress claims she can't remember anything that happened. So....you are worried about Trump with the Nuclear Codes?Oh, yah, and she was Sect. of State exactly while the US policy in the Middle East went to shit, created ISIS and directly caused the greatest Human disaster since World War II which is now threatening to spread terrrorists all over Europe and the US. AND SHE IS COMPLETELY CLUELESS ABOUT IT. She will tell you that we need to be kind and nice to the religion of peace OR it will Cause Terrorism. Oh Ya? Well Obama did it your way...AND NOW PEOPLE ARE WALKING INTO MALLS IN MINNESOTA SCREAMING 'ALLAH AHKBAR' AS THEY STAB MY FELLOW AMERICANS.So, beside that what do we have? Your propaganda masters used to claim that the Republicans were all anti-gay christian bigots. Well, OBVIOUSLY NOT TRUMP. He is from New York. He bangs models. He used to hangout at Studio 54 in the coke and gay days. He knew Andy Warhol. Guy is middle of the road. Guy went to the Wharton School and has testified before Congress about Money Supply, Credit and Economics. Guy will fill his cabinet with the best people and run things like a CEO. Guy seems to care about Veteran Issues, Social Security and the safety net, healthcare. All the things you fugging libtards are usually all inflamed about. You are like Pavlov's dogs, sitting up on your hinds and barking on commands because your liberal propaganda masters tell you to. You are pathetic. You suck. You are a monumental asshole. Last Edited by Craazee8 on 10/26/2016 02:04 PM | 0 |
WASHINGTON — The F. B. I. had a job offer for Nick Young, a veteran Washington transit officer: Become an undercover informant for the bureau and gather information at local mosques on fellow Muslims who might pose a terrorism threat. The clandestine work would be “a lot sexier” than his current job, Mr. Young remembered an agent named Ryan telling him. And it could pay him a lot of money if the intelligence was good. Mr. Young turned him down. But it would not be the last time he would see the F. B. I. agent. Last August, five years later, Mr. Young was summoned to the headquarters of the transit agency, Metro, where Ryan and other agents were waiting for him. “You probably don’t recognize me, do you?” Ryan, whose beard was now thicker, asked him. “Oh, I recognize you,” Mr. Young said. This time, the agent handcuffed Mr. Young on a charge of supporting the Islamic State — a case built, in a twist, by an informant who posed as a terrorist fighter. The prosecution of Mr. Young, the only law enforcement officer among more than 100 Americans who have been accused of helping the Islamic State, offers a revealing look at the F. B. I. ’s shadowy efforts to identify possible Islamic extremists. President Trump has vowed to intensify the effort as part of a campaign to “annihilate” the militant group. Mr. Young’s case also poses a challenge to the F. B. I. ’s expanding use of undercover operations to identify Islamic State sympathizers inside the United States who might travel overseas to help the terrorist group or commit “lone wolf” attacks at home. His lawyer claims that the F. B. I. entrapped him, with undercover operatives popping in and out of his life for at least six years. To law enforcement officials, however, Mr. Young represents one of their worst fears: a longtime officer, with access to sensitive facilities, who they suspect was “radicalized” to support Islamic extremism. He is charged with providing “material support” to the Islamic State, in the form of $245 worth of Google Play gift cards. The authorities say he gave the gift cards to a Muslim friend named Mo — in reality, an undercover informant — to support recruitment for the terrorist group. Before now, very few American suspects linked to the Islamic State have spoken out. But in three and a half hours of interviews from jail, Mr. Young, a convert to Islam, portrayed himself and many other American Muslims under investigation as victims of religious persecution. He accused an “overzealous” F. B. I. of “manufacturing” the case. “I know for sure I wouldn’t have been targeted if I was an evangelic Christian or a Sikh or a Hindu or something,” said Mr. Young, 37. “I’m not a terrorist,” he added. “Seeing these horrible allegations and the way they’re trying to paint me, it’s just a nightmare. ” Officials at the F. B. I. and the Justice Department declined to comment on the case. In general, the F. B. I. said in a statement, the investigative techniques used in such national security cases “are subject to vigorous oversight and require us to use the least intrusive means possible. ” The F. B. I. has moved aggressively since the rise of the Islamic State in 2014 to identify suspected extremist supporters inside the United States, opening hundreds of investigations and generating convictions from Brooklyn to Southern California, often against young Muslim men. Mr. Trump has declared that the country must do more to confront what he calls “radical Islamic terrorism,” including the possibility of expanding surveillance and intelligence operations, creating a “registry” of American Muslims, and reviving torture as an interrogation technique. While Mr. Trump has sent mixed signals on some of those proposals, they have worried some civil liberties advocates, who say they are eager to see whether the Justice Department and the F. B. I. seek to expand their investigative powers still further in domestic terrorism cases. Mr. Young sees himself as a pawn in that broader fight. He acknowledges holding passionate views about the Middle East and the “slaughter” of Syrians by the government of President Bashar . On breaks from the transit agency, Mr. Young traveled to Libya twice in 2011 with body armor to join rebels fighting the Qaddafi regime. “I didn’t kill anyone while I was there,” he said, laughing, but “I got shot at a lot. ” He insisted that he had never supported terrorists. He plans to take the witness stand at his trial, an unusual tactic for a terrorism suspect. “Nick doesn’t have anything to hide,” said Nicholas D. Smith, one of his lawyers. As he waits for his trial date, he sits in a rural jail in Warsaw, Va. reading science fiction occasionally, with “The Jerry Springer Show” sometimes playing on a television in the background. “My brain’s turning to mush,” he said. He said the jail had denied him access to Muslim prayer sessions. But the conditions are far better, he added, than the solitary confinement he was placed in for 23 hours a day for months after his arrest. That ordeal, he said, has caused lingering panic attacks and other problems. Unlike the bulk of the Americans charged with supporting the Islamic State, Mr. Young is not accused of plotting violence or trying to travel to the Middle East to fight with the group. He said he was under investigation for so long, it was almost inevitable that the authorities would find a way to charge him. “At the end of the day, the crime I’m being accused of — a crime of sending gift cards — it would be laughable if it wasn’t really happening,” Mr. Young said. He declined to explain the gift cards, citing a pretrial order that restricts what he can say about documents in the case. But he said his explanation would come out at his trial. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, dozens of terrorism defendants caught in undercover stings have claimed in court that they were illegally entrapped into saying or doing incriminating things. None have succeeded. Judges have given the Justice Department wide latitude in using undercover stings in terrorism cases. “You almost need a perfect case” to prove entrapment, said Seamus Hughes, a terrorism expert at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, “and that’s difficult to find. ” Still, several legal analysts said Mr. Young might have a legitimate shot, because of the unusual elements of the F. B. I. ’s yearslong undercover investigation. They point out that even an charge that Mr. Young faces is based on his statements to agents about a fictional F. B. I. investigation into the whereabouts of a Islamic State fighter who never existed. Mr. Young apparently first came onto the F. B. I. ’s radar around 2010 because he knew a fellow student at George Mason University, Zachary A. Chesser, who, like him, was a white convert to Islam from Northern Virginia and attended the same mosque. The F. B. I. interviewed Mr. Young that year as part of an investigation into Mr. Chesser, who ultimately pleaded guilty to charges after he was accused of threatening the creators of “South Park” over the show’s depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. Mr. Young does not appear to have been an F. B. I. target at the time, even as undercover informants began giving the bureau reports about the activities of him and some of his associates. He continued working as an armed officer patrolling subways and bus lines. He said F. B. I. agents — Ryan and a second agent — had met with him twice in 2011 to recruit him as an informant. Mr. Young said he found the idea of becoming an informant distasteful. The F. B. I. said in a court affidavit that he had used stronger language in a conversation with one of the bureau’s undercover informants, saying that if he were ever betrayed by one, “that person’s head would be in a cinder block” at the bottom of a lake. Based on wiretaps and statements from informants, the F. B. I. reported that Mr. Young had made a number of other incendiary and perhaps even threatening comments over the years about Muslim informants, F. B. I. investigators and “kaffirs” — or nonbelievers. Mr. Young acknowledged that he could have used “a little ” in some of his private remarks. But he said he had never meant them to be taken literally. “Everyone’s capable of saying stupid, blustery things,” said Mr. Smith, his lawyer. Some F. B. I. officials pressed to bring criminal charges against Mr. Young years ago, but the Justice Department rebuffed them because of an apparent lack of evidence that he was involved in supporting terrorism, according to law enforcement officials. It was not until 2014 that Mr. Young crossed the line into supporting terrorism, the Justice Department now alleges. That was when he first met Mo, a Middle Easterner who said he was a military reservist, at a mosque where he prayed. Mr. Young said he had suspected early on that Mo might be an informant because of his strange mannerisms. But his concerns eased, and the two became friends, meeting at a Starbucks or elsewhere. Mo later told Mr. Young that he was thinking of traveling to Syria to join the Islamic State, prosecutors said. While Mr. Young sometimes appeared to offer Mo advice on how best to avoid government scrutiny if he went to the Middle East, he also told him at times that he did not need to join the terrorist group — at least not then, according to the F. B. I. ’s account. “There is no one with a gun to your head that is counting down,” he told Mo in a conversation recorded in October 2014. Such statements, said Mr. Smith, his lawyer, show that “the government is really grasping at straws here. ” Prosecutors are acting on “really more of a hunch that he might commit crimes in the future,” he said, “and they can’t prove it. ” | 1 |
by Jay Syrmopoulos
Portland, OR – The group of men who seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, in rural Oregon were found not guilty late Thursday, vindicating brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy after the 41-day standoff that brought nationwide focus to long-running dispute over federal control of rural land in the Western United States.
According to a report in by the Associated Press :
A jury found brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy not guilty a firearm in a federal facility and conspiring to impede federal workers from their jobs at the 300 miles southeast of Portland where the trial took place. Five co-defendants also were tried one or both of the charges. Ammon Bundy has a house in Emmett.
Despite the acquittal, the Bundys were expected to stand trial in Nevada early next year on charges stemming from another high-profile standoff with federal agents. Authorities rounding up cattle at their father Cliven Bundy’s ranch in 2014 because of unpaid grazing fees released the animals as they faced armed protesters.
The Bundy family initially made headlines in 2013 when the Bureau of Land Management brought armed agents in to seize rancher Cliven Bundy’s cattle after his refusal to pay federal authorities a massive debt – which he claims is illegitimate.
In response to the militarized response in Nevada by the BLM, militia from across the U.S. mobilized and coordinated a response which saw hundreds of armed Americans stand up to what they perceived as vast federal overreach.
What the government thought would be an open-and-shut case was anything but. The group never denied they seized the refuge while armed or that they made demands of the government.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this case is not a whodunit,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Knight said in his closing argument, making the argument the group illegally commandeered a federal building.
The AP reports:
On technical grounds, the defendants said they never discussed stopping individual workers from accessing their offices but merely wanted the land and the buildings. On emotional grounds, Ammon Bundy and other defendants argued that the takeover was an act of civil disobedience against an out-of-control federal government that has crippled the rural West.
Federal prosecutors took two weeks to present their case, finishing with a display of more than 30 guns seized after the standoff. An FBI agent testified that 16,636 live rounds and nearly 1,700 spent casings were found.
Ammon Bundy spent three days testifying in his own defense, focusing on the fact that federal overreach is destroying rural Western communities that have relied on the land — for generations in many cases. Bundy made clear that the plan was to simply take control of the refuge by occupation, while eventually returning it to local control.
Originally, 26 occupiers were charged with conspiracy. Eleven pleaded guilty, while another had the charge dropped. Seven defendants have not yet been tried. Their trial is scheduled to begin February 14, according to the AP.
Shortly after the verdict was announced, an Oregon-area reporter posted to Twitter that Ammon Bundy’s attorney Marcus Mumford was tackled by U.S. Marshals after insisting that Bundy should be allowed to be released from custody, with the judge subsequently ordering the courtroom cleared.
The armed occupiers took control of the remote bird sanctuary on January 2, in response to the prison sentences given to two local ranchers, Dwight and Steven Hammond, after being convicted of arson in relation to an ongoing dispute with the BLM. Upon occupying the refuge the group demanded that the father and son be freed and that federal officials cede control of publicly held lands to local control.
Ultimately, the Bundy brothers and a number of their fellow occupiers were arrested in an ambush style attack, while on the way to negotiate with a Sheriff. It ended with officers gunning down Robert “LaVoy” Finnicum – a charismatic group spokesman. Currently, numerous federal SRT agents are under investigation for lying about firing at the occupiers’ vehicle during the ambush.
The majority of the remaining occupants left the refuge in the wake of Finnicum’s killing, with four holdouts negotiating their surrender until February 11.
In the wake of the verdict, both the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office also expressed disappointment.
U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams said his office “respects the verdict of the jury and thanks them for their dedicated service during this long and difficult trial.”
“For many weeks, hundreds of law enforcement officers — federal, state, and local — worked around-the-clock to resolve the armed occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge peacefully. We believe now — as we did then — that protecting and defending this nation through rigorous obedience to the U.S. Constitution is our most important responsibility. Although we are extremely disappointed in the verdict, we respect the court and the role of the jury in the American judicial system.” – Greg Bretzing, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Oregon
Regardless of the sentiments of those in government and law enforcement, the jury carried out justice — with this verdict solidifying that the killing of LaVoy Finnicum was nothing less than criminal .
Revealing exactly why the 2nd Amendment is so important to a free people, Bundy testified that the reason occupiers chose to carry guns was because they understood that they would be immediately arrested otherwise and needed to protect themselves against possible government violence.
There is no mistaking the difference in law enforcement’s response to unarmed protestors — versus those that exercise their right to bear arms. One need look no further than the ongoing protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock – which has been met with numerous militarized and violent crackdowns on non-violent water protectors – to see exactly how differently armed protestors are treated. Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
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Contributed by The Free Thought Project of thefreethoughtproject.com .
The Free Thought Project is dedicated to holding those who claim authority over our lives accountable. | 0 |
The boom has fallen on another 216 employees of cereal giant Kellogg Company with workers in Minnesota being handed pink slips at a snack food manufacturing facility. [Up to 216 workers at the Kellogg plant in Vadnais Heights, Minnesota, were notified last week that their jobs were on the chopping block as part of the company’s plan to reverse its financial freefall, according to CBS news. Jeremy Hanson Willis, deputy commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development, told the media that he received the company’s notification satisfying a federal mandate to alert state authorities when a mass layoff is occurring. Willis tried to put a brave face on it insisting the laid off workers will be fine. “There are a lot of businesses around the state looking for workers and having a hard time to employ them because we have so few unemployed folks in our state,” Willis told the media. A Kellogg’s spokesman admitted that the layoffs were part of the company’s effort to retool. Joe Lierz, Kellogg’s director of labor relations, told the StarTribune that the layoffs were “directly related” to the company’s plan. He added that the Minnesota job loss “is one in a series” of layoff announcements coming across the country. The layoffs in Minnesota came on the heels of layoffs at Kellogg’s plants and distribution centers in New York, Michigan, and other states. The plan was a result of the $53 million loss reported by the cereal maker and is expected to include the closure of 39 distribution centers affecting roughly 1, 100 workers across the country. The cereal giant’s financial troubles coincided with its decision to cut its advertising with Breitbart News at the end of 2016, thereby snubbing Breitbart’s 45, 000, 000 readers. In November, Kellogg’s announced that Breitbart News’s conservative readers are not “aligned with our values as a company. ” While the decision by Kellogg’s to cease advertising made virtually no revenue impact on Breitbart. com, it did represent an escalation in the war by companies like Target and Allstate against conservative customers whose values propelled Donald Trump into the White House. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
geoengineeringwatch.org
Global warming disinformation is greatly harmful to the critical cause of exposing and halting climate engineering (which is greatly exacerbating planetary warming and poisoning the entire planet in the process ). Because patently false climate information is so harmful to the anti-geoengineering cause , we must not look the other way when anyone pushes total disinformation on the public. Some lies are so massive and increasingly blatant that it is nearly impossible to imagine that they are still being propagated. Could a 3 day symposium pushing the "Global warming is a hoax" false narrative actually be carried out with a straight face while the planet is free falling into a state of total meltdown ? Are there people who would pay nearly $400 dollars to attend such a symposium and have so called " world's top experts" attempt to convince them that "global warming is the biggest deception in history"? Exactly who would sponsor a "global warming is a myth" event? What would be their motive? The organizer of the "Global Warming, An Inconvenient Lie" conference is non other than Ed Griffin of "Freedom Force International" who seems to be running some sort of multi-level marketing program . Who is Mr. Griffin's top "expert" for the upcoming "global warming is a hoax" event? Enter "Lord Monckton" of Benchley.
"Lord Monckton" has a long resume indeed, but in reality his resume is better described as a " wrap sheet " which should be examined by anyone who has any notion of attending this disinformation event. Why would "Lord Monckton" put so much time and energy into the "global warming is a hoax" false narrative? Could the fact that Monckton receives funding from the fossil fuel industry have anything to do with his tireless efforts to parrot the oil industry disinformation ? Is this the same reason that "Lord Monckton" ardently denies the climate engineering issue in a shocking interview ? Exactly as the fossil fuel industry and the geoengineers would want him to?
Who is the second string "expert" in the "global warming is a hoax" line up? Yet another fossil fuel funded actor, Tim Ball.
Tim Ball has been called " the lie that just won't die " for good reason. Ball's trail of disinformation has been well documented by numerous sources . An international radio show host (Vinny Eastwood) once invited Mr. Ball to debate the geoengineering issue with me on a live radio broadcast, Mr. Ball refused. He denies the reality of the issue, as does Mr. Monckton. Individuals like Monckton and Ball are simply paid props in a rapidly disintegrating disinformation road show. There are more featured "experts" that are apparently pushing the "global warming is a hoax" disinformation, but you get the idea. Who is the star of the coming disinformation event? It's Mr. Ed Griffin.
Ed Griffin made the following statement on the record in 2013:
… the planet now is in a cooling stage…
What has happened since 2013? And was already inarguably happening for the decades before 2013? Rapidly increasing global temperatures from anthropogenic activity which of course includes climate engineering at the top of the list. Mr. Griffin is apparently already receiving emails of criticism from his followers for his ridiculously false position in regard to the state of the climate. Griffin actually just published one such message that stated " Griffin, you've got it wrong, climate change is real ". Ed seems have been motivated to publish this criticism because he was proud of his answer to critic who had expressed justifiable concern about sea level rise submerging islands. What was Mr. Griffin's answer?
That is part of the global-warming myth. In some places….. the land is sinking…
So there you have it, there is no sea level rise, the land is just sinking. Mr. Griffin, rising sea levels are chewing away at shorelines all over the globe , so, here is a question for you, is all the land sinking? What are Mr. Griffin's views on climate engineering? That is also a very interesting narrative that is truly baffling. Apparently (according to Mr. Griffin) the grid patterns we see in the sky are just being blown into such patterns by the wind .
So what is the bottom line in regard to the state of the climate? The planet and climate system is not just warming, it is descending into a state of total meltdown with global climate engineering programs helping to fuel the overall fire. Those who have made it their mission (for whatever reason or motive) to deny the planetary meltdown, are simply toeing the line for big oil and the geoengineers .
Here is the climate reality, the Arctic is in a state of total meltdown along with the rest of the planet . Even Antarctic sea ice ( the last vestige for the global cooling false narrative) is also now at record low levels . The "departure from normal high temperature" map above shows the Arctic meltdown with startling clarity. The US is also experiencing record shattering heat with no end in sight.
Ice deposits are crashing around the world. Front-line film footage of the imploding ice deposits (the cryosphere) proves this fact beyond any doubt. The graph above is a shocking image of the radical decline of global sea ice. And about the front-line reality, we don't need graphs, we have front-line fim footage .
What is the bottom line? There is either the truth, or a lie. Those that are pushing the "global warming is a hoax" false narrative are pushing an unimaginably ridiculous lie. Why does it matter? Because credibility is critical in the battle to expose and halt climate engineering . Why is stopping climate engineering so important? Because the global weather warfare assault is mathematically the greatest and most immediate threat we face short of nuclear cataclysm. When so called "independent" news sources completely discredit the anti-geoengineering community by pushing completely false disinformation, bridges with the science community cannot be built. Such bridges are absolutely essential if we are to have any chance of fully exposing and halting the climate engineering insanity. Investigating the truth is our responsibility, as is sharing it. Make your voice heard . | 0 |
Part 9 Religious Fraud https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuTkBhPRBLs | 0 |
So, if you don’t trust voting machines, and you have good reason not to, you must demand a paper ballot.
As it turns out, there may be some problems with paper ballots as well.
One Conservative mother of two in Illionois reported that she had been hearing rumors of voter fraud. She talked to her friend, in South Carolina, and found the following:
Would you look at that? The Democrat ticket of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine is listed twice, with Pacific Green/Progressive of Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka and Libertarian Gary Johnson/Bill Weld also list.
No Republican ticket of Donald Trump/Mike Pence listed!
Others went online after voting, only to find that their mail in ballots, who listed Donald Trump as their candidate of choice, were not counted, supposedly because the signature on the ballot did not match the signature on the letter!
Fortunately, these people checked and are taking action before it is too late.
The Clinton Foundation, leftist billionaire George Soros, and the Democrats have power, and they have been shown to be corrupt.
Do not let this kind of voter fraud happen to your vote!
We cannot prove, right now, that the system is rigged, but something is not right.
Make sure that your vote counts. | 0 |
JAKARTA, Indonesia — The Christian governor of the capital of Indonesia, the world’s most populous nation, has been fighting for his political life in an election campaign charged with religious and ethnic undertones. After voters went to the polls Wednesday, it appeared that he would have to fight a little longer. Unofficial results from the balloting in Jakarta, the capital, indicated that the governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, held a small lead over his nearest challenger but was unlikely to win more than half of the vote. If the official results confirm that, a runoff will be held April 18. Mr. Basuki, who is ethnic Chinese, has been hobbled by a criminal trial on a charge of blasphemy against Islam, in connection with remarks about a Quran verse that he made last year. Mr. Basuki and his supporters say the court case, which was preceded by mass protests in the capital by Islamists demanding that he be prosecuted or even lynched, was orchestrated by political opponents to sabotage his election campaign. Analysts also saw the furor over Mr. Basuki’s remarks as an attempt to weaken President Joko Widodo, a key ally of the governor who is expected to seek a second term in 2019. Mr. Basuki, widely known by his nickname, Ahok, is only the second governor of Jakarta, and if he wins, he will be the first to be elected to the post directly. He was elevated from deputy governor in 2014 after Mr. Joko, his predecessor, was elected president. Hours after the polls closed Wednesday, independent polling firms conducting quick counts — which are taken from small samples of ballots cast and which have been highly accurate in past elections — put Mr. Basuki in the lead with 43 percent of the vote, and Anies Baswedan, a former minister of education and culture, in second with 40 percent. Other counts had Mr. Basuki ahead by slightly different margins. A third candidate, Agus Yudhoyono, a former army officer and son of a former president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, was shown finishing a distant third with around 17 percent. Both of Mr. Basuki’s opponents are Muslim and Javanese, the dominant ethnic group on the island where Jakarta sits. Indonesia’s population of 250 million includes more than 190 million Muslims, but it has influential minority populations of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists. While issues like education, health care, transportation and infrastructure development are important to voters, the campaign for governor has been overshadowed by issues of religion and race that have scarcely been seen before in Indonesia’s democratic era. and slurs directed toward Mr. Basuki have spread widely on social media in recent months. “One has to admit that Ahok did remarkably well considering the type of campaign that has been mounted against him,” said Jeffrey A. Winters, a professor of politics at Northwestern University who is a longtime observer of Indonesian affairs. “This is the first time a Chinese Christian has run for a major office in Indonesia, and he came close to winning an outright majority despite being on trial for blasphemy and attempts by his opponents to turn it into an choice,” he said. “Jakarta voters have shown themselves to be incredibly tolerant, which is a plus. ” However, analysts said Mr. Basuki’s failure to win the election outright in the first round could be his undoing, because most voters who supported Mr. Agus were expected to then back the campaign of Mr. Anies, who has promoted his religious credentials. “The political identity in Indonesia is more fragmented now because Anies will be branded as the representative of Islam and Ahok as the representative of ” said Titi Anggraini, executive director of the Association for Elections and Democracy, a nongovernmental organization based in Jakarta. “Based on my calculations, it will be difficult for Ahok now,” she said. Mr. Basuki was charged with blasphemy months after lightheartedly citing a verse in the Quran last September that warns Muslims against taking Christians and Jews as friends. He said that given Indonesia’s transition to democracy in the late 1990s, it would be acceptable for Muslims to cast ballots for a Christian. The ensuing attacks against him by Islamist groups and his political opponents came despite a regulation against using religion and ethnicity as issues in political campaigns. After the unofficial results were released, Mr. Basuki rallied his supporters, reminding them that he still came in first place despite the religious and ethnically charged atmosphere. “Considering that at one point, no one wanted to touch us, there are still many people who believe in us,” he said. “We believe this struggle is not over yet. ” Mr. Anies tried to play down the impact of Islamist attacks on Mr. Basuki, telling his supporters that “eventually, the public wants change. It’s not related to politics, but the public’s needs. ” Earlier Wednesday, however, at a polling station in a firehouse in a neighborhood in South Jakarta, Sari Rahayu, 47, a teacher who was wearing a Muslim head scarf, or hijab, said religious sentiments had indeed influenced her vote for Mr. Anies. The Quran, she said, made it clear that Mr. Basuki was not an option. “We’re not allowed to choose a leader who is not Muslim,” she said. She said that Mr. Basuki did a good job in office but added, “He doesn’t have the right to speak about the Quran. ” Still, the governor has no lack of support among Muslims, who make up the majority of voters in Jakarta. Anshori, an exporter who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name, went to the same firehouse with his wife and daughters, who were in hijabs and the checked shirts that Mr. Basuki’s supporters have long worn. “He’s honest. No corruption. He’s firm,” Mr. Anshori said. “We’re not angry about the religious attacks it’s just something we have to face. ” | 1 |
“To Counter Satellite Threats from China and Russia and Track Killer Asteroids” The most sophisticated space surveillance telescope ever developed is ready to begin tracking thousands of space objects as small as a softball. It’s a boon to space surveillance and science and a new military capability important to the nation and the globe. Air Force wants to track what objects are moving in the night sky, which objects are new, and what danger those objects might pose to satellites in orbit. According to DARPA, SST represents breakthroughs in telescope design, camera technology and image analysis software, and allows much faster discovery and tracking of previously unseen or hard-to-find small space objects.
The telescope captures a vast image: 100 million pixels, according to deputy DARPA director Steven Walker. It takes just one person to operate, and that person can operate it remotely, or set the telescope to scan the sky autonomously. And it captures a lot of information, with the camera gathering and saving half a terabyte of data on a typical night scan (the amount of data collected varies depending on the mission and other variables). The whole apparatus is immense, weighing 225,000 pounds. SST has increased space situational awareness from a narrow view of a few large objects at a time to a widescreen view of 10,000 objects as small as softballs, DARPA says. The telescope also can search an area larger than the continental United States in seconds and survey the entire geosynchronous belt in its field of view — a quarter of the sky — multiple times in a night. Developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Space Surveillance Telescope is the most sophisticated instrument of its kind ever developed. It was transferred to the Air Force on Oct. 18, 2016, which has plans to operate it jointly with the Royal Australian Air Force. “It’s not often we get an opportunity to witness the beginning of an entirely new military capability,” Air Force Maj. Gen. Nina Armagno, the director of strategic plans, programs, requirements and analysis for Air Force Space Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, said at the transfer event, “but that’s exactly what we’re doing here today.” The telescope, developed by the DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, was turned over to the Air Force Oct. 18 at the Space Surveillance Telescope site atop North Oscura Peak on the northern part of the Army’s 3,200-square-mile White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The formal transition of the SST from a DARPA-led design and construction program to ownership by the Air Force begins the telescope’s operational phase. The Air Force will move the SST to Harold E. Holt Naval Communication Station in Western Australia, operating and maintaining the telescope jointly with the Royal Australian Air Force.
The SST also will be a dedicated sensor in the U.S. Space Surveillance Network, operated by the Air Force Space Command.
“From a military perspective, any one of those objects could put satellites at risk,” Armagno said. “That’s why this capability is so important to us in Air Force Space Command.”
The world and the threat have changed, she noted, adding, “We no longer have the luxury of assuming that we operate in a benign environment [or]that conflict will only be on land or at sea or in the air. Now we must concern ourselves with a conflict that may extend into space.”
The space domain is filled with many actors, some with competing interests that may be at odds with those of the United States and its allies, the general said. “Others around the world have taken notice of the advantages that we and our allies gain through space technologies, and they have focused their military efforts on countering that capability,” Armagno told the audience.
Specifically, she added, “Russia and China, by the year 2025, will be able to hold at risk every one of our satellites in any orbit. So if the United States and our allies are to deter adversaries from taking action against our interests, we must do it from a position of strength.”
This image of objects and debris in geosynchronous orbit is generated from a distant oblique vantage point to provide a good view of the object population in the geosynchronous region, about 22,000 miles from Earth. The larger population of objects over the Northern Hemisphere is due mostly to Russian objects in high-inclination, high-eccentricity orbits.
To be prepared for war in the space domain — and so to lessen the possibility of war ever occurring there, the general said — “we must be able to see aggressive behavior when it unfolds [and]be prepared to act decisively to defend our own assets and to hold others accountable for their actions. We need to be able to attribute those actions and then react on tactically relevant timelines.”
These requirements call for an in-depth understanding of what’s going on in space, she added — what objects are there, what they are doing, what their intentions are and what they will do next.
SST will provide such information to the United States and its allies, Armagno said, characterizing it as “the ability to better understand the space domain in order to identify and predict the actions of others. In turn this knowledge will help us deter others from reckless behavior, and [allow us]to posture ourselves to react if needed.”
No one wants a war in space because it doesn’t impact a single region but the entire globe, she added, and it’s up to the United States and its allies to demonstrate leadership in the responsible use of space.
SST is a giant leap forward in space cooperation between the United States and Australia, Armagno noted.
A view of the M20 Trifid Nebula, or NGC6514, taken by the Space Surveillance Telescope. Approximately 5,000 light years away from Earth, the nebula is near the outer limits of objects bright enough visible to the naked eye.
“It … benefits each of our respective nations [and]anyone who uses space across the globe. The United States simply can’t do anything that we do in space without our allies, and the value of these partnerships will only continue to grow in the future,” the general said.
Developed by DARPA, with optical expertise from the federally funded research and development center MIT Lincoln Lab, operated by Australian personnel and feeding information into the U.S. Space Surveillance Network — “SST … takes advantage of the unique capabilities of each partner. In fact,” she added, “the United States can’t maintain space superiority like we need to without our allies.”
U.S. allies bring to the table space capabilities that provide space situational awareness, bolster intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance efforts, monitor the environmental [and]increase communication bandwidth and in times of crisis these capabilities need to come together to create a synergy across the entire space enterprise, the general said.
“SST is and will be part of our space situational awareness system,” she added. “It allows us to discern our adversaries’ intent early on, and we have the strategic warning necessary to support stringent timelines required for us to respond to any kind of attack in space with confidence.
As a nation, she added, “we have the national will and determination to face our adversaries head on. When the United States and our allies have difficult problems to solve we find a way to prevail together. Capabilities such as the Space Surveillance Telescope are changing the very nature of how we operate in space and how we will operate in the future.”
Source: The Daily Galaxy
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They called him the Beast. David Fajgenbaum was the fittest of his friends at the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school, a gym addict and former quarterback at Georgetown. His mammoth hands seemed more suited to spiraling footballs than the fine fingerwork a might need. He had endurance to match, taking multiple hits and returning to the field to play on. “This guy was a physical specimen,” said his former roommate, Grant Mitchell, who used to walk to work with him. When they would arrive at the hospital for his obstetrics rotation, his friend recalled, “he would basically coerce me into doing on the tree outside. ” In July 2010, that all changed. The woke up at night drenched in sweat. His lymph nodes were swollen. He felt stabs of abdominal pain, and odd red bumps began sprouting across his chest. Most bizarre of all, he felt very tired — so tired that he began slipping into empty exam rooms between patients, stealing naps to get through the day. “Guys, I think I’m dying,” he recalled telling his friends. A visit to the emergency room confirmed his fears. A doctor told him that his liver, kidneys and bone marrow were not working properly. Even more troubling, the doctor had no idea why his body was failing. “What do you think is going on?” he remembers the doctor asking him. Pursuing the answer to that question, it turned out, would become his life’s work. It would transform Dr. Fajgenbaum from a patient on the brink of death five different times, whose illness stumped specialist after specialist, to one of the leading researchers in his field. He has even used himself as his own test subject, and may have discovered a treatment for his rare disease. His story, which has been circulating inside medicine, is more than one person’s remarkable journey, however. It offers a look into the world of rare diseases, a corner of medicine that continues to frustrate — and flummox — those who seek cures for obscure conditions. About 95 percent of all rare diseases have no approved drug treatments. Fewer than 8, 000 people in the United States are found to have Dr. Fajgenbaum’s condition in any given year. But taken as a whole, rare diseases are not unusual: An estimated 30 million people in the country — or about 10 percent of the population — are living with one of the nearly 7, 000 rare diseases that have been identified. Prompted by financial incentives passed by Congress, the drug industry is hotly pursuing treatments for a throng of rare diseases. That has led to breakthroughs in several conditions, including cystic fibrosis and spinal muscular atrophy. Nevertheless, with a small number of subjects to study and relatively few people to sell new drugs to, many rare diseases are overlooked by doctors and scientists, hampered by a lack of resources and public awareness. Dr. Fajgenbaum’s condition is one of the many that have been given relatively little attention. Initially, doctors thought he had a common form of cancer. A CT scan — a series of images that give doctors a clearer picture of what is going on inside the body — revealed a body riddled with enlarged lymph nodes, a hallmark of lymphoma. The news struck a particularly cruel blow: Only a few years earlier, while Dr. Fajgenbaum was in college, his mother died of brain cancer. He declined rapidly as his immune system went haywire. A retinal hemorrhage, a type of ministroke, temporarily blinded his left eye. Fluids leaked out of his blood vessels, a sign that his liver was failing. Over the next two weeks, he gained about 70 pounds of extra fluid and his brain fogged over. For those who knew him as the Beast, the transformation was jarring. “Even when he got sicker and sicker and eventually went into the hospital, it was kind of like this, oh, weird, Dave must have some really awful virus — that’s one hell of a flu,” his friend Dr. Mitchell said. When Dr. Fajgenbaum’s brain started slowing down, Dr. Mitchell said, the severity of the illness sunk in. “I would ask him a simple question, and he would answer in a couple words, like 30 seconds to a minute later,” he said. Dr. Mitchell and the other medical students scoured textbooks and the internet, searching for clues. The top medical experts at Penn, meanwhile, were not having much more luck. Lymphoma was just one theory. Others thought it might be a severe case of lupus or even mononucleosis. But test after test was inconclusive. Finally, the doctors tried a huge dose of steroids. Slowly, his body began to fight its way back. His kidneys and liver began functioning again, and the extra fluid receded. Seven weeks after he was admitted, Dr. Fajgenbaum walked out of the hospital. It was September 2010. “I remember asking the doctor, saying, ‘What was this? ’” he said. “And I remember the doctor saying, ‘We don’t know what it was, but let’s just hope it doesn’t come back. ’” It took only one month for symptoms to come rushing back, while he was convalescing at his childhood home in Raleigh, N. C. Doctors there shipped a piece of his lymph node to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where pathologists finally pinpointed his disease. The condition, called Castleman disease, was so rare that doctors at the hospital in Raleigh had no experience with it. Castleman disease had been known since the 1950s but has remained largely a mystery. A hallmark of the condition is enlarged lymph nodes, and most people with the disease — about — have a form that affects just one part of the body and can usually be cured through surgery. The form ravaging Dr. Fajgenbaum’s body — multicentric Castleman disease — is even more rare and deadly. Only about 1, 200 to 1, 500 people are discovered to have it every year in the United States. It defied classification, occupying a no man’s land between cancer and immune disease. Doctors weren’t sure of the cause in patients like him: Some believed it was a type of cancer, while others thought it was an inherited genetic disorder, or was triggered by a virus. One thing was clear: The disease was deadly. Only about 65 percent of people with the condition live for five years after it is diagnosed, studies have shown. Over the next few years, Dr. Fajgenbaum alternated between extended periods of relative health and frightening relapses. His condition stumped even leading experts in the disease, people like Dr. Frits van Rhee of Little Rock, Ark. who has treated the largest number of patients — about 100 — with Castleman. The tools that Dr. van Rhee and others had were blunt and harmful in their own right. More than once, Dr. Fajgenbaum underwent a devastating, course of chemotherapy that annihilated his immune system in an effort to knock his disease into remission. Dr. Fajgenbaum was also granted emergency access to siltuximab, a drug that Johnson Johnson was developing for people with his form of multicentric Castleman disease, which would be approved in 2014. That year, in 2011, Dr. van Rhee secured a rare exception to try it on Dr. Fajgenbaum. But the drug, like other previous treatments, did not work. Dr. Fajgenbaum was undaunted. With the zeal he once devoted to a personal best — 375 pounds, reached six months before he first fell ill — he dove into the scientific research on Castleman disease and began to familiarize himself with the world’s top experts. On Sundays, his roommate tried to coax Dr. Fajgenbaum out of his bedroom, with its white board covered in notes, organizational plans tacked to the wall. He rarely succeeded. “I’m on the couch watching TV, and Dave is just cranking away on Castleman,” Dr. Mitchell recalled. The more Dr. Fajgenbaum learned, he said, the more he realized how much the field that studied Castleman was in disarray. Researchers focusing on the disease used different terminology to describe the condition, making it difficult to compare published work. Leading experts weren’t in regular communication, and studies were being done over again, even though previous ones had failed. “It became just abundantly clear that just because you have smart people thinking about a problem doesn’t mean that it’s coordinated at all,” he said. One of the people he called was Dr. Thomas Uldrick, a clinical researcher at the National Cancer Institute who had studied multicentric Castleman disease. The two struck up a correspondence. “Clearly he was a very bright medical student, and he was scared of dying from this disease,” Dr. Uldrick recalled. He also began collaborating with Dr. van Rhee, who knew that Dr. Fajgenbaum was a different kind of patient after he arrived armed with charts, graphs, timelines and slide presentations. “There are patients who keep meticulous records,” Dr. van Rhee said with a chuckle, “but he was definitely in the top 1 percent. ” In spring 2013 Dr. Fajgenbaum earned his medical degree, and a few months later he entered the Wharton School at Penn, reasoning that, to solve the tangled mystery of Castleman disease, business smarts would serve him well. But in December of that year he got sick again, with his blood platelets dropping so low that he barely avoided a fatal brain bleed. This time, though, he was able to use his relapse to further his search for a cure. For months, Dr. Fajgenbaum had been collecting weekly blood samples that served as snapshots of his immune system, tabulating the results in a spreadsheet and adding them to a detailed slide presentation that he had been preparing since he received the diagnosis. And when it was clear the disease had returned, he persuaded his doctors to remove a piece of a lymph node, test it and save it for future research. After a round of chemotherapy, he improved enough to be discharged and started looking into what secrets the tests might reveal. It turned out that five months before he started noticing symptoms in December, his T cells — one of the key weapons in the body’s immune arsenal — had starting activating, preparing for a fight even though there was no apparent threat. Then, about three months before his relapse, he noticed that he had started producing more VEGF, a protein that instructs the body to make more blood vessels, and is another sign of an immune system gearing up. These two hints gave him an idea: Maybe the problem was with one of the body’s communication lines, the one that triggered production of VEGF and also told the T cells to begin activating. If Dr. Fajgenbaum could get his body to shut down that communication line — known as the mTOR pathway — he might be able to stop his immune system from overreacting and prevent a relapse. The discovery was exhilarating. “I felt like I was part of steering the ship,” Dr. Fajgenbaum said. “This time I was part of this team. ” With this major clue in hand, he and his doctors turned to potential treatments, existing drugs that were known to shut down the mTOR pathway. The one that seemed the best option was practically hiding in plain sight. Sirolimus, also known as Rapamune, was commonly given to kidney transplant patients to prevent their bodies from rejecting the organ. The drug had been on the market for years and was known to have few serious side effects. “I wouldn’t think I ever could have prescribed this to another patient, or told a patient to try it, because we just didn’t have very much data,” Dr. Fajgenbaum said. “But at this stage, I’d had four episodes, and I’d failed everything the doctors had ever given me. ” In choosing to become his own test subject, Dr. Fajgenbaum was following a long line of medical researchers who have experimented on themselves. At the turn of the 20th century, government researchers studying yellow fever in Cuba allowed themselves to be bitten by mosquitoes who harbored the disease one researcher caught the fever and died. In 1929, Dr. Werner Forssmann inserted a catheter into the vein of his arm and guided it to his heart to prove that the procedure worked (he shared in a Nobel Prize for his work in 1956). As recently as 2005, Dr. Barry Marshall won the Nobel after drinking a broth infected with bacteria to prove that it caused ulcers. This activist approach, Dr. Uldrick said, did not sit well with everyone. “There was some tension between the various doctors about who was driving the boat,” he said. But the idea that Dr. Fajgenbaum needed to try something new was unanimous: Chemotherapy had worked three times, but the powerful drugs take a heavy toll and can themselves cause cancer if given too often. Dr. Fajgenbaum eventually prevailed. In January 2014, he stopped taking his old cancer drugs and started on sirolimus. Six months passed, then a year. The weekly blood tests showed that his immune system was returning to normal. Dr. Fajgenbaum, his health improving, returned to the other challenges that were hampering progress in the field of Castleman disease. He started the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network, a nonprofit whose mission was to prioritize and coordinate research into the disease, which operates out of the Perelman School of Medicine at Penn. Dr. Fajgenbaum, an assistant professor of medicine at the school, and his collaborators assembled an advisory panel of the world’s experts in the disease and set an agenda for answering the most pressing questions. First on the list is figuring out the cause: Is the disease genetic, a form of cancer or caused by a virus? As always, the work is intensely personal. Last summer, he drove to Allentown, Pa. to collect a blood sample from a patient with Castleman disease. He placed the vials in his vest pocket, explaining that he needed to keep the blood warm so the tests he had planned would work properly. “You remind me of a mother hen,” the patient said with a laugh. That gave him an idea: Dr. Fajgenbaum sat on the vials as he drove two hours back to Philadelphia, the car heater cranked up to ensure they were warm. It was a sweaty ride back, but worth it. “These samples are precious,” he said. In medical research, discoveries come slowly and take twists and turns that no one saw coming. Seasoned researchers have learned to rein in their optimism and to know that true breakthroughs can take years, if not decades, to realize. Not Dr. Fajgenbaum. “I almost wish that every disease had a David to be a part of the charge,” said Dr. Mary Jo Lechowicz, a professor at the Emory University School of Medicine, who has studied Castleman disease and serves on the network’s advisory board. Dr. Fajgenbaum’s mission to take on his own disease is also typical of the world, said Max Bronstein, the chief advocacy and science policy officer at the EveryLife Foundation for Rare Diseases in Novato, Calif. “A lot of patient organizations emerge to take on these huge challenges in rare diseases,” he said. “I don’t think there’s one correct model for each disease there’s been so many different approaches. ” Last month, Dr. Fajgenbaum marked his anniversary since starting on sirolimus, a period more than twice as long as any of his other remissions. “I feel 100 percent,” he said. These days, Dr. Fajgenbaum, now 31, walks through the hallways of Penn’s medical center, his frame again projecting the easy confidence of the athlete he once was. But he jokes that he would have to pull out photos of his days as a quarterback to explain to people why his friends still call him the Beast. Now, he said, every time he tries to exercise, his mind wanders back to an email he needs to write or a call he needs to make. “It’s not because I don’t have the energy to do it it’s because all of my energy is going toward this disease,” he said. Not everyone is convinced that sirolimus is what has been keeping him healthy. Dr. van Rhee noted that while the results in Dr. Fajgenbaum are promising, his is just one case and treatments need to be proven in many more people. “I think the finding is very interesting,” he said, “but we need to see whether a similar mechanism is active in other patients. ” But Dr. Fajgenbaum said he grew more confident every day that it is the drug that is helping. He has begun sharing his experience with more doctors and researchers, is conducting laboratory tests to see if the drug is likely to work in other patients and has started writing an article about his experience for a medical journal. Soon, he hopes, doctors will begin prescribing the drug to other patients. Dr. Fajgenbaum is optimistic about the drug’s chances but is aware medical science is unpredictable. “Who knows maybe it will work for only a small percentage,” he said. “So we’ve still got a lot of work ahead of us. ” He now oversees the network’s research from his office in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, five floors above the emergency room where he first learned his body was falling apart. It is also the same building where he spent weeks in the I. C. U. so sick that he said his final goodbyes to friends and family. At first, when he learned his office would be in the same building, he felt anxious, unsure if he wanted the constant reminder of the ordeal he had endured. A few months ago, Dr. Fajgenbaum was called to the I. C. U. to meet a patient who had just found out he had Castleman disease. He spoke to the patient about enrolling him in a new study, and as he looked out the window, realized the view looked familiar. On his way out, he bumped into a nurse who remembered him. She noted that he had stayed in the same room as a patient. Ultimately, he said, he is glad for the proximity. “I didn’t think that I would ever get to leave the hospital, and now here I am, fighting back,” he said. “It’s the ultimate motivator. ” | 1 |
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A study conducted at the University of Toronto concluded that extreme protest tactics such as blocking traffic, damaging property, and rioting actually reduce popular support for the political movements that employ them. [The study, which was conducted by Professor Matthew Feinberg of the University of Toronto, is entitled “Extreme Protest Tactics Reduce Popular Support For Social Movements,” and suggests that unusual protest tactics such as rioting reduce support for the movements that choose to employ them. Feinberg claims that he was inspired to study the effects of such forms of protests during his time as a graduate student at UC Berkeley, a time in which he claims he attended many protests himself. Feinberg and his graduate advisor at UCB began to wonder “which tactics would be more successful than others and which tactics could” backfire. Feinberg set up experiments in which research participants were exposed to videos of the protest tactics of members of animal rights groups, Black Lives Matter, and protesters. Feinberg concluded that the more extreme a protest became, the less likely the participant was to support the movement. In an interview with Campus Reform, Feinberg claimed that participants were especially turned off by the protesters who chose to block traffic. “What we found most startling was in the protests. When participants were exposed to the traffic blocking video — the participants regardless of their political ideology — showed an increase in support when presented with that video,” Feinberg said. Asked about the recent riots at his alma mater in response to a visit by Breitbart Senior Editor MILO, Feinberg remarked that the protesters’ conduct could definitely be considered “extreme protest behaviors,” suggesting that their efforts in attracting support to their movement have likely backfired. | 1 |
Germany Clamping Down on Offshore Tax Havens November 03, 2016 Germany Clamping Down on Offshore Tax Havens
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble wants to force Germans to disclose their dealings with offshore firms in tax havens and make banks liable for lost tax income if they conceal their clients' business with such firms, a draft law shows. Tax havens were thrown into the limelight in April when a huge leak of documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca showed how offshore firms are used to stash the wealth of the rich and powerful. Germany made closer international cooperation on tax evasion a priority during its presidency of the G7 economic powers in 2014/15 and in April Schaeuble announced a 10-point plan to combat tax havens. The German draft law seen by Reuters says that Germans will in future need to report to tax authorities any indirect or direct stake of at least 10 percent that they have in firms abroad. Citizens will also need to report relations with firms outside the European Union or the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) if they control them. That would prevent offshore firms from being secretly founded.
Those who do not disclose their foreign firms to the tax authorities might find that the start of the statute of limitations is blocked for 10 years, the draft law says.
Under the draft law, taxes that are evaded could, in some cases, still be collected even 20 years later and violating an obligation to be transparent could lead to a fine of 25,000 euros ($27,675.00).
Banks would need to report relationships with foreign firms that they organize for clients if their share in an offshore firm reaches 30 percent. Otherwise the bank could face a fine of 50,000 euros. The bank would then also responsible for the lost tax income.
The German banking industry committee said the draft law overshot the mark and effectively put all firms outside of the EU and EFTA under general suspicion. "The bureaucratic burden bears no relation to the benefit achieved," it said in a statement.
Schaeuble wants to get rid of a paragraph in the fiscal code that is key to banking secrecy because it prevents auditors who accidentally stumble upon a list of possible offshore firms owned by bank customers from passing this information to tax authorities.
But the draft law would not affect banking secrecy granted by civil law, which prevents banks from giving information to third parties such as other companies.
The draft law says tax offices would in future be able to direct collective requests for information to banks, effectively meaning bank customers with offshore accounts can no longer hide behind their banks.
The draft law would also put tax evasion in the list of very serious tax crimes so a longer statute of limitations of 10 years would apply.
It needs to be approved by the Bundestag lower house of parliament and the Bundesrat upper house. The latter is likely to give the green light because Germany's federal states, which are represented in that house, have already come up with some of their own proposals for how to deal with offshore firms. Article by Doc Burkhart , Vice-President, General Manager and co-host of TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles Got a news tip? Email us at Help support the ministry of TRUNEWS with your one-time or monthly gift of financial support. DONATE NOW ! DOWNLOAD THE TRUNEWS MOBILE APP! CLICK HERE! Donate Today! Support TRUNEWS to help build a global news network that provides a credible source for world news
We believe Christians need and deserve their own global news network to keep the worldwide Church informed, and to offer Christians a positive alternative to the anti-Christian bigotry of the mainstream news media Top Stories | 0 |
insist that they are the champions of minorities, yet one oppressed group always seems conspicuously absent from their social media — Christian minorities in the Muslim world, like the estimated 26 Coptic Christians who were massacred by a Muslim gunman in Egypt earlier today. [Normally, any allegation of mistreatment of a minority, even those of dubious provenance like 2015’s “Clock Boy” incident, will be met with an instant wave of reflexive virtue signalling from celebrities on social media. Yet this strangely does not seem to apply to the Christian minority in the Middle East, the persecution of whom occurs on a regular basis. It’s not because of any Anglocentrism on Hollywood’s part — celebrities regularly present themselves as advocates for oppressed groups in the third world, from Rwandans to refugees from Darfur. So why not Christians? Particularly the Coptic Christians, who have been in the Middle East since the time of Christ and are somewhat similar to Native Americans — an ancient people who were sidelined by militarily superior and often brutal colonizers. Listed below are seven celebrities who regularly speak out against the alleged persecution of minorities, including Muslims, refugees, the LGBT community and more. Yet so far, they have said nothing about today’s massacre of Coptic Christians. 1. Katy Perry, Katy Perry, in response to the brutal Muslim attack on fellow songstress Ariana Grande’s concert in Manchester, urged for “barriers and borders” to be removed, and for everyone to “coexist. ” She also worries about the persecution of minorities. Following the election of Donald Trump, she produced a PSA featuring a Muslim woman discussing the internment of during World War II, warning viewers not to let “history repeat itself. ” A UNICEF goodwill ambassador, Perry also cares about oppression in nonwestern countries. So, as someone who 1) recently saw a friend’s concert attacked by an Islamic extremist, 2) worries about the mistreatment of minorities, and 3) is concerned with oppression in the third world, surely Perry must be alarmed by the massacre of Coptic Christians, by an Islamic extremist, in Egypt. Yet so far, Katy Perry’s feeds on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram say nothing about the massacre. Maybe she just forgot to have an intern read her the headlines this morning. 2. Bill Nye, The “Science Guy” with a bachelor’s degree in Engineering declares in the title of his new Netflix show that he is going to “Save The World. ” And, true to his word, the show is packed with crusades, from climate change to sticking up for the right of such overlooked minorities as “flirty pansexual . ” One would think that someone who knows of such obscure minorities would have a little time to Save the World from the persecution of religious minorities, but so far, the has said nothing about today’s massacre of Egyptian Christians. 3. Kumail Nanjiani, One of the most outspoken progressives on social media, the Muslim comedian has said just about everything. He’s said climate change deniers are worse than Holocaust deniers, he’s accused President Trump of “breeding evil” with his repeatedly blocked proposals on Muslim immigration, and he of course Stood With Ahmed. Nanjiani, who frequently complains about his own condition as a famous celebrity oppressed Muslim minority, makes it clear that we should speak out against bigotry at every opportunity: We can’t let be normalized. If something happens, be safe, but let it be known we won’t stand for this. — Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) November 12, 2016, That’s why, as a prominent Muslim with a massive platform, it must only be a matter of time before he speaks out against the murderous bigotry currently being faced by Egypt’s Christian minority. Let’s keep waiting — it’s bound to happen soon! 4. Meryl Streep Another vocal progressive, Streep hates Trump so much she used her acceptance speech for the prestigious Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes to take shots at the president, suggesting he wants to “kick out foreigners. ” She cares about minorities, like gays, people of color, women, and convicted child rapist Roman Polanski so much that the Human Rights Campaign invited her to speak at their annual gala. Streep has yet to say anything about today’s extraordinary violation of human rights in Egypt. 5. George Takei, George Takei has become Hollywood’s celebrity for boring, mainstream leftist opinions on gay rights. After the Orlando shootings, when 50 attendees of a gay nightclub were shot by a disciple of Islamic State, Takei immediately penned an calling for more gun control (as opposed to less Islam). He also used the occasion to attack Donald Trump. Given that he isn’t willing to call out Islam when they target his own community, it’s perhaps no surprise that he’s said nothing about the Coptic Christians. Six of his eight tweets today have been devoted to criticism of the Trump administration. None mention the attack in Egypt. 6. Lena Dunham, After the election of Donald Trump, Hollywood’s penned an essay expressing her support for “those in the prison system, those with undocumented American relatives, those who are trans, who are queer, who are people of color, who are Muslim, who are trying to prosecute their abusers” who have “have felt the crushing failure of the system over and over again. ” That’s a lot of minorities she cares about. But unlike Dunham, who had her feelings hurt by the election of Trump, people actually died today in Egypt. Christian minorities brutalized at the hands of Islam, it seems, have yet to make Dunham’s list. 7. J. K Rowling Harry Potter author J. K Rowling has emerged as one of the most celebrities on social media following the election. In addition to repeatedly attacking president Trump, Rowling has repeatedly made it clear that she opposes the mistreatment of minorities, even calling attention to allegedly racist social media attacks on obscure academics. She also regularly comments on European politics, urging the British government in 2015 to take in more refugees from the Middle East. If you can’t imagine yourself in one of those boats, you have something missing. They are dying for a life worth living. #refugeeswelcome, — J. K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 3, 2015, You would think that an advocate like Rowling would jump to call attention to the plight of religious minorities in the Middle East. Such an approach might soften the attitudes of conservatives who oppose taking in refugees from those regions. Yet it’s almost 5pm in the U. K, and Rowling has yet to comment on the violent deaths of more than 20 Coptic Christians. An Unfashionable Minority? Credit where credit is due — one prominent progressive, Linda Sarsour, has said the terrorists responsible for today’s attack can “rot in an eternal hell. ” May the terrorists rot in an eternal hell. Sending love solidarity to our Coptic sisters and brothers. #Egypt https: . — Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) May 26, 2017, But she seems to be a lone voice amongst prominent who rarely miss an opportunity to comment on any perceived injustice against minorities, anywhere in the world. Perhaps persecuted Christians are simply not a fashionable minority. You can follow Allum Bokhari on Twitter and add him on Facebook. Email tips and suggestions to abokhari@breitbart. com. | 1 |
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A new report states that only 36 percent of Indian software engineers can write working, compilable code based on a test used to automatically grade programming skills. [The report was published by Aspiring Minds, an Indian skills assessment company, which based their report on a sample of 36, 800 people from more than 500 colleges across India. The company used an automated tool called Automata to perform the study. Automata is a test that is taken in a compiler integrated environment that rates candidates on a number of levels including programming ability, programming practices, complexity, and test case coverage. Candidates in the test were made up of 61. 1 percent male candidates and 38. 9 percent female candidates, coming from cities such as Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. Automata utilizes advanced artificial intelligence technology to automatically analyze and grade a candidates coding abilities. The study states, “We find that out of the two problems given per candidate, only 14 percent of engineers were able to write compilable codes for both and only 22 percent were able to write compilable code for exactly one problem. ” The test also found that of all the subjects tested, only 14. 67 percent would be employable by a modern IT firm. When testing for candidates that could write fully functional code using the best practices and methods, only 2. 21 percent passed the test. “Functionally correct code is the basic requisite of a good programmer. However, to enhance the quality of the code, a few more important indicators have emerged — efficiency, time complexity and space complexity,” the study said, “Nothing is more than dealing with badly written code which leads to enormous bugs and exceptions. The analysis unveils that only 2. 21 percent of engineers possess the skillset to write logically correct code with best efficiency and least complexity. ” The full report from Aspiring Minds can be found here. Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart. com | 1 |
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Democratic U.S. vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine announced Saturday that he believes the Catholic Church will change its position on same-sex marriage. The Virginia senator said that just like he had changed his opinion on the issue, the Catholic Church is also likely to follow suit. Speaking at the 20th Annual Human Rights Campaign’s National Dinner in Washington, the Roman Catholic senator reportedly said, “I think it’s going to change because my church also teaches me about a creator who, in the first chapter of Genesis, surveyed the entire world, including mankind, and said, ‘It is very good.’”
“And besides,” he continued, “we are talking here about a country that was based and founded on democracy as a core value. By definition, that means that every single person and every single citizen is able – no, scratch that – encouraged to practice his civil, religious, and above all, sexual liberties to the best of their abilities. And I’m sorry that some people don’t like it, but to deny same-sex marriage in a country that should be the first one to accept it is just pointless. And the Catholic Church should also be accepting it instead of condemning it, which is what it’s doing right now.”
Kaine also added that, if all else fails, “there are ways of making the Catholic Church listen to the voice of reason,” which is how he dubbed all those who advocate LGBT equality. “At the end of the day, you know, we’re a civilized people, of course the first thing we’ll do is act nicely and ask nicely,” he said. “Then, if that doesn’t work, we’ll use our law and our legal system to enable ourselves to be who we are, or rather the LBGT community will do that – and it has. The Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage was a crucial milestone in our legal system that proves it works, it actually functions.”
“So, what I’m saying here,” he argued, “is that, while I respect the Catholic Church as I’m sure millions of Americans do, you know, at some point it is going to start acting contrary to the Christian faith, and we’re talking about an institution that’s supposed to be the first one on the front line defending it. So, when that happens, and that’s what’s happening with condemning LGBT rights, we’ll state an ultimatum. The United States of America, more precisely, the future President of the United States of America, Hillary Clinton, will state an ultimatum. And that ultimatum will be to either change its stance on same-sex marriage or pack its bags and get out of America. And yes – the President of the country can do that.”
“And in case anybody’s wondering – no, Donald Trump won’t do the same because he doesn’t care about anyone other than Donald Trump. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton is a shining example of honesty, integrity and democracy, and you can rest assured she will do everything in her power as the president to make sure gays and lesbians throughout America are loved, respected and viewed as equals during her presidential term. What happens after that is not our problem,” Kaine concluded. | 0 |
October 31, 2016 - Fort Russ - Ruslan Ostashko, PolitRussia - translated by J. Arnoldski -
Once again, the Ukrainian electorate is being taken for a grand ride and being stirred up. Whether unfortunately or fortunately, our information field overlaps with the raging infofield of our neighbors, and we have the opportunity to observe in real time the nervous breakdown of particularly impressionable citizens in neighboring Ukraine.
Some Russian connoisseurs take pleasure in this spectacle, and this are understandable. The point is that Western advisors have forced Ukrainian politicians and officials to declare their income and assets and open up testaments of this information for public access. Due to the primitiveness of the Ukrainian political class, which loves to steal a lot openly and is also full of confidence that nothing will happen, the contents of their declarations of assets was simply extravagant.
Speaking plainly, reading the declarations of the leaders of the Maidan leaves its supporters in depression or rage. Some people particularly sensitive in nature are going mad and falling into depression at the same time. They can also be understood. It’s not pleasant for anyone to feel like a sucker and loser who has been let down in the most primitive way.
In this sense, Poroshenko’s declaration of assets is not so impressive, since his wealth is already widely known. Some Ukrainians are even proud that Poroshenko is richer than Putin and many American presidents. But the declarations of ordinary members of the Ukrainian political class are shocking.
For example, Verkhovna Rada deputy Demchak, the deputy chairman of the committee regulating banking operations, revealed a bank account with 2,000 UAH and 133 million UAH in cash. Besides obvious questions as to the origins of this wealth, there’s also the high trust which only a politician responsible for Ukrainian banks could have in the Ukrainian banking system.
133 million UAH in cash looks very patriotic because the rest of Ukrainian politicians also prefer cash, but dollars or euros, not gryvnia.
The declaration of Gontareva, the head of the National Bank of Ukraine, revealed $1.8 million and only 62,000 UAH. I think that all questions about the prospects of the Ukrainian currency’s course can be left aside, as the question as to how Gontareva has this money is what will continue to excite inquisitive Ukrainian citizens.
In general, Ukrainian officials’ declarations are reminiscent of fragments from the works of Ilf and Petrov about petty schemers who seized too much power. Formerly poor politicians suddenly find a collection of antique paintings, tons of cash money, antique books, jewelry, and large plots of land and shares in commercial companies.
The reactions to all of this on social networks are also fascinating. For example, social network users write that the declarations “destroyed faith in the country” or dismayed them for having been sent to the ATO for “the last 5 gryvnia” while deputies were earning millions. Other users expect a “short and merciless revolt” which, this time, is supposed to bring genuinely honest professionals to power.
Politicians and their paid trolls are calling disgruntled citizens “pinheads” and demanding that they rejoice that they’ve been allowed to see how the successful and hard-working leaders of the Maidan live, who have by leaps and bounds been leading Ukraine towards its bright European future.
I am especially touched by those who sincerely believe that the asset declarations are a kind of silver bullet with which the Americans are killing Ukrainian corruption. This is nonsense. As a kind of humanitarian assistance to the fraternal Ukrainian people, I’ll tell you why this happened and how it will end.
Let’s start with the most simple. No Maidan was needed to force deputies and officials to submit declarations. Seriously, not at all. In Russia, officials have long had to submit declarations and they are meticulously studied by relevant authorities and opposition activists. This is the first point.
Secondly, the Americans are forcing Ukrainian officials to submit declarations not because they care about ordinary Ukrainians, but because they are trying to improve the culture of the colonial administration, i.e., take out of the picture those politicians who are too stupid to organize theft even by South American standards. Roughly speaking, the declarations made it clear why Poroshenko is president. At least he knows how to use offshore companies and doesn’t stuff bags with cash.
Thirdly, those who think that the system of declaring assets is a guarantee that there will be no more corruption are very naive people. Similar systems exist in South America, Europe, Asia, and even Moldova. This system keeps complete idiots out of government, but makes little difference overall.
Fourthly, the only real benefit of this system is that those who are now offended over having received only 5 gryvnia can guess that these millions of euros and dollars in cash didn’t fall to deputies from the sky, but came from giving others only 5 gryvnia. Unfortunately, people haven’t realized this yet. Those who are outraged on social networks can’t even use logic to remember that the “vatniks” and “colorados” of Donbass warned them about this before.
Fifthly, there will be no revolt. No one was smart enough to set aside money for this, and color revolutions don’t happen without money. Ukrainian politicians will continue to plunder their fellow citizens who, after the recent scandals, now believe that the fight against corruption is going at full speed…
Finally, judging by media reports, the Netherlands still haven't ratified the association agreement with Ukraine. There is the chance that studying the lists of Ukrainian politicians’ assets will distract Ukrainians from such sad thoughts. They will continue to believe that the Maidan was for the association agreement with the EU, not for the sake of Gontareva or Poroshenko’s millions. This means that they still have a lot of surprises awaiting them. As long as they do not admit that they made a foolish mistake, the situation will not change for the better.
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Using the hashtag #PutObamaUnderOath, author and political pundit Ann Coulter tweeted that while knowing the truth about Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor Susan Rice allegedly ordering surveillance of President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign aides, Obama should also testify before Congress on the matter. [“Susan Rice testimony now essential, but insufficient,” Coulter tweeted on Tuesday. “Must hear from Obama. ” Susan Rice testimony now essential, but insufficient. Must hear from Obama. #PutObamaUnderOath, — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 4, 2017, Coulter also suggested in another tweet that Michelle Obama may be able to shed some light on the White House surveillance activities during her husband’s tenure. “I don’t know if what she knows is privileged, but we need to hear from Michelle too,” Coulter tweeted. I don’t know if what she knows is privileged, but we need to hear from Michelle, too. #PutObamaUnderOath, — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 4, 2017, Rice allegedly ordered surveillance of Donald Trump’s campaign aides during the 2016 presidential election, and maintained spreadsheets of their telephone calls, the Daily Caller reported. The alleged spreadsheets add a new dimension to reports on Sunday and Monday by blogger Mike Cernovich and Eli Lake of Bloomberg News that Rice had asked for Trump aides’ names to be “unmasked” in intelligence reports. The alleged “unmasking” may have been legal, but may also have been part of an alleged political intelligence operation to disseminate reports on the Trump campaign widely throughout government with the aim of leaking them to the press. The surveillance and spreadsheet operation were allegedly “ordered one year before the 2016 presidential election. ” According to a Fox News report on Monday, former White House aide Ben Rhodes was also involved. | 1 |
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One thing that seems to unite most Americans is the collective disgust for the members of the Westboro Baptist Church and their antics. Many organizations and individuals have shown action in addressing this nuisance and that includes the creation of online petitions to the White House. See the five petitions — which call for the removal of Westboro Baptist Church’s 501(c)(3) status and legal recognition as a hate group — in the screen-capture below:
It took the White House a while to respond, but when they did, it was inspiring. In the Official White Response to Westboro Baptist Church petitions , the White House explained that their options are limited.
To the extent that these petitions request a particular law enforcement or adjudicatory action, we cannot issue a comment. In addition, as a matter of practice, the federal government doesn’t maintain a list of hate groups.
However, as is characteristic of our president and his administration, they found another way to respond to the Westboro Baptist Church petitions — with a heartfelt message and visual.
[…] one of the remarkable things about this set of petitions is that it shows just how strong the bonds that unite us can be. Together, we’re more resilient than those who would try to drive us apart.
The White House noted that the signers of the petitions were nationwide, but densely clustered in a couple of specific areas:
Take, for instance, this map of all the signers of the petition “Legally recognize Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group”— that we built with the zip codes that people chose to share with us when they signed. The darker color indicates a higher percentage of signers for that particular area’s population. While support for these petitions came from all over the country, it was densely clustered in two places that have unique insight into the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church — Kansas, the state the church calls home, and Newtown, Connecticut, where the church threatened to picket the funerals of those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary.
The Westboro Baptist Church makes a practice of picketing the funerals of activists, Jewish leaders, gay people, soldiers, and….well, just about everyone. Fred Phelps,the leader of the group, is an attorney and is reputed by many sources to be a con-man who engages in controversial activities so that he can subsequently sue when officials, in their attempts to protect the rights of other people, violate the church’s rights. He is careful to not actually break the law
The White House response is amazing and correct. The disrespect that the Westboro Baptist Church shows our fallen soldiers serves to draw Americans together in unity and respect for that which we hold sacred.
The graves of our veterans are hallowed ground, and when men and women die in the service of their country and are laid to rest, it should be done with the utmost honor and respect. – President Barack Obama
Silhouetted image by via Google Images by Life Magazine
About Tiffany Willis
Tiffany Willis is a fifth-generation Texan, a proponent of voluntary simplicity, a single mom, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Liberal America. An unapologetic member of the Christian Left, she has spent most of her career actively working with “the least of these" -- disadvantaged and oppressed populations, the elderly, people living in poverty, at-risk youth, and unemployed people. She is a Certified Workforce Expert with the National Workforce Institute , a NAWDP Certified Workforce Development Professional, and a certified instructor for Franklin Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens . Follow her on Twitter , Facebook , or LinkedIn . She also has a grossly neglected personal blog , a Time Travel blog , a site dedicated to encouraging people to read classic literature 15 minutes a day , and a literary quotes blog that is a labor of love . Find her somewhere and join the discussion. Click here to buy Tiff a mojito. Connect | 0 |
After weeks of close play, the World Chess Championship came down to its 12th and final regulation game on Monday, with the two talented young grandmasters, Sergey Karjakin and Magnus Carlsen, in a dead heat. But those expecting fireworks at the venue in Manhattan were disappointed. Within 20 minutes of the opening move, the game was headed for a draw. Both players seemed content to let their fate rest in a round of tiebreakers, which are scheduled for Wednesday. After 30 moves and 36 minutes, it was over, with the players agreeing to a draw. The game was the shortest ever in a world championship match, said Ilya Merenzon, who runs the company that organized the match. The game began at near lightning speed, with both players making moves with little deliberation. Mr. Carlsen, playing white, began with a popular opening known as the Ruy Lopez, and Mr. Karjakin responded with the Berlin defense — both strategies unlikely to lead to errors. Within the first few moves they exchanged almost all their major pieces, making it difficult for either player to put pressure on the other. “There isn’t much to say,” Mr. Carlsen said after the game, looking satisfied with the result. “I apologize to fans who might have wanted a longer game, but it was not to be. ” The live event has an atmosphere unlike any other sport contest, because almost all of the spectators divide their attention between the game and computers — in their phones or on the video monitors around the venue — that could beat the two players. Only Mr. Carlsen and Mr. Karjakin rely on unaugmented human intelligence. Mr. Carlsen, who will turn 26 on Wednesday, came into the match the overwhelming favorite. He is the player of all time. Since winning the title from Vishwanathan Anand in 2013, he has dominated a sport that for a had one Russian or Soviet champion after another, broken only briefly by the American Bobby Fischer in 1972. Like Mr. Fischer, who created a boom in chess in the United States, Mr. Carlsen has star power that seems to transcend the game. He is a huge celebrity in his native Norway. But Mr. Karjakin, 26, a Russian who was relatively unheralded going into the match, has been his equal move for move. Before the match, Mr. Carlsen described his opponent as “very well prepared” and “extremely resourceful on defense,” and Mr. Karjakin has lived up to that billing. At the end of Game 11, when Mr. Karjakin, playing white for the final time, held off an assault by black for a draw, the Russian said he was unhappy with his play but satisfied with the result. Both players have performed brilliantly, with almost no false steps. Through 12 games, each player has managed just one win, with 10 games ending in draws. The tiebreakers on Wednesday will take on a character different from the methodical games played so far. The day will start with four rapid games, in which each player has 25 minutes to complete his moves. If the players are still tied after four games, the next round will consist of up to five blitz matches, in which each player has five minutes to complete his moves. Should each of these matches end in a draw, the players will go to a game, in which the player with the black pieces will have only four minutes to complete his moves. If that game ends in a draw, the player who has black will be the world champion. Mr. Carlsen, besides being the traditional chess player, is rated No. 1 in rapid and No. 2 in blitz. Mr. Karjakin is rated 11th in blitz. Tension among the crowd at the venue, on the third floor of the Fulton Market Building in Lower Manhattan, has increased as the final game neared. The game on Monday, however, was thinly attended and low on drama. In the audience, Christopher Yu, 9, who is poised to become the youngest player to achieve the rank of master, said: “I’m a little disappointed that the game wasn’t more interesting and we could stay here longer. But I think Magnus will win the tiebreaker. ” Mr. Carlsen said: “I think it’s . Either I win or he wins. ” | 1 |
Here's How to Identify Rice That Contains Plastic China remains the world's largest producer of rice. The Middle Kingdom harvests over 200 million... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/heres-how-to-identify-rice-that.html China remains the world's largest producer of rice. The Middle Kingdom harvests over 200 million tons per year and a large share of it gets exported all over the world. But cooks and diners alike should take care: not only are untold amounts of pesticides used in Chinese agriculture, but according to a report in The Korea Times rice is also now being manufactured artificially. Finally the grains are steamed with a typical rice aroma. Doctors have emphatically warned against consuming the artificial product: three full portions apparently contain as much plastic as there is in a little plastic bag. That's alarming! With these simple tricks you can test whether your rice is wholesome and plastic-free: The Water Test Pour a tablespoon of uncooked rice into a glass with cold water. If the rice all sinks to the bottom of the glass, it's fine. If the grains float up to the surface, be careful! The Fire Test Try setting a little bit of your rice on fire with a match or lighter. If it starts burning right away and smells like burning plastic, then you know what to do! (Do not eat it!) The Mortar and Pestle Test When you crush a few grains of rice with a mortar and pestle they should be reduced to a fine, white, starchy powder. But with artificial rice, you will see a light yellow discoloration instead. The Mold Test If you want to know for sure whether your cooked rice is quite safe, put a small quantity of cooked rice into an airtight container and leave it in a warm place. Within a couple of days it will have gotten moldy. Only fake rice stays mold-free.This is how to be on the safe side. Show these tricks to your rice-eating friends and that way no one will have to eat plastic for dinner! Reference: http://www.hefty.co Dear Friends, HumansAreFree is and will always be free to access and use. If you appreciate my work, please help me continue.
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Michael Kitces sees it regularly in his financial planning practice: clients who are close to retirement but haven’t saved. “They fall into two groups — either they don’t focus on it, or they are despondent,” says Mr. Kitces, director of wealth management for Pinnacle Advisory Group and publisher of the popular Nerd’s Eye View blog, which focuses on financial planning. “They think their retirement is doomed — it’s a real scenario. ” Mr. Kitces’ clients are not alone. Among workers age 55 or higher and nearing retirement, 48 percent have saved less than $100, 000, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. A third have less than $25, 000. The savings shortfall means many Americans face the prospect of retiring solely on Social Security, which replaces just 39 percent of income for the average worker retiring at 65, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. But do have some opportunities to improve their retirement math. Mr. Kitces encourages clients facing shortfalls not to give up on saving. That is particularly true for who may be able to redirect income formerly devoted to raising children and paying college tuition. He recommends creating a household budget while the children are still on the household payroll that tracks spending specifically. That can help people reallocate that spending to retirement saving once their children are out of the house. Mr. Kitces usually suggests maximizing savings contributions in workplace 401( k) accounts that offer the incentive of tax deferral and employer matches, or an I. R. A. Savers over the age of 50 also benefit from higher “ ” limits on tax deferred savings than their younger counterparts. This year, the combined limit for 401( k) accounts is $24, 000 for I. R. A. s, it is $6, 500. contributions later in life can still yield a significant nest egg: Mr. Kitces calculates that if a couple earning a combined $100, 000 started saving 30 percent of their income at age 51, they could accumulate more than $1 million in savings by age 65. For most households, waiting to file for Social Security offers the best opportunity to increase retirement income. Benefits — which are adjusted annually to account for inflation — can be claimed as early as age 62, but monthly benefits rise 8 percent for every year that you wait (credits for delay are available until age 70). “There’s nothing you can put your money into today that will create a better rate of return,” says David Blanchett, head of retirement research at Morningstar, an investment research and management company. Yet nearly half of American workers file at age 62, data from the Social Security Administration shows. “We see a real tendency among our clients to take Social Security early,” says Kevin Dorwin, managing principal at Bingham, Osborn Scarborough in San Francisco. “They feel they need the income right away and don’t want to get shortchanged on it. ” Delayed claiming is especially beneficial for married couples, since one spouse is likely to live well past the “ date,” or the point at which a claimant will have made back the benefits forgone while delaying a claim. Moreover, the Social Security survivor benefit allows a surviving spouse to step up to 100 percent of a deceased spouse’s benefit, and married couples often do well with a delayed filing for the spouse. “The impact of delaying is even more profound for someone with less savings,” says William Meyer, a founder of Social Security Solutions, which offers online software that helps claimants optimize their benefits. “The additional cumulative benefits represent a larger proportional amount if you have $200, 000 in saving instead of $3 million. ” Working longer offers a retirement math triple play by reducing the number of years a retiree must rely on savings, permitting more years of retirement account contributions and setting the stage for a delayed Social Security claim. “The combination of minimizing withdrawals from investment portfolios and allowing for greater compounding can make a very big difference,” says Mr. Dorwin. He calculates that a couple with combined income of $150, 000 could bolster their retirement income by 30 percent if they worked an additional three years, rather than retiring immediately, as a result of higher Social Security benefits and drawdowns from a larger portfolio. Of course, working longer isn’t always possible — health problems and job loss often get in the way. But American workers do seem to be getting the message that it’s a worthwhile goal. A Gallup poll reports that today’s workers expect to retire at 66, on average. By contrast, the average retirement age for those who have already retired is 61. Retirement planning models often rely on rules of thumb that don’t always apply in individual situations. Standard planning, for example, holds that retirees need to replace 70 to 80 percent of income to maintain their standard of living. But Mr. Blanchett’s research suggests that the actual replacement rates vary from 54 percent to 87 percent of income. His review of actual retirement expenditure, based on data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey, also suggests that spending falls over the course of retirement. That is especially true for older retirees, who tend to spend less on travel, entertainment and other discretionary items. Households facing saving shortfalls should consider cutting back on discretionary spending, Mr. Blanchett says: “It might not be easy, but it could be done. ” Empty nesters facing retirement income challenges should also consider moving to a smaller home or relocating to a less expensive part of a metropolitan area. Along with extracting equity that can be invested to produce income, substantial savings come from eliminating (or reducing) mortgages, and reducing home maintenance and property tax costs, according to Mr. Kitces. “More often than not, people do it because the house feels large and empty, but it can produce a lot of savings,” he says. Taxation of retirement income plays an important role in determining how long retirement savings will last. Conventional wisdom instructs retirees to draw money first from taxable accounts, and then from 401( k) and IRAs. But Mr. Meyer recommends a more nuanced approach by withdrawing from multiple accounts to minimize taxes. He acknowledges that an initial focus on taxable accounts makes sense because they are the least . But the approach is especially beneficial for retirees who delay their Social Security claim: They will be in lower tax brackets during the early years of retirement — an ideal time to take at least some income from accounts. That can trim tax bills later on, when income Social Security (and required minimum distributions after age 70. 5) push many retirees into higher tax brackets. “Strategically tapping your savings leaves you more to spend in retirement,” Mr. Meyer says. | 1 |
A high school in Vermont has ignited controversy by empaneling a committee to explore the idea of eliminating the school’s Rebel mascot. [The committee, which will meet at South Burlington High School in South Burlington, Vermont, will make suggestions on what team name and mascot should replace the of its original name. Estimates indicate that it could cost up to $50, 000 to eliminate the Rebel name. The original name was chosen in 1961, four years after construction of the high school, by city fathers steeped in the local history that South Burlington separated itself from the town of Burlington back in 1865. When the team name was suggested, “no one batted an eyelash,” The Wall Street Journal reported. These days, a Confederate rebel is not as innocuous. Many parents and local community leaders became upset about the team name two years ago when a local newspaper dug up photos of students posing with Confederate flags on the football field, and that is when talk of dumping the Rebel name began. However, not everyone is upset by the team name. “I don’t think constantly caving in to political correctness is appropriate in this day and age,” Linus Leavens, a 1972 South Burlington graduate, told the Journal. “I think a lot of America feels that way there was an election recently that showed that. ” Another resident noted that the name Rebel could equally refer to figures such as Muhammad Ali, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Rosa Parks. A large group of South Burlington graduates and local members of the community created a Facebook page entitled Rebel Alliance to work to overturn the school board’s decision to dump the team name. The team name has also been used tangentially in an effort to urge local voters to deny a higher school budget. According to the paper, signs dotted the landscape reading, “Be a Rebel. Vote No” on the school proposal. Still, the school has taken steps to draw back from its Confederate Colonel mascot by slowly eliminating the image from the gym floor, uniforms, and ceasing its use in programs and other materials. In any case, it appears that some students tire of adults fighting over the issue. At a recent school board meeting, senior Ryan Croxford said he doesn’t care what the team is named and criticized people for “fighting over this ridiculous stuff. ” He added that the fighting had become “really petty at this point. ” Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — It was early fall, and Donald J. Trump, behind in the polls, seemed to be preparing a rationale in case a winner like him somehow managed to lose. “I’m afraid the election is going to be rigged, I have to be honest,” the Republican nominee told a crowd in Columbus, Ohio. He was hearing “more and more” about evidence of rigging, he added, leaving the details to his supporters’ imagination. A few weeks later, Cameron Harris, a new college graduate with a fervent interest in Maryland Republican politics and a need for cash, sat down at the kitchen table in his apartment to fill in the details Mr. Trump had left out. In a dubious art just coming into its prime, this bogus story would be his masterpiece. Mr. Harris started by crafting the headline: “BREAKING: ‘Tens of thousands’ of fraudulent Clinton votes found in Ohio warehouse. ” It made sense, he figured, to locate this shocking discovery in the very city and state where Mr. Trump had highlighted his “rigged” meme. “I had a theory when I sat down to write it,” recalled Mr. Harris, a former college quarterback and fraternity leader. “Given the severe distrust of the media among Trump supporters, anything that parroted Trump’s talking points people would click. Trump was saying ‘rigged election, rigged election.’ People were predisposed to believe Hillary Clinton could not win except by cheating. ” In a raucous election year defined by stories, Mr. Harris was a practitioner, a boutique operator with no ties to Russian spy agencies or Macedonian fabrication factories. As Mr. Trump takes office this week, the beneficiary of at least a modest electoral boost from a flood of fakery, Mr. Harris and his website, ChristianTimesNewspaper. com, make for an illuminating tale. Contacted by a reporter who had discovered an electronic clue that revealed his secret authorship of ChristianTimesNewspaper. com, he was wary at first, chagrined to be unmasked. “This topic is rather sensitive,” Mr. Harris said, noting that he was trying to build a political consulting business and needed to protect his reputation. But eventually he agreed to tell the story of his foray into fake news, a very gig that he calculated paid him about $1, 000 an hour in web advertising revenue. He seemed to regard his experience with a combination of guilt about having spread falsehoods and pride at doing it so skillfully. At his kitchen table that night in September, Mr. Harris wondered: Who might have found these fraudulent Clinton ballots? So he invented “Randall Prince, a electrical worker. ” This Everyman, a “Trump supporter” whose name hinted at a sort of nobility, had entered a back room at the warehouse and stumbled upon stacked boxes of ballots for Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Harris decided. “No one really goes in this building. It’s mainly used for storage by a commercial plumber,” Prince said. In case anyone missed the significance of the find, Mr. Harris made it plain: “What he found could allegedly be evidence of a massive operation designed to deliver Clinton the crucial swing state. ” A photograph, he thought, would help erase doubts about his yarn. With a quick Google image search for “ballot boxes,” he landed on a shot of a balding fellow standing behind black plastic boxes that helpfully had “Ballot Box” labels. It was a photo from The Birmingham Mail, showing a British election 3, 700 miles from Columbus — but no matter. In the caption, the balding Briton got a new name: “Mr. Prince, shown here, poses with his find, as election officials investigate. ” The article explained that “the Clinton campaign’s likely goal was to slip the fake ballot boxes in with the real ballot boxes when they went to official election judges on November 8th. ” Then Mr. Harris added a touch of breathlessness. “This story is still developing,” he wrote, “and CTN will bring you more when we have it. ” He pushed the button and the story was launched on Sept. 30, blazing across the web like some kind of counterfeit comet. “Even before I posted it, I knew it would take off,” Mr. Harris recalled. He was correct. The ballot box story, promoted by a Facebook pages Mr. Harris had created for the purpose, flew around the web, fueled by indignant comments from people who were certain that Mrs. Clinton was going to cheat Mr. Trump of victory and who welcomed the proof. It was eventually shared with six million people, according to CrowdTangle, which tracks web audiences. The next day, the Franklin County, Ohio, board of elections announced that it was investigating and that the fraud claims appeared to be untrue. Within days, Ohio’s secretary of state, Jon Husted, issued a statement to deny the story. “A Christian myself, I take offense to reading such unbelievable lies from a publication alleging Christian ties,” Mr. Husted said. There was nothing especially Christian about his efforts, Mr. Harris admits he had simply bought the abandoned web address for $5 at ExpiredDomains. net. Within a few days, the story, which had taken him 15 minutes to concoct, had earned him about $5, 000. That was a sizable share of the $22, 000 an accounting statement shows he made during the presidential campaign from ads for shoes, hair gel and web design that Google had placed on his site. He had put in perhaps half an hour a week on the fake news site, he said, for a total of about 20 hours. He would come close to a far bigger payday, one that might have turned the $5 he had spent on the Christian Times domain into more than $100, 000. The money, not the politics, was the point, he insisted. He had graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina in May, and he needed to pay his living expenses. “I spent the money on student loans, car payments and rent,” he said. By the time he launched his fraudulent story on ballot fraud, he had found minimal success with “Hillary Clinton Blames Racism for Cincinnati Gorilla’s Death,” a reference to the sad tale of Harambe, the gorilla shot after he grabbed a little boy visiting the zoo. He had done better with “Early Morning Explosion in DC Allegedly Leaves Yet Another DNC Staffer Dead,” spinning off conspiracy theories around the earlier shooting death of a Democratic National Committee staff member. Later, he would tell gullible readers “NYPD Looking to Press Charges Against Bill Clinton for Underage Sex Ring,” “Protesters Beat Homeless Veteran to Death in Philadelphia” and “Hillary Clinton Files for Divorce in New York Courts. ” Eight of his stories would merit explicit debunking by Snopes. com, the site, but none would top the performance of the ballot box fantasy. President Obama thought the fake news phenomenon significant enough to mention it as a threat to democracy in his farewell speech in Chicago last week. “Increasingly,” he said, “we become so secure in our bubbles that we start accepting only information, whether it’s true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that is out there. ” That was exactly the insight on which Mr. Harris said he built his transient business: that people wanted to be fed evidence, however implausible, to support their beliefs. “At first it kind of shocked me — the response I was getting,” he said. “How easily people would believe it. It was almost like a sociological experiment,” added Mr. Harris, who majored in political science and economics. By his account, though he voted for Mr. Trump, his early preference had been for Senator Marco Rubio. Mr. Harris said he would have been willing to promote Mrs. Clinton and smear Mr. Trump had those tactics been lucrative. But as other seekers of clicks discovered, Mr. Trump’s supporters were far more fervent than Mrs. Clinton’s. In late October, with the inevitable end of his venture approaching, Mr. Harris sought an appraisal for the web domain that by then had vaulted into the web’s top 20, 000 sites. An appraiser said that given the traffic, he could probably sell it for between $115, 000 and $125, 000. But Mr. Harris made a costly mistake: He decided to wait. Days after the election, denounced for making the peddling of fake news remunerative, Google announced that it would no longer place ads on sites promoting clearly fabricated stories. A few days later, when Mr. Harris checked his site, the ads were gone. He checked with the appraiser and was told that the domain was now essentially worthless. All was not lost, however. He had put a on the site inviting visitors to “join the ‘Stop the Steal’ team to find out HOW Hillary plans to steal the election and what YOU can do to stop her!” and collected 24, 000 email addresses. He has not yet decided what to do with them, he said. Asked whether he felt any guilt at having spread lies about a presidential candidate, Mr. Harris grew thoughtful. But he took refuge in the notion that politics is by its nature replete with exaggerations, and outright whoppers, so he was hardly adding much to the sum total. “Hardly anything a campaign or a candidate says is completely true,” he said. Lately he has picked up Mr. Trump’s refrain that mainstream news organizations are themselves regular purveyors of fake news. Last week, when BuzzFeed released what it called an “explosive but unverified” dossier suggesting that Russia had planned to bribe and blackmail Mr. Trump, Mr. Harris wrote on Twitter: He did not mention his own expertise in the field. | 1 |
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had some tough words for Russia on Thursday on the matter of Syrian chemical weapons. [Speaking from President Trump’s estate in Florida, where Trump is meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Tillerson referenced Russia’s 2013 agreement to oversee the destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal and said Russia has “clearly failed in its responsibility” to eliminate those weapons. “Either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent on its ability to deliver,” he said. Tillerson stated that Russia’s permission was not sought for the strike, but warnings were given to reduce the risk of Russian casualties. “Our target in this attack was not Russia. Our target was this airfield and the Syrian regime. ” He also said the White House consulted with American allies in Europe and the Middle East, and their response was “overwhelmingly supportive. ” “I think it does demonstrate that President Trump is willing to act when governments and government actors cross the line,” Tillerson said of the U. S. military action. “It’s clear that President Trump made that statement to the world tonight. ” NBC News notes that Tillerson is scheduled to fly to Moscow next week “for meetings with Russian officials on a trip originally intended to turn a new page in the U. S. Russian relationship. ” With masterful understatement, a senior State Department official said the Syrian situation was certain to “color” Tillerson’s talks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov provided some of that color on Friday, by stating that Russian President Vladimir Putin “considers the U. S. strikes against Syria an aggression against a sovereign country violating the norms of international law, and under a pretext at that. ” | 1 |
Home / #Solutions / Taxpayers Shell Out $100K to Pay for Cops Caught Eating Weed & Assaulting People in Pot Shop Video Taxpayers Shell Out $100K to Pay for Cops Caught Eating Weed & Assaulting People in Pot Shop Video Claire Bernish October 27, 2016 Leave a comment
To settle a federal lawsuit stemming from a highly controversial raid on a cannabis dispensary — in which three nefarious cops were caught on surveillance video munching and edibles and making degrading comments about a disabled woman — taxpayers will be forced to shell out $100,000 via the City of Santa Ana, California.
In addition to the payout for damages to the store, the Orange County Register reports, misdemeanor charges against a dozen people accused of operating the dispensary illegally will be dropped.
On May 26, 2015, a group heavily-armed Santa Ana cops used a battering ram to storm Sky High Holistic with guns drawn , smashed surveillance cameras and confiscated recording equipment, and proceeded to make disparaging comments toward customers, some of whom were disabled.
In particular, these unabashedly power-tripping police suggested they should have assaulted a partially blind paraplegic woman — who was not only confined to a personal mobility unit, but had readily complied in the frightening encounter.
“Did you punch that one-legged old Benita?” a male officer of the law asks a female colleague as cameras recorded their conversation.
“I was about to kick her in the fucking nub,” the female officer of the law glibly replies.
Fortunately for the customers-turned-victims, cameras recorded the officers as they slowly completed the raid in a manner akin to a fraternity party — a few play darts while having a crude and wholly unprofessional conversation, while one samples what appears to be a marijuana edible he then shares with his buddies.
One camera remained surreptitiously hidden, evading officers’ efforts to cover their tracks in this armed burglary, and — when its video evidence went viral — proved to the world how unprofessional, abusive, and criminal these cops actually are.
According to allegations in the now-settled civil rights lawsuit, these errant officers devised a scheme to shut down dispensaries operating without a permit after Santa Ana voters passed a ballot measure allowing 20 dispensaries to operate following a lottery — for which Sky High had not been selected.
“The settlement of civil rights claims and dismissal of criminal actions shows Santa Ana is taking responsibility for improper actions it took, including the raid of Sky High Holistic, in support of its lottery-based marijuana regulation ordinance,” District Attorney Michael Pappas told the Register by email.
After a yearlong battle, misdemeanor charges were finally brought against three of the cops — petty theft for those who chowed down on the shop’s edible protein bars and cookies, and vandalism against the cop who destroyed all of the dispensary’s cameras.
Well, except that one .
Those charges are pending, and none of the three, who were initially suspended after the video went viral, remain employed with the Santa Ana Police Department — though law enforcement refused to elaborate for the Register on whether they had been terminated or had simply resigned.
Should former Officers Jorge Arroyo and Nicole Lynn Quijas be convicted of petty theft, they face a maximum six-month jail sentence and $1,000 fine. Former Officer Brandon Matthew Sontag faces up to 18 months in jail and a $2,000 fine for both the petty theft and vandalism charges if he is found guilty.
Pappas also noted the fight continues to have thousands in stolen cash and items returned to the rightful owners, as does his pursuance of a second lawsuit for an unspecified monetary amount in damages in the Orange County Superior Court.
Although the meager settlement is somewhat a victory for the victims — one of whom was a neighboring physician whose office had power and water cut during the incident — video evidences an armed and violent raid undertaken by cruel cops who appear as if they’ve discovered an enjoyable new sport.
Indeed if justice were truly to be served, all of the officers involved would be locked behind bars for performing a violent raid on a store providing a service to consenting customers on a voluntary basis. Share Social Trending | 0 |
Gentlemen, I am filled to the brim with joy. We have successfully thwarted the globalist’s plans to ruin America—we’ve fought against the big banks, we’ve fought against the Satanic pedophile Elites , and we’ve fought against the corrupt mainstream media.
But, the battle is not over yet. We still have much to do if we wish to make America great again. This will not be an easy fight, for we will certainly face much resistance along the way. Expect the cucks and liberals to throw temper tantrums as their safe spaces come tumbling down, expect the mainstream media to demonize the alt-right, and expect the elites to do everything they can to stop us.
They will not stop us, though—no, we are far too powerful. The wheels of truth do in fact turn slowly, but alas, they turn! And they are growing in speed as we blaze towards victory. Here are four goals that we must achieve on our path to victory.
1. Dismantle The Mainstream Media
As more and more of us start to wake up, the media will begin to sense this—in fact, they already have. Have you wondered why they’ve started to cover anti-Hillary stories? It’s because they realize that they’re losing credibility.
The mainstream media is very well aware that they’re losing their chokehold on the American public’s mind, so in a last ditch effort, they’re trying to seem unbiased. Do not buy into their lies—it’s all a giant farce; an attempt to regain their former credibility.
Over the next four years, it will be extremely important to start dismantling these outlets. It’s time to call them out for what they are. Start sharing alt-right stories on Facebook and Twitter, get our message out there. Don’t watch any mainstream media.
Don’t buy mainstream magazines, don’t watch their news shows, hell, don’t even pay for cable. Do everything you can to bleed their pockets dry.
As more and more money moves away from the mainstream media, it will naturally move towards alternative news sources—sites like Return Of Kings, Info Wars, Matt Forney , and Danger and Play will become the new media.
Don’t expect this to happen at first, however. In one final cry, before its gory death, the media will proclaim that there is a new “racist, xenophobic” enemy that helped Donald get into office: the alt-right.
Expect them to demonize us. Expect them to lie about us, to scream and shout, and to protest. This is fine, however—for we are anti-fragile. The alt-right is in a very unique position.
Any and all hatred towards the alt-right will be a net win for us. Why? It’s simple: any publicity is good publicity. A single mention of an alternative news site by the MSM can, and often does, net us tens of thousands of new viewers.
In other words: if they ignore us, we continue to grow in power. If they attack us, we grow even faster. They can’t win.
2. Drain The Swamp
Everything that we’ve done up to this point to get Donald in office will be completely pointless if we don’t drain the swamp. This is our one chance—we have four years to do this.
In order for us to bring about permanent change in this country, we need to hold the cucks and libtards accountable for their actions. Anyone who pushed the pro-Islam agenda, rape culture, or feminazi philosophy must be called out for the traitors that they are.
The elites, the corrupt bankers, and the globalists must all be brought to light. In order for us to bring about true change, and to prevent a globalist dictatorship from happening in the near future, we must ensure that at least 25% of Americans are aware of the elites’ “conspiracy” by the next election.
This is a grass roots movement, and it is growing in power—but we must take away power from those who tried so hard to fight us. Now is the time to cause a ruckus and email your representatives. Now is the time to demand Hillary be thrown in prison.
Every single person involved in Hillary Clinton’s private email server must be thrown in jail. Pedophiles and Satanists such as Anthony Weiner and Marina Abramovic, and traitors such as Huma Abedin and Comey must be thrown in jail for their crimes.
Now is the time to clear out the murky waters—to sift through the dirt and rotten garbage lurking below. I believe, that once all is said and done, America will enter into a new age of prosperity. The patriarchy will return.
3. Normalize Straight Males
For too long have men been oppressed, by the very civilization which we created. We have let the SJW’s and culture warriors back us into a corner, but we’ve finally started to fight back.
More and more men, upon being exposed to the manosphere, are starting to wake up and take the red pill . We’re starting to realize, as a nation, that there is no reason to be ashamed of being white or being a man.
Once we start to dismantle the mainstream media and drain the swamp, most of this should happen naturally—it was only through the artificial social engineering that being a white male became a crime.
But, we can’t stop here—it’s time to start slowly red-pilling our blue-pilled friends. The best way to do this, is simply through osmosis. Don’t try to convince them with logic, because they did not arrive at a blue-pilled position through logic. They did so through emotion.
Simply be a beacon of masculinity. Be confident in yourself, be assertive, and don’t cave into ridiculous HR requests or political correctness social pressures. Again, once the mainstream media is dismantled and the manosphere grows in popularity, our movement will gain strength exponentially.
The normalization of males, especially white males, is essential for our culture to continue—the second that we started to become ashamed of our heritage and of our nationality was the second that the cucks started closing in. We cannot give them an inch, or they will take a mile.
This is not to say that our country shouldn’t accept immigrants—IF they go through the legal process. How did it get so far that it became socially unacceptable to shame ILLEGAL immigrants? Again, ILLEGAL immigrants? Like I said, it got this way due to an overwhelming amount of white guilt. Do not be ashamed of your heritage, men.
We have made a gigantic step towards national sovereignty with Donald Trump being elected as president, and we cannot let this victory go in vain. We must push onward and continue to normalize what is NORMAL. Being a straight male, white or note, should be the norm, not being a transgender, green-haired, SJW.
4. Get The Law On Our Side
As our grass roots movement picks up more and more steam, I believe that the pressure we create will naturally push judges and lawmakers to change our corrupt legal system.
First things first, we must create laws that treat men and women as they should be treated. Too many laws are skewed in favor of women. Now that women have the right to work, we must remove alimony—it’s ridiculous that men should have to pay $10,000 a month to their ex-wives, because she “got used to” a certain living situation.
We must remove corrupt anti-male divorce laws, ridiculous “hate-speech” laws which infringe on our freedom of speech, and ultimately, SJW “rape” laws.
I, along with many other ROK men, have been falsely accused of rape . It’s time to remove all of these ridiculous laws that make it illegal for men to simply talk to women, and that were built into the system by the elites in order to wage war against men.
The law should encourage freedom of speech; the fact that Twitter has not been held accountable for banning Milo Yiannopoulos is absolutely absurd. Information and social media platforms should be held to the same standards that the American people are.
Google needs to stop censoring search results—and if they don’t, it’s time for us to create laws against this type of behavior. Allowing Google to filter search results is like a regression back to Medieval times. For one entity to selectively edit our version of reality is unacceptable.
Most importantly, judges and lawmakers that have taken bribes should be thrown in jail…indefinitely. Anyone who took a “donation” from George Soros or any other member of the Bilderberg group should be imprisoned for crimes of treason.
Summary
We are on the path towards victory, men—but it will not be without many hiccups. The first thing that the mainstream media will do is demonize the alt-right, but again, this will only make us stronger. It will expose our view points to a larger audience.
Expect it to get darker just before the dawn. Expect feminists, SJW’s, cucks, and libtards to protest and scream and shout—but, it will all be in vain. Too many men are starting to wake up. Too many men are starting to see the lies that have been shoved down our throats , and there is no going back.
The next four years will be more important than ever. Our primary objective is to dismantle the mainstream media through natural means. It’s time for them to be exposed as the liars that they are. Simply eliminating the MSM will be most of the battle—remember, this is a war of information, and when the alt-right starts to control the news, there will be sanity.
We must also focus on draining the swamp. We must rid our corrupt political establishment of the people who’ve betrayed us. We must normalize the family unit and white men—no longer shall we feel ashamed of our gender or sexual orientation.
Then, from here, the laws must change. Remember: this will not be easy. There will be much resistance along the way, but we’ve come this far. We’ve beat all odds and elected Trump as the president of our nation…and it’s time to make America great again.
Read More: Are You On Pace To Reach Your Goals?
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Keywords: Acupuncture , baby eczema , cure baby eczema , eczema cure , eczema treatment , heal eczema
There was a time when my son’s eczema became so severe I was willing to try any natural healing method. My baby was 5 months old when he developed eczema. We tried the usual dose of steroids and over-the-counter creams from our family doctor. It got so bad that his scars were not healing. He wasn’t sleeping. And I wasn’t sleeping. As a child, my mother took me to an Acupuncturist for migraines. And the migraines stopped after a handful of visits. I remember it being a pretty relaxing experience with the smell of incense and herbs and the quietness of the room. So, I took a leap of faith and booked us for an appointment with a Traditional Chinese Doctor who specialized in skin disorders, allergies, and asthma. Why Try Acupuncture & Traditional Chinese Medicine? Reason 1: Acupuncture has been practiced for almost 4000 years in China.
With that much history, it’s worth a try. It is a method of relieving pain or curing an illness by placing needles in the patient’s body at precise points along the 12 meridians in the body. Meridians are energy pathways that are associated with different organs within the body. The World Health Organization lists 300 ailments that are treatable by Chinese Medicine & Acupuncture. Reason 2: Acupuncture has helped children with eczema
In a study of 37 children who were treated with Chinese Medicinal herbs, the treatment reduced eczema symptoms by 90% in 18 of the children (see Sources). Although it was a small study size, the benefits seem to far outweigh the risks. When my son was a baby, even a 10% improvement in his symptoms would have been amazing for us. Reason 3: Acupuncture does not hurt babies
Many people worry about the needles hurting. But the needles that Acupuncturists use are about 1/100 th of a syringe needle. My son was a baby when we started the treatments, and he never cried out when getting the needles in him. Reason 4: Acupuncture relieved my baby’s eczema by 80%
Acupuncture healed the eczema to the point where we could figure out his triggers. Our doctor stabilized the eczema. Best of all, flare-ups only occurred when my baby was teething. His skin was softer than it had been in months. Acupuncture needs to be done on babies for a minimum of 3 months in order to see an improvement. This is because the treatment is trying to alter the immune response, which is a long process. But sometimes babies will respond quicker than that. We used a topical herb powder given to us by the doctor, and applied it to his skin. This topical mix had a similar effect as hydro-cortisone cream if I applied it 3-5 times per day with a cotton ball. Reason 5: Acupuncture is affordable
This is true especially if you go to a student clinic. You can pay the affordable price and yet the students are supervised by very experienced doctors. For child and baby treatments, it is even more affordable. It cost us about $15-$30 per visit on average (we tried a few different clinics). Some health plans will cover Acupuncture, so check with your health plan to see if yours covers it. To keep it affordable, I suggest trying to find a specialist in Acupuncture & TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), not a practitioner who does many different types of treatments. Tips for Helping Your Child While Getting Acupuncture
Bring a favorite stuffed animal, a book, or some toys. Try nursing your baby while they are receiving acupuncture. A baby only needs the needle in the acupressure point for a second and then they are pulled out. Adults typically have needles in for 45+ minutes for each treatment, because our bodies do not respond as quickly as babies’ bodies do. Check out my YouTube video for more tips! Find an Experienced & Accredited Acupuncturist
Make sure to look for an Accredited Acupuncturist or TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) Doctor. Be sure the Acupuncturist has some experience in your condition. Chat with the people in the waiting room. And see if they’ve had success with your doctor. I met a few moms in the waiting room that swore by the Chinese Doctor we were going to see. That made me feel more comfortable.
Find a TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) Doctor who offers Certified Organic Chinese herbs. “Certified Organic” means the herbs were never sprayed with toxic pesticides and herbicides. As well, there have been some reports of heavy metals residue in Chinese herbs. Herbs are just as powerful as prescription medications and can have adverse effects if used improperly. Make sure to ask about the testing done on the herbs that you or your baby are prescribed. Every Condition Has Different Treatment Needs
Check with your family doctor to be sure you don’t have any conditions that would prevent you from using Acupuncture or Chinese Medicine. All the information in this article is provided for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical counseling.
Rosemary Hansen is a published author and devoted Mama. She is passionate about healing eczema naturally. Rosemary is a self-taught organic, whole foods chef. Her lifelong dream is to have a flock of pet dairy goats. Get a copy of her free e-book: “10 Natural Remedies for Soft Skin” at www.NaturalEczemaMama.com.
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— Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) October 29, 2016
Special Counsel to Donald Trump Michael Cohen is attempting to identify and help a homeless woman spotted defending Donald Trump’s new star on the Hollywood Walk-of-Fame: . @DiamondandSilk @realDonaldTrump someone please help me locate this woman as Mr. Trump has a gift for her…
— Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) October 28, 2016 A homeless American protects @realDonaldTrump Hollywood star. 20 million illegals & Americans sleep on the streets in Tents #VoteTrump pic.twitter.com/VITpVvK3L4
— Diamond and Silk® (@DiamondandSilk) October 28, 2016
There’s also video of the woman being attacked by a mob, allegedly over her pro-Trump stance: Black homeless woman assaulted for protecting Trumps Hollywood star https://t.co/GLHvqPBUJu | 0 |
On the Monday edition of Breitbart News Daily, broadcast live on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 from 6AM to 9AM Eastern, Breitbart Alex Marlow will continue our discussion of President Trump’s first 100 days. [Breitbart’s Washington political editor Matt Boyle will discuss the fallout from Speaker Paul Ryan’s failed Obamacare replacement bill, which came under intense criticism from all quarters and was been dubbed “Ryancare,” “” and “ ” by critics. The bill’s demise has renewed calls for Ryan to step down from his speakership. We’ll also hear from Dan Gainor, the Vice President of Business and Culture at the Media Research Center, about the mainstream media’s latest antics. Breitbart business and finance editor John Carney will weigh in on the future prospects of Trump’s tax and regulation reform agenda. Live from London, Rome, and Jerusalem, Breitbart correspondents will provide updates on the latest international news. Breitbart News Daily is the first live, conservative radio enterprise to air seven days a week. SiriusXM Vice President for news and talk Dave Gorab called the show “the conservative news show of record. ” Follow Breitbart News on Twitter for live updates during the show. Listeners may call into the show at: . | 1 |
Balsamic Moon Phase: release; dream; prepare for the new
Moon in Libra
Aspect of the Aeon Sophia (Wisdom): Kali, Goddess of Endings and Beginnings; Matangi, Goddess of the Wind, Goddess Who Clears the Way
Aspect of the Aeon Thelete (Will): Elias, God of the West, God of Alchemy
Skill: make a change that is needed, listen to the inner voice
True Alignments: helping others, self-respect, able to go deeply with someone, good riddance, wonderment, open to the new, revising, mettle, putting down a battle, 2018 foreshadowed to some degree, admitting things to oneself that need to be recognized
Catalysts for Change: escapism, old stories, poor loser, prejudice, not helpful, afraid to look within, depending too heavily on outer signs and minimizing inner promptings, fear of change, lack or loss of self esteem or self worth, indecision, blocked emotions, miscommunications and misunderstandings (the Sun and Mercury are still in range of conjunction)
Sabian Symbol for the Solar-Lunar Month: “three masters hanging in a special room in an art gallery” (light reflected on life; expansion of perceptions; linking mind, body, and spirit; vision and visionary)
Sabian Symbol for the Solar-Lunar Year: “the magic carpet of Oriental imagery” (transcending difficulties; transcending the unraveling control paradigm; fantastical experiences)
When the New Moon for a lunar month occurs in the cardinal signs of Aries, Libra, Cancer, or Capricorn, major shifts occur within our lives and within the world at large. These are the “cardinal points” of the year, just like a compass with the four directions, and just like a Medicine Wheel with the four corners. As we come to the last days of this Libra lunar cycle, we have a final push to turn a corner or make a change (or having a corner turned on you or someone making a change that turns your corner). Light has shone brightly all month to help us see and shift (New Moon at “three masters hanging in a special room in an art gallery”)… | 0 |
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