text
stringlengths 1
134k
| label
int64 0
1
|
|---|---|
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The youngest of the billionaire Koch brothers had a dream: to found a private high school where academically gifted students of all socioeconomic backgrounds would do projects and learn by solving problems. He poured more than $75 million into building the school, the Oxbridge Academy of the Palm Beaches. But on Friday, he fired the head of school and declined to renew the contracts of the athletic director and the football coach. The moves came after a sexual harassment complaint and an internal investigation into accusations of kickbacks, excessive spending and violations of the rules governing high school sports. It turned out, William I. Koch said in an interview, that a “power elites group” in the school ran “the asylum. ” Mr. Koch, 76, is the chief executive of Oxbow Carbon L. L. C. an energy development holding company based in West Palm Beach, and is the younger brother of Charles G. and David H. Koch, who are known for supporting conservative Republican causes. Referred to by some journalists as “the other Koch brother,” he established Oxbridge Academy to much fanfare in 2011. The school, which has 580 students, has many perks, including a physical therapist on staff, lunches, an equestrian club and a flight simulator. The debate team spent hundreds of thousands of dollars traveling to competitions nationwide, Mr. Koch said. “We are finding alarming things of how money was misspent,” Mr. Koch said at his company’s offices. “If people think they’ve got a honey pot, there’s going to be a lot of bears around it, trying to get it. ” A few years ago, students requested that the school establish a football team, an idea the administration embraced. But that was when the troubles took off. An athlete who read at a level was given a full scholarship, the football team had its own locker room and the coach earned more than $200, 000 a year, according to tax records and interviews with former employees. The former head of school, Robert C. Parsons, whose official title was president and chief executive, is a former chief financial officer at the United States Naval Academy. Mr. Parsons started at Oxbridge in 2011 with a compensation package worth $1 million, tax records show, seven times his academy salary. Eventually, he made about $600, 000 a year at the school. But in interviews, former employees questioned Mr. Koch’s decision to hire Mr. Parsons in the first place, because he was suspended for five days after a 2009 Naval inspector general report accused him and his former boss of operating a “slush fund” to pay for tailgate parties. Mr. Koch said he did not think Mr. Parsons’ record at the Naval Academy was a red flag because the government is “all screwed up. ” Other billionaires — such as Bill Gates of Microsoft Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook the music mogul Sean Combs the filmmaker James Cameron the philanthropist Eli Broad and Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla — have poured parts of their fortunes into education. Some, like Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Broad, said they wanted to help solve problems in public education. Their experiences underscore the pitfalls that confront business leaders whose professional success does not always translate into the education field. Mr. Koch has discovered similar challenges, though he had a personal motivation for starting Oxbridge. He said he founded the school to give his own children a better academic experience than he had. By his account, he went from being an awkward ugly duckling who was flunking out of middle school in Kansas, to a military academy cadet who embraced a love of study. He longed for a place where students, not teachers’ unions or principals, ruled. He completed a Ph. D. at M. I. T. but acknowledges that he still cannot spell very well. And he chokes up just talking about the troubled students who have made a turnaround at Oxbridge, which his children attend and from which his son has just graduated. In the past, Mr. Koch has famously sued his siblings in disputes over the family business, usually losing. Several years ago, he spent more than $25 million investigating counterfeit wine after being duped by a wine salesman. In 2012, a former company executive who had faced a fraud investigation accused Mr. Koch and his staff members of kidnapping him. In court papers, Mr. Koch’s lawyers said the former employee had made the claim in a lawsuit because he was angry and embarrassed that his fraud had been exposed. A judge later dismissed the case. “My biggest failing is I’m too trusting of people,” Mr. Koch said. Oxbridge was created in less than a year on a campus that once held a Jewish community center. “I don’t know if people appreciate how much happened here in five years,” said Bob Kaufmann, the chairman of the school’s executive committee, who has been given the task of reducing spending. “This is a happy place for children. ” Oxbridge graduates have been accepted this fall to nearly all of the Ivy League universities. One senior won a $100, 000 Siemens scholarship for inventing a method. “The intention was really good,” Mark Bodnar, the school’s former vice president for technology and security, said about Oxbridge. “It sort of went off the rails a couple of years in. ” Mr. Bodnar, who had been on the admissions committee, said the committee’s recommendations were often overruled by the football coaches. He said that there were so many academically struggling athletes that tutors were overwhelmed, and that the players had to be put in classes separate from the rest of the student body. John Klemme, the academic dean who will take over as head of school, said that some of the struggling students “would have been written off” at other schools, but had found their way to a superior education because of their football prowess. “This is not to be a rich kids’ school,” Mr. Klemme said. Mr. Koch said that about 40 percent of students — including those who do not play football — received some kind of scholarship. Phillip Taylor, 17, a junior, said he loved the school and the opportunities he had been given, such as spring break study at Cambridge University in Britain. Still, he said he resented the double standard on admissions afforded to football players. “My experience was positive,” he said. “I learned so much. But it does bother me. ” His mother, Cheryl Taylor, also had a daughter in the school’s freshman class in the school’s inaugural year. She said parents like her who are impressed by the education the school offered were startled by its cultural shift. “At first, you had to be academically qualified, but that changed dramatically about two years in,” Ms. Taylor said. “Football began to outshine everything else. ” The football team, the Thunderwolves, made it to the regional finals this past season. The problems at Oxbridge, where tuition is $31, 500 a year, went beyond sports. In interviews, several former employees said Mr. Parsons had created a “toxic” work environment. Employee turnover was high and tens of thousands of dollars were spent on severance packages, tax records show. “If he likes somebody and she’s a pretty girl, they got a signing bonus or a higher salary or a bonus,” Ulle Sinisalu Boshko, the school’s former controller, said of Mr. Parsons. Ms. Boshko, who said she was given a large pay increase to leave one of Mr. Koch’s companies to join Oxbridge, said she had been demoted after fending off Mr. Parsons’ advances for months. She filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is pending, and then she went public. Her accusations led to an investigation of the entire school by The Palm Beach Post. Reached by a New York Times reporter on the phone for comment last week, Mr. Parsons hung up. Reached on Sunday, he said, “I’m not interested,” and hung up again. After inquiries from The Post, Mr. Koch hired a team of accountants, lawyers and a retired F. B. I. agent to look into the conduct of school officials, including whether employees were rigging bids with vendors and whether they had broken rules by housing students in their homes. Mr. Koch said he had not been able to verify any “super sexual harassment” beyond what he called “ ” comments like “God, that girl’s hot” or “She’s got a great behind. ” But the investigation, he said, turned up information that led to the firing of Mr. Parsons and the forcing out of the athletic director and the coach. Mr. Koch said the investigators did not find any evidence of kickbacks to employees from vendors. He said that if any evidence of emerged, the employees responsible would be fired. He said budget watchdogs would be hired to cut costs and pay closer attention to spending. “The attitude that was there at the school was that they had a rich guy backing it and they could do whatever they wanted,” he said. He also wants to figure out how to get others to donate to the school, he said. That was one reason he did not name the school after himself. | 1 |
Pence Plane Scare October 28, 2016 A campaign plane that had been carrying U.S. Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence rests in the grass after it skidded off the runway while landing in the rain at LaGuardia
U.S. Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence and family declared safe after his plane skids off runway.
A plane carrying U.S. Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence skidded off the runway after landing in the rain at New York City's LaGuardia Airport on Thursday, halting flights for at least an hour, officials said. No one was injured in the incident which occurred less than two weeks before the U.S. presidential election, crucial campaign days for Pence and running mate Donald Trump. Pence pledged to hit the campaign trail again on Friday.
"So thankful everyone on our plane is safe," the Indiana governor said on Twitter after the incident. "Grateful for our first responders & the concern & prayers of so many."
The Boeing 737 was coming in for a landing and went off the runway at about 7:40 p.m. local time (2340 GMT). The plane was stopped by a crushable type of concrete runway that arrested the aircraft's movement, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters said. Trump called his running mate before a rally in Geneva, Ohio.
"I just spoke to Mike Pence and he's fine," Trump told the crowd at the rally. "The plane skidded off the runway and was pretty close to grave, grave danger.”
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board said they will investigate the cause of the incident.
——- Article by , Correspondent for TRUNEWS 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 |
Via Alternet
Today’s militarized crackdown on water protectors in Cannonball, North Dakota stems from high levels of coordination between the extractive industry, state officials and police departments. It was waged against a frontline camp seeking to block the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which would cross beneath the Standing Rock Sioux reservation’s main drinking water source and bisect the community’s burial grounds. The attack took place under cover of a media blackout, with reports emerging that police were disrupting cellular phone reception.
Water protectors have already endured dog attacks, military-style checkpoints, low-flying surveillance planes, invasive strip searches, national guard deployments, and mass arrests. “What’s happening today is a travesty on the human rights of Indigenous people,” Tom Goldtooth, the executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, told AlterNet. “I see this as glaring evidence that the law enforcement of this county and state is more concerned about protecting corporate rights of the extractive industry than tribal nations.”
There is evidence of close coordination between the companies backing the $3.8 billion crude-oil Dakota Access Pipeline and police departments. Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company for Dakota Access LLC, said Tuesday it intends to work with police to forcibly clear a frontlines water protectors’ camp. Energy Transfer Partners threatened that “in coordination with local law enforcement and county/state officials, all trespassers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and removed from the land.”
Challenging the company’s charges of trespassing, the frontline Sacred Stone Camp says it is taking back “unceded territory affirmed in the 1851 Treaty of Ft. Laramie as sovereign land under the control of the Oceti Sakowin.”
“We have never ceded this land,” Joye Braun, an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, said in a press statement. “If DAPL can go through and claim eminent domain on landowners and Native peoples on their own land, then we as sovereign nations can then declare eminent domain on our own aboriginal homeland.”
Today’s events indicate that Energy Transfer Partners is not bluffing when it says police are siding with the company. In fact, law enforcement has vocally rallied behind the pipeline, which is backed by Enbridge. “At some point the rule of law has to be enforced,” Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said Wednesday, according to the Associated Press. “We could go down there at any time. We’re trying not to.”
The companies backing the pipeline already have private security under their employ. Dakota Access LLC confirmed to AlterNet in September that it had hired the notorious multinational security firm G4S during a period that overlapped with the protests, but would not state where its forces were located. Attorneys representing the Standing Rock encampments identified the companies behind the Dakota Access company’s brutal dog attacks, captured on video, as private security firm 10-Code Security, LLC and attack dog contractor Frost Kennels.
But according to Peter Kraska, professor and author of Militarizing The American Criminal Justice System: The Changing Roles of the Armed Forces and Police , the extractive industry also has taxpayer-funded security, in the form of police.
“We have romantic notions of the relationships between government and the private sector and tend to think the old days of police supporting owners of capital—the railroad companies instead of the workers—are from a bygone era,” Kraska told AlterNet. “Situations like these show that corporations and energy interests are exercising a monopoly on violence to continue the fossil fuel industry unabated.”
Steven Salaita, professor and author of the forthcoming book Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine , put it this way: “The current buildup of tremendous force at Standing Rock should be understood as a military invasion of a sovereign nation on behalf of a foreign oil company.”
The heavy-handed response does not stem from local coordination alone. The Morton County Sheriff’s Department said in a press statement released Sunday that, “Due to escalated unlawful tactics by individuals protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, Morton County has requested additional law enforcement assistance from other states. The state of North Dakota made an Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) request to states for assistance on October 7th.”
Remarkably, the EMAC program is supposed to be used to allow “states to send personnel, equipment, and commodities to help disaster relief efforts in other states.”
According to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, “Several states have responded and have arrived or will be arriving to support Morton County. States that are currently assisting Morton County are: Wisconsin, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Indiana and Nebraska.” AlterNet could not immediately reach Morton County for comment.
In Minneapolis, news that local law enforcement officers were being sent to Standing Rock sparked protests on Wednesday. The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that, “At the request of the State of North Dakota, and as approved by the State of Minnesota, on Sunday, Minnesota Sheriff’s Deputies from the Hennepin, Anoka, and Washington Counties’ Sheriff’s Offices were deployed to assist in Morton County, North Dakota.”
Those counties cover the bulk of the Twin Cities area, where local police been accused of placing protesters in danger, through a far-reaching culture of incitement against the Black Lives Matter movement. In one incident, St. Paul police officer Jeff Rothecker was forced to resign in February after he was caught encouraging drivers to run over Black Lives Matter protesters slated to gather for a Martin Luther King Day mobilization. Lt. Bob Kroll, the head of the Minneapolis Police Officer’s Federation who has ties to a white-power-linked biker gang, has repeatedly referred to protesters as “terrorists.”
As police departments around the country send reinforcements to North Dakota, the appeals of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe for federal protection from law enforcement violence appear to have had no effect. In a letter sent to Attorney General Loretta Lynch earlier this week, the water protectors asked the Department of Justice to intervene.
“To many people, the military tactics being used in North Dakota are reminiscent of the tactics used against protesters during the civil rights movement some 50 years ago,” the letter states. “But to us, there is an additional collective memory that comes to mind. This country has a long and sad history of using military force against indigenous people—including the Sioux Nation.”
Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for AlterNet. A former staff writer for Common Dreams, she coedited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War . Follow her on Twitter at @sarahlazare . About Lara Starr | 0 |
WOW! Trump Ties Hillary To Pervert Anthony Weiner in New Ad (VIDEO) shares Facebook
In these final days of the election the gloves have truly come off. Trump has just released a new ad which ties Hillary’s email scandal and the new FBI investigation to Anthony Weiner, the husband of Hillary aide Huma Abedin.
The Washington Examiner reports:
New Trump ad targets ‘pervert’ Anthony Weiner, dubs Clinton ‘unfit to serve’
Donald Trump’s campaign has capitalized on the latest developments surrounding Hillary Clinton’s private email server, releasing a new television ad on Thursday that ties the Democratic presidential hopeful directly to disgraced ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner.
Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, came back to haunt Democrats last week after FBI officials uncovered more than 650,000 new emails on a device of his, some of which may have originated from Clinton’s unsecured server. The discovery led FBI Director James Comey to reopen the agency’s investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified material.
“Hillary Clinton is under FBI investigation again after her emails were found on pervert Anthony Weiner’s laptop,” says the narrator of the 30-second ad, which the Trump campaign titled “Unfit.”
Watch the ad below:
Ouch! That’s gonna leave a mark! shares | 0 |
Just three months after the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced a hiring freeze and voluntary buyouts, the museum is turning to layoffs as part of an effort to cut its deficit by $30 million, through cost reductions and revenue growth. On Friday, the Met said that more than 50 employees had taken the buyouts but that it would seek further cuts in its core departments, for a total of at least 100 positions. Curatorial and conservation jobs are likely to be cut by an additional 5 percent, and administrative staff — including marketing, human resources, and digital personnel — may see staff cuts of 15 to 20 percent. “There is no letting up on the quality and the commitment we have to excellence — nothing we’re doing will be discernible or visible to the public,” said Daniel H. Weiss, the Met’s president and chief operating officer. “We’re planning to streamline our budgets but not to diminish our mission. ” These significant cuts in staff come as some are questioning the museum’s direction under Thomas P. Campbell. It has faced not only layoffs, but also a ballooning deficit of $10 million this year, and a pause in work on a $600 million new wing dedicated to Modern and contemporary art. The museum also underwent a $3 million rebranding, which was widely derided. In addition, the Met’s lease of the former Madison Avenue home of the Whitney Museum of American Art, now known as the Met Breuer, has proved to be expensive, soaking up about $17 million in yearly operating expenses in addition to an estimated $15 million building renovation. Given the Met’s annual attendance of more than six million, annual operating budget of $300 million and endowment of nearly $3 billion, any cracks in its foundation are surprising. But, Mr. Campbell insisted, “We’re not in a crisis. ” “The Met is a very strong institution firing on all cylinders,” he said, adding that the museum had to establish “a fiscally sustainable budget over the long term. ” In response to the buyout offer in April, 56 staff members signed up, out of 159 eligible employees — those 55 years or older who had served for at least 15 years. Among those taking it is Carrie Rebora Barratt, the Met’s deputy director for collections and administration. The Met would not release or confirm other names. In June, three employees, including the Met’s first chief digital officer, Sree Sreenivasan, stepped down from their posts. The Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum also recently announced buyouts. The Met’s roughly $10 million deficit this year, officials have said, would almost certainly rise to as much as $40 million if the museum failed to, as Mr. Weiss put it, “dial back. ” Mr. Weiss — formerly the president of Haverford College who came to the Met last year — appears to be overseeing the . “I was brought in to be the chief operating officer of the museum,” Mr. Weiss said. “I’m making the corrections I need to make to fulfill that responsibility. ” Mr. Campbell, its director and chief executive since 2009, said that he and Mr. Weiss “will be working together” in making layoff decisions and that departures were to be expected at an institution with 55 departments and 2, 300 employees. “The assumption when people write about attrition is often fear of some kind of a brain drain — I want to push back against that really robustly,” Mr. Campbell said. “Inevitably, people come, people go. ” The number of annual exhibitions over the next few years will also be curtailed to reduce costs, perhaps to 40 from 55, Mr. Campbell said. For example, the museum has postponed by a year a major show on Versailles. “We’ll be stretching out and slimming down the numbers of exhibitions,” Mr. Campbell said, “but not compromising the quality and the content. ” He said that would make the museum “more manageable” for general visitors. “We have seen considerable growth in installations and exhibitions,” he added. “We’re very conscious that it’s too much. ” Some have questioned Mr. Campbell’s decision to devote significant resources to the Met Breuer. While shows there have received positive reviews, attendance often seems sparse. But the museum said that Met Breuer attendance — 185, 000 visitors in the first four months (March 1 through June 30) — exceeds initial projections of 155, 000. “We obviously hope we can grow those in the future,” Mr. Campbell said of the numbers of visitors, “but we’re very satisfied with the attendance to date. ” The Met also consistently makes the point that it has raised operating funds separately for the Met Breuer, though donations are arguably coming from donors who would give to the Met regardless. The Met is working to lift its revenues, particularly in its retail operations, which declined by between $3 million and $4 million over the last year. Mr. Weiss said the retail numbers had already improved. “We are putting greater emphasis on our publications and some of our more distinctive merchandise,” Mr. Weiss said. The museum’s executives said that restructuring is a continuing process, all to create a leaner Met. Asked how the Met — with its board of several financiers — failed to anticipate the $8. 5 million annual debt service on $250 million in bonds issued for capital infrastructure work (one of the reasons given for its deficit) Mr. Weiss said that arrangement had been made before he started. And Mr. Campbell said that the Met is “still learning. ” “What we have to emphasize is, we’re a big institution,” he said. “Turning around in the ocean takes time. ” | 1 |
Michael G. Hubbard, the speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives, whose approach to politics propelled the Republican Party to dominance in his state, was convicted Friday on 12 felony ethics charges, leaving him stripped of power and facing the possibility of decades in prison. The verdict, at the end of Mr. Hubbard’s trial in the Lee County Circuit Court, deepened the political crisis in Alabama, where some of the most influential state officials are facing inquiries and threats of ouster. In recent weeks, the troubles of Mr. Hubbard, who had wielded a level of influence that easily rivaled Gov. Robert Bentley’s power, played out in public as prosecutors portrayed him as financially desperate, privately frustrated and criminally culpable for misconduct under the very ethics law he had helped to strengthen. Although jurors acquitted Mr. Hubbard on 11 counts, his conviction on the remaining dozen charges prompted his removal as the leader of the House. Mr. Hubbard, who was convicted of improperly soliciting benefits from lobbyists and voting in favor of a measure that helped a company for which he consulted, faces up to 20 years in prison on each count. “We hope that this verdict tonight will restore some of the confidence of the people in the state of Alabama,” said W. Van Davis, who oversaw the public corruption inquiry that led to Mr. Hubbard’s indictment in October 2014. Mr. Hubbard, 54, had denounced the indictment from almost the moment it was released, and he and his lawyers argued that he had done nothing illegal, particularly because some of the lobbyists with whom he communicated were personal friends. The charges, they said, amounted to a political assault on a elected official who often seemed to have as many enemies in the capital as he did friends. Mr. Hubbard intends to appeal, but he is expected to be sentenced next month. His conviction and automatic ouster immediately increased the political turmoil that had shadowed Alabama for months, and made it something of a punch line. The chief justice of the State Supreme Court, Roy S. Moore, could be removed from office this year because of his efforts to resist marriage, and Mr. Bentley is a subject of impeachment proceedings over an improper relationship with an aide, as well as federal and state inquiries. “It’s a sad day in the state because people have a distrust in government when you look around all three branches,” State Senator Cam Ward, a Republican, said in an interview after the verdict was announced. “This kind of affirms what people have been thinking. ” Mr. Bentley declined to comment through a spokeswoman, but the state’s attorney general, Luther Strange, also a Republican, welcomed the verdict. “This is a good day for the rule of law in our state,” said Mr. Strange, who added that the decision “should send a clear message that in Alabama, we hold public officials accountable for their actions. ” After the verdict, The Associated Press reported, Mr. Hubbard spoke with his team of lawyers, including a former lieutenant governor, before a deputy escorted him from the courtroom. Jurors began their deliberations Friday afternoon and worked into the night, punctuating a trial in Opelika that was notable as both a public spectacle and a clinic about the practice of power in a Southern state with a long history of corruption prosecutions. Witnesses described regular meetings between Mr. Hubbard and lobbyists, and they spoke of how he had sent emails essentially pleading for consulting work. Mr. Hubbard’s emails were flashed onto a screen and dissected while he sat between his lawyers. Mr. Bentley testified, as did former Gov. Bob Riley, whose appearance became so tense that a prosecutor asked that he be deemed a hostile witness. (Judge Jacob A. Walker III, who will sentence Mr. Hubbard, declined to make such a declaration.) Business leaders also appeared as witnesses — and were asked to discuss why they had each invested $150, 000 in Mr. Hubbard’s struggling printing company — and so did a former state senator, who testified under an immunity agreement. Prosecutors said Mr. Hubbard had abused the power of his office. “He just didn’t want to be held accountable to the law,” a prosecutor, Matt Hart, said last month in his opening statement. Defense lawyers, who called Mr. Hubbard as their only witness, argued that he had taken steps to ensure that he complied with ethics standards and that his efforts to find work were permissible because he had contacted longtime friends. “He tried to follow every part of the ethics law,” a defense lawyer, Bill Baxley, said in the first hours of the trial. Mr. Hubbard’s prosecution was a crucial test for the ethics law, which Republicans had championed after they, under Mr. Hubbard’s leadership, took control of the Legislature in 2010. “This legislation that was passed in 2010 was needed, and prosecutors used it to convict based on violations of the law,” said Paul DeMarco, a former Republican lawmaker. “This may be a black eye on the state of Alabama, but I think all eyes will be on the Alabama Legislature now. ” Addressing reporters outside the courthouse on Friday, Mr. Davis would not discuss other public corruption investigations. “This is probably the first time in recent history that someone at this level in state government has been prosecuted,” he said in an apparent reference to cases brought by Alabama officials. “For that reason, I think it makes a statement. ” | 1 |
On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” veteran columnist Mike Barnicle said, “Now, the delegitimization of the presidency is taking hold within the country, within ordinary people, looking at the presidency, a position they once revered and held on a higher pedestal. Now, it’s like, Trump’s president? Really?” Barnicle stated that “Erratic language from the president is more dangerous than dynamite. ” He later added, “You can make a strong case, I think, that the effort to delegitimize the presidency began during Clinton presidency. And it’s continued through the Bush presidency, the Obama presidency. But this presidency, you can make a case, I think, for one additional step. in addition to delegitimizing the presidency among political people, largely that occurred. Now, the delegitimization of the presidency is taking hold within the country, within ordinary people, looking at the presidency, a position they once revered and held on a higher pedestal. Now, it’s like, Trump’s president? Really?” Barnicle further argued that the “legitimate grievances” that Trump ran and was elected on aren’t being acted on. ( Grabien) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
Video: Trump Voter Dragged from His Car, Brutally Beaten, and Robbed by Gang of Hillary Supporters By: Chase Stephens November 10, 2016
A YouTube video that's making the rounds appears to show a man being beaten and robbed in the middle of the street by a group laughing and shouting that he voted for Trump.
In the clip (below), what appears to be a middle-aged white man is on the ground while two younger black males are hitting and kicking him in the head. The camera person yells, "Happens when you vote Trump, dummy," while a woman next to him shouts, "You voted Trump? You voted Trump? Damn! Yeah, he voted Trump! Damn!"
The man continues to struggle against his two attackers until he gets up and sees that a woman, presumably associated with the attackers, is going through the his car looking for valuables.
"Get out of my car," the man yells as he approaches the women, who shouts back, "You're gonna pay for my shit!" One of the attackers returns and starts punching the man from behind in the back of the head and then continues swinging as the man turns around.
The camera man and his companion continue their color commentary by laughing and yelling, "Beat his ass! Don't vote Trump! Don't vote Trump!"
The video ends with the group acknowledging that they should leave before the police arrive.
In the longer version of the video (below) posted on Twitter, one of the attackers gets into the driver's seat and closes the door. The beaten Trump supporter stands at the car window, presumably telling the thief to get out, as the woman starts to punch him in the back of the head and is joined by the second attacker.
The criminal then hits the gas and takes off in the car as the man desperately holds on from outside through the rear door's window while being dragged through the streets.
(Warning: strong language) Blacks beat white man, steal car, dragging his body. Fbook vid caption: "They Caught A Trump Already" @prisonplanet @Cernovich @JaredWyand pic.twitter.com/yWSX7QdQGH — Sculder Mully 2016 (@MiddleOfMayhem) November 10, 2016
In case YouTube continues to take down the video, a third version is posted below :
| 0 |
Donald J. Trump on Wednesday offered a defiant defense of his campaign’s decision to publish an image widely viewed as — saying he regretted deleting it — and vigorously reaffirmed his praise of Saddam Hussein, the murderous Iraqi dictator. In the span of 30 minutes, an Mr. Trump breathed new life into a controversy that was sparked on Saturday by his posting of an image on his Twitter account of a star next to a picture of Hillary Clinton, with money seeming to rain down in the background. The image was quickly, and broadly, criticized for invoking stereotypes of Jews. Mr. Trump deleted it two hours later, and replaced the star image with a circle. “ ‘You shouldn’t have taken it down,’ ” Mr. Trump recalled telling one of his campaign workers. “I said, ‘Too bad, you should have left it up.’ I would have rather defended it. ” “That’s just a star,” Mr. Trump said repeatedly. It was a striking display of from a presumptive presidential nominee and underscored the limitations of Mr. Trump’s scattershot approach during the Republican primaries — not to mention how difficult he often makes it for his campaign team to control him. The rally in Cincinnati had been promoted by Mr. Trump’s team for two days as a chance for him to give a tryout to a potential running mate, former Speaker Newt Gingrich. Periodically, beginning midway through Mr. Trump’s speech, the crowd chanted Mr. Gingrich’s name, but Mr. Trump did not heed its wishes. Mr. Trump had not discussed the Twitter message at length until Wednesday night, at his rally in Cincinnati, and his remarks seemed to clash with those of his Jared Kushner, an Orthodox Jew, who earlier in the day had defended Mr. Trump in an unusual and candid article, suggesting that the Twitter post was “careless. ” The attention paid to the controversy had begun to die down by the time Mr. Trump took the stage, and he began to read from notes about the criticism leveled against Mrs. Clinton on Tuesday by the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey. But within 20 minutes, Mr. Trump tossed his notes aside and moved on to topics closer to home — the criticism he had received for his praise of Saddam Hussein at a rally Tuesday night in Raleigh, N. C. Mr. Trump reiterated his belief that Hussein was “bad,” but effective at killing terrorists, despite Hussein’s classification by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism. But the bulk of Mr. Trump’s energy was spent on the Twitter post. “They’re racially profiling, they’re profiling, not us,” he said of the news media. Mr. Trump called the news media “dishonest” in the rambling and sometimes address, in which he hopscotched from one topic to another. He angrily lamented his treatment at the hands of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, which he called a “crooked, crooked, disgusting group. ” Raising his voice to a hoarse shout, he complained that the Clinton campaign had released an ad showing Mr. Trump playing golf, though he said he did not play golf on his recent trip to Scotland. “The picture was from two years before,” Mr. Trump said. “At a different course!” He also noted, in a calmer tone, that the clip used by the Clinton campaign made him look thin. “The swing,” he added, “actually looked good. ” At one point, Mr. Trump lamented that his youngest child, Barron, “draws stars all over the place. ” He continued, “I never said, ‘That’s the Star of David, Barron, don’t!’ ” At another, he swatted at a mosquito that landed on his lectern and said he never liked the insects, before adding, “Speaking of mosquitoes, hello, Hillary. How are you doing?” Hours earlier, the deeply private Mr. Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, wrote the article in which he described the “Donald Trump I know. ” Mr. Trump, Mr. Kushner wrote, is not an . He also described his family’s experiences during the Holocaust, adding: “I go into these details, which I have never discussed, because it’s important to me that people understand where I’m coming from when I report that I know the difference between actual, dangerous intolerance versus these labels that get tossed around in an effort to score political points. ” Mr. Kushner obliquely acknowledged that the Star of David post was a mistake, but cited it as evidence of the refreshing originality of Mr. Trump’s campaign. “If my father in law’s team was careless in choosing an image to retweet, well part of the reason it’s so shocking is that it’s the actual candidate communicating with the American public rather than the armies of handlers who ordinary candidates’ every move,” he wrote. But Mr. Trump said several times on Wednesday that he saw nothing wrong with the image. In an interview shortly before the rally, Mr. Trump said, “I didn’t want to delete it — I would have never deleted it. My people deleted it before they told me about it, they did it because of the sensibilities and sensitivities. But when I looked at it, I thought that’s a star. I never thought, that’s the Star of David. ” | 1 |
Working families finally got a raise. Early on Tuesday, the Census Bureau provided some good news for the beleaguered working class: The income of the typical American household perched on the middle rung of the income ladder increased a hearty 5. 2 percent in 2015, the first real increase since 2007, the year before the economy sank into recession. Households all the way down the income scale made more money last year. The average incomes of the poorest fifth of the population increased 6. 6 percent after three consecutive years of decline. And the official poverty rate declined to 13. 5 percent from 14. 8 percent in 2014, the sharpest decline since the late 1960s. The numbers are heartening, confirming that the sluggish yet consistent recovery of the American economy has finally begun to lift all boats. They fit the story coming from the job market, which is about as tight as it has been in a very long time. They follow rises in the minimum wage across many states and municipalities. “This shows the importance of robust labor markets,” said Jared Bernstein, a former top economic adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “If Americans are going to get ahead, it is through a paycheck. ” And yet this positive news — while clearly undermining Donald J. Trump’s unbridled pessimism about the American economy — does not justify unbridled celebration, either. “The next question is why did it take such a long time for things to look good?” said Arloc Sherman of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a policy analysis group. As Sheldon H. Danziger of the Russell Sage Foundation put it, it’s great news that men’s earnings from work increased 1. 5 percent. But they are still lower than in the 1970s. The answer does not just involve sluggish growth. It is also about its distribution. Gains may be finally trickling down to those at the bottom of the ladder. But the numbers still offer a lopsided picture, with a gargantuan share of income rising to the top. While the bottom fifth of households increased their share of the nation’s income, by the census’s definition, to 3. 4 percent from 3. 3 percent, the richest 5 percent kept 21. 8 percent of the pie, the same as in 2014. “There’s an inequality problem,” Mr. Sherman added. Against the backdrop of the last few decades, the income gains revealed on Tuesday underscore how difficult the American economy has made it for average workers to get ahead. In nearly every successive economic cycle, progress came slower and harder than in the previous one. The data, which measured how Americans were doing six years into the economic recovery, show that incomes in the middle, measured in 2015 dollars, were still 1. 6 percent below the previous peak of $57, 423 a household, which was attained in 2007, just before the economy sank into what has come to be known as the Great Recession. How does that look compared to the nation’s recent history? After the economy slipped into recession in 1969, it took only three years for incomes in the middle to rebound and surpass their previous peak. After the downturn of 1973, it took five after recessions in 1981 and 1982, it took seven. And, except for the long expansion that ran from 1991 through 2000, it has been getting worse. The economic growth from late 2001 to about the end of 2007 never even managed to deliver incomes above the previous peak for the typical household, reached near the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency. The expansion underway today may not get there, either. Today, median household incomes are still 2. 4 percent below the absolute peak they hit in 1999 — when Facebook had yet to come into existence, the big news in the music business was Napster, and the good times in Silicon Valley were about to come crashing down with the collapse of the bubble. At the bottom of the ladder, households at the 10th percentile — those poorer than 90 percent of the population — are still a bit poorer than they were in 1989. Americans have managed to develop an internet economy, invent social media and build driverless cars since then, but not to improve the lot of those at the bottom. What’s more, changes starting in 2013 in the way the census asks people about their incomes can distort comparisons with previous years. After adjusting the data for these changes, according to Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute, the income of American households in the middle of the distribution last year was still 4. 6 percent below its level in 2007 and 5. 4 percent below where it was in 1999. Of course, the Census Bureau’s numbers on income and poverty don’t add up to a perfect representation of families’ means. For one thing, they include only “money income” — excluding government benefits like housing vouchers or food stamps. They don’t include the impact of taxes, ignoring the tax credit, which provides substantial help to families with low earnings. The official poverty line, moreover, is assessed using a basket of necessities defined in the 1960s — which has little to do with people’s lives today. Over the last few years the census has also published an alternative Supplemental Poverty Measure — which keeps a better tab on Americans’ income and expenditures. Using that count, poverty dipped to 14. 3 percent, the lowest level since the census began compiling it in 2009. Analysts like Scott Winship of the Manhattan Institute have argued for some time that income numbers, like those published by the Congressional Budget Office, suggest that Americans in the middle of the income distribution and below have not done badly over recent decades. He concludes that the best strategy to promote the welfare of working Americans is to focus on improving overall economic growth. The fixation with inequality and income distribution, he says, will produce bad policy. The current census data does suggest that growth can ultimately bring prosperity to average Americans. Still, it also points to the persistence of wide inequality as being at the center of the story. Across the entire bottom 60 percent of the distribution, households are taking home a smaller slice of the pie than they did in the 1960s and 1970s. The 3. 4 percent of income that households in the bottom fifth took home last year was less than the 5. 8 percent they had in 1974. With their share shrinking with almost every economic cycle, it is hardly a surprise that it takes longer for them to experience any income gains at all. Growth, alone, is not adding to their prosperity as it once did. By contrast, households in the top 5 percent have profited nicely from America’s expansions. In 2015, they took in $350, 870, on average. That is 4. 9 percent more than in 1999 and 37. 5 percent more than in 1989. Historical precedent suggests the latest economic expansion is getting long in the tooth. Lawrence Summers, Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and a top economic adviser in President Obama’s first term, says there are better than even odds today that the United States will tip into a recession within three years. In July, Deutsche Bank said the probability of a recession within the next 12 months had jumped to 60 percent, the highest since August 2008. JPMorgan thinks the odds are 37 percent. For all but Americans at the very top, that means that the punch bowl may well be taken away again before the party really gets going. That is not how a economy should work. | 1 |
By Far The Best UFO Video Out There, Recorded In Guadalajara # Grey 0
The lightning reveals the hidden structure with detail, and shows notable brightening of the lights as the lightning strikes. What interests me is that if these were non reflective, and with a constant exposure, their brilliance would not change. If the exposure did change rapidly, the shutter speed would become more brief, making the lights appear more dim; which is not the case. Tags | 0 |
WASHINGTON, D. C. — Donald Trump’s first act as president will reportedly be to “clamp down” on the country’s immigration system and refugee resettlement program, while enforcing a “ ” method, focusing on skilled workers. [In a new piece by the LA Times, the newspaper says Trump will immediately focus on the broken immigration system, both legal and illegal, just as his campaign for president promised: Gone will be the temporary protections of the final Obama years for people in the country illegally. In their place, expect to see images on the evening news of workplace raids as Trump sends a message that he is wasting no time on his promised crackdown. The LA Times cites Trump spokesman Sean Spicer’s statement on immigration as an indication that the incoming administration will not take a backseat to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the issue. “We need to get control of our borders and we need to get control of our immigration system, and we can do it in a very smart and methodical way that ensures that the priority is first and foremost people who seek to cause us harm or who are a danger in a community,” Spicer told the LA Times. The LA Times also noted Trump’s widespread powers as president over the country’s immigration system, writing that “Trump can act on immigration without Congress”: Taken together, the actions would result in a significant shift in how immigration law is enforced, which could itself create a ripple effect that alters the immigration pool and how the 11 million or so in the U. S. illegally live their lives. Unlike some of his other plans, such as replacing Obamacare, Trump can act on immigration without Congress under the president’s wide legal authority to control borders. “We’re going to move very quickly on the border,” Vice Mike Pence told NBC News on Wednesday, saying Trump could even use his executive power to start on his chief immigration pledge — building a wall along the border with Mexico. That on immigration could come via a immigration system, which would mean less immigrants and more workers to take jobs that cannot be filled from the country’s native population, POLITICO reported. “We’re going to have great people and people of great talent coming into our country,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Friends. “And if you can think of this, some of the Silicon Valley companies want to build up in Canada, because in Canada, they’re able to get the people that they need and they can’t get them in this country because we don’t allow them in this country. ” “So we’re going to take care of a lot of situations,” Trump continued, referring the country’s immigration system. “And we’re going to have a lot of heart, believe me. It’s going to be a heart almost as big as yours. ” The immigration plan could be trotted out by the incoming Trump administration “over the next two to three months,” as he noted in the interview. Immigration groups like NumbersUSA heralded the potential system, saying that it would favor giving legal immigrant residence to individuals who fill jobs, rather than the current system which favors family members of immigrants already living in the U. S. John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. | 1 |
A una chica se le sincroniza el Mac con la regla DURANTE EL PERIODO, EL ORDENADOR DESACTIVA LA CÁMARA PORQUE NO QUIERE VER A NADIE Siri
A Marisa Puertas, una joven de 27 años natural de Torrelodones, se le ha sincronizado el Mac con la regla. Esta vecina de la Comunidad de Madrid, clienta de Apple desde hace dos años, comenzó a sospechar que algo raro pasaba en sus últimas menstruaciones cuando Siri empezó a responderle con escuetos monosílabos. “Noté que tenía menos paciencia y que estaba muy irritada, como yo”, explica la joven.
Marisa, acostumbrada ya a que su regla se sincronice con la de todos sus dispositivos, agradece sentirse más acompañada en esos días del mes. “Nunca me quedo sin tampones porque Siri me recuerda que los compre ya que ella también los necesita”, explica encantada.
Reconoce, eso sí, que los días que tiene la regla el Mac funciona mucho más lento y es mejor no agobiarlo con demasiadas peticiones. “Se pasa todo el día en modo hibernación”, lamenta Marisa. “Es como tener un PC durante cinco días al mes”, añade. Durante la menstruación, el sistema operativo sufre desarreglos en sus procesos de ejecución y también desactiva la cámara porque no quiere ver a nadie.
“A veces rescata fotos de mi ex pareja y me recuerda que hay que comprar helado de chocolate”, explica Puertas. “Y se pone a buscar en Google a qué huele la nube”, dice.
Apple ha admitido esta semana que la menstruación de sus dispositivos “es un proceso natural del que no hay que avergonzarse” y que puede traducirse en una mayor sensibilidad de la pantalla táctil y un mayor consumo de batería. La compañía recomienda que, durante el periodo, se guarde el dispositivo en el sofá, sin enlazar con otros dispositivos “y bien tapadito con su funda”. | 0 |
Click Here To Learn More About Alexandra's Personalized Essences Psychic Protection Click Here for More Information on Psychic Protection! Implant Removal Series Click here to listen to the IRP and SA/DNA Process Read The Testimonials Click Here To Read What Others Are Experiencing! Copyright © 2012 by Galactic Connection. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpts may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Alexandra Meadors and www.galacticconnection.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any material on this website without express and written permission from its author and owner is strictly prohibited. Thank you.
Privacy Policy
By subscribing to GalacticConnection.com you acknowledge that your name and e-mail address will be added to our database. As with all other personal information, only working affiliates of GalacticConnection.com have access to this data. We do not give GalacticConnection.com addresses to outside companies, nor will we ever rent or sell your email address. Any e-mail you send to GalacticConnection.com is completely confidential. Therefore, we will not add your name to our e-mail list without your permission. Continue reading... Galactic Connection 2016 | Design & Development by AA at Superluminal Systems Sign Up forOur Newsletter
Join our newsletter to receive exclusive updates, interviews, discounts, and more. Join Us! | 0 |
The White House on Thursday said the Obama administration was responsible for issuing former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn a security clearance in 2016, amid news of a Pentagon inspector general investigation into a trip he took to Russia in 2015. [“His clearance was last reissued by the Obama administration in 2016 with full knowledge of his activities that occurred in 2015,” Spicer said. News broke on Thursday that the Defense Intelligence Agency’s inspector general is investigating into whether Flynn was improperly paid by Russia Today, a government entity, for a speech he gave in Russia in 2015 before he joined the administration. “So the issue is, you know, he was issued a security clearance under the Obama administration in the spring of 2016. The trip and — and transactions that you’re referring to occurred in December of 2015, from what I understand,” Spicer said. “Obviously, there’s an issue that — that, as you point out, the Department of Defense inspector general’s looking into. We welcome that,” he said. Reporters at Thursday’s White House press briefing repeatedly questioned Spicer whether the White House was satisfied with its vetting of Flynn before he became the national security adviser. Spicer said Flynn — a retired Army general who had led the Defense Intelligence Agency — “was a career military officer who maintained a security clearance throughout his career in the military” and that his clearance had been reissued by the Obama administration in 2016 after Flynn’s trip to Russia. Spicer said that someone with a top security clearance only has to fill out a form known as the every five years. “In between that period, you’re responsible for updating the information that you’ve provided in accordance with the agency that issued that,” he said. “When General Flynn came into the White House, he had an active security clearance that was issued during the Obama administration with all of the information that’s being discussed that occurred in 2015,” he said. The press secretary compared the situation to reporters not having to get their backgrounds rechecked for clearance to the White House when a new administration comes in: When you applied to come here to this briefing room as a member of the press, you applied you filled out certain forms with the Secret Service to have your background run. When I came in here on January 20th, the people that had been cleared the day before were cleared on the 20th, the 21st and et cetera. We didn’t your background. We trust that when you were cleared the first time, whether if you were cleared on, you know, December 15th or January 20th, that you were still — that your background check still cleared. Every individual who came into this White House either applied for a security clearance or had one. Everyone in the government goes through the same process — every single person. And so why would you a background check on someone who is the head of the Department of Defense Intelligence Agency that had and did maintain a security clearance? That’s it. It doesn’t — there’s no difference between administrations when you come in from one, they it. You — they — the reason they grant them for five years is that it’s a very extensive background where they check your contacts, your places of residence, your employment. They go out in the field. They do a lot of that work. And then you are required to maintain updates to that clearance. They readjudicate it every five years. That occurred in this case. And now the Department of Defense inspector general is looking into it. As to whether President Trump made the right decision to fire Flynn in February, after it came to light he had discussed U. S. sanctions on Russia when he told Vice President Mike Pence he hadn’t, Spicer said it was the right call. “I think the president made the right call at the right time, and it’s clearly paid off,” he said. The House Oversight Committee is looking into whether Flynn misled the government about his speaking engagements and payments from foreign governments before he became national security advisor. Spicer said he referred the committee to the Defense Department for documents related to Flynn’s security clearance, since they were the issuing agency. Spicer said requests for copies of his speaking engagements were referred to a speakers’ bureau, and they did have information on foreign contacts before his time at the White House. “I think we have complied with every document that they’ve looked for,” Spicer said. | 1 |
By Cassius Kamarampi and Brandon Turbeville (Era of Wisdom) Brandon Turbeville took a trip to Lebanon, and almost made it to Syria last month, to report on what is really going on. He observed no... | 0 |
The video was startling and soon went viral: A white sheriff’s deputy in a South Carolina high school drags a black girl from her desk, slams her to the floor and then handcuffs her. The girl’s crime? She had refused a teacher’s order to put away her cellphone, then refused an order to leave the classroom. Taped by her fellow students at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, that jolting encounter last October was widely condemned as police overkill. It led to the officer’s rapid dismissal, a federal civil rights investigation and national reflection on the line between youthful misbehavior and criminal activity, and on the proper role of police in the schools. But the episode also threw into relief South Carolina’s “disturbing schools” law, which makes it a crime “to disturb in any way or in any place the students or teachers of any school” or “to act in an obnoxious manner. ” Now that law, which some legal experts say may be the broadest and vaguest of its kind in the country, is being challenged in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday. One of the plaintiffs is Niya Kenny, a classmate of the defiant girl in the video, who stood and yelled curses at the officer for his rough behavior. Both girls were arrested and charged with disrupting class. In an interview this week, Ms. Kenny, now 18, described her turmoil as she was handcuffed at school and taken in a paddy wagon to spend several hours at an adult detention center where she was fingerprinted and had a mug shot taken — all, she said, because she stood up for her classmate. “I was just terrified through the whole day,” she recalled. According to Ms. Kenny’s account and the police report of her arrest, she did nothing to physically interfere with the sheriff’s deputy as he grabbed and slammed her classmate. “I was cursing at him and saying it was unfair,” she recalled. More than 1, 200 students, disproportionately black, are arrested under this law each year, according to state data, for everything from disobeying a teacher’s order to fighting in the hallway. For many, like Ms. Kenny, it means a first, stinging encounter with the criminal justice system, bringing the stigma of an arrest record and often derailing their schooling — a potential step in what has been described nationally as a pernicious “schools to prison pipeline. ” With its vague evocation of criminal acts, the law “creates an impossible standard for school children to follow and for police to enforce with consistency and fairness,” according to the suit, which was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of several students. The statute “sweeps within the purview of criminal law and the court system a broad swath of adolescent behavior,” according to the complaint, filed in the Charleston division of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. It asks that the law be thrown out as an unconstitutional violation of due process under the 14th Amendment. Matt Orr, a spokesman for the South Carolina attorney general’s office, said Thursday that officials were reviewing the complaint and could not comment further on pending litigation. Students through age 16 are charged under the law as juveniles, their cases handled in family court. Those who are 17 or older are charged as adults. students are four times as likely as white students to be charged, state records indicate, and across the state, as a result of the vagueness in the law, the same act can draw a verbal warning in one school and a criminal charge in another. Conviction can result in detention of up to 90 days and a $1, 000 fine, but the more common results are diversion to counseling, probation or placement in special disciplinary schools. While about 18 states have laws covering disruption of schools, most focus on acts by nonstudents or more precisely defined criminal acts, said Josh an expert on juvenile justice at the University of South Carolina School of Law. “South Carolina’s law is broader than what you see in other states,” he said. Criminalizing matters of school discipline can have destructive lifelong effects on young people, Mr. noted, citing evidence that when children are arrested and have even a single court appearance they are less likely to graduate from high school and more likely to have further brushes with the law. In the October encounter, the girl dragged from her desk was a juvenile and the status of her prosecution is confidential. But Ms. Kenny was 17 — an adult in state criminal court — so her case is in the public record. She did not expect the deputy to follow through on his threat to arrest her, she said, but when he the classroom moments after taking out the first girl, she stood up and put her hands behind her back, submitting to cuffing without a struggle. She said that she cried and her knees buckled as she walked past teachers and other students to the paddy wagon. After the arrest, a school official told her mother that she would probably be expelled. In the end she was not, but she felt “humiliated and fearful of returning to school,” she said, and her mother also advised against returning to a place where she could be arrested for no reason. She withdrew and obtained a G. E. D. at an adult education center. “Because of this incident, I missed out on my last year of high school,” she said in a statement appended to the lawsuit. “I did not have the opportunity to go the prom with the people I have been in school with since the ninth grade, and I did not get to attend graduation with my classmates. ” The charge against Ms. Kenny is pending in court, with a hearing scheduled in September. Outrage over the October episode led to efforts this spring to amend the disputed law. A proposal sponsored by State Representative Mia S. McLeod, Democrat of Richland County, would apply penalties to outsiders who disrupt schools, but not to existing students. “Law enforcement officers should be called in to deal with real criminal acts, not ordinary disciplinary issues,” Ms. McLeod said in an interview. Her bill gained bipartisan support but stalled when a prosecutor and a sheriff’s group defended the law as a necessary tool in an era when more children refuse to obey the rules. Jarrod Bruder, the executive director of the state sheriffs association, told legislators that while the definition of disturbing schools should be sharpened, the law allowed officers to arrest misbehaving students on minor charges rather than considering more serious charges like assault. Ms. McLeod is now running for the State Senate for the district that includes Spring Valley High School. She said she hoped to revive the bill next year. Even as debate continues over the criminal law, state education officials, in another response to the October encounter, are developing new guidelines for police officers and disciplinary procedures. On Tuesday, after months of deliberations by an advisory group, the State Board of Education gave tentative approval to a plan that would limit officers’ involvement in disciplinary issues that do not involve serious crimes or threats to safety, and provide new rankings for student infractions and appropriate punishments. The proposed changes could go before the General Assembly next year. | 1 |
Earlier I skewered nine dictators, thugs, demagogues, and politicians adored by leftists despite considerable failings in policy, ethics, and hygiene. Here are six more over-hyped figures revered by leftists who always get everything wrong.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
How the world remembers: FDR led America through the Great Depression and WWII, remembered fondly by seniors who heard his inspiring fireside chats.
The ugly truth: Some economists argue that FDR’s measures prolonged the Great Depression . All the New Deal programs were struck down as unconstitutional, except Social Security. He got the Supreme Court to back off by threatening to pack the Court with more members with views to his liking. That restrained their judicial opinion, though the Constitution doesn’t grant Congress the power to create a Federal retirement system.
Social Security works—though it’s slim pickings if it’s a retiree’s only income—and for decades the surplus has been a cash cow offsetting Congressional overspending . However, the aging Baby Boomers who didn’t have enough children might turn the cash cow into an albatross. Further, the Social Security Number is now a de-facto universal ID number; a convenient database field for monitoring citizens . America’s Founding Fathers would have been appalled at today’s domestic spying , and the Soviet dictators of old would have wept with envy.
FDR pledged to keep the USA out of WWII . Meanwhile, he quietly did everything possible to antagonize Japan, a once-friendly nation, such as (among several items) freezing their assets and cutting off their oil supply. When he got intelligence of the upcoming attack on Pearl Harbor, he didn’t order the base to be locked and loaded.
If that wasn’t bad enough: So nearly a quarter million Americans died in battle, but at least the pivotal intervention came just in time to “make the world safe for democracy”, right? Unfortunately, FDR was far too friendly with the USSR, giving them nearly $11 billion in food, weaponry, and other supplies (about $119 billion adjusted for inflation).
At the Yalta conference, FDR agreed to let “Uncle Joe” Stalin take over Eastern Europe. General Patton wanted to press forward at full speed to keep as much territory as possible away from Soviet tyranny, but politics hampered him every step of the way until he got rubbed out . When the Iron Curtain rose and the Cold War began, Winston Churchill said, “We slaughtered the wrong pig.” If only Roosevelt had listened to his generals!
FDR wasn’t a Communist, but many of his appointees and trusted advisers were. Later, Joseph McCarthy barely scratched the surface trying to get rid of them.
Walter Cronkite
How the world remembers: He was a long-time CBS anchorman, reporting many triumphs and tragedies. A friendly face on living room TVs for decades, he became everyone’s “Uncle Walter”. According to polls, he was the “most trusted man in America”.
The ugly truth: Although a decent fellow in person, Cronkite was the archetypal big-name liberal journalist , spinning the news for decades. Sometimes it was rather subliminal, including his signature subtle sneer. Most of the public then believed journalists were muckrakers and unbiased truth-tellers; as Cronkite’s tagline went, “And that’s the way it is.”
Until Cronkite’s late career, the mainstream media had a veneer of respectability—perhaps like warped plastic barely sticking to crumbling particleboard, but a veneer nonetheless. There once were only three American corporate TV networks. From Manhattan, they were the public’s information gatekeepers; no other broadcast news (besides shortwave radio) was available. Baby Boomer liberals might get a bit misty-eyed remembering those days. Today, six mega-conglomerates own 90% of the media, but at least the Internet lets us present our own perspectives and call out biased reporters .
If that wasn’t bad enough : His biggest whopper was about the Tet Offensive. The Viet Cong launched a desperate all-out assault, suffered very heavy losses, mostly it was over within a day, and ultimately the VC gained no territory. However, “the most trusted man in America” gave them a propaganda victory, reporting that the Vietnam War was hopeless. Public opinion promptly turned against the war. Ho Chi Minh should’ve given Cronkite a medal, an honorary VC generalship, and a dozen roses.
Many forget that the 1973 Paris Accords brought peace. Two years later, though, the shaky Ford administration couldn’t persuade Congress to respond appropriately to a Shit Test by North Vietnam. Then they invaded, and Saigon fell. All that’s a long story, but public opinion from biased reporting certainly didn’t help. That affected America’s prestige abroad, along with the lives of millions of South Vietnamese killed or sent to “reeducation camps” .
Allen Ginsberg
How the world remembers: He was a pioneer of the beatniks, much beloved by the hippies who followed, and lauded with several literary prizes. Some even credit him with basically starting the 1960s counterculture singlehandedly.
The ugly truth: Ginsberg was neurotic and a degenerate. He wrote a so-called poem about his sphincter (yes, really) but the rest isn’t much better. Anyone considering his bathroom wall ravings as “profound” either is educated beyond his ability to comprehend, believed the hype and didn’t read it, or dropped too much acid.
“Howl”, his best-known poem, begins “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness”. A brief excerpt (get some brain bleach) describing these “best minds”:
who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism,
who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed,
who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons,
who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,
who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts,
who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love,
who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may, …
Even overlooking the lunacy, buggery, and butthurt, Ginsberg’s “free verse” is stylistically lazy. Back when poetry meant Keats and Kipling, it rhymed and had meter.
He was a noted critic of the USA, for example:
America, I used to be a communist when I was a kid I’m not sorry
Ginsberg visited several Communist countries, getting himself deported from some of them for immorality. He abandoned his ancestral faith for Buddhism and had a Hare Krishna phase. What people believe is up to them, of course, but adding these two things up—along with his wretched poetry—reveals a tortured soul. Rejecting everything one belongs to is childish rebellion for rebellion’s sake.
Granted, Ginsberg’s popularity was greatest during the screwed-up “kill your parents” 1960s. Still, what were those who promoted his crapulous drivel smoking? Were the literary gatekeepers pushing cultural Marxism running out of talented writers?
If that wasn’t bad enough: Ginsberg joined the North American Man/Boy Love Association, sometimes speaking kindly on their behalf. Explaining in an accurately titled interview—“Politics, Pederasty and Consciousness”—to the Harvard Crimson :
As I get older, having very specialised sexual tastes, it gets harder to make out… I like young boys. Why?… I’d have more chance at making out with younger guys if I were younger, dewier, dewy-limbed.
The media usually portrays pickup artists as reprobates, and screeched about Donald Trump’s years-old private locker room talk, but the presstitutes (likewise the lefty “intelligentsia”) fawningly praised Ginsberg despite his appetite for young boys .
Ted Kennedy Best friends forever, east and west
How the world remembers: He was “the Lion of the Senate”, representing Massachusetts from 1962 until his death in 2009. This champion of social justice carried on the Kennedy legacy—hailed as America’s nobility—after his two brothers were tragically slain.
The ugly truth: He was as passionate for booze and adultery as he was for social justice, but the suckers kept reelecting him. His lack of character sank way deeper, though; all the way underwater.
After a night of partying on Chappaquiddick Island, Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge. He escaped, but failed to help his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. Per one of the investigators, she suffocated slowly in an air pocket for about two hours. If he’d ran to a nearby house for help—rather than waiting nine hours to sober up—she would’ve survived. He got a two month suspended sentence, barely a slap on the wrist for vehicular manslaughter. The judge basically said poor Teddy had suffered enough. (What about how Miss Kopechne suffered?) There’s one set of rules for the elites , and another for us. Shortly thereafter, he tried to spin-doctor it with a “woe is me” shtick. The suckers kept reelecting him, though a Presidential bid was now beyond reach.
As for his many legislative actions, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was the most notorious. He promised the public :
First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same… Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset… Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia…. In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think… The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs .
The “Lion of the Senate” was lyin’ his fat ass off! This population replacement policy threatens America’s future , just as the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan is doing in Europe. Still, the suckers kept reelecting him.
If that wasn’t bad enough: Besides giving away the country to which the Constitution granted “the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity “, Lyin’ Ted was in cahoots with the KGB . He proposed to help his Soviet pal Yuri Andropov with tidying up the USSR’s image problem during the Cold War’s endgame. The damning documents suggested that Walter Cronkite (see above) and Barbara Walters might be used for this effort. Conservatives often suspect liberals are soft on Communism; little did they know how cozy Ted Kennedy was in bed with Comrade Andropov.
John Lennon
How the world remembers: He was a talented musician, arguably the most prominent of the Beatles. Their story was an archetypal garage band becoming a bar band and eventually breaking out into great fame. Lennon produced dozens of hits that still get air play. He’s remembered as a wonderful man, an embodiment of the 1960s (the good parts , anyway), and the conscience of the world.
The ugly truth: Despite Lennon’s considerable talents, not all his songs were excellent. Things slipped with the White Album . (“Revolution 9”, really?) After the Beatles broke up, he started a solo career, often featuring songs with sophomoric political poses. His last album produced during his life—after dragging himself out of a long heroin stupor—was Double Fantasy . Critics at first agreed that it sucked. After a nut shot Lennon, they felt sorry for him and declared it brilliant.
Lennon was the archetypal leftist celebrity using fame to push politics. Granted, everyone has a right to their opinion, but being able to sing or act confers no special political expertise. His song “Imagine” is particularly telling. As he put it:
Imagine that there was no more religion, no more country, no more politics,’ is virtually the Communist Manifesto, even though I’m not particularly a Communist and I do not belong to any movement.
Being under the shadow of the Berlin Wall back in their bar gig days should’ve precluded sophomoric posturing like this.
If that wasn’t bad enough: His failings are quite troubling, too numerous to fully detail. One item is abandoning his family the way his own father did. A truly wonderful man wouldn’t do that.
Another item was his extensive substance abuse. He spent 1974 guzzling booze, his “lost weekend”. One night, a waitress refused service because he stuck a menstrual pad on his head. Then:
Lennon: “Do you know who I am?”
Waitress: “Yeah, you’re some asshole with a Kotex on his forehead.”
One Lennon biographer asked Timothy Leary, who’d been on hundreds of acid trips, what Lennon’s extreme LSD consumption would do. Leary had no idea! Finally, what kind of inner vacuum caused this highly successful musician, much beloved by the public, to get himself strung out on heroin?
Jimmy Carter In this heart-warming scene, Jimmy Carter and Uncle Fidel stand for the Cuban national anthem in Havana
How the world remembers: Carter is praised as a rare honest politician, exemplifying Christian principles and tolerance.
The ugly truth: The economy tanked during the Carter administration: double-digit inflation and high unemployment. Economists are still puzzled by stagflation; normally, unemployment and inflation are inversely correlated. At least Obama gave economists another data point to study.
Carter’s commendably not corrupt, but exemplified bleeding-hearted liberalism. Despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize for not being George W. Bush (likewise Al Gore and The Lightworker), Carter was a lackluster embarrassment. He was known for TMI statements, for example about his hemorrhoids and committing adultery in his heart (at least Clinton had the balls to do it for real). He ranked lower than Mr. Whipple on a face recognition survey. The Boston Globe reported on one of his speeches with the headline “More Mush From the Wimp”; finally journalists got something right.
Carter’s shining foreign policy moment was the Camp David Accords, establishing peace between Egypt and Israel. America started giving over a billion annually to each party for making peace, which ironically supplies their military. Why? The USA wasn’t even a combatant, aside from the USS Liberty incident which certainly shouldn’t inspire American tribute money. Taxpayers still fund this absurd protection racket.
Worse, he badly bungled the Iran hostage crisis. One Iranian official later stated they would’ve released the hostages if the USA had threatened force in the beginning. Yep, Carter failed Iran’s Shit Test. Consequentially, the USA lost tons of international prestige, and the ordeal of the hostages dragged on unnecessarily.
If that wasn’t bad enough: Carter is often a little too cordial with notorious dictators . Worse, Clinton trusted him to represent the USA during disarmament talks with North Korea. They gave him the Potemkin village show; he bought it hook, line, and sinker. Yet again, Carter was played for a chump—the USA opened its wallet and gave North Korea aid, and they pinky-swore to stop their nuclear program. Now the Norks have nukes—surprise! Awesome job, Mister Nice Guy!
Read More: The Ugly Truth Of Leftist “Heroes”
| 0 |
A Sarasota, Florida, homeowner attacked armed robbery suspects with a machete, not only stopping the robbery, but disarming the suspects. [The incident occurred on the homeowner’s porch and was caught on a security camera. According to Daily Mail, three suspects entered the homeowner’s covered porch, “armed with a crowbar, a machete and a shotgun. ” The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) said the homeowner “feared for his life,” so he retreated to his home’s interior and retrieved a machete for . The SCSO said they first received a call about “a suspicious person armed with a rifle, at a home in the 2100 block of Dodge Avenue. ” As deputies sped to the scene, they received a second call “indicating that the homeowner disarmed the suspect and was holding him until law enforcement arrived”: SCSO arrested Alen Angel and Ronier and charged them for their alleged “attempt to rob the victim. ” Deputies also arrested Jorge and Roberto claiming they were waiting outside the home in the car and had taken part in planning the failed robbery. They “face two counts each of Principal to Armed Robbery. ” The suspect who possessed the shotgun faces additional charges for “possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. ” AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins. a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com. | 1 |
November 21, 2016 - By Eduard Popov for Fort Russ - translated by J. Arnoldski -
On November 21st, Ukrainian President Poroshenko admitted that Ukrainians' quality of life has not improved over the three years since the events on the Maidan and is still far from European standards. However, he did find an excuse for his failed economic policies, explaining the failures of Ukraine’s economy by “objective factors” and the need to spend more than 5% of GDP on “the defense and security sector and the creation of a new army.”
In addition, Poroshenko tried to shift the blame onto his predecessors, saying that economic reforms necessary to ensure the necessary growth of the economy had not been pursued in the country for a long time.
The Euromaidan, as we remember, stood under one main slogan: joining the EU, which the “criminal regime” of President Yanukovych hindered. After nearly 3 years since the victory of the Maidan and the overthrow of the “criminal” government, no one is waiting for Ukraine in the EU and Ukrainians’ living standards have declined dramatically.
Poroshenko, however, still found positive changes in the life of Ukraine. A bit earlier, on November 20th, he stated that for the first time in several years, namely after 14 quarters of decline, the country noted a growth in the economy. He called the International Monetary Fund’s aid to the Ukrainian state the defining moment behind this. Moreover, Poroshenko promised to significantly raise wages in the near future, particularly for doctors, teachers, and other public sector workers. Poroshenko compared the Ukrainian economy with a patient finally leaving the hospital and going on the mend.
Ukraine’s economy is, in my opinion, most likely not recovering, but is a stably critically ill patient. If any improvements happen, then they affect only certain industries that have very little growth. If we take longer periods and the entire economy as a whole, then the Ukrainian economy does not demonstrate any positive outlook. This was recognized by the ex-governor of the Odessa region, Mikhail Saakashvili, according to whom Ukraine needs at least 15 years to regain the level of development it had under President Yanukovych. Poroshenko’s promises that the money provided by the IMF will bring social benefits sound like pure populism, or more like demagoguery.
The IMF loan is too relatively small to have any significant impact on the macroeconomic situation in this country of 40 million (according to inflated official figures) with a depressed economy and enormous social burden (over 12 million Ukrainians are pensioners).
Ukrainian experts themselves have noted that the lion’s share of the loan will go, first of all, to service debt, and, secondly, to infrastructural reform. Ukraine will see no real spending money from the IMF, as such is largely means provided to service debt problems. Poroshenko, like an experienced businessman setting up a new business, is openly lying when he says otherwise.
A number of Ukrainian experts suggest that the IMF money is needed by Kiev for political concerns. When getting money, the government never forgets to remind everyone that as long as the loans are coming in, this means that the West has not ditched them.
As calculated by the executive director of Blazer International Fund, Oleg Ustenko, Kiev is already forced to allocate 5% of its entire GDP to covering debt. In order for the economy to show growth, it would have to grow at a rate above 5%, otherwise GDP will decline.
Poroshenko also compared the reforms supposedly underway in Ukraine to those carried out in Central and Eastern European countries. This analogy makes sense. The results of these reforms, which liberal experts consider successful, essentially transitioned the economies and financial systems of the socialist camp countries to the control of Western companies and transnational corporations. Therein, the countries of the former socialist camp lost their economic sovereignty.
When Poroshenko compares supposedly successful reforms in Ukraine with the “successful” reforms in these European countries, he is right in only one aspect: Ukrainians too will lose their right to their own property and resources.
Follow us on Facebook!
Follow us on Twitter!
Donate!
| 0 |
LONDON — The British government announced plans on Tuesday to crack down on voter fraud by requiring voters to show official identification at polling stations, tightening rules on absentee ballots and preventing political activists from handling absentee ballots. While some critics argued that fraud was not widespread and that the plans would hit the opposition Labour Party and the poor the hardest, the government minister in charge, Chris Skidmore, said that the new measures would “protect anyone who is at risk of being bullied, undermined or tricked out of their vote, and their democratic right. ” The government had commissioned a report on fraud after a scandal in Tower Hamlets, a borough in East London, where the elected mayor was stripped of his office last year and found guilty of corrupt practices involving voting fraud. The report was compiled by a former cabinet minister, Eric Pickles, who called Tower Hamlets a “ call” when introducing it. “There are sometimes challenging issues over divisive community politics and polarization, but this is no excuse for failing to enforce British law and protect the integrity of our democratic process,” he concluded in the report. In his report, he cited research suggesting that certain Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities could be more vulnerable to fraud. He suggested that “kinship” traditions emphasized collective over individual rights and made it more likely that people would “hand over” their vote to others. Ken Livingstone, a former London mayor and a member of the Labour Party before being suspended for comments, said the new checks would make life more difficult for many to vote. “The real problem is the people most likely not to have a passport or a driving license are going to be the poorest and that I suspect will basically hit the Labour Party,” he told the BBC on Tuesday. Some suggested that the changes, to be used first for local elections in 18 areas in May 2018, would most affect Britain’s Asian communities, which tend to vote Labour. Among those areas considered most susceptible to fraud are Birmingham and Bradford, which have large Muslim communities. Cat Smith, the Labour member in charge of voter engagement and youth affairs, said the party as a whole supported the changes. But she criticized what she called Conservative Party moves in general to reduce the electoral rolls. A new requirement that students, once automatically registered by their schools, register individually is thought to have cut voter turnout in the June referendum on leaving the European Union, also known as “Brexit,” which young people generally opposed. Mr. Skidmore said that the trial in 2018 was partly intended to see what kinds of proof of identity were best in a country without a national identity card, unlike most of Europe. It is possible that other proof of address like utility bills or proof of voter registration may be used as well as documents with photographs, like driving licenses and passports. Mr. Skidmore also rejected the accusation that electoral fraud was associated with any one community, although he said racial and cultural sensitivities might have discouraged the police from earlier investigating the case of Tower Hamlets. After absentee ballots were made available to any registered voter in 2000 under the prime minister at the time, Tony Blair, there was evidence that some political activists were “harvesting” them from old addresses and filling them out, or collecting them in bulk from some voters. Voters in Northern Ireland, with a long history of electoral pressure in a divided community, have had identity checks at polling stations since 1985, and since 2002 have had to bring photographic IDs, since other forms of documentation were too easily forged. The Electoral Reform Society, a lobbying group, criticized the government’s plan as a “sledgehammer to crack a nut,” arguing that voting fraud was not widespread in Britain and that “the government should think very carefully before introducing barriers to voting,” said its chief executive, Katie Ghose. “Raising barriers to democratic participation could just put people off voting — and evidence from the U. S. shows that it’s generally those already most excluded from the political process that are worst affected by strict ID laws,” she said. “The government should think again and look at all the evidence on voter ID before deciding to use this blunt instrument. ” The group had previously criticized the referendum to leave the European Union for “glaring democratic deficiencies,” in particular because voters had been so since “misleading claims could be made with total impunity. ” Separately, the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, reacted angrily to comments by President Obama — made in the same interview in which he said he would have defeated Donald J. Trump — that seemed to suggest that the Labour Party had lost its footing. Asked if, after Hillary Clinton’s election defeat, the Democrats could undergo “Corbynization” and “disintegrate” like Labour, Mr. Obama said he was not concerned. “I don’t worry about that, partly because I think that the Democratic Party has stayed pretty grounded in fact and reality,” he said. A party spokesman said that Mr. Corbyn “stands for what most people want” and suggested that the American Democratic Party needed to “challenge power if they are going to speak for working people and change a broken system that isn’t delivering for the majority. ” | 1 |
. Soros-Funded Anarcho-Terrorists Plotting to Overthrow the US Government Dave Hodges from The Commonsense Show interviewed Mike Adams a few days ago about how the radical vi... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/soros-funded-anarcho-terrorists.html Dave Hodges from The Commonsense Show interviewed Mike Adams a few days ago about how the radical violent left plans to destroy the coming Trump administration and overthrow the Republic to put their own criminal cronies into power. The video, which is embedded below (and also available at this link ), is a nearly one hour discussion of the tricks and tactics that will be invoked by the criminal left ( the Clintons, Obama, George Soros, John Podesta, etc. ) to try to nullify the outcome of the election and seize power in Washington. The discussion covers the truth of how Hillary Clinton had planned to arrest, silence or execute all the conservatives in the media in order to eliminate opposition and create a one-party state run as a totalitarian leftist regime. But "alt media" truth overcame the lies of the mainstream media, and the People marched to the ballot box to end the Clinton nightmare for America once and for all. Soros now funding left-wing terrorist groups that seek to overthrow the government Now, international anarcho-terrorist money man George Soros is funding domestic terrorism , [through] organizations like MoveOn.org and Black Lives Matter to try to stage a leftist uprising that they hope will result in the mass murder of white people and conservatives. Their ultimate goal is to march on Washington and overthrow the legitimate government , but as I explain in this interview, the activation of the Second Amendment will stop them in their tracks. Listen to this stunning interview to learn why American patriots are prepared to defend the Republic at all costs, including challenging leftist anarcho-terrorists with kinetic engagement to defend America against their attempted communist coup. The is a MUST-LISTEN interview for those who want to know what's next in this battle for liberty and the Republic: References: Natural News ; Common Sense Show | 0 |
Megyn Kelly will co-host “Live with Kelly” alongside Kelly Ripa on the morning after the presidential election, Nov. 9. It’s anyone’s guess what the Nov. 9 timing means.
The Fox News host of the “The Kelly File” will join Ripa much like Anderson Cooper, Seth Meyers and others have been doing as co-hosts since Michael Strahan left the show for a new role on “Good Morning America,” according to People magazine on Wednesday.
Actress Naomi Watts and actor Michael Ealy are also scheduled to appear that day.
The Wrap noted that Kelly’s co-hosting gig comes as speculation continues to swirl about her next move as her Fox News contract expires in 2017.
“Live with Kelly” which is nationally syndicated by Disney/ABC Home Entertainment and TV Distribution, noted People.
“Cue up speculation that Kelly is flirting with ABC News – ‘Live with Kelly’ being syndicated by ABC-parent Disney, and a timeslot competitor to NBC News’ cash cow ‘Today’ show,” said Lisa Moraes on Deadline.com.
“In one of those incredible coincidences, word of the booking on the significant election-cycle morning broke the same day Fox News interim CEO Rupert Murdoch gave an interview to his newspaper Wall Street Journal, to publicly announce Kelly is important to the network and he hopes to get her under contract ‘very soon,’ while adding, ominously, ‘we have a deep bench of talent, many of whom would give their right arm for her’ timeslot.”
CNN Worldwide chief Jeff Zucker praised Kelly earlier this month, calling her “a tremendous news anchor” but was coy in addressing her contract coming to an end at Fox News, according to Deadline.com, adding “I’ll leave it there.”
Kelly and fellow Fox News host Sean Hannity had publicly feuded this month over the presidential election, according to the Washington Post, and she told Variety in April she was unsure whether she would resign with Fox News.
“I really like my show, and I love my team,” Kelly told Variety then. “But you know, there’s a lot of brain damage that comes from the job. There was probably less brain damage when I worked in the afternoon. I was less well known. I had far less conflict in my life.”
“I also have three kids who are soon going to be in school from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. I come to work at 3:30. I like to see my children. Having said that, my boss has been good about working with me to make me happy – he knows I’m a hard worker. I’ve had few problems here where I couldn’t talk to him and say, ‘Can we work something out?,’ and come away happy,” she added.
Source
| 0 |
The White House floated an idea on Thursday afternoon that, in initial reports, sounded like a major tariff on Mexican imports — something that would have gone a long way toward unwinding one of the United States’ deepest economic relationships. The reality of what Sean Spicer, the press secretary, suggested is a lot less dramatic. But it sends important signals about how people in the Trump administration are thinking about overhauling the tax code — and how they’re thinking about claiming victory on some of the president’s audacious campaign promises. It is a sign of just how fluid things are in this moment when so much of American public policy around taxes, trade and diplomacy is in flux. Mr. Spicer suggested a way the administration could accomplish President Trump’s goal of building a border wall paid for by Mexico. A 20 percent tax on imports from Mexico would do the trick, Mr. Spicer said. That might sound as if Mr. Spicer was proposing that the United States slap a new tariff meant to punish Mexican exporters. Such a move would result in higher prices for American consumers, create profound challenges for industries with supply chains that span the border, and possibly prompt the collapse of the North American Free Trade Agreement. But you get a different picture when you put Mr. Spicer’s words into the context of the rapidly evolving debate in Washington around overhauling corporate taxation. He was pointing out that in an overhaul of taxes that House Republicans are considering, imports from all countries would be taxed at 20 percent while American exports would be tax free. It’s called border adjustment, and it would make the United States corporate tax code more closely resemble the tax that is commonplace in other countries. House Republicans see the policy as a way to reshape the tax code to give businesses less incentive to move operations overseas while also generating revenue they can use to reduce tax rates. Opponents of the plan, which include major retailers, are skeptical. Among the risks: It could drive up consumer prices for all sorts of imported goods, from German cars to Mexican avocados, if the dollar does not rise as much as economists predict. And the policy may violate World Trade Organization rules, which could tangle it up in legal proceedings. But that Mr. Spicer was floating that plan as a way to fulfill Mr. Trump’s Mexican wall promises is interesting on two levels. First, less than two weeks ago, the threw cold water on the House plan. “Anytime I hear border adjustment, I don’t love it,” Mr. Trump told The Wall Street Journal. “Because usually it means we’re going to get adjusted into a bad deal. ” On Thursday, Mr. Spicer was explicitly suggesting that a border tax could be used to pay for a border wall. Referring to the tax plan, he said, “This is something that we’ve been in close contact with both houses in moving forward. ” The border adjustment strategy has plenty of enemies, and there’s no certainty that it will become part of a tax overhaul bill. But the latest tea leaves suggest the administration is more open to it than it may have seemed. The second lesson from the incident is that the Trump administration looks inclined to be flexible in finding ways to satisfy campaign promises without doing major damage to the economy or international relations. Thursday was one of the roughest days for relations between the United States and Mexico in some time, with the cancellation of a planned visit by President Enrique Peña Nieto and tough talk from Mexico City, which adamantly refuses to pay for an expansion of a border wall. But Mr. Spicer’s comments, which he later said were meant more to offer an example than a concrete policy proposal, suggest that the administration will look for creative ways to proclaim victory on Trumpian promises. In other words, he will proclaim that Mexico has paid for the wall as promised — even if the Mexican government never literally cuts a check to pay for new concrete. Advocates of the border adjustment tax have been fond of it because it would produce enough revenue to allow a deep reduction in tax rates. But money is fungible. So if the president can claim political victory by stating that the revenue from Mexican imports is going to pay for the wall, no one is going to stop him. It is a messy time for the making of economic policy. The Trump campaign was notoriously light on policy detail, and the Trump administration still has many key vacancies in economic policy jobs. Nominees for Treasury secretary, commerce secretary and U. S. trade representative have not yet been confirmed, and key jobs on the Council of Economic Advisers and most undersecretary and assistant secretary jobs remain unfilled. So the gaps are still being filled in on what the Trump administration economic policy will really mean in practice. The way to read the latest Mexico comments is as one more hint. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The White House on Friday revived President Trump’s unproven wiretapping allegations against the Obama administration, insisting that there is new evidence that it conducted “politically motivated” surveillance of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign. Senior government officials, including James B. Comey, the F. B. I. director, and lawmakers from both parties, have repeatedly and forcefully rejected the president’s claim, saying they have seen no evidence of direct surveillance. A spokesman for former President Barack Obama has denied that Mr. Obama ever ordered surveillance of Mr. Trump or his associates. But Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, asserted to reporters during his daily news briefing that members of Mr. Obama’s administration had done “very, very bad things,” just as Mr. Trump alleged without proof on March 4 when he posted messages on Twitter accusing Mr. Obama of “wire tapping” his phones at Trump Tower. “The question is why? Who else did it? Was it ordered? By whom?” Mr. Spicer said. “But I think more and more the substance that continues to come out on the record by individuals continues to point to exactly what the president was talking about that day. ” Mr. Spicer appeared to be basing his assertions on reports from news outlets that took out of context a interview with a former Obama administration official. Mr. Spicer’s comments came in the midst of a drumbeat of developments in the multiple investigations into Russian contacts with Mr. Trump’s associates, and a week after the president failed to make good on his campaign promise to replace Mr. Obama’s signature health care law. The two story lines have helped drag down Mr. Trump’s approval ratings, which slumped to a low of 35 percent in Gallup’s tracking poll on Wednesday. Mr. Spicer’s remarks on Friday seemed designed to give new life to the allegations against Mr. Obama after weeks of trying to focus attention on the damage that Mr. Spicer said had been caused by leaks from the investigations into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential campaign. The allegations dominated his briefing, crowding out other parts of the White House agenda, including the president’s signing of two executive orders on trade and meeting with manufacturing executives. Mr. Trump hastily left that signing ceremony without adding his signature to the trade orders as a reporter shouted a question about possible testimony in the Russia inquiry by Michael T. Flynn, his former national security adviser. The White House said Mr. Trump signed the directives later. At Mr. Spicer’s news conference, the press secretary chastised reporters for failing to accept that Mr. Trump had been right all along. “The substance we are talking about continues to move exactly in the direction that the president spoke about in terms of surveillance that occurred,” Mr. Spicer said, even as he deflected questions about the White House’s role in providing intelligence reports to Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. The senior Democrat on that committee, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, arrived later in the day at the White House to view the intelligence reports. In a statement, Mr. Schiff confirmed that they were the same materials Mr. Nunes had seen, and said that nothing justified Mr. Nunes’s failure to share them with the entire committee. “The White House has yet to explain why senior White House staff apparently shared these materials with but one member of either committee, only for their contents to be briefed back to the White House,” Mr. Schiff said in a statement. Mr. Spicer provided no evidence of the surveillance allegations. But he pointed several times to news reports that he claimed backed up the president’s accusations. One was a March 2 interview with Evelyn Farkas, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration until leaving the government in October 2015. TheGatewayPundit. com, a site, called it a “notorious” interview and said it proved Obama administration officials had disseminated “intel gathered on the Trump team. ” Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, said on the Hugh Hewitt radio show that Ms. Farkas had made “just an incredible statement. ” Breitbart News reported on Mr. Priebus’s comments. The comments by Ms. Farkas, Mr. Spicer said, were evidence that Mr. Trump or his associates “were surveilled, had their information unmasked, made it available, was politically spread. ” He said that such stories were proof that Obama administration officials had “misused, mishandled and potentially did some very, very bad things with classified information. ” In fact, the reports do not back up the allegations that Mr. Trump or any officials in his campaign were ever under surveillance. In the March 2 interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, Ms. Farkas said she had expressed concern to her former colleagues about the need to secure intelligence related to the Russian hacking of the American election. Ms. Farkas was commenting on a New York Times article a day earlier that documented how in the days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Obama administration officials had sought to ensure the preservation of those documents in order to leave a clear trail for government investigators after Mr. Trump took office. In a statement she gave to The American Spectator, a conservative publication, Ms. Farkas said the furor over her remarks was “a wild misinterpretation of comments I made on the air in March. ” She added, “I was out of government, I didn’t have any classified information, or any knowledge of ‘tapping’ or leaking or the N. Y. T. article before it came out. ” White House officials also confronted on Friday the disclosure that Mr. Flynn, who resigned in February over his contacts with Russian officials, has offered to testify before the two congressional committees investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia about those contacts in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Mr. Trump said on Twitter on Friday morning that he agreed with Mr. Flynn’s proposal. “Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss) by media Dems, of historic proportion!” Mr. Trump wrote. The president has been eager to dismiss as “fake news” all allegations that members of his campaign colluded with the Russians, and the post appeared to be an effort to discredit the congressional inquiries that are examining those claims. It also appeared to be aimed at defusing any speculation that Mr. Flynn might be seeking immunity because he has incriminating information to share about Mr. Trump or his associates. It was not clear from the president’s post on Friday whether he fully appreciated the potential effect on his administration if Mr. Flynn received immunity to participate fully in the investigation. Mr. Trump has said previously that seeking protection from prosecution is a telltale sign of wrongdoing. “If you’re not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for, right?” he said in September at a campaign rally in Orlando, Fla. Mr. Trump was referring to Hillary Clinton aides who received immunity during an F. B. I. inquiry into her use of a private email server. Mr. Spicer declined to address the inconsistency, telling reporters on Friday only that Mr. Trump “believes that Mike Flynn should go testify. ” “He thinks that he should go up there and do what he has to do to get the story out,” Mr. Spicer said. The F. B. I. is investigating whether any of Mr. Trump’s advisers colluded with Russia in its efforts to disrupt the 2016 election. An immunity deal would make it extraordinarily difficult for the Justice Department to prosecute Mr. Flynn. Mr. Schiff said Mr. Flynn’s decision to seek immunity from prosecution was a “grave and momentous step,” but not one that investigators were ready to consider at this stage. “While Mr. Flynn’s testimony is of great interest to our committee, we are also deeply mindful of the interests of the Justice Department in the matter,” Mr. Schiff said in a statement. He added that before considering immunity for any witness in the inquiry, “we will of course require a detailed proffer of any intended testimony. ” | 1 |
Hillary Clinton Waiting In Wings Of Stage Since 6 A.M. For DNC Speech PHILADELPHIA—Saying she arrived hours before any of the members of the production crew, sources confirmed Thursday that presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has been waiting in the wings of the Wells Fargo Center stage since six o’clock this morning to deliver her speech at the Democratic National Convention. Depressed, Butter-Covered Tom Vilsack Enters Sixth Day Of Corn Bender After Losing VP Spot WASHINGTON—Saying she has grown increasingly concerned about her husband’s mental and physical well-being since last Friday, Christie Vilsack, the wife of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, told reporters Thursday that the despondent, butter-covered cabinet member has entered the sixth day of a destructive corn bender after being passed over for the Democratic vice presidential spot. DNC Speech: ‘I Am Proud To Say I Walked In On Bill And Hillary Having Sex’ A friend of the Clinton family describes a Hillary who America never gets to see: the one he saw having sex. Trump Sick And Tired Of Mainstream Media Always Trying To Put His Words Into Some Sort Of Context NEW YORK—Emphasizing that the practice was just more evidence of journalists’ bias against him, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump stated Thursday that he was sick and tired of the mainstream media always attempting to place his words into some kind of context. Who’s Speaking At The DNC: Day 4 Here is a guide to the major speakers who will be addressing attendees on the final night of the 2016 Democratic National Convention Bound, Gagged Joaquin Castro Horrified By What His Identical Twin Brother Might Be Doing Out On DNC Floor PHILADELPHIA—Struggling to free himself from the tightly wound lengths of rope binding his wrists and ankles together, bruised and gagged Texas congressman Joaquin Castro was reportedly horrified by what his identical twin brother, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, might be out doing on the floor of the DNC Thursday. Obama: ‘Hillary Will Fight To Protect My Legacy, Even The Truly Detestable Parts’ PHILADELPHIA—Emphasizing the former secretary of state’s competence and tenacity during his Democratic National Convention address Wednesday night, President Barack Obama praised Hillary Clinton as someone who would work tirelessly to defend and advance the legacy he had built, even the “truly repugnant parts.” Tim Kaine Clearly Tuning Out In Middle Of Boring Vice Presidential Acceptance Speech PHILADELPHIA—Describing the look of total disinterest on his face and noting how he kept peering down at his watch as the speech progressed, sources at the Democratic National Convention said that Virginia senator Tim Kaine clearly began tuning out partway through the boring vice presidential acceptance address Wednesday night. Cannon Overshoots Tim Kaine Across Wells Fargo Center PHILADELPHIA—Noting that the vice presidential nominee had been launched nearly 100 feet into the air during his entrance into the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night, sources reported that the cannon at the back of the Wells Fargo Center had accidentally overshot Tim Kaine across the arena, sending him crashing to the stage several dozen feet beyond the erected safety net. Biden Regales DNC With Story Of ’80s Girl Band Vixen Breaking Hard Rock’s Glass Ceiling PHILADELPHIA—Devoting a large portion of his speech to the “pioneering, stiffy-inducing” all-female quartet, Vice President Joe Biden regaled the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night with the rousing story of the metal band Vixen breaking hard rock’s glass ceiling in the late 1980s. | 0 |
Email Print Hillary Clinton had many vocal celebrities on her side during the 2016 presidential election. However, the election proved that most Americans just don’t care what celebrities have to say about politics. In a recent interview, comedian Bill Burr blasted arrogant celebrities, saying, “Your ego is so f***ing big you think someone is going, ‘well, I want to vote for Trump, but if he gets elected, we lose Cher!’” I could not agree more with what Burr said. These people are celebrities and have no knowledge of foreign relations, economics, or anything other than entertainment for that matter. The liberal celebrities feel their ability to read a script translates to the right to pontificate on the most important issues facing our country. Liberals have had Hollywood in their pocket for years. Other celebrities, such as Katy Perry, Robert De Niro, and Salma Hayek, all came out to support Hillary during the election. Why on earth do these people think anyone will change their vote just because an entertainer threatens to leave the country if his or her candidate doesn’t win? Even if we did care, we all know they won’t really move their entire lives to live in another country. Case in point: have any of these anti-Trump celebrities left yet? I didn’t think so. But we should hold them to their vow! Every Hollywood liberal who threatened to leave the United States if Trump was elected should start packing their bags. Send us a postcard when you are freezing your bums off in Canada! Celebrities only demonstrate one thing when they threaten to leave the US over election results: their disgusting arrogance. Do they honestly think they have a better idea about the economic conditions of the middle class than those actually living in the middle class? No. They just think they’re entitled to the support of their fans. If they could come down to reality for two seconds and look at the election results, clearly regular Americans don’t agree. To be frank, we care more about the future of our country than we do about any of these celebrities. Don’t worry—we’ll remember your hypocrisy and self-absorption when you threaten to leave if Trump is re-elected in 2020. What do you think of Bill Burr’s comments on Hollywood liberals? Please share this story on Facebook and tell us what you think because we want to hear YOUR voice!
If you haven’t checked out and liked our Facebook page, please go here and do so. Leave a comment... | 0 |
17 Shot Dead As Chicago Records Deadliest Weekend Of 2016 Published: Zero Hedge
After a summer of extreme violence, homicides in Chicago were supposed to slow down going into the fall and winter months. But, that certainly does not appear to be happening as the city just recording its most violent weekend of the entire year with 52 people shot and 17 of them killed. This weekend's violence brings the tally of year to date killings in Chicago to 646, an annual run-rate which implies the most violent year since the mid-90s.
According to the Chicago Tribune , of the 17 victims from this weekend's violence, 7 of them were under the age of 20, with the youngest victim being only 14.
The weekend toll also was deadlier than the three long summer holiday weekends when violence typically spikes because of the warm weather. Six people were fatally shot over the Memorial Day weekend, five over the Fourth of July weekend and 13 people over Labor Day weekend, according to Tribune data.
This past weekend there were shootings in every area of the city but the Far North and Northwest sides, according to police. Of the 17 people who were killed, seven were younger than 20.
The youngest was 14-year-old Demarco Webster Jr ., described by his grade school principal as one of her best students. Demarco had planned to run for student council and try out for basketball, and he was being recruited for an NAACP leadership program.
A little more than 24 hours later, 17-year-old twins Edward and Edwin Bryant were killed in an apparent drive-by shooting in Old Town. Police responding to calls about gunfire found one of the boys lying on the sidewalk in the 400 block of West Evergreen Avenue and another around the corner in the 1300 block of North Hudson Avenue.
"The two brothers, as far as we can tell, they didn't have any documented gang affiliation," said Johnson, who noted police recovered video of the shooting. "But the individuals they were with did."
While journalists suggested that the police department was caught off guard by gang violence linked to large crowds around Wrigley Field, police Superintendent Eddie Johnson insists that extra resources were deployed to the most dangerous neighborhoods around Chicago.
"It was a tough weekend, but that just goes back to what I've been saying all the time," he told reporters. "Listen, until we start holding repeat gun offenders accountable for these crimes, we're going to keep seeing cycles of gun violence like this."
Johnson denied that the department was caught off guard by the mostly gang violence on the South and West sides while deploying hundreds of extra officers for crowd control outside Wrigley Field for the Cubs' three World Series games over the weekend.
"We had canceled days off as well as (required) 12-hour shifts over the entire weekend, so I'm confident that we had the resources out there" in the most dangerous neighborhoods, he said.
According to HeyJackass! , killings from this weekend bring YTD Chicago homicides up to 646, a 51% increase versus last year.
Meanwhile, YTD killings imply a run-rate of 775 homicides for the year which would be the highest since the mid-90s.
And, of course, the majority of the violent crime continues to occur in the gang-ridden South and West side neighborhoods.
Finally, roughly 95% of the violent crime committed so far in 2016 has been against minority citizens with nearly 80% of the shootings going unsolved. Share This Article... | 0 |
While we have long known about the existence of microbes — the tiny bacteria, fungi and archaea that live all around, on and in us — our full relationship has become one of the hottest topics for research only in recent years. Scientists believe that every person contains as many independent microbial cells as human cells. This collection of life, known as the microbiome, provides useful functions for us. Indeed, some of the things we think our bodies do are actually the abilities and enzymes of living within us. They can help with digestion, vitamin synthesis and even immunological responses. But, as with many new breakthroughs and advances, the hype of the microbiome often outweighs the reality. This seems especially likely in the field of nutrition. Doing research on the microbiome is not easy, and there are many opportunities to foul things up. To accomplish human studies, large samples of people and microbiomes are needed to account for potential confounding variables. Specimens have to be collected and stored carefully because contamination has been a big problem. DNA has to be extracted, amplified and sequenced. Finally, powerful bioinformatics tools are necessary to assemble and analyze the huge amount of data contained in a sequence of nucleotides — all of which has resulted in a wide range of new “omics,” including genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics. Of course, if we think that microbes play a large role in health, we have to rethink the role that antimicrobials play in our lives. In this thinking, antibiotics and antifungals could be or . But that’s not the case. There are many reasons to avoid unnecessary use of these medications, but the microbiome appears able to withstand most treatment. Still, antimicrobials clearly have an effect on the microbiome. Many studies, along with common sense, suggest that when we treat people with antibiotics, we change the amount and type of microbes that live in our gut. We’ve seen this with Clostridium difficile. C. diff, as it is also known, is a bacterium that lives in many healthy people. The presence of other microbes keeps its numbers in check. But when we treat people with antibiotics that kill off other bacteria, but not C. diff, it can increase its presence and lead to serious illness. Infection with C. diff is hard to treat, and it’s not uncommon. In 2011 in the United States, there were more than 450, 000 cases, causing 29, 000 deaths. A number of studies have shown promise in using the microbiome to treat C. diff. Fecal transplant (which is exactly what it sounds like) effectively fixes a damaged microbiome by infusing it with a healthy one. This type of therapy could theoretically work in treating other diseases. But there’s a huge gap between “holds promise” and “definitive treatment. ” After all, there’s a direct biological explanation for why the microbiome and antibiotics play a role in C. diff. That direct link is much harder to describe when talking about other disorders. Many have postulated that the microbiome has an important part to play in inflammatory bowel diseases, which, because of my condition, I follow quite closely. Others have attempted to link it to disorders of development and behavior, like autism. Because the microbiome takes root in childhood, studies have explored if pregnancy, method of delivery or even the environment might hold some meaning in the microbiome’s development and later health. Even more significantly, many have begun to hypothesize that it has a significant role in the current obesity epidemic. Studies have shown that transferring the microbiome from a thin mouse to an obese one, or vice versa, could lead to a change in body size to match. It was this type of study that roused much of your ire when I dismissed it in my discussion of artificial sweeteners. Other studies show that changes in diet can change the microbiome in human beings. But when you analyze all these studies together, as scientists did in a last summer, the certainty of those links becomes much less certain. This doesn’t mean that the microbiome doesn’t play a role in nutrition. Some important research has begun to show that chronic malnutrition probably causes changes in the microbiome that make treating the problem much harder than many anticipate. Problems with substandard sanitation can also contribute to microbial changes in very poor environments, compounding the problems of malnutrition. But we haven’t yet figured out how to translate these findings into easily used treatments. The problem with getting too enthusiastic about the microbiome isn’t much different from the problem with getting too enthusiastic about any research advances. Many mistake correlation for causation just because some people have a different microbiome doesn’t mean that microbes are responsible for other differences. Studies in mice are not the same as studies of humans diet is incredibly complex, and rarely do results in genetically similar animals easily translate to diverse groups of people. And the microbiome is very, very complicated. We understand so little about it, and the idea that we can make accurate representations about it, let alone manipulate it, is somewhat . As with the genome before it, our greater understanding of the microbiome has spurred great excitement and interest. Last May, the White House began the National Microbiome Initiative, with huge public and private investment into research. We hope these investments will yield great returns, but it will be important to temper our enthusiasm with an appropriate amount of skepticism. Health advances usually proceed more slowly than the hype. | 1 |
Home » Headlines » World News » Electronic Voting Machines Caught Switching Trump Votes To Hillary: “Trying to Steal Texas”
If TEXAS goes Blue, you know something is seriously, seriously wrong…
From Michael Snyder :
Is the 2016 election in the process of being stolen? Just a few weeks ago I issued a major alert warning that this exact sort of thing might happen. Early voting has already begun in many states, and a number of voters in Texas are reporting that the voting machines switched their votes from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton. The odd thing is that none of the other choices were affected when these individuals attempted to vote for a straight Republican ticket. If Hillary Clinton is declared the winner of the state of Texas on election night, a full investigation of these voting machines should be conducted, because there is no way that Donald Trump should lose that state. I have said that it will be the greatest miracle in U.S. political history if Donald Trump wins this election, but without the state of Texas Donald Trump has exactly zero chance of winning. So those living down in Texas need to keep reporting anything unusual that they see or hear when they go to vote.
Most Americans don’t realize this, but the exact same thing was happening during the last presidential election. The state of Ohio was considered to be the key to Mitt Romney’s chances of winning in 2012, and right up to election day the Romney campaign actually believed that they were going to win the state.
Unfortunately for Romney, something funny was going on with the voting machines. In a previous article, I included a quote from an Ohio voter that had her vote switched from Mitt Romney to Barack Obama three times…
“I don’t know if it happened to anybody else or not, but this is the first time in all the years that we voted that this has ever happened to me,” said Marion, Ohio, voter Joan Stevens.
Stevens said that when she voted, it took her three tries before the machine accepted her choice to vote for Romney .
“I went to vote and I got right in the middle of Romney’s name,” Stevens told Fox News, saying that she was certain to put her finger directly on her choice for the White House.
She said that the first time she pushed “Romney,” the machine marked “Obama.”
So she pushed Romney again. Obama came up again. Then it happened a third time.
“Maybe you make a mistake once, but not three times,” she told Fox News.
And we did see some very, very strange numbers come out of certain areas of Ohio four years ago.
For example, there were more than 100 precincts in Cuyahoga County in which Barack Obama got at least 99 percent of the vote in 2012.
If that happened in just one precinct that would be odd enough. But the odds of it happening in more than 100 precincts in just one county by random chance are so low that they aren’t even worth mentioning.
And of course this didn’t just happen in Ohio. Similar things were happening all over the country.
The reason why I bring all of this up is to show that there is a pattern. If a fair vote had been conducted, Romney may have indeed won in 2012, and now it appears that voting machines are being rigged again.
In Wichita County, Texas so many people were reporting that their votes were being switched from Trump to Clinton that it made the local newspaper…
Shortly after early voting booths opened Monday in Wichita County, rumors swirled online about possible errors in the process. Several online posts claimed a friend or family member had attempted to vote straight party Republican ticket, but their presidential nomination was switched to the Democratic nominee, Hilary Clinton. None of the local reports were from people who experienced the situation first hand. A Bowie woman posted that a relative who lives in Arlington saw her votes “switched.” The post was shared more than 100,000 times Monday.
And Paul Joseph Watson has written about some specific individuals that are making allegations that their votes for president were switched by the machines. One of the examples that he cited was a Facebook post by Lisa Houlette of Amarillo, Texas…
Gary and I went to early vote today…I voted a straight Republican ticket and as I scrolled to submit my ballot I noticed that the Republican Straight ticket was highlighted, however, the clinton/kaine box was also highlighted! I tried to go back and change and could not get it to work. I asked for help from one of the workers and she couldn’t get it to go back either. It took a second election person to get the machine to where I could correct the vote to a straight ticket. Be careful and double check your selections before you cast your vote! Don’t hesitate to ask for help. I had to have help to get mine changed.
I don’t know about you, but major alarm bells went off in my head when I read that.
A similar incident was reported on Facebook by Shandy Clark of Arlington, Texas…
Hey everyone, just a heads up! I had a family member that voted this morning and she voted straight Republican. She checked before she submitted and the vote had changed to Clinton! She reported it and made sure her vote was changed back. They commented that It had been happening. She is trying to get the word out and asked that we post and share. Just want everyone’s vote to be accurate and count. Check your vote before you submit!
And of course they weren’t the only ones reporting vote switching. It turns out that lots of other Texans have also experienced this phenomenon…
So is there a serious problem with the voting machines?
According to Breitbart, one county in Texas has already removed all electronic voting machines and has made an emergency switch to paper ballots…
Chambers County election officials have executed an emergency protocol to remove all electronic voting machines available during early voting until a software update can be completed to correct problems experienced by straight-ticket voters .
Chambers County Clerk Heather Hawthorne told Breitbart Texas Tuesday morning that all electronic voting was temporarily halted until her office completes a “software update” on ES&S machines that otherwise “omit one race” when a straight ticket option is selected for either major party. The Texas 14 th Court of Appeals race was reported to be the contest in which voters commonly experienced the glitch.
Let’s keep a very close eye on this. If the state of Texas ends up in Trump’s column on election night, perhaps no harm has been done.
But if Trump loses Texas there is no possible way that he will be able to make up those 38 electoral votes somewhere else.
Despite what the mainstream media is saying, the truth is that election fraud is very real. Just the other day, WND published an article that contained a list of documented cases of election fraud in 23 different states. And Devvy Kidd just authored a piece that pointed out that there are 24 million voter registrations in this country that are “no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate“… In 2012 the highly respected Pew Research Center exposed the sickening state of voter rolls in this country: Nearly 2 million deceased registered to vote Close to 3 million registered in multiples states Approximately 24 million—one of every eight—voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state
But despite everything you just read, the mainstream media is trying very hard to prop up faith in the integrity of the process. In fact, just today CNN came out with an article entitled “Poll: Most see a Hillary Clinton victory and a fair count ahead“…
Almost 7 in 10 voters nationwide say they think Hillary Clinton will win the presidency next month, but most say that if that happens, Donald Trump will not accept the results and concede, according to a new CNN/ORC poll.
Americans overall are more confident that the nation’s votes for president will be cast and counted accurately this year than they were in 2008. Whatever the outcome, however, nearly 8 in 10 say that once all the states have certified their vote counts, the losing candidate has an obligation to accept the results and concede to the winner.
Unfortunately, CNN does not have much credibility left at this point, and it is gettingharder and harder to believe the polls that are being put out by the mainstream media.
And the mainstream media would also have us believe that if evidence of election fraud does emerge that it will be because the Russians have made it up…
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are warning that hackers with ties to Russia’s intelligence services could try to undermine the credibility of the presidential election by posting documents online purporting to show evidence of voter fraud.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said however, that the U.S. election system is so large, diffuse and antiquated that hackers would not be able to change the outcome of the Nov. 8 election.
But hackers could post documents, some of which might be falsified, that are designed to create public perceptions of widespread voter fraud, the officials said.
Now that is a real “conspiracy theory”, and it would be incredibly funny if all of this wasn’t so serious.
During this election season, if you see or hear anything unusual about voting in your area, please report it.
The American people should be allowed to make a free and fair choice, and anyone that attempts to alter an election is committing a crime against all of us.
And let’s watch the state of Texas very carefully. If it goes blue, you will know that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. On Sale At SD Bullion… This Week Only… | 0 |
President Donald Trump signed a bill on Tuesday securing funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with the aim of sending a crew to Mars within 20 years. [Bill S. 442, named the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Transition Authorization Act of 2017, was by Sen. Ted Cruz ( ) and Sen. Marco Rubio ( ) provides NASA with $19. 5 billion worth of funding for the 2018 fiscal year, with the aim of sending a “crewed mission to Mars in the 2030s. ” The bill also urges NASA to “extend human presence, including potential human habitation on another celestial body and a thriving space economy in the 21st Century. ” The level of funding is above what Trump outlined in his first White House budget, which called for $19. 1 billion investment in NASA programs. It is the first NASA authorization bill to be signed in seven years. On signing the bill, Trump remarked that “America’s space program has been a blessing to our people and to the entire world. ” “Almost half a century ago our brave astronauts also planted our American flag on the moon. Now, this nation is ready to be the first in space once again. Today we are taking the initial steps toward a bold and bright new future for space exploration,” he continued. Trump also praised the new high paying jobs the bill will create, as part of his plan to radically reduce unemployment. You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com, | 1 |
(AFP) — Syrian President Bashar ’s comments that last week’s chemical weapons attack was a fabrication to justify a US military strike are “100 percent lies” French Foreign Minister Ayrault said Friday. [“It’s 100 percent lies and propaganda,” Ayrault said during a visit to Beijing, responding to an exclusive AFP interview with Assad on Wednesday. “It’s 100 percent cruelty and cynicism. ” The French minister mirrored language used by Assad himself, who dismissed the allegation that his regime perpetrated the attack that left 87 civilians dead, including many children. “Definitely, 100 percent for us, it’s fabrication,” Assad said in the interview. The Syrian leader questioned whether the attack had in fact occurred, claiming that “fake videos” and “propaganda” were being used against his government. He also accused the United States of colluding with terrorists and “fabricating the whole story in order to have a pretext” for a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base last week. The French minister made the remarks during a joint press conference with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. “The reality is that more than 300, 000 have died, 11 million people have been displaced or become refugees, tens of thousands have been placed in Syrian prisons and a country has been destroyed,” Ayrault said. “That is the reality. It is not a fantasy. ” He emphasised the need for an end to the conflict with a “real ceasefire, one which restricts the Syrian air force and military and is upheld by the international community. ” Ayrault praised China’s role in the matter, noting its abstention from a United Nations Security Council vote on a resolution to condemn the Syrian gas attack. In the past, China has voted alongside Russia to veto UN resolutions on the Syrian conflict. Wang expressed his agreement with the French minister, noting that an “independent, fair and professional investigation” into the chemical weapons attack should be conducted “as soon as possible. ” | 1 |
Home / Badge Abuse / Family Sues After Cops Shot 6yo Autistic Boy and Watched Him “Suffer Immensely” As He Died Family Sues After Cops Shot 6yo Autistic Boy and Watched Him “Suffer Immensely” As He Died Claire Bernish October 29, 2016 Leave a comment
Marksville, LA — A federal lawsuit has now been filed against several Louisiana law enforcement agencies for the fatal shooting of six-year-old Jeremy Mardis, who “suffered immensely” on November 3, 2015, due to “a barbaric and excessive use of deadly force.”
Attorneys representing Christopher Few, Jeremy’s father, who suffered serious injuries in the incident; mother, Catherine Mardis; and Candace Few, whose vehicle her brother, Christopher, drove the night of the shooting, filed a federal civil lawsuit on Thursday in an attempt at justice for the needless death of the young child.
In fact, video footage of the incident so shocked Louisiana State Police Col. Mike Edmonson, he told reporters in November, “It is the most disturbing thing I’ve seen, and I will leave it at that.”
According to the lawsuit, referenced by KLFY , defendants include “Norris Greenhouse Jr. and Derrick Stafford, the two former Marksville Ward 2 deputy marshals facing second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder in the case. Both pleaded not guilty and are facing separate trials.
“But the lawsuit also names as defendants Marksville City Marshal Floyd Voinche, the Marksville City Court, the town of Marksville, Avoyelles Parish, Progressive Paloverde Insurance Company and the other two officers involved in the chase of Few that night — Jason Brouillette and Kenneth Parnell III.”
On November 3, 2015, according to the original police account, the four officers were attempting to serve a warrant for Few — who then fled in his sister’s Kia Sport, with Jeremy buckled in the passenger seat.
Police had claimed Few was armed and posed an imminent deadly threat — so Officers Greenhouse and Stafford opened fire — emptying 18 rounds at the vehicle, critically injuring Few and killing the 6-year-old, who had autism.
In actuality, no warrant had been issued for Few, and both father and son were unarmed — indeed, as video evidence shows, Few had his hands in the air when he received “two or three” bullets to the head and chest, while Jeremy suffered “four or five” shots to the head and neck.
Appallingly, Jeremy languished in agony, still holding onto life for over five minutes after being shot multiple times — but officers failed to even check for a pulse or render assistance.
“During this time, Jeremy was bleeding profusely and suffered immensely due to the gunshot wounds,” the lawsuit states, according to KFLY .
“It was not until approximately some seven and one-half to eight minutes or so after the hail of gunfire, that an officer at the scene, believed to be Parnell, finally checked Jeremy for a pulse and discovered that he was still alive, despite having been shot multiple times including in the head and neck,” it reads.
“However, none of the officers at the scene, including Stafford, Greenhouse, Brouillette and Parnell initiated or rendered any form of first aid, nor did they undertake any other measures in an attempt to stop Jeremy’s bleeding or otherwise alleviate or mitigate Jeremy’s suffering, or made any attempts to save his life.
“Sadly, Jeremy was left to suffer — and die — while the officers casually searched for ‘gloves.’”
An exact motive for the original traffic stop — given the fictitious claim of a warrant and that Few did not have a weapon — has yet to be publicly released by officials. Attorneys for Greenhouse and Stafford stated during court proceedings Few had been standing in the road, blocking traffic, ignored officers’ commands, and then fled the scene.
But the lawsuit contends there had been no clear reason for police to pursue the vehicle Few was driving, and when he ultimately did pull over, the vehicle, “even if it were moving forward or backwards — did not and could not have presented an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm to any of the officers at the scene or innocent bystanders.”
As video clearly shows, Few pulled to the side of the road, raised his arms above his head and made no threatening gestures — in other words, he posed not even the slightest legitimate threat to their safety. The lawsuit continues :
“Moreover, at the time the pursuit of Christopher was initiated, and thereafter during the pursuit, none of the officers had reasonable or probable cause to believe that Christopher had committed some crime, was committing a crime or was about to commit a crime. The pursuit was unlawful, as was the subsequent use of deadly force.”
Fatally shooting a 6-year-old child wasn’t the first brutal act by either Stafford or Greenhouse. As The Free Thought Project reported, the pair of rageful cops have a history of brutalizing their town with impunity — and as the lawsuit notes, it seems no vetting procedure was in place when Greenhouse and Stafford were hired.
Additionally, when attorneys made a public records request with Marksville City Marshal Floyd Voinche for hiring, training, and disciplinary guidelines concerning deputy marshals, they received a telling one-sentence reply: “No such records exist.”
“The need for such policies is so obvious,” KFLY quotes the lawsuit, “for the safety of the public and the protection of constitutional rights that the lack of such policies constitutes deliberate indifference and a reckless disregard for the public and plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.”
But the fact it took an innocent 6-year-old’s death to force the city to examine such policies is endemic of brutal policing in the United States — and one means officers can employ to work around appropriate discipline is to resign and simply move on to the next department.
In late September, in a stunning act of hubris, Stafford again requested charges be dropped since he acted in self defense — despite damning evidence to the contrary.
The family of Jeremy Mardis is requesting a jury trial in this lawsuit. Share Social Trending | 0 |
WATCH As A Trump Advisor Has A HISSY FIT When Asked About White Supremacist Supporters By Andrew Bradford
Maybe you’ve noticed that in recent weeks the people who advise and speak on behalf of the Donald Trump campaign seem to be more angry and defensive than usual. No doubt that has something to do with the fact that they realize their candidate is about to lose badly on Election Day.
The perfect example of this was provided last night by Trump senior advisor AJ Delgado, who was appearing with GOP strategist Rick Wilson, who is supporting third-party candidate Evan McMullin. When host Chris Hayes mentioned Trump’s ties to white supremacists, Delgado got very agitated and said she was offended by the accusation. Hayes replied : “I just want to distinguish between two claims. If you’re a Trump supporter you’re there for a racist or white supremacist which I would never say and don’t think Rick would say. The people out there that are racist and white supremacist, they’re overwhelmingly and publicly supporting Donald Trump.”
Delgado yelled: “That’s not true!”
Wilson then joined the conversation, telling Delgado: “AJ, it is true. The people on the white supremacists alt-right movement in this country flock to Donald Trump.”
Later in the debate, Delgado claimed that the average voter doesn’t care about Trump’s support from white supremacists such as David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Wilson let Delgado have it for that comment: “This is a guy who is feeding these people with a nod and a wink every single day. A guy who constantly denigrates women, Muslims, minorities in a host of different ways. I’m not saying every person who supports Donald Trump is a racist, that’s absurd. Every racist you turn over — every time you turn over a rock and find a racist, they have a red MAGA hat on. There is not a — there’s not a coincidence here.”
Exactly! Trump has been playing footsie with neo-Nazis, the KKK, and other white supremacist/white nationalist groups since he started his campaign. For him or anyone who supports him to now appear offended when someone makes that connection is not only disingenuous, it’s downright ludicrous. As the old saying goes, If you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
Featured Image Via YouTube Screengrab About Andrew Bradford
Andrew Bradford is a single father who lives in Atlanta. A member of the Christian Left, he has worked in the fields of academia, journalism, and political consulting. His passions are art, music, food, and literature. He believes in equal rights and justice for all. To see what else he likes to write about, check out his blog at Deepleftfield.info. Connect | 0 |
The Department of Homeland Security plans to enforce President Donald Trump’s executive order to dramatically reduce immigration from high threat countries in the Middle East. [“The Department of Homeland Security will continue to enforce all of President Trump’s Executive Orders in a manner that ensures the safety and security of the American people,” the agency made in a statement sent to reporters on Sunday. They reminded Americans that only a small percentage of travelers were affected by the new restrictions. The agency noted that although some individuals were held for further screening, some of them were allowed entry into the United States, despite protesters at area airports describing the order as a “Muslim ban. ” “These individuals went through enhanced security screenings and are being processed for entry to the United States, consistent with our immigration laws and judicial orders,” the department said. The agency did not signal that they were prepared to back down from the rigorous enforcement of Trump’s executive action. “The Department of Homeland Security will comply with judicial orders faithfully enforce our immigration laws, and implement President Trump’s Executive Orders to ensure that those entering the United States do not pose a threat to our country or the American people,” the statement concluded. | 1 |
Swedish Minister for Culture and Democracy Alice Bah Kuhnke has suggested that Swedes who left to fight for radical Islamist groups in the Middle East should be welcomed back and helped to integrate into society. [Ms. Kuhnke made the comments Sunday evening on the television programme Agenda which is transmitted by the Swedish state broadcaster SVT. The programme focused on the fact that some 300 Islamic radicals from Sweden had gone to the Middle East to fight for groups like Islamic State and around half of them had returned to Sweden. “They need to be channelled back into our democratic society,” Kuhnke said. The minister added she and the government had no idea how many of the returnees were still radicalised versus how many left because they had become disillusioned with Islamist beliefs. When asked how many radical Muslims were involved in deradicalisation programmes, she estimated between 10 to 30 people based on information given to her by various municipalities. “There are far too few. We have to work together much better,” she noted. Kuhnke also could not confirm that those who had been through the programmes had been successfully deradicalised, saying the process could take a decade or more. “We can not say that we have succeeded because it’s been such a short time. It is only in years we can say that they actually managed to leave these environments,” she said. Many on social media criticised the minister’s comments including terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp who took to Twitter to note that at least two returning Swedish jihadists were involved with the terrorist attacks that occurred in Paris in late 2015 and in Brussels in 2016. Dessutom har TVÅ av våra Osama Krayem Mohammed Belkaid varit delaktiga i terrorattackerna i Paris Bryssel. #agenda, — Magnus Ranstorp (@MagnusRanstorp) March 12, 2017, “The interview speaks for itself. This is how we are to deal with returnees,” Ranstrop noted. The Swedish attitude toward returning jihadists is seen as strange by many, as several municipalities have gone above and beyond to cater for returning fighters. In the medieval city of Lund, the government is considering a range of measures including debt forgiveness, driving lessons, and free housing in the name of integrating returning extremists. Last week, another damning report showed the Swedish government had still been paying many Islamists through the generous Swedish welfare system whilst they were fighting in Iraq and Syria. Ranstorp, who was one of the authors of the report, said the main problem was the Swedish government refusing to follow up on welfare claimants to check whether they were in the country or ensuring that someone else wasn’t collecting benefits on their behalf. Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson@breitbart. com | 1 |
Despite the left’s attempt to deny it, some protesters are indeed paid to show up — including those from a growing number of tech companies who are paying their employees to participate in rallies. [The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Saturday, in an article titled “Bay Area demonstrators may be paid to protest, by employers,” that the “common accusation lobbed at liberal protesters” that “they’re being paid to protest” is at least partially based in fact. According to the Chronicle, “an increasing number of companies have unveiled policies that allow employees to take paid time off work for political or civic activities, such as protesting, canvassing, voting, volunteering or even running for office. ” The progressive movement’s vocal opposition to President Donald Trump has translated into employers (at least, those who can afford it) providing paid leave as a way to increase political engagement after what many of them took as a devastating loss. Adam Kleinberg, CEO of San Francisco marketing firm Traction, reportedly allows employees two paid “Days of Action” to participate in political rallies and protests annually. “It’s not sufficient anymore to say we’re a profit engine and we’re making money and screw everything else. It’s part of our responsibility to be engaged, to be active,” William Morgan, CEO and founder of startup Buoyant, told the Chronicle. His company reportedly offers about three to four weeks of paid time off to its workers, who are able to use the time for political activity or vacations. “We as individuals, we as companies exist in an ecosystem. We’re only here because there’s this environment around us. It can’t just be a relationship. ” The Chronicle notes that while the majority of these companies are on the smaller side, and tend to have more liberal workforces, larger companies like Facebook are looking to entertain similar policies. They reportedly told employees that they could use paid leave time to attend and participate in May Day demonstrations. However, the Chronicle also notes that some companies who offer their employees paid leave for political action have experienced an intense backlash. | 1 |
Israel Law Center founder Nitsana told Breitbart News Daily in an exclusive Memorial Day radio special on SiriusXM 125 The Patriot Channel that it’s past time for the United States to cut funding to Palestinian terrorists and their families.[ ’s organization, an law group, is representing the family of Taylor Force, a U. S. Army veteran who was murdered in cold blood by a Palestinian terrorist last year in Israel after serving the U. S. in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Force was in Israel as part of a school mission trip, and was killed by a Palestinian terrorist who thought he was attacking Jews — even though Force was not Jewish but Christian. “Taylor Force was a serviceman and he went with his school on a mission to Israel, a seven days tour,” said in the interview, which aired Monday morning. ”One of his visits in Israel was on Jaffa. It was nighttime, and a Palestinian young man came and stabbed him and many, many others with a knife. He killed him and also injured many, many others … He did a great service to his country. He served in Iraq and served in Afghanistan. And he came to Israel on a tour in the framework of his school. ” Force was a West Point graduate who served as a U. S. Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan before enrolling in graduate school at Vanderbilt University. He was killed in a tourist area in Jaffa Port. At the time of the terrorist murder, President Joe Biden was meeting with President Shimon Peres in Tel Aviv when the Palestinian terrorist went on the stabbing spree claiming Force’s life and injuring many others. “It’s a tourist area,” said. “The city of Jaffa is near . It’s a very hopping place at nighttime. There is a boardwalk. Very late, there is a lot of people walking by the beach. And it’s the kind of a place that you do not expect to be killed or stabbed. Anywhere in Israel, it’s not supposed to be dangerous a place. This is a mixed area and there are a lot of Arabs in Jaffa, but the Palestinian who stabbed Taylor Force to death was not an Israeli Arab. He came from the territories and simply decided that he’s going to out tonight and stab Jews. He did not recognize that Taylor Force was not a Jew, and simply killed him with the rest of the people there. ” In response to the terrorist attack that claimed Force’s life, members of the U. S. Congress drafted legislation in his name — the Taylor force Act — which would cut U. S. funding to the Palestinian Authority until the organization stopped paying terrorists behind attacks like this and their families. “The Taylor Force Act would take away the amount of money the Palestinians obtain,” said. “The Palestinians Authority is paying their prisoners, the secure prisoners who are sitting in the Israeli jails being sentenced for killing and for taking acts of murder and acts of terror against civilians, and also the amount of money the Palestinians are paying the families of the suicide bombers. They have been rewarding the families of those who detonate themselves and have killed the civilians. [The bill would take the money out] from the U. S. aid that the U. S. provides the Palestinian Authority. It’s a total sort of deduction. They take the awards that the Palestinian Authority has given, they take it from the prisoners and families, and they take it from what the U. S. gives the Palestinians. ” She explained that it is “shocking” right now that the United States government is funding the Palestinians, who turn around and use the money to fund terrorists and their families after they commit these attacks. “This money is inducing others to go and kill, and as you can see not only Israelis are getting killed on the streets of and Jerusalem,” said. “A lot of tourists are getting killed. Israel is a popular country and gets a lot of visits from people all over the world, and Taylor Force was not the first American getting killed in and unfortunately will not be the last one. The United States knows that part of the money they are giving to the Palestinian Authority is going to pay these prisoners and to pay the families of those who have killed their own civilians, American citizens, and as you say it’s totally ironic, horrible and unbelievable that the administration keeps supporting the Palestinian Authority without demanding right now to bring to a halt right now all these payments to the prisoners and the families of suicide bombers. ” She added that unless the money flow from the United States is completely cut off, there is “not a chance — not a chance” that the Palestinian Authority would stop using it to fund terrorists and the families of terrorists. The reason being, she said, is because it is in the “culture” of the Palestinians to commit these acts of horror against Israelis and the entire Western World. “They are not going to stop these payments,” said. “It’s basically their culture. The culture is to promote violence against Israel. They incite people to go and kill. There is indoctrination of the people in the Palestinian Authority, areas to go and learn how to kill. The Palestinian Authority simply sees this payment as its sort of control over the Palestinian population. If they stop paying these funds, they will lose any authority. They will lose any support. They will lose the people. And the Palestinian Authority is doing basically what Hamas is doing, the terrorist organization in Gaza that controls Gaza and Gaza’s government in Gaza. They give their prisoners funds. They pay stipends to their prisoners and their families who went and lost people bombing themselves. They can’t really leave the market, leave the area just to Hamas, otherwise people will go and be loyal to Hamas. There is competition between the Palestinian Authority, which is headed by the PLO, and Hamas, which is a terrorist organization which controls the Gaza Strip — which complicates the situation. Therefore, talking about it, as President Trump is doing, will not get the job done. ” President Donald Trump, in his White House meeting with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas per White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s readout of the meeting, pressed Abbas on the payments to the terrorists. “President Trump raised his concerns about payments to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails who have committed terrorist acts, and to their families, and emphasized the need to resolve this issue,” the White House readout from Spicer’s office read. White House sources tell Breitbart News that Spicer was instrumental in raising this issue with President Trump ahead of that Abbas meeting, providing the president with key information about the issue of Palestinian payments to terrorist and terrorists’ families. In a meeting in Israel between Trump and Abbas during President Trump’s foreign trip, Trump was reportedly furious with Abbas after learning that Abbas apparently misled him in the Washington, D. C. White House meeting. “You tricked me in Washington,” Trump reportedly said to Abbas behind closed doors in Israel, per an Israeli television station. On Monday, Abbas confidante Ahmad Majdalani told the Jerusalem Post that the reports of a heated meeting with Trump are “a total fabrication and a lie. ” Netanyahu has also bashed Abbas for inaccurately claiming Palestinians promote peace. “I heard President Abbas yesterday say that the Palestinians teach their children peace,” Netanyahu said. “Unfortunately, that’s not true. They name their schools after mass murderers of Israelis and they pay terrorists. ” said that for President Trump to extract real action on this front and make progress toward peace, real action must happen — and that starts with the Taylor Force Act. “There must be an act to be taken,” she said. “There must be more than just simple words, more than just an idea. We all know that the Palestinian Authority is paying this money. We all know, a few years ago they removed themselves from these payments asking the PLO to go make these payments, not the Palestinian Authority, so Mahmoud Abbas can come to President Trump and say, ‘listen, it’s not me. I was paying more. It’s the PLO.’ But let us not forget that Mahmoud Abbas is the head of the PLO in addition to his position as the head of the Palestinian Authority. So, to make a long story short, the Palestinian Authority will not halt these payments, and if President Trump is not going to take a serious step, they will just keep paying this money that induces and incites more terror attacks against civilians. ” She added that while there is widespread support for the Taylor Force Act in both chambers of the U. S. congress, “there is no guarantee that it would pass. ” “Therefore there must be a push — listeners of your radio show must call up their elected representatives and urge them to push to get this law passed,” said. “The State Department always objected to any deduction to the Palestinian Authority, to any prevention of ‘aid’ to the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians always have to get their money. The United States is always one of the largest providers of the Palestinian Authority’s finances. They pay a large amount of their budget and therefore they have great leverage on the Palestinian Authority, but it’s not going to get done if there won’t be a public support and public urge to pass this law. So the listeners, the American citizens who care about civilian life, who care about human rights, who care about the life of Israelis and Americans in Israel have to push for this law to pass by urging their representatives to make it happen. ” Representatives for House Speaker Paul Ryan have not responded to requests for comment when asked why Ryan has not yet held a vote on this bill when there is clear bipartisan support for the legislation and it would easily pass the House of Representatives at this time, per Breitbart News sources on the Hill. The White House did not have a comment when asked about this bill or about the Israeli news reports on Trump’s reportedly heated meeting with Abbas in Israel. LISTEN TO NITSANA OF ISRAEL LAW CENTER ON BREITBART NEWS DAILY: | 1 |
=> Eddie and Friends
When 46-year-old Eddie found out I’d been interviewing people, he wanted to talk. “You can write a book about me!” and that’s true enough, but then again, I’ve never met an uninteresting person.
Within a minute, Eddie was showing me photos of women on his cell phone. There was plenty of skin and at least one crotch shot. These voluptuous ladies had sent these boudoir selfies to him, Eddie growled, his eyes sparkling.
Eddie’s a beefy dude, with a head like an Olmec statue. Though he wears a permanent scowl, it’s a friendly scowl.
Eddie was in Friendly Lounge with his housepainting boss, Tony, an Italian dude who used to live in the neighborhood.
After talking to Eddie, I checked out his FaceBook page. “im a fun loving guy who just wants peace in my life,” he introduces himself, and the first two photos feature Eddie with white women. In one, he’s in some bar and wearing a white T-shirt, “WHITE GIRLS LOVE ME.” With his arms outstretched, Eddie’s surrounded by eight white females and one bald white guy. The women appear to be in their 30’s and 40’s, though one, wearing granny glasses, has sweated, cursed and imbibed her way through nearly six decades, it seems. You go, grandma! In the other photo, two beaming blondes drape themselves all over Eddie.
Below these shots, there’s a video of Oprah Winfrey begging her audience to vote for Hillary Clinton, and down the page, there’s a computer animation of Donald Trump making his most grotesque faces while sitting on a toilet.
Talking to me, Eddie brought up the pains of being rejected by his dad all his life. The rates of American children being born out of wedlock have been rising, calamitously, for decades, and currently stand at around 40%. Among blacks, it’s 72%.
I’ve known Tony since high school. He lives in the suburbs too. I grew up in West Philly, right around the corner from the zoo, then I moved to the suburbs. I’ve been working with Tony for two years.
I was in Boston for ten years. The only reason I came back here was because I had the cancer and everything. After they did the surgery, my family wanted me to come back, you know, be closer to home, in case it happens again.
I was doing work. The customers loved the work. Their relatives were from Boston, and they were like, “Do you travel?” I said, “If it’s worth it, yeah.”
So they put me on a job up there, and my ex-girlfriend, I stayed at her house for a while, then I bought my own place. When I moved up there, I just got work, work, work, work.
I loved it up there! I loved it! I loved it! I loved it!
It’s funny because I’m not like most black guys, black people, you know. I love the water, being out there on the water, fishing and all types of stuff, and there are so many bodies of water up there. That’s where I get my peace of mind, you know what I mean? I sit there and don’t have a care in the world. I didn’t have my own boat. I was renting the stuff right there.
Here, it’s not the same because you can’t get in the water. I love fresh water. Fresh water is beautiful. I like deep sea fishing, salt water and all that, but freshwater is beautiful.
This whole summer, I didn’t hit the water at all. I didn’t even swim this summer. Did you hear what I just said, Tony? This whole summer, I didn’t even swim. Like, what the fuck!
They have lakes up there, and they have park rangers and they’ve got grills up there, where you can grill, volleyball nets, all that stuff.
It’s $4 a car-load, so you can have six people in a car. It only takes $4 to get in there. You can swim, fish, play volleyball, and you can do that almost any time.
Everybody kept telling me that it’s crazy to move up there, like they’re so prejudiced up there, but they’re not. They were so nice.
The first day I got up there, people were opening doors for me. They were like, “Hey, how are you doing?!” It was totally different from here, you know, and I loved it, just loved it.
It’s not racial at all. There were so many mixed couples, so many Brazilians, Ecuadorians, all types. Puerto Ricans, Chinese, Asians, all, all, everything.
They did have a bad rap, but it’s just not correct.
They do still have certain areas. They still have these little gangs. Like, one of my buddies wanted to take me to a club. We get there, and I have to park down the street. They had already gone inside the club, but I had to park. When I got close, walking, two dudes stopped me. There was a black guy and a Puerto Rican guy. They were like, “Yo, you got the wrong color on.”
So I opened my mouth, and I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” and I was laughing. “You don’t know my lifestyle. You’re coming at me like that?”
As soon as I opened my mouth, though, they were like, “Oh, you’re not from around here. Where are you from?” I said I’m from Philly, so they were like, “You’re cool, man.” I laughed at them, basically.
There are different levels with me. You get mad, you get angry and you get upset, you know what I’m saying? I try not to get angry, at all. Angry takes me to a totally different place, which is not good, so I try not to do that. I try to stay at one focal point and, even though I’m mad at you right now, I’ll still say something stupid so that you laugh.
Let’s say you’re just bothering me. I’ll walk outside or something, then come back in, and I’ll start fucking with you back, but in a fun way. Even though you were fucking with me in a bad way, I’ll come back and fuck with you, in a good way. ORDER IT NOW
I always try to turn a negative into a positive.
You’re not going to defeat me by your words or whatever, you know, because I’m very smart. In the 7th grade, I used to smoke weed and stuff like that, came to class all high, and I still got A’s on my tests.
They kept me after school, you know, because I was cheating, and I still got the same grade, so they were like, “You’re so smart to be so dumb.”
My sociology teacher said, “You shouldn’t be getting high. You’re too intelligent for that.” It stuck with me all my life.
Like, me and him are FaceBook friends. I texted him, “Hey Mr. Coleman, blah, blah, blah. Yo, thank you for saying that to me when I took your class,” and he was like, “Well, Eddie, I don’t remember what I said.” I told him, “You said that I was so smart to be so dumb,” and I always took that into my brain.
My kids are mixed. I love white women. Ha, ha, ha!
We all bleed the same damn color. People don’t realize that racism is taught. If you take an Asian kid, a black kid and a white kid and put them in the sandbox, they’re going to play, until somebody say they can’t play with that child.
It’s the parents. The parents may come up to that kid, “Get out of there! You can’t play with them!” You know what I mean? The kids will act how kids act. They don’t know no better. They’ll play!
Me, I have no problems at all. You respect me, I respect you.
Like I said, I have mixed kids, but growing up, I was shot at because I was black. I walked through the wrong neighborhood. Somebody tried to shoot me with a harpoon! I’ve been through some shit. I can’t help it if I’m black. I can’t help that.
That’s what he does, you know, scuba diving. He didn’t hit me. I was lucky I got pushed out of the way. This was growing up in the suburbs, Lansdowne, Yeadon, Upper Darby. I got shot at, you know what I mean, because I walked on the sidewalk.
Cops in Darby, they beat me up. It was a domestic call. My wife was white, OK? We had kids, mixed kids. The argument was next door, not my house, but they came at my house, threw me down the steps, beat me up, put me in a cop car, then turned around and told me, “If you don’t want to go to the hospital, you better give me your address,” so I gave them my address.
They were like, “You don’t live there. A white girl lives there.” They were like, “Where you live at?” I gave them the address again. They were like, “You don’t live there! You go to the hospital,” so guess what? I went to the hospital. They beat me the fuck up!
They took me from my house. She was living there, with me!
I couldn’t even fight back. My wife said, “That’s my husband,” but they made her go back in the house. This was ‘92.
I came home the next day. They ripped my shirt. I had a button shirt. They cut it in the back, with a razor, so I’m walking in my shirt with a hole in it. They made me walk home without no shoes.
So I went to my old neighborhood. I talked to my mom and all that, and we went to the Lansdowne police station, because we knew an officer there. They said there was nothing they could do about it, because there’s a code of silence among the police officers, or so they said, so my sister took it to a different level.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Mary Mason? WHAT? My sister took it to a radio station. They had a picture of me. They had a picture of my clothes. They had a picture of me all beat up and everything.
Over nothing! Over nothing! Literally. I was beaten up over nothing!
I ended up suing them but, again, I was young, so I settled out of court with them. I ended up getting, like, $45,000. If I kept it going, I would have gotten a whole lot more.
Like I said, again, then I was selling drugs. I had an arsenal. I had guns and stuff like that, you know. I was going to blow the police station the fuck up, you know what I mean, but the police station was right next to a school, so I couldn’t do that.
No, I didn’t have a record then. I never got caught.
They were arguing next door. It wasn’t us! They went to the wrong house and fucked me up!
I’ve got three friends that are police officers. I trust them, but I don’t trust those other ones. As soon as I saw them, it’s, “Yes, sir,” whatever, but they threw me to the ground and worked me over!
For two years, they harassed me. They banned me from that town. If they saw me driving, they’d pull me over. They were like, “You’ve got two minutes to get out of this town!”
I had to move back to my mom for a little while. My wife and kids, too.
I never got bitter over that. I get sick of reading stuff now in the news. I think about my children’s security. It pisses me off, you know.
Like I said, again, I already lived that life. Innocent people getting beaten up by the cops, getting killed, that could have been me, I could have gotten killed. That night.
What I was doing was, I was avoiding that act, you know, which was kind of hard to do, because certain roads led that way, so I had to take back streets just to keep away. Again, I was still young too.
I was going to blow the hell out of that police station, you know what I mean? I had the artillery to do it, but, again, glory to God and all that. God had my back! Otherwise, that police station and whoever was in it was gone! ORDER IT NOW
There’s a kid that I went to school with, they killed him in a cell. Now, when they put you in that cell, they take your shoe strings, they take your belt and they take your shirt from you, so how are you going to hang yourself? He’s 6-4. How do you hang yourself when you’re 6-4 and you’re in a 6-foot cell? You can’t!
He was a good kid, but he was a bad kid, you know what I mean? I forget how he got locked up. He got locked up for something. They killed him the same night. They locked him up, then they killed him. You can look it up. It’s on the internet still.
My wife stayed with me. Five years later, we split up, but it wasn’t over that. I had three children with her, my oldest three.
She got mad because I moved on. I had another woman. I was just having another kid. I had a reason to dump her, you know what I mean? If you’re in a relationship, and you’re not growing. You’re supposed to grow together. She cheated on me. I’m sure she did. She got caught twice, so when she started doing it, I started doing it.
She did it first, she did it first, she started it.
All I did was work. I worked, then came home, I swear to God! I was bringing home $1,300 cash a week. I was taking out vent systems, heaters, boilers and all that. I was bringing all this money home. It’s heavy work, back-breaking stuff. All you wanted to do was go home to your shower and that’s it. Eat, then sleep.
I was mad because she was collecting welfare. It’s like, “Why are you collecting welfare?” We’ve got plenty of money. We had a good life. It’s because of her girlfriends. It was like, “You can get this, you get that.” Now, I had no insurance and stuff. I told her, “You can get the medical, and you can get the food stamps, but don’t get the cash,” but she went out and got it all. She got all the benefits, so I ended up in the system.
I told the judge, “How are you locking me up, when my kids live with me? Like, what are you talking about? This is my house. My kids live with me and everything.” Well, it was because of her, she was getting welfare, but I didn’t know.
I was getting locked up for a month here, a month there, you know. When they locked you up in the state of Pennsylvania, they suspended your license, so how could you get to work? If you had a driving job, you couldn’t do it. It’s fucked up!
I told the judge, again, here you go, “My kids live with me. I don’t owe her nothing. Why am I here? If you look at the record, you’ll understand what I’m talking about here. I’m confused. You guys locked me up, like, six fuckin’ times,” so he said, “Ma’am, why is he here?”
“Oh, I’m trying to get more money, blah, blah, blah blah,” so he looked and found out that she had a warrant out, so he said to me, “Mr. Calvin, you want me to lock her up? What she’s doing is welfare fraud.”
I said, “Your honor, no.” I said no. “We’re not together no more. I didn’t suffer from you guys. I was in the system. I was in jail six times, but I’m done now.” I said, “No, that’s my kids’ mother. Don’t lock her up.”
He went to her, and he said, “Ma’am, this is a hell of a nice guy. Why did you do this to him?” She had no answer.
She was acting real stupid. I looked at her and I said, “I told you you wasn’t going to get no money.” That’s what I said to her. “I told you you weren’t going to get no money. The judge could have locked you up, no matter what I said. You heard what he said. It was welfare fraud. You’re stupid for even bringing me in here.”
I had three kids with her, my oldest three.
I have a kid that’s getting ready to turn four, up in Boston. All of my other kids are here. I’ve got 24, 21, 20, 16, 15 and one that’s getting ready to turn four. I grew up without a father, so I was going to make sure I’m not going to be like my father, you know what I mean?
My three oldest, I put money into their accounts, in their names. They each have $50,000 in their bank account, right now. They’ve got more money than I do. Now, my younger ones, my 16 and 15-year-old, they’ve got about $10,000. The baby don’t have shit, you know what I mean, but she’s going to get hers.
I was doing the smart thing with the money. Like I said, I grew up without a father, so I’m going to provide for my kids, no matter what. I’ll suffer later, but as long as my kids are OK, then I’m happy.
When I did get to know my father, I met him in church. I was 16 years old when I got to meet my father. I went to church with my mom.
I was 16. Again, I was selling drugs, but I was also working at McDonald’s and going to school.
He comes into church, sits behind us and goes like this to my mom. Taps on her shoulder, “Who’s that?” She almost cursed in church. “It’s a shame you don’t know your own son!” I turned around and almost flipped, but then I realized I was in church. I was like, “You made me and you don’t know who I am?!”
When she got pregnant by him, she was with him for, like, five years. She said, “I’m pregnant,” and the next day, he was gone. My father did this to five other women, the same exact thing, because I have five brothers. He did the same thing to each one of the women.
My father, I almost killed him, in church. I was so angry. Yeaah. Yeaah. I was like, “How can you not know who I am? Where was you at?” Like, “Why don’t you want me? What did I do to you? I didn’t do anything to you. You made me,” but there was nothing, not a fuckin’ word, not a fuckin’ word. ORDER IT NOW
I never called him dad. I never called him pop. There was nothing until I turned 18. When we graduated high school, I paid for his parking to come see me graduate. That’s fucked up.
Now, my grandfather and grandma loved the shit out of me. I knew them. I knew them since I was three!
My grandparents, they loved me. They knew who I was. My grandpop and grandmom used to always brag about me when I walked down the street, when I walked by the house, everything like that. They’d say, “There goes my grandson.” They would tell people,” There’s my grandson.”
My father came to my graduation because I begged him to come. Face to face, I was like, “I’m your son. Aren’t you proud of me for graduating, at least?” He was like, “Well, she has money.”
I paid for his parking. I paid for his ticket. We got, like, three graduation tickets, and you had to pay for two more. I paid for it. I paid for him. It was $10 or something. He didn’t want to pay $10 to see his son graduate.
That’s why I made a promise to myself. I said that when I have kids, no matter what happens between me and the girl, my kids are going to know who I am, and that I was there, so that’s what I’ve done.
Tony gets mad that a lot of his crew don’t have cars and stuff, but when my son, my first born, made me a grandpa, I gave him my truck.
I know what it’s like to be on a bus with kids, grocery shopping and all that, with the kid wrapped around you, and you carrying bags and getting on a bus. I know what it’s like, so I gave him my truck.
I told Tony, “I ain’t got no vehicle, man. I gave it to my son. I ain’t got no car!” But it made me feel good, because I would never be like my father. Never!
When I hear people, because I hear people all the time, like how they hate their mom, how they hate their dad, and I’m like, I can see how you hate your dad, and you must have a reason, but at least you’re living together. I didn’t have that. All I had was my mom. You’ve got a mom and a dad, so you should be happy, you’re lucky, because I didn’t have that.
Linh Dinh is the author of two books of stories, five of poems, and a novel, Love Like Hate . He’s tracking our deteriorating socialscape through his frequently updated photo blog, Postcards from the End of America . | 0 |
The Department of Justice unsealed a complaint against a journalist who made national headlines for fabricating stories after he allegedly conducted a campaign of harassment against at least eight Jewish community centers while cyberstalking his on Friday. [The FBI arrested Juan Thompson in St. Louis on Friday, and he’s due to appear in court in Manhattan. Thompson’s arrest is the first since Jewish community centers and schools were targeted for threats and harassment across the country. “Together with the FBI and the NYPD, we have been investigating the recent threats made on Jewish Community Centers in New York and around the country,” said U. S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. “Today, we have charged Juan Thompson with allegedly stalking a former romantic interest by, among other things, making bomb threats in her name to Jewish Community Centers and to the League. ” “Thompson’s alleged pattern of harassment not only involved the defamation of his female victim, but his threats intimidated an entire community,” added FBI Assistant William F. Sweeney Jr. in the statement. This isn’t the first time Thompson has appeared in headlines. Last February, The Intercept revealed he fabricated sources in stories and made up quotes out of whole cloth. When confronted about this egregious breach of journalistic standards, he blamed racism and “testicular cancer” in a letter sent to the Intercept’s and the Gawker. “I’ve been undergoing radiation treatment for testicular cancer and, since I no longer have health insurance, I’ve been feverishly struggling and figuring out how to pay for my treatment. All of this, of course, has taken up my time and energy except for the few moments I’ve spent searching for some relief,” Thompson said, adding: “I lack access to my notebooks (which I took for most stories) to address these matters. ” “I had a habit of writing drafts of stories, placing the names of ppl I wanted to get quotes from in there, and then going to fetch the quotes,” he continued in his letter. “Was it sloppy? Yes? But I’m a cub reporter and expected a sustained and competent editor to guide me, something which I never had at your company and something with which The Intercept continues to struggle as everyone in this business knows. ” Thompson blamed the “Great Problem” of “white media organizations” for failing to understand his approach to journalism: If I couldn’t obtain a quote from the person I wanted, I went somewhere else, and must’ve forgot to change the names — clearly. Also, yes I encouraged some of my interviewees to use another name they’re poor black people who didn’t want their names in the public given the situations and that was the only was of convincing them otherwise. That also explains why some of them didn’t want to talk with your company’s research team or denied the events. These weren’t articles in Harpers or The Nation. Instead, these are the lives of people forgotten by society and their being in public and talking to white, NY people, no less, could harm and turn them off. They’ve lost loved ones to violence you and others couldn’t possibly imagine. Ultimately, the journalism that covers the experiences of poor black folk and the journalism others, such as you and First Look, are used to differs drastically. This dilemma is the Great Problem with the white media organizations that dominate our media landscape. As Coates wrote: “The standard [white] progressive approach of the moment is to mix moral invective with public policy. ” Such an approach ignores the differences in the way we must navigate these various fields: including journalism. The Intercept published an apology after discovering three of Thompson’s fake news reporting while he worked from November 2014 to January 2016 for them. “Thompson went to great lengths to deceive his editors, creating an email account to impersonate a source and lying about his reporting methods,” the letter said. In one fake news story that went viral, Thompson made up a fictional source called “Scott Roof,” a cousin of Dylann Roof’s, who claimed Roof slaughtered nine black parishioners after “he kind of went over the edge when a girl he liked starting dating a black guy two years back. ” Thompson’s Twitter account also reveals he supported socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for president. “I voted for Bernie Sanders, but his supporters are annoying as fuck. ‘I almost cried when I got a Bernie sign’. Yuck,” he tweeted in July. This puts Sanders in an awkward position. Only days before Thompson’s arrest, he told J Street: “I hope very much that President Trump and his political adviser Mr. Bannon understand that the entire world is watching, that it is imperative that their voices be loud and clear in condemning . ” Thompson posted many harassing messages about his . “Two wks ago it was a visit from the FBI. Right now the Secret Service. This racist white garbage [omitted] is trash,” read one tweet. “. @SecretService [My ] has made death threats against Trump. And talked about how she wanted to kill him and his kids. Look at her,” Thompson continued on Twitter, before tweeting at Secret Service that she made threats against the president. “. @SecretService [Omitted] a disgusting nasty racist white woman, who filed a false lie against me, has threatened to kill Trump. ” “The @SecretService visited me looked at my tweets, questioned my politics some awful white woman I date reported me. I won’t be silenced,” he continued. “Y’all know how to get a social worker in NY barred? I’m being stalked and harassed by a white nasty white woman … in NYC. ” Thompson also pinned a tweet with a rant against the victim, adding: “Know any good lawyers? Need to stop this #whitegirl I dated who sent a bomb threat in my name wants me to be raped in jail. ” The Twitter account was verified as Thompson’s by the U. S. Attorney’s Office in New York. | 1 |
In an excerpt of a John Pilger Special interview, Julian Assange says that emails released by Wikileaks show that Hillary Clinton is intentionally misguiding voters about the degree to which US allies are supporting ISIS, and that Donald Trump will not be allowed into the oval office.
Assange explains that the same financial interests funding ISIS are funding Clinton. He references a 2014 email from John Podesta to Clinton, in which we find the following:
While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.
“I think this is the most significant email in the whole collection,” said Assange. “All serious analysts know, and even the US government has agreed, that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS and funding ISIS, but the dodge has always been that it is some ‘rogue’ princes using their oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves. But that email says that it is the government of Saudi Arabia, and the government of Qatar that have been funding ISIS.”
Pilger asked Assange about the possibility that Trump would steal the election with the help of Russia, as many in the Democratic party claim.
Assange thinks that this is highly unlikely, but not because he is unpopular. “My analysis is that Trump would not be permitted to win. Why do I say that? Because he has had every establishment off his side. Trump does not have one establishment, maybe with the exception of the Evangelicals, if you can call them establishment,” he explained.
Assange says that Hillary is the establishment pick. “Banks, intelligence, arms companies, foreign money, etc. are all united behind Hillary Clinton. And the media as well. Media owners, and the journalists themselves.” Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
We encourage you to share and republish our reports, analyses, breaking news and videos ( Click for details ).
Contributed by The Daily Sheeple of www.TheDailySheeple.com .
This content may be freely reproduced in full or in part in digital form with full attribution to the author and a link to www.TheDailySheeple.com. | 0 |
. U.N. Votes to Ban Nuclear Weapons in 2017 On October 27, 2016, the United Nations Committee For Nuclear Disarmament voted in favor of a resolu... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/un-votes-to-ban-nuclear-weapons-in-2017.html On October 27, 2016, the United Nations Committee For Nuclear Disarmament voted in favor of a resolution to begin negotiations on a treaty in 2017 which will aim to outlaw destructive(fission) nuclear weapons. 123 voted in favor of the resolution, which was created by Austria, Brazil, South Africa, Ireland, Mexico and Nigeria, while 38 voted against and 16 abstained from voting either way.Not surprisingly, four of the five big UN Security Council nuclear powers voted against the resolution, which included France, U.S. Britain and Russia. The fifth country, China, abstained from the vote. 123 countries voted in favor of the resolution. Ref. Interestingly, Japan voted against the resolution, even though nuclear fission bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki many years ago.In a very surprising move, North Korea voted in favor of the disarmament resolution and said they will bring in a, “legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.” Kate Hudson, who is the Chair for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament said : “It’s very encouraging to see so many countries say loud and clear it’s time for the world to move on from nuclear weapons. We have united before to ban biological and chemical weapons, landmines and cluster bombs, and now the international community is taking decisive steps to ban nuclear weapons.” The world wants peace. Ref. In addition to the U.N. vote, the European Parliament adopted it’s own resolution which was supported by 415 votes, opposed by 124 and 74 chose not to vote. This is another positive step forward as the European nations can help to add great weight to a resolution to finally disarm the world of destructive nuclear weapons.The resolution will be put forth to the UN General Assembly in December and is now likely to pass, which will then pave the way for further negotiations to take place in March, June and July of 2017.Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, described the vote as a “historic moment” in the decades-long drive for a nuclear-free world. “This treaty won’t eliminate nuclear weapons overnight. But it will establish a powerful, new international legal standard, stigmatizing nuclear weapons and compelling nations to take urgent action on disarmament.” Fission vs. Fusion It must be remembered though that there are differences when someone says or writes “nuclear energy.” Nuclear fission is the destructive kind. It’s the kind that was used for the atomic bombs in Japan. Nuclean fusion is harmless, clean and can produce what is known as “free energy.”According to Duke Energy :Both fission and fusion are nuclear reactions that produce energy, but the applications are not the same.Fission is the splitting of a heavy, unstable nucleus into two lighter nuclei, and fusion is the process where two light nuclei combine together releasing vast amounts of energy.For example, the Sun is a massive producer of nuclear fusion energy, which is what scientists are working on to try and create “free energy.”The world must push for the disarmament of nuclear fission technology and must simultaneously push for the advancement of nuclear fusion technology. The world is moving in a peaceful direction and this is further evidence of such claims. What do you think will happen in 2017 with these negotiations? By Lance Schuttler | 0 |
Posted on August 4, 2016 by Dr. Eowyn | 51 Comments
Whatever happens on November 8, Donald Trump can claim this achievement: His candidacy exposed the fact that the two-party system of Democrats and Republicans is an illusion.
What we have in the U.S. instead is a corrupt polity where Democrat and Republican élites form a single ruling party, as Professor Emeritus Angelo M. Codevilla stunningly asserted in 2010. (See “ America’s Bipartisan Ruling Class vs. the People “)
The evidence?
The following list of Republican bigwigs who, by publicly declaring their support for Hillary Clinton — the pathological liar who had accomplished nothing as secretary of state, but violated U.S. laws and jeopardized national security with her unsecured private email server; lied about and left four Americans to die in Benghazi; and supports the absolute “right” of women to kill their unborn — instead of Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump, have peeled away their masks, revealing their true faces.
Here’s a list of the Republican élites who have declared they’ll vote for Hillary: Dan Akerson , former chairman and chief executive of General Motors: ‘‘Serving as the leader of the free world requires effective leadership, sound judgment, a steady hand and, most importantly, the temperament to deal with crises large and small. Donald Trump lacks each of these characteristics.’’ Marc Andreessen , venture capitalist: ‘‘[Silicon] Valley wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be doing any of this if we didn’t have the amazing flow of immigrants that we’ve had in the last 80 years. And the idea of choking that off just makes me sick to my stomach.’’ Richard Armitage , deputy secretary of state and adviser to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush: Trump ‘‘doesn’t appear to be a Republican, he doesn’t appear to want to learn about issues. So I’m going to vote for Mrs. Clinton.’’ Max Boot , senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and adviser to GOP presidential candidates: ‘‘I’m literally losing sleep over Donald Trump. She would be vastly preferable to Trump.’’ Sally Bradshaw , former top Jeb Bush adviser, who told CNN that she left the GOP and became an independent because of Trump: “As much as I don’t want another four years of Obama’s policies, I can’t look my children in the eye and tell them I voted for Donald Trump.’’ Arne Carlson , a former two-term Republican governor of Minnesota who supported Obama. Jim Cicconi , former Reagan and George H.W. Bush aide: ‘‘Hillary Clinton is experienced, qualified and will make a fine president. The alternative, I fear, would set our nation on a very dark path.’’ Eliot Cohen , former Bush administration official who has been called “the most influential neocon in academe,” declared Clinton “the lesser evil, by a large margin.” Maria Comella , former spokeswoman for governors Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani: ‘‘Instead of speaking out against instances of bigotry, racism and inflammatory rhetoric whether it’s been against women, immigrants, or Muslims, we made a calculus that it was better to say nothing at all in the interest of politics and winning elections.’’ Doug Elmets , former Reagan spokesman: ‘‘I could live with four years of Hillary Clinton before I could ever live with one day of Donald Trump as president.’’ Elmets spoke at the Democratic National Convention, along with other Republicans now backing Clinton. Mike Fernandez , $4 million to GOP candidates in recent years: ‘‘If I have a choice — and you can put it in bold — if I have a choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton, I’m choosing Hillary. She’s the lesser of two evils.’’ Charles Fried , US solicitor general under Reagan and current Harvard Law School professor: ‘‘Though long a registered Republican, this will be the third consecutive presidential election in which my party forces the choice between party and, in John McCain’s words, putting America first. . . . It is to [Mitt] Romney’s credit that this year, like John Paulson and George Will, he is standing up against the brutal, substantively incoherent, and authoritarian tendencies of Donald Trump.” Richard Hanna , a “moderate” Republican Congressman (NY) who is retiring this year, told The Syracuse Post Standard he will support Hillary because Trump is unfit to lead: “I think Trump is a national embarrassment. Is he really the guy you want to have the nuclear codes?” Ben Howe , contributing editor at RedState.com. Robert Kagan , senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; former Reagan State Department aide and adviser to the campaigns of John McCain and Mitt Romney; will vote for Hillary. Peter Mansoor , retired Army colonel and former aide to disgraced general David Petraeus: ‘‘It will be the first Democratic presidential candidate I’ve voted for in my adult life.’’ Hamid Moghadam , chairman and chief executive of Prologis: ‘‘Our country is about tolerance and inclusion and that’s why, as a lifelong Republican supporter, I endorse Hillary Clinton for president in this election.’’ William Oberndorf , $3 million to GOP candidates since 2012: ‘‘If it is Trump vs. Clinton, and there is no viable third-party candidate, I will be voting for Hillary Clinton.’’ Henry Paulson , treasury secretary to George W. Bush. Paulson wrote: “When it comes to the presidency, I will not vote for Donald Trump. ‘I will not cast a write-in vote. I’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton, with the hope that she can bring Americans together to do the things necessary to strengthen our economy, our environment and our place in the world. To my Republican friends: I know I’m not alone.’’ Larry Pressler , former three-term Republican senator from South Dakota: ‘‘I can’t believe I’m endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, but I am. If someone had told me 10 years ago I would do this, I wouldn’t have believed them.’’ Chuck Robbins , chief executive of Cisco. Mark Salter , former top adviser to John McCain: ‘‘Whatever Hillary Clinton’s faults, she’s not ignorant or hateful or a nut. She acts like an adult and understands the responsibilities of an American president. That might not be a ringing endorsement. But in 2016, the year of Trump’s s campaign, it’s more than enough.’’ Kori Schake , National Security Council and State Department aide. Robert Smith , former judge on New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals: ‘‘This year, I’m going to vote for a Democrat for president — the first time I’ve done it in 36 years — and I think the decision is easy. Hillary Clinton is the only responsible choice, and I don’t understand why so few of my fellow conservatives see it that way.’’ Brent Scowcroft , chairman of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and adviser to three previous GOP presidents: ‘‘The presidency requires the judgment and knowledge to make tough calls under pressure . . . [Clinton] has the wisdom and experience to lead our country at this critical time.’’ Craig Snyder , former chief of staff to then-Republican former senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and also an ex-colleague of former top Trump adviser Roger Stone and current top Trump adviser Paul Manafort. Alan Steinberg , regional EPA administrator. Mike Treiser , former Mitt Romney aide: ‘‘In the face of bigotry, hatred, violence, and small-mindedness, this time, I’m with her.’’ Meg Whitman , Hewlett Packard executive; former California gubernatorial contender.
Add to the above list Glenn Beck , the billionaire Koch brothers , Bill Kristol ( National Review ), Mitt Romney , Karl Rove , and Ben Shapiro ( National Review ), who, although not declaring they’ll vote for Hillary, are reported to be adamantly opposed to Trump.
Here are the Republicans who will vote for the Libertarian Party’s Johnson-Weld ticket and so effectively assure a Hillary win : Martin Avila , CEO of Terra Eclipse, former Digital Campaign Director to former Rep. Ron Paul, member of Republicans for Johnson-Weld’s steering committee. Julie Germany , Interim Executive Director of the White Coat Waste Project, former COO of Generation Opportunity, member of Republicans for Johnson-Weld steering committee. Mason Harrison , head of communications for Crowdpac, former strategist for the campaigns of Gov. Mitt Romney and ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, member of Republicans for Johnson-Weld steering committee. Jon Henke , former adviser to US Sen. Fred Thompson, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and former Sen. George Allen; member of Republicans for Johnson-Weld steering committee. Dawson Hodgson , former member, RI State Senate; former Rhode Island State Prosecutor; member of Republicans for Johnson-Weld steering committee. Cyrus Krohn , former Republican National Committee e-Campaign Director; member of Republicans for Johnson-Weld steering committee. Ed Lopez , former national vice chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus; former member of the national campaign at Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry; co-chair of Republicans for Johnson-Weld initiative. Liz Mair , longtime GOP operative whose group is behind the Facebook ad buy in Utah featuring a racy photo of Melania Trump; the RNC’s first and only online communications director, and has advised US Senator Rand Paul, Governors Scott Walker and Rick Perry, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina on communications; co-chair of Republicans for Johnson-Weld initiative. Kevin Martin , former chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Massachusetts; small business owner; co-chair of Republicans for Johnson-Weld initiative. Michael Melendez , former leader of Young Americans for Liberty in Utah and Utah State Central Committee member; member of Republicans for Johnson-Weld steering committee. Marco Nunez, Jr. , Republican strategist who served on the George W. Bush and John McCain presidential campaigns, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s gubernatorial campaign, and at the Republican National Committee; co-chair of Republicans for Johnson-Weld initiative. Moira Bagley Smith , former communications director to Sen. Rand Paul and multiple members of House GOP leadership; member of Republicans for Johnson-Weld steering committee. Lyle Stamps , attorney; former White House staffer; leader of Latter-day Saints for Bush during the 2004 election cycle; member of Republicans for Johnson-Weld steering committee. Michael Turk , President of Opinion Mover Strategies; former Republican National Committee e-campaign director; member of Republicans for Johnson-Weld steering committee. Luke Williams , New York Times and USA Today best-selling author; Vice President at AECOM; member of Republicans for Johnson-Weld steering committee. Dan Winslow , former Chief Legal Counsel to MA Gov. Mitt Romney; former member, MA House of Representatives; member of Republicans for Johnson-Weld steering committee. Keith Velia , finance industry leader; Republican Liberty Caucus of Connecticut Treasurer; Ridgefield Republican Town Committee Associate; member of Republicans for Johnson-Weld steering committee.
As The Daily Bell observes:
There is only one party: pro-war and pro-technocratic (corporatist).
The fundamental mythology of US politics is that the Democrats are socialist-oriented and Republicans believe in freedom and individual human rights.
But Hillary is corporatist, not socialist….
Important Republicans call Trump’s stances “brutal, substantively incoherent, and authoritarian.”
Strangely, Hillary’s actions and statements provide evidence of the very authoritarianism and brutality that Trump is being accused of.
When she and her husband entered the White House, one of the very first things Hillary did was fire the staff of the travel office in order to put her own people in place.
She didn’t just fire the staff however, she also tried to get the head of the office, Director Billy Dale, put in jail for embezzlement. He was subsequently found not guilty and Hillary herself was investigated for initiating the firings and making false accusations.
Her intimidation and blackmailing of her husband’s lovers is well known by this point- and thus her campaign’s emphasis on “women’s rights” is ironic to say the least.
Her voting record and statements reveal an individual who is most comfortable with US serial wars abroad, no matter the reason (or lack of reasons).
Additional accusations against Hillary and her husband include violence and even murder of individuals whose interests diverged from theirs.
Most notably, Hillary has been accused of orchestrating the death of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster.
None of this seems to register with Republicans who are “crossing over”….
Conclusion: Whatever else takes place during this federal election, the disintegration of the credibility of the two-party system is perhaps the most important development of all.
See also: | 0 |
Prowling Amur tiger nabbed near Vladivostok October 27, 2016 TASS animals , russian far east , vladivostok The Amur tiger is on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Source: Yuri Smityuk/TASS
A full-grown Amur tiger has been caught near the Russian Far Eastern city of Vladivostok and sent for rehabilitation to a special center. The large feline predator is a male weighing 170 kilograms (roughly 375 pounds) that had killed a cow in the town of Artyom about 40 kilometers from Vladivostok, the Amur Tiger Center’s press service reported.
"On the morning of Oct. 26, a resident of the Artyom town suburb reported to the police that a tiger had killed a cow… That same evening a response team from the hunting supervision agency spotted the tiger using an infrared camera. The predator was immediately caught and brought to the Tiger Rehabilitation and Reintroduction Center in the Alekseyevka settlement," the Amur Tiger Center said.
The tiger will stay at the rehabilitation center while experts determine his future. He may be released into the wild in an area far from human settlements but inhabited with enough ungulates (or hoofed mammals). Ecologists had a similar experience last year, when a tiger named Uporny (or ‘Persistent’) who had been attacking dogs in the Khabarovsk region, was caught and later released into a distant area. Tiger cub found prowling the streets of Vladivostok
Only a few days ago, another male tiger was caught 20 kilometers away from Vladivostok. The predator not only walked near the city but also entered the city territory. He, too, has been sent to the rehabilitation center. It is a young male tiger weighing 140 kilograms (roughly 308 pounds) who is likely to be released into the wild.
Several weeks ago reports of a tiger were received from Vladivostok’s neighboring town of Artyom but the search ended without any success.
The Amur tiger is on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. According to the last year’s data, at present only 480-540 members of this species live in the wild, with 90 percent of them inhabiting Russia’s Far Eastern Primorye and Khabarovsk regions. | 0 |
October 27, 2016 - Fort Russ News - RusVesna - translated by J. Arnoldski -
Russian air force planes are carrying out massive strikes against ISIS in tandem with the Syrian Army’s offensive in Aleppo, eliminating militants and their commanders.
Russian Spring has been informed of the details of the military operation by a military source.
Over the past day, as a result of precision air strikes by Russian air forces on ISIS and Jebat Al-Nusra terrorists’ positions in Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, and Homs, militants’ human losses have amounted to 200 killed and more than 250 wounded, along with 32 heavy-machine-gun-mounted pick ups and 20 units of other automotive vehicles destroyed.
As a result of yesterday’s offensive by Syrian government troops on Jebat Al-Nusra positions in Aleppo’s northeastern districts, the radicals have suffered significant losses. In the Bustan al-Basha district, the main sapper responsible for preparing “jihad-mobiles”, Muhammad Al-Fatah, was killed.
In the Khandrat district, ten militants were liquidated. Among 20 additionally wounded was Field Commander Mustafa Halasi.
In the Sheikh Fares district, a control point along with Field Commander Muhammad Abu Al-Hon and 15 associates were liquidated.
Another 18 terrorists have been eliminated during the offensive of government units in the eastern districts of Aleppo.
Follow us on Facebook!
Follow us on Twitter!
Donate!
| 0 |
WASHINGTON — Judge Neil M. Gorsuch’s first taste of Washington politics was bitter and lingering. He was 15 years old and his mother was a official in the Reagan administration caught in an ugly showdown with Congress. When she was forced to step down, her reputation in tatters, young Neil was furious. “You should never have resigned,” he told his mother, Anne Gorsuch Burford, by her later account. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You only did what the president ordered. Why are you quitting? You raised me not to be a quitter. Why are you a quitter?” More than three decades later, Judge Gorsuch, a federal appeals court judge in Denver, has been nominated to the Supreme Court by President Trump and faces a political culture even more caustic than the one that destroyed his mother’s public career. Like her, he is a committed conservative and can expect strong opposition, but where she was bold and brash, he has advanced to the pinnacle of the judiciary with understatement and polish. Now 49, he arrives at his own moment of testing as a child of the Reagan revolution who saw up close the promise and the perils. He inherited a frontier skepticism of government rooted in his home of Colorado and nurtured in Washington during the 1980s. An examination of his early, formative years finds that he swam in the liberal waters of Columbia and Harvard and rebelled against the dominant thinking to develop a fully formed conservative philosophy that has propelled him to the threshold of the Supreme Court. Those early years shaped his views on the law and life and provided a searing lesson in the realities of the political world. Despite the family ordeal, friends and relatives said, he emerged from the crucible of his youth tempered about politics yet not soured on public service. He decided to pursue goals similar to his mother’s if only by a different path. The first woman to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Ms. Burford argued that states were better custodians of resources and that market forces would bring more discipline to regulation. As she cut spending and pared back rules, critics called her an enemy of the environment. Her downfall came when, at White House direction, she refused to turn over documents related to a program. Congress cited her for contempt. “It was an example to him of what the realpolitik of Washington could be like,” said Richard M. Segal, a Harvard Law School classmate who is now a lawyer in San Diego. “He viewed his mother as an environmentalist, and his mother viewed herself as an environmentalist. And meanwhile she was made the poster child of the view that the Reagan administration was just out there to rape the environment. ” The teenager was his mother’s conscience. “Neil knew from the beginning the seriousness of my problems,” she wrote in a memoir before her death in 2004. He was “smart as a whip” and “had an unerring sense of fairness, as do many people his age. ” When she resigned, “he was really upset. ” By most accounts, he did not dwell on it later in life, but it clearly echoed in his work. In preparing a moot court brief at Harvard on workplace safety, he tried to add material concerning the E. P. A. that did not fit, recalled a classmate, Ellen M. Bublick, who is now a law professor at the University of Arizona. In his time as an appeals court judge in Denver, his most notable writings have concerned the power of government regulators. “We talked about that prior history in relation to that,” Professor Bublick said. “He definitely was proud of his mom and had a sense that in the Reagan era certain people took a fall for him in order to protect him. And I think that was really his view of what happened to his mom. ” Neil McGill Gorsuch’s earliest years were spent in the West, where at Rocky Mountain campsites and fishing streams he internalized a faith in rugged individualism. He grew up in a house in the east Denver neighborhood of Hilltop. His parents, Anne and David Gorsuch, were lawyers who had three children: Neil in 1967, Stephanie in 1969 and J. J. in 1973. His mother raised them Catholic his father was not religious. (Judge Gorsuch is now Episcopalian, according to his brother, possibly inspired by his time studying at Oxford University.) Studious but not standoffish, Neil shared a bedroom with his brother and attended Christ the King, a Roman Catholic school. Relatives and friends recalled him lugging stacks of books and once rounding the baseball diamond in cowboy boots after leaving his athletic shoes at home. “If anybody was going to be the president, it was going to be Neil Gorsuch,” said Gina Carbone, 49, a classmate. In 1976, Ms. Gorsuch was elected to the State Legislature, often aligning herself with a small but powerful group of conservatives, called the “House Crazies,” who were determined to cut taxes and loosen regulations. Women’s groups supported her campaign, but in office she led a fight to kill the Colorado State Commission on Women. Fervently she was, one politician told The Washington Post in 1983, “almost paranoid about any kind of abortion legislation. ” She rose quickly. “She was very prominent in the shaping of policy,” said Steve Durham, a leader of the House Crazies. She had a “knack and ability to get along with people and put them at ease. ” But she was famously tough. The Rocky Mountain News wrote that she “could kick a bear to death with her bare feet. ” After two terms, Ms. Gorsuch became one of three Coloradans to take prominent posts in the Reagan administration, along with James G. Watt, the interior secretary, and Robert Burford, the director of the Bureau of Land Management. Called the “Colorado mafia,” they managed the nation’s natural resources with a fierce belief that the government had gone too far in regulating private enterprise. It was widely believed that they had the backing of Joseph Coors, the conservative Colorado beer magnate. By the time Ms. Gorsuch moved to Washington in 1981, she was headed for a divorce, and the children toggled between the capital and Colorado. It was an adjustment for children used to the informal ways of the West. “All of a sudden we were across the country, having to dress up in coats and ties and having to act like at prep school,” said Michael Trent, a Californian whose father was deputy transportation secretary at the time and who found in Mr. Gorsuch a similar spirit. The two boys took walks after dinner discussing the world. “The two of us were huge fans of Reagan,” said Mr. Trent, who was later best man at Judge Gorsuch’s wedding and made the judge godfather to his children. “And it was because of our family upbringings. It was so much a part of our lives at the time. ” Mr. Gorsuch soon had a stepfather when his mother married Mr. Burford, whom she had met in the State Legislature. Known for wearing furs and smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, Ms. Gorsuch became a prominent face of the new administration as she cut back lawsuits against polluters and tried to relax parts of the Clean Air Act. “There was obviously a lot of controversy regarding her work as she was carrying out the president’s program,” Ed Meese, a top Reagan adviser, recalled. “I’m sure that undoubtedly had an impact on her son. ” J. J. Gorsuch, 43, now a vice president of a Denver marketing technology company, said his mother’s political life had shaped the family psyche but ultimately made his brother stronger. “If anything, it probably prepared him for the experience ahead in a great way,” he said. “He knows better than most how ugly the political process might get. So in that sense it’s hopefully prepared him for the nomination process. ” His mother emerged from her 1983 resignation demoralized about Washington, which she called “too small to be a state but too large to be an asylum for the mentally deranged. ” But if her tribulations scarred him, Judge Gorsuch gave little indication while at Georgetown Preparatory School, a Jesuit school outside Washington. His classmates — many the children of politicians themselves — knew the family connection, said Bill Hughes, son of a Democratic congressman, but left it unmentioned. As Mr. Trent said, “I can’t imagine what a difficult thing it would have been to go through that, but he never let it show. ” Judge Gorsuch focused on schoolwork and excelled at debate, competing nationally. “Even as a kid, he would be able to step back from situations and be able to make judgments about them,” said Stephen Ochs, a history teacher. “He had the ability to be curious and look at both sides without being threatened. ” His conservative identity was already forming. The school yearbook jokingly listed him as founder of a “Fascism Forever” club, which an editorial note clarified “happily jerked its knees against the increasingly ‘ ’ tendencies of the faculty. ” Mr. Trent called that “sort of his little dig getting back” at a teacher with whom he disagreed. His views apparently cost him little among his peers, who elected him student president. Classmates speculated that his poise would lead to the law and perhaps politics, said one classmate, Brian Cashman, who is now general manager of the New York Yankees. “He looked the part and acted the part. ” Judge Gorsuch arrived at Columbia in 1985 as the historically liberal university was recovering from student protests the previous spring and beginning to divest from corporations operating in South Africa. In three years on campus — he graduated a year early — he emerged as the intellectual leader of a resurgent right. It was “a happy band of dissenters,” as Brian Domitrovic, a classmate and fellow conservative, put it. His eloquence impressed many. That he was tall, clean cut and handsome only helped. He danced and drank Manhattans and martinis, Mr. Domitrovic said. He joined Phi Gamma Delta, a fraternity with a reputation for partying, and quietly attended religious services. But principally, Judge Gorsuch became known as a fierce and lucid writer in the Columbia Daily Spectator, where he published columns, and later The Federalist Paper, which he helped found. Part newspaper, part opinion journal, The Federalist Paper drew comparisons to the conservative Dartmouth Review. “There was a system at Columbia in the ’80s: the liberals and the socialists,” said Stephen Later, who worked on the paper. “The Fed was a response to this echo chamber. ” Judge Gorsuch was out of step with campus zeitgeist. He bristled at attempts to bar military recruiting on campus, minimized the affair and dismissed a shantytown built on campus to protest South African apartheid. The main subject that animated his writing was the political hegemony he perceived at the university. A “tyrannical atmosphere of ‘ideas,’” he called it in February 1987. “There is little or no room at Columbia for dissenting voices: one is either Right or Wrong, Moral or Immoral, Compassionate or Heartless. ” In March 1987, as students debated the fraternity system’s treatment of women and minorities, Judge Gorsuch a piece defending clubs. In a familiar rhetorical move, he reframed the issue as free speech. In their “heavy handed moralism,” he wrote, the system’s critics missed “the fact that Columbia is a pluralistic university, that its fraternity is equally pluralistic, with options available for everyone. ” That spring, as students boycotted Coors beer, posters on campus alleged that The Federalist Paper, which accepted the company’s advertising, had received funding from the Heritage Foundation, financed by the Coors family. Mr. Gorsuch mocked the “professional protesters” who had created the posters, and he threatened a libel suit. “He had a real regal way of writing about this stuff that made us look small,” said Tom Kamber, a leader of the liberals. “His role was really to write these screeds that would try to take the winds out of our sails. ” The battle continued at Harvard Law School, where Judge Gorsuch arrived in 1988 along with a young man from Chicago named Barack Obama. The two did not intersect much — Mr. Obama was six years older — but they mirrored each other as intellectual leaders who managed to disagree without being disagreeable. “Neil was not quite as public a person as Barack was, but at the same time, for the people who knew him, he was very well respected,” said Mr. Segal, the classmate. Young conservatives were inspired as the Soviet Union and its empire collapsed. “It was an incredibly optimistic time, and it was a time when a lot of us developed a strong belief in the power of free markets and rule of law,” said Ken Mehlman, another classmate who went on to become chairman of the Republican National Committee. Harvard was the epicenter of a debate over whether the Constitution was a living document to be interpreted in evolving times or a neutral, unchanging charter judged by its original text. “It was a pretty contentious time at Harvard Law School,” said Adam H. Charnes, a classmate. “There were conservatives who were provocateurs. He wasn’t anything like that. ” Judge Gorsuch befriended liberals, including Norm Eisen, later a White House aide and ambassador under Mr. Obama. “He stood out among the conservative group in not being loud,” Mr. Eisen said. “He managed to stay above that while making his conservative positions clear. I thought it was impressive. ” Through all of this, Judge Gorsuch made little mention of his famous mother. Indeed, one friend who stayed close after law school said he had realized the relationship only years later. Once when a fellow student said something disparaging about her on the assumption that he was not actually related, he brushed it off. “He deflected it in a very classy way that made me think it was not the first time somebody had said something like that,” Mr. Eisen said. Judge Gorsuch’s mother did not live to see the day he was nominated to the Supreme Court. But for the family, his rise represents a vindication of sorts. If he survives confirmation, he will have conquered the capital that did her in. | 1 |
CHICAGO — If the Chicago Cubs rally to win this World Series, the degree of difficulty will make the victory even sweeter. They would need to win three in a row from the Cleveland Indians, including two on the road, to make it happen. No baseball team has won quite that way since the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates upended the Orioles in Baltimore. But there is a recent precedent in sports: The Cleveland Cavaliers trailed the Golden State Warriors, three games to one, in the N. B. A. Finals in June, only to storm back and win the title in Oakland. It would be a cruel kind of karma for the Indians to lose in roughly the same way the Cavaliers won. But after four games of this World Series, there is little to show that the Cubs are up for it. The Indians’ formula — timely hitting and a few great pitchers — offers a narrow pathway to victory, but the Cubs have opened the lanes for them three times. “It’s just been abnormal in some ways,” Cubs Manager Joe Maddon said, in a true understatement. The Indians carry 12 pitchers but basically rely on four, and yet they are one win from a championship. “They’ve been outstanding through the entire postseason, and you can see it,” Maddon continued. “We’re obviously having a tough time, like the other teams did. ” The Indians swept Boston in their division series, holding the Red Sox to a . 214 batting average. They won four of five from Toronto in the American League Championship Series, holding the Blue Jays to a . 201 average. Now, through four games in the World Series, the Cubs are hitting . 204. Remember, these are the Cubs: the team that rocked the game’s best pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, to win the pennant last weekend and outscored opponents by 252 runs in the regular season. The Red Sox had the lead in run differential (184) in the majors, and the Blue Jays (93) ranked fifth. The old baseball adage rings true again. Good pitching (specifically from Corey Kluber, Andrew Miller, Bryan Shaw and Cody Allen) has throttled good hitting. Those pitchers have thrown 22 of the Indians’ 36 innings in this World Series, with a combined earned run average of 0. 82. The bonus was Josh Tomlin, who collected the first 13 outs of Game 3. Manager Terry Francona replaced him — during a shutout — with Miller, who teamed with Shaw and Allen to preserve a win on Friday. In Game 4, it was Kluber for six innings, Miller for two and, with a lead, Dan Otero for one. Francona said Allen might handle the middle innings in Sunday’s Game 5, with Miller positioned to finish off the Cubs at the end. Francona was too polite to frame it that way, but the Cubs are wounded now, and easily teased into taking the bait of the Indians’ power breaking stuff. “They attack you, but I don’t even know if it’s that,” said the Cubs’ Kris Bryant, who is 1 for 14 with three walks. “You see Miller and Allen, they don’t walk a lot of people because they get a lot of chases. If we’re able to do that — lay off those sliders down and in — maybe we walk a little more. ” The Cubs led the majors in walks this season but have drawn just four in their three Series losses. They also have just one homer in the World Series, a solo shot by Dexter Fowler off Miller in the eighth inning Saturday. When asked if there was anything positive for the Cubs to take from Game 4, first baseman Anthony Rizzo cited that moment, with a rueful smile. “Yeah — Dexter hitting a home run off Andrew Miller, getting him to give up a run, finally, in the postseason,” Rizzo said. “But we lost. In the playoffs, a win’s a win, a loss is a loss. That’s tough. ” After the Cubs lost Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, falling behind two games to one to the Los Angeles Dodgers, catcher Miguel Montero said they needed to stop swinging for the fences and think smaller. The next night, a bunt single by Ben Zobrist started a rally that led to the first of three comfortable victories. Montero, a veteran who has not started in the Series, sounded a similar theme on Saturday. “We’re all trying to hit a grand slam with nobody on,” he said. “It’s not gonna happen. We need to be a little more patient at the plate, play a little small ball. We’re all trying to hit the ball 110 miles an hour off the bat — no. We need to get a ground ball through the hole. Simple as that. ” On Sunday, at least, the Cubs should have a decided advantage at the start, sending Jon Lester to the mound against Trevor Bauer, who lost Game 2 in Cleveland on Wednesday and has never pitched on short rest. But the Indians are changing the way to think about postseason games: If the starter falters — and sometimes even if he doesn’t — an overpowering bullpen can take over early. The strategy has helped pushed the Cubs to the brink of elimination at Wrigley Field, where the Tigers celebrated a title in Game 7 of the last World Series played here, in 1945. A party seven decades in the making on the North Side of this city has turned into a letdown, and only a can save the Cubs now. “It’s fun for us to see the pictures of everybody outside, but we can’t get too caught up in that,” Bryant said. “Hopefully we win out, and the last four games will be forgotten. ” But the odds will be firmly against the Cubs. Since those 1979 Pirates, only the 1985 Kansas City Royals have climbed from a hole to win the World Series — but they had the last two games at home. Over all, the last 10 teams to drop three of the first four games in the World Series have ended up losing. | 1 |
ISTANBUL — The wedding on Saturday night was winding down, and some guests had already left. But the music was still playing and people were still dancing in the narrow streets of Gaziantep, a city not far from the Syrian border. Just then a child — no more than 14 years old, Turkey’s president said later — meandered into the gathering and detonated a vest of explosives. Suddenly, the most joyous of occasions became a scene of blood and gore, with body parts scattered all around. Once again, the horrors of Syria’s civil war had visited Turkey. The devastating bombing of the Kurdish wedding in Gaziantep killed more than 50 people, for which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the Islamic State, the terrorist group that controls a swath of land straddling the frontier between Iraq and Syria. “In this area, we live in a ring of fire,” said Hilmi Karaca, a Kurdish activist who witnessed the explosion. “We live in a place where mothers are weeping for their dead children just hours after crying tears of joy at a wedding. ” The attack was the deadliest in a string of terrorist bombings that have struck Turkey this year, as it grapples with the spiraling chaos of spillover from the war in Syria. Bombings this year that Turkish officials have blamed the Islamic State for have struck Istanbul’s old city, near the Blue Mosque its most famous shopping boulevard, Istiklal Avenue and, in June, Istanbul’s main airport, among the busiest in Europe. For years, critics have said that Turkey contributed to the chaos — allowing extremist rebels to cross its territory on their way to fight in Syria — to advance its goal of toppling the Syrian government of President Bashar . At the outset of the war in 2011, Mr. Erdogan was confident that Mr. Assad would quickly fall, as the dictators of Egypt and Tunisia had. But as the war ground on, Turkey increasingly found itself drawn in, with millions of refugees fleeing across the border and, over the last year, a spate of attacks within Turkey. At the same time, Kurdish militants in the southeast resumed a stalled war against the Turkish government, emboldened by the success of their brethren in Syria, where Kurds have carved out a region of autonomy in the country’s east. Now, Turkey finds itself with three enemies in the Syrian civil war — Mr. Assad, the Islamic State and Kurdish rebels — and escalating chaos within its own borders. The attack on Saturday in Gaziantep demonstrated how those conflicts sometimes overlap. The Islamic State, which has fought Kurds in Syria in cities like Kobani, have also targeted Kurds within Turkey, as they apparently did on Saturday by striking the wedding. Turkey is also reeling from a failed military coup last month that aimed to topple the government of Mr. Erdogan and left at least 240 people dead. That conspiracy was blamed on followers of Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric in in Pennsylvania. Mr. Erdogan said on Saturday that there was no difference between the various terrorist organizations — the Islamic State, Kurdish militants or followers of Mr. Gulen — that are attacking the country. Hours before the attack on Saturday, the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yildirim, met with journalists over breakfast at an old Ottoman palace, once used by sultans for hunting excursions, that overlooks the Bosporus in Istanbul. He said Turkey would take a more active role in diplomatic efforts to end the war, working closely with world powers like Russia and Iran, two of Mr. Assad’s most ardent backers. Calling the Syrian conflict “the bleeding wound of the globe,” he said Turkey would accept a role for Mr. Assad during an interim period while the future of the country was being resolved. This was a slight shift in policy, as Turkey has long been adamant that Mr. Assad must go before any serious peace talks could take place. But it was unclear whether that matters this far into the conflict, and with Mr. Assad strengthened by Russian military support. “In the long term, can Syria bear Assad?” Mr. Yildirim said. “No way. ” In normal times, Gaziantep is famous for its cuisine, especially baklava, the sweet pastry made with pistachios grown nearby. Before war broke out, busloads of Syrians crossed the border almost daily to shop in Gaziantep, as Mr. Erdogan pushed stronger economic ties with Syria. Yet in recent years the city became a hub for lives upended — and preoccupied — by the civil war in Syria. Spies, foreign fighters, diplomats, journalists, relief workers and refugees passed through the city, sometimes all gathering at the same Starbucks. In the earlier days of the conflict it was a place of intrigue, transformed much as the Pakistani border city of Peshawar was during the 1980s, when rebels moved through on their way to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. And then Gaziantep became more sinister and violent. The police found an Islamic State facility in the city, which they said was used in an attack in Ankara last year that killed more than 100 people. The bomber who struck Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue came from there, officials said. The Islamic State also carried out murders of Syrian journalists in the city. On Saturday, the city’s place as not just a remote transit hub for the war but a battleground itself came into focus again. “We had just walked past the wedding and offered our good wishes when we heard the blast,” said Ibrahim Ates, a local man. “Suddenly people started running past us. When we went back to see what had happened, everyone was on the floor, and there were body parts scattered everywhere and blood splattered on the walls. ” Mahmut Togrul, a lawmaker with the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party who on Sunday visited the scene of the attack, said the wedding had been a traditional Kurdish ceremony and had taken place in a predominantly Kurdish neighborhood. He said that many of the victims — at least 51 people were killed and 69 more wounded, Mr. Erdogan said on Sunday — were children. That the perpetrator of the attack and so many of its victims were so young was a potent illustration of the degradation of the Syrian war as it has inflamed the region. Children have suffered immensely — one devastating image of a Syrian boy injured in an airstrike in Aleppo last week appeared on the front of newspapers around the world, a jarring reminder of the human cost of the war. The Islamic State, meanwhile, recruits boys as suicide bombers across Iraq and Syria. The bride and groom on Saturday, Besna and Nurettin Akdogan, survived without serious injuries. Neighbors said they were cousins who had been engaged for six months. After being released from the hospital, the bride said, “They turned our wedding into a blood bath,” according to the Anadolu News Agency. In Gaziantep on Sunday, a mass funeral was held at the Yesilkent cemetery. One of the mourners was Arif Yugmen, 35, who had left the wedding just before the attack. When he heard of the bombing, he said, he went back and took some of the wounded victims to the hospital in his car. Mr. Yugmen said the victims included so many children because they had gathered away from the folk dancing, in a place closer to the site of the blast. Nearby, Mizgin Gurbuzun, grieved over her dead son, falling to her knees beside his coffin. Rocking back and forth, and crying, she wailed, “My martyr son has gone. ” | 1 |
2 Shares
1 0 0 1
It looks as though civilization is under attack. Fundamentalists of various stripes, survivalists, and certain ideologues seem to be, at worst, determined to bring about its collapse. Worst of all, to my mind, the general population gazes upon the looming demise of civilization with an apparent indifference that is astonishing.
Scientifically, the exact process by which civilization got started is not known. It is known to have something to do with the development of farming.
Even the Bible endorses that, for those who know the story of Cain, the farmer who killed his brother Abel and is credited with building the world's first city. (Technically, "civilization" means "living in cities.") Also, any estimated age of Earth that I have seen that was calculated using the Bible (which calculations always start with Cain's parents, Adam and Eve) has turned out to be a fair-to-excellent estimate of the age of civilization.
At any rate, farming made relatively large surpluses of food possible. That allowed for the existence of significant numbers of people who were not concerned with procuring food, other than to own a farm, buy food, or, in the case of slaves, have it provided by their owners.
There is no doubt that slavery was present from the beginning of civilization. My theory is that groups of warrior-like people offered farmers protection from raiders in exchange for food. Then they realized that they could turn their enterprise into a protection racket, in which they extorted most of the food from the farmers. Before long, they realized that maximum efficiency would be achieved by simply enslaving the farmers.
The enslavers also used slaves to build fortresses. Those fortresses became the seed crystals of cities, where people could live and be protected from the worst the world had to offer by submitting to the local tyrant.
As local tyrants conquered more territory their wealth grew and so did their cities. The Roman Empire was the apotheosis of that process.
[Serfdom, the slightest possible moral improvement over slavery, was the basis of feudalism, which technically was not civilization because it was not predicated on the existence of cities.]
Civilization is now threatened with extinction. It might not be much morally, but materially it is all we've got. Civilization as we know it does at least protect the farmers without extorting or enslaving them.
If civilization were to collapse there is no doubt that some human beings in small groups would be able to scratch out a subsistence existence here and there. Life would surely be, as Thomas Hobbes would say, "nasty, brutish, and short," but human life would continue in some form.
Or, we can make the effort to save civilization. If we want to avoid the worst, we have to start immediately.
The primary threat to civilization is a material threat. It is a scythe aimed at the legs upon which civilization has always stood: farming.
The threat is global warming. The temperature of the air and the water on surface of this planet is increasing.
People who deny that global warming is happening are being irrational. I don't endorse locking them up, but I do endorse ignoring them while those of us who are not irrational (in that way, anyway) get on with saving civilization.
For as long as civilization has existed, Earth has had a stable-enough climate that has supported large-scale agriculture. Now that is changing.
Some people seem to think that we can simply shift crops northward to suit the new temperatures. That would be wrong.
Global warming will create such climatic dislocations that agriculture as we know it will cease to exist. If agriculture as we know it ceases to exist, civilization will cease to exist.
The ultimate cause of global warming is beside the point. Arguing about that is like standing in the yard while one's house is on fire, arguing with one's spouse about the cause of the blaze. As the late, great Gene Wilder would doubtlessly say, eyes and hair equally wild, The... HOUSE... is on... FIRE . PUT... the FIRE ... OUT !
Whatever is the cause of global warming, we only have one response available to us. We have to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases being disgorged into the atmosphere.
One big thing we can do immediately is to turn off our air conditioners wherever that is at all feasible. (Modern high-rises don't permit it, but it can be done everywhere else.) Fans consume a small fraction of the electricity that air conditioners do. It is a great irony that burning mountains of coal to make ourselves cooler has contributed to getting us into this mess, but there you go.
The survival of civilization depends upon stopping global warming... now! If we fail to do that, civilization is kaput. | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Congressional Republicans, infuriated by the F. B. I. ’s decision not to recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton, summoned the bureau’s director, James Comey, to hearings on Thursday. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said she accepted the bureau’s recommendation, ending the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email. The House speaker, Paul Ryan, said Mrs. Clinton’s use of private email servers as secretary of state showed that she could not be trusted with classified material. But some Republicans fretted that Donald Trump and his small campaign organization were not capitalizing on Mr. Comey’s harsh criticism of Mrs. Clinton. _____ 2. Mrs. Clinton tried to redirect attention, disparaging Mr. Trump’s business practices at a stop in Atlantic City. “He always rigged it so he got paid no matter how his companies performed,” she said in front of one of his failed casinos. At a separate event in North Carolina, she responded to the leftward pressure exerted by Bernie Sanders’s campaign, announcing plans to eliminate college tuition at public colleges and universities for families with annual incomes under $125, 000. _____ 3. “Donald Trump is not and he’s not a racist. ” That’s Jared Kushner, his and the publisher of The Observer, declaring that Mr. Trump should not be held responsible for the views of fringe followers who barrage some Jewish reporters with comments. In a lengthy Mr. Kushner disclosed how his family members suffered and died in the Holocaust. He said terms like “ ” were “being thrown around with a carelessness that risks rendering these words meaningless. ” On Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump delivered a speech that seemed to clash with Mr. Kushner’s defending a broadly criticized image posted to his Twitter account that showed a picture of Hillary Clinton next to a star. _____ 4. Gretchen Carlson, the longtime Fox News anchor, stunned the TV industry with a lawsuit accusing the network’s chairman, Roger Ailes, of firing her after she refused his sexual advances. The suit says Mr. Ailes propositioned Ms. Carlson in response to her complaints of rife sexual harassment in the workplace. It says he responded to her rejection by cutting her salary and airtime, and then declining to renew her contract. _____ 5. The Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into a fatal police shooting in Baton Rouge, La. A video of the episode shows that two officers had a black man, Alton Sterling, 37, pinned to the ground before opening fire. Louisiana’s governor, John Bel Edwards, pleaded with protesters to remain peaceful, acknowledging, “The video is disturbing, to say the least. ” _____ 6. Hoverboards don’t hover, but the Consumer Product Safety Commission says they do combust. The agency recalled more than a of the scooters, saying they had caused at least 60 fires and were responsible for at least $2 million in property damage. _____ 7. At war with clutter? Reinforcements are near. Marie Kondo, the Japanese organizer whose lodestar is joy, has an army of proselytizers in training to bring her “ Magic of Tidying Up” to a wider audience. One acolyte is taking her system a step further: raising the bar to letting stuff in the house in the first place. _____ 8. Oscar Pistorius was resentenced for fatally shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, this time drawing six years in prison. A higher court had sent back his initial sentence for manslaughter, saying the disabled South African runner should be sentenced for murder. The judge explained her rejection of prosecutors’ request for at least 15 years: “He’s a fallen hero who has lost his career and is ruined financially. “The worst is that having taken the life of a fellow human being in the manner that he did, he cannot be at peace. ” _____ 9. Britain got its moment of reckoning for the Iraq war. An independent panel’s findings excoriated former Prime Minister Tony Blair for blindly accepting flawed U. S. intelligence and promising George W. Bush loyalty. Mr. Blair responded with a nearly news conference in which he acknowledged profound mistakes but pleaded for understanding. After the terrorist attacks on the U. S. he said, “We were in a new world. ” _____ 10. The other war the U. S. entered after the attacks grinds on. President Obama slowed his already delayed drawdown of troops from Afghanistan, saying, “The security situation remains precarious. ” He plans to leave 8, 400 troops there, handing his successor a military commitment he had intended to end before he left office. _____ 11. Finally, two French entrepreneurs are trying to change the way Parisians view immigrants. They recruited chefs from Syria, Chechnya, Iran, India, Sri Lanka and, above left, Ethiopia, and have catered 20 events since February, including lunches, dinners and buffets. “The cuisine of a place gives pleasure,” said one of the businessmen. “This is part of immigration, too. ” _____ Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
Just 6 percent of millennials claimed that their social media accounts were a “completely true” depiction of them, according to a report by LendEDU. [54 percent of the nearly 8, 500 college students surveyed claimed that their online accounts were “somewhat true of me,” while 25 percent claimed their accounts were “mostly true of me,” and 15 percent claimed they were “not true of me at all. ” “While not entirely surprising, the fact that only six percent of millennials said their social media accounts portrayed their lives completely truthfully confirms a long standing belief,” wrote LendEDU in their report. “Anything posted on social media should be taken with a grain of salt, because with a little cleverness and craftiness, a social media post can completely distort reality. ” “The interesting thing about this poll was that millennials were admitting to their own on social media,” they continued, adding that “The 15 percent that said their social media was ‘not true of me at all’ know that they are totally fabricating their lives and have not only accepted it, but are are seemingly fine with it. ” “Remember, the next time you see someone post an awesome looking picture on Instagram or Facebook do not get jealous, but temper your reaction,” the report concluded. “There is a 94 percent chance that poster is either completely lying or stretching the truth. ” In a previous survey of 3, 701 students by LendEDU, Instagram was rated the most narcissistic social media platform. 65 percent of those surveyed placed Instagram at number one on the list, followed by Snapchat at 15 percent, Twitter at 11 percent, and Facebook at 10 percent. “For most of this demographic, social media is a powerful tool with the ability to create an entirely new persona, void of reality,” claimed LendEDU in their previous report. “The formula is quite simple. If you post enough artsy, chic pictures of yourself that rack up plenty of ‘likes,’ then real life accomplishments will not matter because the popularity of your social media accounts will determine your status on the social hierarchy. ” “This is especially true with Instagram, where ‘likes’ are the main way of interacting with pictures and videos that are posted by users,” they concluded, adding that “The large majority of Instagram users have formed unspoken alliances with each other to ensure they each tally enough ‘likes’ to make their posts stand out. ” Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
Aaron Bandler October 27, 2016
A flash mob of over 150 blacks teens assaulted numerous people on Friday in Philadelphia in an attack that appears to have been racially motivated, and yet the media is silent about this possible motivation.
LifeZette reports that the racial component of the attack was evident in a Facebook post written by Joe Lauletta , whose daughter, Christina, was attacked by the flash mob on Friday. Lauletta wrote that he received a phone call from Christina, who tearfully explained that she "was jumped" and "beat up pretty bad."
"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," Lauletta wrote. "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."
While no bones were broken, Christina was "badly bruised" throughout her body, Lauletta said "it makes me cry just thinking about it."
Lauletta's post seemed to indicate the racial aspect of the attack, and on Tuesday he posted on Facebook that "the FBI is investigating" and "are analyzing all video coverage," signaling that the FBI is looking into the attack as a hate crime.
In an interview with the New York Post , Lauletta wouldn't explicitly say the attack was racially motivated but sort of implied it:
“Well, I haven’t been saying that because everybody is trying to get me to say it and I don’t know if I want to be that person,” Lauletta told The Post. “Everyone can draw their own conclusions.”
Lauletta said the possibility of the attacks being motivated by race – perhaps as a sort of gang initiation – was part of the reason why his story was shared so frequently and as far away as Africa.
“That’s why it spread so fast,” Lauletta said. “If you read my Facebook page, everybody’s saying it.”
However, Philadelphia Police Lt. John Stanford insisted to the Post that "there hasn’t been any indication that race is involved in this in any shape or form."
Even still, the media hasn't reported that the attack is possibly a hate crime, as LifeZette points out:
Friday violence as teen mob attacks Temple students, police; four arrested,” read the headline on Philly.com, while the Philly Voice reported “Teens arrested after flash mob leads to assaults on Broad Street.” The Associated Press headline read: “STUDENTS BEATEN, HORSE PUNCHED IN MOB ATTACKS AT UNIVERSITY.
The Washington Post buried the possibility in their story and then dismissed it with Stanford's quote.
LifeZette also noted that Temple University described the attack as "a large group of approximately 200 juveniles causing disruption along Broad Street."
Maybe Stanford is correct that it was a random attack, or maybe the black flash mob was targeting whites. But there is no doubting the media's hypocrisy: if this were a flash mob of white teenagers that attacked blacks, the media would be screaming about it being a hate crime. But since the incident in Philadelphia does not advance the media's racial narrative, they will not treat it in the same manner. Tags | 0 |
2016 N. B. A. Finals: Golden State Warriors ( ) vs. Cleveland Cavaliers ( ) Game 1: 9 p. m. Thursday at Oracle Arena, Oakland, Calif. How to watch: ABC has the television broadcast. Game 1 will be streamed live on WatchESPN. N. B. A. Finals Game 1 live updates Stephen Curry, for the first time since last year’s N. B. A. finals, encountered something resembling adversity in the Western Conference finals. The Warriors fell behind, three games to one he was turning the ball over far too much and his opponents were mocking his defensive ability. Some fans even questioned his anointment as the game’s best player. With no margin for error, Curry responded by averaging 32. 7 points, 7. 3 rebounds, 7. 7 assists and 2. 3 steals in the final three games of the series, dismantling the Oklahoma City Thunder. It may be scary for the Cavaliers to think about, but an argument could be made that Curry was only his team’s player in that stretch. Klay Thompson, the other half of the Splash Brothers, showed a national audience what Warriors fans have known for years: When his shot is falling, he is as dangerous as his more famous teammate. He and Curry combined for 62 against the Thunder, an N. B. A. record for teammates in a playoff series. Thompson averaged 29. 7 points in the final three games, and his performance on the road in Game 6 will perhaps be the most memorable showing of that series. The road to the finals was far less winding for the Cavaliers. They were steamrollering through the East, winning their first 10 playoff games, before a pair of brutal losses to Toronto in the conference finals. It proved to be a mild detour: There was little to no drama in Games 5 and 6, and now LeBron James is set to play in the N. B. A. finals for a sixth consecutive year. At their best, the Cavaliers can nearly keep up with the Warriors in shooting. That should be the main story line of this showdown, not the overdone notion that James could find redemption by winning a championship for Cleveland. In any case, while the finals will be a rematch of last season’s triumph by the Warriors, both teams have grown. Expecting a remake would be unwise. The most obvious change for the Cavaliers is the return of Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving. They played a total of 44 minutes in the N. B. A. finals last year, with Love hampered by a shoulder dislocation and Irving dropping out after Game 1 with an injured knee. Getting back a pair of takes some of the burden off James, who prevented the Warriors from having a cakewalk to a championship last year but was outdone by the defensive tenacity of Andre Iguodala and the overall offensive excellence of the Warriors. Love and Irving seemed to coexist better with James this season, accepting their roles while occasionally being asked to supply star power on nights when James was not at his best. Love averaged 16 points and 9. 9 rebounds a game while shooting 36 percent from range, and while he is not known as an effective defender, most advanced defensive statistics showed him holding his own this season. Irving averaged 19. 6 points and 4. 7 assists a game while growing accustomed to the idea of being a point guard who gives up the duties in crunchtime to James. The Cavaliers still probably use J. R. Smith and Matthew Dellavedova more than they would prefer, but Channing Frye proved to be a brilliant acquisition, capitalizing on the looks he gets when James is . There is an argument to be made that the Cavaliers are to blame for the Warriors’ season. With his team looking overmatched and down by two games to one in last year’s N. B. A. finals, Kerr listened to an unorthodox suggestion from Nick U’Ren, his manager of advanced scouting, and deployed a starting lineup of Draymond Green, Harrison Barnes, Iguodala, Thompson and Curry. Playing a center who is generously listed at 6 feet 7 inches, a power forward who is a slight and three guards would seem crazy in nearly any era of basketball, but the group, which came to be known as the Death Lineup, proved to be among the most effective units ever put together. The misconception about the lineup is that it is strictly an offensive ploy to run teams into the ground. While that is certainly a part of the equation, the lineup also features three tremendous defenders in Green, Iguodala and Thompson, and they are a nightmare on both ends of the court. Kerr tends to limit their minutes together to protect Green, who takes abuse from larger centers. Before Curry and Thompson went supernova and saved the Western Conference finals for the Warriors, the Thunder overwhelmed Golden State’s approach with the size and ferocious attitude of Steven Adams, Serge Ibaka, Enes Kanter and Kevin Durant. But the Cavaliers do not have the personnel to pull that off. Tristan Thompson is an undersize power forward who is expected to handle the bulk of the rebounding duties. Love, who is listed at but was measured at at the N. B. A. draft combine, is unlikely to be much of a threat inside against Green. The Cavaliers responded to the Death Lineup last season by essentially burying Timofey Mozgov on the bench, but they may want to give Mozgov, a Russian a second look this time. The Warriors struggle with size, and Green is two technical fouls or one flagrant foul away from a mandatory suspension, meaning his typical strategy of physically assaulting opposing big men will not be in play. The Warriors beat the Cavaliers both times they played this season, but it was the second game, a brutal shellacking, that might have cost David Blatt his job as coach. In that game, Curry went off for 35 points, and Iguodala, the Cavaliers’ nemesis, had 20 points while shooting 7 for 8 and playing his typical stellar defense. If Blatt was fired for not being able to beat the Warriors, that is somewhat understandable. But it was certainly unusual to see a coach with an record over two seasons fired midway through a campaign in which his team was on track to be the top seed in its conference. The University of Arizona may not be considered a typical N. B. A. feeder program, but this series is an excellent advertisement for what it produced in the Lute Olson era. The Wildcats featured Luke Walton, the Warriors’ top assistant, along with Iguodala and Frye. Steve Kerr, the Warriors’ coach, was a player at Arizona, teaming with Bruce Fraser, who in his capacity as Golden State’s coach serves as Curry’s shot doctor. The Cavaliers’ Richard Jefferson joined Walton on the 2001 team that lost the national championship game to Duke, and Bret Brielmaier, a Cavaliers assistant, was a player for the Wildcats. Both teams have efficient offenses, with a heavy reliance on . The big difference between them is pace. The Warriors want to move as quickly as possible while the Cavaliers, regardless of what Coach Tyronn Lue may have wanted when he started coaching them, tend to grind out games at a snail’s pace. If Cleveland allows Golden State to dictate the speed of the game, the series could be a serious mismatch. The Warriors have a far deeper roster and are more balanced on the defensive side. While Klay Thompson, Green and Iguodala are likely to pose a defensive challenge to Irving, Love and James, it is hard to see anyone on the Cavaliers other than James being much of a threat to the Golden State offense. There is a path to victory for Cleveland that involves turning the series into a slugfest. The Green is on thin ice with the league and can be temporarily removed as a threat by getting him to lash out just once. Thompson can also be drawn into foul trouble if Cleveland plays things correctly, and Golden State can be exploited with intentional fouls on Festus Ezeli, a comically bad shooter. The problem, as so many teams have found out, is that the shooting of Curry and Thompson means that almost no lead is safe and that a team must press for all 48 minutes to secure a victory. It sounds simple enough, but Golden State’s record of over the last two seasons, including the playoffs, indicates it is a daunting task. Pick: Warriors in five games | 1 |
It’s something that many of us have experienced while driving, though we may not like to admit it. It’s called a microsleep, a brief state of drowsy unconsciousness that can happen even if your eyes remain open. Drowsy driving kills. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drowsy driving caused 824 deaths in 2015, the last year for which figures are available. Several manufacturers, including Audi, Mercedes and Volvo, currently offer drowsiness detection systems that monitor a vehicle’s movements, such as steering wheel angle, lane deviation, time driven and road conditions. When drowsiness is detected, drivers are typically warned with a sound and the appearance of a coffee cup icon. But manufacturers and automobile suppliers are now working on advanced technological solutions that go beyond visions of coffee cups. To find out if drowsiness can be detected even earlier, Plessey Semiconductors has developed sensors, to be placed in a seat, that monitor changes in heart rate. Algorithms developed by the company indicate when breathing changes to patterns that are typical of someone who is sleeping, giving a warning before someone actually feels tired. “We could see this in a vehicle in five years,” said Keith Strickland, chief technology officer of the company, which is based in Plymouth, England. Bosch, a German supplier of technology to many automotive companies, is developing a system that will monitor head and eye movements, as well as body posture, heart rate and body temperature. When such a system is used in vehicles that allow for limited autonomous driving, the vehicle could take over once drowsiness is detected — either coming to an emergency stop or pulling itself off to the side of the road, said Kay Stepper, Bosch’s head of driver assistance and automated driving. In addition, sensors on the outside of the vehicle will monitor the state of traffic in which the fatigued driver is engaged. Once vehicles can communicate with each other — a capability expected in the next few years — other cars will be able to take appropriate maneuvers to avoid the drowsy driver. In France, Valeo, another supplier of automotive technology, is developing an infrared camera system that will monitor children in the rear seat as well as the driver’s shoulder, neck and head movements, looking for deviations from the norm. Checking body temperature and even how the driver is dressed, the system will also be able to customize the interior temperature for each driver, said Guillaume Devauchelle, the company’s innovation director. Nvidia, chip supplier to Audi, Mercedes, Tesla and others, is developing the an tool that can learn the behaviors of individual drivers and determine when they are operating outside their norms. The system will eventually learn a driver’s standard posture, head position, rate, facial expression and steering style, among other indexes. Based on a vehicle’s capabilities, the driver will be warned or automatically driven to a safe spot when conditions warrant. Until vehicles can drive themselves, it will be up to drivers to pull over once they feel drowsy. But drivers tend to make excuses, believing there is no danger because they are just a few minutes from home, or they are not really as tired as they may feel. “The more tired you are, the less able you are to change your behavior,” such as by pulling off the road for a short rest, said Mikael Ljung Aust, a technical specialist working on drowsiness mitigation technologies at Volvo’s Safety Center in Gothenburg, Sweden. To encourage drowsy drivers to take a break, Volvo, with a grant from the European Commission, is studying the effects of offering drivers free coffee once erratic steering wheel movements, lane departures and other signs detect that they are falling asleep, using the navigation system to direct them to the nearest coffee stop. Audi is faced with a unique problem because of its scheduled introduction next year of a car capable of driving up to 35 miles per hour without any driver intervention. When its Traffic Jam Pilot feature is engaged, the vehicle will need to determine if a driver is alert enough to take control after being a passive passenger for long periods. Through its Driver Availability Detection system, sensors will scan the head and face to ensure that the eyes are open and the driver is alert before the car turns over the steering wheel. Advanced drowsiness detection systems exist today. For example, Mercedes’s Attention Assist monitors a driver’s behavior for the first 20 minutes behind the wheel to get a baseline of behaviors. Then, the system checks those against as many as 90 indexes, such as steering wheel angle, lane deviation and external factors such as wind gusts and pothole avoidance. The system can currently detect drowsiness with 80 percent accuracy, said Christoph von Hugo, head of active safety for . If drowsiness is detected, the driver is alerted to the nearest rest stop. For the past decade Volvo has offered its Driver Alert system. “To detect drowsiness, we study the car, not the driver,” said Mr. Aust of Volvo, looking at differences in the ability of the car to stay in lane, and other factors. The system detects drowsiness with 97 percent accuracy, Mr. Aust said. While N. H. T. S. A. reported 824 deaths in 2015 because of drowsiness, that number is likely to be considerably higher, the agency said. Drowsy driving can only be and not measured like drunkenness. Also, drowsiness is not reported when it is a complication of other factors like excessive drinking. “We’re a nation of tired drivers. People talk about sleep deprivation as if it’s a badge of honor,” said Deborah Hersman, the head of the National Safety Council and the former chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board. “As a society we have to realize that drowsy driving is really dangerous. ” Until fully autonomous vehicles are a reality, “drowsiness is something everyone needs to worry about,” said Mark R. Rosekind, former head of N. H. T. S. A. and an expert on human fatigue. “Our tendency is to say we’re when in reality we can fall asleep in a second. ” Still, the obvious solution for a driver who feels fatigued is to pull over and rest. According to Mr. Rosekind, studies with airline pilots show that those who took a nap for 26 minutes improved their performance by 34 percent and alertness by 54 percent, compared with those who did not. Regardless of how good technology is at detecting drowsiness, fighting off sleep is futile. Because sleep is a biological need, the best solution for drivers is still a one: Pull over and take a nap. | 1 |
Netanyahu’s Critical Foreign Tour Israel's strategic repositioning.
Originally published by the Jerusalem Post .
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming trips to Australia, Singapore, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan might be the most significant diplomatic visits he makes in his tenure in office. The trips will take place against the backdrop of two major international shifts that cast Israel into uncharted waters as a small state with a dizzying array of strategic threats arrayed against it. The states that he will visit are all well-positioned to help Israel navigate its next moves. The first shift is the US’s political crackup.
Next week American voters will choose their next president. The major candidates, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump, are the weakest candidates to have ever stood for the highest office in the land. Their rise is a testament to the weakening, if not the unraveling of the glue that has held America together since the Civil War. The unraveling of the US electorate comes against the backdrop of the diminution of US military power. The US’s multi-trillion dollar investment in inconclusive if not failed wars in the Middle East over the past 15 years has come at the expense of military modernization. The F-35 program has sucked up the majority of the remaining research and development funds. And it has yet to produce a reliable airplane. Worse, the F-35’s long and problematic gestation period has given Russia and China the time and opportunity to develop air defense systems capable of neutralizing the F-35’s stealth systems. Those systems were supposed to be its chief advantage as the next generation fighter for the US and its allies. The deterioration of the US’s military capabilities has gone hand in hand with the US’s apparent loss of strategic rationality. This is apparent worldwide, but is nowhere more obvious than in the Middle East. President Barack Obama’s decision to effectively abandon the US’s major allies in the Middle East in favor of cultivating ties with Iran has made the region far more dangerous to the US and its spurned allies than it was eight years ago. True, in theory, Obama’s decision to prefer the Shi’ites to the Sunnis makes sense given the totalitarian and imperial nature of Sunni jihadism. But in light of the genocidal, totalitarian and imperial nature of the current Iranian regime, his move made no sense and its impact has been massively destructive. Moreover, Obama’s willingness to rack up the US’s national debt in an unprecedented manner and repress economic growth through overregulation has left a large question mark over the possibility of a military buildup. In other words, even under the best circumstances, it is hard to imagine that the US will be capable of reestablishing its global primacy over the next four years or even over the next decade. The implications for Israel are far reaching. For decades, Israel’s strategic posture has been predicated on its ability to depend on US power. This strategic posture is no longer tenable. The second major international shift is Russia’s sudden rise as the primary global power in the Middle East. As Channel 2 reported Sunday night, Russia has deployed sophisticated naval and air systems in the region that can detect all of Israel’s air and naval operations. In a matter of months, Israel has lost the air and naval supremacy it has enjoyed for the past four decades. The air force reportedly is convinced that the F-35’s stealth systems will be able to neutralize Russia’s detection capabilities. But given the well-documented current problems with the F-35’s stealth systems, this conviction is unwise. And even under the best circumstances, in which Israel has the opportunity to develop its own electronic warfare systems and apply them to its F-35 without American interference, it will take Israel years to surmount the challenge that rapidly improving Russian systems present to our air force. According to Channel 2’s report, air force and naval commanders are in a panic over the sudden turn of events. Rather than panicking though, Israel needs to roll with the punches and figure out how best to cope with this new situation. The obvious answer is that we need to quickly expand our capabilities in areas that Russia’s military primacy does not reach. Specifically, Israel needs to expand massively its capacity for under-the-radar operations. The first area that needs to be massively strengthened is our intelligence capabilities, particularly human intelligence capabilities. Israel should be investing massively in developing and expanding our cultivation and direction of proxies on the ground throughout the region. Second, Israel needs to adapt its cyber technology capabilities in a manner that diminishes our enemies’ ability to strike us. Israel needs to be able to disrupt and disable command and control and other systems. Israel’s reach needs to extend as low down the line of its enemies’ military chain of command as possible. If our offensive capabilities are being checked, so must the capabilities of our enemies. Indeed, our enemies need to be subverted. Part of the intelligence and cyber capabilities that Israel must develop and deploy must be geared toward destabilizing with the goal of overthrowing the regime in Iran. At the same time, Israel should be empowering anti-regime sectors in Iran in a manner that expands the prospect of developing close ties with a successor regime along the lines of the strategic alliance Israel built with the regime of the shah in the decades which preceded the 1979 Islamic revolution. Third, Israel needs to expand and diversify the capabilities of our ground forces. Israel needs to be capable of using new means to deploy its fighters at home and on distant shores. It needs to align its both its special and regular forces with the new threat environment. And it needs to be able to utilize its ground forces in manners that can extend the reach and diminish the compromised positions of its air and naval assets in the era of Russian regional primacy. Fourth, Israel needs to expand its economic growth and diversify its economic ties in a manner that positions it as a regional economic power. It needs to use it natural gas resources specifically as a means to expand and deepen its ties with Asia. Such economic growth and power will positively influence Russia’s willingness to allow Israel to carry out air and naval operations against its enemies – and Russia’s allies in Lebanon, Syria and beyond. In other words, the more economically powerful Israel is, the more Russia will be willing to side with Israel against Hezbollah and others that are currently operating under the Russian umbrella. This then brings us to Netanyahu’s upcoming trips. Each state that he will visit has something to offer Israel in expanding its intelligence, cyberwarfare and economic capabilities. Australia, a major Western economy, is moving toward China as America has become less engaged in the Pacific. Israel has an acute interest in using Australia as a platform for expanding its ties to China and other Asian countries, both because of the economic advantages such ties convey and due to China’s strategic importance to Russia. As for Singapore, Israel effectively built the Singaporean military in the 1960s and 1970s. The country remains extremely supportive of Israel. Like Australia, Singapore has close ties to China. It has technological and other capabilities that can be extremely advantageous for Israel today. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are critically important to Israel today. Their strategic proximity to Iran, and their ties to Russia, along with their ethnic composition and their natural resources make securing good relations with both critical to Israel’s ability to advance and security its strategic interests in every sphere. Israel has tremendous assets to offer each of the four countries that Netanyahu will visit. These assets must be deployed wisely to ensure that Israel gains as much as possible from his trip and from its future ties with all of them. Given the dramatic changes in the global power balance, and their implications for Israel, Netanyahu’s decision to fly to visit these four countries just after the US elections tells us that he gets it. At a time of regional and global turbulence and uncertainty, in the context of swiftly multiplying threats, this is no small matter. | 0 |
British ex-soldier cuts off own toes with pliers to avoid hospital delays British ex-soldier cuts off own toes with pliers to avoid hospital delays By 0 61
A former soldier cut off two of his gangrene-ridden toes with a pair of tin metal pliers without anesthetic in his living room after becoming frustrated at a six-week delay to being operated on by the National Health Service (NHS).
Paul Dibbins, 57, from Buckfastleigh, Devon, had been told he needed to have his right leg amputated at the knee due to complications from diabetes, combined with suffering serious frostbite in his feet while repairing a car in freezing conditions.
Dibbins says his foot turned “soot black” and he was rushed to hospital. However, his operation was cancelled at the last minute because of problems with the previous patient.
He says he then discharged himself from hospital and thought surgeons would call him in a few days to re-book an appointment, but claims they never did.
“I’d been told my leg would be cut off and I was taken into surgery. But it was cancelled. I just wanted to go home and see my wife and kids.”
Dibbins says he resorted to treating his own wounds over nine months using a Swiss army knife, sterile scissors and homemade dressing. He says he saw doctors every six weeks afterwards and they told him he could keep treating his frostbite until “things turned nasty.”
Read more
He says he eventually developed gangrene and his doctor said his infected toes would have to be removed. Rather than wait six weeks for the operation, Dibbins took matters into his own hands.
He says the operation, performed without pain killers and in his living room while biting on a rolled up towel, took about an hour. His wife of 40 years was in the house but says she did not want to look.
“Knowing that it would take at least another six weeks to get me in front of a surgeon again, that’s when I bit the bullet and cut off the toes,” Dibbins told the North Devon Journal.
“I did it because it’s what had to be done. My doctor told me my toes were going to kill me.
“I’ve had one surgeon say to me it was more luck than judgment, but then I had another surgeon saying I was mad but it was textbook.”
A spokesperson for Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust told the Times: “The safety of all our patients is our top priority and occasionally it does become necessary for operations to be postponed, if there is another patient with a more critical medical need.”
Via RT . This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license. | 0 |
0 |
|
CHARLESTON, S. C. — Each morning they flowed into Courtroom Six, escorted by federal officials from a holding room reserved for survivors and families of the victims. The accused, Dylann S. Roof, never turned from the end of the defense table to acknowledge the parents, widows and widowers, children, grandchildren and fellow congregants of the nine he confessed to killing in June 2015 at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Felicia Sanders, who survived the rampage but lost her son and her aunt, watched from the first of six rows of wooden benches, along with her husband, Tyrone. The Rev. Eric S. C. Manning, who now inhabits the office once occupied by the church’s pastor, the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, who was among those killed, sat one row back. The Rev. Anthony B. Thompson, whose wife, Myra, led the evening Bible study that Mr. Roof joined, always took his place in the fifth row, along with John Pinckney, the former pastor’s father. Until the jury returned a guilty verdict on Thursday afternoon, family members stoically endured a week of tormenting testimony in United States District Court, where Mr. Roof, 22, faced 33 counts. Many will be back on Jan. 3 when the same jury considers whether to sentence Mr. Roof to death. On Thursday morning, there were firm hugs between family members outside the courtroom after a prosecutor delivered a stirring closing argument, illustrated by gruesome crime scene photographs. On Wednesday, they heard from a medical examiner about the more than 60 wounds inflicted by his Winchester bullets. On Tuesday, they watched three unnerving videos that Mr. Roof filmed of himself taking backyard target practice with the murder weapon in a grip. Here is what it has been like for some in the courtroom: Mr. Thompson attended Mr. Roof’s trial each day except last Thursday, when he knew prosecutors would show photographs of the blood bath inside the fellowship hall. “I didn’t want to see the images,” he said in his office at Holy Trinity Reformed Episcopal Church, where he is vicar. “I didn’t want to have that in my head every day for the rest of my life, and of course I didn’t want to see my wife like that. ” His decision meant he also missed the videos, captured by a church security camera, of some of the final moments of his wife’s life: the clip of her striding purposefully in the side door at 5 p. m. dressed in a black suit and white blouse then the footage of her slipping out an hour later, warmly hugging two church members. Two hours after that, the camera captured Mr. Roof entering, a black pack around his waist, weighted by a . Glock and eight loaded magazines. “It has been an emotional roller coaster,” Mr. Thompson said. “We have shed tears. There has been fear of the unknown. ” Mr. Thompson, 64, was one of the five family members who, in a spontaneous demonstration of grace, expressed forgiveness for Mr. Roof at his bond hearing less than 48 hours after the shootings. That has not changed, he said, despite watching Mr. Roof’s nonchalant and largely remorseless admission to plotting the assault to foment racial strife. “I have no intentions of taking that back,” the clergyman said, stressing that his forgiveness had been more for himself than for Mr. Roof. “He is not a part of my life anymore. Forgiveness has freed me of that, of him completely. I’m not going to make him a lifetime partner. ” That said, he wished the Justice Department had accepted Mr. Roof’s offer to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. “The bad part is having to relive it, the going back to the beginning,” he said. “It’s just a lot to bear. ” Mr. Thompson said he finds Mr. Roof a pathetic figure but not mentally defective, as Mr. Roof’s lawyers would like the jury to believe. As a result, although he opposes the death penalty, he does not much care what happens to Mr. Roof. “His sentence won’t affect the way I live, won’t bring my wife back,” he said. “Whatever he gets I look at it as, well, that’s what he’s supposed to get. I have no choice in the matter. ” Mr. Manning had no connection to Mother Emanuel until January, when he won appointment to the historic pulpit after a tumultuous six months in which the church’s leadership changed three times. Other than his predecessor, Mr. Pinckney, he did not know any of the victims. But he has been in court each day, all day, since jury selection began, often joined by a fellow Emanuel minister, Brenda Nelson. Ms. Nelson would have joined the Bible study on any other Wednesday, but on that sweltering night she drove home to meet an repairman. Mr. Manning, 49, said he felt it important to be at the courthouse to demonstrate “a ministry of presence. ” “You might not be able to say everything, but just that you can smile and they can smile back and you can hug, they know you’re there,” he said. The pastor has been preaching from the Book of Psalms during the trial, reminding his congregation on Sunday that “in the midst of all of this, God’s joy is the one constant. ” Mr. Manning said he had been moved by the stoicism of those around him, and of the two survivors who testified. “What has been displayed,” he said, “is just the determination to show once again the resilience and how strong our faith and trust is in God. ” The video taken before the murders of his church’s stalwarts affected him deeply. “They were just there doing what they have done on so many other Wednesdays, just there to study God’s word,” he said. “And in the midst of that, evil presented itself. ” Although his church opposes the death penalty, he acknowledged that Mr. Roof’s lack of remorse had given him “momentary pause. ” “But you have to always still do what is required, you have to forgive,” he said. “Now, am I there? I don’t know yet. Maybe that’s a question I’ll be able to answer after the trial. ” Jennifer Benjamin Pinckney, who was married to the Rev. Clementa Pinckney for 16 years, and Johnette Pinckney Martinez, the pastor’s adoring younger sister, have been inseparable during the trial. Ms. Pinckney and her daughter were in the pastor’s study when the killings began, and huddled beneath a desk as bullets pierced the office wall. One of her first calls was to her in Irmo, near Columbia. “Get to Charleston,” she implored. Eighteen months later, the trial has brought it all back. “It’s been pretty difficult to hear some of the things, well, most of the things,” Ms. Martinez, a corrections officer, said. “But for me it was another step in the healing process. ” The most painful moment was seeing the photographs of Mr. Pinckney, dressed as ever in his dark suit (he even wore them to high school) dead on the linoleum floor, blood pooling from his upper torso. Ms. Pinckney, a school librarian, said that the experience had been “emotionally excruciating” and that her reactions had coursed from tears to fury. Both women said it had been comforting to see the surveillance video of the Pinckney family arriving at church, the pastor holding his daughter’s hand. He hugged a woman on her way out, patted another on the back, helped a third down a step. “That was him all the time,” Ms. Pinckney said of her husband, who was also a state senator. “He’s always greeting people, always hugging people, always interacting with people. It was his final moment, and it’s something I’ve seen dozens of times over. ” Both women said they were stunned to see evidence downloaded from the GPS in Mr. Roof’s car that he had cased the church on six trips to Charleston from his home near Columbia. “It was an eerie feeling to know he had been there for that period of time,” Ms. Pinckney said. “He was in the midst of everyone, knowing what he was planning. ” She remains bewildered that he targeted Mother Emanuel. Given the devastation he caused, what confounded Ms. Martinez as she observed Mr. Roof was his boyishness and his slight frame. “It’s just unbelievable,” she said. “I would never have thought a child that young — a man that young — would have so much hate in his heart. ” | 1 |
The forecast is for more rain around the Oroville Dam — and potential disaster for hundreds of thousands of Californians living downstream from its poorly designed emergency spillway. [Many bear responsibility for the real prospect of a catastrophic failure of that spillway. But ultimately, the buck stops with an obscure government agency 3, 000 miles away: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC has known about systemic defects of the Oroville Dam for over a decade. In fact, back in 2005, this dam was supposed to be relicensed for . But objections were heard from various citizen groups. They warned about at the emergency spillway giving rise to the potential for its catastrophic failure during high water conditions like those now present. Their calls for the spillway to be reinforced with concrete were ignored by the FERC which, instead, began granting annual operating licenses in 2007. Those licenses have been renewed on the basis of a “Potential Failure Mode Analysis” of the Oroville Dam. According to an October 14, 2016 letter sent by FERC’s Office of Energy Projects to the California Department of Water Resources, the latest Failure Analysis — which was submitted to FERC in December 2014 — was “a significant improvement” over its predecessor. The public is being kept in the dark about this justification for ignoring the actual, high potential for failure of this dam, however, because FERC treats these these Failure Analysis documents as secrets. Unfortunately, this in California is just one example of FERC’s shortcomings. The agency is overwhelmed by its extensive regulatory responsibilities and it is often captured by regulated interests. Consider the following contributing factors: Bad as the dangers associated with FERC’s failure to assure the safety of the Oroville dam are, these factors have contributed to the agency’s culpability for even more serious malfeasance: the uncorrected vulnerability of the U. S. electric grid to physical, cyber and electromagnetic pulse attack, as well as to the effects of intense solar storms. Should the grid — our most critical of critical infrastructures — suffer widespread and sustained collapse as a result of one or the other of those very real dangers becoming reality, the consequences would dwarf those associated with massive flooding of areas below the Oroville Dam. These potential catastrophes underscore a reality: The safety and security of the American people requires that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have as commissioners individuals who have been, are and will remain genuinely independent from the industries that their agency regulates. This is especially so as the commissioners are, by statute, essentially unaccountable to either the President or Congress. As it happens, three out of five FERC commissioner slots are currently open. It is imperative that President Trump nominates, and the Senate confirms, only commissioners who will have the requisite technical expertise, independence and vision to use their considerable power to protect the people of this country, and not simply the utilities they regulate. | 1 |
Posted on November 6, 2016 by Dr. Eowyn | 1 Comment
Religion and science need not be at loggerheads for, once again, science discovered something Christians have long believed — that we each have a soul.
Yesterday, an article in the UK rag, The Sun , told of a scientific discovery that that actually is several years old: Physicists have discovered the equivalent of the soul, i.e., something that endures after the death of our bodies.
To begin, physicists like renowned British physicist Sir Roger Penrose now believe that human consciousness is something ineffable that’s “beyond the computational laws of physics”. Watch and listen as Penrose grapples at describing our consciousness in the video below, beginning at the 2:11 mark:
“To me, there is something outside the computational laws of physics. And when I wrote my book, ‘The Emperor’s New Mind,’ I was trying to develop this idea, and I was trying to say, ‘Well, there is something else out there.’ What could it be? Where is the biggest gap in our understanding of physics? . . . most of these things don’t have a direct bearing on what the brain does . . . . This big gap is within present-day quantum mechanics . . . maybe that gap is where the theory has to be outside a computational system.”
According to Penrose and other physicists, our consciousness is “a packet of information” that’s stored at a quantum or sub-atomic level in microtubules within human cells. When a person dies, his or her quantum information (or consciousness) leaves the body and is released into the universe, only to return to the body’s cells if the host is brought back to life. Penrose argues that this explains why people can have near-death experiences, and believes that this quantum information amounts to a soul leaving the body :
“If the patient dies, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body, perhaps indefinitely, as a soul.”
From Wikipedia :
“Microtubules are a component of the cytoskeleton , [cellular skeleton] found throughout the cytoplasm . . . . The outer diameter of a microtubule is about 24 nm [nanometre * ] while the inner diameter is about 12 nm . . . . Microtubules are very important in a number of cellular processes. They are involved in maintaining the structure of the cell and, together with microfilaments and intermediate filaments , they form the cytoskeleton . They also make up the internal structure of cilia and flagella .They provide platforms for intracellular transport and are involved in a variety of cellular processes, including the movement of secretory vesicles , organelles , and intracellular macromolecular assemblies (see entries for dynein and kinesin ). They are also involved in chromosome separation ( mitosis and meiosis ), and are the major constituents of mitotic spindles , which are used to pull apart eukaryotic chromosomes .”
* Note: One nanometre is one-billionth of a metre.
Dr. Hans-Peter Dürr , former head of Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich, said:
“What we consider the here and now, this world, it is actually just the material level that is comprehensible. The beyond is an infinite reality that is much bigger. The body dies but the spiritual quantum field continues. In this way, I am immortal.”
As reported four years ago by Australia’s News.com on Oct. 31, 2012, Sir Roger Penrose and Dr. Stuart Hameroff , Professor Emeritus at the Departments of Anesthesiology and Psychology and Director of the Center of Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, developed a quantum theory of consciousness asserting that our souls are contained inside structures called microtubules within our brain cells. Our experience of consciousness is the result of quantum gravity effects inside these microtubules – a process they call orchestrated objective reduction (Orch-OR). In a near-death experience the microtubules lose their quantum state, but the information within them is not destroyed. Or in layman’s terms, the soul does not die but returns to the universe.
Dr Hameroff explained the theory at length in the documentary Through the Wormhole , which was aired on the Science Channel:
“The quantum information within the microtubules is not destroyed, it can’t be destroyed, it just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If the patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says ‘I had a near death experience’. [If the patient dies, it is] possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body indefinitely – as a soul.”
See also: | 0 |
NORTH ARLINGTON, N. J. — College roller hockey teams from across the Northeast, including Pennsylvania State University, competed at an indoor arena here recently, shooting, skating and stickhandling with gusto as they battled to climb the standings and win for their teammates and for school pride. But one team, the Maccabees of Yeshiva University, was playing for something loftier — religious devotion and the quest to bring glory to Orthodox Jews. “When we go out there, wearing Yeshiva across our chest, it reflects not just on our school but on our whole religion,” Avi Margulies, 22, one of the team’s founders, said after the team improved its record to . In their second season, the Maccabees, named for a band of ancient Jewish freedom fighters, are doing their faith proud and bringing athletic acclaim to this college in northern Manhattan better known for training religiously devout students than turning out powerhouse sports teams. This unlikely band of Orthodox Jewish students is tearing up the Eastern Collegiate Roller Hockey Association, against teams with few or no Jewish players and more resources. The squad was founded last season with little fanfare or financial assistance from the university. The players spend most of their time immersed in intense studies of the Talmud and the Torah, but Sundays are for hockey. Because of Sabbath restrictions, they cannot play the usual Friday and Saturday games scheduled by the league. Instead, they must play multiple games Sunday mornings, starting as early as 7 a. m. and playing up to four games, sometimes back to back against fresher teams. On a recent Sunday morning at the New Jersey rink, the Maccabees’ fans far outnumbered — and stood out — from those rooting for the other teams. The men wore skullcaps and the women dressed in prim dark skirts. Joe Klein, part of a group of classmates at the rink, said the team’s credo was “Play hard to pray hard” and likened the team to a biblical David bringing down Goliaths. “They live for the fact that they’re going to be the underdogs,” said Akiva Blumenthal, another Yeshiva student. After all, most of the teams at the rink hailed from large universities like Penn State and the University of Delaware, with hockey programs that receive money from their schools and are unencumbered by religious strictures. The Yeshiva team showed up at the rink before 7 a. m. and squeezed into a cramped locker room. Putting on a uniform included pulling a helmet over a yarmulke and strapping padding over a white, tasseled religious shawl, known as a tallit. They had already finished a lengthy prayer session and were facing a grueling three games. Last season, they played in Division 4, which is for newer teams. They lost one game all season and won the league championship, earning them the right to play this season in the more competitive Division 2 league against teams like Boston University and Northeastern. Still, they are currently in first place and are a favorite to win the league championships in March in Pennsylvania. The Maccabees will most likely qualify for the national championship in Florida in April, said William Bourque, the commissioner of the Eastern Collegiate Roller Hockey Association, and their performance there could enable them to move to the top division, whose teams have bigger budgets that include team buses and plane travel to games. Mr. Bourque said he was impressed by the team’s quick success, especially since new teams typically struggle to achieve a winning record. “It’s very rare that a team comes in and becomes a top team right away,” he said. “They’re probably the team out there. They probably don’t have the most talented players, but they have the best teamwork. They want it more than anyone else. ” The game is essentially played on an ice hockey rink with a hard surface. Body checking is forbidden but play is still scrappy, with plenty of contact. Players use a hard plastic puck and wear skates and padding. Maccabee players and supporters regard the team’s unlikely accomplishment as something of a miracle. “Growing up as an Orthodox kid, you can’t play in the roller hockey leagues because they don’t cater to the orthodox lifestyle,” said Amir Gavarin, who also helped start the team and is the captain. “So you wonder if you can play with the gentiles. We’re trying to prove to the community that we can hang with them. ” The team is largely an outgrowth of the avid floor hockey scene in orthodox high schools in and around New York City. Some top players who ended up attending Yeshiva University were recruited by Mr. Margulies and Mr. Gavarin. Many of the players, including one of the goalies, Joseph Robin, had to develop skating skills. Two of the team’s stars, Avi Edell and Ari Drazin, grew up in Canada playing ice hockey and had to learn how to play on wheels instead of blades. Being a club rather than a varsity sport means the team is not eligible for athletic department funding, school officials said. Still, the team is hoping to persuade the school to provide some financing, Mr. Gavarin said. The players had to raise money to buy uniforms and equipment, pay league fees, cover travel expenses and even to hire a coach, Ely Gemara. League officials warned the Yeshiva players that holding games on Sunday mornings could mean having to play before sunrise. “We told them, ‘Guys, it’s going to be really, really hard,’ but they’ve taken everything in stride,” Mr. Bourque said. Because of the players’ rigorous study schedules, it has been tough to schedule practices, and rental fees are steep at rinks on Long Island and in New Jersey. They also practice at an outdoor public rink on First Avenue in Manhattan. This season, the team had to skip preseason games because they fell during the High Holy Days in October. Players said their travel logistics could be as challenging as their opponents. While other teams show up in team vans, the Maccabees scramble to assemble car pools. With kosher and Sabbath restrictions, even hotel stays are tricky. Team members often stay with orthodox families, sometimes sleeping on attic floors or in cold garages. There was also the necessity of packing their own kosher food — which usually meant cold meals — and fitting morning, afternoon and evening prayer sessions between car trips to games across the Northeast. The toll of travel hit the team at its very first game, in Rhode Island. After praying in a cold, dark parking lot, the team seemed in a daze as their opponents scored 15 seconds into the game. The Maccabees, however, woke up and rallied to a lopsided victory. By season’s end, several of the players won league honors, but could not attend a Friday night banquet. Instead, league officials presented the awards the following Sunday in a locker room. There have been awkward moments. Last season, at a rink on Long Island, the opposing team could not conceal its surprise after walking into a locker room to find the Maccabees in prayer together in Hebrew. “You should have seen the shock on their faces,” Mr. Gavarin said. Some fans travel hours to road games. At the rink in New Jersey, they were crestfallen when the team blew a lead against Stony Brook University, and lost in overtime. But they revived when the Maccabees beat Delaware University and trounced Penn State in a game that featured Mr. Drazin and Jesse Gordon combining on a dazzling Maccabees goal. The two players initially met while studying the Talmud in Israel before playing together. Now they make up the team’s first offensive line. Mr. Gavarin acquired his love for the game from his father, Barry Gavarin, who began playing a primitive form of hockey at his own yeshiva in the 1960s, first kicking the puck on an outdoor makeshift ice rink and then buying sticks and skates with his classmates as a break from religious study. The younger Mr. Gavarin said he and his teammates considered being both devout Jews and ferocious competitors a way to encourage other young observant Jews to break out of the often “insulated” world of Orthodox Jewish life. “We’re opening up a whole new viewpoint and worldview for Orthodox kids,’’ Mr. Gavarin said, “because they can see that if you work hard enough you can play with anybody. ” | 1 |
Getty - Saul Loeb/AFP The Wildfire is an opinion platform and any opinions or information put forth by contributors are exclusive to them and do not represent the views of IJR.
Sean Hannity took to the radio on Wednesday and was upfront about how he really feels about conservatives who refuse to vote for Trump.
He kicked off his explosive rant by telling his listeners that he's “pissed,” and said:
"In 13 freaking days, we are either going to make a decision to keep screwing the country up or we are going to try and fix it. That's what's at stake here.
You want to get 95 million Americans back to work, you want to get the economy going, you want a president that has the courage to say 'radical Islam.'
You want to not bring in refugees from countries that have laws that are the antithesis of our constitutional values.
You want to control the borders, you want become energy independent, you want to eliminate Obamacare, you want to fix are dilapidated piece of crap educational system, this is your chance."
Then, he went nuclear on the “Never Trump” movement.
You can listen to Hannity's full rant, below : | 0 |
November 10, 2016 French privacy row over mass ID database
A French state watchdog has called for the suspension of a database that could end up holding the biometric details of 60 million people. The aim of a single “mega-database” is to fight identity fraud and improve efficiency. But, as Paul Kirby explains, there are fears the database could be abused not only by hackers but by state intelligence too, What’s the database for? The single database would not be used in judicial investigations, ministers insist. Rather, it would help tackle identity fraud by comparing one set of digital fingerprints with another. France’s interior ministry wants the Secure Electronic Documents (TES) to collect all the information on an individual held on two separate databases that have details of people’s passports and national ID cards. Only children under 12 would be exempt. It would include an individual’s name, address, marital status, eye colour, weight, photograph and fingerprints. It’s merely an administrative register, argues Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas. Its only legal use would be when data need to be requisitioned. | 0 |
The end of everything is nearing us all! Or perhaps not, but we won't know when it's here.
It's a mysterious universe we are living in, so magnificent and complex that researchers and experts have come up with hundreds of theories on how it originated, how it works and when it ends.
The infinite questions that we hold about the universe will keep us thrilled for the rest of our lives, and the universe will probably end before we can even figure it out.
We fear the universe will trigger either a Big Crunch or a Big Rip during it's course, colliding into a singularity state or ripping itself apart .
Scientists have revealed that the universe could delete itself, without anyone even noticing it. Experts believe that our universe has reached it's lowest state with every particle in existence except for the "Higs Field".
Watch the following video to know more!
Disclose TV SOURCE | 0 |
A new email released as part of the Wikileaks Podesta dump features Clinton ally Brent Budowsky accusing Hillary operative David Brock of having a plan that relied upon black voters being “stupid”.
The Wikileaks email ID 31909 , sent to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and another Clinton ally CEO Roy Spence, centers around a discussion of a Bernie Sanders campaign ad which featured “many black faces”.
Back in January, Clinton operative David Brock caused consternation within the campaign when he publicly claimed that Bernie Sanders didn’t care about black people.
Budowsky is not impressed with Brock’s outburst, writing in the email, “Brock makes the cardinal mistake of those who bring politics into disrepute with voters. He tells a lie that people will know is a lie, and insults the intelligence of black voters with a kind of elitist racism that Bill and Hillary Clinton should not be seen with.”
“I guess Brock’s plan is that black voters are stupid and will not watch the ad and believe his lie,” writes Budowsky.
“I cannot think of anything more desperate, more stupid and more self-destructive than David Brock lying about the Bernie ad and playing a seamy brand of the politics of race using the tactic of deceit on her behalf,” adds the The Hill and Huffington Post columnist, before offering to write a campaign ad for HIllary to counter the Bernie Sanders ad.
The email once again underscores the Clinton camp’s paranoia about not being able to authentically connect with African-American voters in a way that Bernie Sanders could.
Some black voters have been reluctant to support Clinton as a result of her support for a 1994 crime bill that resulted in the mass incarceration of young black Americans, whom Hilary referred to at the time as “super predators”.
Source
| 0 |
Окт 5 2016 в 5:26 PDT
Mit zwei Jahren konnte Bella kurze Sätze bilden und in drei Sprachen schnell lesen. Kurz vor ihrem dritten Geburtstag fügten ihre Eltern Chinesisch zum Ausbildungsprogramm hinzu. Laut Julia zeigte ihre Tochter ein großes Interesse an der neuen Sprache und wollte selbst Cartoons auf Chinesisch schauen.
Mit drei Jahren und zwei Monaten lernte Bella mit Begeisterung Spanisch und Deutsch, aber nicht nur: Nebenbei tanzte sie, spielte Geige und sang. Später kam noch die arabische Sprache hinzu. Damals wie heute geht Bella spazieren, spielt Verstecken und liest normale Kinderbücher –in verschiedenen Sprachen. Grundsätzlich haben Spiele einen wichtigen Platz in ihrem Lernprozess.
Die kleine Bella verbringt ihre Zeit mit Reisen mit Muttersprachlern, besucht eine englischsprachige Theatergruppe, hat Malunterricht auf Französisch, Tanzunterricht auf Spanisch und lernt Eiskunstlauf mit einem deutschen Muttersprachler. Außerdem organisieren ihre Eltern für sie Sprachunterricht mit ihren Freunden, die genauso mehrsprachig aufwachsen. Sprachen lernen ist gut für das Gehirn Авг 25 2016 в 10:32 PDT
Wissenschaftler fanden heraus, dass die Fähigkeit, verschiedene Sprachen zu sprechen und zwischen ihnen zu wechseln, von unterschiedlichen Gehirnarealen abhängt. Sie werden je nach phonetischen Sprachmerkmalen, der Grammatik, Vorstellungen und sogar der Tonalität der Aussprache aktiv.
„Jede neue Erfahrung führt dazu, dass unser Gehirn neue Nervenverbindungen herstellt”, erklärt Psychologin Tatjana Djatschenko. „Der für unser Gedächtnis zuständige Hippocampus stimuliert das Wachstum von neuen Neuronen. Dadurch wachsen wortwörtlich einige Gehirnareale.“
„Die Mehrsprachigkeit wirkt sich positiv auf die allgemeine Entwicklung des Kindes aus, obwohl es manchmal Sprachentwicklungsstörungen im frühen Alter verursachen kann. Dies tritt bei Kindern, die einsprachig aufwachsen, seltener auf”, sagt Kira Iwanowa, Mitarbeiterin des Instituts für linguistische Studien der Russischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Sprachunterricht im frühen Alter sei jedoch keine Garantie dafür, dass ein Kind diese Sprache später gut beherrschen werde, erklärt Maria Molina, wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin des Instituts für Sprachwissenschaften der Russischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. “Ich kenne ein Beispiel: Eine Mutter hat mit ihrem Sohn nur Englisch gesprochen, bis er drei Jahre alt wurde. Dieser Junge kann derzeit nicht einmal sein Pensum in einer ganz normalen Schule schaffen.” | 0 |
President Donald Trump denounced reporting from the New York Times and the Washington Post that said his campaign was communicating with Russia. “Information is being illegally given to the failing New York Times and Washington Post by the intelligence community,” he wrote on Twitter, suggesting that the NSA and the FBI might be responsible. “Just like Russia,” he added. The New York Times cited law enforcement and intelligence agency sources that intercepted communications from people close to Trump during the presidential campaign with Russian intelligence. “The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by ‘intelligence’ like candy,” Trump wrote. “Very !” That news is leading coverage of the president on cable and network news stations, prompting Trump’s reaction on Twitter. “The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred,” Trump wrote. “MSNBC and CNN are unwatchable. Fox and Friends is great!” Trump called the reports “ ” and said they were “merely an attempt to the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton’s losing campaign. ” He also praised Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake, for discussing his latest column on Fox News, pointing out that the damaging intelligence leaks were the kind of behavior seen in “banana republics. ” “We trust the NSA and the FBI to use these powers to catch criminals and terrorists but that should not interfere in our politics, and that stuff is interfering right now in our politics,” Lake said in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity. — @realDonaldTrump referring to this @EliLake segment on @seanhannity last night that was on @foxandfriends this morning pic. twitter. — Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) February 15, 2017, Trump reminded the world that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unchecked aggression began during the Obama administration. “Crimea was TAKEN by Russia during the Obama Administration,” he wrote. “Was Obama too soft on Russia?” | 1 |
The presents have been unwrapped. The batteries have been charged. Chances are, a few of those new gizmos may be designed to make air travel less stressful and more productive. Even so, when it is time to board the flight home after the holidays, some gifts simply might not fly. Devices powered by batteries can cause problems, and airlines balk at virtual reality headsets. Even nonelectronic travel aids can cause concern. Last holiday season, hoverboards went on airlines’ own Do Not Fly lists because of their propensity to catch fire. This year, expect drones to draw scrutiny, depending on the strength of their batteries. Under the International Civil Aviation Organization’s dangerous goods regulations, batteries with power greater than 100 are not allowed on passenger aircraft without advance approval of the airline. Batteries with power greater than 160 are not allowed in passenger or checked baggage. Kyle Christy, 30, an auto repair manager with the State of Minnesota, said he often flies with the drones he uses for his freelance job as an aerial photographer. “The airlines should make it easier,” Mr. Christy said. “A lot of drone batteries are based off milliamp hours,” he added. “The airlines don’t give the formulas to crunch the numbers to see if they fall under the proper restrictions. ” With their phones, tablets, cameras and laptops, many passengers carry several devices onboard. On a jet, that could add up to more than a thousand batteries in the passenger cabin. And sometimes they do catch fire. That’s why when the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone was recalled in September, the United States Department of Transportation banned them from all flights. Airline websites typically offer detailed lists of banned, restricted or dangerous goods. But it is difficult to keep up with the marketplace — as with this year’s virtual reality headsets. More than six million of them have been shipped in 2016, according to SuperData, a market research firm. Virtual reality gives users a total visual and auditory experience for games and movies. But wearing the goggles and headphones can make users oblivious to their surroundings. This is why some airlines have begun prohibiting their use during taxi, takeoff and landing. “If you are switching off your own situational awareness, you are increasing the risk of injury to yourself if there is an evacuation,” said Jonathan Jasper, also known as JJ, manager of cabin safety for the International Air Transport Association, an airline trade group. “The guidance across the airlines is they won’t allow them” during those portions of the trip, Mr. Jasper said of the headsets. “They need their passengers to be aware of what is going on. ” Mr. Jasper gets together every six weeks or so with the safety representatives of 17 airlines to analyze the risks and hazards of new technology and consider whether restrictions are necessary. “The job of an airline is not to upset passengers before they board,” Mr. Jasper said. But airlines feel a need to be vigilant about the things passengers carry with them onto planes. A flight attendant for a large United States carrier said she was startled recently when she saw that two passengers had attached a small device to a window with a suction cup. The attendant thought it looked like a bomb. The couple explained it was a GPS device with which they were tracking their route. The flight attendant could not find GPS mentioned in her airline’s policies and procedures manual. And so, after questioning the couple again, she allowed the device to remain. The flight attendant told the story on the condition that her name not be used, to avoid a possible reprimand from her employer. Before letting passengers use electronic devices in flight, the Federal Aviation Administration requires airlines to conduct tests to be sure the items do not interfere with planes’ avionics and communications equipment. “GPS does emit more magnetic interference than a mobile phone, and a mobile phone with a GPS is even more,” Mr. Jasper said. If the airline is not sure, it must take the side of caution and say no, he said. The next step would be transmitting that information to flight attendants. Not all questionable are electronic. Nicola Burke is a British expat and family travel blogger living in Hong Kong. When she flies with her daughters, ages 7 and 5, she takes a cushion, the creation of two California mothers who are also frequent fliers. The inflatable fits on the floor in front of the seats and creates a flat surface where children can stretch out during the flight. “I have used the on several airlines, including British Airways, Virgin, Cathay Pacific and Thai Airlines,” Ms. Burke said. “I have never been questioned about it. ” But safety officials are scrutinizing the for its potential to cause heat to build up around entertainment boxes beneath the seats on some aircraft. Mr. Jasper said ’s maker was working to modify the product to reduce that likelihood and the risk the device might block decompression vents on the floor. “We have been working closely with the cabin safety committee of I. A. T. A. to ensure that our product meets all safety guidelines for airplane use,” said Winnie Lu, one of the inventors. A travel aid that was not under any Christmas trees — it does not begin shipping until early 2017 — is the Modobag. But it is already creating airline controversy. The Modobag is a motorized suitcase meant for travelers to ride as they make their way through the airport, and then take onto the plane with them as luggage. When Kevin O’Donnell, a Chicago entrepreneur and inventor, announced the product last summer, he promised that the Modobag would “change the way the world travels. ” Not if Delta Air Lines has its way. The airline has already banned such riding suitcases from its flights, citing the same potential battery hazards that got hoverboards prohibited from most aircraft. “The poorly labeled, powerful batteries powering these devices are the problem,” said Ashton Morrow, a spokeswoman for Delta. She said the airline had reviewed product specifications and found that manufacturers did not consistently provide sufficient detail about the size or power of the batteries. Mr. O’Donnell declined to provide the power specification for Modobag’s battery. He said in an email that the product was going through a second series of tests “to make sure our batteries meet or exceed the safety requirements of the aviation industry. ” Customers have already ordered 400 bags that will be shipped in February, he said. That should allow plenty of time for other airlines to weigh in before the next holiday season begins. | 1 |
The US should stop brazenly blaming Russia for the situation in Syria as it may face an equally harsh response, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned at the Valdai forum in Sochi, also addressing American exceptionalism, Trump and other issues.
Does anyone seriously think that Russia can somehow influence the choice of the American people? Is America some sort of a banana republic? America is a great state. Correct me, please, if I’m wrong.
On the US media switching from portraying Trump as Russia’s enemy to Kremlin’s favorite:
This is complete and utter rubbish‌ a way of manipulating the public consciousness ahead of the US presidential election
Simply watching airstrikes in the heart of Europe (in Yugoslavia) at the end of the 20th century, I don’t know about you, but for me – it felt like savagery.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States decided that there’s no need to coordinate fundamental issues with anybody. And it all just went off…
Source
| 0 |
Perhaps, you have not heard of Kurt Eichenwald. He is a Vanity Fair contributing editor and Newsweek senior writer. He has around 182,000 followers on Twitter. Many of the messages sent from his account receive hundreds if not thousands of retweets. He has influence so that is why I am taking the time to say what Eichenwald will not write. And that is go fuck yourself.
Why should Eichenwald go fuck himself? Does Eichenwald deserve to be told to do this? Or am I, as people commonly say when met with profanity, better than that? Let’s see.
Eichenwald published a nearly 3,000-word screed centered on an encounter in the Philadelphia International Airport with someone who said they were a fan of his work. In fact, as Eichenwald admits, he almost assaulted this person.
The man recognized him from a news program. According to Eichenwald, the man thanked him for his reporting on Donald Trump. He expressed outrage that Trump won and added, “Get back to work.” Eichenwald apparently lacks the ability to engage in basic social interactions with those who say they are his fans because he thought he detected a bit of “arrogance.” So, he asked who the man voted for.
Instead of telling Eichenwald it was none of his damn business, the fan was friendly. He said he voted for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. A gasket blew inside Eichenwald. He interrupted his fan and said, “You’re lucky it’s illegal for me to punch you in the face.” He told his fan to go fuck himself (although Newsweek and/or Eichenwald apparently do not want to print it so the column says he told the fan to “have sex with himself”).
Eichenwald bashes Stein and Bernie Sanders supporters and blames them for spreading “conspiracy theories” that helped cost Democrats the election. The entire column is a toxic slab of slime with a level of contempt and hostility that is staggering, given that he centers it on someone who claimed to be a fan of his work. One can only imagine what he would have done if that person said they were not a fan but tried to talk to him.
This is absolutely the wrong reaction to the outcome of the election, however, it is the culmination of the worst genre of reporting and writing pumped out to the masses and popularized in the last year: vote shaming.
Journalists like Kurt Eichenwald feel it is their place to shame voters for their choices and tell them what to do. At the same time, trust in journalists, who work for mass media, is at a historic low. Is it any wonder why people trying to navigate a broken and corrupt electoral system that only gives them two choices every four years do not have confidence in the press, which elevates people who will attack them for refusing to fall in line?
“Shut the Hell Up” Eichenwald goes off on a “certain kind of liberal” he cannot stand, the kind that preens about their “narcissistic purity as they cast their ballot for a person they know cannot win.” This is truly rich coming from someone, who is a contributing editor for a magazine with a synonym for narcissism in its name, and who updates his followers on what he is doing with his stocks and uses his Twitter to prattle on and on about himself. The post does not address the substance of the so-called myths until about 1,000 words after he calls more attention to the struggle he endured trying to diligently write about Trump for the past months.
In blunt terms, Eichenwald states, “I have no problem with anyone who voted for Trump, because they wanted a Trump presidency. I have an enormous problem with anyone who voted for Trump or Stein or Johnson—or who didn’t vote at all—and who now expresses horror about the outcome of this election. If you don’t like the consequences of your own actions, shut the hell up.”
Eichenwald acts like he performed a public service, and without him, the electorate never would have been able to tell the difference between Clinton and Trump. He somewhat contradicts his demand to shut the hell up, too.
“If they supported Trump or truly didn’t care who won after acquiring a real understanding of both candidates’ positions—rather than spouting some self-indulgent, bumper-sticker logic—I have no complaints,” Eichenwald asserts. “If they opposed Trump while refusing to do what they could to keep him out of office—that is, vote for the only other candidate who could win —then they need to go perform sex with themselves. And I mean that in much cruder terms.”
Which brings us back to the basic idea that Eichenwald should go fuck himself. And I can print that without writing it out in some censored form so I can later pat myself on the back for maintaining some semblance of civility.
Stein Voters Could Not Have Helped Clinton Win If They Were “With Her” During election night, Carl Bialik of FiveThirtyEight.com reported , “As of current vote counts, the number of voters who cast ballots for candidates other than Clinton and Trump exceeds Trump’s winning margin — or lead, in races that haven’t yet been called — in many important states, including Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But don’t pin Trump’s win on those voters who eschewed the two major candidates. Not all of them would have voted for Clinton had they been forced to choose only between her and Trump. And some might not have voted at all. Far more Democrats in Florida in 2000 voted for George W. Bush than voted for Ralph Nader.”
Nate Cohn of the New York Times even said Stein is not responsible for Clinton’s defeat.
Trump earned a sizable chunk of votes from Obama voters. Bialik reported on November 11, “A smaller share of eligible voters cast ballots in 2016 than in either of the previous two presidential elections,” and it was lower in states that went for Clinton.
This is probably the case because the Clinton campaign did not craft a message geared toward winning white working class or white middle class voters. She did not make overhauling free trade agreements a cornerstone of her campaign, and that hurt her in states like Michigan . It also could be that the Clintons represent something in establishment politics that millions of Americans felt they needed to reject.
However, Eichenwald is so enraged by the self-determination of voters—citizens who would vote for candidates on the ballot that the system intentionally tries to suffocate—that he insists the reason Clinton lost is because liberal Democrats are “consumed by provably false conspiracy theories.”
Oh Boy! Someone Gave Eichenwald A Peek at a “Republican Playbook” Against Sanders The “conspiracy theories” liberal Democrats (i.e. Sanders supporters) “believe” is the Democratic National Committee is an “all-powerful” entity that rigged the election against Sanders and Sanders would have won against Trump.
Eichenwald maintains “Sanders had not yet faced a real campaign against him” so he would not be able to win. By the end of May, the Clinton campaign had misrepresented Sanders’ role in the civil rights movement, accused Sanders of attacking President Obama for being “weak,” disingenuously claimed Sanders’s plan for single-payer healthcare would “dismantle Obamacare” to scare voters, and suggested the Sanders campaign planned to commit voter fraud in Iowa, allowed “Bernie Bros” to spread “vicious lies and sexism,” and sided with right-wing Republicans against immigration reform.
The campaign also dishonestly attacked him as a supporter of anti-immigrant Minutemen vigilantes, had a surrogate grotesquely claims Sanders’s wife, Jane, palled around with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, insisted Sanders supported the indefinite detention of immigrants, fabricated attacks on him for supposedly voting against the auto bailout, and pushed the inaccurate idea that he supported market deregulation in 2000. They also went after him for being a “single issue” candidate and pushed the notion that he ran for Democrat just to get “media attention” for himself, like he was an egomaniac.
At a Univision debate in March, a video clip of Sanders praising Cuban leader Fidel Castro was played. Clinton attacked Sanders over his remarks and used Cuban exiles in Florida to attack him for opposing U.S. imperialism in Cuba.
Despite all of those attacks, Sanders still appeared to do better than Trump in the polls and was ahead of Trump in a few state polls, where Clinton was behind Trump.
What’s most incredible about Eichenwald going off on Sanders supporters for “conspiracy theories” is the fact that he peddles and fabricates conspiracy theories in his work. For example, he published an entire piece claiming NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden acted as a Chinese spy because he told the Washington Post to publish documents on the same day the U.S. had a meeting with China about surveillance. He also pushed propaganda that Snowden left all the documents in Hong Kong.
Eichenwald claims to have seen the “Republican playbook” for attacks on Sanders. They bear a striking similarity to attacks already pushed out to the public. Sanders was asked about a rape fantasy essay he wrote when he appeared on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” He said, “It was bad fiction. I learned my lesson.” The Sanders campaign told the Washington Post it was a “dumb attempt at dark satire intended to attack gender stereotypes in the 1970s, and it looks as stupid today as it was then.”
That Sanders “sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped,” was an attack pushed by the David Brock-funded Blue Nation Review , and it was part of a viral graphic fact-checked by PolitiFact in September 2015. PolitiFact deemed it “ largely accurate .”
Republicans may have enjoyed attacking him for his sympathy to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, but Clinton tried the attack on him for his comments on Castro and that did not gain much traction outside Cuban exile communities in Florida. Simply, that kind of attack that hearkens back to the days of Ronald Reagan does not have much currency with the electorate these days.
A lot of these attacks Republicans planned to deploy were already peddled by Clinton. In that regard, whether they would have been effective is highly questionable.
The next fan who encounters Eichenwald should probably run into him and knock his coffee over so it lightly burns his crotch because this sentiment is vile:
When Sanders promoted free college tuition—a primary part of his platform that attracted young people—that didn’t mean much for almost half of all Democrats, who don’t attend—or even plan to attend—plan to attend a secondary school. In fact, Sanders was basically telling the working poor and middle class who never planned to go beyond high school that college students—the people with even greater opportunities in life—were at the top of his priority list.
Asshole, they do not plan to go to college because they cannot afford it. He pushed for free college tuition so poor, working class, and middle class Americans could go to college without graduating in an ocean of debt. Once more, go fuck yourself, Kurt Eichenwald!
Eichenwald is oblivious to the fact that Democrats may have deployed these Republican attacks or perhaps he does not care. Sanders supporters on Twitter have sent messages directed at him suggesting Sanders would have beat Trump and that is enough to piss him off and lead to this awful excuse for a political rant.
Of Course The DNC Should Have Backed Clinton Before Primary Ended Turning to the other myth, Eichenwald argues it was “stupid” for anyone to believe the Democratic National Committee had rigged the Democratic primary. He maintains that they do not have the power to do such a thing.
Eichenwald cleverly crafts a frame that makes it easy to obscure political corruption that upset voters. What really happened is the DNC was a captive of the Clinton campaign that did everything the Clinton campaign wanted to serve its needs, even if that meant Sanders was put at a disadvantag e.
The DNC and Clinton campaign falsely accused the Sanders campaign of “stealing” voter file data. The Hillary Victory Fund funneled millions of dollars through state parties to the DNC. Democratic women supporting Sanders faced forms of retaliation .
Nearly half of superdelegates in the Democratic establishment lined up to support Clinton by July 2015, before a single vote was cast in a primary.
Now, Eichenwald makes a big to-do about the allegations that the debates were rigged without bothering to specifically mention the contents of a memo written by Clinton campaign chief administrative officer Charlie Baker in April 2015.
It reads:
Through internal discussions, we concluded that it was in our interest to: 1) limit the number of debates (and the number in each state); 2) start the debates as late as possible; 3) keep debates out of the busy window between February 1 and February 27, 2016 (Iowa to South Carolina); 4) create a schedule that would allow the later debates to be canceled if the race is for practical purposes over; 5) encourage an emphasis on local issues and local media participants in the debate formats; and 6) ensure a format that provides equal time for all candidates and does not give the moderator any discretion to focus on one candidate.
The campaign mostly succeeded because from February 11 to March 6 there were no debates even though there were major primaries. Regardless of whether more debates were added to the schedule in 2016, it also worked with the DNC to fight Sanders’ efforts to schedule more debates.
Eichenwald declares, “Once only one candidate can win the nomination, of course the DNC gets to work on that person’s behalf.” He contends after May 3 there was no chance Sanders would win. But before the primary, the DNC and Clinton campaign were coordinating on opposition research in preparation for a campaign against the Republican nominee. This is hugely alienating to the millions of Democratic voters, who do not support the corporate Democratic politics of Clinton, and had the DNC approached the election differently they may not have faced such discontent during the general election.
As if all of the above weren’t enough, here is another reason to thrust your middle fingers in the air next time you see Eichenwald at an airport:
Debates cost money, and the more spent on debates, the less available for the nominee in the general election. Plus, there is a reasonable belief among political experts that allowing the nominees to tear each other down over and over undermines their chances in the general election, which is exactly what happened with the Republicans in 2012.
This is quite anti-democratic. To Eichenwald, Democrats should not debate issues and defend their records in numerous debates, even though the election lasts for around 18 months, because it gives Republicans ammunition to attack the Democratic nominee. He also advocates against spending money on debates so it can go to a nominee that already benefits from side-stepping loopholes expanded by Citizens United . For that alone, I hope he gets stuck on an elevator with millennial Sanders supporters for hours but loses his voice and can’t chime in to lecture them.
Eichenwald is not the only journalist with prejudice toward democracy. But let’s be clear: at minimum, all presidential candidates able to get a percentage of support in a national poll, qualify for federal matching funds, or get on enough state ballots to win the number of electoral votes needed to become president should have a right to run in elections in the United States.
Yet, Eichenwald concludes, “If you didn’t vote for the only person who could defeat [Trump] and are now protesting a Trump presidency, may I suggest you shut up and go home. Adults now need to start fixing the damage you have done.”
For all of the crass, sanctimonious, and self-righteous bullshit, because this is the kind of journalism we need to destroy, I say put your middle fingers proudly in the air and shout it loud. Go fuck yourself, Kurt Eichenwald!
The post Go Fuck Yourself, Kurt Eichenwald! appeared first on Shadowproof .
| 0 |
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 the Veterans Today Network and its assigns. Notices Posted by VNN on November 4, 2016, With 0 Reads, Filed under Civil Liberties , Corruption , Election 2016 , Foreign Lobbies , Foreign Policy , Government , Legislation , Police State , Politics . 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
You must be logged in to post a comment Login WHAT'S HOT | 0 |
Getting sick can put a damper on any vacation, but it can be especially unsettling and even scary when it happens in another country. Here, Matthew Klapetzky, a registered nurse and the clinical director of Passport Health, the travel clinic at the University of Rochester School of Nursing, shares tips on what to do if illness hits you while abroad. “The majority of minor health issues that international travelers contend with can easily be with a good kit,” Mr. Klapetzky said. It should include an medication such as Imodium or because diarrhea is the most common ailment among travelers from the United States and hits around half of them. “This happens when your body gets a stomach bug as a reaction to a natural bacteria of a given land, and though it’s not usually serious, it lasts two to four days and can be extremely dehydrating,” he said. Other musts in the kit: ibuprofen to reduce fevers, muscle inflammation and joint pain bandages in assorted sizes along with an antibiotic ointment such as Neosporin for cuts and wounds oral rehydration supplements such as CeraLyte to replenish electrolytes lost through sweating and diarrhea blister pads and fiber supplements to ease constipation, also common during travel. Also, be sure to carry an EpiPen if you have allergies such as to tree nuts. If you twist your ankle, develop heat rash or have another situation where you need to see a doctor, don’t hesitate to use local care. “Remember that the doctors where you are in the world are used to treating ailments specific to that region, such as severe sunburn, which is common in the tropics, so they are going to be your best bet to treat such issues,” Mr. Klapetzky said. Travelers can find local medical care through the State Department website but should be aware that the department does not take responsibility for the quality of service provided by any doctor or hospital on the list. In more dire health situations such as a heart attack or serious car accident, Mr. Klapetzky suggested contacting the local embassy of the United States. “The embassy can help get you airlifted out of the country and back home if that’s what’s required and can also help you, if you need it, arrange to have money wired over to pay for your care,” he said. Travelers should note that while the embassy is a valuable resource, it does not pay for these services or any medical care. | 1 |
With the media gripped by accusatory speculation regarding the identity of the source behind the Wikileaks leak of hacked Podesta and DNC emails, much of it focused on Russia, a new theory has emerged from Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who tells Sputnik (a Russian media outlet) that the source of the leaks are not Russian hackers but a Washington insider.
“The source of these emails and leaks has nothing to do with Russia at all. I discovered what the source was when I attended the Sam Adam’s whistleblower award in Washington. The source of these emails comes from within official circles in Washington DC. You should look to Washington not to Moscow .”
Asked about whether or not WikiLeaks have ever published information at the behest of Moscow, Murray said that “WikiLeaks has never published any material received from the Russian government or from any proxy of the Russian government. It’s simply a completely untrue claim designed to divert attention from the content of the material.”
While blasted by Washington, first by Republicans several years ago, and most recently by Democrats, the WikiLeaks revelations have often been hailed as a champion of accountability.
“I think whistleblowers have become extremely important in the West because the propaganda model — as Chomsky puts it — has been reinforced to the extent that people don’t get any true information out of the media at all. It’s worth saying that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are publishers; they publish what whistleblowers leak to them,” Mr. Murrary told Sputnik.
Yet, whistleblowers in the US continue to be subject to lengthy prison sentences. A key example is Chelsea Manning, who was sentenced on August 21, 2013 to a thirty five year sentence for providing WikiLeaks with sensitive military and diplomatic documents highlighting, among other things, US military conduct in Iraq. Murray also mentions the case of John Kiriakou, a former investigator of international terrorism with the CIA who turned whistleblower.
“The people who did the torture have suffered no comeback at all,” adds Mr. Murray.
Taking a step back and discussing the risk of geopolitical escalation between Russia and the US, Murray told Sputnik that “there is no chance whatsoever that Russia is going to ever attack the United States, that simply isn’t going to happen.”
“Just as Russia is not going to attack the United Kingdom. There never has been a chance that Russia would ever attack either of these two countries. But of course the narrative is all to do with power and funneling huge amounts of American taxpayer money into the defense industry and the security industry and these people are both from the class that benefits.”
It’s an extremely dangerous game, says Mr. Murray, and it feeds into a foreign policy that is completely mad.
“In Syria — and I should say I’m no fan of the Assad regime at all — but the idea that backing assorted groups of jihadists to tear the country apart is a better solution is crazy and it’s especially crazy when we’ve already messed up Iraq, Afghanistan and now we’re doing exactly the same thing again and you can see it doesn’t work, it only works in terms of promoting continued instability and continued spending for the military and the security services.”
Finally, Murray also believes that the public can’t get clear analysis of these issues from mainstream media, because they are part of the same money/power nexus.
Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
We encourage you to share and republish our reports, analyses, breaking news and videos ( Click for details ).
Contributed by Zero Hedge of www.zerohedge.com . | 0 |
The caller ID on my office telephone said the number was from Las Vegas, but when I picked up the receiver I heard what sounded like a busy overseas call center in the background. The operator, “John,” asked if I would be interested in attending the 15th World Cardiology and Angiology Conference in Philadelphia next month. “Do I have to be a doctor?” I said, because I’m not one. I got the call because 20 minutes earlier I had entered my phone number into a website run by a Hyderabad, India, company called OMICS International. “You can have the student rate,” the man replied. With a 20 percent discount, it would be $599. The conference was in just a few weeks, I pointed out — would that be enough time for the academic paper I would be submitting to be properly reviewed? (Again, I know nothing about cardiology.) It would be approved on an “expedited basis” within 24 hours, he replied, and he asked which credit card I would like to use. If it seems that I was about to be taken, that’s because I was. OMICS International is a leader in the growing business of academic publication fraud. It has created scores of “journals” that mimic the look and feel of traditional scholarly publications, but without the integrity. This year the Federal Trade Commission formally charged OMICS with “deceiving academics and researchers about the nature of its publications and hiding publication fees ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars. ” OMICS is also in the less business of what might be called conference fraud, which is what led to the call from John. Both schemes exploit a fundamental weakness of modern higher education: Academics need to publish in order to advance professionally, get better jobs or secure tenure. Even within the halls of respectable academia, the difference between legitimate and fake publications and conferences is far blurrier than scholars would like to admit. OMICS is on the far end of the “definitely fake” spectrum. Real academic conferences evaluate potential participants by subjecting proposed papers and presentations to a rigorous process. Some 15, 000 people attend the American Educational Research Association’s annual conference, for example, and only about a third of submitted proposals are accepted. In October, a New Zealand college professor submitted a paper to the “International Conference on Atomic and Nuclear Physics,” which was held last month at the Hilton Atlanta Airport. It was written using the autocomplete feature on his iPhone, which produced an abstract that begins as follows: “Atomic Physics and I shall not have the same problem with a separate section for a very long long way. Nuclear weapons will not have to come out the same day after a long time of the year he added the two sides will have the two leaders to take the same way to bring up to their long ways of the same as they will have been a good place for a good time at home the united front and she is a great place for a good time. ” The paper was accepted within three hours. An OMICS employee who identified himself as Sam Dsouza said conference papers are reviewed by its “experts” within 24 hours of submission. He couldn’t provide a list of its reviewers or their credentials. Having dispensed with academic standards, OMICS makes money on volume. Its conferenceseries. com website lists hundreds of academic meetings, many at vacation destinations like Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla. On Dec. 1 and 2, the “2nd International Congress on Neuroimmunology and Therapeutics,” the “13th International Conference on Vaccines, Therapeutics and Travel Medicine: Influenza and Infectious Diseases,” and the “International Conference on Clinical and Medical Genetics” were all held, simultaneously, at the Hilton Atlanta Airport. Stacking multiple fake conferences at the same hotel is a common practice, says Jeffrey Beall, a tenured University of Colorado Denver librarian. He maintains a website for identifying “predatory open access scholarly publishers” that masquerade as scholarly journals, but are actually in the business of pumping out worthless articles and exploiting scholars with hidden fees. “You just rent a hotel, make up a name and stand around while everyone is reading their papers,” Mr. Beall says. “It’s easy money. ” Mr. Beall’s list, which has grown to 923 publishers from 18 in 2011, also includes a British company called the “Infonomics Society. ” Like OMICS, it publishes a raft of journals, 17 in all, with legitimately titles like “International Journal of Sustainable Energy Development. ” Mr. Beall calls Infonomics an “impostor scholarly society” that is “designed to generate as much revenue as possible. ” All 17 journals are run by a single person named Charles Shoniregun out of a modest attached brick home in the outer suburbs of London. Infonomics also sponsors a series of conferences. But when I looked into one of them, the “World Conference on Special Needs Education,” or W. C. S. N. E. the story was more complex than I expected. Like many predatory publishers, the Infonomics website for W. C. S. N. E. has a certain quality familiar to anyone who reads the spam folder in their email. “The Infonomics Society has an established reputation for promoting research esteem that is valued by research community,” it says. The W. C. S. N. E. is attended by “Policy Makers and Stakeholders who care deeply about bringing creative, innovative and rigorous learning practices barriers. ” The W. C. S. N. E. paper submissions guidelines warn that all papers must be strictly limited to “a total of 4 to 6 pages. ” That includes all figures, tables and references. Robert Kelchen, a professor of higher education at Seton Hall, says that this is “a red flag. ” Education research papers are typically much longer, he notes — the tables and reference pages alone can run to double digits. But short papers are easier to pack into a single “journal. ” The website included a long list of “Program Committee members” with impressive academic credentials, as well as “Keynote Speakers” for the coming conference, scheduled to be held in August at Temple University, the W. C. S. N. E. host for the last three years. But when I contacted those identified as committee members and speakers, many immediately replied that they had no idea they were on the website and had no affiliation with the W. C. S. N. E. The announced keynote speakers told me they were nothing of the kind. Within 24 hours of my inquiries, someone removed their names and biographies from the site and replaced them with a page that said “Keynote Speakers to be Announced!” A spokesman for Temple, Hillel Hoffmann, said the university condemned “predatory publishing” and said no university money had been spent on the conference. He said that learners in the community, including adult literacy students, had attended parts of the conference and had benefited from it, but that none had paid to participate. He added that the W. C. S. N. E. would no longer take place at Temple. Richard Cooper, the director of disability services at Harcum College, a private institution in Philadelphia, helped create W. C. S. N. E. along with Mr. Shoniregun. He says he has no involvement with the paper selection process or financial aspects of the conference, simply serving as an organizer, presenter and master of ceremonies. He described it as a worthwhile gathering of scholars, many of whom live in Africa and India and pay hundreds of dollars in conference fees to attend. The papers presented at previous W. C. S. N. E. conferences don’t appear to have been composed using the autocomplete function on an iPhone. They mostly describe small qualitative studies and surveys that examine ideas, break little new ground and use statistical jargon to make their findings seem more complicated than they really are. They very likely would be rejected by the American Educational Research Association. But they are also well within the bounds of what gets published in many scholarly journals that, while not prestigious, have never been called a fraud. Barba Patton, an education professor at the University of in Victoria, Tex. defended the W. C. S. N. E. unreservedly. “I have attended ten to fifteen of the conferences in the U. S. Canada and in Europe,” she wrote via email. “I have no concerns about the website. You must remember that the conference reaches many who are using the British English rather than the American. ” Mr. Shoniregun did not respond to messages sent to his several email addresses. But he appears to have created a kind of hybrid conference that combines the shady, internet marketing practices of OMICS with the more quotidian inattention to academic rigor that characterizes much of legitimate academia. Take the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) by all accounts a legitimate organization. This year, Peter Dreier, chair of the Urban and Environmental Policy department at Occidental College, described how he submitted a proposal full of jargon, misquotation, non sequitur and general academic gobbledygook to an international conference sponsored by the 4S. It was accepted. “I look forward to meeting you in Tokyo,” the panel organizer wrote. Lucy Suchman, a sociologist at Britain’s Lancaster University and the president of 4S, acknowledges that the abstract review process is “not perfect” and that she would have rejected Mr. Dreier’s submission. But, she notes, 4S reviews hundreds of submissions every year with an “assumption of good faith. ” It would not have occurred to them that someone of Mr. Dreier’s standing in academia was engaged in such an “unfortunate prank,” she said, emphasizing the overall high quality of 4S presentations. There are real, prestigious journals and conferences in higher education that enforce and defend the highest standards of scholarship. But there are also many more Ph. D. than there is space in those publications, and those people are all in different ways subject to the “publish or perish” system of professional advancement. The academic system is subject to no real outside oversight. Standards are whatever the scholars involved say they are. So it’s not surprising that some academics have chosen to give one another permission to accumulate publication credits on their C. V.’s and spend some of the departmental travel budget on short holidays. Nor is it surprising that some canny operators have now realized that when standards are loose to begin with, there are healthy profits to be made in the gray areas of academe. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — President Trump signed an executive order on Monday blocking citizens of six predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States, the most significant hardening of immigration policy in generations, even with changes intended to blunt legal and political opposition. The order was revised to avoid the tumult and protests that engulfed the nation’s airports after Mr. Trump signed his first immigration directive on Jan. 27. That order was ultimately blocked by a federal appeals court. The new order continued to impose a ban on travelers, but it removed Iraq, a redaction requested by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who feared it would hamper coordination to defeat the Islamic State, according to administration officials. It also exempts permanent residents and current visa holders, and drops language offering preferential status to persecuted religious minorities, a provision widely interpreted as favoring other religious groups over Muslims. In addition, it reversed an indefinite ban on refugees from Syria, replacing it with a freeze that requires review and renewal. But the heart of the sweeping executive action is still intact, reflecting Mr. Trump’s “America first” pledge to safeguard against what he has portrayed as a hidden influx of terrorists and criminals — a campaign promise that resonated deeply with white voters. The new order retains central elements of the old one, cutting the number of refugees admitted to the United States each year to 50, 000 from about 110, 000. Mr. Trump is also leaving open the possibility of expanding the ban to other countries, or even putting Iraq back on the banned list if the country’s leaders fail to comply with a requirement that they increase intelligence sharing, officials said. “Unregulated, unvetted travel is not a universal privilege, especially when national security is at stake,” said John F. Kelly, the homeland security secretary, appearing alongside Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Ronald Reagan Federal Building in Washington on Monday. Mr. Kelly said the order was now “prospective” and applied “only to foreign nationals outside of the United States” who do not have a valid visa. None of the men took questions. The Trump administration quickly tried to break the legal logjam, filing papers in United States District Court in Washington late on Monday seeking to lift an order blocking the fulfillment of the initial ban. But the president’s revisions did little to halt criticism from Democrats and immigrant rights advocates, who predicted a renewed fight in the courts. The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, described the new order as a “ ban” that was still “meanspirited and . ” Margaret Huang, the executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement that the new order would “cause extreme fear and uncertainty for thousands of families by, once again, putting hatred into policy. ” The new measure will be phased in over the next two weeks to avoid the frenetic, execution of the order in January, which prompted protests across the country and left tearful families stranded at airports abroad and in the United States. The redrafted order, delayed by a week so it would not overshadow Mr. Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress last Tuesday, represented a recognition that the rushed first attempt at the ban did not pass muster legally or politically. Administration officials privately conceded that the initial version of the order was a political debacle that damaged Mr. Trump’s nascent presidency. But they were much more sanguine about the second order, arguing that the new, multiagency review process could be used in the future to bend Mr. Trump’s uncompromising messages toward Washington’s bureaucratic realities. Mr. Trump signed the first ban with great fanfare, in front of reporters, at the Pentagon. “We don’t want them here,” Mr. Trump said of Islamist terrorists. “We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country, and love deeply our people. ” This time, the White House issued a photograph of the president signing the order alone at his desk in the Oval Office. Justice Department lawyers said the revisions rendered moot legal cases against the original travel ban. But opponents said the removal of a section that had granted preferential treatment to victims of religious persecution was a cosmetic change that did nothing to alter the order’s prejudicial purpose. Immigrant rights lawyers had argued that the provision was intended to discriminate against Muslims, pointing to recent statements by Mr. Trump. “This is a retreat, but let’s be clear — it’s just another run at a Muslim ban,” said Omar Jadwat, the director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups that sued to stop the first order. “They can’t unring the bell. ” Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York and a plaintiff in a suit seeking to block the first order, said his office was reviewing the new ban, adding, “I stand ready to litigate — again — in order to protect New York’s families, institutions and economy. ” Congressional Republicans, who were split over the first travel ban, had a more muted reaction. But Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who backed the first order, issued a statement saying the revised order “advances our shared goal of protecting the homeland. ” Citizens of Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya will face a suspension of visa processing as the administration analyzes how to strengthen vetting procedures, according to a homeland security summary of the order. The removal of Iraq from the list came after talks with security officials in Baghdad and at the urging of Mr. Mattis and State Department officials, who have been in communication with Iraqi officials alarmed that the ban will turn public sentiment in their country against the United States. “On the basis of negotiations that have taken place between the government of Iraq and the U. S. Department of State in the last month, Iraq will increase cooperation with the U. S. government on the vetting of its citizens applying for a visa to travel to the United States,” homeland security officials wrote in a fact sheet given to reporters. The timing of the ban seemed intended to reset the White House political narrative, after a turbulent week that began with Mr. Trump’s address to Congress. That success was quickly overshadowed by the controversies over Mr. Sessions’s failure to inform the Senate of his contacts with the Russian ambassador and Mr. Trump’s unsupported accusation that President Barack Obama tapped Mr. Trump’s phones during the 2016 campaign. Critics say that Mr. Trump’s vow to impose “extreme vetting” on migrants, especially those fleeing the war in Syria, disregards already stringent screening measures, and the fact that none of the recent terrorist attacks or mass shootings on American soil were perpetrated by people from the nations listed in the ban. Last week, The Associated Press reported that it had obtained a draft homeland security assessment concluding that citizenship was an “unlikely indicator” of a threat. Homeland security officials, speaking to reporters by telephone on Monday, pushed back against that news report, arguing that it was culled from public sources and excluded classified information that paints a more dangerous picture. An official speaking on the call said the Justice Department had identified 300 “refugees” who were being investigated for their links to Islamist terrorist groups or for holding State positions. Some of those people already have permanent resident status, the official said. But homeland security and Justice Department officials declined to provide further details, and would not say how many of the 300 people being investigated came from the countries covered by the revised travel ban. | 1 |
Collin Bond had no intention of buying a $1, 400 Thermador warming drawer when he and his wife, Ashley, popped into the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in New Rochelle, N. Y. in the spring of 2015. But when he spotted one at the nonprofit store for the price of $50, he immediately scooped it up. No matter that the couple were living in a rental in Downtown Brooklyn and had only just begun their search for a Westchester County in earnest. “I didn’t have a place to put it at the time, but I took it,” said Mr. Bond, 36, an associate broker at Douglas Elliman in Manhattan, who had an idea of how expensive the drawer normally was from his work in the industry. “Fifty dollars, that’s crazy!” he said, recalling his thoughts at the time. “I wonder what else I can do?” Ms. Bond, 31, who works in public relations for the home and design industry, approved. “I honestly didn’t see the need for a warming drawer, but liked the way he was thinking. ” And so, with his wife’s blessing and a warming drawer in the trunk of his car, Mr. Bond began his quest for a kitchen on the cheap. It wasn’t long before he spotted a Wolf microwave, normally at least $1, 000, for $200 on Craigslist and found himself at the warehouse of the seller, a contractor in New Jersey who works on luxury developments. In chatting with the contractor, Mr. Bond learned that many of the developers he worked with would replace all the appliances in model apartments with new ones once the apartments had sold — even though the “old” ones may have been used just to boil tea or store bottled water for visitors to the building. “He was basically telling me, ‘I’m paying an assistant to list these,’” Mr. Bond said. “I told him, ‘Just give me a call next time. ’” About a month later, Mr. Bond’s phone rang and he was back in New Jersey with a rented and a hand truck, picking up an $7, 400 wine refrigerator for $1, 000 from the same man. Mr. Bond paid some members of the contractor’s construction crew $20 each to help him load it. With his collection of discount kitchen appliances growing, Mr. Bond invested in a small storage unit, paying around $150 a month. Now his search became strategic. To match his newly acquired wine refrigerator, a integrated model, Mr. Bond created alerts on Craigslist for a corresponding with the same width, depth and height, normally $7, 540. Soon, he had a Craigslist ad in his inbox posted by a contractor who was renovating a house in Westchester for clients who wanted a change in style. “It was a relatively new kitchen,” Mr. Bond said. But according to the contractor, he added, “The people who had bought it were like, ‘We don’t like this kitchen we just want a new kitchen. ’” Mr. Bond showed up with cash in hand, in tow. “I went in there for one fridge and ended up negotiating and getting two fridges and the dishwasher,” he said. He paid $2, 400 for the lot, down from about $3, 000. To ensure that the appliances worked, he asked the sellers to have them up and running before he arrived. “I’d make sure I’d call them and say, ‘I’m going to meet you at 2 p. m. on Wednesday. Can you please make sure it’s plugged in and at temperature when I get there? ’” Not everything went flawlessly. After being transported to the storage unit, the wine refrigerator wouldn’t hold the proper temperature in one of its zones. “Something had become disconnected,” said Mr. Bond, who paid a local repairman $200 to fix it. But with refrigerators normally selling for as much as $8, 000, he figured, “If I’m buying it for $1, 000 and I put another $1, 500 into it — that’s still an incredible savings. ” But there was still the matter of finding a new home to house all the fancy appliances. “We really wanted something that we could make our own,” said Mr. Bond, who worked in carpentry in high school and as a general contractor during summers between college. “We were looking for something we could put some sweat equity into. ” That summer, they found their : a prewar apartment in Scarsdale, N. Y. “The place was white carpet, which was horrendous,” Mr. Bond said. “I think it had actually been a pink carpet that had just gotten bleached over the years, because when we moved the dining room table, there was a pink ring under it. ” Mirrored wall panels in the living room had been painted over, and the appliances hadn’t been upgraded since the 1980s. “We just saw a lot of potential,” Mr. Bond said. Underneath the old carpet, there were beautiful oak floors, and the walls that boxed off the kitchen, living and dining rooms could come down. Not to mention that the place cost about a quarter of what it would have in Brooklyn. They closed on the apartment in July 2015, paying about $240, 000, and immediately began renovating the kitchen, a process that took about five months. Mr. Bond acted as the general contractor, filing for permits and finding subcontractors to build out their vision. A family friend drew up the plans based on the appliances Mr. Bond had in storage. But his obsession with Craigslist did not end. In search of an elusive Miele espresso maker and Viking range, he checked his emails nightly. He admitted he was getting a little carried away when he decided they should buy a range he found online, although they had already agreed on a model. “My wife was like, ‘We don’t need that big of a stove in our kitchen. As it is, we have three refrigerators. This is not a commercial kitchen. ’” Putting it more mildly, she added: “He had the best of intentions, but I had to reel him in on the range, because it just didn’t fit and we would have had to rework all of our cabinet sizes. ” Mr. Bond ended up buying a Viking (normally $5, 000) for $1, 500, even though it was set up for propane and their apartment uses natural gas. To salvage the deal, he picked up a conversion kit for about $50 at a local hardware store and did the installation himself after watching a video on YouTube. Then, just as he had resigned himself to drinking regular coffee, a Craigslist alert landed in his inbox for a Miele espresso maker that normally sold for $3, 500. “A really, really sweet couple” who happened to live nearby were selling it for $500, he said. To find out if it worked, Mr. Bond asked them to make him a cup of coffee, but an error message kept popping up on the espresso maker’s display. Mr. Bond left without the machine, but called a few repair shops and learned that it could be fixed for $300. He returned, offered the couple $200 and it was his. In all, the Bonds paid about $6, 000 for their kitchen appliances, including repairs. Purchased new, the same appliances would have cost roughly $35, 000. Dinner parties are a regular event in their new home, and all three refrigerators are put to use. Although, Mr. Bond admitted, “It’s all a little overkill — I feel like a food hoarder. ” And the warming drawer that started the whole thing? It was one of the best purchases they made, Ms. Bond said. “We use it every time we have a group of people over. ” | 1 |
A seat in a subway car in Mexico City’s metro system caused a stir earlier this year. There were awkward glances. Visible discomfort. Baffled looks. Some laughs. And of course, the inevitable pictures from passengers’ camera phones. It was meant to be provocative, and it was. A seat was changed to look like the lower half of a male’s body, including the penis, part of a campaign by UN Women and the Mexico City government to raise awareness about sexual harassment on subways. On the floor beneath the seat, there was a sign reading, “It is annoying to travel this way, but not compared to the sexual violence women suffer in their daily commutes. ” The campaign has now released a video titled ”Experimento Asiento” — “an experiment with a seat” — that has had more than 800, 000 views on YouTube since March 20. It shows people reacting with a mixture of discomfort and shock throughout. One man even tried to cover the seat with a coat to sit on it. It didn’t work. He abandoned the seat, as did others who tried to sit in it during the experiment in January. UN Women and the Mexican government collaborated on a second video as well, which has also begun picking up traffic. It is called “Experimento Pantallas” — or “experiment screens. ” That experiment involved installing cameras that would take tight shots of male buttocks and display them on screens for all to see. In the video, a number of men are shown expressing disgust and embarrassment. “We wanted to do something different,” said a Yeliz Osman, a program coordinator with the Mexican UN Women office. “We wanted to target men because on a global level, the majority of programs talking about sexual violence or sexual harassment always target women and girls. We wanted to change that because we don’t think that women are the problem. ” The campaign is called #NoEsDeHombres (a rough translation would be “this isn’t manly”) and it is aimed at men, both with the video ads and with newly unveiled print ones that show guys giving lascivious looks with slogans like “this is how your mother gets looked at every day. ” These particular ads came about after UN Women and the Mexican government took open submissions for ideas on a campaign to target a male audience. Around 40 agencies submitted pitches and J. Walter Thompson won. “We need to make clear that this is violent, not flattering, and incentivize men to intervene if they witness it” said Ana Güemez, director of the Mexican UN Women office, during the presentation of the campaign this Thursday. According to a national survey done in 2016 by the Mexican Institute of Women, Inmujeres, nine out of 10 women or girls who use public transportation feel unsafe while doing it. A Reuters survey done in 2014 also showed that the Mexico City transport system is the dangerous for women overall out of 15 world capitals. However, Mexico City was squarely in first place for specific questions like “have your been verbally harassed?” or “have you been groped?“ “In order to generate change, you need to create empathy,” Ms. Osman said. “The idea is that men can get a sense of what it is all like. By creating empathy, we hope that this might change their behavior. ” The Mexico City government has begun to take action: It is now possible to file an administrative complaint if you get catcalled (the perpetrator either pays a fine or spends a night in jail) and last year it started handing out rape whistles on the subway so that women could “warn of possible crimes” (a plan that was not without its critics). The issue has gained prominence in the past few weeks after a blogger, Tamara de Anda, was publicly criticized for talking about filing a complaint against a taxi driver who accosted her verbally while she was walking down the street. Insults on social media ranged from telling her she wasn’t attractive enough to be offended by the driver’s catcall to issuing death threats. Ms. De Anda was one of several Mexican public figures who participated in the presentation of the #NoEsDeHombres campaign, alongside the wrestler El Hijo del Santo and the actor Alfonso Herrera, familiar to United States audiences from Netflix’s show, “Sense8. ” | 1 |
We’d drive southwest on Interstate 81, eating barbecue until we hit Memphis. The idea was juvenile in its simplicity, but amid planning a wedding and being a month from turning 30, something juvenile and simple was what I craved. I am a native New Yorker, in a family of waning Italian heritage, so my opinions on barbecue have been treated as an eccentricity. Was my hot dog no good? Perhaps I’d like a burger instead? To my fiancée, Mary Beth, and North I was eccentric only in the wide tent I pitched for smoked meat. To most anyone from the Piedmont Crescent in North Carolina, barbecue is not a style of cooking it’s a specific dish: chopped pork topped with a spicy vinegar sauce. Zeal for such a noble meal is only appropriate in her eyes. Ribs, however, are not barbecue. Ribs are ribs. Beef is a wholly different dish. And God help those South Carolinians, with their heathenous condiments. Our first stop would be in the heart of Pennsylvania. Criticism was swift from the left side of the aisle. “That’s too far north for good barbecue,” Mary Beth’s family told me. But that was the point of the trip: to prove that barbecue, though miraculous, is not a miracle of geography. My own family was critical for another reason: why spend vacation days driving all the way to Tennessee, and not just fly to a beach? Regardless, Mary Beth was (inexplicably) enthusiastic about splitting a drive with me, so she’s clearly the best person I know. The trip felt like a fitting stress test before we would vow to share the rest of our lives with each other. Outside of Harrisburg, past an overgrown football field, we found ShakeDown BBQ. A huge grill on wheels had been wrapping the building in apple wood smoke for hours. I’m a sucker for a wood log fire, but I knew that wouldn’t guarantee good food. Behind a small counter was a towering blackboard detailing the owner’s newest sandwich creations. Rules are anathema to road trips, but I felt it important to lay out some guidelines, if only to focus the debate. Guideline No. 1: If the restaurant offered a sampler or combo platter, we should order it. Guideline No. 2: Pork products would be our focus of scrutiny. We expected few joints east of the Mississippi would hazard an attempt at brisket. Guideline No. 3: Our highest priority for sides would be beans and greens, the true destiny of those overdone nubs of barbecued meat called burnt ends. Not every restaurant seasons its greens with burnt ends but I imagined that a week of nonstop barbecue, without vegetables, could put us at a legitimate risk for scurvy. We began to deviate from guideline No. 2 on our first stop. ShakeDown’s pulled pork was easily overshadowed by a dark beef brisket. But the pork sausage was the obvious breakout: sweet, robust and right at home between two sides of a bun. The platter had been dusted with a chile and spice blend, and the beans were . The meal had a very earthy profile, nontraditional for barbecue, at least from a Southerner’s perspective — but perhaps not to the area’s German descendants. And there were sauces aplenty: “Regular” Tennessee sauce a very “Spicy” variant a “Carolina” and a “Creamy Carolina” dipping sauce, seemingly inspired by white coleslaw. More accurate than most tests, the selection of the house sauces, we would find, was the best sign of good barbecue. Shakedown’s lineup scratched every itch I had, but my resident Carolinian thought that most of their sauces were approximated facsimiles. Just over the border in Maryland, in Hagerstown, we stopped at the coyly named Hempen Hill BBQ, a sprawling sports bar crowded with folks looking to cure the munchies. It would be one of the only restaurants on our trip with a wait. The menu tries to do a bit of everything, from crab chips (hey, it’s Maryland) to smoked prime rib (too large to finish, though we tried). Here, too, the pork sausage (a new menu item, our server told us) outclassed all other offerings: skin crisped from fire, a soft and savory interior, and arresting flavor. But even with three house sauces, an exemplary pork sandwich eluded us. The following morning, we arrived in Virginia. Down the street from the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, a lovely collection of galleries and gardens, we found Bonnie Blue Southern Market Grocery in Winchester. The roadside cafe and bakery is in a renovated auto body garage, with plenty of indoor and outdoor tables, all painted fire engine red. Route 81 hadn’t carried us far enough south for the kielbasa not to be a standout: The biscuits and gravy were a tremendous meal. But now the pulled pork was getting serious: juicy, smoky, a balancing act between salt and spices. The beans practically included a second helping of pork, and the greens, tangy and tender, were the best of the trip. Spirits high, we turned off to travel a strip of the Blue Ridge Parkway, a treasure in itself. The campsites that service motorcades of picnickers are equipped with public grills, and they would see a lot of use once the leaves turned. At over 5, 000 feet, with the air so big and thin, folks would smell your dinner a mile away, and it made me wonder if hospitality is knowing you should expect company. Was barbecue first defined only by its open, inviting aroma? If so, my family’s hot dogs and hamburgers might not be off the mark after all. No guest goes hungry in my mother’s house. Driving down the mountain, we stopped at BeamMeUp BBQ, found in a little beige house on the far edge of Lexington, Va. The last rack of ribs walked out the door before we could order, a disappointment but also a good sign. This was the first pulled pork to make Mary Beth give that signature giddy smile. The pulled meat had great texture and, even before sauces, a complex flavor. The brisket, gleaming like a slab of petrified wood, dissolved instantly upon first bite. That texture doesn’t come without a robust knowledge of temperature, salt and even humidity. The house’s classic “Carolina” sauce was an obvious match for the pork, but the “dark and spicy” sauce ruled the brisket. Nearer the state border, we were surprised by the South Carolina expats at Due South Pit Cooked BBQ in Christiansburg, Va. The interior was pig tchotchkes and punny pig shirts for sale — even the bathroom has a framed pig painting. We were aware of the unofficial rule that a barbecue restaurant must have on premises at least one anthropomorphized pig. This was something else. But Due South was the most committed to sauces of any restaurant on our route, with five bottles at every table: Kansas City “Sweet Brown,” Tennessee “Sweet Red,” spicy “Hot Red,” tangy “Lexington,” and their home state’s mustard “Yellow. ” Nearly all of them were delicious (the sweet brown was too heavy with molasses) but the yellow was Due South’s prodigal sauce. Mary Beth, staring down her state’s rival, wasn’t having any of this mustard stuff. But both sides are guilty of dogmatism: Stephen Colbert, a proud South Carolinian, once suggested that North Carolina’s Piedmont vinegar sauce is better employed as a toilet bowl cleaner. I blanketed my brisket in smoky mustard and, yellow lips and all, offered a satisfied grin. “Well, it’s different if you put it on brisket,” she argued. So the wedding was still on. After days of travel, we finally entered Mary Beth’s home turf: the Piedmont Crescent. I had been surprised by how many restaurants strained themselves to serve every cut, every sauce, every regional quirk their customers might desire. Lexington Barbecue in Lexington, N. C. is on a different level: The pork shoulder can be sliced, chopped or coarsely chopped, and a laboratory of condiments (“smokehouse” sauce, Texas Pete, Tabasco … ) is on every table. The decades appear to have taught Lexington not to argue the details with barbecue fans. But the details are what make Lexington so good. The sandwich itself was a act of sweet, tangy, tender, smoky, spicy, and even crunchy from the slaw. It’s a joy as simple as it is complex. Farther west, into the North Carolina Appalachians, is Countryside Barbeque in Marion. The restaurant usually has a booth available and, if not, there are rocking chairs on the porch for taking in the mountain air. Like the one at Lexington Barbecue, the pork sandwich rules the menu at Countryside. When the neon “RIBS” sign is on, you’ll know you’re in luck it’s the only item that the sandwich. While Countryside’s meat isn’t quite as perfected as Lexington’s, its three house sauces are — in our case, literally. Years ago, Mary Beth invited me on a trip to the Carolinas and insisted on lunch at Countryside, an old family tradition. She would later tell me, “Only someone who loved you could watch you inhale that rack of ribs and still want to go home with you. ” Some couples have their song Countryside’s Western Carolina is our sauce. We fell in love to that sauce. Barbecue fans will understand. Cars are always around mealtime at the Original Ridgewood Barbecue in Bluff City, Tenn. not easily done at a big restaurant in a small town of about 1, 700 residents. The restaurant, run almost entirely by women, serves smoked hams, sliced and then crisped on a griddle in the open kitchen. The house sauce is aggressively sweet without tasting imbalanced. The beans are a must, balanced with onion and celery, a recipe served in cute brown crocks. While waiting to pay for our meal at the register, I let out a sigh of satisfaction. “I know that noise,” said the very tall man next to me. We stood together and chuckled. That’s good barbecue: It’s simple, easy to enjoy and it makes us all neighbors. Near a small marina on the outskirts of Knoxville, we hit Sweet P’s BBQ and Soul House. No musicians were playing that day, but the signs and extra bar made it clear the “Soul House” wasn’t for kicks. The pork and brisket in the sampler were delicious but the ribs were masterfully laid with flavor, a smack in the face with a “Welcome to Tennessee” sign. Dusted with cracked pepper, large sugar granules and dark paprika, there was no need for sauce — though we tried it anyway. The “Hot,” a combination of its “Piedmont” sauce and a chipotle purée, was heaven or heatstroke. I didn’t care which. Here we lost guideline No. 3: beans and greens. Mary Beth and I decided instead to cool off with banana pudding. It was so good, we detoured for seconds on our drive back home. In the car, we marveled at the endless mountains and sang along to our favorite musicians from the region (Gabe Dixon and Delta Rae). The rest of the time we talked barbecue. Comparing joints was difficult. Nearly every spot had some breakout dish, and it turned each new menu into a treasure map: What was going to wow us next? The most interesting note our conversations found was how some spots, especially in North Carolina, seemed to intentionally serve slightly dry meat, so as to help it absorb a sauce. Indeed, more than a few restaurants seemed to serve a meat just to have something for the sauce to go on. The biggest disappointment was that, despite no small amount of agony over sauces and meats and wood smoke, few restaurants could be bothered to use buns. Not so in Nashville. There, we visited with Mary Beth’s cousin, who pointed us toward Edley’s on 12 South. Befitting its location in the home of country music, the large renovated garage is done up with warm wood beams and benches, hanging lights and pumping music. Despite such a polished experience and service, the prices were no higher than the roadside places we’d grown accustomed to. A rib’wich was offered as the daily special, something I didn’t expect to find on this trip, so there went our last surviving guideline: order the combo. There were no regrets. The buttered bun was plated to the side to showcase two delicately fried pickles atop a chewy pile of burnt ends — an meal. Mary Beth kept to her pulled pork, which also emphasized those burnt ends. The cost of managing smoke in an urban area can be huge. In Memphis, Charlie Vergos’ Rendezvous is able to operate next to a and that’s because they serve charbroiled ribs much less smoke required. If any concession had to be made to my hypothesis about geography, it was that cities and barbecue have an relationship. Or at least they did. Now, even that barrier has fallen. Martin’s Joint opened a downtown Nashville event space in August and Sweet P’s opened a second location last year in downtown Knoxville. But some of the best barbecue hasn’t moved from its original spot. Scott’ ’s Barbeque in Lexington, Tenn. didn’t look like much but, at that point, we hadn’t seen a Lexington we didn’t like. A sign out front still showed the 1980 “Coke Is It” slogan. And they still meant it: There was not a sweet tea to be had, but plenty of Pibb Xtra, Mello Yello and other Coke products. Inside is an refuge from the boiling highway, with big wood paneling and plenty of knickknacks. Scott’s pigs are smoked whole hog (think of a luau) then minced, sauced, slapped on a bun, and wrapped like any common deli sandwich. Only that wasn’t a common deli sandwich it gave most of North Carolina a run for its money. The ribs, practically a confit, lacked a spicy bark or crust, but were tremendously tender. Even at 9 in the morning, customers were picking up racks of ribs to serve for lunch. But these were not the dry and spicy Memphis ribs I’d heard of. Had we been driving in the wrong direction? Yet soon there we were on Central Avenue, staring down a blue statue of the University of Memphis’s Tom the tiger, which guards Central BBQ. The line was already out the door. Behind the parking lot was a large mural of farm animals playing in a jazz band and inside was merchandise. Even with the music turned low, the whole joint felt loud. The scant indoor seating filled up quickly, so we ate under a tent rigged with water misters to allay the heat. The pork and brisket were great, but the ribs, dry and red as Australia’s Simpson Desert, were clearly the best: tender with a rolling spiciness. Across town is the Shop. A bar and grill tucked into a mostly residential block on Madison Avenue, it was quiet for lunch but would attract a crowd for dinner. The waiters knew to push their claim to fame: barbecue spaghetti, basically a sweet and meaty pasta Bolognese. Even after a week of solid barbecue, it was still a pleasure to eat, if a guilty one. Like Lexington’s chopped pork, Shop’s ribs were another act of flavors and textures. Sauce might have been the main draw in the Carolinas, but the Shop produces such a perfect rack of meat, sauce is rather unnecessary, almost unwelcome. It was the end of our trip, but I wanted to keep driving west. To have a grand barbecue road trip that didn’t even enter Missouri or Texas … what would people say? It had begun to rain aggressively after we left the Shop, but I drove us out to the Memphis Riverfront. Parked in front of the Mississippi, I began to lay out Barbecue Road Trip Part 2 and the idea that maybe we should hit a few spots in Alabama? I mean, the state border is right there. Mary Beth just smiled at me. I think she knew that after a week of barbecue, I was all talk, and once our last plate of ribs kicked in, I couldn’t manage much talking either. We were tired and we were full and all we really wanted to do was go home and get married. So we did. | 1 |
Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Security Question: What is 4 + 2 ? Please leave these two fields as-is: IMPORTANT! To be able to proceed, you need to solve the following simple math (so we know that you are a human) :-) Doom and Bloom | 0 |
The Grammy Awards may come down to a battle of the superdivas. Beyoncé leads the nominations for the 59th annual Grammys, announced on Tuesday, with nine nods for her album “Lemonade. ” But in each of the three top categories she will square off against Adele, who was nominated five times. Both women had extraordinary years. “Lemonade,” an ambitious album and film, tackled issues of race and infidelity, and its release became the kind of cultural phenomenon that perhaps no artist but Beyoncé could muster. Adele’s album “25” sold more than 10 million copies in less than a year, a blockbuster that eclipsed all others. With enormous commercial success and the adoration of fellow musicians, those stars represent the very best of how the music industry sees itself, which should make their competition tight. “Lemonade” and “25” are both nominated for album of the year, and Beyoncé’s track “Formation” will go up against Adele’s “Hello” for both record and song of the year. This year’s Grammys, on Feb. 12 in Los Angeles, will mostly hew to the biggest pop hits of the moment — itself a notable development for a show that has often celebrated aging stars at the expense of vital young talent. The other leading nominees include Drake and Rihanna, each with eight nods, and Chance the Rapper, who climbed the charts as an independent and had seven nominations in five categories, including best new artist. Yet every list of Grammy nominations comes with surprises. For album of the year, “Lemonade” and “25” will compete against Drake’s “Views,” a monster streaming hit “Purpose,” Justin Bieber’s comeback vehicle and, in what might be the year’s wild card, “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth,” by the country singer Sturgill Simpson, a critical favorite but modest seller. For record of the year, an award for the performer and producers of a single track, “Formation” and “Hello” face off against “7 Years,” a mellow hit by the Danish group Lukas Graham “Stressed Out,” by the pop duo Twenty One Pilots and Rihanna’s “Work,” which features Drake. (“Formation,” “Hello” and “7 Years” are also up for song of the year, which recognizes songwriters.) When the nominations were announced early Tuesday, many artists took to social media to express thanks or surprise. The Chainsmokers, a D. J. duo, are up for three awards, including best new artist. When they got the news, they said on Twitter, they were in line at a Dunkin’ Donuts, “and everyone in the store. ” Kanye West, whose album “The Life of Pablo” and related tour also drew wide attention, received eight nominations in five categories like Drake and Chance, he is up for all four rap awards. But members of the Recording Academy, the organization that presents the Grammys, did not choose Mr. West — a frequent Grammy critic — in any of the top categories for his own work. He is, however, one of the 20 credited producers on Drake’s “Views. ” On the other hand, Beyoncé was nominated for seemingly every award possible. Besides the top fields, she is up for awards in the pop category (“Hold Up,” pop solo performance) rock (“Don’t Hurt Yourself,” with Jack White, for rock performance) RB (“Lemonade,” for urban contemporary album) and rap (“Freedom,” with Kendrick Lamar, for best performance). “Lemonade” was also nominated for best music film, and “Formation” for best music video. Beyoncé has been nominated 62 times in her career, more than any other female artist. She has already won 20 awards, and if she wins eight this year, Beyoncé would surpass Alison Krauss as the woman in Grammy history. Members of Twenty One Pilots are up for a total of five awards David Bowie, who died in January after releasing his album “Blackstar,” is up for four. In his lifetime, Mr. Bowie won only one Grammy, along with a lifetime achievement award. In recent years, the Recording Academy has worked, with mixed success, to better reflect the diversity and pulse of current pop music. “There was a time when the membership of the academy may have skewed a little older,” Neil Portnow, its president, said in an interview. “But as we have evolved and the community of membership has broadened, you probably see some reflection of that in how the nominations come out. ” Yet there were still some striking absences from this year’s nominees, including Drake’s song “One Dance. ” By far one of the biggest hits of the year — it was No. 1 for 10 weeks — the song received no nominations. (“Hotline Bling,” Drake’s other pop smash, had two nominations.) Another absence is the result of an apparent protest. The Grammys have fared far better than the Oscars and other awards in recognizing diversity, yet have also been criticized for favoring white artists in the top categories. Frank Ocean, the RB singer and songwriter whose album “Blonde” was another major pop event, declined to submit his material for consideration. In an interview with The New York Times last month, Mr. Ocean called the Grammys’ nomination system “dated,” and added: “I’d rather this be my Colin Kaepernick moment for the Grammys than sit there in the audience. ” In response to that, Mr. Portnow said, “If you look at the entries in our process, it’s pretty clear to me that the vast majority of artists feel that we are important, that they do aspire to be honored by their peers, and that the process we’ve created is democratic and transparent. ” Mr. Ocean’s stance makes him an exception, with many artists and their business representatives spending months campaigning for the nominations. This year Chance the Rapper benefited from a rule change that allowed albums like his “Coloring Book” mixtape to be considered for awards. In a “for your consideration” ad in Billboard, Chance asked simply, “Hey, why not me?” | 1 |
Migrant Crisis Disclaimer
We here at the Daily Stormer are opposed to violence. We seek revolution through the education of the masses. When the information is available to the people, systemic change will be inevitable and unavoidable.
Anyone suggesting or promoting violence in the comments section will be immediately banned, permanently. Daily Stormer Presents: Dr. David Duke Š Copyright Daily Stormer 2016, All Rights Reserved | 0 |
The bar for scandal in the Trump administration keeps being raised. Every week brings potentially damaging developments that in other contexts could have generated weekslong controversies. With so many competing stories, however, they are frequently ignored or forgotten. As a result, even negative coverage can sometimes benefit Donald J. Trump by displacing potentially more damaging stories from the news agenda. For instance, many of Mr. Trump’s nominees for cabinet positions have faced relatively little scrutiny of their backgrounds or records. Many failed even to complete background checks before the start of Senate hearings, a break from decades of precedent. Or consider the case of Monica Crowley, an incoming National Security Agency aide found to have engaged in extensive plagiarism in her book (which Harper Collins pulled from the market) her Ph. D. dissertation and her Washington Times column. These developments have struggled to gain traction amid the many competing stories about Mr. Trump and his presidential transition, including Tuesday night’s release of unverified allegations against the . Scandals need time and space to develop. When the news cycle is congested, potential scandals are deprived of attention, causing the media to move on to other stories and the political opposition to anticipate that any criticisms will probably have little effect. Many observers suspect that Mr. Trump seeks to exploit this dynamic by distracting the press and the public with stunts like meeting with Kanye West after delaying a news conference on conflicts of interest or tweeting about Meryl Streep before hearings to consider his nominees on Capitol Hill. It’s impossible to determine his motivations, of course, but the effect is often to divert attention from less flattering issues. On Wednesday, for instance, Mr. Trump’s news conference on conflict of interest issues was scheduled on the same day as hearings for six nominees. (After Democrats accused Republicans of scheduling the hearings in part to exploit this dynamic and divert the news media’s attention, some were rescheduled.) History shows that potential scandals can easily be crowded off the news agenda by other events. During the chaotic period, for instance, the focus on more important events kept Army Secretary Thomas White in office despite numerous questionable decisions. (The surge in news continued all the way through the invasion of Iraq in early 2003, helping to insulate George W. Bush from fallout over the collapse of the Enron corporation and other matters Bush didn’t suffer a major scandal until Valerie Plame was outed as a C. I. A. officer that summer.) Another example came during the summer of 2009, when the death of Michael Jackson helped push the furor over the affair of the South Carolina governor, Mark Sanford, out of the news. By contrast, relatively slow news periods may increase the likelihood of a scandal’s developing, as with the travel habits of former White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu in 1991, which became an issue in the months after the end of the first Persian Gulf war, and as with Chris Christie’s Bridgegate scandal in 2014. In an article published in The British Journal of Political Science, I provide quantitative evidence suggesting that competition from other news stories can prevent potential scandals from reaching critical mass. Using data from more than three decades of news media coverage of the president and the executive branch, I show that when the incidence of major disasters and tragedies causes an unexpected surge in news coverage, the likelihood of a new scandal developing and the intensity of scandal coverage both decrease significantly. (I find that a similar dynamic appears to apply to governors.) In this sense, the continuing reality show that Mr. Trump creates may help protect him from deep damage by any particular scandal. As in the campaign, he makes so much news every day that few stories ever generate sustained controversy. Instead, public attention lurches from one story to the next, never quite focusing on any particular controversy. He may prefer it that way. | 1 |
The BBC has thrown its feminist High Priestess to the transgender wolves because she dared to suggest that a man born with a penis isn’t really a woman. [As blue on blue SJW infighting goes, you could scarcely ask for a more perfect popcorn movement. Up until now, Dame “Jenni” Murray has maintained a reputation for stern, disapproving, feminist political correctness (but is there any other kind … ?) of the most impeccably fingerwagging rectitude. Listening to her morning BBC radio show Woman’s Hour is like being subjected to a 60 minute lecture on the shortcomings of men, the superiority of women and the manifest injustice of the patriarchal hegemony, delivered by a school games mistress wearing iron underwear and a kaftan knitted by a Turkish oppressed women’s collective, while being forcefed organic breast milk laced with Hormone Replacement chemicals and the collected works of Germaine Greer, Erica Jong and Susie Orbach. So for Dame Jenni [she’s very proud of her title and uses it a lot] to find herself caught out on the wrong side by the PC Gestapo is about as deliciously unlikely as Meryl Streep raising her next Oscar statuette high and saying: “I’m dedicating this one to my hero The Donald!” But where, if anywhere, should our sympathies lie in this hilarious “Death of Little Nell on steroids” tragedy? On the one hand, it’s true, Murray has long deserved her comeuppance. She may not be quite as shrill or deranged as some of the younger generation of Third Wave feminazis, but she has definitely helped poison the wells for relationships by promulgating her grisly, joyless Marxist feminist view that any time a woman does the dishes, cooks a souffle or puts on a sexy maid’s outfit then basically she has failed as a meaningful human being. Earlier in her career, she was famed for saying that marriage humiliated women. When, in 2003 she finally married David, her partner and the father of her sons, she made it clear that she was only doing it for financial not for sentimental reasons — namely to avoid inheritance tax. The new Mrs (as she certainly did not want to be known) said she had no intention of introducing David as her husband and would not be pleased if he had the temerity to say: ‘Meet my wife.’ That put him in his place. Poor David. (Actually, bloody stupid David. What were you thinking?) On the other hand, Murray deserves credit for braving the wrath of her nauseatingly employer the BBC by stating clearly something that really ought to be said more often: that a man who has gender reassignment surgery — like the transexual she recently interviewed called India Willoughby — can never be a real woman. It’s a shame Murray had to phrase it in such a PC way, using it to have yet another dig at male privilege: “India held firmly to her belief that she was a ‘real woman’ ignoring the fact that she had spent all of her life before her transition enjoying the privileged position in our society generally accorded to a man. But at least she said it. And there’s no doubt that when an impeccably PC, uber feminist doyenne and BBC presenter says this kind of thing, it carries a lot more weight than it does when an irreverent, sexist, transphobic, polemicist like me says it. This really is a battle that needs fighting right now. Transgenderism is one of the very hottest of the many fronts of the wars which Cultural Marxism is waging on Western Civilisation. It matters so much because it goes to the heart of one of the most important and contested issues which divide right and left: is there such a thing as truth? If you believe — as the Social Justice Warriors, liberal “intellectuals” and other relativistic cretins do — that truth is just a matter of opinion then clearly, you are whatever you say you are, be it a man, a woman, polygender, intersex, trans and the rest of that nonsense list of LBGTetc terms. If, on the other hand, you subscribe to the more traditional, rational view that biological sex (not “gender” — a invention) is determined by chromosomes and organs like wombs and penises, then it’s pretty damned obvious that you’re born either one thing or the other, regardless of how much surgical mutilation you undergo or how many hormones you take. Crusading progressives want to portray this as a war between nice people who have feelings and horrid people who are stuck in the dark ages because of their vile prejudices. But it’s not that at all. Ultimately, it’s a battle over who gets to define what truth is: the rationalists or the idealistic fantasists. Murray is not, of course, the first Social Justice crusader to find herself undone by her own side’s increasingly deranged moral value system. Before her, there was fellow feminist icon Germaine Greer who in 2015 found herself berated online and for making similarly sceptical remarks about transgenderism, albeit a lot more amusingly than Murray: “Just because you lop off your penis and then wear a dress doesn’t make you a ******* woman,” Ms Greer said in a statement given to the Victoria Derbyshire show. “I’ve asked my doctor to give me long ears and liver spots and I’m going to wear a brown coat but that won’t turn me into a ******* cocker spaniel. And before that, in 2013, even the arch feminist and harridan Suzanne Moore found herself being berated by the prickly and trans activist movement for having failed to speak about trans people with sufficient reverence. One could take heart from the fact that like Murray, Greer, and Moore are finally beginning to recognise just how poisonous, and fascistic liberalism is becoming these days. But I suspect their moment of enlightenment will be shortlived. It’s not penetrating insight which has led these progressives to see the awful truth about the oppressive lunacy of their movement: it’s quite simply their age. Being all well over 50, they’ve just inherited the prejudices of their generation. Had they been born more recently with their politics, they would surely have been far less capable of resisting their contemporaries’ fashionable nonsense about “gender” being a “social construct. ” Meanwhile, if any transgender activists want to have a crack at me on Twitter for saying this stuff, I look forward to the attention. I do like a bit banter with the lads … . | 1 |
We Are Change
In this video Luke Rudkowsk covers the breaking news of new John Podesta Wikieaks revelations highlighting the illegal behavior by Hillary Clinton . We talk a bit about about the FBI and DOJ investigation of Huma Abedin but mainly focus on what Julian Assange is releasing right now. For more coverage of this don’t forget to vote with your dollar on https://www.patreon.com/wearechange and support real independent media.
Sources http://i.imgur.com/AfIeirb.gifv
https://www.theguardian.com/commentis…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic…
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1tLF…
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11…
http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/20/techn…
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/…
http://archive.is/jrugc
https://i.sli.mg/oCL7t5.png
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10…
https://twitter.com/GunterGSharp/stat…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11…
http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/25/hil…
Support WeAreChange by Subscribing to our channel HERE http://www.youtube.com/subscription_c…
Visit our main site for more breaking news http://wearechange.org/
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/WeAreChange?a…
SnapChat: LukeWeAreChange
Facebook: https://facebook.com/LukeWeAreChange
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lukewearechange
Instagram: http://instagram.com/lukewearechange
Rep WeAreChange Merch Proudly: http://wearechange.org/store
OH YEAH since we are not corporate or government WHORES help us out http://wearechange.org/donate
-We take BITCOIN too-
12HdLgeeuA87t2JU8m4tbRo247Yj5u2TVP
The post FORGET THE FBI: TOP 3 CRIMINAL SCANDELS RELEASED BY WIKILEAKS NOW appeared first on We Are Change .
| 0 |
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — At first, the Americans seemed confused about Suleiman Abdullah Salim. They apparently had been expecting a Arab, and instead at a small airport outside Mogadishu that day in March 2003, they had been handed a African. “They said, ‘You changed your face,’” Mr. Salim, a Tanzanian, recalled the American men telling him when he arrived. “They said: ‘You are Yemeni. You changed your face. ’” That was the beginning of Mr. Salim’s strange ordeal in United States custody. It has been 13 years since he was tortured in a secret prison in Afghanistan run by the Central Intelligence Agency, a place he calls “The Darkness. ” It has been eight years since he was released — no charges, no explanations — back into the world. Even after so much time, Mr. Salim, 45, is struggling to move on. Suffering from depression and stress, according to a medical assessment, he is withdrawn and wary. He cannot talk about his experiences with his wife, who he says worries that the Americans will come back to snatch him. He is fearful of drawing too much attention at home in Stone Town in Zanzibar, Tanzania, concerned that his neighbors will think he is an American spy. When he speaks, not in his native Swahili but in the English he learned from his jailers, Mr. Salim nearly whispers. “Many times now I feel like I have something heavy inside my body,” he said in an interview. “Sometimes I walk, and I walk, and I forget, I forget everything, I forget prison, The Darkness, everything. But it is always there. The Darkness comes. ” Mr. Salim was one of 39 men subjected to some of the C. I. A. ’s most brutal techniques — beatings, hanging in chains, sleep deprivation and water dousing, which creates a sensation of drowning, even though interrogators had been denied permission to use that last tactic on him, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into the agency’s classified interrogation program. In a series of recent interviews in Dubai, Mr. Salim described his incarceration by the C. I. A. and the United States military as a terrorism suspect. His account closely parallels those provided by other detainees, witnesses and court documents, and confirms details in the Senate report about his treatment. Today, back in Stone Town, Mr. Salim is trying to support his family, though some of his attempts at jobs have not worked out. He now breeds pigeons, raising them for a local market. They are both his livelihood and his solace. They help him, Mr. Salim said. They quiet his mind. Exactly why Mr. Salim fell into American hands remains murky leaks to the press at the time of his capture suggested that intelligence officials suspected he had links to Al Qaeda, but the C. I. A. has never publicly disclosed the reasons. An agency spokesman declined to comment for this article. Mr. Salim had been drifting into a nomadic life in one of the world’s poorest regions, where the C. I. A. after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had promised allies cash rewards for terrorism suspects. Governments and warlords turned over hundreds of men to the United States, in many cases with little evidence of wrongdoing. Mr. Salim grew up on Africa’s eastern edges, but from boy to man never quite found himself. One of eight children in a family in Stone Town, a historic district of Zanzibar City, he apprenticed on the local fishing piers, then joined the crews going out for kingfish and barracuda in the Indian Ocean. He dropped out of school after ninth or 10th grade and headed for Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city, where he worked in a clothing shop. He moved a few years later to Mombasa, on Kenya’s coast, where he ferried cargos of dried fish, rice and oil with a crew of two. Then the outside world intruded. In August 1998, Qaeda suicide truck bombers blew up the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Mr. Salim said a man whose boat he used for the cargo runs was suspected of involvement in the plot. (Mr. Salim said that while he was in prison, American officials told him that the man had died, but he knows no other details.) The boat was soon seized by a Somali pirate, he said. Mr. Salim moved on to Kismayu, a Somali port town, and was hired as a harbor pilot. It was a good job, maybe too good for a foreigner with no ties to Somalia’s powerful clans and militias. “You had to pay off militias every time you moved a ship,” he said. “The clans were trouble, so I left. ” By 2000, he was sleeping in a mosque and begging on the streets of Mogadishu, the Somali capital. Eventually, a shop owner offered him odd jobs and work as a driver for him and his sister, who Mr. Salim said worked for Mohammed Dheere, a Somali warlord. In March 2003, Mr. Salim was driving his employer through the capital when they pulled over to help a stalled vehicle. Suddenly, three gunmen appeared, dragged Mr. Salim out and started beating him, he said. He got away, but the men found him at the hospital where Mr. Salim’s boss had taken him. The men said they worked for Mr. Dheere, and they claimed he owed the warlord money, Mr. Salim recounted. “I said no, but they kept saying, ‘You stole money from Mohammed Dheere. ’” The men drove him to a small airport outside the city. The Americans were waiting. They asked him over and over about his appearance, Mr. Salim said. “They said: ‘You are not Suleiman. You changed your face.’ I say: ‘Go to Tanzania. Go see my mother and take a picture of me. ’” He was turned over to the Kenyan authorities, who flew him to Nairobi. But after questioning him, the Kenyans sent him back to Somalia and the Americans. (Kenyan officials did not respond to a request for comment about Mr. Salim’s case.) This time the Americans kept him. News accounts, including an article in The New York Times, soon appeared quoting United States and Kenyan officials describing the capture of a Qaeda operative from Yemen identified as Suleiman Abdalla Salim Hemed, who was wanted in connection with the 1998 embassy bombings. Mr. Salim said he never used the name Hemed and had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or terrorism. The news reports also said Mr. Dheere, who died in 2012, had agreed to hunt down suspects, including the man identified in the press as Mr. Hemed, for the C. I. A. in return for money. From Somalia, the C. I. A. flew Mr. Salim to a United States base in Djibouti. He was blindfolded and stripped, and an object was inserted in his rectum while the Americans photographed him, according to court documents. Just before he left Djibouti, Mr. Salim recalled, one of the captors told him that he was going to the “prison of the pharaohs. ” He was flown to Afghanistan, not Egypt as he guessed from what his captor said, and taken to the stinking and cavernous building that Mr. Salim calls The Darkness. Music blasted nearly 24 hours a day while he was chained in solitary confinement so dark that he could not see the shackles on his arms or the walls of his cell. He said he could no longer listen to any of the songs that were on the prison playlist. The Americans routinely hauled him from his cell to a room where, he said, they hanged him from chains, once for two days. They wrapped a collar around his neck and pulled it to slam him against a wall, he said. And they shaved his head, laid him on a plastic tarp and poured gallons of ice water on him, inducing a feeling of drowning. “A guy says to me, ‘Here the rain doesn’t finish,’” Mr. Salim recalled. Several men wrapped him in the tarp and kicked him “many times, many times,” he added. At one point, a cast that a prison doctor had put on his hand — a finger had been broken by the Somali gunmen — became waterlogged. The doctor cut it off, and the water dousing continued. Mr. Salim described other grisly practices by his jailers: placing him in a box, his arms stretched and chained, on top of cleaning chemicals strapping him to a gurney and injecting him with drugs that made him woozy bringing dogs into a room to threaten him. The 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report noted that Mr. Salim was one of at least six detainees in 2003 who were “stripped and shackled nude, placed in the standing position for sleep deprivation, or subjected to other C. I. A. enhanced interrogation techniques. ” The report said officials at C. I. A. headquarters had approved the use of some of the harsh tactics against Mr. Salim, but rejected interrogators’ requests for water dousing. While 39 men endured the enhanced techniques, they were among at least 119 captives who went through the C. I. A. ’s network of secret prisons. Many were later released without charges. A quarter were men who were picked up by mistake or on evidence that proved unreliable, a Senate inquiry later found. Others were militants some were suspected terrorist leaders, including accused plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Salim said the interrogators had repeatedly questioned him about his ties in Kenya and Somalia. Among other things, he said, they claimed that he had falsified cargo documents on his boat, apparently to hide supplies for terrorists. “They always asked the same questions. I say I don’t know. They say, ‘You know.’ Same question, same answer, and two guys would beat you, and same question, and they beat you. ” Desperate, Mr. Salim decided that suicide was his only escape. He hoarded the ibuprofen pills he sometimes was given, hiding them in the waistband of his pants. When he thought he had enough — 26 tablets — he tried to take them all at once. A guard, probably alerted by images from a video camera in the cell, rushed in and stopped Mr. Salim just as he began swallowing. As he recounted the episode to a reporter, Mr. Salim began to cry uncontrollably, placed his arm across his face and rushed from the hotel room. Two days passed before he agreed to finish telling his story. Five weeks after arriving in Afghanistan, Mr. Salim said, he was moved to the “Salt Pit,” a secret underground C. I. A. prison. Mr. Salim, who was blindfolded while being transferred, said that he did not travel far. The available evidence suggests that The Darkness was most likely a different section of the same facility. Conditions improved slightly, though Mr. Salim was still interrogated regularly. “Every day questions: ‘You know him? You know him? ’” After 14 months, the C. I. A. in July 2004 handed Mr. Salim over to the United States military, which moved him to Bagram prison, outside Kabul. The young guards there nicknamed him Snoop because of his resemblance to the rapper Snoop Dogg. The military held him for four more years. “Many times, they would say, ‘We know you are innocent,’” Mr. Salim said, referring to American personnel at the prison. “And many times they said that ‘you can go home, but it will take time.’ But they didn’t do it. ” In Bagram, he was kept in a large cage with as many as 22 other prisoners. Pigeons flew in and out of the large, drafty prison. “I remember one flew in, and was just outside our cage,” he said. “I was thinking, the pigeon was free and I was in the cage. ” In August 2008, Mr. Salim was released. The United States military gave him a document stating that there were no charges against him and that he had been “determined to pose no threat to the United States Armed Forces or its interests in Afghanistan. ” The military freed him with no possessions save the long red trousers and top that were his prison uniform, and no place to go. Mr. Salim had to borrow clothes from an International Red Cross representative in Afghanistan, who arranged for him to fly home to Zanzibar. Mr. Salim has kept the clothes from the Red Cross man ever since. At the airport in Zanzibar, he was met by a members of his family and Tanzanian security officials. “They asked me the same questions the Americans had always asked me,” he said. But after two days, the Tanzanian government left him alone, with no restrictions on his activities. Tanzanian officials did not respond to a request for comment on his case. In late 2008 or early 2009, two F. B. I. agents came to Tanzania to check up on him, Mr. Salim said. One agent said he had a gift: a that said “Hakuna Matata” — no worries — from “The Lion King. ” Mr. Salim angrily tossed it back. An F. B. I. spokesman said he had no information about the episode. Mr. Salim returned to the world a stranger. He had gotten married just two weeks before he was taken captive in Mogadishu, but his wife disappeared while he was gone and he could not find her. Back in Stone Town, Mr. Salim found simple tasks difficult. He was depressed and experienced nightmares and flashbacks about his time in prison, he said. They felt so real that he could not understand what was happening to his mind. His attempts to work proved frustrating. His sister offered to pay him to drive his niece to school, but he got lost on the first day. He wanted to go back to sea, but local fishermen thought they might get in trouble associating with him. In 2009 or 2010, Mr. Salim went to Dar es Salaam seeking a license to become a merchant seaman, but he did not pass the test. He briefly worked for a cargo shipping company in Japan, but he said that loading containers hurt his back, already injured in prison. He listed other chronic physical problems from his time in custody: headaches, neck and shoulder pain, and severe gastrointestinal problems, common among detainees. Without a job, he lived with his mother and his sister at different times, humiliated that he was having so much trouble supporting himself. In 2010, Dr. Sondra Crosby of the Boston University School of Medicine, a physician, a Navy reservist and an expert on torture, was asked by Physicians for Human Rights, a New group, to evaluate Mr. Salim. She was shocked by what she found. Mr. Salim, who is was emaciated “like a skeleton,” Dr. Crosby said in an interview. In her assessment, she wrote that “he is plagued by profound distress, inability to eat and inability to sleep. ” “He describes himself as a ghost walking around the town,” she added. She noted other symptoms: flashbacks, and memory loss, distress at seeing anyone in a military uniform, hopelessness about the future and a strong avoidance of noise. “He reports that his head feels empty — like an empty box,” she said. Dr. Crosby concluded that Mr. Salim showed many symptoms of stress disorder and major depression. He appears, she wrote, “to have suffered severe and lasting physical and psychological injuries as a result of his arrest and incarceration by U. S. forces. ” He is now a plaintiff in a lawsuit against two C. I. A. contractors who helped devise and run the brutal interrogation program of which he was a part. “I want the people who did this to be judged,” he said. Mr. Salim remarried and has a daughter, but he finds it impossible to talk to his wife about what happened to him, or how it still haunts him. He says others around him do not understand what he went through. He lives in a house owned by a relative in a poor neighborhood outside Stone Town. Until recently, he made some money by taking tourists fishing on a boat owned by his . But it was swamped in a storm several months ago. His pigeons now help him get by. He has shopped at bird markets in Dubai and Johannesburg for exotic varieties — Jacobin pigeons, Dutch pigeons, Chinese owl fancy pigeons, Moorhead pigeons. He breeds and sells them in Zanzibar. In the yard outside his house, he built a block and wire pigeon cage, 26 feet by 10 feet, larger than most of the cells in which the Americans kept him. When he needs to be alone, he goes there. “I like to sit with the pigeons. I like to get away from people,” Mr. Salim said. “I sit there a long time. ” | 1 |
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s leader, Kim said on Sunday that his country was making final preparations to conduct its first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile — a bold statement less than a month before the inauguration of Donald J. Trump. Although North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests in the last decade and more than 20 ballistic missile tests in 2016 alone, and although it habitually threatens to attack the United States with nuclear weapons, the country has never an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM. In his annual New Year’s Day speech, which was broadcast on the North’s KCTV on Sunday, Mr. Kim spoke proudly of the strides he said his country had made in its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. He said North Korea would continue to bolster its weapons programs as long as the United States remained hostile and continued its joint military exercises with South Korea. “We have reached the final stage in preparations to an intercontinental ballistic rocket,” he said. Analysts in the region have said Mr. Kim might conduct another weapons test in coming months, taking advantage of leadership changes in the United States and South Korea. Mr. Trump will be sworn in on Jan. 20. In South Korea, President Park whose powers were suspended in a Parliamentary impeachment on Dec. 9, is waiting for the Constitutional Court to rule on whether she should be formally removed from office or reinstated. If North Korea conducts a test in coming months, it will test Mr. Trump’s new administration despite years of increasingly harsh sanctions, North Korea has been advancing toward Mr. Kim’s professed goal of arming his isolated country with the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead to the United States. Mr. Kim’s speech on Sunday indicated that North Korea may a rocket several times this year to complete its ICBM program, said Cheong a senior research fellow at the Sejong Institute in South Korea. The first of such tests could come even before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Cheong said. “We need to take note of the fact that this is the first New Year’s speech where Kim mentioned an intercontinental ballistic missile,” he said. In his speech, Mr. Kim did not comment on Mr. Trump’s election. Doubt still runs deep that North Korea has mastered all the technology needed to build a reliable ICBM. But analysts in the region said the North’s launchings of rockets to put satellites into orbit in recent years showed that the country had cleared some key technological hurdles. After the North’s satellite launch in February, South Korean defense officials said the Unha rocket used in the launch, if successfully reconfigured as a missile, could fly more than 7, 400 miles with a warhead of 1, 100 to 1, 300 pounds — far enough to reach most of the United States. North Korea has deployed Rodong ballistic missiles that can reach most of South Korea and Japan, but it has had a spotty record in the Musudan, its ballistic missile with a range long enough to reach American military bases in the Pacific, including those on Guam. The North has also claimed a series of successes in testing various ICBM technologies, although its claims cannot be verified and are often disputed by officials and analysts in the region. It has said it could now make nuclear warheads small enough to fit onto a ballistic missile. It also claimed success in testing the technology that allows a missile to return to the Earth’s atmosphere without breaking up. In April, North Korea reported the successful ground test of an engine for an intercontinental ballistic missile. At the time, Mr. Kim said the North “can tip intercontinental ballistic rockets with more powerful nuclear warheads and keep any cesspool of evils in the Earth, including the U. S. mainland, within our striking range. ” On Sept. 9, the North conducted its fifth, and most powerful, nuclear test. Mr. Kim later attended another ground test of a new rocket engine, exhorting his government to prepare for another rocket launch as soon as possible. In November, the United Nations Security Council imposed new sanctions against the North. | 1 |
WikiLeaks stated yesterday that only one percent of the CIA material leaked to the organization has been published so far. [A tweet posted from the verified WikiLeaks Twitter account on Wednesday stated, “WikiLeaks has released less than 1% of its #Vault7 series in its part one publication yesterday ‘Year Zero’. ” WikiLeaks has released less than 1% of its #Vault7 series in its part one publication yesterday ’Year Zero’. — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 8, 2017, Given the information found in the leaks so far, such as claims that the CIA has “lost control” of their hacking arsenal and had hoarded “zero day exploits” directly breaching commitments made by the Obama administration, many are speculating on what revelations could be on the way. WikiLeaks has made multiple tweets since the leak of Vault 7, including a comedic video ridiculing Former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden. Former CIA+NSA director Michael Hayden blames ”millenials” for CIA leak #Vault7 https: . pic. twitter. — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 8, 2017, WikiLeaks also held a live press conference which can be found here: WikiLeaks press conference on high quality audio recording https: . See also: https: . — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 9, 2017, 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 |
November 18, 2016 - By Eduard Popov for Fort Russ - translated by J. Arnoldski -
On November 17th, the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly voted on a resolution to combat the glorification of Nazism proposed by Russia in collaboration with 54 states. The delegations of 131 out of 193 states voted to support the resolution, which also concerned combatting contemporary forms of racism. 48 delegations abstained, including some EU countries. Only three countries voted against the document: Palau, the US, and Ukraine. Thus, the situation from 2015 was repeated, the only difference being that back then Canada voted not to condemn Nazism.
At first glance, what is surprising is the absence of the Baltic states, specifically Latvia and Estonia, on this extra short list of those opposed. It is in Latvia and Estonia that the glorification of the “exploits” of local Waffen SS divisions has taken a most radical and consistent form. However, this can be explained by the fact that the Baltic states are EU members and are therefore compelled to restrain some of their desires.
Everything is more or less clear with the United States’ vote. After the Second World War, numerous Nazi collaborators were settled in America, especially Ukrainians from both factions of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Apparently, the influence of the Ukrainian (Galician) diaspora has a, if not decisive, then at least important impact on US policy.
Ukraine is even less restrained than the Baltic states of the EU. The idolization of Nazi collaborators has begun to be widespread at least since the victory of the Maidan (if we don’t count Viktor Yushchenko’s presidency), so Ukrainians are striving to catch up and surpass Latvia and Estonia in the open glorification of Nazism.
In the future, additional legislative measures against the glorification of the Waffen SS and Hitlerite collaborationists will need to be adopted. It is entirely unclear why Russia has become the victim of attacks by the neo-Nazi Baltic regimes for “Soviet occupation” but is in no hurry to make counter-claims against those countries which now openly hold marches for veterans and adherents of the Waffen SS, a criminal organization which was convicted at the Nuremberg Tribunal.
Measures of an economic nature should be taken. On November 18th, a report surfaced that Rosselkhoznadzor (the Russian state organization overseeing agricultural imports) gave permission for canned fish to be delivered from Latvia and Estonia. This has caused great bewilderment and indignation. First of all, these states, as EU members, have imposed sanctions against Russia. Secondly, their Waffen SS marches make any trade concessions from Russia morally unacceptable. After all, no other country suffered more from the crimes of Nazism than Russia.
The Baltic Waffen SS divisions fought (or, more precisely, carried out punitive operations) largely on the territory of Russia’s northern regions. After the war, the Soviet communist regime treated these ex-executioners fairly gently and, in doing so, likely committed a big mistake. the Baltic Nazis did not appreciate humanity, and the same thing can be said of the Banderites in Ukraine.
Russia should follow the example of Poland and adopt legislation on a state level which names the criminal deeds of the organizations in the former USSR countries (above all, Ukraine and the Baltics) which collaborated with the Hitlerite occupation regime. This means the national formations of the Waffen SS and collaborationist groupings such as OUN-UPA, etc.).
Russia has the right to impose economic, legal, and social measures against these countries and urge the international community to join the fight against the glorification of Nazism at the state level.
Follow us on Facebook!
Follow us on Twitter!
Donate!
| 0 |
Videos UK Police Six Times More Likely To Stop And Search Black People Black people in Britain are more likely to be stopped and searched by police than white people, according to new official figures. | October 28, 2016 Be Sociable, Share! Stop and search has always been a controversial method used by police officers in England and Wales and has always disproportionately targeted black and minority ethnic (BME) communities in Britain.
According to official figures released in 2013, 27 percent of stop and searches were not based on reasonable grounds for suspicion and concerns, as well as disproportionately targeting young people from BME backgrounds.
In 2014, then-Home Secretary Theresa May, decided to crack down on stop and search, penalizing police forces who used it and imposed restrictions on officers in 2014.
A year later in 2015, the head of London’s Metropolitan Police blamed an increase in knife crime on the home secretary’s stop and search reforms. In the same year, the number of fatal stabbings increased by 18 percent in London.
London knife crime is now at a four year high, according to a report published by the Police and Crime Committee which suggests violent crime, including knives, guns, sexual assaults and robbery have all risen year on year, with knives increasingly becoming a weapon of choice amongst young people . 2 Officers assaulted whilst detaining person with a knife. Glad to hear they are ok! Thank you #dedication #proactivepolicing #stopandsearch https://t.co/UnpIZ1wSEe
— Nick Downing (@NickDowningMPS) October 26, 2016
While the latest figures released by the Home Office, reveal that the use of stop and search by police had reduced by more than a quarter across the board — stopping white people fell more sharply.
The statistics reveal that people from BME backgrounds were still three times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people in 2015/16 and black people are six times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people.
Amber Rudd, Britain’s relatively new home secretary, says the statistics are “unacceptable” yet added that the powers are “vital” for police to fight crime.
“A similar story has been seen for the black group, which fell from over six times more likely to just over four times more likely between the years ending March 31, 2011 and 2015, before rising again to over six times more likely in the year ending March 31 2016,” the Home Office report said.
Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, said: “The decline in stop and search clearly shows there is some effort to use these police powers more reasonably. But there are clear signs that some communities are being disproportionately targeted.”
Amber Rudd, the same home secretary who suggested companies draw up a list of their foreign workers, said that, “no one should be stopped on the basis of their race or ethnicity.”
Four years later and another report into police use of stop and search, young black men are still being disproportionately targeted by officers, suggesting more needs to be done to tackle racism issues in the Met. College of policing launches anti bias guidelines on stop + search. Map shows where it's needed most pic.twitter.com/3UkaosKyZa
— simon israel (@simonisrael) October 27, 2016
Britain’s police, in particular Scotland Yard, has been plagued with accusations of institutional racism for decades. The high profile racially motivated murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence , and the subsequent conviction of his killers 20 years later in 2012, forced the Met to investigate claims of institutional racism. | 0 |
Military Coup Attempt in Turkey ( 352 ) 0 10 0 0 A major reshuffle occurred to the police body in Turkey, where police chiefs in 61 Turkish provinces were either substituted or moved to other positions, local media reported, citing a government decree published in the Official Gazette on Wednesday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to the Turkish Daily Sabah newspaper, 37 police chiefs were assigned for the first time to provincial police chief positions while 24 provincial police chiefs were reassigned to other provinces.
Meanwhile, two department heads in the General Directorate of Security were also reassigned to different positions and 34 provincial police chiefs were assigned to ministerial positions in Ankara, the daily added.
On July 15, a military coup attempt took place in Turkey . Over 240 people were killed during the events and an estimated 2,000 were wounded. Ankara has accused Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen , who has been living in the US state of Pennsylvania since 1999, and his followers of playing a key role in the coup.
According to the Turkish Justice Ministry, a total of 32,000 military officers, high-ranking civil servants, judges and teachers suspected of being Gulen supporters have been arrested in Turkey after the coup attempt. ... | 0 |
Look, global elites, nobody said would be easy. Or pretty. But it is what it is. Get over it. [The hysteria over President Trump’s executive order directed at finally getting a grip on who exactly is coming into the United States from the Middle East has been amusing. Or, as their former President Obama once said: Elections matter. President Trump’s “extreme vetting” proposals were thoroughly and exhaustively debated in the election, an election which he won handily. Moreover, his proposals were roundly smeared in the most negative terms as some kind of “Muslim ban” even before the election. No matter how crazy mad these protesters are, President Trump is carrying out precisely the plans he promised he would. Only in politics would a politician keeping his promises be so utterly scandalous. Sen. Charles E. Schumer was literally on national television. And then all these other “serious” Democrats raced off to the nearest airport to get ahead of the angry mob. It is depressing that these hacks are the best representation some voters get in Congress. And you watch: The very Democrats who are doing the most caterwauling today will be among the first to pay a political price in this new Era of Trump. I get that these spineless politicians are just scared for their jobs. But it is hard to understand exactly what it is the actual protesters are protesting. Are they actually opposed to “extreme vetting” of people streaming into the United States from known terrorist breeding grounds? Do these protesters object to more strenuous screening of people coming from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya? Who, again, was the bigot who identified these countries as terror hot spots anyway? Oh, that’s right, it was President Obama. “Thanks, Obama,” as the president himself liked to say in the waning days of his failed presidency. And now some people are claiming that stiffer screening will become yet another jihadi recruitment tool — oh that boogeyman of every single tactic ever used to combat the diabolical bullies of . No, being alive while Jewish, Christian or atheist is the single biggest jihadi recruitment tool. Being gay or female or a sunbather anywhere in the world is the jihadi recruitment tool. Let’s not even start talking about all the crap that Hollywood produces that sets the jihadis off like a cheap cellphone detonator. Also, it seems like poor form for these protesters to be whining about “extreme vetting” inside actual airports, where every single day more than a million actual Americans endure humiliating, obnoxious and insulting “extreme vetting” at the hands of bureaucrats with serious police complexes. We remove our shoes, our belts, our hairpieces and the lint from our pockets and then stand prone with our arms aloft in an tube that penetrates the deepest of our fat rolls. And the small town I am from wasn’t even a terrorist breeding ground! The most maddening thing about the extreme vetting of excessive airport groping is knowing that never, not one single time, has all that nonsense, inconvenience and insult prevented a single terrorist attack. The only way to thwart this adaptive and merciless enemy is to find them before they get to America and kill them over there so we don’t have to kill them over here. Charles Hurt can be reached at churt@washingtontimes. com follow him on Twitter via @charleshurt. | 1 |
Videos ‘We The People’ Against Tyranny: Seven Principles For Free Government “As I look at America today, I am not afraid to say that I am afraid.”— Former presidential adviser Bertram Gross | November 7, 2016 Be Sociable, Share! Dozens of protestors demonstrating against the expansion of the Dakota Access Pipeline wade in cold creek waters confronting local police, as remnants of pepper spray waft over the crowd near Cannon Ball, N.D., Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016.
As history teaches us, if the people have little or no knowledge of the basics of government and their rights, those who wield governmental power inevitably wield it excessively. After all, a citizenry can only hold its government accountable if it knows when the government oversteps its bounds.
Precisely because Americans are easily distracted—because, as study after study shows, they are clueless about their rights—because their elected officials no longer represent them—because Americans have been brainwashed into believing that their only duty as citizens is to vote—because the citizenry has failed to hold government officials accountable to abiding by the Constitution—because young people are no longer being taught the fundamentals of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, resulting in citizens who don’t even know they have rights—and because Americans continue to place their trust in politics to fix what’s wrong with this country—the American governmental scheme is sliding ever closer towards a pervasive authoritarianism.
This steady slide towards tyranny, meted out by militarized local and federal police and legalistic bureaucrats, has been carried forward by each successive president over the past fifty years regardless of their political affiliation.
Big government has grown bigger and the rights of the citizenry have grown smaller.
However, there are certain principles—principles that every American should know—which undergird the American system of government and form the basis for the freedoms our forefathers fought and died for.
The following seven principles are a good starting point for understanding what free government is really all about.
First, the maxim that power corrupts is an absolute truth. Realizing this, those who drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights held one principle sacrosanct: a distrust of all who hold governmental power. As James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, proclaimed, “All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.” Moreover, in questions of power, Thomas Jefferson warned, “Let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” As such, those who drafted our founding documents would see today’s government as an out-of-control, unmanageable beast.
The second principle is that governments primarily exist to secure rights, an idea that is central to constitutionalism. In appointing the government as the guardian of the people’s rights, the people give it only certain, enumerated powers, which are laid out in a written constitution. The idea of a written constitution actualizes the two great themes of the Declaration of Independence: consent and protection of equal rights. Thus, the purpose of constitutionalism is to limit governmental power and ensure that the government performs its basic function: to preserve and protect our rights, especially our unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and our civil liberties. Unfortunately, the government today has discarded this principle and now sees itself as our master, not our servant. The obvious next step, unless we act soon, is tyranny.
The third principle revolves around the belief that no one is above the law, not even those who make the law. This is termed rule of law. Richard Nixon’s statement, “When the President does it, that means it is not illegal,” would have been an anathema to the Framers of the Constitution. If all people possess equal rights, the people who live under the laws must be allowed to participate in making those laws. By that same token, those who make the laws must live under the laws they make. However, today government officials at all levels often act as if they are royalty with salaries and perks that none of the rest of us are afforded. This is an egregious affront to the citizenry.
Fourth, separation of powers ensures that no single authority is entrusted with all the powers of government. People are not perfect, whether they are in government or out of it. As history makes clear, those in power tend to abuse it. The government is thus divided into three co-equal branches: legislative, executive and judicial. Placing all three powers in the same branch of government was considered the very definition of tyranny. The fact that the president today has dictatorial powers would have been considered a curse by the Framers.
Fifth, a system of checks and balances, essential if a constitutional government is to succeed, strengthens the separation of powers and prevents legislative despotism. Such checks and balances include dividing Congress into two houses, with different constituencies, term lengths, sizes and functions; granting the president a limited veto power over congressional legislation; and appointing an independent judiciary capable of reviewing ordinary legislation in light of the written Constitution, which is referred to as “judicial review.” The Framers feared that Congress could abuse its powers and potentially emerge as the tyrannous branch because it had the power to tax. But they did not anticipate the emergence of presidential powers as they have come to dominate modern government or the inordinate influence of corporate powers on governmental decision-making. Indeed, as recent academic studies now indicate, we are now ruled by a monied oligarchy that serves itself and not “we the people.”
Sixth, representation allows the people to have a voice in government by sending elected representatives to do their bidding while avoiding the need of each and every citizen to vote on every issue considered by government. In a country as large as the United States, it is not feasible to have direct participation in governmental affairs. Hence, we have a representative government. If the people don’t agree with how their representatives are conducting themselves, they can and should vote them out. However, as the citizenry has grown lazy and been distracted by the entertainment spectacles of modern society, government bureaucrats churn out numerous laws each year resulting in average citizens being rendered lawbreakers and jailed for what used to be considered normal behavior. Local institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they put it within the people’s reach; they teach people to appreciate its peaceful enjoyment and accustom them to make use of it. Without local institutions a nation may give itself a free government, but it has not got the spirit of liberty.
Unfortunately, we are now governed by top-heavy government emanating from Washington DC that has no respect for local institutions or traditions.
These seven vital principles have been largely forgotten in recent years, obscured by the haze of a centralized government, a citizenry that no longer thinks analytically, and schools that don’t adequately teach our young people about their history and their rights.
Yet here’s the rub: while Americans wander about in their brainwashed states, their “government of the people, by the people and for the people” has largely been taken away from them.
The answer: get un-brainwashed.
Stand up for the founding principles.
Make your voice and your vote count for more than just political posturing.
Never cease to vociferously protest the erosion of your freedoms at the local and national level.
Most of all, do these things today.
If we wait until the votes have all been counted or hang our hopes on our particular candidate to win and fix what’s wrong with the country, “we the people” will continue to lose.
Whether we ever realize it not, the enemy is not across party lines, as they would have us believe. It has us surrounded on all sides.
Even so, we’re not yet defeated.
We could still overcome our oppressors if we cared enough to join forces and launch a militant nonviolent revolution—a people’s revolution that starts locally and trickles upwards—but that will take some doing.
It will mean turning our backs on the political jousting contests taking place at all levels of government and rejecting their appointed jesters as false prophets. It will mean not allowing ourselves to be corralled like cattle and branded with political labels that have no meaning anymore. It will mean recognizing that all the evils that surround us today—endless wars, drone strikes, invasive surveillance, militarized police, poverty, asset forfeiture schemes, overcriminalization, etc.—are not of our making but came about as a way to control and profit from us.
It will mean “ voting with our feet ” through sustained, mass civil disobedience.
As journalist Chris Hedges points out, “There were once radicals in America, people who held fast to moral imperatives. They fought for the oppressed because it was right , not because it was easy or practical. They were willing to accept the state persecution that comes with open defiance. They had the courage of their convictions. They were not afraid.”
Ultimately, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People , it will mean refusing to be divided, one against each other, by politics and instead uniting behind the only distinction that has ever mattered: “we the people” against tyranny. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Mint Press News editorial policy. Be Sociable, Share! | 0 |
123 Views October 31, 2016 GOLD , KWN King World News
Today King World News is pleased to present an extremely important update on the war in the gold market from Michael Oliver at MSA. Oliver allowed KWN exclusively to share this key report with our global audience.
By Michael Oliver, MSA (Momentum Structural Analysis) October 31 ( King World New s) – MSA has recently shown many long-term momentum charts of gold, all of which demonstrate that the sharp pullback in no way broke the structural integrity of the long-term momentum uptrend that emerged with multiple momentum breakouts (quarterly and annual) in February. Period. The same applies to GDX… IMPORTANT: To find out which high-grade silver mining company billionaire Eric Sprott just purchased a nearly 20% stake in and learn why he believes this is one of the most exciting silver stories in the world – CLICK HERE OR BELOW: Sponsored
Our main focus now is in identifying points of upturn. We begin with a long-term momentum chart of GDX (see chart below).
This 40-wk. avg. oscillator is effectively the same as the 200-day avg. or 3-qtr. avg. oscillator.
Firstly, we aren’t 100% sure the decline is over, but where it landed suggests it might be. A further drop won’t alter our positive view of GDX, as the zone of potential support extends lower than we’ve seen to date.
It’s unlikely this long-term chart will be the best place to look for a credible sign of upturn. Instead, this chart has already pretty much accomplished its task in defining both the upturn (first up-arrow) and a target zone for a low (second up-arrow).
There is rarely a market situation in which only one technical factor will provide entry or exit signal. It usually takes looking at several, in an ongoing basis, to identify turns.
Here we use a 15-day avg. (effectively a smoothed 3-wk. avg.) to measure (see chart below).
Note that the process of decline since July produced three down waves in momentum, with the third wave not confirming the new price lows.
The Key To The Gold, Silver, And Mining Share Liftoff If momentum can close a day out above the recent high close and the downtrend connecting those three peak closes then assume weekly momentum is turning. This does not mean cannot have selloffs, but it probably means you have seen the low. Basically any day that can close somewhat over $25 accomplishes the task.
King World News note: What Michael is trying to identify is a signal that the mining stocks are reversing back into an uptrend, thus marking the end of the correction. He highlights the level of 25 on the GDX as the key to see a clear sign of a reversal. If GDX closes above 25 on a daily basis that will be a good indicator. If it closes above that level on a weekly basis that would be even better. A reversal in the mining shares will also be accompanied by a reversal in gold and silver to the upside, so keep an eye on that key level that Michael highlighted because the mining shares will continue to lead the way in this bullish leg of the secular bull market in gold, silver, and the shares.
China, Russia, The Silk Road, Commodities, Nixon, And A Massive Bull Market In Gold & Silver CLICK | 0 |
Print
[Ed. – It’s that bad.]
President Obama has received higher approval ratings in his final year than he has for most of his presidency. While most voters expect Hillary Clinton to continue many of his policies if she wins, a sizable majority of her current supporters would vote for Obama instead if the rules allowed it.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey shows that 70% of Likely U.S. Voters who support Clinton in the election say they’d vote for Obama if it was a legal option. Just 11% of Republican Donald Trump’s voters agree. (To see survey question wording, click here .)
Among all Likely Voters, 41% say that if Obama was legally allowed to run for a third term in office, they would vote for him over Clinton and Trump. Just over half (52%) still say they would not vote for him in that case.
Earlier this year before the presidential nominees were decided , 31% said they would vote for Obama if he legally could seek a third term, but twice as many (62%) said they would not support him. Those findings were little changed from last year after Obama commented about winning a third term in a speech in Africa. | 0 |
Nate Cohn, The Upshot’s elections analyst, based in Washington, and Toni Monkovic, an Upshot editor in New York, discussed a big day of polling results, posting a lightly edited transcript of their written exchange. Toni After a quiet period, the polls poured in over 24 hours. What are the big takeaways? Nate I think the quick ones are that Hillary Clinton’s standing has deteriorated a bit since last month, but that she still has an advantage. Toni Let’s start by looking at the bad news for her. The first polls of the day, from Quinnipiac, probably panicked a lot of Democrats. FLORIDA: Trump 42, Clinton 39 PENNSYLVANIA: Trump 43, Clinton 41 OHIO: Clinton 41, Trump 41 Nate Yeah, the Quinnipiac polls aren’t great for Clinton. Quinnipiac polling has generally tilted toward the G. O. P. all year, so it’s reasonable to suppose that Clinton’s standing in those states would be a bit better in other polls. But they’re still consistent with a narrower race than the one suggested by most polls over the last month. The polls were in that category as well. Their numbers were better for Clinton than the Quinnipiac surveys, but they were still weaker for Clinton than their past surveys. Toni Despite that Republican lean from Quinnipiac, it’s not as if it’s a terrible pollster. Yes, it’s just one poll, but it can’t be dismissed. Nate Well, I do think their Republican lean is a bit concerning. They conduct a lot of polls and they have big samples. As a result, it’s unusually clear that they have a real Republican tilt. But it’s not really clear why they should tilt that way, and that gives me pause. That said, you’re right that the polls shouldn’t be dismissed: Add them to the average. Toni There’s another bit of bad news for Clinton. Again, the mantra is to focus on the polling average, not on one poll. In this case it’s the poll. It hasn’t been released to the public as we write this Wednesday night, but it will be by the time this is published. It will show her tied with Trump, which is one of her worst recent national results. (Sure, Rasmussen had Trump up by 2, but that’s actually a rare poll that can be disregarded, as you wrote Wednesday.) Nate You certainly can’t dismiss the poll: It’s a very survey. And yes, you really can dismiss the Rasmussen poll (unlike Quinnipiac). But as you said, it’s best to focus on the average. Right now, the balance of data remains consistent with a modest Clinton lead. A single poll showing a tied race isn’t enough to change that: If Clinton is up by, say, 3 or 4 points, you would expect a few polls to show a very tight contest, while others would show a larger Clinton lead. It’s also possible that the result is and a wave of new data will confirm a closer race than the balance of recent evidence. I’m not sure we’ll get to find out, since the convention is just around the corner. Toni This is the speculative part of the program. Her lead is shrinking. Why? On the one hand, you have the rebuke from the F. B. I. director over the emails, and you also have a calamity in which an killed five police officers in Dallas amid a sense of racial strife. On the other hand, Bernie Sanders endorsed her, although that was very recent (so it wasn’t captured by the polling). Nate Well, I think the F. B. I. is the easiest explanation. I wouldn’t discount racial tension, either. I’d note that Obama’s approval rating in Gallup dipped to 48 percent today, the lowest in a while. I’ll be interested to see whether other polls show that, too. Toni Stating the obvious, but there are more whites than so strife is not normally a political winner for Democrats. When we talk about whites favoring Trump, we tend to skip the explanation. Republicans have won whites for decades, but readers should take a look at Nick Confessore’s article for how Trump is taking white identity politics to a new level. Or read Jamelle Bouie in Slate, who’s been writing about this a lot. Nate I certainly agree that racial polarization would be bad for the Democrats. But Trump isn’t doing much better than Mitt Romney among white voters, if at all. He’s losing as many white voters as he’s gaining among less educated white voters. I think Clinton’s polling numbers may be particularly vulnerable to these sorts of fluctuations in the media environment. She’s counting on the support of a lot of people who simply don’t like her very much. I’d guess a lot of them know, deep down, that they’ll support her eventually. But right now, the act of telling a pollster that they intend to support someone they don’t really want to support might be fairly agonizing. Toni Election 2016: “Fairly agonizing. ” That’s a great summation. Nate One further thought on this: I think it’s relevant that Clinton is falling in these polls more than Trump is gaining. Toni Why? Nate We know that these voters have supported Clinton, even if in modestly more favorable conditions. There’s no way to be sure they’ll return to her side, but surely they’re more likely to revert to her in a more neutral media climate than to support Trump. Toni And the email issue may not resonate quite as much four months from now, especially if Republicans batter it into the ground. Nate It might still resonate quite a bit, but it’s hard for it to resonate much more. I think it’s going to be interesting to see where she’s at after the convention, after she gets some strong character witnesses in President Obama and Elizabeth Warren. Toni Earlier, you mentioned, “I’m not sure we’ll get to find out” about a better measure of the race “since the convention is just around the corner. ” We’re heading into a “noisy” season with polling. Can you explain? Nate Generally, a candidate gets a “bounce” of a few points after a convention. This year, it’s pretty messy. The two conventions basically happen back to back. It’ll be hard to read too much into the polls for a few weeks with the conventions (unless Trump leads coming out of Clinton’s convention, which would obviously be a very strong sign for him). The good news, though, is that the polls start getting fairly accurate a few weeks after the conventions. So that’s something to look forward to. Toni Let’s turn to some of her positive results, and they got more positive as the day wore on. Colorado was particularly a bright spot. Fox had her up by 10 points, and Monmouth by 13. Nate Yeah, that’s a great result for her. It’s not hard to see why it could be a good state for her: It’s very well educated and it has an Latino vote. The same story basically holds in Virginia, where the Fox poll also showed her doing well. And I think it’s worth remembering that Virginia and Colorado would basically be almost enough to get Clinton over the top. If you give her all of the states carried by Obama where she’s not airing advertisements (which includes Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) then Colorado and Virginia would get her to 269 electoral votes. It would only take one more, and she has a lot of options. It’s hard to look at the polling right now and say that Trump has a discernible edge in any battleground, even if a few — like Ohio and Iowa — look very close. Toni I was going to ask you about Ohio and Iowa. We’ve gotten quite a few polls from those states recently, and they seem dead even. Nate It does seem that way. Iowa and Ohio are two states where Democrats are heavily dependent on white voters. Same story in Wisconsin, where Clinton was up by just 4 points today. In all three states, Clinton is running about 3 or 4 points worse than Obama four years ago. It’s kind of the reverse of Colorado and Virginia. Toni But a slight difference with Wisconsin it has been consistently leaning for Clinton. Nate True. My point is just that it’s a state where she’s underperforming Obama, unlike the states where Romney was more dependent on voters like Colorado and Virginia. Toni The map you discussed supposes she’ll win Pennsylvania, and we had some divergent results in the state today. We also had this tidbit: Pennsylvania white voters: Trump, 40% — Clinton, 40% Pennsylvania black voters: Trump, 0% — Clinton, 91% It cannot be possible that Trump is getting 0 percent support from black voters. I mean, he made a big production of “my ” a while back. Nate well, he’s probably not actually getting zero percent of the black vote. But here, let’s use some data. I have this polling data from 2012 loaded on my computer. It’s 20, 000 interviews, or about 24 times more respondents than the poll in Pennsylvania. In that data set, there are 1, 881 black respondents, and just 55 of them supported Romney. So in 2012 you would have expected there to be about two voters who were black and supported Mitt Romney in an national poll. With numbers like that, you’re going to get more than a few polls where there are no black voters for the G. O. P. And here’s a flashback from 2012, from the poll heading into the G. O. P. convention: Obama ahead among black voters. Sound familiar? Toni That makes sense, but maybe you’re ruining it — the zero somehow seems more meaningful. (Like turning the stereo up to 11.) Nate Here’s something fun: In my data set, which includes 880 respondents from Pennsylvania, the black vote was for Obama (and that’s with 60 black respondents). I don’t think it’s very meaningful. We know that Clinton is up by a huge margin among black voters. There are going to be polls where Trump gets zero black voters. Toni One thing that’s very meaningful is whether Clinton can win Pennsylvania. You mentioned one overall path to victory, through Colorado and Virginia. It’s also true that if the Democrats hold onto Pennsylvania and win Virginia and Florida, it’s essentially game over. But we didn’t learn that much from the Pennsylvania results today, did we? Nate No, it was a split decision, with Quinnipiac showing a tight race and showing a considerable Clinton lead. I’m inclined to lean toward considering that the Clinton campaign isn’t taking Pennsylvania especially seriously [no ad spending, although a super PAC is spending money there]. But it’d be nice to have more data there. Toni It was a rich day of polling. If you had to assess Clinton’s national lead right now, what would you say, 3 points? Four points? That’s a pretty close race against a candidate who has struggled in many ways. Nate I’d probably say 4 or 5 points, but that’s not very . The newest data does provide reason to pause and wonder whether the race has gotten even tighter, even if the preponderance of evidence doesn’t point that way quite yet. The only other thing I’d say, though, is that we know Clinton has had a rough week or two. The polls are going to bump around, and I think there’s reason to think this is a relatively low point. On Wednesday, Nate and Toni looked at the groups Donald Trump would win if the election were held today. | 1 |
By Bill Sardi November 1, 2016 Journalist Carl Bernstein, who played a key role in uncovering the Watergate scandal in the Nixon era, says Hillary Clinton’s email fiasco is in no way “bigger than Watergate.” [ Politico Oct 29, 2016] But Watergate was a simple break-in at a Democrat electioneering office. Hillary Clinton not only operated her email system outside normal security procedures but did so to hide the fact she was operating her pay-to-play schemes at the State Department and was lining her pockets with millions of dollars in the process. Hillary Clinton literally put the State Department up for sale says a report published in the New York Post. [ New York Post Aug 9, 2016] Even more criminal is that the Democrat Party is attempting to cover up Clinton’s scheme that keeps offering favors to even foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation, making the Democrat Party a complicit to criminal activity (as if that is something new to them). The Justice Department sought to bar the Justice Department (FBI) from proceeding ahead with its investigation of Hillary’s emails, which is the reason why Anthony Weiner’s emails were not scrutinized early on. [ Daily Mail UK Oct 31, 2016] Is America going to elect Hillary Clinton and watch her use her power to appoint an Attorney General and a new FBI chief to get off the hook? Hillary Clinton may still be under investigation after she is elected. [ Daily Mail UK Oct 30, 2016] Hillary Clinton could go to prison for 20 years if charged with obstruction of justice. [ Info Wars Oct 31, 2016] Expect a Presidential pardon if that ever happens. While Hillary Clinton is now playing the role of victim of an “October Surprise” that the FBI chose to run against her, 24 years ago Bill Clinton cheered an 11 th -hour indictment in his bid for reelection. [ Washington Examiner Oct 30-2016] Meanwhile, another email gets uncovered where Hillary Clinton’s top aides were drooling over a Super Pac that planned to work hand-in-hand with Hillary Clinton’s campaign, something that is legally forbidden. As Hillary’s team ponders this development, one of Hillary’s top aides says in her email: “That’s fine. But skirting if not violating the law doesn’t help her INMHO” (slang/acronym: in my humble opinion). [ Zerohedge.com Oct 31, 2016] Hillary Clinton opened her last week of campaigning with a TV advertisement that revisits the 1964 “Daisy” ad that attempts to claim Trump is a reckless leader who can’t be trusted with the “bug red button” that would launch a nuclear war. Clinton has said there is only a 4-minute window to decide to launch a nuclear war. [ Washington Post Oct 31, 2016] The irony is that a vote for Hillary Clinton has been said to be a vote for war. CNN has been caught drumming up a claim that Donald Trump urged his supporters to vote multiple times. [ Mediaite.com Oct 30, 2016] The Best of Bill Sardi Tags: Bill Sardi [ ] is a frequent writer on health and political topics. His health writings can be found at www.naturalhealthlibrarian.com . His latest book is Downsizing Your Body . Copyright © 2016 Bill Sardi Word of Knowledge Agency, San Dimas, California. This article has been written exclusively for www.LewRockwell.com and other parties who wish to refer to it should link rather than post at other URLs. | 0 |
BAYONNE, N. J. — Nicole Adamczyk’s drinking water used to slosh through a snarl of pipes dating from the Coolidge administration — a rusty, rickety symbol of the nation’s failing infrastructure. So, in 2012, this port city cut a deal with a Wall Street investment firm to manage its municipal waterworks. Four years later, many of those crusty brown pipes have been replaced by shiny ones, reflecting a broader infrastructure overhaul in Bayonne. But Ms. Adamczyk’s water and sewer bill has jumped so much that she is thinking about moving out of town. “My reaction was, ‘Oh, so I guess I’m screwed now? ’” said Ms. Adamczyk, an accountant and mother of two who received a quarterly bill for almost $500 this year. She’s not alone: Another resident’s bill jumped 5 percent, despite the household’s having used 11 percent less water. Even as Wall Street deals like the one with Bayonne help financially desperate municipalities to make repairs, they can come with a hefty price tag — not just to pay for new pipes, but also to help the investors earn a nice return, a New York Times analysis has found. Often, these contracts guarantee a specific amount of revenue, The Times found, which can send water bills soaring. Water rates in Bayonne have risen nearly 28 percent since Kohlberg Kravis Roberts — one of Wall Street’s most storied private equity firms — teamed up with another company to manage the city’s water system, the Times analysis shows. City officials also promised residents a rate freeze that never materialized. In one measure of residents’ distress, people are falling so far behind on their bills that the city is placing more liens against their homes, which can eventually lead to foreclosures. In the typical private equity water deal, higher rates help the firms earn returns of anywhere from 8 to 18 percent, more than what a regular water company may expect. And to accelerate their returns, two of the firms have applied a common strategy from the private equity playbook: quickly flipping their investment to another firm. This includes K. K. R. which is said to be shopping its 90 percent stake in the Bayonne venture, a partnership with the water company Suez. Rich Henning, a Suez spokesman, said that “Bayonne had chronically underinvested in their water and sewer infrastructure, which has certainly contributed to rate increases during the past few years. ” He added, “We understand that these increases create stresses for ratepayers. ” Donald J. Trump has made the privatization of public works a centerpiece of his strategy to rebuild America’s airports, bridges, tunnels and roads. Members of his inner circle have sketched out a vision, including billions of dollars of tax credits for private investors willing to tackle big infrastructure projects. And Mr. Trump himself promised in his victory speech “to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. ” Private equity firms like K. K. R. have already presented themselves as a willing partner, and Bayonne provides an important case study. Its arrangement is one of a handful of deals across the country in the last few years in which private equity firms have managed public water systems. While these deals are a small corner of private equity’s sprawling interests, they represent the leading edge of the industry’s profound expansion into public services. For residents, the financial from these water deals can be painful. The Times analyzed three deals in which private equity firms have recently run a community’s water or sewer services through a contract. In all three places — Bayonne, and two cities in California, Rialto and Santa Paula — rates rose more quickly than in comparable towns, which included both publicly and privately run water systems. In Santa Paula, where Alinda Capital Partners controlled the sewer plant, the city more than doubled the rates. A fourth municipality, Middletown, Pa. raised its rates before striking a deal. Now, some of these cities are trying to take back their water. Missoula, Mont. wrested away its water system, which had been owned by the Carlyle Group. Apple Valley, Calif. whose waterworks were also owned by Carlyle, has filed a similar lawsuit. Santa Paula bought its sewer plant from Alinda last year. Of course, there’s a reason many communities look for private partners to begin with: Their water systems are in poor shape. Budget shortfalls and political mismanagement can represent a real threat to both infrastructure and citizens. For evidence, look no further than the crisis in Flint, Mich. where the drinking water became tainted with lead. “Keeping rates down may sound like the ultimate righteous good for ratepayers, but the truth is, not if you’re failing to provide basic care and maintenance,” said Megan Matson, a partner at Table Rock Capital, the boutique private equity firm that invested in Rialto’s water and sewer system. She added that it helps for deals to “provide more obvious public benefits,” noting that her firm partnered with Ullico, the nation’s only insurance and investment company. Proponents of the partnerships, citing recent studies in Canada and Europe, argue that private businesses operate more efficiently than governments do and that this translates into cost savings for citizens. And private equity firms, lacking technical expertise in how to manage infrastructure, often team up with private water companies. Supporters also say that the deals require private equity to spend millions of dollars a year to fix things (money that towns may not spend on their own) and that the firms sometimes pay towns millions more up front. Bayonne, for instance, got $150 million up front from K. K. R. ’s team, which the city used to pay off a pile of debt. In a statement, a K. K. R. spokeswoman said, “Our partnership has provided Bayonne residents with better service, modernized technology to detect leaks and conserve water, improved infrastructure and safer conditions for workers — all without a tax increase or public expenditure. ” In Bayonne, a city of about 65, 000 on a peninsula in the shadow of the fallen twin towers, a crucial test for its private equity deal came in July 2012. By then, Bayonne had already spent nearly a year haggling with some of K. K. R. ’s top negotiators. Next, city officials presented the deal to a more skeptical crowd: their own residents. Bayonne’s sales pitch to its citizens illustrates the bold steps town officials can take — including making promises that are at odds with the actual terms of the deal — to attract private equity money. Private equity, in turn, can earn significant returns. At a public meeting in city hall, a lawyer for the city promised that, after an initial rate bump, there would be “a rate freeze for four years,” according to a meeting transcript. Bayonne’s mayor, Mark Smith, later reiterated the freeze in a magazine article. That promise turned out to be fleeting. The contract allowed additional rate increases after only two years. There was no freeze. In fact, rates rose even more than the Bayonne contract predicted — in part because K. K. R’s team had to make unexpected infrastructure upgrades, but also because residents were using less water than expected. The contract guarantees revenue to the team — more than half a billion dollars over 40 years — so water rates have jumped, in part, to make up the difference. The city said it saw the revenue requirement as a way for K. K. R. ’s team to earn steady returns, but not a windfall. But the Times analysis showed that Bayonne’s water rates grew almost 28 percent under the deal, growth that far exceeded that of three other municipalities to which Bayonne has compared itself. (Daniel Van Abs, an associate professor at Rutgers University who specializes in water management, said that a true comparison of water rates in different towns was “extremely difficult” because of the different factors that can influence rates, including the size of the utility, the municipality’s population, droughts and infrastructure investment — or lack thereof. The Times analysis for Bayonne did not include sewer rates.) Former Bayonne officials who had promised the rate freeze said in interviews that they had not meant to mislead residents. They said they had earmarked some of the K. K. R. team’s $150 million payment to offset rate increases in the contract’s early years. But then voters ousted Mayor Smith. And once he left office, the new administration put that money elsewhere. “I think we could have accomplished that minimum,” the former mayor said in an interview. The town’s water rates, he said, are now “exorbitant. ” Tim Boyle, who took over Bayonne’s utilities authority after Mr. Smith was voted out of office, said that various regulations required the city to use that money for property tax relief rather than to stabilize rates. He also blamed the previous administration for guaranteeing too much revenue to K. K. R. ’s team in the early part of the deal, calling those figures “wildly optimistic. ” Bayonne officials also stress the deal’s benefits, including the payment that let Bayonne pay off more than $100 million in old debts. Within three months, Moody’s Investor Service revised the city’s debt outlook from “negative” to “stable” for the first time in five years, and it has since upgraded the city’s credit rating. K. K. R. ’s team contributes about $2. 5 million annually to pay for repairs to water infrastructure, plus $500, 000 to the city itself. K. K. R. and Suez said they have upgraded their safety equipment and replaced inoperable hydrants around town. They also installed sophisticated water meters that can detect leaks in people’s homes, and sent nearly 2, 000 letters to customers warning when such leaks occurred. As such, use has declined, according to Mr. Henning, who said Suez had received “many notes of thanks” for the warnings. But meters could lead to higher bills for some residents whose water use wasn’t fully captured in the past. When negotiating the deal, K. K. R. called this process “meter uplift,” according to emails obtained through records requests. “We gave away too much,” said Gary La Pelusa Sr. a city councilman and former commissioner of Bayonne’s utilities authority, which approved the deal over his objections. Bayonne originally promised residents that the city’s utilities authority would oversee K. K. R. and Suez. But the City Council recently decided to shutter the agency and handle the oversight itself. Stephen Gallo, who headed that authority when the deal was struck, still believes that it benefits Bayonne. “But you’ve got to watch them, you’ve got to keep an eye on things,” he said. “I don’t know who’s doing that now. ” In interviews with The Times, more than a dozen Bayonne residents, including Ms. Adamczyk, expressed dismay over the rate increases. One reason is that people who fall behind on payments face risks: Unpaid water and sewer bills can be sold to investors who try to collect on that debt, a common practice across the country. Failure to pay can ultimately lead to foreclosure. In 2012, the year Bayonne struck its deal, water bill delinquencies led to 200 government liens against local properties, tax records show. That figure more than tripled the next year, the first full year under K. K. R. ’s team. In 2015, the most recent year with data available, the number remained elevated, at 465. The city publishes its lien notices in the local newspaper and residents receive mailed delinquency letters. Still, when a reporter asked one Bayonne resident, Carlos Jimenez, about a water and sewer bill lien that had been listed against his property, he expressed surprise, saying he wasn’t aware of it. “I didn’t know this could happen,” Mr. Jimenez said. “It’s a different ballgame. ” One of the few things Republicans and Democrats can agree on is that the nation faces an infrastructure crisis. In water infrastructure alone, the nation needs about $600 billion over the next 20 years, according to federal estimates. And yet federal spending on water utilities has declined, prompting state and federal officials to try to play matchmaker, courting private investors to fix what needs fixing. For years, the Obama administration has been cheerleading partnerships. In a statement, the White House said it backed them “when they are well structured, include strong labor standards, and when there is confidence that taxpayers are getting a good deal. ” During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump’s team outlined a new plan to incentivize private investors to take on large infrastructure projects. Wall Street has responded to the call to action. There are now 84 active financial infrastructure funds, according to Pitchbook, a private financial data platform, up 25 percent in just three years. Some belong to big banks like Goldman Sachs, but many are run by private equity firms. “Across our country, we need solutions for infrastructure deficiencies,” said James Maloney, a spokesman for the American Investment Council, the private equity trade group. “Private equity serves as one of these solutions. ” Some critics are wary of expanding private investment in public infrastructure. Although cities may get cash up front in these deals, “there is no ‘free’ money” in partnerships, says a 2008 Government Accountability Office report. Using roads as an example, the report observed “it is likely” that tolls will increase more on a privately operated highway than one run by the government. Ms. Matson, of Table Rock, who has attended White House meetings on infrastructure, has tried to dispel concerns about these deals. Table Rock is part of a team that finances and manages the water system in Rialto, Calif. a deal that provided the city about $41 million to improve the water and wastewater infrastructure, she said. Rialto residents have seen their water rates increase about 68 percent since the deal, according to the Times analysis, more than any other comparable city. But Table Rock said rates were artificially low after the city had declined to raise them for about a decade, giving it the lowest rates among those towns. And unlike in most other deals, Rialto residents had a say in the increases and ultimately approved them in a public vote, as required under state law. This year’s rate increase was delayed. When the deal closed in 2012, all the public water utility employees kept their jobs. Everyone has since received raises. And Table Rock, like its partner Ullico, has committed to all 30 years of the arrangement. “We don’t do flips, we invest for life,” Ms. Matson said, meaning that Table Rock doesn’t seek quick profits by unloading its investments. She also said that Table Rock declined to make deals that provided big payments to towns without a sufficient commitment to infrastructure repairs. “Those deals give the rest of us a bad name,” she said. In an upscale Washington, D. C. restaurant in 2012, an executive from the Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, put his arm around the mayor of Missoula, Mont. “Mayor,” the executive said, “are you ready to buy a water system?” Three years later, the comments by the executive, Robert Dove, were recounted from a witness stand in the Missoula County Courthouse. The city was suing Carlyle, which ultimately refused to sell to Missoula, to gain control of its water system. Missoula is one of several places in recent years that have tried getting back their water systems from a private company. But after waging costly battles, the towns cannot always guarantee the same services at lower rates. At the time of that dinner in Washington, Missoula was the only city in Montana that did not own its water system — and John Engen, Missoula’s mayor, wanted to change that. So, months before, he had supported Carlyle’s purchase of the regional water company (Park Water) that owned Missoula’s local system (Mountain Water) believing that Carlyle would then sell Mountain Water back to his town. But the mayor’s plans derailed. In October 2013, Missoula made an informal offer to buy its local system. Carlyle declined. Missoula made a formal offer. Carlyle declined again. Missoula then sued, and it won. But the court decided the system was worth $88. 6 million, substantially more than what the city had offered. On top of that, the city must spend millions of dollars on legal and other fees and must also pay some of its opponents’ costs, according to court records. Those costs included lawyers’ fees, limo services and dinners at some of Missoula’s finest restaurants. They also included at least one order of boneless chicken wings at Hooters, and one bottle of Metamucil. In a statement, a Carlyle spokesman said that the firm had considered the city’s offers in good faith. “The city offered many millions less than the company was worth, and an independent panel agreed,” the spokesman said. He also said that under Carlyle’s watch, “capital expenditures more than doubled, leakage was reduced by 19 percent, water quality was excellent and employment was stable. ” And under Missoula’s watch, water rates may rise anyway. Further costly repairs are still needed, for one thing. For Carlyle, the deal was a financial success. The firm sold Park Water in January to another private company for $327 million, more than double what Carlyle had paid. Missoula is not the only city seeking control over its infrastructure. Last year, Santa Paula bought its wastewater recycling plant for about $70 million from Alinda Capital Partners. Alinda, which specializes in infrastructure investing, had teamed up with a private water recycling company to finance, design, build and operate the plant after the city awarded them the contract in 2008. The new facility, Alinda noted, replaced an old plant owned by Santa Paula that had been violating state environmental regulations, saving the city from paying fines. But after years of raising sewer rates, partly to pay “service fees” to Alinda, Santa Paula’s thinking changed: It would be better for Santa Paula to issue its own debt to purchase the plant than to saddle citizens with annual rate increases. Now the town — at the urging of its city manager, Jaime Fontes, and several council members, including Ginger Gherardi — has started issuing rebates to citizens. Still, there will be bumps along the road. After all, cities like Missoula and Santa Paula are now responsible for running an important, and occasionally messy, public service. Soon after Santa Paula regained control of its sewer plant, an equipment failure let partly treated wastewater pour from the plant. The discharge turned a pond green and flowed onto a nearby organic farm. And wastewater, Mr. Fontes said, is “not the kind of organic you want. ” | 1 |
Computer seized in Weiner probe prompts FBI to take new steps in Clinton email inquiry Washington Post
Read the letter Comey sent to FBI employees explaining his controversial decision on the Clinton email investigation Washington Post. Consistent with my pet theory that Comey was force to get out in front of this development due to the odds of staff insurrection in the form of leaks. From Lambert via e-mail:
By Comey’s own words under oath in July, there must have been “new and substantial information.” So unless Comey is committing perjury, which the Clinton campaign has not, so far, claimed, this is not a nothingburger, by definition.
So that must have been quite some “briefing.”
Also: “Yesterday, the investigative team briefed me on their recommendation with respect to seeking access to emails that have recently been found in an unrelated case. Because those emails appear to be pertinent to our investigation, I agreed that we should take appropriate steps to obtain and review them.”
So there’s a process, it doubtless takes more than a week, and therefore the Clinton campaign’s talking point of “We don’t know what’s there, so release it all for the sake of the American people” is bullshit, even if you leave out that the emails can’t be released without vetting them for classified information.
Also, if it’s really nasty, do the people the Democrats encouraged to vote early get a Mulligan?
Clinton urges FBI to explain renewed email inquiry ‘without delay’ Washington Post. As if the FBI has to explain itself to her?
Democrats turn on Comey after he reopens Clinton email wound Politico. How fickle of them. He was their statesman just a few weeks ago…My guess is that Comey told Congress because so many agents in the FBI were unhappy about how the earlier probe had been handled and the the news of the latest batch of e-mails was already all over the FIB (a Freudian typo). Thus Comey felt he had to go public, since it would otherwise be leaked and he judged that to be worse (imagine the wrath of the Republican Congresscritters)
2016 | 0 |
James McDaniel created a fake news website in February just for fun. In less than two weeks, UndergroundNewsReport. com had garnered more than 1 million page views and hundreds of dollars in advertising revenue. [McDaniel, a Florida native now living in Costa Rica, told PolitiFact that he plans to donate the $615 in ad revenue to the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee. The PolitiFact — which became part of Facebook’s “fact checking” team tasked to label “fake news” stories as they appear on the social media platform — uncovered McDaniel’s website while flagging fake news. UndergroundNewsReport. com ran wild headlines like: “Bombshell: WikiLeaks leaks ‘lost’ Clinton email“ “Obama tweet: Trump must be removed, by any means necessary“ and “Whoopi Goldberg: Navy SEAL Widow was ‘Looking for Attention. ’” McDaniel said that while he placed a warning on the website alerting readers that the news there was fake, he said most people were “willfully ignorant. ” Following harsh reaction to the story about Whoopi Goldberg and the Navy SEAL widow, McDaniel said is when the “fun” for him had stopped. “I might have carried on a bit longer because I was having fun,” McDaniel said, “but people took the Whoopi Goldberg story so seriously and it had gotten so big I thought I had better pull the plug. ” UndergroundNewsReport. com is still active. While his fake days are over, McDaniel said he wants to keep the website up as a “relic. ” Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit refused Thursday to overturn fully a lower court ruling that blocked President Donald Trump’s new executive order suspending travel from several countries. [The opinion and dissents cover 205 pages. (The list of supporting briefs from organizations takes up two pages by itself.) But amidst the arguments, there is a key word missing from the entire document: “Manchester. ” The opinion of the court was clearly written before Monday evening’s horrific terror attack. And while court rulings do not generally follow current events, the way those rulings are received by the public is affected by the context. The Manchester attack makes the case for Trump’s executive order. True, the terrorist was a British citizen, and so he would not have been stopped by a similar executive order, had one hypothetically existed the United Kingdom. However, the bomber had traveled to Syria and Libya, two of the countries identified by the order as places where terror is rampant and whose governments lack the ability to vouch for their citizens at foreign ports of entry. The fact that those countries were relevant to the Manchester attacks boosts the administration’s argument that it needs to review its procedures for screening foreigners from countries to prevent enemies from infiltrating. What the Fourth Circuit’s decision essentially says is that President Donald Trump is uniquely unable to make any decisions on immigration policy because of things he said about Muslim and Islam during the 2016 campaign. In other words, the judiciary wants to disarm America in the face of a spreading global threat. The timing could not have been worse, and this decision is likely to provoke more of a public backlash than any that have preceded it. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.